Category: Freedom of Speech

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contemporary witches

I was going over the news today:

Detroit insolvent

Mayhem at Mother’s Day parade in New Orleans

Jason Richwine canned from Heritage Foundation for accurate descriptions of Mexican-American intelligence levels in a PhD thesis of years back

Obama regime considers forbidding Christians to proselytize within US Army,  and so forth;

as Western society drops its ideological and religious antibodies, declaring them to be racist, sexist, homophobic etc., and I wonder, what will fill the vacuum? Islam?

Here we are, making our societies deliberately less intelligent, and forbidding discussion of it; making our societies so tolerant we lose any sight of permanent moral realities; absorbing underclass behaviour and saying white people cause it through bad thoughts, rather than black people causing it through total lack of thoughts; dropping standards because they derive from European civilization, or because they are Christian, or because their existence implies that moral standards exist at all, or that they exclude people who would rather be ruthlessly intolerant, exclusivist, and hate-filled from full and equal participation in liberal society’s rich banquet.

Why are we doing this?

More relevant, perhaps, is the approach of the commentariat on those who would draw attention to the permanence and reality of racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, and cultural divisions. The latter are the new witches. They cast spells of racism, sexism and homophobia, and much else besides. They must cause the underperformance or bad behaviour  of the groups they describe. Clearly, since all different outcomes are the result, not of any kind of innate or persistence differences among groups, but of social causes, then the people who draw attention to these moral standards, innate or persistent differences, and who refuse to believe in unqualified human equality must be causing the problem. Witches!Burn them!

The modern cultural marxist commentariat is reduced to believing in white witches, rather than change their thinking. Why should they, when the science is settled, there is only one politically correct view of anything, and they control the courts, the universities, and all the pulpits that matter.

 

 

Why? Deniers of Jihad cannot explain the world

The obvious inability of apparently rational Americans to conclude that jihad exists, and that some Muslims express themselves through jihad, is a mystery. For some, the link between jihad and the Koran is not conclusive, since, as far as they are concerned, every religion except perhaps Buddhism enjoins its followers to smite the wicked and the unbelievers. So since every religion does this, it is for them impossible to conclude a relationship between Islam, jihad, and terrorist explosions.

Many of these people are in good faith.

They are employing a burden of proof towards the relationship of Islam to jihadist activity that they do not employ in most other circumstances. If they maintained the same burden of proof towards the dangers of  crossing a street through heavy fast moving traffic, for example, they would  tend to be killed. But when it comes to distributed patterns over time and space, failure to perceive patterns is both easier and serves other, more comforting purposes.

What is the cause of the blockage?

I think that the cause of the blockage for many is that, if they concluded such a relationship existed, namely that as Islam:jihad::Communism: class warfare,  they would feel obliged to take much more extreme action than they would like. For many, the existence of such a link would present problems of conscience because they would feel the next step might be the surrender of valuable civil liberties, or worse, mass arrests, deportations, even massacres. So denying the causal link is the basis of continuing to feel comfortable with discomforting facts.

In other words I do not believe that the jihad deniers are unaware of the facts; they resist drawing a picture to themselves of the general relationship among the facts because to do so would force them to conclusions they feel uncomfortable with.

But as the article by Stella Paul in the American Thinker said, we are simultaneously being asked to see something, but denied the legitimacy to say in public what we see, which is jihad.

 

 

 

 

Excerpt from Geert Wilders’ speech in Australia

“This brings me to the second major topic of my speech. The nature of Islam.

Is it not strange that we, who are not Muslims, are punished by Islam for breaking Islamic rules? Religious rules do not apply to people who do not belong to a specific religion, do they? Indeed, a religion — every religion — should be voluntary. Yet, Islam imposes its rules on everyone.

Why does sharia law alter our Western secular legal system in such a dramatic fashion? The answer is that rather than a religion, Islam is a totalitarian political ideology which aims to impose its legal system on the whole society.

Islam is an ideology because it is political rather than religious: Islam is an ideology because it aims for an Islamic state and wants to impose Islamic Sharia law on all of us.

Islam is totalitarian because it is not voluntary. It orders that people who leave Islam must be killed.

Contrary to all the other religions — real religions — Islam also lays obligations on non-members.

Your fellow Australian, the theologian Mark Durie has said — I quote: “Islam classically demands a political realization, and specifically one in which Islam rules over all other religions, ideologies and competing political visions. Islam is not unique in having a political vision or speaking to politics, but it is unique in demanding that it alone must rule the political sphere.” — end of quote.

We can see what Islam has in store for us if we watch the fate of the Christians in the Islamic world, such as the Copts in Egypt, the Maronites in Lebanon, the Assyrians in Iraq, and Christians anywhere in the Islamic and Arab world. The cause of their suffering is Islam. Indeed, the only place in the Middle East where Christians are safe to be Christians is Israel. Israel is also the only democracy in the Middle East, a beacon of light in an area of total darkness. We should all support Israel.

My friends, I always make a distinction between Muslims and Islam. Most Muslims are moderate, but the ideology of Islam is dangerous. The moderates are the captives of a totalitarian system. If only they could liberate themselves from the Islamic culture of fatalism and apathy, then the most beautiful things could happen to them and the whole world.”

Apologia for repression of speech

In the name of victimhood. A Carleton student tears down a “free speech” wall, in the name of holding people to account for the consequences of free speech, which is hurtful to the oppressed.

Arun Smith, the perpetrator, explains himself:

we rely on buzzwords like “free speech” to help us either ignore or perpetuate the gross suffering that our words and actions can cause.  We forget, often deliberately, that the damage we do to individuals in marginalized communities, and to those communities themselves, is inhumane and unjust, and that responding to it with more meaningless platitudes about inclusion and equity is doing nothing to fundamentally alter the status quo.  Given this, I consider this action both a moral imperative, and one entirely in line with the mandates of the positions that students on this campus have chosen for me to hold….

In organizing the “free speech wall,” the Students for Liberty have forgotten that liberty requires liberation, and this liberation is prevented by providing space for either more platitudes, or for the expression of hate.  Further, to organize for this “wall” to be erected during our Pride Week, where our communities are supposed to be able to seek liberation and celebrate our diversity, is offensive, ill-considered, and dangerous.

…there can be no safe(r) spaces where there is potential for triggering, the invalidation or questioning of the identities of others, and/or the expression of hatred.

When one has little to no institutional support, and where those who are supposed to protect abrogate or abdicate their responsibilities, there is little recourse beyond acts of resistance.

Remorselessly, and with the utmost sincerity,

Arun Smith
HBA Human Rights and Political Science: International Relations, minor in Sexuality Studies; expected 2013

Challenge Homophobia and Transphobia Campaign Coordinator – Carleton University
Human Rights Representative – Carleton Academic Student Government
Activist/Organizer

As I said in The Enemies of Discourse,

  • the claims being made here are based on victmhood;
  • which victimhood generates rights to deeds not available to those defending privilege (absence of victimhood), such as violence against the expressions of others;
  • that hate is the only conceivable motivation of those who disagree, rather than disagreement about the nature of the rights in dispute,
  • which rights are held indisputable; in consequence of which
  • it is impermissible to question any assertions by any person of the self-proclaimed sexual identities, which is the basis of their “victimhood”, or claims of privilege.

The reasoning is circular and rests on the assertion of privilege in the form of victimhood. Once victimhood is asserted, then any action which threatens, or seems to dsipute the assertion of victim status, is ipso facto, illegitimate and may be met by “resistance”.

The two most closely fitting descriptions of “post-modern” discourse I mentioned were:

• lacking “means by which to negotiate or accommodate such intractable differences within its mode of conversation,” it will “typically resort to the most fiercely antagonistic, demonizing, and personal attacks upon the opposition”;
• “will typically try, not to answer opponents with better arguments, but to silence them completely as ‘hateful’, ‘intolerant’, ‘bigoted’, ‘misogynistic’, ‘homophobic’, etc.”;

The greatest presumption of Mr. Arun Smith, the fascist creep, are  his claims to immunity from disagreement. He seems not to be aware that politics is possible at all, that the civil handling of disagreement is the business of life, and especially of universities. He should be expelled for failure to understand this is what university life is about.

I notice, by the way, that “resistance” is the term used both by Islamists and special pleaders like Arun Smith to legitimize acts of aggression.

_______________

More on this precious example of an oppressor masking as a victim, and here, here and here. Satire of Arun smith has already been investigated as a “hate crime”. His future in Canadian politics is secure.

 

A good analysis from David Thompson of the same Arun Smith and his entitlement through victimhood.

Gates of Vienna

Gates of Vienna has been, along with Vlad Tepes, one of the premier blogs discussing the Islamic threat. On my daily scroll through the blogs today, I found it is in violation of “Blogger’s Terms of Service”. I await an explanation from Google. Another victim of  political correctness. The censorship is enforced through terms of use. Next thing you know, you will not be able to criticize Christianity, or the Roman Catholic Church.

The enemies of discourse

The enemies of honest discourse are those who believe that sensitivities trump truth. Since, in their view, there is no truth, truth has no claim to trump sensitivity. Indeed it has no claim at all. Those of us who believe, roughly but simply, that the truth is out there, that it is discovered, that a process of reasoning and discourse uncovers the layers of not-quite-fully-true from the more-fully-true, are in for trouble when we come across the legions of Untruth. The modern nihilists- for that is what they are – claim sensitivity and victimhood as their badges of  honour, their passport to not be questioned. Those who question and attack are motivated by “hate”, and need thought correction.

I got the following long citation from Kevin Westhues. He based himself on several academic mobbing incidents where professors were turfed for discussing something in honest terms.

Modern discourse

Following are ten key characteristics of modern discourse, what many professors and students even now consider the normal or standard way to think, study and argue in the academy:
• “personal detachment from the issues under discussion,” the separation of participants’ personal identities from subjects of inquiry and topics of debate;
• values on “confidence, originality, agonism, independence of thought, creativity, assertiveness, the mastery of one’s feelings, a thick skin and high tolerance for your own and others’ discomfort”;
• suited to a heterotopic space like a university class, scholarly journal, or session of a learned society conference, a place apart much like a playing field for sports events, where competitors engage in ritual combat before returning with a handshake to the realm of friendly, personal interaction;
• illustrated by debate in the British House of Commons;
• epitomized by the debates a century ago between socialist G. B. Shaw and distributist G. K. Chesterton;
• playfulness is legitimate: one can play devil’s advocate, speak tongue in cheek, overstate and use hyperbole, the object being not to capture the truth in a single, balanced monologue, but to expose the strengths and weaknesses of various positions;
• “scathing satire and sharp criticism” are also legitimate;
• the best ideas are thought to emerge from mutual, merciless probing and attacking of arguments, with resultant exposure of blindspots in vision, cracks in theories, inconsistencies in logic;
• participants are forced again and again to return to the drawing board and produce better arguments;
• the truth is understood not to be located in any single voice, but to emerge from the conversation as a whole.

Postmodern discourse

Over the past half century, a competing mode of discourse, the one I call postmodern, has become steadily more entrenched in academe. Following are ten of its hallmarks, as Roberts and Sailer describe on their blogs:
• “persons and positions are ordinarily closely related,” with little insistence on keeping personal identity separate from the questions or issues under discussion;
• “sensitivity, inclusivity, and inoffensiveness are key values”;
• priority on “cooperation, collaboration, quietness, sedentariness, empathy, equality, non-competitiveness, conformity, a communal focus”;
• “seems lacking in rationality and ideological challenge,” in the eyes of proponents of modern discourse;
• tends to perceive the satire and criticism of modern discourse as “vicious and personal attack, driven by a hateful animus”;
• is oriented to ” the standard measures of grades, tests, and a closely defined curriculum”;
• lacking “means by which to negotiate or accommodate such intractable differences within its mode of conversation,” it will “typically resort to the most fiercely antagonistic, demonizing, and personal attacks upon the opposition”;
• “will typically try, not to answer opponents with better arguments, but to silence them completely as ‘hateful’, ‘intolerant’, ‘bigoted’, ‘misogynistic’, ‘homophobic’, etc.”;
• has a more feminine flavour, as opposed to the more masculine flavour of modern discourse;
• results in “stale monologues” and contexts that “seldom produce strong thought, but rather tend to become echo chambers.”

Westhues was basing himself on two pieces: one by the incomparable Steve Sailer, and the other by Andrew Roberts, a student at a northern British university, who writes a decent blog.

Roberts:

As Western society has become progressively more sensitized to victims, the unempowered, and the disenfranchised, and has desired to give a voice to them, we have tended to truncate or limit public discourse in various ways to ensure that such groups don’t feel threatened. While well-meaning, this reformation of public discourse has come at considerable cost. It has rendered the taking of offence or the playing of the victim or underdog card incredibly powerful ploys within debate. In many cases these ploys overwhelm the debate, making challenging debate next to impossible.

Read more here.

Faced with an opposing position that will not compromise in the face of its calls for sensitivity and its cries of offence, such a mode of discourse lacks the strength of argument to parry challenges. Nor does it have any means by which to negotiate or accommodate such intractable differences within its mode of conversation. Consequently, it will typically resort to the most fiercely antagonistic, demonizing, and personal attacks upon the opposition. While firm differences can be comfortably negotiated within the contrasting form of discourse, a mode of discourse governed by sensitivities and ‘tolerance’ cannot tolerate uncompromising difference. Without a bounded and rule-governed realm for negotiating differences, antagonism becomes absolute and opposition total. Supporters of this ‘sensitive’ mode of discourse will typically try, not to answer opponents with better arguments, but to silence them completely as ‘hateful’, ‘intolerant’, ‘bigoted’, ‘misogynistic’, ‘homophobic’, etc.

Had it not been for my re-immersion in university life a few years ago, I might have thought such views as caricatures, exaggerations. They are not.

The people who resort to this style of debate fall into two camps: the truly inept, and the wholly cynical. The wholly cynical exploiters of the sensitivity-trumps-truth mode were quite surprized to hear me call them fascists. They objected that they were pure souls of moral enlightenment. I replied one did not need to put on an armband in the morning to be a fascist: all that one has to do is believe power trumps truth, and the sensitivity discourse is their path to power. I met these people in the 1960s and 70s. They were marxists then. The cover has changed since but the shit inside is still the same.

Preposterous bitching in British press

For those of you who wonder why half my entries deal with political correctness, you may find this article by Rod Liddle of the Spectator amusing.

One Suzanne Moore, of the bien pensant left, wrote:

‘Women … are angry with ourselves for not being happier, not being loved properly and not having the ideal body shape — that of a Brazilian transsexual.’

Rod Liddle

One of these days, not too far away, the entire bourgeois bien-pensant left will self-immolate entirely leaving behind nothing but a thin skein of smoke smelling slightly of goji berries. Please let that day come quickly. In the meantime let us simply enjoy ourselves watching them tear each other to pieces, mired in their competing victimhoods, seething with acquired sensitivity, with inchoate rage and fury, inventing more and more hate crimes with which they might punish people who are not themselves.

Read the article. The facts are self-satirizing

 

The BBC and the debate on “anti-liberal” doctrines

The BBC concludes an item on the manifesto of convicted mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik thusly:

Breivik offers a clear instance of “Christianism” – the use of travestied Christian doctrines for the advancement of violent and revolutionary views. That is no reason for anyone to demonise more than a billion worshippers of Jesus Christ. By the same token, Islamism remains a political perversion of a Muslim faith shared by a billion souls.

Such anti-liberal doctrines can be – and have been – defeated by robust discussion and debate.

And justly so. Fair enough, Auntie Beeb, you first:

The British Broadcasting Corporation has spent almost £333,000 in legal costs associated with its efforts to conceal the Balen Report, a 2004 internal inquiry into the BBC’s coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict whose contents were never released to the public.

After all, robust debate in England over anti-liberal doctrines has been going on since at least 1644.