Deconstructing "Progressive " thought

[a_majoor]

While it may be easy to dismiss this man as a crank or an extremeist, the positions he holds are simply the logical endpoints of this ideology:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-face-genocidal-eco-fascism

Guest Post: The Face of Genocidal Eco-Fascism
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/18/2012 14:28 -0400

Submitted by John Aziz of Azizonomics

The Face of Genocidal Eco-Fascism

I am not exaggerating.

This is Finnish writer Pentti Linkola — a man who demands that the human population reduce its size to around 500 million and abandon modern technology and the pursuit of economic growth — in his own words.

He likens Earth today to an overflowing lifeboat:

What to do, when a ship carrying a hundred passengers suddenly capsizes and there is only one lifeboat? When the lifeboat is full, those who hate life will try to load it with more people and sink the lot. Those who love and respect life will take the ship’s axe and sever the extra hands that cling to the sides.

He sees America as the root of the problem:

The United States symbolises the worst ideologies in the world: growth and freedom.

He unapologetically advocates bloodthirsty dictatorship:

Any dictatorship would be better than modern democracy. There cannot be so incompetent a dictator that he would show more stupidity than a majority of the people. The best dictatorship would be one where lots of heads would roll and where government would prevent any economical growth.

We will have to learn from the history of revolutionary movements — the national socialists, the Finnish Stalinists, from the many stages of the Russian revolution, from the methods of the Red Brigades — and forget our narcissistic selves.

A fundamental, devastating error is to set up a political system based on desire. Society and life have been organized on the basis of what an individual wants, not on what is good for him or her.

As is often the way with extremist central planners Linkola believes he knows what is best for each and every individual, as well as society as a whole:

Just as only one out of 100,000 has the talent to be an engineer or an acrobat, only a few are those truly capable of managing the matters of a nation or mankind as a whole. In this time and this part of the World we are headlessly hanging on democracy and the parliamentary system, even though these are the most mindless and desperate experiments of mankind. In democratic coutries the destruction of nature and sum of ecological disasters has accumulated most. Our only hope lies in strong central government and uncompromising control of the individual citizen.

In that sense, Linkola’s agenda is really nothing new; it is as old as humans. And I am barely scratching the surface; Linkola has called for “some trans-national body like the UN” to reduce the population “via nuclear weapons” or with “bacteriological and chemical attacks”.

But really he is just another freedom-hating authoritarian — like the Nazis and Stalinists he so admires — who desires control over his fellow humans. Ecology, I think, is window-dressing. Certainly, he seems to have no real admiration or even concept of nature as a self-sustaining, self-organising mechanism, or faith that nature will be able to overcome whatever humanity throws at it. Nor does he seem to have any appreciation for the concept that humans are a product of and part of nature; if nature did not want us doing what we do nature would never have produced us. Nature is greater and smarter than we will probably ever be. I trust nature; Linkola seems to think he knows better. As George Carlin noted:

We’re so self-important. Everybody’s gonna save something now. Save the trees. Save the bees. Save the whales. Save those snails. And the greatest arrogance of all, save the planet. What? Are these fucking people kidding me? Save the planet? We don’t even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven’t learned how to care for one another and we’re gonna save the fucking planet?

There is nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The people are fucked. Difference. The planet is fine.

Linkola and similar thinkers seem to have no real interest in meeting the challenges of life on Earth. Their platform seems less about the environment and more about exerting control over the rest of humanity. Linkola glories in brutality, suffering and mass-murder.

Now Linkola is just one fringe voice. But he embodies the key characteristic of the environmental movement today: the belief that human beings are a threat to their environment, and in order for that threat to be neutralised, governments must take away our rights to make our own decisions and implement some form of central planning. Linkola, of course, advocates an extreme and vile form of Malthusianism including genocide, forced abortion and eugenics.

But all forms of central planning are a dead end and lead inexorably toward breakdown; as Hayek demonstrated conclusively in the 1930s central planners have always had a horrible track record in decision making, because their decisions lack the dynamic feedback mechanism present in the market.  This means that capital and labour are misallocated, and anyone who has studied even a cursory history of the USSR or Maoist China knows the kinds of outcomes that this has lead to: at best the rotting ghost cities of China today, and at worst the mass starvation of the Great Leap Forward resulting in millions of deaths and untold misery.

Environmentalists should instead pursue ideas that respect individual liberty and markets. There is more potential in developing technical solutions to environmental challenges than there is in implementing central planning.

If we are emitting excessive quantities of CO2 we don’t have to resort to authoritarian solutions. It’s far easier to develop and market technologies like carbon scrubbing trees (that already exist today) that can literally strip CO2 out of the air than it is to try and develop and enforce top-down controlling rules and regulations on individual carbon output. Or (even more simply), plant lots of trees and other such foliage (e.g. algae).

If the dangers of non-biodegradable plastic threaten our oceans, then develop and market processes (that already exist today) to clean up these plastics.

Worried about resource depletion? Asteroid mining can give us access to thousands of tonnes of metals, water, and even hydrocarbons (methane, etc). For more bountiful energy, synthetic oil technology exists today. And of course, more capturable solar energy hits the Earth in sunlight in a single day than we use in a year.

The real problem with centrally-planned Malthusian population reduction programs is that they greatly underestimate the value of human beings.

More people means more potential output — both in economic terms, as well as in terms of ideas. Simply, the more people on the planet, the more hours and brainpower we have to create technical solutions to these challenges. After all, the expansion of human capacity through technical development was precisely how humanity overcame the short-sighted and foolish apocalypticism of Thomas Malthus who wrongly predicted an imminent population crash in the 19th century.

My suggestion for all such thinkers is that if they want to reduce the global population they should measure up to their words and go first.

 

[Retired AF Guy]

The problem with people like Pentti Linkola is that they're never willing to lead by example.

 

[Sythen]

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/canada/archives/2012/05/20120530-214652.html

Adding this link to follow up on an earlier discussion on the SCC decision to make it mandatory an Aboriginal's history must be taken into account.

Quotes from link (text coloured by me):

TIMMINS, ON - A man portrayed as a sadistic "monster" who sexually abused his young stepdaughter and tortured family pets was sentenced Wednesday to 12 years in jail.
Michael Murray, 40, of Fox Lake Reserve, was convicted off 12 charges including six counts of sexual assault, two counts of sexual exploitation one count of causing unnecessary suffering, and two assaults - one causing bodily harm and the other with a weapon.

The judge said Murray posed a high risk to re-offend in light of his lengthy criminal record and numerous convictions for violence and weapons offenses.

Bragagnolo said he surprised Murray received what he viewed to be a harsh sentence of 12 years.

"I am quite surprised by that," he said. "In my view, the judge did not properly consider his Aboriginal ancestry and that may be grounds for appeal."

So as I said before, how long til every sentence is appealed and the judges just start saying heck with it?

 

[a_majoor]

Really needs no further comment:

http://pjmedia.com/eddriscoll/2012/07/14/apocalyptic-daze/

Apocalyptic Daze
July 14, 2012 - 4:20 pm - by Ed Driscoll
     
Back in 2008, James Lileks reflected on his love of midcentury modernism (and its happy-go-lucky offshoots such as Googie) by reflecting back on the fundamental American optimism of that period — even as the long twilight struggle of the Cold War was grinding on:

The love of chrome-and-glass modern restaurants is probably due to one place, which I’ve mentioned before – the Erie Jr. in Detroit Lakes, MN. It had a counter, a high ceiling, plastic booths in vivid hues, a roof that looked like it space ships could dock in the back, and it had that space-age vibe that shimmered off so many new things when I was very young. We had a keen sense of the future then; we knew the toys we had today would be the tools of the future. You know how you put your hand out the window when you were going fast, and undulated it up and down like a dolphin, riding the oncoming wind? The future felt like that. The future was a chrome-trimmed triangular window in the front of dad’s car, and it had its own knob to open it up.  The future was a hamburger under a light fixture that looked like an atom. The future was going to be awesome.

I still get impatient with people who insist that it can’t be. Pessimists can be such bores, and it’s lazy to believe the worst. What’s the line about Scaramouche: he was born with the gift of laughter and the sense that the world was mad. I don’t think that’s the best modus vivendi, but it beats teaching yourself the curse of scowling and the sense that it’s all a grind to be endured until the tomb gapes wide, and the only respectable intellectual pose is a Menckenian disdain for those who refuse to see how shallow, small, vacuous and contemptible they are.

I blame the boomers, of course.  If you’re going to make a fetish out of the Authentic Values of Adolescence, with its withering critiques of humanity, then you’re going to value the slouch and the sneer as signs of a Deep and Serious Person.  The Boomers were handed a Utopian ideal – practical, technocratic, rational, with silver wheels in the sky tended over by engineers and scientists – and they abandoned it for a Dionysian version based on wrecking and remaking the world they’d inherited. Their patron saint: Holy St. Caulfield, who identified the greatest sin in the human soul: being a phoney. Better to be an authentic bastard than someone who cannot successfully convince a teenager that some ideas have an importance that transcend the ability of the individual to manifest them 24/7.

On the Fourth of July, we looked back at two of the notions that interrupted mankind during much of the 20th century, the concept of “Starting From Zero” and junking millenia worth of accumulated knowledge and wisdom, and the notion that “The New Man” could somehow be manufactured to replace the imperfect model that had been rolling off God’s assembly line for the past few million years. In a recent essay at the Zero Hedge econoblog (and found via Maggie’s Farm),  Brandon Smith explores “The Collectivist War Against Cultural Heritage:”

The Purge

A distaste or hatred of heritage is very common at the onset of any collectivist restructuring.  These restructurings usually target principles of individual liberty and self governance while masquerading as a fight against oppression or corruption.  The old principles are either presented as too outdated and insufficient to deal with the new problems of a culture, or, they are presented as the actual SOURCE of the problems of that culture.  In either case, the elites wielding the collectivist machine inevitably call for a purge of all bygone ideals.

In Communist China, Mao instituted the Cultural Revolution, which encouraged the mindlessly mesmerized collectivists in the Chinese populace to destroy everything which represented the past.  Artwork, buildings, historical artifacts, books; even teachers and proponents of any brand of pre-communist heritage were targeted.

In Fascist Germany, the Nazis destroyed countless books and manuscripts, rewrote German history, censored and removed thousands of artworks, instituting state designated artforms that depicted the collectivist vision of the new society.

In Russia, the Communists focused intently not only on liquidating manuscripts extolling the methods of different eras, but also the people who wrote them.  Under Lenin and Stalin, the goal was to annihilate the memory of the world before, even if it meant annihilating the masses along with it.

A complete reformation of educational infrastructure came next.  The children of the collectivist age had to be indoctrinated as if there had never been another way of doing things.

These purges, as numerous examples have shown, are only temporary. The great conundrum for the elites has not only been the obstacle of memory, but the obstacle of the soul; that inherent quality in human beings that compels us to pursue freedom, balance, and truth, regardless of the constraints of our environment.  The documents and remnants of heritage that oligarchs seek to destroy are ultimately only expressions of our inborn consciences.  Deep down in each person, no matter what they have been conditioned to believe, there is a well-spring of vital ideas that conflict with the mechanizations of collectivism.  Individualism finds a way to surface, and so, the central rulers must start over once again, looking for an insurmountable method of control.

The American Heritage Under Siege

One simple fact remains:  As long as Americans continue to esteem the vision expressed in the U.S. Constitution, Bill Of Right, and Declaration Of Independence, there can be no collectivism in this country.  The Constitutional Republic formed through revolution against despotism by the Founding Fathers is a solid antithesis to outright tyranny.  So, it only follows that the “Futurists” of today and the puppeteers who pull their strings would do absolutely everything in their power to distance the public as far as possible away from the heritage of those documents and that time.

Much like the Cultural Revolution in China, though moving at a slower and more subversive pace, our history is being purged and rewritten to accommodate a centralized dream of the new America.  This dream hinges on the suggestion that the Constitutional structure is outdated, and that it must be remodeled to accommodate the burgeoning Globalist paradigm.  Our own sitting president has voiced similar arguments in the past…

With the Soviet Union having fallen and with China having to open up, ever-so-tentatively, a little of its closed-system Marxism to embrace the 21st century, what could be used to engineer a similar Start From Zero mindset today? As Virginia Postrel told Brian Lamb of C-Span back in 1999 when she was promoting her book The Future and its Enemies, radical environmentalism is the perfect method. In a similar fashion to Lileks discussing his love of glass and chrome coffee shops of the mid-20th century and then launching into the demise of postwar American optimism, Postrel segued from discussing why so many Cambodian refugees seem to dominate the ownership of Los Angeles-area donuts shops, into explaining how they got to America in the first place, into the apocalyptic worldview of radical environmentalism:

LAMB: And why does you use that–what’s–what reason do you use the Cambodian doughnut owners in this book?

POSTREL: Well, one reason is to explain about how history matters, that we don’t start off from scratch. We don’t make progress from starting over from scratch, that that’s a false idea that we’ve had about history and about progress in the past.

Another point that I make–where it’s interesting that they’re Cambodians, is that they were escaping from a static utopia. The Khmer Rouge sought to start over at year zero, and to sort of create the kind of society that very civilized, humane greens write about as though it were an ideal. I mean, people who would never consider genocide. But I argue that if you want to know what that would take, look at Cambodia: to empty the cities and turn everyone into peasants again. Even in a less developed country, let alone in someplace like the United States, these sort
of static utopian fantasies are just that.

Which brings us to Pascal Bruckner’s new piece in City Journal titled, “Apocalyptic Daze — Secular elites prophesy a doomsday without redemption:”

Around the turn of the twenty-first century, a paradigm shift in our thinking took place: we decided that the era of revolutions was over and that the era of catastrophes had begun. The former had involved expectation, the hope that the human race would proceed toward some goal. But once the end of history was announced, the Communist enemy vanquished, and, more recently, the War on Terror all but won, the idea of progress lay moribund. What replaced the world’s human future was the future of the world as a material entity. The long list of emblematic victims—Jews, blacks, slaves, proletarians, colonized peoples—was likewise replaced, little by little, with the Planet, the new paragon of all misery. No longer were we summoned to participate in a particular community; rather, we were invited to identify ourselves with the spatial vessel that carried us, groaning.

How did this change happen? Over the last half-century, leftist intellectuals have identified two great scapegoats for the world’s woes. First, Marxism designated capitalism as responsible for human misery. Second, “Third World” ideology, disappointed by the bourgeois indulgences of the working class, targeted the West, supposedly the inventor of slavery, colonialism, and imperialism. The guilty party that environmentalism now accuses—mankind itself, in its will to dominate the planet—is essentially a composite of the previous two, a capitalism invented by a West that oppresses peoples and destroys the earth. Indeed, environmentalism sees itself as the fulfillment of all earlier critiques. “There are only two solutions,” Bolivian president Evo Morales declared in 2009. “Either capitalism dies, or Mother Earth dies.”

So the planet has become the new proletariat that must be saved from exploitation—if necessary, by reducing the number of human beings, as oceanographer Jacques Cousteau said in 1991. The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, a group of people who have decided not to reproduce, has announced: “Each time another one of us decides to not add another one of us to the burgeoning billions already squatting on this ravaged planet, another ray of hope shines through the gloom. When every human chooses to stop breeding, Earth’s biosphere will be allowed to return to its former glory.” The British environmentalist James Lovelock, a chemist by training, regards Earth as a living organism and human beings as an infection within it, proliferating at the expense of the whole, which tries to reject and expel them. Journalist Alan Weisman’s 2007 book The World Without Us envisions in detail a planet from which humanity has disappeared. In France, a Green politician, Yves Cochet, has proposed a “womb strike,” which would be reinforced by penalties against couples who conceive a third child, since each child means, in terms of pollution, the equivalent of 620 round trips between Paris and New York.

“Our house is burning, but we are not paying attention,” said Jacques Chirac at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002. “Nature, mutilated, overexploited, cannot recover, and we refuse to admit it.” Sir Martin Rees, a British astrophysicist and former president of the Royal Society, gives humanity a 50 percent chance of surviving beyond the twenty-first century. Oncologists and toxicologists predict that the end of mankind should arrive even earlier than foreseen, around 2060, thanks to a general sterilization of sperm. In view of the overall acceleration of natural disorders, droughts, and pandemics, “we all know now that we are going down,” says the scholar Serge Latouche. Peter Barrett, director of the Antarctica Research Centre at New Zealand’s Victoria University of Wellington, is more specific: “If we continue our present growth path we are facing the end of civilization as we know it—not in millions of years, or even millennia, but by the end of this century.”

One could go on citing such quotations forever, given the spread of the cliché-ridden apocalyptic literature. Environmentalism has become a global ideology that covers all of existence—not merely modes of production but ways of life as well. We rediscover in it the whole range of Marxist rhetoric, now applied to the environment: ubiquitous scientism, horrifying visions of reality, even admonitions to the guilty parties who misunderstand those who wish them well. Authors, journalists, politicians, and scientists compete in the portrayal of abomination and claim for themselves a hyper-lucidity: they alone see clearly while others vegetate in the darkness.

The fear that these intellectuals spread is like a gluttonous enzyme that swallows up an anxiety, feeds on it, and then leaves it behind for new ones. When the Fukushima nuclear plant melted down after the enormous earthquake in Japan in March 2011, it only confirmed a feeling of anxiety that was already there, looking for some content. In six months, some new concern will grip us: a pandemic, bird flu, the food supply, melting ice caps, cell-phone radiation.

The fear also becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, with the press reporting, as though it were a surprising finding, that young people are haunted by the very concerns about global warming that the press continually instills in them. As in an echo chamber, opinion polls reflect the views promulgated by the media. We are inoculated against anxiety by the repetition of the same themes, which become a narcotic we can’t do without.

It’s tempting to believe this worldview will obsess our elites permanently, or that it will end in some of Götterdämmerung. But isn’t that assumption as an apocalyptic worldview as the Malthusian environmentalists themselves? Though it’s understandable, as this passage from Roger Kimball’s new book makes clear:

In 2002, the historian John Lukacs published a gloomy book called At the End of an Age. He argued that “we in the West are living near the end of an entire age,” that the Modern Age, which began with the Renaissance, is jerking, crumbling irretrievably to its end. I believe Lukacs is precipitate. After all, prophecies of the end have been with us since the beginning. It seems especially odd that an historian of Lukacs’s delicacy and insight would indulge in what amounts to a reprise of Spengler’s thesis about the “decline of the West.” How many times must historical “inevitabilities” be confounded before they lose their hold on our imaginations?

Indeed. So how do we break this cycle?

 

[Sythen]

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/straighttalk/archives/2012/07/20120717-120837.html

Muslim cleric highlights SlutWalk hypocrisy

A Toronto Muslim cleric's comments that laws should make women cover up to avoid rape disgusted me. But what's going to sicken me more is the silence of the left.
Al-Haashim Kamena Atangana, a street preacher, thinks Canadian laws "give too much freedom to women." Excuse me? We need more freedoms for everyone, regardless of gender.

But something tells me he won't be criticized by the feminist organizations. Or by any of the so-called progressives. No. They'll just ignore it.

Yet silence wasn't what happened last year when in January Toronto Const. Michael Sanguinetti told a York University class that "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized." The officer's remarks were sharply criticized by most people - including Toronto chief Bill Blair.

His comments also spurred the now international phenomenon known as SlutWalk. Thousands of people have taken to the streets in cities across the world to decry Const. Sanguinetti's comments.

Is Atangana going to be the next object of the SlutWalk organizers' denouncements? I doubt it.

SlutWalk is only interested in easy targets. They want knee-jerk responses, simple for people to adopt, that don't require any thinking. After all, the original SlutWalks weren't about Sanguinetti in particular, so much as what his comments symbolized. To many, he symbolized how the media, police, the law and more were involved in victim-blaming and rape culture.

Its cases like this that make me angry with the Left. Its like the fact Occupiers were mostly made up of middle class kids with iPads and expensive phones, etc.. I forgot though, that only white, English speaking men were able to be bad people worthy of protesting.

EDIT to add: More on link.

 

[Redeye]

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/straighttalk/archives/2012/07/20120717-120837.html

Its cases like this that make me angry with the Left. Its like the fact Occupiers were mostly made up of middle class kids with iPads and expensive phones, etc.. I forgot though, that only white, English speaking men were able to be bad people worthy of protesting.

EDIT to add: More on link.

They probably won't respond because he's an insignificant figure and those folk don't waste their time watching Sun TV. They, as a blanket rule, tend to ignore the opinions of religious figures in general.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

They probably won't respond because he's an insignificant figure and those folk don't waste their time watching Sun TV. They, as a blanket rule, tend to ignore the opinions of religious figures in general.

What has Sun TV got to do with it?

The story was carried by other newpapers and news organizations also.

You're not learning very quick.

Milnet.ca Staff

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

We should bear in mind that there is a big difference between Antangana and Sanguinetti:

Antangana is acting in a capacity as a citizen, with all the rights and freedoms that pertain to that status, including the right to free speech, regardless of how backwards its content and so long as it does not become hate speech. He is entitled to put his views out there and everyone else is entitled to treat them and criticize them as they see fit, including simply ignoring him as he is a nobody. The media thought it useful to expose the backwardness of this gentlemen - and now its done and exposed for all to see.

Sanguinetti, on the other hand made a public speech in his capacity as a representative of the state (in the larger sense of the word), and the citizens properly protested his speech, not because its content exceeded what can be said under free speech laws, but because it was said on behalf of "government". Thus, the citizens rose to remind the government that it is not its place to tell people how to live their lives.

 

[ModlrMike]

We should bear in mind that there is a big difference between Antangana and Sanguinetti:

Antangana is acting in a capacity as a citizen, with all the rights and freedoms that pertain to that status, including the right to free speech, regardless of how backwards its content and so long as it does not become hate speech. He is entitled to put his views out there and everyone else is entitled to treat them and criticize them as they see fit, including simply ignoring him as he is a nobody. The media thought it useful to expose the backwardness of this gentlemen - and now its done and exposed for all to see.

Sanguinetti, on the other hand made a public speech in his capacity as a representative of the state (in the larger sense of the word), and the citizens properly protested his speech, not because its content exceeded what can be said under free speech laws, but because it was said on behalf of "government". Thus, the citizens rose to remind the government that it is not its place to tell people how to live their lives.

Then the proper comparison would be the Alberta pastor who made the distasteful comments against homosexuals. How'd he make out?

 

[Edward Campbell]

We should bear in mind that there is a big difference between Antangana and Sanguinetti:

Antangana is acting in a capacity as a citizen, with all the rights and freedoms that pertain to that status, including the right to free speech, regardless of how backwards its content and so long as it does not become hate speech. He is entitled to put his views out there and everyone else is entitled to treat them and criticize them as they see fit, including simply ignoring him as he is a nobody. The media thought it useful to expose the backwardness of this gentlemen - and now its done and exposed for all to see.

Sanguinetti, on the other hand made a public speech in his capacity as a representative of the state (in the larger sense of the word), and the citizens properly protested his speech, not because its content exceeded what can be said under free speech laws, but because it was said on behalf of "government". Thus, the citizens rose to remind the government that it is not its place to tell people how to live their lives.

:goodpost:


Good, clear explanation; thanks for highlighting those differences.

By the way,with reference to Sanguinetti: I'm with the righteously indignant citizens, he, and the state her serves, has no right to tell us how live our lives, so long as we do so in a lawful manner. With reference to Antangana: I just consider the source; but I am dismayed that anyone follows preachers and other assorted shamans who propagate such stupid ideas.

 

[The Bread Guy]

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/straighttalk/archives/2012/07/20120717-120837.html

Its cases like this that make me angry with the Left ....

It appears at least some folks are dissing the comments in question:

.... Calling Muslim cleric Al-Haashim Kamena Atangana's proposal to change Canadian laws to require women to cover themselves "offensive," the executive director of the women's shelter Nellie's said how a woman dresses has nothing to do with sexual assaults.

"I would like to find out the stats in the Muslim countries," Margarita Mendez said.

"The issue is the violence against women, power and control, and it has nothing to do with how women dress. I find his views very oppressive, and it's blaming the victim when we don't have control over men who are abusive."

( .... )

"Who's going to be passing a law like that in Canada?" Mendez said. "This is against women's right to safety and women's right to say no regardless of how they dress. No means no. Don't try to force me dress in a way that's not within my culture or beliefs."

Harmy Mendoza, of the Woman Abuse Council of Toronto, recalled her "blood boiling" after reading about Atangana's stated beliefs.

"Women are not to be blamed in this country or any other country in the world," she said. "These ideas have to be challenged." ....

More ....

.... Imam Zijad Delic of the South Nepean Muslim Community said there are three things wrong with Atangana’s position. Firstly, he didn’t consult the Muslim community before making his statements.

“They shouldn’t carry any weight,” he said.

Delic said “covered or uncovered” all women need to be protected.

“We do need tougher laws — for the attackers,” he said. “He contradicts himself many times. It is not women, it is men that need to be dealt with.”

Lastly, Delic said Atangana is making up doctrine.

“There is no such thing in Islam,” he said. “His tongue is working faster than his mind.”

Former president of the Ottawa-based Canadian Islamic Congress Wahida Valiante claimed the story made her emotional.

“I’m just fuming about it,” said Valiante, who worked four decades as a social worker. “It’s mind-boggling. I have no idea how to respond to this. Who does he think he is? He calls himself a Muslim? He’s ignoring the complexity if this issue. What women wear is completely irrelevant.”

Researcher, academic, professor and Ottawa Coalition to End Violence Against Women member Rena Bivens agrees. Bivens said, in a nutshell, women and the way they dress are not the problem.

“Instead of looking at how women can protect themselves, we should instead be looking at the perpetrators to stop raping,” she said.

Besides, she said, it is statistically proven that most rapes are committed by people known to the victim, and usually are motivated by power rather than sexual desire ....

Interestingly, though, a search of the imam's name at rabble.ca?
:crickets:

This compared to the hits for "Sanguinetti" at rabble.ca.

We should bear in mind that there is a big difference between Antangana and Sanguinetti:

Antangana is acting in a capacity as a citizen, with all the rights and freedoms that pertain to that status, including the right to free speech, regardless of how backwards its content and so long as it does not become hate speech. He is entitled to put his views out there and everyone else is entitled to treat them and criticize them as they see fit, including simply ignoring him as he is a nobody. The media thought it useful to expose the backwardness of this gentlemen - and now its done and exposed for all to see.

Sanguinetti, on the other hand made a public speech in his capacity as a representative of the state (in the larger sense of the word), and the citizens properly protested his speech, not because its content exceeded what can be said under free speech laws, but because it was said on behalf of "government". Thus, the citizens rose to remind the government that it is not its place to tell people how to live their lives.

Well put.

 

[vonGarvin]

I've been sitting on this whole poo-show for a few days, trying to collect my thoughts to highlight what I see as idiocy on all sides over this.

There are so many things wrong about what the preacher said, but I think that many have missed the mark.  The first assertion is that he's blaming the victim.  He's not.  That may have been his intent, I don't know nor do I care, but the implied argument, not stated, is that if a man sees a woman's ankle/shoulder/leg/whatever, then that man will have no control over his libido and will revert to the savage and commit rape.  That's what he's saying, whether he meant it or not. 

We all know that this is bunk, and is inflammatory, arguing that all men are unthinking brutes who are a hair's breadth from comitting rape.

As for "blaming the victim", I would offer that a bit of due diligence ought to be at work  Does this mean that there ought to be laws stating that women cannot dress a certain way in public?  Of course not!  That's ludicrous.  (As an aside, I find the "slutwalk" response is as illogical as it would be for car owners, following a rash of car thefts, to parade their parked, unattended and unlocked cars in a shady part of town.)  How people are dressed has nothing to do with it, and as stated, is insulting at best, and ignorant at worst.

You see, rape is not about sex.  It's not at all.  It's about power, a sense of feeling inadequate (by the perpetrator) who takes out his feelings of inadequacy on the innocent. 

So, just as with any crime, the victim of rape is not to blame.  By blaming the  victim you are losing focus.  It's not that society is full of men who are *this close* from raping the women of our society.  It's that in our society we have certain types who for a wide variety of reasons will  commit what I personally consider to be the worst of crimes.  Why I think so is because the criminal treats the other person (the victim) as an object; a means to their own ends of dominating someone.  "Sex" is just the means by which they achieve their sick ends.

The treatment?  I doubt that there is any.  For a serial rapist (e.g. Bernardo types), life in solitary confinement works well for me.  For the drunken frat boy who fails to "stop" when told to stop by his date/girlfriend/whatever, not only would a hefty sentence behind bars work, but considering the nature of the crime as being one of poor judgement vice deliberate planning, but some sort of true rehabilitation may be possible, but prior to release, I believe that the guilty party ought to prove that he is indeed rehabilitated.

As a final note, I did see some points on here and elsewhere on the ARPANET of people saying that they just ignored what he said because he's a religious figure.  That, my dear readers, is dangerous. It's also a logical fallacy known as "ad hominem".  Anyway, it's dangerous for several reasons, the least of which is that you are ignoring what is said and instead focussing on who said it.  The dangerous part is that even though you may be atheist, that's irrelevant, because not everyone is, and some people actually listen to religious leaders.  And if you ignore them, one day you'll be surprised when their followers, rightly or wrongly, impose their moral will on you.  (And it's not just the religious leaders who have the potential to be dangerous).


:2c:

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Without getting into your whole post, I'll content myself to agree with your final, salient point.

The dangerous part is that even though you may be atheist, that's irrelevant, because not everyone is, and some people actually listen to religious leaders.  And if you ignore them, one day you'll be surprised when their followers, rightly or wrongly, impose their moral will on you.  

That door swings both ways and isn't confined to the religion of the article.

It includes Roman Catholics and any other religious organization out there.

 

[vonGarvin]

It includes Roman Catholics and any other religious organization out there.

Exactly my point.  (And yes, full disclosure here, I'm a practicing Roman Catholic). 

Also, the point you didn't include in your quote, it's not just the religious leaders.  If a person ignores someone or writes them off as a "whack job" because they don't follow their dogma/politics/religion, don't be surprised when one day you wake up and you get that "uh oh" feeling.

(Edited for grammar)

 

[Redeye]

Fair point TV. Some people think I'm an asshole and perceive me as a militant atheist. To an extent, I am. That said, I don't especially care what people privately believe. When I get up in arms is when others want to impose those beliefs on people, especially when there's an air of hypocrisy to it which exists with all religions (and, to be fair, with non-religious people - some of the biggest assholes I know are atheists/antitheists who believe that bullying those who believe is the best way to deal with them - and to be fair, I've been guilty of that to some extent in the past when some people have deliberately tried to get under my skin about it).

When I made the comment that many would ignore what this guy was saying, I don't think I articulated what I meant at all correctly. It's correct in my view that they'd hear it, and, as you suggest, say "meh, he's a crackpot" and move on. And you're correct there's a risk in that too, because crackpots can wind up wielding a lot of power. At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, an Austrian Corporal comes to mind. It is indeed far more important to skewer the message itself. And that's why I said many would ignore this guy, because they'd perceive that changing his opinion isn't likely to happen and thus it's not worth wasting time on. Then, however, they act in a way that counters the message. I do think you misinterpreted the Slut Walk concept - it was to illustrate exactly the point you made - that it's not the victim's fault, and how they choose to dress is totally irrelevant. I don't find your comparison to car theft fits. Rather than countering the messenger, displays like "Slut Walks" are aimed in countering the message. And it does indeed apply to all religions - and yes, to non-religious statements of a similar inflammatory nature.

 

[a_majoor]

A breathless example of Canadian progressive thought in a letter to the editor of the Toronto Star (where else could it possibly have been published?) The complete disconnect between cause and effect, the absolute conviction that only government can create these effects and of course the obligatory call for the use of force against the duly elected Government encapsulate just about every Progressive trope in one neat package. The fact that many of these tropes like Global Warming and Robocalls has been proven false simply makes no difference to people holding these ideas.

I would use this letter as a call for a reform of the education system, since so many people are clearly lacking in the skills of critical thought (the only difference between this letter and a typical conversation with a comitted progressive is all the tropes came out at once here):

http://www.stephentaylor.ca/2012/08/barbara-falby-is-worried/

Barbara Falby is worried

This might be the most amazing letter-to-the editor I have ever read. It’s to the Toronto Star. The letter is from Barbara Falby of Toronto. In it, she blames Harper’s denial of climate change for hot weather that causes gun violence, blames Harper for the Colorado movie theatre shootings. She cites Canada’s previous laws and regulations on guns for preventing violence, violence which has been renewed as a result of getting rid of the long-gun registry. For good measure, she calls the government illegitimate and asks for the police to remove it by any means necessary.

Many opinions have been expressed about the shooting of 24 people in a Toronto community housing project, and the shooting of 82 in a Colorado movie theatre. Admirably, the CBC is explored the role of extremely high temperatures as a trigger for violent behaviour. I know that living in a small, hot, airless room would motivate me to strike out at people.

Other organizations are exploring the “pistolization” of North American society; i.e., gun availability and the media’s role in legitimizing their use. The time has come to recognize Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s part in both of these scenarios.

Wait, what?

Extremely hot weather has been allowed to escalate, because Mr. Harper pretends there is no such thing as climate change, having cut funding for many scientific studies, and having denied climate scientists access to media, without PMO approval, despite increasing evidence of species extinction (bats, frogs, bees, etc.), extreme heat (severe drought causing massive crop losses) and freakish weather (disastrous flooding and increase in tornadoes). Mr. Harper can take credit for blocking serious efforts by scientists who wanted the Canadian government to deal with this impending disaster.

Stephen Harper’s climate change denial has led to it being hot and because of it being hot, people shoot each other. You see, climate change denial leads to mass shootings and Colorado blood is on the PM’s hands, according to this letter writer.

The pistolization of Canadian society has increased because Mr. Harper has consistently argued for Canadians’ right to own long guns. Media talk seldom distinguishes between handguns and long guns, although some U.S. press reports emphasize that the Colorado shooter was able to wreak severe damage with both.

Those hoods in Toronto can likely recite CPC talking points based on registering sex offenders, not “the tools of farmers and duck hunters”. Or not.

Many leaders, including American presidents, have been assassinated with long guns, so Mr. Harper’s naivete on the subject astounds. Most importantly, because many media reports simply repeat Harper’s words without comment, a clear debate about the idiocy of abandoning the long gun registry is lost on many.

Canada’s disaffected youth only hear the message that everyone should have the right to own a gun. By destroying an important piece of Canadian legislation, such as the Long Gun Registry Act, Mr. Harper and his government can now be regarded as accessories after the fact, aiding and abetting the increase in gun violence we are now seeing.

Get that? Stephen Harper is apparently an accessory to mass murder. It’s like #cdnpoli had a brain embolism but retained the capacity for writing emails.

Because the Harper government, in these two areas, has played a large part in the rise of gun violence, it should do the decent thing and step down. Previously, gun violence in Canada has been held in check by government programs and regulations. This leader and his henchmen, however, have managed to abolish well-meaning legislation intended to protect the Canadian public.

Gun violence wasn’t a problem before Stephen Harper got rid of the long-gun registry, you see. Now that he has been accused of being complicit in murder, he should be show “decency” and resign government, according to Falby.

How can a government, whose members’ ridings have shown widespread evidence of voter suppression techniques, such as robocalls, and outright fraud, accomplish such an outright abuse of power?

A kid in Guelph decided to play fast-and-loose with some auto-dialing software and now we’ve found ourselves living under a dictatorship in a banana republic!

Furthermore, Mr. Harper’s singular lack of imagination in policies regarding the environment, and social policies, etc. show that he does not deserve his position of power. I pray that the justice system will quickly step in to remove illegitimate ministers, senators, and MPs by any logistical means possible, as quickly as possible. Injunctions, forbidding them from entering Parliament could be one such effective measure.

Barbara Falby, Toronto

Well, different approaches to policy does not make one more or less deserving of power. In fact, these differences are the basis of selection in the democratic process. Indeed, power is legitimate because it comes via the electorate. Bar the doors of Parliament to elected members and let the police remove ministers of the Crown! One thing is to be sure, Canada’s literacy rate may be high, but certain members of the populace may lack a certain basic level of cognitive function.

 

[a_majoor]

The theme of media manipulation is far stronger in the United States, but hardly nonexistent in Canada. Various themes are floated across the Legacy media in a coordinated tide of "outrage" at something the CPC is supposed to ahve done, while the camera rapidly cuts away if similar conduct is dicovered by the other parties. How many headlines have been generated by the Liberals being fined for doing Robocalls in Guelph (compared to the false accusations of the CPC making robocalls) or the NDP gatting over $300,000 in illegal campaign contributions. For that matter, many of the Liberal leadership candidates have yet to pay back their campaign debts (from running against Stephan Dion, so this isn't a recent story) without comment by the media.

This article is probably a forecast of the "worst case" that we might see (especially in the near future when it is possible an NDP government in BC, a PQ government in Quebec and the Liberal/NDP coalition in Ontario square off against Ottawa in an attempt to extort more monies to keep their mismanaged governments afloat), but the promise of this article is these media antics will rip the covers off, and the media's stranglehold as the "gatekeeper" of the narrative will end once and for all (the preference cascade):

http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2012/09/media_madness_and_the_reckoning.html

Media Madness, and the Reckoning
By Clarice Feldman

Last week a line was crossed, and full blown insanity manifested itself in the formerly-mainstream media.  My friend JMH is a model of a temperate media consumer, but watching the coverage of the Republican convention, she could not contain her fury:

Something just snapped today, when I read about the race baiters at MSNBC not even airing any of the Convention's minority speakers. Even if Artur Davis weren't black, how is it a non-story, when the guy who seconded Obama's nomination ends up with a prime time spot on the GOP Convention stage? Ditto for covering Ted Cruz, who pulled off the most spectacular extremist Tea Party upsets of campaign 2012. It's not just MSNBC either; NBC "curated" both of them right out of "some of the notable speeches" in Tampa.

I know, I know. I know. But it's the brazenness of it all that just stuns me, and keeps on stunning me, no matter how prepared to expect it I should be by now. Today, however, I'm also stunned by just how deep the reservoir of my own anger about it has become. It's so blinding that I can't even concentrate on anything else.

That was early in the convention. There was much more to be furious about as the coverage continued.

Yahoo Washington Bureau Chief David Chalian, formerly at ABC where he produced this famous and fact free ambush of Sarah Palin, mistakenly thought he was off mic when he said Ann and Mitt Romney had no problem with African Americans suffering as a result of hurricane Isaac. They're not concerned at all. "They're happy to have a party with black people drowning," As it turned out, Mitt Romney headed out to flood stricken Louisiana at the close of the convention, and only after that became known did Obama cancel his fund raising plans elsewhere and head out there, too.

In fact, Obama has a history of ignoring all citizens suffering from catastrophe. In 2009 when an ice storm killed 42 and left millions of Americans without power or water or shelter, Obama hosted a lavish Super Bowl cocktail party with $100/lb Wagyu beef appetizers.  Worse, as Chalian was leveling that mendacious, hate-filled charge, Obama was chatting online on Reddit with his supporters, not flying to the scene of the destruction.

On hearing Chalian was fired, PBS's Gwen Ifill whose outrageously biased moderation in the 2008 debates set a new low, rushed to his defense:

gwen ifill ‏@pbsgwen
One mistake does not change this. @DavidChalian is God's gift to political journalism. #IStandwithDavid
11:32 AM - 29 Aug 12 · Details"

https://twitter.com/pbsgwen

Like JMH, Roger L. Simon was astonished at the degree of the media's racism and called it pathological:

Racism is stalking the Republican Convention in Tampa. But it's not from the Republicans. It's from the mainstream media.

First it was MSNBC treating convention speakers Artur Davis, Mia Love, and Ted Cruz like nonpersons. And now it's Yahoo! Washington Bureau Chief David Chalian getting caught on an ABC webcast saying Mitt Romney would be "happy to have a party when black people drown."

Chalian, not surprisingly, was fired almost immediately when the word got out, but the climate in which he would make such an insane statement is very much alive and well. Why would anyone dream of saying such a thing in a semi-public situation if he didn't feel safe and among friends?

The left/liberal need to think Republicans and conservatives racists is more than just projection. At this point, it is nothing short of a mental illness. It is so far divorced from reality, it has to be pathological. No longer are these people able to observe reality with anything close to impartiality. We are not in the world of politics, ladies and gentlemen. We are in the world Freud, Jung, Adler, and people bouncing off walls.

He's right of course.

How divorced from reality is the claim that Republicans and conservatives are racists? Bgates corrects the media narrative.

41 voting members of the House of Representatives are black.

39 of them are Democrats. (Those numbers would be 42 and 40 save for the death of a Rep in March.)

Given that Democrats famously spurn color blindness to embrace affirmative action, how many of those 39 do you suppose come from majority-white districts?

Did you guess four?

Meanwhile, there are two black Republicans in the House. They were elected from districts that are 82% and 75% white, whiter than any district that sent a black Democrat to the 112th Congress. Apparently an overwhelmingly white electorate is no bar to a black candidate - so long as the overwhelmingly white electorate is also majority Republican.

Tammy Bruce offers up a plausible theory to explain the media's insanity, insanity so widespread even the occasionally more temperate Juan Williams was shamefully swept up in it:

I knew the liberal establishment would have a meltdown swathed in violence and depravity as they realized they were being rejected, and that time has arrived. Just after last night's RNC convention liberals wasted no time attacking the women they see as a threat. The truth of the matter, of course, is that liberals destroyed their own bizarre vision for the future with actions that most of America is now rejecting. Instead of looking in the mirror, they've chosen to target Mia Love and Ann Romney, two obvious conservative superstars who have appeal across the political and socio-economic spectrum.

The first indication of how vile liberals will get comes from Juan Williams who called Mrs. Romney a "Corporate Wife" last night after he speech. Talk about 'coded phrases'! A 'corporate wife' is a phrase used on the left for a woman who has married for money and plays a role so she'll continue to get money. In other words, a lying whore. Both Bret Baier and Megyn Kelly sounded shocked. Immediately after that remarkable speech last night that's where Williams went. I then saw tweets with the same general message. This had clearly been a messaging decision prior to Ann's speech. I don't think they counted on the speech being as distinctive and as strong as it was.

Besides being pathological, the media approach is clearly coordinated , and understandably so given the incestuous relationships between so many in the media and the Democratic party detailed by Erick Erickson at redstate.                   

I wonder if any of these people have noticed that the Republican Party has more elected Hispanic Congressmen and Governors than the Democrats?

It is not an accident that the media, immediately after the Democrats started pushing out the War on Women, began running stories about the GOP's hostility to women. It is now not an accident that the media, led by NBC and the Politico (which also partnered on that pathetic GOP primary debate), would peddle out the GOP and race stories.

It is far too much to be a coincidence that the Politico and NBC have ties, sometimes in the same bed, to Democrat and leftwing activists and then hop out of bed on the same page as the Democrats' talking points.

Well, if they watched the convention on the networks, and not CSPAN, convention viewers might have missed Senator Marco Rubio and  Governor Susana Martinez' stirring speeches. Watch this video to see how NBC covered some yammering by Democrat shill Andrea Mitchell instead of the first three minutes of Sen. Rubio's barnburner speech.

Quite frankly, criticism of Obama is not racism no matter that people like Lawrence O'Donnell and Chris Matthews hear dog whistles of racism in everything. (Matthews laughably went so far as to suggest he lives in D.C. and therefore has a firsthand knowledge others don't of blacks. In fact, he is paid millions of dollars a year by NBC to spew his mad commentary and lives in a very white affluent suburb in which with 2,000 residents there are a total of 10 black residents.)  So out-of control is Matthews that after the RNC wrapped up, he got into a 2 AM public verbal altercation in Tampa, asking a group of Republicans if they were at a "douchebag convention." 

Since we now know that half a million dollars in Stimulus money was funneled to MSNBC for commercials on the Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann shows, advertising Job Corps training that produced no jobs, MSNBC henceforth should be known as "The semi-official Obama Administration News Agency," much like Al Ahram in Egypt.

Investors Business Daily's cartoonist Michael Ramirez ran a cartoon of a dog labeled "Media" making love to Obama's leg. Come to think of it maybe that's a true picture, a metamorphosis that explains why so many of them hear "dog whistles" of racism that the rest of us cannot hear, drawing that notion from language that in no rational way warrants that characterization.

The media madness this past week truly was beyond parody. If you doubt me read this exchange between MSNBC's Martin Bashir and Lawrence O'Donnell  in which reference to Obama's golfing  is  said to be a "racial double entendre" suggesting that he's like  Tiger Woods "famous for chasing cocktail waitresses".

(These two cuckoos aren't alone. If you want to see how idiotic P.C. language codes are becoming check out this historically inaccurate explanation by a highly paid Department of State official as to why terms like "rule of thumb" and "hold down the fort are racially insensitive and should be avoided.  It's impossible not to laugh out loud until you realize how much tax revenues go to pay him and others like him to peddle this ahistoric claptrap.)

As the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto reminds us:

Obama's journalistic supporters live in a bizarre alternate reality in which a politician's actual words mean nothing. When the president says something foolish and offensive, he didn't say that. Meanwhile every comment from a Republican can be translated, through a process of free association, to: "We don't like black people."

It's television manufacturing a virtual reality, which is to say unreality, a dangerous state of affairs. Sultan Knish has written the most brilliant essay explaining this . Here's but a tiny sample. You really must read it all:

The people who decided to make Obama popular did so through constant repetition that translated into the peer pressure of the trend. Obama became a trending topic and everyone followed along because in an unreal world, you follow the unreal leader.

Obama is fake, his popularity is fake, but it's also real, because fake is now the ultimate reality. The purveyors of fakeness have demonstrated their ability to transform the unreal into the real through manufactured consensus. By insisting that something unpopular was popular often enough, they made it popular. And by insisting that something popular is really unpopular, they did the opposite. [snip]

There is a very specific category of people who are uncomfortable with the way things are and for the most people these are the people who have ongoing forcible contact with realities that don't go away when the talking head begins jabbering, the memes begin spewing and the trending topics trend. These are the people who work for a living outside the bubble, who know that external safety nets are unreliable and that they are always on the edge of something... even if they don't always know what. [snip]

When all the bubbles of rhetoric pop, there are still the hard unpleasant realities to deal with. Bailouts and money pits can only bury them for so long. Governments sending money to banks and swapping worthless commodities that only exist in the theory of a theory only work for as long as people believe in them.

Even an unreal economy reported on by an unreal media cheering on an unreal leader can only run for so long until reality punches through the illusion, the curtain falls, the magicians scramble off the stage with rabbits and doves tucked into their pants, and everyone wakes up to realize that the dream is over and we realize that we are entering a world where the stories no longer matter and history is about to begin.

Tune out the media or find yourself either enraged or lulled into unreality -- brainwashed as it were. You can watch important events on CSPAN and easily access transcripts and videos of speeches and debates online. Time to stop the insanity provided by the media intermediaries and keep your mind clear.

For some time now, professor Glenn Reynolds, known to many as Instapundit, has talked about "preference cascades" I think the insanity of the media is triggered by their sense that a preference cascade is building up in the US which will wash them and their political clients out to sea.

What is a "preference cascade"?

As described by Glenn Reynolds in a classic 2002 essay, a preference cascade occurs when people trapped inside a manufactured consensus suddenly realize that many other people share their doubts.  Preference falsification works by making doubters feel isolated and alone.  In a totalitarian society, the dissenter fears that if he speaks up, his will be a lone voice, easily squashed by the enforcers of the regime.  When dissenters realize they are not alone, and the true strength of their numbers becomes apparent, "invincible" regimes vanish with astonishing speed.

The same effect can occur without brutal oppression, when fear of ostracism and ridicule cause people to suppress their own doubts. This kind of preference falsification requires strict discipline from the makers of opinion.  Since a free society makes it very easy for individuals to change their opinions, they must be prevented from even considering such a change.  Manufactured consensus is very fragile in a competitive arena of ideas, when there is no fearsome penalty for a "Fresh Air" listener who decides to switch over to Rush Limbaugh.

Why do I think  the media manufactured consensus is unraveling and the cascade begun?

I see signs of it everywhere. There was the 2010 wipeout of the Democrats in Congress and statehouses. There was the massive consumer Chick-fil-A response to the boycott movement, Obama's campaign staff has had a hard time meeting fund raising goals and filling the stands for his appearances. This week -- respecting his speech at the DNC convention -- they are even resorting to giving tickets to the event away free in bars.

And this: Voter ID in the polls is grossly oversampling Democrats. And even Democratic pollsters are giving away the game. Polls showing Obama in the lead are, I believe, phony as his make believe large twitter following which it turns out is mostly an online audience he paid for.

Here's Stephen Green:

Democracy Corps - that's James Carville and Stan Greenberg's polling outfit - has Romney up 16 points with independents.

16 points.

Voter ID typically runs low-to-mid 30s for Republicans and Democrats alike, leaving the remainder as Independents. What's that mean? If Carville and Greenberg have it right (and many other polls show Romney way up with Indies), it can mean only one thing: Democrats are being oversampled, and grossly.

Admittedly, voter ID is a tricky thing to measure, and trickier still to sample. But most polls I've seen have had D samples the same or higher than in 2008, when Black Jesus was still bringing us the hope and change and lowering the oceans and all that stuff. And they've R samples the same or lower than 2008, even though the GOP managed to flip 63 House seats in 2010.

The game is rigged. Don't let that stop you from playing.

It could be just me -- after all  I never watch television -- but my thought is that a convention that begins with a jummah call to Moslem prayer and features Sandra Fluke demanding we pay for her contraceptive costs is not going to turn this around for the President or his  media friends.

 

[a_majoor]

While the specific example is the United States, this also reflects the way many on the Canadian political Left think as well. In the Making Canada Again, the Economic Superthread: there is a post about unshackling "the helping industry" from government through the use of alternative funding mechanisms such as "social impact bonds" which pay their coupon by providing a portion of the money that government saves by allowing private and religious charities to do the work: http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/20359/post-1188001.html#msg1188001

Naturally rather than examine the idea on merit there was a predictable attack on "government planning to privatize public services". As Lawrence Solomon suggests, the real opposition to charity is because it is competition to the State:

http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/11/16/lawrence-solomon-the-obama-war-on-charities/

FP Comment Lawrence Solomon: The Obama war on charities
Lawrence Solomon | Nov 16, 2012 10:15 PM ET | Last Updated: Nov 16, 2012 10:43 PM ET
More from Lawrence Solomon

To raise tax revenue, a steadfast President Barack Obama has vociferously insisted on higher tax rates for the rich. But he has just as steadfastly — if more quietly — tried to curb tax exemptions for donations to charities. He did this in 2009, to help pay for Obamacare, in 2011 to help pay for his US$447-million jobs bill, in his 2011, 2012 and 2013 federal budget proposals, and now to deal with the fiscal cliff. The charitable tax exemption, which promotes giving and which charities are fighting to keep, costs the Treasury US$40-billion a year, according to the U.S. Congress joint committee on taxation.

Why this preoccupation from this man of the left, when most see attacks on charities coming from the hard-hearted right? In truth, Obama comes by his opposition to charitable exemptions with ideological purity — since the time of Elizabeth I and her 1601 Statute on Charitable Uses, governments have resented giving charities tax breaks, initially seeing them as ruses to deny them tax dollars and later as competitors. Obama, as a big-government guy, is acting in accord with his predecessors, including from the Progressive Era that he often identifies with, when Teddy Roosevelt and the Trust Busters also railed against giving philanthropists tax advantages when contributing to charities.

When it comes to opposing the rise of the charitable sector, the True Left knows where its interests lie. You won’t see much of a civil society in China, and what does exist lies mostly underground, in defiance of government. Likewise in the former Soviet Union and even in socialist European countries, where governments and political parties play dominant roles in funding charities, making them akin to agencies of the state.

As for the right, it is fractured on the issue and ideologically confused. While virtually all Conservatives would agree that private charitable organizations are more efficient than governments at delivering needed social services such as health care and education, and while virtually all would also agree that the cause of liberty is best served when services are decentralized, provided by many independent actors rather than by centralized government, many also believe that the charities should operate without benefit of the exemption, which they see as a government subsidy.

The anti-exemption rightists are wrong on most counts. Let’s examine why by assuming the private charity is a hospital run by the Salvation Army, that you are a rich donor who earns $1-million a year, that you are in a 50% tax bracket, and that, if you can get a tax exemption, you will donate $100,000 to provide the poor with health care. If you don’t make the donation, the government will take $500,000 of your $1-million in taxes, leaving you with $500,000. If you can get a tax exemption for your $100,000, your taxable income becomes $900,000, meaning the government will take $450,000 in taxes, $50,000 less than otherwise. You are now left with $450,000 and the Sally Ann hospital gets its $100,000.

Some argue that the charitable exemption is a cost to government, which it must then recover by raising everyone else’s taxes — in the example above, by $50,000. Except that this logic has it backwards, because if Sally Ann doesn’t provide the poor with $100,000 in needed services, the government presumably would have to, and at a cost of $100,000 (assuming it was as efficient as Sally Ann — more likely, the government would be less efficient, making the cost to the government greater still). In effect, your $100,000 has saved the government — and taxpayers — $50,000. Another way of looking at it: Society has just obtained medical services by private decision at half the cost — your $50,000 grant has matched the government’s $50,000 in acquiring $100,000 in medical services.

Others argue that you shouldn’t be the one deciding which hospital deserves to get the funding — that the dollars might be better spent at some other hospital, or for some other services. In the case of funding medical research, for example, you might prefer a charity whose work promises to benefit your family — say you have a child with leukemia, or a parent with Alzheimer’s. The government is better equipped to know where the real need is, they say. Except that the government has a history of funding medical research into high-profile diseases that gets politicians kudos in the press, while diseases hit our loved ones without making any political calculation. Donations to medical research — or almost any purpose — will better reflect the priorities of the public at large if the public at large, rather than the government, dispenses largesse. Even if the government generally made better decisions than those made by individuals such as you — a proposition most right-wingers would dispute — the government’s decisions would need to be more than twice as good as yours to make for better use of funds.

The only situation where a charitable exemption costs taxpayers money involves charitable activities that the government doesn’t provide itself. Chiefly, this involves the church, which at one time had as its realm the provision of social services — governments were not formerly in the social services business. Then governments began to compete with the church in providing for the poor and healing the sick and now has the upper hand. The upper hand of the state over the church would be further strengthened should the charitable exemption be weakened, a result that would obtain mixed reviews on the right but hallelujahs on the left.

In contrast to the muddled right, Obama and the left understand the principles involved. When philanthropists direct their charitable dollars to a public purpose, the individual is usurping the government’s role in determining what is in the public interest. Why should this individual be encouraged, by virtue of an exemption from taxes, to usurp the role of government? The left — consistently throughout history and consistently by Barack Obama — takes a far-sighted view, correctly seeing the charity as imposing limits on the absolute power of the state.

Financial Post

Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and a founder of Probe International.

 

[ModlrMike]

The idea that the state is, or should be omnipotent is chilling to say the least.

 

[Brad Sallows]

>many also believe that the charities should operate without benefit of the exemption, which they see as a government subsidy.

As often happens, "many" have it backwards.  Charities subsidize governments.  Charitable services are mostly those which government might otherwise be compelled/persuaded to offer.  What government provides, is provided chiefly by well-remunerated, often unionized, public employees - or sometimes by well-remunerated, but not unionized, private contractors who have learned to game the government teat.  Charities, however, sometimes (often?) function with a healthy slice of unpaid volunteer labour and goods.

Government saves the cost of every freely donated hour of labour or piece of materiel that it would otherwise have to provide.  I suspect the sum of that labour and the assorted pile of foodstuffs, furnishings, clothing, etc easily exceeds the foregone revenue of charitable tax deductions in any given year.