Good sex

Most people who know me are aware that I have been married four times. In getting to that point, it is obvious that I have been to bed with a lot of women over the years.

I make no claim however about my performance in bed. As far as I know, it is completely average, unoriginal and unadventurous. The ladies concerned have however never complained about my performance at the time and I have always been happy with them. I can in fact take sex or leave it and I have often left it for long periods.

But there is just one episode in my career that I think is worth recording. I will call the lady X as I obviously cannot reveal her identity. The sex was only one part of a very good relationship that lasted for more than a year but I think it was notable in its own right.

As we entered the bedroom, the lady would close the door behind us. She would then let down her long hair. She normally wore it up. In my experience women do normally let their hair down before sex. I think it is from that that we have the expression "letting your hair down" to mean having unrestrained fun of any sort. At any event I always liked it when my partners did that. It seemed very symbolic.

After the usual foreplay, I would get us started by getting on top of her in the best missionary tradition. But that did not last. After a minute or so she would get on top of me. I would just lie there flat out while she did all the work. The great benefit of that is that the man takes longer to come that way. So the lady gets more time to come and the man has an extended period of pleasure. It worked so well that X would often come with a scream. I like a screamer. There are not a lot of them but it seems to confirm that I have done something well.

At any event I would recommend that system to anybody who is inclined to it. It is a win-win situation.

Translating German

Being very much interested in both the history of ideas and the sociology of knowledge, I take an interest in both the writings of Hitler and the writings of Marx & Engels. So I have a large article about Hitler here and a blog devoted to Marx & Engels here. And to get straight what all three men stood for one has to read crucial passages as they wrote them. Fortunately, all three wrote in German so one has to know only one language to read all three authors.

But German has a lot of words that are not fully translatable into English so the translations of various passages by all authors that I have put online do sometimes require extended comment. It does not help, either, that all three wrote in a rather slangy way from time to time. I thought it might be useful, therefore to gather together here some comments on a few words that do pose some difficulty.



aufgehen

Have a look at the 1939 Nazi propaganda placard below. The placard promotes one of Hitler's sayings. The saying is, "Es gibt keinen Sozialismus, der nicht aufgeht im eigenen Volk" -- which I translate as "There is no socialism except what arises within its own people".

Hitler spoke a very colloquial German so translating that one was not easy but I think that "arises" is about as close to translating "aufgeht" as you can get there. Hitler was saying that people will be willing to support others only if the others are of the same ethnicity -- a view that seems to be gaining increasing ground today among sociologists -- such as Robert Putnam.





Bauer

Engels wrote in 1845: "Zunaechst die Bauernschaft, die stupideste Menschenklasse auf Erden, eine Klasse, die, feudalen Vorurteilen anhaengend.." ("Firstly, the farmers, the most stupid set of people in existence, who, clinging to feudal prejudices, burst forth in masses, ready to die rather than cease to obey those whom they, their fathers and grandfathers, had called their masters; and submitted to be trampled on and horse-whipped by.")

I have translated Bauernschaft as "farmers" above rather than as "peasantry" because "peasant" is derogatory and Bauer is the normal German word for "farmer", which is not normally derogatory. Schaft means something like "fraternity". So "farming fraternity" would be a third possible translation. However you translate it, however, it is clear that Engels was referring to the small farmers ("rednecks"?) of his day. I should perhaps note that the Afrikaans form of the word (Boer) IS often used with



bloed

The only saying for which August Bebel (the founder of the now mainstream German Social Democratic Party or "SPD") is much remembered these days is his description of antisemitism as der Sozialismus des bloeden Mannes -- which is usually translated as "the socialism of fools". Bloed however has more the connotation of weak-mindedness or mental feebleness rather than folly. It is more derogatory than "foolish". "Imbeciles" might be a closer translation. One is reminded of how American Leftists normally describe Republican Presidents.



ministeriell

Marx wrote to Engels in 1852: "Die einzige gute Nachricht haben wir von meiner ministeriellen Schwaegerin erhalten, die Nachricht von der Krankheit des unverwuestlichen Onkels meiner Frau. Stirbt der Hund jetzt, so bin ich aus der Patsche heraus." ("The only good news we have received came from my bossy sister-in-law, the news about the illness of my wife's indestructible uncle. If the dog dies now, I'm out of trouble".)

My Brockhaus German-English dictionary tells me that "der Ministeriale" is a sheriff, presumably an official of a court of justice but sheriffs were apparently seen as a bossy lot in Marx's day so it seems that "ministeriell" above should be translated as "bossy".



Reich

As with Volk, Hitler used Reich a lot and there is NO translation that is at all adequate -- though "State", "regime", "empire" and "government" are some translations. We do have a tattered remnant of the word in English, in the word "Bishopric". Despite popular hilarity to the contrary, that word means the "ric" (Reich) or jurisdiction of a Bishop. And Swedish is again instructive. The very name of Sweden in Swedish is "Sverige" -- meaning the "rig" (Reich, domain) of the Svea -- the Svea being the Southern Swedish tribe from lake Malaren who eventually took over the whole country. And East Germany again is interesting too. The East German State railway was known as the Reichsbahn. So Reich too is far from exclusively a Nazi word.

Perhaps one of the great sadnesses about English loss of the word "Reich" lies in translating Chinese! The Chinese do NOT refer to their country as "China". The dynasty of the Chin is long gone. They refer to their country (really a collection of countries) by an expression that is usually translated into English as "The Middle Kingdom". But China is NOT a Kingdom so the translation is very poor. In German, however, there is no such difficulty. China is clearly the Mittelreich!



Ruestung

I am putting up below a picture of a Nazi propaganda poster of the 1930s that you won't believe unless you are aware of how readily all Leftists preach one thing and do another. It reads "Mit Hitler gegen den Ruestungswahnsinn der Welt".



And what does that mean? It means "With Hitler against the armaments madness of the world". Ruestung could more precisely be translated as "military preparations" but "armaments" is a bit more idiomatic in English.



Schaffen

When Hitler was justifying his use of the hooked cross, he said: "Als nationale Sozialisten sehen wir in unserer Flagge unser Programm. Im Rot sehen wir den sozialen Gedanken der Bewegung, im Weiss den nationalistischen, im Hakenkreuz die Mission des Kampfes fuer den Sieg des arischen Menschen und zugleich mit ihm auch den Sieg des Gedankens der schaffenden Arbeit" ("As National socialists we see our programme in our flag. In red we see the social thoughts of the movement, in white the nationalist thoughts, in the hooked-cross the mission of fighting for the victory of Aryan man and at the same time the victory of the concept of creative work").

In German, the word "Victory" (Sieg) begins with an "S". So he said that the two letters "S" that can be seen as making up the hooked-cross (swastika) stood for the victory of Aryan man and the victory of the idea that the "worker" was a creative force.

I have translated "schaffen" above as "create" (as does Ralph Manheim in his widely-used translation of Mein Kampf -- p. 452) but it has the larger meaning of providing and accomplishing things in general. So Hitler was clearly using the word to stress the central importance of the working man. In English, "creative" is often used to refer to artistic activities. That is NOT the meaning of "schaffen".



Schmuhl

Engels wrote to Marx in 1856: "Die Lassalliaden haben mich sehr erheitert, der krause Juddekopp muss sich ueber dem roten Schlafrock und in der Marquisen-Draperie, wo bei jeder Bewegung der polnische Schmuhl durchguckt, sehr reizend ausnehmen. Gesehen, muss der Kerl einen hoechst lausig-widerwaertigen Eindruck machen." ("The Lasalle volleys have amused me greatly, the frizzy Jew-head now has to very charmingly distinguish himself in the red nightshirt and Marquis garb -- from which at every movement the Polish kike looks out. Seeing it must give the impression of louse-like repulsiveness.")

Schmuhl seems to be cognate with "Samuel" and was a slang term for Jews at the time. "Kike" would appear to be the nearest English equivalent. derogatory intent.



Swastika

Contrary to popular belief, "swastika" is NOT a German word and the Nazis never used it. It is an Indian word and describes an Indian symbol that is (usually) the mirror image of the Nazi one. You can see swastikas plastered up all over the place in India -- where it is regarded as a good luck symbol. See here (the cover of a book published in India) for a picture of the Indian symbol. The Nazis called their symbol a Hakenkreuz, or "hooked cross". I do usually translate Hakenkreutz as "swastika" but that is strictly incorrect.



Tag

Tag is the ordinary German word for "day" but, unlike "day" in English, it can also mean "assembly" -- as in the Reichstag or State parliament -- or "rally" -- as in Parteitag or Party rally. At a guess, most assemblies in historical times lasted for only a day -- and many still do. So a "day" (Tag) was a reasonable way to describe them



Terrorismus

In 1848 Marx wrote: ,...dass es nur ein Mittel gibt, die moerderischen Todeswehen der alten Gesellschaft, die blutigen Geburtswehen der neuen Gesellschaft abzukuerzen, zu vereinfachen, zu konzentrieren, nur ein Mittel - den revolutionaeren Terrorismus." ("The purposeless massacres perpetrated since the June and October events, the tedious offering of sacrifices since February and March, the very cannibalism of the counterrevolution will convince the nations that there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terrorism.")

I note that the Marxists translate Terrorismus above as "Terror". If Marx had meant "terror" he would presumably have said so. The word is the same in English and in German. In fact what he clearly said was "terrorism". Marx DID advocate terrorism.



Volk

The English word cognate to the German Volk is of course "folk" but the two words have diverged considerably in meaning over the centuries. Volk means both "people" and "race" even though there are also separate words in German for people (Leute) and race (Rasse). And the word is used similarly in other European languages. For instance, it has been much used by the dominant political party in Sweden from 1932 on: The Social Democratic Party. The program and policy of the Social Democrats centred around transforming Sweden into a folkhemmet (Volksheimat in German). This became the dominant Swedish concept of Sweden in 1932 with the accession to power of the Social Democrats. folkhemmet is probably best translated as "a home for the Swedish people". And the ideology of the Social Democrats did originally include racial elements. The folkhemmet was seen as including only a racially defined folkgemenskap (Volksgemeinschaft, people's community) with members being only people belonging to den Svenska folkstammen (Volkstum, Swedish racial group) with minorities such as the Tornedal Finns being excluded.

The racial element need not be prominent, however. On all the products exported from the old Communist East Germany, there was a "brand name"-which was "VEB". And what does "VEB" stand for? It stands for "Volkseigene Betrieb", which translates as "The People's own Enterprise" (though that translation could be argued about too). So if Communist East Germany put the word "Volk" on everything it produced, it is clearly not just a Nazi word. It is in fact an ordinary German word that was in common use for at least 2,000 years before the Nazis came along.

I personally, for instance cannot forget the great 18th century cantata by Vincenz Luebeck called "Hilf deinen Volk" -- and Telemann has a cantata by that name too. "Hilf deinen Volk" is an appeal to God to help his people (Volk).

When used in Afrikaans, Volk is often translated as "nation". Afrikaners see themselves as a separate nation from other South Africans (black and white).

I am still rather bemused by the fact that I, as a libertarian conservative with a very imperfect grasp of German, seem to be the first person to put English translations of some Marxian texts onto the net. Fortunately, I do have some helpers but occasional expressions in Marx's German puzzle all of us at times -- probably because the expressions were common at the time Marx wrote but are no longer so.



On a lighter note:

Translating German is probably an inherently serious enterprise. So let me mention one bit of translation that has a capacity to amuse.

My favourite Bach cantata is Wachet auf and there is a fair bit of recitative in it. At one point a female voice asks: Wann kommst du? and a male voice answers: Ich komme.

A straightforward translation of that dialogue would be:

Female voice: "When are you going to come?

Male voice: "I'm coming"

I once had a rather splendid girlfriend who use to say something like that to me in bed and my reply was probably similar. So I have some difficulty in keeping a straight face during that passage.

For the unchurched, Bach meant the female voice to represent the human soul and the male voice was the saviour. Serious Christians do still expect the second coming of Christ

Biblical Textual criticism

In my spare moments over the Christmas season, I have been doing something that is quite appropriate to the time.  I have been reading a lot of textual criticism of the Bible, particularly the OT.

 Textual criticism arises because we do not have any of the original books of the Bible.  They have all been lost over the centuries and only copies remain.  And the copies do not all agree with one another.  So what to do?  Deciding what to do has generated the vast body of textual criticism

I should add the the various disagreements between the copies do not not affect the overall message.  The differences are mainly of detail.  But in a book as important as the Bible, even minor details are of interest.

As a general rule, the oldest MSS (copies) should be closest to the original.  Copying errors do creep in so they should accumulate over time.  So we are fortunate that some MSS that we have are quite old, dating to around 200BC.  I have taken a passing interest in textual criticism for many years so I knew that.  What I did not know was that the earliest copies of the Hebrew Bible (Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus) were in GREEK.  How come?

The Greek versions of the OT arose because there was a substantial number of Jews in Biblical times who did NOT live in Israel.  They lived in Alexandria in Egypt.  Alexandria was a great commercial centre so there were Jews in business even then.  And many were born in Egypt so spoke only the language of Alexandria at the time:  Commercial Greek.  They had "forgotten" Hebrew.  But they were still religious so wanted to hear the words of their scriptures. 

So they had their scriptures translated into a language they could understand:  Greek.  The Greek version of the OT that they produced is generally referred to as the Septuagint, abbreviated as LXX.  And it is that version that gives us the oldest form of the Bible texts.  The oldest Hebrew texts of the OT are many centuries later. When Jesus and the apostles quoted the OT, it was the LXX that they quoted

It is said that all translations are interpretations and that was certainly true of the LXX.  The first translation was rather unskilful in some ways so subsequent copyists tried to "tidy it up" as they copied.  Result:  There are no two copies of the LXX that are identical.  Additionally, some ancient copies of the LXX contain passages that are not in all of them and not in the Hebrew text (e.g.  Ezekiel 28:11-19)

So a great scholarly endeavour has arisen which aims to capture the "Old Greek", the Septuagint as it was originally written -- in the view that the Old Greek would be closest to the Hebrew text that the scribes were originally translating.

And a serious question is what do we do when the Hebrew text and the Greek text diverge.  Since the LXX is much more ancient than any surviving copy of the Hebrew OT, it is reasonable to say that the LXX is closest to the original and it is the LXX readings that should appear in our English versions of the Bible.  That has mostly not occurred. 

And the reason why is the Masoretes.  The Masoretes were Jews of around 1000AD who produced a text of the Hebrew Bible that they proclaimed as correct.  They claimed that as Jewish scribes copied and recopied the OT over the centuries, they had exercized extreme care not to change anything.  That was sufficiently impressive for Christian Protestants to adopt the Masoretic text as the basis of their translations into English.  The OT in the King James Bible is a translation of the Masoretic text

It was however something of an assertion and could be disbelieved.  Then an amazing thing happened.  The Dead Sea scrolls were discovered and dated to just before the time of Christ.  So at last we had some ancient Hebrew texts.  The texts were far from a complete copy of the OT but there were some fairly substantial bits of it.  And one scroll was of the Book of Isaiah.  So how close was the DSIA (Dead Sea scroll of Isaiah) to the Masoretic text?  It was virtually identical!  Those careful Jewish scribes had indeed copied the text of their Bible unaltered for over a thousand years!

It is clear however that there were variant versions of the Hebrew text available in ancient times -- as some of the Dead Sea scrolls were NOT identical to the Masoretic text.  The text we now know as Masoretic was probably in the mainstream but it was not the only Hebrew text in ancient times.  But we can't go back beyond the Dead Sea scrolls so we still have no real way of knowing whether a variant reading is right or wrong. 

Which is where the LXX comes in.  Some LXX copies are much more ancient than the Dead Sea scrolls and appear to be translated from much earlier Hebrew texts.  Even though it is a translation, the LXX may get us closer to the original Hebrew text.

And that is what textual criticism is all about.  Via big debates stretching over the last 200 years, scholars have come to tentative agreement over what is the original text of the OT.  There is still of course no perfect agreement but the various "recensions" produced by different scholars are in something like 99.0% agreement.  So we can be certain that modern scholarly translations into English are firmly founded in what was originally written.  What is amazing at the end of the day is how accurately the Bible has been transmitted to us over the centuries.




Blacks are killing Jews and the Left are ignoring it

The attack on a Rabbi in Monsey north of New York City on Saturday evening has left the Jewish community shaken. It follows at least eight other attacks in New York since the shooting attack on a kosher supermarket in early December. There have been near daily attacks in New York City this year, a kind of slow-moving pogrom against Jews, particularly targeting ultra-Orthodox Jews.

The murder of three people at a kosher supermarket in Jersey City was mostly ignored in the United States. No rallies or marches against the antisemitism that led to it. No major political upheavals or even much recognition. The usual anger over gun violence after mass shootings was nowhere to be found. The victims and the perpetrators are inconvenient. America as a whole can’t mourn Orthodox Jews and it can’t confront perpetrators when the perpetrators come from a minority community. This is inconvenient antisemitism and it is a kind of antisemitism privilege.

Despite widespread anti-racism programs in the US, there are still those in America for whom being antisemitic is a birthright and not something to be ashamed of. The number of people raised with violent antisemitic beliefs is growing.
The Jersey City murders are the culmination of years of incitement against Jews. But the perpetrators in that case were themselves minorities from the African American community. The perpetrators have been identified as coming from an extremist religious group called Black Hebrew Israelites, making them a minority of a minority. The perpetrators are seen as a “militant” fringe within that minority.

The authorities are now looking at the case as domestic terrorism fueled by antisemitism. However major media have endeavored to dismiss the murders as unimportant and unique. The New York Times described the Black Hebrew Israelites as being “known for their inflammatory sidewalk ministers who employ provocation as a form of gospel.” It’s a bit more than that. In fact, the group and the milieu around it tend to view religion through a racial lens, such that Jews are described as “white” and “fake” and the “real Jews” are portrayed as black, along with all the prophets and religious figures. The ADL pointed out that this group views itself as the real “chosen people” and that it sees people of color as the real descendants of the 12 tribes. The group was in the media earlier in the year in Washington DC when they shouted insults at Catholic high school students.

Mainstream society wants to view this as “provocation,” because if they viewed it as a burgeoning racist violent movement targeting Jews then they would have to confront it and ask tough questions of why it is tolerated in a community. Expert J.J. McNab told the Associated Press that in fact this group takes pride in “confronting Jewish people everywhere and explaining that they are evil.”

In American society there is generally only place for one kind of racism. There are far-right white supremacists and everyone else. This Manichean worldview of antisemitism and racism means we are only comfortable with one type of perpetrator. An angry white man. Those are the racists. Dylann Roof, the racist who murdered black people in a church in 2015 is the most normal kind of America racist. The El Paso shooter or the Tree of Life Synagogue attacker are also the kind of killers that fit into an easy narrative. But when the perpetrators stray from that we have a problem dealing with it. In New York City, according to a post by journalist Laura Adkins, data shows that of 69 anti-Jewish crimes in 2018, forty of the perpetrators were labelled “white” and 25 were labelled “black,” the others were categorized as Hispanic or Asian.

To keep the focus on the white supremacists, headlines need to explain to us that “right wing terrorists” have killed more than Jihadists, as Slate.com said earlier this year. Other types of terrorism are watered down a bit. During the Obama administration Islamist-inspired terror was even rebranded as “violent extremism” so as not to mention the religion of the perpetrators. For some reason even though Islamist terror is also a far-right ideology, it is portrayed as something else. For instance, when Jews were targeted at a kosher supermarket in France they were called “random folk in a deli.” They weren’t random, they were targeted, like the Jews in Jersey City, but they needed to be random or we’d have to ask about the antisemitism that permeates Islamist terror.

In the wake of all the attacks in New York against Jews, culminating in the shooting attack at the kosher market, it became difficult to ignore the rising tide. But there is discomfort in looking at the depth of the perpetrators. The comfort society has with expecting perpetrators to be “far-right” and “white” even led Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib to blame “white supremacy” for the Jersey City attack. Her tweet was deleted. When it wasn’t white supremacy and there was no one to condemn, it didn’t fit the narrative and was less important.

The suspects in Jersey City were called  “drifters,” anything to make them seem unique, as if their views came from the moon. But the hatred of Jews and almost daily attacks in New York City and surrounding areas doesn’t come from thin air. It is motivated by a very clear ideology that has been appeased and tolerated in the name of tolerance of hatred. Almost every day in Brooklyn Jews are attacked. When this happened in the Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire it was called a pogrom. If someone said that every day in Kiev Jews were being beaten and attacked on subways and in the streets, we would correctly identify it as a pogrom-like series of attacks. But not in New York.

In one spate of November incidents a brick was thrown at a school for Jewish girls, three men were punched, and Jews had eggs thrown at them. Jews are also more likely to be victims of hate crimes in the area than any other group. Through September 1 there were 152 antisemitic hate crimes. It’s basically one a day and they are becoming more violent and now deadly.

Hatred of Jews spans the white supremacist far right and the black supremacist far right and milieus in between. The difference is that society condemns and confronts comments by the white supremacists. Even with white supremacists, after the Poway and Pittsburgh attacks, we did not delve deeply into the wider community of hate online. “We got our man,” in finding the perpetrator, and that was enough. When dealing with the wider world of antisemitism in the US, that crosses racial lines, it is more difficult to confront. In the US, since it is difficult to accept that minorities might also be racist, the elephant in the room of black antisemitism is not mentioned. Too often, African American officials make openly antisemitic statements without fear of reaction. A school board member attacked “brutes of the Jewish community” after the Jersey City attack.

In Washington DC an African American member of the city council claimed the Rothschilds control the weather. Instead of fully condemning him, he was invited to the Holocaust Museum and to experience Jewish holidays with the community. Why is the answer to antisemitism often the invitation to a nice embrace at a Jewish holiday? Does the KKK get invited to a black church as a reward for their racism? How about condemning first, apologies and introspection, and then a reward for reform would be an invitation. Unlike with white supremacy, other forms of antisemitism, such as black supremacist antisemitism, is seen as not the fault of the individual, but rather some ignorant ideas that a nice Passover dinner can correct. We need to do “outreach,” is the message.

The attack on Jews as “fake” and “white” is rising. In November in London a black man took out a Bible and began harassing a Jewish Orthodox family until a Muslim woman intervened. The perpetrator was detained for a hate crime. In Miami a man also threatened Jews with a knife, calling them “fake.” In 2018 an Orthodox Jewish man was attacked in Crown Heights, called a “fake Jew.”

This is inconvenient because it appears that there is a deep antisemitic milieu not dissimilar to the way white supremacist antisemitism spreads online and among communities, fueling hatred of Jews among other American minority groups, specifically some black Americans. This antisemitism has been around for decades, gaining strength in the 1990s as Jews began to be blamed for the slave trade.

This trend in black antisemitism isn’t entirely unknown. It is discussed here and there, usually with excuses. For instance The Forward ran an article claiming that while “White antisemites are motivated by a hatred of Jews and a desire  for power, black anti-Semites are motivated by anger over gentrification, police brutality and slavery.” The article claimed that Jews “like all white people, part of the racist system that keeps black people under the foot of society.” This is the way a Jewish newspaper explained hatred of Jews. It defined Jews as “white” and gave credence to the idea that antisemitism is motivated by “police brutality and slavery.”

This is a window into a very real worldview that openly says Jews are behind police brutality and slavery and gentrification.  In New York the police have stepped up their presence after attacks, but even that has been condemned as sending too many police to a neighborhood of “people of color.” Now Jews will be blamed for the police presence too instead of someone struggling against the violent antisemitism and inter-racial marches of solidarity against it.

How did we get here? The motivation behind the Jersey City attack is clear from social media posts one of the perpetrators made, according to a research by the ADL. This included claims that Jews are “Khazars,” and that “Brooklyn is full of Nazis-Ashkenazis,” and that the “police are in their [the Jews] hand now.” The worldview matches with the larger milieu in which Jews are portrayed as not merely “white Jews” but in fact as controlling the slave trade and police violence. In this new antisemitism Jews are reframed as both being “fake,” as in not really Jews from the Middle East, and also being “white” and running white supremacism. This replaces German Nazis with Jewish Nazis; it replaces white supremacists with a hidden hand of Jews controlling both the American far-right and also the police. Instead of pushing back against this there are attempts to excuse it or just remain quiet about it and hope this antisemitism goes away.

Despite the way this this antisemitism has combined traditional antisemitism with a twist, turning Jews into “whites” as opposed to hating them for being wandering Middle Easterners, there is very little recognition that it is dangerous.  This is despite hundreds of violent attacks over the years, primarily targeting Orthodox Jews. Now, this has resulted in murder. But many voices want to downplay it and explain it away. For instance, The New Yorker asked whether an “influx of Hasidic residents in the Greenville [Jersey City] neighborhood spur two assailants to embark on a shooting spree that left six people dead.” Jews, simply for moving somewhere, may cause a shooting spree, in this explanation. Jews are the only US minority group who, when they move somewhere, are accused of being an “influx.” Others have argued that we can’t even label the recent attacks “right wing” or “left wing” because it’s totally different to “white nationalists whose beliefs are based on antisemitism.”

A review of the discussion about the New York City attacks reveals an America that has trouble adjusting to and describing antisemitism when it comes from unexpected perpetrators. This is partly because the general view of racism in the US is that racism is not just about racism but about power. That is why in the US people look for racism in “white privilege” and the way racist views can be perpetuated even through code words and social settings and institutions. Confronted with the idea that minority groups are also racist, such as Hispanics using the n-word, there is a struggle to come to grips with how to define and confront. With the Jewish community there has been an agenda to argue over its relative “whiteness” and insofar as Jews are then removed from the intersectional agenda of minority groups fighting white privilege, Jews become either a separate category or part of the oppressive majority. This is odd but it is part of a wider agenda to assert that Zionism is racism and Jews are somehow linked to far-right groups through Israel and Israel is a modern apartheid colonialist structure. These ideas didn’t inform the Jersey City killings, but they are part of the milieu that informs those who might excuse the attacks.

Another element at play is the fact people are being inured to antisemitism. There was so much violent antisemitism in 2019 that people are less shocked. Also, those most prone to be shocked, other members of the Jewish community, sometimes see haredi Jews through a vaguely discriminatory lens, which others them. There is little solidarity with Orthodox Jews as a minority group, whereas if they were another group, there would be a larger outpouring of sympathy.

The result is a multi-layered cake of excuses and fear at confronting a wider range of perpetrators of antisemitism in New York. If violent antisemitism that sees Jews controlling the police and being responsible for slavery and white supremacy, is growing in the African American community in America then confronting it requires asking a minority community that is also a victim to be self-critical. In the US there tends to be pass for minority groups who are homophobic or racist. Society can only confront one kind of racism. This is largely because those driving the agenda of confronting racism either have blinders on regarding all forms of racism and antisemitism or are unaware of it because they don’t conduct surveys and polls regarding the prevalence of antisemitism in places like Brooklyn. When the perpetrators and victims do not fit a convenient model, it is easier to just excuse the attacks or see them as random.

Unfortunately, in the US these attacks are not random, and there is rising violent antisemitism coming from a broad spectrum of communities, including white supremacists and from African Americans. Confronting it requires the same broad spectrum to step up the struggle.

SOURCE 






Schools too afraid to help white boys and the Lakes deemed not ethnic enough

Equality of opportunity is a core principle of our democratic society. Yet all too often the achievement of this noble goal is undermined by institutional virtue signalling, self- righteous guilt-tripping and ideological posturing.

As a result, instead of meeting genuine needs, many policy-makers — be they politicians, civil servants, media bosses or education chiefs — indulge in the worst kind of stereotyping, where all ethnic minorities are treated as perennial victims in need of support and white people are regarded as potential oppressors who deserve to be either hectored or neglected.

Two very different examples of this kind of behaviour emerged this week — both telling about our neurosis over race, and the damage it does.

The first is the incendiary row over the decision by two leading public schools — Dulwich and Winchester — to reject large philanthropic donations, worth more than £1 million, to fund scholarships for talented white boys from poor backgrounds.

The donations were offered by distinguished academic Sir Bryan Thwaites, former long-serving principal of Westfield College, part of the University of London, who is rightly concerned about Britain's 'severe problem of the underperforming white cohort in schools'.

The second was when Richard Leafe, chief executive of the Lake District National Park Authority, stated that the region should be made more accessible to the disabled and ethnic minorities. This follows a decision by his park authority to run a four-mile tarmac path through woodland at Keswick to improve access.

In each case, the people behind these decisions will have thought of themselves as progressive. But their approach is far from enlightened.

To take the schools story, which appeared in Standpoint magazine, I came to know Sir Bryan well in the Seventies when I was president of the student union at the University of London. I can testify that he is a man of integrity and compassion, motivated by a real determination to raise standards for all. He is also correct in his analysis about the need to help deprived white boys. All recent studies show that they do worse at school than almost all other ethnic groups and are significantly less likely to go to university.

Their social exclusion can perhaps be seen at its most graphic in high achieving fee-paying schools — in London, fewer than 45 per cent of pupils at such places are white. That's partly because Chinese and Russian and African billionaires can afford the fees; but it is also because poor immigrant parents are prepared to work double and triple shifts to give their kids the education they themselves could never have dreamed of enjoying.

Sir Bryan's wish to promote social mobility through a number of scholarships is wholly justified. Nor is there anything unorthodox about wanting to provide financial backing to pupils from certain ethnic groups which face disadvantages in the system. After all, the rap star Stormzy has established a number of scholarships exclusively for black students at Cambridge University. Other charities have done the same.

Sir Bryan's proposal was certainly not illegal under current equality legislation. As one of the authors of the 2010 Equality Act in my then role as head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, I can state categorically that in circumstances where a racial group suffering disadvantage is white, then there is no bar on doing for them exactly what we would do for black and ethnic minority groups.

Contrary to what some 'progressives' seem to believe, the Equality Act is not the judicial preserve of people of colour. It is not a kind of 'be nice to blacks' charter but a measure that aims to bring fairness for all.

Yet that reality is being ignored by organisations such as Dulwich and Winchester. The two schools were too terrified of accusations of bigotry to accept Sir Bryan's generosity.

In their anxious minds, the very use of the term 'white' probably conjured up images of the far-Right and aggressive English nationalism. Bristling with indignation, Dulwich boasted that its 'community is profoundly diverse'. In the same tone, Winchester proclaimed that 'the school does not see how discrimination on grounds of a boy's colour could ever be compatible with its values'.

One state school has proved less squeamish and has happily accepted Sir Bryan's offer of funding. Ironically, but not surprisingly, the school's head teacher is black.

But the loudly vaunted scruples of the liberal elitists illustrate a worrying set of double standards. Despite their fixation with ethnic-minority victimhood, they show little understanding of the lives of the British working class.

The term 'white privilege' is so casually bandied about among Left-wing intellectuals. Yet most low-paid workers are white. And they find it hard to make sense of the idea that their skin colour imbues them with any kind of privilege.

But neurosis about race means that guilt and condescension can be found everywhere in our public life — as the Lake District story shows.

'We are deficient in terms of black and minority ethnic communities,' declared Richard Leafe, a view that chimes with a recent report which described the Lake District as 'an exclusive, mainly white, mainly middle-class club'.

Yet, once again, the anxious rhetoric feeds into the theme of ethnic-minority victimhood, with the implication that, like children, we people of colour have to be guided by the benevolent hand of the state.

I myself adore the Lake District and have tried to pass that on to others. When I was head of the Commission for Racial Equality I organised summer camps to Cumbria to give kids the chance to mix with others of different backgrounds and to see an England they would never discover otherwise. Many said it changed their lives.

I will never forget the time I was in a tea shop in Kendal 20 years ago and another customer — an elderly lady — said to me, in a friendly tone, 'We haven't seen many coloured people like you up here since the Americans during the war.'

When I told this story to a black activist friend, he upbraided me for not reprimanding her over her outdated language. But I knew there was no hostility about her, only warmth — in the true, welcoming spirit of the Lake District. And the answer is to encourage people of whatever race to go there and experience that. People respond to that warmth, not tarmac.

The deep anxiety in our political and media classes isn't reflected among most British people, who — generally speaking — want to get on with their neighbours, whatever their race.

Yet this squeamishness about race can have disastrous consequences, as terrible crimes are overlooked — such as the long-running refusal by the authorities to face up to the reality of Asian predatory sex gangs on the streets of towns such as Rotherham and Telford.

The same shameful silence can be found in the dishonesty and self-delusion about the soaring incidence of knife crime. Ethnicity plays a critical role here, for the overwhelming majority of both perpetrators and victims are young black men.

In the corner of North London where I grew up, the rate for murder and violence last year was ten times the average for England, while just 16 per cent of the local population is white British.

Yet the race aspect is constantly, almost feverishly down-played by liberals, who would rather grumble about poverty, or lack of youth clubs. But none of this mayhem is taking place in the left-behind seaside towns of Kent or the devastated industrial wastelands of South Wales or the North-East.

The hand-wringing over these assassinations does nothing to tackle the terrifying surge in violence. We need hard-headed realism about our racial differences — and the people who most want to see that realism are people of colour.

SOURCE 







World reacts to new Margaret Court controversy

Australian tennis legend Margaret Court’s discussion of transgender issues in a recent sermon has made global headlines and drawn a mixed reaction.

Margaret Court’s latest public controversy made headlines everywhere from India to Turkey to South Africa — and has divided commentators.

In a sermon at her Perth church last Sunday, the tennis legend again ventured where Tennis Australia would prefer her to avoid by tackling the transgender issue.

Just weeks before the Australian Open will celebrate the 50th anniversary of her grand slam, the 77-year-old discussed her concern for transgender youth and the future of women’s sport.

“Children are making the decision at seven or eight years of age to change their sex … no, just read the first two chapters of Genesis, that’s all I say. Male and female,” Court said.

“It’s so wrong at that age because a lot of things are planted in this thought realm at that age, and they start to question ‘what am I?’.

“And you know with that LGBT, they’ll wish they never put the T on the end of it because, particularly in women’s sports, they’re going to have so many problems.”

The 24-time grand slam winner’s comments did receive some support. American author Eric Metaxas tweeted a link to news.com.au’s coverage with the comment: “She is probably the greatest women’s tennis player of all time, and she’s used her platform heroically. Thank you, Margaret Court.”

Australian political activist Lyle Shelton said Court’s views were “not controversial but mainstream”.

“Millions share her concern for women’s sport. Parents are worried about radical gender fluid indoctrination of their children. Yet the left viciously attacks Margaret for speaking the truth,” he tweeted.

“The battle for truth and freedom of speech should not be borne by this courageous woman alone. Where are our political, religious and other civil society leaders? Have we surrendered to rainbow lies about biology and the human condition? Is courage dead in Australia?”

But others were furious. Australian radio personality Gus Worland was particularly animated in his condemnation of Court’s views, calling for Tennis Australia to end its association with her, including removing her name from Margaret Court Arena in Melbourne.

“Tennis Australia want us to say there’s the person and there’s the actual player but you can’t (separate them),” Worland told Today. “The simple fact is she’s awful — and what she’s saying is awful. It’s spreading hatred.

“So at the end of the day I’d put a line through her completely. I’d take her name off the arena down there in Melbourne and say ‘you’re done and dusted’ …

“When she comes out with that sort of vile, that sort of hatred, that’s where you put a line through someone …

“The timing is terrible. She knows exactly what she’s doing. We’re about to have the Australian Open. We’re all going to get focused on the tennis down there in Melbourne — and we know her opponent. She’s just restating it again … and she’s (thumbing her nose) at all the tennis authorities and all the lovers and supporters of the game.”

Sydney Morning Herald senior writer Jessica Irvine agreed. “Hopefully in the next decade we’ll have left these views behind,” Irving told Today. “It’s just so disappointing.

“Australians want to celebrate our sporting heroes and she’s amazing. But can we separate the views she has that I believe are unacceptable to the Australian people and celebrate her sporting wins? I don’t think you can separate the two.”

In the same sermon, Court highlighted the difficulty of openly discussing her religious views. “People think because you don’t agree with them, you hate them. No, I don’t. I don’t hate anybody,” Court said.

Tennis Australia openly condemned Court’s views in November, and made it clear in an open letter they are not welcome in the sport.

SOURCE  

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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Theodore Roosevelt: Leftist

With an extended commentary on the largely unseaworthy "Great White Fleet"





The life and times of Theodore Roosevelt are amply documented in many sources but I want to offer here a brief summary of some lesser known aspects of his life. The first thing I need to mention is probably that there were two Roosevelts, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt. Theodore was President just before WWI and Franklin was President during WWII. They were related but only distantly. The surname is an old Dutch name, going back to the time when New York was New Amsterdam.

Let me start with a characterization of his personality drawn from here:

Philosophically, Roosevelt was the consummate Progressive, determined to bring efficiency and coordinated intelligence to bear against the trusts, against despoilers of the natural environment, and against international disorder. He was, as one historian put it, "the first great president-reformer of the modern industrial era." He therefore had little patience with federalism and indeed with most of the constitutional impediments that stood between him and the construction of a new American state.

Politically he was a committed nationalist. He thus could barely bring himself to speak of Thomas Jefferson, whom he loathed; and as late as the 1880s he was still condemning Jefferson Davis as a traitor. The Confederate cause, since it denied that a large consolidated nation was its own justification, enraged him. Roosevelt brought to the presidential office a thorough and consistent philosophy of the presidency. What a previous president may have done hesitatingly or without fanfare, Theodore Roosevelt made a matter of principle.

Presidential scholar Edward Corwin has spoken of the "personalization of the presidency," by which he means that the accident of personality has played a considerable role in shaping the office. And indeed it is hard to think of a stronger personality than that of Theodore Roosevelt who ever served as president. One presidential scholar observed that Roosevelt gave the office "the absorbing drama of a Western movie." And no wonder. Mark Twain, who met with the president twice, declared him "clearly insane."

In a way, Roosevelt set the tone for his public life to come at age 20, when, after an argument with his girlfriend, he went home and shot and killed his neighbor's dog. He told a friend in 1884 that when he donned his special cowboy suit, which featured revolver and rifle, "I feel able to face anything." When he killed his first buffalo, he "abandoned himself to complete hysteria," as historian Edmund Morris put it, "whooping and shrieking while his guide watched in stolid amazement." His reaction was similar in 1898 when he killed his first Spaniard.

He loathed inactivity. At one point during the 1880s he wrote to a friend that he had been working so hard lately that for the next month he was going to do nothing but relax - and write a life of Oliver Cromwell. Henry Adams said that all Roosevelt's friends know that his restless and combative energy was more than abnormal.

One of his sons is said to have remarked, "Father always wanted to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral."

Mark Twain was right. From all of the above it emerges clearly that Roosevelt had some form of mental abnormality and there is little dispute that he was bipolar. He suffered from a sub-clinical form of manic/depression. His energy and constant activity were manic. Those who hold him up as an example are basically holding up a madman as an example. He had sufficient grip of reality to avoid getting himself into serious trouble, however. He managed to deploy his energies constructively.

One of the biggest confusions surrounding TR is that the was some sort of conservative. That mainly stems from his being for most of his political career a member of the Republican party. But that only happened because the identity of American political parties over the last two hundred years or so has been very fluid, as the Democrat campaign poster below rather graphically shows:



Over time the two major parties have almost switched roles. The GOP was once the party of big government (particularly in the person of Abraham Lincoln) and the party of blacks. The "copperheads" (mostly Democrats) opposed Lincoln's war, thus obstructing both big government and black emancipation. And the drift away from that particular polarization has been ongoing ever since. And in Roosevelt's day, the process was half way to where it is today, with the GOP comprising both liberal and conservative wings. TR belonged to the liberal wing.

Eventually even the liberal wing of the GOP was too conservative for him and he founded a new political party which he called the "Progressive" party. It was however better known by its nickname: "The Bull Moose" party. The name TR gave his party was significant. In the later part of the 19th century the intellectual life of America was dominated by a "Progressive" movement.

Following is a description of American Progressivism of the early 20th century. It was collectivist and reform-minded though in other ways it was not like modern-day Leftism

"Progressive policies embodied an underlying philosophy repugnant to Jeffersonianism. As Ekirch describes this philosophy, "Society in the future would have to be based more and more on an explicit subordination of the individual to a collectivist, or nationalized, political and social order. This change, generally explained as one of progress and reform, was of course also highly important in building up nationalistic sentiment. At the same time, the rising authority and prestige of the state served to weaken the vestiges of internationalism and cosmopolitanism and to intensify the growing imperialistic rivalries." In their statist cause the progressives, who were now appropriating the name "liberal," enlisted Social Darwinism, economic determinism, and relativism.

And from very early-on TR was reform-minded and anti-big-business. And even whilst a Republican President he was notable for his worker-welfare and environmentalist initiatives -- setting up national parks in particular. And in good Progressive fashion (See Obama) he stretched his Presidential authority to the limit in some of those initiatives

But harking back to the description at the beginning of this article we see even more of TR's Leftism. The initial mention of "Trusts" translates to "big business" in modern terms or perhaps "oligopolies' in economist's terms. In good Leftist style, TR was against them. Compare that with the Leftist fury at Wal-Mart during Bush II's second election campaign.

And TR was of course a Greenie (e.g. National parks) when that was little known outside Germany.

And the fact that he was against international disorder is mirrored in the fact that it was three Democrat Presidents that got an unwilling America into WWI, WWII and Vietnam. Leftists are meddlers in other people's affairs.

Something that really goes to the heart of Leftism is ego. Angry dissatisfaction with the world about them is definitional of Leftism but something else is needed as well: Arrogance. The Leftist both believes that he knows better how to organize the world and feels entitled to force change upon it -- preferably by revolution but alternatively by an unending stream of "reform" legislation if there is no widespread appetite for revolution. The Leftist has a big ego, in other words. And TR clearly had that in abundance. His son's formulation that his father "always wanted to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral." must be about as strong a formulation of egocentricity as there is. And his "whooping and shrieking" when he killed a buffalo also suggests extreme self-satisfaction.

Unlike the American Leftists of today, the Progressives were in fact thoroughly patriotic, and Croly -- arguably the leading light of Progressivism -- was certainly explicitly nationalist. And one of Croly's disciples was both vastly influential and a remarkably exact model for Mussolini's imperialistic nationalism. The disciple concerned? Theodore Roosevelt. To know anything of American history of the early 20th century is to know of TR's strident American nationalism and militarism and his key role in the conquest of the Spanish empire in Cuba and the Philippines on quite shallow pretexts.

TR's nationalism really was nationalism, not mere patriotism. Like other Leftist nationalists such as Hitler and Mussolini, he really did want to conquer and control other countries. Unlike those two gentlemen, however, he actually got on his horse and took a personal part in conquering one: Cuba. His explosive energies would have been responsible for that.

And certainly in war-glorifying, militaristic, nationalistic, action-worshipping and big-government ideas TR very strongly anticipated Mussolini. And TR, of course, "entirely" agreed that as a race negroes are "altogether inferior to the whites." That latter sentiment however was virtually universal at the time so cannot be taken as diagnostoic of anything much.

Roosevelt's compulsive action orientation also had an echo in the formation of Fascist Italy. Predecessors of the Fascists were the Italian Futurists, who later merged with the Fascists.

"We shall sing the love of danger, energy and boldness!" the Futurist Manifesto shouted from the rooftops in 1909. "We declare that the world's splendour has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. There is no more beauty except in strife, no masterpiece without aggressiveness, a violent onslaught upon the unknown forces, to force them to bow to the will of man ..."

Because Leftists these days are barely patriotic, let alone nationalistic, it is customary to ignore the socialism in the policies of Hitler and Mussolini and attribute their nationalism to "Rightism" but any reading of their policies and writings will show that they were thoroughly Leftist. And nationalism was once common worldwide on the Left, not only in Croly and the American Progressives. Friedrich Engels, co-author with Karl Marx of Das Kapital was, for instance, a furious German nationalist.


Engels

So TR was in fact a predecessor of Mussolini and Hitler. I will get a kneejerk reaction from any Leftist reading these notes to the effect that Hitler and Mussolini could not possibly have been Leftists, but see here and here. for a very comprehensive coverage of the evidence for their Leftism

Mainly because they confuse TR's nationalism with patriotism, some modern conservative writers do see some virtue in him. That that is misguided is well set out here


The Great White Fleet

And TR had other baggage similar to Hitler's and Mussolini's. Following the Progressives of his day, he saw war as a purifying force and put his faith in battleships and the like. He managed a big buildup of the U.S. navy and used it for boasting purposes. He painted his ships white ("peacetime colours"), added some nifty gold trims and in 1907 sent his "Great White Fleet" -- including 16 battleships -- on a round-the-world cruise to make it clear the U.S. navy had arrived -- after that unfortunate affair with the battleship "Maine". The fleet was an impressive spectacle so was generally greeted with enthusiasm wherever it came into port but it is notable that the fleet bypassed the great British naval base at Portsmouth, despite the fact that a visit there would have been quite a small detour. It did however regroup at Gibraltar for the trip across the Atlantic. Other warships of the Russian, French, Dutch and Danish navies as well as units of the Royal Navy happened to be in port at the same time, making the most remarkable sight of the voyage.


At anchor in Gibraltar. Note the white ships in the background

Why was Britain bypassed? My guess is that it was because Britain had outbuilt TR. Both the British and American navies were at that time the work of strong personalities.


Admiral Fisher, First Sea Lord of the Admiralty

In Britain, the First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, Jackie Fisher, was a very capable and persuasive person in getting funds for his fleet -- but he had an even more persuasive backstop in the person of the King, who had great respect for his country's naval traditions. Edward VII, like all British monarchs since Cromwell, had great formal powers but little customary power.


His majesty

Edward was however a very plausible personality (He even kept his cousin the Kaiser quiescent while he lived) and if Fisher's submissions were not being treated with sufficient gravity, an invitation to an audiece at Buckingham palace to the First Lord of the Admiralty (the government minister with responsibility for the navy) would go out. And NOBODY refuses an audience at Buck House. So the combination of the King and the First Sea Lord was heavily felt and often resulted in money for the navy being "found". A short play about those times is here

So Fisher had managed to build a large and modern fleet. And TR probably feared that if his fleet pulled into Portsmouth, the British would draw down enough ships from Scapa Flow, Lough Swilly etc. to outnumber the American fleet, which would be seen as a humiliation. And Britain's latest mega-battleship, the "Dreadnought" was already at sea by that time and Mr Roosevelt was known to be very interested in her. So mooring that anywhere near the American fleet would have made the American battleships look obsolete, which they were. They were relatively new but were poorly designed.

All the battleships proved wet in all but the calmest seas and turret heights for the main armament proved too low. Secondary armament was useless at speed and especially in windy conditions. Casemates for the bow 3-inch guns in the newer ships were untenable due to wetness. And even when fully loaded, the bottom of the battleships' side armor was sometimes visible, making the ships vulnerable to shells that might hit beneath it. So they were barely seaworthy and would have been toast in a war. Luckily, they didn't have to fight in one. The only major naval battle of WWI -- Jutland -- involved only British and German battleships.

By contrast, the sea trials of the Dreadnought were a brilliant success. One wonders a little why the great British expertise in naval design was not called upon in designing the American ships but the American naval architects apparently thought that they could reinvent the wheel. They were wrong



Dreadnought at sea -- with a speed of 21 knots and mounting ten 12" guns capable of hurling a shell 20 miles. Dreadnought was built in a year and a day -- a build-time which remains impressive today. She was launched by Edward VII and christened with a bottle of Australian wine!


A model


Mind you, being the first of its kind, the Dreadnought was not perfect either. Having side-mounted big gun turrets was a boo boo. It meant that it could not bear all its big guns onto a given target. Subsequent battleships mounted all their big guns on swivelling central turrets, which could be brought to bear on both sides of the ship

Is there anything to learn from the Great White Fleet and its defects? The obvious lesson is that anything new is likely to have problems. And from that it follows that testing and retesting of the fleet should have been done at every stage of the build. Problems found in the first ship should have been used to make improvements to the second ship etc. But that was clearly not done to any extent. The build was in other words rushed, no doubt under political pressure from the very impulsive TR. So the Great White Fleet must fall into the category of one of TR's failures. It is not generally recognized as such because it was not tested in battle. Had it faced Admiral Scheer's Hochseeflotte at any point, the loss of life would have been catastrophic.

And it seems that the same mistake is being made again in the 21st century. A fleet of F35 fighter aircraft has been built even though the plane is still under development. One hopes they will be better than the Great White Fleet. There are many indications that they will not be.

The scripture that the mainstream churches can't find

Here it is:

"Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God."

Their theologians can find it though.  It's in 1 Corinthians 6:9. So what do liberal  theologians say about it?  How do they wriggle around it?

They say that the word "Arsenokoitai" (meaning homosexual) in Paul's original Greek is of uncertain meaning.  And it is true that Paul's use of it in 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10 is the only mention of the word in the NT.  And my Liddell & Scott Lexicon of ancient Greek notes it as being found only in the NT. So let us look at the complete passage in the original Greek:



Tricky, Huh?  The word we are interested in is the last one on the third line.

Not really tricky.  Liddell & Scott give the word as a pair:  "Arseno-koitees".  And "arseno is the normal Greek word for a male. And "koitees" means to sleep. So the word clearly means "male-sleeper'.  Paul just jammed two common words into one -- with  perfect confidence that his meaning would be obvious. Only a liberal theologian could doubt what he meant.

Curiously, when academics talk about sexual intercourse, they often refer to it as "coitus".  They actually use an Anglicized spelling of the same Greek word that Paul used in referring to sex with men. The Left really are pathetic in their flight from reality. 

There is a very extensive coverage of the whole issue here.  They are more polite than I am but come to the same conclusion.

And if there were any doubt about the NT condemnation of homosexuality, Paul makes it REALLY clear whom he is talking about in Romans 1:27.  They are among those who have been abandoned by God.

A small footnote: In 1 Corinthians 6:9 Paul does not in fact refer to homosexuals generally. He specifically refers to MALE homosexuals, people whom Britons and Australians still sometimes call "poofs" or "poofters". I won't repeat the American slang term as it is rather more excoriating than the British one. Lesbians don't get off entirely, however. See Romans 1:26.

UPDATE:  While we have a large body of writings on which to base our understanding of classical Attic Greek, we have nothing like that for the "koine" Greek of Christ's day.  The NT is just about all we have of it.  So it could obviously have been common for "Arsenokoitai" to be widely used at that time without  our having any surviving evidence of that.  And I get the feeling from Paul's casual use of the term that it was in fact common.  I think that it was most likely to have been the contemptuous term of its day.  "Male-sleeper" is not as contemptuous as "f***ot" or "poof" But I think it probably served a similar function.

And, if I can build speculation on speculation, we can perhaps see an explanation for why Paul was so explicit in his description of homosexuality in Romans 1:26,27.  Why did he not simply use "Arsenokoitai", as he did elsewhere?  Possibly because it was Greek slang that would not be well understood in Rome. Greek was perfectly well understood in grand Roman society but Paul was probably addressing poor Romans whose native language was Latin.  Was the epistle to the Romans in fact originally written in Latin?  For an educated man like Paul to understand Latin would not be surprising.  And we know that he did once say something important in Latin: "Appello Caesarem".

Following is a Letter to the Editor which appeared in the "Sydney Morning Herald" on 2 October, 1975. It refers to a play I attended in Sydney called "The Floating World" written by Australian playwright, John Romeril. The play is his most notable work and displays the usual Leftist double standards. "The Floating World" is a derogatory Japanese term describing the life of the pleasure-oriented idle rich in Meiji Japan. Romeril was at the time of the performance aged 30 and I was 32. The play was written in 1975

A recent picture of Romeril (as of 2013)

"The Continuum Companion to Twentieth Century Theatre", edited by Colin Chambers, says of Romeril:

"Socialism and a determined anti-imperialism have led him to champion the cause of the underdog and to examine contradictions in class, gender and racial conflict as well as Australia's geopolitical identity. This is evident in his version of "Love Suicides" (1997) and his involvement in the Landmines Project (from 1999)." -- JR




2 October, 1975

Play accused of stirring up hatred against the Japanese

SIR, I wish to make a protest against a particularly deplorable piece of racism being perpetrated in Sydney theatre. I refer to the anti-Japanese play "The Floating World" being presented at the Nimrod in Surry Hills. The racism starts even in the play's program notes. These feature several excerpts from anti-Asian diatribes written in Australia around the turn of the century.

When I attended the play, I at first took these ludicrous utterances about the "poor moral character of Asiatics," etc. as being something intended to amuse. The content of the play, however, suggests that they were meant to be taken seriously. Although the play is essentially about the reminiscences of an ex-digger survivor of the Burma railroad, the play starts out with a prologue attacking the involvement of Japanese business in the Australian economy. The only common element between the World War II incidents being recalled in the body of the play and the prologue is the common theme of anti-Japanese sentiment.

While the incidents paraded in the play did no doubt take place, while the World War II Japanese Army was no doubt brutal to Its prisoners, surely there is no point in stirring up these old hatreds and resentments now. Surely incidents such as the My Lai massacre convince us all that all armies are brutal to the defenceless from time to time — even the armies of the supposedly moral West. Who are we to criticise? And yet this play has the gall to parrot the old saws about how immoral it is for 350,000 Australians to drive Toyota cars because of what the Japanese did in the war. If I had been asked to conceive of a more anti-Japanese play than this one, I would be hard put to do so.

It explicitly engages in the "stirring up of racial hatred and resentment" which in Britain is now illegal and which in Australia there have been some attempt to make illegal. Given the usual liberal commitment to encouraging one another to treat people as individuals rather than as instances of a race or nationality, this anti-group, anti-race propaganda seems something we can do without.

Given the undoubted sensitivity of the modern-day Japanese to foreign criticism, and given their undoubted importance to us as partners in developing a better world, this play can have only negative effects. It is an example of the worst sort of taste. We must surely look to the future and not go on stoking up the resentments of the past. One gets the impression that among the trendies it is all right to be racist as long as the group criticised is successul and powerful — the Japanese. A play devoted to portraying the uglinesses of Aborigines would presumably never be presented in Sydney theatre. And yet the Jews can testify that racism directed against a successful and powerful group is every bit as destructive and dangerous as racism directed against the oppressed.

(Dr) JOHN J. RAY,
Lecturer in Sociology,
University of NSW.

The de-published man



Stephan Lewandowski now has the rare "honour" of being twice de-published. His first lulu of a paper -- designed to tar climate skeptics as maladjusted -- was first accepted for publication (though it has never been printed) but then withdrawn by the journal from its publication queue after many protests over its dubious "science".

Lewandowski seems however to have been rather peeved by that and wrote a second paper doubling down. He once again slimed climate skeptics using very dubious logic -- as I reported on 6th. His second paper was however in a very humble journal, where the author has to pay to get published.

Not only his logic in the second paper was faulty, however. He repeated claims from his first paper that he knew by then to be false. He lied. So his second paper has also now been withdrawn by the journal.

What is wrong with the man? How can he have any respect for his own case when he has to lie to support it? What he writes sounds sane and logical until you look into it. Where does he go wrong?

I think there is an obvious answer. There is a lot of psychopathy on the Left and from what I see Lewandowski is one of them. The hallmark of psychopathy is that they are plausible but careless liars. They sound good at the time but the lies shatter under scrutiny. A classic example is Bill Clinton's claim that Hillary was named after Mt. Everest pioneer Sir Edmund Hillary. Sir Edmund was just another New Zealand sheep farmer when the future Mrs Clinton was born. He didn't climb Everest until 7 years later.

One must seriously wonder about Lewandowski's continued employment at the University of Western Australia. Is such an unreliable character fit to be a teacher at any level? One expects politicians to lie, but teachers?

IQ tests are 'meaningless and too simplistic' claim researchers

This appears to have been based on an internet survey and such surveys are notorious for giving non-representative results. A large sample size is no substitute for representativeness

The underlying controversy, however, is as old as the hills: Should IQ be measured as a set of subscores or as one overall score? Among psychometricians it is known as the Spearman/Thurstone controvery and dates back to the beginning of the last century.

The accepted answer is to present results both ways: As one overall score plus a set of sub-scores. Results can reasonably be represented both ways because the subscores are correlated. Knowing a person's subscore on (say) verbal ability will give you a useful (but not of course perfect) prediction of his mathematical ability. That has repeatedly been demonstrated.

The novelty in the report below is that the various sub-abilities were said to be NOT correlated -- which runs contrary to 100 years of findings by others. I note however that the authors are more cautious in the underlying journal article. They say:

Using simulations based on neuroimaging data, we show that the higher-order factor “g” is accounted for by cognitive tasks corecruiting multiple networks. Finally, we confirm the independence of these components of intelligence by dissociating them using questionnaire variables. We propose that intelligence is an emergent property of anatomically distinct cognitive systems, each of which has its own capacity.

That sounds to me as if they admit the existence of a general factor but find that the subfactors don't all use exactly the same parts of the brain -- which should be no surprise to anyone.

There is also a question about how comprehensive were the test items used. Without seeing all the questions, I get the impression that a deliberate attempt was made to find questions that would not produce correlated results. One can ask plenty of questions not conceptually related to intelligence and in that case intercorrelations are not be be expected. In psychometrican's terms, the test would lack construct validity.

The journal article is "Fractionating Human Intelligence" by Hampshire et al. I look forward to seeing a more detailed examination of the article by those who specialize in IQ studies

After conducting the largest ever study of intelligence, researchers have found that far from indicating how clever you are, IQ testing is actually rather ‘meaningless’.

In a bid to investigate the value of IQ, scientists asked more than 100,000 participants to complete 12 tests that required planning, reasoning, memory and attention. They also filled in a survey on their background.

They discovered that far from being down to one single factor, what is commonly regarded as intelligence is influenced by three different elements - short-term memory, reasoning, and verbal ability. But being good at one of these factors does not mean you are going to be equally gifted at the other two.

Scientists from Canada’s Western University in Ontario, also scanned some of the participants’ brains while they undertook the tests.

They found that different parts of the brain were activated when they were tested on each of the three factors.

Traditional IQ tests are ‘too simplistic’, according to the research, which found that what makes someone intelligent is too complex to boil down to a single exam.

IQ, which stands for Intelligence Quotient, is an attempt to measure how smart an individual is. The average IQ is 100. Mensa, the high IQ society, only accepts individuals who score more than 148, putting them in the top two per cent of the population.

The new study, published in the journal Neuron, suggests that intelligence is too complex to be represented by a single number.

Study leader Dr Adrian Owen, a British neuroscientists based at Western University in Canada, said an ‘astonishing’ number of people had contributed to the research.

‘We expected a few hundred responses, but thousands and thousands of people took part, including people of all ages, cultures and creeds and from every corner of the world,’ he said.

‘When you take 100,000 people and tested their brain function, we couldn’t find any evidence for a single uniform concept of intelligence.

‘The best we could manage is get it down to three elements that contribute to intelligence. But they are completely different factors, unrelated to one another, and you could be brilliant at one and awful at another. For example, the absent-minded professor.

‘IQ tests are pretty meaningless - if you are not good at them, all it proves is that you are not good at IQ tests.

'It does not say anything about your general intelligence.’ The majority of IQ tests were developed in the 50s and 60s when the way we thought and interacted with the world was different, said Dr Owen.

SOURCE



UPDATE: Chris Brand, a student of IQ, comments on the above study. My comment about sampling appears to have been spot-on:

There was general rejoicing in MSM (e.g. D.Telegraph, 20 xii) as neurocogniwallahs repeated the age-old trick of making the g factor vanish. Using a splendid-sounding ‘sample’ of 44,000 “young and healthy” testees, Adam Hampshire and co-workers reported lots of correlations between mental tests (e.g. verbal, reasoning, memory) that were around a modest .30 (rather than the more usual .50) (Neuron 76, ‘Fractionating human intelligence’). Victory over Burt and Jensen was duly proclaimed.

Any problem with this? Any thought about the astonishing 44,000? Where did they hail from? Ah! “Social networking sites, including Twitter and Facebook.” That is: they were nerds, probably of around IQ 115. And Edinburgh research had demonstrated by 1990 that the g factor ‘fractionates’ above IQ 100 (see TgF, 1996/2000, Chap.2). Yes, Hampshire et al. had well and truly reinvented the wheel – or part of it, for the lower-IQ distribution had been simply forgotten by the ‘neuroscientists.’

No wonder the ‘brain and mind’ ‘natural scientists’ had to publish in an unheard-of journal having no competence to evaluate psychology!

Hopefully Art Jensen and Phil Rushton gave wry smiles from heaven. How one would like to know if Phil had offered his anti-g colleagues at the University of Western Ontario a photocopy of The g Factor!

Called to discuss IQ testing on the Beeb, senior Mensan Peter Bainbridge volunteered that a testee getting only a score around 60 was “probably a carrot” (Daily Mail, 21 xii). An apology was immediately demanded and obtained by irate ‘learning difficulties’ groups – indicating that at least someone still believed in the reality of IQ.

Is Harvard a Jewish plot? And does it matter?

Jewish Harvard graduate Ron Unz says yes to both questions. He has just written a VERY long article examining bias in Ivy League admissions which would persuade me to change my surname to Goldberg if I wanted admission there.

All sociologists have the unenviable task of extracting viable generalizations from very imperfect data and Unz is a champion in those black arts. I have disputed such generalizations from him in the past but the evidence he marshalls on this occasion is pretty massive. When evidence from multiple sources converges on one conclusion, it elicits at least provisional assent.

My heading above does of course caricature what Unz finds but not by much. What he finds is that admissions to the Ivies in recent years have been grotesquely skewed in favour of Jews and grotesquely skewed to the disadvantage of Asians, with non-Hispanic, non-Jewish whites also unfairly treated.

And Unz's criterion for fairness is hard to criticize. He looks to pre-university educational attainment. High achievement up to the end of high school suddenly fails people trying to get into Harvard, Princeton or Yale. And if your surname is Goldberg you don't even have to be a high achiever at High School level.

I myself read Unz's findings with considerable disquiet but despite my background in social science statistics, I can't see any fault in his overall conclusions -- provided he represents his sources accurately. He does sometimes cherry-pick and I am not familiar with the datasets he uses. But as far as I can see, he meticulously covers all the bases, which is why his article is so long. There are by now many comments about his article online and I have not so far seen one that rebuts his statistics. Most criticisms put up theoretical points that Unz has already covered. It is a long article and I guess that the critics could not be bothered to read it all.

So what the heck is going on? Unz initially points to the overwhelmingly (Leftist) Jewish administration of the Ivies, which does have some plausibility. But he then puts forward something I had never guessed at and which will surely surprise most others: Admissions officers at the Ivies tend to be poorly-paid dumb bunnies, much dumber than the student body they select. Their poor academic background is sometimes quite startling. At Britain's leading universities (Oxford and Cambridge) it is the opposite. Selection is by the academics who will be doing the teaching.

So Unz concludes, and I am inclined to agree, that simple fear of being seen as antisemitic (particularly seeing that their bosses are Jewish) is often the factor that makes admissions officers transfer "Goldberg" applications to the "accept" basket without much scrutiny.

And this bias in favor of Jews does of course put a big squeeze on other ethnicities, particularly Asians and other whites. Even considering that, however, Unz marshalls strong evidence for a systematic bias against Asians, a bias that looks very much like a deliberate quota. A student body that should be around 40% Asian if selected by prior attainment is in fact only around 16% Asian.

It's pretty clear Leftist racism. But Leftists have never ceased being race-obsessed so the only mystery is how the people responsible for it justify it in their own minds. Asians are "gooks", apparently. They don't look remotely like a Goldberg.

So does it all matter? Unz argues that it is in fact vital. Some quotes:

In the last generation or two, the funnel of opportunity in American society has drastically narrowed, with a greater and greater proportion of our financial, media, business, and political elites being drawn from a relatively small number of our leading universities, together with their professional schools. The rise of a Henry Ford, from farm boy mechanic to world business tycoon, seems virtually impossible today, as even America’s most successful college dropouts such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg often turn out to be extremely well-connected former Harvard students. Indeed, the early success of Facebook was largely due to the powerful imprimatur it enjoyed from its exclusive availability first only at Harvard and later restricted to just the Ivy League....

Power corrupts and an extreme concentration of power even more so, especially when that concentration of power is endlessly praised and glorified by the major media and the prominent intellectuals which together constitute such an important element of that power. But as time goes by and more and more Americans notice that they are poorer and more indebted than they have ever been before, the blandishments of such propaganda machinery will eventually lose effectiveness, much as did the similar propaganda organs of the decaying Soviet state. Kahlenberg quotes Pat Moynihan as noting that the stagnant American earnings between 1970 and 1985 represented “the longest stretch of ‘flat’ income in the history of the European settlement of North America.”120 The only difference today is that this period of economic stagnation has now extended nearly three times as long, and has also been combined with numerous social, moral, and foreign policy disasters.

Over the last few decades America’s ruling elites have been produced largely as a consequence of the particular selection methods adopted by our top national universities in the late 1960s. Leaving aside the question of whether these methods have been fair or have instead been based on corruption and ethnic favoritism, the elites they have produced have clearly done a very poor job of leading our country, and we must change the methods used to select them. Conservative William F. Buckley, Jr. once famously quipped that he would rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 names listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard. So perhaps an important step in solving our national problems would be to apply a similar method to selecting the vast majority of Harvard’s students.

As the quote shows, Unz favours a partially random solution to the undoubted problem that the Ivies now pose. My own solution would be less drastic. I would favour revival of the rule that all students who receive a perfect SAT score should be automatically admitted -- and any leftover places after that could be allocated any wacky way the university liked.

Under that rule, it would be amusing to see the faces of all the Leftist Jewish administrators when they looked out their windows and saw a sea of Asian faces in the grounds. Again, I would be interested to hear how they justified their racism

Being a people who have themselves suffered greatly from irrational bias, it is particularly saddening to see Jews practicing it. Yet more evidence that Leftism rots the mind, I guess

Conservatives have the gift of contentment

How happy you are seems to be mostly inborn -- and the surveys repeatedly show that conservatives are happier than those on the Left. It seems clear that this is no coincidence. Leftism is ABOUT whining. They are always dissatisfied with something and want to change or even "smash" something.

So it is no surprise that the evidence shows political polarity to be largely inborn too. See here. You are largely born either conservative or Leftist, though aging has a conservatizing effect too. Conservatives are just not upset by every little thing the way Leftists are. And that's a considerable gift.

So I thought that I might reproduce an excerpt from an email I have just received from a vocal Australian conservative. He is not rich and life has not always been easy for him. He sent me the following when I wrote to him and noted that I had not heard from him for a while:

One day, when I can, I'll tell you the crappy story of my life for the last five months which will explain why I so rudely disappeared from your view. With all that has happened though, I do consider myself a blessed and fortunate soul and I wouldn't be anywhere or anyone else.

I think that's rather wonderful. He is a true conservative with a great gift for contentment. I have it too. With a severe iatrogenic illness that sees me under the surgeon's knife several times a year, I could conceivably be a moaner but I am content with my life too. Always have been.

And I know another treasure of a man who is as poor as a churchmouse and always "skint" but he is very conservative, very active in politics and laughs his way though life. He has a ball.

What does "Amen" mean?

A word that at least a billion people have used but who knows what it means?

It's Hebrew and at the end of a prayer it means roughly "So be it" or "I agree"! But that is not the end of it. It has a broader meaning than that. When Jesus said: "Verily, verily, I say unto you ...." (e.g. in John 5:24), what word do you think he was using according to the original Greek text that was translated as "verily"? That's right. He was actually saying: "Amen, amen, I say unto you". So it's basically just a way of emphasizing the correctness of something.

I must admit that I was rather staggered myself when I wondered what the obsolete English word "verily" stood for in the original text and found myself staring at "Amen" when I looked up my authoritative Westcott & Hort text. I couldn't believe my eyes for a minute. I even checked it in the Griesbach recension as well.

On further checking in my Abbott-Smith lexicon I see that the word was also used in the Septuagint: The translation into Greek of the OLD Testament that Christ and the Apostles usually quoted from. So we see how a Hebrew word got into Greek. It has no exact translation into Greek so the learned Jewish translators of the OT in olden times simply reproduced it. Abbott-Smith offers "be firm" as the meaning of the Hebrew original.

Even my Liddell & Scott lexicon of CLASSICAL Greek gives the word a brief mention, maybe because of its Septuagint usage. We learn every day.

American exceptionalism

To me it is glaringly obvious that the USA is exceptional.  It is overwhelmingly the world's predominant military power and also the source of most of the world's innovations.

So the interesting question is not "if" but "why".  WHY is America so dominant?  In a recent article Podhoretz sets out most of the usual reasons, starting from the foundation of the USA in an independence revolution.  He sees the principles set out by the revolutionaries at that time as having had an enduring influence.

I imagine that they did have an influence for a long time but only conservative intellectuals and activists seem to know of them now.  Thanks to the Leftist takeover of the schools, the average American these days knows nothing substantial about the American founding, if anything at all.  How much does the average black or Hispanic know?  Yet they all have votes  -- and there's a lot of them.

And America is now very socialist.  As Romney rightly if imprudently pointed out, around half of the population now depend on government handouts.  Not much rugged individualism there!   Given the huge and unfunded Federal spending now happening, it could in fact be argued that America is in the midst of a socialist meltdown right now.  Nothing Romney has proposed is capable of reining in the overspend.

But if none of the usual explanations of America's exceptionalism now work, what can it be that makes America so powerful in every sense?  I think it is both extraordinarily simple and much more enduring than all of the other influences that have come and gone:  The fact that there is a national election every two years.  If the ruling party goes off the rails you only have to wait two years to give them a boot up the backside  -- as we vividly saw in the 2010 mid-terms.  There is only so much damage you can do in two years so the damage done by political folly is much less in America.  Most governments are still getting into their stride at the two-year mark and they have to take into account the forthcoming election long before that.

Other countries have three or four year terms before a national government has to face a new election and Britain has horrific five-year terms.  And huge messes can be created, and have been created, in five years. Just look at the problem created by the last British Labour Party government's "open door" immigration policy.  Britain is now lumbered with millions of welfare-dependent parasites who have to be supported by the staggering British taxpayer. At least most of America's "illegals" come to work.

If ever the American socialists (so-called "liberals") wake up to the fact that two-year terms are their enemy, America might have a problem but until then there is hope.  And even liberals might have difficulty in arguing that frequent elections are "unfair".