RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.stolinsky.com/

Thomas Sowell describes what he calls Stage One thinking. This type of thinking is common in small children and so-called progressives. When these people want something, they throw a tantrum and make a huge mess until they get it. But they give no thought to what damage will result from their tantrum. And they give no thought to what will follow if they get what they want. That is, they seem totally unaware that there will be a Stage Two.

This type of behavior is annoying but tolerable in small children, whose minds have not yet matured to the point that they can foresee the results of their actions. But this behavior is even more annoying, and even less acceptable, in supposed adults. More to the point, this behavior can be dangerous, not only for the childish adults, but also for all the rest of us.

Destroy statues.

First it was statues of Confederate generals like Robert E. Lee. The stated motive was to remove objects of veneration that represented supporters of slavery. What the real motive was I leave for you to discern. Now monuments to Columbus are being trashed, busts of Lincoln are being defaced, and the Lincoln Memorial is being spray-painted with obscenities. What does this tell us?

But if removing statues of Confederate generals is so important, why is it not equally important to erect statues of Union generals? If statues of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson are so offensive that they have to be removed, why are not statues of Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, Phil Sheridan, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, and Robert Gould Shaw so praiseworthy that they have to be erected?

At the memorial for John McCain, Barack Obama said:

“After all, what better way to get a last laugh to make George and I say nice things about him to a national audience.”

Well that’s a grammatical error. It should have been “After all, what better way to make George and me say nice things about him to a national audience.”

Obama never released his academic records from Occidental (1979-1981), Columbia (1981-1983), or Harvard Law School (1988-1991), but to be fair, I have heard terrible grammar from Summa Cum Laude graduates of the most prestigious schools.

And at least Obama pronounces the word “nuclear” correctly while others, including some intellectuals say “nucular.”

In Woody Allen’s 1989 film “Crimes and Misdemeanors” Mia Farrow’s character says she could never fall for any man who says “nucular”.

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2018/09/10/southern-poverty-law-center-essentially-a-fraud/
The Southern Poverty Law Center has less to do with justice than with fundraising

It had to happen sometime. The Southern Poverty Law Center has made so many vile, unjustified, hysterical, and hateful accusations over the years, it was bound to pay a price. When it did, the bill due was $3.375 million. Such was the amount the SPLC agreed to pay the British Muslim Maajid Nawaz and his think tank, the Quilliam Foundation, after smearing them in a “Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists.” Nawaz, a former Islamist radical turned whistleblower who calls for the modernization of Islam in columns for the Daily Beast and on London talk radio, had threatened to sue the SPLC for defamation — traditionally and properly a difficult case to make in U.S. courts. Yet the SPLC caved spectacularly.

The amusing but uncharacteristically groveling tone of the SPLC’s apology suggests fear of Nawaz’s lawyers: “We have taken the time to do more research,” stated the SPLC (doing research — what a novel idea!), noting that Nawaz has made “valuable and important contributions to public discourse,” adding that he is “most certainly not” an anti-Muslim extremist, and concluding, “We would like to extend our sincerest apologies to Mr. Nawaz, Quilliam, and our readers for the error.” The settlement further stipulated that the SPLC’s president, Richard Cohen, would film a video apology, prominently display it on the outfit’s website, and distribute the apology to every email address and mailing address on the SPLC mailing list. Whether Cohen was further required to come over to Nawaz’s house every week and iron his laundry could not be learned.

The Nawaz settlement was the most damaging episode yet in what has become an increasingly dire situation for the SPLC’s floundering image. Image, painstakingly built since its founding in 1971, is its chief asset. Image is what keeps the dollars flowing in. The Right has long been calling attention to the SPLC’s questionable tactics, but these days even Politico, The Atlantic, and PBS are running skeptical pieces about the saints of the South. Politico wondered whether the SPLC was “overstepping its bounds” and quoted an anti-terrorism expert, J. M. Berger, who pointed out that “the problem partly stems from the fact that the [SPLC] wears two hats, as both an activist group and a source of information.” David A. Graham of The Atlantic wrote that the “Field Guide” was “more like an attempt to police the discourse on Islam than a true inventory of anti-Muslim extremists, of whom there is no shortage, and opened SPLC up to charges that it had strayed from its civil-rights mission.” PBS interviewer Bob Garfield suggested to its president that the SPLC is increasingly seen “not as fighting the good fight but as being opportunists exploiting our political miseries” and that this was tantamount to killing “the goose that lays the golden egg.” In 2015 the FBI dropped the SPLC from its list of resources about hate groups.