Category Archives: Law

The Incredible Dr. Kerwick, The Cannibal & ‘Intellectual Conservative’

Classical Liberalism, Ilana Mercer, Intelligence, Law, Political Philosophy, Race, Reason, South-Africa

After a while, when interviewers and reviewers would request an interview or ask me about “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America,” I’d reply with little enthusiasm:

“What in particular about The Cannibal would you like to cover?”

The replies would invariably be these: “Oh, how relevant it is to the US.” “Diversity, multiculturalism, affirmative action, immigration, quality of life before and after “freedom”; this or the other population index.”

“Since you must have read my book,” I’d retort—initially, in hope—“how about discussing the often frayed thread of natural vs. political rights that runs throughout? Let’s look at the origins of Apartheid? Did you know these were firmly rooted in existential, largely non-racial, considerations? I really like the section about the ‘Colonialism Canard’ in the context of Chapter 5, the ‘Root-Causes Racket.’ Also a favorite of mine is the examination of case studies in current South African jurisprudence as an example of the “indigenization” of what was once a Western system of law. Oh, and my absolute best: the moral questions floated in the sections, “Intra-Racial Reparation” and “Recompense or Reconquista.”

Needless to say, the focus of the reviewer or interviewer was always so foreign to how I understood my book—that I lost interest in speaking about it, or concluded that my points had not been picked up due in some measure to my failures.

Enter Jack Kerwick, Ph.D. (Who never even requested a review copy of The Cannibal.) The fact that Kerwick levitates in level of abstraction and understanding above most might not be a good thing for his career as a popular writer, but I’m enjoying it.

Dr. Kerwick’s “Reflections on Ilana Mercer’s ‘Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa'” appeared in Intellectual Conservative. Once again, Kerwick exposes the tortured tension vis-a-vis natural rights that I experienced and, apparently, Burke did too. As does he commend the absence of biological reductionism, a textual strength that drew derision from racialist quarters (I reject reductionism, in most spheres.)

The neglect with which this book has been treated is as sore as it is tragic. Cannibal is a woefully underappreciated book. A not inconsiderable number of otherwise astute reviewers seemed to have missed its main significance. This work is not primarily about “diversity,” “democracy,” “egalitarianism,” or “collectivism.” And it is certainly not about any conflicts within the Jewish community (Mercer is herself a Jew who remarks upon the role that South African Jews, including her father, played as critics of apartheid, as well as the role that Israel assumed as a stalwart ally of the Old South Africa). Cannibal isn’t even a book about inter-racial conflict.

….Neither, however, does Mercer countenance any reductionist biological accounts of black-white differences … Such an approach is problematic for more than one reason, but especially because it would, ultimately, amount to but one more “root-cause.” …

…Mercer’s thought is distended between universal natural rights and particular cultural traditions, it is true. Yet as is the case with so many works of genius, this tension is as much one of Cannibal’s strengths as it is a weakness, for from it there springs an energy that is notable for its sense of urgency.

… Like Burke before her, Mercer, it is clear, is on a mission. Burke was consumed with the conflagration of the French Revolution that he believed threatened to tear European civilization asunder. Far from obscuring his ethical vision, I believe that much of the passion that informed it stemmed from a conflict in Burke’s consciousness between a recognition of both the universal demands of morality and the partiality that we owe to “the little platoons”—our local attachments—from which we derive our individual identities. This, though, is precisely the same war that rages within Mercer, and as it aided Burke in his contest with the evil of the French radicals, so too does it aid Mercer in her contest with the wickedness of the African National Congress and its supporters.

The complete review, “Reflections on Ilana Mercer’s ‘Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,'” is on Rachel Alexander’s Intellectual Conservative.

The Dynamics of Entrapment

Crime, Criminal Injustice, Homeland Security, IMMIGRATION, Intelligence, Law, Terrorism

Singing from the same hymn-sheet, the Left and the Right did a little jig today: The brilliant FBI had gone and caught us one of dem Arab terrorists, looking to kill us because of our freedoms.

Or did it really?

Before you rejoice with the FBI and the unquestioning Candy Crowley (CNN) and Megyn Kelly (FoxNews), do read on. As I’ve already documented, “the FBI often entraps pliable dolts (to better serve their political masters). The seven Miami-based men who were accused of ‘concocting a plot to blow up Chicago’s Sears Tower’ come to mind. They were illiterate and probably borderline retarded.”

Such Psyops (psychological operations) had ensnared the simpletons who were going to explode the Bronx synagogue, and the “terror ring” tembels who were convinced (by FBI) that shooting a Stinger missile at a fighter plane was in the cards for them.

If a “U.S. agents – running two separate, world-wide sting operations worthy of a James Bond movie – received thousands of dollars in down payments,” then, voila, we have a terror plot, never mind that the agents set the sting up; seeking out fools to entrap.

Most recently, the brilliant and brave FBI and DEA entrapped Mansour Arbabsiar and Ali Gholam Shakuri. I read the court complaint. It had “more twists than a serpent’s tail, but none led conclusively to Teheran, unless Teheran is code for ‘Surveillance State USA.'” “That indictment was the kind of cloak-and-dagger that belongs in an episode of ‘The Unit,’ not in the courts of a civilized country.”

What amazes me repeatedly about American journos is that not one—giggly-girl, “keeping-them-honest” Anderson Cooper; are you listening?—has probed the legality of setting swarthy simpletons up and then nabbing them in a so-called terrorism sting.

You just know that each of these FBI targets is a low-IQ, poor sod, ripe for the taking, who happens to be too stupid to even know that this is how the FBI rolls. You can be sure that “legit” terrorists would never be ensnared this way.

“The federal criminal complaint against the” latest “suspect identifies him as Amine El Khalifi, a 29-year-old Moroccan citizen who has been living in the United States illegally since 1999 after his visa expired. He was nabbed following a lengthy investigation by the FBI, initiated after he allegedly expressed interest in conducting an attack.” (FoxNews)

It would be cheaper for the taxpayer, who’d be spared paying for the FBI’s sadistic games, to deport illegal aliens than set them up.

Oh Contradictory Canada!

Canada, Economy, Free Speech, Homeland Security, Law, Liberty, Regulation

“Canada’s balance sheet is healthier than those of other developed nations,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “Canada’s federal deficit is just 1.9% of gross domestic product,” and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty “aims to reduce that to zero by 2016 with new cuts in his annual budget, expected next month.”

Unlike the states stateside, the Canadian provinces are aiming to balance their books, as they ought to. “Ontario, the largest province in terms of population, released an independent report recommending 362 spending cuts, from increased school class sizes to fewer hospitals, to rein in a 16 billion Canadian dollar (US$16 billion) budget deficit and balance its books in five years.”

Alas, a show of responsibility on the part of some Canadian leaders has met with opprobrium from mooching members of the public. “Critics of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party have accused the government of using austerity to push through one of its political goals: smaller government.”

OMIGOD. What could be worse than shrinking the state , which invariably grows society? Those arguing against cutting the “oink sector,” so as to ensure these strong fundamentals persist defer to Keynesian political economy, of course. The need for the state to stimulate the delirium of demand, rather than allow the necessary slowdown in consumption that is associated with liquidation of bad investments and increased savings.

…austerity threatens jobs and saps demand at home. It also shuts down a source of global demand that the world needs more than ever amid slower-than-expected growth almost everywhere else in the developed world.

Ludwig von Mises, who wrote the “Theory of Money and Credit” (1912) well in advance of Keynes’ “General Theory,” showed that the Keynesian cure—inflating the money supply in order to stimulate demand—causes depressions.

Writes Peter Schiff: “Stimulus merely numbs the pain of economic contraction, as the underlying trauma gets worse. Austerity might slow an economy down, but at least the wounds are able to heal. America has chosen the former and Europe the latter, albeit not quite as large a dose as needed. The fact that in the short-run Europe is suffering more than the US does not vindicate Washington’s approach. On the contrary, this is exactly what is to be expected.”

Economic good news aside, Canada, on the other hand, boasts draconian anti-free speech laws. One of the most oppressive instruments in the Canadian state is the Human Rights apparatus. “The Human Rights Commission, a Kangaroo court, operates outside the Canadian courts, affording its victims none of the defenses or due process the courts afford. For example, mens rea, or criminal intention: the absence of the intent to harm is no defense in this ‘court.’ Neither is truth.”

To top that, as RT reports, “Lawmakers in the Great White North are debating a bill that will pulverize what’s left of online privacy for Canucks.”

The Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act (Bill C-51) is legislation that isn’t new to Canadian Parliament, but after a series of additions and other changes, lawmakers there are expected to begin discussion on it this week. If passed, law enforcement there will be able to monitor all Internet and telephone activity from anyone, anywhere in the country, without having to obtain a warrant.

UPDATE II: No Country For Throwaway Americans (Meet Maurice, Homeless Physicist & Electrical Eng.)

Education, IMMIGRATION, Labor, Law, Multiculturalism, Outsourcing, Republicans

At a time when very many highly qualified American engineers cannot find work, and at least one such talent, featured below, is living on the streets—Tea Party traitor Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), distinguished himself last year by passing the “Fairness for High Skilled Immigrants Act.”

“In one of last year’s most disappointing moments,” writes Joe Guzzardi of VDARE.COM, “the House overwhelmingly passed (389-15) H.R. 3012, the Fairness for High Skilled Immigrants Act that would eliminate the annual per-country caps on employer-sponsored green cards.”

“Skilled labor—from roughly everywhere—displaces educated Americans, disproportionately white and Asian Americans.(See Ed Rubenstein on immigration and college graduates.) Some of those lose their homes, some commit suicide, and we’ve published an article by a writer, Simon Krejsa, who was living in a homeless shelter.” (VDARE.COM)

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Chaffetz (R-Utah), is another regular “freedom fighter,” who parks his pampered ass, as a “good friend of the show,” at FoxNews’ “Freedom Watch.” (See “Closing The Door On Closed, Cloistered American Media.”)

Increased legal immigration in the middle of an unemployment crisis! Now that’s patriotism!

Meet Maurice Johnson, “an unemployed, homeless Boston man who has a Masters Degrees in Plasma Physics from Dartmouth College and in Electrical Engineering and acoustics from Purdue University. Johnson’s resume includes a 10 year career at Lockheed Aerospace & Aerodyne Research Corp.” (Link)

H-1B Hogs Swindling ‘Average’ Americans explains that, in America’s labyrinthine visa system, “The O-1 visa is the visa reserved for individuals with extraordinary abilities. More significantly, there is no cap on the number of O-1 visa entrants allowed. Access to this limited pool of talent is unlimited. My point vis-à-vis the O-1 visa is this: The primary H-1B hogs—Infosys (and another eight, sister Indian firms), Microsoft, and Intel—are forever claiming that they are desperate for talent. But, in reality, they have unlimited access to individuals with unique abilities through the open-ended O-1 visa program—that is if they really wanted it.”

The primary H-1B hogs don’t want for extraordinary talent, available via the unlimited 0-1 Visa; what these corporate pigs want is a multicultural workforce with which to replace Americans. My contacts within the bowels of this Beast are forever telling me about Human Resources directives to “hire someone who does not look like YOU, Honky!” (Not quite in those words, but you get the drift.) Don’t ask me why, but creating a Tower of Babel of a work force is what the much-heralded multinationals live for. Diversity is no strength—it contributes nothing but misery in the workplace.

But boy, is it de rigueur.

UPDATE I (Feb. 6): This guy could be teaching America’s stupid kids math and science, but the unions that run the gulag of public education do not allow entry to highly qualified individuals with higher degrees, unless they are “reeducated.” The upshot of union stranglehold is that union-certified, borderline-retarded women (mostly) with education degrees are teaching math. They might be able to cover the two examples in the textbook, but cannot instill what they lack: an understanding of this most crucial subject. There are plenty engineers and scientists (some retired), to whom math is second nature, who could bring American kids up to the level, if allowed.

UPDATE II (Feb. 7): “Is President Obama Right About Engineers?: Significant Numbers Unemployed or Underemployed,” courtesy of The Center for Immigration Studies.