With particular attention to religious, ethnic and sexual matters. By John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.)
This document is part of an archive of postings on Political Correctness Watch, a blog hosted by Blogspot who are in turn owned by Google. The index to the archive is available here or here. Indexes to my other blogs can be located here or here. Archives do accompany my original postings but, given the animus towards conservative writing on Google and other internet institutions, their permanence is uncertain. These alternative archives help ensure a more permanent record of what I have written.
This is a backup copy of the original blog
Below are the backup copies of this blog for January. To access the backups in earlier years, click here
31 January, 2023
Andrew Tate's "victims" speak out
It appears that there was no crime justifying his arrest
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UK: Church in row over plan to show Pride flag on altar over claims it politicises place of worship and will lead to 'moral anarchy'
The C of E can be really disgusting at times. Next thing they will be having cock-sucking competitions. They are the Devil's mockery of Christianity
St Nicholas Church in Leicester had hung the colourful flags at weekend services but then last year switched them for a much larger permanent version.
Church reverend Canon Karen Rooms claims the huge fabric Progress Pride Flag is merely a way of letting visitors know they are ‘welcome and safe’.
But opponents, including parishioners and General Synod members have accused the church, parts of which date from around 900AD, of ‘woke’ virtue signalling.
A test case will now be heard by the Church of England’s consistory court, with campaigners warning it will ‘open the floodgates’ to ideological imagery in other churches if given the go-ahead.
Sam Margrave, of the Synod, the CofE’s governing council, told The Sunday Telegraph that the ‘infiltration’ was allowing ‘moral anarchy’.
Canon Rooms wrote in her submission for the faculty that the flag ‘is a simple statement of welcome and safety’.
The Diocese of Leicester said: ‘All new altar frontals require permission... The application... is with the Diocesan Chancellor’s office and will be decided in due course.’
Andrea Williams, chief executive of Christian Concern, said: ‘Placing a Pride flag on the altar, which symbolises a political sexual ideology completely at odds with the gospel, must be challenged.’
The dispute comes at a time when the CofE is locked in a damaging internal debate over gender, sexuality and marriage.
The flashpoint at St Nicholas, which is among the ten oldest churches in Britain, happened in September when switched the Pride flags were replaced by the Progress Pride Flag, a gift from a worshipper at a nearby church.
The banner, based on the iconic rainbow flag from 1978, was developed in 2018 by non-binary American artist Daniel Quasar to celebrate the diversity of the LGBTQ+ community and call for a more inclusive society.
St Nicholas churchwarden and transgender poet Jay Hulme said at the time: ‘People were actually weeping in the pews when they saw it.’
But the church had to take down the altar frontal a month later as it hadn’t applied for planning permission, known as a faculty, and the case was referred to the church court as the protests grew.
It will be ruled upon by the diocese chancellor Lyndsey de Mestre, a barrister at Lincoln’s Inn, London, or a deputy in the coming months. It is not known yet whether the case will be heard in public or based on written submissions.
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Tell your kids marriage is more important than money or career — because it IS
Would you trade your family for money? Which one of your kids would you swap for certain wealth? All parents know what they would answer. None. Never. No way.
Yet a new Pew study shows parents would prefer — by a lot — their children prioritize financial independence and a good career over family and children. Eighty-eight percent of parents said it’s “extremely or very important” for their children to be financially independent when they reach adulthood; 88% also said the same of their children having a job they enjoy.
Only 21% of parents said it was “extremely or very important” for their child to get married, and just 20% felt that strongly about their progeny reproducing.
This is a giant mistake.
For one thing, with the stability of family comes a higher income. Want a better shot at having a good career? Get married.
It makes sense. The dude swiping on Tinder every night just isn’t going to have the same focus on succeeding as the man who has a family to support.
It doesn’t apply just to men, either. An October 2021 Pew study reported that in the last 30 years, the coupled have come to outearn the singles. Coupled women make $8,000 more a year on average than single women.
“The gaps in economic outcomes between unpartnered and partnered adults have widened since 1990,” Pew noted. “Among men, the gaps are widening because unpartnered men are faring worse than they were in 1990. Among women, however, these gaps have gotten wider because partnered women are faring substantially better than in 1990.”
Married people also pool their resources. Want your kid to be financially secure? Move marriage to the top of his or her to-do list. A 2017 TD Ameritrade study found “29% of single adults consider themselves financially secure, whereas 43% of married couples say the same.” A surprising stat in the data is that married people, despite often having to take care of expensive little people who live with them, end up saving more than single people.
Putting money or career first doesn’t work. You can’t “have it all,” but you can have most of it if you’re in a stable relationship.
Beyond just the cash, a married woman has options. The question “Will you go back to work?” that a woman gets asked after having a baby is not posed to single women.
And there are the existential reasons. We’re only on this planet for so long. The clichéd line “Nobody on his deathbed has ever said, ‘I wish I had spent more time at the office’” is true. Your work might be meaningful and important, or it might be just a paycheck, but either way your family is worth far more. Your co-workers are not going to miss you when you’re gone. Your Twitter followers might not even notice. But done right, you will leave a legacy with your family to carry on.
Everyone says “Family first,” but sending the message to kids to pursue careers over family is the opposite of that. It exposes a shallow materialism trend that used to be embarrassing but is now out in the open. What are riches worth when you don’t have what really matters?
Parents should, of course, motivate their children to become financially secure. A marriage can always fail, and having a career to support yourself is important. No parents want their grown kid living in their basement calling up to ma to make some meatloaf. But when their child grows up and someday asks themselves “What’s the point?” the answer will never come back “To get those slides to Chad in accounting for our presentation.”
Raise children who understand this and who place importance on finding the right spouse and having children, and career and financial stability will follow.
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I'm de-transitioning after realising I'm happier as a man - and blame 'woke' culture for influencing impressionable teens into switching gender
An influencer who is in the process of 'de-transitioning' from a trans woman back to a man has hit out at 'woke' culture - which he claims encourages often vulnerable teens to question their identity unnecessarily.
Oli London, from Hertford, spent six months living as a woman, and underwent feminising facial surgery to soften his features before realising, he now says, that he was actually happier living as a man.
The social media personality, who had previously had surgery to look like male Korean pop idols, has hit out at celebs like Harry Styles and Timothee Chalamet, and shows like Ru Paul's drag race, that, he claims, promote gender fluidity - saying they are dangerous for teens who are encouraged to question their identity.
He said: 'There are now so many teenagers transitioning. It's something that's seen as trendy and cool to Gen Z and it feeds into woke people.
'I think that celebrities like Harry Styles and Timothée Chalamet, probably due to their PR, are queer baiting as they are made to look gay or feminine in order to be cool and trendy. It's a slippery slope.
'It projects these images onto impressionable kids and leads them to question themselves and their identity. It's really harmful.
'These kids are then influenced to experiment, which is fine, but if these teenagers weren't going to come to these realisations on their own about their gender, then it's likely that it is the wrong path for them and they have just been influenced by what they think is trendy.'
Oli, 33, flew to Turkey to undergo feminine facial surgery in April 2022, after struggling with his gender identity for years.
The British influencer previously sparked controversy after identifying as 'transracial' and spending more than $271,000 to look like Korean pop-stars.
He strived to look like Jimin from boyband BTS for over five years and has since spent over £100,000 ($150,000) on further surgery - most recently sharing a video from his hospital bed after undergoing eye surgery, a face lift, brow lift and temple lift.
He says he was able to book all of his surgery abroad without ever having undergone counselling or any therapy - which he now thinks should not be allowed for for gender reassignment surgery.
Last year, he spent six months living as a woman, and had planned to fly to Thailand for more gender surgery, before realising that he had been happier as a man.
Oli added: 'As a teenager, I was bullied for how I looked. I was told that I looked too feminine and not like a 'real' boy.
'I would also dress up in fancy dress costumes that were meant for girls and played with Barbies. So, I have had some gender identity questions my entire life.
'Because I was bullied for my looks, I started having plastic surgery to try and improve how I looked and I became addicted.
'In total, so far, I have had 32 procedures. However, I still wasn't happy and I felt like something was missing. I thought that as everyone had been calling me feminine my whole life, and that I had maybe been born in the wrong body, maybe they were right.
'So I decided I would begin the transition to female, and I started with my face. I underwent facial feminisation, and I was so happy with the results.
'I got hair extensions fitted, and started wearing dresses and heels too. Most people still called me Oli as it's also short for Olivia, but I also went by the name Rose.
His de-transitioning journey began with London shaving his head and wearing more traditionally masculine clothes
'I spent six months living as a transgender woman and at first it felt amazing. I thought this was the reason I'd never felt fully happy before.
'I was even considering going to Thailand for further gender-changing surgery, but I soon came to the realisation that I actually still wasn't happy.'
Oli discovered that undergoing different cosmetic procedures was a temporary fix for his unhappiness and decided that he needed to totally change his life.
Oli said: 'I originally transitioned because I thought it would be the solution to my unhappiness and that it would be some sort of miracle cure to why I felt the way I did about myself.
'After living as a transwoman for six months, I still wasn't happy and I realised that I had made the wrong decision.
'I knew that in order to find true happiness, I needed to go back to my roots and find the person who had been trapped inside me all along. I needed to find the real me.
'I had been influenced by information I was seeing on social media. I thought transitioning was something that was fun, easy, and cool because that's the way it had been portrayed online. I thought it was going to be a quick and easy fix, but I was wrong.
'To begin my detransition journey I shaved my hair off and got rid of my extensions, which was traumatic and liberating at the same time, and gave away all my feminine clothes to charity and friends.'
He says he's trying to make his face appear more masculine once more, he says: 'Although my face does still look very feminine, I am trying to just get over it rather than reverting to more cosmetic surgery.
'I've been taking supplements, trying to up my protein intake and focusing on building muscle in the gym to try and bulk myself out more too.'
He said: 'There are now so many teenagers transitioning. It's something that's seen as trendy and cool to Gen Z and it feeds into woke people.
'I think that celebrities like Harry Style and Timothée Chalamet, probably due to their PR, are queer baiting as they are made to look gay or feminine in order to be cool and trendy. It's a slippery slope.
'It projects these images onto impressionable kids and leads them to question themselves and their identity. It's really harmful.
'I believe it should be harder for people to transition because while it may be difficult for the people experiencing these feelings, it would prevent thousands of people from making a decision that they end up regretting.
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30 January, 2023
The Narcissism of the Angry Young Men
Excerpts below from an article in which Tom Nichols describes at length the problem of young men going on murderous rampages. He lists many such events and points out that great anger seems to lie behind them all. He has no solution to the problem they pose however. He can see what the young men are but has no idea of the forces that make them into human timebombs.
Even in his title, however, he goes astray. He refers to them as Narcissists. Narcissism has of course been the subject of much research by psychologists after Freud wrote an influential article on it over a century ago. And Freudian thinking has remained influential. But at least some of it is simply wrong.
And a 1991 study by Paul Wink was very informative about that. He combined three existing measures of narcissism, including the MMPI and CPI, and factor analysed the responses of a heterogeneous sample to them.
The sample responses showed no such thing as as unitary trait of narcissism. Varimax rotated eigenvectors revealed two distinct and uncorrelated traits underlying the "narcissism" questions: Vulnerabiliy and grandiosity.
So it seems that Freud's picture of the narcissist is fiction. The traits he describes do exist but they do not form the coherent syndrome described by him. So talk of narcissism needs to be avoided.
But Nichols is undoubtedly on to something. His use of the term "narcissism" is over-broad but egotism is undoubtedly to be seen in the “Lost Boys” he describes. It has long been my contention that excess ego is at the root of a lot of social problems: Crime generally, for instance. The criminal thinks that what he wants transcends the rights of others.
When (on October 30, 2008) Obama spoke of his intention to "fundamentally transform" America, he was not talking about America's geography or topography. He was talking about transforming what he thought American people can and must do. He thought he knew better: Clearly egotistical.
But when we see how widespread the problem of excess ego is, it becomes clear that it is NOT the defining characteristic of the “Lost Boys”. Most egotism does not result in shooting rampages. So we have to look for more than excess ego for our understanding of them.
And a major cause of their disgruntlement is pretty obvious: Men and masculinity are in both the media and the educational system routinely described as "toxic" and men are told that feminine characteristics are the only praiseworthy ones. How would YOU feel if people kept calling you toxic?. Anger is surely an understandable response.
Young men are in effect told by the whole society that they are contemptible. Is it any wonder that some will want to hit back at society as a whole in any way that they can? You reap what you sow.
Most young men do not go on murderous rampages but those who combine great anger with few rewards in life may do so
So the problem is largely traceable to the way feminism of various extremes has become normative thinking in our society. The “Lost Boys” are however only a minor penalty for that thinking. The way feminists have substantially destroyed marriage is the major evil that they have inflicted. Given the punitive divorce laws that have been enacted under feminist influence, it takes a brave or foolish man to get married these days
So no cure for the “Lost Boys” is in sight. But we know what would help. If feminism were to moderate its intolerance of all things masculine, the world would be a much happier place. How about a bit of "equity" for men?
Some years ago, I got a call from an analyst at the National Counterterrorism Center. After yet another gruesome mass shooting (this time, it was Dylann Roof’s attack on a Bible-study group at a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, that killed nine and wounded one), I had written an article about the young men who perpetrate such crimes. I suggested that an overview of these killers showed them, in general, to be young losers who failed to mature, and whose lives revolved around various grievances, insecurities, and heroic fantasies. I called them “Lost Boys” as a nod to their arrested adolescence.
The NCTC called me because they had a working group on “countering violent extremism.” They had read my article and they, too, were interested in the problem of these otherwise-unremarkable boys and young men who, seemingly out of nowhere, lash out at society in various ways. We think you’re on to something, the analyst told me. He invited me to come down to Washington and discuss it with him and his colleagues.
The meeting was held in a classified environment so that the group’s members, representing multiple intelligence and law-enforcement agencies, could more easily share ideas and information. (I was a government employee at the time and held a clearance.) But we could have met in a busy restaurant for all it mattered—the commonalities among these young men, even across nations and cultures, are hardly a secret. They are man-boys who maintain a teenager’s sharp sense of self-absorbed grievance long after adolescence; they exhibit a combination of childish insecurity and lethally bold arrogance; they are sexually and socially insecure. Perhaps most dangerous, they go almost unnoticed until they explode. Some of them open fire on their schools or other institutions; others become Islamic radicals; yet others embrace right-wing-extremist conspiracies.
I emerged from the meeting with a lot of interesting puzzle pieces but no answers. Since then, there have been more such attacks, more bodies, more grief—but precious little progress on preventing such incidents. A few recent examples: In 2021, a 15-year-old boy murdered four of his fellow students in his Michigan high school. In 2022, an 18-year-old man carried out a massacre in a Texas school; another, the same age, committed a mass murder in a grocery store in upstate New York. A 21-year-old male attacked a Fourth of July parade in Illinois. A 22-year-old went on a rampage at an LBGTQ nightclub in Colorado.
These attacks are not merely “violence” in some general sense, nor are they similar to other gun crimes classified as “mass shootings” beyond the number of victims. Drug-war shoot-outs and gang vendettas are awful, but they are better-understood problems, in both their origins and possible remedies. The Lost Boys, however, are the perpetrators of out-of-the-blue massacres of innocents. Their actions are not driven by criminal gain, but instead are meant to shock us, to make us grieve, and finally, to force us to acknowledge the miserable existence of the young men behind the triggers.
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"Tinder Translator": taking a swipe at single men
By ANTONELLA GAMBOTTO-BURKE
Antonella is an extremely bright and much published writer, now 57, who has had a couple of marriages, so her demolition of a sad misanthropic feminist below is interesting and persuasive.
Perhaps saddest of all is that there are many men who are equally critical of single women. Tolerance of difference seems to be in short supply across the board. My partner and I have huge differences but tolerance of them enables us to have a very enjoyable and probably enduring relationship
A chapter or so into "Tinder Translator: An A-Z of Modern Misogyny", I assumed that author, Aileen Barratt, a British freelance copywriter, was a disillusioned, twenty-something tequila-chugging party beast.
I was startled to discover, as I got further into the book, that she is, in fact, a divorced mother on the cusp of middle age, dedicated to disparaging the men of Tinder, the world’s most popular dating app (67 million annual downloads).
The men on Tinder are, Barratt reports, “dull”.
They are abusive. Angry. Arrogant. Defensive. Degrading.
Entitled. Indifferent. Liars. Mean.
Phobic about commitment. Sexually underwhelming.
Sadistic. Shallow. Shaming. Unloving. Violent.
She refers to them as “douchebags” and “bellends”, “dickheads” and “selfish pricks”. (Imagine the critical response to a dating handbook written by a man who refers to women — “NOT ALL”, as Barratt hurriedly points out — as “whores” and “bimbos”, “gold-diggers” and “bitches”.)
Conversely, women are “f*cking sublime” — “babes” and “goddesses”, if you will. Women, Barrett continues, “are my fortress and my inspiration. Women built and sustain me. Almost all of the most constant, nurturing and joyous figures in my life have been women. The majority of music, art and literature that has shaped me was forged from the souls of wonder women.”
Really?
“Wonder women” like, say, French seminal feminist Simone de Beauvoir, whose sexual hypocrisy led to her breaking the spirits of the underage adolescent girls she sexually groomed for partner Jean-Paul Sartre’s delectation?
“Nurturing” women such as British heiress and child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell?
“Joyous” women such as Rosemary West, who beat, prostituted, and murdered her daughters?
Or another example, from my own life: the woman who beat “and glassed almost to death” her former boyfriend: an artistic, gentle, well-educated son of my friends.
After punching him — he refused to engage — she hurled his PlayStation controller at his forehead and caved in his right temple, viciously abusing him verbally throughout.
By the time the police turned up, the apartment was “soaked” in blood.
My point is that women are just as capable of sexual, and non-sexual abuse as men, particularly with those weaker than themselves and with those they know will not retaliate.
Logic, too, is thin in the book. “I am queer,” Barratt announces, “but I have only ever dated cishet (heterosexual) men.” How, in a world in which language has meaning, is that even possible?
Can one claim to be vegan despite regularly eating meat? Is it possible to self-identify as a murderer if one has never killed anyone? And if it is possible, why does Barrett then pillory married men for self-identifying as single on Tinder (“a special kind of dickhead”)?
Or is self-identification valid only if it doesn’t intrude on Barratt’s joyless romantic exploits?
At the core of the book is Barratt’s frustration at the men she meets online, many of whom apparently have little interest in pursuing relationships with her. They prefer other women. Sometimes, it’s because — incredibly — they don’t want to date a single mother (“When I told another guy I had a kid, he said he wouldn’t be able to meet up for our date after all, because he had to shovel fertiliser into his raised beds”).
It is, to Barratt, incomprehensible that a man may not want a relationship with a time-poor divorcee, that they may not want involvement with the Little Shop of Horrors that co-parenting can become, or to feel responsible for a child that is not theirs. Prior to becoming a single mother, I was this very man: uninterested in domesticity or dating fathers.
I certainly had no interest in further damaging a damaged child.
The fact that I am a woman — biologically, legally, and by inclination — would, according to Barratt’s prejudicial template, justify these desires. I was rebelling against the limited patriarchal behavioural template! But a man expressing the same desires is, in her book, simply a “dickhead” (“Writing ‘no single mums’ on your dating bio is a major fail”).
Like the men Barratt reviles, I had a right to these desires — they were, and remain, reasonable, but her perception is limited.
For example, Barratt understands sex as recreational in essence — something people do with each other when the mood takes them, rather than a significant statement. In one chapter, she recalls that after the usual sex-on-impact, her lover tells her that he has “a heart of stone”. Ignoring this clear statement of indifference, she continues sleeping with him. When, after weeks of casual sex, he asks her to a gig, she excitedly interprets the event as “big”, an indication of his deepening interest.
Of course, he eventually dumps her.
To Barratt, being asked out is an evolution, rather than a precursor, of the most intense intimacy known to mankind. It’s a topsy-turvy universe in which women place themselves in potentially perilous situations with strangers without the basic safeguards of courtship (familiarising yourself with the partner and his social circle before placing yourself in a vulnerable position), and then express surprise when men lie and leave.
“These lone wolves can literally tell you you’re the kind of girl they could see themselves marrying one day and, as long as they have previously stated they don’t want a relationship right now or whatever, still be confused as to how you could have possibly gotten the wrong impression,” she writes.
Failing to see how her own acceptance of trivialisation contributes to her repeated disappointment, Barratt continues blaming men. These feminist tropes not only dilute the social impact of feminism, but serve to further divide, rather than unite, the sexes.
It is a shame, because her stated quest is noble: to encourage women to reject disrespectful behaviour from men when dating online, and to stay safe.
Her means of achieving these aims ensures ultimate failure.
By the end of the book, I was tempted to ghost Barratt myself, repelled by the awful, grinding tone. Rejected and bruised by the dating world, she has constructed a protective verbal carapace she markets as “humour” and as a philosophy to other single women, but far from being a feminist landmark, this book uses male behavioural ineptitude on a dating app to exorcise rage and pain and sadness.
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Juvenile Crime Surges, Reversing Long Decline
Leftist "soft on crime" policies have ratcheted up so it is as we must expect
A 13-year-old boy ran through the Bronx streets one May afternoon last year, chased by two teens on a scooter. Surveillance video showed him frantically trying to open the doors of an assisted-living facility. The scooter peeled onto the sidewalk and sped toward him. A 15-year-old boy riding on the back pointed a handgun and fired multiple times, police say.
Nearby, 11-year-old Kyhara Tay stood outside a beauty salon after school, eating chicken wings and waiting for her friends to finish getting their nails done. A stray bullet struck the pavement in front of her, authorities say. Another pierced her stomach. She was rushed in critical condition to Lincoln Hospital 2 miles away, where she died that night.
Violence among children has soared across the country since 2020, a stark reversal of a decadeslong decline in juvenile crime.
In the U.S., homicides committed by juveniles acting alone rose 30% in 2020 from a year earlier, while those committed by multiple juveniles increased 66%. The number of killings committed by children under 14 was the highest in two decades, according to the most recent federal data.
One consequence is a mounting toll of young victims. The number of juveniles killing other juveniles was the highest it has been in more than two decades, the 2020 federal data show.
Kyhara was one of 153 victims in New York City under the age of 18 shot in 2022, the most in at least six years and more than the 127 total minors shot in 2018 and 2019 combined, according to police data. The 13-year-old boy being pursued was unharmed, authorities say.
In New York City, police said 124 juveniles committed shootings during 2022, up from 62 in 2020 and 48 in 2019.
“The tragedy here is that we’re talking about a gunman who is too young to be called a gunman because he’s 15 years old,” said Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark after Kyhara’s death. “These ages make you weep.”
The jump comes amid an overall wave of violent crime in the first two years of the pandemic—particularly homicides and shootings—that swept through urban and rural areas alike.
Police, prosecutors and community groups attribute much of the youth violence to broad disruptions that started with the pandemic and lockdowns. Schools shut down, depriving students of structure in daily life, as did services for troubled children. Increased stress compounded a swelling mental-health crisis. Social-media conflicts increasingly turned deadly.
Easier access to firearms for juveniles has also played a role, including the rise of homemade ghost guns and a surge in illegal firearms trafficking. Heightened gang activity was a factor too in some places such as New York City, authorities say.
The nationwide wave began to ebb in 2022, but in some communities, shootings involving minors have continued to surge. In Washington, D.C., there were 214 firearm-related arrests of children in 2022, a higher count than each of the prior three years. Sixteen juveniles were shot to death last year in the district, compared with nine in 2021.
Dora Villarreal, the top prosecutor in Rock Island County, Ill., said she has never seen such young teens so frequently involved in shootings and firearms cases in her county of about 143,000. “During Covid, without school being a constant kind of stabilizing structure for many of our kids, that has helped lead unfortunately to this rise in violent crime,” she said.
Since schools reopened, the arrests have continued to rise. Ms. Villarreal said residual impacts of the pandemic—including mental-health issues, drug abuse and the breakdown of routines—have all contributed. In 2020, 36 juveniles were arrested for gun-related cases in her county. As of late December 2022, the number was 64.
A still from surveillance footage released by the New York Police Department shows the alleged gunman in Kyhara Tay’s killing on the back of a scooter on May 16, 2022.
Fourteen-year-old K’Mya Marshall could see the changes among the young people she knew in her West Philadelphia neighborhood over the past two years.
After months of isolation, teens became less able to cope with conflict and more frequently lashed out over small disputes, she said. With less to do, many also drifted deeper into social-media circles where guns and crime were glamorized.
Firearms were seemingly everywhere, as gun sales skyrocketed during the pandemic. Kids got them from family members, purchased them on Instagram for a few hundred dollars, or bought homemade ghost guns from other teens.
“They think it’s cool,” said K’Mya, a team leader at the Young Chances Foundation, a community organization that seeks to prevent violence. “They want that gun to define themselves and for people to be scared of them.”
Late last year, a teenage friend of hers was shot to death walking in their neighborhood. Their school held a 10-second moment of silence a few days later. Such mourning has become increasingly routine in Philadelphia as the number of juveniles murdered jumped to 81 over the past two years, from 52 in all of 2019 and 2020.
“My friend got caught in the crossfire just trying to enjoy her day,” she said.
Last year, a total of 117 juveniles were arrested for shootings in Philadelphia, up from 43 in 2019, according to police. They include a 14-year-old boy and a 17-year-old boy both charged with murder after they were allegedly involved in a September gun battle outside a West Philadelphia recreation center in the middle of the day. Tiffany Fletcher, a 41-year-old employee of the center and a mother of three, was outside when she was fatally struck by a stray bullet.
The city council recently made permanent a 10 p.m. summertime curfew for teens from ages 14 to 17. “The new curfew law is meant to protect young people from being victims of crime while the City works towards other measures that reduce gun violence,” said City Councilor Katherine Gilmore Richardson, who proposed the measure, in a written statement.
The rise in juvenile shootings hasn’t been limited to the biggest cities. Peoria, Ill., population 112,000, saw eight juvenile homicide victims in 2021, according to police data. In 2020, there were none.
Stricter punishments
Some prosecutors and law enforcement leaders argue that the shift away from a more punitive approach for juveniles toward intervention programs and rehabilitation has gone too far and corrections are needed.
Ms. Clark, the Bronx district attorney and a Democrat, supported a 2017 New York law that ended the automatic prosecution of 16- and 17-year-olds as adults, raising the age to 18. Most states had already passed similar “Raise the Age” laws.
Now, Ms. Clark said, she wants to be able to try more gun possession cases in criminal court, which would allow her office more authority over what sentences to seek. She said under the Raise the Age law, too many juveniles arrested on gun possession charges are being released quickly because such cases are typically sent to family court—and some of those minors are going on to commit more serious crimes or are being murdered themselves.
Her office cited the case of a 17-year-old who was arrested three separate times on gun possession charges and sent to family court each time, before being arrested for murder, all within 12 months.
“I don’t want to lock them up and throw away the key because they’re young. But at the same time, they have to know the consequences for their actions,” said Ms. Clark.
https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/violent-crime-rate-juvenile-11674485556
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Who’s More Irrational, the Religious or the Irreligious?
There are very few things conservatives, liberals, and leftists agree on. But if they are irreligious, they all agree that religious Americans are more irrational than irreligious Americans.
It is a secular axiom that secularism and secular people are rooted in reason, whereas religion and the religious are rooted in irrationality.
This is what almost every college professor believes and what almost every student in America is taught. Among the intelligentsia, it is an unquestioned fact. It helps explain why, after their first or second year at college, many children return to their religious homes alienated from, and frequently contemptuous of, the religion of their parents—and often of the parents themselves.
At the time in their lives when most people are the most easily indoctrinated—approximately ages 18 to 22—young Americans hear only one message: If you want to be a rational person, you must abandon religion and embrace secularism.
Most young Americans are never exposed to a countervailing view at any time in their college life. (That’s why you should expose your college-aged child, grandchild, niece, or nephew to this column.)
Yet, this alleged axiom is not only completely false, it’s backward. The truth is that today, the secular have a virtual monopoly on irrational beliefs.
One proof is that colleges have become the most irrational institutions in the country. Not coincidentally, they are also the most secular institutions in our society. In fact, the former is a result of the latter.
One could provide examples in every area of life. Here are but a few:
Only secular people believe “men give birth.”
Only secular people believe that males—providing, of course, that they say they are females—should be allowed to compete in women’s sports.
Only secular people believe that a young girl who says she is a boy or a young boy who says he is a girl should be given puberty-blocking hormones.
Only secular people believe that girls who say they are boys should have their healthy breasts surgically cut off.
Only secular people believe it is good to have men in drag dance (often provocatively) in front of 5-year-olds.
Only secular people agree with Disney’s dropping use of the words “boys and girls” at Disneyland and Disney World.
Only secular people believe that “to be colorblind is to be racist.” That is what is taught at nearly all secular (and religious-in-name-only) colleges in America today.
Only secular people believe that fewer police, fewer prosecutions, and lower prison sentences (or no prison time at all) lead to less crime.
Far more secular Americans than religious Americans believed that the Cleveland Indians and Washington Redskins needed to change their names because “Indians” and “Redskins” were racist—despite the fact that most Native Americans didn’t even think so.
Who was more likely, secular or religious Americans, to support keeping children out of schools for two years; forcibly masking 2-year-olds on airplanes; and firing unvaccinated police officers, airplane pilots, and members of the military?
How many Western supporters of Josef Stalin—the tyrant who murdered about 30 million people—were irreligious, and how many were religious?
Stanford University, a thoroughly secular institution, just released an “Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative.” It informs all Stanford faculty and students of “harmful” words they should avoid and the words that should replace them.
Some examples:
Stanford asks its students and faculty not to call themselves “American.” Rather, they should call themselves a “U.S. citizen.” Why? Because citizens of other countries in North America and South America might be offended.
Is that rational?
Stanford asks its faculty and students not to use the term “blind study.” Why? Because it “unintentionally perpetuates that disability is somehow abnormal or negative, furthering an ableist culture.” Instead, Stanford faculty and students should say “masked study.”
Two questions: Is Stanford’s claim that being blind is not a disability rational or irrational? And what percentage of those who make this claim are secular?
The list of irrational (and immoral) things secular people believe—and religious people do not believe—is very long. As a quote attributed to G.K. Chesterton puts it: “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing; they believe in anything.”
Yet, many people believe that the religious, not the secular, are the irrational people in our time.
That, ironically, is just another irrational belief held by the secular. And, of course, it is self-serving—just as is the belief that more people have been killed by religious people (meaning, essentially, Christians) than by secular people. Yet, that, too, is irrational—and false. In the last century alone, 100 million people were murdered by secular—and anti-religious—regimes.
Yes, religious people have some irrational, or at least non-rational, beliefs.
But two points need to be made in this regard.
One is that the religious beliefs that most people call “irrational” are not irrational; they are unprovable. For example, the beliefs that there is a transcendent Creator and that this Creator is the source of our rights are not irrational; they are unprovable. Atheism—the belief that everything came from nothing—is considerably more irrational than theism.
The other point is that human beings are programmed to believe in the non-rational. Love is often non-rational—love of our children, romantic love, love of music and art, love of a pet. Our willingness to engage in self-sacrifice for another is often non-rational—from the sacrifices children make for parents and parents for children to the sacrifices made by non-Jewish rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust.
What good religion does is provide its adherents with a moral, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually deep way to express the non-rational. Therefore, they can remain rational everywhere outside religion. The secular, having no religion within which to innocuously express the non-rational, often end up doing so elsewhere in life.
So only the religious believe that “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth,” but they do not believe that men give birth.
Meanwhile, the irreligious don’t believe that “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth,” but only they believe that men give birth.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/01/25/whos-more-irrational-the-religious-or-the-irreligious
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29 January, 2023
Jason Whitlock explains the Memphis police murder
Jason Whitlock
There is a racial element. And this is a story about young Black men and their inability to treat each other in a humane way. Everybody involved in this on the street level was either 24 to 32 years old. Everybody. It was a group of young Black men, five-on-one. Looked like gang violence to me.
It looked like what young Black men do when they’re supervised by a single Black woman. And that’s what they got going on in the Memphis Police Department. They’ve elected some, or put some Black woman in charge of the police force, and we are getting the same kind of chaos and disunity and violence that we see in a lot of these cities run by single mothers.
If we want to discuss the breakdown of family that leads to disrespect for authority that causes you to resist the police and run from the police and not comply with the police, because you resist authority at all times, because there was no male authority in your home, let’s have that discussion.
https://worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video-c.php?v=wshhac2jLj50D7ai3R7c
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Idaho Scores A Win Against Homeless Encampments
Gov. Brad Little (R-ID) was granted a score after winning a court battle against homeless encampments outside of the state's capitol, saying it had turned into a “danger zone.”
A judge decided to dismiss a lawsuit filed by activists that challenged his administration’s actions to remove the encampment on public property.
According to Little’s office, activists began gathering on the capitol steps last January, which eventually led to an increased need for police surveillance after the area was starting to become a safety hazard.
Little said that the area had become like a scene out of Portland with hypodermic needles, bags containing human feces, soiled clothing, rotting food, abandoned property, violence, drug abuse, and garbage all over the state property.
“It just looked like heck," Little said, adding that there was “no shortage of people upset about it."
The Republican governor said his office won the case by arguing how unsafe and unsanitary the area had become, and also providing evidence of the waste found at the site.
“But they were there, they were harassing state employees and legislators when they went by," Little said, adding that Idaho has resources for the homeless such as shelters, which always almost have room.
“And we just don't have that in Idaho. But activists got these people – some of them with not much in the way of means, ginned up to stay there even though there were other places they could stay,” he continued.
He blamed activists for escalating the situation beyond its means, and said that his state was not going to be another Portland, San Francisco, or Los Angeles “where public officials have engaged in failed experiments to permit and encourage unsafe and destructive public camping."
According to data, Idaho has the 10th lowest violent crime rate in the nation, ranking it as the third safest state in the nation overall.
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The strange Leftist version of what is normal
One of the American Left's primary goals is to convince us that we are not normal if we do not affirm its ideology, a well established tactic among totalitarians. One of the best examples is the psikhushkas of the old Soviet Union. If you did not agree with Soviet Communism, you were not normal so you’d be placed in a psikhushka, or psychiatric prison.
Few were more clear in articulating this principle than former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev who said of those with whom he disagreed, “Of those who might start calling for opposition to Communism on this basis, we can say that clearly their mental state is not normal.”
The growing militancy of domestic authoritarians who harangue and berate as abnormal those who believe something different begs a simple but important question: What is normal?
The online Merriam-Webster Dictionary provides many definitions of normal. Among them, in descending order, are: “conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern, characterized by that which is considered usual, typical, or routine; according with, constituting, or not deviating from a norm, rule, procedure, or principle; occurring naturally; approximating the statistical average or norm; and generally free from physical or mental impairment or dysfunction,” to name a few.
If we contrast these accepted definitions of normal with many policies and practices of the American Left, a trend emerges. Much of what today’s Left promotes does not comport with what is recognized as normal.
Instructing children how to think and behave like racists, as happens in many government schools through variants of Critical Race Theory, is not normal. Teaching children to judge people by the content of their character is.
Grown men dressed as women and performing provocatively before preschoolers is not normal. Reserving adult entertainment for adults is.
Deliberately depriving people of available energy needed to heat their homes is not normal. Making such resources abundantly available is.
Promoting obesity is not normal. Promoting a healthy diet and living is.
People pretending to be a sex they are not is not normal. Recognizing people for what they are is.
Taking money from people and giving it to other people, otherwise known as wealth redistribution, is not normal. Reaping and keeping the fruits of one’s labor is.
Men using the ladies room is not normal. Men using the men's room is.
Letting criminal suspects out of jail with no restrictions or repercussions is not normal. Keeping criminals locked up is.
Boys playing sports against girls is not normal. Boys playing against other boys is.
Giving away military weaponry to the extent that one’s own military is degraded is not normal. Maintaining a strong defense is.
Surgically mutilating healthy human tissue is not normal. Preserving healthy tissue is.
There are many things actively promoted - often demanded - by the Left that are simply not normal. But if somebody notices and says so, they are marginalized. That is what is happening right now.
People who believe in normal things are under attack in America. They are assaulted on a near continuous basis by Leftists who practice and promote behavior that is clearly abnormal, behavior that deviates from the statistical norm, that does not conform to regular patterns, that does not approximate statistical averages. Frighteningly, some of this behavior is not merely abnormal, it's evil.
People need to reclaim normalcy.
But ordinary people are often intimidated into going along with abnormal ideologies because it’s easier than being screeched at by somebody who demands we affirm their abnormal behavior.
This intimidation prompts many people to tip-toe around the fact that much of what we see in America today just isn’t normal and sometimes, we keep quiet even though we know it’s not normal. This is how normal becomes redefined. It’s how Soviet Communism found a way to imprison and torture those with whom they disagreed; they just weren’t normal. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn knew that all too well.
None of this is to suggest we should be mean to or discriminate against people with such beliefs. Many of these people have been deceived, coerced or extorted into affirming abnormal behavior and ideas, and they deserve our compassion.
By the same token, other Americans have every right to withhold their acquiescence of abnormal behaviors without fear. A little more ‘live-and-let-live’ would go a long way.
But live-and-let-live is a two-way street. As long as ordinary people are under attack, we have an obligation to recognize and call out the abnormal behavior of those who demand we agree with their misguided ideology.
It’s time to stand up and say, “That’s not normal,” when something abnormal is being foisted upon us. Promoting normalcy is the only way to prevent normal from being perverted and redefined. The best defense against the abnormal is to call it what it is, and to elevate normalcy at every opportunity.
https://townhall.com/columnists/scotthogenson/2023/01/28/what-is-normal-n2618744
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Spendaholic Politicians Are Destroying Your Economic Future
Most people don't lie awake at night worried about the national debt. Unfortunately, that includes President Joe Biden and the spendaholic Democrats in Congress.
They should be worried. Frankly, so should you, no matter what your politics. Economics is a science, and numerous studies by world-class economists confirm that when a nation's debt gets too high, it pushes the economy into decline. Inflation soars, jobs become scarcer and mortgage rates to buy a home are unaffordable. Ouch.
The U.S. is heading off that cliff. The national debt is at the highest level since WWII, and is forecast to break that record soon. In 2022, it hit 98% of GDP -- everything we all produce going to work every day -- and is growing rapidly. The U.S. is in the company of nations such as Mozambique, Bhutan, Angola, Portugal and Greece. We don't want our kids to live in a crumbling economy.
It wasn't always like this. Over the last 50 years, debt to GDP has averaged 46%.
Republicans, who recently won control of the House of Representatives, are withholding the House's approval to raise the debt ceiling -- the amount the nation is legally permitted to borrow -- until Democrats negotiate a plan to reduce spending and pull the nation back from its dire straits.
Biden, visiting Al Sharpton's National Action Network on Jan. 16, called the House Republicans "fiscally demented." It takes nerve for Biden to call anybody "demented."
Never mind. The Republicans are making a reasonable demand. If Washington's leaders won't rein in government spending, who will?
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman calls the House Republicans' quid pro quo economic terrorism. Nonsense. The real domestic terrorism is Congress' continued spending on borrowed money.
It can only go on so long. Ordinary people who live on credit cards and pay only the monthly minimum can tell you that. Eventually, credit card payments don't pay for any new goods or services, just interest.
That's what our nation faces if it doesn't change course now. Interest expenses will mount, rates will go up and an increasing proportion of tax revenues will be consumed paying interest. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that over the next 10 years, interest expense will triple. In a decade, interest outlays will exceed defense spending. Yikes.
Eventually, if fiscal sanity is not restored, government will have to cut services or impose massive tax hikes, or both.
Worse, as government borrows more, less money is available to make loans to businesses and homebuyers. Jobs dry up and wages decline. The economy spirals downward. It isn't a pretty picture. Ask economists who have examined high-debt countries.
Harvard's Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff analyzed 44 countries in their landmark analysis for the American Economic Review. They found that when national debt exceeds 90% of GDP -- a benchmark that's already in the U.S.' rearview mirror -- the economy falters.
Thirty-six other studies confirm that excessive government borrowing sabotages economic growth. Washington pols need to stop padding their own political fortunes and look at these scientific facts.
Sadly, there is no hope Democrats will agree to spending reforms without pressure from House Republicans withholding the debt ceiling hike.
After all, in December, as a last hurrah before ceding control of the House, Democrats enacted an omnibus spending bill that included 7,200 earmarks -- favorite projects of often unnamed legislators bringing pork home to their own district. Earmarks, a symbol of corruption, had been banned for a decade, but in 2021 the Democratic controlled Congress reinstated them in a flourish of political cynicism. Like holding up a middle finger to the unsuspecting public.
The rhetorical attacks on Republicans for delaying a hike in the debt ceiling are mounting. Bloomberg's editors call the Republican strategy "malpractice." Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen (Md.) accuses the Republicans of an "extremist agenda."
There is nothing "extremist" about putting the nation on a responsible fiscal plan. Republicans need to stay unified -- a formidable challenge -- and hold their ground.
The party of unlimited spending and vote buying must be stopped, before the U.S. economy and our standard of living are destroyed.
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27 January, 2023
Leftism is fickle
The most notable thing about the article below is the casual demonization of a once-respected feminist, J.K. Rowling. The Left had a long love affair with feminism but that is over. Feminism has now been abandoned in favour of a new lover: transgenders. And any disrespect for the new lover causes the old lover to be subjected to domestic violence. The old lover is now tolerated only if she bows down before the new one.
But the old lover does have a new suitor: conservatives. In their disgust with the idolization of transgenders, conservatives hear much sense from feminists. Is a marriage on the cards? Joanne Rowling is at least good-looking
"Hogwarts Legacy" is set to be released in Australia on February 10 and people are torn about it. On one hand, Hogwarts Legacy, set in the magical school back in the 1800s, looks like an incredible game and an absolute must-play for anyone who has read a Harry Potter book or watched a Harry Potter movie. On the other hand, buying it gives profits to the Wizarding World’s creator — card-carrying transphobe J.K. Rowling. It’s the ethical dilemma that many Harry Potter fans have faced over the past few years. How could the person who created the beautiful, fantastical universe we immersed ourselves in as kids (and continue to consume as adults) be so evil, so narrow-minded? And how can we keep enjoying J.K. Rowling’s art without endorsing her as a human being? It seems somehow easier to distance yourself if you already own the books / audiobooks or stream the movies on your TV. It feels less like a direct deposit into J.K. Rowling’s bank account if you read a book you purchased years ago, or pay a streaming service for the pleasure of watching The Prisoner Of Azkaban. But the prospect of buying a brand-new game created by Portkey Games studio — which is directly owned by Warner Bros. and Wizarding World, J.K. Rowling’s media franchise — is making some people feel torn. Do you boycott the game because of Rowling’s views? Or do you buy it to support the talented game developers behind it?
Back in 2020 when the game was in development, it was reported that Rowling’s views made the development team “uncomfortable.” And this week Hogwarts Legacy director Alan Tew has kinda, sorta touched on the discourse during an interview with gaming site IGN. “I think for us there are challenges in every game we’ve worked on,” Tew told the publication when asked about the ethical “discrepancies” surrounding Hogwarts Legacy. “This game has been no different. When we bumped into those challenges, we went back and refocused on the stuff that we really care about. “We know our fans fell in love with the Wizarding World, and we believe they fell in love with it for the right reasons. “We know that’s a diverse audience. For us, it’s making sure that the audience, who always dreamed of having this game, had the opportunity to feel welcomed back. That they have a home here and that it’s a good place to tell their story.”
IGN points out that Tew never addressed J.K. Rowling’s views or named her directly during their interview (who is she, Lord Voldemort?). Writer Luke Winkie notes that when he asked the director about Rowling, Tew “reiterated his earlier statement: That the team made Hogwarts Legacy for everyone.” For what it’s worth, IGN notes that the game’s character creator section is “broadly inclusive” and allows for “gender variance”, in which players can choose their vocal tone, body type and whether they want to be referred to as a witch or wizard in separate sliders. As in, you could choose to have breasts and be called a wizard. Hmm, wonder how they got that one past J.K. Rowling?
https://www.pedestrian.tv/tech-gaming/hogwarts-legacy-jk-rowling/
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“Kick In The Face” – Soldiers Fired For Refusing COVID Vaccine Forced To Pay Back Signing Bonuses
The Biden administration is a disgrace. U.S. service members who got fired for refusing to comply with the Pentagon’s tyrannical COVID vaccine mandate are now being forced to pay back their signing bonuses.
One service member said he got a $7,000 bonus for signing up for six years – he was asked to pay back over $4,000 of that.
He said that he was able to cover the amount he owed by selling unused vacation days. According to the service member, many didn’t have this same recourse to pay what they owed.
Fox News reported:
U.S. service members who were fired for refusing to comply with the Pentagon’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate are now being forced to pay back their original recruitment bonuses, which they tell Fox News Digital is a “kick in the face” after years of dedicating their lives to protecting the country.
One former Army soldier who was fired for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine last May told Fox News Digital that he would have to pay back his original signing bonus upon his termination from the military because he did not complete the commitment in his contract.
The soldier had signed a contract with the Army for six years and received a $7,000 bonus. However, because he fell short of the six years, the military notified him that he owed the government a prorated amount of slightly over $4,000. In order to pay it back, he ended up having to “sell” 60 of his unused vacation days to cover the amount owed.
He said that effects on his mental health have been extremely negative because the way he was treated by the military was a “final kick in the face.”
Another service member called this “another example” of the Department of Defense failing to make up for their wrongdoings.
He said if this continues “the recruiting and retention shortfalls will only continue.”
American Wire News reported:
“The Department of Defense continues to fall short on reestablishing trust for wrongdoings, and this is yet another example of that,” another service member told Fox News Digital in an interview. He stated that the recoupment of signing bonuses is the “icing on the cake” of the Pentagon’s deplorable treatment of military members.
There is a lot of anger and resentment out there and with this kind of treatment of the military, it will likely only get worse.
“The appalling treatment these individuals endured broke the trust that is owed to our citizens and our volunteers. America’s sons and daughters,” the Army member bitterly remarked in a statement.
“Until true efforts are made to establish trust, the recruiting and retention shortfalls will only continue. The individuals who make public statements that they are unsure what has contributed to the current recruiting and retention shortfalls need to take a look in the mirror, and perhaps they should resign for the betterment of our nation,” he added.
A slap in the face to the brave men and women who serve our country.
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Black police Treat Man Like a 'Human Piñata' in 'Savage' Encounter
The Memphis Police Department has fired five officers after an investigation.
Attorneys representing the family of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man who died after an encounter with police in Memphis, Tennessee, said Tuesday that an independent autopsy they commissioned found that Nichols suffered “extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating.” The full findings of the report were not made public.
Attorneys Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci said in a statement that the autopsy was performed by “a highly regarded, nationally renowned forensic pathologist.”
“Further details and findings from this independent report will be disclosed at another time,” the statement said.
Nichols died on Jan. 10, three days after he was involved in a traffic stop with members of the Memphis Police Department. One day after the stop, police said that there had been a “confrontation” when officers approached Nichols’ vehicle. He then fled the scene before another “confrontation,” police said.
After Nichols’ family and their attorneys viewed bodycam footage of the incident, they compared it to the 1991 beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police. That footage is not expected to be made public until at least next week.
The family’s attorneys said Tuesday that the autopsy’s preliminary findings determined that Nichols’ observed injuries were “consistent with what the family and attorneys witnessed on the video of his fatal encounter with police on January 7, 2023.”
Nichols’ mother, RowVaugn Wells, said in a Tuesday interview that when she watched the video, “All I heard my son say was, ‘What did I do?’ I just lost it from there.”
Wells said she was unable to bring herself to watch the video in full, which she said showed Nichols being tased, beaten and pepper-sprayed.
“I saw police brutality at its finest,” Nichols’ stepfather, Rodney Wells, told “CBS Mornings.” “I saw a helpless, young Black man being beat by several officers.”
At a press conference Monday, Romanucci said the bodycam footage showed an “unadulterated, unabashed, nonstop beating” of Nichols.
While no official cause of death has been released, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation reported that on Jan. 10, Nichols “succumbed to his injuries,” without describing the nature of those injuries. Police have said Nichols was hospitalized after complaining of “shortness of breath.” The Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation of the incident.
On Friday, the five officers involved in the traffic stop were fired following an “internal investigation,” which determined that they had “violated multiple department policies, including excessive force, duty to intervene, and duty to render aid,” said Memphis Police Chief C.J. Davis in a statement.
Possible charges against the five officers will be announced next week.
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The Left turns on Australian of the Year, Taryn Brumfitt
It's rare that I agree with Mike Carlton but I do this time. As he did, I first said "who"? in response to hearing of the award. Although I am something of a news hound, I had never heard of her. And her name sounds like it might be a spoof so that's what I intially thought it was. The whole thing would seem to be some sort of feminist infiltration into an otherwise more reasonable awards committee
As to her claim about the inevitability of women getting fat as they get older, it is true that there is such a tendency but my partner is 74 and is still slim. But she works on it. She watches her diet and does daily exercise. Picture of her from this month below
Left wing journalist Mike Carlton has been slammed for his 'ignorance' after tweeting his low opinion of body image campaigner Taryn Brumfitt being made the 2023 Australian of the Year.
In a tweet posted after the announcement of Ms Brumfitt as the winner of the top Australia Day gong in Canberra on Wednesday night, Mr Carlton made his view of the decision known on his account with nearly 194,000 followers.
'My Australian of the Year would be a doctor or nurse working nights in intensive care or the ED, dealing with COVID and daily death. Real, compassionate work. For very little money. NOT someone who makes a buck out of saying it’s ok to be a bit fat. Good night.'
His tweet was supported by left-wing male television reporter, Paul Bongiorno, who tweeted 'Indeed' underneath Mr Carlton's post.
Brumfitt has revealed how she regularly walks around naked in front of her two sons - Oliver, 11, and Cruz, 9 - and daughter Mikaela, 8.
The former bodybuilder turned activist believes it's vital for them to know how a woman's body changes with age and insists they are all comfortable with her nudity.
'It's something I do mainly for my daughter's benefit,' she says. 'I know that, as a girl, it's especially important she sees me unclothed — it facilitates an ongoing dialogue between us about the female body, and the way it changes throughout the course of a woman's life. 'In fact, I believe that every little girl should grow up seeing her mother naked on a regular basis.'
Carlton also tweeted 'Who ? ? ?' when news of Ms Brumfitt's award first broke on Wednesday night.
But the tweets were met with a fierce response from women.
Sharna Bremner, the founder and director of End Rape on Campus Australia, tweeted in response: 'Eating disorders are the third most common illness among young women in Australia & have the highest mortality rate of all psychiatric disorders,' she posted.
'These two should be ashamed of their ignorance & s****y remarks.'
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25 January, 2023
Texas Conservatives Should Not Support Banning Land Sales to Foreigners
They can't pick the land up and take it back home with them
The Texas legislature is considering a bill that would ban Chinese, Iranian, North Korean, and Russian individuals and entities from owning land in the state. Republicans supporting this bill seem unaware that it would undermine our American free-enterprise system rather than protect us from those authoritarian regimes.
Senate Bill 147, introduced by Rep. state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, would target not only government entities, but also private companies and citizens from those countries. Gov. Greg Abbott has promised to sign the legislation.
Sen. Kolkhorst claims that the “past several years have seen more Texans alarmed by the increased acquisition of land by primarily Chinese interests,” and that the, “growing ownership of Texas land by some foreign entities is highly disturbing and raises red flags for many Texans. Unfortunately, among Texas Republicans, she appears correct.
A recent poll by the Defend Texas Liberty PAC found that 82% of registered Republicans surveyed agreed that “Texas should prohibit the Chinese government or Chinese citizens from purchasing land in Texas,” while only 10% disagreed. It’s unfortunate that so many Texas Republicans, who often identify as conservatives and supporters of free enterprise, don’t understand that this bill would undermine our economic freedoms.
Private property rights are the bedrock of any capitalist economy, and these rights include the freedom to choose to whom and on what terms owners sell their land. Sen. Kolkhorst claims that “passing this law delivers some basic safeguards to ensure Texans remain in control of Texas land.” But it would do no such thing. Instead, a government prohibition would take away from Texas property owners the option of selling their land to people from these countries. Replacing private decision-making, which responds to market forces, with government orders is what the authoritarian regimes in China, North Korea, Russia, and Iran do. It’s not something freedom-loving Texans should embrace.
The bill of course would interfere with Texans’ freedom to engage in international trade, which improves our living standards.
No need to worry about our so-called trade deficit with China. International trade accounting puts items traded into either the capital account, which consists of assets, or the current account, which consists of goods and services, but a trade deficit counts only the flow of goods and services between countries. Yet international trade always balances in the sense that a good, a service, or an asset is traded by both sides of any exchange. People who worry about the trade deficit don’t understand that assets aren’t counted when calculating trade deficits and surpluses, making the picture incomplete.
The U.S. trade deficit with China, which stood at $20.4 billion in late 2022, means that, on net, Americans imported $20.4 billion more in goods and services from China than the Chinese bought from the Americans, and that simultaneously Americans sold $20.4 billion of assets, which includes land, to the Chinese, on net, to finance those imports.
This Senate bill could even undermine our foreign-policy interests. Economists have long provided empirical evidence showing that greater international trade promotes peace between countries by increasing the cost of war. Other studies have shown that when more-economically free countries, like the United States, trade with less-economically free countries, like those targeted by this bill, economic freedom tends to be promoted in the less-free countries.
The Chinese, Russian, North Korean, and Iranian governments are valid national security concerns. But those concerns are best dealt with by targeting specific security threats from those governments. This bill needlessly includes innocent foreign citizens and companies and regulates Texas land sales that would have no security implications. In the process it makes Texas a little more like those authoritarian states and a little less of a beacon of freedom for less free countries to emulate.
https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=14401&omhide=true&trk=title
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Sports Media in Hysterics Over Provorov Citing Religion for Refusal to Skate in LGBT Jersey
Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Ivan Provorov refused to take a pregame skate Tuesday night in the team’s LGBTQ+ warmup jersey, citing his preference “to stay true to myself and my religion,” which is Russian Orthodox. “I respect everyone. I respect everybody’s choices,” said the only player who refused to participate in Pride Night.
You can imagine the hysterics Provorov’s apostasy sparked among the enlightened sports commentariat.
Canadian television sports network TSN’s Pierre LeBrun claimed Provorov “obviously does not respect ‘everyone.’ If he did respect everyone, he would have taken part in warm-up and worn the Pride Night jersey. Don’t hide behind religion.”
The “don’t hide behind religion” jibe is one of the dumbest and laziest smears going. It’s a favorite of bullies who act like they can bore into the souls of the heretics.
It’s bad enough that LeBrun contends that the only possible reason someone might be disinclined to celebrate same-sex marriage or the sweeping “+” of LGBTQ+ (I wonder if Lebrun could coherently explain what it means?) is deep-seated bigotry. But when these amateur theologians declare that dissenters are “hiding” behind faith, they’re not only arguing that religion is a mask for bigotry but that no genuine faith could possibly have a problem with the cultural norms he adopted about five minutes ago.
Of course, many orthodox faiths, not only Russians but Orthodox Jews, Catholics, Muslims, Lutherans, and so on, believe same-sex relationships are sinful. Their adherents have believed that for centuries, if not millennia.
A person of good faith can “respect” others—they can even respect people for taking a stance—without celebrating their choices. In a truly open and diverse society, we don’t demand everyone abandon their tradition and critical thinking to skate lockstep in a rainbow flag. Dear Lord, it’s such vacuous virtue signaling.
It shouldn’t be forgotten that the LGBTQ+ movement encompasses an entire open-ended ideological agenda, not merely the ability of gay people to live in peace or marry. Some of the other Flyers, for instance, spent time celebrating the achievements of a “nonbinary” 13-year-old.
As old-fashioned atheist, I don’t care who you sleep with, but I do still cling to the antiquated notion that humans have immutable biological characteristics and that objective truths can’t be wished away. To my mind, that 13-year-old kid is a victim of an irrational, destructive, and trendy pseudoscience. Yet folks like LeBrun will help normalize the quackery while hiding behind the idea of “tolerance.”
Most of the National Hockey League press also groused that hypocrite coach John Tortorella, a long-time figure in the NHL, hadn’t suspended Provorov for his sins. As coach of the U.S. national team, Tortorella once threatened anyone who refused to stand for the national anthem with a benching (a stance he regrettably reversed).
The obvious difference is that those players weren’t asked to endorse the lifestyle choices of strangers but were voluntarily representing the United States—and every person in it—at international tournaments. That so many people are unable to distinguish between the act of honoring your country and celebrating who people sleep with says a lot about how warped our values have become.
Indeed, the notion that Provorov is bringing this acrimony on himself because, as a bigot, he simply couldn’t get himself to put on a jersey with a rainbow, seems preposterous. Provorov takes on all risk, with no reward. He will be forever smeared by the closed-minded people who write about him.
In today’s world, dissenting from the progressive faith takes a lot of spine. Most players—most people—would rather not risk being denigrated and bullied by the mob. Who can blame them?
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Ron DeSantis denounces ‘woke conceit’ of NHL seeking diverse workforce
The faceoff continues between Gov. Ron DeSantis and the National Hockey League ahead of next month’s All-Star Game in the Sunshine State.
At issue is not the play on the ice, but rather the chill from the Governor’s Office in the wake of what the NHL called an “informational session” seeking a more diverse workforce.
The so-called “Pathway to Hockey Summit,” to be held Feb. 2 in Fort Lauderdale during the NHL’s All-Star Weekend, was originally tailored to “diverse job seekers who are pursuing careers in hockey,” but the NHL backed off of that condition after pressure from the administration.
Despite that resolution, the Governor laced up his boots and fired some shots on goal on the friendly “Unfiltered with Dan Bongino” program on the Fox News Channel during a pre-taped segment Saturday night, framing efforts to bring a more diverse workforce to the NHL as a “woke conceit.”
“We’re against racial discrimination, but that’s all discrimination. We’re not going to indulge in this woke conceit that it’s OK to discriminate against some people if that’s politically correct to do so and so we made it very clear to the NHL that they were running afoul of our laws. They reversed course very quickly. And our society’s better when we’re all treated equally and all treated as individuals and not as members of groups.”
The Governor uses the word “woke” often. Under oath last year, the administration’s General Counsel defined the term as “the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.” However, it’s clear DeSantis believes that in defending the prerogatives of majority groups here, he is addressing his own conception of “systemic injustices.”
As DeSantis continues to heat up the issue, the NHL clearly would like to get beyond it, per comments made by Commissioner Gary Bettman this week when he was asked about the Governor’s position
“The answer is we’re planning to be in Sunrise and celebrate our sport at the All-Star Game,” Bettman told The Athletic on Thursday when asked. “I don’t want to get way into all of this, but the fact is what the summit is, and was, has been mischaracterized. It’s not a job fair. It was an informational session so that people could learn more about us.”
Bettman said he didn’t want to “increase the debate on it.”
The Athletic framed the summit as “part of the NHL’s response to its first diversity and inclusion report, which the league released in October.” That report suggests there is little diversity in the NHL workforce.
Nearly 84% of league and team employees are White, with 4% being Asian, and under 4% as either Hispanic or Black. More than 63% of NHL league and team employees are male, and less than 4% of the workforce identifies as LGBTQ+.
https://floridapolitics.com/archives/582874-woke-conceit-desantis/
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Fox News analyst slams woke Miami restaurant for throwing him out for his conservative views as he discussed politics with friends
A political commentator for Fox News was asked to leave a North Miami bookstore and restaurant as he discussed politics with friends.
Gianno Caldwell had been eating a meal with a group of people at Paradis Books and Bread then he was asked to vacate the premises.
'I can't believe what just happened. I met up with friends for breakfast at Paradis Books and Bread in North Miami & while we were having discussions about politics we were told by the owner that we were not welcomed there because we aren't politically aligned. Outrageous,' he explained in an initial tweet.
'No matter your politics you should not be discriminated against. I was discriminated against for being a conservative and told to leave a restaurant in North Miami because my politics didn't "align" with the owner. This is NOT okay,' he stated in a follow-up posting.
Caldwell has said the incident was a clear case of discrimination and the bookstore's actions were promoting a sort of political segregation reminiscent of the Jim Crow South.
'In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King said: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." My experience at Paradis Books and Bread in North Miami is a clear case of discrimination that should not be tolerated in Florida or anywhere in America,' Caldwell said to NBC6.
'Whether liberal or conservative, no one should ever be asked to leave a place of business for engaging in political conversation in a respectful dialogue. Paradis is promoting a sort of political segregation that hearkens back to the days of the Jim Crow South and runs counter to the restaurant's harm reduction policy.'
The bookstore, which is owned by five friends, Brian Wright, Bianca Sanon, Sef Chesson, Ben Yen, and Audrey Wright opened in December 2021.
It has since closed its doors and posted on Instagram that they were starting its winter break early due to the incident.
The bookstore stated that the group's behavior and language made other customers and staff uncomfortable and that they stood by their 'zero tolerance' policy.
Social media users were unimpressed by the restaurant's antics. 'Freedom of Speech seems to have become a subjective issue,' wrote Glenn D Stewart.
'I just saw this. I am shocked. Florida is supposed to be a conservative state. Sue sue sue!' tweeted Linda.
'Slippery slope when businesses invade the privacy of your conversation & feel some kind of way about your freedom of speech & kick you out. Remember the pendulum swings both ways & this country is headed towards political and racial segregation,' posted Lashaun Turner.
'It is time to introduce some Atifa type tactics for patrons of that restaurant and perhaps it is time to have it inspected for ADA compliance ...and for good measure a discrimination lawsuit is certainly in order. The owner needs to relocate to Seattle / no room in Florida for her.'
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24 January, 2023
Almost All Scientific Fraud In Psychology Backs Up Leftist Dogmas
Ed Dutton
Skip to 5:00 to get past intro/ads
Studies that support theories concerning Steroetype Threat, the efficacy of bias training, that tribal allegiances can be made over trivial things, "multiple intelligences", and general pro-environmentarian anti-hereditarian dogmas etc are all fraught with fraud and bias, and/or do not replicate
Reasons why leftist academics lie to support these things are probably explained by aspects of liberal personality - notably high nueroticism, narcissism, and lower self-esteem, as well as the different moral foundations they hold compared to conservatives
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‘Woke’ Culture war won’t allow for Christians to ‘Be true’ to themselves
There’s a scene in the 2004 American movie classic “Miracle” where legendary 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team Coach Herb Brooks (played by Kurt Russell) visits the dorm room of his team’s goalie, Jim Craig (played by Eddie Cahill) to ask the player why he hadn’t completed a multi-page test the coach had instructed each player to fill out.
Paraphrasing, the goalie replied to Brooks, “It’s nothing against you or anything but I just didn’t know what taking this test has to do with stopping a puck.” Satisfied with the Bostonian’s response, the coach turned around and walked away, saying, “Never mind, you just took it anyway.”
Brooks was essentially interested in whether each of his players had the right mindset to play on his very demanding team, the one that would eventually gel together as a unit and end up defeating what many considered the premier hockey squad on the entire planet at the time, the Soviet Union’s Red Army Hockey Team (stocked with Russian club professionals… the best of the best).
I can’t speak for the late coach, but Brooks must have been picking his players’ brains to determine what they needed to do to individually thrive and still contribute to the whole. Jim Craig’s job was to stop pucks. Period. It wasn’t to demonstrate acumen in psychology or creativity. It wasn’t to advance some inane social cause or to make a political statement against an international opponent’s government. No, Craig’s sole task was to keep the other teams’ shots from getting past him.
Simple, isn’t it?
The scene came to mind the other day when the establishment news media reported, with some degree of delight, that Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Ivan Provorov refused to take a type of “test” of his own, namely to willingly take part in the team’s “Pride Night” by donning a LGBTQIA+++++ (or whatever) supportive warm-up jersey and then wear a patch on his regular uniform to honor the left-leaning community.
Provorov’s gesture was atypical enough to generate national headlines, though the player himself suggested it was only his personal religious beliefs that motivated the action. In a piece titled “NHL player skips warmups, refuses to wear Pride night jersey”, Heather Hamilton reported at the Washington Examiner:
“Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Ivan Provorov boycotted his team's Pride night and did not step out on the ice for warmups before the Tuesday night NHL game. Prior to the Flyers’ game against the Anaheim Ducks, players wore a Pride night jersey and used sticks wrapped in rainbow Pride tape.
“Provorov cited his religious beliefs as the reason for choosing to skip the pregame skate. ‘I respect everybody. I respect everybody’s choices,’ Provorov said after the game. ‘My choice is to stay true to myself and my religion.’ The defenseman, who said he is Russian Orthodox, declined to go into further detail.
“Following the game, the Flyers organization affirmed its support for the LGBT community but did not comment specifically on Provorov’s choice to boycott the Pride promotion.”
The team’s higher-ups were likely terrified that rainbow clad losers would call for supporters of their “community” to demand that Provorov henceforth be branded as a bigot, be compelled to wear a scarlet letter “B” on his uniform and then to make a public service announcement prior to each home game, tearfully admitting his guilt and saying how sorry he was for speaking out -- and to issue a reoccurring vow to receive further “education” and sensitivity training in diversity, equity and inclusion.
With a side course in Critical Race Theory as an extra enlightening punishment.
As I often find myself saying when I read reports of athletes – or corporate employees or ordinary folks off the street – standing up for their individual God-given rights and principles in the face of greater and greater pressure from oppressive “woke” corporate masters to stifle themselves and keep quiet about it, I couldn’t help but utter, “Why are we even talking about this?”
I suppose the answer is, “Because we’re being obliged to do something against our will that has nothing to do with one’s ability to function on the job, that’s why”. In my mind, everyone has a stake in what Ivan Provorov did the other night. For if he’d just gone along with the “woke” crowd, sports fans everywhere would automatically assume that all hockey players champion “alternative” causes that go against their deeply held mainstream beliefs.
Who is the deviant here, the guy who professes a belief in Jesus or the ones who tout violating Biblical teachings behind closed doors? How upside down is our society today?
If put to the test, I’d imagine my reaction to such a dictate would have been similar to Provorov’s – or Jim Craig’s – which loosely translated means, what does wearing a “Pride” jersey have to do with defending my professional hockey team’s goal? Hockey defensemen like Provorov play behind the forwards, and though some do become proficient at scoring goals (or setting up shots for their wings and centers to shoot), a defenseman’s primary responsibility is clearing the space in front of their own net and making sure the guys with the other colored jerseys don’t score on them.
Defensemen are paid handsomely to keep the other team off the scoreboard, not to go on “offense” by promoting non-related social causes that have no relation to what goes on inside the arena – or at least on the ice surface.
Again, I can’t say for sure, but I doubt there’s a clause in any player’s contract that stipulates he or she must go against his or her religious views to advertise a sexual orientation. If there were such conditions, would any player sign it? It’s not the player’s fault in this circumstance, it’s the team management overstepping the bounds of the sport in ways that don’t influence the outcome of the competition in any tangible way.
Do the Flyers sell thousands more tickets because they have a “Pride Night”? Doubtful.
As far as I know, there isn’t a team solely dedicated to preserving the LGBTQ “community’s” right to live the way they want to live and be free from private discrimination. Human beings of all sexual orientations or beliefs have been attending hockey games since, well, the origins of playing hockey games, haven’t they? If not, what has stopped them?
In all honesty, probably at least half the team – or more – felt the same way Provorov did but didn’t wish to rock the boat or upset the executives by openly defying a basic order to wear a piece of equipment that differed from the norm for one night. I’m guessing most of them reasoned, ‘Is it really worth the trouble it would cause to “grin and bear it” for a few hours?’
It doesn’t really matter in the overall scheme of things. As Provorov indicated, he was “being true to himself” by making the stand, the type of explanation leftist cultural tyrants gladly honor when it comes to female children deciding to surgically remove their breasts and take hormones or male youth opting to have a doctor amputate their testicles.
But leftists only revere being “true to oneself” when it has to do with defying religious beliefs or traditional cultural norms. And even there, the bullies are hypocritical. What if a Muslim player – in any sport – refused to do the same thing Provorov did? Somehow the move would be swept under the proverbial rug, because it’s okay to bash on observant Christians and Jews but a devoted Muslim is just a different type of persecuted minority in their eyes.
Everyone knows spoiled ex-quarterback Colin Kaepernick became a liberal national celebrity for kneeling during the national anthem half a decade ago. Weren’t Kaepernick and all his fellow kneelers just “being true to themselves” like Provorov was? You mean it’s okay to insult the American flag but it’s not acceptable to honor your religion by not wearing a “Pride” jersey?
For those who made a hero out of George Floyd for dying of a fentanyl overdose while being arrested and roughly handled by Minneapolis cops, did Floyd die only for the Black Lives Matter cause, or did he also carry the truth of the LGBTQ+++ folks along with him? Will these confused and misguided people label Ivan Provorov as public enemy number one?
It now appears that anyone – like Provorov – who unwittingly draws attention to himself because of perfectly defensible religious views is turned into an outcast by the left. Just last year, for example, actress Candice Cameron Bure (who is married to a former hockey player) was roasted for leaving the Hallmark Channel because of its “woke” new direction. Like Provorov, CCB didn’t bash “alternative” lifestyles or the things they represent. She simply indicated she wanted to make movies with Christian traditional marriage themes at the heart of the presentation.
It's a sad commentary on our culture today when a hockey player generates national scrutiny simply for “being true to himself” and highlighting his religious beliefs. Leftists will continue trying to force their agenda on everyone who disagrees with their interpretation of “normal”. We can’t let them get away with it. Shut up and stop the puck, leftists.
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Abortion Rally Booted From Florida State Capitol
Our friends at Florida’s Voice gave us a weekend heads-up that Vice President Kamala Harris’s planned rally to expand abortion in Florida was moved to a private venue after being rejected by the Capitol and Florida State University.
Harris will “deliver a major address” and speak about “what’s at stake for millions of women across the country and, most importantly, the need for Congress to codify the protections of Roe into law,” White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday.
Organizers of the event, Ruth’s List Florida and Planned Parenthood of Florida, planned to bus-in supporters from around the state as the battle over abortion access shifts to the states after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
The owner of The Moon, Scott Carswell confirmed that VP Harris would speak at their venue.
“Harris will travel to Florida to deliver a major address on the fight for women across America to have access to reproductive care and make their own healthcare decisions,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. “Fifty years after the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, ultra-MAGA Republican officials continue to push at all levels of government for extreme legislation, rolling back women’s fundamental rights, including a national abortion ban.”
Florida’s Voice reported that Harris landed in Tallahassee Saturday night only to learn that Florida’s State Capitol and Florida State University were unavailable.
Harris planned to hold a pro-abortion march on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade (1973) in Florida’s capital. The state, led by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and a GOP state legislature, restricts abortion past 15 weeks and has indicated strong potential for widening those regulations.
Harris’s Florida rally was intended to be a cornerstone of the Democrats’ planned counterprograming to the March for Life. Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said Wednesday that “the administration has taken actions with our limited authorities," reiterating the president's call for national legislation.
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra planned to visit Minnesota this week as that state's legislature works on a new law to solidify abortion rights.
Becerra expects to appear with Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, stop at a Planned Parenthood facility and meet with organizers who want to use a mobile van to provide abortions to people who cross into the state from Wisconsin, which has strict abortion limits.
Becerra then plans to visit a Wisconsin clinic that's no longer allowed to provide abortions and hold an event with Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Rep. Gwen Moore, both Democrats, to talk with medical students.
On Wednesday, Becerra recalled visiting a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Louis, Missouri, on the day that Roe v. Wade was overturned.
Last year, Florida’s Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis passed a ban on abortion after 15 weeks. A legal challenge to it is being considered by the state Supreme Court.
While DeSantis has been tight-lipped about any further abortion legislation that might be in the works, Florida Senate President Kathleen Passidomo has said she would support a 12-week abortion ban once the state Supreme Court weighs in on the latest law.
WUSF reported Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, a pro-life group, told reporters on Wednesday that her organization will be focusing on state legislation and asking, “What is the most ambitious we can be?”
Dannenfelser recently met with DeSantis and said she was “extremely satisfied” with the conversation, although she said DeSantis didn't know what his next steps on abortion would be. Florida currently bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
"First Lady Casey DeSantis and I stand with the thousands gathered today in DC as they March for Life," DeSantis tweeted Thursday afternoon. "Thank you for being a voice for the voiceless!"
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Australia's ABC Massacres History Yet Again
John Henningham
The ABC seems to have invented a genocide by English colonists in the Caribbean. A story on Barbados’ cruel history as a slave island reported that slaver descendants, such as actor Benedict Cumberbatch, could be pursued for compensation and included an assertion that the indigenous population was slaughtered by the English:
This horrific claim is not supported by any evidence. According to historians the original population was depleted in the previous century by Spanish slave raids, with the remaining people fleeing to other islands to avoid being pressed into slavery. The island was effectively uninhabited when the English claimed it in 1625. Two years later, some 80 colonists and 10 slaves took up permanent residence.
Anyone reading the ABC story who turned to Wikipedia for more information would have found the following in the entry on Barbados: “In 1627, when English colonisers arrived in Barbados, they slaughtered the local indigenous inhabitants and claimed the island for themselves.”
These are the words of the ABC story! The ABC did not take the quote from Wikipedia — it was the reverse. The source for the assertion in Wikipedia was, astonishingly, the ABC news story about Cumberbatch. Someone (a Wikipedia contributor screen-named Afa86) added the ABC “revelation” to the crowd-sourced encyclopedia in a textbook example of how false news spreads and becomes part of received history.
Barbados was occupied from about 1600BC by different Amerindian groups. For a thousand years until the 1500s the Arawak, and then the Carib, lived on the island. The Britannica’s entry on Barbados, written by University of the West Indies professor of history Woodville Marshall and two fellow contributors, makes clear the fate of the original population:
The island was depopulated because of repeated slave raids by the Spanish in the 16th century; it is believed that those Indigenous people who avoided enslavement migrated to elsewhere in the region. By the mid-16th century — largely because of the island’s small size, remoteness, and depopulation — European explorers had practically abandoned their claims to it, and Barbados remained effectively without a population.
Fortunately the assertion of indigenous slaughter was removed from Wikipedia a day after publication by a sharp-eyed American veteran editor of Caribbean heritage with the screen name CaribDigita. In justifying deletion the editor commented: “You need a reputable reference that talks about a ‘slaughtering’ in Barbados.”
CaribDigita’s bio says: “In more recent times I’ve been been seeking to calm down conspiracy theories and ‘fake news’ being added to Wikipedia by showing relevant parallels or add references to their sources to help keep this tool from becoming like the National Enquirer.”
The story was amended yesterday (January 22), possibly in response to my request to the author, Recbecca Armitage, via Twitter for evidence of annihilation of the native population by English colonists. The amendment concedes that the population was largely depleted before the arrival of the English, but continues the unsubstantiated claim of genocide: “They slaughtered the remaining inhabitants and claimed the island for themselves.”
Perhaps the ABC needs to employ CaribDigita as a fact-checker.
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/media/2023/01/the-abc-massacres-history-yet-again/
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23 January, 2023
The Whitewashing of Antisemitism, a Hatred of Many Colors
Often black. It's an old truth that members of groups that are victimized by hate crimes are no less capable of committing hate crimes, sometimes more so
It was a common occurrence on the streets of one of New York City's Jewish neighborhoods: A man dressed in the long black coat and broad hat worn by Hasidic Jews was walking in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, his two young children in hand, when suddenly a black man ran up behind him and hit him hard on the back of the head.
Incidents like that one last May unfold repeatedly in New York, several of them in December alone – an outdoor menorah in Coney Island vandalized; a father and son wearing yarmulkas shot with a BB gun on Staten Island; a group of visibly Jewish boys chased by a gang firing a taser and shouting “Jews run! Get out of here”; a Hasidic man beaten outside a bus stop in Crown Heights.
Such attacks are part of a larger groundswell of antisemitism that has received wide notice across the country in recent years. But what has not gotten much attention is the reticence to even mention the ethnicity of antisemitic perpetrators unless they are white. It appears that discussion of this ancient hatred is being constrained by contemporary politics.
In covering and condemning these acts, most major news outlets and politicians from President Biden on down have described antisemitism as almost entirely a sub-species of white supremacy or white nationalism, invoking the mob in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 shouting “Jews will not replace us,” or the murder of 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018 by a white nationalist fanatic.
This narrative obscures the complexity and diversity of the sources fueling the spike in antisemitism, some experts say. Right-wing hate groups are playing their usual part, but so too are blacks and members of other minority groups. The non-white antagonists are erased from the public discourse even though it’s generally understood that it's hard to address a societal problem when society is unwilling to discuss it openly and honestly.
Rationalizations for this reluctance can be strained: When the billionaire black rap entrepreneur Ye, formerly Kanye West, started making a series of antisemitic statements last year, black activist Shaun King wrote in Newsweek, “you don’t have to be white to be a white supremacist,” adding, “Kanye West is now a full-blown white supremacist.”
The antisemitism monitor Israel Bitton uses a new term to frame what is happening. “When anti-Jewish attacks are due to white supremacy, you get a clear condemnation,” said Bitton, executive director of Americans Against Antisemitism, a Washington-based research and advocacy group. “When it's committed by others, it's 'inconvenient antisemitism,' because it becomes difficult for some to understand that members of groups that are also victimized by hate crimes are no less capable of committing hate crimes.”
Put another way, attention to hate crimes committed by minorities doesn’t conform to a simpler narrative that “systemic racism” is the dominant and overwhelming fact of American life – and certain, approved, minorities its victims.
And so Jew-hatred bubbles ever more loudly as background noise. Verbal and physical assaults against Jews increased by 34% between 2021 and 2022, according to the Anti-Defamation League, the civil rights organization that keeps track of such things. In a new study just released, the ADL reports that the number of Americans “harboring extensive antisemitic prejudice” has reached “the highest level in decades.”
This spike comes on top of the historical pattern documented by FBI statistics. While notably incomplete in cataloging perpetrators, they show that Jews, who make up 2.5% of the total U.S. population, are more often the targets of hate crimes than all other religious groups – Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists, and others – combined.
Data collected about antisemitic violence in New York, home to America’s largest Jewish population, shows clearly that when it comes to antisemitism, minorities are often, even disproportionately, perpetrators, not victims. Since 2018, according to New York Police Department crime reports, there have been 129 arrests of suspects in violent hate crimes against Jews; 92 of the suspects, or 72%, were members of minority groups. The crime reports don't do a further breakdown – what proportion of the minority perpetrators may be black, Hispanic, Muslim or something else – but the available evidence indicates that a substantial number of the attacks are being perpetrated by young black men.
When perpetrators are white supremacists, the outrage is louder than when they are “inconvenient antisemites.” When former President Trump hosted a dinner at Mar-a-Lago in November with West and Nick Fuentes, a well-known white supremacist who attended the 2017 demonstration in Charlottesville, the expressions of shock and condemnation, including by Jewish Republicans, were loud and clear.
But as Americans Against Antisemitism found in a recent study, not only are attacks against Hasidic Jews largely ignored or downplayed, only a very small number of the perpetrators end up being prosecuted in court.
Even horrific crimes committed by minority group members that are prosecuted tend to receive muted attention, at least compared with crimes committed by whites. Bitton cites two examples: One was the shooting deaths of five people, including the two assailants, at a kosher grocery in Jersey City at the end of 2019. One of the gunmen, David Anderson, had posted hundreds of anti-Jewish and anti-police hate messages on social media. He was an adherent of the Black Hebrew Israelites, a cult that believes African Americans are the true Jews and that the white people claiming to be Jews are, as one of Anderson's posts put it, “imposters who inhabited synagogues of Satan.”
Another incident cited by Bitton took place during Hanukkah in December 2019, when a machete-wielding man broke into the home of a Hasidic rabbi in Monsey, N.Y., and wounded five men, one of whom later died. The perpetrator, Grafton E. Thomas, also an adherent of the Black Israelite philosophy, was found in possession of journals full of antisemitic statements, including pictures of swastikas and Jewish stars – prefiguring a Twitter post by Kanye West showing a swastika superimposed on a Star of David.
“These stories, where the victims were Hasidic and the perpetrators black, didn't get the same national attention as the Tree of Life synagogue attack,” Bitton said. “There was no major press coverage, no White House consolation calls.”
Today's antisemites are a mixed group of strange bedfellows. Among them are the traditional white nationalist haters of Jews, like those who rioted in Charlottesville or other groups – for example, the one that, somewhat sarcastically, calls itself the Goyim Defense League (goyim being a Yiddish word for non-Jew), which distributed fliers in Beverly Hills last November saying, “Every single aspect of the Covid agenda is Jewish.” The flier then listed the names of some prominent figures in the medical field who are Jewish, such as the chief scientist at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, as if that proved the existence of some dark conspiracy to inflict the world with a deadly virus.
Among the strange bedfellows are elements of the leftist “woke” culture, though this is a complicated phenomenon, with sharp disagreement about whether some beliefs or statements – most notably condemnations of Israel and the movement to boycott it – are indeed antisemitic or merely expressions of opposition to Israeli policies.
What is not in doubt is that the movement to declare Israel a pariah state has become the movement du jour on college campuses, which has made some Jewish students and faculty feel targeted.
Last year, for example, nine student organizations at the University of California Law School adopted a bylaw, initially adopted by the group Students for Justice in Palestine, that banned supporters of Zionism from speaking at their events. That incident attracted widespread attention, but there have been dozens of similar incidents on campuses across the country that have drawn much less notice.
According to an ADL report published in May last year, these anti-Israel gestures have included graffiti saying, “Free Palestine, From the River to the Sea,” or, more crudely, “Fuck Israel, Fuck Zionists.” Israeli flags have been burned during anti-Israel demonstrations. On several campuses there have been calls to boycott classes on Israel or classes taught by Israelis. Jewish students holding positions in student government have been pressured to resign. “I have been told that my support for Israel has made me complicit in racism and that, by association, I am a racist,” a student at the University of Southern California said after resigning her post in response to such a petition.
At the University of Chicago last January, Students for Justice in Palestine called for a boycott of “classes on Israel or those taught by Israeli fellows,” because, as one supporter of the boycott put it in the Maroon, the campus newspaper, “certain classes promote colonial narratives and Zionist propaganda.”
When the Maroon published an op-ed charging that the boycott was in effect a call to discriminate against individuals because of their national origin, the pro-Palestinian group demanded that the paper withdraw the column, citing some minor factual errors. Instead of correcting the presumed errors, the editors quickly caved in to the pro-Palestinian students' demand.
It's in this environment, ADL data shows, that between 2022 and 2021 there was a 31% increase in instances of vandalism, threats, and slurs against Jews on campuses across the country. “The narrative on campus is that if you are a Zionist, if you in any way shape or form think that Israel has the right to exist, you are the same as those who support ethnic cleansing and genocide and you are so morally compromised that people shouldn't even engage with you,” a student at Berkeley Law, Charlotte Aaron, told the Wall Street Journal.
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Letting Children Play Outside Is Not Neglect
Cripes! When I was a kid on many weekends my parents would have had no idea where I was. And as long as I was home in time for dinner they were OK about it
America can’t be the land of the free if its kids are cooped up inside. It can’t be the home of the brave if kids aren't allowed to have a few adventures.
Each year, the nonprofit I helm, Let Grow, works with local advocacy groups, parents and sometimes even children to get states to pass the “Reasonable Childhood Independence” law.
This law says that “child neglect” is when you put your tot in serious, obvious and likely danger — not anytime you take your eyes off them.
Want your children to play outside, walk to the store, come home with a latchkey? Parents don’t have to second-guess themselves in the four states where this bill has passed, always with bipartisan sponsorship. In fact, it sailed through red state Utah and blue state Colorado unanimously.
This is the testimony I always submit. Wish us luck.
“To the State Legislators:
This is regarding the so-called ‘Reasonable Childhood Independence Bill,’ which I am in favor of.
My name is Lenore Skenazy. After my column “Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone” landed me on every talk show from ‘The Today Show’ to ‘Dr. Phil’ I founded the book, blog and movement ‘Free-Range Kids,’ which has grown into the nonprofit Let Grow.
At Let Grow, we believe in safety: Helmets, seatbelts, car seats… We just don’t believe kids need a security detail every time they leave the house.
And yet, despite crime plummeting about 50 percent since its peak in the 1990s — and remaining far below those tough years even now — just 11 percent of kids walk to school these days.
One study found that only 6 percent of kids ages 9-13 play outside on their own for an hour or more a week.
Instead, many kids are driven from activity to activity, and plenty more spend hours on the couch, staring at a screen. There are many reasons for this, but one is that some parents worry that even if they know their kids are capable of walking to the store, or grandma’s, someone else might consider them ‘neglected’ and call 911.
They are scared by stories of parents whose confidence in their kids was mistaken for neglect. Parents like Kari Anne Roy, who let her 6-year-old play outside within view of the house, but was investigated for neglect when a passerby called the cops.
A caseworker interviewed all three of Kari’s kids, asking her daughter, age 8, ‘Do your parents ever show you movies with naked people in them?’ What?? Kari was so upset. But the caseworker had to check off the boxes.
Natasha Felix let her kids, 11, 9, and 5, play at the park across from her apartment and she, too, was investigated for neglect. And there’s the famous case of Danielle and Alex Meitiv who let their kids, 10 and 6, walk home from the park together and were investigated not once but twice.
That’s not to mention the parents whose strained finances leave them no choice but to trust their kids with independence as soon as they believe they’re ready for it. This makes overly broad neglect laws a social justice issue: If helicopter parenting is the law of the land, what about those who literally cannot afford to do it?
But childhood freedom is not just a parenting issue. It’s a health issue. As children’s independence has been going down, childhood depression, anxiety and even suicide have been going up.
A Reasonable Childhood Independence Bill would reassure parents that giving their kids some old-fashioned freedom — by choice OR economic necessity — will not be mistaken for neglect. Neglect is when you blatantly disregard your child’s safety. Not when you trust them to start becoming part of the world.
Let the authorities investigate true cases of neglect, not parents who give their kids the kind of childhood we grew up with — and are grateful for.
https://www.nysun.com/article/letting-kids-play-outside-is-not-neglect
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If Leftist Keir Starmer gets to be British Prime Minister, the rights of women in Britain could be set back decades
By SARAH VINE
To say the Labour Party has a problem with women, as its MP for Canterbury Rosie Duffield claimed last week, is not strictly true.
It would be fairer to say that it has a problem with biological women or, to use the rather unpleasant and derogatory-sounding term imposed upon us by the trans lobby and its various supporters, a ‘cis’ women problem. (Cis – or cisgender – is a term used to describe a person whose gender identity corresponds with their biological sex.)
By contrast, if you are a trans woman – that is to say, a person born with the biological characteristics of a male who has chosen to live, either full-time or part time, either superficially (by adopting the appearance of a woman) or irreversibly (by undergoing hormone therapy or gender reassignment surgery) as a female – then the Labour Party loves you.
Adores you, worships you, in fact; dances on eggshells around you, bows and scrapes, fawns, respects your every wish – regardless of what that means for other women. If you are a trans woman (or girl), the Labour Party will prioritise your needs and wants, your worries and concerns, over boring old biological women (or girls) at every turn.
It will even try to gaslight biological women into believing that our rights are inferior to those of trans women, that we are somehow second class to our trans sisters –and that anyone who dares challenge that narrative only has themselves to blame when, like Ms Duffield, they end up being roundly abused.
That’s the sexism at the heart of this. The Labour Party under Sir Keir Starmer fundamentally believes that a biological male living as a female is worth more than a biological female just minding her own business.
It would prefer to give in to the demands of a small minority than safeguard the welfare of thousands of women and girls who, on account of generally being physically smaller and weaker than biological males, face all sorts of threats in daily life – from perverted policemen to violent partners – that mean safe, female-only spaces are very important to them. But, because Sir Keir can’t even define what it means to be a woman and do us the basic courtesy of acknowledging our identity, those concerns don’t matter. That is what we learned this week during the debate in Parliament on the Government’s decision to block Nicola Sturgeon’s gender identification legislation, opposition to which is centred on the erosion of safe spaces for women and girls.
As Ms Duffield tried to outline, calmly but with passion, her concerns about what impact this legislation – which would allow ‘anyone at all to legally self-identify as either sex and therefore enter all spaces, including those necessarily segregated by sex, such as domestic violence settings, changing rooms and prisons’ – might have on vulnerable women, she was subjected to horrible abuse from her own side. Former Labour Minister Ben Bradshaw yelled ‘absolute rubbish’ at her, while fellow Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle also tried to shut her down. Ms Duffield later said that Mr Russell-Moyle then sat near another female MP and stared at her ‘in an intimidating way’.
So much of the response to women who dare question the ideology of self-identification is, I’m afraid, highly abusive. It also smacks of a ‘woman, know your place’ type of misogyny that stems from an inalienable sense of superiority in the minds of certain types of men who think they understand the female experience better than we do. But the real elephant in the room, the thing that no one is allowed or has the courage to say, is this: trans women remain – whichever way you cut it – biological males.
Just as trans men remain, biologically, female. Of course, many trans activists don’t accept that notion: they believe that biological sex does not exist, and that self-determined gender cannot be questioned. Which is fine: believe whatever you like; but respect the rights of others to disagree and speak out if they believe an ideology to be harmful.
On the basis that biological sex does exist – which is my assertion – the issue then is that if a trans man enters an all-male space, he does not generally represent a physical threat to other males. Whereas when a trans woman enters an all-female space, there would be much more potential for abuse. Not just because trans women tend to be bigger and stronger than biological women; but also because individuals with a male biology are responsible for 98 per cent of sex crimes and 90 per cent of all other violence.
Individuals, for example, such as Karen White, a convicted paedophile with a history of violent behaviour who was sent to an women’s prison (despite having undergone neither surgery nor hormone treatment) where she proceeded to sexually assault two women.
Fact: men hurt women, and they do it a lot. And if men posing as women (or boys posing as girls) are allowed to enter female spaces without any form of scrutiny – ie via self-identification – the potential for abuse is huge. That’s really all women like Ms Duffield (and J.K. Rowling, who herself also suffered domestic violence at the hands of her ex) are asking: don’t let’s create a situation when ill-intentioned men can game the system to prey on vulnerable women.
And by ‘vulnerable’ I also mean, of course, the vast majority of trans women who, as well as deserving the right to live full lives, free from harassment and prejudice, also deserve protection from predatory males posing as trans.
That’s why it makes sense to keep the current legislation. The law as it stands safeguards trans women as much as anyone else from opportunistic, unscrupulous, and potentially very dangerous individuals.
That the Labour Party cannot even begin to engage with this, or debate it in a civilised manner, does not surprise me.
This is not the first time it has been accused of sexism. It’s not just the experience of women such as Duffield and former Labour MP Luciana Berger (who quit in part over misogyny in the party) – last year the independent Forde Report concluded that there was ‘overt and underlying sexism’ in messages between the party’s senior members of staff.
Labour has never had a woman leader, and now we see why. Meanwhile, the Conservatives have had three. The Tory Party appreciates and understands women, not just within its own ranks but everywhere. That’s why the Prime Minister is right to block this Bill.
It is not the easy, fashionable thing to do – but it is the right thing to do, for the sake of all women, trans or otherwise. And why, if Starmer ever gets to No 10, the rights of women in this country could be set back decades
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The Problem With “Historic”
You hear it all the time – so and so is “historic” because of their skin color, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, or some other meaningless characteristic. Democrats seem to celebrate those “accomplishments” almost exclusively. This person is “historic” because they’re the first non-binary weirdo to hold whatever job they’ve just been hired for. Honestly, who cares? If who you sleep with defines who you are, you aren’t worth knowing. Yet, these irrelevant characteristics are what the left celebrates, and in many cases, all they see. It’s dehumanizing to the people being “celebrated” and an attempt to control everyone else.
First off, let us start with the new phenomenon of “pronouns.” If anyone has their pronouns listed on social media avoid them at all costs. Don’t befriend them, and do not hire them. They are a victim in search of something to blame for their failure, likely with a lawyer on speed dial, if not a retainer. Victimhood is their true profession.
The thing about pronoun insistence is it’s the ultimate in control. When you speak with a person you don’t refer to them with third-person pronouns, or even their name, you just talk to them like a normal person. So the pronoun use only comes into play when you’re talking about them with others. These piles of garbage want to control how you refer to them when they’re not around, ultimately controlling you. Never, ever comply. It’s the gateway drug for submission.
You saw this on display in stories about allegedly serial luggage thief Sam Brinton. Touted as the “first non-binary” person appointed to a political position in government, this mutant was billed as “historic!” for that very reason. His firing was just as historic, being the first weirdo fired for stealing people’s suitcases, but it didn’t get the same amount of coverage as his appointment.
The same goes for Rachel Levine. The mentally confused man was known for ordering nursing homes in Pennsylvania to accept COVID positive patients at the start of the pandemic, causing thousands of deaths, while moving his mother out of one without telling the public. But because he thinks he’s she he is billed as “historic” and was promoted to Assistant Secretary for Health in the Biden administration.
If you’re some kind of mentally confused gender dysphoria-suffering Democrat you are “historic” and literally cannot fail, even while advocating for the butchering of the bodies of children to suit your delusions.
If you are gay, same thing. If you are not white, same thing. It’s funny how the whitest man to ever hold the presidency, with a long and storied history of racism, is milking having the first gay, black press secretary in history as if it’s one of his (limited) accomplishments.
If you play the left’s game, Karine Jean-Pierre is “historic” for those reasons. If you live in reality, Karine Jean-Pierre is “historic-ally” bad at her job, quite probably the worst. She can’t answer basic questions without reading them from a script provided to her, likely by White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain. Any self-respecting person who’s quit over being forced to serve as a puppet to a senile clown, but KJP is historic!
The term “historic” is tossed around like it’s an accomplishment in and of itself. It is not. Elizabeth Holmes, for disgraced former CEO of Theranos, was declared “historic” because she was the first female Silicon Valley billionaire and was immediately put on magazine covers and every “people to watch under 30” list the left-wing media had to offer. The only problem is no one was watching her. She was a con artist who ripped off investors of billions. They were too busy celebrating her gender to bother to look at whether or not she was a fraud. It wouldn’t have taken much to see it, but it’s amazing what people can miss when they deliberately do not look for it.
Attaching the label “historic” to everything they love, Democrats have stripped it of its meaning related to actual accomplishments. They do not celebrate accomplishments – Elon Musk is a prime example of someone who has made truly historic developments in his fields of business and who is demonized because of his skin color, gender, and, most importantly because he’s exposing the power-plays of the left through Twitter. Musk is more accomplished than anyone Democrats celebrate, and in fields, they insist are wildly important to their agenda (electric vehicles and space travel), but he’s the wrong configuration of human. If he weren’t white or were gay… lookout. (Not now, of course, he’s on the enemies list for wrong-think, but before.)
Simply declaring someone to be “historic” ignores whether or not they’re qualified; whether or not they are capable of doing a job and, more importantly, whether or not they’re any good. The moon landing was “historic” and so were the Hindenburg and Titanic, just for very different reasons. Individuals are no different.
Individuals are only to be elevated if they are configured in certain ways, ways useful to Democrats. That’s slightly better than the Soviet Union, but only slightly. To a normal person, that seems like the opposite of the reason for existence or at least any way to get joy from it – your only value is found in immutable characteristics. The real reason to celebrate anyone is their actual, verifiable accomplishments. That is exactly what the left is trying to prevent, quite possibly because they have none. It would explain why they’re such miserable people.
https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2023/01/22/the-problem-with-historic-n2618585 ?
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Colonialism did not cause the Indian famines
By Tirthankar Roy (Tirthankar Roy is an Indian economic historian and Professor of Economic History at the London School of Economics. He is one of the most influential researchers of the Economic History of South Asia and India)
Accusations that Britain drained India of resources and starved Indians to death are nothing new in some circles, but at the moment they are being spread with religious zeal. Al Jazeera, the media conglomerate funded by the Qatari government, has recently joined in. But this accusation has long been disproved, and the truth is that British rule in India mitigated famine.
In an Al-Jazeera piece, Dylan Sullivan and Jason Hickel[1] claim that British rule inflicted ‘tremendous loss of life’ in nineteenth-century India by causing the devastating Deccan famines. Imperial policies, they say, made famines ‘more frequent and more deadly.’[2] They cite the economic historian Robert Allen to suggest that Indian living standards declined in the nineteenth century, because the British rule ‘drained’ India of money and food. Indians were starving when the famines hit them. Colonialism triggered the genocide. Social media posts spread similar messages with religious zeal. Many blogs and sites sharing such sentiments have reprinted Sullivan and Hickel’s piece.
Sullivan and Hickel are not doing anything new. In a 2001 book, Mike Davis said Britain’s apathy towards her Indian subjects caused mass deaths in late nineteenth-century Deccan.[3] Indian nationalists argued a hundred years ago that food export supported by a free trade policy and the British-built railways left the Indian countryside with too little food. B.M. Bhatia said that ‘in the earlier times a major famine occurred once every 50 years,’ whereas ‘between 1860 and 1908, famine or scarcity prevailed in … twenty out of the total of forty-nine years,’ implying that colonialism made famines ‘more deadly’.[4]
Economic historians have examined and discarded every one of these assertions. Sullivan and Hickel are salvaging an outdated idea by ignoring the most important research done on the subject. I will offer five grounds to show why their version of history is incorrect and biased.
Five errors of a biased argument
First, the claim that colonialism caused famines cannot be verified against previous experience because there is no evidence that famines were less frequent or less deadly before. Whereas the government statistical system recorded the colonial-era famines, the precolonial data came from hagiographies and travelogues. These dissimilar datasets cannot be compared. The frequency with which famines occurred in earlier times depended on the frequency with which hagiographies were written. If this was once in fifty years, we would conclude that famines happened once in fifty years, as Bhatia did. The authors of these hagiographies praised the relief work because the kings paid them to do that. We might conclude that precolonial kings were more caring than the British. None of this makes any sense.
Second, colonialism cannot be accused of causing famines everywhere. The famines that Davis called late-Victorian holocausts happened in the Deccan, 1876-77 in the Rayalaseema region west of Chennai (Madras), and 1896 and 1898 in the Deccan Traps closer to Mumbai (Bombay). All along, in the Indo-Gangetic Basin, the population rose. The Raj ruled over the north and south. Why did it spare the north?
Here is the answer. The British Raj did not start the famines. Geography did. 1877 was the driest year in over a century (1871-1978) for which rainfall data exists. The average rainfall that year was 30 percent short of the long-term level, and a 25 percent shortfall developed again in 1896 and 1899. Monsoon failure of such an order can cause distress by drying up all accessible water sources. The effect was disastrous in the Deccan Plateau because it was normally much drier than the north and did not have rivers fed by the Himalayan snow, unlike the north. Monsoon rain was the primary source, and when that failed, cultivation stopped, and distressed people lived on infected water to die of cholera. Colonialism had nothing to do with the reason they died.
Third, the living standard research that Sullivan and Hickel cite has a problem. Allen’s work on living standards is pathbreaking, but the India dataset on wages in northern India compiled by early-twentieth-century historians is of doubtful value. These historians left too few details on who earned these wages for what works, or on the labour market, or whether they were men or women, or the contracts involved. These are just numbers without context. A trend drawn by comparing such numbers over the long run may mean that the context of work changed, not the living standard. For example, there was an enormous expansion of casual-wage-based hiring of individual workers in the nineteenth century, whereas earlier employers often hired families or groups and paid them customary fees. The kind of work for which the Mughal household or urban silk factories or the East India Companies hired people did not exist anymore in 1900. Earlier wages were often job-based, later wages were daily or hourly. For all these reasons, later wages could look smaller, but that would not mean that the living standard had fallen.
That Sullivan and Hickel rely on weak data is the least of their problems. The evidence is not relevant at all. Almost all the data that Allen and others used came from the Indo-Gangetic Basin, which did not see famine in the nineteenth century. There is nothing comparable—in fact, nothing at all—for the regions where the Deccan famines broke out.
Fourth, the nationalist criticism of food exports has long been discredited. The economist Martin Ravallion showed in a 1987 article that food exports did not expose the countryside to a food shortage. Food exports rose when Indian prices fell below world prices or after a good harvest and fell when there was a bad harvest.[5] In this way, trade stabilized domestic consumption rather than reducing it.
Fifth, that colonialism caused famines is based on flawed logic. Dryland Deccan famines disappeared after 1900, though weather shocks did not. The significance of the end of dryland famines was momentous for India. It led to a permanent fall in death rates. From 42-50 per thousand in 1911-21, the rate fell to 33-38 in the next decade, 30-32 in 1931-41, and 25 in 1941-51.
Any good theory must explain the end of famines and their occurrence jointly. Colonial apathy cannot do that because there is no good way to show that apathy ended around 1900. It is a nonsensical idea and an unverifiable one. This is why Mike Davis’s work cannot be trusted. He avoided showing how mentality changed, yet the end of famine demanded that he should.
Why did the famines really end? Michelle McAlpin in the 1980s and recently Robin Burgess and Dave Donaldson suggested that the end of famine was owed to the railways.[6] McAlpin examined the experience of the Bombay Presidency, where the second and third of the three Deccan famines had happened, and showed that markets and railways improved food distribution enough to reduce the impact of harvest failure. Burgess and Donaldson show that access to railways reduced local food price instability. In short, statistical research confirms that the railways caused the end of famines and delivered the gift of life to generations of Indians born after 1900. I have made a similar point about well water in the Deccan countryside.[7]
These works suggest a better theory of why the famines happened. The capacity of the states and the markets to provide food and water to the needy was small against the scale of the natural disasters. All large natural disasters reveal such a syndrome. They show that the capacity of the people in charge of relief can be constrained by poor information, distorted information, limited money, limited knowledge of causation, and conflict among stakeholders. Covid illustrated the play of all these things that limited the state’s capacity to cope. But Covid also showed how governments learned lessons and moved on. So did the Deccan famines.
The Raj learned lessons. The three Deccan famines generated data and research under government sponsorship on a scale not seen before. The results were famine codes (a blueprint for relief), canal construction, railways, sanitation of water bodies, cholera control, and collection of weather, crop, and water data. The effort to gain the capacity to cope delivered a sharp fall in death rates from 1901.
Droughts are, and were, common in tropical monsoon geographies. The start of a peacetime drought had nothing to do with states. But states could learn lessons and be better prepared. The Raj learned how the government could get better at managing massive weather shocks, the type to hit the Deccan at the end of the nineteenth century. Sullivan and Hickel dare not tell that story, for that would dilute their partisan message.
https://historyreclaimed.co.uk/colonialism-did-not-cause-the-indian-famines/
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22 January, 2023
The Conundrum of Measuring Authoritarianism: A Case Study in Political Bias
By Thomas H. Costello
In the book "Toward a Science of Clinical Psychology" pp 395–411
Costello is a younger researcher. He received his Ph.D. in Psychology from Emory University in 2022. So he is in a good position to trash the work of his elders. And does he trash it! There is much to trash. In my 20-year research career from 1970 to 1990, I trashed it often. Costello does cite one of my iconoclastic papers. In the final words of his chapter, he summarizes the research field concerned as "interesting noise". I concur.
I won't attempt to summarize the chapter. It is an extremely thorough coverage of the issues in political psychology research. Psychologists are overwhelminhgly Left-leaning and the characteristic Leftist predilection to be believe only what they want to beieve has emerged strongly when they have studied political psychology. Costello sets out ably the ideological biases in their work. He shows that to the extent that you remove the bias you are left with no firm conclusions at all.
He has a major focus on what is still a beloved piece of political psychology research: "The authoritarian Personality" by Adorno et al. Practically every claim in that book has been shown to be faulty but its conclusions -- that it is conservatives who are authoritarian, not Communists -- is just too delicious to abandon.
But I doubt that Costello will influence any political psychologists much. Leftism is usually deeply entrenched in the personality so facts and logic are not going to shake that much
Costello's work is a great contrast with the paper by Kranebitter & Gruber that I mentioned recently. Kranebitter & Gruber treat with respect precisely what Costello has shown to be rubbish. Leftists never learn
The Abstract to this book chapter rather undersells it. Perhaps it has to:
Abstract
In this chapter, I review key conceptual and methodological sources of bias in psychological measurement, emphasizing those with particular relevance to political phenomena and providing relevant examples of measurement bias in political psychological research. I then review the case of authoritarianism, which until recently was predominantly assessed among political conservatives. This emphasis on right-wing authoritarianism and the paucity of research concerning left-wing authoritarianism have led to widespread conceptual obstacles to understanding the psychological underpinnings of authoritarianism, illustrating the degree to which measurement bias has key implications for theory development and testing. In closing, I provide several recommendations for reducing political bias in psychological measurement.
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Can America rediscover what made it great?
The loss of "greatness" is NOT the work of Americans generally. It is the declared aim of the American Left and they are good at accomplishing it. There is little that other Americans can do other than highlight the destructive results of Leftist policies
What happens when progress stops? That’s an important question in a country whose self-understanding is deeply tied to the idea of progress — material, technological, political and social. America’s first three centuries were characterised by physically pushing its border across the continent, west to the Pacific and then across nearly 2,500 miles of open ocean. It would not have been obvious to early Americans that Hawaii, a tropical archipelago far away from the California coast, would become the nation’s fiftieth state, joined in a political union with the far-distant original states facing the Atlantic.
While the country was expanding in size, rapid progress was made in many other areas: science and technology extended the average life span, elevated living standards and promoted social mobility and broad-based prosperity. Americans have come to expect upward movement to continue: GDP will keep rising and science will make us healthier and wealthier, while political and cultural movements will make us better, happier people.
The uncomfortable fact is that progress doesn’t happen by some law of nature and is not guaranteed to continue indefinitely
But progress has slowed, stalled or even reversed in recent decades. Technology is still advancing, but primarily in the digital world. People get married later and have fewer children; life span stopped increasing and has actually declined in the past several years, even before the onset of Covid-19. It now takes two incomes to support a family of four in the middle class; one income was sufficient as recently as the 1980s. Self-reported levels of happiness have dropped. Social trust is diminishing and the social consensus is badly frayed. Distrust of gatekeepers is widespread. The institutions responsible for protecting and advancing the interests of the nation — political, cultural, academic — have failed in their core mission and have become self-interested to the point of sociopathy. In short, America has not been moving upward.
The uncomfortable fact is that civilisational progress doesn’t happen by some law of nature and is not guaranteed to continue indefinitely. Civilisations can rise, achieve greatness and then fade, leaving behind evidence of impressive ingenuity. To the modern mind, it is disorienting to realise that earlier civilisations could have been just as prosperous, secure and happy as our own — perhaps more so.
But the trajectory of civilisation is not somehow upward by definition. Decline and decay are just as possible as progress. In fact, decay is the default: it’s what happens when you just do nothing. Political scientist Samuel P. Huntington famously argued, following a classic understanding of national cycles, that every nation is in either a state of development or decline. I would offer a modification that gets to the heart of the matter: there is an invisible force that drives development, which I call vitality.
The vitality of a nation can be judged in two ways: by the private life of its people and by its public life. In the private sphere, a nation is successful if the people are physically secure in their lives and their property; if families are being formed and are free, generally prosperous and self-sustaining; and if those families produce at least enough children to maintain a stable population. That sounds simple, because it describes the basic conditions for personal independence, physical security, social continuity and a general sense of wellbeing. Add to this a broadly shared worldview supported by religious piety and practice and one has the conditions for a vital civilisation. Rome and Athens had this. America used to have it too.
In the public sphere, civilisational vitality is shown in a capacity for collective action, which is rooted in what the fourteenth-century Arab philosopher Ibn Khaldun called asabiyya. This concept can be understood as social cohesion, national or civilisational purpose, a feeling of being in it together and for the same reasons. When asabiyya is high, societies grow prosperous because high social trust supports complex trade relationships along with specialisation and division of labour, allowing for innovation and the production of luxury goods.
Just as personal vitality grows from a strong sense of identity and purpose, civilisational vitality springs from a shared identity that unites people, legitimises the state and explains its place in the world, and inspires great societal achievements. America has undertaken big projects in the past, from taming the frontier to the early space programme, but our ability to accomplish great things as a nation has waned in recent decades. One reason is a fading sense of national identity and purpose.
When the frontier closed, American national identity was largely set, and the nation’s restless energy then went out into a global project — which now seems to have run its course. Will the engine that propelled this country simply burn out? The past few decades in America have been characterised by five major phenomena: globalisation, financialisation of the economy, science and tech stagnation (despite advances in digital technology), managerialism and risk aversion.
Taken together, these developments have brought us to a crossroads. Numerous indicators of societal health have been trending downward, often reinforcing each other. Some trends owe to factors outside our control, others resulted in part from earlier decisions that were made in good faith and would have seemed right to most smart, informed, well-intentioned people at the time. Now it’s time to reckon with those errors and correct our course.
Many one-time-only advances were made in an earlier era: discovering electricity, preventing polio and other communicable diseases, developing antibiotics. These singular advances brought great material improvements to people’s lives, and the benefits were widely distributed. Let’s look at the average American home in 1900: by the best estimate, only 1 per cent of homes had indoor plumbing. There was no electric light, no refrigerator, no telephone, no washing machine, no television, no car parked outside. All these things were standard in the average American home by 1960. The typical home of 2023 wouldn’t look greatly different: the TV is probably a large flatscreen with many more channels; there are multiple phones and maybe no land line; there’s a PC or some laptops and tablets with internet. But the differences aren’t as dramatic as those between 1900 and 1960.
Things were changing fast and for the better before 1960. America was growing, people were living longer and healthier lives, and living standards were rising. There was a lot of momentum behind American expansion, and when progress slowed down it wasn’t really noticeable for a while. But science has been advancing more slowly and at greater cost, resulting in slower development of new technology that improves living standards, a slower increase in productivity, and lower real economic growth.
This is what Tyler Cowen called ‘the Great Stagnation’ in his 2010 book. A decade later, few people seem willing to accept the idea. Acknowledging that we’re in a period of stagnation seems like a form of heresy, even if its effects are all around us: stagnant wages, a widening wealth gap, a shrinking middle class, endless cycles of debt that trap people in what economic anthropologist David Graeber called bullshit jobs — ‘a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence even though, as part of the conditions of employment, the employee feels obliged to pretend that this is not the case.’ Obesity and chronic inflammatory diseases have become more widespread. Loneliness and alienation have been rising since before Robert Putnam wrote Bowling Alone in 2000. Social cohesion is weaker and political polarisation is sharper. Americans have even stopped having enough children to keep the population steady, let alone expand it, one consequence of which is that the median age of Americans has climbed from 28.1 in 1970 to 38.3 in 2020. As American society has grown older, it has also become more risk-averse, less willing to take on big challenges that could lead to a more prosperous future.
The main consequence of stagnation is a loss of social mobility: the promise of modern American liberalism has been that if you work hard and play by the rules, you will do better than your parents, and if you go to college, a secure place in the middle class should be a near certainty. Now each new generation is doing worse than the one before it; many find themselves running just to stand still. At every stage of life, Generation X has owned a smaller share of the national wealth than baby boomers did at the same median age, while millennials own even less.
It’s easy to see why millennials are sometimes characterised as a Lost Generation and why sociopathologies — including high rates of drug use, sexual dysfunction, depression and other mental health issues — are so much in evidence among them, along with radical politics. They are a large part of American society, but because they hold such a small share of national wealth relative to the preceding generations at their age, they are more alienated from the system and resentful of the status quo. As a result, they look for answers. They’re not just asking, ‘Why are things the way they are?’ but, ‘I’m an adult now, how do I get my rightful share?’ Since the political mainstream appears to have failed them, many are inclined to seek answers outside it. One way to understand the rise of bitcoin is as an end-run around the existing financial system, which remains disproportionately controlled by boomers. The millennials and zoomers who see little hope for success within it are building an alternative.
We’re seeing a pattern of downward mobility and a proletarianisation of the American people. There are declining prospects for individuals, increasing precarity, and more social dysfunction. There is more inequality and more polarisation, both contributing to institutional decay. These symptoms have been much remarked upon, but the underlying malady has gone undiagnosed. If we want to arrest the disintegrative trends, we need to start by recognising that the decay is further advanced and far deeper than either the left or the right will admit. It also cuts across the left/right political dialectic that has prevailed since the end of world war two.
As much as these things are discussed, their causes are often misunderstood. Adding to the slowdown in science, structural demographic forces combine to create an environment ripe for conflict. The symptoms of societal decay are typically seen through a narrowly ideological lens. Political liberals blame billionaires, greed and bigotry for growing inequality, and call for redistributing wealth from billionaires to everyone else — which would not solve the underlying problem. Some conservatives see insufficient devotion to the cause of liberty behind the country’s malaise, while others identify a spiritual crisis leading to cultural degradation. While I’m quite sympathetic to the idea that there is a spiritual deficit in America, it is only part of the problem I’m describing here.
Many of the problems facing America today can be seen throughout the developed world, but the solutions will need to be distinctly American. A prerequisite for recovering national vitality is to regain a national purpose and identity. In this age of heightened awareness of group identities, the national identity that binds us together is given short shrift when the very concept isn’t being decried as oppressive. When a people loses its sense of itself and its place and purpose in the world, it disintegrates from within.
After world war two, the Cold War played a similar role to the frontier. Now the postwar American hyperproject has run its course. The factories have been exported, and proletarianisation is trickling up from the American working class to the professional managerial class. Even the merely rich are being left behind by the superrich. Industrial agriculture has exacted a great cost on the family farm and the environment. American pop culture, while still a powerful global phenomenon, is increasingly rejected by people in central and eastern Europe, across Asia, in the Indian subcontinent, and elsewhere in favour of homegrown culture that better reflects local sensibilities.
Since 1941, the American military has never been completely at peace. After world war two came the Cold War and interventions in Korea, Vietnam, Africa, Colombia, Nicaragua, Grenada, Iraq, Kuwait, Bosnia, Somalia, Iraq again, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and so on. Our military interventions have become a tragic farce that undermines our security, bleeds our young people and distracts attention from problems at home. The Great Power competition of the nineteenth century gave way to the ideological conflict of the twentieth century and is now being replaced by rivalries between civilisation-states, particularly China, India and Russia.
These are big changes in the way the world works, yet American elites still cling to a worldview born in the 1940s. It’s past time to rethink the national project and identity, and then move forward boldly.
One prerequisite for moving in a positive direction is to recognise the value of accepting risk. That may seem counterintuitive when any number of studies demonstrate that most people will choose security over freedom, justice, equality, or almost anything else. In fact, it’s difficult to accomplish normal things like raising a family when you have too much risk in your life, especially the wrong types of risk: there’s a big difference between the risk of taking Oxycontin and that of starting a homestead on the edge of civilisation.
The mitigation of risk is perfectly human and generally beneficial, but it also breeds complacency and a reluctance to take on big challenges that can move us forward. Looking back at the successes of the past several generations, it’s too easy to assume that progress is simply natural, when in fact it results from bold and courageous action.
Taking risks was a defining part of the American culture from the time the Pilgrims crossed an ocean to settle in a strange land, through the era of pioneers in covered wagons venturing into the wilderness, to the day that astronauts landed on the moon. Ironically, our society’s present risk aversion puts us in a very risky situation because it has caused stagnation, which increases social dysfunction and political conflict, and makes us less equipped to meet emerging global challenges. We need to recognise the danger we are in and be willing to take on risks to reverse the forces of decay. We can all have a part in restoring the national vitality that benefits all Americans.
https://spectator.com.au/2023/01/can-america-rediscover-what-made-it-great/
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Minneapolis: Man ordered to remove ‘Jesus is the only way’ T-shirt at Mall of America
A man inside the Mall of America last week was ordered by security guards to remove his T-shirt that read “Jesus is the only way” in a viral confrontation that has sparked online outrage.
The man’s bright yellow shirt read “Jesus saves” on the front and “Jesus is the only way” on the back with the “Coexist” symbol which represents peace among different religions crossed out, the footage shows.
Security guards told the man that other shoppers at the Minnesota mall said they were offended by the shirt.
“Jesus is associated with religion and it’s offending people,” one of the guards tells the man in the video from the Jan. 7 incident.
The man tries to reason with the guards, telling them that he didn’t speak or say anything to anyone — in terms of preaching.
He was removed from the mall for “preaching the gospel” on another occasion, he said in the video.
A spokesperson for the Mall of America told the Daily Mail that one week prior to the T-shirt incident, the man was “issued a 24-hour trespass for soliciting guests.”
The mall policy forbids “picketing, demonstrating, soliciting, protesting or petitioning” on the premises.
The security guard said the man’s religious tee still counted as soliciting even if he was not actively preaching. “Again sir, it is religious soliciting,” he told him in the video. “There is no soliciting allowed on mall property, which is private property.”
He added that people also said they were offended by the shirt.
The mall’s policy also disapproves of “apparel that has obscene language, obscene gestures or racial/religious/ethnic slurs that are likely to create a disturbance,” according to its website.
“I’m giving you a couple options,” the guard told the man, who was wearing a long-sleeved shirt underneath the t-shirt. “You can take your shirt off and you can go to Macy’s and you can do your shopping — or you could leave the mall. Those are your only options right now.”
However, the man was eventually allowed to keep his shirt on and go about his way shopping, a spokesperson for the mall said. ‘”After a brief interaction, the guest was not required to change his shirt and was allowed to remain at the Mall,” the representative told the Daily Mail.
Many Christians said they were shocked to learn the video was taken in the US.
“There is no way this should happen in USA,” Twitter user Carol Harper wrote. “He has a free speech right to wear that shirt, and a freedom of religion right to practice his faith in public places. More people should wear Christian shirts to that mall.”
A pastor said the man should take legal action against the mall. “He should sue them into oblivion,” Pastor Chase Thompson tweeted. “This wouldn’t have happened anywhere in the US until very recently, and it certainly wouldn’t have happened if he’d had a pride shirt on and even 50 people complained.”
Others said they planned to wear Jesus shirts en masse to the shopping mall as a protest.
https://nypost.com/2023/01/16/man-ordered-to-remove-jesus-is-the-only-way-shirt-at-mall-of-america/
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Kristi Noem Backs Bill to Protect Minors From Transgender Surgeries and Medical Interventions
South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem has announced her support for House Bill 1080, a measure which would prohibit controversial transgender medical interventions such as hormones and surgery for minors.
“Governor Noem supports this legislation and will be watching as the legislature works through the process,” Ian Fury, Noem’s chief of communications, told The Daily Signal in a statement Wednesday.
H.B. 1080 aims “to prohibit certain medical and surgical interventions on minor patients.”
Specifically, the bill bars a health care professional from performing certain acts on a minor “for the purpose of attempting to alter the appearance of, or to validate a minor’s perception of, the minor’s sex, if that appearance or perception is inconsistent with the minor’s sex.”
H.B. 1080 bars health professionals from prescribing or administering to minors any drug to delay or stop normal puberty or any cross-sex hormones such as testosterone to females and estrogen to males. It also bars them from performing “any sterilizing surgery, including castration, hysterectomy,” and other surgeries to remove sex organs, or any surgery “that artificially constructs tissue having the appearance of genitalia differing from the minor’s sex.” Finally, the bill prohibits the removal of “any healthy or non-diseased body part or tissue.”
Many prominent American health institutions push hormones for children, based on the theory that kids who persistently and consistently claim to identify with the gender opposite their biological sex will commit suicide if doctors do not help them force their bodies to conform to their self-image. They do so despite the weak evidence on the subject.
The Florida Department of Public Health determined in April that “systematic reviews on hormonal treatment for young people show a trend of low-quality evidence, small sample sizes, and medium to high risk of bias.” It cited an International Review of Psychiatry study stating that 80% of those seeking clinical care will lose their desire to identify with the opposite sex.
H.B. 1080 allows health professionals to perform the controversial interventions for minors “born with a medically verifiable disorder of sex development, including external biological sex characteristics that are irresolvably ambiguous,” and minors who do not have a sex chromosome structure that is normal for a biological male or female. The bill also includes a “grandfather clause,” exempting any health care professional who began “a course of treatment for a minor” that would otherwise violate the bill before July 1, 2023.
The bill grants real teeth to the prohibition, requiring professional or occupational licensing boards to revoke “any professional or occupational license or certificate held by the healthcare professional” who violates the bill. It also grants minors who suffered injury from such medical interventions the ability to sue for damages, so long as the minor files the lawsuit before he or she turns 25 and within three years from the time the person discovered that the health professional caused the injuries or damages in question.
South Dakota Republicans previously filed a similar bill in the 2020 legislative session, House Bill 1057. That bill failed, in part because Sanford Health, a hospital network that is the state’s largest employer, lobbied against it. Sanford also opposed a bill to prohibit males who claim to identify as female from competing in women’s sports. Noem issued a partial veto against the first version of the bill, claiming that it opened up thorny legal issues, only to sign a similar version later.
“The bill to prevent doctors from giving hormone-blocking drugs to kids — when it failed, that was all Sanford,” John Mills, a Republican lawmaker representing South Dakota’s fourth house district, told National Review’s Nate Hochman. Doctors at Sanford Health have prescribed transgender hormone drugs to minors.
“You want to believe it’s not about the profit, but you also witness the reality of what’s happening on the ground and can’t help but wonder,” Mills added.
State Rep. Bethany Soye, a Souix Falls Republican in the ninth house district, told The Daily Signal that she thinks the bill is more likely to succeed this year.
“Today there is much more public awareness of what is going on in our state than there was three years ago,” she said. “Sanford Health has been very bold in promoting chemicals and procedures that cause permanent damage to children.”
Soye mentioned the Midwest Gender Identity Summit, which Sanford hosted with the transgender activist group The Transformation Project. South Dakota’s health department terminated its contract with The Transformation Project after The Daily Signal reached out for comment regarding the summit.
“There has also been a lot of national media attention pointing out the disconnect between South Dakota’s claimed conservative values and the practices that we are allowing to occur in our state,” Soye added.
The Republican also argued that minors cannot consent to transgender medical interventions that may have lifelong effects such as sterilization and weakening bone density.
“The list of things that a child under 18 cannot consent to is vast: drinking alcohol, buying cigarettes, getting a tattoo, buying cough syrup, etc. Yet all of these activities cause less permanent damage than chemicals that permanently stop their natural development and turn them into lifelong medical patients,” Soye said. “Studies show that when allowed to experience natural puberty, 80-90% of children struggling with their identities will accept and thrive as their biological sex.”
“Children need true help and healing, not permanent harm,” she concluded.
“It’s time for us to stop experimenting on kid’s bodies,” Family Heritage Alliance Action Executive Director Norman Woods said in a statement Tuesday. “We have been perpetuating the dangerous lie that through medical intervention, we can change a person’s sex. This harmful idea, and the industry profiting from it, are leaving a trail of broken bodies in their wake.”
The American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota opposed the bill, claiming in a statement that it would “prohibit doctors from providing live-saving gender-affirming care to transgender South Dakotans.”
“Anytime policymakers spread lies and misinformation about trans people and their medical care, it’s dangerous,” Samantha Chapman, ACLU of South Dakota advocacy manager, said in a statement Tuesday.
Sanford Health did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment on the bill.
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20 January, 2023
The Catholic Church must free itself from this ‘toxic nightmare’
Shortly before he died recently, Cardinal George Pell wrote the following article under the above heading in which he denounced the Vatican’s plans for its forthcoming ‘Synod on Synodality’ as a ‘toxic nightmare’.
I am not a Catholic but I did think enough of Catholicism to send my son to a Catholic school. So I have considerable sympathy for what Pell wrote below. He is plainly an unapologetic advocate for traditional Catholic teaching
What he is up against is the South American "liberation theology" that Pope Francis brought with him to the Vatican. It is neo-Marxist claptrap that now seems to be spreading throughout the church. One can only hope that Francis soon fades from the scene one way or another. He is very infirm
The Catholic Synod of Bishops is now busy constructing what they think of as ‘God’s dream’ of synodality. Unfortunately this divine dream has developed into a toxic nightmare despite the bishops’ professed good intentions.
They have produced a 45-page booklet which presents its account of the discussions of the first stage of ‘listening and discernment’, held in many parts of the world, and it is one of the most incoherent documents ever sent out from Rome.
While we thank God that Catholic numbers around the globe, especially in Africa and Asia are increasing, the picture is radically different in Latin America with losses to the Protestants as well as the secularists.
With no sense of irony, the document is entitled ‘Enlarge the Space of Your Tent’, and the aim of doing so is to accommodate, not the newly baptised —those who have answered the call to repent and believe — but anyone who might be interested enough to listen. Participants are urged to be welcoming and radically inclusive: ‘No one is excluded’.
The document does not urge even the Catholic participants to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:16-20), much less to preach the Saviour in season and out of season (2 Timothy 4:2).
The first task for everyone and especially the teachers, is to listen in the Spirit. According to this recent update of the good news, ‘synodality’ as a way of being for the Church is not to be defined, but just to be lived. It revolves around five creative tensions, starting from radical inclusion and moving towards mission in a participatory style, practicing ‘co-responsibility with other believers and people of good will’. Difficulties are acknowledged, such as war, genocide and the gap between clergy and laity, but all can be sustained, say the Bishops, by a lively spirituality.
The image of the Church as an expanding tent with the Lord at its centre comes from Isaiah, and the point of it is to emphasise that this expanding tent is a place where people are heard and not judged, not excluded.
So we read that the people of God need new strategies; not quarrels and clashes but dialogue, where the distinction between believers and unbelievers is rejected. The people of God must actually listen, it insists, to the cry of the poor and of the earth.
Because of differences of opinion on abortion, contraception, the ordination of women to the priesthood and homosexual activity, some felt that no definitive positions on these issues can be established or proposed. This is also true of polygamy, and divorce and remarriage.
However the document is clear on the special problem of the inferior position of women and the dangers of clericalism, although the positive contribution of many priests is acknowledged.
What is one to make of this potpourri, this outpouring of New Age good will? It is not a summary of Catholic faith or New Testament teaching. It is incomplete, hostile in significant ways to the apostolic tradition and nowhere acknowledges the New Testament as the Word of God, normative for all teaching on faith and morals. The Old Testament is ignored, patriarchy rejected and the Mosaic Law, including the Ten Commandments, is not acknowledged.
Two points can be made initially. The two final synods in Rome in 2023 and ’24 will need to clarify their teaching on moral matters, as the Relator (chief writer and manager) Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich has publicly rejected the basic teachings of the Church on sexuality, on the grounds that they contradict modern science. In normal times this would have meant that his continuing as Relator was inappropriate, indeed impossible.
The synods have to choose whether they are servants and defenders of the apostolic tradition on faith and morals, or whether their discernment compels them to assert their sovereignty over Catholic teaching. They must decide whether basic teachings on things like priesthood and morality can be parked in a pluralist limbo where some choose to redefine sins downwards and most agree to differ respectfully.
Outside the synod, discipline is loosening – especially in Northern Europe, where a few bishops have not been rebuked, even after asserting a bishop’s right to dissent; a de facto pluralism already exists more widely in some parishes and religious orders on things like blessing homosexual activity.
Diocesan bishops are the successors of the apostles, the chief teacher in each diocese and the focus of local unity for their people and of universal unity around the Pope, the successor of Peter. Since the time of St Irenaeus of Lyon, the bishop is also the guarantor of continuing fidelity to Christ’s teaching, the apostolic tradition. They are governors and sometimes judges, as well as teachers and sacramental celebrants, and are not just wall flowers or rubber stamps.
‘Enlarge the Tent’ is alive to the failings of bishops, who sometimes do not listen, have autocratic tendencies and can be clericalist and individualist. There are signs of hope, of effective leadership and cooperation, but the document opines that pyramid models of authority should be destroyed and the only genuine authority comes from love and service. Baptismal dignity is to be emphasised, not ministerial ordination and governance styles should be less hierarchical and more circular and participative.
The main actors in all Catholic synods (and councils) and in all Orthodox synods have been the bishops. In a gentle, cooperative way this should be asserted and put into practice at the continental synods so that pastoral initiatives remain within the limits of sound doctrine. Bishops are not there simply to validate due process and offer a ‘nihil obstat’ to what they have observed.
None of the synod’s participants, lay, religious, priest or bishop are well served by the synod ruling that voting is not allowed and propositions cannot be proposed. To pass on only the organising committee’s views to the Holy Father for him to do as he decides is an abuse of synodality, a sidelining of the bishops, which is unjustified by scripture or tradition. It is not due process and is liable to manipulation.
By an enormous margin, regularly worshipping Catholics everywhere do not endorse the present synod findings. Neither is there much enthusiasm at senior Church levels. Continued meetings of this sort deepen divisions and a knowing few can exploit the muddle and good will. The ex-Anglicans among us are right to identify the deepening confusion, the attack on traditional morals and the insertion into the dialogue of neo-Marxist jargon about exclusion, alienation, identity, marginalisation, the voiceless, LGBTQ as well as the displacement of Christian notions of forgiveness, sin, sacrifice, healing, redemption. Why the silence on the afterlife of reward or punishment, on the four last things; death and judgement, heaven and hell?
So far the synodal way has neglected, indeed downgraded the Transcendent, covered up the centrality of Christ with appeals to the Holy Spirit and encouraged resentment, especially among participants.
Working documents are not part of the magisterium. They are one basis for discussion; to be judged by the whole people of God and especially by the bishops with and under the Pope. This working document needs radical changes. The bishops must realise that there is work to be done, in God’s name, sooner rather than later.
https://spectator.com.au/2023/01/the-catholic-church-must-free-itself-from-this-toxic-nightmare
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London Neuters a Scottish Gender Swap Law
Lest anyone think America has a lock on the culture wars, a decision by the British government to block Scotland from passing a law pertaining to subjective gender identification will prove otherwise.
The Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has said that the issue “will inevitably end up in court” given that “the Scottish government will vigorously defend this legislation.”
The Gender Recognition Reform Bill would have allowed people aged 16 or older in Scotland to change the gender designation on their identity documents by self-declaration, removing the need for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria. The age at which one is currently permitted to effect such a sweeping personal change is 18.
The bill, viewed in some quarters as radical, would have gone even further by slashing the amount of time transgender people are required to live in a different expressed gender before the change could be legally recognized, to three months for adults or six months for people ages 16 and 17. The requirement is now two full years. In the rest of the United Kingdom, individuals seeking an alternative gender identification must obtain the relevant medical diagnosis before they can make that transition legally.
Amid the choppy cultural currents in Britain, there were also fractious politics at play. That is because while Scotland’s government is devolved and semi-autonomous, on Monday — for the first time — the British government invoked Section 35 of the Scotland Act to veto the bill. The reasoning was that it could undermine U.K.-wide equality legislation that guarantees women and girls access to single-sex spaces. This is also an emerging and highly contentious issue in America, where one’s choice of restroom is now fraught with political overtones.
Opponents of the bill have argued that gender self-recognition could allow predatory men to gain access to spaces that are intended for women. Advocates of the law say that fear is overblown. Yet as the Spectator noted, “in truth the Scottish National Party (SNP) wants to institutionalize in law a borderline religious idea that many people simply do not accept — namely, that we all have something called a ‘gender identity’” and that “erasing the idea of ‘woman’ erases a woman’s liberties, specifically her liberty to associate with her own sex and her own sex only.”
The British secretary for Scotland, Alister Jack, said of the bill that it “also risks creating significant complications from having two different gender recognition regimes in the U.K. and allowing more fraudulent or bad faith applications.”
It is a heated issue, indeed: A ruckus erupted on Tuesday in the House of Commons, when Conservative and SNP lawmakers sparred and an opposition Labor legislator, Rosie Duffield, was heckled by members of her own party after she commended the Tory intervention.
Ms. Sturgeon, for her part, sees this as part of a two-sided battle. “A U.K. government wanting to undermine the Scottish parliament and choosing an issue where they think they can stoke some kind of culture war, and that’s what it is about,” she said. “And in doing that, they’re undermining devolution … but they’re also weaponizing a stigmatized, vulnerable, often marginalized group in our society.”
Yet as the Spectator also observed, “the bigotry belongs to those who wish to force women to accept men in their spaces and who damn as a ‘TERF’ (ie, a witch) any woman who dares object.” The acronym TERF stands for “trans exclusionary radical feminist.”
Another remarkable aspect of the controversy is how most of the press appeared to line up in favor of the Scottish “reform.” Consider a headline from Bloomberg: “Scotland’s Gender Bill Blocked by Rishi Sunak, Stoking Nationalist Ire.” Such verbiage telegraphs that what Westminster did was wrong.
It is not only pro-Tory publications like the Spectator that disagree. While a spate of countries like Argentina and Canada have legalized gender self-recognition, not everyone is on board with what is perceived in many places as ideologically driven social engineering. In Hungary, the Hungarian Children Protection Act that was passed in 2021 was branded a “shame” by the EU chief, Ursula von der Leyen, and as anti-gay by many others. However, Budapest’s law neither prohibited homosexuality nor impeded the right of transgender people to transition as adults. It outlawed gender reassignment for minors under the age of 18.
Writing in the Hungarian Conservative, Kai Jäger stated that “critics who point out that the transgender orthodoxy violates women’s rights or rests on questionable arguments and evidence are regularly ostracized or face substantial social costs,” adding that the Hungarian Children Protection Act is “a reasonable response to protect minors from the excesses of transgenderism that we now witness on a regular basis in many Western countries.”
https://www.nysun.com/article/london-neuters-a-scottish-gender-swap-law-warns-on-cake
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Woman Who Was Offered Abortion Says Choosing Life for Her Daughter Was the ‘Best Decision’ She Ever Made
A real woman
A career-driven 25-year-old living in New York City was initially terrified and scared to discover that she was pregnant. However, she was more shocked when her doctor defaulted to offering an abortion. Seeing her fully formed baby at 12 weeks, the woman was sure she wanted her baby and believes it to be her best decision so far.
Hannah Finn, now 28, is a senior recruiter in the healthcare IT industry. She lives in Orlando, Florida, where she was born and raised, with her 3-year-old daughter, Tara Mary, husband, Matt, and a dog named Nash.
However, when Hannah found out she was pregnant on Feb. 21, 2019, life was different.
The Lord’s Armor
“I was really focused on advancing my career, but also on my social life. I lived in a beautiful apartment, had some great friends, and selfishly, was pretty focused on myself,” Hannah told The Epoch Times.
Hannah was “terrified, shaking, and scared” upon reading the result of her pregnancy test. “But this inkling of joy that came over me was much more powerful,” she said. “I looked out at the twinkling New York City lights and could feel my life and body changing … I felt as though the Lord was putting armor on me, preparing me for the journey I was about to embark on.”
That evening, Hannah broke the news to Tara’s biological father.
Four days later, Hannah and her baby’s biological father attended their first OB appointment. As soon as Hannah explained their situation to the doctor, her demeanor changed and she began to suggest options.
“I was shocked and confused when she started talking about the ‘ladies uptown’ who could perform an abortion for me, and how nice they were, and how I could go today,” Hannah said.
Upon hearing that Hannah thought she was eight weeks pregnant, the doctor had yet another suggestion: the abortion pill.
“She said, ‘You will take the first one there and then the other at home, where, you know, you’ll just have like a heavy period after. Easy,'” Hannah said, adding, “Staring at her in horror, I asked if we could just move along with this appointment first. I had yet to see my baby … I never asked about abortion, or showed any signs of curiosity on the subject.”
‘The Most Beautiful Sight’
Hannah’s ultrasound revealed that she was already 12 weeks pregnant. She recalled her doctor’s hesitation to show her the screen, but eventually, she spun it around.
“I saw the most beautiful sight I had ever seen,” Hannah said. “My baby was a fully-formed, heart beating, fingerprinted, legged, and armed human being. At the end of the appointment, [the doctor] noticed the tears in my eyes and saw my dedication to the baby, so she started pointing out the little wave Tara gave us, prescribed me prenatal vitamins, and finally said, ‘Congratulations.'”
The suggestion to abort her baby had been hard for Hannah to hear; she grew up pro-life in a Catholic family and always believed that life begins at conception.
She said: “I was looking at the screen and there was a perfect, waving, living baby moving around … I loved her so much, I couldn’t fathom just ripping her life away, a life with potential and beauty. God created her and sent her to me, entrusting me to take care of her and hand-selecting me as her mother.”
Although she knew she had disappointed her parents, she asked herself how she could possibly be ashamed of the perfect child she had conceived. Despite the odds stacked against her as a single mother at that time, she knew things would fall into place.
‘Faith Was Everything’
The then-expectant mother found pregnancy physically challenging. She was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum, an intense morning sickness lasting all day. This meant that she could barely eat.
Throughout her pregnancy, Hannah enjoyed the support of her loving friends, attended confession, and spoke with priests. Then, at her younger sister’s suggestion, she made contact with a group of women that provided the ultimate sanctuary.
“She told me to contact the Sisters of Life, the community of Roman Catholic women who take a fourth vow to protect and enhance the sacredness of human life, aside from the typical three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience,” Hannah said.
Although they were in New York City, Hannah was hesitant to contact them at first. She thought to herself that she didn’t need anything from them since she had a job, family, and friends.
“It wasn’t until I realized that my heart was in need, and that’s what mattered,” Hannah said. “I remember when I visited their website, in the upper left-hand corner there was a tab that read, ‘Pregnant? Need help?’ and I clicked on it.”
Hannah then met up with two Sisters and, over tea, poured out her heart and soul. She felt seen and heard like never before.
“They immediately loved me and told me that I was worthy … they told me none of this was accidental and they were proud of me,” Hannah said. “As the next couple weeks went by and I met with some of the other Sisters at the convent, where a few single moms and their babies lived, I realized this was the perfect step for me to take for my motherhood.”
The convent had one room available. Hannah moved in there for a transformative experience and took the time to become friendly with the Sisters and help them with other moms, who already had babies, at the house. She also accompanied them on other activities and attended mass with them.
Hannah strongly believes that “faith was everything” during her pregnancy journey.
“I had always been a faithful person, but now I really understood it,” Hannah said. “I was literally experiencing a miracle within my own body.”
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‘Tradwife’ trend says women must serve husbands, ditch careers: ‘The way it should be’
Regressed gender roles are being ushered in by way of the “tradwife” trend – “traditional wives” who are more apt to be homemakers and reject modern feminism.
The TikTok hashtag #TradWife has garnered 110.6 million views, as younger women post in support or in jest at the seemingly antiquated, fringe lifestyle.
“I’ve never believed that women should work full-time if a woman is married or has children,” 25-year-old Estee Williams, who has more than 35,000 followers on TikTok, told The Post. “We as women have realized we CAN compete with men. Yes, but at what cost?”
“I see women moving away from their roots to compete with men,” the Virginia-based tradwife added. “That’s not the way it should be. We are women and we need to embrace that.”
The concept of “tradwifery” was also linked to the values held in the traditionalist Catholic church, according to an article by the Political Research Associates, a social justice research group.
“In some circles, being a tradwife — short for ‘traditional wife’ — also means being a fundamentalist Christian, and accepting that women shouldn’t work, shouldn’t have the right to vote, and should fully submit to their husbands and their faith to live a happy life of homemaking,” the organization wrote.
For Williams, that especially rings true in her household.
“The Bible speaks of wives submitting and serving their husbands and being their husband’s helping mate,” said Williams, who touts the nuclear family as a guiding model. “The Bible talks specifically about gender roles, and I completely support traditional gender roles.”
A “misconception” about the tradwife movement is that the women who model the lifestyle are not choosing to be homemakers and are also attempting to impose it on others, TikToker Williams said in a video with over 660,000 views.
“Nobody’s pushing it; people are typically just living it,” she said in the video.
“Tradwives also believe that they should submit to their husbands and serve their husbands and family, and that triggers people because the words ‘submit’ and ‘serve’ – it makes women think that we’re saying we’re less than a man,” she continued in the clip. “That’s not what we’re saying.”
Instead, she insisted tradwives are just willing homemakers who hold “traditional values.” While she told The Post that both the traditional and “modern” woman – the latter of whom she describes as “career-oriented” and a “boss babe” – can coexist, maintaining a career and being a homemaker is just too difficult in her eyes.
“Being a traditional wife means disregarding society standards of women being career oriented and choosing to focus completely on your own family and their needs,” said Williams, who supports “traditional gender roles.”
Self-proclaimed tradwife Alexia Delarosa, 29, told the Daily Mail that her husband “doesn’t have any duties assigned to him,” and instead she completes the household chores alone. She said she was particularly drawn to the “’50s style family life” and wanted to model her own home similarly.
“Matthew loves to be at work, and I love to be at home taking care of things,” the San Diego mama said of her husband. “We both thrive in our roles and this arrangement works perfectly for us.”
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19 January, 2023
Shock! Church of England refuses to back same-sex marriage
This latest decision is a typical Anglican compromise -- with "blessing" ceremonies over homosexual weddings still allowed.
It is less of a compromise theologically, though: it recognizes marriage as a sacrament and denies that sacrament to homosexuals. So 2,000 years of Christian teaching are still honoured.
Cantuar's celebration of "diversity" is however both mindless and a defiance of Christ. Christ said: "Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life" (Matthew 7:13-14). Not much diversity there.
"Diversity" came into vogue as part of a SCOTUS decision authorizing racial discrimination: The Bakke decision of June 1978. In current American usage, "diverse" mostly means "black"
London: The Church of England says it will allow blessings for same-sex, civil marriages for the first time but same-sex couples still will not be allowed to marry in its churches.
The decision follows five years of debate and consultation on the church’s position on sexuality. It is expected to be outlined in a report to the church’s national assembly, the General Synod, which meets in London next month.
The decision to not allow same-sex marriages follows five years of debate within the Church of England.
The decision to not allow same-sex marriages follows five years of debate within the Church of England.CREDIT:AP
Under the proposals, the Church of England’s stance that the sacrament of matrimony is restricted to unions between one man and one woman will not change.
However, same-sex couples would be able to have a church service with prayers of dedication, thanksgiving or for God’s blessing after they have a civil wedding or register a civil partnership.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in England and Wales since 2013, but the church did not change its teaching when the law changed.
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the spiritual leader of the Anglican Church, acknowledged that the proposals “will appear to go too far for some and not nearly far enough for others.”
“This response reflects the diversity of views in the Church of England on questions of sexuality, relationships and marriage. I rejoice in that diversity and I welcome this way of reflecting it in the life of our church,” Welby said.
“I hope it can offer a way for the Church of England, publicly and unequivocally, to say to all Christians and especially LGBTQI+ people, that you are welcome and a valued and precious part of the body of Christ,” he added.
The church said bishops plan to issue a formal apology to LGBTQ people on Friday for the “rejection, exclusion and hostility” they have felt from within the church.
It said it would issue pastoral guidance to its ministers and congregations and urge them to welcome same-sex couples “unreservedly and joyfully.”
Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell apologised for “the way LGBTQI+ people and those they love have been treated by the church which, most of all, ought to recognise everyone as precious and created in the image of God.”
“We are deeply sorry and ashamed and want to take this opportunity to begin again in the spirit of repentance which our faith teaches us,” he said. “This is not the end of that journey, but we have reached a milestone, and I hope that these prayers of love and faith can provide a way for us all to celebrate and affirm same-sex relationships.”
Cottrell said the proposals will not be “what everyone wants,” but further changes will require a legislative overhaul and there was currently no majority supporting such change.
Jayne Ozanne, a prominent campaigner for LGBTQ people in the church, said the bishops’ decision was “utterly despicable.”
“I cannot believe that five years of pain and trauma has got us here. We have had countless apologies over the years but no action to stop the harmful discrimination,” she tweeted.
The General Synod is expected to discuss the proposals in detail during its February 6 to February 9 meeting.
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Chaplain Who Was Told to Remove Half-Inch Cross Pin or Face Consequences Remains Firm to His Faith
A Christian chaplain has received a formal apology from the nonprofit he worked for after being threatened with consequences for continuing to wear a tiny cross pin badge that they thought may “create a barrier” with patients. However, the chaplain defended his choice to the end and stood firm in his faith.
Former businessman Derek Timms, 73, of Solihull in England, has worked as a chaplain for the U.K.-based hospice charity Marie Curie for the past five years, providing care and support to patients of terminal illness and their families. He has worn a half-inch gold pin badge depicting the Christian cross for 14 years, including at work. But in September, his choice was challenged by the new management.
After the Solihull branch announced they would be changing the job titles of chaplains to “spiritual advisors” as part of an interfaith approach, Timms received a written instruction from a new Methodist minister: he should refrain from wearing his cross, in line with the ethos of hospice and healthcare chaplaincy.
“No religious symbols should be worn by those engaged in spiritual care,” read the minister’s letter, as detailed in a Christian Concern press release. “We need to be there for people of all faiths and none. Whilst I [recognized] you shared a story about one patient liking the cross you wore, it can create a barrier to others. The idea is that we should appear neutral, and that enables a spiritual encounter that is about what the person we are visiting needs.”
Timms, who lost his wife in early 2021 responded, asking whether the censoring of religious accessories also applied to people of other faith, adding, “My faith helps me to help the patients and staff, whether they have faith or not.”
The minister responded by suggesting Timms compromise by keeping his cross pin in his pocket unless he was sharing the room with another person of Christian faith.
Timms then searched but found no reference to the prohibition of wearing crosses in Marie Curie Solihull documentation, the code of conduct for healthcare chaplains, chaplaincy guidelines, or the chaplaincy code of conduct.
However, Timms reiterated in a face-to-face meeting with the minister on Sept. 20 that he believed he had done nothing wrong.
The minister said that based on the refusal to comply, Timms would need “re-training.” The back-and-forth eventually escalated to Timms being warned that unless he removed his cross pin, he could not work at Marie Curie as a chaplain.
Timms handed in his identification badge and left the premises.
With the support of the Christian Legal Centre, Timms wrote a letter to Marie Curie explaining how the controversy over his cross pin had led to “a crisis of conscience.”
“I have had a crisis of conscience since I received this request … I have serious and cogent reasons for wearing it and consider it a manifestation of my faith and a devotion to God,” Timms wrote. “The cross I wear around my neck is also highly meaningful to me as it represents a physical devotion to both my late wife, and to God, who brought us together and blessed our marriage.”
When the correspondence between the minister and the chaplain reached Marie Curie’s regional head office, a representative issued a formal apology in November 2022, to Timms, writing, “I can confirm that currently we have neither an organisational or uniform policy that would support our recent request to remove your cross while supporting patients and families in the Hospice. I apologise unreservedly for the distress that we have caused.”
Timms remains shocked and hurt by the ordeal.
“There was and is no need to suppress the symbol of the cross, and in so doing send a message that the Christian faith needs to be neutralised or removed entirely from a chaplaincy front line service,” he said. “When I became a Christian, I wanted to show people the faith that totally changed my life.”
Timms said no one was ever “offended” by his cross pin. He said that it has always been a privilege to support people of all and any faith through tough times. Timms appreciates the formal apology but now believes his service as a chaplain lies elsewhere.
“The easiest thing to do would have been to say, ‘I’ll take it off’, but I thought, ‘no’, I should be standing up for what I believe in,” he said.
Timms had the support of the Christian Legal Centre throughout his ordeal. Chief Executive Andrea Williams, said: “He showed great courage by refusing to cave in to the significant pressure to remove what mattered so much to him.”
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The emergence of an American NomenklaturaThe original Nomenklatura were the Soviet elite
Americans on the left, right, and center agree that America has too much inequality. They just can’t agree on what kind of inequality to complain about. Unable to agree on what the problem is, they cannot agree on the solution. Three different definitions of inequality are offered: economic inequality, cultural inequality, and inequality as demographic disparity.
Economic inequality is the focus of the remnants of the old socialist, social democratic, and labor left. Old-fashioned socialists propose to abolish the class system by abolishing class distinctions. Old-fashioned social democrats propose to ameliorate the class system by transforming basic needs—health care, education, housing, dependent care—from luxuries purchased out of after-tax wages into goods that are either publicly provided or subsidized by government. Old-fashioned labor liberals may support social democratic programs, but they are skeptical about the benign nature of government and would prefer to enhance the power of workers to use collective bargaining to raise their wages, minimizing their dependence on employers and government alike.
For their part, members of the new populist right tend to focus on inequality of cultural power in America. They correctly believe that every major institution in the United States, with the exception of directly elected officials—the judiciary, the civil service, the U.S. military, corporations, banks, corporate publishing, the corporate media, and the universities—has been captured by a semihereditary, college-educated overclass whose social views are well to the left of America’s working-class majority, white and nonwhite alike.
The managerial-professional overclass, a numerical minority, uses any institution under its control to impose its class culture and class values on the rest of American society, whether by purging conservative, libertarian, and leftist faculty and students from universities, canceling books and programs that dissent from overclass orthodoxy, or conditioning bank lending to firms and industries on promotion of overclass-approved social goals.
This brings us to the view of inequality promoted by the center. By “the center” I do not mean the actual center of opinion in the U.S. population as a whole. Such a national “center” would be slightly to the left on economics and slightly to the right on social values. What is called “the center” in American politics is the political center of gravity of the college-educated overclass minority: fairly libertarian in areas like trade, immigration, and deregulation, while supportive of radical liberal causes like “gender fluidity” and race and gender quotas for all institutions.
In the new orthodoxy of overclass centrism, inequality is identified with disparities in the representation of racial and gender groups (but not religious or class groups) in different occupations and income layers. The goal is not to eliminate class distinctions, or even to reduce the economic distance between classes. Rather, the goal of what is misleadingly called “equity” is to ensure that the share of the U.S. population of each race and gender identified by the most recent U.S. Census is replicated in all fields and all organizations. Hispanic Americans make up around 17% of the U.S. population; therefore, 17% of all sports teams and yoga schools must be Hispanic. Women are slightly more than half of the U.S. population; therefore, they must be slightly more than half of all engineers, construction workers, barbershop quartets, and special operations commandos. If any group is underrepresented in any class, category, or institution in American society, then it is “underserved.”
Women are slightly more than half of the U.S. population; therefore, they must be slightly more than half of all engineers, construction workers, barbershop quartets, and special operations commandos.
The mistake made by woke theorists of “structural racism” is to confuse two completely different things: the perpetuation of family privilege by inertia, generation after generation—which can occur in the absence of conscious or unconscious racism—and present-day racial discrimination. If today’s “anti-racists” were serious about reducing major disparities among white and Black Americans left over from slavery and segregation, they would not waste their efforts on “diversity training” designed to change the attitudes of contemporary white Americans, who are more liberal with respect to race than ever before. They would focus instead on broad, race-neutral economic reforms.
This was the view of the greatest civil rights leaders of the mid-20th century. In 1967, the A. Philip Randolph Institute published A “Freedom Budget” for All Americans. Note the phrase “All Americans.” Implicitly rejecting the idea of reparations for American descendants of slaves, the proponents of the Freedom Budget—including Martin Luther King Jr., who wrote the foreword—argued for race-neutral job creation and benefits policies that, although they would disproportionately help the Black poor, would also help whites, who then as now made up a numerical majority of the poor in the United States. In the introduction, Randolph wrote:
These forces have not come together to demand help for the Negro. Rather, we meet on a common ground of determination that in this, the richest and most productive society ever known to man, the scourge of poverty can and must be abolished … The tragedy is that the working of our economy so often pit the white poor and the black poor against each other at the bottom of society.
King, Randolph, and Bayard Rustin—among other civil rights leaders of the ’60s who favored race-neutral job creation programs—would have been appalled by a new program backed by the Oakland, California, city council. The Oakland program uses private funds to give $500 a month to “Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) families … with low incomes and at least 1 child under 18, regardless of documentation status,” according to the funder, Oakland Resilient Families. Poor residents of Oakland defined as “non-Hispanic whites” would not be eligible for the universal basic income, but foreign nationals who sneaked into the United States or overstayed their visa and remain in violation of federal law would be rewarded with monthly payments even if they do not work.
The price of the Freedom Budget doomed it at the time, and its details were designed for the midcentury manufacturing economy. While programs must change with the times, in principle the old-fashioned labor left that inspired the Freedom Budget has always been right about how to address the lingering aftermath of American apartheid. They were correct that reducing the legacy of historic discrimination by reducing class differences in life outcomes and opportunities requires a race-neutral approach.
For example, different minimum wages for Black, Hispanic, white, Asian American, and Native American workers would be an administrative impossibility, even if it were not also a moral monstrosity. So would collective bargaining on the basis of race or gender, rather than occupation or industry. The poor, hungry descendants of Confederate planters deserve access to food stamps as much as the poor, hungry descendants of those the planters tyrannized—today they are all poor and hungry, and while the Nazis revived the barbaric concept of hereditary guilt, it is alien and repugnant to all liberal societies.
The mainstream liberal coalition of the civil rights era was right that race-neutral economic reform, not race-and-gender quotas, was and is the necessary sequel to desegregation in America. For its part, the new populist right is correct that power exercised through private corporations, private nonprofits, and private media institutions is still power. If an oppressive national oligarchy uses nongovernmental bureaucracies to impose its moral and political agenda on society without the need to pass laws, then it is perfectly legitimate for America’s multiracial majority, through its elected representatives, to use the only institution in which ordinary people are at least partly represented—elective government.
Even if elected officials fail in their battles with the oligarchy, they can provide voices for the voiceless. Thanks to a kind of parliamentary immunity, elected politicians in the United States are still allowed to raise questions about the dogmas of overclass orthodoxy, from gender fluidity to open borders to police abolition to race and gender quotas, which might get ordinary Americans fired from their jobs in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. The floors of Congress and the state legislatures may be the last zones of free speech and free thought in woke capitalism’s America.
It remains to be seen if the traditional labor left’s critique of economic inequality and the populist right’s critique of inequality of cultural power can be united in a new majoritarian alliance to defeat the divide-and-rule identity politics strategy of America’s pseudo-centrist oligarchy. Failure to do so means the entrenchment of both economic and cultural inequality under a national nomenklatura that is more profit-minded than its Soviet predecessor but no more tolerant of dissent or debate.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/inequality-michael-lind
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Black attorneys slam San Francisco's 'outrageous, unconstitutional and unlawful' reparations plan to hand longtime black residents $5m each -especially when California wasn't even a slave state
Black attorneys have slammed San Francisco's reparations committee for its proposal to give every longtime black resident a $5million payout in the summer.
Leo Terrell and former California gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder called the proposal 'outrageous, unconstitutional and unlawful' and even racist in an interview on Fox News' Hannity Monday night - and vowed to fight it.
They demanded to know who is going to fund the large payout — estimated to cost the city at least $50billion — noting that California was never a slave state.
But the woke city is already preparing to move forward with the proposal, with the reparations committee saying it will submit the plan to Mayor London Breed, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the San Francisco Human Rights Commission in June.
Under the proposal announced Monday, anyone who has identified as black on public records for at least 10 years and is at least 18 years old qualifies for the $5million payout.
They also must qualify for two of a number of requirements, including having been born in the city or migrated to it between 1940 and 1996 and then lived there for 13 years.
But the $5million payout is just the beginning of the draft's proposals.
It would also involve a lump sum payment to 'compensate the affected population for the decades of harms that they have experienced, and will redress the economic and opportunity losses that Black San Franciscans have endured, collectively, as the result of both intentional decisions and unintended harms perpetuated by City policy.'
The proposal also says qualifying low-income households should have their income supplemented to match the city's median income - $97,000 in 2022 - for the next 250 years.
And black residents who qualify for the program can get their debts forgiven, including their housing and student loans.
A number of other proposals include investment in San Francisco's black community, financial education, legal protections of people's reparations, tax credits, and black-owned banks being brought in to manage people's money.
The proposal says San Francisco must 'issue a formal apology for past harms, and commit to making substantial ongoing, systemic and programmatic investments in Black communities to address historical harms.'
Terrell and Elder, though, say the plan is racist — using taxpayer money to provide black people with funds unavailable to residents of other races.
As Elder described it: 'Reparations is the extraction of money from people who were never slave owners to people who were never slaves.'
Terrell, a Fox News contributor, is vowing to fight against the proposed measure.
'It's not ever going to get implemented,' he told guest host Pete Hegseth. 'I'll be the first lawyer to fight against this.' He continued: 'This is outrageous. It's unlawful. It's unconstitutional. It's racist. But it's not surprising it came from California on the day of MLK's birthday.
'We're talking about a racist program to benefit individuals who happen to be black — $5million,' Terrell said, noting, 'California was a free state.
'Who's going to pay for it?' he asked. 'Why should they get $5million? Because of skin color? It's insulting.'
Elder, who ran for governor in 2021, also noted that California was never a slave state and San Francisco was never a slave city.
'Furthermore, slavery was a Democratic institution. Why don't Democrats pay?' he asked, rhetorically. 'Jim Crow was a Democratic institution. Why don't Democrats pay?'
He went on to claim that 'very few Republicans owned slaves,' and asked why Republicans should 'pay a dime.
'The whole thing is absolutely insulting.'
Both attorneys accused the Democrats in charge in the woke city of 'playing the race card,' with Terrell saying: 'They need to keep blacks on the government payroll because, without the black population, there is no Democratic Party.
'They have a race card issue and they're never going to let that card go,' he said.
'This country has no systemic racism,' he claimed. 'That's something in 1955. In 2023, we have no institutional racism.
'But you can't tell that to a Democrat.'
Advocates of the proposal say it is necessary to right the wrongs of previous generations, that are still affecting black communities today.
In a draft report issued last month, the San Francisco Reparations Advisory Committee said the proposal will 'address the public policies explicitly created to subjugate black people in San Francisco by upholding and expanding the intent and legacy of chattel slavery.
'While neither San Francisco nor California adopted the institution of chattel slavery, the tenets of segregation, white supremacy and systemic repression and exclusion of black people were codified through legal and extralegal actions, social codes and judicial enforcement.
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18 January, 2023
Andrew Tate does offer something that many men need
Sadly. And going easy on the feminist hate speech about men would help to moderate his appeal. Nobody likes to feel hated and despised, including men. Tate is a response to anti-man hate. He throws the contempt back. And those who see themselves as victims of a feminized society like that. Because he does answer a need, he is very influential among many young males
Unless you’ve been hiding under a pile of unrecycled pizza boxes for the past month, you’ll no doubt be wearily familiar with the name Andrew Tate. At the time of writing, the 36-year-old former kickboxer remains in custody in Romania, after being arrested alongside his brother as part of an investigation into human trafficking, rape and organised crime. But despite the horror of his alleged offences, it’s Tate’s public position as an influencer and internet personality that has sparked concern across the UK.
As far as both sexists and grifters go, Tate is audaciously honest about his game: as well as describing himself as “absolutely a misogynist”, he can also be found on camera admitting that the brothers’ webcam business – in which models take calls from fans in exchange for money – is a “total scam”. He claims that victims of sexual assault should “bear responsibility” for their attacks, that women are men’s property, and so on; views that are becoming so popular among boys that many schools are now hosting special assemblies to try and tackle them. In some ways this can be viewed as the endgame of the Trump era, where traditional right-wing dog whistles have been replaced with explicit calls to bigotry and violence.
Where Tate’s philosophy is more insidious – and where he arguably shares an allyship with other lifestyle influencers who might publicly baulk at the comparison – is in what it claims to offer the young men who encounter it. You know the one: the capitalist wet dream that tells men that they too can amass a collection of sports cars, supermodels and tedious podcast appearances if they just follow the advice of the magic bald man – at a price, naturally.
Ali Ross is an existential psychotherapist who often speaks to men struggling to find their place in the world. Despite the aggressive language of such influencers, he believes that what makes them so appealing to men isn’t just the invective, but the comforting message that sits at the heart of their narratives: it’s not your fault. “The reason why men connect with what people like Tate are saying is because they’re feeling disenfranchised and misunderstood,” he explains. “But like many men, they don’t know how to be vulnerable, how to review their choices or take responsibility for their lives.”
Even weapons-grade shade like Greta Thunberg’s isn’t likely to change the minds of their acolytes, but instead often reinforces the idea that the other side – in this case, essentially, left-wing women – are hostile and threatening. Whether the promise is money, fame or happiness, self-appointed “alpha male” influencers like Tate offer vulnerable young men a hand on the shoulder (“no homo, obviously”) when they perceive the Thunbergs of the world to be offering a barrage of slaps to the face.
When the thing you need most in the world is to hear someone say that they feel your pain, that becomes an addictive drug that influencers are keen to peddle. In fact, it’s essential for the scam to work. Ross explains: “When you have somebody saying, ‘It’s not your fault, it’s the system, men need to go back to their true primitive role,’ it invites the suggestion that there is certainty; that there’s something men are supposed to be and supposed to do.”
Being understood takes away some of that rage
Generational divide is a key storytelling facet of almost every corner of the “manosphere”, the loose web of right-wing, acronym-obsessed groups who oppose feminism and claim to advocate for men – these include MRAs (Men’s Rights Activists), MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way), PUAs (Pick-Up Artists), and incels (involuntary celibates). As they tell it, men were once “real men”, who stalked the earth in an unspecified halcyon era of masculine dominance, chain-smoking cigars and coming home to subservient, family-oriented wives who also understood their place in the world.
While many men may feel confused about how to express their identity within the complex framework of masculinity today, the conservative fantasy that older generations were happy and secure in their roles remains a potent myth. “In fact, if you ask men of a generation or two further back who are willing to be open and honest, a lot of them didn’t actually have very happy relationships being in that clear fixed role,” Ross says. He cites Willy Loman, the protagonist in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, as an example of the lives that frequently played out behind closed doors: “He’s utterly miserable, but determined to be the provider, this embodiment of the American dream. And it’s killing him.”
Part of what can make MRA narratives so appealing is that they acknowledge the rates of depression, suicide and incarceration in men – figures which are real and terrifying – but then weave a fictitious global conspiracy around them. Tate occasionally talks, in paranoid terms, of “the matrix” coming to get him, implying an Illuminati-style conspiracy in which the world is neatly divided into heroic truth-tellers (such as the ones who throw money at bored-looking women in bizarrely low-budget rap videos) and the shady liberal elite who want to silence them.
With that in mind, the most powerful weapon in our arsenal remains our compassion. “That’s where therapy can come in so well: to help people recognise that uncertainty is a part of being alive,” Ross says. “You don’t have a role, and even if someone does prescribe a role to you, there’s nothing to say that’s going to fit you just because of your sex or gender. It is actually down to you, so let’s look at what you actually want for yourself.”
It’s also going to require men speaking to other men about their feelings, as daunting as that prospect may be. School interventions are a great idea, but maybe we need to be taking a more proactive approach to offer that hand on the shoulder from our educators – before the millionaire grifters get to them first. Let’s shout it louder, for the people at the back, that the patriarchy hurts men too, and the twin goals of feminism and men’s mental health can and should be working to uplift each other. They’re not in competition.
The battle won’t be won on the soft liberal platform of hugs and therapy alone. It’s vital that misogyny is called out and fought wherever it’s encountered, and not always in polite, hand-wringing niceties. But if there’s to be any hope of pulling young men back from the brink of perpetually viewing women as the enemy of their wealth and happiness, it’s going to take earlier and kinder interventions too.
“In being vulnerable with men as another man, it helps to show them that it’s possible to be emotional, and that there is something beautiful and courageous about being vulnerable, rather than believing you’ve got it all figured out and it’s just the system that’s not giving you the space to flourish,” Ross says. “Being understood takes away some of that rage; it makes them feel connected and even loved. I would like to think that when people experience love in the face of feeling overlooked or misunderstood, their venom dissipates.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/andrew-tate-manosphere-influencers-b2261515.html
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From Gender Gingerbread Persons to ‘Privilege Bingo,’ Feds Squander Millions on Cult of Diversity Training
Taxpayer dollars are being spent to conduct widespread, woke diversity training sessions across numerous prominent federal agencies.
That’s what a Wall Street Journal report on a Freedom of Information Act request revealed Dec. 30. The information gathered comes from 2021.
At this point, it’s difficult to be surprised by the findings, but it’s still notable. When someone says “trust the experts” in government, just think of the following:
“The Department of Veterans Affairs has a gender gingerbread person,” the Journal’s editorial board wrote. “NASA says beware of micro-inequities. And if U.S. Army servicewomen express ‘discomfort showering with a female who has male genitalia,’ what’s the brass’s reply? Talk to your commanding officer, but toughen up.”
The report highlights how the cult of diversity, equity, and inclusion has been established and codified in our federal government during President Joe Biden’s tenure. One of Biden’s early efforts was a DEI executive order to establish a “government-wide initiative to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in all parts of the federal workforce.”
The agencies jumped into action.
Unlike under Republican administrations, when bureaucrats refuse to comply with even the simplest demands of the apostate executive, the bureaucracy springs into action for Democratic presidents of the true faith.
What’s striking is that even the most serious parts of our federal government, like the Department of Homeland Security, NASA, and the military, now have programs to comply with this “great awokening.”
“The U.S. Army offered three modules on transgender policy, one for ‘Commanders at all levels,’ another for ‘Special Staff,’ and a third for ‘Units and Soldiers.’” the Journal reported. “Notable is a series of vignettes that cover pronoun usage, urinalysis observation, and a serviceman who wants ‘to discuss his newly confirmed pregnancy.’”
This is the kind of nonsense that even our military now devotes time to.
The Department of Veteran Affairs really does use a gender gingerbread person in a training program about managing gender diversity. There’s more, per the Journal:
The VA’s “Managing Gender Diversity” training has sections on pronouns and embracing “gender-expansiveness.” One slide lists terms, including “gender fluid” and “pansexual,” while instructing: “List your personal ‘biases’ in the BIAS box.” A game of “PRIVILEGE BINGO” includes such items as “NO CRIMINAL RECORD,” “MILITARY EXPERIENCE,” and “MARRIED.”
Remember when people thought all the college campus “microaggressions” nonsense would stop when kids grew up and got a real job? Well, they got real jobs in business and government, and are using their power to ensure that every aspect of our society reflects their warped ethos.
NASA literally has a tipsheet devoted to microaggressions.
Here are some examples: “‘Asking an Asian person to help with a math or science problem,’ as well as saying, ‘America is a melting pot.’ A slide deck on inclusive language suggests nixing ‘the poor’ and substituting ‘people dealing with economic hardship.’”
Stargazing has been replaced by navel-gazing at NASA, it seems.
No wonder Elon Musk’s SpaceX is making most of the interesting advancements in space exploration these days.
The lesson from this trove of absurdities, the Journal’s editorial board noted, “is that there is now a conveyor belt from academia to the diversity-industrial complex. The portmanteau ‘misogynoir’ was coined in 2010 on a blog called Crunk Feminist Collective. Eleven years later it’s in a training (sic) for government workers.”
This investigation brings up a serious question for America in 2023. Are we so rich, so powerful, and so secure in our position in the world that we can devote a large share of our resources—economic, financial, and human—to this nonsense?
Our government now operates more like a secular theocracy, with an emphasis on rooting out heresy and reinforcing its ideology in every way, large and small. Again, how long can we get away with this? Saying “diversity is our strength” over and over again doesn’t make it so.
The United States, by geography, by government tradition, and by the culture of a great people went from a small group of sparsely populated colonies on the edge of civilization to the world’s first global superpower in just a few centuries. We’ve amassed almost unfathomable wealth for a vast middle class. Our accomplishments in the 20th century alone are staggering and place us at the pinnacle of the world’s greatest civilizations.
Imagine if things had been reversed, if all the men whose statues activists and our modern institutions tore down and melted down were replaced by the new man—or “womyn” or whatever—of today raised in a culture of grievance and coddled minds. The privilege of our country’s past success has afforded us the luxury to obsess over privilege.
This can’t last forever, though. Even in just the past few years, as vast parts of our society became comfortable with mediocrity, and as our economy groans under the weight of debt and inflation, the cracks have begun to show.
Perhaps this is a sign that we will slip into a new dark age of our own making, where hard times are made by weak men. Then again, maybe the overwhelming and uncompromising nature of this threat will further spark opposition by Americans who see this movement for what it is and know that the hour is late to save the republic.
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The Death of Merit
America has always been a land of opportunity. That’s because our nation was founded as a meritocracy, the wellspring of excellence. This concept is central to American exceptionalism.
The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written in a time when almost the entire world was governed by systems of monarchy, absolutism or outright dictatorships that rarely, if ever, recognized individual merit. In this regard, America’s founding was indeed exceptional.
Leftists detest America’s meritocracy. The reason is simple: recognizing merit means there will be winners and losers, a fact that motivates all of us to try harder with a belief in and reliance upon oneself.
Those who exhibit greater merit - through hard work, resourcefulness, perseverance, innate aptitude and so forth - usually enjoy more success. Meritocracy motivates us to individualism and excellence, and is hardwired into the DNA of the human race.
The polar opposite of meritocracy is equality of outcome, which requires the entire society, save for political and cultural elites, to exist at the lowest common denominator. It is the foundation of socialist and communist dictatorships, enforced through violence, because totalitarians know that living life at the lowest common denominator is contrary to human nature and natural law.
It is no secret that merit is not now, nor has it ever been, universally recognized. The first lesson my father taught me as a very young child was “life isn’t fair,” and time has proved him correct. But the periodic unfairness of life doesn’t mean meritocracies are bad. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, meritocracies are the worst form of society except for all the others that have been tried.
In making the case against merit, some conflate it with nepotism and fraud, both of which are antithetical to merit. The Harvard Gazette exemplifies this philosophical sleight of hand through this excerpt from Michael Sandel’s book The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?
A recent article in The Atlantic by Xochitl Gonzales is more to the point, if not more eloquent, in its condemnation of merit. She simply declares it cow manure, only in less polished language.
In recent days, we’ve learned that schools in Virginia have deliberately withheld notification that certain students achieved recognition as National Merit Scholars, which is a very big deal for teenagers applying to college.
Medical schools are diluting their curricula by diverting attention away from medicine and towards ideology in pursuit of identity politics. Merit in the healing arts is being replaced by the appearance and opinions of students.
Nobody wants to be operated on by a surgeon who has not demonstrated merit. Nobody wants paperboys or lawyers or plumbers or auto mechanics who do not demonstrate merit. If you want to see what America would look like without merit, look no farther than academia. It’s littered with maladroit people who are not burdened by excellence.
Authoritarians need to attack merit. It is a means of defiling individual effort and reducing society to a collective level that nobody would want to live in. That’s because merit is natural and equality of outcome is entirely unnatural. Supplanting merit with equality of outcome invariably results in a culture that resides somewhere between tragic and deadly.
The destruction of merit is more than an attack on natural law and American society. It’s also an attack on the biblical precepts of human behavior. The Bible has plenty to say about how to live our lives through effort and merit, going back as far as the time of King Solomon.
The book of Ecclesiastes establishes the link between hard work and happiness. “Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart,” writes the author. He goes on to tell us to enjoy our lives, “because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might.”
The Old Testament provides a millennia-old endorsement of effort and merit, older than Christianity. Yes, the concept of merit is natural and biblical, but it is also indispensable to a free and well-functioning society.
Rational people celebrate merit because it is good. Those who demean it are perverse and seek only to deprive us of our dignity. To American Leftists, the collective is more important than the individual who seeks excellence by demonstrating merit, so merit must be killed.
One remaining bastion of merit in America is professional sports. Team owners and fans will not tolerate meritless people playing in the NFL, the NBA or any other league. That is why I am a writer and not a receiver for the Minnesota Vikings; I lack the merit for that role. We do not tolerate equality of outcome in professional sports and it should not be tolerated anywhere else in society.
We are witnessing the slow death of merit in America, and it’s being done for degenerate political purposes. The fight is engaged by totalitarians and normal Americans need to join that fight if we’re going to preserve it.
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Mainstream media now totally woke
We are living through arguably one of the greatest divides the Western world has ever experienced and on the night of December 2, 2022, this divide went nuclear, courtesy of Elon Musk. It’s the great Mainstream Media (MSM) divide and it consists of a disconnect between those who consume news from MSM exclusively and those who consume news from both mainstream and so-called ‘alternative’ news sources.
Those who consume MSM exclusively remain oblivious to a plethora of important news stories; at the tip of the iceberg are the Hunter Biden Laptop scandal in America and the Rotherham grooming scandal in the UK. This lack of knowledge of these two stories alone is appalling and indeed unprecedented in living memory.
Speak to an average Australian who consumes only MSM news and they will not have heard of Rotherham. Nor would they be remotely aware that Hunter Biden has a long history of business dealings in Ukraine. Rotherham and Hunter Biden are vital news stories Australians have a right to be made aware of as they navigate child safety and the cost-of-living crises – the latter being widely attributed to the war in Ukraine.
Knowledge is power; if your only source of information is from MSM in 2022, you are disempowering yourself and your family, essentially voting in an information void. A revolution is currently taking place in the Fourth Estate and to their detriment, the majority of people are unaware of it.
In his address at the Claremont Institute on October 13, 2020, Tom Klingenstein argued that the Democratic Party had been taken over by its radical wing and that ‘Republicans are not doing a good job explaining the stakes’.
Given MSM openly flaunts its left-wing bias and Woke ideology, it is impossible for Republicans (or any similar Conservative party) to explain anything at all to the public through that source. Klingenstein’s speech itself was not widely heard by Republicans, let alone swing voters or the many Democrat party members who had become frustrated with the current radical left trend of their party. One had to be on the ever-moving Twitter, following the right accounts at specific moments in time, to catch a glimpse of a speech that deserved a worldwide audience. This is virtually impossible for the average person to do.
Klingenstein and others of that year created political and cultural waves – but these waves could only be felt online. The real world and MSM remained untouched. What should have been a tsunami petered out in the MSM world of ‘do not amplify’.
Investigative journalism, meaning the facts, has been erased Soviet-style by MSM, resulting in Westerners living in a society of haves-and-have-nots regarding what is happening in the world. This divide can be seen between party members, family members, and friends alike, throwing people into parallel world views, dictated by whether or not they consume news via MSM exclusively. At least when they built the Berlin wall we had the physical evidence in front of our eyes that we were divided. Nowadays, it would be Photoshopped out.
Traditionally in the West, we have placed an almost sacred trust in the Fourth Estate – that it will unbiasedly report to the public news they need to know in order to hold their governments accountable. Due to this long-held trust in the Fourth Estate and reliance on MSM, large portions of the public don’t even have the advantage Donald Rumsfeld described in 2002 of being aware that there are ‘… unknown unknowns-the ones we don’t know we don’t know’.
And so it goes, seemingly forever, an almost pointless void between people on the MSM/alternative news parallels, and like all parallel lines in Euclidean geometry, never the two shall meet. It feels like a big bang, in the same metaphor, with the MSM and alternate news sources growing further apart. Fortunately, it’s the latter that seems to be expanding at a faster rate.
On December 2, 2022, Musk decided to give the voting public a hint of what they don’t know they don’t know, if you follow my drift. Laura Ingraham summarised: ‘Musk had bought Twitter not realising he was in fact buying the largest Democratic Party Super Pac.’ Once he did realise this, he decided to share this revelation with the world, tweeting American journalist Matt Taibbi’s expose of the Democratic Party’s communications with Twitter staff in 2020 regarding censoring the New York Post’s story on Hunter Biden’s laptop. In doing so, Musk exposed the chasm between MSM and alternate news reporting, the former’s sins of omission particularly.
Westerners are accustomed to journalists using MSM as their credentials. However in 2022, the credentials are found in the content of the news itself. Primary sources are king, and indeed king makers amongst the new breed of citizen journalists, Andy Ngo being the perfect example of this.
Edmund Burke first coined the phrase ‘Fourth Estate’ in 1787 to highlight the power journalists and news media held.
Thomas Carlyle quotes Burke in stating there were ‘three estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporter’s Gallery yonder, there sits a Fourth Estate more important far than they all’. Power corrupts and as Musk has shown the world, the MSM that has for decades dominated the Fourth Estate has no interest in serving anything but its masters. Journalism, as formerly understood, ceased to be. There is not even the pretence of impartiality anymore in the MSM. As it stands, the Second and Fourth Estates are in collusion to such a degree that authoritarian regimes and their tactics come to mind, actually, throw in the First and Third Estates as well.
Ignorance is currently bliss, but the longer this media exclusion zone with its selective censorship continues, the worse the clean-up will be. If not addressed, this chasm will drive a potentially insurmountable wedge through society and dictate geopolitics for the next decade. It has the potential to be as, if not, more dangerous than Woke ideology
Forget occupying Mars, Musk needs to occupy the Fourth Estate with citizen journalists who will challenge the stranglehold the elites have over the media, by bringing them to a mainstream audience. The digital world can provide a printing press for anyone. Citizen journalists can challenge the status quo, we just need to tune our antennas in their direction and accept that the MSM is gone with the wind.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/01/msm-gone-with-the-wind/
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17 January, 2023
Allowing for Ambiguity in the Social Sciences: Else Frenkel-Brunswik’s methodological practice in "The Authoritarian Personality"
As I have had around a hundred research papers published in the academic journals in this subject area, I suppose I should comment on this rather nauseating bit of hagiography under the above title by Andreas Kranebitter and Fabian Gruber
Frenkel-Brunswik was one of a mid-20th century group of far-Leftist American Jews who loathed the society they lived in and were dedicated to denigrating it. How did they do that? In a nutshell, they portrayed American conservatives as potential Nazis. American Leftists still do that.
The hilarity was that they wrote in 1950, when mainstream Americans had just been instrumental in wiping out the regime of the "National SOCIALIST German Workers party" (the Nazis) and that the "Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics" (the USSR) was the big authoritarian threat of the day.
So it was clearly then -- as now -- that socialism that was the big authoritarian beast in real life. It is intrinsic to socialists that they want to tell other people what to do and to rely on coercion if they cannot get their way by voluntary co-operation. If that is not authoritarianism what would be?
So how did Frenkel-Brunswik and her collaborators place the mark of the beast on American conservatives? What had American conservatives done to deserve such denigration?
Basically, nothing. F-B and her colleagues worked up a Freudian theory about what underlay authoritarianism and tried to show that American conservatives displayed the psychological characteristics concerned. There was NO MENTION of socialism as the major source of authoritarianism
They demonstrated their claims in two prime ways, by subjective interviews with educated Californians and by distributing questionnaires that encompassed what the authors thought were authoritarian attitudes.
Amusingly, Pflaum's work showed that their alleged list of "authoritarian" attitudes were simply mainstream American beliefs of the prewar "progressive" era. So their theories did in fact point to progressivism as authoritarian -- not what they intended at all. So their work was a major sociological failure.
But what they showed does coincide with what we know of political history in the first half of the 20th century -- the American "progressive" era. It was an unshamedly racist and antisemitic era. So it is no surprise that F-B et al. found progressive attitudes to be racist
In conclusion, there are two ways that the work of Kranebitter and Gruber is helpful.
1). They showed that the subjective interviews were biased and no proof of anything, which is pretty much what one would have expected
2). They showed that F-B and co, were aware that sociological questions loomed over what they were doing but that they touched on that only very gingerly. Had they given sociology the sort of reverence they gave to dubious Freudian theories they might have discovered something useful.
I give the abstract of the Kranebitter and Gruber paper below and you can read it in full at:
This paper gives a micro-sociological view on the methodology used by Else Frenkel-Brunswik in the famous study "The Authoritarian Personality" (Adorno et al. 1950). A thorough reconstruction of the theoretical and methodological concepts of Else Frenkel-Brunswik eventually allows for a full appreciation of her works from a today’s social research perspective, especially of her role in the field of authoritarianism-research. The paper deals with (i) Else Frenkel-Brunswik’s role in the research team of The Authoritarian Personality, (ii) the way she followed up on her earlier work, (iii) the question of in which ways her parts of the study were object of criticism by the numerous critics of TAP, and (iv) the ways she herself responded to these critics. The material basis for such an approach is the archival material available in the “Archive for the History of Sociology in Austria (AGSO)” in Graz, Austria, which holds parts of the estate of Else Frenkel-Brunswik, most of all her correspondence and unpublished typoscripts of later publications, as well as at the Institute for Jewish Research (YIVO) in New York, which holds the papers of the American Jewish Committee, i.e., draft reports, memoranda, and some interview protocols of the TAP study.
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"Humane" jail is a failure: Violent
The Alexander Maconochie Centre is one of Australia's newest major adult jails and was built to accommodate prisoners from the nation's capital who previously went to NSW jails.
It is located next to a highway about 10 minutes drive from Canberra airport with the dozen or so buildings double-fenced beside a highway in an otherwise windswept open-grassed area.
Named after a prominent 19th century prison reformer, the Centre can lay claim to being 'Australia's wokest prison', the sort of jail Scandinavian countries famously design to break cycles of incarceration rather than punish.
The new jail is the brainchild of former Labor ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope, who was forced to defend the cost of the $130million facility which didn't accept its first prisoners until 2009 despite being opened six months earlier in 2008.
Mr Stanhope described the Centre as 'the most human rights-compliant, rehabilitation-focused prison in the world'.
The jail is the first in Australia purpose-built to meet human rights obligations and is also environmentally sustainable using recycled water, solar power and energy efficient insulation.
With such noble aims can come a hefty price tag, in early 2010 it was reported the cost of housing an inmate at the centre was $504 per day, which was twice the amount NSW was charging the ACT to take prisoners.
Sadly the days of rosy hope have largely given way to disappointment, especially for Mr Stanhope who has become one of the jail's harshest critics calling it 'an appalling failure' and 'an embarrassment', which he blames on successive governments.
In 2019 Mr Stanhope lamented that the Productivity Commission had found that the over the last two years the Centre had 'established a reputation as the most violent prison in Australia'.
The more recent Health Prisons Report into the Centre found little evidence of improvement.
'We heard several anecdotal reports of sexual coercion and violence in the AMC,' the report said. 'We have been told that sexual coercion and violence happens but is rarely reported.'
Perhaps most galling for a jail that has the express purpose of rehabilitation are the high rates of reoffending, causing some to label it a 'revolving door' prison with the same cohort of inmates repeatedly entering and leaving.
This is especially so for Indigenous prisoners, which the jail was set up to be culturally appropriate for, with 94 per cent of released Aboriginal detainees ending up back in the cells, according to a recent report.
Mr Powsey said the prison reflects what happens in the comparatively small community of Canberra.
'In the ACT, there are relatively low crimes rates but relatively higher recidivism rates. This means that a significant proportion of the offending occurs within a smaller cohort of people,' he said.
A major failing at the jail, according to the Healthy Prisons Report, was boredom with many inmates having largely unstructured days and sometimes not getting out of bed until lunchtime.
The report was also critical of a lack of meaningful employment activities within the prison.
Almost since its beginning, the prison has been plagued by negative stories including earlier this year when a newly admitted prisoner hanged himself in a supposedly safe cell.
Senior Director Accommodation Jim Taylor-Dayus, who has a 37-year career working in UK, New Zealand and Australian prisons, said incidents were to be expected in a jail environment.
'You've potentially got 400 people who don't want to be here and they need the officers to get things, and sometimes the officer can't do it straight away or they may not be entitled to it – so, of course that causes a frustration,' he said.
'As long as you are able to sit down and say there's a reason you can't have this, whatever it is, most people accept that reason - eventually.
Both CO Veal and Mr Taylor-Dayus worked during the riot in November where 27 detainees refused to go back to their cells, leading to standoff where fires were lit and considerable damage was caused. 'It was intense, we were here for 18 hours,' CO Veal said.
Eventually the situation was resolved through negotiation.
The prevalence of drugs and other contraband, such as mobile phones, has also been an issue highlighted by official reports.
Because of the jail's relative approachability, people have been filmed throwing banned substances over the fences and deliveries have been attempted by drones.
The centre staff admitted that the coming ban on smoking inside, which complies with ACT law, would be a particular challenge.
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Offensive discrimination in hockey event
Apparently, discrimination is OK when Leftists are doing it
The National Hockey League (NHL) has reacted to allegations of discrimination from the office of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis by backtracking on some of the eligibility criteria for a job fair that was meant to be restricted to select minority groups.
A spokesperson for the NHL told The Epoch Times that the event—the Pathway to Hockey Summit—is now open to anyone 18 years of age or older and that the original wording for a LinkedIn announcement for the event was “not accurate.”
The NHL’s post on LinkedIn—which has since been deleted—said that the event was limited to a narrow range of job-seekers from a list of “underrepresented communities.”
“Participants must be 18 years of age or older, based in the U.S., and identify as female, Black, Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic/Latino, Indigenous, LGBTQIA+, and/or a person with a disability. Veterans are also welcome and encouraged to attend,” the post stated.
A similar notice is still up on the University of Pennsylvania’s career services page, which describes the event as intended for “diverse job seekers who are pursuing careers in hockey.”
Interested attendees would be given the opportunity to meet with recruiters, with the event featuring guest speakers and panelists, and offer networking opportunities.
But the NHL post drew ire from DeSantis, who has made pushing back on progressive ideologies and policies a cornerstone of his administration.
The governor’s spokesman, Bryan Griffin, said that this type of discriminatory job posting would not be tolerated in Florida and demanded that the NHL “immediately remove and denounce the discriminatory prohibitions it has imposed” on the upcoming summit.
“Discrimination of any sort is not welcome in the state of Florida, and we do not abide by the woke notion that discrimination should be overlooked if applied in a politically popular manner or against a politically unpopular demographic,” Griffin said in a statement.
“We are fighting all discrimination in our schools and our workplaces, and we will fight it in publicly accessible places of meeting or activity,” he added.
The NHL appears to have taken heed of DeSantis’ warning, with a spokesperson for the hockey league telling The Epoch Times in an emailed statement that the “original wording of the LinkedIn post associated with the event was not accurate,” adding that the event is now open to anyone aged 18 and older.
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Politicized law enforcement
Last week brought us new insight into what some are calling a two-tiered justice system. We now know that Joe Biden has unlawfully retained classified documents from his time as Vice President in unsecured locations. A vice president does not have the authority to declassify documents, unlike a president. Furthermore, saying he had boxes of classified documents in his "locked garage" is insidious. Additionally, classified documents were found at the University of Pennsylvania Biden Policy Center, where countless individuals, including Chinese foreign nationals, had access. Of course, this comes on the heels of the FBI raid into Donald Trump's residence, a place where documents were secured, and Secret Service agents were on the grounds. Yet, there has been no discussion of criminal prosecution, as opposed to the case with Trump.
Not too long ago we recall the situation with Hillary Clinton, who not only maintained classified materials on an unsecured server in an unsecured location, but she also destroyed classified documents and government computer hardware and software. If we go a little further back, we remember the classified document incident surrounding Sandy Berger. Again, no prosecution.
Just to give a level of comparison, as a retired Army officer, if I had ever maintained classified documents at my residence, I would be doing time in Ft. Leavenworth.
What is happening in America is not just about a two-tiered system of justice. What we have happening is the emergence of an American Politburo. The term Politburo was introduced to us by the old Soviet Union in 1917. It was the principal policymaking committee of the Communist Party. Today in America, we have a policymaking committee that is making decisions and seeking to rule based upon an elitist ideological agenda, to enact a fundamental transformation of the United States of America. And it was Barack Obama who said just that back in 2008.
Ask yourselves: how can it be that an identifiable domestic terrorist group such as Antifa has had not a single leader arrested, charged, and imprisoned? Why is it that an organization called Jane's Revenge can go about committing arson on pro-life pregnancy centers with no criminal pursuit? Yet, non-leftist groups and organizations can be tracked, and individuals arrested and jailed, such as Proud Boys or Oath Keepers? I have yet to see anyone from these groups burn down communities or violently attack police with laser devices. How can someone like Rep. Cori Bush, who once led violent protests that resulted in property damages and even the loss of life of a law enforcement officer in St. Louis, David Dorn, end up becoming a member of Congress?
In Roanoke, Texas, a venue decided to host a drag queen show where underage children were in attendance. The venue was secured by armed Antifa members, who, by the way, were masked. There was no condemnation of armed individuals protecting a venue that was contributing to the delinquency of minors. The last time I checked, that was a crime. Imagine if armed, not masked, constitutionalists protected a venue where kids were attending a reading of the Declaration of Independence or a patriotic celebration, or heaven forbid a Christian event?
Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania was confronted and presented with a warrant and forced to surrender his cell phone. Yet, Rep. Eric Swalwell of California was a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence after knowing he had an intimate relationship with a Chinese spy named Fang Fang. Yeah, ya can't make this stuff up.
Dare to challenge the American Politburo? Ask Mesa County (Colorado) Clerk Tina Peters and Sherronna Bishop what happens. The American Politburo dispatches the new American Stasi to raid your home. In Ms. Bishop’s case, the masked agents, when asked why they were doing it, responded "because you connect people."
The new American Politburo is making policies that are destroying our energy independence and oil and gas industry because it is not aligned with the "Green New Deal." The Politburo is proud to announce, as Pete Buttigieg did, that they want to force pain at the pump on the American people forcing them to use mass transportation, or purchase electric vehicles, that most cannot afford. Now, the American Politburo is making policies that tell us how we can cook food in our own homes.
This new American Politburo is not based on political party, but rather on ideology and philosophy of governance. One that believes the government is empowered to rule. It places ideological rights above constitutional rights, which is why this new American Politburo will collude with media elites and corporate fascist elites to censor our free speech and freedom of expression. The American Politburo will pass an unconstitutional omnibus spending measure of some 4,220 pages driving up our debt to an unconscionable $32 trillion.
Yes, we do have an emerging two-tiered system of justice, where the Politburo believes themselves above the rule of law. Along with the belief that they determine who is or is not a criminal by releasing criminals and allowing the mass invasion of millions of illegals. But what is happening in America is the development of an ideologically bifurcated society where rules apply to those below the cutline of cultural, political, media, entertainment, religious, and academic elites. This is the reason the American Politburo decided that a mediocre Black lesbian basketball player was more important than a former US Marine.
The American Politburo must be defeated, and it shall be. The indomitable American spirit is rooted in individual liberty and freedom. We will reject this idea of equity, equality of outcomes, as defined by these elitists who deem themselves our masters, and we the serfs. What we saw the last two weeks in the US House of Representatives, were a few standing up against the American Politburo, they didn't like it, but this was the first skirmish in the war to defeat the Politburo. That was why those 20 were referred to as enemies of the state and terrorists, they threatened the status quo of rule.
Now, it is up to us to carry forth the new torch of liberty that they have ignited.
https://townhall.com/columnists/allenwest/2023/01/16/the-new-american-politburo-n2618319 ?
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16 January, 2023
How Political Bias Explains Everything
This is a very well-informed article which confirms everything I learned during my research career. I long ago learned that facts will not dislodge Leftist belief so have focused in recent years on trying to understand the often weird things that Leftists believe.
And in a nutshell, it is basically approval-seeking. Leftists will accept any belief that they think will make them look good (kind, wise etc.). The obvious strategy for conservatives in that case is to focus on the bad consequences that normally flow from Leftist policies. An example of that we are beginning to see something of in the now frequent reports from de-transitioners -- who report horrors from the Leftist encouragement of surgical trans-sexual procedures
According to the dogmas that currently rule America’s elite institutions, the single most important fact about any individual is their racial and gender identity. This quasi-religious belief results in conflict between the new identity-based framework and the older ideal that people are rational actors capable of arriving at an objective truth, independent of their personal background. But both of these views are wrong according to the attitudinal model, a paradigm that is popular in political science but widely ignored outside that discipline. Though it is not well known, the model almost perfectly explains the current “crisis of experts,” without resorting to the gaslighting and moral panics that so many “experts” have used to deny or explain away their failures.
Simply put, the attitudinal model is the codified idea that political preferences, especially when combined with a few other variables, generally predict how individuals will behave. The concept was first introduced by the political scientists Jeff Segal and Harold Spaeth, in their 1993 book The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model. Segal and Spaeth assert that the notion that decisions by leaders capable of independent action, a category that includes SCOTUS justices, “are objective, dispassionate, and impartial [is] obviously belied by the facts.” Clearly, “different courts and different judges do not decide the same issue the same way,” and even decisions from the same court are invariably larded with concurrences, dissenting opinions, and so forth. A key point these authors make is that there will generally be enough respected precedent cases available on all sides in a major legal matter—or enough potential variables available in the context of an academic model—that anyone intelligent could find “no dearth … to support their assertions.”
What, then, determines leadership-level decisions? Personal attitudes, albeit somewhat constrained by individual rules and norms. “Decisions of the Court are based on the facts of the case in light of the ideologies, attitudes, and values of the Justices,” Segal and Spaeth write. The authors test this claim empirically—that is why the book is famous—and find that the position of individual judicial decision-makers on a standard (-1 to 1) scale measuring personal conservatism/liberalism predicts roughly 80% (.79) of all of their votes. Across a set of prominent death penalty cases, the political-ideology metric – that is, a measure of the individual justices’ ideological leaning compiled from their past voting behavior, “newspaper editorials,” and “off-bench speeches and writings”—predicted the behavior of every SCOTUS Justice in 19 out of 23 situations.
Attitudinally driven behavior among leaders stretches far beyond Supreme Court justices or appellate court judges. Segal and Spaeth also find that ideology is a near total predictor of executive branch nominations of judges: 87% of all Supreme Court nominees (126/145 at the time of writing) have come from the sitting president’s party. In theory, we might like to believe that a president selects the judge they believe is most qualified for a position, but in practice we know that they simply pick the person whose political attitudes are closest to their own. This trend dates back to the very beginning of the United States, apparently: George Washington at one point nominated 11 highly partisan Federalists for the bench in a row.
Indeed, partisanship is a better predictor of being an elite judicial nominee than is “being a qualified judge,” as determined by past judicial service and players like the American Bar Association. Only 91 of the 145 Supreme Court nominees—73% of Republicans and 48% of Democratic picks—met the American Bar Association’s standard, Segal and Spaeth write. Similarly, basic ideological variables predict 95% of the Yes/No votes of senators deciding whether or not to confirm these presidential judicial nominees. Within the court system, the attitudinal model is measurably predictive beyond a few top benches: Segal and Spaeth note very early on that the model “will fully predict other courts to the extent the environment of those approximates that Supreme Court.”
The largely undisputed fact that ideology shapes the behavior of solo leaders matters because of the extreme trend toward siloing in modern upper-middle-class life. Within my field—the academic social sciences—a 2006 survey found that about 18% of all faculty members identified as Marxists, another 24% as radicals, and 20%-21% as activists. In contrast, perhaps 5% of American soft-scientists are conservatives. In an environment this politically slanted, the odds are good that many shifts of focus attributed to new theory or empirical data—and indeed many overall social science conclusions—are largely the products of ideology.
What are some examples of such conclusions? For decades, academics believed that authoritarianism was an almost exclusively conservative trait. The idea dates back to Frankfurt School scholar Theodor Adorno’s book The Authoritarian Personality, and dozens of studies have “confirmed” it over the years. However, in 2021, skilled Emory Ph.D. student Thomas Costello noticed something simple but key: Tools used to measure authoritarianism tend to be “designed from the left,” and to focus on social problems which a right-winger would be more likely to oppose.
A typical survey question might read: “How important do you feel it is that American society harshly control (Communists)?” Costello realized that scholars could as easily frame nearly identical items from the other direction, asking—hypothetically—about the need to crack down on “Insurrectionists” or “anti-maskers.” His published article, containing a left-wing authoritarianism scale more complex than what I have described here, but based on similar principles, was just published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. It now appears likely that left-wing authoritarianism is one of the more common forms of authoritarianism.
Then there is “racial resentment.” For decades now, many political scientists have argued that citizens giving affirmative answers to questions like “Most Black people who receive money from welfare programs could get along without it if they tried (Yes or No)?” or “Italian, Irish, and Jewish ethnicities overcame prejudice and worked their way up—do you think Black people should do the same without any special favors?” provide a meaningful measure of the subtle racism that supposedly pervades American society. However, in recent years, skeptical scholars have begun administering the same racial resentment scales to minority Americans—most of whom score quite high on metrics of racial pride, and obviously almost none of whom are conventional bigots.
Results have been telling. According to a recent survey sponsored by the Kaiser Family Foundation and CNN, 42% of Black respondents believe “lack of motivation and willingness to work hard” is a “major cause” of hardships within the Black community, compared to 32% of white respondents who believe so. 61% of Black respondents, meanwhile, believe that “Breakup of the African American Family” was a “major cause” of those hardships, compared to roughly 55% of white respondents. Still another study, by Riley Carney and Ryan Enos, found rates of agreement with the provocative questions on the racial resentment scale did not change at all when lower-income or immigrant-origin white groups (i.e., Lithuanians) were substituted in for Black people. Dislike of affirmative action and welfare, it seems, correlates with conservatism and traditionalism across all groups, rather than with white racism.
The Assault on Empiricism
In a thousand subtle ways, ideological bias can not only shape whole disciplines and domains of knowledge, but it can also weaponize scholarship against reality. To provide one example from my field: While the large numerical majority of police shooting victims in the U.S. are Caucasian, Black Americans are disproportionately likely to be shot by cops. We make up 13%-14% of the U.S. population, and roughly 25% of those fatally shot by law enforcement personnel in a typical year. However—and far fewer citizens know this—the Black violent crime rate is almost exactly 2.5 times the white violent crime rate, and any adjustment for this or for the racial difference in police encounter rate eliminates the discrepancy.
But many leftist academics have begun to argue that the crime rate disparity is simply itself more evidence of racism. Dr. Ibram Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist and a professor at American University, famously contends that any gap in performance between large groups must be due to systemic bias somewhere, and there are points that can be made about (say) differential enforcement of the United States’ drug laws. Though badly flawed, as I have noted elsewhere, nevertheless these arguments are widely accepted. And, whether a particular scholar concludes that patterns of American police violence are racist or not might well depend on whether or not she believes these claims and so excludes differential crime rates from her models as a predictor variable.
In this environment, a smart skeptic would expect that “solo leaders” in academia and the media will behave in much the same fashion as those sitting in the courts. Rather than presenting impartial empirical evidence, research results will often strongly reflect the ideological priors of those producing the research. Taking the very simple “crime rates” example given above, in a situation where the vast majority of academic sociologists lean to the political left, we would expect a comparable percentage of researchers to drop the crime-differential variable from their equations and thus conclude that American police operate in a racially biased fashion.
Let’s say that 90% of conservatives and Libertarians believe in a paradigm X (“Most policing is fair and nonbiased”), while 90% of leftists believe in paradigm Y (“All Western institutions are corrupt”), we would expect 87.3% of sociologists (.97 x .9) to believe in paradigm Y and to reason forward from it. As the examples and data given above indicate, considerable evidence exists that essentially this is true.
In a thousand subtle ways, ideological bias can not only shape whole disciplines and domains of knowledge, but it can also weaponize scholarship against reality.
But there is a bright spot to the discovery of entrenched ideological bias in academia. We can actually use attitudinal analysis to determine, with some accuracy, which ideas are truly bad. Citizens are frequently told that “the majority of the scholars in (Z) field” support one thing or another—with “gender affirming care” for minors being a recent example—and that the hoi polloi should not question the expert consensus. However, from an attitudinal perspective, whether such opinion majorities are relevant depends heavily upon the ideological priors of the experts in question. If field Z leans 85% to the left, and 90% of American leftists support transgender surgeries for minors, but only 60% of the .85 leftist pool of experts does, this actually indicates that gender affirming care is probably a terrible idea: Those most aware of the potential risks of the procedure are far more opposed to it than ideological peers with less empirical “inside information.”
Interestingly, something like this just occurred in the real world. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recently drew headlines after publicly reaffirming support for gender surgeries and hormone treatments for teenagers. However, the very left-leaning organization did so only after a hotly contested vote on an opposing resolution (“Addressing Alternatives to the Use of Hormone Therapies for Gender Dysphoric Youth”), which received 57 public endorsements from AAP members during the very brief period leading up to the referendum. Whatever their own politics may be, the nation’s leading academic pediatricians are by no means as actually unified on this issue as MSNBC makes them sound.
More broadly, a technique that could be used to develop a general attitudinal adjustment for field-specific bias is as follows: Simply determine (1) the L/R ideological breakdown of a particular academic field or sector, (2) the level of support for thing A within that sector, and (3) the level of support for thing A across all of the L/R ideological groups in society. This allows the calculation of (4) what level of support for thing A would almost certainly look like if the field ideologically matched society as a whole. Overall, we can probably say that popular niche ideas (“Defund and disarm the police”) that would be roundly rejected by any group that resembles the actual population are likely to be bad ones—and that ideas which are more often rejected than one would expect, even by partisan but experienced experts, are very likely to be bad ones.
But, in any case—while we’re calculating percentages—recall that there is a 100% chance that the output of any field at any time heavily reflects the ideological tastes of the very human people who make it up. We should recognize this, try to shift ideological monocultures at the extremes, and never ignore reality.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-political-bias-explains-everything
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The "incorrectness" of mobile phone evidence in rape cases
Bettina Arndt
‘Why are the police withholding evidence?’ The young man’s cry of bewilderment is understandable. The PhD student came to Australia from a country where citizens have good reason to be nervous about facing its justice system. But he expected more from his chosen place of study, a liberal democracy boasting adherence to the rule of law.
That’s the claim. The reality is different, at least when it comes to sexual assault. He’s been accused of rape by an ex-girlfriend who was angry when he refused to get back together with her after their initial breakup. He has phone recordings of her telling him she’ll drop the charges if he falls into line, plus her social media messages pleading for sex long after the alleged assault.
But the police aren’t interested. They refused to properly examine the accuser’s mobile phone, claim they’d been unable to view her chat messages apart from a few carefully selected messages, and refused to examine copies of the full conversations from the student’s phone.
‘My chat messages were enough to prove perjury, yet the police still decided to go ahead and charge me. It seems like everything I have worked for in my life is on the way to destruction,’ wrote the despairing student.
The role of phone evidence in proving guilt or innocence in sexual assault cases is a hot button issue. Police and prosecutors are now routinely withholding or deleting phone evidence that could be used to exonerate accused men. The feminist demand for privacy for victims trumps the search for truth regarding the alleged crime. And the public push for more rape convictions means impediments like exculpatory evidence are conveniently overlooked or swept aside.
In Australia, this issue usually emerges only in the stories of individual men seeking justice in our courts but in the UK, the controversy is playing out in a very public arena.
Five years ago, I wrote about a huge scandal when a series of high-profile British rape cases fell apart because it was discovered the police and prosecutors had withheld social media evidence that could have disproved complainants’ claims. The best known was Liam Allan, where the disclosure of 40,000 text messages revealed his accuser had pestered him for sex. Allan avoided a likely ten-year prison sentence only because the prosecution barrister, after the trial had actually commenced, insisted the police hand over the phone evidence to the defence lawyers.
This was only one of many cases that collapsed due to very late disclosure of mobile phone evidence which challenged the complainant’s claims. With one man, Danny Kay, the evidence which exonerated him came to light only after he had served four years of his sentence.
One amusing sideline to the whole kerfuffle was the Metropolitan Police announcing that they were ditching their previous practice of ‘believing all victims.’
As Dr Rick Bradford explains in his excellent blog The Empathy Gap, the press interest in these disclosure failures pushed the Crown Prosecution Service into conducting an investigation but the resulting report was ‘a disgraceful exercise in obfuscation’.
In stepped the Justice Select Committee which is required to oversee such matters. Their report included all manner of revealing statements, including the fact that prosecutors underestimate the number of cases which fell apart due to disclosure errors ‘by around 90 per cent.’
The Select Committee had very clear advice for the prosecution services, namely:
‘Prosecutors must always act in the interests of justice and not solely for the purpose of obtaining a conviction.
‘It is fundamentally important that all police officers recognise both that they are searching for the truth and that they have core disclosure duties which are central to the criminal justice process.’
The key issue in the battle over disclosure is privacy, with the feminists arguing that it violates a complainant’s privacy to demand her phone correspondence. Whilst acknowledging this is important the Select Committee stated that this factor was trumped by other considerations: ‘The law is clear in that the right to a fair trial is an absolute right which cannot be violated to protect the right to privacy,’ they said, putting the onus on the prosecutors to actively address disclosure issues.
Along came a new DPP, Max Hill, who made it clear whose side he was on in his first public speech. ‘Rape complainants must have their personal privacy, including mobile phone records, protected,’ he said. He showed the feminists that he was their man, and the sound work of the Select Committee went down the gurgler.
According to Bradford, the disclosure issue then dropped from the public agenda and feminists were soon on the march demanding rape prosecution decisions be taken out of the hands of the Crown Prosecution Service. Boris Johnson responded by promising targets on the police to refer more ‘high quality’ rape cases.
Here’s Bradford: ‘And how, exactly, are the police supposed to improve the “quality” of rape cases? Well, that’s simple. They try hard to build a prosecution case, but they put no effort into finding exculpatory evidence. In other words, they revert to the negligent practices which led to the debacles of the recent past – disclosure failures.’
The ultimate irony is DDP Hill has now launched Operation Soteria – in Greek mythology, Soteria was the goddess of safety and deliverance from harm. But Hill’s deliverance works only one way. He’s requiring police to work with the DPP to ‘build the best possible cases more quickly … to drive up the number of successful prosecutions’.
Last year I quoted the prominent Sydney silk, Margaret Cunneen, a former Crown Prosecutor, speaking at The Presumption of Guilt Conference run by the Rule of Law Education Centre. She revealed that Australian police are now required to refer to complainants as ‘victims’ and treat them accordingly, pushing all cases through to trial. ‘There’s not much more investigation that goes on. There’s a zeal to get to the end and convict the charged person.’
NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller reinforced this point when he said, ‘As police, our primary role is to support victims who courageously come forward to police to report sexual assault.’ Nothing about the right to a fair trial. No mention of the search for the truth.
In our courts, the consequences are clear. Just before Christmas, a jury acquitted a young man in a retrial of a sexual assault case which had cost a Sydney family six years of their lives and over $650,000 in legal fees. The family is now suing the NSW Police for gross negligence over withholding phone evidence that ultimately contributed to their son’s acquittal.
It all started in 2016 when their son – I’ll call him ‘Michael’ – was at a boozy party on NSW’s Central Coast. Most of the young people present were totally wasted after a long night of drinking and drugs. Suddenly a girl jumped up from the couch where she had been spooning with Michael, and claimed she had woken up to find his fingers in her vagina. She later made a further accusation about him doing a similar thing three years earlier at another party, yet they’d remained good friends in the interim.
Three years later the case was decided. Michael was found guilty of sexual assault. A sympathetic judge sentenced him to 450 hours community service, taking into account his history of depression. But this young bloke had become a convicted felon, listed on the sex offender register, and marked for life.
Michael’s father, Colin, decided to appeal and that’s when things really got interesting. They employed an ex-cop with the skills to investigate Michael’s mobile phone. The police claimed it had been sealed away in the period leading up to the trial but in fact, it had been tampered with and critical conversations erased or not provided to the defence. Plus, it was revealed they had cloned his phone so they could monitor Michael’s emails and phone messages and track his movements.
The scene was set for Margaret Cunneen to make mincemeat of the accuser’s story in the retrial, as she forensically exposed holes in the stories of the accused and her friends.
Michael’s accuser repeatedly claimed he had assaulted her with his left hand, until it was revealed that hand was incapacitated due to surgery. Then she conveniently switched her claim to the right.
Then there was the size of the couch, which Cunneen proved was unlikely to have fitted the hulking young man and his victim if he assaulted her from behind, as alleged, unless he was somehow holding her in place.
Hundreds of social media messages were now available to prove the accuser had pursued Michael, even after the first alleged assault.
How about the fact when she woke up and allegedly found his fingers in her vagina she just asked him, ‘What’s the time?’ No sign of distress or alarm, only growing discomfort when she later realised everyone had seen her making out with Michael, who was a friend’s ex-boyfriend.
The jury made the decision to toss the case out in less than 2 hours. Once they were presented with the truth at retrial, the decision was easy.
Michael had a family who had the resources and faith to see justice was done. Pity the other falsely accused when our police and prosecutors believe only victims and do their darndest to make sure that is the only story heard.
https://spectator.com.au/2023/01/mobiles-in-the-dock/ ?
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Feud Over Soccer Player Refusing to Kneel Gets Worse After She Wins $100K Settlement
Wanting others to kneel before their beliefs is intrinsic to Leftism
A First Amendment feud between a college soccer player and her school has only grown worse despite the fact that she won a large monetary settlement.
Former Virginia Tech women’s soccer player Kiersten Hening filed a lawsuit against head coach Charles “Chugger” Adair, saying that he verbally attacked her and decreased her playing time after she refused to kneel in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.
She eventually agreed to a monetary settlement of $100,000, which included no wrongdoing on the part of her or the coach. But although a settlement has been reached, the fighting seems to be far from over. In fact, it has only gotten worse.
On Monday, 76 current and former Virginia Tech women’s soccer players signed a statement in defense of Adair, claiming that the allegations against him were baseless and that Hening was lying.
“We have spent countless hours training, traveling and playing under his leadership and are devastated and appalled to see his character and integrity severely impugned,” the statement reads.
“We firmly believe that these allegations are nothing more than a distorted representation of the facts.”
First of all, many of the players graduated before these events allegedly took place and before Hening was even on the team. How do they know what happened between her and Adair?
Also, this statement does not disprove Hening’s allegations; it just proves that these players have the same political beliefs as the coach. It seems likely that they just want Hening to face punishment for her politics.
Furthermore, if her claims were baseless as the statement claims, why did the university pay the $100,000 settlement? The fact that Virginia Tech agreed to dole out that amount of money suggests that the university believes the case was credible.
Adair, for his part, released a statement on Twitter after the settlement was reached, saying, “Today, we have the clarity that this case lacked any standing, and without evidence, the truth has prevailed.” But Twitter was quick to put a context label under the tweet, noting that he had agreed to the settlement.
This looks like another example of someone in a progressive environment being bullied for not submitting to the woke mob.
We have seen that sports, especially the NFL and women’s soccer, have increasingly become a platform for woke athletes and celebrities to preach about leftist causes, while conservatives have been chased out and silenced.
It seems that in this case, though, people are being held accountable, and while the settlement did not include an admission of wrongdoing, it was an indication that the left can no longer just bully people into compliance
https://thefederalistpapers.org/us/feud-soccer-player-refusing-kneel-gets-worse-wins-100k-settlement
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The importance of sincerity
Nick Kastelein comments from Australia. Had he been a traditional Australian, he might have spoken of the importance of being "fair dinkum"
When it comes to the Culture Wars in 2023, I have two simple resolutions:
* Assume they are sincere.
* Be sincere.
Recently I consumed as much of the speeches of Professor Stephen Kotkin as I could find for free online.
For those who are unfamiliar with his work, Stephen Kotkin is a historian who knows more about the Russian Revolution than most people know about their children. He is a fellow of the Hoover Institution, and you really need to listen to his insights – especially in light of the war unfolding in Ukraine.
One of his comments about the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin stands out strongly in my memory. He said that the communists in Stalin’s circle were sincere. They truly believed in communism. They loved and needed Stalin’s leadership because he was truly dedicated to the communist cause and worked tirelessly for it. He even tried to resign a few times but his cabinet wouldn’t let him.
There is a temptation when we don’t agree with someone, and lack the ability to put ourselves in their shoes, to instead assume that they are insincere in their beliefs.
‘They say it is about equality, but really it is all about power.’ ‘They say they want justice, but really they are trying to relieve feelings of guilt.’ ‘The communists didn’t really support Stalin, they were just afraid of him.’
We filter their actions through our worldview, rather than seeking to understand theirs.
Even though these positions may sometimes be true, assuming sincerity is the best workable way to interact with those we disagree with from opposing political viewpoints. If they are insincere, and perhaps they are, then that is their problem; but if we assume their insincerity, then we become the problem.
Just because you cannot personally sympathise with an ideology does not mean that someone else does not actually, genuinely, think the things they declare. Assuming insincerity is a dangerous fallacy, which I also have been guilty of. I’ve also been on the receiving end of this error from progressive-minded people who assumed that my conservative views must be motivated by fear or resentment. It is abominably frustrating! By all means, imagine my ideas to be delusional, but at least show me the courtesy of believing me properly deluded.
If you cannot empathise with what someone thinks, then perhaps you haven’t thought about their position enough. And you probably haven’t talked to them enough. If you do, you may find that their views have been reasoned from different facts, or even a different worldview that departs from yours at a deeper level than you have yet explored.
Why this caution now? Because when I heard it suggested that Victoria returned their Labor government due to ‘Stockholm Syndrome’, it didn’t reflect what I know of Labor voters and of many Victorians. No, the problem is both bigger and simpler… A large swathe of voters genuinely think that Dan Andrews is a force for good and that he is truly giving them what they want in a leader.
It increasingly feels like the Left hold the West’s political centre of gravity. Theirs is the viewpoint that is normalised by our culture. They enjoy a ‘home-ground advantage’ of sorts. The Left always argue from their principles, whereas everyone else has first to argue for their principles. If you say ‘all people should be treated equally’, everyone sagely nods their head, but if you say ‘people should be free to speak their minds’, their brows crinkle and they start muttering, ‘yes, well… no freedom is absolute…’
Though truly the change is oversimplified by the Left/Right political dichotomy. A total progressive package of views on the environment, sex, race, identity, religion, and economics bubble up together from an underlying worldview that goes beyond politics.
It’s interesting to speculate how and why so much of the population have become more communist than Marx… Some blame the many institutions that have themselves been occupied by the Left – media, education, and entertainment. The progressive package is pervasive and the latest generation of young adults – Generation Z – have been steeped in it since birth. Doubtless, this plays a role.
I personally consider a more relevant factor to be that Australia is two generations removed from anything approaching real hardship. The left-wing utopic vision of a cost and obstacle-free life has been true for most people, especially those dwelling in the metropolis. Why should they believe that it doesn’t work or can’t last?
Perhaps our having fewer children is also a factor? Perhaps it is not really wealth, responsibility at work, or accumulated wisdom that makes people more conservative when they get older, but rather that it is a side-effect of having children. Young families are little microcosms of a welfare state and a very practical lesson in supply-side economics!
Whatever the cause for the political distribution that we now enjoy, we ought to assume that it is sincere. That does not mean that we should assume it is irreversible. I doubt very much that the politics of Generation Z is unshakable or that it is all hopeless. Instead, I’m concerned that many are supportive of the Left because they’ve never seen the Right put up a fight. They’ve never seen it courageously championed.
Which brings me to my second point. Regardless of how hopeless or otherwise our society’s current predicament may be, there is only one palatable path forward for each of us:
Be sincere.
I didn’t watch much of Victoria’s election night, but I switched on long enough to see one unfortunate Liberal being hounded by, well, everyone else on the ABC’s panel. It was agonising to watch:
‘You’re raiding the future fund!’
‘No, we’re paying off debt.’
‘By raiding the future fund, yes?’
‘No, we’re not, we’re paying off debt.’
From the fear of a negative soundbite, the Liberal refused to say something basically true – that they were planning to raid the future fund.
No wonder they lost. How about fighting for a decision you truly believe in? How about saying, ‘Yes, we’re using the future fund, because a government in debt shouldn’t have a freaking future fund.’ How about saying, ‘Only a moron holds a high-interest debt in one hand, and a low-interest deposit in the other. Your viewers know this – people at home would at least set up an offset account for their home loan! It’s a good policy and I’ll defend it to the hilt!’
I can imagine why he didn’t say that. Various political consultants and thinkers had carefully decided how they should most advantageously characterise their policies. They looked at the statistics – raiding the future fund won’t poll well. The net effect of all this strategising? He couldn’t even back a basically good and very ‘Liberal’ policy on election night after the polls were closed!
There’s a big lie in the world of politics. I heard it stated explicitly by a senator last year. The lie is this: the main task of a political party is to win elections.
Actually, it isn’t. The main task of a party is to stand for what their members stand for. The main task of the Liberal Party, then, is to be the Liberal Party. With that in mind, winning an election is not about changing the soul of the party to become what the people want, but to convince those people to change what they want – to win the argument that your politics and philosophy is worth choosing. The job of the Liberal Party when campaigning is to convince the people that they ought to be Right-wing because it is the right thing to be.
Many on the political Right look with a sense of dread and depression at the Australian electorate, for all the reasons mentioned above. They despair over the seemingly intransigent Generation Z vote – will it ever sway to the right? Do we even have any means left to us to get through to these brainwashed fledglings? So they try to ‘connect’ to the younger generations, speaking to their beliefs and priorities and embarrassing themselves hopelessly in the process.
Instead, we need to quit our defeatist whining! I refuse to believe that Gen Z are so radically different. They’re just young, they’re not Martians! Whether it works of not, we need to see more courageous dissent. And it might work! It isn’t natural for the social centre of gravity to sit so far from the centrist position, and truth is inherently stronger than lies.
In any case, we cannot win by pretending to be what we are not. If we aren’t genuine, then we have lost before we start. If we aren’t genuine, then even if we win, we didn’t win, our façade won. What fighter fights for a hollow victory?
I’ve framed this so far in terms of politics, where I have been most frustrated, but it is true in any matters of difference of opinion. Any issues where truth is at stake.
I’m cautious to give a specific example, because I don’t want to be guilty of Monday morning quarterbacking, but too many times recently, I have watched truth being smothered to death by the comfy pillow of winsomeness. It comes with a persistent smile, and persistent evasive non-answers; it’s so polite, and it’s so understandable. We just want to choose what direction we illuminate the truth from – we want to pick the lighting and the backdrop so it looks sexy. We want to prevent our message from being misrepresented, or we want to avoid giving offence.
Well, that’s what we tell ourselves our reasons are. But sometimes we just don’t want to be disliked, or we lack faith in the truth of our own position, which is more devastating.
Don’t get me wrong. There is wisdom in winsomeness. Communication across barriers of difference ought to be strategic and even crafty, or you’ll be eaten alive. Sometimes withholding the truth is ‘not casting pearls before swine’, and sometimes deflecting a question is the more surely to argue the more pertinent point. But it must not come at the cost of honesty and sincerity.
The problem is when winsomeness goes from being the method to being the goal. The ultimate goal is to expose and defend something that is right and true. Sometimes the truth itself is confrontational. When the truth needs to make an impact, it will not thank you for cushioning its fall. When the truth needs to cut, it will not thank you for blunting its edge. Here the truth is trying to set people free, and you’re concerned about opening the prison doors quietly enough not to wake them!
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a writer and a deep thinker, who was imprisoned in a Russian Gulag. He understood that there is more to being true than saying only things that are true. He wrote, ‘The simple step of the courageous individual is not to take part in the lie.’
https://spectator.com.au/2023/01/the-culture-wars-need-a-touch-of-sincerity/
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15 January, 2023
The male response to Andrew Tate
I suppose it is obvious that Tate is a product of feminism. Feminists have so devalued men and masculinity that there had to be a backlash among men. That Tate has gone to an opposite extreme is also obvious.
The sadness is that the attitudes to women among men were once much more benign -- kind and courteous. But feminists destroyed that as "paternalistic", as "chavinistic". Opening car doors for women became "oppression". I still do it but I am old.
Daisy Turnbull below thinks that the onus is on women to repudiate Tate. I agree in part but I think there is a greater need for feminists to repudiate toxic feminist attitudes towards men. If feminist thought became rejected insofar as it is anti-men, Tate's ideas would be deprived of the energy that is driving them
It’s easy to hate Andrew Tate. Rebuking his rantings as misogynistic and violent is not difficult because they are. But me telling you this is not going to change young men’s adoration of him. There is a more difficult question: where are other men on this?
It makes sense that Tate has attracted the admiration of so many young men. He speaks to the generation after the devotees of “podcast bros” Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan: males who feel feminism has done them wrong, who believe that women gaining more rights has taken away theirs.
Not every boy will think Tate is right, as this article showed. Some may “test out” his ideas around family or friends and be so shocked by the reaction that they never mention him again.
But for those that do get hooked on his ideas – and see his problems with modern life as their own – we need to ask ourselves why? How can he become a de facto mentor to so many young men?
It is easy to say that what we are lacking for young men are male role models. It might be argued this has been caused by an increase in the proportion of female teachers (over 71 per cent in 2019), or by absentee fathers working too hard or being constantly distracted on their phones. But the fact is there are many male role models around for young men – whether it be in sport, politics, business, media or even on social media.
The problem seems to be the silence of these role models. Where are the men discrediting Tate? When I Googled Tate’s name, I found dozens of articles criticising his toxic masculinity. But only a handful were written by men. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of criticism and discrediting of Tate comes from women.
Why is it on Greta Thunberg and podcasts like The Guilty Feminist to discuss these issues? Although hilarious, being “murdered” on Twitter by Thunberg doesn’t help young men see how objectionable and destructive Tate is. While it sings to the choir of his objectors, it does not speak to the young men who follow him. Ultimately, it galvanises his base.
As a vertically challenged teacher, I know I don’t have the same ability to project my voice across an oval to tell students they need to go back to class as some of my colleagues. I also know that as a mother, there are some things I won’t be able to communicate as effectively to my son as his father, grandfathers, or other men in his life. I don’t see this as a failing on my part, but part of life. Young boys need strong male role models.
Part of that role modelling must help them understand how corrosive someone like Tate really is. There are two ways this needs to be done.
The first is explicitly – men must tell their sons, students, nephews, family friends, and their broader communities that what Andrew Tate says is wrong, violent, misogynistic and unacceptable. Explain why it is so, have awkward conversations. Lean on the “how would you feel if someone spoke about your sister/mother/friend like that?” if you must: whatever you need to do to get the message across.
One friend told me his teenage daughter made it clear that she and her friends would have absolutely nothing to do with a guy who spouts Tate’s ideas, even as a joke. Because as we all know, in every joke there is a grain of truth.
Young men need to know that it doesn’t matter if Tate’s workouts are good, or his points about getting a job or starting a business are somewhat inspiring because they come from the same person who says women can be owned by their partners. They come from an alleged human trafficker. Everything he says must be coloured by that.
Just as we shouldn’t go to politicians held hostage by the gambling lobby for advice on helping families bankrupted by poker machines, we shouldn’t go to Andrew Tate for relationship advice.
The second way is implicitly – support women in equality, and in authority. When young men hear their male role models use derogatory language about young women in the media, (like that the woman is being “harpy”, “shrill” or “bossy”) it can echo what Tate has said, surrounded by takeaway pizza boxes when apprehended by Romanian police.
Instead, promote the women around you. Support equality; follow female sports teams as well as their male counterparts; discuss these issues with your sons.
There are some amazing men who are already doing this work – including Zac Seidler at Movember, Darren Saunders, and Steve Biddulph, but we need more men to speak up now so the next generation hears them.
It is only when a teenager watches an Andrew Tate video and sees it as diametrically opposed to everything in their daily lives that his irrelevance will become obvious, and they will happily scroll to the next clip.
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Relationships are the key to happiness
If someone asked you which of the following choices would make for the most pleasant train ride possible which would you choose—spending your commute keeping to yourself or striking up a conversation with one of the unpredictable strangers in the seat next to you?
Many of us would choose to sit back with our headphones in because the thought of having to converse with someone we don't know is scary. We assume the worst, Dr. Robert Waldinger, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School at Massachusetts General Hospital and co-author of the new book The Good Life, tells Fortune.
His book uses this question to illustrate how we expect social interactions to be negative based on the uncertainty that comes with connection. However, in a study from the University of Chicago, people who decided to strike up that conversation rated their commute as more pleasant than normal, ultimately surprising themselves, Waldinger and his co-author Marc Schulz write.
“We seem particularly bad at forecasting the benefits of relationships,” the co-authors write. “A big part of this is the obvious fact that relationships can be messy and unpredictable. This messiness is some of what prompts many of us to prefer being alone.”
In The Good Life, Waldinger and Schulz distill what makes people find happiness from a study beginning in 1938 following the lives of 724 Harvard students and low-income boys from Boston in the world’s longest scientific study of happiness to date, according to the researchers. The ongoing study, which has expanded to include the spouses and children of the original participants, consists of over 2,000 people.
The researchers gathered participants’ health records every five years, conducted DNA tests along the way, and received questionnaires about their lives and well-being every two years. Roughly every 15 years, the researchers met the participants in-person for an interview. The researchers followed the participants' lives in hopes of finding the key to happiness and found that it wasn’t, in fact, good health.
One thing instead became irrefutable: strong relationships most accurately predicted people’s happiness throughout their lives. They are “intrinsic to everything we do and everything we are,” the authors write.
Now, that doesn’t mean you must strike up a conversation on a busy train car to have a happy life. Waldinger says he wants to instead show how easily, and subconsciously, we bypass the chance to connect when swept up by the hustle of life.
When the participants in the happiness study were asked how they overcame adversity—illnesses, war memories, and losses—their connections always remained a cornerstone of hope in their lives, whether they recalled the person who lent them money when they didn’t have anywhere to turn or their fellow soldier who kept them afloat when they fought (many of the participants served in war). As they aged, the participants who shared regrets mainly bemoaned how little time they spent with family and friends and how much they cared about the seemingly trivial—success and money.
“It's not that accomplishment isn't important and satisfying. It is,” Waldinger says. “But when we sacrifice our [relationships], that's when we end up regretting it, and living a life that isn't as good as we might have.”
If you feel uneasy about the quality of your connections, you’re in luck because the researchers say it's never too late to improve your relationships, whether it be a new friend or someone we reconnect with from our past.
“Social fitness” is the ability to take stock of your relationships and work on them through time, Waldinger says. Which ones energize you? Who do you appreciate and how can you incorporate them into your life in new ways? Do you want to make new connections? Even the people we consider close friends can begin to slide down the priority list as we age.
“We grow. We change. Our lives change,” Waldinger says. “But some of it is that we can be intentional, saying, ‘this person I want to keep in my life.’ That's the intentional part that I want to point to.”
The best way to improve your “social fitness” is to schedule time to build relationships into your week, as you would a session at the gym or a work meeting. Waldinger and Schulz aren’t only co-authors but friends, and they talk every Friday at noon.
“We talk about our work and we talk about writing this book, but we talk about our kids and we talk about things that are bothering us in our personal lives. We talk about everything,” he says. “That phone call is automatic, and we actually have to cancel it if there's a reason. It’s a huge factor in how we’ve been able to stay close.”
It’s never too late to start finding that time to carve in a quick weekly phone call with someone you miss and appreciate. Waldinger also encourages making a friend at work, by asking someone to hang out and getting to know them over a shared interest or by solving a professional issue together.
For people who want to make new connections, Waldinger suggests putting yourself into more positions where that may be possible. It can be trickier if you’re working from home, moving to a new city, or navigating a dynamic where you don’t have a close point of contact, but putting ourselves out there is still in our control, Waldinger says. Join a local book club or intramural team, call a friend even for a short amount of time weekly or monthly, or plan your next visit to someone who lives far from you.
Use technology to your advantage
Technology can bring people together who wouldn’t otherwise cross paths, like my mom and one of her best friends who connected in an online support group for those grappling with chronic pain. They now make an effort to have calls monthly and even travel to each other’s hometowns once in a while. But technology can also dilute the image of happiness, capturing the luxurious and unrealistic highlights of people’s lives.
“We get messages all day, every day, about things that are supposed to make life good that turn out not to make life good,” Waldinger says, mainly around products and success.
Social media isn’t going anywhere, although it will inevitably take new forms, Waldinger says. Ask yourself how to be an active consumer over a passive one—which can help you avoid the feelings of FOMO and use technology to cultivate relationships rather than feel more distant from them. Check in with yourself after 10 minutes online, and ask yourself how you feel, he says. Notice if you feel more energized and excited by connecting with others or depressed and more lonely. It will give you an indication of which types of media benefit you and your relationships.
Cultivate the power of attention
One of Wadlinger’s Zen teachers once said, “Attention is the most basic form of love.” Giving someone our attention seems simple, but it can easily be something we sidestep for more short-term mood boosts like a notification ding.
“The most precious thing we can give to somebody else is our undivided attention, but it's much harder to give that these days,” Waldinger says.
Stop, listen, and give eye contact when you’re engaging with someone. Waldinger says to eliminate the pressure of trying to perfectly understand someone or solve their problem. Listening without the need to jump in shows the other person we care more than we may think, he says.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help
Making new connections and cherishing old ones means accepting the vulnerability that comes with caring about someone and leaning on them when needed. If the greatest joys in life come from our memories with others, we can't forgo the chance to have someone by our side because we never want to open up or seem like we ask for too much.
“One of the harder things for some people to learn is how to give help, and—even harder for others as they grow older—how to receive help,” the authors write. “...as we age, we become concerned both that we’re too needy and that people won’t be there for us when we really need them.”
Relationships are complex, and they take vulnerability to sustain. It makes sense why we sometimes stray from genuine connection out of fear, but The Good Life reminds us that they are worth keeping and finding—at any age.
“Relationships don't keep us happy all day, every day because nobody's happy all day, every day,” Waldinger says. “What they do is they build a bedrock of well-being. They build a safety net. They build a sense that I got people in my life when I need them.”
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Woke witch hunt in psychology? In defence of scientific integrity and due process
Woke intolerance has penetrated peak scientific associations in psychology. There is a rapidly developing scandal around the recent dismissal of Klaus Fiedler, the Chief Editor of the prestigious journal Perspectives on Psychological Inquiry by the executive of the Association of Psychological Science.
Fiedler was accused of racism and was summarily removed from his editorship by the association. This appears to have occurred without any due process, proper investigation, or independent assessment of the charges against him. Many distinguished psychologists learnt of this injustice with a sense of outrage, resulting in a spate of resignations and protests.
Fiedler has been an eminent professor at the University of Heidelberg with an outstanding research record over four decades. He is also a highly experienced editor who served the discipline with great distinction and dedication on the boards of several leading journals.
He is widely recognised in the field as not only not a racist, but one of the most fair-minded and decent scientists with an impressive track record of supporting and mentoring young scientists from every background.
Indeed, on his appointment, APS praised Fiedler for bringing a broad body of research and knowledge as well as significant editorial experience to its flagship journal, as the first chief editor appointed from outside North America.
The unsubstantiated accusation of racism against Fiedler was brought by Steven Othello Roberts, a self-identified race scholar who objected to Fiedler’s handling of critical reactions to his controversial paper on Racial Inequality in Psychological Research.
Commentators of Roberts’ work argued that it was ideological and not scientific (Hommel), that he introduced identity politics into the discipline (Stanovich), that racial representativeness is not relevant to establishing universal psychological principles (Stroebe), and that Roberts’s emphasis on racial diversity is selective and unscientific (Jussim).
Critical comments on scientific papers are nothing unusual. What Roberts objected to, and what he implied was evidence of racism, was that the reviewers happened to be ‘all senior White men’, apparently confirming his belief that:
‘…systemic racism exists in science. There is a racialised power structure that marginalises research by (and about) people of colour.’
One can always question the fairness of editorial choices, but as far as one can see, there is no evidence of racism in anything Fiedler has done. Indeed, it could be argued that the only race-based commentary on display here is by Roberts, as it was he who raised the racial status of the reviewers as problematic and claimed that their critical remarks were ‘unsound, unscientific, ad hominem, and racist’. The details of this appalling case have been impressively documented in the recent Editorial by the online magazine Quillette.
Accusing Fiedler of racism based on his choice of reviewers and his handling of a manuscript has no substance as far as one can see. Reviewers should always be chosen based on their expertise and merit, and not their racial or identity status.
As a scientist, it was Fiedler’s duty to disregard ideology and evaluate papers based only on their scientific merit and to select reviewers solely based on their expertise. This he has done. The race or identity of an author or reviewer can play no role in such decisions. Roberts’ accusation that the reviewers’ race may be a factor in their critical reactions could easily be considered a racist position.
The far more troubling issue is how leading professional associations in a scientific field have now been corrupted by Woke ideology to a degree where unsupportable and unexamined accusations of racism can result in the immediate dismissal of an outstanding editor, and the gratuitous slandering of the good name of a serious and decent scientist.
Fiedler’s case illustrates a growing trend among scientific associations of adopting activist policies and ideological control in violation of the most basic principles of fairness and scientific values.
Various other psychological associations now demand that scientific papers must be prefaced by statements about how they advance diversity, equity, and inclusiveness. Once prestigious journals, like Nature Human Behaviour, now reserves the right to refuse articles it deems to be socially problematic, irrespective of their truth or scientific merit.
The procedures adopted by APS amount to a shameful denial of procedural and natural justice. Interestingly, European associations appear more resistant to Woke ideology. The German Psychological Association rebuked its American counterpart, stating that ‘it is not our understanding of procedural justice to condemn a person without giving him or her an adequate hearing’.
Many distinguished scientists also expressed their support of Fiedler. Joachim Krueger, a senior researcher, and editorial board member resigned and wrote:
‘APS has placed ideological mandates before science and has thereby begun to throttle it. I do not know how you might recover from this … In time, someone will write the story of these recent events, and the APS leadership is not likely to star in a heroic role.’
Those like me who lived in totalitarian societies will recognise that such a summary condemnation and punishment of individuals accused of ideological trespasses without due process is the hallmark of totalitarian institutions. They should not be tolerated in our professional associations.
Hard-working and decent scientists like Fiedler should not be condemned on the say-so of a disgruntled author who dislikes the way his manuscript has been handled. Such scurrilous accusations of racism should not remain unchallenged, and the scientific community cannot remain silent without compromising the foundational values that inform our enterprise.
It is critically important that scientists should protest against such shameful injustice. Writing to the APS executive (Contact Us – Association for Psychological Science – APS), resigning from this association, and demanding fairness and due process for Fiedler are available options. The injustice perpetrated by APS against one of our most decent and fair-minded colleagues should not remain unchallenged. If we let this pass, we can no longer pretend that our professional associations continue to represent the noble traditions of scientific inquiry.
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Australia: A big backlash against political correcness
Prize money for greyhound racing in NSW has close to doubled in the five years since the state government tried to ban the industry, as online gambling markets drive record income from punters who have never watched a race.
Betting agency fees – known as “race field information use fees” – paid to Greyhound Racing NSW increased from $24.5 million in the 2017-18 financial year to $68.8 million in 2021-22, the organisation’s annual reports show, while its sponsorship and rights income increased from zero to $10 million.
Ads for online betting services, such as Ladbrokes and Sportsbet, blanket Greyhound Racing NSW’s livestreaming website, thedogs.com.au.
The presence of the gambling industry extends to dogs in each race wearing “rugs” colour-coded to match eight gambling websites, following a sponsorship deal brokered last year.
Greyhound Racing NSW’s overall income increased from $67 million to $121.5 million during the same period, in a financial performance described by CEO Robert Macaulay as its best on record. The sport’s prize money rose from $26.4 million to $46.3 million in a third successive year of record profits.
“The sport of greyhound racing is thriving in NSW and this has filtered through as an economic benefit to the regional and rural communities of NSW,” Macaulay said, noting 75 per cent of participants lived outside metropolitan areas.
“The reality is that greyhound racing would not exist without the massive amounts of money wagered by punters online.”
Joanne Lee, Coalition for the Protection of Greyhounds
But greyhound welfare advocates told The Sun-Herald it was shameful that the local industry was thriving off gambling cash when countries abroad had shunned the sport.
Australian races are already attracting gamblers in overseas markets such as in the US and Asia, where the practice has been largely outlawed, with Sydney fixtures featured on betting websites abroad.
Joanne Lee from the Coalition for the Protection of Greyhounds said arguments that greyhound racing was a community sport seemed weak when so much of its income came from people who only viewed races as lists of odds on betting websites.
“The reality is that greyhound racing would not exist without the massive amounts of money wagered by punters online who will never attend a race. Given the dramatic reduction in racetrack attendance, there is virtually no money made through community engagement,” she said.
NSW recorded its first greyhound racing fatality of 2023 last week: a dog racing at Wentworth Park, in Glebe, was euthanised after colliding with other animals on the track on Thursday. Eight dogs died at the track in 2022, in addition to two at Richmond and one at Potts Park, in Yagoona.
“The rest of the world has seen the writing on the wall and is rapidly moving away from greyhound racing — the grubby greyhound gambling industry in NSW is lapping up the profits as a result,” said state Greens member Abigail Boyd.
“In recent years, we have seen the NSW greyhound racing industry change race times to suit people betting in real time overseas, regardless of the inconvenience caused to participants and race officials and the additional risks it adds from an animal welfare perspective.”
Asked if running races earlier in the morning was influenced by international markets, Macaulay said the organisation was “considering its options” to engage viewers overseas but the bulk of its revenue was from Australia.
Greyhound racing was set to be outlawed in NSW from July 1, 2017 due to animal welfare concerns, but former Liberal premier Mike Baird overturned the decision just three months after it was passed, instead promising to clean up the industry.
However, critics say state government interventions to improve safety and regulation, as well as taxes on gambling, have contributed to greyhound racing’s wealth.
The state government invested $30 million into track safety upgrades in 2021, a cost which opponents say saved expenses for the racing industry.
In 2018, NSW established an independent regulator, the Greyhounds Welfare Integrity Commission (GWIC). Before the 2021-22 financial year, the regulator was funded by Greyhounds Racing NSW, which critics said compromised its independence. It is now funded mostly by the state government’s 10 per cent point of consumption tax on online wagering (while racing’s share of money gathered from that tax has also increased).
“The greyhound racing industry is funded by the gambling industry and state governments. Without these two revenue streams, the industry would be unviable,” said Lee.
In a statement, NSW Minister for Hospitality and Racing Kevin Anderson said “animal welfare is at the heart of the NSW government’s support for the greyhound industry”, declining to answer questions about whether it had facilitated an increase in Greyhound Racing NSW’s income.
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January 13, 2023
Big Welfare Handouts Mean Folks Who Stay Home Are Living High on the Hog off Your Tax Dollars
Americans are justifiably frustrated that they are working hard to earn a living while being forced to support so many others who aren’t working.Some families can receive the annualized equivalent of a six-figure income with no one working—and you’re paying for it.
In 29 states, unemployment benefits and Obamacare subsidies are worth more than the wages and benefits earned by the median firefighter or truckdriver.
The expansion of welfare benefits—both in terms of eligibility and size of benefits—has provided a substantial disincentive to working.
In many states, gratuitous welfare benefits have made that childhood fantasy an adult reality. Professor Casey Mulligan of the University of Chicago and I have found that some families can receive the annualized equivalent of a six-figure income with no one working—and you’re paying for it.
During the pandemic, idled workers received unemployment "bonuses" so high that many were pocketing more than twice what they had been making on the job. Even without these extra weekly payments, unemployment benefits can reach unexpected high levels in many states. In New Jersey, for instance, a family of four with no one working can receive unemployment benefits equivalent to a job paying over $96,000. That’s more than the median household earns in wages and benefits combined.
High unemployment benefits are not unique to the Garden State. In 13 states, a family can receive annualized unemployment benefits worth more than the median household income. The value of unemployment benefits comes not just from their sheer size, but their tax advantages as well. Unlike earned income, unemployment benefits are exempt from payroll taxes, and six states also exempt them from the respective state income tax.
And while the pandemic-related unemployment benefits have ended, the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") subsidies have just kept expanding. A program that was sold to the American people as a hand up for the poor has quickly been transformed into a handout for upper income earners.
In some parts of the country, a family of four earning over half a million dollars still qualifies for Obamacare subsidies. Those with a quarter million-dollar income qualify in nearly the entire country.
The annualized value of these healthcare subsidies and unemployment benefits for a family of four can exceed a six-figure income. In Washington state, the amount is more than $122,000, substantially more than many blue-collar incomes.
In fact, it is 32 percent more than the wages and benefits of the median household; 51 percent more than the median secondary school teacher’s wages and benefits; 95 percent more the median machinist’s salary and benefits, and 220 percent more than the median retail associate’s salary and benefits.
But Washington state is not alone. In 29 states, unemployment benefits and Obamacare subsidies are worth more than the wages and benefits earned by the median firefighter or truckdriver. In 14 states, these two programs pay annualized benefits exceeding the wages and benefits of the median electrician.
While our study examined only two welfare programs that are not means-tested, there is an entire suite of means-tested programs for which many people are eligible, and which together provide a surprisingly high standard of living.
In Loudoun County, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., you can receive over $25,000 in annual rental assistance alone—and that is just one program. Add to that food stamps, which have just been expanded, and subsidies for everything from education to transportation, and you have not just a robust social safety net but a perverse incentive not to work because even a small amount of income disqualifies you from receiving these means-tested benefits.
Many economists have been scratching their heads, wondering why so many workers are sitting on the sidelines today, despite four-decade-high inflation and the resulting record-high number of unfilled job openings. The expansion of welfare benefits—both in terms of eligibility and size of benefits—has provided a substantial disincentive to working. Businesses must not only compete against one another for workers, but against the dole as well.
While Americans are preparing for the most expensive Christmas ever, they are justifiably frustrated that they are working hard to earn a living while being forced to support so many others who aren’t working. That’s what happens when liberals play Santa Claus with your tax dollars.
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South Dakota Has Never Placed a Male in a Women’s Prison, Gov. Noem Says in Response to Criticism of Trans Policy
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, is considering changes to her Department of Corrections policy following criticism from conservatives, particularly National Review writer Nate Hochman.
Earlier this month, Hochman claimed that “the Noem-appointed prisons director recently signed off on allowing inmates to transfer to prisons that match their ‘gender identity’ rather than biological sex—and attain sex changes on the taxpayer dime.”
Ian Fury, Noem’s spokesman, told The Daily Signal that Hochman mischaracterized South Dakota’s prison policy (available here), which a former secretary of corrections adopted in June 2021 following a legal settlement agreement.
“Our policy is substantially similar to other states. Our Department of Corrections is reviewing the policy to see if there is any room for improvement,” Fury said. Referring to the prison housing policy, the governor’s spokesman noted that placements “are decided on a case-by-case basis, but such requests have been denied every time they have been made.”
Elsewhere, female prison inmates have suffered at the hands of male inmates who claim to identify as transgender. Ramel Blount, 33, a male who said he identifies as female, pleaded guilty to attempted rape of a female inmate in the women’s section of New York’s Rikers Island jail in February 2021.
The South Dakota prison policy states that “inmate housing is not based exclusively on external genital anatomy of those housed in the unit or facility,” and that “requests by a transgender, intersex or gender dysphoric inmate to transfer to a facility inconsistent with the inmate’s external genital anatomy (sex), may be considered.”
The prison system’s Gender Dysphoria Committee investigates any such request, and makes a recommendation. According to the document, all such requests shall be considered on a “case-by-case basis.” Fury told The Daily Signal that the secretary of corrections (currently Kellie Wasko) has ultimate discretion on placement of inmates.
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DeSantis Wants to ‘Further Advance Protections for Innocent Life’
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican who signed a 15-week abortion ban into law last year, wants more protections for Florida’s unborn babies.
“The upcoming 2023 Florida legislative session starts in March, and we look forward to working with the Florida Legislature to further advance protections for innocent life,” press secretary Bryan Griffin shared with The Daily Signal on Tuesday afternoon.
Griffin pointed to a December press conference where the governor walked right up to the line of explicitly promising to support a bill banning abortions after a baby has a heartbeat.
“I’m willing to sign great life legislation,” DeSantis said, arms outstretched, asked if he would support a heartbeat bill. “That’s what I’ve always said I would do.”
Florida Right to Life President Lynda Bell hasn’t seen specific language on such a bill, though she’s called and contacted “quite a few” Florida legislators to discuss it.
“Last session we had a 15-week bill and we felt like that was just the beginning,” she shared hopefully on Tuesday morning. “Of course, we hadn’t had the Dobbs decision yet, and so we supported the 15-week bill and it was very successful.”
HB 5, which DeSantis signed in April, bans late-term abortions after the unborn baby has reached 15 weeks of age. It allows exceptions when the mother’s life is at risk or in danger of “irreversible physical impairment,” or if the baby has a fetal abnormality, but does not offer exceptions for rape.
“House Bill 5 protects babies in the womb who have beating hearts, who can move, who can taste, who can see, and who can feel pain,” DeSantis said at the time. “Life is a sacred gift worthy of our protection, and I am proud to sign this great piece of legislation which represents the most significant protections for life in the state’s modern history.”
Florida has seen a huge drop in abortions in the past year — in 2022, abortions fell by 14.5% statewide, according to the state’s Agency for Health Care Administration.
Bell credits the infant lives saved to the “strong pro-life majority” in the Legislature and “a governor who asked us to send him pro-life legislation to sign and enact into law.”
The Daily Signal reached out to the DeSantis team after a spokesman for South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, accused DeSantis of “hiding behind a 15-week ban” and claimed that Florida Right to Life was embarrassed by the governor (Bell denied this to The Daily Signal, praising both Noem and DeSantis for protecting life).
“Does he believe that 14-week-old babies don’t have a right to live?” asked spokesman Ian Fury in an irate email to National Review reporter Nate Hochman about Hochman’s “How Gender Ideology Conquered South Dakota.” Fury declined to comment further on the matter to The Daily Signal.
“To say that we are embarrassed by DeSantis? That statement alone is an embarrassment. We are thrilled with our governor,” Bell added.
DeSantis spokesman Griffin said Tuesday that the governor’s office “has no response” to Fury’s allegations, desiring that conservative governors across America “work together for reform and the enactment of conservative policies through our federalist system.”
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New documentary exposes truth of George Floyd's undoing
Jack Cashill praises film, asks why the arresting cops are sitting in prison
As all the world knows, the 46-year-old Floyd died in police custody on May 25, 2020. A 17-year-old bystander captured a limited perspective on the last few minutes of Floyd's life, time enough to cause a $2 billion upheaval that took a dozen lives, fueled a hundreds scams and forced a thousand dishonest "conversations" about race.
"Half truths are dangerous enough to topple a nation," says Henein, and right she is. By piecing together the available video imagery, especially the police body cams, Henein gets much closer to the truth than did the major media or the Minnesota courts, neither of which bothered to try.
At 7:45 that evening, Floyd buys cigarettes with a bogus $20 bill at Cup Foods, a convenience store co-owned by Palestinian-American Mahmoud Abumayyaleh, "Adam" for short.
Floyd leaves the store, literally skips across the street, and sits in the driver's seat of a Mercedes SUV. Sitting beside him is friend Morries Hall. Sitting in back is Shawanda Hill, an ex-girlfriend and, like Floyd and Hall, a convicted felon. Hall earlier that day was caught trying to pass a counterfeit twenty of his own.
Strangely, the car doesn't pull away. Hall would tell Henein that Floyd could not find the key fob. He had earlier told police that Floyd took a couple of Percocets and fell asleep. Truth is the first casualty of homicide investigations.
After determining the $20 was counterfeit, young black clerk Chris Martin is instructed to approach the car and ask Floyd and Hall to come back in and speak to Adam. They refuse.
A few minutes later Martin returns to the car with a co-worker, and Hall rips up a $20 bill in front of them and leaves it in the gutter. He and Floyd again refuse to return to the store.
At 8:01 p.m. a Cup Foods employee calls 911. The police release the transcript of the call but not the audio, nor the identity of the caller. Henein recreates the call in the documentary.
At 8:08 p.m. officers Thomas Lane and Alexander Kueng arrive at the scene. The pair approach the vehicle from the driver's side. Floyd appears to swallow something as they approach.
Floyd is uncooperative from the start. His hands are all over the place. When Lane pulls his weapon, demanding that Floyd show his hands, Floyd grows hysterical and starts crying, "Please don't shoot."
Henein then cuts to bodycam footage from the previous May in which Floyd reacts in much the same way when stopped by the police. Here, too, he begs the police not to shoot him and swallows drugs in their presence.
"Keep your hands where I can f***ing see them," the exasperated officer yells at Floyd. The second officer threatens to tase him if he continues to resist. Henein wonders whether hysteria is Floyd's "shtick."
Back at Cup Foods, Shawanda yells at Floyd, "Stop resisting." The officers say the same thing more than once. At 8:14, after finally getting him in handcuffs, the officers walk a reluctant Floyd across the street to their vehicle and attempt to put him in the back seat.
"I'm scared as f***," says Floyd, adding cryptically. "When I stop breathing. It's gonna go off on me." Lane offers to stay with him, to roll down the windows, to turn on the air-conditioning. Floyd says, "I can't breathe," a line he will repeat for the next 10 minutes.
At 8:16 officers Derek Chauvin and Tuo Thao arrive. They try to help get Floyd in the vehicle, but the muscular 6-foot-6 Floyd will not be subdued. "I want to lay on the ground," he tells the officers, and they oblige him.
At 8:20 the officers call in for a medical emergency likely for the cut Floyd sustained when he hit his face on the vehicle's plexiglass divider. At 8:21 they call again, now possibly concerned about his erratic behavior.
Once on the ground, face down, Floyd continues to struggle. Chauvin applies a common restraint that was featured in the Minneapolis police manual, but that was not allowed to be shown at trial.
For roughly six minutes of the famed "8 minutes and 46 seconds" during which Chauvin is alleged to be choking the life out of Floyd, Floyd continues to complain: "My stomach hurts," "I ate too many drugs," "I can't breathe."
The bystanders do not know he had been saying the latter for the prior 10 minutes. Nor do they know that the "Mama" Floyd calls for is his ex-girlfriend.
Lane questions whether Chauvin should roll Floyd on his side. "I think he's passing out," says Lane at one point. He appears to do just that. When the EMTs arrive, it is Lane who initiates CPR inside the vehicle.
Henein suggests that "Adam" may have been an informant, and the 911 call part of a sting. "Something just does not compute," she says correctly – but inconclusively.
The most powerful case the film does make concerns officer Thomas Lane. On just his fourth day on the job, he does everything he can to save Floyd from himself and is now rotting in a federal prison for his efforts.
Was it a hate crime? Keung is black, Thao Asian. Then, too, the film shows the Minnesota attorney general telling "60 Minutes," "We don't have any evidence that Derek Chauvin factored in George Floyd's race as he did what he did."
So why exactly are these men in prison? We'll never know. The courts and the district attorney, Hall tells Henein, "are keeping you dummified in the lack of knowledge."
"The Real Timeline" will debut on Jan. 16. It is must see for anyone who cares about justice.
https://www.wnd.com/2023/01/new-documentary-exposes-truth-george-floyds-undoing/
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12 January, 2023
France Settles l’Affaire Houellebecq — at Least for Now
Rather surprising that a novellist is so influential
Incident over. The Chief Rabbi of France, Haim Korsia, brokered a compromise between a famous French novelist, Michel Houellebecq, and the rector of the Great Mosque at Paris, Chems-Eddine Hafiz. Mr. Houellebecq agreed to “correct” some of his recent statements about French Muslims. Rector Hafiz withdrew the complaint for “community violence incitement” he had filed against Mr. Houellebecq.
The whole story started six weeks ago. Front Populaire, a quarterly edited by another cultural celebrity, philosopher Michel Onfray, published a lengthy discussion between Messrs. Onfray and Houellebecq. The two men are in fact on friendly terms and share a common right-wing populist perception of the present situation of France.
As part of this conversation, Mr. Houellebecq warned about a growing rejection of Islam as a religion and Muslims as a community among the native, non-Muslim French. He even prophesied that “when whole areas will be under Islamic control … acts of resistance will take place.... There will be attacks in front of mosques, in cafes frequented by Muslims: in short, Bataclan in reverse.”
Indeed, every word here may look like dynamite. The very idea that the country might be overtaken by a foreign population and that the French democratic state is being superseded in a piecemeal way by an Islamic, theocratic regime, runs against France’s “national myth” since the Revolution: “La République, une et indivisible” (“A single, unbreakable Republic”).
Even more problematic is the prospect of an anti-Islamic “resistance” — that is to say of an ethnic and religious civil war. And what about the ominous final prediction that “resistance terrorism” might eventually lead to the anti-Islamic equivalent of the Islamist slaughter at the Bataclan theater and other places at Paris on November 13, 2015, which left 130 dead and 413 wounded or crippled?
Still, it may be argued so far that Mr. Houellebecq is not actually calling for civil war, but rather dealing, in a realistic way, with a worst-case scenario. Just as a socialist president, François Hollande, admitted shortly after Bataclan, in 2016, that there was a real danger of “partition.” Or as the present centrist president, Emmanuel Macron, had a law against “separatism” passed by the National Assembly in 2021.
The real issue, from a legal angle, lies rather with Mr. Houellebecq’s next sentence: “What the native population really strives for is not so much the Muslims’ assimilation into the French mainstream than the end of Muslim robbery and violence against them.” The implication may be that all Muslim citizens or residents of France are criminals. And this may be construed as racist incitement against a particular human group.
Mr. Houellebecq is arguably France’s best and most important contemporary writer. There is a widespread feeling that he deserved much more a Nobel Prize than the 2022 French laureate, Annie Ernaux. While both deal at length with social and societal issues, like class, sex, gender, and race, Mr. Houellebecq never gets stuck, unlike Ms. Ernaux, in Manichean postures, and devotes equal attention and sympathy, as the author, to all his characters.
Ms. Ernaux bought her ticket to fame — and ultimately the Nobel Prize — by subscribing to what America and the rest of the world, it seems, call woke orthodoxy. This includes a denial of Islamist threats to France in 2015 and support for anti-Israel campaigns. Mr. Houellebecq, on the contrary, did not shy away from tackling the Islamic and Islamist challenges to France and the West.
Mr. Houellebecq’s novel “Platform,” originally published in France in 2001, is primarily about the sex tourism industry in Thailand. However it culminates in a massive Islamist terrorist attack that literally blows hundreds of happy sinners into pieces. And it already pondered about the cyclical mechanisms of hate, murder, retribution, and revenge launched by terrorism.
“Submission,” published in 2015, envisions the election of a “Muslim-democratic” president and the ensuing gradual, peaceful transformation of the country into an ever more radicalized Islamic regime, complete with polygamy and hijab, under his administration. The way Mr. Houellebecq describes the French elites’ surrender to Kuranic supremacy is hilarious.
Rather intriguingly, both stories foreshadow real events: the 9/11 attacks of 2001, the Bali massacres of 2002, and the Paris attacks of 2015. Likewise, “Serotonin,” in 2016, anticipated the Yellow Vests crisis that was to rock France for months. As one magazine put it, Mr. Houellebecq could convincingly pass as a psychic or a soothsayer. It is not a crime under French law to engage in such activities. Itt can make all kinds of people nervous.
Many Muslims, in France or abroad, got nervous as well from “Platform,” about Mr. Houellebecq’s “Islamophobia.” Death threats and police protection became steady fixtures in his life. In 2002, he was sued for the first time by the Paris Great Mosque (whose distinguished counsel, Jean-Marc Varaut, was a right-wing Catholic): not about his novel, but rather an interview published by Lire, the French literary magazine, shortly before 9/11.
True to his provocateur profile, Mr. Houellebecq observed there: “I suddenly felt an absolute rejection of all monotheistic creeds, including Islam…. Islam, however, is the stupidest of them all, a religion of asses…. You get appalled when you read the Kuran…. At least, the Bible is a beautiful book, since Jews are awfully talented in literary matters.”
The case was then dismissed by the French court, setting a 20-year-old precedent that Chief Rabbi Korsia, did not fail to mention to Rector Hafiz, when he suggested to him that he drop the complaint. All the more so since most of the French have doubled down, in the wake of the murder of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists in 2015, and more recently in front of a spreading wokeism, their traditional aversion to censorship.
Eventually, Mr. Houellebecq met the rector under Mr. Korsia’s tutelage, and agreed to reword his previous statements incrementally, when the interview will be published again as a book. Mr. Houellebecq may have learned one thing at least from the Islamic culture: taqia, the permissibility to please adversaries if needed.
https://www.nysun.com/article/france-settles-laffaire-houellebecq-at-least-for-now
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Why I HATE the phrase 'happy holidays' - far from being inclusive, it is in fact exclusive
PADRAIG COLLINS
I hate the insipid drivel of being wished 'happy holidays', and anyone who says it to me gets wished 'happy Christmas' right back at them.
If the dreaded phrase - popularised by the 1942 Bing Crosby song Happy Holiday - is said to me by someone I know, they also get told exactly why I hate the phrase.
'Happy holidays' is used by people who think doing so makes them inclusive, but it does not do that. Instead, it achieves the exact opposite - it excludes the 43.9 per cent of Australians who are Christian and who celebrate Christmas.
It also excludes a large proportion of the 38.9 per cent of Australians who ticked the 'No religion' box in the last census, but who were raised Christian and still celebrate Christmas.
Those saying 'happy holidays' do so in the belief that they are saving the 17.2 per cent of the population who have another religion from the terrible insult of having to hear the word Christmas.
The 'happy holidays' sayers are just utterly wrong in thinking it's the polite thing to say - do they also put up holiday trees, or is it OK to say Christmas tree?
I have never met anyone who objects to Christmas - the word or the feast - though I've heard and read about them, so I presume they are real.
But why would anyone object to something that at its heart - the birth of baby Jesus in Bethlehem 2022 years ago - is a good thing?
I am not offended by the existence or mention of any other religion's feast days.
On the contrary, if someone wished me, for instance, happy Hanukkah, Eid Al-Fitr or Diwali, I would be delighted.
These important days do not represent my religious upbringing, but I know how vital they are to Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism and others.
I do not say 'happy holidays' to someone celebrating Hanukkah, Eid Al-Fitr or Diwali - I say the proper name of the time being celebrated.
Doing otherwise would be offensive to how important to it is to them and their families, and it's why I hate having 'happy holidays' said to me.
I don't want to be a Grinch about this, but Christmas is a very special time of the year to billions of people around the world.
Please stop taking away from its joy by diluting it to 'happy holidays'.
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Christian maths teacher accused of 'misgendering' trans pupil and calling Muhammad a 'false prophet' denies misconduct
A Christian maths teacher accused of 'misgendering' a transgender pupil, calling Muhammad a 'false prophet' and saying men in today's society 'are not masculine enough' has denied misconduct.
Joshua Sutcliffe is accused of referring to a transgender student as 'she' while working at a secondary school in Oxford, as well as making 'inappropriate' comments about gay marriage and masculinity at another school in London.
The teacher, who is an evangelical Christian, is facing allegations of misconduct by the Teacher Regulation Agency (TRA).
At a misconduct hearing in Oxford this week Andrew Cullen, representing the TRA, said Mr Sutcliffe had a 'strong belief and unshakeable conviction' that gender cannot be changed from the one assigned at birth.
Mr Sutcliffe is accused of misgendering the student, known only as Pupil A, at The Cherwell School in Oxford in 2017. Mr Sutcliffe admits he used the wrong pronoun but denies it was due to his beliefs and says he apologised for the mistake.
The tribunal heard that after Mr Sutcliffe was suspended and later left the school, he appeared on ITV's This Morning to speak about the incident.
Mr Cullen said Mr Sutcliffe misgendered the pupil again during the segment, and also misgendered the student in an email to the school in December 2018 - which the TRA say also amounts to misconduct.
Mr Sutcliffe is also accused of expressing his views on gay marriage and homosexuality during maths lessons - including making a comment that his roommate had 'stopped being gay through God' - which he denies.
From September 2018, the maths teacher went to work at a boys St Aloysius' College in Islington, north London, where he is accused of showing students videos that were 'inappropriate and had the potential to cause pupils distress'.
He allegedly played his own video to pupils at the boys-only Roman Catholic school in which he said Muslims have a 'false understanding of God' and that Muhammad was a 'false prophet'.
He is also accused of making comments about masculinity, including that there is a 'growing problem in today's society that men are not masculine enough' and that women 'want real men' and are 'not attracted to passive men'.
Mr Sutcliffe also allegedly said children who grow up without a father are more depressed than their peers and are at 'far greater risk of incarceration, teen pregnancy and poverty'.
Mr Sutcliffe accepts the videos are on his Youtube account but denies showing them to students or making the comments in class, the tribunal heard.
Mr Cullen said: 'All these issues are at the tip of public debate at the moment and issues that are hotly contested. 'It is not that a teacher can't hold personal beliefs or that one may not express their beliefs in an open way or in a public way - but context is vitally important.'
Michael Phillips, representing Mr Sutcliffe, said the teacher's views on gender are 'controversial but upheld and protected in law'.
Mr Phillips claimed there was no policy, risk assessment, or report from a social worker or psychologist to require teachers to use Pupil A's preferred pronoun, and Mr Sutcliffe would usually avoid using pronouns by referring to Pupil A by their name.
Mr Phillips added: 'There's nothing to suggest he must [use male pronouns] except for a brief conversation with a colleague that "if you don't do this, Pupil A will get mad".'
He said Mr Sutcliffe did not believe he had to use Pupil A's preferred pronouns on This Morning or in an email to the school in 2018 as the student was 'not privy to those conversations'.
In response to allegations he showed pupils in Islington his Youtube videos, Mr Phillips said: 'He does have a YouTube channel and he would endorse the comment of the video but he didn't show it.
'It may be that pupils looked him up... found out who he was, saw what he was about.'
Mr Phillips said even if Mr Sutcliffe had shown the videos, the point of view expressed was something 'wholly in keeping with the Christian faith' and 'upheld' by the Catholic school.
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My last phone call with Cardinal Pell
Andrew Bolt
I sure won’t forget the last time Cardinal George Pell rang me. Not now that I’ll never speak again to this holy man. He called me one night from Rome with an anxious question: Had I finally answered Christ’s call?
He’d even sent me an unimpressive book by Antony Flew to hasten the conversion he felt was imminent, so I was embarrassed to disappoint him and admit I was still agnostic.
Here’s why his call will stay with me now that he’s died in hospital of a heart attack, just as he was chatting to an anaesthetist about his hip operation.
It underlined something Pell’s critics never understood about him. To them, Pell was a schemer. A cold politician who rose to be the Vatican’s treasurer, third in line from the Pope, by putting his church above people. And, they wickedly added near the end of his life, he was a paedophile.
For decades, the media pumped out this hatred of Australia’s most senior Catholic, a conservative who opposed their global warming religion.
Just last Friday, browsing in a second-hand bookshop I found a copy of The Prince, a purported portrait of Pell by one of his nastiest critics, former ABC presenter David Marr.
The publisher’s blurb sums up the ABC gospel on Pell that did so much to destroy his reputation. Marr’s book was “a portrait of hypocrisy and ambition” of “a cleric at ease with power”.
But the Pell I knew was a man of God, who couldn’t even in his last days shake his concern for my soul. That real Pell is also there in his inspiring Prison Journal, written while in jail for 404 days for a crime he couldn’t possibly have committed.
The last paragraph says it all, with Pell, the son of a Ballarat publican, writing of the “man-God, whom I love and serve, whom I have followed for all my life”.
Oops. Sorry about all this God talk. It puts a lot of people off these days, and that was the problem with George Pell. No churchman here was firmer in defending his faith, and for that he was crucified.
Where did it all go so wrong? Many critics will point to May 1993, when Pell accompanied Australia’s worst paedophile priest, Father Gerald Ridsdale, to a court hearing. The media went berserk. Myths grew that Pell defended Ridsdale in court and tried to hide his crimes (both false). Even Pell was badgered years later into admitting he’d made a “mistake”.
It was a mistake only because few people now understand Christianity. Pell was trying again to follow Christ, who preached to prostitutes, tax collectors and the despised, telling them even the worst sinner need only repent to be forgiven.
But who understands that message today, when the woke forgive no one? Look at the jeering on Twitter at Pell’s death – “rot in hell”, “mongrel”, and “need to know if George Pell felt any pain before he died like a cockroach”.
Pell, a Christian, would never have been so pitiless. This is the great moral chasm – Christians vs barbarians – into which he fell.
But you’ll want me to say something bad about Pell, even if just to show he wasn’t perfect and I haven’t guzzled the altar wine. Well, Pell didn’t help himself by seeming aloof, cool and a little arrogant.
I once castigated him for using the birth of the beloved daughter of a friend of mine to preach against the IVF techniques which conceived her. Pell sometimes lacked a sensitivity that could have spared him.
Yet what was done to him was more damning than anything he did. For instance, Pell was accused by the witch-hunting Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse of helping the Bishop of Ballarat move Ridsdale from parish to parish, knowing he was raping boys.
Pell denied it, and the commission had no evidence he was lying. In fact, it bizarrely claimed Pell was at a meeting of consulters where the bishop said Ridsdale was a paedophile, yet it accepted another consulter there didn’t know this until a decade later.
No, Pell had to be the fall guy for his guilty church, and Victoria’s police made sure of it.
Pell had long been hated by the Left, even since he became Archbishop of Melbourne and insisted priests and Catholic schools follow the church’s teachings and not their Left-wing own.
He also set up the first compensation scheme anywhere for victims of child-sex abuse, and put in reforms – almost entirely successful – to guard against paedophile priests, but that didn’t save him.
In 2015, Victoria Police advertised for complaints against Pell, asking “victims” to come forward. They then charged him with 26 complaints of child sex abuse against nine “victims”.
The charges were so far-fetched that all collapsed, but not before Pell spent more than a year in jail after being convicted of somehow raping two teenage boys at once in the open sacristy of his Cathedral, in the bustle just after Mass.
In fact, the evidence was clear: Pell was at the front of the Cathedral, talking to worshippers, at the only time the sacristy was free, and his accuser must have been outside, walking back with the choir. Neither the raped nor the alleged rapist could have been at the scene of the crime.
One of the two “victims” even told his parents there was no rape, and the High Court decided, seven judges to nil, Pell was innocent.
Pell always suspected senior Vatican clerics planted or supported these bizarre allegation to stop him investigating them for corruption. One of his enemies is now on trial.
Yet to this day, thousands of Australians still prefer this lie of Pell the paedophile, and the ABC has never apologised for pushing it. Like Nero, they’d rather crucify an innocent Christian than hear the truth.
In that respect, Pell follows the Christ he adored. Let Catholics remember him as a man, flawed but holy, martyred by pagans to pay for their sins.
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10 January, 2023
The oncologist who will refuse all medical treatment after 75 (even for cancer)
A bit extreme! I am in my 80th year so this has some relevance for me. I am glad that I don't agree with him. I have just had a very good year.
I did however have a lot of medical support in recent years so I see that he does have a point. The support I had was not very onerous and has left me in very good health but others will be less fortunate than that
“Zeke”, as he is known, is influential in many ways, but his work that starts the most arguments is an essay titled “Why I want to die at 75”. It’s not just that he hopes “to die before I get old”, in the immortal lyrics of the Who. Rather, Emanuel pledges that at 75 he will stop trying to cheat death. He will act as though the breakthroughs made in medicine since the 19th century have never existed, seeking no cure for any encroaching ailments - no chemotherapy, certainly, but also no antibiotics, operations, statins, stents, screening, tests or vaccines. Avoid all contact with doctors, in other words.
He would like to be carried off the old-fashioned way, by nature’s mercifully swift brutality, rather than endure the decade of medically extended multiple illnesses that on average awaits us in the final furlong.
“Doubtless, death is a loss,” Emanuel wrote in that essay, which went viral in the US. “But here is a simple truth that many of us seem to resist: living too long is also a loss. It renders many of us if not disabled then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death, but is nonetheless deprived . . . We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged, but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic.”
The essay goes on to enumerate the burdens that an over-75 typically places on the world, and how lonely and tired the growing tribe of ninety-somethings are as their lives become constricted to a single chair.
Emanuel’s solution to the problem of dying is not desperate denial, as it is for so many Californian tech bros in search of immortality. Nor is it the legalised euthanasia that is gradually spreading across the western world and that Emanuel actively opposes. Instead, he promises to pioneer a radical, retro survival of the fittest.
Some people write “living wills” to curb resuscitation efforts when already very frail. This takes that to a new extreme. He first set it forth at the relatively sprightly age of 57. On reading it I thought: “All very well to say this when you have a long lease left, but will his resolve to reject medical care falter when his 75th birthday draws closer? Will he find himself thinking, maybe a sneaky little Covid booster won’t hurt?”
Now Emanuel is 65, with ten years before the great doctor goes premedical, and I have a lot of questions. His brothers do too. Emanuel says that they call him on his birthday and ask, “How many more years is it again that I have to put up with you?”
So I tell him I’d rather see how old age pans out then be offered an exit if I felt I couldn’t go on - something akin to what the novelist Martin Amis (now 73) proposed when he talked half-seriously of euthanasia booths, where you would be greeted with a “martini and a medal”. Emanuel hates this. Euthanasia is riddled with moral and practical problems, he tells me, and even where legalised is considered only by a tiny minority. “If you think you’re going to legalise euthanasia, and it’s going to solve end-of-life care, you are deluded,” he says with the force of a putdown at a dinner with Ari and Rahm.
He says that we focus too much on the acute months before death and not on the long years of degradation. While modern medicine has increased lifespan dramatically, it has barely increased healthspan. A study by the Office of National Statistics is typical - it showed that if you were alive in England aged 65 in 2018, you have on average 20 years left to live, but the second decade would be consumed by chronic “illness or disability”. Aged 75, in other words, is where the suffering begins.
And it’s not just me who is deluded, Emanuel says. Every time he talks about his plan, almost everyone’s first reaction is to say that 75 is too young and to super-agers they know - these range from their 90-year-old surfing granny to President Biden (80) and Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the US president (82), or indeed the oldest practising doctor, the 100-year-old Howard Tucker, who began working as a neurologist in Ohio in 1947 and still treats patients. We secretly believe that we will be these outliers, but “we can’t all be outliers”.
I wonder if he wants a quick illness to decide his end, as it would take bravery to either withstand a long medical treatment or take his own life. “Well, I think it’s bravery to say no to interventions where the majority of people would say yes,” he says. When I ask him the illness he fears most, he doesn’t hesitate: dementia. “There’s no doubt about it.” And after 75 the rates go “boom”, he says - even if we are not demented we lose self-sufficiency. “Living too long places real emotional weights on our progeny,” he wrote in his essay, even though they “won’t admit it”.
He is scornful of the new breed of (mostly male) “immortals” putting so much energy into the dream of living for ever. An Ipsos survey in November found that only a third of Britons want to live to 100, with more men than women wanting to live that long.
Emanuel wants to be clear-eyed about when his own “consumption” exceeds his “contribution”. Here he edges closer to what ethicists call the “duty to die” argument, the harsh utilitarian idea that the non-useful need to sling their hook. For someone as energetic and ambitious as him, passivity is clearly terrifying.
I say that perhaps “contribution” isn’t a good metric. There is value in the simple pleasures of old age. A large study by the esteemed psychologist Daniel Kahneman (now 88) in 2010 found that while happiness and enjoyment tailed off in one’s seventies, “emotional wellbeing” peaked at 82. Emanuel isn’t convinced, saying that people instinctively want to work to “leave the world better”, whether it’s as simple as being fit enough to manage a garden.
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Antisemitism Is Not Going Anywhere
Conspicuous Jewish success will always produce envy. And Israel is a Jewish triumph
More and more reports come out about the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiments on campus. There is no place more left-leaning in the United States than modern American college campuses. And there, open antisemitic activity and statements are common. The Left moves effortlessly from anti-Israel to anti-Jewish statements. The Left cannot find a fence that separates anti-Zionist expression from all-out antisemitism. In their eyes, all of Israel’s purported crimes are committed by its Jewish population. Dr. Martin Luther King already said in the 1960s that anti-Zionism is antisemitism. Yet today, Black Lives Matter had to include an anti-Israel screed in their official platform while Black antisemitism is growing and becoming more public.
Arabs and not just Islamists are also first-tier antisemites. My son and I were blown up by a Palestinian Authority policeman who was sent by several irreligious Fatah/Palestinian Authority officers. Whereas my father recognized his non-Jewish neighbors running up to his half-collapsed apartment to take whatever belongings they could get their hands on, the ones who blew us up and killed three Israelis in the process did not know any of their victims whatsoever. The situation was so macabre that when one of the female accomplices who walked the bomber down King George Street in downtown Jerusalem was reminded that she was found covered in blood immediately after the bombing, she insisted that all of the blood on her person was only from Mohammed Hasheikeh, the bomber. Heaven forfend that she would imagine that some of the blood on her clothing came from the 81 Jews wounded in the blast. You can see her demented and evasive comments in the movie, Brides of Allah.
So why do people of such diverse backgrounds and views hold antisemitic or more correctly anti-Jewish views? Some will claim that their hatred or antipathy is based on slights, real or imagined. Many will find Judaism offering a competing religious view and hatred will be out of religious competition. For many on the Left, it is simply one more tenet like white men being bad or men being able to give birth. Menachem Begin famously said that the Poles passed along antisemitism in their mother’s milk. The German high command around 1942 became worried that anti-Jewish motivation in the Wehrmacht might suffer as younger German soldiers had never encountered a Jew before. Jew hatred ranges from academic musings in faculty clubs about Jews having too much power to violent actions taken against predominantly Orthodox Jews, the only Jews that are easily identifiable to those who hate us. Henry Ford was so enamored with the false Protocols of Zion that he had copies made and handed out, certain that the Jews wanted to control the world.
So what can be done? The answer depends. People do not have to like Jews. And those same people have the right to free speech. As such, people have the right to express their dislike of Jews even if they couch it in anti-Israel sloganeering. The proof of the underlying antisemitism in the BDS and other supposedly anti-Zionistic movements is in their utter lack of concern for other places with far worse records of conquest, human rights abuses, and violence toward civilians. Have you ever heard of grassroots BDS Russia or BDS China or BDS Turkey or BDS Iran? Me neither. Somehow the one country that has a lot of Jews in it is the only place where bad things happen to the point where they can be motivated to get out of bed and shout anti-somebody slogans in freezing rain. When Assad murdered Syrians by the thousands, did our brave BDS warriors retool their signs and slogans? Of course not. But again, these antisemites have the right to protest and the right not to buy Israeli products or products from companies that do business in Israel. I hope that they can get by without smartphones, computers, and the like. As to universities and companies, there is no reason they have to tolerate antisemitic behavior, especially if it involves threats of violence or harassment of other students and employees. After Harvard was named the most antisemitic campus of 2022, I wrote President Bacow that antisemitism expressed on campus that leaves Jewish and Israeli students feeling personal threatened should lead to the perpetrators being expelled from the university. The same should be true for companies that truly are worried about antisemitism which has been likened to cancer. We don’t know how to prevent cancers but we are always building better ways to isolate and deal with them. Employees who express antisemitic views on company time or via company channels should get the boot. When Kanye or Ye went on his antisemitic rants, he lost sponsors and with them a lot of money. Former president Trump's meeting with him and a fellow antisemite has probably cost him votes, including mine. President Trump has been a great friend of the Jewish people and the state of Israel, but if he wants to hang out with Jew-haters, then I can take my vote somewhere else.
Antisemitism is not going away. Dealing with it when it goes beyond legally allowed freedom of expression means taking a hard line. If your doctor said that he removed most of cancer but left a bunch of cells behind, you would be terrified and furious. The same is true for antisemitism. It cannot be tolerated and if it means firing hotshot basketball players or dropping A-list actors from future movies, then that will be the price for holding repugnant views and expressing them openly. Too often, society has made do with some half-baked apology or mealy-mouthed statement of “my truth” or “if I hurt someone”. Boycotts can cut both ways. Kyrie Irving wants to dabble in antisemitism: drop your season tickets and don’t buy his merchandise. It’s the only thing he and the NBA understand: money. Students who attend Yale, a school named after a slave owner and seller, want that coveted degree above all else—if they threaten Zionists on campus, give them the boot. They cannot afford financially or personally not to have that diploma nailed to the wall behind their desks. Any antisemitic statements or activities not covered by the first amendment and university/corporate policy should be dealt with swiftly and aggressively. Antisemitism is not going away, but we can make it painful for those who espouse it. And even today, there is still no surgery to remove their anti-Jewish feelings from their hearts.
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Toxic feminism is crushing love
Katerina Janouch writes about Sweden. Hopefully it is better elsewhere
I talk to a male friend who tells me about his latest attempt at a love affair. They are both in their thirties, an age when many people choose to start a family, and my friend is longing to become a father. The woman he met through mutual friends initially seemed level-headed, sensible and honest and is on the same emotional wavelength. But very soon it turns out that my friend had gotten himself into a veritable inferno, where he is just supposed to keep quiet while the woman dictates all the terms, and if he protests, he is told that he is an evil man who should be ashamed of his lack of respect. I wonder now what our society will evolve into if women behave like spoiled brats based on some kind of confused radical feminist credo?
My dear friend is just one example of men testifying lately that it seems to be more the rule than the exception that women go completely off the rails, blaming their emotional breakdowns on the fact that it is obviously the men’s fault, while at the same time making impossible demands on how men should behave for a relationship to even be feasible. Being kind, understanding and able to talk about feelings doesn’t go very far. Even the man who conforms and does exactly as the woman says can have a hell of a time. Why?
Well, because suddenly he may have accidentally adapted too much, and doesn’t understand that the woman needs a little “chewing resistance”. In his desire to please, he becomes a servile doormat, and these galoshes don’t fit when she whimsically decides she wants an independent hunk. The woman becomes like a child in a sandbox, unable to choose between a red or a blue spade, and breaks down in a hysterical fit that results in her hitting the person who tries to comfort her. The emotionally disturbed radical feminists seriously believe that they have the right to behave as badly as they want and yet never have to encounter a patrol. They rule, demand, whine, are mean and impossible, moody and unpredictable. They are unstable and believe that even women’s violence against men is men’s fault. They are happy to vent their hatred against the entire male sex while screaming at the top of their lungs if they themselves receive the slightest criticism. It’s safe to say that avid social media use hardly does them any favours when the slightest outburst gains hundreds of ‘likes’ and unctuous cheers, even if the conflict may be based on some unreasonable behaviour she herself has engaged in, and then subsequently received a backlash for.
Not only that. A year later she may find out that the sex that took place actually happened without her willing consent, and that therefore the man can be charged with some kind of negligent rape. Later on in the trial, she alone is listened to, because she “felt” something, and as long as it is a woman who feels, the feelings are absolutely true. The man has no voice at all, and although he presents undeniable facts pointing to reciprocity, he is treated like a pariah, and the verdict is in the woman’s favour. I wonder what man would want to expose himself to such risks? Many don’t. They have stopped dating. They are resentful, disillusioned and resigned, and actually start to dislike women.
The behavior can be likened to the left’s strange psychotic break we see now after the [Swedish general] election. After the socialists have destroyed all of Sweden, they now demand that the succeeding government clean up the mess in a few short months. A feminine, emotion-based behavior, where they also got a bunch of bitches, who usually bring a penis substitute with them when traveling by train. All logic and common sense is gone; what remains is a red-hot, hysterical, frothing-at-the-mouth Left, with whom it is impossible to have a normal discussion. Everything is everyone else’s fault, they themselves are victims, and despite their behavior leading to a veritable societal collapse, they refuse to take responsibility. Responsibility, by the way — they can’t even spell it. They are like toddlers who lack all forms of logic and consistent thinking. It actually scares the hell out of you, when you think about it and realise that these are grown-up people behaving in this way. No wonder Sweden has gone off the rails, having these types of individuals in important decision-making positions and in positions of strategic authority.
As my old dad used to ask me: “Katerina, Sweden used to be a country governed by wise people? what happened?” Well, Dad, bitchy women and ‘batik witches’ and a completely derailed feminism came into being, I reply. A wave of emotion-soaking snowflakes installed themselves, and the traditional males checked out. Because the truth is, as long as real men ruled Sweden, most things worked. We had a good economy, a good (virtually fossil-free and environmentally friendly) energy supply, health care, schools and elder-care that worked, and a strong military defence.
Then the men were manoeuvred away by the mad furies of the Left, and everything went to hell.
Yes, a somewhat simplistic account of history, but broadly speaking this is exactly what happened. And women have become worse off in many ways. Rapes are at an all-time high, women hold down two jobs, and they’re not happy with the herring-milk men* who barely dare to touch them — for fear that the caresses won’t turn out to be consensual.
What we have now is severe polarisation and a full-scale war between women and men, with both sexes the losers. But perhaps the biggest losers are the women themselves. Because the world is still a pretty harsh and cruel place, and loneliness is hard, no matter who feels lonely. Traditionally masculine qualities are not learned overnight by women, just because our emotions tell us that this should be the case from a “non-normative” perspective. Life usually becomes more difficult, as it is filled with hatred and constant conflict.
I wonder who benefits from this pointless gender war? The women certainly don’t. Neither do the children, who are fed the message that dad is some sort of superfluous figure, who is really just mean and stupid. Not infrequently there is no father, only a sperm donor.
I think about what it might be like when the hysterical, radical feminists grow up and have children of their own. Some of them are so immature that they have never left that sandbox. They are self-absorbed, and will get a severe shock when they realise that the child must be put first. A man they can mess around with, sure, but a little baby won’t buy their nonsense. The baby screams, needs to be fed and will need to be nurtured to become an independent individual. The man they’ve thrown on the trash heap in the deluded belief that all of TINDER is teeming with better, hotter, and more insightful vegan dudes, who they can get together with instead. And when they realize that no one wants them, full-scale panic erupts. Toxic feminism sours, and what’s left? Pure gender hell, which nobody actually wants.
Is this really what feminists wanted? I find it hard to believe.
https://gatesofvienna.net/2023/01/toxic-feminism/#more-55016
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Pacific islander workers set to be joined in Australia by families in 2023-24
Pacific islanders are generally not a great problem to anyone so this is a pretty good idea. Melanesians are a particularly desirable group. I grew up with them around (mostly TIs) and rather liked them.
Polynesians can be more of a problem. Maori are Polynesians and they have a high crime rate. Polynesians such as Tongans and Samoans are however generally very religious so that has a beneficial influence. The crime rate in Tonga is a small fraction of the crime rates in African populations. See here
The Australian government has committed to enabling Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme workers on one- to four-year placements to bring their families to Australia.
In a statement, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said family accompaniment was "expected to commence with up to 200 families of PALM scheme workers in 2023-24".
"The location of families will depend on the interest from PALM scheme workers and employers participating in the initial phase. This may include several regions across Australia," it said.
But there is a lot to sort out before the first families arrive — Pacific Islands Council of South Australia chief executive Tukini Tavui says there are about 800 long-term PALM workers in the state alone.
He said accommodation was a hot topic during the national stakeholder consultations that ended in November. "As you would imagine, there's a lot of challenges, a lot of restrictions in that space," Mr Tavui said. "So that would obviously be a deciding factor in terms of where [the government] would start a pilot.
"And then, obviously, the family support — how do the secondary [visas work] in terms of health and education?"
The families will not have access to Medicare, meaning employers will need to organise health insurance.
Mr Tavui says Naracoorte near the border of Victoria in the south, where many long-term PALM workers are employed, could be a good place to host the first families.
"Somewhere like Naracoorte looks like it has the capacity, but accommodation would be a challenge," Mr Tavui said.
"That might be the case in a lot of our regional areas, particularly in SA."
Teys Australia employs 137 Pacific workers in Naracoorte and another 1,500 along the east coast of Australia.
The company said in a statement that it was "actively considering how it might support families from the Pacific to settle permanently in Australia".
Alongside affordable housing, schooling and health care, Teys listed welfare support, including community and church groups, as key considerations for the government.
Naracoorte-Lucindale Mayor Patrick Ross said the town would be "totally lost" without its migrant workers.
He said it would be "incredibly difficult" to house the families of workers in any region and that council was looking at strategies.
Mr Ross said schools would welcome new students with "open arms".
Mr Tavui said people had been enquiring about family accompaniment visas since early 2021. "There's clearly more than 60 per cent of workers who are here, with families back home, who'd be interested," he said. "[It] obviously comes with quite a lot of excitement."
Mr Tavui said families would likely be allowed to stay for as long as the term of an applicant's employment.
"I think, from the last conversation, there's definitely an intention to allow a family to stay in the country for the same duration as the primary visa holder, whilst obviously looking at some of the challenges around that in terms of whether the work runs out," he said.
DFAT said consultations about detailed policy design would take place in the first quarter of 2023.
"The Australian government is listening to the views of Pacific and Timor-Leste governments and other key stakeholders to shape the implementation of this policy," it said.
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9 January, 2023
Prince Harry’s penis admission
I used to think Harry was just dumb. His mother was undoubtedly dim. But this latest admission suggests another diagnosis: autism. There are many degrees of autism but lack of sensitivity is a hallmark of it. A normal person would not have made Harry's admissions. It would have been too embarassing.
I too have a degree of autism and am almost totally unembarrassable. Autism does get you into trouble and Harry has certainly dug himself into a deep hole
I expected plenty from Harry’s book, but I didn’t foresee him describing his penis. Clearly, Harry is living, and no one can shut him up now. You know when you go through a break-up and suddenly post sexy photos on Instagram? And everyone’s like yes, girl! But also are you okay?
Well, that is what it feels like to read snippets of Harry’s book, Spare. He has broken up with the palace and he is pretending he is living his best life, but it might also be his worst life. I mean the man has sunken to clearing up rumours about his penis. Stories that no one has really discussed since his birth but good to bring them back up, I guess! (Pun not intended.)
In the book Harry writes, “My penis was a matter of public record, and indeed some public curiosity. The press had written about it extensively. There were countless stories in books, and papers (even The New York Times) about Willy and me not being circumcised.
“Mummy had forbidden it, they all said, and while it’s absolutely true that the chance of getting penile frostbite is much greater if you’re not circumcised, all the stories were false. I was snipped as a baby.”
Harry doesn’t stop there. He then goes on to share an anecdote about his penis. I can’t even imagine how the royals will react to that. Surely, Fergie is hanging out with the corgies and enjoying a nice glass of wine to celebrate the fact she is now looking like an angel in comparison.
Anyway, back to Harry’s penis. So, Prince Harry writes about a time when he got “frostnipped” during a trip to Antarctica before William’s wedding to Kate Middleton.
Harry writes: “The pre-wedding dinner was pleasant, jolly, despite Willy visibly suffering from standard groom jitters,” he says.
“I regaled the company with tales of the (South) Pole. Pa was very interested and sympathetic about the discomfort of my frost nipped ears and cheeks, and it was an effort not to overshare and tell him also about my equally tender penis.”
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Does having children make you more politically conservative?
In American presidential elections, married women vote much more conservatively than single women
Becoming a parent – rather than simply getting older – is more likely to make you socially conservative, a team of international scientists has found, and the more kids you have, the more likely you are to be against abortion and promiscuity.
Using a combination of surveys and archival data from the World Values Survey – a global research program that has interviewed more than 427,000 people over 40 years in 80 countries about their social, political, economic, religious and cultural values – the researchers found that even making people think like parents results in more socially conservative thoughts.
Lead author Dr Nicholas Kerry, a psychology researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, says the team surveyed people in 10 countries, including Australia, about their feelings towards kids, as well as conducted a series of experiments encouraging participants to recall or imagine certain parenting and childcare experiences.
“We asked people to talk about either real or imagined experiences of childcare and reflect on how they felt at the time,” Kerry explains.
“For those who didn’t have kids, we asked them to imagine a child and then put them in different situations. We then compared this group to a control group, who were asked to think of similar positive experiences but without a child involved.”
They found that even thinking about scenarios like a child crying or playing ball fundamentally shifted the way people viewed the world, especially in relation to issues such as abortion, immigration and sex.
“Because socially conservative values prioritise safety, stability and family values, we hypothesised that being more invested in parental care might make socially conservative policies more appealing,” Kerry and his colleagues write.
“In light of rapidly changing global birth rates, the current findings could have profound implications for the future political landscape.”
Yet for former Labor campaign strategist Kosmos Samaras, social conservatism has less to do with being a parent and more to do with the company you keep.
“It’s called political social contagion – if a group of people, for instance, live in a particular community that is progressive, they are likely to be progressive too,” he says. “We find that community has a more profound influence over individuals, irrespective of whether they’re having kids or not.”
Wealth, too, is a strong predictor, with richer parents tending to stay progressive no matter how many children they have.
“The less capacity parents have to deal with cost living pressures and take care of their kids, the more conservative they become, and less tolerant and engaging on social issues,” Samaras says.
Life becomes more complicated and expensive when you have children, and Samaras says parents – especially parents of younger kids – tend to be motivated by economic issues such as access to childcare and the health system over others.
“We find that it’s more economically practical things that change people’s mindsets rather than their social outlook on life,” he says.
Interestingly, Kerry’s research did not find this to be the case when it comes to parents.
“Parenthood didn’t make people more conservative on these [economic] issues – indeed, there is some evidence from other studies that parents can become more liberal on some economic issues, to the extent that these policies favour parents.”
The research has political implications, especially in light of falling birth rates across nearly all the developed world (and even much of the developing world). While globally it’s been predicted the planet will host 9.8 billion people by 2050, many countries – including Australia – are dealing with decades of sub-replacement fertility, which means a total fertility rate below the 2.1 required for a woman to replace herself and her partner.
Kerry believes that more research needs to be done into the process of becoming a parent and the changes that come about as a result.
“Parenthood is the biggest thing that happens to most people in a reliable way, but historically, most research in psychology has tended to focus on young people and childhood development,” he says.
“People have overlooked the other end of parenthood.”
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Elite over-production leads to parasitism
Since the Academy in ancient Athens, universities have been engine rooms for human success through the discovery, recording, sorting and propagation of knowledge. Something however has changed in the past two generations. Not for the better. Government policy is again a key contributor.
Peter Turchin is a Russian-American complexity scientist whose field is the statistical analysis of historical trends. Turchin describes ‘elite overproduction’ as a factor contributing to political and social instability that nations and empires experience between their zenith and downfall. He argues that an excess of elites was a contributor in the fall of Rome and the Ancien Régime in 18th century France. Elite overproduction occurs when a society becomes so affluent and arrogant that it produces more elites than it can absorb, let alone needs.
Elite overproduction occurs in two principal ways. The first is biologically where, for example, a fertile royal family procreates faster than positions can be created for new royals. The other way is through economic and educational upward mobility.
It needs saying upfront that elites are a natural phenomenon. In a meritocracy, there will be an informal and fluid elite based on excellence where members are looked to for leadership. Inherent in the definition of an ‘elite’ however is that very few meet the criteria. When there is an unnaturally large elite, society becomes top-heavy and ripe for toppling.
As societies get wealthier, more people seek tertiary education, and as they secure an increasing allocation of resources, universities are morphing from centres of knowledge into factories for producing a less meritorious elite credentialled with great expectations.
It is considered ‘sound government policy’ to shovel as many youngsters into university as possible, subsidised by the taxes of the many who will never attend university. As usual, government subsidies result in over-production, in this case, of graduates with fancy qualifications. And when they cannot be absorbed into the economy, the surplus elite seeks to capture institutions which provide the pay and prestige of the elite without the prerequisite achievement.
What then occurs is a turn to leftist politics to distort institutions and create new ones for a never-ending list of elite causes. This necessitates an expansion of government beyond society’s needs. Corruption generally follows.
Rather than striving for excellence for the benefit of all, the elites of 4th century Rome and 18th century France were fastidious about buttressing their exalted lifestyles. Similarly, during the Dark Ages there was an over-supply of clerics and in the Soviet Union, an oversupply of apparatchiks.
Public sector employment traditionally involved a trade-off between wages and job security. Wages would be a little below those in the private sector, but public servants were largely immune to recessions and the risk of lay-offs. Today, the public service still offers high job security but higher than market wages. And when bureaucratic benches are full, excess elites move into corporate administration and compliance, the corollaries of bureaucratic expansion.
Once in their roles, it is these elites who design and implement policies to reduce competition and market-risk to benefit incumbents and their progeny. The public service is replete with multi-generational family dynasties out of public view.
The policy intention in seeking to expand the ranks of the tertiary educated was honourable but miscalculated. Graduates generally earn more than non-graduates, so the state calculated ‘more graduates, more tax revenue’. But producing more graduates did not change the structure of economy to absorb additional graduates.
Australia, with a workforce of 13.8 million persons counts (conservatively) 2.2 million public sector employees (one in six). And within universities (whose workers are not counted as public sector employees) the number of administrators is breathtaking.
The Group of Eight (Go8) represents Australia’s oldest and most prestigious universities. In 2021, total wages and salaries in the Go8 totalled $8.5 billion. Of this, a meagre 53 per cent was spent on academics. Almost half of Go8 university salary expenditure is on people who don’t participate in the core business of universities: teaching or research. Canberra’s Australian National University leads the way spending 51 per cent on non-academic staff.
The product and purpose of universities seems to be subtly changing from the discovery of truth to the enforcement of dogma. The university-originated assaults on Western civilisation are but a means to entrench a meritless elite – the most dangerous kind.
With excess elites claiming more and more public resources (for example middle-class welfare and corporate subsidies), a date for social disturbance is set when there are insufficient spoils to sustain the increasing numbers. Elites get grumpy, blame the system, and then work to overthrow it by whipping up the masses.
The initial skirmishes have already been seen with the public policy response to recent shocks like the Global Financial Crisis and Covid. In both cases, the elite members of the financial sector and the laptop-ocracy, not only survived but thrived at the expense of the general citizenry.
Turchin’s theory also neatly intersects with that of Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter to possibly explain the assaults on Western civilisation and the general growth of grievance studies. Schumpeter wrote in the 1940s that capitalism had the seeds of its own destruction in its DNA because it gives rise to an intellectual class that can only be sustained by the wealth created by liberal capitalism. Schumpeter proposed that intellectuals were hostile to capitalism, and hence liberalism, because they believed they would not win the rewards they felt was their due in a competitive society.
With a new year, another batch of Australian high school graduates are being channelled into universities. For many, it is the right and best path. For others it is not. Too many will become over-qualified, highly indebted baristas, burger flippers and administrators, overly compliant with the latest dogma and angry and bitter at their lowly station. They will focus their ire on the ills of capitalism rather than the real culprit.
https://spectator.com.au/2023/01/elite-revolt/
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Jordan Peterson: I will risk my licence to escape social media re-education
The Ontario College of Psychologists wants to retrain me to behave properly — and this should concern everyone
The practice of psychology in Ontario, and in many other North American and western jurisdictions, is subject to regulation by “professional colleges” — essentially governmental organizations with a mandate to protect the public from misconduct on the part of physicians, lawyers, social workers, dentists, pharmacists, teachers, architects and many others, including (and most relevant to me) clinical psychologists.
Anyone anywhere in the world can levy a complaint to these regulatory bodies for any reason, regardless of whether the complainant has had any direct contact with the professional in question. The respective colleges have the responsibility to determine whether each complaint is serious and credible enough to warrant further investigation. Complaints can be deemed vexatious or frivolous and dispensed with. When the college decides to move forward, it is a serious move, essentially equivalent to a lawsuit. The Ontario College of Psychologists in fact recommends legal counsel under such conditions.
The Ontario College of Psychologists has levied a multitude of such lawsuits against me since my rise to public prominence six years ago (although none at all in the 20 years or so I practised as a psychologist before that). These have multiplied as of late, and now number more than a dozen. This may seem like a lot (and “where there’s smoke there’s fire,” or so people think), but I might point out that it is difficult to communicate with as many people as I do and to say anything of substance without rubbing at least a few of them the wrong way now and then.
For my crimes, I have been sentenced to a course of mandatory social-media communication training with the college’s so-called experts (although social media communication training is not a scientific and certainly not a clinical specialty of any standing). I am to do this at my own expense (some hundreds of dollars per hour) and for a length of time that is to be determined only by those retraining me and profiting from doing so. How will this be determined? When those very re-educators — those experts — have convinced themselves that I have learned my lesson, and will behave properly in the future.
If I agree to this, then I must admit that I have been unprofessional in my conduct, and to have that noted publicly, even as the college insists that I am not required to admit to any wrongdoing. If I refuse — and I have (of course) refused — the next step is a mandatory public disciplinary session/inquiry and the possible suspension of my clinical licence (all of which will be also announced publicly).
I should also point out that the steps already taken constitute the second most serious possible response to my transgressions on the part of the college. I have been placed in the category of repeat offender, with high risk of further repetition.
What exactly have I done that is so seriously unprofessional that I am now a danger not only to any new potential clients but to the public itself? It is hard to tell with some of the complaints (one involved the submission of the entire transcript of a three-hour discussion on the Joe Rogan podcast), but here are some examples that might produce some reasonable concern among Canadians who care about such niceties as freedom of belief, conscience and speech:
I retweeted a comment made by Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre about the unnecessary severity of the COVID lockdowns;
I criticized Prime Minister Justin Trudeau;
I criticized Justin Trudeau’s former chief of staff, Gerald Butts;
I criticized an Ottawa city councillor; and
I made a joke about the prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern.
I did all that “disrespectfully,” by the way, in a “horrific” manner that spread “misinformation”; that was “threatening” and “harassing”; that was “embarrassing to the profession.” I am also (these are separate offences) sexist, transphobic, incapable of the requisite body positivity in relationship to morbid obesity and, unforgivably of all, a climate change denialist.
Every single one of these accusations (and now accepted evidence of my professional misconduct) is independent of my clinical practice — which, by the way, has been suspended since 2017, when my rising notoriety or fame made continuing as a private therapist practically and ethically impossible. Every single accusation is not only independent of my clinical practice, but explicitly political — and not only that: unidirectionally explicitly political. Every single thing I have been sentenced to correction for saying is insufficiently leftist, politically. I’m simply too classically liberal — or, even more unforgivably — conservative.
For criticizing our prime minister and his cronies and peers, for retweeting Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the official Opposition in Canada, and for holding and for daring to express reprehensible political views, I have now been convicted by the College of Psychologists of “harming” people in some manner serious enough to justify my forced re-education. Now that I have refused, I will definitely face further exceptionally public, demanding, time-consuming and expensive disciplinary action, including the suspension of my licence. This, despite the fact that none of the people whose complaints are being currently pursued were ever clients of mine, or even knew clients of mine, or even knew or were acquainted with any of the people they claim I am harming. This, despite the fact (and please attend to this) that half the people who levied such complaints falsely claimed that they had in fact been or currently are clients of mine.
It may be of some interest to note that I wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this week, informing him of this situation. Here is the letter, for public consideration — which by necessity repeats some of what I have just covered in this introduction:
Dear Prime Minister Trudeau:
I thought it my duty to inform you and your office of the following proceedings against me.
The Ontario College of Psychologists, the provincial government-mandated and supported professional body charged with regulating the practice of clinical psychology, is requiring that I undergo a lengthy course of “media training” so that I “more appropriately” conduct my online communication. This is occurring, by the way, despite my 20 years as a research psychologist at Harvard University and the University of Toronto (with an unblemished behavioural reputation), my extensive clinical experience and my history of bringing psychological knowledge to people around the world.
Some 15-million people currently follow me on three main social media platforms, and the overwhelming majority of them appear to regard my words and the particular manner in which I formulate them as interesting, helpful and productive — some real evidence to the contrary with regard to the college’s accusations.
I have rejected this forced re-education request, and will in consequence soon be required to appear in front of an in-person “disciplinary hearing” to bring me into line — with the threat of the revocation of my clinical licence, and the public exposure and implied disgrace that would accompany that, hanging over my head.
It may be of interest to you to note that all of the complaints against me: (1) were brought by people with whom I had zero clinical contact; (2) have nothing whatsoever to do with my function as a clinical psychologist (except in the broadest possible public sense); and, most importantly with regard to this letter, (3) that half of them involve nothing more than political criticisms of you or the people around you (with all the remainder being complaints generated because I dared state some essentially conservative philosophical beliefs).
As the enclosed documentation indicates, I am being investigated and disciplined for, among a few other reasons not germane to my present communication with you:
retweeting Pierre Poilievre, the leader of Canada’s official Opposition;
criticizing you, your former chief of staff Gerald Butts, New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern and an Ottawa city councillor; and
objecting to the Ottawa police threatening to apprehend the children of the trucker convoy protesters.
I am not suggesting or even presuming that you or any of the people associated with you had anything directly to do with this. However, the fact that it is happening (and that physicians and lawyers have become as terrified as psychologists now are of their own regulatory bodies) is something that has definitely happened on your watch, as a consequence of your own conduct and the increasingly compulsion-based and ideologically pure policies that you have promoted and legislated.
I simply cannot resign myself to the fact that in my lifetime I am required to resort to a public letter to the leader of my country to point out that political criticism has now become such a crime in Canada that if professionals dare engage in such activity, government-appointed commissars will threaten their livelihood and present them with the spectacle of denouncement and political disgrace.
There is simply and utterly no excuse whatsoever for such a state of affairs in a free country.
Jordan B Peterson, PhD, C. Psych (for now), Professor emeritus, University of Toronto
Why should Canadians who read this care? Perhaps those reading in this country (and elsewhere) might ask themselves the following questions — and in all seriousness, painful as it might be do so; requiring as it does the almost unbelievable admission that something has gone dreadfully wrong in our lovely country:
What makes you think that something similar won’t happen to you, or to someone you know and respect or even love?
What makes you think you are going to continue to be able to communicate honestly with your physicians, lawyers and psychologists (and representatives of many other regulated professions) if they are now so terrified of their regulatory boards that they can no longer tell you the truth?
What are your children going to be taught when all their teachers (that’s a regulated profession, too) are so afraid of the woke mob that they swallow all the ideological lies that are now required of pedagogues — regardless if they believe what they are saying?
Where are we going to be if we allow criticism of the public figures charged with the privilege of our governance to be grounds for the demolition of not only the critic’s reputation but their very livelihood?
How far are we willing to go down this road, without forthright resistance?
In any case: I’m not complying. I’m not submitting to re-education. I am not admitting that my viewpoints — many of which have, by the way, been entirely justified by the facts that have emerged since the complaints were levied — were either wrong or unprofessional. I’m going to say what I have to say, and let the chips fall where they will. I have done nothing to compromise those in my care; quite the contrary — I have served all my clients and the millions of people I am communicating with to the best of my ability and in good faith, and that’s that.
And to the College of Psychologists, I issue this challenge: I am absolutely willing to make every single word of this legal battle fully public, so that the issue of my professional competence and my right to say what I have to say and stand by my words can be fought in full daylight. I would and could post all the correspondence with and accusations levied by those who complained about me and the college itself public, and will do so, if the college agrees.
But I can’t, on legal grounds justified in normal times but rendered specious by the dominion of the politically correct and radical. I can’t, because of this, and because it is not in the interest of the college or the complainants they are sheltering and abetting to allow it. They’ll cite confidentiality concerns for their refusal, because it’s 100 per cent OK for them to come after me publicly while they and those who complained hide cravenly and cowardly behind a wall of self-serving and self-protective silence.
And this of course does little but embolden those who have learned to weaponize college disciplinary processes, and to give the accuser and his or her lackeys the upper hand, practically and legally. And such weaponization risks placing all our once justly trusted institutions firmly in the hands of those willing and able to manipulate them for reasons both political and personal.
The sad and sorry state of this once-great Dominion at the dawn of 2023 … and it’s still going to get worse before it gets better.
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8 January, 2023
The Myth of American Inequality
From all those lists of best books of 2022, here's one with the potential to change public policy debate and discourse for the better. It's "The Myth of American Inequality," and the three authors are two Ph.D. economists, former Sen. Phil Gramm and his long-ago Texas A&M colleague Robert Ekelund, and former Bureau of Labor Statistics assistant commissioner John Early. Their subject is government statistics -- and how they present a misleading picture of recent economic history.
And the authors' conclusion is that long-standing complaints about the American economy -- that the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer, that we declared war on poverty and poverty won -- are wrong.
How can that be?
The first reason is that Census Bureau statistics on income, on which just about everyone relies, do not include two-thirds of government transfer payments. That made sense in 1947, when Census started reporting the number, and most transfer programs -- food stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, the Earned Income Tax Credit, the child tax credit -- didn't exist.
But today they do, and the bottom two quintiles on the income scale (each quintile is one-fifth of households) get 59% and 24% of their incomes from government transfers.
Second, Census income statistics don't account for taxes people pay. Since the United States has the most progressive national tax system of any advanced economy -- because other advanced countries rely heavily on flat rate value-added taxes -- the bottom two quintiles of Americans essentially pay no income tax, while the top quintile provides 83% of federal income tax revenue.
When we take government transfers and taxes into account, as "Myth" does, then the "government takes and redistributes enough resources to elevate the average bottom quintile household into the American middle class." The bottom three quintiles have incomes that are not that far apart, and the second-highest quintile is not all that far ahead of them.
In dollar terms, the lowest three quintiles post-transfer and -tax incomes range from (rounded off) $50,000 to $66,000, the second quintile is at $88,000, and the top quintile is at $197,000. That's far more equal than the difference in earned income between the lowest quintile ($5,000, since half don't have jobs) and the top quintile ($297,000).
So the ratio of top quintile to bottom quintile incomes from the Census Bureau's 16 to 1 decreases to Gramm, Ekelund and Early's 4 to 1.
And the poverty rate, which government statistics peg at 12%, is only 2% when you cover government transfers. Many of these are people who "lack the basic mental and physical capabilities to care for themselves and their children" and need not income but "specifically tailored programs to address their specific needs."
The authors also expose another myth, the idea that Americans' incomes have been stagnant over the past two generations. The reason again is misleading government statistics -- inflation indexes, especially the oft-quoted CPI-U, that consistently overstate inflation and thus understate real economic growth.
These inflation indexes tend to assume static market baskets of goods and often fail to account for new products and quality improvements. In real life, when apples become too expensive, consumers switch to oranges. And how do you measure the worth of medical care innovations or the capabilities of the latest cellphones?
The argument against adjusting government statistics is that it risks political tampering, which U.S. statistical agencies are proud of having resisted. But using other government statistics to supplement familiar indexes, as "Myth" does to account for government transfers and taxes, is fair game.
If you do that to the average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory employees - a statistic that critics seize on to depict a static economy - then "real average hourly earnings would have risen 74% over the last fifty years rather than the official reported number of 8.7%."
Policy implications? One is that we already have plenty of economic redistribution, and maybe too much. Additional spending, such as the Biden COVID package, can cause inflation and encourage idleness. Advocates of universal basic incomes today, like John Maynard Keynes in the 1930s, imagined that people freed from the drudgery of jobs would read great books and enjoy classical music.
Instead, we see jobless men engrossed in video games or mainlining opioids, resulting in reduced life expectancy, family formation and community involvement.
To reverse such trends, Gramm, Ekelund and Early recommend work requirements similar to those in 1990s welfare reforms that increased work effort, earned incomes and family stability. Would there be a backlash for withdrawing such benefits? The lack of blowback from the phasing out of the Biden child tax credit suggests not.
Other suggestions include eliminating unneeded occupational licensing requirements and more school choice, already popular and needed more than ever to repair the damage to disadvantaged children from teacher union-forced public school lockdowns.
There's room here for debate -- and debate conducted based on real facts, not misleading statistics -- to which "The Myth of American Inequality" makes a useful contribution.
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UK: National Maritime Museum declares its failure to 'reflect the legacies of slavery' and 'black voices'... sparking accusation curators are 'erasing our glorious history with woke nonsense'
The National Maritime Museum has been accused of 'erasing' British history after declaring that one of its galleries fails to reflect the 'legacies' of slavery or 'black voices'.
The south London-based institution's 'Atlantic Gallery' opened in 2007, focusing on the role the ocean has played as a route for the movement of goods, people and ideas over the centuries.
But a recent display installed in the gallery now tells visitors that it 'no longer reflects the approaches or ambitions of the National Maritime Museum,' because the 'legacies of transatlantic slavery are noticeably absent and Black voices are not well represented in the space.'
Visitors are invited to place their comments on pieces of paper in the gallery, under a banner that reads: 'How are you affected by the legacies of transatlantic slavery.'
But writer Benjamin Loughnane, who visited the museum at the start of the month, said he was 'very sad' to see his 'favourite museum growing up' has 'gone WOKE'.
Posting his feedback in the gallery, he wrote on a note: 'Please stop trying to erase our glorious history with your woke nonsense!'
In response to a critic online who asked him 'what was glorious about the slave trade,' he pointed out that Britain was among first countries to abolish the practice.
The message in the Atlantic Gallery tells how it opened in the year of the 200th anniversary of the British abolition of the slave trade in 1807.
It goes on to explain that three new walls - some of which contain messages from visitors - are 'the first stage of an ongoing project responding to the existing gallery.'
The walls were developed with the help of a 'small, intergenerational team of people from the African diaspora', it adds.
The message continues: 'This space foregrounds human stories and considers the local landscape of Greenwich and surrounding areas in this history.
'We hope this will improve the gallery and inform how the Museum presents the history and legacies of transatlantic slavery in the future.'
As recently as July last year, information about the gallery on the museum's website did not display a message discrediting the existing space.
How the National Maritime Museum 're-evaluated' Lord Nelson's legacy and the Royal Navy's links to slavery as part of plans to change displays following BLM movement
But by November last year, a similar message to the one in the physical gallery had been added.
The updated page adds that, to mark International Slavery Remembrance Day in 2021, five young people were invited to 'interrogate' the gallery.
A text written by the participants on a separate page reads: 'The Atlantic Worlds gallery needs to be re-imagined.
'The hard truths of the period between the 17th and 19th century – the rise of colonialism and the Transatlantic Slave Trade – are difficult to confront.
'But the stories of the lives affected by these global systems, and their enduring impact today, must be told.'
'This project is a small step towards this – an opportunity to widen the perspectives contained within the gallery.
'It's impossible to transform the space for a single day, but we hope to create space for practical conversations that shift power away from the institution and into the hands of people affected by the legacy of slavery, empire, and the racism that persists today.'
The young people made a series of changes to the gallery, including changing the lighting by making it brighter, because it is 'not a place to fall asleep, but to wake up and face reality.'
The message in the museum's gallery comes after the museum removed a bust of King George III that showed him flanked by two kneeling African men because it was a 'hurtful reinforcement of racial stereotypes'.
The institution said in 2021 that the figurehead, which is understood to have been created to celebrate Britain's victory at the Battle of Waterloo, was the subject of 'frequent criticism' and was 'a hurtful reinforcement of stereotypes' .
And in October 2020, the museum said it was to review the legacy of Lord Horatio Nelson as part of its efforts to challenge Britain's 'barbaric history of race and colonialism.'
The museum in Greenwich, London, holds the hero admiral's love letters and the coat he wore when he was killed during the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.
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The Raj revision: why historians are thinking again about British rule in India
Tirthankar Roy
Is there anything good to be said of British rule over India? The verdict of many politicians, museum curators, TV presenters and even journalists in India is clear: the Raj existed only to exploit and oppress. It caused poverty and famine in the east, and made the western world richer. The writer and politician Shashi Tharoor in a best-selling book Inglorious Empire blames the Raj for ‘depredation’, ‘loot’, ‘rapaciousness’, ‘brutality’, and ‘plunder’. He is far from alone in that withering verdict: social media posts spread similar messages with religious zeal.
Oddly though historians have moved away from similar damning verdicts on the Raj. Over the last 40 years, more evidence on colonialism has come to light: much of this suggests that the expeditions of the Raj did not benefit Britain in the way many of their critics think. Britain, and other colonial powers, had too little power to restructure the societies they ruled and their aims were not always clear to the ruling class and seldom achievable. Yet few would dispute that the colonial legacy was profound and long-lasting. So did colonialism benefit India, or was it a uniquely evil and exploitative project?
This year is the 75th anniversary of the end of colonialism in India. Much has changed in that time – but discussion of British rule remains at the forefront of politics in India.
The Raj profoundly influenced the making of modern India
To understand why this is, it’s worth taking a step back to the origins of Britain’s colonial expedition in India. The British Empire in India, or the Raj, emerged from the Europe-Asia trade that the East India Company engaged in. The company created the state, but only with the support of Indian merchants and educated elite groups. After the mutiny of 1857, the state assumed the character that imperialism ordinarily means to most people. There were two sides to that character: authoritarianism, and commitment to an open economy.
From an Indian point of view, authoritarianism meant that the ruling class consisted of nominated officers answerable to the British Parliament and not the Indian people. Indians were scarce in top governmental and advisory positions until the interwar years.
What did the ruling class stand for? Its primary commitment was to maintain peace in a region that had seen frequent wars in the recent past and a rebellion that almost ended British rule. The regime met this aim with an enormous army and navy. The Raj stopped the 550-odd independent kingdoms from building forces. In return, the British Indian army subsidised their protection against each other. And the regime got from the kingdoms the promise to keep their borders open to trade. Barriers to overland trade disappeared, and the government secured that advantage by building railways and the electric telegraph.
Authoritarian rule also made legislation a relatively simple process. The legal members of the club freely borrowed British precedents in law. They did this with penal, contract and company laws while relying on Indian jurisprudence on inheritance and succession of property. Property rights, however, were coded better than before and redefined.
Although the Indian elite demanded representation, Britain did not concede much until World War I. But authoritarian rule faced a challenge from another side. Devastating famines and epidemics in the late nineteenth century led many to question the competence of the class governing India. So great was the embarrassment that a serious search for the causes of famines began. The enquiries concluded that India’s tropical monsoon climate posed a risk of famines and diseases by creating sudden and acute water shortages. The action plan, therefore, included railways, canal-building, collecting weather and crop data, and sanitation. These measures were slow to develop but eventually delivered. Climatic famines disappeared, and epidemic deaths reduced after 1918.
Authoritarianism, in other words, did not necessarily damage India’s well-being. That does not mean that the Raj did its job as well as possible. This was a state with divided heads: a Secretary of State for India in London, and a Viceroy in Calcutta (or Delhi), jointly governed India.
Divided heads sometimes helped governance. London, for example, was good at selling securities in the world’s cheapest capital market. But the London office had no interest in financial innovations for the sake of Indian development. Its ambitions were limited to managing the annual budget. The Viceroy was forever short of money. The British government tried too little to expand the tax base, tax the business elite, or raise loans for development purposes.
That minimalist stance meant spending in India was limited on anything that did not give the British state a direct return. With schools and hospitals, British India’s record was not just poor but worse than some princely states. Partly as a result, politically speaking, authoritarianism became dangerously unstable after 1920. Even as Indian representation grew, the federal state stayed despotic, and Indian nationalists did not accept that.
But a balanced reflection of the Raj should leave room to acknowledge the other characteristic feature of Britain’s rule in India: a commitment to openness, which meant keeping tariffs and transit taxes low and facilitating trade by legislating or building infrastructure.
The economic benefits to Britain of having an Indian empire were plain enough. The empire was a field for British investment, a source of grain, cotton, tea, and textiles, and a recruitment ground for the imperial army. It was not just the rulers who saw these benefits. Cargo carried by the railways and ships increased from five to 140 million tons between 1871 and 1939. Commercialisation on such a scale made many Indian merchants very rich. They saw the benefits of the empire too. Tacit merchant support saved the regime from the 1857 mutiny.
Was this market system exploitative of Indians? Certainly not legally. Nothing in the law permitted distributing favours to British investors in India. If anything, land ownership law was loaded the other way. Instead, the British ruling class believed that trade, investment, and migration would serve both countries. Until the Great Depression of 1930, Indian merchants accepted that too.
But openness damaged Indian interests in other ways, according to the Bengali writer Romesh Dutt. The charge is that imported textiles from industrialising Britain killed India’s handicrafts. It’s true there were considerable job losses among artisans because of imports. Yet at the end of British rule in 1947, ten million people in India were employed in handicrafts. In 1900-40, market share of handmade cloth rose from 20 to 30 per cent. Craft wages soared in the same period. The survival, even revival, of an apparently inefficient craft had owed partly to the import of cheap machine-made yarn from Britain, which the handloom weavers used.
This example shows that openness brought technologies and cheap materials within easy reach of Indian investors for the first time. In the late nineteenth century, merchants and bankers in the port cities of Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras, used that advantage to build factories. Thanks to these cities’ cosmopolitan environment, they could easily import the machines and hire people abroad to run them. It was far easier to hire and borrow from abroad under colonial rule than today. The government did this, and so did private businesses and institutions. Europeans who raised capital in Britain joined them.
In this way, the tropical world’s most impressive industrialisation took off in India. In 1928, 48 per cent of the cotton spindles installed outside Europe, North America, and Japan were in India. In 1935, half of the steel produced outside Europe, North America, and Japan was produced in India. There was an Indian monopoly in the world’s universal packaging material, jute sacks, and a near monopoly in tea. The capitalists in the port cities started schools, colleges, and hospitals, hiring doctors and teachers abroad, and compensating for the government’s poor record in public good. The textile-cum-steel magnate, Tatas, set up institutions for scientific research.
Was openness an unmixed blessing, then? Not entirely. It sharpened inequality. Real income created in trade, transport, industry, and finance doubled in the first half of the twentieth century. Productivity and wages in these livelihoods increased substantially. Real income in agriculture grew while there was still land available for use. As land ran out, agricultural income did not grow as fast as the population after 1920. As poverty increased in the countryside, the rural poor joined the nationalist movement. Famines made the rural-urban inequality glaring, with deaths concentrated in villages that were far from the trade routes, grain markets, waterbodies, and hospitals. By contrast, the cities suffered shortages but few deaths. Urban areas also offered more jobs and a richer cultural experience than the villages and small towns. The Indian elite sent their children to the cities to get educated and find positions in business firms or the government.
But city jobs were not accessible to all. Most migrants to these places were men. Women, who married in their early teens, usually stayed at home. The poorest of the rural earners, agricultural workers from the depressed castes, were pushed into low-wage work and had fewer chances to improve their lifestyle by coming to the city. The economic system may have increased caste and gender inequality, which persisted to the present times.
When independence came in 1947, India inherited a weak state (if military power is ignored) and a strong market from the Raj. Its nationalist leaders went the opposite way. The economic development strategy they designed set out to demolish the Raj’s legacy. They created a much larger state, with public control of finance, while restraining foreign trade, foreign investment, migration, and even a lot of domestic trade. These moves delivered a taxpayer-funded green revolution and industrialisation, but destroyed a vast pool of capital accumulated during British rule in cotton textile production, commerce, banking, insurance, and plantations.
In some other ways, the Raj profoundly influenced the making of modern India. Independent India delivered the right to vote to every adult citizen (something the British did not consider), but its parliament was an offspring of the institution known as the Imperial Legislative Council. The army was another inheritance. Thanks to the disparity in military capacity between the kingdoms and British India, incorporating these kingdoms into India and Pakistan was a smooth affair. Company and contract laws designed in the British model helped private investors.
For decades after 1947, India’s port cities were the country’s premier intellectual and cultural hubs, thanks to their cosmopolitan heritage and a lead in higher education modelled after the British counterpart. The continued popularity of the English language in business transactions made South Asians globally competitive despite disengagement from the world. That human capital proved crucial to the re-emergence of India when the economy opened again in the 1990s.
There are, of course, reasons to condemn Britain’s colonisation of India. But there is no doubt that British rule also benefited India. Any account of the rights and wrongs of the Raj must reflect both sides of that coin.
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Victimized men
Bettina Arndt
It was 2014 when I first heard from Andrew, a young Queensland dad, who was being denied contact with his two young girls. From then on, he wrote regularly updating me on his eight-year Family Court marathon, where he lost round after round, despite his wife being declared an unfit mother after a court-ordered psychiatric assessment. She very effectively used false violence accusations to get away with moving with the children interstate and endlessly dragging out the legal proceedings.
Two weeks ago, he killed himself. Since I heard the tragic news, I’ve been trawling through his old emails, so sad that this good man had lost all hope.
I also recently learned that last month another of my correspondents took his life. He first wrote to me a few years ago after being shocked by his treatment at an ACT police station when he tried to report an assault by his partner on him and his young daughter. He was told by police, ‘You don’t really want to report it. Go home and sort it out.’ When he tried to talk to his wife, she left with his daughter and took out a violence order against him. ‘You cannot believe the despair that fathers of this country are in,’ he said.
I’ve been haunted by the deaths of these two men, wishing I could have done more. The last message I received from Andrew earlier this year ended this way: ‘Your blogs are a ray of sunshine to me. In a very foreboding, stormy ocean you’re a beacon of hope and of understanding.’
Despite our despair at the overwhelming stormy ocean, we can’t afford to give up. I am more convinced than ever that we need to give men reason to believe that one day things will change. While it’s true there’s no hope of swiftly bringing down the mighty feminist edifice currently making life intolerable for so many men, I have to believe that by exposing the injustice eventually we will win over the huge majority of men and women who care about fair treatment of men and boys.
For now, that means taking solace even in small victories, savouring every sign of the slightest breakthrough. It is critical we get organised, bringing together all the small organisations working to help men, to work together to chip away at the current anti-male prejudice and injustice.
This year, we saw the first sign of a concerted international fightback against the feminist domestic violence industry. DAVIA (Domestic Abuse and Violence International Alliance is a new coalition of organisations promoting domestic violence and abuse policies that are science-based, family-affirming, and sex-inclusive. Launched late 2021, this has expanded from a handful of participant groups to 70 organisations from 24 countries coordinating campaigns to challenge the anti-male bile around domestic violence being promoted by international bodies across the world.
The United Nations is a classic example. This year DAVIA actually managed to block passage of two typically anti-male UN resolutions after issuing a press release which exposed their crazy thinking. Like the claim that ‘women are 14 times more likely to die in a climate catastrophe than men,’ – a nonsense statistic included in a UN resolution allegedly exploring ‘the nexus between the climate crisis, environmental degradation, and related displacement, and violence against women and girls’. Days after the DAVIA issued their worldwide press release highlighting what the UN was up to, the resolution was removed from the agenda.
No big deal? Arguably there’s little cause for concern about the UN’s posturing. As UK journalist James Delingpole writes, ‘The UN is a terrible organisation: a bloated talking shop for technocrats, bureaucrats, kleptocrats, third-world beggars, globalists, socialists, and other overindulged, grasping cry-bullies, meddlers, and no-hopers.’
But Delingpole points out that, despite UN founding articles requiring equal rights for men and women, the organisation persists in ‘picking on men and blaming them for everything that is wrong’.
That matters. These big international organisations are helping create the zeitgeist that pushes lawmakers into passing more and more draconian legislation targeting men, that prevents judges from allowing fathers contact with their children after cooked-up violence allegations, that green lights propaganda into our schools presenting boys as villains and girls as victims and that encourages despairing men to give up hope.
That’s why DAVIA’s work is important. Just last month DAVIA coordinated activities celebrating November 18 as The International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Men, with activities and media events in Argentina, India, Ireland, Lithuania, Northern Ireland, Peru, Spain, United Kingdom, the United States, and in Australia.
A global Twitter campaign was launched to promote the hashtag, #StopViolenceOnMen with over 36,000 tweets sent out over a four-day period. In India, the #StopViolenceOnMen hashtag trended, ranking in ninth place among all hashtags.
Then there were the women in Argentina who invaded the offices of the Minister for Women protesting for Falsely Accused Day on September 9, another event coordinated internationally by DAVIA. I loved the feisty language – here translated from Spanish – in their letter to the Minister: ‘Even so, you, Madam Minister, together with your cohort of ideologues, officials, and communicators, will surely insist on denying that false complaints exist, that thousands of men are victims of them, and that the infamous judicial industry that feeds this order, is causing unparalleled harm to the rule of law.’
Making this all happen is Ed Bartlett who has been working for many years promoting fair treatment for men. He’s the one who started the ball rolling to put together an international coalition to tell the truth about female violence.
Under Ed’s guidance, DAVIA is currently launching an ambitious project in January to block the expansion of the Istanbul Convention (IC) in Europe, a treaty ostensibly intended to combat violence against women in Europe. You may remember the fuss two years ago when the Hungarian Parliament rejected the ratification of this dreadful treaty declaring that the measure promoted ‘destructive gender ideologies’.
Too right. The IC treaty reeks of feminist ideology, promoting the usual tired dogma about domestic violence being caused by power imbalances that favour men over women. As Stephen Baskerville explains, ‘The Convention has nothing to do with violent crime. It is a political innovation that promotes radical political ideology. Under the guise of protecting crime victims, it institutionalises sexual ideology and transfers dangerous powers to activists engaged in gender warfare against the family, religious freedom, men, and civil liberties.’
Now it looks like the Convention is in trouble. Nine years after the IC came into force in 2014, Bulgaria, Czechia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, and Slovakia have not ratified the treaty, Turkey withdrew in 2021, and Poland has announced its plan to withdraw.
Ed Bartlett has firm plans to ensure this is only the beginning. His recent email announced DAVIA is in communication with the groups in Bulgaria and other Eastern European countries that led the fight to block the Istanbul Convention in their countries. He’s also learned that, in Israel, the powerful Likud Party has agreed to not join the IC.
Not bad, eh? Here’s DAVIA’s latest summary of everything that is wrong with the Istanbul Convention. And if your organisation would like to join forces with DAVIA, you can get more information here: davia@endtodv.org.
If we pull together, there’s much we can do to ensure the New Year brings better times for men
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/01/the-power-of-many/
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6 January, 2023
What does an invisible woman know about passion?
Melinda Coxhead, below, is in a sad state. She finds great difficulty in being single in her 50s. She should try being single in her '70s. I have been there. The sad truth is that the older you get the less likely you are to form new intimate partnerships. I have no good news for her. It is only going to get worse. So she should grab even a half-suitable partner if she can.
I practice what I preach. There are epic incompatibilities between my present partner and me but we still have a good interpersonal relationship with lots of laughs during our times together. I look to the good and smile at the incompatibilities
It is no longer possible to deny that I am turning 50. I’m not just turning 50, I’m hurtling unwillingly into its devastating path.
Fifty has taken my once-heaving breasts and tenderised them into schnitzels. Forlorn nipples facing my knees in defeat. Middle age has slackened my jawline, lined my neck and deepened my wrinkles overnight.
I’m trying to love myself whilst dealing with being less attractive. It’s true what they say about becoming invisible as I notice people see me less and less.
Even insensitive algorithms can’t help themselves, with ads on menopause belly, retirement villages, exercising for the middle-aged, bowel cancer checks, embrace the greys. Apparently, even the emojis I use are old.
The disturbing fifty shifts are many but perhaps the most onerous is the shift of love. Being single at 50 has presented a new landscape. It’s barren and desolate but also rife with a few unexpected landmines.
There are two major differences about being single at 50. The first is the shift in popular opinions about what I’m searching for.
According to these opinions, at this age I’m no longer looking for the love of my life. I’m looking for a “companion”, like I want a golden retriever. Does middle age mean I don’t deserve love or passion? Can I no longer expect to meet the love of my life?
My search for love means I still want butterflies, flirting, anticipation and desire. You don’t get that with a “companion” – you get the early-bird special at the RSL.
Which leads me to the next shift. What has happened to the men in my demographic? Collectively they have left me scratching my head. I’ve racked up my fair share of pathetic first date stories, but these most recent experiences have me rattled.
The first is fairly mild. Chatted online, shared some messages then a phone call. He seemed interesting and normal, so we agreed to meet. Now let me remind you, I’ve been single for 15 years and I’m not used to a man in my space. It was a cold Melbourne night and I was all rugged up. I had just greeted him when he said “let me take your coat”.
I wasn’t ready, it was meant to be my security blanket for the first few minutes before I took it off when I felt comfortable. He rips it from my back, one of my arms gets caught and I’m flapping it about in the intimate, dimly lit restaurant. He pulls it free, along with my scarf and runs off to hang it up ... I may as well be naked. I left my hat on to compensate.
We have a polite conversation, there’s not a lot of laughter, but the conversation flows and he is interesting. Until it also becomes apparent that he is quite rich. And refers to it to the point where I become uncomfortable with my poor status. I mean every girl wants to meet a millionaire but, in the end, his big talk is just tedious.
Then we got up to go. He runs to get my coat which he helps me with. But then he positions his arm in a way so I must loop mine through it. It’s so forced and awkward I walk stiffly out of the restaurant. Suddenly, I’m cast back to regency England like we are taking a turn about the room before the men retire to the drawing room for cigars.
I managed to get my hand out as we bought gelati after dinner. He offers his arm again, but I say, “Sorry, no I can’t do that. Um, don’t take it personally.” Insert nervous laughter. I see him grimace. Cue few minutes of discomfort, thank God we are walking back to the car.
Next there was a guy, let’s call him Bob. We shared some lighthearted banter about how we were both on to our second coffee for the morning when he sends a photo of his coffee cup. Suddenly, I’m struck with doubt, confusion and repulsion. Can I reject a man because of a dirty coffee cup? I ran the problem by a friend who is equally repulsed but advises to at least proceed with the phone call. Sadly, it is not a success due to his poorly timed humour. I bring up the coffee cup – he explains he only washes it about once a fortnight to enhance the flavour. Next!
Unfortunately, it gets worse. The next guy sounds genuine and pleasant. Jovial chat ensues. I mentioned to him that I work with a team of podiatrists. He immediately pipes up that he has an injured toe. I remind him I’m not a podiatrist, I just work with them. “That’s ok,” he says, “if I send you a photo you can show them.” I’m half laughing as I think he must be joking.
We bid each other good night and just as I’m considering a date there it is. A photo of an injured, gross-looking toe. I’m exasperated, disappointed and sad. What is going on? I thought he wanted a date, not healthcare. Have men given up? Or is there such a man shortage they think they can get away with this lacklustre behaviour? My hands are in the air. I give in.
So, I’m baffled. I know what you’re thinking, I must be fussy, unrealistic, indecisive. What is wrong with me? I’m not desperate, lonely, or sad. I have a full life. But these experiences have galvanised my resolve to search for nothing less than butterflies, desire and anticipation.
When I do meet my life partner, I know it will feel like coming home. I need it to feel like coming home. We just haven’t found the way home yet.
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The DEI religion
SUMMARY
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has become the guiding principle and dominant focus of many foundations, corporations, and the federal government. At the heart of these multi-billion-dollar efforts—both public and philanthropic—are certain key assumptions: America is systemically racist; white America harbors unconscious racism; and equal rights, meritocracy, and the law itself reinforce a regime of white supremacy. Most of DEI’s practices violate the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act. Numerical quotas, government race-conscious policies, and speech codes do nothing to close the real disparities of achievement, because they do not address the root causes. DEI eradicates the best aspects of the American experiment, which have brought prosperity and opportunity to so many—the rule of law, respect for individual rights, and equal treatment under the law.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
* Major U.S. philanthropies are a driving force in the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) paradigm, which promotes the lie that America is systemically racist.
* The implementation of the DEI paradigm, which is gaining speed in the corporate world and government, runs counter to the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act.
* Americans are right to push back against this Marxist-inspired ideology that seeks to eliminate the best aspects of the American experiment.
The language of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) now infuses the grantmaking of the majority of America’s largest private foundations. As a result, hundreds of millions of dollars are being invested in organizations and programs shaped by the assumptions that underlie DEI. At the same time, because foundation dollars provide early-stage research and development for solving societal issues, whatever philanthropies are supporting today has the potential for widespread implementation in the future. This means that philanthropic dollars have an outsized influence on American culture and society. It is therefore essential to understand the assumptions that underlie DEI, the problems that funders are working to solve, and whether the DEI approach that many mainstream philanthropies are advocating and funding is achieving the desired results. This Special Report sets out to answer those questions.
Definitions
Already, the premises of DEI pervade the actions of the Biden Administration. In his first act as President, on January 20, 2021, Joseph R. Biden signed Executive Order 13985,1
The White House, “Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government,” which required all federal agencies and departments to root out policies that could have a disparate impact on members of the different racial and sexual population categories that are deemed “underserved.” Since then, the Administration has made the promotion of DEI one its highest priorities.
The private sector is also completely submerged in DEI. A 2021 study of 65 of the largest universities found that the average American university has 45 DEI personnel—with the University of Michigan sporting 163 of them. That means that universities have 40 percent more DEI staff than they have history professors.
The study also examined campus climate survey results to see if the number of DEI staff made campuses more welcoming or inclusive, and found that the opposite was the case. Why is that?
It is essential at this point to examine what exactly the phrase “diversity, equity, and inclusion means,” and why it has become so prevalent.
An examination of DEI in 21st-century America and its relationship to the major philanthropies must tackle two issues. The first is definitional: What exactly do people mean by diversity, equity, and inclusion?
The second is historical: Any discussion of DEI must take full account of the evolution of racial discrimination, exclusion, and oppression in American history.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary definitions of the three words can be of some help. For diversity, Merriam says that it is “the condition of having or being composed of differing elements: variety.” It then adds that diversity especially means “the inclusion of people of different races, cultures, etc. in a group or organization,” and gives the sole usage example of “programs intended to promote diversity in schools.”
The first entry for equity says it is “justice according to natural law or rights.” Merriam’s third definition for equity says it also means “remedial justice under or by the rules and doctrines of equity, a body of legal doctrines and rules developed to enlarge, supplement, or override a narrow rigid system of law.”
These two definitions are in fact diametrically opposed understandings of justice. Lastly, inclusion also evinces these dualities in language. The first definition gives the neutral meaning that it is “the act of including,” but then adds that it is also “the act or practice of including and accommodating people who have historically been excluded (as because of their race, gender, sexuality, or ability).”
These definitional dualities exist because the meanings of the three words have evolved. The English language, lacking a controlling authoritative body, such as Spanish has with the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language, is more democratic in its acceptance of evolutionary changes, with the various private-sector dictionaries making independent decisions about which terms to include, Merriam-Webster being but the most famous one for American usage. Definitional evolutions can come organically from the grassroots or ideologically from the grass tops of the academy, the media, or other institutions engaged in making meaning. Because most Americans do not know that the meaning of these specific terms has changed (and, in fact, they ascribe to them the traditional definition, which is why some may be generally supportive), while academics and journalists are conversant in the new meaning, one can assume whence came the pressure for the words to drift. As Amy Harmon put it in The New York Times, “The new lexicon has become a kind of inscrutable code, set at a frequency that only a narrow, highly educated slice of the country can understand.”
Many Americans instinctively embrace DEI because the words diversity, equity, and inclusion each have dual meanings. Indeed, each of these concepts, in its original meaning, is central to the American ethos. The notion that “all men are created equal,” to quote from the Declaration of Independence, is the most profound commitment to diversity and inclusion that any nation has made. The Declaration’s words, “they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” is a direct expression of the first meaning of equity: “justice according to natural law or rights.” But the fact is that each of these words has been distorted to mean the very opposite of its original intention. As a result, these words as they are now understood in the DEI paradigm are taking the United States in a direction opposed to what the Founders had originally intended.
https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/report/the-radicalization-race-philanthropy-and-dei
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Failure is actually good for kids. How you can get out of their way and foster their resilience
There’s no way around it: Things don’t always work out for your kids. They fail the test; they don’t get the part; they don’t make the team; they don’t get into their first choice of college. As a parent, watching the sting of these defeats in real time can be tough to stomach. It’s a natural instinct to want to step in when failure happens and “fix it.”
Parents’ desire to protect kids from failure is so common, in fact, that the English lexicon has added a whole set of catchy labels to describe it, says David Anderson, a clinical psychologist at the Child Mind Institute.
“From ‘helicopter parenting’ to ‘snowplow parenting,’ these terms tend to relate to parents who want to either plow the land in front of their kid to ensure they don’t hit bumps or obstacles or want to remain engaged in so much oversight that they can manage situations for their kid before they become really challenging,” he says.
Studies have drawn links between helicopter parenting and anxiety and depression in kids. The idea is that by swooping in to cushion kids from blows, parents send the message that they aren’t capable of overcoming struggles on their own.
The truth is, not only can kids deal with failure, they need to experience it in order to develop the determination that will serve them throughout life, where success isn’t guaranteed.
Cultivating a growth mindset
Parenting styles that center on removing difficulties from kids’ lives are in direct opposition to a field of literature in psychology that focuses on the concept of a “growth mindset,” which is directly related to qualities like grit and resilience. The idea behind a growth mindset is that your abilities aren’t innate. Instead, you can always improve yourself through effort, learning, and persistence.
“It’s the idea that failure is a stepping stone to success,” says David Schwartz, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Los Angeles. “Educators and people who are in contact with kids talk about the value of kids facing challenges, so they begin to create their own solutions. That kind of perseverance is an incredibly valuable character trait to develop for relationships, for careers, and for just in general facing the challenges of life.”
Scripts for setbacks
Next time your kid is faced with a flop, try these strategies to nurture their motivation to get back up and keep trying:
Be less reactive and more curious. When your child comes home with an F on a paper, take a moment to ground yourself so you’re not leading with your first reaction. Instead of immediate punishment, or expressions of how their failure makes you feel, focus on their thought process so you can foster the resilience that may already be happening there.
“Sit in that space with them for a moment, and say, ’Talk to me about how you’re thinking about this situation,’” Anderson says.
One study on how parents’ views of failure predict kids’ mindset showed that focusing on how your child performed instead of what their failure might teach them leads to a “fixed mindset.” In other words, when parents react as if failure is devastating, kids’ takeaway is that they need to avoid failure instead of learning from it.
Avoid the blame game. It’s tempting to foist a failure on someone or something else in an attempt to mute hurt feelings, but keep the focus on what’s next, says Anderson.
“How we talk through failure matters,” he says. “If our tendency is to say that their setback is because that coach has something against my kid or some system was unfair, you’re telling your child they’re powerless to change a situation in the future.”
Don’t step in to relieve struggle. At the heart of several schools of thought such as Montessori or RIE is the creation of a “yes space,” or a place where kids can try to solve problems in a safe way without someone else telling them how to do it.
If you see your child having difficulty with a project, or even opening a package, just observe from a distance. As long as they’re able to keep a clear (if frustrated) head, the hard work will pay off later.
“That’s really kind of the key for younger kids is if you can see that you can keep them at a level of distress that isn’t completely disorganizing,” says Anderson. “It can be really helpful to try to take a couple of moments a day to let them work through solutions to problems and see if they can solve it on their own.”
Remind them that failure is a moment. Differentiation is key. Remember that your child is not defined by the action they took (or didn’t take) that failed. They may not have been successful, but that’s not who they are. The same goes for when they succeed. Celebrate, but don’t turn it into a personality trait.
“Resilience is about learning that success is a process, not a birthright,” says Schwartz. “Instead of teaching kids that they’re so wonderful that everything they touch will turn to gold, cultivate the message that they’re the kind of person who pursues their goals, continuing to work toward them even when they don’t come immediately or easily.”
Be available. It’s hard to watch your kid struggle or fail. But while it’s difficult to witness, it also creates a beautiful opportunity for connection, says Anderson.
“It’s in those moments where we can say to somebody, ‘I may not be able to fix it, but I’m sitting with you right now.’”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/failure-actually-good-kids-way-120000697.html
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Is Racism to Blame for Healthcare Disparities?
Dr. Murray Feldstein.
I was a surgeon for over 50 years. I challenge anyone to come into an operating room after the patient’s entire body has been surgically draped so that only the gaping open wound is exposed. Look deep inside the body. Take note of the tan kidneys, brown liver, greenish gall bladder, and glistening pale intestines. Marvel as the mighty aorta pulsates down the length of the abdomen, carrying gallons of life-sustaining bright red blood to the pelvis and the legs.
Now…can you tell me the race of the patient?
Trick question. You cannot—because we are all colored the same inside.
As a surgeon, I did not ignore genetic, cultural, or socioeconomic factors associated with race when they related to the patient’s disease, but I never wavered in attempting to treat each patient as an individual. After all, while science instructs us as to what might occur if we treat a disease in a particular way, the art of medicine involves applying the most appropriate treatment for one particular person.
But today, a growing movement casts aside our civilization’s strides toward respect for the intrinsic value of each human as a unique individual. It ignores the real progress we’ve made toward true racial equality, instead demanding that a patient’s group identity—his or her “community”—take precedence over the individual.
Of course, there have always been significant disparities in health outcomes for various population groups. Only women die in childbirth. Only men die of testicular cancer. More people living in hot climates die of heat stroke. The children of Ashkenazy Jews are more likely to die of Tay-Sachs Disease. Black people are more likely to suffer the complications of Sickle Cell Disease.
But these group disparities aren’t a result of racism; they’re related to sex, geography, religion, and specific genetic traits. Their causes are easily discernable, and progressive activists can’t wish them away by proposing “reforms” aimed at achieving outcome “equity.” Yet these activists want to take the serious and numerous disparities and blame racism rather than doing the more complicated work of diving into the numerous and complex factors, which are often not easily discernable, and where there is scant evidence backing up these flimsy claims.
No one denies that racism has been a major source of injustice throughout history. But progressives assume that racism is a major cause of current unfavorable disparities in healthcare outcomes, using evidence largely derived from retrospective studies associating outcomes with demographic data. Importantly, these studies suffer from the presence of confounding variables that are unevenly distributed across different groups—factors like educational level, income, place of residence, family dynamics, and cultural practices. Tricky statistical manipulation can be conducted to better understand the role each of these variables plays, but there is no way to justify the assumption that racism is the most important cause of the disparities.
In claiming that racism is to blame for disparities in healthcare outcomes, progressives also use evidence derived from aggregate studies. In other words, they lump together people from all types of backgrounds (age, income, education, rurality, nationality) and use those findings to inform healthcare decisions for entire populations, which is highly misleading.
When federal health organizations communicate their health outcome data for each race group, they group together people living in rural and low-income areas, high-income professionals in large metropolitan cities, and even those who have recently been resettled from war-torn countries—despite the fact that these subgroups have very different health outcomes and pre-existing conditions.
This misuse of aggregate and retrospective studies has created sweeping narratives and assumptions about white Americans and minorities. White people actually make up the largest proportion of Americans who reside in poverty (42%, followed by black Americans at 28%), but their struggles and poorer health outcomes have become a mirage, particularly in rural areas, where white individuals make up 76% of the population.
Consider that the infant mortality rate is 16% higher in Appalachia than in the rest of the nation. But it’s not because of racism, it’s because of factors like high poverty and uninsured rates, a lack of physician availability, and pre-existing health conditions.
Progressive reformers also believe mistrust of the established medical system is one important cause of a lack of minority access to competent healthcare. The infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments, which treated black men as guinea pigs and led to hundreds of unnecessary deaths in the 20th century, is one of many reasons cited for this mistrust.
But now in the 21st century, a multitude of published articles promote the notion that patients are reluctant to see healthcare providers who don’t look like them. Patients are advised to seek out practitioners who belong to their own racial, ethnic, or gender-preference groups—and group identity is emphasized over individual professional competence. It’s true that associating with people with whom we have things in common is often easier and more convenient, whether we’re choosing physicians to treat us or neighborhoods to live in. But making blanket assumptions about wide swaths of people—like saying that all heterosexual white male physicians are too insensitive to meet the needs of all black or LGBTQ patients—ignores each person’s individuality. In other words, this progressive vision of diversity and equity treats Americans with unique needs and differences as if they’re nothing more than faceless, identical members of a given group.
I was born into a family of immigrants. I have been a physician for nearly sixty years and have practiced in extremely diverse environments, including the military, veterans hospitals, Native American reservations, rural areas, underserved inner city communities, and some of the finest academic institutions in the country. I had the privilege of training several generations of medical students and residents. I am optimistic that this period of progressive intolerance is a temporary phase, because I know from experience that intelligent, hardworking men and women of talent and goodwill are found in all races, ethnic groups, and economic classes. Most people still agree with Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream that the content of one’s character will count for more than the color of their skin. Hopefully his dream of the melting pot will triumph over the nightmare of neo-segregationist identity politics—because, in the end, we are all colored the same inside.
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5 January, 2023
Is Andrew Tate a traditionalist?
Getting put into prison has been hugely beneficial to Andrew Tate when it comes to circulating his message. The media have done backgrounders on him that reproduce what he says. His ideas were already widely circulated but were previously largely unknown to a mass-media audience
So what is his message? What stands out about it is its opposition to feminism. He is the anti-feminist. He defies feminist political correctness. He says that women should be subservient to men, in particular. But is that all there is to him? The apostle Paul said the same (1 Corinthians 11).
Where he differs is in his semi-Calvinist claim that wealth is a sign that you are one of the elect. He links his message to a display of conspicuous wealth. When I see pictures of him puffing on a big cigar, I just laugh but it is a traditional wealth display and that probably still works to some extent. And his collection of expensive motor vehicles does tend to indicate wealth -- if he actually owns them.
So his unlikely message is that if you push women around it can form part of a wider set of behaviours that lead to wealth. And Tate purports to show the way to wealth.
Its a seductive message to young males who have constantly been told in the educational system and elsewhere that masculinity is toxic and to ones who lack much success with dating women.
And it is his extremism that attracts. Traditional male behaviour is still so common that it has no novelty. And Tate is NOT a teacher of traditional male behaviour. I would have a better claim to that description. I open car doors for women (and am invariably thanked for it) and at parties that I go to the women tend to self-segregate in the kitchen for a large part of the time while the men yarn in the living room or on the deck. And I am a great believer in treating even female children as ladies -- as long as they are in fact ladylike.
But my way of life attracts no media interest of any kind. It does however seem to be good for my relationships with intelligent females. I have often had more than one lady in my life at the same time and I still do -- in my 80th year. So I have nothing new to teach. Traditional gentlemanly behaviour works well in my experience
But there are of course many "incels", males who have found no success in dating females no matter what they do. And there will always be such males. They were once somewhat praised as "bachelors" but that usage seems to have fallen completely out of use. These days they simply feel like failures. What is to be done about that?
Not much. Unless the man has some attribute -- usually good looks -- that attracts women, he will inevitably have a thin time of it. All he can do is try to lead a Christian life and reap whatever rewards that bestows. Religion is a comfort in that matter as in much else.
So what is the psychology of Andrew Tate? I will put on my psychologist's hat to venture a comment on that. He does give the appearance of being very insecure. His constant boasting is a good indicator of that. But all his behaviour may simply be an act and he has at times said it is.
It think that the key to what he has become lies in his appearance. Tall, well-built men are attractive to almost all women and Tate is tall (6'3") and has a bodybuilder physique. So he has no doubt found it easy to attract women. And that has shown him that feminist pieties are a load of bunk. You don't need to twist yourself into a female-shaped pretzel to have a good time with the ladies. Behaviour that is quite the opposite of feminist prescriptions works very well.
That does not mean that Tate actually behaves in a boorish way with women. Attractive women in particulare will not put up with too much of that. So in actual relationships with women, Tate almost certainly behaves in a courteous way. Some women who know him well say that he does. So the rough way of treating women that he preaches is probably not how he himself behaves in intimate relationships. He is probably more of a gentleman than he makes out
That some young males adopt his proclaimed ideas of wise behaviour is therefore regrettable but in a feminist era some degree of that behaviour may have some attractiveness. Current theories of ideal male/female behaviour don't seem to be working well. Large numbers of females report great difficulties in finding a suitable partner.
And confidence in men is a major source of attractiveness to women. Milksops are a turnoff. And whatever else he does, Tate does encourage male confidence. Self-confidence has certainly stood me in good stead -- JR
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‘South Park’ Episodes Banned from HBO for Depicting Islamic Prophet Muhammad
Five episodes of South Park have been banned from HBO Max for depicting Islamic prophet Muhammad, reminding fans that virtually every other religion is considered fair game for making fun of — except for Islam.
South Park, which started in 1997, has five episodes that depict Muhammad: “Super Best Friends,” “Cartoon Wars Part I & II,” “200,” and “201,” all of which are missing from the HBO Max lineup, notes Screen Rant.
In addition to being banned from the streaming service, the episodes are also missing on the South Park Studios website, with each episode hit with a “currently unavailable” notice.
In the episode “Super Best Friends” — which originally aired on July 4, 2001 — the cartoon character Stan calls upon a team of superheroes to counter magician David Blaine’s suicidal cult known as “Blainetology,” which is a very clear dig at Scientology.
The team of superheroes consists of the heads of the world’s most popular religions: Jesus, Buddha, Moses, Krishna, Joseph Smith, Laozi, and Muhammad.
Muhammad is also depicted in the episodes “Cartoon Wars Part I & II,” which originally aired in 2006. The episodes are inspired by the controversy surrounding the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which published a cartoon of Muhammad with a bomb as his turban in 2005.
In the episode, the fictional town of South Park is panicking after the show Family Guy announces it will be showing Muhammad in its series. The Cartman character argues that depicting Muhammad is offensive to Muslims, while the Kyle character argues the Family Guy episode should be aired as an expression of free speech.
Before the episodes originally aired back in 2006, South Park creators were reportedly in a feud with Comedy Central over depicting Muhammad. Comedy Central ended up airing the episodes with a black title card over the Muhammad sequence. But the episodes were stilled banned from HBO Max, despite censorship already being in place.
At the time of the controversy, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone argued that Comedy Central was hypocritical, as most other religions were considered fair game to poke fun at, but Islam was not.
The episodes “200” and “201” were also censored by Comedy Central when they originally aired in 2010. In the episodes, actor Tom Cruise recruits 200 fellow celebrities previously made fun of in the series to bring a class action lawsuit against South Park for defamation.
Cruise later agrees to drop the lawsuit, on the condition that he can meet the prophet Muhammad. At this point, the “Super Best Friends” from years earlier return, which brings another depiction of Muhammad.
At the end of the episode, a speech by Kyle is heavily censored, and viewers can hear a very lengthy audio bleep, as well as see that Muhammad is covered with a big black box, and his name is covered by more audio bleeps.
But again, despite all of this censorship, the episodes are nowhere to be found on HBO Max.
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A Major Scientific Study Confirms What We All Know about men and women
Every so often, a moment of sanity prevails in our culture, quite unintentionally. At such times, reality hits home, and most people don’t even notice it. But that’s exactly what happened with the announcement of the findings of a major scientific study. For a split second, reality overtook ideology, as left-leaning journalists shared the results of this study without thinking through the implications.
I’m referring to the news, first reported widely on Fortune.com that, “Women are more empathetic than men, study of hundreds of thousands of people finds—at any age and in any country in the world.”
In response I tweeted sarcastically, “A major new study has revealed that ‘women are more empathetic than men.’ This leads to two startling revelations: 1) there is such a thing as women and men. 2) there are real differences between women and men. What do you know!”
Yes, presupposed in this major international study, which involved 300,000 participants, is the fact that there is such a thing as males and females. They really exist, and their existence can be defined, despite efforts to make “woman” (and, by extension) “man” undefinable. (Think of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s now infamous answer to the “What is a woman?” question, and see Matt Walsh’s “What Is a Woman?” documentary.)
Without this presupposition, namely, that there is such a thing as women and men, the study would have no meaning. In fact, it would be impossible even to conduct the study. Otherwise, all we would have is difference between humans and humans. That’s it!
We could not report on differences between women and men, since sex and gender are merely what we perceive them to be. Instead, we would have differences between humans, and the results would be, “On average, certain humans are more empathetic than other humans.”
It would be like doing a major survey comparing the health of taller people (let’s say people 6 feet tall or more) to shorter people (here, under 6 feet tall). The only way it could work would be if height was definable and tangible. But if my height was whatever I perceived it to be, so much for the study. I would have no meaning or purpose at all.
It’s the same with differences between the sexes. If sex (and, consequently, gender) is whatever I perceive it to be, then scientific studies like this are worthless. After all, if I’m a biological male who identifies as a female, then I have undermined the whole premise of the study.
How, then, did the makers of this health study craft their questions so as to get tangible, substantive answers?
When you click on the test itself, conducted under the auspices of the University of Cambridge, you are asked a series of background questions, beginning with, “What is your age?”
This reminds us that “age” is not a matter of perception, even if we feel younger or older than our actual years. Our age is identifiable, going back to the year we were born. That is a fact.
The second question is: “What was your biological sex assigned at birth?” What do you know!
Despite the use of radicalized leftist language, as if your sex was arbitrarily assigned to you at birth by the doctors and nurses, the survey must ask for biological reality. Otherwise, to repeat, the survey has no meaning at all.
Quite tellingly, in today’s upside down culture, you can’t simply ask, “What is your sex?” Instead, you need to ask what was written on your birth certificate when you were born. Your actual, biological sex matters!
Even so, the survey listed the options of: “Male; Female; Intersex; I prefer not to say; I do not know.” (Are we really supposed to believe that some people do not know if they were born male or female? We’re not talking here about the very real biological category of Intersex, where there is potential ambiguity.)
Not surprisingly, given the madness of our woke society, the next question asks, “What is your gender?”
Here the choices are more expansive (but of course!): “Female; Male; Transfemale; Transmale; Non-binary; Other; I prefer not to say; I do not know.” (Enough said. I don’t need to add any commentary here.)
What is remarkable, though, is the test results page (I took the test to see how I scored).
Under, “Your Empathy score (EQ)” we are told that, “Most females score 6 to 16” and “Most males score 4 to 15.”
What happened to all the other categories? What happened to the transfemales and transmales and non-binary people?
Those categories no longer exist, displaced by differences between “females” and “males,” and that information was gleaned in question 2: When you were born, what was your biological sex? That’s what really matters.
Later, the test results page explains that, “On average, more men than women have a Type S brain type and more women than men have a Type E brain type. It is suggested that these brain types are caused by genetic and prenatal hormonal levels (2,3), as well as by environmental factors.”
Accordingly, the Fortune.com article reported that, “Females, on average, score significantly higher in cognitive empathy scores than males regardless of nationality, language spoken, and age, a massive new study published on Monday in the journal PNAS found.” And the 250-word abstract of the study references “females” 8 times – without qualification or equivocation.
Accordingly, David Greenberg, a psychologist and social neuroscientist at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University and lead author on the study, commented, “Our results provide some of the first evidence that the well-known phenomenon—that females are on average more empathic than males—is present in a wide range of countries across the globe. It’s only by using very large data sets that we can say this with confidence.”
My wife, Nancy, saw this reported on CNN in the most matter of fact way, with both the CNN newscaster and the doctor brought in for commentary seeming to forget that it is bigoted and transphobic to speak of differences between women and men. In the words of NARL (the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws), “We use gender neutral language when talking about pregnancy, because it is not just cis-gender women who get pregnant.” But of course. And men can menstruate too. All clear!
As I wrote in 2017 (with reference to “menstruating men”), “There is an all-out war on sexual difference (often referred to as ‘gender’), and if it wins the day, it will lead to societal chaos.”
That chaos is already here, growing by the day. But for a moment this week, quite unintentionally, reality crept back in and sanity prevailed as news outlets reported the simple, verifiable (and, widely known) fact that women, on average, are more empathetic than men.
Men and women do exist, and there are differences between the two.
What do you know?
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Canada to re-educate Jordan Peterson for ‘wrongthink’
Wokeism has destroyed Canada. We knew the situation was bad when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau froze the bank accounts of protesters in order to silence political action against his regime’s appalling abuses of human rights. It became unsalvageable when Trudeau followed up this behaviour by speaking about his love of China’s dictatorial powers over citizens.
Long gone are the days of suffocating niceness from our northern cousins. Now, professionals who disagree on social media with Canada’s ruling elite find themselves ruthlessly threatened by institutions that are meant to stand for liberty of thought.
That ‘stuffy’ and outdated value is scorned by the younger generation who prefer the comfort of ‘approved truth’ and safe nests feathered with media ‘consensus’.
While most Western regimes find themselves under attack from a mixture of neo-Marxism, eco-fascism, gender extremism, and whatever ‘ism’ TikTok culture involves – it is Canada that leads the way on policing ‘wrongthink’. They have readily embraced the insidious idea that the government and its bureaucracies have a right to ‘re-educate’ those who dissent.
In a series of tweets today, Dr Jordan Peterson reported his situation at the hands of these lunatics:
‘BREAKING: the Ontario College of Psychologists @CPOntario has demanded that I submit myself to mandatory social-media communication retraining with their experts for, among other crimes, retweeting @PierrePoilievre and criticising @JustinTrudeau and his political allies.
‘I am to take a course of such training (with reports documenting my “progress” or face an in-person tribunal and suspension of my right to operate as a licensed clinical psychologist.
‘About a dozen people from all over the world submitted complaints about my public statements on Twitter and [Joe] Rogan over a four year period (out of the 15 million who follow me on social media) claiming that I had “harmed” people (not them) with my views.
‘In its wisdom @CPOntario decided to pursue these complaints even though they could have dismissed them as vexatious.
‘I have been accused of harming people (although none of the complainants involved in the current action were clients of mine, past or present, or were even acquainted with any of my clients).
‘And even though many of them falsely claimed that they were or had been clients of mine and were allowed by @CPOntario to have their complaints investigated despite this falsehood.
‘We are now in a situation in Canada under @JustinTrudeau where practising professionals can have their livelihoods and public reputations threatened in a very serious manner for agreeing with the Official Opposition and criticising major government figures.
‘If I comply the terms of my re-education and my punishment will be announced publicly. I have already had the second most serious category of punishment levied against me and have been deemed a high risk to “re-offend”.
‘Canadians: your physicians, lawyers, psychologists, and other professionals are now so intimidated by their commissar overlords that they fear to tell you the truth. This means that your care and legal counsel has been rendered dangerously unreliable.
‘Ask Queen’s U law professor @PardyBruce if he concurs on the legal front.
‘To reiterate: I face public disgrace, mandatory political re-education, disciplinary hearing, and potential loss of my clinical licensing for agreeing with @PierrePolievre and criticising our standing PM @JustinTrudeau.
‘I am willing (if @SPOntario concurs, which they won’t) to make absolutely every word of all this fully public so that everyone can decide for themselves what is actually happening.
‘And to let the chips fall where they will in consequence.’
It’s music to the ears of the Left, whose publications have delighted in calling him ‘dangerous’. The idea that speech is harmful has been fashioned into a political stick with which to whack away legitimate opposition to the madhouse of Justin Trudeau’s regime of fear and control that was brazen enough to misuse emergency powers to protect his political reputation during Covid.
The simple truth is that Jordan Peterson is not afraid of the new Left. He has spent his life studying the mannerisms of authoritarian states and knows, acutely, that he is living in one during the scaffolding stage. This makes him an essential target that must be publicly burned at the stake or else opposition to Wokeism and other dogmatic policy will build.
During an interview in December of 2022, Jordan Peterson said:
‘When the pandemic emerged, the totalitarians acted first and they acted in a totalitarian way which is, “Well, why don’t we just lock everyone down?” Which is sort of the totalitarian answer to everything. And in our herd-like panic in the West, we immediately imitated them. That’s the spread of a pathogen too. It’s the spread of a totalitarian pathogen of ideas and that also shook us up terribly in the West.’
For more than a year, questioning the ‘science’ of Covid policy was considered a ‘threat’ to public health, dangerous, and outright banned on social media platforms. Those who questioned absurd health advice were turned into public enemies to be isolated from society. It is still disallowed for Australian health professionals to openly speak against Covid vaccines, even if they believe their patients are being harmed.
Controlling speech is what the worst regimes do, and yet Western leaders have increasingly sought to punish individuals for ‘wrongthink’ to the cheers of university students, who have been raised to hate any and all voices that speak to liberty. Conformity has replaced inquiry as the chief virtue of the cafe class.
Will Peterson’s academic peers stand shoulder to shoulder with him in defence of freedom of speech and thought – the foundation of their industry?
Or is academia too timid, corrupt, sickly, or comfortably drip-fed from Trudeau’s treasury to mount a rescue mission for Canada’s soul?
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/01/canada-to-re-educate-jordan-peterson-for-wrongthink/
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4 January, 2023
Chief Justice Roberts delivers a dispatch from a court under siege
This is typical Leftism: Attack anyone you disagree with. Revolution is its endpoint. Over the many years that the court was Left-leaning, Leftists were quite approving of it and conservatives were critical of its creative approach to the law. But a torrent of outright verbal attack on the court was unknown in those days
Chief Justice Roberts’s “Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary,” evoking memories of a federal judge “physically threatened for following the law” in 1957, is a dispatch from a Supreme Court under siege. After a year of stakeouts and protests, he thanks members of Congress “who are attending to judicial security needs.” He notes a recent law that helps “protect judges and their families,” a nod by the Article III branch to its Article I paymasters.
The thing that gets us is that the threats to the court are so often coming from lawmakers themselves. The chief justice is too polite to say this directly. Yet it has been horrifying editorial writers the way, say, Senator Whitehouse has been trying to palm off on Americans the idea that the court is controlled by dark money. He accuses conservatives of using money to “accomplish things that they tried and failed to accomplish” via regular means.
The Chief Justice is right to emphasize the “importance of rule by law instead of by mob.” This involves, in our view, not only the jurists’ physical safety, but respect for its constitutional authority after a year in which Democrats have begun portraying the court as an evil institution and a runaway bench. It is why the Chief Justice feels impelled to say that a “judicial system cannot and should not live in fear.”
After oral arguments over abortion at the court, Senator Schumer thundered “I want to tell you Gorsuch. I want to tell you Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.” At the time, that prompted a rebuke from the chief justice, who labeled “threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government” as “dangerous.”
Mr. Schumer’s fellow New York lawmaker, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, opted for an attack of greater sophistication. In a summertime tweet, she called for “court expansion” — packing the bench to dilute its conservative complement — and limits to judicial review, meaning congressional action to curtail the scope of the high court’s appellate review. The call for stacking justice was seconded by Senator Markey of Massachusetts.
Democrats in office were joined by the court’s adversaries in the press that has been using opinion pages to undercut the court. Law professors Joseph Fishkin and William Forbath suggested in the Times that “liberal lawmakers should view the court primarily as a hostile political actor.” They claim that the court as constitutional arbiter “appears increasingly ridiculous” and describe the high court as a “maddening institution.”
Also taking aim at the court from the pages of the Grey Lady is a professor at Yale Law School, Samuel Moyn, who seeks to “reclaim America from constitutionalism.” This rescue operation will, Mr. Moyn argues, jettison any notion of a “higher law that is more difficult to change than the rest of the legal order.” That is necessary because the Constitution is “broken.” The “problem,” he contends, is “the Constitution.”
No wonder Americans are starting to act out against the court. The threats to the Supreme Court are not confined to the Founders’ designs. A man, skulking outside Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home, was arrested for intending his assassination. A judge’s son was murdered at his front door in what was intended to be an attack on his mother, a federal district judge, Esther Salas. The killer had lost a case in her courtroom.
Chief Justice Roberts summons in his report the spirit of Brown v. Board of Education and the efforts to implement the court’s holding that schools, North and South, be integrated. This required both judicial determination and rigorous law enforcement. And humble reflection by millions of Americans. How rare such reflection seems during these days, when the left seems to have forgotten America’s charter and disdains its robed sages.
https://www.nysun.com/article/chief-justice-robertss-report
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A New Generation of Catholics Discovers the Latin Mass
Growing up in a rural enclave in western Pennsylvania, Gina McNulty regularly attended Catholic Mass with her family each Sunday. But something always felt missing about the experience, Ms. McNulty said— something she could not put her finger on until a few years ago when she and her husband, Steven, began attending a traditional Latin Mass at the Most Precious Blood of Jesus parish a 20 minute-drive away in Pittsburgh.
Initially the couple and their children worshiped at Most Precious Blood only occasionally; their regular parish was just a short stroll away. But by the time the couple had their third child three years ago, they started attending weekly. Now expecting her fifth child, Ms. McNulty says she feels deeply connected with the ancient ritual that is Latin Mass.
“My husband was definitely the driving force behind it,” Ms. McNulty, 35, said, of their shift to Latin Mass. “There are people who are interested in the Latin Mass that are drawn to it because of the intellectual aspect of it,” she said. “But there are people like me who are drawn to it for the beauty.”
Dating back to at least the 15th century, Latin Mass is rich, mysterious, strictly arranged and (as its name suggests) conducted entirely in Latin. Also known as the Tridentine Mass, McNulty said it offers a direct connection to the scores of generations of Catholics who came before her.
The service certainly feels ancient, like a journey through space and time. Rather than facing his congregants, for instance, the priest conducts the mass with his back to them. He’s facing the Eucharist — body and blood of Christ himself and the central act of Christian worship. There are also plumes of incense floating through the nave, while both Gregorian chants and periods of profound silence help instill within worshipers the mass’ history and significance.
Latin Mass was the standard service given by Catholic churches worldwide until the mid-1960s, when it was abolished as part of the Second Vatican Council in an effort to make the religion more accessible to the modern world.
Within months, the majority of Catholic parishes were conducting Sunday services in their local languages, while those Gregorian chants were replaced by guitar-playing and folk singers. Most crucially, a parish priest could now face his worshipers.
But the traditional Latin Mass never completely vanished; today of the 17,000 Catholic parishes in the United States 592 of them perform the extraordinary form in Latin, including at least six in New York City and four (including Most Precious Blood) in Western Pennsylvania.
Canon William Avis, a church cleric who was formally installed as the first pastor of Most Precious Blood of Jesus Parish in 2019, said their services have seen robust growth over the past few years. “We have 800 to 850 at our Masses on Sunday,” he said.
That robust growth isn’t just taking place in Pittsburgh; it’s happening nationwide. A recent survey by Crisis magazine, an independent journal covering Catholicism and Catholic issues, revealed a marked increase in Latin Mass attendance since the beginning of the pandemic. This boom is playing out against a backdrop of recent restrictions on the Latin Mass from Pope Francis.
Last year, the Argentina-born pontiff described Latin Mass as “divisive” and imposed new limits on the service, which had been partially reintroduced over the past three decades by both of his predecessors, Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.
In June, Pope Francis went even further, demanding the faithful stop exploiting Latin Mass for ideological reasons, which he feared might fracture the very unity of the Catholic Church. The pontiff was harshly criticized by many young traditionalists for his stance, some of whom took to Twitter in outrage.
Those worshipers included 26-year-old Brendon Miller-Boldt, who along with his wife, Elizabeth, and their two young children, also attend Latin mass at the Most Precious Blood parish at Pittsburgh. A Minnesota native studying in the PhD Computer Science program at nearby Carnegie Mellon University, Mr. Miller-Boldt said he was drawn to Latin Mass for its solemnity, reverence and mystery.
“Just the atmosphere, the willingness to have a space that doesn’t feel like it’s as kind of trying to meet the broader American culture halfway; something that’s willing to stick to its roots was a big difference,” he explained. “While there is nothing egregiously wrong with (our local parish), it wasn’t as conducive to worship as what we found when we visited Most Precious Blood,” Mr. Miller-Boldt said. “The integration with the community definitely feels more vibrant.”
Many of the East Coast and Midwestern parishes where Latin Masses are still conducted are majestic and ancient in design, often built during the great European immigration wave of the 20th century and tucked into old ethnic working-class neighborhoods where most of the parishioners once lived, worked and worshiped.
They’re parishes like Most Precious Blood, which is filled each Sunday with hundreds of children, most of whom also attend weekly religious education programs in the adjoining elementary school. Canon Avis says that people are initially drawn to the liturgy for its sheer beauty, “especially the high mass where you have Gregorian chants, the incense and all ritual.”
Both the McNulty and Miller-Boldt families attended Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, a solemn ceremony where parishioners hold candles and sing carols as the church’s lights are dimmed in salute to the majesty of the birth of Christ.
They’re rites, observed Canon Avis, performed today much as they have been for centuries. “Latin Mass has developed through history since the time of the Apostles,” he said. “So it kind of gives a certain sense of foundation, of roots. It’s something that it’s not just going to randomly change.”
https://www.nysun.com/article/a-new-generation-of-catholics-discovers-the-latin-mass ?
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Their continued censorship drive over the years shows the progressive mob's inherent determination to erase all thought but their own
It's basic to them
In 1982, student agitators protesting U.S. policy in Central America silenced Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick at the University of California, Berkeley, and at the University of Minnesota. Smith College told her that it could not assure her safety during a commencement address, so that address was cancelled too.
Business as usual, you may be thinking.
In fact, the reaction of campus administrators, and even of students themselves, to these shutdowns seems to come from a different world.
The chancellor of the University of California announced his embarrassment that his university had 'succumbed to mob rule.' That university's Board of Regents demanded that an apology be sent to Kirkpatrick. Even the group that organized the Berkeley protest, Students Against Intervention in El Salvador, admitted that the heckling had gone too far.
The group had no intent, it said, to curtail the speech of 'those who disagree with us.'
As anti-military protests spread across the country, the American Association of University Professors, the United States Student Association, and other academic bodies denounced the use of the 'hecklers' veto' and asked faculty and students 'to reaffirm our traditional commitment to freedom to speak and to listen.'
Fast forward to 2015.
A group of Yale students scream and curse at Yale sociologist Nicholas Christakis for what seems like an eternity, preventing him from addressing them. 'Be quiet,' shrieks one, 'you are disgusting!'
Christakis had defended his wife, another Yale professor, who had suggested that students could choose their own Halloween costumes without bureaucratic oversight.
'It's not a debate!' screamed another Yale student. Merely invoking free speech, said a third, creates a 'space to allow for violence to happen on this campus.'
Yale's President Peter Salovey rushed to express his sympathy–not with the beleaguered Christakis–but with his tormentors and their allies: 'their concerns and cries for help made clear that some students find life on our campus profoundly difficult.'
As if this were not nauseating enough, Salovey thanked Yale's students for offering him the opportunity to 'listen to and learn from you.'
In 2016, students at Atlanta's Emory University demanded protection from a few Trump 2016 slogans that had been chalked on campus sidewalks. Trump's name exacerbated the 'unsafety of minority students,' they said.
Emory's president validated what he called the students' 'pain in the face of this perceived intimidation.' The chalkers would be tracked down and potentially subjected to the 'conduct violation process,' and Emory would implement yet more diversity bureaucracy to protect students from 'harmful speech.'
In 2018 professors at the University of Chicago circulated a petition denouncing a planned debate between Steve Bannon and a business school professor. The debate would 'threaten the safety of people of color on and off campus,' the signatories said. The debate never occurred.
In June 2022, the dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School asked the faculty senate to impose 'major sanctions' on tenured law professor Amy Wax (plausible translation: fire her!) because of the 'severe harms' she had inflicted on the Penn community with her challenges to campus orthodoxies regarding racial preferences, immigration, and sex differences.
Apologies for 'offensive' speech are now de rigueur.
In 2021, an astronomer retracted an article proposing a method for predicting scientists' future research output. The project was said to conflict with equity. The astronomer groveled: 'I now see that my work has hurt people, I apologize to you all for the stress and the pain that I have caused.'
A 2020 paper found that male mentors prove more valuable to aspiring female scientists than female mentors. Following the predictable uproar, the publisher retracted the study and its authors expressed 'deep regret' for having 'caused pain.'
In August 2022, the president of the American Historical Association criticized contemporary history writing for imposing a 'presentist lens on the past.' He seems to have been surprised by the resulting outrage. Within two days he had apologized for the 'harm the article had caused to colleagues, the discipline, and the Association.' He would hope to 'redeem' himself by 'learning and listening.' Good luck with that. His days are numbered.
The private sector has become just as eager to prevent alleged harm to its employees from contrarian speech.
In 2018, Google fired computer scientist James Damore for having suggested in a memo that males and females have different interests and personality traits. Those differences, Damore proposed, helped explain why Google's engineers are not 50% female. Heresy. Damore had to go because he had 'hurt' Google's employees, announced the CEO.
Book sellers are disappearing books, payment services are blocking donations to disfavored commentators, because those books and those commentators allegedly harm vulnerable victim groups.
So what has changed between the early 1980s and today?
The conquest of every mainstream institution by an idea that Ambassador Kirkpatrick memorably identified in 1984. 'The progressive left always blames America first,' she said in a GOP convention speech.
Kirkpatrick was referring to foreign affairs, but she would not have been surprised by the spread of the 'blame America first' instinct to every aspect of domestic life, and indeed to the entirety of Western civilization. After all, she invoked Jean Francois Revel's warning that a civilization that 'feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself.'
And so today the elites themselves are waging war on meritocratic standards, on our civilizational inheritance, and on the West's unparalleled accomplishments, all in the name of atoning for what is said to be America and the West's unique racism and cruelty towards the 'Other.' This 'blame America first' instinct lies behind the war on free speech.
The novel justification for today's censorship is the maudlin claim that dissenting speech harms favored victim groups. The reason they are so easily harmed is that they are already barely surviving in the maelstrom of oppression that is the United States. So vulnerable are these victims that they can be struck down–even mortally–by ideas that they don't like.
The Democratic establishment labels those disagreeable ideas 'hate speech.'
If you think that Americans have the right to decide who crosses their borders, you are engaged in hate speech.
If you think that doctors should be selected based on their scientific knowledge, not based on their race, you are engaged in hate speech.
If you think that sex differences are written into our chromosomes and cannot be changed by fiat or by castration, you are engaged in hate speech.
And hate speech, the new dogma goes, can be censored, since it is not actual speech. Rather, it is conduct–assaultive conduct–against the marginalized. This definitional shift is at the core of the contemporary push for censorship.
So, how do we restore our freedoms?
We could try to give the left-wing establishment a crash course in the revolutionary breakthrough that is the First Amendment.
Our academic elites believe that the only speech that deserves protection is that with which the left agrees or which the government deems true. These opinion leaders portray the constitutional ban on censorship as a ploy used by the majority to maintain power, rather than, as Frederick Douglass understood, a key protection for minorities and dissenters who seek to break up illegitimate power. They have no appreciation for the marketplace of ideas and the difficult, dialectical process of truth-seeking.
We must assert at every opportunity that high standards, whether in academic achievement or public behavior, are not racist. And when they still call us racists for standing up for meritocracy and the rule of law, we must never, ever, as Jeane Kirkpatrick understood, apologize.
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Truth About Mandatory 'Safety Device' Biden Signed Into Law - This Is the Power Government Wants Over You
Many Americans are unaware that buried in the Democrats’ 2021 infrastructure bill is a measure to take just a little more of our freedom away from us that liberals have been trying to force on car manufacturers for years.
With President Biden’s signature on bill in November of 2021, they finally got it.
The Democrats sold the measure as a “safety device” to prevent drunk driving, one they will now force every car maker to add to every new vehicle starting in 2026. The device is a remote kill switch that could allow the government, the police, and car makers to disable your car from the comfort of their offices to prevent you from using it.
Alarmingly, the language in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is somewhat vague. It does not fully describe what this device will be able to do, if it doubles as a monitoring device outside the legislation, and how and when it can be used against citizens.
All the bill says on page 135 is that the device must “passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired” and “prevent or limit motor vehicle operation if an impairment is detected.”
The devices are also to be mandatory.
This is little but a limit on freedom and a personal privacy nightmare.
The language in the bill means that the system is “passive,” meaning it is always on and cannot be shut off. It also means that the device will be able to completely shut down your privately-owned vehicle against your will and without your say.
It all sounds like a new level of state-sponsored surveillance.
As former Rep. Bill Barr wrote at the The Daily Caller shortly after Biden signed the bill, there is a lack of clarity to all this. What if a driver is drowsy and not drunk, but is locked out of his vehicle before being able to get to a hotel or other safe place to take a nap?
The operation of cars will be in the hands of computer algorithms. And as we have seen with how badly algorithms work on social media, how can that fill anyone with any confidence?
The legislation has also not been vetted for its constitutionality. Will this intrusion into our lives and this curtailment of freedom pass muster with the Fifth or Sixth amendments? The former assures the right not to self-incriminate and the latter is the right to face one’s accuser.
There is another problem with this legislation. Definitions of “impairment” can vary by state. Can these devices tell the difference from one state or locality to another? And what does “impairment” even mean? Legally drunk? Or does the “passive” device have its own standards?
The legislation also does not exactly specify who will be collecting this data. Will it include locations that drivers were driving through? And, will this data be held against you if your car had been shut off one time too many? Will you be prevented from getting a license or buying another car if the shut-off had been employed a certain number of times?
And if not now, how can we be assured this won’t be added to the capabilities later? Like the problems with Big Tech, this legislation is fraught with issues and unanswered questions.
Also, will this data be sold to advertisers and other entities that can use the data to enrich themselves? Is this just going to be another case of an invasion of our privacy like Google or Facebook?
This is not to even mention how this legislation curtails our freedom of movement and condemns us to potential punishment without a trial or charges being leveled against us in a court.
There is yet another major problem with this “law.” It doesn’t even tell us what sort of technology will be employed in these switches. Indeed, the law leaves the technical details to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to determine over the next few years. And so far, the actual technology does not quite exist.
Those involved in this new law have tried to wave off criticism.
Jeffrey Michael, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Injury Research and Policy, told the AP in a March report that the devices won’t be able to be accessed by the police. As one of those involved in developing the tech, he claims the devices are not supposed to be for law enforcement use.
“I’ve been associated with this technology since the beginning of its development and it has always been viewed as a prevention device rather than an enforcement device,” Michael said, adding that the new legislation has “nothing to do with giving law enforcement access to a kill switch.”
According to the AP, Robert Strassburger, president and CEO of the Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety, claimed the NHTSA is pursuing rules that would prevent third parties from gaining access to the devices.
But neither Michael’s nor Strassburger’s assurances are reflected in the law itself because it does not preclude law enforcement or third parties from having access to the mandated devices. Indeed, the actual law is silent on those issues, meaning anything could happen and anything could change after implementation.
Finally, there is the problem of hackers and software bugs. Will hackers be able to brick your car unless you pay them to release control of the vehicle? Will future software updates contain bugs that will shut you down while you are driving and cause life-threatening accidents, like the dangers of the supposed self-driving technology that have already been so problematic?
Since there was never any debate in Congress about these issues, there won’t be any answers to them until we are already suffering the ill effects of the law. This was all very ill-conceived. But it is just another example of how regulations that limit our freedoms are slid into massive bills over and over again with no debate on their merits.
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3 January, 2023
The End of Progressive Intellectual Life in America
Replaced by discourse very reminiscent of the strait-jacketed Intellectual Life of the Soviet Union. The changing and repressive Intellectual Life of the French revolution is another, earlier, precedent. Except for Elon Musk wrecking the Leftist censorship plans, America might by now be well on the way to a similar tyranny
BY MICHAEL LIND
I have never liked the term “public intellectual,” but like its
19th-century predecessor, “publicist,” it describes a social type that plays a useful role in liberal democracies in which at least some government decision-making is influenced by open debate rather than secret discussions behind closed doors. To influence voters, public intellectuals write for a general educated public (not necessarily the less-educated majority) in ordinary language, not jargon. Like the policymakers whom they also seek to influence, they are necessarily generalists. In the service of what the Brazilian-American public intellectual Roberto Unger calls a strategic “program,” public intellectuals ponder connections among different policy realms—economic, foreign, and cultural—if only to ensure that one policy does not contradict another. Public intellectuals tend to annoy their own side by probing its internal weaknesses, while trying to convert members of the other team rather than simply denounce them.
The centralized and authoritarian control of American progressivism by major foundations and the nonprofits that they fund, and the large media institutions, universities, corporations, and banks that disseminate the progressive party line, has made it impossible for there to be public intellectuals on the American center-left. This is not to say that progressives are not intelligent and/or well-educated. It is merely to say that being a progressive public intellectual is no longer an option, in an era in which progressivism is anti-intellectual.
If you are an intelligent and thoughtful young American, you cannot be a progressive public intellectual today, any more than you can be a cavalry officer or a silent movie star. That’s because, in the third decade of the 21st-century, intellectual life on the American center-left is dead. Debate has been replaced by compulsory assent and ideas have been replaced by slogans that can be recited but not questioned: Black Lives Matter, Green Transition, Trans Women Are Women, 1619, Defund the Police. The space to the left-of-center that was once filled with magazines and organizations devoted to what Diana Trilling called the “life of significant contention” is now filled by the ritualized gobbledygook of foundation-funded single-issue nonprofits like a pond choked by weeds. Having crowded out dissent and debate, the nonprofit industrial complex—Progressivism, Inc.—taints the Democratic Party by association with its bizarre obsessions
Consider center-left journals of opinion. In the 1990s, The New Yorker, The Nation, Dissent, The New Republic, The Atlantic, and Washington Monthly all represented distinctive flavors of the center-left, from the technocratic neoliberalism of Washington Monthly to the New Left countercultural ethos of The Nation and the snobbish gentry liberalism of The New Yorker. Today, they are bare Xeroxes of each other, promoting and rewriting the output of single-issue environmental, identitarian, and gender radical nonprofits, which all tend to be funded by the same set of progressive foundations and individual donors.
You cannot be a progressive public intellectual today, any more than you can be a cavalry officer or a silent movie star.
It is not surprising that the output of this billionaire-funded bureaucratic apparatus does not make for very interesting or original reading. Open any center-left journal at random and you will find the likes of this, from a recent interview of an academic named Wendy Brown in Dissent: “It is also important not to stay inside our tiny circles because most of our inherited traditions of political theory, including critical theory, have in them the masculinism, the whiteness, the colonialism, and, above all, the anthropocentrism that have brought us to our current predicaments with racism, with the planetary crisis, with democracy, with gender, which is still always a secondary consideration.” The only ingredient lacking from this NGO word salad is crunchy croutons, in the form of the acronyms that stud post-intellectual progressive discourse: DEI, CRT, AAPI, BIPOC, LGBTQ+. Wokespeak is Grantspeak.
Meanwhile, in one area of public policy or politics after another, Progressivism, Inc. has shut down debate on the center-left through its interlocking networks of program officers, nonprofit functionaries, and center-left editors and writers, all of whom can move with more or less ease between these roles during their careers as bureaucratic functionaries whose salaries are ultimately paid by America’s richest families and individuals. The result is a spectacularly well-funded NGOsphere whose intellectual depth and breadth are contracting all the time.
In the 1990s, you could be a progressive in good standing and argue against race-based affirmative action, in favor of race-neutral, universal social programs that would help African-Americans disproportionately but not exclusively. Around 2000, however, multiple progressive outlets at the same time announced that “the debate about affirmative action is over.” Today race-neutral economic reform, of the kind championed by the democratic socialist and Black civil rights leader Bayard Rustin and the Marxist Adolph Reed, is stigmatized on the center-left as “color-blind racism,” and progressives in the name of “equity” are required to support blatant and arguably illegal racial discrimination against non-Hispanic white Americans and “white-adjacent” Asian Americans, for fear of being purged as heretics.
Immigration policy provides an even more striking example of the power of Progressivism, Inc. to crush debate among actual progressives. Up until around 2000, libertarians and employer-class Republicans wanted to weaken laws against illegal immigration and expand low-wage legal immigration, against the opposition of organized labor and many African-Americans—who for generations have tended to view immigrants as competitors. The Hesburgh Commission on immigration reform, appointed by President Jimmy Carter, and the Jordan Commission, appointed by President Bill Clinton and led by Texas Representative Barbara Jordan, the pioneering civil rights leader who was left-liberal, Black, and lesbian, both proposed cracking down on illegal immigration—by requiring a national ID card, punishing employers of illegal immigrants, and cutting back on low-skilled, low-wage legal immigrants. As late as 2006, then-Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both voted for 200 miles of border fencing in the Southwest.
Then, virtually overnight, the progressive movement flipped and adopted the former talking points of the Chamber of Commerce cheap-labor lobby. While Democratic politicians deny that they oppose enforcing immigration laws, center-left journals and journalists keep pushing the idea of open borders, in alliance with crackpot free market fundamentalists. On April 12, 2022, David Dayen in the American Prospect wrote that “declining immigration rates since the pandemic have contributed to labor shortages in key industries and harmed Americans who rely on those services.” Dayen linked to an article in the libertarian Wall Street Journal bemoaning rising wages as a result of lower immigration. On February 20 of this year, The New Yorker published a long essay by Zoey Poll, “The Case for Open Borders,” a fawning profile of the libertarian ideologue Bryan Caplan, author of Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration, which, appropriately, takes the form of a graphic novel—that is to say, a comic book.
Back in 2015, Ezra Klein, then editor of the “progressive” outlet Vox, asked Senator Bernie Sanders about the idea of “sharply raising the level of immigration we permit, even up to a level of open borders.” Sanders replied in alarm: “Open borders? No, that’s a Koch brothers proposal.” The lobby FWD.us, funded by Facebook and other large tech corporations that prefer hiring indentured servants (H-1bs) bound to their employers instead of free American citizen-workers and legal immigrants, denounced Sanders for holding “the totally-debunked notion that immigrants coming to the U.S. are taking jobs and hurting Americans.” Vox then published an article by Dylan Matthews entitled “Bernie Sanders’s fear of immigrant labor is ugly—and wrong-headed.” “If I could add one amendment to the Constitution,” Matthews declared, “it would be the one Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Robert Bartley once proposed: ‘There shall be open borders.’” In 2018, the progressive author Angela Nagle was canceled by Progressivism, Inc. when she published an essay in American Affairs, “The Left Case Against Open Borders.” By 2020, when Matthew Yglesias, a co-founder of Vox, published One Billion Americans, the purging of dissidents and the fusion of the Progressivism, Inc. party line on immigration with the anti-union, cheap labor policies favored by the Wall Street Journal and Silicon Valley was complete.
The energy debate provides another example of the closing of the progressive mind. As recently as the early 2000s, some environmentalists favored reducing atmosphere-heating carbon emissions by expanding nuclear power, replacing coal with lower-carbon natural gas, or both. By 2010 these positions had been thoroughly anathematized by Progressivism, Inc. Not only all fossil fuels but all nuclear energy—which provides 20% of utility electric generation in the United States, roughly the same as all renewable energy sources put together—must be completely eliminated from the energy mix, according to the Green commissars. Insofar as only around 11% of global primary energy, and only around a quarter of global electricity, comes from renewable energy (chiefly hydropower, which has limited potential for expansion), the Green fatwah against nuclear energy seems self-defeating—as well as certain to shovel American money to China, which holds near-monopolies on the rare earth metals and production facilities used to make things like solar panels and lithium batteries. China also happens to be a major source of the fortunes of some of the billionaires who fund progressive media and NGOs.
At this point in history, the foundations and advocacy nonprofits of Progressivism, Inc. do not even bother to go through the charade of public debate and discussion before imposing a new party line. Half a century of debate, discussion, and activism gradually led to a majority consensus among American voters in favor of “negative liberty” for gay men and lesbian women, whose right to be free as individuals from discrimination in employment, housing, and military service does not require other Americans to undertake any actions, and leaves people perfectly free to oppose homosexuality on religious or other grounds.
In striking contrast, in a few years the ideology of gender fluidity went from being an obscure strain of thinking on the academic left to becoming the centerpiece of a radical program of social engineering from above carried out simultaneously by progressive, corporate, and academic bureaucracies. During President Obama’s second term, Americans were startled to be told by the federal government that Title IX, a civil rights law passed as part of the Education Amendments of 1972, actually required gender dysphoric teenage boys to join girls’ sports teams and shower with girls, and that all public school bathrooms had to be rebuilt to be unisex. States that resisted this bizarre misreading of Title IX, which eliminated legal distinctions grounded in biological sex that the statute was written to protect, found themselves boycotted by multinational corporations and sports leagues. Corporate employees and university personnel who questioned the New Party Line now did so at risk of being fired or punished. All of this happened just between 2012 and 2016, with no public debate or discussion within the progressive camp, and no attempts to persuade conservatives, libertarians, liberals, or even pre-2012 progressives—only a sudden diktat from above, accompanied by contemptuous threats of punishment. In 2012, progressives were allowed to agree with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton at the time that marriage should be between a biological man and a biological woman. By 2020, you were a hateful reactionary conservative bigot if you did not agree that some men can be pregnant and some women have penises.
Who decides what is and is not permissible for American progressives to think or discuss or support? The answer is the Ford Foundation, the Open Society Institute, the Omidyar Network, and other donor foundations, an increasing number of which are funded by fortunes rooted in Silicon Valley. It is this donor elite, bound together by a set of common class prejudices and economic interests, on which most progressive media, think tanks, and advocacy groups depend for funding.
The center-left donor network uses its financial clout, exercised through its swarms of NGO bureaucrats, to impose common orthodoxy and common messaging on their grantees. The methods by which they enforce this discipline can be described as chain-ganging and shoe-horning.
Chain-ganging (a term I have borrowed from international relations theory) in this context means implicitly or explicitly banning any grantee from publicly criticizing the positions of any other grantee. At a conference sponsored by the Ford Foundation that I attended more than a decade ago, an African-American community activist complained to me privately: “Immigration is hurting the people in the neighborhoods we work in. The employers prefer illegal immigrants to young black workers. But if we say anything about it, Ford will cut off our money.”
Shoe-horning is what I call the progressive donor practice of requiring all grantees to assert their fealty to environmentalist orthodoxy and support for race and gender quotas, even if those topics have nothing to do with the subject of the grant. It is not necessary for the donors to make this explicit; their grantees understand without being told, like the favor-seeking knights of Henry II: “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” In the last few years, even the most technocratic center-left policy programs—advocating slightly higher earned income tax credits or whatever—have often rewritten their mission statements to refer to “climate justice” and “diversity” and routinely sprinkle Grantspeak like “the racial reckoning” and “the climate emergency” throughout their policy briefs in the hope of pleasing program officers at big progressive foundations.
Thanks to the takeover of the American center-left by Progressivism, Inc., there is literally nothing for a progressive public intellectual to do. To be sure, there are plenty of other kinds of mental work that you can perform as a member of the rising generation of young progressives even in the absence of a functioning public intellectual sphere. You can keep your head down and doubts to yourself, as you work on the technocratic policy that appeals to you the most: raising the minimum wage or free school lunches, perhaps. Or you can write endless variants of the same screed denouncing Republicans and conservatives as rabid white nationalists threatening to create a fascist dictatorship right here in America. Or you can join mobs on Twitter and social media to take part in Two-Minute Hate campaigns against individuals or groups singled out for denunciation that day by Progressivism, Inc. Or you can try to obtain fame and bestseller-status and wealth and tenure by getting the attention of the MacArthur Prize committee and editors at The Atlantic by auditioning for the role of Designated Spokesperson for this or that “protected class” or minority identity group (non-binary Middle East or North African (MENA), for example, not low-income Scots-Irish Appalachian heterosexual Pentecostalist).
You can even be a professor. High-profile American progressive academics like Paul Krugman and Jill Lepore and Adam Tooze who moonlight as public affairs commentators are not public intellectuals—they have the pre-approved left-liberal opinions on all topics that are shared by nine-tenths of the U.S. academic bureaucracy, from the richest Ivy League superstars to the lowliest adjunct at a commuter college. Back in the early 1990s, when as a young neoconservative Democrat I worked for The National Interest, our publisher Irving Kristol exploded in comic exasperation one day: “People are calling professors intellectuals! Professors aren’t intellectuals. Intellectuals argue with each other in cafes and write for little magazines. Professors are boring people who take out their dusty 20-year-old notes and give the same lecture over and over again.”
Unlike academics who recite the approved current center-left positions on all issues, genuine intellectuals, even if they happen to be employed by universities, are unpredictable and aggravating. They criticize their own allies and appreciate what other schools of thought get right. They do not indulge in contrarianism for its own sake but tend to be controversial, because they put loyalty to what they consider to be truth above party or faction. Needless to say, such people tend to perform quite poorly when it comes to the boot-licking, rote repetition of political slogans, acronym-juggling, groupthink, and “donor servicing” that constitute the forms of intellectual activity favored by big foundations and NGOs.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-end-of-progressive-intellectual-life
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Unwillingness to listen is now the hallmark of the Left
The great American debate about free speech is flaring again, this time around Elon Musk’s curating of Twitter. He is restoring speech rights or denying them, depending on your view. The predictable parties are declaring their positions and luxuriating in righteousness. They will change few minds, also predictably, because they are tussling over the wrong end of the stick. America has no problem with speech. It has a problem with listening.
Does the distinction seem specious? Speaking and listening do not mean much without each other. But emphasis matters. Focusing on the right to speak rather than the obligation to listen substitutes the easy question for the hard one, and a freedom secured by law for a discipline that must be instilled by culture. It also ensures that the debate—too grand a word, really—remains futile.
In a selfsatirising proof of how emphasising speechrights leads people to talk past each other, Yale Law students said they were exercising speechrights last spring when they shouted down a freespeech event because they disapproved of one panellist, a conservative Christian. “You’re disrupting us!” a protester shouted at Kate Stith, the professor moderating the event.
Newspapers continue to tie themselves in knots trying to reconcile the politics of their staff with covering a fractious democracy. They tend to default to framing their purpose in terms of protecting the right to speak—as though a publication is meant to serve its interview subjects and oped writers—rather than of protecting readers’ opportunity to understand the world.
This tripped up the editorial board of the New York Times a few days after the incident at Yale. In an attempt to defend free speech, the Times wound up coming out against it. “Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country: the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned,” the newspaper declared. There is no right in America, of course, to silence one’s critics. The Times itself is in the business of shaming and shunning (Lexington has some experience of this), and that work is safeguarded, thank goodness, by the First Amendment.
What the paper failed to articulate was why readers (and reporters) needed to listen to views they might find repugnant. The moral logic that once inspired newsrooms—to resist dangerous movements like white nationalism, readers needed to understand them—has been stood on its head. Now, to report empathetically about people and ideas deemed dangerous is to “platform” or “normalise” them. Readers are too dim to be trusted with such information. Journalists are excoriated just for interviewing supporters of Donald Trump. “There’s nothing more to learn from them,” sneered a Vanity Fair columnist, more than a year before some of them attacked the Capitol.
More speech alone will fix none of this. Besides, insisting that someone must be allowed to speak can violate freespeech rights, as the dean of Berkeley Law School recently told the Wall Street Journal. He was explaining why nine student groups at the school were justified in banning Zionists from speaking at their events, even though he considered the rule antiSemitic.
Like those law students, all Americans can now relax in homogeneous spaces where they hear plenty of speech but nothing that might confound them. Whatever objectionable ideas or information they do encounter will arrive safely filtered through the congenial viewpoint of their chosen cablenews channel, socialmedia group, newspaper or Substack writer. They can duck the work of hearing alien arguments and sharpening their own ideas or even adjusting them—the kind of work that turns diversity in a pluralistic democracy into a source of resilience rather than a fatally fissiparous weakness.
In 1953, after he finished “Mariners, Renegades & Castaways”, his magnificent study of “Moby Dick”, the Trinidadian intellectual C.L.R. James appended an essay about the circumstances in which he wrote it: he was imprisoned on Ellis Island, awaiting a decision about whether he would be deported. He was disappointed that fellow exradicals chose not to help him. Instead, he found, “oldfashioned American liberals” spoke up.
James brooded upon a quotation from Voltaire above the letters column in the New York Herald Tribune, a newspaper now extinct: “I wholly disapprove of what you say and I shall defend to the death your right to say it.” In the past, he wrote, “I have smiled indulgently at the grandiloquent statements and illusions of these old liberals.” But he began thinking about the conditions in which they struggled to establish the principles he had relied upon. “Today it is not their limitations I am conscious of,” he concluded, “but rather the enormous service they did to civilisation.”
So many Starbucks
To James, who was deported, one of the most vile characters in “Moby Dick” is Starbuck, the first mate. Starbuck knows Ahab is dooming the ship but lacks the courage to stand up to him. “His story”, James wrote from the depths of disillusion with the Soviet Union and horror at Nazi Germany, “is the story of the liberals and democrats who during the last quarter of a century have led the capitulation to the totalitarians in country after country.”
There is good reason to feel optimistic about America. Democrats heard voters’ concerns about crime and inflation and tempered their more extreme impulses. Voters heard the lunacy of the electiondeniers and rejected them. Jurors heard cases against the insurrectionists of January 6th and delivered justice.
But just as Republican politicians tremble before Mr Trump, some leaders of American institutions, afraid of their students or staff, are still treading Starbuck’s path rather than defending the principles that once made their institutions integral to the American project. They might instead consider the example of Ms Stith as she faced the Yale students. “Grow up,” she urged them.
https://www.economist.com/united-states/2022/12/20/free-speech-is-not-in-peril-in-america
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A Leftist Pope in action
Has he been seized by the Devil?
The shocking and unprecedented move by Vatican officials, allegedly at the instigation of Bishop Patrick James Zurek, Bishop of Amarillo, Texas, to dismiss Fr. Frank Pavone from the priesthood has left Catholic pro-life activists stunned.
We call Fr. Pavone’s dismissal unprecedented because we could find no other example of a priest being expelled from the priesthood for a social media post – particularly one that appeared to reenforce church teachings on the sanctity of life and the sinfulness of abortion.
And it was stunning in its hypocrisy, as our friends at NewsMax pointed-out in a recent article:
…many priests have crossed the line on both politics and defying Church teachings, with little or no pushback from the Vatican.
For example, Father James Martin, editor of the Jesuit magazine America, embraces same-sex unions and consistently advocates against Church teachings on homosexuality and traditional marriage.
Martin’s advocacy has been met by alarm from some in the Church hierarchy, but not the Pope.
“I find it necessary to emphasize that Father Martin does not speak with authority on behalf of the Church, and to caution the faithful about some of his claims,” Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia wrote in 2019.
But Martin has been embraced by Pope Francis, who met with the controversial cleric last month and previously praised his work against traditional Church teachings, encouraging his ministry and urging him to “continue this way.“
Martin has also been active politically and had been a harsh critic of President Trump, calling his administration’s immigration policies "insane," "sinful" and "close to obscene."
Pope Francis decision to laicize Pavone appears to be part of a wider effort to undermine the Church’s traditional stand to protect the unborn.
Earlier this year, Francis welcomed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the Vatican, after her local San Francisco Archbishop, Salvatore Cordileone, had banned her from receiving communion for supporting abortion.
Shortly after, Francis not only allowed Pelosi and her husband to receive communion at his mass, but bestowed a blessing on the couple.
While Cordileone was not publicly criticized by the Pope, Francis took the unusual step of passing over the Archbishop to the College of Cardinals, awarding the position to the Archbishop of San Diego.
And, in October, Francis again shocked Church supporters when he appointed a radical pro-abortion advocate to the Pontifical Academy for Life, the Church’s institute that had long advanced pro-life teachings.
CNA reported Francis had selected “Italian-American economist Mariana Mazzucato, known for her work promoting the public sector’s role in encouraging innovation,” to the influential academy.
Mazzucato has also been an activist for abortion rights and fierce critic of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Why is it that the burden of obedience to ecclesiastical authority always seems to fall most heavily on conservatives who wish to maintain the Church’s traditional teachings and rituals, while those who outspokenly traduce Church teachings receive no sanction?
While the obvious hypocrisy in Fr. Pavone’s dismissal will not surprise close observers of the reign of Pope Francis, many faithful Catholics were shocked by the NewsMax report detailing how the Pope – charged with being the ultimate steward of Church teachings on life and marriage – has embraced those who openly deviate from the teachings of the Church on such fundamental issues.
For his part, Fr. Pavone said he remained committed to following his vocation in the priesthood. "This idea that any of this is permanent in terms of dismissal from the priesthood is simply incorrect, because we're going to continue," Pavone told the Christian Broadcasting Network on Monday. "Then there will be a next Pope, and the next Pope can reinstate me."
"We're not going anywhere," he told CBN. "I'm not going to be one of those people that walks away, rebels against the church. I'm called to be a priest. I'm going to stick with that. I'm called to being a pro-life leader. I'm going to stick with that."
https://www.conservativehq.org/post/the-hypocrisy-of-fr-frank-pavone-s-dismissal-from-the-priesthood
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Biased history from the BBC
‘The Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan’ is a BBC Two travel documentary series which won a British Academy Television Award for Best Features in 2020.
In the first episode of the third season, Ranganathan visits Sierra Leone and looks at the history of slavery there. However, by omitting important facts about the role of Britain in the country’s history and presenting a biased narrative of British involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, he distorts the viewers’ understanding of the country’s history.
In the documentary, Ranganathan visits a fort established on Bunce Island in 1670 by a British company as a holding point for slaves to be shipped to the Americas. He tells us it was held by four British companies over 138 years, leaving the impression that enslavement was a purely British enterprise. Yet he omits to mention the fact that the fort was sacked in 1728 by a local African slave trader, José Lopez da Moura, who resented the loss of business caused by the British presence.
Ranganathan describes how “raiders” captured the slaves and brought them to the fort. Yet he does not mention that the said raiders were Africans, or that when Britain abolished its slave trade in 1807, many local Africans continued to trade slaves with other countries, including the United States, as well as the colonies of France, Spain and Portugal.
Ranganathan states that 30,000 slaves were shipped from Bunce Island. He does not, however, mention that it was Britain’s Royal Navy which was later sent to suppress the slave trade, or that in doing so between 1808 and 1860 the West Africa Squadron captured 1,600 slave ships and freed over 150,000 African slaves.
Ranganathan describes Freetown, the freed slaves’ destination, but does not mention that the town had been set up specifically for freed slaves by Britain in an area negotiated by Britain with local chiefs.
While he does mention a freedom tree in the centre of Freetown, he does not mention the “Freedom Arch” leading to The Old King’s Yard. Freed slaves were taken to Freetown, walked through the arch to hospital and given treatment and food. Sierra Leone declared it a National Monument in 1949 and applied to UNESCO to make it a World Heritage site in 2012. The application on the UNESCO website notes that:
The Gateway to the Old King’s Yard compares with the Statue of Liberty in the United States in enduring as a highly potent symbol, inspiring contemplation of ideals such as freedom, human rights, democracy and opportunity… [It]…. is a symbol telling the end of a particular epoch of man’s cruelty to man.
Seeing such a monument would have enabled the viewer to get the full context. It is difficult to understand why such an important site was not mentioned in a travel programme.
Ranganathan remarks that what he calls “creoles” cannot, even today, buy land outside Freetown and concludes from this that “discrimination lasts today as a legacy of colonialism”. Yet the area concerned was controlled historically by African chiefs.
Inside Freetown, where the British had control, “creoles” have equality. So the legacy of colonialism is in fact the reverse of that suggested by Ranganathan.
Ranganathan also asserts that “the standard of living [in the UK] was built on the benefits of slavery”. This idea that Britain’s prosperity was created by the slave trade echoes the thesis of the historian and politician Eric Williams’s Capitalism and Slavery, written during the 1930s. 4 It has been long been rejected by most economic historians. David Eltis, in his Economic Growth and the Ending of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (1997), argues that Britain spent as much money suppressing the slave trade as it ever gained from it. While it is not easy to draw up an economic balance sheet, and while slaving undoubtedly enriched some individual seaports, shipowners, plantation owners and African chiefs, the theory that it financed the Industrial Revolution is not generally accepted by economic historians, and to repeat it as if it were a matter of undisputed fact suggests a lack of impartiality.
Drawing on his own defective analysis of the history in Sierra Leone, Ranganathan’s picture of slave trading as something “that the white British did” completely ignores African involvement. British involvement was, of course, morally reprehensible. But it could not have taken place without the active involvement of Africans, who were owners and traders of slaves long before the British arrived. It is a gross distortion to talk of black slaves and white slavers; many peoples were involved. If we limit ourselves to Africa, there is no doubt that black Africans were the main actors in the slave trade south of the Sahara, both as slavers and victims.
Among the European participants in the African slaving, the Danes were the first to renounce it in 1792 and the British were the first to try to suppress it after 1807.5 The British anti-slavery effort was costly, in money and lives, and it was vigorously resisted by other powers, especially the Americans and the French. Eventually the British used both bribery and force against some African rulers with whom they had previously had peaceful relations but who persisted in slave trading. Suppressing slaving became a major motive for British military intervention in West Africa in the 19th century, some of which was made following requests for protection by African victims of the slave traders.
In short, the programme makes no mention of Britain’s efforts to end slaving, which is central to the history of Freetown; it presents an inaccurate picture by making no reference to native African involvement in slavery; and it leaves the viewer with the inaccurate impression that slaving was a largely British activity.
In response to a viewer complaint, the BBC made a series of comments which evade the points raised.6 The original response said that “a single programme or report wouldn’t always be able to break down extensive historical information as much as we’d like due to time constraints”; this does not answer the point about which information was included and which excluded, and why. Indeed, the final rejection of the viewer’s complaint by the BBC’s Complaints Director, Mr Jeremy Hayes, merely elaborated on the earlier response: “The programme, as the Complaints team explained, took in many other aspects of life in Sierra Leone, past and present, and given the varied and impressionistic nature of the programme, it was perhaps not surprising that more detail was not supplied about the history and legacy of slave trading in the country.” In admitting that the programme had time to cover many aspects of life in Sierra Leone, Mr Hayes did not try to explain why “detail” could be given on aspects of history that were discreditable to Britain, but not on those that were creditable.
Given the number of mistakes and omissions in this programme, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that it was a case of poor journalism (unless the BBC considers that travel programmes are in a lower category for accuracy) and/or of conscious or unconscious bias.
https://historyreclaimed.co.uk/can-we-trust-the-bbc-with-our-history/
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2 January, 2023
Group identity: Some thoughts for the new year
The term "race" must now be regarded as obsolete. Leftists use the term "racist" to refer to a great variety of apparently unrelated things so the term is no longer informative. So I will NOT use the term here.
"Group identity", on the other hand is very widely and uncontroversially used. Leftists talk of little else. They talk of gays, transexuals, blacks and Christians with great abandon. They like the first three of those group identities and despise the latter.
I am very happy with that sort of usage but disagree with the values that Leftists put on the identities concerned. I think that gays and transexuals are unfortunate; I note the century of research that has shown people of predominantly African ancestry to be of markedly lower average IQ and I think that Christians are a major support of civilized society.
But the thing that I deplore most is the overwhelming attention that minority identities get in the media. It is greatly disproportionate to the numbers concerned. Like most people, I relate best to people like myself and as a WASP, I am interested mostly in news about people in that group.
But I usually have to plow through news about various minorities and their pronouns before I get to news that interests me. I would like it better for equity to be observed in news stories, with people who constitute (say) 2% of the population appearing in only 2% of the stories I encounter. But I know that I will have to put up with being bored by much of what does actually appear. I will survive the imbalance, however. It's no real burden to skip stories about transexuals (etc.) and I do.
Another group preference I have concerns people's appearance. To me the people of Northern Europe all look the same. By appearance alone I cannot tell the difference between the native people of England, Ireland, Nederland, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Poland and Russia. They have a high frequency of blue eyes and blond hair during childhood but neither of those things are universal among them.
But they do tend to have what was once called "fine features", which I take to mean narrow noses, thin lips and a long, narrow head. Round heads are not "fine". And since my ancestors were transplants from that Northern group I am identifiably part of it.
And I like the appearance of the group to which I belong. The converse of that liking is that I tend to dislike the appearance of people who do not have fine features. A person with a flat nose, thick lips and a round head looks unattractive to me and I would prefer not to have them in my environment. Mostly I get that wish. I live in a place populated mostly by Northern transplants like me. And the largest minority is Chinese, who often have VERY fine features
Below is an example of a face that I would rather not see in my surroundings. No personal discredit to her, though. Bess Price was a Country Liberal Party member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly from 2012 to 2016.
And a Northern lady with fine features below
It's Ingeborg Hallstein in her earlier years. Hear her incredible coloratura voice here:
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The Left did very well in 2022
Pundits reviewing 2022 are heaving a palpable sigh of relief. This was the year, or so the consensus goes, when far-right strongmen such as Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro were enfeebled, China stumbled and the “West” made a comeback, at least against Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Such assessments, nostalgic for a lost “liberal international order,” ignore a more widespread development: how a general discontent with the old order, exacerbated by the pandemic, is fueling a revival of the left in Latin America, Europe and Australasia.
The trend can be seen most clearly in Latin American countries that have long been tormented by extremes of poverty and inequality. Returning to power in Brazil in October, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva heads a remarkably long victory parade by leftists throughout the region. In June, Colombia elected its first leftist president in Gustavo Petro. Gabriel Boric became in December 2021 the most left-wing president of Chile since Salvador Allende. Bolivian President Luis Arce came to power in 2020. In 2019 in Argentina, Alberto Fernández defeated an incumbent right-wing president. A year earlier, Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador won in a landslide. (Pedro Castillo’s ouster in Peru after a failed attempt to dissolve congress stands as the movement’s one notable reverse.)
Australia, New Zealand and many European countries provide additional context for why so many voters are turning to social-democratic, and in some cases avowedly socialist, leaders. In the simplest terms, the benefits of globalization are shrinking and, as the prices of essentials such as energy and food soar, voters expect more social protections from governments. This is why center-left parties — from Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Party in New Zealand to Pedro Sanchez’s Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) in Spain — share an emphasis on improved wages, better job security and more public goods.
This is a step away from the goals of privatization and marketization that since the 1980s have been energetically pursued by not only right-wing but also center-left and even some socialist parties in Britain, France, Germany, Sweden and other countries. Public opinion has shifted; the ideological hegemony of the so-called “ Third Way” of Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder now survives mostly in small bubbles, chief among them journalists and commentators over the age of 40.
Another preserve is Britain’s Labour Party, whose Blairite leader Keir Starmer and supporters in the media currently find themselves out of step with overwhelming public support for striking public-sector workers. Today’s cannier social democrats such as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Portugal’s Socialist President Antonio Costa work with the insight that the neglect of the welfare state, the shredding of the social security net and the rise of inequality — in part, consequences of the Third Way that were experienced with deeper pain during the pandemic — were what pushed many voters to the far-right. To get them back, leaders have to recreate some part of the old compact between the social-democratic left and the weak, the insulted and the injured. Thus, Scholz’s election campaign ran on the theme “respect for you” ( Respekt für Dich).
That said, too much should not be read into the increasingly close relations between Germany’s Scholz, Spain’s Sanchez and Portugal’s Costa, or in the Socialist International conference in Madrid in November, which was presided over by Sanchez and attended by several heads of state.
Leftists today are very far from the clear and confident consensus that in the 1970s united such European leaders as Willy Brandt, Olof Palme, Bruno Kreisky and François Mitterrand, and extended deep into governments and political movements in Asia, Africa and Latin America. For one, electorates have fractured, probably irrevocably, and most social democrats and socialists today come to power in coalition governments with narrow margins of victory.
They have little scope for structural transformations and the new alliances they create are precarious. While winning back alienated working classes, they cannot afford to lose the progressive and professional middle classes in metropolitan areas, as well as young activists seeking climate and gender justice.
But this dilemma is not unsolvable. As inflation peaks amid the unending crises of a pandemic and war in Ukraine, fear of the future will make many more people than before look to governments for social and economic security.
And politicians who respond to this widespread longing for reassurance are likely to do better than those still going on about how free markets will unleash entrepreneurial spirits and turbocharge growth. For example, after lagging behind for years, Spain’s PSOE has in recent months overtaken the right-wing Partido Popular (PP) in opinion polls with a program of public spending funded by tax hikes on banks, utility companies and large fortunes.
In reaction, a cornered right is likely to become even more intransigently radical, ramping up its culture wars. Those celebrating the return of the West in 2022 ought to turn their focus to what’s likely to be the main event of next year: how, after years of ideological confusion and stalemate, the real battle for hearts and minds will be led by a freshly reconstructed left.
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The Falsehood of White Privilege
One of the Left’s favorite ways of attacking Whites in general and men in particular is to accuse them of benefiting from white privilege. Their only goal in doing so is the attainment of more power for themselves.
During the past few years, the concept of “white privilege” has taken hold of the Democratic Party and those on the Left. The idea is that all White people have enjoyed and still enjoy privileges and advantages by virtue of their being white, and this state of affairs leaves “people of color” at a structural disadvantage in almost all human endeavors—bringing up a family, getting into college, succeeding in work or business, buying a home and more. The concept of white privilege is used as a cudgel against the Left’s opponents, not to help Black people or others but rather to concentrate power in the hands of politicians, college administrators, woke corporate professionals, entertainers and the like. White privilege is a falsehood in more ways than one.
At the most basic level, the United States has such a mixed and diverse population that there is unfortunately no shortage of poor Whites, whether in Appalachia or in towns where the jobs moved out and fentanyl moved in. Additionally, there are many “people of color” who are wealthy or super-wealthy. Who has privilege—a millionaire Black businessman who grew up in a middle class family or a poor White man whose family has been barely getting by in coal country for generations? Beyond the fact that there are many Americans who do not fit into the patently false narrative of specifically white privilege, the concept itself is based on a falsehood antithetical to the “American Way.”
In the past, when America was a more religious country, one realized that his or her task in this world was to take whatever was given and make the most out of it in a lifetime. If one was born into wealth, then more was expected by society as well as by the person himself. This concept was expressed as noblesse oblige and for generations well-to-do Americans saw it as their obligation to use their positions and means to serve the country in the armed forces, charities, and/or government. Have you ever noticed that older hospitals tend to have religious names like St. Mary, Mount Sinai, or Lutheran General where I was born. Industrialist Andrew Carnegie used part of his wealth to build over two thousand libraries worldwide and Vannevar Bush left MIT to run the Army’s scientific war effort when his country needed his expertise. The president of Harvard joined him.
It was expected that those who had advantages in this world would give back to those who did not and to their country that helped them to make it. Privilege brought with it responsibility and while not all wealthy people helped those in need, there are many examples even today of those who dedicate part of their wealth or time to advance others. The last time I was at the Hadassah Hospital here in Jerusalem, I saw the new Bloomberg wing for mother and child. One may not like the man’s politics or his media empire, but clearly Michael Bloomberg feels that part of his wealth should be used to help others. Even as mayor of New York, he spent $12 million of his own money on city projects. Michael Bloomberg was born to a bookkeeper father and an at-home mother.
Bloomberg believed that financial companies would want business-related information in real time and would be willing to pay for it. He took a large risk and could have failed with his news company if the market was not as he thought or if someone had done it better. There was no guarantee that he would succeed, and had he failed, nobody would have come to help pick up the pieces. He took a risk and succeeded. For every successful inventor or entrepreneur, there are dozens whose bets did not pay off. Each of us is expected to use all that is available to us with our own effort and risk-taking to get as far along in life as possible. Guaranteeing outcomes means that people like Bloomberg would have no reason to take the risks.
There are two ways to get more even outcomes—help those in need to get ahead or to punish those who are successful by pulling them down. The Left’s goal of leveling the playing field by pulling down those who took that which they were given and made something out of it will not help the poor. Denying Whites admission or advancement will not make non-Whites more successful. Harvard admitted in court that without their denying many Asian students acceptance to the undergraduate college, the Black population on campus would be much smaller. Harvard’s goal should have been to help Black students become more competitive prior to applying. Harming Asian applicants who threw themselves into their studies and activities to be worthy of admission is a sign of a failed admission system. The lawsuit brought by Asian student organizations against Harvard was recently heard by the Supreme Court.
The goal of throwing white privilege at people who of no fault of their own were born Caucasian and of means or backgrounds not of their choosing will not help Blacks, Hispanics and others to succeed. The goal is simply to pull down those who strive so that we can all be mediocre together. Rather than demanding that rigorous standards be met for college acceptance, joining the SEALs or being accepted for pilot training, standards are lowered—even the SAT is being abandoned. Those who succeed are not lauded for their efforts and determination but rather are accused of being recipients of gifts and background conditions that were unfair as if their personal efforts in maximizing the usefulness of their starting conditions were meaningless.
Claims of white privilege are based on the destructive idea that we should all have equality of outcomes (“equity”) rather than allowing each and every American to succeed according to his/her abilities and personal efforts. By demanding equality of outcomes and accusing Whites of having some privilege that gives them an unfair leg up in all of life’s activities, those on the Left are demanding mediocrity; they are effectively telling students not to push themselves, not to try their best, because whatever they do, the results are not theirs and that their successes have been at the expense of others.
Accusing Whites of having unfair advantage will not help “people of color” succeed. That which is needed is a focus on the family in Black communities. Black births out of wedlock in the US are greater than 50 percent. The most important factor in success is not money but rather family. Children study, learn to take risks, and push themselves because they know that their families have their backs. Stable and successful Black families will do more to advance Black men and women to success than all the efforts to punish Whites for being white. Tiger Woods’ son is already playing golf with his dad. There is no question that he has an enormous advantage over future golfers of his age. Should he be punished? Should he be accused of privilege and denied a professional golf career? Of course not. He should be encouraged to push himself to become an amazing athlete and golfer like his dad if he sees golf as his future.
One reads now and then of Whites being punished for no other crime than the color of their skin. Whether it is a sign-language translator fired from his job on Broadway or teacher candidates denied jobs because of their skin color, Whites are being told that because of a supposed privilege they inherited, they do not deserve to work or to benefit from their skills and efforts. United Airlines has made much noise about wanting to have a more diverse flight crew. My only concern as a passenger in the back is having the best pilots at the front of the plane; I could not care less if it is a man or a woman, or what color he or she is. Not for United. Will they sacrifice pilot quality to reach their minority pilot quota? Will anyone take responsibility if something goes wrong in the air? Of course not. In business and government, nobody takes responsibility for failure.
A person is charged in this world with using whatever skills, gifts, and opportunities he or she has with a personal drive to get as far along in life as possible. There is no question that for some the road to success is longer and harder than for others, but pulling down one group will not help others to succeed. I once heard an interview with the daughter of a very famous musician. She said that her last name automatically got her auditions, but if she could not perform on the piano at the highest professional level, her father’s name and reputation would not help her land a job. America needs to focus on encouraging and supporting those who wish to succeed, regardless of skin color or starting point. Success must be seen as what you did with yourself and not where you started.
https://townhall.com/columnists/alanjosephbauer/2022/12/31/the-falsehood-of-white-privilege-n2617631
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The New, New Antisemitism
Victor Davis Hanson
The old antisemitism was more a right-wing than a left-wing phenomenon - perhaps best personified by the now-withered Ku Klux Klan.
New antisemitism followed from the campus leftism of the 1960s. It arose from and was masked by a general hatred of Israel, following the Jewish state's incredible victory in the 1967 Six-Day War.
That lopsided triumph globally transformed Israel in the leftist mind from a David fighting the Arab Goliath into a veritable Western imperialist, neocolonialist overdog.
On campuses, Middle-East activism, course instruction, and faculty profiles are now virulently anti-Israel - and indistinguishable from anti-Jewishness.
When columnist Ben Shapiro spoke at Stanford University in 2019, left-wing posters were plastered around campus depicting Shapiro as an insect menace. A "BenBGon" bug spray bottle in Nazi fashion unsubtly suggested that a chemical agent is the best remedy to make sure Jews "be gone" from the premises.
The avowed socialist Representative Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., retweeted the old propaganda boast, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free."
Tlaib knew well "to the sea" could mean only the extinction of Israel itself and its 9 million Jews. She deleted her tweet, but only after an outcry of protest.
Anti-Zionists and leftist Palestinian activists Linda Sarsour and Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. - "it's all about the Benjamins" - often made no effort to hide their antisemitism.
Yet now a dangerous new, new antisemitism is trending, predominantly among African-Americans - especially prominent politicians, celebrities, and billionaires.
The old trope that blacks inordinately were prejudiced against Jews due to past inner-city stereotypes of exploiting Jewish landlords has been recalibrated. It is now repackaged by black elites claiming that their careers are overly profitable to and orchestrated by "the Jews."
It has been difficult to find any major black leader who has not trafficked in antisemitism, whether Jesse Jackson ("Hymietown"), Al Sharpton ("tell them to pin their yarmulkes back"), Louis Farrakhan ("gutter religion") or former President Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright ("Them Jews").
Yet what is different about the new, new antisemitism is the open defiance, often even or especially when exposed.
Kayne West was met with pushback after warning, "I'm going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE." Yet he trumped that by soon praising Adolf Hitler.
The Black Hebrew movement absurdly claims blacks are the real Biblical Jews, and Jews the imposters. Black Lives Matter clumsily disguised its antisemitism when claiming Israelis were committing mass genocide in the Middle East.
When novelist Alice Walker was chastised for praising virulent antisemite David Icke (he claimed that Jews formed a cabal of "lizard people"), she too was unremorseful. Walker retorted that Icke was "brave" for publishing his nutty rants.
Rappers from Public Enemy and Ice Cube to Jay-Z and Kanye West all spouted anti-Jewish venom. And billionaires, from the late Michael Jackson to LeBron James, dabbled in antisemitic talk, the first in lines from lyrics, the second in retweets.
In the hate-crime statistics, blacks as perpetrators are overrepresented, and, as victims, Jews and Asians are overrepresented. "Knock out the Jew" occasionally resurfaces as a common sport among New York city black youth.
In our "woke" age, race is seen as an indemnity policy for any self-described victim. Thus even elite blacks, as the still oppressed, cannot be seen as oppressors against "white" Jews.
Wokeism's competitive victimization often embraces Holocaust denial. That way the systematic slaughter of 6 million Jews in an industrial fashion does not overshadow the need for a reparatory legacy to atone for slavery and Jim Crow.
When Whoopi Goldberg claimed the Holocaust was not about race and was, for a while, suspended from her morning chat show, she only temporarily apologized. Goldberg this week returned to claiming that the Holocaust was only a crime by white people against white people.
In her ignorance, she was oblivious that Hitler and the Nazis did not believe Jews to be fully human at all.
Among black elites in professional sports and entertainment, the belief that Jews inordinately are represented as agents, executives, or commissioners is considered proof of exploitation - and often ridiculously reduced to master-slave psychodramas.
Marquee professional athletes like Kyrie Irving, DeShawn Jackson, and the retired Stephen Jackson only reluctantly backed off their blatant anti-Jewish messaging.
If the athletes of the NFL and NBA are approximately 60 percent or more African American, then they are merely diverse. But if Jews in the entertainment and sport hierarchies appear more frequently than their 2.4% demographic, then as a "cabal" they supposedly pose a threat to black livelihoods.
Black antisemitism is spreading in strange, dangerous ways.
Why? Woke orthodoxy offers cover by insisting that supposed victims can never be victimizers. A leftist-dominated media hides or contextualizes the hatred promulgated by its constituents.
Jewish-American groups remain predominantly liberal. And too often, they conveniently overlook black antisemitism, given the demands of left-wing intersectional solidarity.
So, expect the new, new antisemitism to grow more common - and more toxic.
https://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2022/12/29/the-new-new-antisemitism-n2617668
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1 January, 2023
Who is Andrew Tate and why is he banned from social media?
I have been seeing comments about Tate for some time so have taken my time to work out what he is all about. My conclusion is that he is simply an attention-seeking clown -- a deliberate clown. He says extreme things -- anything -- to get himself publicity. We can only speculate about how much of what he says he genuinely believes but it may be only a small part of what he says.
But he is a rip-roaring success at what he does. He gets publicity at an epic rate and appears to have turned it into a lot of money. But I don't think there is any need to take him seriously in any way. He is just a successful performer with a new schtick.
His "misogyny" should ruin his chances with women but he is tall (6'3') and very well built and that has a lot of appeal to women so he would have no shortage of girlfriends -- particularly women from the lower end of the IQ distribution
Online provocateur Andrew Tate doesn’t just engage in hateful, violent attacks against women online; he also does so in real life, authorities allege.
The 36-year-old social media influencer — once banned from Twitter for saying women should “bear responsibility” for being sexually assaulted — was arrested in Romania Thursday on human trafficking and rape charges.
A divisive chauvinist who has previously slammed women as “intrinsically lazy,” Tate appeared to mock the accusations he faces after being detained, along with his brother Tristan, for 24 hours outside Bucharest.
“The Matrix sent their agents,” the British-American conspiracist tweeted to his 3.9 million followers early Friday.
Romania’s anti-organized crime agency announced late Thursday that four suspects, including two British citizens and two Romanians, had been brought in for sexually exploiting women. No detainees were identified by name, but an agency spokeswoman confirmed that Andrew and his brother, Tristan Tate, had been arrested.
“Victims were recruited by British citizens by misrepresenting their intention to enter into a marriage/cohabitation relationship and the existence of genuine feelings of love (the lover boy method),” Romanian authorities said in a statement Thursday.
The six victims were taken to homes in Ilfov, north of Bucharest, where they were put under “constant surveillance,” authorities said.
The women were then “sexually exploited” and forced to perform pornographic acts intended to be posted on social media platforms, according to Romanian officials.
The four suspects, including the Tate brothers, were also charged with rape after an injured woman reported being sexually assaulted on two occasions in March.
Before he was a social media influencer dubbed the “King of Toxic Masculinity,” Emory Andrew Tate III was a world light-heavyweight kickboxing champ once known as “King Cobra.” He dominated professional kickboxing starting in 2005, compiling a 76-9 record and two world titles over the next nine years. After a brief stint in mixed martial arts, the 6-foot-3 southpaw now works as a commentator for Real Xtreme Fighting, the largest MMA promotion in Romania, according to his website CobraTate.com.
But Tate was largely unknown outside of fighting circles until his 2016 appearance on the UK version of “Big Brother.” Just days into the show’s production, he was kicked out after the emergence of past racist and homophobic tweets as well as a video showing Tate allegedly hitting a woman with a belt. Further footage shows Tate telling the victim to count her bruises, but both parties reportedly denied any abuse occurred.
The “Big Brother” alum then came under fire a year later amid the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse allegations, for insisting women share responsibility if they’re sexually assaulted.
After the “Big Brother” rejection, Tate decided to reinvent himself as a hyper-masculine guru, posting online videos advising men to treat women like commodities. He brags about his wealth, shares his “secrets” of success — for a price — and thrives on criticism. “You can’t slander me because I will state right now that I am absolutely sexist and I’m absolutely a misogynist, and I have f–k you money and you can’t take that away,” he said in 2021 on the “Anything Goes With James English” podcast. Tate has cultivated a large following within the online “manosphere” — a group of proud misogynists who see women as inferior objects to be controlled.
“If you put yourself in a position to be raped, you must bear some responsibility,” Tate wrote in October 2017. “I’m not saying it’s OK you got raped. No woman should be abused regardless. However, with sexual assault, they want to put zero blame on the victim whatsoever.”
Tate was subsequently suspended from Twitter but got reinstated in November along with several other once-banned celebrities, including psychologist Jordan Peterson and comedian Kathy Griffin.
He was removed in August from Facebook and Instagram, where he had more than 4.7 million followers. And Tate’s no longer on TikTok, where his ideologies were permanently banned, although countless #AndrewTate clips were still available on the platform as of Friday.
A self-help guru and admitted misogynist, Tate has previously compared women to dogs, saying they’re property of their husbands and belong at home. “It’s not about being property, it’s about she belongs to him,” Tate said in July.
More recently, Tate took aim at female executives.“Why are all these ‘business women’ and ‘CEO’ chicks married to very rich men?” he tweeted Monday. “Its [sic] almost as if the man pays for their entire lives and their businesses are hobby bullshit.”
Romantically, Tate has been linked to Naghel Georgiana Manuela, who has been referred to by The Sun as “an American businesswoman and influencer.” He has also claimed to have multiple children by multiple women.
Now Tate — believed to be worth up to $100 million — hawks life advice online via his Hustler’s University, which boasts 168,000 members who pay $49.99 per month.
The Sunday Mirror reported in June that Tate and his brother had also raked in millions from webcam sites featuring lingerie-clad models that charged customers up to $4 per minute.
Curious visitors to CobraTate.com, which is separate from TatesHustlers.com and its Hustler’s University, are introduced to the so-called “War Room,” a global group with “members, bases and influence” across 70 countries. Membership costs a one-time fee of $4,497.
“Our network contains a varied expertise which allows us to exert influence globally,” the site states. “Every member has either achieved or is working toward the ultimate goal of all intelligent men, freedom in a world of slavery.”
https://nypost.com/2022/12/30/andrew-tate-inside-influencers-toxic-life/
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A New ‘Lion of Panjshir’ Emerges as the Last Man Standing in America’s Abandoned War on Terror
He dreamed of being an astronomer but destiny called.
“I love three things in this world,” Ahmad Massoud once told French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, “books, gardens and astronomy.” Now, the young Afghan finds himself leading a rag-tag band of rebels nestled in the mountains of the Hindu Kush. They are the last remnants of the Global War on Terror launched by America and her allies in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks.
America has deserted the battlefield and, Mr. Massoud, son of the martyred sheik Ahmad Shah Massoud, known as the Lion of Panjshir, tells the Sun, is now in effect “providing the electricity, the fuel and paying the guard” to operate the “electric chair” at the prison that is Afghanistan since the Taliban seized the country last August. The metaphor is one of a series of blunt assertions from the young commander.
Mr. Massoud uses the analogy, in an extensive interview by telephone from his base in Tajikistan, while referring to the pallets of cash that are arriving at Kabul’s airport every few weeks, as reported by the Sun earlier this month. The funds are estimated to amount to hundreds of millions of dollars. “Without the aid,” says Mr. Massoud, “the Taliban will not survive.”
Ostensibly the money is intended as humanitarian assistance, which Mr. Massoud says that he appreciates in principle. Almost all of it, though, ends up in the hands of the Taliban. He suggests that such disbursements are funneled through a series of non-governmental organizations. “I have evidence,” he asserts, “that the Taliban have set up more than 900 NGOs in the last year alone to divert this aid to themselves.”
A study last year by the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson Institute estimates that the War on Terror has cost the United States $8 trillion over the past two decades. Mr. Massoud draws a sharp contrast between that strategy and the predicament of his own resistance organization. Now, says Mr. Massoud, “we are continuing the war on terror all alone with limited resources.”
There is not a single state that supports his National Resistance Front of Afghanistan. The Americans will have no contact with him, he says, dismissing a recent Voice of America report claiming that American officials are meeting with anti-Taliban figures. “One thing the Taliban insist on is that the United States shouldn’t meet with us or engage with us,” Mr. Massoud says. “The U.S. doesn’t want to upset that balance.”
Yet, with minimal support, he claims, much could be achieved. He also draws a contrast with American support for Ukraine in its war against Russia, noting that the differences couldn’t be starker. “If I had half a percent” of what the Ukrainians are receiving from America, says Mr. Massoud laconically, “we will be able to liberate Afghanistan.”
The divergence between the United States and the freedom fighters of Afghanistan is a relatively recent development and a symbol, tragically, of the Biden years. Mr. Massoud and his comrades have long been among America’s closest allies in the region.
The affinity began with American support for the famed Mujahideen fighters during the Soviet invasion of the country in 1979. Mr. Massoud’s father was among the most effective chieftains in that war, and long a vocal supporter of the West. The senior Massoud’s defiance in the face of foreign invaders earned him iconic status in Afghanistan, and his “Lion of Panjshir” moniker.
That moniker is a reference to Massoud’s stronghold in the isolated, rocky Panjshir Valley in the country’s northeast. In the 1990s, as the Taliban first rose to power, Ahmad Shah Massoud led the resistance. His United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, known as the Northern Alliance, retained control of some 5 to 10 percent of the country.
The senior Massoud met with the Americans in 1999 and 2000 and, in a message to President George W. Bush in early 2001, warned America of a terrorist attack by Al Qaeda on American soil. He sounded the alarm again in a speech to the European Parliament that April. But it was the senior Massoud’s death and the events that shortly followed which sealed in blood the alliance during the next two decades.
On September 9, 2001 a pair of journalists seeking an interview with Massoud turned out to be suicide bombers. They set off explosives hidden in a camera and battery-pack, killing the legendary resistance fighter. The attack was later disclosed to have been ordered by Osama Bin Laden himself. The funeral at Massoud’s home village of Bazarak in Panjshir was attended by hundreds of thousands.
At the rites, a 13-year old Ahmad Massoud vowed that he “would seek justice and do whatever” to achieve his father’s vision. Just two days later, following the 9/11 attacks, the adolescent Massoud found that the greatest military power in history was setting its sights on the same enemy who had ordered his father’s death. America, he says, “finally made a decision to declare war on terrorism.”
In entering Afghanistan just months later, the United States quickly teamed up with the senior Massoud’s Northern Alliance, capturing key cities and large swathes of land. “My father sacrificed his life for democracy,” says the junior Massoud, “but our forces with the help of the coalition’s air support were able to accelerate the liberation of the country and destruction of the enemy in 2001.”
There is no resentment in Mr. Massoud’s voice today. He’s deeply disappointed and frustrated though. “We never knew we would be abandoned exactly 20 years later,” he says, adding that America “abandoned this fight” because its assessment of the risk of being attacked again is low. “They are mistaken,” Mr. Massoud warns. “The reason they came to Afghanistan was to defeat terrorism. However, terrorism today is much stronger than it was in 2001.”
“They might have left Afghanistan,” Mr. Massoud says of America, “but Afghanistan will never leave them.” Now, the West’s worst nightmare has been reconstituted in Afghanistan. It’s “become a hub and haven for more than 20 terrorist groups that ultimately want to attack the United States again,” Mr. Massoud warns.
For the people of Afghanistan, it’s hell on earth, and particularly for the women. “Under the Taliban, girls and women are living in a nightmare,” says Mr. Massoud. “Last week,” he asserts, “two women were beheaded in Samangan [province] because they refused to have intercourse with a Taliban fighter. This is how bad the situation is today.”
Days ago, the Taliban drew international condemnation after announcing a ban on women attending university. Having been raised by a single mother, Mr. Massoud is particularly sensitive to the plight of Afghan women. He also has five sisters. “I owe my upbringing to the women in my life,” he says, adding, “The treatment of women in Afghanistan by the Taliban is the same as under ISIS rule.”
Should he ever be granted an audience with President Biden, Mr. Massoud says he’d tell the American leader that “forgetting and ignoring Afghanistan will be detrimental to his own people’s security.” What kind of assistance does he need? “The Taliban fear God, but what they fear even more is drones,” he says. “We will need resources to give us an edge in the battlefield.”
Without such capabilities, a total victory over international terrorism would, Mr. Massoud says bluntly, “not be feasible anytime soon.”
“I never thought I would be fighting a war like my father,” the would-be astronomer who dreamed of working for NASA, tells the Sun, but now he’s committed. “I may die, but it’s for my country, my people and my values. I am determined and committed to this cause for freedom, and I am willing to pay the ultimate price.”
Like his father before him, Mr. Massoud is also sounding the alarm. And as with his father, the United States isn’t listening. “We truly feel that we are not only fighting for our freedom and security but for the security of human beings throughout the world,” he says. “There’s still time to prevent the spread of terrorism,” asserts the new Lion of Panjshir.
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More Leftist hate on display
Dennis Prager
My last column, "Why Many Conservatives Won't Be with Their Children or Grandchildren This Christmas," dealt with the issue of parents whose left-wing adult children have cut off all contact with their parents because the parents are on the Right -- children who will not even allow their parents to have contact with their grandchildren.
One would think that any person with a functioning conscience and a normal human heart would feel for these parents. As I wrote in the column, if the roles were reversed -- that is, if a right-wing child severed all contact with his or her parents because the parents were on the Left, I would feel awful for those parents and condemn any conservative child who did such a thing.
Here are three of the many typical comments from conservative parents and grandparents (from Townhall.com):
Vermonter: "Sadly this is a nationwide trend. Neither of my college educated children have contact with me anymore. Yes it's painful, especially regarding my grandson. I have apologized for offending them, to no avail..."
Dmckinleyp: "Dennis, this is so timely. Things were bad enough between me and my two daughters, first after I volunteered for the Tea Party and then when I supported Trump. Then my daughter and her husband -- who was raised by Leftists working for the federal government -- had a baby. She wrote me a farewell email saying she never wanted any contact with me again. I will never see my lovely granddaughter. I am sending her presents and hoping to proceed without confrontation, but prayer is about all I have left."
GS69: "Yep. I'm in that boat. My youngest daughter -- a graduate of Evergreen State College in Washington(!) and my sister, who went to Harvard and volunteered for John Kerry years ago, stopped talking to me when I voted for Trump..."
The column was apparently forwarded to many leftists and discussed on various left-wing websites.
Even though I believe that the further left one goes, the more likely one is to be mean, I admit to having been surprised at the cruelty, even sadism, that characterizes left-wing reactions to my column.
I assumed that the dominant left-wing responses would be either that I exaggerated how widespread this problem is or that many conservative children act the same way.
My assumptions were wrong.
Nearly every one of the many left-wing responses I read -- both on right-wing and left-wing sites -- supported the left-wing children who deprive their parents of contact with them and with the grandchildren.
Here are some typical left-wing responses (from a conservative site, American Greatness):
yung god money stax: "... conservatives are whiny, mean little people and their kids don't want to listen to their racist, homophobic, sexist bs any more or let their kids be around that crap."
Dennis Prager's butthole: "This might be the dumbest article I've ever read anywhere."
Loona Chan: "I'm sorry Mr. Prager, you cannot claim after 6 years of Trump being the leader of the Republican Party that 'meanness' is not a central component of the current Republican project. Republicans now make being as offensive and disregarding of other's humanity paramount to their political rhetoric... When a parent on facebook 'jokes' about inflicting violence and even killing trans people and their children or grandchildren happen to be gay or trans, I think it is perfectly reasonable to no longer want to associate with that person..."
Austin Tucker the_dster694: "There is not an ounce of tolerance in conservative circles.
"Tolerate the intolerance is what you're asking, and we won't."
BartonsInk4: "I'm pretty sure I speak for all of the children who've cut off their parents when I say:
"1. We don't f---ing miss you. At all.
"2. We should have done this years ago."
Of the nearly 1,000 comments on American Greatness, most of them are like the ones quoted here.
Then there are left-wing websites. I'll cite two examples.
The first is the feminist site, Wonkette, which headlined:
"Won't Someone Think Of All The Bigots Who Won't Be Invited To Christmas This Year?"
The article goes on to say:
"People who vote Republican right now ... (hold) views that are hurtful to actual human beings, who may or may not be their children, their grandchildren or friends thereof... it is quite easy to imagine that conservatives would freeze out any relative, parent or not, who belonged to one of the various groups they are currently mad at. We know for sure they have a tendency to throw their LGBTQIA+ children out on the streets...
"...apparently 'parents' are the only people God demands conservatives be nice to...
"...conservatives who just go around believing everything Tucker Carlson and Dennis Prager tell them are frequently very angry and thus perhaps not the world's best dinner guests at Christmas or any other time...
"It seems highly unlikely that the parents being frozen out of Christmas dinners are those who 'just happen' to vote Republican, but rather those who insist upon torturing their relatives with QAnon conspiracies..."
Then there is an atheist website called OnlySky, which in its own words, "explores the human experience from a secular point of view."
Its headline read: "Conservatives are upset their kids don't want to spend Christmas with them: Dennis Prager believes we're all obligated to spend the holidays with parents who embrace right-wing cruelty"
The author fully defends left-wing children who break off contact with their parents and prohibit the parents from seeing their grandchildren. For example:
"If you care about your health, then people who reject vaccines and spread conspiracy theories about COVID ... are literally putting lives at risk. All of that's before we get into banning books, denying election results, whitewashing history, denying science, demanding more guns in more hands in more places, and believing whatever other lies FOX hosts shove into their heads...
"Why invite people with dangerous views into your home voluntarily? That's especially true if you have kids. Parents want to protect their children, and that may mean protecting them from their grandparents' cuckoo bananas beliefs."
The author of the piece is identified as "the founder of FriendlyAtheist.com, a YouTube creator, podcast co-host, and author of multiple books about atheism."
If you have a woke child who talks to you, give him or her a hug.
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Cops arrest extremely disruptive African woman inside busy McDonald’s Australian store
Customers and staff at an Adelaide McDonald’s were left in shock as they witnessed a woman go over the counter to hurl abuse at workers while helping herself to food and drinks.
The incident, which occurred on Thursday night at the Hindley St store in the CBD, led to the woman’s arrest and multiple criminal charges.
The two-minute video begins with the woman, 19, already on the wrong side of the counter as startled staff watch her warily, with fries scattered in the background.
“What? I’ll beat you up and I’ll leave,” she yells, pushing her face towards staff in a challenge as she holds two drinks.
“Oh what’s that, what’s in that?” she asks, then grabs a paper bag. Not satisfied with what’s inside, she throws it away and continues to confront staff. Customers watch from the other side of the counter, some filming her.
Staff attempt to walk away from her as she approaches them and appear to remain calm throughout the clip. The woman can then be seen in the kitchen of the McDonald’s restaurant.
She then heads towards the Macca’s process line where they make all the burgers and helps herself, picking up a burger box and using her bare hands to shove some chips inside.
At this point, two staff members appear to be keeping a close eye on her, with one on the phone while the other films her.
The woman opens the drinks fridge. As she peruses the shelves, she says “Ooh what do I want” before grabbing a bottle of water for herself. She calls one of the staff members a “dumbass b***h”.
A customer tells her to “get out” and she says “Get the f**k out? Aww okay” but on her way out she is distracted by the McCafe display. She picks something from behind the glass display and pops it into her mouth.
Two police officers have arrived by this point. They calmly surround her and escort her out.
One of the young McDonald’s workers begins to tear up after the ordeal is over. Some customers try to console the clearly shaken staff members.
In a statement to news.com.au, South Australian police confirmed that a 19-year-old woman was arrested after the incident which happened around 10.35pm on Thursday night.
“It will be alleged the woman damaged a door and threw a bottle of water at staff,” police said. She was charged with disorderly behaviour, property damage and assault. She made bail and is due to appear in the Adelaide Magistrates Court on March 3, according to police.
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