In the 1970s, the British Labour Party's bourgeois liberal wing, which would become Labour's dominant bloc under Tony Blair, found itself in league with the "Paedophile Information Exchange".
There is a not insignificant portion of small l liberalism that sees age of consent laws as some legacy of Judeo-Christian censorship. In 2009, Anne Applebaum wrote a bonkers piece protesting Roman Polanski's arrest in Switzerland. voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2…
The fact that a Tulsi Gabbard's instincts are so much sounder than the original axis of evil's own David Frum is very on-brand for 2020
The thread here by Elizabeth Bruenig, no conservative her, should remind everyone remotely sensible that on some pretty fundamental moral matters, there is a consensus that transcends politics, even if the politicos spinning this are simply diabolical
California is the flagship of the liberal project: its object is the relentless obscuring of differences between right and wrong until what were always obvious moral evils are legislated for & then made 'norms'. It is happening in plain sight now.
Tulsi Gabbard & Nancy Pelosi’s daughter have a firmer grasp of basic moral truths than David Frum, who was George W Bush’s speechwriter....an example of how absolutely deranged the American Right’s ‘dead enders’ are now.
The @TheBabylonBee outperforms here: "Hollywood Elites Rush To Normalize Pedophilia Before They're All Outed By Ghislaine Maxwell"
Media circling the wagons around child pornography to make it seem a partisan matter is, on any view, simply abominable. Note that the 'highly principled' never Trump people are deathly silent (must not upset donors?) but a Tulsi Gabbard is not.
For some time, amid much mockery , I have said that traditional conservatives have far more in common with sensible social democrats than with the libertarians....this is an example of why that is so. You can compromise on wages etc but not on this filth.
Small l liberalism has a massive blind spot when it comes to the sexualisation of children. The prioritisation of adult perversions over the protection of children is a marker of not just liberalism but a prior pagan culture now reasserting itself in all its moral evils
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Small thread on Iran & its national security structures/history in somewhat plainish English and to correct some errors spreading in this online environment. It is intended to be informative but not exhaustive of the subject matter.
As anyone who has dealt with the Iranian state in any capacity esp military knows, it has many layers & (yes) satrapies that often feud & work at cross purposes … the Iranian armed forces (Artesh) operate relatively normally if persistently when ivo Iranian terroritories/seas
However, the Artesh was very much the Shah's armed forces so in 1979 when Islamists took over & there was a real (or perhaps false flag) attempted Artesh coup against Khomeini's regime in early 1980 ... the distrust caused the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to form/solidify
"Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that His hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. He loved His own in the world and He loved them to the end" (John 13:1)
Good morning to all on this Good Friday:
"But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed." (Isaiah 53:5)
It is interesting the number of people who find Good Friday hard - the betrayal, the disloyalty, the widowed Virgin Mary watches her son’s brutal, public death, with the women of Jerusalem & only John the youngest apostle who goes to the trial & Calvary (too young to know better)
My #TartanDay thread for all who are celebrating & to all those with their familial ancestry in Scotland, or who, rightly, love the Scots as a people. 🏴
#TartanDay marks the anniversary of the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath made by the Scots Nobility & Clergy to the Pope: "It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom–for that alone which no honest man gives up but with life itself"🏴🇻🇦
"But from these countless evils we have been set free, by the help of Him Who though He afflicts yet heals and restores, by our most tireless Prince, King and Lord, the Lord Robert." #TartanDay 🏴🇻🇦
Disagree-the signs were there in the 1990s and not just in the US. It was always going to end when first world countries' populations saw open trade & borders as making them less secure not more secure. Making China part of the WTO (Blob conventional wisdom) guaranteed this
I have thought more on this - as I was a school and then university student in the 1990s - and yes there was a whole 'whither the globalised world order?' Thomas Friedman sort of midwit debate that went on then & you can find it in many books from the era
At the same time, the 1990s, for every Globalisation point, you had:
- former Yugoslavia with combatants periodically massacring each other
- Somalia & Rwanda, which had their own causes & body counts
- Soviet collapse & then the Russians fighting the Chechens and Dagestanis...
The problem of all Free Trade ideology for nation-states with real world responsibilities is its complete unrealism ... rather like open borders, free trade is utopian ... you cannot be a great or even regional power & rely overly on others supply to you in critical industries
Conservatism in the English speaking world, historically, was always Protectionist. The British Conservative Party & the GOP were historically for Protection and Tariffs (until Thatcher & the Bushs) - unchecked free trade & free markets were considered dangerous liberal heresies
The British Empire was almost destroyed for two World Wars by liberal Free Trade's slow gutting of British industrial capacity & but for Imperial Preference in the 1930s, there would have been few if any UK & Empire industries left for WW2 esp the Alone period of 1939-1941
This @Telegraph long read by @SAshworthHayes @CDP1882 on the UK's long-running rape (and in some cases murder) gang scandal is bracing reading and not for the squeamish. But it must be read - and acted upon.