SOME RESULTS OF AN AMERICAN UNIVERSITY EDUCATION

Overall, I comment very little on what Leftist bloggers are saying. Cleaning out the Augean stables is not a task for me. But sometimes they get too amusing for me to resist: Open Door is a graduate student of psychology at UTA (with a previous academic background including philosophy), who claims that there is only minimal Leftism in American universities.

In typical Leftist style, our Lefty blogger is good on mere abuse -- he calls me "doltish" and "benighted" -- but he is very short on elementary logic. He takes this statement by Keith Burgess-Jackson: "A recurring theme in liberal thought is that wealth and poverty are undeserved" and comments "This is simply false. The recurrent theme in liberal thought is that some wealth, and some poverty, are undeserved". But that is perfectly consistent with what Keith said! Where is the word "ALL" in Keith's statement? Without any qualifiers, Keith's statement simply spoke of wealth and poverty being GENERALLY undeserved. His attack on Keith is not only an attack on a straw man but in fact reinforces what Keith said! There is a lot more than doors open in the brain of that particular Lefty blogger. How he ever passed his introductory logic course is a mystery. I guess it shows that they teach Leftist "logic" in American universities these days. I note in passing also that our Lefty blogger cannot even cut and paste accurately. He quotes Keith as using the word "recurrent" when he in fact used the word "recurring". What a dodo!

As far back as 1972, I was pointing out that Leftists are very prone to the "projection" (i.e. seeing your own faults in others) that they often accuse conservatives as suffering from. So it is rather fun that this Lefty blogger is an example of it too. I pointed out above that his attack on Keith was an attack on a "straw man" (i.e. a misrepresented or fictional opponent). So guess what he was accusing Keith of? You guessed it -- of attacking a straw man.

***********************************

ELSEWHERE

Sheer Leftist insanity -- from Canada: "the McGuinty Liberals, whose recent budget forced Ontario families to fork over hundreds of dollars more annually in new healthcare taxes while simultaneously de-listing services like trips to the eye doctor, chiropractic and physiotherapy services from public health insurance, are set to re-list sex change operations! (That wasn't a typo, I really did mean RE-list, not DE-list.) How will he justify this to an average family?" (Post of May 28th, here). How Leftists hate ordinary people!

There is a great article here by Alan Dershowitz setting out the things that the Left never mention about Israel and pointing out when criticism of Israel is antisemitic and when it is not. (Via Peg Kaplan).

The Real Story of Fallujah: "The meticulous planning process undertaken by the Marines at the tactical level for assaulting Fallujah was not augmented with a similarly meticulous process by the Bush administration at the strategic level for counteracting the easily foreseen media fallout from fighting in civilian areas near Muslim religious sites. The public was never made to feel just how much of a military threat the mosques in Fallujah represented, just how far Marines went to avoid damage to them and to civilians, and just how much those same Marine battalions accomplished after departing Fallujah."

Academic standards seem to be extremely rubbery at American universities (even Harvard has to give 20% of its freshman intake remedial instruction in English!) but it seems that British standards are pretty rubbery too. Note this post from Chris Brand: "A British headmaster running a top girls' boarding school in Tamil Nadu, India, revealed to the Sunday Times that his daughter had been rejected by Edinburgh University when she applied as British, but was subsequently accepted when she applied from an Indian address and without mentioning her British citizenship".

Good if it were true: "President Bush's re-election strategists plan to portray the November election as the first since the Reagan era to offer voters a stark choice between liberalism and conservatism. ... 'Conservatives have for a generation yearned for an election in which there would be a very clear choice on the issues and a strong focus on grass roots,' said Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman. 'This election will represent a clear choice, an ideological choice on the issues. And this campaign is totally committed to grass roots.'"

Non-education: "To me, it seems as if the single biggest problem in this country today, after government, is education. No longer are our children required to learn to think, but only to memorize, with the material to be memorized strictly controlled by teachers, school boards, and religious groups. Our children are no longer taught history. Instead they are subjected to socialist propaganda, designed to undermine any attempt to see the failures of socialism in general and to downplay the importance of individualism."

Taiwan: The campaign to keep Taiwan out of international forums is not just a diplomatic issue to do with the legitimacy or otherwise of governments in Taipei and Beijing. It impacts down to earth issues like SARS control too: "If a killer-flu arises, it will be most likely in South China, where animals and humans, especially pigs and poultry, live in close proximity. With the thousands of people travelling daily between Taiwan and China - and between Taiwan and the rest of the world - there is no telling how devastating such an outbreak could be, with the missing Taiwan link. Taiwan needs the concerted efforts of the international community to allow its entry to the WHO - now."

China, Japan and anti-missile defence: Beijing does not want to get caught up in the kind of technological race that finally broke the Soviet empire. Her last hope is a Kerry victory.

Carnival of the Vanities is up again -- in very folksy style this time.

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

********************************

The Left cannot face the fact that the American intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq is fundamentally humanitarian. The most effective response to the 9/11 events and the one in America's own best interests would have been a retaliatory strike using nukes to take the whole of Afghanistan off the map -- followed by a threat that Mecca would go sky high if there were any further Islamic attacks on the USA or its allies. That would have made Islam a religion of peace overnight. But GWB rightly rejected that easy road because it would have involved the death of millions of innocents. He chose instead to go after just the bad guys -- an extremely difficult task. And its difficulty is causing continuing American deaths in Iraq to this day. But Americans have always given their blood in order to be humane. They did it in two world wars and in Vietnam and they are doing it now in the Middle East. The only alternative strategy that the Left have is to do nothing -- thus inviting more and more attacks.

Comments? Email me or here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

********************************