RUTHFULLY YOURS

As we begin to wind down to the end of Hassan Rouhani’s term as president of the regime in Iran, it is time to take a look back at the past four years. We all remember how the West joyfully welcomed his election — read selection — as a change of gear in Iran aimed at moderation. However, what the world witnessed ever since has been anything but. An atrocious rise in executions, continued public punishments and an escalating trend of oppression has been Rouhani’s report card during his tenure. With a new administration coming into town, Washington must make it crystal clear to Tehran that human rights violations will no longer be tolerated.

Unprecedented executions

Despite pledging to hold the “key” to Iran’s problems, Rouhani has failed to provide even an iota of the freedoms the Iranian people crave and deserve. His record has revealed an unrelenting loyalty to the regime establishment in regards to social oppression and continued crackdowns. Iran sent 18 to the gallows last week alone, according to official reports.

As the international community continued its policy of appeasement, Rouhani and the entire regime used this opportunity to launch an execution rampage. Over 2,500 people have been sent to the gallows ever since Rouhani came to power, shattering all records held by this regime itself in over two decades.

In 2015 alone, Iran was executing an individual every eight hours, as reported by Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, former United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Iran.

Vast social crackdown

Rouhani’s commitment to regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei and the ruling elite has rendered a wide-ranging, escalating crackdown. In addition to the executions mentioned above, state-sponsored social oppression has resulted in horrific scenes of public hangings, floggings, and even limb amputations.

The prisons are overwhelmed with inmates, leading to intolerable and inhumane conditions. Political prisoners, specifically, are subject to horrendous treatment by the authorities. Renowned human rights organization Amnesty International has recently issued an Urgent Action call expressing major concerns over the case of Maryam Akbari Monfared, a Green Movement organizer still in prison two years after her family put up her bail.

The pundits were wrong, so wrong, in predicting that Hillary Clinton’s ascent to the White House was an inevitability. No surprise there, though, as the same homegrown solons and star columnists were no less convinced that Tony Abbott was ballot-box poison and had to go

The exit poll that caught my eye from the US election was the one in which those who ticked ‘we detest both candidates’ then went on to break 69% for Trump. That would be me too. I think the US voters got this right. Each party nominated the only person who could have lost to the other party’s candidate, but Hillary was worse by far. As for talk of ‘role model’ deficiencies with the Donald, well Hillary attacked the women who accused hubby Bill not of lewd talk but of actual rape. On what planet is that better role-modelling?

And here’s another surprise: it turns out that when East Coast comics insult Midwest voters, as they have done for decades, those voters couldn’t give a fig what comedians and chat-show hosts think about the election. Same with Hollywood stars such as Robert DeNiro ( as per below) and all the other Tinseltown tossers who condemn Trump for his attitude to women.

Regular voters can see that these people are hypocritical morons, the sort who denounce the president-elect in one breath and gush with praise for fugitive molester Roman Polanski or Woody Allen, who couldn’t keep his aged hands of his stepdaughter. Give me the last 30 years of phone and email records for JayZ, Charlie Sheen, DeNiro and the rest and I will personally guarantee that there will be comments a lot worse than Trump’s. So maybe they should have the self-awareness to butt out. Every time some Hollywood halfwit supported Clinton, Trump got more votes. The post-election ‘sore loser’ protests have been enough to make me puke, such are the hypocrisies of the Left these days.

And, just by the way, it’s worth noting that Trump got more of the black vote than Romney or McCain. He got less (yes, LESS) of the white vote than Romney. So the whiny left should shut up about “racism” — except it wouldn’t have anything else to say, so it won’t. Trump also got more of the Latino vote than Romney (who speaks Spanish) or McCain (who has a child married to a Latino). Turns out wide open immigration is not popular with all sorts of groups, including some Latinos.

On substance I hate Trump’s attitude to free trade. I hope Paul Ryan blocks that in the House, though much of this sits in the realm of executive power. Meanwhile, I think Trump will be miles and miles and miles better on appointing Supreme Court judges, given Hillary’s pledge to nominate candidates who are, once you cut through her rhetoric, left-wing pseudo-politicians, much like all of Canada’s top Supreme Court judges and more than a few here in Australia. I like Trump on seeing that if China and Russia do nothing on carbon emissions — and the reality is that they’re not — then carbon taxes and trading schemes and massive subsidies of renewables are idiocy. If we now don’t change direction here in Australia we are going to go from comparatively low cost energy to some of the world’s most expensive, with all of the massive renewables subsidies driving low cost production into the ground. Those disconcerting sounds you hear are jobs, lots of jobs, leaving the country.

What are “rights”?

A right is an existential condition that permits an individual to live, act, and speak in ways that promote his existence and happiness as a rational being.

“Rights” as perceived by Islam are privileges conferred on Muslims exclusively by Sharia and Islamic doctrine, and on no one else. “What is inside Sharia is good and permissible, what is outside Sharia is evil and prohibited.”

“Rationality” and “Reason” do not even have the same meanings in Islam that Westerners subscribe to.

The bases of Shariah are four: two are revelatory, coming from Allah, and include the two core sources, the Qur’ān, Islam’s holy book, and the Sunnah (the practice and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (s)); and two are based in rational endeavor, consensus (ijma) and analogical juristic reasoning (qiyās).

All other quotations are from The Ayn Rand Lexicon, found on http://aynrandlexicon.com/, according to subject.

Rand on reason and logic:

The distinguishing characteristic of logic (the art of non-contradictory identification) indicates the nature of the actions (actions of consciousness required to achieve a correct identification) and their goal (knowledge…..

“It’s logical, but logic has nothing to do with reality.” Logic is the art or skill of non-contradictory identification. Logic has a single law, the Law of Identity, and its various corollaries. If logic has nothing to do with reality, it means that the Law of Identity is inapplicable to reality. If so, then: a.) things are not what they are; b.) things can be and not be at the same time, in the same respect, i.e., reality is made up of contradictions. If so, by what means did anyone discover it? By illogical means…..

Reason is man’s only means of grasping reality and of acquiring knowledge—and, therefore, the rejection of reason means that men should act regardless of and/or in contradiction to the facts of reality.

The method which reason employs in this process is logic—and logic is the art of non-contradictory identification.

Sharia and Islam, as a “unified” package of ethics, is based, primarily, on those three old hoary diseases of man’s existence: superstition (the purported existence of a supreme being, in this case, Allah), consensus (so many people believe in Allah, he must exist, beginning with Mohammad), and, emotions or feelings. The latter are not tools of cognition; they are responses to what one observes, that is, when one employs one’s cognitive faculties.