Dumb and Dumber

Trump Hate Is Making It Harder to Study Hydroxychloroquine


By David Harsanyi
National Review Online

Yesterday, I pointed out the potential consequences of having an overwrought, childish, partisan debate over a lifesaving drug that’s used by millions of Americans. Today, I see, Joe Biden is comparing hydroxychloroquine to poison. “It’s like saying maybe if you inject Clorox into your blood it may cure you,” Biden said of Donald Trump’s admission that he takes the drug. “C’mon, man! What is he doing? What in God’s name is he doing?”

Now, I get that Biden thinks it’s cute to merge the myth that Trump wants Americans to inject themselves with bleach and the president’s unproven prophylactic use of hydroxychloroquine. It’s worth noting, however, that the presumptive Democratic Party nominee is also now telling Americans — including those who need this low-risk prescribed drug that has been approved for all public use for over 70 years — that taking hydroxychloroquine is tantamount to injecting yourself with bleach.

Listen to this NPR interview with some doctors trying to conduct tests of hydroxychloroquine effectiveness. Dr. John Giles, a rheumatologist at Columbia University, who says that the partisan fight over hydroxychloroquine has made it virtually impossible for him to find people to test the effectiveness of the drug against coronavirus. Why would anyone want to swallow Clorox, right?

“We are hearing now from some participants that the study and the drug feel too political and they just don’t want to participate at all,” says Dr. Christine Johnston at the University of Washington.

Inheriting the Worldwind

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.

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.

Can It Really Be This Bad?

Embarrassments Aplenty 

We have kept a weather eye on NZ politics for over thirty years.  Never before have we been confronted with a Prime Minister who would daily present herself to be a thorough going incompetent.  We knew Jacinda Ardern was flakey.  We did not realise just how much of a flake she really is.  

Columnist Matthew Hooten puts it this way, telling us that Ardern excels in making much ado about very little:

But as head of government, it was soon obvious she has no ability to formulate and progress an agenda, transformational or otherwise. There is nothing behind her words.  All her Government’s major initiatives have failed.

Despite its advance billing, the Wellbeing Budget was unconnected to the Treasury’s Living Standards Framework, earlier hailed by Finance Minister Grant Robertson.

Ardern has ruled out further rebalancing the tax system away from wages and towards capital gains. 

KiwiBuild has entered the Kiwi vernacular as a synonym for failure. Poverty, homelessness and suicide have all worsened. Fees-free tertiary education has had no material impact.

Perhaps most cynical of all was this week’s Suicide Prevention Strategy which, after two years in office, consisted mainly of setting up a new Suicide Prevention Office. By the time it gets its mission statement, logo, offices and espresso machine, another thousand families will have mourned a loved one.

This seems to have been Ardern’s sole strategy through her 11 aimless years in Parliament: emote over a problem, then propose a working group or other process as a substitute for taking responsibility, decisions and actions herself.  (NZ Herald, cited in Kiwiblog)

Can Ardern be that flakey? Yes she can.

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.

Left-Wing Choristers Exposed

Sir Roger Scruton Just Won a Landmark Victory in the Culture Wars

153

Ian Gavan/Getty

JAMES DELINGPOLE

Breitbart London

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.

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:

New Zealand's Vast Echo Chamber

The Prejudice and Cant of New Zealand's Universities 

Our Universities are Not Giving Us Unbiased Knowledge


Alex Davis
NZ Herald  


As any number of graduation speeches formulaically tell you, the purpose of a university education is to "open minds", "search for truth" and inspire students to think broadly and freely. We turn to academia for what we assume is scientifically rigorous, evidentially based, objective and unbiased knowledge about the world and how to solve its many and varied problems.

Except of course that's not actually the case. Six decades of research from the United States clearly demonstrate universities and academics are frequently heavily biased and skew overwhelmingly to the political left.

In 1955 (ironically out of concern that right wing McCarthyism was negatively impacting academic freedom) Paul Lazarsfeld led the first systematic attempt to poll academic political leanings. Lazarsfeld surveyed 2451 social science professors. He found they leaned left (liberal) to right (conservative) by a factor of 2 to 1.

In 1969 the hugely influential American sociologist Seymour Lipset surveyed over 60,000 academics in multiple fields about their political views and found almost half identified as liberal while only a quarter identified as conservative.

Follow up studies in the 70's, 80's and 90's showed an intensifying swing to the left. This trend took a sharp turn further left in the 2000's. Research from this period found that barely 12 per cent of American university professors identified as Republican.

Regrettably there is virtually no research on this issue in New Zealand. This is not surprising - in a small country there is little incentive for a biased and unobjective academia to turn a spotlight on itself.  Further, there is nowhere to run for any professor foolish enough to do so – not a single one of New Zealand's seven major universities has any reputation for embracing right leaning thinking.

Simpletons At Work

Leftist Politicians Can Do Considerable Damage To The Poor

When left wing political parties win power at the ballot box one usual consequence is that the government starts to be run by politicians who are ignorant about markets, business, commerce, and the way "things work".  But no worry.  The Left has a reflexive faith in rules, regulations and laws to make all things right.  

Usually it has no sensitivity at all as to how free markets work.  But markets do not change.  They work-either for good or bad.  Thousands upon thousands of people out in the "real world" think about the impact of new rules and regulations upon their businesses.  They then take prudent commercial decisions to maximise their returns and reduce risks--in the light of the new realities brought in by the new government.  Leftist regimes, on the other hand, almost always have no clue about the unintended consequences of their rules and regulations.  

We are presently seeing an apt example of this phenomenon in New Zealand.  The Leftist government decided that residential tenants were getting a bad deal.  They needed protecting.  Therefore, the State has decreed minimum standards of comfort to be met in all rental properties throughout the country.  Typical, classic Left wing magic wand stuff.

Result?  You guessed it.  The supply of rental houses reduces, sharply.

Is Planet Earth Round?

Are New Zealand's Universities Too Left Wing?

Alex Davies
Stuff

The recent controversy surrounding Don Brash's banning by Massey University has opened the lid on deep bias within universities, both in New Zealand and offshore.

As any number of graduation speeches tell you, the purpose of a university education is to “open minds”, “search for truth” and inspire students to think broadly and freely. In the “knowledge economy” we turn to academia for what we assume is scientifically rigorous, evidentially based, objective and unbiased knowledge about the world and how to solve its many and varied problems.

Except of course that’s not actually the case. Six decades of research from the United States clearly demonstrate that universities and academics are frequently heavily biased and skew overwhelmingly to the political left.

In the 1955 (ironically out of concern that right wing McCarthyism was negatively impacting academic freedom), Paul Lazarsfeld led the first systematic attempt to poll academic political leanings. Lazarsfeld surveyed 2,451 social science professors. He found they leaned left (liberal) to right (conservative) by a factor of 2 to 1.

In 1969 the hugely influential American sociologist Seymour Lipset surveyed over 60,000 academics in multiple fields about their political views and found that almost half of professors identified as liberal, while only a quarter identified as conservative. Follow up studies in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s showed an intensifying swing to the left. This trend took a sharp turn further left in the 2000’s. Research from this period found that barely 12 per cent of American university professors identified as Republican (right wing).

Drilling down to the disciplines within universities the results were even more concerning. Researchers at George Mason University examined six fields: anthropology, economics, history, philosophy, political science and sociology. Within these fields professors supported left-wing candidates to right wing candidates by an average of 15 to 1. In anthropology and sociology this skew to the left increased to almost 30 to 1.

Interestingly in the more empirical field of economics this skew dropped to “merely” 3 to 1 to the left. A federal study of political donations by academics found that of those who donated to politicians, 99 per cent (literally) donated to Democrat (left) candidates.

What is particularly concerning is the extremist nature of left wing academic bias. In 2012 UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute found that while barely 0.4 per cent of academics held “far right” views, over 30 times that number (12.4 per cent) held “far left” views.

Based on a variety of studies, the best evidence suggests that fewer than 1 in 10 professors hold conservative political, social, moral or economic views.

Regrettably there is virtually no research on this issue in New Zealand.

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.

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.

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:

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?

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.

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.

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]

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.

Landlords Heading For the Hills

The Certainty of Ignorant Left Ideologues

For the Left (and sadly much of the professed Right) the State is the avatar of deity, if not the deity itself.  If the gummint does something or runs a programme it is axiomatic that State involvement will have a much better outcome than if private individuals or corporations were to do it.  This is a deeply ingrained belief.  It is religiously held.

There are a number of beliefs which buttress this religious mantra.  Firstly, State run and controlled businesses appear to be riskless.  The gummint can enforce the rules and regulations and trading conditions in favour of the State to ensure its success.  Moreover, the gummint is not constrained for money: it can always borrow, and when its credit worthiness runs out, it can then resort to printing money.  Venezuela is an apt contemporary example of this thought pattern running to its logical and practical conclusions.  Destitution and starvation.

Secondly, State run businesses are believed to be more pure or holy.  Private business is inherently immoral.  It allows--nay, requires--people to make profits  This amounts to trafficking in filthy lucre, since (by definition) profits represent gain at the expense of customers.  If the customer or user were charged a "fair" price the provider of the service would be just clearing costs, and no more.  That is what the State (purportedly) does when it goes into business--clears its costs and no more.  In reality, the State layers costs upon costs throughout the activity in question, glorying in waste and inefficiency.

In New Zealand we have an alleged housing crisis.  The new Labour Government has decided to crack down on what it believes are private individuals and businesses taking advantage of people wanting to buy houses.  The Gummint is going to exercise more control over the market so as to force landlords to accept lower profits.  Remember, profit is tantamount to theft.  It is inherently immoral in the Left's mindset.

This, from Eric Frykberg of RadioNZ:

Dishonest UNICEF

A Front Organization For the Left

Lindsay Mitchell writes a blog covering the perversions of New Zealand's welfare state.  She recently had the temerity to make some critical observations about UNICEF.  At this point we must issue a warning.  Mitchell's subject matter, coupled with her critical mien, draw us very close to what can only be called heresy according to present received wisdom.  

We acknowledge that UNICEF is the United Kingdom's secular version of the Anglican Church.  More accurate may be the observation that UNICEF is the Anglican Church's "welfare" arm.  The thing flows out to the colonies.

Mitchell approaches being labelled a heretic because of her sarcasm towards UNICEF.  She points out that in June 2017 (that is, a mere six months ago) UNICEF launched the following jeremiad:

New Zealand has performed poorly in a global report card on children’s well-being, and Kiwi kids will continue to miss out unless there is a massive upheaval in how children’s best interests are served, says child rights organisation UNICEF NZ.

Child poverty, child poverty, child poverty.  New Zealand was failing badly.  The implication was the gummint was evil.  It was run by neo-liberals (whatever that sobriquet may mean).  The vulnerable were on the scrapheap.

Now, six month's later, UNICEF is singing from a different song sheet:

The Diminishing Reservoir of Credibility

Not A Good Sign

What is it about the Left and lies and propaganda working together like a Three Ring Circus?  It defies fundamental standards of a duty of care.  Here is Heather Du Plessis Allan's take on Labour's start in government in New Zealand.  The thing that stands out is the baldness of the propaganda and the lies.  It is inexplicable.  

Well that didn't take long. Two weeks and the paint has started to chip off the new Government. After a couple of moments of questionable truthfulness over the last week, the new mob are starting to look a lot more like the last lot, where truthfulness wasn't a high priority.

The most audacious bout of Labour's truth-bending came on the first day of Parliament this week when the king of all logistical cock-ups played out. The drama probably generated flurries of "WTF" texts between political nerds, but it's pretty esoteric to the rest of us, so I'll just give you bullet points.

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.

Letter from America (About Leftist Violence Being Only Loving Correction)

‘No Enemies on the Left’ Is Still the Mantra of  Liberals

The U.S. Civil Rights Commission refuses to condemn antifa violence.

By John Fund
National Review Online

One of the great gifts the British writer George Orwell gave us, in addition to his classics 1984 and Animal Farm, was a clear and uncompromising look at dangerous ideologies. In “Orwell and the British Left,” British writer Ian Williams recalls Orwell’s underlining of “the old, true and unpalatable conclusion that a Communist and a Fascist are somewhat nearer to one another than either is to a democrat.” Orwell’s well-observed conclusion nonetheless scandalized many on the left who rallied behind the Marxist phrase “no enemies on the left.”

Sadly, a quarter century after the fall of Communism, too many leftists are still ignoring Orwell and refusing to acknowledge the reality of left-wing brutality. In the wake of Charlottesville, eyewitnesses and reporters agreed that while the violence was instigated by neo-Nazis and white nationalists, it was countered with bloody counterattacks by left-wingers and black-shirted anarchists wearing masks. There was a clear asymmetric outcome to the violence: A white nationalist mowed down protestors with his car, killing a 32-year-old woman.

But that didn’t mean there were no victims of left-wing violence. Antifa — short for “anti-fascist” — protestors came armed with pepper spray, bricks, and clubs. Antifa members believe that racist speech is violence and that they must counter it physically, not just oppose it with rhetoric or better ideas.

As the New York Daily News reported, among antifa’s victims were journalists:

Antifa Coming Out of the Shadows

The Rise of the Violent Left

Antifa’s activists say they’re battling burgeoning authoritarianism on the American right. Are they fueling it instead?

Peter Beinart
The Atlantic

Since 1907, Portland, Oregon, has hosted an annual Rose Festival. Since 2007, the festival had included a parade down 82nd Avenue. Since 2013, the Republican Party of Multnomah County, which includes Portland, had taken part. This April, all of that changed.

In the days leading up to the planned parade, a group called the Direct Action Alliance declared, “Fascists plan to march through the streets,” and warned, “Nazis will not march through Portland unopposed.” The alliance said it didn’t object to the Multnomah GOP itself, but to “fascists” who planned to infiltrate its ranks. Yet it also denounced marchers with “Trump flags” and “red MAGA hats” who could “normalize support for an orange man who bragged about sexually harassing women and who is waging a war of hate, racism and prejudice.” A second group, Oregon Students Empowered, created a Facebook page called “Shut down fascism! No nazis in Portland!”

Next, the parade’s organizers received an anonymous email warning that if “Trump supporters” and others who promote “hateful rhetoric” marched, “we will have two hundred or more people rush into the parade … and drag and push those people out.” When Portland police said they lacked the resources to provide adequate security, the organizers canceled the parade. It was a sign of things to come.

For progressives, Donald Trump is not just another Republican president. Seventy-six percent of Democrats, according to a Suffolk poll from last September, consider him a racist. Last March, according to a YouGov survey, 71 percent of Democrats agreed that his campaign contained “fascist undertones.”