Blasphemy Revisited
How Scotland’s New Moral Orthodoxy, and Blasphemy Laws Are a Mortal Danger to Us All
By Edward Persimmon
The BFD
Justice Minister Andrew Little declared back in March that a review of New Zealand’s hate speech law was in its final stages. It is only the COVID-19 outbreak which has prevented it from being enacted.
In order to usher in any new religious blasphemy legislation the old must first be set aside. This was done on 11 March 2019 with the repeal of section 123 of the Crimes Act 1961, which parliament voted for unanimously. This means that all National MPs voted for it and one can only wonder how they could have been so stupid.
The Nats surely are to Labour as an ‘enabler’ is to a fattie, causing her to go on gorging herself. In Labour’s case, with ‘progressive’ socialism.
The idea that is always peddled by progressives when sweeping away the old order is that it ‘no longer reflects the kind of society we live in,’ and everyone generally says, ‘fair enough,’ and acquiesces – unaware of the new and untold horrors which are about to unfold. You would think that the National Party would learn. You would think that we all would learn.
Section 123 of the Crimes Act was an entirely harmless relic of the past. Its successor which, make no mistake about it, will be introduced and subsequently passed, represents the greatest threat to liberty this country has seen since the last great act to eradicate liberty – the Labour lockdown.
First, some background. The offence of blasphemy in its developed form was not intended to defend God. A 1917 English legal case established the principle of decorum injuriae diis curae – that God can look after himself. This is indeed true. The law was rather intended for the protection of society against ‘provocative rhetoric’ and other ills.
The law relating to blasphemy was received into New Zealand in 1840 along with all other English common law offences.
Showing posts with label Hard Left. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hard Left. Show all posts
Tuesday, 12 May 2020
Wednesday, 11 December 2019
Why Does the Left Appear to Hate the Sallies?
The Absurd Crusade against the Salvation Army
By Dennis Prager
National Review Online
We all know some individuals who are so obviously good and kind that we are certain if anyone were to dislike them, that’s all we would need to know about the person. We would immediately assume he or she is a bad person. To hate the manifestly good is a sure sign of being bad.
Such is the case regarding the Left’s hatred of the Salvation Army. You don’t have to be a Christian — I am not — to appreciate the goodness of the people who run and work for the Salvation Army. They devote their lives to helping the poorest, the saddest, the loneliest and the most troubled among us — completely irrespective of race, gender, transgender identity, faith or no faith. And they do it for almost no money. They do it because of their Christian faith.
They provide these downtrodden people with not only food and shelter but also human warmth and love. And they offer the people they care for the one thing most likely to get them out of their predicament: meaning. They offer it; they do not coerce it. And while the vehicle for this meaning — Christian faith — may not be your faith or mine, so what? It takes a truly narrow-minded bigot to want to deprive people of meaning just because that meaning is rooted in faith or in a faith other than their own.
Yet, leftists — most especially LGBTQ groups, which spread a remarkable amount of hate in the name of “love” — seek to crush The Salvation Army.
By Dennis Prager
National Review Online
We all know some individuals who are so obviously good and kind that we are certain if anyone were to dislike them, that’s all we would need to know about the person. We would immediately assume he or she is a bad person. To hate the manifestly good is a sure sign of being bad.
Such is the case regarding the Left’s hatred of the Salvation Army. You don’t have to be a Christian — I am not — to appreciate the goodness of the people who run and work for the Salvation Army. They devote their lives to helping the poorest, the saddest, the loneliest and the most troubled among us — completely irrespective of race, gender, transgender identity, faith or no faith. And they do it for almost no money. They do it because of their Christian faith.
They provide these downtrodden people with not only food and shelter but also human warmth and love. And they offer the people they care for the one thing most likely to get them out of their predicament: meaning. They offer it; they do not coerce it. And while the vehicle for this meaning — Christian faith — may not be your faith or mine, so what? It takes a truly narrow-minded bigot to want to deprive people of meaning just because that meaning is rooted in faith or in a faith other than their own.
Yet, leftists — most especially LGBTQ groups, which spread a remarkable amount of hate in the name of “love” — seek to crush The Salvation Army.
Tuesday, 4 June 2019
It's All About Being Virtuous
It Starts With Screeching Lefties Calling Us Nazis...
It Ends in a Police State
Peter Hitchens
Mail On Sunday
I am sick of the self-righteousness of the Left. Their nasty demonstrations about climate change, and their screeches of ‘Nazi!’ at any opponent, are not just wrong, but warnings of a police state to come.
When they gum up London, stopping other people getting to work or going home, with beatific smirks on their faces, they are punishing us for not being as fanatical as they are or – worse – not even agreeing with them.
Their protests are not against the Government, which long ago caved in to the Green fanatics, and goes around blowing up perfectly good coal-fired power stations to please them. They are against us, for not being keen enough on their intolerant cult.
When they gum up London, stopping other people getting to work or going home, with beatific smirks on their faces, they are punishing us for not being as fanatical as they are or – worse – not even agreeing with them .
Pictured, climate activists at an Extinction Rebellion demonstration in Parliament Square, London.
They aren’t as stupid as they look. They know that if their policies are adopted we will be reduced to severe poverty, living cold, dark and limited lives as the power fails and half the transport system packs up. Many of them will admit in private that, if they are by any chance right and the world is really doomed, the measures they keep calling for will not in fact save us. This is perfectly true. China’s huge coal-burning economic expansion completely cancels out all the economy-destroying measures this country has ever taken to reduce its carbon footprint.
They don’t care. Like every other ‘End of the World is at hand’ cult, they yearn for the wrath to come and want to see non-believers suffer. They think their self-assessed goodness will save them, while the rest of us deservedly drown, or are perhaps eaten by polar bears fleeing ever southwards.
It is all about being virtuous, and better than other people, so they can look down on them.
It Ends in a Police State
Peter Hitchens
Mail On Sunday
I am sick of the self-righteousness of the Left. Their nasty demonstrations about climate change, and their screeches of ‘Nazi!’ at any opponent, are not just wrong, but warnings of a police state to come.
When they gum up London, stopping other people getting to work or going home, with beatific smirks on their faces, they are punishing us for not being as fanatical as they are or – worse – not even agreeing with them.
Their protests are not against the Government, which long ago caved in to the Green fanatics, and goes around blowing up perfectly good coal-fired power stations to please them. They are against us, for not being keen enough on their intolerant cult.
When they gum up London, stopping other people getting to work or going home, with beatific smirks on their faces, they are punishing us for not being as fanatical as they are or – worse – not even agreeing with them .
Pictured, climate activists at an Extinction Rebellion demonstration in Parliament Square, London.
They aren’t as stupid as they look. They know that if their policies are adopted we will be reduced to severe poverty, living cold, dark and limited lives as the power fails and half the transport system packs up. Many of them will admit in private that, if they are by any chance right and the world is really doomed, the measures they keep calling for will not in fact save us. This is perfectly true. China’s huge coal-burning economic expansion completely cancels out all the economy-destroying measures this country has ever taken to reduce its carbon footprint.
They don’t care. Like every other ‘End of the World is at hand’ cult, they yearn for the wrath to come and want to see non-believers suffer. They think their self-assessed goodness will save them, while the rest of us deservedly drown, or are perhaps eaten by polar bears fleeing ever southwards.
It is all about being virtuous, and better than other people, so they can look down on them.
Thursday, 30 May 2019
David Seymour Stands Up For Free Speech
On This Matter, We Stand With Him
David Seymour's Defence and Worthy Justification
“Let it be known, the public beating has not gone out of fashion.” So goes the quote from the movie Thank You for Smoking, as politicians attack the wildly unpopular protagonist, a tobacco lobbyist.
I’ve found those words to be true over the past week and it has strengthened my belief in the importance of freedom of expression.
To recap, I was asked about Green MP Golriz Ghahraman’s stance on free speech. In her own words “it is vital that the public is involved in a conversation about what speech meets the threshold for being regulated, and what mix of enforcement tools should be used.”
I believe that such an idea, and by extension politicians who promote it, is a danger to our free society. When asked about Ghahraman’s position, in the middle of a 15-minute radio interview, I responded that I thought she was a ‘menace to freedom.’
What has followed has been extraordinary.
David Seymour's Defence and Worthy Justification
“Let it be known, the public beating has not gone out of fashion.” So goes the quote from the movie Thank You for Smoking, as politicians attack the wildly unpopular protagonist, a tobacco lobbyist.
I’ve found those words to be true over the past week and it has strengthened my belief in the importance of freedom of expression.
To recap, I was asked about Green MP Golriz Ghahraman’s stance on free speech. In her own words “it is vital that the public is involved in a conversation about what speech meets the threshold for being regulated, and what mix of enforcement tools should be used.”
I believe that such an idea, and by extension politicians who promote it, is a danger to our free society. When asked about Ghahraman’s position, in the middle of a 15-minute radio interview, I responded that I thought she was a ‘menace to freedom.’
What has followed has been extraordinary.
Wednesday, 29 May 2019
The Xenophobia of Two Radical MP's
"Sit Down, and Shut Up"
The radical Left wants free speech for itself to be maintained at all costs. It also wants free speech to be denied every other occupant of the public square.
Karl Du Fresne, a serious journalist, has written a piece which hoists upon the proverbial petard some of our worst agitators against free speech. He is reflecting upon the behaviour of the "sit down, and shut up" brigade in the aftermath of the Christchurch shootings.
PERHAPS all . . . can be forgiven as a collective rush of blood to the head, brought about by the shock of the appalling events of March 15. But far less excusable is the manner in which prominent people, many of them on the public payroll, exploited the deaths of 50 innocent people to further an ideological agenda.
By this I mean people like the Green MPs Golruz Ghahraman and Marama Davidson. In Parliament, Ghahraman blamed unnamed fellow MPs and breakfast radio “shock jocks” – presumably meaning NewstalkZB’s Mike Hosking – for the “hate speech” that she claims led to the killings. (Hosking, incidentally, is another bête-noire of the Left, and for the same reason as Jordan Peterson: his daily commentaries connect with a large number of New Zealanders who are not racist or xenophobic and reject extremist ideology of both the Right and Left.)
Ghahraman, a highly accomplished self-publicist, was in such a rush to apportion blame that she wasn’t prepared to wait before making a considered response based on facts and evidence rather than supposition, assumption and prejudice. And why should she, when it was so much easier to make sweeping, unsubstantiated and emotive assertions about the killings being caused by “hate speech” (undefined), “white supremacy” and “gratuitous racism”?
Wednesday, 1 May 2019
Left-Wing Choristers Exposed
Sir Roger Scruton Just Won a Landmark Victory in the Culture Wars
Conservative philosopher Sir Roger Scruton has won a spectacular victory against the New Statesman – the left-wing magazine which interviewed him and then tried to smear him as a racist, bigot and anti-Semite.
The smear — a result of selective editing of the interview and malicious tweeting by the magazine’s deputy editor George Eaton — cost Scruton his job on a government advisory body. Among those who initially condemned Scruton for his alleged remarks were various Conservatives, including MPs Tom Tugendhat, Johnny Mercer and James Brokenshire, and former Chancellor of the Exchequer turned freesheet editor George Osborne.
But now journalist Douglas Murray has got hold of the original interview recording and analysed the transcripts in the Spectator. What becomes immediately clear is that Scruton was badly misrepresented. Not only is Eaton shown repeatedly trying to provoke Scruton into voicing provocative opinions he doesn’t actually hold, but it is also evident that the version of events Eaton subsequently presented in a series of trolling tweets bears little relation to Scruton’s measured, thoughtful discourse during the interview.
Saturday, 23 February 2019
Marching Leftward
Swamp Fever
David Farrar of Kiwiblog reckons there is a fair chance Donald Trump will get re-elected come 2020. His argument rests upon the "quality" of his opposition.
I’m often asked if Donald Trump will win the 2020 election. I got it wrong in 2016 so I am more cautious now. I say he shouldn’t be able to win, but you can never underestimate the ability of the Democrats to select the wrong candidate and screw up. So at present I give him a 40% chance of re-election. If the Democrats keep pushing the Green New Deal, I give him a 90% chance plus they retake the House and get over 60 seats in the Senate.There is no doubt that the Democrats have been veering left for over ten years. Long ago they gave up controlling the centre ground. Why? Well, it's chic to be radically left. One gets all the encouragement one would need from the media to push that barrow. Once the media anoints someone as an exciting, new, headline-worthy candidate within a nanosecond all their left wing opponents (within the Democratic party) try to out-do them. Think of a murmuration of starlings changing direction together in an instant whilst in mid flight.
The end result is a constant policy creep leftward. Once upon a time Bernie Sanders was (in Democrat eyes) a serious contender for the Presidency. Now he is too staid. He is yesterday's man. Instead we have a phalanx of radical-chic contenders, each attempting to cut-through by being more extreme or more radical than the one who grabbed headlines the previous day.
Marc Thiessen, writing in the Washington Post reviews the brouhaha roiling through Democrat ranks as a result of the radical left's vision for the United States. His conclusion:
Tuesday, 21 August 2018
Howling Bigotry Laid Bare
Liberal Left a Howling Contradiction
Karl du Fresne
Stuff
If the furore over the Canadians Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux achieved nothing else, it at least destroyed the myth of the so-called liberal Left.
Extremists on the Left have been misappropriating that honourable word "liberal" for decades, aided and abetted by news media that seemed not to recognise that "liberal Left" had become a howling contradiction. A handful of genuinely liberal Leftists still exist, and some were brave enough to speak out in favour of free speech. But those few exceptions aside, the Left now stands exposed as the antithesis of classical liberalism.
No-one should be in any doubt that free speech, a fundamental hallmark of liberal democracy, is under concerted attack. We have confirmation of that from Massey University's Australian vice-chancellor Jan Thomas, who has introduced to New Zealand the repugnant practice known elsewhere as no-platforming – denying speaking rights to anyone who doesn't meekly fall into line with leftist orthodoxy.
Massey vice-chancellor Jan Thomas has laid bare the authoritarian bigotry that thrives in institutions which once stood for intellectual freedom., says Karl du Fresne.
Thomas vetoed a talk by Don Brash, supposedly on the basis that it raised safety issues, but her accompanying comments made it clear she was swayed by personal ideological objections.
In any case, who was likely to pose a safety risk? Certainly not Brash, who is unfailingly civil even when under venomous attack, and whose proposed speech had nothing to do with the contentious issues Thomas referred to. The risk, if there was one, would have come from those who want to shut him down. I believe the Left targets Brash not because he holds extreme views, but for precisely the opposite reason: a large number of New Zealanders agree with him. That makes him a potent threat.
But Thomas may have done us all a favour. She has laid bare the authoritarian bigotry that thrives in institutions which once stood for intellectual freedom.
Karl du Fresne
Stuff
If the furore over the Canadians Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux achieved nothing else, it at least destroyed the myth of the so-called liberal Left.
Extremists on the Left have been misappropriating that honourable word "liberal" for decades, aided and abetted by news media that seemed not to recognise that "liberal Left" had become a howling contradiction. A handful of genuinely liberal Leftists still exist, and some were brave enough to speak out in favour of free speech. But those few exceptions aside, the Left now stands exposed as the antithesis of classical liberalism.
No-one should be in any doubt that free speech, a fundamental hallmark of liberal democracy, is under concerted attack. We have confirmation of that from Massey University's Australian vice-chancellor Jan Thomas, who has introduced to New Zealand the repugnant practice known elsewhere as no-platforming – denying speaking rights to anyone who doesn't meekly fall into line with leftist orthodoxy.
Massey vice-chancellor Jan Thomas has laid bare the authoritarian bigotry that thrives in institutions which once stood for intellectual freedom., says Karl du Fresne.
Thomas vetoed a talk by Don Brash, supposedly on the basis that it raised safety issues, but her accompanying comments made it clear she was swayed by personal ideological objections.
In any case, who was likely to pose a safety risk? Certainly not Brash, who is unfailingly civil even when under venomous attack, and whose proposed speech had nothing to do with the contentious issues Thomas referred to. The risk, if there was one, would have come from those who want to shut him down. I believe the Left targets Brash not because he holds extreme views, but for precisely the opposite reason: a large number of New Zealanders agree with him. That makes him a potent threat.
But Thomas may have done us all a favour. She has laid bare the authoritarian bigotry that thrives in institutions which once stood for intellectual freedom.
Monday, 23 July 2018
Parody of Parodies
‘I Wish I’d Never Had My Daughter . . . '
Because, Climate Change!
James Delingpole
Breitbart News
No, this isn’t the standfirst from an Onion parody of the kind of bleeding-heart, enviro-doom drivel they like to run every now and then in the New York Times.
This is an actual opinion piece from the actual New York Times, written by an actual English professor at the University of Notre Dame; an actual professor who presumably – this is where it gets really scary – teaches actual undergraduates…
His name is Roy Scranton.
Here is a taste of his jottings – together with my commentary. Painful though it may be, I think it’s important that we remind ourselves now and again of the idiocies which liberals read and swallow unquestioningly. It’s why the gulf between liberals and conservatives is so vast. And why, probably, there can never be peace between us because our truth and their “truths” might just as well exist in parallel universes.
Scranton:
I cried two times when my daughter was born. First for joy, when after 27 hours of labor the little feral being we’d made came yowling into the world, and the second for sorrow, holding the earth’s newest human and looking out the window with her at the rows of cars in the hospital parking lot, the strip mall across the street, the box stores and drive-throughs and drainage ditches and asphalt and waste fields that had once been oak groves. A world of extinction and catastrophe, a world in which harmony with nature had long been foreclosed. My partner and I had, in our selfishness, doomed our daughter to life on a dystopian planet, and I could see no way to shield her from the future.
Because, Climate Change!
James Delingpole
Breitbart News
No, this isn’t the standfirst from an Onion parody of the kind of bleeding-heart, enviro-doom drivel they like to run every now and then in the New York Times.
This is an actual opinion piece from the actual New York Times, written by an actual English professor at the University of Notre Dame; an actual professor who presumably – this is where it gets really scary – teaches actual undergraduates…
His name is Roy Scranton.
Here is a taste of his jottings – together with my commentary. Painful though it may be, I think it’s important that we remind ourselves now and again of the idiocies which liberals read and swallow unquestioningly. It’s why the gulf between liberals and conservatives is so vast. And why, probably, there can never be peace between us because our truth and their “truths” might just as well exist in parallel universes.
Scranton:
I cried two times when my daughter was born. First for joy, when after 27 hours of labor the little feral being we’d made came yowling into the world, and the second for sorrow, holding the earth’s newest human and looking out the window with her at the rows of cars in the hospital parking lot, the strip mall across the street, the box stores and drive-throughs and drainage ditches and asphalt and waste fields that had once been oak groves. A world of extinction and catastrophe, a world in which harmony with nature had long been foreclosed. My partner and I had, in our selfishness, doomed our daughter to life on a dystopian planet, and I could see no way to shield her from the future.
Saturday, 21 July 2018
More Reaction to Mayor Goff's Self-Righteousness Priggery
Since When?
Auckland Town Hall Decreed Closed To Divisive Events
John Roughan
NZ Herald
Like many of us this week no doubt, I've put the names Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux into the search engine, curious to find out why the Mayor of Auckland considers their views too dangerous to be given a public platform in our fair city.
The search turned up video clips of Southern, a young Canadian holding a microphone in the middle of a demonstration. A woman with a nose ring was berating her for insisting there are only two genders in this world. Another clip showed her invading a woman's march against sexual harassment. She was asking the marchers whether they wanted "women's rights or Islam?"
She opposes unchecked immigration, particularly if it's Islamic, and she has exposed something that worried me when an Economist report mentioned in passing that Italian naval craft were going almost to the North African coast to pick up "refugees" who had only to jump out of a boat.
Southern is essentially a journalist who asks unwelcome questions, questions that lurk in the mind of probably all of thinking people and challenge the dominant sympathies of the mass media today.
Molyneux is an intellectually heavier proposition.
Auckland Town Hall Decreed Closed To Divisive Events
John Roughan
NZ Herald
Like many of us this week no doubt, I've put the names Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux into the search engine, curious to find out why the Mayor of Auckland considers their views too dangerous to be given a public platform in our fair city.
The search turned up video clips of Southern, a young Canadian holding a microphone in the middle of a demonstration. A woman with a nose ring was berating her for insisting there are only two genders in this world. Another clip showed her invading a woman's march against sexual harassment. She was asking the marchers whether they wanted "women's rights or Islam?"
She opposes unchecked immigration, particularly if it's Islamic, and she has exposed something that worried me when an Economist report mentioned in passing that Italian naval craft were going almost to the North African coast to pick up "refugees" who had only to jump out of a boat.
Southern is essentially a journalist who asks unwelcome questions, questions that lurk in the mind of probably all of thinking people and challenge the dominant sympathies of the mass media today.
Molyneux is an intellectually heavier proposition.
Thursday, 19 July 2018
Chris Trotter Understands
Free Speech Denialism Is Fascism In Action.
Chris Trotter is old-style, principled Left. Like many of us, he is verging on being lumped in with the dinosaurs. On the other side of the Leftist divide is the present Mayor of Auckland, Phil Goff who seems to enjoy ruling ex-cathedra like an old-style absolutist monarch. His latest outrage is to declare that all city council buildings, including its tax-paid public venues, shall be off limits to anyone Phil decides is a right wing extremist.
This places Goff so far to the Left that he is now holding hands with the Fascists. When it comes to human ideologies there are few options. Historian Richard Overy has written a book entitled, The Dictators. [The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia (London: Allen Lane/Penguin, 2004)]. He argued in compelling fashion that between Hitler (ostensibly Far Right Fascist) and Stalin (ostensibly Far Left Communist) the practical and actual difference was cigarette paper thin.
Trotter is upset at the intolerant totalitarian tendencies of today's Left. Increasingly one has to lump the "Politically Correct" Left (like Goff) with the Hard Left extremists. Or, to put it another way, amongst the Left, the mainstream is now the extreme when viewed through the lens of history.
Thursday, 12 July 2018
Beyond Reasoned Discourse
Left-wing Zealots are Threatening our Freedom
Paul Embery
UnHerd, UK
As a socialist and trade unionist, I despair of the modern Left and its propensity to do everything in its power to alienate the very people for whom it purports to speak. So wrong is its stance on so many social and moral questions, that you wonder whether it even wants the votes of traditional left-wing voters anymore. Perhaps it would be happier as a self-indulgent protest lobby, its ranks of middle-class, city-dwelling, bohemian types smoking their weed and listening to Bob Dylan tracks.
These people preach peace and harmony, while reciting the mantra of ‘Live and let live’ and speaking of the need for ‘tolerance’, ‘diversity’ and ‘respect’ – all the usual buzzwords. Except that in practice they do the precise opposite of these things, openly frowning upon the lifestyle choices of working-class folk, while displaying a sneering intolerance towards their opinions and demanding rigid conformity of political thought.
The modern Left’s contempt for alternative opinions derives not only from an innate sense of its own moral superiority, but also from the absurd notion that to promote one way of living is to somehow discriminate against ‘the other’ Nowhere is this illustrated more starkly than in their attempts to be the moral arbiters on the question of what may be considered acceptable language in public discourse.
We are now a long way down the road to the modern Left’s desired destination – a place where the expression of traditional views that are still held by millions and were relatively mainstream as recently as 20 years ago are, to all intents and purposes, proscribed.
For example, try discussing with these people – the self-appointed guardians of enlightened society – the idea that immigration levels are too high and should be reduced. You’re a xenophobe. Try saying that kids are better served being raised by two parents, one of each sex. You’re a homophobic bigot. Don’t believe someone with the anatomy of a man can suddenly become a woman just because he says he is? Transphobe. Believe multiculturalism, the active promotion of separation and difference, has been a monumental failure? Racist. (A bizarre one this, since one can of course be a committed multiracialist while disavowing multiculturalism.)
The modern Left’s contempt for alternative opinions derives not only from an innate sense of its own moral superiority, but also from the absurd notion that to promote one way of living – to suggest that society benefits more from one taking one path rather than another – is to somehow discriminate or show prejudice against ‘the other’.
Paul Embery
UnHerd, UK
As a socialist and trade unionist, I despair of the modern Left and its propensity to do everything in its power to alienate the very people for whom it purports to speak. So wrong is its stance on so many social and moral questions, that you wonder whether it even wants the votes of traditional left-wing voters anymore. Perhaps it would be happier as a self-indulgent protest lobby, its ranks of middle-class, city-dwelling, bohemian types smoking their weed and listening to Bob Dylan tracks.
These people preach peace and harmony, while reciting the mantra of ‘Live and let live’ and speaking of the need for ‘tolerance’, ‘diversity’ and ‘respect’ – all the usual buzzwords. Except that in practice they do the precise opposite of these things, openly frowning upon the lifestyle choices of working-class folk, while displaying a sneering intolerance towards their opinions and demanding rigid conformity of political thought.
The modern Left’s contempt for alternative opinions derives not only from an innate sense of its own moral superiority, but also from the absurd notion that to promote one way of living is to somehow discriminate against ‘the other’ Nowhere is this illustrated more starkly than in their attempts to be the moral arbiters on the question of what may be considered acceptable language in public discourse.
We are now a long way down the road to the modern Left’s desired destination – a place where the expression of traditional views that are still held by millions and were relatively mainstream as recently as 20 years ago are, to all intents and purposes, proscribed.
For example, try discussing with these people – the self-appointed guardians of enlightened society – the idea that immigration levels are too high and should be reduced. You’re a xenophobe. Try saying that kids are better served being raised by two parents, one of each sex. You’re a homophobic bigot. Don’t believe someone with the anatomy of a man can suddenly become a woman just because he says he is? Transphobe. Believe multiculturalism, the active promotion of separation and difference, has been a monumental failure? Racist. (A bizarre one this, since one can of course be a committed multiracialist while disavowing multiculturalism.)
The modern Left’s contempt for alternative opinions derives not only from an innate sense of its own moral superiority, but also from the absurd notion that to promote one way of living – to suggest that society benefits more from one taking one path rather than another – is to somehow discriminate or show prejudice against ‘the other’.
Monday, 9 July 2018
When All Else Fails . . .
Temper Tantrums
It appears that the Left these days has lost its credibility. It seems as though any action, any words, any opposition immediately calls down the Left's dreaded indictment: Racist!
Nowhere does this appear more the case than in the United States. The Left cannot seem to get through a twenty-four hour news cycle without shouting "Racist" at someone, or some thing or other. "Racism" would appear to be the unforgivable sin. Once hurled at an opponent there is nothing more to do or say. It's all over, Rover. The accusation is the verbal equivalent of taking careful aim and fatally shooting someone.
Take the matter of immigration rules, regulations, and policies.
It appears that the Left these days has lost its credibility. It seems as though any action, any words, any opposition immediately calls down the Left's dreaded indictment: Racist!
Nowhere does this appear more the case than in the United States. The Left cannot seem to get through a twenty-four hour news cycle without shouting "Racist" at someone, or some thing or other. "Racism" would appear to be the unforgivable sin. Once hurled at an opponent there is nothing more to do or say. It's all over, Rover. The accusation is the verbal equivalent of taking careful aim and fatally shooting someone.
Take the matter of immigration rules, regulations, and policies.
Thursday, 10 May 2018
Puzzling--Yet Understandable
Why Western Intellectuals Love Stalin
One of the more puzzling phenomenon of Western Europe in the twentieth century has been the way intellectuals doted on Stalin. Many still do. A good contemporary example of the trope in our day is found in Jeremy Corbyn and the present Labour Party in the United Kingdom. The question is begged as to why this might be.
The historian, Tony Judt endeavours to explain:
One of the more puzzling phenomenon of Western Europe in the twentieth century has been the way intellectuals doted on Stalin. Many still do. A good contemporary example of the trope in our day is found in Jeremy Corbyn and the present Labour Party in the United Kingdom. The question is begged as to why this might be.
The historian, Tony Judt endeavours to explain:
Western intellectual enthusiasm for Communism tended to peak not in time of "goulash Communism" or "Socialism with a human face", but rather at the moments of the regime's worst cruelties: 1935-39 and 1944-56. Writers, professors, artists, teachers and journalists frequently admired Stalin not in spite of his faults, but because of them. It was when he was murdering people on an industrial scale, when the show trials were displaying Soviet Communism at its mot theatrically macabre, that men and women beyond Stalin's grasp were most seduced by the man and his cult. It was the absurdly large gap separating rhetoric from reality that made it so irresistible to men and women of goodwill in search of a Cause. [Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (London: Vintage Books, 2010), p. 216.]So, here is the problem: how can it be that men and women of Western Europe and Great Britain could could not just overlook the barbarism and cruelty of Stalin's regime, but glory in it?
Saturday, 20 January 2018
The Cheka Lives On
Google: Toxic and Censorial
It would seem that Google has a toxic work environment. At one level, this may be surprising; at another, not so much. For years we have been "blessed" with storied accounts of how laid back, chilled, yet incandescently creative the company's work environment was. It was a cool, cool, cool place to work. The coolest place in Silicon Valley.
The idea of an 8.00am to 5.00pm work day was long gone. Encouraging creativity, lateral thinking, working outside the box, and having fun was all the rage. But now Google has unmasked itself. Underneath the appearance of free, lateral thinking lies the truth: Google is closer to replicating Soviet Russia at its worst. Its work culture has now been labelled toxic.
It would seem that Google has a toxic work environment. At one level, this may be surprising; at another, not so much. For years we have been "blessed" with storied accounts of how laid back, chilled, yet incandescently creative the company's work environment was. It was a cool, cool, cool place to work. The coolest place in Silicon Valley.
The idea of an 8.00am to 5.00pm work day was long gone. Encouraging creativity, lateral thinking, working outside the box, and having fun was all the rage. But now Google has unmasked itself. Underneath the appearance of free, lateral thinking lies the truth: Google is closer to replicating Soviet Russia at its worst. Its work culture has now been labelled toxic.
Employees at Google used internal company message boards to advocate political violence, recruit for a hard-line left-wing activist group and even propose public "trials" for ideological opponents, documents filed in court suggest.Now, all this might seem to be free-spirited debate--a bit like London's Hyde Park, or the Agora in ancient Athens. But consider: a Google employee was fired for "perpetuating gender stereotypes". So, not so "free-spirited" after all. As we have seen many times before, the Left lacks sophistication and subtlety in its position and argumentation: shouting down the opponent is a hallmark of an empty mind.
The nearly 100 pages of internal emails and message board postings are contained in a class-action lawsuit filed by former employee James Damore in California on Monday, accusing Google of discriminating against white people, men and conservatives. Damore was the author of a controversial internal memo criticising the tech giant's "politically correct" diversity policies. He was sacked last year for "perpetuating gender stereotypes" after the memo was leaked to the media and went viral.
Screenshots of messages attached to the complaint show Google employees attacking conservatives and white people, advocating political violence and even sharing "how-to" guides to join Antifa, a violent left-wing anarchist group reportedly classified as "domestic terrorists" by US Homeland Security. "Get in touch with your friendly local Antifa," one employee wrote in response to an anonymous thread in January 2017 titled "Whelp, guess it might be time for revolution", in which the questioner asked, "How do people cope with this? I've never been part of a military or war effort before, I guess I can be useful as IT support or for hacking." [NZ Herald]
Saturday, 2 September 2017
Humanity's Greatest Threat
The Long Trail of Mass Murder
Nah. It's all good, mate. At least when it comes to violence and oppression of human beings, the Leftists amongst us are willing to excuse a good deal. Their view, shall we say, is somewhat selective.
It's not that the Left ignores violence. Rather, by means of a vast distorting prism, the Left sees violence as something that only occurs on the Right. The Right, of course, means Fascism, Nazism, Hitlerism, and so forth. If anyone is on the Right, by definition they are a closet Nazi. Punch them hard enough and they will go on to prove it. They will end up putting people in gas chambers.
However, a survey of totalitarian ideologies which have emerged in the Modern Period shows that by far and away the greatest totalitarian monstrosities have been Leftist.
Saturday, 26 August 2017
Antifa and the Alt-Right
Growing in Opposition to One Another
National Review Online
America has cancer. On Saturday, a crowd of alt-right white supremacists, neo-confederates, and Nazi sympathizers marched in Charlottesville, Va.; they were confronted by a large group of protesters including members of the Marxist Antifa — a group that has time and again plunged volatile situations into violence, from Sacramento to Berkeley. There’s still no certain knowledge of who began the violence, but before long, the sides had broken into the sort of brutal scrum that used to characterize Weimer-era Germany. The two sides then carried the red banner and the swastika; so did the combatants on Saturday.
Then a Nazi-sympathizing alt-right 20-year-old Ohioan plowed his car into a crowd of protesters, killing one and injuring 19. The president of the United States promptly failed egregiously to condemn alt-right racism; instead, he opted for a milquetoast statement condemning “hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides.”
The Left leapt into action, declaring Trump’s statement utterly insufficient — which, of course, it was. But they then went further, declaring that Antifa was entirely innocent, despite Antifa’s launching into violence against pro-Trump marchers in Seattle over the weekend, as they have in Sacramento and Berkeley; berating New York Times journalist Sheryl Gay Stolberg for having the temerity to report that “the hard left seemed as hate-filled as the alt-right”; and suggesting that all conservatives were, at root, sympathizers with the Nazi-friendly alt-right.
And so here we stand.
There is a cancer in the body politic. We must cut it out, or be destroyed.
By Ben ShapiroNational Review Online
America has cancer. On Saturday, a crowd of alt-right white supremacists, neo-confederates, and Nazi sympathizers marched in Charlottesville, Va.; they were confronted by a large group of protesters including members of the Marxist Antifa — a group that has time and again plunged volatile situations into violence, from Sacramento to Berkeley. There’s still no certain knowledge of who began the violence, but before long, the sides had broken into the sort of brutal scrum that used to characterize Weimer-era Germany. The two sides then carried the red banner and the swastika; so did the combatants on Saturday.
Then a Nazi-sympathizing alt-right 20-year-old Ohioan plowed his car into a crowd of protesters, killing one and injuring 19. The president of the United States promptly failed egregiously to condemn alt-right racism; instead, he opted for a milquetoast statement condemning “hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides.”
The Left leapt into action, declaring Trump’s statement utterly insufficient — which, of course, it was. But they then went further, declaring that Antifa was entirely innocent, despite Antifa’s launching into violence against pro-Trump marchers in Seattle over the weekend, as they have in Sacramento and Berkeley; berating New York Times journalist Sheryl Gay Stolberg for having the temerity to report that “the hard left seemed as hate-filled as the alt-right”; and suggesting that all conservatives were, at root, sympathizers with the Nazi-friendly alt-right.
And so here we stand.
Saturday, 29 July 2017
Left-Wing Brown Shirts
Angry Left Stirs Up Violent Hatred
Karl Du Fresne
Stuff
Hamburg last week was described as looking like a war zone after masked rioters ransacked shops, torched cars and built barricades, which they then set alight. The rioters were protesting against the G20 summit, although what noble purpose was served by looting shops, burning cars and making off with stolen ATMs wasn't clear.
Nonetheless we're expected to believe that the protesters had more high-minded motives than the G20 leaders, whom the protesters insist are all irredeemably venal and corrupt. Meanwhile, thousands of kilometres away, a violent mob stormed the Venezuelan parliament and attacked opposition MPs, some of whom suffered broken ribs and head injuries. In both instances, the perpetrators were from the Left: in Hamburg, anarchists, communists and environmental activists; in Caracas, supporters of the socialist president Nicolas Maduro.
The Left has a problem here.
Karl Du Fresne
Stuff
Hamburg last week was described as looking like a war zone after masked rioters ransacked shops, torched cars and built barricades, which they then set alight. The rioters were protesting against the G20 summit, although what noble purpose was served by looting shops, burning cars and making off with stolen ATMs wasn't clear.
Nonetheless we're expected to believe that the protesters had more high-minded motives than the G20 leaders, whom the protesters insist are all irredeemably venal and corrupt. Meanwhile, thousands of kilometres away, a violent mob stormed the Venezuelan parliament and attacked opposition MPs, some of whom suffered broken ribs and head injuries. In both instances, the perpetrators were from the Left: in Hamburg, anarchists, communists and environmental activists; in Caracas, supporters of the socialist president Nicolas Maduro.
The Left has a problem here.
Friday, 30 June 2017
Bias Beyond Credulity
Sorry Ladies, You’re the Wrong Kind of Muslims
The two women invited to the Dirksen Senate Office Building a couple of weeks ago seemed like the kind of expert witnesses any Democrat, especially a female Democrat, would love. Both have become respected academics, authors, and activists for women’s rights. Both are outspoken critics of religious extremism. Both are Muslims, and both are critical of Muslim extremism, but for way too many Democrats that point of view is not legitimate.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in Somalia to a Muslim family. As a young girl she suffered genital mutilation. Her family and friends followed such an intense form of Islam that in her teens she cheerfully looked forward to the day when the fatwa against author Salman Rushdie would be carried out at last. When her family tried to force her into marriage, she fled Africa for the Netherlands.
There she met director Theo Van Gogh; together they made a film critical of extreme interpretations of Islam which sanction the abuse, degradation, even the killing of Muslim women. After the film was released, Van Gogh was murdered on a city street by a terrorist. Pinned to his clothes was a note declaring that Hirsi Ali would be next. Today, Ali is in the United States. She is a fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. She is the author of two best-sellers, Heretic and Infidel. And she has renounced her Muslim faith. Because of all these factors, her life is in constant danger.
The other witness was Asra Nomani, a writer and activist for equal rights for women in Islam.
The latest in profiles in cowardice from Senate Democrats.
Thomas J. Craughwell
The American Spectator
The American Spectator
The two women invited to the Dirksen Senate Office Building a couple of weeks ago seemed like the kind of expert witnesses any Democrat, especially a female Democrat, would love. Both have become respected academics, authors, and activists for women’s rights. Both are outspoken critics of religious extremism. Both are Muslims, and both are critical of Muslim extremism, but for way too many Democrats that point of view is not legitimate.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in Somalia to a Muslim family. As a young girl she suffered genital mutilation. Her family and friends followed such an intense form of Islam that in her teens she cheerfully looked forward to the day when the fatwa against author Salman Rushdie would be carried out at last. When her family tried to force her into marriage, she fled Africa for the Netherlands.
There she met director Theo Van Gogh; together they made a film critical of extreme interpretations of Islam which sanction the abuse, degradation, even the killing of Muslim women. After the film was released, Van Gogh was murdered on a city street by a terrorist. Pinned to his clothes was a note declaring that Hirsi Ali would be next. Today, Ali is in the United States. She is a fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. She is the author of two best-sellers, Heretic and Infidel. And she has renounced her Muslim faith. Because of all these factors, her life is in constant danger.
The other witness was Asra Nomani, a writer and activist for equal rights for women in Islam.
Monday, 19 June 2017
Disturbing Trends
Violence Is No Respecter of Persons
Is the Left prone to violence in its propagation of its ideology? Clearly there are millions of left-wing folk who detest violence and eschew it to the depths of their being. Clearly there are plenty of left-wing politicians who speak against attempting to promote their ideology by deploying force. Nonetheless there is now a disturbing trend (it would seem) for some left wing folk to resort to aggressive behaviour, if not outright violence.
The latest example is James ‘Tom’ Hodgkinson, a left-wing protagonist who "shot congressman Steve Scalise during an attack on a Republican congressional baseball practice session on Wednesday, was a leftwing political activist with a record of domestic violence." [The Guardian]
But this is not an isolated occurrence.
Is the Left prone to violence in its propagation of its ideology? Clearly there are millions of left-wing folk who detest violence and eschew it to the depths of their being. Clearly there are plenty of left-wing politicians who speak against attempting to promote their ideology by deploying force. Nonetheless there is now a disturbing trend (it would seem) for some left wing folk to resort to aggressive behaviour, if not outright violence.
The latest example is James ‘Tom’ Hodgkinson, a left-wing protagonist who "shot congressman Steve Scalise during an attack on a Republican congressional baseball practice session on Wednesday, was a leftwing political activist with a record of domestic violence." [The Guardian]
 |
| James Hodgkinson |
But this is not an isolated occurrence.
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