Category Archives: Intelligence

Breitbart’s Allum Bokhari Steps Into The Anti-State Void Opened Up On The Organized* Right

Conservatism, Criminal Injustice, Donald Trump, Free Speech, Intelligence, The State, The West

With his piece, “The Rise Of The Western Dissidents,” Breitbart’s Allum Bokhari steps into the anti-state void opened up on the right, and openly and honestly fingers western governments—the Trump Administration, included—in creating their own imperiled dissidents.

It’s a disgrace. (See my “Assange Is Us”)

those who rightly believe the west is superior to authoritarian regimes must now contend with a troubling trend — the rise of the western dissident.

Chief among them is Julian Assange, who for a half-decade has been forced to live in the tiny Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has claimed political asylum since 2011. Assange claimed that he would be extradited to the U.S. to face charges over his work at WikiLeaks if he left the embassy, and was routinely mocked as paranoid for doing so.

This week, we learned that Assange was right and his critics were wrong. …

Thanks to a clerical error by the U.S. attorney’s office in Alexandria, Virginia, reporters were able to confirm the existence of sealed criminal charges against the WikiLeaks founder. …

WikiLeaks behaved precisely as any responsible publisher handling sensitive material should, redacting information that could cause harm. The redactions only stopped when they became pointless. Assange is unlikely to have won more than a dozen journalism awards if he were completely reckless in his publications. …

…the only reason Assange is being targeted is that he tangled with the highest levels of the western establishment. In that, he is far from alone.

In the late 2000s to early 2010s, western governments targeted all manner of individuals associated with Assange and the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, including Laura Poitras, Glenn Greenwald’s partner David Miranda, and The Guardian newspaper.

These days, however, a new class of western dissident has emerged — the populist dissident. …

Who would have thought that the highest court in Europe, home of the enlightenment, would uphold a case in which a woman was prosecuted for blasphemy against Islam?

Who would have thought that Britain, the birthplace of liberalism and the free press, would ban an independent journalist from its shores for satirizing the same religion?

Who would have thought that Germany, whose living memory of the totalitarian Stasi is just three decades old, would put its largest opposition party under surveillance …


… The REST: Bokhari: “Rise of the Western Dissidents”

* This writer is anti-state, but is also unaffiliated and independent.

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NEW COLUMN: The New Norm: Crime, But NOT Punishment

America, Crime, Criminal Injustice, Democrats, Intelligence, Law, Pop-Culture, Private Property

NEW COLUMN IS “The New Norm: Crime, But Not Punishment.” 

It’s now on Townhall.com, slightly abridged, and unabridged on WND.COM and The Unz Review.

An excerpt:

In the title of his magisterial book, Fyodor Dostoevsky paired “Crime and Punishment,” not crime and pardons, or crime and “Civics lessons,” amnesty and asylum.

Punishment must closely follow a crime in order to be both effective as a deterrent, as well as to serve as a public declaration of values and norms.

In explaining Texas justice and its attendant values, stand-up satirist Ron White performed the public service no politician is prepared to perform. “In Texas, we have the death penalty and we use it. If you come to Texas and kill somebody, we will kill you back.”

So, where’s such clarity when you need it?

Something has gotten into the country’s lymphatic system. The infection is becoming more apparent by the day, not least in the way matters of life-and-death are debated (or not).

Again-and-again one hears boilerplate statements that fail to properly fix on the defining issues of our time, much less fix them.

Consider the flippancy over threats against persons and property, from within the country and from without it.

The home of Fox News personality Tucker Carlson is surrounded by a small, if menacing, mob, and his family threatened. Before dinging the man’s front door, the assailants chant out their criminal intentions:

“Tucker Carlson, we will fight. We know where you sleep at night. We know where you sleep.”

To which other talkers, even the wonderful Tucker, respond by vaporizing about rights to speech and protest vs. some or other watered-down peace and security to which private property owners are entitled.

Nobody alludes to the rights of private property or to the fulcrum that is law-and-order.

No demands for arrests are issued or voiced, publicly. No expectation for retribution is set-up. Follow-up is nonexistent in media. Police do not publicize any arrests. If they make them, none are reported by media.

No teachable moments occur.

Remember words like, “Police are requesting the public’s assistance in finding those responsible”? Or, “No arrests have been made, as yet”? Such civilizing utterances have vanished from the nomenclature of media and law enforcement, when discussing acts of trespass, vandalism, and public disorderliness.

Be they within the U.S. or from without it, acts that violate one person’s property rights or the property rights of many—as the Central American caravanners expect to do—these acts don’t conjure the requisite tough talk or actions. …

… READ THE REST.  It’s now on Townhall.com,  WND.COM and The Unz Review.

https://tinyurl.com/ybwcrevs

UPDATED: About An Inspiring Young Man Who Knows He Has Things To Learn

Education, English, Intelligence, Kids, Logic, Reason

The stories about youths ruined by the education system are legion. My own encounters over the years confirm that students are taught to never question the state of their knowledge; to work to a grade and to not doubt the value of that grade.

Students and parents mistakenly believe that grades correspond to the state of their knowledge. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Adoring parents enforce these misconceptions, enabling bad teachers, and giving pedagogues (mostly mediocre or sub-par minds) ample cover.

In this context, I seldom give interviews, because young interviewers, while genuinely interested, poor things, are unable to grapple with substance and content.

I feel for these promising young minds. They’ve been deprived. They most certainly have not been taught to distill, analyze and question information. Unable to grapple with content, young minds resort to process-oriented gibberish:

“How do you feel about… What made you … Who inspired you.” Sorry, old chap. That’s not going to cut it. It’s what you ask the traditional Agony Aunt.

See, your kids are taught by women and their house-trained boys. So they look at the world not in search of substance, data, insights; but by escaping into different states of feeling.

Having said that, I am so happy to report that I’ve been pleasantly surprised by a young Millennial. He had “reached out”—scrap that phrase, please, use “contacted”—with a request for an interview.

After reading his questions to me, I replied somewhat curtly by saying that his were questions better addressed to a YouTube fresh face or some young social-media sensation.

I explained why and told my young interlocutor I’d be glad to look over his revised questions once he got his bearings.

I had expected that he’d huff and puff as ego-maniacal Millennials usually do, when criticized.

But what a pleasant surprise awaited.

The young conservative replied thus:

OK. That’s definitely right. I enjoy your writing very much. Will get back with different questions. Thank you very much

My reply to his:

I knew you could be pushed to grapple with material. You’re better than the previous questions you sent, smarter. Give me a week and I will get back to you with answers to new questions. Good for you for being a good sport.

 

Came his reply:

Thank you for encouraging me. I really appreciate it … [and other stuff I won’t share]

AND MY YOUNG INTERVIEWR’S REVISED QUESTIONS ARE SHARP. They’ll be shared when answered.

Pushing good minds in the right (and Right) direction, provided they don’t suffer hubris, can work.

UPDATE:

No. Traditional, teacher-centered learning is the only way to begin to reverse progressive, child-centered miseducation. Restoring hierarchy is essential.

Is CNN’s Chris Cuomo A Dumbo?

Intelligence, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media

One of the dumbest people on TV is probably CNN’s Chris Cuomo.

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey got really short with dumbo the other day, because of Cuomo’s labored comprehension.

But in addition to his regular dumb input into debates he moderates—Cuomo loses his train of thought when having to talk, standing up against a touchscreen wall of data. He’s getting a little better, though, but nothing like a brainy liberal, like, say, CNN correspondent John King.

King is very nimble, standing against the Magic Wall, speedily deciphering election results, trends and other complex data.

Don’t try being a wizard on the Magic Wall, Chris Cuomo.