Friday, April 29, 2016




Spanking children 'does more harm than good' and leads to mental health problems and worse behaviour (?)

Elizabeth Gershoff has been plowing this field for a long time so there was never any doubt about what conclusion she would come to.  Meta-analyses are notoriously easy to fudge.  You find some reason not to include studies with inconvenient conclusions.  I have seen as many as a hundred "inconvenient" studies left out of a meta-analysis.  So there is no substitute for one good study.

The big fault in all the studies I have seen is that they treat children as one homogeneous blob. That different children might need different treatment seems to be a novel idea.  But it comports with the way Leftists think.  They can consider people in big groups only (Jews, blacks, women etc.).  Attention to the individual is too hard.

But it is perfectly reasonable to expect that some children may need a firmer hand than others.  An aggressive or over-active child may benefit from spanking whereas a quieter child might be traumatized by it.  Until such differences are taken into account no findings in this field are worthwhile or worth heeding.

I might note that my father never touched me and I have never touched my son.  But we are bright.  I have seem dimmer childen who are poorly influenced by words and who would therefore need something more.  So control for both intelligence and temperament would be needed if meaningful research into the subject is to be done.

Journal abstract follows the article below


It was a long held belief that smacking a naughty child was a parent's prerogative to keep them in line and teach them right from wrong.

But now half a century of research has found the now controversial past time actually does more harm than good.

The more children are physically chastised, the more likely they are to defy their parents, scientists have found.

They are also more prone to mental health problems, aggressive outbursts, cognitive difficulties and anti-social behaviour, according to the study.

Spanking - or corporal punishment - is usually defined as hitting a child with an open hand without causing physical injury.

Professors Elizabeth Gershoff, from the University of Texas at Austin and Andrew Grogan-Kaylor, at the University of Michigan analysed 50 years of research involving more than 160,000 children.

They found children who were smacked as five-year-olds were slightly more likely to be aggressive and break rules later in primary school.

'The upshot of the study is that spanking increases the likelihood of a wide variety of undesired outcomes for children,' said Professor Grogan-Kaylor.

'Spanking thus does the opposite of what parents usually want it to do.'

Despite mounting evidence on the harms tied to it, it is 'still a very typical experience' for children, studies have found.

They looked at the association between spanking and 17 potential detrimental outcomes and found a significant link between the punishment and 13 of them.

'We as a society think of spanking and physical abuse as distinct behaviours,' said Professor Gershoff.

'Yet our research shows that spanking is linked with the same negative child outcomes as abuse, just to a slightly lesser degree.

'We found that spanking was associated with unintended detrimental outcomes and was not associated with more immediate or long-term compliance, which are parents' intended outcomes when they discipline their children.'

They found the practice was associated with poor outcomes across a wide range of studies of the five decades.

Children misbehaved more and were more aggressive when they had been smacked by their parents, they found.

Those who are spanked were more prone to act out and could be more distracted in the classroom, they found.

The researchers also investigated cases of adults who were spanked as children and found the more they were smacked, the more likely they were to experience mental health problems.

They were also more likely to smack their own children - perpetuating the negative cycle.

In the UK, current laws allow 'reasonable chastisement' to control a child, but parents can be prosecuted if their actions result in injuries such as bruises, cuts or scratches.

Debate was recently ignited over the subject in the US when presidential hopeful Ted Cruz suggested voters would deliver a spanking to Hillary Clinton for allegedly being dishonest– just like he does to his five-year-old daughter when she lies.

His comments reignited the old debate on whether it is reasonable to smack a child.

And recently, in Canada, following a call by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to prohibit spanking, the Liberal government has promised to abolish a parent's right to physically discipline children.

Along similar legal lines, in June 2015, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled that the state was justified in denying foster parenting privileges to a couple who supported spanking or paddling children.

SOURCE

Spanking and Child Outcomes: Old Controversies and New Meta-Analyses.

Gershoff, Elizabeth T. & Grogan-Kaylor, Andrew

Abstract

Whether spanking is helpful or harmful to children continues to be the source of considerable debate among both researchers and the public. This article addresses 2 persistent issues, namely whether effect sizes for spanking are distinct from those for physical abuse, and whether effect sizes for spanking are robust to study design differences. Meta-analyses focused specifically on spanking were conducted on a total of 111 unique effect sizes representing 160,927 children. Thirteen of 17 mean effect sizes were significantly different from zero and all indicated a link between spanking and increased risk for detrimental child outcomes. Effect sizes did not substantially differ between spanking and physical abuse or by study design characteristics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Journal of Family Psychology, Apr 7 , 2016






Transgenders

Saying a he is a “he” is not what offends.

The political correction officer is playing a social dominance game with you.  He is making himself to be offended with you so that you will obey him.

He uses your desire to avoid offending him as a tool to establish social roles. You are supposed to assume the role as the inferior, the lower order, the ignorant, the follower, the benighted. He assumes the role as the superior, the higher order, the wiseman, the leader, the enlightened.

Of course he is offended and most deeply so!

He is offended at your insubordination. You are an uppity niggra. If the lower orders shoot off their mouths and starting thinking for themselves, why, there will be rebellion among the proles and slaves. So shut up.

He is not offended at your lack of courtesy. That is risible.

No politically correct person has ever displayed the courtesy of a swine since the beginning of the world: they neither doff their caps to ladies, nor ask if you need any comfort, nor listen to your point of view, nor salute you will courteous greetings, nor say “sir” and “ma’am” and “miss” and “missus” like anyone not raised in a barn would do.

Indeed, they go out of their way to cheat these forms of address, and will call God by the pronoun “She” and call the year “CE” just to see how often they can offend and insult Christians without being slapped in the mouth.

I have never known one not to use four letter crudities or to encouraging others to do so. Even their most grave politicians in public swear in a fashion former generations, who had a right view of the dignity of man, would never have had allowed.

No doubt the politically correct lunatics you’ve met really act vexed and hostile if you call Bruce Jenner “he” as logic, love of truth, common sense, common decency and good grammar demand, but you are utterly insane if you consider their insanity to be legitimate.

If I have a bit of paper I claim is the title deed to the Moon and I say by right you owe me money for getting light from my moon without paying me, my title deed has no legal force or effect, because, despite my claim, I have no legal right to moonlight. In reality, by international treaty, no man owns the moon and, by logic, no one can own the moonlight, since it is a free good.

Likewise here: if a man grows vexed and irate, and wets his pants and shrieks like a loon and rolls on the ground in a pool of his own spleenish vomit because you will not call a crazy person who cuts off his dick and dresses in girly clothing a “she”, his vexation is a sign of his witlessness, not a sign of his due righteous indignation. It is as phony as the alleged title deed to the moon. Even if I believe I own the moon with my whole heart, as strong as I can make myself believe what I want to believe, I am outside my rights, and my claim on you for money is invalid.

So here. A man has no right to demand you pretend him a woman, no matter how badly he wants it.

He has no right to be vexed if you do not give what he has no right to ask.

A man can act offended at anything he wishes, but if he has no right to be offended, he act is just an act. He should be chided, silenced, and, if he will not conform to the demands of polite society, be removed from it. If he grows violent, he should be confined, or killed. That is what you owe him.

He is the one being very offensive, not you.

Source






Nanny State to Regulate Daycare Foods

The Department of Agriculture is broadening its increasingly intrusive and unauthorized role of parent when it comes to daycares. The agency has officially enacted a new rule that lays down strict new boundaries on what foods millions of Child and Adult Care Food Program beneficiaries can and cannot eat. And who do we have to thank for that? Unelected first lady Michelle Obama and her Let’s Move scheme, of course.

According to The Washington Free Beacon, “The regulation will only allow daycare centers to serve juice once a day, will ban fried foods, and encourages centers to not add honey to a child’s yogurt.” Moreover, “The final rule will apply to participating organizations in USDA’s Child and Adult Care Food Program, which reimburses centers for meals and snacks. Over 3.3 million children and 120,000 adults participate in the program every day.”

The government claims it “recognizes that there may be times when a provider would like to serve foods or beverages that are not reimbursable, such as on a child’s birthday or another special occasion.” Therefore, “Providers still have the flexibility to serve non-reimbursable foods and beverages of their choosing. However, FNS [Food and Nutrition Service] encourages providers to use their discretion when serving non-reimbursable foods and beverages, which may be higher in added sugar, solid fats, and sodium, to ensure children and adult participants' nutritional needs are met.”

Hey, don’t say the government never did anything for you. Because nothing says liberty like the nanny state letting you eat what you want on your birthday. Or something.

SOURCE






Michael Brull just does not understand Australia's day of remembrance

Michael Brull is a far-Leftist Australian Jew.  So he hates Israel and Australia in roughly equal measures. But he is always good for a laugh.  His talent for missing the point is unfailing.  As with many Leftist articles, his article below is very long-winded. I have however reproduced it all so that people can see that he just doesn't get it.

Yet his basic point can be expressed quite simply.  He says that Leftist criticism of the ANZAC commemorations is somehow disallowed or suppressed.  But he quite spoils his own argument by listing towards the beginning of his article all the Leftists who HAVE criticised it, some of them quite prominent.

And if such criticisms have been suppressed, how is it that way back in the benighted early '60s my junior High School curriculum included a study of what is probably the most anti-ANZAC story ever written -- Seymour's "One day of the year".  And that was during the Prime Ministership of Sir Robert Menzies, an archetypal conservative.  Brull is talking through his anus.

He seems to have realized that his article lacked point and was  wandering all around the place like Brown's cows so he concluded it by saying:  "We are entitled to different values, and we are entitled to say so".  It's a conclusion that is quite detached from the rest of his article.  If he had shown that someone has denied him those entitlements, it might have made sense -- but he did not.  All he shows is that conservatives sometimes criticize  criticisms from Leftists.  Is it not allowed to criticize Leftist criticisms?  Is it only Leftists who are allowed to criticize? He seems to think so:  Typical Leftist bigotry.

The big thing that is totally missing from his article is any awareness that ANZAC day is a day on which we remember the premature deaths of our relatives.  I had relatives who died in both world wars.  I never knew them.  I was too young at the time.  But I know the families and know they must have been people like me who felt like me and I know how grievous their deaths were at the time. An uncle Freddie of mine in particular was much loved and I regret that I never got the chance to know him. 

And most people who attend ANZAC day ceremonies are like that.  Their degree of  closeness to the dead will vary but they will all be mourning relatives.  And the ex-servicemen who march will be remembering close friends who were lost.

And enlisting in the armed forces is an heroic act.  We walk into great danger.  We offer to put our lives on line to defend our families from an enemy.  And on ANZAC day we honour that heroism

And, Yes. I myself did voluntarily enlist and serve in the Australian army in the Vietnam era.  I never got to Vietnam but I did apply to go



Go beyond the tedium of mainstream Anzac Day coverage and you’ll see the meaning ascribed to the Day, and the way the history around it is constructed, remain hotly contested. In a fundamentally political disagreement, shutting sceptics out should be seen as an act of political correctness, writes Michael Brull.

Once again, Anzac Day has sneaked up on me. For those of us who are unpatriotic, it is easy to feel like we’re a negligible minority. It is easy to think that your feelings of ambivalence, indifference, or even hostility to Anzac Day are totally marginal and isolated. It is just you and a few of your friends, while the rest of the nation patriotically gets up early and cries on cue at the heroism of our diggers. Yet the truth is that there is plenty of dissent about Anzac. The only reason you don’t hear about it so often is that it’s usually shut out of the mainstream media.

Right-wingers are perfectly aware of this. Since 2009, right-wing historian Mervyn Bendle has been complaining about academics trashing the Anzac legend, in a series of long and tedious essays for Quadrant. The “intelligentsia and the Left”, he complains, offer a perfunctory nod to the bravery of the Australian soldiers in World War One, only to follow by emphasising what they think really matters: an approach which is “always critical, debunking and even denunciatory of the legend, applying a form of methodological nihilism to allege that at the core of the Anzac legend there is nothing—only meaninglessness, futility, error, ‘a nightmare happening in a void’ as George Orwell remarked of Great War literature. Alternatively, if there is something at the core of the legend, it is shown by the revisionist to be unworthy, wicked and iniquitous—militarism, imperialism, colonialism, racism, sexism, masculinism—and therefore can and must be condemned and ridiculed.”

One summary of a collection of academic writings by Adrian Howe, an Associate Professor at RMIT University, identifies the Anzac legend as “a masculinist and British imperialist military tradition”; a “nationalistic, militaristic tradition [that is]class-based, race-based, ethnocentric and male-centred”; while Anzac Day is “a day celebrating Anglo-Australian manhood, militarism and a bloody defeat in an imperialist war [and]should be abolished”.

The list of offending scholars is long. They include Anthony Burke, Mark McKenna, Henry Reynolds, Marilyn Lake, James Brown, and David Horner. Military historians come in for a particular scolding, including Joan Beaumont, Brown and Horner again, Peter Stanley, and two books edited by Craig Stockings. Former Prime Minister Paul Keating is also counted among the unpatriotic. Bendle grumbles that in a speech, Keating “largely regurgitated the nihilist view that the conflict was pointless and futile, which has long been the default ideological position of the Left.” Alas, Keating dismissed “the war as the lamentable product of European tribalism, ethnic atavism, nationalism and racism in which Australia had no stake”.

Bendle assures readers in the tiny, largely unread magazine of the aggressive, purportedly highbrow intellectual right that Keating’s “facile, unhistorical ramblings” are wrong: “the Anzacs who sacrificed their lives or their health in battle did so for a great cause. To pretend otherwise is to betray their memory.” Thus, to doubt the cause of World War One, 100 years later is to betray the soldiers. It turns out that to be properly patriotic, we must not just mourn the dead. We must also celebrate the reasons they were sent to die.

In a sense, Anzac Day isn’t just about remembering suffering of soldiers. The sanctification of their memory is done with a political intent, with particular political aims.

The parallels to today are not hard to find. Many people thought it was really terrific how there were such widespread demonstrations around the world before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Even if they didn’t stop the war, at least they showed anti-war sentiment. Was there any precedent for such anti-imperialism?

Yes, there was. Adam Hochschild reminds us of the large anti-war demonstrations across Europe before World War One. As Austria declared war on Serbia, 100,000 protesters converged at the heart of Berlin against war. The French Socialist leader Jean Jaurès stood with his arm around Hugo Haase, co-chair of the German Social Democrats, before an audience of Belgian workers. In Britain, Keir Hardie spoke to an enormous crowd at Trafalgar Square, “the largest demonstration there in years”. To wild cheers, according to Hochschild, he urged a general strike in the event of war.

As is known, these protests more or less ended as the war started. As in 2003, the media decided to “support our soldiers”. Like Bendle, this support for the soldiers in practical terms meant stifling any doubts or criticisms about the cause for which they were sent. Though the interests of soldiers and the politicians who command them are not necessarily the same, they are conflated by leading political figures. The loyal scribes of these politicians assure the public that to doubt the politicians is to doubt the soldiers, and how dare anyone cast aspersions on those risking their lives to keep us safe and defend our freedom? How dare anyone belittle the sacrifice of the soldiers, by questioning the values and wisdom of the politicians who send them into harm’s way?

Last year, Scott McIntyre was fired from the SBS for his blasphemies about Anzac Day, at the behest of Malcolm Turnbull, then, judging by Turnbull’s own words, the Minister for Right-Wing Communications. Though McIntyre’s tweets were condensed due to the nature of the medium, his supposedly inflammatory comments were duly analysed by academic specialists on the Anzacs. Professor Phillip Dwyer, Director of the Centre for the History of Violence at University of Newcastle, agreed that the Anzacs were “no angels”, whose members included those who behaved in “overtly racist manner”, and also rapes and summary executions. Geoff Lemon observed that it was hard to argue that Gallipoli was “an imperialist invasion of a foreign nation that Australia had no quarrel with”.

Recording historical facts about wrongdoing by Anzacs makes it harder to valorise the soldiers. They shift from becoming our heroic diggers, to human beings, many of whom acted in the flawed ways armies often act in conflict zones. Yet historians have not just challenged the factual basis for hero-ising the soldiers. They are also resolutely sceptical about the value of worshipping the Anzacs. Frank Bongiorno commented that “Anzac’s inclusiveness has been achieved at the price of a dangerous chauvinism that increasingly equates national history with military history, and national belonging with a willingness to accept the Anzac legend as Australian patriotism’s very essence.”

Academics are not infallible. Academic specialists can be wrong, just as academic specialties can function to mostly serve power. Anyone who has too much reverence for academic specialists should revisit the performance of all the economists who failed to predict the 2008 crash. They may know more than the rest of us about what happened during the war, but that doesn’t mean that they are necessarily more right about the reverence with which the Anzacs should be treated.

My point in reviewing their Anzac scepticism is not to suggest that academics verify or vindicate such suspicion. It is to suggest that jingoism tries to pretend a moral or political disagreement is somehow inherently illegitimate. There are many different ways to approach history. Trying to sanctify one approach to one aspect, and acting horrified at those who dissent from this particular approach is a political act.

As noted by Jumbunna researcher Paddy Gibson, in response to Aboriginal protests of Invasion Day, Prime Minister Bob Hawke started to push Anzac Day as an alternative to Australia Day as a way to cement Australian nationalism. This support for Anzac Day since the late 1980s has revived and reshaped Anzac Day, as the government has sought to push Anzac Day, and the particular values of its modern incarnation, on the general public. This culminated in the extravaganza of last year, when the government spent over $300 million on Anzac commemorations. Yet there were signs this had limited effects. Australians didn’t tune in to the World War One documentaries. Attempts to flog Anzac merchandise were increasingly seen as tacky. Everyone tried to cash in. Woolworths and Target put the Anzacs in their marketing. Now folded soft-porn mag Zoo featured a woman in a bikini with a poppy to mark the special day.

This kind of marketing was seen by some as exploitative. But using Anzac Day as a way to promote the virtue of World War One while hiding behind the political sanctity of Australian soldiers who died seems comparably cynical.

If we’re going to remember the past, and celebrate parts of it, why single out Australian soldiers? Why not celebrate Aboriginal warriors, who died resisting the invasion of their land and the decimation of their peoples and cultures? Why not celebrate trade unionists, who secured some of the best working conditions and entitlements across the world, and kept Australia one of the more egalitarian Western countries until the 1980s? Why not celebrate the suffragettes, who earned white women the vote in Australia before most of the rest of the world? Why not celebrate the activists for Aboriginal rights, who fought for land rights, treaty and sovereignty? Or those who won Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples the vote, and dismantled most elements of formal racial discrimination in Australia? Why not remember and celebrate the Australians who fought against World War One? Or those who successfully campaigned against conscription in Australia during World War One, or those who successfully ended Australian involvement in the war on Vietnam?

We can imagine a conservative response to these suggestions. Ah, but you see, these are political choices. Celebrating feminists, anti-imperialists, Aboriginal resistance and trade unionists doesn’t reflect the entire political spectrum. We couldn’t base nationalism on the political values of a segment of the population. It would leave out the rest of us.

Perhaps that’s fair enough. But what about those who feel left out by Anzac Day? Honouring those who fought in a war, while refusing to permit reflections on whether the war was unjust or not, is political. And so are nationalism and patriotism.

Some people may be proud Australians, who think ours is the greatest country on earth, with a largely, if not entirely unblemished history. Those who disagree are not committing a crime, they are simply engaged in a political disagreement. Australians who are horrified at Anzac sceptics are simply trying to enforce their political correctness on the rest of us. We are entitled to different values, and we are entitled to say so.

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 POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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Thursday, April 28, 2016



The poor die sooner and that's not because of anything in their environment

So, by default it's genetic.  No amount of opportunity, information or education would help them.  The author below doesn't want to draw that conclusion (too politically incorrect) but that is what the findings of the very soundly-based research by Chetty et al show.  The excerpt below is presented as a convenient summary of the Chetty et al. findings.  The environmental factors considered and dismissed as causes of early mortality were described by Chetty et al. as: "access to medical care, physical environmental factors, income inequality, or labor market conditions"

Income, Life Expectancy, and Community Health. Underscoring the Opportunity

J. Michael McGinnis

In an impressive analysis based on mortality data and deidentified tax records with more than 1.4 billion person-year observations and nearly 7 million deaths among individuals living in the United States during the 15 years between 1999 and 2014, Chetty et al confirm the long-observed association between higher income and longer life expectancy, as well as the recent increase in the gap in life expectancy between the richest and poorest 5% of the US population.1 Looking specifically at the lowest income quartile, Chetty et al also found little association between life expectancy and various measures of access to medical care, physical environments, employment conditions, or levels of income inequality.

SOURCE






Muslim immigrant faces years behind bars for series of indecent assaults on women on their doorsteps in 10-day reign of terror just months after he arrived from Algeria



Muslims have no respect for women

A serial sex attacker is set to be jailed after he was convicted of attacking a string of women over a 10-day spree in South London.

Mehdi Midani, 28, followed eight women as they walked home at night then groped some on their doorstep and slapped the buttocks of others.

He was apprehended after police raised the alarm about his behaviour and released CCTV footage of one of the attacks.

Midani was convicted of six counts of sexual assault and one count of common assault and pleaded guilty to a further count of sexual assault at Inner London Crown Court.

At 9pm on October 22 last year he followed a woman up the road in Brixton before touching her backside and reaching up her dress, prompting her to shout: 'What the f***, I don't know you!'

Four days later he attacked two women in the space of an hour - he put his hand between a woman's leg then ran off, and later followed another victim home, dragged her to the floor and tried to kiss her.

Two days later Midani - who moved to Britain from Algeria earlier in the year - attacked four women in a four-hour period.

At 7.20pm Midani followed a 28-year-old woman as she walked home in Brixton, before grabbing her inside the communal hallway of her property and groping her breasts.

Midani then carried out the common assault by grabbing a 29-year-old woman near her home at 9.24pm.

At 10.20pm he pushed a 31-year-old woman into a block of flats and sexually assaulted her before running away, and an hour later put his hand up the skirt of a 32-year-old.

Three days later on 31 October Midani attacked a woman in the same area, slapping her on the buttocks before fleeing when she called for help.

He is facing a hefty jail sentence when he is sentenced on May 26.

At a previous court hearing Charlotte Chirico, prosecuting said that Midani's immigration status was unknown but added: 'He's only been in the UK for a few months.'

The court heard that he had entered Britain via Ireland after leaving his native Algeria.

Detective Constable Tony Carr of the Metropolitan Police said: 'Midani caused enormous fear and distress to the local community as he carried out his spate of attacks, with four recorded in just one day.

'A public appeal was crucial to our investigation and led to information being provided that quickly led to Midani's arrest.

'I would like to thank the local community for their support and help during our inquiry and hope they are reassured by the news that Midani has now been convicted and faces imprisonment.'

SOURCE






How to Impose Personal Beliefs on Others

The Colorado State Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from a baker who was found guilty of discrimination for declining to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding ceremony in 2012. By not picking up the case, the highest court in the state let stand an August 2015 ruling from the Colorado Court of Appeals that declared baker Jack Phillips did not have a right to free speech or the free exercise of religion whenever he picked up his piping bag.

“We all have a right to our personal beliefs, but we do not have a right to impose those beliefs on others and discriminate against them,” said ACLU attorney Ria Tabacco Mar, who dragged the cake baker to court. “We hope today’s win will serve as a lesson for others that equality and fairness should be our guiding principles and that discrimination has no place at the table, or the bakery as the case may be.”

Once again, a leftist displays a stunning lack of self-awareness. Imposing beliefs on others is exactly what the ACLU and the rest of the Rainbow Mafia are doing. In this case, they used the courts and the government of Colorado to strip Phillips of his rights and conscript his services for a cause to which he has conscientious objection. Not only that, but Phillips and his staff must submit to re-education, quarterly compliance reports and demands that he create cakes to celebrate other same-sex unions. The Rainbow Mafia is indeed “imposing its beliefs on others.”

In a statement after the ruling, Phillips' legal counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom, said it is “evaluating all legal options” in order to protect Phillips' First Amendment right to use his creativity how he chooses, and by extension everyone else who objects to state-endorsed same-sex marriage. One of those options might be the United States Supreme Court.

SOURCE






More antisemitism in the British Labour party

A Labour MP today has resigned as an aide to John McDonnell after sharing a graphic on social media that appeared to say Israel should be 'relocated' to America.

Bradford West MP Naz Shah shared an image that showed an outline of Israel superimposed on to a map of the USA.

The headline on the image said: 'Solution for Israel-Palestine Conflict - Relocate Israel into United States.'

Ms Shah then wrote with the post: 'problem solved.'

The Muslim MP today apologised for 'offence caused' before quitting as the shadow chancellor's PPS.

The resignation will reignite a bitter row within Labour about whether Jeremy Corbyn has done enough to combat anti-Semitism among some new members who have joined the party under his leadership.

Tory MPs today led calls for Ms Shah to be suspended from the Labour Party over the incident.

The Facebook post, shared by Ms Shah in 2014 before she became an MP, suggested the US has 'plenty of land' to accommodate Israel as a 51st state, allowing Palestinians to 'get their life and their land back'.

It added that Israeli people would be welcome and safe in the US while the 'transportation cost' would be less than three years' worth of Washington's support for Israeli defence spending.

Ms Shah added a note suggesting the plan might 'save them some pocket money'.

After the posting was highlighted by the Guido Fawkes website, Ms Shah released a statement in which she said: 'This post from two years ago was made before I was an MP, does not reflect my views and I apologise for any offence it has caused.'

In a second statement, she added later: 'I deeply regret the hurt I have caused by comments made on social media before I was elected as an MP.

'I made these posts at the height of the Gaza conflict in 2014, when emotions were running high around the Middle East conflict. But that is no excuse for the offence I have given, for which I unreservedly apologise.

'In recognition of that offence, I have stepped down from my role as PPS to the shadow chancellor John McDonnell.

'I will be seeking to expand my existing engagement and dialogue with Jewish community organisations and will be stepping up my efforts to combat all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism.'

Oliver Dowden, the Conservative MP for Hertsmere, today wrote to the Labour leader demanding he expel Ms Shah from Labour.

He said: 'A failure to act would call into question the commitment of the Labour Party to deal with wholly unacceptable behaviour and would constitute a betrayal of the values that all those who believe in democracy should uphold.'

Tory MP Andrew Bridgen told the website: 'If Jeremy Corbyn was serious about tackling anti-Semitism, he would put his money where his mouth is and remove the whip her from Naz Shah immediately.'

Mike Freer, Conservative MP for Finchley and Golders Green, told MailOnline: 'She is another example of the poison that is coursing through the Labour Party. She should have the whip withdrawn and she should recuse herself from the Home Affairs inquiry into Ant-Semitism.'

Ms Shah is a member of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, which is conducting an inquiry into the rise of anti-Semitism.

Jonathan Sacerdoti, director of communications at the Campaign Against Antisemitism, said it would be 'hard' for his organisation to take the parliamentary committee's inquiry seriously if Ms Shah remained part of it.

Speaking before Ms Shah's resignation, he said: 'One cannot simply apologise for ''any offence caused'' and expect a evidence of gross and brazen anti-Semitism to disappear.

'Once again the Labour Party has been revealed to have within its ranks people who express extreme prejudice towards Jewish people in their public statements. Once again the party has failed to find these statements itself, and reject those who freely and willingly express them.

'How can we believe Labour when it says it takes the problem of Jew-hatred seriously when it repeatedly defends anti-Semitic MPs? It seems that Jeremy Corbyn's anti-racism policy only operates when convenient.'

He added: 'We have offered to assist the Select Committee in its work investigating anti-Semitism. However, if Naz Shah remains on the committee it will be hard for those of us giving evidence to take the inquiry seriously.'

Last night the Jewish Chronicle reported that in August 2014 she linked on Twitter to a blog where Zionism – the belief in a Jewish state – was likened to Al Qaeda.

The blog also claimed Zionism had been used to ‘groom’ Jews to ‘exert political influence at the highest levels of public office’.

In July 2014 she posted a link on Facebook to an online poll asking whether Israel had committed war crimes. She wrote: ‘The Jews are rallying to the poll.’

In another – eight months before she became an MP – she wrote ‘Apartheid Israel’ over a picture of Martin Luther King with the caption ‘Never Forget That Everything Hitler Did In Germany Was Legal’.

This prompted Sir Eric to demand she be stripped of the Labour whip. Mrs Shah is also under pressure to stand down as a member of the House of Commons home affairs committee while it conducts an investigation.

 Mrs Shah’s office could not be reached for comment. A Labour spokesman would not comment on possible disciplinary action.

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 POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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Wednesday, April 27, 2016



Why after this weekend I cry for England and St George

It's a funny old thing being English. We can't talk about death because it's upsetting, men die from prostate cancer because they would rather not show their bottom to a doctor, and we wait until we get in the car before yelling at our husbands for showing us up in front of our friends.

When something becomes a bit awkward or unsightly, we try to hide it away, replacing it with something better, more acceptable.

Politicians hide bad news behind major announcements or in the summer recess when journalists are on holiday and families are stuck in Sharm El Sheikh.

Girls hide their faces behind make-up and filters to better fit in with their friends, and women buy a new necklace when they feel frumpy, because jewellery doesn't judge you on last night's fish and chips.

Just look what we've done with Saint George — consigned him to the corners of our country where only a patriotic few celebrate him, and given his place to a new, more forgiving figure: Shakespeare.

Shakespeare was everywhere on April 23, the 400th anniversary of his death and, oddly, also the 452nd anniversary of his birth.

He managed to monopolise the attention of the BBC, take over Google Doodle, and focus the attention of a whole new generation in schools across the country.

Clearly we owe a lot to Shakespeare but as people gathered around open-air screens in the sleeting rain to watch Twelfth Night, dear Saint George was shoved unceremoniously into the wings.

Perhaps my view was skewed; I was in London, the multicultural Mecca, where, unless you are non-binary, a gender-fluid-Druid or an asylum-seeker from Syria, your credibility rating is on the floor, my friend.

If you need a visual reference for Acceptable Britain, the cherry-picked crowd fawning over President Obama (who almost bored himself to death talking to students) was a perfect example. That audience was more highly choreographed than Strictly Come Dancing.

Benedict Cumberbatch was there (nod to Shakespeare), Karren Brady was there (nod to leave EU), and so were a few hundred kids who learned English as a second language and speak to their mothers in Persian.

I appreciate that in far-flung corners of our beautiful island the stalwart few clung onto the ideals of our proud nation and flew the flag for Saint George.

In Liverpool and Manchester there were street parades to mark the occasion. Rural villages held tea parties, and Farage was wheeled out in UKIP country to demand a Bank Holiday.

My own children helped cement our flagpole into the garden and I invited my local Labour MP around to point at my flag and mock my intellect.

But all these efforts were slightly in vain. It seems Saint George is no longer the acceptable face of England – too nationalistic, too traditional, speaking to a pride it is no longer acceptable to feel.

My grandfather, who fought in the war, is still soldiering on at 98, but I am supposed to be more proud of a sexually 'non-binary' student who decided not to tell her parents about her choice not to identify as having male OR female sexuality but to announce it to the visiting President Obama instead.

Maria says s/he (depending on the day) has been overwhelmed by the support s/he has received. The Guardian says Maria is a true hero. I think of my grandfather and our forefathers and sigh.

Bristol City Council went for full disclosure and acknowledged they would not be celebrating Saint George's Day because the city was far too multicultural. They said: 'Bristol is a city with 91 different languages and cultures. It would be very difficult to commemorate them all.'

Which kind of misses the point. Bristol isn't in 91 different places, it's in England.  There's a clue in that big red cross on the Union Jack. Or should we be getting rid of that too?

I have no doubt the city finds the budget to pay for translation services for these individuals, and to celebrate events that are part of Acceptable Britain, but clearly Saint George is no longer a part of this picture.

And I wonder just how much this picture has been retouched to accommodate the new order of things.

For now Shakespeare is culturally acceptable, despite some questionable things he wrote about a Moor (Othello) and a Jew (Shylock). So, for how much longer?

In time, Shakespeare will undoubtedly give way to an even more multicultural face for Britain — Malala's, perhaps. Or Idris Elba's.

Just as Boris — now portrayed as a racist for not buying into the doom-mongering of Obamageddon — may be replaced by the Muslim mayor-in-waiting, Sadiq Khan. And the new Head of the National Union of Students is another Muslim, who is fiercely critical of other faiths.

As I resist the relentless imposition of Acceptable Britain, I believe we need to celebrate the pride we had in the country we knew and to push back on obligatory multiculturalism.  We need leaders who will challenge extremists and the communities who feed their brand of hate.

Most people still (just about) know the story about Saint George and the dragon.  What is less talked about - and no doubt does him no favours - is the fact that his mother came from Palestine and that he was also venerated by the Crusaders.

To this day he is known and feared by Muslims but loved by Christian cultures throughout the Middle East as a symbol of protection against persecution and jihad.

Nobody is calling for a new Crusade.  But as we watch the extremists burrow ever deeper into our Muslim communities, and brace ourselves for the next Isis atrocity in Europe - perhaps on a Mediterranean beach near you this summer - maybe we need St George now more than ever.

As Shakespeare wrote: 'Follow your spirit and upon this charge, cry God for Harry, England and Saint George'.

SOURCE






Demonizing Christianity as a Global Menace

By David Limbaugh

Can you believe anyone even organizes a "white privilege" conference these days — seven years into Barack Obama's presidency? Well, you'd better believe it, and you should also know that at least one of the speakers at this conference is militantly Christophobic.

The 17th annual White Privilege Conference was held in Philadelphia from April 15 to 17. Blake Neff of The Daily Caller attended the conference and reported that "activist and author Paul Kivel" actually claimed that "almost every dysfunction in society, from racism and sexism to global warming and a weak economy, is united by the ideology of 'Christian hegemony.'"

What's the problem, you ask? Well, in the United States, according to Kivel, between 7,000 and 10,000 predominantly white Christian men run the major institutions and "colonize our mind" with Christianity's core ideas, which leads to most of the world's problems.

Kivel identified three particularly severe problems in the modern world that are caused or worsened by Christianity. First are wars in the Middle East, which he says are a result of Christianity's effort to spread Western ideas and influence.

The Bible does direct Christians to spread the "good news" to the ends of the earth (Matthew 28:18-20). But Christianity started in the Middle East and spread outward from there. By A.D. 100, the Christian church had been established in regions throughout the Mediterranean, largely because of the Apostle Paul's missionary journeys (Acts 16-20) and the evangelism of Peter, John and others.

The Middle East has switched hands countless times throughout history — Romans, Byzantines, Persians, Seljuk Turks, Mongols, Ottomans, British, French, Italians and others.

Perhaps Kivel had in mind America's wars with Iraq in the past quarter-century and our effort to plant self-rule in the region. Though the wisdom of our nation-building effort can certainly be debated, our involvement is hardly the reason for the age-old conflicts in the Middle East, which, in all likelihood, will continue as long as the world does.

The second problem Kivel attributed to Christianity is the economic destruction it has caused because, wrote Neff, "it provides that God-like 'invisible hand' that supposedly drives market forces within a flawed capitalist system."

It is tragic that the left has successfully rewritten history to demonize capitalism as the source of poverty rather than the great engine of unprecedented prosperity it has been for the United States, the Western world and beyond.

Kivel identified the third problem as Christianity's conflict with "global warming," wrote Neff, "because under Christianity mankind has dominion over the Earth, rather than requiring that humans treat the Earth itself as 'sacred.'" Interestingly, Kivel is lexiconically challenged, as he failed to use the proper terminology for this vexing menace — "climate change."

The Bible gives man dominion over all other living things (Genesis 1:28), but it does not sanction man's abuse of the environment or other creatures. The Bible does not exhort mankind to deify "Mother Earth" as radical environmentalists do. But it does promote prudent stewardship, from the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30) to God's commanding that the fields and vineyards be sown and harvested for six years but left fallow in the seventh year to replenish the soil's nutrients (Exodus 23:10-11 and Leviticus 25:1-7).

Christianity, argued Kivel, also orients us to distinguish between good and evil, which forces us to adopt a "with us or against us" mentality. "There's nothing inherently good or bad about the weather or about people," Kivel insisted.

I'll concede that though the weather can be a destructive force, it is not capable of good or evil. But yes, the Bible definitely distinguishes between good and evil, and it is quite clear that all men are fallen.

Next, Kivel made the irrational leap that to distinguish between good and evil leads to condemnation of various things as worthy of destruction. From my perspective, however, it is not Christians but leftists such as Kivel who are most intolerant toward people and ideas of other religions or secularists.

Finally, Kivel castigated Christianity's "hierarchical" views that place "God over people, men over women, parents over children, (and) white people over people of color," which, in his view, inevitably leads to systems that justify or glorify oppression.

The Bible does — big surprise — place God (the Creator) over man (the creature), and it places parents over their children for the purpose of raising them through their formative years — an idea no doubt shocking to such leftists. But it does not teach that there are differences in human dignity; all people (male and female) are created in God's image (Genesis 1:27), which is intrinsically irrespective of race. It is rich for Kivel to argue that the Bible glorifies racial oppression when Christians were the leaders in the anti-slavery movement.

Before you dismiss all this as the thinking of a fringe leftist, please consider that it is a logical extension of "progressive" thinking that liberals, especially in the universities and the media, engage in every day. Indeed, it would be intellectually dishonest to deny that leftist race- and gender-baiting, as well as capitalism-bashing, permeate our university curricula throughout the United States. Everything involves identity categories — race, gender, income and the rest. Ironically, the left's obsession over race, gender and the like tends to diminish, rather than promote, human dignity and individuality.

Despite the skewed thinking and propaganda of leftists such as Kivel, Christianity, as abundant evidence demonstrates, has been a force of good in this world and continues to be.

SOURCE






Your Daughter Must Share a Restroom With a Man, and You Will Be Compelled to Agree



By Ben Shapiro

The rules of bigotry, according to the left, represent a constantly shifting kaleidoscope of nonsense.

This week, we learned that if you don't want your small daughter sharing a restroom with a man who thinks he is a woman, you are a bigot; if you are a woman who is uncomfortable with a man who thinks he is a woman whipping out his male genitalia to urinate in front of you, you are a bigot; if you are a religious person who doesn't want to participate in an activity you consider sinful, you are a bigot.

Conversely, if you are a man who thinks he is a woman and you want to force a small girl to pee next to you, you are a freedom fighter; if you are a large man who thinks he is a woman and you want to be one of the girls, right down to hulking into a Macy's ladies room, you are a hero; if you are a gay man and you want to force a religious person to serve you, you are a hero.

If all of this seems odd, that's because it is.

It's obviously logically incoherent, to begin with. The left insists that a man who believes he is a woman must be treated as one, even if his biology dictates that he is a male. However, if a man believes he is a man, he cannot discuss vital issues of national import (like abortion) since he lacks the vital prerequisite: a womb. Men cannot understand women, the logic seems to run, unless they are women.

But men cannot be women, of course, except in the fevered imaginations of people on the left. Even the left doesn't believe that: Leftists simultaneously want to enshrine unchangeable sexual differences (although, according to them, men and women are inherently and unchangingly different with regard to their abortion perspectives) and deny that these differences exist in the first place. (Caitlyn Jenner's twig and berries are irrelevant to the issue of gender, they say).

"This is nonsense," you say.  "Shut up," they say.

In the end, leftists don't have to be coherent — they just have to control the government gun.

The baseline definition of freedom in Western Civilization has been this: You do not get to force me to serve you, and you do not get to force me to think the way you want me to think. As follows, you cannot force me to think that you are a woman if you are a biological man. You cannot force me to spend my taxpayer dollars to pretend along with your mental illness. You cannot force me to run my business as you see fit because I have no affirmative duty to you.

But the left doesn't believe in freedom — except the freedom to destroy the right. Thus, leftists believe that Bruce Springsteen has an absolute right to cancel concerts in North Carolina, but that bakers in North Carolina can't stop baking wedding cakes for same-sex couples. The left believes that the government must compel elevated pay rates for women, but government should compel men to be treated as women based on their subjective feelings on the subject.

The kaleidoscope of leftist morality never stops shifting. But in the end, only one moral counts: the left's ultimate insistence on use of government force to compel obedience to their kaleidoscopic morality.

SOURCE





Deconstructing Greer

Now the Left are turning on a feminist icon

By Dominic Perrottet, a minister of the crown in NSW, Australia

Recently I received a letter, as NSW Finance and Property Minister, demanding that I urgently remove the ‘Germaine Greer’ plaque from the Sydney Writers Walk in Circular Quay.The reason for the demand, sent from a concerned, vigilant citizen, was that Ms Greer holds horrifically bigoted views on transgender issues, so her name can no longer defile public places in NSW.

Although it was just one letter, it’s a telling example of the Left’s ruthless totalitarian reflex. As Stalin erased Trotsky from Soviet photographs, so Ms Greer must be expunged, our public places sanitised – that’s progress, comrade.

Ms Greer is a particularly interesting target for the Left because she was once its darling; a feminist pioneer at the vanguard of the gender revolution. She stuck it to the man, and is still sticking it to him.

Unfortunately for Ms Greer, these days the man sometimes identifies as a woman, which means the once-celebrated feminist is now guilty of le thoughtcrime du jour: transphobia. Explaining her position on Q&A last week, Greer didn’t retreat: ‘If you’re a 50-year-old truck driver who’s had 4 children with a wife and you’ve decided the whole time you’ve been a woman, I think you’re probably wrong.’ See, this insolent fuddy duddy refuses to grasp that such thoughts are no longer ‘acceptable’. In the ever-shifting hierarchy of progressive issues, the trans-agenda now trumps feminism. So for Ms Greer, it’s confess, recant, conform, or you’re out.

That anyone would think it appropriate to denounce Ms Greer to a Minister of the Crown came as a shock to me. But this is the world we are in: public office holders are under increasing pressure to use state power to enforce the ‘progressive’ agenda. Sadly, too many are caving.

Take Germany, where a comedian is now the subject of a government-approved criminal investigation – for making jokes about the president of Turkey. Or Tasmania, where the Catholic Archbishop is being dragged before the anti-discrimination commission for publishing a pamphlet explaining his own Church’s teaching on marriage. Or Scotland, where the Glasgow police – providing locals with some helpful advice on the perils of social media – recently tweeted: ‘Think before you post or you may receive a visit from us this weekend…’

That’s right McDougall: you’re just one Facebook post away from hearing the friendly local constabulary’s jackboots crunching up your driveway.

Defending freedom doesn’t mean agreeing with every offensive statement anyone makes. A case in point: a few weeks ago some unruly footy fans unfurled a banner at the MCG emblazoned with ‘STOP THE MOSQUES’.

The reaction was swift and ruthless. Eddie McGuire told the ABC that those responsible should be banned from footy. AFL boss Gillan McLachlan got busy ‘talking to the Victoria Police to see how they may prosecute’. No matter that there are no grounds for prosecution: where there’s a will, there’s a gulag.

When a similar banner was unfurled at a game in WA, the police jumped straight in, marching the fans out and banning them from the ground.

When I’m watching a match, I prefer not to be distracted by louts with offensive banners trying to stir the political pot. But if footy codes are going to politicise games with statements about refugees and rounds where players wear rainbow bootlaces and the like, it’s not clear to me why one set of political statements is permitted, and another isn’t; why we’re free to use the game to spruik (invariably left-wing) political views on some issues, but get bundled away by cops for voicing opinions on others.

If you’re banning the Sydney University Evangelical Union for the unspeakable crime of requiring its executive to believe in Jesus (Marx forbid!), more power to you. If your target is George Pell, or Tony Abbott, or some other conservative punching bag, go ahead and spew your hate-filled bile from the rooftops. You’ll be lauded as brave and a hero and get interviewed on ABC, and maybe even nominated for Australian of the Year (or at the very least a Logie).

But if you want to use your freedom to challenge the dogmas of the new orthodoxy, I’m sorry comrade, that’s not what freedom’s for, so put a sock in it. Or else.

As Ms Greer’s cautionary tale illustrates, conservatives aren’t the only ones liable to find themselves on the wrong end of a progressive truncheon.

The revolution always eats its own, because there is no rhyme or reason to the opinions ‘progressives’ endorse from one day to the next. Their beliefs – no matter how ruthlessly enforced – may be useful in advancing ‘progress’ to some fabled utopia, but once their utility has expired, those beliefs can be discarded like last season’s flared corduroys. That’s where serious thinkers like Ms Greer run into trouble. Because serious thinkers have serious arguments rooted in serious principles that can’t simply be jettisoned.

When you abandon your principles, it’s hard to see the point of debate, other than to see who can shout the loudest. Contests of ideas degenerate into contests of fists. That’s not progress.

True progress demands a truly free exchange of ideas, because the best ideas are forged in the furnace of fierce disagreement – the battle of ideas, where wits are sharpened, arguments blunted, minds expanded, and gradually, truth revealed.

Nothing has made this clearer to me than the responsibility of legislative decision-making. Free debate is simply indispensable in that process. But I have felt the chill setting in – the reluctance to speak out, even among colleagues, on matters of huge importance, for fear of falling foul of the PC police.

This is the path to dead-end, unthinking government. If democracy is to survive, we must defend freedom. We must resist the growing pressure to deploy the state’s firepower to enforce a ‘progressive’ agenda that criminalises dissent. Because you can only have progress with a contest of ideas. And you can only have a contest of ideas if you are free.

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 POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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Tuesday, April 26, 2016



Another perverted Muslim



A pervert doctor who groped female patients 40 years ago and robbed one of the chance of ever finding love has been sent to prison for his crimes.

Justice finally caught up with retired GP, Mohammed Haq, from Hornchurch, Essex, when the frail 74-year-old was led from the dock of St Albans Crown Court to begin his 18 month sentence.

Before, the court heard how a young single woman - who was pregnant at the time - was left so traumatised by what Haq did to her that she never felt able to let a man to touch her again.

As a result, St Albans crown court was told, the woman has never had a 'relationship' with a man since. In a statement that was read to the court, she said: 'Since that evening I have not been in any relationship. I didn't want to be touched by any man.'

The woman said she had been looking forward to being a mother until Haq groped her at his surgery one evening.

Even as the time approached for her son to be born she couldn't bear the thought of a doctor touching or examining her. She insisted she be allowed a Caesarian birth as a result.

Her statement continued: 'Everything changed in my life that evening... I have never felt safe to have a relationship'. 'He took from me the ability to love and he's a wicked man who got his kicks by abusing women,' she said.

Haq appeared in court having been found guilty earlier this year of fondling the breasts of a teenage girl and three female patients during unnecessary clinical examinations in the 1970s and early 1980s.

The married father-of-two indecently assaulted the women while he worked as a GP at the Burvill House Surgery and Hilltop Surgery in Hatfield, Hertfordshire.

Prosecutor Miranda Moore QC told the jury at the start of his trial: 'There were inappropriate breast examinations and there was no clinical justification for what happened.'

The youngest victim was 15 when she went to see the doctor because she had swollen neck glands.

Ms Moore added: 'He asked her to take her top, her bra and her trousers off. She was standing in her pants alone in the room with no chaperone.  'He cupped her breasts and twiddled with her nipples. He told her to bend over. She felt stunned.'

One patient went to see Dr Haq for a repeat prescription of slimming pills.  'He told her to take her top off and pulled her right nipple to make it erect. Then he made both nipples erect and plucked them. He did not weigh her or give her the weight loss pills,' said the barrister.

Another woman, who is now in her 60s, went to Haq with a bad back and he touched her breasts unnecessarily.  The victim told the jury: 'He told me to take my jumper and bra off and lie on the couch. There was no second person in room.  'He started touching the breast area. He was not examining me for problems he was just fondling.  'He asked me to stand up and touched my breasts again. I suppose I was young and naive.'

She said she saw Dr Haq again in 1980 when she had a rash on her neck. 'He asked me to take my jumper and bra off. I did.

'I felt shocked, having only gone with a rash on my neck. He didn't say why he was touching my breasts. He said he did not know what the rash was and gave me a prescription for some cream.'

When another woman went to Haq to find out if she was pregnant he told her to strip and squeezed her breasts. The woman is said to have complained to the surgery receptionist who 'laughed at her'.

Haq, of Parkstone Avenue, Hornchurch denied ten offences of indecent assault on four women in the 1970s and early 80s.

During the course of the trial Judge Andrew Bright QC ruled that he had no case to answer on two charges of indecent assault.

He was convicted by the jury of eight women and four men unanimously on three counts. They convicted him on two other charges by a majority of ten to two. The jury cleared him of two others. They could not agree on the remaining charge.

Sentencing had been adjourned for medical reports to be prepared and he was ordered to register as a sex offender.

Haq had committed the offences on the women when he was in his thirties, but the court was told he now suffers from heart problems and is profoundly deaf. He has diabetes, eye problems and is waiting for an operation to remove a large kidney stone. He is also suffering from depression.

In the early 1980s he was been suspended for 9 months by the General Medical Council after complaints from patients, but there was never any criminal investigation into his activities.

Years later his victims finally found the courage to tell Hertfordshire Police what Haq had done to them and he was arrested and charged.

Following his suspension in 1981, he was allowed to resume practicing as a doctor and eventually retired in 2014.

Julian Woodbridge, defending, described what Haq had done as 'the opportunistic touching of breast'.  He went on 'Even 35 years on what is obvious is that his behaviour has had an effect on the women.'

Passing sentence on Friday, Judge Bright said that because of the age of the victim, the most serious offence had been the fondling of the 15-year-old.  As a result of what he did to her, which had been for his own 'sexual gratification,' the judge said her life had been blighted by panic attacks.

The judge told Haq his victims had placed total trust in him as their GP.  'It was complete and total trust and you abused that trust with all your victims including a 15-year-old who was in no position to speak up for herself.'

Judge Bright said by contesting the allegations and forcing the victims to go to court and relive their ordeals, it was clear Haq felt no remorse for his crimes.

He jailed him for 18 months and ordered him to pay £7500 towards the cost of the prosecution.

SOURCE






One in six BBC stars 'must be gay or lesbian or disabled' by 2020 says new staff-hiring guidelines

One in six of all on-screen BBC roles must go to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender or disabled people by 2020, the corporation's new diversity targets state.

In a bid to deter criticism that it has been failing to reflect its audience, the BBC has pledged that LGBT and disabled people will each make up eight per cent of all on-air and on-screen roles.

The new targets follow a heated debate in the House of Commons led by David Lammy MP on the issue of the broadcaster's diversity.

Fifty per cent of all on-screen and broadcasting roles will go to women, who already make up 48.5 per cent of the BBC's total workforce.

However, the BBC will still be able to commission shows where the main roles are more likely to be male-dominated.

Radio 2, which has a particularly male-dominated line-up of broadcasters, including DJs and presenters Chris Evans, Simon Mayo, Jeremy Vine and Bob Harris, faces an overhaul.

Last year, a review by the BBC Trust, the corporation's watchdog, found that six stations - including Radio 2 - raised concerns that they were failing ethnic minority audiences.

Radio 2 was highlighted as having particular difficulties in attracting non-white listeners. It was said to reach an average of only 12 percent of BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) adults each week, compared to 35 percent for all adults.

The BBC's target for 15 per cent of on-screen and on-air representation, including lead roles, to be people from BAME backgrounds will not be increased by 2020, as the current percentage reflects the UK's population. Currently 13.1 per cent of the BBC's workforce is from a BAME background, with the same target of 15 per cent by 2020.

A statement from a BBC spokesperson said: 'We are making good progress in our work to make the BBC a truly diverse organisation, but there's more to do and we're always keen to improve.

'Almost half of our workforce is made up of women and the proportion of our workforce who are black, Asian and other ethnic minorities is at an all-time high.

'We'll continue doing what works but also develop new and innovative ideas to do even better, and we'll set this out in our new diversity strategy shortly.' 

In a statement on the BBC's website, Tunde Ogungbesan, head of diversity, inclusion and succession at the BBC, said: 'The BBC is a diverse organisation, whichever way you look at it.

'Almost half of our workforce is made up of women and the proportion of our black, Asian and other ethnic minorities in our workforce is at an all-time high.

'But there is more to do and we know the challenge we face so we’ll be building on this strong platform by continuing doing what works.

Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy Ed Vaizey confirmed that diversity will be prominent in the White Paper on the BBC's new charter, which will be unveiled by Culture Secretary John Whittingdale in May.

The BBC's royal charter, due to expire this year, is currently under Government review.

SOURCE






Be a 'fattipuff' if you like, but don't expect my NHS to save you!

By RACHEL JOHNSON

A little while ago I sat next to Jeremy Hunt at a work dinner in Westminster. Mouth full of Parma ham, the Health Secretary spoke movingly about the challenges the NHS faces as the country grows up in terms of age, and out in terms of size.

He ate his fish but declined pudding (I ate his lemon tart for him). He grazed at the cheese and then jogged out, his blue shirt tucked flat into his waistband, and all this wasn’t just his manly pride in maintaining a bella figura.

Hunt knew then what was coming. At the Italian restaurant that evening, he talked a lot about obesity, and how the fatberg threatens to sink HMS NHS.

And last week, we learned that our NHS’s many captains are already being forced into taking evasive action. According to the Royal College of Surgeons, the overweight and smokers (let’s call them fattipuffs for short) are becoming ‘soft targets’ for savings.

In a third of health trusts in England, treatment is being withheld or delayed for up to three million patients presenting with those conditions.

Now, according to the president of the RCS, who rejoices in the name of Clare Marx, this is not on. Not at all. ‘Blanket bans that deny or delay patients’ access to surgery are wrong,’ she says.

Well, I’m sorry, Miss Marx, but the surgeons and clinicians aren’t wrong. They are right.

I admit this makes me sound like an unsympathetic, horrible, fattist person. I know that the very founding principles of our sacred NHS are that it should be free at the point of delivery, and treatment should be based on need, not the ability to pay. In an ideal world, these principles would still hold.

But we do not live in an ideal world. And, as we don’t, those who take more care of their health – like our slimline Health Secretary, a man who dances a mean lambada on a specially sprung floor in his London home – should be first in the queue, pushing a blubber mountain who sits and smokes himself into oblivion further down the list.

Politics is about choices, and so is healthcare. Resources are finite, whereas demand is unlimited. Inevitably, the NHS has been forced into exercising Darwinian natural selection, and helping those who it thinks have most chance of survival into the lifeboat first.

When my husband needed a liver transplant, he had to undergo a week-long battery of tests, and also complete a sheaf of forms, to prove he wasn’t a George Best character, depriving another more deserving patient of a desperately needed organ. And quite right too.

In fact, I think healthcare ‘leaders’ have to send out a firmer signal that those who self-inflict damage should not expect rapid and automatic service.

They have no other choice if the NHS itself is going to survive or sink beneath the waves of flab or go up in smoke.

According to Public Health England, in 2014-15 almost a fifth of children in Year 6 (those aged ten and 11) were obese, while for children in Reception (aged four and five), the figure was one in ten.

Just think of the NHS staggering under the weight of their case notes alone in a few decades.

Jeremy Hunt should come out and explain why such rationing is not just important and necessary, but right. As a nation, we are digging our own graves with our teeth, and burying the NHS as we do so.

If he won’t say it, I will. Go ahead and smoke and drink and eat yourself to death. Knock yourselves out, fattipuffs.

But don’t expect preferential treatment at my expense.

SOURCE






Limbaugh: 'Obliterating Morality Has Been What the Culture War is All About'

"How in the hell did this happen?" conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh asked his audience on Thursday.

"We have men's and women's restrooms for a reason, just like we've always had marriage, and it's always been defined as a specific thing for...time-honored and time-tested reasons.  They were not the result of people who had power lording that over other people.

 "These are processes and behavioral patterns that established over the millennia as proper, just, moral, correct, sensible, you name it.  Now all of a sudden that gets thrown out, and it's all up to how somebody feels about themselves at a particular moment in time as to which bathroom they want to use."

Limbaugh said none of it makes any sense within a "right versus wrong" framework. He said it's all about "us versus them."

"And, see, I don't think the culture war has been about right versus wrong for a long time.  And people haven't figured that out.  They continue to fight it on a moral or a morality battlefield, but that's not it at all.

"In fact, obliterating morality has been what the culture war is all about, not asserting it and not having it triumph.  The whole point of the culture war is an us-versus-them framework now, and the 'us' is all of the disparate minorities of the world versus the 'them,' which is people they claim to be the oppressive majority."

Limbaugh said liberalism is determined to wipe out the concept of morality, believing that no one has the right to define it.

"Nobody can write laws that are based on morality and have them apply to everybody, because your morality may differ from mine, and there isn't any universal morality; there isn't any universal right and wrong...

"So something as simple as morality and right and wrong has now become politicized, and therefore illegitimate, 'cause you don't have the right to tell somebody what's right and wrong. You don't have the right to define morality -- and if you do, then you're a problem. You're the problem. You're the oppressive, old fogey, fuddy-duddy problem. Meanwhile, you think you're just standing up for what's right and justice and wholesome and good, and their whole objective has been just to erase all of that."

Limbaugh said the cultural and political battles we face are no longer rational.

"None of this LGBT stuff is rational.  Not a single thing happening is rational.  It's all irrational.  None of it makes any sense.  It's got everybody scratching their heads, but they don't know how to stop it. They don't know how to oppose it. Anybody who tries is shouted down, targeted for destruction or what have you, on Twitter."

Limbaugh described the ongoing battles as "tribal."

"We are stunned. How many of you, how many of you are literally shocked and stunned that logical arguments do not persuade people anymore?  How many of you have found yourself in an argument with people and you're using logic, inescapable logic?  As far as you're concerned, there's no question the difference in right and wrong in terms of whatever it is you're discussing.  And it doesn't persuade anybody.  And you end up at your wits' end over this.

"The problem, you see, is that the left has shifted this entire culture battle or culture war from right versus wrong to us versus them.  There isn't any right versus wrong.

"The only way they can win this war is by obliterating the concepts of right versus wrong, 'cause they are wrong, and they know it, and they don't want to be thought of that way.  So they just obliterate the whole concept of right versus wrong, and it gets replaced by something we could call us versus them, where it becomes more important to be on the right side of an issue, quote, the correct side, the popular side of any issue than it is to be right, as in correct."

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 POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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Monday, April 25, 2016


For now, Ched Evans is an innocent man again but whatever happens at his new trial the Jessica Ennis lynch mob will NEVER forgive him for being successful

I thought from the beginning that the conviction was a monstrous injustice.  It took a British court to convert consensual sex into rape. The Crown Prosecutors stretched the law in order to appease feminists with a high profile conviction. Feminists had been complaining that there were "not enough" rape convictions. Evans is the victim of feminist hate

KATIE HOPKINS rightly says below that those who condemned and shunned him will have egg on their faces for a long time -- JR


Right, Charlie Webster, you pouting fool, are you going to apologise?  How about you Jessica Ennis-Hill, Miss Strop-A-Lot? Perhaps we should take your name off the football stand at Sheffield for being too quick to judge.

And how about the rest of the blithering idiots, feminazis, slopey-shouldered board members and vindictive fools who said Ched Evans should never be allowed to play football again?

He served two and a half years of his five-year sentence, was released from prison to be ostracised from society, and now a senior judge has finally quashed his guilty verdict pending a retrial.

Given a man is innocent unless proven guilty, that makes him innocent where I am sitting. And I'd be pretty mad if I was Ched Evans right now.

Upset at the football profession who failed to stand by him even after he had served his sentence (possibly as an innocent man). Where is the leadership and loyalty of the board?

And livid at those who once were friends and have no doubt distanced themselves from him and his cash faster than a they'd run from a hooker with herpes.

And somehow, through all this anger he has had the strength to continue to fight, to display loyalty and gratitude to his girlfriend and new baby, and release a respectful statement thanking the court for restoring his faith in justice.

I am now mad on his behalf.

Mad that some woman is sober enough to go back to her hotel with strangers but too drunk to be accountable for her actions.

Outraged that these 'victims' get anonymity whilst the lives of the accused are torn apart, even destroyed - and those of their family around them.

Isn't it time these accusers were made to face up to fact they are about to ruin someone's life?

Surely if you are certain you are the victim and your attacker is guilty, you should be prepared to show your face. I would be - in defiance and as a show of strength. Why do the accusers always get away with chucking a hand grenade into someone's life and legging it?

And it is beyond evil that certain wanna-be celebrities and recognisable faces want their slice of the action to virtue signal their solidarity for some drunken girl from Rhyl.

Jessica Ennis-Hill, I love it when you are running home to heptathlon glory for Great Britain. I'm addicted to the way you hurdle, grazing your girl-bits as you go. But don't tell me how to treat Ched Evans. You can stop telling me where to bank as well whilst we're at it.

And to all those rival football fans and feminists who decided he didn't deserve to return to his football career after serving his sentence (for a crime he is no longer convicted of committing), do you still stand by your jealous words?

Whatever you views on Ched, drunken sex and footballers - if we don't give people a second chance to work and earn money, what sentence are we really handing out? Life every time?

Most people objected to him returning to work as a footballer. He was allowed to be a binman. But not a sportsman. How does that work? Is there an unspoken sliding scale of shame to which criminals are intrinsically attached?

I've been a cleaner, a burger flipper and a bar maid. Have I paid my dues for the sins of my eventual success?

If the cases of Ched Evans and Adam Johnson have taught us anything, it is being in the public eye comes at a price, especially if you live a lifestyle of excess.

Your trial will be a public spectacle, and the wish to see you in the stocks for people to throw tomatoes (or rocks if you follow the Religion of Peace) clearly lives on.

Public shaming is our new national sport for the YouTube generation.

The higher you rise, the greater people enjoy watching you fall - for jealousy, envy and some peculiar, skewed notion of social justice.

I still stand by Ched Evans and his family.

He will have to face another trial with fresh evidence presented and could well be found innocent.

But whether his name will be cleared in the court of public opinion by braying mob who cannot think for themselves, is a great deal less certain.

We all have secrets we would prefer to hide. I would remind those on the moral high ground that when I look up, I can see their dirty knickers. You'd best sit down.

SOURCE






Not another U.N. "Rapporteur!

A couple of previous ones have been completely off the planet in their criticism of Britain -- and this one is no better

An unelected United Nations inspector, whose job is funded by UK foreign aid cash, provoked outrage last night after he attacked Britain's crucial new counter-terror laws.

Kenyan human rights chief Maina Kiai condemned the Home Office's flagship scheme aimed at stopping young Muslims joining Islamic State and calling on teachers to report suspicious activity.

He also criticised crucial powers needed by security services to track terror suspects and plans to ban extremist groups.

The grandly titled Special Rapporteur On The Rights To Freedom Of Peaceful Assembly And Of Association launched his attack on Britain during a three-day visit to London last week.

He met contentious figures including WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, a radical students' leader accused of anti-Semitism, and members of a prisoners' rights group who called Jihadi John a 'beautiful young man'.

Last night former Defence Secretary Liam Fox hit back at Mr Kiai saying: 'With the level of oppression, abuse of human rights and terrorism around the world, I would think the United Nations would have better things to do with its resources and manpower than investigating one of the most peaceful, liberal and free countries.

'We don't make contributions to the UN to have them stick their noses into our country – we give them to improve the lot of people who don't know what freedom and security are.'

Mr Kiai is a Harvard-educated lawyer from Kenya which, its critics say, has far worse problems with human rights and terrorism than Britain does.

The capital Nairobi is home to the world's biggest slum, the Kenyan president has been accused of crimes against humanity, and Islamist group Al-Shabaab killed hundreds of people in massacres at a shopping mall and Garissa University.

In his role as Special Rapporteur, Mr Kiai was invited by the Government to observe freedom of association in Britain in 2013, and returned last week for an update. On the first day of his visit he met charities and members of 'civil society'.

He was pictured shaking hands with Ibrahim Mohamoud, communications officer for CAGE, the prisoners' rights group that described IS executioner Mohammed Emwazi – known as Jihadi John – as a 'beautiful young man' who was 'extremely kind and gentle', and blamed his radicalisation on MI5.

Mr Kiai was also photographed with his arm around Malia Bouattia, the newly elected president of the National Union of Students. She has caused a split in the union as she once claimed it was Islamophobic for the union to pass a motion condemning IS, and described Birmingham University, where she studied, as a 'Zionist outpost'.

Mr Kiai is unpaid, but his visits and reports are paid for by the UN, to which the Foreign Office contributed £518 million last year.

A spokesman for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said: 'The funding for the Special Rapporteur On Freedom Of Peaceful Assembly And Association comes from the United Nations regular budget, which is approved by the General Assembly every two years.'

SOURCE






Fury as the Bard is dragged into refugee row: BBC accused of using Shakespeare celebrations to push 'Left-wing, pro-immigration agenda'

The BBC was accused last night of using its Shakespeare celebrations to push a 'Left-wing, pro-immigration agenda'.

An obscure passage known as the 'immigration speech' was never performed in the playwright's lifetime, yet it was selected as one of the excerpts on BBC2's Shakespeare Live! last night.

Tory MP Peter Bone said: 'They've gone out of their way to find a piece of writing which fits the Left-wing establishment's pro-immigration agenda and it's a shame.

'You'd have thought they could at least have found something which was published under Shakespeare's name for a start.'

Read by Sir Ian McKellen, the speech appears in a play called Sir Thomas More, originally written by Anthony Munday about Henry VIII's Lord Chancellor.

Shakespeare is thought to have inserted 17 lines which quote More trying to calm an angry mob looting immigrant businesses. The statesman asks them how they would feel if they were 'wretched strangers forced to seek refuge in a modern land'.

The choice of text was made by Gregory Doran, artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Doran, who married his partner, actor Sir Antony Sher, last year, claimed last week that Shakespeare was gay.

SOURCE






Georgia Bureaucrats Listened to a Doctor’s Sermons, and Then Fired Him

On March 28, Georgia governor Nathan Deal capitulated to threats from the social-justice warriors at Apple, Disney, and the NFL and vetoed HB 757, the “Free Exercise Protection Act.” In his self-righteous statement justifying his veto, Deal claimed that Georgia didn’t need new religious-liberty legislation. Rather, he claimed that these laws enable discrimination, and his veto was thus about the “character of our State and the character of its people.”

Perhaps he should look to the character of his own government. This morning, the First Liberty Institute filed a lawsuit in federal court that makes chilling claims against Georgia’s Department of Public Health, claims backed by a host of damaging documents.

The Institute represents Dr. Eric Walsh, a California physician and former director of public health for the city of Pasadena, Calif. Walsh is also a devout Christian, a Seventh-day Adventist who sometimes preaches in his spare time.

Walsh, a former member of the President’s Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, had accepted a job in Georgia as a district health director when Georgia officials became aware that he’d delivered a number of “controversial” sermons on his own time — sermons where he articulated orthodox Seventh-day Adventist positions on, among other things, human sexuality, Islam, evolution, and the corrupting influence of pop culture.

In California, Walsh had been attacked by student activists who objected to his selection as a commencement speaker at Pasadena City College. To these activists, working for former president Bush and President Obama to combat AIDS, serving as a board member of the Latino Health Collaborative, and starting California’s first city-run dental clinic for low-income families dealing with HIV/AIDS wasn’t sufficient to overcome the horror at Walsh’s Christian views.

Under fire, Walsh canceled his commencement speech — while the city, incredibly, put him on administrative leave. The college replaced him with a gay screenwriter.

When Georgia officials learned of Walsh’s California controversy, they responded by immediately violating the law. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits government employers from considering an applicant’s religion in employment decisions, but Georgia officials not only evaluated Walsh’s religious views, the director of human resources wrote an e-mail to department employees giving them the “assignment” of listening to his sermons. And so they did. E-mails indicate that health-department employees split the sermons up, listened to Walsh’s religious views, and took notes.

 Walsh asserts that one department official called and told him that “you can’t preach that and work in the field of public health.” The very next day, Walsh claims that department officials held a “hastily arranged” meeting to discuss Walsh’s employment.

Not everyone supported the witch hunt: Walsh claims that the health department’s own lawyer twice warned department officials that Walsh’s religious beliefs “could play no role” in the department’s employment decisions. One health-department employee issued his own stark warning, saying: “If we do not hire this applicant on the basis of evidence of job performance and disqualify him on the basis of discrimination by those who seek to advance their own agenda and do him harm, I believe we are no better than they are.”

These warnings went unheeded, and two days after health-department officials carried out their “assignment” to watch his sermons, they terminated Walsh — informing him through a mocking voice-mail message that a termination letter was on its way.

The health department has since claimed that the sermons that officials were “assigned” to watch had nothing at all to do with Walsh’s termination. Instead, they claim they fired him because they believed Walsh failed to disclose outside income while working in California — an assertion that Walsh contests and asserts never came up at any stage of the Georgia interview process.

Walsh’s case is now the second major federal lawsuit challenging the conduct of Georgia public officials. In February, I reported on former Atlanta fire chief Kelvin Cochran’s case against Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed. The city fired Cochran after they discovered he’d written a book on his own time that — gasp! — articulated an orthodox Christian view of sexual morality.

Both Cochran and Walsh were African-American men raised by single mothers. Both Cochran and Walsh relied on their faith to fuel careers of incredible achievement. The faith that sustained them now condemns them — at least in Nathan Deal’s Georgia.

The Left used to say that it wasn’t concerned with Christian speech in houses of worship. Instead, it was only focused on “ending discrimination.” But now the Left is the discriminator, seeking to purge vocal Christians from public life. Now, even sermons are not safe from government scrutiny, and a man who’s never been accused of workplace discrimination finds himself unable to find a job in the public-health sector.

Governor Deal described Georgia as a place where “our people work side-by-side without regard to the color of our skin, or the religion we adhere to.” But his own government refutes his words. In some parts of Georgia, persecution is the practice.

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 POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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