REALISM IN SOCIOLOGY!

Highly respected sociologist Peter Berger notes a big upsurge of Protestantism in Latin America and says it will lead to a big increase in democracy and capitalist prosperity there: "our research has estimated that there may be between forty and fifty million Protestants south of the United States border. And something like eighty percent of them are first-generation Protestants, so we are dealing with a massive phenomenon- most of them, by the way, again somewhere around eighty percent, are Pentecostal, so it's a very particular kind of Protestantism that is exploding.

I would say there are a number of consequences one can already see. If you talk about social institutions, we have here an incredible replication of some of the values and habits that Max Weber was describing in terms of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe and North America, the Protestant ethic.... Economically, again one can say the same thing, it's creating a group of people with very strong entrepreneurial interest.... They tend to favor democracy, because it's very much a people's movement. ... . The Protestant ethic-hard work, saving, discipline, basically not enjoying life very much and saving for the next generation- these kinds of values and behavior patterns are very conducive to success. ...

Socialism is no longer just an idea, it's a form of economic and political organization that has been tried in many countries, not just in the Soviet Union. It has unfailingly produced economic disaster, and in most cases, pretty odious political tyrannies. So the idea that socialism is the way to personal liberation is, empirically speaking, a horrendous mistake"

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ELSEWHERE

Amusing: "A new book by a prominent Washington psychoanalyst says President George W. Bush is a "paranoid meglomaniac" as well as a sadist and "untreated alcoholic.... Dr. Frank has been a psychiatrist for 35 years and is director of psychiatry at George Washington University. A Democrat, he once headed the Washington Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility". So a Leftist shrink thinks GWB is nuts. I am sure the feeling is mutual. Leftist psychiatrists said much the same thing about Ronnie. Yet all the psychiatrists in the world put together would be lucky to have one millionth of the popularity of Ronald Reagan. If psychiatrists can mistake one of history's greatest human beings for a nut, it shows who the real nuts are. Being despised by Leftist psychiatrists puts GWB in very good company indeed.

"Self-impressed protesters who wanted to 'shut down' the BIO 2004 conference in San Francisco last week could take a lesson in morality and courage from Emeryville's Chiron Corp. The protesters engaged in their cheap stunts knowing there would be no real consequences for their actions -- not in San Francisco. Chiron employees, on the other hand, endured personal abuse and vicious harassment for months because they believe their work to develop new medicines and therapies is too important to abandon. The harassment began in 2003, when animal-rights activists began targeting Chiron because it had contracted with the animal-research firm, Huntingdon Life Sciences. The campaign -- which included yelling obscenities in front of workers' homes, following workers' children and jamming employees' home phone lines -- is the handiwork of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, an animal-rights group dedicated to shutting down Huntingdon for using animals in research."

Interesting that France still has influential Fascists who seem to have been lifted straight out of the 1930s. Variously called "villieristes" and "sovereignists", they are socialists who are also strong nationalists -- just like Hitler and Mussolini. They have at least one representative in the EU parliament -- best known for proposing that France give nuclear weapons to the Arabs to "even things up" between them and the Jews. Hitler would have loved it. See here for more.

Churchill once advocated using gas on rebellious Iraqi tribesmen, but what gas was he talking about? Another Leftie lie exposed.

Tribal morality: "Why do nice people do evil acts? In the old South, White folks who were polite to their families and neighborhoods would gang up to hang innocent Blacks. Germans who listened to classical music and were kind to their children would turn around and send Jewish children to death camps. Why? It is because human beings compartmentalize their thinking. We mentally divide the world into categories with different standards. There is a human propensity to put our own tribe into the human category, to be treated with politeness and respect, and to put an enemy or a perceived inferior group or those who do disapproved acts into a separate category, 'them.'"

"human beings discriminate every day. You do it, and I do it. And it doesn't mean we're close-minded. It means we care about the situations we put ourselves into. We choose our friends carefully, for example. For whatever reason -- be it the way they're dressed, the way they smell, the way they walk, or whatever -- we choose not to befriend a large majority of the people we meet. That's discrimination. Maybe they should sue?"

Oliver Kamm had a recent post that made me laugh. This is the whole of it: "On my way home last night I noticed that my local cinema is showing a film entitled "The Prince and Me". I have no idea what it's about, but me am incredulous and appalled." He is obviously more of a stickler for Latin grammar than I am. For those who take an interest in British politics, Kamm seems to be the scourge of Britain's most wishy-washy political party -- the Lib-Dems. We have a similar political party in Australia -- the Australian Democrats -- so I sympathize.

The new N-word among the Democrats: "Just the mention of defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, attorney general John Ashcroft or vice-president Dick Cheney will set diatribes in motion. But if you really want to see them in a rage wait until the Bushwhacking stops and someone admits that they voted for Ralph Nader, the anti-corporate crusader, in the 2000 presidential elections. The N-word should not be spoken in polite liberal company. Once his name has been uttered all camaraderie and bonhomie evaporate as readily as if the miscreant had confessed to relieving himself in the host's sink. There is a ready-made vocabulary Democrats use to describe how they feel about George Bush. When it comes to Nader, and by association those who voted for him, words fail them."

Shaun Bourke has posted the following comment on Catallaxy: "Over many years I have found that,in relation to homosexuality,women can be found in basically two camps. Those that are happily married and those that are not or are divorced. It is in the latter group that you will find the most profound approval of homosexuality" He would like to know if anybody else has noticed that.

For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH and POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH. Mirror sites here and here

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Leftism is more popular with young people than with older people largely because Leftism is itself juvenile: They criticize what they don't understand. Which makes it ironic that "We know best" and "It's for your own good" are the basic Leftist messages. Leftists have never got past the simplistic thinking or the arrogance that are the characteristic limitations of youth

"Created" equal in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence is a religious way of saying that people are NOT equal but start out with the same rights

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