Vox Popoli

It’s amusing to me how people attempt to deny that the German National Socialist Worker’s Party were socialists, even as modern international socialists behave in a manner almost identical to the historical National Socialists:

Up to 5.9million children face having their fingerprints taken by schools in another move towards a ‘Big Brother’ society. Pupils will have to hand over their biometric details simply to borrow library books or gain access to school dinners.

A million children’s fingerprints are believed to have been taken already, some without parental approval and even by ‘con tricks’ such as pretend spy games.

One always has to remember that for two-thirds their time in power, the Nazis weren’t setting up and running death camps. Their second greatest act of evil- I think it’s accurate to say that the Second World War was worse than the Holocaust – was neither their first nor only crime.

Of course, it’s hard to argue with the very reasonable justification given here. These days, the global fascists aren’t even bothering to seriously disguise their intentions any longer:

Participating schools, however, insist there is nothing ‘sinister’ going on, and that fingerprints are destroyed when the child leaves. They insist it makes libraries a ‘cool’ place to visit.

Oh, well in that case, great. I bet it would make them even cooler if the kiddies could wear spiffy uniforms and beat up Jews there.

John Derbyshire mourns a world that is now lost:

I am at the point with this business about the British hostages where I really can’t trust myself to post any more, I’m so mad. Toby Harnden indeed says much of what needs saying, but I think he is too kind to the enlisted men. They are saps and worms, insults to the Queen’s uniform. I’d better change track right here—see what I mean?

….My Mum, Esther Alice Knowles (1912-98), eleventh child of a pick’n’shovel coal miner, in one of the last conversations I had with her, said: “I know I’m dying, but I don’t mind. At least I knew England when she was England.”

I discounted that at the time. Old people always grumble about the state of the world. Now I understand it, though. I even feel a bit the same way myself. I caught the tail-end of that old England—that bumptious, arrogant, self-confident old England, the England of complicated games, snobbery, irony, repression, and stoicism, the England of suet puddings, drafty houses, coal smoke and bad teeth, the England of throat-catching poetry and gardens and tweeds, the England that civilized the whole world and gave an example of adult behavior—the English Gentleman—that was admired from Peking (I can testify) to Peru.

It’s all gone now, “dead as mutton,” as English people used to say. Now there is nothing there but a flock of whimpering Eloi, giggling over their gadgets, whining for their handouts, crying for their Mummies, playing at soldiering for reasons they can no longer understand, from lingering habit. Lower the corpse down slowly, shovel in the earth. England is dead.

Being an Anglophile of English descent, I too am sad to bear witness to the loss of England’s spirit, even if I feel it far less deeply. England is a parody of its former self, ruled by Scottish Laborites and Brussels bureaucrats, its population centers peopled by “Pakistanis”, its once-proud Navy defeated by ocean-going Persians.

Derbyshire, being an atheist, would not connect this national demise with the nation’s abandonment of Christianity. I am not saying that is the sole reason, or even a primary reason, but I do think it has played a not-insignificant part.

SL notes an interesting synchronicity:

I don’t think we can expect the current prosperity doctrine to last forever. I’ve been reading an author you turned me on to not long ago (Umberto Eco) and one thing that caught my mind was how his character in the The Name of the Rose expounded that the preachers preach prosperity and poverty depending more on the nature of the economy than the simple shift of power. However, the tide will continue regardless and as the poor become poorer with little hope rising I think we will begin to see the preaching of poverty once again. Great article!

You know, I really should have noted that…. It’s an interesting point, though, and I expect he’s right. In many ways, riches are harder for the faithful to resist than persecution. Spacebunny and I actually walked out of a sermon not all that long ago when the guest preacher actually declared that Jesus cares just as much about our financial prosperity as he does about our souls.

And for all that I enjoy ripping apart atheist arguments, I have to say that they don’t disgust me anywhere nearly as much as that sort of thing. While I believe that money is morally and spiritually neutral, it’s pretty clear that the love of money is not.

A British commander speaks out against the concept:

Col Bob Stewart, who was the first British commander of UN forces in Bosnia, yesterday said that he was against women being close to combat as their deaths or injuries had a debilitating effect on male soldiers. “It’s disquieting for a lot of people in this country when women are put into the front line because when they are wounded or killed, the men around them find it very difficult to operate,” he said.

It is both reprehensible and counterproductive on multiple levels to allow women to serve in the military, let alone encourage it. That being said, our society has been so overfeminized that political pressure will continue to be placed on the military to allow women to serve in combat positions until the first time that captured female soldiers are filmed being gang-raped or mutilated.

Of course, since a weak military serves the interests of America’s enemies, they’d be foolish to do anything like that.

Some people will incorrectly point to Islamic radicals as the problem. But they are only the proximate cause, it’s not the root of the problem. It could just as easily be atheist Maoists or environmental activists enforcing their will on those around them, what provides these radicals with the political cover to act in such a bullying manner is the political influence of those who sympathize with them in a modern quasi-democracy.

Shiraz Ahmed was tending his music store in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, when a group of 15 bearded young men walked in bearing bamboo poles and a chilling message.

Politely but firmly, they instructed him to take down the colourful array of Bollywood and bhangradance tunes on display and to restrict his business to Islamic music.

“They told me I had to change my business,” said Mr Ahmed, 25, whose family has run the store for 15 years. “I am so confused. I don’t know what to do.”

Until last week he might not have worried about these men from Islamabad’s Lal Masjid (Red Mosque). After all, his shop is legal and within walking distance of Pervez Musharraf’s presidential palace….

Analysts say President Musharraf is worried about losing the support of Islamist parties in the presidential and parliamentary elections over the next year. He is already in the midst of a showdown with the country’s lawyers after suspending Pakistan’s independent-minded Chief Justice.

It is ironic, of course, that American secularists spend so much time worrying about the dictatorial behavior of the only religion with enough national power to enforce a theocracy, despite the fact that Christians have shown no interest in establishing one in more than 200 years of national dominance.

We have no reason to, of course, given the fundamental belief that a true theocracy will be eventually established regardless of what anyone, including us, thinks, says or does.

Rudy Giuliani chooses .50 caliber in blowing off the top of his presidential campaign:

Rudy Giuliani’s message to social conservatives: If you don’t like my views, don’t vote for me.

The Republican presidential frontrunner Thursday reaffirmed his support for federal funding for some abortions, a position which puts him at odds with many conservatives. During a press conference at the State Capitol in Columbia, South Carolina, he said he didn’t expect to win over 100 percent of the voters.

“If that’s real important to you, if that’s the most important thing, I’m comfortable with the fact that you won’t vote for me,” the former mayor said.

Yes, Republicans tend to do so very well when all the social conservatives stay home…. As I have written before, I don’t believe Giuliani seriously wants to win, or even win the nomination. Of course, it will be interesting to see how the “pragmatic” conservatives in the commentariat attempt to spin this, or if they finally come to their senses, throw up their hands, and give up the Lisper as a lost cause.

Needless to say, Mr. Regression to the Mean is having none of it:

With the mainstream media following along lapping it up and stressing the most extreme elements of the discussion to send the message to independent voters that right-wingers are all a bunch of lunatics who are obsessed with ideological purity and not with getting things done?

I think if they do, the GOP is sunk.

Getting things done. Which is to say, the federal government getting things done. You know, I’m not too terribly old, but even I can recall a time when Republicans were against the federal government getting things done.

The GOP sunk itself back in 1995. That 2003 peak was merely the prow of the ship arcing high into the sky preparatory to the forthcoming plunge deep into the electoral depths. If you thought 2006 was bad for Republicans, I suspect you haven’t seen anything yet. And given the migration patterns, it’s only going to get worse, those enthusiastic Red State breeders notwithstanding. It could easily be another 40 years before Republicans again gain control of the House and Senate.

That’s what pragmatism got you. Ironically, Republicans are attempting to find the cure by applying more of the disease.

Methinks that someone is not telling the whole truth. I very much doubt that Mr Ahmadinejad is, but I also doubt the British Foreign Office is either.

The crisis ended after Mr Ahmadinejad said Britain had sent a letter to the Iranian Foreign Ministry pledging that it would not enter Iranian waters again. Britain continues to insist that the team was never in its territorial waters.

Although the Foreign Office would not discuss details of the diplomatic note it delivered over the weekend, Government sources said Britain was willing to prevent such confusion arising again over the sensitive maritime border between Iraq and Iran.

The Ministry of Defence says it has incontrovertible evidence that the eight sailors and seven Royal Marines were 1.7 nautical miles inside Iraqi waters when they were arrested during a search of an Indian vessel on March 23.

However, the Iranians have won a significant propaganda and political coup, according to John Bolton, the Right-wing former US Ambassador to the United Nations. They had conducted an experiment that was “a low-cost way of testing British resolve”, he said….

Despite the official denials of a deal, there were indications of intense diplomatic activity to persuade Teheran to release the hostages.

Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported yesterday that an Iranian representative was to meet five of his countrymen detained in Iraq by US forces in January. It follows the release on Tuesday of Jalal Sharafi, an Iranian diplomat who was captured by gunmen in Baghdad in February.

I’m sure that the one release following the other was just a happy coincidence. If my theory is correct, the five other detained Iranians will be quietly released within a month or so, once the press interest fades.

MH has a few thoughts about angry women:

In a perfect world, women would respect their men and their men would love them back. This is as we have been commanded to do. Unfortunately men forget the love part or are unable to love their women and women have forgotten the respect part. This becomes a vicious cycle.

After reading “Wild at Heart” and “Captivating” by David Eldredge (I think that’s the authors name) and “Love and Respect” by Emerson Eggerich, my whole outlook on men, women and how we interact with each other has changed. A little sincere respect goes a long way with my husband. We watch, horrified, as his mother and stepfather live unhappily caught in that vicious cycle. His younger sister is afraid to marry because she does not want to have a marriage like her parents. My parents had a similar marriage.

Feminism has ruined everything for women. We are now responsible for pregnancy alone, it’s our fault if we become pregnant because we did not use birth control or more likely it failed. Men become angry if we don’t abort. They become angry if they are forced to support a child out of wedlock. The child is left without a strong father image and many times the cycle repeats in the next generation.

Girls today are looking for the male attention they lacked in childhood, they throw themselves at boys, one can hardly blame them for taking them up on the offer. Boys,having no responsible adult male role model, have no clue how to act around women. Many of them have no direction or motivation. Why should they? Many years ago, boys had to show they were responsible and could support a women if they wanted to get married. They could get sex from a whore but that’s not who they would want to raise their children, and most men at least wanted a boy child to carry on their name. Now there is no need for that when they can get whatever they want for free with no consequences except VD which they never think about until it’s too late.

Women finally settle for someone they think will make them happy but with all the baggage and no God in their lives, most of the time their relationship is doomed. They blame the men, but it’s much more complicated than that.

I guess I am angry, but not with my husband or men in general, but the results of feminism, which has created unrealistic expectations of both women and men. We are different and God meant it to be that way, so that we would complement each other.

After the fall, God said to Eve “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you”. (Gen:3,16) In other words, women are forever longing for a deep relationship that includes talking with us. Men hate to talk but will do it when you give them respect. Only with Jesus in our marriage can we somewhat overcome this curse.

I disagree, actually. There will be genuine Christians with unhappy marriages, pagans with lasting and positive life-commitments and happy Hindus with multiple happy housewives. (Okay, I was just going with the alliteration on that last one, I don’t actually know if any Hindu sects are particularly prone to polygamy.)

There’s no question that submitting to Biblical principles is one of the most effective paths towards marital happiness. But marital happiness is not salvation and therefore Jesus Christ is not the only way to it. But for those who such lack happiness and seek it, it’s certainly worth a try.

An anonymous poster on Dr. Helen’s blog:

I am one of the angry women whose husband wants a divorce. I acknowlege that anger is my main problem. What no one here (and especially my stbx husband) seems to understand is that if you are an emotionally cold, distant, detached man who walks away from all conflict you will end up with a chronically angry and resentful wife who feels invalidated, disrespected and unheard.

My husband grew up in a family where “peace at any price” was the motto. His mother pays that price by manipulating,lying and kowtowing to his father. My children and I will now be paying that price for the rest of our lives while my husband finds peace without us.

This is an example of one of the more obviously doomed pairings, the angry woman and the peace-at-any-price man. However, the point that this woman appears to be missing is that this is the path she chose. Regardless of whether or not one likes the way one’s partner responds to provocation, one must recognize that this is a RESPONSE to one’s own action.

Every day, the opportunities for conflict present themselves, in our relationships, our personal lives and our professional lives. But it is a choice to provoke that conflict or to let it go. And while some conflicts are unavoidable and must be fought out, this is not true of the vast majority of them, especially those within a marriage.

I give Spacebunny the opportunity to engage in conflict every single day, what with my inability to know what day it is, let alone what petty household task I agreed to do last week. And nearly every time, she declines the opportunity. This is the hallmark of a self-disciplined woman who values her relationship, just as explosive outbursts over minor issues is the hallmark of an out-of-control woman who values her momentary feelings more than her relationship.

If people don’t want to be around you, the problem is you. If someone who used to enjoy being around you prefers to avoid you, then you would do well to examine if you are treating them differently than you were in the past.