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.


For a list of blog backups see here or here.

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

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

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

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



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31 October, 2018

Bomb threat to firm that organised Larysa Switlyk’s goat hunt



You wouldn't want to be married to her

The US company which helped broker the hunting trip during which a TV presenter shot goats and sheep on Islay claims it has received a bomb threat.

The Texas-based Detail Company has been overwhelmed with hate mail since Larysa Switlyk, a professional “huntress”, posted images of her Scottish shoot online.

Rick Blevins, a sales manager, told The Mail on Sunday that the company always adhered to the rules of the host country “but we have had death threats, and now bomb threats. [Our company] has been the victim of horrendous attacks from what appear to be fringe group fanatics. Those individuals have been as poor a representation of Scotland as I can imagine.”

Of the bomb threat, he said that it did not appear to be very credible but a report has been filed with the local police department. He added: “With so many acts of hate and terror being perpetuated throughout the world, one cannot be too cautious. It has been alarming and frightening to some of our staff.”

Ms Switlyk, who hosts the Larysa Unleashed programme on YouTube, was widely criticised after posting a picture of herself smiling behind a dead wild goat; more than 12,000 people commented on the image.

The Scottish government has said that it will review the law on animal culling after the response to the images.

Ms Switlyk has since disconnected from social media for two weeks while off on another “hunting adventure”.

SOURCE





Sinead O’Connor changes name and converts to Islam

She has had severe mental health problems so one hopes that no-one takes her example seriously

A POP legend has dramatically announced her conversion to Islam with a message to her fans: ‘Wear a hijab — just do it.’

SINEAD O’Connor has announced she has converted to Islam, and changed her name to the Arabic word for “martyr”.

The Nothing Compare 2 U singer, 51, tweeted a picture of herself wearing a hijab.

Mum-of-four Sinead was ordained a priest by a Catholic sect during the 1990s.

But the Irish singer has changed faiths and her name to Shuhada Davitt.

Sinead, who has struggled with mental health issues, told fans: “This is to announce that I am proud to have become a Muslim. “This is the natural conclusion of any intelligent theologian’s journey. “All scripture study leads to Islam. Which makes all other scriptures redundant.

“I will be given (another) new name. It will be Shuhada.”

Last Friday she posted a video of herself singing an Islamic call to prayer.

Sinead changed her name last year to Magda Davitt, saying in an interview that she wanted to be “free of parental curses”.

In the past, she has said in interviews that her Christian faith has helped her overcome personal turmoil.

But in 2011 she labelled the Vatican a “nest of vipers” over alleged child sex abuse.

Last year, Sinead O’Connor sent a sexually explicit message to Russell Brand after he offered her mental health support.

Brand sent a supportive message to the 50-year-old on YouTube, saying that following a public breakdown she needed “connection, meaning, purpose, love and a bit of time, really”.

She replied: “Could also do with a jolly good rogering, frankly. The last man who touched my body took out my reproductive system two years ago. “So if you really wanna be part of my healing journey, c’mon, horse it into me, boss.”


SOURCE





Holy Ireland is no more

But politically correct Ireland could be just as tyrannical

Ireland's blasphemy referendum is a small step towards creating a 21st century constitution, prime minister Leo Varadkar says.

The anticipated result, removing the term from the state's official statement of values, marks the latest sign of Ireland's decades-long social liberalisation from a deeply-Catholic and conservative society to an increasingly secular one.

Varadkar said the change was approved by around 70 per cent of the electorate during Friday's vote.

"It is very much part of an ongoing campaign in many ways to reform our constitution, to make it a 21st century constitution or a 21st century Republic."

He placed the public poll among a series of reforms beginning in the 1960's when the state removed the special place of the Catholic Church from the constitution and including enshrining marriage equality and giving women the right to choose abortion.

"This is the next small step in what is a very big deal, which is the reform of our constitution, so the next set of referenda are pencilled in for May."

Removing the reference to blasphemy was backed by a Catholic Church which has sustained severe reputational damage from decades of clerical sex abuse.

Nobody has been prosecuted for the offence in Ireland since 1855, in connection with an alleged case of Bible-burning.

Blasphemy was defined as publishing or uttering something "grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion".

Anybody found guilty could face a 25,000 euro ($A40,283) fine.

Ireland has also voted to re-elect its president, Michael D. Higgins, for a second term.

Higgins easily won re-election to the largely ceremonial role with 56 per cent of the vote, the electoral commission said on Saturday.

SOURCE






William Shakespeare is slammed by Australian black as a racist who helped spread 'white supremacy'

Sheer ignorance. Has she ever studied a Shakespeare play?

English playwright William Shakespeare has been described as a 'whitesplainer' and a product of 'white supremacy' on the ABC's Q&A program.

Audience member Katriona Robertson started the discussion by asking how The Bard, often described as the greatest English language writer of all time, could be relevant in the 21st century.

'What kind of influence can a 454-year-old dead white guy have on Australia's varied cultural landscape without whitesplaining things?' she said.

Indigenous actress Nakkiah Lui, 27, answered by suggesting there was a racist element to Shakespeare's writing. 'I'd like to be able to call Shakespeare 'white classics',' she said. 'We identify that the canon in which we draw so much of our culture is actually racialised.'

Lui, who has previously featured in an ABC indigenous comedy skit describing white people as 'c***s', disputed Q&A host Tony Jones's suggestion that Shakespeare's writing on the human condition was 'beyond race'.

'I don't think bringing up race is a bad thing. Let's talk about race when it comes to whiteness as well,' she said.

'One of the reasons Shakespeare is so prolific is because he was a white guy.

'Because white supremacy is something that has been very prevalent around the world. Part of that is bringing in culture and Shakespeare's part of that.'

The theatre-special panel show in Sydney was discussing how Shakespeare had written about a black general in Othello.

Elements of the arts community use the term 'cultural appropriation' to disparage the idea of Europeans writing about ethnic minorities.

Lui, a co-writer of the ABC series Black Comedy, suggested telling the modern stories of racial minorities.

'I would like to see the way that we all still continue to embrace Shakespeare is to start to embrace the stories of people who aren't Shakespeare: the people who are young, who are people of colour, gender,' she said.

'People who don't necessarily fit the role or who don't come from the culture Shakespeare came from.'

Shakespeare died at age 52 in 1616, 172 years before the British First Fleet sailed into Sydney Harbour.

The bard who penned masterpieces Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing and the Merchant of Venice died 150 years before the Industrial Revolution began, leading to Great Britain embarking on imperial expansion.

SOURCE 

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

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

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

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30 October, 2018

Thank you, Mr. President, for moving to make male and female great again

In the last few years, biological girls have seen their rights violated in school bathrooms and in sports. National confusion has ensued ever since the previous administration decided to reinterpret Title IX’s sex anti-discrimination clause to include self-proclaimed “gender identity.”

That may soon come to an end under the Trump administration.

The Department of Health and Human Services has drafted a memo that would reverse the Obama administration’s action and return the legal definition of “sex” under Title IX civil rights law to what its authors meant: sex rooted in unchanging biological reality. According to The New York Times, the memo was drafted last spring and has been circulating ever since.

Title IX bans sex discrimination in education programs that receive government financial assistance, meaning schools have to abide by the government’s interpretation of Title IX or risk losing federal funds.

When the Obama administration announced it was including “gender identity” under the word “sex,” many schools felt they had to treat gender identity as the standard for determining access to bathrooms, sports teams, etc. The result was headlines like “Transgender Athletes Dominate High School Women’s Sports.”

The memo spells out the proposed definition of “sex” as applied to federal statutes as “a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth.” The proposed definition won’t include a “select a gender” option, as was offered under the Obama administration.

This is simply a return to reality. Sex is an immutable biological reality, while gender identity is a social construct that can change over time. The two terms are not interchangeable. The authors of Title IX meant biological sex, not gender identity.

The Obama administration’s conflation of the two was not just legally problematic—it also pushed transgender ideology further into the mainstream. That’s regrettable, because transgender ideology has real and harmful effects on people who are suffering and need help.

When individuals try to live out life in an ideology that has no basis in biological fact, the consequences are stark.

I know, because I lived the trans life for eight years.

I have received hundreds of regret letters from trans people who now realize—too late—that gender-pretending is damaging. Regretters have called gender change “the biggest mistake of my life.” The late transgender movie actress Alexis Arquette called her gender transition “bulls***” because no one can really change their gender.

So many have written me personally about the unhappy consequences of imitating the opposite gender for so many years, telling of lives needlessly torn apart and thoughts of suicide. I put those emails into a book, “Trans Life Survivors,” which shows the human toll caused by encouraging distressed people to undergo permanent surgeries and take powerful hormones without considering other causes and treatments.

This past weekend, I opened my email as I do each morning and found another message from a person who had ignored biology and went head-first into trans ideology. Now, this person wants out:

I am now 40 years old, post op male to female transgender person. And to put it simply, very miserable in life now. I have followed you on YouTube … and totally agree with your theories! I am at my wits’ end with life and what I have done to myself. It’s an inspiration to see and read about what I would call “survivors!”

Many trans folks, after years of “living the life,” now want to detransition. Many report to me that they were sexually abused, raped, or molested at a young age—in one case, as a toddler.

Teenage girls are flocking to gender change as an escape. One 15-year-old girl, who the gender experts diagnosed with gender dysphoria, explained to her mother that she wanted to “erase my past” because she was sexually abused by her dad.

In another case, a young 14-year-old girl confessed that “I used being trans to try and escape being scared about being small and weak. I thought that if I presented myself as a man I’d be safer.”

Another girl’s mother wrote that her daughter was raped at age 19 and desperately “is trying to remove any connection to her being female visually or sexually.”

This is the kind of suffering that has driven many to change genders. As a society, we need to honestly consider: Is changing genders an effective long-term treatment for past sexual abuse and feelings of insecurity?

Obviously not.

Billy, another trans life survivor, had been sexually abused at age 11 during a summer swimming camp by his diving coach. Billy explained to me that after the abuse, he hated his genitalia and wanted to become a female. Abuse can do that.

Billy, like so many abused as children, was diagnosed by the “gender specialist” with gender dysphoria and given cross-sex hormones and reassignment surgery. He lived fully as a transgender female until regret set in.

Now he has detransitioned back to male and is married—a true trans life survivor who prefers to live a biologically authentic life.

Trans ideology ruined the life of another friend, born male and now living as a trans female. After being diagnosed with gender dysphoria, his excellent employment allowed him financially to transition from male to female. But sex change regret has set in, and now he wants to detransition.

This nice-looking, tall, slender, intelligent transgender person is another who had been sexually abused as a child.

Too many people tell me that even when they establish a history of sexual abuse and communicate that to the gender therapist, the therapist disregards it. If a client wants to change their gender, the therapist will affirm them without reservation and help them down that path.

As a former trans person, and as someone who daily receives stories of physical and emotional devastation wrought by trans ideology, I look forward to a federal definition of sex as being rooted in immutable biology, without the option of being self-selected.

The science is absolutely clear. Sex doesn’t change over time, even with hormones and surgery—and that’s a good thing.

SOURCE






“Fake news” doesn't even begin to describe it. British media maligning Tommy Robinson

On Friday, the British judiciary lifted reporting restrictions on the three trials of a total of twenty “Asian” men at Leeds County Court, allowing the media to inform the public that the men were sentenced to a total of 221 years in prison for the rapes of fifteen young girls in the West Yorkshire town of Huddersfield. It was the second of these trials that Tommy Robinson was reporting about online on May 25 when he was arrested outside the Leeds courthouse, rushed through a brief trial conducted by Judge Geoffrey Marson, sentenced to thirteen months behind bars, and immediately confined in Hull Prison.

On June 13, he was transferred to Onley Prison, which has a higher Muslim population than the institution in Leeds and was thus more dangerous; exactly who ordered this transfer, which seems utterly unjustified except as a malicious attempt to expose Robinson to harm, remains unknown. Through the summer, Tommy's supporters held rallies around Britain, accusing their nation's establishment of having illegitimately imprisoned Tommy in order to shut down a major critic of the official appeasement of Islam; meanwhile, the mainstream media and political and cultural elite insisted in unison that Tommy's trial had been completely on the up-and-up and that he'd gotten precisely what he deserved.

That line of argument, however, was completely discredited on August 1, when Lord Burnett, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, and two other judges issued a ruling that could scarcely have been more severe in its knockdown of Marson's treatment of Tommy. Writing that the whole thing had been a “muddle,” from the nature of the charges to the justification for the verdict, the judges reversed Tommy's conviction, freed him on bail, and ordered a new hearing. That hearing is scheduled for tomorrow, October 23.

Did Lord Burnett's decision chasten Tommy's critics? Not a chance. On Friday, once the reporting restrictions were lifted on those grooming trials, the major media in Britain dutifully provided accounts of the verdicts. There was certainly a lot to report: three trials, several months, fifteen victims, twenty defendants, a mountain of stomach-turning testimony.

But the focus of the British media wasn't on any of this – it was on Tommy. Since he'd played a leading role in drawing attention to the existence of Muslim rape gangs in Britain – a fact that local governments, police departments, social-services agencies, and the mainstream media had kept shamefully, pusillanimously silent about for decades – they might have taken the occasion to apologize for having hounded him so cruelly and to thank him for the courage he'd exhibited and they hadn't. Instead, they stayed true to form.

In the Guardian, Josh Halliday dwelt on the rulings of Judge Marson. “It was during the second trial in May when the case was jeopardised by the actions of Tommy Robinson, the founder of the English Defence League,” wrote Halliday. “Within five hours of recording the video, Robinson was summoned before the judge, Geoffrey Marson QC, and summarily sentenced to 13 months imprisonment for contempt of court.....

Jailing him after the Leeds video, Judge Marson told him his actions could have caused the trial to be re-run, costing 'hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pounds.'” Halliday accorded only the briefest and most elliptical of mentions to the sensational August 1 ruling by Lord Burnett and colleagues: “Robinson...was released from HMP Onley in Rugby on 1 August after successfully challenging the Leeds contempt of court ruling.” There was nothing whatsoever in Halliday's article to indicate that Marson's statements, which Halliday quoted as if they were gospel, had in fact been completely discredited by Lord Burnett's higher court.

In good British-media fashion, Halliday also took care to note that some of the supporters who showed up outside the Old Bailey at the time of Tommy's previous court appearance had carried flags of “the far-right group Generation Identity.” Anyone watching a video of that gathering could tell you that any Generation Identity flags were vastly outnumbered by Union Jacks.

In the Daily Mail, Tim Stickings read from the same song sheet as Halliday, citing at length, again as if it were gospel, the B.S. served up by Marson in defense of his kangaroo trial. Tommy, Stickings contended, had “jeopardiz[ed]” the rape trial “with an illegal Facebook video.” Stickings's reference to Tommy's August 1 release took this form: “He was jailed and later released on a technicality....The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Burnett, said the judge at Leeds Crown Court was wrong to deal with Robinson as quickly as he did.” One cannot easily conceive of a more outrageously dishonest way to refer to Lord Burnett's ruling, which, again, comprehensively shredded Marson's conduct of the May proceedings.

Stickings was also careful to remind readers that “Robinson is a convicted fraudster who has also served time for assault and drugs offences.” Tommy has written in his autobiography about the Orwellian way in which British authorities scoured his finances in search of something, anything, however minor, for which they could prosecute him. In addition, Stickings referred to Tommy's courageous public activities not as activism or journalism but, dismissively, as “antics.”

In the Independent, Lizzie Dearden toed the same line. She, too, quoted Marson as if his ruling hadn't been nullified. She, too, maintained that the grooming trials “were almost derailed by Tommy Robinson.” She also spent several paragraphs asserting that the rape gangs had had nothing to do with religion or cultural background.

Reports in other British media followed the same formula. It was as if they'd all been dictated, word for word, from on high. Rarely have the words “fake news” been more apropos.

“Is this a new low or what?” I wrote on Saturday in an e-mail to a British contact. “Yes,” she replied, “I do think this is a new low. They are all reporting on the Leeds trial even though it was thrown out, as if the findings there can be relied upon. All one needs to do is to repeat things often enough and people will believe them.”

My contact, who has carefully studied the May 25 broadcast that landed Tommy behind bars, also pointed out that, just over five minutes into that livestream, Tommy asks his camera operator “Should we stay live?” and then asks a nearby police officer where he can stand while broadcasting. Hence, contrary to the media's party line, “the police knew he was not only recording, but live recording, and let him carry on for another 70 minutes before arresting him. So, if he was jeopardising the trial, why didn’t they stop him earlier?” Good question. Indeed, or at least so it seems to me, dispositive.

In a Saturday YouTube video, Tommy commented on the reports by Halliday, Stickings, Dearden, and others, noting that while the British government's severe restrictions on courtroom reporting are supposedly meant to ensure a fair trial (even though such rules are virtually unheard of in the U.S. and most other Western countries), the real effect of these edicts is to reduce coverage of grooming-gang trials to a single news cycle – and the impact of that, in turn, is to minimize public awareness of and outrage over what cannot be described as anything other than an Islamic rape epidemic.

(Just imagine if there had been a news blackout on, say the O.J. Simpson murder trial, with news media prohibited from printing or speaking a word about it until the day the verdict came in.)

The mainstream British news media may sometimes chafe at these reporting restrictions, but they don't protest too much, because, their politics being what they are, they don't really want to dwell on the topic of Muslim rape. God forbid that these trials might serve as an educational tool, finally opening British eyes, all these years after 9/11, to the dark reality of Islam's teachings about the sexual rights of male believers, the punishment for female immodesty, and the proper social position of infidels.

Responding in his YouTube video to the universal charge that he had jeopardized the trial, Tommy quoted court documents that explicitly state the contrary. “What I said [in the May 25 online video report] was already in the public domain,” Tommy stated, making a point that's been well established ever since his arrest, but that the British media have brazenly chosen to lie about. Tommy also had a few choice words for Lizzie Dearden, the above-mentioned Independent hack who flatly denies the Islamic roots of the grooming gangs. “In the court transcripts for my trial,” he noted, “Lizzie Dearden...is named as breaching two reporting restrictions for the same case the same weekend.” But she got away with it, while he didn't – for reasons that need hardly be spelled out.

SOURCE






New York Moves to Silence Dissent

The political battle has now become a fight for the very freedom of speech for conservatives.    

Lost in the bustle of the midterm elections has been a very disturbing escalation of New York’s war against those who dissent from left-wing policies. We’ve covered Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his abuse of financial regulations to target the National Rifle Association in the wake of the Parkland shooting. Cuomo’s totalitarianism has drawn belated opposition from the long-silent ACLU, but Fox News reports that other states are starting to employ the Cuomo playbook.

Well, things in New York have gotten worse, not better. The state is suing ExxonMobil for “misleading investors” about the possible risks from climate change. At least that’s what New York’s attorney general is saying in legal documents. In reality, the suit was filed because ExxonMobil isn’t going along with the preferred environmental policies of the current powers-that-be in the Empire State.

This isn’t Cuomo’s first such rodeo involving the use of government to find a back-door restriction on our rights. The Patriot Post team has warned about the use of RICO as a political weapon in the debate over environmental policy in the past.

In the latter years of Bill Clinton’s administration, he supported using an avalanche of civil litigation to compel gun manufacturers to accept policies that had been rejected by lawmakers at the federal and state level — or face bankruptcy.

Back in 2016, we asked, “How do conservatives expect to mount a comeback when even making the argument becomes illegal?” Well, that question has changed — largely because candidate Donald Trump became President Donald Trump. But the fundamental question we posed back then not only remains, it has expanded into a host of such questions.

Can conservatism survive if even making the conservative argument is criminalized? For that matter, can conservative groups compete in the market in the face of Chokepoint 2.0, which could cut them off from financial services? What if conservatives are excluded from law school or medical school? Can conservatives hope to win elections if Silicon Valley muzzles their arguments?

As outlandish as they may seem, those questions are very real. And these actions by New York, which Andrew Cuomo has sought to export to other states, are an abuse of power on par with the Democrats’ “John Doe” investigations in Wisconsin and Barack Obama’s weaponization of the IRS and other federal agencies against the Tea Party.

In essence, the stakes have increased. This is not merely a fight about policy, such as an argument about marginal tax rates or health care. It is now nothing less than a fight for freedom of speech for conservatives.

SOURCE






Sydney Anglicans ban valorization of homosexuals

The Sydney Anglican clergy are just about the last of the real Anglicans.  Most of the rest are just dressup queens

The Sydney Anglican Diocese has provoked controversy by proposing a policy to ensure that all church property is used in ways consistent with Anglican church teaching.

The proposal vetoed activities such as same-sex marriage receptions, meditative yoga, and indigenous smoking ceremonies, and was intended to extend to some 900 church properties. Parts of the policy — those concerned with smoking ceremonies — were withdrawn following protests from indigenous leaders and school principals. But many were still angry at what the church had proposed.

Religious doctrines often seem bizarre to those who do not belong to the faith community. It can be hard, for example, to see what problem believers have with yoga or hosting wedding receptions.

The Sydney Anglican policy emerged from specific Christian beliefs about salvation, the human person, human sexuality, and freedom. To those who share these beliefs, the policy might well make sense. To those who don’t, the whole exercise can — and did — seem bizarre, and simply another example of the irrelevance of religion to mainstream everyday Australian life.

After a fortnight when religious schools have been accused of wanting to expel gay students and church landlords accused of wanting to do the same to gay tenants, religious freedom is still a hot topic. And the reason is that one of the features of being a citizen in an open and free society is having to figure out how to live with those whose worldviews and beliefs are far removed from our own.

Even if we think they are wrong and that their practices are offensive, we must be sure to allow religious people and communities the freedom to interpret the world and the universe as they see fit. And we must also afford them the freedom to order their affairs — including their property use — in ways that align with those beliefs, as long as they do nothing illegal or harmful to others.

Of course, if we don’t like it — and often there is a lot not to like — we are free to criticise it because we live in a society that tolerates freedom of speech and the frank exchange of opinions. But criticising a church for attempting to implement a policy that could have a substantial impact on non-church people is one thing; it is quite another to tell it how to deal with its own property.

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 October, 2018

FBI Investigating Molotov Cocktail Attack on Seattle Church as Possible Hate Crime

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating a Molotov cocktail attack on a Christian church in Seattle on Thursday, Oct. 18, as a potential hate crime, according to King 5 News.

“The FBI is now involved in the investigation and is working to determine if this was a hate crime,” said Michael Crowe with the news outlet.

On Thursday night, a suspect threw several Molotov cocktails at the Iglesia ni Cristo church in Rainier Valley, Seattle, starting a small fire outside the church. District Minister of the Pacific Northwest Barrington Thompson said “about 250 people” were inside the church during the attack, but no one was injured.

“It seemed like he was doing sloppy work, and thank God he was doing sloppy work,” Thompson said about the perpetrator.

According to a report by the Seattle Police Department, witnesses to the attack “stated a person had thrown lit bottles of an unknown liquid at the building” shortly after 8 p.m., causing “minor damage to the exterior of the church.”

A video from King 5 News shows scorch marks on the church doors and walls, as well as security camera footage of the explosions and ensuing fire.

SOURCE






Disintegrating Families, Disintegrating Culture

Arnold Ahlert

In recent columns, this writer has sought to address the root causes of the nation's increasing polarization. One of the foremost of those is an education system that turns out generations of weak-thinking Americans whose command of the nation's founding documents, civic structures, and historical foundations is virtually nonexistent — even as those same Americans are well-schooled in the nation's shortcomings.

If this effort is allowed to continue, our status as a constitutional republic and what is often referred to as the world's "last best hope for mankind" is seriously threatened. Nationally televised congressional hearings would be a great way to begin shedding light on a contemptible dynamic that can no longer be blamed on incompetence.

It is nothing less than a concerted and coordinated effort to "fundamentally transform" the nation, and it must be exposed.

Yet there can be no mistaking the reality that the devolution of our education system has root causes as well. The failure factories otherwise known as public schools created — and nurtured — by the Democrat Education Complex are far easier to maintain in a disintegrating culture. There is a level of legitimacy in the all-too-familiar teachers' lament that some children are "unteachable," and that assertion is almost invariably accompanied by the reason for it: Most of these children live in circumstances that could be charitably described as "chaotic" at best — and wholly removed from anything resembling civilized norms at worst.

How did we get to that place? Before the emergence of LBJ's Great Society, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) was reserved for widows, as a means of funding once-married women who had lost the primary male supporter of the family. In the 1960s, Johnson and Congress changed the qualifications: Any household where there was no male family head present became eligible for taxpayer subsidies.

The late Patrick Moynihan predicted the calamity that would follow, especially among blacks, where the out-of-wedlock birth rate has now reached 77%, and single-parent families are mostly headed by women. Moynihan was criticized for being racist, and for assuming middle class values "are the correct values for everyone in America," as civil rights leader Floyd McKissick asserted at the time.

Middle class values? In 1963, more than 90% of all American babies had married parents. A UN report released last week reveals the overall number of American births occurring out of wedlock has now reached 40%. The numbers for the Millennial generation are even worse: A whopping 57% of parents ages 26 to 31 are having children without getting married. Bloomberg News characterized the UN report as a "cultural shift."

A cultural calamity is more like it.

Nonetheless, Americans are supposed to be encouraged by the fact that these births are occurring predominantly among unmarried couples living together, as opposed to single mothers. Moreover, the nation's fertility rate, which reached a 30-year low last year, "would be much steeper if women weren't having children outside marriage," states John Santelli, a professor in population, family health, and pediatrics at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health. "The trend will continue, there's no doubt about it," he adds. "We can't go back to [the] '50s."

"The '50s" is a term currently used by progressives to belittle the nation's cultural values, and no one demonstrated that better than students responding to two law professors who took Americans to task for abandoning them, including the idea that one should get "married before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake." The students asserted those values "stem from the very same malignant logic of hetero-patriarchal, class-based, white supremacy that plagues our country today," and are "steeped in anti-blackness and white hetero-patriarchal respectability, i.e. two-hetero-parent homes."

In other words, getting married and staying married is racist, homophobic, and elitist.

Columnist Joseph Misulonas is also on board with the current trend. "So don't feel bad if you get pregnant out of wedlock," he writes. "You simply are representing our modern times."

How are our modern times working out? According to a Brookings Institution report, two-thirds of unmarried parents split up before their child reaches the age of 12. And according to the latest study in a series of them conducted by agencies within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services approximately once each decade, children living with their biological but unmarried parents are four times as likely to be physically, sexually, or emotionally abused than children living with married parents.

It doesn't get more "modern" than that. And while it's easy to paper over this worrisome trend with the angry jargon of social justice warriors, or simply embrace it as the latest fad, there is no avoiding what's really going on: More and more Americans reject the idea of being wholly committed to a marriage and their children.

It's not surprising. While marriage is a legal commitment, it is also a spiritual one, and religion has been in decline for decades. We also live in an age where technology abets increasing levels of social dysfunction in a nation where millions of Americans now prefer social-media connections to physical interaction. Add identity politics to the mix, and it gets pretty tough for "toxic," "privileged," or "unnecessary" males to interact with women who are alternately "survivors" or "empowered" — all while the specter of violating the ever-expanding demands of political correctness hang heavy in the air.

Furthermore, if one can remain noncommittal with regard to two of life's most important decisions, that casual indifference will not be quarantined from other aspects of one's life. Perhaps that's why it's been so easy to convince millions of Americans that nonjudgmentalism, which posits that believing one value is superior to another is the equivalent of bigotry, is a superior way of thinking. Perhaps it's why record numbers of Millennials remain living at home, or why 60 million abortions have been performed since 1973.

In short, the "easy way out" has never been easier.

Even more troubling (and indicative), when the important is trivialized, the trivial becomes important. Thus, we have a nation where Hollywood celebrities wax indignant about Disney cartoon princesses, college students demand "safe spaces" and courses free from "micro aggressions," white milk is called a symbol of white supremacy, and a semipermanent state of hate and hysteria becomes a lifestyle choice.

A choice that allows one to completely dismiss millions of one's fellow Americans as "deplorables" who "cling" to guns, God, and religion.

What millions of Americans are clinging to are the values that made this nation exceptional, and nothing forms the bedrock of that exceptionalism better than an intact nuclear family. A nation that dismisses it as just another "lifestyle choice" does so at its peril. There is nothing remotely "modern" about abandoning marriage, or "allowing a village" to raise one's children. That such a proposition can be even be considered indicates we are a society besieged by toxic levels of self-centeredness and irresponsibility.

When children and marriage are essentially disposable, so is everything else.

SOURCE






Study: Online attacks on Jews ramp up before Election Day

Far-right extremists have ramped up an intimidating wave of anti-Semitic harassment against Jewish journalists, political candidates, and others ahead of next month’s US midterm elections, according to a report released Friday by a Jewish civil rights group.

The Anti-Defamation League’s report says its researchers analyzed more than 7.5 million Twitter messages from Aug. 31 to Sept. 17 and found nearly 30 percent of the accounts repeatedly tweeting derogatory terms about Jews appeared to be automated "bots."

But accounts controlled by real-life humans often mount the most "worrisome and harmful" anti-Semitic attacks, sometimes orchestrated by leaders of neo-Nazi or white nationalist groups, the researchers said.

"Both anonymity and automation have been used in online propaganda offensives against the Jewish community during the 2018 midterms," they wrote.

Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL’s national director and CEO, said the midterm elections have been a "rallying point" for far-right extremists to organize efforts to spread hate online.

"It’s a place where extremists really have felt emboldened," Greenblatt said of social media platforms.

Billionaire philanthropist George Soros was a leading subject of harassing tweets. Soros, a Hungarian-born Jew demonized by right-wing conspiracy theorists, is one of the prominent Democrats who had pipe bombs sent to them this week.

The ADL’s study concludes that online disinformation and abuse is disproportionately targeting Jews in the United States "during this crucial political moment."

"Prior to the election of President Donald Trump, anti-Semitic harassment and attacks were rare and unexpected, even for Jewish Americans who were prominently situated in the public eye. Following his election, anti-Semitism has become normalized and harassment is a daily occurrence," the report says.

The New York City-based ADL has commissioned other studies of online hate, including a report in May that estimated about 3 million Twitter users posted or reposted at least 4.2 million anti-Semitic tweets in English over a 12-month period ending Jan. 28. An earlier report said anti-Semitic incidents in the United States the previous year had reached the highest tally it has counted in more than two decades.

For the latest report, researchers interviewed five Jewish people, including two recent political candidates, who had faced "human-based attacks" against them on social media this year. Their experiences demonstrated that anti-Semitic harassment "has a chilling effect on Jewish Americans’ involvement in the public sphere," their report says.

"While each interview subject spoke of not wanting to let threats of the trolls affect their online activity, political campaigns, academic research or news reporting, they all admitted the threats of violence and deluges of anti-Semitism had become part of their internal equations," researchers wrote.

The most popular term used in tweets containing the #TrumpTrain hashtag was "Soros." The study also found a "surprising" abundance of tweets referencing "QAnon," a right-wing conspiracy theory that started on an online message board and has been spread by Trump supporters.

"There are strong anti-Semitic undertones, as followers decry George Soros and the Rothschild family as puppeteers," researchers wrote.

SOURCE






From a safe distance we’ll watch Tasmania’s gender folly fail

When it comes to Tasmania’s plan to become the first state to erase a baby’s gender from a birth certificate, please doff your cap to our federalist forefathers. They deserve more credit than we often give them. The federal system set down in our Constitution means one state can conduct a social experiment while the rest of the country looks on and learns.

The federal structure has the other added bonus of offering a shorter distance between the rulers and the ruled, at least on matters reserved to the states. That won’t save a state from foolish politicians, but as a matter of democratic will we cannot fault the gender-bender politics of Tasmania’s parliament. If most voters cannot agree on who should govern their state, instead opting for a motley crew of politicians more interested in social experiments than economic policy, well then, that’s democracy.

People get the politicians they deserve. And in Tasmania, the Liberal Hodgman government relies on the casting vote of a Speaker elected to the position with Greens and Labor support. The original bill is sensibly aimed at ending the need for transgender people to divorce before they can change their gender on official documents. The Greens and Labor then went further, pushing for amendments to remove gender from birth certificates, with Speaker Sue Hickey’s support.

If the bill passes, watch that other magnificent part of democracy: blowback from voters when politicians overstep the mark. And people in mainland states have the luxury of watching this social experiment unfold and the chance to harness sensible arguments so we do not follow Tasmania’s folly.

Where do you start when it comes to talking about sex and gender? I tried delving into the academic world for some clues. That was a mistake. I discovered a morass of ivory tower posturing, confusion and weird new words meant to uncover some old and apparently persistent evil. Calls to erase sex and gender as a way to topple the white/cis/hetero/patriarchal supremacy and normativity sound better suited to a horror movie than reasoned argument.

I bumped into feminists who think that transgender people who alter their gender reinforce sexist gender roles. And others who say that transgender people challenge oppressive gender norms. I found some academics who think that if you were a man, you experienced male privilege, so it is impossible for you to be a real woman. I found mind-numbing academic references to phallocractic technology and “the transsexually constructed lesbian-feminist”.

I discovered intra-feminist conflicts between women, including lesbians who feel threatened by trans activism. And I was struck by the many, many accusations of transphobia by those who brook no disagreement with their activism and their agenda.

After that entanglement with feminist theories and trans activism, I was still interested in trying to work through Tasmania’s dalliance with sex and gender politics. So, I headed closer to the ground. I read hundreds of comments from readers of this newspaper that followed the report that Tasmania may expunge gender from birth certificates. Most of the readers expressed tolerance, respect for human dignity, thoughtful ideas, a real distaste for discrimination and a great deal of common sense.

Their sentiments exposed a glaring chasm with the unintelligible tosh and intolerance common to many academics. So allow me to mention what Edmund Burke night call the gritty wisdom of unlettered men and women.

One reader, Pamela, said this is another step to take away identity — and notice it is by those people who routinely sup at the table of identity politics. She said she struggled to understand people who wish to dominate others. “If some wish to omit gender of their child (from a birth certificate), OK, but others should be allowed to do what they wish.” Many many readers echoed Pamela’s belief in freedom of choice for parents of newborns.

Many recognised the difference between sex as a biological reality and gender as a social identity that for some will differ from their chromosomal mix. One writer suggested that we keep sex on birth certificates but discard gender. That was echoed by Sandra, who suggested we “send ‘gender’ back to the grammarians and the ‘gender studies’ departments in the ivory towers”.

Gizelle saw the bright side to expunging gender from birth certificates: “this could be the end of the virtue-signalling for female quotas”. Dream on. More likely the same people who want gender banned are likely “the same people, in a different forum, calling for gender-related targets for business and politicians as well”, said another reader.

Here we go again, said Howard. “A vocal minority not satisfied with their win on same-sex marriage.” Barbara agreed, asking: why must we strip the majority of people of an important part of their identity to accommodate the agenda of a tiny minority? They both have a point.

The plan by the Greens and Labor to erase gender from birth certificate is part of a broader plan to erase gender identity altogether, or at least make it mighty difficult to include mention of gender if you are just a woman or a man.

The proposed amendments will prohibit the registrar of births, deaths and marriages from including information about the gender of a child, unless required by a court or an applicable federal law. A person over 16 may record their gender by statutory declaration. A child under 16 years of age would need a declaration by at least one parent and the child’s own express wish, with a magistrate deciding any disputes.

The public reasons from LGBTI activists for these changes do not match their private agenda. What LGBTI advocate Rodney Croome fails to explain is how it is discriminatory to offer parents a choice to record the sex of their newborn on a birth certificate.

Banning gender on a birth certificate does not encourage tolerance and inclusion, but stripping people of their gender at birth cements a social experiment aimed at encouraging gender fluidity.

Tasmanian Greens leader Cassy O’Connor said the current laws require that transgender people undergo invasive reproductive surgery if they want to change their birth certificate to reflect their identity.

If that is the case, have a debate about that rather than using a legal sledgehammer to remove gender from all birth certificates.

Transgender activist Martine Delaney says removing gender from birth certificates won’t harm anyone.

How can she know that? If a man is able to pass himself off as woman using a genderless birth certificate to gain entry to women’s spaces, or ends up in a women’s prison, how can Delaney know there are no risks to women’s safety?

In the debate over sex, gender and the law, women’s groups are increasingly arguing for caution and consideration of all groups, not just a transgender minority.

Delaney’s intervention is a neat reminder of her illiberal approach to open debate about same-sex marriage when she raced off to Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination Commissioner because she was offended by a pamphlet from the Catholic Church that set out its teaching on marriage.

Expect the same intolerance with more confected claims of hurt feelings, hate speech and transphobia. That is the experience from Britain where far-reaching changes allow for self-identification, possibly with no time periods or medical advice needed. If John wakes up one morning and decides he is Jane, he can self-identify as a woman for legal purposes before the sun sets. None of this is to mock the vast majority of transgender people who endure excruciating mental and physical anguish about their sex and their gender. But to suggest there are no dangers in a radical social shift is like believing in pixies.

To shut down those who wish to raise questions, now a routine tactic among some trans activists in Britain, is worse than ignorance. It is intolerance. Writing in The Spectator earlier this year, Judith Green from Woman’s Place UK outlined physical threats, social media harassment and hate-based vilification aimed at her group and any venue where they meet to discuss the consequences of new gender laws on women, children and society as a whole.

Last week, the Speaker of Tasmania’s lower house, who will decide whether gender is erased from birth certificates in that state, said the world is changing. Hickey said we need to be open to considering things that might discriminate or harm someone. It works both ways. As one reader of this newspaper wrote last week in response, “in the not too distant future I can imagine a world where it will be almost impossible to get through a day without offending someone, or some group”.

Note again the contrast between the live-and-let-live sentiments of many readers of this newspaper and the freedom-loathing agendas of academics, bureaucracies and politicians.

Language police in Victoria ­expect public servants to use gender-neutral pronouns. Language police in the ACT Labor caucus want to remove all references to Mr, Miss, Mrs or Ms in parliament. In some Australian primary and secondary schools, social media activists funded by Facebook are instructing students that gender identity exists on a ­spectrum.

And now social engineers in Tasmania want to erase gender altogether from birth certificates: no choice, no freedom to differ, just one-size-fits-all genderless babies.

These days, the political divide is less about Right and Left and more about those who believe in greater freedom and those who don’t. History reminds us that human dignity rests on people having more, not less, 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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28 October, 2018

Big free speech case in Britain


Sir Philip Green above.

He is said to have become a billionaire much faster than anyone else in British history. He is Jewish.  He seems a most unpleasant man to me.  He has certainly abused a lot of people.  But for all I know he may be kind to his dog.  Nonetheless I am totally on his side in this matter.

From the confirmation furore over Judge Kavanaugh we now know that half of American politics no longer believes in the presumption of innocence -- but to find the British parliament in a somewhat similar state is a shock.  Britain is the mother of most of our traditional legal safeguards.

Yet Phil seems to have evoked that meltdown in at least the more Leftist quarters of the parliament. His being a big businessman undoubtedly prejudices the hate-filled British Left against him.

Like many prominent men he has been the object of untested allegations and those allegations are being treated by some as if they were convictions. I have enough residual faith in the British system to believe that no action will be taken against him until the allegations are fully tested in a properly constituted court of law but that faith has been rather shaken

Nonetheless, the accusations ARE apparently before the courts so that should finalize the matter one way or the other

And I heartily defend Phil in his attempts to have the accusations against him silenced before they are tested. The very proceedings described below show the wisdom of that.  When allegations are treated as fact, an exoneration in a court of law may do little to restore a man's reputation and peace of mind.  False allegations against Christian singer Cliff Richard left him severely shaken even after £210,000 in compensatory damages was paid to him by the BBC and £400,000 from the South Yorkshire Police

But there is undoubtedly some tension between free speech and non-disclosure.  False allegations are however a type of libel or  defamation and those offences have never been deemed to deserve free speech protection.  When the allegations have been shown to be true is the time to mention them publicly -- with full free speech protections


Sir Philip Green has been named in Parliament as the businessman at the centre of Britain’s #MeToo scandal.

The Topshop owner was identified by Lord Hain, the former Leader of the House of Commons, after two days of speculation over the name of the man behind the injunction.

The former Labour cabinet minister said that he had been contacted by someone “intimately involved in the case” and felt a “duty” to reveal the name using parliamentary privilege.

Following Lord Hain’s comments there were calls for the billionaire to be stripped of his Knighthood and for a crackdown on the use of non-disclosure agreements by “serial offenders”.

Vince Cable, the former Business Secretary and Leader of the Lib Dems, said: “I find it very difficult to see how he could credibly hold on to an honour in these circumstances.

“I think Parliament’s proving its worth. The use of Parliament in this way is healthy and it shows democracy at work.”

Frank Field, the MP for Birkenhead who previously led condemnation of Sir Philip over the treatment of BHS pensioners, said: "The charge sheet against the knighthood is growing. Parliament and the country have made their views clear on this matter. Ultimately it's a decision for the honours forfeiture committee."

He added that he is planning to raise with ministers the need for a mechanism for abuse victims' voices to be heard in Parliament.

Mr Field said: "I have been talking this evening with somebody who witnessed grotesque bullying at work. They would like for what they witnessed to be shared, through the House of Commons, with the nation. I am seeking to raise urgently with the Government the importance of having a mechanism in Parliament through which the voices of victims of abuse can be heard. This would develop the role of the House of Commons in a way which stands up for people who have little money, against those who have much."

Number 10 said that it could not comment on cases which were ongoing.

Sir Philip Green last night refused to comment on “anything that has happened in court or was said in Parliament today” but denied any “unlawful sexual or racist behaviour”.

The Telegraph has spent the past eight months investigating allegations of bullying, intimidation and sexual harassment made against the businessman, and the lengths he has gone to to cover up the claims. However, on Tuesday this newspaper was prevented from revealing details of the non-disclosure deals by Sir Terence Etherton, the Master of the Rolls, the second most senior judge in England and Wales.

The intervention makes it illegal, outside Parliament or in reports of Parliamentary proceedings, to reveal the businessman’s identity or to identify the companies, as well as what he is accused of doing or how much he paid his alleged victims.

It was the latest twist in a legal fight which began in July, which saw the appeal court rule that the confidentiality of contracts was more important than freedom of speech.

It overturned a previous High Court ruling which found that publication of the allegations would be overwhelmingly in the public interest and would significantly contribute to debate in a democratic society.

As well as re-igniting the #MeToo debate, the gagging of The Telegraph has renewed controversy about the use of injunctions to limit British press freedom.

Lord Hain, the former Northern Ireland Secretary [and a former radical protester] , yesterday told a hushed House of Lords: “My Lords, having been contacted by someone intimately involved in the case of a powerful businessman using non-disclosure agreements and substantial payments to conceal the truth about serious and repeated sexual harassment, racist abuse and bullying, which is compulsively continuing, I feel it’s my duty under parliamentary privilege to name Philip Green as the individual in question given that the media have been subject to an injunction preventing publication of the full details of this story which is clearly in the public interest.”

After his statement Jess Phillips, the Labour MP who sits of the Women and Equalities Committee, said: “I think that today we have proven that wealth and power and arrogance will not always provide you with cover. Whilst people can be silenced with money, as is often the case, I am pleased that actually that has its limits and that we respect the spirit of the law when people like this are revealed.”

Maria Miller, chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, added: “I think that given the huge influence that Philip Green has in the business world and the thousands of people that work for him it is surprising that the Court of Appeal decided that it wasn’t in the public interest to make this more public.

“I think that we now have to answer another question when it comes to NDAs which is how we stop them being used to cover up serial offenders. That has to be a point that is answered by the Government proposals.”

James Cleverly MP, deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, said Lord Hain's action had shown "people must now realise that injunctions and super-injunctions are nothing more than a good way to part with large sums of money and a bad way to keep things secret".     

The business world also reacted to the claims. Carolyn Fairbairn, CBI Director-General, said: “Sexual harassment and racial abuse is illegal and has absolutely no place in modern Britain. Accusations this serious must be thoroughly and quickly investigated.”  

There has been days of speculation about the identity of the individual, with several prominent businessmen including Lord Sugar and Duncan Bannatyne taking to social media to state that it was not them.

In light of the scandal, the Judicial Office was forced to issued a rare statement emphasising that this was a “TEMPORARY injunction preventing publication only until there can be a trial.”

There has been growing condemnation over the use of NDAs in this way from both  campaigners and senior legal figures, including three former Home Secretaries, a former Director of Public Prosecutions and a former solicitor general.

Amber Rudd, former Home Secretary, said: “My concern is that these are being used to intimidate people who would otherwise speak up about illegal activity, by that I mean sexual harassment. We need to stop it.”

Lord Falconer, former Justice Secretary, added: “Sexual harassment and bullying should not be covered by NDAs at all. It should not be possible for an employer to use an NDA to suppress any allegation which might be in the public interest. It's a terrible iniquity, it is a very, very clear abuse of power.

The Prime Minister has vowed to bring forward a consultation on reform of the use of NDAs.

Sir Philip bills himself as a rags-to-riches businessman and is renowned for his expletive-ridden outbursts.

A guest at the now notorious President’s Club Dinner, he has previously questioned the MeToo movement, reportedly asking: “Where’s this all going to end? There’s no stag parties, no hen parties, no more girls parading in the ring at the boxing – so they’re all banned?”

Sir Philip said in a statement last night: "I am not commenting on anything that has happened in court or was said in Parliament today. "To the extent that it is suggested that I have been guilty of unlawful sexual or racist behaviour, I categorically and wholly deny these allegations.

"Arcadia and I take accusations and grievances from employees very seriously and in the event that one is raised, it is thoroughly investigated. "Arcadia employs more than 20,000 people and in common with many large businesses sometimes receives formal complaints from employees. "In some cases these are settled with the agreement of all parties and their legal advisers. These settlements are confidential so I cannot comment further on them."

SOURCE






Hate Crime Law Is Both Unwise and Unconstitutional
    
After showing off his swastika tattoo, Randy Metcalf became involved in a barroom brawl. One of his opponents was an African American, who he and his friends knocked unconscious. Metcalf repeatedly kicked him in the head and, according to a witness, said, “Die, [N-word], die.” Metcalf was sentenced to 10 years in prison under the federal Hate Crimes Prevention Act that was enacted six years earlier, in 2009.

Soon, perhaps at its conference this Friday, the Supreme Court will decide whether or not to hear Metcalf’s argument that the provision of the HCPA that he was convicted under is unconstitutional because none of the Constitution’s enumerated powers authorized Congress to enact it. The court should hear and endorse this argument, lest the nation’s dangerously attenuated commitment to limited government become even more so.

The HCPA creates criminal penalties for, among other things, crimes committed “because of the actual or perceived race … of any person.” Actual hatred is not required. It is enough that the defendant acted “because of” somebody’s race.

Congress, always eager to slip what little remains of the Constitution’s leash that limits Congress’ powers by enumerating them, frequently justifies doing whatever it wants by saying that the behavior it wants to proscribe or prescribe affects interstate commerce and therefore comes under Congress’ enumerated power to regulate this. But although the Commerce Clause has been construed to be so elastic that it is almost entirely permissive, Congress, perhaps manifesting a vestigial capacity for embarrassment, looked elsewhere for the power to prohibit racially motivated crimes.

Embarrassingly, it pretended to act under the 13th Amendment. Ratified in 1865, it says:

“Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

"Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

To justify enacting the HCPA, Congress cited the power granted to it 144 years earlier to effectuate the end of slavery, which shows no sign of returning. Congress, surely with more audacity than sincerity, said that the 13th Amendment, written to erase slavery, authorizes Congress to pursue any goal that it asserts is in some way, however attenuated, a response to a “relic” or “incident” or lingering reverberation of slavery.

This, says an amicus brief on Metcalf’s behalf, reflects “a growing movement in both academia and Congress to use the 13th Amendment to address a variety of social ills thought to be in some way traceable to, or aggravated by, slavery.” Yet the amendment’s legal significance is unusually clear and limited: It bans slavery, period. So, in 1883, the Supreme Court held that the amendment did not empower Congress to prohibit race discrimination in public accommodations. Congress did that 81 years later, properly acting under the Commerce Clause. If now the court allows Congress to construe — to flagrantly misconstrue, to its advantage — a notably unambiguous constitutional provision, the damage done by this misguided judicial deference will go beyond injuries to federalism. This dereliction of judicial duty will devalue the written Constitution itself.

Hate crimes (usually vandalism, e.g., graffiti, or intimidation, e.g., verbal abuse) are a tiny fraction of 1 percent of all reported crimes. Almost all states have such laws, and a federal law duplicating them merely serves two disreputable purposes. It allows Congress to express theatrical indignation about hate. And it exposes to double jeopardy, under a federal law, defendants who are acquitted in politically charged state trials, especially ones involving race or religion.

Even though states, unlike the federal government, have police powers, states’ hate crime laws also are problematic on policy grounds. They mandate enhanced punishments for crimes committed as a result of, or at least when accompanied by, particular states of mind that the government disapproves. The law holds us responsible for controlling our minds, which should control our conduct. The law always has had, and should have, the expressive function of stigmatizing particular kinds of conduct. But hate crime laws treat certain actions as especially reprehensible because the persons committing them had odious (although not illegal) frames of mind. Such laws burden juries with the task of detecting an expanding number of impermissible motives for acts already criminalized. And juries must distinguish causation (a particular frame of mind causing an act) from correlation (the person who committed the act happened to have this or that mentality). So, even if the HCPA were not unconstitutional, it would be unwise.

SOURCE






News: Gender Isn't Neutral
    
This isn’t exactly the age of responsible journalism — so this weekend’s New York Times probably doesn’t surprise anyone. But for every American sick of fake news (and according to polls, that’s everyone), Sunday’s headline was one for the record books. “‘Transgender’ Could Be Defined out of Existence under Trump Administration,” the banner read, triggering mass hysteria in liberal quarters across the country. There’s just one problem: not one bit of it is true.

No one is “defining transgenders out of existence.” What President Trump is doing is following the law — which, after eight years of Barack Obama’s overreach, is suddenly a shocking concept. Under the last administration, liberals were so used to the president twisting the rules to suit the Left’s agenda that it’s news when Donald Trump decides to operate within the plain text of law. As far as the New York Times is concerned, the most “drastic” thing any president could do is bring America back in line with legal statutes. And this non-story that’s setting the far-Left’s hair on fire is nothing more than that.

In Sunday’s piece, a trio of reporters argues that the Trump administration is disenfranchising people by defining gender as it always has been: a “biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth.” No one is quite sure how that’s radical, since it’s how the law has been understood both before and since 1964. Not a single president questioned it until Obama, who decided that he didn’t care what the Civil Rights Act said. He was going to “reinterpret” the 54-year-old law on “sex” discrimination to mean “sexual orientation” and gender identity too.

That’s how the Obama administration justified its gender-confused school bathroom and shower mandate. They argued that people who identify as transgender were somehow part of the broad umbrella of “sex” outlined in the law in 1964. But, as FRC and others argued, sexual orientation wasn’t on the minds of legislators 54 years ago when it was trying to weed out prejudice — and more importantly, it wasn’t in the text of the law it passed! Even the courts, where liberals turn when the public isn’t on board with its extremism, called it a bridge too far. A half-century ago, Judge Reed O'Connor ruled, “Congress did not understand ‘sex’ to include ‘gender identity.’”

The Obama White House’s agenda was so unpopular by 2016 that some experts even blamed Hillary Clinton’s loss on her defense of it. Through it all, Donald Trump’s position was clear: “I believe it should be states’ rights, and I think the states should make the decision, they’re more capable of making the decision.” More than that, he understood what his predecessor did not: the White House never had the authority to rewrite the law in the first place! After his election, Trump set to work rolling back the lawless gender policies of the Obama administration — first in schools, then in homeless shelters, prisons, and now in Health and Human Services contracts.

Now, almost two years later, the New York Times still thinks it’s breaking news that this administration is systematically returning America to the status quo. Insisting it found some sort of smoking gun in a leaked HHS memo, the Times implies that President Trump is doing something nefarious by rolling back his predecessor’s orders. “For the last year,” its reporters write, “the Department of Health and Human Services has privately argued that the term ‘sex’ was never meant to include gender identity or even homosexuality, and that the lack of clarity allowed the Obama administration to wrongfully extend civil rights protections to people who should not have them.”

This “new” definition of sex, the Times insists, “would essentially eradicate federal recognition of the estimated 1.4 million Americans who have opted to recognize themselves — surgically or otherwise — as a gender other than the one they were born into.” First of all, this “new” definition of “sex” is 54 years old. Secondly, who are these 1.4 million Americans? The Times didn’t bother citing the statistic, and it certainly seems higher than most credible national surveys. Lastly — and perhaps most instructively — people who identify as transgender don’t enjoy special federal recognition under the law, because the American people have never passed any legislation granting it. Liberal activists have had to rely on a handful of courts or lawless administrations like Obama’s to short-circuit the democratic process and force their agenda on America.

The Times’ agenda is obvious — painting Trump as the extremist, when the real radicalism was ignoring the law in the first place. Well, reporters may be out of practice with the truth these days, but it’s time they came to grips with one important reality. The president is not a legislator, no matter how much Obama acted like one. If they want America to change the way it defines discrimination, they need to start by asking the right branch of government.

SOURCE





Vice co-founder and leader of 'new right' men's group Proud Boys to bring his 'western chauvinist' views Down Under

I have been watching McInnes since even before he wore a beard.  He is primarily a talented comedian but he turns his comedic gift on Leftist pomposity and stupidity.  And they give him a wealth of material for that

The founder of far-right conservative men's activist group 'Proud Boys' is set to tour Australia next month.

Comedian and co-founder of VICE magazine turned right wing commentator Gavin McInnes, 48, will tour the nation from November 2 to 11.

Mr McInnes, who describes himself as a 'western chauvinist libertarian' has been labelled by critics as sexist, racist and as a white supremacist.

He is the latest far-righter to be promoted by pornographer Damien Costas and will travel to Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide for speaking events.    

Mr Costas was responsible for the tours of US right-winger Milo Yiannopoulos last year and former UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage earlier this year.

According to the promoters, Mr McInnes is 'known for his raucous and irreverent take on the world and controversial, no-holds-barred opinions'.

The 48-year-old shot to fame in the early nineties as a co-founder of VICE, but after leaving the magazine, he became more well-known for his political commentary.

He frequently appeared on Fox News and TheBlaze - an American conservative news network - and is a former contributor to Canadian right-wing channel Rebel Media.

'Funny as he is controversial, he's famous for his use of humour and satire to lampoon the excesses of political correctness,' the promoter's website states.

Mr McInnes has referred to himself as a 'western chauvinist' and started the men's club 'Proud Boys' who swear their allegiance to this cause, news.com.au reported.

According to their website, The Proud Boys' values centre on minimal government, maximum freedom, anti-political correctness, anti-drug war, closed borders, ant-racial guilt, anti-racism, pro-free speech, and pro-gun rights to name a few. 

The Proud Boys' passionate views have even seen some of its members get caught up in street violent brawls with left-wing Antifa activists, news.com.au reported.

In August, Mr McInnes and his club were banned from Twitter for being 'violent extremists' ahead of the 'Unite the Right' neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville in the US.

While McInnes has denied support of the rally and its organiser Jason Kessler, he previously said Mr Kessler was thrown out of the Proud Boys for his 'racist views'.

Mr Costas said any allegations that Mr Mcinnes was a 'white supremacist' were 'nonsense', news.com.au previously reported.

'These people are not white supremacists, they're western supremacists, they believe in the great values that built the western world,' Mr Costas said.

'Free speech is the cornerstone of western civilisation.'

Mr Costas said words such as 'Nazi' and 'fascist' were often misappropriated and reappropriated by some members of the public to shut down debate.

He said while it's far easier to shut down debate than argue it out, free speech is a minority group's 'greatest ally' against oppression.

'Handing over free speech to the state to determine what's offensive and what's not, or to the left in general, is the biggest slippery slope we could ever hope to go down,' Mr Costas said.

Mr Costas is currently dealing with the financial fallout from his previous tours with Sydney publicist Max Markson, The Australian Reported. 

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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26 October, 2018

Muslim-majority Algeria bans Islamic face veils for its public sector workers to improve 'security and communication'

One for the Left to ponderr

Algerian authorities has banned banned female public sector employees from wearing full-face veils, or niqabs, at work.

Prime Minister Ahmed Ouayhia publicized the decision in a letter to ministers and regional governors in the Muslim-majority country last Thursday.

Civil servants, he wrote, need to 'observe the rules and requirements of security and communication within their department'.

He said public sector workers needed to be able to be 'physically identifiable' while in the workplace.

The ban has been met with both positive and negative reactions on social media, with some hailing it as progressive while others called it an attempt to control women and what they choose to wear.

According to Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, the ban was blasted by an Islamist MP as a 'declared war on Islam'.

However, another MP named Adda Fellahi declared his support for the new law, saying the niqab is 'a social and jurisprudence issue and has nothing to do with decency and chastity,' according to Asharq Al-Awsat.

Algeria has been split between moderate and more radical forms of Islam since it was plunged into years of civil war in 1992, when a military-backed government cancelled elections that an Islamist party was poised to win.

Most Algerian women do not wear the niqab, a custom imported from more traditionally conservative Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, but the decision is likely to be criticized by Algeria's Salafists minority.

The Salafists endorse Saudi's strict Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam and oppose the more mainstream Sufi Islam that dominates Algeria and other North African countries.

Violence has dramatically diminished since the war petered out around the turn of the millennium, but a hardcore of armed jihadist groups continue to launch attacks, mainly in remote areas.

SOURCE





Bakers Fined $135K Over Wedding Cake Appeal to Supreme Court

The former owners of an Oregon bakery, ordered to pay $135,000 in damages for declining to make a cake for a same-sex wedding, are appealing their case to the Supreme Court.

Lawyers for Aaron and Melissa Klein filed a petition Monday asking the Supreme Court to reverse an earlier decision handed down by the state that forced them to shut down their family bakery.

“Freedom of speech has always included the freedom not to speak the government’s message,” said Kelly Shackelford, president and CEO of First Liberty, a nonprofit legal organization representing the Kleins. “This case can clarify whether speech is truly free if it is government mandated.”

An administrative judge for the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries ruled in July 2015 that the Kleins had discriminated against a lesbian couple, Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer, on the basis of their sexual orientation. The judge ordered the Kleins to pay the $135,000 for physical, emotional, and mental damages.

The Kleins appealed that ruling to the Oregon Court of Appeals in April 2016, and that court upheld the state agency’s decision.

Under Oregon law, it is illegal for businesses to refuse service based on a customer’s sexual orientation, as well as race, gender, and other characteristics.

The Kleins maintained that they did not discriminate, but only declined to make the cake because of their religious beliefs about marriage. Designing and baking a custom cake for a same-sex wedding, they said, would violate their Christian faith.

In June, the Supreme Court ruled on a similar case in favor of Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop outside Denver, Colorado.

In that case, Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the court ruled that government officials cannot be hostile to the free exercise of religious beliefs. But the high court did not rule specifically on the underlying question of the case: Whether government may compel citizens to create messages that violate their deeply held religious beliefs.

The Kleins’ petition asks the Supreme Court to address the unanswered question left over from the Masterpiece Cakeshop case.

In June, the Kleins wrote a piece for The Daily Signal explaining what the Masterpiece Cakeshop ruling means for their case. They wrote that they were “thrilled for our friend,” because like Phillips, “we know what it is like to be treated unfairly by a state agency and mocked, threatened, and abused by critics.”

The couple added:

At the same time we wonder what the future holds for our case, our lost business, and our family. Ours may be, as Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, the case that allows ‘further elaboration in the courts.’ And we are encouraged to know that seven justices of the Supreme Court agree that a state’s hostility to the religious beliefs of its citizens will not be tolerated under the First Amendment.

Kennedy was known on the Supreme Court for being a crucial swing vote. Since the court’s ruling on the Masterpiece case, Kennedy has retired and this month was succeeded by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a conservative. Kavanaugh’s addition to the court has led some to theorize that if the court were to take the Kleins’ case or a similar one, the decision could fall in their favor.

The $135,000 the Kleins were ordered to pay sits in escrow pending the final outcome of the case. The couple’s attorneys say they are are hopeful the high court will respond to their petition within the next three months.

SOURCE






Our Modern World’s Inability to Understand Fairy Tales

"It’s not fair"

This refrain—so quick to be invoked by young children, who seem to develop a thirst for justice very young indeed—may seem like a curious place to begin in defense of fairy tales. But let me explain.

But to backtrack a little further first—well, the latest salvo against fairy tales comes from two Hollywood actresses, Kristen Bell (“Frozen,” “The Good Place”) and Keira Knightley (“Pirates of the Caribbean,” roughly 10,000 period dramas).

Bell told Parents magazine that when she watches fairy tale movies with her young daughters, she make remarks such as, “”Don’t you think that it’s weird that the prince kisses Snow White without her permission? Because you cannot kiss someone if they’re sleeping!”

Knightley takes it one step further, telling talk show host Ellen DeGeneres she has banned her toddler daughter from watching films like “Little Mermaid” and “Cinderella.”

Why? Well, on “Cinderella”: “Because, you know, she waits around for a rich guy to rescue her. Don’t! Rescue yourself, obviously.” And on “Little Mermaid”: “The songs are great, but do not give your voice up for a man. Hello?!”

I’m reminded of journalist Salena Zito’s invocation to take President Donald Trump’s more colorful remarks seriously—but not literally.

Searching my own childhood memories, I’m hard-pressed to recall any sense of thinking that kissing sleeping people was great, waiting for a man to rescue me wise, or giving up my voice a valid life choice—despite my repeat viewings of these Disney films.

Just like I knew “Aladdin” wasn’t proof that I could hop on a carpet and fly or “101 Dalmations” a realistic take on the interior intellectual life of the high-strung Dalmation next door, I seem to recall that the worlds of Snow White and Ariel and Cinderella—worlds complete with half-people living underwater, dwarves in forests, and pumpkins molded into carriages—were hardly the stuff that provided practical rules of living for my gravity-bound, sadly unmagical world.

And yet these tales did provide valuable lessons.

It is tough to be a little child. Everything is new; you have no experience to fall back on. You are learning, being stretched constantly, and you are encountering—for the first time!—the bitter realities of the world.

You don’t have to possess an evil stepmother or wicked stepsisters—any selfish child on the playground who grabs your toy and isn’t caught will suffice—to understand that not everyone plays by the rules, or that the good are not always rewarded.

You don’t need to prick a spinning wheel or eat an apple to begin to awaken to the knowledge that you can be hurt by evil, and even engage in it. You don’t need to lose your voice to realize that forays into bigger, wider worlds beyond your parents’ arms and the comforting nooks of your home can shake you into a quiet stupor as you struggle to comprehend.

But maybe, as you toddle into preschool and watch Brittany tell the teacher she had the doll first and realize that the second serving of the candy your mom told you not to eat any more of gave you a stomachache—maybe you might need something else.

You might need to remember when all seemed lost, a fairy godmother whisked in and helped Cinderella. You might need to recall that Snow White was saved because she was loved, was rescued because someone else cared. And maybe as you eye Brittany, triumphantly playing with the doll you had grabbed right at the beginning of recess, you will remember how under the warmth and kindness of Belle, the Beast was able to become an OK guy.

As my mom told us: Life isn’t fair.

That’s one of those tough realities fairy tales grapple with, along with death and suffering. And then, too, there are beautiful realities whose mysteries they gently probe: the fact that love can change a person, that sometimes we’re helped unexpectedly, that our thirst for justice will be rewarded in the end.

These are not concepts that lend themselves to being told of, or probed, outside fiction. They must be experienced, not defined or explained.

After all, how does a child really learn what love is—by learning the dictionary definition or seeing the look on his mom’s face when he comes in the bedroom, terrified by a nightmare? But fairy tales, like the best stories, enlarge our world, take us to places and sentiments where perhaps our own relationships cannot yet bring us.

“It is the business of fiction to embody mystery through manners,” wrote American novelist Flannery O’Connor, and while that’s quite a burden to place on movies known for chattering mice and singing teapots, they manage to do so.

The world of fiction, particularly children’s fiction, is jammed with make-believe—Peter Pan flying; Harry Potter casting magic spells; Lucy, Edmund, Peter, and Susan entering a world through a wardrobe; and yes, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty being rescued with a kiss.

Often those flights of fancy—absurd when taken literally—enlarge our imagination so we can grasp something we could not comprehend, highlight to us a truth hidden among the humdrum of our own world.

At the end of the day, you can face down evil without a single spell; you can encounter the vividness of your life’s calling without creeping amid the discarded coats festering in a wardrobe.

And plus, as any toddler who’s tearfully presented a boo-boo to Mom knows, sometimes a kiss can save.

In our world—so focused on science and data, on math and the measurable—it’s easy to look only at the literal in fairy tales. But depriving our children of the beautiful mysteries they introduce would only ultimately impoverish us, and make us less human.

SOURCE





Tasmania on verge of removing gender from birth certificates

Tasmania is set to become the first state to remove the sex of a child from birth certificates, in a major win for transgender people that has been attacked by critics as “abolishing gender”.

A vote is expected in Tasmania’s lower house next month, as amendments to a bill ending the need for trans people to divorce before they can change their gender on official documents.

While the bill’s central aim has tripartite support, the Liberal government, Christian groups and feminists fear it has been “hijacked” by the transgender lobby via a series of Labor and Greens amendments.

The Hodgman government relies on the casting vote of Liberal Speaker Sue Hickey, who was elected to the position with Greens and Labor support and votes as an independent.

Labor and the Greens both plan amendments to remove gender from birth certificates, while also backing changes to remove the need for trans people to have sex change surgery before switching gender on official documents.

Ms Hickey, a Liberal moderate, said as a matter of policy she did not declare her voting intentions until debate concluded.

She said she was broadly supportive of measures to end discrimination against trans people. “I’ll be listening to every word possible," Ms Hickey said.

“I do think the world is changing and we need to be open to considering things that might discriminate or harm somebody. I’m very open.”

Transgender activist Martine Delaney said removing gender from birth certificates would be a significant win that would harm no one. “It would be the first in this country, although not the first in the world, and an excellent statement by Tasmania to say ‘We have the need to do this and we will not wait for other states to lead’,” Ms Delaney said.

“It is not doing away with gender. That information would still be recorded by the registrar and medical records in the hospital. It just simply wouldn’t be displayed on the birth certificate.”

She said removing sex from birth certificates would negate the need for transgender people to “out themselves” every time they applied for work or sought to prove their identity.

The Australian Christian Lobby said the reforms essentially abolished gender, further “homogenised humanity” and “greatly diminished” the significance of birth certificates.

ACL state director Mark Brown said the changes threatened to destroy the sanctity of women’s “safe places”, from refuges to sports teams. “If you are ­legally a transgender woman, even if you have a penis you can go wherever you want in terms of women’s safe spaces,” he said.

This concern is shared by feminist group Women Speak Tasmania. “If you have birth certificates issued with no sex marker on them, how then are ­female-only services and spaces — like girls’ schools, or the girl guides, women’s domestic violence shelters — able to maintain the female-only integrity of their service?” spokeswoman Bronwyn Williams said.

“It puts female-only organisations and services at risk of breaching anti-discrimination law if they say ‘No, you can’t become a member’.”

Greens leader Cassy O’Connor, whose child, born as a girl called Mara Lees, is now a 20-year-old man, Jasper, said the changes would end discrimin­ation and make a real difference to lives.

“The flow-on effects of being able to have your birth certificate either gender neutral or changed to your correct gender are profoundly life-changing,” Ms O’Connor said.

“At the moment in Tasmania, if Jasper wants to have his birth certificate changed he will need to have a hysterectomy, and that is cruel and unnecessary.”

SOURCE 

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

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

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

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25 October, 2018

Why we should all hate the hate-crime laws

The proposed expansion of British hate-crime laws would only make matters worse

The mission creep of Britain’s hate-crime laws mean it may soon be illegal to hate anybody else at all, whether at football matches or in your own head. Even if you show your feelings through silent jazz hands rather than aggressive clapping.

The Home Office has asked the Law Commission to undertake a review which, reports the Guardian, ‘will look at whether there are any gaps in the hate-crime legislation’, and propose measures to fill them in with even more legal cement. The original plan, following a fuss led by politically loathsome Labour MP Stella Creasy, was to make misogyny – prejudice against women – a hate crime, so that police could send wolf-whistlers to the dog house.

Now, however, it is reported that the review will also consider whether ‘hostility to men and elderly people could be hate crimes’ (BBC). Hostility towards adherents of the ‘goth subculture’ might also be added to the list of hate crimes. Which would make it illegal to hate somebody not only for having black skin, but also for wearing black eyeliner.

This news has been met with understandable outbursts of astonishment and ridicule. The madder-sounding ideas may not ultimately be endorsed (which might enable the authorities to present a ban on sexist cat-calling as the sensible face of hate-crime law).

But, in truth, there is method in their ‘madness’. The idea of criminalising ‘hostility’ not only to women, but to men and elderly people – that is, to absolutely everybody – is only the logical extension of the irrational crusade to turn offensive ideas into hate crimes.

The definition of hate crime has already expanded well beyond its anti-racist origins. This mission creep means that the list of what UK law deems ‘protected characteristics’ now includes race, religion, sexual orientation, disability and transgender identity. There seems no reason why that mission should not creep further still, to cover everybody and his dog (animal hate is surely next in line).

The explanation for this dangerous trend lies in the elastic definition of a hate crime. The Metropolitan Police website spells it out: ‘A hate incident is any incident which the victim, or anyone else, thinks is based on someone’s prejudice towards them because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or because they are transgender. Not all hate incidents will amount to criminal offences, but it is equally important that these are reported and recorded by the police.’ In other words, if anybody says it is a hate crime, it is – even if no actual crime has been committed.

This is an entirely subjective judgement, about how somebody feels – a far cry from the objective assessment of evidence in normal criminal procedures. On the basis of such a subjective interpretation words and gestures can be branded hate crimes. The courts can also decide that physical criminal offences from violence to vandalism have been ‘aggravated’ by the hateful mindset of the offender, and increase the sentence.

If a hate crime is about how hurt somebody feels, then how can the subjective reaction of one group be considered more important than another? It is surely not for you or me to deny the personal feelings of any man or woman, goth or grandmother. Equality demands that all must be protected from whatever they deem offensive or hateful.

This is where the campaign to criminalise incorrect thoughts and feelings ends up. The authorities are trying to turn the whole of society into a ‘safe space’, a protective padded cell, where no opinions can be expressed which anybody else finds offensive. This is not ‘political correctness gone mad’, but evidence of how PC has gone mainstream, how identity politics has conquered the world. Now every issue is turned into a reverse arms race to see who can appear most victimised.

Understanding these trends can help to make sense of the exaggerated public focus on ‘transphobia’, which many find bewildering. The relative handful of trans activists demanding special protection from words are actually the poster boys/girls for the state’s crusade against ‘hate crimes’. To be transgender is an entirely self-defined, subjective agenda. You can insist that you are a woman, in a triumph of personal will over physical reality, and then insist that you have a moral monopoly over your truth, and that everybody else must accept it. Anybody transgressing by using the incorrect pronoun or name is then guilty of hate crimes. The state is advancing its war on offensive speech behind the banners of the trannyban.

We might also now make sense of this week’s headline-grabbing figures which show reported hate crimes increased by 17 per cent over the past year, and that anti-religious hate crimes have doubled in three years. The vast majority of these are not crimes in any conventional sense, which have been investigated and prosecuted. They are reports of alleged incidents, many of them online, which police simply record as true without question or corroboration. Given the subjective definition of a hate crime and the trawling operations conducted by police and campaigners, it is a wonder the recorded increase is not even bigger. Meanwhile, the authoritative British Crime Survey, based on the wider public’s actual experiences, has found no increase at all in the incidence of hate crimes.

Thanks, but, as a soon to-be elderly man, I don’t want hate-crime laws expanded to cover the likes of me. We need to roll back the censorious state, not encourage more mission creep.

In a civilised society, so long as we are talking about words and thought rather than violent deeds, we should be free to hate whoever we choose. It should not be a crime to hate Muslims or Christians, Stella Creasy or Jacob Rees-Mogg, transsexuals or manspreading sexists. The only way to challenge prejudice is through more speech, not censorship.

Hate-crime laws only make matters worse. They invite more and more groups to claim the protective status of modern victimhood, and demand the punishment of anyone whose words trespass against them. And they turn assorted morons and bigots into martyrs.

The notion of criminal offences being ‘aggravated’ by the hateful motives of the perpetrator has taken us further into the sphere of thoughtcrime. People can now be punished more severely not for what they are proven to have done, but for what they were allegedly thinking at the time. The courts should stick to judging criminal offences, not offensive thoughts.

Tory home secretary Sajid Javid says that the new review and crackdown is necessary because ‘hate crime goes against the British values of unity, tolerance and mutual respect’. Genuine tolerance, however, means allowing the expression of ideas that you hate – and then taking them on in a fight to the finish. By contrast, the sort of phoney ‘unity’ imposed by banning offensive speech can only amount to what comedian Rowan Atkinson calls ‘a veneer of tolerance concealing a snakepit of unaired and unchallenged views’.

Granting the state more power to police an emotion such as hatred should be no more acceptable than giving the government the right to dictate who or what we can love. Next thing we know they’ll be making self-loathing compulsory. All together now, ‘If you all hate hate-crime laws, clap your hands…’.

SOURCE






Another Example of Liberal Paternalism Harming Minorities

Derrick Hollie

The people of Buckingham County, Virginia, live in the geographic center of the state, but if paternalistic liberal environmentalists have their way, economic prosperity will pass them by.

A compressor station for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline has been proposed for Buckingham County, a rural part of the state that has seen more than its share of economic difficulties.

A compressor station, as the name suggests, compresses—or pumps—natural gas to move it through the pipeline system. The natural gas in this case would be compressed by a gas-fired turbine, which burns a portion of the natural gas in the process, and in so doing emits some pollutants.

While going through the process of obtaining approval, backers of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline have jumped through every hoop and have been held—and held themselves—to the highest environmental standards.

They have made an earnest attempt to do right by the people of Buckingham County and the other Americans the pipeline will serve.

It shouldn’t be controversial to say that the people who are most familiar with a problem are usually the ones best equipped to tackle it.

In Buckingham County, the black population is significantly higher than in the rest of Virginia, and it is African-Americans and other minorities who are the most susceptible to falling into energy poverty.

Energy poverty occurs when households are unable to afford their basic electric and heating needs because of high energy prices.

High energy prices are destructive for all segments of the population, but for the black community the impact is even worse. Backers of the pipeline say it will save consumers an estimated $377 million annually on their utility bills in addition to creating construction and maintenance jobs.

Even so, I couldn’t support the project—no matter how attractive it might be from an energy standpoint—if I felt it had the potential to damage Virginia’s communities or the environment.

I’m satisfied with the strict emissions limits included in the draft permit. Although the station is classified under federal and state regulations as a “minor” source of emissions, the limits included in the draft permit are much more typical of those imposed on larger facilities with much higher emissions levels.

In fact, the limits in the draft Buckingham permit are four to 10 times stricter than the limits in any other permit recently issued for compressor stations in Virginia.

These stringent limits will help ensure Virginia’s air remains clean and healthy as we expand our energy infrastructure.

But this kind of balanced approach to the issue is not what we’re seeing from those who would prefer that we never invest in traditional energy sources.

It was exclusively white activists with their matching T-shirts and picket signs who were speaking out against the proposed compressor station at a recent hearing, claiming it to be “environmental racism.”

Sometimes, it’s helpful for those with social power to stand up and speak for the disadvantaged—such as when Kim Kardashian used her clout to help free a grandmother with a life prison sentence for a minor drug conviction.

Instead, what I saw in Buckingham County reeked of a so-called “white savior complex.” At one point, I was verbally attacked by a white woman and told that I “should pray for forgiveness.”

A second (also white) woman’s protestations were so over the top, I ended up looking for a police officer to help.

Imagine if that scenario had been reversed. Picture me, a black man, yelling at a white woman and chasing her around. I might as well have put my hands behind my back and gotten on my knees, because I would have been going straight to jail.

They were calling for “environmental and social justice,” but what does their version of “justice” look like? Expensive energy, coupled with depressed wages and low job prospects? No, thank you.

Liberal paternalism is too often more harmful for minorities than it is helpful. In the case of Buckingham County, Virginia, it’s insulting at best, and downright racist at worst.

SOURCE





Scandal-Free? Hardly. Networks Bury Democrat Vice

"The worst form of media bias isn't how they cover a story, but what they choose to cover in the first place."  

As we reported earlier this week, the recently released film “Gosnell: The Untold Story of America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer” is being deliberately underreported. In a column discussing the censorship of the film, media watchdogs L. Brent Bozell and Tim Graham agree on the reason: “The networks simply do not want to tell the truth about abortion.”

Sadly, such sanitizing and protectionism go far beyond “Gosnell.” Whether it’s glossing over the atrocities of abortion or refusing to report on current scandals implicating high-profile Democrats, the media’s problem with concealing unflattering Democrat amoralism is systemic. In fact, NewsBusters recently chronicled six instances of Democrat scandals being ignored by media behemoths ABC, CBS, and NBC. These indecencies include:

Texas Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke, who falsely claimed to have not fled from a DUI crash two decades ago. The networks allotted the fib zero time.

Sen. Robert Menendez (NJ), whom the Senate Ethics Committee formally vilified in April for his having made a deal with a donor in which gifts were swapped for promotional support. A mere 49 seconds were devoted to the committee’s admonishment.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (MO), whose husband has profited $11 million-plus via “a business that buys up tax credits awarded to Missouri affordable housing developers and sells them to high-income entities seeking tax relief,” according to The Washington Free Beacon. ABC, CBS, and NBC have yet to mention it.

Jackson Costco, an ex-staffer of Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who doxxed Republicans for their support of Supreme Court nominee-turned-Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The incident has received zero coverage.

Colorado gubernatorial candidate Jared Polis, who shoved an ex-female employee. Neither of the networks have reported on the situation.

DNC Deputy Chair Rep. Keith Ellison (MN), who is alleged to have been violent towards his ex-girlfriend. Given Ellison’s stature, this is a major allegation, yet a measly three minutes and 47 seconds have been devoted to it.

And there’s plenty of other material the media could but probably won’t cover. For example, CBS’s local Dallas affiliate reports, “Four women are facing felony charges, accused of being part of what Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office called an organized voter fraud ring in Fort Worth.” Unsurprisingly, “The indictments show several of the ballots in question were for Democratic candidates.”

Farther north, “The Minnesota Democratic Party has suspended a spokesman for calling for violence against Republicans even as two GOP candidates have been assaulted in suspected politically motivated attacks,” according to The Washington Free Beacon. The spokesman stated that leftists would “bring [Republicans] to the guillotine.”

Meanwhile, The Daily Wire says, “Law enforcement officials arrested a Democratic operative on Tuesday for attacking the female Republican campaign manager for Nevada GOP gubernatorial nominee Adam Laxalt, the second time this year that the operative has been arrested for allegedly physically attacking Republican women.”

For a Leftmedia that feasts on faux scandals, there’s no shortage of legitimate scandals to keep it happy if whistleblowing is truly what it’s pursuing. But the press would prefer to keep it a partisan affair. As Investor’s Business Daily writes, “In contrast, even minor scandals that involve no-name Republicans typically receive lavish coverage from these networks. … The obvious explanation is that they want to portray Republicans as corrupt, and Democrats pure as the driven snow. So they play up stories that fit this narrative, and ignore those that don’t. The worst form of media bias isn’t how they cover a story, but what they choose to cover in the first place.” Exactly.

SOURCE






Morocco is ejecting sub-Saharan [black] migrants. They blame Europe

Poor countries are less able to tolerate parasites

Rabat, Morocco: In a widespread crackdown, sub-Saharan migrants in Morocco are facing arbitrary arrest, banishment to remote sections of the country and, lately, outright expulsion, analysts and rights advocates say.

Rights advocates contend that the raids, which government officials acknowledge, began in the summer and were coordinated with Spain and the European Union to stem the tide of migrants to the Continent. The Moroccan government says they were aimed at only migrants who are in the country illegally and human traffickers.

The crackdown began in June and intensified in late July, after at least 600 migrants successfully crossed to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in northern Morocco, rights groups say. Sub-Saharan migrants, even some with valid residency permits, described wholesale round-ups in which they were herded onto buses with little more than the clothes they were wearing and taken to cities hundreds of kilometres to the south.

Abdoulaye N., 31, a Senegalese immigrant who, like other migrants interviewed for this article, asked that only his given name be used for fear of reprisals, was one of those swept up in the raids.

Four years ago, he had settled in the city of Tetuan on the Mediterranean Sea, where he obtained a residency card and slowly integrated into Moroccan society. He sold cheap jewellery in the market, sent money home to his family and generally kept a low profile.

Yet, one morning in early September, five plainclothes police officers burst into the apartment he shared with two other migrants and arrested them. Told the raid was part of a simple document check, they found themselves hours later on a bus that took an overnight trip 965 kilometres south to the desert city of Tiznit.

Far from an isolated incident, their banishment is consistent with hundreds of other accounts, human rights advocates say, leaving many sub-Saharans living in fear of arrest and displacement, often afraid even to stay in their homes. GADEM, a human rights group based in the Moroccan capital of Rabat, estimates that about 6500 migrants have been arrested and displaced since the crackdown began.

The government has also begun expelling some migrants, rights groups say. A total of 91 migrants, including six minors, have been expelled since September. Another 37 remain in arbitrary detention, GADEM said in a recent report. Moreover, the group said, many migrants detained in the summer were dressed only in shorts and T-shirts and are now suffering from the increasingly cold nights.

GADEM's report on the expulsions was buttressed by the Moroccan Association of Human Rights, which published videos of groups of migrants being taken to the airport and deported.

At the same time, the Moroccan Association of Human Rights in Nador, among other groups, has reported an uptick in attacks on migrants. As outsiders, they have never been welcomed by native Moroccans, who see them as soaking up state benefits in a country that struggles to provide jobs and health care for its citizens.

Morocco's crackdown on migration has extended to its own citizens. In late September, the Moroccan Royal Navy shot and killed a young Moroccan woman who had boarded a boat full of migrants trying to cross illegally into Spain. Moroccan officials said the Navy opened fire after the boat refused to stop, but some non-governmental organisations have questioned the circumstances.

For years, most migrants seeking entry to Europe went through Greece and Italy. But after those portals were shut down, the migrants turned their sights to Spain, where the arrival of migrants entering the country illegally surged to 40,623 so far this year, making it the leading destination for migrants from Africa.

Those numbers pale next to the 1 million or so migrants and asylum-seekers who entered Europe in 2015, but are about triple the number who entered in 2016. That, in turn, has led to rising anti-immigrant political pressures in Spain.

Traditionally, King Mohammed VI of Morocco has been publicly welcoming to sub-Saharan Africans. Yet, despite these proclamations of support, migration has often seemed intended as a lever to pry concessions out of Europe, said Helena Maleno Garzon, a human rights worker and founder of the group Walking Borders.

Something like that seems to be occurring now, she says, citing a $275 million aid package from the EU, agreed to in September, ostensibly to help with basic services and to support job creation.

Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita acknowledged the crackdown but said it was aimed at fighting unauthorised migration and human trafficking, and he vehemently denied that Europe was dictating Morocco's migration policies.

"Morocco does not play and will never play the role of policeman for the European Union," he said. "Morocco will continue to be a host country for sub-Saharan Africans. What you call 'expulsions' are made according to the norms. Embassies of African countries are involved in the process for identifications."

Migrants from Africa stormed a border fence to enter Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta from Morocco n December.
Migrants from Africa stormed a border fence to enter Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta from Morocco n December.CREDIT:AP

Still, analysts say there is no denying that the two governments work closely together on the issue.

"There are very intense and constant contacts at all levels between Spanish and Moroccan officials over the hot topics such as migration, security, coordination and other things," says Haizam Amirah-Fernandez, a senior analyst at the Elcano Royal Institute, a public policy research institution in Madrid.

"Depending who you ask, the interpretations will differ," he said. "When there is a high level of arrivals, it is understood that it's a message sent by the Moroccan authorities, saying we are not happy for this or that reason."

On a visit to Rabat this month, Consuelo Rumi, the Spanish state secretary for migration, said that Spain was ready to act as "the voice of Morocco in the European Union," to help Morocco receive more financial and material aid in its efforts to control migration. Rumi also said her government would look to regularise the papers of some of the estimated 200,000 Moroccans who live in Spain without official residency.

Whatever the motivation for the crackdown, human rights groups have denounced the raids. GADEM said that many migrants, like Abdoulaye N., did not realise they were being expelled until they were dropped off hundreds of kilometres from their homes, and that many reported harsh treatment, with people often confined for hours on end without access to food or toilets.

The Moroccan Association of Human Rights shared videos and photos of officials piling black-skinned migrants into buses in Tangier, Tetuan and Nador and dropping them off in the south. Images of harsh police treatment also emerged in local news reports.

"It is shocking to see that young children are among those subjected to these brutal punishments, as well as UN-recognised asylum-seekers and refugees as well as registered migrants holding residency cards," Heba Morayef, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa director, said in a statement.

An estimated 70,000 sub-Saharans reside in Morocco, according to several organisations, though the numbers are difficult to verify. About 24,000 got their papers during a legalisation campaign begun in 2014 and another 28,400 in a similar effort in 2017.

Abdoulaye N. thought he was one of those who benefited from the program, until his arrest.

"The legalization campaign is useless," he said. "The fact is we have our residence cards and they still embarked us. At first, they left us at peace on the markets and in the streets. Now, they are preventing us from working with or without papers."

Rights groups say that some people have died during the roundups, usually under murky circumstances.

A 16-year-old boy from Mali arrested at the market in Tangier and an older man from Gambia were found dead, handcuffed together near the city Kenitra, apparently after falling off a bus, the Moroccan Association of Human Rights reported.

"This is a huge step backward for Morocco," said Maleno Garzon, who has been based in Tangier for more than 15 years. "As Moroccans see authorities arresting these migrants, they automatically assume they're criminals and it nourishes racism and xenophobia."

The result is a growing hostility to migrants, whether legal or not. Many say they appear in public only in groups, to ward off attacks. "Even when you're at work, your heart isn't at peace," said a 39-year-old woman from the Ivory Coast, who gave only her first name, Pelagie. "Our kids are terrorised. We can't even go out to food shop without the fear of getting mugged."

Patricia G., 36, also from the Ivory Coast, said: "There is a big difference between the official discourse and the reality. We see that the king wants us to have our rights, but it's not always easy with the authorities here."

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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24 October, 2018

How dating app algorithms contribute to racial bias

We are not allowed to prefer partners similar to ourselves, apparently.  Typical leftist authoritarianism

Nikki Chapman remembers finding her now-husband through online dating website Plenty of Fish in 2008. Kay Chapman had sent her a message.

"I looked at his profile and thought he was really cute," Nikki Chapman said. "He asked me who my favourite Power Ranger was, and that is what made me respond to him. I thought that was kind of cool – it was something that was near and dear to me from when I was a kid." The Ilinois couple now have two kids of their own: son Liam is 7, and daughter Abie is 1.

Looking back, Chapman recalls the dating site asking about race, which she doesn't think should matter when it comes to compatibility. It didn't for her; she is white, and Kay is African-American.

"Somebody has to be open-minded in order to accept somebody into their lives, and unfortunately not everybody is," she said.

Researchers at Cornell University looked to decode dating app bias in their recent paper, Debiasing Desire: Addressing Bias and Discrimination on Intimate Platforms.

In it, they argue dating apps that let users filter their searches by race – or rely on algorithms that pair up people of the same race – reinforce racial divisions and biases. They said existing algorithms can be tweaked in a way that makes race a less important factor and helps users branch out from what they typically look for.

"There's a lot of evidence that says people don't actually know what they want as much as they think they do, and that intimate preferences are really dynamic, and they can be changed by all types of factors, including how people are presented to you on a dating site," said Jessie Taft, a research coordinator at Cornell Tech. "There's a lot of potential there for more imagination, introducing more serendipity and designing these platforms in a way that encourages exploration rather than just sort of encouraging people to do what they would normally already do."

Taft and his team downloaded the 25 most popular dating apps (based on number of iOS installs as of 2017). It included apps like OKCupid, Grindr, Tinder and Coffee Meets Bagel. They looked at the apps' terms of service, their sorting and filtering features, and their matching algorithms – all to see how design and functionality decisions could affect bias against people of marginalised groups.

They found that matching algorithms are often programmed in ways that define a "good match" based on previous "good matches". In other words, if a user had several good Caucasian matches in the past, the algorithm is more likely to suggest Caucasian people as "good matches" in the future.

Algorithms also often take data from past users to make decisions about future users – in a sense, making the same decision over and over again. Taft argues that's harmful because it entrenches those norms. If past users made discriminatory decisions, the algorithm will continue on the same, biased trajectory.

"When somebody gets to filter out a whole class of people because they happen to check the box that says (they're) some race, that completely eliminates that you even see them as potential matches. You just see them as a hindrance to be filtered out, and we want to make sure that everybody gets seen as a person rather than as an obstacle," Taft said.

"There's more design theory research that says we can use design to have pro-social outcomes that make people's lives better than just sort of letting the status quo stand as it is."

Other data shows that racial disparities exist in online dating. A 2014 study by dating website OKCupid found that black women received the fewest messages of all of its users. According to Christian Rudder, OKCupid co-founder, Asian men had a similar experience. And a 2013 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences revealed that users were more likely to respond to a romantic message sent by someone of a different race than they were to initiate contact with someone of a different race.

Taft said that when users raise these issues to dating platforms, companies often respond by saying it's simply what users want.

"When what most users want is to dehumanise a small group of users, then the answer to that issue is not to rely on what most users want... Listen to that small group of individuals who are being discriminated against, and try to think of a way to help them use the platform in a way that ensures that they get equal access to all of the benefits that intimate life entails," Taft said. "We want them to be treated equitably, and often the way to do that is not just to do what everybody thinks is most convenient."

He said dating sites and apps are making progress – some have revamped their community guidelines to explicitly state that their site is a discrimination-free zone (users who use hateful messaging are then banned). Others are keeping the race/ethnicity filter but also adding new categories by which to sort. Taft hopes the people making design decisions will read his team's paper and at least keep the conversation going.

"There's a lot of options out there," Nikki Chapman said. "I remember filling out on an app, 'What hair colour are you interested in? What income level? What level of education?' If you're going to be that specific, then you need to go build a doll or something because life and love doesn't work like that."

SOURCE





Preachers of hate prey on our liberal values

Fanatics like Choudary can’t be stopped unless we use illiberal measures to defend ourselves

melanie phillips

What do you do with a problem like Anjem Choudary? In 2016, he was jailed for five and a half years for inviting support for Islamic State. Last Friday, he was released on licence halfway through his sentence.

Choudary, who emerged from prison reportedly reaffirming his support for Isis, is no run-of-the-mill extremist. He has arguably had more influence on radicalising British Muslims than has any other Islamist.

His al-Muhajiroun network, which was banned in 2005 but subsequently mutated into a series of other proscribed radical groupings, was linked to one of the two men who hacked to death off-duty soldier Lee Rigby in 2013 and also influenced one of the perpetrators of the 2017 London Bridge terrorist attack.

The prisons minister Rory Stewart has described Choudary as a “genuinely dangerous person” who remains a “deeply pernicious, destabilising influence”.

The unprecedented threat he is said to pose has led to unprecedented measures, at an estimated cost of more than £2 million a year, to prevent him from doing any more harm. His release is governed by more than 20 licence conditions, including electronic tagging, night curfew, restrictions on phone and internet use and bans on preaching, speaking to the media and travelling outside the M25.

Yet he will live in a probation hostel only for up to six months, after which he will probably move in with his wife (although with the restrictions still in place).

It is astonishing that such a man should be released from prison so soon. That’s because of a loophole in the law. Early release from jail for prisoners who serve the second half of their sentence on licence was introduced in 1967 to cut the prison population. Under the existing law, certain terrorism-related offenders can be required to serve two-thirds of their sentence in prison or may be kept in custody until the end of their sentence at the discretion of the Parole Board.

This extended jail term, though, only applies to terrorism offences that involve weapons or violence or are linked to an actual act of terrorism, none of which applied in Choudary’s case.

Yet the threat he poses remains severe. Richard Walton, a former head of Scotland Yard’s counterterrorism command, says: “I believe we are underestimating the potency and danger of the radicalisers who don’t carry knives, guns and overtly plot terrorist attacks but who pollute the minds of young Muslim men.”

A new law going through parliament would close this loophole. A wider set of terrorism-linked offenders would not get automatic early release if they continue to pose a risk. They might be subject to an extended licence period of up to eight years, during which they could be sent back to jail if they breach its conditions.

This will help, but it won’t solve the problem. For when the sentence finally comes to an end, then what? When Choudary’s sentence expires in 2021, the severe restrictions on him will also end, although he will be subject to other, lesser requirements through being a registered terrorist offender.

We can be sure the police and security service will continue to monitor him. Yet anti-Islamists are convinced he will nevertheless resume spreading his lethal message even while restrictions are in place.

Choudary avoided arrest for many years by exploiting legal loopholes. Few believe the threat he poses will now be neutralised, despite the heavy cost to the public purse of the attempt to do so.

So what else could be done to stop him? Many think Britain should revoke his citizenship and throw him out of the country. But he is a British subject who was born in the UK and the law upholds the principle that no one should be made stateless.

The problem he represents, although unusually severe, is far from unique. The police and security service are facing a surge in convicted terrorism-related offenders. More than 80 of the 193 terms issued for such offences between 2007 and 2016 will expire by the end of the year and early release means the number of such individuals on the streets will be much higher.

Yet every government move to increase the reach of the law to deal with this threat is bitterly resisted on civil liberties grounds.

Here lies the potentially self-destructive paradox of a liberal society. Sometimes it can only defend itself adequately if it takes illiberal measures. If it refuses to do so it may put its citizens in harm’s way and place its own liberal order in jeopardy.

The usual argument is that if we breach our liberal values the terrorists will have won. That’s not, however, how they see it. Their goal is not to destroy liberal values. It is to destroy liberal individuals and their entire society.

The security service says the Islamist terrorism threat is “intense and unrelenting”. Ultimately society must decide where it stands in response to this.

Either it compromises on its liberal principles in order to defend British citizens and liberal society; or, if liberal purity is all-important, it must accept that this means conniving in further terrorist violence and cultural intimidation.

Increasingly it’s a choice we will have to make. We can’t have it both ways.

SOURCE






The enraged, man-hating feminism of today has nothing to do with advancing women

Feminist icon Camille Paglia believes the modern-day feminism recreated by Betty Friedan in the ‘60s hit “a wall of closed minds,” and thus represents the collapse of Western Civilization. She’s right on the mark.

Speaking at the Battle of Ideas festival in London in October 2016, Paglia made it clear how far feminism has fallen from its high-water mark almost a hundred years ago:

“The period of the 1920s, 1930s: that to me is my favorite period in feminism because these women admired what men had done. There was no male bashing as became systemic to Second Wave feminism. It’s an absolute poison that has spread worldwide.”

“A feminism based on denigrating men, trivializing what men have done, defining men as oppressors and tyrants through history it is an absolute lie.”

To be fair, the reemergence of this video is no coincidence: Paglia has released a new book, Provocations: Collected Essays, and the video will help draw attention to it. Yet it is hard to dispute her assertions, especially when she refers to the original feminist movement that won women the right to vote and saw iconic women such as Katharine Hepburn, Amelia Earhart, Dorothy Parker, and Anne Morrow Lindbergh as “great achievers.”

Today’s feminists? Paglia believes the current generation of women has been tainted by an education system that “tried to make everyone feel good,” and social media “where people feel they have so many 'friends’ and they want a sense that reality is comforting them and cushioning them and so on.” She notes that when she went to college in the mid ‘60s she and her fellow feminists were willing to “risk rape” rather than maintain a system whereby college administrators acted “in loco parentis” for women, while male students were treated as adults.

By contrast, today’s women are “easily upset,” even as they remain unaware of the “barbarities of human history,” and she contends this lack of historical perspective gives them “no sense of the special privileges they enjoy.”

It’s worse than that. Like so much of the progressive ideology that forms the backbone of modern-day feminism, a virulent combination of infantilism and hateful hysteria has taken over the movement. Today’s feminists parade themselves around in vagina costumes, and pussy hats, insist women can have penises, and advocate for witchcraft therapy to “process trauma, anger, and grief” — all while expecting to be taken seriously.

When it comes to the Rule of Law and the Constitution, they believe men should “shut up,” due process should be tossed on the ash heap of history, and women who make accusations of sexual assault should be deemed “survivors.”

Survivors whose accusations require unquestioning belief, irrespective of evidence or credibility.

If not? A Washington Post op-ed entitled “Thanks for not raping us, all you 'good men.’ But it’s not enough,” written by Victoria Bissell Brown epitomizes the collective male-bashing that is precisely the “absolute poison” to which Paglia refers. “In the centuries of feminist movements that have washed up and away, good men have not once organized their own mass movement to change themselves and their sons or to attack the mean-spirited, teasing, punching thing that passes for male culture,” Brown asserts. “Not once. Bastards.”

And aside from her anger, Brown, who is “almost 70 years old,” embraces another attribute that defines modern-day feminism: self-pity. “The gender war that has broken out in this country is flooding all our houses,” she declares. “It’s rising on the torrent of memories that every woman has. … Not just memories of sexual abuse. Memories of being dismissed, disdained, distrusted. Memories of having to endure put-downs at the office, catcalls in the parking lot, barked orders at a dinner party. And, for some reason, the most chilling memory of all, the one Christine Blasey Ford called up and that we all recognized: the laughter. The laughter of men who are bonding with each other by mocking us.”

In a 2017 interview, American Enterprise Institute scholar Christina Hoff Sommers coined the most apt description of women like Brown and their fatuous assumptions that all women are fragile and easily traumatized: “fainting couch feminism.”

As for mockery, no one wields that club more forcefully than feminists themselves — against other women. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s wife, Ashley, was attacked for standing in “ignorance, loyalty, & whiteness by her predator man.” Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who refused to allow unsubstantiated allegations stand in the way of Kavanaugh’s ascension to the Court, was referred to by other women as a “betrayer,” “the face of the generation I can’t wait to die,” and someone who should never “have a moment of peace in public again.”

As always, some women are “more equal” than others.

That kind of rank hypocrisy is driven by ideology with conservative women invariably getting the short end of the stick. Nonetheless, the dividers remain unsatisfied: race is now part of the equation as well, and white women per se are the target. White women who “put their racial privilege ahead of their second-class gender status in 2016 by voting to uphold a system that values only their whiteness, just as they have for decades,” asserted NY Times columnist Alexis Grenell. White women who “have often played the protagonists in the history of sexual violence,” while “black women have been relegated to the supporting cast,” as Allyson Hobbs, director of African and African-American studies at Stanford University put it. White women who “use strategic tears to silence women of colour,” as the Guardian stated.

Unsurprisingly, much of this animus was engendered by the same thing that has driven the entire American Left into paroxysms of uncontrollable hysteria: the election of Donald Trump. “Exit polls showed 52 percent of white women backed Donald Trump, and much sorrowful tsk-tsking ensued,” writes Kyle Smith. “Sorrow turned to disbelief. Disbelief turned to rage.”

Why would white women vote for Trump? Maybe it’s because Hillary Clinton was just as contemptuous of them as her fellow racial arsonists. “They will be under tremendous pressure — and I’m talking principally about white women,” she said in 2016. “They will be under tremendous pressure from fathers and husbands and boyfriends and male employers not to vote for ‘the girl.’”

That would be “the girl” who dismissed credible (and ultimately proven) allegations by women against her own husband as a “vast right-wing conspiracy.”

Thus, feminists might consider that Clinton’s rank hypocrisy and contemptible double standards were more important to voters than her gender. They might also note those character traits remain unchanging: despite Clinton’s insistence that Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser “deserves the benefit of the doubt,” she remains convinced that Bill shouldn’t have resigned, and that his relationship with then-22-year-old intern Monica Lewinsky was not an abuse of power.

Paglia believes the bankruptcy of modern-day feminism stems from “getting rid of the orthodox religions because they were too conservative” and replacing them with “the new religion of political correctness.” Thus, she concludes Second Wave feminists resemble the “Spanish Inquisition” where “any form of dissent is treated as heresy, and they actually try to destroy you.”

Actually, modern-day feminism is destroying itself.

SOURCE






The Extremists' Slaughter of Christians Inside Churches

Indonesia: Six suicide bombers from one Muslim family attacked three churches on May 13, during Sunday Mass services; at least 11 worshippers were killed. The suicide bombers consisted of a father, mother, and four children, two boys and two girls, aged 9,12, 16, and 18. According to the report:

"More than 40 people were injured in the blasts. The first attack that killed four people, including one or more bombers, occurred at the Santa Maria Roman Catholic Church... The father of the family accused of carrying out the suicide bombing had detonated a car bomb during his attack. The incident was followed by a second explosion at the Christian Church of Diponegoro that killed two people. In a third attack, at Pantekosta Church, two more died, police said."

A witness described one of the attacks, where the mother and the two youngest jihadis detonated themselves. Because she was carrying two suspicious bags (apparently of explosives), "officers blocked them in front of the churchyard, but the woman ignored them and forced her way inside. Suddenly (the bomb) exploded." The father "was very active in the mosque," said an acquaintance; "he never missed any of the five daily prayers, but he avoided discussing religion." "The four children were studying in schools run by the Muhammadiyah," long thought the most moderate Islamic school in Indonesia, said a family neighbor. "To me they were normal people," he added.

Russia: Four gunmen stormed a church in Grozny, the capital of Russia's Muslim-majority Republic of Chechnya, and killed three people, a churchgoer and two police officers, on May 19. The attackers — who were also armed with knives, hatchets and homemade explosives — were also killed in the gunfire exchange with security forces at the Church of Michael the Archangel. According to the report:

"It was not immediately clear whether there was any link between the attackers and extremist groups. But Chechnya has experienced attacks by Islamist extremists before, including those who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. Women and men from majority Muslim areas of Russia, including Chechnya, have traveled to Syria and Iraq to fight alongside the Islamic State there, and dozens have begun to return as the group has lost most of its territory.... Grozny once had a substantial ethnic Russian, Christian population but most of them fled during the wars. The church that was attacked Saturday is in the center of the city and was at the heart of some of the battles of the 1990s."

Three months earlier, a report entitled, "ISIS Tells Muslims to Kidnap and Murder Christians in Russian-Occupied Areas," had been published.

Central African Republic: Armed Muslims opened fire on, and hurled grenades at, a Catholic church on May 1. They killed between 16 and 24 people and injured 170. According to one report:

"Former members of a Muslim militia killed at least 16 people in an attack on a church in the Central African Republic... Notre Dame of Fatima, a Roman Catholic church in the capital, Bangui, was attacked Tuesday morning with grenades and gunfire by men allied with a rebel group once known as Seleka, an Islamic faction whose takeover of Bangui five years ago set off the country's continuing conflict."

A later report said, "at least 24 were killed and 170 injured by militants who sprayed bullets into the crowd and detonated grenades." This is "the second Catholic priest to be killed in about a month in the CAR [Central African Republic]. The murdered priest's church lies just outside the predominantly Muslim PK5 district of Bangui..." The New York Times reported:

"It was the second time in four years that Notre Dame of Fatima has become a symbol of the violence that has cleaved the country, often along religious lines. In 2014, Seleka rebels followed the same pattern, first throwing grenades and then opening fire indiscriminately, targeting people who had sought protection at the church from ongoing clashes."

Nigeria: Armed Muslim herdsmen raided a Catholic seminary in Jalingo. According to a priest who was shot, "Fulani herdsmen who were armed to their teeth stormed the school premises" and "opened fire at my window and destroyed my telephone set and other valuables." They then "forced the students to lead them to my room and beat me with their sticks and immediately I fell down [and] one of them shot me in my leg." Discussing such raids, the local bishop said that "it is regrettable as a church because we are only modeling the children to be good citizens of Nigeria and the world at large."

The Extremist Muslim Slaughter of Christians Outside Churches

Pakistan: A Muslim family beat, tied down, raped, and then murdered a Christian teen in front of her father, because she, their live-in maid, did not do her household chores to their satisfaction. On May 5, her father and another relative went to visit the girl at her employer's home. According to the report:

"When they entered the house they saw Muhammad Asif, Muhammad Kashif, Muhammad Tariq Pasran, Muhammad Ismael and wife of Muhammad Asif and another lady were torturing Kainat [his daughter]... Asif Gujjar and his wife were seizing the legs of Kainat while Muhammad Kashif and Muhammad Tariq Pasran had grabbed her arms. They had tied a rope around her neck and were trying to strangle her. Salamat Masih said that they begged not to kill his daughter but they did not pay any heed to his plea. They killed Kianat in front of his eyes. ... Salamat Masih claims that his daughter was killed for not cleaning the house properly."

A separate report said that "a post-mortem study ... also found evidence of rape on the teenager." Because they and their families are usually condemned to lives of extreme poverty, "Christian girls are too frequently placed into domestic servitude contracts from ages as young as 10. Many of these girls suffer cruel beatings and rape from depraved men and jealous wives," the British Pakistani Christian Association said while discussing this latest atrocity.

Uganda: Not content with killing a Muslim convert to Christianity, Muslim villagers also mutilated his corpse, according to a May 4 report. After Kuzaifa became a Christian two years ago, his family instantly ostracized him. He, his wife, and two young children fled to, and found refuge with, a pastor, and eventually moved more than 100 miles away from their home village. "You think you are safe in Kampala," the text messages started coming in. "We shall soon come for your neck." Then, on April 1, while returning from work, he was attacked and killed by unidentified persons. When his wife went to her husband's family to inform them of his death, her father-in-law received her coldly, saying, "My son thought that he can run away from Allah, but he could not." According to the report, "On April 4, family members and other Muslims took the body from the mortuary and buried it in an indecent manner." "Word went around that Kuzaifa's body was mutilated and not properly buried," said his wife. "His body was not washed, several pins were inserted into his body, they dug a very small grave for the body, and several cuts were made on his corpse." Christians responded by exhuming his body; "[t]hey washed it and provided a decent burial service." Now it is his wife's turn to be targeted: "If you continue with Christianity," came one text message, "you will go the same way of your husband."

Mozambique: Suspected Islamic terrorists beheaded 10 people with machetes in the Christian-majority nation on May 29. "There are 10 citizens who have been hideously killed," said a police spokesman. "The environment is scary." Although it was not immediately clear who was behind the atrocity, "local sources blamed the attack on Islamists," said the report; "Cabo Delgado province has seen a number of attacks by suspected radical Islamists since October [2017]." The group, known as Al Shabaab — Arabic for "the Youth" — is not believed to be affiliated to the other Islamic terror group of the same name in Somalia. "On the one hand the rate of attacks appears to intensify," said one analyst, "on the other hand, the methods seem to be radicalized, with decapitations becoming more and more common."

The Legal Jihad on Christian Churches

Algeria: Authorities shut down "two more Protestant churches, amidst growing pressure on the country's Christian minority," according to a May 29 report. Police sealed off the two churches in an area "where much of the growth in the Church is happening." One of the churches was established in 2005 and was attended by more than 200 worshippers. In the words of one of its leaders, "The officers came in on Friday morning. They simply sealed off the main entrance without a prior notice, as was the case before with other ... churches." A leader from another church had also received a similar telephone call from a police officer who said, "I'm calling to inform you that we have received an order to close your church." Soon after, a group of officers appeared and sealed off that church, too. According to the Christian advocacy group, Middle East Concern:

"The Algerian government has been criticized for discrimination against the country's Christian minority. Churches and individual Christians have faced increased restrictions in recent months, raising concerns that these pressures signal a coordinated campaign of intensified action against churches by the governing authorities."

Tanzania: After Muslim sheikhs from a mosque in the Muslim-majority, semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar complained that the Sunday services of a nearby church were too loud, authorities shut it down — even though, unlike the mosque, the church did not employ loudspeakers. As the bishop was in the middle of a sermon, a plainclothes police officer and other local officials walked into the church. "One of the police officers in civilian clothes walked through the church's door, stepped up to the podium and then grabbed the bishop by the arm," a church member said. "The bishop pleaded with him to allow him finish the preaching." According to a May 24 report,

"The congregation of the Pentecostal Evangelistic Fellowship of Africa (PEFA) church in Kisauni ... was gripped with fear that day (May 6) as the pulpit microphone picked up Bishop Daniel Kwileba Kwiyeya's plea. The regional and local district commissioners ordered him to stop the worship service as the officer dragged him into a police car..."

"Why are you arresting my father without giving us the reasons for his arrest?" the bishop's daughter cried. "This is very inhumane." The local district commissioner responded by slapping her and pushing her into the police vehicle, which hauled her and her father to the police station. They were released on the next day. "We have the right to worship God just like our brothers the Muslims who worship God using loudspeakers, but no one terms their worship a nuisance," said a church member. "We as the church are of the opinion that the order to close the church is tainted with favoritism and unconstitutional."

Saudi Arabia: Although a number of mainstream media including Fox News and Al Jazeera announced that the Vatican and Saudi Arabia had made a "historic" deal allowing the existence of churches on Saudi soils, the Vatican denied it as fake news. As one report explains, Saudi Arabia would have to completely remake itself before such a scenario can occur:

"The country follows a strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islam and it is impossible for anyone living in the country to openly practice Christianity. There are hundreds of thousands of Christians from other nations, such as the Philippines, other parts of Asia, or African countries, who are living and working in Saudi Arabia. But they must meet in private homes to worship, and risk harassment, arrest and deportation if they are caught doing so..... The Kingdom's administrative laws state that its constitution is the 'The Holy Qur'an and the Prophet's Sunnah (traditions),' and the judicial system operates on a strict interpretation of sharia law, which officially carries the death penalty for any Muslim citizen who converts to Christianity. Adult males and females are both subject to the death penalty for apostasy from Islam under the Sunni Hanbali form of sharia law practiced in Saudi Arabia."

Muslim Threats to Christian Churches

United States: A Muslim man disrupted two separate church services, one at Saint Matthew Parish, and another at BlueStone Church, in the course of a week, in West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. According to John Stange, who was leading the service at BlueStone Church:

"[W]hile I spoke this evening about the sacrificial love of Jesus and how Jesus calls us to love one another with that same kind of sacrificial love, I noticed that a man pulled his car up to the entrance of the church and he sat there during the course of the message for over 35 minutes. ...As I was wrapping up the message, he began yelling into the building. I wasn't sure what he was saying at first, so I stopped speaking and walked toward him so I could engage in conversation with him. It quickly became clear that he took great offense to what I was preaching about, and in the midst of yelling at me he stated, 'You press on my nerves. You press on Muslims' nerves. You're going straight to Hell on the day of judgment.' Apparently, he was Muslim and he wanted to make sure that I knew he had a problem with the Christian message I was preaching. Needless to say, this experience made all of us uncomfortable."

France: A Muslim man walked into a cathedral and threatened to blow it up for preaching the Gospel and not the Koran. According to the May 3 report (original French here), the 37-year-old man, known only by his first name, Ahmed, "barged into local landmark St Vincent's Cathedral of Chalon-sur-Saône," and started yelling that "It is the Quran that must be read!" and that he had a "grenade and would blow up the church." During his court trial, it was revealed that Ahmed "has a long history of criminality with 27 prior criminal convictions including three cases of death threats and seven convictions for theft." The report continued:

"Father Thierry de Marsac, who heads the Roman Catholic parish of Saint Vincent, said that everyone in the cathedral at the time remained calm but he expressed he was concerned at the time, thinking of the brutal murder of Father Jacques Hamel who was killed by radical Islamic terrorists in 2016."

Muslim Attacks on Christian Freedom

Indonesia: On May 7, a court sentenced a Christian pastor, Reverend Abraham Ben Moses, 52, to four years in prison for "blasphemy" against Islam's prophet Muhammad. A former Muslim, Abraham, after his conversion, was known to enjoy evangelizing and debating with Muslims. He was arrested in December 2017, after a video he posted of himself sharing his new Christian faith with a Muslim taxi driver went viral. The video apparently prompted the Muhammadiyah ("Muhammadans"), a leading Islamic group in Indonesia with nearly 30 million members, to lodge a complaint against him. Because in the video, he criticized marriage as taught by Muhammad and in the Koran, apparently compared to Christian monogamy, "Abraham was," according to the report, "convicted under Electronic and Information Transactions Law No. 11/2008 as he intentionally spread information intended to incite hatred against an individual, group and society based on religion." A Muhammadiyah spokesman responded by saying that, "This decision should be appreciated and should serve as a valuable lesson for all parties." Conversely, human rights groups such as International Christian Concern say that:

"The Indonesian government should revisit the country's blasphemy law, as it is increasingly being exploited by radical Muslim groups to target individuals who they find to be offensive and theologically 'out-of-line.' To honor religious freedom as enshrined in Indonesia's constitution, the government must respect all religions and stop criminalizing Christians when they are merely exercising their right to free speech."

Algeria: The appeal of a Christian pastor -- a 37-year-old father of three -- who was found guilty of "undermining the faith of a Muslim" was rejected by a court of law on May 16. His troubles began when someone informed a security checkpoint to inspect his vehicle thoroughly; the officers seized 56 books, including the Gospel of Mathew, Bibles, a Bible commentary, a book on church history and some pamphlets. Pastor Nouredine Belabed, a former Muslim, explained that he "meant to distribute them free to other Christians or any other person who wanted to know Christ." During his sentencing "the judge was harsh," and "used intimidation," according to Belabed. The judge, he said, repeatedly upbraided him: "Why do you carry those Christian books? Are not you ashamed? You're not ashamed to do that? Algeria is a Muslim country." "I did not do anything wrong, judge," Belabed responded. "The Bibles I carried were intended for members of our community, our Tiaret church, which is affiliated with the EPA [the formally recognized church of Algeria]. I did not give them to others or try to evangelize anyone."

According to the verdict, "Nouredine B. alone was found guilty for carrying and distributing Christian articles in order to undermine and destabilize the faith of a Muslim, in accordance with Article 11/02 of Law 03/06, and for that he is ordered to pay a fine of 100,000. DA [dinars]." The fine, equivalent to about $ 862 USD, is considered very large. "I am tired," says Belabed. "The police keep watching us, my wife and me. They watch all our movements. I do not want to inflict more on my family than that; I decide to choose to pay the fine."

Law 03/06 calls for a prison term of as much as five years and a fine of up to one million dinars ($8,687 USD) for anyone who:

"incites, constrains, or utilizes means of seduction tending to convert a Muslim to another religion, or using for this purpose the institutions of education, health, social, cultural, or educational institutions, or other establishment, or financial advantage; or makes, stores or distributes printed documents or films or other audiovisual medium or means intended to undermine the faith of a Muslim."

Separately, on May 3, a court fined Idir Hamdad, a 29-year-old Muslim convert to Christianity, 20,000 dinars ($172 USD) for "importing unlicensed goods" — a reference to the Bible and crucifix keyrings which were donated to him by a church when he was visiting Jordan, and which custom officials confiscated from him at the airport when he returned in late 2017. "After they opened my luggage, suddenly I found myself surrounded by multitudes of police and customs officers," Hamdad explained.

"The customs officer began to gesticulate in all directions to attract attention. And I, still in astonishment, still did not understand what was happening to me."

One after another, sometimes at the same time, the officials peppered him with questions, he said.

"It fell on me like a rain: 'Are you a Christian? Where do you come from? Who gave you these objects? And those Christian books, who gave them to you? Who is it for?'" he said.

Two police officers grabbed him and forced him to follow them out of the international terminal to the national terminal, where they held him for eight hours without food or water, he said.

"In this quarantine, the representatives of the law did not fail to abuse their authority to insult me," he said. "They had repeatedly tried to persuade me to renounce my Christian faith and return to Islam: 'If you renounce now your Christianity and you do the chahada [Islamic conversion creed], we will let you leave right away, and there will be no prosecution against you.'"

"To condemn a Christian...with about 20 keychains, including four or five bearing crucifixes, and six scarves ... is ridiculous in view of Article 365 of the Code of Customs," his attorney said, adding that none of the items violated Algerian customs law.

Somalia: A small community of about 30 elderly Christians live in constant fear that their relatives — particularly their grandchildren — will slaughter them in what is arguably the worst Muslim nation in the world in which to be Christian. According to one man, speaking under the pseudonym of Moses:

"Violence is in [our] homes and we, who are few, we risk our lives every day.... Those born in the 90s have become intolerant and do not understand their elders who profess Christianity. Therefore the elders flee, go away from their children and grandchildren."

He added that some of these Christian grandparents have already been "killed by their children's children."

SOURCE

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

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

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

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




23 October, 2018

Trump cracking down on transgender nonsense

Reality restored.  Some compassions for sexually disturbed people is reasonable but Leftists have pushed the isssue to extremes, making it a source of oppression to anybody who calls it like it is.  Leftist tyranny was bound to cause a pushback and that may now be arriving -- probably depriving trannies of even reasonable accomodations.  As ever, Leftist intervention will have been destructive


President Donald Trump's administration is attempting to strip transgender people of official recognition by creating a narrow definition of gender as being only male or female and unchangeable once it is determined at birth, The New York Times reported on Sunday.

The Department of Health and Human Services has undertaken an effort across several government departments to establish a legal definition of sex under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that bans discrimination on the basis of sex, the Times said, citing a government memo that it obtained.

Such an interpretation would reverse the expansion of transgender rights that took place under the previous administration of President Barack Obama.

It would also set back aspirations for tolerance and equality among the estimated 0.7 percent of the population that identifies as transgender. Most transgender people live with a profound sense that the gender assigned to them at birth was wrong and transition to the opposite sex, while others live a non-binary or gender fluid life.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) declined to comment on what she called 'allegedly leaked documents' but cited a ruling by a conservative U.S. district judge as a guide to transgender policy.

Ruling on a challenge to one aspect of the Affordable Care Act, U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor in Texas found in 2016 that there was no protection against discrimination on the basis of gender identity.

A leading transgender advocate called the government's reported action a 'super aggressive, dismissive, dangerous move.' 'They are saying we don't exist,' said Mara Keisling, director of the National Center for Transgender Rights, in an interview.

The Obama administration enacted regulations and followed court rulings that protected transgender people from discrimination, upsetting religious conservatives.

The Trump administration has sought to ban transgender people from military service and rescinded guidance to public schools recommending that transgender students be allowed to use the bathroom of their choice.

A draft of the Trump administration memo says gender should be determined 'on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable,' the memo says, according to the Times.

Psychiatrists no longer consider being transgender a disorder and several U.S. courts have found the Obama interpretation of protecting transgender people against discrimination as sound. But the Trump administration has chosen to abide by the ruling of O'Connor, the Times said.

'The court order remains in full force and effect today and HHS is abiding by it as we continue to review the issue,' Roger Severino, the director of the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement.

SOURCE 






'Fantasist' known only as 'Nick' whose claims of VIP child sex abuse sparked Scotland Yard's disastrous £2.5million inquiry appears in court charged with 12 counts of perverting course of justice

At last they are prosecuting the grub.  It's a big blot on them that they took him seriously

A man who claimed he was the victim of a Westminster paedophile ring - sparking a £2.5million inquiry - has appeared in court charged with perverting the course of justice.

The 50-year-old 'fantasist' said he was raped and abused in the 1970s and 1980s by powerful men including former Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath.

He also claimed to have witnessed the murders of three young boys during sex games.

Operation Midland was launched by Scotland Yard in 2014 to investigate his claims, but was closed in 2016 when no evidence was found to support them.

Nick is charged with 12 counts of perverting the course of justice and one count of fraud.

He claims the alleged abuse took place when he was aged between seven and 16.

The fraud charge relates to him being awarded £22,000 compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority.

Prosecutor Elizabeth Reid told the court he had made allegations of 'sexual and physical abuse by a number of people of public prominence'. 'He also said he witnessed the murders of three young children,' she said

Northumbria Police passed a file to the Crown Prosecution Service in September last year, which led to the charges being brought against Nick.

SOURCE






Have we got King Henry VIII all wrong? Famous womaniser was a 'vulnerable, insecure and loyal' king, says expert

He has been known for centuries as one of England's most fearsome monarchs, a single-minded autocrat, who had no qualms about divorcing two of his wives and beheading another two.

But Henry VIII also had a side that was 'vulnerable, insecure and loyal', according to a new book about the infamous Tudor monarch. 

Using documents from those who served the king, including his servants, barbers, physicians and jesters, leading historian Tracy Borman has uncovered a wealth of evidence suggesting that Henry VIII was far from the boorish tyrant history has made him out to be.

Speaking to Dalya Alberge for The Observer, Borman, who is joint chief curator for Historic Royal Palaces, said: 'A study of Henry through the eyes of the men, rather than the wives, has never been done before and offers a genuinely new perspective.'

For example, among the household accounts and letters found in the National Archives, British Library and private collections, Borman discovered that Henry looked kindly on his jester, Will Somer, who likely had learning difficulties and gifted him with clothing.

Borman, whose research features in her new book, Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him, explained: 'Household accounts show he was appointed a 'keeper' to look after him, and Henry lavished unstinting care and attention upon him for the rest of his life.'

Henry, who had six wives, was also found to have bequeathed a generous legacy to Thomas Cawarden, his master of revels, while other letters from courtiers disclose that the king grew close to his physician, William Butts.

This friendship was much to the courtiers' chagrin, as Butts was known to hold radical views on religion and may well have influenced Henry's views on splitting from the Catholic church.

Borman concludes that while Henry was still in many ways deserving of being called autocratic and fearsome, he 'just doesn't deserve the caricature we've come to know and despise'.

SOURCE






The genes of human behaviour

A crucial new book by a pioneer of behaviour genetics

Viscount Ridley: My Review in The Times of Robert Plomin's new book

For a long time there was an uncomfortable paradox in the world of behaviour genetics. The evidence for genes heavily influencing personality, intelligence and almost everything about human behaviour got stronger and stronger as more and more studies of twins and adoption came through. However, the evidence implicating any particular gene in any of these traits stubbornly refused to emerge, and when it did, it failed to replicate.

Ten years ago I recall talking to Robert Plomin about this crisis in the science of which he was and is the doyen. He was as baffled as anybody. The more genes seemed to matter, the more they refused to be identified. Were we missing something about heredity? He came close to giving up research and retiring to a sailing boat.

Fortunately, he did not. With the help of the latest genetic techniques, Plomin has now solved the mystery and this is his book setting out the answer. It is a hugely important book — and the story is very well told. Plomin’s writing combines passion with reason (and passion for reason) so fluently that it is hard to believe this is his first book for popular consumption, after more than 800 scientific publications.

His story is crucial, because in the final chapters he exposes his own genes to readers as a test of the arguments he is making. So we learn that Plomin, a professor of behavioural genetics at King’s College London, “grew up in a one-bedroom flat in inner-city Chicago without books”. Nobody in his family went to university, yet he was an insatiable devourer of books.

An intelligence test identified Plomin’s ability and got him into schools where he could develop his talent. Here lies one of the sources of his passion: he thinks that if children are to be enabled to fulfil their potential, then you cannot believe that they are the product of their upbringing or education. You must understand that they have innate aptitudes that can overcome environmental disadvantages. Nothing, he believes, is bleaker than environmental determinism.

Plomin’s research on twins and adoptees has relentlessly proved the truth of this assertion, so long denied by the dogmatists of the “not in our genes” era. Five key insights emerged, some so counterintuitive as to leave your head spinning.

First, most measures of the “environment” show substantial genetic influence. That is, people adapt their environment better to suit their natures. For example, Plomin discovered that the amount of television adopted children watch correlates twice as well with the amount their biological parents watch rather than with the amount watched by their adoptive parents.

Plomin hesitated before publishing this remarkable finding on the “nature of nurture” in 1989. Knowing what had happened to anybody who discussed genes and behaviour, from EO Wilson to Charles Murray, Plomin realised that telling the world that television watching habits are genetically influenced would be ridiculed by social scientists and the media, however strong his evidence. He feared it would be professional suicide. Yet his insight has since been replicated more than 18 times.

Our personalities are also influenced by the environment, but Plomin’s second key insight is that we are more influenced by accidental events of short duration than by family. Incredibly, children growing up in the same family are no more similar than children growing up in different families, if you correct for their genetic similarities. Parents matter, but they do not make a difference.

Plomin says these chance events can be big and traumatic things such as war or bereavement, but are mostly small but random things, like Charles Darwin being selected for HMS Beagle because Captain Robert Fitzroy believed in “phrenology” and thought he could read Darwin’s character from the shape of his nose. Environmental influences turn out to be “unsystematic, idiosyncratic, serendipitous events without lasting effects”, says Plomin.

Moreover, surprisingly, heritability increases as we get older. The longer we live, the more we come to express our own natures, rather than the influences of others on us. We “grow into our genes”, as Plomin puts it. An obvious example is male-pattern baldness, which shows low heritability at 20 and very high heritability at 60.

Two other findings are that normal and abnormal behaviour are influenced by the same genes, and that genetic effects are general across traits; there are not specific genes for intelligence, schizophrenia or personality — they all share sets of genes.

This last point leads to the breakthrough in identifying which genes make the difference. The first attempt at finding genes that influence behaviour and psychology made use of the “candidate-gene” approach. Find a gene that might be involved and see if it matters. With few exceptions, such as the APOE gene and Alzheimer’s, this approach was a dismal failure. The results were sparse and failed to replicate.

Along came the genome-wide array technique: to search for lots of different mutations at the same time in a large sample of people, hoping to pick up subtler effects. Again, nothing: Plomin’s first try yielded no genes associated with intelligence. Then came the first gene-chips in the early 2000s and he was able to look for 10,000 mutations at the same time. Still nothing. “I was beginning to think my luck had run out — after a decade of work, this was the third false start.”

The problem was that everybody thought they were hunting big game — genes with hefty influence on particular traits. It turns out they should have been looking for much smaller quarry: genes with very slight influence, but many more of them. We now know that you need a sample size of 80,000 people before you can detect the very slight changes that each genetic mutation causes, but when you get to such a scale, you find thousands of relevant genes, each adding only a small percentage to the chance of having a particular trait. It’s gold dust, not nuggets.

However, the effects are additive, and once you have lots of genes, you can start to explain significant portions of the variance among individuals. Plomin illustrates this with height. Being, like me, 6ft 5in tall, he is not surprised to find that his polygenic score, based on thousands of genes, puts him at the 90th percentile for height. The genes in the sample so far only explain 15 per cent of the variance in height of individuals, which may not sound like much, given that height is 80 per cent heritable in western societies. But get this: it’s a better predictor than any other factor — such as the height of the parents, or the height of the person as a child, let alone medical history or socio-economic status — and it works from birth, or even conception.

Plomin is very interested in the possibilities of polygenic scores, which will make it possible partly to predict psychological traits such as depression, schizophrenia and educational achievement. The score is the result of passing a sample of your blood over a silicon chip that tests for thousands of mutations, then adds them together, giving an aggregate score for how many of the thousands of single-letter code changes you have that each very slightly makes you more likely to do well in school, for example.

The predictions such scores give are probabilistic, not certain, but they are improving. Plomin argues that genes can probabilistically predict things about an individual, distinguishing her from her siblings, and can do so from the start of life. School attainment is now better forecast by a polygenic score than any other way of predicting it — it is better than knowing how the parents did at school, better than socio-economic status, better than the type of school (which turns out to have little effect once you control for the fact that selective schools choose innately more talented children).

Plomin thinks parents who give a newborn child such a test and find out that no matter how hard the child is helicopter-parented he is unlikely to be a genius would probably be doing that child a favour. “Parents should relax and enjoy their relationship with their children without feeling a need to mould them,” he argues.

It’s far fairer, Plomin says, to find out what children will be good at and bring that out than to be able to create inequality based on income or opportunity. And, in a point he does not emphasise enough, the fact that intelligence or personality are caused by many thousands of genes, each of minuscule effect, means that it will be impossibly difficult to create a super-intelligent designer baby.

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 October, 2018

Brain-dead Teen Vogue: ‘Can’t #EndPoverty Without Ending Capitalism!’

Teen Vogue, which bills itself on Twitter as “The young person's guide to conquering (and saving) the world” declared Wednesday that “ending capitalism!” is the only solution to poverty.

“What ‘Capitalism’ Is and How It Affects People,” subtitled, “what it is, how it works, and who is for and against it” and published online back in April, portrays supporters of capitalism as wealthy, greedy, and responsible for the existence of poverty:

“Individual capitalists are typically wealthy people who have a large amount of capital (money or other financial assets) invested in business, and who benefit from the system of capitalism by making increased profits and thereby adding to their wealth.”

“In a capitalist country, the focus is on profits over anything else; in a socialist country, the public is seen to be more important, and social welfare is a major priority.”

“The essential anti-capitalist argument is that “the hallmark of capitalism is poverty in the midst of plenty.”

In contrast, the article characterizes members of the violent Occupy Wall Street movement as inquisitive citizens wondering why rich people “are allowed" to prosper in the face of poverty:

“The Occupy Wall Street movement began as an anti-capitalist protest against “the 1%” — the richest of the rich of the capitalist class — and asked why they are allowed to grow fat and happy while 20% of all American children live in poverty.”

SOURCE






Dems Fine With 'Money in Politics' ... From Leftist Billionaires

In truth, they only care about where the money's coming from and where it's going.

The severe anguish that drove Democrats to torment Brett Kavanaugh’s path to the Supreme Court is rooted in an impervious desire to circumvent the Constitution by way of the courts. Among the handful of cases they most yearn to see overturned is the campaign-finance case known as Citizens United v. FEC, which House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has called “disastrous.” She wants to see the verdict overturned because “the pocketbooks of the privileged few [should] not drown out the voices of hard-working American families.”

That’s a nice sound bite, and another judicial activist on the Supreme Court would certainly help this and many other leftist causes. Or, as Democrats so often spin it, overturning Citizens United would help to “get money out of politics.” But in truth, it’s not really about the money, per se. It’s about where the money’s come from and where it’s going. Just consider this editorial from The Wall Street Journal:

Democrats are still expressing confidence that they’ll retake Congress in November, and perhaps they will. One reason for their optimism is the gusher of campaign money coming their way this year, and notice how you don’t hear liberals complaining about the corrupting power of money in politics. …

The abortion-rights lobby is dumping cash into House races, including a recent $1 million ad buy from NARAL that targets GOP Members in swing districts such as Peter Roskam in Illinois and Kevin Yoder in Kansas. (The GOP agenda “harms and silences women,” the ad says.) Planned Parenthood said last month the group will spend $20 million on voter turnout.

Then there are billionaires like Mike Bloomberg, who is spending $80 million to turn the House and another $20 million to make Chuck Schumer Senate Majority Leader. And don’t forget Tom Steyer, the West Coast impeachment campaigner who plans to spend more than $100 million through various proxies. Mr. Steyer is spending more than $5 million alone for Andrew Gillum, the progressive Democrat running for Governor in Florida.

Bloomberg and Steyer, along with George Soros and Jeff Bezos, are among the archenemies of Liberty. These billionaire socialists finance numerous leftist causes and candidates who fraudulently espouse a desire to rid politics of money. If you want a perfect example of hypocrisy, look no further. As the Journal concludes, “If progressives win control of Congress, their best friend will have been their supposed biggest enemy: money in politics.” Consequently, Democrats will remain deafeningly silent — unless, of course, the GOP scores another upset in the midterms.

SOURCE






Time for women to sexualise men says TV star Rae

I have an idea that some men might not mind being sexualized

Rising US star Issa Rae held her hand up Wednesday to sexualising men in her hit television series "Insecure", saying it was time for the "female gaze" to have its day.

The African-American writer and producer, who first broke through playing herself in the cult YouTube series "Awkward Black Girl", admitted she was all for the camera lingering longer on the glories of the naked male.

"Men are more sexualised in the series because we are seeing this through the female lens," she told TV executives at MIPCOM, the world's top entertainment showcase in Cannes, where she picked up its "Personality of the Year" award.

"When I am in the act myself I don't say, 'Ooh! Look at my body!' You are seeing what I see, what I am looking at. It is all very intentional. We are all always seeing titties and ass on screen, this is an opportunity to reverse that."

Rae, 33, admitted that her mother, "a good Christian woman", squirms when she watches parts of her HBO series. "She hates it. The bad language, the sex... She'll say, 'Why did I even bother with parental control and having you not watching R-rated movies if you grow to make the things that you weren't allowed to watch?'"

She was particularly shocked by "the threesome gone wrong experience in season two," Rae revealed. "She called me after to say, 'You are basically making porn!'"

But Rae said she makes no apologies for "telling the truth" or seeing the world through the eyes of black women. "What attracts people is we are telling the truth," she argued.

Nor is she afraid of exploring everyday racism in a world "whose default is white", she said. "There is an idea that no one wants black women, that we are not considered desirable. Whether it is a myth or not it is something that permeates the world of dating.

"We are living it. Our writer's room is mostly black women... although there is one white guy. We are always telling him, 'Now you can see what it is like for us,'" she joked.

Which is why see she was so surprised to discover that 60 percent of her audience are white. "That threw me way off," she declared.

"That must mean that even white people are tired of only watching white people and seeing everything from their point of view."

But the success of "Grey's Anatomy" and "Scandal" creator Shonda Rhimes and shows like "Atlanta" proves that even internationally "the idea is not weird anymore to be watching all black people."

She said that when she began producers kept telling her shows needed to be "more multicultural, which meant add a white person.

"In society the default is white and we don't question it. It is very disheartening to feel that your experience doesn't matter," she said.

Even so Rae, whose father is Senegalese and whose mother is African-American, has been criticised for not being black enough -- a subject she often addresses in her show.

It is one of many prickly issues that she tackles, including what she calls "the burden of masculinity for many black men".

"If a dude touches another dude's dick he is automatically gay in that mindset," one that many black women also share, she claimed.

Rae said that she was "building to (deal with) other types of sex" in "Insecure", but this was "a sensitive conversation in the black community. You cannot talk about black gay men without being accused of trying to eradicate the race... it is a very touchy topic."

SOURCE






Uluru climber fights to keep the famous rock open and claims traditional owners guided visitors to the top in the past

It should be open and accessible to all Australians. Locking it up on the grounds of Aboriginal superstition is a form of racism.  It prioritizes a racially defined religion.

It's my belief that there is no spirit realm.  Why is my religion not of any force in the matter?  It's a widely held belief.  Australia is a very secular country and most Australians would believe that your ancestors are as dead as

And while an Aboriginal group are politely referred to as "traditional owners", the legal reality is that the rock is crown land, in effect owned by all Australians


Ayers rock


Right to Climb Ayers Rock blogger Marc Hendrickx has filed a Human Rights Commission complaint alleging racial discrimination.  'I deeply respect the past Aboriginal owners but I think the decision to close the climb has been handled badly,' he told The Australian.

Concerns for the conservation of Uluru partly drove the decision to close it to climbers in October next year. It was argued that tours to the summit of Uluru not only had a detrimental effect on the environment but also disrespected the traditional owners, the Anangu people.

Opponents to the closure claim crucial data was lacking at the time of the decision, and local Aboriginal people, in fact, once guided visitors to the top.

Mr Hendrickx drew up archival images and reports to back up this claim. A 1940s film showed two Aboriginal men Tiger Tjalkalyirri and Mitjenkeri Mick guiding heading a tour to the summit.

Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park board of management chairman Sammy Wilson disputed Mr Hendrickx's claims and urged people to look beneath the surface. He also slammed tourism authorities and a nearby resort for turning Uluru into a moneymaker.

'We are teaching our kids not to climb,' Mr Wilson said. He added it was 'a spiritual place' and noted 'can I climb your temple?'

At the moment, a sign is planted at the base of the rock: it urges visitors to not climb the feature, though many ignore it.

Mr Hendrickx visited Uluru with his daughters in July and said the view at the top was 'stunning'.

On top of closing down the rock, it is also believed five plaques at the rock's base, the chain and a historic cairn at the summit have also been ordered to be removed.

Opponents say it would destroy the very same cultural heritage that authorities are sworn to protect. 'I ­believe that closing the climb and removing those monuments will breach the lease agreement,' Mr Hendrickx said.

A Parks Australia spokeswoman denied any plans to 'destroy the summit monument, chain and memorial plaques.'

The spokeswoman added Parks Australia does not agree with the 'assertion that the director of National Parks has breached the lease agreement with the Anangu traditional owners.' 

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 October, 2018

Push notifications

Roughly every 15 minutes I get a "push" notification on my computer screen.  They are a fairly recent phenomenon. Instead of someone sending you an email that you have to open, the sender puts his message right on your screen before your eyes without you having to open anything or do anything.  But they are there only for a matter of about 10 seconds so you can easily ignore them if you want to. Conversely, if the message looks interesting, you have to click on it straight away if you want to see more.

Without even asking, I am sure that many people are complaining  about push notifications.  I even know the word they are using.  "Bombarded".  They will regard such messages as intrusive and distracting.  Some pain-in-the-ass types will even want a law passed to stop such messages.

I on the other hand regard them as a great leap forward in communication.  How wonderful it is that there are people all over the world  (OK, mostly in America so far) who are sending me bits of information that they believe might be interesting to me! Instead of me seeking out information, it just comes to me with no effort on my part.  It is an improvement in civilization itself.

So how do you become a recipient of such messages?  It happens  when you are reading something on the net that interests you.  The site owner will put up a requester that asks you whether they can send you more information about the sort of topic that they cover.  Once, if you replied "Yes" to such requesters, you would have to provide your email address and the extra info would come to you in an email.  Such are the wonders of modern technology, however, that they no longer need your email address.  Instead of getting more email, these days you will just get a one or two sentence summary projected onto a corner of your screen.  They "know" where you are and how to access your screen.  I imagine that could be abused in some way.  There is not much that someone has not abused.  But, as far as I can tell so far, it is completely harmless.

It greatly reduces what I have to do in information seeking. It actually gives me more free time.  Isn't that great?






UK: Officers wasting time investigating wolf whistles under drive to target hate crime, police leader warns

The drive to target hate crime is forcing police officers to spend valuable time investigating wolf-whistles, bad manners and impolite comments, a police leader has warned.

Sergeant Richard Cooke, the recently elected chairman of the West Midlands Police Federation, said forces were expected to record and follow up reports of hate crime, even when no criminal offence had taken place.

Writing in the Telegraph, Mr Cooke warns police officers would be dispatched to offer words of advice to people, but this meant they had less time to focus on "genuine crimes" such as burglary and violence.

Mr Cooke said he did not believe this was what the public expected of its police service. While applauding the principle behind protecting those at risk of hurtful abuse, officers have expressed their frustration at being drawn into what they see as social rather than criminal issues.

Mr Cooke, who represents 6,500 rank and file officers in the country's second largest police force, said: "I fear a dangerous precedent could be set, where our scant resources are skewed further and further away from the genuine crisis in public safety taking place on our urban homes and streets.

"Nobody, especially police officers, would ever want to see any elderly person or woman subjected to any sort of crime. The same goes for any other innocent member of the community. But we do have laws to address all manner of crimes and anti-social behaviour already."

Earlier this week the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, announced that he had asked the Law Commission to consider whether misogyny and ageism should be added to the list of categories that constitute a hate crime.

It is hoped that by broadening out the definition of the offence, police and prosecutors will have more power to tackle and punish those who deliberately target vulnerable groups.

Newly published figures show how religious hate crimes rose by 40 per cent last year with attacks on Jewish people representing 12 percent of all offences.

Abuse against gay and transgender people and the disabled has also risen.

But there are increasing warnings that in the drive to identify and tackle the problem, police priorities are being impacted.

Mr Cooke said: "We all abhor and want to end genuine crimes motivated or aggravated by intolerance and prejudice. They should be investigated, and those who commit them should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, as should those who incite them."

But he went on: "Let us focus urgently on genuine crime, supported by basic evidence. Let’s not encourage people to think we can solve deep social problems or give impolite people manners.

"Are we really going to be required to routinely record, and potentially act on, incidents like a builder’s wolf whistle or an insensitive comment towards an elderly driver?

"I do not believe for one second that this is what the public, outside of the politically correct 'court of Twitter', expects or wants us to do."

South Yorkshire Police recently came in for criticism after urging people to report insults that did not necessarily constitute hate crimes.

Last month the newly elected chairman of the Police Federation, John Apter, warned that common sense policing was disappearing with officers forced to spend time intervening in trivial social media disputes rather than attending burglaries and other serious crimes.

He said it was time for a debate sensible debate about what the public expected of its police service.

"Where we get drawn into local disagreements, the argument over the remote control, the dispute in the playground, the row on Facebook it is frustrating. I certainly think police time can be better spent and it makes a mockery when we are so stretched," he said.

SOURCE





What's wrong with equality?

Hardly a day goes by where we are not bombarded with calls for employment quotas, free speech restrictions and other mandated equality measures. It is alarming how fast this politically correct agenda has become part of mainstream politics and media.

The impact of cultural Marxism is not unique to Australia. After a speech to the UN General Assembly, New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Arden, received thunderous applause. Arden’s speech, dubbed "Me Too must become We Too", had collective action on gender equality at its core. This is the same leader who proudly proclaimed that "capitalism has failed New Zealand". Prime Minister Arden, like many leaders of today, has taken to using Hollywood-rhetoric and other populist lingo to further her leftist agenda. She is a perfect example of the impact of the long-march through education systems.

The UK Government has now announced a public-private partnership with Bloomberg L.P. to "improve" on the measurement of the difference in payroll between men and women. It aims to improve transparency on "a global scale" and builds on the UK government's Gender Gap Service legislation, which requires an organisation with more than 250 employees to submit an annual report with details of their payroll.

The UK's new proposed organisation is quite similar to Australia's Workplace Gender Equality Agency, which was established as part of the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012. On top of that, Australia also has "Equal Opportunity Commissioners" and various other agencies throughout our states and territories. Despite all these organisations working tirelessly to achieve "equality", and hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent, it is amusing that a recent government report on the South Australian public sector found that their gender pay gap was larger than that of the private sector.

It is well documented that publicly reporting business' payrolls will have unintended consequences. Is it really any wonder that Australia's workforce is in the midst of a so-called "casualisation" after decades of ever-more restrictive workplace laws? Have any of those well-meaning politicians and bureaucrats thought about how these tax and regulatory burdens may affect the incentive to take on new staff? And have those same people ever had to hire someone where they had financial "skin in the game"?

And let's not forget that the gender pay gap is not as straightforward as it is made out to be. There are serious flaws in the way it is measured; simply totalling and dividing the hourly earnings of women and men in clearly leaves out important variables such as career choices, time spent on (maternity) leave and other key factors. As renowned feminist Christina Hoff Sommers of the American Enterprise Institute put it: “If employers could save 16.2 percent by hiring women, they’d fire all the men.”

At home in Australia, Bettina Arndt has devoted her career to bringing these issues to the public sphere. We are pleased that 14 Western Australian students recently got to listen to Bettina at the second annual LibertyFest in Brisbane, as part of a Mannkal scholarship. A large part of the LibertyFest focused on the failure of identity politics to provide a cognisant narrative and a solution for bettering the opportunities for both sexes. We can't wait to see how these students, and future Mannkal Scholars, will pass on the genuine wisdom of these talks.

Via email from Mannkal: media@mannkal.org






Real Christians: Sydney Anglicans set to ban gay weddings and pro-LGBTI advocacy on church property

The Sydney Anglican diocese is set to ban same-sex weddings from any Anglican church or building, and prohibit its properties from being used to promote homosexuality or "transgender ideology".

Critics within the church say the far-reaching policy could stop pastors and teachers from speaking in favour of marriage equality, and stifle student-led LGBTI support groups at Anglican schools.

Documents obtained by Fairfax Media also reveal the church sees the current debate about its right to fire gay teachers as a "key threat" to its ability to foster a Christian ethos at its schools.

The 51st Synod of the Sydney diocese will next week debate the introduction of a property policy to ensure church-owned buildings are used only for "acts or practices which conform to the doctrines, tenets and beliefs of the diocese".

The policy specifies it would be inappropriate to use church-owned property for "advocacy for transgender ideology (e.g gender-fluidity)" and "advocacy for expressions of human sexuality contrary to our doctrine of marriage".

It also bans local Anglican boards from allowing property - such as school halls - to host same-sex marriages or receptions associated with same-sex weddings.

Joel Hollier, a gay Anglican and former pastor who co-chairs the LGBTI group Equal Voices, said the proposed crackdown was a "silencing act" designed to quell dissenting voices.

"The message is potently clear - no priest or pastor has the right to speak in favour of marriage equality," he said.

"Nor are they able to speak freely to the reality of parishioners experiencing gender dysphoria. Churches that suggest otherwise will face the consequences."

Under Archbishop Glenn Davies, the conservative Sydney diocese of the Anglican church was one of the key forces opposed to same-sex marriage, donating $1 million to the "No" campaign last year.

Bishop of South Sydney Michael Stead, the senior clergyman who authored the proposal, told Fairfax Media that the use of church property had "always been governed by various regulations" and the new policy merely sought to consolidate those into a single document.

"The new policy doesn’t represent a change in our position and I wouldn’t expect it to have an effect on any activities currently occurring on church trust property," he said.

"Because the federal government has changed its definition of marriage, the policy makes clear the church’s doctrine of marriage has not changed and that property use scenarios relate only to man/woman marriage."

By contrast, the Uniting Church in Australia recently started conducting same-sex marriages.

Bishop Stead's report noted "man-woman marriage" was not explicitly defined as a tenet of the Sydney Anglican church, and it would be "prudent" to do so in order to harness the power granted to the church through exemptions to NSW anti-discrimination laws.

"A key threat to maintaining the Christian ethos of our Anglican institutions is in relation to the
employment of Christian staff," he noted.

Philip Ruddock's review of religious freedom, which is currently being considered by cabinet, urges new laws to "make it clear" religious schools are not required to provide their facilities for any marriage providing the refusal conforms to the tenets of their religion.

Mr Ruddock also recommends schools retain their right to hire and fire teachers on the basis of their sexuality, provided they have a written policy on the matter. However, the leaked Ruddock review has prompted Labor - and some Liberals - to propose removing that right altogether.

The government intends to remove religious schools' right to discriminate against gay students next week, and has shared the legislation with the Labor Opposition.

Steff Fenton, another co-chair of Equal Voices, described the Anglican proposal as a "grab for privilege" by the church's leaders, who were out of step with the majority of Anglicans.

"Worldwide we can see the movement of the Anglican communion is toward the full inclusion of LGBTI people," she said.

The senior bishops "have so much power and seem to speak for a lot of people, without the data to back up how many people are behind that ‘majority’," Ms Fenton said.

SOURCE 

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

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

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

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





19 October, 2018

Hirono accused of 'looking the other way' as Dem Senator forced intercourse on hairdresser

The Leftist double standard never falters.  They have only pretend morality and ethics

Senator Mazie Hirono just had a huge skeleton fall out of her closet. She was SILENT as a Hawaiian Democratic Senator was allegedly sexually assaulting a hairdresser, but she sure had a lot to say about Brett Kavanaugh.

Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) may want to pack her bags and take a little vacation because this huge skeleton just fell out of a 1992 closet and is about to put a huge dent in her reputation.

If you recall, Hirono was very outspoken when it came to now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the sexual misconduct accusations he faced from Christine Blasey Ford and a few others who turned out to be not credible, nor have real witnesses, or anyone at all who could corroborate any of the accusations against Kavanaugh.

But Hirono was very vocal in going after Kavanaugh and she also used the incident with Kavanaugh to send fundraising emails, a tactic that many criticized as abusing her platform and the situation.

As vocal as Hirono was, even though the allegations didn't produce any results against Kavanaugh, it might have been refreshing to see someone fight so vehemently for women who claim they were victims.

That wasn't the case many years ago when Mazie Hirono remained silent after a hairdresser was on audio tape confessing that she was forced into nonconsensual intercourse and the victim of numerous gropings by then-Democratic Senator Daniel Inouye.

Her name is Lenore Kwock and her name should ring a bell to Sen. Mazie Hirono, even though she refused to speak up about the allegations and refused to be as vocal for Kwock as she was for Christine Blasey Ford.

Details from a 1992 New York Times article provided more insight on accusations against Inouye, who passed away in 2012.

And so when this war hero, this influential committee leader who brings home the bacon, this icon in Hawaii's powerful Japanese-American community was hit with allegations of sexual misconduct shortly before his November re-election, Senator Inouye's colleagues and constituents were confounded by what to say and do.

The accusations, which the 68-year-old Senator has called "unmitigated lies," were made by his hairdresser of the last two decades, when she was led by an opposition campaign worker with a hidden tape recorder into telling a story of nonconsensual intercourse 17 years ago and persistent gropings in years since.

While few public figures here impugned the 40-year-old hairdresser, Lenore Kwock, neither did they raise their voices in curiosity or censure of Mr. Inouye. In large measure, political, civic and business leaders chose guarded silence, which some of them attribute to fear that the party machine, which controls nearly all state and Federal positions and programs here, might derail their careers or strip their projects of government money.
John Fund of the National Review ran an amazing story on this as well. He shattered Hirono's ego by reminding her that it only mattered in her backyard when it was helpful, but not when it would be hurtful to her political party. He pointed out that Hirono was guilty of turning a 'blind eye' when someone of the Democratic Party was engaging in sexual misconduct.

When the Wall Street Journal editorial page pointed out that her statements suggest that the “new American standard of due process will be the presumption of guilt,” she went further. Appearing on CNN on Sunday, Hirono said that Kavanaugh’s basic integrity had been undermined, in her eyes, during his confirmation hearings:
He’s very outcome-driven, he has an ideological agenda, and I can sit here and talk to you about some of the cases that exemplify his, in my view, inability to be fair.

In other words, Kavanaugh was less believable in her eyes because of what she assumed his political views were.

She even went on to imply that the mere allegation against Kavanaugh, even without any evidence to support it, had already damaged his credibility beyond repair:

We already have one person who got to the Supreme Court under this cloud. We shouldn’t have another.

It would be too easy to suggest that Hirono was flirting with McCarthyism in her brazen comments. She is actually flirting with medieval standards of justice, when those in power arbitrarily decided who was telling the truth and who was a traitor.

In Senator Hirono’s case, she had the opportunity to choose sides in the 1990s when credible allegations were made that Daniel Inouye, then a Democratic senator representing Hawaii, had engaged in a pattern of sexual assault.

Then Senator Daniel Inouye was given a Medal of Honor by President Bill Clinton in the year 2000. What a strange picture to look at after all the accusations that both men have found themselves at the center of.

Not only did Sen. Mazie Hirono remain silent, but so did many others on the Democratic party. They didn't want to lose their power.

Technically, those who remained silent allowed a hairdresser to be forced into nonconsensual intercourse and be groped.

They would not stand up for her because there was too much power and too many jobs to lose if there was any backlash.

Why didn't Lenore Kwock deserve the same treatment that Democrats gave Christine Blasey Ford?

SOURCE






A Church is attacked with incendiary devices in Pope Francis's Argentina at the end of the National Encounter of Women, Oct. 14, 2018

ROME - As has become customary, Argentina’s “National Encounter of Women” on Sunday ended with violent protests that included bare-chested women throwing Molotov cocktails at a Catholic church and the City Hall in the city of Trelew, located some 700 miles south of Buenos Aires.

“Abort your heterosexuality,” “Church and State, separate affair,” “death to the macho is not a metaphore,” and “lesbianize yourself” were among slogans an estimated 50,000 women who rallied through downtown Trelew left behind, with graffiti scrawled on storefronts, privately-owned homes and churches.

Ten people were arrested in Trelew, located in the Patagonian province of Chubut. By Monday afternoon the demonstrators had been released, but videos showing the women throwing incendiary devices, stones and other objects at various public buildings beyond the church of Our Lady Auxiliadora are being investigated.

According to reports in social media from people on the ground, as the church was being attacked there were people inside praying in front of the Holy Sacrament.

The three-day event, held in different locations each year, includes workshops and cultural activities for women and transgender people. The 70 workshops this year touched on diverse topics including Women and Religions; Afro-American women; Women and Unemployment; Women and Health; Fat Activism; Women and Cannabis; and Women and Bisexuality.

The National Encounter of Women often ends with a rally, for the most part composed of peaceful women demanding “free, legal and safe abortion,” a legal framework for prostitution and an end to femicides, meaning the violent murder of women by their male partners. Yet recent years also have featured a small yet significant group of demonstrators who throw bottles full of gas into Catholic buildings and leave walls filled with profanities.

According to a civil organization called “Young people for family and life,” the government of Trelew had “advised” its population of 100,000, double the amount of people who participated in the feminist gathering, to stay in their homes during the rally and Catholic faithful to avoid going to church on Sunday.

National media had reported earlier on Sunday that a gas station had been temporarily closed for selling gas in plastic bottles to demonstrators.

This year’s event was particularly significant as it comes only months after Argentina’s Congress voted against a bill that would have legalized abortion on demand until week 14, something the group organizing the event has advocated for decades.

After the vote, participants in a pro-abortion rally ended by rioting, with pockets of women attacking several churches that are in the neighboring area of Argentina’s Congress. Foreseeing the possible attacks, the national government had barricaded several temples, including the Cathedral where Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, today Pope Francis, used to live.

In Argentina, abortion is illegal unless the life of the mother is threatened by pregnancy, and the right to life is constitutionally protected from “its conception until natural death.”

Last year, when the National Encounter of Women took place in Resistencia, topless and covering their faces, women assaulted the local cathedral while singing various chants, including “Church, trash, you’re the dictatorship,” “Take your rosaries out of our ovaries,” “To the Catholic, apostolic, Roman Church, that wants to place itself in our bed, we say that we want to be whores, transvestites and lesbians. Legal abortion in any place.”

According to several local news outlets, upon their arrival at the cathedral last year, the women participating in the ‘boob march’ used stones, tampons and pads with red paint, paint balloons, and even their own feces as projectiles.

They also set trash cans on fire and painted the walls of the nearby buildings near city hall. As a precaution, fences were put up protecting the religious buildings, targeted yearly by this rally.

Slogans included phrases such as “Death to the pope,” “castration for rapists,” “abort the macho,” “lesbianize yourself,” and “legalize cannabis.”

SOURCE






Patriotic Christians not welcome in the Democratic party?

Mark Salvas has, reportedly been forced to resign his position as Democratic Party Executive Director in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania because of social media posts sympathetic to God, country, and an accused police officer.

As local station KDKA reports:

A former Marine and Gulf War veteran, Salvas was just hired in September as executive director of the county party, long after he posted a picture of his wife and him on Facebook with the words, “I stand for the flag, I kneel at the cross.” ...

But some on social media called that inappropriate for a Democratic party leader, including a second post from Salvas’ wife asking for support for their close friends, the family of officer Michael Rosfeld, who is accused of killing Antwon Rose II.

Salvas says he has known Rosfeld since the officer was three years old, and that he considers him “family”: “Officer Rosfeld, Michael Rosfeld, is as close to me and my family as anyone could be. I have known that young man since he was literally 3-years-old. They are family to us."

Salvas says, like the Rose family, the Rosfeld family is struggling with the tragedy. “They have been there for us in hard times, and my wife and I felt it was necessary to be there for them because family backs family,” he said.

However, State Rep. Ed Gainey (D-Pittsburgh) told KDKA he thought the post supporting the police officer is “insensitive” – even though Salvas has a biracial child and African Americans in his family.

Salvas, a veteran, says he has “no apologies” for the posts expressing his patriotism and support for the Officer Rosfeld, but he respects the rights of those who chose to disrespect the flag by kneeling durning the National Anthem.

SOURCE 






Australia: Abortion legalized in Queensland

A free vote is where no whips are issued. Ever since the Heatherbrae case in NSW many years ago, abortion has in fact been de facto legalized in Queensland, subject to the approval of a doctor.  So this was not a big step


IT TOOK just 50 people to change forever the lives of hundreds of thousands of Australian women, when Queensland MPs voted to scrap laws making abortion illegal on Wednesday night.

Queensland women will now be able to choose to have an abortion without risking criminal prosecution.

The laws passed in state parliament will allow women to request an abortion up to 22 weeks gestation and also beyond, if the medical practitioner performing the termination has consulted with a second medical practitioner and both agree the abortion should be performed.

The changes also establish safe zones around clinics and medical facilities offering the procedure to stop staff and patients being harassed by anti-abortion activists.

The laws took two full days to debate, with dozens of MPs wanting to speak to the bill and were eventually passed with 50 MPs voting for and 41 against.

But the most shocking thing about the vote is gender divide between the “yes” and “no” votes.

Only six female MPs voted against the bill, with the other 35 no votes belonging to men

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the changes will ensure women can access safe and legal terminations without fear or stigma.

“This is a historic day for Queensland. The Palaszczuk Government is proud to deliver on our election commitment to modernise and clarify the laws around termination of pregnancy,” Ms Palaszczuk said on Wednesday night, “because I believe, and I have always believed, a woman should be able to talk to her doctor about her own health and her own body without it being a crime.”

Opposition MPs Steve Minnikin, Jann Stuckey and former opposition leader Tim Nicholls voting in favour of the changes.

Now The Greens and women’s rights activists are putting pressure on the NSW Government to follow the example of Queensland and decriminalise abortion.

Abortion is still illegal in NSW, unless a woman has approval from a doctor that due to medical, financial, social or mental reasons she is unable to keep the child.

“NSW is now the last state in Australia where abortion is still technically a crime and it is past time that this outdated and offensive section is removed from the Crimes Act in NSW,” NSW Greens MP Cate Faehrmann said.

“Queensland’s historic reform was just passed with support from members in the ALP, LNP, Greens and an independent.

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. 

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





18 October, 2018

Is the AfD Prussian?

Many observers have noticed that the most strident oposition in Germany to third-world immigration (under the rubric of "refugees") comes from the formerly Communist East. The anti-immigrant AfD party has most of its strength in the old East, though it recently got a good showing in the Bavarian state elections too. 

One can contrive explanations for that readily enough:  1). The West has a long history of Muslim Gastarbeiter from Turkey so is more relaxed about Muslims generally. 2). The Easterners had a gutful of political correctness under the Communists so no longer respect it.

Both those explanations undoubtedly have some force but I suspact that there is an elephant abroad in Germany that no-one is seeing:  The fact that the old East contained what was left of  historical Prussia.  And the Eastern regime was not shy about that.  They deliberately portrayed themselves as heirs to Prussia in an attempt to legitimate their regime to the East German people.

Listen to and watch a video of the old East German national anthem below. It has quite a lot of militaristic touches and even the references to peace to not dilute that.  Hitler used similar appeals. The video is in fact strongly reminiscent of Hitler's propaganda.



And one does need to know something about the traditional place of Prussia in the German lands.  Have a look at the postwar map of Germany before the recent reunification.  Prussia was historically in the Northeast and that is where the old East Germany was.



And in the German lands, there are strong cultural differences that mirror geography.  To be a little crude about it, the North had the soldiers and the South had the culture.  And Prussians were arguably the world's best soldiers.  The battles fought under Prussian generals are studied in staff colleges worldwide to this day.  And that great Bible of Prussian warfare, Vom Kriege by Carl von Clausewitz still attracts some awe, even though its author left it unfinished.

So there is no doubt that being Prussian implies a militaristic and nationalistic heritage -- and that seems to me to be a pretty good explanation of East German contempt for the dregs from the Middle East and elsewhere that have been foisted on them -- JR.

UPDATE:  In the original German, many of the words of the anthem could easily be direct quotes from Nazi propaganda. 

Und der Zukunft zugewandt,

Deutschland, einig Vaterland.

Schlagen wir des Volkes Feind.

Deutsche Jugend, bestes Streben
Uns'res Volks in dir vereint,

I will dig out the Nazi parallels if anyone doubts them

As a further evocation of historic Prussia see the video below.  It is the Chilean army marching to the strains of Preussens Gloria, probably the most famous Prussian military march.  The Chilean army adopted Prussian practice, uniforms etc. before WWI and have retained it all ever since.  Note General Pinochet in the reviewing stand.








A truly disgusting person

Hunting for food and hunting to reduce pest populations are pefectly reasonable but killing primates for sport is akin to psychopathic murder.  A large caliber bullet through him would be appropriate IMHO

An Idaho Fish and Game commissioner faces calls to resign after sharing photos of dead animals from a recent hunting trip to Africa and bragging of killing “a whole family of baboons.”

Blake Fischer, in a recent email to colleagues, boasted of having killed at least 14 animals with his wife in Namibia last month, The Idaho State Journal reported.

Photos included in the email, which was obtained by the paper and other news outlets, show him posing with a dead giraffe, leopard and warthog, as well as multiple baboons.

More than 100 people were reportedly sent the email, which included details of each kill in the photos’ captions.

Former Idaho Fish and Game Commissioner Fred Trevey was among those who were upset by Fischer’s conduct and urged him to resign.

In an email to Fischer obtained by The Idaho Statesman through a public record request, Trevey cited a passage in a hunting manual that’s endorsed by the state’s fish and game department. It says that hunters should “refrain from taking photographs of the kill and from vividly describing the kill within earshot of non-hunters.”

“I have a difficult time understanding how a person privileged to be an Idaho Fish and Game commissioner can view such an action as sportsmanlike and an example to others,” Trevey told Fischer.

The kills may have been legal, Trevey wrote, but that doesn’t make them right. He warned that Fischer’s actions put the commission in a bad light.

Fischer, reached by the Statesman, apologized for sending the photos unsolicited but not for his hunt.

“I didn’t do anything illegal. I didn’t do anything unethical. I didn’t do anything immoral,” Fischer told the paper.

Fischer did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s requests for comment on Sunday.

Idaho has seven fish and game commissioners whose role is to administer department policies, according to the agency’s website. The commissioners have four-year terms and are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate.

Fischer was appointed to his post in 2014 and, according to the Statesman, re-appointed this year to a term ending in 2022. His re-appointment has yet to be confirmed by the Senate.

Former commissioner Tony McDermott, in an email to a member of the staff of Gov. Butch Otter (R), said he and six other former commissioners agree with Trevey’s response to “this potentially explosive issue,” the Statesman reported. The paper also obtained a copy of McDermott’s email.

Some of those former commissioners, reached by the Statesman, gave mixed answers on how the situation should be handled, with one suggesting that Fischer should resign and another requesting an apology.

Jon Hanin, Otter’s communications director, told HuffPost in an email on Sunday that “the governor is concerned and that this office is actively looking into the matter.”

SOURCE






Atlanta to pay $1.2 million to former fire chief after firing him, violating his First Amendment freedoms

Remember when the city of Atlanta fired their fire chief because he wrote a book that had one page defending marriage as union of husband and wife? Well, they just paid for it

ATLANTA – The city of Atlanta has agreed to pay its former fire chief, Kelvin Cochran, $1.2 million in the wake of a December 2017 court ruling that found some of the city’s policies that led to his termination are unconstitutional. The court determined that Atlanta’s rules restricting non-work speech, like the book for Christian men that Cochran wrote, were too broad and allowed city officials to unconstitutionally discriminate against views with which they disagree.

On Monday, the city council voted on the specific amount of damages and attorneys’ fees that it owes to the highly decorated former fire chief after negotiating with his Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys.

“The government can’t force its employees to get its permission before they engage in free speech. It also can’t fire them for exercising that First Amendment freedom, causing them to lose both their freedom and their livelihoods,” said ADF Senior Counsel Kevin Theriot, who argued before the court on behalf of Cochran last year. “We are very pleased that the city is compensating Chief Cochran as it should, and we hope this will serve as a deterrent to any government that would trample upon the constitutionally protected freedoms of its public servants.”

With regard to the city’s “pre-clearance” rules, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia wrote in its December 2017 decision in Cochran v. City of Atlanta, “This policy would prevent an employee from writing and selling a book on golf or badminton on his own time and, without prior approval, would subject him to firing. It is unclear to the Court how such an outside employment would ever affect the City’s ability to function, and the City provides no evidence to justify it…. The potential for stifled speech far outweighs any unsupported assertion of harm.”

The court added that provisions within the rules “do not set out objective standards for the supervisor to employ.” “This does not pass constitutional muster,” the court concluded.

Cochran wrote a 162-page devotional book on his personal time that briefly mentions his Christian views on sex and marriage. Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed suspended Cochran for 30 days without pay and announced that he would have to complete “sensitivity training.” Reed then fired him, even though a city investigation concluded that he did not discriminate against anyone.

Reed recounted in his 2014 State of the City Address that he “begged” Cochran to return to Atlanta in 2010 from his job as U.S. fire administrator in the Obama administration. Cochran agreed, and the city council confirmed him to serve a second time as the city’s fire chief, a job Cochran originally held from 2008 to 2009.

In 2012, Fire Chief Magazine named Cochran “Fire Chief of the Year.” In a city news release issued about the award, Reed thanked Cochran for his “pioneering efforts to improve performance and service within the Atlanta Fire Rescue Department,” applauded “Chief Cochran and all of Atlanta’s brave firefighters for the commitment to excellence shown throughout the department,” and recognized that Cochran’s “national recognition” as Fire Chief of the Year was “much-deserved.”

SOURCE






'It's a white supremacist song!' Aboriginal boxer calls for Australia's national anthem to be scrapped

He's always been a loose cannon.  Not a profound thinker.  At the time the song was adopted as the national anthem it was carefullly revised to eliminate anything politically controversial

He blasted the Australian national anthem as 'racist' last year and vowed to boycott the song before his fight with Danny Green.

And Anthony Mundine renewed calls for the national anthem to be scrapped during an interview with Hit 105's Stav, Abby and Matt on Tuesday.

The 43-year-old described Advance Australia Fair as 'a white supremacist song' and voiced his support for the creation of a new anthem which would 'bring people together'.

Anthony claimed the song 'was compiled in the late 1700s' and was a 'theme song for the White Australia Policy from 1901 until 1970 something'.

The song was actually composed in 1878, and did not become the country's official national anthem until 1984.

When the radio hosts asked whether Anthony wanted to update the song to make it more inclusive, he responded: 'Nah, change it man. We need a whole new song'.

The sportsman said he wasn't 'trying to bring people apart' and wanted to be more inclusive.  'I'm not against anybody, I have white mates, black… I don't care what you are. I'll treat you how your character is and your heart is.'

He stated: 'In order for us to move forward as a country, as a nation, as a people, we need to get this straight'.

It's not the first time the boxer has condemned the national anthem. Last year, he said the song is unjust to Indigenous Australians.

'I am a man that stands against wrong and I think that is a big wrong in our country. And I can't stand for something that I don't believe in,' he said at a press conference in January, 2017, prior to his match against Danny Green.

The reality star is no stranger to controversy.

During his time on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! earlier this year he stated: 'If you're going to be gay, do it behind closed doors'.

Anthony who converted to Islam in the 1990s, cited his faith and his Aboriginal heritage as reasons for making the comments.

'If we were to live in a society, just like in Aboriginal culture, (where) homosexuality is forbidden and you do it and the consequences are capital punishment or death, you think, 'are you going to do it?' Or think twice about doing it?' he said on the show.    

But in a July interview with The Daily Telegraph he said he was changing his tune and trying to be more considerate.

'I honestly don't care if anyone's gay. I'm not judge and jury. That's for the creator. Whether I believe it's right or wrong, I have to accept it. It's law,' he said.

'I've got gay friends. I've got gay family members. I have a cousin, she's gay. I was hurt that she was hurt. I want to uplift and inspire people, not hurt anyone.

'I was trying to say what happened in our culture back in the day. It comes out that I want gays to be killed. Of course I don't wish that on anyone. In Islam taking one human life is like taking the whole of humanity.'

SOURCE 

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

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

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

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17 October, 2018

Leftmedia Keeps Peddling the Matthew Shepard 'Hate Crime' Hoax

NPR once again exposes its leftist bias by promoting the debunked narrative for Shepard's murder.

On Thursday, it was announced that the remains of murder victim Matthew Shepard will be interred at Washington National Cathedral. NPR reported, “News of Shepard’s interment comes 20 years after he was tied up, savagely attacked and left for dead in October 1998. At the time, he was a 21-year-old college student in Laramie, Wyo. His brutal murder attracted intense media coverage at the time and galvanized support for laws protecting the rights of LGBTQ Americans.” And insomuch as the homosexual lobby, willingly supported by the mainstream media, crafted the incident into a narrative of murder motivated by hatred of homosexuals, NPR’s statement is correct.

However, years later investigative journalist Stephen Jimenez unearthed the truth behind Shepard’s murder, exposing the fact that the popular narrative that Shepard was murdered because of his homosexuality was a lie. As Mark Alexander wrote four years ago, “After years of exhaustive research on Shepard’s murder, including interviews with more than 100 people — associates of Shepard, his murderers and their associates — a respected journalist, Stephen Jimenez, has published his findings in The Book of Matt. The book dispels the notion that the murder was related to Shepard’s sexual orientation, and instead concludes he was a meth dealer and sex partner with one of his murderers — both of whom were homosexuals.”

Interestingly, following the publishing of his book in 2013, NPR interviewed Jimenez, who is himself a homosexual. In that interview, Jimenez offered a damning insight: “Once you had the president of the United States, while Matthew … being kept alive on a respirator, already making comments that this was a de facto hate crime — once that story got out, what was going to happen? How was that story going to be pulled back?” Clearly, NPR is too committed to the bogus narrative to reverse course as they are still unquestioningly peddling the Shepard “hate crime” hoax to this day.

This is a classic example of Leftmedia bias — the promotion of the leftist agenda is more important than reporting the truth if the truth doesn’t serve to support the agenda. In NPR’s Thursday piece, there is no mention of any questions over the validity of the Shepard story or of the network’s own interview with Jimenez. Instead, the only issue of “uncertainty” entertained by the story is that of Shepard’s parents and their decades-long debate over where their son’s remains should finally be laid to rest. Would that everyone here could make peace with the truth.

SOURCE






The Kavanaugh Smear War Broke My Decades-Long Support For Feminism

For more than two decades, I traveled the country facilitating rape and assault prevention lectures, seminars, and workshops for women of all ages. I was passionate about this work, committed to the cause, and believed wholeheartedly that what I was doing was a wholly virtuous endeavor. I considered myself a feminist. But that was then, and this is now.

All these years I silently stood by and watched third-wave feminism (with assistance from the radical left) methodically take a sledgehammer to Western society as a whole, and males in particular. Foolishly, I hoped things would eventually turn around, only to see things get worse over time.

Yet it wasn’t until I witnessed the Me Too movement snowball into an all-out, anti-male witch hunt that I realized good men were in real trouble. Astonishingly, after having been an advocate for women my entire adult life, I quickly learned I was still considered the “enemy,” simply for being a man.

Never in my wildest dreams (or nightmares) did I imagine that someday the opposite sex would view me as a threat. But it’s true, and “their” message is loud and clear: Even if you’ve been a staunch supporter of women’s rights for years, taught thousands of women and girls (many of whom were survivors of sexual assault) how to defend themselves from a violent attacker, and authored a book on the subject, you are not to be trusted solely because of your sex.

One needn’t look too far to see that today’s hyper-feminism climate has men throughout the Western world walking on eggshells at work, at home, everywhere. As a counselor, my male clients routinely voice concerns about having targets on their backs simply because they are men, and I am reticent to take on new female clients out of fear of being falsely accused of sexual impropriety.

Make no mistake: One of the goals of the radical feminist is to persecute any man who dares to wear his masculinity on his sleeve. In fact, masculinity is their true adversary.

To be sure, every man—regardless of his age, race, political persuasion, or sexual orientation—is in their crosshairs, but especially those who embody traditional masculine qualities, such as strength, discipline, direction, independence, confidence, and assertiveness. And God help him if he’s also white, Christian, conservative, affluent, or holds a position of power.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve spent a lifetime trying to be a good man, and to live a life of true meaning and purpose. Although I am far from perfect, I’d like to think that I’ve lived an honorable life, and have been a positive role model. In all my years, I have never intentionally hurt someone, nor have I ever turned my back on anyone who’s come to me for help.

Moreover, I have always aspired to be a fair-minded, compassionate, loving, kind, generous, and forgiving man. While I have fallen short of attaining these noble, masculine ideals on numerous occasions, I’ve never given up on their pursuit, and I never will.

With all of that being said, as I grow ever closer to turning 60, I am far less concerned about my future and well-being than I am about that of the next generation of boys and young men, who seem destined to be further emasculated, disenfranchised, and marginalized should the current climate remain unchanged.

If today’s demonization of males, along with the pathologizing of inherent masculine traits, continues uninterrupted, both sexes are in for much more pain than even today’s chaotic marriage market, anti-male education system, and rise in teen suicide and depression bear witness to.

As regrettable as it is, the recent attempt by all the usual suspects to block Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court at the eleventh hour by destroying his character, reputation, and life, via salacious, unsubstantiated, and uncorroborated allegations of sexual misconduct dating back thirty-odd years to when he was but a teenager, has obliterated the last vestiges of the “women’s advocate” dwelling inside my heart.

Setting politics aside, watching a good man being taken down by a mob with zero regard for due process and the presumption of innocence is the final straw for me. In other words, I’m done. While it pains me to say this, I will no longer champion any self-described women’s cause unless things dramatically change for the better.

Alas, there was a time when I was a feminist, but sadly, that time has come and gone.

SOURCE






Rejecting Second-Wave Feminism: A Review of Mona Charen’s "Sex Matters"

A morning NPR story on how women manifest anger differently from men was just the latest reminder of something we all know, and Mona Charen wants to make sure we don’t forget: sex matters. Men and women are fundamentally different in many ways that she catalogs in her latest book of the same name, "Sex Matters", and pretending otherwise has resulted in a havoc that she maps out in detail.

The book is an indictment of modern feminism, its second wave in particular. Second wavers, she argues, “were determined to change what women wanted altogether.” They were "radical, unhappy, and, ironically, enslaved to the ideas of two nineteenth-century dead, white, European males, Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. The worldview of second-wave feminists was completely wrong about women, history, and human nature—and it left a lot of wreckage in its wake."

These feminists insisted on a new set of standards for women, ones that seemed strangely masculine despite all the talk about patriarchy. The results speak for themselves: the #MeToo movement currently roiling the country is just one manifestation of one of the ways that feminism has utterly failed to deliver on its promises of freedom and equality with men.

Charen’s map of feminism’s trajectory is uniquely comprehensive, accessible, and most importantly, honest, and her methodical takedown of second-wave feminists is particularly enjoyable. In pathologizing femaleness, to use her words, second-wave feminists set future generations up to fail. She writes:

Of the major second-wave feminists, none had a lifelong successful marriage. Few were mothers. The conventional script of marriage, work, home, children, and grandchildren (something most women hope for) was not their goal. They seemed determined to persuade American women that these things were traps and snares.

Nowadays, young women like myself are lucky if we have evaded the snare of a modern feminist outlook. From puberty on, girls are taught to engage in careless sex when in reality, as Charen points out, we are hardwired to care. We are taught to disdain marriage and delay children, when we by nature long for monogamy and commitment and find deep satisfaction in domestic life. And unlike men, we aren’t biologically set up to wait forever for a family.

Charen delves into the hormonal, biological, and physiological realities that set the sexes apart, and documents the extensive damage that denying these differences has done to both men and women. Her dissection of the campus rape crisis stands out. Charen takes conservatives to task for dismissing the severity of the crisis and missing a major opportunity to draw a straight line from what is taught about sex and power to the very real and devastating impact on the students sitting in the classroom where the lessons are being taught.

Thankfully, a “sexual counterrevolution,” as Charen calls it, is underway. A new generation of women is turning away from the mealy leftovers of a movement gone astray and seeking a new way forward. We owe woman like Mona Charen, however, a great debt of gratitude for going before us and holding a torch. Charen describes making countercultural choices like opting to stay home and prioritizing family or embracing the pro-life position when it was a total cultural anathema. Women who go confidently against the grain today have Charen and her contemporaries very much to thank for forging a narrow path that we now widen.

 “The sexual revolution,” Charen writes, “could never have succeeded without the imprimatur of feminists, who endorsed it as a part of women’s liberation.” The challenge for today’s women who seek fulfillment without abandoning what is essential to their sexual identity is to liberate feminism from its insistence on standards that pit women against their natures and men and women against each other.

For the foot soldiers of this resistance, Charen’s book is required reading.

SOURCE





Scott Morrison is considering moving Australia’s embassy in Israel to Jerusalem

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has indicated he could move Australia's embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv - mimicking US President Donald Trump's decision that led to riots and bloodshed.

Mr Morrison is expected to make an announcement on Tuesday as part of a foreign policy statement on Israel, in Canberra.

The prime minister has also credited the Liberal Party's Wentworth by-election candidate Dave Sharma, a former Australian ambassador to Israel, with raising the issue. 'He's arguing it can be done consistent with Australia's long-running position ... he's actually changing the way in which the issue is conceived,' Mr Morrison told Fairfax Media.

Wentworth, the former Sydney blue-ribbon electorate of Malcolm Turnbull, has a large Jewish community and voters will go to the polls this weekend.

If Australia does proceed, it will be following the US which earlier this year moved its embassy, effectively recognising the holy city of Jerusalem as the 'true' capital of Israel.

Mr Trump opened the new US embassy in the city in May. On the same day Israeli forces shot dead 58 Palestinians protesting the move.

Jerusalem is also a holy city for the largely Muslim population of the Palestinian territories, and they feared that recognition of the city as a Jewish capital would imperil shared access to the many religious sites.

It would also be a departure from the position taken by former prime minister Mr Turnbull and former foreign minister Julie Bishop.

Labor, meanwhile, has attacked Mr Morrison's 'desperation' for signalling the move. Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong said the prime minister was playing 'dangerous and deceitful' word games. 'Foreign policy, and Australia's national interest are far too important to be played with in this fashion,' Senator Wong said. 'The people of Wentworth, and all Australians, deserve a leader who puts the national interest ahead of his self-interest, and governs in the best long term interest of the nation.'

Labor is concerned the approach could undermine the prospect of a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine.

So far only the US and its ally Guatemala have moved their embassies to Jerusalem.

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 October, 2018

In defence of "manspreading"

"How can anyone defend such an inconsiderate habit?" might be an understandable response to my heading above.  And I have yet to see a defence of it.  And yet the truth is obvious:  It is natural for men to sit that way when relaxed.  Why?  Because men have a package between their legs that does not like being squeezed and does like a bit of air.  Women don't have that so have more of a tendency to sit demurely.  And the male and female pelvises are different too so that could be an influence that someone who knows more about anatomy than I do might be able to talk about.

Note below that two Royal Princes who were very much in the public eye sat like that recently.  And they are occupationally obliged to avoid offence



Needless to say, men CAN sit more considerately and will usually do so if in a crowded situation.  But it is an effort, though not a great one.  So men who do take up more than one space or seat on a crowded bus or train should politely be asked to make way. And men who fail to give up their seat altogether to an obviously pregnant woman are low types who deserve censure, and, in some cases, prosecution.

But feminists never see the other side of any question so I have yet to see any complainer about manspreading refer to the common female practice of taking up an extra seat for her handbag, tote, shopping etc.  Women too can be inconsiderate in their use of space.  It is inconsiderate PEOPLE we should condemn, not one sex or the other.  Matthew 7:5 again applies.

Now here is an interesting picture below:



We see an odd way of sitting that is sort of half spread.  It's the way I and my son naturally sit -- with one foot tucked under. We automatically and just about always sit that way.  We don't know why. We just do it.  It feels most comfortable to us to sit that way.  For many years it had never occurred to me that I sit in an unusual way until the boy's mother remarked to me one day,   "He sits in the same funny way that you do".  I initially thought:  "Funny way? I don't sit in a funny way!" but I eventually realized she was right

Clearly some unusual gene has got into us in some way and there it rests.  It doesn't bother us in the least.  We sit in perfect comfort.  But it does tend to show that even your manner of sitting is genetically determined.  But it is very common for feminists to argue futilely with genetics.






Look what you made Taylor Swift do

by Jeff Jacoby

ENDORSEMENTS IN Tennessee election campaigns don't usually draw international headlines. But when Taylor Swift on Oct. 7 told her 112 million Instagram followers that she intends to vote next month for two Democrats — US Senate candidate Phil Bredesen and Representative Jim Cooper — news outlets the world over rushed to report the news.

It has never been clear to me why anyone would care about the political loyalties of a pop singer (or an athlete or supermodel), and until recently it wasn't clear to Swift, either. Though she has made a career out of oversharing the details of her personal life, she always drew the line at politics. When Rolling Stone asked her just after the 2008 election whether she was a Republican or a Democrat, she declined to say. "I just try and stick to my specialty and my specialty is music," Swift said. "I voted yesterday, but I don't think it's my job to try and influence people which way they should vote, because it's a very personal thing."

She was equally reticent four years later as she was promoting her fourth album, Red. "I just figure I'm a 22-year-old singer," she told Swedish TV, "and I don't know if people really want to hear about my political views. I think they just want to hear me sing songs about breakups and feelings."

By 2016, Swift's public neutrality on politics was infuriating liberals. She was blasted as a hypocrite for not endorsing Hillary Clinton and for being "complicit in every hateful statement" uttered by Donald Trump. The Daily Beast castigated her as "spineless." The pop-culture Australian website Junkee thundered: "If Taylor Swift Wants To Address Her Bad Reputation, She Should Start By Condemning Donald Trump." The editors of Marie Claire didn't let up even after the election. "We're still waiting for an explanation of Taylor Swift's decision to remain apolitical during the 2016 election," they tweeted. Last November, the Guardian labeled her an "envoy for Trump's values."

On the kooky far-right fringe, meanwhile, some basement-dwelling white supremacists took Swift's avoidance of politics as evidence that she was secretly one of them. Milo Yiannopoulos wrote in 2016 that the "very white and very blonde" Swift had hard-core alt-right conspiracists swooning. At least one besotted admirer, the founder of the white-supremacist blog Daily Stormer, pronounced her "a pure Aryan goddess."

Well, goodbye to all that. As Swift's Instagram post exploded across the Internet, liberal and Democratic activists exulted, while the Aryan goddess-worshipers grieved. The president told reporters that he "like[s] Taylor's music about 25 percent less now." And Swift's vast legion of young fans? Most probably won't care one way or the other. But there was a spike in voter registrations after she urged her followers to sign up.

My surmise is that Swift wearied of the incessant pressure to declare her political loyalties, and decided that the benefits of remaining publicly apolitical no longer outweighed the costs. With partisan passions so intense and tribal these days, the clamor for her to take to the barricades would only have grown shriller. Her capitulation, if that's what it was, is understandable.

But it's also a pity, and I'm sorry the old Taylor can't come to the phone anymore. America's public discourse is stiflingly thick with acrid political fumes; the last thing we need is even more of the stuff. Representative Marsha Blackburn "appalls and terrifies me," Swift wrote, referring to the Republican candidate in Tennessee's Senate race. Racism in the United States is "terrifying, sickening, and prevalent." I don't know if Swift is really just another left-wing Hollywood ideologue, but she's already doing her best to sound like one.

She's not the only star who has waded into politics after long refusing to do so.

Actor and comedian Kevin Hart declined for years to inject politics into his act. "My job as a comedian is to spread positivity, to make people laugh," he once said. "I don't want to draw attention to what's already pissing us as a people off." But that changed at the Video Music Awards a few weeks ago, when Hart used his time on the stage to taunt the president for his criticism of NFL players who protest during the national anthem. "At this game, you guys can kneel. You can do whatever the hell you want. There's no old white man that can stop you," Hart said. "In your face, Trump! Suck it!"

As a free speech near-absolutist, I unreservedly defend the right of Swift, Hart, and anyone else to trumpet political views.

But more than ever I admire those celebrities who steadfastly resist the temptation (or the hectoring) to talk politics. There are still some of them, including Bruno Mars, Mark Wahlberg, Reba McEntire, and Josh Duhamel.

They follow in the footsteps of one of the greatest entertainers in American history. At the peak of his long career, Elvis Presley's influence on popular culture was unparalleled, but about politics he would say nothing. A classic illustration occurred during a pre-concert press conference at Madison Square Garden in 1972. It was at the height of the antiwar movement, and Presley, an Army veteran, was asked for his thoughts on the Vietnam War protests.

"Honey, I'd just as soon keep my own personal views about that to myself," he answered modestly. "I'm just an entertainer and I'd rather not say."

Faced with the pressure to get political, Elvis knew how to shake it off. Would that could still be said about Taylor Swift.

SOURCE






Proof that foreign aid DOESN'T work: Scathing report reveals £11million scheme backed by Bono failed to reduce poverty or hunger

As I drove through villages in northern Ghana, bumping along pitted dirt roads and passing mud-splattered men pushing bicycles, the grinding poverty was painfully obvious.

Exhausted farmers, some wearing faded football shirts, sprawled in the shade beside mud-built houses. Women chopped leaves for dinner, surrounded by children in tatty clothes. Goats and guinea fowl scavenged among rubbish.

In one village after another, people told of their daily fight for survival. Farmers said they couldn’t afford fertiliser.

Headmaster Abdulai Shefu teaching his group of students. His pupils sit on the floor because the desks are broken    +6
Headmaster Abdulai Shefu teaching his group of students. His pupils sit on the floor because the desks are broken

Mothers couldn’t afford medicines for their children. Pupils couldn’t afford pencils.

I heard similar stories of hardship six years ago when I last visited this savannah region. ‘In terms of our poverty there have been no changes,’ said Sule Mantable as he planted beans beside a river.

I first met Sule, a father of four, in 2012 when I told him his village of Nabari had been chosen for a British aid project designed to prove that big cash injections could transform such deprived rural communities.

‘We don’t believe it will work,’ he said then.

And he was right to be sceptical, because now we have the scathing verdict of a five-year study into this project funded by British taxpayers, which lavished £11 million – £2,906 per household – on 35 impoverished villages in Ghana.

And the landmark 182-page report for the Department for International Development (DFID) has serious implications for the entire aid sector – and a Government that insists on donating billions to hit its discredited target of 0.7 per cent of gross national income.

The Millennium Villages Project (MVP) began in 2005 to show that chucking cash at some of the planet’s poorest places could end extreme poverty, foster diversification from farming and spark sustainable development in just five years.

It was created by Professor Jeffrey Sachs, dubbed a ‘rock star economist,’ from Columbia University in New York, backed by the UN and billionaire philanthropists, and promoted by celebrities such as U2 frontman Bono.

But the DFID report concludes the project failed to meet many key aims and targets, saying: ‘Far from breaking the poverty trap, the project does not appear to have reduced poverty or hunger at all,’ adding that it had ‘fallen short of producing a synergistic effect’.

The authors admit to surprise that ‘the project did not improve some of the outcomes explicitly targeted by the intervention, such as child mortality, immunisation rates, antenatal care, access to drinking water and usage of mobile phones’.

They also criticise ‘misguided’ efforts to attract more girls than boys to school and suggest preferential help for some schools drained others of good teachers. Yet ‘the project did not improve children’s cognitive skills’.

The evaluation – commissioned by DFID to test the theories and agreed with Professor Sachs – found little difference between villages drenched in British aid and others in the region that were not helped.

Although attendance improved at new clinics and schools, incomes rose (‘probably temporarily’) and there was a fall in the impaired growth of children, ‘what has been achieved could have been attained at substantially lower cost’.

The report also discloses the dismal, yet all too typical, fact that nearly a third of funds went on management and overheads, while admitting there was ‘large-scale’ fraud involving a key local partner.

There is savage irony that far from proving the success of foreign aid, this project – announced by Sachs and Bono on a visit early in 2012 – has ended up highlighting core problems.

For a start, there is the dependency culture. Inevitably there were improvements when villages were flooded with cash for new schools, extra teachers and street lights, tractors were lent to farmers and women were given inducements to give birth in clinics.

But this was not enough to spark sustainable transformation of poor societies.

So in Kpasenkpe, where Sachs made impassioned promises six years ago to hundreds of villagers, I heard desperate pleas for more foreign assistance now that the project has ended.

Neaba Alhassan, a farmer and father of ten children told me. ‘It was better when you were helping, but now we are poor again.’

The investigation noted ‘a pervasive expectation for donors to fix problems’ – and that one village adopted a more community-led approach to construction only when funds became limited.

But just as in Britain, I found profound cynicism over the aid industry. ‘Lots of white people and NGOs came and made lots of promises but they have not been fulfilled,’ said Michael Diyuri, a farmer in the village of Sariba.

‘They come and ask us questions about our families, our lives and our farming. They never come back. The next year, someone else comes back. ‘They just tick their boxes after listening to our problems. They are using us to earn their money.

Michael, 31, a father of one, added: ‘They changed the environment but nothing else. They promised they would change our lives and our poverty. But nothing changed.’

Then there were claims of corruption. In several villages, desperately poor farmers said they were given fertiliser supposed to be free or bought with cheap loans – if they handed over hefty amounts of their harvested maize or rice to local officials.

One farmer, who earned £160 ‘in a good year’, told me he had to hand over one bag of maize in the project’s first year, then three of the nine bags grown the next year. Another said they were forced to hand over food even when crops failed.

There were also complaints of blundering outsiders ignoring locals. In Nabari, for instance, the project left five concrete scars with capped pipes sticking out from the fertile red ground, the legacy of failed efforts to drill boreholes for water.

‘They came with their equipment saying they would find water to help us farm better,’ said villager Sumani Gamiw. ‘But they did not listen to the villagers so they did not succeed. We still depend on old supplies, so when it’s dry there’s not enough water.’

In another village, the MVP workers succeeded in drilling a borehole, but it broke after a year. The residents clubbed together to spend £60 on repairs but it broke down again, so children are now missing school to fetch water from a river.

At many villages there were complaints that there were no attempts to create jobs with the aid money.

Head teacher Abdulai Shefu told me that during the rebuilding of his school in Duu by contractors, locals were used ‘only to carry water and build blocks’ rather than learn new skills.

Since the solar power system broke down after a year, there is now an empty room that once held seven donated computers.

There is another filled with broken furniture, so many pupils must sit on the floor.

‘Gradually the desks are falling apart and we can’t pay to rebuild them,’ said Shefu, who has a master’s degree in development and has spent a decade teaching in the village. ‘You must put local people at the centre of activities.’

His school has lost five teachers since the MVP scheme ended last year, leaving six others to hold lessons for up to 200 pupils at a time.

I watched Achiri Kwaku energetically teaching maths to a crammed classroom, with many pupils sitting on the floor.

‘Look at the children,’ he said. ‘They need desks but cannot even afford pencils sometimes. ‘It is very difficult to teach so many of them.’

Outside the classroom, the sad sight of a broken swing in the playground, surrounded by collapsed wire fencing, seemed to symbolise this scheme’s apparent failure to create enduring change.

Health clinics have seen sharp falls in attendance and often run out of drugs. ‘If the situation stays like this, our clinic will close since there is no money,’ said one nurse.

These schools and clinics are emblazoned with inscriptions about British funding. Yet for all the fine intentions, they show the futility of attempts to impose lasting development in poor places with sudden flows of funds from abroad.

Michael Clemens, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development think-tank, praised Dfid for its investigation of such a high-profile scheme. He said it proved the project had not achieved its self-declared aims of assisting poor parts of rural Africa to lift themselves out of poverty in five years. ‘The project failed to do that. Full stop,’ he said.

Clemens argues that development cannot be imposed by outsiders and he believes the cause is harmed by diverting scarce resources into ‘flashy, one-off, quick-fix projects that promise to solve everything in a few years’.

He said: ‘If this new evaluation ultimately diverts resources away from such projects and towards longer-term, African-led partnerships, then DFID’s support for it will have done a great deal of good.’

A Dfid spokesman insisted its programme helped reduce poverty, but admitted it did not meet its aim of achieving Millennium Goals – a UN initiative to combat poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women.

He said: ‘Dfid stands by its decision to fund the project but accepts the robust, independent evaluation, which concluded it should not be scaled up.’

Sachs remains unbowed, pointing to a recent article in The Lancet he co-authored for ‘independent analysis’, insisting the new report’s ‘cost effectiveness observations were a joke’ and saying that the authors had never built schools and clinics themselves.

He added: ‘The report does make clear there were several significant gains in wellbeing. The claim about poverty not declining is simply wrong and strange. Incomes rose statistically, as clearly noted in the report, and multi-dimensional poverty fell.’

Sachs claimed he told Dfid that five years was not enough time to realise all the Millennium Development Goals, and added that there were ‘many notable advances in the MVP’ and other projects across Africa. ‘To say the project failed would be to deliberately misrepresent the truth,’ he said.

Certainly debate over sending torrents of Western cash to spur progress in poorer parts of the world will continue.

But there is no doubt this highly significant report has dealt the cause – and leading figures in the aid lobby – a severe blow.

Perhaps Sachs and his friends should stop sermonising and head back to Ghana. For not one of the people I met in these villages said their prosperity had advanced with these giant dollops of British aid, despite their gratitude for new clinics and schools.

Indeed, it is hard not to wonder if these African villagers have a better understanding of their own development issues than all those Westminster politicians blowing billions on neocolonial policies, egged on by sanctified professors and rock stars.

For as that dedicated head teacher struggling to sustain his school in Duu told me, you must put local communities at the centre of development to create lasting progress. ‘It is not just about money,’ he said, wisely.

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Hollywood’s Real Kryptonite Is Tolerance

If you thought being a conservative in America was hard, try being one in Hollywood. It takes real courage to stand up in a culture that's suffocatingly liberal and speak your mind on issues like ours. Ask Dean Cain. The former Superman star almost had to be made of steel to withstand the number of attacks fired his way just for doing what other celebrities are applauded for: speaking his mind.

Like other Hollywood conservatives, Dean is used to the harassment in an industry where your liberal credentials are almost as important as your acting ones. When he came to this year's Values Voter Summit to talk about his new film “Gosnell,” he knew how the left would react. For days leading up to VVS -- and every week since -- his Twitter page has been lit up by people who can't understand the concept of open debate. He was threatened, harassed, called intolerant (and much worse) by a social media mob bent on forcing him to back down.

He didn't.

"I will happily defend the things that I say, and the things that I stand for," he told the crowd at VVS. "I take that sort of heat and abuse every single day, but it doesn't bother me in the least … it doesn't make me mad, it just shows people's intolerance towards listening to another opinion. Just the fact that I'm here, just the fact that I'm here people were blowing me up all day long with the most ridiculous things that you could ever hear. Talk about intolerance. It's ridiculous. I take heat. It doesn't bother me, I welcome it, because I sleep well at night. I know I'm doing something that matches my convictions and my heart, and I'll happily defend the things that I say and I stand for."

It's been three weeks since the Summit, and some people in Hollywood still can't let it go. Yesterday, the Hollywood Reporter leaked a video of actor Tom Arnold getting in Cain's face for associating with FRC. "@RealDeanCain is another @realDonaldTrump loving fake Christian coward which makes Dean Cain anti-LGBTQ & racist. #complicit," he posted. In person, things got even more heated.

"The onus for Arnold's tweet," according to insiders, "was his objection to Cain appearing at the Values Voter Summit, hosted by conservative Christian group the Family Research Council." In an R-rated tirade, Arnold says FRC is what makes teenagers kill themselves. "They try to keep them out of f---ing schools... Don't be with them. If I was with Nazis, if I go to their convention, they're like that, Dean, I'm telling you. They're that bad. They're hurting people."

"I speak my mind," Dean fired back. Both men were in a Glendale studio as part of a "Larry King Now" show, where Dean was on hand to promote his new movie, “Gosnell,” about real-life serial killer/abortionist Kermit Gosnell. "It's a s---t-f---king movie," Arnold says. "I was giving him a break by not assuming he was stupid about FRC, which I do liken to Nazis, and now I see he's one of them. … He played this icon, Superman, but he's an idiot."

This from the "tolerant" left! And, of course, the greatest irony is that the Nazis are the ones who wanted to exterminate millions of people. We're trying to protect them, protect life, and protect women. If you're looking for supremacists, try the roots of the abortion movement and the eugenics of Margaret Sanger. This pioneer of the Planned Parenthood ethic was crystal clear about her motivations. "We don't want the word to get out that we want to exterminate the Negro population," she wrote. Even today, 79 percent of the group's surgical abortion facilities are located within walking distance of black or Hispanic neighborhoods. And Hollywood is calling us racist? Planned Parenthood takes the lives of about 247 black babies every day. Where is Tom Arnold's outrage about that?

Dean Cain has done nothing but try to have an honest conversation about the state of our culture. You can help him by going out and supporting the opening weekend of “Gosnell.” Hollywood hates the truth -- so go see the movie that helps spread it about abortion. Click here to find one of the 600 theaters closest to you!

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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 October, 2018

Babysitting While Black: Georgia Man Was Stalked by Woman as He Cared for 2 White Children

The NYT ran this story as part of their usual agenda of creating racial disharmony. And it is undoubtably an unfortunate story.  It is also, however, an understandable story.  The high rate of criminality among blacks makes whites justifably suspicious of them.  And it all follows from that.  Unmentioned is that hundreds of other white  people did not react to the situation.  It is they who define white treatment of blacks

Corey Lewis first noticed the woman as he crossed the Walmart parking lot in Marietta, Ga., on Sunday afternoon. She was sitting in a Kia sedan, he said, as he led the two children he was babysitting back to his car.

By the time he had them buckled up and ready to go, he had his phone out and was live-streaming on Facebook as he narrated a story about how the strange woman had begun stalking them after he refused to let her talk to the children, Mr. Lewis, 27, said in an interview.

She followed him out of the parking lot, to the gas station across the street, and to his home, where Mr. Lewis, who is black, was questioned by a Cobb County police officer about why he had with him two young children, who are white.

“I didn’t know what was going on, what she wanted to do,” Mr. Lewis said on Tuesday, believing that the woman had called the police because he was a black man walking around with two white children. “I felt like my character was being criminalized.”

Sgt. Wayne Delk confirmed the incident, saying that an officer had responded to a call from a woman on Sunday afternoon. The police did not say whether they knew her identity.

In a series of live videos on Facebook, Mr. Lewis recorded the incident, which began in a Walmart parking lot and ended as the latest instance of a black person being reported to the police while doing a lawful activity, like golfing, napping, shopping or even canvassing.

For Mr. Lewis, the episode was particularly troubling because it happened while he was working. Mr. Lewis owns his own business, Inspired By Lewis, in which he takes care of children five days a week as part of the youth mentoring program he created three years ago. His clientele is mainly white, he said, but up until Sunday, it had never occurred to him that that would give someone a reason to call the police on him.

He said he had spent that afternoon watching 6-year-old Nicholas and 10-year-old Addison while their parents were out. After taking them to an indoor play area, he took them to Walmart to eat at the Subway, he said.

After leaving the store, he and the children were hanging out by his car when the woman pulled up and asked if the children were all right. Confused, Mr. Lewis replied, “Why wouldn’t they be O.K.?” She shrugged before driving off, he said, only to return to ask to speak to Addison. Mr. Lewis said he told her no, and she insisted on getting his license plate number before driving away, only to stop within sight.

Mr. Lewis said he drove to a nearby gas station, where she followed him. Instead of taking the children home, he drove them to his house, where he knew people would be outside.

Mr. Lewis continued to record as a police car pulled up, and the officer asked him what was going on. “I’m being followed and harassed,” he says, to which the officer replied, “I’ve heard.”

The confrontation ended without issue, with the officer seemingly convinced that the children — who offered similar explanations for what occurred — were fine, but he asked if he could check in with their parents, Mr. Lewis said.

“It just knocked us out of our chair,” David Parker, their father, said on Tuesday. “We felt horrible for Corey.”

Mr. Parker and his wife, Dana Mango, were at dinner when they received the call, and his wife had to be convinced that it was not a prank, he said.

Mr. Lewis is a family friend and well known in the community for working with children, Mr. Parker said, describing him as an “All-American guy.”

Mr. Parker said that he wanted to give the woman the benefit of doubt, but that his children were having a good time with Mr. Lewis, and they were not in any apparent danger. Mr. Lewis was also wearing his signature shirt — a bright green T-shirt bearing his company’s logo.

“I don’t think you have to watch too many ‘Law & Order’ episodes to realize kidnappers don’t usually wear fluorescent green shirts,” he said, adding that he felt Mr. Lewis had handled the situation well.

Mr. Parker said he had a proud moment when, during an interview with a reporter, his daughter was asked if she had anything she wanted to say to the woman. “She said that, ‘I would just ask her to next time, try to see us as three people rather than three skin colors because we might’ve been Mr. Lewis’s adopted children,’” he recalled.

On Tuesday, Mr. Lewis was back working with children, saying he wasn’t going to let the episode keep him from doing his job.

“You see these things, but they’re like from a distance,” he said. “But then for it to actually happen to you, it’s unbelievable.”

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The differences between Christine Ford and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Nadia Murad, an Iraqi Yazidi woman

Dawn Perlmutter

Hysteria was the first mental health illness attributed to women. For centuries it was considered both a common and chronic medical disorder. Female Hysteria was intrinsically intertwined with women’s sexuality and reproductive organs. The origin of the term hysteria stems from the Greek equivalent for uterus ‘hystera’. Symptoms included everything from nervousness, sexual desire, insomnia, irritability, loss of appetite, and a "tendency to cause trouble".  Hysteria was the diagnosis for everything that men found mysterious or unmanageable in women and was used as evidence of the instability of the female mind. Many women who were diagnosed with hysteria were forced into insane asylums or to undergo surgical hysterectomies. One of the major triumphs of the feminist movement was to eradicate the diagnosis and stigma of female hysteria.

After centuries of fighting against stereotypes of women as irrational emotional hysterics, Christine Blasey Ford and her cult of feminist victims reestablished the worst stereotypes of women as fragile, defenseless, erratic and unstable. When women were marching for equal rights, equal pay and equal position in society, they did not envision being represented by a woman who is the very personification of female hysteria. Christine Blasey Ford’s fragmented recovered memory of a sexual assault, her 36-year-old ongoing trauma, uncorroborated allegations, childlike affectation, feigned helplessness and alleged irrational fears are a profile in female hysteria.

The American Psychiatric Association dropped the term female hysteria in 1952. Subsequently, the classification of disorders formerly known as female hysteria have been controversially categorized in other conditions such as schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, conversion disorder, and anxiety attacks. Another condition that was formerly associated with hysteria is referred to as Factitious disorder also known as Munchausen Syndrome and related to Malingering. Malingerers commonly fake psychological disorders such as anxiety and fabricate trauma for a variety of reasons -- most often financial compensation tied to fraud. Munchausen Syndrome is a factitious disorder where people feign disease, illness, or psychological trauma to draw attention, sympathy, or reassurance to themselves. Symptoms include phobias, anxiety disorders, a history of recurrent hospitalization and dramatic, extremely improbable tales of their past experiences. The person often exaggerates or creates symptoms of illnesses to gain attention, sympathy, and/or comfort from medical personnel. In some cases, the person becomes highly knowledgeable about the practice of medicine and can recite and produce symptoms to garner more attention.

Christine Ford received a lot of attention and sympathy when she testified before Congress about her alleged assault by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.  During her testimony, Ford frequently responded not as a victim but as a physician. When asked by Senator Feinstein about the impact the events had on her, Ford responded:

Well, I think that the sequelae of sexual assault varies by person, so for me personally, anxiety, phobia and PTSD-like symptoms are the types of things that I’ve been coping with. So, more specifically, claustrophobia, panic and that type of thing.

When Senator Feinstein asked her how she was sure it was Judge Kavanaugh that assaulted her, Ford responded:

It’s — just basic memory functions. And also just the level of norepinephrine and epinephrine in the brain that, sort of, as you know, encodes — that neurotransmitter encodes memories into the hippocampus. And so, the trauma-related experience, then, is kind of locked there, whereas other details kind of drift.

The press praised her unusual responses by characterizing her as a research psychologist who appeared as her own expert witness. The reason expert witnesses do not testify on their own behalf is that a court and jury rely on expert witnesses to be disinterested parties, who are not biased and have no motive to fabricate an issue. It never occurred to the media to question Ford's self-diagnosis as the result of a trained political operative or the manifestation of a mental disorder. In fact, people who suffer from factitious disorders often research and study symptoms and diseases, so they can better fake them. Ford has made a career out of studying mental illness, writing prolifically about the long-term impacts of trauma, including trauma related to sexual abuse. She would know exactly how to lie about the symptoms and trauma associated with sexual assault.

There is a significant difference between studying trauma and authentically experiencing it. The genuineness of Christine Ford’s choice of language, affectation and disclosures were questionable. Throughout her entire testimony there was no other person, event, detail, or evidence that corroborated her testimony. Her demeanor and body language appeared rehearsed and coached. The most obvious pretense was her speech pattern. During most of her testimony she used a deliberate and calculated childish voice to project vulnerability and helplessness. When responding to specific questions about her trauma, she spoke in the third person in the guise of an esteemed physician. Survivors of sexual assault do not describe their trauma in the third person nor do they have to read from a written script to remember the details.

One week after Ford’s testimony, Nadia Murad, a 25-year-old Iraqi Yazidi woman was awarded the Nobel Peace prize for her campaign to end wartime sexual violence and to free the Yazidi people who were captured by ISIS terrorists. Murad became the voice and face of women who survived sexual violence by the Islamic State after she escaped sexual slavery. At 19 years old she was captured from her village of Kocho. Six of her brothers and her mother were killed in the massacre. Murad was sold as a sex slave and repeatedly gang raped, tortured and beaten until she escaped. Nadia Murad is a true survivor. By definition survivors do not think of themselves as victims. The differences between Ford and Murad is evident in their own words.

The first time Nadia Murad attempted to escape she was caught and was punished by being gang raped by six of her slave owners guards. She was then subjected to even more abuse as she was passed around to other militants. She described the incident in her memoir, The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State:

'Nadia, I told you that if you tried to escape something really bad would happen to you,' … A moment later Morteja, Yahya, Hossam, and the three other guards walked in, staring at me. …As soon as I saw them, I understood what my punishment would be. Morteja was the first to come to the bed. I tried to stop him, but he was too strong. He pushed me down, and there was nothing I could do. After Morteja, another guard raped me. I screamed for my mother and for Khairy, my brother…... My body was covered in filth left by the men ….The bed still smelled like the men who had raped me.

Senator Leahy asked Christine Ford: “What is the strongest memory you have, the strongest memory of the incident, something that you cannot forget?” She answered, “Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter, the laugh — the uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.” Ford’s diagnostic answer of the strongest memory of her alleged sexual assault is being laughed at, while Murad remembers being covered in filth and what her rapists smelled like.

On June 21, 2016, Nadia Murad  testified before members of Congress during the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on Capitol Hill. The comparison between Ford and Murad is striking. Murad is not reading from a script, nor talking in a childish voice. She does not use medical terms or repeatedly refer to herself as a traumatized victim of sexual assault. She remembers every face, name and smell of her very real multiple serial sexual assaults. She holds her head up high and states that she was raped, sold and abused but wants Congress to know that there are hundreds of other victims and that girls as young as nine also suffered that.

Nadia Murad is a true profile in courage and bravery. Christine Ford is a profile in female hysteria. Murad refused to accept the strict social codes that require women to remain silent and bravely spoke publicly about what she had suffered. She did not remain anonymous to avoid personal pain. She inspired the world to collect and preserve evidence that would allow ISIS militants to be brought to trial.

Christine ford inspired mass hysteria resulting in roving mobs of hysterical women stalking senators in the halls of the capitol screeching about rape like some primal scream group therapy session. Ford inspired women to disrupt the confirmation vote by chanting "Shame! Shame!" like the religious zealots in a Game of Thrones episode.

Nadia Murad is a remarkable brave woman, a true survivor, a heroine fighting for justice for both men and women and the future of both women’s and human rights. Christine Ford is a professional victim, a throwback to female hysteria, the poster child for the infantilization of women, a disgrace to every woman who fought for women’s rights and an insult to every victim of sexual violence.

SOURCE






Mark Zuckerberg held a meeting to try and calm Facebook employee outrage after an exec attended the Kavanaugh hearing

Facebook has held a company "town hall" meeting with employees to try and quell outrage after a senior executive attended the recent Senate hearing of US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg were both in attendance.

Last week Joel Kaplan, the company's policy chief,was visibly seated behind Kavanaugh, Trump's embattled nominee for the US Supreme Court, as the judge angrily defended himself against allegations of sexual misconduct by multiple women.

Kaplan and Kavanaugh are friends, having worked together in the Bush administration, and he was there in a personal capacity - but his appearance has enraged employees, and company leadership screwed up its initial response.

On Friday, the company called a meeting in which Zuckerberg, Sandberg, and Kaplan all spoke in an effort to diffuse the internal tension.

According to a report from Axios, Zuckerberg stressed that the importance of supporting people with diverse viewpoints at Facebook. The company has recently been criticised by conservative employees who feel they are unable to speak out about their political beliefs.

Kaplan reportedly said he felt he had an obligation to Kavanaugh, and he acknowledged he should have cleared his attendance with senior leadership before going. He had previously apologised over the uproar while defending his actions, writing to colleagues: "I want to apologise. I recognise this moment is a deeply painful one - internally and externally ... I believe in standing by your friends, especially when times are tough for them."

Some Facebook employees have argued that Kaplan's appearance made them uncomfortable or was "inappropriate." "There is absolutely no such thing as personal capacity when you're a high level manage/executive at the company ... I might feel uncomfortable sharing the workplace with this person now," one employee wrote in a message before Friday's town hall seen by Business Insider.

A Facebook spokesperson declined to comment on the record.

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One year after Weinstein scandal, accused male celebrities are attempting comebacks

??As each new allegation has surfed the wake of the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal, a familiar script has emerged: a headline which names and shames, a social media storm and the sacking, suspension or professional exile of the accused.

A year into that process we are seeing the first signs that some of those are hoping to swim against the tide and find a way back.

The comedian Louis C.K., accused last year of masturbating in front of a number of women, made the first of two appearances at New York's Comedy Cellar in August, the club's owner Noam Dworman telling US media "there can’t be a permanent life sentence on someone who does something wrong".

The New York Times has reported disgraced chef Mario Batali (accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women) is "eyeing his second act". And another media report quoted former Today show host Matt Lauer (who was fired after sexual harrassment allegations) saying he would be "back on TV soon".

It could be argued it's not an impossible feat. After all, bigger stars have in the decades prior fallen from great heights, some with jail sentences, and managed to claw their way back to polite society, their past sins erased from the tabloid record.

New York-based crisis public relations expert Mark Macias says every case is different. "Depending on how bad it is or depending on how big the image is or even depending on where your comeback is taking place," Macias says.

While the cases may differ in degree of offence, golfer Tiger Woods, who was caught in an infidelity scandal in 2009, actor Hugh Grant (caught with a prostitute in 1995), homeware maven Martha Stewart (jailed in 2004 for insider trading), singer Chris Brown (pleaded guilty to assaulting  singer Rihanna in 2009) and Robert Downey jnr (jailed in 1999 on drug charges) have all returned, with varying degrees of success.

In each case what is tested is both our ability to forgive and, thanks to surround-sound social media and shortening memories, forget. "As people, we want to forgive," Macias says. "We just don't want to be swindled. We don't want to feel like, hey, we forgive you, and then you come back and mess up again."

Macias believes that given the right context almost any reputation can be repaired. Even, he argues, Harvey Weinstein. "He's a talented producer, no one doubts that [and] if investors have a project and they want someone who's proven they will go to him," Macias says. "We might not see his name prominently in the credits, and we might not even see his name in the credits, maybe there's just a little quiet backroom deal with the handshake."

Hollywood, like most billion-dollar industries, is simply one of mitigating risk, Macias says. And it is operated in a manner which could be described as survival of the fittest, he adds.

Weinstein was charged with rape and a criminal sexual act in May, and faced a second set of charges in July, including predatory sexual assault. He has pleaded not guilty to the first set of charges.

Writing in the trade newspaper Variety, American culture commentator Caroline Framke argues that individuals like Louis C.K. are not "owed" a return path.

"Wading back into the world to see where he might fit is his prerogative," Framke wrote of Louis C.K. "But it's also our prerogative not to give him the kind of time and consideration that many are insisting he deserves, especially when there are so many others who could use even one of the many chances he’s getting."

Framke says the idea that a "time limit" should be applied, or that an assessment that Louis C.K. had "suffered enough" was ridiculous. "It minimises the damage he caused, the women he targeted taking enormous risks to expose it and the misogynistic rot within the entertainment industry that made it possible at all."

According to Eric Schiffer, a leading US consultant on reputation and brand strategy, successfully navigating the path back depends heavily on the audience which is lining the route. And in this case, Schiffer argues, sex and politics are maybe not so different.

"A career besmirched by #MeToo allegations and/or acts that would trigger outrage will face a similar fate to the way political campaigns are run," he says. "Meaning there will be constituencies that will, under no circumstance, ever give an opportunity for redemption."

Conversely, Schiffer adds, "because of their personal backgrounds, experience, beliefs, and moral standards, there will also be a constituency that will be willing to give an opportunity to someone after a period of time.

"The issue is hard to navigate he says because it "touches on the cross section of, I think, people's individual, personal pain, the identity of women and respect toward women, the male culture that has dominated, and women's and feminists' rights.

"But there are careers that can survive if they find the right market niche and the right groups of individuals that fall in to the category that would be more apt to give them an opportunity," he adds.

What we are seeing, he points out, is Louis C.K., who has not been charged with any criminal offences, attempting to find that pocket. "He knows he's not going to change some people's minds, ever again," Schiffer says. "But the market is large enough to where he can still find an audience, a sub-audience within his prior audience."

Another case, not related to #MeToo but in a way swept up in its aftermath, is that of writer/director Matthew Newton, who left Australia about a decade ago in the wake of alleged domestic violence and assault scandals.

Newton announced a return earlier this year, as the writer/director of a new film, Eve, to star Jessica Chastain, who had lent her voice to the #MeToo movement. Social media judgement was swift: Chastain was accused of hypocrisy and Newton was forced to step down. "For the past six years I have lived a quiet and sober life," Newton said in a statement. "All I can do now is try to [make] living amends and hopefully contribute to the positive change occurring in our industry."

An infinitely more complex case, that of actor Kevin Spacey, who was accused by a number of men of sexual misconduct including making a pass at the then 14-year-old actor Anthony Rapp, has an almost impossible path back, Macias says. "It's not going to be easy for him either but if he can show over time that he's a different man and with a different type of empathy, then that's the first step towards rehabilitating the image," Macias says.

One crucial point is contrition. It's hard to measure publicly but the reaction to attempts by Louis C.K. and Newton to mount comebacks would suggest that in most people's eyes neither has done enough to mitigate the return.

Some US experts suggest a metric similar to the ninth step of the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step program which talks about making "direct amends" to those people affected by an individual's actions. Others say those charged with sexual offences or domestic assault should make a more substantial contribution by directly engaging with victims.

There are a number of variables, Schiffer says, not least the individuals themselves. "With Louis C.K. his unique advantage is he's a comedian, [he] is not a politician or someone who is running a bureaucratic agency expected to have a pretty conservative set of behaviours."

"But the timing of what he did, when he did it, all of these things go together and form kind of a calculus at this point, as to how the public is going to react and I think it's still very raw," Schiffer adds. "Time will heal. And with some, that are on the spectrum, at the low end of the offensive side, they can, again, find an audience.

"[But] there are some that time won't be their friend; won't matter," Schiffer says. "Kevin Spacey and Weinstein and some of these, I think they are cooked. They're going to die a merciless death as individual brands. And human beings."

Schiffer argues we are still only taking the first steps in a much longer arc of social change. "A year in is relatively small in the totality of all these underlying forces that are driving this, we're still in the early stages," he says.

Perhaps the biggest challenge for the #MeToo movement then is converting accusations into convictions, a difficult task given in many cases the claims have passed the legal statute of limitations or, in some cases where there is little corroborating evidence, are reduced to exchanges of he said/she said or he said/he said.

"I think in the short run, that's true, but in the medium to long run, I think the legal system will play a role in shaping the strength or lack therein on #MeToo in a sustained way," Schiffer says.

"If many of these allegations that are asserted for specific offenders are undermined, legally, I think it undermines the movement [but] conversely, it can also strengthen the movement," he says. "I do think it will have an effect. I don't think it will end the movement, even if there's a tremendous amount of legal victories for these people that are named offenders, but it certainly could affect the momentum."

Ultimately, Schiffer says, the legal system must play its part.

"Because you're talking about assertions that, ultimately, should be fairly adjudicated," he says. "That's not to say that when there's smoke, there's not fire, but in fairness, [in] a democratic system, the legal system should have the ultimate authority."

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 October, 2018

Women must always be believed

Or so the Democrats tell us

Bellevue, WA, Oct 8 – Prosecutors have dropped the charges against a now-former police officer who served 49 days in jail [Beginning  July, 2018] because of what investigators now say were fake rape allegations.

John Kivlin was one of three members of the Bellevue Police Department who was accused of sexual misconduct by the same woman, KING reported.

Kivlin spent 49 days behind bars because, after accusing him of rape, the woman told police he violated a protection order by repeatedly texting her.

Kivlin also lost his job in the process.

Now investigators have said that never happened, and the King County Sheriff’s Office said the Issaquah woman has a history of seeking out men on Craig’s List and then falsely reporting those consensual encounters as rape, the Seattle Times reported.

"The result of [the woman's] fabrication was that law enforcement arrested Kivlin for crimes he did not commit, prosecutors filed charges against Kivlin for crimes he did not commit, and the Court held Kivlin in custody for order violations which he did not commit,” the prosecutor said, according to KING.

The woman also accused Bellevue Police Chief Steve Mylett and another detective in the same department of raping her, sources close to the investigation told KING.

She claimed to have met all three men online.

"I never once violated my marriage vows. I would not jeopardize my relationship with my wife nor my children. I would never offend my God,” Chief Mylett told KING when the accusations were first made back in August.

Chief Mylett got dragged into the accusations because a text exchange between the woman and Kivlin, the woman accused his "boss boss," even though she didn't appear to know his name.

Bothell police were handling the investigation and declined to file charges against the detective who had been accused.

However, Chief Mylett has been on paid administrative leave since the woman made her accusations, while the Bothell police investigated, the Seattle Times reported.

Bothell Police Captain Mike Johnson told the Seattle Times that although the investigation has not yet been completed, detectives have been unable to find any corroborating evidence for the allegations against Chief Mylett.

The woman first met Kivlin on Craig’s List, and the two carried on a consensual relationship from September of 2017 until April, when she accused her police officer boyfriend of having punched her in the face twice.

Both the woman and Kivlin were married to other people at the time of the affair, the Seattle Times reported.

In July, the woman claim that Kivlin had been trying to force her to recant her story, and so police arrested him on assault and witness tampering charges.

Prosecutors eventually dismissed those charges against Kivlin after a thorough forensic investigation of his phone proved his accuser had lied.

“The investigation revealed [the woman] had made up evidence that Kivlin had contacted her in August. A forensic analysis of [her] cellphone revealed she was the one who initiated contact with Kivlin on Craigslist by posing as ‘Cynthia.’ The woman’s claim that Kivlin contacted her in August was not true,” the prosecutor wrote, according to the Seattle Times. “As a result of the investigation, Kivlin was released from custody and the new charges against Kivlin were dismissed.”

Prosecutors said the woman who accused the police officer had “fabricated evidence and used a sophisticated ruse to deceive Kivlin, law enforcement, prosecutors, and the Court in order to have Kivlin taken into custody and charged with additional crimes.”

Similar results into the investigation of the allegations against Chief Mylett are expected to be announced in the near future.

During the course of the investigation, detectives learned the 44-year-old woman had also made false rape accusations on two prior occasions in 2009 and 2010.

But King County Sheriff’s Sergeant Ryan Abbott said that investigators had not recommended charging the woman, even for her false allegations, due to concerns about her mental health, the Seattle Times reported.

Kivlin resigned from the Bellevue Police Department during the investigation and his attorney said they are not satisfied with the outcome.

“Although some may say that justice was served in this process, my client sure doesn’t see it that way,” Jeffrey Cohen told the Seattle Times. “She has destroyed lives and reputations and now he’s got to try to put his life back together.”

SOURCE






In defence of deadnaming. Graham Linehan must be free to blaspheme against the trans ideology

It is the free-speech warrior’s lot that he always finds himself defending tossers. Neo-fascists. Cross-burning white supremacists. Finger-wagging Islamists. Graham Linehan.

Yes, to the mugs’ gallery of people that us principled believers in freedom of speech must defend, we are now obliged to add Mr Linehan: the one-time funny man and co-writer of Father Ted who in recent years, courtesy of the unwitting window into the soul that is Twitter, has revealed himself to be an intolerant, oafish abuser of anyone who dissents from his narrow and Brexitphobic (natch) worldview.

For Mr Linehan has now found himself on the receiving end of both police pressure and Twittermob fury simply for something he said; simply for his beliefs; simply because he dissents from the increasingly eccentric and authoritarian ideology of transgenderism.

Given that Mr Linehan himself doesn’t believe in freedom of speech – consider his condemnation of Count Dankula, the meme-maker and shit-poster who was outrageously arrested for filming his pug doing a Nazi salute – some are chuckling about the fact that he now finds himself the victim of the very PC censorship he has previously approved of.

Fine, have a laugh about that, get it out of your system. And then let’s get back to defending Linehan, because even people who don’t believe in freedom of speech must have their freedom of speech defended.

Linehan’s speechcrime was to be trans-sceptical – or ‘transphobic’, to use the word preferred by trans activists and their allies, which include the police, the military, the Church, the educational establishment, the academy, and virtually every single celebrity. Such an oppressed movement!

Linehan has been getting into online spats for months with trans activists. He agrees with those feminists who argue that making it easier for men to identify as women (even referring to them as men is a transphobic hate crime, I know) is not good for women.

He believes such casual, fad-like self-identification reduces womanhood to a flimsy, easily adopted thing, like a piece of clothing, and threatens to throw open previously women-only spaces – from changing rooms to all-women shortlists in party politics — to people who have penises and the XY chromosomes.

For making these points, he has been subjected to the usual bile and censure. He has been accused of hate speech. He has been branded a ‘phobe’ and a ‘TERF’ (a trans-exclusionary radical feminist), which are to 21st-century discourse what ‘heretic’ and ‘denier’ were to 15th-century discourse: means of branding people as sinners against orthodoxy, possessed of foul minds and warped souls and deserving of expulsion from the academy, politics and public life in general.

The moralistic mobbing of Linehan by the trans speech-police and its allies moved up a notch when he got into a Twitterspat with the trans activist Stephanie Hayden. He dared to refer to Stephanie as ‘he’ and he even ‘deadnamed’ her, which is when you use the name a trans person was given at birth rather than the opposite-gender name they gave themselves later in life. Using ‘deadnames’ is like saying ‘Voldemort’ in the Harry Potter universe: a serious no-no that risks conjuring up monsters (though Twitter haters and woke police officers rather than dark lords).

Extraordinarily, Linehan was given a verbal-harassment warning by the police for his use of male pronouns, his ‘deadnaming’, and his claim that Hayden is a misogynist. What’s more, Hayden is now taking civil-court action against Linehan, accusing him of harassment, defamation and misuse of private information.

The intervention of actual cops into differences over transgenderism captures how intensely censorious this movement has become. Not content with having ‘TERFs’ like Julie Bindel and Linda Bellos harassed out of public-speaking events, or with successfully invading or closing down 15 public meetings of trans-sceptics in recent months, or with carrying out at least six incidents of violence or intimidation against feminists who oppose changes to the Gender Recognition Act that would make it easier for men to claim to be women, now trans activists want the police to punish ‘transphobic’ (read: heretical) speech.

Out of all the identitarian groups, trans activism is without question the most intolerant and the one most obsessed with linguistic policing. It wants to exercise total control over how people speak, and fundamentally think, about gender. But of course this tiny, strange movement cannot achieve this on its own. The truly worrying dynamic is the capitulation of so many cultural, political and social institutions to its Orwellian demands.

So, just this week the Wellcome Collection in London, a key health and cultural institution, announced it was holding an event and exhibition about ‘womxn’. You what? It said it used that mad, unpronounceable word in order to be more ‘inclusive’, in order to make it clear that all sorts of women (whisper it: even people who aren’t really women) could get involved. The end result, of course, is that women are erased; the word ‘women’ is turned effectively into a swearword that must have an X in it so that no one sees it and feels offended. Womxn: Newspeak much?

Orwellian isn’t too strong a word for what is going on. Consider the trouble Linehan and others are getting into for ‘deadnaming’. If we have a situation where someone’s birth name cannot be uttered, and where the police might even come after you if you do utter it, then we are conspiring in the erasure of the past itself, of historical truth, of actual, provable, documented fact.

For the fact is that trans activists were born a particular sex. And they were given a particular name. And these facts were recorded, honestly and faithfully, by public-sector workers and officials – from midwives to doctors to birth registrars – in order that society might know who its citizens are.

To erase these old names, and to allow trans-people to change their sex on their actual birth certificates, which is now happening, is to engage in an explicit act of memory-holing, as it was called in 1984. It pushes down the memory hole true, recorded events. It replaces the truth – that a boy was born – with a lie: that a girl was born. It represents the complete subjugation of social norms and historical records to the whims of tiny numbers of gender-confused people and the powerful institutions that bizarrely nod along to their every censorious demand.

So we have to defend Linehan. And we have to defend ‘deadnaming’. For ‘deadnaming’ is just a Newspeak word designed to demonise the telling of historical truths. Not satisfied with seeking to control contemporary discussion and attitudes, now trans activists and their allies (all institutions, in essence) want to control the past itself. History. No way. The past happened, it was true, and we should not allow that to be erased and forgotten just to make some people feel better about themselves.

SOURCE








Huge Backlash After CNN Go ‘Full Blown Racist’ Calling Kanye West ‘Token Negro’

CNN is being accused of racism after commentators Bakari Sellers and Tara Setmayer bashed rapper Kanye West over his support for Trump on CNN Tonight with Don Lemon, going so far as to call him a “token negro.”

“Kanye West is what happens when negroes don’t read,” CNN commentator Bakari Sellers said, in reference to an old Chris Rock bit.

Breitbart reports:

CNN’s Tara Setmayer went even further, calling Kanye West a “an attention whore like the president.”

“He’s all of a sudden now the model spokesperson—he’s the token Negro of the Trump Administration?” she also said.

Don Lemon laughed and giggled throughout the segment as the two commentators degraded Kanye West.

Turning Point USA Communications Director Candace Owens accused the network of racism over this language in a tweet sent Wednesday:

“Last night on CNN, Kanye West was called a ‘token negro’ and a ‘dumb negro’. I want you guys to imagine if those words were EVER uttered on FoxNews. CNN has finally committed to going full blown RACIST. They want their slaves back,” Owens wrote.

This isn’t the first time the liberal network has been accused of racism over some suspect comments. Analyst Jeffrey Toobin blamed Antifa violence on black Americans in August, raising the ire of Candace Owens again, who said that the network was being “horribly racist.”

“Blaming black Americans for crimes that an ALL-WHITE gang commits—why? Because white Democrats are incapable of violence, and only black democrats are?” she tweeted.

SOURCE






Americans Strongly Dislike PC Culture

Youth isn’t a good proxy for support of political correctness, and race isn’t either.

On social media, the country seems to divide into two neat camps: Call them the woke and the resentful. Team Resentment is manned—pun very much intended—by people who are predominantly old and almost exclusively white. Team Woke is young, likely to be female, and predominantly black, brown, or Asian (though white “allies” do their dutiful part). These teams are roughly equal in number, and they disagree most vehemently, as well as most routinely, about the catchall known as political correctness.

Reality is nothing like this. As scholars Stephen Hawkins, Daniel Yudkin, Miriam Juan-Torres, and Tim Dixon argue in a report published Wednesday, “Hidden Tribes: A Study of America’s Polarized Landscape,” most Americans don’t fit into either of these camps. They also share more common ground than the daily fights on social media might suggest—including a general aversion to PC culture.

The study was written by More in Common, an organization founded in memory of Jo Cox, the British MP who was murdered in the run-up to the Brexit referendum. It is based on a nationally representative poll with 8,000 respondents, 30 one-hour interviews, and six focus groups conducted from December 2017 to September 2018.

If you look at what Americans have to say on issues such as immigration, the extent of white privilege, and the prevalence of sexual harassment, the authors argue, seven distinct clusters emerge: progressive activists, traditional liberals, passive liberals, the politically disengaged, moderates, traditional conservatives, and devoted conservatives.

According to the report, 25 percent of Americans are traditional or devoted conservatives, and their views are far outside the American mainstream. Some 8 percent of Americans are progressive activists, and their views are even less typical. By contrast, the two-thirds of Americans who don’t belong to either extreme constitute an “exhausted majority.” Their members “share a sense of fatigue with our polarized national conversation, a willingness to be flexible in their political viewpoints, and a lack of voice in the national conversation.”

Most members of the “exhausted majority,” and then some, dislike political correctness. Among the general population, a full 80 percent believe that “political correctness is a problem in our country.” Even young people are uncomfortable with it, including 74 percent ages 24 to 29, and 79 percent under age 24. On this particular issue, the woke are in a clear minority across all ages.

Youth isn’t a good proxy for support of political correctness—and it turns out race isn’t, either.

Whites are ever so slightly less likely than average to believe that political correctness is a problem in the country: 79 percent of them share this sentiment. Instead, it is Asians (82 percent), Hispanics (87percent), and American Indians (88 percent) who are most likely to oppose political correctness. As one 40-year-old American Indian in Oklahoma said in his focus group, according to the report:

It seems like everyday you wake up something has changed … Do you say Jew? Or Jewish? Is it a black guy? African-American? … You are on your toes because you never know what to say. So political correctness in that sense is scary.

The one part of the standard narrative that the data partially affirm is that African Americans are most likely to support political correctness. But the difference between them and other groups is much smaller than generally supposed: Three quarters of African Americans oppose political correctness. This means that they are only four percentage points less likely than whites, and only five percentage points less likely than the average, to believe that political correctness is a problem.

If age and race do not predict support for political correctness, what does? Income and education.

While 83 percent of respondents who make less than $50,000 dislike political correctness, just 70 percent of those who make more than $100,000 are skeptical about it. And while 87 percent who have never attended college think that political correctness has grown to be a problem, only 66 percent of those with a postgraduate degree share that sentiment.

Political tribe—as defined by the authors—is an even better predictor of views on political correctness. Among devoted conservatives, 97 percent believe that political correctness is a problem. Among traditional liberals, 61 percent do. Progressive activists are the only group that strongly backs political correctness: Only 30 percent see it as a problem.

So what does this group look like? Compared with the rest of the (nationally representative) polling sample, progressive activists are much more likely to be rich, highly educated—and white. They are nearly twice as likely as the average to make more than $100,000 a year. They are nearly three times as likely to have a postgraduate degree. And while 12 percent of the overall sample in the study is African American, only 3 percent of progressive activists are. With the exception of the small tribe of devoted conservatives, progressive activists are the most racially homogeneous group in the country.

One obvious question is what people mean by “political correctness.” In the extended interviews and focus groups, participants made clear that they were concerned about their day-to-day ability to express themselves: They worry that a lack of familiarity with a topic, or an unthinking word choice, could lead to serious social sanctions for them. But since the survey question did not define political correctness for respondents, we cannot be sure what, exactly, the 80 percent of Americans who regard it as a problem have in mind.

There is, however, plenty of additional support for the idea that the social views of most Americans are not nearly as neatly divided by age or race as is commonly believed. According to the Pew Research Center, for example, only 26 percent of black Americans consider themselves liberal. And in the More in Common study, nearly half of Latinos argued that “many people nowadays are too sensitive to how Muslims are treated,” while two in five African Americans agreed that “immigration nowadays is bad for America.”

In the days before “Hidden Tribes” was published, I ran a little experiment on Twitter, asking my followers to guess what percentage of Americans believe that political correctness is a problem in this country. The results were striking: Nearly all of my followers underestimated the extent to which most Americans reject political correctness. Only 6 percent gave the right answer. (When I asked them how people of color regard political correctness, their guesses were, unsurprisingly, even more wildly off.)

Obviously, my followers on Twitter are not a representative sample of America. But as their largely supportive feelings about political correctness indicate, they are probably a decent approximation for a particular intellectual milieu to which I also belong: politically engaged, highly educated, left-leaning Americans—the kinds of people, in other words, who are in charge of universities, edit the nation’s most important newspapers and magazines, and advise Democratic political candidates on their campaigns.

So the fact that we are so widely off the mark in our perception of how most people feel about political correctness should probably also make us rethink some of our other basic assumptions about the country.

It is obvious that certain elements on the right mock instances in which political correctness goes awry in order to win the license to spew outright racial hatred. And it is understandable that, in the eyes of some progressives, this makes anybody who dares to criticize political correctness a witting tool of—or a useful idiot for—the right. But that’s not fair to the Americans who feel deeply alienated by woke culture. Indeed, while 80 percent of Americans believe that political correctness has become a problem in the country, even more, 82 percent, believe that hate speech is also a problem.

It turns out that while progressive activists tend to think that only hate speech is a problem, and devoted conservatives tend to think that only political correctness is a problem, a clear majority of all Americans holds a more nuanced point of view: They abhor racism. But they don’t think that the way we now practice political correctness represents a promising way to overcome racial injustice.

The study should also make progressives more self-critical about the way in which speech norms serve as a marker of social distinction. I don’t doubt the sincerity of the affluent and highly educated people who call others out if they use “problematic” terms or perpetrate an act of “cultural appropriation.” But what the vast majority of Americans seem to see—at least according to the research conducted for “Hidden Tribes”—is not so much genuine concern for social justice as the preening display of cultural superiority.

For the millions upon millions of Americans of all ages and all races who do not follow politics with rapt attention, and who are much more worried about paying their rent than about debating the prom dress worn by a teenager in Utah, contemporary callout culture merely looks like an excuse to mock the values or ignorance of others. As one 57- year-old woman in Mississippi fretted:

The way you have to term everything just right. And if you don’t term it right you discriminate them. It’s like everybody is going to be in the know of what people call themselves now and some of us just don’t know. But if you don’t know then there is something seriously wrong with you.

The gap between the progressive perception and the reality of public views on this issue could do damage to the institutions that the woke elite collectively run. A publication whose editors think they represent the views of a majority of Americans when they actually speak to a small minority of the country may eventually see its influence wane and its readership decline. And a political candidate who believes she is speaking for half of the population when she is actually voicing the opinions of one-fifth is likely to lose the next election.

In a democracy, it is difficult to win fellow citizens over to your own side, or to build public support to remedy injustices that remain all too real, when you fundamentally misunderstand how they see the world.

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 October, 2018

An atheist manifesto

I put up here a great deal in support of Christians and Christian causes but since I am myself an extreme atheist in the manner of analytical philosophers like Rudolf Carnap, it seems only reasonable that I present an atheist POV occasionally.  None of the difficulties for theism presented below will disdturb committed Christians but they deserve to be presented.

It always amuses me that both Christians and atheists consider one another to be totally unreasonable. They both have a point.  Atheists consider it unreasonanble to believe in an undetectable object and Christians believe it unreasonable to believe the vast complexity around us happened by chance.  Partly for that reason I never argue for or against belief in God, Thor, Zeus or whoever he is

I do however believe in the Devil.  I think Islam is ample proof of his influence

The fact reported below that Australian young people are much more religious than their elders is certainly an interesting finding.  I suspect it reflects the uncertainties of the modern world -- where the Left have done a pretty good job of throwing all values into question.  The existence of God is much better argued for than most traditional beliefs are so young people cling on to the only firm anchor they can find.  And they find in Christianity a rich system of thinking and values that guides them well through life and its challenges.

I myself am profoundly grateful for my fundamentalist youth.  It was much more helpful to me than believing in the absurd Leftist gospel that "There is no such thing as Right and Wrong".  How can they expect anyone to draw philosophical nourishment from such an etiolated body of thought?

I am still mostly guided in my life by Christian principles.  They work for me.  I even "take a little wine for my stomach's sake" from time to time (1 Timothy 5:23)


The promise of an afterlife – to meet departed family and friends – appeals to many, but especially younger Australians. Are private religious schools playing a part? And why do they dismiss the evidence of physics, asks Brian Morris.

Against all odds, it seems the concept of going to heaven holds far greater significance for the young than for those who are closer – numerically – to death! We need to confront ‘the D word’ itself, but let’s first get a handle on why the idea of paradise has gripped contemporary youth – more so than pensioners.

A national Essential poll shows 40% of all Australians believe in heaven. But the crucial figure is that a staggering 51% of those aged 18-34 hold such a belief! This compares to just 29% of the public who are over 55 years old. The young are almost twice as fixated with an afterlife than those closer to pension age! Why is that?

Is it insecurity or religiosity? One suggestion points to the fact that 40% of secondary students now attend private religious schools – a rate far higher than all other Western nations. There has been an exponential growth in government funding for private Catholic and Anglican schools since the 1960s – from a base of almost zero.

Others suggest that a similar rise in Special Religious Instruction (SRI) and chaplains in public schools has led to the Christianisation of education across the nation. These government-funded programs are run by evangelical Christian organisations in each state – with Catholic and Anglican private schools proselytising their own religions. And do millennials then stay at home too long, with a childhood faith, instead of getting out into the real world?

Since colonisation, Christianity instilled belief in an afterlife. It’s reflected on a daily basis in mainstream media, in film and on television – and in our obsession with sport. No game passes without players pointing skyward when scoring a goal, or honouring a deceased team or family member with hands reaching towards heaven.

But the biggest problem is that we don’t talk about death!

Society needs to get over this end-of-life taboo – to discuss and challenge the sugar-coated religious myth that claims we will all meet up with our loved ones (and pets) when we die and go to heaven. Before confronting the concrete scientific evidence (below) – and how we can better handle the emotional aspects of death – just dwell on this thought for one moment.

Isn’t paradise already just a little crowded? Think about who those you would meet – not only the entire cohort of your departed relatives, your friends and ancestors – but all the people you have detested; and those who gave you so much grief during your lifetime.

Then there’s the rest – every human who died! Research shows that, by 2050, an estimated 113 billion people will have lived and died on planet Earth; so heaven is already a seething mass of ‘souls’. For eternity!

The average punter has great difficulty conceptualising ‘eternity’. Most can’t even grasp the fact of our universe being 13.8 billion years old – or Earth a mere 4.5 billion. The concept is starkly illustrated in a fascinating book, A History of the World in 10 1/2 chapters. While fictional, it focuses the mind on a serious problem with infinity.

Chapter 10 sees our hero arrive in heaven, choosing to spend all his time eating luxurious food, having endless sex, and playing golf. After several thousand years he’s sick of food and sex, and on each heavenly golf course he hits holes-in-one on every par 3. He pleads to be released from this endless “perfect existence” and asks if others finally yearn to be free; to actually “die”. With a short pause for effect, the answer was plain. “Everyone!”

Books on near-death experiences, and visits to heaven, are legion. A recent best seller was Proof of Heaven by Dr Eben Alexander – a neurosurgeon, no less. Alexander sold more than 2 million copies before his claims were debunked. Among those who contested his story was Professor Sean Carroll, a particle physicist and high-profile science communicator. Carroll said there could only be two possibilities for Alexander’s spiritual encounter:

(1) Either some ill-defined metaphysical substance, not subject to the known laws of physics, interacted with the atoms of his brain in ways that have eluded every controlled experiment ever performed in the history of science; or

(2) People hallucinate when they are nearly dead.

Professor Carroll’s detailed explanation of Physics and Immortality spells out precisely why an immaterial ‘soul’ does not exist.

Carroll worked with the team that discovered the Higgs Boson at Geneva’s Large Hadron Collider. He could not be more explicit;

“If there are other waves, particles or forces sufficient to externally influence the brain, then we would know about them … Within Quantum Field Theory, there can’t be a new collection of ‘spirit particles’ and ‘spirit forces’ that interact with our regular atoms, because we would have detected them in existing experiments… You would have to demonstrate evidence of a completely new realm of reality, obeying very different rules than everything we know about physics.”

The 3 links above are needed to fully understand why there is no ‘soul’. But science does not devalue the need for compassion and empathy in the face of raw emotions that come with our personal experiences of death. It is necessary to face up to reality – but there are alternatives to religion in coping with end of life crises.

Discussing death openly and honestly – and publicly through the media – is a first step in helping to ease the extreme distress that many suffer with their own fear of death.

The ‘Golden Age of Athens’ pre-dates Christianity by four centuries – it led to a crucial period of new philosophical thought about life and death, about government and democracy, and how ordinary people could live a more fulfilled and contented life.

The philosophical principles of stoicism remain popular today. It’s based on three central themes. ‘Perception’, how we choose to view events; ‘Action’, how we deal with events we can control (and those we can’t); and then there’s ‘Will’ – training ourselves to deal honestly and ethically with events in our own lives. Following the full regime of stoicism may seem daunting; but after filtering the basic principles it becomes somewhat easier to apply.

The stoic approach to dealing with death – of family, friends, or oneself – is particularly relevant. Initially, it may appear morbid to periodically remind ourselves of one’s mortality. But if we consider this approach to death deeply enough, we soon come to realise the benefits of a greatly improved mental state.

The stark alternative for most people is to ignore the inevitable, and to be completely consumed by grief when family or friends die unexpectedly. Religion holds its privileged status based on fear – fear of not believing in God, fear of the unknown, and especially the fear of death. It’s a cruel deception that society needs to overcome.

By sugar-coating mortality with the myth of everlasting heaven, religion simply deprives us all of the ways and means to better cope with the end of life. While stoicism may not be the complete solution for all, it is clear that the basic principles of ‘philosophical ethics’ – honesty, reason, compassion, and love – would be a far better alternative than teaching schoolchildren obedience to God and religious ritual.

Future generations would avoid the trap of today’s millennials who continue to shun science and instead cling to religious concepts of an afterlife.

A ‘soul’ that miraculously ascends to heaven, only to re-unite with 113 billion other souls – for the whole of eternity! Just like our golfing hero, that sounds more like purgatory!

SOURCE






The Other Sexual Abuse Culture No One Dares to Mention

With the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, the sexual assault debate has ignited once again, as it will with each new accusation—whether true or false—of high profile celebrities or public figures. Every time, we hear the same message: There is an abuse of power that allows people to force themselves upon others. We are urged to reject our violent “#metoo” sexual abuse culture.

Indeed, we must reject all sexual abuse. However, we must also admit that we as a society have created this sexual abuse culture. The Sexual Revolution “liberated” people from the mores and behaviors society once expected of individuals. It took away modesty, chastity and customs that served to protect people from abuse. The Sexual Revolution promoted promiscuity that easily degenerates into abuse, harassment and assault.

The shock of the Frankenstein monster we created has led to a hypersensitivity toward anything resembling harassment and abuse. Many real cases of abuse have been denounced. However, there are also cases in which false accusations of impropriety ruin a career. This hyper-sensitivity has created a frenetic climate of guilty until proven guiltier. Indeed, it is mob rule, with the only too willing media playing judge, jury, and hangman.

The Other Abuse Culture

This hypersensitivity to abuse is mirrored by a hyper-insensitivity of another sexual harassment culture. Talk of this other culture is notably absent in the debate. However, this culture can portray the most blatant sexual abuses without fearing any retribution or consequences. The most rabid denouncers are strangely silent and fall limp at its mention. Indeed, they might even sympathize with its portrayals.

The abuse culture in question is the entertainment industry. It is found on movie screens and entertainment venues everywhere. This culture broadcasts hyper-insensitivity to violence, nudity, profanity and gratuitous sex. It teaches young people that all these things are normal and can be done without consequences. People are desensitized by a wide array of abusive and immoral behaviors that sets the stage for #metoo abuse.

While some actors have been denounced for behavior off the screen, nothing is banned on the screen. We are not talking about a few isolated films. Picking recent R-rated films at random will reveal examples of a culture of promiscuity that leads to sexual abuse and aberrations of the worst kind. And yet no one says anything.

A Random Review

A recent example might be the late summer blockbuster, “Crazy Rich Asians,” that swept the nation with rave reviews. One scene shows what Kyle Smith described in a National Review article as a “bachelor party [that] takes place on a huge freighter, in international waters in the company of bikini models from around the world.” Here is a case of implied actions by powerful, rich men with sexually suggestive women that would be outside the reach of the law in international waters. Audiences fantasize with playing out the sinful roles. Society is expected to be complicit, accepting these mortal sins against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments as normal. No one complains.

A few examples of reviews found on the Catholic News Service (CNS)—a division of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops—should be enough to demonstrate the hyper-insensitivity toward the abuse of others, especially women. There is no righteous indignation toward these abusive portrayals; some are shown in a positive or even comic light.

The Film “Assassination Nation,” for example, portrays “considerable violence,” involving “gunplay, torture and suicide, drug use, strong sexual content, including two implied nonmarital encounters, aberrant behavior and an adultery theme, a pornographic image, explicit dialogue and frequent rough language.” CNS rated it “L – limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling.”

“Life Itself” contains “brief scenes of suicide and accidental death with gore, mature themes including abortion, drug use, a premarital situation, an ambivalent treatment of marriage, a few uses of profanity, a couple of milder oaths as well as pervasive rough and much crude language.” CNS rated it “A-III – adults.”

Another film called “Eighth Grade” involves minors—eighth graders!—suffering from unwanted sexual demands, “sexual humor” and crude language—all of which would be labeled harassment off-screen. CNS rated it “A-III – adults.”

By contrast, CNS used its “O – morally offensive” rating for films like “The First Purge.” It contains “excessive gory and gruesome violence, including a sexual assault, graphic aberrant sexual activity, drug use, brief partial nudity, several profanities, a few milder oaths and pervasive rough and crude language.”

As described by reviewers, many films deemed acceptable in society contain ample material for denunciations in today’s hyper-sensitive abuse culture. The viewer is unaware of any character in these films that suffered negative legal consequences as a result of their sinful acts, either immediately or thirty years after. The fact that these sins are portrayed favorably on screen does not nullify their bad effects off-screen. And yet no one complains.

Rejecting This Second Culture

This is the second sexual abuse culture that no one dares to mention. It should likewise be vehemently opposed. Unlike the first culture that is limited to individual actions against another, this culture victimizes anyone who watches it. Because the acts it portrays have no legal consequences, they are much more irresponsible and pervasive. We can be exposed to more sexual abuse and harassment in one evening in the second culture than a full year in the first. And yet, no one complains.

This second culture is defined by the plots and themes that degrade humanity. They are watched by everyone, male and female, conservative and liberal, old and young. We are flooded with images of these irresponsible and sinful characters that live in a surreal world, acting out their impulses and whims. They make sexual abuse look so easy and gratifying.

Each deplorable and sinful act represents not a single episode but is multiplied by the number of times the film is shown. It is as if the same abuse is committed millions of times inside theaters, homes and mobile devices. Inside the minds of countless viewers (and abusers), these films send a message of validation and social acceptability.

A Moral Problem

Those who decry the first culture have little problem accepting the second. This contradiction suggests a moral problem by which individuals do not discern right and wrong correctly.

People think what determines the acceptability of an act is the freedom and pleasure of the individual, not an objective moral law. They do not realize that the cause of the first sexual abuse culture is a distorted notion of personal freedom best understood as an amoral license that often leads to the abuse of others. The cause of the second abuse culture is a willingness to fantasize about a rules-free world where all are free to act according to their whims and pleasures without a moral compass.  Both cultures lead to sin and disaster in society.

Any serious treatment of the sexual abuse must embrace a moral law that re-establishes a correct understanding of right and wrong, the notion of sin, and the Catholic dogma of Hell’s eternal punishment for those who die in the state of mortal sin. It must also include a rejection of the Sexual Revolution that has so destroyed the lives of millions with the lying promise of moral liberation.

Any other solutions will only address the symptoms of our hyper-sexual culture that encourages the behaviors now deplored. It is time to address their causes. It is time to denounce the other culture that none dare mention.

SOURCE






Victims may be sincere, but memory is fallible

by Jeff Jacoby

IN TIME, the rage and rancor of the Brett Kavanaugh fight will subside, as rage and rancor invariably do.

But the wounds of the last few weeks won't really heal. It's only a matter of time until a similarly bitter partisan fight erupts, and when it does we will sink to even deeper levels of spite and malice. The campaign to block Kavanaugh's confirmation went beyond anything we've seen in a court fight before, and the ugly recklessness of recent days will be back.

Of all the demons unleashed during the assault on Kavanaugh, perhaps the scariest was the casual repudiation of due process — the wholesale elevation of belief over facts as the yardstick by which accusations should be judged.

The sexual-assault allegations deployed at the last minute against Kavanaugh remain uncorroborated, yet their truth promptly became a matter of faith among many on the left. Though the charges were wholly inconsistent with the judge's longstanding reputation for rectitude, Democratic political leaders embraced them. "I believe you," Kamala Harris and Richard Blumenthal told Christine Blasey Ford when she appeared before the Judiciary Committee. "You are speaking truth," intoned Cory Booker. On Twitter and other social media, hashtag declarations of faith — #BelieveWomen and #BelieveSurvivors and #IBelieveChristine — mushroomed.

This is a free country, and people are free to believe anything they wish. But life in this country will grow steadily less free if fundamental elements of fairness, like the presumption of innocence, are simply jettisoned when an accusation is made by someone who says with seeming sincerity that she was sexually assaulted. Or when a serious accusation is made against someone who happens to belong to a disfavored group.

As recent events demonstrate, #BelieveWomen and #BelieveSurvivors are powerful political slogans. But science demonstrates even more powerfully that when men (or women) are deemed guilty on belief alone — belief without independent evidence — the results can be horrific.

Reams of psychological research confirm that human memory is notoriously fallible, and that the most traumatic memories — the ones that feel most vivid and indelible — are often the least reliable. When Ford told the Senate she was "100 percent" certain Kavanaugh had assaulted her, few could doubt she was speaking from the heart. But as the National Academy of Sciences emphasized in a lengthy 2014 report on the science of eyewitness testimony, people often "recall things we never experienced." That is true even of our most unforgettable and upsetting memories. "Despite the vividness and the sense of reliving that characterizes retrieval of emotional memories," the report said, "there are many indications that such memories are just as prone to errors."

In a riveting New York Times essay in 2000, Jennifer Thompson described being raped at 22 by an armed intruder, and how determined she was to burn her attacker's image into her memory. "I studied every single detail on the rapist's face," she wrote. "I looked at his hairline; I looked for scars, for tattoos, for anything that would help me identify him." She later fingered the rapist in a series of police photos, and picked the same man out of a lineup. "I knew this was the man," she wrote. "I was completely confident." The man was arrested, convicted, and sent to prison.

But Thompson was wrong. Years later, DNA testing proved conclusively that the man she remembered so vividly was innocent. The rapist, who eventually pleaded guilty, was another man entirely.

Memories are fallible, and passion is distorting. That is why it is vital to our safety that the truth of accusations not be assumed automatically. Whether in a court of law or the court of public opinion, fairness demands that an accused not be punished on the strength of an accusation alone.

And fairness is bolstered not just by psychology but by history. Just as sexual assault is as old as mankind; so is the persecution of innocent victims through false or mistaken accusations of sexual assault. From the Scottsboro Boys to the Tawana Brawley case, from Leo Frank to the Duke Lacrosse team, examples of such injustices abound. The Innocence Project has cleared scores of men wrongly convicted of sexual assault.

#BelieveSurvivors is not enough. It should go without saying that women who report being sexually assaulted deserve fairness, respect, and sensitive support. The men they accuse deserve fairness too, above all the presumption of innocence. When people's lives, freedom, or careers are at stake, facts alone are what we should believe.

SOURCE






Bakery wins landmark ‘gay cake’ case

A BAKERY run by a Christian family in Northern Ireland on Wednesday won a landmark case in Britain’s highest court over its refusal to make a cake decorated with the words “Support Gay Marriage”.

The Supreme Court upheld the owners’ appeal against a May decision that found them guilty of discriminating against gay rights activist Gareth Lee.

The bakery called the ruling a momentous day for religious freedom in Britain while Lee condemned it as a profound blow for civil rights.

“I paid my money, my money was taken and then a few days later it was refused. That made me feel like a second-class citizen,” he told reporters after listening to the verdict.

“I’m concerned not just for the implications for myself and other gay people, but for every single one of us.”

The case pitted Northern Ireland’s strong Protestant and Catholic communities against LGBT groups testing the breadth of the UK province’s anti-discrimination laws.

Wednesday’s ruling explained that the bakery’s “objection was to the message on the cake, not any personal characteristics of the messenger, or anyone with whom he was associated.”

The top of the cake would have also had a picture of the bedroom-sharing Bert and Ernie characters from US children’s show Sesame Street.

Ashers Baking Company — a business with 80 employees across Britain which takes its name from an Old Testament figure — took the order but declined to make the cake in 2014.

The case came as marriage between same-sex couples has become increasingly accepted across Europe and the West as a whole.

Fifteen countries — including Britain — have allowed gay and lesbian partners to marry since the Netherlands became the first in 2001.

But British-ruled Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK not covered by the same-sex marriage law. The chief judge on Britain’s Supreme Court said the ruling should not be read as condoning discrimination.

“It is deeply humiliating, and an affront to human dignity, to deny someone a service because of that person’s race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, religion or belief,” judge Brenda Hale said. “But that is not what happened in this case.”

ICING VS CAKE

Lee ordered the cake in Belfast for a private function marking International Day Against Homophobia. The bakery accepted both the order and payment.

It then called back two days later to explain that it could not top the cake with the icing featuring the Muppets and the marriage slogan.

The bakery argued that it opposed the political message requested by Mr Lee rather than his sexual orientation.

Justice Hale said the law supported this logic. “The bakers could not refuse to supply their goods to Mr Lee because he was a gay man or supported gay marriage,” she said.

“But that is quite different from obliging them to supply a cake iced with a message with which they profoundly disagreed.”

Justice Hale explained that the law should not “compel” the bakers to violate their religious beliefs and endorse gay marriage.

Ashers general manager Daniel McArthur called the ruling a victory for people trying to live in accordance with their religion.

“We always knew we hadn’t done anything wrong in turning down this order,” he said. “This ruling protects freedom of speech and freedom of conscience for everyone.”

The justification in the British Supreme Court’s ruling is different from one used by its US counterpart which cleared a Colorado baker of discrimination in June.

That decision found that the civil rights group suing the baker showed animus by targeting him based on his religious beliefs.

Five Supreme Court justices allowed a challenge by the McArthur family in a unanimous ruling in London on Wednesday in what has become widely known as the “gay cake case”.

The legal action was originally brought against family-run Ashers bakery in Belfast by gay rights activist Gareth Lee, who won his case initially in the county court and then at the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal.

Announcing Wednesday’s decision, Justice Hale, said: “This conclusion is not in any way to diminish the need to protect gay people and people who support gay marriage from discrimination.”

The court also said Lee had no claim against Ashers on the grounds of religious belief or political opinion.

Justice Hale said: “The bakers could not refuse to supply their goods to Mr Lee because he was a gay man or supported gay marriage, but that is quite different from obliging them to supply a cake iced with a message with which they profoundly disagreed.”

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 October, 2018

What I want from men to help end gender wars

Angela Mollard (below) is a generally sensible Australian lady not given to feminist extremes but she has been sucked in by some feminist claims.  What she is not loading is that men CANNOT end the gender wars -- because we are not waging them. The war is a one-sided thing being waged on men by feminists.  So only they can end it. 

But they will not.  They seem to need to trace all evils to men and show nil awareness that men can have problems too.  Men are not a monolithic blob. They are infinitely different so treating them as all the same is just bigotry and huge ignorance.  It is as stupid as racism. Some men will treat women well and some will treat women badly.  And most will be somewhere in between

Now that women are a majority of university graduates, it is clear that systematic discrimination against women is at an end.  All that is left are human relationships in their infinite variety



DEAR men,

I’m tired.

I suspect you’re tired. Indeed, we’re all tired of the insidious gender warfare that’s spilt into every sphere of society leaving festering pools of anger, uncertainty and resentment. It’s a year this week since The New York Times published sexual harassment allegations against Harvey Weinstein, provoking a global reckoning and the emergence of the #MeToo campaign. Ergo it seems as good a time as any to reflect — not simply on what happens in the hallowed halls of Hollywood — but in our living rooms, bedrooms and workplaces.

The Brett Kavanaugh hearing has catapulted the movement from the silver screen to the Supreme Court but I’m less interested in one man’s alleged mistreatment of women in his ascent to power than I am in the everyday interactions and ideologies that guide who we are and how we relate.

Genuine, lasting societal change will be brought about less by grandstanding and more thorough understanding and so let’s try this: here’s what I want from and for men.
The Brett Kavanaugh hearings have once again highlighted the MeToo movement, but it’s how everyday men and women interact that’s important. Picture: AP

Foremost, I want the toxicity to end. Change and progress are painful but we don’t need to be so polarised. When the New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern spoke at the UN the line widely reported was her insistence #MeToo becomes #WeToo. But she said something a minute later that was arguably a more powerful call to arms. In trying to achieve peace, prosperity and fairness, New Zealand was pursuing one concept, she explained. “It is simple and it is this. Kindness.” Imagine what we might achieve if kindness — from both women and men — underpinned the way we operated in the world.

Critically, I want men involved in their children’s lives. Whether in intact or reconfigured families, men should be pivotal. The model of the workaholic dad is rightly dying and while many men need to create fuller identities beyond their job title, women need to stop seeing men as walking wallets who are singularly responsible for financially supporting the family. For every man who rather enjoys upholding the patriarchy as if it was a set of dumbbells representing status and money, I’d venture there’s three or four who’d happily hand over half the weight to a willing partner. We all have much to gain from a creative redrawing of our work and domestic spheres. Work offers purpose and a pay packet, home delivers connection. Sharing the responsibility of both is not only more equitable, it extends both partners’ capabilities and understanding of each other. As for women who deny their former husband access to their children simply because they are hurt or angry, shame on you. It happens too often and it’s a cruelty that benefits no one.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern spoke during the General Debate of the 73rd session of the General Assembly at the United Nations in New York last month. Picture: AFP

Further, I want the powerful men and women at the top of our corporations and institutions to drive transformation. Leadership is not just managing people and making money, it’s leaving a legacy. For too long the decisions have been made by men in suits largely supported by a housewife at home. Yet when men like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Reddit’s Alexis Ohanian take paternity leave and encourage their employees to do likewise, they effect profound change. People at the top will change conditions at the bottom so that all can benefit from pay parity, flexible workplaces and healthy superannuation balances.

Equally, I want ordinary men to stop claiming women are mad. Emotions are simply another operating system and when combined with a firm grasp of facts bring a fuller and more nuanced comprehension to every realm of life. Too often women are dismissed as menstrual or menopausal. It’s more than 25 years since Anita Hill was smeared as “a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty” but still such debasing presumptions persist. In return, women need to drop the “all men are bastards” schtick and the blasé view that it’s no big deal if a few innocent men are unfairly convicted or besmirched in the march for equality. We also need to stamp out the growing notion that women are inherently more “good” than men. All those years as Stepford wives didn’t turn us into saintly creatures waiting nobly in line until we’re passed the baton to do a better job. Most of us are as equally defective as the next bloke. Which means we’re equally as capable.

As for domestic violence, it is not just causing death and injury to women but a horrendous stain on the male gender. Good men are appalled but they need to do more. In her next book, the feminist author Caitlin Moran is including an invitation to men to join the fight. As she says there’s a huge void where good men feel it’s all a bit “icky” and that feminists don’t want them involved. Men need to ask themselves, “Okay, if not me, who?”

Finally, men and women have to rediscover what we like about each other. We need to cherish our differences and champion progress and approach all of it with humour, joy and a sense of expectation. Equality is not like landing on the moon. We won’t raise a flag when we’ve arrived. But along the way we’ll, all of us, feel in our bones, when we’re getting it right.

SOURCE 







The feminist movement has shifted the definition of rape to include regret

The confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court dealt the #MeToo and #BelieveSurvivors movements their first major defeat. Those feminist ideologies will continue wreaking havoc throughout American institutions, however—especially the claim that self-professed sexual-assault victims deserve unqualified belief.

That idea—that the presumption of innocence, fundamental to common law, should be suspended for accusations of sexual assault—has been the cornerstone of the campus-rape bureaucracy; during the Kavanaugh hysteria, that conceit jumped out of the ivory tower into the world at large. It will be no easy task to put it back. In preparation for the next Salem witch trial-like ordeal, therefore, it is worth empirically rebutting the #BelieveSurvivors mandate, as well as its corollary: the claim that if most self-professed rape survivors in our patriarchal culture don’t report their assaults, that’s because the “social and emotional” costs are too high, as California congressman Ted Lieu explained on MSNBC last Sunday.

Columbia University’s infamous “mattress girl,” Emma Sulkowicz, was conducting an on-again, off-again sexual relationship with another student, Paul Nungesser. Two days after one of their consensual couplings, in August 2012, Nungesser invited Sulkowicz to a party in his room. She texted back: “yusss,” adding: “Also I feel like we need to have some real time where we can talk about life and thingz because we still haven’t really had a paul-emma chill sesh since summmmerrrr.” A week later, she suggested that they hang out together: “I want to see yoyououoyou.” Two months later, she texted: “I love you Paul. Where are you?!?!?!?!”

It wasn’t until eight months after their August 2012 coupling that Sulkowicz filed a campus-rape charge, alleging that Nungesser had anally raped her while she struggled and told him to stop. She claims that she waited so long to file so as to avoid re-traumatizing herself. Nungesser argues that she was simply chagrined that they had not become an exclusive couple. Whatever Sulkowicz’s motivation for filing, it is impossible to read her post-coital pleas to Nungesser as the aftermath of the most terrifying experience a woman can have, short of murder, rather than as the attempts of a female to reel a favored male back into her orbit.

Nevertheless, Sulkowicz was canonized as a martyr to rape culture, thanks to her stunt of carrying around a mattress to protest Columbia’s failure to expel Nungesser. New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand declared herself “inspired by Emma and all of her sisters in arms who have made their voices heard and given voice to thousands of other survivors all around the country.” Gillibrand invited Sulkowicz to President Obama’s 2015 State of Union address in order to “further amplify her voice.”

In September 2013, two freshmen at Occidental College in Southern California had sex after both had been on a 24-hour drinking binge. After making out at a party in the male’s dorm room, they conspired to evade the girl’s friends, who had escorted her back to her own room. The male, known as “John Doe” in court papers, texted “Jane Doe”: “The second that you away from them, come back.” Jane responded: “Okay.” John wrote back: “Just get back here.” Jane responded: “Okay do you have a condom.” John replied: “Yes.” Jane texted back: “Good, give me two minutes.” Before leaving her dorm room for their appointed tryst, Jane texted a friend from back home: “I’m going to have sex now.” After their sexual encounter, Jane texted a smiley face to her friends. She then went to a common room and sat on another guy’s lap, joking about NASCAR. The next day she went back to John’s room to pick up her earrings and belt.

Jane reported their coupling to campus authorities only after seeing that John was unaffected emotionally by it, whereas she, having lost her virginity, felt distracted and unable to concentrate. Having been instructed in the ways of the patriarchy by Occidental’s Title IX bureaucracy, she decided that she should not have to experience the psychological discomfort of randomly running into John Doe around campus, and that he should be expelled. Occidental was only too happy to comply. It found John Doe guilty of rape and expelled him in December 2013.

Jane’s psychological distress was undoubtedly real. Sexual liberation pretends that males and females respond identically to one-night stands, and that the loss of virginity is just an insignificant way station en route to the rounds of casual sex expected of contemporary adults. In fact, women are hormonally and emotionally affected by intercourse in a way that most men are not. And traditional culture was right to regard the loss of virginity as a milestone in a girl’s life, and to surround it with the sanctifying rituals of marriage.

But however understandable Jane’s post-coital emotions, they do not justify converting what was clearly a mutually agreed-upon coupling into rape. Any male whose partner asks about condoms, then voluntarily enters his bed for the express purpose of sex, is going to assume consent, and with reason.

In 2014, Brett Sokolow, a prominent advisor on campus sexual-misconduct cases, provided another window into the consensual sex that the feminist-industrial complex converts into campus rape. In an open letter to the higher-education community, he described a series of trumped-up charges with which his Title IX consulting firm had been involved, including a female student who had spread rumors by social media that she had been raped by a male student. She then admitted to investigators that she had consented to their drunken hook-up. When asked why she had called the encounter rape, she replied: “You know, because we were drunk. . . . we just call it that when we’re drunk or high.”

In another case, a female student was caught by her boyfriend while cheating on him with another male student. She then filed a complaint of assault against that second male. The morning after their sexual encounter, they had exchanged texts. He wrote: “How do I compare with your boyfriend?” She responded to the boy she later accused of rape: “You were great.”

In 1985, Ms. magazine published a study by psychologist Mary Koss that gave rise to the statistic that one in four college females would be sexually assaulted during college. The study also found that 42 percent of putative rape victims went on to have intercourse again with their alleged assailant—a behavior inconceivable in the case of actual rape. In fact, it was the researcher herself who classified the subjects as victims; 73 percent of the women whom the researcher designated as rape survivors said that they hadn’t been raped, when asked directly.

According to the #BelieveSurvivors platform, the reason why most researcher-classified rape victims don’t report their rapes is because the reporting process is too anti-female and re-traumatizing. In fact, most researcher-classified rape victims don’t report because they don’t think what happened to them was serious enough to report—another conclusion inconceivable in the case of actual rape.

In 2015, the Association of American Universities (AAU) conducted a sexual-assault survey at 27 selective colleges. The vast majority of survey respondents whom the AAU researchers classified as sexual-assault victims never reported their alleged assaults to their colleges’ rape hotlines, sexual-assault resource centers, or Title IX offices, much less to campus or city police. And the overwhelming reason that the alleged victims did not report is that they did not think that what happened to them was that serious. At Harvard, for example, over 69 percent of female respondents who checked the box for penetration by use of force did not report the incident to any authority. Most of those non-reporters—65 percent—did not think that their experience was serious enough to report. Over 78 percent of Harvard female respondents who checked the box for penetration due to “incapacitation” did not report. Three-quarters of them said that what happened to them was not serious enough to report. This is a judgment not allowed by the campus rape industry.

Even before the sexual revolution destroyed the norms that once governed the male libido and that steadied the relationship between the sexes, sex was the realm of ambiguity and indirection. The #BelieveSurvivors contingent asserts that survivors rarely if ever lie about their experiences—meaning, they rarely make those experiences up out of whole cloth. This assertion is mostly true; in most cases of alleged campus rape, something did happen between the accused and the accuser. The issue is how to classify what happened. (To be sure, there are rapes that go unreported, but there are also outright fabrications, such as the Rolling Stone University of Virginia campus rape hoax, which cost the magazine millions in damages, and the Duke lacrosse team rape hoax, for which the local prosecutor lost his law license.) The #BelieveSurvivors movement claims unique authority to interpret women’s experiences, even if that means ignoring a woman’s own classification of her experience as not rape.

The rest of us need not accede to this assertion of monopoly interpretive power. Our booze-fueled hook-up culture has made relations between men and women messier than ever, leaving many girls and women with pangs of regret—but those regrets do not equal rape. If we were actually in the midst of an “epidemic of sexual assault,” as New Jersey senator Cory Booker asserted the evening of the Ford-Kavanaugh hearings, we would presumably have seen women and girls take protective actions, such as avoiding frat parties and flocking to single-sex schools. None of those protective actions has occurred, however. Either women are too clueless to avoid patent danger, or the epidemic of sexual assault is a fiction. All evidence points to the latter conclusion. Judge Brett Kavanaugh may be the latest male to have his life torn apart by that fiction, but he won’t be the last.

SOURCE






The Truth About Columbus

Is this the last time we can celebrate Columbus Day? A wave of cities have decided to remove the holiday from the calendar and replace it with “Indigenous Peoples’ Day.”

Christopher Columbus, the Italian explorer credited with discovering America, and his legacy are under attack figuratively and, increasingly, literally.

Several Columbus monuments have been attacked and vandalized around the country. The towering Columbus statue at Columbus Circle in New York City now needs 24-hour guards after Mayor Bill de Blasio put it on the list of a commission to review “offensive” memorials.

And according to Far Left Watch, a watchdog organization, Antifa and other left-wing groups plan to deface and attack Columbus statues across the country on Columbus Day.

It is unfortunate to see what was once a uniting figure—who represented American courage, optimism, and even immigrants—is suddenly in the crosshairs for destruction. We owe it to Columbus and ourselves to be more respectful of the man who made the existence of our country possible.

Once Revered, Now Maligned

A few historians and activists began to attack Columbus’ legacy in the late 20th century. They concocted a new narrative of Columbus as a rapacious pillager and a genocidal maniac.

Far-left historian Howard Zinn, in particular, had a huge impact on changing the minds of a generation of Americans about the Columbus legacy. Zinn not only maligned Columbus, but attacked the larger migration from the Old World to the new that he ushered in.

It wasn’t just Columbus who was a monster, according to Zinn, it was the driving ethos of the civilization that ultimately developed in the wake of his discovery: the United States.

“Behind the English invasion of North America,” Zinn wrote, “behind their massacre of Indians, their deception, their brutality, was that special powerful drive born in civilizations based on private profit.”

The truth is that Columbus set out for the New World thinking he would spread Christianity to regions where it didn’t exist. While Columbus, and certainly his Spanish benefactors, had an interest in the goods and gold he could return from what they thought would be Asia, the explorer’s primary motivation was religious.

“This conviction that God destined him to be an instrument for spreading the faith was far more potent than the desire to win glory, wealth, and worldly honors,” wrote historian Samuel Eliot Morison over a half-century ago.

In fact, as contemporary historian Carol Delaney noted, even the money Columbus sought was primarily dedicated to religious purposes. Delaney said in an interview with the Catholic fraternal organization the Knights of Columbus:

"Everybody knows that Columbus was trying to find gold, but they don’t know what the gold was for: to fund a crusade to take Jerusalem back from the Muslims before the end of the world. A lot of people at the time thought that the apocalypse was coming because of all the signs: the plague, famine, earthquakes, and so forth. And it was believed that before the end, Jerusalem had to be back in Christian hands so that Christ could return in judgment."

Columbus critics don’t just stop at accusing him of greed. One of the biggest allegations against him is that he waged a genocidal war and engaged in acts of cruelty against indigenous people in the Americas.

But historians like Delaney have debunked these claims.

Rather than cruel, Columbus was mostly benign in his interaction with native populations. While deprivations did occur, Columbus was quick to punish those under his command who committed unjust acts against local populations.

“Columbus strictly told the crew not to do things like maraud, or rape, and instead to treat the native people with respect,” Delaney said. “There are many examples in his writings where he gave instructions to this effect. Most of the time when injustices occurred, Columbus wasn’t even there. There were terrible diseases that got communicated to the natives, but he can’t be blamed for that.”

Columbus certainly wasn’t a man without flaws or attitudes that would be unacceptable today.

But even as a man of an earlier age in which violence and cruelty were often the norm between different cultures and people, Columbus did not engage in the savage acts that have been pinned on him.

How Americans Once Viewed Columbus

For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, most Americans were taught about Columbus’ discovery of the New World in school.

“In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue … ” went a popular poem about the Italian explorer who flew under the Spanish flag. At one time, Americans marveled at what seemed like an unbelievably courageous voyage across unknown waters with the limited tools and maps of the 15th century.

It is difficult in the 21st century to imagine what Columbus faced as he crossed the Atlantic in search of what he thought was a route to Asia. The hardship and danger was immense. If things went awry, there would be nothing to save his little flotilla besides hope, prayer, and a little courage.

Most people, even in the 1490s, knew that the Earth was round. However, Columbus made a nevertheless history-altering discovery.

The world was a much bigger place than most had imagined, and though Columbus never personally realized the scope of his discovery, he opened up a new world that would one day become a forefront of human civilization.

This is the man and the history that earlier generations of Americans came to respect and admire.

Unfortunately, Zinn and others’ caricature of Columbus and American civilization has stuck and in an era in which radicals and activists search the country for problematic statues to destroy, Columbus is a prime target.

Ku Klux Klan Pushed Anti-Columbus Rhetoric

Much of the modern rhetoric about Columbus mirrors attacks lobbed at him in the 19th century by anti-Catholic and anti-Italian groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

In fact, Columbus Day became a nationally celebrated holiday following a mass lynching of Italians in New Orleans—the largest incident of lynching in American history.

In 1892—the 400th anniversary of the Columbus voyage—President Benjamin Harrison called for a national celebration of Columbus and his achievements. Americans patriotically celebrated Columbus and erected numerous statues in his honor as the country embraced him.

Though American appreciation of Columbus deepened, some groups weren’t pleased.

As the pro-Columbus website The Truth About Columbus points out, the Ku Klux Klan worked to stop Columbus Day celebrations, smash statues, and reverse his growing influence on American culture.

According to The Truth About Columbus, in the 1920s, the Klan “attempted to remove Columbus Day as a state holiday in Oregon,” burned a cross “to disturb a Columbus Day celebration in Pennsylvania,” and successfully “opposed the erection of a statue of Columbus in Richmond, Virginia, only to see the decision to reject the statue reversed.”

Attempts to quash Columbus failed, but they have re-emerged in our own time through the actions of far-left groups who want to see his legacy buried and diminished forever.

This would be a tragic loss for our generation and those of the future.

The bravery and boldness that Columbus displayed in his trek to America have been inherent in the American cultural DNA from the beginning.

We may never have the class, the taste, the sophistication of the Old World upper crust. But what we do have is a reverence for simple virtues of strength, boldness, and a willingness to push the envelope to secure for ourselves a better future than those who’ve come before.

We are a civilization that admires those who push the limits of the frontier, who don’t merely accept what is and want something more. The spirit that drove us west and in modernity, to the moon, is what we celebrate in men like Columbus.

President Ronald Reagan said it best in a Columbus Day tribute:

"Columbus is justly admired as a brilliant navigator, a fearless man of action, a visionary who opened the eyes of an older world to an entirely new one. Above all, he personifies a view of the world that many see as quintessentially American: not merely optimistic, but scornful of the very notion of despair.

When we have lost these things, when we no longer have the capacity to celebrate men like Columbus, as imperfect as they sometimes were, we will have lost what has made us great, and distinct."

SOURCE







Trump admin puts renewed focus on radical Islam, Iran, rolling back Obama efforts

The Trump administration is implementing a new, government-wide counterterrorism strategy that places renewed focus on combatting "radical Islamic terrorist groups," marking a significant departure from the Obama administration, which implemented a series of policies aimed at deemphasizing the threat of Islamic terror groups.

In releasing the first national counterterrorism strategy since 2011, the Trump administration is working to take a drastically different approach than that of the former administration, according to senior U.S. officials.

While the Obama administration sought to dampen the United States' focus on Islamic terror threats, the Trump administration has made this battle the centerpiece of its new strategy.

National Security Adviser John Bolton acknowledged in remarks to reporters Thursday afternoon that the new strategy is "a departure" from the former administration's strategy, which has been characterized as a failure by Republican foreign policy voices due to the increasing number of domestic terror attacks and plots across the United States

"Radical Islamist terrorist groups represent the preeminent transnational terrorist threat to the United States, and to United States' interests abroad," Bolton said.

"The fact is the radical Islamic threat that we face is a form of ideology," Bolton said. "This should not be anything new to anybody. King Abdullah of Jordan has frequently described the terrorist threat as a civil war within Islam that Muslims around the world recognize, and he is, after all, a direct descendent of the Sharif [inaudible], the keepers of the holy cities. If that's how King Abdullah views it, I don't think anybody should be surprised we see it as a kind of war, as well."

"One may hope that the ideological fervor disappears, but sad to report, it remains strong all around the world, and even with the defeat of the ISIS territorial caliphate, we see the threat spreading to other countries," Bolton added.

The Trump administration strategy also shifts the focus to Iran, characterizing the country as the foremost state sponsor of terror across the globe.

"The United States faces terrorist threats from Iran, which remains the most prominent state sponsor of terrorism that, really, the world's central banker of international terrorism since 1979," Bolton said. "And from other terrorist groups. Iran-sponsored terrorist groups such as Lebanese Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic jihad, continue to pose a threat to the United States and our interests."

The focus on Iran also represents a striking departure from the Obama administration's strategy, which sought to moderate Iran via the landmark nuclear deal and other diplomacy aimed at rewarding the Islamic Republic for moderation efforts.

The United States will also take greater steps to pursue "terrorists at their source" by destroying them militarily, as well as with international sanctions aimed at choking off their funding.

Additionally, it focuses on "protecting U.S. infrastructure and enhancing preparedness, countering terrorist radicalization and recruitment and strengthening the counterterrorism abilities of our international partners," according to the White House.

President Trump, in discussing the new strategy, also emphasized efforts to counter Iran.

"I ended United States participation in the horrible Iran deal, which had provided a windfall for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its proxies, funding Iran's malign activities throughout the world," Trump said.

In outlining what it calls "a new approach," the White House said it would actively combat "all terrorists with the intent and ability to harm our country." This includes both a military prong and other efforts to counter the spread of radical ideologies.

"America First does not mean America alone," the White House said in a preview of the full strategy guide. "The new strategy commits us to expand our partnerships at home and abroad to encourage partners' assistance in counterterrorism activities," including with NATO and other allies.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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10 October, 2018

Advancing prison reform

Pastor Darrell Scott says Trump is being constructive about black crime -- unlike the Clinton policy of just locking them up forever.  Interesting that it takes a conservative to do humane  penal reform

President Trump is all-action on prison reform. The Democrats? All-talk.

In a matter of months, the president has done more for prison reform than Democrats managed to do in many, many years.

A problem that began well before Mr. Trump took office, over-criminalization and harsh sentencing in America, have had far-reaching effects. In fact, this president is actually fixing what some of his predecessors only made worse.

Instead of focusing on imprisoning the most violent offenders, the Clintons’ criminal justice system trapped non-violent offenders in decades-long prison sentences that ruined their lives, their families and their communities.

Inequities like these trickled down to sentencing as well, leaving black defendants with more time behind bars than whites.

Democrats, and even America’s first black president, endlessly promised to right these wrongs — and endlessly failed to do so.

It wasn’t until Donald Trump was elected that things actually started to change.

As America’s greatest jobs president, he’s working to get former prisoners back on their feet instead of using them for votes while they’re in prison.

“One of the single most important things we’re doing is to help former inmates in creating jobs. We’re creating so many jobs that former inmates, for the first time, are really getting a shot at it,” Mr. Trump said.

The president has met with members of both parties to address prison reform with the full force of the federal government, and created the prison reform roundtable, of which I am a member.

Making true on his promise to put former prisoners back to work, President Trump has been a vocal supporter of the First Step Act in Congress. This bill passed in the House this year, and is the first comprehensive attempt at the reform of our justice system in decades. It curbs mass incarceration, empowers former inmates to get their lives back on track and saves taxpayers money.

This legislation helps individuals reintegrate back into their communities by expanding evidence-based reentry programs, including drug treatment, job training, and counseling. It also offers prisoners time credits for good behavior, which incentivizes them to do the right thing, speeds up the judicial process, saves taxpayers money, and most importantly, gives them a second chance.

“We’ve passed the First Step Act through the House, and we’re working very hard in the Senate to refine it and pass it into law,” Mr. Trump said.

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats are stalling on the bill. They’re once again avoiding doing what’s right, choosing instead to obstruct Mr. Trump to score cheap political points.

They’ve even started a campaign opposing the current prison reform effort, stating that they won’t support the bill unless they can take credit for it. Even the left-leaning Politico, which is generally supportive of the Democratic Party, condemned the anti-prison reform Democrats for writing a letter “riddled with factual inaccuracies and deliberately attempts to undermine the nationwide prison reform effort.”

But Mr. Trump won’t let typical political posturing obstruct his progress — he isn’t here for talk, he’s here for action.

Above all the political rancor in Washington, Mr. Trump took the ultimate step earlier this year by using his executive powers to do something Barack Obama should have done long ago.

Alice Marie Johnson was one of the many young black Americans who had their lives ruined by the Clinton crime bill. Serving a life sentence for a first-time, nonviolent drug offense since 1996, Ms. Johnson appealed to President Obama multiple times while he was in office. She was denied each and every single time.

Mr. Obama was too busy granting pardons to violent drug dealers to care about doing the right thing for a grandmother and her family.

But in true Trump style, the president paid attention to the calls of none other than reality TV star Kim Kardashian, who lobbied aggressively for Ms. Johnson’s release. Mr. Trump answered those calls.

Now that it’s campaign season again, America has a clear choice on critical issues such as prison reform.

The two paths on this issue couldn’t be more clear. If the Democrats win in November, they’ll continue using prison reform as a political tool, at the peril of millions of Americans stuck in prison for decades.

Their goal is to take down Mr. Trump — not to help those thrown in jail because of outdated policies from the 1990s.

Unlike the all-talk-no-action Democrats, President Trump is actually fulfilling his promises, fighting to reform a system for those punished with harsh and excessive prison terms, and helping to integrate Americans who have already served their time back into their communities.

The Democrats had their chance to pass prison reform in the past and failed. Now they are blocking reasonable solutions from being passed, which would improve countless lives.

Our chance to enact comprehensive prison reform depends on our choice to bring more Republican leaders to Washington to support the president’s plan.

SOURCE






Yes, the Grievance Studies hoax is hilarious – but it’s also rather worrying

In order for a society to remain even vaguely healthy it has to have healthy institutions. And for institutions to be healthy, they need to be justly respected. [Sane would be even better]

Douglas Murray

One of the most beautiful things to happen in recent years was ‘the conceptual penis as a social construct.’ This was an academic paper which proposed that: ‘the penis vis-à-vis maleness is an incoherent construct. We argue that the conceptual penis is better understood not as an anatomical organ but as a gender-performative, highly fluid social construct.’

This gobbledegook was presented as an academic journal, was peer-reviewed and published in Cogent Social Sciences. The only problem was that it was a hoax. A big, beautiful brilliant hoax carried out by two academics – Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay – who had immersed themselves in the academic BS of their time. In that paper they successfully punked an academic scene which (in the humanities at least) allows the most insane and untrue claims to be presented as truth, so long as they are suffused in fashionable grievances and coated in a form of academic vocabulary which is an insult to academic inquiry and an offence against language.

Since the authors of that paper exposed their own spoof, the Cogent Social Sciences journal has unpublished the article. But the article and the background on it can still be read here.

Now the authors of that hoax – with the addition of a third, Helen Pluckrose – have released a video saying that they have spent part of the last year working on a wider-ranging demonstration of the problems in ‘peer-reviewed’ academic studies. They have been firing off more papers. And a number of them have been accepted. One of these papers, published by an academic journal, claims that dog-humping incidents in parks can be taken as evidence of ‘rape culture’.

In order for a society to remain even vaguely healthy it has to have healthy institutions. And for institutions to be healthy they need to be justly respected – not respected because they ‘demand’ respect or play-act at earning respect.

When institutions – like academic institutions and academic journals – become corrupted by ideologues of any political stripe, people can be left able to respect almost nothing and believe almost anything. Anyone need only glance at numerous fields of ‘academic studies’ today (gender ‘studies’, queer ‘studies’ and more) to realise that much of the humanities, and nearly all of the social sciences have become pulpits for frauds and megaphones for radical inadequates.

The first foray of Boghossian and Lindsay may not have been enough for people to call time on this fraud. But with the addition of Pluckrose perhaps the wider point will now be heard. Or to put it another way, perhaps rape culture among dogs will break through where the conceptual penis could not.

SOURCE





Feminists want to blame men for everything

Melanie Phillips

The classics professor and broadcaster Mary Beard is well on the way to becoming a national treasure thanks to her personality and wit. She has conducted herself in an admirably courageous way against much personalised insult and nastiness, giving as good as she gets.

That doesn’t mean, however, that her judgment is flawless. Discussing Greek myths at The Times and The Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival last week, she observed that men sometimes installed women in temporary positions of power so that when these women mucked it all up men could “come in on their white chargers”. This, she thought, might explain Theresa May’s rise to power. “Part of me thinks she has been set up to fail; they needed a female leader . . . to let one of them come in later to rescue her.”

Excuse me? May became prime minister only because she happened to be the last person standing on the battleground after her opponents stabbed each other in the back and themselves in the head. Her political failings, for which she alone is responsible, are on conspicuous display for all to see.

Beard, who has made this general argument on previous occasions, acknowledges that successful and powerful women now work as politicians, CEOs, prominent journalists, police chiefs and so on. Her objection seems to be that power for such women is narrowly identified with prestige and celebrity and is thus largely “coded as male”.

Well, perhaps this might apply to Medusa, Athena or Clytemnestra but down here in the world of mere mortals the claim seems to be a few laurel leaves short of a circlet.

Women are often levered into top posts, sometimes above their level of competence, not through some infernal male plot but to fill an ideological quota in response to feminist pressure for equal representation in public life. Yet success still isn’t enough. Dame Inga Beale, the first woman to run Lloyd’s of London, says all female chief executives accept that their successors will be men determined to take power back. So let’s get this right. If women get to the top, it’s a conspiracy against them by men; if they don’t, it’s a conspiracy against them by men. It’s an all-purpose, all-weather, all-exits-closed theory of female victimhood.

Rational? Hardly. It’s also sinister and nasty. Quite how much has been on display across the Pond in the confirmation circus around Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the US Supreme Court. Democrats determined to stop his appointment in order to prevent an inbuilt conservative majority on the court deployed the forces of #MeToo to do their dirty work.

Kavanaugh was accused of attempted rape, in claims for which there was no corroboration and which were full of holes. In the world of #MeToo, however, all men accused of rape are guilty and all their women accusers tell the truth.

So the Democrats and their feminist allies doubled down. Kavanaugh was subjected to vicious character assassination and smears. He was deemed guilty as charged merely because women had made these charges. More than 300 vigils were held against his confirmation. “Kavanaugh has shown that he is hostile to women,” wrote MoveOn, one of the groups behind these vigils. Demonstrators broke into chants of “Vote him down!” and “Believe survivors!”

The treatment meted out to Republican senator Susan Collins was a particular eye-opener. While displaying empathy with sexual-abuse victims, Collins justified her vote for Kavanaugh by defending the presumption of innocence. For this, she and her staff were targeted by protests, mailings, phone calls, physical intimidation, direct threats and a tweet that plastered the words “rape apologist” across her image.

The actress Nancy Lee Grahn went further, tweeting of Collins: “You may have female parts but you are no woman.” Wow. Isn’t the sisterhood wonderful? The level of viciousness by certain women was astounding. Ariel Dumas, a writer for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, sent out a tweet (later deleted) that read: “Whatever happens, I’m just glad we ruined Brett Kavanaugh’s life.”

After Kavanaugh’s appointment was finally confirmed, a Georgetown professor called Carol Christine Fair denounced the “chorus of entitled white men justifying a serial rapist’s arrogated entitlement”. She went on: “All of them deserve miserable deaths while feminists laugh as they take their last gasps. Bonus: we castrate their corpses and feed them to swine? Yes.”

Why are women behaving in this appalling way? Male sexual violence towards women is real. So too is male sexual violence towards other men, as well as female violence against men and other women.

What we are witnessing is the gross abuse of power fuelled by explosive rage. Why are these women abusing power in this way? Because they can. What is the cause of their pathological rage? An ideology of victimhood that turns men into monsters.

Everything that happens is viewed through that prism. Those events thus confirm the initial prejudice. So a perfectly closed thought system is created, grotesquely inflicting vicious oppression in the name of justice.

The Greek philosopher Socrates was executed for dissent by being made to drink hemlock. It would be nice if Mary Beard — herself no stranger to hateful attacks — supported the real victims of today’s sexual show-trials rather than providing further justification for those administering the poison.

SOURCE







Australian High Court to examine the rights of pro-life activists to be present outside abortion clinics

If the killers didn't have guilty consciences scrutiny would not bother them

Abortion clinic staff fear going back to the “dark ages” as anti-abortionists challenge in the High Court the Victorian and Tasmanian laws that banished religious protesters from outside their workplaces

Kathleen Clubb, a mother of thirteen who was the first person to be convicted under those laws, is asking the High Court to consider if the legislation infringes on political free speech.

For decades, self-described "sidewalk counsellors" were a fixture outside centres across the state, until they were finally exiled in 2016 with the introduction of “safe access zone” laws that obliged protesters to stay at least 150 metres away.

After Ms Clubb was arrested by police in 2016 when she was caught approaching a couple outside the East Melbourne Fertility Control Clinic, she reportedly said: “I don’t intend to leave. I believe I have the right to offer my help to women.”

Ms Clubb is challenging her conviction and $5000 fine in a case that will be heard on Tuesday by the full bench of the High Court. They will also consider the case of another anti-abortionist, John Graham Preston, who breached similar Tasmania laws.

The case has alarmed staff at abortion clinics, who say they used to be too afraid of the protesters to leave their office without a security guard.

“I shudder to think what it would be like if we returned to the dark ages and women were forced to walk the gauntlet simply to see their doctor,” said senior associate Katie Robertson from Maurice Blackburn, which is representing the Fertility Control Clinic pro-bono.

Susie Allanson worked at the East Melbourne clinic as a clinical psychologist for more than 25 years and often feared she would be hurt by one of the anti-abortionists, who would arrive by 7.45am each morning.

She was working at the clinic in 2001 when a radical recluse came to the centre armed with a modified high-powered rifle and other weapons, ready to massacre dozens of patients and staff. He murdered security guard Steven Rogers, before being disarmed by the boyfriend of a pregnant woman.

Dr Allanson said the safe access zones had been an overnight success. “Instantly, women were no longer being harassed and intimidated on the public footpath.”

This week’s case is likely to centre on the issue of whether preventing protesters approaching women within the safe zone is a breach of the implied freedom of political communication.

Ms Clubb and her legal team were contacted for comment and declined.

In her submission to the High Court, she argued that abortion was inherently political and that political communication about abortions was most effective at the place at which abortions are provided, where they can reach clinic users and their medical staff.

“Australian history is replete with examples of political communication which were effective because they were conducted in a place where the issue was present and viscerally felt,” it said.

The 1998 Australian waterfront dispute, Eureka Stockade and the Freedom Ride of 1965 are listed examples.

In an interview with NewsCorp in June, Ms Clubb denied distressing women with graphic images of abortions on signs, saying that she only prays and distributes pamphlets.

She said at the time she was fighting for the right to speak on her beliefs, even though they were unpopular. “But the point is, if parliament can ban this kind of protest, what other kind of protests can they ban?” she told NewsCorp. “I am fighting for all Australians.”

But Ms Clubb faces a formidable opposition, with the case attracting not only the attention of the Victorian Attorney-General Martin Pakula, but governments across the nation, who have made submissions through lawyers in defence of the Victorian and Tasmanian laws.

The Attorney-General will argue that if there is any impact on the implied freedom of political communication, it is insubstantial.

“While it may be accepted that some individuals might be engaging in political communication, in other cases the aim is to deter women from having an abortion, often through imposing guilt and shame,” the submission said.

SOURCE 

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

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

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

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9 October, 2018

President Trump calls out the Left's man-hating sexual witch-hunt

President Trump lashed out at left-wingers this week, declaring that the out-of-control leftist-manufactured controversies raging around Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court prove it is a “very scary time for young men.”

It has been true for a while that men accused of sexual assault or sexual harassment on college campuses are tried by kangaroo courts. In fact, railroading students accused of such things was official policy in President Obama’s Department of Education. But now the same mob mentality has taken over the nation’s capital.

The idea of masculinity itself is under attack, as if being male were a disease. Being aggressive and pushing boundaries, that is, being manly, is treated as toxic behavior. Political lynchings of men, especially Caucasians and those to the right of center, have become increasingly commonplace. "White men are presumed guilty because they are white men, because they are supposedly in a position of privilege," Ben Shapiro said recently.

In his comments Trump was addressing the morbid and skewed totalitarian puritanism that reigns in official Washington right now. Sexual witch hunts targeting men with the wrong political beliefs or jurisprudential outlooks have become the norm in the Supreme Court confirmation process. Just ask Clarence Thomas.

As the absurd sex claims against Kavanaugh have been fizzling out, the Left has shifted the goalposts, accusing the would-be justice of being an abusive drunk on the basis of his otherwise banal, totally ordinary youthful experimentation with beverage alcohol. It’s not that left-wingers are opposed to the consumption of alcohol – they just want to come up with any excuse they can to prevent Kavanaugh (or any other Trump nominee to the high court) from moving forward. Left-wingers have even claimed that Kavanaugh’s wholly justified righteous indignation at being accused with no credible evidence whatsoever of being a party to gang rape somehow shows he lacks the temperament to sit on the Supreme Court.

Whatever Kavanaugh says or does he’s damned in the eyes of the Left. They will continue to attack him with a religious zeal whether the FBI’s redundant supplemental investigation turns up anything worthy of further examination.

Whether Kavanaugh is confirmed or not, the hazy, still-uncorroborated allegations leveled at him by Christine Blasey Ford will have staying power. This is because the character-assassins of the Left hellbent on sabotaging Kavanaugh control the culture. They will continue to slander the judge till their dying days.

The Torquemada-style approach to sexual abuse claims has been in vogue for years and young men have become its frequent victims. False rape claims are already distressingly common but in the #MeToo era of the 24-hour news cycle they get sensationalized like never before.

At least those accused in rape hoaxes in 2006 and 2014 were able to fight back and clear their names.

Stripper Crystal Gail Mangum's false 2006 claim against three members of Duke University's men's lacrosse team was initially believed and those who questioned it were demonized. One of the reasons she was taken seriously was the fact that she was black and the lacrosse players were white.

Rolling Stone was forced to retract its infamous 2014 article falsely accusing members of a University of Virginia fraternity of gang rape.

But nowadays the accusations spread at lightning speed and get amplified in social media, allowing the Left to ruin a man’s reputation in mere minutes.

Which brings us back to President Trump and his defense of Kavanaugh.

A reporter said, “Your son, Mr. President, says that he fears more for his sons, at this point in the MeToo era, than his daughters. Do you agree that men are under attack?”

“Well, it’s a tough thing going on,” Trump told reporters at the White House Tuesday.

If you can be an exemplary person for 35 years. And then somebody comes and they say you did this or that; and they give three witnesses; and the three witnesses, at this point, do not corroborate what you were saying, that’s a very scary situation, where you’re guilty until proven innocent.

“My whole life, I’ve heard you’re innocent until proven guilty,” Trump said. “But now, you’re guilty until proven innocent. That is a very, very difficult standard.”

The president continued:

"Well, I say that it’s a very scary time for young men in America, when you can be guilty of something that you may not be guilty of.  This is a very, very — this is a very difficult time.

What’s happening here has much more to do than even the appointment of a Supreme Court Justice. It really does. You could be somebody that was perfect your entire life, and somebody could accuse you of something. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a woman, as everybody say — but somebody could accuse you of something, and you’re automatically guilty.

But in this realm, you are truly guilty until proven innocent. That’s one of the very, very bad things that’s taking place right now."

As usual, President Trump is right.

SOURCE





Who Needs Feminism?

Andrew Klavan

I am an anti-feminist. Feminism is a mean-spirited, small-minded and oppressive philosophy that can poison relations between the sexes — relations which, for most of us, provide some of life’s deepest pleasures and consolations.

Feminism has attempted to bully us all into accepting an obvious lie: the lie that men and women have the same powers, talents, proclivities and desires and that, consequently, any discrepancy in their professional paths is due to bigotry and must be corrected by force of culture and law. By shoving that lie down our throats, feminism has made both men and women less happy and less free.

Now, I’m going to have to speak in generalities, and I understand there are all kinds of exceptions to what I’m about to say. But the generalities remain generally valid.

Feminism denigrates masculinity in men by relentlessly calling us “toxic” for our flaws rather than appreciating our natural qualities of energy, risk-taking and leadership. But it also denigrates femininity in women, working to replace most women’s commitment to relationship and child-rearing with male obsessions such as career status and strength.

What’s the result? Take a look at the quintessential feminist icon, Rosie the Riveter, flexing her muscle. The truth is: Any man of the same size and fitness can make a bigger, stronger, muscle than Rosie can. By herding women away from their feminine natures, feminism seeks to transform them from first-rate women into second-rate men.

Now, perhaps you’ll protest: Isn’t feminism simply the idea that women have the same human rights as men? No, it isn’t. That philosophy is called “classical liberalism,” which holds that we are all equally endowed by God with the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

But, wait—doesn’t the Declaration of Independence say that all men are created equal? Yes. Classical liberalism was an idea conceived by, and largely for, Christian white men. But, like all ideas—good and bad—classical liberalism has evolved over time according to its internal logic, so it now includes all races and both sexes. Good job, Christian white men! Thanks for the great idea!

As its excuse for the damage it does to our lives, feminism has developed the historical mythology that men have oppressed women and now must be suppressed in their turn to even things out.

Let me propose a different narrative that has the advantage of possibly being true. Insofar as men and women are physical creations, their central purpose is the production of more human beings. Women are therefore fashioned in body and mind to make and nurture children, and men to protect and support those children during their relatively long maturation period.

All societies shaped themselves around these necessities. They created structures that formalized gender roles and attempted to insure the paternity of children so that men would care for their own. In many societies, these structures became increasingly ritualistic and oppressive for women. But the opposite happened in the Christian West.

Why?

Take a look at your Bible, Proverbs 31. The Biblical ideal of a good woman is not only strong, kind and wise, she’s also a creative and economic dynamo. Christianity sanctified motherhood in the person of Mary, and celebrated women’s fortitude and virtue in the female saints.

The church created a version of marriage intended to protect women, and designed the philosophy of chivalry, which instructed men to use their superior strength for women, not against them. Individuals can be incredibly abusive to one another—men and women, both.

But over time, Christendom tended to elevate, protect and ultimately include women as women in the great enterprise of Western civilization.

Now, the developments of modernity have created special challenges for women. Industry removed clothing and food production from the home to the factory and thus deprived homemakers of their traditional businesses. Children lost their monetary value to parents by leaving home to fend for themselves. So, while motherhood and homemaking remain the most important spiritual activities of humankind, modernity has stripped those enterprises of their former economic power.

But—in a Western civilization dedicated to equal rights, these challenges come along with fresh opportunities. New technologies and effective birth control allow individual women to tailor gender roles to their personal liking—or abandon them altogether.

None of this is a reason to attack men. In fact, these new opportunities are largely the result of men’s inventions and their ideas. And none of it requires women to abandon the femininity which is one of the graces of our world. It’s just change and progress—that’s all.

With honest thought and good will, we can adapt over time without the angry, bitter and dishonest attacks on our human nature by feminists.

SOURCE





An Australian State government codifies ‘white privilege’ slur for its bureaucrats

Government departments in South Australia have been criticised for seemingly forcing ­bureaucrats to acknowledge “white privilege” in Aboriginal cultural awareness training.

Conservative crossbench senator Cory Bernardi told The Australian that public servants had contacted his office in fear of losing their jobs after refusing to participate in the training, which required them to acknowledge their “white privilege”.

“I’ve had public servants contacting my office, fearful for their jobs because in good conscience they cannot undergo this man­datory indoctrination,” Senator Bernardi said yesterday.

“They are being discriminated against because political correctness and bureaucracy have run out of control under the noses of the major parties.”

National debate over the use of the term “white privilege” erupted in January when it was revealed that new codes of conduct for nurses and midwives referenced “a decolonising model of ­practice based on dialogue, communication, power sharing and negotiation, and the acknowledgment of white privilege”.

The codes do not require ­nurses or midwives to declare or apologise for white privilege.

Two SA Health documents for “cultural” and “workplace” learning advise staff “there is an un­deniable relationship between the continuing impact of colonisation and racism on the current health status of Aboriginal people”.

“Aboriginal people have been negatively impacted by inequitable government policies and the consequential ongoing racism and discrimination,” the documents say, noting that the ­material will “improve the ­cultural competence of the SA Health workforce through a ­better understanding of the impact of colonisation on Aboriginal health outcomes”.

A “learning outcomes” section requires staff to define white ­privilege and the effect of white privilege on Aboriginal health.

Staff are required to “challenge and respond to ‘racist’ behaviour and racial stereotypes” and “recognise the impact of white privilege on access to ­services”.

The “learning frameworks” also require staff to explain cultural self-awareness and identify their own cultural values and practices, identify examples of “white privilege” and analyse how “white privilege” impacts on Aboriginal people’s experience of health care services.

Premier Steven Marshall, who formed the first Liberal government in South Australia in 16 years in March, also has responsibility for the state’s Aboriginal ­Affairs portfolio.

Mr Marshall’s own department “actively encourages public sector employees to participate in Aboriginal cultural awareness training”, according to its website.

The South Australian Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources has an online “reconciliation action plan” that states: “We seek to be able to better recognise the influence colonisation and white privilege has on the department’s internal and external interactions with Aboriginal people, their nations and communities.”

Mr Marshall insisted that cultural awareness training was not compulsory. “Cultural awareness training is an option made available to public sector employees,” he said.

“The use of the term ‘white privilege’ … (is) not a term that I would personally use.”

Senator Bernardi said: “This politically correct nonsense is offensive, if not racist, towards many Australians.”

SOURCE 







Conservative Millennial Allie Beth Stuckey on Feminism’s Biggest Flaws

This article is longer than I normally put up but it is well worth reading



Allie Beth Stuckey is host of the popular CRTV podcast “Relatable” and best known as “The Conservative Millennial.” She spoke to Daily Signal editor-in-chief Rob Bluey and contributor Ginny Montalbano. You can listen to the full audio on The Daily Signal Podcast. An edited transcript of their interview is below.

Rob Bluey: You’ve had a busy day already, appearing on “Fox & Friends” and talking to conservative members of Congress. But before we get to some of those issues, I want to first have you tell your own story to our listeners. How did you get started and what motivates you?

Allie Beth Stuckey: I got started in 2015. That’s when I started speaking on college campuses to sorority girls about the importance of voting in the primaries. It was just kind of an awakening I had one day that, “Wow, this is a real need.”

I wasn’t in college, I just graduated, but my very informed friends and people younger than me are not well informed when it comes to politics. They were not even planning to vote in the primaries. This was not good. This was a big deal.

I created this nonpartisan presentation and started asking sororities at the University of Georgia—I was living in Athens, Georgia, at the time—if I could come and speak pro bono to their sororities about the importance of voting in the primaries. I had no idea and really no intention of this becoming my career. I mean maybe, kind of in the back of my mind, but I wasn’t thinking that at the time.

The presentation did well. I started getting requests from other organizations and sororities and then I started thinking, “OK, maybe I want to do this from a partisan perspective.” So I started the blog, The Conservative Millennial, at the beginning of 2016. And then it was a few months of doing that. I still had a full time job. I was a publicist and a social media strategist and it was a few months of doing that before it really started to take off.

I didn’t have any followers at first. It was just like your normal blog. I mean, you probably all have friends from college who started a blog. They thought that it was going to be this amazing political or fashion blog and it’s like, “Oh my gosh,” it never went anywhere and this person totally abandoned the idea.

A lot of people probably thought it was that. I probably thought it was that at first, but then it ended up taking off after I started doing these videos that became popular, and didn’t have any kind of sponsors or politicians behind me, or organizations or money, funding, anything like that, or even any equipment. I didn’t even have any lights or microphones. It was just me on my phone in my living room. And thankfully that ended up kind of picking up with a young audience.

Then from there we moved to Dallas. My husband’s job took us to Dallas, where I’m actually from originally. I started working at The Blaze through a series of coincidences and the videos that I was doing there did well. And then I started working at CRTV at the beginning of 2018. I speak on college campuses every month. I speak to a Republican organizations, even corporations like Marathon Oil, where I was a few weeks ago just talking about the importance of engaging millennials—how to engage millennials, how to reach out to them, and what it actually takes.

And so that’s kind of what I specialize in and it’s really just become a career for me. I do have the podcast that I do twice a week called “Relatable.” We approach culture, politics in the news from a Christian conservative perspective. And it’s been really fun. I love what I do and I still love that college age, particularly female audience, that’s just figuring everything out. That’s really my niche and it’s been fun to dig into that.

Ginny Montalbano: Allie, clearly you’re having a large impact, and a lot of my friends are big fans.

Stuckey: Oh, good. Thank you.

Montalbano: I wanted to ask you what is it like being so involved in politics but living in Texas outside of the swamp?

Stuckey: Yes, so I like that. I was actually talking to my Uber driver about that yesterday. He was like, “Oh, you know, it’s great that you’re in D.C. There’s so much opportunity here. Are you ever going to move here?” And maybe. Who knows where life could take me? I could move here, but I actually like living outside of New York or D.C., just because I feel like I’m not caught up in the weeds of the swamp, in the weeds of politics.

Politics and the media, they can both be really ugly games. They don’t have to be, but they can be and I’m just glad I’m not in the thick of it. I don’t want to say my life is a slow pace because it’s really not. I’m traveling a lot, but when I’m in Dallas, I’m just separated from all of that.

I live in this little suburb with my husband and my two cats and my dog and we just have a very simple, peaceful life. We go to a small church. I just prefer that pace and I prefer the freedom. And if I want to step out of all of this craziness, all I have to do is put my phone down.

Y’all live in D.C. I’m sure it’s a wonderful, great place in a lot of ways. But people talk about just kind of the nastiness of some of the people that live and work here and are in this industry. You feel like you have to watch your back all the time. I don’t feel like that. I’m just kind of in my own world and yeah it’s nice to have that separation.

Bluey: While in D.C., you’re meeting with members of Congress. What advice do you have for them, particularly when it comes with connecting with millennials?

Stuckey: Relatability is a big thing for millennials. We really care about the person more than we care about the policy or the politician. That is a fault of ours in that we—instead of really thinking about what we believe in, thinking about what kind of policy someone represents and what it means for us—we really are just attracted to personality. And while that is an issue for millennials, it’s not something that’s probably going to change very soon. So I think that’s something that conservative politicians can be mindful of—to up their likability and to up their relatability.

The old way of being a standard politician who speaks in very political terms and even the cadence and how they speak and how they relate to people, I think that way is out. Millennials see through that. We feel like that’s not transparent, that’s not vulnerable, that’s not genuine.

Conservatives don’t have to abandon our good policies and our logical positions, but we do need to be putting forth likable candidates. And our current politicians can also work on being likable and relatable and genuine and kind of abandoning that old, stiff politician feel. Just talk to people like they’re real people and talk about issues as if they affect real people—not just in political terms, not just in policy terms, not just in statistical terms, but personal terms. Tell me a story.

Montalbano: The personal touch is so important. At The Daily Signal, I know we always strive to tell stories about policy through personal stories so that people can feel connected. I want to ask you about something that you discuss frequently: feminism. What are its major flaws, especially when you look at what’s happening in the #MeToo movement?

Stuckey: Feminism, it sounds very righteous and it sounds like a very worthy cause. If you press a feminist or if you say, “Well, I’m not a feminist,” to a feminist, they say, “Oh, you don’t believe in equality? That’s all feminism is. It’s just equality between men and women.”

Well actually, no it’s not and we’re already seeing that. And I actually think parts of the #MeToo movement are good—that some victims are empowered to truly speak up about their trauma. I think that’s great.

A flaw of the #MeToo movement is that it glorifies victimhood rather than just bringing light to real trauma. It glorifies victimhood and it elevates accusers way above the accused to where we have reached the point to where we have to “believe all women unconditionally.”

That represents a flaw, not just in the #MeToo movement, but also in feminism because that is not equality. Believing all women is not equality. You are asking for special treatment. You are saying we’re not supposed to believe men because they’re men, but we’re supposed to believe women because they’re women. And they don’t even really mean that. They really mean we believe women that are useful for our agenda because they don’t believe Ashley Kavanaugh when it comes to her husband. They don’t believe the 65 woman who vouched for Kavanaugh’s character.

That just shows what they really want. What feminism really wants is special treatment, and in particular, special treatment for leftist women. That’s not equality.

It’s also hypocritical because they say that they’re for empowering women. I find that to be very condescending that I need special treatment in comparison to a man. I don’t think so. I think that I can get where I want to go based on my merits and my hard work. I don’t need any handouts from you.

Feminists are constantly in this conundrum of women are simultaneously so strong, so powerful, “We don’t need no man,” and also, “Oh, we’re helpless victims of the patriarchy.”

Bluey: Conservatives have a lot of misconceptions about millennials. As you’re talking to these audiences, what are some of the misconceptions that conservatives have about them?

Stuckey: That we are a hopeless generation, that we cannot be reasoned with, that we cannot be spoken to, that we’re going to be the death of America.

That argument bothers me because first of all, we weren’t raised by wolves. There is a reason why we are the way that we are. We didn’t just teach ourselves.

I have great Baby Boomer parents. I’m not blaming Baby Boomers for all of millennials’ problems. A lot of it is because of our own selfishness and the things that we learned in college and just our own spoiled nature that maybe our parents did not instill in us. However, we did have helicopter parents more than any other generation did. We did have an “everybody gets a trophy” mentality that our parents passed down to us when we were little. We’ve been told our entire lives that we’re so special, that we can do anything that we want to do. No one could tell us any differently and you’re entitled to success.

That has really come back to bite us, especially when we see us asking for things like Medicare for all or free college. We feel like we are entitled to everything. And we also feel like if anything is difficult, it is unjust. That is a true flaw of millennials. But we are not hopeless.

There was a statistic out today that says millennials actually might be turning the tide when it comes to marriage. Right now, I think the divorce rate is 50 percent, which is insanely high. But millennials compared to Generation X, which is the generation between Baby Boomers and millennials, we are actually more likely to reach our five-year anniversary at 35-years-old than Generation X was.

Now, it hasn’t been very long. There are fewer millennials getting married. We are getting married later, but apparently as of right now, we’re staying married longer. So I think what that shows us, and we see this in a lot of different ways, millennials actually have personally very conservative and traditional values. We believe, for the most part, in monogamy. We believe in commitment. And we’re also very capitalistic in how we consume things and how we behave.

We are the No. 1 consumers of Uber, of Amazon, of Netflix, of all of these innovations that would have been impossible without the free market. And I think all that needs to happen is bridging the gap between how millennials behave and the things that we really value and how we vote.

The gap is created by ignorance and it has to be filled with wisdom and knowledge. That’s where this relatability and this information comes in of people like us saying, “OK, millennials, here’s this gap. I’m going to fill it for you with some relatable information.”

Montalbano: As a millennial myself, I find that very hopeful. You were recently on the Ben Shapiro Fox News election special and I want to ask who should conservatives, particularly young conservatives, be looking to as the next generation of leaders within the movement?

Stuckey: Ben. I’m a Ben Shapiro apologist, and so maybe I’m a little bit biased here. …

You have your own thought, you have your own idea, you formulate your own opinion or reaction toward something, but then you’ll go to Ben, and you’ll be like, “OK, what did Ben say? OK. OK. OK. Yes, I’m on the right track. That’s what I thought, too. Great.”

There have been times where I’ve disagreed with him, but he is a very good indicator of, “OK, am I on the right track?” Because he calls balls and strikes. He’s very fair about President Trump, about conservatives. He’s willing to call out his own side. So you know in listening to him that you’re not just getting this biased, anti-intellectual take. He’s not just a partisan.

He really is seeking truth and there seems to be so few people that actually do that. That’s what I appreciate about him and that’s how I try to be as well.

Of course, I’m not on the same level as Ben. He’s also been doing it for a lot longer than me and his brain is just a lot bigger than mine, a lot smarter than mine, but he is someone that I emulate in a lot of how I seek facts and how I seek truth and the way that I try to present truth.

I just think that he’s a good model for young conservatives. Doesn’t mean that you have to be exactly like him. I am certainly not. I think that we’re very different people. We have different faiths, different styles and all of that. And not every young conservative needs to be like him, but just in the way of integrity and character and honesty and fairness. I think that he’s a good person to look up to.

Bluey: We’re certainly big fans of Ben as well, so I appreciate that endorsement. You’ve talked about the importance of relatability, and the name of your podcast is “Relatable.” What it is you try to accomplish on the podcast? Why should people listen?

Stuckey: I’ll tell you what I try to do and the reason why I think that it has been successful. It’s new, but we’ve gotten so much good feedback and it’s just been a very positive response and received well.

The people that I want to be listening are listening and that I see as a success. One of the reasons is because I don’t have a production crew. I don’t have a producer of my podcast. I don’t have a researcher, writer or anything like that. I just have a guy who helps me with my camera. So we don’t have anything like that to offer. It’s not that.

Whenever I’m writing my podcast, whenever I’m thinking about my podcast, whenever I’m speaking and choosing my language and choosing my words, I’m always thinking about one person. I think sometimes when we create content, we think, “OK, how do we want this to reach as many people as possible? How can I appeal to a wide audience?” Some people do that well, that’s not ever my goal.

My goal is, “OK, I have one kind of person in mind. I want to talk to her. I want to talk to the girl who doesn’t know what’s going on in the news, who doesn’t know how to fit it into her worldview, who is not sure how to comprehend all of this political stuff and fit it into her faith. How am I supposed to approach all of this from a Christian perspective, for moral perspective? How does this actually affect my life? Will someone just fit this into the context?”

That’s what I try to do. It’s not a news podcast of just telling you what’s going on. There are plenty of great ones that do that. It’s, “Here are the big things that are going on right now, or here’s a trend that I’m seeing. Here’s how I’m trying to analyze it. Here’s what I still don’t know. Here’s what I’m trying to figure it out. And here’s what the Bible has to say about it. Here’s what logic has to say about it. Here’s what morality has to say about it.”

I really think about that one 20-something girl that’s trying to figure it out. But we’ve also caught people in other demographics unintentionally, which is kind of what happens.

You get the 32-year-old mom who doesn’t have time to sit down and watch Fox News all day. You get the 55-year-old dad who’s like, “Oh, I just love this podcast for my daughters. It helps me talk to my liberal daughter who’s in college.” You get the 15-year-old. I spoke to a high school yesterday and I had four 15-year-olds come up to me and say, “I love your podcast,” which is so funny because I don’t think about them when I’m recording it. But you’ll inadvertently catch these people who relate to you.

It’s important to know your audience and to zero in on the kind of person that you want to talk to, appeal to them. I want them to finish my podcast thinking, “Wow. I actually feel smarter than when I started. I actually feel like I understand this now.”

I hope that it spurs their own analysis and their own thoughts that might be better, deeper, different than what mine are. But I want it to be a building block for people to actually feel smarter about politics and smarter about culture and actually feel equipped, not just angry and not just, “Oh, I can spout these talking points,” but, “OK, that gave me an interesting perspective.”

I also want them to feel like, “Oh, that’s someone I would want to be friends with. That’s someone I would want to sit down and have coffee with.” Not someone like, “Oh, Allie’s kind of scary. She was really intense.”

One of the best compliments I ever got was from someone who emailed me or maybe she commented or sent me a message. I forget which medium it was, but she said, “I’m liberal. My whole family is liberal, but all of us listen to your podcast and they call you the smart blonde girl.” I was like, OK, I’ll take that.

And they said, “We just like you,” and that is the biggest compliment that you could ever pay me. You might hate what I have to say, but you’re willing to listen to me. That’s what I want. I want it to be conversational in that way.

Anyone who is out there who’s thinking about starting a blog or starting a podcast, you can totally do it. Just think about that one audience member. Think about the gap that you specifically can fill and then do it.

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 October, 2018

Why do we give Leftists an easy ride?

David Horowitz

One thing I learned watching the witch trial of Brett Kavanaugh on MSNBC, is that a prestigious university in New York has a Vice President for Social Justice. (She is an MSNBC commentator). Her Orwellian title is but one of many signs that our country is already on the threshold of 1984; the Judiciary Committee circus is another.

In her comments on the hearings, the Vice President for Social Justice, Maya Wiley, was clearly out for blood, and had no interest in evidence, due process, or the facts. She is also of course both a woman, a woman “of color” and a lesbian. In other words, she occupies three of the top rungs in the hierarchy of the oppressed - all bombs waiting to blow up in the face of any straight white male who stumbles into their cross-hairs.

Any fair-minded observer of the Kavanaugh proceedings would have noted that no one – Republican or Democrat - so much as laid a glove on his female accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, even though she had come forward to destroy the life of an exemplary individual and his family. No one, dared to do so. Call this feminine or victim privilege. Kavanaugh’s high school yearbooks with tales of drinking were fair game, but Ford’s – which openly talk of the girls’ sexual promiscuity and boast of girls passing out at drinking parties - were not. Nor were her extensive political connections to the anti-Trump left, the pro-abortion movement, the Democratic Party and even the law firm involved in the Steele dossier.

Yes, the sexual crime prosecutor established that Ford lied to the committee when she said she couldn’t come to Washington for the hearings because she was afraid of flying. In fact, as she admitted under questioning, she has frequently flown all over the world for pleasure. But no one actually confronted her about this. For example, no one asked her directly, “If you were brazen enough to lie to a congressional committee about this, why should we believe you in regard to anything else?"

Yes the same prosecutor gently asked Ford why she thought her best friend Leland Keyser, whom she claimed was present at the party and would corroborate her story, in fact refuted it, saying that she was never at such a party, and the one in question never happened. Ford gave a transparently evasive answer saying her friend had (unspecified) health issues, while never explaining what they were or why that should cause her to contradict what Ford had claimed.

Actually, all the alleged witnesses to the party where the incident was supposed to have taken place have denied that they were there. The one witness who was allegedly in the room where she claimed the incident took place says he wasn’t there. But none of the senators had the temerity to confront her directly with the obvious question: why should we believe your inflammatory claims about Judge Kavanaugh given that no one you have named supports any piece of your story? Moreover, no one asked her “How do you feel about besmirching the reputation of a stellar individual, and bringing incalculable pain to his family by advancing claims that no one corroborates? How can you say that you are 100% sure an incident happened, when you can’t remember anything else accurately about the evening? Did your lawyers instruct you to say 100%? What actually did your lawyers prompt you to say in your prepared statement?

No one said to her: you signed a letter attacking President Trump’s border policies and were able to get the anti-Trump ACLU to publish it; you contacted an anti-Trump paper, the Washington Post, to make your charges; you turned first to Democrats who are sworn to “resist” – actually sabotage –the Trump presidency and his judicial nominees; and you accepted attorneys recommended by Democrats, who are activist Democrat, anti-Trump lawyers. Can we conclude, therefore, that there might be a political motive behind your decision to bring up these character-ruining accusations about a rough-housing you allegedly received 37 years ago when you and Kavanaugh were too young to even vote?

No one dared to ask these questions or to vigorously pursue problematic areas of her testimony and behavior. Instead everyone expressed sympathy for her and her pain in testifying, and said how credible she sounded – even though, unlike Kavanaugh’s presentation, hers was vetted and coached by lawyers, and even though it amounted to character assassination if her memory was false.

At the bottom of these asymmetries lies the fact that despite half a century of women’s “liberation” and “hear me roar” proclamations the feminist attitude towards women is still Victorian. Women are fragile violets who wilt before the raised voices and impassioned claims of male innocence. But this image is a one way mirror. Let a moment go by and then, when they or their defenders are on the counter-attack, hear them roar. Senator Mazie Hirono put it mind-numbingly well: “Men should just shut up and stand up (for their female accusers of course).”

This is the ideologically constructed atmosphere, which makes a latter-day witch trial like the Judiciary hearings possible. Christine Blasey Ford’s story is unbelievable on its face. She claims that after the alleged incident at the alleged party, where three of her friends (who have denied it) were allegedly present, she fled. Here are some questions that were not asked:

How did she get past those friends without them seeing her and her distress?

How could she not have warned her best friend, Leland Keyser, that there were two potential rapists in the house, if that’s what she thought?

How did she get home?

How did her best friend not ask her the next day why she left without her, or what happened?

Why was this such a trauma she could not tell her best friend? One can understand why she would want to conceal from her parents that she had gone to a drinking party with boys, but her friend who was allegedly there? She doesn’t even claim that she was raped, only that she was frightened in an incident that could have happened at any of the drunken parties she might have attended as described in her high school yearbook.

On the face of it, Christine Blasey Ford’s story is not only unsubstantiated. It isn’t credible. The destruction of Brett Kavanaugh’s reputation is the equivalent of a modern-day lynching – the third that Democrats have orchestrated in the last twenty-seven years. It’s despicable. At least Republicans like Lindsey Graham have laid that charge at the door of the Democratic culprits who worked so hard to accomplish it. But, as a nation, we have obviously not reached the point where we can grant women true equality by confronting their lies and their reckless accusations with the same candor and frankness we would if they were coming out of the mouths of men.   

SOURCE








Death-loving Hairstylist Fired After Kicking Pro-Lifer on Video

Jordan Hunt, a pro-choice hairstylist in Toronto who assaulted a pro-life demonstrator last week, has been fired and may face police charges.

After he spoke directly to the camera of a Marie-Claire Bissonnette and roundhouse kicked her, it didn’t take long for Hunt’s identity to emerge, as LifeSiteNews reported. The pro-life news site was the first to post Bissonnette’s video and published a piece by her recounting the incident. She wrote in the article that Hunt confronted participants of the event "Life Chain" by defacing their signs and clothes with a marker before they briefly spoke and he kicked her.

A representative from his former employer, Noble Studio 101, made a statement condemning Hunt’s actions and confirming a social media post that said he was fired.

"We’re four strong women here," she said. "We don’t condone any kind of violence… Everybody has their own opinion and different ways of thinking, but violence is not the answer. He won’t be stepping his foot through the door again."

Bissonnette filed a report with the Toronto Police, whose spokesperson Katrina Arrogante said the incident is "on file and the investigation is ongoing. No arrests have been made at this time."

Bissonnette explained how the attack occurred in her article and in interviews. Speaking to the Pennsylvania political talk show "Two Way Radio," Bissonnette said incidents such as this have proven to her that leftist ideology is the key motivating factor.

"I’m realizing more and more that the leftist ideology, the crazy ideological warriors, they are motivated by their ideology, they aren’t motivated by the inherent good of free speech or the inherent good, let’s say, diversity that they say they are so fond of, or equality," Bissonnette said. "[The] virtue-signalling that they do, it’s not because they actually believe in the virtues; it’s because they want to further their agenda."

The video made it on YouTube’s top ten Wednesday. It shows Hunt defending abortion and then kicking Bissonnette, who can be heard shouting for the police to be called while Hunt says he tried to kick her phone.

"[The man] forcefully roundhouse-kicked me in the shoulder, which sent my phone flying and I yelled for someone to call the police. In defence of his violence he claimed he’d meant to kick my phone, and then, as a fellow Life Chain participant dialed 9-1-1, he yanked off the ribbon I’d been wearing on my chest and ran away, heading east," Bissonnette wrote.

SOURCE






The Israel Victory Project

In January 2017, Middle East Forum president Daniel Pipes introduced the Israel Victory Project (IVP) in a Commentary magazine article, explaining how Israel, with U.S. support, should compel the Palestinians to give up their irredentist fantasies and bring a permanent end to the conflict. 

Later that year, with MEF help, the Congressional Israel Victory Caucus (CIVC) and Knesset Israel Victory Caucus (KIVC) came into existence and quickly gained support: CIVC has a bi-partisan membership of 33; KIVC has 26 Members of Knesset from 7 different parties.

MEF experts briefed top U.S. and Israeli officials, including: Benjamin Netanyahu (twice), Ron Dermer, David Friedman, Jason Greenblatt, and Victoria Coates – among others.

Analysts have noticed.

Former UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk writes, “Consider the steps taken by the U.S. government [and] a pattern emerges that seems to be only compressible as seeking the implementation of the Victory Caucus.”

Robert Malley (former senior White House official for Clinton and Obama) and Aaron David Miller (long-time Israeli-Palestinian peace process negotiator) write in The Atlantic, “Boiled down to its essence, the administration’s message to the Palestinians seems to be: You’ve lost, get over it.”

Let’s look at that pattern. IVP called on the U.S. government to:
Recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel: President Trump has recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moved the US Embassy there.

End benefits to the Palestinians unless they work toward full and permanent acceptance of Israel: The State Department has closed the PLO office in Washington.

Change its relations with UNRWA: Trump has cut all support to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and rejected UNRWA’s strange definition of a refugee.

Not recognize a Palestinian state: President Trump has repeatedly refused to do so.

End financial aid to the Palestinian Authority: The Trump administration has cut aid to multiple Palestinian entities, including $200 million for the Palestinian Authority, $25 million to the East Jerusalem Hospital Network, and it signed the Taylor Force Act.

President Donald Trump has adopted the Israel Victory approach.

SOURCE






Australia: Dating show contestant gets rejected TWICE due to 'no dating Asians' policy – despite the girls being the same ethnicity as him

This is common and reasonable. The Australian population is about 5% Han Chinese so intermarriage is easily possible.  And if I see an Asian young woman on the arm of a man, the man is almost invariably Caucasian. With a bit of luck the woman's children with a Caucasian man will be able to pass as Caucasian.  As one instance of such a mix see below a picture of a recent "Miss Australia" winner, Francesca Hung.  She is half Chinese but that is not at all obvious



And "not standing out" is a very common wish for many people.  It tends to be safer

Caucasian men also tend to have a height advantage.  Sadly for shorties, most women prefer a tall man


A dating show contestant has been rejected by two women of the same ethnicity as him who cited a 'no dating Asians' policy.

When George Silvino, from Sydney, walked on stage for the dating show Take Me Out, two women of Asian descent instantly decided they were not interested him.

Host Joel Creasey asked the women why they weren't interested in the man to which the first woman replied: 'I kind of have a "no dating Asians" policy.'

Dating show contestant Gianna said she didn't want to date George Silvino because she has a 'not dating Asians' policy

In the show men try to impress a panel of thirty women in the hope of landing a date. If the women are interested in the men they leave their light on, if they aren't interested they switch their light off.

Mr Creasey then asked the second woman why she switched her light off for Mr Silvino. 'I'm sorry, I have a no dating Asian policy as well,' she said. 'I don't want to get mistaken for brother and sister, it could get awkward. 'Because I'm Asian I'm allowed to say that.'

After the show aired last week people had a mixed reaction to the women's dating policy.

'Attractive women: he's hot. Unattractive self-hating Asian women: he's ugly because he looks like my brother,' one person commented on the YouTube video.

'I don't get why almost all the Asians weren't open to him? I'm Asian but I think that guy is pretty good looking and I like his confidence, I'd give him a fair chance at least,' another person said.

But not everyone was upset by the women's choices. 'I have a no dating Asians policy too what's so wrong? ' one person said.

'Actually I don't see the problem. I'm Asian myself, and I like white girls more, but that doesn't mean I hate yellow girls,' another person said.

'Preference is not necessarily racist ..... and yeah, I've heard black white etc. Saying they wouldn't date their own race,' a person said.

Mr Silvino posted a response to the show on his YouTube channel said he did not think there was any malice behind the women's comments.

'Were these comments racist? Yes they absolutely f***ing were,' he said. 'In that context on a game-show there was no bad intentions. It's probably safe to say those comments were not said in a spiteful or hateful sense towards myself or other Asian men.'

However, later in the video he said based on comments he had seen on social media, it seemed like it was all too common that Asian women had these opinions of Asian men.

'Yes, of course these types of Asian b****** do exist. They think they're too good for Asian guys. They discriminate solely based on race.' 

SOURCE 

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

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

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

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7 October, 2018

Topshop tycoon Sir Philip Green accused of tearing down feminist book display in flagship Oxford Circus store

This is the first good thing I have heard of Phil.  The feminist Harpies are no longer "fighting for equality".  They got that long ago.  They are now promoting hostility towards men and telling lies about unequal pay

Topshop tycoon Sir Philip Green was embroiled in an extraordinary row last night after a display promoting a feminist book was allegedly torn down in his flagship women’s clothing store.

The pop-up promotion for Feminists Don’t Wear Pink And Other Lies had been set up in the Oxford Street shop, only to be dismantled 20 minutes later.

The book, a collection of feminist essays, was compiled by Scarlett Curtis, daughter of comedy writer Richard Curtis and broadcaster Emma Freud.

Proceeds will go to the United Nations initiative Girl Up, which provides leadership development training for young women around the world. Its publisher, Penguin, announced the cancellation of the Topshop display on Twitter – revealing the promotion had been taken down soon after being assembled.

That prompted award-winning actress Thandie Newton to suggest Green was responsible for the move, labelling him a ‘loser’. The 45-year-old Line Of Duty star tweeted: ‘Yesterday Philip Green used his big muscles to smash up the Topshop penguinrandom FeministsDontWearPink pop-up because he thought it was too controversial!!? LOSER.’

Miss Freud, a regular on Radio 4’s Loose Ends, tweeted: ‘This is such a bizarre shocker: yesterday Topshop tore down @scarcurtis’s pop up shop for #feministsdontwearpink on the day the book came out. On the boss’s orders. No explanation given. Maybe he just doesn’t like pink.’

Last night, it was claimed that the stall was removed shortly after Green viewed it on a morning walk through the store before it opened, prompting a Penguin press officer to burst into tears.

A source told the Mail: ‘They were setting up, it was all going well, but then there was a bit of a commotion, Philip Green was stomping round…. The women from Penguin were told to go for a walk for 20 minutes, when they got back inside it had all been torn down.’

Photographs shared on Twitter before it was removed show a backdrop emblazoned with slogans including ‘Feminists don’t like fashion’ and ‘feminists don’t wear make-up’ with the word ‘don’t’ crossed out in each case.

Neither Topshop nor Penguin responded to questions about exactly what happened or who ordered the display to be removed. But Miss Curtis said: ‘It was a heartbreaking and shocking act. The fact they clothe an entire nation of teenage girls but won’t support something that fights for their equality is awful.’

SOURCE






This is chiefly about abortion. That’s the issue at the crux of opposition to Brett Kavanaugh

Melanie McDonagh

Is Kellyanne Conway proof that patriarchy has no gender? That’s what the British journalist, Suzanne Moore, says in the Guardian today. She broods over Conway’s contention that she too was sexually abused once (is there anyone out there who wasn’t?) and considers whether she deserves a bit of empathy before concluding that, because Conway is gunning for Christine Blasey Ford, empathy would be wasted on her. Actually, it’s not just that Kellyanne Conway is pro-Brett Kavanaugh. She’s Not One of Us because ‘She is anti-abortion, and though a survivor of sexual assault, works for a man accused of multiple sexual assaults.’ By which she means Donald Trump.

Now I don’t know Suzanne M personally, though on the one occasion I came across her I thought she seemed good fun, the kind of person I’d happily have a gin with. Nonetheless, this little piece usefully sums up quite a lot of what’s wrong with bits of the women’s movement. There are, it seems, only certain women who count as women for the purposes of the movement. Women who can’t possibly be feminists include Republicans – ‘Many white women supported Trump; some of them are now rallying to support Kavanaugh’ she says – and anyone who’s anti-abortion.

‘All over the world some of the staunchest defenders of systems that limit women are other women.’ Now consider framing that sentence to make it about men. You can’t, can you? All you’d be saying is that men are different: some are conservative, some are socially liberal, some are pro Trump, some are against, some are Republican, some are Democrat, some are pro-abortion, some pro-life. You’d be acknowledging that men, as a sex, are infinitely various, that human beings are infinitely various. So why this sucking of teeth, this gathering of skirts, when women turn out to be infinitely various too? Why should half the human race have to conform to a template of social attitudes, to tick boxes to certify you’re with the programme?

Let’s cut to the chase. This is chiefly about abortion – that’s mostly what Guardian columnists, not just Suzanne, mean when they talk about ‘systems that limit women’; that’s the issue at the crux of opposition to Brett Kavanaugh. Now, I am anti-abortion and I am a paid up woman. I see no incompatibility between the two things. I don’t like people killing foetuses because I take the perfectly respectable scientific view that a foetus is a human being – and therefore is entitled to protection under the law. End of. Obviously I feel for women who are pregnant and really, really don’t want to be. But even in these cases, I see two human beings; pro-choicers see just one.

Does that disqualify you from being a woman (let’s leave the whole trans issue to one side here) as far as woke, liberal women are concerned? I guess so. That’s me and Kellyanne Conway then, out of the club, propping up the patriarchy – even though there are a number of other issues where we’d almost certainly part company. If you don’t conform to the programme, you’re Not One of Us.

Looks like I’ll never be a feminist then. And you know what? I really don’t care.

SOURCE






Canada: Quebec swings Rightwards

The Parti Quebecois, founded a half-century ago with the goal of separating Quebec from the rest of Canada, suffered a humiliating defeat in Monday’s provincial elections, raising questions about the survival of the party and the future of the separatist movement.

The party managed to attract only 17 percent of the popular vote and won only nine seats in Quebec’s National Assembly, losing official party status. Its leader also lost in his Montreal constituency.

The big winner in Monday’s vote was the Coalition Avenir Quebec (Quebec Future Coalition), a right-of-center party founded in 2011 that surged to take 74 seats in the 125-seat assembly, defeating the incumbent Liberal Party, which came in a distant second.

The coalition is led by François Legault, a former Parti Quebecois politician and onetime airline executive who earlier renounced separation. He ran a populist campaign that included promises to cut taxes, curb immigration, and raise spending on health and education.

Legault called his party’s victory ‘‘historic,’’ ending the electoral battle between the separatist Parti Quebecois and the federalist Liberal Party that has long dominated politics in the largely French-speaking province.

Although Legault has said that Quebec’s place remains in Canada, he is considered a Quebec nationalist who is likely to renew traditional claims for a transfer of powers from the federal government to the province. And he has vowed to cut immigration and force newcomers to learn French and pass a ‘‘values test’’ within three years of arrival or face expulsion, seen as a largely meaningless threat since the federal government is responsible for granting permanent residency and citizenship.

SOURCE






'The one last remaining bastion of free speech': Milo Yiannopoulos praises Australia for being a liberal country - but warns it may not be for much longer

Right-wing commentator and controversial political figure Milo Yiannopoulos has cited Australia as the last remaining bastion of free speech.

The comments came as Mr Yiannopoulos was promoting his upcoming book in an interview with Sky News on Friday, aptly named 'Australia, You're My Only Hope'.

Mr Yiannopoulos outlined what he perceives to be the 'cancers' affecting Australian society; namely feminism and political correctness.

During the interview, he urged Australians to stand up to these 'cancers' of public life which he claimed have already 'utterly ruined' the public square in Europe and America.

'Australia is the one last remaining bastion of free speech where people can actually crack a joke and not get fired,' Yiannopoulos stated.

The British alt-righter claimed his new book is a 'last ditch attempt' to urge the Australian public to stand up to what he perceives to be the 'toxins' of left-wing society.

Yiannopoulos has announced a tour of seven shows down under at the end of November, in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.

His tour will take place despite owing a reported $50,000 to the Victorian government for unpaid police expenses.

He will be joined by US right-winger Ann Coulter. The pair have promoted their tour as 'saving Australia from a full-frontal assault by politically-correct left-wing loonies.'

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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5 October, 2018

Scotland: Police State

Official hate out in the open.  In Orwell's "1984" they had official hate sessions too

These posters are currently being displayed in towns and cities all over Scotland.





There are others – but it was these that took my breath away –

You will note that these are posters from the Scottish Government and the Scottish Police.   At one level they seem fine.  Who is going to argue against the idea that we want rid of hatred?  That people should not call others names, or be violent, or mock and abuse?   But that is not what is happening here.  Note the following:

The posters themselves are somewhat ambiguous, unless you speak the code.  If you do speak the language of the Scottish Government and Police then what they are saying is that any kind of disagreement with homosexuality, the trans philosophy, or Islam  makes you guilty of hate and you have no place in ‘our’ community.

They are selective – Its only certain groups that are mentioned.  Look at what they leave out.   What about those of us who are Christians who are regularly mocked and abused in the media, in our schools and on the streets?  What about English people in Scotland?  What about the disabled?  Or many, many other groups?  Why do they only pick on these select groups?

They are intimidatory – It is not the job of the police to police our thoughts and hearts.  They can have no idea what we do or do not hate or love.  Their responsibility is to deal with crimes that are committed. They do not have the time, money or ability to deal with our thoughts. But it seems they are going to try.  The new State morality is going to be imposed through education and enforced by the State police – welcome to modern Scotland – the Saudi Arabia of Secularism.

They are self-contradictory – A poster which is designed to combat hate – spreads hate.  Imagine a poster which said – Dear bigots, you can’t spread your homosexual hatred here!” .  You would be arrested immediately for putting that up.  But now the police and the Scottish government are putting up a poster which incites hatred – by implying that it is religion that is to blame.  I get enough hatred in schools, Universities, the media and online, without the government and police encouraging it!

The posters say ‘love lives in this country, not hate’ – whilst encouraging people to hate anyone who dares to disagree with their new State morality.    They should say ‘insanity lives in this country’.  We are moving towards an Orwellian State where the in the name of love we are taught to hate all who do not agree with the State’s philosophy

If you doubt this is happening – take the case of the feminist activist Kelly-Jay Keen-Minshull who put up a poster with the following words“Woman, women, noun, adult human female.”  Dr Adrian Harrop, complained that it was transphobic and would make trans people feel ‘unsafe’.  So the company apologised, the poster was removed and the police are investigating.

Mr Harrop, 31, a GP registrar who lives with his husband in Sunderland, denied trying to silence anyone, saying he is not an activist. Asked why he found the meaning of the word “woman” so offensive, he said: “It really isn’t the dictionary definition itself, it’s the motivation behind it. That poster creates an environment of hostility for trans women and makes them frightened.”   He also said he was not removing anyones free speech, whilst demanding that these posters be taken down!

Mrs Keen-Minshull, 44, said the poster’s removal was Orwellian. “I find it far more sinister and pernicious than the old-fashioned sexism where the guy at the garage is surprised I know anything about engines. I’d take that guy any day over the Twitter troll who thinks I don’t know what a woman is.

“If the word ‘woman’ can mean anything, then women lose their sex-based protections and nobody is protected. Women are getting really, really fed up. Every single organisation that capitulates, paves the way for the next one to do the same. This is what trans activists do. This is how they silence women. I hope this will help people wake up to what’s going on.”

As I walked past a couple of these posters today, I saw two policemen in front of me – I almost felt that I should be handing myself into them.  After all by their new standards I must be a criminal – I believe that its ok to call a woman a woman…and that a woman is an adult human female!  And my name appeared in the Daily Mail this week Daily Mail (Scotland) 28.09.18  in what could only be termed a ‘transphobic’ article….and I just recorded a programme with the BBC which will undoubtedly in future years, when the State trains its though police, be used as a classic example of transphobia.

This is where we are heading…

I have now reported the police and the Scottish government to themselves for this ‘hate incident’ – Police Scotland and the Scottish Government Reported for Hate Incident

SOURCE






The tediousness of political correctness

My mother took me to a barber that told me Bible stories while he cut my hair. He told some exciting tales and I didn’t mind having to go to the barbershop. One day he was telling me about Adam and Eve and monkeys. Many years later, I realized he had given me a lecture on the difference between creationism and evolution. I never realized that would be a controversial subject until much later.

As I got older, I realized that the barbershop was a good place to hear a lot of arguing. Several of the old men in the shop would be discussing anything from high school football to the local school board election. All you had to do was listen and you could learn all about football, life or who were the biggest crooks in town. I ended up replacing the barbershop discussions with standing around the back of a pickup with my hunting buddies or other geezers.

This type of interaction was great. Most of the news came from television and something would always set up a scenario for a joke.

Now TV has about finished me off. All the major networks have come up with something in the name of political correctness or the pushing of some type of agenda in the name of not offending anyone. I must be the jerk because all the networks have offended me so much I can’t watch.

When I try to watch a movie channel, they keep playing the same shows over and over. I will watch a movie many times but I’ve run out of patience with these old movies. How many times can you watch the M.A.S.H. marathon? I’m tired of watching a 30-minute show that they play over 90 minutes.

The cable news channels have got a format like standing around a pickup truck. The only trouble with these shows are five people talking at a the same and the opinions differ so much you wonder if they are talking about the same things.

Shakespeare was all about conflict but these shows create way too much. “ You are a liar, no you are a liar.” Nobody will report facts. They only argue about opinions. Worse, all of these divergent opinions seem to be opposing what I think.

There was one thing left that I thought was worthy of watching. Sports should be the last bastion of television that would be settled on the playing field. Well, they couldn’t leave that alone either. It was nice when sportscasters would talk about different teams and the strengths and weaknesses of the team or the style of coaching the athletes got. You could argue with your buddies about the way you played high school football and why you should be coaching. It was all nice and fun. You could have a favorites team and revel in the loses of your rivals.

Well they couldn’t stand it. They had to ask some athlete what he or she thought of some politically explosive something that had nothing to do with your favorite sport.

The player was merely trying to play the sport. He or she wasn’t trying to right the wrongs of chemical warfare or a new tax bill attached to something that oppressed half the citizens in the country.

Some of the football players were merely trying to learn the plays and go to class. Sportscasters started asking about voting and taxes and what they thought of politicians. “Just let them play the game.”

Now I’m faced with something that is worse than a New Year’s Resolution. I’ve quit watching television. Don’t believe for a minute that I’m going to be able to quit watching. I’m just trying to take a break for a while.

It would be nice to have this break to catch up on some other projects. It won’t take long and I’ll be back watching and complaining.

The last thing I watched tells me that the Christmas channel will be starting up soon with 32 new movies.

SOURCE






We all had more freedom in the past

Veteran actress defends the British comedy, 'Only Fools and Horses' (1981 to 1991)

Sue Holderness thinks political correctness would stop 'Only Fools and Horses' from being made today.

The 69-year-old actress played the role of Marlene Boyce in the iconic British sitcom, but Sue doubts whether the programme would be a success in the #MeToo era.

The actress - whose on-screen character famously had her bum pinched by Del Boy - explained: "It's a problem for writers. Would gentleman be allowed to pinch ladies' bottoms without being slapped in the face and have a writ put on them? I don't know.

"I must say I haven't had my bottom pinched for a long time so gentlemen must be a little bit more nervous.

"People still shout 'Marlene' at me in the street. There were occasions where I'd get my bottom pinched by complete strangers, that, I'm happy to report has stopped, which might be because of my great age now. Perhaps I look too old."

Sue also blasted people who have recently called the show racist.  Instead, she insisted the programme's humour was "very innocent" and not at all "offensive".

She told The Sun newspaper: "A lot of people on social media are saying 'Only Fools' is racist and there are lots of things you couldn't have and I think it's a pity that we've gone quite as politically correct as that.

"An awful lot of that stuff is funny and I find that very few people are actually offended, because if the joke's good enough ... It was really very innocent.

"And you absolutely knew Del and Rodney were not racist people, they were good eggs - none of it was offensive."

SOURCE





On Political Correctness And The American Left, A French Take

Gaspard Koenig

I spent more than a month in the United State this summer, meeting with intellectuals almost always from the progressive elite, on both the East and West coasts. My impression: the other half of the country has gone completely crazy as well. Among the urban, educated classes, political correctness has acquired such a level that it requires another expression. It’s a new set of Ten Commandments of which the first is clear: thou shall repent. The struggle against discrimination, once a weapon for minority emancipation, has been transformed into an instrument of oppression of the majorities (antiquated or supposed), nourished by a climate of suspicion as violent as the “fear” denounced by the opposing camp.

Take, for example, a conference at New America, one of the most respected think tanks in Washington; non-partisan — so, left wing. Question: are Americans abandoning democracy? The discussion moves, without surprise, towards the lack of confidence the public holds for traditional institutions. Then comes time for questions. A participant asks if the problem has anything to do with the fact that the United States was founded by white men. “Absolutely,” responded the speaker with enthusiasm. The rest of the panel, composed of professors and researchers, rushed to nod their heads in agreement, for fear of ever being marked as traitors —or even “white supremacists.”

How can one have confidence in traditional institutions if their representatives no longer dare to express the smallest divergence of thought?

Another revealing experience: a workshop on “Women in Tech”— a group which is effectively underrepresented. The organizer, a woman, placed us in a line and asked us to take a step if we were white, another if we were male, to step back if we didn't have university degrees, and so on. The result was to create a “scale of privilege” that we were invited to discuss, sitting in a circle like at an Alcoholic’s Anonymous meeting. My refusal to admit guilt earned me eternal damnation.

This is how the new Ten Commandments reassigns each person to his racial or sexual identity, creating countless occasions of racism and sexism against the desired equality. Universities are tragically invaded by 20-year-old inquisitors (the worst) who make professors rewrite the history of ideas to correspond to the moral norm of today. This dictatorship of the small minority, to use the concept forged by Nassim Taleb, contributes to the slipping of a middle class, made up of honest people, into the nets of Fox News and Donald Trump.

It's worth reading last year’s best-seller, “Hillbilly Elegy.” J.D. Vance, a “hillbilly,” having escaped from his rural poor environment to attend Harvard Law School, tersely describes the degraded living conditions of the Irish proles, as well as the scorn they feel as victims of the media and of politics. They, too, have the right to form a community and to be proud of it, without being treated as “bigots” by New York Times editors or “deplorables” by former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

“Black lives matter,” chants one side. “White lives matter,” responds the other. Can’t everyone agree by simply declaring "lives matter"? Progressive intellectuals must urgently reconnect with the politics of the abstract individual and practice the tolerance that they preach. Otherwise, the divisions of race, sex, and class will continue to tear apart the United States, and, in turn, the whole of Western democracy.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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4 October, 2018

Patriarchy paradox: how equality reinforces stereotypes

The feminist push for equality has the opposite effect to that intended.  The societies without enforced equality are the ones where males and females are most alike.  It seems that the push for enforced equality actually frightens women off male roles.  They probably feel that they would be under too much pressure to perform well

We all know what is meant to happen when the genders become more equal. As women smash glass ceilings and open up education, other differences should disappear too.

Without the psychological shackles of being the second sex, women are free to think and behave as they want; to become physicists or chief executives, unfettered by outdated stereotypes.

Yet to the confusion of psychologists, we are seeing the reverse. The more gender equality in a country, the greater the difference in the way men and women think. It could be called the patriarchy paradox.

Two new studies have again demonstrated this counterintuitive result, meaning it is now one of the best-established findings in psychology, even if no one can properly explain it.

In a survey of about 130,000 people from a total of 22 countries, scientists from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden have shown that countries with more women in the workforce, parliament and education are also those in which men and women diverge more on psychological traits.

Separately, a research paper published by the online journal Plos One found that in countries ranked as less gender equal by the World Economic Forum, women were more likely to choose traditionally male courses such as the sciences or online study.

Erik Mac Giolla, the lead researcher in the first study, said that, if anything, the results found a bigger difference than in previous work. Personality is typically measured using the “big five” traits. These are openness, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and neuroticism. Women typically score higher on all of them but there is always overlap.

In China, which still scores low on gender parity, the personality overlap between men and women was found to be about 84 per cent. In the Netherlands, which is among the most gender equal societies, it turned out to be just 61 per cent.

“It seems that as gender equality increases, as countries become more progressive, men and women gravitate towards traditional gender norms,” Dr Mac Giolla said. “Why is this happening? I really don’t know.”

Steve Stewart-Williams, from the University of Nottingham, said that there was now too much evidence of this effect to consider it a fluke. “It’s not just personality,” he said. “The same counterintuitive pattern has been found in many other areas, including attachment styles, choice of academic speciality, choice of occupation, crying frequency, depression, happiness and interest in casual sex.

“It’s definitely a challenge to one prominent stream of feminist theory, according to which almost all the differences between the sexes come from cultural training and social roles.”

Dr Stewart-Williams, author of The Ape That Understood the Universe, said an explanation could be that those living in wealthier and more gender-equal societies had greater freedom to pursue their own interests and behave more individually, so magnifying natural differences.

Whatever the reason for the findings, he argued that they meant we should stop thinking of sex differences in society as being automatically a product of oppression. “These differences may be indicators of the opposite: a relatively free and fair society,” he said. If this contradicted some feminist analyses, he said it was also a surprise to pretty much everyone else too. “It seems completely reasonable to think that, in cultures where men and women are treated very differently and have very different opportunities, they’ll end up a lot more different than they would in cultures where they’re treated more similarly and have a similar range of opportunities.

“But it turns out that this has it exactly backwards. Treating men and women the same makes them different, and treating them differently makes then the same. I don’t think anyone predicted that. It’s bizarre.”

SOURCE






The hate mongers









Two police officers were murdered by a gang member in the small town of Brookhaven, Mississippi  

Saturday morning, two police officers were murdered by a gang member in the small town of Brookhaven, Mississippi.

It is notable that in the Washington Post coverage the next morning, and in that of other Leftmedia sources, there was no mention of the race of the officers or the assailant, and no photo of the assailant indicating race.

But if the black assailant had been shot to death rather than the white police officers, this event would have been national news with the race of the assailant and the officers front and center in that coverage. Clearly, however, the murder of two white cops by a black assailant doesn’t fit the WaPo’s disgraceful race-bait political narrative, and the lack of any mention of race in the paper’s coverage of this tragedy exposes that narrative.

As I noted last year in “The Second Amendment and Violence — A Bullet Point Reality Check,” in regard to interracial murders, the overwhelming number are black on white. If there is an epidemic of hate crime in America, it is not white-on-black but black-on-white and, of statistically greater significance, black-on-black. Astoundingly, black assailants commit more than 90% of murders of black victims.

According to the latest FBI data on homicides, black males make up 6% of the U.S. population but account for 39% of homicides.

Democrat politicos know that “Black Lives Matter” is just a diversionary political sound bite. If they actually cared about the “cause-and-effect” association between the epidemic of violence on the urban poverty plantations created by their catastrophically failed government welfare-state programs, they would adopt different policies.

Instead, whenever a black person is killed by non-black police officers, leftists are quick to blame it on “racist cops.”

In Brookhaven, Cpl. Zach Moak and Patrolman James White were shot to death by a violent black gang member — a product of Democrat social policies. Recently, Cpl. Moak posted a photo to social media with a note he recently wrote to comfort a young relative: “Cohen, while you’re sleeping, I will always be watching over you.”

Cpl. Moak and Patrolman White, RIP.

SOURCE






Australia: Hospitals target relatives of the sick -- raking in $45MILLION a year in parking fees

Australian public hospital patients tend to be poor so their relatives probably are too.  Ripping off the poor: Way to go!

The government is calling for hospitals to offer parking discounts after it was revealed they rake in millions of dollars each year.

Top hospitals in Melbourne are raking in up to $45.5million combined per year in parking fees.

The Alfred, St Vincent's and the Royal Melbourne have increased the price of parking by 25 per cent over three years, the Herald Sun reported.

Another hospital, Austin Health, said they take in $8.6million profit from parking.

They recorded a revenue of $11.5 million last year and spent $2.9 million on costs.

The government have asked hospitals across the nation to at least offer discounts for frequent visitors. 

A spokesman for Health Minister Jill Hennessy said they forced hospitals to publish their parking rates in a push for cheaper fares.

'We know that going to the hospital can be extremely distressing and the last thing we want is for patients and their family and friends forced to pay exorbitant carparking fees,' the spokesman told the publication.

In Victoria alone, several hospitals were found to be paying off long-term loans owed to the government with the car park revenue. 

Last month, Lady Cilento Children's Hospital came under fire for rising their parking prices. From October 2, prices at the Queensland hospital will sky-rocket from $30 to $35 for a full day of parking.

The cost of parking for two to three hours will also rise one dollar to $24.

In a letter to the families and visitors of frequent hospital patients, the hospital detailed the price increase and offered financial support for those eligible. 'Families experiencing financial hardship may be eligible for parking assistance, such as concessional parking or free public transport.

'We have a policy in place for concessional parking at a rate of $12 per day for parents, carers and families, where there is evident financial or social need.'    

In 2017,  The Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne raked in $10.3 million in car park revenue. The 2018 review won't be released until November.

SOURCE 

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

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

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

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3 October, 2018

A senior scientist has given what has been described as a "highly offensive" presentation about the role of women in physics, the BBC has learned

The Left cannot face the fact that it is they who systematically discriminate, which is what Prof. Strumia was pointing out

Notable string theorist Luboš Motl posts that "Science could maximize the usage of the talent pool by giving bright minds like Alessandro Strumia the freedom and tools to do research - and firing feminists and similar parasites whose net contribution to science is clearly negative".

Political correctness has never made a big impression in Italy.  Their longest serving Prime Minister, the popular Silvio Berlusconi was notoriously incorrect.  He even congratulated Obama on his suntan! Italians thought that was a great joke. Prof Alessandro Strumia is Italian


At a workshop organised by Cern, Prof Alessandro Strumia of Pisa University said that "physics was invented and built by men, it's not by invitation".

He said male scientists were being discriminated against because of ideology rather than merit.

He was speaking at a workshop in Geneva on gender and high energy physics.

Prof Strumia has since defended his comments, saying he was only presenting the facts.

Cern, the European nuclear research centre, described Prof Strumia's presentation as "highly offensive".

The centre, which discovered the Higgs Boson in 2012, has removed slides used in the talk from its website "in line with a code of conduct that does not tolerate personal attacks and insults".

Prof Strumia, who regularly works at Cern, presented the results of a study of published research papers from an online library.

He told his audience of young, predominantly female physicists that his results "proved" that "physics is not sexist against women. However the truth does not matter, because it is part of a political battle coming from outside".

He produced a series of graphs which, he claimed, showed that women were hired over men whose research was cited more by other scientists in their publications, which is an indication of higher quality.

He also presented data that he claimed showed that male and female researchers were equally cited at the start of their careers but men scored progressively better as their careers progressed.

Prof Strumia pointed to behavioural research which he suggested may account for the disparity.

One study, he told his audience, indicated that "men prefer working with things and women prefer working with people" and another, he claimed, suggested that there was a "difference even in children before any social influence".

Prof Strumia said that these conclusions "maybe not be fully right... (but) the opposite assumption of identical brains is ideology".

As evidence of discrimination against male researchers, Prof Strumia claimed that "Oxford University extends exam times for women's benefit" and "Italy offers free or cheaper university for female (research) students". He also said that he himself was overlooked for a job that he was more qualified for, which was given to a woman.

Dr Jessica Wade, a physicist at Imperial College London who was at the meeting, told BBC News that Prof Strumia's analysis was simplistic, drawing on ideas that had "long been discredited".

"It was really upsetting to those at the workshop," she said.

"There were young women and men exchanging ideas and their experiences on how to encourage more women into the subject and to combat discrimination in their careers. Then this man gets up, saying all this horrible stuff."

She added: "I don't understand how such a forward thinking organisation like Cern, which does so much to promote diversity in research, could have invited him to speak to young people just starting off in their research careers when his ideas are so well known."

In a statement, Cern - which currently has its first ever woman director-general - said that the organisers were not aware of the content of the talk prior to the workshop.

"Cern is a culturally diverse organisation bringing together people from dozens of nationalities. It is a place where everyone is welcome, and all have the same opportunities, regardless of ethnicity, beliefs, gender or sexual orientation," it said.

A Cern spokesman confirmed that there was a video recording of the presentation. Senior managers would decide whether to release part or all of it, it said.

When the BBC contacted Prof Strumia he said: "People say that physics is sexist, physics is racist. I made some simple checks and discovered that it wasn't, that it was becoming sexist against men and said so."

Last month, Prof Jocelyn Bell Burnell told the BBC she believed that unconscious bias against women prevented them from getting jobs in physics research.

In 2015, Nobel laureate Prof Tim Hunt resigned from his position at University College London after telling an audience of young female scientists at a conference in South Korea that the "trouble with girls" in labs was that "when you criticise them they cry".

SOURCE






Defending Kavanaugh Isn’t an Attack on Women

David Harsanyi   

As you may know, Brett Kavanaugh has already been found guilty of crimes against leftism, so now we’re just working our way backward from the ideological indictment to the personal one.

Nothing but a confession of wrongdoing and a surrender will stop Democrats from accusing Kavanaugh of being a sexual predator, despite, to this point, a dearth of evidence, a lack of corroborating witnesses, and increasingly flimsy charges.

Any efforts by Republicans, whether politically motivated or genuine (or both), to treat Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation seriously have only inspired Democrats and their allies to ratchet up the McCarthyism.

Kavanaugh, after all, is the perfect straw man to pay for the sins of all men, past and present. In this paranoid environment, erected on the bad faith of identity politics, any questions regarding credibility, motivation, substantiation, or due process can conveniently be dismissed as an attack on women.

If men, for example, question Ford, it’s a re-victimization, not only of the accuser but of every woman who’s ever been sexually assaulted. If a woman asks those questions—well, that would also be an insult to both the accuser and every woman who has ever been sexually assaulted.

For at least a week, Democrats have groused about a bunch of elderly white Republican men leading an “interrogation” of Ford. You remember the media lecturing us about the destructive “optics.” Ford’s lawyers, in their drawn-out, demand-filled negotiations, questioned whether their client could ever get an impartial hearing.

“When 11 men interrogate … ” begins a Politico headline over an article detailing liberal talking points on the perils of questioning a female witness. “The specter of Anita Hill looms over next week’s hearing on Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual assault allegation,” the story says.

(Incidentally, just as the unsubstantiated accusations against Clarence Thomas are now treated as inarguable truths by the press, Ford’s unsubstantiated accusations will be handled exactly the same, no matter what is said during these hearings.)

So the GOP hired an accomplished female sex crimes prosecutor, not a defense lawyer, who can’t be dismissed merely over her sex. But it’s hard to keep up with people who lack any consistent principles.

A New York Times op-ed titled “Man Up, Grassley. Question Blasey Ford Yourself,” reflects the newest positioning by Democrats on the judiciary committee, which argues that “[h]anding off the questioning of Dr. Ford to female staff members would be based on the risible idea that the questioning of sexual assault survivors is ‘women’s work.'”

Michael Bromwich, Ford’s lawyer, now argues that a female counsel “does not appear designed to provide Dr. Blasey Ford with fair and respectful treatment.”

So no men. And no women. Maybe all accusers should only be questioned by Democrats?

It seems to me that anyone interested in getting to the truth would prefer professional counsel over a bunch of politicians. Certainly, having lawyers leading the hearings might mitigate some of the grandstanding and characteristically useless questions that dominate congressional hearings. Unless, that is, it’s the optics that matter most.

“Dr. Blasey Ford isn’t on trial,” explained Sen. Kamala Harris, who’s already declared she believes the accuser, although Ford hasn’t testified or turned over any of her supposed corroborating evidence to the Judiciary Committee as of this writing, “This hearing is to determine whether Kavanaugh is qualified to sit on the Supreme Court. By hiring a private attorney to cross-examine Dr. Blasey Ford, Republicans are trying to intimidate her and avoid being held accountable by voters.”

Like Ford, former prosecutors like Harris will be grilling Kavanaugh—who, as far as I know, hasn’t made any demands to change the process regarding by whom or how he is “interrogated”—over every beer he’s ever consumed, every sexual interaction he’s engaged in, and every grounding his parents ever gave him in an effort to paint him as a deviant.

But one minute Democrats are telling us that Kavanaugh’s nomination is one of the most pivotal moments in American history. His lifetime nomination will lead to a real-world “Handmaid’s Tale,” back-alley abortions, and the end of democracy. Worse, now, Republicans are attempting to put a sexual predator on the patriarchal court to ensure all this happens.

And when conservatives point out the presumption of guilt is an un-American and authoritarian way for government (we’re not talking about public perception here) to conduct its business, the Kavanaugh hearing is instantaneously transformed into nothing but a mere “job interview.” Pick one.

This kind of transparent bad faith not only makes a joke of the process, it ensures that future legitimate allegations of sexual misconduct will be immediately dismissed by millions of skeptical Americans as politically motivated.

SOURCE






Trans movement has been hijacked by bullies and trolls

A worthy movement to help a minority group has become a form of McCarthyism in bad wigs and fishnets, thanks to a bunch of bullies, trolls and humourless misogynists. Feel too daunted to venture an opinion on anything “transgender”? Great! That’s exactly how the bullies like it. Dare to discuss the complexities and contradictions thrown up by their absolutist identity politics? If the screams of “transphobe!” don’t shut you up, perhaps a call to your employer demanding your scalp will. Or to the police, bleating hate crime.

Perhaps the greatest trick they’ve pulled so far is to convince parts of the population that transgender people are too fragile to walk past a poster bearing the word “woman”, while at the same time being so terrifying it’s better to say nothing at all than to risk offending them. It’s nonsense, of course.

The “they” I’m referring to is not transgender people. (Though the bullies will pretend that it is.) I’m referring to the “trans activists” — some sinister, most joyless, and more than a few who don’t even identify as transgender themselves — who delight in “transplaining” to the rest of us the rules of this new, glittering utopia, where spaces must be shared, safeguards dismantled, disagreement decreed to be hate speech, and women must not be allowed to gather to discuss laws that will affect them.

And that’s fine. Bullies will be bullies. Trolls will be trolls. It’s the cowardice of the institutional response that’s astonishing. Girlguiding. Politicians. Billboard companies. Credit Suisse. Goldsmiths University. All willing to capitulate quicker than you can say “transwomen are women”.

Last Friday, women were due to meet at Leeds Civic Hall to discuss the government consultation on gender identification. Trans activists falsely claimed the women were a hate group. No matter that it was a lie; that it was said was enough. Their meeting was cancelled at the 11th hour by Leeds city council. What did MPs and councillors say about this outrageous assault on democracy? Not a single word. Silence. This behaviour is an insult to trans people.

Yet organisations like Girlguiding trot out their platitudes and expel the volunteers left to square the circle of absurd, contradictory policies that they’ve outsourced to interest groups in the desire to win some quick LGBTQI+ points and a pat on the back from Stonewall.

It’s that kind of cowardice that is enabling smear campaigns against those trying to discuss what activists’ demands to recalibrate the human race will mean for everyone else. Like it or not, genitalia is at the heart of this. It would be nice, for everybody’s sake, if all these organisations began to show some balls.

SOURCE






Tas priests to be forced to report abuse

The Tasmanian government will make it mandatory for religious leaders to report child sex abuse, including when it's revealed during confession.

What idiocy.  The church has long outlasted such attempts.  Priests obey a higher law. Are they really going to put parish priests in prison?

Religious leaders in Tasmania will be forced to report child sexual abuse, including when it's revealed during confession.

Draft legislation, released by the state government on Tuesday, aims to break the seal of confession that has allowed Catholic priests an exemption from reporting allegations of abuse.

"It is important that all members of the community take responsibility for heinous crimes committed in the past ... and to make sure these serious crimes never happen again," Attorney-General Elise Archer said.

The proposed changes are in line with recommendations from the Royal Commission Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse.

Religious ministers who don't report child abuse could be jailed for life, Ms Archer said.

The law would broaden the Children, Young Persons and their Families Act to include religious ministers as mandatory reporters.

It would also exclude the sacrament of confession's privilege as a defence for not reporting abuse.

South Australia has passed laws requiring priests to report child abuse, while Victoria's Labor government has pledged to the same if re-elected in November.

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. 

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





2 October, 2018

Kavanaugh Interview Explains Why Feminist Left Hates Him

The interview Judge Brett Kavanaugh and his wife Ashley conducted with Fox News’ Martha McCallum explained a lot about why the Left hates him and why they are so anxious to defeat his elevation to the Supreme Court.

In one sentence: Because he’s the exact opposite of what they are.

That, more than Judge Kavanaugh’s repeated and unequivocal denials of the charges against him, was the most important takeaway from the interview.

Contrast Kavanaugh’s description of himself in high school and college, and that of the women who dated him and knew him well, with the feminist hatred of “the patriarchy” and “white male privilege” and the sexually commoditized alcohol-fueled party scene described in Christine Blasey Ford’s high school yearbooks from Holton Arms and you see the perfect target for feminist fury.

A week ago, as PJ Media’s Tyler O'Neil reported, two women who dated Kavanaugh — and knew him in high school — joined the 200 other women who defended the judge's high moral character. Ford deserves to be heard, but so do these women.

"He was always a perfect gentleman, and I vouch for him completely," Maura Fitzgerald said according to O’Neil’s reporting. "Brett Kavanaugh and I have been good friends since high school. I dated him in college and he was and is nothing like the person who has been described" by Christine Blasey Ford.

"He always conducted himself honorably with me at all times when we were together," Fitzgerald explained to O’Neil.

Another woman who dated Kavanaugh in high school, Maura Kane, agreed with Fitzgerald.

“I’ve been friends with Brett Kavanaugh for over 35 years, and dated him during high school," Kane explained. "In every situation where we were together he always respectful, kind and thoughtful. The accusations leveled against him in no way represent the decent young man I knew."

O’Neil reports Ms. Kane concluded her comments, "We remain good friends and I admire him as a husband, father and professional."

And to his great credit, Judge Kavanaugh backed-up their assessment of his character by explaining that:

I went to an all boys catholic high school, a judgment (ph) high school, where I was focused on academics and athletics, going to church every Sunday at Little Flower, working on my service projects, and friendship, friendship with my fellow classmates and friendship with girls from the local all girls Catholic schools...

I did not have sexual intercourse or anything close to sexual intercourse in high school or for many years thereafter. And the girls from the schools I went to and I were friends...

I was focused on trying to be number one in my class and being captain of the varsity basketball team and doing my service projects, going to church.

In other words, on being what the feminist Left hates.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway described the accusations of sexual misconduct lodged against Brett Kavanaugh are part of a "vast left-wing conspiracy," and our friend Heather MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute observed that, “It is feminist narcissism to put flimsy accusations of teenage impropriety ahead of a lifetime of achievement in the law. The priorities look like a revenge attack on a civilization deemed too male.”

A “vast left-wing conspiracy” and “a revenge attack on a civilization deemed too male” are apt descriptions of what has been going on since Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations against Judge Brett Kavanaugh surfaced.

Unfortunately, that analysis bodes very poorly for the future of American political culture and society as a whole because as we noted in our column “Democrats Have Nothing Left But Violence And Chaos To Defeat Brett Kavanaugh:”

Democrats, by their tactics in opposing Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination, have gone way beyond what has been, even for them, considered to be the base level of savagery and ruthlessness established in the Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas hearings. After this, there is nothing left but violence and chaos to enforce their will upon a country that rejected them at the ballot box.

SOURCE






Killing free speech about Muslims

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is trying to curb your freedom of speech -- yet again[1].

In June, the first "I 1st Islamic-European Forum for examining ways of cooperation to curb hate speech in the media," initiated by the OIC, ironically but sadly took place at the Press Club Brussels Europe.

The director of the information department of the OIC, Maha Mustafa Aqeel, explained that the forum is part of the OIC's media strategy[2] to counter "Islamophobia":

"Our strategy focuses on interacting with the media, academics, and experts on various relevant topics, in addition to engaging with Western governments to raise awareness, support the efforts of Muslim civil society bodies in the West, and engage the latter in developing plans and programs to counter Islamophobia."

Unlike almost all other intergovernmental organizations, the OIC wields both religious and political power. It describes itself as:

"...the second largest inter-governmental organization after the United Nations with a membership of 57 states spread over four continents. The Organization is the collective voice of the Muslim world... espousing all causes close to the hearts of over 1.5 billion Muslims of the world."

According to the OIC's Charter, one of the objectives of the organization is "To disseminate, promote and preserve the Islamic teachings and values based on moderation and tolerance, promote Islamic culture and safeguard Islamic heritage,"[3] as well as "To protect and defend the true image of Islam, to combat defamation of Islam and encourage dialogue among civilisations and religions."[4]

At the 11th Session of The Islamic Summit Conference (Session of The Muslim Ummah in The 21St Century) in Dakar, Senegal (13-14 March 2008), the member states of the OIC decided to "renew our pledge to work harder to make sure that Islam's true image is better projected the world over..."[5] and to "seek to combat an Islamophobia with designs to distort our religion"[6].

In 2008, the OIC published its 1st OIC Observatory Report on Islamophobia. This document listed a number of interactions that OIC representatives had with Western audiences -- including the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and academics and others at universities such as Georgetown and Oxford -- and stated:

"The point that was underscored in all these interactions was that Islamophobia was gradually gaining inroads into the mind-set of the common people in Western societies, a fact that has created a negative and distorted perception of Islam. It was emphasized that Muslims and Western societies would have to address the issue with a sense of commitment to ending Islamophobia... Islamophobia poses a threat not only to Muslims but to the world at large."[7]

Since that 1st OIC Observatory Report on Islamophobia, the OIC opened its Permanent Observer Mission to the EU (in 2013) and also cooperates with the OSCE and the Council of Europe "to combat stereotypes and misunderstandings and foster tolerance."[8] In December 2017, the OIC and the EU agreed on strengthening bilateral cooperation, when they held their second Senior Officials' Meeting (SOM) at the OIC headquarters, during which both sides agreed on "strengthening bilateral cooperation through concrete actions".

The OIC was concrete in its demands to the West. In a statement delivered at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the OIC Secretary General called for Europe to "Prosecute and punish for racial discrimination... through the framework of appropriate legislation" and also to "Strengthen existing legislation on discrimination and discriminatory and 'unequal treatment' adopted by EU council directives"[9].

Today, many Western European governments are prosecuting their own citizens for criticizing Islam or Muslims in, for example, Sweden, Germany and the UK, although it is unclear, whether or how much of this development can be directly attributed to the OIC.

In Sweden, for instance, pensioners especially have been prosecuted for making critical comments about Islam on Facebook. A 71-year-old woman referred to so-called unaccompanied minors as "bearded children" and said -- not inaccurately (here and here and here) -- that some seem to be "engaged in rape and demolishing their [asylum] homes". In February 2018, a Swedish court sentenced her to a fine for "incitement of hatred against an ethnic group".

In Germany, a journalist, Michael Stürzenberger, was handed a six-month suspended jail sentence for posting on his Facebook page a historical photo of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, shaking the hand of a senior Nazi official in Berlin in 1941. The prosecution accused Stürzenberger of "inciting hatred towards Islam" and "denigrating Islam" by publishing the photograph.

In addition to cultivating high-level contacts with Western actors, the OIC also is pursuing a comprehensive media strategy, agreed upon in Saudi Arabia in December 2016 and focused on the West.

This OIC media strategy claims as one of its goals:

"To increase the interaction with media outlets and professionals, while encouraging accurate and factual/portrayal of Islam. Emphasis should be directed at avoidance of any link or association of Islam with terrorism or the use of Islamophobic rhetoric in the war on terror, such as labeling criminal terrorists as 'Islamic' fascists, 'Islamic' extremists."[10]

Part of that strategy has already had much success across the Western world, where authorities and media do not want to label Muslim terrorists as Islamic, but routinely describe them as "mentally ill."

The OIC also notes that it would like media professionals and journalists "to develop, articulate and implement voluntary codes of conduct to counter Islamophobia"[11], while at the same time engaging Western governments "in creating awareness against the dangers of Islamophobia by addressing the responsibility of media on the issue"[12]. The OIC additionally states that it would like to train foreign journalists to "deal with the phenomenon of hatred and defamation of the Islamic religion"[13]-- as exemplified by the recent European-Islamic Forum, where attendees were introduced to the OIC's "Program for Training Media Professionals on Redressing Stereotypes about Islam".

As maintained earlier here, European journalists -- helped along by the EU -- are already very adept at censoring themselves, which means that the OIC's work is probably already more than half-done when it comes to Europe.

Finally, the OIC media strategy calls for fostering a "network of high profile western public figures supporting efforts to combat Islamophobia in politics, journalism and civil society" as well as teams of scholars academics, and celebrities, who will be the faces of the campaign.[14]

The OIC promises that it will also create a fund to support local anti-Islamophobia initiatives, and monitor media and place commentary and news stories in key Western publications.

It is important to note that in the years 1998-2011, the OIC sought to advance an agenda in the UN, banning "the defamation of religions", but the OIC gave up on the ban after realizing that there was not sufficient support there for the proposal. "We could not convince them," said Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the Turkish head of the IOC at the time. "The European countries don't vote with us, the United States doesn't vote with us."

Instead of pursuing the ban on defamation of religions, the OIC shifted its focus to UN Resolution 16/18 [17] which calls upon states to take concrete steps to prohibit discrimination on the basis of religion, "foster religious freedom and pluralism," and "counter religious profiling which is understood to be the invidious use of religion as a criterion in conducting questionings, searches and other law enforcement investigative procedures."

Andrew C. McCarthy, a critic of Resolution 16/18, maintains that:

"Sharia forbids any speech — whether true or not — that casts Islam in an unfavorable light, dissents from settled Muslim doctrine, has the potential to sow discord within the ummah, or entices Muslims to renounce Islam or convert to other faiths. The idea is not merely to ban gratuitous ridicule — which, by the way, sensible people realize government should not do (and, under our Constitution, may not do) even if they themselves are repulsed by gratuitous ridicule. The objective is to ban all critical examination of Islam, period..." [Emphasis in original]

The OICs highly ambitious plans to do away with freedom of speech go severely underreported in the West. Mainstream Western journalists do not appear to find it dangerous that their freedom of speech should be supervised by the OIC, while Western governments, far from offering any resistance, appear, perhaps for votes, to be cozily going along with everything.

More HERE





Corbyn denounces former UK Chief Rabbi as poll shows antisemitism eroding his support

UK Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn slammed Britain’s former chief rabbi on Sunday, calling his comments on Labour’s and his own antisemitism “beyond excessive” and “offensive.”

Lord Jonathan Sacks had criticized Corbyn for his claim that “Zionists” had “no sense of English irony” despite “having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives.”

Sacks referred to Corbyn’s remarks as “the most offensive statement made by a senior British politician since Enoch Powell’s 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. It was divisive, hateful, and like Powell’s speech it undermines the existence of an entire group of British citizens by depicting them as essentially alien.” Powell became notorious for his anti-immigrant stance and was widely derided as racist.

Sacks then explicitly called Corbyn “an antisemite.”

In an extensive interview with Andrew Marr on the BBC, Corbyn blasted Sacks, saying, “I do actually find that quite hurtful and quite offensive. … I will say to rabbi Sacks, with all due respect, that is beyond excessive.”

Marr asked Corbyn directly whether he was an antisemite, to which Corbyn declared, “No, absolutely not” and praised himself for his opposition to racism.

Corbyn noted that his party has now adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism and “that’s been included in our Labour party processes.” Labour originally left several clauses relating to Israel out of the definition, then, under severe pressure, adopted the full definition but with a caveat defending criticism of Israel.

Corbyn acknowledged that Jews have the right to define antisemitism, but when asked by Marr about an incident in which Jewish MP Margaret Hodge called him “an antisemite and a racist,” Corbyn appeared to backtrack, saying, “I completely and utterly reject the idea that I’m any kind of racist. … the matter with Margaret Hodge is closed.”

Asked about his initial defense of an antisemitic mural, Corbyn said, “It also has other symbols as well, doesn’t it?” Asked directly whether he considered the mural antisemitic, he demurred, “I think it should never have been put up.”

Pressed on his remark about Zionists lacking “English irony,” Corbyn claimed he was defending a pro-Palestinian speaker and the statement “was not intended to be antisemitic in any way.”

Told that Jewish Labour MP Luciana Berger had said that the remarks made her feel unwelcome in her own country, Corbyn said, “Our party has members of every faith and none, and it is an open, welcoming, and safe place.”

Marr then asked about Corbyn’s participation in a memorial service for Palestinian Black September terrorists, some of whom were involved in the notorious 1972 massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. Corbyn professed ignorance of the identities of those being honored, for whom he laid a wreath, claiming he was only honoring civilians killed in an Israeli raid on PLO headquarters.

“I thought it was right to take part in what is a very solemn commemoration of it, it wasn’t in any way commemorating Black September and I wasn’t even sure at that time who was in the cemetery beyond those who had been killed in the raid,” he said.

Asked whether he considered the establishment of Israel a “racist endeavor,” he replied, “No. … I think it’s right that people should be able to discuss the establishment of the State of Israel, but recognize the existence of the State of Israel … and not prevent that kind of debate.”

Claiming Israel is a racist state is considered antisemitic under the IHRA definition.

Pressed on whether he felt remorse over his statements and actions, Corbyn said no, and again praised himself as standing against racism.

With the Labour party’s annual conference about to take place, a new poll showed that Corbyn’s antisemitism scandals have undermined his support among the public.

Citing a recent YouGov poll, the UK’s Jewish Chronicle reported that 46 percent of respondents said they associated Labour with the topic of antisemitism. One third felt Corbyn himself was personally antisemitic, while 23 percent feel Labour is institutionally antisemitic. 35 percent of those likely to vote for Labour said they would be less likely to do so if it does not address the issue.

Almost half of respondents believed Labour has a serious problem with antisemitism. 58 percent felt Corbyn had dealt with the problem in an incompetent manner, and 52 percent felt he was dishonest in doing so.

SOURCE






Australia: Brother of Muslim accused of Christmas Day terror plot to blow up Melbourne 'believed Australians who refuse to comply with Sharia law should be executed or deported’

I know who should be executed or deported.  With their hate-filled religion, Muslims are just bad news


A man whose home was raided over an alleged terror plot in Melbourne two years ago believes people who don't sign a contract to live peacefully with Muslims should leave Australia or be executed.

Ibrahim Abbas is giving evidence against his younger brother Hamza Abbas, 23, cousin Abdullah Chaarani, 27, and friend Ahmed Mohamed, 25, who are on trial in the Supreme Court, accused of conspiring to prepare an attack in Melbourne's CBD on Christmas Day 2016.

Mr Abbas was arrested on December 22 that year over the plot, which prosecutors allege targeted Federation Square, St Paul's Cathedral and Flinders Street Station.

In a police interview played to jurors on Monday, Mr Abbas said 20 police came to his home and arrested him. He was quizzed about his support for Islamic State, the caliphate and Sharia Law, which he believed should be implemented in Australia for all Muslims and non-Muslims.

'They would have to sign a contract to live with, amongst Muslims in peace,' he said. 'Whoever does not sign the contract either leaves the country or is executed.'

Mr Abbas developed his views listening to scholars like Anwar al-Awlaki, an alleged IS recruiter.

He also watched 'major release' Islamic State videos designed to update watchers on recent events, attacks and show beheadings.

But he gave up social media and watching political videos around the time his home was previously raided.

'After I got raided I just felt like me being on social media is of no benefit to myself and my views,' he said, noting he had been banned from Facebook five times for posting pictures of Islamic State.

He did continue to use encrypted messaging app Telegram under username ShiaSlayer, but stopped about six months before his 2016 arrest.

Mr Abbas told police he was aware of instructional bomb making videos, and Mohamed had directed him to one about a month earlier.

'He knows that I'm, ah, a fan or I follow IS and - or I agree with their ideology, so he thought that it'd be nice to tell me,' he said.

The video gave instruction on using hydrogen peroxide to make explosives, a product Mr Abbas previously testified he had gone with some of the accused to buy at a chemist.

Mr Abbas also told police a visit to Federation Square with his brother, Chaarani and Mohamed was to get ice cream and walk around.

Last week, he told the court it was then that he suggested the men 'just picture a terrorist attack over here.'  The trial is continuing.

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 October, 2018

Cosmo editor says women have been sold a lie

GLOSSY magazines sell a “lie” that women can have it all, says Farrah Storr, editor of women’s title Cosmopolitan.

The 37-year-old revealed she gave up on having kids to land her dream job as the editor of the monthly women’s magazine.

In an interview with The Times magazine, Storr explained she and her husband abandoned IVF after admitting “her ovarian ache” was not strong enough to make the necessary sacrifices.

Storr - who also edited Women’s Health - explained that the idea of raising a family and having a successful career was — ironically — sold to her by former editor of Cosmo, Helen Gurley Brown who was known for inventing the term “having it all” in her famous book.

“In life you have to choose and choosing is uncomfortable,” Storr explained.

“It means opening the gate to one path but closing the gate to the other.”

“Few get to walk both paths,” she continued.

“Perhaps, like me, [Helen Gurley Brown] knew deep down the truth: you can’t have it all.

“Along the way, I had been forced to make uncomfortable choices.

“The notion that I could have or indeed would want it all was a lie. A lie sold to me by the very magazine I edited.”

“It hadn’t worked out that way,” she continued.

“The irony of choosing not to fulfil an ideal the very magazine I edited had created was not lost on me.”

Storr revealed how climbing to the top of her career had “stretched [her] to capacity”.

“Almost overnight, our lives became very full,” she explained.  “Getting to the top, I quickly discovered, was not so much about ambition and talent but more about hard graft.

“With two big careers and a marriage to nurture, the fabric of our lives felt stretched to capacity.”

“I was 36. I knew that to be an editor of a major magazine would take everything I had,” she continued. “But then, so too would being a mother.

“I wasn’t sure my ovarian ache was enough to ask one of us to put the handbrake on our dreams. I never made the IVF appointment.

“As I headed into my 37th year, we laid to rest any notions about a family and thus ‘having it all’.

“I could, I decided, be OK with having it all-ish.”

SOURCE





U.S. court upholds Louisiana restriction on abortion clinics

A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday upheld a Louisiana provision that requires doctors who perform abortions in the state to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.

In a 2-1 ruling from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, the judges said the Louisiana provision was different than one in Texas that was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016 because it would not put an undue burden on women.

“There is no evidence that any of the clinics will close as a result of the Act,” the appeals court said in its ruling.

The Texas law, whose language is similar to the Louisiana law, led to the closure of the majority of the state’s abortion clinics and the number of women forced to drive over 150 miles to seek abortions increased by 350 percent, the appeals court said.

The plaintiffs in the Louisiana suit, which included abortion provider Hope Medical Group for Women, were not immediately available for comment. The defendant, the secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, was also not available for comment.

Abortion has been a central issue in the U.S. Senate confirmation process for President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Abortion rights advocates worry that Kavanaugh, whose judicial record on abortion cases is thin, could change the balance on the court in favor of more restrictions, or even help overturn the court’s landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.

Some states are passing restrictive abortion laws, which they expect could be challenged in court but hope might ultimately win favor from a conservative Supreme Court.

The admitting privileges act in Louisiana has the same language as the one in Texas, which requires abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles (50 km) of their clinic. Supporters say the provision helps protect women by providing continuity of care.

Medical groups and abortion providers contend the requirement is unnecessary because complications from abortions are rare, and when they do occur, emergency room medical staff are well equipped to provide care.

They also said the provision is designed to shutter clinics, which is what happened in Texas.

In Texas, before the state’s 2013 law went into effect, there were about 40 licensed abortion facilities in the state, which has a population of about 27 million. After it went into effect, that number dropped to eight, the appeals court said.

The two judges who upheld the provision, both appointed by Republican presidents, ruled that the Louisiana law, “does not impose a substantial burden on a large fraction of women.” They said that only 30 percent of women seeking an abortion would face a potential burden of increased wait times.

In his dissent, Judge Patrick Higginbotham, also a Republican appointee, said the panel failed to meaningfully apply the undue burden test as articulated by the Supreme Court.

In a 5-3 decision written by Justice Stephen Breyer in 2016, the Supreme Court concluded the Texas law violated a woman’s right to an abortion and did not offer medical benefits sufficient to justify its existence.

SOURCE






Powerful Banks Take Aim at Lawful Gun Trade and Advocacy

At the direction of Governor Andrew Cuomo, New York’s Department of Financial Services has issued banks a stern warning: Dealing with the gun trade—and even gun-rights advocacy groups—may land you in legal hot water, including hefty penalties. With so much money at stake, major banks have caved to the pressure, though at least two institutions have stood their ground and been hit with fines in the millions of dollars. Others, such as Citibank and Bank of America, have jumped on the anti-gun bandwagon and driven it further, placing even more stringent restrictions on firearm-related bank transactions, explains Independent Institute Research Fellow Stephen P. Halbrook.

“Frustrated that democratically elected legislatures have rejected the demands of their favored interest groups, certain banks have decreed they will no longer do business with firearm manufacturers and dealers or allow others to do so,” Halbrook writes in an op-ed published in the New York Daily News, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Sacramento Bee, and elsewhere.

Some institutions have resisted the anti-gun zeitgeist, however. Wells Fargo Bank, Halbrook writes, “announced it would not get involved in political posturing and would do business with lawful companies.” Regarding New York’s penalties for banks that defy the state’s new edicts, he writes: “The ACLU filed a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that Cuomo’s policies ‘would set a dangerous precedent for advocacy groups across the political spectrum.’” Expect to hear more about this issue.

SOURCE





Latinos Not Singing Democrats' Tune?

That coming Democrat “blue wave” maybe more the stuff of leftist daydreams than future reality, especially with reports that one of the identity groups Dems are counting on to turn out in big numbers come November might not. While Democrat voter enthusiasm has been high among women, another demographic group Dems have historically counted on is showing signs of being less enthused: Latino voters.

Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report writes, “Latino voter drop-off in midterm elections is nothing new, but the thinking was that President Trump’s rhetoric and policies around immigration, especially the issue of separating children from their parents at the border, would be a catalyst for higher Latino engagement in 2018. At this point, however, recent polling by New York Times Upshot/Siena College and Monmouth University, suggests that’s not the case.”

This should not be that surprising given the fact that Trump’s booming economy has lowered unemployment levels to record lows across all demographic groups, especially among Hispanics. So with record-high employment coupled with the fact that Latinos in general are not culturally radical leftists, what would motivate Latinos to vote against Trump?

By the way, Trump’s rhetoric on securing the border has not alienated a majority of Latinos, a fact demonstrated by a recent special election in Texas. As Texas Monthly reported, “Republican Pete Flores, backed by endorsements from [Gov. Greg] Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, [Sen. Ted] Cruz and … John Cornyn, won a stunning upset victory over well-known Democrat Pete Gallego in a San Antonio special election to capture a state Senate seat. The election was to fill the remaining term of disgraced former state Senator Carlos Uresti, who resigned his seat after being convicted in federal court of eleven felony charges. This marks the first time a Hispanic Republican has been elected to the Texas Senate and the first time the Senate has had twenty-one Republican senators.”

We’d like to think that Hispanics appreciate a president who enforces the law. Millions of Hispanics are law-abiding and don’t appreciate what 22 million illegals have done to their communities.

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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(Isaiah 62:1)


A 19th century Democrat political poster below:








Leftist tolerance



Bloomberg



JFK knew Leftist dogmatism



-- Geert Wilders



The most beautiful woman in the world? I think she was. Yes: It's Agnetha Fältskog



A beautiful baby is king -- with blue eyes, blond hair and white skin. How incorrect can you get?


Kristina Pimenova, said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair



Enough said


Islamic terrorism isn’t a perversion of Islam. It’s the implementation of Islam. It is not a religion of the persecuted, but the persecutors. Its theology is violent supremacism.



There really is an actress named Donna Air. She seems a pleasant enough woman, though


What feminism has wrought:

There's actually some wisdom there. The dreamy lady says she is holding out for someone who meets her standards. The other lady reasonably replies "There's nobody there". Standards can be unrealistically high and feminists have laboured mightily to make them so


Some bright spark occasionally decides that Leftism is feminine and conservatism is masculine. That totally misses the point. If true, how come the vote in American presidential elections usually shows something close to a 50/50 split between men and women? And in the 2016 Presidential election, Trump won 53 percent of white women, despite allegations focused on his past treatment of some women.


Political correctness is Fascism pretending to be manners


Political Correctness is as big a threat to free speech as Communism and Fascism. All 3 were/are socialist.


The problem with minorities is not race but culture. For instance, many American black males fit in well with the majority culture. They go to college, work legally for their living, marry and support the mother of their children, go to church, abstain from crime and are considerate towards others. Who could reasonably object to such people? It is people who subscribe to minority cultures -- black, Latino or Muslim -- who can give rise to concern. If antisocial attitudes and/or behaviour become pervasive among a group, however, policies may reasonably devised to deal with that group as a whole


Black lives DON'T matter -- to other blacks. The leading cause of death among young black males is attack by other young black males


Psychological defence mechanisms such as projection play a large part in Leftist thinking and discourse. So their frantic search for evil in the words and deeds of others is easily understandable. The evil is in themselves. Leftist motivations are fundamentally Fascist. They want to "fundamentally transform" the lives of their fellow citizens, which is as authoritarian as you can get. We saw where it led in Russia and China. The "compassion" that Leftists parade is just a cloak for their ghastly real motivations


Occasionally I put up on this blog complaints about the privileged position of homosexuals in today's world. I look forward to the day when the pendulum swings back and homosexuals are treated as equals before the law. To a simple Leftist mind, that makes me "homophobic", even though I have no fear of any kind of homosexuals.

But I thought it might be useful for me to point out a few things. For a start, I am not unwise enough to say that some of my best friends are homosexual. None are, in fact. Though there are two homosexuals in my normal social circle whom I get on well with and whom I think well of.

Of possible relevance: My late sister was a homosexual; I loved Liberace's sense of humour and I thought that Robert Helpmann was marvellous as Don Quixote in the Nureyev ballet of that name.

Bible references on homosexuality: Jude 1:7; 1 Timothy 1:8-11; Mark 10:6-9; 1 Corinthians 6: 9-11; 1 Corinthians 7:2; Leviticus 18:32; Leviticus 20:13


I record on this blog many examples of negligent, inefficient and reprehensible behaviour on the part of British police. After 13 years of Labour party rule they have become highly politicized, with values that reflect the demands made on them by the political Left rather than than what the community expects of them. They have become lazy and cowardly and avoid dealing with real crime wherever possible -- preferring instead to harass normal decent people for minor infractions -- particularly offences against political correctness. They are an excellent example of the destruction that can be brought about by Leftist meddling.


I also record on this blog much social worker evil -- particularly British social worker evil. The evil is neither negligent nor random. It follows exactly the pattern you would expect from the Marxist-oriented indoctrination they get in social work school -- where the middle class is seen as the enemy and the underclass is seen as virtuous. So social workers are lightning fast to take children away from normal decent parents on the basis of of minor or imaginary infractions while turning a blind eye to gross child abuse by the underclass


Racial differences in temperament: Chinese are more passive even as little babies


The genetics of crime: I have been pointing out for some time the evidence that there is a substantial genetic element in criminality. Some people are born bad. See here, here, here, here (DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.12581) and here, for instance"


Gender is a property of words, not of people. Using it otherwise is just another politically correct distortion -- though not as pernicious as calling racial discrimination "Affirmative action"


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


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


So why do Leftists say "There is no such thing as right and wrong" when backed into a rhetorical corner? They say it because that is the predominant conclusion of analytic philosophers. And, as Keynes said: "Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back”


Children are the best thing in life. See also here.


Juergen Habermas, a veteran leftist German philosopher stunned his admirers not long ago by proclaiming, "Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter."


Consider two "jokes" below:

Q. "Why are Leftists always standing up for blacks and homosexuals?

A. Because for all three groups their only God is their penis"

Pretty offensive, right? So consider this one:

Q. "Why are evangelical Christians like the Taliban?

A. They are both religious fundamentalists"

The latter "joke" is not a joke at all, of course. It is a comparison routinely touted by Leftists. Both "jokes" are greatly offensive and unfair to the parties targeted but one gets a pass without question while the other would bring great wrath on the head of anyone uttering it. Why? Because political correctness is in fact just Leftist bigotry. Bigotry is unfairly favouring one or more groups of people over others -- usually justified as "truth".


One of my more amusing memories is from the time when the Soviet Union still existed and I was teaching sociology in a major Australian university. On one memorable occasion, we had a representative of the Soviet Womens' organization visit us -- a stout and heavily made-up lady of mature years. When she was ushered into our conference room, she was greeted with something like adulation by the local Marxists. In question time after her talk, however, someone asked her how homosexuals were treated in the USSR. She replied: "We don't have any. That was before the revolution". The consternation and confusion that produced among my Leftist colleagues was hilarious to behold and still lives vividly in my memory. The more things change, the more they remain the same, however. In Sept. 2007 President Ahmadinejad told Columbia university that there are no homosexuals in Iran.


It is widely agreed (with mainly Lesbians dissenting) that boys need their fathers. What needs much wider recognition is that girls need their fathers too. The relationship between a "Daddy's girl" and her father is perhaps the most beautiful human relationship there is. It can help give the girl concerned inner strength for the rest of her life.


A modern feminist complains: "We are so far from “having it all” that “we barely even have a slice of the pie, which we probably baked ourselves while sobbing into the pastry at 4am”."


Patriotism does NOT in general go with hostilty towards others. See e.g. here and here and even here ("Ethnocentrism and Xenophobia: A Cross-Cultural Study" by anthropologist Elizabeth Cashdan. In Current Anthropology Vol. 42, No. 5, December 2001).


The love of bureaucracy is very Leftist and hence "correct". Who said this? "Account must be taken of every single article, every pound of grain, because what socialism implies above all is keeping account of everything". It was V.I. Lenin


"An objection I hear frequently is: ‘Why should we tolerate intolerance?’ The assumption is that tolerating views that you don’t agree with is like a gift, an act of kindness. It suggests we’re doing people a favour by tolerating their view. My argument is that tolerance is vital to us, to you and I, because it’s actually the presupposition of all our freedoms. You cannot be free in any meaningful sense unless there is a recognition that we are free to act on our beliefs, we’re free to think what we want and express ourselves freely. Unless we have that freedom, all those other freedoms that we have on paper mean nothing" -- SOURCE


RELIGION:

Although it is a popular traditional chant, the "Kol Nidre" should be abandoned by modern Jewish congregations. It was totally understandable where it originated in the Middle Ages but is morally obnoxious in the modern world and vivid "proof" of all sorts of antisemitic stereotypes


What the Bible says about homosexuality:

"Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; It is abomination" -- Lev. 18:22

In his great diatribe against the pagan Romans, the apostle Paul included homosexuality among their sins:

"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.... Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them" -- Romans 1:26,27,32.

So churches that condone homosexuality are clearly post-Christian


Although I am an atheist, I have great respect for the wisdom of ancient times as collected in the Bible. And its condemnation of homosexuality makes considerable sense to me. In an era when family values are under constant assault, such a return to the basics could be helpful. Nonetheless, I approve of St. Paul's advice in the second chapter of his epistle to the Romans that it is for God to punish them, not us. In secular terms, homosexuality between consenting adults in private should not be penalized but nor should it be promoted or praised. In Christian terms, "Gay pride" is of the Devil


The homosexuals of Gibeah (Judges 19 & 20) set in train a series of events which brought down great wrath and destruction on their tribe. The tribe of Benjamin was almost wiped out when it would not disown its homosexuals. Are we seeing a related process in the woes presently being experienced by the amoral Western world? Note that there was one Western country that was not affected by the global financial crisis and subsequently had no debt problems: Australia. In September 2012 the Australian federal parliament considered a bill to implement homosexual marriage. It was rejected by a large majority -- including members from both major political parties


Religion is deeply human. The recent discoveries at Gobekli Tepe suggest that it was religion not farming that gave birth to civilization. Early civilizations were at any rate all very religious. Atheism is mainly a very modern development and is even now very much a minority opinion


"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" - Isaiah 5:20 (KJV)


I think it's not unreasonable to see Islam as the religion of the Devil. Any religion that loves death or leads to parents rejoicing when their children blow themselves up is surely of the Devil -- however you conceive of the Devil. Whether he is a man in a red suit with horns and a tail, a fallen spirit being, or simply the evil side of human nature hardly matters. In all cases Islam is clearly anti-life and only the Devil or his disciples could rejoice in that.

And there surely could be few lower forms of human behaviour than to give abuse and harm in return for help. The compassionate practices of countries with Christian traditions have led many such countries to give a new home to Muslim refugees and seekers after a better life. It's basic humanity that such kindness should attract gratitude and appreciation. But do Muslims appreciate it? They most commonly show contempt for the countries and societies concerned. That's another sign of Satanic influence.

And how's this for demonic thinking?: "Asian father whose daughter drowned in Dubai sea 'stopped lifeguards from saving her because he didn't want her touched and dishonoured by strange men'

And where Muslims tell us that they love death, the great Christian celebration is of the birth of a baby -- the monogenes theos (only begotten god) as John 1:18 describes it in the original Greek -- Christmas!


No wonder so many Muslims are hostile and angry. They have little companionship from women and not even any companionship from dogs -- which are emotionally important in most other cultures. Dogs are "unclean"


Some advice from Martin Luther: Esto peccator et pecca fortiter, sed fortius fide et gaude in christo qui victor est peccati, mortis et mundi: peccandum est quam diu sic sumus. Vita haec non est habitatio justitiae


On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.


I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!


Germaine Greer is a stupid old Harpy who is notable only for the depth and extent of her hatreds


Even Mahatma Gandhi was profoundly unimpressed by Africans



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To be continued ....
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