Category: Social Justice Warriors

Trouble With Set Containment and Defining Properties

Within a few days I’ve seen the shocking failure of Western education systems even in the basics. From religious nuts to Woke evangelicals there seems to be an inability to grasp the basic containment principle of proper subsets, and of their defining properties.

Define two sets, A and B. If B is a proper subset of A then ALL members of B are also members of A, but not all memebrs of A are members of B.

If A is defined as having property X, then all memebrs of A (and therefore of B) have property X.

If B has a distinguishing property Y that distinguishes its members from other memebrs of A, then all memebrs of A that are not in B do not have property Y.

Islamists are Muslims and are Islamic

This diagram illustrates the principle of containment and defining properties of proper subsets.

Here is an exchange on Twitter that shows that Sara might not know what a proper subset is – or that she really thinks being Islamic and being an Islamist are mutually exclusive:

She either doesn’t know that Islamists are a proper subset of Muslims and are therefore by definition Islamic, or she doesn’t understand the meaning of the terms Islamic and Islamist. It may well be the latter – as a matter of wishful thinking. She wasn’t alone. Between them, Sara and Chris are simply not getting it.

The only way to interpret these responses is:

  • They are just dishonest. They know full well that Islamists are Muslims.
  • They really think there are two mutually exclusive sets of Muslims – Islamic Muslims and non-Islamic Muslims (Islamists) – but they would still have to understand they are both Muslims. You know they know this by rejecting my suggestion they are playing “Nothing to do with Islam”
  • They actually think Islamists are not Muslims at all. But “Islamists are comparable to Christian terrorism … or the violence perpetrated by Christian fundamentalists” indicates that they really do know that Islamists are Muslims. So, what do they think Islamic means? Just ‘Nice Muslims’? That judgement would require them to know something of Islam, which if they did they’d know it’s a nonsensical judgement.

Other respondants show similar misunderstandings.

Ash Sarkar: Tall Men are not Men

Ash seems very confused about the application of descriptions to the various sets. By definition there are biological males and biological women. Not shown on the diagram are some of the nuances of how to classify people that are biologically male or female at the edges – but this is not what Trans identity is about.

If you doubt this last claim search Twitter for #trans and you’ll be inundated with tweets of people who are very clearly biological males engaged in sex acts, and most are obviously male, with male penises and fake boobs – these are not the the people born with ambiguous genitalia.

If you want further evidence of the male nature of many transwomen, look up #sissy on Twitter and you’ll see more men. This time they are projecting – it’s simply a more committed version of men imagining themselves as ‘slutty’ women, which these guys are acting out.

Good luck to them. Each to their own. Back to Ash’s points.

The diagram below illustrates Jenkinson’s point, and includes Ash’s addition of the characteristic of being tall.

Of course Ash does understand the point that Tall Men ARE a subset of Men. That’s why she’s using it, sarcastically.

In fact Tall Transwomen are also a subset of Men, the intersection of Transwomen and Tall Men – we love a bit of intersectionality. Ash’s intention is to try to illustrate what she thinks is Jenkinson’s error. She thinks that saying “Transwomen are not women” is the same kind of error as “Tall men are not men” because she thinks that Transwomen are actually women, as if there is no significant difference.

Ash’s use of “Tall men are not men they are tall men” is specifically trying to point out what she thinks a reduculous claim by Jenkinson, “Transwomen are not women they are transwomen”. But that relies on Ash’s false presupposition that Transwomen are women. Jekinson is right, transwomen are not women (they are not a subset of women), they are transwomen (a subset of men).

To think transwomen are women is to confuse innate characteristics with adaptable identifies, which becomes a problem every time Ash thinks she’s spotted a White Supremacists – she may well have dead-skinned a Transblack Black Supremacists, to use an adaptation of a favourite notion of Trans ideology.

After so many advances against bigotry the TRA ideologues are not only blurring that issue, but they are engaging in their own bigotry – as you can see by the many abusive TRA messages that appear in the social media of women. This also illustrates the fact that transwomen are not women but men, the misoginy of transwomen TRAs against women is far greater than it is against men, and is also greater than the abuse from transmen (women) against men or women. The most abuse you see is from TRA transwomen and their ‘allies’, against actual women.

There are innate characteristics, and then there are changeable identities and behaviours:

1 – Man/Woman – Innate – You don’t get a choice. You can act out as if you can change, but that does not make it innate or real.

2 – Black/White – Innate – You don’t get a choice. You can act out as if you can change, but that does not make it innate or real.

3 – Christian/Muslim – chanegable identities – You get a choice. Note how committed many Chrisians and Muslims are. They see it as a core aspect of their identity. But many atheists look back and acknowledge that no matter how committed they felt in their religion they were at the time, it was not the actual biological nature that identified them but their mental attitude to their chosen (or indoctrinated) identity.

4 – Transman/Transwoman – chanegable identities – You get a choice, whether to be a man, or a trans woman; or to be a woman, or a trans man. Note how committed many Transmen and Transwomen are. They see it as a core aspect of their identity. But many de-transitioners look back and acknowledge that no matter how committed they felt they were at the time, it was not the actual biological nature that identified them but their mental attitude to their chosen (or indoctrinated) identity. So, as in 1, you can act out as if you can change from a man into a woman, but that does not make it innate or real. The innate characteristics are being a man or a woman, the ‘feeling’, the adapted identity, trans woman, trans man, is not innate.

The Religious Demonisation of Joe Rogan

“Joe Rogan is dangerous. He’s not a scientist. He’s not qualified to choose the appropriate guests to discuss science.“

Either you haven’t watched Rogan, or you forgot to tell him how dangerous he was when he interviewed these guests, some appearing 2, 3, 4 times:

Steven Pinker, Sean Carroll, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Greene, Nicholas Christakis, Edward Snowden, Debra Soh, Michael Shermer, Brian Cox, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Sir Roger Penrose, Lawrence Krauss, Carl Hart, Jonathan Haidt.

Detractors are annoyed that a guy that isn’t trained to evaluate science isn’t discriminating enough to always pick only those scientists THEY approve of.

They are very much like the religious: “You should listen to scholars, … wait, no, not not those scholars but these scholars.” Which always begs the question: what are YOUR qualifications for judging scholars? To which: “I don’t evaluate the scholars personally, I rely on mainstream scholars.” Which are? And why are they? How do you know?

Tell me you can see the problem here, that we all have, regarding fields in which we are not experts. You think MSM are experts? You think a cardiologists trumps another cardiologist, or a vaccinologist, or an immunologist.

While celebrating the rate with which vaccines have been produce through cooperation, we’re only two years in, and you think the science is done, there’ll be no surprises?

Let me remind you of what we’ve been told, and what we do, ragarding masks, here in the UK:

  • Masks won’t help. This was based on two details: One, the mistaken belief that airborn infection wasn’t the risk it was – there were some ‘non-mainstream’ scientists saying it was from the start, so was this misinformation? Two, the intentional misinformation put out because there was an expectation of shortages of medical masks and they were needed in front line care.
  • Masks, any masks, including simple cloth, do help. This became mainstream once supplies picked up, then became mandatory when it became clear that airborn infection was significant.
  • Masks should be other than simple cloth. They should be surgical or with filtered to some not very consistently publicised specification … but masks with one way filters were dangerous.
  • N95 or similar are what’s best.

Then there’s the implementation:

  • Even now, January 2022, at three hospitals I’ve visited have this in place (whether it’s actual policy or not is unclear – different explanations): You cannot enter some areas with an N95 – you must remove it and put on one of their surgical masks. It’s not just because the new mask is clean, because if you enter with a surgical mask they don’t ask you to change it for a fresh one.
  • Shops may or may not require masks. When they do they may or may not enforce their or the government’s policy. When they enforce it they may or may not call the police to remove you.
  • You may be required to wear a masks in a sparsely populated well ventilated ‘indoor’ space, but not a crowded one if you are seated, eating and talking at a table.

And that’s just regarding masks, in the UK. Add all the other elements of this changing landscape, and it becomes a little challenging. It’s not a shock to see very well educated, well informed people disagreeing on what’s true and what’s not …

In the UK we have the UK government’s SAGE:

But we’ve also had Independent SAGE:

No surprise, they don’t always agree.

Obviously a lot of this variability is because there really is a balancing act to perform – living a life, saving the economic livelihood (often scoffed at, by people that also complain we should have no need for food banks), and dealing with a pandemic in its various phases and variants, where tehre’s changing science data and interpretation.

But even more reason to be a lot more compassionate to those that make mistakes, don’t see the risks as you do, … have the wrong people on their podcasts.

The madness of collectivism and the sacrifice of the individual has played out on ‘both sides’:

  • Collective protectionaism and the demonisation of the unvaxxed is classic Marxism at work. Twitter based Struggle Sessions are being performed daily. The horrific end point is the refusal to offer medial aid to the unvaccinated – not just those that succumb to COVID, but those refused operations because they are unvaxxed, even if they’ve had coviod or not, whether they pass COVID tests or not. The hypocritic oath?
  • The refusal to be caccianted on very slim grounds – sometimes no more than excuses to feed anti-vaxx conspiracy theories.

It’s a moving target, where we all have to balance protecting each other and ourselves from the virus, and protecting our health, mental and physical.

It’s ironic that some of those accusing Rogan of indulging conspiracy theorists on his show are busy concocting a conspiracy theory around Rogan. The demonization has been as insane as any religious denunciation of apostates.

The probability that many accusers have not even listened to the targeted episodes (of which there are only two ‘controversial’ medical scientists: McCullogh and Malone), let alone enough episodes to judge the character or intellectual capability of Rogan – the latter, in an era when we are told you can’t judge intelligence by attained education certificates alone.

I’ve been surprised how many anti-woke, free speech, science realism people have demonised either Rogan or his guests, or both. It’s not great, to be honest.

As someone that’s triple vaxxed, in a vulnerable category, complied with most COVID rules, I think he’s mistaken on some COVID issues, … but I’m not an expert either. I have a lot more respect for him than virtually all his demonising detractors, most of which aren’t experts themselves – and even some of those that are have sometimes failed themselves by joining in this witch hunt.

Anyway, here’s Rogan explaining himself. Decent guy.

Woke Cooking On Twitter: Storm in a Teacup or Sorites paradox?

It could be I’m about to get cancelled, for having the wrong opinion, and Imperialist opinion … on measures used in cooking. I haven’t written a blog on cooking tips before, so here goes.

What the hell happened?

The very informative tweet below appeared in my timeline. It illustrates the various measures of the US system, based on the British Imperial system. It’s clear from the measures listed that most of these are used in domestic cooking. The quart and the gallon less so, but they are units of measure used for bulk delivery of liquids, which will still have been used in some larger households for some liquids. You might have seen other containers, such as milk churns, that deliver milk: multiple gallons, the actual capacity depending on the size.

For what it’s worth, I like this tweet, and agree with the premise that to use it today in some circumstances would be pointless when any metric system would be easier across a number of magnitudes: the sciences.

How did this informative tweet kick off into a tirade? Simple. While the original tweet was deriding the imperial system, quite rightly when applied to standardisations in science and industry, someone pointed out that they think the measures above were better for cooking – by which I presume they meant domestic cooking, on the small scale of families, or perhaps parties, or maybe even restaurants.

Had I taken note sooner of the various names and flags used by some of these Metric Nazis I’d have realised that this wasn’t the simple cooking 101 debate I thought it might be. Anyway, I jumped in, and it turns out I’m Trans-Metric phobic.

I’m in the UK, where we now use metric measurements for food. But I remember (as a Boomer) the imperial units from school, and they were a pain in the ass to use. When I started studying engineering it was even worse: horse power, pounds force, ergs! I was genuinely grateful for the change to metric. I still have engineering course books on my shelves that use a variety of units, imperial and metric, in the same book.

In engineering it can be dangerous to mix units if precision is crucial – not because either system is imprecise, but that conversions add the opportunity for error. But not so much in domestic cooking, unless you’re cooking up a batch of drugs and you’re cutting it with something lethal.

Seeing some back and forth on the cooking thread I noted what seemed like an obsession to measure everything precisely. The metric system and the use of scales seemed to be getting some traction. I wondered if any of these people actually cooked anything.

The point I tried to make was that the actual measures don’t matter, and that ratios and approximations were good enough. I’m not averse to using scales, and would generally use them on a novel (to me) recipe where it was easier to just measure than figure out the actual rations. Many recipes use convenient measures that are easy to scale. Some use stupidly precise measures: “Oh, crap, I dropped 376g into the bowl instead of 35g, better fish out a gram.”

There’s also the matter of many food-stuffs not coming in precise gram packages but in sizes that vary, like eggs, or carrots. So, what do you do when faced with a recipe? Here’s the significance of measures in recipes for apple crumble as a simple example:

So, the salient points from just these recipes:

  • Absolute amounts vary.
  • The amounts you make will depend on a number of factors: number of people you’re cooking for, amount of a key ingredient (apples in apple crumble), the baking container size you have, if you don’t have a range of them.
  • Ratios of bulk ingredients matter more than the units: tens or hundreds of grams, or ounces. If you have a recipe for 100g of X and 50g of Y, to feed two, you might make it 150/75 if you want two helpings. Or double it up if you want two full meals out of it over two days.
  • Approximate measures “to taste”, usually for seasoning and flavourings; but it can apply to bulk ingredients – my wife keeps short changing me on the sugar in apple crumble!
  • The convenience of using household volume measures rather than precise weighing: cups – from your cupboard; actual desert spoons and teaspoons – i.e. not necessarily the precise cup/tablespoon/teaspoon measuring tools.

I thought all of this was quite uncontroversial and sound advice for the budding cook that didn’t want to become anal retentive about measuring the sugar to the nearest gram +/-1%. It’s going to make your cooking so much easier and more fun, and dare I say it exciting:

With hindsight that wasn’t a piece of advice I should have been posting for people obsessed with safe spaces.

You think I’m mocking over safe spaces?

I must admit I was beginning to care a lot less about teaching the lost souls of Twitter how to cook without losing their minds at the supermarket about how many carrots to buy. It turned into a philosophy class. The Sorites paradox re-defined: What makes a cup of carrot?

For those wondering the Soritese ‘heap’ paradox is not a paradox but another ambiguity of the definition of a measurement.

The tensions over how precisely one should measure food continued.

“Measurement errors add up pretty fast on some recipes.” Well, if you add 250g or butter measured out at 1g at a time, I guess so. Cutting off half a pack of 250g for a 4oz recipe not so much that it matters, in your kitchen. Do you ever get the feeling that problems are being invented in order “own” you?

I suppose they all think I’m a far right Imperialist because I don’t denounce the use of Imperial measures in domestic cooking.

When you come to bulk manufacturing there are other factors where precision becomes more significant: consistency, and avoiding waste. But even in large kitchens chefs will vary their recipe according to taste and ingredients. Did you ever see Gordon Ramsey knocking out a dish and not tasting it to make sure it’s OK?

Oh, while I’ve been writing this, over a few minutes, and after my replies to some of the daft replies, the likes for the daft ones are ramping up:

Who knew cooking was such an ideological hell hole. I expect to see an outraged Owen Jones any minute.

If you’d like to see the original tweet and all that followed, here it is:

French Lessons

Some of the respondents wanted to impress upon me how precise and ‘scientific’ were the renown cooks like the French. But they have been deceived by the over priced restaurants that take a wad of cash for a morsel on a large plate, as long as it has a few swirls of coloured gravy around it.

That’s not home cooking for many in France. Here is one person’s awakening to the traditional nature of French cooking, that not only lacks unnecessary precision, but where the same meal could vary a great deal depending on the season and what is available.

I thought French cuisine was the height of precision. My mother-in-law taught me an easier way.

Washington Post article

All this should be obvious to anyone with a sense of history. Precision scales were not available or necessary in most homes. My own grand mother made wonderful cakes after measuring out the dry ingredients in her hands! Or sometimes estimating by sight, pouring straight from the flour and sugar bags into the bowl. I have to confess, at age eight and beginning to wonder at the marvels of science, I was shocked that this worked. But I was eight, not a grown adult with significant experience in a home kitchen, … which is what I really think is the problem with many on the Twitter tirade.

Non-Decimal Measures

Of course there are many cases where non-decimal measures work very well: factors make for easier fractions.

The Babylonian system is base 60: having factors of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30, and 60, while decimal uses 1, 2, 5, and 10 for base 10.

“Ha! The Babylonians are long gone. Not very modern, is it!”

OK, is computing modern enough for you? That’s binary, base 2.

Or how about web sites? Many use base 12 column system that gives you convenient factors for splitting up a web page into rations of 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 12, and sets of columns: 4 + 8, 3 + 6 + 3, etc.

Now, I’m not going to stretch this point, because for many uses decimal is very convenient. But deceptively so. The reason base 10 for measures seems better is because we use base 10 for counting. But what if we did not?

If we used base 8 for counting our digits would be only 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. And counting would be in that base:

  • four = 4
  • five = 5
  • six = 6
  • seven = 8
  • seventy one (our eight) = 10
  • seventy two (our nine) = 11

The ‘problem’ with the imperial system is that it uses multiple bases at the same time, and THAT is why we have to convert between them – as the diagram in the original tweet illustrated.

But that ‘problem’ is also a convenience. Ounces are conveniently small for cooking with small amounts, and even with bulk ingredients (8oz, 16oz), but pounds are also good (1/4lb, 1/2lb). Cups are mere handy implements (the standardised cup being a convenience for the apprehensive cook more than anything).

And, while the decimal system is more convenient across scales, it’s not entirely consistent. Decimal scales are usually used in rations of thousands: 1, 1000 (Kilo), 1,000,000 (Mega), 1,000,000 (Giga), etc., but in practice other measures are convenient. The 1cm is 1/100 of a metre, 1mm 1/1000.

Inglorious Basterds Fighting Fascism

OK, enough of the common sense. Here is some outrage, for the giggles.

Literally 1984:

We’re now in SJW crazy town … over approximations in home cookery – Dowsomane is upset …

While we have one idiot crying about ableism another is engaging in ageism.

Iran – Missing In Action – Jeremy Corbyn

A number of ‘lefties’ have gone missing in action. The precise point they went missing is telling.

Jeremy Corbyn, still the leader of HM Opposition, Labour, seems to go missing shortly after the outbreak of ‘WWIII with Iran’, around the time the Iranians shoot down flight PS752.

Here he is on the 3rd, when WWIII supposedly starts.

10:55 AM · Jan 3, 2020 – The US assassination of Qasem Soleimani is an extremely serious and dangerous escalation of conflict with global significance. The UK government should urge restraint on the part of both Iran and the US, and stand up to the belligerent actions and rhetoric coming from the US.

Jeremy Corbyn

This is true to form. Attacks on astonishingly bad regimes are met with Corbyn’s dismay that WWIII is about to start, while these terrible regimes otherwise get little attention from Corbyn … unless they are Marxist Socialist regimes.

Next, Jeremy is miffed that Boris hasn’t included Jezbollah in any briefings on the ‘assasination’ … nobody seems to know why, not even PressTV.

7:02 PM · Jan 3, 2020 – I’ve written to Boris Johnson requesting an urgent Privy Council briefing and answers to questions following the US assassination of Qassem Suleimani. [Letter attached]

Jeremy Corbyn

On the 4th he justifiably and rightly tweets about the murder of a taxi driver in Finsbury.

But nothing on Iran.

On the 5th he retweets his own tweet with a comment. “Two days …”, which will become an ironic tweet as days go by without further comment from Jezbollah on events in Iran.

8:35 AM · Jan 5, 2020 – Two days since I asked Boris Johnson these vital questions about the US assassination of Qasem Soleimani and its consequences. And no answer.

Jeremy Corbyn

Jeremy seems not to like anyone being thankful that the Middle East is rid of Soleimani. A pity Jezza thinks more of what the theocratic state’s TV has to say than the persecuted Iranian people who seem to be very grateful the “reckless and lawless” Soleimani is gone.

4:07 PM · Jan 5, 2020 – Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab’s declaration of ‘sympathy’ for Trump’s reckless and lawless killing of Iranian general Qassem Suleimani is craven and dangerous. Boris Johnson’s government must oppose this escalation towards another devastating war in the Middle East.

Jeremy Corbyn

On the 6th and 7th he has a couple of tweets on other topics, and then …

5:27 PM · Jan 7, 2020 – The government must rule out plunging our country into yet another devastating war. [speech in Parliament attached]

Jeremy Corbyn

This is his most statesmen-like comment that doesn’t come too close to support for Iran, and in Parliament he even manages to mention of British citizen, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. It’s good to know how often he has tweeted support for Nazanin by mentioning her name prior to this … three times.

  • Nov 2017 – Nearly 18 months months since her arrest, and the tweet was a vehicle for having a dig at Johnson for his comments.
  • Jan 2019 – One that appears to have been prompted by Emily Thormberry’s tweet on Nazanin’s hunger strike.
  • Jun 2019 – A photo op with Richard Radcliffe. While it’s great that he brings publicity to the case you might wonder who he thinks the publicity is benefiting, given how little he has publicised the case since Nazanin’s arrest.

True to form, the real reason for mentioning Nazanin is opportunism – a chance to have a go at Boris.

In Iran on the 7th, at the contrived burial procession for Soleimani, the state killed at least 56 people and injured over 200. Nothing from Jeremy? You’d think he’d show sorrow for such a loss of life, as he usually does. However, this is a diplomatic nightmare for Jezbollah, star of Iranian state TV, well wisher of the homecoming of a ‘brother’ terrorist’s return to Iran.

Here’s Jeremy posting comments on Johnson, on the 8th. But nothing on Iran events.

4:15 PM · Jan 8, 2020 – The Prime Minister is unable to stand up to President Trump because he’s hitched his wagon to a trade deal with the United States. #PMQs

Jeremy Corbyn

In the above he talks about the problem of losing out on the Iran nuclear deal – this from a man whose negotiation would simply give up the UK’s nuclear arms unilaterally, and then expect the mad mullahs to reciprocate.

Also on the 8th, the Iranians fire missiles, supposedly at US bases in Iraq, and PS752 goes down, killing all on board. In the end, not quite the glorious day the regime and its supporters hoped for.

Where’s Jeremy? He’s usually out of the trap with a rocket up his own up his ass when there are condolences to be given. Nothing.

On the 10th he manages a retweet on the sorry state of the NHS.

And also on the 10th he emerges from his WWIII war room bunker, to congratulate his mates in NI on … a Labour legacy??? But if it’s a Labour legacy at all, it’s specifically one of Blair’s, and here’s me thinking all all the far left of Labour thought Blair was a war criminal or something. Oh, sorry, Jezza isn’t referring to Blair, he’s referring to all the superb work he did himself for The Cause, when he held the crucial cross party conference, grave side of Bobby Sands.

5:44 PM · Jan 10, 2020 – I congratulate those in Northern Ireland who have worked to reach agreement to allow a return to power sharing at Stormont. The Good Friday Agreement and peace process in Northern Ireland is a proud Labour legacy we are committed to support and protect.

Jeremy Corbyn

On the 11th he retweets an upcoming CND rally to oppose the impending WWIII – nothing but thorough, but it won’t matter that WWIII fizzled out when the Iranians shot down a passenger plane while inflicting zero casualties on the Great Satan’s bases.

5:57 PM · Jan 9, 2020 – We’re delighted to announce that CND vice-president Jeremy Corbyn will be addressing the #NoWarOnIran demonstration this Saturday in London. Gather 12 noon outside the BBC hq on Portland Place.

CND

Where the heck are those words of condolences we’re so used to seeing? Where is he? Waiting for approval or something?

Oh, here it comes …

Finally, he can say something.

2:11 PM · Jan 11, 2020 – My thoughts are with the family and friends of those killed in the Ukrainian plane crash in Tehran, including the three British nationals on board. [Image of his Facebook post]

Jeremy Corbyn

WTF!?? It wasn’t merely a crash??? Even the mullahs are saying they shot down the plane.

And what about the #FreeIran2020 protests now making news everywhere except on ‘lefty’ accounts?

Nothing.

We last hear from Jeremy’s Twitter account on the 12th

11:15 AM · Jan 12, 2020 – The only way forward is peace.

Jeremy Corbyn

It’s the 14th as I write this. So much for his complaints about Johnson’s two days in getting back to YOU, Jezbollah. The man can’t even acknowledge his precious theocratic regime shot down a passenger plane. Where’s his outrage at that? Oh, it was merely an unfortunate crash.

What a despicable toady to mullahs he is.

Iran – Missing In Action – Owen Jones

A number of ‘lefties’ have gone missing in action. The precise point they went missing is telling.

Owen Jones writes articles on a number of issues, but mainly Labour support, and, being gay himself he writes and campaigns on LBGT+ issues.

You’d think Owen would be all over the Iranian regime, given they are well known for hanging gay men. He has occasionally tweeted that Iran’s regime is “vile”, though under the search term ‘Iran’ there’s no explicit tweet about the hanging of gay men, or the protests by Iranian women about the forced hijab.

His comments on Iran focus almost exclusively one of his obsessions: the US potential for starting a war with Iran – not in itself an unrealistic concern, but when he has zero tweets about gay men being hanged by the regime, it makes one a little suspicious of his motivations and his agenda. I’m not suggesting he’s not interested in these issues or in the suffering of people in Iran, but what I am suggesting is that his political biases prevent him being explicit about it … after all, it wouldn’t do to be thought an Islamophobe. And, what would Mehdi Hasan think about it?

This post is about how Owen is quite interested in some events in Iran, such as the killing of Soleimani, and the prospect of US troops going into Iran. Until, that is, flight PS752 is shot down. Then it all goes very quiet. Not unlike other left wing accounts.

We’ll pick up Owen’s tweets and retweets here, on the 3rd, when news broke of the killing of Soleimani. I won’t include all tweets, but I will point out the gaps, and give examples of other tweets he was posting or retweeting.

11:09 AM · Jan 3, 2020 – Donald Trump killing Iran’s second most powerful leader risks a horrific wider war in which many innocent people will die, in a region already long consumed in death. But it could also bolster Trump’s re-election chances by making him a wartime President. Which he knows.

Owen Jones

What? “second most powerful leader” – so no mention of Soleimani’s role in Iran’s support for terrorism?

11:15 AM · Jan 3, 2020 – Britain must not back another US-instigated catastrophic war: discussing that on @LBC at 11.20am.

Owen Jones

I’d suggest not being shy on calling out the Iranian regime or its “second most powerful leader” for their support for terrorism.

11:21 AM · Jan 3, 2020 – You don’t need to try hard to work out what’s going on in Trump’s head. You just need to read his old tweets.

Owen Jones

Mind reading, the uncanny skill that all left wingers seem to be blessed with.


11:37 AM · Jan 3, 2020 – Qassem Soleimani does indeed have blood on his hands. As do many current and former US leaders and senior officials – indeed, from Henry Kissinger to George W Bush, far more. What precedent does Trump think has been established?

Owen Jones

I would agree there are dubious US politicians that are too easily persuaded that war is an answer to some problem, but surely not in the same terrorist league as Soleimani?

6:06 PM · Jan 3, 2020 – The orchestrated right wing pile on against this good tweet underlines that any Labour leader who doesn’t cheerlead for the foreign policy of Donald Trump will be deemed unacceptable and beyond the pale[Quote Tweet of Lisa Nandy on Iraq war as a warning]

Owen Jones

Retweets Mehdi Hasan, fan of Iran, who else:

4:25 PM · Jan 3, 2020 – If the argument is simply that Suleimani was a bad man who has American blood on his hand and therefore deserved to die/be killed/assassinated, then who’s next? Kim Jong-Un? Oh wait, Trump gets “love letters” from Kim. So the Iranians need to brush up on their writing skills.

Mehdi Hasan

Owen continues with retweets of others that posted on the 3rd. He might retweet on the 4th (I’ve not checked time of retweets, only tweets).  

He retweets less frequently, and posts none of his own tweets on Iran – though his tweets continue on a number of other issues.

He manages to retweet the glorification of the support for Soleimani, on Soleimani’s funeral:

2:25 PM · Jan 5, 2020 – A video of the Soleimani funeral. This is the largest crowd I’ve ever witnessed in my life. I’ve never seen Iranians so unified, ever. This is Suleimani’s funeral in Ahvaz, Iran. Trump has no idea what he has done.

Amir Amini

This is outrageous glorification of a despotic terrorist funding warlord, and we soon find out that the funeral was, as expected, staged by busing in people, whether they wanted to be there or not. This is the type of misrepresentation we’d expect from supporters of authoritarian regimes. How is Owen letting the gay hanging regime off so easily?

This is the last retweet on Iran as far as I can see:

11:31 PM · Jan 7, 2020 – TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran state TV says Tehran launches “tens” of surface-to-surface missiles at Iraq’s Ain Assad air base housing US troops

Jon Lemire

On the 8th, the plane was shot down. Of course plenty of reports echo the Iranian state position of engine failure, but I would find it difficult to think anyone but the most naive would not at least suspect the plane had been downed by an Iranian missile.

There are no other tweets from Owen on the subject. None. Not while we awaited the outcome of the initial investigations. Eventually, the regime admitted that the plane had been downed by a missile. Nothing from Owen.

Not ‘nothing’ as in no tweeting, no. The thankful relief of anti-Meghan racism (of which there’s no actual evidence) fills a few tweets from Owen, along with other subjects that would make you think the Iran situation had never happened. I mean, seriously, Owen doesn’t even have anything to say about Trump’s war mongering, nor that the Iranians have shot down a passenger plane.

Surely Owen would eventually come out with a tweet or two in support of the people of Iran as they find their brave voices of opposition to the “vile” regime. After all, in several of his older tweets, while lambasting the Great Satan, he made sure he had virtue signalled the fact that he supports a ‘democratic Iran’ … we’re just not sure which democratic Iran – a really democratic Iran, or the pseudo-democratic Iran of the oppressive regime. This would be a big opportunity for him to speak out and let us know.

But no. … Well, not quite. He does retweet this …

4:58 PM · Jan 11, 2020 – Solidarity to the 100,000s taking to the streets in India led by women marchers to protest the plans of the far right Govt of Modi to strip Muslims of citizenship. Smash fascism

Asad Rehman

Hold on! This isn’t about the Islamofascism of the Iranian theocracy, It’s about the Modi government.

That’s right. From the downing of the plane, through the street protests of the Iranian people, his only tweet of street protests is of events in India – and that’s because in this case the victims are Muslims and the perpetrators are not, which is such a consistent bias seen all over the far left it would be comical if not so tragic a betrayal of liberal principles to the fascism of Islam.

Oh, and he tweets this … on the police labelling XR an extremist group.

5:08 PM · Jan 11, 2020 – Where this is heading is very clear: towards an authoritarian state in which dissent – in this case, trying to stop the destruction of human civilisation – is equated with dangerous extremism. 

Owen Jones

A particularly ironic tweet, given his MIA on Iran. Let’s absorb his words:

“Where this is heading is very clear: towards an authoritarian state in which dissent – in this case, trying to stop the destruction of human civilisation – is equated with dangerous extremism.”

Owen Jones

An authoritarian state? The UK? Well, I too am concerned about the restrictions on free speech … restrictions that Owen Jones seems to have either overlooked or supported. And yet he has nothing to say on Iran and the #FreeIran2020 protests going on there, where an actual authoritarian state is now taking pot shots at protesters, with live rounds, … in the aftermath of having shot down a passenger plane.

This is our freedom loving socialist people of the left: Fuck freedom, if it means we have to criticise Islamic regimes, or heaven forbid, actual Muslims no matter how despotic they are.

The Delusional Demos Director

Before getting round to their director, Polly Mackenzie, let’s start with Demos.

Demos on Wikipedia

Their Twitter Bio

The last bit, “Based in London”, and it’s name, “Demos”, might be the only true parts of that bio line.

Think tank? Well, I’ve a couple of other posts related to their thinking. I’m not impressed. These were about a really sloppy piece on the Victoria Derbyshire, on the BBC News channel, and Carl Miller, of Demos, and their dubious ‘research’ milking the ‘Islamophobia’ craze.

BBC Victoria Derbyshire – Sloppy Islamophobia Journalism

Carl Miller of Demos Still Misfires on ‘Islamophobia’

Britain’s leading independent cross-party think tank? Really? Independent and Cross Party?

Well, they have done work for more than one party, but to say they are cross-party is a bit of a stretch. Independent? Not of thought.

From the Wiki page:

Demos was founded in 1993 by former Marxism Today editor Martin Jacques, and Geoff Mulgan, who became its first director.

In the run-up to the 1997 general election it was seen as being close to the Labour Party, in particular its then leader Tony Blair.

On 9 August 2006, in a speech at a Demos conference, British Home Secretary Dr John Reid stated that Britons ‘may have to modify their notion of freedom’, as a result of his plans, claiming that freedom is ‘misused and abused by terrorists.’

Take a look at their 2018 accounts, here.

Click to access application-pdf.pdf

And, after you’ve tried to work out the flow of money in and out, go to page 30 for some of their funders.

The Open Society Foundation. And who are they? You want to know what George Soros funds? Demos is one of his pets. Independent?

Don’t like the George Soros conspiracy theories? OK, let’s try another.

The Politics and Economics Research Trust. Did you know this report was produced by Charity Commission for England and Wales?

You can read more here: Politics and Economics Research Trust: case report

And here: Charity alleged to have illegally funded Brexit campaign groups – Questions over grants given by the Politics and Economics Research Trust to anti-EU groups, with potential for tax relief.

I can’t pretend to know everything Demos get up to, but to me, and having seen the work of the fabulous Carl Miller, it looks like a bunch of people that can’t get proper jobs so they sell their souls to anyone that will buy them and enjoy playing around in the dubious charity money-go-round, and call the work ‘research’.

So, what about their director, Polly Mackenzie? How much thinking does this head of a think tank do? More to the point, what’s the quality of this thinking?

Polly Mackenzie joined Demos as the new Director in January 2018. She previously worked for Nick Clegg from 2006 to 2015, helping to write the 2010 Coalition Agreement, and served as Director of Policy to the Deputy Prime Minister from 2010-15

Well, that didn’t go too well did it.

Just curious, but did Polly have anything to with forming Nick Clegg’s opinions on the EU. Yes, I know her time with him was up to 2015, before Brexit EU Ref, but, well, ideas aren’t formed over night, are they, and when Nick Clegg laid into Nigel Farage about how saying there would be an EU Army was a dangerous fantasy, Nifty Nick had buggered off to Facebook just before Merkel and significant EU figures started telling us that not only was the EU starting an EU Army, but political and military fusion ought to be a future goal.

Anyway, whatever contribution Polly made towards Nicky Know Nothing’s demise, at least she is able to put her own thoughts down. Sadly, it doesn’t get any better.

Case 1 – Letting Children Vote – And Proxy Parental Votes

This is Polly’s recent piece in Unheard …

What if we gave children a vote? – The electoral system is inherently biased towards the 83% of the population who are over 18

Here are some of Polly’s bright ideas:

  • Children 10 and above should be able to vote. How hard is it for a ten year old to make a cross in the right place on a piece of paper?
  • Children under 10 shouldn’t be able to vote (come on, Polly’s not mad, you know). Instead, their parents should be able to cast a proxy vote on behalf of the infant (I presume only one parent gets to vote for each child, but which one? Not sure Polly has think-tanked this through).

You can read the delusional reasoning yourself. But here, for Polly’s benefit, are some objections.

The notion of a proxy vote is entirely counter to the principle of one-person-one-vote. Large families, religious conservative families, would in fact give multiple votes to the parents, as proxies. To say that such proxy voting parents were casting a vote for the children themselves is delusional. They would be casing a vote for themselves and their of how the world should be.

Childless people will be disenfranchised, because parents get 2 or more times their vote.

As for children themselves voting, there are several reasons why they should not, not least of which are the following.

We have limits on parent power. Parents cannot abuse their children. An anathema to this is the indoctrination of children into political and religious ideologies. We are not raising independently minded adults, but pre-programmed adults. It takes a lot of learning to realise the extent to which you’ve been indoctrinated, and some never get out of it. Jess Phillips, Labour MP, describes how she was taught a visceral hatred of Tories. The indoctrination of children into our main religious cults is a disgrace to civil society. Until both political and religious indoctrination are criminalised, and a rounded education in reason and science becomes the standard, we will not be producing independent minded rational adults, but victims and perpetrators of the tribal party and religious politics we have today.

Young teenagers are naturally rebellious, and are wide open to the political indoctrination by extremists. Labour’s Momentum know this – Corbyn’s Kids is not a neutral educational programme but a mind programming school. Many young people were so easily indoctrinated into extreme Islam, and left home to join ISIS. The Orthodox Jewish communities keep a tight control of their children, as do Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Roman Catholics, and even ‘moderate’ Islam.

Why do you think the Humanists UK and National Secular Society are campaigning to stop and reverse the growth in faith schools.

Read Poly’s article. But just for fun, here’s a sample of Polly’s think-tanking.

“Will you let them drink and smoke, too?” – This is usually the first response I get when I propose enfranchising all citizens under the age of 18. The answer is, obviously, no. We have laws that prevent young people from drinking and smoking because these things are harmful. voting, by contrast, is not harmful; drawing an X on a ballot paper is substantially less dangerous than inhaling toxic smoke into your lungs.”

What? So, coerced voting of ten year olds, indoctrinated ten year olds, isn’t a danger? To society, and the better judgement of those children that have to live in the world they were coerced into voting for?

Polly, putting an unlit cigarette in a child’s hands and to a child’s lips is no more dangerous than putting a pencil in the mouth after drawing a cross on a piece of paper. However, to the child personally, the former could have longer term implications for the individual, if they were coerced to light it; but the latter could cause a far wider danger to themselves and society, if they were coerced to vote a particular way.

There are now many people that were indoctrinated into voting Labour – “I’m a life long Labour supporter.” But many such supporters are overcoming their own indoctrination because they can see before their eyes how Corbyn and Communist McDonnell are changing the party, and they have figured out that in their opinion they don’t like it. The same has been true of may Conservative voters. Many adults learn to change their minds for themselves. 

Children cannot. Do you imagine a ten year old having a conversation about the subtleties of Labour’s Socialism, McDonnell’s Communism, the entryism that’s been going on in the Labour Party for generations? No. They won’t even take an arbitrary lucky dip vote. Their parents will coerce them into voting for the parent’s preference.

And all the above doesn’t even begin to take into account the actual issues of brain development and maturity.

We should be worried about the indoctrinating abuse of children and their use in political vote rigging only somewhat less than psychological child abuse.

No, children should not be allowed to vote, and their parents should definitely NOT get extra votes because they have kids.

This piece by Mackenzie is idiotic. Yet she’s the director of Demos? And Carl Pilkington, sorry, Carl Miller (apologies to Carl Pilkington) is their Research Director, Centre for the Analysis of Social Media? Would you trust ANY of their output?

I can see why conspiracy theorists look to Soros. Throwing money at this bunch of clowns is top rate trolling.

Case 2 – Free Stuff Utopian Dreams

It was at this point I thought I’d have a look at Polly on Twitter. Interesting. Following what was obviously a quick lesson in economics by Labour’s John McDonnell’s free stuff promises, Polly gave it a critical eye.

Tweet – Nationalising Openreach is perfectly plausible. But why should broadband be free and not – for example – water, food, heating, clothes, all of which are rather more essential to the human condition.

You’d think Demos might have a director that have some feel for economics. Apparently not.

But, not to worry, Utopia is within reach for Polly …

Which manifesto? Only given Polly’s eagerness to indoctrinate voting children there are several to choose from.

So, for Polly’s benefit, what’s wrong with free stuff, state control and the removal of wages?

  • Eventually, workers don’t need money because everything is free. 
  • But workers are then dependent on the state alone. 
  • Result: oppression of workers that can have no independent means of survival so must comply with the state.
  • Check out some history. Hint: Soviet Union and its oppressed satellites; Moa’s China. The brutality of the party and the Dear Leader.
  • Political Utopias are no better than religious fantasies – they are used to control people.

Separated at High School – the curious case of Tommy Jones and Owen Robinson

Poor Tommy and Owen are from not too dissimilar backgrounds – at least that’s what Owen says. Tommy’s mother worked in a bakery, and apparently left Tommy with no particular political education or affiliation. Owen’s parents were a shop steward and a lecturer, so basically aspiring middle class with plenty of political awareness. Dead similar.

Tommy went to a local school in Luton, while Owen attended a sixth form college, equal opportunities being what they are. So, let’s hear no more about Owen’s privileged background.

But their paths changed after leaving high school.

Owen received a top education in one of the most prestigious universities in the world.

Tommy left school and had various jobs.

Nevertheless, they retain an uncannily similar campaigning style. [Credit to someone else for spotting the similarity – but I’m blocked by Owen and can’t find them now]

OwenJones-TommyRobinson-02

The following is from Owen, here

Every single day, the British media, and the media elsewhere, whips up racism and bigotry against Muslims, against migrants, against refugees, and against other minorities, those people being a particular favourite target right now. Now there are some consequences. It fuels, it drives, it legitimises street level abuse, harassment, bullying, in the playground, the workplace. It fuels overtly racist attacks. It drives violence, and it drives the rise of the far right. After Christchurch, the massacre of dozens of Muslims, there can be no more tolerance, and no more silence within the media industry, about the role of the media, effectively acting like hate preachers, with megaphones that reach tens of millions of people, every single day. Now there are some that get very angry in the media when it’s called out, how dare you call out the media, as though they’re being victimised and attacked and insulted, rather than using their platform to speak out and challenge the racism and the bigotry which has consequences for people. Now the media is an industry which is overwhelmingly dominated by those from those from those privileged backgrounds who do not suffer the consequences of the bigotry and racism that the media fans. But it has to now be called out. And, to fail to use one’s platform, if you have a platform, to speak out against racism and bigotry by the most powerful institutions, or some of them, in the country, is to be complicit. So, enough of people responding in this defensive way, or being silent, or themselves peddling racism and bigotry. Call it out.

And the following wouldn’t be out of place in a video from Tommy …

Every single day, the British media, and the media elsewhere, whips up hatred and bigotry against those that criticise Islam, those people being a particular favourite target right now. Now there are some consequences. It fuels, it drives, it legitimises street level abuse, harassment, bullying, in the playground, the workplace, of Islamic supremacism. It fuels overtly Islamic attacks. It excuses Islamic violence, and it drives the rise of the far right Islam. After Manchester, the massacre of dozens of victims, or Rotherham and the 1400+ child victims, there can be no more tolerance, and no more silence within the media industry, about the role of the media, acting like cowards, more afraid of being called racist hate preachers themselves, with megaphones that could expose the Islamism to millions of people, every single day. Now there are some that get very angry in the media when it’s called out, how dare you call out the media, as though they’re being victimised and attacked and insulted, rather than using their platform to speak out and challenge the grooming gangs and the consequences for children. Now the media is an industry which is overwhelmingly dominated by those from those from those privileged backgrounds, like Owen Jones, who do not suffer the consequences of the Islamic terrorism and grooming gangs, that the media fans, by screaming ‘Islamophobia’. But it has to now be called out. And, to fail to use one’s platform, if you have a platform, to speak out against grooming gangs, which Andrew Norfolk eventually did. The most powerful institutions, or some of them, like the police, politicians, and media, that say “Nothing to do with Islam” is to be complicit. So, enough of people responding in this defensive way, or being silent, or themselves peddling excuses for Islamic homophobic bigotry. Call it out.

The thing is, there WAS silence in the media, on Muslim grooming gangs, from Owen, and especially from Corbyn, who sacked (sorry, managed to ‘persuade’) Sarah Champion from the opposition front bench for daring to talk about Pakistani Muslim Grooming Gangs. There has been collusion in the silence from press, police and politicians, specifically many Labour councils. 

For over a decade any attempt to raise the issue found the media hunting down those that complained and labelling them as racists – teachers that saw the grooming happening outside the school gates were demonised and hounded out of office if they expressed any concern in too explicit terms.

Maggie Oliver, of the eventually infamous case of Three Girls in Rochdale, which came only after she had been thwarted in her attempts to investigate the problem in Manchester, has been campaigning for more awareness, and for investigations into the neglectful and complicit senior police and social services that shut down anyone trying to expose the problem.

Even Times writer, Andrew Norfolk, admitted he sat on a story of grooming gangs for a couple of years, for fear of being called racist. A self-censoring press! You’d actually think Norfolk would have been sacked for NOT getting the story out sooner. Instead he was honoured as the brave soul that eventually did publish. Let that sink in. The problem is so bad, you’re more of a hero for publishing what should be a straight forward crime story, than a demon for covering it up for a couple of years while who knows how many girls continued to be abused by those eventually prosecuted.

And don’t get me started on the mind boggling utter nonsense of Islamic terrorism being “Nothing to do with Islam”, which we have heard countless times from politicians, when Islamic terrorists tell you explicitly they are doing it FOR Islam, and cite Quran and Hadith in detail as justification.

Hot head Tommy has his issues. He says things that are too close to the edge of anti-Muslim bigotry, but if confronted he’ll generally walk it back. On many occasions he’s been very explicit about how he has no problem with most Muslims – he even talks of a local Muslim who he finds to a better example of a decent person than anyone else he knows. His issue is always with Islamism, Islamic extremism, Muslim grooming gangs, and the attacks on free speech that are targeted at speech against Islam specifically. You may not like the way he goes about things – fine. You may reject him for his criminal record – fine – except let’s not see double standards where other ex-cons are deemed to have been redeemed. But if you dismiss what he has to say in totality for who he is, rather than listening to what he has to say first, then, guess what, you’re a bigot.

Owen has no excuses, other than he’s been indoctrinated into a political class that searches for  victims that they can make their next project … until the victims no longer want to be saved. You won’t see much concern for the working class if they happen not to like one particular religion.

Why has there been a Labour failure to make any criticism of Islam in practice? Where have Corbyn and Owen been on LBGT issues while the Parkfield Islamic homophobia has been going on?

If you want to see the utter hypocrisy of Owen, look no further than this race baiting tweet of his (don’t forget, Islamophobia=racism). [H/T Damo – @Concretemilk for these images]

There is absolutely no chance a newspaper would splash a childhood photo of an Islamic terrorist who murdered 49 Christians in a church as an “angelic boy”. Displacing focus from the victims to oh how could a sweet WHITE boy become a terrorist.

Funnily enough, the Mail and the Sun, had already displayed such a sentiment, using the term “angelic schoolboy”. This is what you get when you’re so biased in your political ideology you refuse to read anything that opposes your views. This is how dogmatic bigoted ideologues like Owen survive. 

OwenJones-AngelicBoys.jpg

Let’s go back a bit further to look at what Owen had to tweet about Jihadi John:

Now there’s a surprise. The guy who complained about someone using Jihadi John as “a pop at Corbyn”, then four years later he’s using a newspaper front page to have a pop at what he perceives ‘Islamophobia’ in the press.

When he’s not throwing a tantrum and stomping off interviews that aren’t going his way, despite his persistent rude and entitled interruptions when it’s time for another guest to speak, and when he’s not spending his day blocking people on Twitter, he’s writing bigoted two faced pieces in The Guardian (“my newspaper”) that exhibit his own bigotry towards the ‘working class’ – no wonder Labour struggles for their support when they have mouth pieces like Owen.

This is where you get to with Grievance Politics that has infested Labour. Not that grievances shouldn’t be exposed, but that bigot Owen will be very selective about which he exposes, erring on the side of not exposing grievances by Islam, and conjuring up grievances even when there are none to be found.

For all Robinson’s antics, his ‘reporting’ actually has more credibility that Owen’s. That is deeply worrying, that an activist like Robinson that shouts about genuine grievances is an outcast that’s driven out of social media, while Owen Jones is, to a vocal yet gullible number on the left, is a heroic voice for the underdog. You won’t find much from Owen Jones on FGM (though he endorses “my newspaper’s campaign” – hardly a campaign, but rather too few articles); and when he writes about homophobia he won’t comment how much more of it there is in Muslim communities – because, of course, that would make him a racist … against a political religious far right homophobic ideology.

Bursting The White Supremacy Bubble

I was asked what Richard Spencer said that was wrong in the interview with Gary Young.

THE KLAN IS BACK

Where do I start. Well, let’s start right here – and this alone has many things wrong with it:

“Africans have benefited from the experience of white supremacy”

No. On many counts. If this rambles a bit, it’s because there is so much wrong with it and the notions its built on.

Starting with those living at the time of slavery, there were zero benefits and lots of negatives to being a slave, … or do you not think so? Slavery was a system of supreme power and cruelty. Not really something our slave owning ancestors can be proud of. Slavery showed no intrinsic sign of superior intellect. Many working hands on slave ships might have been pressed into service and will have been dumber than many of the slaves they transported. Many slave owners survived by their capacity for cruelty, not because of their intellect. But sure, some cruel and intelligent slavers made a good living. All of which begs the question, is intellectual superiority enough, or even necessary, for power supremacy?

So, let’s have a look at ‘supremacy’ more generally. We know from the way the white supremacy narrative goes that they think the power superiority of Europe derives from a greater intelligence, so I’ll try to focus on power and intelligence first.

Smart People or Dumb Luck

Not all modern self-made millionaires are the brightest people. They make their money by being hard working, persistent, good at making money off the work others put in, or luck.

There are many rich crooks that earn their money by being just clever enough to outwit the competition in their own sphere, and just clever enough to steal from the less clever, and crooks need not be particularly bright in other respects. Crooks can also make money off people far brighter than themselves. All it takes is the capacity to break a trust, to engage in fraudulent and corrupt practices, or to be brutal.

There are some really clever people, with high IQs, that don’t have the capacity for empathy that others have, and are quite able to manipulate their way to power. We call them sociopaths, or psychopaths (clinical details of terminology aside) – they are not all mad killers.

Oddly, the most empathetic people we have can suffer a severe empathy loss, and so we find that many very empathetic people have none to spare for the sociopath. What? You think the sociopath chose to be born with that empathy empty brain? Someone with a high empathy, but without the intellect or interest to think things through, will see these fellow humans as being nothing but non-human monsters.

Conversely, the natural sociopath with an intellect can learn the skill of appearing to have empathy while feeling none.

Some sociopaths might be ruthless and selfish in business, while others might make great contributions to our societies because they are single minded in their focus on what interests them, rather than dedicating time and energy to feeding their feelings towards others.

It’s and odd world.

So, with this, and many other factors that lead to power, in a society as a whole, and members of a particular society, what does it mean to be ‘supreme’, to be a ‘white supremacist’ in particular. This ‘supremacy’ attribute is a pretty complicated thing.

European Supremacy … Wasn’t Your Whiteness

The power superiority of European nations came from fortunate circumstances in Europe.

At one time other parts of the world were way ahead of Europe. There hasn’t been enough time in a few short centuries for evolution to have an impact to make white Europeans suddenly smarter.

And, there’s a certain irony here in that many white supremacists are idiots that reject much of evolutionary theory, yet they think they are able to figure out that ‘something’ made white Europeans smarter, all of a sudden. Round about 1500, maybe? Or 1700? Who knows when we lucky whites became supreme, but I know that for some time, in what we call ‘the dark ages’, we weren’t.

The strange truth is that centuries ago, any bell curve difference on intellectual supremacy was already there when Europe was a dumber civilization. If Europeans got smarter, it wasn’t some sudden genetic brain boost.

If anything history would suggest that it was mixing of cultures made Europe ‘superior’ in power.

A single stable culture that works well in a stable climate setting with sufficient resources has little pressure for technological change.

But warring small nation states with lots of trade, and an exchange of ideas and peoples, stimulates change. The Renaissance, The Enlightenment, science, philosophy, … if they come together they can create massive progress, as they did in Europe.

The introduction of Arabic works, the re-introduction of Greek works, they all boosted a Europe that was awakening in the ruins of Rome, looking back on a civilization that had been way ahead in its prime. Then, once technical progress was under way, it took off quickly – which in itself is a massive story, involving many famous people, most of which were ‘white’ because, as happens with one’s religion, or nationality, they happened to be born where they were. Any bright African, Indian, Asian in Europe at that time, free of any racist persecution, could join in as well as any white person – except that for many of our famous early scientists, privilege gave them the capacity to do the work they did.

That’s why much European science history is ‘white’, not because of any innate white supremacy. This idea of being lucky enough for many factors to come together is the reason that during our European ‘Dark Ages’, Islamic civilisation prospered – not because Islam has some superior message that to hand.

Social change that’s unnecessary in small tribal systems becomes crucial in a more complex mercantile trading and technical societies. Wars and revolutions bring change too, but do much damage. Democracy works better.

But a democracy doesn’t work so well if many of those within it are actual or effective slaves.

Kings and lords ruled Europe. But the barons wanted a greater say. And while aristocratic elites still ruled, the money of mercantile power started to speak. Actual slaves, and the non-elite free men, and women, they all eventually wanted the freedoms the elites enjoyed.

Education spread, increasing the diversity of opportunity with it. With luck, a bright kid from some slum could break out, end up at university, and become a great engineer, while his intelligent counterpart in a South American tribe has no chance of learning any of the mathematics and science his European brother is exposed to. Privilege begets privilege, unless the privileged and powerful are prepared to share what they have.

All this comes together in Europe, and by fortune of circumstances, both dumb and bright white people, far from supreme, living in slums in the cities of the west, start to demand fairer conditions. Social change comes along with the greater voting franchise. A better understanding of biology, health, suffering … all these inspire many bright people to be better towards their fellow humans, to demand change.

What amounts to a supremacy of power, money, technology, science, brings European states into competition, war, and world domination, at the very time social improvements are afoot at home. This contradiction is why we have heroes and villains, often in one and the same person: Churchill, Washington … great leaders when their countries needed them, but not averse to indulging in the less worthy norms of their times.

Not all changes are smooth or balanced. While a good man might be helping the poor in slums back home, his sibling might be in India beating down an uprising of oppressed and starving people. The power supremacy that can bring good continues to bring much harm in parallel. This is the messy world of the reality of Empire, not the simplistic ‘white supremacist’ world that idiots like Richard Spencer have in their minds. There are many dumb, evil and far from supreme people among the supreme European race, and many very bright and genuinely superior intellects among the people oppressed by this European superiority.

Don’t get me wrong. Empires have come and gone in the past. It was mostly shear good or bad fortune that determined whether you were a thicko with power in the supreme echelons of the white European culture, because your aunt was bedded by some duke, or you were a brown genius trying to figure out how to get this white European oppression out of your country, … while still having to deal with cruel idiots in your own culture that made money off the back of the oppressors and helped them maintain the oppression.

This is a very messy history with so many strands that it’s impossible to do them all justice here. But it should be clear enough that ‘white supremacism’ is one of the dumbest notions you could dream up, if only for the fact that so many white supremacists are thick. What the heck is supposed to be supreme about them?

I’m All White Jack

The big joke is that by around the time Europe becomes a supreme power base, we are already mixed race. Apart from some isolated families that protect their ‘blood lines’, whether for race or mere genealogical reasons, we have been screwing our way around the world for several hundred years, and many people that think they are true blood white are not.

How about all white supremacists subject themselves to DNA tests and ANY ‘impure non-white genes’ gets you rejected from the master race. Good luck with that. Many will be rejected.

The thing is, this definition of ‘white’ that’s supposed confer supremacy is such that a) it doesn’t exist; b) it certainly doesn’t confer supremacy (again, have you seen some of these dumbos).

But, let’s go with one of the tools the white supremacists use. Let’s play ‘Bell Curve’.

Suppose you can categorise of peoples, that are identifiable by ‘race’, and that some bell curves on intelligence show Group A is higher than group B on some measure. What does that mean? …

It means in the overlap there are some seriously unintelligent people in both A and B. And there are some people in Group B that are brighter than most people in group A, the supposedly supreme group. That’s the problem – individuals are not the population they are in: bell curves have tails, in both directions.

So, what do I want, if YOU insist we must split society?

I’ll tell you. I want to be in the group of white, black, brown, yellow, purple, any colour, as long as they are the smart non-racist ones. Those smart Jews that are top of the charts? I want to be in their camp, not stuck with knuckle dragging racist morons of my own race.

The thing is, and this is where much of the controversy lies, statistics can be helpful.

Identify a group and see that there is a group tendency to have some health deficiency, and you can target treatment better. But even here, individuals still count. Not all people in a statistically identifiable genetic group need have the condition your looking at – and that has serious implications if you get the targeted treatment wrong. If group A has a tendency to have the condition more than those in group B, so you target only group A, you leave those in group B with the condition to suffer? Such a statistical difference can only benefit everyone if limited resources are distributed according to the relative number of people in the groups, and the relative occurrence of the conditions. You have to do a lot of Bayesian stuff to be effective. You can’t simply say, “Oh, group A has a high statistical bias for this condition, we’ll target only group A.”

And yet this is what the ‘white supremacists’ don’t get about the bell curves that they rely on for intelligence and supposed ‘supremacy’. It’s more complicated than just ‘race’ – and their racism isn’t even just about ‘actual race’, but apparent race, because, at least until they have prepared the internment camps where they too are forced to endure genetic testing necessary to determine their own racial purity. They can’t tell who’s white and who isn’t, outside a very simple stark difference in colour. You could have a fine blood line going back to mad King George, but if your great gran got too friendly with a slave, you’re out of the master race.

On so many grounds, these ‘white supremacists’ don’t really know what they are talking about.

But, hey, those bright Jews? If it’s genetic, why don’t we dumber white folks want what they have? If some Jews are so bright, how seriously dumb was Hitler. Exterminated or exported a minority people, because he could. And yet they could have helped Germany recover from the devastation that resulted from its previous screw up of WWI.

But those Jews, those philosophers, scientists that survived, helped make America great, not the dumb white supremacists in the south. One of my heroes, Erik Kandel, left Europe in his youth to escape extermination, and went on to contribute to neuroscience of memory. I’m sure most sensible people can happily name their own great Jew. If what the the ‘white supremacists’ think is true, can you give me a genetic injection of Jewish intelligence please. If, as many antisemite will tell you, the Jews are really ruling the world, because they are so good at it, then instead of exterminating them, why don’t we work towards making ourselves that bright? Why make the world dumber, by killing off the intelligent ones?

This ‘white supremacism’ simply doesn’t make sense by their own standards of reckoning.

Getting back to Spencer’s claim. No. Africans Americans didn’t benefit from ‘white’ supremacy. They suffered under white idiocy and cruelty that was coupled with technological supremacy. They suffered at the hands of Christian men and women that failed to live up to the principles that a Jew supposedly taught them. The number of ironies to the ‘white supremacy’ stupidity is astounding.

Thankfully, enough decent Europeans saw things differently, and just as they fought injustice that befell the ‘white inferiors’ at home, they opposed slavery. The African and Middle Eastern world under Islam continued with slavery long after Europe came to its senses. Europe banned slavery. It just took some time and a civil war to convince some thickos in America.

Mixed Race Europe

And, of course, winning a war on slavery and persecution doesn’t end it. It exists everywhere in the world.

But it’s odd that the white supremacists in the USA look to Europe, the place that has done most to end racism, that is the least racist place on earth. This is not an idle claim.

Check out Russia, China, Japan, South Africa, Middle East, India … These are not the mixed race societies you might hope for. These are not non-racist societies.

Why is there still an ethnic cleansing occurring every now and then around the world? Because one ethnic group doesn’t like another – they are racists. Why are there multicultural problems in Europe with Islam? Partly because of Islam’s own version of supremacy – it’s Islam or nothing.

Now, Islam is not a race – in fact one of the few good ideas that both Christianity and Islam encouraged (at least theoretically) was anti-racism.

But that doesn’t prevent Muslims being racist. There is much racism in the Islamic world. There are Arab, Pakistani, Turkish, Indonesian and other Islamic sub-cultures within Europe, and they won’t even intermarry among themselves as Muslims. Pakistanis are well known for keeping their ties with Pakistan. There are Pakistani families in the UK, screaming to high heaven about white racism, and yet they’d kill their daughter if she tried to marry a non-Muslim or non-Pakistani.

Again, we have to be clear, that this is messy. Many white, brown, black people get along fine, and mix socially, and marry, and have children. Europe is the least racist place on earth – even with our racists, of every colour and cultural origin. Has racism been ousted from Europe? No. Too many white Europeans are racist… but I’d hazard a guess that proportionally there are more POC racists in the UK than white racists.

So, what is Richard Spencer thinking when he talks of his superior white European heritage? Well, it’s not the whiteness that’s superior. He’s referring only to the coincidences of history that made Europe powerful, that then allowed it to dominate the rest of the world, for a time.

Politics, Race, Multiculturalism

Political ideas are far more important than skin colour or race – in fact I can’t think of anything that requires differentiation based on race or skin colour other than the beneficial statistics that can help target healing of genetic conditions – and even then, there are genetic differences within what Spencer would think of as a race that are just as important to health. Race is simply a really bad demarcation that mostly leads to great harm. Racism is a bad political idea.

To think in terms or racial superiority is so bad that it has caused a double whammy of hate. First, there are the racists themselves. Second, and more recently, in response to white racism, we have seen a SJW backlash that has become so toxic we have who knows how many white people actually hating their own race. This currently is a dangerous political direction that actually perpetuates racism.

Pause … Let than sink in for a moment: those that campaign vociferously against racism, that declare race isn’t important, see their own race as the only source of racism, and actively want an end to white people, while being quite willing to support other cultures and sub-cultures that are based to some extent on racial division.

But, on the bright side, at least the white SJW racists provide yet more evidence that white people can be as dumb as anyone of any other skin colour.

We should be discriminating – of political and cultural ideas, not race.

“Multiculturalism has failed!”

No. The implementation of multiculturalism has failed, by not being discriminating about what is of value and what is dangerous, in various cultures.

If you think good multiculturalism consists of exchanging recipes from around the world, while turning a blind eye to honour killing, or FGM, or forced marriage, then you are failing at multiculturalism, and failing to uphold the political egalitarianism that Europe was supposed to be famous for.

Living With History

Time to get back to the Richard Spencer quote. Let’s suppose he accepts that white supremacy was cruel and unjustified (I don’t know that he does). What does Richard Spencer mean when he says African Americans have benefited? Maybe Spencer is thinking, hey look ‘shithole’ Africa, compared to great lives African Americans have. He’s wrong there too. Centuries of persecution, with legal persecution stopped only decades ago, and social persecution still active (that’s what Spencer is engaged in) are not benefiting African Americans now, but still hindering them.

Can many African Americans have successful lives, better than many whites? Sure. That’s what equal opportunity should result in. And great lives too, if only they could avoid idiots like Spencer. Again, don’t get me wrong. There are stupid racist black Richard Spencers among groups like BLM – we’ve seen them. We’ve seen the idiots in Africa that think some of their ancient tribal practices are somehow superior to ‘white science’ – as if science is ‘white’. Dumb racism isn’t a white prerogative.

But, to take Spencer’s line of reasoning: that all that suffering in slavery, and post-slavery racist laws, and post-racist law racist persecution, … all that has given current African Americans the great reward of living in the soon to be great again USA.

There’s a trivial ironic truth to this point of view. I was saving this speech for the Oscars, but you get a preview  …

I’d like to thank all the people that made me what I am today. I’d like to thank Hitler, and all the dead Jews in the Holocaust, for bringing my mother and father together, post-WWII, which led to my lucky existence – oh, and thanks to my dead uncle that was killed in the war. And I’d like to thank those that contributed to the Irish famine that drove my recent ancestors, on both sides, to leave Ireland and come to England and marry some English people. A special thanks to the invading Normans that persecuted others in my family tree that were mere serfs … oh, and my other ancestors that were Normans that persecuted them. A great big thank you to Julius Caesar, for without his invasion and killing of so many people we wouldn’t have some of the lovely straight roads that I enjoy today. I don’t know who you are, but thank you Neanderthal woman for being raped by my other early human ancestor. And thank you Africans, for starving and migrating to Europe in search of a better place – twice – you really made the effort form which I now benefit. And thank you, African ape mother of all humans today. Thank you all.

Any history that humans have gone through that has been objectively bad for some people and good for others, in terms of material reward, security, health, social status, self determination, has resulted in the people we are now. So, is a black guy in America now better off because his recent ancestor was brought over in a slave ship?

Trivially, yes. But it’s actually a dumb question, and a dumb point from Richard Spencer.

First, that person would not have been present in Africa today had his ancestor not been a victim of slavery. Any number of things might be different without European slavery. Islamic slavery was present in Africa long after it was stopped in Europe, so maybe his ancestor would have been a slave after all. Or maybe his tribe would have become slavers themselves in turn. Maybe if decent European explorers had brought only benefits of European progress to Africa … but hold on, before we get too far into this, remember that much of the technical and mercantile progress in Europe was made on the back of Africa and other places, by the consumption of the resources found there. Mmmm. Tricky. History is complicated, and the ‘What if?’ games don’t really tell us that much.

White Minority Identity

And now the ironic aspect of the Richard Spencer quote. The problem is that if you play the same game as Richard Spencer, and try to say that African Americans benefit now from the cruelty of past white Europeans, then he could be letting himself in for a whole pile to grief. White people, as defined in the simplistic terms of Richard Spencer, are actually a minority in the world population.

Suppose all non-whites made slaves of whites for a century or so, it wouldn’t be that bad, would it? After all, in a few more centuries there’d be a black Richard Spencer saying, …

“Whites have benefited from the experience of black supremacy”

No. Enough of the ‘white supremacy’ stupidity.

How about Identitarianism, White Separatism, and the other BS terms that mask a white supremacist agenda?

Anti-Racism

It’s simple:

If you want to marry and mate with someone of your own ethnic background, then go for it. Nobody is stopping you. As white separatists point out, there are many self contained ethnic groups that value their heritage, why can’t white people? Yeah, fine, again, go for it.

Here’s the problem – and it’s one I touched on above. What if I, as a white person, don’t want that? What if I am friends with and enjoy the company of people of all backgrounds, all races? What if we want to get together and make mixed race babies? What’s your problem?

Only I can tell you OUR problem is – YOU, Richard Spencer. Not because you want to play with white people only, but because you want to make the rest of us do it too.

And it’s not just the Richard Spencers of this world – and here’s where I depart form the current white hating SJW loons. Many ethnic groups insist on their own ethnic purity, just as Spencer does. Where they insist that applies to all their children, we have a problem, again, and it’s the problem caused by the separatists, of any colour or culture.

There are Muslims and Hindus in India that will kill anyone of the other religion that tries to marry their daughter. There are Pakistani heritage British men (get this, they are actually English by birth) that will kill their sister if she tries to marry outside their race and religion. Many of us are supporting the Kurds, and the Yazidis, and the Christians that have been persecuted by ISIS – and yet there will be some among those groups that will be separatists and will not let their culture die, and will persecute those of their own that try to stray.

It’s not just race. Religion is the other great divisive influence. My Catholic mother married my Protestant father, and she converted. My mother’s Catholic priest damned her children to hell. Well, I am an atheists, so I guess he got his wish. My wife’s Baptist mother, on first hearing my name, asked my future wife, “He’s not Catholic, is he?”

There are those that fear the loss of their race, culture or religion. But I’m afraid they are only entitled to perpetuate those in as much as they can personally, with like minded people.

They are not at liberty to demand that their children should be separatists racists too. They are not at liberty to protect their racial, cultural and religious ideology through separatism.

So, to Richard Spencer specifically, the rest of us don’t want your racist BS.  Tough shit.

RadFem Idiots Lie About Kenan Malik

I follow Kenan Malik on Twitter. Decent guy, good articles, his book on my shelf reading list. I occasionally disagree, but you really can’t come across many more honest a journalist than Kenan. One of the good ‘lefties’. A Humanist. Keen on ‘justice’.

So, he wrote an article A desire for vengeance is human but checks the pursuit of proper justice, and a good one it was too.

If I had to bet any money on who’d respond to this negatively and mistakenly, I’d have thought it’s be some of the supporters of the death penalty supporters that would like to castrate painfully and then hang draw and quarter child abusers. And it’s not as if Kenan misses the natural human sentiment of rage and vengeance that such cases arouse – that’s  what his article was about, separating our baser desire for vengeance for the greater utility of justice.

But, no. what caught my eye first was a diversion into RadFem writing

Here’s Kenan’s tweet of the article, and then we’re off into RadFem land

I didn’t read the piece at first, and noted only the ‘himpathy’. Instead, I noted this tweet.

I read Kenan’s article again. Not a sign of him defending the abuser.

And so I thought I’d have a say too:

What followed for a few tweets was the usual back and forth of disagreement about what was actually in the article, until I wondered if Jo had read the article. So I simply asked.

And that’s when it turned to ‘mansplaining’. And what you’re going to see is a deep dive into childishness (and, for the record, that opinion is not based on their gender, but on their stupidity; for there’s plenty of male stupidity to go around too – and that’s gender equality for you).

OK, let’s play that game …

At which point the RadFem tweets to me:

And it’s at that point that RadFem goes quiet … at least with me.

But meanwhile … back on Jo’s response to me, Kenan tries to get some sense out of the implication that jail was being argued against:

No response there, either.

Did anyone else have any luck? Anshu responds to the RadFem’s tweet of her article, which at this point I still haven’t read.

This reply betrays a complete and utter failure to understand basic discourse and the presentation of evidence to back up claims. Anshu had said no more than that they disagree, and had not made a claim that warrants evidence.

You might think this a simple twitter wording gone astray, except that RadFem is a writer herself, and makes a splash of it in her Twitter bio – ‘bon mots’.

Nevertheless, Anshu clarifies his disagreement, which is the same point, put in other words:

And there you have one of the skills of RadFem on display: mind readers.

But you just did, you moron! You specifically analysed the hypotheitical of the judge being a man in this case and asserted this conversation would not be happening.

Well, on second thoughts, to be fair, that’s probably true. But the reason would be (engaging my own hypotheticals) that the RadFem would not have bothered to pick up the evidence against her RadFem agenda.

And that’s the bias of RadFem for you. And, just to make sure it’s clear, Kenan responds at this point:

Again, blatent accusations morph into hypotheticals when the RadFem is cornered in a lie or a smear.

I have to say that Vonny is well out of her depth here. Is she clueless about Kenan’s credentials regarding class and identity struggles?

Oh, FFS! She really has no idea who Kenan Malik is, or she’d not be making dumb ass statements like this. But not only that, the judge is white, the abuser is white, … and he wasn’t even racist in his choice of victims. He’s an equal opportunity abuser.

This RadFem nonsense is off the rails at this point.

The profile of the RadFem @vonny_bravo:

Journalist. RadFem. Martinis, bon mots, good shoes. Writes about women & girls. @ScotNational columnist. @Guardian contributor.

We can only hope for more rationality and use of evidence in articles that aren’t as agenda driven. So, to Vonny’s article:

“Larry Nassar will die in jail. Following arguably the biggest child abuse scandal in sporting history …”

So, Vonny hasn’t heard of the UK football abuse scandals? “Writes about women & girls” – OK, maybe that’s a hint to broaden one’s horizons.

“In reporting it, too often the victim is an afterthought. The perpetrator profile, the act detailed, the woman or girl nowhere to be seen.”

I wonder if that’s because their identity is specifically protected. This was once a problem for women victims, but now this has become a problem for the falsely accused, as the recent Liam Allan, where even the police and prosecution stacked the cards against him by withholding evidence that should have seen the case thrown out long before his name became public.

And, of course, despite Vonny’s pleading, as shown in the Liam Allen case, details about the accuser are not without pertinance to the case.

“When we hear her name, it’s when a case collapses and the tabloids feast.”

Collapse? How about when they are shown to be based on lies, smears, false accusations? What about when the lying accuser at last gets some publicity? Does Vonny oppose this too?

“More often, we hear nothing unless a woman waives her right to anonymity”

So, what exactly is the complaint here? That women victims get publicity, or they don’t? Do note that the football coaching abuse scandal has male victims waving anonymity.

“She sentenced him to 175 years. A titan of a sentence, the fullest force of the law – but just one year and one month per girl when you do the maths.”

What’s she proposing? 1,750 years? 3,500 years? What point is Vonny making with the “one year and one month per girl”?

“You would think denouncing a serial paedophile would be a given in a civilised society. There’s no ambiguity about the atrocity of child abuse. And yet countless men took to the internet denounce everyone but Nassar. The girls were looking for money and attention. Aquilina was grandstanding. She was mean. The sentence was too harsh. She wears too much makeup. Where were their mothers?”

Maybe “countless *men* (no women?) took to the internet denounce everyone but Nassar” because Nassar was already denounced. Did anyone actually claim he was not guilty? After all, if there was no ambiguity.

Maybe some were curious about how he got away with it for so long. Who else was culpable – not of abuse, but of a failure of a duty of care to watch out for the girls.

Comments about the judge’s makeup were irrelevant to the case. Who exactly used that as a reason to claim Nassar’s innocence? I ask, because you can see what ‘journalist’ Vonny is doing here. She’s using spurious comments, by who knows, to form a case for the new hip term ‘himpathy’.

“Professor Kate Manne, a moral philosopher at Cornell, theorises this as “himpathy”.”

So, women don’t engage in excusing women? And when it comes to excusing men, there are an awful lot of female Trump supporters, and all the serious bad guys, like Hitler, Moa, Castro, all had their female apologists. Of course you’d expect more men and fewer women to excuse a man charged with abuse. What woman could possibly excuse him? Well, you could ask that of many religious women that seem to idolise male prophets and preachers.

“Himpathy blinkers us.”

This, in a post that was offered as response to Kenan Malik’s article on distinguishing justice and revenge, where zero support, sympathy of excuse was offered to the abuser, and not a hint of victim blaming. Blinkered is what Vonny is.

Enough of the crazy. Some sane voices:

If you let your ideology overcome your capacity to reason, and it prevents you simply admitting you were mistaken when accusing a particular person of something they didn’t do, and if you find you are doubling, trebling down on your position, or diverting from it entirely, then maybe you need to take some philosophy classes.

https://twitter.com/vonny_bravo/status/959067653720739841

Well, that’s a start.

 

 

 

 

 

Etymology Man! Help!

A post by Jerry Coyne on an XKCD comic strip riminded me of a problem that keeps coming up: how labels are used to demonise, ostracise, and even to justify violence against people; and then to excuse the abuse of words for the greater good.

The following is an earlier comic strip from XKCD Comics. My interpretation here may have been covered elsewhere at the time it was published (though isn’t on the ‘explained‘ site), but I offer it now to explain the current related problem of how SJWs abuse words, and then deflect, by complaining of the relative insignificance of the etymology, when it’s their abuse of words that’s causing the problem.

etymology_man

I took the comic to be taking a swipe at any situation where an etymological discussion errupts while the real catastrophy proceeds to engulf the disputants.

This was used, for example, by some SJWs who complained that those citing ‘dictionary atheism’ where hung up on etymology while real social justice needed to be done. The problem was much SJW action is itself hung up on words – their abuse.

The Insanity* of the SJW

(* to abuse a word for effect).

As PZ Myers moved from New Atheist, to Atheism+, to whetever, denouncing each in turn (settling on the useless ‘our movement’) he was clearly, and in earlier guises explicitly, trying to create a movement, based on atheism, or the more general ‘Skepticism’. Of course we already have Humanism. When he started to demonise other atheists, specifically New Atheists, he needed to distinguish them from himself, and yet still make it an ‘atheist movement’. When his detractors pointed out his abuse of the term atheism he had a lot to say about how these ‘dictionary atheists’ were not helping. They were merely pointing out how it was PZ Myers and crew that wasn’t helping. Eventually the identity politics of Social Justice Warriorship started to go through one of its many implosions, until Myers lost it.

Identity politics relies very much on innapropriate use of labels to demonise and ostracise people … and often leads to the phnemenon of ‘eating their own’ … again an allusion from the Mantis that screws and eats its mates in the later  comic?

wrong_superhero

The self-destruction of ‘the movement’ as resulted in a few emissions from the Freethought Blogs community, and this was pretty much down to someone not being on-message, destroying their SJW credentials.

PZMyers-ToxicStar

A current incarnation surrounds the tendency of SJWs to label anyone to the right of them as Nazis when they are nothing of the sort – so we have Dan Arel advocating punching those he sees fit to be called Nazis.

Call out the SJWs on their abuse of words to the point of where they diminish all useful meaning in their advocacy of attacks on totally inappropriate targets, and their backlash is yet more of their hate. It’s more important to punch Nazis than to figure out who is actually a Nazi, and much less to question the morality of pre-emtive violence.

Deflection ensues as Dan accuses his critics of ‘supporting Nazis’.

Here’s the problem when you get to decide that Nazis deserve punching and you are the one deciding who the Nazis are:

nazis
h/t someone on Facebook, who may or may not be the originator.

In one sense the XKCD comic is criticising those dusputing the incorrect use of terms, in that they are focusing on useless etymology while the SJWs are doing their good deeds. That’s how SJWs see it.

But the real issue is that the SJWs are indeed in need of Etymology Man, who could have perhaps set them straight so that they don’t go on pre-emptive self-styled vigilante sprees. But, hey, what right has anyone to tell them who they should or should not label as Nazis? Free speech!

The importance of free speech, unencombered by a violent opposition (but opposition with speech is good), is a core issue for many liberals. But not for Dan and his ilk. Violence first, … ask questions later, or not at all. This how it often goes …

nazis-supportingthem

 

Real Advocates of Freedom

Here are some people that get it. And, their concern for the use of words plays an important part in explaining how they understand freedom.

The Secular Detective breaks down terms to get to their meaning and how they are used, and how even Nazis have the right to free speech.

On Punching Nazis and the Justifications of Violence

Maajid Nawaz, acknowedging the freedom of expression due to everyone, including Islamists and the Muslim Brotherhood.

My Open Letter To A Jailed Muslim Brotherhood Leader

Maryam Namazie and Sarah Heider do a great job here in trying to get across how terms like ‘safe space’, ‘no platforming’, ‘protest’ need to be understood in a context that benefits all, rather than letting these terms be used by ideologues to suppress freedom.

There’s a dignity to these writers and speakers, even in moments of frustration and anger, where they will not concede to the oppressive forces that demand that people be shut down, shut up, punched.

They in no way support or advocate for the views of their political opponents.

Sarah makes the point that no matter what your good intentions, shutting down free speech will lead to the most vulnerable being shut down. It’s a weapon that the powerful will use, if you submit to opposing free speech.

This isn’t to say people won’t disagree – they do. Plenty of people have criticsed Maryam on a number of points – her Communism, the removal of all borders, her spat with Sam Harris over something and nothing. But none of that detracts from the great work she does, at great personal risk. And this is part of the point. If on hearing Maryam on Sam’s podcast you were to write her off, you could very easily get carried along with her dishonest detractors and start retweeting things about here that smply are not true.

Words evolve. But if you abuse them by making them fit your own political agenda, and allow them to encompass people they really don’t apply to, the words become meaningless as descriptors and take on a role that is little more than a hate label for an out-group, and that then gives you tacit permission to demonise them and ostracise them,so you never actually get to hear what they say in their own words. Result: you end up spreading lies.

Let Them Speak

My personal feeling is that if you think you disagree with someone, first be sure you disagree with them: check out what they actually say. That means putting in some effort and not merely retweeting a false or out of context quote from years ago, that might not be the targets current position anyway. Letting your actual political opponents expose their views is the only way to find out what they are. The presupposition that you already know their views because someone you trust tweeted how bad they are doesn’t really cut it.

There’s a lot to be gained from letting people speak.

  • It’s not a matter of giving them a platform to spread ideas that you don’t want to spread. You get to point to their actual words that you disagree with.
  • You might find you don’t disagree with them as much as you expected.
  • You will find it exposes the lies of some people you thought were honest allies.

Over the last few weeks since he started his advocacy of violence, Dan Arel’s words have been captured for anyone to see. The hate filled comment columns of PZ Myers’ Pharyngula show him for the mean spirited hate monger he is. But both those characters have good sides too them, and I doubt any of those promoting full free speech would want them shut down.if they actually followed their own advice, they would be the very people meeting the criteria they think should be shut down – if only they had a modicum of self awareness.

Dan Arel Piece of Shit

[Update: Dan Arel is a coward that won’t stand by his own words. He has removed the tweets below. You might think he simply had a timeout. I think he’s erased his inconvenient history. How very Communist of him.]

Dan has been accused of labelling people a Nazi all too easily. That’s not fair. “piece of shit” is also a favourite label, which I discovered while looking for a tweet in which he called someone a piece of shit, for another post.

I’m not suggesting for one minute that Dan Arel is a piece of shit. I’m just admiring what Dan can do in 140 characters with a piece of shit … this might become a little repetative.
Continue reading “Dan Arel Piece of Shit” →

Opposing Free Speech With Vigilante and State Violence

Dan Arel has been advocating vigilante violence against people HE perceives to be ‘Nazis’. Here’s one of his latest tweets.

No Dan, we’ve been opposing your jerking off and slobbering at the violent attack. I thought it was only Islamists and sociopaths that jerked off to watching people getting hurt.

Here’s another that seems unable to make simple distinctions – which is worrying among people that label others all too easily when there are violence advocates like Dan around:

No, we are not defending Nazism. You cannot possibly be that thick. Well, maybe, but I suspect you are being intentionally obtuse. You do realise in making such an assertion you basically give Dan’s bully boys the green light to get violent on our asses, right?

This is basically the Takfir of the Left: if you disagree with someone that has a different view, declare them apostates, or Nazis in this case.

This is part of a running battle that Stephen Knight has been having trying to knock sense into Dan’s thick skull. That’s a metaphor by the way, Stephen has been opposing Dan’s endorsement of actual violence, and his opposition to free speech.

But free speech is a selective right, it seems; and well, not he doesn’t confirm his opposition to violence but evades:

Even if JE doesn’t condone violence, isn’t advocating violence actually hate speech? Should Dan be prosecuted for his hateful tweets advocating violence against Spencer?

Can we get a definitive answer on the violence?

JE confirms he’s not with Dan on the violence, but I’m not sure his heart’s in the non-violence thing (as we’ll see):

So, JE is anti-free speech. It’s not the right of everyone. OK.

No answer. Why is it so difficult. If you are slective in who YOU think has free speech then you haven’t got a moral leg to stand on when actual Nazis or Islamic Caliphates take your free speech away. It’s like FAITH – anyone who thinks they have faith in their God and his demands that they should be peaceful doesn’t really have a come back to Islamic fundamentalists that want to kill apostates, because they have faith in Allah’s wish that this should be so. The peacefully faithful can try some basic humanism – but their faith already trumps human wishes, and humanism trumps the need for a god.

JE thinks that the crazy uncontrollable hate speech laws that have been introduced around the world are a good thing. I think he’s an anti-Constitutionalist.

But … but …

So, merely being a Nazi … National Socialism? Nationalism? White Nationalism? … it’s never made clear what the limits are of being a Nazi, it’s just a demonising word used against anyone to the right, although not against ultra conservative fundamentalist apostate killing Muslims – not all Muslim being that (caveat required to avoid recusrsive Nazi accusation). The term ‘Nazi’ is now as useless as ‘Islamophobia’ – it’s a term designed to silence others.

We’re ‘fam’ now?

But I guess he’s not an equal opportunity offender. Only Nazis. Correction, only those opponents one labels as Nazis, whether they are or not. And even if they were, Nazism

… the rabbit hole goes deeper …

What?! What the fuck?!

White Nationalists? Nazis? What’s the difference? Who cares. Dan’s Vigilantism or JE’s State Violence will do the job. And Muslims that think apostates should be killed? No answer.

Not happy with that …

That’s as good an excuse as any to abandon ship.

Of course someone had to come up with a Hitch quote. Spot on.

And …

And …

And …

twitterblocked-je

I think that was soon after posting this on Twitter. They are so full of shit.

Left Violence? Bad Idea!

This is both simple and fundamental. It’s not a difficult concept. Once you advocate violence against speech you open the door for anyone else who advocates violence against speech – including violence against your speech that advocates violence against speech.

The irony being that when we turn to it, it’s the Nazis that are going to be a damned sight better at it then the Left.

Dan and JE and those that follow their line are not doing themselves any favours. In particular Dan as said how he thinks it’s a good idea to give the ‘Nazi’s a bloody nose – that’ll teach ’em. Well he’s merely inviting the Right to up the ante…

I’M GLAD RICHARD SPENCER GOT PUNCHED IN THE FACE

It’s pretty unwise for the Left to be normalizing political violence given the way the wind’s blowing. It doesn’t take a genius to see that ours is the side with most of the guns, most of the veterans, most of the people who work out, and most of the people who can both execute and absorb a good solid punch. Our side avoids violence because we’re attempting to win a moral case. Our side avoids violence because the system’s itching for any excuse to crack down on us. Our side avoids violence for a lot of reasons, but fear of losing a fight isn’t one of them.

And then this was spotted:

I know JE has seen this, he retweeted it.

As much as I dislike Spencer’s views (and go and read the comments sections on posts on that site if you think his views are bad), violence is a losing game for the Left – morally and legally (ironically JE’s state violence will come after the Left if they continue). A Trump conservative state; with many highly weaponised police, the military, and from a big portion of the Trump supporting public, a ‘malitia’ as they see themselves, with guns.

The funny thing is you hear a lot of, “We defeated the Nazis before!” Well, think on, a lot of the guys that defeated the Nazis didn’t do it with placards and the odd punch. Them conservatives love their freedom. It will be the biggest damned mistake the Left in the US could make, to start endorsing violence.

Vigilante Violence and State Violence are what the moderate ‘Left’ has been fighting against. The far Left has always been authoritarian and not averse to a bit of thuggery, but Dan considers himself to be an SJW. This is not a good sign, Dan. You make SJW’s look like actual Nazis, rather than just autoritarian idiots.

I’ll give you an example of what’s idiotic about SJWs in this case. They are responding to Trump’s EO on entry from some countries and shouting about how the USA needs to be better than that; and when whataboutery is used to say, “What about ‘Muslim’ countries not allowing in Jews”, they rightly respond, “We’re better than that; we should not descend to their level.” But they don’t get that when sucker punching Spencer?

This is so important for opponents of racism, white nationalism, white supremecism,… Islamism … Islamofascism. We’ve got to get the criticism right, and we must not resort to violence.

Here’s where violence is reasonable:
– Self defence (even pre-emtive if there is a real imminent threat of violence)
– State control/restraint in response to illegal activity (without undue force)
– State violence by police (yes, I know there’s BLM issues to talk about)
– War (yes, I know, there are conversations about what acts of war are legitimate)

The above should be no more violent than is necessary. Want to talk about the atomic bombs dropped on Japan, fine. But this post isn’t about that.

This post is about pre-emptive violence vigilante style, and state oppression through violence, used against political oppoenents, in a lawful democratic liberal society. That doesn’t add up.

George Clooney’s Lake Como Refugees

George Clooney has been done a great job of raising awareness of the plight of refugees. I wonder how committed he is.

Type this into Google:

  • George Clooney Lake Como Refugees

Then try this for you ‘respectable’ press (this is for some British news outlets):

  • George Clooney Lake Como Refugees site:bbc.co.uk
  • George Clooney Lake Como Refugees site:independent.co.uk
  • George Clooney Lake Como Refugees site:theguardian.com

Continue reading “George Clooney’s Lake Como Refugees” →

Cenk Uygur – Knucklehead Extraordinaire

Cenk Uygur and John Iadarola jump on the regressive demonising bandwagon and smear a teacher, by saying what she said, then saying she means something entirely different.

 

Many people complained it appeared to be casting blame on women who were raped while drunk. It kept saying it wasn’t blaming those people, but, if you read between the lines …

John has learned well from his Dark Lord master. “Maybe … Just sayin'”

TYT reading between the lines amounts to nothing more than saying the opposite of what the lines say.
Continue reading “Cenk Uygur – Knucklehead Extraordinaire” →

John Horgan And Agendas

It’s disappointing to see someone perpetuate unfounded agendas, especially in a magazine one would like to think better of. There are a few different respects in which John Horgan’s Scientific American articles is lost in his personal agenda and that of others. If you know some of the background, this stuff leaps from the page as you read.
Continue reading “John Horgan And Agendas” →