Month: July 2007
Boyz ‘n’ girlz will never change
“Passive smoking”; “man-made climate change”; “prison doesn’t work”; “fair trade” (code for protectionism), dyslexia; attention deficit disorder; “sex change operation”.
What those phrases have in common is, they are all lies that the left has promoted for its own purpose, which is two-fold: to if-not-destroy, then at least damage the progress of, capitalism. And two, to deharmonise and destabilise society/family and make it more dependent on the state.
Control.
The first three examples are obvious. I have noticed that now some doctors, and some educators, are beginning to express doubts about the received wisdom of “dyslexia” and ADD. At least in Britain – which means the Americans probably did it first – but these doubts are subjects in themselves and aren’t my focus here.
They’re all irritating, but I am increasingly exercised by the Big Lie of the “transexual” meme, although, in a sense, “transgendered” is even more manipulative. Transgendered is something that happened to them. They got transgendered. Passive tense. It wasn’t their fault! There was a universal mistake in their case and they were born into the “wrong sex”.
So they are only righting an error when they take their first tottering stiletto-heeled step down the road to “changing” their sex. Did they ever think they may just be gay? Or is that not dramatic enough?
But some things are impossible to change, even with the help of pharmaceutical companies and, where we are today, DNA is one of them.
I’m guessing that most of us, reading the latest account of some dissatisfied person who subjected him/herself to the surgeon’s knife and massive doses of hormones, stifle a yawn and think, “Whatever”.
But it’s a creepy, dangerous road we travel when we agree to perversions of the legal truth about these individuals.
Independence Day
One of the great sorrows of British life at present is the widespread anti-Americanism both on the left and the right. One can understand why the left should feel so – the United States is the pre-eminent liberal (mostly) democratic capitalist society, all of which they hate.
Why the right should seethe with anti-Americanism is a little more complicated and one that I hope to discuss in greater detail in a future posting. For the moment I simply want to wish all the best to all our American friends for July 4.
Clemency for Libby
I’m happy to hear that President Bush has commuted Lewis Libby’s prison sentence.
However, I don’t understand why Bush didn’t grant Libby a full pardon.
Bush cited the harshness of Libby’s sentence — and it was indeed harsh — as his rationale. But in this case the flaws in the sentencing pale in comparison to the much greater flaws in the decision to prosecute Libby in the first place. That is why Bush should have pardoned him.
Bush will now be blamed by his political opponents for giving Libby special treatment. Meanwhile, by paying lip service to the notion (or perhaps he is sincere in this belief, which would make him appear naive to the point of foolishness) that Libby committed a serious crime, he effectively bolsters the Democrats’ argument. By splitting the difference, Bush appears to be acting from expediency, denies Libby the full support that he is due, and will pay the same or greater political price as if he had pardoned Libby outright.
Also, unless his conviction is overturned on appeal, Libby will still have to pay a fine and serve two years’ probation, and will have a felony record that may prevent him from practicing law again. And all this for doing what — remembering a long-ago conversation differently than someone else did?
This outcome is vastly better for Libby and his family than prison would have been, but it still seems incomplete.
UPDATE: Not everyone agrees with me. See the discussion in the comments.
Spam Filter Again
It’s still not perfect. If your comment disappears, please email me ASAP so that I can restore it. I won’t know there is a problem unless you contact me.
(To provide some sense of what’s going on, there are currently 7242 spam comments in the filter queue, and additional spam comments accumulate at a rate of approximately 500/day. At this rate there are bound to be some false positives. If your comment gets trapped, and you let me know, I can easily retrieve it by searching the spam queue for your name. But I will only know to do this if you let me know.)