Category: media and media people

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folly ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies

Stockholm Syndrome?

Ami Horowitz, Sweden, Tucker Carlson, terrorism, terrorist, violence, immigrants

Can we handle the truth? Governments and media professionals don’t always think so.

Journalist Ami Horowitz, whose interview with Tucker Carlson caught President Trump’s attention last week, noted that, despite what he learned (and recorded) at street level in Sweden, Swedes in general and government personnel in particular* seem resistant to acknowledging the levels of violence in Muslim migrant communities.

The media firestorm that followed Trump’s off-​the-​cuff comments seemed more evidence of the same, as did the Washington Post coverage of yesterday’s riots in Stockholm, in the 89 percent immigrant suburb of Rinkeby.

“Multiple criminologists in Sweden … said the notion that immigrants were responsible for a large proportion of crime in the country was highly exaggerated,” the Post report explained. “Nevertheless, the integration of immigrants into Swedish society is a problem that the government has been struggling to address.”

Yet, in the wake of a 2013 riot by migrants, David Frum noted that, “Sweden does not report data on crimes by foreign-​born people, only by foreign passport holders — meaning that an immigrant who has been naturalized will be counted as a Swede for statistical purposes.”

The media, like the Swedes, seem protective. Not of native-​born Swedes, but of the immigrant populations.

Swedes really are well meaning. But good intentions are not enough. In Sweden, as throughout Europe, Muslim immigrants have been let in but not assimilated. Unskilled, most émigrés cannot find jobs … and you know what they say about “idle hands.”

Bending over backwards to downplay problems, though, isn’t the answer. It prevents Swedes and others from coming to the correct conclusion: the best way to help others is not to put them on the dole in your (foreign!) land, but to aid them close to home.

And stop bombing and destabilizing their countries, too.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.  

 

* The policemen interviewed in Horowitz’s video have claimed they were taken out of context. Horowitz denies that charge here.

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folly ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies

No-​Go Zones

Trump, Sweden, terrorism, attack, immigrant, refuge, terror attack

“We’ve got to keep our country safe,” President Donald Trump said last week at a rally in Melbourne, Florida. Hardly objectionable.

It was what he said next that baffled … some.

“You look at what’s happening in Germany, you look at what’s happening last night in Sweden — Sweden, who would believe this?”

Many news outlets ran with the official Swedish response: puzzlement. What happened the night before in Sweden? Was he suggesting a terror attack? There was no terror attack. Ah, President Trump: lying again!

Social media erupted with the usual anti-​Trump mockery.

Swedes were understandably confused. As Tucker Carlson noted, “The president ought to be precise in what he says.” But Carlson added that the “analysis” of numerous network news programs was “so stupid that it’s hard to believe it made it on television.”

One key job of professional journalists is interpretation.

When Trump uttered “last night,” he wasn’t referring to what happened, he was referring to what he saw the night before on Tucker Carlson’s show: an interview with Ami Horowitz, who recently produced an exposé on the violence in Sweden’s “no-​go zones,” enclaves of immigrants from Muslim-​majority countries.

Where even Sweden’s police fear to tread.

“Sweden — they took in large numbers,” Trump went on. “They’re having problems like they never thought possible. You look at what’s happening in Brussels. You look at what’s happening all over the world.”*

The mass refugee surge into Europe is a huge problem.

But the American press assuming the worst regarding President Trump and reporting it?

It’s a problem, too.

Could reasonable interpretation itself be morphing into a “no-​go zone”?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Trump went on to say, “Take a look at Nice. Take a look at Paris.” He is referring to terrorist attacks in those cities. He may also be referring to “no-​go” communities where police and non-​Muslims appear to be unwelcome, as reported in Germany, Britain, France and Belgium.

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Accountability media and media people national politics & policies political challengers

Remember the Rigged Election?

FEC, debates, presidential, Commission on Presidential Debates, Lawsuit, libertarian, green

Remember the 2016 presidential election?

You know, the contest that still bedevils us? The one allegedly rigged by the Russians and fake news? The one the outcome of which Michael Moore (and others) suggested, even this week, should be overturned by “the courts” simply by installing Hillary Clinton as president?

Turns out one major element of the election process was rigged: the debates run by the Commission on Presidential Debates.*

At least, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has ruled** that, “In sum, with respect to Plaintiffs’ allegation that the FEC acted arbitrarily and capriciously and contrary to law when it dismissed their two administrative complaints, this court agrees.…”

The plaintiffs*** are Level the Playing Field (LPF), the Green Party, the Libertarian National Committee, and Dr. Peter Ackerman. They sued the Federal Election Commission because the FEC, as the judge wrote, “stuck its head in the sand and ignored the evidence.” Prior to the lawsuit, LPF and others had filed complaints and asked the FEC to establish fair rules. They were told to go play in — er, far away from — traffic.

“The FEC was the defendant in the case,” explained IVN News, “but the real villain in the story is the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), a private organization … dominated by Democratic and Republican party stalwarts.”

Under federal law, the FEC, itself organized along bipartisan lines, is charged with ensuring that the CPD is using “objective” criteria, which doesn’t arbitrarily exclude independent and minor party candidates.

Now, thankfully, the court has ordered the FEC to come back, by April 3, with new thinking on how to ensure fair and open presidential debates.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* The problems with the presidential debate rules and the CPD itself were covered extensively last year in these four commentaries: “Smash the Duopoly,” “The Media’s Job,” “The Stupidity of 15,” and “The Two-​Product Economic System.”

** Tellingly, there’s been scant news coverage of the court decision except by IVN News, the Independent Voter Network website, and … RT, the Russian government’s TV channel.

*** The case is Level the Playing Field, et al v. Federal Election Commission.

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folly ideological culture media and media people

The Advertising Hypocrisy Gap

Audi, Super Bowl, advertising, advertisement, wage gap, feminism

“What do I tell my daughter?”

So begins the Audi advertisement millions of Americans saw last Sunday during the yearly super celebration of commercials that, sandwiched in between them, included one of the most exciting football championship games ever. 

The ad shows a father watching his young girl racing go-​carts against young boys, and his thoughts continue: “Do I tell her that her grandpa’s worth more than her grandma?”

She won’t believe that. 

“That her dad is worth more than her mom?”

Not unless you want to sleep on the couch. 

“Do I tell her that despite her education, her drive, her skills, her intelligence, she will automatically be valued less than every man she ever meets?”

His daughter wins the race and dad considers, “Or maybe I’ll be able to tell her something different.”

Maybe? Maybe he’s fallen hook, line and sinker for the canard of the “gender pay gap.”

That gap is simply the median income of all men in the economy compared to the median income of all women. As the Washington Post explains, “The gender wage gap … can be primarily explained by differences in industry and occupation choice, hours worked, and gaps for taking time off to have children.”

The Post also discloses that Audi has “just two women on its senior leadership team in the United States and no women on its global management board.” I don’t know what they’re going to tell their daughters.

But I’ve always told my daughters they can do anything they put their minds to.

And perhaps I’ll add this advice: “Don’t buy an Audi.” 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment folly ideological culture media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies responsibility

God Knows You’re Good

Henry Louis Mencken, Black bloc, Antifa, protest, terrorist, violence, Milo Yiannopoulis, Gavin McInnes

“The trouble with fighting for human freedom,” wrote H. L. Mencken, “is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels.”

Henry Louis Mencken (1880 — 1956), master prose stylist and social critic, knew whereof he wrote. But he also penned things to which few would give their hearty assent.

Today, we find several controversialists who, like Mencken, side with individualism against collectivism. They are raising a ruckus.

But are they “scoundrels”?

Does it matter?

The big news, last week, was the anti-​Milo Yiannopoulis riot in Berkeley. But also last week, Robby Soave explains, “Black bloc ‘anti-​fascists’ attacked right-​wing media figure Gavin McInnes outside a New York University building,” where things got so crazy that one protester, a professor, screamed at the police for protecting Mr. McInnes when they “should” have — get this — been beating him up!

She called McInnes a Nazi. And insinuated he was a rape threat, etc.

So what did Reason writer Soave do? “McInnes,” he noted, “routinely says obnoxious things that deserve criticism. He’s something of a Diet Milo.”

What Soave did not do was ever address the Nazi charge, the rape charge, or any of the calumnies hurled at McInnes. Were Mencken the one being attacked, would he have written that the Sage of Baltimore “routinely writes obnoxious things that deserve criticism”? 

Sure, true. But is that the stance you want to take? 

Soave finds Milo and Gavin icky.

I feel his pain. But … when “Nazi” is the charge, calling the accused “obnoxious” and “deserv[ing] criticism”? 

Gavin McInnes isn’t a Nazi. Or a rapist. And he retains free speech rights, regardless of what one thinks about his anti-​feminism, or other controversial opinions.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment First Amendment rights general freedom ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies responsibility

The Silence of Violence

Berkeley, Milo, violence, speech, politics, photos, comment, analysis

“The Free Speech Movement is dead.”

So said the Berkeley College Republicans after violence Wednesday night forced cancelation of a sold-​out speech by Milo Yiannopoulos, the Greek-​born British author, now a senior editor at Breitbart News. The reference, of course, is to the University of California’s history as a haven for free expression dating back to the 1960s.

Protests of the event gave way to

  • people beaten up on the streets,
  • rocks and bricks and Molotov cocktails hurled at police,
  • a young woman with a “Make America Great Again” parody hat pepper-​sprayed in the face,
  • fires set, windows smashed at the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union, along with
  • an estimated $100,000 of property damage.

Yet only one arrest was made Wednesday night, and two on Thursday, when a man in a suit wearing a Trump hat apparently triggered two guys to jump out of their car and assault him.*

CNN dubbed the “inflammatory” Yiannopoulos a “professional provocateur.” He has also been labeled a racist, which he denies, and a homophobe, even though he’s gay. Pushing the envelope against political correctness, for his part, Milo calls “college campuses … cancerous and toxic to free expression.”

Regardless of label, Yiannopoulos’s right to speak and the right of others to listen are constitutionally protected. And violence to block a peacefully expressed point of view is never justified.

Asked about the tactics used, one unnamed young protestor** explained, “Although, you know, it could get violent or whatever, with the fire, that’s what caused Milo to leave. We succeeded.”

The young woman added, “And next is Trump.”

Either we defend civilization against speech-​squelching violence, or inherit an ugly silence.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

*More arrests may be forthcoming. The Washington Post reported that, “University police rescued many people in the crowd who were being attacked, trapped or injured … and are collecting video to try to identify suspects.”

** The woman was part of the ominously-​named group By Any Means Necessary.

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