RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2019-12-31-2019-was-another-one-of-those-years-for-the-experts

“Anyway, I plan to continue in 2020 paying no attention whatsoever to the predictions of the so-called “experts,” most particularly on issues relating to the climate and the economy. Other, of course, than making fun of them from time to time. Happy New Year!”

Woodrow Wilson was the President who began the transformation of the U.S. federal government into a collection of huge bureaucracies staffed by supposedly neutral and apolitical “experts” who could run things so much better than we ordinary humans could. A hundred plus years into this, we now have dozens of massive bureaucracies staffed by these so-called “experts.”

President Trump appears to have a somewhat different view. The New York Times of December 28 has a piece by Brad Plumer and Coral Davenport that addresses how one particular group of these so-called “experts” — scientific ones — is faring under Trump. The headline is “Science Under Attack: How Trump Is Sidelining Researchers and Their Work.” Excerpt:

In just three years, the Trump administration has diminished the role of science in federal policymaking while halting or disrupting research projects nationwide, marking a transformation of the federal government whose effects, experts say, could reverberate for years. Political appointees have shut down government studies, reduced the influence of scientists over regulatory decisions and in some cases pressured researchers not to speak publicly. The administration has particularly challenged scientific findings related to the environment and public health opposed by industries such as oil drilling and coal mining. It has also impeded research around human-caused climate change, which President Trump has dismissed despite a global scientific consensus.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/01/moral-status-islam-united-states-jason-d-hill/

Several months ago, Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán and Canada’s leading intellectual Jordan Peterson met to lambast illegal immigration and political correctness, which they believe make sensible public discussions impossible. Peterson also made a noteworthy claim worth thinking about. He said Islam is not compatible with democracy and that this issue has been barred from public discussion.

A chief spokesperson for the Nation of Islam, Ava Muhammad, has officially gone on record disparaging Jews by stating that Jews are “godless… blood-sucking parasites [that] sell us alcohol, drugs, depraved sex, and every other type of low-life thing.”

A statement like Ava Muhammad’s above is a grave reminder to us that Peterson is correct. Islam is not only incompatible with democracy — it is inimical to America’s fundamental values and principles.  More important, it is in violation of the United States Constitution. It is time for the United States to face the truth about a moral and political ideology whose stated goal is the abolition of our political system.

When we examine the application of Sharia law in the West, most particularly in Europe, where it is gaining ascendancy, people will come to see a few fundamental tenets about Islam. Its foundation and governing principle is that Sharia law regulates the personal and public behavior of all Muslims and non-Muslims under its governance. When we think of Islam mainly as a religion, we cannot disambiguate it from Sharia law, which, when examined, allows us to see that the legal, cultural and political aspects of the religion supersede the purely private religious aspects of it. World Islam has become, above all, a political ideology.

Sharia law is a weaponized political tool supervening the public sphere that violates every sacred tenet of American life.

The institution of slavery remains lawful under Sharia law. Those who repudiate their faith in Islam directly or indirectly are guilty of capital offenses. It therefore conflicts with our constitutional human right of freedom of conscience and religion. The Sharia law of apostasy restricts other human rights, such as freedom of expression and association. Sharia law does not guarantee equal rights for men and women.

This past April, the nation of Brunei, in a four-page document addressed to the European Parliament, defended its new sharia law implementation by insisting that stoning to death for adultery and extramarital sex, amputation for offenses such as sodomy and theft, and the death penalty for homosexuality be regarded as permissible because these come from Allah.

In 2011, a Muslim group in Denmark in a “Call to Islam” campaigned vigorously in parts of Copenhagen and other Danish cities into “Sharia Law Zones” that would function as autonomous “enclaves” ruled by Islamic law. The agenda was to make parts of Copenhagen and other Danish cities into “Sharia Law Zones” that would function as autonomous “enclaves” ruled by Islamic law. Salafism, a sect within Islam, calls for the destruction of Western democracy and demands that it be replaced by a universal Islamic caliphate and worldwide Islamic theocracy ruled by Islamic law. So does the charter of Hamas. The statement referred to man-made laws and rules as obstacles to be destroyed by all Muslims and exhorted Muslims to rid the world of the great evil of democracy. Islamic courts are also operating in many of Germany’s big cities. In Britain, a Muslim group called “Muslims against the Crusades” has called for the application of Sharia and championed turning twelve cities, including a renamed London called “Londonistan,” into independent Islamic states. Ruled by Sharia law, the states within Britain would operate completely outside British jurisprudence.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/12/29/the-head-scratching-insanity-of-todays-left-wing-mob/

Far too many of us are dismissed, or even disdained, for having logical minds, rejecting junk science, and having a semblance of intellectual honesty because those things do not fit the dogma of the progressives and the pecuniary interests of their boosters.

As I listen to and observe various news stories (that I assume are accurate) lately, I wonder whether I have gone mad. My misfortune seems to be that I am rational, reasoning, reflective, and as much as possible intellectually honest, which seems to pass as a mental disorder—or, at least, a rare anomaly—these days.

I read that Jussie Smollett’s fairy godmother, Cook County state’s attorney Kim Foxx, has declared that her office will not prosecute as a felony shoplifting valued at less than $1,000 in goods. Doesn’t that mean that shoplifters can just make multiple trips and wink at the store security staff on the way out? Since when did shoplifting become a lucrative job with minimal risk?

Where is the outrage? What am I missing?

Then I try to follow the entire impeachment exercise and really scratch my head. The only actual facts seem to be that lethal military aid to Ukraine, which was withheld completely during the Obama years, was delayed by a few weeks this summer; that President Trump mentioned a desire to see Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, investigated to determine if corruption was involved in Hunter’s inexplicable (other than influence peddling) job at Burisma; and that the aid flowed and the investigation never happened. Records of all the actual communications with Ukraine seem to be available.

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/HksD7TBkU

Police in the town of Monsey, where the attack occurred, say they apprehended the suspected attacker; Jewish organization tweets images of large emergency response near a house of a Hasidic rabbi, next door to a synagogue.

A man attacked a Hanukkah celebration at a rabbi’s home north of New York City late Saturday, stabbing and wounding at least five people with a large knife or a machete before fleeing in a vehicle, police said.

Although police said the extent of the injuries was unclear, sources told The New York Post that at least one victim was in a critical condition. Between 50 and 100 people were reportedly inside the house when the attack occurred.
According to the report in the Post, the attacker slashed five people inside the rabbi’s house and attempted to enter a local temple, but failed to gain access. The rabbi’s home is next door to the synagogue.

https://www.ynetnews.com
From parliaments to campuses, verbal and physical assaults on Jews are increasing, showing that ‘The Longest Hatred,’ deemed taboo for much of the second half of the 20th century, is once again being mainstreamed and normalized
The Simon Wiesenthal Center this week released its annual list of Top Ten Worst Anti-Semitic & Anti-Israel Incidents at a press conference in New York.
The index comes amid an upsurge in violent anti-Semitic attacks throughout the globe, including in the United States, long considered the foremost safe haven for Jews.
When factoring in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, a trend seemingly emerges: “The Longest Hatred” that for much of the second half of the 20th century was deemed taboo and therefore suppressed, is once again in the process of being mainstreamed and normalized.
“The bottom line is that it was a terrible year, by virtue of the fact that Jewish houses of worship have been targeted with murderous actions,” says Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean, Director Global Social Action Agenda at the Wiesenthal Center.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/27/opinion/jewish-culture-genius-iq.html

An eminent Lithuanian rabbi is annoyed that his yeshiva students devote their lunch breaks to playing soccer instead of discussing Torah. The students, intent on convincing their rav of the game’s beauty, invite him to watch a professional match. At halftime, they ask what he thinks.

“I have solved your problem,” the rabbi says.

“How?”

“Give one ball to each side, and they will have nothing to fight over.”

I have this (apocryphal) anecdote from Norman Lebrecht’s new book, “Genius & Anxiety,” an erudite and delightful study of the intellectual achievements and nerve-wracked lives of Jewish thinkers, artists, and entrepreneurs between 1847 and 1947. Sarah Bernhardt and Franz Kafka; Albert Einstein and Rosalind Franklin; Benjamin Disraeli and (sigh) Karl Marx — how is it that a people who never amounted even to one-third of 1 percent of the world’s population contributed so seminally to so many of its most pathbreaking ideas and innovations?

The common answer is that Jews are, or tend to be, smart. When it comes to Ashkenazi Jews, it’s true. “Ashkenazi Jews have the highest average I.Q. of any ethnic group for which there are reliable data,” noted one 2005 paper. “During the 20th century, they made up about 3 percent of the U.S. population but won 27 percent of the U.S. Nobel science prizes and 25 percent of the ACM Turing awards. They account for more than half of world chess champions.”

But the “Jews are smart” explanation obscures more than it illuminates. Aside from the perennial nature-or-nurture question of why so many Ashkenazi Jews have higher I.Q.s, there is the more difficult question of why that intelligence was so often matched by such bracing originality and high-minded purpose. One can apply a prodigious intellect in the service of prosaic things — formulating a war plan, for instance, or constructing a ship. One can also apply brilliance in the service of a mistake or a crime, like managing a planned economy or robbing a bank.

But as the story of the Lithuanian rabbi suggests, Jewish genius operates differently. It is prone to question the premise and rethink the concept; to ask why (or why not?) as often as how; to see the absurd in the mundane and the sublime in the absurd. Ashkenazi Jews might have a marginal advantage over their gentile peers when it comes to thinking better. Where their advantage more often lies is in thinking different.

Where do these habits of mind come from?

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-populist-decade/

History doesn’t follow a schedule. The events that define an era often happen before or after the onset of a new decade. It’s been said that the Sixties didn’t begin on January 1, 1960, but on November 22, 1963, the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated. They didn’t end on January 1, 1970, but on August 9, 1974, when Richard Nixon resigned as president.

Keep this in mind as you look at retrospectives of the 2010s. The calendar decade may be drawing to a close, but the tendencies, ideas, movements, sentiments, and personalities associated with the past 10 years may not be quite ready to leave the stage. The underlying causes of national populism have not disappeared. Our times continue to be shaped by immigration, terrorism, and the cultural distance between voters without college degrees and the credentialed elites who govern them. It would be a mistake to follow the advice of the Bloomberg editor who wrote in a recent headline, “Populism Will Probably Just Go Away Soon, So Relax.” On the contrary: The populist epoch may be only beginning.

To say that the ’10s began with the collapse of Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008, doesn’t tell the whole story. The first shoots of national populism were visible by the time of the Wall Street panic. In 2005, the Dutch and French both voted against a proposed European Constitution in an expression of discontent with the EU. In 2006, massive rallies of immigrants to the United States, some waving the flags of their countries of origin, sparked a backlash against proposed immigration reform. That was also the year that Congress, against the wishes of the Bush administration, blocked a proposal to transfer management of six American ports to a company in Dubai. And on August 29, 2008, John McCain announced that Sarah Palin would be his running mate.

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/67587-socialisms-cyclical-appeal-2019-12-26

Like swallows returning to Capistrano, socialism makes an appearance on a regular cycle.

The current presidential campaign features self-confessed socialist Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who doesn’t self-describe as a socialist, but whose policies closely resemble those of Sanders.

Sanders has the luxury of condemning millionaires and billionaires from his comfortable life as a multi-millionaire. As Forbes magazine has reported, “Sanders … has amassed an estimated $2.5 million fortune from real estate, investments, government pensions — and earnings from three books.” Sanders is also quoted, “I wrote a bestselling book. If you write a bestselling book, you can be a millionaire, too.”

Sanders appears to favor capitalism for himself, but he’s against it for everyone else.

Socialism is a false doctrine. It sells itself to new generations who know little about it. They promote it by promising “free stuff,” along with envy of the successful.

Why does socialism continue to have appeal in America? Part of the reason is adherents claim it is fairer than capitalism. It isn’t fair, socialists say, that some people make more money than others.

Socialism and its twin sister liberalism have always been about feelings, rather than outcome. That so many liberal programs have failed to achieve stated objectives does not matter to the left. Apparently, it is intent, not success, that counts. When liberals or socialists fail, they simply go on to new errors.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/give-dont-govern/

Big hearts are a good thing. Big government is no substitute for them.

This week, children may learn about that greedy man, Ebenezer Scrooge. Scrooge is selfish until ghosts scare him into thinking about others’ well-being, not just his own.

Good for the ghosts.

But the way Scrooge addresses others’ needs matters.

Today’s advocates of equality, compassion, increased spending on education, health care, etc., say “we care” but demand that government do the work.

Controlling other people with the power of government doesn’t prove you care.

If you want to help the poor, clean the environment, improve the arts. Great! Please do.

But if you are compassionate, then you’ll spend your own money on your vision. You will volunteer your work and encourage others to volunteer theirs, by charity or commerce. You don’t force others to do what you think is best.

But government is not voluntary.

Government has no money of its own. Whatever it gives away, it first must take from others through taxes.

If you vote for redistribution of wealth, welfare benefits, new Medicare spending or free education, you can tell yourself you’re “generous.”