Thursday, October 31, 2019


Right-wing Italian leader’s party triumphs in local vote

Buoyed by a far-right ally, Matteo Salvini’s euroskeptic League party triumphed in voting in an Italian region where the left had held power for some 50 years, dealing a humiliating blow to the national government’s coalition parties.

Results Monday from balloting a day earlier for the governorship of Umbria, one of the country’s smallest regions, gave a coalition headed by Salvini and including the far-right Brothers of Italy party and former premier Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right Forza Italia party, a combined 57.5 percent of the votes.

Donatella Tesei, a League member and current senator who has served as mayor of a town in Umbria for 10 years, was elected governor.

A coalition anchored by the populist 5-Star Movement and the center-left Democratic Party took a trouncing with a combined 37.5 percent.

Since early last month, the 5-Stars and the Democrats have governed Italy in an uneasy alliance of rivals formed by Premier Giuseppe Conte to keep Salvini from power.

The Umbria triumph shows that ‘‘Italians don’t like betrayals,’’ said an elated Salvini.

With the victory in the central region, the anti-migrant League continues to expand its influence southward from its northern power base.

Conte insisted the dismal result won’t affect his government’s viability.

The vote was a ‘‘test that shouldn’t be ignored at all,’’ Conte told reporters. But ‘‘we’re here to govern with courage and determination.’’

For sure, the results won’t help tensions between the 5-Stars and Democrats, who shelved bitter rivalries in order to govern together. The coalition came to power after a bad miscalculation by Salvini, who bolted from Conte’s first coalition, where the League and the Movement had governed for 15 months in a fractious alliance.

Salvini had hoped that by abandoning Conte he’d trigger early elections. But the 5-Stars and the Democrats ganged up on him, shutting him out of power, at least for now.

The Umbria outcome gives Salvini fresh momentum, as he plots his comeback nationally.

The League snared 36.9 percent of the vote, a huge jump compared with the 14 percent won in the previous Umbria election, while the Democrats tumbled to 22.3 percent, compared with 35.7 in the last election.

Eclipsing Berlusconi’s party as the second-biggest party on the right was Brothers of Italy, which has neo-fascist roots

The big losers were 5-Star, taking only 7.4 percent. The Movement’s embattled leader, Luigi Di Maio, blamed the defeat on teaming up regionally in Umbria with the Democrats. ‘‘This is an experiment that didn’t work,’’ he told Sky TG24 TV.

The governor of neighboring Tuscany, Enrico Rossi, warned his fellow Democrats against linking their fate on future campaign trails with the populists. In January, another long-time regional fortress of the left, Emilia Romagna, poses the next big electoral test.

‘‘This last-minute alliance between the 5-Star Movement and the PD (Democratic Party) doesn’t work, not even to keep the spread of Salvini at bay,’’ Rossi said.

SOURCE





Housing, Human Dignity and a ‘State of Emergency’

The push by Los Angeles officials to get Governor Newsom to declare a State of Emergency over homelessness is like a warning light flashing.

It draws our attention to a massive problem that people closed their eyes to for too long. But like any flashing light, the “State of Emergency” idea only helps us see part of the problem but not the whole—and ultimately it would deepen the quagmire and probably result in bigger and worse emergencies later.

Where the idea points in the right direction is easy to see: proponents of the State of Emergency rightly say it would streamline red tape on construction, reduce and shorten building approval processes, and block the frivolous use of environmental review to delay housing construction. That’s needed.

But let’s face it, here’s what’s really happening: First California passes laws that generate the crisis, then we declare a state of emergency to bypass those laws. But as a State of Emergency exemption, it’s an ad-hoc fix. It doesn’t address the systemic problem with the laws it sidesteps, and in fact it politicizes the whole situation further by allowing sensible construction only if political support for a formal Emergency can be cultivated.

But it gets worse. Some of the people who favor a State of Emergency also favor a so-called “legal right to shelter” which would create a basis to sue governments if they don’t directly provide housing to the poorest citizens. This would permanently turn the homeless into wards of the state and enrich those who would litigate on their behalf.

The homeless are indeed “victims of the system,” but not the system that most people think of. They are not victims of a free market in housing, because California has built a regulatory system that killed a free market in housing at all but the top price levels. Middle-income Californians are squeezed by this, too, but the most vulnerable Californians are pushed out on to the streets. The bottom rungs of the housing market ladder—where economically marginal citizens could once afford a place to live—have effectively been removed by bad public policy.

Let me give examples from a study soon to be published by the Independent Institute.

Los Angeles currently bans any housing other than detached single-family homes on about 75 percent of its residential land. Whereas in 1960 Los Angeles was zoned for up to 10 million people, by 1990 the city “had downzoned to a capacity of about 3.9 million, a number that is only slightly higher today,” according to the New York Times.

Then there are so-called “prevailing wage” (read: union scale) laws. Prevailing-wage mandates increased average California construction costs for affordable housing projects by between 10 percent and 25 percent, according to a May 2017 report from the California Center for Jobs and the Economy. In areas such as Los Angeles, PLAs could hike market-rate housing prices by as much as 46 percent. Then there are the endless faux-environmental lawsuits against residential construction, which are invited and inadvertently enabled by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). And the list of anti-housing obstacles goes on.

What the homeless really need is a residential construction market that operates by normal rules that induce entrepreneurs to build housing all the way up and down the price spectrum—not just at the top where they can afford to overcome the regulatory and NIMBY hurdles. Don’t give the homeless a “right to shelter” by government; instead, give property owners a “right to build residential housing” on land they own. No, this would not eliminate restrictions on residential building, but it would raise a much higher bar by which to justify them. A ballot initiative amending the California Constitution would be the way to achieve this potent reform.

Less dramatic reforms would make a difference, too. Allow builders to give homeowners’ associations incentives to accept new construction, so as to counterbalance the disincentives that lead to NIMBYism. Stop suppressing housing through rent controls and so-called “affordable housing” mandates; these are the functional equivalent of taxes on housing development. What you tax you get less of. Another obvious change would be to put an end to the favoritism shown to unions through “prevailing wage” rules that swell construction costs. And why not abolish or at least vastly modify CEQA?

The people who care the most about the homeless are those who want to reintroduce a real housing market—and incentivize nongovernmental programs that treat people like people rather than like dependent clients.

How can we expect the homeless to rebuild their lives when government programs warehouse them like surplus merchandise, and when we kick the bottom rungs out of the housing market ladder so that even if they start getting themselves together, they can’t find a room or apartment they can afford to rent?

SOURCE





Why These 6 Towns Became ‘Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn’

Abortion clinics can change the viewpoint of entire communities, a pastor who is working to outlaw abortion locally says.

So far, six towns in Texas have banned abortion clinics with his help, and cities and towns in other states have shown an interest in doing the same.

Pastor Mark Lee Dickson says he sees a difference, for example, between Shreveport, Louisiana, a large city where an abortion clinic operates, and places such as Waskom, Texas, where abortion culture hasn’t taken hold.

“It’s a view of life as a whole,” Dickson told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “If we can say a child is not worth living because they may be born in a poor environment, or a child is not worth living because their mother was raped, that encourages the idea that situations devalue us as human beings.”

Dickson, 34, is not only the pastor of SovereignLOVE Church in Longview, Texas, but also director of Right to Life East Texas. Along with Texas Right to Life, a separate pro-life group, his organization works to outlaw abortion one town or city at a time. His website is called Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn.

Kathaleen Pittman, administrator at the abortion clinic in Shreveport, Hope Medical Group for Women, argues that the primary reason women get abortions is finances.

“They simply can’t afford another child,” Pittman said in an email interview with The Daily Signal. “The majority of women we see already have one or more children.”

To combat the viewpoint that life’s value comes from circumstance, Dickson helped the Texas towns of Waskom, Gilmer, Naples, Joaquin, Tenaha, and Omaha to outlaw creation of abortion clinics within their borders.

Combined population: about 11,815. Right now, Dickson helps lead a campaign to ban abortion in more Texas localities, including Mount Enterprise, Mount Vernon, Madisonville, White Oak, Carthage, Henderson, Greenville, and Abilene.

Dickson was born and grew up in White Oak, population about 6,500. Longview, where he is based, has about 80,000 residents.

Right to Life East Texas has yet to approach the Longview City Council about passing an abortion ban, although he says many residents there would like to see one.

Dickson, whose church belongs to the Southern Baptist Convention and East Texas Baptist Network, said that when people believe their value comes from their situation, they feel worthless when life’s troubles weigh on them.

If they think abortion is better for mothers and babies than a hard life is, he said, they also will think death is preferable to facing struggles in their own lives.

“It adds to this suicide culture. People want to end their lives,” Dickson said.

In contrast, the pastor said, he offers compassion born from a belief that all people are valuable before God.

“We’re going to support mothers. We’re going to support them in any way possible, but we won’t help them kill their child,” he said.

Since the 1990s, Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport has considered relocating to Texas if Louisiana’s abortion laws became more strict, Dickson said.

In late May, he asked the mayor of Waskom, Texas, to help prevent it.

Shreveport has more than 192,000 residents, while Waskom has about 2,190.

“I did not want to see an abortion clinic in Waskom out of fear of what that could do to the community,” the pastor said. “Of course it sounds crazy, asking the mayor to do something that’s never been done before in the nation. But what happened in that process is that the whole world heard about it.”

On June 13, Waskom became the first town in the United States to outlaw abortion after Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court case in 1973 that declared abortion a constitutional right.

Towns and cities in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Tennessee have contacted Dickson about plans to ban abortion within their borders.

The six Texan localities all passed their own versions of the same law, which Dickson said relies on two enforcement mechanisms.

One allows family members of the unborn baby to sue the abortion doctor, the person who paid for the abortion, and the person who transported the mother to an abortion clinic taking place in a town with the law. The potential lawsuits disincentivize abortion in a town with such a law.

The second enforcement mechanism is a $2,000 fine for anyone who performs an abortion in town. That is the maximum fine for violating a local health ordinance in Texas, Dickson said.

However, the twist is that the fines won’t apply unless the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade.

If and when that happens, an abortion clinic that performs 100 abortions a week could face over $10 million in fines per year under the local laws.

The approach poses a dare to abortion providers: Will most Americans believe abortion is morally acceptable in the future?

If so, they won’t sue those involved in the procedure, and towns never will apply the fines. If not, then opening a clinic in a town with such a law will have severe consequences.

The abortion clinic in Shreveport performs around 20 abortions on Tuesdays, 30 on Wednesdays, and 50 on Saturdays, Dickson said.

“If 50 people died in a school shooting, it would be on the news constantly,” the pastor said. “There’s 20 innocent children dying every Tuesday at that abortion clinic. Why aren’t they doing that with the lives of unborn children?”

Dyana Limon-Mercado, interim executive director of Planned Parenthood Texas Votes, told The Dallas Morning News that Waskom’s ordinance was part of a nationwide attack on reproductive rights.

“The intent of this local ordinance passed by an all-male city council is clear: Ban abortion and punish anyone who tries to access care or even help Texans considering an abortion,” Limon-Mercado said of the Waskom law. “This is an attack on the rights of everyone who might or can get pregnant.”

Dickson’s campaign recently suffered a setback. On Oct. 14, the Omaha City Council voted to repeal the law unanimously passed Sept. 9 and make the measure a nonbinding resolution.

The council, which includes four women and two men, did so on the advice of the attorney for the town of about 1,000, according to Dickson’s Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn website.

Dickson told The Daily Signal that he has received phone calls from Omaha citizens who are “ready to elect new councilmen.”

This article has been modified to list more states where localities express interest in banning abortion, to clarify where the pastor grew up, and to correct a caption misstating the “sanctuary” status of Mount Enterprise.

SOURCE





Australia: Attorney-General backs senior trial lawyer over Leftist campaigning

The swamp defends one of their own.  A politicized judiciary is OK if it's Leftist.  Nobody can see anything wrong about Qld Bar Association president Rebecca Treston QC handing out Leftist propaganda on the streets

Queensland Attorney-General Yvette D'Ath has declared her full confidence in state Bar Association president Rebecca Treston QC amid disquiet over the silk campaigning for Labor at the federal election. Ms D'Ath threw her weight behind the first woman to head the state Bar after The Weekend Australian revealed former president Christopher Hughes QC had written to federal Attorney-General Christian Porter dissociating himself from Ms Treston's actions.

Hitting out at Mr Hughes, Ms D'Ath said: "Mr Hughes has not written to the Queensland Attorney-General, who is responsible for making Queensland judicial appointments. "It is regrettable that Mr Hughes has chosen to politicise the matter by writing to the Commonwealth Attorney-General, who has no authority over state appointments."

Ms Treston said she was acting in a personal capacity when she donned a Labor T-shirt and handed how how-to-vote cards for her friend and ALP candidate Ali France before the May 18 federal election. This happened once, for only a few hours, she said. Ms Treston insisted she did not belong to a political party and her position did not preclude her from being "supportive to my friends".

In a shot at the federal government's quasi-judicial appointments in Queensland, Ms D'Ath said the state Labor government's selection process was transparent, unlike the Coalition, which "has no concern with appointing former LNP politicians and staffers" to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

"I have full confidence in Rebecca Treston QC, her leadership of the Bar and in the members of the Bar Association in Queensland," Ms D'Ath said.

Ms Treston's critics have cited her 'responsibilities to advise the state government on judicial appointments and consult over the designation of barristers as Queen's Counsels in arguing that she has compromised the supposedly apolitical standing of the Bar president.

The annual intake of QCs can be contentious because of the valuable stakes: the investiture of silk typically bumps up a barrister's earnings and prospects of advancement, including later appointment to the bench. This year's prospective crop in Queensland is being circulated for comment among Supreme Court judges by Chief Justice Catherine Holmes, who will provide recommendations to Ms D'Ath on who should get silk. An announcement is due by November 20.

Victorian Bar president Matthew Collins QC said he was not aware of rules anywhere in the country preventing the office-bearers of a legal representative body from being actively engaged in political campaigning. Asked whether this was appropriate conduct, Dr Collins said: "My concern would be about whether any conduct had undermined the ability of the office-bearer to engage in a constructive relationship with politicians from whatever side of politics. So it would depend very much on the circumstances."

Ms Treston said she had developed strong working relations with MPs on all sides, and would continue to represent the interests of barristers.

From "The Australian" of 28/10/2019

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

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Wednesday, October 30, 2019


Joe Biden: Cops Don't Pull Over White Girls

During the Second Step Presidential Justice Forum at Benedict College, a historically black college, on Saturday, Joe Biden was asked by an African American woman in the audience, “If I were your daughter, what advice would you give me the next time I am stopped by the police?”

“If you were my daughter, you’d be a Caucasian girl and you wouldn’t be pulled over,” he said.

Biden failed to realize how insulting and racist his comment was because he even tweeted a video of the exchange:

Biden wasn't the only one to suggest that police officers are racist. Bernie Sanders was also at the event, and was asked, "If I'm your son, what advice would you give me next time I'm pulled over by a police officer?"

"I would respect what they are doing so that you don't get shot in the back of the head, but I would also be very mindful of the fact that as a nation, we have got to hold police officers accountable for the actions that they commit," Sanders told him.

Because police officers have a tendency to shoot people in the back of the head when they pull people over?

This pandering to African-American voters at the expense of law enforcement is beneath anyone seeking the presidency. It is shameful to suggest that law enforcement as an institution is racist. These people put their lives on the line on a daily basis to protect the public. There is no excuse for blanketly accusing them of racism.

SOURCE 





Homelessness 'Backlash' Isn't the Real Problem

Leftist policies that created a rash of homelessness get less focus than the "backlash."

Bad policy yields bad results, as we see time and again in Democrat-controlled California. The so-called Golden State is struggling with the overwhelming epidemic of homelessness in its largest cities. That problem is driven in part by rent control and voluminous other regulations that make housing unaffordable. It’s also driven by cultural breakdowns that lead to and include drug abuse. And The New York Times is on it.

“Homelessness [in California] is an expanding crisis that comes amid skyrocketing housing prices, a widening gap between the rich and poor and the persistent presence on city streets of the mentally ill and drug-dependent despite billions of dollars spent to help them,” the Times reports. Actually, that largely sums it up, with the exception of the mendacious class-warfare rhetoric. But the Times isn’t writing about the causes of homelessness. The paper’s story is titled, “As Homelessness Surges in California, So Does a Backlash.” That’s right — the story isn’t the homelessness but the “backlash.” It begins:

Insults like “financial parasites” and “bums” have been directed at them, not to mention rocks and pepper spray. Fences, potted plants and other barriers have been erected to keep them off sidewalks. Citizen patrols have been organized, vigilante style, to walk the streets and push them out.

California may pride itself on its commitment to tolerance and liberal values, but across the state, record levels of homelessness have spurred a backlash against those who live on the streets.

The story quotes a property developer as saying, “Some people who I’d put in the fed-up category, they’re not bad people. They would describe themselves as left of center, and sometimes very left of center, but at some point they reach the breaking point.” Leftist tolerance at its finest.

To be sure, contempt for fellow human beings is wrong and unhelpful, especially when it turns to physical assaults, and to that extent it’s a story. But the root story is the leftist policies that exacerbate homelessness, and then the drug-addicted and/or mentally ill homeless population that causes a rise in crime and a breakdown in public sanitation resulting in the return of medieval diseases. Of course, Hot Air’s John Sexton is exactly right to argue, “The rule for progressive outlets is always the same: If the story helps Democrats then it’s a story. If the story might help Republicans then the reaction to the story is the story.”

A couple of final thoughts: First, the state of California has thrown exorbitant amounts of taxpayer money at the problem of homelessness, though not surprisingly without great results. That’s because most of that money is diverted elsewhere. But hey, you can trust the government to redistribute your wealth efficiently and compassionately.

SOURCE 







The Lies the Left Tells About Lynching

Why is so-called "woke" culture so desperately worried about words?

On Tuesday, the Twitterverse came unglued after President Donald Trump’s tweet describing what we all know to be a political “lynching.”

As if on cue or command, leftists heard what they believed to be a racist dog whistle. A mob of socialites flooded the POTUS’ Twitter account to shame him for his choice of words.

To them, the weight of the term “lynching” is too heavy for anyone to bear, and its connotation to unjust black murders throughout history allows the Left to decide who can use the word.

This could be correct, if only Democrats could tell the whole truth about lynchings in American history.

Raging liberals are fuming about a practice that they understand very little about. For example, they seem to only point out how blacks were victims of lynchings, but never about whites and other minorities who were also lynched for crimes they did not commit.

On March 14, 1891, in New Orleans, 11 Italian Americans were suspected of murdering a police chief. This resulted in a negative reaction by the Italian government and the termination of diplomatic relations with the U.S. While it’s true that blacks were the victims of the majority of lynchings, whites were also lynched, if we are to be historically honest.

Knowing this, wouldn’t it be racist to automatically associate lynching with black people? If this happened to Americans regardless of race, how is it that black people have a monopoly on being unjustly murdered in light of an accusation? And why would the minds of white leftists go there? Do they wrongly believe that a “lynching” is reserved only for blacks? That would be a dismal state of mind, indeed.

Furthermore, if we are to address lynchings of blacks, then why is it the Democrat Party calling foul? Is this not the party that allowed the lynching of thousands of black slaves as well as white Republicans who helped blacks to freedom? Yet here we are today, enraged at President Trump. His choice of words in reference to impeachment proves true — at least to those of us who are politically and fundamentally literate, anyway.

However, if we are to keep things honest, then we can’t forget how those on the Left and in the mainstream media also engage in wordplay. In 2015, CNN columnist Sophia Nelson described the Benghazi hearing as a “lynching of Hillary Clinton.” And should former Vice President Joe Biden have apologized for his statement referring to President Bill Clinton’s impeachment as a “partisan lynching”?

What’s sad about this is that the Left doesn’t want its viewership to know that this incendiary buzzword is oft thrown around by political pundits, talking heads, and presidential candidates. I’m not sure which is sadder — the fact that a media mob is actively “lynching” our POTUS or that networks like CNN believe their audience is ignorant enough to not see through this sheer veil of false victimhood.

But why is it that the “Woke” society is so worried about words, but not by the state of our black and urban communities?

How can the Woke society allow the redefinition of gender, sexuality, and whether an embryo is a human baby, yet turn a blind eye to how definitions and usage for other terms — such as “lynch” — have also changed?

If there truly is a lynching, it’s an all-out assault on the minds of Americans who blindly eat the words fed to them by mainstream media. The Left is feeding its followers a full course of falsehoods while depriving them of the food for thought that is the truth.

SOURCE 





AfD candidate compared to Hitler inflicts crushing losses on Merkel’s party in regional vote

The nationalist Alternative for Germany party (AfD) made sweeping gains in regional elections on Sunday, inflicting heavy losses on Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU).

Björn Höcke, a politician who has been compared to Hitler by German national television, led the AfD to second place in the eastern state of Thuringia with 23.8 per cent, according to initial projections.

The AfD was held off by the Left Party of the current regional Prime Minister, Bodo Ramelow, which came first with 29.5 per cent.

But Mr Höcke beat Mrs Merkel’s party into third place in a state it has dominated since German reunification.

Following a campaign that saw far-right death threats against its regional leader, the CDU limped in with just 22.5 per cent - by far its worst ever result in a state where it has come first in every previous election since 1990.

With the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) also recording their worst ever result in the state with just 8.5 per cent, the mainstream German parties appear to have lost control of Thuringia. Instead the state is now starkly divided between the hard-left and the hard-right.

The result will be seen as personal vindication for Mr Ramelow, Germany’s first regional Prime Minister from the Left Party, a successor to the former East German communist party.

“I see myself strengthened. My party has a clear mandate to form the next government,” a triumphant Mr Ramelow said.

But the results were also a success for Mr Höcke, the most controversial figure within the AfD, who more than doubled his party’s share of the vote since the last election in 2014.

“Gains of more than 100 per cent have never been recorded before in the history of Thuringia,” a gleeful Mr Höcke told German television. “This is a sign that a large part of Thuringia says: ‘No more!’”

Mr Höcke is under observation by German intelligence as a possible threat to the democratic order.  In the course of the campaign he was described as a “Nazi” by the regional leader of Mrs Merkel’s party, and accused by the German interior minister of personally stoking an atmosphere of anti-Semitism that led to this month’s failed far-Right attack on a synagogue in Halle.

But he shrugged all that off to inflict heavy losses on his rivals. Although he did not match the 27.5 per cent the AfD won in Saxony earlier this year, he arguably scored a more telling blow by beating the CDU into third place.

He will now be expected to look to use that success to strengthen his position against his more moderate rivals within the AfD.

For Mrs Merkel’s party, the results were disastrous. “For the democratic centre this is a bitter result,” Mike Mohring, the regional CDU leader said. “For the first time a centrist government is not possible.”

Talks on forming a new regional government are expected to be protracted. Although Mr Ramelow claimed a mandate, he failed to secure a majority and there is no obvious coalition.

With the CDU refusing to join any coalition that includes the Left Party, and all other parties ruling out any alliance with the AfD, Mr Ramelow may be forced into forming a minority government.

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

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Tuesday, October 29, 2019



What I Learned in the Peace Corps in Africa: Trump Is Right

In 1971, Karin McQuillan became a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa.  Her account of her time there was published in 2018 but has subsequently been widely circulated so I thought it deserved a place here too.  The piece was originally published as an endorsement of Trump's early 2018 comment that some migrants to the USA come from "shithole countries"

Three weeks after college, I flew to Senegal, West Africa, to run a community center in a rural town.  Life was placid, with no danger, except to your health.  That danger was considerable, because it was, in the words of the Peace Corps doctor, "a fecalized environment."

In plain English: s--- is everywhere.  People defecate on the open ground, and the feces is blown with the dust – onto you, your clothes, your food, the water.  He warned us the first day of training: do not even touch water.  Human feces carries parasites that bore through your skin and cause organ failure.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that a few decades later, liberals would be pushing the lie that Western civilization is no better than a third-world country.  Or would teach two generations of our kids that loving your own culture and wanting to preserve it are racism.

Last time I was in Paris, I saw a beautiful African woman in a grand boubou have her child defecate on the sidewalk next to Notre Dame Cathedral.  The French police officer, ten steps from her, turned his head not to see.

I have seen.  I am not turning my head and pretending unpleasant things are not true.

Senegal was not a hellhole.  Very poor people can lead happy, meaningful lives in their own cultures' terms.  But they are not our terms.  The excrement is the least of it.  Our basic ideas of human relations, right and wrong, are incompatible.

As a twenty-one-year-old starting out in the Peace Corps, I loved Senegal.  In fact, I was euphoric.  I quickly made friends and had an adopted family.  I relished the feeling of the brotherhood of man.  People were open, willing to share their lives and, after they knew you, their innermost thoughts.

The longer I lived there, the more I understood: it became blindingly obvious that the Senegalese are not the same as us.  The truths we hold to be self-evident are not evident to the Senegalese.  How could they be?  Their reality is totally different.  You can't understand anything in Senegal using American terms.

Take something as basic as family.  Family was a few hundred people, extending out to second and third cousins.  All the men in one generation were called "father."  Senegalese are Muslim, with up to four wives.  Girls had their clitorises cut off at puberty.  (I witnessed this, at what I thought was going to be a nice coming-of-age ceremony, like a bat mitzvah or confirmation.)  Sex, I was told, did not include kissing.  Love and friendship in marriage were Western ideas.  Fidelity was not a thing.  Married women would have sex for a few cents to have cash for the market.

What I did witness every day was that women were worked half to death.  Wives raised the food and fed their own children, did the heavy labor of walking miles to gather wood for the fire, drew water from the well or public faucet, pounded grain with heavy hand-held pestles, lived in their own huts, and had conjugal visits from their husbands on a rotating basis with their co-wives.  Their husbands lazed in the shade of the trees.

Yet family was crucial to people there in a way Americans cannot comprehend.

The Ten Commandments were not disobeyed – they were unknown.  The value system was the exact opposite.  You were supposed to steal everything you can to give to your own relatives.  There are some Westernized Africans who try to rebel against the system.  They fail.

We hear a lot about the kleptocratic elites of Africa.  The kleptocracy extends through the whole society.  My town had a medical clinic donated by international agencies.  The medicine was stolen by the medical workers and sold to the local store.  If you were sick and didn't have money, drop dead.  That was normal.

So here in the States, when we discovered that my 98-year-old father's Muslim health aide from Nigeria had stolen his clothes and wasn't bathing him, I wasn't surprised.  It was familiar.

In Senegal, corruption ruled, from top to bottom.  Go to the post office, and the clerk would name an outrageous price for a stamp.  After paying the bribe, you still didn't know it if it would be mailed or thrown out.  That was normal.

One of my most vivid memories was from the clinic.  One day, as the wait grew hotter in the 110-degree heat, an old woman two feet from the medical aides – who were chatting in the shade of a mango tree instead of working – collapsed to the ground.  They turned their heads so as not to see her and kept talking.  She lay there in the dirt.  Callousness to the sick was normal.

Americans think it is a universal human instinct to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  It's not.  It seems natural to us because we live in a Bible-based Judeo-Christian culture.

We think the Protestant work ethic is universal.  It's not.  My town was full of young men doing nothing.  They were waiting for a government job.  There was no private enterprise.  Private business was not illegal, just impossible, given the nightmare of a third-world bureaucratic kleptocracy.  It is also incompatible with Senegalese insistence on taking care of relatives.

All the little stores in Senegal were owned by Mauritanians.  If a Senegalese wanted to run a little store, he'd go to another country.  The reason?  Your friends and relatives would ask you for stuff for free, and you would have to say yes.  End of your business.  You are not allowed to be a selfish individual and say no to relatives.  The result: Everyone has nothing.

The more I worked there and visited government officials doing absolutely nothing, the more I realized that no one in Senegal had the idea that a job means work.  A job is something given to you by a relative.  It provides the place where you steal everything to give back to your family.

I couldn't wait to get home.  So why would I want to bring Africa here?  Non-Westerners do not magically become American by arriving on our shores with a visa.

For the rest of my life, I enjoyed the greatest gift of the Peace Corps: I love and treasure America more than ever.  I take seriously my responsibility to defend our culture and our country and pass on the American heritage to the next generation.

African problems are made worse by our aid efforts.  Senegal is full of smart, capable people.  They will eventually solve their own country's problems.  They will do it on their terms, not ours.  The solution is not to bring Africans here.

We are lectured by Democrats that we must privilege third-world immigration by the hundred million with chain migration.  They tell us we must end America as a white, Western, Judeo-Christian, capitalist nation – to prove we are not racist.  I don't need to prove a thing.  Leftists want open borders because they resent whites, resent Western achievements, and hate America.  They want to destroy America as we know it.

As President Trump asked, why would we do that?

We have the right to choose what kind of country to live in.  I was happy to donate a year of my life as a young woman to help the poor Senegalese.  I am not willing to donate my country.

SOURCE 






Transgender women SHOULD be allowed to compete in elite female sports, says taxpayer-funded quango after row over cyclist

Transgender women who were born male should be allowed to compete in female-only sports events without medical checks, according to a group receiving taxpayers' money to run training sessions for national sporting bodies.

Sport England, a quango that oversees grassroots sport, has paid £26,000 to controversial trans lobby group Gendered Intelligence to deliver the sessions to sports associations.

Critics last night accused Sport England of introducing new gender policies through Gendered Intelligence. It is due to clarify its official guidance on trans women later this year.

The controversy comes as male-born trans athletes dominate some women's sport, including Canadian cyclist Rachel McKinnon, who won a second world title in Manchester last weekend.

One training document produced by Gendered Intelligence – and seen by The Mail on Sunday – urges sporting bodies to 'challenge' the idea that trans women who were born male have an 'unfair advantage' when they compete against biological women.

At present, trans women must undergo tests to prove they have been taking hormone-blocking drugs to reduce their testosterone levels before competing in women's sport.

But the document, entitled 'A Social Inclusion Model for Trans People in Sport', asks: 'Why are we worrying about what medical intervention they may or may not have had? They are a woman, within women's parameters.'

Gendered Intelligence has previously been criticised for running trans-awareness school workshops for pupils aged as young as four.

A barrister is being investigated by her chambers over tweets that she posted about celebrating a fight-back against 'gender extremism'.

Allison Bailey declared her support for the LGB Alliance, a new lesbian, gay and bisexual group criticised for excluding the transgender community.

Ms Bailey, of Garden Court Chambers in London, tweeted: 'Gender extremism is about to meet its match.'

The group consists of former members of the LGBT+ charity Stonewall in protest against its transgender stance.

A spokesman for Garden Court said: 'We are investigating concerns raised about Allison Bailey's comments in line with our complaints policy and Bar Standards Board policies.'

Dr Nicola Williams, from the women's rights pressure group Fair Play For Women, said: 'Sport England has not yet finalised its guidance on transgender inclusion but is already sneaking it out.'

Gendered Intelligence, which registered as a charity earlier this year, claims to have delivered trans training sessions to more than 16,000 people.

Its sport seminars, which have been running since April, claim there is an 'irrational fear' of biological males pretending to be trans women to cheat in sport.

It adds that sports need to move from an 'exclusive' model where trans athletes have to provide medical evidence before competing in their chosen gender category to an 'inclusive' model that 'assumes everyone can play unless there is a clear, objective reason for them to be excluded'.

Cathy Devine, a specialist in sport policy for women, said the advice delivered by Gendered Intelligence may be in breach of the law.

She said: 'The Equality Act says that people with the protected characteristic of "gender reassignment" can be excluded from female sport categories for the purposes of fairness and safety.'

A number of athletes have expressed concerns about the inclusion of trans women athletes, arguing it is unfair to other competitors.

British cyclist Victoria Hood said: 'The science is clear and it's obvious to anyone that trans women have an advantage over women.

'All of the governing bodies are terrified of a small, aggressive group of people. For taxpayers to be paying for these training sessions is ludicrous.'

A spokesman for Sport England said: 'Sport England is committed to ensuring that everyone can benefit from the benefits that leading an active life can offer. That's why we have been working with Gendered Intelligence since April to support the sector to be better equipped to include trans people.'

Gendered Intelligence said: 'The training we have delivered will allow more trans and non-binary people to access grassroots sports and fitness.'

SOURCE 





What This Olympic Gold Medalist & Mom Shows Us About Women’s Sports

For any new mom, coming back to work after welcoming a baby is a difficult feat. It was for professional athlete and Olympic sprinter, Allyson Felix. After giving birth to her daughter Camryn in November, getting back into running was an adjustment.

“I am just getting used to what the new normal looks like and getting my routine down and all of that,” she said in an interview.

But not only did Felix get back to work, she broke a world record!

Just eight months after her daughter was born, Felix reentered the world of competitive racing. And merely 10 months later, she beat Usain Bolt’s record for most World Championship titles and most gold medals at the World Championships. After her 4x400 meter relay team beat the competition, Felix was awarded with her twelfth gold medal.

This is an inspirational story for both athletes and mothers alike. It shows us just how much women are capable of – whether it be athletic achievement or bringing new life into the world.

But its important to pause and remember how important women’s athletics are to this moment.

Felix may have beaten Bolt’s record for most gold medals, but if she were forced to compete against him in a race, she would be left in the dust. Bolt won gold at the 2009 World Championships by running the 200-meter dash in 19.19 seconds. Felix won gold at the 2012 Olympics by running the 200-meter dash in 21.88 seconds.

Does this mean Felix doesn’t train as hard as Bolt? Of course not. Men run faster than women. This isn’t because males train harder. It’s because they have more muscle mass, greater bone size, and even more heart and lung capacity.

Men and women are different. If Usain Bolt had to give birth and then nurture a baby while training as Felix did, and he would not perform so well. That’s why men’s and women’s sports are separate – to give every athlete a fair opportunity to compete and win.

Unfortunately, this opportunity is being taken away from high school athletes in Connecticut. Since 2017, the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) has allowed biological males who identify as girls to compete in high school women’s athletics – automatically putting female athletes like Selina Soule and Alanna Smith at a disadvantage.

That’s why ADF filed an official Title IX complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. This past August, the Department agreed to investigate this complaint.

Please stand with these young women.

Make it clear that they should not be forced to give up athletic – and even scholarship – opportunities at the expense of a political agenda. They deserve #FairPlay.

SOURCE 



How the world's Leftist media has reacted to the Uluru climbing ban

With hate, predictably. That the climbers might have been motivated by simple adventure-seeking hasn't occurred to them

We also get a glimpse of that unique leftist logic whereby being denied a privilege (the privilege of climbing the rock at any time) counts s white privilege.  Its like arguing with a madman.  Their seething hatred of the ordinary people doing the climbing trumps all else



Media outlets around the world have reacted to the permanent closure of public access to Australia’s most iconic landmark, Uluru.

Rangers at the sandstone monolith closed the climb — a decade’s old tradition of visitors both local and from around the world — at 4pm Friday, after the ban was unanimously voted on in 2017.

A new sign was set up at the base of the rock, notifying visitors that the climb was now permanently closed, almost 34 years to the day since the Anangu people — the traditional owners of the land — were handed back the title to Uluru.

From today, climbing will be punishable by a $6,300 fine.

The decision to ban the climb has divided Australians and those around the world for months in the lead-up to its closure.

And a final scramble of visitors yesterday hoping to be among the last to climb the rock — after months of thousands trekking to the Red Centre — has been described by a writer for The New York Times as “a reminder that a segment of the population remains resistant to some of the decisions indigenous people make when ownership of land is returned to them.”

“They have absolutely no shame,” one reader wrote on Twitter about the flock of climbers. “This is what white privilege looks like in Australia.”

“The lengthy queue of people waiting for one last crack at violating indigenous rights before the white government finally puts an end to it is pretty depressing,” wrote another commenter on the publication’s website.

While the ban is “a once-unimaginable act of deference to a marginalised population,” writes the piece’s author Jamie Tarabay, it is “a partly symbolic gesture that does nothing to address the myriad social problems endured by indigenous Australians.”

“Many of the Anangu themselves live in a trash-strewn community near the rock that is closed to visitors, a jarring contrast to the exclusive resorts that surround the monolith, where tourists seated at white tablecloths drink sparkling wines and eat canapes as the setting sun turns Uluru a vivid red.”

There a certain parts of Uluru so sacred that the Anangu people don’t want it photographed or even touched, writes Tarabay, yet tourists are welcomed to “tool around its base on camels or Segways, or take art lessons in its shadow.”

The climbers were like “a little ant trail,” tweeted one reader of The Washington Postwho published an article titled, “The last climb up Australia’s majestic Uluru”.

The Outback monolith is sacred to indigenous people, who have long implored visitors not to ascend the rock and have now imposed a ban on climbing it.

The Guardian echoed the sentiment of Central Land Council member Sammy Wilson in a cartoon posted overnight — written in the Pitjantjatjara language of the Anangu people — with the message
English. Uluru is a very important place, it's not Disneyland.

“As a result of Aboriginal people asking white people not to do something, hordes of tourists are hurrying in their thousands to do the exact opposite before time runs out,” the cartoon read.

Readers of the BBC’s coverage on the climbing ban have also reflected the world’s shock at Australian’s attitude toward climbing Uluru.

BBC News (World)

“I am truly embarrassed for these humans,” tweeted one reader, while another said, “It’s 2019, and the cultural white patriarchy still struggle with their greed. I am embarrassed for some of these interviewees — dripping in their own self entitlement and disrespect for the true landowners and spirit.”

It’s now time, Phil Mercer wrote in a piece for the publication, for the Anangu people to “rest and heal.”

“The Anangu believe that in the beginning, the world was unformed and featureless. Ancestral beings emerged from this void and travelled across the land, creating all living species and forms,” Mercer wrote.

“Uluru is the physical evidence of the feats performed by ancestral beings during this creation time.”

Independent media organisation NPR was one of the many to report on the closure. One reader tweeted, “If this was America, we would just add a gift shop on the top of it and continue to discriminate against the natives. Hopefully Australia treats its Natives better than we do here in America.”

“For the rock’s Aboriginal owners, whose tenure here goes back tens of thousands of years, this a momentous decision, one they have dreamed of and worked toward for decades,” wrote Kennedy Warne for National Geographic.

“Imagine the euphoria felt by the Aboriginal owners when the park board voted unanimously to end climbing.”

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

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Monday, October 28, 2019


It's not "men" who are to blame for domestic violence

A big study has shown that it's a few repeat offenders from poor communities who do most of the violence. The feminists are dead wrong. No demographic is a powerful predictor but the most relevant demographic is income, not sex

A recent watershed moment that sank to the bottom of the sea was a landmark study by the Australian Institute of Criminology that examined 39 quantitative studies of domestic violence over the past decade or so, entitled simply “Domestic violence offenders, prior offending and reoffending in Australia”.

Astonishingly, given the amount of publicity and so-called “research” this life or death issue has received in recent years, the study noted in its opening statement: “To our knowledge, there has been no attempt to develop a comprehensive understanding of what characterises domestic violence offenders and offending across Australia.”

In an effort to actually tackle this problem, it combed through almost 3000 records and more than 300 papers from almost every conceivable agency and source, painstakingly eliminating those that were not scientifically sound, such as sources more than 30 years old, those not from Australia and those based on non-hard data, such as focus groups and interviews.

The evidence from this comprehensive, fact-based and tragically unprecedented analysis was clear and overwhelming. There was a massive concentration of domestic violence in disadvantaged and indigenous communities and that alcohol was also a driving factor.

Perhaps most significantly, despite the prevailing narrative that domestic violence is a simple male versus female issue, it found that in fact it was a tiny minority of men who were responsible for a vastly disproportionate amount of abuse.

“There is growing recognition that domestic violence offending is concentrated among a relatively small group of offenders or couples,” the AIC found.

One 2016 study it cited “found that a very small minority of repeat offenders (2 per cent) were responsible for half of all harm (50 per cent)” and another 2017 Northern Territory study “found that eight per cent of couples accounted for 27 per cent of the harm associated with domestic violence”.

The conclusion was unequivocal: “First, a very large proportion of offenders involved in domestic violence incidents attended by police, and who then move through the justice system, are recidivist offenders.”

Moreover, these were concentrated in the poorest and most long-suffering communities, as the AIC found and stated again and again.

“The likelihood of domestic violence reoffending appears to be higher in more socio-economically disadvantaged communities,” the report said.

And again: “Those in highly disadvantaged areas were also at a greater risk of violent domestic violence reoffending compared with those in the areas of least disadvantage.”

And once more: “Perpetrators of physical violence were found to have higher levels of unemployment (a 2007 study) and were more likely to be from more disadvantaged areas (another study from 2016).”

It literally could not be clearer.

And yet only four of the 39 studies the AIC analysed even looked at the socio-economic status of offenders — compared to 21 that focused on gender. Apparently most of the academic research over the past decade is either oblivious or wilfully blind to the most critical factor in this scourge.

By contrast, I and precious few others have been crazybrave enough to publicly draw attention to the fact that poorest communities are hardest hit by domestic violence. And it is a matter of public record that whenever I have said or written precisely what the evidence shows I have been summarily crucified by self-proclaimed progressives, including suggestions that I am a closet abuser myself, that I should be bashed or defiled and veiled threats from activists saying they knew where I lived or went to the supermarket.

Meanwhile these same so-called progressives are happy to consign poor and indigenous women to their deaths in their darkly narcissistic campaign to argue that they are no more at risk than upper-middle class professionals because it is simply men that are the problem, not broken communities. This is the deadliest of lies.

As a result you won’t see or hear these progressive gender warriors championing the findings of this most comprehensive and belatedly groundbreaking study, because they know they are condemned by the truth.

If they had any decency they would hang their heads in shame for abandoning the most vulnerable women in our society for the sake of a few retweets and an undergraduate ideological war. But the fact is they have no decency, nor any shame.

Still, I promised a happy story and so it is. Because, as the outrage subsides and the evidence rolls in, it will become evermore clear that the social media arbiters of social justice are mindless hypocrites far more obsessed with their own pontification than the real problems besetting society — not to mention wholly unaware of what those problems even are.

And as the outrage is constantly disproved and defrocked, not only does the emperor have no clothes but the emperor has been stripsearched at Splendour and found to be carrying not so much as a disco biscuit up the jexy.

The truth will out, the truth will prevail, and the truth will put the horseshit in the pail.

SOURCE  






Male Runner Wins NCAA Conference's 'Female Athlete of the Week'

Earlier this week, the Big Sky Conference named a male runner as the female cross-country athlete of the week.

Jonathan Eastwood (yes, I'm deadnaming, sue me) previously competed on the men's team but joined the women's cross-country team at the University of Montana this fall. By joining the women's team and competing under the name June Eastwood, he became the first "transgender" athlete to compete on an NCAA Division I women’s running team—which is likely the only reason he was given the honor.

According to Western Journal, "Eastwood has not finished below seventh in any of the University of Montana’s races this fall."

Eastwood won the Montana Invitational in early October and finished third at the Montana State Classic last month, according to the Missoulian.

Eastwood, who had been a competitive runner on the men’s squad for three years, stopped competing for about a year and half before emerging this fall for what, in a YouTube interview, Eastwood called “the storm.”

Eastwood is aware of criticism that surrounds the issue of transgender athletes on women’s teams, but said, “I didn’t want to give up doing what I love just because of who I am.”

According to an August post on the blog Let's Run, Eastwood had an advantage over actual girls in the entire division before he even ran his first race:

When June Eastwood steps onto the start line for the Clash of the Inland Northwest cross country meet on Saturday morning in Cheney, Wash., she [sic] will make history. Eastwood, a senior at the University of Montana, will become the fastest distance runner to ever compete in an NCAA Division I women’s race. In fact, it won't even be close.

Eastwood’s personal best in the 800 meters is 1:55.23. That’s almost four seconds faster than the collegiate record of 1:59.10 set by Raevyn Rogers in 2017.

Her [sic] personal best in the 1500 is 3:50.19. Jenny Simpson’s collegiate record, unchallenged for a decade, is almost 10 seconds slower (3:59.90).

Eastwood has run 14:38.80 in the 5,000, far ahead of Simpson’s collegiate record of 15:01.70.

Despite the fact that Eastwood being biologically male gives him an unfair advantage over the girls he competes against, he's been celebrated for his "story." Just look at this absurdly glowing profile:

He's also been the subject of many other write-ups by the media and publications like Runner's World.

When biological boys play on girls' sports teams, they have an immediate advantage over their female teammates and competitors due to the indisputable biological differences between males and females. Earlier this year, I reported on a similar problem involving the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC), where female high school track athletes were dominated by biological males who competed against them—robbing girls of opportunities to qualify for more races and to be scouted by college coaches.

Jonathan Eastwood has no business competing on the girls' team.

SOURCE 






The great hate crime HOAX

Britain is one of the most tolerant places on Earth. So why, ask author DOUGLAS MURRAY, do police pretend we're in the grip of record wave of vile attacks by bigots?

Do you feel ten per cent more hateful than you did this time last year? Do you think the British public as a whole are ten per cent more unpleasant in 2019 as compared to 2018?

If you believe the latest ‘hate crimes’ stats, then you may come to such a ludicrous conclusion.

Figures compiled by the Home Office claim that there were 103,379 hate crimes committed last year. A record number, and up ten per cent on the year before. Various campaign groups disguised as charities insist that this is merely ‘the tip of the iceberg’.

To which one might say simply: ‘Of course they do.’ For if you are sane and reasonable you will realise that all of this is nonsense – nonsense, in fact, of the purest, most disgraceful kind: professional nonsense, cooked up to serve a political purpose.

It is time that purpose was identified and named.

The foundations of the hate crime hoax started 20 years ago with the Macpherson Report on the murder of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence. As well as its good effects, that inquiry had a number of negative consequences. Two stand out. The first was that an offence against a person of sexual or ethnic minority became a crime of greater seriousness than a crime against someone of no minority group.

So if an old woman was hit over the head for her purse, that was just a crime. But if someone who was gay or black was hit over the head then that was not just a crime but a hate crime. A two-tier system of offence was created in which some crimes (with an identical effect upon the victim) were deemed worse than others.

Doreen and Neville Lawrence, the parents of murdered black teenager Stephen. Doreen Lawrence can be seen holding the Macpherson report which stated that a crime was a hate crime if it was ‘perceived by the victim or any other person as being motivated by malice or ill-will towards a social group’    +3
Doreen and Neville Lawrence, the parents of murdered black teenager Stephen. Doreen Lawrence can be seen holding the Macpherson report which stated that a crime was a hate crime if it was ‘perceived by the victim or any other person as being motivated by malice or ill-will towards a social group’

But the second development was more damaging, still: Macpherson stated that a crime was a hate crime if it was ‘perceived by the victim or any other person as being motivated by malice or ill-will towards a social group’.

So if I get hit over the head I might be the victim of a bog-standard crime. But if I am hit over the head and think, or pretend to think, that it is because of my homosexuality, then we are in the realm not just of crime but of hate crime. And that means the sirens of the modern police force can really go off.

In the years since the Macpherson Report, the British police have done everything they can to prove that they are on the beat with this new orthodoxy.

They don’t just want to find hate crimes. They need to find hate crimes. Some years ago a friend of mine was accosted on a train late at night by a couple of rowdy drunks. Reporting the matter to police at the next station, the officers positively begged him to report it (once they found out he was gay) as a ‘hate crime’. He insisted that there was no such element to their abuse. The police seemed desperate to persuade him otherwise.

That is just one of the reasons why the statistics on hate crimes keep going up and up. The police want them. They want to be able to report them. They positively advertise for them.

In case anyone thinks that is an exaggeration, consider the pathetic video released by DCC Julie Cooke of Cheshire Constabulary. It took the form of an online message for ‘pronoun day’, which she described as ‘a day which is particularly important to people who identify as transgender or gender non-conforming’. Cooke wittered on: ‘Being misgendered can have a huge impact on somebody and their personal well-being. It can also be used as a form of abuse.’

And here is one of the problems of this form of touting for business. The Home Office’s statistics claim that, in the past year, ‘transphobic hate crimes’ rose by 37 per cent. That is a pretty horrific number – like all the other rising hate crimes numbers. Until you dig one centimetre beneath the surface. What exactly constitutes a transphobic hate crime? Murder? Mugging? Burglary? Well, once again we have to remember that these crimes are in the eye of the beholder. And consider just one such beholder from only a few days ago.

DCC Julie Cooke of Cheshire Constabulary, pictured, released a 'pathetic' video for ‘pronoun day’, in which she said 'being misgendered can have a huge impact on somebody and their personal well-being. It can also be used as a form of abuse'    +3
DCC Julie Cooke of Cheshire Constabulary, pictured, released a 'pathetic' video for ‘pronoun day’, in which she said 'being misgendered can have a huge impact on somebody and their personal well-being. It can also be used as a form of abuse'

Ria Cooper is a glamour model based in Hull, who ten years ago (at the age of 15) became Britain’s youngest transgender woman. Other than that, there is no reason why the nation at large should have heard of her. Except that earlier this month it emerged that Ms Cooper recently contacted Humberside Police to tell them of a set of WhatsApp messages she had received she was reporting as ‘transphobic’. What were these messages? Well, they were from a photographer whom Cooper accuses of trying to scupper her modelling career.

The photographer reportedly pointed out that Cooper has a penis, which was not the sort of lady he was after. Cooper calls this ‘f****** disgusting behaviour’ and deemed it ‘transphobic’. So there is another ‘hate crime’ just there.

Of course, campaigning groups long-ago cottoned on to the fact that all of this suits their interests. I suspct that sometimes that interest is commercial.

The remaining LGBT organisations in Britain have relatively little to do with their time. Their battles are largely won, and presumably their careers and pension plans are at risk from this success.

So ‘rising hate crimes’ must provide a massive business opportunity for these groups. Other groups also benefit from this marketplace of grievance.

Last month, when Parliament returned to spend a couple more days bickering about Brexit, Labour MPs used the opportunity to attack the Prime Minister. On what? Why hate crimes of course. The ridiculous, fulminating MPs kept pretending that Britain is in the midst of a hate crimewave and that the PM himself is responsible.

Labour MP Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi and others insisted that Boris’s column last year defending the right of Muslim women to wear the burka (a column his opponents deliberately misrepresented) in fact caused a ‘spike’ in anti-Muslim hate crimes. They claim that such hate crimes rose 375 per cent in the week after his column.

Which sounds impressive until you realise this is a rise from eight reported incidents in a week to 38 reported incidents. Scepticism has been poured on these figures.

Labour MPs who were attacking the Prime Minister with these bogus statistics were only using the favoured tactic of recent years.

For the fact is that since the Brexit vote there has been a huge number of ways in which people opposed to the result have assailed the British public.

We have been called stupid, ignorant, gullible and more. But perhaps the favourite claim of all has been the claim that the Brexit vote unleashed a tidal wave of hate in the British public. Anti-Brexit campaigners repeatedly pretended that the tragic murder of a Polish man called Arek Jozwik in Harlow in August 2016 was a result of the referendum. The resulting trial found that the murder was a squalid and mundane event with no link whatsoever to Brexit. But that is par for the course.

In the wake of the referendum there have been claims that British voters celebrated the result by a wave of hate crimes against ethnic and sexual minorities. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is no country in the world more tolerant than this one. Yet time and again in the past 20 years – and never more so than since the referendum – we have been slandered and smeared.

Political campaigners have used bogus statistics to push their own political and sectarian interests. It is time that people named and shamed the smear-merchants. There are bigots out there, as there are in every country. But this is not a bigoted country. And we have the right to vote how we want to vote without being defamed as such.

If there was one wave all sensible people should wish for in the near future it should be a wave of scepticism about the claims of campaigners whose only interest is in doing down this country.

A country which has justifiable pride in our tolerance and should exercise a healthy dose of scepticism towards our critics.

SOURCE 



Qantas chairman rejects activists' demands over illegal immigration

QANTAS Airways chairman Richard Goyder says the high-profile airline is being singled out by activists who are trying to use it to change government policy around asylum seekers.

The comments were made at the Flying Kangaroo annual meeting which was again dominated by attempts to get the airline to stop carrying asylum seekers who were being forcibly transferred or deported by the government.

A resolution by activist shareholder group the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility to get the company to review its policies in this area failed to win share-holder approval. The resolution attracted a yes vote of 23.5 per cent, up from the 6.4 per cent support a similar resolution put to last year's meeting gained. The ACCR said the result was the largest support vote for a human rights resolution ever put to an Australian company. [It's a human right to enter another country illegally?]

Mr Goyder said other airlines had not attracted the same sort of attention from the ACCR as Qantas. "The ACCR, for all its good things, is using the Qantas brand to try to change government policy," he told the meeting yesterday. "I'd encourage ACCR to take up this cause with the Federal Government, and I'd like to reiterate the directors recognise the complexity of Australian immigration policy and recognise the courts are the best places to make decisions on the rights of asylum seekers, not airlines."

Mr Goyder acknowledged some parties had accused Qantas of hypocrisy for taking a stand on social issues like gender diversity, indigenous reconciliation and marriage equality but not taking up charge on asylum seekers. He rejected the suggestion, saying the airline was not duty bound to speak up on all social issues.

"We are pleased to be part of broader conversations on social and economic issues," he said. "But it's absurd to suggest that because a company speaks up on some issues, it is therefore duty-bound to speak up on all issues." Chief executive Alan Joyce said if Qantas agreed to stop transporting asylum seekers, it could disadvantage those in need of medical assistance, or transfers between detention centres due to overcrowding.

"How can the airlines be the judge on each of these individual cases?" Mr Joyce said. "You're asking us to do an impossible task and we could do more damage by not carrying these people."

From the Brisbane "Courier Mail of 26/10/2019

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

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Sunday, October 27, 2019



Reversal: Texas judge rules father CAN fight to stop his transgender son, 7, transiting to a girl after he argued the child's mother made him grow up wearing dresses and constantly told him 'monsters eat little boys'

A judge has ruled that a father fighting to stop his seven-year-old son from transitioning to a girl will be allowed to have a say in future medical decisions related to his child.

Jeff Younger has been battling his ex-wife Dr Anne Georgulas in a Dallas family court as part of their bitter custody fight over whether their child James has gender dysphoria.

Judge Kim Cooks ruled on Thursday that the divorced parents will have joint conservatorship over their child. It means they will have to make joint medical decisions regarding their child, which includes whether James should undergo hormone replacement therapy to transition to a girl.

They will also have to jointly agree on haircuts for the child, as well as dental and psychiatric care. 

The decision comes after a jury ruled earlier this week in favor of giving sole managing guardianship of James and twin brother Jude to their mother

Georgulas, who is a pediatrician, has argued that James is transgender and wants the child to transition to a girl named Luna.

Her ex-husband, however, doesn't believe James has gender dysphoria and that his child is just experiencing some confusion with gender. He has accused Georgulas of forcing James to socially transition into a girl by making the child wear dresses.

Just moments before the judge's decision was handed down, Younger told DailyMail.com outside court that he didn't expect the proceedings to go in his favor. 'I'm not anticipating a good result for my son,' he said. 'I think I'm not going to be able to stop the social transition of my son, which will probably lead to his medical transition.'

The judge put a gag order on both parents during the proceedings, which means neither can speak to media going forward.

As part of the judge's ruling both Younger and Georgulas will have to attend counseling. 

The bitter court battle began when Georgulas filed a court request last year to change their joint custody arrangement to include a requirement that Younger start calling their child by the name Luna.

She said three mental health professionals had diagnosed James with gender dysphoria and that therapists had recommended they start using the name Luna instead of James.

Younger, however, filed his own request with the court to obtain sole custody of the twins to prevent the gender transition.  

Georgulas and Younger married back in 2010 when they were members of the Orthodox Church.

They went through IVF to have the twins and requested their gender be male before they were born in 2012.

The couple annulled their marriage several years later.

Arguments over their child's gender began when Georgulas took James to see a gender therapist at the Children's Hospital Center.

She claims she had noticed James requesting girl-themed toys, that the child was imitating female Disney characters and had been asking to wear dresses.

The therapist recommended James start social transitioning by wearing dresses to school and going by the name Luna.

Their child currently identifies as a girl at school and is called Luna by her teachers.  

Younger claims his ex-wife has been forcing the transition ever since their divorce and has accused Georgulas of starting to manipulate their child when James was just three years old.

He has accused Georgulas of locking James in the bedroom and telling their child that 'monsters only eat boys'.

Younger also claims Georgulas has been forcing the child to wear dresses. 

In a podcast interview earlier this year with Christian political consultant Luke Macias, Younger insisted that his child is not a girl and that she 'violently refuses to dress as girl at my house'.

Younger went on to publicly accuse his ex-wife of sexually abusing their child.

'I want you to imagine having electronic communication with you son on FaceTime, and imagine that your ex-wife has dressed him as a drag queen to talk to you. He has false eyelashes and makeup. His hair has got glitter in it. He's wearing a dress,' he said.

'Now imagine how you would feel seeing what I believe is actual sexual abuse - I believe this is not just emotional abuse but is the very, most fundamental form of sexual abuse, tampering with the sexual identity of a vulnerable boy. Every. Single. Day.

'You have to see your son sexually abused, and you have to maintain your calm... because the courts are not going to be fair to you. And the only way you can survive this and get your son through this alive is to calmly allow your son to be tortured right before your eyes and outlast the opposition. That's what it's like.'

Separate from the custody court battle, Younger has been campaigning to prevent his child's gender transition.

Websites and Facebook groups called 'Save James' have been set up and there is a GoFundMe page with about $40,000 in donations to help with Younger's court costs.

As part of the judge's ruling, the websites will now have to be shut down. 

SOURCE  





It's Back On: Christian Ministry Appeals 'Hate Group' Defamation Lawsuit Against SPLC

In 2017, the Christian ministry D. James Kennedy Ministries (DJKM) filed a defamation and discrimination lawsuit against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and Amazon after Amazon booted DJKM from its charity program (Amazon Smile) due to the SPLC accusation that the ministry is a "hate group." Last month, an Alabama district court dismissed the suit, but on Tuesday DJKM announced it would appeal the decision, breathing new life into a key legal battle.

The ministry announced it has filed a notice of appeal with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

DJKM noted that U.S. District Judge Myron H. Thompson accepted the SPLC's argument that the "hate group" accusation is protected by the First Amendment "because it is essentially meaningless and cannot be proved right or wrong."

Specifically, the judge wrote that DJKM "cannot prove the falsity of the ‘hate group’ designation…Logically speaking, a plaintiff cannot prove what is not provable." He argued that definitions of the term "hate group" conflicted too much for there to be a clear standard of meaning.

"While the judge adopts wholesale the SPLC’s argument that the term 'hate group' means nothing concrete and thus cannot be defamatory, the news media, lawmakers, and Amazon, among others, have taken it as gospel," Frank Wright, president and CEO of DJKM, said in a statement. "The SPLC plays a disingenuous game, counting on a public connotation of 'hate groups' that brings to mind the KKK and neo-Nazis, while behind the scenes arguing that the term has no real meaning."

Indeed, Judge Thompson argued that DJKM should not bring a court action but instead challenge the SPLC accusation in the court of public opinion — an argument that seems to overlook the SPLC's privileged position and history.

Founded by prolific fundraiser Morris Dees, the SPLC gained its reputation by bankrupting the Ku Klux Klan in court. Its "hate group" accusations grew out of its work monitoring the KKK, and its list of "hate groups" includes a KKK section. When the SPLC accuses an organization of being a "hate group," it places that organization on a list that includes KKK groups — and targets that organization with an apparatus set up to destroy the KKK.

Corporations, Big Tech companies, the media, police, and the federal government have all used the SPLC as a resource, giving them a privileged position in the court of public opinion — a position the organization arguably does not deserve.

The SPLC cleaned house at the top amid a devastating sexual harassment and racial discrimination scandal this past March. After that scandal, former employees spoke out about being "part of the con," as the SPLC used its "hate group" accusations for fundraising. Many of the groups on the list are laughable — a blog run by one person and with no impact, a local store run by a Confederate sympathizer. It seems extremely unlikely the SPLC does not know this effort is deceptive.

Furthermore, former SPLC spokesman Mark Potok declared that the SPLC's "aim in life is to destroy these groups, completely destroy them." Indeed, the "hate group" accusations follow a clear liberal bias. The "hate" monitor has not condemned antifa or Students for Justice in Palestine, a group that enflames anti-Semitic harassment on college campuses. The SPLC routinely publishes reports about "Hate on the Right" or "Hate in the White House."

Just last month, House Democrats held a hearing calling for the IRS to remove the tax-exempt status of organizations the SPLC accuses of being "hate groups."

In 2012, a shooter broke into the Family Research Council (FRC), aiming to kill everyone in the building. He later told the FBI he targeted the organization because the SPLC had accused it of being an "anti-LGBT hate group."

While defamation is a high legal bar, at least one defamation lawsuit against the SPLC has succeeded. The far-left group accused Maajid Nawaz, an anti-terror Muslim reformer, of being an "anti-Muslim extremist." Nawaz sued and the SPLC settled, offering a very public apology and paying $3.375 million to his nonprofit.

Megan Meier, a partner at Claire Locke, the law firm that represented Nawaz, told PJ Media that "the SPLC’s 'hate group' accusation is a financial and reputational death sentence, effectively equating organizations to the KKK. No right-thinking person wants to be associated with the KKK, so the SPLC’s 'hate group' accusation is incredibly effective at shaming organizations and causing them to be shunned by donors, fundraising platforms, service providers, the media, and others. Shaming and shunning are hallmarks of what makes a statement 'defamatory' under the common law."

Meier admitted that the SPLC's free speech defenses have proven effective at times. "The SPLC has had some success in arguing that its 'hate group' accusation is protected by the First Amendment. It remains to be seen whether the SPLC will ultimately win the day on that question or whether organizations that have been damaged by false accusations will be given their day in court," she told PJ Media.

Wright, the DKJM president, noted that the SPLC's legal defense strongly undercuts the public credibility of its "hate group" accusations.

"I hope that the media and the public will note well that the SPLC’s defense rests upon the notion that their ‘hate map’ is entirely arbitrary and artificial, and that it cannot be proved whether any group belongs on it or not," he said.

"The SPLC has admitted to a federal judge that their fear-mongering is based on nothing provable or concrete," Wright added. "Sadly, Judge Thompson has decided to let that continue. But D. James Kennedy Ministries will persevere in pressing, in the U.S. Court of Appeals, this legal battle on behalf of all the Bible-believing Christian ministries falsely labeled ‘hate groups’ by the duplicitous SPLC."

In addition to DJKM and Nawaz, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, Baltimore lawyer Glen Keith Allen, and former heroin addict Craig Nelsen have sued the SPLC for defamation and various other claims. The CIS lawsuit was struck down because it attempted to shoehorn a defamation claim into racketeering, but it will likely be re-filed.

Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, a Christian nonprofit branded a "hate group" by the SPLC, told PJ Media that more than 60 organizations are considering their own lawsuits against the SPLC.

In the Nelsen case, a judge allowed the plaintiff to enter the discovery process, giving the former heroin addict access to SPLC documents. The SPLC had falsely claimed that Nelsen "wasn't convincing anyone" that his drug recovery program was open to men of all races.

When DJKM files its appeal, it will have to bolster certain arguments about the SPLC's meaning of the term "hate group," using the SPLC's history against the KKK. Ironically, Judge Thompson ruled that "unlike the accusation of a crime, the accusation of being a hate group does not derive its meaning from 'commonly understood' social norms." The SPLC's history and broad cultural and political impact suggest otherwise — namely that opposing groups like the KKK is a "commonly understood social norm" such that a "hate group" accusation is a "reputational death sentence."

Most likely, DJKM will have to focus on the many more concrete accusations SPLC has made against them in the context of the "hate group" accusation. Nawaz, for instance, did not just complain about the "anti-Muslim extremist" label. His demand letter listed specific false statements the SPLC made about him, bolstering the case that the "anti-Muslim extremist" label and the other claims associated with it constituted clear defamation.

DJKM has a long road ahead, but the organization can prevail. The right to free speech does not include defamation of character.

SOURCE 





Trans Provocateur Loses Legal Battle to Force Women to Wax His Genitals

I would gladly wax his genitals -- with very hot wax

On Tuesday, Jessica Yaniv, a biological male who identifies as a woman, lost his legal battle to force women to give him a Brazilian wax. After multiple female estheticians refused to wax his genitals because of his male anatomy, he filed human rights complaints, claiming that they engaged in discrimination against him due to his transgender identity.

"Human rights legislation does not require a service provider to wax a type of genitals they are not trained for and have not consented to wax," the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal ruled.

The tribunal also ruled that Yaniv "engaged in improper conduct," "filed complaints for improper purposes," and concluded his testimony was "disingenuous and self-serving." Indeed, the ruling includes sections outlining the transgender provocateur's "use of deception," "financial motivation," and "racial animus."

Yaniv presented himself as a woman when he first reached out to estheticians. As for financial motivation, he filed 15 complaints against various estheticians in the Vancouver area, seeking as much as $15,000 in damages against each one. As for racial animus, he made numerous public comments condemning immigrants. At the hearings, he argued that immigrants use their religion to discriminate against transgender people because they refused to wax the male genitals of those who identify as women.

"Self-identification does not erase physiological reality," Jay Cameron, litigation manager at the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, which represented the estheticians, said in a statement on the victory. "Our clients do not offer the service requested. No woman should be compelled to touch male genitals against her will, irrespective of how the owner of the genitals identifies."

The Justice Centre represented Blue Heaven Beauty Lounge and its Sikh owner, Sandeep Banipal, who has not been trained to wax male genitals and testified that she is uncomfortable with doing so. The center also represented Sukhi Hehar Gill, a Sikh woman who testified that it is "contrary to my faith" to provide waxing services to males. Gill was forced to shut down her business after Yaniv's antics.

The Justice Centre also represented Marcia Carnauba, an esthetician who cancelled Yaniv's appointment because she was suspicious of his behavior. She lacks the necessary training, tools, and comfort level to wax male genitals. Like Gill, Carnauba closed her business after Yaniv's complaint.

The tribunal ordered Yaniv to pay these women $2,000 each in damages.

While this ruling is a welcome victory for women's rights and for freedom of conscience in Canada, the damages awarded seem rather small compared to the harm Yaniv caused. Worse, a publication ban had identified the provocateur only as JY for most of the proceedings until the estheticians got it lifted.

Yaniv has been accused of sexual harassment against young girls. Tragically, Twitter banned Canadian journalist Meghan Murphy for merely identifying Yaniv as the provocateur in the case. Transgender activists have also gotten the Wikipedia page about Yaniv's attempts to force women to wax his genitals scrubbed from the internet.

Yaniv does not represent all transgender people, but his antics serve as an important reminder that transgender activism leaves women vulnerable to biological males invading their spaces — and even forcing them to handle their genitals.

As the Justice Centre noted in its news release on the ruling, an expert in genital waxing testified that estheticians who have not been trained to wax male genitals should refuse any such requests, as untrained attempts to wax male genitals pose "the risk of serious injury to the customer." Furthermore, "the necessary prolonged manipulation of a client's [genitals] often results in sexual arousal and a request for sexual services."

In other words, this is not just a training issue or a religious freedom issue, but also a sexual assault issue — if that were not abundantly clear already.

SOURCE 






Australian butcher targeted by militant vegans trying to cripple his small business explains why they actually HELPED him - as he trolls them with a VERY witty comeback online

Militant vegans trying to ruin a small butcher shop by protesting outside actually helped the business by giving it publicity, the owner has told Daily Mail Australia.

Protesters lined up outside Tenderwest Meats in Perth's Belmont Forum on Sunday and shouted at passing customers with a megaphone. 'They never wanted to die for you,' the group's leader yelled while his followers held up signs showing animals in slaughterhouses.

The group was trying to stop people buying and eating meat - but the protest  backfired.  'In terms of publicity the protest has been much better for me than it has been for them,' said Mike Fielder who owns and runs the small, independent shop.

'Since the protest I have received hundreds of messages of support,' he added.

The protesters posted a video of their stunt on the Facebook group Direct Action Everywhere - and Mr Fielder chimed in with a sarcastic response.

He commented on the post with a picture of some pork cooking in an oven, and wrote: 'Here's a piece of the very same pork cooking for my dinner right now. 'Please let me know when you're coming again and I'll put more on for you. Cheers.'

Explaining why he decided to fight back, he told Daily Mail Australia: 'I just thought I'd troll them a little bit.

'They are coming for me because I'm a small, independent business and an easy target. 'I don't have lawyers or large finances behind me so they target me instead of a big company like Coles or Woolies.

'But they are totally misguided - everything I sell is free range and of the highest quality.' 

Mr Fielder said the protesters had come for him once before. On that occasion he knew they were coming and put up cloths to cover the meat displayed in the windows.

'That took the wind out of their sails and they left pretty quickly, he said. 'But this time they ambushed me and they got to make their little scene.'

During the protest, the group's leader, wearing a white T-shirt, told customers: 'We are here to shine a light on an inherently cruel industry.' 'They never wanted to participate in this, they never wanted to die for you,' the leader said of the animals killed.

'They died in a gas chamber at six months old - and all they died for is for your simple meal, your simple pleasure, needlessly.'

Personifying the animals, the leader added: 'There are thousands of babies just around this city being driven to a slaughterhouse.

'Animals do not have to die for us to survive - we don't have to be doing this.'

The leader then shouted 'it's not food' and the protesters chanted back in unison 'it's violence'.

He yelled: 'What do we want? and his supporters replied 'animal liberation'. 'When do we want it?' he asked, before the vegans replied 'now.'

The video was taken by an activist who narrated the action. She called the display cabinets a 'display of death' and said the butchers 'have no shame in what they do.' The protesters then laid flowers under the display cabinets to 'remember' the animals.

'We are here to bring light to the lie that animals can be killed and exploited and somehow this is humane,' said the narrator. 

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

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