A time bomb from 2023?

It seemed like just another news report when the Supreme Court of Colorado, whose declared aim was to preserve democracy, declared by a 4–3 majority that Donald Trump wouldn’t be allowed to appear on the Colorado ballot.

The Colorado Republican Party appeal put a stay on that ruling, but not before other Democratic politicians climbed on to the “say-no-to-Trump” wagon.

Last week, Shenna Bellows, Secretary of State of Maine, took a page from the Colorado court.

She declared President Trump an “insurrectionist” and ordered him off the ballot in Maine.

Most observers believe that Ms. Bellows’s diktat will be overturned on appeal, which would mean that it occupies a place not in the history of politics but in the history of political theater.

But my point is that actions like these—pretending to save democracy by destroying it—have a built-in natural time delay like the light of the Sun.

That is to say, their full significance isn’t obvious at once.

It will only unfold itself later when the precedents set become obvious and become, as it were, operational.

What does it mean that people of the ruling political party pretend to preserve democracy by outlawing the most potent candidate from the opposing side?

That unprecedented series of actions by a weaponized department of justice controlled by one party doesn’t declare its full significance all at once.

When, for example, the FBI conducts dawn raids against ordinary citizens whom the ruling party happens to dislike, the full meaning isn’t obvious in the immediate aftermath of the raids.

Similarly, when a prosecutor transforms an unarmed protest at the Capitol into an “insurrection” and then dusts off a post-Civil War era clause from the 14th Amendment to indict a candidate his masters don’t like, the full significance of that unprecedented act isn’t visible all at once.

No one can at this juncture say for certain what such astounding partisan assaults will portend.

Perhaps they’ll help complete the transformation of democracy into that elite-run anti-democratic confect, “Our Democracy™.”

Perhaps it will be seen to have initiated the mournful eclipse of the American experiment in republican governance and individual liberty.

One thing, I believe, is more or less certain: These astounding actions to keep Donald Trump from reassuming the White House will be like the light from the Sun.

Only, they will not only be on a time delay. They will also be in the nature of a time bomb.

The people who did these things may never be called to account for their destructive actions.

Nevertheless, they’ll come to rue the day they uncorked the bottle that held the genie of anti-democratic, authoritarian passion.

At the very least, they’ll learn that it was much easier to release than to recontain.

https://principia-scientific.com/when-a-time-delay-becomes-a-time-bomb/

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Racial Preferences Replay Under Gavin’s Governance

Last June, the U.S. Supreme Court ended racial preferences in higher education. This year will feature a battle to reinstate those preferences, in the state that first eliminated them nearly 30 years ago.

The California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), Proposition 209on the 1996 ballot, eliminated racial and ethnic preferences in state education, employment, and contracting. Contrary to opponents, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the measure did not eliminate “affirmative action.”

The state could still lend a hand on an economic basis, and California had always cast the widest possible net.

The great Jackie Robinson, for example, was an alum of Pasadena City College, founded in 1924. In 1939, Robinson enrolled at UCLA and in 1954, future Olympic decathlon champion Rafer Johnson attended UCLA on both athletic and academic scholarships.

After Proposition 209, what California could not do was reject a qualified student on the basis of race, as UC Davis had done with Allan Bakke. That racist practice continued even after the Supreme Court ruled in Bakke’s favor, and by 1996 Californians were ready for change. They passed Prop 209 by a margin of 54.55 to 45.45. The disaster the preference forces predicted never occurred.

As Thomas Sowell noted in Intellectuals and Race, declines in minority enrollment at UCLA and UC Berkeley had been offset by increases at other UC campuses. More important, the number of African-American and Hispanic students graduating from the UC system went up, including a 55 percent increase in those graduating in four years with a GPA of 3.5 or higher. Despite these realities, the state education establishment still sought to reinstate racial preferences.

The 2020 Proposition 16 would have eliminated the 1996 preference ban but voters rejected it by a margin of 57.2 to 42.8, wider than the vote for Proposition 209 in 1996. As it turned out, the losers had outspent the winners by approximately 14 to 1. Despite that thrashing, the preference forces weren’t giving up. Enter Assembly Constitutional Amendment 7 (ACA-7).

The measure does not openly claim the government shall discriminate on the basis of race, or again target Proposition 209 for repeal. This measure allows the governor to make “research-based,” or “research-informed,” exceptions to the 1996 law. On the basis of research, conveniently undefined, the governor can now decide that racial preferences and unequal treatment are good things. The measure would be a huge empowerment of Gov. Gavin Newsom, known for his heavy-handed rule during the pandemic.

ACA-7 must still qualify for the ballot and in the meantime voters might examine the underlying ideology. Under diversity dogma, all groups must be represented according to their percentage of the population. If they are not, according to the theory, the cause must be discrimination and a government preference program is the only remedy.

Diversity dogma ignores personal differences, effort, and choice, and as Sowell has often noted, different racial and ethnic groups are never represented proportionally in anything. For students, parents and policymakers, Sowell’s own experience should prove educational.

He earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard, a master’s from Columbia, and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago, all without any government affirmative action scheme. Harvard law professor Lani Guinier, Bill Clinton’s pick to head the civil rights department of the DOJ, questioned Sowell’s blackness. The Harvard alum wasn’t going to take it.

“I don’t need some half-white woman from Martha’s Vineyard telling me about being black,” responded the economist, a longtime fellow at the Hoover Institution. That was in 1996, when California voters passed the California Civil Rights Initiative. In 2024, Californians will decide if an all-white governor should be able to override a law approved and upheld by voters of all skin shades and ethnicities.

As they watch this play out, people across the country might consult Sowell’s vast body of work. As of this writing, the author is still going strong at 93.

https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=14791&omhide=true&trk=title

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Good News: Two-Parent Households Back on the Rise

There has been much cause for concern in recent years about the cultural destruction of the nuclear family. This destruction is happening despite the fact that study after study has proven that children raised by their biological parents from birth have inherent advantages.

However, there is good news on that front. According to the Institute for Family Studies (IFS), the percentage of two-parent households seems to be slowly on the rise again. The numbers IFS gathered from the U.S. Census reveal that in 2023 the two-parent household figure rose to 71.1%. This is a marked improvement even since 2020 when the percentage of children with two-parent families was 70.4%.

One caveat: These numbers incorporate not just biological parents but also stepparents, cohabitating parents, etc. However, as of 2022, a majority (53.6%) of kids ages 15-17 have been raised by their two biological parents.

What are some of the inherent advantages of nuclear families? Let’s start with the benefits of having married parents. This demographic is generally happier and more financially well-off. For the children, these benefits double. Kids being raised by their married biological parents are less likely to suffer abuse, are generally higher achievers academically, have a better chance at social mobility, and benefit from the financial stability of their parents.

The American people are slowly turning back toward that two-parent structure in spite of all the propaganda to the contrary. Moreover, as The Washington Stand points out, “The numbers appear to contradict widely accepted narratives offered by writers at legacy media outlets like The Atlantic, The New York Times, and a number of others about the supposedly inevitable decline in two-parent family structures.” These Leftmedia outfits are generally enthralled by the DEI claptrap of “equity” and would rather promote alternative family structures that “level the playing field.” In other words, they’d rather everyone fail equally than succeed meritoriously.

IFS’s stats show that U.S. citizens of Asian descent (81%) have the highest percentage of children living with married parents, and black Americans (33%) have the lowest. So, instead of trying to encourage the black community to partake of the benefits of a two-parent household, the Leftmedia insists that all forms of family are equally beneficial. Thankfully, mainstream media has lost so much of its credibility that fewer people are swallowing its poison pill.

Most Americans have a positive view of marriage, though they don’t really understand the value of it. According to The Daily Signal: “54% of people didn’t agree that society is better off when more people are married, with 19% disagreeing and 35% being unsure. As to the questions about family stability, 48% didn’t agree that marriage is needed to create stronger families and 46% didn’t agree that marriage makes families and children better off financially.”

This paradox is further underscored by a recent Gallup poll showing that most Americans believe that having families with two or more children is better, but the actual number of children they are having contradicts that. Furthermore, Gen Z is simultaneously promoting the idea of DINKs or even singleness (because kids are a drag, according to them).

Parents, kids, the nuclear family — all are being attacked from both sides.

So why is there an upward trend in two-parent families if people don’t even understand the value of marriage or family? Perhaps it’s one of those phenomena where people will say one thing and do another. Or perhaps the media, in all its forms, is out of touch with the everyday American.

Whatever the case may be, we can celebrate this upward trend and continue to encourage one another to have stable two-parent households, which provide the best chance at positive life outcomes for all.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/103593-good-news-two-parent-households-back-on-the-rise-2024-01-16

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Australia: Muslim hate speech is ok

Under NSW hate speech law, Andrew Bolt was successfuly prosescuted for criticizing the claims of some people with white skin to be Aborigines. That was construed as "hate".

The speech below is virulent hate, not the simple comment that Bolt made. Yet it skates. How come? There appears to be special liberties for Muslims

NSW Police have dropped inquiries into a cleric who prayed to Allah to “kill them one by one” in reference to “Zionist Jews”, saying the comments did not breach state hate-speech protections.

On Tuesday, The Australian revealed that Sydney sheik Kamal Abu Mariam – who has ties with former All Black Sonny Bill Williams and former league star Anthony Mundine – gave a ­sermon at Roselands Mosque last year, in which he made the call during an Islamic prayer.

The Australian can also reveal, in that same sermon, the sheik described the virtues Allah would bestow on martyrs, and how those unable to fight in the Middle East could still “receive rewards”.

“Oh Allah … beat the (usurping) Zionist Jews,” the sheik said in Arabic, translated to English by The Australian.

“Oh Allah, we hope you count them and kill them one by one, and don’t keep any (one) of them … shake the ground under their feet … make an example of them.”

The sheik’s comments appeared to be referring to “Zionist Jews” in Israel, as opposed to those in Australia – although a well-placed legal source said that distinction “should be irrelevant”.

On Wednesday, a NSW Police spokeswoman said the force could not pursue the matter further. “As a part of the investigation, the content of the (sermon) video was reviewed and it was ascertained that it did not meet the threshold of any criminal offence,” she said.

Section 93Z of the NSW criminal code, which outlaws incitements of violence on the basis of race or religion, was recently strengthened by the government, which removed the requirement for police to seek approval before laying charges.

Williams and Mundine have said they helped donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to help fund a new mosque “spearheaded” by the sheik and, in 2018, the ­former All Black called the ­religious leader his “spiritual ­guider” in a post to Twitter, now called X.

During the sermon, in English, Sheik Abu Mariam also cited the Hadith and referenced what Allah bestowed upon martyrs.

“He (a martyr) will be forgiven with the first drop of blood that comes (from) him,” he said. “He will see his place in paradise … given a crown upon his head.”

The sheik warned the audience there were “consequences for those who laze around”. “He who does not fight for the cause of Allah, nor speaks within himself about fighting the cause … he dies on a branch of hypocrisy,” he said, acknowledging that those he was preaching to would struggle to fight to become a martyr.

“We might not be able to do the first (fight for Allah), due to the ­circumstances and where we live,” he said.

The sheik said Muslims who boycotted Israeli-linked products would still receive “rewards”.

Federal opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said if the state government failed to act “it was time the federal government did”.

“There are anti-incitement provisions in the Commonwealth Criminal Code for this purpose,” the senator said, citing section 80.2A, which outlaws urging violence against a group on the basis of religion or race.

“If they are not used now it makes a mockery of the law and will only lead to more hateful ­conduct with devastating consequences.”

Visiting Australian National University constitutional law professor Matt Qvortrup, when provided with Sheik Abu Mariam’s comments, said that the rhetoric would be prosecuted in the UK. “I don’t see how it wouldn’t (breach British legislation),” he said. “Naming a group and (saying Allah) should kill them – that would have fallen foul of UK laws.”

Premier Chris Minns said he would change existing laws if they proved inoperable.

“We are not averse to changing the laws around hate speech if we don’t believe that they are capturing the kind of inflammatory and racist rhetoric that’s designed to pull people apart,” he said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/nsw-police-drop-inquiries-into-kill-them-one-by-one-sydney-cleric/news-story/2fbbb341cb36980c577db544855f0ad1

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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