Tuesday, March 30, 2010

It isn't just about free speech

'Shamefully, even Texas Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst weighed in on the side of censorship, saying in a statement that “Every citizen is entitled to the freedom of speech, but no one should have the right to use government funds or institutions to portray acts that are morally reprehensible to the vast majority of Americans.”'

http://volokh.com/2010/03/29/a-sad-victory-for-thuggery-in-texas/

Strange days we live in. Lt Governor Dewhurst, who I don't know from Adam, is slammed by Eugene Volokh for crimes against free speech.

As if there were not two issues here.

Fist issue- free speech. I am always on the side of free speech, whenever or wherever.

Second issue- whether the public should pay to have its religion trashed, its values mocked and its way of life undermined.

Does Lt Governor Dewhurst have a valid point about the second issue or not? A couple of years ago the BBC commissioned an extremely hateful and blasphemous TV play ripping into Christianity- despite the fact that 70% of Britons are self-declared Christians. This majority are forced by the government to pay over a hundred and twenty pounds every year to fund the BBC whether they like it or not.

I would love to hear the moral justification for being forced to pay to hear your deepest held beliefs rediculed and spat upon. I absolutely uphold the right of athiests and Christian-haters to espouse their views- and I also absolutely uphold my right to not to have to pay for that.

Most American Universities and colleges get funds from the State and Federal governments. Should there not be a mechanism for de-funding Universities and Colleges which consistently promote anti-American, anti-free market, pro-marxist views held by virtually no American taxpayers? If you want to run a University where these views are consistently and methodically taught, let the free market decide how much real demand there is for those things.

When funding issues are mooted, the left insists that it be allowed to dominate Universities and Colleges, and that any attempt to take away their funding strikes at the freedom of speech and the fundamental principles of Academic freedom. The rest of the time, they are perfectly happy to interfere with the free-speech rights of conservatives and patriotic Americans, army recruiters, pro-gun groups and loads of other non-pc organisations, and squelch academic freedom under the guise of preventing hate speech and providing a 'safe learning environment'.

Anybody who can't figure out this shell game really needs to go back to primary school.

The game that the left have perfected is to make guilty people pay to have their own institutions and beliefs subverted.

It is time to stop.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Was MAD an illusion?

'Call me a cynic, but the latest agreement between the United States and Russia to cut their stocks of nuclear weapons seems nothing over which to expend any enthusiasm. Quite the contrary. It's a hangover from the dead and distant days of the Cold War. Disarmament mattered when Ronald Reagan faced Mikhail Gorbachev, because it expressed the understanding that mutually assured destruction was not a real policy.'

http://pryce-jones.nationalreview.com/post/?q=M2JjY2RkZjc2MmIzMThmMmFlZTBlZjhiZjA2YWIyMjA=

How can you take seriously a self-declared 'cynic', who presumably considers himself a hard-bitten realist, who declares that 'mutually assured destruction was not a real policy'?

Really? That's funny. I thought it was the declared policy of both superpowers through most of the third world war. And to some degree, is still the policy of the large nuclear powers. Wishing away MAD, declaring it null and void, disappearing it by fiat- what is that all about?

The threat of annihilation sharply focused minds on both sides of the cold war. And despite lots of little hot wars throughout the cold war, none of these brush fires ever became devastating all-out wars precisely because neither side would accept the terrible consequences. In Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Southern Africa, Nicaragua and lots of other places, smallish wars stayed that way because nuclear exchanges would have destroyed the very superpowers who were playing this game.

What do people have against MAD anyway? It was not a policy at all, it was a description of what a large-scale nuclear exchange would do. There was no way of triangulating it either. Would the United States have accepted a large scale nuclear attack on itself without launching a similarly large-scale one on the USSR? Absurd. As soon as both sides in the cold war had both nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles to launch them on MAD was the prevailing situation.

Start and the other big nuclear drawdown treaties were about money, largely. Large ballistic missile fleets cost hideously large sums of money. Smaller, newer, more deadly arsenals of ballistic weapons suited both sides, so the deal were done.

All the countries which had nuclear weapons by the mid-fifties still have them actively deployed. The only significant event to do with nuclear weapons was the breakup of the Warsaw Pact. And that did not involve any country which had nuclear weapons beforehand giving them up.

I agree with Mr Pryce-Jones that the Obama goal of worldwide nuclear disarmament is absurdly naive. But believing that MAD didn't exist or was somehow illusory? Getting on for equally naive.

Destroying the market place

'Sony Entertainment has shut down Beyonce's official YouTube site. Congrats to Sony Entertainment for wisely spending its legal dollars and working on behalf of its artists. Truly, you deserve many laws and secret treaties passed to protect your "business model" (how else could such a delicate flower survive the harsh realities of the real world?).'

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/03/26/sony-accuses-beyonce.html

I expect this kind of crap from the mushy, right-on lefties over at BoingBoing, but you as well, Professor Reynolds?

As a dedicated and faithful reader of InstaPundit, it pains me to see Prof Reynolds siding with the 'brave' artists against the faceless money-grubbing music corporations.

The last time I checked, the sanctity of the contract was one of the bedrock foundations of our economic prosperity. And if Beyonce has a contract with Sony which precludes her putting her own videos on YouTube, where Sony can't make any money from them, then she shouldn't. Contracts have to be mutually agreed, right? So when did Beyonce decide she could unilaterally break it with no consequences?

The 'laws and secret treaties' which the lefties at BoingBoing despise are what make profitable commerce possible. They allow creators to benefit from their creations. Very often with the enormously useful assistance of some faceless corporation. Or did I miss a memo?

The Pirate Party and the other lefty rabble who promote 'free downloading' contend that if a crime is easy to commit, it can't be a crime. 'See how easy it is to download this MP3? That can't be a criminal act'. Driving drunk is easy too. But there is still a compelling case for it to be illegal.

Many on the right see the intellectual copyright issue through the prism of personal freedom and not from the perspective of the economically essential tradition of inviolate contracts. Which is weird. My freedom to download is curtailed at the point where someone owns the intellectual rights to that music, film or game. Or there is no market for those things.

The left would love that.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Follow up to The Great James Baker

It is commonly assumed by pretty much everybody that Israel is the creation of some US/UK conspiracy, and has been funded, armed and protected by them from its inception.

Nothing could be further from the truth. So where did the idea come from? It is Palestinian/Arab propaganda. Why was this lie invented? To hide the real reason why in five major attempts the Arabs have been pathetically incapable of destroying Israel by military means. Without US and British military might helping them, this argument goes, we would have crushed the Zionist entity with ease! Yeah, right.

Both the US and the UK have had major interests in the Arab middle east since the early twentieth century. They were completely uninterested in a Jewish Israel because they understood that it would threaten their oil interests, especially in Iran and Saudi Arabia. Until the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979, and Ronald Reagan in America the year after, there was no principled support for Israel from US or British administrations. They remained either neutral, or were lukewarm allies of convenience. They didn't supply money, arms or diplomatic cover. France and Czechoslovakia were Israels primary friends, and Czech tanks and small arms and French Mirage jet fighters were the tools Israel used to fight its wars.

It was only when the Soviet Union ramped up its support of Syria, Egypt and Iraq that the US became interested in Israel as an ally. Even then, it was very slow off the mark. The UK, which largely supported Jordan in that vicinity, was even slower. Why is it that Israel has its own main battle tank, the Merkava, rather than Challenger 2's or M1 Abrams? Because even in the 1980's, with somewhat pro-Israel govenments, neither the UK nor the US would sell Israel their top-line kit. The US did figure out in the mid-1980's that selling fighter jets to Israel was the best way to find out whether they had the technology lead over the soviets.

The fact is, Israel exists because of money from groups of American Jews, fighter jets from France and tanks and small arms from Czechoslovakia. For the first half of Israels existence, the US and UK governments were always lukewarm allies, if that. All 'information' to the contrary is Arab dissimulation designed to hide their godawful military records.

Could Israel survive without positive help from the US? Absolutely. It did it before, and it will this time. Especially as the millions of Jews in America who supported Israel in the past will always rally around. And there are always countries like India whose diplomatic and political elites do not have the ingrained historical anti-semitism present in those of the US and the UK, who will act as conduits and providers of armaments and trade.

Israel has already withstood enormous challenges to its existence, and through a combination of toughness, wilyness and friends like France and Czechoslovakia, survived to see its sixtieth birthday. Whether it lives to see its seventieth and eightieth does not depend on the friendship of the United States government.

Thank God.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

The Great James Baker

'I think the Secretary of State can be forgiven for not looking forward to this year's [AIPAC] conference with any great relish.

Perhaps she, like me, is thinking about James Baker. For 21 years ago he stood where Hillary will stand on Monday morning and told his stunned AIPAC hosts that it was time, in his words, "for Israel... to lay aside, once and for all, the unrealistic vision of a Greater Israel. Foreswear annexation; stop settlement activity".'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8577691.stm

Is this, by any chance, the same James Baker who has been on the wrong side of pretty much every major foreign policy blunder of the late twentieth and twenty first centuries? Is it the James Baker who advised George Bush the First not to get rid of Saddam Hussein when it would have been easy peasy, and let him continue his grotesque reign for reasons of 'realpolitik'? Is it perchance the same James Baker who advised Bill Clinton not to bother with intervening in the local spot of bother in Rwanda? Is it by any chance the same James Baker who sat on the Iraq Great and Good Bore-a-thon Study Group, which said Iraq was over all bar the shooting, and we should just accept a Kurdistan, Sunniistan and the Shias ending up a province of Iran?

Yeah, he's a fucking genius.

Definitely take his advice.

'Israel should give up its vision of Greater Israel'. Why? It already exists. It has existed de facto since 1967. You and who's army gonna change that fact?

Saturday, March 13, 2010

A slowly decaying carcase

'Why is there no British Tea Party? Where are the crowds of revenue slaves flocking to London to demand redress for the squandering of their money? Marginal tax is rising to 50%, VAT to 17.5% and state spending towards half the national product. The Treasury has lost control of public finance. So why no furious blue-rinses, bail-out ­haters, bonus-bleaters and embittered VAT victims storming parliament? Has a corrupt political class reduced the British people to quiescent gerbils?
'

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/reaction-to-the-inaugural-british-tea-party-event/2/

Yes. Yes it has.

My 'memories' of the Thatcher revolution were all acquired after the fact, as I wasn't here for it. But I've watched many documentaries (yes, that's how sad I am) about it, and I often wonder 'where are all those strange, intense young men, and those doughty homely maidens who were the engine of the the Thatcher revolution?'

Have they all got jobs in the city, children in private school and a hangover of guilt for 'destroying' the mining industry, the steel industry, the ship-building industry and all those other great cadavers? Do they feel that they 'ought' to pay 50% income tax so that those less well orf have a comfy life?

Political discussion in Britain occurs between two very large groups of people- those who have been educated by marxists, preached to every night through TV and the movies by marxists, who parrot marxist beliefs about the world, the US, British history and everything else (approx. half the country); and a second group of nice people who go to work, run businesses, have successful happy capitalist lives, and who feel very guilty about their happy successful lives because they are constantly told to be guilty by the first group.

These two groups form the basis of our politics. The first group vote Labour, and the second group vote Tory or Lib Dem. The first group I will call Leftroids. The second group I will call Cringers. Leftroids spent the middle sixty years of the twentieth Century on the front foot. They have been on defense since 1991, but came back solidly in the last few years. Cringers have been on defense for the whole of the twentieth century, and are still cringing in the twenty first. Cringers spend most of their time protecting themselves from the slings and arrows of accusations by the Leftroids that they are heartless, soulless money-grubbing demons. They can spare no time whatsoever for considerations outside of that task.

Leftroids really control the game. They hold the gun of working class violence, which they dextrously use to blackmail things out of cringers. Cringers are so frightened of working class violence that they will pre-emptively give Leftroids things they haven't even demanded yet. There is also a secret deal where Leftroids squirrel away tens of billions of pounds into things called QUANGOs, which are really a permanent employment scheme for over-educated Cringers.

Cringers have no backbone, no will to resist, no desire to upset Leftroids. They just want to keep their happy, peaceful lives and not be murdered in their beds by angry proletarians. They are willing to pay very high taxes indeed, and see that money going to foriegn immigrants and ne'er do wells and any man jack who can't be bothered to go to work. As long as they don't move too near, or commit their crimes in Cringer neighborhoods, they don't care a lick.

It really is extremely depressing. I understand why so many of Britains brightest people have gone away. Why would you want to stay here in this decayed civilisation as it quietly disintegrates.

Diplomacy by personal feelings

'US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has sharply rebuked Israel over its recent decision to build new settlements in East Jerusalem.

She told Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu by telephone that the move was "deeply negative" for US-Israeli relations.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8565455.stm

So, the first thing the Obama administration did in its 'quest for peace' in the middle east was to force a settlement freeze on Israel. A direct consequence of that was that a large block of swing voters in Israel moved in favour of ignoring American threats, and continuing the very long-standing process of re-Judiasing Israel via settlements. Who wants to knuckle under to some heavy-handed bully?

So, instantly, the course of peace in the middle east was dealt a decades-long blow. Israelis resented American threats and coercion, and determined to resist them; and the Arab positions regarding Israel immediately hardened up. Fantastic.

As a direct result of this behaviour, Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a mighty 'fuck you' to America during the visit of vice-president Biden. In what is possibly a unique event in Israeli-American relations, Netanyahu announced a new settlement building program during a visit by a high-ranking American politician. Amazing. That is as close as you get in diplomacy to actually bitch-slapping another country in the face.

All that Hillary Clintons shrill and emotional response will do is reinforce in Israeli minds that their take on the Obama administration is the right one- the latter are no friends of Israel. They might on occasion pay lip-service to Israels right to exist and the usual formulations, but at heart, they just don't like Israel. Their starting point is the same starting point of Palestinian supporters the world over- it is really all Israels fault.

So for the next three years I expect the relationship between the the Israeli government and the American administration to be thinly-veiled hostility. Even while more and more American citizens support Israel.

Well, I think it is pretty certain that the next president of the United States will be a conservative Republican, so it's only three years until normal service is resumed...

I predict a riot

Mark Steyn, as I have said before, called this AGES ago. Democrats don't care if they have to perform a suicide mission to get their healthcare bill. Once it is passed, they own the country. Nationalised medicine in America will be an enormous public utility, stuffed with public sector unions, and people who owe the Democrat party their place in life.

It will rip the heart out of what is left of American free enterprise, and replace it with European style state capitalism. Once the bureaucrats get the kind of grip they have in Britain, Germany, France and all the others, there is no going back.

The Thatcher revolution got about half way through the enormous embedded collossi of bureaucracies before it stalled.

The amount of naivety in the States is staggering. Mainly because America has never taken this road this far. A knowledgeable Russian would be able to put them straight, but Americans have a severe tendency to only learn from their own mistakes. Unfortunately, once they've made this one, they will never unmake it.

I just watched Bret Baeir and the Fox All-stars on FOX, and some fat Democrat bitch was smugly explaining how the healthcare bill will now definitely pass, given that the Dems will force it through using reconciliation. I could tell from the body language and actual language of both Charles Krauthammer and the other guy that they both believe she is right. And they understand the staggering implications.

What will happen if the bill passes? The anger levels are high now.

I don't think the anger will simply be against the Dems either. The Republicans have benn spectacularly useless during the whole deal, and have not got in peoples faces to explain what is really going on.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

What do Plaid Cymru or the SNP have to offer Britain?

I rarely bother with British politics because I can't seem to find any political view represented other than a stodgy left-wing drizzle.

But this story made me belly laugh.

The richness of the language used in their whiny letter was delightful:

"For politics to be about healthy debate, the winning of hearts and minds, rather than about prior tribal political affiliation, then parties in reasonable competition must be given similar opportunity to present their policy platform to the electorate.

"The medium of television has a unique ability at election time to bring the competition of ideas, which is at the heart of the democratic system, into the living room of every voter in the country.

"Without a properly informed electorate, the conditions for free election are not possible."

Going back to the title of this post, what do Plaid Cymru or the SNP have to offer British people?

There doesn't seem to be any irony in this letter. They aren't kidding. Which is strange, because the idea that Plaid Cymru and the SNP should have anything at all to say to English people never seems to have interested them before this very moment. They are deeply ethnocentric organisations, die-hard nationalists- and their nation is not Britain! So really, what do they want to say to us?

Because anybody who has been alive for the last twenty years in Britain could probably sum up British politics rather neatly like this:

Scotland: Communist
Wales: Communist
Northern Ireland: Er, yes, well...
England: Conservative Capitalist (paying for everybody as per fucking usual)

So I can imagine a 'sharing of ideas' between the four of us would be a 'Janet and John learn about Communism' lecture for English people from PC and the SNP, some incoherent babbling from the Ulster crowd, and a primer in basic economics from the English to the other three.

Nobody would listen to anybody else, and the English would pick up the tab.

I have always been a British nationalist, but I have to say as the years pass and the third world idiots of Scotland and Wales persist in their insults and their lush subsidies, it is becoming ever harder to muster the desire for a United Kingdom.

If you think Greece is a washed-up socialist basket-case, wait til there is an independent Wales and an independent Scotland. We'll have to build a big fucking wall to keep out the hordes of refugees.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/wales_politics/8560022.stm

Absolutely the last thing I want to hear during the Prime Ministerial debates is a droning Plaid Cymru fathead wimbling on about the usual socialist flim flam. We had forty years of it in England, and I've just about managed to wipe most of it out of my memory. I do NOT want a revisitation, thanks very much.

Kill your communists early

'Chile is regarded as having one of the best-run economies in Latin America.

Led by its substantial copper production - which was relatively unaffected by the quake - economists predict the country's economy will still grow by 5% this year.

The country also has one of the lowest government debt to economic output ratios in Latin America.

Chile's inflation rate is currently at 1.5% and its interest rate is 0.5%, where it has been since August of last year.'


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8559127.stm

8.8 richter scale earthquake, and yet their economy is going to grow 5%...

What does this teach us children?

I would say, kill your communists early. If you look around at the dismal basket cases which litter Latin and South America, the poorest ones, the ones that haven't had a decent economy ever, or not since the sixties anyway, are all socialist or communist.

Look what the socialists managed to do to Venezuela and Argentina, two countries that virtually had first world levels of infrastructure and economy as recently as the seventies. Argentina used to be as rich as Italy. Now it ranks down there with the Balkans and unluckier eastern Europeans.

Chile was lucky enough that Salvador Allende was cut down before he could really start to destroy the country.

Where would you want to live in South America?

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Will there be a revolt against Democrat Party Despotism?

I try not to do a whole lot of prognosticating, because, well, it's dumb. But here is a guess. I believe that if the Democrats pass Healthcare reform by means of reconciliation, which it looks increasingly likely they will, the response will not be the usual response to an unpopular piece of legislation becoming law. Because of the extremely partisan way it was created, because of the Sesame Street level lies peddled on its behalf, because back in June/July Obama tried to ram the legislation through with NO debate and because the Democrats have failed to cloak the real reason why they are DESPERATE to pass this massive nationalisation, I think the response will be more akin to a peasants revolt. It may well generate significant violence against a government which is deemed by many to be tyrannical.

I hope it doesn't happen. But the anger out there is palpable, and forcing through this massive nationalisation will confirm in many minds that the only way to stop it from destroying America is to get rid of it by force. Could be very messy indeed.

Question: will the US forces, who very much dislike Obama, shoot on their own people? Or will it be like East Germany and Hungary, where the internal police told their political masters that they would under no circumstances shoot their own populace.

To quote the declaration of Independence:

'...to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

...when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.'

Beautiful, elegant words, but revealing the point of the cutlass, the muzzle of the gun.

Monday, March 08, 2010

In China they kill she-babies, in London they kill beta males

Interestingly, I don't hear a lot about this from feminists.

http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15636231&fsrc=rss

But then you have a different trend in the hyper-advanced west. Here we have uber-bitch harridans who are indoctrinated in the Vogue/Elle/Cosmo worldview from twelve or thirteen years old. This acculturation ensures that they will despise real men, normal men, and spend years having loads of sex and no relationships. They will hanker after Bridget Jones's diary-type men, either sociopathic alpha males with sports cars and no emotions, or tall, dark handsome rich alpha lawyers. Eventually, when they are thirty nine, 98% alchoholic, and have skin like a leather handbag, they will write a bitter book about how men are just unwilling to commit- you know, commitmentphobes.

These women are unsuitable for any normal man. They are useless in every practical sense. Their culture is utterly alien to most men, and their attitudes militate against long-term anything. Many of my male peer group married women from foreign countries- Phillipino, Korean, Russian, Hungarian. Why do you think that is?

Could it be that British and American women are just so awful, so full of machismo, braggadocio and attitude, that reasonable men will not marry them. And if they do, it is with an air of resignation and having settled for a life of misery and abuse.

My parents marriage was imperfect. My mother was bossy, rarely pleased with her husband and thought very little of his happiness. Her generation of the fifties was the direct predeccessor to my generation. As far as I can tell, my generation will be the last one like it. Why? Because so many of these hideous bitches are single, and hopelessly so, that they will not have the chance to procreate and pass on their bile. Thank God, is all I can say.

The Cosmo girl, who resembles most a kind of sixties bimbo lad, is guarunteed to become extinct. The attitudes fostered by Cosmo: permanent domination of men by women, men are stupid, men are lazy, men are evil, men are incompetent, women are superior, women are ethical, women are good, etc, pretty much guaruntee that only masochistic men will try to procreate with them. And there just aren't that many masochistic men.

Among the many dysfunctions which can be directly traced to the sixties 'revolution' (destruction of Judeo-Christian morals replaced by... nothing), this one is the most directly self-destructive. I for one will be happy when the last laddette vomits her last stomachful of chablis and lurches off into the pages of history...

Saturday, March 06, 2010

Zimbabwe nearing its rendezvous with the sewage pit

'The main focus is Zimbabwe's rich mines and its industry.

But the indigenisation law also seeks to prevent white people from owning things like hairdressing and beauty salons.

In a few years, says Pat, we will be like an extinct species. They will come for our houses next.

The reaction may well be extreme.

Many white Zimbabweans have been slow to acknowledge the debt they owe to the black majority here. Economic empowerment is clearly necessary.

But after a decade of economic chaos, horrific violence, and the brutal seizure of white-owned farms, it is easy to understand why so many Zimbabweans - of all colours - are hair-trigger tuned to expect the very worst.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8551616.stm

Er, excuse me? What debt? What do white Zimbabweans owe, and to whom? How did this judgement, this command to action, get into a news report about Zimbabwe? Who presumes to sit in judgement upon these hundreds of thousands of people, and order them to hand over their money and farms and goods to unknown black people?

Completely disgusting. You call that journalism?

Economic empowerment is clearly necessary? What does that even mean? This god-like pomposity is what gets up peoples noses about the British A LOT. 'Oh yes, I've come to your country for three days, had a bit of a wander around, and have come to the conclusion that economic empowerment is clearly necessary, old bean.' Fuck right off. Have you read any objective histories of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, Andrew Harding, or are you just parroting the marxist garbage you hoovered up at poly?

Most of the whites left in Zimbabwe are now stony broke because of the nation-wide theft of commercial farms from their owners, and all the sorry knock-ons from that process. What have you got left to steal?

What theory of economics spawned 'economic empowerment'? Isn't economic empowerment a euphemism for black people stealing working businesses from white people and proceeding to run them into the ground?

Part of me, the perverse part, wishes that Zimbabwe goes full steam ahead with 'economic empowerment'. Soon Zimbabwe, already heading like a runaway train towards the economic precipice, will drop over the edge into the abyss where places like Liberia and Haiti already wallow.

But then the other part of my self reminds the perverse part that that will simply mean another deluge of Zimbabweans into Britain and another vast collection of people in Zimbabwe living off the World Food Program dole.

Somebody needs to shoot Mugabe, and the top twenty generals and air force commanders and throw them in a pit somewhere. Then Zimbabwe might just have the possiblity of a viable future.

Friday, March 05, 2010

Losing with the talking

'Is there any evidence — anything at all — to suggest the Matheson nomination is related in any way to getting his brother's vote on health care? No. There's literally nothing.

Of course, there is evidence. The evidence is the need to persuade the congressman and the timing of the the nomination of the brother. It's not conclusive proof, but it is evidence. We need more evidence to answer our questions, but there is surely a basis of our questions.

But it's nevertheless the talk of the conservative world today....

And you know damned well it would be the talk of the liberal world if Bush were still President and... man, that point is tedious. But it's so apt! Politicos are so boring. Blech.'

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2010/03/reason-this-isnt-what-it-looks-like-is.html

Instapundit had a post the other day about the Popular Mechanics long, thorough debunking of the 9/11 Truther lies, basically saying it was a waste of time. I agree. Conspiracy theories are not by their nature disprovable. The people who love conspiracy theories are not engaged in a scientific debate about events that are part of the historical record. Conspiracy theories are a way of taking reality and molding and distorting it until it fits a priori beliefs about the 'way things really are'.

Which brings me back to this rather hilarious Ann Althouse post. The purpose of 95% of writing on the left is not the establishment of the true state of America, the best possible policy offerings, or an accurate characterisation of the issues of the day. The purpose is to fill the air, the newspaper and the tv screen with lefty noise, lefty opinion, lefty blather, lefty hate, lefty propaganda, lefty anything. It is to make sure that no matter where people go to college, no matter what TV network they watch, no matter what films they see, no matter what school they attend, their eyes and ears will be constantly bombarded with the lefty view of the world. That is all.

Taking each individual lefty smear, lefty ad hominem, lefty lie, lefty distortion, lefty inaccuracy on as if in some debating club and doing a point by point demolition of it is completely pointless (if fun). It is pointless because there is no intention for any individual piece of the omnipresent lefty tirade to be true, accurate or reasonable. As soon as a new item of bullshit has been emitted, it is forgotten, superseded by the next item. This is not an exercise in truth-seeking by dialectic- it is a bombardment with the ultimate goal of smashing lefty ideas into every atom of every person in America (and Britain, and Germany, and France etc).

In this particular instance, there is prima facie evidence of corrupt behaviour on the part of the President. Interest on the left? None. No newspaper of note will report it, no large TV network will broadcast it. But there however will be the repetitive drone of 'the Tea Partiers are extremist hate-mongers drifing towards inevitable violence'. And 'the Republicans are the party of No'. And 'the Stimulus worked'. Etc Etc.

I love people like Charles Krauthammer, whose fine forensic mind disentangles the strands of complex debates and makes sense of them. But at some point you have to look at the situation and say- this is not a real debate. There is no respect for, nor recognition of the facts by the left.

Many Republicans criticised the deal Obama made with the big insurance companies to facilitate his terrible 'health care' bills. It looked awfully like a backroom deal which was great for government, great for insurance companies but terrible for everybody else. But after transmogrification in the lefty lying machine, Republicans and tea partiers were accused of COLLUDING WITH THE INSURANCE COMPANIES AGAINST THE HEALTH CARE REFORMS. If you are willing to tell that lie, you are probably willing to lie about anything, no matter how absurdly preposterous.

We do not have a situation where two bodies of respectful, respectable scientifically minded honest folk can debate the issues and come to a reasoned judgement. We have one, and the lefties. And as the old schoolboy maxim runs, if you argue with fools it will be hard for people to tell the difference.

So what are the options? Stop engaging the political opposition? Send them to coventry? Only talk to conservatives and Tea Party members?

It may be that the only serious option is to recognise what the left is doing, and copy their tactics. Trumpet conservative and libertarian ideas and world-view through every possible medium at all times, infiltrate all forums of political and cultural expression, infiltrate education, the media, movies, TV, coffee houses, dinner theatres, hair salons- be everywhere all the time. Never speak to the left, never listen to their arguments, never take them on in a 'debate', never even recognise their existence. Talk straight to the people. Always and at all times.

The alternative is to allow the whole of our societies to become an echo chamber of lefty talking points, lefty bullshit history, and lefty ad hominem attacks. We don't have to lose. But we have to take on this enemy in a way which provides hope of eventual success.

Thursday, March 04, 2010

An Open Letter to the Indian Government

I am certain that the Indian Government already know what I am about to suggest, but please do not imagine that Maoists can be bargained with. Any agreements they make will be tactical only. Their goals, the revolutionary overthrow of the Indian state and the imposition of murderous dictatorship never change. The only way to defeat them is to destroy them. Once young Maoist recruits have been indoctrinated they never give up fighting. Complete and total military victory is both necessary and within the power of the Indian state.

The current stance of the rebels shows both that the current military and police actions against them are succeeding, and that the Maoists now see it necessary to call upon the humane nature of the Indian government to save them from complete annihilation. The Maoist insurgency running from the north-east down to the south-east of India has run on since the late sixties, really without ever having been seriously challenged. Now that Pakistan can't possibly afford to attack India, the Indian government at last has the opportunity to bring all of its territory within its own genuine writ.

As the development work which the Indian government is pursuing in the rest of its states is not possible in the areas under Moaist control, it is essential for the latter to be eliminated. India has the potential to become a rich and powerful nation, but only when it truly controls its own destiny.

'India's Maoist rebels have again demanded the release of their senior leaders as a precondition for beginning talks with the government.

Maoist military wing head Koteswara Rao's demand comes a day after the arrest of Venkateswar Reddy, alias Telegu Deepak, in Calcutta.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8548809.stm

The BBC find a stick to beat the US with - shock

After the disaster (for worldwide America-haters) which was the US response to the Haiti earthquake (US was the first responder, initiated a massive response, sent a huge hospital ship, hundreds of helicopters, thousands of troops to keep order and pass out aid, managed what was left of Haitis infrastructure etc etc) the poor little lambs at the BBC website needed something to bring their world back into equilibrium. Here it is:

'Doctors in the Iraqi city of Falluja are reporting a high level of birth defects, with some blaming weapons used by the US after the Iraq invasion.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8548707.stm

You are welcome! No need to thank us for getting rid of your murderous dictator and spending thousands of our precious soldiers lives getting rid of the murderous islamist scum who tried to fill his political shoes afterwards! Have long, happy peaceful lives as a direct consequence, but don't feel the need to shower us with gratitude, will you?

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Hmmm, now where have I heard a story like that before?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8547621.stm

'Some 90% of farms redistributed to South Africa's black population from white farmers are not productive, the government has said...

...The BBC's Pumza Fihlani in Johannesburg says some black farmers are likely to argue that they have been struggling to get the resources and skills to develop their land.'

Question: what mysterious force of nature gave 'the resources and skills' to develop land to white farmers, and equally mysteriously withheld those things from black farmers?

I think we should be told.

I'm racking my brains to remember some great government training scheme for white farmers in Rhodesia or South Africa during apartheid, and my mind is coming up a blank. Or maybe there was a secret army of large-scale farming fairies who went around blessing the farms of white men, while unfairly ignoring black ones.

Could be.

Or maybe white farmers worked extremely hard to garner the relevant knowledge, skills and resources to run large-scale productive farming, and the black ones didn't.