Cleanse the Language and Culture So We Offend No One

Aliens can be “aliens” no longer. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) wants to refer to all immigrants in federal matters as “foreign nationals.” And if they are in the country illegally, we cannot refer to them as “illegal aliens” — they now must be transformed into “undocumented foreign nationals.”

Never mind that the proposed new designation is longer and more cumbersome, a larger problem is that the old designation is more accurate.

An “alien” is defined as: A resident born in or belonging to another country who has not acquired citizenship by naturalization, a foreigner. “Illegal” is defined as: By law or statute, contrary to or forbidden by official rules, regulations, etc.

Ergo, someone from another country who is not a citizen, who is in the country without having gone through appropriate legal processes to be here, is an “illegal alien.”

This proposed change in our use of language is being insisted upon because Castro thinks the label “illegal alien” is demeaning and hurtful. This idea ought to have linguists concerned. If words with specific meaning can no longer be applied to people or situations that precisely fit that meaning, then we have a problem that we may not be able to survive.

Frankly, if you are in this country illegally, you do not deserve any special consideration in how we describe you. If you are offended by the designation you have earned for yourself by being in the country illegally, well then, go back home, and then if you want to return, do it the right way.

The solution to removing the hurtfulness of the term “illegal alien” is to be a legal alien or a legal immigrant by following immigration and/or visitation laws, not by changing a term used in federal documents since 1790 that accurately describes the person and the circumstance.

America once was about individual freedom. You could think what you wanted, pretty much say what you wanted, and within fairly limited legal bounds do what you wanted, and you didn’t have to spend an inordinate amount of time worried about whether what you thought, said or did might offend someone, somewhere.

America did not become the country so many of us grew up in and loved by worrying about offending someone by observing long-standing traditions, or doing normal, everyday things. It also did not become the great nation it once was by accommodating people whose life consists primarily of searching out things that offend them.

One right that is not guaranteed in the Bill of Rights or by the U.S. Constitution is the right to not ever be offended. And thank goodness it isn’t. Part of being an adult is being able to cope with less-than-ideal circumstances, and each of us has an obligation to the rest of us to “just deal with it” sometimes.

Instead, many people believe that when they are offended by something, others must change to suit their preferences.

A good example of overreaction in the name of being non-offensive is that at least two school districts banned Halloween activities, one of them because 20% of the students could not or would not participate.

Milford, Connecticut parents and other residents were angered when the school district decided to ban the popular Halloween parades at the city’s elementary schools, due to fear of excluding children who can’t or won’t participate in the tradition.

An official of the school district told the local newspaper, “Milford Public Schools do have many children from diverse beliefs, cultures and religions. The goal is for all children to feel comfortable and definitely not alienated when they come to school.”

A petition opposing the decision read, in part: “These are our American customs and traditions and we should not have to give them up because others find them offensive!” And a school parent added, “I’m so tired of my kids missing out on some of the things we all got to do as children and are some of the greatest childhood memories I have due to others saying they find it offensive.”

The school district reversed the decision, however, as some obvious questions arise: What about the vast majority who could and probably would participate? Is 20% the red line beyond which traditions that some don’t like can no longer exist?

Where does it stop? How few people who are offended by some activity does it take to end it? We Americans love and treasure our traditions, and some of them have been around since before the birth of the nation.

And, finally: Is it even possible to assure, as the Milford school district intends, that all children, or adults, will always feel comfortable and never feel alienated?

Barack Obama was likely not involved in the actions of these school districts, but these actions fit comfortably within the idea of his pledge “to fundamentally transform the United States of America.”

Fortunately, there are tens of millions of Americans who want none of it, and will fiercely resist efforts to erase treasured traditions from our lives, and further are disinclined to go crazy trying to avoid offending the terminally offended.

SOURCE







The real reason Britain should fight to leave the EU

Being in the EU damages our democratic rights. Let’s leave

With the launch of the main pro and anti campaigns for the British referendum on European Union (EU) membership, we can be sure of seeing lots of figures bandied about on the supposed costs and benefits of either staying or leaving. So, in the past couple of weeks, businessman Stuart Rose’s campaign, Britain Stronger in Europe, claimed that leaving the EU would cost every British family £3,000. The Vote Leave campaign countered with the claim that Britain could save £350million per week with an EU exit (although it seemed to be basing this on Britain’s gross rather than its net payments to the EU budget). No doubt there will be many more financial estimates promoted in the months ahead.

The good news is that you don’t need to spend much time on the financial aspect of the debate. For a start, there are much bigger issues at stake than whether an exit would make us a little bit better or worse off. On top of that, most of the calculations from both sides are inherently flawed and meaningless.

Historic estimates of how much Britain has gained or lost economically and financially from EU membership cannot be definitive because we don’t know what would have happened if we hadn’t joined in the first place. The so-called counterfactual is unknowable. For instance, it may seem reasonable to assert that British trade with EU countries would have been less if the UK had remained outside the EU and its single market. Though by how much is impossible to say, not least because British exports to the EU were already growing well before Britain joined the European Economic Community in 1973. Who is to say that this earlier expansion in British trade to bloc members would not have continued? This makes it impossible to say how much post-1973 trade growth can be attributed to membership per se.

Moreover, we don’t know how Britain’s trading relations would otherwise have evolved had it not joined. Maybe even more lucrative trade relationships would have built up either with other advanced economies, such as the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, or with emerging markets, such as India and China — all of which could have been damaged by protectionist EU policy. It is worth noting that, today, British trade is in deficit with the other EU countries, while it is in surplus with the US. So there is also no determinate relationship between a net trade position — positive or negative — and membership of a trade area.

Similarly indeterminate are the gross and, even more so, the net estimates for the future financial and economic effects of leaving or staying. The true costs and benefits arising from alternative referendum outcomes are unquantifiable today, because they are contingent on what happens after the result. The economics of either situation — being in or out — is not static or pre-determined; it depends, in particular, on the policies the British government pursues now and after the EU referendum.

This is not just to do with how the British government handles the exit negotiations and the new trade agreements, or the challenges from continued membership, if that were to be the unfortunate decision. More broadly, the future health of the British economy is much more dependent on what sort of economic and industrial policies the government implements, rather than if Britain is in or out of any particular economic or trade grouping.

A country can have free-trade relationships with areas and countries all around the world, the gains will be much less when the country’s level of productivity is low and stagnating, as has been the case in Britain in recent years. Given that Britain’s goods and services currently lack international competitiveness, government actions to help fix inadequate productivity will do much more for prosperity than securing particular free-trade agreements.

Democracy trumps the cost-benefit approach

It is precisely because it is so important that a nation is able to pursue appropriate economic and industrial policies that Britain ought to leave the EU. It is only outside the structures of the EU that economic policies are subject to democratic accountability. There are many different views on what those economic policies should be — I’ve argued on spiked that Britain needs a radically transformative set of economic and industrial policies in order to renew the economy. But for any policies to be effective, they will require open and extensive public discussion and engagement, alongside full political accountability. Unfortunately, democracy and accountability are precisely what EU membership curtails.

EU member countries have ceded sovereign control over a wide range of areas to appointed elites. So, for example, the European Court of Justice recently ruled that time spent travelling to and from home by employees without a fixed workplace should count towards time worked, and therefore should be paid. Now, we might think that’s a good or a bad ruling, fair or unfair. But the core political point is that, as national citizens, there is nothing we can do to reverse this decision – we can’t enforce policy accountability by replacing the politicians involved.

The democratic argument for an exit is therefore not based on the assessment of particular EU policies or regulation. Rather, it is based on the need to restore public accountability for the decisions the EU currently makes for us. If economic policies are decided by national, elected governments, we can assess these policies, and we can hold governments to account for them through national elections.

Although we can also assess EU policies as agreed by the European Commission or the increasingly political European Court of Justice, there is little we can do as national electorates to change them. And there is no meaningful pan-European demos — as evidenced by the steady decline in electoral turnout at European elections. Sixty-two per cent of EU citizens voted in the first parliamentary election in 1979, but turnout fell in each of the subsequent elections. Since 1999, it has been hovering below 50 per cent.

Being part of the EU undermines the prospects for securing the sort of economic policies that Britain, and other mature industrialised countries, so desperately need. Quite simply, for as long as we remain in the EU there will be less public accountability for our policies and less scope for changing them.

The EU: both hindrance and alibi

Even for Britain, which, being outside the Eurozone, is not directly affected by the most invasive forms of Brussels intervention, the EU already influences regional funding, state aid for industry, employment rights and laws, and financial regulation, as well as policies for transport, the environment, energy, agriculture and fisheries. Not having national accountability over policymaking is a problem today because economic policy sorely needs to be changed. Economic policy has become far too concerned with propping up the status quo and getting in the way of the sort of extensive economic restructuring and renewal of productive capacities that Britain and other European countries greatly need.

EU membership has become a barrier to such changes in policy; more importantly, it has become a means for national politicians to evade their own policy responsibilities. For example, the existence of EU state-aid rules can get in the way of revitalising the economy. Take the recent shutting down of the SSI steelworks in Teesside, with the direct loss of about 2,200 jobs and possibly thousands more at suppliers and in local businesses. SSI’s closure and the subsequent announcements of more possible plant closings from Caparo Industries and Tata Steel reinforce the need for substantial, sustained and active economic and industrial policies. These are required to help create the new industries and jobs for the millions of people who have lost, and are still losing, their jobs from Britain’s old industries of steelmaking, shipbuilding, textiles, cars, coalmining, and North Sea oil and gas production.

Yet the official government response to this devastating news for people in Redcar, Scunthorpe, Motherwell and Clydebridge was to claim that it was limited in what it could do because of the EU’s state-aid rules. The core point is not that British ministers’ hands were necessarily tied by the EU rules — there are always ways around any set of rules. No, it’s that ministers used the EU-imposed rules to absolve themselves of responsibility for economic renewal. The existence of the EU’s rules-based technocracy reinforces the anti-democratic depoliticisation of national economic life. It masks politicians’ own evasion of responsibility for helping to create the new industries, sectors and jobs that all those redundant steel workers need.

Leaving the EU would not by itself be an economic game-changer, but by removing one block to a national debate on, and public accountability for, economic and industrial policy, an EU exit would make a long overdue restructuring more feasible. Getting out of the EU will not automatically repoliticise economic policy. But it would remove the alibi used by national politicians who are refusing to engage in discussion about restoring productive dynamism.

Fundamentally, the political problem we face here is a domestic one, but it takes an external form in the European Union. This is not a case of nasty Brussels technocrats set against saintly British democrats. On the contrary, this anti-democratic sentiment flows from London, Berlin, Paris and other national capitals, not the EU headquarters in Brussels. But the EU as an institution does sharply express the anti-democratic trend of Europe’s national elites. The EU is more a symptom, than the cause, of depoliticisation.

Time after time, the EU has shown contempt for public participation and has quashed accountability and democratic decision-making. We have seen this most blatantly when the EU elite has ignored or bludgeoned national electorates who voted against its initiatives, as the French and Dutch did in their 2005 referenda, as the Irish people did in 2008, and as the Greeks did this year. We’ve seen it, too, in the EU’s imposition of unelected technocratic governments on the peoples of Italy and Greece in 2011. As an institution, then, the EU epitomises the contemporary political elite’s denial of democracy, its political estrangement from the demos and its rejection of popular sovereignty.

The EU’s ascendancy as a bureaucratic technocracy is enabled by the decay of democratic politics in nation states. And that decay is the responsibility of various national elites, not least the British. So when national European politicians hide behind the EU to disguise their own disdain for public politics, they further degrade democracy.

For another illustration that the biggest problem we have is at home, look no further than prime minister David Cameron’s secrecy over his EU-reform wishlist. This secrecy and opaqueness, this refusal to allow the wishlist to be part of the referendum debate, exemplifies the undemocratic and anti-political tendencies at work in Britain today. To add insult to injury, Cameron is now saying he will publish his demands in November… because other national elites told him to.

Sovereignty and internationalism

Getting out of the EU because it denies democracy is not an argument for Britain to pull up the metaphorical drawbridge. Leaving the EU is not the same as cutting Britain off from Europe, or indeed the rest of the world. Asserting national sovereignty is about a people being able to determine their own future and not have it determined for them. This applies both to purely domestic matters, such as national employment or financial rules, and to its relations with the rest of the world. Advocating the importance of sovereignty is not counterposed to being open to the world, as some EU opponents often present it.

Promoting the free movement of people, goods, services and capital across borders – not just in Europe but throughout the rest of the world, too – is a positive, internationalist perspective. The problem with EU membership today is that the rules for cross-border movement are being set and imposed in a way that is not accountable to national electorates. ‘Ever closer union’ is admirable as an internationalist aspiration, but it denies democracy when it is being imposed by unaccountable elites. It is this external imposition of policies – this usurpation of sovereignty – that is fuelling the national sense of grievance and resentment towards others.

This shows that the ideal of internationalism is better served, not sacrificed, by leaving the EU. To vote against the EU is not a vote against the peoples, the cultures and even the markets of Europe. On the contrary, it is the EU that has become one of the biggest enemies of ‘one Europe’ and internationalism. It is the main force dividing and disuniting the people of Europe today. Any presumption that the EU operates in the interests of the European people is flawed. It has become a self-serving oligarchic political institution that actively negates a pro-European outlook.

For example, during the Eurozone crisis, the EU has divided the peoples of the north from those of the south. German and other northern taxpayers are understandably reluctant to bail out southern countries — that is not something they have ever had the democratic opportunity to vote for. And Greek and other southern peoples don’t welcome the external imposition of austere national budget measures that they have had no say in.

Similarly, over the migrant crisis, people are being divided, with a supposedly progressive West pitched against a supposedly backward East. The EU once again denied national sovereignty when it used its majority-voting system to force through a mandatory migrant-quota programme that meant Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary had to accept a certain number of migrants. We should not expect the peoples in these countries to welcome the decision when they have had no say in it.

So the EU political regime, far from furthering the goal of a closer European people, has become the biggest source of European division and national resentment. Arguing against the EU in the referendum is therefore also an argument against the main driver of European disunity. It is consistent with the promotion of a truly internationalist perspective.

Regardless of whether the EU is the culprit or the scapegoat, British people should vote to leave the EU in the upcoming referendum. This decision would not in itself resolve all the problems of national democratic accountability. But it could be a big step towards regaining national control and accountability for the policies being pursued on our behalf, not least in the sphere of economic and industrial policymaking.

Fighting for democracy and accountability is a neverending struggle, so an EU exit won’t automatically solve everything. However, the potential benefits to leaving will provide the answer to the scaremongering ‘stay’ campaigners, with their financial prophecies of rack and ruin. Leaving the EU presents Britain with an opportunity for real democratic, economic renewal, which could strengthen engagement with Europe and the wider world.

SOURCE






Is policing now politically incorrect?

Former New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said he agrees with FBI Director James Comey that police are hesitant to do their jobs, given the backlash against them since the rioting in Ferguson, Mo.

"I commend James Comey for telling it like it is," Kelly told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "I mean, if you talk to police officers in other jurisdictions, not only in New York where I am, they will tell you that. They are backing off.

"A lot of police work is discretionary and they don't want to put their careers at risk. They don't want to put their family's wellbeing at risk, so they are hesitating somewhat. In some people's mind, I guess, that's a good thing. In my mind, it's not a good thing."

Speaking in Chicago on Friday, Comey noted that "in cities across the country, we are seeing an explosion of senseless violence."

Comey lamented the widening gulf between police and the people they are sworn to serve and protect:

"I spoke to officers privately in one big city precinct who described being surrounded by young people with mobile phone cameras held high, taunting them the moment they get out of their cars. They told me, 'We feel like we’re under siege and we don’t feel much like getting out of our cars.'

"I’ve been told about a senior police leader who urged his force to remember that their political leadership has no tolerance for a viral video.

"So the suggestion, the question that has been asked of me, is whether these kinds of things are changing police behavior all over the country. And the answer is, I don’t know. I don’t know whether this explains it entirely, but I do have a strong sense that some part of the explanation is a chill wind blowing through American law enforcement over the last year. And that wind is surely changing behavior."

Comey said the country "can't lose sight of the fact that there really are bad people standing on the street with guns. The young men dying on street corners all across this country are not committing suicide or being shot by the cops. They are being killed, police chiefs tell me, by other young men with guns.

"Lives are saved when those potential killers are confronted by a strong police presence and actual, honest-to-goodness, up-close 'What are you guys doing on this corner at one o’clock in the morning?' policing. All of us, civilian and law enforcement, white, black, and Latino, have an interest in that kind of policing.

"We need to be careful it doesn’t drift away from us in the age of viral videos, or there will be profound consequences," Comey warned.

On Monday, Wolf Blitzer asked Ray Kelly what he thinks is driving the recent increase in crime in some of America's big cities.

"I think part of it is being driven by what Jim Comey says," Kelly responded. "The officers are not engaging in proactive policing, not engaging in a level they engaged in recent past. Actually, proactive policing in my judgment has reduced crime in this country for two decades. Smarter policing, better use of technology.

"Now, they are not taking the initiative, you might say, and that's what's causing in my judgment, not totally, but to a significant extent, an increase in violent crime in 30 major cities throughout the country."

The Obama White House takes an entirely different view.

Asked about Comey's comments on Monday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said he hasn't discussed it with President Obama: "I will say that the available evidence at this point does not support the notion that law enforcement officers around the country are shying away from fulfilling their responsibilities.

On the contrary, I think you've seen a lot of local law enforcement leaders indicate that police officers and sheriffs and other local law enforcement officials are actually dedicated public servants who on a daily basis are putting their lives on the line to serve and protect the communities that they're assigned to."

Earnest agreed that some communities, including Washington, D.C., are seeing an "uptick" in crime and violence. It's something that "merits serious consideration," he said.

Earnest also said President Obama is focused on "making sure we have a Criminal Justice System that works for the United States in the 21st century."

"I think the President certainly does believe that there are certain elements of our Criminal Justice System that are not serving the country and communities all across the country very well. And that, after all, is what the President believes should precipitate some needed reforms that would have the effect of making our community safer."

President Obama and Attorney General Loretta Lynch are scheduled to discuss criminal justice issues Tuesday at a conference of police chiefs in Chicago.

SOURCE






Sweden: It Is Considered Racism Only If the Victims Are Not White

On Thursday, October 22, Sweden was shocked by yet another act of madness apparently connected to multiculturalism.

Anton Lundin Pettersson, 21, dressed in a black coat and Darth Vader helmet, and armed with a sword and a knife, entered the Kronan school in Trollhättan and started killing. By the time the police shot him down, he had killed one person and wounded three others severely. One of the wounded later died in the hospital.

In many respects, the attack was similar to the one in the Västerås IKEA on August 10 -- random people killed because of the color of their skin. In IKEA, whites were killed by a black assailant; at the school, blacks were killed by a white assailant.

The reaction, however, was completely different. After IKEA, there was dead silence. But this school attack is all over the news. A white perpetrator killing black victims is apparently considered far worse than a black perpetrator killing white victims.

Like most schools in Sweden, the doors of the Kronan school, which has many Somali students, are open to the public. A few minutes after 10 am, Anton Lundin Pettersson, a native Swede with no criminal record, took a knife and a sword into Kronan, and began attacking people. Pettersson's first victim was a teaching assistant, Lavin Eskandar, 20, who according to witnesses, tried to protect students but was attacked. He managed to stagger out into the schoolyard before he collapsed and died.

As Pettersson continued his tour of the school, he seemed particular in his choice of victims. One student, thinking Pettersson was dressed for Halloween, even persuaded him to pose for a picture with her two friends on either side. Expressen, a daily, interviewed two students who were in one of the classrooms Pettersson visited. One girl described the horror:

"We saw him through the glass wall and thought it was a prank. He knocked on the door. My friend opened it. He walked into the classroom and checked us all out. Then he stuck his sword in my friend's belly. One student started screaming but we all still thought it was a prank. When we saw the blood spurt, we ran to the side. There is a small room next to the classroom, so everyone ran there."

The police arrived quickly. Two minutes later, they located Pettersson, and when he tried to attack them, they opened fire. Pettersson, hit in the chest, died in the hospital a few hours later.

The next day, the police held a press conference. In security camera footage, Pettersson can be seen marching in school halls. He left light-skinned students alone but attacked blacks. One of the victims, Ahmed Hassan, 15, died in the hospital. Two other victims, a 15-year-old student and a 41-year-old teacher, are hospitalized with severe injuries; according to reports, their condition is now stable.

Even though there is no one to bring to justice, the police are continuing their investigation, to try to establish his motive.

The police also said at the press conference that they had found a suicide note of sorts in the murderer's apartment. The exact wording has not been made public, but according to the police, the letter makes it clear that Pettersson wanted to stop immigration, and that "he did not feel that Sweden is being governed correctly." Policeman Niclas Hallgren said the letter indicated that the act was planned:

"It says that the perpetrator intends to go to the location in question and carry out the attack. It says that this will be done and that the end result may be the death of the perpetrator. ... We know that the perpetrator was prepared to end his life there and then, but I cannot go into details about how he saw this happening."

Although everyone has condemned the attack, the internet is also crowded with people questioning the huge difference on how the "establishment" has been reacting. After the IKEA murders, the Swedish government did not make a single public statement, not even to mourn the family's loss. But as soon news broke of the school attack, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven dropped everything and went to Trollhättan to condemn the slaughter, calling it "a black day for Sweden."

Newscasts and television debates were devoted to the attack, and focused on the racist motive. After the double murder at IKEA, there were no such discussions. We have yet to hear anyone condemn the racist motive of IKEA killer, Abraham Ukbagabir, a migrant from Eritrea.

When he was indicted last week, it was revealed that Ukbagabir told police he chose his victims, Carola and Emil Herlin, because they "looked Swedish." According to the forensic psychiatric evaluation, Ukbagabir is "completely self-absorbed and views other people only as a means to meet his own goals."

The double murder he committed was apparently an act of revenge. According to the police report, he said he had felt unfairly treated -- he thought he would get to stay in Sweden. He viewed Sweden as his homeland and "if an enemy disturbs you, you have no choice but to defend yourself." The rejection, he told the police, had made him feel like a criminal, and he was angry, offended and disappointed.

One of the people who reacted strongly to the fundamentally different way these two acts of murder were publicly handled is the blogger Fredrik Antonsson. In a post entitled, "Us and Them," he writes:

"Sweden is in shock. The tragedy in Trollhättan is all over the news... It is all people are talking about, writing about, thinking about ... everyone is trying to understand why. Why? Racism. Intolerance. We can already see the contours of an insane act where... 'us against them' was the primary motive. Another illusion of Sweden gone -- the illusion that this is a safe, protected country where things like this do not happen. Another question spinning around the internet is why [Prime Minister] Stefan Löfven values people differently. It only takes a little googling to realize that the country's Prime Minister is present and compassionate when it suits him, and completely absent when it doesn't feel right to step forward and condemn the unprovoked, racist violence at an IKEA store.... There is, of course, the argument that atrocities at a school are always worse than any other act of meaningless violence. But by his not dealing with Västerås but dealing with Trollhättan, Löfven has now created an image of caring, but selectively."

The question is: What does Löfven hope to achieve with an agenda of condemning all violence from native Swedes, but ignoring violence from immigrants? He and his advisors probably think that acts such as the racist attack at the school in Trollhättan will make Swedes tone down their criticism of immigration policy, and bow their heads in shame because "all Swedes are racists." There is a great risk, though, that the reaction will be the opposite -- that as Swedes become more and more convinced that no one speaks for them, they will feel an increasing need, to take matters into their own hands if they want to change things.

Just last week in Sweden, six would-be housing facilities for asylum seekers were set ablaze: on October 13 in Arlöv, October 17 in Ljungby, October 18 in Kungsbacka, October 20 in Munkedal, October 20 in Upplands Väsby and October 22 in Perstorp. Another fire broke out on Friday, October 23, in Eskilstuna. Fortunately, the buildings were all empty, so no one was hurt.

There is now an imminent danger that the school attack and the torched asylum housing facilities may be followed by many other, possibly worse, criminal acts.

After the IKEA murders, hundreds of Swedes wrote emails and letters to the government, demanding that they do something about the violence against native Swedes in Sweden. The replies contained nothing of any value.

According to editorial columnist Hans Davidsen-Nielsen, of the Danish daily Politiken: "Let us not forget that Sweden has a history of political extremism and violence, expressed among other things through the murders of a Prime Minister [Olof Palme] and a Minister for Foreign Affairs [Anna Lindh]. The climate of debate is cruder in Denmark, but once the lid blows in Sweden, it will happen with much larger force."

SOURCE


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

Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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