Category Archives: Morality

Update III: Haiti: Trade In Voodoo For Values (Senegal Does It Right)

America, Celebrity, Christianity, Ethics, Foreign Aid, Hollywood, Human Accomplishment, Israel, Judaism & Jews, Media, Morality, Political Economy, The West, UN

The excerpt is from my new, WND.COM column: “Haiti: Trade In Voodoo For Values”:

“… in all its self-serving displays, humanitarianism is, overwhelmingly, a Western affair; a Judeo-Christian thing. It’s as simple as all that. Liberals like Angelina Jolie will trace Western generosity to the founding of the United Nations, to the League of Nations, or to some other supra-national structure.

I suspect that what is at play in Haiti, and in countless locales around the undeveloped world, began with the revolutionary, universal, elaborate moral and legal injunctions encoded first in Exodus, Deuteronomy and Leviticus – and, thereafter, throughout the Hebrew Bible – to protect and do justice by the poor, the weak, the defenseless, the widow and the stranger. The people of Israel were enjoined to practice what Christians later perfected.

That stuff stuck.

A different set of beliefs animates Haitian society, and helps explain its helplessness and hopelessness. ‘Haiti is not a Catholic country, Haiti is a Voodoo country,’ Erol Josue told National Public Radio. Josue is a Voodoo priest in a country whose former president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, officially recognized Voodoo as a state religion.” …

The complete column is “Haiti: Trade In Voodoo For Values.”

And do read my libertarian manifesto, Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash With A Corrupt Society.

The Second Edition features bonus material. Get your copy (or copies) now!

Update I (Jan. 22): Martin’s comment hereunder reminded me what I clean forgot: the Obamas’ very public giving. I’m also grateful to Martin for bringing to our attention the DIRECT injunction in the New Testament against showy charity. Martin quotes the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 6: “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them.” How has this country forgotten something as foundational as that?

Self-righteousness has replaced righteousness and self-aggrandizement has supplanted simple goodness.

Update II (Jan. 23): CHILD SLAVERY still thrives in Haiti in the form of the “Restavec system.” Children are kept in grinding poverty and worked to the bone. In the West this would be considered perverse in the extreme; in Haiti owning a Restavek is a status symbol. CNN has done stories on Restavec children, but has never connected the dots, as the favorite phrase goes. The angle is, invariably one of, “Look how good I am [Dr. Gupta here]; I’m crying.” Coupled with, “This happens in the US too.

No it doesn’t. When a slave is discovered, usually in the home of immigrants who imported their bad habit, American society shames and punishes the offenders.

Update III (Jan. 24): SENEGAL DOES IT RIGHT. Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade has offered Haitian refugees a “parcels of land – even an entire region. It all depends on how many Haitians come. If it’s just a few individuals, then we will likely offer them housing or small pieces of land. If they come en masse we are ready to give them a region,’ he said.”

Wade “insisted that if a region is handed over it should be in a fertile area – not in the country’s parched deserts.”

Wade’s got the right idea, or at least the righteous one. He is offering Haitians a most generous chance at self-sufficiency; at working the land.

“Maimonides, the great medieval Jewish philosopher and codifier of Jewish law, holds that the most praiseworthy and effective means of fulfilling the commandment of Tzedakah [charity] is through offering an impoverished person a business partnership, a business loan or a job. … the Prime Minister and [former Finance Minister] of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, apparently understood this well. Speaking on the benefits of workfare reform in Israel, Netanyahu was once quoted in the press as saying that it is not enough to be a Thatcherite, a Jew should go even further and become a Maimonidite. [Excerpted from the monograph titled Judaism, Markets, and Capitalism: Separating Myth from Reality, by Corinne and Robert Sauer of the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies, with which I am affiliated.]

[SNIP]

Will Haitians be tempted by a chance at an honest living when hand-outs abound?

Updated: Skanks Unite (Heave Ho)

Media, Morality, Pop-Culture, The Zeitgeist

Reality Shows May Be Setting Unrealistic Standards of Skankiness For Our Nation’s Skanks. “Hanging off stripper poles, vomiting into hot tubs. The average skank can’t keep up with that. One of the most damaging aspect of these shows it that they teach skanks to talk shit about other skans.” The Onion debates a pressing problem in fin de siècle America. Onion satire beats SNL any day.

Update (Jan. 2, 2010): HEAVE HO. It’s hard out there for a ho.

Updated: No More Making Whoopy In The Military?

Classical Liberalism, Feminism, Free Speech, Gender, IlanaMercer.com, Iraq, Military, Morality, Private Property, Sex, The State

Oh dear, some industrious Army general in Iraq wants to limit the wages of whoring in the military. Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo III, quite reasonably, reports ABC News, issued a policy on Nov. 4 “forbidding pregnancy among his soldiers.”

His policy statement said violation of the rule could be punishable by court martial, and that it would also apply to the men who get female soldiers pregnant, even if the couple is married.
Pregnant soldiers are immediately redeployed out of combat zones to bases where they can get comprehensive medical care.

“The true purpose behind this is to cause them to pause and think about, ‘Okay wait a minute. It was written in the order and I’m going to leave my team. I’m going to leave an outfit shorthanded,'” Cucolo said.”

[SNIP]

NO MORE MAKING Whoopy In The Military? What next? Leaving Iraq for lack of recreational outlets? We can only hope.

Anyone with a brain cell knows that the military, other than being an arm of the state, subject to all the malignancies that entails, is one of the Biggest Whore Houses around.

The authority on the subject is “Stephanie Gutmann, a Jewish woman out of Manhattan,” as Fred Reed forthrightly fingers her. Reed writes the following about Stephanie’s apolitical “reportorial” effort, which,

[D]escribed perfectly the fraud and double standards used to make women look successful in the army. Much of it would be hard to credit, except that I had seen it from outside … In the course of events I met Steph a couple of times, chatted on the phone, and lost contact with her. The book got few and bad reviews because it was not what the media wanted to hear. It was a fine book.

As is “Steph’s” Other Book. Read about it here. (I too have had a pleasant exchange or two with this lovely lady.)

Update (Dec. 23): To the distracting diversions in the Comments Section, including my responses (by necessity), let me repeat: The Posting Policy of BAB states: “Please note that ‘Barely A Blog’ is private property. Posts are published at the proprietor’s discretion.” Apparently this requires explanation, as participants prefer the fun of expressing themselves without the discipline of acquaintance with the philosophy espoused here.

THE CONFUSION about this statement demonstrates even more the need for participants to become “vaguely familiar with the political philosophy championed on this forum and the Mother Site, ilanamercer.com. Accordingly, there is no such thing as absolute free speech; there are only absolute rights of private property. Speech is circumscribed by private property rights. I’m afraid you may deliver a disquisition in my virtual or tangible living room only if I let you so do.

Update IV: Verdict In The Case Of Noxious Knox

America, Ann Coulter, Crime, Criminal Injustice, Family, Justice, Law, Media, Morality, The Zeitgeist

Update I (3:15PM): GUILTY ON ALL SIX COUNTS. Knox and her ex-boyfriend face a life sentence which, in Italy, amounts to 30 years in jail. In Knox’s case it will be 26 years of incarceration. (Update II below).

1:06 PM: Due any minute is the verdict in the case of “Foxy Knoxy” (Amanda Knox), an American college student, aged 21, from Seattle, Washington, who is on trial for murder in Perugia, Italy.

To repeat the post of June, “The case is instructive in what it says of a deep-seated pathology infecting American society, where reality takes a backseat to some self-serving parallel universe. You see it again and again … Something else that’s worth noting and is not forthcoming from the American media, paragons of pity that they are: Meredith Kercher, the forgotten victim, whose throat was cut with a pen knife during the sexual assault, died an agonizingly slow death.”

With O.J.-type evidence in support of their case, Italian law enforcement agencies are alleging Knox murdered and sexually assaulted one of her roommates, British exchange student Meredith Kercher.

Ann Coulter is right about very many things; it’s a shame she doesn’t always writes about the things she’s right about. On Knox, Ms. Coulter wrote the definitive column covering the crime that is America’s news coverage of the case.

I’ve watched the case unfold and have had similar thoughts as those Ann Coulter expresses in NYT: DUKE LACROSSE PLAYERS KILLED MEREDITH KERCHER:

“The evidence includes:

— a large kitchen knife, believed by forensic investigators to have caused at least one of Kercher’s three wounds, found at Sollecito’s house. Despite having been thoroughly washed, the knife had Knox’s DNA on the handle and the murder victim’s DNA on the blade.

— a bloody footprint at the crime scene that matches Sollecito’s. The floor had been cleaned so that the footprint was invisible to the naked eye, but was revealed with Luminol (just like on “CSI”).

— Knox’s bloody footprints, mixed with Kercher’s blood, were found in another roommate’s room, where a window had been broken to make it look like there had been a break-in — a theory discounted immediately by investigators. Knox’s footprints, too, had been scrubbed but were discovered with Luminol.

— Kercher’s bloody bra strap at the crime scene that had abundant amounts of Sollecito’s DNA on it.” Read on.

Update II: A procession of rabid women talkers on CNN has been rubbishing the Italian legal system, claiming that the case against Knox is completely fabricated; that the evidence above doesn’t exist; that the prosecutor is a crook; and that the jury and the Italian people at large convicted this innocent American youngster for her bold life style.

The problem is this: The likes of Lisa Bloom and the scary Stacey Honowitz don’t
offer any evidence to support their case against Italy—for that’s what it is.

Both women, and another Vanity (un)Fair feminist, fulminated becasue Knox’s promiscuous, repulsive life-style was the subject of court briefs. Well, the prosecution made the case that the victim was killed in the course of some kinky acts. It makes sense to show how inclined the perps were to engage in said activities, no?

This is American chauvinism at its ugliest.

Look, as an outsider—a relative newcomer—who has been observing American culture, and who has come from a more conservative society (South Africa), I can say that the effects on America’s youth of a progressive upbringing are dire. The lack of generational boundaries and the leveling of necessary hierarchies that preserve civil society—those dictated by authority, age, wisdom, intelligence—this affects the youth. I find American young people, women especially (with exceptions, of course), narcissistic, oversexed and over indulged. (Girls behave sexually even with their fathers. Yuk!) This mindset can easily breed all manner of corruption and invincibility.

Update III: Lisa Bloom has changed her tack slightly while on Anderson Cooper 360°. Earlier in the day she screamed bloody murder: Knox was wrongly convicted. The evidence was insubstantial. Now she contends that indeed Knox’s confession and her “damaging behavior” after the murder, as well as the blood evidence, are enough to bring down a conviction in an American court as well. I guess Bloom is worried about the damage to her credibility her previous dogmatic position might engender.

Update IV (Dec. 5): Larry Auster, usually highly critical, appears to have been swayed by the American media’s advocacy for Knox. Auster admits that in the programing he watched the prosecution’s case was missing. “The Dateline program is suspect because it never presented the prosecutors’ actual case,” he concedes. Despite not hearing anything from the prosecutors’ team, Auster accepts that Knox was subjected to “extreme police interrogation” and to “a kind of torture and psychological manipulation” that culminated in a “false confession which she subsequently withdrew.”

How does he know that this transpired? Because Knox, a habitual liar, said so after the fact and after advice from her lawyers?

Via “View From The Right,” I reached this sober comment on the NYT:

[BEGIN QUOTE]
Maria
Milan
December 3rd, 2009
1:14 pm

From True Justice For Meredith Kercher – http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php

The forensic evidence is enough to convict both Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.

Amanda Knox’s DNA was found on:

1. On the double DNA knife and a number of independent forensic experts – Dr. Patrizia Stenoni, Dr. Renato Biondo and Professor Francesca Torricelli – categorically stated that Meredith’s DNA was on the blade.

2. Mixed with Meredith’s blood on the ledge of the basin.

3. Mixed with Meredith’s blood on the bidet.

4. Mixed with Meredith blood on a box of Q Tip cotton swabs.

5. Mixed with Meredith’s blood in the hallway.

6. Mixed with Meredith’s blood on the floor of Filomena’s room.

7. On Meredith’s bra according to Raffaele Sollecito’s forensic expert, Professor Vinci.

Amanda Knox’s footprints were found set in Meredith’s blood in two places in the hallway of the new wing of Meredith’s house. One print was exiting her own room, and one print was outside Meredith’s room, facing into the room. These bloody footprints were only revealed under luminol.

A woman’s bloody shoeprint which matched Amanda Knox’s foot size was found on a pillow under Meredith’s body

The significance of the woman’s bloody shoeprint in Meredith’s room is considerable. By itself it debunks the myth that some had propagated for a while, that Rudy Guede acted alone. The bloody shoeprint was incompatible with Meredith’s shoe size.

An abundant amount of Raffaele Sollecito’s DNA was found on Meredith’s bra clasp, and Dr. Stefanoni has excluded the possibility of any contamination.

Alberto Intini, the head of the Italian police forensic science unit, pointed out that unless contamination has been proved, it does not exist:

“It is possible in the abstract that there could have been contamination, but until this is proved, it does not exist.”

Please note that the bra clasp wasn’t kicked around the room for 46 days. Your comments were very misleading.

The bra clasp was found under the pillow on 2 November 2007, during the first search, and collected on 18 December when the second search was carried out by a different team.

During this entire time, the clasp was lying on the floor of what has been testified to have been a completely sealed crime scene. So when and how could any contamination occur?

Excluding a spontaneous migration of Sollecito‘s DNA on the clasp from some unidentified location in the murder room or in the cottage, it could have only taken place during either the first or the second handling of the sample, so the fact that the clasp was recovered weeks later really bears no relevance.

Furthermore, where could any abundant amount of Sollecito‘s DNA have come from, if besides that on the bra clasp, the DNA corresponding to his genetic profile was only found on a cigarette butt in the kitchen?

Raffaele Sollecito’s bloody footprint on the blue bathmat will be important evidence.

Two independent imprint experts categorically excluded the possibility that the bloody footprint on the blue bathmat could belong to Rudy Guede.

Lorenzo Rinaldi stated:

““You can see clearly that this bloody footprint on the rug does not belong to Mr. Guede, but you can see that it is compatible with Sollecito.”

The other imprint expert print expert testified that the bloody footprint on the blue bathmat matched the precise characteristics of Sollecito’s foot.

You won’t find a better example of witnesses who aren’t reliable than Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.

They have both given multiple conflicting alibis and lied repeatedly.

Their deliberate and repeated lies were exposed by telephone and computer records, and by CCTV footage.

One question Judge Massei and Judge Cristiana and the six members of the jury will now be asking themselves is: if Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito are innocent and had nothing to hide, why did they lie so deliberately and repeatedly?

The answer really isn’t very difficult to work out.

If you are still not sure what the answer is, this sentence from Amanda Knox’s handwritten note on 6 November 2007 should help you:

“Everything I have said in regards to my involvement in Meredith’s death, even though it is contrasting, are the best truth that I have been able to think.”

[SNIP]