Tag: politics

The challenge of cause-and-effect

This plaintive protest, in a nutshell, explains why there can never be any significant mixing of various population sub-groups that will be successful over time. Not without the rule of a militarized aristocracy at a bare minimum, and a strictly limited voting franchise at best.

“I’m at the breaking point,” said Gretchen Gardner, an Austin artist who bought a 1930s bungalow in the Bouldin neighborhood just south of downtown in 1991 and has watched her property tax bill soar to $8,500 this year.

“It’s not because I don’t like paying taxes,” said Gardner, who attended both meetings. “I have voted for every park, every library, all the school improvements, for light rail, for anything that will make this city better. But now I can’t afford to live here anymore. I’ll protest my appraisal notice, but that’s not enough. Someone needs to step in and address the big picture.”

Now, this is a woman who cannot grasp the connection between her votes for “anything that will make this city better” and the consequent increase in her property tax bill. How can one reasonably argue that she should be permitted to vote? She is literally non compos mentis with regards to basic politics.

And she is high-functioning in comparison to millions of other voters! If nothing else, she has managed to provide for herself and pay her mortgage for 23 years. That puts her ahead of tens of millions of people.

The worst thing is the probable consequences of her selling her house. She’ll move somewhere less expensive, and then promptly resume voting for the very things that forced her to move there. Because she does not understand cause and effect.

“Retire, you selfish old bitch!”

The New York Times leads the campaign for Justice Ginsberg to step down while Obama is still president:

The “best way for her to advance all the things she has spent her life working for is to ensure that a Democratic president picks her successor,” wrote Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California, Irvine. Randall Kennedy, a Harvard law professor and a former clerk to Justice Marshall, has argued that both she and Justice Breyer should retire. Former Justice Stevens, for his part, has said, “It’s an appropriate thing to think about your successor.” (Indeed, Chief Justice Warren deliberately resigned before the 1968 election, in an effort to prevent Nixon from naming his successor.)

On the other side of the issue, Dahlia Lithwick of Slate has written, “I have seen not a lick of evidence that Ginsburg is failing,” adding that the justice’s successor is not likely to be as liberal as she is, given today’s political climate.

This much seems clear: The decision is Justice Ginsburg’s, and people close to the court do not expect her to retire this year. No doubt, being a Supreme Court justice is more enjoyable and consequential than being a retired justice. Sandra Day O’Connor, who retired in 2006, has since regretted stepping down as early as she did.

At the same time, there is no denying that any justice who stays on the court into old age is taking a chance. Justice Ginsburg will do damage to the causes about which she cares most if she follows the path of previous liberal justices who allowed a Republican to replace them. Similarly, Justice Scalia or Justice Kennedy will hurt conservatism if either passes up a chance to resign under a Republican president in coming years — and doesn’t get another such chance.

Just think about what liberals would give to have had a Democratic president replace Justice Marshall. And think about how many major cases — on voting rights, campaign donations, the death penalty and other issues — might have turned out differently.

The most interesting aspect of this editorial is that it tends to indicate the NYT’s belief that the next president will not be Hillary Clinton or any other Democrat. Personally, I’d love to see Obama appoint one more Supreme Court justice just to see how badly he’d screw it up. He’d likely appoint a corrupt black lawyer from Chicago, or, more likely, one of Goldman Sachs’s corporate attorneys, because Valerie Jarret wouldn’t accept the pay cut.

The Return of Nations

The end of the Imperial Europe project is in sight as minor anti-EU parties grow into major parties, in some cases, the nation’s most popular party. It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen. And it looks as if there is a very good chance that Britain will be the first nation to leave the EU’s evil and anti-democratic empire:

Nigel Farage tonight hailed Ukip’s victory in the European elections as the most ‘extraordinary result in British politics for 100 years’. Support for Ukip has surged by more than 12 per cent, outstripping a more modest boost in votes for Labour, while the Lib Dems faced near-wipeout, with some calling for Nick Clegg to resign.

Mr Farage said he was ‘proud’ of the campaign which has seen him humiliate the Westminster parties, pushing Labour and the Tories into second and third.

As Ukip was triumphing in the UK, across the Channel France’s far-right National Front was on course for a massive victory in European elections tonight as the country swung behind its anti-immigration, anti-EU agenda.

Early estimates suggested the number of Eurosceptic MEPs in Brussels could double. In Denmark, the anti-immigration far-right People’s Party is on course to win with 23 per cent while in Hungary, the extreme-right Jobbik – accused of racism and anti-Semitism – was running second

Elsewhere, in Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats were expected to secure victory with 36 per cent of the vote. In Greece, the poll was topped by the radical left anti-austerity Syriza movement, beating the governing New Democracy into second place.

In the UK, immigration dominated much of the campaign, with UKIP arguing proper border controls were not possible while in the EU.

Everywhere but Germany, which runs the EU to its liking, the political tide is flowing strongly against the EU. And the tide is only going to grow stronger, because the commissars of the EU have never listened to the people, which means eventually some sort of crisis is coming when the EU will be forced to choose between following its own rules or showing its true totalitarian face.

And the corrupt political leaders don’t have the power to impose their will on the people. Which is why the entire project has been built on lies, smoke, and mirrors.

The Tea Party is over

The Tea Party is rapidly losing support:

Support for the tea party has dropped to an all-time low, said a new CBS News poll released Wednesday. Just 15 percent of Americans told the pollsters that they are supporters of the tea party movement today, which is less than half the level of support at its peak of 31 percent in November 2010 shortly after the midterm election when the movement fueled a landslide Republican win to take majority control of the House.

That’s also the lowest level of support gauged by the poll since it began asking about the tea party in February 2010. The polls findings were released the day after primary elections in which Republican establishment candidates beat tea party-backed opponents in key races, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell trouncing tea party-backed Matt Bevin in Kentucky.

The poll found that the tea party had lost significant support among its core constituency: Republicans.

Unlike many right-wing commentators, I didn’t jump on the Tea Party bandwagon because I was always dubious about the genuine nature of its commitment to get American finances in order. The Tea Party became overtly pointless after most of its elected members promptly rolled over on the issue of the debt ceiling, which was its only credible weapon. And what is the point of a political party that demonstrates it is willing to surrender on its sole purpose for existence without even putting up a fight?

Kicking out Cantor

The Republican Party needs to rid itself of one of its traitorous “leaders”:

Sources tell PJ Media that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s long-time top consultant, Ray Allen, has “angrily” stated to multiple individuals that he intends to bankrupt the Republican Party of Virginia (RPV), to install his own people throughout all levels of RPV’s State Central Committee, and to rebuild the RPV with money from Eric Cantor’s donors.

Ray Allen is considered the “brain trust” of Eric Cantor’s Young Guns, which has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and has hired staff with the intention of retaking control of the RPV at all levels. (Eric Cantor and Ray Allen lost control of the RPV in 2012, when Tea Party/conservative candidates won seats at all levels of the party, taking majority control from Cantor allies.) In this effort to reclaim the majority, Ray Allen has helped orchestrate the parliamentary procedure of “slating” at several RPV conventions this season.

Slating involves disenfranchising all properly registered delegates at a district convention in favor of a vote by only a few dozen handpicked delegates. This tactic was employed to protect the incumbent chairmanships of some Cantor allies: hundreds to thousands of Tea Party/conservative delegates have been forcefully ejected from VA RPV conventions over the past few weeks and months.

However, the ejected delegates and others opposed to Team Cantor have since had success appealing the slating attempts, leaving Allen and Cantor with little to show for their hardball tactics other than alienated constituents, a terrible local public relations problem, and worse, a rapidly gaining primary opponent in challenger Dave Brat.

Eric Cantor seems to think that he is some sort of monarch, not a democratically elected official with no inherent right to the office he holds. Here is hoping that his challenger sends him home and ends his disastrous political career. The Republican Party of Virginia should be actively pressuring him to resign.

Intra-Democrat war

This promises to be an interesting political battle, featuring Vibrant Americans vs Jewish women.

“If it’s not handled by… the start of next season, I don’t see how we’re playing basketball,” NBPA vice president Roger Mason Jr. said in an interview with Showtime’s Jim Rome. “We have player reps, we’ve got executive committee members…  Leaders of the teams, they’re all saying the same thing, ‘If [Sterling] is still in place, we ain’t playing’. … I was just in the locker room three or four days ago. LeBron and I talked about it. He ain’t playing if Sterling is still an owner.”

Mason clarified that the ultimatum applies equally to Shelly Sterling, too. “No Sterling deserves to be an owner of that franchise any longer,” Mason continued. “And I’ve gone down the line from LeBron to the other guys in the league that I’ve talked to and they all feel the same way. There’s no place for that family in the NBA.”

James, who scored 49 points in a Game 4 victory over the Nets in the Eastern conference semifinals on Monday, took a public stand against both Sterlings earlier this week.

“As players, we want what’s right and we don’t feel like no one in his family should be able to own the team,” he said, according to the Associated Press.

It’s bad enough to argue that a man should be deprived of his property due to his private speech, but on the other hand, there are details related to Mr. Tokowitz’s signature on various NBA documents that appear to considerably complicate the matter. But the former Miss Stein didn’t do or say anything objectionable, so one wonders on what ground Mr. Mason and Mr. James could possibly argue that she should be deprived of her property.

I could not care less about the NBA, but this could provide some amusement. It should be interesting to see how fast the NBA reverses direction once Mrs. Tokowitz starts playing the sexist card and the media takes note of the fact that the league has no female owners.

Thought Police: NFL style

It’s fascinating to see the sports media openly endorse corporate thought policing. I’m sure they will be similarly fine with being suspended and fined if they write positively of homogamy in public. Peter King writes on CNN/SI:

Good for the Dolphins for fining and suspending defensive back Don Jones for being an idiot on Twitter after Michael Sam got drafted.

I would love to see Fox News suspend and fine someone for expressing a critical attitude towards any religion. Just to prove the point, if nothing else. The fact that a self-professed journalist would openly endorse political speech-policing goes to show the dreadful state of journalism in America.

The choosing time

With the quasi-completion of the Left’s long march through the media institutions, everything traditional, Christian, or moral is now effectively banned from mainstream publication and broadcast. We have two choices. Abandon our standards in order to get along or begin developing our own distribution channels and refuse to participate in the mainstream’s headlong dive into utter depravity and appeal to the lowest possible denominator:

After the group Right Wing Watch reported the twins who star in HGTV’s recently greenlit reality series Flip It Forward are anti-gay activists, the network said this morning it had given the hook to the series, which was set to debut in October.

This is why we need to develop our own content. This is why we need to develop our own distribution channels. This is why we need to do what the Left has done, which is to choose our side and relentlessly reject everything about the enemy. Because they are not merely the opposition, they are the self-declared enemy.

Don’t pride yourself on your tolerance of them because tolerance is not a virtue and tolerance of the wicked is a sin. Don’t try to separate yourself from others on your side in the hopes that they will spare you, because that separation is exactly what they require in order to divide and conquer.

Stop kidding yourself. You’re not disarming any of your foes with the disclaimer “I don’t agree with everything X says”. All that amounts to is a futile plea to not be damned by the only association that matters to them: do you not understand that by the lights of the pointing-and-shrieking pack, if you are not pointing and shrieking with them you are against them?

I don’t agree with everything that anyone says. For that matter, I don’t even agree with everything I have ever said. But I know who is on the side of light, truth, and reason and who is on the side of darkness, lies, and madness. Compromise with the latter at your peril.

A second wind

Political correctness is vital to the Left, because disqualification is the only form of argument they have left to them:

This ubiquity of “check your privilege” suggests that political correctness is now entering a second generation and gaining a second wind.  While political correctness previously concentrated on race and gender, the new focus on inequality seems to have emboldened the campus left to put class back on the list of identity politics.  Of course, using the phrase “check your privilege” to cut off debate on campus is not nearly as destructive as what communists did to people who were from the “wrong” class. Many children of privilege then were sent to reeducation camps to reflect or were even silenced never to speak again.  But it stems from the same impulse to replace reason with power.

This new form of an old disorder also shows that despite the orthodoxy on many campuses many left-liberals remain very afraid of classical liberal and conservative dissent.  Just as students who protested Condi Rice’s prospective graduation speech at Rutgers showed strength in numbers but weakness in intellectual confidence, so do those who parrot this new campus slogan.  If your underlying argument is flawed, you do need a force other than logic and evidence to sustain your position.  Political correctness is an admission of intellectual frailty.

My privilege is my intelligence. It’s hardly my fault that the other side correctly sees itself as being disadvantaged and underprivileged.

Takes one to know one

It’s a bit ironic and more than a little morbidly amusing to see the descendents of the secular activists that successfully infiltrated and overturned Christian education across the West wringing their hands over Islamic activists doing precisely the same thing:

Headteachers are warning that schools across Britain have been targeted in an alleged Islamist plot to take over classrooms. The National Association of Head Teachers said it had ‘serious concerns’ about attempts to ‘alter the character’ of at least six schools.

It also warned that efforts to infiltrate classrooms were not limited to Birmingham and were likely to be affecting other major towns and cities. The union said ‘concerted efforts’ had been made to infiltrate state schools and run them according to strict Islamic principles. While the body did not name the additional areas affected, there are concerns over schools in Bradford, Manchester and parts of East London, according to the Daily Telegraph.

Russell Hobby, NAHT general secretary, said some teachers were being appointed because of their Muslim faith rather than their skills. There was also evidence of ‘pressure’ being brought to bear on heads to adopt ‘certain philosophies and approaches’…. Meanwhile, it has been claimed that dozens of teachers pushed out of schools by an alleged Islamist takeover plot are too afraid to speak out because of gagging orders.

Meanwhile, in the USA, people are being pushed out of their public and private sector jobs by politically correct equalitarians for a failure to obediently submit to the currently dictated goodthink.

Perhaps it the time is approaching for Christians to adopt the same strategy. After all, we can do inquisitions and crusades a damn sight better than they can.