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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Putting Tucker to one side here .... weirdest part of Putin's villain role in the contemporary Western mind (admittedly an historically illiterate mind] is that if Putin dropped dead tomorrow, his successor would follow the same policies, probably more aggressively.
In July 2018, I wrote this piece, "The Sources Of Russian Conduct", on my blog, in an effort to put "The Russians" in some context for that part of the lay Western readership that was not totally brain damaged by America's internal convulsions
Reality is that the West will never be close to Russia - we will have bouts of accomodation & OK times - but we also have many friction points. But we will need a modus vivendi with Russia in space, Arctic, and esp as Russia spans 11 time zones & Eurasian landmass
I am shocked - shocked I tell you - that the same people who were (catastrophically) wrong about Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, etal, have now been proven wrong about the war in Ukraine ....
Twitter trying to work out whether Prigozhin is "for real" this time or whether he is a character from the Cyrillic production of Turkey's 2016 'not quite a coup' ... or an Ernst Rohm or Lin Biao...regardless a lesson taught in these regimes is to never overrate your usefulness.
A key change in how RUS state fought the UKR war over past 6-10 months was to move slowly from 'war on the cheap' (Luhansk/Donetk militias & Wagner) to mobilising Russian reserves + bringing in more of the regular Russian armed forces hence extensive prep for UKR offensive
On any view, Wagner in 2022 filled gaps the RUS state wanted filled-it provided combat power ivo Soledar & Bakhmut in late 2022/early 2023. At same time, regular RUS units were being filled out & commencing the sappering & digging in for the very slow UKR offensive we see now.
ANZAC Day Thread
Tuesday is ANZAC Day (April 25th) which commemorates the landing in 1915 by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps at Gallipoli. It is Australia's national day for remembering our war dead, wounded, and war veterans, and their families awm.gov.au/commemoration/…twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
If you or a family member are "On Parade" on Tuesday and not in uniform, a useful dress and bearing guide from @MHHVic here
For #AnzacDay, an Australian tradition is the making of "Anzac Biscuits". The Anzac Biscuit is hardy, it is practical, it goes well with any hot brew, esp Tea, and, has become, since the Great War, the sustenance of a free people. Recipe here awm.gov.au/articles/encyc…
Retirement will be a luxury that occurred in a brief historic period of high birth rates where workers could support retirees .... hard to have retirements with QE, money printing, and, especially, low birth rates.
Sorry but anyone who thinks what is happening in France with riots over a minor upwards revision of pension ages is not coming to every western society is kidding themselves… Right politics that made it harder not easier for larger families are their own worst enemies
Likewise western military establishments will be very hard to maintain in societies where birth rates are so low … the devising of foreign legions and Wagner groups in all but name - however well disguised by law - are as much the likely Western future absent action as the past
Twenty years after the Iraq War started & ten years after the arming of salafist jihadis in Syria, it is good that justice has finally caught up with an outlaw US president.
Oh.
Genuinely intrigued by the new movement in Left political if not yet legal circles - which we have seen here - that a trial is where an accused proves their innocence & not where the state must discharge its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt
A very good reason for monarchy & prosecutions in the name of the monarch - and especially having career not elected prosecutors forming a view of the evidence - is to avoid the current circuses in the US re Trump and the Biden family.