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31 August, 2017

A waiter wrote 'lesbians' on a couple's bar receipt

I gather that they ARE lesbians but didn't like it being mentioned

A HORRIFIED couple got a bar receipt with the word “lesbians” on it. Belinda Mulcah, 46, and Joanne Sheperd, 41, were out to celebrate Belinda’s birthday.

The Sun reports they found the barman’s crass note on their drinks bill at the Hafan y Mor holiday park near Pwllheli, North Wales.

But when they asked for the bill and paid, Jo was stunned to be handed a receipt with the description “lesbians” under their table number.

NHS worker Jo, of Whixall, Shropshire, said: “Belinda looked at me and she said, ‘Are you all right?’ I showed her and she was speechless.

“We hadn’t done anything overt. We hadn’t been kissing or holding hands. We could have been friends. “So the fact he decided to identify us as lesbians was a bit horrifying. We were shocked.”

A spokesman said: “This incident should not have occurred and we are sorry for any distress caused. “Following an investigation conducted by management, the individual concerned has been subject to internal disciplinary action.”

SOURCE




Naughty lingerie ad



IT’S fair to say that Eloise Monaghan has had a gutful. For 10 years the creator of the Honey Birdette lingerie range has been battling people who complain about the appearance of women’s breasts in her advertising campaigns.

One year she had an image banned because it showed too much “side cleavage”. Today, it’s the image above that has caused all the fuss.

After receiving a complaint, the image has been banned by the Australian Ad Standards Bureau for breaching Section 2.4 of the Code which states that “Advertising or Marketing Communications shall treat sex, sexuality and nudity with sensitivity to the relevant audience”.

It’s one of seven pictures that appears on digital billboards in Honey Birdette lingerie stores around Australia. But this particular shot that shows the “Issy” range, has been deemed too racy because it exposes minors to “inappropriate marketing” by using “highly sexual images”.

The big problem with this particular shot? You can see the models’ nipples.

Monaghan — who finds the image “beautiful” — deems it all utterly ridiculous and is clearly exasperated.

“Are they standing there with a magnifying glass looking for the nipple?” she said in an interview with news.com.au.

SOURCE







30 August, 2017

A cartoon that has escaped so far

The cartoon below has been doing the rounds for at least ten years, according to my knowledge.  It is well drawn and  I laugh at it whenever I see it pop up again.  But how come it has not provoked great wrath over "stereotyping" etc.

I think I know why.  Nobody knows who drew it and there is no point in getting outraged if you can't thresten the author over it in some way.  Getting an incautious person to lose their job is the big turn-on for correctness critics so without that their outrage doesn't exist.





More Left-Wing Racism
   
Wednesday afternoon, the ACLU posted a picture of a beautiful little girl in a “free speech” onesie holding an American flag. The picture was captioned, “This is the future that ACLU members want.”

I have no doubt that the progressives at the ACLU made a completely unbiased, race-free decision when they posted that picture. But the backlash was immediate. You see, the little girl was white.

The ACLU, whose mission is to fight mobs in defense of free speech, caved to the online mob and wouldn’t even defend its own speech.

In response to the criticism, it effectively apologized, noting that the group’s Twitter followers had kept it “in check” by reminding the ACLU that “white supremacy is everywhere.”

WHAT?! When did toddlers become symbols of white supremacy? This is a sad example of just how hyper-sensitive the Left has become.

If anyone ran an ad of a little black girl, Hispanic girl or Asian girl, and bigots attacked it, saying, “That’s not the future I’m working for,” millions of decent people would be repulsed by such ugly racism. It would make the evening news.

Yet when it happens the other way around, there is nothing but crickets from the so-called “mainstream media” about this shocking example of left-wing racism.

Again, where are the leading progressive figures saying that the ACLU should be ashamed for caving into that kind of bigotry? Where is the public condemnation of the Left’s racism?

SOURCE




29 August, 2017

Freedom of Speech: A Brief Defence

Sean Gabb

Every age we have so far known has been one of censorship. This is not to say that opinion has been equally constrained in all times and places. Sometimes, as in the Soviet Union, it has been oppressive and omnipresent – even extending to an imposition of orthodoxy on the natural sciences. More often, it has been focussed on perceived criticisms of the established political and religious order. Sometimes, dissent has been permitted among the intellectual classes – especially when expressed in a language unknown to the people at large, and only punished when communicated to the people at large. Sometimes, a diversity of political orders has limited any particular censorship to an area of just a few square hundreds of miles. Sometimes it has been limited by a general belief in the right of free expression. But I can think of no time or place where publication has been absolutely unconstrained.

If I look at modern England, I cannot say that censorship is as oppressive and omnipresent as it was in the Soviet Union. I cannot think of any opinion that cannot somehow be expressed. For the avoidance of doubt, I do not wish to do any of these things. However, if I want to deny the holocaust, I can. If I want to argue for sex with children, I can. If I want to claim that the coloured races are intellectually or morally inferior, I can. If I want to say that homosexuality is a dreadful sin that will be punished by everlasting torments, I can. The law punishes what are regarded as inflammatory expressions of such belief. It punishes expressions of such belief when they are regarded as affecting known individuals. But I am not aware of a law that makes it a crime to publish sober and abstract expressions of any opinion.

This being said, the law, during the present century, has been stretched to the point where expressing disapproved opinions in everyday life has become dangerous. Statements that do not involve threats against known individuals are being punishes as if they were threats. There is also the fact of what is called social pricing. It may be legal to publish any of the above opinions. But anyone who does publish them will find it hard to secure employment in the state or corporate sector. And, even when there is no censorship, there is a continual propaganda in one direction by the State and its associated institutions. I think here of the various evolutionary hypotheses. For myself, I find it hard to see how any impartial objection can be raised to the claim that the living world as we know it developed by some process of natural selection. At the same time, I am disturbed by the propagandistic tone of the relevant documentaries, and by the misrepresentation of the objections. Or there is the biassed or even lying nature of any establishment utterance on climate change.

We do not have, in England, anything approaching a regular censorship. Even so, speech is less free than it used to be, and far less free than it ought to be. Let me, then, give a brief argument for greater freedom of speech than we enjoy. This covers both direct action by the authorities and many kinds of social pricing.

I am a libertarian. I believe that people should, at the minimum, be free to say whatever they please about alleged matters of public fact. I am sceptical about the justice of the laws covering libel and confidentiality and copyright and official secrecy. But, so long as these are confined to achieving their traditionally stated ends, I will, for present purposes, leave them to one side. I will also leave aside photographic displays of sexual activity not limited to consenting adults. Yet, even at its minimal definition, the right to freedom of speech covers many of the classes of utterance that the British Government wishes to see driven from the Internet.

I turn to the Government’s war on “hate speech.” The term is designed to bring into mind ideas of inarticulate screams, or of simple orders to kill or to hurt. In fact, once we exclude direct, personal threats of the kind that have always been covered by the common law of assault, every act of “hate speech” I have seen punished by law or by social pricing has involved the same combination of propositions and inferences I see anywhere else.

Let us, for example, take these two statements:

Bearing in mind differences of population and wealth, the Great War was less destructive to England than the civil wars of the seventeenth century. Proportionately, fewer men were killed, and the economic costs were lower. Yet the physical effects of the Civil Wars drop out of view after 1660, and those of the Great War were a national obsession until 1939, and are now widely seen as the greatest single cause of our national decline. Therefore, anyone who accepts the consensus view of the Great War as a catastrophe is mistaking symptoms for causes. Whether or not going to war was an error, a fundamentally healthy nation could have shaken off the losses of the Somme and Passchendaele in a decade at most. That we did not indicates that there was already something wrong with us by 1914.

There are measurable differences between racial groups. Some of these are of intellectual capacity. Others are of propensity to crimes against life or property or both. Even otherwise, there are differences of outlook that show themselves in how the members of one group relate to each other and to members of other groups. These differences have been uncovered and confirmed by more than a century of research. They have also long been accepted as matters of common sense. Therefore, racially homogenous countries are well advised to keep out immigrants of other races. Where a country is already mixed, it makes sense to segregate each racial group so far as possible, and to govern each by different laws, or to apply the same laws with different effect to each group.

I give no opinion on the truth of these cases. The first is one side of a current academic debate. The second I have distilled from my reading of various nationalist blogs and journals. Whether either is true is beside my present point. My point is that each case begins with factual claims, from which inferences are then drawn. If you disagree with either, it seems obvious to me that the proper mode of disagreement is to show that the factual claims are untrue, or that the inferences are not validly drawn. Calling in the police, or getting someone sacked from his job, is at best unlikely to advance our understanding of the world.

It may be argued that the first case, if accepted, will have no obvious effects on what is done in the present, but that the second, if accepted, will lead to ethnic cleansing or apartheid. It may then be inferred that laws or other prohibitions against advancing the second case are needed to stop a great evil from being committed.

I agree that, if we accept the racial nationalist case, difficult questions come onto the agenda. In the same way, however, if my gold crowns wear out this year, I shall not be able to afford a family holiday. The unpleasantness of the apodosis has no bearing on the truth of the protasis. Suppose the racial nationalists are right. Suppose that what they advocate is the lesser of evils in the long term. Or suppose that they are right in their factual claims, but that there are alternative and less alarming inferences to be drawn from these. This would surely be worth knowing. Or let us suppose that the claims are wholly without merit. In this instance, a refutation gives us a better understanding of the truth. I do not know, for example, how to prove that the world is round. It might advance my understanding of the truth to see an open debate between a flat-earther and a physicist.

I say generally that, once a case has been stated with any show of evidence, and certainly once it has gained any body of support, it needs to be contested in open debate, not silenced by or on behalf of the State.

Furthermore, where written arguments are concerned, readers are generally alone and have ample time to think before taking action. This must be considered a new intervening cause in any course that leads from the communication of ideas to actual violence. If the opponents of “hate speech” only wanted laws against street agitators, they might have a case. Censoring the written word, however intemperate it may be, is plain suppression of debate.

The natural result of laws against “hate speech,” or of heavy social pricing, is to shut down debate on every claim that legitimises the present order of things. It would at least constrain dissent on the nature and extent of climate change, or on what is happening in the Middle East, or on how dangerous drinking and smoking are to health.

Indeed, we seem to be at the beginning of a change in the consensus on diet and health. For about forty years, we have been told that fat is bad for us, and that we should eat a lot of carbohydrate. It may be that we are about to be told that fat is good for us, and that sugar is the main cause of obesity and diabetes. Had Dr Atkins and others like him been accused of “hate speech,” this potentially valuable debate would have been flattened by claims of “social danger.”

Let us, therefore, have greater legal protection of speech than it presently enjoys in England. Let us have some equivalent of the American First Amendment. Let us also have greater tolerance, where the law does not enter, of dissenting opinion. If someone want to argue in the abstract for the achievement by violence of an Islamic caliphate, let him do so, without being sent to prison or losing his job. If someone wants to argue for the expulsion of Moslems from England, let him do so with the same legal and personal security. Truth is a value that always emerges from open debate, and at best by accident from the unquestionable pronouncements of those in authority.

SOURCE




28 August, 2017

California Could Start Jailing People Who Don’t Use Transgender Pronouns

A bill that passed the California state senate and is now moving through the Assembly could threaten jail time for anyone who refuses to use a transgender person’s preferred pronoun.

The law is currently limited in its effects to nursing homes and intermediate-care facilities, but if passed, those who “willfully and repeatedly” refuse “to use a transgender resident’s preferred name or pronouns” could be slapped with a $1,000 fine and up to one year in prison, according to the California Heath and Safety code.

The state senate passed the bill 26-12 at the end of May. Since then, the Assembly Judiciary committee recommended the bill unanimously and the General Assembly held its first hearing on the legislation Wednesday.

Experts argue it is “pretty unlikely that, if this law is enacted, such prohibitions would be limited just to this [nursing home] scenario,” UCLA First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh told National Review. Volokh speculates that lawmakers chose to apply the bill to nursing homes not because there is an overabundance
of transgender seniors in the state, but because the demographic group is likely to garner sympathy.

SOURCE





Australia: Blackface OK if you are a Leftist

The Chaser is an ABC program. Australia's ABC is relentlessly Leftist

Comedian Chas Licciardello has surprisingly revealed that he and his colleagues from The Chaser escaped any criticism for using blackface on national television, despite other entertainers being slammed for the same thing.

In a now largely forgotten skit broadcast on the ABC in 2007, The Chaser case used blackface to parody a Jackson Five song and received 'no blowback' at all, Licciardello said.

'We were blackfaced. There's no other way to describe it. And at the time, it didn't occur to me there was an issue,' Chas said on ABC chat segment The Mix on Friday night.

'There as no [blowback]. None. There was no complaints, there were no phone calls. Social media was around and we got nothing.

SOURCE






27 August, 2017

Canadian town refuses to remove swastikas from park as mayor defends local history



A Canadian village has refused to remove swastikas from a local park after an activist tried to paint over the controversial symbols.

The Nazi emblems are on an anchor that is on display in Pointe-des-Cascades, about 50 miles west of Montreal in Quebec.

Corey Fleischer, founder of a group called Erasing Hate, was trying to paint over the symbols last Thursday when he was stopped by the local mayor, Gilles Santerre, who called police to have him removed from the park.

"The village of Pointe-des-Cascades does not endorse Nazism," Mr Santerre said in a statement on Tuesday. "Our village has a beautiful community and family spirit, and creates events that bring people together."

Stressing it was part of the area's local history, he said the anchor, which belonged to a merchant vessel, predated the Second World War and was discovered by divers 25 years ago.

He cited a Radio Canada article that said the swastika was a symbol of peace before 1920.

The mayor sad the symbols would not be removed, but promised to place a more descriptive plaque next to the anchor to clarify its history.

Mr Fleischer, who believes the anchor should be in a museum, acknowledged the swastika was originally a religious icon that represented good luck.

SOURCE




More fake hate speech

Betrayed by something very peculiar indeed

A member of Hawaii’s state House of Representatives, Fukumoto’s public saga began in January when she was removed from her position as House Minority Leader after participating in the radical anti-Trump “Women’s March,” which tied to several convicted terrorists.

Several weeks after her colleagues voted her out, Fukumoto publicly resigned from the Republican Party on March 22, claiming “I saw members of my party marginalizing and condemning minorities” and the GOP was infested with “elements of racism and sexism within the base.”

Then, on Aug. 16, Fukumoto posted to Twitter a letter she claimed to have received from a Trump supporter.

The typewritten letter mocks Fukumoto’s Japanese heritage, specifically citing her Japanese-American father, and goes on to claim “We Trump people hate illegals, black thugs, Muslims and bombs, and gays…”

But something about the letter was odd. Some of it was the wording, which reads like a liberal doing an impression of a conservative. The writer also uses ellipses after many sentences, something Fukumoto herself does in online writings.

But Twitter user @ThomasWictor, one of those people with extensive knowledge of arcane subjects, noted something damning.

The stamps.

For one, the stamps used to mail the letter were not marked by the Postal Service, indicating the letter may never have been mailed.

It’s the same mistake that race hoaxer Rachel Dolezal made when she sent fake hate letters to herself.

But the stamps themselves are unusual.  They are 10-cent stamps, printed in 1975 to commemorate the Postal Service.

Who has unused 42-year-old stamps?  Specifically, who would have collectors stamps commemorating the Postal Service?

Fukumoto’s biography notes her father “recently retired from the Post Office after 46 years of service.”

Seeing as virtually every publicly-paraded “hate crime” turns out to be a hoax intended to get attention, is Beth Fukumoto now faking hate mail to herself?

SOURCE








25 August, 2017

‘Ching Chong’ written on Asian customer’s receipt

It's just slang for a Chinese person.  Presumably used to identify the customer for the waitress

A RESTAURATEUR in New York City has reportedly apologised for — and fired — an employee who wrote “Ching Chong” on an Asian woman’s receipt in place of her name.

Ziggy Chau, a friend of the woman’s daughter, first posted a photo of the receipt to Facebook last week, decrying the “racist staff” and urging the Facebook community to boycott the establishment.

“Please boycott this place Cornerstone Cafe NYC until they publicly apologise,” wrote Chau alongside a picture of the receipt, which clearly reads “Ching Chong” under both the “to go” and “customer name” sections. “Better yet, call them directly and let them know they have a racist staff,” Chau added.

Later that evening, Chau phoned the Cornerstone Cafe to complain, but claimed that the manager, Rocco, suggested that his server must have misheard the woman’s name when she was taking down the order. Chau, however, informed him that “Ching Chong” was a derogatory term for Asians, and asked him to apologise on social media.

Chau’s efforts appeared to work, seeing as Rocco apologised on Cornerstone Café’s Facebook page by 11:30pm. The post is no longer available on the restaurant’s Facebook page, but a screengrab posted to Shanghaiist confirms that Rocco apologised and terminated the offending employee.

SOURCE




Why Nazis must have freedom of speech

Seven reasons why the far right should never be censored

Following the disturbances in Charlottesville, including the foul murder-by-vehicle of a socialist protester by an alleged Nazi sympathiser, the cry has gone out to censor the extreme right. Free speech is great, people say, but it must not extend to swastika-waving hotheads with beer bellies and wicked beliefs who want to gather and shout in public. Their ideas are too toxic. And given half the chance they would burn books, repress the left, and silence minorities — why should we be liberal towards such latent authoritarians? ‘Simple fact of the matter is, freedom of speech does not, and should not, include Nazis’, one observer says.

This is wrong. Nazis must enjoy the same freedom of speech as everyone else. For these seven reasons:

1) Freedom of speech is indivisible or it does not exist

The clue is in the name: it’s free speech. This means everyone has it, whether they’re a saintly figure sharing feel-good memes or Richard Spencer or some other douche with a bad haircut and even worse politics who wants to spread malice about Jews or Mexicans. When you qualify free speech, you kill it. You turn it from a liberty into a privilege, a thing enjoyed only by those deemed ‘agreeable’ by the state or the moral majority. You create licensed speech, where people are permitted to speak so long as they stay within decreed parameters of acceptable thought. Step outside those parameters and your license is revoked. If any one group or idea is made verboten, freedom of speech no longer exists.

2) Okaying the censorship of Nazis would set a lethal precedent

Imbuing officialdom with the authority to silence certain political ideas is a recipe for dictatorship. If you think they will stop once they’ve extinguished the idea you don’t like, you need to improve your familiarity with history. British leftists called for public-order legislation to control far-right marches and were startled when those laws were sometimes used to keep them off the streets, too. Radical feminists and gay-rights activists agitated for the No Platforming of neo-fascists on British campuses in the 1980s and are now alarmed to find themselves No Platformed for ‘transphobia’ or ‘Islamophobia’. When you accept the logic of censorship, you open yourself up to censorship. For anti-fascists to implore officials in Trump’s America to police political expression is a special kind of folly, given those officials’ hostility to the left and black radicals: under the cover of tackling extremism, they would tackle your ‘extremism’, too.

3) Free speech for Nazis means free speech for you

Too many think that if you defend a group’s freedom to speak, you defend the group itself. Not so. On the contrary, defending freedom for Nazis is one of the best ways you can defend freedom for yourself. Securing their rights secures your rights. Through insisting that the borders of expressible thought be so widely drawn that even Nazis are included within them, we help to maintain a wide and open and experimental public sphere in which we ourselves can be radical and daring without suffering censorious blowback. The minute laws or restrictions against Nazi hate are proposed, we must argue against them, because, in the words of HL Mencken, ‘it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all’.

4) Censoring Nazis would weaken public virtue

Censorship doesn’t only silence the individual who wants to get something off his chest — it also disempowers us, the potential audience to that speech. It deprives us of the right to hear and judge for ourselves. It infantilises us through absolving us of the responsibility to use our mental and moral muscles and instead allowing someone else to decide on our behalf that a certain idea is wicked or wrong. To silence far-right and racist thinking would prevent the civic-minded public from having a reckoning with such foul ideas, from confronting them in the public glare and both using reason and appealing to reason in a battle of our ideas against theirs. It would decommission our responsibility as citizens to stand up to prejudice by making that the job of officialdom instead, in the process making equality a shallow, enforced value rather than a lived ideal we all have a part in defending.

5) Censoring Nazis helps them more than it hurts them

Nothing is more likely to flatter the racialised self-pity and conspiracy-theory thinking of white nationalists than their being prevented from gathering or speaking in public. It would embolden their fantasy about being martyrs. Worse, in expelling ideas we don’t like from public life, we put those ideas beyond the reach of reason, beyond the sting of public contestation, and that is likely to guarantee both their continued existence and their worsening. Liberated from the burden of public dispute, hard-right ideologies will become even more eccentric, more unhinged. Underground, away from debate, they will fester and spread among networks that already feel alienated from mainstream society. If Nazism exists in my society, I want to see it and hear it, so that I can confront it. Hidden hatred is a far more chilling prospect than publicly expressed hatred.

6) Censoring racism demeans minority groups

One of the worst arguments for the censorship of the far right is that we must protect minority groups from feeling offended or unsafe. This infantilises ethnic minorities. It presents censorship as their friend and freedom of speech as their enemy. This runs counter to the experience of history, in which every significant social breakthrough, for minority groups, the working classes and women, was won through freedom of speech — through people insisting upon their right to organise and publish as they saw fit in order that they might confront their enemies and make the case for their own liberation. In the words of the freed slave and agitator for abolition, Frederick Douglass: ‘Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist.’ For white leftists to call for censorship to protect black people’s feelings is a form of neo-racialism that has nothing to do with genuinely progressive politics.

7) You cannot defeat Nazism by aping it

‘They would censor us, so let us censor them.’ This is the cry of many of those who would silence the far right. It is too ironic for words: in order to defeat Nazis we must act like Nazis would if they got the chance. Here’s a better idea: we confront the hard right by defending and even proselytising about all the things it hates — freedom of thought, freedom of speech, the open society, democracy and universalism.

SOURCE






24 August, 2017

PayPal backs down

By Robert Spencer, scholar of Islam

When a neo-Nazi psychopath plowed his car into a crowd of Leftist protesters in Charlottesville, the Left saw a golden opportunity to use the moment as its Reichstag Fire, and indulge its increasingly obvious authoritarian tendencies. But when they came after Jihad Watch, they overreached.

On Saturday afternoon, the Soros-funded hard-Left website ProPublica published a hit piece calling upon PayPal and other new media giants to block Jihad Watch and other groups that have been defamed by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as “hate groups.”

ProPublica’s Lauren Kirchner complained that Jihad Watch’s “designation as a hate site hasn’t stopped tech companies — including PayPal, Amazon and Newsmax — from maintaining partnerships with Jihad Watch that help to sustain it financially. PayPal facilitates donations to the site.

The Left media said “Jump,” and PayPal immediately said “How high?” Just hours after the ProPublica piece appeared, PayPal blocked Jihad Watch. I received an email early Saturday evening from PayPal’s Ronita Murray, saying: “Due to the nature of your activities, we have chosen to discontinue service to you in accordance with PayPal’s User Agreement.  As a result, we have placed a permanent limitation on your account.”

What was unacceptable about the “nature of [my] activities”? PayPal didn’t say.

No discussion, no debate, no opposing view, no appeal was possible. The SPLC never contacts its targets to ask them to respond to the charges that they’re “hate groups”; it simply hands down its ruling, which the establishment media uncritically accepts, and that’s that.

But after banning Jihad Watch, PayPal encountered a crowd of free citizens. PayPal was inundated with emails and tweets denouncing its ready capitulation to Leftist attempts to delegitimize and silence all dissent. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people canceled their PayPal accounts.

And so PayPal quickly came to realize that the power of the people is not vested solely in the Leftist thugs who assert themselves ever more aggressively on America’s streets. PayPal discovered that America is still full of patriots who don’t wish to accept the Left’s lie that opposing jihad terror and Sharia oppression constitutes “Islamophobia,” which is worse than jihad terror itself.

On Monday evening, I received this from PayPal:

Effective 08/21/2017, the limitation applied to your account associated with https://www.jihadwatch.org pursuant to our User Agreement was removed.  Your services are being reinstated.

What made Jihad Watch no longer a “hate site”? The voices of free people.

Of course, the Left’s war on the freedom of speech isn’t over. There is no doubt that the Left will continue to try to cut the ground out from under those who dissent from its agenda. But this is a victory over the Left’s totalitarian steamroller.

I have no intention of restoring the PayPal buttons on Jihad Watch. I know where they stand now, and do not intend to place myself at their mercy again. But nonetheless, this is a victory. Free people still exist in the United States, and the fascists who call themselves anti-fascists will not prevail.

SOURCE




Black woman accuses England Women manager of 'racist' Ebola remark

Obviously jocular remarks, the sort of thing common among sports people.  But jokes are dangerous these days

The manager of England Women, Mark Sampson, is facing explosive new claims by Eni Aluko after she accused him of telling her to ensure her Nigerian relatives did not bring Ebola to a game at Wembley.

Aluko also revealed the Football Association had been aware of the alleged comment since November, claiming it had not investigated the matter despite her complaining that another mixed-race player had been asked by Sampson how many times she had been arrested.

The FA conducted an internal investigation and independent inquiry into the latter accusation following a formal complaint of bullying and discrimination by Aluko, with both clearing Sampson of any wrongdoing.

Despite this, it emerged earlier this month the FA had paid Aluko £80,000 at the conclusion of the second inquiry to “avoid disruption” before last month’s European Championship.

Aluko broke her silence on the case on Monday, with the FA’s consent, branding the decision to clear Sampson of a number of allegations she made against him as a “farce”.

SOURCE




23 August, 2017

Boston 'free speech' rally drowned out by anti-hate speech protesters

Free speech for Leftists only.  There was no "hate speech" to drown out

Thousands of anti-racism demonstrators have flooded the streets of Boston to dwarf a gathering of white nationalists in the city, triggering scuffles with police but avoiding the deadly violence that marred last week's Virginia rally.

A so-called "free speech" rally by far-right groups had been scheduled to run until 2pm yesterday local time, but shortly before that police escorted its dozens of participants to safety past the throng of anti-racism protesters.

Aerial images show the counter-protesters filling one of Boston's main streets for several blocks, in a huge outpouring of anti-racist sentiment in the strongly Democratic northeastern city.

SOURCE





PayPal is now LeftPal

PayPal banned Jihad Watch and the American Freedom Defense Initiative from receiving online donations using their platform because of the site’s “activities” after being designated as “hate sites” by left-wing groups.

Jihad Watch was reportedly banned from PayPal on Saturday after ProPublica – a George Soros funded investigative group – targeted the site and its director Robert Spencer (not to be confused with white nationalist Richard Spencer) in a hit piece that claimed the site was guilty of “extreme hostility toward Muslims.”

The assault on Jihad Watch began on Friday when Spencer received an email that he described as a “threatening” from ProPublica journalist Lauren Kirchner.

The email informed Spencer that she was including his site among a list of hate sites identified as such by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) – both widely considered to be left-leaning organizations.

The purpose of the hit piece published by ProPublica was clear: put pressure on tech companies that offer their platforms to sites that it deems as “hate sites.”

ProPublica specifically called out Amazon, PayPal, and Newsmax for maintaining partnerships with Jihad Watch. Hours after the outlet published its hit piece, Spencer received the following email from PayPal:

RE: Notice of PayPal Account Limitation Dear Robert Spencer, We have recently reviewed your usage of PayPal’s services, as reflected in our records and on your website https://www.jihadwatch.org.

Due to the nature of your activities, we have chosen to discontinue service to you in accordance with PayPal’s User Agreement. As a result, we have placed a
permanent limitation on your account. We ask that you please remove all references to PayPal from your website.

PayPal notified Pamela Geller’s American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) on Monday that it was banning her site from its platform in a nearly identical email like the one received by Jihad Watch.

Spencer told The Daily Caller in an email that these attacks stem from the violence in Charlottesville, and the Left sees the tragedy as an opportunity to pounce on sites that it finds offensive.

“The Left sees blood in the water after Charlottesville and is moving in for the kill, attempting to delegitimize, silence and destroy all dissent,” he wrote. “The freedom of speech, the foundation of a free society, is being eroded away under our very noses.”

It is worth noting that PayPal has also banned many accounts that are tied to the “alt-right” after the SPLC identified them as “hate sites” or “hate groups.”

A report by CNN Tech found that PayPal blocked payments to the majority of the accounts listed by the SPLC, including Richard Spencer’s National Policy Institute, Identity Evropa, Radical Agenda, and the Revolutionary Conservative.

Jihad Watch describes its purpose as “attempt[ing] to raise awareness about the activities of the global jihadists,” while the AFDI describes its objective as “go[ing] on the offensive when legal, academic, legislative, cultural, sociological, and political actions are taken to dismantle our basic freedoms and values.”

Robert Spencer called for people to boycott PayPal in a post on Jihad Watch which led to the hashtag #BoycottPayPal appearing on Twitter’s trending now list:

SOURCE




22 August, 2017

These 5 common phrases you might use at work can be highly offensive

The language jungle just got more complicated -- more than enough for one day.  From the Leftist "Salon.com", well known for being unable to pay its rent

Below are a few phrases that, regardless of intention, can be marginalizing.

Low-skilled labor

Thanks to our Cheeto in Chief, this one’s been getting lots of press recently. Investopedia defines “low-skilled labor” as “a segment of the workforce associated with a limited skill set or minimal economic value for the work performed. Generally characterized by a lower educational attainment, such as a high school diploma, GED or lack thereof, and typically results in smaller wages.”

While these jobs traditionally involve lower wages, they also require lots of practice and mental focus. Occupations that people often refer to as low-skilled” include cleaning, farm labor, grocery clerks, and retail employees.

Why is saying “low-skilled” not okay? Well, the term suggests that these jobs don’t require any brain power—which means the people holding them aren’t intelligent. Yet in reality, folks with these jobs are doing hard work to support themselves and their families. As a recent piece for Remezcla showed, numerous people turned out on Twitter after the Trump debacle to give a face to those who are “low-skilled:”

The term is dehumanizing, and should be reconsidered. One possible rephrasing is “manual workers.”

Urban

The definition of “urban” is “Of, pertaining to, or designating a city or town; living in a city; characteristic of or accustomed to cities; citified.” Note that urban does not mean black. Yet somehow, the two words have become conflated. Companies have “urban marketing” departments. “Urban” music is music that’s tied to black culture. However, urban environments are not entirely composed of black people. According to Elizabeth Kneebone, a fellow at the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, 39 percent of African Americans live in the suburbs, 36 percent live in cities, 15 percent live in small metropolitan areas, and 10 percent live in rural communities. In reality, the most “urban” race is actually white. If you’re trying to address minority and/or financially distressed groups in your business, use the correct terminology.

You guys

This phrase is so common that it can be difficult to stop using. However, it’s a damaging one. When you’re speaking to a mixed-gender group, saying “you guys” puts the attention solely on the men. Do you want to do that? Of course not! It’s important to make sure that everyone you’re addressing feels seen and acknowledged, regardless of gender. Male-centric language subtly hints that women are lesser.

Handicapped

The American Disability Act has asked for the word “handicap” to be replaced with “disability.” Why? Because the word handicap is othering. It makes it seem as though people in that group are different, when in reality a person can become disabled at any time. As Jill Layton notes on Hello Giggles, “ It can happen to you, your friends and any of your family members, at any age. It can be a fluke accident, a botched surgery, an illness, etc. No one is immune.” Other phrases for disabilities that are workplace appropriate include special needs, physically/mentally challenged, people with disabilities, or people with limitations.

Ghetto

People often use the word “ghetto” when they mean “bad.” This is not cool because it directly associates the inner city with being lower-class or subpar. “The problem with the word is that it’s very difficult to disassociate it from its use to characterize low-income African Americans,” says Mario Small, a professor of sociology at Harvard University, in an article for the BBC. “Thus, when ‘ghetto’ is used as an insult, it often sounds like a racial insult.” Instead of saying ghetto, get more specific about what you dislike about the situation or place.

SOURCE




21 August, 2017

Censorship of the truth in Germany

A district court in Munich earlier today sentenced the German journalist Michael Stürzenberger to six months in jail and an additional 100 hours of charitable work for publishing this photo in his Facebook timeline.



It shows a Nazi and Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, shaking hands in 1941 in Berlin.

Along with the photo, he had written a review of an article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, ‘Hakenkreuz und Halbmond’ (“Swastika and Crescent Moon”) about the National Socialists’ admiration for Islam, and mentioned his own review [of that Süddeutsche article in PI-News].

For this post, in particular the photo, the court found Stürzenberger guilty of “disseminating the propaganda of anti-constitutional organizations”.

The prosecution had accused Stürzenberger of “inciting hatred towards Islam” and “denigrating Islam” by publishing the photo. A superficial onlooker, the prosecution argued, could not know that this black and white photo in Stürzenberger’s timeline was a historical document.

According to PI-News, the sentence might be handed down as a suspended sentence for three and a half years.

SOURCE



Eventbrite And Mailchimp Attempt To Silence Milo Yiannopoulos

Eventbrite and Mailchimp are the two latest online services to join the offensive against free expression on the Internet following last weekend’s bloody events in Charlottesville, Va.

This Friday, the two services terminated their relationship with Milo Yiannopoulos, citing “terms of service violations” that neither platform has clarified. The conservative firebrand is infamous for his politically incorrect views, which have literally inflamed the left — members of Antifa rioted in the city of Berkeley to protest his appearance at UC-Berkeley in February.

Yiannopoulos revealed Friday that Eventbrite, which allows its users to plan public events, had canceled his upcoming event, “MILO Takes Orlando (Dangerous Book Signing Party),” which he had planned to advertise his newly released book, “Dangerous,” despite previously approving it.

Breitbart reported Friday that the event was first temporarily unpublished pending a possible violation of the company’s community guidelines and terms of services. Following an inquiry, the company informed Yiannopoulos’ organization that it had been re-approved. Ten hours later, they canceled it.

“Following further review, we have determined that Milo Yiannopoulos is no longer authorized to benefit from the Eventbrite platform due to a violation of our Community Guidelines and/or Terms of Service,” stated an email from Eventbrite’s Trust and Safety. “As such, this event cannot be hosted on our platform and your listing has been removed at this time.”

Similarly, Mailchimp canceled Yiannopoulos’ use of their mailing list platform on August 15. In a tersely-worded email, a support agent for the company informed the conservative speaker that his account was “in violation of our Terms of Use, and it has been disabled.” No further information was given.

SOURCE






20 August, 2017

Must not disrespect a black ideologue

Anybody who tries to lock black kids into failing public schools does not have the interests of the kids at heart -- but they may be captives of the teacher unions.  So Loeb was well justifed in commenting strongly on that

ALBANY, N.Y. — A billionaire hedge fund manager has apologized for an online post saying that a black New York state senator has ‘‘done more damage to people of color than anyone who has ever donned a hood’’ because of her support for teachers unions.

Daniel Loeb issued a statement saying he regrets the language he used in the Facebook post about the Senate minority meader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, a Democrat. The post was an apparent reference to the white headgear of the Ku Klux Klan. It was deleted late Thursday.

Loeb, the CEO of the investment firm Third Point, is a top donor to the Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo and many other politicians. He is a leading supporter of charter schools.

SOURCE



Anti-transgender sign defended as ‘satire’

A BUSINESS owner who sparked outrage with a sign referencing transgender people has defended the move as “satire”, saying people are too easily offended these days.

Richard Tisch, owner of Will County Loan Company, a pawnbroker in the US town of Lockport, Illinois, about 50km southwest of Chicago, caused a stir this week with a sign reading, “Help wanted — must be female from birth.”

It was seen as a clear show of support for US President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender servicepeople in the military last month, a reversal of a decision made by former President Barack Obama in 2016 to allow transgender people to serve openly for the first time.

“Usually I am not one to blast a business online, especially social media,” Valerie Blanchette posted on Facebook. “But this is a local place in town. And say what you want about ‘freedom of speech’, this is flat out discrimination. And it’s appalling. So, #WillCountyLoanCo, I’m blasting you. Friends, share the crap out of this.”

Mr Tisch, a 71-year-old retired Vietnam veteran, has previously caused a stir with provocative signs, including “Become a liberal, remove half your brain” and “Hillary’s health plan — free condoms for Wild Bill”. He also has a sign inside the store warning of a “two per cent surcharge for Democrats”.

“Does anybody think that’s serious?” he told local news station WGN9. “The sign is, no question, satire. People are just too serious. Everybody’s becoming offended in this country today. I mean, the place has gone crazy.”

SOURCE




18 August, 2017

Shoe makers slammed for sexism over names of girls’ shoes called Dolly Babe and boys’ range called Leader

SHOE shop Clarks has sparked a sexism row after it named a girls’ shoe range ‘Dolly Babe’ and a boys’ line ‘Leader’.

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was among the critics, tweeting: “It is almost beyond belief that in 2017 a major company could think this is in any way acceptable. Shows what we are still up against.”

Following a backlash The Dolly Babe range, featuring a heart print detail, has been withdrawn from the website and the firm said it is removing the name from in-store products.

The Leader footwear, which carries a football image, remains on sale online in the boys’ school shoes section.

But replying to Ms Sturgeon, a Twitter user by the name of Tod said: “my daughter went though all phases from dolly babe to goth. It’s called choice & made no difference to her self esteem/worth.”

Clarks released a statement saying the Dolly Babe range is “an old and discontinued line, with only remaining stock being sold through our stores”.

SOURCE




No, the First Amendment Is Not Limited by 'Hate Speech'  

In the aftermath of Charlottesville’s antifa vs. alt-right riots, the mainstream media is, predictably, using the violence to feed the political narrative that all Donald Trump supporters are tacit defenders of white supremacy and racism. While the narrative is nothing new, it seems to have picked up steam due to the murder of a woman in the protest crowd by a sociopath from Ohio. Shamefully, the MSM exploited the murder to call into question the ACLU-defended First Amendment rights to freedom of speech — including ugly speech.

One of the Left’s favorite hobby horses is calling for the limiting of free speech it finds offensive, and leftists would love to have the power to silence speech they disagree with by labeling it “hate speech.” The trouble is the Constitution does not recognize this limit to Americans’ right to free speech. Still, that doesn’t stop leftists from claiming it does. A recent example emerges from an MSNBC interview of Patrisse Cullors, one of the founders of Black Lives Matter — which, one might argue, is a black supremacist group.

Cullors was asked to explain the distinction between the BLM protesters and the white supremacist protesters who were clashing in Charlottesville. Cullors responds by claiming that BLM’s message is about seeking equality while the white supremacists’ is “hate speech.” Not a surprising response, but she then flat-out lies, stating — without any pushback from the MSNBC host — that “hate speech” is not protected by the First Amendment. The truth is that “hate speech” is protected, because for the U.S. Constitution that caveat simply does not exist. Time and again the Supreme Court has ruled broadly in favor of Americans’ right to free speech. Just because one person or group may find certain speech to be offensive and reprehensible, they do not have the right to call for the government to silence someone else. This is the entire essence of the freedom of speech.

SOURCE





17 August, 2017

Now they're covering up statues -- at Yale



If you were especially observant during your years on campus, you may have noticed a stone carving by the York Street entrance to Sterling Memorial Library that depict a hostile encounter: a Puritan pointing a musket at a Native American (top).

When the library decided to reopen the long-disused entrance as the front door of the new Center for Teaching and Learning, says head librarian Susan Gibbons, she and the university’s Committee on Art in Public Spaces decided the carving’s “presence at a major entrance to Sterling was not appropriate.”

The Puritan’s musket was covered over with a layer of stone (bottom) that Gibbons says can be removed in the future without damaging the original carving. 

SOURCE



Shutting down conservative voices is now advancing apace

Message from Vdare.com:

A few minutes ago, the VDARE Foundation was kicked off of Paypal without warning.

We were given no reasons, so are left to speculate why we've been suddenly purged. Best guess: the Charlottesville debacle -- in which VDARE.com played no part, either in planning, promoting or appearing -- is being used as an excuse for the authoritarian Communist Left to punish anyone who disagrees with their anti-American violence against patriotic people.

Luckily, we were prepared for this and the disruption will be minimal.

But this is only the beginning. Despite the increasingly hysterical news cycle, despite the scenes of brutality on the streets of so many major cities, despite the fever-pitch that it all seems to have reached, this is only the beginning.

It is impossible to predict on what level we will be attacked next.

More HERE 




16 August, 2017

The Climate Alarmists’ Gross Perversion of the Word Clean

Climate alarmists have gone to endless efforts to gain public acceptance of their doomsday premise that the world must greatly reduce its use of fossil fuels to avoid catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. They have fudged the surface temperature data, used meaningless climate models, argued that human emissions of carbon dioxide will warm the planet despite the strong evidence to the contrary, and so on, but their greatest perversion is of the English language.

They have branded CO2 as a pollutant and claimed that reducing it is necessary to make the world “clean.” All the alarmists from Gore to McKibben to Obama are guilty of this; in fact, the use of this terminology is so uniform that one suspects that they all have been coached to say it at every opportunity. Unfortunately, their efforts have even been supported by the Supreme Court, which decreed that CO2 is subject to regulation by the USEPA under the Clean Air Act despite no real support for this in the legislative history.

The Alarmists’ Biggest Propaganda Weapon

Since no one is opposed to something being clean, this is by far the alarmists’ biggest propaganda weapon. They have eagerly seized it and are running with it as hard as they can, despite its inapplicability in this case. They often combine it with the additional adjective “renewable” and refer to wind and solar-generated energy as “clean renewable” energy. CO2 emissions from using fossil fuels to generate energy, on the other hand, are characterized as “dirty” even though they are invisible, so cannot be perceived as clean or dirty by anyone.

But how can they get by with such a gross perversion of reality and the language? Plants must have adequate levels of CO2 in order to live, and have been shown to grow better with higher atmospheric levels; if they all die, Earth will become a truly dirty, lifeless landscape with endless piles of blowing sand and dirt and starving humans. Plants came close to mass starvation during the last ice age because of the low levels of CO2. CO2 is essential for plants and indirectly for animals.

Why Wind and Solar Are Actually Very Dirty

So the alarmists are actually arguing that life on Earth should be dirty and plants must be allowed to die in order to keep life-giving atmospheric CO2 levels down. The alarmists’ favored means for reducing CO2 emissions actually have many important dirty aspects such as bird and bat kills, rare earth mining, hideous wind and solar plants spread over huge areas, and difficult and slow removal of abandoned windmills and solar facilities after the subsidies are cut. This does not make CO2 reduction “clean”; it makes it anti-environmental, anti-poor people, and ultimately “dirty.”

SOURCE





A black man publicly eating a banana



Some things you couldn't make up.  Associating blacks with bananas has often been decried

Marshawn Lynch, a runningback for the Oakland Raiders, sat and ate a banana during the national anthem on Saturday before the Raiders’ first preseason football game against the Arizona Cardinals in Glendale, Arizona. Lynch did not play during the game, and the Raiders’ coach said Lynch’s actions were a “non-issue.”

Although Lynch said he has been doing this for 11 years, photos and videos show he stood on many occasions for the national anthem in recent years.

SOURCE





15 August, 2017

Woman who deliberately tried to inconvenience her workplace provokes anger

But the anger was crudely put so an apology was extracted.  Was the apology really needed?

A SHOCKINGLY sexist reply-all email sent by the boss of a Hollywood talent agency has gone viral after being posted on Facebook by the accidental recipient.

Rosette Laursen, who has since quit the agency, was working as an assistant when she asked for a day off to take part in “A Day Without A Woman”, an initiative on International Women’s Day on March 8 to demonstrate the value women bring to the modern workplace.

The reply, which was meant for two male co-workers only but accidentally went to the entire team, read: “Are you f***ing kidding me. At the end of pilot season. Someone should sew her vagina shut. I’m never hiring a girl ever again.

“No bonus for anyone that strikes or leaves early in pilot season. No one is striking in show business we are all against Trump. And women are considered diverse and being shoved in as writer and directors. Zach who is a Jewish male is being pushed out.

She then received the following apology: “I apologize for venting like a misogynistic fa***t. I was letting off steam I didn’t mean to hit reply all. I’m an a**hole. If you come back we can play Nazi death camp. You can beat me and put me in the oven. Or feed me cabbage and lock me in the shower. I am truly sorry.”

Ms Laursen said she “wasn’t a big fan of any of this”, and responded with “I quit"

Ms Laursen added that the “response ... shouldn’t have surprised me considering my past exchanges with him”, but described the email as the “final straw”. She added that her Christmas bonus that year was red lingerie that “made me look like a ham”, but pointed out that her boss “is gay so it could be weirder”.

SOURCE



DC Metro sued over refusal to run some ads

Washington, D.C.’s transit system is being sued over its refusal to feature ads for Milo Yiannopoulos, an abortion provider and PETA.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Wednesday announced the lawsuit, which asks the court to order the agency to accept and run the ads in its trains and stations and in and on its buses.

Among the ads the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority refused to display was one from women’s healthcare collective Carafem that features a picture of a white pill along with the text “10-Week-After Pill” and “For abortion up to 10 weeks. $450. Fast. Private.”

The Metro also did not allow ads for PETA that featured a picture of a pig, along with the words “I’m ME, Not MEAT. See the Individual. Go Vegan.”

The transit authority did initially approve the ads for Milo Yiannopoulos’s book Dangerous but withdrew them after passengers complained. The lawyers have also filed a motion for Milo Worldwide LLC that seeks immediate relief from the court for what it said was the ongoing loss of revenue from book sales as a result of the ads being taken down.

Lee Rowland, senior staff attorney with the ACLU, said the plaintiffs in the case “perfectly illustrate the indivisibility of the First Amendment.”

“In its zeal to avoid hosting offensive and hateful speech, the government has eliminated speech that makes us think, including the text of the First Amendment itself. The ACLU could not more strongly disagree with the values that Milo Yiannopoulos espouses, but we can’t allow the government to pick and choose which viewpoints are acceptable,” he added.

SOURCE








14 August, 2017

NJ: Bernards Township Forbids Citizens From Criticizing Islam Or Muslims… Residents Are Furious

The speech restriction applies only to discussions during  council meetings but since it concerns a religion -- Islam -- is clearly bigoted.  Discussions of Muslim practice are surely highly relevant in discussing the building of a mosque.  The mosque has now been finally approved subject to a number of restrictions.  The court-ordered $3.25 million settlement is $1.5 million in damages and $1.75 million in legal expenses.

According to reports from World Net Daily, a New Jersey township that was sued by a group of Muslims for refusing to approve a massive mosque project is now returning to court because of a settlement agreement that restricts anyone from commenting on “Islam” or “Muslims.”

The Islamic Society of Basking Ridge won a decision in federal court after its mosque proposal was rejected based on traffic and other concerns. The Township agreed on a $3.5. million payment and a “public hearing to approve the settlement.”

Residents Christopher and Loretta Quick challenged the agreement, arguing it restricts speech and violates the Establishment Clause.

“The Quicks reside within 200 feet of the proposed mosque construction in a zoned residential area,” Thomas More explained. “Yet, the settlement agreement prohibits them from describing the many unique features of Islamic worship which will impact the design of the building, traffic density, water and sewage, traffic control problems, road construction, and parking arrangements.

“ISBR is setting a dangerous unconstitutional precedent by abusing a court process to chill and trample on the First Amendment rights of private citizens whose only involvement was to speak out against the mosque at public hearings,” Thompson said earlier this year.

SOURCE






Australian federal government warns public servants over social media attacks

This is fairly dubious from a free speech point of view but it is true that an employer is entitled to put conditions on the employment he offers.  Australia has no First Amendment but does have some other protections

The Turnbull government will today seek to impose restrictions on public servants criticising the Coalition on social media, warning that employees risk disciplinary action for "liking" anti-government posts or privately emailing negative mat­erial to a friend from home.

Documents obtained by The Australian show public servants would also be warned they could be in breach of the public service code of conduct if they do not ­remove "nasty comments" about the government posted by others on the ­employee’s Facebook page.

Under the new policy, liking or sharing anti-government material on a social media platform will generally be taken as an endorsement and as though the public servant had created the material.

Even if a public servant shares a post they do not agree with, and puts an angry face emoji with the post, the employee could still be in breach if their opposition to the post is not made sufficiently clear.

Declaring the code operates "in effect" to limit an individual’s right to freedom of expression, the ­government also warned public ­servants against posting criticism anonymously or under a pseudonym.

Australian Public Service Commissioner John Lloyd said last night that "objectionable material was not miraculously sanitised" by a public servant posting anonymously or using a pseudonym.

"That argument is similar to a burglar arguing that charges should be dismissed because he wore a balaclava," he said.

The Community and Public Sector Union last night accused the government of "overreach".

"It’s completely unreasonable for a worker to face disciplinary ­action over a private email or something as benign as ‘liking’ a social media post," union national secretary Nadine Flood said.

"Of course there needs to be limits but this policy goes too far. The notion that the mum of a gay son who happens to work in Centrelink can’t like a Facebook post on marriage equality without endangering her job is patently ­absurd.

The policy, which applies across the federal public sector from today, says a public servant could be in breach of the code through material contained in a private email sent to a friend.

In relation to posts made after hours, the government says a public servant’s capacity to affect the reputation of their agency and the public service "does not stop when you leave the office". "The comments you make after hours can make people question your ability to be impartial, ­respectful and professional when you are at work," the policy says. "APS employees are required by law to uphold the APS values at all times."

The policy says the common law recognises an individual right to freedom of expression. "This right is subject to limitations such as those imposed by the Public Service Act," it says. "In effect, the code of conduct operates to limit this right."

"Public servants should not make comments that could make members of the community doubt either the capacity of the government to deliver services properly or the personal commitment of that employee to their work."

SOURCE






13 August, 2017

Army shoots down demands to scrub Confederate names from Fort Hamilton

U.S. Rep. Yvette Clarke has vowed to keep fighting after the Army shot down a proposal to rename two streets honoring Confederate generals at New York City’s Fort Hamilton.

General Lee Ave. and Stonewall Jackson Drive at the Brooklyn base, named after Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson, represent “an inextricable part of our military history,” the Army wrote in response to Ms. Clarke, who received the letter over the weekend, the New York Daily News reported.

Diane Randon, the Army’s acting assistant chief of staff for Installation Management, reportedly wrote that the streets were named in the spirit of reconciliation, and that any effort to rename them would be “controversial and divisive.”

Ms. Clarke said the monuments are “deeply offensive” to Brooklyn residents and that they should be left in the past where they belong.

“The department claims that the streets were named ‘in the spirit of reconciliation.’ But that ‘reconciliation’ was actually complicity by the North and the South to ignore the interests of African Americans and enforce white supremacy, effectively denying the result of the Civil War for generations,” the Democrat said in a statement Monday. “The department describes any possible renaming of these streets as potentially controversial. Nonsense."

“These monuments are deeply offensive to the hundreds of thousands of Brooklyn residents and members of the armed forces stationed at Fort Hamilton whose ancestors Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson fought to hold in slavery,” she continued. “For too many years, the United States has refused to reckon with that history. I commend the City of New Orleans for initiating this important and often difficult work. I will continue to petition the Department of the Army to contribute to that effort.

SOURCE






Fired Google engineer gives his first interview with an alt-right YouTube star, revealing that he wrote his infamous 'sexist' memo on a 12-hour flight after feeling 'isolated' in the company for his beliefs

The 28-year-old Google software engineer who was fired on Monday for writing a 'sexist' internal memo has given his first interview to an alt-right star.

James Damore appeared on right-winger Stefan Molyneaux's YouTube show on Tuesday, defending his diatribe that claimed women were not biologically cut out for the tech industry. Google CEO Sundar Pichai called the 10-page essay, which was leaked to the media on Sunday, 'not OK'.

Molyneaux, whose YouTube show has more than 650,000 subscribers, has railed against feminists and become and an advocate for 'men's rights'.

In the more than 45-minute interview, Damore revealed that he wrote the controversial memo during a 12-hour flight to China, when he was feeling 'isolated' by the company's 'liberal' culture.

In another interview, Damore said his firing 'hasn't fully hit' him yet. 'I really thought it was a problem Google itself had to fix,' he said. 'Hopefully they do.'

One thing that triggered him to write the letter was attending one of the company's diversity programs, which he found 'shameful'.

'I went to a diversity program at Google,' he told Molyneux. 'It was ... not recorded, totally secretive. I heard things that I definitely disagreed with in some of our programs. I had some discussions there. There was lots of just shaming and, "No you can't say that — that's sexist," and, "You can't do this."

'There's just so much hypocrisy in the things they are saying. I decided to create the document to clarify my thoughts,' he said. 

Damore said he isn't the only one at Google who doesn't subscribe to the company's left-leaning agenda. He says he wrote the memo to speak up for other Googlers who are 'not in this groupthink' and have felt 'isolated and alienated' by the company's culture.

Damore said that those with conservative views in Silicon Valley, ' feel like they have to stay in the closet' and 'mask' their true political opinions. He claims that some of the more conservative employees have been thinking about leaving the company because the left-wing bias has been 'getting so bad'.

Damore says the proof that his ideas are supported is in the heaps of positive feedback he's received from the essay.  

'I've gotten a ton of personal messages of support, which has been really nice. I got that at Google before all of this leaked. Lots of upper management was shaming me,' he said.

Damore revealed that he wrote the memo around a month ago and had shared it with 'multiple' Google employees who never had 'this explosive reaction.'

'All the responses were rational discussion,' he added, saying he had been stunned by the reaction in public to his arguments.

He stated that he had simply 'laid out my arguments, I specified exactly whats causing this I even outlined what the response may be, all this PC silencing - but they did exactly that.'

Damore claims those attacking him for his sexist comments 'feel self righteous' and that 'the ends justify the means.'

SOURCE





11 August, 2017

When Google silences dissent, it bodes poorly for the rest of us

Well, now we know what you’re not allowed to say if you work at Google. Next question: What are the rest of us allowed to say on the Internet?

When one of the planet’s most powerful information providers stifles dissent, I find myself wondering: How long before it’s our turn?

By now, we’ve all heard of James Damore, the Google employee whose notorious internal memo, “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,” was leaked to the press last week.

Damore argued that fundamental biological differences go a long way toward explaining why Google has a lot more male engineers than females. For this reason, Damore argued, Google’s current policies for achieving gender equality are destined to fail, and he suggested a number of alternative strategies.

Whatever the merits of Damore’s argument, I’m struck by the fact that hundreds of the hypersmart, highly intelligent people who’ve made Google such a marvel can’t bear to be in the same building with somebody who thinks this way. These are the same people who write the code that’s supposed to generate accurate, unbiased Internet searches for billions of people. After the firing of Damore, how can we trust them to be honest brokers of information when they won’t tolerate dissent in their own ranks?

But in firing him, Google has decisively confirmed one of the key claims Damore made in his manifesto: “ . . . when it comes to diversity and inclusion, Google’s left bias has created a politically correct monoculture that maintains its hold by shaming dissenters into silence.”

SOURCE




Gorka Explains Use of Term ‘Radical Islamic Terrorism’ to MSNBC: You Don’t Call Cancer the Flu

Dr. Sebastian Gorka, White House deputy advisor on national security, was questioned Tuesday on MSNBC about his insistence on the use of the term “radical Islamic terrorism.”

“I don’t understand how calling it by its name helps stop the attacks in Paris or in Belgium or in London,” MSNBC’s Ali Velshi said to Gorka.

"So If you, God forbid, caught cancer, and the hospital was forbidden from calling it cancer and said, 'you have the flu, go home and hydrate and some take aspirins,' would you actually have the right treatment?" Gorka asked.

"No, but there's still no cure for cancer," MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle replied.

"Have you not heard of chemo?" Gorka asked.

"I have heard of chemo, and cancer can still kill you, so it doesn't matter what you call it," Ruhle rejoined.

"Doesn't matter what you call it, really?” Gorka replied. “So if I call it the flu, and say go home and take some aspirin, what's going to happen?"

“There must be a better response to that, right?” Velshi said. “I asked you a very straightforward question.”

"I gave you a very simple answer," Gorka responded. "If you misdiagnose anything, whether it's a serious disease or international geopolitical threat, you will never solve it.”

“For the last eight years we had an administration that said oh it’s economic, oh these people are disenfranchised,” he added. “Look it’s not about economics, it’s not about being disenfranchised, it’s about people who have an ideology that is evil and has to be destroyed."

Velshi then asked about stopping "lone-wolf" attacks perpetrated by individuals rather than by groups like ISIS.

"There's no such thing as a lone wolf. You do know that?" Gorka responded. "That was a phrase invented by the last administration to make Americans stupid. There has never been — never been — a serious attack ... or a serious plot that was unconnected from ISIS or Al Qaeda, at least through the ideology and the TTPs — the tactics, the training, the techniques, and the procedures — that they supply through the internet. Never happened. It's bogus."

SOURCE




10 August, 2017

Google Manipulates Search Results to Conceal Criticism of Islam and Jihad

The jihad against the freedom of speech is advancing rapidly, and most people don’t even know it’s happening.

Turkey’s state-run news outlet Anadolu Agency reports:

Google’s first page results for searches of terms such as “jihad”, “shariah” and “taqiyya” now return mostly reputable explanations of the Islamic concepts. Taqiyya, which describes the circumstances under which a Muslim can conceal their belief in the face of persecution, is the sole term to feature a questionable website on the first page of results. (emphasis added)
“Reputable” according to whom? “Questionable” according to whom?

Google has bowed to pressure from Muslims such as Texas imam Omar Suleiman, who led an initiative to compel Google to skew its results. Apparently Google hasn’t considered whether those who are demanding that search results be manipulated in a particular direction might have an ulterior motive. Could it be that those who are pressuring Google wish to conceal certain truths about Islam that they would prefer non-Muslims not know?

I discuss the Islamic supremacist initiative to compel the West to accept Sharia blasphemy laws under the guise of stamping out “hate speech” -- an initiative that is now galloping forward and achieving immense success -- in my new book The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Free Speech (and Its Enemies). Google executives should read it, and should study Islam themselves in order to determine whether or not they have been misled by the Muslims who are pressuring them. But that’s not going to happen.

Google could have performed a bit more due diligence to determine if sources being tarred as “hate groups” actually deserve the label, if the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is a reliable and objective arbiter for defining “hate groups,” and if the information that Google is suppressing is really inaccurate. Instead, Google seems to have swallowed uncritically everything Omar Suleiman and his allies have said.

Despite his success, Suleiman still isn’t satisfied:

One leading activist in favor of Google modifying its results told Anadolu Agency he noticed the updated search results and thanked the company for its efforts but said “much still needs to be done.” He claimed that Google has a responsibility to “combat ‘hate-filled Islamophobia’ similar to how they work to suppress extremist propaganda from groups like Daesh and al-Qaeda."
This should have made Google executives stop and think.

The Islamic State (Daesh) and al-Qaeda slaughter people gleefully and call openly for more mass murders. Yet there is no firm evidence that anyone has ever been killed by a “hate-filled Islamophobe.” And the claim that the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the SPLC make in this article -- that this supposed “Islamophobic” rhetoric has led to a rise in hate crimes against Muslims -- is supported by not a scintilla of evidence.

SOURCE




Protestors Dressed as Nazis Tried to Shut Down Ann Coulter During a Free Speech Panel

New York Times best-selling author, columnist, and speaker Ann Coulter was participating in a panel discussion titled "Censorship on Campus" at Politicon, an annual "non-partisan" convention that brings people of all stripes together to see their favorite pundits, politicians and more.

But before she could get in a word, two protestors dressed as Nazis started shouting her down in an effort to silence her.

It took some time for the disruptive individuals to be booted out of the room. It didn't appear that the event's organizers were prepared for this sort of thing to happen.

It didn't end there. Two more protestors against Coulter, not dressed like the first pair, were also escorted out of the room shortly after the first two individuals.

The Los Angeles affiliate for CBS News captured some of ruckus in this video:

Joining Coulter on the panel were Axios Vice President Evan Ryan, stand-up comic Gregg Proops, Townhall.com Political Editor Guy Benson and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin.

Ann got in a joke at the costumed protestors' expense, as tweeted by an individual also watching the chat.

@AnnCoulter said she was happy the liberal protestors dressed as Nazis to protest her showed up in their "natural garb"!

SOURCE





9 August, 2017

Man criticized for praising overweight wife

ONE man’s very public tribute to his “curvy” wife ended up dividing opinion after he was slammed for “objectifying” her in the offending post. American entrepreneur Robbie Tripp took to Instagram to praise his wife, Sarah, in a post where he bigged up his own feminist credentials.

But many other feminists were less than impressed with the post, which featured a shot of Robbie and Sarah sharing a tender moment on a beach.

In his public tribute, Robbie wrote: “I love this woman and her curvy body. As a teenager, I was often teased by my friends for my attraction to girls on the thicker side. “As I became a man and started to educate myself on issues such as feminism and how the media marginalizes women by portraying a very narrow and very specific standard of beauty (thin, tall, lean), I realised how many men have bought into that lie. “For me, there is nothing sexier than this woman here: thick thighs, big booty, cute little side roll etc.”

At first, the post was widely circulated and praised as an example of touching body-positivity. But before long, the post had attracted criticism from people who claimed that there’s really nothing at all radical about a man loving his wife.

Journalist Julia Pugachevsky wrote on Twitter: “Strong contender for least fave type of male feminist is ‘man who thinks liking a curvy woman is revolutionary.’”

The critical comment, which has been retweeted over 26,000 times, sparked a fierce debate around feminism and what it means to be body positive.

SOURCE



Google employee fired over ‘anti-diversity’ memo

IF YOU don’t support affirmative action, you’re evil.

That’s the only logical conclusion one can reach, judging by the insane reaction to — and media coverage of — Google employee James Damore’s critique and discussion of the internet giant’s “diversity” policies.

After the memo went viral, Mr Damore was sacked for “perpetuating gender stereotypes”, he confirmed in an email to Bloomberg on Tuesday.

It’s worth reading the entire 10-page document, which was first published by Gizmodo and has been described by most outlets as an “anti-diversity screed” or “manifesto”. And it’s worth reading precisely for that reason — they lie even in their headlines.

“I strongly believe in gender and racial diversity, and I think we should strive for more,” Mr Damore writes. “However, to achieve a more equal gender and race representation, Google has created several discriminatory practices.”

Those include “programs, mentoring, and classes only for people with a certain gender or race”, “a high priority queue and special treatment for ‘diversity’ candidates”, and “reconsidering any set of people if it’s not ‘diverse’ enough”.

SOURCE




8 August, 2017

Must not celebrate men

DUNKIRK may be winning at the box office, but it can’t catch a break with some critics.

The Christopher Nolan-directed film was accused last week of whitewashing and now a new review of the movie in Marie Claire called out the film for being too male-centric.

“Dunkirk felt like an excuse for men to celebrate maleness — which apparently they don’t get to do enough,” Marie Claire’s Mehera Bonner wrote in her review.

Bonner added that while she does not need all movies to feature “strong female leads,” Dunkirk “screams ‘men-only’” and Nolan should have made a movie about either women or “any other marginalised group.”

Bonner’s criticism was mocked online by various news outlets and Twitter users, who felt her critique missed the mark and ignored historical facts, with many pointing out that a film about World War II soldiers would inevitably feature a male cast.

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Nasty Mother Edits Daughter's Disney Princess Book to Make It More 'Feminist'

Here’s what happened. According to PopSugar, Lindemann, who studies gender roles, became frustrated with her daughter’s incessant reading of her favorite book about Disney princesses, feeling that it promoted inappropriate gender stereotypes. According to Lindemann, the books are “basically teaching these little girls that their worth lies in looking nice and hooking up with the right guy.” So she took a pen and added some edits to her daughter’s book.

But, here’s the thing. None of the images (which have now been shared on multiple sites online) actually promote the ideals she says are so abhorrent. “A princess is kind,” reads a page depicting Snow White. It ought to be fairly uncontroversial to say that kindness is a positive attribute. But Lindemann’s addition, “ . . . of a badass,” implies that, rather than being kind, women must be somehow subversive in order to fit in to these new “feminist” gender roles. (Not to mention the fact that she’s adding profanity to her three-year-old’s picture book!)

“What is a princess? A princess is brave!” reads another page of the book. Um, brave sounds good, right? That doesn’t sound like the sort of passive, damsel in distress character that Lindemann and her compatriots would object to. And yet, in a speech bubble coming from Princess Jasmine’s mouth, Lindemann writes, “”My body, my choice!” What, for the love of all that is holy, has this to do with anything?! Unless, in the previous page, Aladdin was depicted as trying to impregnate Jasmine and then engaging in an earnest discussion about what to do with the unborn baby, this is a total non sequitur!

It goes on and on like this. Not one of the images depicted promotes the ideology of “looking nice and hooking up with the right guy” that Lindemann is trying to push back against. The closest one is “A princess likes to dress up,” but it doesn’t even specify what they like to dress up as, and Lindemann’s addition of “in her medical scrubs, when she goes to work as a neurosurgeon” doesn’t really add or detract from the message. Sure, a princess might like to be a neurosurgeon, or a fairy, or a unicorn, or the president. It’s a book aimed at three-year-olds.

The most ridiculous of these images, in my opinion, is of Princess Jasmine and Aladdin, flying on a magic carpet with their arms around each other. The page reads, “Jasmine flies through the sky.” Lindemann added, “She holds onto Aladdin because he is scared,” and she gave Aladdin a speech bubble that says, “Protect me, Jasmine!” This kind of makes me want to throw up a little.

SOURCE






7 August, 2017

The pitfalls of censorship

Trying to protect people from reality is a mug's game. People need to learn to ignore unpleasant speech

Francie Latour was picking out produce in a suburban Boston grocery store when a white man leaned toward her two young sons and, just loudly enough for the boys to hear, unleashed a profanity-laced racist epithet.

Reeling, Latour, who is black, turned to Facebook to vent, in a post that was explicit about the hateful words hurled at her 8- and 12-year-olds on a Sunday evening in July.

“I couldn’t tolerate just sitting with it and being silent,” Latour said in an interview. “I felt like I was going to jump out of my skin, like my kids’ innocence was stolen in the blink of an eye.”

But within 20 minutes, Facebook deleted her post, sending Latour a cursory message that her content had violated company standards. Only two friends had gotten the chance to voice their disbelief and outrage.

Experiences like Latour’s exemplify the challenges Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg confronts as he tries to rebrand his company as a safe space for community, expanding on its earlier goal of connecting friends and family.

But in making decisions about the limits of free speech, Facebook often fails the racial, religious and sexual minorities Zuckerberg says he wants to protect.

SOURCE





First Nations leader urges Canada to prosecute 'out of hand' hate speech

Mainly because of the way the government coddles and favors them, a lot of Canadians resent their aboriginal people.  Shutting up expressions of that resentment is much more likely to aggravate the resentment rather than reduce it

Amid growing online attacks on Canada’s indigenous peoples – laced with vitriol, stereotypes and even death threats – a prominent First Nations leader is urging the government to crack down on hate speech.

“It’s getting out of hand,” said Chief Bobby Cameron of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, which represents 74 First Nations in the province of Saskatchewan. “Our people deserve to feel accepted. They shouldn’t feel that their lives are in danger.”

During a meeting this week with Canada’s justice minister, Jody Wilson-Raybould, he pushed the government to consider strengthening the country’s hate speech laws. While prosecution of hate speech is not common in Canada, those found guilty face up to two years in prison.

“We’re calling for harsh and swift penalties, as well as prosecution,” he said. “These people, if they say, ‘So and so should die,’ or ‘I’m going to kill you,’ immediately they should be charged. Those that are spurring hatred and spurring death online deserve to go to jail.”

SOURCE




6 August, 2017

Popular Sydney hair salon shocks thousands of followers when it posts photo of model with offensive Nazi tattoo

It's only a Nazi tattoo inferentially.  It means "my leader" -- which could refer to a lot of things.  It is however written in German using Gothic script and the words are exactly the way Nazis addressed Adolf Hitler so it does presumably refer to the Nazi era.  Just what it means in the given context is unknown, however.  Nazi iconography appears to have sexually arousing properties to some, for instance.  So it could be just a part of kinky sex.  The words themselves tell us nothing in the absence of a wider context so should not be taken too seriously



A popular Sydney salon has shocked thousands of their followers after posting an offensive Nazi tattoo online.

Strands of Colour Hair and Beauty posted a photo of a model's braided hair to social media but were unaware of the neo-Nazi meaning behind her tattoo.

The model had 'Mein Fuhrer' tattooed across the back of her neck which is used in reference to the Nazi party leader, Adolf Hitler, meaning 'leader' or 'guide'.

Dozens of people took to Facebook slamming the Campbelltown salon after they shared the photo on Thursday accusing the salon of being 'white supremacists'.

'There's no way you could've missed that 'mein fuhrer' tat (sic); utterly reprehensible,' one Facebook user commented.

Since posting the photo to Facebook and Instagram, the Sydney salon have deleted the photo and apologised for the offensive post.

'Strands of Colour sincerely apologises for any offence caused by the images posted on our social media,' the salon said.

'We posted photos of work we are proud of, not noticing the client's body art and these images have now been removed.

SOURCE







AP Style Update to Include Xenophobia, Homophobia, Islamophobia

Interesting that the AP appears to accept the dictionary definition of Islamophobia and homophobia as IRRATIONAL fears. I doubt that journalists will restrict their usage in that way, however.

Further, I would say that regarding homosexuality as an abomination does not usually denote fear of any sort, rational or irrational.  What is it that I should fear about one guy sticking his dick into some other guy's butt?  To me it's disgusting but I don't fear it.  And I don't know anybody who does fear it.  So I think that "homophobic" is almost always a misnomer. "Show me one!", I am tempted to say. 

If a single word is needed for people who disapprove of homosexuality, maybe "homocritic" could be used.  In the light of what the scriptures repeatedly say, a real Christian is obliged to be a homocritic (1 Corinthians 6:9, 1 Timothy 1: 8-10, Romans 1:27, Leviticus 20:13).

Islamophobia, on the other hand need not be irrational.  Muslim bombers and shooters strike at random and repeatedly at any place and at any time.  If you can't fear that, what can you fear? You certainly don't have to be mad to fear it.

And xenophobia is also poorly defined. As far as I can tell, it is perfectly natural for most people to prefer their own kind.  What is mad about that? 

The word "phobia" is a Greek word meaning fear and in clinical usage does indicate an irrational fear but it seems clear that you can dislike foreigners without fearing them.  And the old fear that a foreigner could take your job could be perfectly realistic in some cases. So that word is very often used quite inappropriately too.  If I were defining the word, I would say:  "A term from clinical psychology denoting an irrational fear or obsession which is commonly used inappropriately to denote a dislike of foreigners"


The Associated Press has updated its Stylebook, an official industry’s guideline for journalists, writers and editors, on Thursday to include the words homophobia, xenophobia and Islamophobia.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, then-candidate Hillary Clinton called then-candidate Donald Trump’s supporters a “basket of deplorables” because of their “homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic” views.

These words are defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the official dictionary for the American Psychological Association, as followed:

Xenophobia: fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign

Homophobia: irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals.

Islamophobia: irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against Islam or people who practice Islam

AP has not released its own definition of these words, but stated that they are “acceptable in broad references or in quotations to the concept of fear or hatred in political or social contexts.”

The online Stylebook also specified that usage of these words must outline “observable actions” and not assert personal assumptions on the motives that led to such events.

SOURCE




4 August, 2017

Canadian Food Inspection Agency backtracks after saying wine from the West Bank isn't from Israel

OTTAWA — The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is backtracking after a decision that wines produced in the West Bank and other occupied areas should not be labelled as products of Israel.

The CFIA acknowledged its mistake after the Israeli government said in a statement to the National Post Thursday it opposed Canada’s “politicization” of a labelling issue.

“We did not fully consider the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement (CIFTA),” the statement reads. “These wines adhere to the Agreement and therefore we can confirm that the products in question can be sold as currently labelled.”

According to the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), the CFIA had notified wine-sellers last week it is unacceptable to declare Israel as the country of origin for wine products that aren’t produced within Israel’s formal borders.

Israeli officials in Canada appeared unhappy. “Israel supports free trade and objects to its politicization. We are currently in touch with the Canadian authorities and are discussing this matter,” said Itay Tavor, the head of public diplomacy at Israel’s embassy in Ottawa.

But a Canadian government official said Thursday they were told a younger employee at the agency “made a mistake.”

SOURCE





Must not display Star of David to a lesbian

The award-winning journalist who first revealed that three Jewish women were banned from the Dyke March in Chicago for carrying LGBT flags adorned with the Star of David last month, confirmed on Monday that she was removed from her position as reporter because of the event.

Gretchen Rachel Hammond wrote in a tweet directed at the Dyke March organizers, “You attacked, humiliated and robbed me of a job. No tears. I forgive you. Just hope you learn how destructive and pointless hatred is.”

When approached by the Jewish Telegraph Agency (JTA) the same day, Hammond confirmed that she wrote the tweet. But the journalist said she could not elaborate further on events that followed the Dyke March controversy because of an agreement with her employer, the Windy City Times.

Hammond, who is Jewish, told JTA that she was subjected to dozens of abusive and threatening phone calls as a result of her reporting. One caller called her a “kike,” while others told her she should lose her job or accused her of having “betrayed” the LGBT community. “It was vicious. It wasn’t even a request for dialogue,” Hammond said.

In her initial report of the event, Gretchen Rachel Hammond quoted an organizer of the Dyke March as saying that the Jewish women were banned because their flags were “triggering,” “made people feel unsafe,” and that the march was “anti-Zionist” and “pro-Palestinian.”

On June 28, an organizer of the march told Hammond in an interview that she and her employer “failed in its journalistic mission.” The Windy City Times—whose masthead featured Hammond as a senior writer until two weeks ago—now employs her as a “senior account executive.”

Jewish organizations, as well as the three women ejected from the march, have accused the Dyke March organizers of anti-semitism. The Dyke March came under fire last week after using an anti-Semitic slur, tweeting that “Zio tears replenish my electrolytes.” White supremacists, including former KKK Grand Wizard and Holocaust denier David Duke, have used the term “Zio” to target Jews.

SOURCE

This is a stark demonstration of the sheer irrationality of many sexual deviants.  They should be celebrating Israel. Israel is the only place in the Middle East where they would be safe.  But their hatred of just about everybody overcomes rationality.  The deviants concerned should be banished to Gaza.  It would be an education they sorely need




3 August, 2017

If you're a conservative, have you ever felt silenced by liberal popular opinion or colleagues?

Cooper Kensington answers that below.  Another example showing that Leftism morphs into tyranny if it can get away with it. The situation Cooper describes sounds very much the situation in the Communist China of Mao Tse Tung

I’m a liberal, and I have felt silenced by other liberals.

To be quite honest, many liberal circles have a raging problem with group think. If you are not 100% in line with the leftist narrative, or dare to express something that isn’t 100% in line with the leftist narrative of the day, you are often swiftly ostracized, and all of the liberal sycophants come out from beneath the woodwork to tell you how much of a terrible person you are and how you’re some sort of -ist or -phobe.

As a privileged cis, straight, white, male, I often have to tread very lightly as I am walking around massive target on my back in the eyes of many liberals and SJW’s. In many of their eyes, simply being cis/straight/white/male already puts you on probation and under watchful eye.

If you dare to disagree with any of the methods that BLM uses or any of the demands that they make, you’re a racist and suffering from “fragile whiteness”.

If you dare to disagree with anything that a feminist has to say, you are sexist and misogynist and suffering from “fragile masculinity”

If you think burqas and hijabs are a regressive practice and people shouldn’t celebrate wearing them, you’re Islamophobic.
If you forget to include a gender identity or sexual orientation that you’ve never even heard of before, you’re transphobic.

Pretty much, if you open your mouth and say anything that isn’t in line with the leftist narrative and rhetoric you’re automatically some sort of bigot.

Even here on Quora I can just sense a lot of the pretentiousness coming from a lot of the other liberal contributors, and wonder if I should even bother opening my mouth if what I have to say at all disagrees in any small bit with them.

But my biggest gripe however is this new thing that you’ve probably heard of known as “mansplaining”.

In it’s original meaning, it was meant to mean when a man explains something to a woman that she probably already knows, in a patronizing and condescending way. This of course is something that men shouldn’t do, and if I was a woman, I’d get pretty fed up with it myself.

However, in my experience, many modern feminists and liberal sycophants seem to be under the impression that merely having a penis and opening your mouth is now considered “mansplaining”.

It’s become a sort of an ad hominem attack at this point, where if you are a man and say something that a woman doesn’t like and doesn’t want to hear, she can simply accuse you of mansplaining to try and shut you up. And of course, many of her liberal sycophants will gladly oblige.

Explaining something in a condescending and patronizing way to a woman is mansplaining. Having an opinion or saying something that she disagrees with or doesn’t want to hear is not.

If you don’t believe me, go on Buzzfeed or any other “feminist” outlet. If you are a guy, and dare to disagree with a woman, or explain to someone how their position is wrong or parts of argument are based on false premises, it won’t be long before someone accuses you of mansplaining to try and shut you up.

A little while back, I’m sure many of you might remember that male birth control clinical trial that was cancelled because many of the participants were experiencing serious side effects.

We still don't have male birth control — but no, it's not because men are wimps

Of course, many “feminist” outlets (including Buzzfeed) all had a field day ragging on men for quitting the study because they were apparently too wussy to handle the side effects.

I had one “feminist” acquaintance (although often she’s actually just an angry misandrist) go on this long-winded rant about how all these men are wimps for quitting the study, and how she has put up with all these side effects from her own hormonal birth control, etc. etc.

I then explained that despite the bullshit, willfully dishonest, misleading headline from Buzzfeed, the study wasn’t ended because the men quit the study. Rather, despite that fact that 75% of the men in the study were okay with the side effects and wanted to continue the study, the people administering the study cancelled the study because the incidence of side effects was higher than what is typically seen with female hormonal birth control. I won’t deny that there is sexism in medicine, but shaming the participants in the study was not appropriate, as it was not their call to cancel the study.

Of course, this didn’t stop her from telling me to “stop mansplaining a woman’s issue.”

And here I’m thinking, how the fuck is a study about MALE birth control solely a “woman’s issue”?

But alas, I had a penis and I rained on her misandrist parade, so because she’s a “feminist” she can accuse me of “mansplaining” to try and shut me up.

In another instance, a group of friends and I were discussing the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election with some other people. This one self-described feminist in the group made the claim that “sexism is the only reason that Hillary lost the election.”

Another guy in the group went on to disagree, that yes, sexism was a factor, but was not the only one. There are an entire myriad of reasons as to why someone might not have voted for Hillary. Believe it or not, some people had genuine political differences, and vote based on political positions, not a candidates personal plumbing.

She then went on to claim that because she as a woman understood sexism better than him, she could claim with 100% certainty that sexism was the only reason that Hillary lost the election, and that as a man, any opinions he may have are irrelevant, so he might as well just shut up. And of course, many of her liberal sycophants were more than happy to back her up and tell the guy to just shut up and stop talking.

Yes, I am a privileged, cis, straight, white male.

But liberals and leftists need to realize that we exist - and that we indeed have a right to exist - and that all of our opinions aren’t automatically worthless and invalid just because of our straightness/whiteness/maleness.

It’s intellectually weak to just try and shut someone up because they have opinions that might differ slightly from your own.

SOURCE





Talking Campus Free Speech on Capitol Hill

A House hearing last week may not change the world, but it may be a start

On July 27, two House subcommittees held a joint hearing on “Challenges to Freedom of Speech on College Campuses.” Congressman James Raskin (D-MD) called it “the most fascinating hearing” he's attended during his his six months in office. It was fascinating, for what it brought out both about the alarming reality of American higher education today and about the determination of some people on the left to deny or obscure that reality.

That determination was on display from the outset. Val Demings (D-FL), a black woman and former police chief of Jacksonville, professed to recognize the problem on U.S. campuses and to be a strong defender of the First Amendment. But she was quick to insist that the real “clear and present danger” on campuses doesn't  involve the shutting down of “high-profile speakers like Ann Coulter” but “the increase in white supremacist hate groups.” She recounted a recent incident at American University in Washington, D.C., where somebody hung bananas on nooses from trees, apparently a racist response to the election of a female black student, Taylor Dumpson, as student-government president. Dumpson, who sat in the audience at the hearing, had also been the target of “cyberbullying” that Demings characterized as “unprotected hate speech.” The real problem on campuses, Deming concluded, is “criminal acts being wrapped in banners of free speech.”

The banana incident would come up again several times during the nearly three-hour-long hearing, even though this isolated event had nothing to do with the actual topic of the hearing.

At one point during the hearing, one of the Democratic members complained that the Republicans had picked four of the five persons giving testimony. This was surprising, because only one of those five, Ben Shapiro, is a self-identified Republican or conservative, and three of the others – Nadine Strossen, a law professor and former head of the ACLU; Michael Zimmerman, former provost at Evergreen State College in Oregon (setting of the current controversy surrounding Professor Bret Weinstein); and Frederick Lawrence, National Commissioner at the Anti-Defamation League – were largely in denial about the extent to which American colleges are dominated by authoritarian leftists. Yes, they all repeatedly, if sometimes vaguely, expressed support for free speech, rejected “safe spaces” and “free-speech zones,” and agreed that even “hate speech” should be permissible as long as it did not shade over into “hate crime.” But they also made troubling assertions.

Strossen, for example, testified that she, the ACLU, and the Southern Poverty Law Center are “all on the same page” when it comes to these matters. Well, if she's on the same page as the ACLU, which condemned the YouTube video mendaciously blamed by Obama and Hillary for the Benghazi killings, and the SPLC, which is a far-left smear machine masquerading as a human-rights organization (and which has named the David Horowitz Freedom Center as a hate group), game over. Asked by Jim Jordan (R-OH) if most efforts to shut down free speech have been aimed at conservatives, Strossen was at first only willing to admit that this was true of “most of the well-publicized” cases. When pressed, she admitted that, well, yes, most people on campuses are on the left, and the majority of victims are, indeed, non-leftists.

Zimmerman, for his part, denied that most American professors seek to propagandize for leftist views or punish conservative ones. “Very rarely,” he said, do professors force their own ideologies on students. Lawrence agreed. He also concurred with Demings on the supreme danger of “white supremacists,” who, he said, “are engaged in unprecedented outreach” on campuses. Examples were not forthcoming, except for repeated references to the banana incident. Congressman Mark Meadows (R-NC), to his credit, took on Lawrence's “kumbaya opening testimony,” noting that Lawrence had been president of Brandeis University when plans to award Ayaan Hirsi Ali an honorary degree were canceled. Meadows asked Lawrence if this had been a correct decision; Lawrence said yes, but insisted it had nothing to do with free speech. Hirsi Ali, he explained, had once said “that Islam should be crushed.” For Lawrence, apparently, that speech act had been so hateful that it went beyond mere speech.

Ben Shapiro proved a refreshing relief from these three participants' equivocation and logic-chopping. He got right to the point: at many colleges, speech rights are distributed in accordance with how many victim groups one belongs to. “Offensive” language that challenges left-wing victimology is viewed as equivalent to physical violence – thus justifying actual violence in response. When that violence does erupt, administrators “look the other way” because they share the perpetrators' ideology. Shapiro had an illuminating back-and-forth with Stacey Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands), a black woman who repeated at length the details of the banana incident – which had already been recounted exhaustively – and who began a sentence by saying: “Free speech is important, but....” (Later, Robin Kelly [D-IL], a former “diversity trainer” at Bradley University, echoed her almost verbatim: “I agree with free speech and all that, but....”) Citing “Critical Race Theory” – a nonsensical so-called discipline that seeks to give academic legitimacy to obsessive anti-white prejudice – Plaskett asked Shapiro about his “white privilege.” He forcefully shot her down, saying that charges of “white privilege” have no basis in reality and do not amount to “a rational political argument.” I quote Plaskett's response verbatim: “Well, I think it's a demonstrable evidence that through society's demographics that being white has societal privileges that being black does not.”

The fifth person testifying before the committee was comedian Adam Carolla, who was there because he and radio host Dennis Prager have made No Safe Spaces, a forthcoming film on free speech. Carolla (who noted that he himself never attended college) testified that about fifteen years ago he had appeared on “a hundred college campuses with nary a word of negativity, no safe spaces, and no stuffed animals being handed out”; recently, however, he was invited to speak at Cal State Northridge only to have the administration cancel it. What's happened? His answer: we've mistakenly decided that if we “put kids in a bubble,” they'll “come out stronger” at the other end. “These are 18- and 19-year-old kids that are at these college campuses,” he said. “They grew up dipped in Purell, playing soccer games where they never kept score...and we’re asking them to be mature.” He called for “the adults to start being the adults.” Just as it's necessary “to expose your children to germs and dirt and the environment to build up their immune system,” he argued, you need to expose them to challenging ideas, too.

Later, Carolla offered a wonderful riposte to Plaskett by describing his own “white privilege”:

I graduated North Hollywood High with a 1.7 GPA. I could not find a job. I walked to a fire station in North Hollywood. I was nineteen. I was living in the garage of my family home. My mom was on welfare and food stamps and I said, “Can I get a job as a fireman?” And they said, “No, because you're not black, Hispanic, or a woman. We'll see you in about seven years.” And I went to a construction site and dug ditches and picked up garbage for the next seven years. I got a letter in the mail, sent to my father's house, saying: “Your time has come to do the written exam for the L.A Fire Department. I took it, and I was standing in line and I had a young woman of color standing behind me in line, and I turned around and said to her, “Just out of curiosity, when did you sign up to become a fireman, or person, because I did it seven years ago?” She said, “Wednesday.” That is an example of my white privilege.

Carolla was by far the best thing about the hearing. He brought the whole thing down to earth. He made it real. He spoke glowingly about the role of mutual ribbing in friendships, and the importance of a healthy sense of humor – the opposite of snowflake-type self-seriousness and oversensitivity – to human interaction. He observed that the kind of real diversity he encountered in his own early career had shaped attitudes on his part that are lacking among many college students – precisely because (“diversity training” or not) they've had such limited exposure to people with different views and backgrounds. I don't know whom Carolla voted for in the presidential election, but he embodied the Trump base – hard-working whites who were born into the working class, who had to make their own breaks, and who are sick to death of being told they have privilege. Not least, Corolla made members of both parties laugh – and that laughter itself felt like a powerful retort to the humorless ideology at the root of the campus crisis.

I was impressed by several of the House members. Dave Brat (R-VA), an economist by training, spoke rather eloquently about the idea of the university and its betrayal by postmodernists who have cut off all connection with the entire philosophical tradition. Raskin fondly recalled that audience members at the Lincoln-Douglas debates heckled the candidates – but their heckling had been a good-natured, useful way of raising serious questions, and afterwards they had quietly listened to the candidates' answers. Was there any way, he asked, of restoring this “art of heckling”? I've never admired Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), a former ACLU honcho who has represented the District of Columbia in Congress since the Pleistocene Era, but I have to give her one thumbs-up for her insistence that no black student should ever try to shut down anyone's freedom of speech – after all, she noted, it was that very freedom that enabled Frederick Douglass to travel all over the U.S. speaking out against slavery even while it was still in existence. For heaven's sake, somebody even mentioned Friedrich Hayek.

At its best, the hearing provided an impressive display of at least some House members engaged in intelligent, informed exchange about an urgent social issue. Whether the hearing will make any difference is another question. The mainstream media ignored it, and there was little mention by the participating lawmakers of any substantive action that might be taken to rescue free speech at colleges – most of which, after all, receive federal funds. But a hearing is better than nothing. And who knows? It might just be a start.

SOURCE





2 August, 2017

Campus Free Speech Laws Ignite the Country

Over the weekend, North Carolina joined a handful of states with laws on the books regarding free speech on college campuses, banning so-called "free speech zones" and requiring campuses to sanction anyone who interferes with the free speech rights of others.

"Every year there seems to be one higher education policy issue that spreads rapidly throughout the states," says Thomas Harnisch, director of state relations and policy analysis at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. "This year it's campus free speech legislation."

The wave of campus free speech legislation comes on the heels of a grueling school year for the First Amendment on campuses across the country. Violent protests largely against conservative speakers highlight the recent struggle colleges and universities are having walking a line between preserving free speech and acting as a space that showcases a variety of ideas, while at the same time protecting students – particularly those in demographic groups who may feel marginalized or threatened by the ideas espoused by a group or speaker.

The Tar Heel State is at least the fifth state – Colorado, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia are the others – with such a law. And other states have legislative proposals in the pipeline, including California, Illinois, Michigan, Texas and Wisconsin.

SOURCE





Political thoughtpolice pose a far bigger threat than Twitter ‘trolls’

British politicians want new laws to protect members of parliament from online abuse. They claim we need a crackdown on internet ‘trolls’ in response to a ‘tidal wave’ of racism, sexism and homophobia aimed at MPs on social media.

Behind the right-on rhetoric, this looks like the latest attempt to protect public figures from being criticised by the public. Troll-hunting politicians effectively want to revive the repressive old laws against ‘seditious libel’, updated for the age of social media.

There is a long history of people ridiculing and abusing British politicians – and of the authorities trying to stamp out such insolence. The right to lampoon our rulers has been a big issue in the fight for democracy and free speech down the centuries.
That is why, while not endorsing malicious personal abuse, we should defend the freedom to tell MPs and government ministers what you think of them. However nasty some tweets might be, the political thoughtpolice pose a far bigger threat to democratic debate than any Twitter troll.

Trolls have become a big political issue since the General Election campaign, with all parties complaining about ‘unprecedented’ abuse of their candidates. In a House of Commons debate, Tory MP Simon Hart lamented how the ‘robust banter followed by a shake of the hand and a pint in the pub’ of the previous election campaign had this time turned into ‘death threats, criminal damage, sexism, racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism and general thuggishness’ online. Blimey.

For Labour, shadow home secretary Diane Abbott told MPs she had been inundated with ‘mindless abuse… characteristically racist and sexist’, and been variously called a ‘pathetic, useless, fat, black, piece of shit, ugly, fat, black bitch’.

In response, Conservative prime minister Theresa May ordered the Committee on Standards in Public Life to investigate whether new laws are needed. This week the Independent reported that, as the Committee starts its consultation, ‘online trolling laws’ are already ‘under consideration following abuse of MPs’.

SOURCE





1 August, 2017

A sneaky Leftist attack on a truth teller

Paul Joseph Watson has a website called Prison Planet. He posted a screenshot of a children's BBC show, depicting a cartoon family in Roman Britain.



Watson said: Thank God the BBC is portraying Roman Britain as ethnically diverse.  I mean, who cares about historical accuracy, right?

Well, before we had a moment to think about how to respond, Mike Stuchbery turned up in the comments. Mike is a historian and someone who clearly takes his profession - and Roman Britain - very seriously.

He Tweeted: Roman Britain was ethnically diverse, almost by design. To begin, occupying legions were drawn from other parts of the Empire. The Romans learned a lesson earlier with the Germans. Don't give the locals an 'in' to occupying military forces.

He took his time to explain that, actually, it seemed that Watson could be seen as the one pushing an agenda here since, yes, Roman Britain was a pretty ethnically diverse place.

SOURCE

Stuchbery is being deliberately devious.  It is true that the legions sent to Britannia were not Italian.  It seems likely that they were mostly in fact from neighboring Gaul (France).  But there were certainly men from all over the empire.

BUT:  The picture objected to is clearly of a black father -- a sub-Saharan African. And the Roman empire did NOT cover any part of sub-Saharan Africa!

Stuchbery quoted reports of NORTH Africans in Roman Britain but North africans were then and still mostly are:  WHITE.

And recent DNA studies have shown that even the ancient Egyptians were typical Mediterraneans -- like Lebanon, Greece, Italy etc.  They were not black. See here

But the report above appeared in Elle so I suppose we have to expect brainlessness from a fashion magazine. They certainly did no fact checking.  They just cheered that the conservative was apparently "proved" wrong.  They were riding a cloud of ignorance.

It is of course possible that there was somewhere in Roman Britain at some time one or two blacks but to represent blacks as typifying Roman Britain is absurd to the point of dishonesty.  Watson was perfectly right. His facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/PaulJosephWatson/





Senior Australians say political correctness is ruining society

ATTENTION, Gen Y: Baby Boomers have had it with your political correctness.

New Australian research suggests over 50s are fed up with being told what they can and can’t say, and believe young people are the worst offenders.

The survey of 1000 Australians over 50 saw nine in 10 agree political correctness is ruining society, and thought younger generations were too worried about offending people.

According to the CoreData research commissioned by Australian Seniors Insurance Agency, 86 per cent of seniors believed “having to be politically correct all the time” was ruining society, and 86.6 per cent said it was “inauthentic”.

Bathurst teacher Vicki Evans is not afraid to admit she loathes political correctness.

The 55-year-old says she’s constantly being told off by her three children, all in their 20s, for opinions they say she shouldn’t be allowed to express.

“The number of times I saw something and my kids say ‘oh Mum, you can’t say that,’” she says.

“They say you can’t make assumptions about things, but I think you can make observations.

“You can’t say anything that’s offensive and that could be deemed to label anyone. You have to be always aware of perceptions, apparently.”

Ms Evans says that her children’s sensitivities are clearly not a product of her parenting, but blames universities and television for encouraging political correctness.

“I do get really cross with the whole idea that children aren’t allowed to talk about anything religious in relation to Christmas or Easter because it might offend someone,” she said. “I think if we can’t discuss any of these things we run the risk of losing our cultural identity.”

SOURCE




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The war on "cultural appropriation" is straightforward racism

Is the American national anthem politically incorrect? From the 4th verse:
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."


Mohammad

The truth can be offensive to some but it must be said

"HATE SPEECH" is free speech: The U.S. Supreme Court stated the general rule regarding protected speech in Texas v. Johnson (109 S.Ct. at 2544), when it held: "The government may not prohibit the verbal or nonverbal expression of an idea merely because society finds the idea offensive or disagreeable." Federal courts have consistently followed this. Said Virginia federal district judge Claude Hilton: "The First Amendment does not recognize exceptions for bigotry, racism, and religious intolerance or ideas or matters some may deem trivial, vulgar or profane."


Even some advocacy of violence is protected by the 1st Amendment. In Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), the U.S. Supreme Court held unanimously that speech advocating violent illegal actions to bring about social change is protected by the First Amendment "except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."


The double standard: Atheists can put up signs and billboards saying that Christianity is wrong and that is hunky dory. But if a Christian says that homosexuality is wrong, that is attacked as "hate speech"


One for the militant atheists to consider: "...it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg" -- Thomas Jefferson


"I think no subject should be off-limits, and I regard the laws in many Continental countries criminalizing Holocaust denial as philosophically repugnant and practically useless – in that they confirm to Jew-haters that the Jews control everything (otherwise why aren’t we allowed to talk about it?)" -- Mark Steyn


A prophetic comment on Norwegian hate speech laws: As Justice Brandeis once noted, repressive censorship “breeds hate” and “that hate menaces stable government,” rather than promoting safety; “the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies.”


Voltaire's most famous saying was actually a summary of Voltaire's thinking by one of his biographers rather than something Voltaire said himself. Nonetheless it is a wholly admirable sentiment: "I disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it". I am of a similar mind.


The traditional advice about derogatory speech: "Sticks and stones will break your bones but names will never hurt you". Apparently people today are not as emotionally robust as their ancestors were.


The KKK were members of the DEMOCRATIC party. Google "Klanbake" if you doubt it


A phobia is an irrational fear, so the terms "Islamophobic" and "homophobic" embody a claim that the people so described are mentally ill. There is no evidence for either claim. Both terms are simply abuse masquerading as diagnoses and suggest that the person using them is engaged in propaganda rather than in any form of rational or objective discourse.


Leftists often pretend that any mention of race is "racist" -- unless they mention it, of course. But leaving such irrational propaganda aside, which statements really are racist? Can statements of fact about race be "racist"? Such statements are simply either true or false. The most sweeping possible definition of racism is that a racist statement is a statement that includes a negative value judgment of some race. Absent that, a statement is not racist, for all that Leftists might howl that it is. Facts cannot be racist so nor is the simple statement of them racist. Here is a statement that cannot therefore be racist by itself, though it could be false: "Blacks are on average much less intelligent than whites". If it is false and someone utters it, he could simply be mistaken or misinformed.


Categorization is a basic human survival skill so racism as the Left define it (i.e. any awareness of race) is in fact neither right nor wrong. It is simply human


Whatever your definition of racism, however, a statement that simply mentions race is not thereby racist -- though one would think otherwise from American Presidential election campaigns. Is a statement that mentions dogs, "doggist" or a statement that mentions cats, "cattist"?


If any mention of racial differences is racist then all Leftists are racist too -- as "affirmative action" is an explicit reference to racial differences


Was Abraham Lincoln a racist? "You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word, we suffer on each side. If this be admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated. It is better for both, therefore, to be separated." -- Spoken at the White House to a group of black community leaders, August 14th, 1862


Gimlet-eyed Leftist haters sometimes pounce on the word "white" as racist. Will the time come when we have to refer to the White House as the "Full spectrum of light" House?


The spirit of liberty is "the spirit which is not too sure that it is right." and "Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it." -- Judge Learned Hand


Mostly, a gaffe is just truth slipping out


Two lines below of a famous hymn that would be incomprehensible to Leftists today ("honor"? "right"? "freedom?" Freedom to agree with them is the only freedom they believe in)

First to fight for right and freedom,
And to keep our honor clean

It is of course the hymn of the USMC -- still today the relentless warriors that they always were.


It seems a pity that the wisdom of the ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus is now little known. Remember, wrote the Stoic thinker, "that foul words or blows in themselves are no outrage, but your judgment that they are so. So when any one makes you angry, know that it is your own thought that has angered you. Wherefore make it your endeavour not to let your impressions carry you away."


"Since therefore the knowledge and survey of vice is in this world so necessary to the constituting of human virtue, and the scanning of error to the confirmation of truth, how can we more safely, and with less danger, scout into the regions of sin and falsity than by reading all manner of tractates, and hearing all manner of reason?" -- English poet John Milton (1608-1674) in Areopagitica


Hate speech is verbal communication that induces anger due to the listener's inability to offer an intelligent response


Leftists can try to get you fired from your job over something that you said and that's not an attack on free speech. But if you just criticize something that they say, then that IS an attack on free speech


"Negro" is a forbidden word -- unless a Democrat uses it


"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper


Why are Leftists always talking about hate? Because it fills their own hearts


Leftists don't have principles. How can they when "there is no such thing as right and wrong"? All they have is postures, pretend-principles that can be changed as easily as one changes one's shirt


When you have an argument with a Leftist, you are not really discussing the facts. You are threatening his self esteem. Which is why the normal Leftist response to challenge is mere abuse.


The naive scholar who searches for a consistent Leftist program will not find it. What there is consists only in the negation of the present.


The intellectual Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) could have been speaking of much that goes on today when he said: "The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."


I despair of the ADL. Jews have enough problems already and yet in the ADL one has a prominent Jewish organization that does its best to make itself offensive to Christians. Their Leftism is more important to them than the welfare of Jewry -- which is the exact opposite of what they ostensibly stand for! Jewish cleverness seems to vanish when politics are involved. Fortunately, Christians are true to their saviour and have loving hearts. Jewish dissatisfaction with the myopia of the ADL is outlined here. Note that Foxy was too grand to reply to it.


Foxy


Email me here (Hotmail address).




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