“Distrust of Government” is Bad for You, Claims Study
Ach! This is just a speculation not based in the evidence. In my usual pesky way I have looked at the underlying journal article and the study had NO data on political orientation.
There is clearly a significant connection between unvaccinated Canadians and a high rate of traffic accidents but what the mechanism is nobody knows. A good range of demographics was examined but nothing there was informative
I think the connection is in fact obvious. You have to be a real scofflaw to remain unvaccinated in authoritarian Canada so those who defy one law might well defy others, including traffic law. And defying traffic laws is likely to be dangerous. We are looking mainly at chronic scofflaws, would be my speculation.
And despite my own record of demon-driving, I am pretty sure that most conservatives are law-abiding drivers. Fitting in with the existing systtem is what conservatives do.
“One possibility relates to a distrust of government or belief in freedom that contributes to both vaccination preferences and increased traffic risks,” say the authors of COVID Vaccine Hesitancy and Risk of a Traffic Crash, published by the American Journal of Medicine but authored by a trio in Canada.
Donald A. Redelmeier, MD FRCPC MSHSR, FACP, works in “evaluative clinical sciences” at the Sunnybrook Research Institute in Toronto. Jonathan Wang, MMASc, is with the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) and the department of medicine at the University of Toronto. Deva Thiruchelvam, MSc, is also with the ICES and the Sunnybrook Institute in Toronto. The trio tested whether COVID vaccination was associated with the risks of a traffic crash.
A total of 11,270,763 individuals were included, of whom 16 percent had not received a COVID vaccine and 84 percent had received a COVID vaccine. The cohort accounted for 6682 traffic crashes. Unvaccinated individuals accounted for 1682 traffic crashes (25 percent), equal to a 72 percent increased relative risk compared with those vaccinated.
“These data suggest that COVID vaccine hesitancy is associated with significant increased risks of a traffic crash,” the authors contend. On the other hand, “distrust of government or belief in freedom,” is another possibility, along with “antipathy toward regulation” exposure to misinformation, insufficient resources, or other personal beliefs.
“Alternative factors” include “political identity” and “social networks that lead to misgivings around public health guidelines.” These and other factors “remain topics for more research.”
The authors don’t specify the political identity that could be a problem or define what constitutes “misinformation.” The study mentions the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which do not prevent infection or transmission of COVID and can cause harmful side effects. The study could use a discussion of how that reality contributes to “vaccine hesitancy.” In a similar style, the authors show little interest in how governments’ coercive promotion of ineffective vaccines contributes to “distrust of government.”
No word of specific test results from those excessively trustful of government, those believing in dictatorship or totalitarianism, or people worshipful of government regulation. Without conducting further research, those dangerous believers in freedom could easily conclude that this study is junk science.
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What do British people think about Corbyn's plan for the Falklands?
The comments below by Matt Taylor are from 3 years ago but are still very relevant
I am a very socially liberal person, I’m about as gay friendly as it is possible to be without routinely pleasuring male sailors.
I am not judgmental, and I think everyone should be free to live their lives however they see fit.
With that in mind, I have some regard for Corbyn as a human being, but he does seem to view the world through a naive and simplistic lens.
Anybody with any regard for democracy surely must side with the Islanders.
The simple fact is, we do not judge the living descendants of people who committed crimes to be morally accountable. We do not hold grudges against the living Japanese or Germans, and WWII was relatively recently.
You can certainly argue that there were many immoral actions committed by the British Empire, ironically there was almost no fighting involved in the taking of the Falklands, but that is entirely by the bye.
If more than three or four generations has passed, it is beyond ludicrous to hold young people accountable for the questionable actions of their forebears.
“Well you never stole anything, but your great great great great granddad did.. TO THE SALT-MINES YOU GO!”
The Islanders have committed no crimes, and now, rightly or wrongly, passionately wish to remain British, their wishes must be respected. Geography is utterly irrelevant.
If the British had taken the Islands by force in 1925, they might have had a case of a kind. Unfortunately for Argentina, that never happened. The families that live there now have been there for literally hundreds of years, some of them have lived there for 11 generations.
Anybody with regard for democracy and self determination HAS to side with them, and the actions of the Argentinian Government is reprehensible with regards to trade embargoes and saber rattling.
Short answer, Corbyn is a decent man at heart, but he is still just another self-loathing white man. I find it baffling that he doesn't see the paradox in telling everyone about the evils of identity politics and judging people based on the color of their skin or their religion or their sexual identity, while simultaneously judging people who happen to have long distant ancestors who took part in immoral actions before any of us, or even our grandparents were born.
This cringing self-loathing seems to be popular with the far left, they hate American and European colonialism so they judge living Americans and Europeans, but rail against judging people from everywhere else on anything but the content of their character.
I find it truly baffling.
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‘Avatar’ Is Little More Than a Hive of Left-Wing Tropes
“Avatar: The Way of Water” is floating atop the box office, but the sequel is facing an undertow for its alleged bigotries — no doubt a surprise to its director, James Cameron, who’s finding the leftist tropes of yesteryear are grounds for cancelation today.
Yuè Begay, “a Native American influencer,” urged a boycott of “this horrible and racist film,” describing the characters as wearing “blue face” and portraying a “white savior complex.” Slate.com called the film “a Sappy Valentine to the Myth of the ‘Ecological Indian.’”
Critic Kathia Woods indicted the movie for “cultural appropriation and white actors cosplaying as” people of color with its noble savage stereotype, once sacred to the left. All are big changes for Hollywood’s answer to Rip Van Winkle, who took a 13-year snooze from filmmaking.
In 2009, the political left sang the praises of Mr. Cameron’s epic, which clubbed its audience over the head with its green message. That alone was enough to earn a pass for a plot so unoriginal, it was called plagiarism.
A 2010 Huffington Post column, “‘Avatar’ = ‘Pocahontas’ in Space” showed how one could produce the script by swapping new nouns into the Disney classic. But the villains in “Avatar” remained common ones to leftists of the era: The military, colonialism, miners, and corporations.
Moviegoers couldn’t help rooting for his idealized heroes, the Na’vi — an anagram of “natives” — with their big eyes playing to the human affection for infants. Los Angeles Times wrote, “The film offers a blatantly pro-environmental message; it portrays U.S. military contractors in a decidedly negative light; and it clearly evokes the can’t-we-all-get along vibe of the 1960s counterculture.”
In an interview with AFP, Mr. Cameron shared standard hippie rhetoric. “There’s a sense of entitlement,” he said. “‘We’re here, we’re big, we’ve got the guns, we’ve got the technology, we’ve got the brains. We, therefore, are entitled to every damn thing on this planet.’”
He then scolded Americans to “wise up and start seeking a life that’s in balance with the natural cycles of life on earth.” Politics, though, have shifted since those days when, say, Presidents Obama and Biden both opposed gay marriage.
Democrats have “evolved” on militarism, too. After winning a Nobel Peace Prize, Mr. Obama learned to stop worrying and love the drone, ordering ten times as many strikes as his Republican predecessor. The liberal columnist Joe Klein — pressed about Mr. Obama killing children of suspected terrorists — shrugged and responded that “the bottom line is: ‘whose 4-year-olds get killed?’”
Just last week, Democrats feted the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, without a peep from the anti-war movement about fattening the military-industrial complex or giving peace a chance. When the House Republican Leader, Kevin McCarthy of California, opposed a “blank check” for military aid, he was met with cries that verged on “Better dead than red.”
As for corporations, the most powerful ones today are Amazon, Apple, and social media giants which support the left. While digging for coal is still demonized by leftists, they welcome the strip mining required to produce rare earth minerals for green technology such as electric car batteries. Windmills and solar panels, which are killing birds by the millions, are praised as the wave of the future.
Causes such as clean oceans, land, and air have also been replaced on today’s leftist agenda by a singular focus on global warming, replacing slogans like “Save the Whales,” such hunting having been all but banned in any case.
YouTube’s Critical Drinker, Scottish thriller novelist Will Jordan, points out this anachronism in his review of the sequel to Avatar. “It just feels weird for this movie to make it such a thematic focal point,” and yet “Avatar 2” does just that with blue sea creatures standing in for blue whales.
“Avatar 2” may be a beautiful movie, as described by the Sun’s A.R. Hoffman in his review. Moviegoers, though, have come to expect CGI magic. They require a little social consciousness and plot along with their visual spectacle, and no longer applaud Mr. Cameron’s outdated tropes like the trained seals of 2009. Take it from Mr. Van Winkle.
https://www.nysun.com/article/rip-van-cameron-awakens-to-a-new-political-left-with-avatar-2
*****************************************************Former trial lawyer who claims he was thrown off his master's degree for gender critical views insists dysphoria should be treated as a mental health condition
A former barrister who hit headlines earlier this year for after alleging he was thrown off his degree course over gender critical views, says gender dysphoria should be treated in the same way as a condition like anorexia to protect children.
James Esses, 30, who lives in London, claims he was ousted from his master's degree in psychotherapy at the Metanoia Institute in west London after speaking out against the 'medicalisation of children and the infiltration of gender ideology into the mental health profession'.
Speaking to FEMAIL, the campaigner insists he 'isn't anti-trans for believing in biology' and calls for alternative treatment for gender dysphoria.
'You wouldn't treat anorexia with liposuction,' he explained. 'At its core, people need to understand that gender dysphoria is a mental health condition. There are those who say that being trans should not be pathologised, but in the same breath request irreversible medication and surgery.'
'This is fundamentally inconsistent. We should be treating gender dysphoria in the same way that we treat all other mental health conditions - with explorative therapy, not with automatic affirmation down a pathway of physically modifying one’s body, fraught with risk, harm and regret.'
James, who was on the cusp of setting up his own private therapy practice prior to his expulsion from university, says that he gets 'abuse and vitriol' for being 'anti-trans'.
This comes after he called for more thorough counselling for those with gender dysphoria - something he says would be standard practice for sufferers of other forms of dysphoria, such as anorexia and body dysmorphia.
Scotland's new gender laws: What is the Gender Recognition Reform Bill? Why is it so controversial? Who has been opposing it? And will it definitely come into force?
'Once members of the public are made aware of the potentially irreversible damage being caused to children and hear the stories of those left with lifelong regret, they tend to empathise with what I and others are speaking out about.
'To parents who face a child struggling with gender dysphoria, I always recommend trying to strike the right balance, which is often easier said than done.
'It is important that children feel listened to, respected and empathised with. At the same time, it is important to emphasise to children what is real and what isn’t and to support explorative reflection (including through counselling or therapy) of why a young person feels the way they do.
'Often, gender dysphoria is a symptom of wider unease within a young person and most cases of gender dysphoria resolve themselves with time.'
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UK woman arrested for silently praying across from abortion clinic: ‘Terrifying’
Conservatives and free speech activists on Twitter railed against a recent video depicting police interrogating and ultimately arresting a pro-life woman who was silently praying outside a U.K. abortion clinic.
Those who watched the woman’s arrest after admitting she was “praying in my head” were appalled. Some claimed this was proof that Great Britain had become a dystopia.
The woman who was arrested, Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, is the director of the U.K. March for Life.
According to Alliance Defending Freedom UK (ADF UK), Vaughan-Spruce “was standing near the BPAS Robert Clinic in Kings Norton, Birmingham in an area ADF UK called a ‘censorship zone,’ when police approached her after an onlooker complained she might be praying outside the abortion facility.”
According to ADF UK, Birmingham authorities have established buffer zones near abortion clinics, making it illegal for people to engage in behavior disapproving or approving of abortion. This includes “graphic, verbal or written means, prayer or counseling.”
The clip shows the woman silently standing on a curb across from an abortion clinic as British law enforcement officers approach her. One asks why she is standing there and responds that she’s there because of the abortion clinic. She denies that she is part of any protest.
Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, is the director of the U.K. March for Life.
Police interrogated and ultimately arrested a pro-life woman who was silently praying outside a U.K. abortion clinic.
The officer then asks, “Are you praying?” to which she responds, “I might be praying in my head.” The officer then asks her if she’d be willing to go to the station for questioning about her actions. “If I’ve got a choice, then no,” she responds, after which the officer states, “You’re under arrest” and claims she’s charged with “suspicion of failing to comply with Public Spaces Protection Order.”
Anglican priest Rev. Calvin Robinson slammed what he saw in the footage, saying, “This is terrifying. What have we become?! Under a Conservative government, too.”
Catholic author and Compact Magazine founder Sohrab Ahmari tweeted, “OY YOU GO’ A LICENSE TO PRAY IN YOUR ’EAD MA’AM?”
Pro-life advocate Emily Rarick wrote, “This is absolute madness. How can someone be arrested for praying?”
Virginia GOP delegate Nick Freitas took the opportunity to remind users of George Orwell’s dystopia, tweeting, “1984 was a warning, not a guide.”
RedState deputy managing editor Brandon Morse made the point, “If abortion advocates don’t believe in God and think prayer is actually silly then what are they so afraid of?”
Conservative pundit Lauren Chen tweeted, “People are literally being arrested for thought crimes in the UK. Free speech is NOT a western value, it’s a uniquely American one.”
Nile Gardiner, a former aide to the late former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, remarked, “This is appalling. Disgraceful to see a woman arrested for simply praying on a British street. This should not be happening under a Conservative Govt, and action should be taken by the Home Secretary to ensure that scenes like this are not repeated.”
National Review staff writer Nate Hochman tweeted, “Sorry but imagine not having a First Amendment.”
https://nypost.com/2022/12/22/uk-woman-arrested-for-praying-across-from-abortion-clinic/
****************************************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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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See 
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