Links - 13th January 2020 (1)

Seattle antifa militia distributes extremist manifesto of ICE attacker - "an antifa militia in Seattle distributed printed manifestos written by the militant who firebombed a Tacoma, Washington Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility... Van Spronsen, 69, was a member of the PSJBGC. He launched an attack on the Tacoma ICE facility during the summer. Tacoma Police say he hurled firebombs at the building and attempted to ignite a 500-gallon propane tank attached to the facility. He was shot and killed after allegedly aiming his rifle at police. Van Spronsen’s manifesto being given out on Saturday featured an illustration of an ICE truck set on fire with its windows smashed."
I see liberal defences of antifa as insisting they still haven't killed anyone yet, so they aren't as bad as the "far right"

Man accused of running 'Deliveroo of sexual services exploiting homeless women' - "A man allegedly ran the "Deliveroo of sexual services" by transporting vulnerable women to meetings across Northern Ireland"

The deluded cult of social justice - "Selection by ability by grammar schools is rejected by large swathes of progressive opinion. Quite a few seem to find it less objectionable to send their children to schools where selection is by parental income.Contrary to a familiar line of criticism, there are few signs of hypocrisy in these people. Hypocrisy requires a measure of self-awareness, and there is little evidence of that in them... Because it invokes values that are inherently antagonistic, social justice is indeed a mirage. But so is Hayek’s libertarian ideal of a social order in which the market operates without any controls. It is striking how little Hayek learnt from the political disasters of his lifetime (1899-1992) in which liberal regimes were repeatedly swept away by malfunctioning markets. The Nazis came to power on the back of massive economic dislocation. Roosevelt’s interventionism and British social democracy were responses to the Great Depression and the experience of full employment during the Second World War.Hayek opposed government intervention in the economy because he believed it to be a threat to liberal values. The message of history, however, is that the surest way to overturn a liberal regime is to let the market rip. Events after Hayek’s death confirmed this lesson. The anarchic capitalism of the Yeltsin era produced Putin’s authoritarianism, and post-communist Europe’s populist regimes came to power partly because former communist officials so often benefited most from the shift to a market economy. If capitalism is legitimated solely by its productivity, anyone who fails to benefit from the wealth it creates has no reason to support a market system. A free market regime will be stable only if it delivers more or less uninterrupted growth and most people benefit from it... The goal of most SJWs is not to repair or improve society. Instead, they want to overthrow the existing social order. Accordingly, they are untroubled if pursuing social justice is actually socially divisive. Like Lenin before the revolution, they believe “worse is better”. If there is anything approaching an iron law in history, however, it is that revolutions are followed by injustice worse than existed in the ancien régime. The French Revolution produced a war against the peasantry in the Vendée (1793-1796) which cost somewhere in excess of a hundred thousand lives. The Russian Revolution produced a lesser known peasant rebellion in the Tambov region (1920-21) in which similar or larger numbers perished. The American Revolution is no exception. For indigenous peoples, which under British rule were sheltered from settler expansion, it was an unmitigated disaster. But history has no lessons for the “woke”."

Migrating Russian eagles run up huge data roaming charges - "Russian scientists tracking migrating eagles ran out of money after some of the birds flew to Iran and Pakistan and their SMS transmitters drew huge data roaming charges.After learning of the team's dilemma, Russian mobile phone operator Megafon offered to cancel the debt and put the project on a special, cheaper tariff.The team had started crowdfunding on social media to pay off the bills."

The deluded cult of social justice - "Selection by ability by grammar schools is rejected by large swathes of progressive opinion. Quite a few seem to find it less objectionable to send their children to schools where selection is by parental income.Contrary to a familiar line of criticism, there are few signs of hypocrisy in these people. Hypocrisy requires a measure of self-awareness, and there is little evidence of that in them... Because it invokes values that are inherently antagonistic, social justice is indeed a mirage. But so is Hayek’s libertarian ideal of a social order in which the market operates without any controls. It is striking how little Hayek learnt from the political disasters of his lifetime (1899-1992) in which liberal regimes were repeatedly swept away by malfunctioning markets. The Nazis came to power on the back of massive economic dislocation. Roosevelt’s interventionism and British social democracy were responses to the Great Depression and the experience of full employment during the Second World War.Hayek opposed government intervention in the economy because he believed it to be a threat to liberal values. The message of history, however, is that the surest way to overturn a liberal regime is to let the market rip. Events after Hayek’s death confirmed this lesson. The anarchic capitalism of the Yeltsin era produced Putin’s authoritarianism, and post-communist Europe’s populist regimes came to power partly because former communist officials so often benefited most from the shift to a market economy. If capitalism is legitimated solely by its productivity, anyone who fails to benefit from the wealth it creates has no reason to support a market system. A free market regime will be stable only if it delivers more or less uninterrupted growth and most people benefit from it... The goal of most SJWs is not to repair or improve society. Instead, they want to overthrow the existing social order. Accordingly, they are untroubled if pursuing social justice is actually socially divisive. Like Lenin before the revolution, they believe “worse is better”. If there is anything approaching an iron law in history, however, it is that revolutions are followed by injustice worse than existed in the ancien régime. The French Revolution produced a war against the peasantry in the Vendée (1793-1796) which cost somewhere in excess of a hundred thousand lives. The Russian Revolution produced a lesser known peasant rebellion in the Tambov region (1920-21) in which similar or larger numbers perished. The American Revolution is no exception. For indigenous peoples, which under British rule were sheltered from settler expansion, it was an unmitigated disaster. But history has no lessons for the “woke”."

Tommy Robinson: Brick thrown at anti-Islam activist’s campaign van in Preston - "A man has been arrested after a brick was thrown at Tommy Robinson’s campaign van in Preston... “A 36-year-old man from Preston was arrested on suspicion of criminal damage and given an adult caution,” a spokesperson for Lancashire Constabulary said... The far-right activist was hit with milkshakes twice in two days earlier this month in Bury and Warrington.On Monday he alleged that the assaults had led to further violence against his campaign.“I have since had the following escalations on my election campaign,” he claimed.“Multiple death threats, punched in the face twice grabbed by the throat, our van windows smashed, and driver intimidated.” On Saturday counter-protesters fought with Robinson’s supporters in Oldham, Greater Manchester.Police officers came under a hail of eggs and bricks during the clashes, in which two police vehicles were damaged.“People...turned to violence, throwing objects including eggs and bricks,” Chief Superintendent Neil Evans said... “It started off with milkshakes, then it became eggs, and now it’s bricks”"
Where they throw milkshakes, they will, in the end, throw bricks too

To Dodge Border Crisis, NY Times Pins Cartel Killings on Religion - "Breaking news coming out of Mexico detailed the horrific cartel killings of an American family, which, astonishingly, The New York Times tried to pin on (get ready for it) fundamentalist religion. Specifically, the Mormon faith... With its single focused political views (read:anti-Trump), the mainstream media is now more engaged in creative, rather than factual, reporting.Acknowledging the real issue of cartel killings, violence and terror infiltration on America’s southern border would have given a nod to the wisdom of Trump’s solutions for the border crisis: the need for increased security and more stringent immigrant vetting, and challenging sanctuary cities across America that provide safe havens for criminal and illegal immigrants.So, instead, the NY Times and other mainstream media outlets decided to make these cartel killings an issue of religious fundamentalism.Ironically, when it comes to Islam, the mainstream media doesn’t seem to have any problem not blaming religious fundamentalism. In fact, the media narrative since 9/11 has been that “Islam is a religion of peace.”"

Business Pulse Poll: Do you call in sick to work even when you're not? - "A recent Harris Poll survey for CareerBuilder found that 38 percent of U.S. workers have called in sick to work (even though they weren't sick) at least once in the last year"

Nordic Countries Scale Back Welfare State, Embrace Free Markets - "The World Value Survey gives strong support for the claim that norms in the Nordic countries have eroded. In the 1981–84 survey, for example, 82 percent of Swedes agreed with the statement “Claiming government benefits to which you are not entitled is never justifiable.” In the 2010–14 wave, merely 55 percent held the same view. The pattern is found in the other Nordic nations as well. This fall in responsibility seems to be stabilizing lately, following tax cuts and significant reductions in welfare-state generosity. A number of attitude studies in Sweden conclude that a significant portion of the population has come to consider it acceptable to live on sickness benefits even if you aren’t sick. A survey from 2002, for example, showed that 60 percent of Swedes believed that it was acceptable to claim sick leave when you were not sick. Four years later, a center-right government was elected on the promise to cut the welfare benefits and taxes significantly. In fact, Swedish governments on both the right and the left have reduced the generosity of the welfare system. Additionally, gatekeeping functions have been introduced, mainly for sick-leave claims, to limit over-utilization and outright cheating... younger generations are much more likely to use welfare benefits such as sick leave... Tobias Wijk, an expert at the tax authority, explains that one form of cheating is to bring poor immigrants from other European Union members to Sweden. The person is registered in Sweden with papers for a false job and then enrolled in the welfare system... The Social Democrats have gone so far as to push through a partial privatization of the pensions system, accepting broad tax cuts for the middle class, and agreeing to let private, for-profit firms compete to provide publicly funded services such as education, health care, and elder care. The Social Democratic government of Stefan Löfven continues to remain in power, but only after promising to introduce wide-ranging tax cuts and market liberalizations. Promising more and more government programs used to be a winning proposition in Swedish elections. Today that approach doesn’t work, as over-utilization of public programs has created skepticism"
This is an interesting counter example to those who claim that welfare always grows and never shrinks
The fraud numbers don't look egregious in perspective

We are all Ayatollahs now - "Fatwas against offensive speech are now issued daily, by the Western Twitterati as much as by Eastern religious tyrants. Intolerance of so-called blasphemy against Islam and Muhammad is now as pronounced in trendy Western circles as it is in Islamic imam circles... This is the true horror of the Rushdie affair: the Rushdie side won the battle – as demonstrated in the fact that Rushdie survives and his book is still widely available – but the Khomeini side won the war... a remarkable thing happened just a few years after the Ayatollah’s fatwa: Britain, the very home of Rushdie, institutionalised Ayatollah-style intolerance of criticism of Islam. In 1997, the Runnymede Trust defined ‘Islamophobia’ as any criticism of Islam that treats it as ‘inferior to the West’ or as ‘unresponsive to change’. Also, if you ‘reject out of hand’ the ‘criticisms of the West made by Islam’, then you are Islamophobic. It is important to bear in mind that this definition of Islamophobia has been embraced by the actual Metropolitan Police. The Met has a long and detailed definition of Islamophobia that includes any view of Islam as ‘static’, ‘separate’, ‘other’, ‘irrational’, ‘sexist’ or ‘aggressive’, or as a ‘political ideology’... One wonders what our increasingly PC, speech-punishing, anti-‘hatred’ police would do if the Rushdie affair happened today. Arrest rather than protect Rushdie? Charge Rushdie with a hate crime? Have a word with him about how his novel broke numerous parts of their code against Islamophobic thought and suggest he tone down these beliefs in his next work?... In 2008, Random House decided against publishing Sherry Jones’ novel The Jewel of Medina, which tells the story of Muhammad’s relationship with his 14-year-old wife Aisha, after one academic reader said it ‘might be offensive to some in the Muslim community’. Both the Barbican and Royal Court Theatre in London have in recent years self-censored plays that were critical of Islam: they effectively issued fatwas against themselves. A UK students’ union refused to permit the sale of Charlie Hebdo lest it make Muslims feel ‘unsafe’."

We’re all toxic now - "‘Toxic’ is the word that best captures ‘the ethos, mood and preoccupations’ of 2018, according to Oxford Dictionaries... In 2018, life itself is apparently toxic.Children, we’re told, have to face ‘toxic school environments’, in which pupils are bullied and stressed and teachers are ‘downtrodden, isolated and anxious’. Their parents, meanwhile, have to deal with a ‘toxic workplace’ – organisations that ‘chew up employees and spit them out’. When everyone arrives home, they then have to contend with their ‘toxic family’ and ‘toxic in-laws’ waiting to manipulate, abuse and harass them. Even in the privacy of the bedroom, there is no escape from ‘toxic people’: phones provide round-the-clock access to the ‘toxic internet’ and ‘toxic social media’. The #MeToo movement has unleashed a surge in the use of the word toxic. We are all familiar with toxic masculinity. Now, thanks to #MeToo, we can add to this danger the risks that come from toxic patriarchy, toxic relationships and toxic rape culture.Meanwhile, Brexit and Trump have also had a supposedly poisonous impact: we now have ‘toxic politics’ characterised by ‘toxic discourse’... The fashion for putting toxic in front of everything tells us that there are some who perceive all aspects of life – and especially other people – as not just wrong, or bad, but as actually physically harmful and dangerous. Colleagues, classmates, neighbours and family members are considered to be contaminated and poisonous. This suggests that some people experience the world in a highly personalised and visceral way... The beauty of the word ‘toxic’ is that it needs no further explanation. It is not an argument, it is a flashing siren warning people away... The problem is that labelling people and ideas as toxic, and then decrying the harm they inflict, curtails all debate... Criticism and abuse have been conflated, and this isn’t healthy... This reinforces a view of people as extremely vulnerable and fragile, in need of Safe Spaces and protection just to make it through the day. This new tendency to call every aspect of life ‘toxic’ suggests many people are deeply alienated from the world around them and from other people. We meet each other not as potential friends, colleagues, or allies, but as poisonous strangers. The workplace is not a site of potential friendship and collaboration, but of abuse. The university campus is not an opportunity for confronting new and challenging ideas, but a place full of dangerous unknowns. The problem with the word toxic, as it is used today, is that it not only reflects the fear people apparently feel, but it also spreads panic"