Tag Archives: culture

A Right Answer

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And a righteous one.

The public schools’ association for religion teachers, Religionslærerforeningen, has today urged that the controversial Mohammed Cartoons, which were first printed in Jyllands-Posten newspaper in 2005, should become part of the public school curriculum as quickly as possible.

The RLF is a Danish teachers’ organization. The Danish government is starting to get on board, too.

And now, several political parties—including Socialdemokraterne, Dansk Folkeparti (DF) and Konservative—have voiced their support for that idea, although the degree of support varies.

“It would be natural for the cartoons to become part of the material that the teachers can choose to use,” [according to Konservative’s spokeswoman Mai Mercado].

DF is a bit more forward in its view of the matter. According to their immigration spokesman, Martin Henriksen,

One of our time’s great challenges is the threat from Islamism and the pressure on freedom rights that have built up over many years.

If they really want to do something right, in terms of making sure that the students—including those with a Muslim background—know which freedom rights we have in Denmark, they should go all the way.

 

h/t The Washington Post.

A Conservative’s View of American Domestic Policy: Some Thoughts

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It’s out.

This is the first of a pair of publications on American policy; the other is concerned with National Policy, which consists of foreign and defense policy.

Domestic Policy both is necessary in its own right and must come before National Policy since a sound policy domestically is absolutely required both for the health of the nation within our borders and to facilitate—indeed, to enable—any form of outward-facing policy at the national level.

Domestic Policy is a combination of social and economic policies. Social Policy consists of these things: the concept of the American nation; American citizenship; the role of faith in our society; the role of immigration and its importance to our society; the importance of consensus; and the role of education.

Economic Policy consists of these things: the nature of a free market and its condition as the most moral system and the one most conducive to generating prosperity for all (even though there always will be some more or less prosperous than others), the role of the Federal government in protecting and enhancing our economy, and the role of Federal regulation in facilitating our economy.

Of course, these two major divisions of Domestic Policy are not truly separate from each other any more than biology, chemistry, and physics are separate from each other within science. Just as we divide scientific disciplines from each other to facilitate inquiry and discussion, I’m separating domestic policy into these divisions to facilitate a similar inquiry and discussion—while remaining fully aware and making occasional use of their very large areas of overlap.

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This is Pretty Clear

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Regarding DHS’ potential shutdown, here’s Speaker John Boehner (R, OH):

We want to get a conference with the Senate. Now, they’ve made clear that they don’t want to go to conference. But they’re going to have a vote.

And

A spokesman for [Senator Harry (D, NV)] Reid said Sunday there will be no negotiations with the House over Homeland Security funding and immigration.

That spokesman, Adam Jentleson, added:

Senator Reid has been clear for days on the fact that there will be no conference[.]

Finally, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D, CA):

We want a clean bill. I see nothing else happening, other than a clean bill.

There you have it. The Democratic Party of No is intent on shutting down DHS in order to support President Barack Obama’s unconstitutional immigration-related “executive actions.”

Structure and Assimilation

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A commenter on a blog I follow talked briefly about this as part of a larger comment. The thrust of the aside concerned the ink spilled arguing about government structure, but that while structure is important, what’s at bottom is “an increasingly complex and heterogeneous society” that’s hard to manage.

I think that proceeds from a false premise.

Our society need not be “increasingly complex and heterogeneous.” Certainly the technology we use in our society grows more complex, and even more heterogeneous (recall the hoops being jumped through to get Microsoft Windows-based programs to run on an Apple PC, or the hoops requiring satisfaction to get Linux-based systems and Microsoft-based systems to play nice together, to take just one small area). The training and education needed to operate our technologies also grows in depth, breadth, and length of time to achieve operational capacity (just try to let your Ford or Chrysler be all it can be without reading a multi-hundred page tech manual first).

But our society, our interactions with each other and our government need not be more complex or more heterogeneous. Our nation was founded on some simple principles, with personal responsibility and a personal duty to look after those who cannot look after themselves at their core. These are not complex principles. We just over-engineer them as we try to get government to do more and more for us while demanding ever greater and greater precision in execution.

Our current…heterogeneity…also results from an overemphasis of the value of other ways, other moralities, at the expense of our ways and the Judeo-Christian morality at the heart of our nation. That overemphasis flows from, among a number of causes, a lack of effort at assimilation—by us of those who come into our country and by those who come here from other countries. Too many immigrants value their old ways and morals over the ways and morals that created the environment here that contains the very opportunities for which those immigrants and visitors came. And we let them not assimilate, we don’t encourage them or help them reconcile their ways with ours and live with our ways in our house. That failure comes from the nonsense of moral equivalence.

NLMSM Strikes Again

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Leading off an APNewsbreak piece Monday about how top Democrats want an extension to the sign-up period for Obamacare is this image:AP_3

The image is captioned [emphasis added]

In this Thursday, Feb. 12, 2015 photo, a laptop shows the HealthCare.com web site during an Affordable Care Act enrollment event at the Fort Worth Public Library in Fort Worth, Texas. For the second year in a row, millions of Americans have signed up for subsidized health insurance under President Barack Obama’s law. But as the 2015 sign-up season draws to a close Sunday, the future of the Affordable Care Act remains in doubt. (AP Photo/LM Otero) (The Associated Press)

Umm, no. That’s actually HealthCare.gov, the actual government-built (with your money, recall) ObamaMart portal for signing up for Obamacare. As the white field in the upper right corner of the page in the image clearly shows. Below, by the way, is what was being displayed last Monday on HealthCare.gov:AP_1

In fairness to the AP, even though their piece was datelined 16 Feb (the day after the signup period had expired), it likely was written Sunday, 15 Feb.

The image below is what the home page of HealthCare.com was displaying on 16 Feb. I have no idea of the legitimacy of HealthCare.com; use it at your own risk.AP_2

This sort of reporting has been all too typical of the NLMSM’s commentary regarding Obamacare, and it’s at the heart of the public’s confusion about Obamacare. This is no typo, nor is it particularly nefarious; it’s just sloppy reporting and non-existent editing.

HealthCare.com has this, in part, on their About Us page:

HealthCare.com is owned and operated by HealthCare, Inc. Since 2006, HealthCare.com has been committed to improving online healthcare for U.S. consumers making purchasing decisions.