For whom do I write and why?

There would seem to be three possible audiences. Leftists are the least likely one. Leftists have deeply entrenched views that are very important to them. Their self-esteem depends on their beliefs so they zealously avoid contradiction. They try to get contrary information censored so they will never hear it. So they would read something by me only if they came across it by accident and would mentally blot it out

A more promising audience is middle-of-the-roaders -- swinging voters. And I think that is realistic to some degree. But my outspoken conservatism probably defeats that objective to some extent A person more polite about Leftist nonsense would probably be more persuasive to that group.

So I mainly write to reinforce the beliefs of people who already tend conservative. Leftist thinking bombards us from all angles so I like to offer an antidote and alternative to that. Leftist claims do often appear to be reasonable at first sight and I like to show just where and why they are not -- so that those who are uncomfortable with Leftist claims will see in detail why such claims fail. I offer food for alternative thought.

My son tells me that I am wasting my time. He says that events will pan out in their own way driven by large forces and that there is nothing we can do to derail the inevitable train of events. It was a similar train of thought when a young journalist some years back asked aristocratic British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan what could upset his government in the next few weeks. MacMillan replied: "Events, dear boy, events".

I am a drop in the bucket theorist. One drop or one person can have a negligible effect but lots of drops can fill the bucket. I think that many conservative voices combined can have a useful effect in causing bad policies to be abandoned. Some Biden policies have at least been watered down and it seems to me that many voices opposing them have done that. So I hope to be one of such voices and to encourage other such voices.

I have at least had the satisfaction of being proved right on occasions. When Covid arrived, I saw that it was almost entirely only the elderly who were dying with it so thought that under-65s should be left alone by governments so that the economy and society could function normally. I saw all the restrictions imposed in the name of controlling the pandemic as pointless and harmful. Many people are now coming around to that view. And the country that did as I thought best -- Sweden -- ended up with the lowest level of excess deaths in Europe during the period concerned. So those who read what I write can sometimes get ahead of the game in their thinking. I feel that is worthwhile.

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Nassau County executive Bruce Blakeman swamped with support for trans athlete ban

The Long Island county’s executive, Bruce Blakeman, has received more than 500 emails and 700 phone calls, with over 80% supporting the trans athlete ban at competitive sporting events at Nassau’s ballfields and sports facilities, according to his office’s correspondence unit.

The controversial ban also has generated tens of thousands of comments, mainly positive, on social media.

“I am a gay woman who also coaches women’s sports and I am so incredibly grateful for Mr. Blakeman who is protecting all that we have fought for decades to earn a place in sports. It’s wild to me that this isn’t a COMMON SENSE cause, but people fear retaliation/cancel culture,” wrote A. Shields of Port Washington in Nassau.

Former Olympic rower Valerie McClain said, “As a 2 time Olympian and retired female executive, I want to thank you for protecting girls and women in sports.

“Sports teaches so many leadership skills that girls would not be exposed to if not for participation, least of all FAIRNESS.”

A transgender woman from California, Nicole Standard, told Blakeman that she supports the ban, too.

“I myself am MTF [male to female] Post Op Trans and I support your action to keep biological males from competing in women’s sports. For someone like myself to compete in `Women’s Sports’ would be like an `abled bodied athlete’ identifying as `handicapped,’ then competing in `Special Olympics,’ ” Standard wrote.

“I’m embarrassed by any hate you may get from your ‘correct/sane sports policies,’ ” she said.

In a publicity coup, Blakeman’s edict was also backed by one of the world’s most famous transgender people, Caitlyn Jenner, who won the Olympic gold medal in the 1976 decathlon as the former Bruce Jenner. Jenner appeared alongside Blakeman at a press conference last week.

Biological female athletes applauded Blakeman, too.

“I took a risk and decided to write about how biological men should NOT be allowed in women’s sports because of the proven biological differences, the unfairness, and so much more,” said a local high-school female student. “I know it was probably a tough decision to actually go through with banning transgenders from our sports but I can’t tell you how thankful I am that you did.

“I am from Suffolk County but it makes me feel confident that our society will be able to look past the media and actually realize how transgenders in our sports is hurting us more than helping. Thank you so much Sir. Have a GREAT day!!!” she said.

Blakeman’s trans ban is opposed by state Attorney General Letitia James, who sent him a “cease and desist” order, claiming the policy discriminates against trans athletes and violates the state’s human-rights and civil-rights laws. The New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in a bid to overturn the edict on those grounds.

Blakeman countersued AG James in federal court, insisting the trans ban is legal because it protects the rights of biological women.

The issue is a hot-button one both nationally and elsewhere locally.

Manhattan’s largest neighborhood school board district last week approved a resolution that could lead to a local ban on transgender athletes in girls’ sports.

Community Education Council District 2, which serves Manhattan from the Lower East Side to the Upper East Side, passed the controversial measure in an 8-3 vote that demands the city’s Department of Education allow a public review of its policy allowing transgender girls to play female sports.

The resolution is advisory and could be rejected by Mayor Eric Adams, schools Chancellor David Banks and the citywide Panel for Educational Policy, which has the final say.

https://nypost.com/2024/03/24/us-news/nassau-county-executive-bruce-blakeman-swamped-with-support-for-trans-athlete-ban/

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Dutch darts players quit national women's team over transgender teammate

Darts players Anca Zijlstra and Aileen de Graaf have announced their departure from the Dutch women's darts team because they refuse to team up with trans woman Noa-Lynn van Leuven.

Zijlstra announced she was quitting the team in a post on Facebook.

"The moment you're embarrassed to be a part of the Dutch Team, because a biological man is playing in the women's team, it's time to go," she wrote.

"I have tried to accept this, but I can not condone or justify this.

"I think that with sports there has to be an equal and level playing field which is to be used and accepted in good faith. After all, we have worked so hard to be relevant and competitive in this sport."

De Graaf, who was also on the Dutch national team, commented on the post, announcing her departure too.

"At some point you have to make decisions if something goes against your feelings," she wrote.

"You have to do what feels right for you. Hence my decision to also leave the Dutch team."

Van Leuven told Dutch national broadcaster NOS the controversy had taken an emotional toll.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-25/dutch-darts-players-quit-over-transgender-teammate/103627072

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Canada is the country to watch for conservatives

Pierre Poilievre is the gambler’s choice to become Canada’s next Prime Minister and he is becoming an international political superstar in the process. With Justin Trudeau’s government looking worse by the week, Canadians are buying into Poilievre’s blend of traditional conservative principles and economic populist flavour.

If polling trends hold, Poilievre’s Conservative Party will win the next election with a super-majority not witnessed since the 1980s. How could stereotypically progressive Canada become the home of a revitalised conservatism?

Context is a major part of it. Trudeau’s progressive government has presided over a toxic stew of lagging productivity, across-the-board inflation, and paycheques that have not kept up.

Even if wages have modestly risen in the past year, and the rise of inflation has slowed, it is not enough to dull the indignity of a young couple forking over almost 50 AUD for a greasy fast-food meal. The dispiriting cost of living remains a fact that Trudeau’s own Cabinet ministers will acknowledge.

Monthly payments for new automobiles are historically bruising, and above all, the middle-class dream of owning property requires a considerable fortune. The latter is made worse by exorbitant monthly rents making it nearly impossible to properly save for a down-payment.

For Australian readers, perhaps this sounds familiar.

Instead of changing course, Trudeau’s government seems intent on tripling down on its ambitious and aimless social democratic agenda. More than shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic, they’re stacking as many as possible and hoping the ship will stay afloat.

Trudeau is not the root cause of all these problems, but his government’s policies have done little to soften them, let alone fix them. His supporters have settled on a strategy of telling Canadians that they’re actually doing very well despite everything, and should be glad about it.

Unsurprisingly, Canadians appear far more enthusiastic for Poilievre’s stridently different alternative. That alternative is certainly not the mouldy, religiously pro-business rhetoric of the 1980s, reheated and re-served ad nauseam for 40 years.

The formula of Poilievre’s appeal is contained in a book titled Right Here, Right Now, published in 2018. It was written by his old boss Stephen Harper, Canada’s former Conservative Prime Minister. One of Harper’s main points is a call for conservatives to stake out the middle ground between traditional political principles and full-blown populism.

‘Reform conservatism to address the issues that are driving the populist upheaval,’ urged Harper in the book. ‘That is to say, adapt conservatism to the practical concerns, interests, and aspirations of working and middle-class people.’

Someone on Poilievre’s team has certainly read the book many times. The recommendations of Right Here, Right Now are clearly reflected in Poilievre’s agenda, like his plan to restore affordable, or perhaps less unaffordable, housing to Canada.

Poilievre has pledged to slash the taxes and red tape that discourage the building of new housing. He had also promised to punish municipalities that block new housing starts, and to sell federally-owned buildings for conversion into affordable units.

In effect, Poilievre is pledging to thumb the eyes of those who constrict market forces, and to cheapen and streamline the process of building new homes. This is fully aligned with traditional faith in the market by presenting a tailored, market-oriented solution, rather than merely repeating your uncle’s conservative ramblings.

Poilievre has promised to tie federal funding for municipalities to their yearly housing starts. Any municipality that misses the annual target of increasing the local housing supply by 15 per cent will have their funding clawed back, while those exceeding the 15 per cent will receive a bonus.

There is palpable anger in Canada over the housing market’s brutality. Promising accountability for the ‘gatekeepers’ who helped cause the housing crisis satisfies a justified and populist anger.

Critics of Poilievre have slammed the plan as poorly conceived, but Canadians appear to like that the Conservatives have hatched a bold plan in the first place.

After Poilievre’s populist and popular rhetoric on housing Trudeau’s government released their own affordability plan, but there is no doubt that Poilievre has led the debate. The increasingly unpopular government has not escaped the perception that they are playing catch up with the Conservatives on affordability.

On the topic of affordability, Canadians pay some of the highest cellular phone bills in the world, to the tune of over AUD 50 per month on average. Canada’s telecommunications giants have bathed in a warm protectionist bath since 1994, resulting in no more than three major carriers on the Canadian market.

With near-criminally high cell phone bills, Poilievre has promised to open the market for more competition so Canadians can enjoy more dynamic and diverse pricing. Do not expect Canada’s artificially enriched telecommunications giants to be an ally of Poilievre’s Conservatives.

For the corporate world, their formerly automatic alliance with the centre-right has been shattered. Florida governor Ron DeSantis is feuding with Disney, and the London financial establishment fiercely opposed the Tory-led Brexit.

In an address to the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade earlier this month, Poilievre slammed corporate lobbyists in the national capital who sucked up the Trudeau government and never pushed back against its policies.

Poilievre declared that natural resource giants would have to justify any attention paid to it under a future Conservative government. He praised his Vancouver audience for being productive and worthy economic players, unlike their Ottawa counterparts.

It may surprise many that a conservative politician would establish that kind of relationship with big business. Nonetheless, is it not keeping with free-enterprise principles to demand that companies demonstrate their economic value before getting special attention?

In Right Here, Right Now, Stephen Harper wrote that conservatives need to adapt to a changed world.

‘This does not mean changing our core beliefs. It means applying them in ways that are relevant now. It means shifting from the macroeconomic issues of more than 30 years ago to the challenges emerging today,’ wrote Harper.

Poilievre is applying this to his Conservative Party, even if it still must win the next federal election. Even so, he is disproving that conservatism must reform itself to appeal to Guardian subscribers, be the slavish voice of the corporate world, or abandon its principles altogether in favour of right-wing authoritarianism.

For those in Australia and elsewhere wondering how to push back against their progressive political rivals, Canada is the country to watch.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/03/canada-is-the-country-to-watch-for-conservatives/

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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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