Only a university education in the arts could make you this ignorant

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The people who are Seeing the West as worse are those who live in the West and have transferred their pathologies to others. The article was too mild for my liking since it doesn’t present our present world as in crisis. But very good from which we find:

The dominant ideology on college campus – “cultural relativism” – leaves little room for anything other than a nasty take on Western history and culture. Many students, whether of immigrant parentage or descendants of the Mayflower, have only vague appreciation or knowledge of Western civilization, making them highly vulnerable to such pleading. They often go through college now with only the vaguest notion of our history, the writings of the American founders, the philosophy of the Enlightenment, our vast cultural heritage or the fundamental principles of Christianity or, if you will, Judeo-Christianity.

The migrant flows are in only one direction and the reason is so evident that it requires a university education in the arts and humanities not to understand.

Anti-anti-Trump

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The world remains a place of mystery: Clinton vs. Trump: Still A Dead Heat. Half of the American voting public would vote for Hillary. Who can make sense of such things, but there you are. More intriguing, we have William Voegeli writing The Reason I’m Anti-Anti-Trump.

The fact that Trump has become a credible contender despite, or even because of, his obvious faults argues, however, for taking his followers’ concerns seriously rather than dismissing them. It is not, in fact, particularly difficult to explain the emergence of Trumpismo in terms of legitimate concerns not addressed, and important duties not discharged. That such a flawed contender could be a front-runner tells us more about what’s wrong with the country than about what’s wrong with his followers. People have every reason to expect that their government will take its most basic responsibilities seriously, and every reason to be angry when, instead, it proves more feckless than conscientious. Governments are instituted among men to secure their inalienable rights, according to the Declaration of Independence. This means that when we and our rights are left avoidably insecure, government has failed in its central mission.

A government that worries about global warming more than immigration is a failed government and will in the fulness of time ruin the country it supposedly governs. And with the imperative for anyone to overcome the problems facing us being able to overcome the power of the media, there is no one other than Donald Trump who has found a way to do it. Voegeli concludes:

The best way to fortify Trump’s presidential campaign is to insist his followers’ grievances are simply illegitimate, bigoted, and ignorant. The best way to defeat it is to argue that their justified demands for competent, serious governance deserve a statesman, not a showman.

Fine, bring on the statesman or stateswoman. Meantime, if Hillary is the alternative, no one could look more statesmanlike than Trump.

Australia the least concerned about climate change

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climae change concern by country

 

We remain the most sensible country on earth although one would wish it were even better. The article doesn’t actually say it in the title – Pew: Americans the least concerned about climate change – but that is only because they are describing the chart at the start of the story. But then there is also this sentence in the text:

In a global survey of 40 nations about how concerned people are about climate change, America scored 8.78 on a scale from three to 12, where 12 is the most concerned. The U.S. was tied with the United Kingdom and only Poland, Israel and Australia scored lower, just by a hair.

By a hair or not, we are the lowest. You can go to the survey at the link and put in your own response to compare your views with the standard. Not that the lower end is all that low. If you complete the survey and then look at the results across the world, it still says that in Australia 43% of the population think climate change is a serious problem. Still, it is now more than half who do not and the trends are in the right direction.

Financial markets are surprised by the most surprising things

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Financial markets may have rules of their own, but even there it has to be that the value of financial products can only rise if the real value of the assets beneath them are also rising. In an economy in which the actual quantum of productive assets has deteriorated, nothing can make the real value of financial assets increase. Why is this a puzzle to anyone?

The idea behind asset allocation is simple: when one market struggles, it’s OK because an investor can jump into another that is thriving. Not so in 2015.

In fact, if you judge the past year by which U.S. investment class generated the largest return, a case can be made it was the worst for asset-allocating bulls in almost 80 years, according to data compiled by Bianco Research LLC and Bloomberg. With three days left, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has gained 2.2 percent with dividends, cash is up less, while bonds and commodities are showing losses.

If green energy is your idea of economic growth, to take just one example, the world of finance is going to be a very disappointing experience. It fits in perfectly with this: Debt distress level at highest since recession.

Media again fanning the winds of political change

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Are we looking at more media meddling in politics? These are both from today’s Oz.

First we have Shorten in a parlous state as Turnbull turns Victoria against Labor. Which we may contrast with this article by Anthony Albanese which may be found on the editorial page: Let’s return to rational infrastructure spending.

Turnbull was always going to be easier to beat than Abbott since if you like Malcolm you are really going to love Albanese.

And who should succeed that empty presidential chair?

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An empty chair has been an apt metaphor for Obama although I do think he began and continues with an agenda that in his own eyes has been quite successful. But Clint Eastwood got it right where others supposedly more knowledgeable did not and now we have this: Clint Eastwood Reveals Which Two Candidates ‘Would Be Better Than What We Got’ with Obama Now.

You’ll never guess. Well actually, you might guess at least one. And in fact in the video at the link he seems to mention three. In fact, I’m not even sure he has ruled out any of the leading Republican candidates.

As for Obama, every day we are reminded how dangerously hopeless he has has been in defending America’s interests which really means our interests. Today’s instalment.

WASH POST: Resurgent Taliban has officials increasingly grim…
Boots on the Ground: Special Forces Sent to Tackle Global Threats…
ISIS leader threatens West in audio message…
Israel attacks imminent…
European Capitals Warned of Bomb Plot Before NYE…
IRAN ACCUSES SAUDI OF PROMOTING TERRORISM…
Russia releases dramatic video of air strikes ‘on Islamic State oil empire’…

The war on hypocrisy

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There are swamps in the American political system so fetid that no one will even try to clear them out, with the one exception being Donald Trump. The article is naturally pro-Hillary but with Trump the way he is, they cannot avoid bringing the issue into the light. Trump campaign: Hillary bullied women to hide Bill’s ‘sexist secrets’. No doubt there is more to come.

Via Instapundit

Donald Trump may already be a conservative

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The picture of Donald Trump was taken by me at his very first public presentation that has taken him to the edge of the Republican nomination for president. This was at Freedomfest in Las Vegas last July. And what was notable about this presentation was that he sought out the invitation to speak. He was not on the program until he asked that he be included. And he perfectly well knew that Freedomfest is the most important annual meeting of conservatives and libertarians in the United States. What’s more, he gave one of his free wheeling speeches off the top of his head that had half the audience on its feet at the end. My feeling at the time was that in speaking to that audience he was in home territory among people who understood what he was about and about whom he understood what they were about. I live blogged his presentation and in re-reading it now, I can again see his vast appeal.

There is a post at Instapundit by Roger Simon, IT’S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE! Roger Simon: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love The Donald for Xmas. This is the passage quoted:

All the Republican candidates have their flaws, as does, in spades, the woman far at the front of the Democratic pack, described almost twenty years ago by William Safire in one of the most prescient op-eds ever as a “congenital liar.”

But my interest here is not in detailing everyone’s weaknesses – I like to remain friends with people – but, as a Christmas present to the angst-ridden, to try to explain how Trump’s flaws can be turned to the advantage of Republicans and conservatives. This is particularly important if, as appears highly possible, he wins the nomination. What do we do about it?

The answer is obvious. The solution to conservative angst over Trump is simple: stop criticizing him, co-opt him.

You don’t have to co-opt him. He is with us. Nobody understands all of the issues and everyone needs input to find their way. But what seems apparent on the evidence so far is that Trump is already onside with most of what we conservatives believe and would like to achieve. Marco Rubio had spoken the day before and left no impression other than he was too callow for the job. Given that it was Freedomfest, the libertarians there were largely ready to support Rand Paul. But it was only Trump who actually made fixing things seem possible. It may be a mirage. He may in the end not have what it takes. But unless he is the greatest charlatan in political history – putting even Obama into the shade – what you see is what you get, and what you get is possibly the most conservative candidate we have seen since Ronald Reagan. What constitutes a conservative in the era of Obama and Clinton is something different from what it was in 1980. Donald Trump may be as conservative as it is possible to be at the present time and still get elected in the United States.

Christmas in Australia

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Part of what I love about Australia is that we are the least PC country in the English speaking world. The picture is of Flinders Street Station in the middle of Melbourne and the same words are found all over our trams and buses. In the idiot parts of the Anglosphere there is a “War on Christmas” where such public displays of our Christian heritage are virtually impossible to imagine. Discussed here by Ed Driscoll at Instapundit who quotes Jonah Goldberg.

The war on Christmas represents a special kind of passive-aggressive jackassery because the aggressors deny they have declared a war. They simply take offense at Christmas cheer. They cancel Christmas pageants. They leave baby Jesus in a cardboard box in the church basement, but see nothing wrong with celebrating the Winter Solstice as if that’s a more rational thing to do. And then, when people complain about this undeclared war on Christmas, the aggressors mock and ridicule them for paranoia and hyperbole.

Much of what drives the left is their war on our Christian heritage and values. These latter-day Voltaires think they are free thinkers, standing up for truth and rationality when they are in reality our most deadly enemies since they have been willing to make common cause with Marxists and Islamists who also war against Christianity. Australia remains relatively unaffected by this, at least for now, but is far from unaffected. The hatred for Tony Abbott, for example, was in no small part driven by a widespread disdain on the left for his Christian beliefs.