I Want a New Left

Soccer: The U.S. Women Get Lucky

The U.S. women beat Germany 2-0, but they got three lucky breaks. Their first break occurred when the defender Julie Johnston, misplaying a bouncing ball, pulled down Germany’s Alexandra Popp and only got a yellow card for it. Since it was in the penalty area with no one left for Popp to beat except the goalie, that should have been red.

The second break was when, on the ensuing penalty, Germany’s penalty taker, Celia Sasic, missed wide.

And the third break was when the foul on Alex Morgan was called inside the penalty area instead of outside. That meant it was a penalty kick instead of a mere free kick.

All through the game the announcers and commentators talked about how bad Germany looked, but I thought they looked much better than when they played France. France dominated that game and probably should have won, but let’s face it, they were fated to lose. In fact, France has been fated to lose to Germany ever since, oh, the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1. But anyway, given that Germany won a game in which they did not dominate at all, and given that Germany is always dangerous, even when they are being dominated, it is awfully silly to say that a game in which they dominated the opening minutes and did all right after that was one in which they played terribly. I’ve seen plenty of games in which the team that dominated didn’t win.

This brings me to my perennial theme: penalty kicks. If Germany’s shot had gone in, it is highly likely the U.S. would have lost, but Sasic shot wide. That was inexcusable.

The News in Britain

My wife is in Britain, and she says the big news over there is about the massacre of tourists in Tunisia, because (as I pointed out in a recent post about bad machine translations) most of those killed were British. There was a minute’s silence today throughout the country at noon, there are reports that British airports are being targeted, there is anguish that the number killed is as high as the attack of 7/7, etc. Here in the U.S., that news was just one of several items about terrorism, and anyway all those items have been overshadowed by news about the Supreme Court.

It’s just one more instance of one of my themes, which is that by looking at our news only, you aren’t going to be getting the full picture. Hey, liberals and leftists, I don’t care if it’s the NY Times that you read, there are still plenty of things the Times doesn’t cover, which is why looking at foreign news is important.

More on Gays and the Islamists

This post talks about one Rosa Brooks, a law professor who wrote in Foreign Policy that maybe by doing a lot of tweeting of images of gay couples, we could defeat ISIS. This is about as stupid as one can imagine. As the writer of the post points out, the twitter campaign hasn’t helped the girls kidnapped in Nigeria. And let me add that an email campaign in about the year 2000 didn’t persuade the Taliban to end their sexist ways, either.

On the other hand, there are two positives about this idiocy. One is that someone on the left actually realizes that ISIS is a threat, not just to the West, but also to the left. And the second is that such a campaign, while it would never destroy ISIS, might stop all the people in the West who want to run off and join them. That there are so many people running off to join ISIS represents, in one sense, a failure of leftist propaganda in the sense that no one in the West should be joining an organization that is so sexist and homophobic. In another sense, of course, it represents the success of leftist propaganda because that propaganda is so Islamophilic and anti-Western that joining ISIS looks like an idealistic thing to do. So, kudos to Prof. Brooks for her suggestion, even if she is unclear on what her suggestion is good for.

A Ridiculous Machine Translation

Here:

Of course the victims didn't close 80 mosques. They were dead. And the British government does not have the authority to close mosques in Tunisia. The headline should read:

Tunisia: Most of the victims of the attack are British, and the [Tunisian] government closed 80 mosques for inciting violence

Gay Marriage versus Islamism: Which Will Win?

Which will still be around in fifty years, gay marriage or Islamism? I’m betting on the latter, simply because there is no will among gays to fight the Islamists and because the Islamists are very much inclined to use violence against anyone who disagrees with them. This post is about the execution recently of some gays by ISIS, and it shows what they are up against.

Where is the will to fight them? As this author at the Wall Street Journal points out, you can’t get married if you’re dead. The comments at this site observe that not all gays are on the left, but the sad fact is that it is leftists who control our culture and who control what counts as an issue in our culture and what counts as news in our culture. Even assuming most gays won’t follow the left on the issue of fighting the Islamists, you can count on leftists to ensure that any suggestion of fighting the Islamists will be met with stern resistance, and that if any fighting did actually occur, the media would report on it by giving favorable treatment to the Islamists rather than to our side.

It goes almost without saying that if the Islamists win, it will be nearly impossible to return to life as we are living it now in the West. It will be gone and will never be revived. Gay liberation will disappear and won’t be seen again in the lifetime of anyone who witnesses this event.

As I suggested above, there is no will to fight these people, and as I think Mark Steyn (or maybe Jonah Goldberg) observed, in a short war, bet on the side with the best arms, but in a long war, bet on the side with the strongest will. This will be a long war, and we have no will to fight it, while they do, so they will win. It’s as simple as that.

Sweden, Immigrants, and Rich People’s Leftism

In my last post, I gave a link (here) to a video of a man railing against Swedish policies on immigration. (Strictly speaking, I gave a link to a post on Keith Burgess-Jackson’s blog that had uploaded the video.) From about 4:15 to 4:45 on the video, the man talks about how the policies are formed by people who don’t live anywhere near the immigrants.

This is typical of what I call Rich People’s Leftism. “We need to take in these poor wretched people,” rich leftists say. “If you don’t agree, then you are a racist.” But then they refuse to live near those wretched people, and it is poor Swedes who have to do that.

Ever since the 1960s, the left has been waging a war against poor whites in the Western world. This war shows up in many facets of life today, as we can see from the way that rich leftists are soft on crimes committed by minorities or immigrants; insist on affirmative action based on race and gender, but not class; call all white males privileged; and just basically refuse to listen to poor whites when they complain (because their complaints must be based on racism). Refusing to live near immigrants is typical of this war.

Their refusal to live near immigrants puts a different complexion on their insistence that the West needs to admit all these immigrants. It looks much less idealistic when considered in that light.

How Can Swedish Feminism Survive?

This video (and hat tips to both Keith Burgess-Jackson and Mark Spahn) is an address by an immigrant to Sweden from the Balkans, and it highlights the absurdity of Swedish immigration policies. Specifically, we learn the following:

1. Sweden (strictly speaking, the powers-that-be in Sweden) wants lots of immigrants.
2. Swedes think immigrants shouldn’t have to assimilate.
3. Swedes think their own culture is worthless and want immigrants to take over.
4. The culture of Muslim immigrants is far more sexist than that of indigenous Swedes.
5. Any attempt to criticize current policies is denounced as racist.

If all continues as it has been going in recent years, then immigrants with their much more sexist culture will take over. How, then, will feminism in Sweden survive? I don’t see how it can. Of course, at some point the powers-that-be may wake up and realize they have to change course, but given that the people they will have to persuade to change course are very prone to violence when they don’t get their way, and given that Sweden has been fostering pacifism among its indigenous citizens for decades, what are the chances of success? Slim to none, I would say. In any case, it is very unlikely that the powers-that-be will wake up simply because they call all dissenters racist and, having called them racist, ignore everything they say.

The left giveth (feminism, in this case), and the left taketh away.

The Confederate Flag and the 43,000 Slaves in Niger

The SJWs (Social Justice Warriors) are horrified by the Confederate flag, but not by Che Guevara t-shirts, as this post points out. Those represent evils from the past, but how about evils from the present? According to a report in the Economist from about a decade ago (March 12, 2005, p. 49, to be exact), there were 43,000 slaves in the country of Niger alone, with plenty more in nearby countries. Somehow, this fact is never talked about by the SJWs, whose fundamental goal isn’t so much promoting social justice as it is attacking the right. Why not do something about them? Why not mount a campaign to help them? Well, that would take away from the real fight against America’s conservatives, plus it would mean waging a war against a lot of Muslims from the Third World, and we can’t have that. So instead we have this big to-do about Confederate flags. No doubt it’s a genuine cause, but it ought to have a lesser priority on their agenda than freeing those slaves, which so far isn’t on the agenda at all.

Things We Did as Kids

This post from Tyler Durden lists 25 things we did as kids that would get us arrested today. Or if not arrested, then in serious trouble. I did most of them. I also had a chemistry set and did lots of things that seem forbidden these days. I was able to procure pure sodium (kept in a jar of kerosene), hydrochloric acid, and phosphorus. I sent away for them, but had to get my mother’s signature. We also rode our bikes on the Crosstown Freeway in Minneapolis, not just on the shoulder, but in both lanes of traffic! Heh, ok, I’m pulling your legs. We did do that, but that was before the freeway opened, so there was no traffic on it. Later on when it did open, we went to a bridge over it, chewed some Red Hots, and then spit on the cars whizzing by below hoping that an ugly red blotch of saliva would end up on their windshield. I recall playing a lot of tackle football (without any padding), endless games of cops and robbers, flashlight tag at night, Capture the Flag, biking everywhere we could get to, playing with matches we stole from our parents, throwing snowballs at cars, building tons of forts, helping to build a go-cart with a gasoline engine (which I think was from someone’s lawn mower), and just plain having lots of adventures.

Too bad that the nannies are ruining it for kids today.

Soccer: Congratulations to the U.S. Women

They beat Colombia 2-0. I didn't get to see their game because our cable package doesn't include the station that the game was on. Plus, our cable and internet service went out a couple hours before the game. And then about the time the game began, our power went out. Sheesh. These outages would have made sense if we had had severe thunderstorms, but we had no storms at all, so there was no reason for them. I hope this doesn't keep happening. It's been quite awhile since we've had a power outage.