The progressive mind functions in terms of fossilized paradigms into which every crisis and problem are fitted, no matter how many qualifying or contradictory facts are left behind. These paradigms are part of a worldview, a picture of human existence that gives it coherence and meaning, and a narrative that gives people an identity and a morality. With these paradigms we can sort out the good from the bad, the saved from the damned, the political goals we should pursue, the ones we should avoid––and who gets the power to decide. Continue reading “The Progressive Paradigms Lost”→
A new video of the twelve Christian nuns kidnapped in Syria recently appeared. In it, the nuns are taped sitting in a room and being questioned by an unseen man, presumably a member of the kidnappers. He asks them how they are, if they’ve been mistreated, etc.
They respond that they are being treated fine, that they very much look forward to being returned to their convent, that they heartily thank the world for its concern, and that they continually pray that God grant peace to all nations.
Their words say one thing, their expressions and demeanor another. Put differently, as female captives of Islamic jihadis, what else could they say but what they were told to say? (See, for example, how the nun in glasses had to be forced to face the camera at 1:46.) Even if one of them dared to Continue reading “Kidnapped Nuns No Longer Bear the Cross”→
Diversity has become corporatized on American campuses, with scores of bureaucrats and administrators accentuating different pedigrees and
ancestries. That’s odd, because diversity no longer means “variety” or “points of difference,” in the way it used to be defined.
Instead, diversity has become an industry synonymous with orthodoxy and intolerance, especially in its homogeneity of political thought.
When campuses sloganeer “celebrate diversity,” that does not mean they encourage all sorts of political views. If it did, faculties and student groups would better reflect the U.S.’s political realities and might fall roughly into two equal groups: liberal and conservative.
Do colleges routinely invite graduation speakers who are skeptical of man-made global warming, and have reservations about present abortion laws, gay marriage, or illegal immigration — if only for the sake of ensuring diverse views?
Nor does diversity mean consistently ensuring that institutions should reflect “what America looks like.”
If it did, all sorts of problems could follow. As we see in the NBA and NFL, for example, many of our institutions do not always reflect the proportional racial and ethnic makeup of America. Do we really want all institutions to weigh diversity rather than merit so that coveted spots reflect the race and gender percentages of American society?
Does anyone care that for decades the diverse state of California’s three most powerful elected officials have been most undiverse? Representative Nancy Pelosi, Senator Barbara Boxer, and Senator Dianne Feinstein are all mature women, quite liberal, very wealthy, married to rich professionals or entrepreneurs, and all once lived within commuting distance of each other in the Bay Area. Continue reading “The Outdated Business Model of Diversity, Inc.”→
If there are executive orders overriding federal immigration law to extend amnesty to foreign nationals, without legal residence, and to continue their educations, there are also de facto all sorts of un-Dream Acts that simply allow anyone wishing to enter the United States without much audit. In other words, one of the strangest things about illegal immigration is that a nation that is monitored, taped, videoed, and bugged, that is struggling now with the AP, IRS, and NSA scandals whose common theme is excessive government intrusions in our private lives, knows absolutely nothing about those who arrive illegally into the U.S. Continue reading “An Immigration Morality Tale”→
Note: A 15-minute video of men and women from various nations discussing their experiences with the sex jihad in Syria, translated from Arabic to English by my colleagues, appears beneath this article (you may need to click on “CC” (closed caption”) for the English subtitles to appear).
As news of the sex jihad continues toproliferate in Mideast media, and as the West continues to bury its head in the sand—here for example is Der Spiegel’s attempt to portray as “false” the “tales of rebels engaging in ‘sex jihad’ and massacring Christians”—it is instructive to note that even the practice of sex jihad has specific doctrinal validation in Islam (which should hardly be surprising considering that “adult breastfeeding” also has validation).
Foreign Policy magazine recently demonstrated why U.S. foreign policy, especially in the Middle East, is a disaster: because the establishment has a hard time factoring the foreign in their policies (more’s the irony). Put differently, whatever information doesn’t comport with modern Western epistemology—our subjective worldviews—must simply be false, unreal, to be discarded from any consideration in Western foreign policy. Continue reading “Foreign Policy Magazine Covers Up Syrian Sex Jihad”→
The Arabic media has been full of interviews with some of the many Tunisian girls that went to the sex jihad in Syria. The other day Tunisian newspaper Al Sharaouk (“Sunrise) shed light on the horrific experiences of one of these girls.
Her name is Lamia, and she’s 19-years-old. While in Syria, she had sex with jihadis fighting to overthrow the secular Bashar Assad regime. Among other nationalities she recalls having slept with were Pakistanis, Afghanis, Libyans, Tunisians, Iraqis, Saudis, and Somalis, all in the context of the “sex jihad.”