Sunday, October 11, 2020


Jordan Peterson on Marriage and the family

Thankfully, Jordan Peterson has now recovered from the shock of nearly losing his wife of many years and his subsequent illness and is now in good voice again. Below is his advice for young men seeking marriage and a family. And I have no doubt that anyone following that advice will have a happy life. It is very conservative advice, pointing out how important and desirable marriage and children are. But there is also no doubt that it goes against the grain of modern times.

For a start, he overlooks the divorce problem. Feminist inspired divorce laws have destroyed marriage for a large slice of the population. The divorce laws so heavily favour women now that the possibility of divorce scares off any well-informed man. They don’t enter marrige because they know that marriages do end and that such an end will leave them financially ruined.

I know a tradesman who was well-paid in his lifetime who should now be retired in comfort but who is now in his 70s almost completely “skint”. Two divorces took the lot and he is too old to start again

Another thing that Peterson overlooks to some extent is the power of sexual appeal. The sex drive is often strong in women and will lead them into relationships that are unwise. And the more good-looking men in particular can fall victim to that. They might find that they have a very satisfying sexual partner and start living with her, only to find that she is a “bitch”. The lady gets into bed very readily but the two of you are so ill-matched in other ways that after a while you end up making one another unhappy.

And because their sex drive is so strong, women will find a range of different things sexy in men, with a large wallet being the traditional example of that. So even men without traditional good looks can end up in bad relationships after the initial glow wears off. So divorce or breakups can be needed if a relationship ends up as being unwise and painful.

So Jordan’s advice that a married couple should at some stage tell one-another all their secrets is undoubtedly wise in general but has been known to destroy relationships. And what can seem toxic to one woman may be relatively untroublesome to a more worldly woman. It’s a risk. It could destroy an otherwise successful marriage.

I have found in my own life that total openness about myself and my varied past works wonders. Women really love a man who is honest with them. And the converse of that is that they hate men who lie to them. I have had four marriages and four divorces with minimal financial or other damage because I am habitually honest. It is quite amazing what women with put up with if the man they like is always honest with them. Honesty is powerful stuff.

So Peterson is right. Having no secrets is highly desirable and constructive. But it does depend on the secrets. Some things are probably best left to lie undisturbed in a man who has made mistakes but has learned from them. It is amazingly liberating if you have no secrets, however, as I have found.

I could go on but this essay is developing into a treatise rather than than a commentary on Peterson https://www.youtube.com/embed/VUA6uqO9keY

Black Lives Matter Is Taking Their Anti-American War into the Suburbs in Wisconsin

Well, they're back. Leftist rioters and Black Lives Matter are descending into the Wisconsin city of Wauwatosa after a police officer wasn't charged in a shooting that led to the death of 17-year-old Alvin Cole. Cole was killed on February 2 when he opened fire on officers. The Milwaukee County District Attorney's office announced today that the officer who shot Cole, Joseph Mensah, wouldn't be charged (via Fox6Now):

There will be no criminal charges filed against Wauwatosa Police Officer Joseph Mensah in the shooting death of Alvin Cole, 17, outside Mayfair Mall in February, Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm announced Wednesday, Oct. 7, writing: “In this case, there is sufficient evidence that Officer Mensah had an actual subjective belief that deadly force was necessary, and that belief was objectively reasonable. I do not believe that the State could disprove self-defense or defense of others in this case, and therefore, could not meet the burden required to charge Officer Mensah.”

“We have a very strong policy of not charging anybody if we don’t believe we can prove it,” Chisholm told FOX6 News.

In making his decision, Chisholm outlined the factors that must be present for police officers in Wisconsin to use deadly force: a weapon, a means of delivering lethal force and displayed intent by the armed individual. According to Chisholm, this case presented all three.

“Mr. Cole went to Mayfair Mall armed with a 9mm,” said Chisholm. “He had a confrontation with a patron. While he was running from them, he discharged the firearm, and from that point on, he was ordered to surrender the firearm and never did so.”

But facts don't matter to the Left or their band of thugs in the BLM and Antifa movements. Our own Julio Rosas is on the ground in Wauwatosa, where this anti-American mob took their war into the suburbs.

In a lengthy thread, Rosas captured BLM rioters targeting homes, along with the typical vandalism they inflict on storefronts. Yet, the police here appear to be not messing around. They tried to loot a gas station but fled when police arrived.

"The BLM crowd marched towards a line of police officers in Wauwatosa and began to throw projectiles," wrote Rosas. "Police fired tear gas and pepper balls in response." He added that this group was tear gassed a second time when they approached police.

"At another standoff between police and BLM marchers, the crowd inched their way towards the cops, using a car as cover. Police used tear gas to disperse the crowd," he wrote.

Police and the National Guard have formed a perimeter around city hall.

SOURCE

"Systemic Racism": a Popular Illusion

Slavery was commonly practiced throughout the world before and after the advent of Christianity. But some still blame the Catholic Church's 15th century Doctrine of Discovery that claimed ownership of all discovered lands for the purpose of European colonization. The subjugation of native peoples then came in tow. However, since slavery had existed on every continent long before, placing the blame along these lines seems skewed against Christians, as well as being rather short-sighted.

The Papal Bull (Proclamation) "Inter Caetera" issued by Pope Alexander VI on May 4, 1493 gave European Christians a monopoly on the lands in the New World. It read: ".the Catholic faith and the Christian religion be exalted and be everywhere increased and spread, that the health of souls be cared for and that barbarous nations be overthrown and brought to the faith itself."

This was the common practice of conquest done by nearly every tribe and society of mankind since antiquity. Slavery was part of conquest; it was systemic throughout the Old World. Today, some claim that the one-time existence of slavery has left behind an indelible stain of systemic racism on the United States.

These slavery and race theorists are correct about the existence of the stain but wrong about it being indelible. Despite the 620,000 Americans-equivalent to 6 million in today's population-who died in action in the Civil War to end slavery, the defeated and resentful Southern states were the first population in the world to institute systemic racism in 1877, known as the " Jim Crow" laws. If they could not have their slavery, they could still identify by race and exploit former slaves.

As a testament to the utter moral corruption of these laws, something similar was later adapted by the Nazi Party with the 1935 Nuremberg Laws and applied against Jews, with little change except for the ethnicity of the afflicted population. The Nazis had searched the world looking for a body of laws that targeted a certain race of people. Only Jim Crow articulated a workable, systemic racism.

In the case of both the United States' Southern Democrats and Germany's Nazis, these systems of racism did not endure. Yet the systemic racism theorists of today dismiss the historic struggle against slavery and the racism it generated. In 1215 A.D., with the adoption of the Magna Carta, the "Divine Right of Kings" over enslaved serfs began to be eroded. The abolition of slavery was then pursued over the next 400 years throughout Europe in a succession of attempts to establish the God-given and, therefore, inalienable rights of the sovereign individual. These efforts culminated with the Somersett Case in 1772, in which a fugitive slave was freed with the judgement that slavery did not exist under English common law. This created the legal foundation that would eventually recognize all men, very much including slaves, as sovereign individuals regardless of their race.

In America, after the Revolution and even before the United States was formally established, Pennsylvania passed legislation in 1780 abolishing slavery, and Massachusetts adopted a state Constitution that declared all men equal. Again, these facts are generally unknown or ignored by systemic race theorists, who presume an unbroken chain of racist oppression in America. Do they know that the first person shot and killed by the British in the Boston Massacre (and thus, arguably, the first casualty of the American Revolution) was Crispus Attucks, a free black man?

Do they know that the black man pictured next to George Washington in the famous painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware was Prince Whipple, who was born in Ghana, sent to America for his education, kidnapped, enslaved, and then freed during the Revolution? Do they know Whipple was specifically included in the painting because he was so admired by the patriotic soldiers who fought for America alongside him? Do they know he died a hero and free, leaving behind his free wife Dinah and two children?

Do the systemic racism promoters who recently published "The Few, the Proud, the White" in The New York Times accusing the Marine Corps of systemic racism know that one of the first acts of the American military, specifically the Marine Corps, was to attack and destroy the practice of slavery being conducted by North African Barbary pirates from the shores of Tripoli? Do they know this action is commemorated by the Marine Corps in their "Marine's Hymn" and that racism has been banned by Executive Order 9981 in all branches of the military for 72 years now?

Yet, systemic racism's proponents persist. They point to the establishment of Jamestown in 1619 that included slaves as proof that America was founded on (and became reliant on) slavery. In their view, slavery is the root cause of America's wealth and prosperity. Not much is made, however, of the fact that Jamestown failed, with its slaves. All the while, other foundational American colonies established without slaves like Pennsylvania and Massachusetts thrived.

The remnants of slavery and systemic racism were federally outlawed by the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution and further abolished through the civil rights legislation of the 1960's. Since then, all elements of systemic racism have been actively pursued and effectively eradicated through litigation. In fact, with the advent of affirmative action legislation, racial preference has been consistently shown to black Americans in some employment opportunities and in higher education. Americans elected a black president, Barack Obama, twice.

Today, there is no systemic racism in the United States, though many theoretical claims have recently been made relying on the discredited Marxist "oppressor and oppressed" theory. This says, in effect, that systemic racism must exist because black Americans are oppressed by aggressive police tactics, failing schools, and family disintegration. Systemic racism, it is argued, is the universal culprit for a range of oppressive social ills in communities now defined as populated by "people of color," a phrase that, of course, draws upon the old Jim Crow label of "colored" people. It is the same Jim Crow segregation logic applied now ostensibly to benefit-instead of exploit-black and brown Americans. It is just as morally corrupt as the old Jim Crow laws and just as focused on attaining political power instead of fair governance.

Systemic racism in America today is a myth. It is more than a shame that actual civil rights history is not read today or is dismissed by the activists who promote this myth. They disgrace themselves as the modern inheritors of dividing people by race. They disregard the achievements of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement. They undermine their very own stated goals by judging people by the color of their skin and not by the content of their character.

SOURCE

DOJ Blasts D.C. Mayor for ‘Silencing’ Churches: ‘There Is No Pandemic Exception to the Constitution’

The Department of Justice on Friday announced it had filed a statement of interest in the case filed by Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., against the District of Columbia and Mayor Muriel Bowser. The 853-member church has a strong religious conviction that it must meet weekly and in person, as a single body, for worship. As a result of Mayor Bowser's onerous COVID-19 orders (first capping worship services at 10 people and now 100), Capitol Hill Baptist Church (CHBC) has not been able to meet together in the District since March. As a temporary measure, they've been meeting in a field in Virginia.

The congregation had asked the mayor for permission to meet at the 45,000-plus-seat Robert F. Kennedy Stadium, which would give them ample room to social distance, but the city denied the application for a waiver, and also the church's appeals. (More background here.)

Finally, on Sept. 22, the church filed a lawsuit and a request for a temporary restraining order asking that they be allowed to hold outdoor worship services in the District of Columbia, citing the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. CHBC says the mayor has double standards-one for churches and another for large gatherings of protesters. The lawsuit pointed out that the mayor herself has attended some of these gatherings.

"The right to free exercise of religion and the right to protest are both enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution," said Eric Dreiband, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, in a press release. "We are a nation dedicated to freedom of conscience and freedom of expression. The District of Columbia has, unfortunately, neglected these rights. The Justice Department is committed to defending both of these fundamental freedoms and in supporting all Americans' rights to worship as they choose."

The statement of interest is part of Attorney General William P. Barr's initiative, announced April 27, directing the DOJ to "review governmental policies around the country to ensure that civil liberties are protected during the COVID-19 pandemic."

SOURCE


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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