The primary version of "Political Correctness Watch" is HERE The Blogroll; John Ray's Home Page; Email John Ray here. Other mirror sites: Greenie Watch, Dissecting Leftism. This site is updated several times a month but is no longer updated daily. (Click "Refresh" on your browser if background colour is missing). See here or here for the archives of this site.


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.

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



30 November, 2016

Mother is branded 'sexist and disgusting' after asking for advice on how to discourage her son from learning ballet

The subtext here is that male ballet dancers are frequently homosexual -- and a mother is entitled to discourage her son from such an unhealthy and unhappy lifestyle.  Just for starters, there is a very high incidence of spousal abuse among homosexual couples

It may have once been traditional for boys to play football and girls to do ballet but nowadays many children feel free to take up activities regardless of gender. 

However, one pushy parent took to Mumsnet to ask for advice on how to discourage her son from taking ballet lessons.

The woman said her son is an aspiring model and explained that she doesn't think the extra-curricular activity 'is going to fit in'.

In her post, Mumsnet user Ironriver said: 'How do I put my son off wanting to do ballet? I'm showing him how cool football, rugby and karate are but he's having none of it.  'He does modelling and I don't think ballet is going to fit in. Lots of the boys do football and other sports so I would like him to do that. Any ideas?'

Many commenters were outraged at the mother's behaviour and suggested she should let her son pursue his own interests.

Concerned commenter OohhThatsMe said: 'Your poor child, having such a sexist mother.'

Shocked reader coolaschmoola added: 'Stop being so bloody sexist and let him do the thing he is interested in and actually wants to do.

'It's 2016! Boys don't just play football. Just like not all girls do ballet.'

Other commenters were surprised that the woman had already decided her should would become a model.

Dodobookends said: 'He's nine and you have already chosen his career for him? Absurd.'

Some even suggested that taking up ballet would be beneficial to any future modelling aspirations. 

OlennasWimple said: 'Ballet would give him excellent posture, teach him to move well and have a better idea how to use his body effectively. 'And less chance he'll break his nose or get a cauliflower ear.'

OohhThatsMe added: 'Actually ballet would REALLY help a modelling career. In what way would football do that?

'Look at the girls doing modelling - most will have studied ballet.'

SOURCE






Israeli Bill to Hush Mosque Call to Prayer Stokes Controversy Among Muslims--Others Too

Proposed legislation in Israel’s parliament to prohibit the use of loudspeakers to transmit the five-times daily Muslim call to prayer is causing dismay among adherents of more than one religious group.

A preliminary vote on the so-called muezzin bill (a muezzin is the mosque official who recites the call to prayer) is scheduled for early next week.

It is not clear how the legislation, if adopted, would impact numerous areas of Israel and the West Bank that are under complex jurisdictional ruling and home to a mixture of religions.

In Jerusalem and elsewhere throughout the country, the three monotheistic faiths contribute to the cacophony of sounds at various times and on different days of the week.

The daily Muslim calls to prayer begin at about 4 a.m. and can be heard to differing degrees, depending on where you are. Where mosques are in close proximity to one another, there is a lot of overlap and duplication.

In Jerusalem, the Jewish “shabbat alarm,” which is essentially an air-raid siren, sounds every Friday at sundown to tell residents the sabbath has begun. Church bells ring on Sunday and important holidays.

Yaakov Litzman, Israel’s ultra-Orthodox deputy health minister, initially blocked the bill over concerns that it could be extended to include the shabbat alarm. Last week, Litzman withdrew his opposition after a loophole was added for the alarm, Ha’aretz reported.

In Bethlehem, which is heavily dependent on Christian pilgrims for tourism at several points during the year, the town’s main tourist center is home to a mosque with a loudspeaker set at a very high volume. The mosque towers over Manger Square, and faces the Church of the Nativity, the traditional birthplace of Jesus.

The town’s Christmas tree stands right in front of the church and numerous Christmas holiday traditions take place in or near the square.

Local business owners, many of whom are Arab Christians, don’t seem to mind the blend of sounds, though.

“I’m not against it, for sure,” said Sami Khouri, general manager of the Visit Palestine visitor center and gift shop-cafe a few hundred feet from Manger Square. “Turning down the volume is somewhat okay, but preventing them from doing it isn’t right.”

Khouri, who also runs a tourism company and lives in Jerusalem, says it’s just part of life in the region.

“Even where I live in Jerusalem, there are two mosques [making the call to prayer] nearby, five times a day. I just think this is co-existence,” he said. “The mosque has been there for who knows how long – and we also ring the church bells. For tourists, it’s part of the flavor. For me it’s part of the sounds of Jerusalem, the ambience.”

However, Khouri and others do suggest that if multiple mosques are situated in a given area they could possibly coordinate their broadcasts. The caveat is popular sentiment, but is not part of the bill before the Israeli parliament.

Some areas in the West Bank technically under full Palestinian Authority control have protested by staging multifaith demonstrations, with hundreds of Muslims, Christians, and Jewish Samaritans singing the call to prayer together.

Nablus is the largest Palestinian city in the West Bank and home to hundreds of mosques, which together produce a wall of uncoordinated sound.

The ultra-Orthodox Jewish community is almost evenly divided on the issue, according to a poll on one of the community’s websites, Kikar HaShabat (Sabbath Corner). The poll found that 42 percent of respondents were against the bill.

There are also individuals working together behind the scenes, with unlikely, discreet alliances between some Arab and ultra-Orthodox lawmakers, according to a report in Al-Monitor.

Disputes over mosque calls to prayer are not uncommon, both in Western and Muslim countries. In 2004, some of the 23,000 residents of the Detroit suburb of Hamtramck, Michigan were at odds over mosque loudspeakers, with some telling local media they were simply “too loud.”

In Dubai in 2011, the volume of a mosque was checked twice for decibel level after residents complained about crying children being woken up at 4 a.m.

An online Indonesian housing forum for expats recommends visiting a potential new home “to make sure you can handle the disruption to the peace and quiet of your home during the call to prayer.”

SOURCE






The left is creating a new kind of apartheid

The student union at King’s College London will field a team in University Challenge that contains at least 50 per cent “self-defining women, trans or non-binary students”. The only bad thing Ken Livingstone could bring himself to say about the brutal dictator Fidel Castro was that “initially he wasn’t very good on lesbian and gay rights”. The first page of Hillary Clinton’s campaign website (still up) has links to “African Americans for Hillary, Latinos for Hillary, Asian Americans and Pacific islanders for Hillary, Women for Hillary, Millennials for Hillary”, but none to “men for Hillary”, let alone “white people for Hillary”.

Since when did the left insist on judging people by — to paraphrase Martin Luther King — the colour of their skin rather than the content of their character? The left once admirably championed the right of black people, women and gays to be treated the same as white, straight men. With only slightly less justification, it then moved on to pushing affirmative action to redress past prejudice. Now it has gone further, insisting everybody is defined by his or her identity and certain victim identities must be favoured.

Given the history of such stereotyping, it is baffling that politicians on the left cannot see where this leads. The prime exponents of identity politics in the past were the advocates of apartheid, of antisemitism, and of treating women as the legal chattels of men. “We are sleepwalking our way to segregation,” Trevor Phillips says.

Identity politics is thus very old-fashioned. Christina Hoff Sommers, author of Who Stole Feminism, says equality feminism — fair treatment, respect and dignity — is being eclipsed in universities by a Victorian “fainting couch feminism”, which views women as “fragile flowers who require safe spaces, trigger warnings and special protection from micro-invalidations”. Sure enough, when she said this at Oberlin College, Ohio, 35 students and a “therapy dog” sought refuge in a safe room.

It is just bad biology to focus on race, sex or sexual orientation as if they mattered most about people. We’ve known for decades — and Marxist biologists such as Dick Lewontin used to insist on this point — that the genetic differences between two human beings of the same race are maybe ten times as great as the average genetic difference between two races. Race really is skin deep. Sex goes deeper, for sure, because of developmental pathways, but still the individual differences between men and men, or women and women, or gays and gays, are far more salient than any similarities.

The Republican sweep in the American election cannot be blamed solely on the culture wars, but they surely played a part. Take the “bathroom wars” that broke out during the early stages of the campaign. North Carolina’s legislature heavy-handedly required citizens to use toilets that corresponded to their birth gender. The Obama administration heavy-handedly reacted by insisting that every school district in the country should do no such thing or lose its federal funding. This was a gift to conservatives: “Should a grown man pretending to be a woman be allowed to use . . . the same restroom used by your daughter? Your wife?,” asked Senator Ted Cruz.

White men played the identity card at the American ballot box
There is little doubt that to some extent white men played the identity card at the ballot box in reaction to the identity politics of the left. In a much-discussed essay for The New York Times after the election, Mark Lilla of Columbia University mused that Hillary Clinton’s tendency to “slip into the rhetoric of diversity, calling out explicitly to African-American, Latino, LGBT and women voters at every stop” was a mistake: “If you are going to mention groups in America, you had better mention all of them.”

He argues that “the fixation on diversity in our schools and the press has produced a generation of liberals and progressives narcissistically unaware of conditions outside their self-defined groups, and indifferent to the task of reaching out to Americans in every walk of life . . . By the time they reach college many assume that diversity discourse exhausts political discourse, and have shockingly little to say about such perennial questions as class, war, the economy and the common good.” As many students woke up to discover on November 9, identity politics is “expressive, not persuasive”.

Last week, in an unbearably symbolic move, Hampshire College in Massachusetts removed the American flag — a symbol of unity if ever there was one — from campus in order to make students feel safer. The university president said the removal would “enable us to instead focus our efforts on racist, misogynistic, Islamophobic, anti-immigrant, antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and behaviours”. There are such attitudes in America, for sure, but I am willing to bet they are not at their worst at Hampshire College, Massachusetts.

The one group that is increasingly excluded from campuses, with never a peep of complaint from activists, is conservatives. Data from the Higher Education Research Institute show the ratio of left-wing professors to right-wing professors went from 2:1 in 1995 to 6:1 today. The “1” is usually in something such as engineering and keeps his or her head down. Fashionable joke: what’s the opposite of diversity? University.

This is not a smug, anti-American argument. British universities are hurtling down the same divisive path. Feminists including Germaine Greer, Julie Bindel and Kate Smurthwaite have been “no-platformed” at British universities, along with speakers for Ukip and Israel, but not Islamic State. Universities are becoming like Victorian aunts, brooking no criticism of religion, treating women as delicate flowers and turning up their noses at Jews.

The government is conducting an “independent” review into Britain’s sharia courts, which effectively allow women to be treated differently if they are Muslim. The review is chaired by a Muslim and advised by two imams. And far too many government forms still insist on knowing whether the applicant is (I have taken the list from the Office for National Statistics guidance): “Gypsy or Irish Traveller, White and Black Caribbean, White and Black African, White and Asian, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Chinese, African, Caribbean, Arab, or any other ethnic group”. So bleeding what?

The left has vacated the moral high ground on which it won so many fine battles to treat human beings equally. The right must occupy that ground and stand for universal human values and equal treatment for all.

SOURCE





Fake news and post?truth: the handmaidens of Western relativism

It isn’t Macedonian teens who killed truth and objectivity

Internet-savvy 16-year-old boys in Macedonia are undermining Western journalism and democracy. Have you ever encountered a faker news story than that? This is the great irony of the fake-news panic that has swept the Western media in recent days, with observers now claiming that the promotion of made-up news on Facebook may have swung the election for Donald Trump and done GBH to the Western ideals of objectivity and reason: it is underpinned by illusions of its own; by a refusal to grapple with hard truths about the West’s own jettisoning of those values; and by an urge to invent bogeymen that is every bit as dislocated from reality as are those myth-peddling kids in the East.

Still reeling from the failure of their idol Hillary Clinton to get to the White House, mainstream observers and politicians this week came up with another thing to blame: BS news. They claim the spread of stories like ‘The pope loves Trump’ and ‘Hillary is a paedophile’, many of which originate on phoney-news websites in Eastern Europe and get loads of likes among Westerners on Facebook, is a threat to truth and to the very practice of democracy. Angela Merkel bemoaned the ‘fake sites, bots, trolls’ which ‘manipulate’ public opinion and make politics and democracy harder. President Obama slammed this ‘active misinformation’, arguing that ‘if everything seems to be the same and no distinctions are made’, then we ‘lose so much of what we’ve gained in terms of democratic freedoms’.

Liberal columnists, wounded that so much of the public ignored their overtures first on Brexit and then on Trump, claim good, decent, supposedly ‘elitist’ journalism must now assert itself. Our role in ‘seeking the truth’ must be ‘harnessed with steely determination’, says one. CNN’s Christiane Amanpour says the ‘tsunami of fake-news sites’ is an affront to journalism and the thing that journalism helps to facilitate: democracy. We must now fight ‘hard for the truth’ in this world where ‘the Oxford English Dictionary just announced that its word of 2016 [is] “post-truth”’, she says. Numerous hacks have been despatched to Macedonia and Russia to confront the fresh-faced youths who run these fake-news sites for cash. ‘How teens in the Balkans are duping Trump supporters’, says one headline. ‘Russian propaganda effort helped spread “fake news” during election’, says another. The image we’re left with is of dastardly Easterners suckering stupid Westerners and undermining the democratic tradition, and now pain-faced, well-minded columnists must stand up to this foreign threat to reason.

It’s the fakest news story of the week. It might not be as utterly invented as the one about Hillary’s people abusing children in a pizza restaurant in Washington, DC. But it involves a profounder avoidance of truth, a deeper unwillingness to face up to facts. In particular the fact that the rise of fake news, ‘alternative news’ and conspiracy theories speaks not to the wicked interventions of myth-spreaders from without, but to the corrosion of reason within, right here in the West. It speaks to the declining moral and cultural authority of our own political and media class. It is the Western world’s own abandonment of objectivity, and loss of legitimacy in the eyes of its populace, that has nurtured something of a free-for-all on the facts and news front. Those Macedonian kids aren’t denting democracy or damaging objectivity – they’re merely milking a Western crisis of objectivity that began long before they were born.

The first striking thing about the fake-news panic is its naked paternalism. The suggestion is that voters, especially those of a ‘low-information’, redneck variety, were hoodwinked into voting Trump by outlandish stories about how evil Hillary is. Fake news whacks people who ‘could not… recognise [or] fact-check’, says Amanpour. It’s a ‘post-truth era’ where you can ‘play [people] like a fiddle’, says a liberal writer in the US. A Guardian columnist says people ‘easily believe’ lies that play to their prejudices and then ‘pass them on thoughtlessly’. We’re given the impression that masses of people are incapable of deciphering fact from fiction. They cast their votes on the basis of a daft pizza-paedo link they saw on Facebook. With a loud sneer, observers write off the general public’s capacity for reason and willingness to engage seriously with democratic decisions. Ironically, this demeaning of the demos, this calling into question of the very idea that underpins modern politics – that the public is reasoned and must be allowed to steer the fate of their nation – does far greater damage to the value and standing of democracy than any spotty Macedonian with a laptop could ever do.

Then came the paternalistic solutions. We need new ‘gatekeepers’, columnists claim: professionals who have the resources and brains to work out what’s true and what’s a lie and ensure that people see more of the former. Obama and others suggest Facebook must get better at curating news, sorting truth from falsehood on behalf of its suggestible users. The suggestion is that the internet, having thrown open the world of reportage and commentary to everyone, having enabled anyone with a computer or phone to say their piece, has disoriented truth and democracy and now must be tamed, or at least better managed.

This echoes the elite fears that greeted the invention of the printing press in the 15th century. Then, the religious authorities – the gatekeepers of their day – worried that all sorts of heresy might now find its way into the public’s minds and hearts, unfiltered by their wise, godly counsel. Today’s aspiring gatekeepers panic that fake news will get into and warp the minds of the little people in this era when knowledge filtering has been stripped back even further, so that increasingly the citizen stands alone before the claims and counter-claims of those who publish. And apparently this fake news often contains heresies of its own. In his interview with the New Yorker, Obama strikingly bemoaned the ‘fake news’ of climate-change scepticism, where ‘an explanation of climate change from a Nobel Prize-winning physicist looks exactly the same on your Facebook page as the denial of climate change by somebody on the Koch brothers’ payroll’. This cuts to the 15th-century-echoing fear that motors the panic over fake news: the belief that it will allow not only outright lies, but new heresies, new blasphemies, different ways of thinking, to make an appeal to people’s beliefs and convictions. The call to filter social media is a paternalistic call to protect the public from bad or mad or dangerous thoughts, in a similar way that early clampdowns on the printing press were designed to keep ‘evil’ from the swarm.

What this censorious, anti-demos view overlooks is the positive side to today’s unprecedented throwing-open of debate and news and politics: the fact that it implicitly calls on the citizen to use his own mental and moral muscles, to confront the numerous different versions of the world offered to him and decide which one sounds most right. Surely the internet’s downside of fake news is more than outweighed by its invitation to us to negotiate the rapids of public debate for ourselves and make up our own minds? ‘Ideally, in a democracy, everybody would agree that climate change is a consequence of man-made behaviour, because that’s what 99 per cent of scientists tell us’, said Obama in his handwringing over fake news. No. The ideal thing in a democracy isn’t that we believe something because scientists, or politicians, or priests, have told us it’s true; it’s that we believe something because we have considered it, thought about it, weighed it up against other things, and then deployed our own judgement. Believing something because others tell you it’s true isn’t democracy – it’s oligarchy.

Even the extent to which fake news is a bad thing – and of course it can be – its rise is not a result of wicked foreign poking into Western politics and debate. Rather, it speaks to the hollowing-out of the whole idea of truth in the West, to the march of the relativistic notion that objectivity is not only difficult but undesirable. The image of the old gatekeepers of knowledge, or just news, being elbowed aside either by new technologies or by interfering Easterners is wrong; it is more accurate to say that these gatekeepers gave up, and abandoned their posts, on the basis that it is arrogant to assume that any one way of seeing or reporting the world is better than another.

For the past two decades, Western news reporting has openly called into question its own definitiveness. It has thrown open news items to ceaseless commenting below the line, on the basis that ‘news coverage is a partnership’, as the BBC’s Richard Sandbrook said in 2005. It celebrated ‘citizen journalism’ as a realer, less top-down form of newsgathering. And it has jettisoned the very thing that distinguished it from other, more opinionated views on world events: its objectivity. From the rise of the ‘journalism of attachment’ in the 1990s, in which journalists eschewed the apparently cold, forensic habit of objectivity and took sides with the most victimised groups in certain conflicts and situations, to the media’s embrace of ‘data journalism’ in the 2000s, where churning through thousands of leaked documents took the place of discovering stories and faithfully reporting them, Western journalism has redefined its mission from one of objectively discovering truth to simply offering its increasingly technical or emotional take on what might, or might not, have happened.

Journalists have explicitly disavowed objectivity, and with it their ‘gatekeeping’ role. It is time to ‘toss out objectivity as a goal’, said Harvard journalism expert Dan Gilmor in 2005. By 2010, even Time magazine, self-styled epitome of the Western journalistic style, was celebrating ‘The End of “Objectivity”’. The ‘new-media openness [has] upended the old media’s poker-faced stoicism – and it’s about time’, it said. The Western media started to replace the ideal of objectivity with values such as fairness, transparency and balance. And as one European observer pointed out, these are very different to objectivity: where objectivity points to ‘the active quest for truth’, these newer, more technical values reduce the news media to just another voice ‘among the many voices in a pluralistic world’. When someone like Amanpour says Western journalism and democracy are in ‘mortal peril’, largely thanks to ‘foreign powers like Russia paying to churn out… false news’, she overlooks journalism’s weakening of its own ideals and authority, including by her and others in the 1990s when they ditched objectivity in preference for taking sides in conflicts like the one in Bosnia. She conspiratorially displaces on to Russia a crisis of objectivity that has its origins in the newsrooms and academies and political chambers of the West.

The abandonment of objectivity in journalism did not happen in a vacuum. It sprung from, and in turn intensified, a rejection of reason in the West, a disavowal of the idea of truth, and its replacement either by the far more technical ambition of being ‘evidence-based’ or by highly emotional responses to world events. Indeed, the greatest irony in the fake-news panic, and in the whole post-Brexit, post-Trump talk of a new ‘post-truth’ era, is that it was the very guardians of Western culture and knowledge, the very establishment now horrified by how the little people think and vote, who made us ‘post-truth’; who oversaw the turn against Enlightenment in the academy, the calling into question of ‘male’ science, the throttling of the idea of any one, clear morality to which people might subscribe, and the rubbishing of the entire project of objectivity, even of ‘news’ as we understood it. When Obama says we live in an era where ‘everything seems to be the same and no distinctions are made’, he isn’t wrong. Only that refusal to distinguish, to judge, to elevate truer things over questionable things, is not down to Facebook or Macedonians or allegedly dumb Trump voters – it is an accomplishment of the very post-Enlightenment, self-doubting, technocratic elites Obama is part of.

And what happens when you give up your conviction that truth can be discovered, and instead promote the idea that all ways of looking at the world, and interpreting the world, and feeling the world, have validity? You disorientate public discussion. You slay your own cultural authority. You create a situation where people doubt you, often with good reason, and go looking for other sources of information. You create the space for other claims of truth, some of them good and exciting, some of them mad and fake. Don’t blame Russia, or us, for the crisis of journalism and democracy or for our so-called ‘post-truth’ times. You did this. You, the gatekeepers. We’ll be our own gatekeepers now, thanks.

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, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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




29 November, 2016

Germany's Merkel announces plan to deport 100,000 migrants

ANGELA MERKEL today announced plans to deport 100,000 migrants who arrived in Germany last year as she continues to backtrack on her controversial open door asylum policy.

The beleaguered Chancellor said authorities would significantly step up the rate of forced returns as she battles to arrest an alarming slump in her popularity which has fuelled a surge in support for the far-right.

Mrs Merkel, whose decision to roll out the red carpet to migrants from across Africa and the Middle East spectacularly backfired, has taken an increasingly tough tone on immigration in recent months.

And in her toughest rhetoric yet the German leader told MPs from her party this week: ”The most important thing in the coming months is repatriation, repatriation and once more, repatriation.”

The stance marks an astonishing U-turn from the once pro-refugee Chancellor, who has been widely pilloried by critics at home and abroad for her decision to throw open Germany’s borders to millions of migrants.

Her extraordinary change of heart has been prompted largely by a series of catastrophic local election results for her ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, which was trounced by the populist Alternative fur Deutschland in both her home state and the capital Berlin.

The party’s slumping poll ratings have sparked alarm amongst her allies in both the CDU and its coalition partner, the Christian Social Union (CSU), with talk that senior officials would try to oust her.

But instead Mrs Merkel last week announced her intention to stand for a fourth term as leader of Germany, and now she is striking an increasingly anti-immigrant tone as she attempts to restore her battered reputation ahead of next autumn’s election.

Speaking at a conference of conservative MPs in Neumünster yesterday evening the Chancellor revealed that she expects 100,000 migrants to leave Germany this year, of which a third will be forcibly removed.

And employing a tough new form of rhetoric, she warned local regions to deport all migrants whose asylum applications are rejected, using force if necessary.

She warned them: "If state governments refuse to forcibly deport migrants, then of course everyone will say, 'I will not do this voluntarily, because they will not do anything anyway’.

And in a stunning U-turn on her open borders policy, she added: ”It can not be that all the young people from Afghanistan come to Germany.”

Her rhetoric this week is a far cry from the now infamous rallying cry of Wir Schaffen Das - ‘we can do this’ - which the beleaguered leader has now dropped after issuing a statement verging on an apology.

It is estimated that some 215,000 migrants have been denied the right to stay in Germany over the last 18 months, most because they come from countries in eastern Europe and north Africa which are not ravaged by war.

Mrs Merkel is now insisting that resources must be concentrated on refugees fleeing war and turmoil who genuinely needed support, and that public acceptance for asylum seekers can only be maintained by deporting economic migrants trying to abuse the system.

SOURCE






On taking offence

One of the rules I try to live by is not to take offense when no offense is intended. A corollary to that rule is to presume, whenever possible, that no offense was intended. This is not, I admit, a discipline I've mastered perfectly. But it's not as hard as you might think. Make a daily point of affirming that you harbor no ill will, and you tend not to smolder with resentment and unresolved umbrage. At a time when Americans by the millions seem to go out of their way to keep themselves in a state of high dudgeon, choosing not to be offended can be wonderfully refreshing.

Not taking offense isn't the same as not having pet peeves. (I've got a bunch of those.) Nor does it mean never condemning shameful, foolish, or destructive behavior. (Where would newspaper columnists be if we never uttered any criticism?) It does mean recognizing that being offended is always a choice, and that other people's words and views can bend you out of shape only if you choose to let them have that effect.

This isn't a column about politics, but during last week's "Hamilton" kerfuffle, Vice President-elect Mike Pence provided a pitch-perfect demonstration of how not to take offense. Rather than bristle and fume when he was booed by audience members and pointedly addressed by the cast during the curtain call, Pence took it all with gracious equanimity. "I wasn't offended," he said afterward. He praised the "great, great show" and the "incredibly talented" cast, and made clear that actor Brandon Dixon's impassioned statement from the stage didn't trouble him or require any apology.

"I nudged my kids," Pence told Fox News, "and reminded them, 'That's what freedom sounds like.'"

And that, in turn, is what a mature emotional perspective sounds like. It would be nice to encounter more of it in our national discourse.

Unfortunately, picking at scabs has become a national pastime. Americans have lost their ability to shrug off other people's obnoxious comments or insensitive gestures or politically incorrect views. Instead of rolling their eyes and letting it pass, they proclaim: "I'm offended." They demand apologies. They insist on "trigger warnings" and "safe spaces." They howl about "microaggressions" and whinge about "mansplaining" and compile lists of banned words. When they get offended, they expect heads to roll or companies to be blackballed. They even take offense on behalf of people who don't take offense.

Remember Frank Costanza? He was the character on "Seinfeld" who invented Festivus, an idiosyncratic family holiday commemorated with a dinner, an aluminum pole, feats of strength, and — the high point — an Airing of Grievances. "I got a lot of problems with you people!" bellows Costanza to those at his Festivus table. "And now you're gonna hear about it!"

It was funny as a sitcom shtick. As a national pastime, perpetual outrage is exhausting and debilitating. America could do with a little less Frank Costanza and a little more Mike Pence.

As Mike Pence knows but Frank Costanza doesn't, offense is never really given. It's taken.

Waxing wroth when we're offended may feel temporarily satisfying, but the weight of all those chips on our shoulders does long-term damage. "In my work treating alcoholics," writes Abraham Twerski, a psychiatrist and founder of the renowned Gateway Rehabilitation Center in Pittsburgh, there is "great emphasis on divesting oneself of resentments," since "resentments are probably the single greatest factor responsible for relapse." Twerski quotes one recovering alcoholic's insight: "Carrying resentments is like letting someone who you don't like live inside your head rent-free." No lasting benefit comes from that, but all kinds of misery do.

In a society that often seems to thrive on taking offense — just turn on talk radio, or read an online comments section, or follow Donald Trump and Elizabeth Warren on Twitter — it can't be overemphasized that nursing a grievance is always optional. You may not be able to control other people's opinions, ignorance, bad jokes, or political loyalties. But you alone determine how you react to them.

Everyone knows the biblical injunction to "love thy neighbor as thyself." Less well known is the first half of the verse: "Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge." That's excellent counsel, for believers and nonbelievers alike.

SOURCE






“Fake News” Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

For whatever strange reason, the entire failed pundit class became interested in the notion of purging so-called “fake news” all at once, immediately following an election that produced an outcome they despise. I’m sure it was just a big coincidence that they all suddenly coalesced around this potential solution.

Back in August I wrote on the folly of obsequiously begging Silicon Valley tech titans to attain social progress on your behalf. That was in the context of the craze around curtailing so-called “targeted harassment” on Twitter, but the same concept applies here: if you’re requesting that Mark Zuckerberg and @jack use the blunt instruments of censure and extirpation to suppress phenomena you dislike, you’re ensuring that the phenomena won’t actually be curtailed. It will just manifest elsewhere. You’re also ensuring that people with conspiratorial inclinations will assume that the “powers that be” are maliciously restricting their ability to consume information, thus increasing their level of alienation from the existing political/media order. You’re also demanding that these tech princes be endowed with extraordinary power?—?they already have a ton, but you want them to have more, and you want them to exert their power in service of removing certain types of information from the free internet. That’s what you want done.

These are fundamentally authoritarian impulses. Maybe not “authoritarian” in the sense of explicitly violating citizens’ civil liberties?—?authoritarian in a softer, but still insidious, sense. You want these all-knowing tech demigods to solve social problems for you, instead of undertaking the hard work of solving them yourself. How to solve them? How about helping to remake presently-loathed institutions such that they’re not automatically distrusted by wide swathes of the populace. That might help. How about trying to reform the political system such that the anxieties of ordinary people are actually addressed substantively, so they don’t feel the need to latch onto “fake news” floating out there in cyberspace to explain why they are incredibly disillusioned.

I can also guarantee you, with 100% certainty, that the specter of “fake news” will be wielded as an ideological cudgel. I already have evidence for this, as the Washington Post has published a ridiculous report citing a team of unvetted “independent researchers” who have produced “a list” (love that neo-McCarthyite sloganeering) of all the worst offenders on the internet in terms of propagating “fake news” at the behest of sinister Russian agitators.

Included on the list that the Washington Post trumpeted, and which was breathlessly promoted by cartoonish political elites such as Neera Tanden, are several reputable media outlets of longstanding provenance that happen to diverge from the mainstream pundit consensus, and are therefore viewed as unconscionable:

That’s just a small selection. You’ll notice that the “blacklisted” media entities include examples from both the left and right, proving that the operative ideological function of the “fake news” crusade is about discrediting media that deviates from the establishmentarian consensus, rather than enforcing any kind of traditionally “ideological” goal in the sense of the hoary liberal/conservative dichotomy.

That will be the function of the coming “fake news” expurgation campaign?—?not to instate any kind of objective measures of determining what is “fake” news and what is “real,” but mandating conformity, and punishing those who defy conformist standards.
If these people were sincerely interested in doing away with “fake news,” the first thing to do would be to look inward. They would be reprimanding many of their own esteemed colleagues and demanding that they permanently withdraw from public life. But of course they won’t do this, even though there was plenty of flagrant misinformation propagated by the more conventional “mainstream” press over the course of this election cycle?—?you won’t see the Washington Post demand that those responsible be purged.

Furthermore, the Washington Post itself propagated a veritable avalanche of fake news, notably by way of its lunatic “columnist” Anne Applebaum, who repeatedly spread debunked and fake conspiracies that Trump was a knowing conspirator of the Russian intelligence apparatus.

Joy Reid of MSNBC spread one of the most egregious examples of fake news that I have ever seen, but she never retracted it or apologized, and (to the best of my knowledge) was never sanctioned by MSNBC higher-ups. Her fakery was then amplified by neoconservative speechwriter and Hillary supporter David Frum.

Much like the word “terrorism,” the phrase “fake news” will be manipulated to accord with whatever pre-existing ideological commitments its newfound opponents already espouse. There really is a problem with false information circulating on the internet, but the main perpetrators are failed media elites.

SOURCE





Farmers left feeling 'very threatened' and unable to sleep after a new animal rights campaign group abuses slaughterhouse staff and writes anti-Semitic graffiti on the walls

Farmers have reportedly been left unable to sleep and 'very threatened' after a new animal rights campaign group has started to invade slaughterhouses in the UK.

The vegan group, called The Save Movement, now has 24 branches in the UK from Cornwall in the south to Scotland in the north. They have 'Save groups' in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Italy, USA, Sweden and Poland and they claim to use a 'love-based approach'.

The description of the movement also adds that they focus on 'non-violence' and they believe animals are individuals which have rights.

But some groups have taken a different approach and it is 'only a matter of time' before a protester or worker gets hurt, according to an industry spokesman.

The movement - which has a 'zero tolerance approach to animal exploitation' - has staged around 60 demonstrations, reports Andrew Gilligan at the Sunday Times.

And it seems the number of protesters ranges from a handful of people to more than 50 activists.

Their demonstrations included an invasion of a kosher abattoir in London and anti-Semitic graffiti was plastered on the walls.

A video of the East London Chicken Save - a branch of The Save Movement - shows activists enter the Kedassia kosher abattoir in Hackney Wick earlier this month.

They pushed past security and abused staff because they were 'helping to kill babies', reports the newspaper.

Police were called and a group spokesman criticised the arrival of officers. They said the police presence stopped them 'from liberating these innocent chickens'.

The 12-minute video, which was uploaded to YouTube, has been viewed more than 5,000 times.

A caption underneath the video said: 'East London Chicken Save were able to get inside the slaughterhouse and the kill room.

'The pipes were filled with guts and the stench of death and faeces was overwhelming. 'The chickens in the truck were extremely disfigured and many had huge sores on their bodies.'

And following a second demonstration last week, anti-Semitic graffiti was daubed on the walls of a London abattoir.  A Star of David was drawn on the walls along with refences to Nazism, reports the newspaper.

The Save Movement said: 'We have a strict code of conduct which rejects any form of violence, intimidation,and racism, including anti-Semitism.' 

Lizzie Wilson, from the National Pig Association, told the newspaper: 'It has grown up very quickly. In the main, they are a peaceful protest and entitled to their views.  'It's when they start to become more aggressive that it's obviously a concern.'

She added that some farmers felt 'threatened' and can't sleep at night after some groups turned up at farms and slaughterhouses at night.

This resulted in extra police patrolling the areas surrounding the farms because people are worried the protests will 'continue to escalate', reports the paper.

A British Meat Processors Association spokesman said campaigners were jumping in front of lorries in order to get their point across. He said: 'It is only a matter of time before a protester of a member of plant staff is injured.' 

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, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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





28 November, 2016

Italy is poised to become next country to reject the establishment as shock poll finds referendum protest vote is poised to beat the government

The upcoming vote on prime minister Matteo Renzi's reforms will be thrown out by an 11 percentage point margin in the south of the country, according to a Demos poll. 

It is being seen as his failure to reach out to the working class in the poorest areas of Italy, predominantly located in the south.

The vote could prompt an exit from the European Union and rejection would follow results in the Brexit referendum and the U.S. presidency race in citizens turning their back on the political status quo.

Italy is proposing to run a budget deficit of 2.4 percent of GDP for the year, significantly higher than the 1.8 percent level it had promised to deliver earlier this year.

Deputies on Friday voted overwhelmingly in favour of a draft 2017 budget that the European Commission has warned will breach EU rules on the management of public finances.

Luca Comodo, director at polling company Ipsos, told the paper voters think blocking the government's plans is a vote against the establishment and said: 'The south is where protest and rage are amplified.'

A rejected vote would reduce the senate's influence and withdraw power from 20 regional governments in the country. 

The issue has provoked sharp exchanges in recent weeks with Renzi seen in some quarters as Brussels-bashing in the run-up to a December 4 referendum on constitutional reform, on which he has staked his political future.

New spending plans in the budget include two billion euros more for healthcare, one billion for education and measues to help small companies and poorer families.

Renzi said earlier this month that he would no longer bow to "diktats" from Brussels over fiscal restraints he regards as counterproductive at a time when most of the eurozone is struggling.

He has also threatened to block the approval of the EU institutions' collective budget if other countries do not offer Italy more help in coping with the arrival of thousands of migrants on its southern shores.

A 2017 deficit of 2.4 percent of GDP would leave Italy comfortably within the EU ceiling of three percent.

But the Commission's economists say Rome should bring down its deficit faster to ensure that the upward trend in the country's huge debt mountain - equivalent to over 130 percent of GDP - is reversed.

The 2017 budget law will only be definitively approved once it has been examined by the second chamber of parliament, the Senate, which has not scheduled any debate on it until after the December 4 referendum.

SOURCE






Another Trump/Brexit/Hanson event and the Australian Greens have a fit

NSW has a Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party, the name of which is self-explanatory.  They mainly want an easing of gun laws but you can see similarities with Trump and other recent uprisings against political correctness.  They have previously got seats in the NSW Upper House only -- with the help of proportional representation.  Now that they have taken a lower house seat it is therefore quite an upset


The NSW MPs of the Australian Greens have chucked one of the most childish and immature tantrums ever seen in any Australian Parliament, after Orange elected Mr Phillip Donato from the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party (SFFP).

The three Greens MPs including Tamara Smith, Jenny Leong and Jamie Parker have announced they do not want to sit with the newly elected MP from the SFFP.  Resorting to behaviour better suited to your local primary school, they have asked that Mr Donato be seated with the Labor MPs.

Ms Leong who has clearly been triggered by this event has spoken out and declared that Mr Donato should sit “with his Labor mates,” a swipe at Labor for preferencing the SFFP over the Greens in the by-election. It is clear to see that the Greens are deeply and emotionally scarred by the tragic preferencing deal.

The people have spoken and it is time for the greens to take a big spoonful of cement and harden up.  Our parliaments are not places for the weak hearted.

SOURCE.  More background on Mr Donato here.  He is no rube.





Privately-funded (better measured, more accountable) social services

Jeremy Sammut

National Adoption Awareness Week has redrawn attention to the appallingly few adoptions in Australia -- despite the appallingly high number of children in foster care that will never go home safely.

The opponents of adoption continue to claim the real problem with the child protection system is that not enough is done to help parents to stop kids entering care.

They falsely claim that adoption advocates (such as me) believe that early intervention services are a "waste of time" (see this review of my book).

This is nonsense, of course.  The problem is that child protection services bend over backwards to support parents to the point that children suffer prolonged abuse and neglect; hence there are many thousands of damaged children in care with maltreatment-related 'high needs' -- development, emotional, and other problems.

The critics also ignore the lack of evidence to support the 'family preservation' policies they endorse.

Take the 2015 Victorian Auditor General's report that found there was no way of knowing whether increased government spending on family support services  was "effectively meeting the needs of vulnerable groups ... because there are significant limitations in the service performance data and a lack of outcomes monitoring at the system level."

This is a sector-wide problem identified by my (sadly departing) colleague Trisha Jha in her excellent recent report detailing the lack of robust evaluations of early childhood interventions.

But change is slowly occurring in the social services sector, driven by privately-financed funding initiatives. The Benevolent Society's privately-financed Social Benefit Bond is used to fund the Resilient Families programs, which has had some early success in reducing the number of children entering care.

The success appears to be underpinned by a robust, independent evaluation mechanism. This includes the virtually unprecedented use of a matched intervention-group and control-group to generate a gold-standard measure of effectiveness.

Rewarding programs based on their demonstrated outcomes makes providers accountable; it encourages innovation and discovery of what actually works -- a virtuous circle.

We still need thousands more adoptions each year because there simply are some families that can never be fixed whose children will need rescuing.

But better measured, more accountable social services would also help ensure the child protection system protects children properly.

SOURCE






American universities struggle to balance hate crime surge and politically-correct overdrive

He campaigned on a promise to end political correctness and bring pride back to the United States.

And yet in the wake of Donald Trump’s election, American universities have taken political correctness to the extreme – with one removing the US flag from their campus, and another speaking out against a “party in the USA”-themed celebration, in case students were offended.

Mr Trump’s campaign and his surprise victory has undoubtedly energised extreme elements on all sides of US society.

Police across the country have reported a surge in complaints – on November 14 the FBI reported a 66 per cent increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes for 2015. The Southern Poverty Law Center said that it has received over 700 reports of hate crimes since the election, with 40 per cent of them in schools and universities.

Students and teachers reported graffiti reading: “Make America white again” and swastikas daubed on playgrounds, while mobile phone footage captured children in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Texas chanting “build the wall” and “white power”.  

But on the other end of the spectrum, American educational establishments have found themselves being ridiculed for taking their desire not to offend to extremes.

Last week the president of Hampshire College, a small university in Massachusetts, announced that the American flag was being removed from campus, in a bid to calm tensions.

The day after the election students began calling for the removal of the Stars and Stripes from their campus, saying it was a symbol of racism and hatred. It was lowered that night, and then a day later someone set fire to it.  The flag was replaced, but the college board announced that it would be flown at half-mast, “both to acknowledge the grief and pain experienced by so many and to enable the full complexity of voices and experiences to be heard.”

But that only served to pour fuel on the fire – especially among military veterans, who said it made a mockery of the tradition of flying a flag at half-mast to symbolise mourning.

Jonathan Lash, the president of the college, then announced the flag would temporarily be removed from the university land. He said he hoped that removing the flag would “enable us to instead focus our efforts on addressing racist, misogynistic, Islamophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and behaviours.”

He added: “Some have perceived the action of lowering the flag as a commentary on the results of the presidential election — this, unequivocally, was not our intent.”

His decision was met with derision, however. Twitter users described themselves as “disgusted” and “ashamed” by the move, with many pointing out that the college received federal funding.

And the Massachusetts university was not the only one to struggle with the flag and patriotic gestures.

At Brown University, some students tore up and stomped on flags from an event honouring veterans last week, while others hurried to replace and protect the flags. At American University the day after the election, students upset about Trump’s victory burned flags and shouted “F— white America!”

And at a university in Maryland, student leaders at Loyola University apologised for the theme – “Party in the USA.”

“As an organisation, we want to extend our deepest apologies to those that were hurt by this theme and the negative impact it had on them,” they wrote, in an email to students who will graduate this summer.

“Although it was not our intention to create such a divisive climate, we understand that the impact of this decision is much greater than our initial intention.”

The party went ahead as planned – but not without much hand-wringing about the “divisive” theme.

Reverend Brian Linnane, president of the university, said the student leaders were right to be concerned.

"We heard from members of our community who were concerned that some students intended to manipulate the theme to create an unwelcoming environment at the event,"he said. He said they suggested postponing it, until a later date when the country would be “less politically charged.”

“My senior leaders and I have a responsibility to create an intellectual and social environment where all students feel welcomed, included, and supported — an environment where students of all political viewpoints can engage in substantive, meaningful dialogue in the pursuit of truth," he said.

Emily Burke, a senior and president of the Loyola Republicans, said she was deeply upset at student leaders feeling “they needed to apologise in some way for being proud to be an American.”

She added: “The theme was supposed to be unifying, and it should have been.”

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, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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




27 November, 2016

Trump and the Overton window

The Overton window refers to the range of topics that is permitted to be discussed in polite society.

The article below is from Brian McNair, a professor of journalism at a minor Australian university.  And, like all Leftist writing, what he leaves out makes a big difference.  He is basically disrespectful of the Trump triumph, as are most Leftists.  To spice up his argument, however, he rightly observes that Hitler came to power through regular democratic processes too. So he hints that Trump will be another Hitler. 

Many Leftists just say Bush=Hitler, Trump=Hitler etc. without making any real argument for their assertions but Prof. McNair makes a lightly reasoned historical case for his comparison so I think that warrants a reply.

He rightly observes that Hitler too railed against the establishment and a remote elite that did not care about the people. But socialist politicians regularly rail against the establishment and a remote elite that does not care about the people. And Hitler was a socialist.  The only oddity is that a semi-conservative like Trump did it. And the various socialist postwar governments worldwide have not become Hitler clones so why should Trump? Our bitter professor does not mention that.  He ignores all the examples that contradict his argument.

And the differences between Hitler and Trump matter too.  Hitler was undoubtedly one of the greatest warmongers the world has seen whereas Trump is a peacenik.  He is on buddy terms with Mr Putin and wants to withdraw American troops abroad back home to America.  In that regard he is a traditional American isolationist.  It is Clinton who was rhetorically attacking Russia, not Trump.  Hitler did talk peace at times but from his re-militarization of the Rhineland onwards he expanded the territorial reach of his armed forces -- unlike Trump's desire to pull back U.S. armed forces.

So it is just the usual Leftist cheap shot to compare Trump with Hitler.  Just because two people have some similarities does not mean that they are the same.  It is a foolish and empty argument.

The point of the article, however, is a recognition of something that has not much been discussed so far:  Trump has shifted the Overton window rightwards.  The success of Trump has made all his policy positions respectable.  Before Trump, for instance, limiting Muslim immigration was "racist" to both the GOP and the Donks.  The Leftists still say that but the Right no longer agree. They can now discuss the matter without being shut down. They can in fact not only discuss it but win elections by saying it. So both sides of the issue can now be discussed pretty freely, which was not previously the case

And our professor sees that shift in what journalists say and discuss.  He sees that they now treat Trump's policy positions with more respect.  They discuss them instead of simply abusing them.  And THAT has got our professor riled.  He calls the new normal "subjectivity" and yearns for the good old says when political correctness  -- which he amusingly refers to as "objectivity" -- reigned supreme. He makes a plea for a return to it but is clearly despairing of that happening.  He is right about that.


As the results of the 2016 election came in, the mainstream media in America and around the world demonstrated their inability to cope with the challenge of a president Trump within the conventional paradigms of journalistic objectivity, balance and fairness. Or, rather, to cope without normalising the most conspicuously overt racism, sexism, and proto-fascism ever seen in a serious candidate for president.

As street protests broke out in Portland, Oregon in the days after the election, for example, BBC World noted the police definition of the events as a “riot”, in response to what it coyly described as “some racist remarks” made by Donald Trump during his campaign.

A man whose comments were denounced even by his own party chief Paul Ryan as “textbook racism”, and whose references to “grabbing pussy”, “a nasty woman”, “Miss House Keeping” and other indicators of unabashed misogyny horrified millions in the US across the party spectrum, was now president.

For the BBC, henceforth, criticism of even the most outlandish and offensive remarks – when judged by the standards of recent decades – would be severely muted, if not excluded. Suddenly, rather can call a spade a spade in coverage of Trump’s hate-mongering campaign, his ascendancy to office had legitimised those views, and the process of normalisation had begun.

The mainstream media have largely followed suit in this approach to Trump’s victory, bestowing a new respectability on what before election day had been generally reported as absurdly offensive statements and policies. One can without too much imagination foresee Ku Klux Klan chief David Duke becoming an expert commentator on CNN or MSNBC (or at least on Fox News).

In News Corp outlets all over the world, from Sky News and The Australian here to Fox in the US, commentators and pundits were to the fore in constructing legitimacy around his policies, insofar as anyone really knows what they are.

This descent into normalisation of the hitherto unacceptable, occasioned by Trump’s democratically endowed seizure of political power as of November 8, is very similar to the rise of Hitler and the Nazis in 1930s Germany.

Hitler’s ascent, and all that came from it, was a product of free choices made in ballot boxes, and of free media coverage which moved to the extreme right with the ruling party.

Then, as now, a demagogic populist exploited perceptions of victimhood and “anti-elitism”, targeting ethnic and religious minorities as “the enemy”. No-one forced national socialism on the German people, or on their media, nor on the many Western media such as the Daily Mail in England that spoke out in his favour.

Post-November 8, the mainstream media have shown their inability to engage with the enormity of what is happening in Western and global politics within conventional paradigms of objectivity. Left to them, the slide into fascism will simply become another news story, another “he said, she said” performance of balance, legitimised by the fact that this is what democracy has delivered. No matter that in the 1930s the same obeisance led to the Holocaust.

This tendency is not the fault of the mainstream media, nor of their journalists, who are simply applying the professional codes and practices with which they have been raised. But they will need to do better.

For those in the media who wish to stem a slide into democratically legitimised fascism in the next four years – and similar processes are now unfolding in Europe, Australia and elsewhere – it is time to rethink the appropriate response of “objective” journalism to the post-factual politics of extreme subjectivity.

SOURCE






UK: Sex, politics and censorship

Helene Guldberg

Porn Panic! provides a frightening portrait of the left’s abandonment of liberty

The political journey of Jerry Barnett, the author of Porn Panic! Sex and Censorship in the UK, has been a fascinating if rather unusual one. His grandfather, Albert, was among the thousands of Jews, locals and Communists who fought off Oswald Mosley’s blackshirts when they tried to march through the Jewish East End in 1936. The Battle of Cable Street, as it became known, was an inspiring example of people taking matters into their own hands. ‘Women threw heavy pots out of the windows on to the fascists’ heads. The police deployed their truncheons against the protesters, but were beaten back, along with the fascists’, writes Barnett. Albert’s daughter, Jerry Barnett’s mother, was also politically active – in the Women’s Lib movement in the 1960s, campaigning for equal rights and sexual liberation. He himself joined the socialist Militant Tendency in the 1970s. But after Margaret Thatcher’s historic defeat of the miners in 1985, Barnett, like many on the left, dropped out of politics.

It was his experience in the porn industry that eventually brought him back to political activism. By that stage, he writes, the left was unrecognisable. As Barnett argues, since the French Revolution, the left has been associated with progress, liberty and equality, and the right with the maintenance of the status quo. But today, the threat to liberty no longer comes from right-wing moralists, such as the ‘veteran decency campaigner’, Mary Whitehouse. Rather, it comes from a new army of morality campaigners largely on the left. ‘The old moralists had wielded the Bible in one hand, and the Daily Mail in the other’, writes Barnett. ‘This new movement was younger. Instead of coming from Middle England, it arrived from academia. Rather than use the language of religious morality, it appeared under the umbrella of feminism and liberalism. And in place of the Mail, it was backed by the Guardian.’

The complete transformation of the left was disconcerting for Barnett. ‘I was a Labour-voting (well, until Iraq anyway), Guardian-reading leftie; what had happened to my tribe?’ It is particularly the ban-happy nature of the puritanical left that disturbs Barnett. ‘The reality – that the Guardian has taken a conscious decision to become a pro-censorship paper – is hard to swallow. It took me, once a loyal Guardianista, several years to appreciate what had happened’, he writes.

Barnett fought against the National Front in the 1970s. He now sees his fight to be against the ’new fascists’ – the left. I agree that the left today tends to undermine the very principles its representatives fought for in the past – liberty, equality and democracy – but the overused term ‘fascists’ is not particularly useful or illuminating as a description of the left. Where Barnett is right, however, is in locating the problem with the left in terms of a loss of faith in Enlightenment values. That is, because the left has abandoned human autonomy, agency and the power of reason, it will now ‘accept the right of the state to intervene in the most trivial matters of interpersonal speech and political and artistic expression’. Hence the case for state interference is largely made by the left rather than the right. As Barnett argues, ‘this new, authoritarian, puritanical movement of the left has been so successful that the conservative right has abandoned its old moralistic language and appropriated the new terminology of the left’.

Today the threat to liberty comes from a new army of morality campaigners largely on the left

Barnett focuses much of his ire on contemporary feminism – which has been transformed from a ‘force for liberation’ into a ‘force for censorship’. ‘Having spent years arguing that women were equally capable to men’, writes Barnett, ‘[feminists now argue] that women [are] indeed the weaker sex, requiring additional protection from the state’. The fact that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn could entertain the idea of women-only carriages on trains indicates the changing attitudes to equality.

Barnett systematically takes apart the arguments of the new moralists, and shows the shoddiness of the ‘science’ they rely upon. Take feminist campaign-group Object’s shocking claim that ‘polls suggest 63 per cent of young women aspire to be glamour models or lap dancers’. This figure was arrived at by asking young women whether they would rather be Abi Titmuss (a model and actress), Germaine Greer (a feminist author and academic) or Anita Roddick (a businesswoman). As Barnett writes: ‘It was meaningless fluff designed to generate press coverage, but from Object’s point of view, it constituted evidence.’

Barnett recognises that to defend free speech we need to wholeheartedly defend the right of those with whom we disagree to say and think whatever they want. We have the right and capacity to challenge or ignore them, as we see fit. ‘Only a true elitist could try to dictate which ideas other people have access to, rather than join the debate and win by force of reason’, he writes. The most shocking aspect of the new forms of censorship for Barnett was the near silence on this issue from so-called liberals. ‘I found many apparently liberal people were only opposed to censorship of things they enjoyed, but would not extend that principle to things they disapproved of.’

Barnett defends pornography because he thinks it is a good thing. But he is equally prepared to defend the rights of those with whom he disagrees.

Not that he always had such a principled position on free speech. In the 1970s, Barnett supported the left’s No Platform policies. Even in 2009, when Nick Griffin, the then leader of the far-right British National Party, was invited to appear on BBC’s Question Time, Barnett was among those protesting outside the BBC’s studio about its decision to give Griffin a platform. However, he is now prepared to admit he was wrong to do so. It dawned on Barnett that Griffin’s ideas were neither powerful nor dangerous. In the television debate, Griffin’s simplistic and outdated ideas were exposed, and proved very easy to challenge.

In universities, No Platform policies have been extended to an ever-growing list of individuals whose ideas are seen as too dangerous for students to be exposed to. The erosion of liberal values in universities – with the emergence of trigger warnings, Safe Spaces and the banning of ‘homophobic’ or ‘misogynist’ songs – is, as Barnett puts it, one of the ‘most worrying signs of the change to British political culture’.

Barnett also raises concerns about the lynch-mob mentality of today’s moral entrepreneurs. This is perfectly encapsulated by the witch-hunt in 2013 against Isabelle Sorley, then 23, and John Nimmo, then 25, who were arrested and jailed for sending abusive messages to journalist Caroline Criado-Perez on Twitter. The public vilification of two rather pathetic individuals demonstrates the mean-spirited streak that runs through today’s elites, and their middle-class, liberal and lefty supporters. ‘The trial coverage reeked of sneering class snobbery’, Barnett writes. ‘The greatest impetus for censorship tends to come where unacceptable lines are crossed, and there is no line more fiercely defended by the middle classes than between themselves and the great unwashed.’

The fact that hardly anyone questioned whether the state should have the right to arrest and imprison people for what they say or write, shows the extent to which liberals have abandoned any belief in liberty. Drawing on the great work of the English philosopher John Stuart Mill, Barnett argues for the importance of differentiating between words and deeds. Of course, there are some exceptions, such as an army general ordering his troops to shoot randomly. But as Barnett points out, that is an order to be obeyed, not an argument to be debated.

Humans are not automatons who respond unthinkingly to words or images. Central to Enlightenment thinking is the idea that we are all capable of listening to, weighing up and refuting ideas if we disagree with them. If we think only some people can be exposed to backward ideas without turning into racists or misogynists, we have given up on the idea of equality. To silence ideas liberals don’t like, denies others the opportunity to challenge those ideas.

Porn Panic! does glorify pornography, and I found the arguments for porn unpersuasive. But Barnett provides an entertaining – albeit frightening – picture of the transformation of left-wing politics over the past three decades. He provides a refreshing defence of human autonomy and agency and our ability to find solutions to life’s many challenges without state interference. ‘Human problems require human responses’, concludes Barnett, ‘not the smothering security blanket preferred by the British state’.

SOURCE






UK: The hatefulness of Stop Funding Hate

This anti-tabloid campaign loathes ordinary people

In possibly the most middle-class attack on the free press ever, campaign group Stop Funding Hate has made its own John Lewis-style Christmas advert, calling on big brands to boycott the Daily Mail, the Sun and the Daily Express by removing their advertising.

According to its Facebook page, Stop Funding Hate aims to ‘tackle the culture of hate, demonisation and division that is poisoning our political discourse’, and claims tabloids are spreading ‘hate speech’. In the video, against the backdrop of sentimental festive advert clips and accompanied by weepy music, the viewer is informed, ‘The money we spend on gifts is used to stir HOSTILITY’. This is followed by snapshots of tabloid headlines about migrants and Muslims.

It goes on: ‘This is not a Christmas ad, but it is about them. Every year there’s another beautiful story with a message about looking out for others even if they are distant strangers, even if we’ve been told they’re our enemy. But once the tinsel has been taken down, everything changes and millions of pounds we spend at Christmas at John Lewis, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and M&S is used to buy adverts in papers with another message, that some of us are different, that some of us are only a PROBLEM, a BURDEN or a THREAT.’

The idea is that – in a fit of moral rage, presumably – shoppers at those stores will write to the companies and demand they withdraw advertising from the nasty tabloids. Whether they do this before or after they’ve bought their organic Christmas turkey and curly kale is not clear.

The video has been viewed 6.3million times, shared over 200,000 times on Facebook, and garnered tens of thousands of retweets. It’s already had one significant win: Danish toy manufacturer Lego announced at the weekend that it was withdrawing all advertising from the Daily Mail. Apparently, the Co-op is also reviewing its advertising after pressure from campaigners, and Gary Lineker has backed the campaign and spoken to Walkers Crisps, which he promotes, about its advertising.

According to its Facebook page, Stop Funding Hate began as ‘an online community horrified by the upsurge in media hate speech that accompanied the [EU] referendum’. An online petition – the first tool in the armchair activist’s toolbox – inevitably followed. The petition, which has so far received over 46,000 signatures, calls on Virgin Media to stop advertising in the Sun. ‘We fully support freedom of expression, and freedom of the press’, the page declares, alongside other laughable claims, such as: ‘We don’t take sides in political debates.’ Strangely, it only seems to target right-leaning newspapers that backed Leave.

This campaign is entirely about censorship. Supporters of Stop Funding Hate want the Daily Mail and Co to lose money – hopefully leading to their demise – because they don’t like what they say. When the Daily Mail printed its ‘Enemies of the people’ front page after three High Court judges ruled that triggering Article 50 would have to go to a parliamentary vote, Stop Funding Hate tweeted a photo of the front page to the government, as well as to various advertisers, asking them to boycott. One tweet said: ‘Share if you think @British_Airways should stop funding newspapers that undermine British #democracy.’ But in a democracy, public figures should never be above criticism. Tabloids fulfil an important role by brashly questioning the status quo and the elites of society. You may not like what they say, but you are under no obligation to buy them.

Stop Funding Hate justifies its censorious activism by claiming it is simply encouraging people to exercise their rights as consumers: ‘We believe people have the right to make choices based on the values of companies they may purchase from – and to speak out when something doesn’t sit right.’ This is disingenuous. As a consumer, you can choose not to buy certain newspapers or shop in certain stores. But putting pressure on advertisers to withdraw money from newspapers due to their editorial line is something different. This is a barely veiled attempt to shut down newspapers some people disagree with.

Another thing that defines Stop Funding Hate is hypocrisy. ‘We are against all demonisation and hate speech, whatever the motivation and whoever the target’, claims its Facebook page. It is curious, then, that the group has remained so quiet about the hatred towards Leave voters expressed in the supposedly liberal media. During the referendum, a writer in the New Statesman described Brexit voters as ‘the frightened, parochial lizard-brain of Britain’, and Guardian writer Polly Toynbee said the Leave campaign had ‘lifted several stones’.

This isn’t just about the tabloids, it’s about the ‘little people’ who read the tabloids. Stop Funding Hate believes tabloid readers are brainwashed bigots. It accuses the Daily Mail of being divisive, and yet it assumes that vast swathes of the public are incapable of independent thought. Luckily, the tabloids’ popularity will probably limit the campaign’s impact. Combining print and online, the Daily Mail is the most popular British newspaper, with 23million monthly readers. The Sun remains the most read print title, with 12.7million monthly readers. These are figures I’m sure John Lewis and Sainsbury’s will bear in mind.

This Christmas, Stop Funding Hate’s heartwarming, festive message is that millions of tabloid readers cannot be trusted to think for themselves, so it is best that the bien pensant society censor the press for their good. Meanwhile, the Sun has just launched its Christmas appeal, asking readers to knit a blanket for children in poverty-stricken or war-torn countries. How hateful.

SOURCE






Evil Empire-bashing is no longer the preserve of the right

During the old Cold War, it tended to be right-wing Western politicians who were most comfortable stoking the fires of anti-Russian fear and loathing. Think of McCarthyite warnings of reds under the beds in 1950s America or of US president Ronald Reagan’s attacks on the ‘evil empire’ in the 1980s. But no more. Today, conjuring up Russia as the nefarious demiurge of world affairs, with Vlad the Bad Putin as demon-in-chief, has almost become the self-styled progressive’s stock-in-trade. Think of Russia’s almost pariah status in the international community, of the ease with which the right-thinking liken its actions to those of Hitler’s Germany. And think of Hillary Clinton and her supporters during the US election routinely painting now president-elect Donald Trump as ‘Putin’s puppet’, and accusing Russia of hacking and quasi-rigging the election. So while there are of course still plenty on the right of Western politics (to the extent that a right exists) who cling to the certainties of the old Cold War, it’s the liberals, the left-leaning, the now frayed and frazzled establishment, who seem most keen to fuel the fires of the new Cold War, in an attempt to rediscover some sense of moral purpose.

You can see it in the anxious, Putin-fearing response to Trump’s election victory. ‘Some in Europe worry that the Russian president may already be rubbing his hands with glee’, reports NBC. This after all fits the pre-election narrative of Trump as Putin’s grotesque marionette. And now that Trump has been installed, Putin, noted for his ‘aggressive behaviour’, as the New York Times puts it, can continue ‘to try to revive Russian greatness’, with all the chaos and peril that entails.

Over and over again, Russia is portrayed as the bringer of global instability, and now the power behind Trump’s throne. So The Times (London) happily reports that a former UK ambassador to Moscow claims that Putin is gearing up for a ‘hot war’. Elsewhere, a commentator warns that Putin ‘is ruthless and decisive and we are not’. And all agree that Trump’s victory is also a victory for Putin. Former NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen even urged Trump to recognise that ‘the best approach with Russia is a firm hand’. After all, without the US’s firm hand, Russia will be all too free to pursue its ‘revanchist mission’, as the NYT puts it: its ‘Soviet policy [of] preventing Western encirclement… fighting proxy battles to support Russian interests… and challenging Western power wherever possible’.

From the liberal anti-Russian perspective, the post-Trump anxiety over Russia is understandable. Trump has called NATO, that remnant of US, Cold War-era imperialism, ‘obsolete’; he has praised Putin’s leadership, saying he’d give it an ‘A’; and, during this week’s phonecall to Putin, Trump stressed he was ‘very much looking forward to having a strong and enduring relationship with Russia and the people of Russia’. So if you’re convinced that Russia is intent on bringing the West down, and reviving its ‘evil empire’ in the West’s stead, Trump’s ‘bromance’ with Putin, his denigration of the Western military alliance of NATO, and his readiness to throw the US’s lot in with Russia really will look a little bit like the end of the world.

But then, that’s the problem with this all-too-mainstream animus towards Russia; not only does it fuel and entrench the new Cold War, it blinds its advocates to their own role in fomenting this new Cold War. They can demonise Putin, they can wax darkly about Russian atavism, and invoke its imperial designs, but it’s not Putin who is planning on deploying 4,000 troops to the Baltic states and Poland – it’s NATO. It’s not Putin who is going to send a heavy infantry brigade to Eastern Europe early next year – it is Obama’s US. And it is not Putin who, witnessing a section of another nation’s people protesting an election result, sides with the protesters and says conspiratorially ‘they deserve free, fair, transparent elections’ – that was then US secretary of state Hillary Clinton in 2011, talking about Russia’s presidential elections.

In fact, Clinton has been an orchestrator-in-chief of the anti-Russian forces. She has spoken of seeking to ‘confine, contain, [and] deter Russian aggression in Europe and beyond’; she said Russia’s annexation of Crimea after the West/EU-stoked unrest in Ukraine, was reminiscent of Hitler’s justification for taking over parts of Eastern Europe; and, in the run-up to her failed election bid, she declared, ‘I remain convinced that we need a concerted effort to really up the costs on Russia and in particular on Putin’.

This is not just rhetoric. It had and continues to have real, destablising consequences. So over the past couple of months, with many predicting the victory of the anti-Russian, anti-Putin Clinton, Russia has rapidly increased its involvement and intervention in Syria: Russian warships and submarines are in place off the Syrian coastline; aircraft are flying and bombing; and Iranian and Hezbollah militias are actively assisting the reinforced Syrian regime. And the strategic motivation for ramping up the military campaign in Syria now, and with such brutality? A fear of a Clinton presidency, replete in anti-Russian sentiment, and determinedly anti-Assad commitment.

This is the effect the new liberal, right-thinking purveyors of the Cold War have been having on world affairs. They have been destabilising relationships, exacerbating tensions and prompting Russia to retroactively aggress, act out, protect itself. Given all this, is it not possible that Trump’s seemingly conciliatory approach towards Russia, which while no longer super, is still a power, is far less likely to disorder and barbarise assorted regions of the world than the not-so-passive aggression of a Clinton White House?

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, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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





25 November, 2016

Europe Begins to Take Immigration Seriously

The victory of Donald Trump cements the fear among European elites that was first stoked by Brexit. Can they change quickly enough for their voters?

The Prime Minister of France says that both his nation and Germany are in danger, and the European Union may fall apart.  The hazard?  Governments refusing to listen to their people's concerns about immigration and Islamist terror.

    Immigration was one of the main drivers of Britons' vote to leave the EU, and Valls said the bloc, which more than a million migrants entered last year, had to regain control of its borders.

    He said the Brexit vote and Donald Trump's election victory showed how important it was to listen to angry citizens, and that politicians scared of making decisions were opening the door to populists and demagogues.

Valls is worried chiefly about France's National Front party, which has a number of similarities to the forces that recently won stunning come-from-behind victories in the United Kingdom and the United States.  In the United States, the election of Donald Trump came in large part because of his frequently repeated promises to get tough on immigration.  In the United Kingdom, the so-called "Brexit" campaign struck a blow for Merry England.  Though there are significant security challenges associated with Brexit, in all the results have so far been reassuring to those who backed the Leave campaign.  Voters in that nation reasserted control over their national destiny and character, with the result that in the wake of this election concerns about immigration fell to a recent low among English citizens.  Though immigration concerns remain the single largest issue for Britons, it has in the wake of Brexit fallen to the level of an ordinary political concern - only a few more citizens are very worried about it than are very worried about poverty, for example.

In Germany, however, concerns about immigration are still sky high.

    On the other side of the scale are nations like Germany, where a grand total of 15 per cent of residents are immigrants and 38 per cent express concern, and Sweden where 14 per cent are immigrants and 36 per cent are worried.

    Also high among German concerns is worries about crime and extremism. Thirty-five per cent of Germans told interviewers they were worried about terror, 28 per cent about extremism, and 36 per cent about crime and violence.

The result has been the repeated success of political movements in Germany at the local levels.  Even Angela Merkel has begun to take notice.  During her recent trip to Niger, the German leader cautioned refugees not to come to Germany.  Ostensibly she is worried about the rate of drownings associated with refugee ships crossing the Mediterranean sea.  However, like Valls, she has to be feeling the pressure of the electoral wave.

Merkel's shift puts her in good company.  Self-described "liberal" politicians in Germany are also now demanding a new crackdown on immigrants, especially those who - as these politicians phrase it - "reject our state and act against our social order."  It is pretty clear to what that coded language intends to refer.  However, if anyone doubts that the issue is radical Islam, they need only look to the proposed policy solution:  "an expansion of faith-led Islamic classes, which they say should be taught under state supervision in German, by teachers with full training." 

That move to take direct government control of how Islam is taught represents a solution far too radical for Americans, whose First Amendment protects the church from any such government intervention.  Nevertheless, that such solutions are even under discussion should go a long way to demonstrating that the public's patience with governing elites is largely gone.  A political community is not just a market, as Aristotle said, but a group bound by shared values and common beliefs.  That basic idea, as old as ancient Greece, is being restored to its central role in public life by another Greek idea:  democracy.

SOURCE






Town Renames "Good Friday" for the Sake of "Cultural Sensitivity"

Whenever you hear a liberal talking about cultural diversity and sensitivity it normally means something insensitive is about to happen to Christians.

The latest case in point: Bloomington, Indiana - the home of Indiana University and a nesting place for a gaggle of intolerant liberals.

Mayor John Hamilton recently announced that are renaming two paid holidays for city workers -- in an effort to respect "differing cultures."

Columbus Day will henceforth be known as "Fall Holiday" and Good Friday will be known as "Spring Holiday."

Mayor John Hamilton told Fox 59 the name change will “better reflect cultural sensitivity in the workplace.”

According to our Fox television affiliate -- some folks around town got upset when City Hall posted a closing sign referencing specific holidays.

“As a mayor we are in charge of government. We do not set religious policies, we are not supposed to be part of religion and we are just trying to make sure that our government is open to all people and inclusive,” the mayor told the television station.

And apparently the only way to achieve cultural diversity and sensitivity is by disrespecting Italians and Christians.

"It was not necessary and just stands to divide rather than unite when it comes to Good Friday," the Herald Times wrote in a staff editorial.

The newspaper said a case could be made for changing Columbus Day.  "To some in our country the idea of celebrating him is akin to celebrating a marauding invader who sought to destroy a culture," they wrote.

But Good Friday?  "It’s a day important to the faith of many in this country," they wrote. "The idea of acting as if city leaders don’t acknowledge its existence and would rather stick a “Spring Holiday” name on it is insensitive to those for whom it means a lot. It’s an unnecessary poke in the eye to many Christians."

Well said, editors!

Mayor Hamilton may not be aware but Christians commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on Good Friday. It's about remembering that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.  Good Friday is a holy day -- not a day to frolick around a maypole in a field of pansies.

And to be honest - I've grown weary of boorish bureaucrats trying to whitewash our faith from the public marketplace all in the name of tolerance and diversity.

They never touch the Muslim holidays, do they? When was the last time you saw a liberal lawmaker launch a crusade to rename Ramadan? You'd have a better chance of spotting Peter Cottontail hopping down the bunny trail.

SOURCE





Conservative Group Launches Boycott of Target Over Bathroom Policies

A conservative watchdog group has started a campaign to boycott Target over its bathroom policies.

In April, Target announced that customers and employees at its locations would be allowed to “use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity.”

At the time, the American Family Association launched a petition to boycott the company for the policy, which garnered over 1 million signatures.

Now, watchdog group 2ndVote has launched the #AnywhereButTARGET hashtag and website to encourage customers to do their Christmas shopping elsewhere.

The stated purpose of the boycott is to “make Target understand that there are consequences for supporting a radical movement that is determined to redefine marriage, gender, and, ultimately, the First Amendment.”

According to the group’s press release:

2ndVote is calling on conservative consumers to engage the country’s second-largest retailer on its company-wide policy that allows and encourages individuals to choose restroom and changing room facilities based on gender identity rather than biological sex. Immediate pushback from conservatives forced Target to spend $20 million to add gender neutral bathrooms to its stores shortly after announcing the policy earlier this year.

Following the American Family Association boycott, Target announced it would spend $20 million to install private, unisex restrooms in its stores.

“When a company as large and well-known as Target chooses to insert itself directly into such a radical movement that seeks to ultimately destroy religious liberty and completely goes against our conservative values, it’s our role as an organization to give conservatives a way to communicate directly with the company,” 2ndVote Executive Director Lance Wray said in a statement.

According to its website, 2ndVote is a group that seeks to “expose the corporate influence on major policy decisions and turn the tide on the attacks on conservative values and principles.”

Boycotts of companies for the political views of their owners has become a trend in recent years, with supporters of same-sex marriage boycotting Chick–fil–A in 2012, and supporters of mandatory contraception coverage boycotting Hobby Lobby in 2014. 

SOURCE






At least half of anti-Trump protesters arrested in Portland didn’t vote, report says

After Donald Trump’s upset victory last week made him the next president of the United States, thousands of protesters marched in Portland’s streets to proclaim the businessman was “not my president.”

But, according to KGW, state election records indicate that at least half of those arrested didn’t register to vote or turn in a ballot in Oregon.

The television station cross-checked a list of 112 people arrested by Portland police and determined that 34 of those arrested did not return a ballot and another 35 were not registered to vote in the state. The voting records for another 17 protesters had yet to be confirmed, according to KGW.

One protester, though she was registered to vote in Oregon, told the station that she had voted in Washington state after recently moving across state lines. Opponent Hillary Clinton won Oregon’s seven electoral votes.

Most of those who were arrested in connection to the demonstrations had their charges dropped while police are completing paperwork, and will receive traffic citations instead, according to a statement from the Portland Police Bureau and the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office. But two teenagers, who were arrested after a man was shot and hurt early Saturday morning, are being charged with attempted murder or aiding and abetting it, OregonLive reported.

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, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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





24 November, 2016

DOJ fines Denver Sheriff Dept. for excluding noncitizens when hiring

Absurd

The Denver Sheriff Department will accept a penalty from the Department of Justice after a federal probe found it wrongly made U.S. citizenship a job requirement during a recent hiring spree.

The sheriff's department — the biggest sheriff's office in Colorado — will pay a $10,000 fine after it required applications for deputy sheriff jobs to be U.S. citizens when hiring from the beginning of 2015 through March 2016. The department went on a hiring spree of 200 deputies as part of its ongoing reform.

The department will also have to go through old applications to find applicants who were eliminated because of their citizenship status and reconsider them for future jobs.

The Justice Department made the announcement on Monday, saying the sheriff's department violated the Immigration and Nationality Act without having an exemption.

As part of the settlement with the federal government, the Denver sheriff's department will also have to train its human resources staff on the Immigration and Nationality Act's anti-discrimination provisions. It will also review its policies to make sure they are in compliance with those provisions.

"Eliminating this unlawful citizenship requirement will help ensure that the Denver Sheriff Department hires the best and most qualified individuals to protect and serve. The entire community will benefit from these reforms," said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, in a statement.

The Denver Sheriff Department is a different entity than the Denver Police Department, which received more than $130,000 from the DOJ last year for its police body-worn camera program.

SOURCE





Immigration Skyrockets From Countries With Very Different Cultures

Since the political elites have given up any attempt to assimilate immigrants to American culture, the cultural views immigrants bring to the U.S. are of primary importance.

These immigrants will bring the cultural values and views they have to the U.S. and try to impose those views on the American polity.

Unsurprisingly, the biggest surge in immigration population are from countries that do not share too many of the classical American political values.

No one will be surprised that social views in traditional societies differ from those in the post-industrial West, but the degree of divergence can be striking. Immigration is surging from countries where that divergence is especially large.

For example, six of the ten countries with the highest growth of U.S. foreign born population since 2000 are Nigeria, Egypt, Iraq, India, Pakistan, and Ghana.

Using the World Values Series to test various to illustrate the differences in cultural values between the United States and the “surging” countries, the results are striking.

In the question of “When jobs are scarce, men should have more right to a job than a woman;” the U.S. answer was “yes” 5% of the time. In the six immigration surging countries, the “yes answer garnered between 49% and 84%.

More of these questions can be viewed here.

There are some factors at work which may serve to mitigate these cultural values clashes.  For example, immigrants are usually self-selected and may have cultural views closer to the mainstream in the U.S. than their home countries.  In addition, these self-selected immigrants may be more susceptible to assimilation. However, no one knows how long and to what extent cultural differences will persistent among immigrants or the extent to which these difference will cause social friction

SOURCE





Killing the Messengers: The Democratic Party Embarks on Path of Personal Destruction

Up until last week, I had always thought that Adolf Hitler was the worst person who ever lived. Well, the Fuhrer was apparently less of a menace to world peace and our common humanity than one Stephen K. Bannon, US President-elect Donald Trump's newly appointed chief strategist and senior adviser.

Indeed, based on the screaming headlines of hyperventilating mainstream news organizations, the incoming Trump administration will be staffed by a rogues gallery of misogynists, homophobes and the occasional anti-Semite.

Instead of developing a set of new messages and a cadre of dynamic young messengers to expand the Democratic Party tent to include not only the very rich and very poor, the action plan to reclaim the White House and both houses of Congress is to dig up every single errant thought ever expressed at any point that portrays team Trump as a gang of ultra-nationalist bigots.

However, outraged Democrats, in a tizzy over Hillary Clinton's shocking and resounding defeat, are too busy stocking up their bomb shelters to be bothered by a couple of inconvenient truths about the former head of Breitbart News.

Not only is Bannon unapologetically pro-Israel, as evidenced in his own writings and those of others who have contributed to Breitbart,  the man who would be Lucifer has actually sought to give voice to traditionally underrepresented Conservative voices from the American Jewish, Asian and Latino communities.

Regarding Senator Jeff Sessions, a few moth worn quotes devoid of all context have transformed the man who desegregated schools and took on the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama into a major threat to civil rights in the United States, should he in fact become Attorney General.

And when Vice President-elect Mike Pence was recently booed by an audience while attending the diversity-celebrating hit musical Hamilton, it evidently didn't dawn on the miffed theater goers that 'diversity' and its Constitutional manifestation, free speech, doesn't only apply to the right to believe that you're a perpetual victim of white privilege.

The 'Hamilton' cast was offended by the mere sight of Pence in their midst? Too bad: freedom of expression is utterly meaningless without the right to offend. Harassing him was both infantile and a direct frontal assault on the Vice President-elect's right to hold views that are contrary to those of the Broadway glitterati.

Yet America's cultural elite and its front, the Progressive Movement of the Democratic Party, are mad as hell and in no mood to be lectured on the finer points of Constitutional law.

Progressives simply cannot wrap their admittedly big brains around one earthshattering idea: not every American citizen is enthralled by utopian concepts of social, racial, economic and environmental justice.

On November 8th, the left-wing statist ideology was poked, prodded and otherwise examined by tens of millions of American voters. In the ultimate marketplace, the marketplace of ideas, Progressivism was deemed to be rotten to the core, and subsequently discarded into the ashbin of recent American political history.

Curiously, the Democratic Party, instead of engaging in a protracted and meaningful period of reflection as to how the hell Donald Trump managed to derail the coronation of Hillary Rodham Clinton, has embarked on a personality killing spree, attacking anyone currently or potentially associated with the incoming administration.

Why so tense, Dems?

Because utopian thinkers aren't in the least bit interested in lively public policy discourse. Their goals are much more grandiose: uniformity of thought, preferably of the politically correct variety.

What kind of world do Bernie Sanders, Susan Sarandon and the cast of 'Hamilton' want us to live in anyway? Not sure. But history leaves clues, and it's replete with instances in which utopianism trumped crude nationalism:

In France, revolutionaries rallied under the utopian banner of 'Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.' Within a few short years, their revolution had morphed into the Reign of Terror.

In Russia, the Bolsheviks came to power under the slogan 'Land, peace, and bread.' Within just five years, Lenin had insured a smooth transition from tsarist dictatorship to Soviet dictatorship.

At its core, utopianism is little more than thinly veiled intolerance, sprinkled with fairy dust to appeal to the intellectually vulnerable.

On November 8th, the people spoke, yet Progressives refuse to hear. This damn the torpedoes attitude will ultimately destroy the Democratic coalition, and turn it into a truncated, European-style socialist fringe party, utterly inconsequential but morally pristine.

SOURCE





National Security Adviser Designate: 'Islam Is a Political Ideology,' Not Many 'People Screaming Jesus Christ With Hatchets'

Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Michael T. Flynn, a registered Democrat who has been offered the position of National Security Adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, believes “Islam is a political ideology” that veils itself as a religion, and is unique in that sense because he does not “see a lot of people screaming Jesus Christ with hatchets” or guns “shooting up clubs” or “literally axing families on a train.”

As for Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, Lt. Gen. Flynn said, “We have to deal with Russia” and “and figure out ways to work with them” particularly because we have more than “5,000 of our own troops there in Iraq trying to fight the rise of ISIS.”

In a speech before the Dallas, Texas chapter of ACT! For America in August, Lt. Gen. Flynn said,  “Islam is a political ideology, it is a political ideology. It definitely hides behind this notion of it being a religion.”

“And I have a very, very tough time because I don’t see a lot of people screaming ‘Jesus Christ’ with hatchets or machetes or rifles shooting up clubs or hatcheting, literally axing families on a train,” said Flynn.

“Or like they just killed a couple of police officers with a machete,” he said.  “I mean, it’s unbelievable.  So we have a problem.”

“It’s like cancer,” said Flynn in reference to radical Islam.  “I’ve gone through cancer in my own life. And so it’s like cancer, and it’s like a malignant cancer, though in this case that has metastasized.”

He continued, “It’s like I just said in the number of attacks in 22 countries in just the last 45 days. When I look back over the last 10 years or 15 years of my life and the things that I’ve seen and the things that I’ve witnessed against this very vicious threat.”

On MSNBC Live on Nov. 2, host Stephanie Ruhle asked Flynn, “When I think about Vladimir Putin, and what a dangerous man he is, I ask you, how would you describe Vladimir Putin in one word?”

Flynn answered, “You know something, Stephanie, here we just cut a deal. The United States of America just cut a deal with Russia -- with Russia’s direct involvement -- to give the leading state sponsor of terrorism in Iran a nuclear weapon, to put them on a path to a nuclear weapon.”

“So, if Russia is so bad, why is it that our government, our current government right now, and Hillary Clinton was over there trying to do Russian reset?” said Flynn.

Ruhle replied, “They would argue that that deal puts a check in place so they don’t do it.” Flynn then said, “They just gave the leading state sponsor of terrorism -- their national, Iran’s national anthem is ‘Death to America.’ They have said they are going to annihilate the state of Israel. I mean, come on.”

“And so this is our current government,” said Flynn. “Hillary Clinton was definitely behind and influencing the Iranian nuclear deal when she was the Secretary of State. So here the U.S. is working with Russia to give Iran all of this nice stuff , $150 billion dollars.”

He continued, “We’re working with them right now to try to resolve the issue in the Middle East. So all Donald Trump is saying is, ‘Hey look, let’s find some common ground with the Russians, but you know what, let’s have mutual respect.’”

Ruhle then asked how Flynn could respect Putin, “someone who kills journalists, who’s invaded Crimea. Is that a man you respect?”

Flynn replied, “Stop it with that kind of stuff…. How you’re describing a leader in the world that is, actually that we have to deal with, we’re dealing with him right now. We have to deal with Russia.”

“We have to deal with Russia,” he said. “We cannot make Russia an enemy. Russia is a nation that is deeply involved in the Middle East. Right now, the Middle East is totally unstable. We have over 5,000 of our own troops there in Iraq trying to fight the rise of ISIS.”

“Russia’s directly involved,” he said. “So we have to figure out ways to work with them instead of making them an antagonist.”

Lt. Gen. (ret.) Michael T. Flynn is President-elect Trump’s designated National Security Adviser, according to The New York Times and numerous other media, citing an unnamed top official on the Trump transition team.

Flynn, 57, is from Rhode Island. He grew up in a family of nine. He and his wife, Lori Flynn, have been married for 30-plus years. They have two sons and several grandchildren. Flynn served in the U.S. Army from 1981 to 2014 and served in Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Uphold Democracy and Operation Urgent Fury.

Lt. Gen. (ret.) Flynn was the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency from July 2012 to August 2014. His designated position in the Trump administration does not require Senate confirmation.

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, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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



23 November, 2016

There isn't a 'silent majority' of racists in Australia

By Tim Soutphommasane, Race Discrimination Commissioner.

Tim's headline above is beyond dispute but he goes downhill from there.  I have written previously about the do-gooder Scanlon Foundation and its reports and what I have said previously still seems to apply. 

Peter Scanlon was the man behind  stevedoring business Patrick Corporation but he now seems to be mainly in shares and Real Estate.

This year's report has made a big issue over question wording.  They know, I know and all survey researchers know that the wording of a question can greatly influence the answers.  And by dwelling on that fact they apparently hope to obscure the reality that they are themselves great sinners in that regard. 

Just to take a simple example from their survey, one of their questions is: "Marriage equality for same sex couples".  They find that 66% of respondents say they support it.  But the question is ludicrously biased.  It is put in a way that argues for it.  Were the question a straightforward "Homosexual marriage" they would undoubtedly get a very different percentage of approval.  The Labor party certainly thinks so.  That is why they strenuously resist a vote on the question.  They know that a referendum on the question would be lost.

And the Scanlon questions about "refugees" are amusing too. One question asked for agreement with a statement seeking support for  resettling  ‘refugees  who  have  been  assessed  overseas  and  found  to  be  victims  of  persecution  and  in  need  of  help'. A real tear-jerker! Unsurprisingly, two thirds of respondents agreed with that. I would have liked to ask for responses to "Most so-called refugees are really just economic immigrants in search of a country with generous welfare payments".  I might have got two thirds agreement with that too.

So Tim is entitled to believe the Scanlon report but from my viewpoint as an experienced survey researcher it is basically rubbish. To believe their results you would have to show that they are similar to results that have been obtained by other researchers.  And they themselves admit that their results are often very different.  They say that the other researchers have bad research methods but I think it is more a case of Luke 6:42.

So when Tim says "An overwhelming majority of people (83 per cent) believe that multiculturalism is good for the country", we have to ask WHICH cultures do people see as beneficial? Muslim culture?  Probably not. Scanlon doesn't ask that question. They don't want to know.

Having said all that there were nonetheless two points which even Scanlon picked up, two points that other surveys have found:  Environmental issues are bottom of the barrel in importance for Australians and Australians are far more anti-Muslim than they are anti any other religion


These are challenging times for race relations. In the United States, just a fortnight after the election of Donald Trump, there are already numerous reports of hate attacks on the rise. A similar trend was reported earlier this year following the Brexit vote in Britain.

This is what happens when political debates normalise attacks on immigrants and foreigners. This is what happens when populist nationalism trumps the normal rules of liberal democracy.

Australia is not the US. Neither is it Europe. But we are not immune from racial anxiety and xenophobia. There remains a small minority of people in our society who are hostile towards cultural diversity and immigration. These are people who believe that an Australian national identity is under threat from cultural change.

It is important that we deal with such concerns, that we understand why people may feel that way. Yet, as the Scanlon Foundation's Mapping Social Cohesion report shows, we shouldn't overstate such cultural angst. Those who are uncomfortable about multiculturalism do not constitute some "silent majority". The political mainstream mustn't rush to conclude otherwise.

Here are some of the facts, according to the Scanlon Foundation. An overwhelming majority of people (83 per cent) believe that multiculturalism is good for the country. A clear majority of people (59 per cent) believed that current levels of immigration were either "about right' or 'too low".

Such results, consistent with the Scanlon Foundation's findings over the years, are the best indication we have of where Australian public opinion really lies. It is confirmation that Australia remains a successful and harmonious nation of immigration.

Of course, recent commentary has painted a different picture. For example, one Essential Media poll about Muslim immigration has been frequently cited to support the proposition that half of Australians want to ban Muslim immigration.

Such commentary has tended to ignore other evidence indicating far more robust support for a non-discriminatory immigration policy. In a previous survey, the Scanlon Foundation in fact found that three-quarters of the population supported immigration being conducted on non-discriminatory lines. This year, the Scanlon Foundation found that with respect to Australia taking in refugees from Syria, 69 per cent indicated that "there should be equal consideration to all religious and ethnic groups".

The lesson is this. Political debate must avoid jumping to conclusions based on single opinion polls – especially when polls need to be interpreted with care. The best polls are those that can show trends over time. On matters of social cohesion, the Scanlon Foundation's findings have been robust and reliable.

Which is why there are some findings in this year's survey that should give us pause. There has been an increase in the reported experience of discrimination, which rose from 15 per cent of respondents in 2015 to 20 per cent in 2016. This is the highest proportion recorded since the Scanlon Foundation surveys began in 2007. Those of a non-English speaking background reported the highest experience of discrimination (27 per cent).

There can be no complacency on prejudice and discrimination. It remains fundamentally important that our society sends an emphatic signal that racism is unacceptable.

SOURCE






'They want us to be Islamised. They despise our country and our values'

Translator at German refugee camp says Muslim migrants display 'pure hatred' of Christians

A translator at German refugee camps has revealed Muslim migrants are showing 'pure hatred' toward Christians and want the country to be Islamised.

The Arabic speaker worked in a number of asylum centres across the country and went undercover to discover migrants were preaching 'pure hatred' about non-Muslims and women were planning to have more children to 'destroy Christians'.

She said the hostility is also visible at asylum homes, where Muslim children refuse to play with Christians.

The Eritrean woman, 39, worked in several refugee centres across Germany and found fellow translators were part of the problem.

Talking to Catholic website Kath.net, she said they 'show their true colours' when Christians are out of ear-shot and they have a Muslim-only audience.

'They want Germany to be Islamised. They despise our country and our values,' she said. 

She had arrived herself as a refugee in 1991, and has volunteered in asylum centres for five years to 'give something back'.

After unearthing the worrying findings, she headed to the mosques to find out more. 

'Pure hatred against non-believers is preached, and children are brought here from an early age here in Germany,' she told Kath.net.

'It's very similar in asylum housing, where Muslim boys refuse to play with Christians.

'Some women told me "We will multiply our numbers. We must have more children than the Christians because it's the only way we can destroy them here".'

In an attempt to quell these feelings, she was told helping and defending Christians is a sin. 

Germany has been rocked by terror attacks this year, heaping pressure on chancellor Angela Merkel's open-door immigration policy.

A bloody week of violence that rocked Germany began on July 18 when Pakistani teenager Riaz Khan Ahmadzai, 17, posing as an Afghan refugee, hacked at passengers on a train in Wurzburg with an axe, wounding five.

He was shot dead by police.

Four days later mentally unstable German-Iranian teenager Ali Sonboly shot nine people dead during a rampage through a shopping centre in Munich before taking his own life.

Sonboly claimed he was taking revenge for being bullied at school with no political motive to the murderous rampage.

SOURCE






MoH Recipient Uninvited From Marine Ball

Why would one of the Marine Corps' biggest heroes be uninvited from the Marine Corps Ball in Afghanistan?

Sergeant Dakota Meyer received the Medal of Honor for his actions on Sept. 8, 2009, during the Battle of Ganjgal, in which five Americans and eight Afghan security personnel were killed in action. Meyer made five runs into enemy fire to evacuate wounded personnel and recover the bodies of American KIAs.

For this year’s Marine Corps Ball held to celebrate the 241st birthday of the Marine Corps, Meyer had been invited to attend in Afghanistan, where he had served with Embedded Training Team 2-8. According to a report by tribunist.com, the celebration was to be held at the American embassy in Kabul due to security concerns. Such concerns are valid, as a recent murder-suicide bombing at Bagram Air Base left four Americans dead and wounded 17 others.

Meyer’s invite was reportedly rescinded at the direction of Amb. P. Michael McKinley over Meyer’s “political views.” On his Facebook page, Meyer has been vocally critical of the Obama administration on a number of issues, including a push for additional gun control laws. Meyer’s wife, Bristol Palin, is also the daughter of former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

“It’s disheartening that he’s using the Marine Corps Ball as a chance to be petty and political. This should be beyond politics and a time for him to support the men and women who defend he and his staff at the embassy,” Meyer said. On his Facebook page, Meyer added, “I want to make sure the Marines in Afghanistan know I really wanted to join them for our birthday, but politics got in the way. Let me know when you guys get back in country and we’ll rock out then!”

SOURCE





Sanctuary City Showdown

Perhaps nothing defines progressive arrogance better than the idea the Rule of Law can be ignored when it doesn't align with the Left's "superior" wisdom. Thus, of all the battles president-elect Donald Trump will wage against entrenched progressivism, the effort to deconstruct sanctuary cities is one of the most important.

Trump has the law on his side. Section 1373 of the U.S. Federal Code is clear: "Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal, State, or local law, a Federal, State, or local government entity or official may not prohibit, or in any way restrict, any government entity or official from sending to, or receiving from, the Immigration and Naturalization Service information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual."

It further notes that no person or agency may prohibit, or in any way restrict, the same entities from exchanging such information with ICE, maintaining it, or exchanging it with any other Federal, State, or local government entity. Reciprocally, ICE is expected to respond to those entities "seeking to verify or ascertain the citizenship or immigration status of any individual within the jurisdiction of the agency for any purpose authorized by law, by providing the requested verification or status information."

There's also Section 133 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996 that allows the U.S. attorney general to enter into an agreement with a state, or any political subdivision therein related, to carry out "the investigation, apprehension, or detention of aliens in the United States." This authorizes the AG to train local police for the purposes of identifying and detaining illegals.

Despite these statutes, more than 340 municipalities in the nation have been identified by ICE as having polices non-cooperative with, or obstructive of, law enforcement.

A report released last August by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) illuminates the damning consequences of that defiance: Between January 2014 and September 2015, more than 17,000 ICE detainers were rejected by these municipalities — including about 11,800 detainers for individuals with prior criminal histories.

Detailed information of crimes committed by illegals would go a long way toward underscoring the recklessness of sanctuary city policies and galvanizing public opinion against them. Yet the same government agencies that crunch numerous sets of crime statistics are either unable — or unwilling — to provide comprehensive data on illegal alien criminal activity. Former DOJ attorney J. Christian Adams, who characterizes immigrant crime as a "wave of staggering proportions," explains why: "These numbers would expose how serious the problem is and make the government look bad."

How bad? U.S. Commission on Civil Rights member Peter Kirsanow released hard numbers for illegal aliens "imprisoned for homicide-related offenses" in five states — Arizona, California, Florida, New York and Texas — with high illegal alien populations. Assuming they only committed one murder apiece, these illegals accounted for approximately 5,400 homicides.

For illegal immigrant advocates, that level of slaughter is apparently tolerable because "using the data we have, it seems impossible to responsibly claim that those immigrants are more likely to commit crimes than their American-born neighbors," writes columnist Alan Gomez. In other words, Americans are supposed to take solace from the idea that people who shouldn't be here are at all might be murdering, raping, molesting and otherwise accosting them at lower rates than American criminals are.

It doesn't get more intellectually or morally bankrupt than that.

A Trump administration aims to cut federal funding for sanctuary cities. By contrast, until Congressman John Culbertson (R-TX) used his position as chairman of the Commerce, Justice, and Science Subcommittee on Appropriations to force the Obama administration to reverse course, it was actually rewarding sanctuary cities with hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grant money.

Thus, is it any wonder why politicians in cities like Chicago, New York, Seattle, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Oakland, Denver and Washington, DC, etc., insist they will maintain their sanctuary status? Mayor Emanuel, whose city has endured more than 600 murders and 3,000 shootings so far this year, epitomizes their arrogance. "I would say to the president-elect that the idea that you're going to penalize Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia — these are the economic, cultural and intellectual energy of this country," he contended.

No, they are not. They are leftist strongholds populated by elitist, illegal-immigration-supporting officials who believe they're entitled to defy the law and embrace de facto anarchy.

Trump's efforts to stop this nonsense will be hindered by one certainty and one possibility. In South Dakota v. Dole, the Supreme Court ruled that any withholding of federal funds by Congress must be "reasonably related" to the purposes for which those funds are allocated. Thus, it is likely law enforcement agencies in various locales will take the hit, and it remains to be seen if political officials will be willing to endure the likely wrath of American citizens who realize their safety is being held hostage to progressive-inspired lawlessness.

It also remains to be seen if a GOP-controlled Congress can summon the will necessary to withhold that funding. The Senate failed to pass a couple of bills targeting sanctuary cities because vote totals fell short of the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a filibuster. That's the same 60-vote threshold eliminated by former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's invocation of the "nuclear option" when it suited Democrat purposes. It remains to be seen if traditionally spineless Republicans are willing to return the favor, especially those attuned to the leftist siren song of "comprehensive immigration reform."

Nothing says reform better than reining in the rampant lawlessness sanctuary cities epitomize. Trump's nomination of staunch anti-illegal immigration advocate Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) for U.S. attorney general is a great first step.

A suggestion for Sessions: In addition to exploring ways of limiting funding, the DOJ could lend its unambiguous support to citizens like the parents of Kate Steinle, murdered by seven-time felon Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez who had been deported five times. They have filed a suit against former San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, the city and federal officials for failing to do their respective jobs.

Successful litigation by sanctuary city crime victims, making officials liable for large cash awards, should be pursued with vigor all over the nation. There's nothing quite like the prospect of facing personal financial calamity — for supporting lawlessness — to focus the progressive mind.

In 2016, millions of Americans voted to upend the status quo. Sanctuary cities are one of the worst aspects of that status quo.

American have lived with lawlessness orchestrated by leftist politicians long enough. Being a nation of laws is about having respect for all laws. Not just the ones leftists like.

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, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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





22 November, 2016

Some multicultural childcare



A MAN has been charged over the death of a two-year-old [black] American boy whose dismembered remains were found in a neighbourhood lake.

Kamel Harris, 41, faces a first-degree murder charge in the death of Kyrian Knox of Rockford. Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Harris was once a caretaker for the boy.

They say they believe the little boy had been fed milk and been crying for hours when Harris ‘snapped’.

Authorities were first made aware of the incident when a member of the public spotted a foot floating in the lagoon.

They later found another foot and two hands on the shoreline before finding the toddler’s head the next day.

Police Cmdr. Kevin Duffin said Harris was being held on an unrelated charge at the Winnebago County Jail in northern Illinois when arrested Monday night in the boy’s death.

Chicago Police have described the tragedy as ‘a once in a lifetime incident’.

Knox’s remains were found in September 2015 in the Garfield Park lagoon on Chicago’s West Side.

The FBI positively matched the boy’s DNA with that of a dismembered body found in the lagoon two weeks before he was reported missing.

The toddler’s mother told police last year the child was staying with Harris and his girlfriend while she moved from Rockford to Iowa.

In November 2015, police said Harris and his girlfriend had been uncooperative with the investigation. Duffin said investigators believe the child, who was lactose-intolerant, ingested milk and had been crying most of the day before he was killed.

Harris “kind of just snapped and couldn’t deal with it anymore,” Duffin said. Though ruled a homicide, the Cook County medical examiner’s office didn’t determine a cause of death.

Duffin said investigators found blood in the carpeting of a vehicle connected to Harris, and received a DNA match to the boy over the summer.

He said police also spoke with witnesses who had information only those close to the killer would know.

He said Kyrian is believed to have been killed in Rockford, but that Harris was charged in Cook County because the child’s body was found in Chicago and police in that city did extensive work on the case.

SOURCE






Fifty years of 'enlightened' jails gave us one thing - more crime

By Peter Hitchens

Modern politicians don’t like taking responsibility for anything difficult. They hate the idea that you sometimes have to punish people. That’s understandable. Locking people up and making them work hard and do as they’re told isn’t very nice.

But if you can’t bear the burden, then don’t seek paid public office. These nasty tasks are the most basic duty of the State. If it won’t protect us from the wicked, then we might as well wind it up.

We have disarmed in the face of danger. Until about 50 years ago, the stated aim of prisons was ‘the due punishment of responsible persons’. Under a clear criminal code, most crooks and most louts were scared of prison and tried not to go there. It wasn’t some savage place of torture and beatings.

By world standards our prisons were very civilised. But they were austere, disciplined and under the control of the authorities.

Then along came the liberal modernisers. Police were turned into paramilitary social workers, soft on crime, tough on professors’ wives trying to stop trees being cut down.

Judges were no longer allowed to punish anyone without checking first to see if they’d had a horrid childhood. Voluntary drug abuse was treated as an unavoidable disease, rather than as the crime it is.

How the criminals laughed. Prisons were transformed into apologetic, weakly run places where something called ‘rehabilitation’ would supposedly happen. It never has.
  
The point of prison was to scare people away from doing things they knew would put them there. Nobody had any fancy ideas about changing the hearts and minds of those who were actually locked up.

With a bit of luck they wouldn’t want to go back, but if they did, there was room.

It worked. In 1950-51, the prison population of England and Wales was 20,474. Even ten years later it was a manageable 27,099. Then along came the enlightened ones. By 1980, the total was almost 40,000. By 1999, the same approach (plus lots of unpaid fines, cautions and community service) had taken it to nearly 65,000. Now it is a little more than 85,000.

These places are far from being ‘holiday camps’. That is not the problem. Many of them are terrifying because the authorities have lost control, and the nastiest inmates are in charge.

I often wonder how those who are so squeamish about executing a few vicious murderers feel about the monstrous annual tally of despair – the prison suicide rate, now more than 100 a year.

But our bulging prisons are full in spite of huge numbers of crimes not reported because nobody is interested, of crimes ignored by the police, of offenders cautioned but not arrested, of ‘restorative justice’, of decisions not to prosecute by the CPS, suspended sentences, probation orders, automatically halved sentences, tagging and other devices for keeping criminals out of prison.

It’s quite simple. The feebler you are, the more crime you get.

And in the end the crime so outstrips the space in prisons that you more or less give up. That is what we have done.

And if we don’t rediscover our nerve, our prisons and our country are heading fast towards the Third World, but without the sunshine and the beaches.

SOURCE




Christian JP who was sacked for his views over same-sex parents is suing Jeremy Hunt after losing his job in the NHS

A Christian magistrate sacked for speaking out against adoption by same-sex parents is suing Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt after also losing a senior NHS role.

Richard Page was suspended as an NHS Trust director following decades of service in the organisation after he said it was better for children to be brought up by a man and a woman.

It was claimed his remarks ‘undermined’ the confidence of staff and patients, and the former NHS finance manager has now been effectively barred from working again as a non-executive director on the board at Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust (KMPT).

The 70-year-old father-of-three is taking his case against Mr Hunt to an employment tribunal on the grounds of religious discrimination under the Equality Act 2010.

In March, Mr Page was dismissed as a JP after 15 years by then Justice Secretary Michael Gove and Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas after making his comments in a BBC TV discussion.

They said his views were ‘biased and prejudiced against single-sex adopters’ and brought the magistrates’ courts into disrepute.

Days later, after just one complaint from a staff member, he was suspended by the NHS after Andrew Ling, the KMPT chairman, wrote to the Trust chiefs saying his comments would have a major impact on ‘the perception of living the Trust values’.

In a letter to Mr Page, Mr Ling said: ‘The recent publicity you have courted is likely to further undermine the confidence staff, particularly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) staff, have in the leadership of the Trust.’

Mr Page reapplied for the role of non-executive director after his term expired in the summer, but his application has been rejected by an NHS panel.

He said recent laws passed by the Government ‘silenced Christians’ and made it impossible for him to follow the Bible and keep a public role.

He added: ‘More than 6,500 people signed a petition or directly emailed the Trust to back me in my battle with the NHS, but only one complained about my views.’

Andrea Minichiello Williams of the Christian Legal Centre which is supporting Mr Page, said: ‘Once again we find political leaders washing their hands of Christians prepared to stand up for their faith.’

Laws to allow gay couples to adopt were introduced in 2002, and the number of such adoptions has quadrupled in the past five years.

SOURCE




The Morality of Corruption

"We are going to have to rebuild within this wild-wild-west-of-information flow some sort of curating function that people agree to," said President Obama recently in Pittsburgh. "There has to be, I think, some sort of way in which we can sort through information that passes some basic truthiness tests and those that we have to discard, because they just don't have any basis in anything that's actually happening in the world," he continued. "The answer is obviously not censorship, but it's creating places where people can say 'this is reliable' and I'm still able to argue safely about facts and what we should do about it."

This is vintage Obama in its dishonesty. If we call it "curating," suggests Mr. Obama, then it is not censorship.

But it is dishonest in a way that has characterized Mr. Obama's utterances since the first days of his presidency. It is dishonesty that no honest, halfway intelligent person would be fooled by. It is so transparent as to be almost childish. But it is not intended to persuade the honest, intelligent person. Mr. Obama is the first president who was able to dispense with appealing to the honest, intelligent American.

Mr. Obama's, and Mrs. Clinton's, contempt for the truth, and the degree to which their constituents are indifferent to their dishonesty-and to their many other transgressions against morality and the rule of law-suggests a degree of public and private corruption that we could not have imagined a generation ago. Remember "Bush lied, people died." The reason that refrain was as effective as it was-even though it was itself a lie-was that Mr. Bush's constituents took morality in their leaders seriously.

And it was only one lie that Mr. Bush's opponents alleged. One would be hard-pressed to count the number of lies Mr. Obama has told since he took office. But the Bush incident exemplifies the reality that in the hands of the Left today, morality is nothing more than a weapon to be used against their opponents, precisely because their opponents take it seriously.

The Left have never had much use for what most of us consider morality. Rationality, honesty, industriousness, self-reliance, thrift, reliability, sobriety, sexual restraint, good manners, an ability to defer gratification and to engage in long-range planning, reverence for those who merit it-these are all values objectively necessary to making the most of life on this earth. But they are also what are commonly called "bourgeois," or middle class values, values long disparaged and sneered at by the Left, for whom the middle class represents the height of narrow-minded conventionality. It now appears that Democratic voters no longer require such moral virtues of their leaders.

Nowadays, the Left are largely relativists when it comes to morality. Live and let live. Whatever floats your boat. But there are a couple of moral values about which they are not indifferent. One of these is the idea that one man's need is another man's moral obligation. This is the premise that underlies the welfare state, and the Left do not treat is as a relative moral principle but as one to which everyone must subscribe. This is because it is tailor made for collectivists and totalitarians, as Stalin and Mao would attest.

Much of the moral deterioration of the Left today is due to the metastasizing of the welfare state. A government with the authority to expropriate the wealth of one person and give it to another is corrupt ipso facto. Left untreated, such corruption will spread like a cancer. The party that champions the welfare state will attract the most corrupt office seekers and supporters. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are the inevitable product of the welfare state.

Yet, despite their manifest corruption, the Democrats are able to pose as the moral alternative to the Republicans. Why? Because they "care" about the needy and the underprivileged, in contrast to the cold and heartless Republicans. And the Republicans cannot oppose them in principle because they concede the Left's moral premise, that one man's need is another's moral obligation. Today the Republican establishment is as committed to continuing the welfare state, for political and moral reasons, as the Democrats are.

Now the welfare state is metastasizing in a new direction, which we call political correctness. Instead of expropriating the wealth of some and redistributing it to others, political correctness perverts the law to afford special privileges to its clients. Blacks, women, homosexuals, and immigrants, legal and illegal, number among the beneficiaries of politically correct legislation and enactments. "Homosexual marriage" and forcing the Catholic Little Sisters of the Poor to provide contraception and abortion services to their lay employees exemplify this kind of legal enactment.

Just as the welfare state rests on the moral foundation of selflessness, so political correctness rests on a few moral principles that the Left treat as universally valid. One of these is the idea of "inclusiveness." Inclusiveness requires that we admit members of previously excluded groups, such as blacks and homosexuals, to all our social and other endeavors. Inclusiveness fosters "diversity," which, for the Left, is the great desideratum of our time.

Another, related moral principle of the Left is tolerance. If we are to include persons with unusual sexual proclivities or with alien cultural practices and values in our endeavors, then clearly we must learn to tolerate their practices and values.

As the current jihad against Donald Trump illustrates, the "tolerant" Left enforce the few moral principles they subscribe to-including moral relativism, paradoxical as it may seem-with all the fervor of a Cotton Mather. Indeed, one of the great lies of our time is that the Left represent the forces of enlightenment against a religious Right determined to shove their morals down others' throats. Everything the Left believe in they try to impose on the rest of us by means of government force. If making girls accommodate sexually confused boys in their bath and locker rooms is not forcing the Left's values upon others, then I don't know what is.

Political correctness simply expands the corruption of the welfare state into new areas. So why are the Democrats, despite their immorality and political corruption, able to continue to pose as the only moral choice for American voters? Again, because they "care," about blacks and women and homosexuals and all the rest, enough to twist the Constitution in knots to purchase the votes of their constituents. It's the same game as the welfare state, only played with different currency, and the Republicans cannot play that game without fatally compromising their principles.

But political correctness is especially insidious, because it uses our most cherished classical liberal principles as weapons against us.

You believe in racial equality, say the Left? Then remain silent as we disrespect your national anthem in support of our comrades who are ginning up a war on your "racist" police.

You believe in equality between the sexes? Then send your women into combat. And while you're at it, why not erase any remaining differences between the sexes. Let's start by inventing new "genders," until the concepts of male and female are obliterated altogether. Beyond the differences in reproductive hardware, they're just social constructs anyway.

You believe in tolerance and equality? Then tolerate homosexual marriage. Who cares if we have to re-define-by government force, as usual- a social and cultural institution that goes back to the dawn of civilization, and that remained utterly uncontroversial until ten minutes ago?

You claim to be a nation of immigrants? Then allow us to flood the United States with a deluge of immigrants from cultures with little or no experience of your free political institutions, this at a time when Leftist orthodoxy argues against assimilation.  So what if a great many of these immigrants will become recruits to the ranks of Democrats seeking to extend the political corruption and cultural derangement of the Obama years?

You believe in religious tolerance? Then tolerate these thousands of Muslim refugees, at time when a great many of their co-religionists are at war with us. So what if there is precious little in the cultures from which these Muslims come that would prepare them to support our free political institutions, and a great deal that would make them hostile to those institutions and traditions?

There is a way to fight back against political correctness. But the Republican establishment will not avail themselves of it, because they believe that to do so would make them racists and sexists and omni-phobes. Recall that during the election campaign many Republicans were as horrified by Mr. Trump's lack of political correctness as the Democrats were. As in the case of the welfare state, the Republican establishment has conceded the moral validity of political correctness.

But Donald Trump has shown how to defeat it. Don't give an inch, concede nothing, and, above all, refuse to sanction their moral pretensions. Political correctness can defeat us only if we participate in their moral charade. Refuse it our sanction, and it crumbles into incoherent street violence.

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, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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





21 November, 2016

An amusing tantrum

A dress designer who in the past valiantly tried to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear says she won't work with Melania, someone who would be most unlikely to want her anyway.  I am of course not allowed to say that Mrs Obama is a sow's ear unattractive and has never been made attractive by her wrappings

The Press was amusing.  Some heralded the news as "Massive blow to Melania Trump".  Since Melania is a model, there will be hordes of designers vying to dress her. She will make their clothes look good


In the first few weeks with Melania Trump as First Lady-Elect, the fashion industry has remained fairly mum on her.

But designer Sophie Theallet, who has dressed current First Lady Michelle Obama, went to the lengths of issuing an official statement saying she will not be dressing Mrs. Trump.

In her emailed statement, she said, in part: “I am well aware it is not wise to get involved in politics. That said, as a family owned company, our bottom line is not just about money. We value our artistic freedom and always humbly seek to contribute to a more humane, conscious and ethical way to create in this world.

“As an immigrant myself in this country, I have been blessed with the opportunity to pursue my dreams in the USA. Dressing the First Lady Michelle Obama for the past 8 years has been a highlight and an honor. She has contributed to having our name recognized and respected worldwide.

“Her values, actions, and grace have always resonated deeply within me.

“As one who celebrates and strives for diversity, individual freedom, and respect for all lifestyles, I will not participate in dressing or associating in any way with the next First Lady. The rhetoric of racism, sexism, and xenophobia unleashed by her husband’s presidential campaign are incompatible with the shared values we live by.”

To be fair, Theallet doesn’t have much to lose — she has never worked with Trump, and her style is not a match with hers

SOURCE





Cantuar: It's time to stop saying Isil has ‘nothing to do with Islam’

The Church England is at long last waking up

Claims that the atrocities of the Islamic State have “nothing to do with Islam” are harming efforts to confront and combat extremism, the Archbishop of Canterbury has insisted.

Religious leaders of all varieties must “stand up and take responsibility” for the actions of extremists who profess to follow their faith, the Most Rev Justin Welby said.

He argued that unless people recognise and attempt to understand the motivation of terrorists they will never be able to combat their ideology effectively.

It follows calls from a series of high profile figures for people to avoid using the term Islamic State – also known as Isil, Isis and Daesh – because, they say, its murderous tactics go against Islamic teaching and that using the name could help legitimise the group’s own propaganda.

But the Archbishop said that it is essential to recognise extremists’ religious motivation in order to get to grips with the problem.

He also said it was time for countries across Europe to recognise and rediscover the “Judaeo Christian” roots of their culture to find solutions to the mass disenchantment which led to the Brexit vote in the UK and the rise of anti-establishment leaders in the continent and beyond.

His comments came during a lecture at the Catholic Institute of Paris, as he was awarded an honorary doctorate.

He said a series of terrorist atrocities, notably in Paris where he was speaking, showed how there is an urgent need for people across Europe to understand religion.

“In order to understand, religious people in Europe must regain the ability to share our religious vocabulary with the rest of the continent,” he continued.

“If we treat religiously-motivated violence solely as a security issue, or a political issue, then it will be incredibly difficult – probably impossible – to overcome it.

“A theological voice needs to be part of the response, and we should not be bashful in offering that.

“This requires a move away from the argument that has become increasingly popular, which is to say that Isis is ‘nothing to do with Islam’, or that Christian militia in the Central African Republic are nothing to do with Christianity, or Hindu nationalist persecution of Christians in South India is nothing to do with Hinduism.

“Until religious leaders stand up and take responsibility for the actions of those who do things in the name of their religion, we will see no resolution.”

SOURCE





Pro-abortion campaigners in Ireland making the same mistake as Hillary Clinton and her supporters

Pro-abortion activists are not addressing the concerns of people who want to be convinced
 
Sitting at my computer, here in Los Angeles, I want to tell you about a very contentious and divisive political campaign. One side seems to have everyone on their side – establishment politicians from all parties, the radical left and every actor you have ever heard of and many you haven’t.

Almost all the major newspapers are on board – including the women, fashion and lifestyle magazines that don’t normally take political stances.

It’s a movement that has the support every celebrity, writer, poet and thinker.

On the other side, there appears to be a few relics from a long time ago. According to these journalists, poets and thinkers, their opponents are a bunch of religion-obsessed, misogynistic neanderthals who, according to one actor, just want to keep women in chains.

Basically, everyone who is against them is labelled hateful, uncaring and much more besides.

And no, I’m not talking about the Donald Trump shock election campaign and result – I’m actually talking about the Repeal the Eighth campaign.

The vitriol and contempt from the Repeal side towards their opponents is a sight to behold and, if it continues, and they ever get their referendum, it may lead to the same type of shock result liberals have just experienced here in the US.

If you only read the quality newspapers, listen to RTÉ and follow the cultural “elites” and their hangers-on in Ireland, then it is clear what side all “right-thinking people” are supposed to come down on.

Just as it was in the recent US election.

The message is very clear that if you don’t support the Repeal the Eighth campaign, you are, as Hillary Clinton would say, an “irredeemable deplorable.”
Survival story

Just have a quick glance at the terms used by Repeal the Eighth supporters. According to Repealers, their opponents cannot be motivated by a sincere belief that babies in the womb are humans and deserve to be protected from killing.

No, Repealers know that even though much of the leadership of the anti-abortion movement is female – they are just motivated by their hatred of women.

Similarly, those who want to protect children with Down syndrome or girls from selective abortions are throwbacks to a time when all decent Irish people should be ashamed.

According to a prominent Repealer – who is also a doctor – abortion survivors, a group of people who survived their own abortion, should not be listened to because they are “Jesus freaks” and “Bible thumpers”. Thanking God for a remarkable survival story is now no longer allowed in official Ireland.

And just like the Clinton campaign, Hollywood has piled in.

Actor Liam Neeson has recorded a video lecturing Irish people that their reluctance to allow abortion is part of a “a different time we’d hoped we’d left behind.” The abortion ban has us “chained to the past,” he states.

Clinton represents the future – everyone from Lena Dunham to George Clooney to the New York Times and Cosmopolitan magazine told us so. And Trump represents a shameful past that no one would want to return to.

Well, we saw how those student union labels worked out.
Shock

Liberal America is in shock. It turned out people didn’t like being insulted for their genuinely held beliefs. It also turned out people didn’t like snobby superior types saying they were a throwback to a shameful past. And, shocking as it may seem, it turns out that insulting people was a very poor way of gaining their political support.

The Repeal the Eighth campaign is heading in that direction with their celebrity endorsements and disdain for the very real concerns of those opposed to abortion.

Repealers have been slow to address real concerns from real people who want to be convinced on an issue.

What are the time limits they would want after a successful abortion referendum? Will it be 12 weeks or 24 weeks like it is across large parts of America? Or will it be nine months as it is in five states in the US? And, if not, why is nine months unacceptable but six months okay? Will sex selection be allowed? And, if not, how will they stop it – if it is a woman’s right to choose?

And what about “Comfort Care” – an established abortion practice where babies who are still alive after the procedure are set aside with a blanket until eventually they die from neglect. Will this be part of Ireland’s abortion regime?

After they have finished insulting those who disagree with them, perhaps Ireland’s actors, poets and thinkers might like to address these questions.

But they probably won’t. It seems that, just like American liberals, Irish abortion campaigners are in a metropolitan bubble where maybe people do believe you should be allowed to have an abortion up to nine months.

I doubt any significant portion of the Irish electorate agree and the attacks and insults certainly won’t convince them otherwise.

So, the Repeal the Eighth movement has a choice.

They could try and convince Irish citizens from outside their bubble about the validity of their position. If they don’t, just like US liberals, they will wake up after the referendum whining. And, this being Ireland, they will write interminable think pieces that usually start with a clichéd Yeats quote.

I want to be spared the whining but I really want to be spared the Yeats quotes. I think we’d all vote for that.

SOURCE





Blacks and Politicians

Donald Trump's surprise win has millions of Americans, many of whom are black, in a tizzy. Many, such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, are writing about what it means to be black during a Trump administration even though Trump's presidency has yet to begin. My argument has always been that the political arena is largely irrelevant to the interests of ordinary black people.

Much of the 1960s and '70s civil rights rhetoric was that black political power was necessary for economic power. But the nation's most troublesome and dangerous cities, which are also cities with low-performing and unsafe schools and poor-quality city services, have been run by Democrats for nearly a half-century — with blacks having significant political power, having been mayors, city councilors and other top officials, such as superintendents of schools and chiefs of police.

Panic among some blacks over the upcoming Trump presidency is unwarranted. Whoever is the president has little or no impact on the living conditions of ordinary black people, even when that president is a black person, as the Obama presidency has demonstrated. The overall welfare of black people requires attention to devastating problems that can be solved only at the family and community levels.

Mountains of evidence demonstrates that outcomes are not favorable for children raised in female-headed households. Criminal behavior is greater, and academic achievement is much less for such children. This is a devastating problem, but it is beyond the reach of a president or any other politician to solve. If there is a solution, it will come from churches and local community organizations.

Education is vital to upward mobility. Most schools labeled as "persistently dangerous" are schools with predominantly black populations. At many schools, students are required to walk through metal detectors and place their book bags and purses on a conveyor belt that goes through an X-ray machine. Armed police patrol the school to try to stem school violence. But even with a police presence, teachers, staff and students are assaulted. A policy that permanently removes troublemakers would make a greater impact on black education than anything a U.S. president could do. The fact that black parents, teachers and civil rights organizations tolerate and make excuses for the despicable and destructive behavior of so many young blacks is a gross betrayal of the memory, struggle, sacrifice, sweat, tears and blood of our ancestors. The sorry and tragic state of black education is not going to be turned around until there's a change in what's acceptable and unacceptable behavior by young people. That change could come only from within the black community.

Using 2012 data from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program, Law Street Media offers some sobering statistics in an article titled "Crime in America: Top 10 Most Dangerous Cities Over 200,000." The nation's most dangerous big cities are Detroit, Oakland, St. Louis, Memphis, Stockton, Birmingham, Baltimore, Cleveland, Atlanta and Milwaukee. The most common characteristic of these cities is that they have predominantly black populations. Another common characteristic is that for decades, all of them have been run by Democratic and presumably liberal administrations. Some cities — such as Detroit, Buffalo, Newark and Philadelphia — haven't elected a Republican mayor for more than a half-century.

Here are some indisputable facts: Crime imposes a huge cost on black communities in the forms of human suffering and economic well-being. It matters little whether the U.S. president is black or white, Democrat or Republican. It also matters little whether local politicians are black or white or Democrats or Republicans. What will matter is an unyielding black intolerance for crime, along with a willingness to allow policing authorities to do what is necessary to stop criminals from preying on the overwhelmingly law-abiding people of the community.

In light of the many difficulties within black communities, focusing energy and resources on the election of Donald Trump is gross dereliction.

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, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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






20 November, 2016

Salvation Army in Australia Supports "Safe Schools" Initiative

The program is ostensibly an anti-bullying program but its far-Left authors expanded it way beyond that. It actually promotes homosexuality. From Karl Marx on, the far-Left have hated the family and this is yet another attack on it.  Some of its features:

* Teaches girls to bind their chests so their breasts won't develop

* Encourages student cross-dressing

* Teaches kids gay and lesbian sexual techniques

* Encourages kids to use either boys’ or girls’ toilets

* Integrates gender theory and sexual themes across all subjects

I have on various occasions in the past donated to the Sallies.  Because of their welfare work in wartime, military men tend to have a soft spot for the Sallies and I certainly have always thought well of them. 

Anne, the lady in my life, used to sing with the Sallies on street corners when they still did that and I have always regarded that history as a great credit to her.

Time does however tend to corrupt organizations that started out as idealistic and it seems that the Sallies have drunk the Leftist Kool-Aid now.  They are not who they were.  They now support a program that valorizes homosexuality and devalues the traditional family. 

Morgan Cox writes: "I just phoned the Salvation Army. They confirmed that they reviewed the "safe" schools program (the full unedited Victoria state version) and fully support it. I highlighted to them some of the reasons why as parents we hold grave concerns about the program. I was told that they feel sorry for me and my view. They think its a great program"

Until recently their front page said:  "However, same-sex relationships which are genitally expressed are unacceptable according to the teaching of Scripture. Attempts to establish or promote such relationships as viable alternatives to heterosexually-based family life do not conform to God’s will for society." 

The have always of course ministered to sexual deviants as being persons in need, but they have never until recently approved of homosexual practices. Like the Anglicans, they have now let go of Bible teaching and adopted a secular do-gooder philosophy. It will not end well.  They will fade away as the Anglicans are fading away.

They will never again get a donation from me and I hope that others concerned for healthy families will follow suit.  Politically, what they have done is asinine.  Conservatives are the big charitable givers and they will now choke a lot of that off

Below is the Salvation Army press release.


The Salvation Army supports the Safe Schools Coalition Victoria in its initiative designed to reduce homophobic and transphobic behaviour and create safe learning environments for all students. The Salvation Army is concerned by the very high level of bullying, higher levels mental health issues and the highest rates of suicidality of any group in Australia for same-sex attracted and gender diverse young people. The Salvation Army’s Victoria State Council (VSC) has been aware of the negative claims about the Safe Schools program and its related materials but believes these to be unfounded.

Chair of VSC, Major Dr Geoff Webb says “Our social policy unit has reviewed the official teaching resources provided by the Safe Schools Coalition and the four official guidelines. It has also studied the independent review commissioned by the Australian government, together with other materials. None of the negative claims made about the program accurately reflect anything in the official materials reviewed.

“Provided schools adhere to official teaching resources and the official guidelines, there should be no issues with Safe Schools. We support the provision of safe learning environments for all students,” Webb says.

Dr Webb notes that a Federal Government independent review found that the four official guides are consistent with the aims of the program and are appropriate for use in schools. “Our findings are consistent with the government’s review,” Webb says, “and the resource All of Us is consistent with the aims of the program, is suitable, robust, age-appropriate, educationally sound and aligned with the Australian Curriculum.”

The Salvation Army in Victoria has welcomed the Andrews Government commitment of additional funding to ensure that every Victorian secondary school is involved in the Safe Schools programme by the end of 2018.

SOURCE





AMEN! Oregon Democrat who put Christian bakers out of business gets served JUSTICE

You’ve seen the story multiple times already: a Christian baker declines to cater a gay wedding, and gets sued in the process. The most publicized came out of Oregon, where the bakery Sweet Cakes by Melissa chose not to bake a wedding for a same-sex wedding.

Rachel Bowman-Cryer and her mother visited Sweet Cakes planning to order a wedding cake. Bowman-Cryer had purchased a cake previously from the Kleins for her mother’s sixth wedding. Bowman-Cryer wanted to have the same cake she had purchased for her mother. That’s when Aaron Klein asked what the name of the bride and groom were.

“It’s two brides,” Bowman-Cryer said.

‘I think we may have wasted your time,” Aaron Klein told Bowman-Cryer. “We don’t do same-sex weddings.”

That answer led to a complaint with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, and what happened as a result? As the Conservative Tribune reported, In 2013, Oregon Democrat Brad Avakian, as commissioner of the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, put a Christian bakery out of business because its owners stood up for their religious convictions.

Sweetcakes by Melissa, owned by Melissa and Aaron Klein, was forced out of business by Avakian and the BOLI in 2013. Klein told Independent Journal Review that they were fined $135,000 and the state garnished their bank accounts to cover it. When all was said and done, Klein said that the state took $144,000 from them.

In the Red tsunami that swept the nation last Tuesday, however, justice was served to the politician behind putting the bakery out of business.

Fast forward to 2016 and Avakian, not unlike many of his fellow Democrats, got served a big slice of sweet justice. The people of Oregon ended his run for Oregon secretary of state in favor of Republican Dennis Richardson — the first time in 14 years the solidly blue state elected a Republican for state office.

Rob Kremer, an Oregon political analyst, told the Review: “I think people in Oregon were uncomfortable with Avakian’s stated objective of expanding the scope of the secretary of state’s office to broaden a progressive agenda. “While I don’t think the Sweetcakes by Melissa case was the only thing that turned off voters, it was certainly an example people could point to to show that he was abusing his authority.”

In addition to the voters, of all the major newspapers in the very blue state, not a single one offered Avakian its endorsement.

Aaron Klein told the Review: “His losing was a good sign that people don’t agree with somebody who is anti-constitutional to the nth degree. He never recognized our religious constitutional rights in his office. He just ignored them. And then he went off-kilter with ideas about what he wanted to do in his new office.”

Good riddance! And Sweet Cakes is still appealing their lawsuit to the Oregon Supreme Court, so they may rise again as Avakian falls out of employment.

SOURCE






Feminists misunderstood the presidential election from day one

A Leftist sees the light, albeit through a glass darkly

By banking on the idea that women would support Hillary Clinton just because she was a female candidate, the movement made a terrible mistake

It turns out many women don’t care about Trump’s sexism – nor that Clinton is a woman. A majority of white women voted for Trump. And while Clinton did carry the female vote overall, her advantage among women was a percentage point less than Obama had enjoyed over Romney in 2012. This has left many American feminists reeling. Just how did this happen, they ask?

Lena Dunham, one of many woke, rich, Clinton-supporting celebrities who apparently do not impress the voters of Wisconsin, mourned that white women had been “so unable to see the unity of female identity”. But there is no unity of female identity and there never has been.

Clinton believed her major appeal was her gender. She also counted on women to be offended by Trump’s misogyny. But it turns out “woman” isn’t much of an identity – or even basis for solidarity – in itself.

Feminism has to deal with women in all their diversity. While there’s no doubt that one percenters like Lena Dunham and Katy Perry are bummed out by the election results, they are not affected by it in the same way as a woman operating a pile driver outside of Cleveland, an undocumented nanny from Honduras or an anti-abortion evangelical woman in Tulsa.

Many are now rightly attempting to galvanize women against Trump’s awful sexist persona – and worse, his anti-choice agenda, planning A Million Woman March in Washington DC the day after the inauguration. I plan to attend, but we have to be careful about this appeal to gender, bearing in mind that it didn’t defeat Trump in the first place.

While many women are profoundly insulted by Trump – who is on tape boasting about grabbing women “by the pussy” – and frightened by his rabidly anti-choice vice-president, many more may be waiting to see what he does on immigration and trade. Meanwhile, many men – pro-choice, anti-racist, environmentalist – will be eager to join us in opposing a Trump agenda.

By banking on the idea that women would support a female presidential candidate, feminism made a terrible mistake. Strangely, given feminism’s history of ignoring minorities, the group that they misunderstood the most is white women, who usually vote Republican.

As John Cassidy points out in the New Yorker, not only did Trump carry white women, so did Romney in 2012, McCain in 2008 and Bush in 2004. Presumably, many white women have conservative views, whether on taxes or abortion, and neither Trump’s misogyny nor Clinton’s anatomy could override those commitments.

Trump also appealed to many women who feared downward mobility and poverty, winning a majority of women without college degrees, as well as rural women. He denounced the trade deals that they felt had wrecked their economies, and vowed to create jobs by rebuilding America’s decaying infrastructure. Meanwhile, Clinton partied with her funders in the Hamptons. She represented an out-of-touch elite, and many women felt that deeply and resented her – or simply didn’t care about her campaign.

Clinton also failed to excite some of the women who were part of the traditional Democratic base. She did win among poor women (those making under $50,000 a year), young women, Latinas and, overwhelmingly, black women. But turnout among some of these groups was disappointing. She won black women by two percentage points less than Obama did in 2012. And compared with Obama, her margin even among the much-vaunted Latina vote was about eight points lower.

The dismal election results should be a wake-up call for the likes of Lena Dunham and her supporters. Feminism has to mature beyond childish appeals to female unity, and recognize our many differences. It’s not the first time we’ve had to learn this lesson, but perhaps the trauma of Trump’s election will finally make it stick.

SOURCE






The tyranny of the new secular priesthood

Joel Kotkin nails the anti-masses Clerisy that now dominates the US

For many years, Joel Kotkin has analysed what holds back the advancement of the American ‘middle’ class, which for him includes the working class, the self-employed and small business owners. In this pursuit, Kotkin’s willingness to look beyond conventional labels and challenge trendy theories has made him stand out. As a leading geographer, he has long defied fashionable criticisms of suburbs, highlighting how such criticisms are often thinly veiled attacks on the working families who prefer not to live in urban downtowns. Now, taking on a broader role as social commentator, he overturns received wisdom about the elites and the masses in his book, The New Class Conflict.

Right away Kotkin says that, to understand the dynamics of the current political era, we have to ditch traditional notions of ‘left’ and ‘right’. He takes as given that the old corporate ‘plutocracy’ remains behind the Republicans. But he finds that the Democrats — a party that many still uphold as being on the side of the people, or the ‘99 per cent’  — are equally elitist, not least because they are backed by Silicon Valley ‘tech oligarchs’ and Wall Street bankers, among other high-rollers. Indeed, the ‘1 per cent’ seems pretty solidly behind the Democrats: eight of the top 10 recipients of donations from the rich were liberal groups like Emily’s List or Moveon.org, and in the past two presidential elections, the wealthiest areas of the country voted for Obama.

Moreover, much of what is considered the left today has adopted an elitist outlook that is at odds with the masses. As Kotkin notes, ‘self-described progressives frequently side with policies that restrain middle-class upward mobility’. In the past, ‘socialists, liberals and conservatives’ shared the goal of broad-based economic growth, while debating how best to achieve that aim; today, influenced by environmentalism and anti-consumption views, many are opposed to ambitious, large-scale growth, which has been vital for working-class improvement historically. ‘Take up less space, make a smaller impact, consume less’ – that’s the new mantra. ‘For all the trappings of progressivism’, says Kotkin, ‘the current ideology is remarkably degenerative’.

According to Kotkin, a large group of opinion-formers based in the worlds of media, education, government and non-profits has emerged to play a central role in making modern liberalism the predominant ideology. Kotkin calls this group the Clerisy, borrowing a term first used by the British poet Samuel Coleridge in 1830 to describe a group of Anglican church leaders, along with intellectuals, artists and educators, whose mission was to transmit society’s values to the less enlightened, lower orders. In a similar way, today’s Clerisy derives its authority from ‘persuading, instructing and regulating the rest of society’, says Kotkin.

There are a number of reasons why these groups constitute a distinct Clerisy, according to Kotkin, and are more than fellow intellectuals he simply doesn’t agree with. For a start, there’s the sheer size: employment in media, academia and foundations has expanded in recent decades, increasing these sectors’ weight relative to others. Furthermore, members of the Clerisy are ‘uniform in worldview, especially in political matters, their approach to environmental issues, and their social values’.

Yet what really sets the Clerisy apart is their moralising objective, and how they operate: ‘In much the same way as its predecessors, today’s Clerisy attempts to distill for the masses today’s distinctly secular “truths” on a range of issues.’ Rather than engage in a search for truth, the modern secular priesthood presents its ideas as an orthodoxy and seeks to enforce conformity. In contrast to the traditional liberal ideal of tolerance, the new Clerisy seeks to regulate speech, indoctrinate the young and ‘restrict discussion on the matters they address, such as gay marriage, climate change, and race and gender issues’. Debates have been ‘settled’; dissent from the orthodoxy and you will be vilified or ignored.

Kotkin’s appreciates the irony that the new Clerisy is secular, if not adamantly anti-religious. Another reason why it may be immediately obvious that this group plays a clergy-like function is its reliance on science as its source of authority, given the way that science has been traditionally counterposed to religion. However, Kotkin argues, ‘the scientific community has taken on a partly theological character’. This is especially the case when certain scientists espouse a political opinion in the name of ‘the science’. Oppose my calls for deindustrialisation and reducing workers’ consumption in response to global warming? You’re anti-science.

It is Kotkin’s middle – the ‘yeomanry’ (small business owners) and workers – that suffer as a result of the rise of the Clerisy. It promotes excessive regulations, often in the name of environmental protection, on businesses large and small, which slows growth and job creation. In California, no-growth policies and ‘green energy’ measures have stunted development in the state and resulted in a ‘liberal apartheid’: ‘Well-heeled, largely white and Asian coastal denizens live in an economically inaccessible bubble insulated from the largely poor, working class, heavily Latino communities in the interior of the state.’ The people of the largely rural and poor upstate New York have been denied the economic benefits from developing shale gas extraction (fracking) thanks to opposition from wealthy city residents and a Democratic Party governor reliant on support from environmentalists.

But the middle class does not just bear the brunt of the new elite’s economic and environmental policies. Indeed, the Clerisy believe all areas of social life are amenable to their technocratic expertise, and they adopt authoritarian measures that undermine individual autonomy, including what foods people eat or how parents raise their kids. ‘The role of government has increasingly blurred into attempts to regulate even the most personal of behaviours’, writes Kotkin, ‘not to achieve some spiritual goal, or even to improve material wealth, as was common in the past, but to shift behaviour in order to achieve some perceived social “good’”. The Clerisy turns to the federal government to take on roles previously adopted by families, churches and other community organisations. While marriage and families have historically supported social mobility, modern clerical culture celebrates being single and childless.

Kotkin’s openness to new developments has clearly resulted in many valuable insights, but his book is not flawless. In particular, his overarching framework of ‘class conflict’ isn’t completely accurate. What we’re witnessing today is the absence of true classes in the classic sense – neither a robust ruling capitalist class nor a well-organised, self-conscious working class. The absence of those two major classes has meant that, by default, we live in a world that reflects the prejudices of the professional, upper middle class (which doesn’t appear in Kotkin’s definition of ‘middle’).

Furthemore, Kotkin’s recurring references throughout the book to growing income inequality make him look like a victim to the fashionable Clerisy-style rich-bashing. He might be distinctive in blaming the Democrats and tech oligarchs for inequality (rather than Republicans and bankers), but he’s still singing a tune written by Thomas Piketty and Elizabeth Warren.

Kotkin is on much firmer ground when he sticks to promoting economic growth as a way to raise working-class living standards and increase social mobility. As he writes in the conclusion, the Clerisy may dominate the airwaves, but it remains a minority, and one that is out of touch: ‘Perhaps nowhere is there greater dissonance between the populace and the leaders of the new class order than in perceptions of the desirability of economic growth and widespread social opportunity.’ His book is an important contribution towards exposing the gap between this patronising, know-it-all secular priesthood and the rest of us.

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, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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





18 November, 2017

Washington Florist Case Goes Before the State Supreme Court

The Washington Supreme Court on Tuesday heard the case of a 72-year-old florist who is facing fines after declining to make flower arrangements for a gay couple’s wedding.

During the hearing, lawyers for the florist, Barronelle Stutzman, were asked to explain how declining to make flower arrangements for a same-sex wedding is different from discrimination based on race.

“A Muslim graphics designer shouldn’t be compelled to create designs promoting a Jewish Friends of Israel group,” said Kristen Waggoner, Stutzman’s lawyer in her opening statement. “A gay public relations manager shouldn’t be forced to promote the Westboro Baptist Church. And a Christian floral designer shouldn’t be forced to create custom wedding designs for a wedding that is not between one man and one woman.”

The case surrounds Stutzman, owner of Arlene’s Flowers, a small flower shop in Richland, Washington. A mother and grandmother, she has been in the industry for over 40 years.

In March 2013, Stutzman was asked to make custom floral arrangements for a gay couple’s wedding. Citing her Christian beliefs about marriage, Stutzman told the client, Rob Ingersoll, she could not create flower arrangements for his wedding.

The first question asked by the justices concerned how this case was different from a hotel owner refusing to accommodate someone because of his race.

“This claim involves expression, and providing basic lodging and necessities does not involve expression,” Waggoner said. And furthermore, she added that the court must ask the question: “Is the objection based on the protected class status, or on the message? Because if it’s based on the protected class status, that’s very different.”

According to court documents, Stutzman had served Ingersoll on many occasions in the past, and even considered him a close friend. Because of that, Waggoner claims, it’s clear Stutzman wasn’t declining to serve the client based on his sexual orientation.

Rather, she maintains, Stutzman declined to create a custom floral arrangement because she believed it would portray a message that went against her sincerely held religious beliefs that marriage is between one man and one woman.

The court justices appeared hesitant to accept the notion that creating floral arrangements qualifies as creative expression.

“If we even get to the point where we might acknowledge that making floral arrangements is creative expression, what’s the limiting principle? Is it the landscape, architect, is it the bartender?” one of the justices asked.

“First of all,” Waggoner replied, “it only applies in the public accommodations context, and the business owner would have to have an objection to the expression, not to the person, but to the actual expression itself.”

Bob Ferguson, attorney general for the state of Washington—which is suing Stutzman—agreed that creating custom flower arrangements qualified as some form of public expression. But if a business is open to the public, he argued, it must serve everyone.

“A business can absolutely have a policy as long as they apply that policy equally and do not discriminate or refuse service or say we do not serve your kind when we come into your business,” he said.

Justice Charles Wiggins asked how far the state’s anti-discrimination law actually reaches, and whether it would apply to written or spoken sentiments. He provided the hypothetical example of an actor who objects to lending his voice for a political ad for a candidate who’s against same-sex marriage.

“Would that trigger free speech concerns?” Wiggins asked.

“A key question there is, is it a public accommodation,” replied Ferguson.

Even if the court finds that imposing the state’s anti-discrimination law on Stutzman in this context is a substantial burden on her religion, Ferguson added, the state has a compelling interest. He said:

“There is a difference, your honor, between the freedom to believe and a freedom to act. Ms. Stutzman or her religious expression, is free to believe what she wishes. But when she engages in public accommodations, and avails herself of the protections and the benefits that come with being a business, there are of course responsibilities that flow from that.”

Oral arguments were held in an usual setting: Instead of a courtroom, the nine justices went on the road and heard the case at Bellevue College as part of a learning opportunity for its students.

According to a spokesman for Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian nonprofit representing Stutzman, this is the fifth time the Washington Supreme Court has gone on the road this year, and roughly 20 percent of cases are heard away from the court.

Stutzman faces a fine of up to $2,000 for violating Washington’s anti-discrimination law and a separate fine of $7.91 (which Ingersoll says is the cost of driving to find a new florist). According to her lawyers at Alliance Defending Freedom, Stutzman’s legal fees are estimated to be seven figures.

During the hearing, another one of Stutzman’s attorneys called the personal liabilities imposed “both punitive and unwarranted.”

This is the second case of its kind to reach a state Supreme Court. In Aug. 2013, the Supreme Court of New Mexico heard a similar case about a photographer who declined to take pictures of a same-sex commitment ceremony because of her Christian beliefs.

In that case, the court ruled that the First Amendment did not protect the photographer’s right to decline service. Ferguson cited the New Mexico case during oral arguments, reminding the justices of the unanimous ruling.

SOURCE






Obsession With Race Is Stretching Beyond Reason

Some recent headlines:

“The Electoral College is an instrument of white supremacy — and sexism,” exclaimed Slate magazine.

CNN: “Math is racist: How data is driving inequality.”

From the NBC affiliate in Oklahoma: “‘To be white is to be racist,’ Norman student offended by teacher’s lecture.”

Wow, things are bad here in America. Maybe I should move to Canada? Uh oh, from Heat Street: “Canoes reek of genocide, theft and white privilege, says Canadian professor.”

Is there no place safe from white supremacy? Let me check the Huffington Post. “North Korea proves your white male privilege is not universal.”

In other words, going by the headlines, you’d think everything is about race. Or, as the Harvard Crimson put it, “Everything is about race.”

You might say this is a cheap technique. Headlines are supposed to be provocative, particularly in the age of clickbaiting that passes for much of what we call journalism. Let us look to the academy, where cool reason rules.

(Hey, stop laughing. I haven’t even gotten to the punch line yet).

Over at the Journal of Applied Philosophy, we’re told that condemning racism is — wait for it — racist.

“The moralization of racism that often permeates philosophical scholarship reproduces colorblind logics, which provide individualistic explanations for structural problems, thereby sustaining white dominance,” writes Marzia Milazzo in an article titled “On white ignorance, white shame and other pitfalls in critical philosophy of race.”

Milazzo’s claim is hardly controversial in the hothouse alternative universe of higher education. What Milazzo calls “colorblind logics” hold everybody to equal standards of fact and reason. This wacky notion is the wellspring from which we got the scientific revolution, the Enlightenment, the rule of law, doctrines of universal human rights, the abolition of slavery, the emancipation of women, the civil rights movement, the concept of free speech and unprecedented material prosperity.

Reason is the tool that brings us consensus, appeals to our conscience and keeps us from returning to the jungle.

It all reminds me of that great scene from “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” where a revolutionary asks, “What has the Roman Empire ever done for us?” A comrade lists a bunch of things, and the man replies, “All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?”

Activists today are clear-cutting vast swaths of civil society to make room for reason-free zones where feelings outrank facts — they call them “safe spaces.” And if they had their druthers, the entirety of the continent, if not the globe, would be one giant beanbag chair-strewn realm of hugging and unapologetic whining.

Seemingly every day there’s another story of a college campus caving into the notion that free speech and unhappy facts are racist.

The election of Donald Trump, a man I could not have been more critical of, has turned the safe spaces into kinds of internal refugee camps where the weeping delicate flowers can wilt in terror.

I did not like how Trump talked about issues of race. Some of his most ardent supporters have views on race that I find abhorrent. But they constitute a tiny minority of his coalition. Just consider that if you subtracted from Trump’s column all of the voters who had also previously voted for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton surely would have won.

If you think everything you don’t like is racist, then of course the election of a president you don’t like has to be racist.

Here’s some free advice for all the liberals insisting that Trump was elected by racists: The more you say that, the more you help Trump.

I can understand why this is confusing. There’s a certain breed of guilty white liberal who actually enjoy being called racist, confessing their racial sins and denouncing less advanced white people. The hot new term for this is “virtue signaling” — a way of communicating how enlightened you are.

But there are a lot more white people out there who are not racist and therefore do not like being called racist or being berated about how their country is racist. They also sense that the “everything is about race” crowd is using race as a cudgel to silence critics and have their way.

That sort of thing begs for a backlash. You can call it racist if you want — some people do with everything else — but it won’t play well outside the safe spaces.

SOURCE





Catholics for Trump

Among major voting blocs, one of the most amazing turnarounds can be found in the Catholic population.

On November 2, the Catholic Jesuit publication America was reporting  that Clinton was leading Trump in the polls thanks to the Catholic vote. Citing a poll from the Public Religion Research Institute and the Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies at The Catholic University of America, Clinton was getting support from 51 percent of Catholics, compared to 40 percent for Donald Trump.

This is what liberal Catholics wanted to believe and encourage. Hillary's campaign chairman John Podesta was a liberal Catholic who got a job as professor at Catholic Jesuit Georgetown University. He had communicated with other campaign officials about a scheme to force the church even further to the left.

Elizabeth Yore's article at The Remnant explained the relationship between George Soros, the Clinton campaign and the Jesuit-led Vatican.

However, exit polls show that Trump won the Catholic vote by a margin of 52 to 45 percent. What happened?

One answer is that Catholics are bypassing the liberal media and turning to alternative sources of news and information, such as The Remnant. Another such source is Boston Catholic Insider, which argued in an article, "Why Catholics Should Vote for Trump," that Hillary had a "monstrous" position on abortion that justified the gruesome procedure up to and including the time of birth.

Another growing source of news and information for Catholics and non-Catholics is LifeSite. Its post-election stories include "Liberal media in meltdown over Trump election" and "America rejects Planned Parenthood and its party."

Another important development was the airing of the film "A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" by the EWTN Catholic cable channel. As we noted in a previous column, the film examined how Marxists have subverted the church from within by recruiting clergy into revolutionary socialist activities that divide people and cause conflict. The film was described as "a lens into America's cultural Marxism euphemistically called ‘progressivism.'"

As long as the members of the liberal media continue in their old and discredited ways, without major changes in the journalism business, the alternative sources of news and information will continue to grow in power and influence. The new conservative network CRTV has just announced that Steven Crowder, from the popular show "Louder with Crowder," is joining the new media venture.

SOURCE





The painfully obvious reason Christians voted for Trump (that liberals just don't understand)

Since the election of Donald Trump, the level of meltdown on the Left has now reached proportions rivalling Chernobyl. University students at Cornell hosted a cry-in, meeting together to weep at the fall of Hillary Clinton. As per usual, more hate crimes were faked, and every bit of potentially racist graffiti was pounced on as evidence that Trump's election would result in vicious race wars. Actual violence and rioting done by angry progressives has been almost completely ignored. And then, the one theme that keeps recurring on talks shows across the nation: fear. As the result of Donald Trump's election, many people, apparently, feel as if the leadership of the country is now fundamentally opposed to them in some way, and they are scared.

Which is exactly how Christians have felt under Barack Obama for the past eight years.

Many of my non-Christian and liberal friends find it bewildering that both evangelicals and Catholics voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump, a thrice-married casino operator infamous for his vulgar trash talk. I want to take a moment to explain to them directly why most Christians voted for him anyways. It's simple, really: Christians voted for Donald Trump because they felt that the threat a de facto third Obama term posed to Christian communities was an existential one.

The attacks on Christians from the highest levels of government have been relentless now for nearly a decade. Obama wants to force Christian churches and schools to accept the most radical and most recent version of gender ideology, and he is willing to issue executive decrees on the issue to force the less enlightened to get in line. Christian concerns are dismissed out of hand as "transphobia."

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton informed one audience that Christians would have to change their beliefs on some issues. And now Christians are having conversations around the dinner table about what do if the government forces curricula on them that they cannot accept, because their own government is increasingly indicating that Christian parents are too homophobic and too hateful to teach their own children. Can you understand how terrified mothers and fathers are at the prospect that those in power want to actively prevent them from passing their beliefs on to their own children?

I can understand why those from some immigrant communities might be worried about how a Trump presidency could affect them personally--but as for the largely white liberal university students throwing a temper tantrum--what do you have to freak out about? No one is saying that you can't pass your values on to your children. No one is saying you're a bigoted, fascistic hater of minorities simply because you happen to have a different belief system. But they are saying that about Christians--and you were, too. And they mean it. The students weeping in fear at a Trump administration have nothing to worry about. No one's going to cancel their Women's Studies program or shut down their LBGTQ2etc Collective. Get over it.

And then there was the rapid rise of rainbow fascism. Christian bakers are under attack. Christian photographers. Christian pastors. Real people are losing real businesses that they had labored for years to build. Their way of life is being destroyed. In some cases, Christian business owners saw the wages they needed to feed their families dry up because they were targeted by gay activists and labeled hateful, homophobic bigots simply for declining to assist in celebrating a gay union. That's all. They just wanted to live their lives in accordance with their own beliefs, and because of that, activists came gunning for them. It wasn't good enough to go down the street to any number of photographers or bakers who would be more than happy to help celebrate a gay wedding. They needed to see those little family businesses destroyed, even if it meant that the baker and his family ended up on the street. Dissenters must be crushed.

These things happened, and are happening, and many of you shrugged your shoulders and thought to yourselves that the homophobes got what they deserved. You didn't care about these people, and you didn't respect their right to live out their beliefs because you thought there was something fundamentally wrong with those beliefs.

And then there was the fact that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton wanted to force Christians to fund the abortion industry, something many of you support because everyone babbles on about "reproductive rights" without ever talking about what abortion actually is. Abortion. Google it. I'm challenging you in all seriousness. That's how I ended up involved in the pro-life movement: by Googling it and realizing what abortion was. Take a second, and actually look at pictures of the dead babies, and then remember that Barack Obama even voted against protecting those children who survived abortion, and that Hillary Clinton defended abortion even in the latest stages of pregnancy.

Is it really so hard for you to understand that those who fight tirelessly to protect these babies might be willing to gamble on the support of a brash billionaire rather than cast their vote for someone who thinks the youngest members of the human family are nothing more than soulless trash? I've seen an aborted baby before. I've held a butchered little boy in my hands. Maybe if you did, too, you could understand why we don't think Hillary Clinton is a good person. We think her political positions directly result in dead children, because that's the truth.

This is not even to get into the fact that the Democratic war on religious liberty was so malicious it had them going to court to force nuns--a group called "Little Sisters of the Poor"--to fund birth control. Dissenters must be crushed, after all.

The simple fact is that Christians voted in self-defence. They voted to put the brakes on the relentless, eight-year-long assault not just on their values, but on their ability to live their lives unmolested without having radical progressives attempt to force some newly invented ideology down their throat or hang some new "phobia" label around their necks or garnish their wages to pay for medical exterminators to suction tiny human beings into bloody slurry. Most of these Christians are not activists. Most of them simply want to be left alone. But for eight long years, they weren't left alone. And so this time around, they voted to give Obama and his progressive minions the hugest shove they could.

Donald Trump may well prove to be destructive force. Time will tell. But for many people, he is currently destroying all the right things. Michael Moore wasn't wrong to refer to Trump as a "legal Molotov cocktail" that the voters threw right through the front window of the elites. Secular progressives have been using political correctness to strangle the life out of Christians, calling them every name in the book and treating them like seething, hateful gay-bashers. Now, the media saddled a man with every label they could possibly come up with--and he won anyways. Progressives created a system that would convict Christians every single time, replete with ever-shifting speech codes that informed any number of bewildered men and women that the hate they didn't feel towards anyone was obviously there, anyways. And then a sledgehammer named Donald Trump showed up, and the harried and henpecked voters decided to use it to smash a system created specifically to marginalize and label them.

What you have to understand is that Christians hear the media much differently than the rest of you.

They hear themselves being mocked and ridiculed by men like John Oliver, who believes that a man with a penis can simultaneously be a woman. They hear themselves being cursed as awful people by Samantha Bee, who thinks that it's perfectly okay to stab a baby in the skull in the third trimester of pregnancy. They hear themselves being called hateful bigots by Bill Maher, who claims to value diversity. And they may chuckle painfully, but they also know that they are loathed by those who are now demanding to know how they could possibly have voted for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, a woman who would have taken her own sledgehammer to religious liberty at the very earliest opportunity.

We'll have to see how a Trump presidency progresses. With men like Mike Pence around him, he may prove to be an ally to the Christians who cast their ballots for him last Tuesday. But even if he isn't, Christians are simply relieved that he isn't Hillary Clinton. As I pointed out prior to Election Day, most of us are quite aware that Donald Trump doesn't care about abortion or religious liberty. But on the other hand, Hillary Clinton is passionate about abortion, and she is passionate about furthering her party's radical social agenda. Even if Donald Trump does nothing for Christians, at least he'll leave them alone. After eight years of Barack Obama, that would be a tremendous relief.

That's why so many Christians voted for Donald J. Trump.

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, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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




17 November, 2017

Feminists need to get out of their mental bubble and stop blaming "privilege" for everything

Janet Albrechtsen, writing from Australia

Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democrat heiress, should now be president-elect Clinton. Women were going to rally to put the first woman in the White House. In the feminist dream and the determinist world of identity politics, the only possible event that could follow the election of the US’s first black president was the election of its first female president.

We are now witnessing what happens when reality explodes this take-it-in-turns determinist dream. Clinton was bound to blame something other than her own failings. That’s the calling card of left-liberal feminism. Of course, Barack Obama would blame the tight race on sexism. Identity politics demands that its adherents recast different views into an ism or a phobia — sexism, racism, homophobia, Islamophobia and so on. Clinton said it best when she described Donald Trump supporters as deplorables: “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it”.

The post-election histrionics from so many women reveal why the so-called sisterhood has no claim over what women think, how they live and who they choose in the sanctity of the polling booth. After the US election, Mamamia’s Mia Freedman said she had “shut down”. Trying to process her ­“tumultuous, distressing, depressing feelings” she listed 11 things she learned after Trump’s win. Had Freeman stopped after No 1 — learning that she lives in a bubble of social media where like-minded people blissfully reinforce their own views — Freeman’s flash of self-awareness might have been noteworthy.

Sadly, her remaining list goes like this: facts no longer matter, white people are furious their power is being taken away, Trump appealed to the lowest common denominator and children are scared. This miasma of emotion simply confirms Freedman’s bubble where Clinton’s win was never questioned.

If women want to be treated seriously, they need to choose reason over emotion. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t, with any credibility, attack Trump for saying that Fox’s Megyn Kelly had “blood coming out of her wherever”, then give yourself over to pure, unadulterated emotion.

Guardian Australia’s Katharine Murphy used the-facts-no-longer-matter theory to explain Pauline Hanson’s success at the last federal election and she regurgitated it last week to explain Trump’s win. According to Murphy’s post-fact analysis, people aren’t just stupid, they are deliberately stupid. “The journalism I consumed was gutsy, intelligent, richly reported, insightful, sceptical and self-aware,” wrote Murphy last week as she explained why the left-liberal media didn’t do a terrible job reporting Trump’s rise.

For all of that apparent consumption of intelligent news, Murphy’s analysis that Trumpland is a place where truth doesn’t matter is wrong and patronising. Nowhere in Murphy’s analysis is there any acknowledgment that millions of US voters, forgotten by the Washington insider class, turned to Trump out of this deep sense of frustration and discontent. Nowhere is there any curiosity about Trump, the outsider, as the powerful change candidate up against Clinton’s status quo politics.

Freedman and Murphy aren’t alone in choosing the superficial over soul-searching. Gillian Triggs remonstrates about it being a dreadful year for women. She has this is common with Clinton: the actions of both women have been their own undoing. Jamila Rizvi prefers to speak over and interrupt rather than listen to Steve Price explain Trump’s win on Network Ten’s The Project.

Those card-carrying feminists who display such a dearth of intellectual curiosity, and honesty, expose the sisterhood as an increasingly sanctimonious, clueless and diminishing clique.

Rebecca Sheehan, a lecturer at the University of Sydney’s United States Study Centre and an expert in feminist, gender and cultural politics, said that white people, with their “part of a college education or less”, voted for Trump because they were “clinging on to privilege”.

Sheehan’s anti-fact, derisory white-lash analysis fails to account for the two white candidates in the 2016 election and that millions of Americans voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012. What irks gender experts is that you don’t need a college education — part or whole — to understand that girl power didn’t rally to make Clinton commander-in-chief. Neither did Latinos, blacks or millennials. On election day, Clinton was predicted to grab the white college-educated female vote by 27 points. It fizzed to six points. Clinton’s share of the overall female vote — 54 per cent to Trump’s 42 per cent — was behind Obama in 2008 and only one point ahead of Obama in 2012.

Inadvertently, Sheehan’s comments explain Trump’s win by expressing the high-horse disdain, the ignorance and determined ­divisiveness of feminists.

It’s not a privilege to watch your dignity dissolve when you lose your job or see your weekly wage stagnate for two decades.

It’s not a privilege to be forgotten by an insular political class.

It’s not a privilege to watch Clinton enrich her private coffers through her public office.

It’s not a privilege to watch a woman who held the office of secretary of state to imagine a different set of rules apply to you, deleting 33,000 emails after congress subpoenaed her to produce them.

It’s not a privilege to watch Hollywood stars line up for Clinton, perpetuating the insider-outsider divide.

There’s nothing privileged about a once proud culture of Western enlightenment being crushed by a pervasive leftist culture that infantilises students: last week students at Cornell University gathered for a “cry-in” with tissues and hot chocolate provided. Tufts University offered Play-Doh to distressed students. The University of Kansas made therapy dogs available to comfort students.

The biggest danger to women is not Trump: it’s the snobbish nastiness and division perpetuated by gender studies experts.

Contrast the offerings from Freeman, Murphy, Sheehan, Triggs and Rizvi with Tina Brown’s observations. Last week, the writer and former editor of left-wing opinion website The Daily Beast wrote: “Here’s my own beef. Liberal feminists, young and old, need to question the role they played in Hillary’s demise. The two weeks of media hyperventilation over grab-her-by-the-pussygate, when the airwaves were saturated with aghast liberal women equating Trump’s gross comments with sexual assault, had the opposite effect on multiple women voters in the Heartland.”

“These are resilient women,” wrote Brown, “often working two or three jobs, for whom boorish men are an occasional occupational hazard, not an existential threat. They rolled their eyes over Trump’s unmitigated coarseness, but still bought into his spiel that he’d be the greatest job producer who ever lived. Oh, and they wondered why his behaviour was any worse than Bill’s.”

And it has taken a man to say what many left-wing women should be saying. Last week, Matthew Dowd from the US ABC News wrote: “I want to take this opportunity to say I was wrong about who would win the election. But my biggest regret, and what I would like to apologise for, is the arrogant, close-minded, judgmental, and sometimes mean-spirited way I related to many who believed Trump would win. They were right, and I was wrong.”

Bunkered in the New York bubble, Dowd admits he didn’t spend enough time listening to Trump supporters and understanding the communities “where another portion of America lives and breathes”.

It took a cool head to deliver a rational and informed mea culpa. The ill-informed and often emotional responses from so many women on the Left over Clinton’s loss confirms that the gender prism has become an anti-intellectual prison, locking them away from exploring, let alone understanding, the world beyond them.

SOURCE





Radical social agenda cost Democrats big

Many reasons exist for why Trump will swear the oath of office on January 20, 2017. But among them is the fact that the Democratic Party has become beholden to Planned Parenthood and the Human Rights Campaign, adopting a radical pro-abortion and anti-religious freedom agenda that leaves no opportunity for compromise.

Social conservatives supported Trump in the general election. And to his credit, Trump adopted clear pro-life and pro-religious liberty positions, seeking to justify their support.

The 2016 Republican Party platform is the most pro-life and pro-religious freedom it has ever been. But even so, it is no secret that many Christians and social conservatives were conflicted despite these stated positions. Many supported other candidates in the primaries, and Trump’s history and comments caused social conservatives who had consistently voted for Republican presidential candidates to at least hesitate to support the Republican nominee this time.

In the aftermath of Trump’s victory, it’s easy to forget the potential danger that this posed to the Trump candidacy. The pro-life vote has been a key part of the Republican constituency for decades. A Republican presidential candidate who could not depend on overwhelming support from evangelical and Catholic, socially conservative voters would likely have been doomed.

Parties are formed to win elections. Throughout our political history, when party A senses that a core constituency of party B is dissatisfied with its “natural” party nominee, party A looks for ways to compromise and peel off those voters.

For example, African-American voters shifted from Republican to Democrat as Democrats—once the party of slavery—sensed an opportunity to reach African-American voters by supporting civil rights laws. Ronald Reagan famously made inroads with blue-collar workers who had traditionally been part of the Democratic base.

Hillary Clinton might have had such an opportunity. After Trump had secured the nomination, “Never Trump” Republicans sought out third-party options. Some conservative Christian leaders openly struggled over whether to support the Republican nominee, even as the Libertarian Party failed to offer a better alternative for those concerned about the sanctity of life and religious freedom.

On almost any other issue imaginable, the opposing party candidate would seize this opening and move closer to the center to offer these voters an olive branch—perhaps a compromise position that would assuage their concerns about voting for their natural political opponent.

But this was not an option for Clinton. She couldn’t offer that olive branch to pro-life and pro-religious freedom voters even if she wanted to because Planned Parenthood and the Human Rights Campaign would never let her.

As recent as the early ’90s, Democrats at least tolerated social conservatives. While most pro-life voters identified as Republicans by the Reagan years, pro-life Democrats were still a real thing. Even in the Clinton administration, Democrats called for making abortion “safe, legal, and rare.” President Bill Clinton even signed a pro-life conscience law as well as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

But by 2016, the Democratic nominee could no longer offer any compromise. Planned Parenthood, the nation’s leading abortion provider and recipient of over half a billion dollars in annual taxpayer funds, spent $38 million advocating for its favored (Democratic) candidates this election season. Planned Parenthood even endorsed Clinton in the primaries—the first-ever primary season endorsement in its 100-year history.

So even as Americans were repulsed by its trafficking of baby parts and its numerous financial and other scandals, Planned Parenthood still wielded enough political clout to ensure that the Democratic nominee wouldn’t dare compromise in the slightest on abortion.

No late-term abortion limits, no ban on sex-selection abortions, no health and safety regulations on abortionists, no prohibition on compelled abortion coverage for churches—not even a commitment to maintaining the 40-year-old Hyde Amendment, which prevents taxpayer funds from going to pay for abortions and has traditionally received Democratic support, until this year.

There could be no compromise. Even in the third debate, Hillary Clinton could not only not offer any compromise to conflicted social conservatives—she actually defended partial-birth abortion, a horrific practice that has been banned for almost a decade.

The Human Rights Campaign, too, having secured a national constitutional right to same-sex marriage, could not permit even the mildest compromise with social conservatives.

Instead of agreeing to compromise on religious liberty concerns, it and its allies have opposed religious freedom laws aimed at protecting florists, bakers, photographers, T-shirt printers, and even pastors and churches from participating in this newly created “right” in violation of their consciences. While faithful Christians seek simply to exercise their faith, these far-left groups are demanding their personal destruction.

This is not to say that an olive branch from Clinton would have been accepted by all conservatives. Not every blue-collar worker became a Reagan Democrat, after all. Many pro-life voters would have rejected any half-measure as insufficient, especially in light of Trump’s pro-life reassurances, and the margins in states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, Michigan, and other key states were indeed narrow.

Nevertheless, conservative Christian voters who for the first time became open to voting for a non-Republican candidate still found no interest in opting for the Democrat. Their choices were either to vote third party, write in, or simply choose “the lesser of two evils.” Clinton would not—could not—offer an olive branch to these voters.

Democrats who now wonder how they’ve managed to lose the White House, Congress, and potentially the Supreme Court have plenty of blame to go around, but the pro-abortion, anti-religious freedom extremism now characteristic of the Democratic Party should rank high up on their list.

SOURCE






Why hasn’t Hillary denounced the anti-Trump riots and violence?

If you ask a liberal, hate and sex crimes have boomed across the country since the election of Donald Trump. A Muslim female student at the University of Louisiana claimed she was attacked by two white men wearing Trump hats. A gay man was allegedly beaten on election night by Trump supporters in Santa Monica. There was a KKK rally in North Carolina in honor of Trump’s victory. Southern Illinois University students posted blackface selfies after Trump’s win.

But what do all of the above incidents have in common, besides their Trump-inspired hate? They never actually happened.

Never mind their validity, though. The mainstream media still implored Trump to comment on the hate allegedly being carried out in his name — and he firmly told everyone to “stop it.”

Meanwhile, anti-Trump riots have exploded across America. Trump supporters have legitimately been assaulted and beaten for their opinion. But there’s been no call by the media for Hillary Clinton to denounce this hate, and she remains silent:

Twitter is chock full of blue-checkmarked celebrities, journalists, and politicos calling on Trump to denounce. Denounce this. Denounce that. Denounce Trump for hiring this person. Denounce Trump for not hiring that person. Denounce, denounce, denounce.

What’s curiously missing among this deluge of denouncement demands, however, is a single demand that Hillary Clinton denounce the violent, anti-Trump protests that are being waged in her name. After all, it’s not Trump’s supporters who are tipping over cop cars, torching businesses, or beating up Trump voters.

The rioters won’t listen to Trump, but they might listen to Hillary or Obama. Did Hillary Clinton make a big, public show of denouncing the violent protests raging in cities like Portland, and I just missed it? That seems to me to be the only innocent explanation for the refusal of so many of her most prominent acolytes to call on her to denounce the violence....

If the media truly care about ending the violence and reducing the temperature of the protests around the country, shouldn’t they be calling on Clinton and Obama to explicitly denounce the protesters? Shouldn’t they be calling on Clinton’s voters to put down the torches and pitchforks? Shouldn’t Hillary Clinton be forced to denounce the violent, hateful acts being perpetrated on behalf of her candidacy?

As Sean Davis concludes, “The clock is ticking, progressives. Show us what you actually stand for.” And if what you stand for is violence carried out against your ideological opponents, then by all means — please continue to stay silent.

SOURCE






Hispanic Vote for Trump Greater Than for Romney, Dole

Accoridng to exit polls, Republican Donald Trump won a greater percentage of the Hispanic vote on Election Day 2016 than did Republican Mitt Romney in the 2012 race and Republican Bob Dole in the 1996 race.

As reported in USA Today, citing exit poll data from Edison Research, Trump won 29% of the Latino vote and Hillary Clinton earned 65%, a 36-point spread.

In the 2012 race between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney, Obama earned 71% of the Latino vote and Romney gathered 27%, which is two percentage points lower than what Trump garnered.

Also, back in 1996, according to the exit polls, Democrat Bill Clinton earned 72% of the Latino vote and Republican Bob Dole pulled in 21%, which is eight points lower than what Trump earned. In 2008, Republican John McCain gathered 31% of the Latino vote, two points more than Trump.

Despite Trump's tough rhetoric about securing the border and halting illegal immigration, a greater percentage of Hispanic citizens voted for him than voted for Romney or Dole.

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, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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




16 November, 2016

How to deal with sexual harassment

The woman writing below seems unaware that males have always perceived some females as more attractive than others. And she seems equally unaware that they share their perceptions in various ways. And the females concerned will usually become aware in one way or another of how they are rated.  That is all wrong according to the writer below.

It is true that many males are crude in conveying what they think but social skills too will always vary.  But to see poorly-conveyed judgments as "harassment" is to legislate against nature.  It is an attempt to suppress natural behavior.

Lessons at school in male/female communication might help everyone but to get upset by clumsy comments is simply maladaptive.  It will help no-one.  It should simply be seen as a reason to appreciate more polite approaches.

And unattractive women probably need to be apprised of what they are.  There have always been great delusions among women about how desirable they are and that has been accentuated by Left-influenced educational principles which dictate that everyone should have prizes. 

I remember years ago sitting in a cafe and listening to a conversation between two young women waitresses.  One of them declared that she was waiting for "her millionaire".  She was loud, short, fat, pimply, with short bleach-blonde hair.  She was unusually unattractive.  Yet she thought that she might be able to snare a millionaire!  More realistic messages about her appearance might have helped her.  If she lost weight, grew her hair and learned some speaking skills she would certainly have got closer to her goal.  Truth is always the best in the long run, even if it upsets temporarily.

Women have always coped with crude approaches.  What makes it difficult for them is people like the writer below who tell them to be upset and bothered by it


A RECENT STUDY by the American Association of University Women found that 58 percent of students in seventh through 12th grades have experienced some form of sexual harassment. When I mentioned this statistic to my freshman college students, they responded with a nonchalant, “Oh yeah, it happens all the time in high school.”

Recently, news broke that Harvard University’s men’s soccer team created a “scouting report,” rating physical attributes of members of the incoming freshman women’s soccer team. Now the Harvard men’s cross country team is being investigated for something similar.

But such conduct sometimes starts much earlier. A mother called me recently after finding out that the boys in her daughter’s 7th grade class had been posting inappropriate comments on Snapchat about the girls and rating their “hotness.”

It’s a cruel twist of fate that just as teens are dealing with the perils of puberty — growth spurts, breast development, acne, changing body shape, and self-consciousness — their appearance brings so much unwanted attention. For every girl who gets labeled a “10” by the boys, others are publicly deemed a “2.” Meanwhile, they are all being objectified.

One of the major tasks of adolescence is to develop an identity. An important question teens must ask themselves in this process is: What do I value about myself, and how will I use this understanding to move forward as an adult? Embarrassment, humiliation, and low self-esteem — all byproducts of sexual harassment — can have long-lasting effects on feelings of competence and confidence that can last a lifetime.

SOURCE





Majority of Trump Voters Were Impacted by ‘Religious Liberty’ and ‘Unborn Human Life’ Concerns

A majority of those who voted for President-elect Donald Trump said that the Republican Party platform’s strong positions on the unborn and religious liberty impacted their vote, according to a Friday poll by WPA Opinion Research that was commission by Family Research Council (FRC).

The survey asked, “As you may know, the Republican party platform includes strong positions on unborn human life and religious liberty. How did this impact your presidential vote?”

A majority - 51 percent - of total registered voters surveyed said these issues in the Republican platform impacted their presidential vote, and 59 percent of Trump voters said that this impacted their presidential vote, compared to 48 percent of Clinton voters.

The 2016 Republican Party Platform stated that “the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed” and added that the party opposes using “public funds to perform or promote abortion or to fund organizations, like Planned Parenthood, so long as they provide or refer for elective abortions or sell fetal body parts rather than provide healthcare.”

The platform also says that “to protect religious liberty we will ensure that faith-based institutions, especially those that are vital parts of underserved neighborhoods, do not face discrimination by government.”

“The Republican Party's platform positions on unborn human life and religious liberty was the bridge between Donald Trump and Christian conservatives,” FRC President Tony Perkins, who served as a platform delegate from Louisiana, said in response to the poll’s findings.

“It was the party platform that brokered the deal between Trump and Christian conservatives -- a deal that was sealed in the final debate when Trump vividly described a partial-birth abortion and pledged to appoint pro-life justices,” he concluded. “The Republican Party platform played a key role in bringing Christian conservatives and Trump together."

The survey also found that two-thirds (66 percent) of surveyed voters overall agreed that “government should leave people free to follow their beliefs about marriage between one man and one woman as they live their daily lives at work and in the way they run their businesses.”

“The study was conducted of n=1,046 registered voters from a randomized sample of 800,000 registered voters nationwide,” WPA said of their methodology. “Data was collected the day after the election (November 9, 2016).”

SOURCE





The Electoral College Preserves Inclusion

We're not a democracy, we're a constitutional republic

In yet another demonstration of their “respect” for the nation’s laws and our Constitution, many leftists are calling for the elimination of the Electoral College following the election of Donald Trump. “The only reason he’s president is because of an arcane, insane 18th century idea called the Electoral College,” insists filmmaker Michael Moore. Like so many of his fellow travelers, Moore demonstrates a profound ignorance of a constitutional mechanism the Founding Fathers put in place to limit the power of what millions of Americans just voted against: an all-powerful federal government that has routinely ignored them.

There is a reason this country is called the United States of America. It’s because we are not a direct democracy, but a constitutional republic consisting of 50 separate entities plus the District of Columbia, operating under a federal umbrella. And while the Founders recognized the need for the extra layer of government, they were also extremely wary of politicians who would see it as an opportunity to eviscerate states' rights. The Electoral College was the vehicle they used to preserve those rights and simultaneously maintain democratic legitimacy.

The process operates as follows. Sometime before the federal election, each party chooses a slate of potential Electors. On Election Day — which, sadly, has become election month in many cases — voters in each state select their respective state Electors by voting for a presidential candidate. There are limits on who can be appointed to the position of Elector. According to Article II Section one of the Constitution, members of Congress or people holding a United States office cannot be appointed as Electors, and Electors can’t pick two presidential candidates from their own state. The number of Electoral College members equals the number of people in Congress plus three additional electors from the District of Columbia — 538.

According to current federal law they are required to convene on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December to cast their ballots. This year it’s Dec. 19, and only those who represent their state’s winning candidate in 48 of 50 states (Maine and Nebraska apportion votes by congressional district) will meet at their state capitals and cast their votes. Each state then sends its official vote certificates to the vice president acting in his capacity as president of the Senate, state officials, the federal court with jurisdiction over each state’s capital area, and the federal archivist. Those certificates are then due in Washington by Dec. 28. Congress convenes on Jan. 6, 2017, for the official Electoral College count.

There are no constitutional provisions or federal statutes that require Electors to abide the popular vote in some of their respective states. Thus it is unsurprising that ordinary leftists and their celebrity allies are circulating petitions urging the Electors to “go rogue” and ignore the wishes of their states' voters. Moreover, a group called FaithlessNow is targeting 160 Electors in 15 states Trump won that don’t require a commitment to the winning candidate. In 25 states and the District of Columbia, Electors are bound by state law or pledges to cast their vote for a specific candidate. The penalties for failing to do so range from being replaced and/or paying a fine, to a fourth degree felony in New Mexico.

Thankfully, the odds of reaching a critical mass of so-called “faithless Electors” is exceedingly slim. As the New York Times reveals, more than 99% of Electors have voted as pledged throughout the course of the nation’s history, and the last faithless Elector was an anonymous Minnesota Democrat who cast his 2004 vote for VP candidate John Edwards instead of presidential candidate John Kerry.

This year a couple of GOP electors, Texas firefighter Chris Suprun and Georgia businessman Baoky Vu, threatened to defy state voters. Suprun has rescinded his threat, and Vu was convinced to resign and be replaced by state party officials. Moreover, since Republicans control Congress, it is virtually certain they would vote to void such progressive-instigated machinations were they to occur.

Hence, some Americans — campus crybabies accommodated by canceled classes and exams, “disaster” counseling and other infantile coping mechanisms including Play-Doh, coloring books and therapy dogs; rent-a-mob thugs whose idea of democracy consists of violent protests, brutally beating up Trump supporters and inundating Twitter with Trump assassination threats; and those who wish to secede from the union — will be forced to deal with unpleasant reality.

That goes double for a Leftmedia yet to discover that their overt bias during the campaign is very likely to result in Trump being able to talk right past them directly to the American public. And because they’ve already denigrated Trump and his supporters in every way possible, from calling him a misogynist, a homophobe, an Islamophobe, a racist, a bigot and a xenophobe, to enabling those comparing him to Hitler, Stalin and Satan, future attacks will ring increasingly hollower. In fact, by completely squandering the trust of the American public, the Leftmedia may have just accomplished the unthinkable: enabling their own irrelevancy.

It’s worth remembering that many of the same Americans now calling for the Electoral College’s elimination were confident of a Clinton victory precisely because they believed a blue state Electoral College-inspired “firewall” was impossible for Trump to overcome. Now that he has, they will continue their efforts, led by a group called the National Popular Vote, to further erode states' rights and require Electors to vote for the candidate who wins the national vote. NPV’s efforts have been well-received, mostly by Democrat-controlled legislatures. Ten states and the District of Columbia representing a total of 165 Electoral votes have signed on. If they reach the 270 total required to elect a president, they will have effectively circumvented the Constitution to get their way. What else is new for leftists?

If it were up to those in favor of eliminating the Electoral College, Clinton would be heading for the Oval Office. Yet far more important, she would be doing so based on a huge vote advantage in only three states: New York, California and Illinois. Moreover, the votes in those states were undoubtedly driven by a big edge in four cities: New York City, Los Angeles San Francisco and Chicago.

Now let’s remember why Trump is president-elect: Millions of Americans rejected a cadre of arrogant and condescending elitists in government, media and academia united by their utter contempt for the “bitter clingers” who populate “flyover country.” And yet, rather than come to grips with that rejection, the elitists and their followers would rather institutionalize their contempt, and effectively turn national elections into referendums controlled by a handful of populous locations. It is precisely the effort to prevent that from happening that gave rise to the Electoral College.

In other words, the Founding Fathers recognized that direct democracy is “two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.” The wolves lost in 2016. And just like Clinton, it’s time they accepted it.

SOURCE

Note that Hillary got a majority of the votes COUNTED.  Not all votes were counted.  Postal votes, votes from the military overseas and other votes coming in late were not counted if the winner already had a clear majority.  And late votes tend to be two thirds in favour of the GOP.  So if all votes were counted Trump would probably have had an overall majority






Christmas carol ban is out of tune with Australian society

Victoria’s public schools are the frontline in the war on Christmas.

In an extraordinary decision of the Andrews government, Education Minister James Merlino issued a diktat to state government schools that has the effect of banning Christmas carols.

You may need to read that sentence one more time.

In an attempt to secularise public schools, a directive was issued last month to the principal of every Victorian public school. These new rules restrict the way in which teachers, parents and volunteers talk about religious ideas in our state schools. The most shocking aspect of the rules is that the teaching and singing of traditional Christmas carols will now be banished from the classroom.

“Praise music”, defined as “any type of music that glorifies God or a particular religious figure or deity” will be banned from music classes beginning in January. This is the last year parents will be allowed to volunteer their lunchtimes to teach kids Christmas carols for the end-of-year concert.

Most children aren’t even aware there’s a religious dimension to Christmas carols. It’s Christmas, and singing carols is just what people do. Silent Night has taken on its own significance beyond anything that may be characterised by some government bureaucrat as “praise music”. Christmas carols now form a unique genre of music, and removing them from schools has the same effect banning any other genre of music would have; it ignores an important part of the complex tapestry of musical history.

In fact, the motivation behind a ban on Christmas carols today is remarkably similar to that which parents and teachers of children growing up in the 1950s and 60s shared in relation to rock ’n’ roll. Sixty years ago, older generations worried Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry would lead a generation to juvenile delinquency. Today, the concern is that Christmas carols may lead to alarming ideas about religion and the meaning of Christmas. Christmas carols are the new subversive influence on youth that parents and teachers should be concerned about — a nonsense idea ironically given life by the fact the elite are attempting to ban them.

Of course, the government hasn’t banned all Christmas carols, just those that refer to God. So while drab, contemporary Christmas songs such as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer will be spared, the traditional carols — those that drip with a rich Christmas spirit — such as Once in Royal David’s City, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing and O Come, All Ye Faithful are verboten in Victorian public schools.

But it’s far bigger than all that. This is a cultural turning point. The Victorian government isn’t just banning Christmas carols; this is an attempt to strip away the meaning of Christmas. It’s an overt attack on one of the most significant events in the Christian calendar.

The decision goes to the heart of good education. Christmas, and all the ceremony and custom associated with it, has been a significant religious and cultural ritual for 1700 years. A ban on these traditions is a denial of our history. Suppressing aspects of the Christmas celebration denies a cultural heritage that has formed the basis of Western civilisation and that underpins our understanding of life and liberty.

A well-rounded education should include lessons on Christianity and its contribution to who we are today. We can’t expect the next generation to defend the values of Western civilisation if they don’t know what they are.

The inflammatory decision of the Andrews government to ban Christmas carols in Victoria’s public schools must be reversed immediately. Former Victorian attorney-general Robert Clark is to be congratulated for taking a stand on the issue. In parliament Clark called on the government to “withdraw this appalling edict and make clear that students at government schools are entitled to learn, sing and enjoy Christmas carols as they have for generations”. In the meantime, and while I’m still able to say it — merry Christmas!

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, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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




15 November, 2016

Good that some people recognize and appreciate the enormous sacrifices that our military men and their families make



Chick-fil-A, the same fast-food outlet has once again proved a positive to the world. This time it did so by unveiling an amazing Veterans Day tribute that left Georgia resident Eric Comfort in complete shock.

According to a Facebook post he published on Mon, when he walked into a local Chick-fil-A, Comfort discovered a "Missing Man Table" that contained a single rose, a Bible & a folded American flag, as well as a plaque w/in which was the following explanation:

"This table is reserved to honor our missing comrades in arms.
The tablecloth is white — symbolizing the purity of their motives when answering the call of duty.

The single red rose, displayed in a vase, reminds us of the life of each of the missing and their loved ones and friends of these Americans who keep the faith, awaiting answers. The vase is tied with a red ribbon, symbol of our continued determination to account for our missing. A pinch of salt symbolizes the tears endured by those missing and their families who seek answers. The Bible represents the strength gained through faith to sustain those lost from our country, founded as one nation under God. The glass is inverted — to symbolize their inability to share this evening's toast. The chair is empty — they are missing."

After the story went viral, the store manager, Alex Korchan, explained to WSB that his team members had set up the table because they "wanted to honor veterans." Furthermore, he offered free meals to all veterans and their family members on Veterans Day. Korchan also put up a poster so that customers could write in the names of loved ones who they have lost. "We've had a lot of people who have come in and seen it and been touched by it," Korchan continued. "It's been special to see."

SOURCE






If we say we want inclusiveness, let's mean it and practice it

I am uplifted by Tuesday's presidential election results because I believe we have a good chance to start turning things around in the country for the better, from economic issues to social issues and matters of national security and the rule of law.

There is one subject, however, I feel compelled to address above many others today, as I see it raised by so many Democratic leaders and many liberals throughout the country — inclusiveness.

In their postelection speeches, Hillary Clinton and President Obama both called for unity and inclusiveness. These are very nice-sounding words. But "inclusiveness," like so many other words of the left, is pregnant with implications and accusations. In reality, it has been not an appeal for unity, except in the most superficial sense, but a battle cry to liberals and an indictment of conservatives.

Those who typically preach inclusion practice the most exclusive form of politics. One's actions must validate the words, or they are nothing more than cynical tools to achieve political ends.

Just look at Clinton's words. She wants a nation that is "hopeful, inclusive and bighearted." She laments that the nation is divided. Yet she — her team, her party — appeals to people not as individual Americans but as faceless members of groups, lumping people in terms of race, religion, gender and sexual orientation.

Liberals talk about unity, but President Obama has been the most divisive president in modern American history. Admittedly, the country was deeply divided under President George W. Bush, as well, and we are always going to be divided politically and ideologically because liberals and conservatives have largely different worldviews and vastly different visions for America. So let's not pretend that we are going to come together in some historic wave of kumbaya. The best we should aspire to is civil discourse and mutual respect.

But Bush didn't try to divide us. He needed to unite the nation to fight a common enemy in Iraq and radical Islam. He tried to reach across the aisle on issues, such as making genuine overtures to Sen. Ted Kennedy on education, and Democrats rebuffed and ridiculed him and eventually slandered him as a war criminal.

President Obama, by contrast, has tried to ignite passions in terms of race, gender, income, religion, policing, global warming and a host of other things. He hasn't sought consensus other than nominally. He said, "I won" and "I'm the president." And he crammed his agenda down our throats, from his deceitful legislative power plays on Obamacare to his lawless executive orders on that, immigration and many other issues.

Obama and Clinton talk a good game about inclusiveness, but this nation couldn't be more fractured on so many levels. Race relations in some areas are arguably worse than they've been in my lifetime, including the 1960s. Tensions abound between many other groups.

The main reason is that the Democrats' political power wholly depends on dividing America into identity groups and alienating them from each other. If they didn't consistently garner some 90 percent of the African-American vote, they probably wouldn't be competitive in national races. They are striving for the same with the Hispanic vote.

Obama irresponsibly uses inflammatory language about the disparate treatment of blacks in the criminal justice system and distorts the data to support his claim. He has directly appealed to minority groups to vote for him based on their racial and ethnic interests. He openly accuses "bitter clingers" of not being comfortable with people "who don't look like them."

Democrats also stir the pot on gender. In framing the abortion issue, they characterize pro-life advocates as being oppressive and callous toward women and their health rather than wanting to protect innocent babies. They similarly try to alienate women from Republicans in their demagogic campaigning for equal pay for equal work when they know that the differences in pay between men and women are based on not the law or discrimination but other factors and when, in any event, the institutions they control see similar disparities in pay.

Democrats divide us not only through identity politics but also with their policies. They say they want everyone in America to succeed, but they demonize businesses, individual entrepreneurs and corporations as greedy and evil. They punish the very activities that lead to prosperity for all people. That is, their policies have the effect of excluding a wide array of people from access to the American dream.

If you want all Americans to succeed, shouldn't you strive to get as many as possible in the workforce? To reduce the government dependency cycle so that people can support themselves and not rely on bribery from politicians to make ends meet? To ensure that the government level the playing field and not stack the deck against certain industries, such as coal? To quit pursuing policies that keep minorities trapped in inferior inner-city schools? To quit suppressing the conscience rights of Christians? To quit trying to convince minorities that the other half of the nation is racist and bigoted?

In his victory speech, Donald Trump also called for unity, but conservatives have a different idea about unity and inclusiveness. To them, those concepts are based on equal opportunity and equal justice for all. The general goal is to reduce the size and scope of government in areas it was never intended to intrude in and to promote policies that will allow people — irrespective of race, gender or religion — to thrive.

We've experienced eight years of unbridled liberal policies, and half the nation is not paying income tax and is on some form of government assistance. Record numbers of people are out of the labor force altogether. Health premiums are going through the roof. Incomes are down. And people are at each other's throat. Let's let freedom ring again and truly promote inclusiveness in the sense that all Americans are free and encouraged to achieve their dreams for a more prosperous nation for everyone.
SOURCE






Muslim liberal admits she’s one of Trump’s ‘silent voters’

MEET Asra Nomani: The Muslim immigrant and lifelong liberal who secretly voted for Donald Trump. “He’s indelicate. We got that. But he expresses a truth that people speak,” she said in an interview with CNN on Friday.

The former Wall Street Journal reporter has been getting blasted on social media after she wrote a column for the Washington Post on Thursday outlining why she supported the billionaire, reports the New York Post.

“This is my confession — and explanation: I — a 51-year-old, a Muslim, an immigrant woman “of colour” — am one of those silent voters for Donald Trump. And I’m not a “bigot,” “racist,” “chauvinist” or “white supremacist,” as Trump voters are being called, nor part of some ‘whitewash,” Nomani explained in her column.

“I most certainly reject the trifecta of hatred/division/ignorance. I support the Democratic Party’s position on abortion, same-sex marriage and climate change. But I am a single mother who can’t afford health insurance under Obamacare … Finally, as a liberal Muslim who has experienced, first-hand, Islamic extremism in this world, I have been opposed to the decision by President Obama and the Democratic Party to tap dance around the Islam in Islamic State.”

While Nomani did note that “Trump’s rhetoric has been far more than indelicate and folks can have policy differences with his recommendations,” she said she felt his beliefs had “been exaggerated and demonised by the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, their media channels.”

“The issue that most worries me as a human being on this earth: extremist Islam of the kind that has spilt blood from the hallways of the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai to the dance floor of the Pulse nightclub in Orlando,” Nomani wrote. “We have to stand up with moral courage against not just hate against Muslims, but hate by Muslims, so that everyone can live with sukhun, or peace of mind.”

Nomani, who is co-founder of the Muslim Reform Movement, told CNN that her words ultimately sparked outrage among her own peers — whom she dubbed the “liberal honour brigade.”

“You know, I felt like this entire election year, we have just silenced so many people,” Nomani said. “Even now the idea of speaking out as somebody who voted for Trump is earning me all sorts of lovely labels like idiot and f***** and all these other ideas that I think violate liberal values of free speech and self-determination. So I spoke out because I also believe we have to stand up for the dignity of all people and Trump voters are human beings, too.”

Nomani doubled down on her beliefs Friday, saying the “very real and serious threat by extremist Muslims” was something Americans shouldn’t ignore.

“This is a reality that we haven’t confronted directly for the sake of political correctness,” she said. “If people would hear out the concerns and fears that others have about the issues to refugees and extremists, I think we could find a path that’s in the middle. But unfortunately, what happens is that this liberal honour brigade shuts down all conversation, calls you bigot or racist or Islamophobe if you dare to speak your own concerns.”

When asked about Trump’s threats to impose a ban on Muslims, Nomani claimed she felt the country needed to find a “middle path.”

“I believe that the left must move to the middle, the right must move to the middle,” she said. “Then we are going to come up with actually healthy solutions that protect national security as well as human rights.

SOURCE






The fall of men

Gender politics is obscuring rather than illuminating the problems facing young males today

Journalists, authors and campaigners have been talking of a ‘crisis of masculinity’ for at least 50 years. It’s become a running joke. Every decade or so, a flurry of new books appear, interrogating the state of men and boys. And we’re in the middle of one such cycle. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, it’s become common – at least in some, less thoroughly feminist circles – to see men as the primary losers of the post-crash economy. And this has renewed older concerns about the seeming decline of men as they struggle to find their place in a post-patriarchal world.

As Hanna Rosin notes in The End of Men, the crash hollowed out the American middle class, but affected men and women differently; it sped up economic trends that appeared to blight men and benefit women. Since 2000, the US economy has lost over six million manufacturing jobs. While job gains in sectors such as education, healthcare and services made up the difference, these are sectors almost entirely dominated by women. As a result, Rosin writes, men have become ‘unmoored’ and women have been left to ‘pick up the pieces’.

The drawn-out decline of manufacturing industries goes hand in hand with the rise of working women and the decline of working men – a trend that is reflected in the UK economy, too. According to the Office for National Statistics, between 1971 and 2013, the rate of women in work rose from 53 per cent to 67 per cent, while, for men, it has fallen from 92 per cent to 76 per cent. This, the ONS notes, is only partly the result of the reduction of barriers to entry for women – the end of workplace discrimination and the introduction of equal pay. Instead, it is the decline in male-dominated manufacturing – beginning in the 1960s – that seems to play the most crucial role in the fall in male employment.

But this is not just about the economy producing more ‘girl jobs’ as ‘boy jobs’ suffer. In the space of just a few decades women, have stormed the traditionally male professions. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of 2011 women held 51.4 per cent of managerial and professional jobs; 61.3 per cent of accountancy jobs; and about half of banking and insurance jobs. Trends suggest that women will outnumber men in medicine very soon. This reflects a phenomenon Rosin refers to as ‘Plastic Women’ and ‘Cardboard Men’, whereby women have been flexible, adaptive, seizing new economic opportunities, while men have stayed still, and shown a reluctance to change.

According to recent UK figures, women are now 35 per cent more likely to go to university than men. And white working-class boys are the least likely of any other demographic to attend, at just 8.9 per cent

The shift in Western job markets has created a higher demand for university-educated workers – and yet, here, men notoriously lag behind. According to recent UK figures, women are now 35 per cent more likely to go to university than men. And white working-class boys are the least likely of any other demographic to attend, at just 8.9 per cent. In the space of a few generations, the gender bias in higher education has reversed. Now, some administrators at US colleges have admitted to practising positive discrimination towards male applicants.

Though women are still underrepresented in both the boardroom and the corridors of power, the strides they have made have been remarkable. As Rosin puts it, ‘given the sheer velocity of the economic and other forces at work, these circumstances are much more likely the last artefacts of a vanishing era rather than a permanent configuration’. And yet, during this period, men’s position in work and the family has both remained stagnant and withered. Women now work more and parent more. While men work less and parent slightly more. ‘They lost the old architecture of manliness, but they have not replaced it with any obvious new one’, concludes Rosin.

Men’s rights

The predicament men now find themselves in has accompanied a surge in interest in so-called men’s rights activism. Though it has existed – in one form or another – since at least the 1970s, up until recently it has been pigeon-holed as a cranky, embittered response to the rise of feminism and the gains of women. Now, it is finding mainstream purchase. In the UK, writer-cum-campaigners like Martin Daubney and Peter Lloyd are filling column inches and gaining prime-time TV-news exposure. Even some MPs, like Philip Davis, have begun to campaign on the plight of ‘men and boys’. Yet many of the concerns of the much-maligned MRAs have remained pretty constant.

Men’s rights activism as we know it today grew out of the work of Warren Farrell, a former feminist campaigner who once counted Gloria Steinem among his political allies. The founding text for the movement, Farrell’s The Myth of Male Power (1993), looked to redefine what were previously considered indicators of male power as indicators of male subservience. He turned the feminist consensus on its head, arguing that women and the family’s reliance on men – who were forced to succeed, provide and work all hours even as divorces surged – constituted a form of gendered oppression that society insisted on ignoring.

For Farrell, men’s economic and social dominance was a smokescreen. He defined power as control over one’s life. And though men were nominally free to exercise their social and economic freedom, he argued they remained socialised into accepting restrictive, self-destructive and unfulfilling obligations to their families and to women in general. In one bizarre passage, he pondered if men had become the ‘new niggers’: ‘Blacks were forced by slavery into society’s most hazardous jobs, men are forced by a socialisation into society’s most hazardous jobs… When slaves gave up their seats for whites we called it subservience, when women give up their seats for women, we call it politeness.’

Today, Farrell’s US acolytes orbit around A Voice for Men, a website set up and run by former addiction therapist and trucker Paul Elam. The site reflects a mixed bag of men’s issues ranging from reasonable gripes, surrounding lopsided parental rules and the watering down of legal standards in sexual-assault cases, to peculiar obsessions. One of which is the fact that US men still have to register for the draft. Despite the fact there’s vanishingly little chance they’ll ever be drafted, this, according to the Farrell school of thought, is proof that men remain the ‘disposable sex’, the only section of society that can wilfully be submitted for ‘genocide’. As, apparently, does the fact that men still dominate professions – such as construction – that have high on-the-job fatality rates.

Though old-guard MRAs are certainly more whacky than their new, mainstream descendants, they all fixate on the most morbid sides of male experience. The most salient of them all being the rate of male suicide – which, on both sides of the Atlantic, accounts for the vast majority of the total. This is held up as proof that an unfeeling society is ignoring, and perhaps even feeding, a trend towards male self-destruction. If you point out that the reason young men, in particular, are vastly more likely to die at their own hands is that they’re unlikely to die at all – and that while men more often succeed at committing suicide, women more often attempt it – you’re just cast as part of the problem.

The men’s rights movement is often crudely depicted as a misogynistic, basement-dweller backlash against feminism. Its critics have shamelessly argued that it helped feed the murderous imagination of Elliot Rodgers, the 22-year-old who killed six people and injured 14 in Isla Vista in 2014, leaving behind a ‘manifesto’ extolling his hatred of women and minorities. MRAs like Elam certainly don’t help themselves – he once published a ‘satirical’ article announcing ‘Bash a Violent Bitch Month’, and has insisted that if he was ever on a jury in a rape trial he would acquit on principle. But the movement as a whole remains far more therapeutic than furious.

In truth, men’s rights is the mirror image of feminism

In truth, men’s rights is the mirror image of feminism. Over the course of the past few decades, the egalitarian demands of women’s liberation have been eclipsed by a new feminism obsessed with painting all women as victims. Not only do feminists today perpetrate myths about rape culture and the gender pay gap, they insist on connecting the dots between vast, unrelated issues – as if ‘sexist’ pop songs and tampon taxes are on a continuum with domestic violence. If you go looking for signs of female victimhood – if you disregard all other social factors and lump the experiences of all women together – you’re going to find it. Men’s rights has just shown that two can play that game.

Beyond the gender war

At a time when men in the West are facing economic and social uncertainty, a recourse to male gender politics has, paradoxically, only clouded the issue. If you tumble down the rabbit hole of men’s rights thinking, you find precious little to help you navigate the situation that presents itself. It’s not that MRAs are unconcerned about the fact that working-class men have effectively being decommissioned, that they have vanishing job prospects and are often unsure of their place in society as a whole. It’s that their insistence on seeing these purely through the prism of gender blinds them to the real forces at play.

In many ways, gender politics has always played this obfuscating role. Though previous generations fought to level gender inequalities, they recognised that these inequalities were economic, legal and social in nature. But gender politics – with its dictum, the ‘personal is political’ – recasts the challenges that affect either men or women in terms of gender-specific victimhood and esteem. Hence questions about how men or women are seen by society – how much they are valued – are suddenly hugely important. As men’s rights campaigner Peter Lloyd puts it, ‘turn on any TV channel or radio station and there’s a global conversation about men – sometimes disguised as being about women – taking place without us. These all slowly influence our worlds.’

The ultimate blind-spot of both the men’s rights movement and feminism is class. This is why privately educated women, attending Russell Group universities, feel comfortable calling working-class lads ‘privileged’. And the fact remains that it is not simply men and boys, but working-class men and boys, who are finding their life chances most limited by accident of their birth. If we want to grasp that nettle we need to work out how to replace those millions of manufacturing jobs that have disappeared – to carve out an economy and an education system that serves all. A men’s rights therapy session won’t help that.

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, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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


14 November, 2016

Democrats Protest Democracy

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren vowed that the Democratic Party would "stand up to bigotry" in the wake of the election of Donald Trump and said the president-elect "encouraged a toxic stew of hatred and fear" during the 2016 presidential campaign. But from whom is the "toxic stew of hatred and fear" coming?  It is coming from the Left.  See below



Yesterday, America awoke to the unexpected reality that Donald Trump was president-elect. Many Americans felt some combination of relief, excitement and optimism after being fed up with the last eight years of Washington elitists foisting their socialist agenda upon the country. But most Democrats expressed shock, dismay and disbelief as they saw their grip on national power evaporate overnight.

What do leftists do when their candidate loses? Protest, violently if “necessary.”

From New York City to San Francisco, Boston to Austin, DC to Seattle, Chicago to Portland, angry and disgruntled leftists spilled into the streets, holding up signs and chanting, “Not my president.” In Chicago, hundreds gathered outside Trump International Hotel and Tower shouting, “No Trump! No KKK! No racist USA!” One young woman holding up a sign that read, “Enjoy your rights while you can,” said, “I’m just really terrified about what is happening in this country.”

In Oakland, the protesting crowd grew to 6,000 and began rioting by smashing windows and setting fires so that law enforcement was brought in to quell the situation. Neighboring San Francisco saw hundreds of people marching and chanting “Donald Trump has got to go.” One woman brought her five-year-old son to the protest and said through tears, “I don’t know how to explain to him the state of the world. I want him to understand that there aren’t all evil people out there.” Well, she certainly could have chosen a better venue to seek to reinforce that ideal.

What is truly ironic about leftist action and rhetoric is the fact that what they claim to fear and decry is the very thing they practice. By labeling those who disagree with their point of view as bigots and racists, they are displaying the very hate they claim to be combating. And it’s truly ironic that the “Democratic” Party has the most trouble adhering to and practicing the ideals of “democracy.”

SOURCE






The Shocking Intolerance of Anti-Trump Liberals

I have an unusual reading habit for a young, conservative woman: I regularly peruse the very liberal feminist site Jezebel.

Why? Well, I’ve always felt it was important to try to understand where liberals are coming from, think about if there are chances for common ground, and try to be thoughtful and considerate about their own concerns when I write. And on the Jezebel site, which is part of the larger Gawker (of course, the original site is now gone) family, there is generally a robust comment section.

I figured there would be a lot of emotions over Donald Trump’s win in the presidential election. But I wildly underestimated the extent of the anger—and the actions people would be taking.

Commenters are talking about ending relationships with Trump voters—and not just on Facebook.

Just take this comment from someone using the handle “bess marvin, girl detective,” responding to a piece about liberal comedian Samantha Bee noting that a lot of white women had voted for Trump, and addressing “so-called progressive white Jezzies”:

So many comments over over the past few months shows that a lot of y’all don’t want to be liberated, you want to be liked. ‘My (insert relative, loved one here) is voting for Trump but he/she is the nicest, kindest person ever…’ REALLY? How about this? Your loved one or relative is an awful human being. How kind and nice are they that they would push aside everything Trump has said and done to pull the lever?

To which “LesPane” responded:

Some of us white folks did, and it didn’t matter. Some of us asked relatives to leave our houses, and it didn’t matter. Some of us told grandparents that they wouldn’t be see they grandkids again if they talked politics around them, and it didn’t matter.

Though we come from very different places, I’m not actually to blame for this. I understand and share your anger.

What?

Look, I’m no stranger to disagreeing with relatives about politics. And that’s partly why I was so shocked to read this. Sure, some are truly upset now in light of this election’s result (welcome to how some of us felt in 2008 and 2012!), and maybe people will take different actions in the end.

But right now, at least some liberals are considering literally ending ties with relatives—including not letting grandparents see their grandkids!—over a vote for Trump. And that’s not just these two commenters. On a different Jezebel post, commenters discussed unfriending people on Facebook who supported Trump. “ImmortalAgnes” wrote:

I also deleted everyone who supported Trump from FB. Thankfully, it wasn’t that many people. Unfortunately, it included my step-dad. I don’t think these people don’t get it – I think they don’t care. I think that to take rights from women, from people of color, from the LGBT+ community, from non-Christians is what they want.

I love my step-dad. But I cannot stand by and pretend like he didn’t just proudly support racism and misogyny. I will not be speaking to him. I will not be seeing him. It’s a hard thing for me, but in this case my values and principals are more important and I will not invite someone at war with those to be part of my life.

Again: What? What are the rights that supposedly Trump is going to take away? We’ve been living in a country where, as The Weekly Standard’s Mark Hemingway tweeted, “Obama did sue nuns over birth control for crying out loud,” where religious bakers and florists have been told they have to participate in same-sex weddings, where an African-American fire chief lost his job over a book he wrote about his religious beliefs that included passages on same-sex marriage, and yet, the real threat to rights is from Trump?

Now there are hundreds of comments on Jezebel, and certainly not every one went in the direction of ending all contact with Trump fans. “InCaseYouDidn’tKnowTheyCallMeTheJackal” wrote, “Bent, but not broken. I am still a proud American. I am still a proud feminist. I will still welcome debate with those who oppose my views.”

And, of course, this kind of anger is not just happening online. There have been protests in cities across the country.

In Los Angeles, “Protesters … set on fire a piñata depicting the head of the president-elect,” reported CNN.

“Police in riot gear struggled to hold back scores of protesters in some of the cities as protesters chanted ‘Not My President’ and ‘No Racist USA,’” reported USA Today.

Liberals, I’ve spent the past eight years seeing the implementation of policy after policy I’ve despised, whether through law or executive action. I certainly get that it’s not easy. But I hope you’ll do what I’ve done, via reading Jezebel and other sites and talking to those on the left: Try to listen to what Americans at a different spot on the political spectrum are saying. Think about what they’re feeling. Try to understand, no matter how morally heinous you think a particular policy is, why someone, even if you think misguidedly, believes otherwise.

Yes, sometimes you’ll get angry. Sometimes you’ll be sad. Sometimes you’ll be truly baffled as to how someone can be both kind and compassionate and hold a certain position.

As I said: It’s not easy.

But it’s worth doing. Hillary Clinton was right about one thing: We are “stronger together.” This is an emotional week. But I hope in the long run, we can have a vigorous, but civil, debate between liberals and conservatives in the Trump era—not a refusal by liberals to even talk to Trump voters.

SOURCE






Black Leftist bitch of a mother traumatizes her child

The Texas CPS have been notified and are on the case

Shocking video has emerged of a mum forcing her son out of their home after he voted for Donald Trump, as the President-elect chose his transition team.

The video, which was being circulated widely across social media, showed a Texan mother who kicked her young son out of their home after he ‘voted’ for Trump in a mock election at school, TMZ reports.

The child screamed as his mother forced him outside and on to the street with his suitcase and a sign explaining why he had left home.

“Since you voted for Donald Trump. You can get your sh** and get out,” his mother said.

As the young boy stood there crying she added: “So when the people see you outside, they know why you’re standing out there.”

“You wanna vote for him, I’m going to show ya,” she added.

“Get your suitcase and get out! We don’t do Donald Trump here.”

The boy said he voted for Trump because he saw him on TV a lot.

SOURCE






Donald Trump’s Win Wasn’t About Racism

Already, liberals are trying to push the narrative that Donald Trump’s win was propelled by racist Americans.

“This is a candidate who ran on a clearly racist message, attracting people with clearly racist views. And he won,” wrote Vox’s German Lopez.

“This was a white-lash against a changing country,” said CNN’s Van Jones. “It was white-lash against a black president in part.”

New York Times contributor Roxane Gay wrote about being “stunned” by the results: “I was confident, not only because of who Mrs. Clinton is. I was confident because I thought there were more Americans who believe in progress and equality than there were Americans who were racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, and homophobic.”

But the facts show otherwise.

“Trump performed stronger among black and Hispanic voters than Mitt Romney did as the Republican nominee in 2012, according to NBC exit polls,” NBC News reported.

“On average, the counties that voted for Obama twice and then flipped to support Trump were 81 percent white,” reported The Washington Post, making it almost certain some of Trump’s white voters were people who had voted for President Barack Obama—not exactly the hallmark trait of a racist.

As a New York Magazine headline put it: “Trump Won a Lot of White Working-Class Voters Who Backed Obama.”

And liberals’ outrageous remarks that Trump voters were motivated by racism do a grave disservice to the integrity of the millions of Americans who voted for Trump. (Although Trump would do well to make clear he rejects racist supporters.)

Looking at the exit polls posted by CNN, there are many policy reasons why 59 million Americans voted for Trump, including:

56 percent of voters who saw the Supreme Court nominations as “the most important factor” supported Trump.

64 percent of voters who thought immigration was the “most important issue” voted for Trump, as did 86 percent of those who want a wall built on the U.S.-Mexico border.

83 percent of voters who felt Obamacare “went too far” supported Trump.

57 percent of those who viewed terrorism as the top issue backed Trump, as did 85 percent of those who thought the fight against ISIS was going “very badly.”

73 percent of voters who felt the “government [is] doing too much” went for Trump.

These are issues of national security, rule of law, and the scope of government. Throughout his tenure, Obama has aggressively worked to promote a liberal agenda, from Obamacare to the Iran nuclear deal.

He has used his executive power to grant amnesty, to push gun control, and to force schools to require high school girls’ locker rooms to allow biological males who identify as women to enter. He has signed spending bills that have pushed the nation deeper and deeper into fiscal irresponsibility, and under his leadership, our national debt has close to doubled.

We increasingly have seen laws being made, not by the lawmakers we elect, but by unelected bureaucrats in the executive branch. We have seen the Supreme Court uphold illegal provisions of Obamacare, and overrule the votes of millions of Americans on the legalization of same-sex marriage.

And a Hillary Clinton presidency seemed a certain continuation of that course. Asked about Supreme Court nominations in the Oct. 19 debate, Clinton didn’t bring up appointing justices who adhered to the Constitution.

Instead, she said, “the Supreme Court needs to stand on the side of the American people, not on the side of the powerful corporations and the wealthy. For me, that means that we need a Supreme Court that will stand up on behalf of women’s rights, on behalf of the rights of the LGBT community, that will stand up and say no to Citizens United … ”

Clinton’s own actions during her tenure at the State Department—including her disregard of how to handle classified material with care—suggested she saw herself as above the law, not bound by it. That’s hardly an attitude that would suggest she would refrain from abuse of executive power.

And Clinton ran to the left, embracing free college for children in families with household incomes of $125,000 or less. She backed hiking the minimum wage to $15 an hour—careless of how that could impact businesses or young adults looking to secure that first job while they still had few skills to make them attractive to employers. Due to WikiLeaks, it was revealed Clinton had said in a 2013 speech: “My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders.”

And Clinton was open about her disdain for religious liberty, saying in a 2015 speech: “America moves forward when all women are guaranteed the right to make their own health care choices, not when those choices are taken away by an employer like Hobby Lobby.” (Hobby Lobby, which is owned by a religious family, only wanted not to offer abortion-inducing drugs to its employees—a case it had to fight all the way to the Supreme Court.)

She was unwilling to compromise on abortion. As Trump put it bluntly in the last debate, “If you go with what Hillary is saying, in the ninth month, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby.”

So, no, this isn’t about Americans being racist.

It’s about Americans wanting their government officials to have to follow the rule of law, and to have the law made by the politicians they elect, not the Supreme Court or bureaucrats.

It’s about rejecting liberal policies, and choosing the conservative vision for our country—a vision that pushes prosperity and freedom. It’s about having enough human decency to say that a child in the womb deserves the right to life. It’s about wanting to keep our country safe, and to be able to keep an America where all men and women can live in accordance with their beliefs.

Liberals can scream all they want about this being “racism” (when they’re not whining about the decline of civility in this country). But if they are serious about wanting to bring the country together, maybe they could start by realizing the lesson from election night was that millions of Americans cherish values and policies that Obama, Clinton, and many others on the left have aggressively attacked and tried to destroy. They may not agree with those values—but it’s time they realize people who hold those values exist.

As Trump put it in his speech in the early hours of Wednesday morning, “The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.”

It’s time the left wakes up to that reality.

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, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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



13 November, 2016

Why Trump prevailed despite the cloud of sexual assault accusations over him

I thought I would put up the diatribe below as vivid evidence of how little Leftists understand and how one-eyed feminists are.  The author is Jenna Price, a long-time Australian Leftist journalist and academic.  Her publicity picture is below. 

Right from the start you can see that she is not a normal woman.  Active feminists rarely are.  What normal woman would allow a publicity shot of herself to go forward showing her with such messy hair?  She has no pride in her appearance at all, most unusual in normal women.  If she wants to represent women generally, she has certainly chosen a strange way to go about it.



But her hair is only a most incidental matter. It just enables her to refer to me as a patriarchal, sexist, xenophobic, racist, pedophilic member of the Ku Kux Klan -- and other such hate-speech.  The important thing is what she says.

And what she says is a classic exhibit of how Leftists never care about the full picture.  They have simplistic, narrow-focused explanations of everything. To read her, you would have to think -- and many Leftists do think it -- that Trump's attitude to women was important to the voters.  In fact, Trump voters  were quite clearly uninfluenced by it.  What does that mean?  Does it mean that Americans as a whole are unenlightened sexist pigs who delight in female suffering and inequality?  That is what Ms Price would have you think.

In fact, as many interviews with Trump voters show, most of them thought his attitude to women was bad but of incidental importance.  Astounding though it is to feminists, many Americans, including female ones, don't see feminist issues as all that important.  They have -- surprise, surprise! -- other political issues in mind that they think are far more important.  But reading Ms Price you would get no inkling of that. 

You would never know that most Americans, including Bill, are quite uninterested in what Hillary has betwen her legs.  Her ascent to to the presidency or not would prove nothing about glass ceilings.  They have been shattered long ago on the world scene.  Note the following female heads of government in recent decades:  Indira Gandhi, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, Sheikh Hasina, Benazir Bhutto, Yulia Tymoshenko, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Cristina Kirchner, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Helen Clark, Julia Gillard, Ameenah Gurib, Park Geun-hye, Nicola Sturgeon and Theresa May. And stodgy old Britain has had TWO female heads of government. Capable women CAN rise to the very top. Hatshepsut, Sobekneferu and Boadicea proved that long ago but you can't expect feminists to know any history.

So let me tell Ms Price and her ilk why feminist concerns were ignored by Trump voters.  Leftists claim that they voted for Mr Trump because they were ignorant snaggle-toothed, mouth breathing hillbillies who just hated everybody, including women.  But all the analyses of Trump support show the opposite -- that his vote was up among Hispanics and blacks compared with previous elections, that his vote among women was down only a little from the usual rough 50/50 split and that all social classes were well represented among his supporters.

So if demographics cannot explain the Trump vote, what can?  It's extremely simple.  Trump was the only one who offered liberation from Leftist oppression.  Those wonderful "progressive" changes that Obama and Hillary were offering could only be achieved by making most Americans do things that they were strongly disinclined to do -- make mainstream Americans love rampant homosexuals, Muslim Jihadis, black criminals and low-IQ Hispanic illegal immigrants -- etc.

Leftists are tyrants.  They think it is all in a good cause but it is still tyranny and those tyrannized don't like it. 

Had Leftists been less one-eyed in their policies towards minorities, they could still have accomplished much without antagonizing the majority. They could for instance have improved rights and services for homosexuals without pushing it all the way to a demand for homosexual marriage. Homosexual marriage did virtually nothing for homosexuals that they did not have already -- through civil partnerships, for instance.  But it did greatly antagonize believing Christians who know perfectly well what their Bible says about homosexuals.

So THAT is why so many voted for Trump. They see him as their liberator.  All other concerns faded into insignificance compared with the chance to throw off tyranny


There are still different rules for men and women.

Rules which make it possible for men to win and for women to lose. Rules which make it possible for a man to become president but not a woman.

Here are the rules for men. If you seek higher office, your history can include incitement of violence and abuse towards women. Your history can include the kind of racism and bigotry which echoes Hitler's rise to power. Your history will include running businesses which are still refusing to pay those who worked for you.

You can be as post-fact and as post-truth as you like because the population will not judge you. Your history can include a rejection of equal rights for the LGBTQI community. You can even intersect a couple of those, by demeaning Ghazala Khan, the mother whose son died fighting for the US.

Yet no one has put it better than Amelia Paxman, a 27-year-old documentary film maker in Queensland, who tweeted yesterday: "Tell me again how rape and sexual assault accusations will ruin a man's career".

Because, much more terrifying than electing Trump as president, more serious than that, is the permission this gives to treat women in a particular way, as s**** and w*****, as Miss Piggy and Miss Housekeeping, as commodities.

This was not the traditional political confrontation, of right versus left, or even of Right versus Left. This was about a decent flawed woman versus an indecent highly flawed man, a man who could tap into all the anxieties felt by those whose lives are changing around them.

We knew that Clinton's mistakes were made in the course of her career as a public servant, political transactions taking place in a political arena. Trump, on the other hand, hates people who are not like him. Women, blacks, Hispanics, gays and lesbians. And when he dismantles America's fledgling attempt at universal healthcare, he will target the sick, the elderly and those living with a disability.

But right now, Trump's target is women. They are the majority, and they are also deeply divided. For weeks we heard that evangelical and conservative women would vote for Clinton yet the figures tell us that many of those women voted for Trump. Maybe they thought violence and abuse was better than a woman who supported Roe v Wade.

Clinton's womanhood has always been considered fair game for public commentary, considered either unwomanly or not a good enough woman. Her steely ambition to reach the top job is in stark contrast to the expectation that women are compliant and accommodating. At the same she has been reviled for being too accommodating, too Stand By Your Man, shamed for not leaving her philandering husband.

Clinton shows us that women can never get it right. If women want to succeed we are coldly ambitious. You have trouble warming to us. We aren't authentic. Sometimes, we are shameless s**** and w*****, sometimes we asked for it. Sometimes we didn't say no loudly enough, often enough.

And yesterday for men, some men, many men, the defeat of Hillary Clinton was their dream come true, the ever-lasting buck's night, the moment in time when big swinging d**** proudly emerged to celebrate the death of another ambitious woman's dreams.

Powerful men are p****-grabbers yet powerful women p****-whip their men. This is still the world in which we live. There are different rules and different ways in which women are held accountable. Men have excuses, women are constructed as evil.

When Clinton won the nomination – as my women friends told me it would be all right, that I was over thinking things, that times had changed – I did what I always do: I worried. Worried that the US was not ready for a woman to lead; and that entrenched sexism and misogyny would destroy Hillary Clinton in the same way it had destroyed women before her.

Hillary parties? I wrote about them but I didn't go to any (was that it? Should I have gone? Please excuse my magical thinking).

And now it's done and so is she, the most qualified person ever to have stood for president.

When Amelia Paxman asks, "Tell me again how rape and sexual assault accusations will ruin a man's career" I can only reply that it won't. And it may not ever.

I read this from Clinton this morning: "To the little girls watching this, never doubt that you are valuable & powerful & deserving of every chance to achieve your dreams."

And those of you sitting on the sidelines, lips pursed, commenting about how this isn't about sexism and misogyny, race or class, please f*** off.

Or get off your behinds and join with people who want change; women's groups, human rights groups, environmental groups, anti-racism groups, unions. Yes, unions. Join with people who want your daughters and your sons to live in a world where even the poor, the black, the disenfranchised, hell yes, even the women, have a chance to shape a better world. Stop being divided and defeated. Build unbreakable coalitions for the good of the many. Please, please, as so many have said before me, don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

And in the meantime, never tell me to be grateful – and to appreciate – how far women have come. We have not.

SOURCE






Liberal Intolerance (1)

Weird actress says she wants to 'take out' Trump supporters with baseball bat



Actress Lea DeLaria found herself in hot water after she wrote on Instagram that she wanted to "take out" Republicans and Independents with a baseball bat.

DeLaria, best known for her role as Big Boo on "Orange Is the New Black," shared a Leonard Bernstein quote on Instagram about responding to violence through music.

She captioned the quote by suggesting a different response to voilence writing, "Or pick up a baseball bat and take out every f--king republican and independent I see. #f--ktrump #f--ktheGOP #f--kstraightwhiteamerica #f--kyourprivilege."

Fans immediately responded against DeLaria's post.

"Why spread violence??? Baseball bats? This makes your argument weak and you are not weak. Strengthen your argument not raise your voice and threaten people with harsh painful words," one user wrote.

Another said, "You're demonstrating the issues you claim to be preaching against."

"no one said you or anyone else weren't allowed to be angry. BUT threatening violence is not ok. It's actually what all the liberal and Hillary voters preached against. So much hypocrisy," one commenter posted.

However, some users spoke in support of the actress.

"Don't let anyone tell you you have to stop being angry. F--k that. Our anger is the only thing we have."

One person wrote, "I love everything you say. You are so on point with ALL OF IT!!"

Another simply wrote in, "YES."

SOURCE






Liberal Intolerance (2)

Black "anti-bullying advocate" charged with assault after NYC anti-Trump protest arrest



A 23-year-old woman who became an outspoken anti-bullying advocate after a brutal beating in high school is facing assault charges after cops say she shoved a 74-year-old man to the ground during a second night of anti-Trump protests in New York City.

Cops say Clinton supporter Shacara McLaurin, who had once auditioned for “American Idol,” and the man got into a heated dispute about who should have won the election that boiled over as demonstrators gathered outside President-elect Donald Trump’s skyscraper in midtown Manhattan Thursday night.

“She was yelling ‘Black lives matter’ and he started yelling ‘All lives matter’ and it went from there,” a police source told the Daily News.

Cops said the victim suffered a cut to his head after he was knocked to the ground and complained of severe pain, according to the New York Post. He was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

McLaurin, of Brooklyn, was charged with two counts of assault, a felon and a misdemeanor, the paper reported.

SOURCE






Make Religious Freedom Great Again

Donald Trump promised that he would make America great again. If he is to make good on that promise, he’ll need to start by robustly restoring our first freedom: the free exercise of religion.

Unfortunately, under President Barack Obama’s administration, it came in for attack as never before. Thankfully, many of those attacks can be rectified in the very first days of a Trump administration.

Trump should commit to protecting the free exercise of religion for all Americans of all faiths. In her concession speech, Hillary Clinton referred to the “freedom of worship” — piety limited to a synagogue, church, or mosque. But what the American founders protected was the right of all to live out their faith every day of the week in public and in private, provided they peacefully respect the rights of others.

The reduction of religious liberty to mere freedom of worship is a hallmark of the Obama years. Houses of worship, for example, were exempted from the Department of Health and Human Services Obamacare contraception and abortifacient mandate.

But religious schools, like Wheaton College, and religious charities and communities, such as the Little Sisters of the Poor, were merely “accommodated” — offered a different way to comply with the mandate while still violating their beliefs.

A Trump administration can fix this right away. Trump can instruct his secretary of Health and Human Services to provide robust religious liberty protections to the HHS mandate. And Congress can pass legislation, which Trump can sign, to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Likewise, the Obama administration has engaged in a series of executive actions — some of which were likely unlawful — to advance a radical transgender agenda. This, too, Trump can end.

For example, the Obama departments of Justice and Education have instructed school districts throughout the country that they are now interpreting a 1972 law, Title IX, to require schools to allow students to use the bathroom, locker room, and shower facility that accords with their self-declared “gender identity.” They did this by saying the word “sex” would now mean “gender identity.”

The Obama Department of Health and Human Services has done the same thing: claiming a provision in Obamacare that forbids discrimination on the basis of “sex” means “gender identity” — and thus all health care plans have to cover sex reassignment therapies, and all relevant physicians have to perform them.

Obama has also issued executive orders barring federal contractors and federal foreign aid recipients from engaging in what the government deems to be “discrimination” on the basis of “sexual orientation and gender identity” — where something as simple as saying biological males shouldn’t use female showers can count as “discrimination.”

All of this can be undone right away. Trump can rescind Obama’s executive orders, and he can instruct his secretaries of Education and Health and Human Services and his attorney general to interpret the word “sex” as Congress intended it — as a biological reality — not as “gender identity.”

Congress can then make these orders permanent by enacting the Russell Amendment, which protects freedom in religious staffing for religious institutions, and by passing the Civil Rights Uniformity Act, which specifies that the word “sex” in our civil rights laws does not mean “gender identity” unless Congress explicitly says so.

Trump should also make it clear that under his watch the federal government will never penalize any individual or institution because they believe and act on the belief that marriage is the union of husband and wife.

Trump can issue an executive order stating that when it comes to tax status, accreditation, licensing, government grants, and contracts, no entity of the federal government may penalize someone for acting on their conviction on man-woman marriage. To protect a future president from undoing this, Congress can pass, and Trump sign into law, the First Amendment Defense Act. Indeed, Trump promised to sign this bill into law during his campaign.

Whether it be harassing an order of nuns, forcing doctors to perform sex reassignment therapies, or preventing local schools from finding win-win compromise solutions that would respect all students' bodily privacy, the Obama administration has waged an aggressive and unnecessary culture war.

Because it has done so almost exclusively through executive action, a Trump administration can quickly undo this damage. And Congress can then ratify it permanently in law. That’ll go a long way toward protecting peaceful coexistence, making American truly great again.

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, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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




11 November, 2016

I’m a woman. And I am so happy Trump won

Corrine Barraclough below rightly skewers feminist talk about glass ceilings.  She says a tough woman will not be held back.  And history shows that. Feminists and the Left (but I repeat myself) regularly ignore the success of Indira Gandhi, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, Sheikh Hasina, Benazir Bhutto, Yulia Tymoshenko, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Cristina Kirchner, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Helen Clark, Julia Gillard, Ameenah Gurib, Park Geun-hye, Nicola Sturgeon and Theresa May in rising to run their countries. Mr. Obama will remember Helle Thorning-Schmidt.  Mrs. Obama will too.

The glass ceiling has long ago been shattered if you have the political talent required. It's only if your horizons are limited to the USA that you could talk of a glass ceiling. Even there, one might note that three countries that are culturally and ethnically similar to the USA -- Australia, New Zealand and Britain -- have recently had female Prime Ministers -- and Britain in fact still has.

Corrine Barraclough is herself a successful journalist based in Australia



When an increasing number of commentators started talking about Hillary Clinton finally smashing the “glass ceiling” yesterday, my flipping stomach told me the media was entirely out of touch with the majority of voters.

The LA Times reported Clinton’s election night venue was symbolic because “after spending the campaign talking about trying to break the ‘glass ceiling’ by becoming the first female president, she’ll stand under a literal glass ceiling”. I read two feminist articles celebrating her success before the polls had even begun.

“Today is the day,” one wrote with premature self-righteousness. “The day for every woman who has ever been told that she’s not qualified for a position...”

Bore off. It simply doesn’t happen and immigration is a bigger issue than sexism to most. Where have these deluded, self-indulgent obsessions come from? Who really believes the American presidency has anything to do with a few disgruntled feminists being passed over for promotions?

The more Clinton repeatedly leaned on her gender, referenced the “glass ceiling” and wheeled out celebrity friends, the more she showed how out of touch she really is.

The “glass ceiling” doesn’t exist. It is purely a mindset and, ultimately, it is the feeble mindset that sealed Clinton’s fate. Instead, people voted strength to win.

This wasn’t an election about policies. It wasn’t even about Democrats v Republicans. This was a vote of confidence. And isn’t it illogical to put your faith, hope, or trust in a liar? Forced to choose the lesser of two evils, would anyone in their right mind choose a liar over a sexist? Give me the latter any day because the tough can handle sexism.

The tough, stubborn and determined get over sexism. It fuels their ambition, they fight harder and win promotions anyway because attitude trumps gender. They leave dribble about a “glass ceiling” at the door, change strategy and shine if they’re smart.

Only weaklings whine. Hillary Clinton chose to play a feeble, victim card praying it would win her votes. It didn’t.

The media portrayal of Donald Trump repeatedly missed his mass appeal in the same way it misjudged Pauline Hanson — you may label her a raving racist but it is wrong to claim people voted for her because she’s racist, or they are racist by default.

In another’s eyes Hanson is a brave straight talker who will unapologetically push Islamic terrorism to the top of the agenda, speak up for real Australians with little regard for scratching the backs of her elite peers, and be unafraid to ask uncomfortable questions. How many times do we have to be shown it is dangerous to believe our own reality is everyone’s reality?

There is reassurance in Trump’s appointment: that overconfident left wing commentators don’t know the world as well as they think, and that the majority of Americans aren’t pearl-clutching, fainting feminists.

SOURCE






After Challenge from Atheist Group, Football Team Prays on the 50-Yard-Line

A high school football team in Dunmore, Pennsylvania has decided to keep praying before games.

As reported by Pennsylvania station WBRE, Dunmore High School's football team the Bucks were recently told by to stop praying with their coach Jack Henzes before games. The order came after the school received a letter of complaint from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which argued that school prayers that are not voluntary and solely led by students are unconstitutional. School administrators told coach Henzes he would have to stop the prayers.

Before the FFRF complaint, Henzes had been praying with the team for 45 years. "We pray to the good Lord hoping none of our players, or the other players, are hurt because we know how hard they work," he said.

But then students on their own decided to continue to tradition, gathering on the 50-yard-line to recite the Lord's Prayer.
"We're going to go on the 50-yard-line and say the Our Father," Colin Holmes, senior running back and quarterback, told reporter Haley Bianco.

Rebecca Castellano, a parent of a student at Dunmore High School, defended the players: "This community has been built on a foundation of tradition and values and I think this is just one way that we show it. We're very tight-knit here and I think everyone can use a little prayer at one time or another."

The Bucks recently finished the regular season undefeated at 10-0.

SOURCE





Election Results Show There Is No One ‘Hispanic’ Vote

As is well known, this election will start, not end, months or years of probing existential debates for conservatives and liberals. But one trope both sides can discard early is that there is a “Hispanic” vote. As Florida demonstrated, it doesn’t exist.

There is a Mexican-American vote, a Puerto Rican vote, and a Cuban-American vote, and so on. Even those are gross generalizations that hide important regional and generational differences. And of course, many members of these groups stubbornly refuse to revert to stereotype. But for the moment these ethnic groups will do.

People will parse exit polls over the next few weeks, and we will learn more about the vote. But it should be clear that anyone who went on ad infinitum over the past few weeks about a “Hispanic surge in Florida” that would overcome Donald Trump’s strength with working white voters and help Hillary Clinton—as The New York Times said on the eve of the election—was talking hooey.

About the only group of people who benefit from the belief that there is a unified Hispanic personae—politically or culturally—are those who work at groups like La Raza, which live off the fiction that it exists, or the hope that one will come into being.

That may well be in the future, but as of now, different ethnic groups are motivated by different factors. Mexican-Americans, it appears, punished Trump for saying that Mexico sends us “rapists.” But most of that took place in states out west. In Florida, people of Mexican origin comprised only 15 percent of the “Hispanic” population as of the last Census.

Cuban-Americans, on the other hand, castigated Clinton for supporting President Barack Obama’s diplomatic opening to the Castro dictatorship. After earlier giving mild backing to the opening to the Castros, Trump in mid-September told Cuban-Americans in Florida that he would reverse Obama’s executive orders unless the communist government instituted political freedoms.

On Oct. 12, Cuban-Americans who are veterans of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, the Brigade 2506, gave Trump its first presidential endorsement in its 55-year history.

That was enough to turn a 33-41 deficit for Trump among Cuban-Americans into a 52-42 lead in late October, according to a New York Times/Siena poll that said, “Cubans come home to Trump.” And that’s important, as Cubans continue to comprise the lion’s share of the Hispanic population with 30 percent in Florida.

Puerto Ricans, who are important not just in the Northeast but in the area of Florida between Tampa and Daytona Beach as well, may not have wanted to punish either candidate too much.

The so-called “I-4 corridor,” named after the interstate highway that links those two cities, has a population of some 8 million, as big as Virginia’s. About 1 million are estimated to be Puerto Ricans who fled the island’s dire economic situation. Since they are American citizens, they get to vote as soon as they arrive.

Bill Clinton has courted the Puerto Rican vote for decades, and Hillary Clinton went all out to get them. Her campaign ran radio ads in Orlando that were not just in Spanish, but with voices in a Puerto Rican accent. While she may have won many of those votes, clearly it wasn’t enough to win the state.

Amparo Vargas, a Puerto Rican resident of Kissimmee, typified the general ambivalence when she told the Associated Press in September, “She’s a liar. I have no trust in Hillary. And I think Trump is a crazy man.”

So everyone talking about a “Hispanic” vote or a “brown” vote or any such nonsense were merely showing their own wishes for the country to look that way. The reality is that many Cuban-Americans and Puerto Ricans—especially the ones in Florida, who tend to belong to the professional classes—do not consider themselves anything but white.

Nor would members of either group worry about Trump’s deportation of illegal immigrants. Puerto Ricans are American citizens, and Cubans in the U.S. cannot be illegal because of the Cuban Adjustment Act, which allows all Cubans who touch dry land safe entry.

Above all, Clinton owes her demise in Florida to Obama, who with trademark hubris pushed his Cuba opening further by allowing in October a United Nations vote against the U.S. embargo on Cuba and liberalized imports of Cuban cigars and rum. His ideological belief in a “brown” Hispanic vote made him fail to understand the Cuban-American vote.

Longtime Miami Herald columnist Andres Oppenheimer wrote last week that Obama was convinced to push ahead by a vote by a Florida International University poll in August that showed Cuban-Americans supported his opening to the Castros.

The only problem was that the FIU poll included all Cubans who have immigrated to the U.S. from 1960 to the present. If you break it down into waves that came in 1960-1980, 1980-1994, and 1994-2016, what you find is that a whopping 62 percent of the first group opposed Obama’s Cuba policy, while only 12 percent of the latter group did.

There is only one wrinkle that Obama ignored: 97 percent of citizens in the first group are registered to vote. Among the second group, a mere 43 percent are.

“I wonder what Obama was thinking when he signed the Cuban rum and cigars order—a largely symbolic measure—and when he voted to abstain on the embargo at the U.N., just a few weeks before the U.S. elections. What was the rush to press the normalization pedal just now?” asked Oppenheimer.

Indeed. Generalizing about Hispanic votes, or even Cuban-Americans ones, is fool’s gold. Better to appeal to all Americans with good policies, rather than look at the country as a mosaic of groups.

SOURCE





Margaret Court calls fault: ABC maligned my beliefs

Tennis great Margaret Court says she felt maligned by the [Australian] ABC for her religious beliefs and opposition to gay marriage in interviews to promote her book.

Court, a Perth-based Christian pastor, said the broadcaster was one-sided, barely touching on her church charity work.

She did 22 media appearances to promote her autobiography, including eight with the ABC, but said the national broadcaster was the only outlet that seemed to have an agenda.

“They weren’t really interested in my tennis much; all they were interested in was hitting my beliefs for standing for marriage between a man and a woman,” Court said. “I think we have to look at the fact this is happening, because it was not very nice in there — it was horrible, it was below-the-belt stuff.

“What has gone wrong? It used to be full of good religious programs ... There was nothing about Christianity in my interviews, it was all on gay marriage.”

This morning a delegation of religious leaders will meet ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie to argue against planned cuts to religious programming. The delegation will include the Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane Mark Coleridge and priest Frank Brennan, former South Australian Premier and Anglican priest Lynn Arnold and World Vision chief executive Tim Costello.

Court, a grand slam champion with 24 major titles, has stirred controversy with her hard­line views, including saying she did not want Martina Navratilova to win Wimbledon because she was gay.

Court said the interviews were particularly confronting on prerecorded shows One Plus One with Jane Hutcheon, Radio National Drive with Patricia Karvelas and on ABC Goulburn Murray with Gaye Pattison.

An ABC spokesman said several programs had agreed to ­interview Court while she promoted her book, which mentioned gay marriage. “In this context ABC presenters asked her a broad range of questions relating to her sporting career, life after tennis and her Christian beliefs,” he said.

Court acknowledged she deserved scrutiny, but said most ABC interviewers did not seek to understand her point of view: “It would have been nice if they had come from: why do you have such strong beliefs in this area?”

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, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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







10 November, 2016

The importance of good definitions

I mentioned recently what a mess a poor understanding of conservatism makes out of Leftist research into conservatism.  Because they have only the vaguest notion of what drives conservatives, Leftist psychologists end up with some hilarious conclusions when they attempt to do surveys of conservative opinion.

Herbert McClosky was typical.  He devised a set of statement (a "scale") which he believed to reflect conservatism and looked at who agreed with those statements.  He found that they were a really bad lot.  They were dumb, poorly educated, psychologically maladjusted etc etc.  And that made him famous.  It was exactly what Leftists wanted to hear about conservatives and corresponds with what they mostly believe to this day. 

Problem: How did people vote who showed up as conservative according to McClosky?  About half voted for Democrat Presidential candidates!  His "conservatives" showed no tendency at all to vote conservative.  Not so satisfactory!  McClosky read up lots of books about what conservatism was but he still got it wrong.  Like most Leftists he probably avoided like the plague  talking to conservatives so had no real grasp of how they think at all.

But it is not impossible to do survey research into politics that has some validity. I too put together a set of statements that I believed reflected conservative thinking.  But I got my statements not from books but from my long association with actual real-life conservative-voting people.  I am sure I read a lot less than McClosky but I knew conservastives a lot better.  So what happened?  I got correlations as high as .50 between my scale and vote -- which is a high correlation in the general context of psychological research.

Some psychologists think they can slip past the measurement problem by correlating various things with Presidential vote directly. But that gives you the opposite problem: Lack of generality.  What did a vote for Bill Clinton mean?  The great compromiser, or "triangulator", to use his term, spent so much time defending the travels of his penis that very little policy change can be attributed to him.  Some conservatives look back on his time in office with nostalgia.

Even more pertinently, what does a vote for Trump mean?  Is he a conservative?  Many in the GOP establishment say not.

So you see there is no substitute for seeking  a broad range of opinions among the people you are interested in. But those opinions do have to be validated as the opinions of actual conservative voters.  It is the only way you can get both generality and at the same time be sure that you are talking about something real.  There is no doubt that there is something liberal about the penis-Clinton and something conservative about Trump and both your definitions and your scales should be able to pick it up.  Because of the individual peculiarities of Bill and Donald, you will not expect a correlation between scale and vote that is anything like complete but it should at least be substantial.

So who do I think conservatives are?  I think they are the contented people and Leftists are the discontented people.  The only thing in politics that conservatives get upset about are leftist attempts to mess with their contentment -- most notably these days the huge array of political correctness that Donald Trump has highlighted.

That conception is of course only a basic rule.  There are exceptions influenced by time and place but the rule still works well in most applications.  As we see, it explains the popularity of Donald Trump among conservative voters very well.  He voices dissatisfaction with the meddlers who want to upset just about everything in a society that most of us feel reasonably content with.  A lot of Americans REALLY LIKE America and feel blessed to be Americans.  They are VERY content with America as it is and resent people who want to "fundamentally transform" it, to use Mr Obama's famous and wildly cheered phrase.

A lot of GOP Congressmen have from time to time denied that Trump is a conservative.  All that shows is how heavily they have been brainwashed by the Left.  They stand for watered down Leftism, not conservatism.  They think it would be "racist" to exclude Muslim immigrants from America whereas most ordinary Americans are pretty content with the sort of neighbours they already have, rather than wanting a whole heap of potential Jihadis suddenly plopped down in their neighborhoods.

Another thing that my definition fits is the fact that political stance is highly hereditary. The happiness research almost all comes to the conclusion that happiness is dispositional:  Some people are born to be happy and some are born to be miserable.  Both conservatism and happiness/contentment are dispositional. Conservatives tend to have a happy personality.

And the statements in my scale did reflect a contentment with the status quo. Note for instance the item: "Queen Elizabeth and her family do a good job and she should remain Queen of Australia".  Clear contentment there.  Even innovations in music are disliked:  "Modern pop music is often disgusting and degenerate".  But what about "Girls should remain virgins until they marry"? What has that got to do with contentment?  It reflects traditional arrangements, which still had relevance in the 1980s when the research was carried out.  Probably few conservatives today would  agree with it but at that time it was only conservatives that did.  And most of the items in my scale did reflect a satisfaction with traditional arrangements rather than the vastly changed arrangements that began in the '60s.

So seeing conservatives as the contented people explains most of what we see of conservative opinion.  It is a definition that works and leads to valid research.

Reference: McClosky, H. (1958) "Conservatism and personality". Amer. Polit. Sci. Rev., 52, 27-45.






Michelle Obama and Political Correctness

For those who follow popular culture, the slide into debasement is palpable. From the f-bomb to pornographic exposure, America has become the land of anything goes. The once provincial, laced up nation, challenged by the liberal view of expression, has lost. Victorian notions of modesty are as outmoded as horse-drawn plows.

A couple of months ago an eleven-year-old tape of Donald Trump was aired in which he employed vulgar and uncouth language about women. It was inexcusable, notwithstanding the debasement in the culture. As one might guess, this matter became the focus of the Clinton campaign for president. First lady Michelle Obama said she was "shaken...to my core" by Trump's comments and, alas she has a point.

However, if Trump's lewd remarks are so meaningful, it is worth asking why she and the president have openly promoted rap "artists" who glorify misogyny, sexual objectification of women, date rape and cop killing. Kendrick Lamar was invited to the White House for President Obama's 55th birthday party, the same Lamar who wrote "Bitch, Don't Kill Me" and even raps about killing police officers. Another invitee, Rick Ross, glorifies date rape with lyrics, "Put molly all in her champagne | She ain't even know it | I took her home and I enjoyed that | She ain't even know it." Molly, by the way, is slang for the date rape drug, Ecstasy.

Nicki Minaj, who often outdoes even the most vulgar of the rappers, has been invited to the White House with her husband despite lyrics such as "Make sure mama crawls on her knees keep him pleased rub him down be a lady and a freak." This is the respectable side of Ms. Minaj.

Then there is the King and Queen of Rap, Jay Z and Beyoncé, who have been guests of the Obamas dozens of times. Jay Z in "Drunk in Love" wrote, "Slid the panties right to the side | Ain't got time to take drawers off" and "We sex again in the morning, your breasteses is my breakfast." This, by the way is the least profane of the lyrics.

The Queen of Rap - admired by the First Lady - wrote, "He popped all my buttons and ripped my blouse | He monica-lewinski'd all on my gown" and then adds, "Hand prints and good grips all on my ass." And this is the part of her rap that can be printed without redaction.

The N word and sexually explicit lyrics are the calling card for rap. Mine is certainly not the first condemnation of this art form. Nor do I use it to excuse Trump's coarse and crude language. What I cannot abide, however, is the sheer hypocrisy. If Trump has shaken the First Lady to her core for using the "p" word, then she must be shaken continually by the rap she and her daughters listen to which uses this vulgar expression repeatedly. At the risk of appearing incorrect, what is good for the goose should be good for the gander.

Is it possible Hillary's husband gets a free ride for his indiscretions, but Donald Trump doesn't? In 1994-5 when the story about President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky broke, many liberals would say dismissively, "well it's just about sex." Well isn't the Trump vulgarity just about sex?

One dimension of the debasement in culture is the double standard. An average white person who uses the "n" word is ipso facto a racist; an African American rapper who uses the same word, very often in a negative context, is enlightened. The Media Control Police will determine if it is acceptable or beyond the pale.

But before Michelle Obama gets shaken any longer, I would suggest she read the lyrics of the best known rap songs with her daughters and compare what she reads to the ignorant indignities of Donald Trump. Which shakes her core more? Or is that core suffering from a severe case of political correctness?

SOURCE





More Leftist stupidity

An attack on those devilishly incorrect guns backfires



Welcome to Seattle, where a “gun violence” tax implemented in 2015 has predictably turned into an abject failure — though don’t expect city officials to admit it. We begin with one gun dealer’s experience and the tax’s harmful effects on business. Via the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

“Mike Coombs, owner of Sodo’s Outdoor Emporium, says he has laid off three employees and taken a $2 million hit in sales so far in 2016. His customer count, he says, is also down by 32 percent. Meanwhile, Coombs says his other store — Sportco in Fife — has seen a 10 percent to 12 percent increase in sales. He blames the Seattle gun violence tax, passed last year and implemented Jan. 1. The ordinance charges a $25 tax for every firearm sold in the city and 5 cents for every round of ammunition of .22 caliber or greater. Given that ammunition comes bundled in boxes, those nickels can add up.”

The tax hasn’t exactly been a boon for the city, either. The story goes on to note, “Coombs estimates he’s sent the city $60,000 through the third quarter from the gun tax, but says the city has also lost more than $600,000 in sales tax due to his plummeting sales.” Talk about misfiring. Despite several efforts by both gun advocates and journalists to force the city’s hand in revealing tax numbers, it isn’t budging. The Seattle Post Intelligencer notes the city pledged “to fund a program at Harborview Medical Center that aims to reduce the aftereffects of gun violence” by using increased tax revenue from gun sales. No wonder there’s secrecy — publicly exposing the lack of funds would only serve to irreparably tarnish the city’s conjured up narrative.

It would also create a firestorm among taxpayers. Even though gun tax revenue has fallen short, that hasn’t stopped city officials from robbing everyone else. As the report also explains, “Harborview Medical Center confirmed [last] week that because the ordinance remains contested in court, the tax revenue remains untouched and the hospital is instead getting the money for its gun violence program from the city’s general fund.” Sure, city gun sales are down — which is exactly what leftists wanted. But Seattle lost a serious cash flow too in its ridiculous pursuit to purge the city of guns. Even more damning, it didn’t exactly purge them from surrounding areas, as gun dealers are responding by moving business elsewhere. The more neutral suburbs are more than happy to revel in the windfall.

SOURCE






Australia: No body, no parole for murderers in Victoria

Leftist governments do sometimes get things right

Victorian murderers won't get parole unless they reveal where they hid their victims' bodies under tough new laws.

The government's "no body, no parole" laws will be introduced in 2017 and will affect at least seven convicted murderers who have not revealed where they put their victims.

"This is the right thing to do, but it needs to be done properly ... it's what we've been considering for some time," Premier Daniel Andrews told question time on Tuesday.

Opposition Leader Matthew Guy said the laws should be introduced immediately to give families of victims some closure. "There are murderers in our prison system who treat the parole as their right. It's not their right, it's a privilege that's afforded to people who've done the right thing," Mr Guy said.

Labor has rejected a previous opposition bid to bring the laws in and Mr Andrews says there is no immediate need to rush them through.

"There are seven individuals in custody for whom this might be relevant and none of them are eligible for parole in the next 12 months," Mr Andrews said.

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, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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




9 November, 2016

Social Justice Warriors as Neurotic Nanny

John C. Wright comments below on a study of political correctness reported by Canadian free-speech champion Jordan B. Peterson and his rather glamorous student. 

It is a pity the study does not appear to have been released to the academic journals.  It is available only as a lecture series.  From what I gather, however, it seems academically sound. 

He finds that there are two types of political correctness warriors, a "mothering" type and an authoritarian type.  The authoritarian ones go all out to shut up any speech they disagree with while the mothering type provide justifications for that.  Amusingly, the authoritarian ones have a much lower IQ.

Psychologists have long denied that there is such a thing as an authoritarianism of the Left so it is pleasing to see an academic psychology study that had no trouble finding it

Peterson is a tenured professor at the University of Toronto so it is an amusing thing that there is no profile of him on the university website.  You would normally get a list of his publications at least.  They are obviously trying to ignore him.  He has himself fallen victim to politically correct censorship





My comment:

I frankly mistrust scientific-sounding approaches to common sense issues, and the use of statistical analysis of groups of questionnaire responses does not bring any real scientific measurement into the question: it merely tells you how many people said certain things.

But there is an insight hidden here beneath the scientificky jabberwocky which the scholars have found an scientificky jabberwock way to say, to make it sound more definition and impressive.

But the insight is sound.

The brightest angel becomes the darkest devil when he falls.

Germany turned Nazi was more dangerous than Mohammedans turned Wahhabist, because the Germans had more virtue to begin with, being a civilized and advanced Western nation with an organized military and adorned with scientific genius, as opposed to sexual perverted camel-jockeys mired in tribalism unable to field a proper military force, and able only to attack woman and children, and only then from ambush.

Likewise, an intelligent man is more likely to fall deeper into unrepentant sin than a stupid one, as he can bedevil and bedazzled himself with ever more complex intellectual excuses. And likewise again a brave bully is more to be feared than a craven one.

So here too: the maternal and feminine virtue of empathy for one’s child is said to be the source of the madness called Political Correctness. And the female loyalty, or battered wife syndrome, which bids them bid adieu to logic and reason and cleave to whatever strong leader fills the masculine role in their lives, prevents them from heeding any criticism, no matter how justified, once they are mentally trapped in the cult. A mother with a criminal child will always side with the child over law and order. She will never debate the child’s guilt because that simply and utterly does not matter to her.

It is as invisible as x-rays to a blind man. So, too, do the Political Correctness mavins simply not see the crimes committed, in this generation, by Black Lives Matter, by Hillary Clinton, or by Mohammedan terrorists. Any accusations, no matter how airtight the Prosecution’s case, is dismissed as mental aberration, racism, misogyny, Islamophobia,or the like.

In the prior generation, the PC loons likewise could not see any crimes committed by Communists, so that any opposition to communism was a ‘Red Scare’ or ‘McCarthyism’ and paranoia against Mommy’s harmless widdle boy.

It was not that they saw the crimes and discounted them as insignificant. That is not the way Mother’s love works. I assume that to the Mother of Jack the Ripper, the harlots of Whitechapel deserved what they got.

The insight is an excellent one, for one cannot explain the remarkable success of PC lunacy without explain the powerful appeal. The darkest wolf hides between the whitest sheep’s coat.

There were three other things in the clip I’d like to bring to your attention, dear reader:

Note, first,  how blunt the admission that the idea of Rightwing Authoritarianism was propaganda from the Frankfurt School (I reminded of Erich Fromm THE ART OF LOVING, which I had to read in High School)

Note, second, the very trenchant comment at the very end of the clip. It is almost a definition of an ideologue: and ideologue is someone who has a stance on every problem but cannot solve any problem.

He has all the right answers, given by his theory, but none of his answers work.

This is the meaning of ‘ideologue’ to keep in mind the next time you hear a conservative say that conservatism is not an ideology.

Ideologies are utopian daydreams based on theory that demands reality change to fit, and when reality does not, police state tactics are used, first, to enforce a mass-hallucination or mass-roleplaying-game to pretend that it is working, and, second, to genocide the designated scapegoat de jour. The theory is that if enough blood is spilled, reality, the rules of economics, the nature of justice, the laws of history, will all somehow give way.  Reality here is a father figure against whom the spoiled brat of utopia rebels.

Conservatism, Classical Liberalism, or whatever you want to call the radical ideals of the Founding Fathers, is that men not being angels, and Utopia not being an option, the most pragmatic laws and customs must be set in place prudently, carefully, with due regard to the probable human ambitions and weaknesses, self interest, lawerly misinterpretations and abuses, in order to hinder the power of the state from trampling the rights of the individual.

The reason why the Left never contemplates the dangers of self interest, if the theory given above is correct, is that no loving Nanny with a child in pain acts in her own self interest, and no such child need any protection from his loving Nanny.

The question simply never comes up and need never come up.

The Nanny must act, and cannot wait for the child to solve the problem on his own. The idea of leaving the free market, or private charity, or the Church, or anyone else free to solve the problem is unthinkable to them.

Leftist, being mentally disorganized and often mentally deranged, cannot envision or even understand in theory the concept of treating men as grown-ups, equal, self-reliant, responsible. To them, we are all children.

This, by the way, is why the word ‘equality’ when used by the Left means inequality. Equality really means all men being the same rank: no one born with more votes, more dignity, or more civil rights than his brother. But to the Left the word means how a Nanny sees children playing with toys. If the older brother is hogging the ball or the older sister hogs the doll, Nanny will rush in sternly and force each child to have no more toys than the other. That is the only ‘equality’ she knows. The question of whether or not the eldest child worked for forty years with brain and brawn and the sweat and sleepless nights to win his so called toy never occurs to them. The question simply cannot enter their minds.

The idea that one child deserves or earned or have a right to the toy cannot exist in them. Children have rights only insofar as Nanny permits, and if you having a toy makes another baby cry, well, you have to be the big boy and give it up. Anything else is selfish and stubborn and … here is a favorite word of the Left, otherwise incomprehensible when talking about men standing on their rights … mean spirited.

Note, third and last, how useful is the distinction between Egalitarians and Authoritarians here is. A similar distinction would be useful, for political analysis purposes, albeit less useful for rhetoric, between the Alt-Right, the Alt-White, and the Alt-West.

It would be useful for me, at least. I used to be an admirer of the Alt-Right until I spoke at length to several of them.

I would prefer to be an admirer again, if possible.

I would be grateful if someone could tell me in what ways the Alt-Right minus the Alt-White, that is, minus the racist thuggees, differ from libertarians and conservatives, that is, differ from those who believe in limited government of armed voters avowed to forfend abrogations of the Rights of Man in the name of necessity; or differ from those who seek the revival of Christendom, or both.

I myself think it fascinating that the antagonism of socialism versus capitalism, which prevailed my whole life, has finally fallen to nothing.

Those who call themselves socialist these days use an entirely different set of excuses for looting: it is now seen not as a curative for poverty, as Marx saw it, nor as a curative for colonial cruelty to backward natives, as Neomarxists saw it, but as a curative for any and all forms of micro-agressions, unseen insults, invisible acts of oppression, by anyone who can claim any form of victim status whatsoever.

In other words, the modern conflict is not over economics. It is over culture.

Those who wish to defend the West, the conservative Christians, are against those who wish to destroy the West, the globalist elitist nihilists, gnostics and mystics. The Muslims, homosexuals, women, and racial hate-groups are merely means to an end for the nihilists.

The Alt-White stand firmly against Western institutions and Church teachings and the very idea of equality under the law or equality in the eyes of God. They are respecters of persons, and their respect is based on birth and bloodline, as aristocrats of old. God is no respecter of persons, and judges each man on his merit, as all men of good will should also.

Whether they like it or not, they are part of the problem they say they are trying to solve.

For the devil sends all ills into history in pairs, that a man who flees blindly from the one falls blindly into the other. The ardent anti-Communist becomes a Nazi, just as the ardent Nazi becomes a Communist, never knowing both groups were organized by one movement. So, too, here, the anti-White racists of the Left provoke blind ardor in their foes who, eager to avoid the madness of anti-White racism, rush into pro-White racism.

Both are collectivist. Both are against Greek philosophy, Roman law, Canon law, and Common law, common sense, and the teaching of the Church. Even racial slavery, that sickness that started during the Reformation, is an import from Mohammedanism into Christendom. The slavery practiced in the Fourth and Third Century was more like our indentured servitude, and slavery was unknown in Europe in what are called the Dark Ages.

But the Alt-West and other subgenres within the Alt-Right? They have brought a zest and a fire to the fight against the PC thought police I have not seen the conservative leadership ever display, and which I have, to my anger and outrage, seen conservative leadership despise and disarm.

Which ever Alt of any brand is in favor of Milo Yiannopoulos and Donald Trump, I side with you. We have a common foe and blood to shed together.

Which ever Alt of any brand mocks the Bible, the Constitution, the Rights of Man, or the concept of equality of rank under the law, or who glorifies, excuses, or glosses over Nazism, or plays the apologist for the Holocaust, away with you. Return to the devil, your father.

SOURCE






Maine Gov.: I'm not letting any more refugees into state

Maine Governor Paul LePage says he’s making big changes to how Maine participates in the federal refugee resettlement program, CBS affiliate WGME reports.

Friday afternoon, when the governor was in the WGME studio, he said the state would stop helping resettle refugees here in Maine.

He’s sent a letter to the president, ending the state’s participation in the program.

It’s a controversial move, but he says he’s just lost confidence in the federal government’s ability to safely and responsibly run the refugee program.

In the letter, he goes on to say he no longer wants Maine associated with that shortcoming.

He cites an example of a refugee living in Freeport, who went back to Syria and died fighting for ISIS.

He says the state has also found welfare fraud especially prevalent within the refugee community, but during our interview, he stressed safety, and concerns the program puts American lives at risk.

“The president of the United States is bringing in immigrants from Syria without vetting them,” LePage said. “He says they’re vetted; how do you vet someone you don’t have records on? I just sent him a letter today we’re pulling out of the refugee program.”

Texas, Kansas and New Jersey have also cut ties with the fed’s refugee resettlement program.

While the state can’t block refugees from entering, it can refuse to help with the process, which is what appears to be happening here.

A spokesperson for Catholic Charities of Maine said they were disappointed in the decision.

“We have had a good working relationship with the State over many years on the refugee resettlement program and we are disappointed in this decision. And we are disappointed the governor did not contact us directly,” says Judy Katzel, chief communications & development officer for Catholic Charities Maine.

The ACLU released a statement following the governor’s remarks: “Gov. LePage wants to make us afraid of people who are different from us by saying things that are not true. The truth is, refugees are the most heavily vetted people in this country. Thankfully, the governor does not have the power to stop refugees from coming to Maine. Maine is a welcoming state, and we will continue to welcome refugees with open arms.”

SOURCE






Amnesty Would Cost Taxpayers Trillions, National Academy of Sciences Report Indicates

The long-term costs to taxpayers of immigrants and their descendants are detailed in a new report from the National Academy of Sciences.

The findings in the report indicate that if amnesty for illegal immigrants were enacted, the government would have to raise taxes immediately by $1.29 trillion and put that sum into a high-yield bank account to cover future fiscal losses generated by the amnesty recipients and their children.

To cover the future cost, each U.S. household currently paying federal income tax would have to pay, on average, an immediate lump sum of over $15,000.

The National Academy of Sciences report, “The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration,” provides fiscal balance projections for immigrants and their descendants over 75 years.

The fiscal balance of an individual equals all government taxes paid minus all benefits received. Federal, state, and local benefits and taxes are included in the estimates.

The NAS report, released a few weeks ago, shows that the fiscal balances of immigrants vary greatly according to education level: Immigrants with low education levels impose substantial fiscal costs that extend far into the future. The government benefits they will receive greatly exceed the taxes they will pay.

This is critical because current illegal immigrants have very low education levels.

Around 10 million adult illegal immigrants currently are in the U.S. Nearly half don’t have a high school diploma. Overall, adult illegal immigrants are six times more likely to lack that diploma than are U.S.-born residents.

Illegal immigrants currently receive routine government services such as roads, sewers, and police and fire protection. The children of illegal immigrants currently receive heavily subsidized public education at an average cost of $12,000 per child per year.

Children of illegal immigrants born in the U.S. are eligible for the same welfare benefits (such as food stamps, Medicaid, Obamacare, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) as children born to U.S citizens.

Because illegal immigrant families already receive many government benefits and services, they currently impose a fiscal cost on taxpayers. The benefits they receive exceed taxes paid.

Amnesty or “earned citizenship” would provide current illegal immigrants access to an additional level of expensive government entitlements and benefits.

All of the major “comprehensive” immigration reform or “earned citizenship” bills debated in Congress since 2006 would have granted nearly all current illegal immigrants eligibility for future Social Security and Medicare benefits after 10 years of work. These bills also would have given amnesty recipients access to almost the entire U.S. welfare system, after modest delays.

In effect, amnesty would give current illegal immigrants access to the same government benefits as immigrants who are here legally. Thus, as a general rule of thumb, the long-term fiscal balance of an illegal immigrant, after amnesty, would be roughly equal to the cost of a current legal immigrant with the same age and education level.

The NAS report does not distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants. But, as noted, the report does provide fiscal projections for immigrants at different education levels. Because the education level of adult illegal immigrants is approximately known, the NAS projections enable us to project the future fiscal costs of illegal immigrants if they were granted amnesty or “earned citizenship” as a group.

Based on the education level of illegal immigrants, the NAS figures project that the net fiscal cost (benefits minus taxes) for 10 million adult illegal immigrants after receiving amnesty would have a net present value of negative $1.29 trillion.

The concept of “net present value” is complex; it places a much lower value on future expenditures than on current expenditures. One way to grasp net present value is that it represents that total amount of money that would have to be raised today and put in a bank account earning 3 percent interest above the inflation rate in order to cover future costs.

As noted above, this means that if amnesty were enacted, government would have to immediately raise taxes by $1.29 trillion and put that sum into a high-yield bank account to cover the future fiscal losses that will be generated by the amnesty recipients and their children.

And to cover the future cost, each U.S. household currently paying federal income tax would have to pay, on average, an immediate lump sum of over $15,000.

Of course, if the federal government were to grant amnesty, it would not actually raise current taxes by $1.29 trillion and put the money in a high-yield bank to cover the future costs. Instead, in the government’s normal pattern, the costs would be unfunded and passed on to future years.

Converting a net present value figure into future outlays requires information on the exact distribution of costs over time; unfortunately, that data is not provided by the National Academy of Sciences. However, a rough estimate of future net outlays to be paid by taxpayers (in constant 2012 dollars) for illegal immigrants after amnesty is around $3.6 trillion over 75 years.

Advocates of amnesty have suggested that low-skill immigrants generate large-scale positive economic results that benefit U.S. workers. The NAS report finds no evidence of such effects.

On the other hand, the report clearly shows that the continuing inflow of low-skill immigrants into the U.S. creates large fiscal burdens for taxpayers in the present and the future.

Moreover, granting amnesty is likely to generate even greater flows of illegal immigrants into the United States, adding even more costs.

SOURCE





Australia: The anti-democratic Left shows its colours

Democracy is only good if it leads to the "right" answers

The Federal Government's bid to hold a plebiscite on whether to legalise same sex marriage has been defeated in the Senate. The proposal was voted down on Monday night in the Upper House 33 votes to 29.

The Attorney-General George Brandis had warned that a defeat would result in delaying same sex marriage in Australia for years to come.

But the Federal Opposition says the plebiscite would have resulted in harmful debate against the gay and lesbian community and want a direct vote in Parliament, instead.

Labor and the Greens were joined by the Nick Xenophon Team and Derryn Hinch to defeat the bill, while the Coalition secured the support of the One Nation Party, the Liberal Democrat Senator David Leyonhjelm and Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie.

Liberal Senator Dean Smith abstained from voting in Parliament late on Monday night.

It ends 14-months of debate over the fate of the plebiscite, which was first proposed by the former prime minister Tony Abbott and taken by his successor Malcolm Turnbull to the 2016 federal election.

The Federal Government said it was the quickest way to achieve same sex marriage, promising a plebiscite would be held in February 2017, with Mr Turnbull confident it would be supported by the public.

But the Federal Opposition, joined by an increasing number of gay and lesbian groups, argued it would result in divisive debate that would have hurt vulnerable members of the community.

It also attacked the proposed $170 million price tag for the plebiscite.

Attorney-General George Brandis earlier criticised Labor for opposing the plebiscite.

"Stop playing politics with gay people's lives, because that is all that you are doing," Senator Brandis told Parliament.

"A vote against this bill is a vote against marriage equality."

"And those who claim to believe in marriage equality, but nevertheless, for their own cynical, game-playing reasons, are determined to vote against it, should hang their heads in shame."

Labor Senator Louise Pratt described the plebiscite as "an utterly demeaning act."

"No child should have their family status a subject of public debate like this."

Greens Senator Rachel Siewert said the gay and lesbian community had lobbied strongly for the plebiscite bill to be defeated.

"I've lost count of the number of my LGBTIQ friends who have urged and begged us not to support this plebiscite."

Chair of Australian Marriage Equality Alex Greenwich said supporters of same sex marriage should refocus efforts on a direct vote in Parliament to change the Marriage Act.

"We know that a majority of Australians, indeed a majority of parliamentarians, support this reform."

"We hope that we can all work together to finally get this through our Parliament."

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, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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





8 November, 2016

Ain't multiculturalism grand?  It can fry the brains of even a smart Muslim



A 'jealous' and 'possessive' millionaire New York businessman was today jailed for at least 17 years for murdering a young British woman in a hotel room after meeting her on a dating site.

Property tycoon Sammy Almahri, 45, killed pretty Nadine Aburas, 28, in his hotel room after she refused to marry him when he flew to meet her.

Miss Aburas' body was found on New Year's Eve in 2014 by staff at the hotel - hours after her killer fled in her car to drive to Heathrow Airport in London.  He flew to Qatar in the Middle East and then on to Tanzania, Africa, before being caught three weeks later.

Almahri at first denied murder by claiming he was driven by the 'Voice of God' in his head. But he later changed his plea to admit it.

Judge Mrs Justice Nicola Davies described Almahri as being 'jealous' before jailing him for life with a minimum term of 17 years before he can apply for parole.

She said: 'You showed both jealously and possessiveness of Nadine. I am satisfied that your killing of Nadine was prompted by jealousy and anger.

'Her death has left a huge void in the lives of all the family that can never be replaced.

'By taking Nadine, her mother says you have taken the glue that made them a family.

'Your actions will impact upon Nadine's family for the rest of their lives, their loss is immeasurable.'

Miss Aburas, who lived alone in her own flat in Cardiff Bay, met Almahri on an internet dating site called MuslimMatch.com.

The pair had a two year romance travelling between UK and New York at least three times. But Almahri became 'besotted' by Nadine - showering her with money and expensive presents.

Prosecutor Roger Thomas said: 'He paid for mobile phones and a car. She was living off jobseekers allowance. 'There's no doubt the financial benefits were attractive to her.'

She returned home with an injured lip from their last meeting and then began seeing other men in her hometown of Cardiff.

Almahri became 'increasingly jealous' then began bombarding her with abusive messages. Cardiff Crown Court heard he warned her: 'You will be in hell.'

He discovered she had seen another man before sending her messages calling her a 'hooker' and a 'whore'.

The court heard he contacted one of Nadine's brother's Jamal on Facebook to threaten to send him pictures of his sister. He also sent her a phone message of her naked saying: 'I am going to post these around a Facebook you hoe.'

Almahri travelled from the United States to see Nadine - but he was punched by one of her brothers. Another brother told him to 'stay away from my sister' before taking him to Cardiff railway station.

But he downed a bottle of gin and a dozen shots of tequila before luring Nadine into the Future Inns hotel in the city. He strangled her, washed her body, placed her hands together and faked a suicide note pretending to be from her.

Shortly after 3am on December 31, Almahri left the hotel and travelled in her car to Heathrow Airport. He booked a flight at 10.35am he took a flight to Doha in Qatar.

Her body was found at around 12.20pm on New Year's Eve by the duty manager - and police were called in.

The court heard Almahri as eventually located in Tanzania and arrested on an Interpol arrest warrant on January 19 before being returned to Britain.

Almahri claimed he was suffering from 'abnormality of mental function'. He claims he was in a psychiatric state of hearing 'the voice of God' telling him to kill Nadine.

The court heard Almahri initially claimed he was not guilty of murder because his responsibility is diminished by mental illness. The trial was due to last four weeks - but was halted when he pleaded guilty.

Mr Thomas said: 'This was the killing of a defenceless woman by a jealous and dangerous man.'

Her mother Andrea, 59, told the court: 'You hear about people being killed or passing away, but you never think it will happen to you. 'She was such a beautiful girl, in both looks and personality. She was a ray of sunshine in everyone's lives.

'She was an inspiration to us all. She made you feel like you wanted to be a better person.

'Although she was strong and could hold her own, she also had a delicate heart.'

Mrs Aburas was giving a victim impact statement to the judge. She said: 'I will never forget when police came to tell us Nadine had been taken away from us. My life ended. 'We have all lived our lives ever since in a complete haze.

After the hearing, Nadine's mother Andrea Aburas said: 'Justice has been done for Nadine. 'We wish to thank everyone who has assisted us in this tragic period in our lives.

David Wooler, Senior Crown Prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service Cymru-Wales, said: 'Sammy Almahri's callous and brutal actions took that future away from her and left her family dealing with the immense distress that resulted from her loss.

'Having taken Nadine's life, Almahri immediately sought to avoid responsibility for his actions by fleeing the country.

'Thanks to a swift and professional multi-agency response he was quickly brought back to Wales, where he has now been made to face up to what he did.'

SOURCE





Arby's new sandwich isn't exactly politically correct

Eating meat is so politically incorrect these days, and eating meat from furry animals that were the inspiration for full-length cartoon movies is viewed as especially awful in some circles.

But Arby's is kicking political correctness in the teeth. The national fast-food chain announced Tuesday it will begin serving a venison sandwich that features a thick-cut steak and crispy onions with a berry sauce on a toasted roll, USA Today reported.

The meat will come from the top and bottom round steaks of the hind quarters of deer that are free-range and feed on fresh grass on farms, Rob Lynch, Arby's brand president and chief marketing officer, told the newspaper.

Lynch said the sandwich is part of Arby's "It's Meat Season" campaign, which heralds the beginning of hunting seasons nationally.

"Bringing venison to our menu also allows us to continue to set ourselves apart from the competition when it comes to proteins," Lynch told the newspaper. "You simply can't find this at other restaurant chains."

Unfortunately for Louisiana residents, they'll have to travel if they want to sample the new sandwich. Arby's is offering it at just 17 locations in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Georgia.

"Deer hunters are going to love this sandwich," Lynch said.

SOURCE





'Jewish hearts only have envy and hatred': Firebrand Sydney sheik's hateful sermon to young Muslim children during Friday prayers

A firebrand Muslim sheik has gone on a hate-filled rant instructing young children that Jewish people have 'hatred and envy' in their heart.

Sheik Youssef Hasan, the leader of prayer at Quakers Hill Mosque, in Sydney's west, described Jews as having 'hearts harder than stone' during a regular Friday surmon in front of youngsters and their parents.

Video of the lecture on the second chapter of the Koran shows sheik Hassan talking about the differences Allah sees between the 'hearts' of Jews and Muslims.

'Allah mentioned the heart of the Jewish,' sheik Hassan began.

'Many of the Israelites - the Jewish - their heart become very hard and Allah said they become like a stone, but actually harder than a stone.'

The sheik then relates his sermon to a section of the Koran, where it states that 'for indeed there are stones from which rivers burst forth'.

In what he calls a 'great warning for Muslims', sheik Hassan dismisses that good can come from Jewish hearts.

'Some of the rocks, water come out of the rocks, so the water can get away' he said.  'The rocks can be soft, so they can make a way for the water. But the Jewish heart is very hard.  'They don't have mercy. They don't have anything in the heart. They've got only envy (and) they've got hatred.'

Despite the seemingly obvious message of his lecture, sheik Hassan denied to The Australian that he was talking about the entire Jewish race.

He claims that instead he was referring to a small group named specifically in the holy text.

'I've got so many friends (who are) Jewish and I have no problem with these people at all,' he said.  

Vic Alhadeff, the CEO of the NSW Jewish board of deputies said the incident was disappointing.

'It's very unfortunate that any religious leader would make such a bigoted and gratuitous remark,' he said.

SOURCE






African thugs finally being deported from Australia



TWO young thugs linked to the violent Apex street gang will be deported after their visas were revoked under tough new migration laws.

The duo, aged 19 and 20, will be expelled to their countries of birth or put into immigration detention after they have finished serving out sentences in youth detention.

Police sources told the Herald Sun that both men are associated with the notorious Apex gang, believed to be responsible for a spate of violent burglaries and carjackings across Melbourne’s southeast.

The young men are just two of 173 foreign thugs living in Victoria whose visas have been cancelled in the past financial year.

In 2014, migration laws were amended to give Immigration Minister Peter Dutton the power to strip visas from non-citizens who fail to pass a character test or who have been convicted of an offence involving a jail term of more than 12 months.

Figures reveal that in Victoria in 2015-16, the visas of 23 child sex ­offenders, two convicted murderers and 23 people guilty of drug offences were cancelled, leaving them liable to ­deportation on completion of jail terms. The tough new laws were ­initially used to kick out foreign-born bikie gang members.

But in April, the Government used them to revoke the visa of an associate of the Apex gang, who was deported to New Zealand.

The Herald Sun understands Sudanese-born Isaac Gatkuoth, 19, who was on ice when he pointed a shotgun at the head of a terrified motorist during a robbery, is the latest Apex member whose visa has been revoked.

Gatkuoth — who has denied being an Apex member — could be forced to return to Africa next year after serving 14 months in a youth detention.

In May, a court heard he had endured a hellish upbringing before moving to Australia at age nine. Raised by his sister, he hasn’t seen his mother since he was about five, and recently learned his father died when he was a toddler.

The visa of the second Apex member, a New Zealand-born 20-year-old, has also been cancelled. In January, the man was sentenced to 27 months for offences including armed robbery, theft and arson.

The Herald Sun understands authorities are poised to revoke the visas of a further two Apex gang members.

Mr Dutton refused to comment on the latest cases, but reiterated his determination to revoke the visas of convicted criminals.

“Australia is a generous nation and we settle a record number of people in our country each year, but we won’t hesitate to cancel visas of people who commit crimes against Australians,” Mr Dutton said

Liberal backbencher Jason Wood, an ex-policeman whose electorate of La Trobe has experienced a recent wave of aggravated burglaries and car-jackings, welcomed the visa cancellations.

Mr Wood — whose own home was recently burgled — told the Herald Sun: “These violent criminals give up the right to stay in Australia.

“This action sends a crystal-clear message that they will be booted back to their home country.”

More than 1500 people, including more than 100 criminal bikie gang members and 25 convicted murderers, have been expelled since the laws were introduced.

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, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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




7 November, 2016

Three members of a Somali sex gang who groomed, raped and subjected vulnerable British schoolgirls as young as 14 to 'violent and horrible' abuse are jailed for 32 years



Three members of a Somali sex gang who trafficked, raped and subjected vulnerable British schoolgirls to 'violent and horrible' abuse have been jailed for 32 years.

Girls as young as 14 were plied with drugs and alcohol before being 'pestered again and again' for sex by the men who operated in inner city Bristol.

Bristol Crown Court heard the rapes became 'routine' and the men regarded some of the victims, who cannot be named for legal reasons, as 'cheap and easy'.

Seven Somali men went on trial at the beginning of September accused of 46 charges in connection with the sex ring, who preyed on girls from a range of different backgrounds and ethnicities.

Three of the men - Sakariya Sheikh, 23, Mohammed Dahir, 24, and Abdirashid Abdulahi, 23 – have now been convicted of 14 charges, including trafficking, sexual assault and rape.

Sheikh was jailed for 16 years after being found guilty of three sexual assaults, two counts of trafficking for sexual exploitation, rape and supplying a class B drug.

Both Dahir and Abdulahi were convicted of two counts of rape each and jailed for eight years.

Sentencing them, Judge Peter Blair QC said: 'You have brought shame upon your families and upon yourselves.

'You are not worthy of very much further attention in this court room. My attention is focused upon the victims of your crimes.

'They were four children trying to find their way in life, some of them struggling with difficult issues at home.

'You used your older age, your personal freedom and your relative stronger power to manipulate and coerce them into becoming for you little more than objects to satisfy you sexually.'

The judge described the consequences of the abuse on the victims as 'disastrous'.  'You made them feel worthless, dirty, unloved,' he told the defendants.

'Their pain goes on and so it will for you now. They are at long last receiving some measure of justice from your convictions. Their very brave and difficult decision to give evidence against you has been vindicated and I pay tribute to them.'

The trial, codenamed Operation Button, was the third in a series of prosecutions of Somali men for child sexual exploitation and drugs offences.

In two earlier trials in 2014, codenamed Operation Brooke, 14 men were jailed for more than 100 years.

The three convicted defendants in Operation Button - Sheikh and Abdulahi and Dahir - were also found guilty in Operation Brooke.

The case follows similar exploitation of girls across English towns and cities such as Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxford and Telford.

During the trial, the jury heard that in March 2013 a 15-year-old girl was simultaneously raped by Sheikh and another man at a flat in Bristol.

The majority of the offences happened between 2011 and 2012 against girls who had travelled to Bristol by train to meet the men.

Anna Vigars, prosecuting, said the victims 'suffered sexual abuse, some of it violent, degrading and horrible, some of it less so'.

Eleven of the convicted charges - including eight rapes - related to one victim.

'These men exploited her vulnerability and her longing to be wanted, they had sex with her as much as they wanted to,' Mrs Vigars said.

'They had no interest in whether she got anything out of it or what she wanted. They wanted sex and didn't consider whether she was consenting or not.

'It was about power and control and exploitation of her vulnerability.'

In total, seven men went on trial accused of 46 charges. The men were Sheikh, Dahir and Abdulahi, as well as Abdirahman Galal, 26, Mohammed Osman, 29, Nuridin Mohamoud, 22, and Nasir Mahamoud, 23.

Mohamoud was acquitted of the two charges he faced; Galal was acquitted of one charge and the jury could not reach verdicts on two further charges; Osman was acquitted of three charges and the jury was unable to reach verdicts on three charges and Nasir Mahamoud was acquitted of one charge and the jury could not reach verdicts on three charges.

Sheikh was convicted of 10 charges, acquitted of six and the jury did not reach verdicts on three charges. He previously admitted two charges of supplying cannabis.

Dahir was found guilty of two charges, acquitted of three and the jury could not reach verdicts on three charges.

Meanwhile, Abdulahi was convicted of two charges, acquitted of one and no verdict could be reached on a further charge.

During the seven-week trial at Bristol Crown Court, one victim described how she was raped by different men.

The girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the court she felt 'pressurised' into having sex with the men and believed it was 'expected' of her.

She said the incidents happened when she was aged 14 or 15 and took place during visits to Bristol in 2012 and 2013.

Jurors found Sakariya Sheikh, 23, known as 'Zak'; Mohammed Dahir, 24, known as 'Kamal'; and Abdirashid Abdulahi, 23, known as 'Abs' or 'Older Abs' all guilty of raping her.

Other men were acquitted or the jury failed to reach verdicts.

Her allegations formed 32 of the 46 charges the defendants faced on the indictment and included rape, sexual assault, false imprisonment and trafficking within the UK for sexual exploitation.

The teenager told the jury that she would be given alcohol or drugs during visits to various homes in the Bristol area and then would be raped by the men.

Asked why she had sex with Dahir, the girl replied: 'Because I was at his house. It was expected of me.

'They would keep on asking me and they would give me stuff like weed and shisha and alcohol and I felt I had to do it or they would eject me from the house.'

Referring to another rape by Dahir, the girl told the jury: 'I told him I didn't want to do it but he didn't seem to want to listen to me.'

The girl also described being raped by Sheikh and another man, and told the court: 'I just lied down and let it carry on and let them finish.'

She told the jury she did not consider herself to be in a relationship with any of the men she accused of raping her.

'A lot of the time they kept on asking me, they would keep on asking me, so in the end I gave in,' she said.

'A lot of the time it was expected of me by the person whose flat I was in or by my friend as, if I didn't, she would no longer get stuff off them like alcohol and weed.'

The judge ruled that charges should be stayed where the jury could not reach verdicts for defendants without convictions. Such charges for defendants convicted of offences were ordered to lie on file.

The defendants denied all the charges. Some claimed they did not know the girls or said they had been wrongly identified.

Speaking after the case, Detective Sergeant Lisa Jones, of Avon and Somerset Police, said: 'These defendants befriended these vulnerable young people who were still at school, grooming and sexually exploiting them.

'Their systematic abuse over a number of years slowly eroded their confidence and made them think these crimes were normal behaviour.The men gave no thought to the long-term pain and torment they were inflicting on them.

'It is impossible to comprehend the torment and anguish these girls have suffered at the hands of these offenders. They are on a journey of coming to terms with this abuse and I have no doubt this will be a life-long journey.

'The offenders have also refused to take any responsibility for these truly despicable crimes, forcing all of their victims to relive their ordeal by giving evidence at the trial. Their bravery and determination has ensured our communities will now be protected from these dangerous offenders.'

A series case review published in March found that the gang was able to continue the systematic abuse due to failings by social services, police and doctors.

Cuts left the police so stretched it took six months to launch an investigation, during which time the girls were passed around for 'horrific' sexual exploitation.

Some officers were so busy they had 100 crimes waiting to be reviewed in their inbox, the review of the investigation - Operation Brooke - revealed.

The delays meant the men were free to abuse their nine victims undetected, subjecting them to ordeals 'beyond most people's comprehension'.

Victims were blamed by police for their 'lifestyle choices' and one was told she had 'brought it all on herself' after she reported two rapes.

Meanwhile, contraception was dished out to girls as young as 12, who went to their GPs complaining of heavy bleeding, abdominal pains and needing tests for STDs.

Schools also 'struggled to distinguish between disruptive behaviour and early signs of vulnerability', meaning abused pupils were excluded rather than being cared for.

This was often because confusing national guidance meant professionals got 'hung up' on patient confidentiality and failed to share vital details and concerns.

Huw Rogers, Head of the Complex Casework Unit for CPS South West, described the crimes against the girls - many of whom were in care - as 'chilling'.

He said: 'The victims were deliberately targeted as they were perceived to be vulnerable and impressionable.

'The defendants' relationships with the victims focused on complete control, ensuring they were always in charge.

'They wanted sex from the girls and demanded this from them.

'The victims did not have the freedom to consent to any of these acts, and on some occasions were threatened so that they could not leave.'

The report, commissioned by the Bristol Safeguarding Children Board, said that while some of the victims are now recovering, others continue to lead 'abusive and traumatic lives'.

After the review was published, Assistant Chief Constable Kay Wozniak said: 'We recognise that there were shortcomings.

'Unfortunately, financial pressures continue not just in Avon and Somerset but across the country.'

SOURCE





Federal Judge Asks Why Obama Administration Isn’t Admitting Christian Syrian Refugees

In an otherwise unremarkable opinion over the federal Freedom of Information Act, a federal appellate court judge has issued a sharp rejoinder to the Obama administration over an issue that has been discussed in the news—the almost complete lack of Syrian Christian refugees being brought over to the U.S.

The Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center, a progressive liberal advocacy organization “dedicated to ensuring human rights protections” for immigrants and asylum seekers—including apparently terrorists—filed a FOIA lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security.

The lawsuit claimed that DHS was refusing to release the identity of Tier III terrorist organizations, unlike the identities of what are defined as Tier I and Tier II terrorist groups that are publicly identified.

Tier III terrorist organizations “tend to be groups about which the U.S. government does not have good intelligence, making it essential that [DHS] be able to obtain information about them during screening interviews that are as focused and complete as possible.”

The government argued that Tier III terrorist organizations are exempt from disclosure under FOIA because it would disclose “techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations.”

Individuals in Tier III groups are more likely than other asylum seekers “to commit violent or otherwise unlawful acts.” The court accepted the government’s assertion that if immigrants become aware of the identity of these Tier III organizations, which the Heartland Alliance made clear it intended to publicize, then members of the groups would “have a very strong incentive to falsify or misrepresent ” their “encounters, activities, or associations” with the terrorist groups.

If the immigrants don’t know a terrorist organization they have been associated with has been identified by the government, they are “likely to be less guarded in answering questions about [their] activities or associations with the organization.”

All three members of the panel agreed that the FOIA exemption applied, particularly because the Heartland Alliance could not “explain what the government would gain by pretending that harmless organizations are actually terrorist groups.”

The Heartland Alliance also made it clear that “its goal in the litigation” was to “discredit” the government’s classification of terrorist organizations, according to the court. Both “the tone and content” of its briefs “signals its disbelief that the government has secrets worth keeping from asylum seekers and their helpers.”

However, in a spirited concurrence written by Judge Daniel Manion, the judge expressed his “concern about the apparent lack of Syrian Christians as a part of immigrants from that country.”

According to Manion, it is “well-documented” that the refugees are not representative of that “war-torn area of the world.” Ten percent of the Syrian population is Christian and “yet less than one-half of 1 percent of Syrian refugees admitted to the United States this year are Christian.”

President Barack Obama set a goal of resettling 10,000 Syrian refugees in the U.S., and by August that goal had already been exceeded. But of the “nearly 11,000 refugees admitted by mid-September, only 56 were Christian.”

Yet Christian Syrians have been one of the primary targets of the Islamic jihadists infesting Syria and butchering, murdering, and killing civilians. The Islamic State has made it clear that it is going after Christians because it intends to “conquer Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women.”

Thus, one would expect that Christian Syrians would represent a significant portion of the Syrians being accepted into the U.S. as refugees. But that hasn’t been the case, and, according to Manion, the Obama administration has no “good explanation for this perplexing discrepancy.” Thus, we “remain in the dark as a humanitarian catastrophe continues.”

This is also relevant to the complaints of various states about the Obama administration settling Syrian refugees in them without providing any information about the people arriving. As Manion points out, “the good people of this country routinely welcome immigrants from all over the world. But in a democracy, good data is critical to public debate about national immigration policy.”

The courts and the Obama administration “demand high evidentiary burdens for states seeking to keep their citizens safe, and then prevent the states from obtaining that evidence” on these refugees. That creates a catch-22 for state governments.

So while the administration brings Syrian refugees into the country by the thousands, it is concealing basic information about those refugees behind a wall of government secrecy. This, despite the fact that the Syrian refugee crisis has been the catalyst for the infiltration of terrorists into Western Europe.

Yet the administration refuses to tell the American public or the states how it is making its decisions on who it is accepting for resettlement in the U.S., or even what steps it is taking to ensure we don’t have the same infiltration here.

Or why, in a religious civil war where Christians are one of the main targets of the Islamic terrorists engaging in indiscriminate slaughter, it is bringing in almost none of those victims of one of the worst human rights atrocities of the new century.

SOURCE






Australian psychologists oppose democracy

Whatever is good for homosexuals trumps all else

The Australian Psychological Society (APS) fully supports marriage equality, but believes the process for achieving equality should not be by means of a popular vote.

APS President, Mr Anthony Cichello, says there is evidence that a plebiscite is likely to present significant risks to the psychological health and wellbeing of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people as they contend with the stress of a public campaign.

Evidence from a suite of studies shows that in the process of putting marriage equality to a public vote, gender and sexual minorities suffer significantly higher levels of negative emotions than positive emotions, experience significant distress over the negative rhetoric, display increases in psychiatric illness and feel negative, depressed, lonely, disenfranchised and powerless.

Children and other family members of LGBTI couples are also affected by public displays of discrimination against same-sex marriage and homophobia more generally.

The APS also says marriage equality is a human rights and equal opportunity issue and therefore should be a matter for Australian law and our parliamentary system - not a popular vote.

It says denying people the right to marry based on their gender or sexuality is discriminatory, and places them unfairly as second class citizens.

Mr Cichello says psychologists are committed via their code of ethics to the principle that all Australians should be supported to achieve positive mental health and full social inclusion.

“The APS supports full marriage equality for all people, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, on human rights, health and wellbeing grounds – but not by means of a popular vote,” says Mr Cichello.

SOURCE





Australia: Presbyterian Church sign on same-sex marriage divides regional community of Taree

Signs displayed outside a church in the New South Wales mid-north coast town of Taree are causing a stir, with some arguing they are offensive while others welcome them.

The controversy comes as politicians debate whether to hold a plebiscite on same-sex marriage or vote on the issue in the federal parliament.

Resident Lisa Blogg said the sign "Marriage is one man + one woman" outside the Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia in Taree was offensive.

"My daughter is gay and her response to the sign is, 'This is one of the reasons I want to leave this town, because it is oppressive to be a person in a same-sex relationship in a town like this'," Ms Blogg said.

"The sign is on the main thoroughfare where people drive past."
Her partner Chris Thiering said other signs outside the church had also raised eyebrows.

He cited 'Do not be surprised if the world hates you' as another example of an offensive sign.

"If I was having a bad day and trying to deal with my troubles and I walked around the corner, that would have a very negative influence on me," Mr Thiering said.

Messages on signs direct quotes from Bible, pastor says

Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia pastor Greg Ball acknowledged the signs could be taken out of context, but said the signs were direct quotes from the Bible.

"I do take to the point they are not referenced, but we are limited to what we can put on the sign as we have a limited number words we can put in," he said.

Mr Ball said 'Do not be surprised if the world hates you' is a direct quote from the Bible (1 John 3:13), and was directed at Christians, telling them not to be scared to be hated because of their religious beliefs.

He said he welcomed the feedback, but there had been very few complaints to the church, and many "statements of appreciation".

Mr Ball also said the statement about marriage would not have been controversial until recently.

Signs are legal, law expert says

University of New South Wales Professor of Law Luke McNamara, who has researched the operation of hate speech laws for more than 20 years, believes that, while views would differ on the merits and appropriateness of the signs, they were unlikely to breach laws against homosexual vilification in NSW.

Under the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 it is "unlawful for a person, by a public act, to incite hatred towards, serious contempt for, or severe ridicule of, a person or group of persons on ground of homosexuality of the person or members of the group".

"Even if these signs were regarded as falling within the definition of homosexual vilification, which is unlikely, the law does not create a criminal offence," Dr McNamara said.

"It simply allows a person from the relevant group to lodge a complaint with the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board."

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, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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




6 November, 2016

When will women learn from Nicole Brown Simpson?

Nicole Brown was murdered by her husband, black athlete O.J. Simpson.  Women often see a big strong body on a man and think those muscles will help to defend them from attack.  They fail to consider that those muscles are more likely to be used against them rather than for them



A mother has recalled the horrifying moment her abusive partner branded her with an iron after an argument about the washing up.

Kerry Hines, 31, from Birmingham, West Midlands, was horrified when she was attacked by her boyfriend after he became controlling fixated on her every move.

The attack left Kerry hospitalised and she bravely reported him to police seeing him convicted and sentenced to 20 weeks in prison.

Kerry and her then partner Paul had only met on a couple of occasions when she fell pregnant. Deciding to keep the baby Paul agreed to support them both and their daughter Shanay was born in April 2012.

Kerry admits that initially the birth of Shanay helped bring them closer together.

She said: 'His daughter was four weeks old when Paul met her for the first time. I felt my heart swell with love when I watched him cradle little Shanay.' Paul's visits became more frequent and in September when their daughter was five months old he moved in with them. 

Kerry added: 'It felt strange sharing my home with Paul after coping on my own for so long but I had to admit it was handy having an extra pair of hands around the house. 'He got to work redecorating the kitchen and living room and he was a brilliant dad to Shanay. Finally, I felt like a proper family.'

However, Paul's benevolent attitude didn't last long and soon his behaviour switched to controlling. He began to ring Kerry constantly to quiz her about her location. She explained: 'I'd only popped out to the shops to pick up some bits for dinner but Paul accused me of getting up to all sorts.'

Initially Kerry tried to look past his worrying behaviour but quickly it became harder to ignore. She continued: 'At first I'd been flattered by Paul's attention. I thought he called all the time because he cared. 'But after a while I came to realise he was jealous and possessive and after he'd had a drink, Paul became aggressive and began lashing out too.'

Determined to take control once more Kerry insisted that Paul moved out but he would find ways to wangle his way back in.  She said: 'I'd pack Paul's things in a bag and kick him out, only for him to come crawling back with his tail between his legs.

'Soon, he'd worm his way back in and the cycle of behaviour started again. Paul's jealous temper would get the better of him, I'd kick him out, only to relent and take him back when he promised things would be different.'

In August 2015 Kerry was making a cup of tea in the kitchen while Paul had been ironing a jumper before visiting the bank. Kerry said: 'I said: "Don't forget to get that money out for me when you go to the bank. That washing up needs doing too."

'Paul didn't say a word, but the next thing I knew, I felt a searing pain on my back.' Kerry cried out in pain turning to see Paul holding the iron in his hand which was still plugged in.

Amazingly Paul tried to protest his innocence telling Kerry he had never touched her.  

Kerry said:'I ran to the living room and peered in the mirror. I could see my raw, burning flesh though a hole in my dressing gown. 'It had cut right through it, burning through the fabric of my pyjama top too. My boyfriend had branded me.

'I was horrified as I realised Paul had deliberately thrust the iron at me. The pain was immense.'

Kerry says that Paul continued to claim that it was an accident and told her he 'just wanted to see what would happen.'

After he burn began to blister Kerry tried to visit the doctor but Paul begged her not to go worrying what doctors would ask. 

She said: 'For the next two days, Paul didn't let me out of his sight. But two days after he'd branded me, he went to work - and I seized my chance.' Kerry put a phone call into the police explaining what had happened.

She continued: 'I was terrified. I just didn't know what Paul would do next. Thankfully, officers caught up with Paul at his mum's house and arrested him.

'He refused to plead guilty, forcing the case to go to trial. I was gobsmacked when he tried to claim that I'd been upstairs ironing some jeans when I leaned over, knocked the ironing board and sent the ironing crashing down on my back.

'Thankfully the judge saw through his pathetic lies and convicted him of assault by beating.'

Paul was sentenced at Birmingham Magistrates Court in February to 20 weeks in prison and handed a £250 fine as well as a two-year restraining order.

Although Paul is no longer in Kerry's life she admits that he has left emotional as well as physical scars. 

She added: 'Now, I'm moving on without him. I find it hard to trust men and I'm single now. I'd rather be on my own with someone like Paul though.

'I'm trying to put what happened behind me but I'm scarred for life and every time I look in the mirror I've got a permanent reminder of Paul, and the day I was branded by my boyfriend.'

SOURCE






Cast out for criticising PC: the 21st-century Inquisition

The punishment of NYU's Michael Rectenwald should worry us all

There was a time when victimising dissident academics by branding them ‘mentally ill’ was confined to totalitarian societies like Stalinist Russia. In the 21st century, however, such demonisation is deemed acceptable by universities in the US and the UK, where an increasingly intolerant and illiberal campus culture now prevails.

Take the case of New York University liberal studies professor Michael Rectenwald. He has been forced on to paid leave for the rest of the current semester. His crime? He’s been accused of ‘incivility’ by some of his colleagues. The problem is that he transgressed the unwritten rule that forbids academics from criticising the illiberal practices that abound on campus today, from safe spaces to trigger warnings to the crusade against cultural appropriation and microaggressions.

Rectenwald knew his criticisms would incur a significant cost, which is why he initially used an anonymous Twitter account: Deplorable NYU Prof. After he acknowledged that he was indeed the author of this Twitterfeed which, among other things, made fun of a poster circulated to NYU students advising them to avoid wearing culturally inappropriate Halloween costumes, he quickly faced the wrath of the campus moral police.

A committee calling itself the Liberal Studies Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Working Group wrote a not very liberal letter to the NYU student paper condemning Rectenwald. Like a 21st-century Inquisition, they acted as both moral guardians and stern judges. ‘As long as he airs his views with so little appeal to evidence and civility, we must find him guilty of illogic and incivility in a community that predicates its work in great part on rational thought and the civil exchange of ideas’, they wrote. ‘Guilty’ – cast him out.

Perhaps Rectenwald wasn’t especially civil in his communications. Maybe his writings did contain logical leaps. But surely the whole point of a liberal university is to use debate and argumentation to expose such alleged weaknesses and clarify the issues at stake. The reaction to Rectenwald fundamentally diverged from this liberal tradition, through simply condemning him and discrediting his character. The department dean told Rectenwald that some of his colleagues were worried about his mental health and so he was instructed to take leave and get help.

However intemperate Rectenwald may have been in his social-media posts, it’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that the decision to force him out was motivated by a hostility to his views on diversity rather than a concern for his mental health. The letter published by the Liberal Studies Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Working Group accused Rectenwald of failing to use language that demonstrates respect for diversity. The missive concludes that ‘the cause of his guilt is the content and structure of his thinking’. This moral condemnation of guilty thoughts expresses an attitude more commonly associated with censors than with mental-health professionals. In an academic environment, badly structured thoughts are usually criticised and discussed; it is only in backward, medieval institutions devoted to upholding dogma that bad thoughts are held up as markers for ‘guilt’.

The ease with which Rectenwald’s detractors made the leap from criticism to condemnation and then to punishment is fuelled by the ascendant idea that the value of diversity trumps that of free expression. On Anglo-American campuses, diversity is increasingly treated as a fundamental value that is often threatened by freedom of speech. This is recognised by PEN America. In its recent report on campus censorship controversies, it acknowledged that, among younger members of faculty and students, the value of free speech is trumped by that of diversity, so that ‘at times… groups of students question the value of free speech itself’.

The free speech/diversity trade-off is based on the premise that free speech is a source of conflict, division and hatred. Consider an email sent in September 2014 by Berkeley chancellor Nicholas Dirks. It called on members of staff to exercise civility and ‘courteousness and respect’ in verbal communication. It also claimed that civility and free speech are ‘two sides of the same coin’. However, Dirks is evidently much more enthusiastic about one side of the coin – the value of civility – than about the other: freedom of speech. So his email warned that ‘when issues are inherently divisive, controversial and capable of arousing strong feelings, the commitment to free speech and expression can lead to division and divisiveness that undermines a community’s foundation’.

The implication of Dirks’ missive is that free speech is acceptable so long as it does not provoke controversy and divisiveness. The rhetoric of ‘I believe in free speech, but…’ is fast becoming the new normal in the academy. The letter of NYU’s Liberal Studies Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Working Group takes Dirks’ objection to incivility to its logical conclusion, demanding the punishment of the ‘uncivil’.

When academic leaders depict free speech as the cause of ‘division and divisiveness’, is it any wonder many students are now so estranged from the idea of freedom? The PEN report points out that students have ‘asked whether free speech is being wielded as a political weapon to ward off efforts to make the campus more respectful of the rights and perspectives of minorities’. It adds that some students ‘have gone so far as to justify censorship as the best solution to protect the vulnerable on campus’.

The notion that free speech and diversity are conflicting values overlooks the experience of history, which shows that the right to free expression has been the medium through which marginalised people have voiced their claim for a better life. History also tells us that calls for a ‘trade off’ of freedom in the name of some alleged social or political benefit are usually made by authoritarian-minded politicians. As the the liberal philosopher Ronald Dworkin argued, liberty should never be traded like this. ‘In a culture of liberty’, he said, the public ‘shares a sense, almost as a matter of secular religion, that certain freedoms are in principle exempt’ from the ‘ordinary process of balancing and regulation’. Dworkin rightly feared that ‘liberty is already lost’ as ‘soon as old freedoms are put at risk in cost-benefit politics’.

Of course, free speech is not without risks. The freedom to speak and the controversies it provokes have a habit of going off in unexpected directions. Yet the principle of free speech is based on the presumption that people can be trusted to take such risks. An academic community and a wider society that were confident about their capacity to engage with uncertainty would trust in their members’ ability to use their freedom. It would not treat freedom as a commodity to be traded off against some illusory benefit.

SOURCE






Nazism on university campuses continues to spread

The first violent BDS protest of the fall semester has now occurred, as Midwestern colleges and universities begin offering direct support to campus activists, including the BLM and BDS movements, through training programs. The growing trend to regard Palestinians as ‘people of color’ continues to superimpose BDS on racial and other protest movements, even as violence by BDS supporters, and their ‘intersectional’ allies, undermines their broader appeal.

Analysis

The most notable BDS development in October was a violent incident at University College London. A talk by a former Israeli soldier was attacked by a mob of around 100 BDS supporters who attempted to enter the room through doors and windows while shouting “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free.” Pro-Israel students and other attendees were trapped in the room until police arrived, who then escorted them from the hall to another venue where the talk was held. BDS protestors also assaulted several Jewish students.

British Jewish leaders strongly condemned the attack and called on the university to take disciplinary measures against the protestors. The university described the events as “non-violent” but stated it would begin an inquiry and “take appropriate disciplinary action where there is clear evidence that students may have breached our disciplinary regulations.”

The incident is similar to others where BDS supporters attempted to shut down talks by Israeli speakers at University College London, the University of Texas, at the University of Minnesota, and several University of California campuses. The unwillingness of university administrations to provide adequate protection for pro-Israel speakers is an ongoing problem, as is reluctance to punish BDS supporters engaged in violence and disruption.

At the University of California at Berkeley, however, a ‘National Day of Action’ by professional BDS supporters was countered by a peaceful and well-organized demonstration by several pro-Israel organizations. The unusual show of force and unity by Israel supporters gives some credence to recent reports that suggest that campus antisemitism from the BDS movement has begun to motivate more students to fight back.

This trend comes as universities are expanding direct support for ‘social justice’ movements by offering training in political activism, apparently including BDS organizations. At Northwestern University, for example, the ‘Leadership and Social Engagement Office’ is offering a day of “Social Justice Advocacy Training” and promotional materials include the logo of the local BDS organization, NU Divest. Other Chicago-area universities are offering similar training.

The point of these programs appears to be to direct students to lobby states to maintain support for universities while simultaneously appearing to support student activism. The university imprimatur received by groups like BLM and BDS advocates, and their enhanced ‘intersectional’ cooperation, is highly destructive. It is unclear whether cooperation will mainstream or marginalize these causes in broader society.

Unwitting mainstreaming was also seen in October as several BDS events were held under the banners of university branches. Most notable of these was a daylong BDS session held at Columbia Law School. Another example is the National SJP conference, to be held at the George Mason University in Virginia in November. This event has prompted opposition from state lawmakers.

BDS controversies continued at Syracuse University after the preemptive cancellation of an Israeli film. In the latest case faculty supporting BDS voiced opposition to a long-scheduled conference then underway at the university that brought together scholars, including Israelis and Palestinians, who study ‘intractable conflicts.’ The BDS supporters stated that the presence of Israelis violated the guidelines of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, in effect claiming that these were somehow binding on the university.

The incident illustrated the extent to which ‘anti-normalization’ has become accepted among US faculty members. More broadly, the incident illustrated the extent to which pedagogy, academic inquiry, and free speech are regarded as weapons in a campus culture that increasingly demands students be protected from ideas, and where accusations of ‘racism’ are leveled at those who call out racism, such as that of the BDS movement. The emerging ‘intersectional’ trend to characterize Palestinians as ‘people of color’ whose racism is simultaneously impossible and beyond criticism provides additional protection for the BDS movement.

Elsewhere in academia, a BDS resolution was passed at Portland State University. The resolution accused Israel of being an “apartheid state” but was most notable for stating that the “Israeli occupation of Palestinian land has been entrenched since 1948,” meaning simply that the entire existence of Israel is illegitimate. In a statement earlier this year when the resolution was originally introduced, the university president called it “divisive and ill-informed.”

Abuse of Jewish holidays by BDS supporters was also in evidence during October. At the University of Michigan on the eve of Rosh Hashana an “apartheid wall” and mock “checkpoints” were erected by BDS supporters. An official of the New York Board of Rabbis also condemned High Holiday materials created by a leading BDS group, ‘Jewish Voice for Peace,’ which included ‘readings’ celebrating BDS and the Israeli ‘occupation.’ A BDS group in Chicago also organized demonstrations during the holidays in order to send a message to the Jewish community.

BDS support for terrorism was also in evidence in October as the University of California at Berkeley chapter of Students for Justice (SJP) in Palestine launched a web-based fundraising effort for Ali Jiddah, who served a 17 year prison sentence for planting explosives that injured four Israelis. Jiddah (whose father originated in Chad) is described by SJP as “Afro-Palestinian,” suggesting their interest also includes his ‘intersectional’ identity. More broadly this case and longstanding SJP support for convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh, who is appealing her conviction in Federal court for lying on US immigration forms, demonstrate SJP endorsement of Palestinian violence against Israelis.

More positively, an umbrella group representing Canadian universities has adopted a policy opposing discrimination based on place of origin. Canadian Jewish leaders expect that the policy will help opposition to BDS resolutions by student governments.

There were several important BDS developments in the political sphere. The most important were revelations from hacked emails that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary R. Clinton was warned by her advisors not to not to “have Israel at public events” but to restrict such discussions to donor meetings. At the same time, other emails reveal Clinton consulted with advisors regarding ways to oppose BDS. Clinton’s positions reflect both the growing strength of anti-Israel forces within the ranks of Democratic Party supporters and her own often-stated personal opposition to BDS.

The Pennsylvania Senate has passed legislation prohibiting the state from doing business with firms engaged in discrimination “based on race, color, religion, gender or national affiliation or origin of the targeted person or entity.” The bill, which was strenuously opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union, is expected to be signed by the Pennsylvania governor.

The continued failure of BDS at the state level appears to be one of the factors prompting the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, the main North American BDS umbrella group, to rebrand itself as the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights. Foregrounding ‘Palestinian rights’ puts a positive spin of “freedom, justice and equality” on their anti-Israel activities and helps makes the movement more superficially appealing to ‘intersectional’ allies on the far left.

At the same time, however, reports indicate that the broader BDS movement is planning renewed campaigns directed at municipalities and liberal churches. ‘Intersectional’ claims will give the BDS movement license to hijack local causes and divestment initiatives. Given the dramatic record of BDS failures at the state and national levels, it is unclear whether these moves are acts of growing, if perhaps deluded, confidence, or desperation.

SOURCE






Australia's fall from Lucky Country to Cruel Country (?)

Below is a sob story from a Leftist writer in a Leftist newspaper.  So, as usual, the important information is what she leaves out.  These men were NOT refugees.  They had refuge as soon as they arrived in Pakistan. They are illegal immigrants determined to force themselves on us to grab the economic benefits that Australians have created for themselves.  They could return to Pakistan at any time but they are fed and housed for nothing so why should they do that?


They were young men – call them Liam and Ben – best mates, far from home, full of chutzpah and crazy self-belief. They'd been through a lot together and landed on this idyllic-looking tropical island. One day they were swimming near a waterfall when, stupidly, Liam drowned. He was a poor swimmer, got stuck under a log, drowned.

This terrible accident was just the start. Liam, a bit older than the others, had a wife and child at home. His grieving friends wanted to preserve his body against the tropical heat, pay their respects and fly him home to his family, but they had no money. The ubiquitous uniformed black shirts, agents of the foreign power that controlled the island, were impatient with this prayer and repatriation nonsense and insisted they bury the body and be done. But the young men were determined. Selling their few possessions – phones, watches, cigarettes – they raised enough for body-preserving chemicals, then persuaded their own government to fly Liam home.

It sounds like a story of middle-class white kids caught in some heartless tin-pot dictatorship. In fact the waterfall is on Manus Island. The young men's real names are Kamil and Zubair. Pashto-speaking Muslims driven out by the Taliban, they became best friends despite being on opposite sides of the Sunni-Shiite divide.

Both were "processed" – in that manufacturing terminology we use to dehumanise – and found to be genuine refugees, fleeing for their lives. Yet our very own black shirts, the much-hated Australian Border Force, stood and watched their grief, refusing help or even sympathy. The government that finally flew the body home was the one the boys had implicitly rejected: Pakistan.

Of course, there's worse brutality, especially in these camps. There's rape, bullying, humiliation, emotional, physical abuse and, most egregious of all, the deliberate erasure of hope. 

Any remaining doubt about whether this is actually deliberate – whether we're just somehow unable to protect people from abuse, or resettle them without years of limbo – was removed, along with any remaining hope, by Malcolm Turnbull's latest "they will never set foot in this country" atrocity. Never? We take in war criminals but ban forever those who have done nothing but need our help.

Zubair, now 23, is a former student of business and IT. Unthinkingly, I ask what he's been doing. "Nothing," he says. What's the point? He has no future. His English is good and his quiet despair makes me want to weep. But what I really cannot get past is how comfortable Australia has become with the routine casualisation of cruelty.

This is not our self-image. No way. We consider ourselves the good guys. Fair, open, warm, much like the Americans after WWII. But as Michael Leunig notes, "we are a people who are quite able to declare things about ourselves which are not true ... This is our strength, and has made our nation very stupid, dysfunctional and unhappy – but so what? We're the greatest people in the world."

The Australian Border Force's Facebook page depicts them as all-round decent fellows, busting drug rings and rescuing sea turtles caught in ghost nets. To their human bycatch, however, trapped in the Australian government's harsh exemplary punishment policies, they offer only further cruelty.

For this is meant as punishment. It's couched – dammit, it's SOLD – as a deterrent, like hanging the carcasses of sheep-mauling dingoes on the fence for the others to see.

But there's a critical error here, quite apart from the misconceived morality: a huge error in logic. For it's not wrongdoers we're punishing, as a deterrent to others. We're punishing their innocent victims. We're decorating the fence not with dingoes, but with brutalised lambs. Talk about victim blaming.

So it's wrong in logic. It's morally wrong, trashing people's lives for political effect. It's wrong in law – directly contravening our UN obligations to care for people who seek our help, process them expeditiously and resettle any found to be genuine refugees. (That is, three-quarters of the 800-odd remaining on Manus and 400-odd on Nauru). It's also vastly expensive  – $10 billion so far.

But what of the psychology? What does it mean for us, to us, to perpetrate such cruelty?

Zubair's back-story is pretty standard. He was a middle-class kid of wealthy business owners in the pretty Kurram Valley, near Pakistan's troubled border with Afghanistan. Zubair was studying in Peshawar. Then the Taliban came. Targeting the family for extortion and demanded $30,000. The family didn't have it. Zubair was badly beaten and the family forced to flee, leaving everything. 

They moved from city to city but the Taliban kept finding them and demanding Zubair, the eldest son, as a recruit. Zubair escaped on foot through jungles and countries: his family, including seven sisters and four brothers, one of whom has cancer, are still on the move, still prey. Zubair speaks to them occasionally, but doesn't know when or if he'll see them again.

This story is verified; there is no threat. They're not queue-jumpers. There is no queue for people fleeing death. In Australia they'd be assiduous nation-builders. Yet Turnbull, channelling Trump, insists that our "generous humanitarian program" depends on walling the continent with what amounts to a reinvigorated White Australia Policy.

I'm reminded of an elderly white couple I met in Jo'burg. Big supporters of black rule but understandably fearful of violence, they'd bought into a walled community, but found themselves increasingly terrified. The safer, the scareder. Finally they thought bugger it and bought a house in the street "like everyone else". Now they don't even lock their doors.

Protectionism makes us fearful, fear makes us cruel, cruelty rebounds. You can see on Malcolm's face what his Hanson-pleasing is costing him. He looks more like Trump every day. (I swear his nose is growing). More chilling still is that he's doing it, in the end, for us.

In Australia's fall from Lucky Country to Cruel Country, 10 billion will count as nothing. What this craven, mean-spirited, power-seeking fear-based fortress-Australia cruelty will cost us, if we let it, is our souls.

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, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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







4 November, 2016

The multicultural triumphs continue in Britain



A taxi driver has been jailed after he dragged a young female passenger into his cab and tried to make her perform a sex act on him.

Zaharul Hoque, 47, grabbed the woman and forced her back into the taxi after taking her home from a night out in Atherstone, Warwickshire, last April.

Giving evidence, the victim said she feared she would be raped and 'end up in a ditch' when he tried to undo his belt in the vehicle.

He also made lewd suggestions which were captured in a mobile phone audio recording made by the victim.

After the assault the driver repeatedly phoned the victim, trying to persuade her to not 'complain' and 'let him off this time'.

Hoque, from Birmingham, was sentenced to three years in prison after being convicted of sexual assault at Warwick Crown Court.

Sentencing, Judge Sylvia de Bertodano said young women who take taxis alone are in a 'vulnerable position' and that he 'took advantage of her being on her own'.

The court heard how Hoque picked up the woman and her group of friends after a night out.

The victim asked to be dropped off early after Hoque stroked her leg and said she would walk the rest of the way home.

Some 10 minutes later Hoque pulled up beside her and apologied, offering to take her home. The victim initially refused but eventually agreed after Hoque persisted.

The jury heard how Hoque asked for a kiss when he dropped her off near her home.

Giving evidence, the young woman said: 'I went to get my keys out, and I turned round, and he'd come from the back of the taxi. He was just there out of nowhere.

'He tried to give me a kiss and grabbed me by the head. He was just generally touching me. His hands were all over me.

'Next thing, he's just pushed me towards the taxi door, and the next thing I knew he's opened the door and I was inside and he was doing something with the doors.

'I was scared, I didn't know whether he was going to rape me. He started trying to undo his belt, and I was thinking I don't know if I'm going to end up in a ditch.'

Sobbing as she continued with her evidence, she added: 'I didn't know whether I was going to get out of there.'

The court heard how the woman struggled and eventually escaped from the car. She ran home where she phoned Atherstone Taxis to complain. 

The jury heard she then had the first of three calls from Hoque, pleading: 'I do apologise. Do me a favour, don't complain me. I do apologise, I do apologise. Let me off this time.'

There were two further calls and prosecutor Walter Bealby told the jury 'they amount, in effect, to an admission by the defendant that he acted inappropriately.'

Hoque denied sexual assault but was found guilty following a trial. He was handed the prison sentence and ordered to register as a sex offender for life. 

Judge Sylvia de Bertodano told Hoque: 'Young women who get into taxis on their own are in a vulnerable position and have to feel they can trust the taxi driver.

'If taxi drivers behave to female customers in this way, they will be very badly affected. In her impact statement she said she feels depressed and gets flashbacks.

'It is a serious ordeal going through it again in court. She is a very courageous young woman.

'I have read references which say you are a hard-working and respectable individual, but she saw a completely different side of you.'

SOURCE





Hundreds of convicted terrorists are back on UK streets after serving sentences and do not have to change their extremist views

The vast majority of terrorists convicted in Britain since 9/11 have already been released from prison and are back on the streets, it was revealed today.

Out of a total of 583 jailed in the UK for terror offences since 2001 around 418 have been released again, including three who were given life sentences.

This group, 164 of whom walked free since 2014, included several people who helped the suicide bombers who failed to blow themselves up in London three weeks after 7/7.

New research by Sky News found that 104 left prison after serving between a year and four years, while 24 were released after more than four years.

Some are understood to have been released without agreeing to take part in anti-radicalisation classes while behind bars.

Omar Khyam, who was jailed for a plot to blow up a shopping centre and nightclub in Kent with homemade bombs, is among the two thirds of extremist prisoners who refused to change their views.

Former jihadi Hanif Qadir who now runs a counter-extremism outreach said deradicalisation in jails is 'failing miserably'.

He said: 'There are experts out there that are equipped and able to tackle the problem but they are not the ones that are doing it in prison.

'At the moment the prison imams, God bless them, they're not adequate and they're not experienced enough to tackle the problem of radicalisation within prisons.'

Lord Blunkett, who was Labour's Home Secretary when many were jailed, told Sky News: 'It's perfectly reasonable to say that once someone's served their sentence, if it isn't possible to reassess them, we should continue to monitor them outside prison.

'So, if there's any indication at all that they are reconnecting with organised terrorist groups, the intervention can take place very quickly rather than allowing them to commit another act and then having to try to pick them up again.'

At least four criminals jailed for their part in the 21/7 plot have been freed, with some moved to hostels or council properties.

Adel Yahya, who admitted collecting information useful to terrorists and jailed for six years and nine months in November 2007. He is believed to have been freed by 2010.

Yeshi Girma knew of husband Hussain Osman's plan to blow up a Tube train but did nothing. She was secretly freed in 2013.

Ismail Abdurahman was released from prison after just three years behind bars for helping the July 21 bombers in 2005.

He was moved to a bail hostel after winning an appeal against a bid to send him to Somalia. This year the British Government was ordered him more than £13,000 because his human rights were 'violated' during police interviews over a plot to attack London.

Zahoor Iqbal, 35, Mohammed Irfan, 36 and Hamid Elasmar, 49 were freed and living in Birmingham despite being linked to a plot to slaughter a serviceman 'like a pig'.

It came as the head of MI5 has warned that the police and security services will not be able to stop all terrorist attacks on Britain despite their successes in recent years.

Andrew Parker, director general of the domestic intelligence agency, revealed yesterday that 12 terrorist plots in the UK had been foiled since 2013. However, he warned that Islamic State posed the biggest current threat to national security and it would last a generation.

'Together with MI6, GCHQ and the police, MI5 has disrupted 12 plots in the UK since June 2013,' said Mr Parker.

'ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) is an enduring threat, here to stay, and is at least a generational challenge. MI5 and the intelligence agencies have good defences because of the investment made in our capabilities. We will find and stop most attempts to attack us, but not all.'

In a keynote speech at the Royal Society he said MI5's technological expertise 'makes it less likely people will be killed by terrorism or our secrets will be stolen'.

His speech came just hours after Britain's counter-terrorism police chief warned of the threat of a Paris-style gun rampage in Britain as he said half of the terror plots foiled involved suspects trying to get guns.

Mark Rowley said five plots uncovered in the past two years involved fanatics trying to amass machine guns and others firearms to launch an attack on our streets.

Assault weapons like the ones used in the Paris massacre last November are being smuggled into Britain by criminal gangs from the Balkans and Eastern Europe and could be sold on to terrorists, he said.

SOURCE





Who We Are As a People—The Syrian Refugee Question

Nothing has provoked the ire of America’s bipartisan political class as much as Donald Trump’s recent proposal that the U.S. should suspend the acceptance of refugees from Syria and other terrorist-supporting nations until we find a way of perfecting the screening process to ensure that we are not admitting terrorists or terror sympathizers. On its face this proposal was not unreasonable. Most of these refugees do not have adequate documentation, intelligence agencies do not have sufficient information to determine whether or not they have terrorist connections or intend to engage in terrorism, and the heads of our security agencies have warned that active terrorists will inevitably slip through security screening cracks. Nor is it as if there was no reasonable alternative. Wouldn’t it have been better, as Trump and others have suggested, to address the refugee crisis by setting up security zones in Syria or other Middle Eastern countries where refugees could find safety and where Muslim nations might feel obligated to help finance their care? In addition to making sense from a national security perspective, this would also have been a more humane solution, since it would not have uprooted the refugees from their homelands and injected them into an alien way of life.

Why are our political leaders, despite these facts, willing to expose the nation to such potential danger?—a danger that is surely greater than we now imagine. One only has to observe the results of the refugee crisis in Europe to see what is in store for the American homeland. Yet the Obama administration, following Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government in Germany, is adamant that the number of Syrian refugees—and Muslim refugees generally—must increase substantially. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who recently named Merkel as her favorite world leader, has frequently indicated that acceptance of refugees is an important reaffirmation of America’s commitment to diversity. It is a reaffirmation of “who we are as Americans,” she has said, as if the American character is defined by its unlimited openness to diversity. To show the bipartisan nature of this commitment, Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has used the same phrase to explain his approval of the refugee program. In both cases, the clear implication is that America’s commitment to diversity outweighs considerations of national security. Indeed, in what can only be called a self-willed delusion, proponents of the refugee program seem to believe that their commitment to diversity makes us stronger and more secure as a nation, and that any opposition to the program is racist, xenophobic, and most particularly Islamophobic.

Consider what this means. Germans have been warned that it is their duty to accommodate themselves to newly arrived refugees and not to place politically incorrect demands upon them—that is, not to demand that the refugees adapt to German ways. Some have advised German women in particular that if they don’t wish to be harassed by male refugees, they should cover their heads and be accompanied outside of the home by a male. Will this be a part of America’s politically correct future?

Merkel, like Obama, bases her immigration policy on a globalist view of the world. Secretary of State John Kerry propounded this view in a recent commencement address, warning Americans that we must prepare ourselves for a “borderless world.” But a world without borders is a world without citizens, and a world without citizens is a world without the rights and privileges that attach exclusively to citizenship. Rights and liberties exist only in separate and independent nations; they are the exclusive preserve of the nation-state. Constitutional government only succeeds in the nation-state, where the just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed. By contrast, to see the globalist principle in practice, look at the European Union. The EU is not a constitutional government; it is an administrative state ruled by unelected bureaucrats. It attempts to do away with both borders and citizens, and it replaces rights and liberty with welfare and regulation as the objects of its administrative rule. Constitutional government—to say nothing of liberal democracy—will not be a part of the politically correct, borderless world into which so many of our political leaders wish to usher us.

How did we reach such an impasse? The answer is simple, but no less astounding for its simplicity. It has been frequently observed by competent thinkers that Americans have abandoned the morality engendered by what the Declaration of Independence called the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” The Declaration confidently proclaimed as its first principle the “self-evident” truth that “all men are created equal” and “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” among them “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” As part of a created (and therefore intelligible) universe, rights cannot be something private or subjective; they are part of an objective order. The idea that every right has a corresponding duty or obligation was essential to the social compact understanding of the American founding. Thus whatever was destructive of the public good or public happiness, however much it might have contributed to an individual’s private pleasures or imagined pleasures, was not a part of the “pursuit of happiness” and could be proscribed by society. Liberty was understood to be rational liberty, and the pursuit of happiness was understood to be the rational pursuit of happiness—that is to say, not only a natural right but a moral obligation as well.

Over the past century and more, this morality grounded in the American founding has been successfully eroded by Progressivism. This erosion is manifested today in the morality of value-free relativism. According to this new morality, all value judgments are equal. Reason cannot prove that one value is superior to or more beneficial than another, because values are not capable of rational analysis; they are merely idiosyncratic preferences. In this value-free universe, the only value that is “objectively” of higher rank is tolerance. Equal toleration of all values—what is called today a commitment to diversity—is the only “reasonable” position. And note that it is always called a commitment to diversity. It is a commitment because it cannot be rational in any strict sense—it exists in a value-free world from which reason has been expelled. The only support it can garner under such circumstances is the simple fact that it is preferred.

With respect to the commitment to diversity, the tolerance of those who are willing to tolerate you does not earn you much credit—it doesn’t require much of a commitment or sacrifice. If, however, you are willing to tolerate those who are pledged to kill you and destroy your way of life, tolerance represents a genuine commitment. Only such a deadly commitment confirms that tolerance is the highest value in a universe of otherwise equal values. Only such a deadly commitment signals a nation’s single-minded devotion to tolerance as the highest value by its willingness to sacrifice its sovereignty as proof of its commitment.

The common-sense citizen is forgiven for thinking this train of thought insane. But what other explanation could there be for the insistence of so many of our political leaders on risking the nation’s security—in light of what we see in Europe, one might even say their willingness to commit national suicide—by admitting refugees without regard to their hostility to our way of life and their wish to destroy us as a nation?

Note that these leaders show no such enthusiasm for admitting Christian refugees from Middle Eastern violence, or even Yazidis, who have suffered horribly from the ravages of Islamic terror. These refugees, of course, represent no danger to America. Only by admitting those who do represent a danger can we display to the world “who we are as a people”—a people willing to sacrifice ourselves to vouchsafe our commitment to tolerance.

A rational concern for our liberties as well as for national security weighs in against such reckless policies. Security experts warn that we don’t have enough homeland security agents to monitor suspected terrorists who are already in our country. If we increase the number of refugees from terrorist-supporting nations, greater security can only be provided by closer cooperation between the various security agencies and closer monitoring of the private lives of all Americans. The consequent loss of liberty will be extensive and will impact all areas of American life. This, we are told, will become the “new reality” or the “new normal,” and Americans will have to develop a “new mind-set” to deal with it. Europeans are well on their way to accepting terrorism as a daily part of their lives—surely Americans, we are told, can adapt as well. But Europeans are used to sacrificing liberties to the administrative state represented by the EU.

Will Americans acquiesce so easily?

The administrative state has not yet extinguished America’s love of liberty, although it surely has made significant inroads over the years as Americans have become inured to being bullied by bureaucrats of all stripes. The constant monitoring of citizens in the name of detecting terrorism will, if allowed, turn the nation into a security state where liberties will be easily and casually sacrificed to the constant threat of terrorism. Sacrificing liberty will be the price Americans pay to accommodate refugees—in other words, it is the sacrifice we must make on the altar of political correctness.

Remarkably, many politicians and pundits have argued that the First Amendment’s guarantee of free exercise of religion prohibits Congress and the president from banning the emigration of people to the U.S. based on religion. Thus they characterized the proposal to suspend the entry of Syrian refugees and others from terrorist-supporting nations as a violation of the Constitution. But we must surely wonder how those who are not American citizens or legal resident aliens—indeed, even those who have never been present in the country—can assert rights under the Constitution. By the terms of the Constitution, free exercise of religion is one of the privileges and immunities attached to citizenship; it can hardly be said to be possessed by all those who seek refuge in, or wish to emigrate to, the United States. As a sovereign nation, it is beyond dispute that the U.S. has plenary power to determine the conditions for immigration. Except in a borderless world, it can hardly be claimed that free exercise of religion is a right possessed by all persons inhabiting the globe or even those who are potentially asylum seekers.

One condition for claiming refugee status in the Refugee Act of 1980 is religious persecution. This necessarily means that any applicant for religious asylum would have to submit to questioning about his religious beliefs and (presumably) the sincerity of those beliefs. Also, it is not beyond reason that a sovereign nation would be allowed to inquire whether the religious beliefs of an asylum seeker are compatible with the American constitutional order. Should asylum be extended to the adherents of religions that do not recognize the free exercise rights of other religions? Should those religions whose adherents refuse to pledge or give evidence that they would support free exercise be ineligible for asylum? Religion—and inquiry into religious belief—has always been part of the asylum law, and there is nothing in the Constitution that bars such inquiry on national security grounds. Indeed, a quick glance at Article I of the Constitution reveals that Congress has plenary power to “establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization.” This has always been understood—by a necessary rule of inference—to mean that Congress also has plenary power to regulate immigration. Congress has wide latitude to choose the “necessary and proper” means to accomplish this end as long as it doesn’t violate some specific prohibition of the Constitution.

To sum up, only in the perfervid imaginations of the politically correct—those who reject the idea of borders—could the Syrian refugee controversy be confused with a constitutional controversy.

SOURCE






Anti-Semitism was required, Anti-Islamism is verboten

Reminiscent of the Third Reich, Jew hatred and agitating against Jews are in full bloom in Germany. And it is not guilt over Nazism that has Germany protecting parasitic Muslim refugees, most of whom are anti-Semitic.

In their recent documentary, Germans and Jews, filmmakers Tal Recanati and Junina Quint, portray Germany as having reached a nuanced reconciliation with its Nazi past by breaking the silence about it and facing it head-on.  Yet, several recent surveys of German attitudes toward Jews and the Jewish homeland reveal the persistence of strong, anti-Semitic attitudes that belie the filmmakers' conclusions.

Indeed, Germany may actually be stoking anti-Semitism with its official policy of acceptance and open-mindedness toward Muslim immigrants, even to the point of allowing them expression of hatred toward Jews.  One of Germany's major trade partners is Iran, hostile to Israel since the first Gulf War, and Germany continues to blame Israeli settlements for Middle East unrest.  Thus, Germany's policy of acceptance and tolerance toward Muslims may actually mask an underlying anti-Semitism that stubbornly remains despite the passage of time.

The Surveys and Anti-Semitism Revealed

In 2011, a survey by the Freidrich Ebert Foundation, Intolerance, Prejudice and Discrimination, found that 49% of German respondents agreed with the statement that Jews were trying to take advantage of their people's suffering during the Holocaust. Another 20% of Germans agreed that Jews have too much influence in their country, 30% agreed, "Jews don't care about anything or anyone but their own kind."

A 2015 study by the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence from the University of Bielefeld found that 49% of Germans don't want to hear anything about the Holocaust, 55% are angry that Germans are still accused of crimes against Jews, 28% responded that they can understand why people don't like Jews considering Israel's policies, and 27% say that Israeli policy toward Arab-Palestinians is not different from what the Nazis did to the Jews during the Third Reich.

In 2012, an Anti-Defamation League survey of Attitudes Toward Jews in 10 European Countries discovered the following about German respondents:  24% felt that Jews have too much power in international financial markets, 43% agreed that Jews talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust, 14% believe that Jews are responsible for the death of Christ, and 77% believed the government was doing enough to ensure the safety and security of its Jewish citizens.

The deep resentment and demonization of Jews revealed in the surveys are not indicative of a guilt-wracked, tortured people anxious to rise above the atrocities of the Nazi generation.  Clearly, large percentages of Germans still harbor harsh, anti-Jewish sentiments.

Muslim-Only Multi-culturalism

By contrast, Germans seem to apply the values of multiculturalism, diversity and tolerance to Muslims, bypassing Jews entirely.  Germany today houses Europe's largest Muslim population, with the influx of Muslim refugees comprising almost 6% of the total population.  It leads the way as Europe becomes an increasingly multicultural and Islamic continent.  Yet, far from experiencing great anguish about dramatic increases in anti-Semitism that rose during the Holocaust, Germany appears indifferent toward the impact of Muslim interlopers on its Jewish population.

Paradoxically, Germany has accepted this wave of Muslim "refugees," many of whom vacation in their war-torn homelands, while, the Third Reich persecuted Germany's Jewish citizens, who, by and large, were productive members of society contributing substantially to the economy and culture of the state.  While Jews fled to avoid death camps and had few places to go during Nazi persecution, Muslims are welcomed in Europe.  Although more than 33 Muslim countries exist that could choose to accommodate Muslim refugees, five of the wealthiest - Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain - are unwilling to accept a single refugee.

During the Weimar Republic (1918-1933) which preceded the Third Reich, Jews, who were barred from certain professions, were disproportionately represented in law, medicine, journalism and retailing.  They were active in creative pursuits, business, diplomacy and government.  A Jew even drafted the Weimar Republic Constitution.  At the time, five of the nine German recipients of the Nobel Prize were Jewish scientists.  For the first time, German universities fully opened their faculties to Jewish scholars, including physicist Albert Einstein.

Although portrayed as "the enemy within," a higher percentage of German Jews fought in World War I than any other ethnic group in Germany.  Over 12,000 gave their lives for their country.

Despite their sacrifice in that war, Jews were targeted beginning in the 1920s with wide circulation of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a forgery that claimed that Jews conspired to take over the world.

Given the contributions of a predominantly upright Jewish citizenry and their benign, contributory, integral presence in Germany, it is remarkable to consider what followed, even more so as we view today's efforts to accommodate Muslim "refugees" who decline to work and integrate into German society and insist on shariah law supremacy in lieu of German constitutional law.  Further, Muslims in German have been linked to 69,000 crimes in the country in the first quarter of 2016!

Whether actively or passively, most Germans went along with the marginalization and demonization of Jews and the concomitant restrictive laws, ghettoization and, ultimately, the Final Solution.  Desperate Jews facing deportation to Nazi death camps were not widely welcomed as refugees by other countries.  Official German policy singled out Jews for ethnic cleansing to purify the Aryan race and made harboring and assisting Jews a crime punishable by death.

By comparison, today's Muslims in Germany enjoy protections from persecution.  Social media is reviewed for offensive statements against Muslims.  Germans who openly object to the settlement of Muslim "refugees" are charged with incitement and hate speech, forced to pay fines and/or endure probation or suspended sentences.  German Chancellor Angela Merkel has gone so far as to chastise her fellow countrymen about those "with hate in their hearts"... "who seek to marginalize others."  It is indeed striking to comprehend the gaping dissimilarities between official German policy toward its productive Jewish population during the Third Reich with the protections, generous entitlements and privileges afforded to today's mostly parasitic Muslim refugee populations that refuse to become part of German society and are massively over-represented in every category of crime.

The official narrative, vastly different from the past party line about the Jews, is that the influx of Muslim refugees is having a positive, multi-cultural influence on Germany, that Islam is truly a religion of peace not represented by ISIS, and that random acts of terrorism have nothing to do with Islam.  Evidence for this distorted, benign view is non-existent and stands in sharp contrast to the Third Reich view of evil Jews as "subhuman" creatures infiltrating Aryan society, inhuman and unworthy of life itself.  

This apocryphal perspective is further buttressed by efforts by German authorities and the media to conceal the dramatic rise in rapes, assaults and murders perpetrated by Muslim migrants.  Following the Cologne sexual attacks on New Year's Eve during which 1,200 women were assaulted by groups of men described as Arab or North African, the North-Rhine Westphalia government ordered a cover-up to include the elimination of the word "rape" from police reports.  Of the 2,000 men involved, the authorities identified only 120 and they were given suspended sentences of a year or less.

The German media takes great pains to obscure the religion, nationalities and motives of Muslim assailants and often refrains from reporting incidents altogether to avoid charges of racism or xenophobia. In 2013, in an extreme case of Germany's so-called open-mindedness, the prestigious Ludwig-Borne literary prize was given to a philosopher who sympathized with Islamic terrorist organizations and equated the 9/11 attacks with the Holocaust, the Allied bombings of Nazi Germany and the atomic bombing of Japan. 

Anti-Semitism Revived

Reminiscent of the Third Reich era, displays of Jewish hatred and agitating against Jews are in full bloom in today's Germany. Radical Islamic protestors are permitted to yell, "Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas," "Jewish s-t" and "Jew, Jew, cowardly swine, come out and fight on your own."  Yet those who call for the preservation of German culture, protest the massive influx of Muslim "refugees," religious fanaticism and Islamic separatism and radicalism are shut down, depicted as Nazis, prosecuted for hate speech, fined and even jailed.   Appallingly, it has been alleged that the German government is busing in counter-protest groups to create opposition to anti-immigrant rallies.

Lutz Bachmann, the founder of PEGIDA, the organization that opposes the Merkel migration policy that has brought more than 1 million "refugees" to Germany last year, was convicted of inciting racial hatred which constituted an "attack on the dignity" of refugees and fined close to $11,000.  Quite a turnabout from a country that forced Jews out of their homes into ghettos, then death camps, encouraged its populace to turn them in and fomented Kristallnacht against Jewish businesses.  

This past summer, the creators of a Facebook forum for AFB, an anti-refugee movement, were found guilty of hate speech for conducting online discussions about the migrant issue.  A teenage girl who posted a video, in which she expressed her fears for her safety, had her FB page taken down.

It defies belief that a Germany that once prized its Aryan identity to the point of committing genocide has gone so far as to encourage its citizens to submit to Islam and shariah.  A current television ad asks Germans to "Enjoy difference, start tolerance" by wearing the "beautiful hijab."  Instead of requiring Muslims in Germany to adhere to cultural and social norms, parents have been warned not to let their daughters wear revealing clothing to avoid "misunderstandings" by Muslims who are thought unable to control themselves at the sight of a short skirt or bikini and will harass the girls.  Islamic education has even been introduced into German schools.  Seven out of Germany's sixteen federal states now offer some form of Islamic religious education.

The pundits who claim "Holocaust guilt" as the driving force behind the present day pandering to Muslims and their demands are off track.  It is implausible to reconcile today's Muslim "refugee" policies with stubbornly intransigent anti-Jewish sentiments and rationalize it as a reaction to Third Reich atrocities.

The popularity in Germany of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS), belies claims of profound Holocaust guilt.  The BDS movement singles out Israel for criticism while ignoring the human rights violations of true tyrannical states.  It uses false analogies of apartheid and Nazi Germany against Israel and attempts to damage Israel economically and put a stop to academic and cultural exchanges.  It seeks to boycott Israel on all levels and to delegitimatize and eliminate Israel as a Jewish state.  In July, NGO Monitor discovered that the German government had been donating millions of euros to groups promoting BDS.   This, at the same time they were providing generous entitlements to Muslim refugees, despite the fact that they include ISIS supporters and that 13% of the refugees believe that suicide bombings are justified, according to a Pew Research poll.

Today, Germany is the top European trading partner of Iran, with sizable business interests in the Islamic terrorist state.  Yet German officials consistently condemn the only democracy in the Middle East, while displaying reticence to criticize Muslim Palestinian murderers of Israeli Jews.

In 2011, the German Foreign Ministry supported a UN Security Council resolution to condemn Israeli settlement construction as "illegal."  Its top diplomat, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle went so far as to meet with then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran.

The fixation on blaming construction projects in Israeli communities for the lack of Middle East peace and blaming Israel, not Palestinian terrorists, while, at the same time, pursuing a lucrative relationship with the Islamic terrorist state of Iran, contradicts the existence of any heartfelt remorse for anti-Semitism, past or present.  When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Chancellor Merkel to express his disappointment about Germany's position on the U.N. resolution, the Muslim "refugee" champion, who favored forcing Israeli Jews alone to freeze settlement construction, rebuked Netanyahu for "failing to advance peace" by telling him, "How dare you.  You are the one who is disappointing us.  You haven't made a single step to advance peace."

The hubris of this perverted policy in light of the yet un-atoned transgressions of the Holocaust and extant anti-Semitism is stunning.  European leaders like Merkel remain mum about continuing anti-Semitism and persist in vilifying the Jewish State, a country on the front lines of the war against Islamic terrorism.  At the same time, they pursue policies of Muslim appeasement and prohibit criticism of Islam in the name of multiculturalism.  Merkel and her compatriots are thus paving the way for continued crime, civil unrest, the rise of Islam within their borders, and the ultimate destruction of their countries.   

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, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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



3 November, 2016

Muslim heart doctor, 57, who beat his daughter and branded her a prostitute after she disobeyed him and went to a Halloween party is banned from practice for a year

He deserves more than that



A top heart doctor who gave his teenage daughter a beating and labelled her a 'prostitute' after she went to a Halloween party has been banned from medicine for 12 months.

Dr Gohar Rahman, 57, grabbed the youngster by the hair, caned her on the bottom with his walking stick and then rained down punches on her head after he accused her of 'bringing shame' on their family.

The daughter, then 17, had earlier gone to the party after falsely telling her father she would be home from a friend's house by 9.30pm.

She also went for a night out in her hometown before sleeping over at the home of a male friend.

But her defiance enraged married father-of-three Rahman, a consultant cardiologist at Wigan Infirmary, who set about his daughter when he and his wife, also a doctor, went to collect her the following morning.

As his wife looked on, Rahman shouted 'I can't believe what you have done - sleeping at a boy's house' and said he no longer 'recognised' her as his daughter.

During the assault back home she was was ordered to take off her party dress and put on traditional clothing instead before being ordered to pray.

Police were called in after the daughter sent out a SOS message on social media using a Nintendo DS.

Doctors discovered she had bruising to her forehead, lower back left shoulder and left side and three parallel lines on her buttocks where he had hit her with the stick. A clump of her hair fell out when she was being examined.

The girl - who is now 18 - later described her father as 'looking like a monster' and described the beating as 'awful'.

She said her studies had been disrupted as she struggled to sleep and was receiving counselling.

Earlier this year Rahman - who formerly worked with the United Nations - was given a suspended jail term after he admitted assaulting his daughter.

Today a tribunal panel decided that he would not be struck off because he had shown 'significant remorse' but he must serve a 12-month suspension.

Margaret Dodd, chair of the tribunal at the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service hearing in Manchester, said: 'The tribunal considered that, in being convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, you have brought the profession into disrepute.

'It took account of the nature and circumstances of the assault and the details of your suspended custodial sentence.

'The tribunal was of the view that public confidence in the profession would be seriously undermined if a finding of current impairment were not made in this case.

'The tribunal considered this to be a serious offence, but took account of the fact that it was a single incident.

'It considered that you have acknowledged your fault in entering a guilty plea at the first opportunity, and the tribunal is satisfied that this behaviour is unlikely to be repeated.

'It has taken particular account of the fact that you have paid all the relevant costs resulting from your sentencing, and that you have completed the directed activities and unpaid work.'

The hearing had previously heard evidence that the incident occurred after Rahman's daughter - who was referred to only as 'A' in the hearing - left the family home in Standish on October 31 last year to go out for the evening with a college friend.

Noel Casey, lawyer for the GMC, told the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service: 'She wanted to go to a Halloween party that night but she knew her parents wouldn't let her go.

'So told them she was going to a friend's house and said she would come back at 9.30pm.

'She admitted that she had no intention to be back at 9.30pm and intended to stay out all night.

'She went to a friend's house to get ready for the party but what followed was a set of phone calls from one set of parents to A's parents. She recalls them telling her that it is time to return home.

'Initially she spoke to her mother but she then recalls her father shouting at her telling her to come home.

'She refused to give the address of the party and he told her he wanted her to come home to teach her a lesson.

'She said she would get a lift home later that evening at around 11 to 11.30pm and continued to the party.

'She then was going on a night out in the town of Wigan. She met a friend there and returned to that friend's house, it was a male friend where she stayed the night.'

He added: 'A woke up at 11am having received numerous messages that her parents were looking for her. 'A taxi was organised to collect her from another friend's house to arrive at 11.30am on 1 November.

'She saw her parents walking toward the taxi and they took her to their car. Her father was driving and her mother was in the front passenger seat with her in the rear passenger seat.

'Dr Rahman leaned back in the car and grabbed her long hair and banged her head on the back of the passenger seat two or three times.

'At the time of banging her head on the back of the seat her father called her a prostitute and said: 'I can't believe what you have done - sleeping at a boy's house.

'Her mother was making calls during the journey home and on arrival, A said her father grabbed her by her hair began dragging her into the living room.

'She was saying say sorry to her dad to make it stop. A's father threw her on the floor and kicked her while she was on the floor.'

Mr Casey added: 'He told her to get up, so she did but he dragged her up from the floor by her hair. He was slapping and kicking her back and arms so she fell to the floor again.

'She remembers being hit with a shoe and was assaulted to her arms back and bottom.

'During this he was saying to her that he did not recognise her as a daughter, she was bringing shame on the family and again that she was a prostitute.

'She was wearing a dress from the night before and he wanted her to cover up more and he could not stand to look at her.

'A's mother brought traditional clothes which she changed into. He told her he didn't want to see her face anymore and sent her to her room.

'He asked for her mobile phone which she said she thought has slipped out of her pocket in the living room.

'Shortly afterwards Dr Rahman came into her room, he had her mobile phone and wanted the code for it.

'She refused to tell him and he became angry and kept asking her for the code. He then hit her and she fell back onto the bed and he told her to get up. 'He picked up a walking stick and hit her with it each time she refused to give the phone passcode.

'A said he was looking around for something else to use and mentioned a curling iron - but it would not detach from the wall.

'He also said that he would smash her teeth in before hitting her on her arms back and backslide.  'She describes this continuing for 10 minutes while her mother was in her own bedroom opposite. Dr Rahman then asked A to pray which she did.

'She was able to use a Nintendo DS to contact friends, who then alerted the police. A was removed from the address that day.'

Rahman appeared at Liverpool Crown Court in February where he was given a 10 months suspended sentence and was ordered to complete 100 hours' unpaid work after he admitted assault occasioning actual bodily harm. He is currently suspended by the Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Foundation NHS Trust - but remains on the payroll.

Rahman graduated from Khyber Medical University, a worldwide renowned medical institute in Pakistan; obtained field experience with the United Nations and then a tertiary Teaching Centre in Pakistan before moving to the UK in 1998.

SOURCE






Bring back the death penalty for paedophiles but only if their victims are under 13, says Ukip leadership candidate

A Ukip leadership candidate said he supports bringing back the death penalty for paedophiles - but only if their victims are under 13.

John Rees-Evans, one of four candidates in the race to replace Nigel Farage as Ukip leader, said his definition of a paedophile only applied to those attracted to 'pre-pubescent' children.

Asked if all proven paedophiles should be subject to the death penalty, he said 'yes,' but immediately issued a remarkable caveat.

He said: ‘With paedophile, I wouldn’t necessarily say someone who [is sexually attracted to a child who] looked 18 and was 15 and a half.'

In a Ukip leadership debate with his three fellow candidates on LBC Radio tonight, he added: ‘Obviously it depends on what you define as a paedophile. In some countries it is legal to get married much younger.’

It is the latest remark by Mr Rees-Evans to cause controversy. Since entering the Ukip leadership race last month he has had to face questions over his bizarre claim that a gay donkey raped his horse.

He made the claim while campaigning as a parliamentary candidate in 2014 but dismissed the comment last week as 'playful banter'.

He also faced questions over reports he took a handgun into an Ikea store in Bulgaria 'in case terrorists laid siege to the building'. 

His latest comments on paedophilia are likely to cause further outrage. 

Mr Rees-Evans said he supported the death penalty for child killers and child sex offenders but insisted on giving his own definition for paedophilia, describing it as 'someone who is pre-pubescent'

'I would have the death penalty for somebody [who is sexually attracted to a child] who is evidently pre-pubescent.'

Asked by leadership rival Suzanne Evans if 13-year-olds were 'fair game,' Mr Rees-Evans replied: ‘They’re fair game for the current punishment that we dish out to people right now, yeah.’

Paul Nuttall, the Ukip leadership front-runner, said he fully supports bringing back capital punishment for certain crimes, such as child killers.

But Ms Evans, his closest rival in the race, said she was 'vehemently opposed' to the death penalty.

SOURCE 






Is the Pope the only church leader who can still read his Bible?

Pope Francis has said he believes the Roman Catholic Church's ban on women becoming priests will be in place forever, in some of his most definitive remarks on the issue.

He was speaking aboard a plane taking him back to Rome from Sweden, in the freewheeling news conference with reporters that has become a tradition of his return flights from trips abroad.

A Swedish female reporter noted that the head of the Lutheran Church who welcomed him in Sweden was a woman, and then asked if he thought the Catholic Church could allow women to be ordained as ministers in coming decades.

'St. Pope John Paul II had the last clear word on this and it stands, this stands,' Francis said.

Francis was referring to a 1994 document by Pope John Paul that closed the door on a female priesthood. The Vatican says this teaching is an infallible part of Catholic tradition.

The reporter then pressed the pope, asking: 'But forever, forever? Never, never?'

Francis responded: 'If we read carefully the declaration by St. John Paul II, it is going in that direction.'

Francis has previously said that the door to women's ordination is closed, but proponents of a female priesthood are hoping that a future pope might overturn the decision, particularly because of the shortage of priests around the world.

A 1994 document by Pope John Paul II closed the door to women being allowed to become Catholic priests

The Catholic Church teaches that women cannot be ordained priests because Jesus willingly chose only men as his apostles. Those calling for women priests say he was only following the norms of his time.

In August, Francis set up a commission to study the role of women deacons in early Christianity, raising hopes among equality campaigners that women could one day have a greater say in the 1.2 billion-member Church.

Deacons, like priests, are ordained ministers and must be men. They cannot celebrate Mass, the Catholic Church's central rite, but they are allowed to preach and teach in the name of the Church, and to baptise and conduct wake and funeral services.

The Church barred women from becoming deacons centuries ago.

Scholars debate the precise role of women deacons in the early Church. Some say they were ordained to minister only to other women, for instance in baptismal immersion rites. Others believe they were on a par with male deacons.

SOURCE





Flood of outrage over 'sexist' plan for men-only office space - but the founders claim it will 'stop men hitting their wives'

But "safe spaces" for women are fine, of course   

A pair of entrepreneurs planning to launch Australia's first male-only co-working space have been blasted on social media and branded 'sexist.'

Nomadic Thinkers is a Brisbane membership club set to open doors in January with a gym, café, barber for physio for men.

The founders, Samuel Monaghan and Matthew Mercer, claim the space will help tackle the issue of domestic violence as well as depression among men.

But social media users have taken the business model to task and accused the creators of perpetuating damaging sexist values.
Samuel Monaghan and Matthew Mercer believe their men-only Nomadic Thinkers space will help tackle the issue of domestic violence

Samuel Monaghan and Matthew Mercer believe their men-only Nomadic Thinkers space will help tackle the issue of domestic violence

When asked his inspiration for the plan, co-founder Samuel Monaghan told Junkee they both had a friend in a violent relationship.

'We both had a mate who ended up in a violent situation with his wife. He pushed his wife over.'

He said Nomadic Thinkers would help curb the problem by giving men suffering from depression a place to let off steam.

'Depression and suicide result from a lack of social support and community. Having a space where they [men] can be men is more of a preventative measure. Healthy, happy men don't hit their wives.'

Women could access the café and meeting room, but would be banished from the working space and knocked back if they applied for membership.

The startup reportedly has the backing of six investors, and they are listing a number of membership packages online including 'The Bear Grylls' and the 'The Musk Have'. 

Mr Monaghan said men have been robbed of their identity in present society, where women have 'tea parties' to embrace their gender.

'In other cultures you go out and hunt in a forest for three days. We just hit 15 and start drinking. There's a real loss of identity for men. We used to go to war together. Girls do it better naturally, they have tea parties and stuff.'

Brisbane startup network, Little Tokyo Two, were said to be backing the idea, however a spokesperson denied any involvement to Daily Mail Australia. 'Little Tokyo Two has no alignment with any single sex or single industry spaces.' 

A spokesperson from Nomadic Thinkers told Daily Mail Australia they apologised their message has been misunderstood.

'We believe that our space that combines mental, physical and social stimulation will be a catalyst for impact amongst the men of our community. Impact that is not reactive but also preventative.' 'We simply want to play a part in fixing a serious issue.'

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, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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




2 November, 2016

Another integrity-free multiculturalist


A doctor has been struck off after carried out private work without telling his NHS bosses.

Essam Aly, 55, carried out operations while on a paid career break from his £95,000-a-year post as an anesthetist at the Queen's Hospital in Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, telling employers he was doing charity work in his native Egypt.

In an attempt to keep the scheme hidden, Dr Aly convinced a junior doctor to pose as an official and sent a 'blatantly untrue' document to hospital chiefs, a Medical Practitioners Tribunal has found.

Last year Dr Aly, a father of two, was involved in a divorce ruling in which he was order to hand over all of his £550,000 estate to his ex-wife after he was accused of 'washing his hands' of his family.

Dr Aly has now had his medical registration withdrawn because of his 'stark dishonesty and disregard for the principles of integrity'.

After 11 years at the hospital, Dr Aly was granted a career break in July 2012 on the understanding he would carry out charity work and study acupuncture in China.

He was granted a further six-month extension to his time off in October 2012. 

However on two occasions he travelled to Bahrain to undertake paid work at the King Hamad University Hospital without the authority of the NHS trust.

Dr Aly claimed he had spent time at Bahraini hosptials on a voluntary basis but this was contradicted by HR documentation. 

He later colluded with a junior doctor to send an email to 'Dr E', a senior doctor at Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

The email was purportedly from Sheikh Saadani, the director of the hospital HR department in Bahrain and stated Dr Aly had not worked there. It was later proved Sheikh Saadani did not exist, the Manchester tribunal heard.

Dr Aly and the junior doctors both received official warning letters. Dr Aly later wrote or caused an email to be written in the name of 'Dr E'. A costly investigation into the potential hacking of emails took place but none was found.

Dr Aly also handed over an email to an NHS trust solicitor purporting to be from a 'Dr G'. An attachment backing up his claim was signed by a doctor who did not exist. 

The tribunal's report said Dr Aly's 'many and various actions' were 'dishonest by the standard of ordinary and honest people'. 

The medic claimed he was not able to attend the hearing as he had been prevented from leaving Egypt because he could not prove he had completed his compulsory military service. The mitigating report stated he was in good standing in Bahrain and Egypt.

The tribunal ruled: 'On each and every occasion in which he had falsified emails, been economical and/or manipulative with the truth and failed to be honest, open and reliable, Dr Aly had failed the test of probity.

'His stark dishonesty and disregard for the principles of integrity, appropriate role modelling and departure from all sense of acceptable practice was, by all standards, deplorable.'

Of particular concern was that Dr Aly convinced a junior doctor to impersonate an official 'in order to further his own ends'.

A Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust spokesman: 'This is a matter for the General Medical Council and it would not be appropriate for the trust to comment.'

SOURCE






Nearly TWO THIRDS of the public believe migrants are not fitting in well to British society, according to a poll

Nearly two thirds of the public believe that migrants are not integrating well into British society, according to a poll.

Research by YouGov found concern over how arrivals were fitting in rose to 79 per cent among those who voted for Brexit in the historic EU referendum.

By contrast, among people who supported Remain the figure was much lower at 38 per cent.

The results of the survey, conducted for of social integration charity The Challenge, underline the importance of immigration in the referendum result.

They emerged as the government prepares to publish an official review of integration.

The study by Dame Louise Casey is said to criticise ministers for failing to manage immigration better, tackle extremism and help minorities fit in.

The assessment has apparently been ready for months but its publication was delayed after Home Office officials expressed ‘unhappiness’ about its content.

It is said to cite a lack of a strategy to integrate communities, with some areas becoming Muslim-only zones, and the failure to promote and defend a programme designed to counter radicalism.

The poll, carried out earlier this month, found 58 per cent 58 per cent believe migrants are not integrating well into British society.

It suggests that older voters are less likely to believe migrants have integrated well.

While almost half - 47 per cent - of 18 to 24 year olds think migrants are fitting in well, the figure was just 19 per cent for those aged 65 or over.

Some 84 per cent of Ukip voters at the 2015 general election and 72 per cent of Tory voters think migrants are not integrating well - compared to 47 per cent of Labour supporters.

More than a third of those questioned thought British nationals should be doing more to help immigrants integrate into British society.

SOURCE






Transgender Case Lands in Supreme Court

For the first time, the nation's highest court will wade into the issue transgender rights — a contentious debate that has divided communities and courts across the country.

The U.S. Supreme Court announced Friday that the justices will take up the case of a Virginia school board that wants to prevent a transgender teenager from using the boys' bathroom at his high school.

Here are five things you should know about the case and its potential implications nationwide:

———

HOW DID THIS CASE COME ABOUT?

The case was initially brought by Gavin Grimm, a 17-year-old high school senior, who was born female but identifies as male.

Grimm was allowed to use the boys' restroom at his high school for several weeks in 2014. But after some parents complained, the Gloucester County School Board adopted a policy requiring students to use either the restroom that corresponds with their biological gender or a private, single-stall restroom. Grimm says that policy violates Title IX, a federal law that bars sex discrimination in schools.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Grimm, concluding that courts should defer to the U.S. Department of Education's interpretation of Title IX. The 4th Circuit pointed to a letter that the Department of Education sent the Gloucester County School Board in January 2015, which said transgender students should be allowed to use restrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identities.

HOW BIG OF A DEAL IS THIS?

To members of the transgender community, there's a lot at stake in Grimm's case. Shannon Minter, a transgender man and an attorney who works on transgender issues, called Friday "one of the most important days in the history of the transgender movement."

"The outcome of this case is likely to shape the future of that movement in ways that will resonate for a very long time," Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said in an email.

The case is also being closely watched by parents who say allowing transgender students into the restrooms and locker rooms of their choice raises serious privacy concerns.

"I think it was bound to happen that the Supreme Court would weigh in eventually," said Vicki Wilson, a parent part of a lawsuit seeking to block a suburban Chicago school district from allowing a transgender student to use a girls' locker room and restroom.

But it's not certain that this case will result in a major ruling about transgender rights, said Kari Hong, an assistant law professor at Boston College who focuses on LGBT rights.

A central question in Grimm's case is whether the Department of Education's letter spelling out its position on Title IX should be given legal weight. It's possible the court will address that issue without even getting to the larger question of transgender rights.

HOW WILL THIS AFFECT CASES IN NORTH CAROLINA AND ESLEWHERE?

If the justices do address the larger question, Grimm's case could have a big impact on similar lawsuits pending around the country.

The Obama administration and North Carolina officials are battling in court over that state's law aimed at restricting transgender students to bathrooms that correspond to their biological genders. Meanwhile, a federal judge in Texas has sided with Texas and 12 other states in issuing a nationwide hold on the administration's directive to public schools, issued in May.

If the Supreme Court sides with Grimm and says courts should defer to the U.S. Department of Education rule, it would effectively invalidate the North Carolina law and overturn the Texas judge's decision. If the Supreme Court sides with the Gloucester County School Board, the North Carolina law and the Texas judge's decision will stand.

WILL GRIMM BE ABLE TO USE THE BOY'S RESTROOM THIS YEAR?

It's unlikely that Grimm will be able to use the boy's restroom before he graduates from high school.

While a district court judge in June ordered the school board to let Grimm use the boy's restroom, the judge's decision was put on hold by the Supreme Court until it rules in the case. The justices won't hear the case until February, at the earliest, and likely wouldn't make a decision until June.

AREN'T THERE ONLY EIGHT JUSTICES? HOW MIGHT THAT AFFECT THIS CASE?

There could be a ninth justice by the time Grimm's case is taken up — or maybe not. That depends on who is elected president Nov. 8 and how quickly the Senate moves to confirm a successor for the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

If there are eight justices and the court splits evenly, the 4th Circuit decision would stand and Grimm would win his case. But the decision would have no impact outside the 4th Circuit covering Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, West Virginia and South Carolina.

SOURCE






Liberal Party branch president calls for a complete ban on immigration in Australia - and says new arrivals are 'b***ards' and 'criminals'

A Liberal Party branch president has called for an end to all immigration into Australia because new arrivals are 'b***ards' and 'criminals'.

George Popowski, president of the Carlingford branch in north-west Sydney, has accused migrants of rorting the system with forged documents, degrees and visas while slacking on welfare at the same time as taking jobs, according to a motion obtained by The Sydney Morning Herald.

Mr Popowski will pressure the Turnbull government to 'shut the door now' at a party conference on Thursday, his preamble attached to the motion revealed.

'The last thing we need is foreign workers. Get the b***ards who are here, off their backsides,' he wrote in the preamble.

The hard-right branch president cited U.S. presidential hopeful Donald Trump warning migrants could be terrorists.

'Who wants criminals? As THE Donald said: ''We don't know who these people are!" And we don't! Today, when they can forge $100 notes, any documents can be bought,' he wrote.

'Also, all the jihadists here! Surely, this crap must stop! Shut the door NOW! Do we NEED these people??????'

Mr Popowski's motion called for an investigation into the 'risks and benefits' of immigration and refugee intakes on the country.

His surname is of Polish background, according to Ancestry.com.

Mr Popowski runs Lisbon Engineering, a fan and blower manufacturing business, in St Mary's in western Sydney.

The motion, which will be put forward at Parramatta RSL to about 400 division members, represents 'what everybody's thinking', he told Sydney Morning Herald.

An Essential Research poll released in September found 49 per cent of Australians want to ban Muslim immigration.

A similar poll by Roy Morgan released late October showed different results, with 58 per cent of Australians in support of Muslim migration and 33 per cent opposed.

In his motion, Mr Popowski said 'all the convicted jihadists were on benefits'.

He claimed 80 per cent of new arrivals were on welfare, and simultaneously complained of there being no work in Sydney and appeared to take issue with those studying training courses or university degrees.

'Simple: compulsory work for the dole – plus, prison for all the crooked quacks who've signed them up for the DSP [Disability Support Pension]!' he said.

About 26,000 asylum seekers in Australia have been denied the right to work and forced onto Centrelink to survive while they are slowly granted the right to work, The Conversation FactCheck reported.

A 2013 study of new migrants, most of whom had been in Australia for less than one year, found high rates of engagement in English language classes and other studies.

A longer-term study of refugees showed about a 33 per cent unemployment rate, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Mr Popowski also accused 'single parents and carers' of taking welfare 'freebies' instead of working.

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, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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





1 November, 2016

Another Mohammed at work



Two 'lovely' children who died after their father allegedly torched their family home in a murder-suicide attempt have been pictured for the first time.

The six-year-old girl and her eight-year-old brother were pulled from the house in Hamstead, Birmingham, yesterday.

Their father, aged in his 30s, was found in the wreckage of a Vauxhall in Newcastle-under-Lyme at 7.15am on Friday, four hours after the building was set alight.

The children have been named locally as Leanor and Saros. Their father is understood to be Endris Mohammed.

Neighbour, Ian Jameson, 54, said: 'Their deaths have shocked my kids as well as everyone else.

'He was such a lovely lad, it will be such a shock to not see them anymore.

'I saw the dad now and again getting in and out of the car, I think he said hello once or twice in the year they've lived here.

'I never met the mother, I've been here for 20 years and everyone seems to know everyone more or less but they kept themselves very much to themselves.'

Brian Ball, 66, a pensioner who has lived on Holland Road for 40 years, said: 'The kids were golden. 'My grandchildren would play with them in the street as they do.'

The children's mother, Penil Teklehaimanot, 36 who works at Ashmill Residential Care Home did not suffer serious injuries and is now helping police as a witness.

The post-mortem of the siblings was scheduled for this morning

Neighbours had already started performing CPR on the children by the time firefighters arrived on Holland Road at 3.40am.

Police said they are not looking for anyone else in connection with the incident.

Detective Chief Inspector Martin Slevin told a press conference yesterday that the car fire and fatal blaze at the Hamstead home - some 40 miles away - are connected.

'I can confirm that at 7.15am today in Whitmore Road in Newcastle-under-Lyme a black Vauxhall Insignia was found with significant fire damage,' he told reporters.

'A male that was found with that vehicle is currently in hospital with critical injuries. 'We believe these two incidents are connected. We are not looking for anybody else in connection with the fire here.

'I will confirm that the person who suffered injuries in Staffordshire is known to be the father of the children who are deceased.'
Neighbours have told how the young girl and boy were pulled out of the blazing home by other residents - including one heroic woman.

He said: 'She told me that the neighbour over the road from her rushed into the house and picked up one of the children and brought it onto the lawn.' 

'Treatment continued en-route to hospital with the boy being taken to Sandwell Hospital and the girl to Birmingham Children's Hospital.

'Unfortunately, shortly after their arrival at the hospitals, it became clear that nothing could be done to save either child and they were confirmed deceased.

SOURCE






Obama Threatens to Veto Military Bill Because It Protects Religious Groups

On D-Day, Franklin Roosevelt famously asked a country of many faiths to pray that God protect our troops as they “struggle to preserve our republic, our religion, and our civilization” against tyranny.

Given our military’s tradition of defending religious liberty from attack, it is disappointing to see President Barack Obama threaten to veto the military’s main authorization bill if it contains protections for religious freedom.

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is an annual bill that sets policies and budgets for our nation’s fighting forces and is currently being negotiated by both houses of Congress in conference before a final vote.

Included in the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act is an amendment offered by Rep. Steve Russell, R-Okla., that applies decades-old religious exemptions from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) to federal grants and contracts.

The Russell Amendment is sound policy that will prevent the administration from stripping contracts and grants from faith-based social service providers whose internal staffing policies reflect their faith.

Jewish day schools and Catholic adoption centers, for example, are not liable under Title VII for being authentically Jewish or Catholic, and their staffing policies shouldn’t disqualify them from federal grants and contracts either.

But Obama’s veto threat is actually the strongest proof of why the Russell Amendment is needed. It shows that the president wants absolute freedom to discriminate against religious social service providers that interact with the government—all because many religious organizations won’t endorse the LGBT cause. Congress should say no to the president’s blatant attack on religious diversity.

Undermining Religious Liberty

For decades, the left has attempted to raise sexual orientation and gender identity to special protected status through Congress. Seeing little success using the democratic process, the Obama administration has instead turned to issuing various edicts that misinterpret existing civil rights protections to include sexual orientation and gender identity.

On July 21, 2014, Obama issued an executive order that unilaterally elevated sexual orientation and gender identity to special status for purposes of federal contracts.

As our colleague Ryan T. Anderson pointed out at the time, the order “disregards the consciences and liberties of people of goodwill who happen not to share the government’s opinions about issues of sexuality. All Americans should be free to contract with the government without penalty because of their reasonable beliefs about morally contentious issues.”

Obama wants absolute freedom to discriminate against religious social service providers that interact with the government—all because many religious organizations won’t endorse the LGBT cause.

The executive order left in place the Title VII religious staffing exemption, and the Russell Amendment merely reaffirms this protection while clarifying that religious organizations have a right to employ people committed to authentically living in accordance with their faith tenets. In short, religious organizations are free to be religious organizations.

But Obama would interpret existing religious protections narrowly in order to make religious groups bend to the LGBT agenda. As seen in the administration’s education and health care mandates on gender identity, in practice, this means requiring employee bathrooms and showers meant for women be opened to biological men who self-identify as female regardless of people’s religious beliefs on the matter. The administration’s proven lack of respect for religious freedom when it comes to sexual orientation and gender identity policies is more than enough reason to keep the Russell Amendment.

Reaffirming Long-Standing Policy Is Apparently Unacceptable

Despite the Russell Amendment’s straightforwardness and precedent, 42 Senate Democrats have written to the Senate Armed Services Committee asking that the Russell Amendment be stripped from final National Defense Authorization Act language during conference negotiations.

The letter states that prospective employees should not be “disqualified from a taxpayer-funded job based on an individual’s religions.” Except that’s not how federal contracts typically work. Existing organizations bid for contracts to produce services or products based on their ability to deliver them, not to provide somebody “a taxpayer-funded job.”

The programs at issue are designed to help the needy in the most effective and efficient way possible, and faith-based organizations have proven that they are often the very best at providing these social services precisely because of their faith-based character.

But moreover, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act already specifically protects religious organizations’ ability to hire based on religion, so the burden is on the objectors to the Russell Amendment to prove why a system that has been affirmed by the Supreme Court and has served religious pluralism well for decades should now be stripped away when it comes to federal contracts.

Will Congress Hold the Line?

The Russell Amendment was included in the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act and passed by a comfortable margin (277 to 147) because it reflects the best of our traditions without taking away anything from anyone.

Congress should not let the president’s veto threat get in the way of passing sound policy, and the Russell Amendment is just that—a commonsense continuation of policy that has served our diverse society well since 1964.

SOURCE






Georgia's Anti-Christian Crusade

Give us your sermons. The state of Georgia is requiring that Dr. Eric Walsh, a pastor who is suing the state for wrongful termination, turn over all his past sermons. This chilling story has been developing since 2014, when Dr. Walsh was suddenly terminated from his job as district director with Georgia’s Department of Public Health mere days after being hired. Walsh contends he was fired due to his religious beliefs, and he has a good argument to support this claim.

Approximately a week after Walsh was hired, the health agency requested copies of his sermons — a request with which he complied. After reviewing these sermons, the agency fired him, so it’s no wonder he objects to submitting them to the state. The state of Georgia contends that Walsh was fired for failure to disclose “outside employment.” This is a questionable argument, given that Walsh, during his interview for the job, did indeed disclose the fact that he preached for a local congregation. If the dispute over his firing had nothing to do with his religious beliefs, then why would the state request he turn over all his sermons, sermon notes and anything he has written on his religious beliefs, including any content written on social media sites?

This anti-religion (specifically anti-Christian) crusade perpetrated by many on the Left is fundamentally a misapplication of the separation of church and state. The state’s concern should not be protecting the public from religion, but protecting the right of the public to freely and openly engage in religion. The idea that one’s religious beliefs should be kept private and not be allowed to have an impact on one’s work and opinions is simply absurd. Everyone has a worldview that informs and motivates their decisions and actions. To act like this is not the case is to deny reality.

SOURCE






Australian feminists block Cassie Jaye’s Red Pill

“The Red Pill: The movie about men that feminists didn’t want you to see.” This was the provocative headline that ran in Britain’s The Telegraph last November, a teaser for a documentary made by a feminist filmmaker who planned to take on men’s rights activists but was won over and crossed to the dark side to take up their cause.

Despite a ferocious campaign to stop the movie being made, it’s finally been released and the Australian screening was due next week in Melbourne. However the gender warriors have struck again, using a change.com petition to persuade Palace Cinemas to cancel the booking. Palace took the decision after being told the movie would offend many in its core audience but by yesterday 8000 had signed petitions protesting the ban. Organisers are now scrambling to find another venue.

Clearly this documentary has the feminists very worried — with good reason. Cassie Jaye is an articulate, 29-year-old blonde whose previous movies on gay marriage and abstinence education won multiple awards. But then she decided to interview leaders of the Men’s Rights Movement for a documentary she was planning about rape culture on American campuses. As a committed feminist, Jaye expected to be unimpressed by these renowned hate-filled misogynists, but to her surprise she was exposed to a whole range of issues she came to see as unfairly stacked against men and boys.

As news of this very public conversion started to leak out, Jaye came under attack. She was smeared, told she was committing “career suicide” and saw her funding dry up to the point where it looked as if the movie would never be made. Prominent feminists she had planned to interview refused to participate; none of the “human rights” funding she hoped to attract proved available for a documentary on men’s rights.

Then a Kickstarter fund raised $211,260, ensuring the movie’s cinematic release. Over the past month there have been screenings in the US, and hopefully Australian audiences will eventually get to see what the fuss is all about.

The title The Red Pill refers to a scene in The Matrix when Keanu Reeves’s character takes the red pill to expose “the truth” that challenges his closely held beliefs. Jaye’s The Red Pill reveals a world where the cultural dialogue is dominated by feminists still complaining that men have all the power, yet the “truth” in most Western countries is that many laws, attitudes and social conventions make life tough for men. Her fly-on-the-wall technique includes interviews with Men’s Rights Movement leaders such as Paul Elam and feminists who oppose the movement, graphics and animations revealing facts about family law and child custody, male suicide rates and the not-so-privileged side of traditional manhood, such as the 90 per cent of workplace fatalities that are male.

There’s a powerful interview with Erin Pizzey, who is no longer allowed near the British women’s refuge she started back in the 1970s, the first in the world. Pizzey ran afoul of the sisterhood by campaigning to expose the truth about women’s role in domestic violence.

Jaye shows feminist protesters shutting down a talk at a Toronto campus by men’s activist Warren Farrell, screeching at a young man who tried to attend and berating him as “f..king scum”, and on another occasion setting off a fire alarm in a building where a men’s rights lecture was to be held.

There’s discussion of men’s lack of reproductive rights, which includes a clip from a chat show where the audience cheers when a woman whose husband is resisting a second child says she’s considering going off birth control without telling him.

Reaction to the movie has been mixed, with the flamboyant anti-feminist Milo Yiannopoulos describing it as “a powerful film on a complicated, important, yet woefully unaddressed issue”. He applauds Jaye for “having the intestinal fortitude to not only tackle this subject, but to do so fairly”. Predictably, the movie has been panned by the left-wing The Village Voice, which calls Jaye an “MRM-bankrolled propagandist”, and the Los Angeles Times, whose reviewer claims she failed to understand “patriarchal systems”.

Stephen Marche in The Guardian admits that “men do sometimes suffer mistreatment from the courts or from the women in their lives”, but suggests the film fails to demonstrate any systemic cause. “Instead, the author of men’s troubles here is always that vague bugaboo feminism, which we’re told is designed to silence its opponents,” sniffs Marche.

That’s pretty ironic, given this “vague bugaboo” persists in trying to silence Jaye’s attempts to tell this story. As she points out in her movie, the issues she examines came as a revelation not only to her but to many others exposed to the material she put together. That bugaboo carries a lot of clout.

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, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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






IN BRIEF



HOME (Index page)

BIO for John Ray






(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



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.


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



Index page for this site


DETAILS OF REGULARLY UPDATED BLOGS BY JOHN RAY:

"Tongue Tied"
"Dissecting Leftism" (Backup here)
"Australian Politics"
"Education Watch International"
"Political Correctness Watch"
"Greenie Watch"
Western Heart


BLOGS OCCASIONALLY UPDATED:

"Marx & Engels in their own words"
"A scripture blog"
"Recipes"
"Some memoirs"
To be continued ....
Coral Reef Compendium.
IQ Compendium
Queensland Police
Australian Police News
Paralipomena (3)
Of Interest
Dagmar Schellenberger
My alternative Wikipedia


BLOGS NO LONGER BEING UPDATED

"Food & Health Skeptic"
"Eye on Britain"
"Immigration Watch International".
"Leftists as Elitists"
Socialized Medicine
OF INTEREST (2)
QANTAS -- A dying octopus
BRIAN LEITER (Ladderman)
Obama Watch
Obama Watch (2)
Dissecting Leftism -- Large font site
Michael Darby
Paralipomena (2)
AGL -- A bumbling monster
Telstra/Bigpond follies
Optus bungling
Bank of Queensland blues



ALSO:

Mirror for this blog
Mirror for "Dissecting Leftism"
Longer Academic Papers
Johnray links
Academic home page
Academic Backup Page
General Backup
General Backup 2
Pictorial Home Page
Selected pictures from blogs (Backup here)
Another picture page (Rarely updated)



Selected reading

MONOGRAPH ON LEFTISM

CONSERVATISM AS HERESY

Rightism defined
Leftist Churches
Leftist Racism
Fascism is Leftist
Hitler a socialist
What are Leftists
Psychology of Left
Status Quo?
Leftism is authoritarian
James on Leftism
Irbe on Leftism
Beltt on Leftism

Critiques
Lakoff
Van Hiel
Sidanius
Kruglanski
Pyszczynski et al.





Main academic menu
Menu of recent writings
basic home page
Pictorial Home Page
Selected pictures from blogs (Backup here)
Another picture page (Best with broadband. Rarely updated)



Note: If the link to one of my articles is not working, the article concerned can generally be viewed by prefixing to the filename the following:
http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/42197/20151027-0014/jonjayray.comuv.com/

OR: (After 2015)
https://web.archive.org/web/20160322114550/http://jonjayray.com/