“Fall is almost here in California. So we know the annual script. A few ostracized voices will again warn in vain of the need to remove millions of dead trees withered from the 2013–14 drought and subsequent infestations, clean up tinderbox hillsides, and beef up the fire services. They will all be ignored as right-wing nuts or worse. Environmentalists will sneer that the new forestry sees fires as medicinal and natural, and global warming as inevitable because of “climate deniers.” Late-summer fires will then consume our foothills, mountains, and forests. Long-dead trees from the drought will explode and send their pitch bombs to shower the forest with flames. Lives, livelihoods, homes, and cabins will be lost — the lamentable collateral damage of our green future. Billions of dollars will go up in smoke. The billowing haze and ash will cloud and pollute the state for weeks if not months. Tens of thousands will be evacuated and their lives disrupted — and those are the lucky.”
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“According to this theory of leadership, convictions don’t count for much: politics is a science, and leaders are little more than vectors, conveying carefully calibrated versions of externally-validated truths to the masses in order to secure maximum support and compliance. Reports from the cabinet subgrouping in charge of Covid policy suggest that the new ‘rule of six’ was chosen instead of eight not for epidemiological reasons, but for purposes of “messaging clarity”. It was thought that, since the number six was already out there, it should be retained for simplicity’s sake; eight would only complicate things. And so the lives of England’s 55 million citizens are to be drastically altered “for the foreseeable future” according to the principles of campaign science.” September 14th, 2020 | 43 comments - (Comments are closed)
 The obsession on colour is making for increased racism, resentment, and discrimination. Now, however, it’s just okay and even “good” to discriminate against whites, Jews, and Asians. September 12th, 2020 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)
A reluctance to acknowledge the specific religious motivations behind certain acts of terror makes it more difficult to develop the social initiatives, political strategies and security arrangements that we need to contain their possible spread in the future. Empty platitudes over the peacefulness of religious ideologies do not achieve much when it comes to maximising public security and community safety. There should be strong pushback against those who wish to restrict the boundaries of much-needed discussions on radicalisation, extremism and terrorism. We need to be able to identify and comment on unusual behavioural patterns and religiously inspired ideological motivations. There is simply no room for thought-policing or political correctness in the realm of counter-extremism. September 11th, 2020 | 37 comments - (Comments are closed)
Not interacting with people outside of our immediate circle is disastrous for the social fabric of society. As the demands of Black Lives Matter protesters or transgender activists show, it increasingly seems as if some people are speaking a different language to everyone else. Words like oppression, privilege, racism, experience and identity may still be familiar, but they now mean entirely different things to different people. Phrases like ‘cis-gendered’, ‘cultural appropriation’, ‘genderfluid’ and ‘intersectional’ trip off the tongues of some, but are utterly meaningless to others. ‘Silence is violence’ is either common sense or ridiculous. Stating that there are two genders is either blindingly obvious or offensively transphobic. The existence of this language-within-a-language exposes fundamentally different ways of making sense of the world. The less we talk to each other, the more these differences crystalise. September 6th, 2020 | 25 comments - (Comments are closed)
No need to bother, Co-op. As of today you are henceforth banned from advertising in The Spectator, in perpetuity. We will not have companies like yours use their financial might to try to influence our editorial content, which is entirely a matter for the editor. – Andrew Neil, in response to Co-op indicating they would refuse to advertise in The Spectator due to the publication’s “transphobia” September 4th, 2020 | 50 comments - (Comments are closed)
Being nonwhite leaves one protected in this environment only to the extent that one toes the ideological line. An assistant professor of color who cannot quite get with the program writes, “At the moment, I’m more anxious about this problem than anything else in my career,” noting that “the truth is that over the last few years, this new norm of intolerance and cult of social justice has marginalized me more than all racism I have ever faced in my life.” September 2nd, 2020 | 21 comments - (Comments are closed)
The initial claim of media bias is not that there’s a cabal that nays no darkie jokes no never, rather that the people doing the defining think that no darkie jokes should ever be made therefore that’s what they describe as being impartial. It’s a cultural censorship not a cabalistic one. As such it’s also quite possibly unthinking, not self-aware of what it is doing. Things that cannot be said in Islington drawing rooms may not be said on TV sorta thing. Which leaves rather a lot of people who don’t hold Islington drawing room opinions outta luck. The very proof of this being that if a TV station starts up saying non-Isling.dr things and succeeds like wildfire then we know those views were being censored by that unconscious bias. It’s all going to be rather fun, isn’t it? August 31st, 2020 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
I am puzzled so many Guardianista race obsessed identitarian socialist commentators are alarmed by the sight of the British Union of Fascists in Trafalgar Square. After all, what are the BUF if not race obsessed identitarian national socialists? 🤣 – Perry de Havilland August 30th, 2020 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
“Speaking personally, I am getting a little fed up with the shoe-horning of George Floyd into every aspect of our lives. The Minnesotan policeman accused of killing him is currently in prison awaiting trial for murder. Literally nobody on earth is defending his actions. So it is slightly galling that anyone, at the BBC or anywhere else, should try to present his killing as some sort of Murder on the Orient Express effort involving every white person on earth.” He, yours truly and many other people are fed up with all this. But for today’s Maoist culture warriors, even seemingly small things, such as the words accompanying “Land of Hope and Glory”, are worth crushing into silence, if their acts achieve the end of demoralising and destroying what they hate. (Check out this Elgar CD for the actual music.) Ironically, the song Rule Britannia includes the line “Britons never, never shall be slaves”. That enrages some, for whom the object of their drooling political philosophy is to enslave humanity. Their hatred of such tunes is in fact a form of psychological projection and on a massive scale. They see evil imperialism in a desire not to submit to rulers. This isn’t going to stop unless and until the structures that today’s Gramscian Left have captured – many universities, tax-funded arts bodies, the BBC, etc, must have their funds cut off, their staff fired, and the organisations forced to subsist on whatever private stipends they can obtain. Meanwhile, the BBC has once again achieved the opposite of its intentions. August 26th, 2020 | 37 comments - (Comments are closed)
Progressive mythology always demands a socialist valhalla; a nation to be idealised and held up as an inspiration. For years, Scandinavia, and particularly Sweden, played this role. The stereotype was never entirely accurate; Scandinavian social democracy is a far cry from full-throated socialism, yet it remained influential. In the face of the pandemic, however, the tables have turned; now it is the libertarian Right who are lining up to applaud Swedish exceptionalism, while progressives liken their controversial strategy to a form of eugenics. With Sweden consigned to the naughty step, the Left needs a new country to fetishise, and they have alighted on New Zealand. August 24th, 2020 | 25 comments - (Comments are closed)
We are sorry if our heterodox views serve to disappoint friends and colleagues in the United States and elsewhere. But we retain the belief that, in supposedly pluralistic societies, everyone is entitled to their own opinions. We urge other scientists not to follow the American example, and to resist the campaign to racialize science. While we admire many aspects of American culture, we reject its cultural imperialism—including the new form of ostensibly progressive cultural imperialism that serves to impose America’s own obsessive race tribalism on the rest of the world. Our European experience provides no shortage of cautionary tales—including Renaissance Florence under the influence of Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola, who imposed a regime of religious purity in the 1490s. Such was his sway that no less an artist than Sandro Botticelli was induced to burn his creations and give up painting. In all eras, the demands of ideological purity serve to suppress the pursuit of art and reason. Standing up to puritans is necessary if we are to protect the telos and soul of science. August 23rd, 2020 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)
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