Category Archives: Social

Human Farce

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The Tories in the UK are proposing a new Bill to end the ability of the European Human Rights Court (ECHR) to oversee England’s legislation. On the surface, it even has the semblance of reason: removing oversight, the Tories argue, will make sure that foreign criminals and terrorists lose their right to stay in the UK.

Is this a wise course of action? No. Hell, no!

Repealing higher authority on Human Rights issues opens the door to the same totalitarian government that was rampant in Europe not 100 years ago, and still is in those European states that are not signatories of the ECHR act. Because it’s not only the rights of terrorists that are being repealed – it’s everyone’s rights that are being encroached upon. It used to be that the need of many outweighs the need of a few. Now this principle is stood on its head: the need to get rid of a few, it is argued, outweighs the need of all to protect their human rights. This is a very, very dangerous idea.

Similar to the PATRIOT act in the US, legislation already passed in the UK gives authorities rights to seize and imprison you under trumped-up charges. A brief example: David Miranda, partner to the Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwalt who broke the NSA Snowden case, was held at London Heathrow under terrorism charges, was denied access to lawyers, and all his electronic devices where confiscated. Yet Miranda never was a terrorist suspect. Demonstrably, this was an attempt to get at Greenwalt for exposing the NSA Scandal. This is a direct violation of European Human rights, but already legal in the UK under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act (people stopped under schedule 7 have no automatic right to legal advice and it is a criminal offence to refuse to co-operate with questioning. Critics say that among other things, this curtails the right to remain silent). Do you really want to remove the last vestiges of oversight that prevent security forces from running roughshod over your loved ones in order to get to you?

The Human Rights are a central pillar of humanity. Are they perfect? No. But we should strive to increase their influence and better them instead of lessening the authoritie’s incentives to adhere to them.

The core of the human rights are

  • the right to live
  • freedom from torture
  • freedom from slavery
  • right to a fair trial
  • freedom of speech
  • freedom of thought, conscience and religion
  • freedom of movement
  • [EU exclusive] freedom of sexual orientation and gender identity

Look at the list above and ask yourself: Who in their right mind would want any less of that? Who would want to curtail everyone’s access to above rights? Do you really think the UK would be better off if they rescinded these rights in order to get rid of a few unsavory characters?

The Daily Express has called the Human Rights ‘madness’, the Daily Mail a ‘farce’. I know that learning from history is something that isn’t en vogue these days. But comparing their comments with what the Völkische Observer wrote in the 1930s gives me an unwelcome deja vu.

The scary people over at Express and Mail have called Torie’s new proposal a ‘triumph’. Well, if that’s what you think it is, here’s another scary phrase you should become comfortable with:

Sieg Heil!

Militant Bullshit

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A few weeks ago, there was a commotion downtown. Heavily armed Police swarmed the area close to the main station; roads were blocked, and sirens were blaring.

Onlookers kept their distance to the cordoned-off area and speculated about what was going on. Due to the proximity to the main station, many thought it was a terrorist attack – after all, ISIS had just threatened exactly that. Others supposed a demonstration of some other militant group – Salafists, Separatists, or Fascists – gone awry. Or perhaps some gangsters had robbed one of the many banks located at the Banhofstrasse?

There were a million different theories flying about – many of them laughably wild. I particularly liked the idea that perhaps irate bee farmers let loose a swarm of hornets (Swiss government had just struck down a proposed bill to support ailing bee farmers).

But as exotic and outlandish these theories were, no-one ever voiced a particular notion: that perhaps militant atheists were to blame.

There’s a reason for that. Everyone knows that there is no such thing as a militant atheist, at least not in the true meaning of the word ‘militant’. That is why, after a bomb blast, an attack on a group of people, or some other violent crime, no police resources are diverted to gather evidence against atheists, no security forces are sent out to round up known atheists, and no DA ever thinks about investigating militant atheists.

‘Militant Atheist’ is just a phrase dishonest people use to shift blame, to demonize atheists and to make perpetrators out of victims. It’s one of the few surefire tell-tales to identify a religious demagogue.

Oh – the commotion? A large-scale exercise. So what did they rehearse?

Well, certainly not evacuation procedures for when militant atheists attack.

Neal Larson: Moran

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Neal Larson is angry at ‘militant atheists’. Why? It’s not entirely clear, but after carefully reading his ‘Militant Atheism Rears its Ugly Head‘, I conclude it’s because these terrible, ungodly people dare to speak up for themselves.

Since we should never assume malice where simple incompetence suffices, let’s be kind and assume that Neal really lost his marbles writing this.

First, he flat out states that he

would refuse to vote for a proud and vocal atheist for high office, regardless of any offsetting credentials.

But he would vote for proud and vocal theists who flaunt their faith – who make a show of going to church, and make it a point to use phrases like under god during allegiance, …so help me god for their oath, or finish their speeches with God bless America. Because double standards are a sign of healthy morals, right? I guess his regardless of any offsetting credentials is the cherry on top to underscore his open-mindedness.

He then unintentionally proves that he doesn’t know the difference between private and official roles, claiming that a school official who leads everyone into prayer over the intercom is merely someone who privately affirms their faith. A little later he bemoans the fact that many Americans are falling prey to political hyper-correctness, who then outlaw phrases like ‘bless you’. Doing that would indeed be silly – but it is in no way something that Atheists would demand. It’s what religious people do because they erroneously believe that saying ‘bless you’ would offend Atheists. It doesn’t. And here’s a hint: we don’t mind people saying ‘merry Christmas’ either. We know how to interpret kindness, thank you very much.

But those are only small fry. Neal goes full-on Moran with this:

While atheists are certainly capable of doing good works, those good works are not inspired by an absence of belief in God. How could they be? If atheists do good, it is in spite of – not because of – their atheism, so let’s stop acting like not believing is just another super awesome way of believing.

Can you be more condescending while spouting world-class stupidity? His complacent ‘How could they be?’ alone is weapons-grade stupid, merely underscoring the fact that Neal has skipped Ethics 101. So he’s never heard of Euthyphro – his (rather obvious) loss. But to really kick this into a universe of stupidity of it’s own is to accuse Atheists that they believe Atheism to be a religion. Not understanding non-belief is one thing. But confidently stating an idiocy of this magnitude is really asking for it.

He then whips himself into a truly righteous anger, condemning the activities of some atheists:

Particularly insidious are the atheists who get a sense of satisfaction eroding the faith of others and behave as though it is a favor to rattle another’s belief in a higher power.

Although I, too, have qualms about ‘proselytizing’ Atheists, I would like to pose the following two questions to Neal:

  1. Do you think that Christian missionaries are equally reprehensible?
  2. How do you define the word hypocrisy?

At the end of his text, Neal forgoes the classic ‘Hitler’ argument (which I was expecting), likening atheists to jihadists instead:

I think we could all be more tolerant of unintrusive atheism, because who doesn’t have doubts? But let’s separate them from the purveyors and jihadists of Godlessness

It requires an extraordinary level of incompetence – or, ideed, malice – in times of daily beheadings, rape and torture by jihadist ISIS and militant believers who kill for their god, to use either term in conjunction with atheists who until today have never killed, tortured or raped anyone in the name of unbelief.

What a piece of self-important, hypocritical, holier-than-thou drivel. It’s difficult to believe someone can be that incompetent.

Write less, think more, Neal.

Morally depraved West

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Many Islamist denounce the West because they think it is decadent and morally depraved. They may have a point:

Reports show that western Djihadists who join up with murderous bands like ISIS, Al Shabab, Taliban or Boko Haram do so not because of religious zeal – but out of boredom. They torture, shoot and behead others as pastime.

Take the hipster Jihadi (another middle-class boy gone wrong). The photo of Islam Yaken that went viral doesn’t suggest a man who has submitted to the will of Allah but a boy who likes posing with kick-ass swords – with an effeminate little satchel which probably cost most people’s annual salary to buy. It’s quite obvious, isn’t it, that he thinks he’s cool? He’s the Islamist James Dean – the rebel with a cause.

Can you be any more decadent or morally depraved than that?

PCphobia

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In Rotherham more than 1400 children were systematically raped. The authorities knew about this, but did not step in. The reason? Because the perpetrators were all of Pakistani origin, and because all were Muslims, the people in charge preferred to look away, lest they be called ‘racist’. Politically correctness run amok.

Yesterday, Nazir Afzal, the Crown Prosecution Service’s lead on child sexual abuse and violence against women and girls, tried to politically correct the situation. It is an ill-advised attempt at saving something that shouldn’t be saved.

So I know that the vast majority of [sex] offenders are British white male

That’s not the point. In this case they weren’t. It is exactly this attempt at relativism that has angered the public. The children don’t really care if they have fallen prey to a statistical anomaly – they still were raped. The ethnicity and religion of the perpetrators is not in dispute. What has caused the anger was that the perpetrators were untouchable for exactly that reason. But the real scandal wasn’t their ethnicity, it was that the authorities ignored the girls.

A few weeks after the Rochdale case, we dealt with a case of 10 white men in North Yorkshire who had been abusing young girls, and they were all convicted and they got long sentences. It didn’t get the level of coverage

And neither got as much attention as Jimmy Savile who abused hundreds of children. It’s not the media’s job to attribute attention justly. It’s the authorities’ job.

He argues that evidence suggests that victims were not targeted because they were white but because they were vulnerable and their vulnerability caused them to seek out “warmth, love, transport, mind-numbing substances, drugs, alcohol and food”.

Except that the girls were all white, and did not represent the demographical average. Why argue against facts?

Afzal was disturbed at the way that some responded by muddling the actions of those prosecuted with their religious backgrounds. […] Someone called the Radio 4 Any Answers programme. “He said the Qu’ran supports paedophilia. I’m not paraphrasing, that is what he said. He wasn’t cut off”

That is probably because the Qu’ran does support paedophilia: As the Hadith narrates, Aisha was married to Mohammed at age 6, raped (Mohammed ‘consummated’ the marriage) at age 10 (Sahih al-Bukhari, 7:62:64). Again, this is not in dispute. Why argue the facts?

if there are lessons to be learned from the Rotherham tragedy, they are less to do with the dangers of political correctness, and more with the need for a radical shift in the way that victims of this kind of crime are treated.

This is a surprising conclusion, given the fact that the problem stemmed entirely from too much politically correctness – the authorities didn’t act because they were afraid that they would be called racist.

Nazir’s attempt at downplaying this is entirely misguided. At issue isn’t as much the suspicion that ‘Religion’ (Islam) and ‘Asian’ (Pakistani) origins are the cause for the rapes. The issue is with the authorities who did not help the children because they feared for their own reputation. The whole Guardian interview is a textbook example of what went wrong: diversions, misattribution and red herrings are everywhere, and to blame is no-one but the nebulous community. A pity, since Nazir seems to be a decent chap who actually wants to help. But the first step is to acknowledge that this issue is much simpler than people make it out: Islamists are very quick to use the words ‘Islamophobia’ and ‘Racist’, which has become an effective weapon because politically correct people fear being labelled that.

This will only improve once we understand that ‘Islamophobia’ is a BS term, and that religion is not a race.

And, perhaps, that it’s always a good idea to stop rapists.

85 Bullets

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Germany is a normal European country, with a population of some 80 million citizen. The Germans have a reputation of being highly organized, and that they keep meticulous records of almost everything. Statistics on anything are published on a daily basis. Most are completely uninteresting to me, but one caught my eye.

Germany’s Federal Ministry of the Interior – among many other things – gathers and publishes statistics about weapons use by their police force. And these numbers are interesting:

In all of 2011, a total of 85 bullets were fired in the line of duty by the entirety of Germany’s Police force. Of these, 49 were fired as warning shots. The remaining were aimed and fired at people, resulting in 15 injured persons, and six fatalities. The year before seven people got themselves killed by police bullets, with 37 shots being aimed and fired intentionally.

These figures are interesting in comparison with the US, where no such statistics are kept. But it would be safe to say that there are significantly more weapon discharges there: in a single incident in LA, police discharged in excess of 90 shots, a few weeks later in another incident in NY, 87 aimed shots were fired.

Some may say that in defense of the US, the German Police does not have to deal with a gun-crazed population.

Which is entirely my point. I’m not criticizing US police.

Who in their right mind – outside the US – has their 9 years-old girl train with automatic weapons? Is there anyone in Europe who wouldn’t be left speechless in horror when looking at the following advertisement:

Myfirstgun75percent

In related news, the NRA offered to assist german police instructors in gun training; 21 hits out of 36 rounds fired, they say, are a bad average that must be improved.

Sex Ed Fail

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The US (and some other developed countries) don’t have sex education at school. Rather, they have ‘abstinence education’: the only viable method to prevent unwanted pregnancy, they teach, is sexual abstinence. You don’t have to be too bright to foresee that this isn’t going to work. So why not teach safer, more robust ways to prevent young women becoming pregnant? Because religious, uptight idiots believe that teaching safe sex methods may make teenagers promiscuous. Yeah, that’s why teenagers have so much sex: good Sex Ed.

In a similar vein it would seem that the reason why they don’t teach first aid nor CPR to aspiring drivers in the US is this: it may make drivers think it’s a good idea to run over people. I’m astonished to find that they buckle up at all over there; after all I could argue that buckling up could lead people to believe it’s OK to drive into other cars.

Well, correctly attributing cause and effect has been a constant challenge for the religious majority. It’s a wonder they’ve managed to connect the dots between sex and pregnancy at all. Except for one prominent case involving Joseph.

See what happens when you teach being stupid?

Moral Muggles

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A few days ago, Chief Roman Catholic Exorcist Gabriele Amort stated that one reason for Satan’s victory over weak souls and the general decline of morals is reading Harry Potter.

Interesting. A recent study published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology now shows proof that children who read Harry Potter and similar fiction show a much greater likelihood to be tolerant of other people: they were less prejudiced and less likely to discriminate against others. In short, people on average behave morally superior to those who did not read the same books that The Exorcist warns you against.

Which just goes to show that the Church knows nothing about modern morals.

Nor reality.

Moral Midget

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Turkish deputy PM Bülent Arınç has shown that the qualifications for his current job do not include intelligence. In a public speech during an Eid el-Fitr celebration, he said:

Chastity is of critical importance.

Why? No reason, except that Arınç thinks chastity is an ornament. Why are ornaments of critical importance? Apparently, they just are.

Then he goes completely off the rails

[A woman] will know what is haram and not haram. She will not laugh in public.

Am I the only one who thinks that it does not bode well for your country if your own Number Two Official thinks that half of your country should not be laughing in public? This guy really needs to lighten up.

Now cue the world’s tiniest violin as Arınç continues

Where are our girls, who slightly blush, lower their heads and turn their eyes away when we look at their face, becoming the symbol of chastity

They never existed except in your backward, misogynistic fantasy, Number Two. If women flinch when you look at them it is because they are afraid you’ll hurt them. If that’s what gets your juices flowing, book the next professional submissive who is willing to take you; let women express their joy in any way they damn well please, and expect them to meet your gaze levelly. Anything else is a sign that something is wrong.

Another sign that morals are decaying is, according to moral expert Arinç the fact that

Women give each other meal recipes while speaking on the mobile phone.

Well, I agree that I feel inconvenienced when someone in a tram next to me exchanges a recipe. Truth be told, though, I much prefer that to the average guy who gives a point-by-point account of his latest (and completely made up) conquest. Yet Arınç seems to be OK with that – it’s women who should shut up in public.

When do moral ignoramuses get it that sex, appearance, public expression, and, of all things, open displays of happiness have nothing to do with morals? What is wrong with you?

And this guy was elected?

Good God…?

Serene Killings

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Yesterday a convicted murderer was executed in Arizona. Most of the US States still have, and carry out, the death penalty. Most civilized countries, and even Russia, frown upon capital punishment. To them, killing is an act of barbarism. First, there is always the possibility (currently estimated to be as high as 1 per cent) that the convict is not guilty of the crime they are to be killed for. But more importantly, although most perpetrators of crimes deemed fit for capital punishment may deserve to die, it is the defining mark of humanity to not be a savage, to refrain from indulging in the same cruelty as the criminal. A rational argument would also be the fact that capital punishment has never been shown to be a more effective deterrent than incarceration. This only leaves revenge as the main reason for capital punishment – something no ethical person would deem sufficient.

U.S. 9th Circuit Court Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, himself a supporter of the death penalty, shone a harsh and revealing light on a truth that the US would like to ignore. He wrote

Using drugs […] to carry out executions is a misguided effort to mask the brutality of executions by making them look serene and beautiful.

It’s indeed remarkable that the US prefer lethal injections to other forms of execution for one reason only: to make the act of killing look better. Kozinski is the first US official who states it that clearly. In his dissent in the Arizona death penalty case of Joseph Rudolph Wood III, Kozinski put it more aptly than I ever could:

But executions are, in fact, brutal, savage events, and nothing the state tries to do can mask that reality. Nor should we. If we as a society want to carry out executions, we should be willing to face the fact that the state is committing a horrendous brutality on our behalf.

Although personally I find this a rather disquieting argument in support of capital punishment, I can’t help but notice that most of the countries that stoop so low to kill their criminals also revel in that brutality; most execute publicly. To re-quote:

Executions are, in fact, brutal, savage events, and nothing the state tries to do can mask that reality.

Perhaps the US should either own up to the fact that they are primitive savages, or finally come to their senses and stop this barbarism.