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Ruth King

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Trump Admin Authorizes Strikes on Iranian-Backed Forces Officials: ‘We’re determined to defend ourselves’ against Iran in Syria by Adam Kredo

By on July 6th, 2017

U.S. forces have been instructed to take all measures needed to protect American interests in Syria, including military measures, as part of an effort that comes after top officials in the Trump administration assessed that Iran is deliberately probing American weaknesses and reactions on the Syrian battlefield, according to senior Trump administration officials who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon.

Iran-backed forces, including Hezbollah, have already initiated multiple encounters with the United States by violating agreements worked out between Washington and Moscow aimed at preventing the various factions targeting ISIS inside Syria from coming into conflict. This is part of a campaign that analysts inside and outside the White House believe is aimed at testing the Trump administration’s resolve, sources said.

“That was very clearly a process of the Iranians and Hezbollah and [the] Syrian regime probing and testing our limits, and testing how much we were willing to do,” one senior Trump administration official said. “In every case, it was a matter of them testing and probing, and us responding by defending ourselves.”

These clashes were the result of pro-Syrian regime forces, including Iran and Hezbollah, “violating a de-confliction measure that had been worked out with the Russians,” the official said. “The forces violated the measure.”

The Trump administration has instructed U.S. forces to respond to Iranian attacks with force if necessary.

“What they found out very quickly,” said the official, was “us responding by defending ourselves. What was established was that we’re determined to defend ourselves.”

This defensive action is being implemented at the same time the Trump administration turns its attention to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the Islamic Republic’s paramilitary force that coordinates operations in Syria and other warzones.

Trump administration officials view the IRGC as being part of “every malignant protrusion of the Iranian regime,” according to one administration official, who said the White House is dually focused on choking off this force.

The actions by U.S. forces are part of a broader pushback against Iran, ranging from battlefield responses to diplomatic action, according to a veteran Iran policy analyst who has been briefed by the White House both on parts of the Syria strategy and on parts of an ongoing Iran policy review being conducted by the administration.

The Free Beacon first reported many details of the review several weeks ago, including actions by the Trump administration to potentially block the sale of U.S. commercial aircraft to Tehran.

“For the first time since the U.S. intervened into the Syrian conflict, American forces have been authorized to do take all measures to defend U.S. interests against Iranian provocations and aggression,” said the source. “This is part of a concrete strategy that has already been implemented in part, and is being bolstered every day, but very senior Trump officials. No more of watching U.S. forces get rolled in Syria, and also no more of thanking Iran after they seize our sailors in the Gulf.

One senior Trump administration official familiar with the Iran policy review said the White House is currently “in the thick of it,” evaluating a range of options to confront Iran’s global terror operations.

The review expands far beyond the landmark nuclear deal, according to the administration officials.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Here’s How Anti-Conservative Academic Discrimination Works Students loved Keith Fink’s free-speech classes at UCLA. Other professors did not. By David French

By on July 6th, 2017

Last week the Chronicle of Higher Education wrote a lengthy report on the curious case of Keith Fink, a part-time lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles. UCLA refused to renew his contract, writing in a letter that his teaching did not “meet the standard of excellence.” Fink cried foul, arguing that his free-speech classes were popular with students and that he was really fired for his pointed criticisms of the university and his stalwart defense of free speech on campus.

And, in fact, he was popular. As the Chronicle notes, “Student evaluations of the free-speech course Mr. Fink taught this year . . . mostly paint a picture of Mr. Fink as an engaging teacher and his course as stimulating and interesting.” His faculty evaluators, however, believed that there was “more to it than what the students think.” They took issue with his Socratic method of teaching (common in law schools), believed that he pushed his own point of view too much, and raised concerns about the “climate” in the classroom.

As I read the story, I had an immediate sense of déjà vu. I’ve litigated cases like this before, I’ve evaluated cases like this before, and I’m familiar with the extraordinary double standards that define how academic freedom works in modern higher education. Perhaps UCLA is right. Perhaps it has even-handedly applied its alleged “incredibly high” standards and has fired popular left-wing lecturers in part because they’ve pushed their views too much on their students. Perhaps it routinely fires even popular teachers for poor teaching performance. In other words, perhaps it’s different from the vast majority of colleges and universities — schools that have consciously and unconsciously created entire systems of anti-conservative discrimination.

First, let’s discuss the challenge of even finding a job in higher education. It’s difficult enough for even well-qualified leftists, but often academic departments define academic positions in such a way that effectively excludes the conservative point of view. Look at this current job posting at Harvard’s divinity school. It’s for a tenure-track professor of “religion, violence, and peace-building.” There’s nothing inherently conservative or liberal about the topic. Indeed, it fascinates me, but hidden within the job description is this gem of a sentence:

It is understood that applicants will employ forms of analysis that address race, gender, sexuality, and/or other intersecting forms of social power, such as womanist, feminist, and/or queer approaches. [Emphasis added.]

Ahh yes, “intersectionality” rears its radical head. While this posting is extreme (though at an important institution), it perfectly illustrates a long-building phenomenon. Academics have redefined and refocused disciplines to such an extent that they essentially exclude conservative inquiry. Thus, they can honestly say they’ve never discussed politics in hiring decisions because the discipline itself has narrowed so much that it closes itself to conservatives.

Consider this statement, years ago, from the American Association of University Professors’ Roger Bowen. He was defending universities from the charge of ideological discrimination in hiring. First, he said this:

I’ve been a department chair, I’ve been a college president. I’ve conducted more searches than I can begin to describe, and I can tell you I have never asked a candidate what his or her party identification is, and I don’t know of a search committee in the country that would do that.

I’d agree with Bowen. In all my years representing conservative professors, I’ve never seen questions regarding party identification. But that’s a red herring. Search committees aren’t that blatant. They don’t have to be. Here’s the key quote:

Anthropologists — which apparently, according to the study, Democrats far outnumber Republicans [among anthropologists] — what do they do? Anthropologists, the discipline itself is focused on questioning religious and cultural myth, particularly myth that celebrates national, cultural or racial superiorities. That in many classrooms will be a shocker for a lot of students.

Sociologists tend to inquire on the origins of inequality as a source of alienation: new concepts to many college students that will seem, I imagine, given illustrations using the American example, rather shocking.

Political scientists, they focus on questions of legitimacy. . . .

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Fracking Industry Deserves Our Gratitude It has given America virtual energy independence, freeing it from the leverage of often hostile Middle East regimes. By Victor Davis Hanson —

By on July 6th, 2017

Less than ten years ago, America’s energy future looked bleak.

World oil prices in 2008 had spiked to more than $100 per barrel of crude.

“Peak oil” — the theory that the world had already extracted more crude oil than was still left in the ground — was America’s supposed bleak fate. Ten years ago, rising gas prices, spiraling trade deficits, and ongoing war in the oil-rich Middle East only underscored America’s precarious dependence on foreign sources of oil.

Despite news of a radically improved but relatively old technology called “fracking” — drilling into shale rock and injecting water, sand, and chemicals at high pressure to hydraulically “fracture” the rock and create seams from which petroleum and natural gas are released — few saw much hope.

In 2012, when gas prices were hitting $4 a gallon in some areas, President Obama admonished the country that we “can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices.” That was a putdown of former Alaska governor and vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s refrain “Drill, baby, drill.”

Obama barred new oil and gas permits on federal lands. Steven Chu, who would become secretary of energy in the Obama administration, had earlier mused that gas prices might ideally rise to European levels (about $10 a gallon), thereby forcing Americans to turn to expensive subsidized alternative green fuels.

But over the last five years, frackers have refined their craft on private properties, finding ever cheaper and more efficient ways to extract huge amounts of crude oil and natural gas from shale rock.

In 2017, despite millions of square miles being off limits to drillers, America is close to reaching 10 million barrels of crude-oil production per day, the highest level in the nation’s history. The U.S. may soon surpass Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest petroleum producer.

When American natural gas (about 20 percent of the world total) and coal (the largest reserves in the world) are factored into the fossil-fuel equation, the U.S. is already the largest producer of energy in the world.

While environmentalists worry about polluting the water table and heightening seismic activity through hydraulic fracturing, fracking seems to become more environmentally sensitive each year.

When OPEC and other overseas producers tried to bankrupt frackers by flooding the world with their supposedly more cheaply produced oil, the effort backfired. American entrepreneurs learned to frack oil and natural gas even more cheaply and undercut the foreign gambit. The result is a windfall for all sectors of the American economy.

From 2014 to 2016, fracking helped cut the price of gasoline by $1.50 a gallon, saving American drivers an average of more than $1,000 per year.

Due to the fracking of natural gas, the United States has reduced its carbon emissions by about 12 percent over the last decade (according to the Energy Information Administration) — at a far greater rate than the environmentally conscious European Union.

Fracking and cheaper gas are allowing a critical breathing space for strapped American consumers, as alternative energy production and transportation slowly become more efficient and competitive.

Fracking has created a national savings of about 5 million barrels of imported oil per day over the last decade. That translates to roughly $100 billion in annual savings by avoiding foreign oil.

Fracking has allowed the U.S. to enjoy some of the lowest electricity rates and gas prices in the industrial world. The result is that cheap energy costs are luring all sorts of energy-intensive industries — from aluminum to plastics to fertilizers — back to the United States, with the potential of creating millions of new, high-paying jobs.

Fracking has given America virtual energy independence, freeing it from the leverage of unstable and often hostile Middle East regimes. The result is less need to interfere in the chronic squabbling in the oil-rich but unstable Persian Gulf.

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MEDIA, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Gangsta News Network Trump-deranged CNN extorts online satirist for making fun of it. Matthew Vadum

By on July 6th, 2017

CNN’s case of Trump Derangement Syndrome has become so monstrously acute the network is now hunting down and extorting those who mock it online.

And if there is one thing mendacious, entitled, left-wing journalists hate, it’s being ridiculed in public. So the network, whose anti-Trump stories outdo even the Soviet echo chamber that is MSNBC, threatened to “dox” the mocker. “Doxing” is putting a person’s private information such as a home address, telephone number, or Social Security Number online for the world to see.

This, the latest in a long line of CNN intrigues, began Sunday when President Trump tweeted a modified 10-year-old video of his guest-star appearance at a wrestling match. What apparently earned CNN’s ire was the fact that its corporate logo was superimposed over the face of the person Trump is shown pretending to rough up. After Trump finishes with “CNN,” a graphic for a made-up “FNN: Fraud News Network” is conspicuously displayed.

CNN’s KFile investigative squad, run by world-class sleaze and character assassin Andrew Kaczynski, then claimed to have found the Reddit user who created the now-wildly popular animated meme – in Internet parlance, a GIF file – showing a hands-on Trump making America great again by putting the hurt on the Atlanta-based fake news network whose singular mission at the moment is to take down the nation’s democratically-elected 45th president.

CNN’s Kaczynski declared the network would not reveal the true identity of Reddit user, HannAssholeSolo, who generated the meme, “because he is a private citizen who has issued an extensive statement of apology, showed his remorse by saying he has taken down all his offending posts, and because he said he is not going to repeat this ugly behavior on social media again.”

But then Kaczynski offered what certainly seems like prima facie evidence of extortion against the Reddit user: “CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change.”

Later the network added this lame explanation to the public record:

CNN decided not to publish the name of the Reddit user out of concern for his safety. Any assertion that the network blackmailed or coerced him is false. The user, who is an adult male, not a 15-year-old boy, apologized and deleted his account before ever speaking with our reporter. CNN never made any deal, of any kind, with the user. In fact, CNN included its decision to withhold the user’s identity in an effort to be completely transparent that there was no deal.

Sometimes CNN and Kaczynski don’t know when to stop digging.

“It’s unclear what the person did that would necessitate an apology or why the GIF constitutes ‘ugly behavior, but in any case CNN threatened “to publish his identity should any of that change,” Mark Tapson writes. “Now #CNNBlackmail is a top trend on Twitter.”

CNN’s actions are clearly grossly unethical and, as suggested above, are likely criminal.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) wrote that the media outlet’s behavior was “[t]roubling.”

“I assume CNN’s lawyers are examining GA § 16-8-16 Theft by extortion. If CNN constructively obtained the gif-maker’s IP… it’s a GA crime if they threatened to ‘Disseminate any information tending to subject any person to hatred, contempt, or ridicule….’” he wrote.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The New Left’s Fake Patriotism You can’t hate America and be a patriot. Daniel Greenfield

By on July 6th, 2017

If anyone doubts that patriotism really is the last refuge of a scoundrel, a recent CNN article boasts that liberals are reclaiming patriotism. After going through their musty attics, tossing aside copies of Howard Zinn’s revisionist Marxist history of America and all the “U.S. Out of Everywhere” buttons, they found their patriotism, moth-eaten, covered in dust and a little worse for the wear. But otherwise intact.

That’s right, progressives are patriotic again. Again refers to the brief period between the end of the Hitler-Stalin pact when the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union necessitated a sudden outburst of pro-war sentiment and the beginning of the Cold War when the Communists became the enemy again.

When the left acts as if WW2 was the only good war, it’s because it was the only war that didn’t force them to choose between their sympathies for Communism and their United States citizenship.

Every time they did have to make that choice, history records their duplicity and sordid treason.

The new left-wing patriotism doesn’t consist of actually loving this country. Or discarding their conviction that America is the worst thing that ever happened to this continent and this planet.

Instead, conveniently, the new patriotism consists of hating President Trump.

When Hillary’s people decided to shift the blame for losing the election from their unlikable candidate, their incompetent campaign operation and the good sense of the voters to a vast Russian conspiracy, the left became patriotic. And by “patriotic”, they mean blaming the results of an election on Russia.

It’s not that the left actually hates Russia. Before Hillary decided to blame the Russians for her own unlikability, she was mugging for the camera with one of Putin’s henchmen and wielding a misspelled Reset Button.

Why a reset button?

Back then the born-again patriots of the left had accused President Bush of alienating Russia (and the rest of the world) with his cowboy diplomacy. Obama and his team of sensitive diplomats would replace cowboy diplomacy with cowardly diplomacy. That was why Hillary’s people pried a swimming pool button out of a pool so she could show off the new “Reset” with Russia. It was why Obama sold out traditional allies to appease Putin. It was why he was caught on a hot mic telling another of Putin’s people that he would have more flexibility to appease him after the election.

All this has been forgotten in a rush of revisionist patriotism. Traitors now masquerade as patriots. Last year’s appeasers now stick out their chests and act as if they’re Ronald Reagan, not Jimmy Carter.

Don’t expect it to last. If you doubt that, Al Gore once attacked Bush for being soft on Saddam.

As tensions with Russia grow over Syria, the born-again patriots will be reborn as appeasers. The next Democrat will run for the White House promising to restore our relationship with Russia. And he’ll blame President Trump for ruining our previously congenial relations with cowboy diplomacy.

History will once again be rewritten. Russia was always our friend. Lefties were always advocates of diplomatic relations and opponents of wars. But we will have always been at war with Eastasia.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Germany’s Quest for ‘Liberal’ Islam by Vijeta Uniyal

By on July 6th, 2017

However, the media-driven PR campaign backfired as the news of the opening of the Berlin ‘liberal mosque’ reached Muslim communities in Germany and abroad. The liberal utopian dream quickly turned into an Islamist nightmare.

Why do Muslim organizations in Germany fail to mobilize within their communities and denounce Islamist terrorism? Because, if there really is a belief that “international terrorism should not be depicted as a problem belonging to Muslims alone” this view seems to indicate that, in general, Muslims do not see it as their problem.

The newly unveiled ‘liberal mosque’ in Berlin was supposed to showcase a ‘gentler’ Islam. An Islam that could be reformed and modernized while it emerges as the dominant demographic force in Europe. German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle touted the opening of the mosque as a “world event in the heart of Berlin.”

“Everyone is welcome at Berlin’s Ibn Rushd-Goethe Mosque,” Deutsche Welle wrote, announcing the grand opening last month. “Women and men shall pray together and preach together at the mosque, while the Koran is to be interpreted ‘historically and critically.'”

German reporters and press photographers, eager to give glowing coverage, thronged to witness the mosque’s opening on July 16 and easily outnumbered the handful of Muslim worshipers. Deutsche Welle reported: “fervent enthusiasm in the media and political realm.”

“For me there is no contradiction in being a Muslim and a feminist at the same time,” Seyran Ates, the mosque’s female imam told the German reporters.

“With Islam against Islamism,” wrote Germany’s leading weekly Der Spiegel. “Society in general will lionize [Imam Ates] as the long-awaited voice of Muslims that speaks clearly against Islamist terror,” prophesied another German weekly, Die Zeit.

The Washington Post, not to be outdone by German newspapers, hailed the mosque’s female founder Ates for “staging a feminist revolution of the Muslim faith.”

In what can only be described as one-way multiculturalism, a Protestant church in Berlin’s Moabit district had vacated its prayer hall to make way for this new mosque.

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Will El País Stop Its “Spanish Inquisition”? by Masha Gabriel

By on July 6th, 2017

The paper’s opinion section has grown increasingly slanted, with more and more pieces penned by members of blatantly anti-Israel organizations, falsely presented as neutral observers of the conflict.

In spite of numerous pleas to El País, it is only on rare occasions that it has issued corrections to its repeated factual errors and lack of historical context. This indicates that it is not oversight at work, but rather a purposeful effort to defame and delegitimize the Jewish state — in other words, anti-Semitism.

Over the past year, Spain’s flagship newspaper, El País, has reemerged as the anti-Israel publication that it used to be. Until 2009, when it changed its approach to coverage of the Middle East, El País was so openly hostile to the Jewish state that 14 members of the U.S. Congress sent a letter to then-Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, to express concern over the systematic publication of “articles and cartoons conveying crude anti-Semitic canards and stereotypes” in the pages of El País.

That year, the paper began to present a more balanced view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and even ceased the practice of referring to Tel Aviv — rather than Jerusalem — as the Israeli capital. It continued in this vein for the next seven years.

In 2016, however, El País reverted to its old ways, as the following three examples illustrate:

Leila Khaled, a member of the terrorist organization the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) – notorious for taking part in the August 29, 1969 hijacking of TWA Flight 840 on its way from Rome to Tel Aviv, and in the September 6, 1970 attempted hijacking of El Al Flight 219 from Amsterdam to New York – was described by El País as someone who came from “a traumatic life experience: the occupation, which, when she was a child in 1948 [the establishment of the state of Israel], expelled her and her family from Haifa,” along with “millions of refugees who were forced to leave their homes.”

Ismail Haniyeh, a senior official of Hamas, the terrorist organization that controls the Gaza Strip, was referred to by El País as “moderate” and “pragmatic,” while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was described by the paper as the leader of a “radical” and “extremist” government.

It also claimed that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “derives from the occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank” and “subsequent blockade of the Gaza Strip,” and that since the Six-Day War in 1967, “Israel hasn’t stopped colonizing.”

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Maduro Goons Storm Venezuela’s Congress By Rick Moran

By on July 6th, 2017

While Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was reviewing troops in a parade celebrating the country’s independence from Spain, pro-government demonstrators invaded the National Assembly and attacked several lawmakers with wooden sticks.

The attack took place in full view of national guardsmen assigned to protect the National Assembly.

Fox News reports:

Pro-government militias wielding wooden sticks and metal bars stormed congress on Wednesday and began attacking opposition lawmakers during a special session coinciding with Venezuela’s independence day.

Four lawmakers were injured. One of them, Americo de Grazia, had to be taken in a stretcher to an ambulance suffering from convulsions, said a fellow congressman.

“This doesn’t hurt as much as watching how every day how we lose a little bit more of our country,” Armando Arias said from inside an ambulance as he was being treated for head wounds that spilled blood across his clothes.

The attack, in plain view of national guardsmen assigned to protect the legislature, comes amid three months of often-violent confrontations between security forces and protesters who accuse the government of trying to establish a dictatorship by jailing foes, pushing aside the opposition-controlled legislature and rewriting the constitution to avoid fair elections.

Tensions were already high after Vice President Tareck El Aissami made an unannounced morning visit to the neoclassical legislature, accompanied by top government and military officials, for an event celebrating independence day.

Standing next to a display case holding Venezuela’s declaration of independence from Spain, he said global powers are once again trying to subjugate Venezuela.

“We still haven’t finished definitively breaking the chains of the empire,” El Aissami said, adding that President Nicolas Maduro’s plans to rewrite the constitution — a move the opposition sees as a power-grab — offers Venezuela the best chance to be truly independent.

After he left, dozens of government supporters set up a picket outside the building, heckling lawmakers with menacing chants and eventually invading the legislature themselves.

These aren’t your average pro-government supporters. They are paid goons, armed by the government. It’s their job to break up opposition protests.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

ISIS Video Shows French, Russian Kids Beheading Prisoners By Bridget Johnson

By on July 6th, 2017

ISIS released a new video on the Fourth of July using child foreign fighters to behead prisoners and threaten the United States, Europe and Russia while recruiting Muslims in these locations to jihad.

The 14-minute video, “They Left Their Beds Empty,” was issued out of ISIS’ Jazirah province, which includes Tal Afar and other areas west of Mosul that are next on the Iraqi army’s liberation list.

An Iraqi commander estimated today that there are just 300 ISIS fighters left holed up in the old city of west Mosul. Iraqi News reported Tuesday that ISIS killed 200 Turkmen, including women and children, in Tal Afar for trying to flee, and murdered the last local leader of the city.

The new video opens with an image of the Paris cityscape with flames video-edited onto a handful of structures including the Eiffel Tower.

In addition to showing a number of stylized battle scenes from ISIS trying to hold on to their caliphate territory, the video includes footage from a number of past ISIS strikes including the December Berlin Christmas market attack, the May Manchester concert attack, and the November 2015 Paris attacks.

The video also shows a copy of the December Europol report “Changes in Modus Operandi of Islamic State (IS) Revisited.” ISIS highlights the “trends in terrorism” section: “Currently the EU is facing a range of terrorist threats and attacks: from networked groups to lone actors; attacks directed by IS and those inspired by IS; the use of explosives and automatic rifles as well as bladed weapons and vehicles; and carefully prepared attacks alongside those that seem to be carried out spontaneously. EU Member States that participate in the anti-IS coalition are regarded by IS as legitimate targets. France remains high on the target list for IS aggression in the EU, but so too do Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom.”

One boy identified by his nom de guerre as a Turk threatens America while loading and firing a rocket. Another young teen identified as a Turkman calls out “hey America” before giving a speech and beheading a kneeling prisoner in front of him. The child walks away from the hill carrying the victim’s head.
(ISIS video)

A younger boy about 10 or 11 years old identified as French kicks a handcuffed prisoner into the dirt along a tree-lined path and tries to pull off the victim’s head when he’s unable to cut all the way through. He, too, eventually walks away with the head.

Another beheader identified as Turkish appears to be about 12 or 13 years old, while the last killer is a Russian boy about the same age who cuts off a man’s head in a building hallway. The ISIS video plays a Russian-language nasheed for the final murder, continuing as the boy walks away holding the severed head under the chin.

At the end, the boys line up with the heads of their victims at their feet, while an adult Turkish ISIS member speaks before shooting a prisoner tied to a tree.
(ISIS video)

The video concludes with a call to jihadists in America, Russia and Europe from ISIS spokesman Abul-Hasan Al-Muhajir, suspected to be Texan John Georgelas. CONTINUE AT SITE

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Peter Smith Secularism and Societal Suicide

By on July 6th, 2017

The Secular Party is unlikely to be a major player in upcoming elections, representing the monocular obsession of a cranky minority fixated on erasing the influence of religion in public life. Small it may be, but also useful as a reminder of the need to be very careful when making a wish.

Into my hands last week came a press release from the Secular Party of Australia. I hadn’t heard of them before, but that is by the way. The release was prompted by publication of 2016 census data showing a decline in religiosity. Grist for the Secular Party’s mill, indeed it was. For the moment, I want to leave aside the misconceived triumphalism evident in the release. I will come back to it. When I do, the old adage, ‘be careful what you wish for’ underscores my cautionary pointer to the Secular Party.

We are told that the “party intends to build support over the coming years to be ready at the next elections in 2018/19 as a viable alternative to the major parties.” According party president John Perkins, the Secular Party stands for the separation of church from state. He goes on:

Because the Liberal and Labor parties are restricted by their fear of religious voter backlash they are both hamstrung in dealing with straightforward solutions wanted by the majority of ordinary Australians…We can make marriage equality real. We can introduce assisted suicide under conditions which have proved successful in enlightened counties. We can eliminate funding to all religious schools. As champions of human rights, we want women, minorities and the LGBTI community to be free of discrimination and the dictates of archaic superstition.

I am secular. Christ was secular. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. I believe in a separation of church from state; that parliament has the sole role in making laws. Yet I doubt I would find a happy home as a conservative Christian in the Secular Party. Clearly, the Party has a progressive social agenda. Its membership, I would guess, is comprised mainly or wholly of atheists, as distinct from secularists. That’s fine, but why not call themselves something like the Socially Progressive Atheist Party? That way no one would be misled.

I looked at four of their policies: on Economics, Immigration, Education, and the Environment. They are a mixture of barely okay to bad. But that is my view. You’d have to read them. I will give you just a flavour.

On economics, they attribute our history of increasing prosperity to the “humanist phenomenon” of technical progress and commercial innovation, which they want to support. That’s fine as far as it goes but they rule out exploitative capitalism, monopoly power or religion as having played any role. In fact, however, economic progress is built on an exploitative pursuit of monopoly profits. Why else would people put their capital at risk?

Moreover, for capitalism to flourish in the first place a supportive culture is required which protects property rights, which rewards merit, which disdains nepotism and cronyism, which engenders trust, and which values individual worth. That is why capitalism flourished in Christian nations and floundered elsewhere.

Culture is almost everything. Humanism? Give me a break. The Party believes that the key to eliminating world poverty is international cooperation and goodwill which would be helped by promoting secular values. Venezuela and Cuba have secular values. The only way bring nations out of poverty is to encourage them to adopt values throughout their societies which, at their core, are Christian values.

It is no surprise that the Party’s agenda more or less mirrors Tim Flannery’s when it comes to the environment. Global warming is recognised as a “dire threat to global civilisation.” So they advocate an international coal export tax and the use of all forms of low-carbon energy. Mind you, they include nuclear to deal themselves partially into the rational world, as against the Greens. How Australia manages to stay competitive in this brave new energy world is not addressed, so far as I can see.

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