Links - 4th January 2025 (1 - General Wokeness)

Maddie🥀 on X - "It’s homophobic for a straight woman to be repulsed by the thought of being in a relationship with a man who likes men now? I don’t want a man who likes men. I don’t want to marry or reproduce with a man who likes men. That makes me homophobic? Are y’all f*cking serious right"

Why is a Labour MP calling for a blasphemy law? | The Spectator - "the Labour MP Tahir Ali asked: ‘Will the Prime Minister commit to introducing measures to prohibit the desecration of all religious texts and the prophets of the Abrahamic religions?’... The fact that we have an MP from the governing party calling for blasphemy laws to be reinstated is part of a terrifying development in politics. It comes alongside a rise in sectarian voting, which has seen minority groups pitted against each other and a splintering of modern society.  Why, for example, did Mr Ali choose only to cite the Abrahamic religions? Would I still be free to say awful things about Ganesh or Vishnu in Mr Ali’s dream society as long as I didn’t criticise the Quran? If I were a British Hindu listening, I would start to feel increasingly concerned about Ali’s intentions. Perhaps most concerning of all was the Prime Minister’s response to Ali’s question. Keir Starmer uttered a bland, robotic reply that, ‘Desecration is awful, and we are committed to tackling all forms of hatred and division, including Islamophobia.’...   Pakistan, that oasis of good governance, has more prisoners on death row or in life imprisonment for blasphemy than anywhere else on Earth. A new law was passed there just last year further broadening these laws to include criticism of the Prophet Muhammad’s family, his wives and companions.  Extra-judicial enthusiasm for punishing blasphemers is rife in Pakistan: in February, dozens of men stormed a police station in Punjab to kidnap and lynch a man accused of desecrating the Quran. In August, a mob of hundreds attacked the Christian community of Jaranwala, after two Christians were accused of blasphemy.  Britain, unfortunately, has not been immune to blasphemy extremism. There is still a school teacher in hiding and fearing from his life from a baying mob and death threats because he showed an image of the prophet Mohammad in a class. Last year, a 14-year-old autistic boy received death threats after reportedly dropping a Quran in a corridor. This was followed by a Labour councillor stoking tensions by claiming that the book had been desecrated. But at least we do not yet have laws forbidding us from criticising religion – something that would undoubtedly change if Tahir Ali had his way.   Fifteen years ago, before his untimely death, Christopher Hitchens warned us about this. ‘Resist it while you still can,’ he said: ‘and before the right to complain is taken away from you which will be the next thing you will be told you can’t complain because you’re Islamophobic.’"

Police arresting nine people a day in fight against web trolls - "Nine people a day are being arrested for posting allegedly offensive messages online as police step up their campaign to combat social media hate speech. More than 3,300 people were detained and questioned last year over so-called trolling on social media and other online forums, a rise of nearly 50 per cent in two years... About half of the investigations were dropped before prosecutions were brought, however, leading to criticism from civil liberties campaigners that the authorities are over-policing the internet and threatening free speech. Arrests are expected to rise after Amber Rudd, the home secretary, last week announced a national police hub to crack down on hateful material online... The National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) defended the rising arrest figures, saying officers had improved their ability to combat crime online as it continues to grow. Stephen Kavanagh, of the NPCC’s digital intelligence unit, said forces had adapted well to the “changing nature of harm in our society”. Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive of Index on Censorship, a free speech campaign group, accused police of unnecessarily hunting internet trolls. She said: “These figures bear out what we’ve been saying: that police are wasting more and more time investigating people for comments online that are offensive but not criminal.” Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, said the Crown Prosecution Service emphasised section 127 was to be used only in “extreme circumstances”. “But the problem is ‘grossly offensive’ is not something you should normally be prosecuted for. It’s not showing harm to other people. It’s not showing that somebody is being harassed . . . attacked or threatened.”"
I was told that it's not that the UK has two tier policing, but it's that policing has collapsed, so the police are incapable of investigating crime, but if you create evidence of your crime the police will happily prosecute you. But clearly Labour is pushing anarcho-tyranny too

Richard Hanania on X - "Now it says that the 3,300 people detained was for “trolling.” Does that mean if you’re a sincere racist you’re fine?"

Marc Edwards Is a Sad Victim of Our Modern Political Era - "This is very sad: Marc Edwards, the Virginia Tech professor who first exposed toxic levels of lead in the water supply of Flint, Michigan, was initially a hero to the Flint community. Thanks to him, Flint became the target of nationwide outrage, and steps were finally taken to reconnect Flint to the (safe) Detroit water supply. In less than a year, lead levels in Flint water had dropped to safe levels.  So what did Edwards do? Well, he’s a scientist, and just as he had honestly exposed Flint’s problems in the first place, he also continued to honestly report the results of the intervention. When the water was once again safe, he said so—and that turned him from a hero into a pariah... The science, as you’d expect, told us that Flint’s water got better after mitigation measures were taken—but the activists on the ground were too angry and bitter to accept that. Instead, they turned tribal on the guy reporting the results, and at that point you were either with them or against them.   So which were we? As near as I could tell, there were very few progressives willing to take Edwards’ side against the Flint community. We all had our reasons. I was hesitant to say anything that would suggest any level of lead was safe. There were criminal prosecutions getting started against Flint and Michigan officials. And there were hundreds of millions of dollars in grant money still to be fought for. Mostly, though, we were just being subservient to our loudest voices because no one wanted to be on the losing end of a more-progressive-than-thou contest.  Over the course of 2016 I slowly became more outspoken about the safety of Flint’s water, and by 2017 two things were clear. First, Flint’s water was once again safe. Second, the damage done to Flint’s children was probably fairly modest... This is not just a matter of respecting the truth for its own sake. It has real consequences:
Parents are being kept in a state of stress and panic that they shouldn’t have to put up with.
Children are being kept in a state of depression and resignation.
A vast amount of money is being spent to replace Flint’s water pipes, even though they’re probably safe. That money could be used for better things.
Actually, it’s worse than that. The only reason people are still being told to use filters in Flint is because of the pipe replacement program. When new pipes are installed, lead can start leaching back into the water from the points where pipes are connected to each other.
So here we are: anti-science, tribal, and subservient to our most extreme wing. Oh, and a guy named Marc Edwards, who exposed this disaster and got it fixed, is now practically an exile. It’s a sad microcosm of our modern political arena."
Crémieux on X - ""We fixed the problem" can be a taboo phrase in progressive circles."
This would explain why I still see left wingers talking about Flint's Water. Without a problem they cannot grievance monger. So the left doesn't actually want to solve problems

Eric Daugherty on X - "REPORT: After being named TIME's "Athlete of the Year," Caitlin Clark apologizes for her white privilege and says that the WNBA is "built" on black players.  “I want to say I’ve earned every single thing, but as a white person, there is privilege."  "A lot of those players in the league that have been really good have been Black players. This league has kind of been built on them."  "The more we can appreciate that, highlight that, talk about that, and then continue to have brands and companies invest in those players that have made this league incredible, I think it’s very important. I have to continue to try to change that.""
Megyn Kelly on X - "Look at this. She’s on the knee all but apologizing for being white and getting attention. The self-flagellation. The “oh pls pay attention to the black players who are REALY the ones you want to celebrate.” Condescending. Fake. Transparent. Sad."

Meme - Wesley Yang @wesyang: "Norm MacDonald's joke from 2016 is now an actual template for news coverage
The Killing Of Two Chinese Men Ignites Anti-Black Sentiment In Chinatown
U of C students say the killing of a Chinese alum has sparked anti- Black sentiment"
Norm Macdonald @normmacdonald: "What terrifies me is if ISIS were to detonate a nuclear device and kill 50 million Americans. Imagine the backlash against peaceful Muslims?"
"The joke of course was merely translating into slightly exaggerated form the existing template for Islamic terror coverage. But it became the general template for other kinds of crime coverage after 2016. A 2008 survey of 300 strong-arm robberies in San Francisco found that 85 percent of all the physical assaults were done by blacks against Asians."

Why woke is a spin-off from Christianity - minus the mercy and hope - "Woke has a Calvinist pessimism about our Total Depravity. You cannot escape your Original Sin, the best you can do is confess it
They say “woke” is a new religion. Actually, it’s a lot like the old one. Woke picks up where Christianity left off (or chickened out), providing a religion without God that imagines itself to be new yet hammers home themes that are strikingly familiar. Here are the key parallels.  Awaiting the Apocalypse. A basic tenet of Evangelical Christianity is that the world is ending, so you’ve got to get good with God. The end will be horrible; it’s what we deserve. Greta Thunberg says the planet is dying because we consumed too much, and empty shelves, say Remainers, are the price of Brexit.  Why do we vote for, or do, such “stupid” things? Original Sin. For Christians, it’s the rebellion against God in the Garden of Eden. For the woke, it’s pollution and slavery, crimes that happened centuries ago yet were so bad they irradiate the present. Nations are inherently racist; individuals, even the ones that want to be good, are guilty of “unconscious bias”. Woke has a Calvinist pessimism about our Total Depravity. You can’t escape the sin, the best you can do is confess it to the community.  One sign that you might not be so bad is having bad stuff done to you. By dying on a cross, Jesus imprinted in our culture the archetype of the Victim As Hero – emulated now by a woke culture that, like Jesus, says the first shall be last and the last first. The more “marginalised” a voice once was, the louder it should sing.  Victimhood, like sin, is inherited. Entire groups are cast as Martyrs, whether they see themselves that way or not, and suffering is categorised and ranked in a hierarchy of pain. The problem is that a lot of woke people are rich and white (probably most of them). A handful have pretended to be black to appropriate some grace – but the wider path is to present yourself to the world as a Visible Saint.  The Puritans of the 17th century wanted to reserve their church strictly for the elect, but given that we can’t know who is saved or damned, they had to rely on outward signs of holy behaviour. Today, wokeness is displayed to the parish by how one acts, votes, dresses and, crucially speaks, for wokeness, like Christianity, has developed a Litany of magical words (“intersectional”, “heteronormative”).  In the past, you might signal your faith by wearing a cross; today, you write “they/them” on your twitter bio. There is Holy Writ and a Clerical Class of writers, activists and politicians, who will welcome your donation of money or votes. There are also Heretics who must be cancelled (including a number of Sixties feminists for whom this stuff seems a trifle barmy) and Demons to be exorcised or cancelled. Donald Trump, it goes without saying, is The Devil.  And, finally, Wokery does a Supernatural, of sorts. It is anti-materialist: it would rather we were green than generating growth, more equal than individually wealthy. It has challenged the laws of science and maths, arguing in one unironic discussion last year that 2 + 2 might equal 3 or 5 depending upon the subjective experience of the numbers involved. And it has declared that men have become women and vice versa, an act of Transubstantiation whereby physical substance is transformed by faith.  Around the time most mainline churches dropped their more remarkable claims, be it miracles or the end of the world, wokery picked up and ran with them, the mystery of religion replaced with wonder at nature. In ages past we studied Bible stories told in church windows; now we gawp at David Attenborough documentaries on TV, trying to divine a hidden meaning in the sex lives of penguins.  Like any spin off, however, wokery lost the nuance of the original idea. Mercy is gone (the cancelled are never forgiven and the queue to cast the first stone winds around the block) and so is the submission of ego, because while religion plugs the individual into community, encouraging us to stop being so tediously self-absorbed, workery hinges on telling “stories” – struggles, conflicts, the melodramatic psychoanalysis of a person’s life that condemns us to a constant state of “journeying”, with no no hope of arrival.  That’s because woke lacks God. Minus the divine, there is no end point, no perfect justice and, thus, no relief from the anxieties of existence that, ultimately, we all have to endure – because while it would be nice if Jesus came back tomorrow, he hasn’t done so yet and we have to render unto Caesar and get on with our lives.  Woke is a recipe for conflict. The best in religion brings inner peace."

UK lawmaker Iqbal opposes ex-minister’s call to ban first-cousin marriages - "Independent member of Parliament (MP) Iqbal Mohamed has opposed calls to ban first-cousin marriage in the United Kingdom, saying it should “not be stigmatised”, BBC reported on Tuesday.  Experts warn against the irreparable harms of cousin marriage as it could lead to genetic disorders, including thalassemia, cystic fibrosis, Down syndrome, and visual and hearing impairment.  While the practice is deeply rooted in cultural and societal norms, it poses a significant health risk to children, primarily genetic disorders, due to the genetic similarity between the parents.   A Conservative former minister, Richard Holden, called for first-cousin marriage to be banned in the UK.  While introducing the proposals in the parliament, he highlighted that the children of first cousins were at higher risk of birth defects and the practice must be prohibited to protect public health.  Under the UK’s current legislation, marriages to a sibling, parent or child are prohibited but not between first cousins.  The MP argued that while the overall prevalence of this practice was low in Western countries, some diaspora communities, such as Irish travellers and British Pakistanis, had “extremely high rates” of 20-40 per cent...   He also said that the practice threatened women’s freedom... an estimated 35pc to 50pc of all sub-Saharan African populations “prefer or accept” cousin marriages, and it is “extremely common” in the Middle East and South Asia."
Clearly, it's racism and Islamophobia that lead to health problems in the Muslim community, and the solution is more anti-racism

Meme - David Hines @hradzka: "remember the time the ACLU tweeted a pic of a white toddler holding an American flag and their followers went absolutely batshit"
"This is the future that ACLU members want."
"When your Twitter followers keep you in check and remind you that white supremacy is everywhere."

B.E. Townsend on X - "I've noticed the equivalency with claims from the Left between white people existing and claims of supremacy. It's not that they oppose white supremacy. They oppose white people."
The left loves to claim that trans people existing is not political and people's existence cannot be political (of course, this somehow becomes denying any TRA demands meaning you're literally saying that trans people don't exist). But of course white people existing is white supremacy

Johnny Somali: Controversial American live-streamer faces prison in South Korea for offensive behavior - "A controversial American live-streamer is facing the prospect of prison in South Korea for his offensive antics, in a case that is shining a light on the rise of so-called “nuisance influencers” seeking clicks overseas.  Ramsey Khalid Ismael, 24, commonly known by his online alias, “Johnny Somali,” has been indicted of causing a “commotion” at a convenience store... Ismael, who has built a reputation online for his provocative, often highly offensive video stunts, has been banned by multiple social media companies, after he was accused by critics of harassing locals in countries across Asia in an apparent effort to boost his online viewership...  Ismael posted an online apology after he was accused of desecrating a South Korean monument to women subjected to sexual slavery in World War II, causing widespread outrage in the country...  The public backlash in South Korea appeared to reflect a broader frustration in the region with foreigners who exploit local customs for online fame, with Ismael being an extreme example of bad behavior.  According to Japanese news reports, foreign content creators have recently been accused of a string of transgressions in the country, from dodging railway fares to doing pull-ups on a shrine gate and “nuisance dancing” on Tokyo subway trains.   It coincides with a souring sentiment on mass tourism among many Japanese people as the country experiences record visitor numbers and a rise in reports of tourists behaving badly.  Earlier this month, a 65-year-old American tourist was arrested in Tokyo for allegedly carving letters into a shrine gate, just two months after a 61-year-old Austrian man was arrested for having sex on the grounds of a shrine... the live-streamer was arrested in Osaka on suspicion of trespassing in a construction site, according to the Kyodo News agency. Ismael also caused outrage in Japan by posting videos of himself taunting commuters about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while hurling insults.  John Lie, a sociology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said Ismael serves as a cautionary tale about the risks of disregarding cultural boundaries in an interconnected world."
The US tolerates thugs of a certain type, but they terrorise the rest of the world at their peril

Meme - Just Another Korean @AnotherKoreanX: "Korean streamer called Johnny Somali and his friend the N word multiple times in front of the Korean police."
Kangmin Lee @kangminjlee: "("niga") means "you" in Korean. It's hilarious because the streamer's saying "you" over and over again and you can see how triggered they get by it. It's not the West, your "muh racism" outrage doesn't work. Korea doesn't care if entitled foreign parasites get offended. They're so used to being pandered to and getting everything they want in the West that when Koreans in Korea have had enough of their harassment and stupidity, they're shocked that they have no power to do anything I hope they get deported and never come back"

Meme - pagliacci the hated 🌝 @Slatzism: "Incredible things happening on shitlib twitter.  a girl said she reports UberEats drivers when they don’t match their profile pic because it’s safety issue.  because most of the men who do this are illegals, the hivemind has decided she’s a racist and are threatening to kill her"
"Idc if this makes me a Karen, if your UberEats profile picture shows that you're a woman and my delivery person shows up and they're a cis man then I will report every time and so should you!!!"
"Snitching ass. Ppl do this as a matter of survival and to save on paying tech lords over invasive identification requirements. in conclusion, fuck you goddamn Nazis to hell. "Karen" doesn't begin to describe what you really are"
"from the bottom of my heart, fuck you. the undocumented people I know and love who have no other options will suffer because of your delusions that YOU will be the victim of some true crime spectacle. using "women's safety" to endanger other marginalized groups. rethink this"
"American fatties would rather become unpaid cops and report any non white man they deem I as "off" than cook their own food. Also up until very recently all food delivery was anonymous and done by mostly men, you never had a problem then tho."
Another example of how the left calling people a "Nazi" is meaningless
Too bad women aren't victims as much as illegal immigrants, so the left sides with the latter over the former

Meme - "r/LegalAdviceUK
Son pressured to convert to a religion under fear and pressure from bullies. School won't help. Police won't get involved.
My son is 10 years old. He has been pressured into converting to another religion by his classmates. It has gotten extremely bad, with him being terrified when I bring certain foodstuffs into our house in case his "friends" find out. Prior to his conversion we noticed regular bruising on him, which we assumed was from his football. However, this stopped abruptly after he converted. My husband and I are almost certain he was bullied into converting. He is one of the very few in his class who does not belong to the dominant religion in our area. We expressed our concerns to the police, but their investigation didn't go anywhere and it was closed by a detective. We've spoken with our son, but he keeps shutting down when we ask him about the religion. He seems to be constantly in a state of fear, terrified of forgetting prayers, terrified that we bring non-Halal foods home etc. He's just been destroyed in the past 18 months. Who should we speak to about this?"
Time to arrest the parents for Islamophobia

No, patriotism doesn’t alienate ethnic minorities - "According to a leaked internal strategy presentation, Labour must make ‘use of the [Union] flag, veterans [and] dressing smartly’ as part of a radical rebranding project designed to rebuild trust with disillusioned voters. Unsurprisingly, the progressive-activist wing of the party responded in hysterical fashion. Norwich South MP Clive Lewis, the master of poor takes, decried the move as a form of ‘Fatherland-ism’ and argued that there was a better way to ‘build social cohesion than moving down the track of the nativist right’. According to progressive activists, taking pride in the Union flag, respecting those who have served in the armed forces and being smartly dressed is pandering to extreme right-wing nativism.   But what is an especially questionable charge, made by the likes of Aditya Chakrabortty in the Guardian, is that embracing expressions of British patriotism would alienate ethnic minorities. According to this view, the imagined ‘BAME community’ has little to no sense of national pride or appreciation of British life. This assumption is both misguided and divisive.  The 2010 Ethnic Minority British Election Study, which remains the only full-scale survey on British ethnic-minority attitudes to date, showed that non-white people are far more likely to express satisfaction with the British democratic system than white Brits. This should come as no surprise. A notable section of Britain’s non-white population moved directly to the UK from unstable parts of the world with dysfunctional political systems and substandard public infrastructure. Part of the reason my Bangladeshi-origin parents decided to set up their stall in Britain was because of the stable nature of British democratic society and the great educational opportunities on offer for their children. This feeds into a naturally positive orientation towards Britain – a country that provided them with an opportunity to start afresh and prosper...   While these progressive activists squirm at the mildest expressions of patriotism, a comfortable majority of non-white people attach importance to their British national identity... many of Britain’s non-white people – who can trace their ancestral origins back to countries with autocratic regimes and rampant political oppression – simply do not share in this domestic progressive-liberal discontent. And while progressive activists look to ‘protect’ an imaginary BAME community from the forces of oppression, they fail to acknowledge that non-white people tend to be more satisfied with their life in the UK.   Progressive activists are either unaware of the culturally conservative attitudes in non-white communities or, worse still, they are fully aware of them but would still rather exploit ethnic minorities to promote their identitarian agenda. This tribe of left-wingers – instinctively hostile to expressions of patriotism, dissatisfied with the democratic system, and always keen to interpret a range of social issues through the prism of race – threatens to lock Labour in a position of neverending electoral misery.  If such people continue to wield considerable influence on the British left, Labour will only be left with offering a miserable form of grievance politics, which is likely to prove very costly at the ballot box."
From 2021. We're still told that left wingers don't hate their countries

What’s really driving Labour’s patriotism problem - "One can’t help but think that the real issue here is less Labour’s (obvious) discomfort with patriotism, and more its discomfort with ordinary people. The two at least are interlinked. As Labour has drifted away from working people, its ranks drawing more and more from the metropolitan middle classes, so it has become increasingly alarmed at the national identity which many of its former constituents still hold to. The sacking of Emily Thornberry from the Labour frontbench in 2014, after she snobbily tweeted that photo of a house draped in the St George flag with a white van parked outside, reminds us that hysteria about nationalism goes hand in hand with plain old snobbery...   The problem here isn’t so much that Labour hates this country — it’s that it hates the people who live in it."

White people's guilty pleasure - "Woke anti-racism is a merciless new religion that offers little in the way of redemption, only eternal damnation. You can never fully overcome any of your ‘biases’ or ‘prejudices’ and declare yourself free. No one would ever believe you. Instead, you must constantly admit to and despair of how racist you are despite desperately not wanting to be.  Genevieve Roth, an anti-racism campaigner, former aide to Hillary Clinton and newly appointed adviser to Harry and Meghan’s Archewell foundation, epitomises this worldview. Roth wrote, ‘Race is an issue in our [mixed-race] marriage because as a white woman of privilege, I have racist tendencies written in at a cellular level’.    ‘Racist tendencies written in at a cellular level’ is a troubling notion. It implies someone is inherently racist. That to be racist is biologically determined. It also implies that someone with those ‘tendencies written in at a cellular level’ would struggle to change. This is the complete opposite of the sentiments expressed by Nelson Mandela in his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom. ‘No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion’, Mandela said. ‘People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love.’...   This new woke anti-racism is actually rehabilitating biological essentialism, which has an ugly history. It also works against any notion of a common humanity – a notion that informs some of our greatest triumphs against oppression and injustice: universal suffrage, the end of Apartheid, the abolition of slavery, the embrace of civil rights.   But in the worldview of Roth and Robin DiAngelo, author of White Fragility, solidarity and universality have been replaced by ‘allyship’ – which is never quite full friendship or togetherness – and ‘unconscious bias’, which implies that people are controlled by psychological forces they forever struggle to control...   In the cause of woke anti-racism, you must constantly confess how bigoted you are and how little you realised it. Nobody would accept any less. The unconscious bias is unending. I once saw an intelligent woman I know, who has been very captured by this movement, write on social media: ‘Anyone who says they don’t have a racist bone in their body is lying.’ That would be an amusing comment if it wasn’t so fanatical. It is the point of view of the Grand Inquisitor, the Witchfinder General, the person who has a deep distrust of human nature and is pessimistic about the human ability to change. How can you bring about real change if you don’t believe people are capable of achieving it in their own lives?   It is also very concerning that people in positions of power and privilege, such as Prince Harry and Hillary Clinton, are drawn to this bleak, unforgiving worldview. Harry said in his interview with Oprah Winfrey that he believed the public was influenced by the racist media. He stopped short of explicitly calling ordinary people racist, but that is what was implied, whether he realised it or not. These are the very same ‘racist’ people whose taxes and land rents fund his family’s lifestyle.   Ultimately, the new woke anti-racism is bolstering elitism, contempt of ordinary people, division, self-hatred and nasty judgmentalism"
Left wingers just hate white people