Thursday, November 19, 2020


Leftist Math: Add 'Hate Crimes,' Divide Country

Cue the fundraising letters from the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League — the FBI’s latest report on so-called “hate crimes” is out. Since the SPLC and ADL exist primarily to perpetuate their own existence, the rise in “hate crimes” means the only solution will be to send them a check. Right?

Let’s do something the media won’t and offer some clear perspective about this report on crimes that, it should go without saying, should not occur at all.

First, we put “hate crimes” in quotes because it’s a phony special designation invented by the Left to enhance the victim standing of favored constituencies — minorities, homosexuals, and now the so-called “transgendered.” These crimes are not usually different in kind from run-of-the-mill crimes, except they are committed against certain identity groups, and they are increasingly being categorized (keep that in mind when you hear about “more” of these crimes). You won’t find the MAGA-hat-wearing victims of leftist assaults in the tally, either, despite the obvious hate that motivated those attacks. Nor does the FBI count most of the hundreds of thousands of black-on-white assaults as “hate crimes.” But the FBI does say that 52.5% of “hate” offenders were white. For the math-challenged, that means 47.5% weren’t.

Second, it won’t surprise you to learn that the rise in these crimes is all President Donald Trump’s fault — at least according to the deceitful mass media. After all, the Leftmedia has been beating the “Trump’s a racist and a Nazi” drum for more than four years now, including flat-out lying about things like his remarks about Charlottesville and his supposed refusal to disavow white supremacists (fact check: he’s done so repeatedly). The media’s aim is to lay every one of these crimes at Trump’s feet. Newsweek, for example, headlined: “Hate Crimes Under Trump Surged Nearly 20 Percent Says FBI Report.”

The truth? The Leftmedia bears the blame for flooding the nation with false “news” about a supposedly white supremacist president. If — if — actual white supremacists are truly emboldened to commit crimes, it isn’t because of Trump; it’s because the media told them they run the country.

Meanwhile, which party’s constituents spent much of this year rioting and burning down cities?

Third, much is being made about the number of “hate-motivated murders.” Aside from the question of who’s ever heard of a love-motivated murder, the number troubling the media is 51. But stop and think about that for a minute. Out of 16,425 homicides nationwide, 51 of them were “hate crimes.” And 22 of those 51 were killed in a single El Paso shooting. A huge chunk of the other 16,374 murders were black-on-black killings in America’s Democrat-run urban centers. Yet that inconvenient truth draws a collective yawn from the same media outlets hyperventilating at the chance to blame Trump for some of the 51 “hate” murders. Every one of these lives is sacred, but, outrageously, some tell a better political narrative.

Fourth, it’s frankly quite remarkable that in a nation of roughly 330 million people — especially one that’s reportedly a rampantly racist backwater — there were just “7,314 criminal incidents and 8,559 related offenses motivated by bias against” certain groups. We certainly don’t belittle those crimes, but this isn’t quite the shocking crime wave you’d be led to believe. And it’s to say nothing of the cottage industry of “hate crime” hoaxes, the most famous of which were Jussie Smollett and Bubba Wallace.

Finally, it’s worth noting, as Newsweek does, that “a majority of the hate crime incidents occurred in California, New York, Washington, New Jersey and Texas.” Draw your own conclusions.

Crime is wrong. Murder is especially horrific. But let’s dispense with this divisive garbage about some crime being worse just so leftists can score political points. Maybe if they want “unity” so badly, they could try not using FBI stats to justify calling half the country Nazi racists.

Major Institutions Earned Our Distrust

Higher education, tech companies, news outlets, large corporations, organized religion, and government in general are all showing signs of depleted trust from the American public. This corrosion is a big problem, and we should worry.

Parents are sending their children to colleges and universities with the hope that they will be equipped and prepared for a career, profession, or vocation, but only 50% surveyed by Pew Research in August 2019 agreed that higher education had a positive impact on the direction of America, while 38% attributed a negative influence on current events.

Pew found that lost trust wasn’t just in our nation’s learning institutions. Americans are losing trust in each other. Those adults surveyed who stated they had lost trust in their fellow man and woman totaled 64%, and another 70% believed this distrust to be the key factor preventing solutions for our nation’s serious problems. The media was noted to have a negative effect on our nation by 64%, while big tech companies and higher ed came in around 50%. Very sadly, the respondents who have lost trust in others say that individuals “have become more lazy, greedy and dishonest.”

Elections, universities, religion, and media don’t fail in and of themselves. Each of these gain morality or immorality — a set of virtues or vices — based on those who populate them and are charged with their operations. Our leaders must inspire, set standards, and instill the framework for excellence while modeling integrity for others to follow. Harvard Business Review declared, “Trust is essential to developing relationships with individuals. Leaders who cannot inspire trust cannot lead; there will be no followership.”

News networks need not wonder why Americans are no longer consuming information from biased outlets when “journalists” make no effort to actually report the facts. Schools shouldn’t question parents preferring education to indoctrination and academics to activism. Voters should be able to trust that every legal vote will count. When we have no way to validate the authenticity of mailed ballots, it destroys the confidence and trust of the American electorate.

“Credibility is your best currency,” read the subtitle to a 2017 Inc.com article discussing ways credibility is earned. “With it you are solvent, without [it] you are bankrupt.” The enviable state of trustworthiness is made stronger through one’s credibility — reliability, integrity, and the ability to inspire belief.

Anti-American philosophies that mock faith, patriotism, and a good work ethic have infected our institutions, which, because they cannot be trusted, lose business and must be funded by taxpayers. These institutions should not be surprised when the American people are angered by their failure, conniving, corruption, and deception.

At the same time, there’s an awakening of Americans who realize the greatness of this amazing land. Millions are becoming wise to the garbage being peddled as truth and will fight those who beat down America while profiting from her greatness. But trust doesn’t come with a refill. Institutions that are important to our society are populated with individuals who have lost credibility and trustworthiness. To rebuild, we must encourage the next generation of leaders to rise up and step in with the currency of credibility and truth that returns integrity and trust to so many of America’s critical institutions

Another episode in the war beteween feminists and fake females

The newspaper which presents itself as a bastion of liberalism and tolerance, and which openly stands in judgement of other media, was hoist by its own petard after one of its top columnists quit amid a 'transphobia' row.

Suzanne Moore today announced her shock departure from The Guardian after a career there spanning more than 25 years.

She later appeared to take a swipe at the left-wing newspaper by changing her Twitter bio to: 'She left because she understood the value of defiance'.

It comes after the award-winning journalist was thrust into the centre of a 'transphobia' storm earlier this year over a column about feminists being abused by trans extremists.

In the article, published in March under the headline: 'Women must have the right to organise. We will not be silenced', she wrote about gender being a biological classification and, 'not a feeling'.

But the comment piece prompted some 338 Guardian employees to write to editor Katharine Viner, complaining about the paper's 'pattern of publishing transphobic content'.

Ms Moore, who won the Orwell Foundation's Journalism Prize in 2019 and has written consistently for the paper for the last 10 years, having had a stint at the paper earlier in her career, also revealed she and her children had received death and rape threats.

Her departure comes amid a number of high-profile rows between feminism and transgender lobbies, with Harry Potter author JK Rowling being criticised earlier this year after she mocked an online article using the words 'people who menstruate' instead of 'women'.

Others to face criticism from transgender rights groups include Oxford University Professor Selina Todd and feminist blogger Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull.

Announcing her resignation on Monday evening, Ms Moore tweeted: 'I have left The Guardian. I will very much miss SOME of the people there. For now that's all I can say.'

Suzanne Moore's column titled, 'Women must have the right to organise. We will not be silenced', was published in the Guardian on March 2 this year.

In it, she addressed how an Oxford historian had been barred from speaking at a feminist history event.

Selina Todd, a professor in Modern History at St Hilda's College, was provided with security following 'transphobia' row.

Trans-rights campaigners were believed to have taken issue with her ties to the women's rights group Woman's Place UK – which some claim to be 'transphobic'.

The group, which denies being transphobic, has pushed for ministers to consult more widely about changing the Gender Recognition Act, which would allow people to self-identify as a man or woman without approval from a doctor.

Professor Todd, who has always denied having transphobic views, was due to give a two-minute speech at an event at Exeter College.

But the day before Professor Todd was due to speak, she was 'no platformed'.

Ms Moore wrote: 'I feel a huge sadness when I look at the fragmentation of the landscape, where endless fighting, cancellations and no-platformings have obscured our understanding of who the real enemies are.'

Her column concluded: 'Women have the right to call out the violent men who rape.

'We have the right to speak and organise without being told that speech is itself dangerous.

'You can tell me to "die in a ditch, terf" all you like, as many have for years, but I self-identify as a woman who won't go down quietly.'

She added: 'It was entirely my choice to go. I will tell you all about it one day. For now thank you for these lovely messages. I feel like I am at my own funeral or something.

'Anyway, I will keep writing of course! The efforts to shut me up seem not to have been very well thought through.'

Trainspotting writer Irvine Welsh, ex-footballer Gary Lineker, rock band Primal Scream and MP Jess Phillips were among those sharing their support for Ms Moore.

Journalists Polly Toynbee and Ian Dunt, and the author Giles Paley-Phillips have also expressed their sadness at Ms Moore's departure.

Ms Moore's Twitter bio now reads, 'She left because she understood the value of defiance'.

The staff letter denouncing 'transphobic content', which did not name Ms Moore, was leaked to Buzzfeed and Pink News in the wake of her column.

Ms Moore later named the signatories online.

The row began after Ms Moore addressed how Oxford historian Selina Todd had been barred from speaking at a feminist history event.

Ms Todd, a professor in Modern History at St Hilda's College, was provided with security over a 'transphobia' row.

Trans-rights campaigners were believed to have taken issue with her ties to the women's rights group Woman's Place UK – which some claim to be 'transphobic'.

The group, which denies being transphobic, has pushed for ministers to consult more widely about changing the Gender Recognition Act, which would allow people to self-identify as a man or woman without approval from a doctor.

Professor Todd, who has always denied having transphobic views, was due to give a two-minute speech at an event at Exeter College.

But the day before Professor Todd was due to speak, she was 'no platformed'.

Defending her in a column, written on March 2, Ms Moore said: 'We have gone through the looking-glass and are being told that sex is a construct.

'It is said that sex is merely assigned at birth, rather than being a material fact – actually, though, sex is recognisable in the womb (which is what enables foetal sex selection).

'Sex is not a feeling. Female is a biological classification that applies to all living species. If you produce large immobile gametes, you are female.

'Even if you are a frog. This is not complicated, nor is there a spectrum, although there are small numbers of intersex people who should absolutely be supported.'

She adds: 'The materiality of having a female body may mean rape or it may mean childbirth – but we still seek liberation from gender.

'In some transgender ideology, we are told the opposite: gender is material and therefore can be possessed by whoever claims it, and it is sex as a category that is a social construction. Thus, sex-based rights, protected in law, can be done away with.

'I know from personal experience the consequences of being deemed transphobic by an invisible committee on social media. It has meant death and rape threats for me and my children, and police involvement. I also know that the most vicious stuff takes place online and not in real life. Still, I can't stand by.

'Most people want the tiny percentage of the population who are trans to have the best lives they can.

'Male violence is an issue for women, which is why we want single-sex spaces.'

'My offence was to say that biological sex is a thing. Scientists tend to think it is.

'After all the online abuse, I thought someone might ring me and see if I was OK, but they didn't. But then I never go to the Guardian office. There had been melodrama, apparently.

'A trans woman who had seemingly resigned some weeks earlier resigned again. My words had made her feel unsafe, she said. More than 300 employees at the paper signed a letter condemning the decision to run my article.

'I like freaks. I like fluidity. I just don't like one set of rules being replaced by another.

'I was hurt that so many of my 'colleagues' denounced me, but I suppose everyone needs a hobby.'

A Guardian News and Media spokesperson said: 'We wish Suzanne all the best with her future career and are sorry to see her leave.'

Meanwhile, Professor Todd has today praised Ms Moore in a tweet, saying: 'Thank you to Suzanne Moore for standing up for me (despite fact we disagree on many things), letting me know that my story mattered, that what happens to women is news, worth understanding, analysing, representing.

'The Guardian just lost a brave female voice.'

Facebook apologises to Australian MP falsely accused by conspiracy theorist of being in 'paedophile network'

A rogue organization

Facebook has apologised to Nationals MP Anne Webster over months-long delays in responding to reports of abuse she received from an online conspiracy theorist that led to an $875,000 defamation payout order.

In September, federal court justice Jacqueline Gleeson ordered the payout to the first-term Mildura MP over Facebook posts in April by Australian conspiracy theorist Karen Brewer. The posts were shared hundreds of times and falsely accused Webster of being “a member of a secretive paedophile network” who had been “parachuted into parliament to protect a past generation of paedophiles”.

Webster’s husband and the not-for-profit they set up to help single mothers were also included in the payout.

Gleeson in her decision said Brewer’s posts were “disgraceful and inexplicable”.

Brewer’s account was not deleted by Facebook until Guardian Australia reported on the case in August.

Webster installed security cameras at her home because she feared being physically attacked.

In a parliamentary committee hearing on family, domestic and sexual violence, Webster questioned whether Facebook could support people subject to abuse online if it took around five months for Facebook to take action in her case.

“It took till August until anything was done, after several court hearings and Facebook being reminded that they were part of the contempt of court if they continue to post it – if you continue to post it,” she told Facebook’s Australian director of public policy, Mia Garlick.

“So I’m concerned that the responsiveness is actually not there. If it’s not there for me, then is it there for people who are abused in domestic relationships, or relationships that are over?”

Garlick apologised for how Facebook had handled the case.

“I do want to apologise for the experience that you had on our platform and I understand how upsetting and damaging untrue accusations that were said must have been for you.

“And I think that there are a number of claims that are made particularly about public figures – and primarily, it’s often female public figures – that will violate our community standards that we will be able to take action on and remove promptly,” she said.

But Garlick differentiated between Webster’s experience on Facebook and the experience of people who are not public figures. She said content was not automatically removed in cases where public figures are accused of crimes, but said Facebook reviews applicable laws to see if the content could be found to be in breach of the law, and then it is blocked.

“I think one of the difficulties that arise in relation to the current state of defamation law is where we have to make a judgment about whether the person posting the content could rely on the defence of truthfulness,” Garlick said. “And recent court decisions have also changed the standard for the content to be considered unlawful.

“And so we actually engage with local counsel to work through that legal analysis.”

Garlick said posts were blocked, and the account was removed for “repeatedly violating community standards”, but blamed “legal complexities” for Facebook not acting faster.

“There were some additional legal complexities in that case. And certainly, you know, we’re actively engaged in advocating for reform of defamation law to try to assist in more swiftly addressing those kinds of issues.”

Webster pointed out the defamatory posts also targeted her husband and a charity, and she said Facebook’s abuse reporting tools were not fit for purpose.

“If they are to guard the safety of the users, I don’t think it’s doing a very good job,” she said. “The fact that it takes maybe 48 hours – maybe three days – for a response to come at all and then for any action to be taken really was only after a court finding that meant Facebook would be held in contempt of court.

“I’m just assuring you that I am absolutely focused on ensuring that people in Australia are not harmed in the way that I was harmed, and that my organisation was harmed and that my husband was harmed – it is not OK.”

The MP said the policies were not working and needed to be improved.

Garlick said Facebook’s machine learning and AI processes were developing to ensure that abusive content was caught before it was posted, but it was hard to hard code in potentially defamatory content.

“Our goal is to try to remove harmful content before people even see it, because that removes the harm,” she said.

“I very much understand and I’m very sympathetic to your case. And I do think that our ability to sort of code for defamation law is a much more complex thing.”

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)

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