Friday, April 30, 2004

 

MUSLIM SPAIN WAS NOT TOLERANT

Dispelling the PC myth of "tolerant Moorish rule" in mediaeval Spain

"Al-Andalus represented the land of jihad par excellence. Every year, sometimes twice a year, raiding expeditions were sent to ravage the Christian Spanish kingdoms to the north, the Basque regions, or France and the Rhone valley, bringing back booty and slaves. Andalusian corsairs attacked and invaded along the Sicilian and Italian coasts, even as far as the Aegean Islands, looting and burning as they went. Thousands of people were deported to slavery in Andalusia, where the caliph kept a militia of tens of thousand of Christian slaves brought from all parts of Christian Europe (the Saqaliba), and a harem filled with captured Christian women. Society was sharply divided along ethnic and religious lines, with the Arab tribes at the top of the hierarchy, followed by the Berbers who were never recognized as equals, despite their Islamization; lower in the scale came the mullawadun converts and, at the very bottom, the dhimmi Christians and Jews.

The Andalusian Maliki jurist Ibn Abdun (d. 1134) offered these telling legal opinions regarding Jews and Christians in Seville around 1100 C.E.: "No.Jew or Christian may be allowed to wear the dress of an aristocrat, nor of a jurist, nor of a wealthy individual; on the contrary they must be detested and avoided. It is forbidden to [greet] them with the [expression], `Peace be upon you'. In effect, `Satan has gained possession of them, and caused them to forget God's warning. They are the confederates of Satan's party; Satan's confederates will surely be the losers!' (Qur'an 58:19 [modern Dawood translation]). A distinctive sign must be imposed upon them in order that they may be recognized and this will be for them a form of disgrace."...

In Granada, the Jewish viziers Samuel Ibn Naghrela and his son Joseph, who protected the Jewish community, were both assassinated between 1056 to 1066, followed by the annihilation of the Jewish population by the local Muslims. It is estimated that up to five thousand Jews perished in the pogrom by Muslims that accompanied the 1066 assassination. This figure equals or exceeds the number of Jews reportedly killed by the Crusaders during their pillage of the Rhineland, some thirty years later, at the outset of the First Crusade....

The Muslim Berber Almohads in Spain and North Africa (1130-1232) wreaked enormous destruction on both the Jewish and Christian populations. This devastation- massacre, captivity, and forced conversion- was described by the Jewish chronicler Abraham Ibn Daud, and the poet Abraham Ibn Ezra. Suspicious of the sincerity of the Jewish converts to Islam, Muslim "inquisitors" (i.e., antedating their Christian Spanish counterparts by three centuries) removed the children from such families, placing them in the care of Muslim educators. Maimonides, the renowned philosopher and physician, experienced the Almohad persecutions, and had to flee Cordoba with his entire family in 1148, temporarily residing in Fez - disguised as a Muslim - before finding asylum in Fatimid Egypt.

Indeed, although Maimonides is frequently referred to as a paragon of Jewish achievement facilitated by the enlightened rule of Andalusia, his own words debunk this utopian view of the Islamic treatment of Jews: "..the Arabs have persecuted us severely, and passed baneful and discriminatory legislation against us...Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase, and hate us as much as they.."

"The witness of those who lived through the horrors of the Berber conquest, of the Andalusian fitnah in the early eleventh century, of the Almoravid invasion- to mention only a few disruptive episodes- must give it [i.e., the roseate view of Muslim Spain] the lie. The simple and verifiable historical truth is that Moorish Spain was more often a land of turmoil than it was of tranquility...Tolerance? Ask the Jews of Granada who were massacred in 1066, or the Christians who were deported by the Almoravids to Morocco in 1126 (like the Moriscos five centuries later). Moorish Spain was not a tolerant and enlightened society even in its most cultivated epoch."

posted by jonjayray 02:51

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Thursday, April 29, 2004

 

THE INCORRECTNESS OF SPANKING:

Is spanking child abuse? "If between 70 and 90% of all parents spank occasionally, it seems disingenuous to label it 'deviant' or 'dangerous' or 'abusive' behavior. Nevertheless, there are groups doing their best to force us to stop spanking altogether. They obviously do not trust parents to use their own good sense. Instead, they would eliminate all forms of physical discipline ... promoting a blanket rule against spanking of all kinds. They presume to comprehend all possible contexts and all possible children, and claim that spanking is never needed."

"When is a spanking more than a spanking? When does parental discipline cross the line from an occasional spank to keep an unruly child in order to a beating? The great parenting debate is now a great federal government debate here. As a new children's bill makes its way through Parliament, ministers and officials are debating whether all forms of corporal punishment -- even by parents -- should be banned. The government has taken state interference in personal behavior to a new level; it now seems to distrust parents so much that it thinks they can't distinguish between disciplining their kids and assaulting them."

posted by jonjayray 10:34

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THE CRUSADES WERE DEFENSIVE

It's politically correct these days to view the Crusades as the root cause of all Middle East tensions, and as a made-in-Europe crime. Osama bin Laden says so, so it must be right! Even to some otherwise fairly even-handed modern secular "liberals" this one-sided analysis has great appeal. The image of a reactionary Christian Church overwhelming a non-European people with brutal military imperialism puts all the bad eggs in one basket.

But as a historian of the period says here:

"The Crusades are generally portrayed as a series of holy wars against Islam led by power-mad popes and fought by religious fanatics. They are supposed to have been the epitome of self-righteousness and intolerance, a black stain on the history of the Catholic Church in particular and Western civilization in general. A breed of proto-imperialists, the Crusaders introduced Western aggression to the peaceful Middle East and then deformed the enlightened Muslim culture, leaving it in ruins....

So what is the truth about the Crusades? Scholars are still working some of that out. But much can already be said with certainty. For starters, the Crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression-an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands.

Christians in the eleventh century were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims really were gunning for them. While Muslims can be peaceful, Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword. Muslim thought divides the world into two spheres, the Abode of Islam and the Abode of War. Christianity-and for that matter any other non-Muslim religion-has no abode. Christians and Jews can be tolerated within a Muslim state under Muslim rule. But, in traditional Islam, Christian and Jewish states must be destroyed and their lands conquered. When Mohammed was waging war against Mecca in the seventh century, Christianity was the dominant religion of power and wealth. As the faith of the Roman Empire, it spanned the entire Mediterranean, including the Middle East, where it was born. The Christian world, therefore, was a prime target for the earliest caliphs, and it would remain so for Muslim leaders for the next thousand years.

With enormous energy, the warriors of Islam struck out against the Christians shortly after Mohammed's death. They were extremely successful. Palestine, Syria, and Egypt-once the most heavily Christian areas in the world-quickly succumbed. By the eighth century, Muslim armies had conquered all of Christian North Africa and Spain. In the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which had been Christian since the time of St. Paul. The old Roman Empire, known to modern historians as the Byzantine Empire, was reduced to little more than Greece. In desperation, the emperor in Constantinople sent word to the Christians of western Europe asking them to aid their brothers and sisters in the East.

That is what gave birth to the Crusades"

posted by jonjayray 10:33

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Wednesday, April 28, 2004

 

FOOD CORRECTNESS

A small defeat for the food know-alls: "This is one funeral Canadians will be happy to attend. Yesterday the Toronto Star proclaimed Ontario's dreaded fat tax 'dead.' Tens of thousands of angry Ontario residents formed a groundswell of opposition to their government's proposed eight percent tax on all restaurant meals cheaper than four dollars. Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty gave this misguided scheme a proper eulogy, putting the fat tax lie to rest: 'What I've decided is that instrument was crude and would not serve its intended purpose, which would be to encourage healthier eating habits.' Amen. Hallelujah. Pass the duty-free cheeseburgers."

posted by jonjayray 02:46

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THE POLITICALLY INCORRECT TRUTH ABOUT "TERRORISM"

From Israel National News

Unlike US President George Bush and his compatriots have stated, the enemy is not terror. Terror is merely a symptom of a fatal sickness; it is a warfare tactic employed by the adversary. Therefore, stopping the terror is not feasible unless the enemy, and thus the disease itself, is vanquished.

So who is this enemy that everyone refuses to identify? The enemy is radical Islam; what some call Islamism, Islamists, Islamo-fascists or Islamo-Nazis. And what is even worse, radical Islam is becoming the norm instead of the aberration. Politically incorrect as this may be, it is time for the truth to come out. Besides, the evidence is rampant, if only people have the fortitude to face it. As much as the purveyors of political correctness may delude themselves into thinking that everyone will behave nicely and everything will be equal and hunky-dory if only we speak in socio-religious-neutral tones, reality doesn't work that way.

One has only to examine acts of terrorism for the past three-and-a-half years to see that it is almost exclusively caused by Islamists. America, Bali, Madrid, Kashmir, the Philippines, Pakistan, India, Russia -- no place is safe from the cancer of Islamism. And their hideouts include England, France, Germany, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Canada, South America, the US.... Like cockroaches, they go wherever they can infiltrate a society.

If one looks at all the wars currently being waged on the planet, it is almost exclusively Islamists on one side of each conflict. In the Sudan, they enslave the Christians and Animists. In parts of Indonesia, they force conversion to Islam with the threat of having one's head chopped off. Then they sexually mutilate, without anesthesia, the newly converted men and women -- all in the name of Islam.

Last month, I had the honor of meeting Sheik Abdul Hadi Palazzi, secretary general of the Italian Muslim Association. In our all-too-brief conversation, he told me -- in direct contradiction to President Bush's exhortations that most Muslims in the US are peaceful -- Islam in America has become radicalized. And unlike Mr. Bush and his apparently inadequate advisors, this man is an expert on Islam and its adherents....

Until the civilized world gets the moral courage to tell Muslims that certain forms of Islam are unacceptable and merely a cover for a Nazi-like agenda, we will continue being victims, as will the truly peaceful, gentle Muslims who are hiding out of fear. Sheikh Palazzi has said this at risk to his life. It is time for our political leaders to stop being so cowardly and politically incorrect as to put their voting public at risk by refusing to acknowledge the real problem --Islamism -- and make a stand.

posted by jonjayray 02:45

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Tuesday, April 27, 2004

 

THE PC MYTH THAT WON'T LIE DOWN AND DIE

The "Diversity" advantage is bunk:: "Thomas Sowell tells of an all black high school that, from 1870 to 1955, repeatedly equaled or exceeded national norms on standardized tests. During the entire 85-year history of Washington's M Street/Dunbar High School, most of its 12,000 graduates went on to higher education, an unusual achievement for any school-white or black... Segregated schools also produced such notables as Mary McLeod Bethune, Thurgood Marshal, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

The belief that racial diversity is a key to academic success has no empirical basis. If this myth were true, then it would be difficult to explain racial success in more mono-racial societies such as Japan, Germany, and the Netherlands. One study in San Diego found that Vietnamese and Asian immigrant children had a median grade point average 0.9 points higher than Mexican immigrants, and 0.8 points higher than students overall in San Diego. Membership in a racial minority does not cause sub-standard academic achievement....

We have forgotten that student achievement actually involves hard-working students and talented teachers. Students who work hard and are challenged have the best chance of success.... Hard work will cure a lot of the problems that are commonly attributed to a lack of funding or lack of diversity. Racial diversity, and the presence of white kids specifically, do not result in minority students achieving more- intense studying every day does...."

posted by jonjayray 09:54

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ONLY "POLITICALLY CORRECT" BILLS OF RIGHTS NEED APPLY

In Australia and Britain, the left is now campaigning for the introduction of a Bill of Rights, or (more likely) propose to bring one in via the back door via EU or UN treaties, thus shortcutting democratic and constitutional processes. Critics point out that a paper Bill of Rights is absolutely no roadblock to a dictator, and even democratic governments violate them in times of crisis (eg FDR's internment of Japanese Americans in WW2). The old Soviet Union had one of the best paper Bills of Rights, despite Stalin being the 20th Century's most bloodthirsty tyrant. Take for example in the 1936 "Stalin" Constitution:

"Article 125. In conformity with the interests of the working people, and in order to strengthen the socialist system, the citizens of the U.S.S.R. are guaranteed by law:
freedom of speech;
freedom of the press;
freedom of assembly, including the holding of mass meetings;
freedom of street processions and demonstrations."

1936 was also the year usually defined as the starting date for Stalin's "Great Purge". Any ordinary Russian who attempted to assert his 1936 rights would, if he weren't killed, no doubt be treated as a lunatic by his peers.

Many pro-Bill advocates accept "the 1936 Stalin Constitution" case as legitimate example of failure by government and political elites to abide by a written Bills of Rights, but essentially argue "that would never happen here". The trouble with that is that it has. Australia inherited from Britain the 1689 English Bill of Rights -- a document that is essentially ignored by governments in both countries, and spurned by the very civil libertarians who demand we support for their proposed new Bills. Any ordinary Australian today who attempted to assert his or her 1689 rights would no doubt also be treated as a nut.

Many of the same civil libertarians often acknowledge that the US Bill of Rights is the most successful and continuously observed Bill in the world, citing the US case as one for others to follow, but would frankly treat with contempt any suggestion that the US Bill merely be copied verbatim by Australia or the UK.

The reason for this Orwellian behaviour from so called civil libertarians is not hard to decipher once you know what to look for. They are not particularly interested in reinforcing the "negative rights", like those outlined in the 1680 Bill, i.e. traditional protections against arbitrary government. They propose to increase the power of government via subterfuge by adding "economic and social rights" to the constitution. Unlike the older "negative rights", these so called "positive rights", actually necessitate state coercion. As money does not grow on trees, enforced coercion is the only way they can guarantee Peter his "right" to "free" health care, i.e. by forcing Paul to pay for it ..or go to gaol. By establishing "positive rights" provisions in the constitution, these so-called civil libertarians hope to put the welfare state safely beyond the reach of the ballot box and any threat (however remote) from disgruntled taxpayers. The net result of all this is to increase, not decrease, the probability that citizens would be subject to arbitrary government action. Maybe Laocoon's advice "timeo Danaos et dona ferentes" (usually translated as "beware of Greeks bearing gifts") needs to be applied to "civil libertarians" bearing Bills of Rights.

posted by jonjayray 09:53

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Monday, April 26, 2004

 

TWO GOOD COMMENTS FROM BRITAIN:

Patrick West sums up "Affirmative Action":

"Two headlines in the Guardian this week: 'Met plan to fast track black recruits'; 'Gay police "need stronger backing"'. The first refers to plans by the Metropolitan Police to 'fast track' ethnic minority people into its training school, so as to help to achieve its goal of having 25 per cent of its officers from ethnic minorities by 2009. The second alludes to plans to achieve 'greater diversity' in the British police force by making it 'more gay'. The thinking here is that Britain's police must represent accurately the population it serves.

It is depressing that just as America is rescinding its affirmative action laws, we are taking them up. Cannot we learn why it has failed there rather than making the same mistakes all over again? Promoting people solely by the colour of their skin breeds resentment from those who are discriminated against. Those who are perceived to be appointed merely because of their race or sexuality are rarely respected. Ultimately, affirmative action 'sends out the message' that blacks and gays are mental infants who are incapable of making it on their own merit. This is nothing but old-fashioned racism and homophobia."


Patrick West on being "offended" at the truth:

"And then there were the remarks made by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey. Last month he merely reminded an audience that most Islamic countries were 'undemocratic and authoritarian' and that Islamic culture had achieved little since its golden age in the Middle Ages. There was predictable outrage from Muslim spokesmen, who said how 'saddened' they were by his remarks, accusing him of 'trampling on a sensitive area'....

Those who expressed disquiet at George Carey's comments failed to refute him, or even attempt a counter-argument. All we had was the predictable language of 'being offended'.

Carey ... is someone who has studied the Islamic and Arab world for decades. And what he said was sadly true. The problem is that sometimes the truth hurts."

posted by jonjayray 10:22

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FOR ST. GEORGE AND MERRY ENGLAND!

I am not sure I agree fully with this writer. I think St. George advocates are just using what they can to counter discrimination against the English and Englishness. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em:

"In recent years there have been rumblings about celebrating Englishness, and establishing St George's Day as a national holiday. This might seem strange at a time when multiculturalism dominates public life and national chauvinism is frowned on, but celebrating St George's Day is perfectly in keeping with the politics of diversity. In fact, the whole thing proceeds by analogy with every other tinpot national celebration, and reeks of oppression-envy.... All this might please those who want to reinvent Englishness as an expression of diversity and tolerance, but it's hard to see anyone getting excited about that. Far from cohering the country in national feeling, an official St George's Day holiday would merely confirm Englishness as just another (rather weak) cultural identity in the multicultural mix of modern Britain. A national holiday to celebrate English culture? It's political correctness gone mad."

posted by jonjayray 10:22

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Sunday, April 25, 2004

 

REAL TOLERANCE FROM THE LEFT AT LAST

Encouraging to read this from Kristof in the "New York Times" but I fear that it is a voice crying in the wilderness

"I've argued often that gay marriage should be legal and that conservative Christians should show a tad more divine love for homosexuals. But there's a corollary. If liberals demand that the Christian right show more tolerance for gays and lesbians, then liberals need to be more respectful of conservative Christians.... It's encouraging that the right is less hostile to gays and lesbians than it used to be. President Bush argued in his 1994 run for governor that gay sex should be illegal, while now he feels comfortable hitting up gays for campaign contributions. On the other hand, the left seems more contemptuous than ever of evangelicals. Sensitive liberals who avoid expressions like "ghetto blaster," because that might be racially offensive, blithely dismiss conservative Christians as "Jesus freaks" or "fanatics." And in polite society, conservative Christians - especially Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses - are among the last groups it's still acceptable to mock.... It's always easy to point out the intolerance of others. What's harder is to practice inclusiveness oneself. And bigotry toward people based on their faith is just as repugnant as bigotry toward people based on their sexuality."

posted by jonjayray 09:10

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THE PC STRAITJACKET NOW CONTROLS MUSEUMS AND ART GALLERIES

And, in Britain, if the ethnics don't come to your museum or gallery, you have to display ANYTHING that will attract them. Excellence, rarity, genius and historical importance don't count any more. One comment (Excerpts):

"It seems the Brits under Prime Minister Tony Blair are exceeding even American liberals when it comes to insisting on policies that are politically correct. Writing in the new issue of City Journal, the quarterly of the conservative Manhattan Institute, Theodore Dalrymple says the British government announced in May that plans are in gear to monitor the nation's publicly subsidized museums to make sure that they're attracting sufficient quotas of appropriate visitors. If museum visitorship doesn't match what the government thinks it should among minority groups, then subsidies the institution may be getting from government would be ended, the government said"


A more extensive comment (excerpts):

"Cultural diversity policy is one of the few things that unites British cultural institutions today. Every museum and gallery, large and small, has made cultural diversity into a key part of its mission. Funding and policy bodies trumpet this new agenda. The Arts Council's Cultural Diversity Action Plan reads: 'There can no longer be any question that responding to cultural diversity is a mainstream and not a marginal issue.' ...

cultural diversity policy represents the end of cultural policy as we have understood it. The pursuit of aesthetic or historical understanding, of attempting to distinguish good paintings from bad or correct interpretations from false ones, is deemed impossible. Instead, all cultural institutions can do is to revel in 'diversity', by promoting different kinds of art and competing judgements.

There has been an elision - in policy terms, at least - of all the special qualities that had previously been associated with culture. The concepts of beauty, sensitivity and skill have all but vanished. Flick through a New Labour cultural policy document, and it becomes clear that you could substitute 'museums' and 'art' for 'shops' and 'stereos', and the words would make as much sense. New Labour took on the right's demand that culture should be 'useful'. The government demanded that cultural institutions should roll up their sleeves and get to grips with social problems - by giving visitors useful skills or helping people with mental illnesses - and it demanded that cultural institutions prove their usefulness in facts and figures.

Among the events in the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council's (formerly known as re:source) cultural diversity festival in 2003, for example, was the 'Multicultural plaque' project at a museum in Stoke on Trent, which involved working with the town's 'black minority ethnic groups' in an 'ongoing oral history and documentation project'. The end point of the project was for some of the participants to produce a public mural, which represented their experiences and perspectives. A project at Hereford Museum featured objects, images and oral testimony from the local Jewish and traveller communities. Meanwhile, Harlow Museum created a display about people who had moved to Harlow. Visitors were asked to bring photographs, tell about their home customs, and record their stories of moving to Harlow

Because this policy sees every object in terms of personal identity, it is blind to imaginative or well-crafted paintings, interesting or rare historical artefacts. It is indifferent to form, colour or pattern. Cultural diversity officers must barely glance at the paintings they are putting on their walls, or the Asian art they use in their discussions about identity.

Cultural diversity policy makes historical artefacts similarly dumb. Chinese paintings, Greek brooches, and Egyptian mummies provide a glimpse into another time and place. They can take us out of our own lives, and give us an insight into other societies' worldview and way of life. Fragments of pot can speak of a long-dead civilisation's myths, social structure, economy and diet. Study of these artefacts in turn helps us to put our own society in perspective: seeing it as the latest step in the march of human history, rather than as the only possible way of living. If historical artefacts are viewed in personal terms, they stop telling us anything. Instead of learning about human 'diversity', then, we end up stuck in our present-day lives.

This policy also has a low view of its visitors. The assumption is that visitors are uninterested in or unable to learn about the world. Each person is seen as trapped within his or her own private bubble, in constant need of affirmation and recognition. The idea seems to be that if people fail to see their reflection in exhibitions they will feel worthless and excluded.

This target approach is indifferent to the content of culture - and this applies for 'diverse' exhibitions just as much as it does for Western fine art. Islamic art is not valued for its intricate, proportioned design, or because it provides us with an insight into one of the great historic civilisations; it is valued because it gets the right kind of punters through the door. The artefacts of different cultures are judged in terms of the colour of the faces that they bring in. Meanwhile, some of humanity's greatest artistic achievements, in European art from the Renaissance onwards, are sidelined for attracting the wrong kinds of people - which is a loss for everyone, regardless of ethnic background.

Diversity targets view ethnic minorities as uniform members of a group, rather than as intelligent and curious individuals with a range of interests. They are often assumed to be only interested in art relating to 'their' particular culture, which is why cultural institutions try to attract the Chinese community with exhibitions about Chinese culture or the Afro-Caribbean community with exhibitions about slavery. The effect of this approach is to institutionalise cultural divisions. A 'black artist' is marked out as different from other artists, a 'minority-ethnic individual' as different to other museum workers, and a British-Chinese museum-goer different to other museum-goers. The possibility of an open and universal public culture, in which each person can develop their own capabilities and learn from others, is placed yet further away.

In fact, today's diversity officers are foisting their cultural assumptions upon the past. The past is judged by the limited horizons of the present, and the present gets to pat itself on the back."


And in the U.S., slavery museums are all the rage (though whether anybody goes there does not seem to matter). As it says here:

"In a recent LRC column, I made mention of the city of Charleston's proposed $35 million slavery museum that will be constructed on ten acres of waterfront property. This surprised some of my respondents, who wondered, not only about the size, but also whether the new museum was needed as the city already has at least three museums with extensive slavery exhibits.

The question: how many slavery museums does a city need? Or: how many slavery museums does the United States need? is currently a much-debated topic. Unfortunately, the debate was a little late getting started because slavery museums have become the latest trend sweeping the nation.

In May, 2002, Bill Gwaltney, a member of the National Park Service and President of the Association of African American Museums, said of slavery museums: "We counted 19 new projects just last year and we knew there were several more. Clearly, there are several dozen more that are anticipated in 2002. They are all over the country, too. They're in the Midwest, the West, the Northeast and the South. It represents a maturation of thought about the breadth and depth of American history."

The numbers cited by Gwaltney indicate that, in a two-year period, 50 or more new slavery museums were constructed throughout the nation. This phenomenal rate of growth greatly exceeds the spread of civil rights museums in prior years. If this rate of growth continues, we can anticipate that all major cities as well as most moderately sized cities will soon have both a civil rights museum and a slavery museum. Furthermore, the day may come when a family traveling across the nation will encounter, in every town it drives through, a McDonald's, a Burger King, a Wal-Mart, a Target, a Best Western and a slavery museum."


And only ONE holocaust is ever mentioned in museums etc. The terrible truth of course is that holocausts were pretty common in the 20th century. But how many holocausts have YOU heard of? As it says here:

"The second source of the double standard lies in the excessive memorialization of the Jewish Holocaust in American life, which has squeezed out the historical memory of the other holocausts. This memorialization has many positive aspects, as we are certainly a culture that needs more historical memory, not less, and has an underdeveloped sense of the tragic dimension of politics. But it is also historically imbalanced, because now everyone is more conscious of the fate of the 6 million Jews than of the other 150 million-plus victims in our century. Let us review these holocausts:

1. By Communist China: 65,701,000.
2. By the Soviet Union: 62,000,000.
3. By Nazi Germany: 30,000,000.
4. By Kuomintang (Nationalist) China: 10,075,000.
5. By Nazi Japan: 6,000,000.
7. By Turkey: 2,500,000 (mainly Armenians and Greeks.)
8. By Communist (Khmer Rouge) Cambodia: 2,035,000.
9. By Communist Korea: 2,000,000.
10. By Communist Vietnam: 1,700,000.
11. In Africa: 1,700,000 (various Communist and other regimes and rebels.)
12. By Communist Poland: 1,600,000 (mostly ethnic Germans post-1945.)
13. In Pakistan: 1,500,000 (mostly in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh.)
14. By Communists in Afghanistan: 1,500,000.
15. In Mexico (mostly in revolutionary chaos to 1920): 1, 417,000.
16. In Communist Yugoslavia: 1,072,000.
17. In Czarist Russia: 1,066,000.
18. In Rwanda: 800,000."

posted by jonjayray 09:09

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Saturday, April 24, 2004

 

THE PASSION FOR RACIAL PREFERENCES

"Seattle is building a new monorail, and "officials are aiming to hire minority and female workers for one-third of the Green Line's 600 construction jobs, undaunted by a state law that forbids racial and gender preferences in public hiring." Here's how they evade the law:

Diversity targets are a cornerstone of a new labor agreement with 19 union locals that was signed yesterday by the monorail agency and union leaders.

Companies that win $1.3 billion in monorail design and construction contracts must hire mainly through the union halls, which in turn are expected to recruit "people of color" for at least 21 percent of the on-site workers and women for 12 percent of the jobs.

Jan Keiser, the project's contracts manager, claims the "goals" are not quotas, "because the companies and unions will not be penalized if they fall short." But then there's this: "She added that companies will be judged partly on their diversity plans when two teams of builders bid for the $1.3 billion contract this summer." Perhaps this is all technically legal, but it certainly sounds as if the state is taking great pains to avoid acting in the spirit of the law. If the discrimination in question were against minorities, no one would dream of tolerating it."

From "Opinion Journal"

posted by jonjayray 10:27

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THEATRE PEOPLE STRUCK DUMB

"The English National Opera has banned its employees from addressing each other as "darling", ending a long-running tradition at the 100-year-old institution in the centre of London. The edict came in a re-education document enforcing government guidelines on sexual discrimination at work, The Times reported.

"The use of affectionate names such as 'darling' will also constitute sexual harassment," the document said. It bans "suggestive remarks or lewd conduct that denigrates or ridicules or is intimidatory or physically abusive of an employee because of their sex".

A spokesman told The Times the rule would apply primarily to new staff, but that "existing staff who call each other 'darling' can continue to do so".

The term is common among London's large thespian community and is used almost indiscriminately among men and women, although when used between men it often has a gay connotation."

posted by jonjayray 09:19

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Friday, April 23, 2004

 

"DIVERSITY" NOT WORKING

Intractible discipline problems with black students

Nearly a decade ago, the Kent School District was praised by parents, students and civil rights groups for its bold plan to stem racial discrimination and train staff. Today, the very same district faces possible lawsuits over claims by 12 black students who say they were manhandled and handcuffed by school security officers. The stark contrast is emblematic of how schools nationwide have struggled to implement diversity programs, experts say.....

Benjamin Baez, associate professor of educational policy studies at Georgia State University, said educators often are expected to improve test scores and "uneducate people about racism and make them better workers" while funds are cut for the very programs that would help achieve those goals.

"Now when we talk about diversity training we're talking as much about closing the achievement gap as we are about discipline procedures," Grohe said.

In claims filed last month by the NAACP, 12 black students, ranging in age from 11 to 17, say they were the victims of excessive force by school security officers. One student, 13-year-old Sierra Douglass-Swanson, says she was grabbed by the hair and thrown to the ground, a security officer's knees pressing into her back as her arms were wrenched behind her and handcuffs closed around her wrists. Douglass-Swanson acknowledges flailing her arms and kicking her legs in an attempt to get free from the guard. She was charged with assault, placed in juvenile detention overnight and expelled.....

Today, all employees must undergo diversity and cultural sensitivity training, district spokeswoman Becky Hanks said.

During the 1989-90 school year, minorities in the school district made up nearly 15 percent of the student population. Today they are about 35 percent. And while blacks account for more than 10 percent of the district's 26,400 students, they represent about 59 percent of students disciplined since September 2003, according to district security reports.

"The numbers show there is a disparity. It's really clear that it's based on race, and the race is black," said Joyce Harris, director of the Equity Center for Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory in Portland, Ore.

More here

posted by jonjayray 06:41

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Thursday, April 22, 2004

 

'Sex Week' and Porn Thesis Get Top 'Politically Correct' Award

What college takes the top award for the most shocking example of political correctness in higher education? According to the Collegiate Network's 7th annual Campus Outrage Awards, also known as the "Polly Awards," two schools are tied for first place.

At Yale University, a student-sponsored "Sex Week at Yale" used school funds, facilities and the help of school faculty and administrators. The events were co-sponsored by an adult film company and even included a porn star as a keynote speaker.

At the University of California, Santa Barbara, a student received kudos from professors and administrators for his Chicano Studies thesis, "Gay Men of Color in Porn," a project that was presented as part of the UCSB Multicultural Center's tax-payer funded "Race Matters Series" in an effort to legitimize pornography as an academic pursuit.

Number two on the list goes to The University of California, Berkeley, where the Associated Students of the University of California and the Graduate Assembly illegally spent $31,000 of mandatory student fees on a campus campaign to defeat Proposition 54, a racial privacy initiative to ban the state from collecting race data on school admissions forms.

Although the Associated Students of the University of California violated its own spending rules forbidding use of student funds for off-campus political activities, the administration granted ASUC and the Graduate Assembly a "one-time exception."

Coming in third is Northwestern University where a student filed a false police report claiming racial slurs were written on his door and claiming he was later attacked at knifepoint by thugs who called him a "spic."

After the students organized a "Stop the Hate" rally on Xander Saide's behalf, Saide later confessed to police that it was all a hoax. The school has yet to take disciplinary action against him, despite the fact the police charged him with disorderly conduct for filing fake police reports

More here

posted by jonjayray 09:10

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Wednesday, April 21, 2004

 

ANOTHER FAILURE OF SPECIAL DEALS FOR MINORITIES

An Australian Leftist government set up the "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission" to administer big handouts to Australian native black communities. It was riddled with corruption from the beginning and John Howard's conservative Federal government is now trying to abolish it

Former Australian Leftist politician, Michael Duffy reflects views aired recently by Keith Windschuttle: "When Howard was elected in 1996, most of his supporters with any knowledge of Aboriginal affairs knew ATSIC was a disaster. Treating Aborigines differently to other Australians in this way was in conflict with liberal and conservative thinking. Even if you weren't interested in the theory, all you had to do was look at the facts. Aborigines who'd assimilated - about two-thirds of the total - were far better off than those who had not. This one-third lived in separate communities where there were huge problems of unemployment, sexual and substance abuse, and violence. Yet it was this way of life that ATSIC promoted. ...

The sad truth is that it was irresponsible to expect Aborigines to do so much for themselves. Just like it was irresponsible for Australia to walk out of New Guinea in the mid-1970s. The results have been remarkably similar: the remoter parts of Aboriginal Australia are now like a Third World country. This means the closure of ATSIC is a good thing because it gives us the chance to try a new approach. .. But there's a big problem with this. Many Aborigines live thousands of kilometres away from the mainstream world of jobs, good schools and hospitals. These facilities are never going to come to them. No matter how much we spend on Aboriginal affairs, we can't place teaching hospitals within an hour of every remote community. And very few good school teachers don't want to live in the outback. So unless they decide to move to population centres, these Aborigines are never going to be part of the mainstream. That's a sad fact that no government has the power to change. A lot of the problems we associate with Aborigines are actually the same problems whites would have living in the same places. I'm not suggesting we shouldn't do more for Aborigines in remote communities. We should, and the closure of ATSIC creates the chance for some fresh thinking. But it's unlikely their problems will ever go away...."

posted by jonjayray 07:52

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EVERYBODY MUST BE TREATED THE SAME -- EVEN IF THEY ARE DIFFERENT

"It was the perfect setting to start their new life as a married couple - a nice apartment, decent rent, just down the street from the mosque. About two weeks ago, Amina Rojas and Mohamed Abdel-Rahem filled out the rental application and even cut a security deposit check. They were all set to take the place in Richardson, a Dallas suburb. Then the leasing agent at the apartment complex pulled out another piece of paper.

Abdel-Rahem, a permanent resident of the United States who was born in Egypt, had indicated in the application that he wasn't a U.S. citizen. So he was asked to complete another form with detailed questions on his immigration status. The couple were shocked. The feeling quickly turned into anger. "It was discriminatory," said Rojas, executive director of the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "He wasn't treated like any other applicant."

Federal officials said the form doesn't violate fair housing laws, but immigrants still feel they're being unfairly targeted. Countless immigrants have been presented with the form, which was introduced by the Texas Apartment Association two months after the 9-11 attacks.....

Paul Parsons, an Austin lawyer and chairman of the Texas State Bar's immigration committee, wrote a letter a month ago asking the TAA to do away with the form, equating its use to biased housing practices..... In his letter he argued that "there is no congressional mandate or other law that requires the TAA to question potential tenants about their legal status. ... Our committee believes such questioning may lead to discrimination based on national origin"....

The TAA sees no reason to quit using the form, writing back to Parsons that no laws are being broken and that the organization has received no allegations of wrongdoing. But some immigrants have taken their grievances elsewhere. The Austin Tenants' Council, a housing rights group, is looking into several complaints it has fielded on the non-citizen form. The issue was first raised by Austin's immigrant affairs commission in 2002, said Mary Dulan, the council's fair housing director. After a commission meeting, immigrants began contacting the group's complaint hotline. Dulan declined to discuss details because she's checking out the claims, but she said if any prove to be valid, they will be filed with the Housing and Urban Development Department. If that happens, the governmental agency may change its current hands-off stance. So far, HUD has maintained that property managers haven't broken fair housing laws.....

The lack of government concern over the form proves that immigrant advocates are trying to make an issue out of nothing, property managers say. "If a landlord is going to discriminate, they don't need our form to do that," said Joe Sharp, vice president of the National Apartment Association, who lives in Georgetown and owns 13 properties in the Austin area. "The only noise we've heard about this comes not from renters, but from a special interest group and the State Bar," Sharp said".

More here

posted by jonjayray 07:51

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Tuesday, April 20, 2004

 

"UNDOCUMENTED" NONSENSE

"It's easy to dismiss someone when you use a disparaging term such as 'illegal immigrant' or 'illegal alien,' " surmised [Jerry] Gonzalez, who oversees the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, an Atlanta-based political action committee...

"I don't think so at all," said Victor Davis Hanson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of "Mexifornia: A State of Becoming." "It doesn't describe a person in a negative, pejorative way. It means they don't have U.S. citizenship and that they didn't come to the United States in a lawful manner."

" 'Illegal' means you came as an immigrant, and broke the law," said Hanson, who founded the classics studies department at Fresno State University "It's a precise term, and not just for Mexicans."

D.A. King, founder of the American Resistance Foundation, a Marietta-based group that seeks tougher enforcement of immigration laws, said the term "undocumented workers" is "a politically correct invention to soften the brutal fact that these people are breaking the law."...

More here

posted by jonjayray 09:28

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DEBUNKING SOME POLITICALLY CORRECT MYTHS ABOUT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION:

The FACTS are:

1. It is NOT racist to call these people "illegal aliens" In fact, "illegal aliens" is the only term used in federal laws and regulations to describe criminals (and they ARE criminals) who come into our country illegally. They are not illegal immigrants, not undocumented immigrants, not migrant workers, and not day laborers - they're ILLEGAL ALIENS.

2. Mexico is NOT a poor country. It has the fifth richest economy in the world, and by sending its teeming masses to our country, that status keeps on rising. Mexico has more resources per square mile than the U.S. and plenty of money to take care of its own people. Why should the taxpayers of this country subsidize Mexico's corruption?

3. Illegal aliens are NOT necessarily coming here to work. Lou Dobbs recently reported that 33 percent of our prison population is now comprised of non-citizens. Plus, 36 to 42 percent of illegal aliens are on welfare. So, for a good proportion of these people, the American dream is crime and welfare, not coming here to work.

4. Illegal aliens are NOT doing work Americans won't do. What jobs won't Americans do? In most states, Americans still clean their own houses, do their own landscaping, clean hotel rooms, work in restaurants and fast food places, paint houses, DO CONSTRUCTION WORK, work in airports, etc. - just like we have the past 200 years before "our" government allowed these people to invade our country. There are 18 million Americans who cannot find a job, so illegal aliens who are coming here to work do so at peril to American workers.

5. Illegal aliens absolutely do not contribute more than they cost. Certainly the millions in prison and on welfare aren't contributing a dime to our economy, and the ones who are working often are paid in cash with no deductions for taxes at all. The ones who use fraudulent social security numbers and qualify to pay taxes and social security have so many deductions for dependents that they pay little if any taxes. We have seen them pay less than $100 in taxes and get back $4,000 refunds (thanks to earned income tax credits and multiple dependents). The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that the average Mexican illegal alien costs U.S. taxpayers a whopping $55,000 each. Some bargain, eh?

6. The economy does NOT depend on illegal aliens. Sure, greedy CEOs (making $50 to $150 MILLION a year) and business owners depend on illegal aliens, but due to #3, #4 and #5 above, the only thing illegal aliens are contributing to is the collapse of our economy and making the rich richer.

7. Without illegal aliens, the price of agricultural products and other goods and services will NOT soar. The definitive study on this subject is the University of Iowa's "How Much Is That Tomato?" The study concludes that 'since labor is such a small component of the end-price of agricultural products (which includes price to the growers, transportation costs, processing /storage costs, grocers' profit, etc.), using minimum wage workers instead of illegal aliens would increase prices of agricultural products by approximately 3 percent in the summer and 4 percent in the winter ... hardly the making of $10 heads of lettuce, $25 hamburgers, $1,000 per night Days Inn hotel rooms like the pro-illegal alien lobby claims."

posted by jonjayray 09:28

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Monday, April 19, 2004

 

AMERICA PC BUT SPINELESS

From Mike Adams

"This nation would be in serious trouble if we had to fight another war like World War II today. That brave generation of men who stormed the beaches of Normandy has been replaced by a generation of metrosexuals trying to get in touch with their feminine side...

I am reminded of the spinelessness of my generation almost every day. With every column that I write and every speech that I give, people react by telling me that I should be careful lest I lose my job or be labeled by vindictive liberals.

Every time I hear such admonitions, I think about my grandfather who spent his 19th birthday getting trench foot in a foxhole in France in World War I. When he was finally able to crawl out, he was hit with a piece of shrapnel from a German hand grenade, which became permanently lodged in his spine. I can still see him in his later years walking across the room in a walker as a result of that injury.

posted by jonjayray 06:05

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PC FOUNDED ON RACISM AND SEXISM

From Dennis Prager (excerpt):

"Many liberals and most Democratic leaders do not take blacks and women as seriously as they take whites and men. Blacks and women are regarded more as symbols -- of American and male oppression -- than as real people. Also, whereas a white liberal regards a white male as an individual, the white liberal is more likely to regard blacks and women as groups rather than as individuals. And, of course, they are seen as indispensable votes.

In their hearts, many Americans on the left do regard blacks as somewhat inferior, meaning, in other words, that they harbor racist views. That is the only explanation for the nearly universal leftist belief that all whites are racist, a libel that your child has probably been taught at college in some diversity or racial sensitivity seminar.

When a white liberal says or writes this, we presume he is including himself. Unless he is saying "all whites except me" are racist -- a claim so megalomaniacal that the claimant risks dismissal as a crackpot -- he obviously means that this includes himself. And in this he is right. One reason that so many liberals believe that all whites are racist is that they are projecting their racism onto all other whites.

It is probable that belief in black inferiority, or at least in black differentness, also helps to explain white liberal support for the lowering of standards for blacks, i.e., affirmative action and quotas. Conservatives believe that no changing of standards is necessary in order for blacks to succeed.

Likewise, one reason many liberal leaders support the feminist agenda and detect sexism wherever possible is that they know their own record and attitudes vis-a-vis women. As is often the case, two of the leading supporters of women's rights -- former President Bill Clinton and Sen. Ted Kennedy -- are known for their mistreatment of women"

posted by jonjayray 06:05

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Sunday, April 18, 2004

 

ANOTHER SMALL VICTORY FOR FREE SPEECH

Campus "diversity" policy suffers another setback: "In far too many instances, what passes as college life