Sunday, January 22, 2017



Children are a joy and a great delight -- but not so much for feminists

That a woman of no great physical strength will fight like a lion to protect her children tells you something about the bond that forms between normal parents and their children.  So much so that a lot of parents are embarrassed by it.  When asked about childrearing, a mother will often stress the negatives rather than confess the great happiness that children bring.  Children give the happiness that drug users seek but do not find.  Foolish people frantically seek pleasures in all sorts of places when the key to happiness is right under their noses: children.

But children are a burden, too, right?  They can be.  A single mother bringing up children by herself has to be unusually capable and resourceful to come through the experience well.  But single mothers are well outside what humans have evolved for. For almost as long as we have been human, a mother was surrounded by  helpful others:  a husband plus two sets of grandparents. 

A husband took away much of the need to work so doing things with the children could be a fairly relaxed affair.  And whenever a mother needed time out -- to work or unwind, there were as many as four grandparents to help out with the childminding.  Often the grandparents did more of the child-rearing than the mother did. As a child, my son spent more of the day with his Nanna than with any other family member. And I won't mention aunts, uncles, siblings and cousins.  To this day, they often help out too.

And the scenario I have described still actually exists in most of the world and is not uncommon even in "modern" societies.

But some "independent" people in their wisdom think they can do without all that.  Their values are quite simply unwise. And to them children can be a great stress and a burden.  They make out of their greatest happiness their greatest burden.  They find that "independence" is not all it is cracked up to be.  Independence and support are basically opposites.  Anybody reading this might do well to think for a little while about whether their various connections with others could be strengthened.

And one of the greatest sources of the independence folly are feminists.  Contrary to all human experience, they even preach that men and women don't need one-another.  So some women are misled into missing out on children altogether.  Biology being what is is, however, most feminists do seem in the end to have a child or two.  And that's where the "fun" starts.  The "sisterhood" turns out to be surprisingly unhelpful to the mother concerned.  They may even scorn the mother concerned and call her a "breeder", a term of great contempt for them.  Children are just not their bag.

If there is a man consistently in the mother's life, that can be a big help but may not be. A strong bond between a man and a feminist is inherently unlikely.  So when children arrive the man may run, or at least distance himself.  So a feminist mother will generally be stuck in the stressful single mother scenario.  Her only salvation from that will be that she has retained enough connections with her parents for them to help.  But she will still be more burdened that she would have been in a traditional relationship.

Traditional relationships are wise.  They will of course have some conflicts but they are what has evolved to fit us best.  They are traditional because they do fit what we are.  But these days a lot of mothers don't even have a husband so they haven't even got their foot on the first rung of the ladder.

Why are they so foolish?  Again, feminism is a big part of the blame.  Feminists fill women's heads with lies such as women can "have it all" and even deceive women about how desirable "all" is.  They fill women's heads with fantasies about how wonderful is this "career" that men have. 

They fail to mention that a man enters onto a career as simply the best way to make money, not to achieve honour and glory.  And they fail to mention that a career entails spending the best part of most of your day in the company of people you don't particularly like and whom you would not seek out.  Sometimes you may get good feelings out of your career but all you usually get for all the stresses you endure is money. And many men would gladly throw it all away if they could reasonably do so.

And to cap it all, a feminist mother may well bear a boy.  And there is nothing more destructive of feminists delusions than a normal little boy.  90% of the time he will be indestructibly boyish.  Given him a choice of a dolly and a toy truck and 90% or more of the time he will choose the truck. I have two favourite real life stories about that:

* A woman has three boys in close succession, and being a kindly soul, she gave her boys toys that they chose.  She had however heard feminist ravings so wondered if they would like a dolly.  So she gave them one.  They promptly ripped it legs off, pulled its eyes out and threw it in a corner.  They decisively educated her about male/female differences.  She herself had a doll from her childhood which she greatly treasured. In a traditional society men fought the battles and women minded the children.  And that is now genetically encoded.

* I was at a party where there was a 4-year-old boy. I was talking to him about his toys and said to him, "Boys have trucks and girls have dolls, don't they? He promptly nodded.  But a more "modern" man nearby then said to the boy, "But boys sometimes have dolls too, don't they?"  The boy's reply was eloquent.  He simply said "AAARGH!".

And if the feminist mother bans her boy from having toy guns, he will simply imagine one into existence using a stick or something else as a prop.  So her boy will almost certainly disabuse a feminist mother of claims that males and females are born with no basic differences.

It probably eventually  occurs to a woman who has been "woke" out of feminist fantasies that maybe a husband might be a good idea after all.  But finding one at that juncture will make what is always a difficult task very difficult indeed -- JR.






Some Women Are More Equal Than Others

The Women's March doesn't actually include all women.

On Saturday, gaggles of anti-Trump feminists will descend on Washington to protest The Donald’s presidency. The Women’s March on Washington claims to “stand together in solidarity with our partners and children for the protection of our rights, our safety, our health, and our families — recognizing that our vibrant and diverse communities are the strength of our country.”

How curious, then, that march organizers disqualified from sponsoring the event a feminist organization whose founder is on record calling Donald Trump “a greedy, narcissistic, misogynistic, adulterer; a corporate mogul (who brags about not being able to be bought, but conveniently leaves out that he’s usually the one buying); a Godless, brainless reality TV star.”

Why the rejection?

Turns out the organization in question — New Wave Feminists (NWF) — is pro-life, and we all know that’s an unforgiveable sin on the Left. So when rabid pro-abortionists got wind that NWF was listed among event sponsors, they did what ultra-Leftist women do best: throw a fit. As one woman hysterically tweeted, “Intersectional feminism does not include a pro-life agenda. That’s not how it works! [Insert pouty face and foot-stomping here.] The right to choose is a fundamental part of feminism.” Unless you choose to be pro-life, that is.

Apparently, solidarity applies only if you support dismembering live babies and selling their body parts for profit. And diversity can go no further than choosing between D&E or suction abortions.

Quickly backtracking from any semblance of open-mindedness, the Women’s March issued a statement apologizing for the “error” and confirming that unless you favor killing babies, your diverse feminism is simply not identical enough to Planned Parenthood’s to be welcome. No free thinkers allowed. After all, the march takes place the day before the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

Responding to the rejection, NWF founder Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa stated, “It appears that the [Women’s March on Washington] only wants to include a ‘diverse’ array of women who think exactly like them. That’s unfortunate, but we will not be deterred.” Despite being removed as a sponsor, the group will still march.

As will And Then There Were None (ATTWN), another pro-life group that received a similar rejection after first being approved as an event sponsor. You may recognize ATTWN founder Abby Johnson as the former Planned Parenthood director who left the abortion industry in 2009. Johnson shares on Facebook that after ATTWN applied to be an event partner, she received a phone call from a woman informing her that the application was rejected because all partners “must be supportive of women’s reproductive rights.” Johnson explains: “I told her that wasn’t a problem because we absolutely support reproductive rights, as long as they don’t infringe on the rights of individual human beings in the womb. I guess she didn’t like that, so she just repeated that we could not be a partner. … I finally asked, ‘So is this a pro-abortion March now?’ She hung up.”

Oddly, later that day ATTWN was approved and listed as an event sponsor — only to be disqualified once again later.

Of course, this hardly comes as a surprise. Groups like Planned Parenthood and NARAL have hijacked the word “feminism” — and are even trying to hijack the word “women” — to advance their infant-dismemberment business. As The Federalist’s Joy Pullman notes, “[Feminist Susan B.] Anthony’s legacy has become largely a cover for people who profit from killing other humans and selling their dissected body parts for profit. So much for human rights. … [T]he decline in women identifying themselves as feminists has directly coincided with leading feminists' defenestration of pro-life women to obsess almost exclusively over abortion. Making abortion the core of the women’s rights movement isn’t helping.”

Indeed, nearly 40% of women believe abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, according to the Pew Research Center. With 40% of women unwelcome, Saturday’s event can hardly be called a “Women’s March.”

Turns out that to abortion-fixated females, equality looks good on paper. But when it comes to reality, they believe some women are more equal than others.

SOURCE







Episcopalian hatred of Donald Trump

For years, the Washington National Cathedral, an Episcopal parish with a dual role as a civic gathering place, has hosted a prayer service for the newly sworn-in president. But keeping the tradition this year has caused an uproar among Episcopalians opposed to President-elect Donald Trump.

It’s the latest example of the backlash against religious leaders, artists, celebrities and other participants in events surrounding the inaugural.

The cathedral for the largely liberal denomination will host an interfaith prayer service on Saturday, the day after Trump takes office.

Bishop Mariann Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington wrote in a blog post that while she shared “a sense of outrage at some of the president-elect’s words and actions,” she felt an obligation to welcome all people without qualification, especially those who disagree and need to find a way to work together.

That role “requires a willingness to put ourselves in places that make us uncomfortable,” Budde wrote.

Episcopalians critical of the decision were also upset to learn that the cathedral choir, drawn in part from local Episcopal schools, would sing at the inauguration before the ceremony started, and that the interfaith service the next day would not include a sermon. They saw a missed opportunity to speak out against Trump’s proposed temporary ban on Muslim immigrants and other policies, his calling Mexicans rapists and his remarks about grabbing women’s genitals.

Organizers for past services have said the presidential inaugural committees have chosen the preacher, and Trump chose not to have one this year.

Budde said most Episcopalians who have contacted her about the service “are dismayed, disappointed and angry.”

The Very Rev. Randolph Hollerith, the cathedral dean, defended the decision to participate in the ceremonies. “Our willingness to pray and sing with everyone today does not mean we won’t join with others in protest tomorrow,” he said in a statement.

The emotional dispute within the church mirrors the broader fight about the morality of taking part in inaugural events this year, which has stretched across the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, a Bruce Springsteen cover band, the Radio City Rockettes and the marching band of historically black Talladega College in Alabama. Groups participating in inauguration events have said they viewed their role in part as serving the country and supporting democracy, not giving an endorsement.

Broadway star Jennifer Holliday, who backed out as a performer following protests from her gay and black fans, said she was pained by the reaction.  “How could I have this much hate spewing at me, and I haven’t even done anything? I guess it’s not like those old days when political views were your own and you had freedom of speech,” she said. “We live in a different time now and a decision to go and do something for America is not so clear-cut anymore.”

Some clergy invited to offer prayers at Friday’s swearing-in have also faced criticism. New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who will read from Scripture at the inaugural, said he told critics he had a “sacred responsibility” to participate.

“Had Mrs. Clinton won and invited me I would have gone, too. It’s not the person. It’s the office, right?” Dolan said on Sirius XM’s Catholic Channel last week.

Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, who will offer a prayer near the end of Friday’s program, said, “I believe that all of us should pray for his great success, because his great success means our great success.”

But critics contend Trump will be a president unlike any other, because of his policies and vulgarity, so traditions surrounding his inauguration should not hold. The Rev. Gary Hall, who retired in 2015 as dean of the National Cathedral, noted that the church was envisioned as a Westminster Abbey for the U.S. It has long been the site of national events, hosting inaugural interfaith prayer services, presidential funerals and national prayers of mourning, including a ceremony with evangelist Billy Graham three days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

But Trump’s “xenophobia and misogyny,” among other behavior and proposed policies, have been “outside the bounds of all mainstream norms” and the church should not appear to bless him, Hall wrote.  “We cannot use the words, symbols, and images of our faith to provide a religious gloss to an autocrat,” Hall wrote.

The head of the Episcopal Church, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, responded to the controversy over the cathedral with a statement urging all to pray for Trump and all civic leaders. “Prayer is not a simplistic cheer or declaration of support,” he wrote, but can also “ask God to intervene and change the course of history, to change someone’s mind or his or her heart.”

SOURCE






We need freedom, not human rights

There's nothing to fear from repealing Britain's Human Rights Act

Between Christmas and New Year, the prime minister, Theresa May, announced that the Tories would fight the 2020 General Election on a pledge to repeal the Human Rights Act (HRA). She said she hoped to ‘lift and shift’ the rights bestowed by the European Convention on Human Rights, giving the Supreme Court the final say on how these rights are applied.

This isn’t the first time the Tories have made this pledge. In fact, it’s starting to feel like they would be unable to fight an election if they actually succeeded in repealing the HRA. The Tory Party first promised to repeal it in 2005, then again in 2010. This was later supplemented with a promise to replace it with a British Bill of Rights. In 2015, the Tories promised to repeal and replace the act within 100 days of winning a majority. Over a year later, nothing has happened.

At the time, almost everyone thought the 2015 pledge was laughable. Repealing the HRA raised constitutional questions that would be hard to resolve in six months, let alone 100 days. May’s critics were right to say that the Supreme Court does, in reality, have the final say over how these rights are applied. The act only obliges the court to take European decisions into account, rather than binding the court’s own decision. Nonetheless, following the Tory victory at the 2015 General Election, Michael Gove was appointed justice secretary with a mandate to repeal it. But after a disastrous appearance at a select committee in 2016, he appeared to put his plans off until later in the year.

Then came the Brexit vote. Gove was sent to the backbenches and replaced by a new justice secretary, Liz Truss. Few people thought Truss was up to the challenge of repealing the HRA, and, after another disastrous select committee appearance later in 2016, it appeared that the repeal plans would be put off yet again.

But while the Tories’ political cowardice is laughable, the reaction from the left has been bizarre. Many left-wing commentators seem to think that the HRA is the only thing standing between us and despotism. Martha Spurrier, director of human-rights campaign group Liberty, says defending the HRA is the ‘struggle of our generation’. Liberty’s website claims that repealing it would ‘weaken everyone’s rights – leaving politicians to decide when our fundamental freedoms should apply’. One commentator suggested that repealing it would leave UK citizens ‘deprived of rights or the means to enforce them before the courts’. Another said that it would mean the UK state could ‘pick and choose which rights it granted, much like Russia’. One piece even suggested that leaving the remit of the European Convention on Human Rights would lessen our influence over countries like Russia and Turkey. These critics truly believe that repealing the HRA would propel us into an age of despotism and international chaos.

This panic is misplaced. It is foolish to rely on the law to defend freedom, and the HRA has proved this. Since it passed in 1998, we have seen people prosecuted for simply saying what they believe, for using insulting words, and for glorifying organisations that the government thinks are dangerous. Just before the New Year, it became illegal to ‘invite support’ for the insignificant far-right group National Action, after it became a proscribed organisation under the Terrorism Act. Football fans in Scotland have been prosecuted for singing so-called sectarian songs. The UK prosecutes thousands of people every year under harassment legislation that criminalises causing ‘alarm and distress’ through speech. The HRA has done nothing to stop these attacks on free expression.

The HRA has also been ineffective at protecting other important rights. The Tory government’s Investigatory Powers Act, nicknamed the ‘snooper’s charter’, passed without any intervention from human-rights law, even though it bestows significant new powers on the government to access our personal data. So much for the HRA protecting privacy. And what about our immigration detention centres? Since 1971, UK immigration laws have allowed people to be detained indefinitely while the state makes a decision about their immigration status.

Perhaps the most cringeworthy contribution to the human-rights debate in recent days has come from Lord Falconer. Falconer was central to the New Labour government that introduced the act. In a piece for the Guardian, Falconer said that in politically uncertain times, it was vital to maintain our commitment to human rights as a part of the ‘fabric’ of British politics. This is the same Lord Falconer who, with New Labour, oversaw a sweeping erosion of key civil liberties. In 2001, New Labour introduced emergency powers to allow for indefinite detention, without charge, for terror suspects. New Labour went on to introduce the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which granted the most sweeping surveillance powers to public bodies we have ever seen. It also repealed the double-jeopardy protection, which meant no person could be tried for the same crime twice. Human-rights advocates, take note: if you’re on the same side as Falconer, you’re probably doing something very wrong.

The HRA has shown us that no law can be relied upon to protect our freedom. If we believe in democracy, we have to recognise that freedom must be defended in the democratic arena. The kind of freedom we should strive for cannot be handed down from on high by a judge in the High Court or the European Court of Human Rights. It has to be won through the democratic process. The left’s panic at the prospect of repealing the HRA shows that it is no longer comfortable taking a fight for greater freedom to the public. But even proponents of the HRA must accept it offers a degraded model of human freedom, one closely managed by unelected and unaccountable members of the judiciary.

For true liberals, repealing the Human Rights Act is not an existential threat – it is an opportunity to fight for our most fundamental freedoms. I say, bring it on.

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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