Friday, July 19, 2013



Black and Leftist bigotry

Do you know that if you’re white (or whitish), there is apparently a pretty large segment who thinks it’s plausible you’d just grab a gun and say, “I’m going to go shoot me a black kid!” They don’t think of you as fellow human being with normal motivations they can relate to; they think of you as this inhuman, sociopathic monster. It’s insane.

For some reason, people are still stuck looking for the racist villains of 1960s and thus completely missing all the brand spanking new racist idiocy we have going on today. And since that racist idiocy is being ignored, it’s able to grow. The racism we’re dealing with today isn’t the racism of when the KKK walked around unopposed; it’s the racism of a country where a large majority elected an incompetent black man thinking that would solve everything. It’s a brand new stupidity that we haven’t quite categorized or understand yet.

Anyway, the motivations of Zimmerman were quite easy to understand if you cared to. He lived in a neighborhood with a lot of break ins and the police were ineffective to stop it. So he tried to help out, and when he saw a teenager he didn’t recognize, he confronted the kid and talked to the police. Now, you can question whether Zimmerman’s actions were sensible, but his motivations are very easy to comprehend if you’re interested in treating him like a fellow human being.

But no. A lot of people want to see him as this inhuman monster who just decided to murder a minority. They are bigots, and bigotry keeps them from seeing others as a human being. And these same bigots questioned everything about Zimmerman’s story while being really unconcerned about what led Trayvon to bashing a man’s head into the pavement. Because, again, they’re bigots; they’re not operating with rational minds.

But it’s not like I’m worried about getting discriminated at by these bigots; that’s not the big problem. Bigots hurt themselves more than anyone else. They’re locked into a cycle of hate and scared of the good people around them. They’re dysfunctional. And we are going to continue to have racist problems in this country until we take on not just the bigotry of decades ago but the new and rising bigotry we have today.

The election of Obama didn’t help race relations because the electing of him was racist. Someone like him would not have been elected in a colorblind society. One of these days we’re going to have to confront that.

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Words and Deeds

Celebrity chef Paula Deen was professionally lynched for having once used a racist epithet at home 30 years ago when referring to the black man who robbed her at gunpoint. This came in a legal deposition prompted by an extortionist $1.25 million discrimination lawsuit filed by a white female former employee who admitted she hadn’t heard Ms. Deen use racist language. Shortly before filing suit, the same woman even wrote to thank Ms. Deen for the time she had worked for her, praising “Aunt Peggy” for the “opportunities” Ms. Deen created for her.

There is no evidence that Ms. Deen has ever racially discriminated against anyone. In fact, she has not only employed black workers but donated dozens of tons of free food to Atlanta’s Hosea Feed the Hungry and Homeless. She also backed Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

But facts and context were irrelevant to the political-media-corporate mob intent on crucifying Ms. Deen for being honest under oath about one 30-year-old verbal indiscretion. For self-anointed politically correct speech cops, the glass isn’t 99.9 percent full – it’s 0.1 percent empty. These zealous purists are the most intolerant people of all. Such witch-hunters exhibit the same totalitarian drive to neurotically monitor everyone’s private speech as displayed by the French Revolution’s Jacobins, Lenin and Stalin’s Bolsheviks, Mussolini’s Fascists, Hitler’s Nazis, Mao’s Red Guards, Castro and Che Guevara’s communists, and Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge.

Yet ideological fanatics fail to realize that people are not morally black or white, but many shades of gray. And far more important than words are deeds. Indeed, in Matthew 7:16 (KJV), Jesus Christ teaches us that “Ye shall know them by their fruits.” The Bible also says we’re all sinners, and history is full of complex figures whose private bigotry is dwarfed by great actions.

President Abraham Lincoln uttered loads of racist statements about blacks, but went on to free all black American slaves. When President William Taft was governor-general of the Philippines, he called the Filipinos his “little brown brothers.” He also racially integrated his office’s functions, wrote a constitution and bill of rights for the Philippines, ended Filipino slavery, brought civilian rule to the colony, upgraded public health, redistributed land to the poor, and provided public education for all Filipinos. They called him “Santo (Saint) Taft.”

President Harry Truman made anti-Semitic remarks and, when living in his mother-in-law’s house, obeyed her rule of not inviting Jews over. Yet his business partner (and close friend) was Jewish, and President Truman did more than any American to create the modern nation of Israel.

President Richard Nixon made many anti-Semitic remarks as well. Yet his top adviser, best speechwriter, and most important lawyer were all Jews: Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, William Safire, and Len Garment. Most importantly, President Nixon helped save Israel from the savage Egyptian-Syrian surprise attack in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. His emergency airlifting of supplies and putting U.S. nuclear forces on alert deterred the Soviets from direct involvement.

You think Israeli Jews care that Presidents Truman and Nixon didn’t always speak Kosher? As President Bill Clinton declared in his eulogy for the latter, “May the day of judging President Nixon on anything less than his entire life and career come to a close.” Isn’t that what we all want – and deserve?

The superb trumpeter Miles Davis made some anti-white remarks, yet most of this black jazz giant’s bands featured at least one Caucasian. And I hardly think the demanding Mr. Davis had an affirmative action plan for whites. He ultimately judged each musician on individual merit.

My grandparents lived in a Jim Crow time and absorbed Jim Crow attitudes. Yet they gave far more food and clothing to poor black folks and had way more contact with them than any PC white liberals I’ve ever known who tend to live in an exclusively bourgeois, lily-white world.

Does God judge us based on isolated ugly remarks taken out of context or by the totality of our lives, especially our actions? He certainly doesn’t choose perfect people to serve His ends. Adam and Eve broke the one commandment He gave them, yet Adam was blessed with 930 years. Noah got drunk, yet was selected to build the Ark. Moses was a murderer who God still picked to lead His chosen people to the Promised Land. David was an adulterer who arranged for Bathsheba’s husband to die in battle, yet he was still blessed to remain the king of the Jews. Jesus’s favorite disciple, Peter, denied his savior three times, yet was still favored to be a major leader of the faithful. And the Apostle Paul persecuted Christians before his conversion en route to Damascus propelled him to become the most important Christian leader after Christ.

In Matthew 7:1-3, Jesus teaches us to “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” Indeed, as Christ told the mob ready to stone a woman caught in adultery: “He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her” (John 8:7). Amen.

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Britain’s gone from nanny state to naggy state

Do we really need to be told to drink water or avoid getting sunburnt in hot weather?

Blimey it’s hot; and thank goodness the announcer at my railway station was thoughtful enough to remind me to drink water, otherwise it might never have crossed my mind. On a relatively short journey into the office yesterday, I heard the following message played on four occasions: “This is a special announcement. During the current warm weather, we advise passengers to carry a bottle of water with them while on the train.”

Who decided that we need to be told to carry water, and why? Is the train company being sponsored by Evian or Highland Spring? If so, they must be doing pretty poor business, as I did not see anyone actually clutching a bottle. In fact, no one took any notice at all apart from me, who just found it irritating. We are so inured to being hectored all the time that it is just background noise for most people now.

We are also regaled with colour-coded heat-health and UV warnings along with the weather forecast. How did people survive in the millennia before Carol Kirkwood was around to tell them that direct sunlight can burn and hot weather is uncomfortable? It is not that these observations are untrue; but we already know them to be true and do not need to be told as much constantly by a bunch of semi-official nags.

Whenever it rains, we are informed that the station concourse will be wet and therefore slippery. During the winter, such cautions are issued every five minutes. My all-time favourite was when the clocks went back last October. “Here is an announcement. The hour has changed this weekend which means that it may be darker than usual when you return home at your normal time. Please take care.”

Is there a special committee that sits in secret to anticipate every change of season and temperature in order to formulate a series of warning messages for an infantilised nation? Perhaps they are the equivalent of the wartime posters like “Keep Calm and Carry On” and “Careless Talk Costs Lives”, but at least those were justified by the gravity of the country’s predicament.

Indeed, the paternalism that we experience today can be traced back to the Second World War and the idea of cradle-to-grave social provision. By the mid-Sixties, Iain Macleod was referring to this phenomenon as “the nanny state” in his Spectator column, a phrase that has stuck.

In the 50 years since, government intrusion has grown beyond anything Macleod had in mind; after all, he was writing before it became illegal not to wear a seat belt in a car or a crash helmet on a motorbike. Yet apart from a few ultra‑libertarians, no one would suggest those laws should be repealed, since they must have saved many lives.

So what about plain cigarette packs or minimum alcohol pricing? Both of these measures, promoted in the name of public health, have been abandoned by the Government in recent days, amid controversy. Doctors have reacted furiously, especially to the decision not to introduce plain or standard packaging for tobacco products, shorn of any manufacturer’s logo. In a letter to this newspaper, leaders in the field accused ministers of “a tame surrender to lobbying by the tobacco industry and its well-funded front groups”.

There have been suggestions that Lynton Crosby, the Australian campaign guru now working for the Conservatives, was behind this move because of his links to a PR company working for tobacco conglomerates. But if Crosby was involved, his motivation is more likely to have been political – getting the Tories to drop the sort of nannying that gets the goat of those traditionalist Conservatives now crossing over to Ukip in large numbers.

Those keen to see standardised packaging say polls show a majority in favour, which is hardly surprising since most people don’t smoke. It’s also rather beside the point. Tobacco is a legal product and the argument that manufacturers pitch their packaging at children may well be true. But it is illegal to sell cigarettes to people under the age of 18, so the answer is to enforce the law. Moreover, the arguments about plain packs differ fundamentally from the ban on smoking in public places, in that the latter was introduced ostensibly to prevent harm to others, even if it has had the additional, and beneficial, consequence of stopping people smoking.

Still, those who see these two policy retreats as representing the high‑water mark of the nannying tide will be disappointed. At the weekend, there was talk of banning packed lunches for schoolchildren because parents were incapable of giving their offspring a balanced diet. Ministers are now considering the provision of free meals for all pupils up to the age of 16.

Perhaps we secretly enjoy being nannied. Macleod, let us remember, belonged to a generation and a class for whom the nanny was a beloved and benign influence, not a pernicious one. When he coined the term “nanny state”, he did not necessarily mean it to be pejorative, but rather an acknowledgement that we need to be cared for collectively.

Eubie Blake, the American jazz composer who lived to the age of 96 (he claimed to be 100), said that if he’d known he would live so long, he would have taken better care of himself. Now we can go through life happy in the knowledge that there are thousands of people working hard to ensure we avoid the mistakes that he made. I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t carry a water bottle around on a hot day.

SOURCE





Homosexual marriage clears the House of Lords

Gay marriage is set to become law after clearing the House of Lords.  The Queen is expected to be asked to give her approval to the Bill – one of the most radical pieces of social legislation of her reign – by the end of this week.

It opens the way for the first legally recognised same-sex weddings to take place in England and Wales by next summer and brings the centuries-old understanding of marriage as being solely between a man and a woman to an end.

Peers gave their assent to the third reading of the Government’s same-sex marriage bill without a formal vote after a short debate in the Lords, also backing plans for a review of pension arrangements for gay couples.

Baroness Stowell, the Government spokesman who steered the bill through the Lords, told a chamber packed with peers wearing pink carnations, that it was an “historic” achievement.

But opponents accused the Government of using a parliamentary “bulldozer” to speed the change through.

The passage of the Bill brings an end to one of the most acrimonious debates of recent years which has divided the Conservative party and, at times, pitted Church against State.

Speaking earlier, Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, claimed that despite huge controversy, most people would soon be asking: “What was all the fuss about?”.

But the Coalition for Marriage, the group which orchestrated opposition to the Bill, is now set to transform itself from a single-issue campaign into what could be one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the country.

The C4M has built up a database of around 700,000 supporters through its petition against the redefinition of marriage.

Its leaders now believe they have enough support to influence the outcome of the 2015 election.

They have compiled a list of 39 of the most marginal seats they plan to target and in which enough people signed the C4M petition to suggest they could swing the election result.

They plan to challenge candidates of all parties to back a list of commitments to introduce new legal protections for workers such as teachers and registrars who hold to a traditional line on marriage.

They will also be campaigning to open up civil partnerships to allow family carers and unmarried siblings to benefit from the same inheritance tax exemptions as married couples.

Ben Summerskill, chief executive of Stonewall, said: “It’s impossible to express how much joy this historic step will bring to tens of thousands of gay people and their families and friends.

“The Bill’s progress through Parliament shows that, at last, the majority of politicians in both Houses understand the public’s support for equality – though it’s also reminded us that gay people still have powerful opponents.”

But Colin Hart, campaign director of the C4M said: “Mr Cameron needs to remember that the Coalition for Marriage has nearly 700,000 supporters, nearly six times the number of members of the Conservative Party.

“They are just ordinary men and women, not part of the ruling elite. They are passionate, motivated and determined to fight on against a law that renders terms like husband and wife meaningless and threatens one of the foundations of the institution of marriage: fidelity and faithfulness.

“These concepts may not matter to the leaders of the three main political parties, who are drawn from a very narrow liberal political class, but they do matter to people up and down the country who believe that marriage is special, unique and the bedrock of stable families.”

In what was, at times, an emotional debate, Lord Alli, the Labour peer, said it had been “truly humbling” to play a leading role in driving the bill through the Lords.

Speaking of his 15 years as a peer, he thanked the House of Lords, adding: “As a gay man over those 15 years you have changed my life.

"You have given me dignity where there was sometimes fear. You have given me hope where there was often darkness and you have given me equality where there was sometimes prejudice.  "This is a special place and I am proud to have figured in it."

Lord Lester of Herne Hill, the Liberal Democrat QC, said it would have been "quite inconceivable" for the Lords to have approved such legislation 20 years ago.  "It would have been fairly impossible 15 years ago," he added.  “What has changed for the better has been the modernisation through appointments to this House.”

The Bishop of Norwich, the Rt Rev Graham James, who leads the bishops in the Lords said that despite the Church’s opposition to gay marriage legal recognition for gay relationships had made society “healthier”.

He said it was "no secret" that the majority of Christian churches and other world faiths "don't believe same-sex marriage accords with their understanding of marriage itself".

But he added: "Many of us do welcome the social and legal recognition of same-sex partnerships and believe our society is a better and healthier one for such recognition."

Lord Cormack, the former Tory MP, who opposed the bill, said it would be “churlish” not to accept that the supporters had won.

He said: “I want to congratulate all those who have campaigned for this measure upon their success.

“But in doing that I would just ask them to bear in mind that although this may be a day of unqualified rejoicing for them, there are many in our country who by no stretch of the imagination could be called either homophobic or bigoted who are unhappy about this Bill.

They are unhappy about this Bill because it does strange the structure of society by changing the definition of marriage.

“I hope that all those who enter into marriage under its new definition will indeed live happily ever after.

“But the sincerity of that wish in no sense prevents my saying to them I understand that you feel euphoric today but please have a thought for those who have different views.

“Please have a thought to the many, not just thousands but millions of people in this country for whom marriage will always be equated with what remains the Christian definition of marriage and I hope that in recognising that they will always remember the great Churchillian motto: magnanimity in victory.”

Mr Clegg told the website PinkNews.co.uk: "Of course … it has come about in a blaze of controversy [and] I think that was probably always going to be inevitable.

"[But] my own sense is once the bill is actually on the Statue Book and once you start seeing same-sex marriages up and down the country – as I hope we see as quickly as possible – then I think actually people will look back on it and think ‘what was all the fuss about’, very quickly it will seem entirely normal.”

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICSDISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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