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 permant record of what I have written. My Home Page. My Recipes. My alternative Wikipedia. My Blogroll. Email me (John Ray) here. NOTE: The short comments that I have in the side column of the primary site for this blog are now given at the foot of this document.

Postmodernism is fundamentally frivolous. Postmodernists routinely condemn racism and intolerance as wrong but then say that there is no such thing as right and wrong. They are clearly not being serious. Either they do not really believe in moral nihilism or they believe that racism cannot be condemned!

Postmodernism is in fact just a tantrum. Post-Soviet reality in particular suits Leftists so badly that their response is to deny that reality exists. That they can be so dishonest, however, simply shows how psychopathic they are.

The picture below is worth more than a 1,000 words ...... Better than long speeches. It shows some Middle-Eastern people walking to reach their final objective,to live in a European country, or migrate to America.

In the photo, there are 7 men and 1 woman.up to this point – nothing special. But in observing a bit closer, you will notice that the woman has bare feet,accompanied by 3 children, and of the 3, she is carrying 2.There is the problem,none of the men are helping her,because in their culture the woman represents nothing.She is only good to be a slave to the men. Do you really believe that these particular individuals could integrate into our societies and countries and respect our customs and traditions ????



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31  January, 2019

UK: First sitting MP to be jailed in 28 years is black

Why am I not surprised?


Fiona Onasanya has been sentenced to three months in prison for perverting the course of justice - but will cling on to her constituency seat and its income

A Labour MP who dreamed of becoming Britain’s first black prime minister was convicted at the Old Bailey of lying to the police about a speeding charge.

Fiona Onasanya, a former party whip, was found to have colluded with her brother Festus after she was caught speeding just weeks after being elected as an MP in last year's election.

During her retrial, called after a previous jury failed to reach a verdict, the court heard that the 35-year-old had been texting as well as speeding but had “persistently and deliberately” lied to police to avoid prosecution.

The verdict now threatens to bring an end to Ms Onasanya’s short-lived political career, with Labour confirming that it had suspended the whip and expected her to resign in order for a by-election to be held in her Peterborough constituency.

Under the law, Ms Onasanya would have to quit if she is sentenced to more than one year in prison, although Labour insiders claimed that she may delay stepping down until sentencing.

Jurors heard how Ms Onasanya and her brother had gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid her being penalised for the offence, including claiming that a Russian acquaintance, Aleks Antipow, had been behind the wheel, despite him being overseas when the offence was committed.

When challenged by investigating officers, Ms Onasanya, who is a devout Christian, said she stood by her account.

She later changed course when her brother pleaded guilty to three counts of perverting the course of justice, alleging that he had falsely filled out the notice without her knowledge.

Throughout the trial, Ms Onasanya asserted her innocence both inside and outside of court, with one Labour staffer telling The Daily Telegraph that she was so confident of being acquitted that she had begun planning events for the coming months days after police first pressed charges.

This newspaper can also reveal that on November 5, less than a week before her first trial commenced, Ms Onasanya began advertising for a constituency support manager.

However, her version of events were seriously undermined when her former communications manager, Dr Christian DeFeo, came forward during her trial to allege that she had visited his home - near to where the offence occurred - that evening.

Dr DeFeo said he felt “morally and legally” obliged to come forward, adding that never in his “darkest dreams” had he imagined giving evidence against a woman he helped elect.

Prosecuting, David Jeremy QC, claimed that Ms Onasanya was a “determined and resilient” storyteller who had attempted to “sacrifice” her brother to escape conviction.

He added: “What you have done is create a story that makes his crimes so much worse and you have done it to try and get yourself acquitted of this charge. You have sacrificed your own brother.”

Following the verdict, Donna Rayner of the Crown Prosecution Service said that both Ms Onasanya and her brother had “lied to the authorities in the hope they could avoid the consequences of their speeding offences”.

It comes 18 months after Ms Onasanya pulled off one of the shock results of last year’s election, unseating the senior Conservative MP Stewart Jackson by a wafer-thin margin of just 607 votes.

Virtually unknown within the party and local constituency, she told a local newspaper that the victory was down to God, adding: “I did not achieve this alone – I thank God for His favour.”

A source close to Ms Onasanya also claimed that during the election campaign, when told her prospects of winning were slim, she replied:  “I am going to win. God told me I’m going to win”.

One insider close to the Peterborough MP said her conviction in God partly stemmed from a near-death experience as a child, when she was involved in a collision with a car.

They claimed that Ms Onasanya told them they she had been badly injured, but rather than being taken to hospital, her mother took her home and prayed that she recovered.

She has also expressed a desire to become Britain’s first black prime minister, which she said would “open the door so others can go beyond”.

A Labour spokesman said the party was “deeply disappointed” with her behaviour, adding that it fell “well below what is expected of politicians.”

SOURCE





'If it wasn't for Winston Churchill you would be goose-stepping to Holyrood': Piers Morgan blasts 'smirking ginger turd' MSP who branded wartime PM a 'white supremacist mass murderer'


The useless little twerp himself

Piers Morgan has savaged a Scottish politician in a furious TV debate after he described Sir Winston Churchill as a 'white supremacist mass murderer'.  

The Good Morning Britain host, 53, told Scottish Greens MSP Ross Greer, 24: 'If it wasn't for Winston Churchill you would be speaking German and goose-stepping your way to Holyrood.'

Piers branded Mr Greer a 'nasty, sneering young man' and accused him of offering 'no balance, perspective or any sense that what Winston Churchill did for this country was actually good.'

In response the young MSP said Piers's version of events were 'wildly ahistorical'.

When the presenter blasted him on a point about the Bengali famine, Mr Greer said: 'You're getting into a tantrum Piers, that's very snowflake of you.'

Mr Greer, Europe spokesman for the Scottish Greens, sparked outrage with his Twitter rant about Britain's great wartime Prime Minister on January 25. 

His controversial tweet generated thousands of responses, including several from Piers Morgan who branded him a 'thick ginger turd'.

After a heated exchange Piers challenged Mr Greer to a TV debate.

Speaking on the show this morning, he demanded to know why Mr Greer had written the inflammatory tweet.

Mr Greer said Churchill was a 'racist because he hated Indians with a passion and branded them a beastly people with a beastly religion'. He also claimed the former PM 'advocated using poison gas against uncivilised tribes' in Africa, as well as using hateful rhetoric against people in Afghanistan and Kurdistan. 

But when he accused the late, great Churchill of being 'responsible for the Bengali famine of 1943', Piers was unable to control his emotions. He said: 'That is a complete and utter lie.

'In the middle of the Second World War Churchill is seen in the papers to be very concerned about the famine in Bengal, going to Canada, Australia and Franklin D. Roosevelt in America, beseeching world leaders to help the Bengalis. 'What you're saying isn't just offensive, it's a downright lie.

'I get enraged by this, because if it wasn't for Winston Churchill you would be speaking German and goose-stepping your way to Holyrood.'

Mr Greer was responding to a Conservative party tweet from January 24 marking the anniversary of Churchill's death calling him 'the greatest Briton to have ever lived'.

Greer, who at 24 is Scotland's youngest MSP ever, was accused of 'attention seeking' after saying: 'Once again for the old people at the back: Churchill was a white supremacist mass murderer'. He caused further controversy by describing anyone who admires the Second World War leader – credited with helping save Britain from Nazi Germany – as 'crass and simple minded'.

Mr Greer also spoke to Bob Seely MP, whose great, great uncle served alongside Churchill. Mr Seely said Mr Greer's argument was just 'trite infantile smearing' and 'eloquent stupidity'. The Isle of Wight MP highlighted that by branding Churchill a racist, Mr Greer is saying he was no better than Adolf Hitler.

Piers added: 'I know he was a flawed character, but Winston Churchill single-handedly took this country out of the abyss.

'You are saying the man who saved us from the Nazis is actually no better than a Nazi himself.'

Throughout the debate Piers told Mr Greer to 'stop laughing, smirking and sneering' because 'the people who lived through the war are not laughing'.

Exasperated, he ended the interview by saying: 'You denigrate this great national icon.  Well, do you know who I find revolting? You.'

Mr Greer, elected in 2016 aged 21, was defiant over the row. He said: 'This is the real, verified history of Churchill and the one known throughout much of the world'.  He added: 'If that's uncomfortable to some here, it's just a sign of how uneducated Britain is of our own shameful history.'

His Twitter attack came the day after the rest of the UK, including Prime Minister Theresa May, marked the anniversary of Sir Winston's death on January 24, 1965, aged 90.

Lee Pollock, of the International Churchill Society, said: 'It seems to me this young man's not as important as he would like, so he has found the biggest target he can in order to get the most attention with a radical point of view. It's a cheap trick.'

Mr Greer's comments highlighted Sir Winston's pre-war activity and his involvement in colonial rule of India.

Other Scottish politicians jumped to Sir Winston's defence on Monday. Scottish Tory whip Maurice Golden said: 'Sir Winston Churchill is one of the defining figures of western democracy… seeking to diminish him is a disservice to the millions of men and women who fought to preserve our freedom.'

SOURCE





Antifa moron pulls a gun on cops

His disrespect for the cops cost him his life

A person (who apparently uses they/them/their pronouns) was ventilated by police officers at Cascade Middle School in Eugene, Oregon, after they pulled a gun on the officers who were attempting to take them into custody. The entire incident was captured by body cameras worn by the police officers.

The ma’an, identified as Charlie Landeros, can be seen wearing a shirt that reads “Smash The Patriarchy And Chill” as police are wrestling them to the ground. Landeros draws a handgun from their waistband, and the two officers try to gain control of their arm, as Landeros points the gun at the officers. Then the cops opened fire.

Landeros was a well known leftist activist in the Eugene, having led and participated in protests, specifically at University Of Oregon.

According to the U of O student newspaper, The Daily Emerald, Landeros was also a member of an armed antifa group known as “Community Armed Self Defense.”

From the Daily Emerald:

Landeros, who used they/them/theirs pronouns, led a student protest in October 2017 that disrupted UO President Michael Schill’s state of the university address. Landeros and other protestors characterized Schill as a CEO and said that the purpose of the protest was to “empower marginalized students on campus.”

Landeros was a member of Community Armed Self Defense, a group that was created as a “new liberatory and inclusive space for all oppressed peoples to learn about armed self-defense,” according to the group’s Facebook page, which is no longer publicly available on Facebook as of 4 p.m. Saturday.

Community Armed Self Defense’s Facebook page said that they could not count on the police to protect marginalized people, and that firearms help marginalized groups protect themselves.

“The police are not here to protect us. They are more likely to harm us themselves than they are to ‘serve or protect’ us,” the group wrote on their Facebook page description.

SOURCE




 


The Left Isn’t Stopping at Merely Censoring the Right’s Free Speech

No one is talking about the most disturbing aspect of the confrontational incident involving the Covington Catholic school boys. Those boys were not speaking. No one was trying to silence their voices or shout them down. They were merely standing there wearing MAGA hats. Not content with just silencing conservatives, the left is now actively trying to chase conservatives out of the public sphere and society at large. The Native American man, Nathan Phillips, who confronted the boys with his drum was trying to chase them away from the Lincoln Memorial. The person who edited the video to make it appear that the boys were the ones accosting Phillips wanted to justify what Phillips was doing. The media went along with it and condemned the boys.  

This type of totalitarian censorship has been creeping into society more and more during the Trump administration. It is totalitarian because the First Amendment protects both the freedom of speech and the freedom of assembly. Someone merely shows up in a public place wearing a MAGA hat and they risk being attacked. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders showed up to eat dinner with her family at a restaurant and the owners kicked her out. Perhaps most frightening of all, Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s family didn’t even leave their home and they had masked protesters yelling outside and banging on their door, chanting, “We know where you sleep at night.” The message being sent is even if you avoid the public square, you’re not even safe in your own home. 

This is a logical extension of the left’s tactics of resorting to silencing their ideological opponents because they can’t beat them in substantive debates. This is how Antifa arose. Those young, angry Millennials don’t have the brainpower to defeat conservative arguments, so they resort to violence. The domestic terrorist group shows up at conservative events and throws projectiles at conservatives and the police officers who are trying to protect them. Even if you don’t say anything, your mere presence as a conservative puts you in danger from these radicals.

Fortunately, along with this surge of intimidation tactics by the left is a new offensiveness by conservatives. Instead of sitting back and taking it, conservatives are fighting back aggressively. Before, the left would make false claims that conservatives were racist, sexist, greedy, uncaring, etc. Now, conservatives have learned to turn those criticisms around and place them squarely where they belong — on the left. Instead of trying to defend themselves from amorphous charges that require them to prove a negative, conservatives are changing the focus to the actions of the left.

A new generation of young black conservative activists, led by Candace Owens, isn’t trying to defend conservatives from charges of racism. Instead, they are pointing out the racism of the Democrats, from their history as slave owners and segregationists to their elitist attitudes toward blacks today.

Similarly, Brandon Straka, a gay former Democrat leading the #WalkAway movement, isn’t trying to defend conservatives from accusations of homophobia. Instead, he focuses on how the Democrats mistreat gays and other minority groups and view them as just competing interests.

Conservatives are finally getting mad. They’re tired of being bullied. They’re tired of the name calling. They’re sick of being called things they’re not. The left has bit off more than it can chew. Making decent people out to be monsters went too far. Conservatives have woken up and realized playing defensive and nice wasn’t working. It’s time to use the left’s tactics back on them — although not going so far as Alinsky tactics, which include lying. 

The way to fight this newest tactic by the left of trying to stamp out conservatives merely from appearing in society is to call it for what it is — fascism. Some have already figured out what is happening and are calling Antifa fascists. More of this needs to take place. Otherwise Antifa and its comrades will make even more inroads into shutting conservatives out of society.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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30 January, 2019

The Muslim Sisterhood

The Muslim Sisterhood is a growing contingent of radical Islamists in the highest offices of our land.

While the Leftist media insists that critics of Islamic terrorism and misogyny are "Islamophobes," the Muslim Sisterhood makes no attempt to hide its support for terrorists and anti-American radicals.

But their Left Wing CYA network is desperate to bury these truths, because that's the only way they can accomplish their radical agendas.

Democratic congresswoman, Ilhan Omar, makes no apologies for her deep rooted hatred of everything our country stands for. She didn't hesitate to join the progressive mob against the Covington Catholic students who were viciously attacked by black racists, and a Native American, America-hating radical.

When questioned about her inflammatory, Jew-hating statement about "Israel hypnotizing the world" she didn't even try to hide her seething antisemitism.

Rashida Tlaib may not wear a hijab — but what she does and doesn't wear speaks volumes. While celebrating her first official days as a U.S. Congresswoman, Tlaib draped herself in a Palestinian flag and posed for pictures with terrorist sympathizers. On her congressional office wall is a map the state of Israel marked "Palestine."

These 2 women aren't just a couple of radical outliers in the Democratic Party: they're the new face of it.

There is total solidarity and support for them and their anti-American agendas from other Democrat stars like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Keith Ellison and Andre Carson.

Barack Obama set this "radical transformation of our country" into motion back in 2008, supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and America's Islamist enemies in Iran.

Now a decade later, with Nancy Pelosi's blessing, the Muslim Sisterhood in the person of Ilhan Omar has a seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee with full security clearance, and on the Government Oversight Committee (Tlaib).

What's standing in their way for the moment are President Trump and patriots keeping the pressure on the Left with our constant research, campaigns and advocacy.

We've been able to add profiles on both Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar to Discover the Networks. Frontpagemag.com has been relentless in its exposure of the anti-American barbarism of the Muslim Brotherhood and its clones, and of the Brotherhood ties of Omar and Tlaib.

This no small matter in the current political environment where the hatred directed at defenders of America and exposers of Islamic atrocities can be severe. Our reputations have been shredded and sources of our funding blocked.

Our fight is far from over. All of us have to step up our efforts lest we lose the country we love.

Email from David Horowitz -- info@horowitzfreedomcenter.org






Archbishop of Canterbury apologises 'unreservedly' for CoE's 'mistakes' in handling Bishop Bell allegations

So hard for the Anglican hierarchy to admit that they paid out on a false claim

The Archbishop of Canterbury was accused yesterday of persisting with a “malign” attack on Bishop George Bell after he refused to exonerate him following a “copycat” allegation of historic child sex abuse.

An official report published yesterday concluded that a 70-year-old allegation against Bishop Bell was unfounded. It found that the evidence of the complainant – a woman named only as “Alison” – was “unreliable” and “inconsistent”.

Alison had written to the Church of England, claiming she had been sexually assaulted by the bishop in 1949 when she was aged nine.

The letter was sent a week after the Church of England was found to have wrongly besmirched Bishop Bell in its handling of a previous complaint brought by a woman known only as “Carol”.

The latest report suggested that Carol’s allegation had “prompted a false recollection in Alison’s mind”.

Yesterday, the Most Rev Justin Welby “apologised unreservedly for the mistakes” in the handling of the complaint made by Carol. But he declined to publicly clear the former Bishop of Chichester of any wrongdoing or retract a statement that he had a “significant cloud ... over his name” and that he had been accused of “great wickedness”.

In a private letter, however, sent to Bishop Bell’s closest surviving relative, his niece Barbara Whitley, he wrote: “Once again I offer my sincerest apologies both personally and on behalf of the Church. We did wrong to you and before God.”

Bishop Bell, one of the towering figures of the Church in the 20th century, has been unable to defend himself, having died in 1958. But his supporters urged the Church to restore his reputation after two reports exonerated him.

Ms Whitley, 94, said yesterday: “I would like to see my uncle’s name cleared before I die.”

Desmond Browne QC, a leading barrister who acted for the bishop’s family and who was christened by him in 1949, said: “What is now clear is that the investigations by two experienced lawyers [have established] George Bell’s innocence. But not once [has] the Archbishop of Canterbury offered Bell the presumption of innocence.”

Alison had alleged that Bell, the former bishop of Chichester, had sat her on his lap and “fondled her”.

But the report by Timothy Briden, an ecclesiastical lawyer and vicar general of Canterbury, concluded that in her oral evidence “her attempts to repeat what had been written in the letter displayed, however, a disturbing degree of inconsistency”.

Alison had alleged in the letter the abuse had taken place indoors in front of her mother but in oral testimony thought she had been assaulted outdoors. He concluded that her claim was “unfounded”.

The existence of Alison’s complaint made in December 2017 was made public by the Church of England at a time when it was facing increasing criticism for its handling of the earlier allegation by Carol. Alison’s claim was passed in January 2019 to police, who then dropped the case.

Mr Briden also investigated a separate complaint made by an 80-year-old witness – known only as K in the report – that his mother had told him that she had seen Bishop Bell “carrying out a sexual act with a man over his Rolls-Royce” in 1967.

Bishop Bell died in 1958 and did not have a Rolls-Royce. The report said: “The longer that the statement from K’s mother is analysed, the more implausible it appears.”

Lord Carlile, the QC who carried out the damning inquiry into the handling of Carol’s claim, was scathing of the Church of England’s decision to make public the police inquiry into Alison’s complaint.

Lord Carlile said: “I am astonished that the Church [made] public the further complaint against Bishop Bell and the error has been proved by the conclusion of this latest inquiry.”

Prof Andrew Chandler, Bishop Bell’s biographer and spokesman for the George Bell Group, said “the claim by Alison appeared a copycat of Carol’s complaint”. Carol was paid £15,000 compensation in a legal settlement in October 2015.

In his statement yesterday, Archbishop Welby described Bishop Bell as a “remarkable role model”, adding: “I apologise unreservedly for the mistakes made in the process surrounding the handling of the original allegation against Bishop George Bell.”

But he went on: “It is still the case that there is a woman who came forward with a serious allegation ... and this cannot be ignored or swept under the carpet.”

The current Bishop of Chichester, Martin Warner, also declined yesterday to exonerate his predecessor. But he accepted that a public statement he made signifying Bishop Bell’s guilt and released in 2015 after Carol’s claim was settled was probably now an error.

“Knowing what we now do [we] would want to re-examine that and I don’t think we would [make that statement].”

SOURCE






Trump Admin Moves to Protect Religious Liberty in Adoptions, Foster Care

The Trump administration is working to protect religious adoption and foster care agencies that have been threatened by "burdensome regulations" imposed in the closing days of the Obama presidency.

Days before leaving office President Obama implemented new regulations that targeted religious foster care providers by requiring recipients of federal assistance to abandon "discriminatory" standards in placement. South Carolina asked the Department of Health and Human Services for an exemption to protect one of its largest foster care agencies, Miracle Hills Ministries, which only places children in Christian households. The Trump administration granted the exemption, saying that religious partners were vital to caring for children. The Obama-era rules could run afoul of religious liberty protections, according to Lynn Johnson, assistant secretary for the department's Administration for Children and Families.

"Faith-based organizations that provide foster care services not only perform a great service for their communities, they are exercising a legally protected right to practice their faith through good works," Johnson said in a statement. "The government should not be in the business of forcing foster care providers to close their doors because of their faith.  Religious freedom is a fundamental human right."

Religious providers have been forced to close their doors after regulators in states such as Illinois and Massachusetts because they did not place children in homosexual households. Johnson said the federal government should not pressure religious believers to violate the tenets of their faith in order to serve vulnerable children. The United States faces a shortage of providers even as the demand for them has increased amid the opioid crisis, according to the agency.

"By granting this request to South Carolina, HHS is putting foster care capacity needs ahead of burdensome regulations that are in conflict with the law," Johnson said. "It protects minors who are in need of as many options as possible for being placed in loving foster families."

Some churches are fighting back against attempts to shutter services they have offered for more than a century. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has accused the city of violating its religious liberty by attempting to cut off their adoption and foster care programs even as the city faces a shortage "crisis." Mark Rienzi, the archdiocese's attorney at the non-profit Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said he was pleased to see HHS protect religious freedom.

"There were raised fears that some HHS requirements would kick religious providers out, so it was very good for the agency make clear that that's not what federal law requires," Rienzi said. "This takes federal law and the Constitution's requirement to respect the civil rights of believers seriously."

Rienzi said the agency announcement should send a clear message to regulators at the state and local level. He called the actions of Philadelphia "outrageous," as the city has provided no evidence of discrimination or complaints from gay individuals about the Catholic operations.

"There is not actually a class of people being stopped by the Catholic Church," he said. "The city is willing to leave the homes of available foster parents empty just for working with Catholics … it is shameful."

Religious liberty advocates and various religious sects, including the Catholic Church and Southern Baptists praised the administration's decision, but others said the exemption was only a first step. Terry Schilling, executive director of the American Principles Project, said HHS should take steps to repeal the Obama-era rules and issue affirmative protections for religious providers who may still be targeted by future administrations that use "the power of the State to bully people who just want to live out their faith and serve their communities."

"We appreciate that Trump's HHS has shown a desire to overturn this shameful Obama-era regulation, and we encourage them to keep up the good work and finish the job as soon as possible," Schilling said.

SOURCE






How Hollywood social engineers turned 2019's “The Predator” into a big budget flop

I had the misfortune of watching the recently released stinker from The Predator franchise on DVD. Based on word-of-mouth and scathing reviews, I knew enough to stay away from it in the theatres but I was a fan of the 1987 original, so it was tough to shun.

Unfortunately, the lousy ratings were warranted and even the low 28 per cent viewer rating on Rotten Tomatoes was generous!

In addition to boasting that which is known as “a plot,” the original 1987 Predator also had an uber-macho cast that today would be seen as “toxic masculinity” — so the new version offered a heapin’ helpin’ of “girl power”, by way of a female scientist who inexplicably morphs into a super-soldier halfway through the flick.

And then there’s the “big reveal” scene when we all get to learn why these irregular space aliens are coming to Earth on an increasingly frequent basis.

Spoiler alert! The explanation is …. climate change.

The good news is, very few of us are buying into the junk that the social engineers in Hollywood are trying to ram down our throats, but still they persist.

Why can’t the Hollywood weirdos go back to the good ol’ days of making sci-fi and action adventure flicks that drop the virtue-signalling in favour of plot-driven nail-biters?

If I want to watch progressive propaganda films that take their narrative cues from the likes of Al Gore and David Suzuki, I’d rent them to begin with!

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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29 January, 2019

The Left’s Use of Intimidation to Silence Christians

If you’re Christian, shut up. That’s been the unmistakable message of our current culture in recent weeks.

Karen Pence has been lambasted for her decision to teach at a Christian school. Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, after asking a judicial nominee about his membership in the Catholic Knights of Columbus, has tied the organization to the “alt right.”

And a group of teenage Catholic schoolboys waiting for a bus at the March for Life, who didn’t know the mob-approved way to handle a Native American activist walking up to them, are fighting for their reputations.

Of course, this isn’t really about Karen Pence, or judicial nominee Brian Buescher, or the Covington Catholic High boys.

It’s about intimidating everyone else.

It’s telling the husband or wife of an up-and-coming lawmaker that if they want to teach at a school, it’s probably better they choose a non-Christian one, unless they want their spouse someday ensnared in a media cycle over LGBT discrimination.

It’s telling the law student who dreams of someday becoming a judge that no matter how appealing he finds joining a Catholic charitable organization, it’s probably better for his career ambitions if he doesn’t.

And it’s telling schools and students and parents that no matter if they are willing to deal with the expense and trouble of hauling dozens or hundreds of students to Washington, D.C., on buses and having them sleep on gym floors, it still might not be a good idea—because the students’ future reputations, careers, and college prospects could all be gone with one viral video.

No, that wouldn’t happen if the students came to Washington to fight for gun control or raise awareness of climate change.

Just if they’re there to speak up for the babies who can’t.

When President Donald Trump was elected—in a shock for conventional D.C. wisdom—it become obvious that there were plenty of silent Americans who, in the privacy of the ballot box, dared to defy the politically correct, woke cultural leaders of our time.

But it’s not enough to vote.

I’m glad Karen Pence, the vice president’s wife, isn’t backing down and resigning. I’m thrilled Brian Buescher is remaining a member of the Knights of Columbus, and that Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., introduced a resolution saying there’s nothing wrong with a judge being in the Knights. I’m heartened that the Covington students are fighting back, and saying they did nothing wrong.

But they can’t do this all on their own.

About 70 percent of Americans are Christian, according to the Pew Research Center.

They—and everyone who believes in religious freedom—need to start speaking up.

You don’t have to agree with Buescher’s judicial philosophy to say that in the United States, there should be no religious test for judges.

You don’t have to have attended a Catholic school or be pro-life to say that a group of teen boys being awkward around an activist—an activist who later that weekend tried to bring a group of protesters to disrupt a Catholic Mass at the basilica in D.C.—should not be a news story, much less a reputation destroyer.

You don’t have to agree with Immanuel Christian School’s faith tenets to defend Karen Pence’s right to choose the school where she wants to teach.

You know what breeds intolerance? Silence. It’s easy for someone to kvetch about the Covington boys or mock the second lady as a bigot at the water cooler if he has no reason to believe any other colleague will speak up.

We need to take a lesson from the left’s playbook.

Here’s what liberals do really well: They share their stories. And they make it personal.

We need to do the same.

Did your son or daughter go to the March for Life? Talk about it. Share how proud you were that they cared enough about the lives of unborn babies to be on a bus for 20 hours and sleep on a crowded gym floor.

And share how scared you are that they, too, could become targets of social media acvistists and mainstream media because they didn’t know the appropriate public relations strategy to deal with a protest.

Does it make you feel like an alien in your own country that what you hear from the pews on Sunday could make you ineligible to do certain jobs in our system? Express that anxiety. Tell the truth about how you don’t like being treated like a second-class citizen in your own nation.

Are you appalled that your mom’s job at a Christian school could get her branded as a bigot? Say that. Share the facts: Plenty of Christian denominations adhere to 2,000 years of sexual morality, and demand no sex outside of marriage—whether you’re straight or LGBT.

If we keep talking, things will change.

Because people know that if their colleague Kelly is pro-life, or their hair stylist Melissa is Christian, or their neighbor Bob teaches at a Christian school, they will think twice.

That doesn’t mean they will agree with Kelly or Melissa or Bob.

But it does mean they will realize it’s unfair to assume all pro-lifers hate women, or that all Christians hate LGBT people. They will realize it’s more complex than the woke leaders of social media say it is.

And then we can have real discussions and real dialogues, person to person.

I get that it’s hard. I’m often more of a coward than I’d like to be—even with the job security of working at a conservative news outlet. It’s hard to speak up sometimes, especially if you’re scared people will judge you or there will be hidden consequences—promotions that never occur, networking that abruptly stops.

But we don’t have a choice.

Right now, thought leaders in the United States are working overtime to make it clear: Stand up for your Christian beliefs, your pro-life beliefs—and you will pay.

But we can rise up, too.

If there’s one thing we should have learned in this era of Trump, it’s that standing up to bullies works.

And we need to—because there’s nothing American about a future where holding certain religious beliefs makes you a second-class citizen.

SOURCE







The Democratic Party's Holy War on Christian Orthodoxy
    
When Sen. Dianne Feinstein told Amy Coney Barrett, who is now confirmed as a judge for the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and is a potential Supreme Court nominee, that “dogma lives loudly within” her and “that’s of concern,” she wasn’t voicing concern over the nominee’s religious orthodoxy as much as she was revealing her own.

After all, Catholicism, unlike progressivism, has never inhibited anyone from faithfully executing her constitutional duties — which the judge has done with far more conviction than Feinstein. Maybe Barrett should have been asking the questions.

Recently, by unanimous consent, the Senate approved a Ben Sasse resolution that declares that it is unconstitutional to reject nominees because of their membership to the Knights of Columbus. This move was instigated by a similar incident, when Democratic Sens. Kamala Harris and Mazie Hirono criticized President Donald Trump’s nominee for the U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska, Brian Buescher, for being a bit too Catholic for their liking. The Knights of Columbus, a benevolent society that still clings to antiquated notions about the dignity of human life — from the very beginning to the very end — doesn’t exactly adhere to the new progressive moral canon.

Unlike many friends on the right, I’m less offended by questions regarding dogma and belief. It’s true that the Constitution explicitly states that a federal government officeholder or employee can’t be required to adhere to or accept any particular religion or doctrine as a prerequisite to holding a federal office or job. But it’s also true that the clause directly preceding that clause requires every federal and state official to take an oath to support the Constitution. Rejecting someone over his faith alone is unquestionably a religious test. Merely asking a nominee whether her beliefs might stop her from fulfilling her constitutional duties is a relevant question.

For many liberals, though, the problem is that the beliefs of many Catholics and other adherents of various Christian theologies — or, for that matter, Jewish ones, as well — are increasingly undermining progressive ideals, not constitutional ones.

As Beto O'Rourke might ask, do the principles of the Constitution “still work”? When it comes to religious freedom, they most certainly do not. It’s progressive dogma that led a Harvard-educated Washington Post editor to incredulously ask how traditional Christian schools can even “happen” in contemporary American society. She was questioning not merely whether second lady Karen Pence is right or wrong to teach at a Christian school — after all, Americans are free to be critical of people’s faith — but how a school that adheres to the teachings of a church that counter progressive dogma can exist at all.

This is the same progressive moral dogma that justifies yearslong attacks on the livelihood of Christian bakers and florists. It’s the same dogma that justifies coercing nuns to pay for the rite of birth control. If one doesn’t adhere to these commandments, the state, the most powerful institution in the world, will sue them into submission.

In this regard, liberals also like to claim that those who do allow traditional faith to inform their political views are somehow undermining a tenet of American life. (Well, as long as that traditional faith can’t be utilized for left-wing agenda items, such as immigration and socialized health care.) As it goes, some of us, even nonbelievers, prefer the teachings of Jesus to those of Marx — which, in the non-celestial world, means free will over coercion. Whatever the case, our backgrounds and beliefs always color our opinions.

The Democratic presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard, an apostate on this issue, recently argued in an op-ed that if the Knights of Columbus are a disqualifying group, “then President John F. Kennedy, and the ‘liberal lion of the Senate’ Ted Kennedy would have been ‘unqualified’ for the same reasons.”

Well, not exactly the same reason. The anti-Catholicism of the past was predicated on an aversion to new immigrants, conspiracies about the pope, and a general long-standing theological distrust among religious denominations. In the political arena today, only the latter of those reasons is in play, and the denomination isn’t Protestant. The “liberal lion of the Senate” wouldn’t be disqualified by today’s standards, because in public life, at least, he was a doctrinal liberal.

“There are many people on the left who act like every political fight is going to bring about heaven or hell on earth — and so there are a lot of folks for whom politics is a religion,” Sasse said after his resolution passed. Progressives are the most zealous moralists. And these lines of questioning from Democrats, increasingly prevalent in political discourse, are an attempt to create the impression that faithful Christians, whose beliefs are at odds with newly sanctified cultural mores, are incapable of doing their jobs.

Sasse is right. Political bellum sacrum is here. We’re just not looking at the right people.

SOURCE






British Twitter user is investigated by police for posting a poem on social media site suggesting transgender women are still men

A Twitter user is planning to complain to the Home Secretary after police investigated him for retweeting a poem which suggested transgender women are still men.

Harry Miller is furious at his ‘Orwellian’ treatment by an officer who rang to check his ‘thinking’ after he had ‘liked’ a limerick which includes the lines: ‘You’re a man. Your breasts are made of silicone... And we can tell the difference... Your hormones are synthetic.’

In all, the company director – a former policeman – had posted about 30 tweets on transgender issues when he was called by a police officer, who introduced himself as ‘representing the LGBTQ community’ after receiving a complaint.

According to Mr Miller, 53, of Nettleton in Lincolnshire, the complainant was an unknown member of the public who had found him via his plant management company and decided ‘if I employed trans people at all, it was not a safe space for them’.

The officer, PC Mansoor Gul of Humberside Police, told Mr Miller that he had 30 tweets by him. When asked if any contained ‘criminal material’, the policeman read the poem, prompting Mr Miller to say afterwards with some disbelief: ‘A cop read me a limerick over the phone.’

Mr Miller said: ‘I said, I didn’t write that. He said, “Ah, but you liked it and promoted it.” I asked why he was wasting his time on a non crime. ‘He said, “It’s not a crime, but it will be recorded as a hate incident.” ’

He added: ‘The cop told me that he needed to speak with me because, even though I’d committed no crime whatsoever, he needed (and I quote) “to check my thinking!” Seriously. Honestly.

‘Finally, he lectured me. Said, “Sometimes, a woman’s brain grows a man’s body in the womb and that is what transgender is”.’

Father-of-four Mr Miller told The Mail on Sunday: ‘1984 is supposed to be a book, not a police operating manual.’  He added: ‘To be told that the police needed to check my thinking was a bit much.’

Mr Miller insists that he has ‘nothing against transgender people’ but is concerned about the damaging potential impact for the safety of women from proposals to allow any man who chooses to identify as female.

He plans to write to the Chief Constable of Humberside, the Home Secretary and the Police Commissioner for Humberside to complain and ask the force ‘to sort out its borders as to what constitutes police work’.

Mr Gul told The Daily Telegraph: ‘Although none of the tweets were criminal, I said to Mr Miller that the limerick is the kind of thing that upsets the transgender community. I warned him that if it escalates, we will take further action.’

A Humberside police spokesman said all reports of hate incidents are taken seriously and the force would always ‘take appropriate action’.

SOURCE






Australian hotel sparks controversy after BANNING patrons from wearing anything bearing the national flag on Australia Day

I would celebrate if someone fire-bombed these self-righteous Leftist pricks

A pub barred its patrons from wearing any attire bearing the Australian flag on Australia Day.

The Newtown Hotel, in Sydney's inner-west, left some scratching their heads on Saturday when a sign out front informed customers they'd be turned away if the flag was displayed. 'Newtown Hotel respectfully declines to be part of the 26th of January as the land was not ceded,' the sign reads.

'Today there is a dress code and that involves no Australian flag attire and accessories.'

Some punters online were less than thrilled with the decision, saying it was 'un-Australian' to ban the flag. 'Can't wear the Australian flag in Australia? Ridiculous,' one wrote.

'But [it] will have a colonial style building on Aboriginal ground profiting money selling alcohol?' another asked.

Adversely, many were in favour for the move, sharing messages of support with red, yellow and black heart emojis, representing the colours of the Aboriginal flag. 'Big UPS (sic) to these guys!!' one person wrote with the hashtag 'always was, always will be'.  'That's awesome,' wrote another.

The stance is the latest in a series of political statements the Newtown Hotel has made in the past couple of years. Most recently, they decided against broadcasting last year's Melbourne Cup as a sign of solidarity against the horse racing industry.

Management at the Newtown Hotel declined to comment.

SOURCE 

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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28 January 2019

Gender activists want to BAN beloved 1982 British children's book Dear Zoo for being 'SEXIST' because all the animals are male

Gender activists are campaigning to ban children's lift-the-flap book Dear Zoo - because all the animals are male.

Rod Campbell's 1982 book tells the story of a young boy who writes to a zoo to ask them to send him a pet.

He then receives a series of animals including a snake, a monkey and a 'too tall' giraffe before being given a 'perfect' puppy.

But campaign group Let Toys Be Toys have now claimed the story is 'biased' - because all the animals involved are male, the Sun reported.

Jess Day, of the campaign, said: 'All the animals are male. It’s biased. Parents must demand better.'

Others have claimed the book needs a 'modern-day re-write' or to be taken off shelves entirely.

But some, including father-of-two Reuben Williams, don't see a problem with the picture book - which has sold some eight million copies worldwide. He said: 'It's a classic and a best-seller for a reason. 'There's no issue unless you make one.'

The Dear Zoo and Friends website describes the story, designed for three to five year olds, as 'a must have for every child's bookshelf'.

It says: 'Young children will love lifting the flaps to discover the animals the zoo has sent - a monkey, a lion and even an elephant! 'But will they ever manage to send the perfect pet?'

The popular story has inspired a series of spin-off tales and gifts, including pocket editions and a Dear Zoo live show.

SOURCE






Ben Shapiro Warns: ‘We Should Take It Seriously When the Left Says That They Don’t Like Religion’

On his daily Facebook Live and YouTube video podcast “The  Ben Shapiro Show” Thursday, host and Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Wire Ben Shapiro warned that “we should take it seriously when the left says that they don’t like religion,” suggesting that the left is using current cultural norms and the law to target Christianity and Judaism in favor of a collective, secular ethic.

“And we should take it seriously when the left says that they don’t like religion,” warned Ben Shapiro. “Because they mean it – they mean it.”

Ben Shapiro’s remarks stem from recent attacks from the left against Karen Pence for her religious views and from a recent Washington Post piece that suggests that “Western Civilization” is a racist term titled “Steve King says he was just defending ‘Western Civilization.’ That’s racist, too.”

Below is a transcript of Ben Shapiro’s comments from his show Thursday:

“And we should take it seriously when the left says that they don’t like religion.  Because they mean it – they mean it.

“By the way, they don’t like Western Civilization either, the term “Western Civilization.” There’s an actual op-ed in The Washington Post today by David Perry and Matthew Gabriele suggesting that the term “Western Civilization” is itself racist. So, they say that because Steve King once used the term “Western Civilization”, “Western Civilization” –  like, the term – is racist, which means that we have to ban the term “Western Civilization” or at least pretend that Western Civilization no longer holds.

“The truth is that a lot of the objections to Christianity and Judeo-Christian values and Western Civilization are built on a Marxist premise that America and Western Civilized countries are inherently racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobic and must be torn out by the roots.

“So, Christianity has to go because it’s bigoted. Even though Christianity, by the way— The Christian world is the basis for all the rights and freedoms that you enjoy today. I don’t care whether you are secular. I don’t care whether you are religious. We live in a world defined by the Judeo-Christian ethic. That’s what made the west different from every other place on planet earth and to pretend that that ethic was completely thrown out with the Enlightenment and what the Enlightenment was about was saying, ‘Churches are wrong. We’re just not going to do church anymore.” That is to ignore the fact that virtually every value that we hold dear is rooted in Judeo-Christian tradition.

“The most important sentence ever written in the history of humanity is that man is made in God’s image. It is the beginning and end point of virtually all moral arguments. That is an argument that is made by the Judeo-Christian religion. The argument for personal liberty, that you have inherent rights, the argument that virtue matters so that we can have freedom, all of this, arises in Western Civilization defined by these values.

“So, if you wanted to do away with those values, if you wanted the collective to be more important than the individual, the best way to do it would be to attack Christianity and Judaism at their roots, would be to attack religion and tear those away.

“And again, the ironic part of this is that this is the least threatening time for theocracy in world history, at least from the Judeo-Christian side. And we’re being treated as though Karen Pence is the true threat to liberty – Karen Pence – not the Democrats who are attempting to stop judges from being appointed to the bench based on their membership in the Knights of Columbus.”

SOURCE






Facebook doesn't really believe in free speech. What they believe in (and actively practice) is censorship

It’s a new year, but Americans are fighting a battle as old as the nation itself. It’s the battle to preserve our free speech and for the first time we’re losing — badly.

The new front lines of this fight are on social media — Facebook, Twitter, Google, Instagram and others.

2.5 billion people use at least one of Facebook’s apps, making it probably the most important social media platform. Unfortunately, its employees, from the CEO on down, don’t really believe in free speech. They believe in and actively practice censorship on a scale almost unimaginable a few years ago.

Facebook’s embattled founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and its Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg seem determined to make the situation worse. After declaring to Congress their commitment to neutrality, they made end-of-year pronouncements that both promised more censorship, and appeased the far left by vowing to involve them with “new products, features and policies.”

Facebook is now openly antagonistic toward the right. Posts aren’t just blocked by humans who decide what they do or don’t like; they are blocked by computer programs designed by humans to ensure liberal sensibilities are not offended. The New York Times says the company is monitoring “billions of posts per day in over 100 languages.” That makes what Facebook is doing almost impossible to track, until it’s too late.

The Times described a global network with more than 15,000 employees assessing content based on rulebooks more than 1,400 pages long. The rules secretly designate groups as hate organizations and are so specific they even ban certain emoji use. Hate speech mandates alone run “200 jargon-filled, head-spinning pages,” wrote The Times.

The result is chaos. There’s no consistency in what Facebook bans or doesn’t ban — except that conservatives suffer. Pro-life, pro-gun and pro-Trump content all run afoul of Facebook’s eager hate speech censors. Just days before the annual March for Life, Facebook blocked advertising for the new pro-life movie "Roe v. Wade."

Around the Fourth of July, Facebook censored a post for “hate speech.” It was the text of the Declaration of Independence.

Conservatives like Samaritan’s Purse head Franklin Graham have been targeted, as well. Graham was suspended recently for a comment he made two years ago. Facebook later apologized.

This is commonplace for conservatives. The company bans, blocks or suspends and then later apologizes … sometimes.

The radical left has no such worries. Smash Racism DC, the Antifa group that targeted Fox host Tucker Carlson’s home and threatened his wife, is still on the site. So is Splinternews, which posted the personal cell phone number of Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller. Even reprehensible anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan has a Facebook page with more than 1.1 million followers.

Facebook is escalating the problem. In November, Zuckerberg announced a new “Blueprint for Content Governance.” He wrote like he believes in free speech, saying, “The world is better…when traditional gatekeepers like governments and media companies don't control what ideas can be expressed.”

But Facebook does.

Two paragraphs later he asked, “What should be the limits to what people can express?” Then he said the site was instituting more content controls that would limit what you see “even if it doesn't actually violate our standards.” That's called shadow banning content.

Sandberg followed with an endorsement of the liberal “civil rights audit” of Facebook that included an ACLU executive and 90 left-wing groups. She called it one of her “top priorities for 2019.” That audit revealed Facebook had worked so closely with the left that it allowed “several civil rights organizations engaged in the civil rights audit to visit [the company’s] election war room.”

The report Sandberg endorsed commits Facebook to work with these left-wing groups on “content moderation,” elections, and the Orwellian-sounding idea of creating a “civil rights accountability infrastructure.”

It also expressed the need for “greater employee diversity.” When liberals say “diversity,” they mean hiring more liberals from approved special interest groups.

Facebook also engaged the law firm Covington & Burling under former Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona to audit how Facebook treats conservatives. In theory, that report will get equal attention. But in practice, it won’t. It will detail the complaints conservatives have, and Facebook will throw it away. How can it do otherwise? Sandberg has publicly committed to supporting radical left-wing groups — against conservatives.

The company has committed a great deal to the left, including “addressing censorship and harmful and potentially discriminating content on the platform.” That is a direct threat against the conservative movement.

The Media Research Center, along with more than 40 other organizations and tens of millions of supporters in our Free Speech Alliance, has called for just the opposite. We put out four demands that should be endorsed by anyone truly committed to having “a platform for all ideas,” as Zuckerberg stated: 1. more transparency 2. more clarity on hate speech rules 3. an equal seat at the table for conservatives 4. embracing the First Amendment as a model for allowable speech.

Those four demands are firmly in line with America’s foundational principles of free speech. Does Facebook believe in them? Conservatives are concluding that it doesn’t. According to a McLaughlin & Associates poll, one-third (32 percent) of self-described conservatives have left or are considering leaving Facebook.

I was in the room when Zuckerberg told a gathering of conservative leaders that if Facebook’s commitment to be the platform for all ideas was not maintained, its business plan would fail. He was right.

SOURCE






Feminists should learn from John Howard: it’s a matter of personal choice

Janet Albrechtsen uses some Australian examples to highlight the Fascist nature of feminism. John Howard was a long-running conservative Prime Minister of Australia who still speaks out occasionally:

How galling it must be for feminists that John Howard understands modern women better than many of them do. How exasperating for them that his feminism is far more liberating for, and respectful of, women than theirs.

A few years ago, during a National Press Club address, the former prime minister suggested that a 50-50 representation of men and women in politics is utopian planning. It is not grounded in reality, he observed. In the real world, women make choices. And many choose children over a demanding career in politics. This week, Kelly O’Dwyer proved Howard’s point. Her decision to resign for deeply personal family reasons is not a defeat for women. It is a celebration of women’s choices.

The usual band of women went wild over Howard’s straightforward remark that many women choose not to go into politics for sensible reasons. It’s a killer on family life. It takes parents away from children. And many women choose not to go down that path.

How dare he suggest women might not want to aspire to a political career in numbers equal to men? What would he know? He’s plain wrong, they said back then.

And they keep saying it. Last month, in a puff piece for The Australian Women’s Weekly, former Liberal MP Julia Banks took aim at what she called “Howard-era” thinking about women and work. It’s entrenched, she insisted.

The warrior for “gender equality” who deserted the Liberal party took a swipe at Prime Minister Scott Morrison as a traditional man, a religious man whose mentor is Howard. Then she took aim at women who make different choices to hers, women who are stay-at-home mums.

“Now I don’t have an issue with stay-at-home mums,” she said. “But I do in the sense that I believe all women should be, if not at some period in their life, they should ­ensure their financial independence … and not to be dependent on anyone.”

If you think stay-at-home mums have made the wrong choice, it’s an easy leap to demand that women and men fill up parliament in equal numbers. But notice the glaring gaps in the claim by women such as Banks that a 50-50 representation in parliament is a matter of fairness?

The first, and fatal, flaw is that these faux feminists are not interested in women’s choices. Fuelled by arrogance and paternalism, they imagine that all women must choose as they do, that women will want to go in politics in equal numbers to men. Ergo, if women choose anything else, it must be a coerced choice made under the weight of structural biases, patriarchal demands.

When O’Dwyer announced her intention to leave politics at the next election, she spoke from the heart about missing special times with her children “and how many more I will miss” if she stayed. The cabinet minister said she was no longer willing to consistently miss seeing her children in the morning or at night. “They clearly want to spend more time with me too.”

Sadly, O’Dwyer felt the need to satisfy the band of feminist ideologues that ignore the beauty of women’s choices. You don’t need to choose between family and public life, she said.

But her actions spoke louder. Sacrifices are made in any career, more so in those that involve long hours away from family. After a decade in Canberra, O’Dwyer chose family over politics.

Her decision mirrors that of many women who have come or will come to the same conclusion, only sooner than she did. There is no right or wrong here, only a deeply personal decision. What is wrong is an ideology that demeans the choices women make.

I made a similar decision when a very senior Liberal suggested a nice seat in federal politics for me. My children were on the cusp of teenage years, a time when I wanted to be around them more often than not. It’s when kids think they don’t need you that maybe they do. Scheduling quality time made no sense to me, so I chose quantity and that meant saying no to politics. Working from home didn’t guarantee a bump-free ride for them or for me. But my choice to work from home to raise children will always be, for me at least, life’s greatest privilege in all its messy and demanding, frustrating and rewarding glory.

Not every woman can stay at home with their children. Money and other matters can get in the way. But when that choice exists, it should be respected and celebrated, not dismissed as part of some kind of “entrenched” patriarchy. Maybe when we celebrate caring for children, more men will embrace it too.

Alas, women who wear a feminist label on their sleeve have a nasty knack for deriding the choices of other women. Union leader Sally McManus accused O’Dwyer of “throwing in the towel”. No empathy there for O’Dwyer’s very personal reasons for leaving politics. No celebration of a woman’s desire to spend more time with her children. What a cold world McManus inhabits.

Banks has planted her red flag with the same band of ideologues. She deserves credit for winning a seat, but in the end, she was a poor fit for politics. Her feminism is not an empowering one, sitting at odds with a liberalism based on respecting individual freedom over the ­arrogance of central planners like her.

Along with Labor’s Emma Husar, Banks’s feminism is framed by gender tantrums. When women stop blaming men for their own misfortune, mistakes and misdeeds, perhaps feminism will come of age.

The siren call for 50 per cent female representation in parliament is central planning nonsense. The reality of women’s preferences suggests that a 30 per cent target is closer to the mark. Anything more exposes the second killer flaw in the “fairness” argument — it relies on discrimination in favour of women.

It is no coincidence that those who push hardest for a 50 per cent target or quota that does not reflect the full gamut of women’s choices are usually those who most need the additional 20 per cent to make it in politics.

It’s even worse in the corporate world, where the incompetence issue is more pronounced. That’s not to say there are no incompetent men in business and politics. Plenty of men need to be moved on. But to set up a system that demands promotion for those in the red zone of incompetence is a sign of how gender ideology is making the political arena, and business, dumber for a political cause.

The “gender equality” ideologues understand the golden skirts phenomenon only too well. In business, generous targets and quotas that promote the incompetent drive up the economic value of the scarce number of competent women. The incompetent love quotas because they’re in with a chance; the competent love them too because it inflates their economic value. They are swamped with offers. In politics, the neat pay-off is not so much about more money, but greater power.

Howard’s understanding of women isn’t rocket science. His feminism is not stubborn ideology. It is based on celebrating the beauty of women’s choices, something that should be the core of modern feminism.

SOURCE 

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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27 January 2019

In Russia, men are still allowed to be men

A lot of conservatives have some admiration for the way political correctness has not got very far in Russia and I am one of them.  Under furious Leftist/Feminist influence there is these days in the Western world great pressure on masculinity.  Anything masculine is heavily criticized.  Huge attempts are being made to feminize Western men.  That has got just about nowhere in Russia.  Russian men are still admired for being men and most Russian women are among the admirers.

It is difficult to address that statistically. One of the attempts to produce statistical proof that men are a bad lot was spectacularly incompetent statistically.  See here.  So the whole question has so far not risen much above opinion and assertion.  So I think I too can approach the question anecdotally only.

But I think one very powerful anecdote concerns Russian baritone Dmitry Hvorostovsky.  Both in Russia and elsewhere he is a much admired singer.  And in opera it is not just the singing that matters.  The acting too is a big deal.  And Hvorostovsky shines there too.  He is a most masculine man in a way that you cannot just adopt or imitate.  He just IS a very masculine man.  And for the male parts in opera that goes down very well.

I will not burden readers with opera but Hvorostovsky also sings popular and traditional Russian songs.  And probably the best known Russian song in the West is "Moscow Nights".  So I want readers to watch him singing that.  You will see an unashamedly masculine man in spontaneous action.

Below is a video of the famous performance in Red Square with Netrebko and Hvorostovsky singing.  Anna Netrebko is a supreme Russian soprano. Hvorostovsky presents his songs in a very strong, confident and dignified way while Netrebko is a rather shy person who is easily embarrassed.

The beginning of the performance is very Russian, with Hvorostovsky dragging a submissive Netrebko onto the stage but then pledging undying love to her. In her reactions you will see how easily embarrassed she is but will also see how much she enjoys Hvorostovsky and his declarations. Most Russian ladies would envy her as Hvorostovsky is a very attractive man. Feminists will hate the whole thing.



You see in this performance as in others that the ladies who sing duets with Hvorostovsky swoop in for a big cuddle with him afterwards. Real women like real men.

Another Russian baritone who exudes Russian manliness is Leonid Kharitonov.  Below he is singing "Volga Boatman" with the Red Army Choir.  The song is actually a type of shanty.  It is not the song of sailors, however.  It is a song of men on a towpath dragging boats along the Volga, presumably upstream. It is a song of endurance.  As such the words are simple to the point of meaninglessness but the tune is compelling.  And when you see Kharitonov  -- a most manly looking man -- you get a feeling for Russian power.

Russians are enduring. They have to be -- with both a demanding climate and a demanding government.  I admire them and have a feeling for what life must be like in Russia. When you listen to Kharitinov, however, you begin to understand the war on the Eastern front. The Germans were military specialists and killed 4 Russians for every one of theirs that fell.  But the Russians just did not give in -- so indomitability triumphed over military brilliance.



So Russia reminds us that manliness is not "toxic" but something quite wonderful.

Note:  After the video of Hvorostovsy above, Youtube segues for me into another video featuring Hvorostovky -- singing the Toreador song from "Carmen".  That too is a magnificent and very manly performance.  You may note at the beginning of the video the way Hvorostovsky strides onto the stage, clearly the master of his universe.






Britain's most disgraceful bureaucracy

The SFO are extraordinarily arrogant and keep getting it wrong. Because they have the deep pockets of the taxpayer behind them, they think that they can do no wrong. They were nearly wound up when they cost the taxpayer a bomb over their failed prosecution of the Tchenguiz brothers.  They are full of themselves, with no good reason.  They should have learned from the Tchenguiz affair that the have to be meticulous about making a case but instead they bluffed -- and lost again. 

The former UK finance director of Tesco has been acquitted of a fraud in the latest embarrassing blow for the Serious Fraud Office and Britain’s largest supermarket group.

Carl Rogberg, 52, was formally found not guilty this morning at Southwark crown court after the SFO said that it had no evidence to present against him. It comes nearly a year after the first trial was abandoned when Mr Rogberg had a heart attack and just over a month after a second trial, involving two other former Tesco employees, collapsed when a judge ruled that the SFO had no case.

SOURCE






Another attack on monuments -- this time in Britain

Scotland Yard has launched an investigation after five memorials and statues were attacked by vandals in what appears to be a coordinated campaign.

The first incident, which caused widespread public anger, occurred on Sunday night when white paint was splattered over the memorial to Bomber Command in London’s Green Park.

But it later emerged that three other war memorials and plaque a murdered police officer had also been targeted at around the same time.

The targets included the Allies Statue statue of Second World War prime minister Sir Winston Churchill and his US counterpart Franklin D Roosevelt in New Bond Street, the Canada Memorial in Green Park, and the Royal Marines Graspan Memorial on The Mall.

The memorial to Yvonne Fletcher, the police officer who was murdered by a gunman during the 1984 Libyan Embassy siege, in St James's Square, was also attacked.

In each case white paint was splashed over the statues and police have said they believe all the incidents are linked.

No arrests have been made and police have said it is not clear what the motive behind the attacks is.

Detective Inspector Dave Watkinson said: "These crimes have understandably caused anger and offence and we are working hard to identify and apprehend those responsible. "Our enquiries are moving at pace and I urge anyone who saw anything suspicious at the locations concerned to contact us."

The Bomber Command memorial was erected to honour the sacrifice of the 55,000 members of aircrew from Britain, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Poland and other countries of the Commonwealth as well as civilians of all nations killed in raids.

It was unveiled by the Queen in 2012 after a public appeal for funds raised more than £5 million.

The RAF Benevolent Fund said it was the fourth time in six years that the Bomber Command Memorial had been vandalised.

It was first targeted in 2013 when a man daubed the word "Islam" on it shortly after the killing of Fusilier Lee Rigby outside Woolwich Barracks.

A week later, a second man wrote "Lee Rigby's killers should hang", "EDL" and "F*** the police" on the memorial. He was jailed for 12 weeks.

Britain's last surviving Dambuster George "Johnny" Johnson, 97, slammed the latest incident. He said: "What a disgrace, such mindless vandalism. "How disrespectful to the nearly 58,000 people who gave their lives so that these thugs have the freedom to carry out such acts? I hope they are caught soon, and suitably punished.”

The memorial to Pc Flecther, who was just 25-years-old when she was gunned down, stands opposite the Libyan Embassy where she had been helping to police a protest.

Her murder resulted in an 10-day siege of the embassy and eventually saw the UK sever diplomatic ties with the regime.  Nobody has ever been charged over the killing of Pc Fletcher.

Responding to the news that her memorial had been targeted, Ken Marsh, the Chairman of the  Metropolitan Police Federation, said: "This is a disgusting and despicable act by vile individuals. We will find those responsible.”

SOURCE






Planned Parenthood Suffers Big Loss in Federal Appeals Court

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted an injunction forbidding Texas from stripping Planned Parenthood of Medicaid funds Thursday, while stridently criticizing the abortion-provider for its rhetoric and medical practices.

“Planned Parenthood’s reprehensible conduct, captured in undercover videos, proves that it is not a ‘qualified’ provider under the Medicaid Act, so we are confident we will ultimately prevail,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement after Thursday’s ruling.

The case arose after a pro-life group called the Center for Medical Progress released videos purporting to show Planned Parenthood violating medical and ethical standards codified in federal law and state regulations. Texas terminated its Medicaid provider agreement with Planned Parenthood shortly thereafter, citing infractions documented in the videos.

In turn, Planned Parenthood asked a federal court to restore its Medicaid funding. Thursday’s ruling — which related to a jurisdictional issue in that case — is especially striking for its numerous rebukes of Planned Parenthood. Judge Edith Jones, a Ronald Reagan appointee, delivered the opinion.

Perhaps the most noteworthy of the decision’s reprimands is a graphic depiction of post-abortion fetal remains taken from a CMP video on the fourth page of the opinion. A small arm is visible in the picture. Texas cited the manner in which Planned Parenthood disposes of fetal remains as one reason for terminating their Medicaid eligibility.

In another instance, the decision all but accuses Planned Parenthood of breaking federal law banning partial birth abortions. The ruling highlights a CMP video in which an administrator called Dr. Tram Nguyen said doctors at one facility could evacuate an intact fetus — thereby breaking federal law — provided they sign a form that they did not “intend” to do so. Such procedures allow researchers to recover organs like the thymus or the liver.

Later in the opinion, the panel chides Planned Parenthood for failing to engage with Nguyen’s comments in court filings.

“The plaintiffs’ briefing with regard to the substance of the discussions contained in the videos is curiously silent,” the decision reads.

Planned Parenthood has denied that they intentionally alter abortion procedures for such purposes.

The panel also dismissed Planned Parenthood’s claim that the CMP videos were “deceptively edited,” a soundbite that redounded across the press after the tapes first appeared.

“The record reflects that (the Texas Office of Inspector General) had submitted a report from a forensic firm concluding that the video was authentic and not deceptively edited,” a footnote in the decision reads. “And (Planned Parenthood) did not identify any particular omission or addition in the video footage.”

Finally, the panel accused the judiciary of politicking on abortion cases. Ordinarily, providers like Planned Parenthood must challenge Medicaid termination decisions in an administrative forum and state court before seeking a federal court’s intervention. By allowing Planned Parenthood to skip directly to federal court — as the trial court did here — the 5th Circuit said that judges are engaging in ideological favoritism.

“Had (Texas) terminated the Medicaid provider agreements of any other type of health care provider, the incongruity of allowing that provider to use patient litigation proxies to avoid administrative review and (reach) federal court would be obvious and unacceptable,” the ruling reads.

The decision comes as pro-life activists gather in Washington in advance of Friday’s March for Life.

The question before the 5th Circuit did not relate to abortion directly: After Texas disqualified Planned Parenthood from Medicaid eligibility, the abortion-provider sued, claiming the federal Medicaid statute allowed them to do so. A federal district judge agreed, allowed the lawsuit to proceed. The 5th Circuit had to decide whether that decision was correct.

The federal appeals courts are divided over the answer to that question. Though the Supreme Court generally intervenes when the circuits disagree over the same question of law, the justices denied review in a related controversy from Kansas in December 2019, drawing a vigorous dissent from Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch, which accused the Court of playing politics.

In that instance, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined with the Court’s liberal bloc, effectively preserving a pro-Planned Parenthood decision in the lower court.

The 5th Circuit’s Thursday decision concluded that they are bound by precedent to find that Planned Parenthood can proceed with its lawsuit in federal court under the Medicaid statute, though Jones wrote a concurrence to her own majority opinion urging the full 5th Circuit to revisit that question.

However, the 5th Circuit gave Texas a partial victory, finding that the trial court assessed Planned Parenthood’s request for an injunction under the wrong standard. The panel lifted the injunction and ordered the lower court judge to reconsider Planned Parenthood’s request under a different standard which is more accommodating of Texas.

As such, the state has a much better chance of prevailing when the matter returns to the trial court for further proceedings.

Texas awards approximately $3.4 million to Planned Parenthood affiliates through Medicaid annually. The decision notes this is a “smidgen” of the revenue Planned Parenthood’s Texas affiliates generate each year, which runs over $57 million.

SOURCE






Australia: Far-left activists have put up contemptuous signs at historic Cook’s Cottage in Vic

I joined in a traditional Australia Day family BBQ with no shame and no thoughts about any minority.  Why should I do otherwise?  In Matthew 8:22 Jesus said, “Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead”, meaning that there are more important things to do than worrying about those who cannot be helped and who are therefore as good as dead. 

I did raise a champagne toast to the First Fleet, however, as two of my ancestors came out to Australia as convicts on such ships.  Why should my culture and history be dishonoured in order to promote Aboriginal beliefs?  It is my ancestors and their ilk who made Australia the advanced and peaceful civilization that it is today


Far-left activists have put up signs reading “Rest in Piss Australia Day” and “Abolish Australia Day” at the historic Cooks’ Cottage in inner east Melbourne.

The cottage was built in 1775 by Captain James Cook’s father and was brought to Fitzroy Garden’s in 1934. Cooks’ the oldest building in Australia.

Activist group Whistleblowers, Activists and Citizens Alliance (WACA) put the signs up this morning at 9am when the landmark opened.

WACA spokeswoman Charlotte Lynch said the actions were made in support of demands of Aboriginal solidarity at tomorrow’s Invasion Day rally.

“We are making those demands in solidarity with Aboriginal people who are protesting tomorrow against the colonial narrative and the narrative of White Australia.” she said.

Ms Lynch said the group did not consult with but undertook their actions in response to indigenous activist group Warriors of Aboriginal Resistance’s (WAR) call for seven days of resistance.

“Although we are a group of non-indigenous people we did that to acknowledge sovereignty to speak out against a narrative that is destructive and racist.” she said.

The signs read “Eviction notice: Unpaid rent 231 years”, “Abolish Australia” and “Rest in Peace Australia Day”.

The group put up the same signs last year.

SOURCE 

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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25 January, 2019

American Psychological Association Has Made Choosing a Therapist Easy
    
The American Psychological Association has, in its words, issued “its first-ever guidelines for practice with men and boys.” These guidelines “draw on more than 40 years of research showing that traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful and that socializing boys to suppress their emotions causes damage.”

Three observations:

1) The last thing American males need today is less masculinity.

If you need proof, ask women who are looking for a husband whether the men they date exhibit too much masculinity, too little masculinity or just the right amount. I have talked to hundreds of women on my radio show (every week I have a “Male/Female Hour”), at speeches and in private who are dating to find a spouse. Not one has said men today are too masculine. Virtually all of them have said men today lack masculinity.

And why wouldn’t men lack masculinity? A vast number of boys grow up either with no father or with a father they rarely see. Their lives are dominated by women — their mother, virtually all their teachers, probably their school principal and probably their therapist.

As if that were not bad enough, many of the single mothers of these American boys are angry at the man who never married them, or at the man who divorced them, or at men in general. In addition, these boys’ women teachers suppress their natural testosterone-driven male behaviors. And now their teachers increasingly tell them they may not even be a boy.

Of course, some men are boors — demanding sex on the first date, sending sex-filled messages, etc. But most men know boorishness is not masculinity. Such behaviors emanate not from masculinity but from poor upbringing and/or the sexual revolution, which taught men and women that the sex drives of men and women are the same.

But as psychoanalyst Erica Komisar wrote in the Wall Street Journal last week, it is “a recipe for mental illness” to tell boys that “aggression, competitiveness and protectiveness is a sign of sickness.”

2) This is another example of the most important rule of contemporary life: The left ruins everything it touches.

The left has ruined the arts; the universities; high schools; the nuclear family; mainstream Protestantism, Catholicism and Judaism; the Boy Scouts; and journalism. And it is now doing the same to the sciences: Universities are increasingly choosing science faculty based on gender and race rather than on scientific expertise.

Psychology and psychiatry have long been homes to left-wing fools (recall the 1964 example of 1,189 psychiatrists declaring then-presidential candidate Sen. Barry Goldwater “psychologically unfit”). But the APA statement will do even more harm.

The American Psychological Association goes beyond defining “traditional masculinity” as “on the whole, harmful.” It urges therapists to help men “identify how they have been harmed by discrimination against those who are gender nonconforming.” That’s right. Your son’s psychotherapist will explain to him how it is entirely normal for a boy his age (beginning in kindergarten) to wear a dress, and that regarding an 8-year-old boy in a dress as not quite healthy is what is not quite healthy. In addition, the APA hopes this therapist will reassure your son that he, too, may well choose to be a girl.

In the words of Komisar, this is “an ideological claim transformed into a clinical treatment recommendation.” That “ideological claim” is, of course, leftism.

3) The APA statement makes choosing a psychotherapist simple.

The hardest part of starting psychotherapy is figuring out how to choose a psychotherapist. If you choose the wrong one, you will not only be wasting a great deal of time and money; you will not be helped, and you might well be harmed.

So, how does one go about choosing a psychotherapist? The APA just made the task much simpler: Just ask any therapist you are considering for yourself or someone else, “Do you agree with the American Psychological Association that ‘traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful’?”

If the therapist agrees, thank him or her for the time and leave. If the therapist starts giving a prolonged response, leave. Any therapist who cannot unequivocally condemn the APA statement is unworthy of your time and your money, let alone your psyche. Many will try to weasel out of directly agreeing (or disagreeing) with the statement. They will tell you that sometimes masculinity is a problem. But they are just being careful not to lose you as a potential client. Such a statement is meaningless: There is nothing that cannot be harmful at times. That includes femininity as much as masculinity, and it includes such normally good things as water (a lot of people drown, after all).

Without “traditional masculinity,” civilization is lost. Ask anyone you know who agrees with using the term “the greatest generation” to describe the generation that fought World War II whether the men of that generation would have fought, much less won, without “traditional masculinity.”

Do not trust therapists who will not condemn the APA statement. They are either a fool or a coward. They may well be very kind and sincere. But that means nothing. You or your child will not be helped by kindness and sincerity. You or your child will only be helped by wisdom.

SOURCE






What is a man? A response to Gillette



A short film - Dedicated to all those who sacrifice everything to make the world safer and better for all of us.






Donald Trump’s ban on transgender people serving in the US military can now go ahead

The Supreme Court is allowing the Trump administration to go ahead with its plan to restrict military service by transgender people while court challenges continue.

The high court on Tuesday reversed lower-court orders preventing the Pentagon from implementing its plans. But the high court for now declined to take up cases about the plan.

According to the New York Post, the Supreme Court broke along ideological lines in a 5-4 decision that removed injunctions imposed by lower courts that had previously blocked the ban.

The cases will continue to move through lower courts. Military policy had barred service by transgender people until President Barack Obama’s administration began allowing transgender people already in the military to serve openly and set a date when transgender people would be allowed to enlist.

The five conservative justices — Chief Justice John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Donald Trump appointees Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — moved to lift the injunctions which would let the ban proceed.

The court’s progressive wing — Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer — voted to keep the injunctions in place.

The court decided not to take up the plan itself, as the Trump administration had wanted, opting instead to allow lower courts to hear the legal battle.

Mr Trump first unveiled the change in policy in a tweet in July 2017 because he said transgender service members pose a threat to national security, declaring the US government “will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military.”

It reversed President Obama’s 2016 policy that allowed transgender men and women already serving in the military to do so openly.

Advocacy groups and lawyers for active-duty transgender military personnel sued to stop the policy from taking effect and courts imposed nationwide injunctions.

The Trump administration’s policy, which was brought into effect by former Defence Secretary James Mattis, bars transgender people from being in the military unless they serve “in their biological sex” and do not attempt to seek surgery for a gender transition.

SOURCE






Lawyer for Covington Catholic HS Families Threatens Lawsuits Against Media Unless They Retract False Stories

Thanks to the sloppy, one-sided reporting of the malicious, agenda-driven media, a group of Catholic high school teenagers and their families have become the subjects of threats and harassment from a hateful online outrage mob. Their only sins? Being white, Catholic, and supporters of the president.

The full story has emerged in the wake of the fake news blitzkrieg over the weekend, and the media outlets that spread defamatory smears against the kids are now being warned to correct and retract their stories or face a lawsuit. Contrary to the media's malicious narrative, the kids were not racist rednecks mobbing a Native American elder with hateful slurs. It was quite the opposite.

Los Angeles-based trial lawyer Robert Barnes offered to represent the Covington families for free should they decide to sue the New York Times.

He said that "anyone who doesn't correct and retract" their false smears would be subject to a lawsuit and that updated stories merely indicating "a more complex picture has emerged" would not necessarily be enough.

When asked if such stories would count as a retraction, he replied that it "depends."

According to his website, Barnes has a history of taking on the causes of underdogs: "Fighting for individuals against unethical law firms, corrupt banks, and rogue government agents, Barnes continues the family tradition his great-grandfathers started centuries ago, fighting for the freedoms that founded America."

Video evidence and statements from multiple witnesses indicate that the boys were targeted by two groups of protesters who hurled hateful, racial, homophobic slurs at them while they waited on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for their bus after participating in the March for Life.

How hard would it have been for the media to find the full video, which was already online, to verify Phillips' assertions before running with them? Nothing Phillips was alleging could be corroborated in the viral video clip of Phillips and the smiling teenager, but they reported his claims as gospel anyway.

The media also reported that the longtime lefty agitator is a Vietnam veteran who served in the U.S. Marine Corps as a "recon ranger" based on his say-so, without bothering to verify whether the claim was true.

The Center for Security Studies had some questions about that:  This is not a valid name for any Marine specialty or unit and Phillips age of 64 calls into question how he could have completed training and served in Vietnam prior to the US withdrawal.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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






23 January, 2019

The attack on Southern monuments

It has become VERY extensive. I think the time will come when resentful conservatives will begin to attack statuary and monuments beloved of the Left.  It would only be fair

Woodfin, the 37-year-old mayor of Birmingham, Ala., made an unlikely sales pitch the other day after glancing toward some black-and-white photos of his city’s segregated past.

A 52-foot-tall Confederate monument, a sandstone obelisk erected in 1905 and within sight of City Hall, is available, he said. For free.

“Any Confederate museum that wants this thing can have it,” Mr. Woodfin said in an interview at City Hall. “I’ll give it to them right now. Hell, I’m even willing to give them whatever they need to get it to them.”

But Mr. Woodfin, and the State of Alabama, know such a transfer would not be without political and legal consequences.

Almost 154 years after the end of the Civil War, the country is still quarreling — in state capitols and courtrooms, on college campuses and around town squares — over how, or whether, to commemorate the side that lost.

Those stubborn debates bubbled up again this month in Winston-Salem and Chapel Hill, N.C., and in Birmingham, among the most progressive parts of a region that has struggled to reconcile its history with its modern ambitions.

“This is one of America’s most important conversations. In many ways, we have only begun to talk critically about the landscape that has existed in this country for a very long time that romanticizes the era of the slavery and the role of the Confederacy,” said Bryan Stevenson, the leading force behind the newly built National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Ala.

Critics of Confederate monuments have won dramatic victories that were almost inconceivable a decade ago: the lowering of the battle flag outside the South Carolina State House, the removals of four towering statues in New Orleans, the renaming of city streets in Atlanta and in Hollywood, Fla.

But some states have rushed to shield Confederate tributes from removal.

More than 1,700 “publicly sponsored symbols” of the Confederacy remain, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. A new protection proposal, brought by Mike Hill, a Republican state representative in Florida, is pending in the Legislature there.

And even as dozens of Confederate statues have been unearthed and hauled away from parks and other public grounds, many others are being quietly discovered. The list of Confederate symbols newly identified or counted now outnumbers the ones that have been removed, a S.P.L.C. study shows.

In Florida, Mr. Hill among the leaders of a rally in Pensacola against the proposed removal of a cross on public grounds in June 2017 when he made the decision: if elected to the state House of Representatives, he would work to strengthen memorial protections.

Two months later, after the mayor called for the removal of a 50-foot Confederate monument on Lee Square, Mr. Hill said his mission grew more urgent. So in his first act after his 2019 election victory, Mr. Hill filed a bill making it illegal to remove “remembrances” on public property erected on or after 1822 except for repairs — or relocation to an equally prominent place.

Mr. Hill, a third-generation veteran, said the bill was designed to protect the monuments, memorials and flags that honor soldiers and veterans — including those who fought in the Civil War.

As an African-American, Mr. Hill knows he is at odds with the traditional argument for removing Confederate symbols from public spaces, personally rejecting the idea they are hurtful.

“Our history is what makes us up as a people,” said Mr. Hill, who founded one of Florida’s Tea Party chapters. “We can learn from the ugly parts so that it can never happen again. Tearing down a monument does not create unity; it actually creates more division.”

In North Carolina, yet another chapter of the Confederate monuments battle is exploding, in a booming city and on a picturesque college campus 75 miles apart.

Last week, the chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ordered the removal of the remains of the toppled “Silent Sam” Confederate monument off the college grounds for community safety — and, announced her resignation.

Chancellor Carol L. Folt, who just months ago officially apologized of behalf of the university for the “profound injustices of slavery,” planned to retire in the spring after graduation.

Shocked by the surprise announcement, the U.N.C. System Board of Governors, pushed her leave up to the end of January. Ms. Folt had requested the removal of the statue’s base, which included plaques memorializing university students who fought for the Confederacy.

The final resting place for “Silent Sam,” whose status has been complicated by state law, remains unsettled, but officials hope to announce a plan by March. The bronze soldier, unveiled in 1913, was toppled by protesters last summer.

And in December, the city of Winston- Salem ordered the removal of a statue of a Confederate soldier in the city’s downtown to a nearby cemetery where 36 Confederate soldiers are buried. In a letter to the North Carolina Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the owners of the statue, the city attorney cast the move as in public safety issue based on recent vandalism and the potential for violent confrontations.

The city is considering legal action if the statue is not moved by Jan. 31. The United Daughters of the Confederacy has vowed to fight back, calling the city’s demand “heavy-handed” and “dishonorable” in a statement. The statue was erected in 1905 on the old courthouse grounds, property now privately owned.

The current landowner also wants the statue removed.

“I know there are strong issues on both sides of this issue, people who want it there because of history,’” Mayor Allen Joines said. “On the other hand, this monument represents oppression and the subjugation of a people and I know that’s hurtful.”

North Carolina’s struggle has not yet devolved into a legal battle, but Birmingham’s Confederate obelisk, shunned by the mayor, has. In 2017, Alabama enacted a law that forbade memorials to be “relocated, removed, altered, renamed or otherwise disturbed” if they had stood on public property for at least 40 years.

Then came the violence in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, and Mr. Woodfin’s predecessor as mayor, William A. Bell Sr., ordered that the base of the towering Confederate monument be shrouded in plywood.

The state promptly sued to protect it, and asked that Birmingham be fined $25,000 a day.

Last Monday night, Judge Michael G. Graffeo, of the Circuit Court in Jefferson County, struck down the statute. Under the law, Judge Graffeo wrote, “the people of Birmingham cannot win.” “No matter how much they lobby city officials, the state has placed a thumb on the scale for a pro-Confederacy message, and the people, acting through their city, will never be able to dissociate themselves from that message entirely,” the judge wrote.

The judge’s order, which the state is expected to appeal, sparked a refreshed furor in Alabama over what should come of monuments.

The sponsor of the embattled legislation, Senator Gerald Allen, a Republican from Tuscaloosa County, said in a statement that the law was “meant to thoughtfully preserve the entire story of Alabama’s history for future generations.”

And he harshly criticized Judge Graffeo.

“Judges are not kings, and judicial activism is no substitute for the democratic process,” said Mr. Allen, who, in a 2016 interview with The New York Times, argued that it was “important that we tell the story of what has happened in this country because that’s what shaped and molded us as a nation.”

A spokesman for Attorney General Steven T. Marshall, whose office brought the case against Birmingham in August 2017, did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Woodfin, who defeated Mr. Bell within months of the Charlottesville attack and the Alabama lawsuit, is weary of a broader fight that he argued should have been settled long ago. A deepening legal battle with the state, he suggested, was unhelpful and disappointing.

“In my mind, this is the opposite of moving forward,” he said. “The statue was erected well post-Civil War, in a city that was founded after the Civil War. To me, it seemed like it was intentionally sending a signal to the public about revisionist history, and a message to what did exist, even if it was wrong.”

The monument, which was originally dedicated by a Birmingham area chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, is hardly the only challenge.

On Monday, state offices will be closed throughout Alabama. The government will be marking the birthday of the Rev.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And Robert E. Lee.

SOURCE





Pelosi’s Equality Act Could Lead to More Parents Losing Custody of Kids Who Want ‘Gender Transition’

Americans have long understood that children are best cared for by their parents. The state should only intervene in the family when there is demonstrable evidence of abuse and neglect.

This has long been established in our laws. But now, transgender ideology is silencing doctors and challenging the way courts define parental abuse and neglect.

Last year in Ohio, a judge removed a biological girl from her parents’ custody after they declined to help her “transition” to male with testosterone supplements. The Cincinnati Children’s gender clinic recommended these treatments for gender dysphoria (the condition of being distressed with one’s biological sex).

When her parents wanted to treat her with counseling instead, Hamilton County Job and Family Services charged them with abuse and neglect, while transgender activists and pro-trans doctors compared their decision to denying treatment for asthma or even cancer patients.

That all happened without federal legislation.

But now, one of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s top legislative priorities, the Equality Act, could give the transgender community a vice grip over the medical profession. It could open the floodgates for lawsuits against doctors who don’t fall in line with transgender ideology.

Politicizing the medical treatment of gender dysphoria could lead to more prosecutions against parents who refuse to aid in the sterilization of their children. As more doctors recommend that children take puberty blockers at age 11, cross-sex hormones at 16, and undergo “sex-reassignment” surgeries at 18, parents who resist could face charges of child abuse and lose custody of their children.

The tragedy in Ohio could be repeated in families across America.

Turning the Law Into a Sword Against Doctors

The transgender movement wants to dominate the field of medicine, and to do so it is threatening doctors and hospitals with penalties.

Some states have already passed laws similar to Pelosi’s Equality Act. In New Jersey and California, transgender activists have sued Catholic hospitals for “discrimination” on the basis of gender identity because they wouldn’t perform sex-change surgeries for patients with gender dysphoria.

These lawsuits may seem preposterous, but they were enabled by state anti-discrimination laws that treat sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes and health care facilities as public accommodations. The text of the Equality Act that was introduced in the 115th Congress does the same.

Pelosi’s bill would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, making hospitals and doctors across America vulnerable to costly litigation if they don’t follow the medical recommendations of the transgender movement. It would turn anti-discrimination law—which was meant to protect disenfranchised minority groups—into a coercive sword to threaten doctors into submission to transgender ideology.

Does Transgender Ideology Make for Good Medicine?

Part of the reason some doctors resist transgender ideology is that it is incompatible with good medicine and would harm rather than help their patients.

The American Psychological Association’s manual of mental disorders classifies gender dysphoria as a mental illness. Research shows that 75 to 95 percent of children with gender dysphoria who go through puberty without any transgender treatments actually become comfortable with their bodies.

But the transgender movement ignores these statistics, aggressively pushing for gender-dysphoric children to be treated with non-FDA-approved uses of drugs, even though side effects can include loss of bone density, decline of cognitive ability, and infertility.

Dr. Michelle Cretella, executive director of the American College of Pediatricians, describes it as “institutionalized child abuse.”

Transgender activists have already tried to silence doctors who warned patients about these dangers. The Human Rights Campaign—a leading LGBT group—devotes an entire website to trying to discredit Dr. Paul McHugh, the former lead psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins University Hospital who put a stop to the hospital’s sex-reassignment surgeries. McHugh says the surgeries were “fundamentally cooperating with a mental illness.”

Trans Activists Are Putting Children and Doctors in the Driver’s Seat

Transgender activists and pro-trans physicians often seek to exclude parents from the process of medical decision-making. Cincinnati Children’s Hospital’s Transgender Health Clinic says parents may be excluded from interviews because they might make their children feel uncomfortable asking questions.

Remarkably, this clinic has deemed 100 percent of the patients seeking care to be “appropriate candidates for continued gender treatment.” Even the Ohio judge who terminated one couple’s parental rights expressed “concern” at this astoundingly high approval rate.

Transgender advocates dismiss these concerns by sounding an alarm that gender-dysphoric children will be at higher risk of suicide if they don’t receive hormone treatment.

But the evidence suggests transgender treatments can actually increase the likelihood of suicide. A study in Sweden on adults who underwent sex-reassignment surgeries showed they were 19 times more likely than the general population to commit suicide after undergoing operations. This is particularly noteworthy because in Sweden, cultural support for those who identify as transgender is very strong, so social stigma is less likely to account for the suicides.

We should be particularly cautious with experimental treatments on children because the long-term effects of transgender treatments have yet to be seen. Even the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid under the Obama administration pointed out that “mortality from this patient population did not become apparent until after 10 years.”

Endocrinologist Dr. Michael Laidlaw also warns that the long-term harms to kids may not show up until years later when as young adults, they start asking: “’How come I can’t have children at this point?’ Well, it’s because their fertility was destroyed by some combination of puberty blockers, wrong sex hormones, and surgery.”

And Dr. Stephen B. Levine, professor of psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, asks the pertinent question: Are children really capable of comprehending the way that hormone treatments will alter their lives and render them unable to have their own children? There’s a reason we have informed consent laws—to protect people, like children, from being taken advantage of.

Expediting a Bad Trend

In this cultural and political climate, doctors and courts are more and more likely to seek to exclude parents from life-changing decisions about their children.

America has seen an explosion of “gender clinics” and diagnoses of “gender dysphoria” in just the past few years. In 2013, America had only three gender clinics. Today, there are more than 41. These clinics report 400 percent increases in children and teens identifying as trans.

The Equality Act would expedite this trend by giving the transgender movement a powerful legal weapon to drive medical consensus that could undermine the rights of parents.

As more parents wrestle with finding the most loving and helpful solutions for their children struggling with gender dysphoria, the government must support them—not undermine them. Parents must remain central to the decision-making process when it comes to the medical care of children suffering from gender dysphoria.

SOURCE






Woman refused bar job because she’s gay, told to ‘dress more gender appropriate’

It is normal for businesses to have dress codes.  Why should homosexuals be exempt?

A fast food employee says she was left with no other choice but to walk out on her job after her employer told her to dress more gender appropriately.

Meagan Hunter, 35, said she loved her job at Chili’s Bar and Grill in Phoenix, Arizona, before she was told at a training program to become a manager she wasn’t able to wear the seemingly gender-neutral uniform.

She wore what male managers at Chili’s wear — a button-up shirt, fitted slacks and boat shoes — but she was told the district manager had seen her at the seminar and said she was “inappropriately dressed”.

The Chili’s store manager said he didn’t want Ms Hunter working behind the bar because she’s gay.
The Chili’s store manager said he didn’t want Ms Hunter working behind the bar because she’s gay.Source:Getty Images

Ms Hunter told the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) she initially ignored the comment until the general manger of the restaurant pushed the issue further in her interview for the promotion.

She said she was told: “We really want to hire you. However, we need you to dress more gender appropriate.”

“I said, ‘Does that mean I should have my breasts hanging out to succeed in your company?’” Ms Hunter said. “And he backtracked and said, ‘No, not in those words.’”

When Ms Hunter asked why she couldn’t wear a chef-style coat like the one her general manager wore he apparently told her, “It’s for boys.”

She said she had no other option but to quit her job because she didn’t fit her employer’s idea of what a woman should look like.

Ms Hunter was later told by co-workers that the same general manager had said he passed her over for a bartender position because he “didn’t want a gay girl behind the bar”.

He said he didn’t think she would attract the “right kind” of clientele.

The ACLU argues laws introduced nearly 30 years ago banning sex discrimination should have ended this kind of stereotyping in the workplace.

In 1989, the US Supreme Court ruled in favour of business manager Ann Hopkins in a landmark case. She was told her workplace problems would be solved if she would “walk more femininely, talk more femininely, wear make-up, have her hair styled, and wear jewellery”.

“That decision established that employers can’t punish employees because they don’t match stereotypical notions about how women or men should look and act,” the ACLU wrote.

“A growing number of lower courts have also recognised that federal law protects workers like Meagan who experience discrimination because of their sexual orientation.”

The ACLU has reportedly filed the discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, citing federal laws that ban discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation.

“When employers punish workers for who they are and what they look like, they lose valuable people like Meagan,” the ACLU said. “That’s not only wrong and bad for business, it’s also against the law.”

A Chili’s spokesperson told The Hill, a US news site, the restaurant was “alarmed” by the allegations and it doesn’t tolerate “any discriminatory behaviour in our restaurants.”

The company said Ms Hunter was not denied a promotion, but was “offered the opportunity to be promoted into our certified shift leader program to take the next step on her career journey.”

Chili’s admitted Ms Hunter was given “feedback” about the restaurant’s dress code for managers, but it said “absolutely no mention was made of any need to conform to gender-specific clothing.”

“To all of our guests, fans, former and current team members — we love you just as you are, and we intend to show that every single day,” the spokesperson said.

SOURCE






These 2 Democrats Are Finally Standing Up to Anti-Christian Bigotry in Their Party

Democrats pride themselves on “diversity.”

With the new Congress, they’ve hailed two new Muslim House members, made accomodations for religious headwear on the House floor, and celebrated record numbers of minorities in their freshman class.

This penchant for diversity makes their growing blind spot all the more glaring. That blind spot is anti-Christian bigotry, seen in the hostile questions that Democratic senators have aimed at Trump nominees that inch dangerously close to a religious test for public office.

Until recently, only Republicans had cried foul.

Senators like James Lankford, R-Okla., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, came to the defense of Amy Coney Barrett in 2017, whose qualifications to sit on a U.S. appeals court were questioned on account of her “dogma.” One senator had the gall to ask her directly whether she considered herself “an orthodox Catholic.”

So it comes as genuine relief this week that a Democrat, finally, is saying enough is enough.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii published a searing op-ed on Tuesday chiding her Democratic colleagues in the Senate for questioning Brian C. Buescher, a Trump judicial nominee, over his affiliation with the Knights of Columbus, the world’s largest Catholic civic organization.

Back in December, Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, used their questioning time to scrutinize the Knights’ “extreme positions” on same-sex marriage and abortion. (Shock: The Knights of Columbus oppose both, in accordance with the Catholic Church.)

Hirono asked, “If confirmed, do you intend to end your membership with this organization to avoid any appearance of bias?”

Harris pried: “Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed a woman’s right to choose when you joined the organization?”

Buescher answered: “I do not recall if I was aware whether the Knights of Columbus had taken a position on the abortion issue when I joined at the age of 18.”

In her editorial for The Hill, Gabbard pulled no punches toward her colleagues for using a man’s Catholic faith and affiliations against him. She wrote:

While I oppose the nomination of Brian Buescher to the U.S. District Court in Nebraska, I stand strongly against those who are fomenting religious bigotry, citing as disqualifiers Buescher’s Catholicism and his affiliation with the Knights of Columbus. If Buescher is ‘unqualified’ because of his Catholicism and affiliation with the Knights of Columbus, then President John F. Kennedy, and the ‘liberal lion of the Senate’ Ted Kennedy would have been ‘unqualified’ for the same reasons.

Gabbard was almost completely alone among progressives. Her side reacted furiously.

But she wasn’t completely alone. Illinois Rep. Dan Lipinski, one of the only pro-life Democrats left in the House, voiced his concern on the matter:

I would never, ever have expected that membership in the Knights of Columbus would be something that would be viewed with suspicion and maybe even worse. It’s terrible to see membership in the Knights of Columbus questioned like that, but at the core this gets back to the question of religious freedom, and it’s something that we have to continue to speak out about because we, our country, can’t afford to lose that freedom that we’re guaranteed in the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Senators who dismiss the Knights of Columbus as “extreme” show just how little they know about the organization. The Knights mostly focus on charity work for the poor, disabled, and orphaned, while raising money to educate underprivileged students who come from all religious affiliations.

They have also been working to aid persecuted Christians in the Middle East and all over the world.

The Knights of Columbus are, essentially, a Catholic version of the Rotary Club. And the depth of their giving is impressive to say the least.

The Federalist’s Helen Raleigh put it best: “The only thing extreme about [the Knights of Columbus] is their generosity.”

As we have noted before at The Daily Signal, religious tests for public office are clearly forbidden by the Constitution. Senate Democrats’ increasing hostility to nominees who hold deep Christian beliefs is a regression back to a sectarian sensibility we thought we had left behind.

In the 1920s, there was heightened tension between Catholic and Protestant Christians in America. Some, like the Ku Klux Klan, openly questioned whether Catholics could even be Americans—especially in light of the sharp increase of immigrants from Catholic countries.

The Klan painted the Knights of Columbus as a Catholic conspiracy to overthrow the Constitution and install the pope in its place. It also waged a campaign to abolish increasingly popular Columbus Day celebrations, which it considered another dastardly Catholic attempt to normalize their religious beliefs.

Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd was the last ex-klansman to serve in the Senate. But it appears some modern progressives have amnesia and are picking up the anti-Catholic torch yet again.

Certainly, a judicial nominee’s views and legal positions are relevant as to whether they are fit to serve, but attempting to disqualify them for the simple fact that they are affiliated with a specific religious group is corrosive.

The charge against the Knights of Columbus, and Buescher, seems to be that their true religion is Catholicism and not progressivism. That is a religious test in disguise—but they cannot be allowed to get by with it.

The Heritage Foundation’s Joel Griffith recently pointed out that anti-Semitism has gained a new foothold in the 116th Congress. So has anti-Catholicism. But it’s encouraging to see two brave members of the Democratic Party finally pushing back. Let their tribe increase.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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22 January, 2019

Mother breast-feeds older boys.  Child abuse?

Leftists will no doubt proclaim that only shell-backed antediluvian conservatives will be critical of this and I must admit that it at first seemed to me like a harmless eccentricity.  A psychologist with vast experience in counselling thinks otherwise however.  I reproduce his words to me below:

Lisa Bridges deludes herself that breastfeeding her four and seven year old boys is the boy's choice, when in fact it is her choice. She says she will continue to breast feed them "for as long as the boys want", which really means, for as long as she wants. 

There is a fair bit on the internet about her. She does not mind attention. She even enjoys breast feeding her boys in public. See here

She says she "is not harming anybody". I cannot agree with that.

She says she "is following her boys lead". That is utter nonsense. She is the adult, she is the governor of the dynamic between herself and her children. She enables, initiates, sets the momentum and steers the interpersonal cycles between herself and her children.

She says the boys are autistic and that breast feeding the boys calms them down. I am suspicious of any single mother who says she has an autistic son.

When counselling single mothers of primary school aged boys, I found that many of them falsely claim to have autistic sons, or sons with ADHD and other fashionable syndromes.

And when counselling imprisoned male sex offenders and other offenders, I found most were raised by single mothers -- about three quarters of them. And many resented their mothers for their abusive behaviour, including emotional and sexual abuse.

Naturally the stats sheets recorded that the prisoner reported childhood sexual or other abuse, but the electronic copies did not record the gender of the abuser. Those looking at such stats naturally assume the abuser is male, probably a father, even though most criminals do not have a father figure in their lives. The public perception is that most abusers are male. But men's and women's hearts are as dark and light as each others. It is how their abuse manifests that differs. Generally, we have our eye in for male abuse but are mostly blind to how female abuse manifests.

I have, on occasions, tried telling colleagues in welfare work about the sorts of abuse that some single mothers do to their boys, but generally they cannot accept it, even though they frequently discuss male abusers.

I can understand their initial recoiling. It is hard to face that some practices could be so frequent when women are considered to be so caring in comparison to men.

Breast feeding growing boys might seem harmless enough to some. But what other unusual attitudes and practices might be part of the family's dynamic. Perhaps the family is otherwise quite healthy and ordinary.

We all have a psychological schema, that is a network of mental-emotional-behavioural patterns that are in keeping with each other, some harmonic and supportive of each other, some locked in disharmony and opposition with each other. What the fuller picture is, healthy or unhealthy, we don't know. I do know that Lisa Bridges' attitude to breast feeding her growing boys would operate in keeping with other attitudes she holds towards men, women, children, relationships, sexuality, gender, society, likes-dislikes, desires, operative values, beliefs about herself and society, and so on. 

Lisa Bridges, to some extent, is currently sexually wiring her two boys. When they are grown men trying to establish relationships with women, and the memories flood in of their mother enticing them to lay back with her and suck her breasts, then what conditions of mind and emotion might arise in the men? internal conflict? confusion? emotional turmoil? resentment? betrayal? disgust? And how might their attitudes and behaviour towards women and themselves be effected? I could suggest several possibilities because I have seen them in other men.

If such men forgive their mothers her errors, then there will be no harm done. For there is no hurt where there is forgiveness, and subsequently no resentment and other consequences. Forgiveness does that; it cancels hurt and resentment, and dissolves unhealthy and troublesome personal and interpersonal psychological loops. But if we don't or won't forgive, then all sorts of psychological (attitudinal, mental-emotional and behavioural, and interpersonal) conditions arise and circulate through the psychological mechanism as unhealthy maladjusted loops and patterns. I have seen many examples of this outcome, not just in prison cells but in people in general.  






The Media Wildly Mischaracterized That Video of Covington Catholic Students Confronting a Native American Veteran

Journalists believed the aggressive Leftist guy, not the students in MAGA hats he was harassing.  Videos show that the students were in fact a paragon of restraint in response to a barrage of hate.  I don't think I would be so restrained if someone came up to me abusing me and banging a drum in my face

Partial video footage of students from a Catholic high school allegedly harassing a Native American veteran after the anti-abortion March for Life rally in Washington, D.C., over the weekend quickly went viral, provoking widespread condemnation of the kids on social media. Various media figures and Twitter users called for them to be doxed, shamed, or otherwise punished, and school administrators said they would consider expulsion.

But the rest of the video—nearly two hours of additional footage showing what happened before and after the encounter—adds important context that strongly contradicts the media's narrative.

Far from engaging in racially motivated harassment, the group of mostly white, MAGA-hat-wearing male teenagers remained relatively calm and restrained despite being subjected to incessant racist, homophobic, and bigoted verbal abuse by members of the bizarre religious sect Black Hebrew Israelites, who were lurking nearby. The BHI has existed since the late 19th century, and is best describes as a black nationalist cult movement; its members believe they are descendants of the ancient Israelites, and often express condemnation of white people, Christians, and gays. DC-area Black Hebrews are known to spout particularly vile bigotry.

Phillips put himself between the teens and the black nationalists, chanting and drumming as he marched straight into the middle of the group of young people. What followed was several minutes of confusion: The teens couldn't quite decide whether Phillips was on their side or not, but tentatively joined in his chanting. It's not at all clear this was intended as an act of mockery rather than solidarity.

One student did not get out of Phillips way as he marched, and gave the man a hard stare and a smile that many have described as creepy. This moment received the most media coverage: The teen has been called the product of a "hate factory" and likened to a school shooter, segregation-era racist, and member of the Ku Klux Klan. I have no idea what he was thinking, but portraying this as an example of obvious, racially-motivated hate is a stretch. Maybe he simply had no idea why this man was drumming in his face, and couldn't quite figure out the best response? It bears repeating that Phillips approached him, not the other way around.

And that's all there is to it. Phillips walked away after several minutes, the Black Hebrew Israelites continued to insult the crowd, and nothing else happened.

You can judge for yourself. Here is video footage of the full incident, from the perspective of the black nationalists. Phillips enters the picture around the 1:12 mark, but if you skip to that part, you miss an hour of the Black Hebrew Israelites hurling obscenities at the students. They call them crackers, faggots, and pedophiles. At the 1:20 mark (which comes after the Phillips incident) they call one of the few black students the n-word and tell him that his friends are going to murder him and steal his organs. At the 1:25 mark, they complain that "you give faggots rights," which prompted booing from the students. Throughout the video they threaten the kids with violence, and attempt to goad them into attacking first. The students resisted these taunts admirably: They laughed at the hecklers, and they perform a few of their school's sports cheers.

It was at this moment that Phillips, who had attended a nearby peace protest led by indigenous peoples, decided to intervene. He would later tell The Detroit Free Press that the teenagers "were in the process of attacking these four black individuals" and he decided to attempt to de-escalate the situation. He seems profoundly mistaken: The video footage taken by the black nationalists shows no evidence the white teenagers had any intention of attacking. Nevertheless, Phillips characterized the kids as "beasts" and the hate-group members as "their prey":

"There was that moment when I realized I've put myself between beast and prey," Phillips said. "These young men were beastly and these old black individuals was their prey, and I stood in between them and so they needed their pounds of flesh and they were looking at me for that."

Again, all the evidence suggests that Phillips got it backward.

He also claimed that he heard chants of "build the wall." While I cannot rule out the possibility that some of the kids indeed chanted this—those who were wearing MAGA hats are presumably Trump supporters—I did not hear a single utterance of the phrase in the nearly two hours of video footage I watched. Admittedly, the kids do a lot of chanting and it's not always possible to tell what they are saying. Their stated explanation is that they engaged in a series of school sports chants: That's what one student told a local news reporter. His account largely tracks with the video.

"We are an all-male school that loves to get hyped up," said this student. "And as we have done for years prior, we decided to do some cheers to pass time. In the midst of our cheers, we were approached by a group of adults led by Nathan Phillips, with Phillips beating his drum. They forced their way to the center of our group. We initially thought this was a cultural display since he was beating along to our cheers and so we clapped to the beat." According to this student, the smiling student was grinning because he was enjoying the music, but eventually became confused, along with everyone else. (Indeed, multiple people can be heard to shout, "what is going on?")

It would be impossible to definitively state that none of the young men did anything wrong, offensive, or problematic, at some point, and maybe the smiling student was attempting to intimidate Phillips. But there's shockingly little evidence of wrongdoing, unless donning a Trump hat and standing in a group of other people doing the same is now an act of harassment or violence. Phillips' account, meanwhile, is at best flawed, and arguably deliberately misleading.

Unless other information emerges, the school's best move would be to have a conversation with the boys about the incident, perhaps discuss some strategies for remaining on perfect behavior at highly charged political rallies—where everybody is recording everything on a cell phone—and let that be the end of it.

The boys are undoubtedly owed an apology from the numerous people who joined this social media pile-on. This is shaping up to be one of the biggest major media misfires in quite some time.

SOURCE





The ugly truth behind the women's march

The ABC carries a Reuters report that hypes an anti-Trump protest:

Women have marched in hundreds of US cities to mark the second anniversary of the demonstrations that took place the day after President Donald Trump's inauguration in January 2017...

They are aiming to mobilise women to vote ahead of the 2020 elections, when Mr Trump is expected to be the Republican nominee for president.

But the ABC/Reuters fails to note the bleeding obvious - that the crowds were way, way down, as other outlets have conceded:

the third annual Women’s March events on Saturday attracted much smaller crowds than in years past.

That is putting it very gently indeed.

In 2017, between 500,000 and 1 million women reportedly marched in Washington alone. This year just 100,000, says AP, generously. The Washington Post suggests merely "thousands".

In 2017, 400,000 reportedly marched in New York. This year just 25,000, say NY police, espite the drawcard of far-Left Democrat star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Why didn't the ABC note this?

But the ABC did in passing note - in a single paragraph - one possible cause for the collapse in numbers:

In some cities, like New York and Washington, there were more than one march or demonstration due to criticism that some Women's March leaders are anti-Semitic — a charge those leaders have sought to dispel in recent interviews and statements.

Again, that puts it mildly. Imagine what the ABC would have said if Trump had made the alleged comments that some of the march organisers made in 2016, when seven women met in New York to plan the first women's march:

According to several sources, it was there—in the first hours of the first meeting for what would become the Women’s March—that something happened that was so shameful to many of those who witnessed it, they chose to bury it like a family secret. Almost two years would pass before anyone present would speak about it.

It was there that, as the women were opening up about their backgrounds and personal investments in creating a resistance movement to Trump, [Carmen] Perez and [Tamika] Mallory allegedly first asserted that Jewish people bore a special collective responsibility as exploiters of black and brown people—and even, according to a close secondhand source, claimed that Jews were proven to have been leaders of the American slave trade. These are canards popularized by The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, a book published by Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam—“the bible of the new anti-Semitism,” according to Henry Louis Gates Jr., who noted in 1992: “Among significant sectors of the black community, this brief has become a credo of a new philosophy of black self-affirmation.”

To this day, Mallory and Bland deny any such statements were ever uttered, either at the first meeting or at Mallory’s apartment. “There was a particular conversation around how white women had centered themselves...,” remembered Bland. But she and Mallory insisted it never had anything to do with Jews. “Carmen and I were very clear at that [first] meeting that we would not take on roles as workers or staff, but that we had to be in a leadership position in order for us to engage in the march,” Mallory told Tablet, in an interview last week, adding that they had been particularly sensitive to the fact that they had been invited to the meeting by white women, and wanted to be sure they weren’t about to enter into an unfair arrangement. “Other than that, there was no particular conversation about Jewish women, or any particular group of people.”

Six of the seven women in attendance would not speak openly to Tablet about the meeting, but multiple sources with knowledge of what happened confirmed the story.

There was more of the same after the women met to discuss the success of their 2017 march:

At the end of January, according to multiple sources, there was an official debriefing at Mallory’s apartment. In attendance were Mallory, Evvie Harmon, Breanne Butler, Vanessa Wruble, Cassady Fendlay, Carmen Perez and Linda Sarsour. They should have been basking in the afterglow of their massive success, but—according to Harmon—the air was thick with conflict. “We sat in that room for hours,” Harmon told Tablet recently. “Tamika told us that the problem was that there were five white women in the room and only three women of color, and that she didn’t trust white women. Especially white women from the South.

At that point, I kind of tuned out because I was so used to hearing this type of talk from Tamika. But then I noticed the energy in the room changed. I suddenly realized that Tamika and Carmen were facing Vanessa, who was sitting on a couch, and berating her—but it wasn’t about her being white. It was about her being Jewish. ‘Your people this, your people that.’ I was raised in the South and the language that was used is language that I’m very used to hearing in rural South Carolina. Just instead of against black people, against Jewish people. They even said to her ‘your people hold all the wealth.’ You could hear a pin drop. It was awful.”

The racism got worse:

In October 2017, the group held a Women’s Convention. Attendance was reported to be high for the whole event, and was packed for the summit’s most popular panel, “Confronting White Womanhood.”

On March 11, 2019, the Women’s March had their biweekly phone call with national organizers. The public controversy had started to explode over Mallory’s attendance at the Saviours’ Day event, during which, in the course of a three-hour speech, Farrakhan blamed Jews for “degenerate behavior in Hollywood, turning men into women and women into men.” Angie Beem, president of the Washington state chapter, remembered that phone call...

Beem described a sense of awkwardness as Mallory went on to defend Farrakhan to over 40 women on the call. And she wasn’t alone, Beem said; Perez and Bland jumped in to defend him as well. “They said to us: ‘You know, he has done some great things for people of color.’ They didn’t denounce anything he said, they only did that recently..."

More:

It was around this time that Morganfield says she first heard that Nation of Islam members were acting as security detail and drivers for the co-chairs. “Bob called me secretly and said, ‘Mercy, they have been in bed with the Nation of Islam since day one: They do all of our security,’” Morganfield told Tablet.

SOURCE






Australia: Vicious false rape accuser jailed at last

An email from Bettina SArndt

For years I have been following a terrible case where a young prison officer was sent to prison following false rape accusations from his ex-partner. Today that young woman, Sarah Jane Parkinson was sentenced in Canberra to 3 years in prison, with two years non-parole. 

I’ve made a video with Dan, the young man whose life she destroyed. It is the most extraordinary story – I’m sure one day it will end up as a movie. It starts with Parkinson having an affair with a policeman which leads to Dan breaking off their engagement. Boy, talk about the wrath of the scorned. Parkinson, with the help of her crooked cop boyfriend and his mates, embark on a crusade to destroy Dan and his family. False domestic violence accusations, AVOs, alleged breaches and then a doozy of a fake rape scenario where she smashes her own head with a brick, plants empty condom packets (very considerate rapist, using a condom, eh?) and then claims the cat ate the condom.

But then the cavalry arrives, good cops led by a female detective who’s onto the corrupt antics of the Parkinson’s police mates. “Don’t fucking touch anything!” the good cops warn the bad guys. Yes, I know… It reads like a very bad script for The Bill. But it is all totally true.

Dan is immediately sent to prison following the fake rape allegations – the earlier violence accusations meant no questions asked. He’s in a maximum security prison at Goulbourn, a very scary place for a young prison officers who knows screws get a very bad time inside. He spends four months in an isolation cell for his own protection, suicidal and knowing he faces up to 15 years if convicted on the trumped up charges.

Meanwhile, with Dan taken care of, Parkinson goes after Dan’s family with false violence accusations against his dad, planting stolen goods, all manner of shenanigans. But little does she know that the good cops are running a sting on her and her copper mates, tracking their movements. So it goes on – for five long years.  

My interview with Dan is pretty long but I hope you will agree it is an amazing story. And, thankfully for once it has a good ending. Not that Parkinson’s prison sentence is any consolation for Dan losing his reputation, his job, and having to move to another state, while his parents blow their life savings paying legal bills.

Please like the video and help me circulate it:



bettina@bettinaarndt.com.au

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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21 January, 2019

Democrat Ted Lieu Trashes Mike Pence’s Christian Faith; ‘It’s Just Hate’

It sounds like Ted is the real hater here. But it is true that the Bible makes clear that God hates homosexuality.  It is an abomination to the Lord (Leviticus 20:13; Romans 1:27) it is inimical to normal family formation, which is the foundation of society, so there is wisdom there. The only marriage role Jesus saw was for a union between man and woman (Mark 10:6-9; Matthew 19:4-6)

Big time California Democrat Representative Ted Lieu fired shots at Vice President Mike Pence and his Christian faith. His outburst towards Pence and his faith called said his ways are basically hateful and made it seem like Pence is hiding his hate for homosexuals behind his religion.

Lieu then asked what Jesus Christ said about homosexuals, and then replied to his own question with the word “nothing” and continued to badger the Christian Vice President.

All of this occurred because Mike Pence jumped to his wife Karen’s defense when she began working at a private Christian school as an art teacher.

Their daughter once attended the school and Karen Pence recently took up employment there, instead of milking the government salary of her husband.

The school’s rules and guidelines ask that students and staff adhere to a set of religious principles that require those in attendance to refrain from participation in homosexual or transgender activity.

Ted Lieu appears to believe these principles and Pence’s defense of his wife and the school are hateful, stating “it’s just hate” and suggesting they’re hiding their true feelings about the gay community behind their religion.

Then the Daily Caller reported on it, stating:

“In response to Lieu’s original tweet, a Twitter user referenced three of the apostle Paul’s epistles that reinforced the disapproval of homosexual behavior. Lieu dismissed these New Testament teachings as “not by Christ.”

Immanuel Christian School’s parent agreement states that families must “acknowledge the importance of a family culture based on biblical principles and embrace biblical family values such as a healthy marriage between one man and one woman.”

When it comes to leftists forcing their agenda upon everyone, they call anyone who disagrees an intolerant bigot. When it comes to Christians believing in their religion, without pushing it upon others, they are attacked by leftists who don’t see they’re living in a wicked double standard. In this case, the leftists are the intolerant bigots who refuse to accept the religion of others, just like many people refuse to accept that a six foot man in a dress is a woman.

This is merely fake outrage sparked by the left because Christianity has been the same for years, but there wasn’t ever a peep about it until Trump was in office and his Vice President’s wife took up teaching art at a religious school.

Now that Karen Pence will be teaching art in a school that wishes to not cater to the LGBT crowd, she’ll endure rabid attacks from people who wish to force their agenda down the throat of an entire school and religion who wish to not be associated with them.

Will any hardcore leftists who attack Christianity, Karen Pence, and the school she works at be labeled as intolerant bigots?

Because that’s what they are.

SOURCE






Watch Company Launches Response To Gillette ‘Toxic Masculinity’ Ad; It Goes Viral

On Tuesday, Egard Watch Company released an advertisement on YouTube in response to Gillette’s controversial ad regarding alleged "toxic masculinity."

The video features footage of men in various situations — from fighting fires to hugging their children — while the company’s founder, Ilan Srulovicz, narrates. The footage and narration are accompanied by sobering statistics relating to men.

"What is a man?" Srulovicz asks as a fireman carries a child from a burning building. "Is a man brave?" The on-screen text reads: "Men account for 93% of workplace fatalities." The number comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

"Is a man a hero? Is a man a protector? Is a man vulnerable? Is a man disposable? Is a man broken? Is a man trying?"

As each of the above questions are asked, the following statistics are shown on the screen:

Men comprise over 97% of war fatalities. (U.S. Department of Defense)

79% of all homicide victims are male. (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)

Nearly half of fathers without any visitation rights still financially support their children. (U.S. Census Bureau)

Men account for 80% of all suicide victims. (World Health Organization)

75% of single homeless people are men. (National Coalition for the Homeless)

"We see the good in men," Srulovicz concludes.

Although the company’s YouTube channel has only 5,500 subscribers, the video has been watched more than 766,000 times, and features a 64:1 "like" to "dislike" ratio as of publication.

The Daily Wire spoke with Ilan Srulovicz about his YouTube video, as well as Gillette’s controversial advertisement:

DW: What was your response to the Gillette commercial?

SRULOVICZ: If I’m being honest, my initial response from a visceral standpoint was a negative one. Whether it’s justified or not, I felt a little bit offended. I felt like it painted with too broad a brush. At the same time, I also understood what they were trying to say. I just don’t think it was the right way to say it.

I think that there’s a very strong movement in society that’s very pervasive, and from an advertising perspective, I can see how Gillette felt like that was the right move — that’s the ongoing narrative.

I’m absolutely for addressing issues like sexual assault and bullying, and I think the unfortunate thing that the Gillette ad seems to miss is that most guys feel the same way.

DW: What drove you to make your own commercial addressing this issue?

SRULOVICZ: I did the commercial completely on my own because I didn’t get support necessarily from the people around me. They were a little bit worried that a message that was so contrary to Gillette’s message would not be well received. I think they were just trying to protect me. I think they believe in the message of the commercial, but I think they were just trying to say, "Is it worth the risk to put your company behind this message?"

Srulovicz said that he was at one point being urged to do the video anonymously, but that a quote pushed him to release it as a company advertisement: "There are only two places actions can come from — they’re either going to come from fear or they’re going to come from love."

SRULOVICZ: Releasing it anonymously felt like an action out of fear, not out of love. Putting something I’ve built and something that means so much to me behind this video would be an action out of love. So, I decided to go in that direction. I also thought that an anonymous video wouldn’t have the same impact as a company saying, "This type of message is okay. This type of message is good."

According to Srulovicz, the overwhelmingly positive response to the video was quite unexpected. He foresaw a potentially negative response.

SRULOVICZ: I had friends tell me that a message like this draws away from women’s rights issues, and it’s not the right time, or the current political climate isn’t right for this kind of message. I just don’t see why it has to be an either/or thing; it’s not a competition. Suffering should never be a competition; uplifting people should never be a competition. We should all have positive messages, and I think companies have lost track of that. You should want to uplift people in your advertisements, not lecture them or generalize an entire group.

I decided to just take a stand and do it. I spent my own money on it; I recorded it myself; I did the editing myself because it was the only way I could go about it and not be influenced by anyone – and that was important. I didn’t want to have it get pulled back, or not get the statistics out that are very real, and often sadly ignored in society.

DW: There are going to be people who say that you saw the conservative backlash to the Gillette commercial, and, knowing that a large portion of the country is right-leaning, used this as a cynical marketing ploy. What would you say to that?

SRULOVICZ: As I said before, I actually expected a negative response, not a positive one. So, I didn’t expect this to help my company necessarily. The reason I put my company behind it was because it’s easier for an individual to go out and say, "I believe in this message." It’s much more difficult for a company to do that.

Right now, I have contracts with large-scale companies, with celebrities, and for me to stand up and put out a message, I would realistically have to make sure that the message was not controversial on any level. I’m not Gillette; I don’t have that kind of backing where I can take chances.

Of course there will be people who think it’s a ploy to take advantage of the Gillette backlash. What I actually hope out of all of this is that other companies take notice, and start creating positive messages for men.

I just don’t understand why we live in a time where we have to divide each other in that way; why you have to make a controversial ad. Gillette could have easily made an incredibly positive ad for men at a time when no one wants to do that, and I believe that they would have had an amazing response.

I also think that if you want to effect change in society, you don’t do it by lecturing people, you do it by giving them a positive message, you do it by showing who the best men are. If I want to make a message that has an impact on society, am I going to do it by saying, "These are the worst of us, and some of us aren’t this, but that’s not enough" or am I going to say, "These are the best of us, and many of us are that – and to those who aren’t, this is what we can inspire people to be. This is what we represent as a gender, as a people, as a society."

DW: Is there anything we haven’t touched on that you would like to say?

SRULOVICZ: The nice thing from all of this is the response, not just from men, but from women. It’s not just men who are wanting this kind of positive message for men — there are mothers out there who have male children; there are wives who have husbands. It’s not just one group that’s affected by negativity; it’s everyone. There are so many women who stand behind positive messages for men.

The Daily Wire would like to thank Ilan Srulovicz for speaking with us about his commercial and his company.

SOURCE








Marines Hoist White Flag To Social Justice Warriors

The United States Marine Corps may have battled America’s enemies from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, but today’s Marine Corps leadership has hoisted the white flag to social justice warriors demanding the Corps continue the destructive social engineering experiments of the Obama administration.

The latest Marine Corps capitulation courtesy of Marine Corps Commandant General Robert B. Neller was on the long-contentious issue of co-ed basic training.

Our friend Elaine Donnelly, founder and president of the Center for Military Readiness, gave us the heads-up that Neller quietly announced on a Friday afternoon that for the first time in history, a platoon of fifty enlisted female recruits would be housed and trained alongside five male platoons in the 3rd Training Battalion at the Marines’ Parris Island boot camp.

If this were a good and certain to be well-received policy, it would have been trumpeted from the parapet of the Pentagon. However, since the announcement was buried on a Friday afternoon news cycle in the midst of the government shutdown controversy you can be sure that Neller and the Obama holdovers at the Pentagon knew it would not be well-received by Republicans on the Hill, the conservative national defense constituency and a White House that doesn’t need or want another Obama-era policy to defend.

According to a Marine spokesman speaking to ABC News, boot camp recruit classes typically are much smaller in the winter months.  Housing one female platoon with five male ones in the 3rd Training Battalion allows temporary de-activation of the all-female 4th Training Battalion.

The excuse was lame, at best says Elaine Donnelly.  The Marines’ Delayed Entry Program (DEP) sends new recruits to boot camp on timetables set by the needs of the service, not the weather.  Someone should find out why there aren’t enough female recruits to populate the 4th Training Battalion.  Perhaps young women are shunning recruiters because they know that once they sign up, they might be ordered into ground combat units on the same involuntary basis as men.

Officials also made the disingenuous claim that the “temporary” change would support “training efficiency.”  But within a week, Marine Corps Times reported that the female platoon co-located in the men’s training battalion “may not be the last.”

Speaking at a forum in Washington, D.C., Marine Sergeant Major Ronald Green said the service doesn’t “do things as a one-time deal.”  Green added that the intent is to give everyone “the greatest opportunity for success.”

Marine Sergeant Major Green’s “I’d like to buy the world a Coke” comment failed to recognize that boot camp is not about individual “success.”  Its mission is to transform ordinary civilians into disciplined male and female Marines.

Elaine Donnelly also noted that the Marine Corps Times article confirmed General Neller’s needless campaign to increase the percentage of female Marines from 8.9% to 10%.  That quota, unfortunately, signals that the Marines are assigning highest priority to political correctness over mission readiness and combat lethality.  The Trump Administration should revoke this and all gender diversity mandates, including the 25% quotas that still apply in in the Navy, Army, and Air Force.

Sergeant Major Green also said that assessments of the gender-mixed battalion would determine “whether it is a model the Corps should continue.”  Based on previous Pentagon practices, however, assessments of the gender-mixed battalion likely will center on sociological goals, not the primary military goal: transformation of undisciplined civilians into Marines.

Officials and media will claim that standards are “gender-neutral” and women are doing the same things as men.

Half-truths such as this in all the services, however, are misleading says Elaine Donnelly.  Under the Dempsey Rule, which Donnelly named for former Joint Chiefs Chairman General Martin Dempsey, high standards that women cannot meet are being re-evaluated, dropped, or scored differently to ensure female trainee “success.”

An example of how this works occurred last year at the Marines’ Infantry Officer Course (IOC) at Quantico, VA.  As CMR reported in 2019, only one female officer out of more than thirty had passed the IOC.  Most failed on the grueling Combat Endurance Test (CET) – the first and toughest challenge in the Infantry Officer Course conducted at Quantico, VA.

The incredibly tough CET event was designed to identify and prepare infantry officers who are capable of leading other men on the battlefield, from the front.  With uncompromising physical demands and high attrition rates, the first-day test was working to separate the best from the rest.

The system was not broken, but in November 2017, without prior notice, General Neller decided to “fix” it.  Neller changed the must-pass CET into a success-optional Combat Evaluation Test.  The acronym remains the same, but now the CET is just another evaluation data point.  Seven months later, a second female officer passed the course.

All branches of the service are struggling to make changes in basic physical fitness and combat fitness tests (PFT/CFT).  They are finding it difficult to challenge stronger men without causing disproportionate injuries among women.  Gender-normed scores are justifiable in basic, entry-level, and pre-commissioning training, but not in advanced courses qualifying personnel for the combat arms.

Donnelly says, and we agree, that controversies surrounding co-ed boot camp are only part of the larger debate about the consequences of treating men and women as if they are interchangeable in all military positions, including combat arms units such as the infantry.  This debate must include an honest re-assessment of conditions leading to sexual misconduct in the military -- a problem that eviscerates morale and readiness in America’s military, and may have roots in co-ed basic training.

In the classic military and bureaucratic imperative, promotable officers and drill instructors will do everything possible to ensure that women are happy.  Over time standards or evaluations will change without notice, and the incremental experiment will be declared successful, justifying more “progress” in the wrong direction.

We urge CHQ readers and friends to call the White House at 202-456-1111 or use this link to email the White House to let President Trump know you demand he reverse the Marine Corps destructive decision to train male and female recruits together.

SOURCE







Dying with their Rights On: The Myths and Realities of Ending Homelessness in Australia

Dr Carlos d’Abrera, psychiatrist, makes points below that extend well beyond Australia.  The problem is far from one of housing only

A growing problem or a misplaced definition?  If you were to ask the average Australian what they understand by the term ‘homeless’, the most common answer would be ‘a person who sleeps rough, and usually on the streets’.

Despite this common perception, only 7% (8200) of the 116,427 homeless persons counted nationally on census night 2016 met this definition of homelessness. This percentage is unchanged from 2011, although the numbers of people sleeping rough increased by approximately 2000 persons nationally between 2011 and 2016.

This is despite governmental spending on homelessness exceeding $817.4 million in 2016-17, an increase of 29% from $634.2 million in 2012-13. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data indicates that the total number of homeless persons has grown from 89,728 in 2006 to 116,427 in 2016 — an increase of 30% over the decade.

These inflated figures are based on a questionable official definition of homelessness adopted by the ABS in 2012 that includes the ‘housed homeless’ (such as those living in supported accommodation) and people living in overcrowded accommodation. Prior to this, a so-called ‘cultural’ definition of homelessness was used.

The revised ‘ABS definition’ worsened the apparent extent of the homelessness problem overnight. People living in severely overcrowded accommodation represent both the largest and most rapidly growing proportion of the officially homeless. Homeless rates in the other categories have remained largely unchanged over the past decade.

According to the ABS Census data, people living in severely overcrowded dwellings rose from 31,531 in 2006 to 51,088 in 2016. Most of the increase over that period is in NSW — where the jump has been from 27% to 45% of the total homeless population in that state. Overcrowding has increased most in the cities of Sydney and Melbourne where rates of net overseas migration have been the highest.

For some groups, such as recent migrants, living in crowded dwellings is a rational economic decision, while for others it may reflect cultural preferences for shared living spaces of people who would never consider themselves homeless.

‘Homelessness industry’ obscures the small subset of those most in need

It is in the interest of the ‘homelessness industry’ — the academics, charities and NGOS that undertake research, conduct advocacy, and lobby government for more taxpayerfunded spending on the alleged problems and solutions — for the numbers of homeless to be artificially high.

The orthodox understanding of the causes of homelessness promoted by the industry overemphasises the role of economic and social structures (structuralism). Solutions based on structuralist explanations — such as increasingly the supply of affordable social housing — are insufficient to reduce genuine homelessness. Such approaches dilute out those most at risk and most in need; chronic rough sleepers. They also minimise the role of, and fail to address, the individual characteristics, choices, and behaviours — especially the high rates of mental illness and drug abuse — that afflict rough sleepers.

Structural ‘solutions’ with respect to current public housing policy also exacerbate the problems they are designed to solve by maintaining people on the margins of homelessness. Breakdowns in social housing tenancies are often related to the antisocial behaviours and criminal activities associated with drug use (especially methamphetamines). While tenancy support provides an opportunity for vulnerable individuals with complex needs to maintain housing, there is too much scope for such persons to refuse support and to potentially face eviction.

Policy Recommendations: Benign and enlightened paternalism

An inverse moral panic — an ideological fear of being perceived to support ‘moralistic’ policies that violate the autonomy of rough sleepers — has paralysed our treatment of the most severely homeless in recent decades. Homelessness services have proved unable to reduce the numbers of rough sleepers because of an unwillingness to implement the necessarily assertive strategies that are required to help the most vulnerable exit the streets.

A truly compassionate community should not fail to intervene to stop the poor choices and wide range of health, social, and physical harms that are linked to the cognitive impairments — such as mental illness and substance abuse problems — that lead to rough sleeping.

To effectively reduce genuine homelessness and stop those who sleep rough on our streets from ‘dying with their rights on’, the following benign and enlightened paternalistic policies should be implemented:

* Underpinning assertive outreach programs for rough sleepers with a non-opt-out triage process to reduce non-participation and ensure those who mentally ill are referred to mental health services and treated assertively.

* Appointing public guardians to help make decisions on behalf of rough sleepers who lack decision-making capacity.

* Expanding mandatory drug treatment for individuals who are homeless or at high risk of homelessness to improve the chances of maintaining stable accommodation.

* Requiring occupants of public housing referred to mental health services to accept mandatory psychosocial support as a condition of ongoing tenancy (consistent with the principle of mutual obligation).

* Re-establishing long term institutional care facilities for that proportion of chronically homeless people, particularly those with mental illness and complex needs who would benefit from high levels of support

SOURCE  

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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20 January, 2019

Parents Versus the 'Transgender' State

Leftists seek to impose the values of their "new morality" via the heavy hand of government.

The Founding Fathers recognized the dangers inherent in government authorities using their power to abuse citizens and therefore sought to prevent and limit this probability via the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The First Amendment specifically protects every American citizen’s right to freely express themselves and live according to their beliefs.

We are now living in an era when those protections are being threatened more than ever. In their efforts to promote the rights of individuals to engage in behaviors that were once widely viewed and condemned by the cultural majority as immoral and repugnant, “social justice” activists citing “tolerance” and appealing to the First Amendment were successful in securing greater governmental protections for these fringe groups.

But having established greater governmental protections, along with a growing cultural acceptance, ironically, these same leftist “social justice” activists have now ditched tolerance and are actively working to erode those First Amendment protections they originally appealed to. Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion have now become roadblocks to their new morality agenda.

Few examples display the reality of this agenda more clearly than the actions by several states to pass laws designed to force acceptance of the new morality. Those who have suffered most under this new “inclusive” agenda include florists, cake bakers, and wedding photographers. But it has not been limited to the states. On the federal level, one of the biggest examples of First Amendment encroachment has been ObamaCare and its contraception mandate.

Now with the rise of the “transgender” movement and its celebration by leftist activists in pop culture, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is aiming to force all Americans into embracing the new “morality.” Following her state’s lead, one of Pelosi’s biggest priorities is the Equality Act, which would add sexual orientation and “gender identity” as official protected classifications under the 1964 Civil Rights Act. By doing so, both parents and the medical community would lose their First Amendment rights to object to their child’s or patient’s gender dysphoria-motivated desires. They would be forced to abide by these deluded desires or risk losing their children or medical license.

As Emilie Kao writes in The Daily Signal, “The Equality Act would expedite this trend by giving the transgender movement a powerful legal weapon to drive medical consensus that could undermine the rights of parents. As more parents wrestle with finding the most loving and helpful solutions for their children struggling with gender dysphoria, the government must support them — not undermine them. Parents must remain central to the decision-making process when it comes to the medical care of children suffering from gender dysphoria.”

SOURCE






The Left Attacks Trump’s Pick to Replace Brett Kavanaugh for Her Smart College Writings

Young conservatives, be warned: Reasonable ideas written in college—such as the notion that binge drinking can lead to dangerous consequences for young women—can and will be twisted and used against you should you be nominated for high-powered positions two and a half decades later.

That’s what’s happening to Neomi Rao, President Donald Trump’s nominee to replace Brett Kavanaugh on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and who reportedly is on the short list for the Supreme Court.

Rao, a 45-year-old Indian-American, has become the latest target of liberal activist groups and media smears, including BuzzFeed News, CNN, Mother Jones, Alliance for Justice, and Lambda Legal.

She is a brilliant legal scholar with decades of experience writing as a lawyer and law professor at George Mason University, but that’s now being overlooked because of some columns in college.

Her writings were published in the early 1990s, when Rao wrote for the Yale Free Press student newspaper as an open conservative at Yale University. She also briefly wrote for The Weekly Standard.

“'[S]he described race as a ‘hot, money-making issue,’ affirmative action as the ‘anointed dragon of liberal excess,’ welfare as being ‘for the indigent and lazy,’ and LGBT issues as part of ‘trendy’ political movements,” wrote BuzzFeed News. “On date rape, Rao wrote that if a woman ‘drinks to the point where she can no longer choose, well, getting to that point was part of her choice.’”

Reading Rao’s original work might take a significant amount of time, but the experience is worth it to see how easily a journalist with an agenda can cherry-pick the most provocative few words in a person’s long, thoughtful work.

Take the example of Rao’s 1994 op-ed in The Yale Herald, headlined “Shades of Gray,” where she did indeed write that if a woman “drinks to the point where she can no longer choose, well, getting to that point was part of her choice.”

Activist groups are twisting this line to suggest Rao believes it’s women’s fault when they get raped, but that’s not what she said at all.

Rao wrote firmly that men should be prosecuted and held responsible for rape—not once, but twice, in case the point wasn’t clear.

“A man who rapes a drunk girl should be prosecuted. At the same time, a good way to avoid a potential date rape is to stay reasonably sober,” she wrote.

Provocative, sure, but Rao’s being punished for predicting the sexual assault crisis that’s now exploded on college campuses, and for raising important questions we still haven’t solved. Do women hold any responsibility when they drink too much and consent to something they later regret? Rao concluded: 

Clearly, if the male student forced the woman to have sex against her will, then he should be held responsible. Yet the role of alcohol severely complicates the scenario. People often drink precisely so that they may limit their responsibility. They want to forget about their papers and their problems. They want to have fun, and not think so hard.

Since the case rests only upon the testimony of the students who were involved, who decides the truth? A woman makes an accusation, a man denies it. At Yale, this gives the Executive Committee another opportunity to exercise their particular brand of judgment.

More than two decades later, the U.S. Department of Education is still asking these important questions, with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos most recently working to restore the rights of those accused.

But somehow, liberal media and activist groups find these ideas unacceptable for a college student in 1994 to explore.

One side says #BelieveAllWomen, while the other wants evidence and facts. In context Rao simply asks:

Can the liberated ’90s woman freely choose whether to drink or not? Unless someone made her drinks undetectably strong or forced them down her throat, a woman, like a man, decides when and how much to drink. And if she drinks to the point where she can no longer choose, well, getting to that point was part of her choice. Implying that a drunk woman has no control of her actions, but that a drunk man does, strips woman of all moral responsibility. It creates a culture of victimization in which men are prowling and uncontrollable, and women are weak and helpless. Any self-respecting person should be troubled and offended by such ideas.

Nan Aron, president of the liberal advocacy group Alliance for Justice, which “first highlighted Rao’s college writings to BuzzFeed News,” claimed Rao’s columns were “hostile to sexual assault survivors.”

Justice Department spokesperson Kerri Kupec responded to the inflammatory allegation, telling BuzzFeed News that Rao’s contributions to her student newspaper were “intentionally provocative,” which is any good writer’s job.

Rao’s arguments were reasoned and courageous. They demonstrate her ability to raise countercultural arguments and articulate their defense—an important quality in any good judge.

Instead of punishing Rao for addressing controversial topics on college campuses, society should be doing the opposite. We should praise her for having the courage to swim against the current because, right or wrong, college is the time to explore.

And instead of writing splashy headlines about the writings of a 19-year-old, we should look at Rao’s professional record and achievements since then.

After receiving a B.A. from Yale University and a law degree from the University of Chicago, Rao clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. (A former intern at The Heritage Foundation, she recently received the think tank’s Distinguished Intern Alumni Award.)

She served in all three branches of government, then went on to found the Antonin Scalia Law School’s Center for the Study of the Administrative State at George Mason University.

Currently, Rao is serving as administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget, known as “the most important office you’ve never heard of.”

There, she oversees Trump’s ambitious deregulatory agenda. She’s respected by colleagues as a brilliant legal mind, and is considered one of the foremost experts in administrative law.

In other words, Rao is a force to be reckoned with in Washington and beyond. An Indian-American woman from Detroit, she’s an obvious threat to the those on the left.

If digging up old, provocative works from college is the worst they’ve got, Rao will sail through her confirmation hearings for the D.C. Circuit and eventually, possibly the Supreme Court.

But we learned from the Kavanaugh hearings that the left won’t stop at anything, so conservatives best come prepared. There’s no telling how low they’ll go.

SOURCE







Marking Anniversary of Religious Freedom Law, Acting AG Whitaker Laments Loss of Support From Left

In 1993, President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, signed broad consensus legislation to protect religious liberty, with support from religious conservative groups and the American Civil Liberties Union alike, which helped it sail through Congress.

Twenty-five years later, however, religious freedom has become a highly contentious issue, and many Democrats and liberal groups have sought to undermine the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said Wednesday.

Whitaker expressed regret about the shift by Democrats.

“Today, many of [the Religious Freedom Restoration Act’s] original supporters, including the ACLU, have changed their mind,” he said in remarks at The Heritage Foundation.

“In recent years, when some states have attempted to pass their own version of [the Religious Freedom Restoration Act], they have been met with bitterness and hostility,” Whitaker said. “Meanwhile, others have disregarded both the spirit and the letter of [the law]. They have tried to use the power of the state to make people choose between following their core beliefs and being ‘good citizens’ even when it is not remotely necessary.”

The 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, sponsored by then-Rep. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., cleared the House unanimously and passed the Senate 97-3, when both chambers were controlled by Democrats. It took effect in November of that year.

The law states the federal government can’t burden an individual’s exercise of religion unless it is in seeking to further a compelling public interest, and even then must do so by the least restrictive means.

Whitaker cited cases where the federal government tried to force nuns to provide contraception and of the Supreme Court ruling in favor of a Colorado baker penalized by that state for refusing to design a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.

He also noted that Democratic senators have attacked President Donald Trump’s nominees for their religious views.

“Religious freedom makes our country strong,” Whitaker said. “That is why threats to our religious freedom are also threats to our national strength.”

Under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, “religious freedom is not absolute, but is protected by the highest standards under constitutional law,” Whitaker said.  “Government is still able to fulfill its purposes, just without infringing on other people’s rights. It is a remarkable thing for a government to impose such a restraint on itself, and it is unique to the American system.”

Clinton signed the bill in a White House ceremony that had the backing of both religious conservatives and the ACLU.

“It would have been much easier for a government to disregard the cost upon individual liberty and conscience,” Whitaker said. “In all too many countries … that’s exactly what governments are currently doing. But the enactment of [the Religious Freedom Restoration Act] was a bold affirmation that religious freedom and the freedom of conscience are precious and deserving of protection—even if it makes things a little harder for the government.”

Whitaker noted the efforts the Trump administration has made to defend the first freedom of the First Amendment.

Trump’s Justice Department has obtained 14 indictments and 10 convictions in cases involving attacks on, or threats against, houses of worship and individuals based on religion. It also secured 50 hate crime indictments and 30 convictions regarding attacks on people based on their religion. 

Further, the administration defended parents in Montana who claim that the state barred their children from a private school scholarship program because they attend a religiously affiliated school.

The administration filed five amicus briefs in cases alleging religious discrimination in local zoning laws that included cases on behalf of a Hindu temple and a Catholic church, Whitaker noted. The administration is also defending the constitutionality of a World War I memorial in the shape of a cross in Maryland.

Those are among the issues that Whitaker said he has worked closely on, first as chief of staff for then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions and then as acting attorney general.

“Religious liberty and the rule of law are two subjects that [Attorney General] Sessions felt passionate about,” Whitaker told The Daily Signal in an interview after his remarks. “When I came in, I personally drove some of these cases to conclusion.”

If you notice, some of these cases were resolved in October and November, and it’s because I came in and knew how important these were, and really drove them to conclusion. I feel really strongly about this.

I take great pride [in], and very seriously, our obligations under [the Religious Freedom Restoration Act] and protecting all people of faith from undue burdens of the federal government. I hope it continues under Attorney General [nominee William] Barr, and I expect it will. 

Congress took up the Religious Freedom Restoration Act legislation after the 1990 Supreme Court ruling in the case of Employment Division v. Smith seemed to be overly broad in addressing a lawsuit by an employee fired for ingesting the hallucinogenic drug peyote while at work.

The court ruled the employee could not claim the right to do so as a practice of his Native American religion.

During the 1993 bill-signing ceremony, Clinton said, “It is interesting to note … what a broad coalition of Americans came together … to protect perhaps the most precious of all American liberties, religious freedom.”

Then-Vice President Al Gore also spoke, saying, “When you have the National Association of Evangelicals and the ACLU … we’re doing something right.”

“The country was very different 25 years ago,” Heritage Foundation President Kay Coles James said at Wednesday’s event with Whitaker. “A coalition from across the ideological spectrum, including everyone from Nadine Strossen of the ACLU and Mike Farris, who is now the CEO of Alliance Defending Freedom, came together to bolster freedoms that were limited by an unfortunate Supreme Court decision. …

“Boy, have times changed. I wish we could get that kind of bipartisan support today for something that is so important, like this. The political left has actively worked to undercut our freedoms,” she said.

James cited attempts by government to force religious institutions and even pro-life groups to pay for abortion-inducing drugs, and forcing small businesses to act contrary to their religious values. 

Whitaker cited the Founders’ vision for religious freedom; namely, that of Thomas Jefferson.

“On his tombstone, it does not say he served as president of the United States,” Whitaker said of Jefferson. “It says three things, that he authored the Declaration of Independence, that he founded the University of Virginia, and that he authored the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.”

It was James Madison who championed the religious freedom statute in the Virginia Legislature. 

“Within a few years, Madison became the father of the Constitution and the author of the First Amendment,” Whitaker added. “Jefferson, Madison, and the rest of the Founders took great care to protect the rights of religious people in this country, and we look back now, and we can see why: because religious freedom has made this country stronger.”

SOURCE







Forward: The publication for self-hating Jews is folding

Go woke, go broke applies to non-profits too. Does this mean we'll see fewer Forward articles like, "Why We Should Applaud The Politician Who Said Jews Control The Weather"?

The Forward is stopping — its print editions.

Not really news. Nobody has looked at a print copy of The Forward's deranged anti-Semitic ravings in years. I didn't even know they still had one.

The storied Jewish-American publication is suspending its print operations and plans to lay off about 40 percent of its editorial staff — including Editor-in-Chief Jane Eisner — while moving to digital-only.

The Forward hasn't been Jewish since Eisner decided to dump the "Jewish" part some years back while transitioning the paper from lefty politics to explicitly anti-Semitic politics.

Eisner's departure is the best news in a while, but there's no doubt that she'll land securely somewhere else in the mediacracy.

“We are announcing that this spring The Forward will complete its evolution from what was once a print-focused publisher to become a digitally focused publication.”

So it'll just be a blog now.

“The revenue is not really there,” said a source. “They’ve been losing money for years but lately the losses have been more than $5 million a year.”

The publication is owned by The Forward Association, a not-for-profit whose endowment swelled to more than $100 million when the association sold its former headquarters on the Lower East Side as well as the radio station WEVD.

WEVD once provided Jewish programming. The headquarters was turned into condos.

What exactly is The Forward Association doing with all that money, except paying staffers to defend anti-Semitism and spew hatred?

Good question.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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18 January, 2019

American Academy of Pediatrics Says No More Spanking or Harsh Verbal Discipline

Many of the major medical journals have come to resemble the global warming literature, with its low level of scholarship and determination to push an ideological agenda.  It is quite depressing.  Anyway, the latest heap of crap is below.  I follow the official pronunciamento with the abstract of the only study they refer to in support of their claims. So I will confine my comments to that study.

The study is a typical Leftist bit of over-simplification that totally ignores individual differences.  All men are equal so everybody must have the same disciplinary regime, apparently.  The idea that what works for one kid may not work for another cannot be entertained. My father never laid a hand on me and I never laid a hand on my son but that doesn't persuade me into thinking that you can bring up all kids that way.  Some kids really "try it on" and need some sort of physical discipline to enforce guidelines. I remember a dear little boy who was a real horror in his very permissive home but who was always an angel at my place because I once twisted his ear.

Just talking to defiant kids they despise. They think you are weak.   Without discipline they will almost certainly go into some sort of crime later on in life.  The little boy I mentioned above had a very rough teenagerhood but he eventually learned to follow the rules and is now doing very well. Luckily he was quite bright.

So the averages may be as reported below but what was behind the averages is far more important.  Clearly, some kids received discipline but still came out OK but we are told nothing about them.

Moreover, it was only the father’s high-frequency spanking at age 5 that was associated with less desirable outcomes.  What about lower frequency spanking?  That was apparently OK.  So, if you read the details in the article, spanking seems to be no problem.  It is only "high frequency" spanking that should be deplored.  What a laugh!  As is so often the case in science, the authors concluded what they wanted to conclude -- rather than what their results show.  I saw that frequently in my research career.


The largest professional organization for US pediatricians is taking a strict stance against parents, caregivers, and other adults using spanking, hitting, or slapping to discipline children. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recently released an updated policy statement on corporal punishment—the first major revise since 1998—based on accumulating evidence that physical punishments don’t work in the long-term and could even cause unintended harms. The policy also recommends against verbal discipline that causes shame or humiliation.

Robert Sege, MD, PhD, the policy’s coauthor and a pediatrician at the Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, recently spoke with JAMA about the AAP’s position on corporal punishment and how physicians can help parents discipline more safely and effectively. The following is an edited version of that conversation.

JAMA:What’s the AAP’s new policy on corporal punishment?

Dr Sege:First, parents should not use corporal punishment, including hitting and spanking, either in anger or as punishment. And, also, they shouldn’t use verbal punishment that causes shame or humiliation.

JAMA:What’s different about this policy statement?

Dr Sege:The 1998 statement discouraged parents from spanking their children and suggested that pediatricians help parents not to spank their children, but it was a little wishy-washy. What’s happened in the 20 years since then is that the data has really been overwhelming about how corporal punishment is ineffective and how it’s potentially risky. Parenting is a very personal thing and, of course, parents make their own decisions about how they want to raise their children. Our feeling at the American Academy of Pediatrics is that the role of doctors is to give parents the best evidence-informed guidance that we possibly can with which to make their decisions. And all of what we know says parents should never hit their children.

JAMA:What do recent studies tell us about the effectiveness of spanking and other physical discipline?

Dr Sege:A meta-analysis of a large number of studies showed that corporal punishment doesn’t work. It doesn’t cause children to change their own behavior, certainly not in the medium- or long-term. There were small studies that had mediocre study quality that showed that there’s a temporary change in a child’s behavior. But, of course, what parents want is to change the children’s behavior over the longer-term.

JAMA:What do we know about the consequences of corporal punishment on children?

Dr Sege:There are 3 main kinds of consequences. The first is that it increases their aggressive behavior and causes them more problems in school and with their parents. In the largest study of its kind—a longitudinal study that followed children over several years—children who were spanked had more problematic and aggressive behavior [later]. Corporal punishment often led to a vicious cycle, where the children became more oppositional as they experienced corporal punishment, causing their behavior to get worse. [The association between spanking and higher levels of aggression and rule-breaking remained after child and family characteristics were controlled for, including earlier behavior problems and mother’s parenting stress.]

SOURCE

Spanking and Child Development Across the First Decade of Life

Michael J. MacKenzie et al.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To examine the prevalence of maternal and paternal spanking of children at 3 and 5 years of age and the associations between spanking and children’s externalizing behavior and receptive vocabulary through age 9.

METHODS: The Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study, a longitudinal birth cohort study of children in 20 medium to large US cities, was used. Parental reports of spanking were assessed at age 3 and 5, along with child externalizing behavior and receptive vocabulary at age 9 (N = 1933). The data set also included an extensive set of child and family controls (including earlier measures of the child outcomes).

RESULTS: Overall, 57% of mothers and 40% of fathers engaged in spanking when children were age 3, and 52% of mothers and 33% of fathers engaged in spanking at age 5. Maternal spanking at age 5, even at low levels, was associated with higher levels of child externalizing behavior at age 9, even after an array of risks and earlier child behavior were controlled for. Father’s high-frequency spanking at age 5 was associated with lower child receptive vocabulary scores at age 9.

CONCLUSIONS: Spanking remains a typical rearing experience for American children. These results demonstrate negative effects of spanking on child behavioral and cognitive development in a longitudinal sample from birth through 9 years of age.

SOURCE






Procter & Gamble's Toxic Sanctimony

It's a truly amazing destruction of a brand by its own management. It will go down in marketing history. Two minutes that ruined a company. One would expect that the management are a green new generation but the key executives are in fact all no spring chickens.  I guess they just want to be hailed as virtuous in their old age.  Their ego is destroying their company

One of the world's most successful brands committed ideological hara-kiri this week. Recognized around the world as a symbol of manly civility for more than a century, Gillette will now be remembered as the company that did itself in by sacrificing a massive consumer base at the altar of progressivism.

To which I say: R.I.P.-C. (Rest In Political Correctness).

In case you hadn't seen or heard, parent company Procter & Gamble launched a Gillette ad campaign blanket-demonizing men as ogres and bullies. Guilt-ridden actors gaze ruefully at their reflections in the mirror — not because they've neglected their hygiene, but simply because they're men. Various scenarios of boys being boors and males being monsters flash across the screen before woke interlocutors show how "real" men behave in nonaggressive, conciliatory and apologetic ways.

At home and at work, in the boardroom, on the playground, and even while barbecuing in the backyard, Gillette sees nothing but testosterone-driven trouble. Message: Y chromosomes are toxic. The "best a man can get" can no longer be attained without first renouncing oppressive manliness.

Self-improvement must begin with self-flagellation.

A Gillette company statement explained that after "taking a hard look at our past" and "reflecting on the types of men and behaviors we want to celebrate," officials decided to "actively challenge the stereotypes and expectations of what it means to be a man everywhere you see Gillette."

But Proctor & Gamble, which bought Gillette in 2005 for $57 billion, doesn't spell out which part exactly of the 118-year-old company's past it now rejects. Was it founder King Gillette, the relentless entrepreneur who appealed to "red-blooded" young American soldiers? Was it the decades of multimillion-dollar promotional campaigns catering to physically superior athletes?

Or perhaps the mau-mauing marketers have adopted the radical feminist position that shaving itself is sexist. Is the ultimate goal to undermine the very raison d'etre of the $15 billion shave care industry?

I ask only half in jest. How else to explain this latest suicidal episode of collective consumer-shaming? Gillette's two-minute, man-bashing missive may have racked up 7 million views on YouTube, but the "dislikes" outnumber "likes" by 4 to 1.

And the reviews are brutal:

"How to destroy your company in 1 minute 48 seconds."

"Companies attempting to make profit should stick to that."

"The single male is the most attacked maligned ridiculed and forgotten person in today's society."

"You can buy High Quality Razors that are NOT Gillette at the 99 Cents Store with NO lecturing on how to be a Man."

"I'll buy P&G products again when I see them release an equivalent ad targeting negative female traits: toxic femininity/paternity fraud/fake accusations... doubt that's going to happen any time soon!"

"So now Gillette thinks that it is the arbiter of what all men should think, say, and watch. Screw Gillette, bought their products for almost 50 years, I will never buy another Gillette product. NEVER!!!"

"Thank you Gillette, I purchased your razors and chopped off my testicles with it. No more toxic masculinity!"

Ouch.

You may remember that P&G, which I un-fondly refer to Protest & Grumble, has dipped its sanctimonious toe into social justice waters before. In 2017, the company tackled identity politics with a video called "The Talk." The preachy ad stoked fear and hatred of police and perpetuated racial stereotypes of officers lurking around every corner waiting to pounce on innocent black children and teenagers — alienating law enforcement families across the country and insulting every minority cop to boot.

The backlash against that ad apparently didn't faze Protest & Grumble's activist zealots. Once again, industry marketers are proving they're not satisfied with selling useful products people want and need. No, they're hell-bent on exploiting successful businesses to cram odious politics down consumers' throats.

Like many Silicon Valley giants (hello, Facebook and Twitter) and SJW-hijacked sports enterprises (hello, NFL and ESPN), Gillette is now openly discriminating against its consumers-turned-critics to curry political favor with the #MeToo movement. Savvy social media observers caught the company throttling negative comments and dislikes on its YouTube video. They can manipulate likes and de-platform dissenters. But they won't be able to disguise the bloodletting effect of toxic sanctimony on their bottom line.

Falling on your virtue-signaling blade may win you awards and headlines, but ultimately, it's a fatal proposition.

SOURCE






Christian Baker Jack Phillips’ New Legal Battle with Colorado Is a Matter of Fairness

Most of us understand the importance of fairness early in life. Whether it’s an umpire’s call in Little League or a teacher’s grading in elementary school, we all intuitively know that fairness is a big deal.

But fairness perhaps is no more important than when our rights are in the hands of courts or other government tribunals. It’s there that we expect not only actual fairness but the appearance of fairness.

That seems reasonable enough. Now imagine that your freedom was on the line. You spent decades building your career, and the government threatens to take it away because of how you practice your faith.

You’re confident in your arguments, but your case is placed before a court that the highest court in the land just said was hostile to your beliefs. You wouldn’t feel very good about your chances, would you? The assurance of fairness would be missing. The legitimacy of the whole process is called into question.

“No worries,” the court tells you, “we have some new judges since we punished you a few years ago.”

That’s supposed to make you feel better, but you dig a little deeper and find that the current judges opposed your appeal in the earlier case. “Well, that’s not a good sign,” you think, but you try to stay optimistic.

Then you learn that the old and new judges alike were selected by the same person. And his selection pool included many judges with ties to an advocacy group that firmly opposed you in your first case. Not feeling too hopeful at this point, huh?

If all this weren’t bad enough, you finally learn that one of the current judges called you a “hater.” Would you believe that you have a fair shot at justice? Not a chance.

But that’s exactly what is happening to Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop. It’s not what you’d consider a picture of justice in action.

The state of Colorado, through the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, an administrative agency that operates as part prosecutor and part jury, punished Phillips a few years ago.

His crime? He could not in good conscience design a wedding cake celebrating a same-sex marriage. He offered to sell the same-sex couple anything else in his shop or to create a different cake for them, but that wasn’t enough for the state of Colorado.

For six years, Phillips defended himself. And just when he began to wonder if all was lost, the Supreme Court intervened this past June and condemned the Colorado Civil Rights Commission for acting with “impermissible hostility” toward his faith.

That hostility consisted in large part of the commission’s unequal treatment of Phillips. While it allowed other bakeries and cake shops like his to refuse to make cakes with religious messages opposing same-sex marriage, it punished Phillips for declining to create a cake celebrating same-sex marriage.

There’s nothing fair about that.

But the hostility didn’t stop with the discriminatory treatment. It extended to commissioners who made hostile statements about Phillips. One referred to his plea for religious freedom as a “despicable piece of rhetoric.” And another took to Twitter to declare: “Freedom OF religion does NOT mean freedom FOR YOUR religion.”

With this sentiment running rampant on the commission, is it any wonder that less than a month after the Supreme Court denounced the state’s hostility, it was targeting Phillips again?

This time, his supposed crime is declining to create a custom cake with a blue and pink design that the attorney who requested it said would reflect and celebrate a gender transition. But Phillips doesn’t believe that people can choose or change their sex.

So the message of that design was not something he could express through his cake art. But Masterpiece Cakeshop told the attorney that Phillips would be glad to create a different cake if the attorney was interested in that.

Even so, the commission has launched another administrative prosecution against Phillips. Oh, but this time he’ll get a fair process, the state says, because the commissioners who made the hostile comments are gone.

The problem is, the state’s unequal treatment continues. It still allows other cake shops to decline to create cakes that express messages they consider objectionable, but insists on punishing Phillips when he does the same thing. The same unfair treatment that the Supreme Court just condemned is present in this new case.

Colorado’s claim that new commissioners are involved doesn’t begin to tell the half of it. All the current commissioners, except one, represented the state in defending the first order punishing Phillips. So even though they might not have been the ones who initially forced him to give up his wedding business, they are the ones who fought to keep that punishment in place.

Also of note, the same person—former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper—put the past and current commissioners in their positions. And one of the governor’s favorite groups to draw commissioners from is One Colorado—an outspoken critic of Phillips during his first case.

One of the commissioners presiding over the new case publicly serves with the National LGBTQ Task Force, another group that openly opposed Phillips the first time around.

Any hope for salvaging a semblance of fairness fades to black when a Twitter rant shows that another current commissioner referred to Phillips as a “hater.”

Fairness for Phillips, under these circumstances, is a mirage—a hopeless fantasy.

Anyone who suggests otherwise should honestly ask themselves a simple question: “Would you feel confident in the neutrality of those decision-makers if they held your fate in their hands?”

To ask the question is to answer it.

So no matter what you think about Phillips, his religious beliefs, or his desire to live them out in the public square, I hope we all can agree that he is entitled to something we’ve all sought since our earliest years—fairness. He can’t get that before this commission, a biased government agency that has targeted him for years.

Because of that, Phillips filed a lawsuit against Colorado in federal court through his attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom, seeking to stop the state’s renewed efforts to punish him. The federal court saw enough of the problems to deny the state’s request to dismiss the suit.

State officials’ ongoing “disparate treatment” of Phillips reveals their “hostility towards Phillips, which is sufficient to establish they are pursuing the discrimination charges against Phillips in bad faith, motivated by Phillips’… religion … ,” the court wrote in its order Jan. 4.

Jack Phillips serves all customers, and he is even happy to serve the attorney who lodged the complaint against him. But he doesn’t create custom cakes that express messages or celebrate events in conflict with his deeply held beliefs.

Because he can’t get a fair shake before the state commission, he deserves to pursue—and ultimately win—his case in federal court. That will finally free him to live his life according to his beliefs, free from government coercion, just as the First Amendment promises.

SOURCE






Part-Aboriginal journalist says Australia Day reminds her that her sisters and mother are 'more likely to get raped' than are white Australians

She is perfectly right.  They are more likely to get raped BY OTHER ABORIGINES.  The incidence of crimes against women in Aboriginal communities is colossal.  Most domestic violence in Australia traces to Aboriginal communities

The woman is just a Leftist grievance-monger.  She has so little Aboriginal ancestry that no-one would take her for one.  She has no Aboriginal features at all



The network's new entertainment reporter weighed in on the debate surrounding the divisive public holiday while appearing on the Today show on Thursday, starting a fiery conversation by saying Australia is 'the best country in the world, no doubt'. 

'But I can't separate the 26th of January from the fact that my brothers are more likely to go to jail than school, or that my little sisters and my mum are more likely to be beaten and raped than anyone else's sisters or mum,' she said.

'And that started from that day. For me it's a difficult day and I don't want to celebrate it. Any other day of the year I will tie an Australian flag around my neck and run through the streets with anyone else.'

Ms Boney's comments were challenged by Today sports presenter Tony Jones, who asked: 'But why should any other day be different to the January 26?'

'Because that's the day that it changed for us. That's sort of the beginning of what some people would say is the end. That's the turning point,' Ms Boney replied.

'I don't want to tell anyone what they should be doing. [But] my view is move it to the day of federation - chuck on another public holiday, or just celebrate it on another day. But I think a day that suits more people is probably going to be more uniting.' 

Today co-host Georgie Gardner then pointed to Indigenous communities living without electricity and running water, in 'horrific third world conditions'.

Mr Jones responded: 'I don't doubt that whatsoever. But I'm sorry, we do see white Australians in similar situations - we do see kids going to school with lunch - without a school uniform.' 

Ms Boney, 31, interjected and argued that 'statistics tell us our lives are harder.'  

'That's not me making it up or saying feel sorry for me, because I don't want anyone to feel sorry to me. What I'm talking to are the statistics,' she said.

'That's what I said to you about my brother's being more likely to go to jail - our lives being harder. For it to be a ''us and them'' thing, I think that's why we are talking about it changing.'

Deborah Knight applauded the panel for having a 'grown up conversation' about the issue, before Ms Gardner thanked Ms Boney for her insight.

The discussion sparked a fierce debate among viewers, with many suggesting changing the date wouldn't improve the lives of Indigenous Australians.

'Seriously stupid by you today,' former Liberal MP Dennis Jensen wrote to Ms Boney in a since deleted tweet. 'Seriously, neither schools nor gaols existed prior settlement. And as for violence and rape only starting with settlement... speak to anthropologists about Indigenous violence pre-settlement, it was endemic.' 

Another viewer said: 'I don't see that changing the date will have any affect on aboriginal men going to jail or aboriginal women being raped. 'These are terrible acts and I wish things were different but they are not connected to January 26.'

Another asked: 'How will changing the date help her brothers and sisters?'

Others praised Ms Boney and suggested Australia was 'comfortably racist'. 'Brooke Boney smashing it as usual on a hard to talk about topic. Best thing to happen to the Today show,' one noted.

'Brooke just made more sense than anyone else I’ve heard talk about this issue. Maybe I could be persuaded to change my view,' another said.

SOURCE 

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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17 January, 2019

Australian psychologists are down on "Traditional Masculinity" too

The most substantial piece of evidence from Australia for the criticisms is the "Man Box" study mentioned below.  It is a colourfully presented "report", not a refereed academic journal article.  And that shows.  It is not as bad as some such reports in that some care was taken with the sampling and conventional statistical significance was observed but it is basically crap.  Let me say in detail why:

For a start, no factor analysis of the questions asked is offered.  So is there in fact such a thing as a "man box"?  We do not know.  A strong first eigenvector would have reassured us but we are not told of one.  I once did a survey of allegedly female attitudes (The BSRI) which found the attitudes concerned not to be characteristic of Australian females.  They were not sex-polarized at all. So are we sure that the man box attitudes are in fact characteristic of Australian male attitudes?  We cannot assume it. Were there similar attitudes among women?

And including the man box questions within a larger survey was not done.  Doing so might have revealed that the questions had a larger identity.  For instance, many of the questions seem to me to be rather like assertiveness questions, and assertiveness is usually praised.  There certainly should have been some attempt to distinguish the "bad" man box questions from assertiveness.   Could some man box attitudes be good?

And the selection of man box attitudes was also tendentious.  Traditional male attitudes do for instance include courtesy towards women.  To this day I hold car doors open for women but that is only a trivial thing.  There is also a strong traditional male inhibition against hitting women, for instance.  Feminists are much concerned about domestic violence so should they encourage traditional male attitudes of courtesy and restraint towards women?  Nothing like that was examined in the survey, funnily enough.

And what about the traditional male attitude that self-sacrifice is noble?  What about the times when men have sacrificed themselves to save women -- in an emergency situation such as a sinking ship?  Is that noble or foolish?  Sane women would hope it is noble but there is no mention of such nobility in the man box.  The whole conception of the man box is thoroughly bigoted from the get-go.

But the most deplorable omission in the research is a complete failure to apply any demographic controls.  They apparently had demographic data but did not use it to segment their sample.  One does wonder why.  Were the results of such segmentation too embarrassing?  Were man box attitudes almost exclusively working class for instance?  From my own extensive background in survey research, I suspect it.  I always looked at demographic correlates of the attitudes I examined and social class variables were often significant.

And one social class variable that they would have avoided studying at all costs is the dreaded IQ.  Yet IQ is powerfully correlated with an amazing array of other variables.  In this case it could even explain some male/female differences. Why, for instance, do men on average die earlier than women?  The research below says it is because of their bad male attitudes but there is another explanation. Male IQ is more variable than female IQ.  There are more brilliant males but also more spectacularly dumb males.  And, for various reasons, IQ is significantly correlated with health.  So it is likely that most of the males who die young were simply dumb.  They did more silly and dangerous things, for instance.

All in all the report is just a piece of feminist propaganda designed to fool the general public.  I am guessing that they had no expectation that it might come under the scrutiny of an experienced survey researcher


Traditional masculinity has been labelled “harmful” in a major move by a health body, linked with high rates of suicide and violence.

The American Psychological Association released a report last week, citing more than 40 years of research on the issue of “masculine ideology” — a step praised by Australian experts.

“Traditional masculinity ideology has been shown to limit males’ psychological development, constrain their behaviour, result in gender role strain and gender role conflict and negatively influence mental health and physical health,” it said.

Increasingly referred to as “toxic masculinity”, traditional ideals surrounding manhood are usually toughness, aggression, a suppression of emotion, dominance and stoicism.

Queensland University of Technology sociologist Michael Flood said some of the ways boys are raised can have “significant costs” for the community.

Across the country today, an estimated six men will take their own lives — three times the number of women to die by suicide.

“There’s growing recognition that norms of masculinity in many ways are limiting for men themselves,” Dr Flood told news.com.au.

“Going along with traditional masculine beliefs increases the risk of suicide — there have been studies to indicate that. If you think being a man means not asking for help or not showing pain, being a John Wayne character and going it alone, you can’t cope when things are hard.”

Traditional masculinity has a place in a number of scenarios, Dr Flood said, where a number of those qualities can be very useful. “Being tough and stoic are exactly the qualities you need if you’re fighting a fire or something like that, but once it’s over, you need other qualities,” he said.

“Some of those men (without) are poorer at some of the qualities that many people recognise are important in contemporary relationships — communication, emotional expression.”

There’s growing recognition in the fields of men’s mental health, education and the prevention of violence against women and children that “the norms of masculinity” can be harmful.

“Unless we tackle this, we’ll continue to see large numbers of men turning up in hospitals, being assaulted, committing suicide, and suffering in silence and so on,” Dr Flood said.

Criticisms from some segments of the community that the discussion about toxic masculinity is an attack on men are unfounded, he said.

“We need to distinguish between men and masculinity. The attack on the narrow messaging is not an attack on men. This is driven by a concern for men.”

Dr Flood was involved in the groundbreaking Man Box study last year, which found that young Australian men who oversubscribe to traditional notion of masculinity had poorer health and wellbeing outcomes.

“We also found that many of them have poorer relationships with others and were more likely to be involved in violence,” he said.

Of those surveyed — a cohort of 1000 men aged 18 to 30 — 69 per cent felt society expected them to act strong and 56 per cent felt being a man meant never saying no to sex.

Another 36 per cent agreed that society pressures them to shun friendships with gay men and 38 per cent thought boys shouldn’t learn how to cook and clean.

SOURCE 






I’m so sick of this war on masculinity and I’m not alone - with their pathetic man-hating ad, Gillette have just destroyed their  brand

Piers Morgan

Yesterday, the American Psychological Association released a set of guidelines that condemned traditional masculinity as ‘harmful.’

Specifically, it stated that male traits like ‘stoicism’, ‘competitiveness’, ‘achievement’, ‘eschewal of the appearance of weakness’, ‘adventure’, and ‘risk’ are bad and should be expunged.

I literally choked on my bacon-and-sausage sandwich (my contribution to Veganuary) when I read this absurd load of PC-crazed bilge.

It’s basically saying that it’s wrong, and harmful, to be masculine, to be a man.

Not having it: Instead of saying 'boys will be boys,' a dad stops his son from fighting with another little boy     +3
It’s been a very bad week for men. First the American Psychological Association released a set of guidelines that condemned traditional masculinity. Then came this dreadful, virtue signalling Gillette ad

As David French, a writer for the National Review, put it in his withering response to the report: ‘The assault on traditional masculinity – while liberating to men who don’t fit traditional norms – is itself harmful to the millions of young men who seek to be physically and mentally tough, to rise to challenges, and demonstrate leadership under pressure. The assault on traditional masculinity is an assault on their very natures. Are boys disproportionately adventurous? Are they risk-takers? Do they feel a need to be strong? Do they often by default reject stereotypically ‘feminine’ characteristics? Yes, yes, yes and yes.’

Exactly.

I’ve got three sons and a daughter. My siblings have eight girls and a boy between them. So I’ve had plenty of experience watching all 13 of these children (their ages range from two to 25) grow up.

And here’s a cast-iron fact for you: girls are very different to boys. They think differently, behave differently, dress differently, emote differently, and have markedly different characteristics.

Anyone who’s actually had kids knows this. Yet somehow, it’s become offensive to say it out loud.

The incessant poisonous war on gender has culminated in the very word ‘man’ being decried as an abusive term, to the extent that Princeton University actually issued a ridiculous four-page memo instructing students to only use gender-neutral language.

Even the word ‘mankind’ had to be replaced by ‘humankind’.  I’m not joking: Princeton literally wanted to end mankind.

But it turns out that the American Psychological Association’s disgraceful report wasn’t even the worst attack on men this week. No, that inglorious honour falls to razor company Gillette.

For 30 years, the company has used the tagline ‘The best a man can get’ to persuade people like me to part with large sums of money for their expensive shaving blades and foam.

Its commercials have unashamedly celebrated men and masculinity. You watch them and feel good about being male.

Not just because they make you aspire to be a winner and successful achiever, but because they also encourage you to be a good father, son, husband and friend.

As a result of this consistently upbeat and positive marketing style, Gillette has grown into the most successful razor firm in history, generating annual sales of $6 billion a year.

I’ve bought Gillette products for three decades. In fact, only yesterday I spent over $150 stocking up on its latest range of Gillette blades and foam.

I didn’t do so because their stuff is any better than their main competitors. I’ve tried them all and it’s not. I did so because I like Gillette’s brand and what I thought it stood for, and the company’s never done anything to p*ss me off.

Then I saw its new commercial, a short film entitled ‘Believe’, which has a new tagline: ‘The best men can be’.

And I suddenly realised Gillette isn’t the brand I thought it was at all. Gone is the celebration of men.

In its place is an ugly, vindictive two-minute homage to everything that’s bad about men and masculinity.

The film asks ‘Is this the best a man can get’ before flashing up images alluding to sexual harassment, sexist behaviour, the #MeToo movement, bullying and toxic masculinity.

Interspersed is a patronising series of educational visual entreaties about what men should in various unpleasant situations.

The subliminal message is clear: men, ALL men, are bad, shameful people who need to be directed in how to be better people. It’s one of the most pathetic, virtue-signalling things I’ve ever endured watching.

Gillette said the purpose of the ad was to urge men to hold each other ‘accountable’ for bad behaviour.

Right, because the one thing that’s not happening right now in the world is men being held accountable for bad behaviour!

It’s one of the most pathetic, virtue-signalling things I’ve ever endured watching. The ad shows one man stopping his friend as he catcalls a woman who is walking by

Jeez, it’s hard to think of a single minute of any day where men aren’t being summarily hung, drawn and quartered somewhere for alleged bad behaviour – their careers and lives destroyed.

Not in most cases through due process in a court of law, but often on the mere say-so of a Facebook post by an angry ex-girlfriend making allegations that may or may not be true.

I don’t seek to diminish the importance of the #MeToo campaign which has shone an important and long overdue light on completely unacceptable sexual harassment, bullying and abuse.

But why should all men be tarred with the same monstrous brush in the way this Gillette campaign sets out to do?

If I made a commercial aimed at female customers predicated on the generalised notion that women are liars, cheats, psychopaths and murderers (such women exist: I’ve interviewed many of them for my Killer Women crime series) and so every woman has to be taught how not to be those things, all hell would break loose and rightly so.

As always with this kind of furore, the joy of radical feminists on social media at such man-hating nonsense is only matched by the pitiful hypocrisy of certain men racing to virtue-signal their support for them and lambast any man like me who objects.

To sum up this hypocrisy, I received a tweet today from a man named Jeffrey Reddick.

‘Gillette isn’t saying men and masculinity are bad,’ he wrote. ‘Toxic masculinity is when we teach boys that real men don’t cry. Real men don’t show fear. Real men don’t lose. Real men take what they want. Real men solve problems with their fists. It is toxic and it damages men and women.’

Fine words from a man desperate for women to think he’s on THEIR side against supposedly horrible toxic masculine men like ME.

Well yes, until you realise this is the same Jeffrey Reddick who boasts on his Twitter profile that he makes ‘scary movies’.

Oh, he certainly does! Jeffrey created the hugely successful Final Destination horror franchise, making himself a very rich man by shamelessly and gratuitously glorifying the slashing, stabbing, shooting, incineration, strangulation and dismemberment of myriad women.

I wonder if that’s what Jeffrey thinks ‘real men’ should be doing to cement their caring, sharing, sensitive, female-friendly credentials?

He’s not the biggest hypocrite here, though. There’s only one thing Gillette really wants to achieve with this new campaign, and that’s to emasculate the very men it has spent 30 years persuading to be masculine.

As one male customer’s Twitter response, that quickly went viral, said: ‘Just used a Gillette razor blade to cut off my testicles. No more toxic masculinity for me. Thanks Gillette!’

He was not alone in his fury.  Many users expressed their fury at the new commercial

The YouTube version of the ad has been watched millions of times but attracted ten times as many ‘dislikes’ as ‘likes’, fast turning ‘Believe’ into one of the least popular commercials in US history.

Gillette – which believes so much in women’s rights that it has just two women on its board of nine directors - thought it was being clever by tapping into the radical feminist assault on men and masculinity.

In fact, it was being unutterably dumb. By telling its male customers we’re basically all a bunch of uneducated, vile, sexist, harassing predators, they’ve jumped the shark in an unforgivable way.

I for one won’t use Gillette razors again until they withdraw this terrible commercial and formally apologise for their man-hating bullsh*t. I suspect I am not alone.

SOURCE







Australia Day SHOULD be on January 26: Nearly 80 per cent of voters are against changing the date because of Aboriginal sensitivities

Leftist agitators are trying to destroy a patriotic holiday but the people are not having it

An overwhelming majority of Australians continue to reject calls for the country's national day to be moved from January 26, according to new polls.

Polling commissioned by the Institute of Public Affairs, a conservative think-tank, showed just 10 per cent of 1,000 people surveyed want to change the date of Australia Day.

Young Australians were even less welcoming to the idea of moving the date from January 26, which many indigenous Australians view as Invasion Day.   

'Only eight per cent of young people between the ages of 18 and 24 say Australia Day should not be celebrated on 26 January,' the IPA's Dr Bella d'Abrera said.

'[It] proves that despite the media and political left narrative, young people are not drawn to the divisive argument of opposing our national day.'

A separate poll of 1,659 people, conducted by conservative lobby group Advance Australia, found 78 per cent of those surveyed were proud to celebrate Australia Day on January 26.

'The results are in - January 26 is not a day for division and protest, but rather a day for all Australians to celebrate,' the group's National Director, Gerard Benedet, said.

Ten days out from Australia Day, the Greens have offered to host citizenship ceremonies on behalf of local councils who refuse to hold events on January 26 out of respect for indigenous people.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison plans to force councils to hold ceremonies on Australia Day and enforce a strict dress code at official events in an attempt to preserve the date.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has declared he will never move the date of Australia Day if he becomes prime minister. Mr Shorten also said he had no desire to be the 'fashion police' telling people what they could wear at citizenship ceremonies.

'I just think we've got to leave the politics alone, catch up with our family and friends, and on Australia Day my wish is for all Australians to realise what a great country we live in,' he told the Nine Network on Wednesday.

The opposition leader refused to buy into the Greens' idea on citizenship ceremonies. 'Some days I'd like to put the Greens with Tony Abbott and a few of the right-wing in the Liberal Party in the same room, tell them to sort it out, and the rest of us can just get on and cook a snag on the barbie,' Mr Shorten said.

'What happens in Australian politics is sometimes the extremes - because they say radical things - grab a headline.  'I'm not going to get distracted by that - the Greens can say or do what they want - Labor is not going to go down that path.

'We're not going to have big political debates about the day of Australia Day.'

Health Minister Greg Hunt is confident the vast majority of people support Australia Day. 'It celebrates what we are as a contemporary nation and this game that's played out every year is simply a diversion and self-serving,' Mr Hunt said.  'Australia Day is about celebrating a nation that is a multi-ethnic success, with all of the challenges of any country.'

Many indigenous people find it offensive the date their ancestors lost their sovereignty to British colonialists is celebrated with a public holiday.

SOURCE 






End Violence Against Everyone

An email from Australian campaigner Bettina Arndt, who points out that men as well as women are often targets of domestic violence -- which makes her a target of feminist rage, in their usual irrational way

I’m launching a campaign to urge the government to take an evidence-based approach to family violence. To Stop Violence Against Everybody, not just women. To respect everyone, not just women.

Amazingly, this follows a request from key people in the Federal Government for evidence regarding the most effective approaches to tackling this important social issue.

The big news is feminist’s huge cash cow is facing a set-back. When I was speaking in Parliament House late last year, I learnt that the 100 million-dollar domestic funding package introduced four years ago by Malcolm Turnbull is about to run out. Naturally feminists are in a lather lobbying the government for the funding to continue.

Government ministers and bureaucrats usually only ever hear from one side – namely from the huge domestic violence industry which is using the last of their funding to bully politicians into submission.

But now we have a chance to tell the truth about this issue. To speak out against the feminist dogma suggesting all domestic violence is due to gender inequality and lack of respect for women. To talk about the male victims of violence, children growing up cowering from violent mothers. To have people from the coalface, members of the police force, social and community workers tell their experiences regarding the complex two-way violence they witness in most violent homes. Finally, someone is listening.

I’ve made a new video to launch the campaign, exposing the constant stream of male-bashing propaganda which is being inflicted on us by the femocrats. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukaj9lnctw0

It starts with the latest offering from OurWatch, a government body working to end violence against women, which is urging young men to intervene when men voice opinions they claim trigger domestic violence.

There’s an OurWatch video featuring young people chatting in a restaurant. Someone announces her company is hiring a new CEO, a woman. The male villain pipes up: “There’s no way a woman can run such a large company. Women are too emotional to lead.”

It’s a controversial comment, an opinion many people would challenge. But is it now forbidden to even voice such thoughts?

That’s what OurWatch is suggesting. Their website sports a list of items claimed promote disrespect towards women. These include: “thinking or saying women can’t do all the same jobs as men.” According to OurWatch, we are not even allowed to think that women can’t do the same jobs as men.

So here we have an organisation using domestic violence as an excuse to indulge in social engineering, encouraging us to denounce anyone who challenges feminist dogma. And spending vast amounts of our money in the process. OurWatch receives over 6 million a year in government grants and spends 1.3 million annually on such dubious advertising campaigns.

OurWatch is only one of many government-funded bodies which has been happily living off Malcolm Turnbull’s funding, promoting his favoured myth that domestic violence is all about respect for women. 

My video includes some of the evidence showing causes of domestic violence are far more complex, such as the famous Partner Abuse State of Knowledge project, (PASK), which reviewed over 1700 scientific papers and concluded a large range of factors contribute to domestic violence, including mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse, poverty, conflicted relationships, being exposed to abuse or violence as a child. Most family violence was found to be two-way, involving female as well as male perpetrators.

Gender inequality is simply not a relevant factor in domestic violence in egalitarian countries like Australia. The underlying basis of the massive government expenditure on domestic violence is totally misguided.

So, now’s the time for all of you to step up and help me get these messages through to our government. I’m asking people to sign a petition urging the government to take an evidence-based approach, tackling proven causes like alcohol-related violence instead of simply promoting more feminist dogma.

Via email [bettina@bettinaarndt.com.au]

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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16 January, 2019

The PC commissars vs. Bryan Cranston

Jeff Jacoby was at this pulpit last year -- defending the casting of Scarlett Johansson as a tranny. I don't wholly agree with him, however.  I agree that it should not be a political issue.  I think casting should be based soley on the actor's ability to portray the role and, in most cases, that should mean that a  black would be best at portraying blacks, women should be best at playing women etc.  To say that anyone can play any part is just another instance of the stupid Leftist  dogma that all men are equal

A memorable TV commercial for Vicks cough syrup in the 1980s opened with soap-opera actor Peter Bergman, known to millions of "All My Children" fans as Dr. Cliff Warner, telling viewers: "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV."

Bryan Cranston isn't a quadriplegic, but he plays one in a new movie, and that seems to have put a bunch of people's noses out of joint. Cranston, who stars in "The Upside," has been taking flak for accepting the role of Phillip Lacasse, a billionaire left paralyzed after a paragliding accident. Cranston's detractors are offended that an actor who isn't really disabled would have the effrontery to portray one on the screen, instead of declining the job so the part could be played by an actor who actually is paralyzed.

An irrational objection? Vice Media doesn't think so. On its website Thursday it blasted the actor in a piece headlined "Bryan Cranston Advocated for Disabled Actors While Taking a Role from One." Though Cranston has been outspoken in urging Hollywood to employ more actors with disabilities, Vice dismissed him as a hypocrite: "His decision to play Lacasse," it intoned, "has also prevented a lesser-known disabled actor from getting the opportunity to play the role and gain celebrity."

This critique has been bubbling up for a while. When "The Upside" was making the rounds of film festivals, the respected Ruderman Family Foundation, which promotes the inclusion of people with disabilities, censured the casting of an able-bodied actor to play a paralyzed character as "highly problematic" and "discrimination." Dominick Evans, a filmmaker and activist who suffers from spinal muscular atrophy, chided Cranston for "tak[ing] economic opportunities away from disabled actors who work on average five days a year." As someone who uses a wheelchair, tweeted Evans last week, "I could never play Bryan Cranston, so why the hell can he play someone like me?!"

The answer, of course, is: because that's what actors do. They play parts. They depict characters. They portray men and women (or, for that matter, amphibians and robots and monsters) whose personalities, experiences, and characteristics may be entirely alien to their own. The greatest actors are those whose performances are so believable and three-dimensional, so intuitive and perceptive, that those who see them forget they are watching an actor. As one theater critic, Susannah Clapp of the Observer, has put it, the most superb actors are those "who appear not to perform but transmit."

Identity politics and the entitlement mindset already infect so much of contemporary culture, from law to academia to the arts. Perhaps it was inevitable that, sooner or later, they would undermine the acting profession. Scarlett Johansson came under fire last year when she agreed to star in "Rub & Tug," a film about a transgender brothel owner, Dante Gill. Tilda Swinton was blasted for playing the Ancient One in "Doctor Strange," a role adapted from a character that was Asian in the original Marvel comic. Disney has been condemned for picking Jack Whitehall, a straight actor, to play a "campy gay man" in the adventure comedy "Jungle Cruise." Latina magazine rebuked moviemakers for filling Hispanic roles in at least 13 movies with non-Hispanic actors.

The likely effect of such criticism will be to kill movies before they can be made or to browbeat actors into disqualifying themselves from whole categories of scripts. The backlash against Johansson prompted her to give up the Gill role, which may mean the film is scrapped altogether. Darren Criss (who won Emmy and Golden Globe awards for his TV portrayal of gay killer Andrew Cunanan) announced in December that he will no longer play LGBT characters because he doesn't to be "another straight boy taking a gay man's role."

Hypersensitivity and the assault on cultural appropriation have been wreaking havoc in contexts as varied as art exhibits, burrito shops, fashion shows, and musical performances. Their chilling effect on college campuses has been especially notorious. But those who wax wroth when actors play characters of a race, sexuality, or body type that doesn't match their own aren't merely challenging particular casting decisions. They are attacking the idea of acting itself.

To insist that only actors who are X be tapped to play characters who are X is to insist that acting can never be more than skin deep. It is to declare that the extraordinary artistry and talent of great actors — their power to embody a role and bring it to life — must be restricted at all times to rigid classifications of race, gender, and whatever other categories the commissars of political correctness deem inviolable. It is to tell performers to stay in their own narrow lanes, to stick to characters just like themselves, and under no circumstances to transmit experiences and truths that they don't know from their own lives.

"I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV" wasn't just an advertising trope. It expressed, in a sense, the raison d'etre of the dramatic arts. Bryan Cranston wasn't a crystal-meth lord in real life, but he played one brilliantly in "Breaking Bad." He isn't a quadriplegic, either. Why should anyone want that to keep him from doing his job?

SOURCE






State Dep't Approved 8,482 Child Bride Requests

This is a disgrace.  That there should be one law for all goes right back to the Torah.  The USA should stand foursquare against any recognition of child brides

Between 2007 and 2017, the U.S. State Department approved 8,482 child bride requests, adults seeking to bring into the country a minor spouse or fiance and minors petitioning to bring in an adult spouse or fiance from abroad, according to the Associated Press. In addition, the U.S. government approved 204 requests by minors to bring in their minor spouses/fiances.

"In nearly all the cases, the girls were the younger person in the relationship," reported the AP.  "In 149 instances, the adult was older than 40, and in 28 cases the adult was over 50...."

Some of the examples cited included, "In 2011, immigration officials approved a 14-year-old's petition for a 48-year-old spouse in Jamaica. A petition from a 71-year-old man was approved in 2013 for his 17-year-old wife in Guatemala."

"The country where most requests came from was Mexico, followed by Pakistan, Jordan, the Dominican Republic and Yemen," said the AP.  "Middle Eastern nationals had the highest percentage of overall approved petitions."

The information was initally gathered by the Senate Homeland Security Committee after a request to the State Department was made in 2017.

"It indicates a problem," said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.).  In a letter, Johnson and his former colleague, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said, "Our immigration system may unintentionally shield the abuse of women and children."

As the report indicates, these child bride requests apparently are legal because most states allow 16- and 17-year olds to marry with parental permission. Also, children under age 16 can marry in New York, Virginia, and Maryland, if they have court permission.

Fraidy Reiss, who fights against coerced marriage through the group Unchained at Last, told the AP that data from New Jersey show that "nearly 4,000 minors, mostly girls, were married in the state from 1995 to 2012, including 178 who were under 15."

The report also noted the case of Naila Amin, who is now 29 but was 13 and living in Pakistan when she was forcibly married to her first cousin, Tariq, who was 26. Amin was bethrothed to Tariq when she was 8 years old and he was 21.

"My passport ruined my life," Amin, who has dual U.S. and Pakistani citizenship, told the AP. "People die to come to America. I was a passport to him. They all wanted him here, and that was the way to do it."

"I was a child," she said. "Why weren't any flags raised? Whoever was processing this application, they don't look at it? They don't think?"

SOURCE







Traditional Masculinity Is 'Harmful' — Who Knew?

Leftists seek to destroy the very foundation of our cultural understanding of gender.

The American Psychological Association recently released its “guidelines” on masculinity and, to put it bluntly, it’s about as insightful as a barrel full of monkeys. Then again, that may be an insult to monkeys, as they instinctively display more intellectual consistency and credibility than does the APA’s condemnation of “traditional masculinity.” At least monkeys don’t dismiss the natural, innate biological differences between the genders as mere “societal constructs.”

In its “first-ever guidelines for practice with men and boys,” the APA asserts, “Traditional masculinity ideology has been shown to limit males’ psychological development, constrain their behavior, result in gender role strain and gender role conflict and negatively influence mental health and physical health.” In fact, “traditional masculinity,” which the APA describes as “stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression,” is “on the whole harmful” to men and boys.

Using leftist buzzwords such as “macroaggression, patriarchy, and cisgender” — the latter referring to a person whose sexual “identity” happens to match their biological gender — the APA concludes that “traditional masculinity” is a societal problem. Clearly, the APA is guided by the leftist theory that gender is a nonbinary social construct rather than a binary reality based upon biology. But even at that, one particular gender is just the worst.

For example, the APA alleges, “Although there are differences in masculinity ideologies, there is a particular constellation of standards that have held sway over large segments of the population, including: anti-femininity, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and adventure, risk, and violence. These have been collectively referred to as traditional masculinity ideology.”

After some backlash, however, the APA attempted to “clarify” its assertion with the following statement: “When we report that some aspects of ‘traditional masculinity’ are potentially harmful, we are referring to a belief system held by a few that associates masculinity with extreme behaviors that harm self and others. It is the extreme stereotypical behaviors — not simply being male or a ‘traditional male’ — that may result in negative outcomes.” But extremes were not the basis for the original APA argument; stereotypes were. So this clarification is actually obfuscation.

The fact remains that maleness or masculinity as well as femaleness or femininity share common, easily recognizable expressions in all cultures and societies across the world. In fact, one of the first things noted when an individual from one cultural group enters another are the natural binary expressions of gender. It is a universal reality based upon the reality of human biology.

National Review’s David French notes an obvious contradiction in the culture’s current “diversity” paradigm, writing, “It is interesting that in a world that otherwise teaches boys and girls to ‘be yourself,’ that rule often applies to everyone but the ‘traditional’ male who has traditional male impulses and characteristics. Then, they’re a problem. Then, they’re often deemed toxic. Combine this reality with a new economy that doesn’t naturally favor physical strength and physical courage to the same extent, and it’s easy to see how men struggle.”

The fact is that true masculinity is designed to compliment true femininity. The two are not one and the same, despite the gender-fluid argument the APA now espouses. Nor is “traditional masculinity” harmful to boys. Quite the opposite — they need more of it.

SOURCE






Vegans 'take twice as many sick days' as meat eating colleagues, report says

Vegans take the most sick days off work due to cold, flu and minor ailments, according to a new report.

The study found that they are absent through illness for almost five days a year, which is twice the annual total of the average Briton.

And while the reasons for the high sick-day count are unclear, two-thirds of vegans admitted to taking more time off work due to minor illness in 2019 than in previous years.

In contrast, just half of their meat-eating colleagues reported that they took the same amount of time off as the year before, while one in three said they took less.

The study of 1,000 office workers also revealed that vegans are three times more likely to take a trip to their GP during the cold and flu season in comparison to the average UK adult.

They tend to book 2.6 appointments to see the doctor, in contrast to the national average of just 0.7 visits.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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15 January, 2019

Nationalism doesn’t have to mean exclusion

Some incompetent Leftist philosophy below from Robert Zaretsky, a history professor at the University of Houston. He purports to discuss nationalism but nowhere defines it. If a student had handed that to me as an essay, I would have failed it. He seems quite oblivious that there are at least two major usages of the term -- which might for brevity be called passive and active nationalism.  The active nationalist wants his country to conquer others whereas the passive nationalist just wants his country to be independent and great. Both are patriotic but one is harmless and the other can be a terrible blight on the human race. 

My survey research found that Anglospheric countries such as the USA are mainly populated by passive nationalists for whom patriotism does NOT mean a wish for conquest.  And indeed, despite America's great power, America's only conquests date back to the Progressive era of over 100 years ago.  Leftists can easily transmogrify patriotism into aggressive nationalism -- as Hitler did and as Theodore Roosevelt did to an extent.  In WWII, America in fact waged an ANTI-nationalist war.

The main point of the essay below is derived from the confused theorizing of 18th century German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder.  Herder and Zaretsky propose the non-sequitur that all nations are different and that therefore we should not compare them.  I would have thought that it is precisely because all nations are different that we SHOULD compare them.  Even the USA has a lot to learn from places like Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Japan.  And if one wants to retire to a place least likely to be degraded by nuclear war, New Zealand is the near-universal choice.

Zaretsky obviously had an aim behind his silliness.  He wanted American nationalists to be passive nationalists, quite oblivious of the fact that they already are.  What a fool!  Leftism rots the mind


SINCE THE FRENCH Revolution, a brilliant cast of ideologies has starred on the world stage, ranging from conservatism to liberalism to communism. Yet the -ism that has been most resilient, and today has become resurgent, is one that modern thinkers dismissed as a walk-on.

Nationalism, the political theorist Isaiah Berlin once observed, was long thought to be an allergic reaction of national consciousness when “held down and forcibly repressed by despotic rulers.” Remove this particular allergen, and the sneezing fit of nationalism would end.

Yet in the 21st century, the sneezing has grown more, not less violent. Indeed, it threatens to tear apart the traditional and constitutional bonds that, ironically, hold nations together. From the Caucasus to the Atlantic, from North to South America and across much of Asia, nationalism has become a chronic global condition. At a rally in October, President Trump declared himself a nationalist and urged followers to use the term, too.

Few people would find the ascendancy of nationalism more surprising, and more depressing, than the man who coined the term. Though largely overlooked today, Johann Gottfried Herder was one of the 18th century’s most original thinkers, a deeply influential German philosopher who left a mark on fields ranging from linguistics to literature and history. He not only invented the term nationalism (“Nationalismus”), but is also widely seen as its greatest champion.

A friend of the great Goethe (who credited Herder with having saved him from dry-as-dust classicism), Herder was born in East Prussia in 1744. The son of devout Lutherans, he never lost his faith in God or Germany. Or, at least, the idea of Germany: Rather than a nation, “Germany” in the 18th century was a dizzying hodgepodge of small states and independent cities which shared little more than a common language.

Language, to Herder, is the very essence of a people. He called upon his fellow Germans to resist what he called the “cancer” of French, which had become the unofficial language of 18th century Europe. “Whoever wants to drive out my language,” Herder once declared, “also wants to rob me of my reason and my way of life, the honor and laws of my people.”

Yet here’s the rub: Herder wrote these words in an essay lambasting efforts by Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II to force the German language on Hungarians and other linguistic minorities living under his rule. The proudly parochial Herder believed that, as Berlin put it, “every activity, situation, historical period and civilization possessed a unique character of its own.” For this reason, to subject a particular people to a foreign language and set of ideas — especially those that, like French, pretended to be universally applicable — was, in effect, an act of cultural genocide.

The sweeping line that opens Herder’s great work, "Ideas About the Philosophy of the History of Mankind", underscores the inclusive nature of his nationalism: “Our earth is a star among stars,” Herder wrote. Just as there is no hierarchy of planets, there is no ranking of peoples. No single measure exists by which cultures and peoples can be judged. More so than any other element of the Enlightenment, Herder rebelled against the belief that a single and universal set of laws applied to the world of men no less than the world of things. Instead, he wrote, a nation’s ways and wisdom, language and lore can be measured only against its own standard.

[Herder was clearly wrong. Nations can be compared using many different standards -- and often are.  Herder may think that nations SHOULD not be compared but that is just his opinion]

Two or three timeless insights follow: First, it is worse than pointless to parade the greatness of one’s nation, for this implies that there is a single standard. Since each and every nation has what Herder called “its own center of gravity,” each and every one is unique.

Second, there is no single form of nationalism. Herder was both a nationalist and a pluralist. He saw no contradiction between the claims of one’s own culture and those of other cultures. And he was especially alive to his own culture’s faults. “Our part of the earth should be called not the wisest, but the most arrogant, aggressive, and money-minded,” he wrote.

Some critics have questioned whether Herder’s kinder and gentler nationalism, which invoked the points of lights illuminating our world, is really different from more virulent forms. A sudden crisis, whether genuine or manufactured, can unleash the darker nature of nationalism.

This year marks the 275th anniversary of Herder’s birth. By its end, we may be in a better position to decide if Herder’s humane vision of humankind turns out to be as fantastic and fictitious as the German folk tales he loved.

SOURCE






Why some on the left hate white women

In the new tribal leftism, white women who vote Republican are traitors.

Over the past two election cycles, most white women voted for
the Republican Party – albeit by narrow margins. And after both elections, certain segments of the progressive intelligentsia were infuriated by what they perceived to be a betrayal of female solidarity. Some writers on the left have been taking white women to task for voting for an allegedly racist political party, arguing that white women’s votes reveal a desire to preserve white supremacy even when doing so involves also standing up for the patriarchy.

Conor Friedersdorf at the Atlantic insists that these sentiments are not representative of most Democrats – and he is probably right. Still, the fact that articles expressing rancour towards ‘gender traitors’ appear in such outlets as Cosmopolitan and Vogue and the New York Times suggests that the attitude is not entirely marginal. When Treva Lindsey writes at Vox – a hugely popular left publication – that ‘if you’re not voting like a black woman [ie, for progressive Democrats], you are probably on the wrong side of history’, her statement probably resonates with a fair number of left-leaning elites in the US. The animus against white women, then, is worth examining.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, several conservative writers have already denounced the criticism being directed at white women. At National Review, for one, Alexandra DeSanctis argues that the expectation that women are predestined to think and vote a certain way undermines the notion of female autonomy, which ought to be the principle that underlies any serious feminist politics. Even some left-leaning writers have distanced themselves from the resentment against white women. Katie Herzog, for instance, argues that one reason many white women tend to vote Republican is that they are themselves… well… Republicans. She adds that decrying white women as ‘gender traitors’ is unlikely to improve Democrats’ electoral prospects down the line.

In the process, Herzog raises a very interesting question – one that few people in the wars over white women’s voting patterns appear to have asked. ‘Why the hell aren’t [progressive intellectuals] shouting at white men? They vote for Republicans at even higher rates than white women.’

Why indeed? White men do vote Republican by higher margins than white women, so one would expect them to garner even more post-election disdain from progressive writers. That they do not requires some explanation.

Treva Lindsey’s Vox essay is a good place to start. She argues that, ‘Calling out white women’s continued support of conservative politicians isn’t excusing or ignoring white men’s commitment to electing these candidates. It’s an assertion of a profound and perpetual sense of betrayal’ (emphasis mine).

The idea here is that white women, as women, have a vested interest in voting for Democrats; so when they vote for Republicans, they act against their own interests. For Lindsey, white women’s interests are almost wholly determined by their racial and gender identity. White men, therefore, cannot be faulted as much as white women for voting Republican. After all, white men are merely defending their privileges, which is in some way not as reprehensible as what white women are doing: namely, placing their interest in perpetuating white privilege before their interest in dismantling gender oppression.

There are two obvious problems with Lindsey’s formulation. The first is that people bring many considerations to bear when they decide who to vote for. Beyond race and gender, there are also class considerations, geographical influences, religious motivations, political convictions, evaluations about contemporary events, etc. Many of these other factors seem to be more explanatory than gender or race for understanding recent electoral outcomes.

The second obvious problem with Lindsey’s line of thinking is that women’s left-leaning voting patterns are a historically contingent phenomenon – an odd thing for a professor of gender studies to overlook. Women in Western democracies used to be to the right of men. As Professor Miki Caul Kittilson writes, ‘After enfranchisement, women were more politically conservative than men in their ideology, party attachment, and vote choice across democracies’.

Much of this gap is explained through women’s higher religiosity, given that religiosity is often intricately bound up with conservative parties and ideologies. Moreover, Kittilson notes that women in post-communist and developing countries are more conservative than men in those societies. (Presumably these women are not all voting the way they are in order to uphold the patriarchy.) In short, women are not born to be on the left, and it is both empirically wrong and highly presumptuous to pretend that they are.

But there is a final, less obvious flaw with the logic of those who decry white women’s voting patterns on the grounds that white women are gender traitors. Intellectuals of the left have traditionally rooted their demands in universalist principles, seeking to convince everybody to support the left on the simple grounds that the left’s positions are morally correct. A universalist left would not attempt to shame women by telling them, ‘You must vote for us because you are women’; it would instead try to convince them, ‘You must vote for us because we are right’. And it would make the same plea to white men, who, capable of critical reflection as all humans are, would have some basis to be persuaded to endorse leftist causes.

That segments of today’s left have chosen the parochial over the universal is lamentable – even, or especially, for those of us who might not personally identify with the left, but who do think that politics is a matter of promoting the common good rather than the good of select tribal groups.

SOURCE





What a Case Of Mistaken Identity Tells Us About Race-hysteria in America

Huge racist double-standards

Jazmine Barnes, a 7-year-old black girl, was buried this week in Harris County, Texas. She was fatally shot while sitting in the car with her mother and siblings on the morning of Dec. 30.

Initial reports stated that the shooter was a white man. Those reports led to a national outcry that this was a racially motivated attack. Activists and politicians demanded that the shooting be investigated as a hate crime. But in the days since the shooting, deputies in Harris County have charged two black men in relation to the shooting.

Jazmine Barnes was in a car with her mother and three sisters on Dec. 30 near a Walmart when shots rang out. Her mother was shot in the arm but survived. But Jazmine, who was 7, was shot in the head and died at the scene. The other girls in the car during the shooting said the gunshots came from a red pickup truck driven by a white male. And The New York Times reports that there was another still unsolved shooting in 2017 in the same area that witnesses say was committed by a white man in a Ford pickup.

So that, in combination with a police sketch of the suspect, created a real fear that this was a racially motivated attack.

But we now know that the suspected shooter was black

This week, the police have charged two suspects, Larry Woodruffe, the alleged shooter, and Eric Black Jr., the alleged driver. The police say they think the shooting was a case of mistaken identity. Eric Black and the alleged shooter, they say, were trying to retaliate against someone they had gotten into an argument with earlier, and they misidentified the car Jazmine Barnes was in.

The police said that they believe that both the white male and the red pickup the girls in the car saw were real, but probably belonged to an innocent bystander who sped away during the confusion of the shooting.

In the days after the shooting and before the arrests, Shaun King, an activist who is very prominent on social media, offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to the suspect's arrest and helped publicize the police sketch of the presumed white suspect. During that same period, Sheila Jackson Lee, a congresswoman from Houston, called Barnes' killing a hate crime.

If this suspect were identified as black from the beginning, how might that have changed this story?

Crimes with both black victims and black perpetrators tend not to make national news. Just two weeks before Jazmine Barnes was shot, another 7-year-old in Harris County was seriously injured in a drive-by shooting. When these crimes do bubble up to this level, it's usually invoked to wave away concerns around structural racism or police violence — you know, concern-trolling like, "Well, what about black-on-black crime?"

There are sadly a lot of Jazmine Barneses in America, and lots of neighborhood rallies and memorials for slain little kids like her. It's telling that the relatively less common instance is one of a very few conditions in which those deaths would garner national coverage.

SOURCE 






Why holding a door open for a woman could get you sacked for sex harassment

On a visit to the theatre a couple of nights ago, I was standing with a small group of friends when a man came to join us. His shoulders were stooped and his step heavy as he strode across the foyer, frustration oozing from every pore.

'I don't understand the rules any more,' he confessed. 'Everything I say seems to upset people. I told someone at work she had nice shoes on and was warned that it was inappropriate.'

There was a lot of head shaking and murmurs of sympathy as the group – particularly the women – derided the madness of banning compliments for nice shoes.

I decided to offer him my standard response.

'It's simple,' I said. 'You have to ask yourself – would I say this to a rather terrifying cellmate in prison? If not, don't say it to a woman in a professional environment.'

It's not a terribly scientific answer but, since few people are clear about the boundaries of what is appropriate, it works. Or rather, I thought it did.

Because having watched a new BBC documentary due to be screened this week which explores precisely this predicament between men and women in the workplace, my tried and trusted advice no longer seems quite so adequate.

In fact, it has left me petrified for my 18-year-old son, who has yet to enter the world of work.

In the programme, 20 young adults between 18 and 30 are brought together to see whether they understand the rules of behaviour in the workplace. Over two days, they watch a specially written drama telling the story of the working relationship between a man and woman.

The woman is Cat, who arrives on her first day and receives lots of attention from the man, Ryan, who describes himself as her 'mentor'. Both of them are good looking and the workplace is a bar – very relaxed, music playing, drinks being consumed – but it's still work.

And from the moment they meet, Ryan can't resist making subtle digs at Cat. In attempting to teach her to use software for stocktaking purposes, he says: 'When they told me the new duty manager needs help with the stock software, I was like: 'What have you employed her for, then?' But having seen you work, I get it.'

He then leans in slightly too closely over her shoulder at the computer, complimenting Cat on her perfume.

HOW THE MEN SEE IT: 'He is too close, he's leaning over her shoulder. But she doesn't seem to find a problem with it.'

HOW THE WOMEN SEE IT: 'I was shocked Cat didn't have the courage to identify the problem and call it straight away.'

THE LAWYER'S VERDICT: 'Ryan has texted friends about the "fit new duty manager", writing "She wants it mate. She just doesn't know it yet."

Definitely sexual harassment.'

She never tells Ryan of her discomfort. But he is so busy flirting that he fails to teach her how to use the software, instead opting to complete the job himself.

When Cat attempts to intervene to finish the stock order, he dismisses her efforts, remarking that it was 'team work… brains and beauty', reducing her contribution to looking pretty. He's clearly pushing his luck, but is he breaking the law?

The drama continues two weeks later as the pair enjoy after-work drinks on a Friday night, and dancing in a club. Cat, a little worse for wear, is sick and, when Ryan checks on her, he puts his hand on her shoulder then slides it down to her waist. She removes his hand and walks onto the dance floor.

But the nub of the story takes place the following week when Cat, unfamiliar still with the software, messes up a drinks order. Ryan consoles her by asking her to stay on for a drink, and joins her in a taxi home. But he gets out at her stop, and moves in for a kiss – a kiss Cat rejects.

The programme also observes the group of 20 youngsters as they watch the drama play out and reveals how divided they are in their opinions of what's taking place.

Some brush off the entire chain of events as little more than 'banter', while others agreed that the woman should have made her discomfort more clear. At the other end of the spectrum, some – mainly women – feel the man's behaviour is completely out of order.

But the most chilling part of the whole thing – the part which left me fearful for my son and which will undoubtedly shock any parent – is the concluding verdict by the barrister brought in by the programme.

She is unequivocal. There is no ambiguity in any of the scenarios, she states. Each one can be construed, by law, as sexual harassment, defined by statute as any unwanted conduct that has the intention of violating someone's dignity.

Take each scenario in turn and the shocking reality of this is clear.

HOW THE MEN SEE IT: ‘If someone compliments you on your smell, that’s nice. He just said, “That’s nice perfume.”'

HOW THE WOMEN SEE IT: 'If one of my work colleagues had complimented my perfume, I wouldn’t have taken offence. If she found it offensive she should have definitely said something.'

THE LAWYER’S VERDICT: 'The perfume comment is sexual harassment. For example, would he say to a man, you’ve got nice perfume? 'If not, then it’s likely that it’s related to sex.'

Ryan's flirtatious, throwaway remark to Cat – 'brains and beauty' – is sexual harassment. Leaning too close to Cat, touching her waist and commenting on her perfume could likewise potentially lead to a tribunal. All of these things, the barrister points out, violate her dignity and as such could constitute a harassment case.

As I watched the show, with a growing sense of unease, I thought about the man at the theatre who had complimented a colleague's shoes. It turned out that the woman was right: his approval, even if kindly and innocently delivered, was unprofessional and potentially illegal.

As someone who began her career in the breast-groping, bottom-pinching 1990s, I am delighted that the world of work has been transformed. For years, women kept quiet about all manner of abuse so that they could keep their careers on track. That was clearly wrong.

But if things have improved for female workers, there's also more confusion, particularly for men.

Just how are men and women supposed to deal with each other and just what sort of world do we want to see in the future? Will it be a sackable offence to praise a new dress, a suit, a natty tie?

Countless relationships, happy marriages and strong families have started in the workplace. In fact, one 2014 survey suggested that 30 per cent of relationships begin there. Are these to be banned?

And isn't it a little demeaning to suggest that women, who have spent centuries putting men in their place, are incapable of speaking up for themselves from time to time?

I can't help feeling there's something Orwellian in the way we seem determined to police and punish not just sexism and bullying, but normal, human behaviour, too.

As the mother of a son who has just left home, the serious consequences of an innocent mistake now seem terrifyingly real.

I hope, as any parent does, that George will meet the woman of his dreams, have a fantastic social life and enjoy good professional relationships with men and women in whatever career he chooses.

But I now understand the harsh reality of what he and millions of other young men are facing – not just in distant US college campuses, or high-tech 'start ups' in trendy parts of London or Manchester but increasingly in the everyday world.

A couple of colleagues have frightening stories to tell.

One has a son, Richard, aged 21, who works for a bank in London and was given a warning for simply holding a door open for a colleague – an act of chivalry or, at the very least, basic manners in any other generation.

Richard said: 'I saw her coming down the corridor so waited and said, 'After you', allowing her to go through first. Then I went through after her and a man came through behind me.'

Astonishingly, the woman complained to the bank's human resources department that his actions amounted to sexism.

Richard was called into a meeting with HR officials, who told him that opening the door for his colleague had 'infantilised' her, and made her feel 'less'.

'It was all really frightening,' Richard continued. 'I thought I'd lose my job. I got a letter confirming the warning and it said that if I held the door open only for black men, or only for white men, it would be racist, so it was sexist that I held the door only for the woman.

'I told them that I would hold the door for a man as well but they said I hadn't in this instance – I'd treated the woman differently. I learnt a tough lesson.'

Carl, 28, a retail manager in Manchester, has been forced to learn a similar lesson. A couple of years ago, his store took on extra staff before the Christmas rush. One was a woman in her early 20s.

'It's always frenetic and full-on in December,' Carl admits. 'We're a close-knit team anyway but with the music in the store and the increase in shoppers, the camaraderie between us can be described as casual, fun and close-knit. Our guards were down, I suppose.'

Carl was working with the young woman in the changing rooms, moving rails of clothing and emptying boxes, and put his hand out to stop her falling backwards when she had tripped.

'I'm quite a touchy-feely guy,' Carl admits. 'Not in a sexually aggressive way, but I will unthinkingly put my hand on someone's shoulder or their arm to emphasise a point. I do it with my male friends and platonic female friends.

'I didn't gauge my colleague's reaction at the time although, looking back, I can see that she did freeze. But I put that down to her being the new girl, rather than thinking I was totally out of line.'

A fortnight later, he discovered, to his shock, that she had reported him and two other members of staff for inappropriate behaviour. 'I was speechless,' Carl said. 'I didn't know how to react.'

Carl said it 'pulled me up sharp'. 'I really thought about who I was around my colleagues, and in particular her. But I genuinely couldn't see how my behaviour could have been misconstrued. It's the first time any allegations have ever been made against me.

'I had a few sleepless nights afterwards. Since then, the episode has made me re-evaluate what is normal behaviour between adults. Is a friendly gesture not allowed?

Well, no – as the BBC drama highlights. Working lives should not be blighted or undermined by unwanted attention, as the barrister explains on screen. The rules are the rules.

Don't get me wrong, misogynistic abuse can have a devastating effect and must be stamped out.

Take the case of Helen, a shocking real-life case explored by the show. She says: '[My male colleagues] talked about the size of my breasts. They talked about my vagina quite openly. They took a picture of me when I was asleep, graffitied an ejaculating penis on my face, put it on Facebook, put it on the company's social media page.

'I put up with quite a lot I guess. I felt unable to stand up for myself. I knew it was wrong – my instincts were telling me – but I didn't know what to do with it. That was the hardest thing.'

Helen took them to a tribunal and won her case, plus £10,000 in compensation. But facing them in the tribunal was not easy.

'It was insinuated it was wanted, that I enjoyed it and didn't have a problem with it. I felt I couldn't be myself any more because I'm naturally warm and smiley. Then you think: am I leading someone on by just being me?'

Yet the programme also highlights the terrible consequences that a culture of accusation can have, taking the real-life case of Keith, a co-ordinator in a hospital, who was wrongly accused of sexual harassment at work.

Keith, who is openly gay, describes how the allegations emerged after he failed to swap a shift with a co-worker. 'He accused me of touching his bottom 14 times… of saying he had red, sexy lips. 'He accused me of grooming him in the way that I would cook food and bring food for him.

'I was totally dumbfounded by all these accusations. There was an internal investigation. The accusations were proven to be unfounded and I was cleared of all allegations.

'I never, ever thought in a million years that anyone could be so cruel, vicious or vindictive.

'I've never drunk before but I found myself drinking up to a bottle of vodka a day to self-medicate. I was diagnosed with stress-related Type 2 diabetes.'

No wonder the men look sheepish as this revealing experiment draws to a close.

'I'm never going to talk to any of the women at work again, in case I say something wrong,' says one.

'I just don't want to upset anyone, but I don't know how…'

And it's not just them who have been left with questions. Every family in the country has some thinking to do.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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14 January, 2019

Fury as councils ban 'politically incorrect' Australia Day celebrations because they are 'offensive to Aboriginals'.  (Australia day commemorates the landing of the first white settlers in Australia)

Very selective respect.  What about my heritage?  This disrespects my heritage as a 5th generation Australian.  Members of my family were here in the days of the Sydney penal colony.  My ancestors helped build this country up to what it is today and I honour them. They and those like them brought civilization to a vast and generally inhospitable land. I will of course be celebrating Australia Day -- in the great Australian tradition of a family BBQ -- JR

Councils across the country are axing Australia Day celebrations, to the fury of some residents, while some Greens MPs will attend 'Invasion Day' rallies instead.

Byron Bay in New South Wales, Fremantle in Western Australia and Victoria's Darebin, Yarra and Moreland councils are among the first to cancel official events on January 26.

The changes have been made out of respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who see Australia Day as a time of mourning. 

The national public holiday recognises the date in 1788 when the First Fleet arrived and British sovereignty was declared on the land that would become Australia.

Recently however, many have questioned if the historic date of the celebration should be changed.

Inner-city Melbourne's Yarra City Council last year became the first in the country to stop holding citizenship ceremonies on January 26.

Similarly, the City of Fremantle has held its Australia Day celebrations the day after the rest of the country for the past three years.   

City of Darebin Mayor Susan Rennie in Melbourne's north told SBS News her council 'will not be marking January 26 by holding any events' for the second year in a row.

The Byron Shire Council will hold celebrations on the evening on January 25 with citizenship ceremonies held the following day.

While the changes have been lauded by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, they have sparked backlash in other facets of the community.

Online, Perth residents expressed fury and confusion at the councils' desertion from January 26-based celebrations.

'It's all noise being made by loud greens voters and socialists. I can't imagine ever being so fragile I need to use atrocities of yesteryear as a red herring for me to project my insecurities onto happy Australians,' wrote one man.

'So your saying I can celebrate in city then again in Freo. How is that a bad thing?' joked another in reference to Fremantle's January 26 celebrations.

The comments come as it was revealed by The Australian that Greens MPs will attend 'Invasion Day' rallies around the country on January 26.

The move is part of a bid to pose political pressure toward Bill Shorten and the Labor Party to change their sway of support for Australia Day.

Greens' Indigenous affairs spokeswoman, Rachel Siewert told the publication that Mr Shorten's opposition to support changing the date was out of step with the majority of Australians.

'He says 'yeah we know a lot of Aboriginal people aren't happy with it', but he still thinks we should be celebrating on that day. He is trying to have it both ways,' she said.

SOURCE 






Democrat Denounces Sen. Hirono’s ‘Religious Bigotry’ Against Catholic Judicial Nominee

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) denounced fellow Hawaii Democrat Sen. Mazie Hirono’s “religious bigotry” against a U.S. District Court nominee’s membership in a Catholic charitable organization.

Last month, Sen. Hirono repeatedly grilled judicial nominee Brian Buescher regarding his membership in the Knights of Columbus – even suggesting Buescher should quit the charitable organization, if confirmed, Fox News reported at the time:

Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, raised concerns about Omaha-based lawyer Brian Buescher's membership as part of the Senate Judiciary Committee's review of his nomination by President Trump to sit on the U.S. District Court in Nebraska, as first reported by the Catholic News Agency.

In a series of questions sent to Buescher, Hirono asked whether his membership in the Knights of Columbus would prevent him from hearing cases “fairly and impartially” and, if confirmed, whether he would end his membership in the Roman Catholic charitable organization.

In her written questions to Buescher, Sen. Hirono asked if, given the “extreme positions” taken by the Knights of Columbus on issues such as abortion and gay marriage, Buescher would quit the organization and recuse himself from all cases in which the group has expressed an opinion:

“If confirmed, will you recuse yourself from “all cases” in which the Knights of Columbus has taken a position?”

In an opinion piece published by The Hill on Tuesday, Hirono’s colleague, Rep. Gabbard condemned Hirono’s suggestion that Catholicism and membership in Catholic organizations should disqualify any judicial nominee:

While I oppose the nomination of Brian Buescher to the U.S. District Court in Nebraska, I stand strongly against those who are fomenting religious bigotry, citing as disqualifiers Buescher’s Catholicism and his affiliation with the Knights of Columbus. If Buescher is “unqualified” because of his Catholicism and affiliation with the Knights of Columbus, then President John F. Kennedy, and the 'liberal lion of the Senate' Ted Kennedy would have been “unqualified” for the same reasons.

Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution clearly states that there "shall be no religious test" for any seeking to serve in public office.....

While I absolutely believe in the separation of church and state as a necessity to the health of our nation, no American should be asked to renounce his or her faith or membership in a faith-based, service organization in order to hold public office.

On Wednesday, Sen. Hirono fired back at Gabbard, accusing her of being “misguided” and manipulated by “right wing ideologues.” In a statement by Hirono’s spokesperson published by Hawaii News Now, Hirono also asserted her right to scrutinize the religion of any judicial nominee:

“Senator Hirono, asks all judicial nominees – particularly those who have expressed very strong personal ideological views in conflict with Supreme Court precedent – if they can be fair. She asked Mr. Buescher, who has a clear record of anti-choice activism, whether he could separate his personal beliefs from decisions he would make if confirmed for a lifetime appointment on the federal bench. Over the past two years, the Senator has been attacked by right wing ideologues for her examination of Donald Trump’s ideologically-driven nominees to the courts. It is unfortunate that Congresswoman Gabbard based her misguided opinion on the far-right wing manipulation of these straightforward questions.”

SOURCE






Patreon is a threat to the free internet

We need to stand up to the Silicon Valley censors.

Inspired by the hippy culture of the Bay Area, Silicon Valley’s pioneers once waxed lyrical about an open internet of the future, in which empowered citizens could express themselves freely without fear of censorship or government control. Over the years, the internet and social media have become a de facto public square: central to political organising, campaigning and debating. Yet now, the big-tech firms of Silicon Valley want to sanitise this public square and are using their corporate muscle to silence certain voices.

The latest site to start purging wayward users is Patreon. Patreon is a crowdfunding platform that has become a key source of income for internet personalities, YouTubers, podcasters and more. Subscribers are usually offered rewards and exclusives, depending on how much money they are willing to pledge per month.

Recently it banned some controversial figures, including YouTuber Carl Benjamin, aka Sargon of Akkad, and the self-pronounced ‘dangerous faggot’ and failed author, Milo Yiannopoulos. Both Benjamin and Yiannopoulos are famous for their tirades against PC culture, both are deliberately provocative, and both have previously been banned from other platforms like Twitter. Whatever you think of these two and their politics, the reasons Patreon gave for banning them should worry us all.

In Benjamin’s case, he was banned for breaching Patreon’s rules against ‘hate speech’. Patreon pointed to his use of racial and gay slurs in a livestream last year, in which he referred to a group of alt-right trolls, who had been harassing him, as ‘niggers’ and ‘faggots’. In a YouTube video addressing his ban, Benjamin says he was using the white supremacists’ own language to get back at them.

Benjamin, of course, is no stranger to controversy. It is not the first time he has used ethnic slurs, gay slurs or sexist taunts. While it is not unreasonable to find this kind of language offensive – in an interview last week, Benjamin told spiked that being politically incorrect is ‘what I do’ – defending free speech means that no words should be off-limits, even if you intend to be insulting or provocative.

But in this case, the offending comments were not even made on the platform that expelled him. And nor were they made on Benjamin’s channel, which is largely funded through Patreon subscriptions. They were made on a livestream hosted by a minor YouTuber.

This might seem like a minor detail (and certainly does not excuse the comments) but there are worrying implications to this. It appears that tech companies like Patreon are now taking it upon themselves to police not only the content that you post on their own platforms, but also what you say and do in all other corners of the internet. We have become used to advertisers tracking our every click around the web — perhaps soon we will have to get used to every platform’s moderators following our every move.

Benjamin had been using Patreon for several years without any issues. Contributions from subscribers, known as ‘patrons’, made up half of his income until his ban. Yiannopoulos, on the other hand, was new to the platform before he was kicked off. Reported to be over £1million in debt, he joined Patreon to extend the begging bowl to his followers, offering fans the chance to join ‘Milo’s Big Gay Army’ of patrons for $2.50 per month or more.

Patreon banned Yiannopoulos for his past association with the Proud Boys, a men-only grouping of self-described ‘Western chauvinists’, formed by Vice co-founder turned right-wing YouTuber Gavin McInnes. Last year, the Guardian revealed that McInnes’ group was being tracked by the FBI, who classified it as an ‘extremist group with ties to white nationalism’. Both Milo and McInnes have distanced themselves from the Proud Boys since then.

Dubbed an ‘alt-right fight club’ by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its frequent brawls with Antifa groups, the Proud Boys is an undeniably unpleasant outfit. But Patreon even acknowledges that Yiannopoulos’s association with it was in the past and ‘since disavowed’. Nobody should be held responsible for the words and deeds of other people no matter how objectionable they may be, especially if you disavow them. Besides, is Milo not outrageous enough on his own?

In any case, bans like this are worrying because they set dangerous precedents for internet censorship. Patreon’s treatment of Benjamin and Yiannopoulos has shown that you can now be punished by one platform for what you say on another. And you can also be punished for what others say and do, even when you distance yourself from them.

The ‘Patreon purge’, as it has become known, has rightly angered many of its high-profile users, like Sam Harris, and a huge numbers of customers too, many of whom have vowed to boycott the service. YouTuber Dave Rubin and author Jordan Peterson are working to set up alternative crowdfunding platforms to circumvent the Silicon Valley oligopoly.

Let’s hope the big-tech censors remember their earlier mission to create an internet that is open and free.

SOURCE






UK: We must be free to criticise Islam

Why the UK government should not adopt a proposed new definition of Islamophobia

The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims is calling on the government to establish a legally binding definition of ‘Islamophobia’, akin to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism. Last November, the APPG launched its landmark Islamophobia Defined report, offering the following definition: ‘Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.’ To tackle what it calls Islamophobia, the report calls for ‘appropriate limits to free speech’ and for the policing and regulation of matters ‘far beyond what can be captured as criminal acts’.

Hatred towards Muslims has certainly resulted in some horrendous crimes, like the Finsbury Park van attack, where an innocent worshipper was murdered. Women in hijabs are also vulnerable to attacks, particularly following major terror events, due to their visibility as Muslims.

Nevertheless, there are serious problems with the APPG’s definition of Islamophobia, and indeed with the term Islamophobia itself. It is far too vague and it conflates attacks on Muslims (and non-Muslims) with criticism of Islam and of the behaviour of a minority of Muslims.

The charity I work for — the Network of Sikh Organisations — provided written and oral evidence to the APPG for the report. We argued that non-Muslims can also be victims of what is called Islamophobia. Sometimes this is because of race. For instance, in 2010, a pig’s head was thrown into the drive of a former government minister, Parmjit Dhanda. Dhanda is a Sikh. He doesn’t wear a turban and the last time we met he was clean shaven. The morons who hurled the pig’s head must have assumed that Dhanda was Muslim, purely on the basis of his ethnicity.

But ‘Islamophobia’ is not always rooted in racism. For a start, racism cannot adequately describe discrimination against either white converts to Islam or European Muslims like Bosniaks, Kosovars and Albanians.

Moreover, there have been a number of so-called mistaken-identity attacks since 9/11, where turbaned and bearded Sikhs have been targeted (and even killed) as they were mistaken for Muslims. The first person killed in ‘retribution’ for 9/11 was Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh gas-station owner in Mesa, Arizona.

In cases like this, religious symbols play a larger role than race. The Sikh dastaar (turban) and beard are often confused with Osama bin Laden’s keffiyeh or al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri’s turban. In fact, this phenomenon predates al-Qaeda, with the menacing images of the black-robed and turbaned Ayatollah Khomeini. In Sodhi’s case, his religious attire was confused with the symbols of the West’s enemies.

Similarly, some orthodox Rastafarian priests were prevented from boarding a US flight after 9/11. More absurd still, Swedish hipsters with beards were stopped by police who mistook them for members of ISIS. White British hipsters have not been spared this ignominy, either. In these cases, it was clearly their hirsute countenance, rather than their race, that led to them to be mistreated.

According to freedom-of-information disclosures I obtained from the Metropolitan Police, crimes against British Jews, Sikhs, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists and agnostics have all been recorded as ‘Islamophobic’ hate crimes.

One major problem with a term like Islamophobia is that, even with a working definition, it is inherently subjective. When it comes to speech, who judges what is sufficiently ‘offensive’ to constitute a phobia? Who adjudicates what is permissible within the boundaries of free speech and what strays into forbidden, ‘phobic’ territory? Legitimate criticism of aspects of Islam could be silenced under the proposed definition of Islamophobia, or criminalised as ‘hate speech’.

For example, according to the APPG report, ‘claims of Muslims spreading Islam by the sword or subjugating minority groups under their rule’ may be ‘Islamophobic’. But that could censor discussion of historical facts, such as the gruesome aspects of the Mughal and Ottoman Empires or the Moor conquests, not to mention the crimes of modern-day ISIS.

The National Secular Society (NSS) has warned MPs that the term Islamophobia ‘confuses hatred of, and discrimination against, Muslims with criticism of Islam’. Liberal and secular Muslims, ex-Muslims, gay, bisexual and transgender campaigners have all been labelled ‘Islamophobes’ for voicing opposition to Muslim clerics on issues such as women’s rights, gay rights, gender segregation in schools and forced hijab-wearing. In a letter to the home secretary, published in The Sunday Times, the NSS, Maajid Nawaz, Amina Lone, Mohammed Amin and others called the proposed definition ‘unworkable’. ‘Far from combating prejudice, erroneous claims of Islamophobia have become cover for it’, they write.

Those Muslims who put their head above the parapet to criticise Islam often face extreme prejudice from other Muslims. For instance, Britain’s counter-extremism czar, Sara Khan, writes in the Huffington Post of the ‘increasing anti-Muslim hatred’ that she receives ‘from fellow Muslims’. ‘It is contradictory and unjust to recognise non-Muslim perpetrators yet ignore Muslims who engage in active hostility, abuse, hatred and discrimination against other Muslims’, she writes. As the counter-extremism czar will know all too well, one ugly manifestation of this has been sectarian murder on Britain’s streets, whose victims include Asad Shah, an Ahmadiyya Muslim shopkeeper in Glasgow, and Jalal Uddin, a 71-year-old imam in Rochdale.

Furthermore, one of the victims of a Rotherham grooming gang argues that ‘non-Muslim hate’ or hate against ‘those with a perceived lack of Muslimness’ should be taken just as seriously as discrimination against Muslims. ‘As grooming victims, my friends and I were called vile racist names such as “white trash” and “kaffir girl” as we were raped. Our Sikh and Hindu friends who were also targeted by Muslim Pakistani gangs were disparagingly called “kaffir slags” too.’ The APPG’s Islamophobia Defined makes four references to grooming gangs. But it makes no effort to examine the motivations of the perpetrators. Instead, it suggests that discussion of grooming gangs could be Islamophobic.

The government will have the final say on whether to adopt the proposed APPG definition of Islamophobia. It must tread carefully. The adoption of this definition could have serious consequences for free speech. Its vagueness leaves it open to all kinds of abuse from religious extremists, who could use it to shield bigotry and abuse from challenge.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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13 January, 2019

Emotionalism in counselling

There is a video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lct8ql2zoLo called "The Age of Emotional Incontinence". It points out that the traditional virtue of stoicism has now been replaced by encouragement to express oneself as floridly as possible. Indulging in grief and rage is now good.



A lot of psychotherapy aims to get people to express their emotions and that would seem to be the inspiration of this particular retreat from self-restraint.  Treatment designed to help disturbed people is supposed to help everyone.  Harry Lauder's popular song: "Keep right on to the end of the road" is now replaced by encouragement to break down and weep.  Insofar as the new gospel is widespread it marks a rather clear civilizational breakdown.

We have seen it recently in the reactions encouraged among their students by university administrations in response to the elections of both George  W. Bush and Donald Trump. Some examples here . After both elections,  students were encouraged to regress to infantilism, with even coloring-in books being provided. As here

I am however encouraged by a clear anthropological finding about people of British and Northern European ancestry:  They are much more restrained in expressing emotions than are most of the rest of the human race. 

I don't think this area can easily be approached statistically so let me approach it anecdotally

The difference I have just mentioned is stark. I grew up in a place that was as much an Italian village as an Australian country town so I observed first hand how much more emotionally expressive Italians are.  They howl with grief much more than we stolid old Anglo-Saxons do.  Some of us never do.

It is only in Innisfail  -- where I was born -- that I have ever seen in the waiting room of the local hospital a large sign in red letters saying:  SILENZO.  It was the first Italian word I learnt.  The local hospital authorities did not tolerate Italian expressiveness at all. Anybody who knows Italians well will know what I mean about Italian emotionality. Though there are some exceptions, mostly in the North.

An area of modern life where emotional expressiveness is required is opera.  And Italians take that to an extreme. Famous soprano Cecilia Bartoli outdoes most of them in that regard.  See an example of her singing here: https://youtu.be/pQtmr0z5cmo . Not all Italians are as expressive as the wonderful Cecilia but it is clear that she is from a very different culture.

Also see here --  https://youtu.be/214VRk-wVQM -- where contralto Evelyn Ramirez Munoz (who is probably Spanish) is the lead singer in Falvetti's remarkable Sicilian oratorio "Il diluvio universale".  She too is a wonder of expressiveness. Both ladies would have to be a psychiatrist's dream.

Perhaps I could mention something from Anglo-Saxon culture as a counterpoint to what I have said about Southern Europeans.  A favorite poem of mine is "The Teams" by Henry Lawson.  It describes the life of teamsters (we call them bullockys) helping to open up Australia's inland to civilization.  Below is his description of a typical bullock-driver:

He'll sometimes pause as a thing of form
In front of a settler's door,
And ask for a drink, and remark "It's warm",
Or say "There's signs of a thunder-storm";
But he seldom utters more.

It is a picture of a strong, enduring and taciturn man.  And it is true to life.  How do I know that? Because my own grandfather was a bullocky.  I remember him well and he was just as Lawson describes. 


My grandfather's team

In fact my entire family are reserved people.  I did a bit of genealogical research years ago and tracked down some very elderly people who knew both my grandfather and great grandfather.  I asked them what they remembered of both men.  And the reply was always the same: "A quiet man.  Never said much".  And my father was the same and my son is the same.  And although I write a lot, I don't talk a lot in social situations.  So I am part of a 5-generation family of socially reserved people. It's clearly genetic.

Most personality differences are genetically encoded and I have no doubt that Northern emotional impassiveness is too. The English and their descendants are not so much restrained in their emotional expression as just less emotional in the first place.  No amount of Leftist BS will make them into Italians.

So WHY are the Left promoting emotional incontinence?  On the most dubious grounds they claim that it is psychologically healthier to be very expressive.  I don't buy it.  It seems clear to me that it is another example of Leftists hating their own culture -- which is why they often turn to Europe as an example to us all.  In this case they have turned to Southern Europe.

So how influential will the Leftist crying gospel be?  Not very, I think. The genes are against it. People of Northern European ancestry will continue to have the strong impulse control that has made them so successful and influential

A correspondent of mine has had extensive counselling experience and below is his reaction to the culture of emotional indulgence:


When I was counselling, most of the leading psychs and counsellors that I knew in the industry -- by leading, I mean tutors, and those who design and facilitate specialist post grad courses to continue to drive the leftist industry culture, and who design the manipulative social reconstruction programs for schools, and rehab programs for offenders, and who push the models of clinical counselling to be used for counselling relationships, ptsd, depression, domestic violence...etc,  and who therefore have much societal influence -- were always prompting counsellors to be more emotional and instructing them to get their clients to be more emotional, to "name and claim their emotions", to "honour their feelings", and to "listen to and follow their feelings", to start sentences with "I feel...", encourage women to say "No", to be "assertive", and to tap into and use their anger, and to get men to cry more, and to dislike their fathers and male ancestors who have caused them to now be men who are incomplete human beings out of touch with their feelings. The idea being that if we can get men to be soppy and women to be angry then society will be better.

It is so cunningly manipulative; targeting primary school children, youth, and people in crisis when they are desperate and most likely to absorb ridiculous ideas. 

Fortunately not all clinical counsellors went along with that evil effort. I certainly did not. I preferred a problem solving approach, and a furtherance of the client's understanding of themselves, and improved ability to govern themselves, and to encourage them towards their stronger, kinder and most sensible
self.

The practice of psychs and counsellors using their clients and designed programs to seed leftist societal change irked me. I think psychs and counsellors who do that are at best deceived and deluded pawns, and at worst, cunning and evil manipulators.

If you do not think such people are evil, then ponder this question. Who is more evil, the single criminal psychopath or the seemingly innocent even virtuous controller and exacerbator of many such psychopaths; in other words, the imprisoned sex
offender, or the prison counsellor who in her group and one-on-one therapy sessions encourages sex offenders and killers to listen to their emotions, to honour their feelings, who tells them that the
counselling room is a safe place, and that there is no such thing as right or wrong, only other people's judgment values and societal standards of the time, and who writes carefully favourable reports to the parole board that aid the release of her agents?

And so released sex offenders groom child targets the same way, psychologically breaking down their target's sense of right and wrong, and sense of responsibility for their self by telling them they are in a safe place and there is no right or wrong.

So I do not think that the current trend for emotional indulgence across the English speaking world that Paul Watson describes is accidental. There are deliberate leftist efforts to orchestrate it, to cultivate weak and emotional people, and to create a culture of crime and victimhood.

Leftism is emotionalism, is victimhood, is lack of individual responsibility, (avoidance of responsibility is the path of all criminality) and is power and control over others. Most lefties are just emotional and image conscious people; they just like to feel good and look good. But the smart conscious lefties are manipulative and evil; they love power and control over others. Emotional people are easy to manipulate. Thinking people are not.






Muslim family complains Virginia hospital staff told them they couldn't visit their newborn baby granddaughter because they looked 'scary'



A Muslim family says a Virginia hospital told them they couldn't visit a newborn baby because they looked 'scary'.

Ahmed Zahr's wife had just given birth to a baby girl in early December at Inova Fair Oaks Hospital in Fairfax, Virginia, where his parents, aunt and uncle went to visit.

When they arrived at the birthing center on the third-floor, they were approached by a security guard, reported News4. 'He screams and he says: "You're not allowed to be here!" And then he said: "You know, you look scary",' the aunt, Arwa Zahr, told the station. 

The Zahr family believes the security guard was referring to the long black veils worn by Arwa and her mother. Both women were wearing a niqab, which is a veil that is worn by some Muslim women for reasons of modesty. The niqab covers the entire face - unlike the hijab, which just covers the hair - leaving an opening slit for the eyes.

There is no law in the US that bans the wearing of the niqab, though wearers may be required to unveil their face during a traffic stop, for a driver's license photo or at an airport.

Ahmed Zahr told the guard he was being disrespectful after the family was ordered to return to the lobby, according to News4.

That's when the guard asked the shift supervisor to intervene, whom the Zahrs said is the head nurse.

'We tried to explain to [the supervisor] our side of the story. He looked at my mother as she was trying to explain what happened, and he told her: "Close your mouth or I'll kick you out",' Ahmed told the station. 'He's telling them: "Nobody wants you here. The nurses don't want you. The doctors don't want you here",' Ahmed Zahr said.

When the Zahrs tried arguing back, hospital staff called the police. Fairfax County officers arrived on the scene and left after speaking to the family, whom then filed formal complaints against Inova.

The Zahrs say they feel particularly hurt by the incident because the newborn baby's grandparents, Dr Nabil Zahr and Karima Zohdi, have volunteered as chaplains at another hospital in the system, Inova Fairfax, reported News4.

Ahmed said his family has never been the subject of this level of discrimination. 'Just to be treated like that just because of the way you're dressed,' he said. 'We're been living here for, you know, 20-plus years. I haven't witnessed discrimination to this extent.'

The hospital says it has offered to meet with the Zahrs, but the family refuses until an investigation has been conducted. 

Inova did not immediately reply to DailyMail.com's request for comment. However, News 4 received a statement that read in part: 'Inova respects and values our diverse patient community and believes that all patients have the right to a respectful, safe environment, free from all forms of discrimination.

'We hold our team members and contractors to the highest ethical standards, supported by a strict zero tolerance policy against discrimination of any kind.

'We are reviewing the family's concerns and we continue to look for opportunities to better manage these situations in the future.'

SOURCE






Brazil's New President Eliminates LGBT Office on First Day in Office

On Jan. 1, the day he was sworn in as Brazil's new president, conservative Jair Bolsonaro signed an executive order removing LGBT concerns from the government's human rights ministry, apparently affirming his traditional Christian, pro-family views and his rejection of "gender-based ideology."

In his inauguration speech, Bolsonaro, who is strongly anti-socialist, said, “We are going to unite the people, rescue the family, respect religions and our Judeo-Christian tradition, combat gender ideology, conserving our values.”

The executive order that removes LGBT concerns from the ministry did not designate any other government office to address those issues.

Brazil's new Minister of Human Rights, Family and Women is Damares Alves, age 54. She is an evangelical minister who has worked as a legal adviser to the National Congress of Brazil for 20 years. Alves is pro-life.

During her Jan. 2 swearing-in, Alves said, "The State is secular, but this minister is extremely Christian, and because of that, she believes in God's design," as reported in Folha de S. Paulo. She also said, "One of the challenges will be to end the abuse of ideological indoctrination. The ideological indoctrination of children and teenagers in Brazil is over."

In Brazil, she added, "girls will be princesses and boys will be princes."

LGBT activist Symmy Larrat, as reported by AP, is not optimistic about the new government. “The human rights ministry discussed our concerns at a body called Secretariat of Promotion and Defense of Human Rights," she said. "That body just disappeared, just like that. We don’t see any signs there will be any other government infrastructure to handle LGBT issues.”

During the presidential campaign, Bolsonaro said, "God above everything. There is no such thing as a secular state. The state is Christian and the minority will have to change, if they can. The minorities will have to adapt to the position of the majority."

After Bolsonaro's inauguration, President Donald Trump tweeted his congratulations and added, "the U.S.A. is with you!"

Bolsonaro, 63, replied by Twitter, "Dear Mr. President @realDonaldTrump, I truly appreciate your words of encouragement. Together, under God's protection, we shall bring posterity and progress to our people!"

SOURCE






The Scientific Experts Who Hate Science

Ben Shapiro

This week, the American Psychological Association proved once again that it is a political body rather than a scientific one. This isn't the first time a major mental health organization has favored politics over science — in 2013, the American Psychiatric Association famously reclassified "gender identity disorder" in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, calling it "gender dysphoria" and then explaining that living with the delusion that you are a member of the opposite sex is not actually a mental disorder at all. That ruling was based on zero scientific evidence — much like the original DSM-5 classification of pedophilia as a "sexual orientation" before it was renamed "pedophilic disorder" under public pressure.

The latest example of the American Psychological Association's political hackery concerns the topic of "traditional masculinity." In the APA journal, it announced that it had released new guidelines to "help psychologists work with men and boys." Those guidelines suggest that "40 years of research" show that "traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful and that socializing boys to suppress their emotions causes damage that echoes both inwardly and outwardly." The APA explains that "traditional masculinity — marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression — is, on the whole, harmful. Men socialized in this way are less likely to engage in healthy behaviors."

Never mind that traditional masculinity — a masculinity geared toward channeling masculine instincts of building and protecting, rather than tearing down — built Western civilization and protected it from the brutalities of other civilizational forces. Never mind that traditional masculinity protected femininity and elevated women to equal status in public policy. Traditional masculinity is actually just men sitting around and eating burgers while grunting at one another about football, all the while crying on the inside because they have been prohibited by society from showing their feelings.

And it's worse than that. According to the APA, traditional masculinity bumps up "against issues of race, class and sexuality," maximizing both interior and exterior conflict. Dr. Ryon McDermott, a psychologist from the University of South Alabama who helped draft the new APA guidelines, suggested that gender is "no longer just this male-female binary." Rather, gender is a mere social construct that can be destroyed without consequence. Here's the APA making the extraordinarily dishonest statement that gender differences aren't biological at all , in contravention of all known social science research: "Indeed, when researchers strip away stereotypes and expectations, there isn't much difference in the basic behaviors of men and women."

Destroy masculinity in order to destroy discrimination and depression. Feminize men, and indoctrinate boys.

In order to reach this conclusion, the APA has to define traditional masculinity in the narrowest, most negative terms possible — and then other those who disagree as part of the patriarchy. But as a political body, the APA has little problem doing this.

All of this is not only nonsense; it's wildly counterproductive nonsense. Buried beneath the reams of nonsense in the APA report is this rather telling gem: "It's also important to encourage pro-social aspects of masculinity. ... In certain circumstances, traits like stoicism and self-sacrifice can be absolutely crucial." But we must never suggest that such traits ought to be included as part of a "traditional masculinity," because that would make some people feel excluded.

Here's the truth: Men are looking for meaning in a world that tells them they are perpetuators of discrimination and rape culture; that they are beneficiaries of an overarching, nasty patriarchy; that they are, at best, disposable partners to women, rather than protectors of them. Giving men purpose requires us to give them purpose as men , not merely as genderless beings. There's a lot to be said for the idea that our culture has ignored the necessity for men to become gentlemen. But that's a result of a left-wing culture that denigrates men, not a traditional masculinity built on the idea that men were born to defend, protect and build.

One thing is certainly true, though: The APA has destroyed itself on the shoals of politics. And there's no reason for honest-thinking people to take its anti-scientific pronouncements seriously simply because it masquerades as scientists while ignoring facts in favor of political correctness.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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11 January, 2019

American Psychological Association Labels 'Traditional Masculinity' as 'Harmful'

Maybe the male members of the association should give up their balls. Their balls don't seem to be functional anyway

According to the American Psychological Association (APA), being a traditional man is now considered on par with a mental disorder.

For the first time ever, the APA has issued a set of guidelines for how to approach men and boys, specifically, within a counseling practice. The new APA protocols for mental health professionals working with men and boys--released in August and available to read in their entirety in a document titled APA Guidelines for the Psychological Practice with Boys and Men--were recently summed up on the APA’s website by the statement that “research finds that traditional masculinity is, on the whole, harmful.”

“The main thrust of the subsequent research is that traditional masculinity—marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression—is, on the whole, harmful,” the January article from the APA goes on to read. “Men socialized in this way are less likely to engage in healthy behaviors.”

Progressive beliefs about a number of hot-button social justice and political issues such as sexism, patriarchy, and male privilege seem to be behind the new guidelines. More specifically, modern conceptions of gender appear to be driving the organization’s updated approach to men.

“What is gender in the 2010s?” asked Ryon McDermott, PhD, a psychologist at the University of South Alabama. McDermott helped write the new men’s guidelines. “It’s no longer just this male-female binary.”

According to McDermott, boys and men identifying as gay, bisexual or transgender face higher-than-­average levels of hostility and pressure to conform to masculine norms.

This particular area of psychology features prominently in the APA’s recommendations for working with men and boys.

“Gender and sexual minorities, too”, reads the article, “must grapple with societal views of masculinity. This is an ever-shifting territory. When Levant and Rabinowitz launched the guideline-drafting process in 2005, only Massachusetts recognized same-sex marriage. Today, transgender issues are at the forefront of the cultural conversation, and there is increased awareness of the diversity of gender identity.”

The APA believes that “psychologists have a key role to play, as the new guidelines lay out.”

Those guidelines include the need for clinicians to be aware of what the APA refers to as “dominant masculine ideals”, and to “understand how power, privilege and sexism work both by conferring benefits to men and by trapping them in narrow roles.”

Mental health workers are also directed to fight “against homophobia, transphobia, racial bias and other types of discrimination in institutions such as the criminal justice system.”

McDermott believes that ultimately, the clinician’s role “can be to encourage men to discard the harmful ideologies of traditional masculinity.”

If psychologists can focus on supporting men in breaking free of masculinity roles that don’t help them, the effects could spread beyond just mental health for men, McDermott says. “If we can change men,” he stated, “we can change the world.”

But American Conservative writer Rod Dreher is questioning the intent of the APA guidelines, arguing in a blogpost Monday that the move is “mostly about psychologizing the gelding of American males.”

“I do not trust Ryon McDermott, PhD,” writes Dreher, “to decide what is and is not healthy masculinity.”

SOURCE






Trump Finally Won Victory to End Social Experimentation in Military

Activist judges have been on a mission to expand the influence of the courts in America for the last half-century, but they may have just crossed a red line. The courts have decided a lot of things – but how the president runs the military isn't one of them. When it comes to America's defense, there is one commander-in-chief. The Constitution is clear: Donald Trump is the final authority on military policy. And after two years of liberal judges presuming to know better than this president, it's refreshing to see at least one court acknowledge who's in charge.

After a year and a half of fighting judicial activists for power that's been his all along, President Trump finally won a victory in his push to end social experimentation in the military. Seventeen months after he first rolled back Barack Obama's transgender troop policy, the D.C. Circuit Court agreed that it was within his prerogative to do so. With a deference that's almost extinct these days, three judges (including an Obama appointee) sided with the administration, saying that it had done its due diligence in researching the policy and its effects.

Attorneys for GLAAD, of course, insisted that the president's decision wasn't rooted in science but bigotry. The court disagreed, saying the government had taken "substantial steps" to justify the president's position. “These included the creation of a panel of military and medical experts, the consideration of new evidence gleaned from the implementation of the policy on the service of transgender individuals instituted by then-Secretary of Defense Ash Carter ... and a reassessment of the priorities of the group that produced the Carter Policy.” For the left to argue that there was nothing but prejudice behind Trump's decision is just plain untrue. There is nothing discriminatory, the DOJ pointed out, about acknowledging the consequences of gender dysphoria on our military's effectiveness.

Honestly, this isn't a question of fairness – it's a question of fitness. The president isn't banning people who identify as transgender because he hates them. He's banning people who identify as transgender for the same reason the military doesn't allow 71 percent of Americans to serve. Because either they're too old and unhealthy, or our country can't afford the distraction that medical, mental, or behavioral issues cause. That's why there are literally hundreds of conditions or physical limitations disqualifying people from military service. So many, in fact, that your fingers will get numb scrolling through them all.

The left seems to think that there's a “right” for people to serve in the military. There isn't. When it comes to keeping America secure, only the strongest and brightest will do. Does that make the military exclusionary? Yes. But the Pentagon isn't in the business of equality. It's in the business of fighting and winning wars. If that hurts feelings, so be it. Either the military's priority is protecting America – or it's helping people on the path to self-actualization. It can't do both.

The courts, this panel writes, “‘must be particularly careful not to substitute our judgment of what is desirable for that of [the executive and legislative branches], or our own evaluation of evidence for [their] reasonable evaluation’ because ‘[i]t is difficult to conceive of an area of governmental activity in which the courts have less competence.’” If anyone's opinion matters, it's the people who understand our mission best: the men and women in uniform. And, as of yesterday, 61 percent of them agree with their commander-in-chief's policy on transgenderism. If they trust him, shouldn't Americans too?

As FRC's Lt. General Jerry Boykin (U.S. Army-Ret.) pointed out, this is, above all, a “victory for our service members, who are tasked with defending America.” For once, “it allows our military to focus their mission on fighting and winning wars rather than social engineering.” Hopefully, he went on, this ruling will help “pave the way for President Trump to continue moving the military away from Obama era political correctness which left our nation's defenses at its lowest levels of readiness since before WWII. We trust that other appeals courts and the Supreme Court will agree -- and leave the responsibility for keeping our military strong and country safe where it belongs: with our commander-in-chief.”

SOURCE






Anti-Semitism Just Gained a New Foothold in Congress

There seem to be very few Muslims who don't have a burning hatred of Jews

In 1948, the Jewish people secured sovereignty over their ancestral homeland for the first time in nearly 2,000 years. Once again, they could thrive—religiously, economically, culturally—in the home their ancestors were forced to flee.

But more than 70 years after the rebirth of the Jewish nation, enemies of her very existence are using boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) to economically harm and morally impugn one of our closest allies. Unfortunately, several newly elected members of Congress are vocal advocates of BDS—particularly Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.

Following her election victory, Tlaib said, “Americans should not be aiding any country that doesn’t support human rights. I’ve been very clear. I will not support racist countries that pick and choose who gets access to justice.” She further claims that Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pursuing “apartheid policies.”

During Israel’s 2012 war against Hamas (an entity designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization), Omar claimed, “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.” She has also claimed that Israel is an “apartheid … regime.” Following her election victory in November 2019, her campaign said she “believes in and supports the BDS movement.”

These peddlers of hate hurl false allegations against Israel of apartheid and minority oppression in an attempt to generate public support for BDS.

In reality, Israel is the Mideast’s only true democracy—one in which minority rights are protected. The right to vote, access to public health care, public education, freedom of speech, and protection of legal rights are enjoyed by all citizens, regardless of race and irrespective of religion.

As testament to this, in 2015—the most recent general election—voters elected 17 Arabs to serve in the 120-member Knesset. Arabs also comprise a growing proportion—more than 16 percent—of undergraduate students, a long-term goal of the Israeli government. In fact, the number of Arab university students soared more than 78 percent in just seven years. And many Arabs serve in the Israeli Defense Forces.

The Israeli government also protects the freedom of religion. Across Jerusalem—the capital of Israel—Muslims, Christians, and Jews (and others) are free to practice their faith. Mosques, churches, and synagogues operate within yards of each other. From the Western Wall bordering the holiest site of the Jewish faith, the Muslim call to prayer can be heard throughout the day.

For nearly 700 years, Jewish people were denied entry to the burial place in Hebron of Abraham, their patriarch. Now, under Israeli control, both Muslims and Jews pray at this site. Across the nation, the Israeli government ensures these three great monotheistic faiths can be practiced more freely than at any other time in history.

Contrary to Tlaib’s “apartheid” claim, the Israeli government does not impose ethnic segregation on communities. Arab and Jewish Israelis are free to buy and sell homes and land within areas that fall under Israeli administration.

On the other hand, Jews are precluded from living in zones controlled by the Palestinian Authority, which manages Palestinian civil affairs. In fact, a fatwa—a ruling under Islamic law—forbids Arabs from selling real estate to Jews in those areas, under penalty of death. A top judge of the Palestinian Authority warned that acting contrary to this order qualifies as “high treason.”

The charter of the Palestinian Liberation Organization—technically considered the “sole official representative of the Palestinian people”—continues to call for the violent destruction of Israel. Schools and television stations operated by the Palestinian Authority poison residents with an endless diet of anti-Semitism. The Palestinian Authority government routinely names streets, public buildings, and parks in honor of terrorists. Even worse, it bestows millions of dollars annually as compensation to families of these same terrorists.

In past years, the political leadership in both U.S. political parties recognized and spoke out against the bigotry inherent in attempting to destroy the Middle East’s only bastion of liberty. It is time once again for these leaders to boldly condemn the bigotry of these newly elected BDS advocates.

Indeed, the BDS movement exemplifies contemporary anti-Semitism. How disappointing and appalling that a growing number of U.S. members of Congress join in the chorus of Israel’s enemies under the guise of human rights concerns.

SOURCE






Publishers, Not Trump, Endanger Free Speech

The kinds of corporations that frequently proclaim their dedication to the First Amendment ought to pride themselves on having a longer attention span than a social-media mob.
The First Amendment has never been stronger. Yet freedom of speech is under dire threat. Both of these things can be true, and both are.

The kinds of corporations that frequently proclaim their dedication to the First Amendment — and are quick to denounce President Trump’s taunts of the media — are doing something Trump has not done and will not do: muzzling writers. Publishers are presenting authors with contracts containing clauses that essentially say, “We will cut you loose should a Twitter mob come after you.” It’s a revolting, shameful trend.

As Judith Shulevitz writes in the New York Times, Condé Nast, publisher of The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and many other magazines, recently started burying in its standard writers’ contracts a landmine. If the company should unilaterally rule that the writer has become “the subject of public disrepute, contempt, complaints or scandals,” the publisher can void the contract. Shulevitz mislabels such stipulations “morality clauses.” To paraphrase Mae West, morality has nothing to do with it. “Cowardice clauses” would be nearer the mark.

I won’t bore you by recounting all the times The New Yorker and Vanity Fair have railed against the president for supposedly endangering the freedom of people like its staffers to speak their minds. Now, the owner of these magazines is demanding that its own writers censor themselves, if they know what’s good for them. This is not just a stain on some of a free press’s loudest defenders, it promises to narrow and diminish the range of ideas they publish. If you know a field is mined, but have not been furnished with a map of each explosive’s location, why would you stray into that area at all? The New Yorker might as well place a sign above its office doors saying, “Warning: Do not be interesting.” (“Isn’t it there already?” I hear some wags replying, but The New Yorker remains replete with interesting material.)

As for Vanity Fair, for many years it published the musings of one Christopher Hitchens. Remember him? He said Michelle Obama’s undergraduate thesis wasn’t written in any known language. He said, about the Iraq War, that “the death toll is not nearly high enough.” He called Mother Teresa “a fanatic, a fundamentalist and a fraud.” Most unforgivable of all, he said women aren’t funny. Any guesses on whether, in today’s social-media atmosphere, one or two of his columns might cause a little light apoplexy on Twitbook or Facer? (I can report from personal experience that merely quoting what Hitchens said about Mrs. Obama predictably and boringly gets you tagged as racist.)

Book-publishing giants Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, and Penguin Random House have added cowardice clauses to their standard book contracts, and Shulevitz says she’s heard that Hachette Book Group is considering doing the same. (Penguin, to its credit, allows authors to keep their advances, but others don’t, says Shulevitz.) Penguin’s clause justifies itself with a reference to anticipated adverse impacts on business, warning authors not to do anything that might cause “sustained, widespread public condemnation of the author that materially diminishes the sales potential of the work.” That rationalization won’t withstand much scrutiny. Bill O’Reilly’s latest book stands at number four on the Times’ nonfiction bestseller list, and he was not only pilloried for years but actually fired by Fox News Channel due to scandal. Ann Coulter, Dinesh D’Souza, Tucker Carlson, and many other commentators who are vilified daily on social media (and in D’Souza’s case, actually spent time behind bars) sell books by the truckload. If anything, “being the subject of public disrepute, contempt, complaints or scandals” seems to boost sales, and publishers are well aware of this. Calumny, contumely, and controversy sell. I’m On the Fence About Trump is not a title Simon and Schuster wants to publish.

So why are book and magazine publishers putting such language in their contracts? Because they fear rebuke themselves. They don’t want to get dragged by association. “@PenguinRandom are you okay with what your author Mac McSmartypants just said to Chris Cuomo???” is not a comment a book publisher wants to see issuing from the Olympus of Alyssa Milano’s Twitter account and retweeted so many times it reaches more people than the population of France. The temperate response — “Publishing an author does not constitute an endorsement of his or her ideas” — will be ignored, laughed at, swept away in the tide of outrage, even though it’s true.

Much as soldiers report that every minute in a firefight seems like an eternity, though, social-media firestorms seem endless only when you’re in one. Even the really intense ones are usually over in days, sometimes hours. Private companies can, of course, impose whatever content restrictions they like on authors of the material they publish, but an entity devoted to the transmission of thought in forms that it hopes will endure ought to pride itself in having a longer attention span than a social-media mob. It ought also to prize diversity of opinion. Cowardice clauses stand to steer everyone toward dispensing received wisdom.

As for writers, courage. You know what the Hitch’s response would have been when presented with a contract containing one of these clauses; two words, beginning with an F and ending with an “off.” Yes, most of you lack his stature. Nevertheless, honor his boldness. Link your arms. Plant your feet. Make a stand for the culture of free expression just as you would for the First Amendment itself. Don’t sign.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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10 January, 2019

Psychologist says all humans - even BABIES - subtly dehumanize people outside their social group

In the Pixar animated film 'Inside Out,' most of the plot plays out inside protagonist Riley's head, where five emotions – Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust and Anger – direct her behavior.

The film was released to glowing reviews. But director Pete Docter later admitted that he always regretted that one emotion didn't make the cut: Schadenfreude.

Schadenfreude, which literally means 'harm joy' in German, is the peculiar pleasure people derive from others' misfortune.

You might feel it when the career of a high-profile celebrity craters, when a particularly noxious criminal is locked up or when a rival sporting team gets vanquished.

Psychologists have long struggled with how to best understand, explain and study the emotion: It arises in such a wide range of situations that it can seem almost impossible to come up with some sort of unifying framework. Yet that's exactly what my colleagues and I have attempted to do.

Schadenfreude’s many faces

One challenge continues to plague those who research schadenfreude: There's no agreed-upon definition.

Some think it's best to study the emotion in the context of social comparison, so they'll tend to focus on the way envy or resentment interacts with schadenfreude.

Others view the emotion through the lens of justice and fairness, and whether the sufferer deserved his or her misfortune.

Finally, the last group thinks that schadenfreude emerges out of intergroup dynamics – members of a group deriving joy out of the suffering of those outside of the group.

In our view, the different definitions point to multiple sides of schadenfreude, each of which might have distinct developmental origins.

The blossoming of schadenfreude

Perhaps the writers of 'Inside Out,' when deciding to jettison 'Schadenfreude,' thought that it would prove too difficult for children to grasp.

There's evidence, however, that children begin to experience schadenfreude early in life.

For example, at four years old, children found someone else's misfortune – like tripping and falling into a muddy puddle – funnier if that person had previously done something to hurt other children, such as breaking their toys.

Researchers have also found that two-year-old kids primed to be jealous of a peer experience glee when that peer suffers a mishap. By the age of seven, children feel more pleased after winning a game if a rival lost than when both won the game.

Finally, in a 2013 study, researchers had nine-month-old infants observe puppets interacting with one another. Some puppets 'enjoyed' the same types of food that the infants enjoyed, while others had a different set of tastes. When some puppets 'harmed' the other puppets, the researchers discovered that the infants would rather see the puppets who didn't share their tastes be hurt over the ones who did share their tastes.

Bringing it all together

Together, these studies show that schadenfreude is a complex emotion that seems to be deeply ingrained in the human condition.

Psychologists Scott Lilienfeld, Philippe Rochat and I wondered if there could be a way to unite the multiple facets of schadenfreude under the same umbrella.

Eventually, we settled on seeing schadenfreude as a form of dehumanization – the act of depicting and viewing another person as less than human.

When most people hear the term 'dehumanization,' they probably go to the worst-case scenario: a complete denial of someone's humanity, a phenomenon relegated to torture chambers, battlefields and racist propaganda.

But this is a misconception. Psychologists have shown that people often view their own group in more human terms, and – in subtle ways – can deny the full humanity of those outside of their group.

In our review, we hypothesized that the more empathy someone feels toward another person, the less likely they are to experience schadenfreude when that person suffers.

So in order for someone to feel schadenfreude toward another person – whether it's a rival, someone in an outgroup or someone who's committed a crime – they'll need to subtly dehumanize them. Only then does the sufferer's misfortune become rewarding.

This theory hasn't been tested yet, so at the end of our review, we suggest ways schadenfreude's early origins and individual differences can be placed under scientific scrutiny to study this novel hypothesis.

Linking schadenfreude with dehumanization might sound dark, especially because schadenfreude is such a universal emotion. But dehumanization occurs more often than most would like to think – and we believe it's behind the pang of pleasure you feel when you see someone fail.

SOURCE






Federal Court Rules Colorado Cannot Block Christian Baker’s Lawsuit Over State’s Hostility Toward His Beliefs

A federal district court ruled Friday that Colorado cannot block an attempt by Colorado cake artist Jack Phillips to sue the state over its “hostility” towards him and his Christian beliefs.

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) represents Phillips, owner of the Masterpiece Cakeshop, in the lawsuit.

As CNSNews.com previously reported, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, in June 2019, saying the commission “violated the Free Exercise Clause” by requiring Phillips to go against his religious beliefs about gay marriage and design a customized wedding cake for a gay couple, Charlie Craig and David Mullins.

“While it is unexceptional that Colorado law can protect gay persons in acquiring products and services on the same terms and conditions as are offered to other members of the public, the law must be applied in a manner that is neutral toward religion,” the high court wrote in its opinion at the time.

“The same agency that the Supreme Court rebuked as hostile to Jack Phillips has remained committed to treating him unequally and forcing him to express messages that violate his religious beliefs,” said ADF Senior Counsel Jim Campbell, who argued before the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado on Dec. 18.

“Colorado is acting in bad faith and with bias toward Jack. We look forward to moving forward with this lawsuit to ensure that Jack isn’t forced to create custom cakes that express messages in conflict with his faith,” Campbell added.

ADF noted that the commission filed a formal complaint against Phillips after the Supreme Court ruling because an attorney complained that Phillips refused to “create a cake designed pink on the inside and blue on the outside to celebrate and reflect a gender transition.”

The same attorney later asked Phillips to design a cake with satanic themes and images, but Phillips also refused.

“Jack serves all customers, and he is even happy to serve the attorney who lodged the complaint against him,” Campbell explained. “But Jack doesn’t create custom cakes that express messages or celebrate events in conflict with his deeply held beliefs. He can’t get a fair shake before the state commission,” Campbell said.

“A commissioner set to decide the state’s new case against Jack has publicly referred to him as a ‘hater’ on Twitter, one of several indications of the commission’s ongoing bad faith toward him and his beliefs,” Campbell added.

In his ruling, District Court Judge Wiley Y. Daniel said in his opinion that the commission and the Colorado Civil Rights Division treated Phillips “with hostility inconsistent with the First Amendment’s guarantee that our laws be applied in a manner that is neutral toward religion.”

To demonstrate that, Daniel provided two examples.

“The Division’s and the Commission’s ‘clear and impermissible hostility toward the sincere religious beliefs that motivated [Phillips’] objection’ to creating the custom wedding cake manifested itself in two ways,” Daniel wrote in his opinion.

“First, Commission members made disparaging comments about Phillips’ faith at public hearings. And second, the Division and the Commission treated Phillips differently from three other bakeries by allowed those bakeries to refuse a customer’s request to make a cake that would have violated their secular values, while requiring Phillips to produce a cake that would have violated his sacred beliefs,” the opinion stated.

“Weeks after the Supreme Court announced Masterpiece I, the Division issued a new probable cause determination against Phillips, alleging that he discriminated against a different customer because of the customer’s transgender status. The Commission also claimed Phillips discriminated against the customer and filed a formal complaint against him,” Daniel wrote.

“Tired of Colorado’s ‘continuing efforts to target Phillips’ and ‘unconstitutional bullying,’ Phillips filed this suit against Defendants. Phillips alleges that the new probable cause determination and formal complaint violate his First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion and free speech and his Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process and equal protection. Among other remedies, he asks for injunctive relief, declaratory judgment, and monetary compensation,” the opinion stated.

The defendants are identified as: Colorado Civil Rights Division Director Aubrey Elenis, seven members of the commission, Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman, and Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper.

SOURCE






US Marine Corps will have male and female recruits training alongside each other during boot camp for the first time in history at Parris Island in South Carolina

While female Marines have been part of the Corps for over a century, male and female recruits will train alongside each other at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island for the first time in history.

The test group of about 50 women enlisting in the US Marine Corps will go through grueling boot camp training alongside male recruits, rather than separately as it has been done in the past, with same-sex instructors.

Recruits are organized by regiment, battalion, company, platoon, squad and often fireteam.

The 3rd Recruit Training Battalion 'will start their training cycle with one female platoon and five male platoons,' at the Parris Island recruit depot on January 5, the Marines said in a statement.

Ultimately, the move came down to smaller training classes enlisting in the winter months, and isn't expected to be permanent, but an official said the Corps 'will certainly look at how the company performs in this model as we continually evaluate how we make Marines.'

In this 12-week cycle, which is presented as an experiment, about 50 women will go through the same training as their male counterparts, but will still be trained by females.

'This training cycle of about 300 recruits will provide Recruit Depot staff a unique opportunity to assess outcomes, achievements and challenges in training, logistics and resource impacts of this company training model,' the Marines said.

'The decision was made by Marine Corps leadership in support of training efficiency and is a first in the history of Marine Corps recruit training.'

Previously,  female and male recruits had only made contact during boot camp training at Parris Island at specific, isolated stages in the cycle, like during swim qualifications, at the rifle range and in classroom instructions during the final phase.

The females in the battalion will live together with the males in the barracks, but in separate squad bays, which are open-format floors with bunk beds lining the walls, and include separate sleeping quarters for drill instructors.

It's not likely integration will reach the point where all soldiers are housed together in those squad bays during training at Parris Island, according to Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Robert B. Neller.

'Our drill instructors stay with their recruits 24 hours a day, seven days a week the entire time they are there,' Neller told said during a Pentagon briefing in May.

'So I am not considering having men and women live together in an open squad bay.'

The other Marine recruit training installation, located in San Diego, only trains male recruits, but does have some female drill instructors stationed there.

Advocates for female Marines have long been calling for full, permanent integration, arguing separating the sexes builds resentment, fuels the false idea that female Marines have it easier in training, and can lead to male Marines disrespecting female superiors and leaders.

'The Marines should fully integrate enlisted boot camp from the first day so all new Marines soak up the Marine Corps ethos together and learn, together, that the unit bond includes both men and women,' retired Navy Capt. Lory Manning, director of government operations at the Service Women’s Action Network, told Marine Corps Times prior to the announcement of temporary integration on January 4.

Women account for eight percent of the Marine Corps, and comprise more than 16 percent of the US military overall.

SOURCE






30 Transgender Regretters Come Out Of The Closet

Walt Heyer knows firsthand what it’s like to undergo sex change surgery and then regret it. After living as a woman for nearly a decade, he decided to accept his biological sex and de-transition back to male. By then, Walt had received intensive cognitive therapy that helped him recognize early childhood trauma he had experienced.

The trauma resulted in a mental condition known as dissociative identity disorder (DID). In the clarity of that realization, his gender dysphoria simply vanished. His life as a “woman” all amounted to an attempt to escape reality. Sadly, too few people consider the possibility that gender dysphoria can manifest as a byproduct or symptom of other mental conditions, and most certainly of DID. (More on that below.)

Walt suffered huge waves of regret as a result of following through with his urge to be a woman. He had eagerly taken the bait of politicized medical practitioners, who hurried him along in the transition. He not only regretted what he had done to his body, he also grieved over the estrangement from his wife and children caused by his drastic change in identity.

There was collateral damage to other personal relationships as well. He also regretted the lost decade of his life in which he lived in the persona of a woman.

Heyer’s New Book Shines Light on Trans Life Survivors

Heyer has written several books on transgender regret, but his sixth and newest book, “Trans Life Survivors,” is not his personal story. It’s a compilation of the stories of many others caught up in today’s “transmania.” They specifically sought out Walt to get some much-needed support. They’ve shared their lonely, surreal experiences falling down the trans rabbit hole, hoping to escape as he did.

Walt’s correspondents describe a wide range of frustrating and confusing experiences. Some are nudged into transgenderism by social pressures and emotional manipulation. Many are hastily sent into surgery without adequate counseling (or any counseling at all), or are misdiagnosed. Some of those regret their decision very shortly after having irreversible surgery.

Many concerns about childhood traumas are ignored by therapists who are politically motivated to push as many patients as possible into sex change. They also fear intense ostracism and vicious backlash from the trans community if they “come out” as a potential de-transitioner.

Walt wrote “Trans Life Survivors,” he says, because he wants others “to catch a glimpse of the raw emotions and experiences of people who are harmed by the grand – and dangerous – experiment of cross-sex hormones and surgical affirming procedures.”

Helping Others Escape the Trans Rabbit Hole

For many years, Heyer’s website was virtually the only place for a trans regretter to get some relief from the social and political pressures crashing down. Many of his readers express a joyful sense of liberation in knowing that they are not all alone.

Much of their isolation is caused by our society’s slavish obedience to political correctness, which dictates that there is “no such thing” as transgender regret. Even worse, the transgender lobby is making it very difficult for such people to get the counseling they desperately want and need.

They’ve set up roadblocks in the form of new laws that virtually ban standard cognitive therapy for people who diagnose themselves with gender dysphoria, particularly those who are undecided about their path or actually regret it after the fact. Any legitimate form of talk therapy—therapy that allows for real Q-and-A that doesn’t necessarily result in affirmation of gender dysphoria—has been smeared with the label “conversion therapy.”

Regretters are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. They are not unlike recruits in a dangerous cult who sense that something is amiss, but feel trapped in a Hotel California (or even a Jonestown).

So “Trans Life Survivors” is a godsend for people struggling with trans regret, no matter what stage of transition or de-transition they are in. The book highlights 30 stories gleaned from among the many hundreds Heyer has received from his readers. Many more transgender people have contacted Walt over the years. Walt has been trying valiantly to keep up with the increasing volume of contacts.

His readers are grateful to find a place they can get real and rare information about how changing their identity might affect them down the road—or, increasingly, how they can de-transition once they realize how unhappy the process has made them.

Just Imagine How Regretting a Sex Change Would Feel
Can you imagine what it must be like to tell a therapist of your experience being abused as a child, which you offer as a possible explanation for your dysphoria, only to have the psychiatrist totally ignore that aspect of your past and instead push you to sex-change procedures as the only way to overcome your angst?

Imagine that you then defer to and trust the professional’s expertise, and you accept the treatment. Then, can you imagine, after going through all of that—the hormones, the mutilating surgeries, etc.—you realize it just didn’t work? You end up asking yourself: What did I do? Why did I go ahead with this? Then the trans lobby tells you it’s all your fault, you should have known better, and you’re not really trans anyway, so shut up.

That’s Billy’s story. But his story has a good ending that inspires regretters who have lost hope. Billy de-transitioned, fell in love, and ended up marrying a woman with children. This echoes Walt’s own life experience after de-transitioning. He too fell in love and married an amazing woman. They live a very joyful, rich, and fulfilling spiritual life together as Christians.

Such happy endings and strong relationships might seem unlikely to those who think they’ve hit rock bottom. But those results are real, and they are a source of much hope to those who yearn to de-transition, but who feel “abandoned, ostracized, outcast, and alone,” like Kevin, who reported that his sex-change was the biggest mistake of his life. Only God knows how many regretters Walt has steered away from suicide and towards renewed life.

Hard-to-Find Resources

In “Trans Life Survivors,” you’ll also read about “Blair,” who holds a Guinness World Record for most gender-reassignment surgeries: 167 surgeries to make him feel more like a woman. Needless to say, it didn’t work out. But we can easily suspect in his case the existence of surgical predators who take advantage of vulnerable people. Many others, like Michael, recognize that it’s all “a sick money-making industry.”

Others who have communicated with Walt include parents whose children are being pressured into gender transition by public school officials, social media, and pop culture. “Trans Life Survivors” also includes chapters on the medical realities of sex change as well as the politicization of medicine and psychiatry that locks people into a transgender identity.

The book ends with a useful listing of further resources for those who seek to find a way out. Such resources are very hard to come by, so the book is truly a public service.

Suppressed Support For Those De-Transitioning

After the novelty of the transition wears off—and it very often does—the regretter is stuck in a never-never land of keeping up facades and pretenses. Many report that the constant charade is emotionally draining and casts a pall over life. But if they express a desire to change back, their friends in the trans community often become angry and reject and isolate them.

Walt cites numerous studies confirming that most cases of gender dysphoria co-exist with other mental conditions.
Being shunned by one’s own community is painful. Eric wrote: “I’m trying to come out as a regretter, and I’m finding the community backlash to be difficult and the lack of medical support to be troubling.”

Walt knows that feeling very well. The transgender lobby has come out hard against him when he has spoken publicly about his personal experiences. In addition to smearing him with various epithets such as “religious nut” or “transphobic,” the lobby has worked hard to de-platform him.

Media Matters went into panic mode and ran a smear article when Walt gave a persuasive interview to CNN’s Carol Costello after Olympian Bruce Jenner’s 2015 transition. (Walt’s instincts tell him that Jenner regrets his decision, but is hopelessly stuck in the cultish trap of the limelight. I believe he’s right about that.)

Eric reported an unsettling lack of medical support. Walt cites numerous studies confirming that most cases of gender dysphoria co-exist with other mental conditions, such as DID, bipolar disorder, depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorders. If those other conditions were first treated through cognitive therapy, there’s no telling how much that would alleviate gender dysphoria without any need for invasive surgeries and hormonal treatments.

But this seems to be a well-guarded secret by political and media activists with a stake in promoting identity politics in general, and gender ideology in particular. Why? Probably because it could solve their problems, and their problems are the bread-and-butter of identity politics.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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9 January, 2019

The Abolition of Whiteness

The African American author below manages to make some sort of a rational case out of the Leftist hatred of whiteness.  He says that whites need to become self-conscious of being white.  Apparently that will make them more sympathetic to minorities and cause them to give minorities their money.  It's all very theoretical, however and seems doomed to have no influence on anyone

In 1997, American author and historian Noel Ignatiev delivered a speech at a conference in Berkeley, California. Throughout his talk, he made the case that the purpose of analyzing white identity is not merely to interpret it but to abolish it. This call for abolition was not for an adoption of color blindness. It was, counterintuitively, the exact opposite. White folks, he argued, must begin to actually see themselves as white. Richard Dyer, Professor of Film Studies at the University of Warwick, explains why in his essay, The Matter of Whiteness:

As long as race is something applied only to non-white peoples, as long as white people are not racially seen and named, they/we function as a human norm…The point of seeing the racing of whites is to dislodge them/us from the position of power, with all the inequities, oppression, privileges and sufferings in its train, dislodging them/us by undercutting the authority with which they/we speak and act in and on the world.

This subversion of whiteness is the only way for white folks to become visible to themselves. For how can they abolish an idol which they cannot see?

Religions are built on myths and rituals. To renounce the cult of white supremacy requires unlearning the myths that uphold it. The myth of American meritocracy. The myth that Black people’s problems are due to cultural pathology. The myth of reverse racism. The myth that having liberal politics or Black friends and relatives means you are free of idolatrous ways.

The core rituals, which give the idol of whiteness its legitimacy, must also be abandoned:

* Absolving white folks’ sins— past and present?—?via the legal system, print and digital media, literature and in general public discourse.

* Demonizing or disregarding the victims of the various forms of ceremonial white violence via the same channels.

This apostasy is what Ignatiev called being a “traitor to the white race.” It is to “nominally [classify] as white but” also “[defy] white rules so strenuously as to jeopardize his or her ability to draw upon the privileges of whiteness.”

What is necessary, then, is self-exile. For to challenge the very foundation of the imaginary construct known as the “white community” is to alienate one’s self from it. From this fission, Ignatiev says, can come the “building of a new human community.”

Since before the founding of the United States, there has always been a fear in the white body politic of retaliation of the enslaved. It is a rational fear for those, like Meccans in pre-Islamic Arabia, that live by the law of retaliation. We do not want revenge. Neither do we wish to be your saviors. We are, instead, calling you to the altar. We are calling you to abolish the idols erected in your heart. In Mecca, the Arabs’ chief idol was Hubal. Yours is whiteness. All the wealth, status and power you’ve accumulated in its false worship must be purified through almsgiving. That is, the economic, social and political capital you have must be used to advance the liberation struggles of all those who have suffered under white hegemony.

To be an abolitionist today is not only about destroying the modern day forms of slavery such as prisons and convict leasing, but also understanding that that work is tied to the vital labor of emancipating yourselves from the falsehood which veils you. It took lifetimes to build this chief idol and will take lifetimes to destroy it. It is a struggle you must pass on to your children and that they must pass on to theirs?—?just as we have had to do.

Shortly before his execution, the abolitionist John Brown said, “I have only a short time to live, only one death to die, and I will die fighting for this cause.”

So white folks, how are you living your lives? And in what state do you want to leave it?

SOURCE






Swiss woman is charged with assault after slapping Afghan migrant who kept groping her during New Year's Eve celebrations

A Swiss woman has been charged with assault after slapping an Afghan migrant who allegedly groped her during a New Year's Eve street party. The unnamed woman, 21, was said to have left the man with a broken nose when he reportedly groped her during a party at the City Hall in the Austrian capital Vienna.

After news of the charges against her were made public, a wealthy Swiss businessman has stepped in with an offer to pay the fine on her behalf. Former MP and bigwig of the conservative Swiss People's Party (SVP) Christoph Blocher was one of many that defended the actions of the 21-year-old woman.

Blocher, an industrialist and influential figure in Swiss politics despite his retirement, said: 'If the woman gets punished, I will gladly pay the fine.' He added: 'How should a woman defend herself otherwise if that is not allowed?'

Blocher admitted that he would have reacted in the same way if someone had tried to steal his wallet, for example.

Local media alleged that a 20-year-old Afghan suspect was part of a migrant gang who were allegedly assaulting women in the crowd during the New Year celebrations.

According to the Vienna Police, the Swiss woman reacted angrily when she was fondled by the migrant and smacked him full in the face. Witnesses called the police at 1.30am to report the incident.

At the same time, the suspect went to see cops on the square as he reportedly had a broken nose.

He was taken to hospital to be treated and a criminal charge for sexual harassment was filed against the 20-year-old Afghan, and a criminal complaint against the victim for GBH.

Under Austrian law, the police have a duty to file a criminal complaint when the alleged offence is of such severity that prosecutors have no choice but to pursue it.

SOURCE






Men 'face MORE discrimination than women'

Global study claims males receive the raw end of the deal with harsher punishments for the same crime, compulsory military service and more deaths at work

Women are better off in more countries than men are, a new study has found. A method that assesses the forms of hardship and discrimination facing men and women has revealed males have it harder in 91 countries out of 134. Women were disadvantaged in only 43.

The study looked at 6.8 billion people around the world and scientists developed a new way of measuring gender inequality.

The UK, the US and Australia all discriminate against men more whereas Italy, Israel and China are harder environments for women, according to the study.

Researchers say this is due to men receiving harsher punishments for the same crime, compulsory military service and more occupational deaths than women.

The study was carried out by the University of Essex and the University of Missouri-Columbia and published in the journal Plos One.

Scientists created a database which deciphers a nation's discrimination called the Basic Index of Gender Inequality (BIGI).  The closer the BIGI score is to zero the greater the level of equality is in the country. Zero is a perfect score, indicating absolute parity between the genders - and Italy came the closest with a score of 0.00021. Slightly favouring males.

The top ranked nation to favour women over men is claimed to be Saudi Arabia, with a score of -0.001554.

If it is a negative number it indicates females are better off and if the BIGI score is positive it shows males are less discriminated against.

For example, Guatemala and Albania came in as the 17th and 18th ranked countries, respectively for equality and had a BIGI score a similar distance from zero. However, Guatemala is a better environment for men with a score of 0.012198 where as Albania is better for women - it scored -0.012889

The index is based on three factors: educational opportunities, healthy life expectancy and overall life satisfaction.

A measure called the Global Gender Gap Index has been used as the yardstick for analysing inequality since its inception in 2006.It became one of the most widely-used measures of national gender inequality, used by academics and policy makers across the world.  Researchers have recently grown wary of the index and claim it does not measure issues where men are at a disadvantage.

Professor Stoet also believes the complexity of the Global Gender Gap Index makes  it difficult to distinguish whether gender differences are the result of social inequalities or personal preference.

The simpler BIGI method, he says, is a much sounder alternative. He said: 'No existing measure of gender inequality fully captures the hardships that are disproportionately experienced by men in many countries and so they do not fully capture the extent to which any specific country is promoting the wellbeing of all its citizens.

'The BIGI provides a much simpler way of tackling gender inequality and it focuses on aspects of life that are directly relevant to all people.

'Used alongside other existing indicators, it provides additional and different information to give a more complete assessment of gender equality, making it easier for policy-makers to introduce changes to improve the quality of life for both men and women.'

Researchers found the most developed countries in the world come closest to achieving true gender equality but there was a slight advantage for women.

Inequality was more significant in the least developed countries, with Chad the lowest ranked nation. Women in these nations are at a more significant disadvantage than the men in the more developed nations where women have the edge. 

The authors of the research say the difficulties faced by women in developing regions is  predominantly due to fewer opportunities to get a good education.

There are an equal amount of nations with medium-level development that see men and women falling behind.

Researchers say men's disadvantage is largely due to a shorter healthy lifespan. 

Professor David Geary, from the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of Missouri in the United States, added: 'We sought to correct the bias towards women's issues within existing measures and at the same time develop a simple measure that is useful in any country in the world, regardless of their level of economic development.'

SOURCE





Jeremy Clarkson: BBC won't give top jobs to men any more

The BBC is so determined to hand its top jobs to women that Nick Robinson’s audition for Question Time was “a waste of petrol”, according to Jeremy Clarkson. The former Top Gear presenter said “anyone who has got a scrotum” stands no chance of being hired by the corporation.

Clarkson no longer works for the BBC because he was sacked for punching a junior colleague during a tantrum over hotel catering. Nevertheless, he remains interested in his former employers and their efforts to redress the gender imbalance.

“Men now just don’t get jobs [at the BBC] at all. The new rap one is a woman as well, isn’t it?” he said in an apparent reference to Tiffany Calver, the first female presenter of Radio 1’s The Rap Show.

Last year, Cassian Harrison, editor of BBC Four, said that the era of “white, middle-aged and male” presenters “standing on a hill and telling you like it is” had passed.

Clarkson, 58, claimed such statements drove talent towards streaming services and said his first thought upon reading it was: “That’s Attenborough! That’s probably why he’s gone to Netflix.”

He went on: “Honestly, poor old Nick Robinson going for an interview for Question Time. What a waste of petrol that was. No chance he’s going to get it. “Anyone who has got a scrotum, forget it. They just aren’t giving jobs to men at the moment. There is an argument that it’s been all-men for a long time, so what’s wrong with it being all-women for some time? I get that. That’s fine.

“We just, as men, have to accept we’ve had it. Let’s just go down the bar.”

Robinson was the only man to audition for the Question Time job, on a shortlist that included Fiona Bruce, Kirsty Wark, Emily Maitlis and Samira Ahmed. Bruce got the job.

After being photographed arriving for the audition, Robinson claimed he “never expected to get the job” but said he would have “kicked myself” had he not tried.

It was announced in November that Sir David Attenborough is narrating a new natural history series for Netflix, Our Planet.

Clarkson and his former Top Gear colleagues, James May and Richard Hammond, now present The Grand Tour on Amazon Prime Video.

In a separate interview with Radio Times, Clarkson declared: “If I ran the BBC it would be better. I would make programmes for everybody, not just seven people in Islington. It’s become so up itself, suffocating the life out of everything in its nonsense need to be politically correct.”

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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7 January, 2019

Against Chill

Alana Massey is becoming a traditional woman

In recent years, “chill” has become one of the most desirable qualities in a romantic prospect. But it is a garbage virtue that will destroy the species.

The Great Chill Massacre of 2014 was not premeditated. When I woke up that morning, I had no idea that I’d end the day going from casually dating six men to formally and intentionally dating zero. But then two of the six men coincidentally sent texts admiring my “chill,” and it became clear that drastic and draconian measures would be required to set the record straight. It seems that my poker face is too perfect when men report a desire to “see what happens.” My willingness to call dates “hanging out” in perpetuity sometimes gives the impression that I am in possession of the amorphous and increasingly desirable characteristic of Chill.

And so in a fit of shamelessness and glory, I sent some variation of the text, “I’m actually looking for something serious so I’m not planning to see you anymore” to all six of them. Incredulity and attempts to lure me back into my Chill with more empty promises that we could “see where it goes” were ignored or actively mocked. I killed what little Chill I actually had and I shed no tears for it.

To the uninitiated, having Chill and being cool are synonyms. They describe a person with a laid-back attitude, an absence of neurosis, and reasonably interesting tastes and passions. But the person with Chill is crucially missing these last ingredients because they are too far removed from anything that looks like intensity to have passions. They have discernible tastes and beliefs but they are unlikely to materialize as passionate. Passion is polarizing; being enthusiastic or worked up is downright obsessive. Excessive Chill is “You do you” taken to its most extreme conclusion, giving everyone’s opinions and interests equal value so long as they’re authentically ours.

In an infamous passage in Gone Girl, the elusive “Cool Girl” is described as a woman who declares, “I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2.” The “Cool Girl” is, of course, remarkably dull in her interests because they center almost exclusively on the man with whom she is so inexplicably enraptured. But the “Cool Girl” has no Chill. She likes him far too much and lets it show. Chill is different?—?it is agreeable because it is emotionally vacant. Chill is what Cool would look like with a lobotomy and no hobbies. And for a large subset of the population, Chill is one of the most desirable qualities in a romantic prospect.

I am originally from San Diego where Chill was as much a part of our culture as burritos and surfing and lifted Toyota Tacoma trucks. It was an insistence on going with the flow, rolling with the punches. It would have been about saying “C’est la vie!” to all the shitty shit that happened if more people there had taken French. The ever-reliable Urban Dictionary has 111 definitions of “chill,” the first of which appeared in June 2002. Most of these descriptions describe the act of chilling, which is either hanging out or smoking weed, and sometimes both. The others describe being chill, an adjective to describe being calm, laid back, or relaxed. The first instance of Chill as a noun appears in 2013 under the term “No Chill” and describes a range of people who are reckless or lacking rationality. These definitions are deceptively simple ways of asking people to have fewer strong emotions.

Early adopters of the sexual liberation and drug culture in the 1960s had a prototype for Chill in their sexual mores and free spirits. Each decade since has seen an increasing interest in eschewing anything that might limit the free expression and experience of one’s interior life and carnal desires. But this kind of Chill still had an emotional dimension. Hippies coined the term “free love” rather than “free sex.” The pioneers who brought “open relationship” into the mainstream vernacular the early aughts to describe non-traditional partnerships still acknowledged that feelings were involved at some level. An open relationship is, after all, still a relationship.

Chill has now slithered into our romantic lives and forced those among us who would like to exchange feelings and accountability to compete in the Blasé Olympics with whomever we are dating. Oh, I’m sorry, I mean whomever we are “hanging out with.” Whomever we are “talking to.” Chill asks us to remove the language of courtship and desire lest we appear invested somehow in other human beings. To even acknowledge that there might be an emotional dimension to talking or dating or hanging out or coming over or fucking or whatever the kids are calling it all these days feels forbidden. It is a game of chicken where the first person to confess their frustration or confusion loses.

But Chill is not the opposite of uptight. It is the opposite of demanding accountability. Chill is a sinister refashioning of “Calm down!” from an enraging and highly gendered command into an admirable attitude. Chill suggests that young love is best expressed as competitive ambivalence. Chill demands that you see a Read receipt followed by a “Hey, was asleep” text three hours later and not proceed to throw your phone into the nearest volcano. Chill asks you to be like, “LOL, what volcano?” Chill presides over the funeral of reasonable expectations. Chill takes and never gives. Chill is pathologically unfeeling but not even interesting enough to kill anyone. Chill is a garbage virtue that will destroy the species. Fuck Chill.

As is evident by now, I have Net Zero Chill. Anyone with real Chill would never do something so erratic and shrill as capitalize the first letter of the word. Because that is making it a thing. And people with Chill do not make anything a thing. Indeed, when asked the status of their relationship, the response with the most Chill is, “Oh, we’re not a thing.” We have reached a point where the best possible answer is to deny that the two of you even exist. I don’t think that it is so much to ask that I be considered a thing?—?at least some kind of thing?—?if I am engaging in emotional or sexual intimacy with someone.

I routinely happen upon men who are perplexed when I eventually declare that I want to know where we stand. Indecision is not a noble virtue. If a man is in “Not really feeling this becoming more than what it is,” territory, I should be made aware in no uncertain terms. If a man is in “I am waiting for someone else to be my girlfriend but I’ll keep you around till I find her” territory, I ought to know that too. My feelings, and the feelings of many people I know, are more hurt by the prolonged waiting for a concrete answer while we sit quietly with our feigned Chill. It is as if I’ve broken some unwritten law when I ask what they are looking for and am dissatisfied with the answer “I don’t really like to put labels on things.” But putting labels on things are how people find the exit during a fire and make sure they’re adding vanilla extract to the cake instead of arsenic.

My aim is not to force everyone to return in lock-step to monogamous relationships that begin after exactly 8.3 dates and result in marriage 29 months later. Such relationships are not for everyone. I am a firm believer that everyone ought to exercise their God-given right to use Tinder in whatever fashion is most suitable for their present relationship goals (or lack thereof). But it ought to be acknowledged that the two of us are not, in fact, just chilling when we get together.

So, ladies and gentleman and people who do not believe in the binary, we have reached peak Chill. Or at least I hope we have. Because Chill is the opposite of something else too: warmth. And kindness, and earnestness, and vulnerability. And we need just enough of those things to occasionally do something so remarkably unchill as fall in love.

SOURCE







Nanny’s back – and we don’t mean Mary Poppins

‘Tis the season to be jolly, to eat, drink and be merry – unless the zealots of public health have their way. Miserablism is a full-time job and 2019 was packed with crappy, illiberal new measures to suck the fun out of life in the name of extending it.

For once, tobacco got off relatively lightly this year – but only because there have been so many crackdowns on the evil weed that it’s hard to think of anything else to do short of an outright ban. Nonetheless, the Scottish National Party, emphasising the pettiness of its prohibitionism, had a go in its latest tobacco-control strategy, published in June. The report suggested making it harder for residents of social housing to smoke, imposing bans on smoking within 15 metres of hospital buildings, and even making cigarettes ugly to complement the already ugly ‘plain packs’. The barmy plan promotes e-cigarettes as a means of quitting – but makes it harder to advertise them! The one entirely predictable policy was ever-more lavish funding for the anti-smoking lobby.

But the SNP has competition in the nannying stakes from another devolved government – in Wales. There, the new first minister, Mark Drakeford, wants to extend the smoking ban to ‘outdoor areas of cafés and restaurants and city and town centres’. The risks from ‘passive smoking’ indoors are trivial – despite all the claims of anti-smoking campaigners and medics to the contrary – so they must be almost non-existent outdoors. Which only goes to show that the justification for the original smoking ban – to protect non-smokers – was pure tosh. Rather, the ban was driven by a moralistic disdain for smoking and smokers.

It’s enough to drive you to drink. But even buying a drop of booze became harder in 2019. The SNP finally got its way and introduced minimum unit pricing for alcohol. Although the law enabling minimum pricing was passed in 2012, legal challenges kept it on ice until this year. From May, a unit of alcohol could not be sold for less than 50 pence in Scotland, bumping up the price of cheaper drinks, particularly big bottles of strong cider, but also having a significant effect on all cheaper drinks. For example, those adverts for World Cup / Christmas supermarket bargain crates of lager now all come with an asterisk and small print: ‘Not available in Scotland.’ The Welsh Assembly, ever keen to join the ‘fun’, has now voted to follow suit and introduce minimum unit pricing.

Minimum unit pricing does not affect the drinking habits of the well-to-do. Their bottles of single-malt whisky and Chateauneuf-du-Pape are already far more expensive than 50 pence per unit. But for the hard-up looking to get a relaxing drink, the law means they must drink less or sacrifice something else – food, heating, etc. For the majority of the population, this law will make us all a little bit worse off while hardened drinkers will carry on regardless. The law will have no effect on harmful drinking. The irony is that in the years before the law was passed, harmful drinking levels had fallen sharply anyway. Let’s be thankful that the prohibitionists couldn’t claim the credit, or even more draconian anti-alcohol laws would be dreamed up and enacted, based on the ‘success’ of minimum unit pricing.

But while the Scottish government fixing prices is a major development, the biggest change this year was the introduction of the Soft Drinks Industry Levy – aka, the ‘sugar tax’. For drinks with more than eight grams of sugar per 100ml, the levy is 24 pence per litre. For drinks with more than five grams of sugar per 100ml but less than eight grams, the levy is 18 pence per litre. That means a 330ml can of high-sugar drink costs eight pence more than before; a two-litre bottle costs 48 pence more. While Coca-Cola and Pepsi have resolutely refused to change their recipes for fear of a consumer backlash, almost every other high-sugar drink has been ‘reformulated’, replacing some of the sugar with artificial sweetener, in order to beat the tax.

The effect is that sugar consumption may go down a little, but not sufficiently to make any significant difference to obesity or diabetes. Hugely popular drinks like Irn-Bru and Lucozade have seen sales fall as customers turn away from the new, half-sugar / half-sweetener recipes. The real victim has been our ability to choose what we want to drink for ourselves – all to satisfy the health zealots, while achieving nothing.

The trouble with these stupid and illiberal laws is that they rarely get repealed, even when they have been shown to be a failure. Instead, new ideas get dreamt up by the public-health lobby – people who don’t smoke, barely drink and have a hot flush of guilt over scoffing one sweet from a box of chocolates – to continue to make life consistently worse for the rest of us. Indeed, thanks to government pressure for ‘voluntary’ sugar reductions by food manufacturers, those boxes of chocolates have been a lot smaller this festive season.

Even that is not enough for England’s chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies, who proudly claims the title of the nation’s ‘chief nanny’ and believes that the industry ‘has not delivered’ on voluntary measures (that is, ludicrous and sweeping goals set in Whitehall, divorced from common sense). In her end-of-year report, Davies calls on the government to ‘review the use of fiscal disincentives in relation to foods that are high in sugar and salt and also incentives to increase fruit and vegetable consumption’ – in other words, impose taxes on ‘unhealthy’ foods and subsidise ‘healthy’ foods. And the news last week that Public Health England is pushing for calorie caps on restaurant dishes and supermarket foods shows that the Charge of the Lite Brigade against every kind of food is in full flow.

It’s not really a ‘nanny state’. After all, the most famous nanny of them all assured us that a ‘spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down’. The state would love to ban sugar altogether. The public-health monomaniacs are less like Mary Poppins and more like the Grinch.

SOURCE






UK: Ethiopian-born auxiliary cop who claimed he suffered 'deep-seated and cunning racism' in police force loses battle after it's revealed he made catalogue of errors including one that could have seen him ARRESTED



Ethiopian-born Tegegn Bayissa had claimed his career was wrecked by ‘deep-seated and cunning’ racism.

The police community support officer blamed colleagues’ prejudice for their refusal to let him patrol unattended.

He insisted it was the only possible explanation, given that his role was ‘not rocket science’ and one that even a teenager could perform.

But when he brought a race discrimination claim, the true reason emerged – for the PCSO had made a catalogue of basic errors, one of which could have seen him arrested.

After hearing how senior officers had given Mr Bayissa every chance to learn the ropes, an employment tribunal rejected his claim on every one of 47 points.

However, Greater Manchester Police has now been left with a reported £20,000 legal bill after he said he was unable to cover its costs.

University-educated Mr Bayissa joined the force as a £25,000-a-year PCSO in 2014 as part of a drive to attract more ethnic minority officers.

Humiliatingly, he managed to mess up a routine exercise security-marking bicycles at a family fun day, failing to apply lacquer on top of the ink which meant the details could be wiped off easily by a thief.

He was given a warning after failing to report an assault following a road crash, admitting he did not know what officers were meant to do after a traffic accident.

On one occasion he found a mobile phone, but instead of handing it in to lost property he put it in his drawer – which could have led to his arrest.

One shopkeeper on his beat refused to believe he was a genuine PCSO because he did not appear to know what he was doing.

Mr Bayissa claimed that ‘officers had been desperate to find fault in his actions’. In 2016 he quit, launching a race claim.

Mr Bayissa argued that he was a victim of ‘deep-seated and cunning police racism’, asking: ‘What part of PCSO’s role is so difficult for a man who has a university level education?

'A teenager with not much life experience can work as a PCSO. The role ... was not rocket science.’

However, the tribunal panel disagreed, saying that senior officers had displayed huge patience as he struggled.

Mr Bayissa had been ‘resistant to the suggestion that there was anything he could learn arising from incidents he had encountered’, they said, adding: ‘It appears to us that [he] underestimated the difficulty of the role.’

Yesterday at his Manchester home Mr Bayissa, who is now unemployed, said he did not accept the tribunal’s conclusions but had run out of money to appeal – or pay the police’s legal costs.

SOURCE






Antisemitic Doctor Who Said She’d Give Jews The Wrong Medication No Longer Employed At Ohio Hospital

An Ohio hospital confirmed Monday that it no longer employs a doctor who made anti-Semitic comments and promised to give Jewish patients the wrong medication.

The Cleveland Clinic said in its statement that it became aware of the social media posts by Lara Kollab, 27, who worked at the clinic from July to September 2019, and that her beliefs conflicted with those of the clinic. The hospital did not state, however, whether Kollab had been let go as a direct result of her tweets.

Kollab had a history of making violently anti-Semitic comments on social media. An online compilation of Kollab’s tweets showed she often referred to Jews as “dogs,” invoked Allah to kill them, and denigrated both Israel and the U.S.

“Cleveland Clinic was recently made aware of  comments posted to social media by a former employee,” the hospital’s Monday statement reads.

“This individual was employed as a supervised resident at our hospital from July to September 2019. She is no longer working at Cleveland Clinic. In no way do these beliefs reflect those of our organization. We fully embrace diversity, inclusion and a culture of safety and respect across our entire health system,” the statement adds.

Kollab since deleted her tweets, but Canary Mission, a website devoted to exposing those who openly support antisemitism or terrorist organizations, compiled, translated and took screenshots of some of them. They show calls for violence against the Jews, claims that the Holocaust is exaggerated, and open support for terrorists.

Strangely, Kollab graduated from Touro College Of Osteopathic Medicine with a D.O. in 2019, which is an expressly Jewish Orthodox institution.

While Kollab is no longer employed at the hospital, her medical license is still active until 2021

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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6 January, 2019

Political correctness destroys medical research

I have just finished reading a just-out report of a generally very careful body of medical research that stretched over a 12 year period. (Assessment of Risk Factors and Biomarkers Associated With Risk of Cardiovascular Disease Among Women Consuming a Mediterranean Diet by Ahmad et al.). The work that went into it must have been immense.  Yet it is in the end no evidence for or against anything.

The auguries surrounding it were bad from the start.  It was a "Mediterranean diet" study and the Mediterranean diet myth was visibly wrong from the outset.  Countries like Australia have longer lived populations than any Mediterranean country despite having nothing like a Mediterranean diet.  A normal Australian diet, for instance, includes lots of fried steak, sausages, chops, sausage rolls, fries and burgers.  It's about as UN-Mediterranean as you can imagine. If national diets were a guide to health (a silly proposition in the first place), everybody should be eating lots of fried steak and sausages along with a generous helping of fries. But, still, the Mediterranean myth lives on. 

Anyway, this latest study of a large number of Americans who ate a more or less Mediterranean diet did report some benefit from that diet.  As soon as I saw that, I said to myself "Aha!  What's going on here?".  That was only a rhetorical question, however as I knew what I would find:  A TOTAL lack of demographic controls. I had to read right through the article twice to assure myself of that but it was so.

Yet probably the most consistent finding in medical research is that the poor have worse health.  And it's not much of a guess to say that poor Americans are the least likely to comply with a Mediterranean diet regime.  So what the research most probably showed was in fact the oldest finding in the book: That the poor have worse health.  There was no need to invoke diet at all to get the results reported.

So why was the research design so crashingly stupid and ignorant?   Political correctness.  Under the Leftist dogma that all men are equal, all talk of social class is deadly dangerous and probably "racist".  You could end your career by discussing it too frankly. So best not to mention it at all.  And medical researchers do regularly skip over it.  They do not even attempt to gather data on the income of the people they study. I gathered income data in my survey research career so it can be done.

So the majority of epidemiological research might as well not have been done.  By failing to apply basic demographic controls the authors rendered their conclusions moot.  We do not know whether their conclusions were right or not -- though a suspicion that most of the findings were simple class effects and not the effect of anything dietary or medical would usually be the safest conclusion.  All that work for nothing!

And I am not overgeneralizing from one study.  For 9 years I ran a blog that looked daily at the latest epidemiological research reports -- and, with very few exceptions, income was not controlled for.






Federal Appeals Court Hands Trump a Big Win, Allows Transgender Military Ban To Stand

A federal appeals court upheld President Donald Trump’s military transgender ban on Friday, lifting an injunction that prevented the government from limiting transgender military service.

The court ruled that the partial ban, which was announced but not implemented by the Pentagon, should not have been challenged, USA Today reported.

“The District Court made an erroneous finding that the (administration’s policy) was the equivalent of a blanket ban on transgender service,” the appeals court wrote, according to The Washington Post.

“The government took substantial steps to cure the procedural deficiencies the court identified in the enjoined 2017 presidential memorandum,” the panel said, according to USA Today.

The Trump administration had decided to allow those with gender dysmorphia to serve, but only if they served under the gender assigned to them at birth and not the one that they self identify with.

The ruling said the partial ban “plausibly relies upon the ‘considered professional judgment’ of ‘appropriate military officials,’ and appears to permit some transgender individuals to serve in the military.”

The decision was made by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and made up of judges appointed by Presidents Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

American Military News reported that while the ruling is in favor of the Trump administration’s ban, there will not be an immediate impact on troops because there are three cases in other courts where the ban is being challenged.

President Donald Trump announced the proposed policy on Twitter in July 2017.

“After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military,” Trump tweeted.

The president went on to say, “Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you.”

A memorandum released in March 2019 expanded on the proposed policy and read, “Among other things, the policies set forth by the Secretary of Defense state that transgender persons with a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria — individuals who the policies state may require substantial medical treatment, including medications and surgery — are disqualified from military service except under certain limited circumstances.”

The president’s announcement brought turmoil among LGBTQ activists, and the decision has been challenged multiple times since the initial announcement was made.

Shannon Minter, legal director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights, called the recent ruling “devastating.” “Today’s ruling is a devastating slap in the face to transgender service members who have proved their fitness to serve and their dedication to this country,” Minter said, according to USA Today.

According to USA Today, dozens of transgender recruits have signed up to serve since Jan 1, 2019, when they became eligible and there are several thousand active-duty transgender troops.

SOURCE






The Woke Moral Panic of Today

2019 was a chaotic year. It was a chaotic year for the markets, for domestic and international politics, and for social mores. 2019 promises more of the same, if the end of the prior year was any indicator. And it promises something else: the continued rise of the Wokescolds.

Wokescolds are the new representatives of moral panic. We’ve seen plenty of moral panic before in the United States, from worries about violent video games, to concern about allegations of sex abuse at day care facilities.

But never have we seen a moral panic of the stunning breadth of today’s woke moral panic. It’s a moral panic that insists we change fundamental characteristics of our society, from biology, to language, to politics, to religion, to romantic relations, to art, to comedy.

We’re told that if we fail to rewrite biology to suggest there are more than two sexes, or if we don’t use preferred pronouns rather than biological ones, we will inevitably create emotional and mental instability among certain vulnerable groups.

We’re told that if we fail to silence members of groups who haven’t suffered sufficiently in the United States, we will be contributing to the perpetuation of power hierarchies that target minorities.

We’re told that if we don’t force religious people to violate their own standards in order to cater to those engaging in what they consider to be sinful activity, we will be bolstering religious oppression.

We’re told that the only proper type of sexual relationship is one initiated via contractual levels of affirmative consent, rather than mere affirmative body language or acquiescence.

We’re told that “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” and “The Philadelphia Story” are deeply troubling hallmarks of our sexist past (modern rap, replete with brutal degradation of women, is just fine, in case you were wondering).

And we’re told that if we consider politically incorrect jokes funny, we’re strengthening regressive stereotypes.

If we fail to abide by these new strictures, we will be attacked by the Wokescolds.

These “woke” inquisitors have apparently mastered the ever-shifting dynamics of leftist power politics and are willing to scour everyone’s online history and interpersonal relationships for signs of heresy. Once such heresy is uncovered, the Wokescolds truly go to work: They demand apologies from the supposed sinners and boycotts of those who refuse to disassociate from them. They discourage decent people from speaking up—better to stay silent so as to avoid the wrath of the Wokescolds.

The Wokescolds deliberately pick marginal cases—cases on which good people may be split. This allows the Wokescolds to consistently narrow the boundaries of safety for those who disagree with them.

The latest victim of the Wokescolds: Louis C.K.

Now, C.K. has a reprehensible personal history; by his own admission, he used his position of fame and power to lure up-and-coming female comedians backstage, where he would then ask them to watch him touch himself. C.K. has apologized for that behavior. But now he’s back on the road, and he’s beginning to make jokes again.

This must not be allowed, particularly when his jokes are about such taboo topics as gender pronouns and the alleged expertise conferred by experiencing tragedy. And so C.K. has been pronounced Unwoke.

See, before his #MeToo moment, he was sufficiently politically leftist to avoid the Wokescold wrath—after all, he once called Sarah Palin a “c—.” But now, C.K. must pay the price for not being sufficiently woke. Those who watch his comedy must be shamed. And we must suggest that he is no longer Funny.

Now, the difference between being funny and being Funny is that when you’re funny, everyone knows it—when you’re Funny, as defined by critics, you don’t have to be funny. You just have to be woke, like the awfully unfunny Hannah Gadsby. Real humor requires only satisfying the Wokescolds. We’ve all just been misdefining comedy for a few millennia.

If all this sounds dull, obnoxious, and frustrating, that’s because it is. And while the Wokescolds may win temporary victories, those victories will surely be Pyrrhic: As it turns out, we tend to like our biology, language, politics, religion, romantic relationships, art, and comedy.

The Wokescolds will certainly lose. But not before they destroy a lot of people and fray the social fabric nearly beyond repair.

SOURCE






How different are fascists and the Antifa, really?

So there’s this really whacked-out young lady just absolutely spitting high on rage with one of those weird Chelsea Girl fringe haircuts like skinhead molls used to wear back in the Age of Reagan and she is right at this moment very fixated on—and I am not making this up—kettle corn, that weird repulsive caramel-coated Dutch mutant popcorn varietal sold at state fairs and any place men in laced-up pirate blouses are gathered, and she’s just going on and on about it, screaming at the top of her skinny little lungs: “IT ’S SALTY AND SWEET! IT’S SALTY AND SWEET! IT’S SALTY AND SWEET!” and ain’t nobody listening, but that’s pretty clearly beside the point, psychically, from where this particular specimen is standing and chanting, working herself up into a kind of lathery confection-oriented trance as she contemplates the ineffable yin and yang of it all, kettle-corn-speaking.

I imagine that her head would explode if she found out that Oreo is making a kettle-corn-flavored sandwich cookie, and that it is—saints above!—vegan.

The kettle-corn girl is but one of many madcap escapees from the great mental ward of the Pacific Northwest out here making strange noises on the mean streets of downtown Portland on Election Night 2019, and her ecstatic om mani padme hum devotional to kettle corn is soon drowned out as her thuggish black-masked comrades begin their more straightforward and politically meaningful and considerably more comprehensible chant: “Whose streets?”

“OUR STREETS!” “Whose streets?” “OUR STREETS!” “Whose streets?” “OUR STREETS!” The thing is, the pointy-headed little black-shirted goons aren’t entirely wrong about that. The official target of tonight’s march is U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement—an agency within the Department of Homeland Security that some Top Gun–loving bureaucrat surely christened thus so that it could be called “ICE,” which sounds about 35 percent more jackbootilicious than you really want a law-enforcement agency serving a free people in a still-functional constitutional republic to sound. “Abolish ICE!” is the official theme of the evening, and the blackshirts return to it from time to time, but the real subject of tonight’s fugue is, pardon my Anglo-Saxon, “F*** THE POLICE!” which is developed in a kind of sloppy exposition in three or four different chants. “A-C-A-B!” “ALL COPS ARE BASTARDS!” “A-C-A-B!” “ALL COPS ARE BASTARDS!” “A-C-A-B!” “ALL COPS ARE BASTARDS!” And these absolutely are their streets, as the two neutered Portland cops following them dutifully around make clear.

The goons and thugs occasionally take a moment to amuse themselves by messing with the cops, screaming obscenities at them or committing flagrant but relatively minor violations of the law in front of them, daring them to do anything about it. The cops trudge and trundle on, calm as monks, pretending not to notice as the hoodlums pound on passing cars, block intersections, and menace bystanders.

At the most public of public spaces in Portland, Pioneer Courthouse Square—“Portland’s living room,” they call it—the goons encounter a little bit of counterprotest, not from sad incel Proud Boys or the Klan or simply from other pissant neo-fascists wearing slightly different-color shirts—but from a young black man who intuits, not inaccurately, that this is mainly a bunch of rich-white-kid play-acting by little runts who make pretty good thugs when confronted with people in wheelchairs or little old ladies—more on that in a second—but who are basically chickensh** poseurs who are DOWN FOR THE CAUSE only to the extent that it doesn’t stand between them and a soy latte and an MFA.

He says as much, at higher volume than probably is really necessary—and the weaselly little munchkin blackshirts who had just a second before insisted that ALL COPS ARE BASTARDS! and boasted of their control of the streets turn immediately to the police for help. And the police, damn their eyes, help: They evict an actual peaceable protester, if a loud one, from the public square—in order to make room for mask-wearing, law-breaking, little-old-lady-assaulting hooligans.

A police vehicle cruises down the street a respectful distance behind the mob. The purported lawmen inside announce over the loudspeakers that they are there to assure this rabble of miscreants that they are there to help the mob “exercise your First Amendment rights safely,” so please stay on the sidewalk and obey the traffic laws. Naturally, the mob responds to this by immediately stepping off the sidewalk and violating the traffic laws. Not that there’s any need to—they just want to remind themselves, and the police, that they can. Whose streets? That’s pretty clear.

On Portlandia, the mayor of Portland is played by Kyle Maclachlan (of Twin Peaks) as a goofy and generally earnest middle-aged municipal careerist trying to be cool. In real life, Portland’s mayor is Ted Wheeler, a sniveling little runt of a bureaucrat who professes to be “appalled” at the political violence that is now commonplace on the streets of Portland but complains that he is effectively unable to do anything about it.

When Antifa thugs attacked a march held by Patriot Prayer, a local right-wing group, police reported seeing people brandishing guns, clubs, knives, and pepper spray. They made no arrests.

Owing to one of the eccentricities of Portland governance, the mayor is also the police commissioner. The police chief, who bears the wonderful inaptronym “Danielle Outlaw,” answers to him, as of course do the police themselves.

According to Andy Ngo, a local journalist who has written for the Wall Street Journal and other publications about the Portland fascists who style themselves anti-fascists (and whose work on another topic appears elsewhere in this issue), the police are under orders to avoid creating “flashpoints,” meaning confrontations between police and hooligans that might look bad on video. “The police are getting pushed from all sides,” Ngo says. “The Right feels like the police allow anarchy to happen on the streets, and the Left says that the police are protecting the ‘fascists.’

The mayor’s constituents are people who are sympathetic to Antifa. He’s come out verbally very hard against the right-wing groups and has been inaccurate in his description of them, describing them as white supremacists, which I don’t think is a fair description of Patriot Prayer or the Proud Boys. When it comes to Antifa, sometimes he condemns their violence—but never their ideology.”

Mayor Wheeler did not avail himself of the opportunity to comment for this report. He did tell reporters after an earlier riot: “This is the story of Goldilocks and the two bears. The porridge is either too hot or it’s too cold. At any given moment in this city, the police are criticized for being heavy-handed and intervening too quickly, or they’re being criticized for being standoffish and not intervening quickly enough.”

Fair enough. If only Portland had some sort of city leader who in his official capacity might be relied upon to make such judgments and see them put into place through city policies. Perhaps an elected official something like what the Spanish call an alcalde.

The problem is most dramatically on display in Portland, but it is hardly limited to the city “where young people go to retire.” Everywhere pointy-headed progressives are given unchallenged power, the same thing happens: Berkeley surrendered to political violence, too, along with Washington and other cities and practically every college campus.

Peter Beinart, writing in The Atlantic, forthrightly described Antifa as a group of “people preventing Republicans from safely assembling on the streets of Portland.” And elsewhere, of course.

And in spite of the ridiculous rhetoric surrounding Antifa, this is very much a Democrats-vs.-Republicans issue. As the blackshirts marched through Portland on the evening of the 2019 midterm elections, Democratic-party workers and campaign flunkies wearing official IDs on lanyards around their necks stepped out of the Hilton and the other places where Democratic grandees gathered to watch the returns, pumping their fists and chanting along with Antifa, sometimes looking around at one another a little guiltily. Nice young well-scrubbed college-educated political professionals and volunteers cheering on a mob of masked terrorists explicitly committed to a campaign of political violence. Why?

Antifa, in Ngo’s estimate, is made up of “young people who are ideologues wanting to be heroes. With the ideological monoculture in Portland, people here really think that they are in some kind of cosmic battle with fascists. So whenever there happens to be a gathering of Trump supporters—and they do it in Portland to be provocative, coming from out of town to make a point—these people, who don’t have a lot of meaning in their lives, take to the streets to fight.” Ngo notes that the majority of them reject religion, suggesting that in street violence they have found, or tried to find, a substitute.

THE ‘crisis of democracy is not a peculiarly Italian or German problem, but one confronting every modern state. Nor does it matter which symbols the enemies of human freedom choose: freedom is not less endangered if attacked in the name of anti-Fascism or in that of outright Fascism.” So wrote the Freudian-Marxist social critic Erich Fromm all the way back in 1941. He knew whereof he spoke: Only a few years before, London had seen the so-called Battle of Cable Street, in which Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists had attempted to march—lawfully, it is worth adding—through the city. They were attacked by thousands of anarchists, socialists, and union workers organized by the Communist Party and armed with bombs and other weapons, including bags of feces, a kind of low-rent biological weapon favored by their imitators today. They had to go through 6,000 police officers, many of them mounted on horses, to get to their enemies, and they did so, crippling police horses by tossing marbles under their hooves.

Antifa has hijacked the name of an earlier German organization, Antifaschistische Aktion, a front for the Communist Party of Germany, itself a creature of Moscow and no stranger to authoritarianism, political repression, and political violence. (The Communist Party of Germany was banned in 1956 by the same constitutional court that prohibits neo-Nazi organizations.)

Germany of course had some genuine fascists to fight, but, as in the Soviet Union itself, “anti-fascist” came to cover action against everything displeasing to the Kremlin. It probably is worth noting that these black-bloc hooligans do not always call themselves “Antifa.” The Portland march was organized by Abolish ICE PDX. Sometimes they call themselves “Smash Racism” or something else. But they are the same people, and their goal is the same: They are fascists, albeit fascists whose idol is the proletariat rather than the nation.

The helpful people at Merriam-Webster remind us that fascists seek “severe economic and social regimentation and forcible suppression of opposition.” Senator Warren pursues the former, and the blackshirts pursue the latter. Their efforts are perfectly complementary.

It is tempting to think of the street brawls between Antifa and the Proud Boys and their ilk as a kind of midget Battle of Stalingrad during which all good republicans should stand to one side and cheer for casualties. But it is more serious than that. Once political violence is out of the box, it is hard to put it back in.

Left-wing militias such as Antifa beget right-wing militias that cite the existence of left-wing militias as justification for their own, and on and on it goes. We have seen this before in many contexts, and it rarely ends well. The original German Antifa served an enterprise whose worldwide affiliates would murder some 100 million people in the 20th century alone.

But those were sober times. Our own are a little less so. If you want to see what a bunch of half-baked idiots and kettle-corn psalmists in a political march are up to, the easiest thing to do is to march around with them, as I did for a while in Portland. I do not look much like Tucker Carlson, and I remain, for the moment, able to blend in with such groups.

Which I did—and a funny thing happened: As the march began to peter out, a group of Antifa loitered for a bit on a street corner, and I loitered with them for a while, observing. And then I got tired and decided to bring my labors to an end and go on my merry. As I walked off, a contingent, apparently believing that we were once again on the move against fascism, began to follow me, pumping their fists and chanting, until they figured out that I wasn’t leading them anywhere. And thus did a NATIONAL R EVIEW correspondent end up briefly leading an Antifa march through Portland. Of course they followed me. They’ll follow anything that moves.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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4 January, 2019

For James Watson, the Price Was Exile. At 90, the Nobel winner still thinks that black people are born intellectually inferior to whites

The NYT article below shows how powerful political correctness can be. James Watson has been severely sanctioned for saying in public little more than what most psychometricians are agreed on -- that the average black IQ is much lower than white IQ and that the difference is persistent -- nothing seems able to change it. The American Psychological Association is generally Left-leaning but it is the world's most prestigious body of academic psychologists. And even they (under the chairmanship of Ulric Neisser) have had to concede a large and persistent gap in black vs. white average IQ.

It is true that very few psychometricians will attribute the persistence of the black/white gap to genetics.  It would be career death for them if they did, as it was for Watson.  Yet they cheerfully attribute differences between white individuals to genetics.  There is powerful evidence of that. So why is a particular group difference not also genetic?  Groups are made up of individuals and group scores are the sum of individual scores. 

The only way out of that inference would be to say that blacks are a different species, or at least fundamentally different genetically -- that something produced by genes in whites is not produced by genes in blacks. Yet that denies the humanity of blacks.  It is saying that their brains are different in how they function.  That, it seems to me, is REALLY racist.  It is an attempt to deny racial differences that ends up proclaiming racial differences.  If we respect the humanity of blacks we have to say that the causes of IQ variation are the same in blacks and whites.  You have to say that the black/white gap is persistent because it is genetic.

But we can go beyond that.  The question is really the validity of IQ scores among blacks.  Do they measure what we think they measure?  Do they measure the same things that they measure among whites?  And the answer is very clear.  From their average IQ score we would expect blacks to be at the bottom of every heap where anything intellectual is remotely involved.  We would expect them to be economically unsuccessful (poor), mired in crime and barely educable.  And they are.  The tests are valid among blacks.

The education situation is particularly clear.  The large gap between black and white educational attainment has been loudly bewailed by all concerned for many years.  Leftist educators have turned themselves inside out trying to change it.  But nothing does.  It persists virtually unchanged year after year. It alone is graphic testimony to inborn lesser black intellectual competence.  No talk of IQ is really needed.

But it is exactly what we would predict from black IQ scores.  It is a large gap that mirrors a large IQ gap. It is exactly what we would expect from the black difference being a genetic given.  IQ in blacks works the same way as it does in whites.  So if it is genetically determined in whites it must be genetically determined among blacks.  Some whites are born dumb.  Many blacks are born dumb


It has been more than a decade since James D. Watson, a founder of modern genetics, landed in a kind of professional exile by suggesting that black people are intrinsically less intelligent than whites.

In 2007, Dr. Watson, who shared a 1962 Nobel Prize for describing the double-helix structure of DNA, told a British journalist that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours, whereas all the testing says, not really.”

Moreover, he added, although he wished everyone were equal, “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true.”

Dr. Watson’s comments reverberated around the world, and he was forced to retire from his job as chancellor of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, although he retains an office there.

He apologized publicly and “unreservedly” and in later interviews he sometimes suggested that he had been playing the provocateur — his trademark role — or had not understood that his comments would be made public.

Ever since, Dr. Watson, 90, has been largely absent from the public eye. His speaking invitations evaporated. In 2014, he became the first living Nobelist to sell his medal, citing a depleted income from having been designated a “nonperson.”

But his remarks have lingered. They have been invoked to support white supremacist views, and scientists routinely excoriate Dr. Watson when his name surfaces on social media.

Eric Lander, the director of the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard, elicited an outcry last spring with a toast he made to Dr. Watson’s involvement in the early days of the Human Genome Project. Dr. Lander quickly apologized.

“I reject his views as despicable” Dr. Lander wrote to Broad scientists. “They have no place in science, which must welcome everyone. I was wrong to toast, and I’m sorry.”

And yet, offered the chance recently to recast a tarnished legacy, Dr. Watson has chosen to reaffirm it, this time on camera. In a new documentary, “American Masters: Decoding Watson” to be broadcast on PBS on Wednesday night, he is asked whether his views about the relationship between race and intelligence have changed.

“No” Dr. Watson said. “Not at all. I would like for them to have changed, that there be new knowledge that says that your nurture is much more important than nature. But I haven’t seen any knowledge. And there’s a difference on the average between blacks and whites on I.Q. tests. I would say the difference is, it’s genetic.”

Dr. Watson adds that he takes no pleasure in “the difference between blacks and whites” and wishes it didn’t exist. “It’s awful, just like it’s awful for schizophrenics” he says. (Doctors diagnosed schizophrenia in his son Rufus when he was in his teens.) Dr. Watson continues, “If the difference exists, we have to ask ourselves, how can we try and make it better?”

Dr. Watson’s remarks may well ignite another firestorm of criticism. At the very least, they will pose a challenge for historians when they take the measure of the man: How should such fundamentally unsound views be weighed against his extraordinary scientific contributions?

In response to questions from The Times, Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, said that most experts on intelligence “consider any blackwhite differences in I.Q. testing to arise primarily from environmental, not genetic, differences.” Dr. Collins said he was unaware of any credible research on which Dr. Watson’s “profoundly unfortunate” statement would be based.

“It is disappointing that someone who made such groundbreaking contributions to science” Dr. Collins added, “is perpetuating such scientifically unsupported and hurtful beliefs.”

Dr. Watson is unable to respond, according to family members. He made his latest remarks last June, during the last of six interviews with Mark Mannucci, the film’s producer and director.

But in October Dr. Watson was hospitalized after a car accident, and he has not been able to leave medical care. Some scientists said that Dr. Watson’s recent remarks are noteworthy less because they are his than because they signify misconceptions that may be on the rise, even among scientists, as ingrained racial biases collide with powerful advances in genetics that are enabling researchers to better explore the genetic underpinnings of behavior and cognition.

“It’s not an old story of an old guy with old views” said Andrea Morris, the director of career development at Rockefeller University, who served as a scientific consultant for the film. Dr. Morris said that, as an African- American scientist, “I would like to think that he has the minority view on who can do science and what a scientist should look like. But to me, it feels very current.”

David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard, has argued that new techniques for studying DNA show that some human populations were geographically separated for long enough that they could plausibly have evolved average genetic differences in cognition and behavior.

But in his recent book, “Who We Are and How We Got Here” he explicitly repudiates Dr. Watson’s presumption that such differences would “correspond to longstanding popular stereotypes” as “essentially guaranteed to be wrong.”

Even Robert Plomin, a prominent behavioral geneticist who argues that nature decisively trumps nurture when it comes to individuals, rejects speculation about average racial differences.

“There are powerful methods for studying the genetic and environmental origins of individual differences, but not for studying the causes of average differences between groups” Dr. Plomin he writes in an afterword to be published this spring in the paperback edition of his book “Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are.”

SOURCE





Iran fumes over Brazil’s Jerusalem embassy move

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi complained Monday that Brazil’s’ upcoming embassy move to Israel’s capital, Jerusalem, “will not help with peace, stability, security and retrieval of the Palestinian people’s rights.”

He walked back the rhetoric almost immediately, however, claiming that “relations with Brazil will eventually be continued.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is visiting Brazil, commented Sunday it is only a matter of time until Brazil moves its embassy to Jerusalem. Incoming President Jair Bolsonaro said last month that he intends to move the embassy, prompting threats by Arab states to boycott Brazilian goods.

While Jerusalem has remained Israel’s capital for decades, and has been the Jewish people’s capital for thousands of years, the Palestinians continually portray it as central to their refusal to negotiate a peace agreement with Israel.

On Sunday, Netanyahu explained, “Mr. Bolsonaro said, ‘I will move the embassy to Jerusalem. It’s not a question of if, just a question of when.’”

The Israeli leader also referred to U.S. President Donald Trump’s similar course of action. Indeed, Brazil joins the United States and Guatemala, both of which moved their embassies to Jerusalem.

Netanyahu is slated to attend Bolsonaro’s inauguration ceremony on January 1.

SOURCE





Nikki Haley Welcomes Formal US Departure from UNESCO ‘Cesspool’

On the day after her tenure as ambassador to the U.N. ended, Nikki Haley on Tuesday welcomed the official U.S. withdrawal from UNESCO, describing the U.N. cultural agency as a corrupt and biased “cesspool.”

“UNESCO is among the most corrupt and politically biased U.N. agencies,” tweeted the former ambassador. “Today the U.S. withdrawal from this cesspool became official.”

Also weighing in was another outgoing Republican, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), who recalled her efforts in the House to defund UNESCO.

“I fought every year to defund UNESCO in our Congressional budget and we were successful most of the time but these crooks managed to get many Congressional backers because they name pretty places as historical sites as they slam Israel every day,” she tweeted.

January 1 marked the departure of both the U.S. and Israel from the Paris-based agency, long accused by critics of abusing its mandate to push a pro-Palestinian policy.

In 2011, UNESCO became the first U.N. agency to admit “Palestine” as a full member, even though it is not a sovereign state.

That decision cost the agency, since U.S. laws passed in the 1990s prohibit federal funding for any U.N. body that “grants full membership as a state to any organization or group that does not have the internationally recognized attributes of statehood.”

Up until then, U.S. taxpayers had been accountable for 22 percent of UNESCO’s operating budget.

The Obama administration complied reluctantly, but urged Congress each year to provide waiver authority to enable the funding to resume. As chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ros-Lehtinen played a key role in blocking those attempts.

UNESCO’s declared mission is “building peace in the minds of men and women” through culture, education and science, and much of its work draws widespread support.

But it has also become known for adopting politically-motivated resolutions in support of Islamic claims to sites whose significance for Jews goes back thousands of years. They include the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and the traditional burial place in Hebron of biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

In October 2017, the Trump administration announced it was formally withdrawing from UNESCO, citing “continuing anti-Israel bias,” the need for reforms, and concerns about U.S. arrears that have been mounting since the funding was cut. (As of this year, the U.S. “owes” UNESCO some $600 million in dues not paid since the cutoff.)

The U.S. departure that took effect on Tuesday marks the second time an administration in Washington has pulled out of UNESCO.

President Reagan did so in 1984, amid concerns about mismanagement and an agenda viewed as pro-Soviet and anti-Western. President George W. Bush returned in 2003, saying the agency had made important reforms under its then-Japanese director-general, who had taken up his post four years earlier.

Aside from the Israeli-Palestinian issue, UNESCO has also stoked controversy in other areas, including:

--A 2011 decision to grant a life sciences award sponsored by and named for an African dictator.

--A 2013 decision to include the writings of “Che” Guevara to UNESCO’s “Memory of the World Register,” a collection of some of the humankind’s most significant heritage.

--A 2012 decision to establish a UNESCO chair at the Islamic University of Gaza, an institution with close links to the Hamas terrorist group.

--A plan to allow Iran to host UNESCO’s annual World Philosophy Day event in 2010. U.S. pressure led to the agency’s then head to disassociate it from the Tehran event.

SOURCE





The Worst Enemy of Black People: White do-gooders

Walter E. Williams

Malcolm X was a Muslim minister and human rights activist. Born in 1925, he met his death at the hands of an assassin in 1965. Malcolm X was a courageous advocate for black civil rights, but unlike Martin Luther King, he was not that forgiving of whites for their crimes against black Americans. He did not eschew violence as a tool to achieve civil and human rights. His black and white detractors accused him of preaching racism and violence. Despite the controversy, he has been called one of the greatest and most influential black Americans.

Many black Americans have great respect for Malcolm X. Many schools bear his name, and many streets have been renamed in honor of him, both at home and abroad. But while black Americans honor Malcolm X, one of his basic teachings goes largely ignored. I think it's an important lesson, so I will quote a large part of it.

Malcolm X said: "The worst enemy that the Negro have is this white man that runs around here drooling at the mouth professing to love Negros and calling himself a liberal, and it is following these white liberals that has perpetuated problems that Negros have. If the Negro wasn't taken, tricked or deceived by the white liberal, then Negros would get together and solve our own problems. I only cite these things to show you that in America, the history of the white liberal has been nothing but a series of trickery designed to make Negros think that the white liberal was going to solve our problems. Our problems will never be solved by the white man."

There's a historical tidbit that those much younger than I (almost 83 years old) are ignorant of. In black history, we have been called — and called ourselves — several different names. Among the more respectable have been "colored," "Negro," "black," "Afro-American" and "African-American." I recall when Mrs. Viola Meekins, when I was a student at Stoddart-Fleisher Junior High School in the late 1940s, had our class go page by page through a textbook and correct each instance in which Negro was printed with a lowercase "n." In Malcolm X's day, and mine, Negro was a proud name and not used derisively by blacks as it is today.

Malcolm X was absolutely right about our finding solutions to our own problems. The most devastating problems that black people face today have absolutely nothing to do with our history of slavery and discrimination. Chief among them is the breakdown of the black family, wherein 75 percent of blacks are born to single, often young, mothers. In some cities and neighborhoods, the percentage of out-of-wedlock births is over 80. Actually, "breakdown" is the wrong term; the black family doesn't form in the first place. This is entirely new among blacks.

According to the 1938 Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, that year only 11 percent of black children were born to unwed mothers. As late as 1950, female-headed households constituted only 18 percent of the black population. Today it's close to 70 percent. In much earlier times, during the late 1800s, there were only slight differences between the black family structure and those of other ethnic groups. In New York City in 1925, 85 percent of kin-related black households were two-parent households. Welfare has encouraged young women to have children out of wedlock. The social stigma once associated with unwed pregnancy is all but gone. Plus, "shotgun" weddings are a thing of the past. That was when male members of a girl's family made the boy who got her pregnant live up to his responsibilities.

The high crime rates in so many black communities impose huge personal costs and have turned once-thriving communities into economic wastelands. The Ku Klux Klan couldn't sabotage chances for black academic excellence more effectively than the public school system in most cities. Politics and white liberals will not solve these and other problems. As Malcolm X said, "our problems will never be solved by the white man."

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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3 January, 2019

The year of trans tyranny

In 2019, trans activism became even more violent and censorious

Who could have guessed, even a decade ago, that in 2019 the word ‘woman’ would be treated as an expletive? It’s become a dangerous word, either erased from public life altogether or discussed in apologetic, hushed tones. Bizarrely, what ‘woman’ signifies now needs explanation. But anyone brave enough to define women in relation to biology, to make reference to ‘sex’ or ‘female’, risks vilification and public shaming. In a very short space of time we have moved from the premise that men and women exist as fundamentally distinct biological entities with tolerance shown to a small minority of people who chose to live differently, to transgenderism as an ideology that insists all aspects of public life must comply with its demands.

2019 was the year the government consulted over proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act. The consultation was never intended to question the right of transgender people to exist, still less to threaten legal rights and protections women have won. It did, however, ask about the processes individuals should have to go through in order to be legally recognised as a member of the opposite sex. The proposed changes will do away with the necessity for medical diagnoses, surgery, or living as member of the preferred sex for a substantial period of time. Instead, self-identification, a simple declaration, will be enough for a man to become a woman in the eyes of the law. As many women have pointed out, this erodes all meaning from the concept of sex and permits biological males entry into women-only spaces, such as public toilets, refuges and prisons.

Unsurprisingly, women wanted to discuss the impact that the changes to the Gender Recognition Act might have on their lives. But even having this discussion, just the suggestion that ‘woman’ might mean more than a feeling (however apparently innate or supposedly genetically determined), was seen by activists as denying the right of trans people to exist. All hint of debate had to be wiped out. Women wanting to meet had to plan in secret, revealing venues only at the last minute and risking violent attack if they were discovered. Even then, public meetings, such as one planned to take place at a council building in Leeds, were cancelled following accusations of transphobia. A spokesman said the feminist group’s values were ‘not in line with Leeds City Council’s values and policies on equality and inclusion’.

At every point, public officials, members of the establishment, have acquiesced to the demands of the trans lobby without pause for reflection. When Maria Maclachlan appeared in court to give evidence against Tara Wolf, a young male trans activist who had physically assaulted her ahead of a meeting on the Gender Recognition Act, the judge stopped proceedings to insist Maclachlan refer to the defendant as ‘she’ throughout the trial.

On campus, academics who question trans thinking have found themselves subject to abuse and calls for their research to be shut down. Activists drew up a list of ‘dangerous’ women – people such as Professor Rosa Freedman, an expert in human-rights law who argues males should not have access to women’s refuges, and Professor Kathleen Stock, who has questioned whether the category of woman should be expanded to include men who identify as women. These women are accused of spreading ‘hate speech’ and being a threat to the safety of students. It’s not just in the UK. Brown University in the US withdrew its own study on transgender youth because it found that social media and friends can influence teenagers to change their gender identity following complaints that the research ‘might invalidate the perspectives of members of the transgender community’.

Meanwhile, in London the Wellcome Collection decided it was best to avoid controversy by entirely removing the word ‘women’ from one of its events. It referred instead to ‘womxn’. Wellcome was following in the footsteps of the National Union of Students, which chose to abolish women’s toilets at its annual trans conference. Organisers boasted of ‘a disabled toilet with a gender-neutral sign, gender-neutral toilets (formerly women’s toilets), another disabled toilet and men’s toilet’. While men clearly still existed, the gender formerly known as women had been effectively neutralised.

New words are created in order to avoid the apparently offensive term ‘women’. In New York, Planned Parenthood celebrated the end of the tampon tax by calling on ‘menstruators’ to #TweetTheReceipt. The Guardian followed suit and, in a now corrected article, asked ‘menstruators’ to comment on their experiences of period pain at work. It is hard to know what is worse: the fact that in 2019 women with busy and successful lives were expected to discuss periods and tampons every two minutes, or that they were labelled solely according to this bodily function.

But it did get worse. The charity Cancer Research decided to remove the word ‘women’ from its cervical cancer campaign. Rather than urging women to go for smear tests, it appealed to ‘anyone with a cervix’. As no woman has ever referred to herself as ‘a person with a cervix’, there’s a real danger that misguided deference to trans activists will mean some women end up missing out on medical check-ups specific to their sex.

Sadly, it seems that the interests of women are always now secondary to the demands of the trans lobby. In 2019 a record number of male prisoners in England and Wales transitioned, with more than 20 men now being detained in women’s jails. Unsurprisingly, there have been reports of a growing number of sexual assaults on female inmates.

When trans activists fail to convince adults of their cause, they simply turn to children as a more docile and captive audience. This week, teachers in Brighton have been advised by the city council to instruct pupils that ‘boys can have periods, too’ in new sex-education classes. How this sits with biology classes on reproduction is anyone’s guess. ‘Menstruation must be inclusive of all genders’ – that is the advice to teachers of baffled 10- and 11-year-olds.

In 2019, trans activists have shown themselves to be violent and censorious. No woman is too vulnerable and no child too young to be spared their campaign of intimidation. Tragically, government ministers and local-council officials, judges, medical professionals and the media and cultural elites have either enthusiastically embraced the trans agenda or are too cowardly to challenge it. Thankfully, the majority of people not in these positions – including many trans people – see through the bullying. In playgrounds and parks, shops and buses, people still refer to each other as men and women, boys and girls, without a second thought. I hope it’s their voice we hear more from next year.

SOURCE





The Other Intersectionality: Victims of Islamism

The term "intersectionality" was coined by an African-American academic, Kimberlé Crenshaw, in 1989 to denote the circumstance of being the target of more than one bias. Crenshaw saw herself as the potential victim of both anti-black racism and misogyny, thereby living at the intersection of the two bigotries. In recent years, the term has gained prominence on many of the nation's campuses to signify something else: the supposed shared, "intersecting," predicaments of racial and ethnic groups -- as well as women and sexual minorities -- victimized by white male racism and its history of imperialism, colonialism, exploitation and slavery.

While one can fully acknowledge the depredations of European imperialism and its exploitation of non-European populations, one can also debate the extent of its current impact on non-European populations, women and sexual minorities. Except that one cannot debate it: In much of Western, including American, academia today, such debate is not permitted.

Similarly censored from today's campuses is discussion of another, in various respects competing, intersectionality: That of the shared, intersecting, predicaments of today's victims of Islamist aggression, including terrorism. Those victims are mainly people of color -- black Africans, Arabs, Kurds, Pakistanis, Afghans and east Asians -- but also many whites. They are mainly Muslims, but also include Christians, Jews, Yazidis, Druze and people professing no religion.

Why should these two intersectionalities, despite their different focuses on perpetrators and victims, be competing? Because allies of the Islamist assault have played a prominent part in promoting the campus version of intersectionality. Consequently, in the campus version, Israel is assigned a role that is the opposite of the one it actually plays in the world, including with regard to the other intersectionality.

The movement to try to destroy Israel by strangling it economically, through boycotts and the like, is largely the creation of supporters of the Islamist group Hamas, listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. Department of State. The goal of the economic assault, often openly acknowledged, is Israel's annihilation. On campuses, the chief promoters of this agenda, members of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), follow the lead of off-campus proponents and cast Israel as a European colonial state supposedly planted in the Middle East by the West to subjugate local populations and advance imperial interests in the region.

SJP and the other drivers of the economic attack on Israel have sought to broaden their ranks by invoking their brand of intersectionality: Members of all victimized populations, particularly people touched by European colonialism, ought to join together and rally to the Palestinian cause as the world's paradigmatic example of victimization. They ought to work for the ostensibly world-repairing fix of Israel's destruction.

Many others have pointed out obvious absurdities in the composition of this anti-Israel alliance: feminist groups supporting a cause whose chief adherents routinely abuse women and subject them to enforced subservience and widespread physical, all too often murderous, assault; LGBT advocates embracing those who uniformly mete out the most horrific treatment to LGBT individuals in their midst. But the disconnects from reality go further. It was the Palestinians who were, in fact, the beneficiaries of Western colonialism.

In the post-World War I break-up of defeated empires and creation of new states on former imperial lands, the League of Nations gave Britain a mandate to oversee re-establishment of a Jewish National Home in the ancestral Jewish homeland, formerly a part of the Ottoman Empire. Yet Britain, pursuing what it saw as its own colonial interests, worked to subvert its Mandate responsibilities to the Jews and instead advance Arab interests. It did so not least because it believed the Arabs would be more accommodating of British colonial policy. Thus, it fostered wide-scale Arab immigration into Mandate territory while repeatedly blocking Jewish access. In the course of doing so, and seeking to prevent Israel's creation, Britain betrayed its commitments to both the League of Nations and, subsequently, the United Nations charter.

Few, however, are aware of this historical reality, or the later history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Campuses have become purveyors of indoctrination rather than education. The promoters of the Hamas-linked effort to try to crush Israel economically, using the campus version of intersectionality as an anti-Israel tool, need not fear being confronted by an informed audience. In contrast, the other intersectionality, that of the shared, intersecting predicaments of the victims of Islamist aggression, is not a matter of history but of current affairs, of events that seep into public awareness despite efforts to downplay them. It therefore presents a potentially greater challenge to those on campus seeking to advance an anti-Israel agenda.

The head of the Islamist regime in Sudan, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, was first indicted by the International Criminal Court in 2009 on charges of genocide for his nation's mass murder of the Muslim -- but black, not Arab -- population of Sudan's Darfur region. Sudanese crimes against the people of Darfur continue, and al-Bashir remains Sudan's president and has been supported by the Arab League over the years since his initial indictment. Hamas, however, has done more than simply give political support to al-Bashir. Its operatives have trained in Sudan and worked with Sudanese forces, including those that have been engaged in the Darfur genocide. This is the organization whose supporters are leading movers behind the campus intersectionality/boycott campaign and have become the moral arbiters of campus political correctness.

Sudan, for more than half a century after gaining its independence, also waged an on-again, off-again genocidal war against the black, predominantly Christian and animist, peoples of southern Sudan. The Khartoum regime killed some two million of them before southern Sudan became a separate country in 2011. Through the last decades of this genocidal war, Hamas was again there supporting the Sudanese government.

Perhaps "Black Lives Matter," which has joined the Hamas-inspired anti-Israel/intersectionality bandwagon, ought to enlarge its name to "Black Lives Matter, Except When Snuffed Out by Islamists."

Israel, in contrast, supported the southern Sudanese during the years of their struggle to stave off the Islamist onslaught from Khartoum and has continued to help them as they address the difficult challenges facing their new nation.

As Islamist threats in sub-Saharan Africa have increased, other black African states, some with long connections to Israel, some with newer relations, have turned to Israel for help in their fight against Islamist terror. In recent years, these include, among east African nations, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and Tanzania.

In 2015, a government spokesman in Nigeria, by far the most populous country in Africa, stated, "Israel has been a crucial and loyal ally in our fight against Boko Haram [the Islamist group that has murdered thousands of Nigerian Christians]. It is a sad reality that Israel has a great deal of experience confronting terrorism."

Of course, much of that terror confronted by Israel has been perpetrated by Hamas.

The United States experienced its own encounter with massive Islamist terrorism on September 11, 2001. The majority of victims were white Christians, but also among the murdered were blacks, Hispanics and Asians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and followers of other faiths.

Shortly after 9/11, American officials, including representatives of local, state and federal law enforcement bodies, began reaching out to Israel in order -- like leaders in Nigeria and the nations of east Africa mentioned above -- to learn from Israel's painfully acquired experience in dealing with terror. This is another facet of the intersectionality that connects victims of Islamism.

To this day, groups of law enforcement officers, other American officials and emergency medical personnel travel to Israel or attend conferences in the United States addressed by Israeli anti-terror and emergency medicine experts. They do so to sharpen their own skills as they seek to anticipate and prevent terror attacks, to respond effectively when attacks occur, and to deal not only with policing challenges but also the emergency medical and other challenges presented by terrorist assaults.

As those in America who have participated in such programs attest, they have proven extremely valuable in actual responses to terror threats and terror events.

However, Students for Justice in Palestine, and other Hamas-linked groups and defenders of Islamism, particularly on campuses but beyond campuses as well -- in their efforts to defame and isolate Israel as a step in pursuit of the Jewish state's annihilation -- have sought to end such contacts and exchanges. As always, they turn truth on its head by asserting that Israeli police and military forces wantonly target innocent Palestinians and, invoking intersectionality, they declare that the aim and effect of cooperation between Israeli and American law enforcement bodies is not to help in the struggle against terrorism but to train American police to better target American minorities, particularly young black men.

SJP's camp followers in the intersectionality scam have embraced this line and also campaigned for an end to cooperation between Israeli and American anti-terror groups. Among those doing so is, again, Black Lives Matter. Of those killed at the Twin Towers on 9/11, 215 were black (136 men, 79 women). Additional African Americans were killed on the planes commandeered by the terrorists and at the Pentagon and were among the heroic first-responders who subsequently lost their lives due to medical problems contracted at the World Trade Center site on that day and in the days that followed.

Other African Americans were murdered in subsequent Islamist-inspired terrorist attacks in California and Florida and elsewhere, and are as likely to be victims of future such terror attacks as anyone else. But work to prevent, and minimize the impact, of such assaults apparently counts for no more to Black Lives Matter, when weighed against promoting an anti-Israel agenda, than it does to SJP and other Hamas-linked groups.

Similarly campaigning for an end to Israeli and American cooperation in fighting terrorism has been, shamefully, the organization Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), which advocates the dissolution of Israel. Illustrative is the role played by members of JVP in leading a campaign in Durham, North Carolina, that resulted in the city council passing a resolution prohibiting any participation of the city's police force in joint programs with Israeli law enforcement bodies.

The Islamist assault is not going away. It will continue to claim its victims in large numbers across the globe. At the same time, the intersectionality of its victims, the shared, intersecting predicaments of its targeted groups, will continue to be reflected in nations working with Israel to learn from the Jewish state's painfully acquired expertise in dealing with terrorism.

The "intersectionality" promoted on campuses and beyond by Hamas/SJP and their fellow travelers seeks, in pursuit of its anti-Israel agenda, to distract attention from the Islamist onslaught, its ongoing savaging of populations in Africa, Asia and America, and the alliances with Israel formed by its victims. In doing so, the intersectionality of the campuses has become, in effect, an enabler and abettor of Islamism's depredations, including mass murder.

SOURCE






After Airport Run-In with TSA and Muslim, Model Blasts ‘Bulls***’ Political Correctness

Political correctness ruins everything that it comes into contact with. And if a story that’s making waves on social media involving a model and television personality is true, security at America’s airports is a casualty of political correctness, too.

In a Twitter post published Dec. 10, Daisy Fuentes Marx, a former MTV VJ and current Telemundo star, complained that she underwent scrutiny by the Transportation Security Administration at an airport, but a Muslim woman in line with her did not.

And the frustration in Fuentes’ post is clear.

“The fact I HAVE to remove my sweater (which was only covering a tank top), but the woman in front of me was NOT required to remove any part of her full burka or head wrap (which covered her entire head & face) is absolute bulls—,” Fuentes wrote on Twitter. “How are we all ok with this?” she asked.

This situation sounds like political correctness at its finest. Obviously, a burqa that covers one’s entire head and face is more concealing and hides more potential danger than a sweater.

Judging by Fuentes’ description, it’s seems as though airport security, by not addressing the burqa, wanted to avoid being politically incorrect.

The TSA’s website suggests agents have discretion when dealing with “head coverings and other religious, cultural or ceremonial items” worn during screening.

“Persons wearing head coverings, loose fitting or bulky garments may undergo additional security screening, which may include a pat-down. … If an alarm cannot be resolved through a pat-down, you may ask to remove the head covering in a private screening area,” the agency says.

Fuentes’ frustration is understandable. It sure seems like a double standard was in play here.

One man responded by trying to make the disgusting argument that women must cover themselves to avoid sexual assault.

“If the women didn’t cover themselves, the bad men will have sexual desire on them and sometimes they will get ready to rape the women,” he tweeted.

Fuentes shot back by bluntly saying women don’t have to cover themselves. “No, women do not have to cover themselves. This is the kind of thinking that must not be tolerated. It’s dangerous & reprehensible,” she tweeted. “If your God tells you to rape women if they’re not covered up you’re a rapist, delusional & clearly following the wrong God,” Fuentes added.

Of course, the TSA and airport security aren’t the only issues touched by political correctness.

This Christmas season, classics like “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” have been under siege by liberals. The left’s PC culture is also affecting television shows, sports and civil discussion.

It’s safe to say that political correctness has gone too far and must be stopped.

SOURCE






Toxic Femininity and the #MeToo Mob: Weaponizing Emotional Distress

The manifestation of anger and hatred that defines toxic femininity is increasingly on shameful public display.

Did you noticed in the Supreme Court nominee hearings that some women harbor unresolved anger toward men?

In 2017, the most angry of the lot emerged under the #MeToo identity-politics banner — with legitimate allegations of sexual misconduct in the workplace. Most notable were those that brought down Harvey Weinstein’s Hollywood empire and forced the resignations of Rep. John Conyers, Sen. Al Franken, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, and NBC’s Matt Lauer.

Not coincidentally, each of these deviants belonged to or supported the party of unrepentant serial sexual assailant Bill Clinton and his chief defender and enabler Hillary Clinton.

That feminist anger coalesced after the election of Donald Trump and metastasized with his nomination of now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh, thanks to a disgraceful character assassination charade scripted and calculated by Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer.

As I have written previously, the Feinstein/Schumer strategy was to make Christine Ford, who alleged that Kavanaugh groped her 36 years ago, the poster proxy for every woman who has ever suffered any offending sexual encounter along a full spectrum — from romantic rejection, to a sense of being objectified, to sexual harassment, to regrets about encounters resulting from alcohol- or drug-impaired cognitive ability, to actual sexual assault. For some women who’ve been swept up into the #MeToo mob, Ford embodies their collective anger, grief, and desire for justice — despite the fact that her allegations were unsupported, unsubstantiated, uncorroborated, and utterly refuted by the alleged witnesses she named.

To complete the political pretense, Feinstein, et al., fraudulently framed Kavanaugh as the poster proxy for every male who has ever offended a woman.

However, by politicizing this allegation to create a victimization collective in order to convert that constituency into midterm votes, Democrats have effectively devalued legitimate assault claims.

Women should be outraged by that, but the Feinstein/Schumer strategy was all about optics, not facts.

But no matter. Demo leaders think they will get away with it, believing — in fact depending on — their assumption that women are emotionally incontinent and thus can be stirred into a frenzy, then manipulated into voting blocs for election cycles. Women are their largest constituent group, and they’re already counting the midterm votes.

Sen. Elizabeth “Fauxcahontas” Warren (D-MA) declared, “Take your pain and turn it into power on November 6th.” Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI), who nobody other than a few people on the Big Island had ever heard of until her Kavanaugh rants, added, “All these angry people are out there … [and] they’re going to go to the polls and vote.” Former senior Obama spokesperson Marie Harf elucidated that strategy: “[28] days from now we go into a midterm election, and [Kavanaugh] will help Democrats at the polls. Women will be fired up.”

In an analysis column from December of last year, “The Democrats’ Strategy to Take Down Republicans,” I wrote, Democrats “are going to make the #MeToo ‘epidemic of sexual assault’ the centerpiece of the 2019 and 2020 elections, inciting female voter outrage to overturn Republican majorities in the House and Senate in the 2019 midterm election, and then to defeat Trump in 2020.”

That was an easy prediction, but I had no idea how successful Democrats and their Leftmedia propaganda machine would be toward this end.

The #MeToo movement has become the increasingly confrontational female wing of the mostly male “antifa movement” of self-proclaimed anti-fascist fascists.

So, what’s the source of all this toxic femininity?

Coinciding with the emergence of the ever-expanding #MeToo mob is a common reference to “toxic masculinity.”

In essence, toxic masculinity is street language for hegemonic masculinity, defined as legitimizing the dominant role of men in American culture, and thus justifying the subordination of women. At its core, toxic masculinity embraces the sexist generalization that most men are aggressive sexual predators who constantly objectify and prey on women.

Of course, all men exhibit differing degrees of sexual interest and pursuit. This is natural and instinctual, and in this day and age of sexual licentiousness, women should be fully aware of this. There is also a subset of men who objectify women, and lure them into situations and circumstances for sexual encounters that these women may regret later. And then there is a much smaller subset of those men who are, in fact, predators — those who sexually assault women.

But the simple statistical fact is that the vast majority of men are not the sexual predators the #MeToo movement and its likeminded feminist adherents claim they are.

This brings us to the parallel of toxic masculinity — toxic femininity.

The manifestation of anger and hatred that defines toxic femininity is increasingly on shameful public display.

I believe the source of most (not all) of this toxic anger is attributable to one primary factor — an epidemic of absent or ineffectual fathers in American homes, which is at the root of just about every social and cultural problem in our nation. Yes, I know that assertion will upset feminists because they believe fathers are dispensable.

Bear with me.

Women who’ve been abandoned or inadequately cared for and protected by their father early in life often exhibit what psychologists call transference neurosis — deep-seated anger resulting from deep-seated fear. For the record, anger is often associated with an underlying fear.

In the case of toxic femininity, this transference is directed toward men in general and is often combined with other factors associated with abandonment, a poor self-image for lack of affirmation, and narcissistic personality disorder. Often these women are more vulnerable to poor relationship choices, which makes them more susceptible to male predation. This exacerbates their inability to trust men, which plays into an unfortunate spiraling cycle of, at best, failed relationships, anger, and resentment.

In an article by University of Southern California professors Shoba Sreenivasan and Linda Weinberger, they write, “‘Toxic femininity’ refers to women who are hostile to nurturance and cooperation, opting instead for aggression and backstabbing to get ahead.” While they were writing about toxic women in the workplace, the underlying causes of this toxicity are similar, and the same can be said for women who exhibit these traits in other social groups.

For the record, toxic femininity is not the expression of anger about legitimate offenses. The frequency of sexual assault should not be understated, though there is significant dissent on the CDC report’s definitions of assault, according to Time magazine and The Washington Post.

I know women who have been sexually assaulted, and others who have had regrettable sexual encounters, and I have empathy and compassion for them, and by extension, even those toxic feminists who are victims of assault.

I should add that toxic masculinity is often also the result of absent or ineffectual fathers in the home. Sexual offenders most often come from homes with no father.

All that being said, when men and women rally in groups based on common and wide-ranging offenses, their victimhood is both affirmed and amplified. And that has resulted in the now-familiar unhinged mob protest scenes around Washington and around the nation.

When considering those scenes, I’m reminded of the movie “As Good as It Gets,” in which Jack Nicholson is asked about his successful fictionalization of female characters. He responds, “I think of a man, and then I take away reason and accountability.” That was a funny line, but there’s nothing funny about the toxicity that infects certain women and men. It accounts for the increasingly uncivil, irrational, and virulent #MeToo mob, which has been co-opted by the Left for its political agenda, and it has falsely framed both Justice Kavanaugh particularly and the Republican Party generally.

As for mob rule, Hillary Clinton told CNN this week: “You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about. That’s why I believe, if we are fortunate enough to win back the House and or the Senate, that’s when civility can start again. But until then, the only thing that the Republicans seem to recognize and respect is strength [a.k.a.: ‘incivility’].”

So, according to Clinton, there will be no civility until Democrats are returned at least partially to power.

Answering Clinton’s unconscionable remark, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, who was critically wounded by a Bernie Sanders supporter last year, responded, “Seriously, Hillary?”

Rand Paul, who was shot at by the same leftist assailant, and who was severely beaten after being ambushed by a man in his hometown, warned, “I fear that there’s going to be an assassination. I really worry that somebody is going to be killed, and that those who are ratcheting up the conversation … they have to realize they bear some responsibility if this elevates to violence.”

I suppose we should be grateful to Clinton for unwittingly admitting what most rational observers already know: Fomenting and inflaming mobs is dangerous.

As for the next SCOTUS nomination…

By standing firmly with then-Judge Kavanaugh, and by keeping his powder mostly dry amid all the unhinged leftist protests, Donald Trump effectively gave Republicans a strong midterm campaign rally theme — a choice between steadfast Republicans or an angry leftist mob.

After the Senate vote, Trump declared, “You don’t hand matches to an arsonist, and you don’t give power to an angry left-wing mob. Democrats have become too EXTREME and TOO DANGEROUS to govern. Republicans advocate the Rule of Law — not the rule of the mob. VOTE REPUBLICAN!”

But the current bump Republicans are experiencing in the wake of the Feinstein/Schumer charade is certainly perishable.

If Trump gets another SCOTUS nomination, regardless of who holds the Senate after November, it’s likely to be a replacement for Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat. I anticipate that he’ll nominate Amy Coney Barrett, whom he held back for precisely this reason.

As I wrote in July, “While some conservatives are lamenting the choice of Kavanaugh over Barrett, I believe Trump’s strategy is to hold Barrett in the wings until Ruth Bader Ginsburg vacates the seat she barely occupies now.”

And if you think the Demos were triggered by the Kavanaugh nomination, you can expect a full frontal assault when Trump attempts to replace the first Democrat-appointed SCOTUS justice in almost 30 years.

SOURCE

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

Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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





2 January, 2019

Kindly Muslims make another attempt to destroy Egypt's tourist industry

A roadside bomb has struck a tourist bus near the Giza Pyramids in Egypt, killing at least four people and injuring 12 others.

Three Vietnamese visitors died when the homemade device ripped through the bus after it was concealed behind a wall, officials said.

The Egyptian tour guide who had accompanied them was killed in the explosion at 6.15pm local time (4.45pm GMT) while the driver, also Egyptian, was injured.

Another 10 of the 14 tourists from Vietnam were hurt in the explosion while only one without physical injuries.  

Pictures from the scene showed the side of the bus ravaged by the explosion, near the country's historic landmarks.

Officials said the bus was travelling in the Marioutiyah area near the pyramids on Friday when the roadside bomb went off.   

The improvised explosive device was placed near a wall along a street, officials said this evening.

Security services were immediately dispatched to the area and have opened an investigation into the explosion.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack and it was not clear whether the vehicle had struck the bomb or whether it was launched from the side of the road. 

Egypt has battled Islamic militants for years in the Sinai Peninsula in an insurgency that has occasionally spilled over to the mainland, hitting minority Christians or tourists.

However, this is the first attack to target foreign tourists in almost two years. 

Western tourists have been warned of the dangers, with Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office advising that an attack in Egypt was 'very likely'.

The FCO has stopped short of advising against any travel to Cairo and Giza but has warned of threats to foreigners posted on websites and social media.

Visitors are also warned that 'tourists at high-profile sites like the Giza Pyramids may be confronted aggressively for money or business'.

Meanwhile the U.S. State Department also urges caution, saying terrorists 'have targeted religious sites, to include mosques, churches, monasteries, and buses traveling to these locations'. 

Both countries advise against any travel to the northern Sinai peninsula nearest Israel due to the threat from terrorism. 

Egypt's vital tourism industry had been showing signs of recovery after years in the doldrums amid political turmoil and violence after a 2011 uprising.

It will likely prompt a further tightening of security ahead of the New year's Eve celebrations and next month's Christmas celebrations of the Coptic Orthodox Church, the dominant denomination among Egypt's estimated 10 million Christians.

Over the past two years, militant attacks against Christians in Egypt - usually targeting churches or buses carrying pilgrims to remote desert monasteries - have killed over a hundred people.

SOURCE






Brain dead: Sen. Durbin Urges Trump to Reduce ‘Shootings and Homicides’ in Chicago by Increasing Federal Spending

Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D.-Ill.) is urging President Donald Trump to help reduce “shootings and homicides” in Chicago by increasing federal investment in housing, economic development, job training, education, public health and “community policing.”

“As you prepare your Fiscal Year 2020 Budget Request, I urge you to use this budget framework as an opportunity to support efforts to help reduce gun violence in Chicago, rather than scapegoating the city’s challenges to promote ideological political agendas,” Durbin told Trump in a letter sent on Dec. 13.

“I urge you to prioritize federal support and resources that will help Chicago reduce violence by expanding economic opportunities and addressing health and education disparities in the hardest-hit communities,” Durbin said.

“The number of shootings and homicides that Chicago continues to experience is tragic and unacceptable,” Durbin told Trump.

“But while it may be easy to tweet about the problem, generating real and measurable solutions to help Chicago reduce gun violence requires more than 140 characters,” Durbin said. “Reducing violence in Chicago requires a comprehensive approach involving partnerships with local education and health officials, law enforcement, community stakeholders, and the federal government.

“Through sustained and targeted investment of federal funding in underserved communities, the federal government can play an integral role in addressing the economic and societal issues that contribute to violence,” Durbin said.

The senator went on to explain how increased federal investment in housing would help reduce violence in Chicago.

“Violence in Chicago is often located in communities with higher unemployment and years of neglect and disinvestment,” said Durbin. “Two of the most important ways the federal government can help break the cycle of violence and provide stability in these neighborhoods is by ensuring access to safe, affordable housing and encouraging economic and community development.”

Here is the full text of Sen. Durbin’s letter to President Trump:

Dear President Trump,

As you prepare your Fiscal Year 2020 Budget Request, I urge you to use this budget framework as an opportunity to support efforts to help reduce gun violence in Chicago, rather than scapegoating the city’s challenges to promote ideological political agendas. I urge you to prioritize federal support and resources that will help Chicago reduce violence by expanding economic opportunities and addressing health and education disparities in the hardest-hit communities.

The number of shootings and homicides that Chicago continues to experience is tragic and unacceptable. But while it may be easy to tweet about the problem, generating real and measurable solutions to help Chicago reduce gun violence requires more than 140 characters. Reducing violence in Chicago requires a comprehensive approach involving partnerships with local education and health officials, law enforcement, community stakeholders, and the federal government. Through sustained and targeted investment of federal funding in underserved communities, the federal government can play an integral role in addressing the economic and societal issues that contribute to violence.

SOURCE






Victimhood culture and traditional justice are on a collision course

“I just want to say to the men in this country, just shut up and step up.” Responding to Brett Kavanaugh’s hearing for his nomination to the Supreme Court, Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) put American men on notice: Their day was over. The mainstream press and social media were more specific in echoing who needed to shut up: old white men in government. According to social justice, the proper role for this privileged group is to mutely support victimized ones. Presumably, they could also step aside.   

Congress has a culture war on its hands and the battles will blaze for the foreseeable future. Congress is a microcosm of the schism that is tearing America apart--ideologically, morally and emotionally.

Understanding the dynamics of the conflict requires a grasp of the “victimhood culture” that Hirono’s statement epitomized in its message and its tone. The message of this #MeToo approach is “get out of the way of oppressed groups”; the tone is rage.

A key to understanding the victimhood ideology is how it defines “justice.”  

Identity justice

Victimhood is an integral part of identity politics and the social justice movement of past decades. People are separated into categories according to their secondary characteristics, such as gender or race. (Their primary characteristic is being human). A person’s political status is then viewed through the lens of his or her group identity, with heavy emphasis placed upon whether the group is considered to be oppressed or oppressive. Men oppress women, for instance. The purpose of social justice is to balance the status of all groups, which requires an imbalance of treatment because some groups are seemingly privileged at the expense of others.

Social justice is identity justice applied to groups. This runs counter to the ideal of traditional Western justice that seeks to erase secondary characteristics from how the law treats individuals. Ideally, it does not matter if someone is white or black, male or female. The same legal principles and practices, such as the presumption of innocence, are applied equally to every human being. Western justice is individual justice for all.

Ideals are rarely manifested in pure form. Law enforcement does not always handle a black person with the same respect as it does a white one, for example. When this happens, the situation needs to be rectified. One way is to remove the cause of discrimination against blacks, which could mean reforming aspects of the system or removing specific personnel. The goal is equal justice for all, which is achieved by treating everyone as an individual to be judged on the merits of evidence and according to concepts encompassed by the words, “due process.”

To the victimhood culture, however, Western justice is a creation of white privilege and it cannot deliver fairness to oppressed groups. Indeed, the ideals and structure of Western law are an obstacle to social justice. Old legal and political principles must be either discarded or redefined.

The redefinition toward social justice has been active in Congress for some while; it has also been actively resisted — a trend that is likely to accelerate. The recasting of justice includes:

Expanding the scope of punishable offenses. The version of the Violence Against Women Act that is up for reauthorization expands the definition of domestic violence (DV) to include non-violent and common behavior, such as persistently telephoning an ex-partner after a break-up. This broadening is to the legal advantage of alleged DV victims, who are usually viewed as women, at the expense of alleged DV perpetrators, who are usually viewed as men.

Reducing due process. #Believewomen was a mantra of activists during the Kavanaugh hearings and it is an increasingly common sentiment expressed in Congress. In response to a question about Roy Moore whose aspirations for senatorhood were scuttled by accusations of sexual abuse, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said, “I believe the women.” Immediately believing an accusation is the opposite of due process, however, which demands evidence and presumes innocence.

Creating incentives for false accusations by not punishing them. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) recently commented on a "fabricated allegation" against Kavanaugh. Grassley contended that the accuser “just wanted to get attention.” Political motives may have been in play, as well.

Normally, such allegations go unpunished, which allows false accusers to achieve their goals, without paying a legal price. In this case, however, Grassley asked the Department of Justice to investigate.  

The victimhood culture and traditional justice are on a collision course. 

The victimhood culture draws upon the natural compassion that people feel for those who are treated unfairly. Compassion is one of the best qualities within human beings and society; it should not be politically abused. The culture also elicits support by pointing to the make-up of institutions, such as Congress. On its surface, at least, Congress does not seem to represent the American demographic. But the solution should not be to demonize a category of people or to abandon traditional standards of justice.

The victimhood culture has used people’s compassion and sense of fairness to restructure the principles of justice that protect individuals against government overreach and false accusations. Traditional justice is a defining aspect of Western civilization. The incivility that now haunts society reflects the breakdown of such institutions. Without justice for all, there is violence. 

SOURCE







'This is a race war - it's never been this bad': Masked Vietnamese teenager promises violent revenge against African gangs in Australia

Comment from a correspondent in Victoria:  "The mainstream media has recently started referring to Melbourne's African gangs as boys. I would not call them boys. They are youths at least. They are bigger than most men, they are mostly 6 feet and more tall, carry weapons, and bash and rob anyone they like.

They like preying on citizens out for a walk. To stop the nightly assaults on train passengers, in the last year or so every Melbourne suburban railway station has has a fortified police station placed on it, and two armed transport police stationed on every suburban platform right through the night.

Since then the Africans beat people up in places other than railway stations. They now like beating people up on Melbourne beaches. St Kilda beach has been attacked many times, by small gangs and gangs of 200. I think calling them boys is the media trying to minimise the threat.

I like St Kilda foreshore, and I am in Melbourne at present and would like to watch the Melbourne fireworks tonight from St Kilda pier, but I do not wish to have to deal with African thugs, so I will not be going.

The video here shows Africans attacking a group of Vietnamese. As usual the Africans were physically and psychologically prepared to assault someone, they are out and about looking for prey, while their targets are just going about their usual day.

But regardless, the Vietnamese appear to do a reasonable job of defending themselves. Good on them. I hope they do an even better job next time. Vietnamese know how to fight. Their favourite weapons are meat cleavers and machetes.

If the Africans continue to target Vietnamese, then I would expect Africans to start losings hands and fingers. that is unlikely to change the Africans though. Cutting off lions toes does not stop them being lions. They will just target weaker prey.

They are unlikely to be deported back to Africa so we seem to be stuck with these savages roaming our streets looking for prey.


A masked Vietnamese teenager has promised war against African youths to combat the newly-formed Blood Drill Killer gang's street rampages.

Melbourne's north-west is on high alert following a series of shop and restaurant robberies, assaults on customers and open-air fights.

One Vietnamese teenager has had enough of the violence in St Albans and wants revenge. 'There will be huge conflict. We need to take action,' he told A Current Affair from an undisclosed location.

The Blood Drill Killers are the latest African youth gang to be allegedly unleashed on Melbourne, following previous rampages across the Victorian capital by Menace to Society and Apex.

Fearing more attackers, the Vietnamese teenager vowed there would be vigilante action.

'We must mass protest right now, and band together and hurt any African youths in our way,' he said.

Concerned shopkeepers have told Daily Mail Australia the St Albans Lunar Festival, planned for January 6, could go feral if African thugs turned up looking for trouble.

The warning comes just days after a gang of African teens was filmed brawling with middle-aged Vietnamese men dining outside the Song Huong restaurant on Alfrieda Street in St Albans, in Melbourne's north-west.

It is the very same street where the Lunar New Year will be celebrated, with the thoroughfare transformed into a festival featuring stalls, food, entertainment, bands, rides, fireworks and dancing.

African Blood Drill Kill gang members, aged from 14 to 17, left a trail of destruction in the lead-up to Christmas. 

On Christmas Eve, a 46-year-old man was hospitalised with cuts to his face after African youths allegedly attacked the Song Huong Vietnamese restaurant in St Albans.

The previous day, 20 youths armed with baseball bats threw tables and chairs at patrons outside B&D Kitchen next door.

On December 19, there was another attack in the area which led to an alleged juvenile gang member being charged with robbery and assault.

On Friday, scores of frightened and angry shopkeepers told Daily Mail Australia that they feared the law would be taken into their own hands if police did not step in to halt the violent teen thugs.

One female shopkeeper, who herself had been a victim of multiple, brutal attacks by African teens,  said she feared the Vietnamese youth would rise up against the thugs.

'I haven't seen the police until the past few days,' she said.

The young woman, who is in phone sales, told Daily Mail Australia she had been attacked twice inside her shop.

So brutal were the attacks that one left her with a huge gash in her scalp after a teenage thug smashed her over the head with a phone he was stealing. A customer was also attacked.

She and her neighbours all called triple zero, but police did not come.  'They told us they couldn't come. They were too busy,' one man said of the attack.

His wife had chased out a gang of youths from their shop not long before the attack.

The violence hasn't been confined to Melbourne's western suburbs with a gang of African youths on Friday storming on Chelsea Beach, in the city's south-east, before allegedly smashing a glass bottle over a teenager's head, assaulting multiple swimmers and stealing their wallets.

SOURCE 

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

Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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





1 January, 2019

Britain is now getting "boat people" too

Australia and Britain are both surronded by seas, which is a substantial barrier against illegal immigration.  The barriers concerned beat Mr Trump's wall by a mile.

But for years various mainly Muslim illegals streamed into Australia by boat and were generally referred to as "boat people".  Australia put up with that for a while but the Australian navy  now intercepts the boats and sends the would-be migrants back whence they came. 

So it is ironic that Britain too is now receiving illegal immigrants by boat.  The Royal Navy is a formidable force so with a bit of political will Britain's boat people could be stopped too


British interior minister Sajid Javid says the fast-growing number of would-be immigrants crossing the English Channel from France in dinghies is a "major incident".

Nearly 70 people have been intercepted in the past three days as they try to reach England by crossing one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.

Javid is also seeking an urgent call with his French counterpart over the weekend, his ministry said.

"He has insisted the Home Office treat the situation as a major incident and has ... asked for daily updates," it said in a statement on Friday.

It added that Javid wants to ensure everything possible is being done to deter migrants from attempting the dangerous crossing, "amid concern that it is only a matter of time before people lose their lives".

The Member of Parliament for Dover on England's southeast coast, Charlie Elphicke, has called for more government funding to deal with the arrivals and the Home Office said Javid has asked border officials to look at options for bringing in extra patrol ships.

SOURCE






UK Welcomes Extremists, Bans Critics of Extremists

The British government's idea of who is -- and who is not -- a legitimate asylum seeker becomes stranger by the month.

In November it was reported that the Pakistani Christian mother of five, Asia Bibi, was unlikely to be offered asylum by the British government due to concerns about "community" relations in the UK. What this means is that the UK government was worried that Muslims of Pakistani origin in Britain may object to the presence in the UK of a Christian woman who has spent most of the last decade on death row in Pakistan, before being officially declared innocent of a trumped-up charge of "blasphemy".

Yet, as Asia Bibi – surely one of the people in the world most needful of asylum in a safe country – continues to fear for her life in her country of origin, Britain's idea of who should be allowed to travel to the country (and stay) looks ever more perverse.

One person, for instance, who has had no trouble being in London is Dr Ataollah Mohajerani, Iran's former Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Mohajerani is best known for his book-length defence of the Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa against the British novelist Salman Rushdie. After the Khomeini's call on the world's Muslims to kill Rushdie for writing a novel, Mohajerani wrote a 250-page book, A Critique of the Conspiracy of The Satanic Verses, which justified the death-sentence. For more than a decade, however, apparently fallen out with part of the regime in Iran, Mohajerani has been living in Harrow, where he intermittently keeps up his campaign against Rushdie.

We have also seen time and again how extremist clerics such as the Pakistani clerics Muhammad Naqib ur Rehman and Hassan Haseen ur Rehman have been allowed to enter the UK despite their track records of supporting the murder of people merely suspected of having blasphemed against, or apostasised from, Islam. Nevertheless, while the UK government continues to allow clerics such as these to enter Britain, it develops an ever-growing banned list of people who are not Muslim but who have been critical of aspects of Islam. It is almost as though the UK government has decided that while extremist clerics can only rarely be banned, critics of such clerics can be banned with ease.

Some people might say that as it is 30 years since Mohajerani wrote his book justifying the murder of a British citizen, we hould all let bygones be bygones -- as though advocating murder is the sort of thing anyone might do in a moment of weakness. The problem is that the trend for taking a laxer view of extremists than of their critics keeps on happening. The Canadian blogger Lauren Southern may not be allowed into the UK because she constitutes a threat to public order. Yet, this week we learned that the UK government has allowed in a man called Brahim Belkaid, a 41-year old of German origin, believed to have inspired up to 140 people to join al-Qaeda and ISIS. The British press this week discovered that he was able to settle in Leicester nearly five years ago after returning from Syria, where he is suspected of having supported terrorist groups. It does not appear that Belkaid has used his time in the UK to lie low or mull over his past mistakes. As his activities on the streets and on social media attest, he has in fact been openly continuing to preach and recruit for his radical version of Islam.

As The Times reported this week, Belkaid was photographed handing out hardline translations of the Quran to fans celebrating the local football team's victory in Leicester in 2016. He has also used his social media presence to call for the destruction of the USA and to promote his own extremist views as well as the views of other extremists like him.

His Facebook messages have included messages with bullets and a sword on them saying, "Jihad: the Only Solution". In another post, he poses smilingly with one arm on a carton of washing powder labelled "ISIS". By any analysis it is clear that Belkaid is doing in Britain precisely what he was doing in Germany.

There are several possible explanations for how such an insane policy could continue to operate in the UK. The first is that the British government does not know what it is doing, and that while it is unbelievably good at spotting Canadian bloggers who it thinks might pose some risk, it is just less adept at recognising the names, faces and backgrounds of well-known ISIS recruiters. That is one explanation. But it is the sort of explanation -- known in Britain as a "cock-up theory" -- which begins to run dry as a pattern develops. After all, to have allowed in one jihadist may look like an accident, to keep on letting them in looks like carelessness. Moreover, that this goes in tandem with the extreme strictness applied by the UK government to any critics of Islam who may be trying to enter the UK begins to look like a policy.

It is also possible that this is a policy decision. The British government may honestly have come to the conclusion that while Islamist extremism is a containable problem, the possibility of wider public "radicalisation" against elements of the Muslim community in the UK and worldwide is a much more serious one. To put it another way, they may have decided that the terrorist attacks in Westminster, Manchester, London Bridge, Borough Market, Woolwich and elsewhere are unlikely to be repeated, while Darren Osborne's solitary attack on worshippers coming out of Finsbury Park Mosque last year is part of a pattern.

Other than the "cock-up theory" or a general (if misguided) policy decision, it is hard to see what else is going on here. The decisions that keep being revealed to have been made by the UK border agency and the whole asylum and immigration policy of the UK government are so inexplicable that they are precisely the sort of thing to give rise to the most fevered and fetid conspiracy theories -- such as that politicians and civil servants are more afraid of being accused of "racism" than of letting Islamic extremists loose in the country. If the UK government wants to avert the spread of such conspiracy claims, it should act hard and fast. Specifically, it should be able to crack down hard to prevent people like Belkaid from being allowed to reside here. Curtailing such easy, open-and-shut cases would do an enormous amount to reassure the British public and to persuade us that although the UK's border agencies may not be perfect, at least they are not suicidal.

SOURCE





Danes Pass Law Requiring New Citizens to Shake Hands

Denmark will require anyone who takes Danish citizenship to shake hands at the naturalization ceremony, under a law passed on Thursday, which lawmakers say is aimed at Muslims who refuse on religious grounds to touch members of the opposite sex.

The law has prompted strong reactions from some of the mayors who must conduct such ceremonies, and who are upset that they will become the faces and fists of a policy they call awkward, “purely symbolic” and irrelevant to an applicant’s qualifications.

They say the Danish Parliament, which approved the measure, has artificially elevated a social custom to a national value.

But Denmark is not alone. Authorities in Switzerland and France have recently cited “lack of assimilation” in rejection of citizenship to foreigners who refuse to shake hands with officials.

“If you arrive in Denmark, where it’s custom to shake hands when you greet, if you don’t do it it’s disrespectful,” said Martin Henriksen, a lawmaker who has been critical of Islam and is the right-wing Danish People’s Party’s spokesman on immigration.

“If one can’t do something that simple and straightforward, there’s no reason to become a Danish citizen.”

He said the law, which will take effect on Jan. 1, was required because of “Muslim immigration to Denmark over a long time,” and added that he hoped it would be followed by a ban on Muslim women wearing veils at citizenship ceremonies.

The country’s integration minister, Inger Stojberg, declined an interview, but wrote on her Facebook page that a handshake was a “visible sign that you’ve taken Denmark to heart.”

Some Muslim and Jewish groups prohibit or discourage their faithful from touching members of the opposite sex outside their immediate families.

The handshake requirement, which includes a provision that the wearing of gloves is unacceptable, is the latest in a series of Danish anti-immigrant measures that critics say are symbolically charged but serve little purpose.

The government recently announced plans to isolate certain migrants it wants to deport on a small, out-of-the-way island, and Parliament approved funding for the project on Thursday.

This summer, the Parliament prohibited the wearing of face veils in public, although researchers say only about 200 Muslim women follow the practice in Denmark. In 2015, the country sharply cut social programs for asylum seekers, and a law passed in 2016 allows the authorities to confiscate migrants’ valuables to help cover the cost of their stays in Denmark.

The handshake requirement will deter few applicants for citizenship, officials said, but it sends a harsh message to Muslims, and many mayors who conduct citizenship ceremonies said they would find ways to avoid it.

“It’s against my ideology and conviction to have to force other people to have body contact,” said Thomas Andresen, the mayor of Aabenraa, near the border with Germany.

To circumvent the law, Mr. Andresen said, he could either arrange to have local officials of both genders take part in the ceremonies or have state officials take over. Either way, he said, he would look for pragmatic solutions while protesting legislation “gone too far.” Mogens Jespersen, the mayor of Mariagerfjord, a northern town, told the national broadcaster that he would disregard the law and accept a nod or a bow from an applicant refusing to extend her hand.

SOURCE





David Walliams accused of racism over children's book character Raj the Indian shopkeeper who comically mangles the English language

His books have sold millions since he embarked on his second career and became one of Britain’s best-loved children’s authors.

But TV comic David Walliams has been engulfed by a racism storm over his depiction of Asian shopkeeper Raj in his stories.

Last night critics rejected the accusation as another example of pointless political correctness.

Author and education expert Toby Young said: ‘There seems to be a whole army of politically correct do-gooders in contemporary Britain who are always on the lookout for things to get worked up about. But no Indian shopkeeper will be offended by Raj.’

The row echoes the recent furore over The Simpsons’ Indian immigrant shopkeeper Apu, which led to the character being dropped.

Raj is known for his canny way with money – trying to sell items past their sell-by date – and comically mangles the English language.

In Walliams’s book Bad Dad, Raj says: ‘I am not a bad man. I just use best-before dates as a very rough guide, rounding them up to the nearest decade!’

And in Grandpa’s Great Escape, Raj cannot say the main character’s surname Bunting – pronouncing it ‘Bumting’ instead.

He was played by Harish Patel in the BBC1 adaptation of Walliams’s The Midnight Gang, which was shown on Boxing Day. Walliams also appeared, playing the headmaster.

The Raj character was condemned by Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of Muslim rights group the Ramadhan Foundation.

Last night critics rejected the accusation as another example of pointless political correctness

One said: ‘It’s a stereotypical character. To target a community and suggest that community’s shopkeepers are involved in selling out-of-date food is deeply unacceptable. It’s distasteful. In most cases these shopkeepers have been the fabric of their community for decades and I am uncomfortable with that joke.

‘I’d love to have a conversation with David Walliams about it just to understand what his rationale is.’

Veteran anti-fascist campaigner Gerry Gable, editor of Searchlight magazine, said: ‘Walliams is planting in kids’ minds that Asian shopkeepers are villains or not to be trusted. The whole stereotyping is disgraceful. It’s the same kind of stereotyping you would have seen in anti-Semitic literature before the war about Jews cheating in business. I find it really alarming.’

But Toby Young said: ‘The people shouting “racist” are nearly always white, privately educated Lefties who’ve appointed themselves moral guardians. Raj ignores sell-by dates and tries to rip off his customers, but those aren’t things people associate with Indian shopkeepers. Those are just characteristics David Walliams has given him for comic purposes.’

It’s not the first time Walliams has been caught up in a racism storm.

He starred with Matt Lucas in the sketch show Little Britain, which came under fire for characters such as Thai mail-order bride Ting Tong. A 2008 report condemned the series for jokes that ‘pander to prejudice’.

And last year Walliams was accused of ‘yellow-facing’ after dressing up as North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un for a Halloween party.

SOURCE

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

Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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(Isaiah 62:1)


A 19th century Democrat political poster below:








Leftist tolerance



Bloomberg



JFK knew Leftist dogmatism



-- Geert Wilders



The most beautiful woman in the world? I think she was. Yes: It's Agnetha Fältskog



A beautiful baby is king -- with blue eyes, blond hair and white skin. How incorrect can you get?


Kristina Pimenova, said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair



Enough said


Islamic terrorism isn’t a perversion of Islam. It’s the implementation of Islam. It is not a religion of the persecuted, but the persecutors. Its theology is violent supremacism.



There really is an actress named Donna Air. She seems a pleasant enough woman, though


What feminism has wrought:

There's actually some wisdom there. The dreamy lady says she is holding out for someone who meets her standards. The other lady reasonably replies "There's nobody there". Standards can be unrealistically high and feminists have laboured mightily to make them so


Some bright spark occasionally decides that Leftism is feminine and conservatism is masculine. That totally misses the point. If true, how come the vote in American presidential elections usually shows something close to a 50/50 split between men and women? And in the 2016 Presidential election, Trump won 53 percent of white women, despite allegations focused on his past treatment of some women.


Political correctness is Fascism pretending to be manners


Political Correctness is as big a threat to free speech as Communism and Fascism. All 3 were/are socialist.


The problem with minorities is not race but culture. For instance, many American black males fit in well with the majority culture. They go to college, work legally for their living, marry and support the mother of their children, go to church, abstain from crime and are considerate towards others. Who could reasonably object to such people? It is people who subscribe to minority cultures -- black, Latino or Muslim -- who can give rise to concern. If antisocial attitudes and/or behaviour become pervasive among a group, however, policies may reasonably devised to deal with that group as a whole


Black lives DON'T matter -- to other blacks. The leading cause of death among young black males is attack by other young black males


Psychological defence mechanisms such as projection play a large part in Leftist thinking and discourse. So their frantic search for evil in the words and deeds of others is easily understandable. The evil is in themselves. Leftist motivations are fundamentally Fascist. They want to "fundamentally transform" the lives of their fellow citizens, which is as authoritarian as you can get. We saw where it led in Russia and China. The "compassion" that Leftists parade is just a cloak for their ghastly real motivations


Occasionally I put up on this blog complaints about the privileged position of homosexuals in today's world. I look forward to the day when the pendulum swings back and homosexuals are treated as equals before the law. To a simple Leftist mind, that makes me "homophobic", even though I have no fear of any kind of homosexuals.

But I thought it might be useful for me to point out a few things. For a start, I am not unwise enough to say that some of my best friends are homosexual. None are, in fact. Though there are two homosexuals in my normal social circle whom I get on well with and whom I think well of.

Of possible relevance: My late sister was a homosexual; I loved Liberace's sense of humour and I thought that Robert Helpmann was marvellous as Don Quixote in the Nureyev ballet of that name.

Bible references on homosexuality: Jude 1:7; 1 Timothy 1:8-11; Mark 10:6-9; 1 Corinthians 6: 9-11; 1 Corinthians 7:2; Leviticus 18:32; Leviticus 20:13


I record on this blog many examples of negligent, inefficient and reprehensible behaviour on the part of British police. After 13 years of Labour party rule they have become highly politicized, with values that reflect the demands made on them by the political Left rather than than what the community expects of them. They have become lazy and cowardly and avoid dealing with real crime wherever possible -- preferring instead to harass normal decent people for minor infractions -- particularly offences against political correctness. They are an excellent example of the destruction that can be brought about by Leftist meddling.


I also record on this blog much social worker evil -- particularly British social worker evil. The evil is neither negligent nor random. It follows exactly the pattern you would expect from the Marxist-oriented indoctrination they get in social work school -- where the middle class is seen as the enemy and the underclass is seen as virtuous. So social workers are lightning fast to take children away from normal decent parents on the basis of of minor or imaginary infractions while turning a blind eye to gross child abuse by the underclass


Racial differences in temperament: Chinese are more passive even as little babies


The genetics of crime: I have been pointing out for some time the evidence that there is a substantial genetic element in criminality. Some people are born bad. See here, here, here, here (DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.12581) and here, for instance"


Gender is a property of words, not of people. Using it otherwise is just another politically correct distortion -- though not as pernicious as calling racial discrimination "Affirmative action"


Postmodernism is fundamentally frivolous. Postmodernists routinely condemn racism and intolerance as wrong but then say that there is no such thing as right and wrong. They are clearly not being serious. Either they do not really believe in moral nihilism or they believe that racism cannot be condemned!


Postmodernism is in fact just a tantrum. Post-Soviet reality in particular suits Leftists so badly that their response is to deny that reality exists. That they can be so dishonest, however, simply shows how psychopathic they are.


So why do Leftists say "There is no such thing as right and wrong" when backed into a rhetorical corner? They say it because that is the predominant conclusion of analytic philosophers. And, as Keynes said: "Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back”


Children are the best thing in life. See also here.


Juergen Habermas, a veteran leftist German philosopher stunned his admirers not long ago by proclaiming, "Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter."


Consider two "jokes" below:

Q. "Why are Leftists always standing up for blacks and homosexuals?

A. Because for all three groups their only God is their penis"

Pretty offensive, right? So consider this one:

Q. "Why are evangelical Christians like the Taliban?

A. They are both religious fundamentalists"

The latter "joke" is not a joke at all, of course. It is a comparison routinely touted by Leftists. Both "jokes" are greatly offensive and unfair to the parties targeted but one gets a pass without question while the other would bring great wrath on the head of anyone uttering it. Why? Because political correctness is in fact just Leftist bigotry. Bigotry is unfairly favouring one or more groups of people over others -- usually justified as "truth".


One of my more amusing memories is from the time when the Soviet Union still existed and I was teaching sociology in a major Australian university. On one memorable occasion, we had a representative of the Soviet Womens' organization visit us -- a stout and heavily made-up lady of mature years. When she was ushered into our conference room, she was greeted with something like adulation by the local Marxists. In question time after her talk, however, someone asked her how homosexuals were treated in the USSR. She replied: "We don't have any. That was before the revolution". The consternation and confusion that produced among my Leftist colleagues was hilarious to behold and still lives vividly in my memory. The more things change, the more they remain the same, however. In Sept. 2007 President Ahmadinejad told Columbia university that there are no homosexuals in Iran.


It is widely agreed (with mainly Lesbians dissenting) that boys need their fathers. What needs much wider recognition is that girls need their fathers too. The relationship between a "Daddy's girl" and her father is perhaps the most beautiful human relationship there is. It can help give the girl concerned inner strength for the rest of her life.


A modern feminist complains: "We are so far from “having it all” that “we barely even have a slice of the pie, which we probably baked ourselves while sobbing into the pastry at 4am”."


Patriotism does NOT in general go with hostilty towards others. See e.g. here and here and even here ("Ethnocentrism and Xenophobia: A Cross-Cultural Study" by anthropologist Elizabeth Cashdan. In Current Anthropology Vol. 42, No. 5, December 2001).


The love of bureaucracy is very Leftist and hence "correct". Who said this? "Account must be taken of every single article, every pound of grain, because what socialism implies above all is keeping account of everything". It was V.I. Lenin


"An objection I hear frequently is: ‘Why should we tolerate intolerance?’ The assumption is that tolerating views that you don’t agree with is like a gift, an act of kindness. It suggests we’re doing people a favour by tolerating their view. My argument is that tolerance is vital to us, to you and I, because it’s actually the presupposition of all our freedoms. You cannot be free in any meaningful sense unless there is a recognition that we are free to act on our beliefs, we’re free to think what we want and express ourselves freely. Unless we have that freedom, all those other freedoms that we have on paper mean nothing" -- SOURCE


RELIGION:

Although it is a popular traditional chant, the "Kol Nidre" should be abandoned by modern Jewish congregations. It was totally understandable where it originated in the Middle Ages but is morally obnoxious in the modern world and vivid "proof" of all sorts of antisemitic stereotypes


What the Bible says about homosexuality:

"Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; It is abomination" -- Lev. 18:22

In his great diatribe against the pagan Romans, the apostle Paul included homosexuality among their sins:

"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.... Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them" -- Romans 1:26,27,32.

So churches that condone homosexuality are clearly post-Christian


Although I am an atheist, I have great respect for the wisdom of ancient times as collected in the Bible. And its condemnation of homosexuality makes considerable sense to me. In an era when family values are under constant assault, such a return to the basics could be helpful. Nonetheless, I approve of St. Paul's advice in the second chapter of his epistle to the Romans that it is for God to punish them, not us. In secular terms, homosexuality between consenting adults in private should not be penalized but nor should it be promoted or praised. In Christian terms, "Gay pride" is of the Devil


The homosexuals of Gibeah (Judges 19 & 20) set in train a series of events which brought down great wrath and destruction on their tribe. The tribe of Benjamin was almost wiped out when it would not disown its homosexuals. Are we seeing a related process in the woes presently being experienced by the amoral Western world? Note that there was one Western country that was not affected by the global financial crisis and subsequently had no debt problems: Australia. In September 2012 the Australian federal parliament considered a bill to implement homosexual marriage. It was rejected by a large majority -- including members from both major political parties


Religion is deeply human. The recent discoveries at Gobekli Tepe suggest that it was religion not farming that gave birth to civilization. Early civilizations were at any rate all very religious. Atheism is mainly a very modern development and is even now very much a minority opinion


"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" - Isaiah 5:20 (KJV)


I think it's not unreasonable to see Islam as the religion of the Devil. Any religion that loves death or leads to parents rejoicing when their children blow themselves up is surely of the Devil -- however you conceive of the Devil. Whether he is a man in a red suit with horns and a tail, a fallen spirit being, or simply the evil side of human nature hardly matters. In all cases Islam is clearly anti-life and only the Devil or his disciples could rejoice in that.

And there surely could be few lower forms of human behaviour than to give abuse and harm in return for help. The compassionate practices of countries with Christian traditions have led many such countries to give a new home to Muslim refugees and seekers after a better life. It's basic humanity that such kindness should attract gratitude and appreciation. But do Muslims appreciate it? They most commonly show contempt for the countries and societies concerned. That's another sign of Satanic influence.

And how's this for demonic thinking?: "Asian father whose daughter drowned in Dubai sea 'stopped lifeguards from saving her because he didn't want her touched and dishonoured by strange men'

And where Muslims tell us that they love death, the great Christian celebration is of the birth of a baby -- the monogenes theos (only begotten god) as John 1:18 describes it in the original Greek -- Christmas!


No wonder so many Muslims are hostile and angry. They have little companionship from women and not even any companionship from dogs -- which are emotionally important in most other cultures. Dogs are "unclean"


Some advice from Martin Luther: Esto peccator et pecca fortiter, sed fortius fide et gaude in christo qui victor est peccati, mortis et mundi: peccandum est quam diu sic sumus. Vita haec non est habitatio justitiae


On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.


I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!


Germaine Greer is a stupid old Harpy who is notable only for the depth and extent of her hatreds


Even Mahatma Gandhi was profoundly unimpressed by Africans



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