Politics, Rod Fleming's World

18/12/202417/04/2025

Pornography: a Bellwether for Freedom

Originally posted 2018-01-23 10:47:05.

Pornography has always exercised the Puritanical, anti-freedom elements of society. Pornography and prostitution are of course, intimately related to each other; pornography is defined as ‘images depicting the activities of prostitutes’, after all. So we should not be surprised to see that, as the current attempts to restrict pornography gain ground, this is happening alongside an attempt to ban all forms of sex work and now, freedom of speech and even freedom itself.

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18/12/2024

Homage to Catalonia: a message for Europe

Originally posted 2017-10-02 13:12:05.

Yesterday, a referendum was held in Catalonia, in the north-east of the Iberian Peninsula, to decide whether the region should become independent of the Spanish State. To try to prevent this legitimate expression of speech, the Spanish State has used every device it can, finally unleashing its National Police and Civil Guard — whose reputation for brutality is notorious — to prevent people casting a vote. It’s the sort of thing one does not readily associate with a modern State which allegedly, conforms to the rules of membership of the European Union

Should we be surprised to have witnessed the scenes of extreme violence and brutality inflicted on the citizens of Catalonia this Sunday? No, we should not.

Police State

I remember Spain under Franco. It was a Police State. The Civil Guard, Spain’s paramilitary police force, were universally loathed. And so they should have been; they were the cudgels of the State, answerable only to Generalissimo Franco.

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18/12/2024

Witch-burning is Back: as the Left wants it

Originally posted 2013-11-02 17:21:47.

Witch-burning is out of fashion in the West these days. Fortunately. But the intolerance that caused it is still with us, and it’s getting more strident. The Internet has given voice to some whose opinions, frankly, are odious, and ‘multiculturalism’ that shameful abrogation of the moral values of our secular society, makes it increasingly difficult for anyone to express legitimate criticism of some of the nastiest ideas put forward by what is, frankly, a thoroughly poisonous group of people.

Today, the victims of the intolerance are not witches or pagans or dissident Protestants, Catholics or Jews. They are ordinary decent people who have been brought up to believe that they have a right to speak freely. After all, the US has a Constitution that enshrines it, and through all those long years of the Cold War, the one thing we in Europe held most dear was that in our culture, freedom of speech was assured, for without it, there would be no freedom at all. If we were to be ‘better dead than Red’ and we would have been, it was in the name of Freedom of Speech that we should have faced our nuclear Calvary.

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18/12/2024

Why Antisemitism is the Root Cause of the Palestinian Problem – Jim Ashby, guest poster

Originally posted 2015-06-16 21:57:51.

Political correctitude has evolved into an intolerant, totalitarian, supremacist ideology. One that shouts down dissent and resorts to ad hominems like ‘racist’, ‘bigot’, ‘misogynist’, and ‘Islamophobe’, to derail debate and elicit knee-jerk support. In many ways, left-wing apologists bear a striking resemblance to apologists for Islamism. Just as Islamists have intimidated far too many people, media outlets, and governments into squelching dissent, so has the politically correct left. Just as Islamists believe their ideology to be superior and sacrosanct, so does the politically correct left. Just as everybody must respect Allah, the Quran and Muhammad, so must everybody respect politically correct ideals: if you don’t, you’ll feel the wrath of adherents.

Don’t get me wrong . . . I like liberal ideals like minority rights; gay rights; women’s liberation; inclusion; affirmative action; and support for the poor, disadvantaged, and downtrodden; etc. These values have made our country strong, prosperous, and free. The problem is not our values: it’s how we apply them to domestic and foreign policy.

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18/12/2024

Charlottesville: Innocent death, death of innocence

Originally posted 2017-08-13 12:19:16.

Leftist violence led directly to last night’s tragic events in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA. While the actual crime that led to the death of one person and the injury of 19 was committed, presumably, by one of their political opponents, the simple fact is that the Left in the USA has been doing its level best to engineer a situation like this since it lost the 2016 Presidential election.

It is never acceptable to use violence in the furtherance of political ends. Our sympathies go out to the victims of this attack and to their families. They also go out to the young man whose life has been ruined by the commission of this crime and to his family.

Let us be quite clear, however: this foolish and cruel act of violence was the result of a fire stoked by the Left; and it was the result most fervently desired by the Left. Now it has its longed-for martyr, whose memory it will abuse to its own ends.

A farmer having his land liberated by Communist soldiers in China. For the greater good, of course. Another innocent death

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18/12/2024

Schadenfreude

Originally posted 2014-10-25 10:50:35.

My my my, wonders will never cease. The devastatingly lacklustre leader of ‘Scottish’ Labour, Johann Lamont – she of the genetic ‘lack of programming’ to make important decisions – has resigned.

Not before time, one might well respond, and that would seem, on the face of it, fair. Yet it appears from her resignation statement that some of her lack of visibility during Independence Referendum One (oh, there will be more, do not fret) was not due to incompetence but to the fact that she was being told what to say by London and resented it. That she waited this long to act on her resentment makes her parting words seem rather like crocodile tears; but those are the only ones that will be shed over her doffing the Poisoned Crown, so we ought not to be too harsh.

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18/12/2024

Google Diversity Row: A revealing storm

Originally posted 2017-08-08 14:28:50.

One of the world’s most valuable companies, Google, has found itself splattered all over the internet this week because of a leaked internal memo.

The ‘Google Diversity Document’

The document, written by a senior engineer, addresses cultural issues within Google in terms of staffing and proposes that the innate differences which we know to exist between males and females should be taken into account and used in a positive manner to assist the company and benefit everyone.

My rant on the subject.

You’d have thought the Ku Klux Klan had taken over the boardroom. The hysterical, loony SJW Left, alongside more ‘respectable’ feminists and their poodles have soaked everyone in sight with festoons of vituperative drivel. How dare anyone suggest there are innate differences between men and women? Don’t you realise it’s not Politically Correct to say such things?

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18/12/2024

Ben Affleck is a Misogynist

Originally posted 2014-11-01 12:59:44.

The recent exchange between Hollywood star Ben Affleck and writer Sam Harris on Bill Maher’s popular show has highlighted the fundamental problem of the ‘liberal left’. The crux of the argument rested on Affleck’s Politically Correct presumption that it is never acceptable to criticise another culture. This view holds that all cultures are equally valid and that persons inside the dominant culture – in this case a Post-Renaissance, post-Christian European one – may never criticise any aspect of another culture, which in this case was Islam.

Now the rights and wrongs of the argument are clear to anyone who watches the exchange, which is here: (http://youtu.be/vln9D81eO60) and I advise readers to do this. They will see that Harris maintained a reserved and non-confrontational position throughout, whereas Affleck behaved like a hectoring bully.

Affleck, while wrong, was only iterating the underlying viewpoint of the culture he espouses, which he calls ‘liberal’.

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18/12/2024

Debunking Postmodernism: exposing the lie

Originally posted 2017-07-10 16:26:23.

Postmodernism is an intellectual disease that strikes that the very heart of Western democracy. It was founded by the cynical French intellectual Jacques Derrida, an old-school Marxist who realised that, in the era of Stalin, when he was writing, truth itself was dangerous.

This was because Stalin, and after him Mao and every significant Communist leader, had embarked on a campaign of bloodthirsty political cleansing soon after they took power. Some historians estimate that Stalin and Mao killed at least 125 million between them, but this is conservative. Martin Malia puts Stalin’s personal body count as high as 100 million.

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18/12/2024

Terror is the reality of Islam. We must name it to fight it

Originally posted 2017-06-04 11:54:39.

Last night, a group of murderers ploughed a white panel van into crowds of people on London Bridge in England. They then jumped out of the van and began stabbing people. This was a terror attack. Seven innocent victims died before the attackers were shot to death by armed police. At least 48 were injured.

‘Assailants drove a van into pedestrians at high speed on London Bridge on Saturday night before stabbing revellers on nearby streets, killing at least seven people and wounding dozens in what police suspect was a terrorist attack. (Reuters).’

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