Wasted Space

Idiots Worthy of the Name

The Scottish Parliament clearly is underworked and overpaid.  It has laboured long and hard into the night and passed some of the most significant legislation ever to be debated and approved in that hallowed place.

Confronted with a raft of weighty issues of moment and history it has passed into law a matter so significant it would have revivified John Knox himself had he not long ago passed from the sight of mortal men.

Scotland’s Parliament has made the decision to ban “gingerbread men” from a coffee shop at its capitol over concerns that the name of the cookie perpetuates sexism.   Each of these cookies will now instead be called a “gingerbread person,” according to an article in Express.

Precisely what this will actually do or achieve for women is unclear.  However, it is almost certain that the radical move will result in trivialising discrimination against women.  The Parliament has managed to make discrimination against women not a weighty matter of state, but the butt of a sarcastic joke.   Congratulations, Holyrood.

Herein lies the point. By making institutional discrimination against the female sex such a matter of moment that the phrase "gingerbread man" must needs be outlawed at its local coffee, the Parliament has served to achieve just one weighty goal: it has held itself up to public ridicule.  It's just one more example of the law of unintended consequences at work.

Our advice would be for all Scottish women and men to rise up and condemn the Parliament for its trivialising of the female sex.  That might serve as a truly positive outcome.  A second positive result which we hope will fast-follow the first would be for the Scottish parliamentarians to be hit with at least a 20 percent reduction in their parliamentary salaries, if not substantially more.

Scotland the Brave?

Scottish Schools to Have ‘LGBT Equality’ Embedded in Curriculum

Virginia Hale
Breitbart London

The Scottish education system is to become the first in the world where primary and secondary schools are required in the curriculum to promote LGBT identity and lifestyles.

Every state school will have to “embed” lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex “equality and inclusion” within “all levels of the curriculum from early years to senior phase” after the Scottish Government accepted in full the recommendations of a working group headed by LGBT activists.

The move, which was backed by all parties, will see pupils taught about LGBT political history, movements, terminology, and identities as well as “LGBTI literature and lives” and topics on “addressing prejudice and homophobic, biphobic, and transphobic bullying”.

Scottish education secretary John Swinney told the Scottish Parliament: “Scotland is already considered one of the most progressive countries in Europe for LGBTI equality. I am delighted to announce we will be the first country in the world to have LGBTI-inclusive education embedded within the curriculum.”

Stressing that the changes will apply to all Scottish state schools, with no opt-outs, the minister added: “I am aware that some may say that LGBTI inclusive education could undermine the values of their faiths or beliefs. I do not take this view.

“Human rights and the values of respect and tolerance are universal. Children and young people should feel happy, safe, respected and included in their learning environment, and all staff should be proactive in promoting positive relationships and behaviour in the playground, classroom, and society.”

But Simon Calvert, deputy director of the Christian Institute, said that while parents, pupils and teachers are united in wanting to see bullying stamped out, he argued they “don’t want to see controversial political agendas embedded across the curriculum”.

Scotland The [No Longer] Brave

Mad Cows and Hate Crimes

Madeleine Kearns
National Review Online

My blood is no use in America. What I mean is, as a native of the British Isles, born amid an epidemic of “mad cow” disease, I am theoretically a carrier of this brain-wasting affliction and, accordingly, forbidden from donating my sanguine elixir to U.S. blood banks — on the off chance it’s madly bad (or is that badly mad?). 

At first, I thought this rather far-fetched. But when my visiting mother presented me with the Scotsman from last Friday — front page: “four cattle have been slaughtered in efforts to contain the first case of ‘mad cow’ disease in Scotland in a decade” — I reconsidered.

Incidentally, there is a strange quirk in Scots law protecting the bovine. According to the Licensing Act of 1872, it remains illegal to be drunk and in possession of a cow. But I digress. The Scotsman report reassured: “Authorities have said the public should not worry as no infected meat entered the food chain.”

Of course, this slaughter, like restrictive blood donation, is a precautionary measure intended to protect the general public from risk of serious harm. This is an obvious point, perhaps, but it is an important one by way of contrast.

Picture this, if you will: The Reverend David Robertson, a Protestant minister at St. Peter’s Free Church in Dundee and author of the delightful TheWeeFlea blog, was riding his bicycle through the lively Scottish city when one of the following signs caught his attention.

Scottish Authorities Are On the Sauce

A Message to the Bigots in Scotland

Michael Brown
The Stream



The Scottish government and Police Scotland funded billboard as part of their One Scotland campaign, condemning hate crimes and encouraging people to report hate crimes. The campaign specifically targets what it alleges is religious bigotry as a lack of "faith in respect and love."

A new billboard campaign in Scotland is calling out “homophobes” and “transphobes,” focusing in particular on religious “bigots.” In reality, it is the billboard campaign that is fear-based and bigoted.

One billboard reads: “Dear bigots, division seems to be what you believe in. We don’t want your religious hate on our buses, on our streets and in our communities. We don’t want you spreading your intolerance. Or making people’s lives a misery because of their religious dress. You may not have faith in respect and love, but we do. That’s why if we see or hear your hate, we’re reporting you. End of sermon. Yours, Scotland.”

Another reads: “Dear transphobes, do you think it’s right to harass people in the street? Right to push transgender people around in clubs? Right to humiliate, intimidate and threaten them online? Well we don’t. That’s why if we see you doing harm, we’re reporting you. We believe people should be allowed to be themselves. Except if they’re spreading hate. Yours, Scotland.”

And still another: “Dear homophobes, we have a phobia of your behaviour. If you torment people because of who they love, shout word that we are not going to write, or use violence because you don’t like who someone is holding hands with, you should be worried. If we see or hear your abuse, we’re calling the police. That’s because love lives in this country, not hate. Yours, Scotland.”

Hate Speech: The New (Ambiguous) Priority

On the one hand, we stand with Scotland in denouncing any harassment of those who identify as LGBT. And we condemn any violence against those same people. Categorically, absolutely, and without caveat.

Unfortunately, in the eyes of many in Scotland, simply reading the Bible on a street corner could be considered “harassment.” Quoting Scripture could be deemed verbal “violence.” And even delivering a sermon condemning homosexual practice as sin could be viewed as tormenting someone because of “who they love.”

As the “Word to the Bigots” billboard makes clear, it is “religious hate” that is being targeted and religious “intolerance” that is the culprit. The message is loud and clear. Those who oppose homosexuality or transgenderism do not “have faith in respect and love.”

Never Let a Scotsmen Get Near a Penny

Sturgeon's Duplicity, Cameron's Complicity

The Scots are universally known for their parsimony.  As the old chestnut has it, the Scots invented copper wire, as two sons of the Highlands fought over a penny.  How they must be ruing the day they voted in Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish National Party.  Under her prudent stewardship, Scotland ran up a fiscal deficit of 15 billion pounds last year.  This momentous achievement amounted to 9.7 percent of Scottish GDP, compared to the UK running up a deficit over the same period amounting to 4.9 percent of UK GDP.

Mind you, the size of the UK deficit is way, way too much.  But Scotland's is reprehensible.  It seems as though the Scottish National Party believe that money grows on trees.  What's a few billion amongst friends, eh?  In any event, someone else will pay for it.

This all arises out of an electoral con.  During the referendum over whether Scotland should withdraw from the UK, Nicola Sturgeon and her party argued that there was indeed a free lunch that all Scotland could enjoy.  It could enjoy, on the one hand, a huge expansion of government spending, and on the other, the sure confidence that someone else would pay for it.  In this case the "someone else" was a vast exaggeration of the value of its oil deposits.

The Scottish Ostrich, Part I

Traitors to the Cause in the Highlands

The West is confronted with Islam--on home soil, moreover.  The Chattering Classes and the Commentariat are frenetically attempting to win this culture war by insisting upon Western "values".  They act like generals berating the troops: "Hold the line, boys.  Steady! Steady!"  They want the West to remain true to liberty, equality, and fraternity.  It is only as the West practises these cultural values towards Islamic people that they, grateful subjects, will come to see the West as culturally superior.  It is only by enjoying Western liberty, equality and fraternity practised towards them that Islamic believers will see the light and move away from their historically primitive, violent religion into Westernised modern Islam, a new reformed religion (as argue for by Ayaan Hirsi Ali) bearing the aura of Western glory.   

In this great cultural cold-war, the Chattering Classes believe that the real enemies in their midst are those in the West who speak critically of Islam. Even Hirsi Ali is regarded as an enemy of the West because of her strident criticism of Islam.  By so speaking they are traitorously spiking the great guns by which Islam will be won over to Western cultural and "religious" values.  The critics, by their criticism, actually blaspheme and undermine liberty, equality, and fraternity.  They are the West's Fifth Column.  The Western critics of Islam are more like medieval Crusaders than truly tolerant sons of the post-modern West.  Thus runs today's received wisdom amongst the Chattering Classes. 

Overstatement?  Nah.  Let us give a typical example--one amongst many.

Secular Statists Wasting No Time

Ahab and Jezebel Redivivus

Imagine a world where the government of the day declared that opposition to abortion must end in the name of a tolerant society.  Those groups and individuals who opposed abortion must be restrained, restricted, and punished by law.  No medical professionals were to be permitted on the grounds of conscience to remove themselves from murderous termination procedures.  No doctor would be permitted not to consent and facilitate all abortions sought by patients.  Any doctor who refused to arrange abortions for clients of his or her respective practices would be fined, and even stripped of their practising certificates.

There are plenty of Unbelievers who would rejoice at this and see it as a great leap forward.  They would regard it as enlightened public policy and judicial interdiction.  They would fulsomely support such appropriate punishments.

We are now entering precisely that world in the West.  The present front line, however, is not over abortion; it is homosexual marriage.  Governments currently feel themselves somewhat constrained in the matter of abortion because it does not enjoy strong public support.  In fact due to the sterling work by many Christians and churches, support for abortion is waning.  But homosexual "marriage" is a different case.  And if a pagan, secularist state can, it will.  Before you can say, "I told you so".

Thus Scotland is proposing draconian controls to enforce not just society's acceptance of homosexuality and homosexual "marriage" but to punish those who refuse to support and celebrate it.  This, from The Telegraph:

Letter From America (About Disdain For Parents in Scotland)

Scotland’s “Named Persons” to Replace Parents

By Wendy Wright 
January 13, 2015
Turtle Bay and Beyond 

Under a new plan, Scotland will assign a state-employed guardian to every child from birth until age 18, who can intervene without parental consent and share information with a wide range of public authorities. Though the plan comes into effect in 2016, it is already being rolled out — and early indications are “named persons” will replace and trump parents’ legal rights.

Among its first appearances is sex education guidelines.

The Christian Institute reports the Scottish sex ed guidance’s section on confidentiality states: “Staff should discuss any concerns they have with the young person and ensure they have access to confidential, young people friendly services, where appropriate.”

“If there is judged to be a risk to the child’s wellbeing, staff should inform the child’s Named Person.” Parents are not mentioned.  “It beggars belief,” said a spokesman with No To Named Persons (NO2NP), “that a teacher with concerns about the wellbeing of a child – including underage sexual activity, which is a serious criminal offense – should be told by the Government to pass on those concerns to the Named Person and not the child’s parents.

Exemplary Western Civilisation

Modelling Democracy

There is an intriguing parallel to be drawn between the secession of the Southern states from the Union of the United States in 1861 and what is now taking place in Scotland.  It appears as though, if the voting intentions are being counted correctly, Scotland will secede from the United Kingdom.  This will be accomplished peacefully, by the will of the people.

Since Scotland has been part of the United Kingdom for three centuries, unwinding the two will be quite a task.  But, it is achievable.  Will Scotland be doing the "right thing"?  Yes.  If the majority want it, then they are welcome to it.  (One caveat might be that a simple majority of fifty percent for such a huge change is a bit light.  Amongst the time-honoured principles of sound governance is the need to have constitutional changes achieve a larger majority support than a mere fifty percent because they are changes of such a profound import.)

The Scots have been a redoubtable people.  Their world-wide influence has been far, far greater than their relatively small population.

Letter From America (About Scotland)

Scotland the Brave No More

Relentless leftism goes mostly unrebutted by the Scots.

By  Mona Charen

August 20, 2013 12:00 AM
National Review Online

In an old show-business routine, a stuffy characters complains: “I didn’t come here to be insulted!” to which the response is “Oh really? Where do you usually go?”

I went to Scotland. Don’t misunderstand, the Scots were delightful hosts — friendly, accommodating, and of course, a delight to the ears. The country is as beautiful as advertised, and the castles, museums, and lochs live up to their billing.

But a few days in Edinburgh during the “Fringe” festival is enough to bury images of thistles and bagpipes very deep. The two links to the Scotland of legend are the enduring Anglophobia (the country will vote on independence in September 2014) and the fondness for whisky. A nation of 5 million people boasts more than 100 distilleries and the cocktail hour seems to be interpreted most liberally.

But modern Scotland is deep-dyed in socialism.