Utopia, you are standing in it!

I’ve shared several quizzes that people can take to see whether they are libertarian, some of which are very simple and some of which are very nuanced and complex.

• The Definitive Political Orientation test.
• The Circle test.
• The Libertarian Purity test.
• The 8 Values test.
• The world’s smallest political quiz.

I’ve also shared many examples of statist hypocrisy.

• Six examples from 2014.
• Leonardo DiCaprio’s giant carbon footprint.
• John Kerry’s money in tax havens.
• Rich leftists with kids in private school while fighting school choice for poor kids.
• Celebratory leftists dodging their tax obligations.

So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to see that someone on the left wants to play this game by combing the concept of quizzes and hypocrisy. I don’t know R.J. Eskow, but he has a quiz on a left-wing website that’s designed to ostensibly measure libertarian hypocrisy.

Though…

Over the past couple of weeks I have had several conversations with people (journalists and academics) who cannot understand why Labour under Jeremy Corbyn may not be focused on, or even that bothered about, winning or losing the General Election. It seems so counter-intuitive.

What it is necessary to understand about the motely crew of Bennite socialists, Trotskyists, Communists and ‘fellow-travellers’ now running Labour is their attitude to Parliamentary Democracy is very different from most.

What they share are three assumptions about how genuine socialist change can happen:

As most of you know, three French towns, two on the mainland and one in Corsica, have banned the wearing of “burkinis,” a garment allowing Muslim women to go swimming while preserving their modesty and adhering to Islamic standards of body coverage. There are all kinds; this one, religiously correct, is offered by Marks and Spencer in several countries:

As the New York Timesobserves, in an okay but somewhat misguided piece, these bans are ham-handed attempts to enforce France’s laïcité policy of secularism, a Gallic version of America’s First Amendment designed to keep religious influence out of government. That policy already bans the burqa (big cloth sack) and the niqab (face covering that shows the eyes) in public spaces. One can make a good argument for those bans, as FEMEN head Inna Shevchenko did in a new piece in Business News (she opposes the burkini bans). But the burkini? If you’re determined…

We often hear the claim that Muslim women wear the hijab because they want to. And perhaps that’s true for some, though one must distinguish the various causes for “want to.” These include “wanting to” because you were indoctrinated that way, “wanting to” because you know that the alternative is beating or something worse, and “wanting to” because you know you have alternatives, but you really feel better draped in cloth.

Let’s first review the various garments worn by Muslim women, which are often confused. The hijab covers the head and usually part of the chest, while the niqab also covers part of the face:

We already know that many women who wear hijabs and niqabs don’t do it voluntarily, for in places like Iran and Afghanistan,they adopted these garments only after the countries were taken over by theocracies and veiling became compulsory. Before that, many women were sporting Western dress…

A while back I posted results of a Google Image search for “women Kabul 1970” and “women Tehran 1970” and compared the images with those from 2000 (Kabul) and 2010 (Tehran). The results were striking: in the 1970s women in both nations dressed as they wanted, with hair, legs, and arms exposed to the open air. Now, in these theocratic countries, women are put in sacks and veils. Did their desires of what to wear change that much in 30-40 years, or was it religious structures that came with religious governments? (Have a look at the photos.)

In December I also put up some largely unknown photos by Hengameh Golestan, a woman photographer who documented a huge protest by women against the headscarf in Tehran in 1979—right after the revolution started dictating women’s dress.

And remember “Stealthy freedoms of Iranian women,” a Facebook page (no longer extant, I think…

Below is my column in USA Today on politics over Roe and the Supreme Court vacancy.  The new vacancy and the the earlier pro-life pledge of President Donald Trump is something of a bill come due for Republicans. It is a bill that some Republicans privately do not want to pay.

Here is the column:

Travaile Speller has a curious case against Mecklenburg County Jail for depriving him of lunch.  Speller is Muslim and was put on the traditional meal plan for Ramadan of two meals a day.  Speller has sued for major damages for “intentionally eliminating one whole meal (lunch) which is cruel and unusual punishment directed towards all Muslims.” The problem is that Speller reportedly signed up to participate in the Ramadan schedule, including the skipping of lunches. He now wants a jury trial and $250,000 in damages.

Sir Rodric Quentin Braithwaite, GCMG, Bedales School and Christ’s College, Cambridge, was born in 1932, so he’s 86 now and was 79 when this book was published. From 1988 to 1992 he was ambassador in Moscow, first of all to the Soviet Union and then to the Russian Federation. Subsequently, he became chairman of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee from 1992 to 1993.

Braithwaite was in Moscow during most of the Soviet War in Afghanistan (1979-89), knew many of the people involved on the Russian side, and saw at first hand the impact it had on Soviet society and politics. He also knows his way around the Russian archives, which allows him to carefully weigh the evidence of precisely who said what, when, and why, at key moments of the story.

Afghanistan is not really a country

Afghan is more a territory carved out by competing empires and squabbled over by a kaleidoscope…

Somewhat surprised by the editorial in yesterday’s DomPost. Usually they seem all too ready to pander to the elements in our society who in the name of ‘freedom ‘ will in fact oppress us. This post started out as about the DomPost editorial, but developed as the thoughts behind the post developed and expanded.

The starting point was Dominion Post EDITORIAL which was itself triggered by the ‘supposed outrage’ trumpeted by ‘many’, ie the usual suspects and Twitter activists, against the proposed speaking engagement of two Canadian speakers, perceived as far right by progressives. This engagement and the protesters were given oxygen by the oppressive stance taken by Phil Goff, as these tweet show:-

— Phil Goff (@phil_goff) July 6, 2018

However, unlike the kneejerk reaction of Goff, the Dominion Post started out:-

Our mums and dads used to tell us that sticks and stones can break our bones…

The aim of the book

Mitter is an eminent historian of twentieth century China and of the period leading up to World War II in particular. In his introduction he points out that the Sino-Japanese War – which lasted from 1937 and then became subsumed in the wider World War – is often neglected in Western historiography which, perhaps understandably, focuses on the war in Europe/Russia and on the American War in the Pacific: both perspectives tend to overlook the fact that the Chinese were fighting the Japanese for four long years before the Americans joined the struggle. By providing one continuous narrative of the entire Sino-Japanese War, as seen from the Chinese point of view, Mitter aims to redress this imbalance and tell this generally ‘untold story’.

The second main point, which emerges increasingly as the wider World War progresses, is that China – as the four-year adversary of…

The much-maligned TARP program will cost taxpayers only $25 billion according to the latest estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. That’s substantially less than the $66 billion CBO estimated back in August or the $113 billion that the Office of Management and Budget estimated in October.

The good news, budget-wise, is that the government is on track to make about $22 billion on its assistance to banks.

However, CBO estimates that TARP’s other activities will cost $47 billion. This reflects aid to AIG ($14 billion), the auto industry ($19 billion), mortgage programs ($12), and a few smaller programs ($2 billion).

So what’s the problem with the government? With Jacinda Ardern out of sight (though not of mind), why is the Labour-led coalition looking as if it is drifting on to the rocks?

Ardern’s strength, even before she took office, had been the ability to communicate best what her party is doing. Now the messages out of Wellington are mixed, confusing. And they are compounding the aura of dismay spreading through the electorate.

Even the feel-good factor supposed to follow the start of the Families Package looks frozen on the ground, as the regressive impact of the regional fuel tax hits low-income working families in Auckland hard.

I thought this website had already been completely blocked in Pakistan, but I received the following notice from WordPress along with a complaint from the Pakistani government. Apparently my posting of the latest Jesus and Mo cartoon ruffled some feathers:

First, from WordPress, who does the Islamic countries’ dirty work for them. The “Pakistani authority” isn’t specified:

Hello,

A Pakistan authority has demanded that we disable the following content on your WordPress.com site:

https://whyevolutionistrue.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/2016-04-06.png?w=575&h=575

Unfortunately, we must comply to keep WordPress.com accessible for everyone in the region. As a result, we have disabled this content only for Internet visitors originating from Pakistan. They will instead see a message explaining why the content was blocked.

Visitors from outside of Pakistan are not affected.

You and your readers may be interested in these suggestions for bypassing Internet restrictions.

For your reference, we have included a copy of the complaint. No reply…