Tag Archives: culture

Taliban and CPC—Peas in a Pod

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That similarity facilitates the People’s Republic of China’s government and Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers hooking up. With President Joe Biden’s (D) decision to cut and run from Afghanistan 17 months ago, the Communist Party of China and the rest of the government of the PRC have been moving into Afghanistan with enthusiasm, and the Taliban has been opening up to them with increasing enthusiasm.

The PRC is committing genocide against Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang province, having already locked away in concentration camps more than a million of them and “reeducating” a million more in the CPC’s effort to erase Uighur Muslim culture.

The Taliban, on the other hand, are moving with zeal to punish Afghan-domiciled Muslims, locking away Muslim women in their own homes, keeping them carefully ignorant, and allowing them out in public only if they’re fully covered and accompanied by family male supervisors. This assault is accompanied by Taliban efforts to limit the ability of Muslim groups to cross the border into Xinjiang and work to liberate the Uighurs—albeit many of those groups being al Qaeda terrorists or supporters.

This alignment has facilitated the PRC-Taliban agreement for the PRC to drill for oil in Afghanistan’s north, an arrangement worth $540 million. The PRC’s Belt and Road Initiative has routes that pass through Afghanistan, directly connecting the PRC with Iran.

PRC exploitation of Afghanistan’s vast rare earth resources, for lucrative fees to the Taliban, won’t be far behind.

It’s almost like they’re friends with benefits.

Objectivity

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Leonard Downie, late of The Washington Post, and writing in WaPo last Monday, decried the objective use of objectivity in today’s journalism while occupying quite a number of column inches offering “objective” techniques for maintaining credibility in the preferred lack of objectivity. The core of his objection is this:

They [reporters, editors, and media critics] believe that pursuing objectivity can lead to false balance or misleading “bothsidesism” in covering stories about race, the treatment of women, LGBTQ+ rights, income inequality, climate change, and many other subjects. And, in today’s diversifying newsrooms, they feel it negates many of their own identities, life experiences, and cultural contexts, keeping them from pursuing truth in their work.

This, though, is just one more way in which these wonders, abetted by folks like Downie, seek to control what us average Americans know about the world around us: they deliberately, consciously, and mendaciously conflate opinion writing with fact and event reporting.

Those concerns—race, the treatment of women, LGBTQ+ rights, income inequality, climate change, etc—all are valid subjects about which to write, but they belong on the opinion pages instead of being dishonestly masqueraded as facts. If these…persons…maintained that separation, they truly would be pursuing truth.

Objectivity, after all, really is expressing or using facts without distortion by personal beliefs, bias, feelings or prejudice—everywhere, that is, except in the Left’s Newspeak Dictionary.

“Historical Tradition”

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US District Court Judge Renee Marie Bumb extended her injunction against New Jersey’s Progressive-Democrat Governor Phil Murphy-led law attempting to block New Jersey citizens from carrying firearms virtually anywhere within the State. Her extension blocks

restriction[s] on permitted gun owners from carrying concealed weapons in public parks, on beaches, and in casinos.

Her prior injunction already blocks enforcement of those parts of the law that banned

guns from being carried in “sensitive locations,” including public libraries; museums; entertainment venues like stadiums, arenas, and amusement parks; bars; restaurants where alcohol is served; public parks; beaches; playgrounds; and airports and public transportation hubs.

That’s all to the good. However, I disagree with the rationale for her lately extension of her injunction.

“Bumb cited [New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v] Bruen and said that New Jersey had failed to supply sufficient evidence that some of the “sensitive places” where firearms are banned are rooted in “a historical tradition of firearm regulation,” which is the legal standard established by the Supreme Court.

I think the Supreme Court is wrong on this. Historical tradition as a legal standard gives already extant tradition the force of law instead of leaving it an informed input into court understandings of what the actual law is and means. Further, using historical tradition as the standard prevents the establishment of new traditions as informed input into court understandings of what the actual law is and means.

Keep it simple: …the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

From Johnson’s Dictionary, 10th ed, pub 1792, Infringe: 1: To violate; to break laws or contracts.

From The American Heritage Dictionary, current: Infringe: 1. To transgress or exceed the limits of; violate

Nothing material has changed in the meaning of the term. There’s no need to read anything else into it.

“The” AP Clarifies

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The AP updated its style guide to recommend removal of the definite article “the” when referring to some groups:

…reporters should avoid “general and often dehumanizing ‘the’ labels such as the poor, the mentally ill, the French, the disabled, the college-educated.”

The AP caught flak for so blatantly disparaging Frenchmen and -women, so it “clarified” its position. In saying that it actually was acceptable to refer to Frenchmen and -women as “the French,” the outlet said,

“…But ‘the’ terms for any people can sound dehumanizing and imply a monolith rather than diverse individuals.”

Apparently, according to The AP’s Newspeak Dictionary as modified again, “‘the’ French” is acceptable, and it’s OK to dehumanize Frenchmen and -women as a group and to suggest that they’re monolithic and not diverse individuals.

Jim Crow 2.0, Deprecated

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The Just the News lede tells the tale after President Joe Biden’s (D) widely spread conspiracy theory.

A full 0% of black voters in Georgia report having a “poor” experience voting in the 2022 midterms, a notable showing after several years of Democratic politicians arguing that the state is working to suppress black votes.

The University of Georgia’s School of Public & International Affairs ran a poll:

Among black voters, more than 72% said “excellent,” 23% said “good,” just under 9% said “fair,” and 0% said “poor.”

Will Biden or anyone in his syndicate apologize for his smear?

Nah. Suggesting that would be carrying conspiracy theories to ridiculous extremes.