We are that proverbial frog and the water is getting hotter by the day.
Step by step and inch by inch we are losing our freedom
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Category Archives: Cultural
An age of ignorance vast and deep
If she didn’t expect the question about how to pay for everything she wants, where does she think everything comes from? We live in an Age of Ignorance so vast and deep that it defies explanation. The vid below is a caricature, but the two young women in the two videos could for all practical purposes be the same person.
The crisis of capitalism is caused by ignorance of history
The photo is from The Powerhouse Museum which I took this afternoon where they are having an exhibition on protest. And it was in the museum cafe that I read Maurice Newman’s article on Malcolm Turnbull’s agile nation must avoid politics of envy. The article is about the kinds of thing that people in the second half of their lives are prone to understand, which are why the kinds of things they may have believed in the first half are so stupidly wrong. As he writes:
Why then, in this postmodern world, when we know that free enterprise has so spectacularly raised living standards and prolonged life for all, do we demonise it as uncaring, unfair and outdated?
Free market capitalism, like nature, may favour the resilient, the ambitious and the fleet of foot, but rather than celebrate self-interest and see wealth creation as a positive contribution to all society, we are conditioned by the Left, from school days on, to believe that social goals and the collectivist vision are more important than private choices; that without government intervention, most will be left behind.
This is our world. A top-down social-democratic state where elites are patronised, competition is controlled, where private initiative is stifled, free speech is abridged and where the electorate is increasingly state dependent. Here, big government colludes with big labour and big business to socialise losses at taxpayer expense.
Precious productive capital is wasted on school halls, pink batts, the National Broadband Network, futile subsidies and ordinary political aggrandisement. Loose fiscal and monetary policies give the rich relatively risk-free profits from speculative assets, while winner-take-all returns see a new breed of innovators and disrupters building tax- sheltered fortunes.
The media are filled with people who are the least likely to understand any of it but are most likely in a position to influence the rest of the community about the supposed evils of the market system. For those with few skills of an entrepreneurial nature, making their fortune as critics of the only society that has ever created wealth and freedom may give them a great sense of self-fulfilment and se;f-importance, but there are many societies that have been laid very low when people just like these have taken power. See Venezuela for a recent example.
Who can you trust? Another Middle Eastern drama
And for more of the story you can go here.
And also in the news today – terrorists have blown up another plane mid-flight
You cannot say that it has not been reported, but on the other hand, it is hardly in the news. Pan Am Flight 103 and Lockerbie remain bywords to this day of an indifference to human life and a terrorist atrocity that can never be forgiven. Why then is Kogalymavia’s flight 9268 not front-page news? Why is this not controversial enough for it to be carried by every newspaper in every country: BRITISH extremists were behind the bombing of a Russian jet over Egypt, intelligence experts believe. Oh yes, Islamic terrorists blew up the plane coming out of Egypt. Is this really now just so ho hum?
They were overheard celebrating moments after the explosion that blew the plane apart, killing all 224 on board.
The jihadis were heard talking in Birmingham and London accents by spies at GCHQ in Cheltenham.
Trained in Syria and with an electronics background, it is believed they may have had a hand in building the bomb.
The success of the attack could inspire them to target British airports next, a former Special Branch officer warned last night.
GCHQ, the Government’s secret listening centre, picked up “chatter” from extremist groups in Egypt immediately after the Russian plane came down.
The regional accents suggest “a definite and strong link” between British extremists and the attack, according to intelligence sources.
Is it because the international economy would collapse if too many people stopped flying? Is it because those who write the papers don’t want to suggest there are certain ideological dangers that are stalking us ever more closely? I am getting used to the idea that newspapers no longer actually carry news that are contrary to the media narrative, this bombing being in every way identical to the invasion of Europe about which there is hardly a story to be found. But with these I at least know certain things that cannot be totally suppressed although they are downplayed to an extreme extent. What I don’t know is what is not reported at all. Does anyone know the term “memory hole” or has that gone down the memory hole as well?
Male and female action figures
From an article titled, Feminization of America Is Bad for the World:
“Mattel’s research showed some differences in what girls and boys wanted in their action figures, Ms. Missad said. ‘For boys it’s very much about telling a story of the good guy killing the villain. . . .’ [Girls] would tell us: ‘Why does the good girl have to kill the villain? Can’t they be friends in the end?’”
And in related real life news:
Why are women so poorly represented on the front lines? Because most women can’t do the job, don’t want to do the job, and in cases where they can do it, can’t do it as well as men… A recent study has demonstrated a big disparity in women’s and men’s battlefield ability. The US Marine Corps examined over a year the impact of female integration on combat readiness and found conclusively that women cannot match male performance. Male units were faster, more effective and able to evacuate casualties in less time. Overall, the study concluded, all-male squads performed better than mixed groups in 69% of the tasks evaluated. Women performed notably less well in their use of every individual weapons system, and in addition women had higher injury rates than men. So in terms of women’s own well-being as well as the overall effectiveness of the fighting force, its ability to kill enemies and save wounded comrades, the study showed that the presence of women in combat units has a negative impact.
How can we have a conversation without the left shutting down debate?
This is what began the post, a Facebook comment from one of Jim Goad’s friends on how to keep out of being called a racist:
How does one have a legitimate, thoughtful discussion on the real dangers of religious extremism, whatever their stripe, without being charged with bigotry?…How does one avoid charges of “Islamophobia” yet address the very real anti-pluralism of radical Islam?
Of course you can’t, which is what Goad has written to point out.
It’s clear what’s going on here: Kevin is afraid of being called xenophobic and Islamophobic. By his own admission he doesn’t fear Muslims; he fears being accused of fearing them. And this is perhaps the most pervasive and justified fear these days—the fear of being called bad names that can destroy your social and professional life. We occupy a world where sticks and stones may break your bones, but names will get you fired. It’s a fear so thick, you even hesitate to whisper in closed quarters that you’re afraid. . . .
The best thing to do—at least if you want a career and a social life—is to stick your head in a hole and shut the fuck up.
There are ways but there are dangers as well. But unless you are very rich, the problems you create by being on the left will come back to haunt you. There’s no satisfaction for me, but the cure is on the way, but it is a cure that will be even worse than the disease.
Fit young men not fleeing danger
Ron Liddle trying to reason with people on the left, that is, trying to reason with people whose heads are filled with cement. They are literally only able to emote about the poor suffering humanity, even if they are neither poor, suffering or, given the infiltration by ISIS, humane. Here are the key facts:
A largely Muslim charity recently reviewed the work its people had been doing to relieve the misery and squalor on the Sangatte refugee camp in Calais. A worker with the Human Relief Foundation visited the notorious ‘Jungle’ encampment and concluded, with some alarm, that 97 per cent were economic migrants rather than refugees. Further, they were almost exclusively fit young men who were not fleeing danger at all and were not in the least desperate.
An executive added: ‘I thought they had a valid reason [to be there]. They do not have a valid reason.’ The charity immediately curtailed its relief efforts. But present these facts to those who simply scream ‘Let them in!’ and ‘We must do more!’ and it makes not the slightest difference to their point of view; it washes over them without leaving so much as a trace.
And here is Liddle trying to reason with historian Simon Schama:
What I realised after that edition of Question Time is that the facts, the practicalities, the realities of the situation, do not matter one jot. There is a small minority of British opinion — the polls suggest that the overwhelming majority of the population, suburban scum that they are, do not wish to see more migrants entering the country — which is absolutely impervious to the facts which show that letting more people in the country will make things worse both for them and for us. And clearly anyone who doesn’t agree is unaware that the migrants are ‘human beings’ and is thus a borderline psychopath, as well as being suburban. And yet ask them for a course of action and none is forthcoming.
How do we crowds at the bottom of the pile make our elected representatives pay attention to our wishes? It cannot be done and we will endure the arrival of masses from the third world who do not speak our languages nor understand our culture.
And this comment at Tim Blair really does capture just how much danger there is where they are departing from:
Two women made less sense than Simon Schama – the first who argued that it was perfectly sensible for the young men to be the first wave, not realising her argument suggested it was safe for women and children to stay where they were and that the young men are clearly the beachhead for a much larger wave to follow.
The second loon justified England opening its borders as if it wasn’t for migration out of Africa 60,000 years ago “we wouldn’t be here”. That is all the reason she needs to open her arms to illegal economic migrants from goodness knows where. Odd really but it does sum up the leftist mindset.
The women in danger are where they are coming to, not where they are coming from.
[Via Tim Blair]
The Playboy philosophy and modern life
I came from an era in which casual sex never happened. The pill changed it all, but so too did “The Playboy Philosophy”. Written in the early 1960s, it is Hugh Hefner’s contribution to the decadence of our own time. It has been the twentieth century’s most important contribution to philosophy and culture. The one and only rule about sexual relations is that other than monitoring the ages of those who are involved, there are no rules. There was a time when people knew what was wrong with the Playboy Philosophy – we read it in the same spirit that we read Abbie Hoffman’s Steal this Book – but those times are long gone. Sex without responsibility and attachment is a kind of adolescent boy’s dream come true. But as we have since discovered, sexual anarchy is the worst of all possible worlds. So to the song:
As the story goes, it was first offered to Johnny Mathis; Columbia Records boss Mitch Miller is said to have blackballed the song, claiming it was immoral. Dawn Eden might think ol’ Mitch may have been on to something:
Like many songs from that more innocent era, “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” expresses feelings that most people would be too embarrassed to verbalize. There’s something painful about the way its vulnerable narrator leaves herself wide open. Yet, even though her asking the song’s title question implies a certain amount of courage, it’s clear that she’s ready to accept a positive answer without questioning it — which is not surprising, given the lyrics’ description of how the evening has progressed. By the time one is worrying about how the other person will feel tomorrow, it is usually too late.
For most unattached single women in New York City, and I would imagine much of the rest of the country as well, casual sex is the norm. It’s encouraged by all the women’s magazines and television shows from “Oprah” on down, as well as films, music, and the culture in general. And while “love” is celebrated, women are told that they should not demand to be loved tomorrow — only respected.
If it’s encouraged for women, it’s almost mandatory for men; a woman who is not sexually active is pitied, while a man who is not sexually active is mocked and ridiculed. (Which may be one reason why very few men — Frankie Valli is one who did — ever recorded this song.) “Tell me now, and I won’t ask again” turns out to be a variation on a theme by Scarlett O’Hara: “I’ll think about that tomorrow.”
This is a song from the 1960s written by Carole King but is the lament of many a woman of our own times. The way the song is presented in the video above by the Shirelles, who sang it originally, you would not know it is the saddest imaginable song with a sadder still message. Perhaps the Amy Winehouse version is truer to its meaning if for no other reason than that she herself had the saddest life. Here are the words with a message that can hardly even be registered by many inside our own decaying culture.
“Will You Love Me Tomorrow”
Tonight you’re mine completely
You give your love so sweetly
Tonight the light of love is in your eyes
But will you love me tomorrowIs this a lasting treasure
Or just a moment’s pleasure
Can I believe the magic of your sighs
Will you still love me tomorrowTonight with words unspoken
You say that I’m the only one
But will my heart be broken
When the night meets the morning sunI’d like to know that your love
Is love I can be sure of
So tell me now and I won’t ask again
Will you still love me tomorrow
Will you still love me tomorrow
Will you still love me tomorrow
Will you still love me tomorrow
Pick-up artists and the hook-up culture are the way of the world. A friend of mine’s nineteen year old daughter just put Tinder onto her phone. My friend is hopeful that it will be all right, but if it will be, it will only be by the greatest good fortune since the culture will no longer look after her daughter nor give her sound advice. The best that can be hoped for is to get through your twenties with no major disasters. How it can be done today is to me an unknown.
[The basic theme is from The Other McCain where the link is found.]
A black ban on certain words
It is quite an astonishing thing how suddenly words we have been using all our lives become forbidden in polite company. And it does annoy me that for some reason I am generally clued in about what’s OK and what’s not. Although I may now have reached an age where either the message doesn’t get to me, or I cannot be bothered paying attention, or I just don’t care, I nevertheless find that I don’t break the rules, or not usually. And being aware of all of this, you won’t, for example, catch me using particular terminology to describe people of low mental abilities using any of those insensitive words from yesteryear. Nor will I use any of the terms from my youth about people who do not have the complete use of their limbs. And in this country, I am very careful to say “Aboriginals”, although I might still say Indians when I am talking about “Native Americans”, but that’s probably only because I don’t live there since they now too say “aboriginals”, and thus no longer distinguish between the ones that lived on the prairies and rode horses in comparison with those who lived north of the frost line and were pulled along on a dog sled. As for the Washington football team, it is hard to know whether it is even permissible to be one of its supporters – and now that I live here, I would never, ever say I r–t for the home team.
And so we come to Senator Abetz who described Mr Justice Clarence Thomas of the US Supreme Court as a “Negro” and has raised a ruckus among some of the most dreary people on the planet. They may disagree with everything that Justice Thomas says, but they will defend until the next change of official nomenclature the rightful moral turpitude that surrounds using this word in describing someone of Justice Thomas’s ancestry. I, of course, remember when it was suddenly unacceptable to say that word, which was replaced by “black”. And so, on those occasions I would need to refer to the racial origins of Louis Armstrong say, that would be the word I would use.
But now even that is out. In the US, it is now near-mandatory to say “African-American”. You can see Gerard Henderson wasn’t going to get caught out in the same way as Senator Abetz in discussing this very issue:
According to Craig Reucassel, the term “negro” is no longer used in civilised society with respect to negro music. Wrong — if anyone pays attention to David Marr. And, according to Julian Morrow, anyone who uses the term “negro” in contemporary discussion of African-Americans is a racist. Wrong. Unless the Chaser Boys regard your man Marr as a racist.
Of course it doesn’t make any difference what David Marr says to these people, since no one on the left wants to make cheap political points attacking him. Senator Abetz, on the other hand, that’s something different again. Political correctness is group think for people too dull-witted to think for themselves.
Law of Markets 