The primary version of "Political Correctness Watch" is HERE The Blogroll; John Ray's Home Page; My Recipes. My alternative Wikipedia. Email John Ray here. See here or here for the archives of this site.


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

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

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

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



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30 November, 2018

Silicon Valley Sharia

By Michelle Malkin

This is a tale of two young, outspoken women in media.

One is a liberal tech writer. The other is an enterprising conservative new media reporter. One has achieved meteoric success and now works at a top American newspaper. The other has been de-platformed and marginalized. Their wildly different fates tell you everything you need to know about Silicon Valley's free speech double standards.

Some smug elites will downplay Twitter's disparate treatment of these users by arguing that private tech corporations can do whatever they want and that no First Amendment issues have been raised. But this battle is about much more than free speech rights. It's about whether the high-and-mighty progressives who monopolize global social media platforms truly believe in nurturing a free speech culture.

By punishing politically incorrect speech and making punitive examples of free thinkers, tech titans are enforcing their own authoritarian version of Silicon Valley sharia — a set of both written and unwritten codes constricting expressions of acceptable thought in the name of "safety" and "civility."

Laura Loomer was suspended permanently from Twitter over the Thanksgiving holiday for this tweet — and I quote in full:

"Isn't it ironic how the twitter moment used to celebrate 'women, LGBTQ, and minorities' is a picture of Ilhan Omar? Ilhan is pro Sharia(.) Ilhan is pro-FGM(.) Under Sharia, homosexuals are oppressed & killed. Women are abused & forced to wear the hijab. Ilhan is anti Jewish."

Ilhan Omar is the newly elected Democratic Muslim congresswoman from Minnesota who is indeed pro Sharia. Omar equivocated on a state bill to increase penalties against female genital mutilation. It is a fact that gay people are oppressed and killed under Sharia. It an undeniable truth that women are abused and forced to wear the hijab. Omar has accused Israel of hypnotizing the world, attacked its "evil doings," and has said she supports the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against the Jewish state.

Twitter booted Loomer, who is Jewish, off its site for expressing her well-supported opinions, which the social media giant called "hateful conduct." She has been labeled a "far-right activist" for her mainstream views. As she noted in a new statement posted to her website Tuesday:

"I am just one example of someone who has been banned for discussing issues on social media that big tech companies have deemed as untouchable. All across the world, people are being silenced, censored, and even jailed for having online discussions about Islam, immigration, jihad, and Sharia. I was banned for posting facts about Islam. In other words, non-Muslims are being subjected to Islamic blasphemy laws on social media, progressively."

If Loomer were a left-wing "Islamophobia"-invoking feminist who practiced undercover or gonzo journalism to go after Republicans, she'd be hailed as an innovative disruptor instead of dismissed by establishment elites on both sides of the political aisle.

Now contrast the fate of 30-year-old Sarah Jeong, who was named an editorial writer at The New York Times in August 2018. Her left-wing colleagues and admirers applauded her "verve and erudition." And they made much of her diversity status as a "young Asian woman." This person-of-color shield gave Jeong immunity to post several years' worth of hateful tweets attacking white people.

"White men are bull——";

"#CancelWhitePeople";

"oh man it's kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men" and "f—- white women lol."

She has tweeted "f—- the police" and "cops are a—holes," derided fraternity members and athletes wrongfully accused of rape and fumed about "dumb—- f—-ing white people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants."

Let's review: Loomer was kicked off Twitter for calling out Sharia and a culture that promotes hatred of gays, boycotts of Jews and subjugation of women. Before the permanent suspension, Loomer — who had built up a following of more than 250,000 — had her blue check removed and was silenced during the midterm elections when her investigative work was making a difference. She called out Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey for anti-conservative bias at a congressional hearing and was mocked by establishment detractors in both parties.

Meanwhile, Jeong sits on her perch on The New York Times editorial board after using Twitter to spew hatred against all men, all cops, the entire white race — and Twitter. Jeong denies Silicon Valley's political bias and selective speech suppression, which she has dismissed as a "paranoid fantasy."

Every day that blue check marked hate-monger Sarah Jeong gets to tweet while Laura Loomer remains silenced reminds us of how powerful social media conglomerates have rigged the free speech playing field.

It's no fantasy. It's a nightmare.

SOURCE






Laura Levis was killed by a locked hospital door

A hospital door should be guarded but never locked.  At a minimum there should be a buzzer linked to security staff


Read Peter DeMarco’s tragic account of the preventable death of his wife, Laura Levis, and you will feel horror and deep sadness for the unnecessary loss of life. And then you will feel outrage. Levis suffered an asthma attack two years ago, went to Somerville Hospital, and later died after she was unable to get inside the emergency room, even after she called 911.

The story, published in the Globe Magazine, underscored the need for changes: to the emergency response system that failed Levis, to the accountability and transparency requirements for Massachusetts hospitals, and to the never-say-sorry culture of too many providers that amplifies the anguish of family members.

The emergency response technology in place at the time of the incident was out of date. When Levis encountered a locked door at the hospital, she called 911 using her cell phone. But her call was answered by a regional state police dispatch center instead of going straight to Somerville police, who, more than likely, would have responded faster because they knew the area. Then the dispatcher who rerouted her call to local responders failed to relay critical information related to her exact location.

Recently, Somerville police implemented Wireless Direct, a state system that allows them to answer 911 mobile calls directly rather than receiving them through a regional center. Somerville joined Boston, Burlington, Nantucket, and more than 150 communities in the state that have made the switch.

Even though our smartphones are equipped with the latest GPS technology, our 911 infrastructure remains embarrassingly obsolete and can still misjudge a person’s whereabouts by hundreds of feet. Next Generation 911 is a national push to upgrade the legacy technology powering our emergency response systems; it will improve location capabilities and allow callers to send photo and video to dispatchers. Massachusetts has made the necessary upgrades, but wireless carriers are lagging behind.

Another remarkable element in Levis’s case is that Somerville Hospital violated federal law, got caught, and yet paid only a small price. Federal authorities determined that the institution denied Levis access to emergency care by not doing enough to find her, even though she lay unconscious outside the ER. The hospital settled and paid a $90,000 fine to the government. How do such slaps on the wrist keep hospitals accountable?

Then there’s the lack of explanation. DeMarco happened to be a reporter who could spend time uncovering the facts of his wife’s death. What about those who aren’t able to devote 10 months to investigating a wrongful death? And yet, despite what DeMarco found, closure and justice remain elusive. “I have close to 200 pages of her medical reports from that day, and I still don’t know what really happened” on the hospital’s end, he said.

DeMarco repeatedly tried to get answers from the hospital, but it wasn’t until after the Globe article was published, and right before a report about it was set to air on “NBC Nightly News,” that the hospital responded through its parent company, Cambridge Health Alliance. The company apologized. “It should not have taken an event like this for us to identify and resolve a number of structural, training, and communication issues. We have already begun to make the necessary changes,” the statement read.

In the medical community, the “apology movement” has gained momentum precisely because, in most cases, families want answers and to hear an apology from practitioners. DeMarco and Levis’s family are still owed that. Maybe DeMarco will get that Tuesday, when he finally meets face to face with hospital executives.

The lessons from Levis’s death should not be lost on anyone. Now it’s up to officials in charge of emergency response systems and hospitals everywhere to act.

SOURCE

Comment from a reader:  "Sommerville Hospital was likely locked because of the awful people that live there. In 1975, we looked at houses there. Worst ever - leaking basements etc.. Likely most people with brains have left"






ACLU bias

The ACLU is a distinctively Leftist organization so its hostility to the police is predictable


Chief Gross

The ACLU is in the business of criticizing police practice and procedure, and sometimes individual police officers, presumably to make them more accountable to the Constitution and more respectful of, naturally enough, civil liberties.

But because, as Gross complained, the ACLU is always pointing out what it says the police do wrong without balancing those criticisms with the occasional bit of praise or an acknowledgment of the difficulty of their job, the ACLU comes off to most cops as a relentless scold, an organization that, by trying to throw up obstacles to some aspects of police work, can seem more on the side of the bad guys than the good guys.

You might think that is simplistic, and not very nuanced, but you probably wouldn’t think so if you were a police officer. The police and the ACLU often have an antagonistic, adversarial relationship, and Gross’s complaints were, not surprisingly, antagonistic and adversarial.

Gross’s initial post was on his personal Facebook page, and it’s certainly true that he should know that as a public figure with a very high profile, virtually nothing he does or says, especially on social media, is going to stay private very long.

Gross says he was defending officers in Facebook post
Speaking after a public event in Roxbury, the Boston police commissioner for the first time took questions from reporters about the controversial post on his private page.

But it is instructive that Gross intended his criticism of the ACLU to be personal, the opinion of him as an individual, not a policy statement by the city’s top cop. And his opinion is widely shared by other police officers. That doesn’t necessarily make him right. It makes him a cop. And human.

You can certainly argue that by forcing the police to maintain a balanced approach to civil liberties, the ACLU is actually helping the police by improving their reputation in the communities they serve. But it’s a rare police officer who sees it that way. They see it as the ACLU making it harder to do their jobs and keep people safe.

While Gross’s critics have dismissed his missive as thin-skinned, especially his complaint that ACLU officials are “paper warriors” detached from the realities that police face on the street, some critics may not know the background of a very specific reference he made to the near-fatal shooting of police Officer John Moynihan in 2015.

After Moynihan and other members of the gang unit stopped a vehicle on Humboldt Avenue in Roxbury, a career criminal named Angelo West emerged from the car and shot Moynihan point-blank in the face. West ran away, firing back, then was shot and killed by Moynihan’s fellow officers.

Later, an aggressive, hostile crowd gathered at the scene and showered Gross with vile abuse, with some black protesters calling him the N-word. Gross’s loyalty to his race was challenged in the most obscene way. He maintained his composure and kept control of the crime scene, and his professionalism and restraint then is one of the reasons Mayor Marty Walsh tapped him to become police commissioner.

But that encounter was burned into Gross’s consciousness. One of his officers was down, in the hospital with a bullet hole his head, and he had to listen to people suggest he was an Uncle Tom because police had just shot a black man who tried to kill a cop.

“I sure as hell saw a member of the ACLU in the background take pictures as a certain group tried to crash through the crime scene three hours” after the shooting, Gross wrote in his now-infamous Facebook post. He felt the ACLU was there, just waiting for the cops to screw up.

John Ward, a spokesman for the ACLU of Massachusetts, said his organization is not aware of any photos from that confrontation.

“No one was there on behalf of the ACLU,” Ward said. “Many current and former ACLU staff live in the City of Boston and someone may have been there in their personal capacity.”

Whoever it was, it really bothered Willie Gross. It bothers him to this day. And he blew off some steam in a way he probably shouldn’t have. Like the post itself, it’s personal.

There may be a teaching moment here. Maybe some of the ACLU’s lawyers could do a ride-along with members of the gang unit, and the cops could explain what they look for, and the lawyers could tell them what might be legally problematic.

With litigation in play, that’s unlikely.

At the very least, there’s an opportunity for Gross and Carol Rose, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, to sit down, together, without cameras and microphones, and just talk. Rose is game.

“I’m always open for a beer summit,” she said.

SOURCE






Merkel: EU States Must Prepare to Hand National Sovereignty over to Brussels

She is chasing a failed dream

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that European Union (EU) member states must be prepared to transfer powers over to Brussels at a debate on the ‘tensions’ between globalisation and national sovereignty.

“Nation states must today be prepared to give up their sovereignty,” Merkel said, speaking at an event organised by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Berlin on Wednesday.

“In an orderly fashion of course,” Merkel said, explaining that — while Germany had given up some of its sovereignty in order to join the EU, national parliaments were in charge of deciding whether to sign up to international treaties.

Trust and the willingness to compromise are vital in addressing tensions between sovereignty and globalisation, asserted the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader, highlighting the controversial UN migration pact, debate over which has continued to split her own party.

Merkel condemned the fact that, in discussions over whether Germany should join a fast-growing number of nations pulling out of the agreement, “there were [politicians] who believed that they could decide when these agreements are no longer valid because they are representing The People”.

“[But] the people are individuals who are living in a country, they are not a group who define themselves as the [German] people,” she stressed.

Earlier in the day, the Chancellor had previously accused critics of her plans to sign up to the Global Compact for Safe and Orderly Migration, which declares migration ‘inevitable, necessary and desirable’, of advocating “nationalism in its purest form”.

“That is not patriotism, because patriotism is when you include others in German interests and accept win-win situations,” insisted Merkel, paraphrasing her French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, who recently claimed that “patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism [because] nationalism is treason”.

Battling disastrous poll ratings at home in France, as well as massive protests, Macron travelled to Berlin at the weekend, where he told the Bundestag that “the Franco-German couple [has] the obligation not to let the world slip into chaos and to guide it on the road to peace”.

“Europe must be stronger… and win more sovereignty,” the French president said, demanding EU member states surrender national sovereignty to Brussels over “foreign affairs, migration, and development” in addition to “an increasing part of our budgets and even fiscal resources”.

SOURCE






Dutton to strip convicted terrorists of Australian citizenship

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has unveiled plans to strip convicted terrorists of their Australian citizenship.

Mr Morrison said the proposed new laws would allow a minister to strip Australian citizenship from a convicted terrorist if they were “reasonably satisfied” the person was entitled to citizenship in another country.

That is a departure from the current policy of stripping citizenship only from dual nationals, who are definitely citizens of other countries.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton is also pushing to speed up the process for new laws to allow police to access encrypted communications used by “paedophiles or terrorists” such as WhatsApp messages.

Speaking on Thursday afternoon, Mr Morrison said: “Terrorists have violated everything about what being an Australian is all about.

“It’s a crime against our country, not just against other citizens, and this is something that can’t be tolerated and permitted.

“And for those who have engaged in this sort of activity, if they have citizenship elsewhere, and we reasonably believe they do, well they can go, that’s our clear message.”

According to The Daily Telegraph, the new plan would apply to Aussies who have parents or grandparents from different countries thus allowing them to obtain citizenship somewhere else.

The government will review the backgrounds of some 400 terrorists being monitored by ASIO to determine whether they are dual-citizens or are entitled to acquire a foreign citizenship.

It raises the possibility of some people being deported who have no other citizenship but Australian.

Unlike now where a six-year custodial sentence is needed for citizenship to be revoked, the planned legislation would merely need someone to be convicted for them to stripped of their right to remain in Australia.

The PM also wants to introduce “temporary exclusion orders” of up to two years for foreign fighters returning from conflict zones in the Middle East.

Based on a UK scheme, they would block a proven terrorist from returning to Australia for up to two years, unless a special permit was provided.

“We’re determined to deal with those individuals who have done this as far away from our shores as is possible,” Mr Morrison said.

Once back in Australia, the person would be subject to various controls including reporting to police, adhering to curfews and complying with restrictions on technology use.

“Failure to comply with the terms of that temporary exclusion order would be also an offence and subject to penalties for that citizen,” he said.

Earlier, the Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration Jason Wood also called for residents, who were born overseas, but later became Australian citizens, to be immediately deported if they engaged in extremism.

“As far as I’m concerned, if you’ve put your hand up to say you uphold the rights and responsibility of Australian citizenship, but the next minute you want to talk jihad all day, it’s a breach of contract and you need to go,” Mr Wood said.

The plan comes the same week three Melbourne men — brothers Ertunc Eriklioglu, 30 and Samed Eriklioglu, 26 and Hanifi Halis, 21 — were charged with allegedly planning a deadly terror attack on Melbourne.

Victoria Police later confirmed the men had all had their Australian passports cancelled this year and were of Turkish background.

Mr Dutton has said passing a new encryption law should be done sooner rather than later.

He said the heads of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and Australian Federal Police had already given evidence to the committee.

“The evidence there is overwhelming that we need this change. We cannot have paedophiles or terrorists using encrypted messaging apps,” Mr Dutton said.

The minister said paedophiles were directing sex scenes through the messaging apps, which were also used by terrorists.

“We are in a situation where we have terrorists who are using encrypted messaging apps to plan attacks and ASIO and the Australian Federal Police have no sight of that,” Mr Dutton said.

“It’s unacceptable, particularly given the current risk environment.”

Labor has warned against rushing the committee, while denying Mr Dutton’s claims they are against increasing authorities’ powers.

SOURCE 

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

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

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

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29 November, 2018

There is no such thing as a ‘trans kid’

It’s time for honesty: the transgender ideology is seriously hurting young people.

One of the great myths of the new, identitarian left is that the transgender movement is the political and spiritual heir to yesterday’s gay-rights movement. It isn’t. At all.

To begin with, the old gay-rights movement did not win the effusive backing of Tories, cops, CofE bigwigs and the entire educational establishment, as the trans movement has.

Stiff Tories were not falling over themselves to institute laws that would heap ‘recognition’ on gay people, as they are today with trans people: see the Gender Recognition Act, an eccentric, reality-defying proposed tweak to the law that would allow anyone to change sex as casually as they change their hairstyle, which is being championed by Theresa May of all people.

Also, the old gay-rights movement agitated against the idea that their sexuality was a mental disorder, as it was horribly defined by American psychologists up to 1972. In contrast, the trans-rights movement craves medical diagnosis, in particular of the mental malaise ‘gender dysphoria’.

Warriors for gay rights demanded autonomy, from medical paternalism, state policing and moral-majority approval; the trans movement seeks these things. It wants validation rather than freedom. State backing rather than state absence. And the approval of every social and cultural institution instead of not giving a fig what these people think.

Most strikingly, where it was a nasty myth that gay campaigners were trying to mislead ‘our youths’, unfortunately the same cannot be said of the trans movement.

That ugly anti-gay prejudice about youth-corrupting ‘queers’, as captured in old black-and-white American public-information films in which handsome teen Chad would be led astray by an ageing pervert, was successfully challenged by gay-rights activists. Because it wasn’t true. The trans movement, though – there is no escaping the uncomfortable fact that trans activists, and their many supporters in the establishment, are leading children astray and could well have a detrimental impact on the lives and futures of the new generation.

Last night Channel 4 aired Trans Kids: It’s Time to Talk. It was a compassionate but critical documentary in which serious questions were raised about the rush to diagnose kids as trans and even to treat them – with puberty-blocking drugs, hormone interventions, and so on (surgery is illegal until adulthood).

It was presented by psychotherapist and author Stella O’Malley. She made the point that when she was young, she was convinced she was a boy. Now, however, she is married – to a man – and has kids. She wondered what might have happened to her if she had been a boy-identifying girl today rather than in the 1980s.

SOURCE




Useless British police provoke vigilante action

WAYNE Dean knew he could not sit by anymore when a friend was battered in his own home by hammer-welding thugs.

It came after a masked axeman had attacked a pregnant woman in a shop raid, and chilling footage emerged of a machete gang rampaging through the street.

No-one was arrested for the attack on his pal and the gang attack footage shocked the nation. Enough was enough.

Feeling West Midlands Police were doing little to help, he took to social media to encourage his community to police itself.

Wayne says: “I wanted to set the group up because crime is getting out of hand, it’s running the area down."

He was stunned when more than 2,000 members, all desperate to work together to keep each other safe, joined his online vigilante community - clearly the issue had struck a nerve.

We Stand Together is one of a growing number of vigilante groups across the UK patrolling their own streets.

Kingshurst residents Wayne, 47, and Tracy Quinn, 48, set up the group and now carry out twice-weekly patrols across the city - the Sun Online joined the pair on one this week. "We're vigilantes with a twist," says Wayne.

The group don't exact revenge or try and solve crimes. They patrol their area in high-vis jackets, knocking on residents' and businesses doors proving reassurance.

When Tracy and Wayne see a crime being committed, or the aftermath of a criminal activity, they alert the online community so anyone else local to that area can come out and assist.

There is no law against the operation of vigilante groups - but police have warned that some techniques used, especially by paedophile hunting gangs, could cross into legally dangerous territory.They can tip off police to crimes being committed due to their network among the comunity, and could perform citizen's arrests - but members of We Stand Determined say they would only do that in extreme circumstances.

They then call the police and await their response – but admit in exceptional circumstances they will try to intervene and issue a citizen arrest.

The areas they patrol include five crime hotspots – Smith’s Wood, Castle Bromwich, Kingshurst, Marston Green and Chelmsley Wood.

In Smith’s Wood there is a rotation of seven officers and seven PCSOs on duty for the area, which at the last census in 2011 had a population of 10,476.

Between October 2017 and September 2018 a staggering 82.98 per cent of reported crime saw no further action taken. One person has been recorded as being sent to prison.

In Chelmsley Wood, with a 2011 population of 12,453 and patrolled by eight officers and four PCSOs, 77.28 per cent of crimes reported there have been shelved with no further action taken.

Although the crime rate for Solihull is currently slightly lower than the average for other areas policed by West Midlands Police, data shows there has been a sharp rise in crime rates between September 2017 and October 2018.

Last month a 78-year-old woman was set upon by three men after they broke into her house and stole her handbag.

In recent weeks police have appealed for help with a suspected car burglary, an attempted break in, an attack on an Asda security guard and four arson attacks in these areas.

Walking the streets of Birmingham, Wayne and Tracy seem unafraid of their surroundings, and are more concerned with knocking on doors to make sure residents felt safe.

Ivan, who was checked in on by the pair, told us: “It’s a good thing to have people like this around. Usually we don’t open our door after tea time. “It’s nice to have good people out there.”

One elderly man tells us the nights where he lives in Birmingham could be bad, but said his safety was increased with groups like We Stand Determined enforcing safety in that area.

One worker for Norwich Express in Marston Green, who asked not to be named for fears over her safety, revealed just a week before men had come into the shop armed with guns demanding the till be emptied before they jetted away in a stolen car.

And in a nearby Nisa Local shop, a member of staff claimed an unknown man who had been relentlessly shoplifting over the last four weeks – with a lack of police action seemingly allowing him to walk away freely and pop back whenever he needed more.

Kanlesh Patel says: “The police don’t want to know about anything under one hundred pounds worth of stuff. “They think it’s not worth pursuing. It’s getting worse because even the criminal knows these facts. “They’ll do it in front with you, with no shame.”

Vigilante groups – once the staple of Wild West movies – are springing up as a response to the feral thugs causing widespread misery.

SOURCE






New York Times Reveals Painful Truths About 'Sex Change' Surgery
    
In Sunday's New York Times, Andrea Long Chu writes a heartfelt and heartbreaking op-ed on life with gender dysphoria. Titled “My New Vagina Won’t Make Me Happy,” the op-ed reveals painful truths about many transgender lives and inadvertently communicates almost the exact opposite of its intended argument.

Next week, Chu will undergo vaginoplasty surgery. Or, as Chu puts it: “Next Thursday, I will get a vagina. The procedure will last around six hours, and I will be in recovery for at least three months.”

Will this bring happiness? Probably not, but Chu wants it all the same: “This is what I want, but there is no guarantee it will make me happier. In fact, I don’t expect it to. That shouldn’t disqualify me from getting it.”

Chu argues that the simple desire for sex-reassignment surgery should be all that is required for a patient to receive it. No consideration for authentic health and well-being or concern about poor outcomes should prevent a doctor from performing the surgery if a patient wants it. Chu explains: “No amount of pain, anticipated or continuing, justifies its withholding.”

This is a rather extreme conclusion. Chu writes: “Surgery’s only prerequisite should be a simple demonstration of want.”

This is quite a claim. And we’ll come back to it. But as the op-ed builds to this stark conclusion, Chu reveals many frequently unacknowledged truths about transgender lives — truths that we should attend to.

Sex Isn’t ‘Assigned,’ and Surgery Can’t Change It

First, Chu acknowledges that the surgery won’t actually “reassign” sex: “My body will regard the vagina as a wound; as a result, it will require regular, painful attention to maintain.”

Sex reassignment is quite literally impossible. Surgery can’t actually reassign sex, because sex isn’t “assigned” in the first place. As I point out in “When Harry Became Sally,” sex is a bodily reality — the reality of how an organism is organized with respect to sexual reproduction.

That reality isn’t “assigned” at birth or any time after. Sex — maleness or femaleness — is established at a child’s conception, can be ascertained even at the earliest stages of human development by technological means, and can be observed visually well before birth with ultrasound imaging. Cosmetic surgery and cross-sex hormones don’t change biological reality.

People who undergo sex-reassignment procedures do not become the opposite sex — they merely masculinize or feminize their outward appearance.

Gender Dysphoria Is Deeply Painful

Second, Chu acknowledges the deep pain of gender dysphoria, the sense of distress or alienation one feels at one’s bodily sex:

Dysphoria feels like being unable to get warm, no matter how many layers you put on. It feels like hunger without appetite. It feels like getting on an airplane to fly home, only to realize mid-flight that this is it: You’re going to spend the rest of your life on an airplane. It feels like grieving. It feels like having nothing to grieve.

‘Transitioning’ May Not Make Things Better, and Could Make Them Worse

Third, Chu acknowledges that “transitioning” may not make things better and could even make things worse. Chu writes: “I feel demonstrably worse since I started on hormones.” And continues: “Like many of my trans friends, I’ve watched my dysphoria balloon since I began transition.”

Indeed, as I document in “When Harry Became Sally,” the medical evidence suggests that sex reassignment does not adequately address the psychosocial difficulties faced by people who identify as transgender. Even when the procedures are successful technically and cosmetically, and even in cultures that are relatively “trans-friendly,” transitioners still face poor outcomes.

Even the Obama administration admitted that the best studies do not report improvement after reassignment surgery. In August 2016, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid wrote: “[t]he four best designed and conducted studies that assessed quality of life before and after surgery using validated (albeit non-specific) psychometric studies did not demonstrate clinically significant changes or differences in psychometric test results after [gender reassignment surgery].”

What does that mean?

A population of patients is suffering so much that they would submit to amputations and other radical surgeries, and the best research the Obama administration could find suggests that it brings them no meaningful improvements in their quality of life.

Suicide Is a Serious Risk

Fourth, Chu acknowledges a struggle with suicide ideation: “I was not suicidal before hormones. Now I often am.”

In 2016, the Obama administration acknowledged a similar reality. In a discussion of the largest and most robust study on sex-reassignment, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid pointed out, "The study identified increased mortality and psychiatric hospitalization compared to the matched controls. The mortality was primarily due to completed suicides (19.1-fold greater than in control Swedes).“

These results are tragic. And they directly contradict the most popular media narratives, as well as many of the snapshot studies that do not track people over time. Indeed, the Obama administration noted that "mortality from this patient population did not become apparent until after 10 years.”

So when the media tout studies that only track outcomes for a few years, and claim that reassignment is a stunning success, there are good grounds for skepticism.

The Purpose of Medicine Is Healing

This brings us back to Chu’s argument that “surgery’s only prerequisite should be a simple demonstration of want.” What should we make of it?

Why should a doctor perform surgery when it won’t make the patient happy, it won’t accomplish its intended goal, it won’t improve the underlying condition, it might make the underlying condition worse, and it might increase the likelihood of suicide? Chu wants to turn the profession of medicine on its head, transforming a medical doctor into nothing more than “a highly competent hired syringe," in the words of Leon Kass.

Unfortunately, Chu isn’t alone. Many professionals now view health care — including mental health care — primarily as a means of fulfilling patients’ desires, whatever those are. Kass explains:

The implicit (and sometimes explicit) model of the doctor-patient relationship is one of contract: The physician — a highly competent hired syringe, as it were — sells his services on demand, restrained only by the law (though he is free to refuse his services if the patient is unwilling or unable to meet his fee). Here’s the deal: For the patient, autonomy and service; for the doctor, money, graced by the pleasure of giving the patient what he wants. If a patient wants to fix her nose or change his gender, determine the sex of unborn children, or take euphoriant drugs just for kicks, the physician can and will go to work — provided that the price is right and that the contract is explicit about what happens if the customer isn’t satisfied.

This vision of medicine and medical professionals gets it wrong. Professionals ought to profess their devotion to the purposes and ideals they serve. That’s what makes them professionals, and not just service providers. Teachers should be devoted to learning, lawyers to justice under law, and physicians to "healing the sick, looking up to health and wholeness.”

Healing is “the central core of medicine,” Kass writes — “to heal, to make whole, is the doctor’s primary business.”

But Chu’s vision of medicine turns the doctor into someone who merely satisfies desires, even if what is done isn’t good for a patient. Chu writes:

I still want this, all of it. I want the tears; I want the pain. Transition doesn’t have to make me happy for me to want it. Left to their own devices, people will rarely pursue what makes them feel good in the long term. Desire and happiness are independent agents.

Sound medicine isn’t about desire, it’s about healing. To provide the best possible care, serving the patient’s medical interests requires an understanding of human wholeness and well-being. Mental health care must be guided by a sound concept of human flourishing.

Our brains and senses are designed to bring us into contact with reality, connecting us with the outside world and with the reality of ourselves. Thoughts and feelings that disguise or distort reality are misguided, and they can cause harm. In “When Harry Became Sally,” I argue that we need to do a better job of helping people who face these struggles.

Misrepresentations of My Work

Chu also takes issue with me:

Many conservatives call this [gender dysphoria] crazy. A popular right-wing narrative holds that gender dysphoria is a clinical delusion; hence, feeding that delusion with hormones and surgeries constitutes a violation of medical ethics. Just ask the Heritage Foundation fellow Ryan T. Anderson, whose book ‘When Harry Became Sally’ draws heavily on the work of Dr. Paul McHugh, the psychiatrist who shut down the gender identity clinic at Johns Hopkins in 1979 on the grounds that trans-affirmative care meant ‘cooperating with a mental illness.’ Mr. Anderson writes, ‘We must avoid adding to the pain experienced by people with gender dysphoria, while we present them with alternatives to transitioning.’

Of course, I never call people with gender dysphoria crazy. And I explicitly state in the book that I take no position on the technical question of whether someone’s thinking that he or she is the opposite sex is a clinical delusion. That’s why Chu couldn’t quote any portion of my book saying as much.

Throughout the book, I point out that the feelings that people who identify as transgender report are real — they really feel a disconnect with their bodily sex — but I also acknowledge the fact that those feelings don’t change bodily reality. I recognize the real distress that gender dysphoria can cause, but never do I call people experiencing it crazy.

I repeatedly acknowledge that gender dysphoria is a serious condition, that people who experience a gender identity conflict should be treated with respect and compassion, that we need to find better, more humane and effective, responses to people who experience dysphoria.

Nevertheless, Chu claims that I am engaged in “‘compassion-mongering,’ peddling bigotry in the guise of sympathetic concern.”

For the record, Chu never contacted me regarding my research or my book. Nor did the Times contact me to verify any of the claims made about me in the op-ed. Indeed, this is the second time The New York Times has published an op-ed with inaccurate criticisms of me and my book.

Americans disagree about gender identity and the best approaches to treating gender dysphoria. We need to respect the dignity of people who identify as transgender while also doing everything possible to help people find wholeness and happiness.

That will require a better conversation about these issues, which is why I wrote my book. And it’s presumably why Chu wrote this op-ed. Now is not the time for personal attacks and name-calling, but for sober and respectful truth-telling.

Chu may regard me as a “bigot,” but I regard Chu as a fellow human being made in the image and likeness of God who is struggling with a painful and dangerous condition. As such, Chu deserves care and support that will bring health and wholeness — not the on-demand delivery of “services” that even Chu acknowledges are unlikely to make life better and may make it very much worse.

SOURCE





Six in ten Asian-born Australians experience racism in accessing housing, survey finds

It is typical of a Left-leaning newspaper like the SMH to blame everything on racism.  If you believed Leftist media outlets, you would think Australia rivals Nazi Germany for racism.

As it happens, I usually have both Chinese and Indian tenants so I suppose I can talk with some immunity from a charge of racism.

The first thing to note is that the data is highly suspect. Online surveys tend to be answered by those who have a dog in the fight concerned.  Much lower and differently distributed examples of discrimination could be expected from a representative survey.  So the findings below are essentially rubbish from beginning to end.

From my involvement in the matter, what is actually happening is dislike not of the race of a tenant but the inability to communicate well with people who have poor English. And East Asians find English very difficult to learn.  I am sure that Asian speakers of Australian English would rarely find difficulty.

I put up with poor English because I have found Chinese to be otherwise exceptionally good tenants.  Indians are more diverse but usually have passable English and I like their generally cheerful attitudes.  Indian English is the de facto national language of India so Indians have little difficulty in adapting to Australian English


When it comes to access to housing in Australia, the playing field is far from even.

Our recent research has found that race matters. Many Australians experience racism and discrimination based on their cultural background.

This is particularly the case for Asian Australians. They experience much higher rates of racism across a variety of everyday settings, but particularly when renting or buying a house.

An online national survey of 6001 Australians measured the extent and variation of racist attitudes and experiences. We examined the impacts of where Australians are born and what language they speak at home on their experiences of racism.

Our research revealed that if you were born overseas, or if your parents were born overseas and you speak a language other than English at home, you are likely to have many more experiences of racism than other Australians. Racism is experienced in a variety of settings –workplaces, educational institutions, shopping centres, public spaces and online.

Survey participants born in Asia were twice as likely as other Australians to experience everyday racism. In fact, 84 per cent of these Asian Australians experienced racism.

For those born in Australia to parents who were both born in an Asian country, rates of racism were just as high (86 per cent).

If you speak an Asian language at home, your experiences of racism are also likely to be high. Speakers of South Asian and East Asian languages experience racism at alarming rates – 85 per cent and 88 per cent respectively. Those who speak Southwest/Central Asian and Southeast Asian languages experience rates of discrimination (79 per cent and 78 per cent respectively) similar to those for all participants of a non-English-speaking background (77 per cent).

Anti-Asian housing discrimination

Published findings for New South Wales and Queensland in the 1990s revealed that 6.4 per cent of Australians reported having experienced ethnic-based discrimination when renting or buying a house. Our recent national study has found this proportion has increased dramatically. In recent years, 24 per cent of Australians have experienced housing discrimination.

As with the broader pattern of everyday racism, Asian Australians are feeling the brunt of housing discrimination. Almost six in ten (59 per cent) Asia-born participants in our study experienced racism in accessing housing. This compares to only 19 per cent of non-Asian-born participants.

Asia-born respondents were also more likely to report frequent experiences of housing discrimination. Some 13 per cent reported these experiences occurred “often” or “very often”. This is more than three times the average exposure of non-Asian-born Australians.

In particular, participants born in Northeast and South/Central Asia are more frequently exposed to racism in housing. And 15 per cent and 16 per cent respectively reported housing discrimination occurred “often” or “very often”. This compares to only 9 per cent of those born in Southeast Asia.

The survey also found that if you have two Asia-born parents you are highly likely to experience such racism (44 per cent). Similarly, if you speak a language other than English at home (especially an Asian language), you are more likely to experience housing discrimination (45 per cent).

South Asian language speakers (e.g. Hindi, Tamil, Sinhalese) experience housing discrimination at a much higher rate of 63 per cent. The rate for East Asian language speakers (e.g. Chinese, Japanese, Korean) is 55 per cent. Only 19 per cent of English-only speakers had the same experiences.

SOURCE 

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

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

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

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28 November, 2018

Boys Punching Girls: Feminism's Big "Win"

MEGAN FOX

It's all over social media, the Antifa chick in the dreds getting clocked in the forehead by a "Nazi" (whatever that means) at the Tax Day rally in Berkeley. The usual sources are outraged. The other side is wryly amused.

For many years now Hollywood has been giving us heroines who are as strong or stronger than men. They take a punch but never go down. They kick ass. Those of us who live in reality know that this is pure fantasy, but there is a generation of youngins' who think it's possible for a 5'4", 100 lb. girl to fight toe to toe with a 6-foot-tall man and walk away with a bruise or two while leaving the man on the ground in a pool of his own blood. Lara Croft and a million other plucky FBI agents and CIA super spies with big boobs and deadly aim have taught us this.

Twitter is attacking the "alt-right" for hitting a girl. The puncher, Nathan Damigo, is the founder of a white nationalist group at California State, Stanislaus, called Identity Evropa. The alt-right is raising money to buy ice for his hand.

Does anyone see the irony in the social justice warriors complaining that a guy hit a girl? A girl who wants equality with men showed up at a Trump rally wearing weighted gloves, tried to punch a guy in the throat, and got laid out with one punch.

For as long as I can remember, the feminists have told us they're exactly the same, if not better than men. So why are we supposed to be outraged that one of them got hit in the face by a man? Isn't that exactly what she wanted when she jumped into the fray and started swinging?

These people confuse me. On one hand, Moldylocks wants to be considered an anarchist warrior, bragging that she would take "100 nazi scalps" on social media. And now she's whining to anyone who will listen that she's just a 94 lb. shrinking violet who landed in the hospital after getting her clock cleaned by a big bad boy.

I can't muster any sympathy. I tried. Her GoFundMe page goes so far as to call her a "poor girl." Oh, give me a break! This girl knew exactly what she was doing joining Antifa at the Berkeley rally. She was there to fight "nazis." She said so.

I feel sorry for ME. I feel intense sadness for the women out here who never wanted this kind of equality, who knew that it would lead to guys punching girls. We raise our sons not to hit women and then women show up and beg to be hit.

How on earth do we fix this? These gals have lost their ever loving minds and now we all suffer the consequences. Forget getting a seat on the bus when you're eight months pregnant. Those days are long gone. Now, thanks to the rabid females on the Left, we have to expect to get punched if a brawl breaks out. No one is coming to protect us or shield us from the fray. Thanks a heap, ladies.

This is what feminists have asked for and I'll be damned if I let them complain about it. This is the bed you made. Now lie in it...bleeding on the ground. This twit has been interviewed and makes no mention of the glass bottle she was swinging at people before she got punched.

If this is equality, I don't want it.

SOURCE. More on the issues involved here






Idaho family wins four-year 'war on Christmas' lawsuit against neighbors who discriminated against their religion by trying to stop extravagant nativity play featuring a real CAMEL outside their mansion

An Idaho family has won $75,000 in a lawsuit after they claimed their Homeowners Association discriminated against them for religious beliefs when they tried to stop them hosting an annual five-day-long nativity event that attracted thousands of people.

A jury unanimously agreed with Jeremy and Kristy Morris, known for putting on a festive extravaganza in the five days leading up to Christmas each year, after overwhelming evidence and witness accounts showed there was an Ebenezer Scrooge among HOA members.

All the usual components of the more extravagantly decorated American houses around this time of year were featured by the couple - who have three young children – including bright lights, hymns and even the often-considered secular figure of Santa Claus.

But even before the family moved into the Ferndale Drive home that they picked with consideration for hosting their yearly set-up, the HOA had already shared a list of problems with their arrival in response to Morris asking how the event could be run with minimal upset.

In a 2014 letter they wrote: 'It's not the intention of the Board to discourage you from becoming part of our great neighborhood, but we do not wish to become entwined in any expensive litigation to enforce long standing rules and regulations and fill our neighborhood with the hundreds of people and possible undesirables. We have worked hard to keep our area peaceful, quiet, and clean…

'And finally, I am somewhat hesitant in bringing up the fact that some of our residents are non-Christians or of another faith. And I don't even want to think of the problems that could bring up.'

However an earlier draft of the letter, obtained by the Couer d'Alene Press, was discovered where it ended with sentiments that were more direct.

It said: 'We do not wish to become entwined in any expensive litigation to enforce long-standing rules and regulations and fill our neighborhood with the riff-raff you seemed to attract over by WalMart … Grouse Meadows indeed!!! We don't allow 'those kind' in our neighborhood.'

They said he would have to cancel the festivities in order to move in.

But for Morris he was simply exercising his First Amendment right to peacefully practice his faith and saw it as his way to deliver his public ministry.

After his court triumph Morris told the Spokesman-Review about the letter: 'The letter talks just like normal people talk every day. Normally, people don't say, 'Listen, you're fired because I don't like the color of your skin'.'

The correspondence between the parties also noted that excessively bright lights could be a problem, as well as road blockages.

However the father already had all bases covered and had paid for traffic management in the area – including organizing city-approved parking elsewhere for visitors and hiring a shuttle to his home – plus he held the activities between 6pm and 8pm just in time to tuck his own children into bed.

In the spirit of giving, free food and drink was provided for the two years of events that went ahead regardless and he paid out of pocket for insurance worth $2million on the storytelling which included live animals.

All he asked is that visitors contributed to the Emmett Paul Snyders Foundation, giving money to actors dressed as Roman Centurions to help children sufferance from cancer, abuse and neglect.

In his case Morris used that fact that when he asked the HOA's president in 2016, Ron Taylor, about the lighting issue, he admitted it was only in regards to permanent fixtures which ruled out the colorful bulbs regularly used on homes.

He noted Taylor told him the HOA had found issues 'because someone in the association doesn't like Christmas'.

Similarly, Angie Cox – who lived next door – helped his case by saying that during a phone call with HOA leader Jennifer Scott, it was clear they were trying to dissuade him from living there.

'I asked Mrs. Scott what the real problem was and why they had not consulted the members about the attorney,' Cox said in an affidavit. '"Is it he's really breaking the law — or breaking the rules or you guys just don't want him here?" And she told me, 'We just don't want him here'.'

Cox added that she heard no noise from her close residence.

Furthermore, Cox said in the sworn document that neighbors threatened attendees who came to see the house and the festivities around it, kicking cars, hurling profanities as the elderly and telling young people to leave the neighborhood.

Describing the HOA as 'vigilantes', Cox claimed neighbors even threatened to have Morris murdered and referred to him as 'the enemy'.

The parents-of-three paid out of pocket to for insurance worth $2million and provided guests with entertainment,  free food and drink, plus helped with travel and parking arrangements

Morris, who is a lawyer, won his claim but the neighbors who wanted out will get their wish as he now wishes to live in another neighborhood.

He claims he has lost thousands of dollars in making home improvements on his property.

'Our family will live wherever we want to live to spread the message of Jesus Christ and the birth of our savior,' he said. 'We're looking forward. We're positive. We're excited.'

The HOA filed counterclaims and if the case is appealed and the Morris family wins again with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals it would regulate law for similar incidents occurring throughout the most of the western area of the country.

SOURCE





Women’s March Founder Asks Leaders to Step Down for Refusing to Distance Themselves from Groups Espousing Hateful Beliefs

On Monday, Women’s March founder Teresa Shook called on several leaders of the Women’s March to step down, following their refusal to distance themselves from anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry.

In a Facebook post, Shook accused Women’s March board members Linda Sarsour, Tamika Mallory, Bob Bland and Carmen Perez of refusing to “separate themselves” from groups that promote “hateful rhetoric.”

“In opposition to our Unity Principles, they have allowed anti-Semitism, anti-LBGTQIA sentiment and hateful, racist rhetoric to become a part of the platform by their refusal to separate themselves from groups that espouse these racist, hateful beliefs,” Shook wrote.

“I call for the current Co-Chairs to step down and let others lead who can restore faith in the Movement and its original intent,” she added.

The mission of the Women’s March, which started in 2017 after the inauguration of President Donald Trump, is to “harness the political power of diverse women and their communities to create transformative social change.”

Its “Unity Principles,” as stated on its website, include ending violence, reproductive rights, LGBTQIA rights, worker’s rights, civil rights, disability rights, immigrant rights and environmental justice.

Sarsour, Perez, and Mallory have all been linked to Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam who has a history of anti-Semitism. In a recent speech, he compared Jews to “termites.”

Mallory was harshly criticized for her presence at a Feb. 28 speech in which Farrakhan made a series of anti-Semitic remarks, such as “the powerful Jews are my enemy” and “Farrakhan… has pulled the cover off the eyes of that Satanic Jew.”

Sarsour has also made several controversial remarks about Israel. In an interview with The Nation, Sarsour said feminism and support for the state of Israel were incompatible. According to The Daily Wire, she has also “downplayed anti-Semitism” and “called Zionism ‘creepy.’”

Shook is not the first person to notice anti-Semitism within the highest ranks of the Women’s March.

On Nov. 8, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES), a German think tank, withdrew a human rights award that it had planned to give the Women’s March on Nov. 12, after FES alumni wrote an open letter condemning the march’s anti-Semitism.

“An organization that may support feminism, but discriminates against Jews and Zionists and denies Israel’s right to exist should not be honored by a democratic foundation that advocates diversity and speaks out against discrimination,” the group wrote.

Celebrities have also condemned the march, including left-wing actress and activist Alyssa Milano. In an interview, Milano said she was “disappointed in the leadership of the Women’s March” and would not speak at the 2019 march if Sarsour or Mallory were leading it.

“Any time that there is any bigotry or anti-Semitism in that respect, it needs to be called out and addressed,” Milano said.

Actress Debra Messing agreed in a Nov. 8 tweet. “I stand with you,” she wrote, tagging Milano.

SOURCE





Theresa May is a moral cockroach

Revealed: Theresa May 'blocked asylum application from Pakistani Christian' locked up for blasphemy despite UK playing host to hijackers, extremists and rapists


Theresa May has been accused of refusing asylum to a Christian mother who is being hunted by lynch mobs in Pakistan.

The fate of Asia Bibi has pitted Home Secretary Sajid Javid against the Prime Minister, with Mr Javid arguing passionately that she should be given refuge in the UK.

But sources say that his plan was thwarted after Ms May was persuaded that letting Bibi claim asylum here would ‘stoke tensions’ among British Muslims.

As the political row rages, The Mail on Sunday today reveals the full extent of the ordeal endured by Ms Bibi, a Roman Catholic from the Punjab province who was given the death sentence in 2010 after she was accused of defiling the name of the Prophet Mohammed.

Our investigation reveals that on the day she was seized by villagers and accused of blasphemy she was paraded through her village with a leather noose around her neck, beaten with sticks by a baying mob during a ‘court’ hearing and told that her life would be spared only if she converted to Islam.

Bibi’s conviction was quashed last month following eight years in solitary confinement after Pakistan’s Supreme Court said the case was based on ‘inconsistent’ evidence.

The acquittal prompted days of demonstrations by thousands of hardline Islamists who demanded she be hanged. Ms Bibi is now in hiding after Imran Khan’s government agreed to allow a petition against the court’s decision as part of a deal to halt the protests.

So instead of being reunited with her five children she is being hunted across Pakistan, forced to scuttle under cover of darkness between safe houses.

Her supporters in the UK have lobbied the Government in vain to offer her asylum in Britain.

It is understood that Mr Javid was backed in his battle by Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, despite the fact his officials said allowing her to take sanctuary in the UK would endanger the security of British diplomats in Islamabad.

A senior Government source said: ‘Sajid was very sceptical about the official advice, and pushed hard for her to be given asylum here. It eventually landed on the Prime Minister’s desk, but she just followed the advice of the officials’.

Last night it was reported that Ms Bibi had been offered asylum by Australia.

Qamar Rafiq, a human rights activist who had campaigned for MS Bibi to be given sanctuary in Britain, said: ‘Not just me, lots of Christians are disappointed by the British Government not allowing her into the UK. A lot of our Muslim friends are also disappointed.’

Joseph Nadim, a Christian activist and a friend of Ms Bibi’s in Pakistan, said Britain should give her and her family asylum, adding: ‘If she stays here longer, she will be killed. I am disappointed they [the UK] have not offered her asylum.’

Ms Bibi was harvesting berries in 2009 when her Muslim co-workers accused her of being unclean, prompting an argument and allegations Ms Bibi blasphemed against Islam, which she strongly denies.

This newspaper has pieced together the terrifying sequence of events which followed: she was taken to a makeshift sharia court and flung at the feet of an imam, who told her: ‘You know what happens to people who insult the Prophet. You can redeem yourself by accepting Islam.’

Asia declined as the crowd began jeering and spitting. She was then whipped with sticks and sandals, leaving her bleeding and semi-conscious. Her life was only saved when a teacher intervened, saying she should be handed over to police.

The Foreign Office said: ‘The UK’s primary concern is for the safety of Asia Bibi and her family. A number of countries are in discussions to provide a safe destination’.

The Home Office declined to comment, while No 10 said: ‘Bibi’s safety is the Prime Minister’s only concern.’

...yet UK was happy to give this lot a home:

Iraqi teen Ahmed Hassan told immigration officers he’d been ‘trained to kill’ by ISIS but was given a home and went on to set off the Parsons Green bomb

Dejan Tolic was one of Serbia’s White Eagles,  a paramilitary group  linked to the massacre of Bosnian Muslims, but was allowed to stay in Britain.

Iraqi teen Ahmed Hassan, left, told immigration officers he’d been ‘trained to kill’ by ISIS but was given a home and went on to set off the Parsons Green bomb.

Dejan Tolic, right, was one of Serbia’s White Eagles, a paramilitary group linked to the massacre of Bosnian Muslims, but was allowed to stay in Britain

Reshad Ahmadi was one of nine Afghans who hijacked a jet, forcing it to land at Stansted in 2000. After release from jail they were allowed to stay in the UK

Joseph Lissa was branded a war criminal over his alleged involvement in killings and rape in Sierra Leone’s civil war but was allowed to stay in the UK

Reshad Ahmadi, left, was one of nine Afghans who hijacked a jet, forcing it to land at Stansted in 2000. After release from jail they were allowed to stay in the UK. Joseph Lissa, right, was branded a war criminal over his alleged involvement in killings and rape in Sierra Leone’s civil war but was allowed to stay in the UK.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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27 November, 2018

Gender politics and the sinking of the KNM [Royal Norwegian Navy] Helge Ingstad

The article below goes as far as it dares in saying that female military incompetence was so great that it sunk an "unsinkable" Norwegian warship women were managing. When they hit the other ship, it seems likely that the females in charge of the very expensive ship initially just sat down and cried rather than do anything useful, thus losing their ship. The Norwegian navy should tell us what actually happened if they don't like us to draw that inference.

Note that when two similar American warships collided with civvy ships recently, the crew managed to save their ships. The American ships were managed by men

My recent ex-wife was in the army for 9 years and she tells me that most women in the services are queer. And my late sister was a Lesbian and through her I saw something of Lesbians.  And I saw that, like masculine women generally, they tended to overconfidence and had to have others (mostly men) bail them out when they goofed.

So it seems highly likely to me that it is the characteristic overconfidence of masculine women that sank the ship.  They were too confident to take proper precautions and observe proper procedures.  No other explanation seems possible


Returning from the NATO Trident Juncture strategic exercise, a Norwegian frigate collided with a tanker. Many are speculating that gender politics sunk the vessel.

The collision with the KNM Helge Ingstad left a big enough hole in the starboard side of the frigate for the warship to take on water. The crew has been forced to abandon the vessel, The Barents Observer reported. On Tuesday morning, most of the navy ship was already under water.

The warship, one of Norway’s five top modern frigates, was on her way home to Haakonsvern naval base, but it is still a mystery why the well-equipped warship couldn’t avoid colliding with the 250 meters long oil tanker just north of the oil terminal.

The weather was excellent while the waters in the area offer maritime traffic real-time shipping control. Also, there was radio-contact between the vessels when the accident happened.

The nagging question remains as to why the frigate, with all its radars and sensors, could not change course to avoid the collision.

The Armed Forces appear reluctant to speak about the crew of the KNM Helge Ingstad.

Judging by the sound record and expert statements, the crew made crude, almost incomprehensible human errors, making them look like amateurs.

“If this is how the Navy trains its naval officers, it’s shocking. They do not show any discipline or understanding of the roadmap rules, nor how to communicate or navigate at sea,” the experienced captain and navigator Geir S Eilertsen remarked.

“In the audio log, you hear the use of voice that does not seem as if the crew in the frigate is aware of the situation they are in. They are not aware that they are heading for danger,” he said.

Retired Commander Jacob Borresen, also found the collision inexplicable. “The fact that it happened in this particular area is incomprehensible. Here we have a traffic centre packed with radar monitoring equipment reading transponder signals from all the vessels in the area.

“The frigate had state-of-the-art radar equipment and infrared optical systems. How is it possible that the vessels didn’t see each other?” Borresen responded an interview with Norwegian state broadcaster NRK.

An increasing number of readers have contacted Resett pointing to previous speeches about KNM Helge Ingstad, where the publication Armed Forces had been more than willing to praise the crew.

The appointment of the crew was highly controversial at the time, especially to critics who are familiar with the inner workings and operations of the Armed Forces.

The debate had centred around the number of women in the Navy, the extent to which they are quoted in requirements compared to men, and what effect it had on the professional “culture” of the Armed Forces.

In the Norwegian magazine, Armed Forces Forum No. 2 in 2017 it was stated that “Four out of five navigators on frigate KNM Helge Ingstad are women“.

“It is advantageous to have many women on board. It will be a natural thing and a completely different environment, which I look at as positive,” Lieutenant Iselin Emilie Jakobsen Ophus said. She is a navigation officer at KNM Helge Ingstad, according to Defense Forum.

In yet another politically correct nod, the text notes that: “The Navy receives a much higher number of women after general conscription duty was introduced. Therefore, more women are also more motivated for further career opportunities in the Armed Forces.

“There has always been a perception that the Armed Forces are characterized by a very masculine environment, and in many ways it is true. It is mostly men in the Armed Forces, but it is important for me to show that you do not have to be ‘one of the guys’ to assume a role in the Armed Forces. Finding one’s place should not be at the expense of being a woman,” said Ophus.

When more women are able to work together, “it becomes easier to discover and to create a more balanced defense,” Armed Forces Forum opined.

“It is important that the integration of women should work in every aspect: from officers and constables, to people,” Ophus said, adding: “The most important thing for me is that my job makes sense because you work for something bigger than yourself.”

In the same magazine where the Norwegians boast about gender equality in their Navy, they also explained that they are looking into every department of their Armed Forces to apply the same formula.

Norway’s Ministry of Defence has not yet reported whether they plan to lift the frigate from where it sunk to repair the vessel. All the 137 people on board the KMN Helge Instad were successfully evacuated.

Not only did the demise of the uninsured frigate cost the Norwegian Navy its entire annual budget, but the country lost millions with several oil and gas fields which were temporarily shut down due to the accident.

Since the oil companies pay 78 percent taxes to the state for production, the shutdown resulted in a substantial economic loss, national broadcaster NRK reported.

?The KMN Helge Ingstad is one of five Nansen-class frigates billed as “unsinkable” due to its construction with water-tight zones designed to keep the warship “intact and operable”.

The vessel had taken part a “high visibility” exercise shortly before the collision.

SOURCE







Tucker Carlson Asks Univision Anchor: If Latinos Oppose Latino Illegal Immigration, 'Where's the Racism?'

Tucker Carlson (L) interviews Enrique Acevedo. (Screenshot)
Mexicans protesting the illegal alien caravan in Tijuana are intolerant, hateful racists, Univision Anchor Enrique Acevedo told Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Monday.

Appearing on Carlson’s television program, Acevedo condemned the Tijuana citizens protesting illegal immigration from other Latin American countries:

CARLSON: "I’m confused. We just saw a group of Mexican citizens in Tijuana saying basically the same things that President Trump says almost to the word, endorsing Trump. Are they white supremacists?"

ACEVEDO: "You have to understand that, unlike human beings, intolerance, hate and even racism flows freely across borders and that is what you saw in those interviews.

“They are not running for president. They are not running for president of United States either. They are part of a group of around 300 protesters in a city of 1.3 million who, like many others along the way of this caravan are opposed to their presence in Tijuana, and the overwhelming majority of people in Tijuana welcome immigrants. It’s a city of immigrants."

Carlson, then, challenged Univision’s Acevedo, asking how Latinos can be racist against other Latinos. Acevedo responded by noting the ethnic and cultural differences among Latinos:

CARLSON: “You just said that they’re racist, but, they’re Latinos – Spanish-speaking Latinos – attacking other Spanish-speaking Latinos. So, where’s the racism?”

ACEVEDO: “Well, we’re not a monolithic community, Tucker. We have people from Central America, from Venezuela, from Colombia, different backgrounds, different ethnicities – and, yes, racism exists in Mexico towards Central Americans. It’s not new. It’s happened throughout history. But, not only that, it's part of what these migrants face when they go across Mexico: violence, extortion and racism."

CARLSON: “Okay, but I’m not quite sure how it’s about racism, if they appear to be of the same race. But, moreover, they said, and I think I’m quoting one of the protesters: it’s not about racism, this is almost exactly what he said, we want our government to enforce our borders, which is what a lot of people, including me, say frequently in the United States.”

SOURCE






UK investigates 3,000 foreign medics, after fake doctor is exposed

They are so desperate to staff their crappy hospitals that they will hire anyone

In a land where matters of public health care are never far from scrutiny and sometimes scandal, British medical authorities acknowledged Monday that they were checking the credentials of some 3,000 foreign physicians after one was convicted of fraud and accused of falsifying qualifications.

The case could add to concerns about the safety of patients in Britain’s once-vaunted National Health Service, even as tight budgets and the possible impact of Britain’s pending departure from the European Union have augmented a sense of unease.

For more than two decades, Zholia Alemi, 56, worked at health facilities in Britain using what she said was a qualification from her native New Zealand. The document enabled her to treat patients suffering from dementia and an array of other psychiatric complaints.

But in recent weeks, an investigation by a provincial newspaper uncovered a very different version of Alemi’s background.

The News & Star, based in Carlisle, a small city in northwest England, contacted authorities in New Zealand and reported that Alemi had abandoned her medical studies in 1992 after one year and had secured only a degree in human biology.

When she arrived in England in the mid-1990s, she benefited from a program that helped physicians from some former British colonies, including New Zealand, to secure licenses to practice in Britain with only limited examinations of their credentials.

“It is extremely concerning that a person used a fraudulent qualification,” Charlie Massey, chief executive of the General Medical Council, said in a statement Monday. He added that the group, which oversees the medical profession in Britain, was “working to understand how this happened.”

As a consultant psychiatrist whose credentials had not been challenged, Alemi had “the same privileges as any other” doctor of her rank, the council said, including the ability to prescribe medications and to commit patients for treatment without their consent.

“It is clear that in this case the steps taken in the 1990s were inadequate, and we apologize for any risk arising to patients as a result,” he said.

The case of Alemi came to light after she attempted to take advantage of a patient, Gillian Belham, an 84-year-old widow whom she befriended in 2016 at a dementia clinic in the coastal town of Workington.

Alemi was sentenced last month to five years in prison for forging her patient’s will and trying to gain control of her estate, valued at around $1.5 million.

“This was despicable criminality, motivated by pure greed,” Judge James Adkin, who announced the sentence, was quoted as saying by The News & Star.

The General Medical Council said that the program under which Alemi qualified to practice medicine in Britain was abandoned in 2003.

“As part of her application, Zholia Alemi presented what appeared to be a Primary Medical Qualification from the University of Auckland, a letter from the university confirming her graduation, and a reference letter from her most recent employers in Pakistan,” the council said. “We now know that the qualification provided was fraudulent.”

The General Medical Council said it had started “an immediate review” of all doctors who had gone through the same process and were still licensed to practice in Britain — placing that number around 3,000.

“It is important to stress this is an incredibly rare case,” the council said. “There is nothing to suggest other doctors who took this route are anything but honest and hard-working, but it is important that we carry out checks in light of this.”

The General Medical Council said that physicians seeking permission to practice were now subject to more extensive verification procedures, including linguistic and professional testing. It also insisted on much closer screening of documents to prevent fraud.

The News & Star reported that the medical authorities in New Zealand had confirmed that Alemi “never has qualified as a doctor.”

SOURCE







The moment a MAN in a burqa and a woman in a motorcycle helmet walk into a bank – so can YOU guess what happens next?

A man in a burqa and a woman in a motorcycle helmet have walked into a Melbourne [Australia] bank to make a point about political correctness.

Conservative activist Avi Yemini, who is running as an Australian Liberty Alliance candidate at tomorrow's Victorian election, and the right-wing party's president Debbie Robinson entered an ANZ branch in the city on Friday afternoon.

Bank security guards raised no objection to Mr Yemini, a former Israeli soldier, wearing a black Islamic outfit as he carried a handbag during the lunch hour.

Mrs Robinson however was approached by security as she wore a black helmet over a blue suit jacket, moments after arriving at the bank on Collins Street.

She asked why she had to remove her helmet while her party colleague, running as an upper house candidate for Southern Metro, could keep his burqa on.

'Well, how come that lady can wear a burqa?,' she said.

The bank employee struggled to answer her question.

'Yeah, I know but it's um,' he said.

Still wearing her motorcycle helmet, Mrs Robinson protested about being discriminated against.

'So I have to take this off and she doesn't have to take that off?,' she said.

The security guard still struggled to answer her.

'Yeah, I'm not going to get into that,' he said.

At that point, Mrs Robinson told him she thought the double standard was ridiculous.

'Why? What's the difference? I feel like that's kind of discriminating against me,' she said.

'I mean she's sitting there with that on. Why do I have to take this off?.'

Mrs Robinson then removed her helmet and made her point about political correctness as Mr Yemini walked by her in a burqa.

'I think it's really unfair I have to take this off and people can walk around with those on,' she said. 'I think that's terrible in this day in age. How come you can wear that? That's not fair.'

Mr Yemini then removed his facial covering.

The conservative Jewish activist, who campaigns against Islamist extremists, mocked the security guard for being politically correct. 'You're a good man for standing up for multiculturalism,' he said. 'Don't you feel safer?'

Like One Nation, the Australian Liberty Alliance is in favour of banning full facial coverings in public.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson last year wore a burqa into the Senate chamber to make this point.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted ANZ to clarify their policy on full facial coverings in bank branches.

SOURCE 

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

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

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

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






22 November, 2018

Faith rewarded: Actress Prayed Over Home, and Property and Animals Were Untouched by California Wildfire

I am always moved and delighted when people see the hand of God in their lives.  That was certainly a powerful and wonderful Psalm she recited.  In the pic below you can see the confidence and repose her faith gives her. Her God even saved her horses. Her poor helpless horses could have done nothing to save themselves.  Faith can do wonderful things.  As I write this I am listening to one of the greatest works of faith:  "The Passion According to Matthew" by J.S. Bach.  It takes me to another place



Actress Brenda Epperson, who once played Ashley Abbott on “The Young and The Restless,” told CBN News Thursday that she prayed over her California home, asking God to spare it from the California wildfire. As a result, the fire stopped at the border of her property.

"I just kept praying Psalms 91 over our home, 'whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will find rest in his mighty shadow. I will say of the Lord he is my refuge and my God in whom I trust. Surely, he will save you from the fowler's snare and the deadly pestilence. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand but it will not come near you," she said in a Facebook video.

What’s more, she kept horses from other farms safe from the flames.

"We could only evacuate the horses that could fit in our trailer which was three horses. And then all of our neighbors had borders so all of their horses, 25, 30, horses went in that pen. And so there was 35 horses there and the fire stopped. God stopped that fire, Wendy, right at our property line, right at our fence." she said in an interview with CBN News.

“There was angels all around," she said, adding, "It could have been horrific, and God stopped it.”

She and her family evacuated at some point and had to leave the animals behind.

“I have prayed over this property so many times, and pled the blood of Jesus over this property, and walked to the perimeter and just not only done that, but thanked God that he gave us this property, but prayed over it that our animals would be safe and no harm or danger would befall us. In Isaiah 54:17 that ‘No weapon formed against us will prosper,” Epperson said.

She said a sculptor friend of hers lost his home, “and he built this incredibly beautiful cross, and the only thing standing was the cross.”

When she and her family returned to their home, "Every horse was okay. They had water, they didn't even have ash on them."

Epperson said she has faith that God will use the California wildfires as an opportunity for people to get to know him.

"The good that's going to come out of it is I believe that revival, that God is going to wake us all up. I know my life is changed and I just want to share the love of God even more with everybody," she said.

"I just want to say that God's love is there for each one of us if we would just simply say, 'Yes.' And it's been an honor helping friends and neighbors," Epperson added.

More than 600 people are reported missing and 63 people died from the wildfire.

SOURCE






London cops learn the wrong lesson

Rather than admit that female police are useless on the frontline, they learnt that you should let violent offenders go!  They learnt that they should fail in one of their most important duties

Police leaders have warned they will tell officers to let violent suspects go if they do not have broader support following an attack on a female PC.

Ken Marsh, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said if officers were going to get assaulted for simply doing their job, then it was not worth putting themselves at risk.

He spoke out after video footage emerged of two officers locked in a violent struggle as they tried to make an arrest in Merton, south London, on Saturday.

A female police officer was filmed being kicked in the head during the routine traffic stop, before being left lying dazed in the road clutching her head just feet away from a passing bus.

Her male colleague was dragged around in the road as he tried to stop a suspect in a white tracksuit from running away.

The female officer had tried to use incapacitant spray on the pair but to no effect. Both were hospitalised following the attack, treated for head injuries and cuts.

A member of the public helped the male officer in the struggle but several cars went past without stopping and the person filming the attack did not appear to step in and help.

Martin Payne, 20, from Croydon, was detained and charged with assault under new legislation designed to toughen up sentences for those who attack emergency workers. The other two suspects remain at large.

Mr Marsh said: "Are we now in a society where, if we think we can't detain somebody, we just let them go? It's just not worth it.

"We're going to come to a point where we're going to start pushing messages out to our colleagues: 'Risk-assess it dynamically and, if you think you can't detain a person, just let them go.'

"We don't come to work to get assaulted, and if we're not going to be backed up in what we're doing then what is the point?"

He told the Telegraph that their numbers and finances had been “stripped down to the bone”, warning that a police officer in London was attacked every hour.

“Society has changed, people think it’s OK to drop kick a police officer in broad daylight because they have impunity - nothing really happens.”

He said the new Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act would only help if it is legislated correctly and the powers are used.

The latest attack follows a spate of assaults on female officers.

Last month, footage emerged of armed robber Owen Smith dragging PC Ellie Young from a patrol car as he tried to flee a raid on an Esso garage in Horsham. She was left with arm, leg, shoulder and neck injuries after continuing to tackle him alongside colleague PC Vicky Canales.

Smith was jailed for 14 years at Hove Crown Court for his part in the raid.

PC Anne Bloomfield was left with a fractured skull after being attacked with a Champagne bottle. She had stepped into support a colleague who had been punched and kicked at a property in Nottingham but sustained a hairline fracture of her eye socket, a black eye and bruising to her face and hand. She later admitted she thought she was going to die.

Lee Carl Wright was charged with GBH without intent and was jailed for just two years eight months.

Another female officer from Nottinghamshire was knocked unconscious by a suspect who hit her with a pair of handcuffs.

Chris Bryant, the Labour MP who sponsored the new emergency workers legislation, said the footage of the Merton attack “turned your stomach”. But he warned:  “The bill will only be effective if there are enough police officers to implement it and there is the will to act. “We need to have the police, the prosecutors and the courts all lined up and taking it seriously but they also need government backing.”

Dave Keen, chairman of the Nottinghamshire Police Federation, said the force was “at a tipping point” and that criminals were becoming aware that back up was further away.

“Policing is at risk,” he said. “Every day, officers are going out at fear of being attacked. I would issue a plea to the courts to use these new powers and take it seriously.”

SOURCE





School has SEVENTEEN children changing gender as teacher says vulnerable pupils are being 'tricked' into believing they are the wrong sex

An astonishing 17 pupils at a single British school are in the process of changing gender, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Most of the youngsters undergoing the transformation are autistic, according to a teacher there, who said vulnerable children with mental health problems were being ‘tricked’ into believing they are the wrong sex.

The whistleblower says few of the transgender children are suffering from gender dysphoria – the medical term for someone who feels they were born in the wrong body – but are just easily influenced, latching on to the mistaken belief they are the wrong sex as a way of coping with the problems caused by autism.

Earlier this year, The Mail on Sunday revealed that a third of youngsters referred to the NHS’s only gender identity clinic for children showed ‘moderate to severe autistic traits’.

It means that 150 autistic teenagers were given puberty blocker drugs which stop the body maturing.

The teacher says she felt compelled to speak out to protect pupils, many of whom she believes could already be taking the powerful drugs and may go on to have life-changing surgery.

She believes schools and some politicians have swallowed ‘hook, line and sinker’ a politically-correct ‘fallacy’ peddled by a powerful transgender lobby.

She has asked The Mail on Sunday to conceal her identity for fear of dismissal after almost 20 years as a teacher, But in a shocking interview, the woman, who we shall call Carol, tells how:

She was advised to keep parents and other teachers in the dark if a pupil claimed to be transgender;

Older pupils at her school who changed gender ‘groomed’ younger, mainly autistic students to do the same; One autistic teenager is soon to have a double mastectomy;

Pupils who say they were born the wrong sex mimic transgender YouTube stars Carol believes are partly to blame for convincing vulnerable children they have gender dysphoria.

Last night, Conservative MP David Davies said: ‘I congratulate this teacher for coming out and telling us what I have long suspected has been going on in schools. It is horrendous that children are being encouraged by other pupils to identify as transgender, particularly if they have autism.

‘Parents are not told about this and there is no way of challenging these pupils who are convinced by others that they have a problem they almost certainly do not have. Tragically the end result could be irreversible surgical procedures. This is scandalous.’

The teacher, who has her own child, also believes many of those who say they are the wrong sex are simply gay but would face bullying if they were to ‘come out’. By contrast, she says, transgender children at the school are idolised by other pupils.

She has also raised concerns that many teachers are now too scared to challenge students’ claims they are transgender because they fear being sacked or sued for being transphobic.

The 17 pupils now identifying as transgender are following in the footsteps of a teenager who has now left the school and is planning a double mastectomy.

That student, who was born female, told Carol she wanted to identify as non-binary-a person – with no specific gender – in January 2014, at the age of 16 and two years after being diagnosed as autistic.

After consulting with her parents, the school agreed to change the student’s name on the register to one that was gender neutral. Teachers also agreed to use both male and female pronouns depending what gender the student identified as on any given day.

‘These pronouns could change from hour to hour depending how the student was feeling,’ Carol said.

Carol put the pupil in contact with a transgender support group but now says she bitterly regrets her handling of the case. ‘That child was diagnosed as autistic at the age of 14 and certainly was not transgender,’ she said. ‘She had other complicated mental health problems. It is a tragedy her claim was accepted so readily. Now she is going to mutilate her body.’

Over the next four years, the 17 pupils who have ‘come out’ as transgender have become powerful within the school, Carol says.

They wear identical clothing and hairstyles and often adopt the names of transgender YouTube stars. She has also witnessed first-hand how older pupils have persuaded younger ones with autism that they, too, were born the wrong sex – a process she has likens to ‘grooming’.

‘They are just young people with mental health problems who have found an identity and want to be part of a group of like-minded people,’ she said.

SOURCE





'I don't even call myself Australian': Indigenous activist who admitted to assaulting four police officers over a few months claims she's the victim of 'colonial oppression'


Blue eyes and all.  There's not much Aboriginal in her.  She would normally be taken as white.  Her irresponsible behaviour will not stop until she ceases to be treated with extreme leniency.  She is just using her tiny bit of Aboriginal ancestry as a "get out of jail free" card.  She is in fact an habitual criminal and should be doing a long stretch by now

A young Indigenous activist who admitted to assaulting four police officers over a period of a few months has claimed she's the victim of ' colonial oppression'.

Leilani Clarke has been arrested in the last 12 months for assaulting police, kneeing a police officer in the groin, and spitting at police and paramedics.

The 20-year-old spoke to KIIS FM's Kyle and Jackie O on October 23, and said her court appearances were nothing more than 'colonial propaganda.'

She also admitted she could not recall details of the offending because she had been drinking alcohol.

Clarke, who was given a good behaviour bond on November 2, told the radio hosts that 'definitely alcohol doesn't benefit me' and said she had changed and grown up. She also said she was seeing a psychiatrist and taking 'anti-psycho' drugs.

“Aboriginal kids are going to be taken off their parents again. Adoption parents, the majority are white,” she told Kyle and Jackie.

When Kyle Sandilands questioned her about the topic of Australia Day, Clarke replied 'What does Australia Day even mean?' 'If it holds some significance to Australian society, that is colonial postmodernism. I don't even call myself Australian.'   

Clarke's most recent run-in with police occurred when was caught stealing a butter chicken curry from a 7-Eleven store in Marrickville, Sydney's inner west, on June 26. 

Clarke faced court over her charges on November 2nd and plead guilty to assaulting a police officer for the fourth time this year.

The environmentalist walked free following the assault, with the magistrate describing her as a 'wonderful' young person with a bright future.

The 20-year-old was put on a 10-month good behaviour bond without a recorded conviction. 

Clarke explained that on the night of the incident, both her and her cousin had been drinking before entering the 7-Eleven store.  'I actually de-escalated that situation, but my cousin punched the store owner after supposedly we were trying to steal butter chicken,' Clarke said.

When police arrived to the store and arrested the pair, Clarke said an officer 'unnecessarily' took her away from her group and into an alleyway.

She said she had to remove her jewellery before getting into the police car, but the officer forcefully took it off her. 'He was clearly trying to antagonise me and stuff and I'm asking him politely to get out of my face and stuff and I must've just snapped in the moment. And I will admit that I did revert to aggressiveness,' the young environmentalist said.

In another run-in with the law in March, Clarke spat at a police officer and assaulted a paramedic who had been trying to take her to hospital.


TIMELINE OF LEILANI CLARKE'S OFFENCES

January 27: Clarke was arrested for spitting on security and assaulting police. She pleaded guilty in Hervey Bay Magistrates Court and was fined $1,200.

March 18: Arrested for assaulting a police officer and spitting at a paramedic.

May 30: Pleaded guilty to charges of assaulting police in the execution of their duty and common assault.

June 26: Clarke was arrested for kneeing a police officer in the groin.

June 28: Clarke spat on a police officer after they attended a domestic disturbance.

September 27: Pleaded guilty to assaulting an officer in the execution of duty and resisting arrest in the execution of duty, and was given a 12-month bond.

November 2: Clarke walked free from Downing Centre Local Court on a good behaviour bond.


Prior to the ambulance arriving, the 20-year-old said she had fallen unconscious on a street after heavily drinking. She claimed she was cooperative with police when they found her, but has little recollection of what happened.

When the paramedics tried to strap Clarke to the stretcher, she said she began to freak out.

Police said the young woman screamed: 'F**k you white dogs. I'm smart not dumb. I got three more degrees than you'll ever have.'

'I was just drunk and I obviously have learnt my lesson, I've had a bit of alcohol education and all that stuff,' she said.

Police last encountered Clarke when they attended reports of a domestic disturbance in Forest Lodge, in the city's inner-west, in the early hours of June 28.

Clarke said she is aware that alcohol is a defining factor behind her actions, as well as her mental illness, Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD).

CPTSD is a psychological disorder thought to occur as a result of repetitive, prolonged trauma involving sustained abuse or abandonment.

She has previously claimed on her Instagram account that she suffers from 'transgenerational trauma' - a theoretical condition passed down through generations of people due to the trauma affecting DNA.

Despite this, the young Indigenous activist acknowledges her actions were wrong. 'I knew I did wrong,' Clarke told the KIIS FM hosts.

SOURCE 

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

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

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

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21 November, 2018

Umair Haque is a dingbat

Umair Haque lives in the West but, going by his name, is of Pakistani origin. He also seems to see himself as a profound thinker, though he is in reality just another blinkered Leftist, repeating tired old Leftist tropes. As a good Leftist, he is lost in a mental world of his own with only occasional contact with the real world. He gets himself published a lot on the Leftist Medium and Eudaimonia sites, however, and is popular in Leftist circles, so some critique of his lucubrations is perhaps called for.

One of his most recent articles is titled "Why Winning a War for Capitalism Is Losing One to Fascism: The Lesson America Still Hasn’t Learned From Two World Wars"

There is an element of truth in that.  The modern-day Left has inherited Fascism's obsession with controlling everything but Umair seems to have missed the conservative pushback against that in the persons of Thatcher, Reagan and Trump.  No-one would claim that the pushback has been wholly successful but both Reagan and Trump won tax reductions and other reforms that led to big economic booms and rising prosperity generally

Umair's picture of the average American being ground down is a Leftist staple but it has no contact with the reality under Trump -- with a booming economy creating jobs for everyone, even for generally disadvantaged minorities such as blacks and Hispanics.  And while the historically low rates of unemployment are important, even more important is the employment rate.  The enthusiasm for business that is abroad in the land has created a huge demand for labor and that has drawn discouraged workers --people over 50, people with poor education etc. -- into the labor force.  Businessmen have such a big need for workers that they are hiring in previously neglected categories. When faced with the fact that their only job applicant is over 50, they just say, "Better an old guy than no guy"

And through the combination of big tax cuts and the need to entice workers to work for them, employers are offering higher wages, ending a long period of wage-rate stagnation. So the enthusiasm and dynamism of the Trump economy is a complete answer to Mr Haque's gloom. 

Mr Bezos and others might be doing well but so are millions of ordinary Americans.  And some of America's richest men -- such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett -- are putting their money to work in charitable causes.  The big yachts are primarily a Russian folly.   Rich Americans tend to have better taste.  Even Bloomberg has just given a large slice of his fortune to Johns Hopkins university, his alma mater.  The situation is across the board not as Mr. Haque imagines it. 

I am well prepared to believe that the situation in Pakistan is dismal but America is not Pakistan.  Those great crowds cheering themselves hoarse at Mr Trump's rallies are not cheering oppression and poverty.  Even blacks are smiling at Mr Trump.  Mr Haque hasn't got a clue



A few excerpts below from Mr Haque's Jeremiad


World War II, it’s generally agreed, was brought about by a peace whose terms were poisonous. In the aftermath of World War I, the victors demanded reparations from the aggressors, who were the defeated, that were simply too steep to pay. A shattered Germany was therefore left unable to really recover, and as its frail, unstable institutions buckled, in the resultant failure, the chaos and decline, the flames of fascism rose?—?and soon enough, consumed the nation whole, and then set fire to the world.

The strange thing is all that’s different today is that the roles have been reversed. Peace didn’t cost the losers of the last war too much, and drive them into failure and ruin?—?oddly enough, victory did. But the result, strangely, is just the same: the flames of fascism rising, authoritarianism triumphant, in the void of chaos left by failure and degeneration.

Which country do I speak of, and which war? America?—?and the Cold War. Now, the overly simplistic story that Americans are told, by their own intellectuals and thinkers, is this: they won the Cold War, and defeated the evil empire, a nation of pure freedom and bravery and faith and so on. Of course, reality is subtler, grayer, more nuanced. America might have won the Cold War?—?but it lost a greater battle. The battle for its own soul, its own democracy, which, today, self-evidently, is on the ropes, being fought desperately to remedy and to rescue, with limited, if any real, success.

Capitalism winning also meant its own economy stagnating, as capitalists took all the gains, and poured them into useless, idle pleasures, yachts and mansions, exploiting people harder, better, faster?—?all of which meant that writing a social contract to cushion people from those very blows became impossible, because money was tied up in yachts wasn’t invested in say, healthcare or education or retirement?—?and all that meant that democracy was more or less doomed to implode.

Americans were told they were “liberating” people?—?when in fact, more often than not, they were denying them sovereignty and self-governance. They had confused capitalism with freedom?—?and still do?—?because the idea was that anything else was morally intolerable. If you’re on a crusade, you have to save people’s souls?—?even if they might not want to be saved.

What happened next? Well, it wasn’t just that cost of all these wars for capitalism’s sake mounted?—?though they did, and inevitably, plunged America deep into debt. A subtler and stranger?—?yet perfectly predictable thing?—?happened. War after war was fought. Some hot, some hard, with bullets?—?some soft and quiet, with whispers. Which side would buckle first?—?run out of resources, money, ideas, stratagems? The capitalists, or the communists? One day, the game was over. The Soviet Union collapsed. America, it seemed, had won.

By this point?—?the 1990s?—?when the Cold War was done, capitalism was about to rule the world. What was the alternative, after all? So just a decade later, China and India were “integrated” into the global capitalist economy, which means they could trade with America at last. Bang! The global economy went into overdrive. It heated up so fast and so hard, awash with so much money in the hands of so many speculators and quick-buck-artists, that soon enough?—?whoosh!!?—?a huge, titanic bubble had inflated. And then, inevitably, of course, it popped. Wham! It melted down into the greatest “recession” since the Great Depression?—?one from which the world has never really recovered.

But what, again, about the average American? Let’s think about him. All these wars were fought to extend the borders of capitalism. Capitalists grew colossally, grotesquely rich?—?that much is true. Today, Bezos, Brin, and Buffett can buy entire cities without blinking. But that victory had a price. Winning a war for capitalism freed its invisible fist to deliver the average American a fatal blow.

The average American was now expected to be a “consumer” in this new world system?—?to buy the things that this new capitalist world could offer, cheaper and faster. To buy more of them, year after year, month after month?—?that is the only way capitalism could grow, after all. But now anyone, anywhere, could compete with Americans for jobs, for labour, for work to do and be done?—?and usually, they could do it faster and cheaper, if not better and truer. But to consume, one must either also produce?—?or be subsidized. The average American was running out of chances to produce, and earn that way?—?even the pension he’d worked for his whole life was made legal to “raid” so that capitalists could get richer. And nobody was subsidizing him, lending him a supporting hand.

SOURCE  






PIERS MORGAN’S ADVICE ON INTERNATIONAL MEN’S DAY: Don’t let hypocritical radical feminists turn men into a bunch of neutered, grovelling, blubbering doormats, ladies – or we’ll ALL live to regret it

I have a confession to make. This isn’t easy, and I’ve taken a long time to summons up the strength to do it. I’m aware that just by admitting to what I’m about to admit, I will subject myself to all manner of global shame and ridicule. I’ll be taunted, abused, shunned and reviled.

But as Sir Winston Churchill once so rightly said: ‘You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.’

OK, here goes… I am a man. Yes, on International Men’s Day 2018, I am hereby identifying as the biological sex that I was born to.

This alone is enough to risk making me a social pariah these days, but that’s not even the worst of it. I’m a man who’s actually proud of being a man, and who also likes being MASCULINE.

Sorry. I realise this is a horrendous thing to say, and I can only offer my insincere apologies to all the radical feminists now exploding with rage as they read my shocking statement.

If there’s one thing they loathe even more than the M-word, it’s the longer M-word.

But why? Masculinity simply means ‘having qualities or appearances traditionally associated with men.’ That’s it, nothing more sinister.

Yet thanks to women of radical feminist persuasion who’ve gleefully hijacked the #MeToo and #TimesUp campaigns to serve their own man-hating purpose, masculinity has become the most controversial, detestable word in the English lexicon.

And it’s now impossible to be ‘masculine’ without also being accused of ‘toxic masculinity’.

Even Prince Charming whisking Cinderella off from captive hell to a life of happiness is an evil that must be expunged from society – led by furious Keira Knightley and her ultra feminist knights in PC armour. ‘Cinderella waits for a rich guy to rescue her,’ she sneered. ‘Don’t. Rescue yourself! Obviously!’

Fine empowering words until you remember that the Prince gallantly saved Cinderella from abuse and slavery and they genuinely loved each other. Then it doesn’t seem quite so ‘obvious’, does it?

One of the very worst of the many terrible things about radical feminism is the scourge of pathetic male virtue-signallers that urge them on.

As an obvious (or so I thought..) tongue-in-cheek joke this morning, I tweeted: ‘Happy #InternationalMensDay! Stay strong lads, we’re not illegal – yet.’

Most people reacted in the way I would react if someone else had tweeted that – by laughing. Others weren’t so amused, bombarding me with hateful abuse about my supposed ‘toxic masculinity’.

A man named Box Brown, who has a verified Twitter account and claims to be a New York Times best-selling cartoonist, replied simply: ‘Die.’

How laughably hypocritical; this angry little clown races to attack what he presumably perceives to be my aggressive maleness, yet does so by saying he wants me dead.

Hypocrisy is sadly a prevalent theme with much of modern feminism.

The likes of Kim Kardashian and Emily Ratajkowski have both built hugely lucrative careers out of stripping off in the supposed name of ‘feminist empowerment’.

When in fact what they’re really doing is selling nudity and sex.

I have no problem with that - just don’t pretend it benefits any other woman or is anything that Emmeline Pankhurst and her Suffragettes would have ever done.

They were too busy risking their lives to win women the right to vote, than to have time to writhe naked in spaghetti and ludicrously claim they were doing so to liberate womankind.

When I say this kind of thing, women ask me to cite an example of what I consider real feminist empowerment.

So let me give you one from yesterday, when a 17-year old German girl driver named Sophia Flörsch was competing in her first Formula 3 World Cup race at the Macau Grand Prix. The race featured male and female drivers, and she qualified purely on merit.

On the fourth lap, she struck another driver’s car as she approached a bend at 175mph. The collision caused Sophia’s car to spin out of control and catapult several hundred yards through the air into a wall.

It’s the most horrifying car crash I have ever seen, and everyone who watches it would presume she must have died. But Sophia lived, despite fracturing her spine.

And within a few hours, she tweeted: ‘Just wanted to let everybody know that I am fine but will be going into surgery tomorrow morning. Thanks to everybody for the supporting messages. Update soon.’

No fuss, no playing the victim.

Can you even imagine the scale of self-pitying hell that would be unleashed on the unsuspecting public if any of the Kardashians had a minor 25mph car prang today in which they broke a diamond-encrusted toenail?

Sophia has an incredible talent for driving a car, and incredible courage too. She is a rising star in a male-dominated sport determined to prove she can mix it with the men and I applaud her for it.

THAT is true feminist empowerment – not flipping the bird in topless selfies to millions of impressionable young girls.

While I joke about International Men’s Day, of course I understand and appreciate there is a very serious side to it too.

The stats tell the grim story: 76% of suicides are men, 85% of homeless people are men, 70% of homicide victims are men, men serve 64% longer in prison and are 3.4x more likely to be imprisoned than women when both committed the same crime.

So it’s not all a patriarchal bed of roses being a man.

But I fully accept that women have historically been treated unfairly in terms of equality, and that many women continue to be treated unfairly. I also fully accept that women have been subjected to far more harassment, sexual abuse and domestic violence than men.

That is where the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements have performed a valuable public service in highlighting and exposing genuinely bad, unacceptable and in some cases criminal behaviour. In fact, I don’t know any of my male friends who wouldn’t agree with that.

However, what I refuse to accept is that all masculinity is therefore now automatically a bad thing or that being a man is suddenly something to be ashamed about.

Nor do I believe that most women actually want the kind of neutered, emasculated, papoose-clad, permanently apologising doormats that radical feminists are trying to make us become.

Let me therefore offer some friendly advice from a man who loves women: Men like me don’t want to hear that universities (and one in Wales, UK actually did this) have banned the word ‘mankind’ because it’s offensive to women, not least because ‘women’ itself contains the word ‘men’.

We don’t want to be told we can’t appreciate a female star’s beauty because it’s offensive to feminists, then see feminists like Ellen de Generes openly objectifying famous men’s bodies at awards shows - to no complaint.

We don’t want to be informed that James Bond has to stop hitting on women because it’s now deemed politically incorrect, especially as none of the women he ever hits on seem to be anything but ecstatically thrilled about it.

We don’t want to be disapprovingly frowned at for opening doors for women or standing up for them on trains or when they walk into a room, or paying the bill for dinner if we want to. Chivalry is a good, not oppressive thing.

We want to pride ourselves on being a protective modern day hunter and provider, in whatever capacity that manifests itself to the benefit of a woman or family - without promptly being labelled a ‘dinosaur’ or ‘caveman’.

We’d like to preserve the right not to be seen blubbing in public every five minutes just to prove we’re in touch with our emotional side. In short, we’d just like to still enjoy being men if that’s OK?

Just as we’d like women to enjoy being women.. and yes, for gender-fluids to enjoy being men AND women if that makes them happy.

The best conversation I’ve had about all this was with the singer Annie Lennox who said it was ‘important to bring men with you’ on the feminist journey. ‘But,’ she cautioned, ‘the debate has to be less hostile to men for that to happen.’

Exactly.

SOURCE







Chipotle manager is fired after telling African American customers they must pay BEFORE ordering their food

She was protecting her restaurant from  Dine & Dash Crooks but you must not do that if they are black

A Chipotle manager has been fired after she was filmed telling customers that they had to pay before being served. [So paying is optional for blacks at Chipotle?]

The video, which was posted to Twitter on Friday morning, features a group of young black men who are told they cannot order until they prove they have money to pay.

In the video, the manager of the restaurant in St Paul, Minnesota tells the customers 'you gotta pay because you never have money when you come in here.'

Masaud Ali, 21, recorded the incident and posted it on social media, captioning the video: 'Can a group of young well established African American get a bite to eat after a long workout session. @ChipotleTweets??'

As of Sunday afternoon, the video had been viewed 4.32 million times and liked more than 71,000 times.

'It sounded really racist - the way she said it was racist,' Ali told the Star Tribune on Friday. 'She asked for proof of income as if I'm getting a loan.'

He said he was also disappointed that none of the other employees who were on duty spoke up.

Chipotle replied to the video stating 'what happened here is not how our employees should treat our customer'.

The company also said the manager has since been terminated and that the staff has undergone training to prevent a similar situation from occurring.

Chipotle later clarified that the manager had mistaken the guests for another group of men who had come in and not been able to pay for their food.

'We don't ask customers to pay for their meals prior to making them in our restaurants. The manager should have made their food and withheld giving it to them until they paid for it,' Chipotle told the Star Tribune in a statement, explaining its policy. 

'Regardless, this is not how we treat our customers and as a result, the manager has been terminated and the restaurant is being retrained to ensure something like this doesn't happen again.'

However, not everyone is as convinced of the men's innocence. Previous tweets seemed to imply that he had eaten at establishments before without paying.

'Dine and dash is forever interesting,' Ali wrote in a since-deleted tweet from July 2015.

Another post from March 2015 read: 'if you a real ass n***a we [gonna go to] Applebees [sic] and eat as much a we can and tip the nice lady 20cents and walk the f**k out.'

Ali, who records show is on probation for theft, did not reply to a request from the Miami Herald. 

Chipotle said it is aware of the old tweets and is currently investigating the incident.

SOURCE





'Enough, enough, enough': Australian PM Morrison vows to cut migrant numbers and says pressure needs to be taken off Sydney, Melbourne, with new state-based policy

This could win him the next election if he really makes it happen

Scott Morrison has vowed to cut the number of immigrants coming into Australia - saying population growth needs to be managed.

'Australians in our biggest cities are concerned about population. They are saying enough, enough, enough,' the Prime Minister said in a speech in Sydney on Monday.

'The roads are clogged, the buses and trains are full. The schools are taking no more enrollments.'

'We have become, especially in Sydney and Melbourne, a victim of our success.'

Over the last decade migration has accounted for over half of the population growth in the nation at 58 per cent.   

The Prime Minister predicted his changes would cause a shift in direction of immigration policy and lower the annual immigration target from the national cap of 190,000.

His new direction would involve talking to State leaders and forming immigration targets on a regional basis, rather than having a national immigration cap.

The PM defended immigration in general, saying the benefits include a growing workforce, increased opportunities for Australian businesses and workers, and that immigrants contribute to the economy rather than draw from welfare.

'I believe that we need a new discussion with the States and territories and local governments about how we manage and plan for our changing population,' Mr Morrison said.

'The old model of a single national number determine by Canberra is no longer fit for purpose.'

'Further to this I am writing to the Premiers and chief ministers inviting them to contribute to a national strategy and framework on population and putting this on the table for out next COAG meeting on 12 December.'

SOURCE 

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

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

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

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20 November, 2018

Will Political Correctness self-destruct?

Our limited government was founded on the principle of citizens governing themselves through morality and social accountability.

We, as a people, looked up to those who were of high moral standing. Men regarded as wise and worthy were the ones who framed our Constitution, and they laced biblical principles and morals throughout it.

However, now that morals have gone drastically out of vogue, what will people use to set themselves apart? How will they show that they’re better than their competitors? How will politicians convince you that you should elect them?

Enter political correctness, the religious doctrine of the American left in 2018. It is a new guiding light, the yardstick against which politicians and individuals are measured to determine their worth. It’s also, at its core, all about getting ahead.

Why else would people keep upping the ante? We constantly have to be more “woke” and all the time new ideas become PC or not, because the person who introduces you to each new concept demonstrates his higher degree of wokeness. He “gets ahead.”

We see it not only in politicians, but also in our entertainment.

One recently aired TV show had a plotline in which the winner of a Halloween costume contest won a day off. The protagonist then proceeded to break down every costume by convincing some other employee that each was offensive: Hula girl was offensive to someone half-Hawaiian, Aldan was offensive to someone from the Middle East, etc.

The same held true for reality TV, when a dance group won a million dollars by breaking their season-long streak of performing the same style that got them to the finals by performing a song about “waiting on the world to change.”

“If we had the power / To bring our neighbors home from war / They would have never missed a Christmas / No more ribbons on their door.”

It was risky, but risky in a way calculated to bring tears to the eyes of the liberal judges. And it won them $1 million.

We’ve reached a point where even those who buy into the idea of PC culture are starting to make fun of it.

It was recently brought to my attention that Democrats would probably not have such a hard time blocking illegal immigration if they thought that illegals might vote Republican.

This point was made by Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld, who likened the way Democrats were treating illegal immigration to the immature antics of a child. He pointed out that they can afford to pontificate about the cruel nature of border security, because it’s not their job to secure the borders.

Once you see it for what it is, you can’t stop seeing it. From the smug and haughty holier-than-thou social justice warriors of today, to the chilly calculated glee on the faces of politicians when they see one of their colleagues make a misstep in the minefield of political correctness, it’s all around us, and it’s growing, like a flesh-eating bacteria.

But here’s the good news: It has no roots, and it’s trying to overreach. What may have started as an argument in favor of women’s right to education is now overstepping with transgender indoctrination in schools.

The point of political correctness was, in the beginning, supposed to be making others feel cared for and included, but there is very little about the movement that can’t be achieved by following the Golden Rule: Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them.

PC culture says there is a set of rules you need to follow, but those rules are constantly in flux because people are literally making them up as they go along.

When asked by “The Originalist” Director Molly Smith what keeps her “hopeful,” Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg referenced something that her late husband, Marty, used to tell her.

“My dear spouse would say that the true symbol of the United States is not the bald eagle — it is the pendulum,” Ginsburg said. “And when it goes very far in one direction you can count on its swinging back.”

There are only a few possibilities about what happens from here. One is that Americans completely throw off the mantle of political correctness, the doctrine that has replaced morals, and try to repair the social experiment that is our republic, or we find another way to get antifa and the like in hand.

Maybe political correctness worked well for a while, but the screaming, masked throngs of entitled children have ruined that. As Americans, we have a long and illustrious history of not negotiating with terrorists, even if you recruit them from Ivy League schools and stick a locally sourced pumpkin spice latte in their hands.

A terrorist is as a terrorist does, and yet we constantly bow to the throngs of social justice warriors, fraught with internal turmoil, attempting to both hold those around them to an impossible moral standard and at the same time deny that morals exist.

Morality is established to lead you somewhere. We understand the morality of the radical jihadists because we have seen where it leads them. Traditional Christian morals, however, have been all but removed from acceptability in the West, though they were adhered to by many in our history, including our Founders. People could be pointed out as exemplars of good morals.

But we’re not allowed to do that anymore.

The new morality of political correctness is leading us somewhere else: toward more rules, regulations and the bigger government necessary to control a people who won’t control themselves.

Adolf Hitler said, “I want to raise a generation of young people devoid of a conscience, imperious, relentless and cruel.”

PC culture has more or less accomplished the same thing, raising up those who are cruel to those who cross their impossible standards made up on the fly, and something will arise to fill in the vacuum of a generation out of control.

A dictator can require a generation to abandon their morals and empathy, or a lack of morals and empathy can require a dictator to control a generation.

SOURCE






'Women love shopping, men like cars': DR MICHAEL MOSLEY on the truth behind those gender stereotypes

According to popular mythology, men are obsessed by cars, electronic gadgets and sports. We cling on to the TV remote and God forbid we miss a Premier League football match.

Women, on the other hand, enjoy clothes shopping and chatting. They are more empathetic, understanding and far more helpful in an emotional crisis than us bullish blokes.

These classic stereotypes have long been debated, with many arguing that the categorisation of the sexes is outdated nonsense.

But studies suggest that some emotional experiences, such as stress, can be processed differently by men and women. Men typically turn theirs ‘outwards’, resulting in increased anger-management problems and higher rates of suicide, and women turn theirs ‘inward’, making them more likely to be anxious and depressed.

Now a new landmark study by researchers at Cambridge University provides further evidence that some age-old gender ‘myths’ may not be so far from the truth…

For the new study, researchers asked 670,000 people to complete an online questionnaire that was designed to separate out the empathisers – those who identify and understand others’ emotions – from the systemisers – those who analyse complex systems.

Participants had to state if they agreed or disagreed with statements including ‘When I talk to people, I tend to talk about their experiences rather than my own’ and ‘I am fascinated by how machines work’.

The scientists were testing the theory that men were more likely to agree with the final statement, giving them a higher ‘systemiser’ score.

Similarly, they predicted that women would more likely agree with the first statement, indicating an increased ability to put themselves in others’ shoes.

Although there were plenty of exceptions, on the whole the results proved the researchers’ theories correct: men did indeed score higher for ‘systemising’ than for ‘empathising’, while for women it was the other way round.

So far, so unsurprising. But the most intriguing part of the Cambridge research lies in some of the explanations behind these striking differences…

Are male and female differences simply the result of exposure to social pressures in childhood, or is there something else going on?

The fascinating work of Professor Simon Baron Cohen, who ran the Cambridge study, has explored whether some gender differences begin in the womb.

His pioneering research involved the collection, and measurement, of compounds in the wombs of more than 19,000 pregnant women. These compounds, contained within the amniotic fluid, included the sex hormones testosterone and oestrogen, as well as stress hormone cortisol.

Prof Baron Cohen and his team then followed the children for more than a decade, testing them on cognitive and behavioural measures every couple of years.

They found that being exposed to higher levels of testosterone in the womb was associated with being less empathetic, and better at visual spatial challenges later in life such as imagining how a shape would look if it were rotated. This is because testosterone is typically seen as a male hormone because it ‘masculinises’ boys’ brains and bodies – it is responsible for the formation of the male reproductive organs. Similarly, oestrogen is responsible for the reproductive development of girls.

Although men and women produce both hormones, men have higher levels of testosterone, and women more oestrogen. Intriguingly, girls exposed to high levels of testosterone in the womb also exhibit more ‘systemising’ behaviours than typically seen in boys.

Prof Baron Cohen’s research relates to the developmental disorder autism and he has developed a theory that those who have it are more likely to be ‘male-brained’.

Interestingly, high levels of testosterone in the womb are associated with a greater chance of developing autism, which seems to affect more boys than girls.

At the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University, where he is the director, Prof Baron Cohen has found that those with autism – who typically struggle to recognise and understand the feelings of others – score at the ‘male end’ of a systemising-empathising test.

Although they may struggle with some forms of empathy, that doesn’t mean they don’t care about other people.

Prof Baron Cohen thinks that we should cherish and celebrate the wealth of talents autistic people have, rather than obsess over their difficulties.

If you fancy testing the gender of your brain, or indeed of your partner’s, visit autism researchcentre.com/arc_tests for a range of systemising-empathising surveys.

There is another, more surprising way, of assessing how much testosterone or oestrogen you were exposed to in the womb – by measuring the length of your fingers.

As men are exposed to more testosterone, their index, or first, finger tends to be shorter than the ring finger.

In women, the two fingers are typically the same length. This is known as the ‘index-to-ring-finger-ratio’.

A large number of studies have shown a link between this ratio and a range of different behavioural traits including aggression and risk-taking.

The finger-length difference can be really subtle, so you will need a ruler. First, measure the ring finger of your right hand, from the crease where it joins the hand round to the tip of the finger, under the nail. Then do the same with your index finger.

The bigger the difference between the two numbers, the more typically ‘male’ your brain is considered to be – and conversely for the more typical ‘female’ brain.

SOURCE







Chris Hemsworth's wife Elsa Pataky says society has to be 'careful' about the #MeToo movement as she talks about raising her two young sons

The women of Hollywood have been leading the way with the #MeToo movement.

And while Elsa Pataky is supportive of the fight against sexual harassment and assault, the actress also worries that things could go too far.

Speaking with Stellar on Sunday, the 42-year-old wife of Chris Hemsworth stated: 'To have change, you must always go to the other extreme, just for people to see it and have a voice. But we have to be careful. '

Elsa added: 'I feel like men are scared to speak (now) because they don't know what to say, because they feel like we are going to jump on them if they say the wrong thing, the wrong word - even to just talk about the subject.'

The blonde beauty is the mother of two twin boys, four-year-olds Tristan and Sasha, and she told the magazine that she doesn't want her them to grow up in fear. 'I have two sons and I don't want my sons to be scared, either.'

Elsa said that men and women 'need to be on the same page' when it comes to the #MeToo movement and the work that needs to be done against widespread sexual harassment. 

The actress's philosophy may be formed by the fact that she is also a mother to a young girl.

In addition to Tristan and Sasha, Elsa and Chris are also parents to six-year-old daughter, India Rose. 

SOURCE






Nearly half of Australians want the number of Muslim immigrants slashed following the Melbourne terrorist attack

Almost half of Australians want Muslim immigration to be cut following the Melbourne terrorist attack, a poll has found.  

The Fairfax-Ipsos survey was conducted after Islamic State sympathiser Hassan Khalif Shire Ali attacked random people on Bourke Street, Melbourne, on November 9, knifing three and killing one.

The poll found 46 per cent of Australians believe that Muslim migration numbers should be reduced.

Of those surveyed, 35 per cent believed the intake should remain the same and only 14 per cent of voters supported an increase.

The telephone poll of 1200 respondents conducted nationally found that a majority of Coalition voters and one third of Labor voters backed the cut.

Muslim leaders deflected criticism of Islam in the wake of the Bourke St attack by stressing that Shire Ali's actions were caused by mental illness and not by religion.

Many Australians are concerned about the rise of Sharia law – the Islamic set of laws that are drawn from the Koran and Hadith.

Islamic State and other Islamist groups are fighting to establish Islam as a political system not just a religion, with the rule of sharia law.

Secular Muslims oppose the implementation of Islam as a set of laws.

Overwhelming majorities of Muslims in countries including Iraq, Egypt, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Malaysia, want sharia to be the law of the land, according to Pew Research survey results published in 2013.

Some elements of Sharia are applied in varying degrees in the legal codes of several Muslim-majority countries.

The Fairfax-Ipsos poll also found 45 per cent of voters would like to see overall immigration numbers reduced, with 23 per cent arguing for a rise and 29 per cent happy with the status quo.

The 2016 Census revealed Australia’s population grew by 1.9 million people in the five years to 2016, driven by a 1.3 million increase in new immigrants.

Of those, 86 per cent or 1.11 million settled in Australia's major cities, according to government data, causing strain on infrastructure in Sydney and Melbourne.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has called for a return to Howard-era immigration levels of about 45,000 a year.

Fairfax reported that Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton reduced permanent migration from the official estimate of 190,000 to an actual intake of 163,000.

Data from the 2016 Census showed the Muslim population in Australia has soared to more than 604,000 people, overtaking Buddhism as the most popular non-Christian religion.

The number of Muslims living in the country has almost doubled from 341,000 in the the 2006 census.

SOURCE 

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

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

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

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19 November, 2018

Sweden: What 'Humanitarian Superpower'?

Disgusting Swedish Leftists have no real compassion in them at all, like most Leftists.  They are humanitarian imbeciles

Self-proclaimed "humanitarian superpower" Sweden, with its pride in upholding "human rights," decided to take a 6-year old boy, who lost his mother, away from his grandparents and deport him to an orphanage in Ukraine.

In October, Sweden, which apparently likes to see itself as a "humanitarian superpower," decided to expel and deport a 6-year old boy to the Ukraine. The boy had been technically orphaned when his mother died and his father, who lives in the Ukraine, formally renounced custody of his child in a Ukrainian court. The boy, Denis, has no other relatives in the Ukraine and would therefore have to go straight to an orphanage.

In 2015, Denis's mother brought him from the Ukraine to Sweden -- where his mother's parents were already living. She applied for a residence permit for herself and her son, but it was rejected, for reasons apparently still undisclosed. News outlets do not seem to have been digging into why her original request was rejected. The Swedish Migration Agency (Migrationsverket) decided to deport Denis, even though he is living with his maternal grandparents, who have applied to adopt the child.

Denis "has not given probable cause that he will not be suitably taken care of upon [his] return to Ukraine" wrote the migration authority in its decision. They also mystifyingly referred to the decision as being "in the child's best interest".

That the boy is technically an orphan and that his grandparents, with whom he lives in Sweden, have begun adoption proceedings, is not enough to stop the deportation, said Karin Fährlin, unit head at Migrationsverket.

"This is a matter of... a boy who is a Ukrainian citizen, and then it is primarily family, or the father, or Ukrainian authorities who must answer for this child. That's the reason [for the deportation]", she said.

The decision to deport Denis, after it became known to the public in Sweden, caused an enormous scandal. More than 60,000 Swedes signed a protest against the deportation on Facebook and several celebrities and politicians expressed their revulsion over the decision. "His mother just died. He has no father. He is six years old and cannot stay with his grandparents in Sweden but will be deported to a Ukrainian orphanage. This is inhuman and disgusting," wrote one TV personality, Jessica Almenäs.

The pressure from the public evidently became too much. Officials at Migrationsverket temporarily stopped the deportation and admitted that they had made their decision "too quickly". "There are several investigative measures that we should have taken," said Per Ek, Press Director at Migrationsverket. "That's what we will be working on now".

Wrong decisions are made by state authorities and government agencies all the time; what makes this decision different is that it was made by the migration authorities of Sweden, the Foreign Minister of which claims that the country is a "humanitarian superpower."

A self-proclaimed "humanitarian superpower" is not supposed to take 6-year-olds away from their grandparents and deport them to orphanages in Ukraine. Sweden takes such pride in upholding the "human rights" of all, that it refuses to deport the worst criminals and terrorists if there is the tiniest perceived risk that they might be harmed in the country to which they would be sent.

In contrast to the decision about deporting 6-year old Denis, the Swedish parliament, in June, passed a special law allowing a very large number of rejected asylum seekers to stay in Sweden, despite harsh criticism from the highest government agencies. The new law allowed 9,000 unaccompanied male "minors" from Afghanistan, whose asylum applications were rejected -- and who therefore should have been deported -- to acquire temporary residence permits in Sweden.

Approximately 7,000 of these "unaccompanied child migrants" reportedly turned out to be older than 18 and therefore were not even minors. The temporary permits would be given if the "minors" planned to attend high school or were already enrolled in one. Notably, even those among the 9,000 whose identities were unverified -- presumably, because they had no papers -- were allowed to stay.

So, in spite of sharp criticism from Sweden's highest government agencies, the Swedish government defied Swedish law to allow 9,000 rejected, mainly undocumented, Afghan men to study in high school alongside Swedish adolescents.

Both the police and the Swedish migration courts heavily criticized the legislation: it broke with Swedish law, which requires people who want to stay in Sweden to be able clearly to identify themselves. Lowering this requirement reduces the ability of the Swedish authorities to know who is living in the country.

The Swedish Council on Legislation (Lagrådet), a government agency consisting of current and former Supreme Court justices who deliberate on the legal validity of legislative proposals, reportedly pronounced its harshest critique ever about the measure. It wrote that, "the limit has been reached for what is acceptable in terms of how legislation can be formulated". This verdict, however, did not stop the Swedish parliament from passing the law anyway. Neither did the fact that a majority of Swedes -- 54% -- were against letting the 9,000 Afghans stay. According to the government, the cost to taxpayers of absorbing the 9,000 Afghan "minors" is estimated at more than SEK 2.9 billion (roughly $319 million) over the next three years.

Sweden then determined that a vulnerable 6-year old child who just lost his mother, and who is living with his grandparents and studying in a Swedish preschool must be deported. (At least until public outrage forced it to reexamine its decision.)

Unfortunately, the decision to deport Denis does not even appear to be a one-time error, but rather an indication of what seems a trend in Sweden of favoring certain immigrant groups over others.

As early as 2001, a news report by the newspaper Dagen showed that Christian asylum seekers had their applications rejected in Sweden far more frequently than Muslim asylum seekers. Out of all Christian refugees who had applied for asylum in Sweden in 2000, fewer than half (40%) were granted asylum. In the Muslim group, 75% of all applicants were granted asylum.

After the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the persecution of Iraqi Christians by jihadists began to exponentially increase. Nevertheless, Sweden was rejecting and deporting Christian Iraqi asylum seekers back to Iraq in 2009: Of 25 Iraqi Christians whom Sweden deported in 2009, 24 fled from Iraq again, while one hid in Mosul, according to Sveriges Radio.

One Christian couple, who had fled Iraq in 2005 and lived in Sweden for four years, were forcibly deported back to Iraq in 2009. They then fled from Iraq to Turkey. "I loved Sweden and the Swedish people, but I will never forget how inhumanely the people who threw us out treated us. It was like a nightmare. Were they really Swedish?" the couple told Sveriges Radio.

At the time, Sveriges Radio also spoke to Nina Shea from the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, who said that an ethnic cleansing of Christians was ongoing and that it was enough just to be a Christian in Iraq to be considered under persecution. Human rights organizations at the time also said it was not safe to return Christians to Iraq: they were certain to be persecuted for their faith.

None of that, however, stopped the Swedish migration authorities from deporting Christians. The authorities said again that the Christians had "not given probable cause that there is an actual, predictable risk that they would personally be submitted to serious abuse" if they were to return to Iraq.

In 2014, the "humanitarian superpower" was deporting Christian minorities, such as Assyrians, to Iraq, where ISIS had appeared on the scene with its ruthless campaign of ethnic cleansing of all religious minorities with rape, torture, enslavement and murder. However, that did not impress the "humanitarian superpower". In one of several decisions to deport Assyrian Christians to Iraq, the Swedish migration authorities wrote

"Because of IS's [Islamic State's] activities in the North, fighting has decreased in Bagdad. There are, however, terrorist attacks and shootings in Baghdad... The Migration Authority finds that you have not given probable cause that your fear of being seriously abused is justified... You are therefore not seen as... needing protection..."

In July 2017, Swedish migration authorities decided that an Iranian actress, Aideen Strandsson, who had secretly converted to Christianity in Iran before coming to Sweden in 2014 on a work visa, should be deported back to Iran, even though in Iran, she could face prison -- with the accompanying rape and torture common in Iranian prisons -- and, as apostasy in Iran is subject to the death penalty, also possibly death. At Strandsson's hearing, a Swedish migration official reportedly told her it would not be as bad for her in Iran as she expected because it "would only be six months in prison". Swedish officials also reportedly told her that converting to Christianity was her decision, so now the consequences of that decision were her problem, not theirs.

Swedish police have a backlog, so mercifully it could take considerable time before Strandsson is deported. As of August 2018, Strandsson still did not know the date of her impending deportation.

There are an estimated 8,000 Christians under deportation orders hiding in Sweden, according to Swedish Attorney Gabriel Donner, who has assisted an estimated 1,000 Christian asylum-seekers facing deportation.

According to Donner, migration officials do not understand why someone would become a Christian: "This is most apparent when they come to the question when a convert says I converted because of the love I have received from Jesus Christ. And they almost mockingly ask the convert, what do you mean by love? It's just completely alien to them."

Additionally, in January 2018, the UN Committee Against Torture (CAT) stopped Sweden from deporting a former Muslim, Abdul Malik, to Pakistan. Having arrived in Sweden in 2012 from Baluchistan (a region in Pakistan), he converted to Christianity in 2015, was baptized and worked on Bible translations. Despite all this, the Swedish authorities did not believe that his conversion was genuine and in 2017 decided to deport him. In Pakistan, he was at risk of torture and arrest, not only for his political activities on behalf of Baluchistan, but also for converting to Christianity.

As it turns out, Sweden does not seem to be such a "humanitarian superpower" after all.

SOURCE






Pseudonyms to protect authors of controversial articles

Prof Jeff McMahan said there is a need for more open discussion
Academics who are frightened to explore controversial topics, in case it provokes a backlash, will soon have a safer route to publish such work.

An international group of university researchers is planning a new journal which will allow articles on sensitive debates to be written under pseudonyms.

They feel free intellectual discussion on tough issues is being hampered by a culture of fear and self-censorship.

The Journal of Controversial Ideas will be launched early next year.

Jeff McMahan, professor of moral philosophy at University of Oxford, and one of the organisers, said: "It would enable people whose ideas might get them in trouble either with the left or with the right or with their own university administration, to publish under a pseudonym."

He revealed plans for the publication on University Unchallenged, a BBC Radio 4 documentary about viewpoint diversity in academia.

Speaking on the programme, he explained the motive: "The need for more open discussion is really very acute. There's greater inhibition on university campuses about taking certain positions for fear of what will happen.

"The fear comes from opposition both on the left and the right. The threats from outside the university tend to be more from the right. The threats to free speech and academic freedom that come from within the university tend to be more from the left."

'Peer-reviewed'

Prof McMahan stressed that the new cross-disciplinary publication will be fully peer-reviewed in line with normal academic standards.

"The screening procedure will be as rigorous as those for other academic journals. The level of quality will be maintained," he said.

He and his colleagues are establishing an intellectually diverse international editorial board with representation from the left and the right, as well as religious and secular thinkers, to ensure the journal is not identified with a specific viewpoint. They will soon issue a call for papers.

Others involved include the prominent Australian philosopher Peter Singer, and Francesca Minerva, a bio-ethicist at the University of Ghent in Belgium.

Prof McMahan said the team behind the journal regarded it as a response to the spirit of the times.

"I think all of us will be very happy if, and when, the need for such a journal disappears, and the sooner the better.

"But right now in current conditions something like this is needed."

SOURCE






Left-Wing Jews: A Jewish And American Tragedy

It is probably impossible to overstate the damage left-wing — not liberal but left-wing — Jews are doing to Judaism, Jews and America. Of course, the same can be said of the damage left-wing Catholics are doing to Catholicism and America, other left-wing Christians are doing to Christianity and America, and, most obviously, the damage the secular left-wing is doing. But since anti-Semitism is in the news, and given the prominence of many left-wing Jews, I will focus on them.

The damage done to Jews by left-wing Jews is not new. It began at the beginning of the left with Karl Marx, the grandson of two Orthodox rabbis (his parents had undergone pro forma conversion to Christianity). He wrote one of the most anti-Semitic tracts of the 19th century, "On the Jewish Question," published in 1844. In it he wrote, among other things:

"What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering ..."

"What is his worldly God? Money ..."

"Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist ..."

"In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism."

In the early 20th century, another left-wing Jew, Leon Trotsky, who, along with Lenin, led the Bolshevik Party in Russia, was a catastrophe for Jews and for humanity. In 1920, when Trotsky was head of the Red Army, Moscow's chief rabbi, Rabbi Jacob Mazeh, asked him to use the army to protect the Jews from pogromist attacks in which tens thousands of Jews were murdered. Trotsky is reported to have responded: "Why do you come to me? I am not a Jew," to which Rabbi Mazeh answered: "That's the tragedy. It's the Trotskys who make revolutions, and it's the Bronsteins who pay the price."

That is the story of the many Jewish leftists to this day: Jewish leftists make revolutions, and all the Jews (among millions of others) pay the price.

Thus, many of the leaders of the movement to economically strangle Israel — the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement — are left-wing Jews.

A few years ago, I was invited to the world's most famous debating forum, the Oxford Union, to debate the farcical question of whether Israel or Hamas is a greater obstacle to peace in the Middle East. One of my two adversaries was a Jewish former professor at Oxford. He argued that Israel was a greater threat to peace than Hamas.

Another prominent left-wing Jew, MIT professor Noam Chomsky, has devoted his life to writing and speaking against two countries: the United States and Israel.

The security of the world's only Jewish state is by far the greatest security issue for world Jewry. Yet many left-wing Jews attack Israel, support many of those who wish to destroy Israel or, at the very least, do nothing to strengthen Israel's security.

In America today, leftism has poisoned so many non-Orthodox synagogues, they differ only from the American Civil Liberties Union or the Democratic Party in their use of Hebrew liturgy.

Many non-Orthodox synagogues sat shiva — Judaism's seven days of mourning after the death of an immediate relative — when Donald Trump was elected president. This perversion of Judaism is an example of what leftism does to every religion it infiltrates. I suspect none of those synagogues sat shiva after the murder of 11 Jews in Pittsburgh. Why? Did the election of Donald Trump bother them more? Left-wing Jews are ethnically Jewish, but their values derive from leftism (just as the current pope is Catholic in his identity but his values derive from leftism).

The current charge that the Pittsburgh massacre was caused by President Trump is one of the greatest libels in American history. Virtually every left-wing columnist and commentator has spread this lie, most of them written by left-wing Jews such as the Washington Post's Dana Milbank. One of their lies is that attacks on George Soros are anti-Semitic.

I think George Soros is a malevolent force. Am I an anti-Semite? (To answer that, let's compare what I have done for Jews and Judaism with what any of these left-wing Jews have done.) But left-wing Jews have always done this. They attributed the execution of the Rosenbergs — who, immoral leftists that they were, passed on the secrets to the atom bomb to Stalin — to anti-Semitism. The judge in the Rosenberg case was a Jew. But to left-wing Jews, that didn't matter. Ever since Stalin labeled Trotsky a "fascist," leftists have always depicted their opponents as "Nazis," "racists," "anti-Semites," "fascists," "haters" and "bigots." That is their modus operandi.

Many of these left-wing Jews base this libel about President Trump's "role" in the context of an equally libelous claim that there has been a great rise in American anti-Semitism in the Trump era — resulting in the Pittsburgh massacre — based on an Anti-Defamation League study. The study's mendacity is fully exposed by David E. Bernstein, a professor of law at George Mason University Law School and a Trump opponent , in two devastating reviews (one on Reason and one in TabletMagazine). Read them and you will understand one of the most important things you need to know about the left: Truth is not a left-wing value. The ADL, which at one time was preoccupied with fighting anti-Semitism, is now preoccupied with fighting Donald Trump and fighting on behalf of the American left.

In 1970, a Harris study showed that 23 percent of Jewish college students termed themselves "far left" versus 4 percent of Protestants and 2 percent of Catholics.

Many of those college students are now many of the non-Orthodox rabbis and lay leaders in American Jewish life. Given the rule that whatever the left touches it ultimately ruins (the universities, for example), the Bronsteins will continue to pay the price for the Trotskys' revolutions.

SOURCE






How a 10-year-old child was repeatedly beaten and tortured by her sadistic African step-father – who is now rotting in jail after murdering her older sister

Why was this monster in Australia?

An evil step-father has admitted to repeatedly torturing and savagely beating two young girls - bashing one of them to death.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, subjected his two step-daughters aged 10 and 12 years old to sickening assaults at their home in the New South Wales Hunter Region.

The 10-year-old girl was tied to a bed and beaten, hit over the head with a metal spoon, thrown to the ground, had her arm broken, punched in the ribs until they fractured and hit with a power cord, the Newcastle Herald reported.

She was also subjected to a three-day long beating carried out by her step-father, during which he placed metal balls inside a necktie and whipped her.

On the second day of the ordeal, she walked out of the room to find her family sitting around a dinner table eating McDonald's.

Despite the girl's serious injuries, her mother did nothing to stop the attacks and did not seek medical attention for her.

The beatings have had such a physical and emotional toll on the girl that she was unable to provide a statement to be read in court, Justice Peter Hamill said.

She was kept out of  school for weeks at a time due to her injuries, and it was only after her sister's death that she saw a doctor.

The girl has been separated from her extended family, and told her foster carer that she 'despairs that she will never be able to speak to her ''best friend'' again', Justice Hamill said.

'She misses her grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins from whom she has been separated as a result of these events,' he said.

'She feels she will need ongoing psychological support for the rest of her life. She sleeps with the light on every night. 'She says ''Every day this is with me. This is my story and I wish it wasn't''.'

The step-father also beat and killed the girl's 12-year-old sister, who was found dead in her bed in September 2015.

He is serving 37-year sentence in jail for her murder, and on Wednesday he appeared in Newcastle Local Court. He pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm with intent and two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and will be sentenced next year.

He is eligible for parole in 2043 at age 59, when he will be deported back to Africa.

The girls' mother pleaded guilty to manslaughter due to 'gross criminal negligence' and to failing to provide for a child causing danger or serious injury.

SOURCE 

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

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

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

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18 November, 2018

The Rohingya:  Muslims whom nobody wants

Rohingya are mostly Bangladeshis who moved to Burma during the period when both countries were ruled by Britain.  The Burmese had no say in it but tolerated in their midst people whom they regarded as foreigners.  The Burmese are East Asian Buddhists, very different from the South Asian Rohingya. 

During the British period all "Indians" did well and tended to ride roughshod over the native Burmese, often disrespecting Buddhist customs and holy places.  The Burmese reasserted themselves after gaining their independence, however, and many Rohingya did not accept that. They could not take the sort of treatment that they had previously dished out. So in the usual Muslim way the Rohingya turned to acts of terrorism against the Burmese state, now called Myanmar.  Muslims have long turned to acts of violence against "infidels" to get what they wanted. 

It didn't work with the Burmese however. At the time Burma was a military dictatorship and still largely is.  The Burmese rulers hit back hard and are still doing so.  They now just want the little brown men permanently out of their peaceful Asian country.

Myanmar has however come under international pressure to halt their campaign because even the ancestral country of the Rohingya -- Bangladesh -- does not want them.  Bangladesh is a Muslim country with theoretical Muslim duties of hospitality but NO Muslim country ever offers permanent resettlement to other Muslims. Only foolish Western countries let in a people with a history of religiously motivated violence.  There are however many oil-rich Muslim countries who could conceivably be pressured into admitting them

Note that Myanmar also has a large non-Muslim population of immigrant Han Chinese, particularly in the North.  There is no aggression against them.  All men are not equal

The Prime minister of Myanmar is Aung San Suu Kyi, who gained international credit for her resistance to military rule.  Her moral authority was crucial to causing the transition to civilian rule.  The Rohingya issue has however led to pressure on her to renounce the oppressive policies against the Rohingya. She has not been responsive to that.

 So what goes on in her mind about that? One can only speculate, but  my speculation is that she is comfortable with the Han Chinese immigrants in the North because they look like Burmese and have the same Buddhist religion.  The little brown men of the Rohingya with their horrible Arab religion evoke no sympathy from her, however.  Buddhism and Islam could hardly be more different


The United Nations doesn’t want it to happen. Dozens of rights groups say they are shocked. Even the people who will be affected the most, Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, are upset that their future, once again, is being decided without their input.

On Thursday, a few of the more than 720,000 Rohingya who fled slaughter, rape, and village burnings in their homeland last year are due to be repatriated to Myanmar from Bangladesh.

It is a process that has been repeatedly delayed, and one that few, apart from the Myanmar and Bangladesh governments, seem to think is a good idea.

On Tuesday, the UN high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, warned that forcing the first batch of about 2,200 Rohingya living in refugee camps in Bangladesh to return to ground zero of mass violence against the minority Muslim group would be a “clear violation” of core international legal principles. The United Nations estimates that at least 10,000 people were killed last year in the outbreak of ethnic cleansing.

“The human rights violations committed against the Rohingya in Myanmar amount to the worst atrocities, including crimes against humanity and possibly even genocide,” Bachelet said. “With an almost complete lack of accountability, indeed with ongoing violations, returning Rohingya refugees to Myanmar at this point effectively means throwing them back into the cycle of human rights violations that this community has been suffering for decades.”

The United Nations has recommended that top military leaders in Myanmar be put on trial for crimes that include genocide. In September, the International Criminal Court, which rules on war crimes and crimes against humanity, opened an initial inquiry into some of these “crimes of persecution and other inhumane acts.”

As Bangladesh and Myanmar have pursued various iterations of repatriation agreements, UN officials have repeatedly said they were not involved adequately in the process. Rohingya Muslims, too, have complained about being isolated from decisions about their fates.

It is not clear whether the Thursday deadline will be met, given previous missed targets for repatriation.

In Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, now home to the world’s largest refugee camp, one of the people who found her name on a repatriation list said she had no idea how she was picked to return. The woman, whose name is not being used for her protection, said she had no wish to return to Myanmar.

The UN said that at least two elderly men in the refugee camps had attempted suicide rather than face the possibility of returning to the site of crimes against the Rohingya.

Repatriations to Myanmar are supposed to be safe, voluntary, and dignified, according to a bilateral agreement. But Myanmar officials have repeatedly rejected reports of mass violence committed against the Rohingya, who are Muslims in a majority Buddhist country.

Two reporters for Reuters who documented a mass grave in Rakhine state, where the Rohingya are from, are now in prison, sentenced to seven-year terms. On Wednesday, Reuters reported that Vice President Mike Pence had told Myanmar’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, that the United States demanded better press freedoms in the country and that the persecution of the Rohingya was “without excuse.”

Given the reluctance of officials in Myanmar to admit to any systematic violence committed by the military, which ruled the country for nearly half a century and still wields considerable power, international human rights groups have expressed concern about the future well-being of any potential returnees.

A coalition of 42 humanitarian and civil society groups has deemed the repatriation process “dangerous and premature.”

“Most of all, refugees tell us that they are afraid,” said a statement from the International Rescue Committee, one of the nongovernmental organizations that signed the joint protest of the upcoming repatriation.

But Dr. Win Myat Aye, the social affairs minister of Myanmar, said in an interview that there would be no harm inflicted upon any repatriated Rohingya, 150 of whom would be processed each day.

The returnees could even return to their original homes, provided they still existed, Win Myat Aye said.

“It’s safe for them to live here,” he said. “They can live here for the long term.”

Most of the remaining Rohingya in Myanmar have been herded into bleak camps or have been prevented from leaving their villages. Education and health care are severely limited.

Win Myat Aye said Myanmar authorities had vetted an initial list of returnees submitted by the government of Bangladesh and found that 65 were “terrorists” who were not welcome back. The Myanmar government says that any violence last year was related to clearance operations against Rohingya insurgents, who launched coordinated attacks on police posts and an army base in August 2017.

The military-led pogroms against the Rohingya, aided by Buddhist civilians, killed thousands and left hundreds of villages razed by fire, according to international rights monitors. The mass violence followed decades of persecution of the Rohingya, who were stripped of their citizenship by a xenophobic military junta.

Waves of Rohingya fled to Bangladesh during previous bouts of repression. Some returned home, only to escape again last year when the frenzy of violence reached a crescendo.

“The history of the Rohingya in Myanmar is one filled with repeated episodes of violence, flight, and return,” Bachelet said. “We need to speak with one voice to stop this cycle from repeating itself again.”

SOURCE






Is Eastern Europe the only civilized bit left?








Another day another gang rape: Woman raped in Swedish playground by three Africans

A 25-year-old woman has been gang raped by Africans in a playground in central Stockholm. The woman contacted the police herself on Friday, who then arrested the three men the same evening.

The arrest warrants show that the men are 18, 20 and 29 years old. Two are citizens of Somalia and the third in Eritrea. One of them needs interpreting in Somali and another in Arabic. Which means that they most likely are newly arrived migrants.

Two of them are previously convicted. The 18-year-old has committed assaults and drug offences. The 20-year-old is convicted of several cases of theft and drug offences.

One of them is also suspected of a rape that took place in February. After the gang rape, they robbed the woman of her belongings, for which they were also arrested.

They have admitted that all three had sex with the woman but argue that this was done voluntarily. Therefore denying the crimes. If the robbery was voluntary or not the story does not reveal.

SOURCE





Rotherham child sexual abuse: Six Pakistanis jailed

Six men have been jailed for sexually exploiting young girls in Rotherham who were gang-raped and abused by them.

The men subjected the five girls to "degrading and violent" acts using drink, drugs and the "excitement of friendship" to lure them in.

A trial heard one girl had been sexually abused by "at least 100 Asian men" by the time she was 16, while another described being passed around.

They were sentenced to between 10 and 23 years at Sheffield Crown Court.

The men, who are all of British Pakistani heritage, targeted and groomed the girls, who were aged between 13 and 16, over seven years between 1998 and 2005.

In a victim impact statement, one of the girls said: "I feel like I'm constantly fighting to get justice for what they did to me. I hope the court realises these men have destroyed me. "Some parts of me can never be fixed."

Sentencing them, Judge Sarah Wright told the men: "Each in your own way perpetrated, facilitated or encouraged the sexual abuse of these young girls. "Each of the complainants in this case were groomed, coerced and intimidated. Each of them was groomed. Each of you, groomed.

"You can have been in no doubt that the complainants were vulnerable in the extreme."

One girl, who was 14 at the time, was given cannabis and driven to Sherwood Forest by Nabeel Kurshid, Iqlak Yousaf and a third man.

The men then took turns raping her, warning her that if she did not do as she was told she would be left there.

Another said Mohammed Imran Ali Akhtar regularly threatened to dump her in remote locations if she did not have sex with him and his friends, and on one occasion, he abandoned her by the side of a motorway.

The same girl said Akhtar would take her to meet older Asian taxi drivers, who would then abuse her.

Another recounted how as Tanweer Ali raped her in the back of a car he told her: "It's better you just get it over and done with and then you can go back home".

Judge Wright added: "You were clearly not immature evidenced by the fact you all indulged in cynical manipulation and exploitation of your victims, which showed a maturity well beyond your chronological age.

"They continue to suffer considerable trauma and will continue to suffer throughout their lives as a result of your actions."

The convictions are the latest to come out of Operation Stovewood, run by the National Crime Agency (NCA).

It began in 2014 after a report found at least 1,400 children in Rotherham were the victims of abuse between 1997 and 2013.

Paul Williamson, from the NCA, said: "The men who have been sentenced today preyed on vulnerable young girls for their own satisfaction.

"They used violence and intimidation and believed they were untouchable by law enforcement."

SOURCE

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

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

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

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16 November, 2018

If You Live in Freedom, Thank the British Empire



A most "incorrect" video






A "caring" human rights lawyer


Lawyer Simone O'Broin. The Irish take their drinking seriously

A 50-year-old woman has been arrested for abusing Air India staff on a flight from Mumbai to London after she was denied alcohol on the plane.

The business class passenger, who is believed to be Irish, demanded to speak to the pilot after cabin crew denied her another bottle of wine due to her level of intoxication.

Video shows the blonde-haired barefoot woman, who claims to be a human rights lawyer, swearing at crew, threatening to 'p*** on them' in court, and calling a female staff member an 'Indian f***ing money-grabbing b*****d'.

The shocking incident took place on an Air India flight from Mumbai to London Heathrow last Saturday.

The footage sees the woman, hurling abuse at a crew member who is believed to be one of the pilots, shouting:'I work for all you f***ing people...

'The f***ing Rohingyas, the f***ing people of all Asia, for you, I'm an international criminal lawyer.

'Don't get any money for it by the way. But you won't give me a f***ing glass of wine, is that correct?'

She also claims to be a 'leader of the f***ing boycott movement', clapping in the air in front of the crewmember, before adding: 'If I say "boycott" - f***ing Air India, done.

'Do you understand me? You can't give me a wee bottle of wine?'

The man remains calm throughout her shocking tirade, after which she turns on another crew member, asking them if they are writing a report about her.

'F*** off! I'm a f***ing international criminal lawyer and a barrister. You will be p***ed on in court!'

She then calls the female crewmember an 'Indian f***ing moneygrabbing b*****d' before walking off back to her seat, shouting that she will 'turn you inside f***ing out, you f***ing stupid c***s! 'Give me a bottle of wine and game over!'

Otherwise, she claims, she will cause issues for the staff member upon landing, however the woman appears to be too inebriated to remember where they are flying to.

The video clip ends with the 50-year-old having a rant at her fellow business class passengers for not 'standing up against injustice'.

Another video showing the continuation of the argument, which has been shared on social media by local journalist Tarun Shukla, captures the woman claiming to be the lawyer 'for the Palestinian people'.

'So, you think I'm scared when you threaten me with lawyers? Also, Irish Republican Army. You'll be f***ing shot. All you had to do was to give me a f***ing drink.'

London Metropolitan Police has confirmed that the woman was taken into custody at Heathrow Airport upon landing.

'At approximately 1.30pm on Saturday, 10 November, a 50-year-old woman was arrested after an Air India flight had landed at Heathrow Airport,' a police spokesperson told MailOnline.

'She was arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated public order, common assault and drunk and disorderly and taken to a west London police station. 'She was subsequently released under investigation.'

SOURCE







Trump: 'There's a Limit to How Many People a Nation Can Responsibly Absorb Into Their Societies'

As companies return to the United States, they need workers, but those workers must be in the country legally, and they must come into the country based on merit, President Donald Trump said in an address to the nation Thursday afternoon.

And there have to be limits, said Trump:

Mass uncontrolled immigration is especially unfair to the many wonderful law-abiding immigrants already living here who followed the rules and waited their turn. Some have been waiting for many years. Some have been waiting a long time. They've done everything perfectly, and they're going to come in. At some point they are going to come in. Many cases very soon.

We need them to come in because we have companies coming into our country, they need workers, but they have to come in on a merit basis, and they will come in on a merit basis. The communities are often left to bear the cost and the influx of people that come in illegally. We can't allow that. There's a limit to how many people a nation can responsibly absorb into their societies.

Trump said roughly 1,500 to 2,000 people try crossing into this country illegally every day, and the Border Patrol does a "good job of catching them," despite flawed laws.

The laws are old and "just bad," "and we can't get any Democrat votes to change them," Trump complained. "It's only the Republicans that are in unison, they want to change them. They want to make strong borders. They want to get rid of any crime because of the borders."

Trump said the border jumping is a "perilous situation, and it threatens to become even more hazardous as our economy gets better and better." He said the strong U.S. economy is drawing job seekers.

Trump also said he will take "every lawful action at my disposal" to seal the border and deal with the overwhelming number of asylum claims, most of which eventually are rejected.

"No nation can allow itself to be overwhelmed by uncontrolled masses of people rushing their border. That's what's happening."

Trump said "there's nothing political" about what he's doing. He said his crackdown is in response to the caravan now coming and others now forming. "We have no idea who they are. All we know is they're pretty tough people when they can blast through the Mexican military and Mexican police. They're pretty tough people. Even Mexico said, wow, these are tough people."

SOURCE






Gov’t Should Not Punish People for Disagreeing with State-Mandated Sexual Orthodoxy

It’s a tactic followed by all totalitarian regimes: To control people’s thoughts, begin by controlling their speech. Require them to verbally affirm the regime’s dogmas—even if they disagree with those dogmas.

Anyone who has read books like George Orwell’s 1984 is familiar with the technique of coerced speech. But maybe you did not expect it to be used by the American government.

Welcome to the Orwellian world of sexual politics, where state universities are compelling professors to use the language of transgender ideology.

Fortunately, a few brave souls are fighting back. A philosophy professor is suing Shawnee State University in Ohio after the university punished him for refusing to use a transgender student’s preferred pronoun.

It started in January 2018, when Nicolas Meriwether called a student “sir” in his political philosophy class. (He calls all his students “sir” and “ma’am.”) Afterward the student confronted Meriwether, demanding the use of female pronouns. When the professor did not immediately acquiesce, the student became verbally abusive and threatened to get him fired—then promptly filed a complaint with the university.

Administrators accused Meriwether of creating “a hostile environment” and placed a written warning in his personnel file. They also threatened “further corrective actions” unless he capitulated to the student’s demands.

But compelled speech is a violation of liberty. Words express a worldview. To be forced to use transgender pronouns like “ze” and “zir” is to be forced to affirm the underlying transgender ideology—that gender is a social construction divorced from biological sex. Gender is reduced to a mental state, a question of how much you feel like a girl or a boy.

Transgender people are clearly biologically male or female from birth. They have typical sex markers—e.g., genetics, gonads, genitals—that all align with each other (unlike intersex people, whose biology is ambiguous). Gender dysphoria means their feelings are in opposition to their biological sex.

A BBC documentary says at the heart of the transgender debate is the idea that your mind can be “at war with your body.” And in that war, it’s the mind that wins.

A Princeton university professor wrote a book offering a philosophical defense of transgenderism, yet even she admits that it involves “disconnect,” “disjunction," "self-division," "self-estrangement"—the mind in opposition to the body. Her solution is to deny that the body has any relevance or significance: The physical body “tells us nothing … . It has no meaning at all.”

Compelled speech forces professors to affirm that the body gives no clue to our identity, that it is not part of our authentic self.

Where did such a negative view of the body come from? Transgender ideology rests on the assumption that human life is a product of mindless, purposeless forces. The implication is that the body has no intrinsic purpose that we are morally obligated to respect—and the mind is free to use it any way it wants.

But such an extreme devaluation of the body ultimately dehumanizes all of us. For if our bodies do not have inherent value, then a key part of our identity is devalued.

In his lawsuit, Meriwether states that he holds a Christian ethic, one that honors the body by calling people to live in harmony with their biological sex. This is a wholistic ethic—our mind and emotions are meant to be in tune with our body. Christianity presents the human body as fundamentally good, with intrinsic dignity and purpose. And we respect that purpose by taking it into account when discerning our gender identity.

That gender philosophy has as much right to be heard in the classroom as the social constructivist view.

Meriwether’s suit against Shawnee State was filed by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). “This isn’t just about a pronoun; this is about endorsing an ideology,” said ADF Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer. “Public universities have no business compelling people to express ideological beliefs that they don’t hold.”

The lawsuit charges that Shawnee State is engaging in viewpoint discrimination, which the Supreme Court has held to be unconstitutional: Professors who endorse social constructivism in regard to gender are permitted to express their views, while professors who do not profess that philosophy are punished.

A small number of people suffer genuine gender dysphoria, and in our public spaces we should be sensitive to the difficulties they face. But the state should not seek to regulate other people’s perspectives or punish them for disagreeing with a state-mandated sexual orthodoxy.

Words reflect worldviews. A free society will remain free only when people have the liberty to use the terms that express their own worldview.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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15 November, 2018

The Wealth of Nations Begins at Home

Economics has its roots in the Greek word “oikonomia,” which means the “management of the household.” Yet economists across the ideological spectrum have largely neglected the links between household family structure and the macroeconomic welfare of nations. With economics professor Joseph Price, IFS senior fellow W. Bradford Wilcox sought to remedy this oversight by examining the association between family structure and global economic growth in a chapter in the new book, Unequal Family Lives.

According to Wilcox and Price:

A stable marriage matters in part because it allows couples to make decisions over time that maximize the economic prosperity of their family unit. Stably married persons have incentives to invest in their marriage and benefit from specialization and economies of scale; their households also tend to earn and save more than their peers who are unmarried or divorced.

They argue that because of the economic benefits of marriage, “the more children are born and raised in stable, two-parent families, the more a society should experience economic growth.” To test their theory, they utilized marriage statistics, historical data on children, and gross domestic product (GDP) data from over 90 countries between 1968 and 2014. In a fixed-effects regression analysis, they found a positive relationship between marriage and economic growth around the world. Specifically:

for every 13-percentage-point increase in the proportion of adults who are married, there was an 8 percent increase in per capita GDP, net of controls for a range of sociodemographic factors. Likewise, every 13 percentage point increase in the proportion of children living in two-parent families is associated with a 16 percent increase in per capita GDP, after controlling for education, urbanization, age, population size, and other factors.

They conclude, "There is clearly a link between family structure and economic growth.”

But why would married, two-parent families help to boost the wealth of nations? Wilcox and Price pinpoint three specific mechanisms that may explain the family-wealth connection, showing that more two-parent families 1) foster more household savings, 2) decrease crime, and, 3) improve children’s academic success across the globe.

Household Savings

Consider savings. Using data from the World Bank, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) to examine the household savings rate in 90 countries, Wilcox and Price find that the proportion of children living in two-parent families is associated with higher savings rates in the countries examined. In fact, the savings rate is nearly double in countries with the most two-parent families, compared to the countries with the fewest two-parent families.

Public Safety

Because safer communities are more prosperous, Wilcox and Price also explored the connection between two-parent families and violent crime in countries around the globe. We know that marriage and stable families help to reduce crime in two primary ways: 1) by discouraging men’s involvement in criminal activities and 2) by reducing children’s risk of involvement in delinquency and crime as adolescents and young adults. They point to neighborhood-level data from the U.S. and Canada, which indicates an association between more married families in a community and less crime. But what about violent crime at the country level? Using data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), they found a strong negative association between the proportion of children raised in two-parent families and homicide rates in 83 countries, including countries in Africa, North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania.

As the figure above illustrates, the average homicide rate is more than four times larger in countries in the bottom third in terms of children living with two parents compared to countries in the top third.

Educational Achievement

Another way more marriage and two-parent families may lead to higher economic growth is by boosting human capital for children. As Wilcox and Price explain, “children may benefit from the higher levels of time, money, and stability found in two-parent families, compared to single-parent families,” resulting in better educational outcomes that improve their future career success. In the U.S., there is ample research linking children’s academic success to married families. For example, children in married-parent families are more likely to graduate from high school, earn a college degree, and get a good job as adults than children from single-parent families.

Similarly, in other developed nations, children raised in two-parent families are less likely to repeat a grade and more likely to perform well on standardized testing. Wilcox and Price point to Sweden, Singapore, and Indonesia, where children in single-parent homes are “at least 70 percent more likely to be held back in school compared to their peers from two-parent families.” Moreover, in Europe, children from single-parent families are more likely than those from two-parent families to skip school.

Overall, Wilcox and Price show that marriage and two-parent families may help to foster global economic growth by increasing household savings rates, decreasing crime, and boosting children’s educational attainment in developed nations. While they acknowledge that their “results cannot definitively prove that family structure has a causal impact on economic growth,” they note, "if nothing else, the patterns documented in this paper suggest that stronger families, higher household savings rates, less crime, and higher economic growth may cluster together in mutually reinforcing ways."

These findings demonstrate that we cannot fully understand the forces fueling the wealth of nations without also paying attention to the health of the families that call those nations home.

SOURCE





Women who disappoint feminists

According to exit polling, in U.S. House races, white women split evenly between Republicans and Democrats, 49% each. But in the Georgia gubernatorial race that's still being delegitimized by Oprah's pick, Stacey Abrams, 75% of white women voted for Republican Brian Kemp. Clearly, in this critical race between a white, southern man and a black, professional, and educated woman, the only reason these while women voted for the archnemesis of Democrat women is because they're all racist.

Yet Robert Francis "Beto" O'Rourke, the latest Democrat candidate who has reporters swooning, lost to incumbent Senator Ted Cruz with the backing of almost 60% of white women and a treasury that outspent Cruz by up to $30 million. How could these supposedly racist white women vote for a Hispanic man whose family immigrated to this nation legally with a story of the American Dream?

In the case of the Caucasian Chick Caucus going for Cruz, angry feminists spewed that white women were "foot soldiers of the patriarchy." By now, we hope that these hundreds of thousands of female voters have had their apron strings untied and they're released from their caveman husbands. While the Women's March of the Left Ladies hoists the banner of feminism high, what they're peddling is anything but feminism. The women on the Left seem to be a mass of malcontents who view every man through some experience of betrayal dripping with anger toward all who don't echo the same sentiments.

Feminism was originally the theory that both sexes are equal in their political, economic, and societal rights and function. It was and is supposed to be about the advocacy of feminine independence and the fair treatment of women. Well, the only modern women who use that approach are on the Right side of the political spectrum.

When a progressive gal talks about reproductive rights and free birth control, the female voters on the right hear, "I want abortion on demand and the government to be my caretaker with free contraception and abortion services." When angry Democrat females verbally assault men as privileged oppressors, the women on the Right have the capacity to bring to mind most men they've known through life — husband, father, brother, friend, co-worker, etc. — to understand that, while there are certainly some scoundrels with XY chromosomes, most have roles of personal and professional significance that just don't fit the truly despicable portrayal by the Left.

It's a serious miscalculation for leftists to make feminism and progressivism mutually exclusive. In the Brett Kavanaugh trial by pitchfork and torches, Democrats broadcast to the world that "all women" were in solidarity with their despicable tactics. That strategy yielded Republican gains in the Senate.

Democrats can only redefine feminism to fit their politics, not reality. It often works because it's based on emotion and rooted in the hatred of Donald Trump. It's especially effective among college-educated women living in urban-suburban areas — women who subscribe to this perverted observance of feminism that demands that the government serve as source and sustenance while marginalizing almost all men.

In reality, the authentically independent women who are treated as equals are leading on the Right. These are the candidates and elected officials who articulate economic policy that focuses on free markets, individual empowerment, and attainment with an emphasis on self-reliance, not becoming more dependent upon the government for any list of government-funded and controlled services.

It's Republican women like UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, Senator-elect Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Governor-elect Kristi Noem of South Dakota, and Congresswoman-elect Carol Miller of West Virginia who focus on real policy issues. None of these women ran on the treadmill of tired identity politics that beats down men while, essentially, clamoring for the government to be their key provider.

Election cycles will come and go. The 2020 elections are sure to contain higher stakes, louder rhetoric, and even more hate coming from the ever-aggrieved Left. But a critical difference will always remain between Democrats and Republicans, both male and female: Leftists strive for equality at the finish line with blame and shame as key ingredients for failure. Republicans strive for equality at the starting line with the expectation that the outcomes are best when self-determined and fueled by personal responsibility. Both men and women can appreciate that.

SOURCE






Women’s March Stripped Of Human Rights Award For Its Blatant Antisemitism

For all the harping the left does about how the rhetoric from Trump and the right is fueling antisemitism, one organization has at least accurately pinpointed one of its sources.

The Women’s March, a radically left feminist movement is often present at every high-profile protest you’ve seen over the past months, leading women in one chant or another. They claim to be for every social justice narrative you’ve ever heard such as equality and justice but have proven to be highly anti-white, anti-male, anti-rich, and very anti-Republican.

Among the “anti’s” they subscribe to, you can also add anti-semitic.

Among their leadership is Linda Sarsour, a pro-Sharia activist who has spouted some very anti-semitic hate on numerous occasions, and even considers rabid anti-Semitic hate preacher Louis Farrakhan among her mentors. Sarsour’s anti-Semitism and the resulting hate that leaked into her own movement is now starting to get attention.

According to Ashe Schow at the Daily Wire, The Friedrich Ebert Foundation, a German socialist think-tank, was set to reward the Women’s March with a human rights award but has now rescinded the award after members of the organization wrote a very public letter denouncing the Women’s March.

“We believe that the Women’s March USA does not meet the criteria of this award, as its organizers have repeatedly attracted attention through antisemitic statements, the trivialization of antisemitism and the exclusion of Zionists and Jews since Women’s March USA’s establishment in 2017,” wrote foundation members. “Women’s March USA does not constitute an inclusive alliance.”

The members noted the anti-Semitic actions by the organization such as the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel, Linda Sarsour’s repeated insults towards the Jewish peoples, and Women’s March leadership being friendly with Farrakhan as proof that the Women’s March is an anti-Semitic organization.

“Just as important the struggle for feminism still is, so is the fight against other forms of discrimination, as well as to work inclusively and to not exclude Jews,” the members added.

“An organization that may support feminism, but discriminates against Jews and Zionists and denies Israel’s right to exist should not be honored by a democratic foundation that advocates diversity and speaks out against discrimination,” the group concluded.

It’s good to finally see the Women’s March being pointed out as the incredibly hateful movement it is after the American media and U.S. politicians have spent so much time making it seem like the group is pure as the driven snow.

SOURCE






Australia: Collateral damage of the debased #MeToo crusade

Janet Albrectsen  is generally right below but her claim that no conservative should copy the unscrupulous tactics of the Left is rather idealistic. A prophet long ago warned "Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind" (Hosea 8:7).  The Left deserve a taste of how their bad behaviour affects people

In the latest outpouring of #MeToo miasma, former ABC managing director Michelle Guth­rie claims former chairman Justin Milne touched her inappropriately on her back. It was “unprofessional” and “icky”, she told ABC’s Four Corners on Monday evening. Guthrie has gone public amid a war of words over who said and did what to whom just before she was sacked and he resigned.

Let’s just say that Guthrie is a woman in her early 50s who stood on equal footing with the former chairman. She chose not to make a formal complaint at the time. Who knows what happened? And, quite frankly, who cares?

More of us are concerned about Ashleigh Raper. The ABC journalist became an innocent ­casualty when powerful men ­decided to exploit the #MeToo zeitgeist for their brutal political games. Before we get to that, if it is true, the alleged behaviour of ­former NSW Labor opposition leader Luke Foley towards Raper at Christmas drinks in 2016 was shameful. More than that, if a man puts his hand on a woman’s back, slides his hand inside her dress and rests his hand on her backside without consent, that is assault. At a press conference last week, Foley denied the allegations and said he planned to launch defamation proceedings. Given there was a witness, this sordid tale has a way to go yet.

Women are right to be just as outraged about Foley’s alleged ­behaviour as the contemptible and uncontested actions of NSW Liberal minister David Elliott and federal Liberal MP Eric Abetz who exploited the #MeToo zeitgeist for their partisan political pur­poses. A month ago, under the coward’s cloak of parliamentary privilege, Elliott alluded to Foley’s actions against an unnamed ABC journalist. Elliott’s actions made it impossible for Raper to remain ­silent.

A week later Abetz also mentioned an alleged “assault”, “sexual assault” and “indecent assault” while grilling ABC management at a Senate estimates committee. His base motives forced the ABC’s acting managing director into the ridiculous position of saying the matter would be investigated, even though Raper had not made a complaint.

Who gave these two men the right to set the hares running about an ABC journalist who was allegedly harassed or assaulted by Foley?

Elliott and Abetz knew that Raper had chosen to stay silent. She did what many, many women do in the same circumstances. She decided to get on with her life, in her case as a political journalist. She did not join the public #MeToo campaign that started a year later. Up until last week, Raper made no public comment or formal complaint.

These were not men in shining armour acting on behalf of Raper when they pursued Foley and the ABC respectively. The two Liberal politicians were acting for their own craven purposes; they knowingly disregarded her choice to ­remain silent. It is especially rank behaviour from two men who dress daily in the moral garb of ­social conservatives within the Liberal Party.

On Friday morning Elliott ­requested privacy. What a joke. Elliott and Abetz ignored Raper’s right to privacy, forcing her into the public domain against her will to damage Foley and embarrass the ABC.

Elliott’s late apology on Saturday only compounds the stench. This is politics 101: a politician apologises only when it becomes untenable not to do so. And even then the apology is predictably lame, a means of deflecting bad behaviour rather than serious reflection about what he did wrong.

We can all agree then that Raper became collateral damage when two senior Liberal men ­exploited the #MeToo crusade for their own political purposes.

But here comes the part that will cause some women conniptions, as is often the case with #MeToo: many women have man­ipulated the social media campaign for their own purposes, corrupting its focus and undermining its credibility. That doesn’t excuse the mistreatment of Raper by the men involved in this sleazy saga. It adds insult to injury that both sexes have used #MeToo for their own ulterior motives.

When millions of women, each with their own agenda, jumped aboard the #MeToo movement early on, it became a train wreck waiting to happen for men and women alike. This early exploitation was an open invitation to others to use the same confected emotion and rage for their personal and political purposes too.

Perhaps if the early champions of #MeToo had demanded a more disciplined focus on serious harassment and sexual assault, their campaign would not have gone off the rails in the way it has. Those who are so outraged over Raper’s treatment should have had the foresight to see this coming. Some unintended consequences are predictable even early on.

Instead, #MeToo became a shoddy conduit for political causes and trivial episodes. And a clique of female supporters would not countenance debate that veered from their fast-forming orthodoxy. They discouraged discussion about how we define sexual harassment and treated those of us who suggested some nuance, context, due process and less prudery as traitors to the sisterhood. The same women so quick to condemn men for exploiting claims of sexual harassment will not concede that women have done the same. Outing a man ­because he didn’t turn out to be Prince Charming and the sex was bad was lumped in the #MeToo basket with everything from a wink and a wolf-whistle, leaving their cause badly damaged.

Three key words suffice as evidence of the wicked manipulation of the #MeToo movement: women, Democrats and Kavanaugh. Even the American Civil Liberties Union exploited the emotion-laden #MeToo zeitgeist to try to stop Brett Kavanaugh becoming a Supreme Court justice. A group that includes civil liberties in its name is prima facie dedic­ated to due process. Not when it came to Donald Trump’s choice for the Supreme Court. Here, the ACLU used unproven and highly contested claims by women to ­oppose Kavanaugh’s nomination.

The debasement of the #MeToo movement made it ­inevitable that it would be exploited by men and women and people of all political persuasions. Last week, during a fiery White House press conference, a Trump aide took the microphone from CNN’s Jim Acosta. Later that day Acosta’s press credentials were suspended and Trump’s press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, accused Acosta of “placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job as a White House intern”, calling it “absolutely unacceptable”. The video shows Acosta’s hand brushing the intern’s shoulder as she takes the microphone from him. But in an age of confected #MeToo outrage, everyone gets a shot at emoting over even the most trivial #MeToo matter.

Now that a Republican president and two Liberal politicians in Australia have exploited this hashtag crusade for their own tawdry ends, maybe more backers of #MeToo will concede that its early corruption encouraged precisely this outcome: a political free-for-all where women have become collateral damage too.

SOURCE 

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

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

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

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14 November, 2018

The silencing of Gab

Gab is a micro-blogging social network, built as a direct response to Twitter's brutal affront to Free Speech, and the nefarious practices of Silicon Valley as a whole. For the last few years, Gab has existed and thrived, attracting hundreds of thousands of marginalized and silenced conservatives, patriots and all-around defenders of one of the most fundamental human rights: freedom of thought and expression. I've had an account there for about 2 years, and it's in many ways a better platform than Twitter.

Of course, such a thorn in the aggressive monopoly of Big Social, and its ubiquity in the biased political machine wasn't just going to be allowed to exist. Before last week, Gab had already been banned by both the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store, making it de facto inaccessible on mobile by conventional means. It had its gab.ai domain seized, forcing them to move to another registrar. More recently, they were booted from their host, Microsoft Azure, forcing to scramble to move to another provider. Stripe, their main payment processor for subscriptions, repeatedly threatened to ban them over the presence of adult content on their platform, and finally pulled the plug recently.

That was all before last week. Last Saturday, an attack was perpetrated on a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Why is that relevant? Well, it just so happens that the shooter had an account on Gab, on which he expressed anti-semitic views. Despite Gab CEO Andrew Torba doing everything in his power to assist law enforcement with all information available to aid in the investigation following the attack, nearly every single third-party provider Gab used has used this as a excuse to essentially purge the platform from the Internet, all in the span of about 48 hours.

They were summarily banned by:

Paypal, one of their payment processors.
Joyent, the hosting provider they switched to just a few weeks ago after being banned by Microsoft.
GoDaddy, their domain name registrar.
Medium, which they used for their official blog.

In effect, Gab has been no-platformed from the Internet. They have been deprived of many — if not all — of the essentials needed to run an internet business, in a spectacularly coordinated attack.

The "shooter had an account" excuse

So he did. But if they are going to use that as an excuse to shutdown or refuse service to a social platform, it would be reasonable to play for the same rules for the perpetrators of every violent shooting and terrorist act. Omar Mateen, The Orlando Pulse Nightclub shooter, had made his intentions clear on Facebook, the same platform where several beatings and murders were broadcasted LIVE. The Islamic State uses Twitter to recruit. It's also not unreasonable to assume GMail and other Google services were used to plan and coordinate attacks.

Yet, we never once have seen any of these platforms get in any sort of trouble for the actions of their users. No external provider has, to the best of my knowledge, refused service to the three giants of Big Social. Stripe, who banned Gab, still does business with Facebook, which as I mentioned, lets users broadcast murders, among other questionable-at-best practices.

Interesting timing

Beyond the precise coordination of the attack, it's interesting to note the context in which it happened. In just a few days, on November 6, the U.S. will hold midterm elections. In the 2016 Presidential election, Gab, among others, was instrumental in providing a platform to otherwise censored conservatives and supporters of then-candidate Donald Trump. Ever since, censorship on mainstream social media platforms and attacks on alternative sites have considerably ramped up. In the last few days, Voat (Reddit alternative) and 8chan (4chan alternative) have also been hit by massive DDoS attacks.

The American Left underestimated the sway that Free Speech platforms had in 2016, and are clearly intent on not making the same mistake twice. In my view, the timing and scale of these attacks is no coincidence.

The silencing of Gab also comes on the heels of the historic victory of Jair Bolsonaro, the new President of Brazil. During the Brazilian election, Gab became a haven for Bolsonaro's supporters, following a massive wave of censorship on Facebook, Twitter and local media. In recent weeks, Brazil accounted for as much as 25% of Gab's traffic.

Sordid precedent

Gab isn't the first alternative voice to be brutally and utterly de-platformed. We remember the same treatment being dealt to Alex Jones just a few weeks ago. We remember the countless conservative accounts booted of Facebook and Twitter. But what is happening to Gab right now marks a turning point. This is the first time that this many providers, all at once, terminated service for a client for the flimsiest and most hypocritical of excuses. This is the most relentless I've ever seen the dictatorship of Silicon Valley in action, and it's chilling.

In effect, just a few companies control your right to be present on the Internet. Access to every single layer of infrastructure needed exists at the whim of a few people, and now we've all seen what happens when you don't share their political inclinations, and how easily they can be swayed by the screeching mob.

This is happening to companies that threaten their monopoly, this is happening to individuals who disagree, who just want a place to share their thoughts and opinions, and whether you realize it yet or not, this is happening to you. The Internet is not a cartel, but it's certainly being run like one.

SOURCE






Leftist demonization of whites bears fruit


Jada Campbell

A 71-year-old woman was the victim of a physical and intimidating attack on a Boston-area train after she asked a fellow passenger to move her personal belongings off an otherwise vacant train seat.

According to WBZ-TV, the incident occurred during a recent afternoon commute.

The victim, who would identify herself only as Linda, said that she asked a fellow passenger to remove a pocketbook from an empty seat in order to sit down.

The suspect, 23-year-old Jada Campbell, responded by allegedly calling Linda an "ugly white person" and hitting and tripping her.

"It had been a long week," Linda explained. "I said, 'Excuse me' three times, then I got into her face and asked her to move her bag and she said, 'No, I don't want anyone sitting next to me.'"

What happened next shocked Linda.

"You're an ugly white person," Campbell reportedly told Linda. Campbell reportedly went on to strike the woman on her back, and intentionally tripped her while she was on the train.

Linda said that she obviously felt threatened and got off at an early stop in response.

Campbell reportedly followed Linda. "[Campbell] was abusive, ranting and raving, 'I'm going to take you down and have it out,'" Linda said.

Two other passengers reportedly followed Linda off the train in an apparent effort to defend the older woman. "I had two good Samaritans come off with me and they were protective," Linda said. "Campbell] came up and said, 'Let's have it out here and now,' took off her earrings, and threw stuff down."

When police arrived on the scene, Campbell reportedly resisted arrest, and told witnesses, "If I see you on the streets, I'll murder you."

Police charged Campbell with charged with assault, witness intimidation, and disorderly conduct.

"We were all shaking afterward," Linda said. "She was such a force."

SOURCE






'Sanctuary' refuses to take blame after triple homicide, says ICE responsible for illegal immigrant

Feds say three people would be alive today but for sanctuary policy

An illegal immigrant released by a “sanctuary city” county in New Jersey was charged last week with a triple homicide halfway across the country in Missouri, authorities said Friday.

Luis Rodrigo Perez stands accused of being the gunman in a shooting rampage last week that claimed the lives of two men and one woman at two homes.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it had tried to deport Perez after he was arrested on domestic violence charges in Middlesex County, New Jersey, last year.

But the county, which has a noncooperation policy with ICE, refused to alert federal agents when it released Perez in February, ICE said.

“Had ICE’s detainer request in December 2017 been honored by Middlesex County Jail, Luis Rodrigo Perez would have been placed in deportation proceedings and likely sent home to his country — and three innocent people might be alive today,” said Corey Price, acting ICE executive associate director.

John Tsoukaris, ICE’s deportation operations field director in Newark, New Jersey, called Middlesex County’s policy reckless.

He said Perez had a history of violence and would have been a clear candidate for cooperation.

“We hope that this tragic turn of events forces Middlesex to reconsider its policy and that the local elected officials stop protecting criminal aliens,” Mr. Tsoukaris said.

In a statement, the county government rejected blame and said it was ICE that dropped the ball.

Officials said they repeatedly have told ICE that they will cooperate only in some instances, such as when someone is convicted of a first- or second-degree offense. They said Perez’s case didn’t reach that level.

Still, they said, ICE had 51 days while Perez sat in jail during which the agency could have tried to get a deportation order for him. The county said it would have honored that order.

“Instead ICE officials chose to do nothing, which places all responsibility of Mr. Perez’s actions squarely upon ICE,” the county government said in its statement.

Police in Missouri say Perezattacked a home from which he had been kicked out. The victims were heard “begging for their lives,” The Associated Press reported, citing charging documents.

Perez later returned and fired on yet another person, authorities said.

Perez still had outstanding warrants from New Jersey, The Associated Press reported.

SOURCE






Men have had their careers ruined by fake rape claims, and they can’t defend themselves, a former president of the Australian Human Rights Commission has said

Gillian Triggs finally says something sensible

There is a danger that comes with airing allegations of sexual harassment and assault in the public domain, such has become increasingly common in the #MeToo movement.

That’s the view of Gillian Triggs, former president of the Australian Human Rights Commission, who said those kinds of matters should almost always be dealt with in the safety of a confidential setting.

In an appearance on the Q&A panel on ABC television, Ms Triggs was responding to a point that men who are falsely accused of inappropriate conduct have few avenues of recourse.

“One of my concerns as a lawyer is far too many of the men have no ability to defend themselves, they’re simply resigning and using the tool of defamation to come back against the woman concerned,” Ms Triggs said.

“For those men, if they feel they’ve been unjustly accused, they have no other vehicle because they’ve lost … the reputation with their colleagues and lost their job very often, and they have no other option.”

Matters needed to be examined “from both perspectives”, which made trying to “solve this problem in the public arena” highly problematic, she said.

“We really need safe confidential and private ways in which to resolve matters long before we go anywhere near the courts, by which time the matter is way out in the public arena.”

Ms Triggs is currently chairing a committee organised by a United Nations body exploring the issue of sexual harassment, she said.

Communications consultant Parnell Palme McGuinness said examples in the United States where men were found to have been falsely accused of rape of sexual assault highlighted the need for caution.

The speed with which the #MeToo movement had taken hold, encouraging victims to publicly air accusations, meant only one side of the issue was being examined, she said. “We can’t have this discussion about women ignoring what happens to men when allegations are raised that are false,” Ms McGuinness said.

“That is not in any way, in any circumstance, to imply that a woman is not telling the truth, but there have been cases, most notably in the States recently with some football players who had their careers ruined on the basis of a fake rape allegation, that go beyond the pale.”

The conversations sparked by #MeToo should consider “both genders”, she said.  “It’s important that this debate be about … how we can ensure that one person, one side’s attempt at being able to speak out more, doesn’t become a way of oppressing the other side.”

Moving away from a tendency to air accusations in private was beneficial for all parties, Ms Triggs said, not just for men who may have been falsely accused.

“Most importantly, and I do go back to my experience with the Human Rights Commission, it must be a safe and confidential environment for women. If they feel their allegations are going to be put into the media … they’re not going to do it.

“We know they’re not going to do it. So it’s key that we establish safe, confidential environments, possibly external to the organisation, where these issues can be safely considered.”

Research conducted in the US in 2010 estimated that between two to 10 per cent of rape accusations were found to be false.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation believes the number of “unfounded” accusations is about eight per cent.

However, as the Q&A panellists also pointed out that a significant number of women do not come forward after experiencing sexual assault, harassment or rape.

In the US and UK, authorities believe between 30 and 40 per cent of victims never come forward to make a formal complaint.

During her time at the Human Rights Commission, Ms Triggs said “hundreds” of matters a year dealt with sexually based allegations. “We would resolve (them) quietly in the small rooms at the Commission, bringing in perhaps an executive of a major company, and you would get a face-to-face examination of the issue,” she said.

“And you would have the matter, in 76 per cent of cases in formal complaints, we would resolve them quietly and confidentially.”

Ms Triggs said in the majority of cases, once an allegation was brought into the public arena, “women almost always came out second or third best”.

Ms Triggs said all organisations had a responsibility to deal directly with matters when they were raised.

“It’s a health and safety issue at minimum. But it’s also an environment in which there’s huge risks to the organisation, to the ability to carry out its objectives,” she said.

However, more work needed to be done to encourage victims of sexual assault, harassment or rape to feel safe enough to come forward. At the moment, far too many don’t, she said.

“It is absolutely typical — the woman concerned will raise the issue at particular levels, perhaps test the waters, see what kind of response she’s getting, and very rapidly retreat and not make a formal complaint,” Ms Triggs said.

“And that is typical globally. Women simply don’t proceed because they see it as too dangerous, because they know, there’s a very high probability, they’ll be the ones that suffer.”

SOURCE 

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

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

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

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13 November 2018

UK: New head of CPS under fire for refusing to use phrase 'Islamist terrorism'

Elite arrogance again.  How can someone so adrift from reality be a good Crown Prosecutor?

The new head of the CPS has been accused of adopting "deeply unhelpful” language about terrorists after spending 90 minutes with CAGE, the group that described ISIS executioner Jihadi John as “a beautiful young man".

The Henry Jackson Society (HJS) has criticised Max Hill QC's appointment as the Director of Public Prosecutions, claiming he has "aped" the rhetoric used by CAGE and its supporters.

Mr Hill, who replaced Alison Saunders [long overdue] last week, held a 90 minute meeting with CAGE last autumn - a month after the organisation's international director, Muhammad Rabbani, was convicted of a terrorism offence and fined for refusing to give police the PIN number of his mobile phone when he was stopped and searched at Heathrow Airport.

It came after the group had held a press conference following the February 2015 killing of ISIS’s chief executioner Mohammed Emwazi describing the brutal killer as “beautiful” and “extremely gentle”. The 27-year-old from Queen's Park, London, is thought to have been responsible for the beheading of western hostages including US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff.

Accusing the QC of being "influenced, inaccurately, by the Islamist group's agenda", the HJS pointed out similarities between Mr Hill's refusal to refer to "Islamist terrorism" and CAGE describing the use of the word "Islamist" as a smear on the religion.

In February, Mr Hill - then head of the Government’s terror watchdog - declared that it is “fundamentally wrong” to use the phrase “Islamist terrorism” to describe attacks carried out in Britain and elsewhere.

He said that the word terrorism should not be attached “to any of the world religions” and that the term “Daesh-inspired terrorism” should be used instead.

His comments put him at odds with Prime Minister Theresa May and the then Home Secretary Amber Rudd, who have both spoken about the threat posed by “Islamist terrorists”.

The HJS claims Mr Hill’s rhetoric appears “almost identical” to wording used by CAGE in 2017 to criticise Mr Hill’s predecessor David Anderson for his use of the “Islamist” term.

CAGE said: “This ‘Islamist’ smear is an ad hominem attack reminiscent of neoconservative “think-tanks” that seek to whitewash Prevent (the Government’s anti-terrorism strategy) and delegitimise community concerns.”

In his 2018 independent review of terror legislation, published last month, Mr Hill refers to "the perception and experience of racism and stigmatization in the workings of Schedule 7 and Prevent, whether repeat stops at borders or undue focus on Islamist extremism”.

Again CAGE have used very similar language, declaring on its website: “This follows the racial profiling of Muslim primary schoolchildren under the BRIT project, which had the effect of stigmatising nine-year-old Muslim children as prone to violent extremism.”

CAGE has also accused Prevent of having a counterproductive effect, quoting UN special rapporteur Maina Kiai as saying: “by dividing, stigmatising and alienating segments of the population, Prevent could end up promoting extremism, rather than countering it”.

According to the HJS, Mr Hill has also held meetings with other organisations which have been outspoken in their criticism of Prevent including MEND, Just Yorkshire and The Cordoba Foundation, once described by David Cameron as a “political front for the Muslim Brotherhood”. Its founder, Anas Al Tikriti, has openly supported the brotherhood and Hamas stating: “I believe that if you are occupied you need to fight back”.

Mr Hill has also met with the Friends of Al Asqa, founded by Ismail Patel who has stated that “Hamas is no terrorist organisation…we salute Hamas for standing up to Israel”, and was a spokesman for the British Muslim Initiative which has links to the terror Group. Friends of al-Aqsa’s bank account was closed by the Co-op to ensure that funds “do not inadvertently fund illegal or other proscribed activities”.

MEND were once described as “Islamists masquerading as civil libertarians” while Just Yorkshire is an anti-Prevent group funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, which has also funded CAGE.

Emma Webb, a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society said: “In the wake of negative publicity damaging the CPS, Max Hill has vowed that through his appointment he will “restore trust”. But it is difficult to see how this will be possible given his habit of meeting disproportionately with extremist and intolerant groups.

“Meeting with such groups is bad enough, but his apparent aping of their divisive rhetoric is a step to far. Their fingerprints are all over his own positions.

“He has shown himself to have bad taste and judgement in the company he keeps. This is certainly not a man who can be trusted to ensure justice is done when it comes to Islamist extremism.”

A CPS spokesman said Mr Hill has always been clear about his desire for “the need for consultation with the community, particularly Muslim communities, and awareness of the full range of what different organisations are bringing to the field, not just the government favoured ones”.

He added: "Max Hill QC was appointed by the Attorney General after a rigorous and open competition, overseen by a Civil Service Commissioner?."

SOURCE





Ignorant hounding of Roger Scruton

Douglas Murray

There are times when you wonder whether our culture is too stupid to survive. The thought has kept occurring over recent days as I have watched the cooked-up furore over the appointment of Sir Roger Scruton to chair a British government commission looking into beauty in architecture.

What are Scruton’s qualifications for this unpaid job? Well, he has written two exceedingly influential books on architecture, The Aesthetics of Architecture (1980) and The Classical Vernacular (1995), as well as numerous papers and articles on the subject. He has spent more than half a century thinking about the question. And he is also Britain’s most famous living philosopher, respected in – and honoured by – many other countries and finally honoured in this country two years ago with a knighthood. Not only does Scruton have no betters: there are very few who come anywhere near to him.

But stupid ages get policed by stupid people along ever stupider lines. And so after Sir Roger’s appointment was announced, various minnows decided to do what they could to tear him down. One who led the charge was somebody who must – against very stiff competition – count as among the laziest journalists in Britain. Now at BuzzFeed News, Alex Wickham also contributes a tiny monthly political ‘gossip’ column to GQ magazine which stands out even in that organ for its sheer pointlessness, unoriginality and vacuity. It is so derivative and thin that you can see through it.

Anyhow, perhaps Wickham is hoping his new BuzzFeed colleagues will someday forgive his years spent at the right-wing Guido Fawkes website. Whatever the cause, Wickham has led a crusade to have Scruton fired from his unpaid job. Wickham’s latest offering promises an ‘exclusive’. It then goes on to misrepresent a single statement – which is wholly justifiable as it happens – about the nature of sex and regret. He then goes on to claim: ‘BuzzFeed News has unearthed footage of a lecture he gave in the US in 2005.’ ‘BuzzFeed News’ has done no such thing. Wickham has merely – clearly stretching his own investigative skills close to breaking point – gone on YouTube and found a lecture that has been freely available for years.

Inevitably various low-grade MPs have found it impossible to resist justifying their own occupation by destroying someone else’s. A Liberal Democrat MP called Wera Hobhouse – who has made absolutely no mark on the world to date – expressed ‘deep concern’ about Scruton’s ‘offensive views’. To which someone should reply, ‘And what do you think of his work on Kant? Or Spinoza?’

The Labour MP Wes Streeting also boarded the outrage bus. Streeting claimed that ‘It beggars belief that [Scruton] passed a vetting process’. Let me tell readers of something that beggars belief even more. What beggars belief is that a person as compromised as Wes Streeting was ever allowed to stand for Parliament. Because of the size of the Jewish community in his own constituency (and after defeating a distinguished Jewish MP in a squalid campaign) Streeting poses as a great friend of the Jewish community.

In fact his track record shows him to be interested only in his own career-advancement. I first encountered Streeting a decade ago when he was the head of the NUS. Back then the recently stood-down head of the Islamic Society at University College London had just tried to bring down a plane over Detroit by blowing up a bomb he had brought on board. I was among those who took a dim view of this, as I and others did of the university and student societies who had turned a blind eye to the bomber’s extremism during the time he was at university.

But did Streeting try to go for the source of the problem? Not at all. A typical NUS shill, he merely spent his time (including in a public debate with me at UCL still available – sorry, ‘unearthed’ – on YouTube here) attacking anyone pointing out the problem that existed on campuses. He spent his time eye-rolling, giggling and throwing around accusations of ‘Islamophobia’. On another occasion during his presidency Streeting – who is gay – sat in a room with a virulently homophobic Islamic cleric and spoke after that cleric’s speech, making no attempt to either correct, nuance or chastise the extremist’s views.

If Roger Scruton cannot be an unpaid chair of a small commission I have no idea how Wes Streeting should pass as suitable to be a member of Parliament. Once again we get into the Dawn Butler / Toby Young problem.

Streeting’s Labour colleague Andrew Gwynne (shadow communities secretary), meanwhile chose to get even further ahead in the outrage stakes. After jumping on a set of Scruton’s comments on Jews, Muslims, gays and much more – all of which have been provably misrepresented – Gwynne declared that ‘Nobody holding [Scruton’s] views has a place in modern democracy.’ Gosh. Well perhaps once all the philosophers have been cleared from the national stage we can rely on the mind of Andrew Gwynne to guide us through all the big questions of life.

Finally we have the New Statesman (where Scruton wrote a wine column for many years). According to somebody called Ben Brock, whose qualification is that he ‘works in publishing’, Scruton is merely an absurd figure. ‘A man obsessed with 18th century fork handles’, apparently, who as a result ‘is not going to solve the housing crisis.’ One wonders what crisis, if any, Ben Brock might solve. Despite working in publishing, he cannot even address the problem of his own flamboyant ignorance. For instance he dismisses Scruton’s views on architecture as mere ‘Nimbyism’ and then writes, ‘This is all – aside from his beloved foxhunting – that Scruton has ever really been interested in.’ Sometimes you wonder how anyone can write a sentence that ignorant and still get up in the morning.

For example, if ‘all that Scruton has ever really been interested in’ is ‘Nimbyism’ and foxhunting, how are we to explain his more than 40 books? If he is uninterested in philosophy why has he written so many important works on it? Why did he write the seminal Modern Philosophy (1994), a book Brock might have trouble picking up, let alone reading? If Scruton is so dull and uninterested in other things why has he written several of the most important books of recent decades on music and aesthetics (including The Aesthetics of Music (1999) and Understanding Music, (2009))? Why the book-length studies of Tristan and Isolde and the Ring cycle? Why his absorbing 1987 book on Lebanon or his hugely influential book The West and the Rest (2002) which emerged from Scruton’s study of Farsi and Arabic? Why the many other books and papers on religion, sexual desire and the environment? And this isn’t to get started on the novels, memoirs and more. Including a remarkable book of short stories (Souls in the Twilight) published just last month which is a moving and deeply humane insight into a range of complex, diverse characters.

I could go on. It appears that Scruton’s detractors will continue to mine the columns Scruton has secretly published in all the national papers in order to expose his wrong-think. They will continue to ‘unearth’ his public lectures. And they will continue to pretend that none of the complex things in life – including the complexity of human relations – should ever be opened up or explored by anyone. Especially not philosophers. Perhaps they will have their way. Perhaps they will ensure that nobody who has thought seriously about anything important (and gained international acclaim for doing so) must ever be allowed anywhere near our increasingly ignorant and stupid public life. But I hope that Scruton does remain in his small advisory role. If he doesn’t then it would be the strongest demonstration possible that as a country we have got to a stage you might summarize as ‘the survival of the thickest’.

SOURCE






EU corruption at work

My biggest beef with the European Union has always been the way it stifles consumer-friendly innovation in the interests of incumbent businesses and organisations. Today’s victory for Sir James Dyson at the European General Court lays bare an especially shocking example.

Dyson’s case, which has taken five years in the courts, reveals just how corrupt and crony-capitalist the European Union has become. It is no surprise that Sir James was and is a big supporter of Britain leaving the EU. Essentially, the rules have been bent to allow German manufacturers to deceive customers about the performance of their vacuum cleaners, in a manner uncannily similar to – but even worse than — the way mostly German car manufacturers deceived customers about the emissions from diesel vehicles.

In today’s decision – a very rare case in which the EU courts have had to back down — the EU’s General Court said it would uphold Dyson’s claim and that “tests of a vacuum cleaner’s energy efficiency carried out with an empty receptacle do not reflect conditions as close as possible to actual conditions of use”. Yes, you read that right: until now, in Europe only, vacuum cleaners were tested without dust, the better to suit German manufacturers.

The case concerns labels on vacuum cleaners stating how much energy they use. The Energy Label for corded vacuum cleaners is mandated by the EU’s Ecodesign and Energy Labelling regulations. The purpose is to encourage energy efficiency in such products and the job of the Energy Label is to make sure that consumers get clear information about product performance. Dyson was the first manufacturer to support limits on the power consumption of motors in vacuums. Why wouldn’t it be: its Cyclone product is very efficient?

The Energy Label was introduced throughout the EU in September 2014 and updated in September 2017. It covers overall energy rating, rated A to G, with A being best and G being worst; annual energy usage in kWh; the amount of dust in air emitted from the machine’s exhaust (A to G); the noise level in decibels; how much dust the machine picks up from carpets (A to G); and how much dust the machine picks up from hard floors and crevices (A to G).

All very reasonable, until you find that the European Commission stipulated that under these regulations, vacuum cleaners are tested empty and with no dust. This flies in the face of the methods developed by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), an international standards organization, which have been adopted by consumer test bodies and manufacturers worldwide. It is out of line with the way other appliances, such as washing machines, ovens and dishwashers are tested “loaded”, not empty.

Why would the EC have made this strange decision? Because the big German manufacturers make vacuum cleaners with bags. Sir James Dyson invented ones without bags. And the bag ones gradually become clogged with dust so they have to use more power or lose suction. The decision to test them empty plainly benefits the bag-cleaners. Behind the scenes the German manufacturers lobbied for this outcome.

The result of this is that you can buy a bag cleaner with an A rating, take it home and find that most of the time it performs like a G-rated cleaner.

So in 2013 Dyson challenged the labelling rules in the EU General Court, arguing that, to reflect real-life experience, the performance of a vacuum cleaner should be tested in real-world conditions, and that might actually include – God forbid – encountering dust. In November 2015, the EU General Court dismissed Dyson’s claims saying that dust-loaded testing is not reliable or “reproducible” and therefore could not be adopted, despite the fact that the international standard does use dust. Nonsense: in its labs and in houses, Dyson tests its own machines using real dust, fluff, grit and debris including dog biscuits and Cheerio cereals – of both the European and the American kind.

Dyson appealed to the European Court of Justice in January 2016 and on 11 May 2017 it won. The court said that to reach the conclusion it had, the General Court “distorted the facts”, “ignored their own law”, “had ignored Dyson’s evidence” and had “failed to comply with its duty to give reasons”. The ECJ said that the test must adopt, where technically possible, “a method of calculation which makes it possible to measure the energy performance of vacuum cleaners in conditions as close as possible to actual conditions of use”. The case was passed back to the General Court, which was given time to reconsider its verdict at leisure. Today, after eighteen months of cogitation (what do judges do all day?), and with nowhere to go, the court capitulated.

Dyson has this to say about the case: “the EU label flagrantly discriminated against a specific technology – Dyson’s patented cyclone. This benefited traditional, predominantly German, manufacturers who lobbied senior Commission officials. Some manufacturers have actively exploited the regulation by using low motor power when in the test state, but then using technology to increase motor power automatically when the machine fills with dust – thus appearing more efficient. This defeat software allows them to circumvent the spirit of the regulation, which the European Court considers to be acceptable because it complies with the letter of the law.”

How much more shocking does the crony-capitalist corruption at the heart of Brussels have to get before people rebel against this sort of thing? They did already? Ah yes, Brexit, true Brexit, cannot come soon enough.

SOURCE








Security expert says we’re ‘feeding the beasts’ of terror with shoot-to-kill policy

As happens every time, somebody says the terrorist was mentally ill.  And that is true in one way.  He was certainly deviant from the norm.  The important point however is that when a Muslim feels out of sorts in some way for some reason he tends to see that as a call to Jihad.  Jihad provides an answer to your truobles that will send you straight to Paradise. Attacking unbelievers rewards people with problems.  So Islam is still the problem in these attacks

The claim that his actions were a cry for help is comoplete BS.  You don't load your car up with gas cylinders and try to explode them in a busy street as a cry for help.  He wanted to kill unbelievers and go to Paradise.  That is all


Karl Stefanovic has launched a scathing attack on the “timid” critics who wanted police to refrain from shooting a knife-wielding terrorist.

As a debate rages over Australia’s response to Friday’s sickening terror attack in Melbourne, Karl Stefanovic has backed police and launched a scathing attack on their “timid” critics.

The Today co-host praised said he felt sorry for the young police officers who were forced to shoot the knife-wielding terrorist dead.

He said they were “consumed” by a “politically correct” message from the public — which dictates that they should try to keep the terrorist alive.

“People (were) yelling, ‘Shoot him, shoot him’ they tried their best not to,” he said this morning. “I reckon, on second thought, someone comes at police with a knife you shoot them dead straight away?

“You know what the courage of the cops, this is a reminder again of what our police do. The first there, first to deal with it, fighting back. I’m amazed. Who would be a police officer? Who would be a police officer and they do it and they do it without complaint.”

“They do it sometimes with the public hating them. But they’re the first you call when you need them and they were the first to respond. I salute them this morning.”

The rant came after a counter-terrorism expert said Australia is leaving itself wide open to future attacks by training police to shoot terrorists dead.

Dr Allan Orr, a counter-terrorism and insurgency specialist who is researching and writing on the Sydney cafe siege — said Australia is “feeding the beasts” of terror and failing to prevent future attacks by giving cops shoot-to-kill advice instead of shoot-to-injure training.

He recommended creating a British-style rapid response anti-terror unit — with high powered weapons and access to helicopters — and powers to track people on terrorist watch lists to prevent more extremist attacks.

“These specialist police would be completely armed, unseen and just minutes away from the scene of an attack,” he told Fairfax.  “In the UK these frontline officers don’t deal with anything else but counter-terrorism, so they’ve got their play book down to response times of two minutes.”

The call comes in response to a deadly attack in Melbourne’s Bourke Street on Friday by Hassan Khalif Shire Ali — a Muslim refugee from Somalia. Ali crashed his car full of gas cylinders before stabbing three people, killing prominent Italian restaurateur Sisto Malaspina.

As Melbourne mourns over the tragic consequences of the deadly attack, a fierce debate is raging over how tough our immigration laws should be.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton is advocating a tough-line approach which would allow the government to more easily deport residents before they become ­citizens. “I’ve been very open about the cancellation of visas, the numbers have ramped up, because there are some people who should not go on to become Australian citizens,’’ he said yesterday.

“The law applies differently, ­obviously, to someone who has ­Australian citizenship, by conferral or births, as opposed to someone here on a temporary status because they are the holder of a particular visa category.”

Victorian Premier Dan Andrews has backed the call, according to the Herald Sun. “Deportation and the cancellation of visas are matters for the Commonwealth government, but we certainly support this action being taken against extremists and those who wish to do us harm,” he said.

Ali was known to federal police and had his passport cancelled in 2015 amid fears the Somali-born man would travel to Syria.

“It is important for us to get as much information from the imams, from spouses, family members, community members, council workers, people that might be interacting with those that might have changed their behaviours, that they think have been radicalised,” Mr Dutton told reporters in Brisbane.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he backs religious freedoms but has also called on Islamic leaders to call out the attack.

Those remarks that have in turn been labelled divisive by Muslim groups who say their community is not to blame for the actions of an individual and fear it could stoke Islamophobia.

“It is extremely disappointing in such difficult times and during a national tragedy, when all Australians of all faiths and backgrounds should be called upon to unite and stand together against any form of extremism and violence, to see our nation’s leader politicising this incident and using it for political gain,” the Australian National Imams Council said in a statement on Sunday.

Mr Dutton says the government’s community engagement programs have worked in building solid relationships with members of the public who have provided critical intelligence that has helped stop other attacks, but that there were still gaps in information gathering.

The family of a popular Melbourne restaurateur who was killed in the Bourke Street terror attack has been offered a state funeral as the city continues to mourn the tragedy.

Hundreds of flowers and cards line the footpath outside of Pellegrini’s restaurant as staff let mourners know the tributes would be passed on to the family of Mr Malaspina.

The 74-year-old man was walking down Bourke St, just a few hundred metres from the business he had run for more than 40 years, when he was caught up in the horrific attack.

Mr Andrews spoke to the family of Mr Malaspina and offered a state funeral.

Tasmanian businessman Rod Patterson and a 24-year-old security guard were also injured in the attack.

The attacker’s family has said the man had mental health problems in a note to reporters.

“Hassan suffered from mental illness for years and refused help. He’s been deteriorating these past few months,” a note given to Nine News showed. “Please stop turning this into a political game. This isn’t a guy who had any connections with terrorism but was simply crying for help,” it read.

SOURCE 

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

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

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

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12 November, 2018

Transgenerational advantage

Summary below of a particularly dumb TED talk from a New School professor. The New School is far Left from wayback so the idea presented is as dumb and impractical as you would expect of that. It's true that economic advantage tends to be passed on from father to son but why and how?  The Newschooler doesn't know.  He just knows that it is.  So he resorts to vague generalities -- which apparently sounded clever to his audience. 

That wealth is transmitted in some automatic way once you have it is absolute bunkum.  How many times have we read of people winning big in a lottery and blowing the lot in short order?  Having money does not even encourage you to keep it, let alone pass it on.

But there is no need for "cleverness" in order to explain the phenomenon that our Newschooler has noticed.  It's perfectly plain why rich men tend to have economically successful children.  It's because you have to be pretty smart to get rich (As Charles Murray showed decades ago) and IQ is highly hereditary.  Both father and son get rich because they are both  smarter than the average. 

Giving a son money will do nothing to alter the main operative factor in wealth acquisition: IQ.  If he is smart he doesn't need it and if he is dumb he will simply blow it.


Economists often point out the simple truth that having wealth makes it easier to get more wealth, which means those who have a lot of money pass on an advantage from one generation to the next.

To adjust for that, economist Darrick Hamilton, a professor at The New School in New York, recently proposed a kind of baby trust fund system. His idea is to give all kids in the US a chunk of cash when they’re born, ranging between $US500 and $US60,000 based on their family’s wealth. That would help give all of thems a fair shot at a prosperous future, he said.

“Wealth is the paramount indicator of economic security and well-being,” Hamilton told a crowd at the TED Conferences headquarters in New York in September. “It is time to get beyond the false narrative that attributes inequalities to individual personal deficits while largely ignoring the advantages of wealth.”

SOURCE






Good News for Americans Who Object to Obamacare’s Contraception Mandate

Those who cherish religious liberty can celebrate a major victory this week.

On Wednesday, the Department of Health and Human Services published final rules that provide much-needed relief from one of Obamacare’s most egregious assaults on rights of conscience and religious liberty: the mandate that nearly all health insurance plans cover abortion-inducing drugs and contraception.

One rule provides an exemption for religious beliefs, and a second rule provides an exemption for moral convictions. Together, they provide meaningful relief to Americans who have long been burdened by the onerous mandate. These exemptions bring to a close a yearslong saga that never needed to happen in the first place.

Obamacare requires insurance companies to cover certain kinds of preventive services with no enrollee cost-sharing, and it gives the Department of Health and Human Services the task of specifying the types of preventive services for women that health insurance plans must cover.

According to guidelines issued by Health and Human Services following Obamacare’s enactment, insurance plans must include all Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptive methods and sterilization procedures, which include certain abortion-inducing drugs.

In other words, the statutory text of Obamacare itself does not require that plans cover contraceptives. That policy detail, among others, was left to the discretion of the executive branch. Furthermore, plans that already covered millions of women were “grandfathered” and exempted from the requirement to provide preventive services with no cost-sharing.

In the years that followed, Health and Human Services eventually included a very narrow religious exemption to the contraception mandate that effectively applied only to houses of worship. The Obama administration later extended that exemption to houses of worship and their integrated auxiliaries, such as church-run soup kitchens.

But other religious employers like hospitals, schools, social service organizations, and even businesses remained responsible for complying with the mandate, notwithstanding their sincere moral or religious objections.

The Supreme Court gave relief to closely held businesses in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, and to certain other religious institutions in Zubik v. Burwell. Yet many individuals, employers, and organizations are still subject to the mandate.

In October 2017, the Trump administration issued interim final rules—very similar to the ones finalized this month—that finally provided an adequate moral and religious exemption for those who objected to the mandate. Those rules were designed to go into effect immediately, with a public comment period following, but they were blocked from being implemented in court.

The finalized rules issued this month take into account the public comments that were received since the interim final rules were issued, and the changes made are technical in nature.

The administration estimates that the exemptions should affect “no more than approximately 200 employers with religious or more objections, with many entities not being affected because they were already permitted not to cover contraception under the previous rules, or are protected by permanent court injunctions.”

The estimated number of women whose coverage may be affected is 6,400—a fraction of the 165 million women in the United States.

Many on the left are characterizing the rules as denying women access to contraception. In reality, they do no such thing. Rather, they allow those with objections to not be complicit in choices that would violate their religious or moral convictions.

Women will remain free to make their own decisions about the drugs and devices listed in the mandate, and will be able to purchase or find coverage for them without trampling on the sincere moral or religious objections of those who wish not to be implicated in subsidizing them.

Moreover, these rules leave untouched the multitude of programs that subsidize contraception for women at the federal, state, and local levels.

The rules simply mean that groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order of Catholic nuns committed to serving the elderly poor and who operate 30 homes in the United States, will not be forced to be involved in the provision of employee health insurance that covers drugs and devices that directly contradict their religious convictions.

You don’t have to share the beliefs of people like the Little Sisters to recognize that the government should not be able to force Americans to set aside their moral and religious convictions when they serve the poor, heal the sick, or educate the next generation outside the four walls of a church.

America has a proud tradition of respecting the rights of conscience, which enable us to act in harmony with our sincerely held beliefs in the public square. The final rules issued by the Trump administration recognize this foundational principle and give much-needed, meaningful relief from an unnecessary assault on the rights of conscience.

SOURCE






White Women Don't Need Saving by arrogant feminists

Allie Stuckey

Republicans foiled Democrats’ dreams of a Senator O’Rourke, a Governor Gillum and a Governor Abrams, and, apparently, white women are to blame for it.

One Twitter warrior deemed white women “footsoldiers of the patriarchy” for voting Republican, claiming that their decision is based on a desire to submit to their husbands. Jemele Hill, staff writer for The Atlantic, argued that white women are not “the face of feminism,” because they voted for Ted Cruz and, in 2016, for Donald Trump. A viral tweet listed Republicans for which white women voted in the midterms and concluded, “white women gonna white.”

Don’t worry, though. The Women’s March is here to help us out: “There’s a lot of work to do, white women. A lot of learning. A lot of growing. We want to do it with you.”

Phew! For a second there I thought we were going to have to continue navigating these scary political waters on our own. I’m so relieved to know that, instead of thinking for ourselves, we’ll have obscure liberal Twitter activists and Linda Sarsour guiding us. I’m hoping my tyrannical husband won’t be too upset with me for going against his commands. Last week he gave me an extra fifty cents in my allowance and told me to “buy something pretty,” so maybe he’ll be just as gracious when I tell him I’ve started forming my own opinions.

The irony is, of course, rich. Leftist feminists, long-asserting the strength and independence of women, now argue that some women are so weak that they need to depend on liberals to tell them how to vote. They cannot fathom that we Republican “white women” may actually have different values than they do. It must be because we are “foot soldiers of the patriarchy.” (That’s newspeak for “self-hating idiots.”)

When certain demographics vote majoritively for Democrats, those people are smart, brave, strong, important. Ninety-seven percent of black women voting for Abrams has nothing to do with identity politics or the belief in the false narrative that big government policies will benefit them. No, they’re wise. White women who vote for Republicans, though—they’re idiots.

So much for judging people by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin or their sex. I’m old enough to remember when this was considered racism and sexism. Today, on the left, it’s considered thoughtful analysis.

The claim is that we are voting against our own interests. But this assumes our interests are liberal interests—abortion, closing the “gender pay gap,” gun control, etc. And they’re just not. We women who vote Republican do so because, in general, we believe in things like the Second Amendment, lower taxes and restrictions on killing the unborn. We are not oppressed. We’re just not progressive.

For as much as feminists say they hate the patriarchy, they do a darn good job of patronizing women with whom they disagree. They are demeaning, self-righteous and condescending. They deemed women who supported Kavanaugh “gender traitors.” They called Susan Collins and other senators who voted “yes” on the now-justice “rape apologists.” They claimed women who voted for Trump did so because of “internal misogyny.” They think we’re pro-life because we want to set women back. They think, simply because we don’t align with their agenda, we’re controlled by men.

These are the same people who completely ignore successful conservative women like Nikki Haley, Condoleezza Rice, or Carly Fiorina–not to mention the Republicans who ran in the midterms. Martha McSally, colonel in the Air Force, congresswoman and Arizona senatorial candidate certainly isn’t trying to repress women. The first female governor of Alabama, Kay Ivey, doesn’t seem to be relegating women to the kitchen. Young Kim, Congress’s first Korean-American representative, isn’t exactly a slave to the patriarchy. These women, though, just don’t fit the narrative.

Progressive feminists fancy themselves rebellious disruptors, but it’s a fantasy. They’re mainstream, their platform is tired, their hypocrisy is predictable and their constant bullying of women on the other side of the aisle is nauseatingly unattractive. It is obviously the underrepresented, constantly shoved-aside conservative women who are really countercultural. It takes much more fortitude to stick to your values despite being condescended than it does to acquiesce to emotional manipulation and the leftist politics of guilt.

They may never realize that it’s this very attitude repelling the women they so desperately want to “help.” Oh well. Better for us.

SOURCE





Australia's little socialist republic in Canberra goes rogue on religion

This week the ACT has proved yet again that Canberrans are living in a world of their own.

Our little socialist republic has gone ahead and passed a bill aimed at eliminating the legal exemptions to the anti-discrimination laws pertaining to freedom of religion aimed at schools and other religious institutions.

The exemptions have been branded by the Barr government as “loopholes” although they were deliberately included in the original anti-discrimination legislation to give religious institutions freedom to run the institutions on religious principles. What is more, the ACT has gone its own way, despite the commonwealth government having yet to respond to the Ruddock review, pre-­empting any changes the commonwealth may make.

It has always been the stated aim of the Greens and the left of Labor to get rid of the exemptions to anti-discrimination law. The last thing Mark Dreyfus did as­ ­attorney-general was to eliminate the never-used exemptions in religious aged care. That was a warning for Labor’s future conduct.

The timely leaking of parts of the Ruddock review and the “who knew?” outrage that accompanied the leak were deliberately engineered and have given the green-Left the impetus it was seeking to eliminate the exemptions.

In Canberra, where 40 per cent of children are in independent schools, it will have the effect of restricting the freedom of parents in the choice of school, accomplished under the mantle of eliminating “discrimination” and encouraging “diversity”. It limits parents’ right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief, all of which are part of the international covenants to which Australia is a signatory.

This was blatantly admitted in an accompanying speech by Shane Rattenbury, who sponsored the bill: “The amendments will engage and limit the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief. They engage and potentially limit the right of parents to ensure the religious and moral education of a child in conformity with their convictions. However, in the context of the scheme of the Discrimination Act as a whole, these limitations are reasonable and proportionate in accordance with s28 of the Human Rights Act.”

This is Rattenbury’s interpretation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

No one should forget what happened to Archbishop of Hobart Julian Porteous, who was hauled up to a human rights board for disseminating Catholic doctrine on marriage. The archbishop was a victim of the human rights apparatus that has redefined and limited our rights. Advocates of human rights, and especially advocates on human rights commissions, are very keen to talk about “balance”.

However, the real problem is that the human rights apparatus, encompassing all the various commissions and boards, has been allowed to override fundamental human rights in favour of the rights of special interest groups. The Porteous case was the most blatant example of this.

All rights are important — religion, speech and right of minorities not to suffer discrimination — but the legal structure is skewed in favour of rights that appeal to identified groups (24 in fact), not the broader community. We have given priority to a handful of rights while ignoring the impact on rights that are just as important. Hence, the fundamental right of parents to educate their children in accordance with their moral and religious views is potentially compromised by the palaver about “balance” in the ACT legislation.

Freedom of religion is one of our foundation constitutional principles. Despite talk of the “private” practice of religion and those whingers of the freedom-from-­religion camp, the manifest practice of religion cannot be separated from freedom to “private” practice of religion. One must accept religion is not something separate from daily life. Belief must be manifest in thought, in conscience, which guides morality, and in speech.

Silencing religion in the public square is not just about silencing bishops; it is about silencing lay men and women. Governments have already begun to interfere in individual conscience in ways acceptable only in the worst totalitarian regimes. Victoria has overridden the right to freedom of conscience by requiring doctors to refer patients for abortion.

Religious bodies should not be subject to legislation that affects their foundation principles but, then, religious bodies should not have to rely on exemptions. The anti-religion activists have been allowed to set the terms of the debate by accepting the outrageous assertion that manifestations of religious freedom are, at law, mere incidents of discrimination that are permissible only because of exemptions in the law. Once they fell into that error, a bad outcome for religious freedom was assured.

The starting point for the debate must be that religious freedom is a fundamental human right — the position in international law. If this right is given only lukewarm recognition, the inroads on religious freedom will get only worse. Using the interpretative clauses in anti-discrimination laws to refer to the importance of religion is much weaker than a stand-alone act that asserts that everyone has the right to privateand public manifestations of religious belief.

This would change the debate as manifestations of religion would no longer be an exemption from laws against discrimination but a manifestation of a right accepted by federal law. Schools would no longer be allowed to “discriminate” but would be allowed to exercise a right to religious freedom.

The leaking of the Ruddock review was part of a campaign to scare the government in advance of the report’s full release. There seems little appetite to declare freedom of religion as a full right. However, those who fear such a law as the harbinger of a bill of rights should think again. There is a greater fear we will have a half-hearted ­response to the issue and lose a vital part of our freedom.

SOURCE 

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

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

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

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11 November, 2018

Women in physics: Why there’s a problem and how we can solve it

The title above and the excerpt below show that people with nothing better to do are still chewing away at this old issue -- even though all the attempted "solutions" have failed -- as they admit below.

But the first issue is surely why it matters.  There are many women in physics so clearly those who are inclined towards a physics career can have one if they give it priority.  There is certainly a lot of official encouragement of it.  So the issue is not whether women can contribute to physics.  Many can and do. What is at issue is the PROPORTION of women in physics.  So why does THAT matter? The proportion of women in physics is low but what is lost by that?

Feminists claim glibly that many valuable potential contributions to physics by women are not being made and see that as the loss to us all.  But where is the evidence for that? Given that there are large numbers of women already in physics could it not be that those women who have a serious avocation for physics are already there?  It certainly seems possible so the feminist claim seems nothing more than an unproven assertion.  Some proof would be nice -- but I am not holding my breath.

But feminists are routinely uninterested in proof for their various assertions so my call for proof in this matter will cause eye-rolling only.

So the real motivation for concern would appear to be the old falsehood that all men are equal -- and women are just as equal.  If that were true it would make some sense to expect equal representation of women in  all occupations whatsoever.  But it isn't true. All men are different, not equal and men and women are systematically different too.  The fact that different proportions of men and women are found in almost all occupations is ample evidence of that.  When do we let the evidence count?

And the relevant difference between men and women in physics is plain to see.  Physics is math-intensive and women are woefully outnumbered in the top tiers of mathematical ability.  The leptokurtic distribution of female IQ -- and mathematical ability in particular -- makes the small average difference between male and female mathematical ability translate into a large difference in absolute numbers at the top of the range. Some women have made and will continue to make significant contributions to physical knowledge and understanding but they will ALWAYS be a small minority in physics.  Given the different abilities between men and women on average, it cannot be otherwise.  Attempts to "solve" the difference are flailing at the wind. Flailing will continue to go on but it will be just as unsuccessful in the future as it has been in the past.

Finally, I must say something about the specific article below.  They mention the paper by the terminally incorrect Alessandro Strumia.  But in all the condemnations of his wickedness that I have seen (e.g. here), nobody mentions the powerful statistical evidence  he presented.  They content themselves with emotional reactions -- which is one of the things Strumia accused them of!  Below is one of his graphs, showing how much more the work of male physicists is cited compared to the work of female physicists



Citations are the normal criterion of excellence throughout academe.  You can get a less extreme difference by including  arXiv articles, as Hossenfelder does, but such articles are not not peer-reviewed -- so that one has to resort to them to elevate the work of women is in itself something of a defeat.  Given their unknown quality, it seems likely that they are most often cited only to rebut them.

So how do the authors below reply to Strumia's careful research?  By mentioning that only three woman had received the Nobel prize in physics in the 117-year history of that prize. I would have thought that that fact rather supported Strumia! But in any case, thinking that selected instances can invalidate an average is a profoundly unmathematical way of thinking so is in itself surely an example of why women rarely do well in physics.  With friends like that ....


Women are still wildly under-represented in physics – but it doesn't have to be like that. Our special report looks at the steps we can take to improve things

WHEN we were 16 years old, my friend Karen and I were interviewed for an educational video. With our hair thick with styling mousse, pale blue eyeliner and misplaced teen swagger, we explained why we had chosen to study physics. We were the only two girls in our school that year who had. Our video was going to inspire other girls to do the same. We were going to change the world.

Thirty years on, it is safe to say our ambition failed. In 2016, no girls studied A level physics in almost half of the schools in England that admit girls. In the same year, just one-third of schools had two or more girls taking the subject. It is a similar picture across much of the world. Despite all the initiatives to attract more girls into physics, the proportion remains stubbornly low.

Physics and sexism has been thrust into the spotlight in recent weeks by the incendiary comments made by theoretical physicist Alessandro Strumia. At a workshop on gender in physics, of all places, at CERN near Geneva in Switzerland, he claimed that women were less capable than men at physics research. The day after he was suspended by CERN, Donna Strickland became only the third woman to receive the Nobel prize in physics in its 117-year history, sharing this year’s award for her pioneering work on lasers.

All this paints a picture of physics as a career that is unwelcoming to women to start with and isolating for many of those who do make it. But why is this still the case?

SOURCE






Young African-American Beauty Accused of Racism and Fired from Modeling Agency for Attending TPUSA Black Leadership Conference

Turning Point USA held its Young Black Leadership Conference in Washington DC in late October.



During the conference attendees were invited to meet with President Donald Trump at the White House.

President Trump was greeted with thunderous applause at the White House Friday from members of the Young Black Leadership Summit as he detailed how “America First” policies are imminently benefiting the African-America community.

Model Zoe Bethel attended the weekend conference and posted photos from the event.

After she returned home the young beauty was fired from her modeling agency. On top of that — The agency accused her of being a racist when she was fired!

Zoe is African American and conservative — And because of this she was fired from her agency!

SOURCE






Black Americans Thriving Under Trump/GOP

The party ended slavery and Jim Crow, and is now building an economy flush with jobs.

Frustrated at its party’s impotence in dealing with the issue of slavery, on March 20, 1854, former members of the Whig Party met in Ripon, Wisconsin, to form a new party; the Republican Party. Republicans considered slavery a moral evil and a stain on the character of our young nation, and just six years later a little-known Illinois Republican congressman named Abraham Lincoln won the presidency.

From its inception, the Republican Party has fought for equality for black people. The bloodiest war in American history began in large part because the Democrat Party violently opposed efforts to free black slaves. It was the Republican Party that passed the first Civil Rights Act in 1866 (struck down by a Democrat-appointed Supreme Court), and it was Republicans who secured the right to vote for blacks and women, and who led the effort to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

It is one of the greatest con jobs in history that Democrats now claim the title of defenders of black Americans, intentionally deceiving them with the outrageous lie that racist white Southern Democrats switched to the Republican Party in the late 1960s (as if it made sense that racists would flee to the party that just passed the Civil Rights Act they so loathed).

In reality, of course, it is the Republican Party that has fought, and still fights, for equality and prosperity for black Americans. And though they get little credit for it, Republicans are doing right by black Americans.   Joe Biden famously screeched that Mitt Romney, the most decent, milquetoast man to run for office in living memory, was going to put blacks “back in chains.”

Yet where are black Americans truly in chains? In the Democrat poverty plantations of cities like Detroit, Baltimore, Chicago, Memphis, and St. Louis, where their hopes are crushed under generational poverty, high unemployment, sky-high murder rates, and gang violence. These are cities where Democrats have had free rein to implement their policies for decades, and blacks are the ones who suffer most.

The Democrat Party is the party whose leaders send their own children to elite private schools while striking down school-choice programs that have a strong record of educating poor minorities so they can escape the ghettos.

Of course, more than a third of black babies don’t get a chance to escape the ghettos because they never escape the womb. Democrats funnel more than $500 million a year to Planned Parenthood, an organization founded for the sole purpose of eradicating, through abortion and sterilization, blacks and other “undesirables.”

That’s all well and good, you may say, but what have Republicans done for black Americans lately?

For one, they continue to fight for school choice for mothers of poor black children. When Obama repeatedly defunded the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, it was Republicans who kept bringing the money back.

Under President Donald Trump, supposedly the most virulently racist president ever, black Americans, indeed all Americans, are experiencing a renewing of the American Dream. In October 2016, as we closed out the last few months of Obama’s eight year term, black unemployment stood at 8.6%. In less than two years under Trump, black unemployment hit 5.9%, a historical low.

After eight years of Obama there were 18.1 million blacks with jobs. Under Trump, it’s up to 19.3 million, a 1.2 million jump in two years.

And that’s just the beginning. Congressional Republicans passed, and President Trump signed, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, without a single vote from the Democrats. The new law created Opportunity Zones, which gave “tax incentives for businesses to invest in economically distressed communities, making them a powerful vehicle for economic growth and job creation.”

As job creation and personal wealth continues to grow in the black community, they will be able to look at Democrats and say, “You didn’t build that!”   Realizing that far too many young black men are in a revolving door when it comes to prison, Republicans have been relentlessly pursuing criminal-justice reform with the goal of rehabilitating those sent to prison, and putting them on the path to prosperity through education and work. Republican-led states like Georgia and Texas are leading the nation in criminal-justice reform, leading to historic lows in the number of black prisoners.

In 2016, as he made his final pitch to voters nationwide, Trump asked black Americans to give him a chance and vote for him, inquiring, “What the hell do you have to lose?!”

Trump ended up with 8% of the black vote in the 2016 election — not much, but still 2% higher than Romney.

Today, having seen the benefits of Trump’s tax-cutting, regulation-slashing, job-creating, pro-growth policies, as well as important symbolic gestures — like declaring Martin Luther King Jr.‘s burial site a national landmark (which Obama didn’t do in eight years) — Trump’s approval rating among blacks stands at a mind-bogglingly high 40%.

Democrats are desperate to recapture the narrative of Trump and the Republicans as white-robe clad, cross-burning racists, but it seems that more and more black Americans are seeing their lives improved by Republican leaders and conservative policies and realizing an important truth: The Democrat Party has never been their friend.

SOURCE






More black Muslim mayhem in Melbourne

What will it take to show the do-gooders that black Muslims are too much of a risk to have in Australia?  How many innocent people have to die?

A Melbourne cafe legend was stabbed to death during a terrorist's knife rampage through Bourke Street that injured two others before police gunned the Somali immigrant down.

Sisto Malaspina, 74, was murdered by Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, 30, as he ran to help what he thought was a car crash victim just blocks from his iconic Pellegrini's coffee shop about 4.20pm on Friday.

However, Khalif had deliberately crashed his Holden Rodeo that was loaded with gas canisters and set the car alight after mounting the pavement near the Swanson Street intersection.

By trying to do a good deed, Mr Malaspina became the murderous knifeman's first victim. Soon two others would also be stabbed before Khalif attacked police.

Video shot from the scene showed the frenzied attack that carried on for more than a minute as Khalif chased the officers around as they tried to convince him to surrender, before finally shooting him.

Police said Khalif was inspired by ISIS to commit jihad, but they were unsure if he had direct contrast with the terrorist group. ISIS claimed his as one of their own, but often falsely associate themselves with lone wolf attacks.

Khalif's passport was cancelled in 2015 after he was flagged as one of 300 potential security risks when he it was discovered he planned to travel to Syria.

An AFP spokesman said in a press conference late on Saturday morning that though Khalif was on their radar, police decided not to intervene. 'While he held radical ideals, he didn't hold a threat,' he said.

His family were known to counter-terror agencies and believed to have ties with North African extremist groups.

His brother Ali Khalif Shire Ali was arrested in November 2017 over an alleged planned New Year's Eve attack on Federation Square.

Heartbroken friends and longtime customers left floral tributes to the slain food icon outside the Pellegrini's, just down Bourke Street near the Exhibition Street intersection.

Staff were in shock and a sign on the door said the cafe would be closed until November 12, with police standing guard outside.

Mr Malaspina's body was on Friday seen lying in the street covered by a white sheet with a bare foot sticking out after bystanders unsuccessfully tried to save his life.

SOURCE 

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

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

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

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9 November, 2018

Jordan Petersen endorsed Trump

Jordan Peterson, the clinical psychologist and University of Toronto professor known for his stand for free speech and against radical leftism in his home country of Canada, weighed in on the midterm elections, saying he hoped the Democrats would “get walloped.”

On a tour promoting his best-selling book, “12 Rules for Life,” Peterson made his comments backstage at the Cambridge Union while preparing to address the crowd, according to Spectator’s James Innes-Smith.

Peterson told the Spectator that he is troubled by the Democrats’ determination to appeal to a “tiny radical fraction of the voter base,” Spectator reported.

“I don’t think they’re going to wake up until they get defeated,” he said.

Calling the left out as the “flailing liberal elite, hungry for impeachment,” the professor said the Democrats have been unfairly targeting President Donald Trump.

“It’s ridiculous to label Trump as far-right; he’s certainly an anomaly,” Peterson said.

“As a personality, he’s more of a libertarian. He’s not a traditional Republican and he’s certainly not a traditional right-wing figure apart from the fact that he has this large populist base.”

Peterson also condemned the left’s eagerness to label Trump a racist, particularly following the shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue last month.

“We should leave the racist label to people who deserve it,” Peterson said. “Otherwise, we debase the currency. Once everyone’s a racist, well — that’s the end of that as a useful epithet.”

Peterson noted that Trump’s background seems to “rub upper-class educated people up the wrong way.”

“The one thing the intellectual elite will never understand is that if you are poor you can become rich, but if you are not part of the establishment elite, you will never become part of it.”

Nevertheless, Peterson said he can’t understand the Democrats’ insistent hatred for the president.

“Wages are rising, unemployment is down to levels not seen since the early Sixties and the economy is growing at a phenomenal rate,” the professor said.

“Trump is noisy and bombastic and he has a narcissistic edge, but he certainly hasn’t turned out to be the absolute disaster that his enemies predicted. He’s even making headway in North Korea.”

SOURCE





The 'Racist Ad' and News Judgment

During the last weekend before the 2018 midterms, the media decided an ad by President Trump was "racist" and therefore refused to air it. CNN, NBC, Facebook and even Fox News took that position.

The "star" of this commercial is Luis Bracamontes, a Mexican citizen who has repeatedly entered America illegally and who shot two California police deputies dead in 2014. In January, Fox News aired footage of Bracamontes boasting in court: "I don't (expletive) regret that (expletive). The only thing that I (expletive) regret is that I (expletive) killed two. I wish I (expletive) killed more of those (expletives)." But CNN and MSNBC didn't cover it as news. They covered it when Trump used the footage in his ad. They didn't grieve for the families of the two dead deputies. They didn't worry about the problem of crime by illegal immigrants. They worried about Trump's tactics.

Trump's ad played part of the Bracamontes clip, and a narrator said: "It's pure evil. President Trump is right. Build the wall. Deport criminals. Stop illegal immigration now. Democrats who stand in our way will be complicit in every murder committed by illegal immigrants."

CNN's Poppy Harlow was aghast and asked, "Is this politics at its worst?" MSNBC's Kasie Hunt asked Sen. Michael Bennet for his response. "I say it's appalling. I don't say that as a Democrat or as a senator," Bennet lectured. "I say it as an American and wish that we had a president who actually was trying to bring the country together rather than dividing us."

As if former President Obama and the Democrats gave America a blissful eight years of unifying moments? Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street were about as angry and divisive as they come. But Bennet and Co. didn't have a problem in the world. These militants and anarchists were celebrated by liberals and their media adjuncts as part of a glorious progressive future, no matter how many laws they broke.

But when an illegal immigrant shoots and kills two law enforcement officers and brags about it, bringing it up is somehow divisive. Why couldn't we unite as Americans around the idea that illegal immigrants shouldn't be killing our cops? Why can't the "news" networks define that as news, and not as inflammatory content to be banned? Why doesn't the president of the United States have the right to talk about this, not by others' standards but his own?

Then consider the newspapers. A search for Luis Bracamontes on The New York Times website finds 20 mentions in the last five years — and 18 of them are from Nov. 1 forward, centered on the new Trump ad that he debuted on his Twitter account.

The ad intersperses the Bracamontes clips with footage of the caravan of immigrants marching through Mexico. Trump's ad incorrectly states that Democrats let Bracamontes in and let him stay, when he illegally entered the country under both Democrat and Republican presidents.

But it's not the bad facts that they're finding offensive. They're too emotional to deal in facts. The ad is "racist" because it's seen as an attempt to scare white voters into choosing Republicans.

CNN's Don Lemon picked up where his network left off, saying: "this horrible guy who is a convicted cop killer, you know, mouthing things in court and smiling. It just — every racist immigrant trope that you can think of is in this ad." NBC's Peter Alexander said, "the president is facing sharp condemnation for what critics call fearmongering and racism by promoting this web video trying to terrify Republicans to vote."

Haven't CNN and NBC and the other networks just spent two years making videos to terrify everyone into voting against Donald Trump and his alleged enablers? Haven't they been divisively fearmongering about "democracy dying in darkness" through this entire presidency?

SOURCE 






Retired man, 69, 'who identifies as a 45-year-old' begins legal action to have his age reduced so he can attract more women on Tinder

A 69-year-old Dutchman is battling to legally reduce his age by 20 years so he can get more work and attract more women on Tinder.

Emile Ratelband argues that if transgender people are allowed to change sex, he should be allowed to change his date of birth because doctors said he has the body of a 45-year-old.

The motivational speaker, a media personality in the Netherlands, is suing his local authority after they refused to amend his age on official documents.

Mr Ratelband's case has now gone to a court in the city of Arnhmen in the eastern Dutch province of Gelderland.

He was born on 11 March, 1949, but says he feels at least 20 years younger and wants to change his birth date to 11 March, 1969.

Mr Ratelband, who has converted to Buddhism, said: 'I have done a check-up and what does it show? My biological age is 45 years.

'When I'm 69, I am limited. If I'm 49, then I can buy a new house, drive a different car. I can take up more work.

'When I'm on Tinder and it says I'm 69, I don't get an answer. When I'm 49, with the face I have, I will be in a luxurious position.

'Transgender people can now have their gender changed on their birth certificate, and in the same spirit there should be room for an age change.'

The Dutchman said he is discriminated against because of his age on a daily basis. He complains that companies are reluctant to hire someone the age of a pensioner as a consultant.

And he says his move would also be good news for the government as he would be renouncing his pension until he reaches retirement age again.

The judge said that he had some sympathy with Mr Ratelband as people could now change their gender which would once have been unthinkable.

But the court said there would be practical problems in allowing people to change their birth date and it would mean legally deleting part of their lives.

The judge asked Mr Ratelband about the status of his early years, from 1949 to 1969, if his official birth date was put back.

'For whom did your parents care in those years? Who was that little boy back then?,' the judge asked.

The court is due to deliver a written ruling within four weeks.

SOURCE





Feds threaten councils over Australia Day date change

Minister Dutton not hoodwinked

The federal government has threatened to strip several NSW councils of the right to hold Australia Day citizenship ceremonies amid plans to hold them a day earlier.

Hawkesbury City is reportedly considering holding its ceremonies on the evening of January 25 because of the daytime heat.

Kempsey and Bellingen shire councils have similar plans, according to Macquarie Media.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton suggested the move was political rather than weather related and warned them against changing the day. "I don't care whether people are seeking to move it in an obvious way or playing games - the intent is very clear," he told Sydney's 2GB on Thursday. "Australians don't want councils playing politics with these issues."

Mr Dutton said ratepayers expected Australia Day to be "respectful" to those new citizens who consider it one of the proudest days of their lives. "We're not going to have that disrupted by this nonsense," he said.

"The rules are pretty clear. If they're not going to abide by it, then they'll find themselves without the ability to conduct the ceremony."

Last month, Byron Shire Council backed down on its plan to move its citizenship ceremonies from January 26 after threats from Prime Minister Scott Morrison. He called the move "indulgent self-loathing".

Citizenship Minister David Coleman later wrote to all council mayors to reinforce that citizenship ceremonies should be apolitical, bipartisan, non-commercial and secular.

SOURCE 

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

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

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

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8 November, 2018

Star Parker: Democrats Are 'The Party of Anti-Christ'

Because of its support for abortion on demand, including in the ninth month of pregnancy, the Democratic Party is "evil" and is "the party of Anti-Christ," said conservative author and activist Star Parker, the founder of CURE, the Center for Urban Renewal and Education.

Parker made her remarks during a Facebook Live interview earlier this year with Patrina Mosley, the director of Life, Culture, and Women's Advocacy at the Family Research Council.

Mosley spoke about Rep. Steve Cohen's (D-Tenn.) support for abortion and the donations given to liberal lawmakers by the abortion industry and asked Parker why that "symbiotic connection is there"?

Parker, author of Uncle Sam's Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America's Poor, said, “Well, the Democrats have always been the party of control. They are the party of slavery, they are the party of Jim Crow, they are the party of the welfare state."

"So, I am not surprised that the Democrats are invested so heavily in making sure that the truth is not out," she said. 

"The people that saw [the exchange with Rep. Cohen] were surprised, I suppose—in particular, those that are voting for Democrats," said Parker. "I don’t think that they understand how evil that the Democrat Party has become and how entrenched it is in the Democrat philosophy and their platform—abortion, killing what God calls His reward.”

“It is the party of anti-Christ,” she said.

“They do not believe anything of Scripture," said Parker.  "When the Bible says don’t do something, they want to do it. When the Bible says do do something, they don’t want to."

SOURCE






Urban America's Vagrancy Outrage
    
It’s appropriate that the U.N. special rapporteur devoted to adequate housing has visited encampments in Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Mumbai — and San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley.

The homeless situation in those cities and others around the country is positively Third World, a blight that shows the persistence of human folly and misery, despite what we take to be our steady progress to greater enlightenment and prosperity.

San Francisco is a crown jewel of the new economy, and a sink of vagrancy. One of the more compelling pieces of reportage that The New York Times has run recently was on the dirtiest block in San Francisco, the 300 block of Hyde Street, blighted by discarded heroin needles and other filth.

In the 21st century, in the richest country on the planet, you would think that we would have figured out how to live without having to step around human feces. The experience of San Francisco says that, against all expectations, we haven’t — or at least we forgot how.

It used to be a journalistic trope that homelessness spiked whenever a Republican occupied the White House, but it’s more obvious than ever that it is an endemic social problem. Homelessness is roiling the politics of impeccably progressive cities like San Francisco — where tech barons split on a proposal for a new tax to fund homelessness programs — and Seattle.

In an article for the journal National Affairs, Stephen Eide of the Manhattan Institute recounted how we got here over the past 50 years.

Cities wiped out or drastically diminished their skid rows, once a last-ditch housing recourse for men who had hit bottom. As urban renewal and regulations to improve the quality of housing eliminated these down-on-their-luck areas, the people who once lived there decamped to public places.

We “deinstitutionalized” the mentally ill, too often a euphemism for dumping them onto the streets and into jails. About 20 to 30 percent of the homeless are mentally ill.

Meanwhile, the number of single-parent families drastically increased. Women only rarely lived on skid row, but poor families headed by single mothers are a large component of the homeless. Eide notes that in New York City “two-thirds of the homeless population is comprised of families with children, and around 90 percent of those families are headed by single mothers.”

These large-scale trends have been met with a new, more permissive legal environment. The Supreme Court in 1972 made it more difficult for city police forces to hustle along vagrants, and subsequent free-speech jurisprudence has made outlawing panhandling tricky. Civil commitment of the mentally ill has become highly restricted. The American Civil Liberties Union is a great de facto friend of vagrancy.

Not that anything is easy in this area. The hard core of the homeless population is cut off from human relationships and finds the perverse freedom of the streets more appealing than the structure that would come with assistance. Many refuse help, either because they are too sick to make rational decisions or they don’t want to deal with any rules.

Eide suggests localities do more to nudge the homeless to make use of social services, and allow more dense housing to create a greater housing stock overall, thus reducing some of the upward pressure on rents.

But the beginning wisdom is to consider the status quo intolerable, and resist the advocates who want to normalize panhandling and camping, and the associated drug abuse, petty crime and disorder. Houston has had success with a tough-love policy of more services, coupled with a crackdown on encampments and other public nuisances.

One of the advantages of modern society is that people don’t have to live in public, or in squalor. That it is widely accepted in some of our greatest cities is an outrage of our age. It is deeply harmful to our civic life, and does no favors for the men and women living in parks and highway underpasses.

SOURCE






1,600 “Scientists” Defy Science To Support Transgender Activism

This story came out earlier this week but it was shocking enough that it bears a look. The transgender activist community was all abuzz on Thursday over a letter that had actually been featured in the New York Times a week earlier. Buzzfeed picked it up and ran with it, adding to the celebratory mood. The document in question was an open letter published by a gaggle of 1,600 scientists who are rejecting the anticipated HHS memo defining sex and gender in traditional, scientifically accepted terms for purposes of Title IX questions.

What’s truly amazing is the fact that these supposed pillars of the scientific community are calling on the Trump administration to reject such notions and formulate a policy which is more scientific and ethically based.

The memo states that any disputes about a person’s sex would be clarified using genetic testing, which scientists who signed the letter called unscientific and unethical.

“This proposal is fundamentally inconsistent not only with science, but also with ethical practices, human rights, and basic dignity,” the scientists wrote.

Among the signatories are eight Nobel laureates.

The letter emphasizes that both biological sex and gender are on a spectrum and are not clear cut.

For a document supposedly written by scientists, the arguments being put forth sound suspiciously unscientific. Like many in the social justice warrior club, the authors are claiming that centuries of established medical science are simply wrong. Fair enough. If you’re a scientist it’s your job to reexamine the data and provide new information as it is revealed through research. But that’s the problem. By their own admission, these scientists are signing onto a document which states they can’t prove what they’re saying. Here’s one example:

“Though scientists are just beginning to understand the biological basis of gender identity, it is clear that many factors, known and unknown, mediate the complex links between identity, genes, and anatomy.”

So you don’t understand it yet. And you’re leaning on factors both known and unknown. What kind of research is this? Did it involve a deck of tarot cards? Here’s another one:

Mollie Manier, an assistant professor of biology at George Washington University and one of the coauthors of the letter, told BuzzFeed News, “The science on gender is very much still in development, but more importantly, the lived experiences of transgender and intersex people should not be co-opted by a genetic test.”

You’re basing your conclusions on science that’s “in development” and rejecting what we already know in favor of “the lived experiences” of people.

The authors go on from there to adopt a favorite trick of activists and attempt to conflate the conditions displayed by the tiny fraction of the population with legitimate intersex traits caused by genetic anomalies (a completely valid topic) and all of the people who just really, really, really feel like they were born in the wrong body. Granted, some men produce more or less testosterone than others. That doesn’t make the ones producing less women. Ditto for females and estrogen levels.

What we’re seeing here is the downstream effects of the corruption of the educational system by liberal politics. As schools are overrun by social justice warriors and those controlling the flow of grant money bend to liberal demands, we’re seeing this nonsense now being passed off as science. And as it bleeds over into other areas, everyone in society will be paying the price for it.

SOURCE





The three great lies corroding western cultures

PAUL KELLY, commenting from Australia

The degeneration in the culture that drives the corrosion in our politics has its origins in three great lies now being propounded daily in our universities, media, corporates and obviously among the politicians.

These lies are becoming embedded in our discourse. National politics in America and Australia was once about the fight for control of the shared narrative or common destiny. Not any more. Politics is about tribal messages derived from the breakdown of the agreed national ethos.

The recent statement of this pathology based on the US university sector comes from American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and lawyer Greg Lukianoff in this year’s "The Coddling of the American Mind", and in this column I have drawn on their thesis as modified by my own assessments.

In the 1980s politicians such as Ronald Reagan and Australia's Bob Hawke offered appeals based on the shared national imagination — Hawke won office in 1983 calling for consensus under the slogan: “Bob Hawke — Bringing Australians Together”. Reagan helped Americans manage adversity with his “It’s morning again in America” slogan, a fusion of nostalgia and optimism.

The Haidt-Lukianoff book is based on the “three great untruths” in our cultural and university life now spilling into politics.

* The starting lie or untruth is that disputes and differences today are a battle between good and evil, between the oppressed (the virtuous victims) and the oppressors (evil tyrants of the status quo.)

This turns the mundane injus­tices of everyday life into a moral contest. Yet it is a contest based on distorted morality. There are many illustrations: if you don’t support radical action to curb climate change you are a moral threat to society and betraying your friends. In short, your support for the status quo marks you as a bad person no matter how many charities you support.

In her recent Helen Hughes lecture for the Centre for Independent Studies, Quillette editor-in-chief Claire Lehmann called out the technique: “If there is a gender pay gap then this is because men are oppressing women. If there is a gap between the earnings of immigrants and a native population, then this is because the native population is oppressing the immigrant group. If there are health discrepancies between LGBTI people and heterosexual people, then this is because of discrimination. This simple formula gets repeated over and over and over again.” Eventually this false logic seems to become the only way a sensible person would think. In fact a sensible person, while recognising discrimination as a factor, would analyse the other explanations at work to avoid reaching the wrong conclusion.

As Lehmann said, a conclusion endlessly repeated — that the gender pay gap is caused by sexist oppression — takes hold when a considered analysis shows the fact that women have children is critical in the explanation. Adopting a conflict framework, an oppressed versus oppressor narrative, means politics becomes more divisive and problems are harder to solve because the analysis is wrong. One reason for this is while many advocates would like to solve the problem they have a higher motive; their purpose to dismantle the power structure, whether it is allegedly patriarchy or white supremacy or heteronormativity.

The Haidt-Lukianoff book argues the key to an inclusive community is to create the sense of common humanity, not tribalism based on gender and race. The authors point out that in his heroic 1960s civil rights campaigns Martin Luther King declared his dream was “the American dream” and asked the entire nation “to rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed”, to honour equality beyond race. King relied on American values. He aspired to unite, not destroy. He appealed to one America, not a collection of tribes. Haidt and Lukianoff contrast the impact of the oppressed-oppressor paradigm that enshrines “whiteness” as a power construct. They quote a student’s essay: “White death will mean liberation for all.”

These days social issues are frequently presented in mainstream media as rituals of injustice and grievance. This mentality originated in Marxist ideology. Once you believe social problems arise primarily because of power and the oppressed-oppressor conflict, then the scene is set for tribal warfare justified by a moral principle.

Referring to American universities, the authors state an enduring reality: “The more you separate people and point out differences among them, the more divided and less trusting they will become.” None of this is to say power is irrelevant. It is always relevant. Indeed, academic opposition to the Ramsay Centre courses on Western civilisation is an insight into the pathology. The Ramsay people are bad because they arrive, the critics assert, in the name of white supremacy, racism, neo-colonialism and so forth. They represent the oppressors and you cannot deal or debate with oppressors; you can only resist them.

* The second great lie or untruth from the Haidt-Lukianoff analysis is people will be weaker by being challenged in their ideas and preconceptions. They need to be protected and made safe. This is the notion of a fragile society. It was given focus last year in the campaign against the same-sex marriage plebiscite when politicians and mental health experts united against a democratic vote and debate because its extremes would damage too many people.

Because identity politics relates to the personal, it becomes dan­gerous. It is not just your political views being threatened, it is your identity. That makes it a health issue. Female students in the US have refused to hear lectures denying America is a rape culture because it threatens to invalidate their own identity and experience.

In this world the public policy test to prevent trauma and offence becomes a subjective test. This was the issue in relation to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. Defenders of the law said subjective views must prevail and what mattered was how people felt — whether people felt offended and intimidated. Haidt and Lukianoff say that if people and students come to believe they cannot handle offence then they will become less able to do so. Fragility begets more fragility. The authors say leaders and health professionals have made the wrong call.

The task of institutions and universities is to “prepare students for conflict, controversy and argument” and students must learn that having cherished beliefs being questioned is not a personal attack on them but preparation for life. At present institutions are “setting up a generation for failure”.

* The third lie the authors nominate is “the untruth of emotional reasoning”, the false nostrum you must “always trust your feelings”. Much of our political and media debate now revolves around displays of emotions to prove you care. Be unemotional and you are uncaring. The oppressor-oppressed mentality largely thrives on emotion at the cost of reason.

“In an age of social media, cyber trolls and fake news it is a global crisis that people so readily follow their feelings to embrace outlandish stories about their enemies,” Haidt and Lukianoff state. They quote Hanna Holborn Gray, president of the University of Chicago from 1978 to 1993: “Education should not be intended to make people comfortable; it is meant to make them think.”

Because politics operates at the intersection of emotion and reason, it becomes hostage to the cult of emotional reasoning; witness the appeal of Donald Trump among many. Social media generates a mob mentality based on emotion. Once emotion takes control, people view the world through one single lens, not through a more balanced understanding based on reason.

Single-lens emotion is the path to anxiety and depression for people and hysteria and irrationality in politics. Human beings are tribal creatures and civilisation was supposed to lead us from the tribe to society. Are we regressing?

SOURCE 

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

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

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

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







7 November, 2018

A Racial Shakedown in Portland, Oregon

In a 30-second video recorded on Oct. 28, a female pedestrian holding a bicycle helmet is seen making a phone call. She’s complaining about a car blocking a crosswalk on a busy street in Portland, Ore. The phone call ends and the car’s occupants—a young black man and woman—walk up to her and take her to task for reporting them. Some angry words are directed at the bicyclist by the man—“go back to your f—ing neighborhood”—and then the video ends.

If this encounter had unfolded in a normal part of the world, this would be where the story ends: Just another squabble in the battle between drivers and non-drivers over public space. But Portland is not normal. This is a city where antifa mobs are allowed to set up roadblocks and mob elderly drivers, all with the mayor’s apparent acquiescence. 

The latest, above-described victim is a 28-year-old white woman who was captured on video during a phone call with the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s non-emergency parking hotline. The car belonged to Rashsaan Muhammad, who was with his partner, Mattie Khan. They parked improperly on a North Portland street while ordering food from a nearby burger restaurant. While filming, Ms. Khan accused the bicyclist of being “another white person calling the police on a black person.” She wasn’t. Portland Police have no record of that phone call taking place.

It is hard to know how the pedestrian, derogatorily christened “Crosswalk Cathy” on social media, could have known the race of the car’s owners. Portland doesn’t offer its residents race-tagged parking permits (yet), and the incident occurred on a busy business street. But that didn’t stop Portland Mercury news editor Alex Zielinski from writing a provocative (and wrong) story with the headline, “Woman calls cops on Portland man’s parking job. She’s white. He’s black.”

The report, video, and misinformation went viral and spawned a series of other stories targeting the woman. “Portland, Ore., couple Rashsaan Muhammad and Mattie Khan were running to grab a quick bite to eat at Big Burger (sic) when they spotted a woman bearing the skin color of an American terrorist standing across the street looking at their parked car,” read one unsubtle story at The Root. “White lady dubbed ‘Crosswalk Cathy’ called cops because she didn’t like how black couple parked,” headlined another on BET. Newsweek was slightly more charitable, saying she had “allegedly” called the cops. They were all wrong.

Last week’s race controversy ignited by Portland Mercury is not the first time the progressive alternative paper has published race-baiting content. Last year, it ran a libelous (and subsequently retracted) column accusing various restaurants of religious and cultural appropriation—and suggesting they were guilty of “culinary white supremacy.” The predictable result of that column was the siccing of a mob on the female owners of Kook’s Burritos, the business featured most prominently in the piece. They deleted their social media accounts, shut down their food cart, and went into hiding.

“Tribal hatreds are a dangerous thing to stoke,” said Heather Mac Donald, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of The Diversity Delusion. She says most Americans are naïve about the tribal violence that defines much of the historical and modern human experience. “In the worst case, [victim ideologues] are fueling the fires of violent civil strife.”

The genre of “white people doing something to black people” is, by now, a well-established media genre that generates easy clicks. But there is also an unsettling subplot that few seem willing to discuss. The two people of color who star in last week’s viral video both act abominably toward a young woman they’ve just met. In a city where too many bicyclists and pedestrians have been struck and killed in car accidents (2017 was one of the deadliest years with 45 killed), the woman did her role as a good citizen by calling a non-emergency hotline to report the car blocking the crosswalk.

And it was Ms. Khan, not the pedestrian, who instantly racialized the incident, while her male partner called the woman an “idiot” and told her that she doesn’t belong in the neighborhood. Who’s the racist—not to mention segregationist—here?

The couple’s abominable behavior didn’t end after that encounter and the publication of the video on Oct. 29, however. Within hours, Ms. Khan named the bicyclist publicly and posted her photo on social media. Friends and followers of Ms. Khan then continued the doxing, publishing more photos and personal details of the woman. Twitter activist “@Sahluwal,” who only identified himself to me as “Simar,” reposted the video in a tweet watched over 200,000 times. “Twitter, do your thing and identify this woman,” he wrote. Simar told me he was not a witness and did not verify the claim in the video.

Sha Ongelungel, who was recently profiled glowingly as a racial justice activist in The Guardian, published the woman’s employer information on Twitter and encouraged others to call or email them. They obliged and demanded that she be fired. Ms. Ongelungel stopped responding after I inquired if she took any steps to verify the couple’s (false) allegation.

And like the owners of Kook’s Burritos the year before, the victim at the center of the video has deleted her social media presence, taken down her website, and gone into hiding. Her email is no longer listed at her employer’s page. Even some of her family who share the same surname have done the same. This sort of disappearing act now happens regularly in Portland—a new form of excommunication.

While Ms. Khan’s behavior may seem cruel and anti-social, there is a sort of rational logic to it: Progressive Portland is a city where even the most absurd claims of racism are taken seriously and prosecuted hysterically by the media and public.

In May, for instance, a black woman named Lillian Green launched a web campaign against Portland’s Back to Eden Bakery after the vegan shop declined to serve her after closing hours. In the video, she was admirably forthright about her motives for telling the world about this experience: Using the hashtag #LivingWhileBlack, Ms. Green—a doctoral student at Lewis and Clark College—explained that she wants to “blast their ass” on Facebook.

And blasted it was. The owners fired the two women working that evening and offered Ms. Green a job training the remaining employees in “racial inclusivity.” Such incidents send a clear message: Shaming white people, with or without merit, works. People will treat you as a hero. And you will get what you want.

Mattie Khan is now selling clothing merchandise of “Crosswalk Cathy.” She announced the sale on Facebook with a video of Rashsaan Muhammad modeling one of the hoodies at $45 a pop (t-shirts are $25).

In a city whose guilty whites seem ready to roll over on any pretext, no complaint is too absurd to become fodder for race hustling.

SOURCE







False Hopes and Invisible Enemies

Today, many educated people believe that (1) our lives are controlled by invisible, malevolent forces like "structural racism." (2) An evil class of people is born with special powers ("privilege") that allow them to manipulate these forces for their own benefit

written by Jonny Anomaly

People are pattern-seekers. When we observe patterns in the natural world we often seek a deeper explanation for them. An example of a pattern that has captured the attention of academics is the disparity between men and women in fields like mechanical engineering and pediatrics.

Culture is an obvious explanation for some disparities: if a wave of Irish immigrants to Boston joins fire departments, and Italians start restaurants, then we might expect that the next generation of Bostonians will contain a disproportionate number of Irish firefighters and Italian restaurant owners. Similarly, if low-skilled immigrants tend to work in jobs like construction and agriculture, we might expect to find a lot of low-skilled workers who move from Central America to the United States to work on construction sites and strawberry farms.

Another obvious way to explain divergent outcomes between groups is that some groups – ranging from races and sexes, to religions and political partisans – have been discriminated against or persecuted by others. In other words, members of some groups throughout history were not given the opportunity to show their true talents in some fields.

Historically, ethnic discrimination was the norm, not the exception. In fact, ethnic discrimination was almost certainly adaptive for our ancestors who had to decipher, however crudely, who to trust and who to shun. Discrimination often served the function of increasing trust within a group by preventing members of other groups from enjoying access to valuable social goods that took effort to produce and preserve.

Persistent Performance Gaps

When we want to explain performance gaps, the obvious places to start are culture, bias, and discrimination. But in the mid-to-late twentieth century nearly every Western country abolished discriminatory laws, and many also implemented affirmative action programs. Governments, universities, and private firms made active efforts to recruit traditionally persecuted minorities into schools and jobs to which they previously lacked full access.

Under these conditions, some groups improved their outcomes while others did not. Jews and Asians, in particular, have thrived in every Western country in which they are found, and in many cases, they make more money, commit fewer crimes, and attain higher levels of education than the majority group in the societies to which they have migrated.

Moreover, despite the tedious proclamations of politicians that women have a long way to go in Western countries, we are much closer to parity than many believe. The majority of college graduates are now women, and the pay gap between men and women is almost non-existent when we compare workers in the same occupation at the same level. (According to Harvard economist Claudia Golden, most pay gaps are due to choices made by men and women to work in different occupations based on personal interests: women who have children, for example, understandably prefer more flexible jobs, which often pay less.)

As explicit discrimination decreased, social scientists began proposing alternatives to explain remaining gaps. Two, in particular, became popular in the 1990s: stereotype threat and epigenetics. Stereotype threat (supposedly) occurs when people are asked to perform a task and then informed that, on average, members of their group are not especially good at that task. They then perform worse than they otherwise would have. Epigenetics refers to the fact that gene expression is influenced by extra-genomic factors. Some social scientists proposed that if genes can be expressed differently in different environments, perhaps stressful environments can lead some groups to perform more poorly than others by affecting gene expression.

But stereotype threat has turned out to be a spectacular failure in explaining achievement gaps. And epigenetics is unlikely to explain disparities like why Asians outperform Africans on math exams, and why Africans outperform Asians in sports that involve sprinting.

Unfalsifiable Hypotheses

When the predictions generated by these explanations failed to pan out, many began to turn to invisible forces like “structural racism” and “implicit bias” to explain achievement gaps. One problem with these hypotheses (as they are often employed) is that they are impossible to falsify. In fact, that seems to be the point: if we can’t test the hypothesis that unconscious bias and structural racism explain achievement gaps, they become perfect candidates for an all-purpose explanation that can be held with the force of a religious dogma.

When we see an achievement gap, we can invoke bias without even thinking about alternatives, and dismiss as a “racist” or “sexist” anyone who proposes the hypothesis that biology plays a role in explaining some achievement gaps.

Of course, biases exist, and sometimes they are at odds with our explicit value judgments. In these cases, it’s worth spreading social norms that aim to combat unfair biases. But some biases are useful heuristics, and some stereotypes are rational generalizations, like the belief that we have a greater chance of being violently assaulted by a man than a woman, or that the next international chess champion is more likely to be Jewish than Eritrean. In these cases, it is arguably morally wrong to prevent ourselves from believing what the evidence suggests.

When we hear someone attribute achievement gaps to implicit bias or structural racism, an obvious question to ask is: What would count as evidence against your hypothesis?

Vague Language

Structural racism (or sexism) is such an amorphous term that it is hard to know how to analyze it. We might first look to government institutions and private firms and ask whether they have policies of discrimination. In some countries, government agencies and businesses alike have policies that explicitly discriminate against entire classes of people (for example, in Saudi Arabia a man’s testimony in court has twice the evidentiary value of a woman’s). But in many Western countries like the United States and Australia, discrimination on the basis of race, sex, and sexual orientation is explicitly forbidden by law. Affirmative action programs actually do allow employers to discriminate – but they typically discriminate against rather than in favor of men of Asian or European descent.

Of course, we might think that although laws forbid discrimination, implicit bias leads some people to unconsciously discriminate against potential employees and co-workers. Implicit bias is hard to test, but the best evidence we have so far suggests that even when implicit bias exists it does not affect behavior very much, if at all. Despite the weak evidence for implicit bias as an explanation for achievement gaps, many corporations, and educational institutions have diversity training programs aimed at combating its allegedly pernicious effects.

Similar claims can be made about “misogyny,” which is the new term for “sexism” coined by radical feminists who claim that even if most people don’t consciously discriminate against women, an unconscious hatred of women helps explain why men and women exhibit different characteristics, which lead to different outcomes.

Will those who cite implicit bias, structural racism, or internalized misogyny respond to the evidence against their claims? Or will they instead retreat to untestable claims couched in vague language which allows them to save their hypothesis no matter what scientists find?

Conclusion

Those of us who suspect biology plays a role in explaining some group differences do not deny the existence of bias, which is especially powerful in traditional societies that lack norms of toleration and laws that protect minorities. But we are skeptical that racism or sexism or other pernicious forms of bias can explain all of the gaps that we see. More importantly, our hypothesis is falsifiable. One way to falsify it would be to find that genes which influence physical and mental traits – including abilities and interests – are identically distributed across human groups.

If people want to search for the different causes of achievement gaps by proposing testable scientific hypotheses, we welcome them to the debate. But we are frustrated by the seemingly unfalsifiable nature of the hypotheses that are increasingly put forward to defend the view that all groups are the same, and that all indications of difference are evidence of evil.

SOURCE






'I'm not meant to be a bloke': Woman who changed gender to become a man called Lee 15 years ago says sex swap was a huge mistake and wants to switch back

Sex changes are very often regretted

A transgender man who had a sex change 15 years ago has branded it the biggest mistake of his life and wishes he was still a woman.

Lee Harries, 60, of Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, was born Debbie Karemer but underwent gender reassignment surgery at the age of 44.

After years of struggling with his sexual identity, he had his breasts, uterus, ovaries and fallopian tubes removed, before doctors made a prosthetic penis for him.

But years later he says: 'I'm not meant to be a bloke' and believes he is not transgender.

Mr Harries, who married his partner Alan before he transitioned, has undergone counselling, where experts have told him he has PTSD as a result of being sexually assaulted by his father.

He told the Mirror: 'I wish I could turn back the clock and just have the foresight of what the nightmare the next 15 years would be.

'I'm a woman I'm not meant to be a bloke. I'm trapped. It's a complete mess - where do you even start? I just regret the decision.

'I'm sure a lot of transgender men feel the same too but I'm the only one honest and brave one to come out and say it.'

Mr Harries says he feels 'mutilated' and believes he had the surgery because he thought if he did not have a vagina anymore he could not be raped.

His trauma has also left him with objectum sexuality, which means he is attracted to inanimate objects.

Mr Harries says he has developed sexual attractions to a fishing rod and a radio, before having a 'relationship' with an electric guitar.

The 60-year-old is currently on the waiting list for an NHS operation to reverse his sex change, but feels 'trapped' in his male body.

SOURCE






The super-rich will regret their vulgar displays

clare foges

UK: Public anger is rising against flashy billionaires such as Philip Green and it’s bound to give a boost to Corbyn’s cause

A full month before pantomime season begins, our favourite villain has returned to the stage in a puff of green smoke: Sir Philip of Monaco. Boo! Hiss! Bubbling under recent coverage has been something approaching delight. Many long for Green’s comeuppance. Dislike of the man stretches back long before these bullying accusations, before BHS hit the rocks and before his shoddy treatment of its pensioners. Two words sum up why Green is long-loathed: greed and vulgarity.

It is one thing to be rich, another to parade it as showily as Green has done (while limiting payments to the taxman). Most famously, there were the parties. His 50th birthday bash was a £5 million event that saw Sir Philip dressed as Emperor Nero. His 55th had performances by George Michael and Jennifer Lopez, pushing the bill up to a rumoured £20 million. The 60th was a more modest affair, only £6 million to cover the numerous bottles of Pol Roger and singalong with Stevie Wonder. Green is a cartoon tycoon, perma-tanned and model-draped, possessing the daddy of all yachts in Lionheart. This £115 million, 295-foot monster troubles the Med’s prettiest harbours each summer blaring the message that its owner is, as the old Harry Enfield character used to declare, “considerably richer than you”.

Green is not the only person to splash the cash, of course, but his profile and pugnacity make him a lightning rod for our dislike of flashy braggarts everywhere. He embodies the culture of vulgarity that has grown ever since loadsamoney City traders flashed their wads of notes in the Eighties. It used to be that modesty was lauded and greed was a cardinal sin. Now the reverse seems true. Displays of wealth that would once have seemed unbelievably crass now barely raise an eyebrow.

The property developer Nick Candy boasts in an interview of the fleet of sports cars he and his brother Christian once owned: Rolls-Royce Phantom, Rolls-Royce convertible, Mercedes SLR McLaren, Ferrari F430 Spider and 575M Maranello, two Range Rovers and a Cherokee Jeep.

Tamara Ecclestone (daughter of Bernie, the Formula One boss) stars in a reality show that lingers on the details of her luxuriant life, from her £70 million house to her many butlers. Plutocrats’ offspring display incredible wealth on Instagram: being waited on in Monte Carlo and buried under Tiffany purchases in New York. A craze sweeping Russia and China shows how such tackiness has gone global. The “flaunt your wealth” challenge has Instagrammers posing corpse-like on the ground next to their luxury car or aircraft as though just pitched out of it, surrounded by Gucci bags, Prada sunglasses, piles of banknotes and jewels.

Most notoriously there is the endless race among the super-rich to build bigger and swankier boats. Last week this paper reported on a surge in demand for mega-yachts, with a predicted 40 per cent increase in the number of 100 metre-plus vessels built in the next few years. One industry figure puts this down to one-upmanship: owners needing to trump each other with multiple decks, helicopter pads, submersible vehicles, piano bars and cinemas.

Criticism of such excess is easily shut down as “the politics of envy”. Defenders of the super-rich ask, “Why shouldn’t they enjoy the fruits of their labours? Lighten up! Let the high-rollers roll!” Call it the politics of envy all you like, but the truth is that as life continues to grind hard for many in our country, as wages continue to stagnate, conspicuous consumption seems not only tacky and crass but taunting and cruel.

Green once complained that he was the victim of “envy and jealousy” but such lifestyles are designed to draw attention and inevitably spark envy. For many among the super-rich, their bought delights are not to be privately enjoyed but publicly shared. Part of the pleasure is in people witnessing your extravagance. In an age when social media and celebrity coverage trumpet every movement of the rich and famous, this means decadent, champagne-spraying spending being rubbed in the face of millions who have bugger all. These displays don’t inspire the hospital porter on the night shift or the carer on minimum wage to reach for the stars — they just make them feel inadequate and small, locked out of a Gatsby-like world.

This is why those who wear their wealth gaudily on their sleeve should be careful. The resentment caused is grist to the socialists’ mill. Anger about inequality is growing, not only among the have-nots but among the have-somethings. The more the super-rich seem to float off into a gilded bubble beyond the rest of us, the more voters will wish for them to be brought to heel. If a Corbyn government should come to “eat the rich”, as the hard-left placards say, if Chancellor McDonnell plays Robin Hood with some painfully (and destructively) redistributive policies, the flashy rich may only have themselves to blame.

To be clear: I don’t believe being on the Rich List makes you a bad person — far from it. I have great admiration for those with the entrepreneurial chutzpah to rise high and prosper. But there are ways to handle extreme wealth with class and even grace. In an essay entitled The Gospel of Wealth, the great Gilded Age philanthropist Andrew Carnegie said the duties of the very wealthy were to shun “display or extravagance” and consider themselves “trustees for the poor”.

Many around the world have taken these words as a manifesto. There are the highly generous, like Bill Gates with his Giving Pledge, and there are those who shun extravagance too. Ingvar Kamprad, the late founder of Ikea, flew only in economy class. The Mexican magnate Carlos Slim drives himself to work. Warren Buffett never spends more than $3.17 on breakfast. In Britain there are many rich people who go about their business modestly and take their responsibilities as trustees for the poor seriously. They start schools in deprived areas, fund mentoring and scholarships, pay enormous amounts in tax and don’t deserve to be tarnished by the brush of Green and his flashy ilk.

The awful “flaunt your wealth” challenge brought to my mind a woman who died in AD 79 . On the outskirts of Pompeii archaeologists found her wearing heavy gold armbands, rings and chains, carrying a bag containing more bracelets, rings, necklaces and a thick braid of gold. Weighed down by her gaudy riches as she ran from the erupting Vesuvius, she is a symbol of the adage that you can’t take it with you.

The super-rich should consider not only how they want to be perceived today but remembered tomorrow. Do they wish to be fossilised surrounded by Ferraris, gold bathtubs and Cartier bracelets or remembered, as the Carnegies and the Rockefellers are, for something better? The choice is theirs.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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6 November, 2018

French far-right overtakes Macron in EU parliament election poll

Marine Le Pen’s National Rally has overtaken the centrist party of Emmanuel Macron, the French president, for the first time, according to an opinion poll released Sunday, in a further sign of the rise of the far-Right in Europe.

The Ifop poll measured voting intentions for European Parliament elections next May, seen as a decisive battle between pro-EU liberals and Eurosceptic populists that could be pivotal in shaping the future of the European Union after Brexit.

Liberals championed by Mr Macron are attempting to fend off a rising anti-immigrant and Eurosceptic wave led by Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, and Matteo Salvini, Italy’s influential deputy prime minister.

The poll showed Ms Le Pen’s party, formerly known as the Front National, with 21 per cent of voting intentions compared to 19 per cent for Mr Macron’s La Republique En Marche (LREM) party.

Together with the seven per cent of people planning to vote for a smaller far-Right party, Stand Up France, and two per cent going for two small “Frexit” parties, the French far-Right has won 30 per cent of voting intentions, a five-point gain since August, according to the poll.

In a landmark victory, the Front National won the largest share of the French vote in the last European elections in 2014, when the Socialist Party held power in France.

Mr Macron is leading the campaign for the 2019 European elections, which he has described as “a contest between progressives and nationalists”.

On a recent visit to Slovakia and the Czech Republic, Mr Macron railed against populists, accusing Hungarian and Polish leaders of being “fantasists [who] lie to their people.”

He said it angered him to see posters with slogans such as “Stop Brussels”, arguing that EU membership had brought countries such as Hungary and Poland greater prosperity.

Last week he urged Europeans to “resist” what he called “the nationalist leprosy”.

He said: “The moment we are living through resembles the period between the two world wars…

"In a Europe divided by fear, the nationalist withdrawal, the consequences of the economic crisis, one sees almost methodically the recurrence of everything that set the pace of European life from the end of the First World War to the Great Depression of 1929.”

Nevertheless, the French president’s approval ratings have plunged to 21 per cent amid rising discontent over his failure to fulfil his election pledges to slash unemployment, boost growth and cut taxes.

Fuel price increases stemming from tax increases justified as an anti-pollution measure have alienated rural and small-town voters, and the president has also been damaged by a scandal over his bodyguard who was filmed beating protesters.

Ms Le Pen’s party appears to be the only opposition group benefiting from Mr Macron’s unpopularity.

The far-Left France Unbowed party, whose leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon took nearly 20 per cent of the vote in the first round of France’s presidential election last year, fell three points to 11 per cent in the European election poll.

SOURCE






Leftist goons disrupt even a Munk debate

Munk debates are very formal, serious and orderly debates in Canada that get big publicity.  But Leftists hungered after that publicity

Violent clashes during Steve Bannon debate in Toronto end with two cops left injured and demonstrators left bloodied and bruised

Police made 12 arrests as protesters delayed the start of a controversial debate featuring Bannon and conservative commentator David Frum.

Toronto Police tweeted 12 people face various charges and two officers suffered minor injuries, one was hit with a stick and another was punched in the face. The debate was delayed for about a half hour and Bannon was interrupted by a protester during his opening statement.

Many in the crowd of 2,700 at the Munk debate groaned and laughed at Bannon when he said he hasn't seen a bad decision by President Donald Trump yet.

When Bannon earlier called it a very tough crowd, one audience member responded 'No, smart.'

'Trump's economic nationalism doesn't care about your race, your ethnicity or color,' Bannon said to a jeering crowd at another point.

The protester that interrupted the debate unfurled a banner that read 'No Hate. No Bigoty. No Place for Bannon's White Supremacy.'

Guests of a Toronto Munk debate featuring former White House chief strategist Bannon and conservative commentator Frum

Bannon thanked the people of Toronto and the organizers for having him and the protesters outside for exercising their freedom of speech rights to protest.

Frum and Bannon debated whether 'The future of Western politics is populist, not liberal.' Frum argued populism offers nothing but anger and fear and said he had faith in voters.

'I know the fear that many feel,' Frum said. 'This is not the first time that democracy has faced thugs, and crooks and bullies and would be dictators and those who would seek to build themselves up by tearing others down. This is not the first time that people have puffed themselves as the wave of the future. They were wrong then and they are wrong now.'

Frum called the rise in populism the most dangerous challenge that liberal democratic institutions have faced since the end of communism.

'It's not a question of whether populism is on the rise and whether populism is going to be the political future,' Bannon said. 'The only question before us: Is it going to be populist nationalism or populist socialism?'

Bannon played a central role in the 2016 campaign of Trump. Bannon said next week's midterms are critical test of the populist movement but said they are just in the first inning of it.

SOURCE





Bathroom vote in Massaschusetts

Jeff Jacoby

QUESTION 3 on the Nov. 6 ballot in Massachusetts asks voters whether they want to retain or repeal a 2016 state law that makes it illegal to discriminate against transgender people in places of public accommodation. That law specifies that any place with separate facilities for males and females, such as bathrooms and locker rooms, must allow access to individuals on the basis of their "gender identity," regardless of their biological sex.

The measure doesn't appear to be very contentious. If a Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll released on Monday is correct, 68 percent of Massachusetts voters intend to vote Yes on Question 3, to keep the law on the books.

I'm with the 28 percent who plan to vote No. In my view, there are at least three reasons why the transgender-identity law was a mistake and should be rejected.

1. When antidiscrimination laws are expanded, freedom of association — a core human liberty — is infringed.

I oppose laws that force private businesses or organizations to serve customers or accept patrons against their will. Private vendors, employers, and places of public accommodation should have broad legal freedom to decide for themselves whom they wish to deal with. The only exception I support is banning discrimination based on race, since American law for so many generations mandated racial repression and discrimination. Otherwise, there should be no "protected" categories at all. Where liberty and free choice flourish, bigotry and xenophobia tend to recede. Society should rely on the power of markets and public sentiment to eliminate invidious discrimination, not the iron fist of regulators and prosecutors.

Granted, this is theoretical. The wholesale repeal of anti-bias statutes is not in the cards. But at least the pressure to expand those laws by adding more and more demographic groups to the already lengthy list of protected classes should be resisted.

Transgender individuals should always be treated with respect — that should go without saying. But Massachusetts should also respect its citizens' freedom of association, and trust them to use their own judgment when gender identity is at issue.

2. Massachusetts has already shown that it can routinely accommodate transgender access — no law required.

Addressing Question 3 in a statement last Monday, the University of Massachusetts assured the "100,000 students, faculty, staff, and guests" who are on UMass campuses each day that regardless of the referendum result, bathrooms and changing facilities will continue to be open to anyone who wants to use them.

"We will retain our present policy on restroom and locker room access on our campuses by allowing transgender and gender-nonconforming students, faculty, staff, and guests to choose facilities consistent with their gender identity," the statement said.

What is true of UMass is true of every establishment in Massachusetts: They can sort this out for themselves. Supporters of the Yes on 3 campaign include many of the largest corporations, sports teams, labor unions, police organizations, and colleges in the state. None of them needs Beacon Hill to tell them how to operate their bathrooms or other intimate spaces.

Everyone in Massachusetts goes to the bathroom, and 99.9 percent of the time, people use the facilities suited to their needs without causing problems for anyone else. They were doing so before the 2016 law was passed. They'll do so if the law is overturned.

That leaves the 0.1 percent of instances when the presence of an anatomical male in a space meant for females does cause genuine distress, and leads to my third argument for voting No on Question 3:

3. The transgender-identity law ignores sensitive issues of privacy and vulnerability.

Opponents of the 2016 law didn't mobilize to put this referendum on the ballot because they object to transgender people being served in coffee shops, bookstores, or hotels. The opposition is fueled solely by concern about the tiny fraction of cases in which the mismatch between someone's bodily sex and gender identity is not only obvious, but makes women or girls uneasy.

Such cases may be rare, but they are real. In December 2017, a biological male who identifies as a woman sought out a women's spa in Milton for a "full Brazilian" waxing. When the spa was unwilling to perform a pubic waxing on a customer with male genitalia, the customer filed a complaint under the public accommodations law with the Attorney General's office. (The complaint was withdrawn before the case went to litigation.)

When the Legislature added "gender identity" to the public accommodations law, it could have exempted private spaces that are routinely segregated by sex. Its refusal to do so is the sole reason the law is now being challenged. The 2016 law rides roughshod over the discomfort, reserve, and modesty of women and girls at the presence of male bodies in a place meant for females only.

This is not an illegitimate concern. Indeed, Massachusetts legislators acknowledged as much, when they passed a 1998 law exempting women's gyms from the state's public-accommodations law. Normally there is no justification for discrimination by sex or gender. But it is only common sense that bathrooms, showers, waxing salons, and other intimate environments require special sensitivity.

The gender-identity law jettisons that sensitivity. Voters, in response, should jettison the law.

SOURCE







Australia's alternative to illegal immigrant farm workers

Thousands of backpackers who travel to Australia will have their working visas extended as the Federal Government looks to permanently end worker shortages on farms.   

Annual working holiday visa caps will be lifted, the age limit raised to 35 for select countries, and backpackers will also be able to triple the length of their stay in some instances after formally agreeing to more agricultural work.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has endorsed the sweeping changes, with backpackers also no longer required to leave jobs every six months.

They will now be encouraged to stay with the same employer for up a year.

The Government has been under increasing pressure to help struggling farmers after the Nationals failed to deliver on a promised agriculture visa, and Mr Morrison's ambitious plan to force dole recipients to pick fruit never got off the ground. 

Nationals MP Keith Pitt urged federal government representatives to increase the number of backpackers because farms in his local Bundaberg region were struggling to survive.

As part of the newly introduced farm labourer push, overseas visitors with a Pacific Islander background will now be able to work for nine months rather than the current six month limit. 

Daily Mail Australia understands Mr Morrison has also not ruled out agreeing to another agriculture visa if the changes don't fill the required jobs on farms.

The Prime Minister said the primary aim was to deliver immediate help and willing workers to farmers.

'Australians filling Australian jobs is my number one priority but when this isn't possible we need to ensure our farmers aren't left high and dry with rotting crops, especially in the strawberry industry,' Mr Morrison told the Courier Mail.

'We want more money in the back pockets of our farmers.' 

SOURCE 

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

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

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

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



5 November, 2018

I’m Jewish, and I Think the Biggest Increase in Anti-Semitism Is From the Left

Dennis Prager

All my life I have reminded fellow Jews in America that we are the luckiest Jews to have ever lived in a non-Jewish country.

I know what I’m talking about. I wrote a book on anti-Semitism, taught Jewish history at Brooklyn College, and fought anti-Semitism since I was 21, when Israel sent me into the Soviet Union to smuggle in Jewish religious items and smuggle out Jewish names.

Even after the massacre of 11 Jews in a Pittsburgh synagogue, this assessment remains true.

But the greatest massacre of Jews in American history is a unique American tragedy.

It is a tragedy in part because America has finally made the list of countries in which Jews were murdered for being Jews. While this was probably inevitable, given that 330 million people live in America, it is painful—equally for me as an American and as a Jew.

And second, while there is no difference between the murder of Christians at a church and the murder of Jews in a synagogue with regard to the loss of life and the suffering of loved ones, there is something unique about the murder of Jews for being Jews: Anti-Semitism is exterminationist. Anti-Semites don’t just want to persecute, enslave, or expel Jews; they want to kill them all.

On Passover, Jews read the Haggadah, the ancient Jewish prayer book of the Passover Seder. In it are contained these words: “In every generation, they arise to annihilate us”—not “persecute” us; not “enslave” us; annihilate us.

So, when the murderer yelled, “All Jews must die,” he encapsulated the uniqueness of anti-Semitism.

There is another unique aspect to anti-Semitism: It destroys every society in which it grows. The animating force within Adolf Hitler was Jew-hatred. More than anything else—desire for German “Lebensraum,” hatred of Bolshevism, a view of Slavs as subhuman—it was anti-Semitism that invigorated him. Anti-Semitism was not a Nazi scapegoat; it was the Nazis’ raison d’etre.

The results of German anti-Semitism for Germans alone: more than 5 million dead, including half a million German civilians; 130,000 more civilians murdered by the Nazi regime; 12 million Germans expelled from East Europe, 2 million of whom died; innumerable rapes of German women; Germany divided in two for half a century—and the loss of a sense of self and reputation.

I have no idea if, outside the universities and the Israel-hating left, there has been an increase in anti-Semitism in America. I wish I could trust the Anti-Defamation League, other Jewish organizations, and Jewish community newspapers. Sadly, only Jews on the left do, because most of these organizations have a left-wing, anti-Trump agenda.

Here’s a perfect example:

The mainstream left-wing media, along with left-wing Jewish organizations and media, told us every day for months after Donald Trump’s election that anti-Semitism had greatly increased. They cited the great number of Jewish Community Centers that received bomb threats.

It turned out, however, that about 90 percent of those threats were called in by a mentally disturbed American Jewish teenager living in Israel, and the other 10 percent were made by a black radical seeking to frame his ex-girlfriend.

So, the claim eventually vanished from the news—with not one Jewish or non-Jewish organization or media outlet apologizing for crying anti-Semitic “fire” in a crowded theater.

The dishonest now have the Pittsburgh massacre to blame on Trump. But that’s as big a falsehood as blaming Trump for the bomb threats. In reality, the Pittsburgh murderer criticized Trump for his close connections to Jews and Israel.

For Jews to blame the most pro-Israel president since Harry Truman—the only president with a Jewish child and Jewish grandchildren, moreover—for increasing anti-Semitism is another example of a truism this Jew has known all his life: Unlike Jewish liberals, who get most of their values from Judaism, Jewish leftists are ethnically Jewish but get their values from leftism.

The biggest increase in anti-Semitism in the last 10 or so years has come from the left. Just ask young Jews who wear yarmulkes or are vocally pro-Israel on most American college campuses. And this generation’s threat of Jewish annihilation comes from Israel’s Iranian and Arab enemies.

As a Jew who attends synagogue every Shabbat, and as an advocate for the carrying of concealed weapons, I fervently pray we will not need armed guards at American synagogues. America’s uniqueness has been exemplified by the fact that Jews do not need armed guards in their synagogues.

May it always be so.

Even if you don’t love Jews—if you only love America—you need to fight anti-Semites. As the Jews go, so goes the fate of the nation in which they live.

SOURCE






Tanzania announces 'surveillance squad' to hunt down homosexuals

All too often the LGBTQ community joins in the condemnation of white Christian males. But they are in for a rude surprise when the white Christian males are no longer in charge. And importing other people who believe like this while neutering the Christians is going to do what in the USA eventually? and Europe?

Residents in Tanzania’s biggest city have been urged to inform on their neighbours and friends ahead of a police operation to hunt down and jail homosexuals.

A 17-member committee appointed by Paul Makonda, Dar es Salaam’s powerful regional commissioner, will attempt to identify all gay men living in the coastal city after it first convenes next Monday.

Mr Makonda, a close ally of Tanzania’s president, John Magufuli, said that a list of 200 suspects had already been drawn up thanks to public tip-offs and a trawl through Tanzanians’ social media accounts.

“I have information about the presence of many homosexuals in our province,” he told reporters. “These homosexuals boast on social networks. Give me their names. My ad hoc team will begin to get their hands on them next Monday.”

Homosexuality is not strictly illegal in Tanzania. Sodomy, however, carries a sentence of between 30 years and life in prison, while other sexual acts between consenting men also carry jail terms.

Tanzania was seen until recently as more tolerant of homosexuals than neighbouring countries, but the atmosphere has chilled since Mr Magufuli became president in 2015. Last year he announced the closure of AIDS clinics after accusing them of promoting homosexuality.

Mr Makonda, a devout Christian who has long railed against gay Tanzanians, is one of the country’s most powerful figures and is viewed as increasingly untouchable.

Last year he stormed a private television station at the head of a group of armed officers after it declined to broadcast material allegedly incriminating one of his critics in an affair. President Magufuli then sacked the information minister for investigating the raid.

Mr Makonda has also used his role as the government’s chief representative in Dar es Salaam to champion a clampdown on free speech, instructing police to arrest anyone who “insults” political leaders.

Acknowledging the potential for a backlash from the West if homosexuals are detained en masse, Mr Makonda said: “I prefer to anger these countries than to anger God.”

Britain, which will give Tanzania £153m in direct aid this year, is one of Tanzania’s largest bilateral donors.

SOURCE






Canada resort staff were fired for being white - tribunal

Seven staff members, including a caterer, a waitress, a maintenance worker, an aesthetician and a graphic designer, say they were let go because they were white

A Canadian human rights tribunal says seven resort employees were discriminated against for being white.

The Human Rights Tribunal in the westernmost province of British Columbia awarded them more than C$173,000 ($132,000, £102,000).

Resort owner Kin Wa Chan said he wanted to hire Chinese employees because he believed they were cheaper.

The tribunal found the seven staff were forced out in August 2016, and replaced with Chinese workers.

Tribunal chair Diana Juricevic ruled this qualified as discrimination based on race, which is against British Columbia's human rights code.

She dismissed the complaint of an eighth former employee.

"Over a period of months, Mr Chan repeatedly said that he wanted to replace Caucasian employees with ethnically Chinese employees to reduce labour costs," Ms Juricevic wrote in her decision, published last week.

Mr Chan bought the Spruce Hill Resort and Spa in rural British Columbia in 2015, and began extensive renovations in January the next year.

The resort operated at reduced capacity during the renovations, and so Mr Chan let many of the staff go.

Seven of the employees that were kept on during the renovations ended up filing the human rights complaint, after they were fired the following summer or resigned in the course of several days because of what they described as a hostile work environment.

The largest award, of more than C$62,000, went to Clare Fast, who had worked for the resort for 20 years as fitness and human resources manager. Ms Fast testified she heard Mr Chan say that he would not have to pay Chinese employees overtime.

Her belief that she was fired and replaced with a Chinese employee was corroborated by her colleague and fellow complainant, resort bookkeeper Melonie Eva.

In a diary entry dated 20 July 2016, Ms Eva wrote that "[Mr Chan] keeps saying he wants Chinese people" and "[Ms Stocks] and [Ms Fast] must go".

On 3 August, Mr Chan told Ms Fast her human resources tasks would be given to a new employee, an ethnically Chinese student with no human resources experience. With her hours significantly reduced, Ms Fast asked to be laid off.

SOURCE






Leftist insanity hits David Horowitz

We live in strange times. Since the election of Donald Trump, it has often seemed as if half the country has gone blind or, more likely, lost the ability to see beyond their noses. The divisions that have resulted are so deep they have split us effectively into two nations, damaging and destroying individual relationships at every level. The political left and its media blame Trump for this fracturing of the nation’s fabric, but Trump was first the target of accusations that he was a traitor, colluding with the Russians, a racist and white nationalist betraying the country’s founding principles. And it was the Democrats who launched a “resistance” to his presidency, boycotting his inauguration and demanding his overthrow from day one of his presidency.

During the week when the FBI was searching for the Florida pipe-bomber, the anti-Trump media was busy accusing the president of inciting his violence because he referred to them as “Fake News.” According to the talking heads, chants of “CNN Sucks” at Trump rallies had directly inspired a nutcase loner with a long arrest record who had begun threatening bomb attacks decades before Trump had even entered politics. That same week, I happened to watch an MSNBC panel hosted by Nicole Wallace, where every panelist was comparing Trump to Adolf Hitler. Why? Because Trump had just announced he was a “nationalist” and nationalists, according to the panel, without exception, were authoritarian dictators, like Hitler.

In fact (if anyone at MSNBC can be said to be interested in facts) the term “nationalism” was coined by Joseph Mazzini, who created the modern state of Italy. Far from being a dictator, he was a democrat. Moreover, Hitler was not exactly a nationalist, since Germany was already a powerful state. He was a racist who wanted to create an Aryan empire. But this hardly matters to MSNBC panels whose goal is to demonize the president by any means necessary. That same week CNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell was connecting Trump to Hitler in his own perverse manner. Commenting on Trump’s comment that he was a nationalist, O’Donnell said to his audience: “And we all know what word is associated with nationalism: white.”

Obviously “fake news” is much too kind a description of the openly partisan press corps whose one-time journalists are now pursuing careers as professional character assassins. The same politics of personal destruction is also the staple of many campaigns by Democratic Party candidates. None more so than in the state of Florida, where a full-fledged public lynching of Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis is in progress. His opponent, racial demagogue Andrew Gillum, calls every accusation of incompetence and corruption in his tenure as Tallahassee mayor as a “racist attack” because he is black. There could hardly be a more classic example of such demagoguery than this Gillum statement, “Now, I’m not calling Mr. DeSantis a racist. I’m simply saying the racists believe he’s a racist.” [1]

I am one of those “racists” to whom Gillum is referring, perhaps even the primary one. A poor choice, one would think, since I have a public record stretching over 56-years since the publication of my first book, in which I have promoted equal rights for all Americans regardless of race or national origin. I am possibly the only conservative who publicly defended Trayvon Martin during the trial of his killer George Zimmerman. I participated in my first civil rights demonstration for African Americans in 1948, 70 years ago. Since then, I have worked tirelessly on behalf of racial equality, sometimes foolishly as when I was a leftist and raised money for and promoted the Black Panther Party, which turned out to be a criminal gang. Over the last 20 years, I have written three books and several hundred thousand words, all devoted to Martin Luther King’s vision that Americans should judge people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.

Well, I would have been a poor choice in more sober times, rather than our present circumstances where anyone on the right – or anyone who supports President Trump - is fair game for racial slanderers and a press that no longer cares about the facts. Now I find myself treated as a prop in the public lynching of DeSantis.  A Washington Post headline writer described a gathering I host annually in Palm Beach – “The Restoration Weekend,” as a “racially charged event.” De Santis had attended the Weekend four times to give foreign policy speeches. So the logic was – if we were racists, then DeSantis must be.

The absurdity of the Post’s description of our event – for which no credible evidence was produced – would have been obvious to anyone familiar with our event, which we have held since 1994 with no such attacks, or with the list of our featured speakers and award winners who have included such African American leaders as J.C. Watts, Ben Carson, Herman Cain, Allen West, Jason Reilly, Charles Payne, Candace Owens, Larry Elder, Sonnie Johnson and even the former Democratic Mayor of Washington D.C., Adrian Fenty.

On the basis of the false Post headline, and equally groundless accusations floating around the leftwing hate-sphere, the gathering DeSantis attended was slandered as an event hosted by “an infamous racist,” a “white supremacist,” a “hate-monger,” and an “anti-Muslim fanatic” (this last despite the fact we featured my good friend, Muslim leader Zuhdi Jasser, specifically to defend Islam in a debate with Robert Spencer). These hateful stigmas appeared in the Huffington Post, GQ, Newsweek, New York Magazine, and virtually every major paper in the state of Florida. I asked the Washington Post to print a correction, or provide me with an op-ed column to set the record straight, but to no avail.

Two weeks before the election, when DeSantis and Gillum squared off in a second televised gubernatorial debate, the moderator turned to DeSantis and the race issue. Pointing out that DeSantis had attended four Restoration Weekends hosted by me, he then claimed I had said, “If blacks are oppressed in America, why isn’t there a black exodus?” This was supposed to be my racist comment. To clinch the case, he quoted a DeSantis statement that he was “a big admirer of an organization (my Freedom Center) that shoots straight, tells the American people the truth and is standing up for the right thing.” Gotcha.

My hat is off to Ron DeSantis for having the courage to defend an organization that is under such malicious attack. But the situation that a malevolent, and dishonest media had created for him was an impossible one. In fact, I have said on many occasions that no one is oppressed in America, which is an obvious truth. Otherwise why are there caravans of “people of color” trying to break into our country illegally? To be oppressed? Over a 200-year period Americans have struggled to make good on the Founders’ promise that everyone is created equal and has equal rights. Americans established constitutional amendments and established laws, crowned by the Civil Rights Acts sixty years ago, which outlawed all discrimination on the basis of race. It’s time to celebrate these victories not wallow in the oppressions of the past that are now illegal. A TV debate, however, is not a venue conducive to history lessons or unpacking complex legal victories for the edification of hostile audiences. DeSantis attempted to defend himself by asking – to the groans of the partisan audience – why he should be familiar with everything I had ever said.

This summary moment in the DeSantis lynching was written up for The Daily Beast by a former friend of mine and now a Never Trumper – Ronald Radosh. His article was presented under this headline: “Association With Extremist David Horowitz Catches Up With Ron DeSantis. In other words, to save the failing racist narrative, Radosh was adding another character assassination -“extremist” - to the implausible “white supremacist.” Radosh did have the decency to write: “I have known David Horowitz for about 50 years. He is not, and never has been, a racist, and has defended himself ably from that charge.”

Unfortunately – and incomprehensibly - Radosh chose to preface that honest character witness with a reckless jibe at DeSantis for asking how he could be held responsible for everything I have said: “Forget about ‘every statement,’” Radosh wrote, “DeSantis could have listened to just about any statement Horowitz has made in the last few years.” In other words, any statement would demonstrate that I am an unhinged extremist. This is what you might call throwing mud at the wall – in this case me – and hoping something will stick.

What inspires Radosh’s reckless attacks on me is that I voted for Trump. Actually, I not only voted for Trump I wrote a book about him and his Democratic adversaries, which Radosh could have mined for extremist statements if they existed. Its title was Big Agenda: Trump’s Plan to Save America.” The book was 11 weeks on the New York Times Best-Seller List, and even received a favorable notice from Huffington Post, whose reviewer pointedly noted, “Horowitz also stresses the importance of offering a new deal to Black America in the inner cities, who have suffered for decades under the rule of the Democrats.” The review concludes: “Horowitz’s book will be an epiphany for those who haven’t been paying attention to the political landscape over the last ten years, but it is common sense for the rest of us.”

But not for Radosh, a Never Trumper who has gone over to the other side of the political divide to join a disgraceful lynch party in its attempt to destroy a decent and good man in Ron DeSantis. For Radosh, the ends now apparently justify the means. Once known as a critic of Joseph McCarthy, Radosh’s hatred of Trump has caused him to join a witch-hunt that dwarfs anything McCarthy ever attempted.

Two years before the Trump election, Radosh sent me a birthday email which provides a measure of what has happened. Radosh and I were close friends and political allies for 65 years, from the time we met in 1951 until 2016, when Trump was elected. This is his summary of what those years meant to him:


From: Ron Radosh
Date: January 10, 2014 at 9:11:18 AM PST
To: David Horowitz

Happy birthday David. I knew it was coming up, but didn't realize it was today. So accept my heartiest wishes for a milestone that I passed a year ago.

You are not only a good friend, but the only one I have who is a national treasure and whose good work serves our country as no one else does.


Apparently, a vote for Trump is enough to throw all that out the window, along with the friendship. Apparently, it also provides a license to distort a man’s work, and attempt to destroy his character and credibility by any means necessary. That is the state not only of my broken friendship with Ron Radosh and the political fate of Ron DeSantis, but also of our nation as we approach the days to come.  

SOURCE

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

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

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

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





4 November, 2018

Brazil's New President is Pro-Life, Pro-Family, and Strong Supporter of Israel

Jair Bolsonaro, the newly elected president of Brazil -- his four-year term starts in January 2019 -- is a Catholic married to an evangelical Christian and he is a strong supporter of Israel.

During his victory speech on Oct. 28, broadcast from his home, there was a Jewish menora in the background. Bolsonaro's middle name, Messias, is the Arabic word for messiah.

Bolsonaro once declared, "My heart is green, yellow, blue and white," a reference to the colors of the Brazilian flag and the Israeli flag, reported the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA).

Bolsonaro "has declared he will move the Brazilian embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv," said the JTA. "His first international trip as president, he said, will be to Israel, with which he will seek to broaden the dialogue. And he promised to close the Palestinian embassy in Brasilia."

“Is Palestine a country?" said Bolsonaro several weeks ago. "Palestine is not a country, so there should be no embassy here. You do not negotiate with terrorists.”

Osias Wurman, Israel's honorary consul in Rio de Janeiro, told JTA: “Bolsonaro stood out among the many candidates for including the State of Israel in the major speeches he made during the campaign. He is a lover of the people and the State of Israel.”

After an assassination attempt in early September, Bolsonaro declined to be treated at the prestigious Syrian-Lebanese Hospital and was instead taken to the Jewish-led Albert Einstein Hospital. According to the JTA, three of Bolsonaro's sons have been "photographed wearing T-shirts with messages in Hebrew." Bolsonaro has four sons and one daughter.

According to Haaretz, Bolsonaro spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Oct. 29, who told him, "I am confident that your election will lead to a great friendship between the two peoples and to the strengthening of ties between Brazil and Israel. We await your visit to Israel."

As for the Brazil, Bolsonaro has said, "God above everything. There is no such thing as this secular state. The state is Christian and the minority will have to change, if they can. The minorities will have to adapt to the position of the majority."

He has also said, "Brazil before everything, and God above all."

Jair Bolsonaro is a former military officer and he has served in Brazil's Chamber of Deputies since 1991. Bolsonaro's politics in general are those of a traditional, right-wing conservative.

He does not consider himself "far right" but simply "right wing," according to Estado.com.  He is pro-life, pro-family, and he opposes gay marriage, homosexuality, affirmative action and secularism.

SOURCE






Janice Dean, wife to 9/11 firefighter, minces no words in response to Don Lemon’s ‘disgraceful’ rhetoric

Lemon is just as sour as his surname.  He is just another hate-filled black racist

Fox News’ Janice Dean slammed CNN’s Don Lemon for his “disgraceful” comments about the biggest “terror threat” facing America.

The Fox News Channel weather anchor tweeted in response to Lemon’s recent controversial on-air rant declaring that “white men” are the biggest terror threat to the United States.

“We have to stop demonizing people and realize the biggest terror threat in this country is white men — most of them radicalized to the right. And we have to start doing something about them,” he told CNN colleague Chris Cuomo, igniting a firestorm of backlash.

Rather than apologize later for creating the outrage, the defiant anchor doubled down on his racist rhetoric, declaring that those angry with his comments were “missing the entire point.”

Megyn Kelly instantly felt the heat with NBC pulling her show after remarks that liberals deemed racist when she referenced wearing blackface with costumes for Halloween. But Lemon still has his job at CNN even after his blatantly controversial comments.

When one of the first responses to Dean’s tweet was a disrespectful attack about her being a “snowflake,” Dean shredded her with a simple sentence.

Yeah don’t call my husband who runs into burning buildings to save people like yourself a snowflake.  Bye.

SOURCE







Vegetarians are sad sacks

Vegetarians may be healthier than meat-eaters – but they are also more miserable, say researchers. Those who cut meat from their diet experience more negative feelings, have lower self-esteem and see less meaning in life, a study found.

The authors conclude that vegetarians may be less ‘psychologically well-adjusted’, suggesting teasing by omnivores may be to blame.

It comes after food critic William Sitwell quit as editor of Waitrose Food magazine after making a joke about killing vegans.

Researchers asked 400 vegetarians, meat-eaters and ‘semi-vegetarians’ to record their feelings over a fortnight. Of the three groups, vegetarians experienced the most negative feelings and enjoyed social occasions least.

Lead author Dr John Nezlek, from the SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Poznan, Poland, said: ‘Sometimes unwittingly, and sometimes intentionally, vegetarians may be excluded from social events or made to feel odd or different because they are vegetarians. Such things tend to happen for members of social minorities.

‘Over time, such experiences can take their toll on a person’s wellbeing. We believe that this study is important because it is the first to show that defining one’s self as a vegetarian has implications for the quality of a person’s daily life.’

A survey analysed vegetarians and meat-eaters’ self-esteem based on how far they agreed with statements such as ‘Today I felt like a failure’ and ‘Today I felt I had many good qualities’.

Similar questions – asking how well their day had gone and how optimistic they were about the future – were used to assess depressive tendencies.

Vegetarians scored 4.62 for self-respect and meat-eaters 5.33, where a lower score was worse. They were also more likely to be depressed and unsatisfied with their life, the study found.

The authors, also from the College of William and Mary in Virginia, suggested vegetarians may suffer because they are seen by meat-eaters as morally superior.

They added: ‘Given that many celebrities advocate some type of vegetarian diet, non-vegetarians may feel that vegetarians are “putting on airs” and that they are “too good” for non-vegetarians.’

Twenty-four vegetarians, including some vegans, took part in the study. They were compared with 323 omnivores and 56 ‘semi-vegetarians’, some of whom ate fish or only avoided red meat.

When asked whether they felt they led a purposeful existence, vegetarians saw less meaning in life than the other groups, according to researchers. They were also more likely to experience stress and embarrassment.

However, a spokesman for the Vegetarian Society disputed the findings, saying: ‘What we see when people adopt a veggie diet in line with their values is they feel excited and positive about the contribution they are making.’

The study appears in the journal Ecology of Food and Nutrition.

SOURCE






Liberal misogyny? Women take aim at Massachusetts State House, but parity with men still looks out of reach
     
Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones

Campaigning door to door, Dr. Katie McBrine carries a stack of Post-It notes resembling a prescription pad to jot messages for voters who aren’t home. “A prescription for change,” each note proclaims above her state Senate campaign logo, a heart-shaped stethoscope.

Male campaign consultants have strongly advised her to drop this image for something more traditional. Why not a blue background with white letters? She ignores them.

“It tells a story and pretty much tells exactly who I am,” said McBrine, a pediatrician and Hingham mother of two.

McBrine is part of a wave of women challenging the status quo in an election cycle many view as reminiscent of the 1992 Year of the Woman. But in Massachusetts, women are not likely to reach political parity anytime soon, even with 81 female candidates on the ballot for the Legislature. They currently occupy less than a quarter of House and Senate seats — down from their record high of 26 percent, first reached in 1999, and not matched since 2009.

With several women competing for the same seat, and others vacating their seats for other political races, female gains in the Massachusetts Legislature are likely to be modest this year.

Even in the rosiest and most unlikely of November scenarios, female candidates could claim only 16 of 40 seats in the state Senate and 61 of 160 in the House — boosting representation to 39 percent of the Legislature. More likely, since 20 of the women on the ballot this November are challenging incumbents, is a modest pickup that would boost representation to about 30 percent.

“Massachusetts is pathetic when it comes to electing women,” said Mary Anne Marsh, a Democratic analyst and strategist. “We’re still down there with, like, Georgia.”

Beacon Hill is more male-dominated than many other state capitals. According to an analysis by the Center for American Women and Politics, Massachusetts ranks 29th for its proportion of women in the Legislature, behind all the other New England states, as well as Idaho, Montana, Kansas, and Georgia.

Massachusetts’ progressive politics are threaded with a strong streak of traditionalism, said Erin O’Brien, associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Boston. And, she noted, the state is dominated by a single party, the Democrats, who have not had to do a lot of self-examination. Political parties tend to expand to bring in new constituencies only when they’re threatened by the other party, O’Brien said.

“Their candidate recruitment has been the good-old-boy network,” said O’Brien, who called the system “classically Boston,” relying on connections from Boston College High School or Boston neighborhoods.

“There’s a bunch of guys who are just friends,” she said. “They’re not necessarily being jerks or anything. They’re just in the same network. But that’s how institutional sexism continues.”

SOURCE

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

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

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

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

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






2 November, 2018

Pro-life group shut out on buffer zones

Rescuers of the unborn face a tough time in socialist Scotland.  They are not even allowed to present their case

TWO Tory councillors have come under fire following a failed attempt to draft in a pro-life group to discussions about protecting women accessing medical services. Green Councillor Claire Miller previously proposed buffer zones be introduced between people attending medical appointments and protesters holding "vigils" outside the Chalmers Centre at Lauriston Place.

Conservative Cllr Cameron Rose, backed by his party colleague Cllr Nick Cook, wanted Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) to be involved in discussions. But the council's south-east locality committee, including Conservative members Cllr Joanna Mowat and Cllr Stephanie Smith, blocked his motion. Cllr Rose said: "What we are looking to do is get a balance between the tights of freedom of speech and the rights to protect those who are using the facilities that we are referring to here.

I'm conscious that it has been suggested that the community improvement partnership will include council, NHS, police and representation from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS). "If they are to be added, I think it is important we have somebody from the pro-life groups who are demonstrating in the two locations. It would be appropriate in those circumstances that there would be somebody from perhaps the Catholic Church or I would recommend SPUC."

But Cllr Miller hit out at the Conservative proposal, believing it would go against the purpose of the buffer zones. She said: "BPAS is a medical services provider. It is not a campaigning organisation. "They needed to protect the safety of the patients who were accessing their services. There are so many so-called vigils outside clinics that they are being called upon by clinic providers and people who are protecting women's rights, to carry out research in Scotland. The reason that I have brought this here is simply to protect service users."

Committee convener Cllr Mandy Watt called for the protesters to move elsewhere. She said: "Why do they choose to pressurise women who are already facing an incredibly difficult time? That's not a right to exercise free speech responsibly, in my opinion. I don't think the amendment is helpful unless they are going to show up and volunteer to make life a bit easier by protesting somewhere else."

SPUC has hit out at Cllr Miller and called on the committee to reconsider its position. An SPUC spokesman said: "The proceedings and outcome of the meeting at Edinburgh City Council should ring alarm bells for anyone who cares about democracy and freedom. "The majority of councillors seemed to ignore the reality of the situation of what is going on at the peaceful pro-life gatherings in Edinburgh. Claire Miller has been able to use her public office to wage a campaign against those she disagrees with."

Edinburgh News, Sept. 27, 2018, p.4






Dr Phil accused of ‘exploitation’ after black teen tells show ‘I’m white’

Under Leftist rules, if she thinks she is white she is entitled to call herself white and be treated as white

A BLACK teenager has sparked fury after telling cult TV host Dr Phil she believes she is white and hates black people so much she supports the Ku Klux Klan.

“When it comes to black people, I think they’re all ugly and I have nothing in common with them,” the 16-year-old named only as “Treasure” declared in front of a shocked studio audience.

“People try to tell me I’m an African-American, but that’s not true, I’m a caucasian because everything about me is different from African-Americans.

“I believe that I’m completely and utterly better than them.”

Treasure went on to liken black people to “gorillas” and claimed her aversion to black people was so strong she decided to start following race hate group the Ku Klux Klan.

The teen was invited on the show after her mother Monique asked Dr Phil to intervene after she started making racist comments about African-American people to their faces.

According to Monique, Treasure started “identifying as a white person as a young child” but after turning 16, her behaviour escalated to the point her family was too embarrassed to go out in public with her.

Her mother claimed Treasure had never known her father and that when she tried to explain that he was African-American, her daughter responded: “no thanks”.

The episode has sparked a steady stream of fury on social media since it aired last Friday, with users accusing Dr Phil of exploiting a young woman appeared to be suffering from some form of mental illness.

“Why has Dr Phil taken on guests that are clearly unbalanced? I have watched his show for years and respected him,” @msgreta2 tweeted.

“However, when I see Treasure and a variety of others, I see him exploiting people to keep himself relevant.”

Others accused Treasure and Monique of faking the whole thing in a bid to get famous and make money, with one user comparing the pair to “cash me ousside” teen Danielle Bregoli and her mother.

SOURCE






Pakistan paralysed at blasphemy ruling

Schools are closed and roads are deserted in Pakistan as Islamic groups continue to protest the Supreme Court's decision to free a Christian woman convicted and sentenced to death for blasphemy.

The followers of a hardline cleric blocked one of the major entrances into the capital Islamabad, police said, forcing commuters to look for alternative routes, while many people chose to stay at home to avoid the protesters.

The protests broke out on Wednesday after a three-judge tribunal ordered the release of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who had been on death row since 2010. The judgement was hailed as a landmark by rights activists.

The members of Islamist group Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) protested in all major cities and its leaders vowed to continue their demonstrations.

"We will lay down our live but never go back," TLP leader Khadim Rizvi told his supporters at a rally in the eastern city of Lahore on Thursday.

Prime Minister Imran Khan called for calm and warned protest leaders not to confront the state in a televised address to the nation late on Wednesday.

The government also deployed troops in major cities to guard official buildings after protest leaders called for death to the judges who overturned Bibi's sentence.

Bibi was sentenced to death by a district court in the central province of Punjab in 2010 for allegedly committing blasphemy in a row with Muslim women while working on a farm.

A higher court in the provincial capital Lahore upheld the sentence in 2014 under the country's controversial blasphemy laws.

SOURCE





Australia: We can’t let the aggressive secularists drive out religion

The Machiavellian leaking of “fake news” out of the Ruddock review of religious freedom during the Wentworth by-election and the emotionally charged reaction raises yet again the issue of how 25 million people are going to live together with their deepest ideological and religious beliefs in the vastly different Australia we now live in.

In short, the question is how we are now going to respect diversity and still promote liberty while maintaining the harmony that has been so much the hallmark of our national life.

We must face up to the urgency of the problem: we are atomising and fracturing in the context of the rise of powerful ferment over beliefs and ideologies across the globe. Far from this being “the end of history” or an age of secularism, we are witnessing a global resurgence of religion and ideology.

We are also living through a clash of Western traditions within our own civilisation, between liberal traditionalism and cultural Marxism, both of which emerged out of the Enlightenment. Add to this the emergence of social media, which was supposed to create a virtual global public square, but in the process has also created virtual global tribes, and we a have vast new machinery for transforming civil disagreement into civil hate. These forces are potentially so destabilising that they may threaten our governability.

If we beneficiaries of liberal democracy and human rights better understood our history we wouldn’t be so reserved about affirming religious freedom. History teaches that the long arc of Christian influence on society has proven to be hugely beneficial.

No doubt it is easy to find serious moral blemishes in Christian history, but it was also out of Christianity’s capacity for reform that the solutions evolved. Perez Zagorin in his classic book How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West shows that religious freedom — the beginning of liberalism — largely emerged from Christian tradition in the 16th and 17th centuries.

The great myth is that all of our most cherished values came out of some secular Enlightenment. On the contrary, notions of human dignity and equality arose in the Judeo-Christian tradition hundreds of years before the Enlightenment; and, in any case, for the most part the Enlightenment was not secular. The great Enlightenment document affirming human rights, equality, and liberty — Thomas Jefferson’s 1776 Declaration of Independence — based these ideals on the notion that “all men are created equal” and are “endowed by their Creator” with these rights.

To this day secularists have not found a better foundation.

The anti-slavery movement, perhaps the greatest human rights achievement of all time, drank deeply at the well of Christianity, with the strong religiosity of African-Americans to this day testifying to a collective awareness of Christianity’s emancipatory ­potential.

The early feminist movement was also made up of many individual Christian women, including the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, which was the major agent behind women getting the vote in South Australia in 1894.

Evangelicals were at the front of 19th-century movements to improve the conditions in factories: Catholic social thought influenced Justice Henry Higgins in the Harvester judgment of 1907, which introduced a minimum “living” wage in Australia.

None of this is even to mention the huge social utility of religion in Australia today, particularly in the founding of charities and levels of charitable giving, as outlined in Greg Sheridan’s brilliant God is Good For You: A Defence of Christianity in Troubled Times. Society benefits from religion, even if not all individuals know it, and thus it is at our collective loss if we hinder religion’s efforts to maintain strong institutions and have a public influence.

But strong religious institutions are made up of strongly religious individuals — that is, individuals who honour the principles of the institution in thought and deed. For this reason as long as we recognise the importance of allowing religious institutions — churches, schools, charities — to exist we must allow them to discriminate in their membership, lest our commitment to freedom of religion and association is just an empty gong.

It cannot be doubted that individuals can be hurt by the exercise of the rights of religion and conscience, just as people can be hurt by other rights such as freedom of speech, association — we all exercise the right to exclude individuals from our circle of friends — and even free trade.

The best way to address this is within the paradigm of liberal freedoms themselves.

In a liberal democracy, if a clash of interests can be resolved without limiting anybody’s freedoms then it should be the preferred way. In the case of religious schools in a highly developed country like Australia, most people have the option of more than just one school to work or study in. Furthermore, as the Ruddock review recommends, schools can develop strategies for making their doctrinal and moral expectations clear from the beginning in a sensitive way, seeking to avoid any unnecessary hurt.

Interestingly, this reflects the diversity of political parties in our system as a vital part of the machinery of our freedom. Politicians argue that voters should have choice, and we as voters embrace choice every time we decide whom to vote for.

The rhetoric of an often aggressive secularism which seeks to drive religion out of the public square fails to grasp that secularism is merely one voice in the pluralist crowd. Contemporary secularists need to accept that while Australia is not as religious as it was a generation ago, it is not the secularist nation they would like. If secularists rejoice that the 2016 census reported that 30 per cent of Australians register “no religion” they must also acknowledge that around 50 per cent of Australians identified as Christian, with continued immigration coming from countries that are less secular than Australia.

Thus, calls for the withdrawal of public funding for religious schools that discriminate are seriously flawed. Such calls covertly define the Australian “public” as secular, as though the religious parents who send their children to religious schools aren’t themselves members of the same public that contributes the funds from which Australian schools are supported. Once we acknowledge that the Australian public remains to a significant degree a religious public — as the 2016 census indicated — then religious schools have as much right to public funding as non-religious schools.

Sir Robert Menzies said that “democracy is more than a machine; it is a spirit. It is based upon the Christian conception that there is in every human soul a spark of the divine.” For Menzies, democracy could work only if we remember that “with all their inequalities of mind and body, the souls of men stand equal in the sight of God”.

In the ridiculing and mocking of the Christian God and his expulsion from the public square, we have also lost the compelling narrative that Menzies so plainly understood for respecting one another that arises from the Christian insistence on loving your neighbour as yourself, even when that neighbour is your enemy.

In the all-too-common circumstances when we find we profoundly and genuinely disagree, we now resort to such levels of hate speech that it is hard to avoid the conclusion that we are faced with a civic crisis. The aggressive secularists who insist on burning down what remains of our cultural house have proved totally unable to point the way to a better dwelling. The 20th century showed us just how hideous secular utopianism can be.

Modern Australia could surely use an infusion of some things traditionally Christian, for example Christianity’s emphasis on humility. When you replace humility with a culture of narcissism and self-righteousness, those with whom we disagree become wicked in our minds. But as Russian dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said: “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts.”

We are also seeing how superficial progressives’ commitment to multiculturalism actually is, for the cultural integrity of religious schools — Christian or otherwise — seems to have no moral force when it comes to the diversity movement. In fact, the demands of diversity are a new form of assimilation. Dare to disagree on cultural grounds with the reigning orthodoxy on gender politics and you’ll immediately find yourself branded a lesser Australian.

Much as I dislike the racial and sexual discrimination architecture in this country, it appears that an overarching religious discrimination act may be the only way to secure as a positive right an acceptable degree of religious freedom in contemporary Australia.

It would need to be very carefully thought through and drafted in order to properly enshrine religious freedom, associational rights, and freedom of conscience as human rights. Ironically, this is necessary to bring us into line with the very international obligations so beloved of today’s social ­activists.

We are fortunate that in Australia there is indication of a decent majority that values freedom of conscience and religious liberty. The submissions in favour of religious liberty and freedom of conscience to the Ruddock review into religious freedom were overwhelming and, according to polls conducted during the 2017 same-sex marriage debate, a very large majority of Australians are in favour of the protection of religious liberty.

I don’t hear anyone arguing for an extension of religious liberty; rather, it has become patently obvious that effective measures are now needed to simply preserve the freedoms we’ve taken for granted and exercised for so long in laissez-faire Australia. That is because our society is now plainly infused with activists who are determined to use every tool available to enforce their views on others, no matter the cost. And as a result, our cherished social harmony really is now at risk.

SOURCE 

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

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

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

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1 November, 2018

The “Apu” Syndrome Encapsulates Political Correctness

Pop culture, entertainment, and comedy use humor in critiquing society and representing the vehicle of defusing tense rhetoric with the tonic of laughter. It is a time-tested and implied cultural norm that all genders, races, politics, religions and businesses are equal opportunity members in being roasted through zingers, one liners, or blatant stereotypes that are completely over the top. At least that how it is supposed to be.

Instead, the hypocrisy of Hollywood is on full display for the universe to see, as television signals beamed into the vast expanses of the cosmos will now only feature gags and schtick bashing white families, Christians, gun owners, and Republicans, as the agenda of extreme leftists has forced the producers in the entertainment business to focus shame in proliferating a disgusting bias. And this is time for laughter, as the thought police have invaded the matrix of comedy.

The latest controversy of unchecked political correctness surrounds the timeless award winning show of the Simpsons and rumors that popular character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, proprietor of the Springfield convenience store and of East Indian descent, may be written out of the show, because somebody apparently complained. Apu, voiced by Hank Azaria and known for one line quips, terrible karaoke, and a graduate education background, has been the focal point of a number of episodes, including the infamous “Who Needs The Kwick-E-Mart?”, where he is unceremoniously terminated from his dream job and replaced by James Woods. Woods gains employment on the thankless night shift to hone his acting skills for an upcoming movie role. How is this not funny on a multitude of levels?

With the pending removal of Apu, the stunning hypocrisy does not require a complex explanation. As a white male, I can laugh at the negative role models of Homer Simpsons, Krusty, Barney Gumble, Mr. Burns, Moe, Ned Flanders, Auto, Kearney, Chief Wiggum, and Reverend Lovejoy. Throughout the entire spectrum of zany characters, there very little semblance of respectable qualities, as the writers portray Caucasian men as lazy incompetent criminal drunks, who flounder in mediocrity and destroy the environment, pervert religion, and are the epitome of mediocrity. But again, the show is a humorous cartoon, and the bits are clever and funny. The premise behind the Simpsons, before the latest brush with out of control PC crappiness, is that everyone and everything  in society was subject to the barbs and hijinxs of the comedy. That was the pure and underlying  raw brilliance of the show.

Instead, individuals culturally affected by the concept of Apu, have gone as far to produce a documentary profiling the apparent profound societal impact of the character in creating a decadent mental masturbation dialogue resonating in confusion and utter defeat, as the idea of a cartoon has crossed the line as sacred mechanism of indoctrination and not conducive to free speech and entertainment. Can one imagine if a public hissy fit had been made over the title of the movie, “White Men Can’t Jump”? But the film was edgy and funny and entirely in the realm of comedy.

My advice to those who choose to be offended by Apu, get over yourselves, and realize that one of the greatest privileges afforded by a society of liberty and freedom, is the ability to laugh at oneself. The world of entertainment does not and should not follow social morays and allows for an escape for the polarizing and toxic news cycle of the extreme of the political spectrum threatening to tear the country to shreds. And similar to the base tenets surrounding government, once something is demonized, it is forever.

Learn to laugh, and if you don’t like something, don’t watch.

God bless Apu, and we hope the rumors of your demise have been greatly exaggerated.

SOURCE





Ireland is still no haven for free speech

We are replacing one form of blasphemy with another.

Last Friday, 1,492,338 Irish people went to the polls to cast their vote in a democratic exercise which they knew would achieve nothing, which few of them really wanted, and which had been most notable for its long periods of torpor and apathy, only to be interrupted by a late burst of hysteria and accusations of racism.

Oh, we also voted to get rid of blasphemy from our Constitution – by an impressive 69 per cent to 31 per cent margin.

The presidential election was held on the same day and saw the popular incumbent, Michael D Higgins, face off against two women and, rather improbably, three judges from the Irish version of Dragons’ Den.

The whole jamboree had trundled along in a boring and predictable fashion until American-based Irish millionaire and Dragon, Peter Casey, touched the closest thing to a third rail in Irish politics – the vexed issue of Travellers.

That, at least, imbued a previously dull and uninspiring contest with something approaching relevance, and the fact that he rose from bottom of the heap on one per cent in the polls on the Tuesday to a remarkable 23 per cent, and second place in the vote, on Friday provoked a paroxysm of outrage from the great and the good of Irish society, with one prominent Irish Traveller, the actor John Connors, muttering darkly about ‘concentration camps’ being planned for his people.

The run-up to the blasphemy referendum, on the other hand, was even more subdued, despite the fact that it was a far more important vote than whoever gets to be president, which in Ireland is a largely ceremonial position whose main requirement of the winner is that they know which cutlery to use at state banquets.

In the curiously Irish way of doing things, blasphemy had been on the books since the 1937 Constitution was framed, but the legislation was obsolete and had been considered redundant for several decades.

Then, in 2009, and for reasons still best know only to him, then minister for justice Dermot Ahern amended a new Defamation Bill to include a provision for blasphemy and described it as: ‘A matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion.’

The decision to tack this ludicrous clause on to a Defamation Bill which was, ironically, meant to liberalise the media, and which came with its own €25,000 fine, never made sense to anyone – least of all Ahern, who tried to claim that they had framed it in such a way as to make a prosecution virtually impossible.

That was the first time any Irish observers can remember a minister for justice boasting about creating a deliberately unworkable law.

There was widespread consternation at the inclusion of blasphemy at the time, further exacerbated by the fact that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan both congratulated Ireland for our stance. Even for a country which has often had an unhealthy obsession with what others think of us, that fact, more than even the legislation itself, enraged many Irish people.

But while Pakistan and Saudi Arabia may have made for uncomfortable fellow-travellers on the road to blasphemy, it was a case brought against Stephen Fry which made international headlines.

During an interview on Irish television in 2015, Fry was asked about his views on God and what he would say to that deity should he ever meet him.

Fry’s response was that he would say: ‘How dare you create a world in which there is such misery? It’s not right, it’s utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?’

Those remarks may have come from the Holden Caulfield school of posturing-while-stating-the-bleeding-obvious, but an Irish TV viewer immediately contacted the Gardai and a criminal investigation was opened.

In a moment worthy of Flann O’Brien, the cops later admitted that because they couldn’t find a ‘substantial number of adherents’ who were grossly offended, there was no victim and therefore there would be no prosecution, giving Fry license to be even more smug than usual when he said he found the whole thing ‘enchanting’.

There has always been a whispered suspicion that the person who made the original complaint was actually an atheist activist who wanted to highlight the patent absurdity of such legislation and, for many Irish people, the whole notion of blasphemy on our books was seen almost as a minor quirk; a legislative anomaly which had no relevance.

It was, went this smug and ignorant narrative, a victimless crime.

That there were still people holding that point of view in the run-up to Friday’s referendum provides an example of the convenient amnesia which afflicts many of us in the West.

What seemed to have been either forgotten or ignored was that in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo slaughter in January 2015, when 12 journalists were murdered for offending Muslims, Irish newspapers and broadcasters were warned by Islamic leaders in this country that we would would be prosecuted under the blasphemy legislation if we ran any of the offending cartoons.

It’s still a topic of some debate in some newsrooms whether any Irish paper would have run the cartoons at all, or whether it provided a convenient excuse to cover the story without showing the images.

But the fact remains that one Islamic cleric in one mosque in Dublin was able to make an editorial decision for all Irish media.

That incident provided a reminder, even if it was seldom mentioned in the build-up to last week’s vote, that you don’t have to use specific legislation to shut down free speech – you merely have to threaten its use.

With the exception of the predictable Muslim opposition to its removal, and the spectacular, almost impressively ill-conceived assertion from one campaigner who claimed that the Holocaust only happened because there was no blasphemy clause in Nazi Germany, even many of those who argued against removing it seemed to do so reluctantly and rather timidly.

Our last two referendums, which ushered in same-sex marriage and then abortion, were widely regarded as a sign of Ireland’s rising appetite for a more liberal society, and it would appear that even those religious conservatives who would prefer to have kept blasphemy a criminal offence realised that this wasn’t the hill they wanted to die on.

Ultimately, the value of removing the legislation is arguably less than the danger it would have caused had it been retained.

But it would be a mistake for observers to get too excited about Ireland apparently emerging, blinking into the light of a new day where freedom of expression is enshrined in law.

After all, many of the groups who wanted to remove blasphemy from our Constitution, such as Amnesty Ireland and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, are also in favour of introducing stringent hate-speech laws.

That would immediately make our vote entirely moot, seeing as hate speech and blasphemy are now essentially distinctions without a difference in Europe.

Indeed, as the greatest Irish comedian of them all, Dave Allen, once said – if they don’t get you one way, they’ll get you by another.

SOURCE






Warren's Ludicrous DNA Discrimination Hypocrisy

Defining gender by one's biological sex is "fundamentally wrong," the "Honest Injun" asserts.

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services announced that it was looking into rescinding the Obama administration’s 2014 redefinition of sex as “gender identity,” to instead legally define gender by the “clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable” standard of an individual’s biological sex at birth. In other words, DNA, not a self-declared “gender identity,” would be the standard the government uses in legally classifying an individual’s gender.

Cue the leftist outrage from none other than America’s favorite 1/1024 Native American, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). It’s “discrimination,” Warren declared. “The Trump administration is trying to make discrimination more available all across the country. This is just fundamentally wrong.” (Clearly, “discrimination” and “fundamental” don’t mean what Warren thinks they mean.) She continued, “This is not who we are as a country. It does not reflect our best values. I will fight them on this. I will fight for anti-discrimination provisions.”

Evidently, Warren believes that objective, scientifically established fact is biased. In spite of the results from her recent DNA test, she continues to assert her claim of Native American ancestry and now she’s attacking DNA for discrimination based on “gender identity.” Hypocrisy always was her strong suit.

SOURCE





Non-Cognitive Deficits and Young Adult Outcomes: The Long-Run Impacts of a Universal Child Care Program

Correlation is not causation, but a universal childcare program in Quebec has just been evaluated and the cohorts who had higher access to childcare have been found to have worse health, lower life satisfaction, and higher crime rates later in life

Abstract

Past research has demonstrated that positive increments to the non-cognitive development of children can have long-run benefits. We test the symmetry of this contention by studying the effects of a sizeable negative shock to non-cognitive skills due to the introduction of universal child care in Quebec. We first confirm earlier findings showing reduced contemporaneous non-cognitive development following the program introduction in Quebec, with little impact on cognitive test scores. We then show these non-cognitive deficits persisted to school ages, and also that cohorts with increased child care access subsequently had worse health, lower life satisfaction, and higher crime rates later in life. The impacts on criminal activity are concentrated in boys. Our results reinforce previous evidence on the central role of non-cognitive skills for long-run success.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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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


Islamic terrorism isn’t a perversion of Islam. It’s the implementation of Islam. It is not a religion of the persecuted, but the persecutors. Its theology is violent supremacism.



There really is an actress named Donna Air. She seems a pleasant enough woman, though


What feminism has wrought:

There's actually some wisdom there. The dreamy lady says she is holding out for someone who meets her standards. The other lady reasonably replies "There's nobody there". Standards can be unrealistically high and feminists have laboured mightily to make them so


Some bright spark occasionally decides that Leftism is feminine and conservatism is masculine. That totally misses the point. If true, how come the vote in American presidential elections usually shows something close to a 50/50 split between men and women? And in the 2016 Presidential election, Trump won 53 percent of white women, despite allegations focused on his past treatment of some women.


Political correctness is Fascism pretending to be manners


Political Correctness is as big a threat to free speech as Communism and Fascism. All 3 were/are socialist.


The problem with minorities is not race but culture. For instance, many American black males fit in well with the majority culture. They go to college, work legally for their living, marry and support the mother of their children, go to church, abstain from crime and are considerate towards others. Who could reasonably object to such people? It is people who subscribe to minority cultures -- black, Latino or Muslim -- who can give rise to concern. If antisocial attitudes and/or behaviour become pervasive among a group, however, policies may reasonably devised to deal with that group as a whole


Black lives DON'T matter -- to other blacks. The leading cause of death among young black males is attack by other young black males


Psychological defence mechanisms such as projection play a large part in Leftist thinking and discourse. So their frantic search for evil in the words and deeds of others is easily understandable. The evil is in themselves. Leftist motivations are fundamentally Fascist. They want to "fundamentally transform" the lives of their fellow citizens, which is as authoritarian as you can get. We saw where it led in Russia and China. The "compassion" that Leftists parade is just a cloak for their ghastly real motivations


Occasionally I put up on this blog complaints about the privileged position of homosexuals in today's world. I look forward to the day when the pendulum swings back and homosexuals are treated as equals before the law. To a simple Leftist mind, that makes me "homophobic", even though I have no fear of any kind of homosexuals.

But I thought it might be useful for me to point out a few things. For a start, I am not unwise enough to say that some of my best friends are homosexual. None are, in fact. Though there are two homosexuals in my normal social circle whom I get on well with and whom I think well of.

Of possible relevance: My late sister was a homosexual; I loved Liberace's sense of humour and I thought that Robert Helpmann was marvellous as Don Quixote in the Nureyev ballet of that name.

Bible references on homosexuality: Jude 1:7; 1 Timothy 1:8-11; Mark 10:6-9; 1 Corinthians 6: 9-11; 1 Corinthians 7:2; Leviticus 18:32; Leviticus 20:13


I record on this blog many examples of negligent, inefficient and reprehensible behaviour on the part of British police. After 13 years of Labour party rule they have become highly politicized, with values that reflect the demands made on them by the political Left rather than than what the community expects of them. They have become lazy and cowardly and avoid dealing with real crime wherever possible -- preferring instead to harass normal decent people for minor infractions -- particularly offences against political correctness. They are an excellent example of the destruction that can be brought about by Leftist meddling.


I also record on this blog much social worker evil -- particularly British social worker evil. The evil is neither negligent nor random. It follows exactly the pattern you would expect from the Marxist-oriented indoctrination they get in social work school -- where the middle class is seen as the enemy and the underclass is seen as virtuous. So social workers are lightning fast to take children away from normal decent parents on the basis of of minor or imaginary infractions while turning a blind eye to gross child abuse by the underclass


Racial differences in temperament: Chinese are more passive even as little babies


The genetics of crime: I have been pointing out for some time the evidence that there is a substantial genetic element in criminality. Some people are born bad. See here, here, here, here (DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.12581) and here, for instance"


Gender is a property of words, not of people. Using it otherwise is just another politically correct distortion -- though not as pernicious as calling racial discrimination "Affirmative action"


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


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


So why do Leftists say "There is no such thing as right and wrong" when backed into a rhetorical corner? They say it because that is the predominant conclusion of analytic philosophers. And, as Keynes said: "Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back”


Children are the best thing in life. See also here.


Juergen Habermas, a veteran leftist German philosopher stunned his admirers not long ago by proclaiming, "Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter."


Consider two "jokes" below:

Q. "Why are Leftists always standing up for blacks and homosexuals?

A. Because for all three groups their only God is their penis"

Pretty offensive, right? So consider this one:

Q. "Why are evangelical Christians like the Taliban?

A. They are both religious fundamentalists"

The latter "joke" is not a joke at all, of course. It is a comparison routinely touted by Leftists. Both "jokes" are greatly offensive and unfair to the parties targeted but one gets a pass without question while the other would bring great wrath on the head of anyone uttering it. Why? Because political correctness is in fact just Leftist bigotry. Bigotry is unfairly favouring one or more groups of people over others -- usually justified as "truth".


One of my more amusing memories is from the time when the Soviet Union still existed and I was teaching sociology in a major Australian university. On one memorable occasion, we had a representative of the Soviet Womens' organization visit us -- a stout and heavily made-up lady of mature years. When she was ushered into our conference room, she was greeted with something like adulation by the local Marxists. In question time after her talk, however, someone asked her how homosexuals were treated in the USSR. She replied: "We don't have any. That was before the revolution". The consternation and confusion that produced among my Leftist colleagues was hilarious to behold and still lives vividly in my memory. The more things change, the more they remain the same, however. In Sept. 2007 President Ahmadinejad told Columbia university that there are no homosexuals in Iran.


It is widely agreed (with mainly Lesbians dissenting) that boys need their fathers. What needs much wider recognition is that girls need their fathers too. The relationship between a "Daddy's girl" and her father is perhaps the most beautiful human relationship there is. It can help give the girl concerned inner strength for the rest of her life.


A modern feminist complains: "We are so far from “having it all” that “we barely even have a slice of the pie, which we probably baked ourselves while sobbing into the pastry at 4am”."


Patriotism does NOT in general go with hostilty towards others. See e.g. here and here and even here ("Ethnocentrism and Xenophobia: A Cross-Cultural Study" by anthropologist Elizabeth Cashdan. In Current Anthropology Vol. 42, No. 5, December 2001).


The love of bureaucracy is very Leftist and hence "correct". Who said this? "Account must be taken of every single article, every pound of grain, because what socialism implies above all is keeping account of everything". It was V.I. Lenin


"An objection I hear frequently is: ‘Why should we tolerate intolerance?’ The assumption is that tolerating views that you don’t agree with is like a gift, an act of kindness. It suggests we’re doing people a favour by tolerating their view. My argument is that tolerance is vital to us, to you and I, because it’s actually the presupposition of all our freedoms. You cannot be free in any meaningful sense unless there is a recognition that we are free to act on our beliefs, we’re free to think what we want and express ourselves freely. Unless we have that freedom, all those other freedoms that we have on paper mean nothing" -- SOURCE


RELIGION:

Although it is a popular traditional chant, the "Kol Nidre" should be abandoned by modern Jewish congregations. It was totally understandable where it originated in the Middle Ages but is morally obnoxious in the modern world and vivid "proof" of all sorts of antisemitic stereotypes


What the Bible says about homosexuality:

"Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; It is abomination" -- Lev. 18:22

In his great diatribe against the pagan Romans, the apostle Paul included homosexuality among their sins:

"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.... Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them" -- Romans 1:26,27,32.

So churches that condone homosexuality are clearly post-Christian


Although I am an atheist, I have great respect for the wisdom of ancient times as collected in the Bible. And its condemnation of homosexuality makes considerable sense to me. In an era when family values are under constant assault, such a return to the basics could be helpful. Nonetheless, I approve of St. Paul's advice in the second chapter of his epistle to the Romans that it is for God to punish them, not us. In secular terms, homosexuality between consenting adults in private should not be penalized but nor should it be promoted or praised. In Christian terms, "Gay pride" is of the Devil


The homosexuals of Gibeah (Judges 19 & 20) set in train a series of events which brought down great wrath and destruction on their tribe. The tribe of Benjamin was almost wiped out when it would not disown its homosexuals. Are we seeing a related process in the woes presently being experienced by the amoral Western world? Note that there was one Western country that was not affected by the global financial crisis and subsequently had no debt problems: Australia. In September 2012 the Australian federal parliament considered a bill to implement homosexual marriage. It was rejected by a large majority -- including members from both major political parties


Religion is deeply human. The recent discoveries at Gobekli Tepe suggest that it was religion not farming that gave birth to civilization. Early civilizations were at any rate all very religious. Atheism is mainly a very modern development and is even now very much a minority opinion


"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" - Isaiah 5:20 (KJV)


I think it's not unreasonable to see Islam as the religion of the Devil. Any religion that loves death or leads to parents rejoicing when their children blow themselves up is surely of the Devil -- however you conceive of the Devil. Whether he is a man in a red suit with horns and a tail, a fallen spirit being, or simply the evil side of human nature hardly matters. In all cases Islam is clearly anti-life and only the Devil or his disciples could rejoice in that.

And there surely could be few lower forms of human behaviour than to give abuse and harm in return for help. The compassionate practices of countries with Christian traditions have led many such countries to give a new home to Muslim refugees and seekers after a better life. It's basic humanity that such kindness should attract gratitude and appreciation. But do Muslims appreciate it? They most commonly show contempt for the countries and societies concerned. That's another sign of Satanic influence.

And how's this for demonic thinking?: "Asian father whose daughter drowned in Dubai sea 'stopped lifeguards from saving her because he didn't want her touched and dishonoured by strange men'

And where Muslims tell us that they love death, the great Christian celebration is of the birth of a baby -- the monogenes theos (only begotten god) as John 1:18 describes it in the original Greek -- Christmas!


No wonder so many Muslims are hostile and angry. They have little companionship from women and not even any companionship from dogs -- which are emotionally important in most other cultures. Dogs are "unclean"


Some advice from Martin Luther: Esto peccator et pecca fortiter, sed fortius fide et gaude in christo qui victor est peccati, mortis et mundi: peccandum est quam diu sic sumus. Vita haec non est habitatio justitiae


On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.


I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!


Germaine Greer is a stupid old Harpy who is notable only for the depth and extent of her hatreds


Even Mahatma Gandhi was profoundly unimpressed by Africans



Index page for this site


DETAILS OF REGULARLY UPDATED BLOGS BY JOHN RAY:

"Tongue Tied"
"Dissecting Leftism"
"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:

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 (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.com/

OR: (After 2015)
https://web.archive.org/web/20160322114550/http://jonjayray.com/