International Affairs
Seth Barrett Tillman: The Casual Bigotry of Xeni Jardin and Jardin’s Many Followers
Excerpt:
Sadly, Isis kills lots of people. Some Muslim, some non-Muslim. Did Jardin mean that if Isis murdered only atheists, Yazidi, Christians, etc, then all would be well, and that Isis would not be a group of “psychopaths”? Why did Jardin focus on Isis’ Muslim-on-Muslim killings, except to dehumanize the non-Muslim victims, and to teach that authentic Islam (as Jardin understands Islam) specifically prohibits Muslim-on-Muslim murder, rather than precluding murder generally?
Jardin is not teaching tolerance and respect. Jardin is teaching tribalism and the soft bigotry of low expectations. Her world view is a newly invented faux-orientalism: a Westerner’s politically correct view of non-Westerners.
Those who have given Jardin’s post a “like,” those who have become her Twitter “followers,” are not part of the solution—they are part of the problem. A big part.
Seth Barrett Tillman: Reflections on the Revolution in the UK
The first two posts of a five-post series:
Part 1: It Is All Cameron’s Fault:
Finally, you might ask why did Cameron promise the referendum in his party’s election manifesto? It is simple. Even with the promise of a referendum, Cameron barely overcame the UKIP surge: a 3.8 million vote surge. It was only by peeling off voters from UKIP—through the promise of the in-out referendum—that made him PM. Had he not made this election pledge, any number of marginal Tory seats would have tipped: Labour, Lib-Dem, or UKIP. There was no blunder here by Cameron. It was not the referendum which destroyed Cameron’s ministry; rather, it was the promise of a referendum which made Cameron the Prime Minister in the first instance.
[. . .]
Parties who have been rejected at the polls twice should engage in meaningful introspection, at least, if they expect to be taken seriously in the future. The let’s put all the blame on Cameron position lacks just the sort of gravitas that one hopes to see in serious opposition parties.
and
Part 2: The U.K.’s Bradley/Wilder Effect Is Enough To Swing Elections:
If a society permits those who engage in wilful violence and those that command the police & the revenue office to drive normal political expression underground, then that society will not have normal political expression. One consequence of the lack of normal political expression is that every poll will lack validity.*
(Related: Brexit, Predictions and Trump.)
Brexit, Predictions and Trump
The bookies, until the votes were being counted, were showing greater than 2:1 odds against Brexit in yesterday’s referendum. The subsequent Brexit victory appears to confirm the hypothesis that many Brits were lying to pollsters.
The bookies are showing odds of around 3:1 against a Trump victory in our presidential election. Arguing predictions is a fool’s game, but it may be that our election polls are wrong for the same reason as the Brexit polls apparently were. The Democrats and their media allies have demonized Trump as a racist and misogynist, and it seems likely that many people who intend to vote for him aren’t admitting it. We’ll know soon enough.
Quote of the Day (Brexit Edition)
It should be obvious to the status quo that the crisis has arrived. Brexit, for all its drama, was a warning. The real collision is close ahead.
The basic demand is for a moderation, if not a reversal of the centralizing tendencies. It’s a brief for less immigration, less political correctness and less government.
Unfortunately conceding to these demands this is like reversing the Titanic. There’s so much momentum, it’s hard to stop. But they have to stop. The Iceberg looms ahead. All Brexit has done is give the warning.
From now on, the countdown begins. Can the elites turn the ship in time?