The rabbit shall lie down with the fox

My son recommended I see the film even though he said I wouldn’t like the storyline. And we weren’t going to go but the review of Zootopia in the Herald-Sun finally did do the trick. This bit of social engineering is what got me in as this apparently is at the centre of the plot:

Once upon a time, all animals were either prey or predators. A return to that time would be a calamity from which this world would never recover.

So now the lions are lying down with the lambs – a reference unlikely to be picked up by our modernly-mis-educated children who are too busy learning other things, so instead we have a fox and a rabbit hanging out. Just like real life. Too bad if you really are a rabbit hanging out with a fox, although a rabbit is likely to have more sense than anyone brought up on such fantastic nonsense.

Oddly, the reason we are going is because they have cast sloths as public servants. More realistic, of course, but amazing to see portrayed on the screen. Dealing with the government in the US must be so vastly recognised as painful beyond measure, no one even thinks about the offence this must cause those dozens of efficient public servants that one must occasionally come across.

For what it’s worth: Rotten Tomatoes: critics 99%; audience 95% while at IMDb: 8.4.

Haven’t seen the film yet so will let you know how it went when we come back.

BACK FROM THE MOVIES: It is impossible to describe how depraved this film is. In every way worse than I could have imagined. It makes you understand how Europe and America have ended up with civilian invasions for which there are almost no psychological defences across the culture. Here is the final line of the film which is its ultimate message, superseding even the often-repeated mantra that “anyone can be anything”. These words are the actual point:

“Trust – and make the world a better place.”

We are a generation of naive and guileless fools, and if you are looking for the evidence, the 99% critics approval with the audiences at 95% tells you a great deal about what you need to know.

Not recommended, although the 108 minutes passes easily enough if you are curious about understanding how intellectually defenceless and inanely stupid our culture has become.

The answer was: “Obama and Merkel” – what then was the question and who was it to?

That was Bill Shorten’s reply when asked: which politicians do you admire the most? If that was his answer, what do you think his answer would be to the question, what do you think about open borders?

Even though this would probably be the same answer given by Malcolm, with Bill he is backed by a party who agree with their leader, while with Malcolm, most of the rest think he is he biggest fool of a leader they have ever had to deal with.

We remain a parliamentary system and so the leader remains no more than first among equals. You have seen it with the “Safe Schools” Project and with other things as well. The leader’s views are not the last word. Putting Labor last remains the only answer if we want to ensure that the fact that our land is girt by sea will still count for something. Let me take you to this which is in no sense an argument against legal migration and from anywhere in the world:

When politicians want to import tens of millions of new immigrants it can look like Washington is trying to remake the electorate. This isn’t pure fantasy. In 1996, Bill Clinton’s White House instructed the Immigration and Naturalization Service “to streamline the naturalization process and greatly increase naturalizations during 1996.” Sure enough, Hispanics more than doubled as a portion of the electorate for Clinton’s 1996 reelection, according to exit polls.

The more dependent on public services voters are, the more the electorate will vote for the party of handouts. As in: Shocking claims Tony Blair led a mass migration conspiracy to ensure Labour’s rule.

The controversial Prime Minister cynically dismantled UK border controls so that two million migrants could settle in the country – and vote for him in future elections.

He then gagged Labour officials and his most senior ministers, telling them not to discuss immigration in public under any circumstances for fear of a backlash.

And how well that worked out. From The Daily Mail: How Blair silenced debate over migrant influx and refused to acknowledge public’s doubts about open borders. It begins:

Jack Straw, Tony Blair’s first Home Secretary, was worried. ‘Isn’t immigration the sort of issue which can blow up in our face?’ he asked the Prime Minister.
‘Immigration won’t be an issue,’ replied Blair. ‘Immigration is good for Britain.’

All through his three terms of office, the PM never changed his mind. By the time he stepped down, over two million more migrants than the government expected had settled in Britain — but he dismissed any concerns by claiming they were good for the economy.

Anyone against free-flowing immigration was assumed to be a racist Tory, a view underpinned by the BBC’s reluctance to debate the issue and endorsed by Labour’s promotion of multiculturalism.

Read both articles and then think about the politics of the UK, Europe and California in the context of the political views of our alternative Prime Minister.

Replying to a #NeverTrump jerk

Another of these self-important fools who shows up under the heading of Why I’m Backing #NeverTrump: A “Cuckservative” Speaks. From the comments section to the post:

Too stupid for words. The whole point of the primary season is to fight for your guy (Walker, Cruz and Fiorina for me) and then absolutely most important of all, back whoever comes out on top, or else you are handing it to the Alinsky-communist Imelda Marcos serial mega-criminal Hillary Clinton, and NOBODY CAN BE THAT FRICKING STUPID! I just want to say go to stinking Hell to every person who can’t get over the the ridiculous mountains they keep making out of Trump molehills.

Every time he reacts to criticism by doing something ridiculous like calling his critic ugly I say fine with me, because I know that it isn’t just narcissism, that he feels that exact same visceral protectiveness for the country. THAT is what his blow-ups about killing the families of terrorists is about, to which I say it is about damned time. We have had eight years of a president who absolutely hates this country and face another four years of a woman who shares the exact same Islamophilic Alinsky communism. Two presidents in a row who are literal stinking communists, both direct acolytes of the leading American communist of the 20th century, and Stephanie is worried about Trump’s lack of refinement.

Sorry Stephanie, but your judgment is insane at the CRUDEST level, you and all the other “never Trumpers.” Absolutely horrible. Destroyers. Vapid, ludicrous, and self-centered beyond belief. Your moral posturing will be offended. Too bad. How about the survival of the nation?

We’ll do everything to save the country except get our nails dirty. Truly beneath contempt. There are plenty of other comments just like this one at the link.

[Via Instapundit through Sarah Hoyt who appears to agree with the nitwit who wrote the original post on why she would never vote for Trump. These people have rocks in their heads. The comments at Instapundit also seem to think Sarah is a queen-size jerk as well.]

“Everyone’s token of their political pluralism and tolerance”

The background:

Published on Mar 14, 2016

A talk by Alan Charles Kors, co-founder of Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).

Universities once believed themselves to be sacred enclaves, where students and professors could debate the issues of the day and arrive at a better understanding of the human condition. Today, sadly, this ideal of the university is being quietly betrayed from within. Universities still set themselves apart from American society, but now they do so by enforcing their own politically correct worldview through censorship, double standards and a judicial system without due process. Faculty and students who threaten the prevailing norms may be forced to undergo “thought reform.” In a surreptitious about-face, universities have become the enemy of a free society, and the time has come to hold these institutions to account.

This talk is a stinging indictment of the covert system of justice on college campuses, exposing the widespread reliance of on kangaroo courts and arbitrary punishment to coerce students and faculty into conformity.

Dr. Kors lays bare the totalitarian mindset that undergirds speech codes, conduct codes, and “campus life” bureaucracies, through which a cadre of deans and counselors indoctrinate students and faculty in an ideology that favors group rights over individual rights, sacrificing free speech and academic freedom to spare the sensitivities of currently favored groups.

[Via Instapundit]

Only a Republican could be this stupid

pres trump pres clinton cartoon

This is a cartoon that makes sense only if you really are in a dilemma about Trump v Clinton, which means you are a Republican who is too stupid to be allowed to vote. No Democrat would ever be in doubt, and Hillary is a liar, crook and dyed in the wool leftist of the most plundering kind. There is literally no facet of Trump v Clinton that ends up on the Hillary side of the ledger. Such Republicans are Democrats at heart, lacking any genuine desire for the preservation of our Western way of life. Worrying about the effect on international trade or the future viability of the Republican Party are such irrelevancies that it only irritates me to have to listen to it.

So let me spell it out. The one and only issue is open borders. This belief that anyone can migrate anywhere and it won’t make any difference of any kind is such a stupidity that I have to say that when I hear it I can only think I am dealing with political morons who are incapable of learning any lessons from the fantastic array of social instruction to be seen at every turn.

Europe at this very moment is being invaded and only a minority of these invaders are Syrian refugees with nowhere else to go. The news we get is minimal. Every so often the media is forced to cover some part of it, such as “Cologne”, or “Malmo” or “Charlie Hebdo”, but as rapidly as it is possible to go back to other things, it is dropped and nothing more is said. Were it not for Drudge, I would feel I would not know a thing about what is going on. We have in no sense a free press, and the ridicule that Trump pours on the people who are covering him warms me. It is you, who cannot see through the media attack squads that get me down. No writer for any Murdoch paper in the world – and aside from The Daily Mail, his are the best there are – will ever say a positive word about Trump. There is this migrating evil in the world, and you cannot find it in the news you read. Trump is a phenomenon because he, for very particular reasons, does not depend on the media or outside money to get his message across.

The progressive internationalism of our present day is being driven by George Soros, a Nazi collaborator and actually much more. Go to the link. What you will find is this, which was published only last December:

Human Events’ readers, in an online poll, recently voted billionaire financier George Soros “the single most destructive leftist demagogue in the country.”

Here is the first on the list of ten, but go on to read the entire article. If you don’t know any of this already, you should ask yourself why that is:

1. Gives billions to left-wing causes: Soros started the Open Society Institute in 1993 as a way to spread his wealth to progressive causes. Using Open Society as a conduit, Soros has given more than $7 billion to a who’s who of left-wing groups. This partial list of recipients of Soros’ money says it all: ACORN, Apollo Alliance, National Council of La Raza, Tides Foundation, Huffington Post,Southern Poverty Law Center, Soujourners, People for the American Way, Planned Parenthood, and the National Organization for Women.

The American political system is driven by money and Soros is hardly the only one of his class and wealth who are driving this agenda. The graft and outright thievery of Hillary Clinton is no longer even hidden. She is a tool of the progressive internationalist cause. These people really do want to ruin your way of life, and it is not incidental. This is what they want to do. If you think they are well meaning socialists who want only the best for everyone, you are simply deluded. Billionaire socialists is not how to think of a working class movement. Our Western way of life – our “white privilege” – is being put to the torch and there is hardly a one amongst us who is willing to fight this one out.

But at least there is one, and he has support, and the way things are going there will soon be more. Whether there will be enough and whether it is even still possible to save ourselves, is yet to be determined. But if you cannot see what’s going on, if you really cannot see what is going on, then you will just have to keep your heads in the sand.

And it is here that left and right meet. Let me finish with a quote from Murray Rothbard discussing Ludwig von Mises in a little booklet titled, The Clash of Group Interests. The “consideration” referred to is how individuals continue to examine only their short-term interests and fail to see the long-run as clearly as Mises does.

This consideration becomes still more poignant in the noble and surprising essay, “The Freedom to Move as an International Problem,” newly translated from a 1935 newspaper in Vienna. It is surprising because it presents a remarkably sharp attack on the immigration barriers erected by the United States and the British Dominions. For Mises trenchantly identifies these barriers as creating a ruling class elite, albeit a large one, in which workers in a particular geographical area with a high standard of living, use the State to keep immigrants from lower-wage areas out, thereby freezing the latter into a permanently lower wage. Mises correctly adds that, contrary to the Marxian myth of the international solidarity of the proletariat, it is the unions in the high living standard countries who have lobbied for the immigration restrictions. Mises is hard-hitting on the privileges conferred by immigration barriers: “The oft-referred-to ‘miracle’ of the high wages in the United States and Australia may be explained simply by the policy of trying to prevent a new immigration. For decades people have not dared to discuss these things in Europe.” Mises concludes his essay with an implicit justification of overcrowded Europe making war upon the restrictive countries: “This is a problem of the right of immigration into the largest and most productive lands…. Without the reestablishment of freedom of migration throughout the world, there can be no lasting peace.”

World peace through open borders, and cheaper labour as well. If these ideas weren’t so unbelievably dangerous you would want to laugh at how stupid this is. Soros and Mises, left and right united in trying to end the civilisation of the West.

Mr Morrison’s golden rule

It’s not exactly good news as in things will only get better from here on in, but it is pleasing to see the Treasurer finally figuring out what has to be done to make things work. The headline says it all: Morrison to cut company taxes; income taxes to wait years. I wonder how hard he had to fight our good news Prime Minister to get this policy up.

Salary earners will have to wait some years for an income tax cut after Treasurer Scott Morrison confirmed on Thursday that company tax cuts will be his priority in the federal budget.

After indicating on Tuesday that the government had ditched plans for the income tax cuts it has been pledging for several months, Mr Morrison told Parliament the best way to fund income tax cuts was through economic growth. And the best way to drive economic growth was by reducing the 30 per cent company tax rate.

“We understand the burdens faced by people who are paying higher and higher rates of income tax. We understand that and we understand the best way to deal with that … [is to] grow the economy so you can grow revenues to support those changes,” he said.

“That’s the way you do it and that’s what this government is seeking to do. We’ll focus our changes on things that will drive investment, as we’ve considered many tax measures over the course of the past six months.”

Mr Morrison said the “golden rule” was to choose tax changes that would drive jobs and growth. “These are the benchmarks we set against the tax measures of this government,” he said.

This has always been the political answer to the years of Labor waste and mismanagement. If the country really wants all that free stuff, they will have to pay for it. And if the Budget is used to underscore the lesson of first the effort and then reward, we will be all the better for it. Let Labor become the party of the magic pudding and free lunch. Let the Libs finally turn themselves back into the party that reminds everyone there is no such thing.

Commentators are insulated from the ramifications of failure

The Ruling Class Is King George III which has as its sub-head, “The 2016 cycle has seen an utter collapse of the established order of things”, wherein we find this very pertinent remark:

Politics is a business often insulated from the ramifications of failure. Like an ESPN commentator who is always wrong, the commentariat and the consultant class are not penalized for making mistakes with the frequency of people who pick stocks or games in Vegas. But the mistakes made this cycle are going to resonate because they reveal how distant the ruling class was from the people – that they might as well be separated by an ocean.

If you are someone who lives in and among the elite, ask yourself if you know anyone legitimately supporting the two leading candidates for the Republican nomination – people who think Donald Trump is a good leader, or that Ted Cruz is a good man. If the answer is no, re-examine whether the knowledge you bring to this race is accurate, or skewed by the bubble that surrounds you, which kept suggesting all the way to the end that Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, or Marco Rubio could happen. Because they are not going to happen.

Of course, if you know me, you know someone who supports Trump. And I, as it happens, know one other who supports Trump. But we are very hard to find among the highly educated, I can tell you that. A Trump majority would occur in almost no media organisation in the world and on virtually no university campus, even restricting the ballot to those who teach. So if not us, then who is it, and why are we so cut off from what others think?

The ability to persuade is the most important part of the politician’s trade

I never know until the election whether I am in Melbourne Ports or Goldstein since I live on the cusp and, like the German border with Poland, it keeps moving back and forth. But what I do know is that one of the advantages Labor has over the Coalition is that the selection stream for getting to the top largely travels through the union movement. And among the many things that are learned by being a union official is how to address a crowd. There is always in every workplace someone who is a natural born agitator, but only some of these have political sense and even after that, only some of these have an ability to speak persuasively in public. It is these who rise to the top of the ALP. The policy packages they offer may be maximally damaging to the country, but they certainly can sell. Think Bob Hawke as the archetype.

On the Coalition side, there are few places for a candidate to hone their thoughts or learn the ability to speak in the face of opposition before they make it into Parliament. There are fewer opportunities to be tested in a real showdown, with ideological knives out and values on the line. It has always been a disadvantage to the right side of politics, and not just in Australia, that it does not develop the kinds of speakers that are so common on the left. Which is all preamble to the post by Andrew Bolt the other day on The Liberals need warriors, not worriers, where he begins his post with words I understand only too well:

The Liberals lack MPs who not only understand Liberal values but have the guts and skill to argue for them publicly. It needs MPs who can hold their own against the ABC and the largely Leftist media, and rally the public to their cause. How many MPs do you know like that?

The final three seeking the Liberal nomination in Goldstein are down to three.

The weekend preselection for Andrew Robb’s electorate of Goldstein is set to go down to the wire, with international relations expert and local favourite Denis Dragovic running neck-and-neck with high-profile former human rights commissioner Tim Wilson. Liberal insiders tip the preferences of a third candidate, party blue-blood and lawyer Georgina Downer, as crucial in the race.

You should read the post to see who stands for what and who might be ready for the ideological confrontations that will take place over issues that are not even on the horizon. Here I will only emphasise that among the high-level pre-requisites ought to be an ability to take up these various issues in a way that will get the message across. Tim Wilson and Georgina Downer are proven in this very tough field. To quote Andrew again:

The Liberals need public champions. It’s no good being a lion in the preselection room but a mouse in the ABC studio. And that is why I’m so puzzled. I mean no disrespect to Dragovic, but in all my years of public debate I have never come across his name before. He is unknown to me as a champion of Liberal values. And when I now go through his few articles in the media – almost exclusively on Islam, terrorism and the Middle East – I can understand why he has made so little impression.

Making an impression in the wider world by being a tough in-fighter in the hand-to-hand battles of Parliament and the media are what is needed. Without that, you are a mere foot soldier Parliamentary spectator, where others must take up the battles on your behalf. We will see by Monday who my neighbours here in the blue-ribbon Liberal seat of Goldstein have chosen.

Maybe they need smarter negotiators

Let me juxtapose. First:

WORLD ORDER AT RISK?
Dems sound alarm against Trump…
Dangerous and unprecedented threat…
Obama increasingly involved in campaign…
Privately Tells Donors to Unite Behind Hillary…
Kremlin Condemns Video for ‘Demonizing’ Russia…
How to cope with anxiety caused by campaign…
ROGER STONE: HOW GOP ELITE PLAN TO ROB TRUMP…
Secret meet…
KURTZ: WHY CAN’T MEDIA STOP HIM?
DONALD DOWN UNDER…
MAG: Phenomenon could go global…
SOROS ACTIVISTS PLOT ‘LARGEST PROTESTS OF CENTURY’…
Illegal Immigration Activists Plan Rallies…
GOOGLE Maps May Be Helping Illegals Avoid Border Control…
Checkpoints mapped out…

And then there is this:

USA trade deficit highest in seven years…

Where it says:

The deficit for the entire year rose to $484.1 billion, up 24.3 percent from a 2014 imbalance of $389.5 billion.

Not that it matters, of course, but you never know when some politician might try to exploit this kind of number.