Category: ideological culture

Categories
ideological culture media and media people too much government

Musk’s Alternative for Germany

Germany, Democracy, far right, extremist, Elon Musk

“Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk caused uproar after backing Germany’s far-​right party in a major newspaper ahead of key parliamentary elections in the Western European country,” ABC News tells us, “leading to the resignation of the paper’s opinion editor in protest.”

Germany’s three-​party coalition government, led by “center-​left” Chancellor Olof Scholz, fell apart when he fired the “pro-​business” party’s biggest name in the government, Finance Minister Christian Lindner.

Musk wrote a piece for Welt am Sonntag in which he expressed his support for Alternative für Deutschland, which is considered “far-​right” for opposing Die Grünen, the (“pro-​business”) Freie Demokratische Partei, and Scholz’s own Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands. “The Alternative for Germany (AfD) is the last spark of hope for this country,” asserted Musk*. 

“The Tesla Motors CEO also wrote,” explains ABC, “that his investment in Germany gave him the right to comment on the country’s condition.”

Musk must mean “a right” as in manners, not in law. In a free country, anyone has a legal right to speak up and comment on government.

But what is the significance of the editor who quit? She has every right to work only with news outfits that marginalize the AfD as promoters of “anti-​democratic” ideas. Hers is a matter of strategy: shunning, marginalization — no-​debate/​no-​cooperate — are what she thinks journalists must marshal against the “far right.” 

This journalist’s political tactic mirrors Germany’s practiced politics. ABC News explains that the AfD’s polling strength doesn’t much help its candidate, Alice Weidel, to “becom[e] chancellor because other parties refuse to work with the far-​right party.”

The non-​cooperation strategy goes full anti-​democratic when election results are suppressed. In Romania, for example, elections have basically been overturned because of how “far-​right” they are.

All very anti-​democratic, these “democrats.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* To be clear, his piece was published in German, of course, and above I’m quoting the English translation.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with Flux and Firefly

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
ideological culture media and media people

DEI Realities Unreported

DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion

The high tide of DEI policies — which reward racial affiliation, gender affiliation or gender wishing, group-​think, and group-​wackiness at the expense of sanity and individual merit — seems to be starting to recede. 

But we’re not on safe ground yet. One example of rearguard action by the proponents of these lunacies is the willingness of major publications to hide evidence of harm caused by DEI.

Colin Wright reports that both The New York Times and Bloomberg have “shelved coverage of a groundbreaking study that raises serious concerns about the psychological impacts of diversity, equity, and inclusion pedagogy.”

The Network Contagion Research Institute finds that DEI ideology incites hostility (between members of favored and disfavored groups, you see) and authoritarianism (by bullies eager for new weapons to intimidate and control others).

When presented with various scenarios, participants in the study who had first been exposed to DEI propaganda were much more likely than participants who hadn’t been thus exposed to impute racism to agents in the scenario — even when no evidence to justify the accusation was also presented in the scenario.

Wright suggests that at both the Times and Bloomberg, reports-​in-​progress about the research were killed outright by editors whose decisions to spike the story “align conspicuously with the ideological leanings” of those editors.

NCRI’s work confirms what we know about the dishonesty, injustice, and destructiveness of the DEI enterprise. 

As does the conduct of certain gatekeepers.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with Flux-​Realtime/​Firefly

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
ideological culture media and media people partisanship

Not Now

Legacy Media, democracy, Trump

“Reconsider Any Belief In Innate American Goodness,” Ken White advises at the Popehat Report. “A country that votes for Trump is broken in very complicated and daunting ways,” informs the attorney and podcaster.

“Fuck Civility,” he declares, and for good measure, “Stay Tuned For Violence.”

They do sorta go together, eh?

“Debate is preferable,” he notes for the record, “[b]ut most Americans would agree with what Thomas Jefferson said about the blood of patriots and tyrants. At some point violence is morally justified and even necessary. Americans will disagree on when.”

Though, let’s all agree, not now.

My thinking the day after takes a different route. 

First, the lawfare unleashed on Mr. Trump helped him more than it hurt. A majority of the public did not suddenly become enamored with the idea of 34 felony convictions but stuck by the former president, now president-​elect, because of their contempt for the New York Attorney General and the U.S. Department of Justice, seen as rogue players in partisan politics. 

America had come to look like Egypt.

Second, the establishment media’s years-​long campaign against Trump, hyperbolic and often dishonest (see Charlottesville narrative) failed miserably. Arguably, like lawfare, it was counterproductive.

“Americans don’t trust the news media,” asserted Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, explaining his paper’s 2024 A.D. non-​endorsement for president. 

In the aftermath of Mr. Trump being declared the winner, Matt Walsh offered on X: “Legacy media is officially dead.”

Not dead. Just in need of rebirth. Like Democratic Party leaders, news media professionals face a choice, either (a) blame the public for not being more appreciative or (b) reflect upon its own principles and performance.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with Grok and Firefly

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
ideological culture Voting

Don’t Kill Yourself

democracy, peace, freedom, elections, voting, propaganda, hysteria

As Donald Trump appeared to be winning last night, the number of Twitterers who proclaimed a hankering or a design to kill themselves rose dramatically. Michael Malice and others found humor in it, but it’s a super-​saddening development, if you ask me.

These Kamala Harris voters are not really going to kill themselves. It is just something to say on Twitter.

I really hope I’m not wrong about this.

I’ll leave to others the counsel of life. That is the job of friends and family and emergency hotline dispatchers. My counsel is different: talking about suicide because your candidate lost is undemocratic. If the authoritarian pronouncements of both major candidates alarmed you about the danger of anti-​democratic trend, this fad should raise the alarm several decibels.

The whole point of democracy is to allow a transition of power sans bloodshed. And that requires both contenders and supporters not to shed each other’s blood … or their own. When they fail.

It’s a requirement. Not to over-react.

The losers have to accept the loss, and the winners have to refrain from using the state to punish the losers further. 

It’s sort of that simple.

Resignation is key, as scientist Lawrence M. Krauss (@LKrauss1) indicated: “Going to bed, reasonably resigned to Trump win at this point as it seemed to me from a distance for some time. He may be a nut, a liar, and a crook, but the bright side is a likely boost free speech and due process at unis and bump in tech sector, if we survive the rest.”

We will survive. If Trump wins the Electoral Vote (I’m going to bed, too, before a final determination), or if Harris does.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with Midjourney

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
education and schooling general freedom ideological culture

Nondiscrimination as Discriminatory 

DEI, diversity, quotas, race, racism, regulations, education

Two parts gall, three parts random irrationality; eye of newt, toe of frog. 

That’s how you cook up the latest leftist madness.

According to the wizards running Columbia University, deliberately race-​neutral policies are discriminatory if they have a “disproportionate impact.”

Columbia has updated its antidiscrimination policy about bad things you can do on campus that might get you investigated and sanctioned. The revised policy declares that one bad thing is “having a neutral policy or practice that has a disproportionate and unjustified adverse impact on actual and/​or perceived members or associates of one Protected Class more than others.” 

This, the policy asserts, “constitutes Discrimination” — with a capital D.

Those “protected classes” make up a formidable list. If the idea is that treating another person abusively subjects one to penalties, why not just say this? Then no groups need be listed.

But Columbia University seems to find focusing on discriminatory nondiscrimination a more productive way to spend its time than coping with unambiguous racial and ethnic hatred on campus.

Columbia is among the schools that has responded to vicious harassment of Jewish students with little more than pro forma protest. Even as a Columbia representative tells USA Today that “calls for violence have no place at Columbia,” anti-​Israel and anti-​Jewish students keep calling for violence. Will they be kicked out?

Eliana Goldin, a Jewish student at the school, says that the administration is well aware of “the credible threat to Jewish students, and they’re still playing both-sideism.”

Which strikes me as Discrimination with a Capital D.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with PicFinder and Firefly

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
ideological culture Voting

Democrats and Noncitizen Voting

Do Democrats support noncitizen voting? 

It depends. 

Which Democrats do you mean?

A clear majority of voters who identify as supporters of the Democratic Party oppose giving the vote to noncitizens. Specifically, they support the Citizen Only Voting Amendments (COVA) on the ballot this election in eight states — Idaho. Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wisconsin.* 

For instance, polling shows Democratic voters in North Carolina favor the only citizen voting measure by an eight to one margin. Among Republicans the margin is a whopping 22 to one. Most Democratic legislators joined every Republican in voting to place the amendment on the ballot, but less enthusiastically: 42 yes votes, 16 no votes and ten abstentions.

In Georgia, 70 percent of Democrats supported passing a Citizen Only Voting Amendment. Republican support was 93 percent with 76 percent of independents in favor. But while every Republican in the Peach State’s House of Representatives voted in the affirmative on HR780, not one single Democrat did so. 

Though not as lopsided as Republicans or independents, 83 percent of whom favor citizen only voting, 59 percent of Kentucky Democrats are supportive, a four to one margin. Yet, while every Republican legislator voted yes, less than one in five Democratic legislators were supportive. 

In Wisconsin, 76 percent of voters like the Citizen Only Voting Amendment, including 57 percent of Democrats residing outside the legislature. Inside the legislature, every single Democrat opposed the amendment. 

In this two-​year legislative cycle, votes were cast in 21 chambers in eleven states. The partisan difference between elected Republicans and Democrats was stark. Not a single Republican voted against the COVA, compiling over a thousand yes votes. Conversely, more Democratic legislators voted against COVA than for it.

Do Democrats support noncitizen voting? Most elected Democrats, yes. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Note: Additionally, all 19 of the cities where noncitizens are now legally voting, including noncitizens in the country illegally, are very progressive. All are sanctuary cities and governed (nearly) exclusively by Democrats.

* Voters have previously passed COVAs in six other states going back to 2018: Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, North Dakota, and Ohio.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with PicFinder and Firefly

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts