Tuesday, March 19, 2024


Explaining narcissism

I have already written on narcissism a few times and have noted some versions of what it is and how people get like that. Is there something that turns a person into a narcissist?

There are few attempts to answer that out there but all are highly theoretical with very little objective research supporting the explanations. The explanations sometimes reflect clinical experience but inferences from clinical experience are inevitably subjective and incapable of proving anything. It should be noted that even Freud was not satisfied with the explanation he offered for its origin.

The big problem with all the theories is that narcissism does not really exist as a single coherent syndrome. The two recurrent themes in theories about narcissism are an inflated sense of self-esteem and a feeling of insecurity about one's own worth and competence. For short, the two traits are grandiosity and vulnerability. And the basic claim of narcissism theories is that the two traits belong together in some way.

But they do not. The survey research tells us that the two traits are NOT correlated. People with grandiose feelings about themselves MAY also have feeling of vulnerability but that is not automatically so. There are many grandiose people who do NOT feel vulnerable. Many grandiose people are perfectly confident that their ideas about themselves are perfectly correct and not open to serious challenge. They are not bothered by people who doubt them. Such people are sometimes said to have "a thick hide".

And of course many people with feelings of vulnerability do not also think that they are wonderful

So in asking what causes narcissism, we are essentially asking the wrong question. There are really three questions there: What causes feelings of grandiosity, what causes feelings of vulnerability and how does it happen that some people have both feelings at once?

The programmatic explanation for all three questions is that all human personality traits occur along a continuum. There are always strong and weak tendencies towards a particular behaviour type. And thinking well of oneself, for instance, is normal and as such in no particular need of explanation.

It does beg for explanation when it is extreme but the explanation needed is about degrees of self-esteem, not degrees of "narcissism". And there is a very large literature on self-esteem in the annals of psychological research. I am not up to date with it so will not endeavour to summarize it

Similarly there is a HUGE literaure on anxiety and neuroticism so that literature tells us about feelings of vulnerability. I have had rather a lot of research published in that field so I will suggest the elements of an explanation for it.

Neuroticism/anxiety just seems to be one of the basic ways people differ. It affects all sorts of behaviours. We all have it to some degree and it matters a lot how strong it is in us. It seems in fact to be hard-wired in our neurology. We are born with it but to different degrees. As such, there is no way to "cure" it but we can of course do some things to ameliorate its effects. Valium being an obvious example.

So how come both vulnerablity and grandiosity sometimes co-occur? It may need no particular explanation. The processes that cause both tendencies just sometimes overlap. Some people may simply be both neurotic and full of themselves. The one tendency does not cancel out the other, perhaps surprisingly. They are the people we often identify as narcissists but they appear to be not the outcome of any single influence.

My previous posts on the matter give more detail

Self-confidence

So where does self-confidence fit into the two factor picture I have outlined?

Self confidence is clearly the opposite end of feelings of vunerabiity. It is a lack of self confidence that plagues the vulnerable person. Confidence is clearly one part of a broader factor -- a continuum of confidence/vulnerability

So is the grandiose person self-confident? It might seem automatically so. But the answer once again has to be that there are two factors involved. As we see from the statistical correlations, it is perfectly possible -- but not automatic -- for grandiose people to feel vulnerable. Some people with grandiose views of themselves are not at all confident that they are so admirable and tend therefore to do things to prop up that belief.

As I have argued previously, the subset of people who are both grandiose and vulnerable often find relief as active political leftists. They actively promote themselves as good and kind and wise and righteous, with sometimes unfortunate results when they get something wrong. It is precisely their vulnerabiity which makes them so keen to censor the views of anybody who disagrees with them

Coincidentally, a well-sampled study has recently appeared which found that "woke" attitudes correlated with "depression, anxiety, and (lack of) happiness". The correlation with depression was particularly high -- clearly vulnerable feelings.

I have always had self-confidence in spades. I inherited it from my mother. A non grandiose example may be of interest:

After completing Junior school, I saw that Senior school took a further two years to do and disliked that prospect. So I looked at the Senior syllabus and its listing of the knowledge required to pass the Senior exam. I thought that I could easily acquire the knowledge required in one year. So I quietly did just that. I taught myself the requirements for the Senior exam in one year and got respectable passes in it, including a couple of "A"s. I was confident of my abilities and it paid off.

So self confidence is pretty good stuff. And I am not remotely grandiose. I have never sought the limelight despite several opportunities in that direction. It always seemed too much bother.

JR

******************************************

Do Americans have the will to fight?

I am pretty sure most Trump supporters do but I don't know about the rest

For those of you who do not know her, Bari Weiss is the journalist who had the courage and intellectual honesty not only to leave her gig as an opinion writer at The New York Times in 2020 but to pen a public resignation letter that exposed the oppressive culture there that prompted her departure.

Weiss thereafter launched The Free Press, a subscription-based online news and opinion journal that has already acquired a reputation for ideological balance, in-depth coverage of complex issues, and willingness to interview and publish articles from individuals who have been effectively banned from “traditional” media.

Weiss has written extensively about the horrific terrorist attacks against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, as well as what those attacks portend for America. The address Weiss gave at the Federalist Society’s annual Barbara K. Olsen Memorial Lecture (“You Are the Last Line of Defense”) garnered a standing ovation and made headlines across the country, not least because the Federalist Society is a politically conservative legal organization, and Weiss is neither an attorney nor a conservative.

This week, Weiss published a piece titled “The Holiday from History Is Over.” In it, she describes conversations she had on her recent visit to Israel with survivors and family members of those killed on Oct. 7. According to Weiss, Israelis believe they are fighting “a second war of independence—an existential war necessary for the survival of the state.” Israeli journalist Gadi Taub told Weiss that “one of the slogans of this war is lo noflim midor tachach! which loosely translates to ‘do not fall short of the ‘48 generation’”(referring to 1948, the year the modern state of Israel was founded).

Weiss opines that it’s “nearly impossible to imagine” a comparable sentiment in the United States, a “rallying cry about not falling short of the 1776ers.” Toward the end of the piece, she asks rhetorically:

“What would the people I know do if we ... had to fight for homes and our families, and the homes and families of our fellow citizens? ... Does courage emerge spontaneously out of necessity? Or is there a quiet wellspring inside some people or some cultures waiting to be tapped? Do we have that here in America? Would we answer the call if it came?”

Weiss fears that Americans think we live “outside” of history.

I think she’s wrong.

Does this country contain citizens who view themselves as inheritors of the mantle of the Founders? Would Americans step up to defend their homes and families, and those of their neighbors? Do we have the courage we would need in a crisis?

The answer to each of those questions is “yes,” and the proof is in the headlines every day—although perhaps not in the way Weiss might see it.

Americans who take seriously the wisdom of the Founders are fighting vigorously to defend the natural law principles in the Declaration of Independence, for judges who use originalist interpretations of the Constitution, for the preservation of the Electoral College and the current composition of the U.S. Senate, for checks and balances and limited government.

And for that, they are denounced as beneficiaries of “white privilege,” defenders of “systemic racism,” and (most recently) as “Christian nationalists.”

Millions of Americans are prepared to defend their homes, families, and communities; they are the ones fighting for our rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment.
And for that, they are blamed for the deaths of children at the hands of every lunatic who decides to commit mass murder, for urban gun violence and for crimes committed by those unlawfully in possession of a weapon. If they happen to live in the country, they are now accused of harboring “rural white rage.”

And as for courage? The average American displays it every day in droves. Courageous Americans are fighting school administrators and teachers trying to insert pornography into school libraries and curricula. They are fighting against activists encouraging vulnerable young people to undergo chemical castration or surgical mutilation to “change” their gender—often without the knowledge or over the objections of parents. They are fighting to preserve sports and safe places for women and girls. They fought for truthful science and against COVID-19 lockdowns and forced inoculations of experimental drugs. They fight for the free exercise of religion, free speech, and the lives of unborn children, praying and protesting outside abortion clinics. They fight for the integrity of our elections and government accountability, and against vote fraud.

And for displaying the courage to fight for their rights—and the rights of others—these Americans are denounced as racists, bigots, “deplorables,” “domestic terrorists,” and “insurrectionists” by the same “elites” Weiss accuses (rightly) of having “all of the noblesse with none of the oblige”; they are doxxed, censored, shamed, silenced on social media (other than X), sued, arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and even incarcerated.

These Americans are not too blinded by bread and circuses to see the very real threats facing us.

The Americans who are paying attention—and there are millions—are all too aware. These are the same Americans fighting to close our borders, for the enforcement of our immigration laws and the deportation of those who violate them. They are fighting against the two-tiered “justice” system and the use of “lawfare” by the politically powerful against their opponents. They are the Americans who decry the degeneration of our cities and the proliferation of homelessness and substance abuse in our streets. They are demanding that crime be punished and criminals be imprisoned. They want an end to foreign policies that kill millions of innocents abroad, enrich sponsors of terrorism, and embolden our enemies.

No, Bari, Americans do not think we live outside of history. But they do understand that those in power at present are setting the stage for a disastrous future. When the inevitable crisis comes, will Americans “answer the call”?
Some already are.

******************************************

JK Rowling vows to defy Scotland's 'ludicrous' new hate crime laws and refuses to delete posts calling trans TV presenter 'just a man'

JK Rowling has called Scotland's new hate crime laws 'ludicrous', as she vowed not to delete social media posts describing a transgender TV presenter as 'just a man'.

The Harry Potter author was cleared of any wrongdoing by police in England earlier this month over an online post about broadcaster India Willoughby, who complained she had been 'misgendered'.

But Ms Rowling has now been targeted by activists who claim she could be prosecuted under the controversial new Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act, due to be introduced on April 1.

The 58-year-old wrote on X that she would not be taking down any of her posts about Ms Willoughby.

She said: 'If you genuinely imagine I'd delete posts calling a man a man, so as not to be prosecuted under this ludicrous law, stand by for the mother of all April Fools' jokes.'

Ms Rowling was responding to a post from a user claiming to be a British lawyer who wrote: 'Delete the posts about India Willoughby as they most likely contravene the new law. Start deleting!'

Supporters of Ms Rowling praised her for 'standing up against the woke mob'.

And feminist group For Women Scotland wrote: 'Not sure anyone claiming to be a lawyer should be posting misleading info.'

Police Scotland has indicated that only incidents after April 1 will be investigated under the new law, meaning Ms Rowling would not face retrospective action.

*****************************************

Faith-Based Schools Can’t Maintain Ethos Under New Religious Discrimination Bill: Australian conservatives

It is actually the Bible which is the problem. It describes homosexuals as an abomination and says that God will judge them (Romans 1 & 2). And Christians are commanded to preach Christian teachings actively (Matthew 28: 19 & 20). Legislating against the Bible is surely a vast cultural leap that can only end badly. Christian beliefs must be allowed or there will be big consequences. Prime Minister Albanese is already headed for the boot. If he enacts this he will go out in a landslide

Faith-based schools could find themselves getting bogged down in litigation as a result of the Labor government’s religious discrimination bill, according to the federal opposition.

Shadow attorney-general Michaelia Cash has taken aim at the Albanese government’s upcoming religious discrimination protections, which she said could obstruct religious schools from maintaining their religious ethos.

What Is The Proposal About?

The bill, which was initially introduced by the former centre-right Coalition government in 2021, set out to protect Australians from discrimination on the basis of religious belief.

However, the Coalition failed to pass the law prior to the 2022 federal election after five Liberal MPs crossed the floor to support amendments by the then-opposition Labor Party, which were designed to prevent discrimination against gay and transgender students by religious schools.

On the other hand, faith-based groups have expressed concern that the bill would do little to legislate protections for religious Australians, arguing the protections were too narrow to be effective.

The topic would soon resurface in public debate as the Australian Law Reform Commission prepared to release a long-awaited report in March 2023 that would recommend “making discrimination against students on the grounds of sexual orientation … unlawful.”

This would be done by repealing section 38(3) under the Sex Discrimination Act, a move that could potentially bar faith-based schools from preferencing candidates who share the schools’ spiritual outlook during recruitment. It could also prevent schools from asking students to abide by the school’s belief system.

The shadow attorney-general warned that under Labor’s religious protection bill, faith-based schools wouldn’t be able to conduct themselves in a way that is consistent with their values.

“What they’re saying to me is ‘Michaelia, we just want to educate; under Mark Dreyfus and Anthony Albanese, we’re going to wind up litigating,’” Ms. Cash told Sky News on March 17.

She also said she had heard “very concerning things” about the new amendments, adding that this would likely include an anti-vilification provision, which criminalises speech that is considered hateful.

‘A Cure That Is Worse Than The Disease’: Think Tank

Similar concerns have been voiced by Morgan Begg, the director of the Legal Rights Program at the Institute of Public Affairs. He said the religious freedoms of Australians would be under siege due to the “weaponisation of anti-vilification and anti-discrimination laws.”

“This notoriously ambiguous concept creates an opening for bureaucrats and courts to tie up supposedly legitimate speech in legal limbo,” he wrote in an opinion article for The Epoch Times.

“For example, saying ‘marriage is between a man and a woman’ is something that many religious Australians believe, but saying so could be considered ‘hateful’ by some in the community.”

Mr. Begg warned the religious discrimination bill would “add more laws on top of bad laws” and described it as “a cure that is worse than the disease.”

Pressure To Conform

In recent years, faith-based schools have been facing mounting pressure to compromise on their spiritual values with LGBT groups.

The conflict was highlighted during the controversy surrounding Citipointe Christian College in 2022, which saw the school’s principal stand down over an enrolment contract that described homosexuality as a sin.

The contract, which stated that the college would only enrol students on the basis of the “gender that corresponds to their biological sex,” had attracted public protests and criticism, with some parents accusing the school of stigmatising a “vulnerable community.”

Former Principal and Pastor Brian Mulheran said at the time that his intention was “only to offer families a choice about how their children educated, and to be open and transparent about our religious ethos.”

“I am sorry, sorry that some students felt that they may be being discriminated against at Citipointe. We would never discriminate against any student on the basis of their sexuality or gender identity,” he wrote in a letter.

Ahead of the 2022 election, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese promised he would resume addressing the religious discrimination bill during their term of parliament.

“We’ll do it in a way which is much more consultative and brings people together in a way that I hope characterises the way my government functions,” Mr. Albanese said, adding that he “respected people of faith.”

****************************************

My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

***************************************

Monday, March 18, 2024


Being a trad wife these days is not as safe as it was in the old days

Women in the past had more security in their marriage due to laws, social pressures and customs. These days a trad wife could have her husband walk out at short notice, leaving her with a greatly disrupted life

I have seen these posts about traditional living and being a “trad wife” all over social media lately.

My mom hasn’t chosen that lifestyle. Same as my mom’s mom. However, I spoke my dad’s mom. My paternal grandma.

And she very much lived that lifestyle. That and more. She has lived all her life in semi-rural Sicily. And she raised six kids. And she was a housewife, and the picture perfect homemaker.

Except that as she would tell you it was much less “instagrammable” as the kids say these days than you would think.

Six children and a household to manage, her everyday — as I heard through various stories — was a testament to resilience and sense of duty. And with one income and six children, money was also tight.

The community was tight-knit and neighbors leant on each other for support and occasional gossip.

When I talked to my grandma and showed her some clips, she raised some interesting points.

First she pointed out that while she enjoyed her life, that lifestyle was hardly a choice. It was what was normal really. It was how it was.

But then she raised a good point. She said back then, women had fewer choices but so did men.

I started right away disagreeing with her as to me the men held all the power. But then I understood what she meant.

Divorce was frowned upon in the past. So a man deciding to leave his wife was much less common. And it would receive a lot of pressure, from society, his own family, his colleagues, his boss, his social circle and so on.

A man deciding to leave his wife was pretty big deal (I am sure things where different in different part of the world but at least in relatively terms I feel there is some common ground — especially compared with today).

Today — if either one, decides to leave.. well nobody is going to make a big deal out of it. The barrier to exit are much lower, shall we say?

Social expectations solidified the family unit and these dynamics provided a form of security, although not leaving much room for individual needs or aspirations outside of predefined roles.

Back then if you were a husband who decided to leave your (financially very much dependent) wife you would have a number on people on your case. Her family for sure but also your own family. And your own social circle and friends.

You truly risked being ostracized.

Fast forward to the present — the situation has dramatically changed. And I am not saying it is bad — people finally have some agency that is good news.

But as my grandma pointed out if you choose a trad wife scenario where you are financially dependent on your husband (or partner), you still have the lack of financial independence minus the safety net that society’s expectations provided.

Separation or divorce is far less stigmatized leaving traditional wives potentially more vulnerable than in the past.

https://medium.com/long-sweet-valuable/i-spoke-about-trad-wives-to-my-sicilian-grandma-and-she-told-me-what-she-thinks-ae0a70b7b3bf (Condensed)

*********************************************************

SC Is Protecting Its Children With “Help Not Harm” Bill

South Carolina legislation HB 4624 is called the “Help Not Harm” bill—and with good reason. Approved by the House in January, it bans so-called “gender affirming” medical interventions for minors under the age of 18 and prohibits Medicaid coverage of those procedures for anyone under the age of 26.

After passing a Senate subcommittee just days ago, the bill now heads to the full Senate Medical Affairs Committee for a vote. Lawmakers there must show the courage of their colleagues in the House because the bill is precisely the kind of legislation that America’s children need—and need immediately.

In increasing measure, vulnerable pubescent and pre-pubescent children are being proselytized into a fictional belief that they can be “born in the wrong body.” In fact, so effective have been the influences of social media, peer pressure and pro-trans narratives in this space that UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute reports that more than 300,000 high school-aged (ages 13-17) children in the United States today identify as “transgender”—making them the largest and fastest-growing share of the overall trans-identified population in the country.

Between 2017 and 2021, the number of children in the United States taking puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones doubled. And double mastectomies performed on adolescent girls increased by nearly 400% during the same period.

These increases aren’t organic. They are a direct result of what appears to be a national social experiment targeting children who are not old enough to vote, get tattoos, buy cigarettes or enter into contracts. The federal government has been working overtime to convince the nation that these experimental procedures are “life-saving care” and that if children don’t have access to these “gender affirming” treatments, they will commit suicide.

But the support for such inflammatory rhetoric simply doesn’t exist. We’re being asked to believe that minor children possess the maturity to make life-altering medical decisions and can fully comprehend the risks of these procedures—those that include everything from incontinence to tissue death to lack of fertility, and worse.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The increase in a new cohort of the population—de-transitioners—is proof positive of the regretfully life-altering and experimental nature of these kind of “gender affirming” medical interventions. It also demonstrates that children, as easily influenced as they are, must not be used as pawns in a political play that caters to a small but vocal and well-funded minority.

This legislation isn’t hateful or bigoted. It’s a common-sense bill that protects minors when the integrity of their bodies and mental health are on the line. It’s also representative of the widespread and bipartisan support for these kinds of bans, as the majority of Americans oppose “gender affirming care” for minors.

But the tide is turning. Several European countries that once uncritically embraced “gender-affirming care” for minors have already reconsidered or reversed course as the lack of evidence supporting the safety of these procedures and increasing evidence of long-term complications surfaces. The FDA is being sued for allegedly concealing records regarding the off-label use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones on minors. Medical malpractice claims against hospital systems that rushed minor children into “gender affirming” surgeries with little to no investigation of the minor’s underlying mental health co-morbidities are on the rise.

Nearly two dozen states have already enacted laws prohibiting “gender-affirming” interventions for minors in most circumstances. Now is the time for South Carolina to join them.

***********************************************************

DEI, Sold as a Way To Promote Racial Harmony, Does Just the Opposite

Programs designed to instill “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI) do not promote racial harmony. The trainings, which have become commonplace in schools, workplaces and government agencies nationwide, may in fact be manipulative, unlicensed attempts at psychology.

Just ask Chad Ellis.

Ellis, a former researcher at Chevron Philips Chemical Company, holds a Ph.D. in chemistry. He was forced to undergo DEI training and “received confirmed mental health damage from coerced, mandatory workplace attendance at a psychological video series,” according to Ellis’s complaint in district court against the Oklahoma State Board of Examiners of Psychologists. The techniques used in the training mirror the psychological coercion used in military interrogations, according to expert witness testimony in the complaint.

Chevron used a DEI training series called “Here and Heard,” which attacked viewers’ loyalties and personal appearances, accusing the viewers of maintaining bias based on their skin color. The program uses images of abuse and genocide to create distress in viewers’ minds—which are psychological, not instructional, techniques.

DEI sessions are not simply teaching tools. In fact, the DEI trainer in the Here and Heard video said that the approach was “purposefully designed to cause visceral reactions,” which sounds like emotional manipulation, not instruction.

The trainer was not a psychologist, though (she was a part-time real estate agent), which means the training program could be unlicensed practice of psychology. In an interview, Ellis said the training was “very provocative…highly graphical [with] emotional content.” He says he told his supervisors, “You don’t have my consent to do this,” but, “I didn’t get anywhere.” Ellis says he is not opposed to some DEI activities, but someone with a psychology license should be accountable for the trainings’ effects.

Ellis is not asking for sympathy for facing DEI training. Rather, he asked Oklahoma’s board of examiners to investigate the Chevron program to determine whether it constitutes the practice of psychology. The board dismissed his complaint.

In the legal battle that ensued, with Ellis contending that the state board should at least make a determination, the chemist said, “Just like if I’m exposed to a chemical spill, I deserve to know what’s in that. If I’m exposed to something like this, I deserve to know where it’s coming from and who stands behind it.”

Ellis is not the first to make claims such as this. In Pennsylvania, a former professor at Pennsylvania State Abington alleged he faced racial discrimination and experienced harm as part of a DEI program at the college. A district judge is allowing the case to proceed, despite university opposition.

Ellis said Here and Heard was “pushing the levers of guilt and shame and humiliation to coerce belief change.” This helps explain why researchers have found that DEI fails to change individual attitudes and behavior. DEI does not appeal to our better natures, but accuses anyone who does not see racism everywhere of being racist. It holds that if you do not see racism everywhere, you are trying to maintain power over others. That’s hardly a message that helps build camaraderie.

Policymakers in six states, including Oklahoma, have either prohibited the use of taxpayer spending on DEI programs or called for an end to DEI in public spaces. Officials in nearly a dozen other states are now considering similar proposals in favor of civil rights over DEI.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, reminded residents in his executive order that the state constitution prohibits “preferential treatment” or discrimination based on race, ethnicity or sex. These are the very racist ideas DEI programs advocate for.

Chevron Phillips is a private joint venture between Chevron and Phillips 66, so the DEI prohibitions may not apply to them, but allowing the practice of unlicensed psychologists is still illegal. Ellis’s legal filings say Here and Heard is “trying to mold the minds of these employees and, again, practicing psychology without any consent and without any license.”

If DEI sessions are psychological treatments—from unlicensed psychologists—all the more reason to bolster state and federal civil rights laws, protect equality under the law, and reject DEI and its racist results.

***********************************************

The Phantom Economic Benefits of SCHIP Expansion

Proponents of federal spending programs commonly extol the many jobs that would be created if their spending wishes were met. Defense contractors do it. Highway bill supporters do it. Now even proponents of higher federal health care spending are claiming more funding translates into more jobs and higher wages. The trouble is that such claims are almost never true. A case in point is analysis published by Families USA in support of the reauthorization and expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).[1]

Families USA's Research on SCHIP Expansion

SCHIP was created in 1997 to provide health insurance to children in low-income families whose earnings are too high to qualify for Medicaid but below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. Like Medicaid, SCHIP is jointly funded by the federal government and state governments. States can make their SCHIP program a simple extension of their Medicaid program, design a stand-alone program, or craft some combination of the two. The federal government's role is essentially to approve the program design and provide a chunk of funding to the respective states.

Federal SCHIP funding was originally set at $40 billion over 10 years. A straight extension of the program would cost $25 billion over the next five years, but there is great pressure to expand the program by allowing it to cover adults and children in wealthier families--those with incomes as high as 400 percent of the federal poverty level in some proposals.

Families USA, an advocacy organization, favors a much expanded SCHIP program as part of its broader effort to achieve nationwide government-run health insurance. To bolster its case, the group released projections of the economic effects of a doubling of the SCHIP program to $50 billion over five years.

To make its analysis more useful to state-based advocates and Members of Congress, Families USA created reports for all 50 states and the District of Columbia emphasizing how much additional federal money a state could expect if SCHIP were expanded to a $50 billion, five-year program, and how much "business activity," wages, and employment would rise due to the expansion. For example, the analysis suggests that business activity in Alabama would increase by $331.1 million a year; wages in Missouri would increase by $137 million; and employment in Wisconsin would rise by 3,032 jobs. Altogether, according to the analysis, business activity in the United States would increase by $21.4 billion, total wages by $7.7 billion, and employment by 227,065 jobs.

Erroneous Analysis

The problem is that higher government health care spending would not create net economic activity or increase real wages and jobs. There is still a debate in some quarters as to whether government spending can boost the economy when the economy is operating well below full employment. There is no serious debate, however, that such effects do not occur when the economy is operating at roughly full capacity, as it is today.

As a rule, a change in the composition or level of federal spending will shift the composition of demand in the economy from one area to another, such as from business investment to consumption or from consumption of goods to consumption of health care services. As demand shifts, the allocation of capital and labor resources shifts accordingly. For most federal spending, there is no resulting increase in the amount of capital or labor employed in the economy.

Expressed another way, there would almost certainly be an increase in employment in health services if SCHIP spending were doubled, and the increase could even be around the 227,000 jobs predicted by Families USA, but there would also then be 227,000 fewer workers employed in the rest of the economy. Higher health sector employment due to increased government spending on SCHIP would crowd out other types of employment; it would not increase employment.

Shifting the composition of demand by increasing federal spending does not generally increase overall economic activity, because it does not increase the level of productive resources available to the economy--that is, labor and capital. There are exceptions, such as when federal spending materially raises the quality of the infrastructure on which the private economy depends--which is rare today--or when federal spending expands the frontiers of technology applicable to producers. But these are exceptions, not the rule, and an expansion of SCHIP funding is not among the exceptions.

Herein lies an important distinction between tax relief and spending increases. A wide variety of tax relief options would increase the level of productive resources available to the economy. Reducing marginal individual income tax rates, for example, improves the incentive to work and, therefore, increases the supply of labor and the level of potential output. Reducing the tax rates on dividends, capital gains, or corporate income would each reduce the tax disincentive to invest in new plants and equipment, thereby encouraging growth in the capital stock and raising productivity and, therefore, wages and output. In general, spending increases lead to none of these things.

To argue that an SCHIP expansion would have no economic effects is actually generous toward Families USA's cause, because to do so ignores the increase in inefficiencies in the economy due to such spending, inefficiencies that would reduce wage and income levels. For example, expanding SCHIP would divert resources from other uses in which, according to economic incentives, they are more valuable. One can certainly make moving and valid arguments about the importance of health insurance for children. Those arguments move the heart, but they do not move the GDP.

Further, the Congressional Budget Office notes that increasing health care spending is likely to decrease, not increase, employment and output.[2] The reason is that, to the extent that additional health care spending is valued by consumers, the additional health resources "reduce people's incentives to work and save."[3] Thus an SCHIP expansion would reduce total employment by encouraging workers to leave the workforce.

In addition, this increase in spending must somehow be matched by a like increase in taxes, and this is the case whether the Budget Resolution or the economy dictates the outcome. Higher taxes--even higher taxes on tobacco, which is the announced intent of the Senate Finance Committee--distort the allocation of resources and reduce economic output. Taxing tobacco may be popular, but that popularity does not displace the reality of economic incentives and the consequences of distorting those incentives with taxes.

Conclusion

Poor economic analysis only confuses those who receive it and muddies debate. Family USA's state-by-state economic analysis of an SCHIP expansion should be withdrawn or at least simply ignored.

****************************************

My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

***************************************

Sunday, March 17, 2024


The Politics of Inflation

The article below omits to mention that inflation came down in response to the Fed stifling demand, people being unable to buy what they usually would, which was and is hard on a lot of people. So Biden is far from off the hook

February’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) showed prices up by 0.62% in the past month. If that rate of increase kept up for the rest of the year, the annual inflation rate would be 7.4%. But the CPI won’t keep rising that fast.

Over the past several years, almost all of the annual increase in the CPI came in the first half of the year, so if this year is like past years, month-over-month inflation will come to a halt after mid-year. That would seem to be advantageous to the Biden administration in November.

The annual rate of inflation is coming down, if slowly. It was 3.4% for 2023 and has fallen to 3.2% from February 2023 to February 2024. If it keeps dropping at that rate, the Federal Reserve will hit its 2% inflation target in six months—another seeming advantage to the Biden administration’s November hopes.

However, most people are not concerned about inflation per se, but rather high prices. Whether inflation is up or down is not something most people keep track of. People are looking at how much they have to pay for stuff. So, even if the Fed’s inflation goals are met by November, prices will still be higher than they were a few years ago, and people will still associate those few years with the Biden administration.

For that reason, no matter how successful the Federal Reserve is in curbing inflation, inflation will weigh as a negative on the Biden administration’s reelection prospects. People will remember that the Biden administration claimed that inflation was a transitory phenomenon. However, prices are still higher than they were a few years ago.

Is this fair to the Biden administration? Inflation has subsided more rapidly than I expected (but less rapidly than Biden and Jerome Powell said it would). I’m willing to call that a success and credit Powell and the Federal Reserve.

Most voters will not see it that way. Prices are still high, and they will not be coming down. People care about that, and this issue will matter in November.

*******************************************

The NHS puberty blocker ban for children is long overdue

Debbie Hayton

Children in England will no longer be prescribed puberty blockers at NHS gender identity clinics. This is good news: it was never appropriate to halt the normal physical development of young people struggling with the concept of growing up into the men and women that nature intended.

Puberty blockers, followed by cross-sex hormones, were a so-called solution that, in my view as a transgender adult, created a very serious problem. A cohort of young people identified as transgender, non-binary or maybe something yet more mysterious. They demanded powerful and life-altering drugs to ward off what they – or their parents – feared might be a mental health catastrophe. All too readily, those demands were met.

Hundreds of under-16s have been prescribed puberty blockers on the NHS

Now, Hilary Cass – the paediatrician who is conducting an independent review of gender identity services for children and young people – has helped put the brakes on this madness. She said, in a 2022 review, that there is a lack of clarity over whether the drugs simply ‘pause’ puberty or if they act as ‘an initial part of a transition pathway’ with most patients becoming ‘locked in’ to changing their gender. The landmark guidelines issued yesterday back Cass up: these said that there is not enough evidence that the drugs are safe and from now on they should only be given as part of clinical trials. This is long overdue.

Hundreds of under-16s have been prescribed puberty blockers on the NHS since 2011, having been referred to the gender identity clinic run by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust in north London. In recent years, demand for treatment has overwhelmed the limited provision and waiting lists for children – as well as adults – have mushroomed. According to reports, fewer than 100 children are now currently on puberty blockers through the NHS Gender Identity Development Service, though how many more have their lives on hold is unknown. Waiting forlornly for a call from a distant clinic is no way to live.

The fact that the treatment may ultimately be worse than the wait is hardly comforting to children who have been led to believe that it would solve their problems. It won’t – and that is a particular tragedy for children who would otherwise benefit from timely community mental health support. If the promises made by gender clinics cannot be delivered, then it is better not to make them at all. As such, yesterday’s news is welcome all round.

Unfortunately, that is not the full story. The interim policy on which NHS England consulted last year suggested that, ‘access to puberty suppressing hormones for children and young people with gender incongruence/dysphoria should only be available as part of research’. One would hope that further research involving clinical trials would now be struck down as unethical, but a loophole is left open for further meddling with children’s development.

Then there is the rest of the United Kingdom to worry about. NHS England’s remit is for England. Scotland, whose government seems desperate to be ever more wokier-than-thou, has a separate NHS. While increasing caution has been applied south of the border, Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS), part of NHS Scotland, outlined the need for prescribing to continue outside research because of rising numbers of adults and children seeking help.

Finally, there are private providers ready to sell into a market that will pay. Last year, GenderGP asserted that NHS England Specialist Services does not govern what GPs and hospital consultants do in their own services, and has ‘no impact on private doctors and what they decide is the right care for their patients.’ GenderGP says it will ‘continue to provide puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormones to patients who need them’.

So, while yesterday’s announcement is a step in the right direction, more is needed to protect children. Liz Truss’s private members’ bill to Amend the Health and Equality Acts is due to be debated on Friday. This bill would make it an offence to prescribe, administer or supply medicinal products to a child as part of a course of treatment for gender dysphoria for the purposes of stopping or delaying the normal onset of puberty, or affirming the child’s perception of their sex where that perception is inconsistent with the child’s sex.

It’s a worthy and valuable aim, but one that is unlikely to be delivered without the active support of the government. To make progress, this bill needs time and expertise to ensure that the drafting is watertight. The Tories look doomed whatever Rishi Sunak does between now and the election. But what better legacy to leave than the protection of children? If Sunak means business, this is an opportunity to make a lasting difference.

**************************************************

The dangers of the TikTok bill

“The TikTok bill gives Biden the power to ban websites & apps run by ‘a person subject to the direction or control of a foreign person or entity.’ Given that Biden routinely smears political opponents as being under the control of Putin, the danger should be obvious.”

That was entrepreneur David Sacks on X (formerly Twitter) on March 13 noting the fact that H.R. 7521, which has easily passed the House and is now on a fast track in the U.S Senate will give the President, right now it’s Joe Biden but also future presidents, can force divestiture of any website or application or else have it removed from hosting services if the President determines it is run by “a person subject to the direction or control of a foreign person or entity” including Russia, China, North Korea or Iran.

To get there, according to the legislation, the application must be “determined by the President to present a significant threat to the national security of the United States”.

It applies to the Chinese-owned TikTok app, but the bill goes further to leave it to the President for all future determinations about who is “subject to the direction or control” of Russia, China, North Korea or Iran.

That’s actually dangerous because Sacks is right. The U.S. government has been routinely accusing political opponents of being foreign agents who are “subject to the direction or control” of Russia and other countries.

The biggest recent example was Russiagate. In fact, to obtain surveillance of the Trump campaign, as happened in Oct. 2016, the FBI and the Justice Department had to give the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court a “statement of the facts and circumstances relied upon by the applicant to justify his belief that… the target of the electronic surveillance is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power…”

The Oct. 2016 application to the FISA Court stated, “The target of this application is Carter W. Page, a U.S. person, and an agent of a foreign power… The status of the target was determined in or about October 2016 from information provided by the U.S. State Department…”

In part, those allegations relied on the Clinton campaign and DNC-financed Christopher Steele dossier that there was a “well-developed conspiracy” by Russia and the Trump campaign to hack the DNC and give their emails to Wikileaks.

But they also stated as part of the justification for that interference in the Trump campaign that Russia was attempting to convince the Trump campaign to not send weapons to Ukraine and to instead recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea in Ukraine, telling the FISA Court that the Trump campaign, per the FISA application, “worked behind the scenes to make sure [the Republican] platform would not call for giving weapons to Ukraine to fight Russian and rebel forces” stating Trump “might recognize Crimea as Russian territory and lift punitive U.S. sanctions against Russia,” citing news reports.

The Justice Department also included an Aug. 2016 Politico story highlighting Trump’s opposition to U.S. intervention in Ukraine, including his suggestion the people of Crimea preferred to live in Russia, and his doubts that the territories Russia had seized could be reclaimed suggested without risking World War III.

At a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the Politico report relied upon by the Justice Department quoted Trump saying a military conflict to take back Crimea would risk nuclear war: “You wanna go back? …You want to have World War III to get it back?” And it quoted Trump on ABC’s “This Week” suggesting the people of Crimea supported Russian annexation: “The people of Crimea, from what I’ve heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were.”

So, that was the predicate before the FISA Court: A foreign power was allegedly attempting to influence the candidate, Trump, via campaign volunteers like Page but also hired help like Manafort, to simply recognize Russia’s claims to Ukraine’s sovereign territories in order to avert war. But these are also political and policy differences Trump had with the Obama administration and his opponent, Hillary Clinton.

During the convention, Paul Manafort was campaign chairman, who was swiftly removed by Trump after the New York Times non-coincidentally ran an erroneous hit piece in Aug. 2016 stating he had corrupt dealings in Ukraine, with a supposed ominous sounding “black ledger.” Manafort was the campaign manager of deposed former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych when he was first elected in 2010. He also helped Gerald Ford secure the Republican nomination on the floor against Ronald Reagan in 1976, and then helped Reagan do the same thing in 1980. In 2016, Trump tapped him to win the convention by ensuring Trump delegates he won in the primaries would vote for him on the floor.

Page was similarly removed from the campaign when a Sept. 2016 news story appeared alleging, falsely as it turned out, he was a Russian agent.

Ultimately, former Special Counsel Robert Mueller found there was no Trump campaign conspiracy with Russia to hack the DNC and give the emails to Wikileaks. According to Mueller’s final report to the Attorney General, “the evidence was not sufficient to charge that any member of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with representatives of the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election.”

The report added, “In particular, the Office did not find evidence likely to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Campaign officials such as Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, and Carter Page acted as agents of the Russian government — or at its direction, control or request — during the relevant time period.”

Manafort was brought up on unrelated tax and bank fraud charges. As for Michael Cohen, “Cohen had never traveled to Prague…” and so, he very well could not have been there meeting with Russian intelligence officials as Steele had alleged.

As for Page, he was never charged with anything.

But all it took for federal intervention in the presidential campaign to occur was a mere accusation of being a foreign agent.

And that is precisely how the TikTok bill could be used against other apps besides TikTok, Sacks now warns.

On March 14, he noted some on X who believe “X is ‘foreign adversary controlled’”.

And others who believed “Tucker Carlson Network is ‘foreign adversary controlled’”.

And others who believed “Rumble is ‘foreign adversary controlled’”.

And others who still believe “Of course Trump is ‘foreign adversary controlled’ — and through him the entire Republican Party.”

The legislation now under consideration, if it became law, and if the President agreed that Donald Trump who also runs Truth Social, Rumble, X and Tucker Carlson were “foreign adversary controlled” then the federal government could force divestiture or else have the websites and apps removed from hosting services.

************************************************

High-Income Earners Pay Much More Than Their “Fair Share”

What is your fair share of what someone else has earned? That’s the fundamental principle being tested when discussing “the wealthy paying their fair share.”

Politicians frequently use this hackneyed phrase with ill-defined terms in their calls to raise taxes. Still, the numbers don’t support the idea that the wealthy are skirting their financial responsibility to the nation.

According to the U.S. Treasury, the bottom 10% of income earners pay no taxes, and the second income decile has an average tax rate of minus-4.8%. Mechanisms like refundable tax credits mean this group receives more from the Treasury than it pays in taxes, creating a negative rate.

Those in the 20% to 30% of income earners pay an average tax rate of just 2.8%. Predictably, as a person earns more, he or she pays a higher percentage of his or her income in taxes. Still, no one in the bottom half of income-earners pays more than a 10.1% average tax rate.

The average tax rate has climbed 27% for the top 10% of income earners, but many Americans are surprised to learn that the threshold for this group is just $136,000 for individual income earners.

Most people in the top-income decile are considered middle class. To find the “wealthy,” we must look at a much narrower portion of the income distribution.

The threshold for the top 0.1% of income earners is $3.3 million, and their average tax rate is 33.5%, meaning just over one-third of their income is confiscated in federal taxes.

Then, there are state and local taxes to consider. In places like California and New York, these can push average tax rates close to 50%.

Is it fair to take half of what someone else has earned? And who is wealthy? A high income is not the same as wealth, which is only acquired through saving and investing.

It’s disturbing that the current political climate tends to demonize wealth. The saving and investing of income, not dissipation through spending, generates economic growth. Without savings, capital will decline. That means fewer factories and machines, fewer homes available, slower technological advances and medical breakthroughs, etc.

Investment in capital puts tools in the hands of workers, making them more productive, which increases their incomes. More capital also means more houses and apartments, something America desperately needs amid a housing shortage and cost-of-living crisis.

Capital investment also results in higher living standards because it drives economic growth. As capital accumulation spread across the globe over the last century, technological improvements exploded. The percentage of people living in poverty was cut from 80% to less than 10%, even as the population grew exponentially.

Those who think the wealthy don’t pay their fair share of taxes should also remember if you tax something, you get less of it. Wealth is no different. A reduction in wealth means a reduction in economic growth, leaving everyone worse off, particularly low-income earners.

The top 0.1% of income earners provide a disproportionate amount of America’s economic growth, which is why they also earn a disproportionate amount of the nation’s income. But the amount of taxes they pay are even more out of proportion, accounting for 14.9% of all federal tax receipts from just 8.9% of family incomes.

That indicates high-income earners are already paying more than their fair share.

Unfortunately, complex data like these rarely involve conversations around amorphous words like “wealthy” and “fairness.” Instead, bureaucrats gin up class envy by cherry-picking data to promote a false narrative of imagined animosity between income groups.

The facts are very different. While capital investment and innovation undoubtedly make investors and inventors wealthier, they make society wealthier too. More than 90% of the benefits created by inventors fall on society broadly, with less than 10% going to the inventors themselves.

For example, the creators of smartphones have obviously received substantial benefits from selling their invention, but everyone who owns a smartphone has clearly benefited, too. (You may be reading this on one right now!)

High-income earners already pay disproportionately high taxes and receive disproportionately low amounts of the proceeds from their economic activity. They’re paying their fair share as is. Confiscating even more is a surefire way to kill innovation and hurt middle-class America.

****************************************

My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

*****************************************

Thursday, March 14, 2024



Consanguinity and miscegenation

Consanguinity refers to the degree of "blood" (genetic) relationship between two people, first cousins, second cousins etc.

Christian churches have always had some prohibions against consanguinity in marriage. At one time it was forbidden to marry even your 7th cousin, though more usually the prohibition stretched only to 4th cousin. These days almost anything goes. Only brother/sister relationships are really frowned on.

From a geneticist's viewpoint, consanguinity prohibitions do have some benefit. If a person has a genetic defect, such as a deformity, it is usually found in more than one member of a family. But it is often the case that the defect is recessive, meaning that it only becomes visible in the progeny if both partners to a marriage have it. So marrying "out" reduces the chances of that happening.

Another benefit is "hybrid vigour", meaning that the progeny from quite different bloodlines are often more healthy, vigorous etc than either of the parent populations. So consanguinity prohibions undoubtedly helped keep Christian populations healthy.

The scene is very different with Islam. The laxity of Muslim divorce law means that a woman and her children have no security or protection from her marriage. She can lose her marriage and any bebefits it conveys in a matter of minutes.

So how does she get any security in her marriage? She has to rely on social pressures, and family pressures in particular. If her husband is her cousin and he tries to divorce her, both families will come down heavily on him with condemnations. So that is why consanguinity in marriages, cousin marriages, is very common in Muslim populations

And the genetic consequences follow as night follows day. In Britain, almost all birth deformities presented to the NHS come from Muslim families.

That is all reasonably well known but I want to extend the point a little further. Mental abilities such as IQ are a brain function and the brain is just another organ of the body. So cousin marriage should affect that too. There should be a lot more poorly functioning brains among Muslim populations. Real bright sparks should be rarer. And they are. The average IQs in the Middle East are markedy lower than they are in Europe, around 90 compared to 100 in Europe. So Muslims exemplify well the laws of genetics. Their failure to regulate consanguinity has dumbed them down and made them less fit generally on average.

So how does that affect interracial marriage or "miscegenation"? It should in theory be an extreme example of the benefit of avoiding consanguinity. The progeny of such unions should display hybrid vigour. And I have seen many rather obvious examples of that happening -- where one of the parents is East Asian, usually Chinese. I have often seen good-looking and very capable offspring from such unions. Australia's population is about 5% Chinese by ancestry and young Chinese-origin women often choose Caucasian men as partners, almost invariably tall ones, so Eurasian children are common. I have written at some length on Eurasians in Australia below:

But now we come to the tricky one: black/white marriages. Miscegenation was historically forbidden in America but the grounds for the ban are not entirely clear. There was a clear belief that whites were superior in many ways so mixed race chidren were undoutedly regarded as inferior, but in what way was not systematically argued. Should not mixed race children benefit from hybrid vigour?

It would seem that they have done. The term "black" is very loosely used in America today -- covering skin tones from almost Mediterranean to literally black And in the "black" population, lighter skinned blacks cruise. They are generally looked up to by other "blacks". They are more prestigious. And part of that prestige is probably fairly earned. They probably really are healthier and more capable. But it is a topic that would be too fraught to study systematically. I have probably said too much already

But, as even the APA has conceded, the black/white gap in average IQ in America is still large. The APA has put it as one standard deviation, which is a lot. The gap is even greater if we consider blacks back in Africa so miscegenation in America has reduced the average black/white IQ gap but not by a lot.

But however you look at it miscegenation has been BENEFICIAL

********************************************

Is Britain's NHS choked by bureaucracy?

"Support" staff don't usually replace anything the doctors do. On the contrary, they just create more paperwork for the doctors

It used to be that our beloved NHS was in crisis every winter. But now the NHS seems to be permanently in crisis. And every year we’re told the NHS needs ever more of our money and ever more staff. In this week’s budget it was handed another few billion which will no doubt disappear down the massive toilet of waste and profligacy that is our national healthcare service.

I realise we have had the pandemic and then seemingly endless strikes by doctors and others. But the NHS’s problems started long before the pandemic and the strikes.

Last week the Office for National Statistics (ONS) released data showing the number of staff by main work categories for each of the constituent parts of the U.K. – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. (These figures are expressed as FTEs – full-time equivalents – so this takes account of people who may be working part-time.)

As each of the countries classes NHS employees in slightly different ways, it’s difficult to get reliable total NHS employee figures for the whole U.K. However, if we just look at the largest part of the NHS – NHS England – we can get a reasonable idea of what’s going on.

Now let’s look at the numbers:

The number of doctors increased by 37,467 (up 37%) from 101,137 in 2013 to 138,604 by 2023.
The number of nurses and midwives increased by 68,063 (up 23%) from 295,163 in 2013 to 363,226 in 2023.
The number of scientific staff increased by 42,938 (up 13%) from 123,912 in 2013 to 166,850 in 2023.
The number of support staff increased by 125,510 (up 45%) from 279,579 in 2013 to 405,089 in 2023.
The number of infrastructure staff increased by 62,758 (up 41%) from 152,437 in 2013 to 215,195 in 2023.
The number of ambulance staff increased by just 1,721 (up 10%) from 17,537 in 2013 to 19,258 in 2023.
Here are just a few things you might have noticed:

The total number of staff increased by 338,4577 (35%) from 969,765 in 2013 to 1,308,222 in 2023.
The largest increases were in non-medical staff, with support staff shooting up by 45% and infrastructure staff rising by 41%.

The smallest increase was in ambulance staff – up just 10%. Some people might find that slightly worrying. But don’t worry, at the same time as the number of ambulance staff has gone up by only 1,721, the number of DIE (diversity, inclusion and equality) managers has shot up from virtually none in 2013 to more than 800 now. So, if an ambulance does actually manage to reach you before you croak it, the ambulance workers will no doubt be wonderfully racially and gender diverse, which is what you absolutely want from an ambulance service.

We’re constantly told that one reason the NHS is collapsing is a rising population. But the population of England only rose by around 7% between 2013 and 2023. At the same time the number of doctors rose by 37% and the number of nurses and midwives rose by 23%. In Scotland the number of NHS staff rose by about 20% while the population only rose by around 2.7%. In Wales NHS staff numbers increased by 32% while the population only went up by 2%. And in Northern Ireland, NHS staff numbers rose by 20% while the population only increased by 4%. So the excuse of the NHS needing many more staff to cope with a rapidly rising population doesn’t hold water.

Another reason given for the NHS’s constant state of disintegration is that the U.K. population is getting older. Over the period from 2013 to 2023 the mean age of the U.K.’s population rose from 39 years to about 41.5 years – a rise of 6.4%. So this excuse seems pretty flimsy, too.

And then there’s the usual bleating that we don’t spend as much on health as other developed countries. It’s true that we spend less per capita than several European countries. But U.K. health spending per capita is on the OECD average:

While there is some truth in the claim that some other countries spend much more per capita on health, many spend less and we don’t hear about their health systems collapsing like our beloved NHS. So levels of spending and staffing cannot be the only reasons for the utter chaos in our health service.

A better explanation for the NHS’s floundering failure can possibly be seen in the massive increase in non-medical staff – an increase in support staff in the NHS England of an astonishing 45% and in infrastructure staff of 41%. It’s not obvious why a population which has increased by just 7% between 2013 and 2023 and which has got very slightly older should require such a huge rise in non-medical NHS staff. And there has been a 22% increase in NHS administrative staff in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland yet the population served by the NHS there has only gone up by around 2.7%.

But you can look at the numbers, think about your own, your friends’ and your families’ experiences of our pitiful NHS and make up your own minds about the competence of NHS management and the fact that our NHS seems to be doing ever less with ever more money and ever more staff.

**************************************************

This Masculine Woman Realized How “Crazy” She Looks to Men

A young woman on TikTok recently went viral for her video about why men don’t seem interested in marrying her.

She explains how all the men she’s interested in are already married to women who are soft and feminine.

In contrast, the woman making this observation has tattoos, nose piercings, big burly muscles, fake eyelashes, and nearly a pound of makeup.

“I look crazy!” she says, recognizing how her aesthetic is completely different from the women she initially describes.

She also goes on to say that she thought men liked tough girls. She runs her own business, is a fitness influencer, and has always worked hard to be independent and strong.

But apparently, these qualities are not what men want.

How did she get it so wrong?

Yet another lie of modern feminism

Modern feminism has completely missed the mark when it comes to the qualities that make a woman attractive to men.

We’ve been told that a successful career, being strong and independent, and not “needing a man” are the qualities that men seek out in their female counterparts.

There’s nothing wrong with having those qualities if you genuinely want to live your life that way.

But if you think that the average man will find it attractive, that’s where your thought process has gone wrong.

Women today are being encouraged to act more like men.

Put your career first, be loud and assertive, forgo childbearing, and objectify your body in the name of “sexual liberation.”

By all means, women are free to choose this path. But if they’re hoping to be whisked away by Prince Charming at the end of it, they are sorely mistaken.

Men want feminine women
This shouldn’t be controversial, but this reality is hitting young women like a bucket of ice-cold water.

Typically, men prefer kind and agreeable women with natural beauty and feminine charm. Masculinity and femininity are natural complements that draw two people together. (Generally, masculine men are attracted to feminine women, but feminine men may be attracted to masculine women as well).

The irony here is that most women want masculine men, while simultaneously assuming that having masculine qualities of their own will make them more attractive to said men.

Having a “high-paying job,” a substantial amount of sexual experience, and a go-getter attitude isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

At least not in the dating world.

What can women do?

Re-learning what it means to be feminine
In some circles, there has been a return to classical femininity.

Dressing more modestly, being sexually selective, enhancing natural beauty, and embracing marriage and motherhood are some ways that women are choosing against modern feminist culture.

But femininity is not just checking certain boxes. It also involves being comfortable letting others lead, learning how to nurture and care for those around us, and allowing ourselves to be vulnerable.

While independence has been drilled into us as an aspirational concept, it also results in emotional detachment, an inflated ego, and a false sense of self-reliance.

The reality is that being ‘strong and independent’ does not make most women happy.

In the same way that men want to feel needed, women also thrive while being an active part of a community.

Final thoughts

Everyone is free to choose how they live their lives, how they act, what they prioritize, and how they present themselves to others.

However, we don’t get to choose how others perceive us.

The woman on TikTok is free to have tattoos, build her physique, wear nose piercings, and as much makeup as her heart desires. If that’s what makes her feel happy and confident, more power to her.

But — she cannot demand that the men she desires also find her attractive.

If better luck in the dating market is what you desire, a return to classical femininity might not hurt.

*******************************************

The decline of marriage

A lot of marriages in the past s were pretty unhappy so this may not be a wholly bad thing

‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered together in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this man and this woman in Holy matrimony, which is an honourable estate…’

This once-standard ceremony has seen a dramatic decline, but this decline is perhaps not terminal.

The recent Irish referendum, with its goal to rewrite definitions of marriage and the role of women and parenthood into the Constitution, has been a dramatic failure. Despite support from all major parties, the two proposals went down by 67 per cent and 74 per cent respectively. After successful referenda on divorce in 1995, same-sex marriage in 2015, and abortion in 2018, the progressive agenda has gone too far.

In Christian terms, the Holy rite was ordained for the procreation of children, to avoid fornication, and for the mutual help and society that one ought to have for the other. It was also intended to last ‘through sickness and in health, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, forsaking all others as long as you both shall live’. For many hundreds of years, this institution prospered and provided stability in the English-speaking world. In the last 50 years, this stability has been increasingly under threat.

Examples of changed attitudes are provided by former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and the latest American Presidents. There have been multiple progenies through multiple liaisons. Even Barnaby Joyce is enjoying a second round of parenthood. Darling of the Left, ex-Kiwi Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, has belatedly signed up. The latest political surprise is Prime Minister Albanese’s announcement that, after a failed marriage, he will marry Jodie Haydon. Maybe all is not lost?

Attitudes to marriage have changed dramatically and, compared with a level of 85 per cent 50 years ago, only 20 per cent of modern couples are married. This, in combination with effective contraception, has resulted in a different attitude to sexual relations and a falling birth rate.

The origins of the institution of marriage are lost in the mists of time. The first recorded marriage ceremony was held in around 2,300 BC in Mesopotamia where the institution developed when humans moved from hunter-gathering to permanent settlement and acquisition of property. Prior to this, family units consisted of small groups of men, women, and children. All were shared in sexual polygamy.

Subsequently, the wedding ceremony was later found in Greek, Roman, and Jewish communities, binding women and their heirs to men.

In other societies, a man was allowed to have as many wives as he could afford. In Shiite culture a temporary marriage, be it for hours or days, (known as Sigheh), is allowed to permit sexual relations. A worldwide survey in 1949 documented 1,200 different groups and found 186 had a monogamous society, over 1,000 with polygamy (multiple wives), and in the Himalayas, 4 with polyandry (multiple husbands). Polygamy is still allowed in many societies, mainly in Africa and the Middle East, and in the Mormon Church in the American State of Utah.

Historically, marriage was used to secure economic or political advantage, with little concern about compatibility. This approach is still normal in many cultures, with the husband not eligible for marriage until financially secure, usually resulting in a significant age gap. It was not until the 1500s that, although marriage was frequently arranged, consent of the individuals was required by the church. These concepts remained firmly established until the last few decades.

In the UK, the Clandestine Marriage Act of 1753 required all couples to be married by a minister of religion, subsequently the Marriage Act of 1836 allowed for non-religious weddings in registry offices. Child marriage was common until the 19th Century, and is still practised in India with a legal age of 14, and Islamic countries following puberty.

In the UK divorce was rare, and individuals required an act of Parliament until a legal process was introduced in 1858. Up to this point, there had only ever been 324 documented cases (only 4 brought by women). Divorce in India, although only around 1 per cent, is increasing in both Hindu and Muslim communities, as recent legal changes mean the wife is less disadvantaged. Australian statistics from 2017 show there were around 110,000 marriages (a fall of 5 per cent on the previous year, and 30 per cent compared with 1975, (when the population was half that of now), and around 40,000 divorces that year. The top 10 countries for divorce are all communist.

The social and religious stigma attached to divorce declined in the 1960s, and the contraceptive pill reduced unwanted pregnancies and forced marriage. Women’s liberation increased, with their involvement in the workforce producing greater independence and less subservience. With the introduction of no-fault divorce legislation in 1975, the divorce rate rose dramatically, at its maximum the rate was 4.6 per thousand of the total population. This has declined, to 2 per thousand in 2017, as fewer now marry.

The number of marriages in Australia continues to drop, falling from 6 per 1,000 in 1999 to 4.5 per 1,000 in 2019, and a low of 3 during the Covid years. Those who cohabit surprisingly have a five times higher separation rate than those who marry, and experience a lower sense of well-being. Around 50 per cent of those who cohabit ultimately marry. Surprisingly, their divorce rate is a third higher when compared with non-cohabitation before marriage.

Surveys of both men and women have demonstrated a greater satisfaction, stability, health, economic development, and commitment in marriage compared with cohabitation, which is associated with increased infidelity and conflict. Studies continue to show that the most successful marriage is the old-fashioned breadwinner/homemaker relationship.

Those who do marry do so at a later age, for men the average is 32 (it was 23 in 1976), for women the average is 30 (it was 21). A consequence of this delay is the increasing age of motherhood, now averaging 31, and an increased likelihood of infertility. Despite this supposed maturity, the expectations of personal freedom, lack of commitment, and boredom have undoubtedly increased the rate of changing partners. The influence of Christian religion in marriage has declined from over 95 per cent of church weddings in 1902, to 50 per cent by 1999, and 22 per cent in 2016. This mirrors falling church attendance, with the 45 per cent attending in 1950, falling to 16 per cent by 2016. The latest 2021 Census showed around 43 per cent still identify as Christian.

The effect of marital breakdown on children has been extensively researched. Studies suggest they are more prone to behavioural problems as they tend to blame themselves for the marital failure. They have worse educational achievement and are more prone to the development of anxiety, depression, aggression, drug use, poverty in later life, and a criminal record. This has to be compared with the stress of being brought up in a dysfunctional relationship.

With divorce or separation comes the likelihood of a new relationship and the arrival of a step-father, many studies have suggested that the new relationship, now labelled the Cinderella effect, maybe more dangerous for the child. Nevertheless, a good male role model is believed important for the child’s future development. The latest Census statistics from 2021 show that there are more than a million one-parent families, a steady increase to now 16 per cent of families.

As heterosexual marriage declines, the demand for homosexual marriage has increased. Gay marriage is rare in history but not unknown. The Roman Emperor Nero had two formal weddings to men and the acceptance increased in 2nd and 3rd Century Rome. It was finally banned in 324 A.D., but this failed to halt the empire’s dissolute decline. Same-sex marriage was recognised in many indigenous cultures in the Americas and in Asia. In 2005, the Civil Partnerships Act was introduced in the UK to accord the same rights and responsibilities to same-sex couples.

Australia introduced legislation in 2017. The number of heterosexuals marrying fell soon after, perhaps with Covid, but these marriages are now at 60 per cent of the pre-Covid level. Same-sex marriage peaked at 6,000 couples in the first year following the legislation, now around 4,000 annually. The cost of the plebiscite was $130 million, around $100,000 for each marriage that year. This legislation is still not enough for the activists. They seem bent on the destruction of traditional life and the marriage that previously sustained it. This is best exemplified by the incomprehensible statement by a lesbian activist that, ‘Future generations will thank us for eliminating heterosexuality!’

Currently, over 30 countries have legislated to formalise same-sex relationships. Australian Census figures from 2016 revealed there are 46,000 couples (around 0.4 per cent of the population and 0.9 per cent of couples) in same-sex relationships, half male and half female. This was an increase from 33,000 recorded in 2011, which was itself a 32 per cent increase from the numbers from 2006. The latest Census figures, from 2021 show there have been 25,000 same-sex marriages.

Statistics for the 10 years from 2005-15 show a failure rate of 30 per cent for lesbian relationships and half that rate for gay males, with a comparison rate of 20 per cent for heterosexual couples.

Historically, Western society has been held together by several important threads. Christianity has been a stabilising force, providing a moral compass while marriage has provided a structured basis for family life. In the post-modern era, our traditions and religion are also under threat. There are increasing demands from intellectuals that we apologise and compensate others for supposed sins of the past.

These pillars of tradition are weakening, we are becoming increasingly selfish and self-centred and losing compassion for others as we fail to commit. The traditional nuclear family has been a target of Marxism since the 19th Century, with the goal of its replacement by the state.

The Millennial generation are increasingly following what has been labelled polyamory, with an expectation of partner rotation or multiple partners. This lack of commitment (currently estimated at 5 per cent in this group, compared with 2 per cent in the homosexual group) is resulting in increased sexually transmitted disease, (levels tripled from 2001-11), financial difficulties, and poorly functioning offspring.

This triumph of self-fulfilment ignores the need of children for stable parenting.

Marriage in many societies will continue to be dictated by their culture, with the rapid expansion of Islam perhaps an important factor for the future of women. In the West we have gone through the stages of marriage for tribal reasons, financial gain, religious requirements, and love. Sexual freedom is now widespread with its self-centred concept of relationship without responsibility. The modern generation need two incomes to support their conspicuous consumption. This has resulted in delay or even abandonment of procreation and a falling birth rate. In Australia there were 23 births per thousand in 1950, this has progressively declined to half that number in 2019, well below replacement levels.

Twenty years ago, some were calling these trends a marriage crisis. It may also prove to be a crisis for our Western society. The advent of Covid produced its own challenges, with the number marrying falling further by 31 per cent in 2021. Perhaps Albo can re-invigorate the institution with his own marriage? The result of the recent Irish referendum indicates that all is perhaps not lost.

****************************************

My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

*****************************************

Wednesday, March 13, 2024



Another pathetic PFAS study

PFAS is a class of chemicals that is totally harmless to humans. But because there is a lot of it around the do-gooders are determined to find something wrong with it. They have been at it for years -- always finding nothing like what they theorize. Attention-whore Erin Brockovich was one of the early players. The latest attempt is below. As usual, no harm from PFAS was found. But they scratched around in their data to find something to talk about

They were, fortunately, honest enough to admit that their reults were inconclusive. But the results were more than inconclusive. They totally vindicated PFAS. I simply quote from the journal article:

"In the overall analyses, no associations were found between PFOA, PFOS, or PFHxS and the clinical lipid measurements when adjusting for age, sex, and education"

Get that: NO ASSOCIATIONS



Toxic chemicals lurking in cookware, make-up and toiletries might be harming the heart, another study suggested today.

Scientists have for years warned about the dangers of perfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.

Dubbed 'forever chemicals' because they can linger in the environment for hundreds of years, they have been linked to everything from cancer to infertility.

But the latest evidence by Dutch and German researchers suggests that the impact of PFAS on human health could be even greater than suspected.

Tests showed 'clear' signs PFAS led to higher levels of 'harmful' blood lipids, such as cholesterol and other fatty substances.

Excess lipids or fats in the blood can increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes, studies show.

The findings do not prove the chemicals, added to cookware, carpets, textiles and other items to make them more water- and stain-repellant, cause any adverse heart issues because other factors could be at play.

Scientists said the results, however, should serve as a warning that 'there may be no safe levels below which exposure is without health hazard'.

Study author Professor Monique Breteler, director of population health sciences at German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), said: 'We see clear signs of a harmful effect of PFAS on health.

'We have found at the same PFAS concentration in the blood, the negative effects are more pronounced in younger subjects than in older ones.

'Our data shows a statistically significant correlation between PFAS in the blood and harmful blood lipids linked to cardiovascular risk.'

However, she noted: 'The higher the PFAS level, the higher the concentration of these lipids.

'Taken strictly, this is not yet proof that PFAS chemicals cause unfavorable blood lipid profiles.'

PFAS are a class of chemicals that are more properly known as per and polyfluoroalkyl substances.

Famed for their durability and stain resistant properties, they have been used in a host of products from nonstick cookware, to clothes, packaging, cosmetics and even children's toys.

But industries are now moving away from them because of their detrimental impacts.

When PFAS enter the body either through food and water that people eat and drink or by inhaling contaminated air, they can distribute throughout the body in tissues and organs.

PFAS has previously been linked to kidney cancer, prostate cancer and breast cancer, among others.

While these links are not definitive and research is ongoing, part of the concern is because PFAS are so ubiquitous in modern life and persist so long in the environment they could infiltrate water supplies, further increasing exposure.

The Government's Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) currently sets a limit of 0.1 micrograms per litre (μg/L) for PFAS in UK tap water, with the body running a specific programme testing for levels in British water supplies.

In their study, researchers at DZNE and Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands analysed blood samples from over 2,500 Dutch men and women aged between 30 and 89.

PFAS were detected in the blood of almost all test subjects.

Professor Breteler added: 'Even if we don't see an immediate health threat for the study participants we examined, the situation is still worrying.

'In the long term, the increased risk may very well have a negative impact on the heart and cardiovascular system.'

The findings, based on three of the most common types of PFAS (PFOA, PFOS and PFHxS) were published in the journal Exposure and Health.

****************************************

Crazy priorities from Joe Biden

Before President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, the pundit class was predicting that he would deliver a message of unity and calm, if only to attract undecided voters to his side.

He did the opposite. The speech revealed a loud, cranky, angry, bitter side of the man that people don’t usually see. It seemed like the real Joe Biden I remember from the old days, full of venom, sarcasm, disdain, threats, and extreme partisanship.

The base might have loved it except that he made reference to an “illegal” alien, which is apparently a trigger word for the left. He failed their purity test.

The speech was stunning in its bile and bitterness. It’s beyond belief that he began with a pitch for more funds for the Ukraine war, which has killed 10,000 civilians and some 200,000 troops on both sides. It’s a bloody mess that could have been resolved early on but for U.S. tax funding of the conflict.

Despite the push from the higher ends of conservative commentary, average Republicans have turned hard against this war. The United States is in a fiscal crisis and every manner of domestic crisis, and the U.S. president opens his speech with a pitch to protect the border in Ukraine? It was completely bizarre, and lent some weight to the darkest conspiracies about why the Biden administration cares so much about this issue.

From there, he pivoted to wildly overblown rhetoric about the most hysterically exaggerated event of our times: the legendary Jan. 6 protests on Capitol Hill. Arrests for daring to protest the government on that day are growing.

The media and the Biden administration continue to describe it as the worst crisis since the War of the Roses, or something. It’s all a wild stretch, but it set the tone of the whole speech, complete with unrelenting attacks on former President Donald Trump. He would use the speech not to unite or make a pitch that he is president of the entire country but rather intensify his fundamental attack on everything America is supposed to be.

Hard to isolate the most alarming part, but one aspect really stood out to me. He glared directly at the Supreme Court Justices sitting there and threatened them with political power. He said that they were awful for getting rid of nationwide abortion rights and returning the issue to the states where it belongs, very obviously. But President Biden whipped up his base to exact some kind of retribution against the court.

Looking this up, we have a few historical examples of presidents criticizing the court but none to their faces in a State of the Union address. This comes two weeks after President Biden directly bragged about defying the Supreme Court over the issue of student loan forgiveness. The court said he could not do this on his own, but President Biden did it anyway.

Here we have an issue of civic decorum that you cannot legislate or legally codify. Essentially, under the U.S. system, the president has to agree to defer to the highest court in its rulings even if he doesn’t like them. President Biden is now aggressively defying the court and adding direct threats on top of that. In other words, this president is plunging us straight into lawlessness and dictatorship.

In the background here, you must understand, is the most important free speech case in U.S. history. The Supreme Court on March 18 will hear arguments over an injunction against President Biden’s administrative agencies as issued by the Fifth Circuit. The injunction would forbid government agencies from imposing themselves on media and social media companies to curate content and censor contrary opinions, either directly or indirectly through so-called “switchboarding.”

A ruling for the plaintiffs in the case would force the dismantling of a growing and massive industry that has come to be called the censorship-industrial complex. It involves dozens or even more than 100 government agencies, including quasi-intelligence agencies such as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which was set up only in 2018 but managed information flow, labor force designations, and absentee voting during the COVID-19 response.

A good ruling here will protect free speech or at least intend to. But, of course, the Biden administration could directly defy it. That seems to be where this administration is headed. It’s extremely dangerous.

A ruling for the defense and against the injunction would be a catastrophe. It would invite every government agency to exercise direct control over all media and social media in the country, effectively abolishing the First Amendment.

Close watchers of the court have no clear idea of how this will turn out. But watching President Biden glare at court members at the address, one does wonder. Did they sense the threats he was making against them? Will they stand up for the independence of the judicial branch?

Maybe his intimidation tactics will end up backfiring. After all, does the Supreme Court really think it is wise to license this administration with the power to control all information flows in the United States?

The deeper issue here is a pressing battle that is roiling American life today. It concerns the future and power of the administrative state versus the elected one. The Constitution contains no reference to a fourth branch of government, but that is what has been allowed to form and entrench itself, in complete violation of the Founders’ intentions. Only the Supreme Court can stop it, if they are brave enough to take it on.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, and surely you have, President Biden is nothing but a marionette of deep-state interests. He is there to pretend to be the people’s representative, but everything that he does is about entrenching the fourth branch of government, the permanent bureaucracy that goes on its merry way without any real civilian oversight.

We know this for a fact by virtue of one of his first acts as president, to repeal an executive order by President Trump that would have reclassified some (or many) federal employees as directly under the control of the elected president rather than have independent power. The elites in Washington absolutely panicked about President Trump’s executive order. They plotted to make sure that he didn’t get a second term, and quickly scratched that brilliant act by President Trump from the historical record.

This epic battle is the subtext behind nearly everything taking place in Washington today.

Aside from the vicious moment of directly attacking the Supreme Court, President Biden set himself up as some kind of economic central planner, promising to abolish hidden fees and bags of chips that weren’t full enough, as if he has the power to do this, which he does not. He was up there just muttering gibberish. If he is serious, he believes that the U.S. president has the power to dictate the prices of every candy bar and hotel room in the United States—an absolutely terrifying exercise of power that compares only to Stalin and Mao. And yet there he was promising to do just that.

Aside from demonizing the opposition, wildly exaggerating about Jan. 6, whipping up war frenzy, swearing to end climate change, which will make the “green energy” industry rich, threatening more taxes on business enterprise, promising to cure cancer (again!), and parading as the master of candy bar prices, what else did he do? Well, he took credit for the supposedly growing economy even as a vast number of Americans are deeply suffering from his awful policies.

It’s hard to imagine that this speech could be considered a success. The optics alone made him look like the Grinch who stole freedom, except the Grinch was far more articulate and clever. He’s a mean one, Mr. Biden

******************************************

Diversity Row Erupts at National AI Institute After 180 Staff Sign Letter Questioning “Inclusivity” of Hiring Four Male Scientists

Why is it so difficult to accept that men and women are good at different things? They always have been and always will be

It's part of the restless nature of Leftists. They are never happy with how things are. So they press for change to anything that seems restricted. But that can easily be destructive. Wanting women to do things that they are less good at just diverts them from things they are good at, resulting in a general decline of capability


A diversity row has erupted at the U.K.’s national AI institute after staff signed a letter questioning the “inclusivity” of the appointment of four male senior scientists. The Telegraph has more.

Employees and researchers at the Alan Turing Institute, Britain’s flagship data science and AI research organisation set up in 2015, questioned whether its “commitment to inclusivity” was being followed in its hiring process.

More than 180 people signed the letter, which was first reported by the Guardian, after four top male academics were appointed in February. The signatories said the hiring suggested a “continuing trend of limited diversity within the institute’s senior scientific leadership”.

In the letter, addressed to Chief Executive Dr. Jean Innes and its Operations Lead and Chief Scientist, the staff said: “This is an excellent time to reflect on whether all voices are being heard and if the institute’s commitment to inclusivity is being fully realised in our recruitment and decision-making practices.”

The protest comes after the Government agreed to hand the institute a further £100m over the next five years for research focusing on “grand challenges” in the use of data and AI in healthcare, defence and sustainability.

Four new scientists, including experts from UCL and Imperial College London, were hired to help lead those efforts. All were men.

The staff who signed the letter to the Turing Institute’s leadership said their intention was “not to undermine” the scientists’ credentials, but they added: “Our aim is to highlight a broader issue within our institute’s approach to diversity and inclusivity, particularly in scientific leadership roles, with a specific eye towards gender diversity.”

Four of the 12 research programme directors at the institute are women.

Dr. Innes, the chief executive of the Alan Turing Institute, said: “Our appointments are made through free and fair competition and on the basis of merit. We recognise the critical importance of diverse leadership and welcome dialogue with our community about what more we can do.

“As the national institute for data science and AI we are committed to increasing the proportion of under-represented groups in these fields.”

Let’s face it. The activists were never going to be happy with equal opportunity. Only the full-on socialist ‘equity’ of equal outcomes between identity groups was going to be acceptable to those bent on bringing down the ‘evil oppressors’.

********************************************

Envy and the left

We are all familiar with the concept of envy. As we know, this corrosive, malignant state of mind is one of the seven deadly sins of Christianity, but it’s also condemned in Islam, Buddhism, and most secular ethical systems. Writing in 1930, Bertrand Russell identified envy as a major, and largely unacknowledged, cause of unhappiness in Western societies. If anything, its pernicious hold is stronger than ever today and growing. Social media is widely blamed for this, but progressive ideology is also a culprit, and perhaps the most important one. True, the left has always appealed to envy, but as its Utopian ambitions have grown, so too has its demonetisation of the successful.

Let’s start with the government’s ditching of the Stage Three personal income tax cuts. In a classic Robin Hood ploy, it is taking money from all those who earn more than $150,000 (compared to what they would have received under Stage Three) to pay for higher tax relief for those on lower incomes. The latter could have been funded by spending cuts, preserving the reform intention behind stage three.

So why was this option apparently not even considered? Doling out benefits to the needy does not provide, for the envious, the frisson of pleasure that penalising others in the community does. Envy was the leitmotif of Bill Shorten’s leadership. Under Prime Minister Albanese, the appeal is less overt, but still unmistakably there: a dog-whistle rather than a campaign slogan.

Envy’s reach extends well beyond tax. It is hard-wired into identity politics. Consider what kind of world its adherents aim to create. Their goal is not equality in the true sense of the word: a colour-blind society where all enjoy the same rights and freedoms. No, they crave hierarchy and privilege. Power must be stripped from imagined oppressor groups (white males and Jews, to take two favourite targets) and transferred instead to their supposed victims (women, Indigenous people, and Palestinians). Where the traditional left at least paid lip service to the abolition of all privilege, progressives covet it for themselves. Covetousness, as we know, is a close relation of envy.

Nor is climate change ideology free of envy. As Bertrand Russell pointed out, many people mask their envy in virtue. I suspect this was a large part of the psychological appeal of last century’s prohibition movement. I have no doubt that it motivates climate change moralisers today, who insist we give up – for our own good, of course – cheap and reliable power, viable agriculture and industry, and even the type of cars most of us want to drive. For many of them, I suspect, this harsh prospect provides a warm inner glow. Not only can they indulge their worst envious instincts, they can pose as morally superior at the same time.

If you think I am drawing a long bow, consider why renowned economist and climate believer Bjorn Lomborg is so despised by the left. By rejecting the need for emissions austerity, he is denying climate zealots the opportunity to take others’ petrol-powered SUVs away.

Of course, none of us is immune from envy. This vice can afflict conservatives as well as progressives, libertarians as well as socialists, in their personal lives. Equally, no political philosophy is free from morally corrupting influences and ethical blind spots. For conservatism, at least in the eyes of its critics, a lack of compassion toward the less fortunate is highlighted in this regard. For the left envy is the age-old moral hazard, given how easily compassion can morph into the urge to hurt the better off.

Mainstream social democratic parties, to their credit, used to keep this malign instinct within certain limits, confining their ambitions to income redistribution. In the past, the tall poppy syndrome was about pricking the pretensions of high and mighty rather than outright cancellation. Today’s progressive left, like its socialist predecessors, has given envy far freer rein. Indeed, it is an inevitable by-product of progressivism’s basic worldview.

By denying the existence of individual merit or excellence, progressives are suspicious of success of any kind, which is attributed to privilege, luck or the lottery of the free market. By rejecting traditional religion, they blind themselves to the darker realities of human nature, not least their own. And consider the effect of the depressing, zero-sum view of the world progressivism adopts: the belief that everything we value, whether material wealth, cultural riches, and indeed treasured historical memories, must have been stolen or appropriated from some oppressed group.

Rather than giving in to envy, we can respond to the success of others in a constructive way. We can admire them. We can seek to emulate, and possibly even surpass them. This competitive impulse, while decried by some, is a positive social and economic force. It has always been the key to capitalism’s dynamism and social mobility.

This truth was recognised by our greatest Prime Ministers, Bob Hawke and John Howard. Their policy settings, which put aspiration (and where merited, compassion for the less fortunate) before envy, yielded enormous economic and social dividends. We became richer and more socially cohesive as a result. I suspect we were happier and more content. Yet this era seems a world away.

If you want to know why socialism, for all its manifest failures, retains its attraction, you don’t need to look beyond its appeal to envy. After all, there is a reason why the major political party of the left in Australia is called the Greens. Progressive ideology, the socialism of the 21st Century, has given this vice new impetus and cover, pulling the impressionable young into its orbit. They may initially have good intentions, but for too many envy’s seductions (and addictive effect) eventually take over. This is a recipe not for happiness and fulfilment, but for anger, emptiness, and demoralisation. We can see every day in the faces of progressive protesters.

Envy can be overcome. People can change for the better. The ancients, in their wisdom, gave us the clue we need. Envy, they believed, is a form of selective blindness (as its Latin word invidia suggests). Those afflicted by it must remove their self-imposed blinkers. Yet for progressives who, whether from hubris or vanity, refuse to see this is no small task.

****************************************

My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

*****************************************