“Bring back the welfare stigma”…

The New Neo Posted on by

…writes Daniel Payne at The Federalist, commenting on the fact that the city of Richmond, Virginia seems to be advocating a free lunch for all in its public school system:

Ah, “stigma:” one of the last great impediments to full-blown government dependency. With all due respect to Bedden, he and the rest of Richmond Public Schools are doing a grave disservice by attempting to remove the “stigma” associated with free government handouts…

Not to tread too heavily on too many sensitive progressive ideals, but there should be a stigma surrounding government dependency; that’s not to say we should adopt a campaign of aggressive public shaming for anyone who goes on the dole, only that we shouldn’t create an atmosphere””especially amongst children””in which “free lunch” is a no-big-deal kind of thing.

I guess Richmond never heard the term “There is no free lunch.” The city wants to change it to, “There is nothing but free lunch!”

Because I was raised in a time when welfare of all kinds was not only less common, but was a badge of shame for most people who received it, I’ve often thought that the relative absence (or complete absence?) of stigma these days was one of those situations where the pendulum has swung way, way too far. The current sense of entitlement to “other people’s money” is now vast, and is harmful to our society as a whole, both financially and culturally. But it persists and grows because, the greater the number of entitled people on some form of welfare, the more getting a handout seems normal and nothing to be upset about—and of course because the entire operation benefits the Democratic Party, the left, and the government bureaucrats whose livelihoods depend on it.

So although I tend to agree with Payne, I don’t really see how it could be done. Shame is now a nearly-verboten concept, reserved for people whose thoughts are insufficiently PC.

A sense of personal responsibility used to be cultivated by that great triumvirate of religion, schools, and family (you could also add “popular culture”—i.e. movies, books). As all those things have been taken over by a combination of leftist principles, populist psychology, and PC thought (the latter two coming under the rubric of the first), “judging” people has become passe.

Having compassion for the poor and wanting to help those who are down on their luck is laudable. A handout for all is not. We seem to be losing the distinction between the two.

And discussions such as the above always seem to remind me of this speech from “My Fair Lady” (actually, from the original “Pygmalion” by Shaw):

About James Foley’s final statement

The New Neo Posted on by

[UPDATE 11:00 PM: For anyone who thinks Foley was a terrorist sympathizer, or that he was not a courageous man, please read this tribute from a fellow-writer and American named Herschel Smith. It begins:

Journalist James Foley (he corresponded with me as Jim) has been beheaded by ISIS. I choose not to remember him from the recent photographs, but as the wonderful young man he was. As a note to ISIS, I don’t believe a word he had to say while under duress. I knew him better than you did. You wasted your time with his confessions, or charges, or whatever you forced him to say.

Read the whole thing.]

A lot of people have wondered why James Foley would have read an anti-American statement before he died. As commenter “kit” writes:

I read the anti American, pro terrorist statement they asked Foley to read. I also saw exerpts from his twitter account that seemed he was in sympathy with the terrorists. If he knew they were going to kill him, why would he want to die like a traitor? I would want to go out cursing Islam. He read a horrible anti American statement, instead.

Why would that statment be his Mom’s proudest moment of her son?

In my first post on Foley’s killing, I mentioned the statement and indicated that we can only guess as to why:

… [I]t is difficult if not impossible to know whether [Foley] meant his words or not. Perhaps Foley thought that if he read the statement his captors might spare his life, although his words indicate that he fully expected them to kill him. If the video is for real””and so far there is no indication whatsoever that it is not””his statement would have to have been made while he was under an extraordinarily extreme form of coercion and dread.

So my first answer is that I don’t judge anyone who is subjected to circumstances like that for whatever he/she may say. Of course, extreme bravery and resistance is desirable, as with Fabrizio Quattrocchi. But that is the exception rather than the rule, and cannot be expected or demanded; very very few people are capable of it.

I also have read at some sites that Foley was a Muslim sympathizer and an America-hater, but the evidence presented has not convinced me that this was really the case, and when I skimmed his Twitter feed (cited by some as indication of his terrorist sympathies) I saw nothing there that would suggest such a thing. But even if it turns out to be true (which I doubt), that would have nothing to do with the fact that his death, and the manner of it, is an outrage. It also does not change the fact that, as I wrote in that first post, he was under such a degree of coercive pressure and fear-inducing control that I refuse to judge him harshly for what he said while under that duress.

But having had some time to think about it and to read many people’s comments, I believe that the most likely explanation is that the terrorists had made him rehearse that scene many times, reading the script without being killed. This would have had the effect of calming a victim into thinking this was just another mock execution, no different than the others—a ploy that would be a bit akin to the Nazis placing fake showers in the gas chambers to lull their victims into docile cooperation, or Jim Jones’ forced rehearsals for the mass suicide of his followers many years later:

…[Jim Jones] had many rehearsals for the killings, which had the effect of getting people used to what would be happening and more ready to accept it, as well as more doubtful when the real thing began to happen that it actually was the real thing; maybe it was another rehearsal?

Kidnappers have their victims completely at their mercy, and their victims know that. So another possibility is that Foley was told that if he didn’t read the statement he would be tortured to death rather than killed quickly, and the video would be taped and shown to his family. If so, he probably would have calculated it would be better to cooperate, and that those people who mattered would understand that he was under duress when he did so, and that he might have done it to spare them further pain.

I’m sure those are not all the possibilities, either. But there is no reason to conclude that Foley meant what he said, or that he wasn’t brave. As for his grieving parents, who are under extraordinary and extreme stress as well, not for one moment are they going to be judged harshly by me when they say that his end was a courageous one and that his life was courageous as well.

[NOTE: After I wrote this post I read more of the statement from Foley’s parents. They seem incredibly brave to me under the circumstances, and their statement indicates that they are (and that he was) proud Americans.]

Fox reports that Officer Wilson was beaten by Michael Brown

The New Neo Posted on by

[Hat tip: Geoffrey Britain]

Fox News is now reporting that Darren Wilson was severely beaten by Michael Brown during their confrontation:

Darren Wilson, the Ferguson, Mo., police officer whose fatal shooting of Michael Brown touched off more than a week of demonstrations, suffered severe facial injuries, including an orbital (eye socket) fracture, and was nearly beaten unconscious by Brown moments before firing his gun, a source close to the department’s top brass told FoxNews.com.

“The Assistant (Police) Chief took him to the hospital, his face all swollen on one side,” said the insider. “He was beaten very severely.”…

Wilson…was left dazed by the initial confrontation, the source said. He is now “traumatized, scared for his life and his family, injured and terrified” that a grand jury, which began hearing evidence on Wednesday, will “make some kind of example out of him,” the source said.

The source also said the dashboard and body cameras, which might have recorded crucial evidence, had been ordered by Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson, but had only recently arrived and had not yet been deployed.

Too bad about those cameras; what poor timing.

The article also says that St. Louis County police, now in charge of the investigation, have refused to confirm or deny the story. They say they will present all evidence to the grand jury when the time comes.

[ADDENDUM: If this report turns out to be true, cue some in the “Wilson is a murderous racist” crowd to say that Wilson punched himself in the eye and broke his own socket, or had a fellow racist officer do it for him.]

Try to grab a police officer’s gun…

The New Neo Posted on by

…and prepare to die if you fail to obtain it.

It is reported that Michael Brown went for Darren Wilson’s gun, and almost got it. We don’t know if that is true, but if it is, it would have been part of the justification for Wilson’s later use of deadly force against Brown. Here is why:

…[M]any police officers who are killed by gunshot are shot with their own weapon that has been taken from them by assailants. Every police officer in the nation, likely in the world, is aware of this reality.

An attempt to seize an officer’s pistol is nothing short of an out-and-out declaration that you intend to slay that officer. Wilson would have been unquestionably entitled to use deadly force against both Brown and his accomplice to prevent this seizure from occurring.

Chief Belmar stated that in the struggle in the car over the gun, the weapon discharged…[A] police officer’s holster (as any good holster) completely covers the gun’s trigger. Thus, the only way the gun could have been discharged during the struggle would have been if the pistol had already come out of the holster.

Because of the threat to police officers of being shot with their own guns, they are trained in techniques of weapon retention…But what if the assailant possesses, as here, considerably greater strength than the officer? Or there are multiple assailants, as here, who collectively can easily overwhelm the officer? Where the cascade of trying to keep the gun in the holster is doomed to fail because of such circumstances””in other words, the assailants are sure to eventually overpower the officer, obtain the weapon, and kill the officer with it.

If Wilson managed to retain control of his weapon after a struggle, and Brown retreated but then came at him again, the use of deadly force to stop Brown would have been justified by a combination of Brown’s previous behavior showing his intent to get the gun, and his size, strength, and final charge towards the officer.

This is just common sense. Unless you are an extreme pacifist who believes that people should offer themselves up for martyrdom rather than kill another person who is attacking them, or unless you believe that Wilson was required to instantaneously figure out an alternative way to stop Brown’s approach, there is no other conclusion to come to. But angry mobs whipped up into outraged grievance by professional racemongers and excused by enablers are unlikely to use this sort of logic.

The quest for violent images drives traffic

The New Neo Posted on by

Beginning last night I noticed I was getting about two and a half times my usual traffic.

As usual when I get a traffic uptick, I checked my sitemeter. Instead of finding a link from some larger blog, I saw that almost all the extra traffic seemed to be coming from Google searches. But these searches, unlike most, didn’t tell me what the search terms were. Some just showed the link “google.com.”

It was puzzling. But when I looked more carefully, I saw that most of the traffic was coming in on this page, the one with a post title that has the words “video,” “beheading,” and “James Foley.”

In other words, all that extra traffic—which has not lessened so far—is from people searching for the video of James Foley being slaughtered. They will be disappointed, because they won’t find it here.

It’s an impressive amount of traffic despite the fact that I don’t link the video, and if you search Google you’ll see I’m not high in their list of articles about it. In fact, I gave up even looking before I saw a link to my blog. So, if I’m getting that much traffic from it despite all that, can you imagine how many millions (billions?) are eagerly searching for that video?

It’s impossible to tell whether they’re celebrating the act, looking for a bloodthirsty visual thrill, wanting to confront the horror in order to best fight it, or just curious. Most are from the US, although there’s a slight increase in foreign visitors and especially from Scandinavian countries, the UK, and Holland.

I suppose it’s just human nature to want to see the horrific. Personally, I’ll pass on it; once seen it cannot be unseen. And I don’t believe I need to see it to understand what we’re up against.

Tablets vs. textbooks

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m not sure what I think about the tablets vs. textbooks debate. But my guess is that tablets are the wave of the future, whatever I might think.

The actual text of textbooks has already become pretty awful, banal and PC and anti-American all at the same time. But I don’t think tablets will necessarily be better, although a broader range of material ought to be available on them. At any rate, I’m more interested in what the kids are reading than the medium by which they read it.

Of course, I was educated during a time when it was textbooks all the way. What I remember is how heavy my books were, and how my arms would ache as I carried them to school—especially if it was also cello day (try being a kid carrying a huge stack of books plus a cello). Our school books didn’t even begin to fit into our desks—those old dark wooden ones with the inkwells—and so we had to share our seats with a stack of them.

This sort of desk, this sort of seat:

desk

Not only did we sit on those seats with a bunch of books sitting next to us, but we had to stand to recite. And since the girls had to wear skirts or dresses, and sometimes the skirt would get caught under a book, that could wreak havoc when we would stand up and all those carefully-placed books would came crashing down, our version of a failed tablecloth trick.

In first grade we had an ancient teacher (I think she really was ancient, she didn’t just look old to my very young eyes) who every morning would walk down the rows checking us for clean fingernails and whether we had remembered to bring a handkerchief.

A cloth handkerchief. That’s how old I am.

Dershowitz: the indictment of Rick Perry is like the Soviet Union

The New Neo Posted on by

Strong words from liberal Alan Dershowitz:

“The two statutes under which [Perry] was indicted are reminiscent of the old Soviet Union ”” you know, abuse of authority,” Dershowitz said Monday. “The idea of indicting him because he threatened to veto spending unless a district attorney who was caught drinking and driving resigned, that’s not anything for a criminal indictment. That’s a political issue.”…

Similar cases of using the criminal justice system to attack political adversaries are cropping up in other states, including Alaska, New York, and Virginia, Dershowitz said, adding that the practice has to end because it makes people “very suspicious of criminal justice and of the legal system.”

“Right now, we are seeing it. It’s beginning to spread. And that’s why it’s so important to put a stop to it now, and to say the criminal law is reserved for real crimes, not for political differences where a party in power or out of power gets revenge against the other party. That’s just not the way to use the criminal justice [system],” he said.

Dershowitz said he cared “deeply about the integrity of our legal system.” He said he is also “outraged” by a conviction against former Texas GOP Rep. Tom Delay, which was overturned in 2013. He said he had been involved in similar cases “all over the world,” and that he hated “to see it come to the United States of America.”

Dershowitz is a Democrat who cares “deeply about the integrity of our legal system.” He’s a smart man, too, and in some ways even brave, because he isn’t afraid to buck the left on this and on a few other issues, such as the Zimmerman case, and Israel/Palestine. But he has a huge blind spot and cannot connect the dots, because he cannot see that those who care about the integrity of our legal system are far more likely to be on the right than the left.

The Perry indictment has been such an egregious abuse of prosecutorial power that, at least this time, Dershowitz has some company on the left—for example Jonathan Chait and the NY Times. They probably fear a backlash to this particular overreach on the part of the Travis County prosecutor, and so does Dershowitz (it makes people “very suspicious of criminal justice and of the legal system”), but Dershowitz’s objections go further than that. He makes the connection between the left’s actions and those of the Soviets, and understands the deeper danger of their methods, which might be a farce but are no joke whatsoever.

Dershowitz is careful to add that he would never vote for Perry. My guess is that he would never vote for any Republican, and certainly not for a conservative. It is a line he cannot cross, and probably will not ever cross, even though he can clearly see what his party is doing and that it is dangerous. Republicans are the enemy, the other, and it is too difficult to go over to the dark side.

A mind is a difficult thing to change. I predict that his never will, if it hasn’t by now.

ISIS and the Nazis: atrocities paraded and hidden

The New Neo Posted on by

In connection with the ISIS beheading of American journalist James Foley, Ace points out something I’ve often thought:

As far as I know this is the first war where our enemies are so demonic that they proudly walk up to the camera and commit their atrocities as a commercial advertisement.

Even the Nazis exterminated the Jews in relative secret. (Not to claim that Germans didn’t know something bad was going on — just to say that even the Nazis realized such barbarity could not be carried out in the open.)

These people are true psychopaths.

It is true that the Nazis tried to hide their acts. But it’s not so much that the Nazis weren’t psychopaths; they were just playing to a different audience. As I wrote here, ISIS is appealing to would-be jihadis who are thrilled at the prospect of the most barbaric bloodshed. The ordinary citizens of Germany were a lot more easily shocked than that, although the Nazis were aware that they could get away with a lot if they took care to keep it mostly out of sight.

Also, the Nazis knew that they were up against a formidable enemy, the Allies, who were capable of strong and violent retaliation themselves, and who were not especially restrained by PC considerations. ISIS knows that the West has changed a great deal since then, and they are banking on us being the weak horse.

Lastly, although on the whole the terrorists of ISIS would probably rather live than die, they are not especially upset at the prospect of unleashing a violent backlash, because they figure it will lead to martyrdom and more martyrdom, and rewards in the world to come. At times the Germans of WWII talked about Gé¶tterdé¤mmerung—but unlike ISIS, they were not especially eager for it.

Video released purporting to show ISIS beheading captured American journalist James Foley

The New Neo Posted on by

ISIS has released a video purporting to show the beheading of American journalist James Wright Foley, who had been missing for almost two years. The video, which also threatens to do the same to a man identified as American journalist Steven Sotloff, will not be linked to on this blog.

Foley had gone missing in northwest Syria in November of 2012, and Sotloff, a reporter for Time, had disappeared in mid-2013, perhaps in Libya. ISIS accompanied the video with a message that:

…U.S. President Barack Obama’s authorization of strikes against the group places the United States “upon a slippery slope towards a new war front against Muslims,” according to BNO.

“Any attempt by you, Obama, to deny Muslims liberty & safety under the Islamic caliphate, will result in the bloodshed of your people,” the ISIS person added.

Foley also speaks in the video, saying: “I call on my friends, family members and loved ones to rise up against my real killers, the U.S. government.”

There is a longer version of Foley’s statement here. Apparently he was reading it, and it is difficult if not impossible to know whether he meant his words or not. Perhaps Foley thought that if he read the statement his captors might spare his life, although his words indicate that he fully expected them to kill him. If the video is for real—and so far there is no indication whatsoever that it is not—his statement would have to have been made while he was under an extraordinarily extreme form of coercion and dread.

Ever since the video of the beheading of journalist Daniel Pearl was released in early 2002, the world has known that Islamic terrorists are fully capable of such things and are extremely eager to brag about them. The purpose of such acts and the publicity that follows is manifold: to inspire other jihadis with the extremity of their savagery, and to intimidate the west by sowing widespread horror and fear and ultimately capitulation—and, if not capitulation, then retaliation, which can then be used to fire up even more terrorism, in an ever-increasing spiral of blood and gore.

This is barbaric evil, and although it has the purposes described in the previous paragraph, it cannot be really “understood,” only fought:

If it were necessary to fully understand evil in order to fight it, World War II would have never been won by the Allies. What is necessary is to be able to recognize evil and see it for what it is quite early in the game. Those are the important first steps. The next steps are finding the will and the tools to fight it. Evil is very strong, because it doesn’t know the same restraints and limits as morality or good.

To the family of James Wright Foley, deep and heartfelt condolences. To the family of Steven Sotloff, hopes and prayers that he will not meet the same fate. But ISIS is not just their enemy. It is an enemy to all civilized people.