SOME INCONVENIENT HISTORY

Was it conservatives or progressives who were responsible for the Tuskegee experiment? "The Tuskegee syphilis study ranks almost with slavery and lynching as a symbol of America's racist past. There is probably not one black American adult who does not know-or thinks he knows-about an experiment from the 1930s in which government health authorities deliberately withheld treatment from 400 black syphilitics just to see what would happen to them.... Anthropologist Richard Shweder of the University of Chicago has just published a detailed analysis of the Tuskegee study in which he shows that virtually every popular assumption about it is false. (Tuskegee re-examined, January 8, 2004) The study was undertaken by "progressives" who wanted to fight a disease that afflicted many blacks, it had the full support of black medical authorities to the end, and- most important- it probably caused no harm to the 140 men (not 400) who took part.

Windschuttle has posted a recent summary of the history wars. He gives many examples of blatant and deliberate lies by Leftist Australian historians who try their hardest to foster white guilt. Just two excerpts: "Lyndall Ryan cites the Hobart Town Courier as a source for several stories about atrocities against Aborigines in 1826. However, that newspaper did not begin publication until October 1827 and the other two newspapers of the day made no mention of these alleged killings" and "Lloyd Robson claims the settler James Hobbs in 1815 witnessed Aborigines killing 300 sheep at Oyster Bay and the next day the 48th Regiment killed 22 Aborigines in retribution. However, it would have been difficult for Hobbs to have witnessed this in 1815 because at the time he was living in India. Moreover, the first sheep did not arrive at Oyster Bay until 1821" What total crooks Leftist historians are!

Any Leftist will tell you that the Nazis were really bad guys compared to those lovable well-intentioned Soviets. The truth however appears to be very different. Read this account of how the Nazis surrendered to the wives of imprisoned Jews in Berlin itself. A public demonstration against Nazi policy actually caused the top Nazi leadership to release Jews who had been destined for the concentration camps! Sad though it is, Nazism was actually popular in Germany -- as any number of pre-war writers (such as Roberts and Heiden) attest -- and the Nazis were keen not to jeopardize that. Any idea that Stalin cared for public opinion in Russia is merely laughable. Unlike Stalin, Hitler came to power by democratic means (details here) rather than revolution and so started out as a rather extreme democratic Leftist rather than a Marxist. Once he escaped democratic restraints, however, he, like Stalin, showed what all Leftists are really made of.

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ELSEWHERE

Money can buy happiness: "Two studies released yesterday shed new light on the importance of economic circumstances, and undermine earlier findings that poor people are just as happy as the rich. Money doesn't buy Happiness - or Does It? by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, at Melbourne University, shows that when wealth - not just income - is measured, the rich are indeed happier than the poor. Earlier research that focused only on income found very little difference in the reported happiness of high-income and low-income people. Mark Wooden, the study's co-author, said: "This has led some people to say money is not that important, relative to other things." However, when people's assets were taken into account - the value of their houses, cars, art works, even stamp collection - a different picture emerged."

Good stuff! "I have long written about how adherence to the Modern Liberal philosophy requires a childish mentality. The grown up mind, forged in the real world, quickly dismisses the infantile "tooth fairy" mentality of the left where riches are bestowed to one, without labor or merit, in their sleep. Those who mature soon grow out of the Democrats' disdain for personal responsibility, seeing it as more befitting an angry teenager looking for someone to blame than grown men and women seeking to make a better life and a better world.... Anyone who has raised a teenager recognizes the ridiculous hyperbole that has become the standard fare in stump speeches and personal appearances by today's Democratic Party "leaders... Today's Democrats, like small children, see only their own immediate gratification and the chance to advance their short-term personal wants." (Via Dick McDonald)

I have just done an extensive revision of my big monograph on the motivations of Leftists. I have greatly expanded my coverage of the claim that Leftist intellectuals suffer from a milder form of a psychiatric condition known as psychopathy. The best bit is here.

Appeals court reinstates petition drive against affirmative action: "Giving a boost to the beleaguered campaign to end the use of race in government hiring and university admissions decisions, the state Court of Appeals has reinstated a petition drive aimed at placing the issue before Michigan voters. A unanimous three-judge appeals panel, in a seven-page opinion dated June 11 and obtained Saturday by the Free Press, overturned a March ruling in Ingham County Circuit Court that the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative was improperly worded and likely to confuse voters."

A column here by David Brooks points out that America's highly educated elite is divided between the professions and the business managers, with the former usually Democrat and the latter usually Republican. He omits to say that both are graduates of roughly the same universities. So how come the first lot have stayed true to what they learnt at university and the business-people have not? Easy. It's a lot harder life in business -- dog eat dog -- so illusions don't last long. It's yet another example of how experience teaches conservatism.

Even the NYT has never managed to muster much enthusiasm for John Kerry. But they do have some good advice for him here: "For months, Senator John Kerry has been among the loudest in the chorus criticizing President Bush for not persuading our allies to shoulder more of the Iraq burden. But now it is time for Mr. Kerry to start admonishing the allies.... One way to persuade voters that he is presidential is for Mr. Kerry to put the country's interests ahead of his own, narrowly construed. Turning his considerable critical attention, however briefly, onto the failings of others (besides President Bush's) would be a great place to start."

After last week's debacle (which I did not think worth linking to) Carnival of the Vanities is up again with its usual convenient range of good posts all in one place.

Wicked Thoughts has a post suggesting that Ronald Reagan was a gambler.

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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