Peddlers of Paranoid Rumor, Lie, Fairy Tale, Urban Legend, and Distortion

I have never thought, for a second, that those who peddle leftist or nihilistic rumors, such as the ones that surrounded the Katrina story, believe them.

It's common for the non-psychotic among us to imagine that they are nuts, but they aren't. They are cynical manipulators, and know that there is a market of the ignorant and of the conspiracy-friendly who will be influenced by this stuff, such as the notion that the government blew up the levees to destroy blacks because Bush hates blacks. To label these low-life jerks as crazy morons is to greatly underestimate their calculated propaganda. They have an agenda - personal or political - which, to them, justifies tricks and deception. They know that a story, repeated often, will enter people's brains as an idea, regardless of its likelihood or believability. Once planted, ideas and images have a life of their own in our minds - hence literature, art, movies, dance and song. And propaganda.

This is why lying and deception are mortal sins in the Christian world. "Mortal sin" is a very big deal, and extremely important (you are written out of the Kingdom of God, and fated to Gehenna, without true repentence, and amends satisfactory to God, prior to death) for good reason: mortal sins have great power for evil, and these mortal sins have the power to usher people into false realities against their will or even their awareness. Thus lies and deception are a "theft of life." Because words and stories are very powerful, we count on people, in our civilization, to identify them as either fiction or fact. Some other cultures and sub-cultures do not count on this at all and make no distinction between the two. Some people hardly know the difference, and some do not care.

In our culture, we label this as sociopathy, and liars, sneaks, tricksters, and manipulators as sociopaths or sociopathic narcissists - probably somewhat genetically 3-6% of the population, and many of such are attracted to politics as a no-skills, no-heavy-knowledge, no-heavy-lifting arena for deception and narcissistic gratification (ie weak-ego-building, plus generous benefits). Some cultures, sub-cultures, and personality types regard such behavior as "normal vigorous self-interest." As a very experienced lawyer, I can say this: You always need to know what culture, or what type of personality, you are dealing with, before you let them inside the gates of your personal or civic perimeter, or "boundary," as the shrinks would say. You can take their money to do a job, but your personal perimeter needs to be sacred and your civic perimeter needs good guards.

For us regular, boring, wholesome Americans for whom honor and integrity are sacred, if difficult, ideals, fiction masquerading as fact is a tool of Satan, used against the "children of Jesus": the innocent, the trusting, the naive, the ignorant, and those solid, earnest souls who refuse to permit their spirits to be broken or their souls contaminated by cruelty, dishonesty and ruthless self-interest and self-aggrandizement.

More on this when I have a little time.

The Modern Christian Gospels

Tod Bolsinger points out an interview which spells out the current "gospels":

There are really three gospels that are heard in our society. One is forgiveness of sins. Another is being faithful to your church: If you take care of your church, it will take care of you. Sometimes it's called discipleship, but it's really churchmanship. And another gospel is the social one—Jesus is in favor of liberation, and we should be devoted to that. All of those contain important elements of truth. You can't dismiss any of them. But to make them central and say that's what discipleship is just robs discipleship of its connection with transformation of character."

I could not agree more. Read his piece and his link.

Never did this before

But I have to post the entire Scrapple-Dude piece, here:

Race Hustlers and Poverty Pimps

Here they come - out of the woodwork like cockroaches, hoping that Katrina might offer a feeding opportunity. Or, could you say, like looters during a flood? You thought they were gone, didn't you? Irrelevant, ancient history, self-charicatures, now replaced with a healthier and more positive view of race in America, right? A new generation of positive, hopeful, independent, self-respecting black Americans, right? Nope. Sorry. Those old folks - the black leaders of the 70s who built their reputations on "government programs" weren't gone - they were just resting, biding their time, waiting and hoping for an opening.

And waiting for any opportunity with increasing apprehension, because the Repubs have been chipping away at the plantation with their emphasis on morals and responsibility.

What is the strategy of these old folks, raised on the politics of poverty scams? Scare the blacks back onto the Dem plantation, and guilt the whites into handing over more $ which they can deliver to their constituents. Same old same old.

Everyone jokes about the black hurricane caused by Bush, but some of these folks talk as if they believed it. As if the people harmed by hurricane Andrew, which devastated white Florida, did not also require 5 days for federal help to arrive. No damn difference. But facts have nothing to do with this. As RRWH delicately puts it: "But to those who've been sucking off the government tit for 4 generations, then Big Momma Government is the first ones they turn to to bail their asses out of a jam."

Does anyone take these losers and their race-baiting seriously in 2005?

In my opinion, nothing did more damage to American poor, including the black poor, than the 1970s "War on Poverty," and we continue to reap what was sown then - seeds of helplessness, dependency, excuse, grievance, and entitlement - the worst possible lessons for proud, free people in America. Far more lives down the drain than a thousand hurricanes. Let's hope this older generation of black "leaders" will be ignored. And let's begin hearing voices from black leaders who have faith in their people and who respect their intelligence and abilities and pride.

A Very Fine Novelist offers the View from the Paranoid, Enraged, and Helpless-feeling Left.  E.L. Doctorow looks deep into Bush's eyes and "figures him out" in a scathing ad hominem assault. More fiction from Doctorow? Our favorite blond, Laura Ingraham, would say "Shut up and sing write."

I fault this president (George W. Bush) for not knowing what death is. He does not suffer the death of our twenty-one year olds who wanted to be what they could be.

On the eve of D-day in 1944 General Eisenhower prayed to God for the lives of the young soldiers he knew were going to die. He knew what death was. Even in a justifiable war, a war not of choice but of necessity, a war of survival, the cost was almost more than Eisenhower could bear.

But this president does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind for it. You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the WMDs he can't seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving, triumphal, a he-man. He does not mourn. He doesn't understand why he should mourn. He is satisfied during the course of a speech written for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the brave young Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

But you study him, you look into his eyes and know he dissembles an emotion which he does not feel in the depths of his being because he has no capacity for it. He does not feel a personal responsibility for the thousand dead young men and women who wanted to be what they could be. They come to his desk not as youngsters with mothers and fathers or wives and children who will suffer to the end of their days a terribly torn fabric of familial relationships and the inconsolable remembrance of aborted life. They come to his desk as a political liability which is why the press is not permitted to photograph the arrival of their coffins from Iraq.

(Read the rest of this predictably hateful, manipulative, condescending, amateur psychoanalytic, arrogant, party-line, juvenile rant from one of America's finest writers by clicking continuation page below. It would be a good game to identify every logical, moral and factual inconsistency herein, but who has the time? Or maybe I will make the time - or one of our readers will...)

A Question

A rhetorical question, born of frustration: Why does it seem as if we members of Western, Northern European Civilization are required to "tolerate" and understand and empathise with those from different traditions and cultures and world views, when the same is never demanded of them?

From James Bowman's The Myth of Control in The New Criterion:

Why is it that connections to our own previous acts are visible all over the place when we are being attacked while connections to the enemy’s previous actions are thin to the point of vanishing when we are the ones doing the attacking? Bush is a madman or a criminal for attacking innocent Iraqis, and yet the attacks on innocent Londoners are said, in the words of Nick Megoran, to be “inexcusable but not inexplicable.” But as the French proverb reminds us, to explain is to excuse, and the eagerness with which the Left has seized upon the actions of George W. Bush as an explanation for all the evil in the world sometimes almost provokes the doubtless unjust suspicion that the terrorists are being excused for the sake of Bush’s being attacked. Yet if sometimes his detractors simply forget to mention, pro forma, that they well understand it is terrorists who are guilty of terrorism and not those responsible for the terrorists’ real or imagined grievances, there may be an explanation for that too.

I think it is because the most cherished of all the myths of the Left is the myth of control. For those whose political starting point is the need to change the world, obviously the first article of faith must be that the world can be changed by the leaders they elect and the decisions those leaders take and the laws they pass. It is therefore fundamental to them to suppose that when bad things happen to Americans, or Britons, someone in political power in America or Britain must be to blame. “It is no accident, Comrade,” the Communists used to say, because in essence for Communists there were no accidents. And the habit of thought lives on even after the demise of doctrinaire Marxism.

Read the whole thing.

The Ouija Board approach to the Bible, and How the Bible reveals truth

From Evangelical Outpost:

There is an old preacher’s tale of a young man who turned to the Bible for guidance on making decisions. Using the text as a divining rod, he would flip through the text and let his finger land on a verse, using the result as a divine insight into how he should decide. One day while wondering what to do with his life, he flipped his Bible open and pointed to Matthew 27:5. He read, "[Judas] went and hanged himself." He decided to try again and on the second attempt landed on Luke 10:37, "Go and do likewise." He tried flipping one more time and arrived at John 13:27, "What you do, do quickly."

Although we might find the story amusing, most Christians have done something similar themselves. Eventually, though, we outgrow the “flip and point” method of guidance. As we mature in our faith we begin to recognize that just because the Bible is the word of God does not make it a sanctified Ouija board that will answer whatever questions we might ask. Unfortunately, we often discard such childish approachs only to replace them with more sophisticated, yet equally flawed, hermeneutical methods. Once such approach is what philosopher Roy Clouser calls the “encyclopedic assumption”:

Read entire.

World Mis-spent Youth Day

Curt Jester did a good job with this, but I was looking for Benedict's speech. This will have to do for now.

Jester here.

Katherine Harris

No longer Cruella De Ville, and lookin' like an attractive candidate for FL. Photo from, and a HT to,  QandO blog.

Let her run, FL Repubs. She looks "votable," does she not, fellas? You'd rather look at Joe Scarborough?

If she is really going to take a ride through a primary, though, somebody had better adjust those stirrups for her or she will take a nasty tumble. Primaries are tough when the organization is against you, and she doesn't look like an easy rider. In fact, looks like her first time on a horse. Ride 'em, cowgirl.

She has earned a chance, but the Party has other considerations, as always.

Why Casey Sheehan Died

A HT to Classical Values. Excellent piece in The Idiom, here.

A Call for Help

Gov. Richardson asks the Feds for help with the border. Call in the cavalry. A Dem has to beg a Repub administration to control the nation's border? Come on. Story in Newsmax.

Some excellent misc. sample quotes on Big Topics:

Hansen: Any Western country with open immigration from the Middle East is committing cultural suicide, and for all the politically correct pieties, legislators seem to know it.

Right Thinking, on the Islamic bombings in Bangladesh yesterday: Once again the Religion of Peace™ kills civilians because their government refuses to submit to the fascist rule of militant Islam.

Beck on Dalrymple and the fragility of civilization, in the New Criterion - Click here: Diagnosis: decadence by Stefan Beck : But the piano, considered as a product and emblem of civilization, is a reminder that to create is the work of centuries, to destroy, the work of a moment. Hence, many of the essays in the present volume are concerned both with great creators (Shakespeare, Turgenev, Gillray, Cassatt) and with thoughtless destroyers (Marx, Lawrence, Kinsey, Virginia Woolf)

Barone on Multiculturalism: Multiculturalism is based on the lie that all cultures are morally equal. In practice, that soon degenerates to: All cultures all morally equal, except ours, which is worse. But all cultures are not equal in respecting representative government, guaranteed liberties, and the rule of law. And those things arose not simultaneously and in all cultures but in certain specific times and places--mostly in Britain and America but also in other parts of Europe.

Auster, quoting Norman Davies, at View from the Right: Hitler’s democratic triumph exposed the true nature of democracy. Democracy has few values of its own: it is as good, or bad, as the principles of the people who operate it. In the hands of liberal and tolerant people, it will produce a liberal and tolerant government; in the hands of cannibals, a government of cannibals. In Germany of 1933-4 it produced a Nazi government because the prevailing culture of Germany’s voters did not give priority to the exclusion of gangsters.

Thomas Reeves, at History News Network, on the temptations of secularism: It is commonplace these days for some journalists and many intellectuals to blame religion for much of the worlds ills. Look at foreign affairs, they say. The Muslim fanatics blowing themselves and others to bits really think they’re going to rewarded in heaven with 40 virgins. Those cowboys and Zionists who are running American foreign policy and endangering the world think they are doing the will of the God. At home, Catholics and others are at work to prevent the research necessary to cure many diseases. Right-wing evangelicals constantly plot to impose their moral restrictions on others. It is only the sober, educated rationalists, we are told, who can see realities beyond the superstitions and bring justice and truth to a world hungering for peace and prosperity. Rid the globe of religion and you free the human mind, at last, to create the wonders of which it is capable.

This is the dogma of the 18th century Enlightenment, of course, later embraced by Marxists who murdered clergy and destroyed churches whenever the opportunity arose. This secular dogma lives still, especially among leftist intellectuals and media moguls who often see themselves as the high priests of knowledge and learning. Woven into their arguments are almost always appeals to end definitions of right and wrong, a move that has the advantage of destroying all moral inhibitions and sanctions. Free sex for a free people.

Phelps on God and Science, at Acton Inst, Click here: Commentary: Miracles of God and Miracles of Science :

In the minds of many, there is a vague notion that somehow God and science are necessarily in competition. We see this opposition take form in the debates between creationism and evolution, between church and state, where faith is pitted against reason, the secular against the sacred. Why isn’t this opposition more often transferred to our discussions of medicine as well?

The reason may be that physicians recognize more readily the relationship between God and science. A recent study by the University of Chicago showed that seventy-six percent of physicians believe in God, and fifty-five percent say their faith influences their medical practice. It seems that the dichotomy between faith and science, while common in popular discourse, is not as popular as among doctors themselves.

Swimming Pools and Politics: The YWCA

I amused myself by spending a few moments delving into the national YWCA website. I have heard from many women hereabouts in New England complain that the YWCA, which many of them frequent, has had its national HQ co-opted by political purposes and goals extending far beyond the health and spiritual well-being of American women. They love the pool and the Yoga classes, but - almost sounding like union members - they are dismayed what is being done with the part of their dues that goes to the national HQ - some of which appears to go towards leftist political "advocacy." They even have a thing called "congressional watch."

It is a stated goal of the national Y to "empower women," (whatever that means) but these ladies feel truly helpless and disempowered by a national HQ with a political agenda. Eg: "There's nothing we can do about it, but it's the best pool around."

Here's a sample of what I learned: The Y takes the official position of opposing partial "privatization" of Social Security, which seems nutty to me - what a boon that would be for working women. The Y supports extending affirmative action. (How it can be extended is beyond me - see Moonbat for the latest example of the employment problems in owning a penis.) The Y supports "immigrant rights," which I assume but do not know for certain probably means illegal immigrant rights. The Y opposes racial profiling by law enforcement, which seems crazy in a time of Jihad and which has nothing to do with women. I notice, interestingly but somewhat surprisingly, that they have not dared take a pro-abortion position. But are they officially "troubled" by Judge Robert's nomination? You bet.  Is YWCA-USA an organization with a political agenda? You bet.

My conclusion: Locally, a fine and useful and handy organization full of dedicated employees and volunteers and hard-working board members, and an important resource for abused women - but nationally, a Lefty political organization. Is it paranoid to call this one more example of Marx's "long march through the institutions"?

My question: To the local Ys - why send any $ to the national HQ? To what extent are the pools and Yoga classes and local good deeds being used as a fund-raising tool for a political agenda? I don't know any more than what I see on their site, but I'd like to learn. And I wonder whether all the ladies at the Yoga classes know that part of what they pay is being used to pursue a political agenda in Washington, with which they might strongly disagree.

Update: Have email from an ex-local board member that YWCA-USA - the national board - absconded with the entire YWCA endowment, moved from NYC to DC, and that now dues go to the regional HQs. So it looks even worse, to me. I guess that means that the national is no longer dependent on the locals?  More info, please...I know half the world is on vacation, but half my life is a vacation, and a nice one, too. Organize your life so you can love it, as The Analyst always says, unless your discontent comes from within.

Why Blogs are Necessary, more

Who in the MSM, including the NYT or even our friends, the NY Sun, is covering this? Click here: Pardon My English: Report Documents Massive Democratic Voter Fraud. And why not?

Where does Federal Education Money Go?

You assume that it goes down some rathole, right? Cato Institute did a serious study of the history of federal involvement in education - which is properly a local issue and probably unconstitutional - and sums it all up here. An important piece. Hey, guess what? It's all politics - ie sleaze. Just like Homeland Security, I mean Homeland Pork.  Excellent and detailed Cato piece here: Click here: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa518.pdf

A reader sent us this interesting piece. It it against my religion to read sociologists, but even if the Prof is just making it all up, it's thoughful.  I think his thesis about class is wrong, but sociologists tend to think along those lines. If it's from a book, I can't find it on Amazon, or I would reference it for the Prof:

“What Went Wrong with Liberalism?” by  Douglas S. Massey, Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, Princeton University:

Liberal pundits are asking why middle class Americans so often vote against their own economic interests. Mostly they look outside the liberal movement for answers.  If they are being charitable, they chalk it up to the pervasiveness of “traditional values.”  If they are being less charitable, they portray voters as dim-witted dupes of lying right-wing politicians. Often they just throw their hands up in exasperation
and wail, “What’s the matter with Kansas?”  Yet survey data do not show a fundamental cleavage of values among Americans; and constantly asking people “what’s wrong with you?” is unlikely to win elections.  Maybe it’s about time liberals looked to themselves and ask what they have done to drive so many people away from a party it is in their material interests to support.

Liberals often point to race as the wedge issue that broke apart the New Deal coalition, and of course they are right.  As important as race is to understanding
the collapse of liberalism, however, it is only half the story.  Opposition to civil rights was only partly based on race.  As paradoxical as it may seem, resistance was also based on class, for by the 1970s the ruling elites of the Democratic party had grown
arrogant, self-righteous, and callous toward the sensibilities of the working class.

More on continuation page below:

Blair Takes on the "Compensation Culture"

Same thoughtful speech could and should be equally well given in the US: Samples from his speech on May 26 at University College:

It is what I call a sensible debate about risk in public policy making. In my view, we are in danger of having a wholly disproportionate attitude to the risks we should expect to run as a normal part of life. This is putting pressure on policy-making, not just in Government but in regulatory bodies, on local government, public services, in Europe and across parts of the private sector - to act to eliminate risk in a way that is out of all proportion to the potential damage. The result is a plethora of rules, guidelines, responses to 'scandals' of one nature or another that ends up having utterly perverse consequences.

and:

So, for example, one piece of research into a supposed link between autism and the MMR single jab, starts a scare that, despite the vast weight of evidence to the contrary, makes people believe a method of vaccination used the world over, is unsafe. The result is an increase in risk to our children's health under the very guise of limiting that risk.

And before we all just complain about the regulators, the public servants or indeed the Government, let us just pause for a moment in sympathy. A civil servant or regulator who fails to regulate a risk that materialises will be castigated. How many are rewarded when they refuse to regulate and take the risk?

Bodies set up to guard the public interest have one-way pressures. It is in their interest never to be accused of having missed a problem. So, it is a one-sided bet. They will always err on the side of caution.

It seems to be part of the DNA of regulatory bodies that they acquire their own interests and begin to grow. Max Weber famously noted the tendency of bureaucracies to tidiness.

Read the whole thing here: Click here: Speech on Compensation Culture given at University College London

What Blair needs to do, according to Steyn - Click here: Telegraph | Opinion | Blair must overturn 40 years of mistakes

He has to regain control of Britain's borders from the EU and of Britain's education system from the teachers' unions and of Britain's welfare programmes from wily Somalis and others. In 20 years' time, no one will remember whether Tony Blair abolished the House of Lords or foxhunting: that's poseur stuff. They'll judge him on whether or not he flunked the central challenge of the times. If "the images of ruin and destruction" come to pass, it will not be because of the bombers but because of a state that lacked the cultural confidence to challenge them.

A Bozo in Connecticut

I can't believe my Senator referred to "the privacy clause in the Constitution." Surely he is referring not to a clause, but to the aura of an emanation of a penumbra which decided Roe v. Wade. What a dope. Yes, I mean Dodd, or, as we call him here, Sen. Dodo. On Patterico. This jerk would never had been elected if he didn't have the same last name as his Dad, Sen. Tom Dodd, who was a stand-up, good guy. It confused us country bumpkins, and we mistakenly elected the brat kid. Well, the sinecure is his until he decides to retire, which he won't as long as he can pick up cuties in the Georgetown bars. But he is getting a bit long in the tooth for that, isn't he?

Taking Back the Universities

Horowitz is making progress with his Academic Bill of Rights in Congress, and McDonald warns naive donors and timid trustees to wake up. The serious backlash has begun. The Summers debacle was the turning point, and the Dartmouth trustee election this spring was a ray of hope for a return to sanity.

CAFTA

Adds six more nations to the free trade zone, a good deal for them and for us, and a legislative success for Bush. Right Thinking explains why, in his usual direct manner. Willisms (thanks, Instap) tries to understand why the Dems are abandoning free trade, here.

Two excellent pieces on poverty and the black family

Hymowitz in the new City Journal ("40 Years of Lies") describes the catastrophic effect of political correctness, which has frightened people, including the not-easily-frightened Lyndon Johnson - from telling the truth about poverty in the American ghettoes. She is one more voice in a rising chorus saying "Moynihan was right." Families are the core socializing institution and no fantasy "village" can compensate for its absence. (Look at what happened to kibbutzes - noone wants to live on them.) Very important article here.

Booker Rising blog considers the new "Cosby Republicans," and explains why blacks have good reason to leave the victim plantation and return to the party of Lincoln and the party of the Civil Rights Act. Here.

O Canada

You could be next in line to suffer for your naive and innocent "niceness." LGF

"We are taking over."

Surely this sort of statement presents a challenge to British PC "tolerance":

"We don't need to fight. We are taking over!" ["Abdullah," a Muslim watch-mender and evangelist] said. "We are here to bring civilization to the West. England does not belong to the English people, it belongs to God."

Read entire by Cella at TCS.