Idiocracy

This column by the foppish Mayor of London is a riot. My favourite paragraph:\

"... a big road sign that went up in Swansea. The English version said that this was a residential area and there was no entry for heavy goods vehicles. But it was the Welsh translation that represented a masterpiece of Extremely Stupid lobbying. This read: "Nid wyf yn y swyddfa ar hyn o bryd. Anfonwch unrhyw waith i'w gyfielthu." It was a few months before someone had the nerve to point out that this gnomic message meant: "I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated."

Truly a trophy monument to bureaucratic hubris.

Language with Intent

Hence the saying: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.
If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

—Sun Tzu's Art of War, ss. 3.18: Attack by Stratagem (suntzusaid.com)

---

It will be interesting to note how the left reacts to the ongoing and bloody conflicts around the world now that they will be unable to blame and hate G W Bush for them. For the last 8 years, western governments and agencies have been bending over backwards, passing policies and issuing phrasebooks to avoid any simultaneous mention of "Muslim", "Islam (or Islamic)", and "terrorism".

UK:
The Daily Mail: "Government renames Islamic terrorism as 'anti-Islamic activity' to woo Muslims"

"Ministers have adopted a new language for declarations on Islamic terrorism.

In future, fanatics will be referred to as pursuing "anti-Islamic activity".

(I'm pretty sure the fanatics have their own ideas about how Islamic their activities are - Jack)

The Guardian: "Whitehall draws up new rules on language of terror -Phrasebook designed to avoid blaming Muslims for extremism"

EU:
The Telegraph: Don't confuse terrorism with Islam, says EU

"Brussels officials have confirmed the existence of a classified handbook which offers "non-offensive" phrases to use when announcing anti-terrorist operations or dealing with terrorist attacks."

(one wonders why the handbook had to be classified if there is no link between Islam and terrorism - Jack)

US:
From the official non-binding memo that was circulated to "Federal agencies, including the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counter Terrorism Center," (Document here)

• Don't Invoke Islam
• Don't Harp on Muslim Identity
• Avoid the term 'caliphate,' which has positive connotations for Muslims, to describe the goal of al-Qaida and associated groups. The best description of what they really want to create is a 'global totalitarian state.' (oh that's much better - Jack)
  
• Never use the terms 'jihadist' or 'mujahideen' in conversation to describe the terrorists. A mujahed, a holy warrior, is a positive characterization in the context of a just war. In Arabic, jihad means "striving in the path of God" and is used in many contexts beyond warfare. Calling our enemies jihadis and their movement a global jihad unintentionally legitimizes their actions.
  
• When possible, avoid using terms drawn from Islamic theology in a conversation unless you are prepared to discuss their varying meanings over the centuries. Examples: salafi, uzahhabist, caliphate, sufi. ummah. Do not use "ummah to mean "the Muslim world." It is not a sociological term rather it is a theological construct not used in everyday life."
  

In the history of the World, has there even been such exquisite deference to those that proudly proclaim to be our enemies? Replace the words Islamic with Nazi or Nazism, Muslim with the words German, and caliphate with "The Third Reich" and tell me if you think any of the Western (and Eastern!) governments of the day would have willingly restrained their use of language when dealing with the Nazi threat?

"For Stalin's sake Comrade, don't mention the The 3rd Reich, it will only inflame them further!"	"Hey old chap, don't talk about 'Nazism' when speaking with our German POW's, as you simply don't have the correct philosophical underpinnings to debate the difference between Socialism, National Socialism and just plain genocide. I mean you're not a German so how could you possibly understand?!?"	"Hey Sarge, the guidebook says we can't call the Krauts: bosch, hun, Nazis, sauerkraut munchers, stein drinkin' lederhose wearin' tulip smellin' Farterlanders. Can we call em' "weiner suckers""?

The focus on "offensive" language and the attempts to control it demonstrates that there is a widespread belief we are not in fact in a war, and if anything it is all the product of Bush et al. And this has real policy implications.

However it is not all doom and gloom. There are groups that are recognising this inability to clearly identify the enemy is hampering our ability to fight. From the Washington Post:

""The fact is our enemies cite the source of Islam as the foundation for their global jihad," the report said. "We are left with the responsibility of portraying our enemies in an honest and accurate fashion." "

Further links

• "Not calling Islamism the Enemy" - Daniel Pipes
• "Government policies stifle Talk of Islam" - Pyjamas Media

Picture sources:

• Russkies
• Brits
• Doughboys

When a student union collides with reality

A happy resolution to my previous post about the Cystic Fibrosis charity shmozzle from Carleton University, Canada.

It appears that the voices of outrage and protest on this patently ridiculous motion were heard (via FiveFeetofFury). Two student councillors resigned (including the idiot that crafted the motion) and students at the university are wanting to impeach the student president.

Political Correctness 0 Reality 1

Identity Politics

In this brave new post-racial world of inclusiveness, love and teddy bears, where a black man has been elected the leader of the free world, and human rights trump all concerns of individual liberty and free speech, surely we can all hold hands and sing Kumbaya?

Well...no. Not if you happen to be white and male. From this story (via FiveFeetofFury) :

"OTTAWA -- The Carleton University Students' Association has voted to drop a cystic fibrosis charity as the beneficiary of its annual Shinearama fundraiser, supporting a motion that argued the disease is not "inclusive" enough.

Cystic fibrosis "has been recently revealed to only affect white people, and primarily men" said the motion read Monday night to student councillors, who voted almost unanimously in favour of it."

What an awesome evolution of charity. Apparently diseases are only now worthy of research depending on their impact on designated victim groups. And if you happen to be of European descent, male and straight....hurry up and die already!!! And note, this is

"a win for diversity"

Expect more of these kind of "motions" in the future. Remember kids, it's only Racist if suggested by a whitey...

Addendum: Another instance of identity politics gone too far:

"eHarmony, a Christian-targeted dating website, gets sued by a gay man demanding that the business match him up with a same-sex partner."
...
" To be clear: The company never refused to do business with anyone. Their great “sin” was not providing a specialized service that litigious gay people demanded they provide."

Even some gays recognise the insanity of this type of lawsuit:

"This is nothing more than a nuisance lawsuit. He just felt hurt because a website offered dating services for heterosexuals, but not for him. "

Brave new world indeed.

Negative coverage in The Age?

This is just awesome.
(Full link here [http://www.theage.com.au/national/local-muslim-clerics-accused-20081120-6ctp.html] because The Age doesn't have a stellar record at keeping archived articles or making it easier to search for them)

Clearly I don't believe that the misogynistic elements of a certain faith are "awesome", only that this story is reported on the front page of The Age. And that is awesome. Because our media organs are reporting some "uncomfortable" facts without couching it in multi-cultural-politically-correct-tolerance terms. The editorial board fight between the multi-culturalists and the feminists about covering this story would have been history-making. I'm glad the feminists won. I hope they keep winning.

It says women, community and legal workers and police involved in the consultation were particularly concerned about domestic violence, and suggested that imams aimed to preserve the family at the cost of women.

And a bit further on:

The report also cites sexual assault allegations connected with under-age marriages.

Note: this isn't in some backwater 3rd world middle eastern country. This is in Melbourne. Australia. OK, Shepparton is mentioned as well, but I still consider that part of Australia.

Community members quoted in the report believe that imams' narrow religious training in an increasingly complex world, lack of life experience, poor English and lack of understanding of Australia create problems for the community. For example, ill-informed comment by imams drew a wedge between the mainstream and Muslim communities.

Well...duh....

But we can't have this kind of reporting without some dissembling from the imams to make up the 'balance':

The secretary of the Board of Imams, Sheikh Fehmi Naji El-Imam, said he could not understand how the council could write such a report and denied the complaints "absolutely".

"They must have heard stories here and there and are writing about them as though they are fact," he said.

Note that the report was using "community members" as the source for their stories, clearly members of the Islamic community in Melbourne. But Sheikh Fehmi denies them "absolutely". That's fine. The Sheikh's 'religion' denies "absolutely" the separation of Church and State, which works for us quite fine thank you, so clearly denial runs deep (and not a river in Egypt).

The fact that this report was commissioned by the Howard Government and reported positively on the cover of The Age may force me to rethink my opinions of this left-wing propaganda leaflet broadsheet.

Here's some further (slightly nicer) coverage on the Sheikh and his faith:

"Cleric vows to end segregation in mosques"
<http://www.theage.com.au/national/cleric-vows-to-end-segregation-in-mosques-20081121-6e4u.html>

Good luck with that...

Tears of the Dodo

Criticisms of Darwin's theory aside, you have to admit there is an intuitive logic to his reasoning. Paraphrased it goes something like this: Natural selection is the preservation of a functional advantage that enables a species to compete better in the wild.

Cells, plants, animals, species, races and cultures come, some stay around and leave something, and the rest go.. There is nothing inherently evil or unfair about this, it just seems to be the way of nature. It's the same with ideas. Someone proposes an idea (say the Earth is the center of the universe) and it stays around until that idea dies out (no one is interested) or proven to be false (the Earth orbits around the sun).

Ideas should be exposed, examined, criticised, debated then if they are any good and stand up to the scrutiny, kept. Others should be forgotten or relegated to the circular filing cabinet.

This is a slightly flippant way to encapsulate Enlightenment philosophy, of which our culture is a direct descendant and beneficiary. Individuals spoke their minds under direct threat of violence or death for first raising the idea of, and then advocating a clear separation of Church and State. For 400+ years, this intellectual debate raged on and I think we can be all happy that the secularists (those for the separation of Church and State) won.

This is perhaps the best gift the West can give the world. The idea that man governs man, and not some ineffable space monkey who has a too personal interest in the minutiae of each and everyone of our lives.
The fact that we have evolved past certain ideas is a good thing. Off the top of my head here are some bad ideas we have grown out of: slavery, women are weak or deficient and not as capable as men, death penalty for homosexuals,, that Priest and Church should govern the affairs of State.

In this age where Tolerance has now become the all encompassing dogma, there is a strong tendency to tolerate that which should be intolerable.

A few stupendously moronic ideas people 'overlook' if they arise in certain protected victim minority groups:
– physical violence against a spouse or partner, usually women
– polygamy (except in Utah, US...they're already mormons morons)
– sexual discrimination

Intellectuals, luminaries and activists in the West put their reputation, livelihood and lives on the line to defeat these ideas and we can thank the space monkey they succeeded. Now we are facing calls to reinstate some of these ideas, not because those ideas have anything to offer per se, but because these ideas are in danger of dying out (still don't understand the logic behind that)

"Cultural minorities need special rights, then, because their culture may otherwise be threatened with extinction, and cultural extinction would likely undermine the self-respect and freedom of group members. Special rights, in short, put minorities on a footing of equality with the majority."
--Susan Moller Okin, (http://www.bostonreview.net/BR22.5/okin.html)

Well boo-@#$%ing-hoo. Your culture is in danger of dying out, so you demand that your adopted host culture
accommodates some really bad ideas, which may or may not be contributing to your culture dying out, and on top of that, you demand that it be beyond discussion or criticism (because your space monkey says so). Unfortunately, thanks to the moral and cultural-relativism which infects much of the public discourse, these demands are being heard and in some cases, being accomodated.

The point is that the world is constantly turning, and that all cultures have the opportunity (read: necessity) to engage with the modern world, or be consigned to irrelevancy, along with their bad ideas.