Tuesday, January 17, 2006

TRIAL OF FREE SPEECH IN BRITAIN BEGINS

The trial in Britain of Nick Griffin and Mark Collett for giving, in private conversations, warnings about the dangers of Islam has just begun. For background, I reproduce below two post from "Pub Philosopher". There is a comment on the probable outcome of the trial here

Post of 14th January, 2006:

The final stage of Nick Griffin's trial gets underway on Monday. Media savvy Griffin and his co-accused, Mark Collett, have set up a blog to record their thoughts and experiences as the trial progresses. They intend to update "Free Speech on Trial" every day.

I'm not going to get into an argument about whether the BNP is a fascist organisation, or whether Nick Griffin is a total bastard. As far as I'm concerned, that's beside the point. This trial is about free speech and if we have free speech, that means even Nick Griffin must be allowed to make his point. If he is found guilty and his condemnation of Islam is ruled illegal, then that would effectively restrict everyone else's right to criticise Islam openly. For that reason alone, I hope he gets off. I will be reading the "Free Speech on Trial" blog regularly.

Post of 22 October, 2005:

The Crown Prosecution Service has shown some bad judgement over the trial of Nick Griffin. In June, they opened the case by quoting from Griffin's speech, in which he said that Britain would sooner or later be struck by Islamic bombers, who would "probably turn out to be second generation Pakistanis from somewhere like Bradford" and that they would probably "blast the hell out of London tube trains and buses." A few weeks later, second generation Pakistanis attacked the tube.

It got worse. The bombers were found to have come from Leeds, the city chosen for Griffin's trail. The local Lib Dem MP called for the trail to be moved, as tension in the city was so high.

Now, the CPS has chosen 2 November as the date for the next stage of the trail. Anyone who has been paying attention will know that this is the first anniversary of the murder of Theo van Gogh, the Dutch film director killed for saying nasty things about Islam. I'm glad that the CPS are showing such ineptitude. For the sake of free speech, I hope that they continue to screw up and that the whole trial crashes and burns.



The Sisterhood, Defrocked

Kate O'Beirne provides a reality check for anyone who thinks "feminist" means "pro-woman."

Mrs. O'Beirne's book is a serious examination of 30-plus years of feminist folly and the conservative counter-approach. And while the National Review columnist and TV commentator is not shy about saying what she thinks, the only rants that appear in her pages here are those she quotes from some well-known feminist icons.

In fact, one of the most striking features of "Women Who Make the World Worse" is its "I can't believe she said that" quality. Mrs. O'Beirne informs her chapters on the family, day care, education, politics, the military and sports with a review of the radical feminist dogma on her subject. Anyone still operating under the delusion that "feminist" is synonymous with "pro-woman" should find this a useful reality check.

Where to begin? There's Robin Morgan, one of the founders of Ms. magazine, saying in 1970 that marriage is "a slavery-like practice" and arguing that "we can't destroy the inequities between men and women until we destroy marriage." Or move forward a couple of decades to the 1990s, when University of Texas professor Gretchen Ritter, who favored then-First Lady Hillary Clinton's plan to "liberate" women by putting children in federally funded day care, expresses the view that stay-at-home mothers are shirking their duty "to contribute as professionals and community activists."

Also from the Clinton era is Duke University law professor Marilyn Morris, who in her role as an adviser to the secretary of the Army urges the elimination of the "masculinist attitudes" of the military, such as "dominance, assertiveness, aggressiveness, independence, self-sufficiency, and willingness to take risks." Another Clinton adviser complains that the Little League encourages "aggressive violent behavior."

A line that should go down in political history comes courtesy of the late Democratic Rep. Bella Abzug, who in 1984 confidently predicted the victory of the Walter Mondale-Geraldine Ferraro ticket as "women . . . join across all racial, social, and regional lines in stark opposition to President Reagan and his policies." Women went for Reagan by a margin of 56% to 44%.

One of the contributions of Mrs. O'Beirne's book is that she marshals data that effectively shatter the demeaning liberal myth that women vote on "women's issues." She notes, for instance, that when the Gallup organization polled voters monthly during the 2004 presidential election year about the subjects they cared most deeply about, "not even 1% mentioned issues like pay equity, child care, or discrimination and violence against women." Men and women polled equally in their concern about race relations, health care, military strength and so forth.

Also in the realm of politics, Mrs. O'Beirne recounts the hypocrisy of feminist leaders during the Clinton years, comparing them to battered spouses willing to endure any humiliation so long as they don't lose their man. "As long as Bill Clinton supported abortion rights, affirmative action, and federal child care," she writes, "it didn't matter that he was a sexual predator."

Then there's the feminist myth that women are denied equal pay for equal work. No one doubts that this was the case several decades ago--and isolated cases persist--but today women's pay overall is on a par with men's. Discrepancies are generally explained by the personal-employment choices that many women make, such as flexible hours, part-time work or other family-friendly options. She lists 39 occupations--aerospace engineer, speech pathologist, financial analyst--where women earn at least 5% more than men.

Mrs. O'Beirne's assessment of the effect of the feminist agenda on women in the military is especially relevant. There are 213,000 women on active duty, including more than 24,000 single mothers and 29,000 married women with children. The first female casualty in Iraq was Army Pfc. Lori Piestewa, a 24-year-old single mother of a 4-year-old son and a 3-year-old daughter.

The Pentagon's "risk rule," which used to prohibit assigning women to units that were at risk of attack or capture, was repealed in 1994. Mrs. O'Beirne believes that women in the military--especially mothers--belong well behind the front lines. I'm not sure I agree, but I know her analysis has made me think harder about what's at stake not just for the military or women but for our society.

One of the values of this volume is that it reviews the antifeminist research on the family, education, abortion and more. Mrs. O'Beirne is generous in citing the work of scholars such as Mary Ann Glendon, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Elaine Donnelly, Karlyn Bowman and others. Radical feminists may have the loudest megaphones, but they aren't the only voices. "Women Who Make the World Worse" is a brief history of how wrong the gender warriors have been about virtually every aspect of American life. But it offers hope for the future in highlighting the scholarship of many women who have made the world better.

Source



More news from the Department of Psychobabble

A sarcastic post about the British "obesity" campaign from a British doctor



"Greetings comrades and good news from the Health Commissariat. Comrade Flint has been made a Hero of the Soviet Union (third class) for designing and instituting the new five-year plan to help comrade doctors advise patients about obesity".


Meanwhile, back at the coalface, Dr Crippen is looking for his chocolate digestive biscuits that the reception staff have hidden to assist him with his flagging New Year's Resolution.

The National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) is working day and night, on your behalf and at your expense, to formulate a national strategy to help family doctors advise patients who are overweight.


In the House of Commons earlier this month, Comrade Flint, an under secretary of state for health said:

"The Department is developing an obesity care pathway as an interim tool to assist the frontline health professionals in managing overweight and/or obese patients, until the availability of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence's definitive guidance in 2007. As part of the process of developing this tool, early drafts were shared with some potential users to ascertain their views on how it might best be applied."

"An interim obesity care pathway". That sounds good! And in another year or so, we will have the "definitive tool". Wonderful! Hang the expense. This is better than "getting a picture of the night" from Sue and Dave.

Dr Crippen will struggle on with the soon to be out-moded equipment he has used to diagnose obesity for the last twenty years. This is a complex photo-electric receptor apparatus which has integral bionic micro-electronic circuitry calibrated automatically to orientate and binocularly co-ordinate the three-dimensional spatial presentation of the propositus in relationship to a complex wooden matrix specially designed by skilled craftsman to admit and contain all members of the population with guaranteed confidence levels up to and including the mean and three standard deviations of the population norm.

In other words, he glances at the patient as they enter the door, and knows instantly if they are overweight.

Then, in the absence of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence's definitive guidance, he says:

"Gosh, you are bit over weight. Why don't you eat less?"

Is this why we cannot afford to treat breast cancer?




My thanks to Comrade Wat Tyler for drawing my attention to the existence of Caroline Flint.

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