Watching the Barabarians

Another short extract that highlights the defective thinking behind many of the neo-Marxist 'progressives' in western society today.

Consider also that assault rifles are rarely used by criminals, because they are neither easily portable nor easily concealed. In Chicago, the murder capital of America—a city with draconian gun laws—pistols are the weapon of choice, even for gang-related executions. But of course there are the horrible exceptions—the mass shootings in recent years—and certainly we must keep assault weapons with high-capacity magazines out of the hands of people who are prone to commit such atrocities.

The shooters in Arizona, Colorado, and Newtown were mentally ill persons who, by all accounts, should have been incarcerated. Even the Los Angeles Times admits that “there is a connection between mental illness and mass murder.” But the same progressives who advocate gun control also oppose the involuntary incarceration of mentally ill people who, in the case of these mass shootings, posed obvious dangers to society before they committed their horrendous acts of violence. From the point of view of the progressives who oppose involuntary incarceration of the mentally ill—you can thank the ACLU and like-minded organizations—it is better to disarm the entire population, and deprive them of their constitutional freedoms, than to incarcerate a few mentally ill persons who are prone to engage in violent crimes.
 

Truth be told these activists are not concerned with creating a 'better world' as their catch cry would suggest, they like those of their ilk who preceded them, are committed to reducing western civilisation to rubble in order to rebuild it so that they can usher in the ideological utopia wherein they are the elite.
The problem with that is that just as soon as they have succeeded in destroying the culture the true barbarians will take over and the first to go will be the 'useful idiots'.
If the consequences for all were not so diabolical it would almost be amusing.

Shades of Nero

Does anyone smell the scent of burning crosses in the morning?

Example three comes from the US military. It has long been a promoter of political correctness and the homosexual agenda. And in doing so, it has been waging war against religion. Consider this incredible headline: “Army Reserve training material lists Catholics, evangelical Christians and some Jews in ‘religious extremism’ category along with the KKK, Hamas and Al Qaeda.”

The story opens, “A slideshow presentation shown to US Army Reserve recruits classifies Christians, including both evangelicals and Roman Catholics, as religious extremists, placing them in the same category as skinheads, the Ku Klux Klan, Hamas and Al Qaeda.

troubling times

makes sense to me:
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April 10, 2013

Guns: The Left's True Aim, and How to Thwart It  -- By Lewis Dovland

We must not lose focus on the end goal of progressives regarding guns. Make no mistake; regardless of what they say, their ultimate goal is confiscation of all guns in America. And a "universal background check" will get them closer to this nirvana than the banning of a few selected weapons ever could.

To understand progressive methodology, let's use another similar issue: the gay marriage agenda. Say the current definition of "marriage" as it has been for thousands of years is represented by "A" on a continuum of A to Z, with "Z" being the left's ultimate goal. Asking for "Z" now would be a major overreach (and "Z" is much farther than just gay marriage), so progressives ask for "N," which is just enough of a stretch to make people push back only a little.

So to protect a foundation of society, the people of California overwhelmingly vote a law that defines marriage -- an appropriate state's rights issue. The left goes to court and has California's decision overturned. The people next pass a state constitutional amendment, and again the left gets it overturned, and now it is in the Supreme Court. The left also applies public pressure through the media to brand anyone who doesn't agree as a homophobe or hater, all the while controlling the educational curriculum so only one side of the argument is taught to our children.

Eventually, progressives will get only "C" this time, which is really all they wanted for now. But note something powerful here. "C" becomes the new "A." So there is never a way to back it up to the original "A." Over time, they will win another "C" that becomes "A."

Before long we find that we are at "H" on the original A-Z scale, but "H" is now considered "A". And so it continues.

Note the steps:

• Ask for more than you know you can achieve. In fact, ask for something you don't even want. Then everyone will be focused more on that than on your real goal.
• Use all media and educational tools to inculcate your view in the public and low-information voters.
• Develop your own lexicon, redefine words, and then keep pounding those words into the psyche each time you speak.
• Attack your opponents not on logic or facts, but by name-calling and emotion, and accuse them of being "obstructionist."
• When you concede, always be sure you've moved the marker a little farther toward your goal.
• Reset the measures so that the new position is now considered "normal," which makes it impossible for anyone to argue against or reverse.
• Never, ever give up or stop pushing, even when you (temporarily) lose.

How does this strategy apply to the gun issue? At this time, the left does not expect to restrict the sale of "assault weapons." That effort is a deliberate misdirection to throw us off-base so we are jousting with the wrong target and using up energy.

What the left wants is universal background checks. If leftists get that, they actually leapfrog the restrictions on certain weapon types. How?

No one can buy a modern operational firearm from a licensed dealer today without a background check. Period. There is no "gun show loophole," because to buy a gun at a gun show from a licensed dealer -- the only entity permitted to sell at gun shows -- one must pass the background check or show a firearms license.

Not controlled are sales of guns between private parties. You can sell me your gun in a face-to-face transaction without requiring that you get a background check on me.

Look at where this is going. The left is asking to ban the sale of "assault" weapons. Using the marriage example above, this is moving the marker from "A" to about "N" on the scale, since "Z" would be the total ban and confiscation of guns. The left knows that a ban is not possible, although "Z" is their ultimate goal. But what are they doing?

Ask for "N" when you know that "C" is possible, use the media and lexicon ("assault weapon," "gun show loophole") to pound home the message, demonize those who disagree, and get media support. Use emotion -- see Obama's recent "shame on us" speech with the Newtown families standing behind him.

And then, the final, sneaky step. Say, "Well, the American people just don't understand the need to ban these assault weapons, so at least give us background check legislation. That is not too much to ask for the children's sake." And if we don't agree to that, they call us "obstructionist" and other names, trying to shame us into action. If they succeed, we will have just moved from "A" to "S" on the scale, well past "N." How?

Enforcing the universal background check will require registration of all guns in a national database; otherwise, how and where do we prevent private sales without background checks? And the details of how to enforce the background checks will be handled by the legislation, neatly out of the direct view of the public. Once that occurs, the government will have a list of all legal guns and owners in the U.S., making confiscation extremely easy when the time comes.

And where are the teeth to make a gun owner register a gun, when he never expects to sell it? All the left needs to do is make possession of an unregistered gun a felony -- a "minor" clause in the law when they craft it. Then, when you defend yourself at 3 a.m. from an armed home invasion and your gun is found, you will be in more trouble than the perps. As a felon, you then lose your right to own any guns.

That is the goal here. Watch for the left to cave on the assault weapon ban and "settle" for just universal background checks. Sounds innocuous, right? If granted, it will provide the left with much, much more than they ever hoped to get at this juncture.

Our answer must be: "Never, never, never -- not one inch." No universal background checks, ever. Enforce the laws we have now. Otherwise, game over for us.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/04/guns_the_lefts_true_aim_and_how_to_thwart_it.html#ixzz2Q2x5fHLJ
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Maggie the prophet

Maggie Thatcher's speech to her party conference in 1975 pretty much sums up the Labor party of Australia in the 21st century. Who knew that she was prescient as well as tough.
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The economic challenge has been debated at length in this hall.
Last week it gave rise to the usual scenes of cordial brotherly strife.
Day after day the comrades called one another far from comradely names, and occasionally, when they remembered, they called us names too.
Some of them, for example, suggested that I criticised Britain when I was overseas. They are wrong.
It wasn’t Britain I was criticising. It was-Socialism. (Applause).
And I will go on criticising Socialism, and opposing Socialism because it is bad for Britain—and Britain and
Socialism are not the same thing.
As long as I have health and strength, they never will be. (Applause).
But whatever could I say about Britain that is half as damaging as what this Labour Government have done to our country?
Let’s look at the record.
It is the Labour Government that have caused prices to rise at a record rate of 26 per cent a year.
They told us that the Social Contract would solve everything. But now everyone can see that the so-called contract was a fraud—a fraud for which the people of this country have had to pay a very high price.
It is the Labour Government whose policies are forcing unemployment higher than it need have been—thousands more men and women lose their jobs every day.
There are going to be men and women many of them youngsters straight out of school—who will be without a job this winter because Socialist Ministers spent last year attacking us, instead of attacking inflation.
And it’s the Labour Government that have brought the level of production below that of the 3-day week in 1974. W’ve really got a 3-day week now,—only it takes five days to do it. (Applause).
It’s the Labour Government that have brought us record peace-time taxation. They’ve got the usual Socialist disease—they’ve run out of other people’s money. (Laughter).
And it’s the Labour Government that have pushed public spending to record levels.
And how’ve they done it? By borrowing, and borrowing and borrowing.
Never in the field of human credit has so much been owed. (Laughter). End of section checked against ITN News at Ten, 10 October 1975.
But serious as the economic challenge is, the political and moral challenge is just as grave, perhaps more so.
Economic problems never start with economics. They have deeper roots—in human nature and in politics.
They don’t finish at economics either.
Labour’s failure to cope, to look at the nation’s problems from the point of view of the whole nation, not just one section of it, has led to loss of confidence and a sense of helplessness.
With it goes a feeling that Parliament, which ought to be in charge, is not in charge—that the actions and the decisions are taken elsewhere.
And it goes deeper than that. There are voices that seem anxious not to overcome our economic difficulties, but to exploit them, to destroy the free enterprise society and put a Marxist system in its place.
…
I sometimes think the Labour Party is like a pub where the mild is running out. If someone doesn’t do something soon, all that’s left will be bitter. (Laughter). And all that’s bitter will be Left. (Laughter).
Whenever I visit Communist countries, their politicians never hesitate to boast about their achievements.
They know them all by heart and reel off the facts and figures, claiming that this is the rich harvest of the Communist system.
Yet they are not prosperous as we in the West are prosperous, and they are not free as we in the West are free.
Our capitalist system produces a far higher standard of prosperity and happiness because it believes in incentive and opportunity, and because it is founded on human dignity and freedom. (Applause).
Even the Russians have to go to a capitalist country, America to buy enough wheat to feed their people. And that aftermore than 50 years of a State controlled economy.
Yet they boast incessantly while we, who have so much more to boast about, forever criticise and decry.
Isn’t it time we spoke up for our way of life? (Applause) After all, no Western nation has to build a wall round itself to keep its people in. (Applause).
So let us have no truck with those who say the free enterprise system has failed. What we face today is not a crisis of capitalism, but of Socialism. No country can flourish if its economic and social life is dominated by nationalisation and state control.
The cause of our shortcomings does not therefore lie in private enterprise. Our problem is not that we have too little socialism. It is that we have too much

Exposed!

One of Australia's few remaining genuine journalists nails it again:

Thatcher should have been a feminist hero, but ideologues like Greer could never stomach the fact that a conservative woman had risen to the top on her own merits, making a mockery of their quota systems.

Feminists of her era treated Thatcher like a gender traitor, and ignored or derided her achievements, proving that their real ambition was not female equality but advancing the collectivist statist ideology she spent her life demolishing.

LOL

isn't this a classic:

I just want to highlight again just the last part of that last paragraph from that report from 1817:

…..the Eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have so far never ventured so far North, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds. Within a few years it is predicted that, due to the ice melt, the sea will rise and make most coastal cities uninhabitable.”

What surprises me is that this meme is still doing the rounds these days, almost 200 years later.

People (mainly those who support CAGW) STILL think that the melting Arctic Ice will lead to humungous seal level rises, flooding coastal regions.

It always makes me smile, and it almost got me into trouble once, that smiling bit. One person saw my smile, and in an almost aggrieved tone told me that this was no joking matter to be smiling about.

I mentioned to him that this was Sea Ice. He gave me a somewhat puzzled look and added the standard comeback ….. “And your point is?”

I just politely mentioned the phrase Archimedes Principle.

The dumbfounded look that followed was absolutely priceless. He had no idea, so I mentioned that the ice already floating in the ocean (Sea Ice or North Polar Ice) was already in the water and even if it all melted, it would not raise sea levels at all.

He still couldn’t see the point.

What absolutely amazes me is that people like this will believe what is the most complex science that some CAGW Scientists come out with, accept that verbatim, and then have no idea at all about the High School Science they actually learned themselves while at school.

He was still absolutely certain I was lying to support my own views.

It’s not isolated either. In the five years I’ve been following this. that position is not just occasional, but is actually the belief of a lot of people.

Tony.
 

way to go Tony!

Creeping totalitarianism

I have been very remiss of late in my blog pontifications.
Perhaps it is because I have had a school-terms worth of teaching and have thus been able to express my issues with a select but attentive group of worthy thinkers.
However, I am once again motivated to share with you; my few remaining blog surfers, the columns/information which provide a close proximity to my own train of thought.
Therefore, and in that vein, I think this article worth reading. http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/qed/2013/04/if-the-jackboot-fits
It deals with how the term fascism has been subverted to mean only totalitarianism of the right where in fact it applies equally (perhaps more so) to the left and is the most accurate term for the creeping (accelerating) hegemony that embodies the current 'government' of Australia's worldview.
The article expresses rather eloquently a perspective that I agree with.