Firing Line Friday: Panama Debates and Crotchety Conservatives

     In the hopes of encouraging a more civil, and illuminating, discourse, here is another episode of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s “Firing Line”.

     An article this past week in the National Review Online about old-fogey conservatives and their whipper-snapper counterparts. In it they highlight how the past wasn’t so rosey colored when it came to intra-conservative battles and debates:

“When I watch and read William F. Buckley’s work, I know even better what they mean. While there are material and social benefits to modernity, the intra-conservative debates of yore had a classiness that the modern fights will never sniff the coattails of. An apt example of that brilliance is the Panama Canal debate between WFB and then-former governor of California Ronald Reagan.

“The debate’s participants were a who’s who of gentlemanly conservative intellectualism. Buckley and his team, composed of James Burnham (NR senior editor), George Will (NR’s Washington columnist), and Adm. Elmo Zumwalt (former Chief of Naval Operations), argued in favor of the Senate allowing control of the Panama Canal to Panama.”

     Until next Friday.

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Quick Takes – Killer Canada: Executing Prisoners; Killing Without Parental Consent; Causing Despair To Encourage Suicide

     Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.

     The focus this time: Canada is addicted to death.

     First, a little mood music:

     Carrying on…

     Canada and European nations like Belgium pride themselves as having no death penalty.   That doesn’t mean that they don’t execute prisoners.

“The Belgian state has once again authorised the killing of a prisoner, 105 years after its last peacetime execution.

“Geneviève Lhermitte was an infamous murderer. She killed her son and four daughters, aged between three and 14, in Nivelles, Belgium on 28 February 2007. On 28 February 2023, she was euthanised, after she successfully invoked her ‘right to die’.

“…

“This case exposes the logical and ethical problems of euthanasia and assisted suicide in Belgium and elsewhere. And, above all, it undermines one of assisted-suicide campaigners’ central claims – that euthanasia is an act of ‘autonomy and choice’.

“After all, how can a prisoner – or someone in a psychiatric facility – make a free and uncoerced decision to die? A prisoner cannot even have a private consultation with a doctor, as guards must always be present. A prisoner is told when to get up, when to eat, when to go to bed. His or her entire life is coerced.

“Belgium is not the only nation to euthanise prisoners. In Canada, where assisted suicide is also offered as a medical treatment, three prisoners have been euthanised to date. The story of one of them, known only as ‘patient one’, illustrates the key problem with this practice. He informed his parole officer that he wished to receive medical assistance in dying (MAID) and was advised to first apply for compassionate release. This was denied, at which point he submitted a request for MAID, which was accepted. He was shackled and guards were present during the assessment of his request.”

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The Ides Of March

I hear a tongue shriller than all the music
Cry “Caesar!” Speak, Caesar is turn’d to hear.

Soothsayer:
Beware the ides of March.

Caesar:
What man is that?

Brutus:
A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.

     A little mood music:

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Happy Pi Day!

     Happy π Day everyone!

     Here is a song to help you memorize the number Pi (or at least the first 25 digits thereof).

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Sensitivity Readers And The Memory Holing Of Ghost Stories and Fairy Tales

     We have already seen how publishing companies have tried to stealth edit the works of the late authors Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming, reminiscent of the novel “1984” and it’s MiniTru “memory hole”.   Now, they aren’t even bothering to wait until the author is dead, as R. L. Stine found out.

“Children’s horror author R.L. Stine accused his publisher of editing his popular Goosebumps series for potentially offensive material without his involvement.

“The Times reported last week that Scholastic was reissuing Goosebumps books and changing references to weight, ethnicity, and more that could be deemed offensive. This followed publishers making edits to the works of other popular authors, including the late Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming.

“The Times initially reported that Stine was working with Scholastic on the edits, but the author revealed on Twitter that he was in fact not involved.

“Responding to a fan reacting with disappointment at the reports, Stine tweeted, ‘Lindsey, the stories aren’t true. I’ve never changed a word in Goosebumps. Any changes were never shown to me.’”

     But why stop there?

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Iowa vs. DEI in Higher Education

     Previously, Texas saw legislation introduced to ban “Diversity”, “Inclusion”, and “Equity” (AKA “DEI”, or more accurately the “DIE” agenda) offices or officers. Now Iowa is following the same path. HF 616 (formerly HSB 218) says, in part:

“A public institution of higher education shall not expend any moneys appropriated by the general assembly or any other moneys derived from bequests, charges, deposits, donations, endowments, fees, grants, gifts, income, receipts, tuition, or any other source to establish, sustain, support, or staff a diversity, equity, and inclusion office, or to contract, employ, engage, or hire an individual to serve as a diversity, equity, and inclusion officer.”

     They define their terns thus:

“1. “Diversity, equity, and inclusion” includes all of the following:
a. Any effort to manipulate or otherwise influence the composition of the faculty or student body with reference to race, sex, color, or ethnicity, apart from ensuring colorblind and sex-neutral admissions and hiring in accordance with state and federal anti-discrimination laws.
b. Any effort to promote differential treatment of or provide special benefits to individuals on the basis of race, color, or ethnicity.
c. Any effort to promote or promulgate policies and procedures designed or implemented with reference to race, color, or ethnicity.
d. Any effort to promote or promulgate trainings, programming, or activities designed or implemented with reference to race, color, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation.
e. Any effort to promote, as the official position of the public institution of higher education, a particular, widely contested opinion referencing unconscious or implicit bias, cultural appropriation, allyship, transgender ideology, microaggressions, group marginalization, anti-racism, systemic oppression, social justice, intersectionality, neo-pronouns, heteronormativity, disparate impact, gender theory, racial privilege, sexual privilege, or any related formulation of these concepts.

“Diversity, equity, and inclusion office” means any division, office, center, or other unit of a public institution of higher education that is responsible for creating, developing, designing, implementing, organizing, planning, or promoting policies, programming, training, practices, activities, or procedures related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. […]

“[…]

“3. “Diversity, equity, and inclusion officer” means an individual who is either employed by a public institution of higher education or who is an independent contractor of a public institution of higher education and whose duties include coordinating, creating, developing, designing, implementing, organizing, planning, or promoting policies, programming, training, practices, activities, and procedures relating to diversity, equity, and inclusion. […]”

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News of the Week (March 12th, 2023)

 

News of the Week for March 12th, 2023


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Firing Line Friday: Questions about America

     In the hopes of encouraging a more civil, and illuminating, discourse, here is another episode of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s “Firing Line”.

     Just what’s going on with America? Good?  Bad? Questions about America, both different and interestingly the same, were asked half a century ago by Dee Wells, Anthony Howard, and Louis Heren of William F. Buckley, Jr.

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The Collapse Of South Africa

     The Republic of South Africa was supposed to be a diverse multi-ethnic and multi-racial progressive democracy complete with restorative justice that was supposed to lead to a utopia with flowering meadows and rainbow skies, and rivers made of chocolate, where the children dance and laugh and play with gumdrop smiles.

     Turns out that letting Communist oriented corrupt kleptocracy whose experience was based on terrorism would result in the destruction of an entire nation and a hell on Earth for all races and ethnicities… some more than others.

     Some may insist on a false dilemma fallacy that it was a choice between Apartheid and this, from both the champions of the former and the later. That Botswana, lead by Black Africans and surrounded by former White dominated countries for decades, is one of the most successful and least corrupt countries in Africa belies that false dichotomy. This isn’t about race… it’s about anti-racism being used as the excuse for greed, power, and incompetence.

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The Systemic Infiltration Of “DEI” At The University Of Missouri

     The Woke Left like to talk about “systems of oppression” and how racism, sexism, &c. is “systemic”. This is, of course, projection. The real “system of oppression” is the “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (i.e. the “DIE” agenda), and it is as systemic as can be.

     Ah, the privilege of being the totalitarian ideology that controls actual “systems”.

     Academia is the faunt of madness that has infected the institutions through þe olde “long march”.

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