Stephen Roney's Blog, page 274

For Advent

'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

Forwarded Gag

From a friend, author unknown. As a vegetarian, I must add that I am offended. Not sure how, but I am offended.


It snowed last night...
8:00 am: I made a snowman.8:10 - A feminist passed by and     asked me why I didn't make a   snow woman.8:15 - So, I made a snow woman.8:17 - My feminist neighbor   complained about the snow   woman's voluptuous chest   saying it objectified snow   women  everywhere.8:20 - The gay couple living nearby threw a hissy fit and moaned it could have been two snow men instead.
8:22 - The transgender man..women...person asked why I didn't just make one snow person with detachable parts.8:25 - The vegans at the end of the lane complained about the carrot nose, as veggies are food and not to decorate snow figures with.8:28 - I was being called a racist because the snow couple is white.
8:31 - The middle eastern gent across the road demanded the snow woman be covered up .8:40 - The Police arrived saying someone had been offended.8:42 - The feminist neighbor complained again that the broomstick of the snow woman needed to be removed because it depicted women in a domestic role.
8:43 - The council equality officer arrived and threatened me with eviction.8:45 - TV news crew from CBC showed up. I was asked if I know the difference between snowmen and snow-women? I replied "Snowballs" and am now called a sexist.9:00 - I was on the News as a suspected terrorist, racist, homophobe sensibility offender, bent on stirring up trouble during difficult weather.9:10 - I was asked if I have any accomplices. My children were taken by social services.9:29 - Far left protesters offended by everything marched down the street demanding for me to be arrested.By noon it all meltedMoral:
There is no moral to this story. It is what we have become, all because of snowflakes.

'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

White Christmas

It's Advent. Time to start the Christmas music.


'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

Female Physician

Went to my doctor today. She works out of a local clinic. Outside the clinic is, as always, a big sandwich board announcing “FEMALE PHYSICIAN WITHIN.” It was there before she joined the clinic. It is even visible in Google Maps. When the previous doctor left, they apparently made a point of finding another woman. It seems to be a part of their business model.

This brings up several issues. To begin with, this signboard should be illegal under anti-discrimination legislation. How would it be if the sign read, instead, “MALE PHYSICIAN,” or “WHITE PHYSICIAN”?

Secondly, the clinic and the doctor obviously put out the sign because they think “female” is a selling point. This pretty much proves that there is no systemic discrimination against women in our society; the discrimination is against men.

Putting these two together illustrates that anti-discrimination laws never help those who are really discriminated against. Should they protect any genuinely systemically oppressed group, they are not enforced. They are only enforced when they work in favour of some already favoured group. Accordingly, they only serve to increase the general level of discrimination.

You cannot fight discrimination through the law.

'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

Trump Derangement Syndrome

An ad hoc organization of psychiatrists and psychologists has apparently been formed to call for Donald Trump to be impeached on psychiatric grounds.

They claim that their examination of transcripts from the Mueller report “showed that the president lacked the ability to make rational decisions."

He has shown that his sense of worth is entirely dependent on the admiration from others, such as at the rallies of Trump’s base. Without this external affirmation, Trump has revealed that he feels, deep down, like a loser, a failure, weak, dumb, fat, ugly, fake, “crooked”. We know this because this self-denigrating pictures of himself, Trump projects onto others, whom he transforms into enemies, and compensates consciously by creating a grandiose image of himself as unique, a stable genius, entitled to special treatment, and better at everything than everyone else. 

What makes Trump so dangerous is the brittleness of his sense of worth. Any slight or criticism is experienced as a humiliation and degradation. To cope with the resultant hollow and empty feeling, he reacts with what is referred to as narcissistic rage. He is unable to take responsibility for any error, mistake or failing. His default in that situation is to blame others and to attack the perceived source of his humiliation. These attacks of narcissistic rage can be brutal and destructive. A striking but not unusual example of his lack of caring and empathy is his policy of separating children from their parents at the Southern border. Additionally, he has made the reckless decision to allow an attack of our Kurdish allies, against all advice, shortly after announcement of the impeachment inquiry. These events are closely related and betray his extreme inability to tolerate any challenges against him.

This initiative is instructive in two ways. First, it shows how irresponsible and politicized our professional elites have become. And second, it shows how dangerous psychiatry can easily be to democracy and human rights.

Any competent psychiatrist must be aware that psychiatric diagnoses are pretty arbitrary and unreliable. If you must make a decision, you must, if somebody seems about to commit suicide or the like, but it is dishonest to claim you are authoritative. A recent study showed that half of a random selection of patients formerly diagnosed as schizophrenic were not, but instead suffered from anxiety. We actually have no way of knowing whether it was the first or the second of these diagnoses that was wrong, but either way, 50% were wrong. This is significant because these two diagnoses call for radically different treatments, and both the treatments used have dangerous side effects.

Imagine now applying such standards to making critical decisions of national importance, like impeaching a president.

And it is not just that psychiatrists often get the diagnoses wrong. We also do not know what the diagnoses mean. Psychiatric diagnoses are just lists of symptoms in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Lists change with each edition. Whether there is any one underlying psychiatric “condition” conforming to any one list is pure speculation. If so, whether that condition is an “illness” is also demonstrably dubious. Homosexuality used to be in there. Obviously, any sort of political dissent or non-conformity could be in there—and probably has been. Republicanism, for example, could simply be declared a mental illness.

And there is more. The basic standard on which modern psychiatry and psychology is based is “normalcy.” Any deviation from the “normal,” which is to say the average, is classed as “illness.”

Now it is self-evident that anyone who rises to become president of the US is not mentally normal. Anyone who does an unusually good job at anything is by this fact demonstrably abnormal. Accordingly, “biohistorians” have been able, by applying the same techniques used here on Trump, to demonstrate that Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill, for example, or Moses, or Muhammed, or Plato, or Michelangelo, or just about any prominent historical figure, were mentally ill. Of course they were; it goes with our definition.

Our leaders are therefore always going to be mentally ill, by present definition, and the charge of “mental illness” can therefore always be used against any political leader, or any person of prominence, that you do not like. Any intervention in politics by psychiatrists or psychologists is therefore harmful to the general welfare. If they do not know this, they are dangerously incompetent. If they do know this, they are dangerously corrupt.

Of course, a prominent leader can indeed go genuinely mad in the proper sense, of being delusional, hallucinating, of seeing things that are not there. If so, this is going to be readily apparent to those around him or her. Nobody needs a psychiatrist to know as much. And every system of government makes provision for this.

But the diagnosis given in the present case is not even superficially plausible. For example, this cabal writes that Trump’s “sense of worth is entirely dependent on the admiration from others.” That is true of politicians generally—always seeking to please the crowds. It is exactly how Trump differs from other politicians. He will confront and disagree with people directly, in public. He seems constitutionally not to need the admiration of others to form and keep to his own opinions.

They write:

Trump has revealed that he feels, deep down, like a loser, a failure, weak, dumb, fat, ugly, fake, "crooked". We know this because this self-denigrating pictures of himself, Trump projects onto others.

This is schoolyard stuff: it is that old taunt “I know you are, but what am I?” Projection is a real thing—Jesus warns of it in the New Testament—but in order to level the charge, you must have evidence; otherwise it is you who are projecting. You must show that the people Trump calls losers, failures, weak, dumb, fat, ugly, fake, or crooked are not; and then that Trump is.

The fact that his taunts seem to resonate with the public is already evidence that Trump is not projecting. Yes, Pete Buttigieg really does look like Alfred E. Newman. Yes, Marco Rubio really is short. If he were projecting, these cruel little japes would not be effective.

You really would want a psychiatrist to understand how projection works.

They then claim that Trump cannot bear any humiliation, and reacts with “narcissistic rage.” Yet, as above, he actually seems impervious to being humiliated; nothing shames him. Narcissistic rage? If Trump ever loses his temper, it has never been caught on camera. His sharp responses are always delivered calmly and in a matter-of-fact way; as though he were speaking for everyone. He is also notably quick to reconcile, never holding grudges. Witness his treatment of Ted Cruz, or King Jong Un, or China’s president Xi. This seems to suggest that his sharp responses are purely a negotiating tactic, calculated, and not expressions of emotion at all. Rather than being emotionally out of control, as the psychiatrist and psychologists say, Trump seems to have an incredible control over his own emotions.

Perhaps this itself should be disturbing; but it is the opposite of what disturbs them.

They are also ignorant, it seems, of current events. They write: “A striking but not unusual example of his lack of caring and empathy is his policy of separating children from their parents at the Southern border.”

They are apparently unaware that this policy was also followed by previous administrations. It is required by present legislation: you cannot legally confine a child because their parent did something wrong. Trump’s emotions do not enter into it.

Now consider this: we put such people in charge of deciding whether any of us is sane or capable of arranging our own affairs. In charge of deciding on and perhaps revoking our right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The likelihood of frequent abuse, on this evidence, is overwhelming.

No wonder, then, that public trust in the professional elites is on the decline.


'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

Cultural Appropriation - podcast episode

Cultural Appropriation'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

Cultural Appropriation

'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

Regime-Change Wars

A 19th Century British political cartoon.
I like the sincerity of Tulsi Gabbard. I believe she would be the strongest candidate for the Democrats against Donald Trump. And I think she is being treated dishonestly by a corrupt Democratic Party establishment and media. 
But what about the merits of her central issue, ending American involvement in “regime-change wars”?

She has a point in international law, or what international law said until Kosovo. Until then, intervening in another country’s internal politics, no matter what, was considered unprovoked aggression.

But then there was the Rwandan holocaust, and opinion shifted to holding France morally responsible for not intervening.

I at first resisted this new principle, that there was an obligation upon other nations to intervene in defense of human rights. I was, on reflection, wrong.

This, after all, is the same moral principle as our obligation to intervene if we see someone being raped or stabbed or beaten up. “None so guilty as the innocent bystander.”

So it follows that America, because it has the capability, has the moral obligation to intervene against any regime that is flagrantly violating the human rights of either its own or some other people. It is not okay to gas Jews. It is not okay to stand aside and let it happen. Sorry, Tulsi.

I believe Gabbard sincerely sees it differently, for the simple reason that she is a Hindu.

Hinduism or Buddhism can endlessly tolerate injustice without a moral obligation to intervene because of the doctrine of karma. If someone is being raped or stabbed or otherwise viciously mistreated, if some group is being systematically wiped doubt, it is no doubt just reward for some terrible thing they have done in a past life. No injustice is possible; no cause for us to get involved.

I leave the reader to decide how they feel about this stance; but from it follows the conclusion, for example, that having a criminal justice system is illegitimate.

Gabbard and her supporters would no doubt go on to argue that recent “regime change” wars have not just been costly, but have not worked. They will cite Iraq and Afghanistan.

We have actually had several recent case studies, since this new doctrine has become accepted: Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria.

In the first case, the Western allies stayed on to establish stability, and, after some years, Kosovo has emerged as a functioning multi-party democracy. In Kosovo, it seems that the “regime change” war did work. One might also mention the postwar experience with Germany, Japan, or Italy, although WWII was not just a “regime change” war.

In the second case, Iraq, some stability did seem to have been achieved, after some years of struggle, then lost by what looks like a premature US departure. After some limited re-engagement, Iraq looks more stable. In Afghanistan, relatively low-level conflict continues. In these two cases, long-term results cannot really be determined.

Appalled by the cost of these two interventions, however, when things then turned nasty internally in Libya, the West tried a different tack: go in, take out the regime, and leave. This is, to be honest, what I too thought would be the better policy. You can lead a nation to democracy, but you cannot force them to be democrats. It’s a contradiction in terms.

But this approach seems to have turned out worse: Libya remains in chaos, and human rights abuses remain common.

Disappointed again, when Syria then went south, the West reverted to the old, pre-Rwanda approach: do nothing.

And this has worked out worst of all: an ongoing holocaust of historic proportions, a refugee crisis flooding the borders of Europe, and the intervention of other foreign powers less friendly to human rights: Russia, Iran. As none have the strength to force a resolution, conflict looks to continue indefinitely.

So we’ve tried all the possible approaches, and in terms of defending human rights, the option of intervention, however costly, is visibly the best.

Americans, of course, are historically tempted to ignore the rest of the world’s problems, protected they are by oceans vast and deep. That may or may not be wise—but it is not the moral way.

Those alert to history may realize that Britain, in the nineteenth century, faced the same choice. Protecting the human rights of foreigners was actually the sentiment upon which was built much of the British Empire. Britain spent a lot of "blood and treasure," as the modern clichéd usage goes, ending the slave trade, thuggery, piracy, suttee, the caste system, banditry, endless local conflicts, and the like.

Honesty compels us to admit that, no so uncommonly, colonialism is actually a good idea.

'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

The Devil Is a Gentleman

Our age views Adolf Hitler as the embodiment of human evil.

That is wrong, and dangerously misleading. Hitler was a very bad man; but there are worse men.

It is not just that Stalin or Mao or Pol Pot were guilty of Holocausts as awful. We damn Hitler in large part because it is safe to do so, because he lost the war and has no living followers. This does not make him a worse man; only an easier target.

But Hitler also lacks some possible vices, and had at least one virtue. There must be others who actually have all the vices, and none of the virtues.

Even among his coterie, compare Goering. Goering endorsed all that Hitler did. But Goering was more avaricious. Goering indulged the vice of gluttony: Hitler was a teetotaler and more or less a vegetarian. Nor was Hitler visibly lustful. Stalin’s henchman Beria was far worse on this score, or Hitler’s henchmen Ernst Rohm or Reinhard Heydrich.

And Hitler possessed, in more than usual measure, the virtue of courage or fortitude. Throughout his career, he dared to take risks and do dangerous things.

A worse person would be too timid to go around killing everyone. Their gluttony and sloth would produce addiction and inaction, not the energetic destruction of Hitler. They would actually be capable of less harm. And a worse man would do all his evil by stealth.

The worst person living or the worst person who ever lived could easily be among us now, in our neighbourhood, unsuspected, living an outwardly unexceptional life.


'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

Guilty of Hate Speech?

This is interesting.

I posted my poem "An Aborigine Thinks of Leaving Home" here recently, and also on my book's Facebook feed.

The Facebook post has now been removed by Zuckerberg and Company, and my account has been flagged for "hate speech."

I repost it below--see what you think.

I guess it could be declared "hate speech" against non-aboriginals. If there really is such a thing as "hate speech." But the same poem won an award as one of the best Canadian poems of 1991.

Times have changed. And not for the better.

Anyone can now be guilty of a thought crime at any time.


An Aborigine Thinks of Leaving Home

The white man is lazy,
He dreams with his head
Except when he's asleep.
He lives all his life
In one place
And watches his penis make love. 

He looks with his eyes, he cannot hear;
He only listens with his ears, he cannot see. With his nose, he cannot remember.
His hands only touch solid things,
And he holds them in his grasp, not his palms.
Instead of making children
He makes stones move
Then rules them with fingers Instead of song. 

He does no more than he wants,
And what he wants, he does.
He dances only when drugged,
And only says things once.
He does not talk to the birds or lizards
 And he eats them without their permission.  

To understand, he cuts things apart;
Yet never opens the skin.
He finds death simpler than life,
And separation easier than choirsong.
When he dies, he goes straight to heaven,
Forgetting his children's campfires.
Dead, he leaves his body
Faster than he clung to it alive.

It would be good
To be white and do nothing but work all day long;
I grow young, and I weary of play.
It would be good to wake up one morning,
And not be surprised.
It would be good no more to hear this constant din
Of angels in my ears

We report. You decide.
'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.