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IDENTITY POLITICS IS A DANGEROUS GAME
Ever noticed that the establishment’s reaction to malevolence and suffering has more to do with the victim’s group identity than any other factor?
During Easter, Islamic state detonated bombs in Sri Lanka that were clearly intended to target Christians. The bomb blasted destroyed Churches and luxury hotels and left three-hundred dead.
The violence was clearly a targeted attack against Christians on the Holiest feast of the Christian calendar. However, where they were only too eager to talk about the Muslim identities of those targeted in the Christchurch shootings, those in the establishment were conspicuously silent about the Christian faith of those being attacked in Sri Lanka. Neither the former US President, Barack Obama, nor the Democrat candidate for the 2016 election, Hilary Clinton bothered to use the word “Christian” in their response to the attacks.
Barack Obama tweeted:
“The attacks on tourists and Easter worshippers in Sri Lanka are an attack on humanity. One a day devoted to love, redemption, and renewal, we pray for the victims and stand with the people of Sri Lanka.”
Likewise, Hilary Clinton tweeted:
“On this holy weekend for many faiths, we stand united against hatred and violence. I’m praying for everyone affected by today’s horrific attack on Easter worshippers and travellers to Sri Lanka.”
Following the New Zealand Mosque shooting, both Obama and Clinton were quick to assert their compassion, support, and solidarity with the “global Muslim community.” However, after the Sri Lankan bombings, they became rather reluctant to signal their support for Sri Lankan Christians or even to identify the victims as such.
Barack Obama referred to the attack as one perpetrated against “humanity” rather than one against Christians. Likewise, Hilary Clinton urged people to stand “united against hatred and violence”, but failed to specify who, in this case, was perpetrating the violence or the people they were perpetrating it against. More disturbing, perhaps, is the use of the term “Easter worshippers” as a euphemism for Christians. Easter isn’t holy for “many faiths”, it is Holy for Christians.
Contrast the responses to the Sri Lankan bombings to those of the Mosque massacres in Christchurch, New Zealand. After that attack, the Muslim identity of the victims were clearly and repeatedly stated. Marches in the street professed love over hatred and peace over violence. Political leaders like New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, made symbolic, and rather shallow, gestures of solidarity and acceptance towards the Muslim community. And the public were forced to listen, ad nauseum, to left-wing pundits prattle on about the supposed Islamophobia of Western society.
As I pointed out before, the way the establishment responds to hatred and violence depends largely upon who is perpetrating it and who its target is. It is because of identity politics that our cultural standard-bearers ignore attacks on Christians but go out of their way to illustrate attacks on Muslims.
Identity politics blinds us to reality. It allows us to feel hatred and resentment towards others by reducing them to their group identity. As a consequence, the violence, prejudice, and discrimination Christians and Jews have faced in many parts of the world has largely gone unnoticed.
Identity politics blinds us to the fact that the Christian population in Africa and the Middle East has declined from twenty-percent to four-percent in just over a century (with much of the reduction occurring after 2000). It blinds us to the fact that Christians in the Middle East and Africa are the most persecuted minority in the world.
More alarmingly, Middle Eastern and African Christians are not even to be granted help from Western countries. Instead, they are to be sacrificed on the altar of racial and religious diversity. When the Pakistani Christian, Asia Bibi sought asylum in Great Britain, her request was refused because her presence risked “inflaming community tensions.” (Asia Bibi, of course, was imprisoned for several years after she was accused of blasphemy against Islam).
It would seem that no criticism may be levelled against Muslims or any other non-white, non-Christian group. And it would equally seem that it is perfectly acceptable to criticise Christians and white people for their group identities.
It all boils down to Islamophobia: just one out of a whole batch of ultimately meaningless accusations designed to silence critics and stifle debate. The English Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats refer to it is as a “type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness and perceived Muslimness.” Gallup referred to it is as a “specific phobia” gripping Western society. Amnesty International refers to Islamophobes as “racists and bigots [who] believe that diverse societies don’t work.”
Most of Australia’s media – save perhaps for a few conservative newspapers and some talkback radio – is left-leaning. News and current affairs shows have left-wing biases, panel discussions are strongly tilted to favour left-wing views, and the ABC, Australia’s national broadcaster, is so resolutely left-wing it almost beggars’ belief.
Such a configuration naturally creates biases. It is a commonly accepted fact of psychology that when a person associates only with those who agree with them the result is groupthink and confirmation bias. Australian media has become an echo chamber for left-wing beliefs.
As the author and podcast host, Andrew Klavan pointed out: it is a rule of mainstream media to treat events that confirm left-wing biases as representative but to regard events that contradict them as isolated. Therefore, the attacks in Christchurch are indicative of the racism and Islamophobia that has supposedly infected western society. However, a terrorist attack committed by a Muslim is treated as an isolated incident which does not reflect a trend in which countless terrorist attacks and attacks on Jews and Christians – both in the West and outside of it – have been committed by Muslims every year.
The dichotomy between the reactions towards the attacks on Muslim’s in Christchurch and those against Sri Lanka is telling. Identity politics is a curse upon our society. It divides us by manipulating us into seeing everyone we see as members of their social, economics, or racial group rather than as individuals. Such a game can only lead to disaster.
HILLARY CLINTON BLAMES EVERYONE BUT HERSELF FOR HER 2016 ELECTION DEFEAT
Hillary Clinton has released her 2016 election memoir, What Happened. Throughout the five-hundred-and-twelve page book, Clinton manages to blame everyone and everything else but herself for her defeat at the 2016 Presidential election.
Of course, there are the chief left-wing villains: Clinton, like most feminists, blames ‘sexism’ and ‘misogyny’ for her defeat by a “flagrantly sexist candidate.” At one point, Clinton even claims that she cannot give “absolution” to young women who failed to vote in the election.
Next, there’s the alleged collusion between President Trump and the Russians, whom Clinton blames for “weaponising information, negative stories” about her. Not even former President Barack Obama escapes her ire: he committed the grave sin of not addressing the so-called Russia hacking in a national television address.
Then, there’s the email scandal. You know, the one where Clinton used a private server to handle thousands of confidential documents? Clinton told CBS News:
“I watched how analysts who I have a great deal of respect for, like Nate Silver, burrowed into all the data and said that ‘but for that Comey letter, she would have won’.”
White House Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, has slammed Clinton’s book for being filled with “inaccuracies” and has accused Clinton of failing to accept the blame for her own election defeat. Huckabee commented:
“I think probably the biggest one is any place within the book where she lays the blame for the loss on anyone but herself.”
Huckabee went on to criticise Clinton for accusing President Trump of not being a President for all Americans:
“That type of misunderstanding of who this President is, and frankly a misunderstanding of what he’s been doing, is exactly one of the reasons that Hillary Clinton is not the President and is instead pushing a book with a lot of false narratives and a lot of, I think, false accusations and placing blame on a lot of other people instead of accepting it herself.”
George Neumayr of The Spectator attributes Clinton’s election defeat to her status as a modern incarnation of Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth:
“She is a failed Lady Macbeth, but a Lady Macbeth who wants us to feel sorry for her, what with her chardonnay-chugging and alternate nostril breathing after the election. She writes: ‘If you’ve never done alternate nostril breathing, it’s worth a try.… It may sound silly, but it works for me. It wasn’t all yoga and breathing: I also drank my share of chardonnay’.”
If Hillary Clinton is looking for someone to blame she should start by taking a long, hard look at herself. Throughout her campaign, Clinton came across as cold, calculating, and malevolent. She showed signs of narcissism, an astounding incapability of self-reflection, and a proclivity to blame everyone else but herself for her problems. Her attitude was that of arrogance and entitlement, as though the Presidency was her birthright, as though she was guaranteed to win.
IS THE FBI PROTECTING HILLARY CLINTON?
The FBI has refused a Freedom of Information Act request to release some of the emails seized from Hillary Clinton’s private server.
In March 2016, New York attorney, Ty Clevenger, filed a Freedom of Information Act request to have Clinton’s emails to Jason Chaffetz, the chairman of the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Seventeen months later, the FBI formally refused Clevenger’s request, citing a lack of sufficient public interest. In an official letter, David M. Hardy of the FBI’s Record Management Division, told Clevenger:
“You have not sufficiently demonstrated that the public’s interest in disclosure outweighs personal privacy interests of the subject. It is incumbent upon the requester to provide documentation regarding the public’s interest in the operations and activities of the government before records can be processed pursuant to the FOIA.”
The emails Clevenger requested had been seized as part of the FBI’s 2016 investigation into her handling of classified material on a private email server. Whilst former FBI Director, James Comey, called Clinton’s actions “extremely careless” in July of 2016, it was ultimately concluded that Clinton was too technologically inept to be held responsible. (This, of course, begs the question about how someone who someone can be Secretary of State but still not have the common sense not to handle classified material on a private server).
In a statement to the Washington Post, Clevenger has commented that he suspects political bias may have played a role in the decision:
“I’m just stunned. This is exactly what I would have expected had Mrs. Clinton won the election, but she didn’t. It looks like the Obama Administration is still running the FBI.”
Clevenger has started a petition on Change.Org to have Clinton’s emails released. You can access the petition here.
TRUMP THREATENS A GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN
Tuesday – President Trump has threatened to shut down the government if Congress doesn’t pass a spending bill that includes financing for the US-Mexico border wall.
Trump stated at a political rally in Phoenix, Arizona, Trump stated:
“The obstructionist Democrats would like us not to do it, but believe me, if we have to close down our government, we’re building that wall.”
Trump went on to remind the crowd that he had been elected to bring down illegal immigration and boost national security. He then accused the Democrats of hurting national security and putting American lives at risk, stating:
“Let me be very clear to Democrats in Congress who oppose a border wall and stand in the way of border security: you are putting all of American’s safety at risk.”
Trump’s immigration policy has received support from conservatives in the congress. House Freedom Caucus Chairman, Republican. Congressman from North Carolina, Mark Meadows, stated:
“I applaud President Trump for his leadership on this issue and for his relentless commitment to keeping a promise that was central to his campaign. Congress would do well to join the President and follow through on our own promises by including funding for a border wall in upcoming spending bills–anything less will show that we are not serious about keeping our word to the American people.”
Similarly, Republican Congressman from Virginia, Dave Brat, stated in support:
“The American people placed their trust in the President and Republicans in Congress last November with the expectation that we would finally take action to secure the border. Our country is the melting pot of the world and I support legal immigration, but legal immigrants and American workers should not have to compete with illegal aliens for jobs. Our country was founded upon the rule of law and it is important that we hold to those principles. It is time for Congress to step up and keep the promises we made to the American people by joining with the President to fully fund construction of a border wall and ensure the U.S. Border Patrol has the resources they need to secure our border.”
Whilst, Republican Congressman from Texas, Louie Gohmer, urged the United States to work with Mexico to end illegal immigration:
“The best thing we can do for BOTH the United States and Mexico is to secure our border. Thankfully, we have a President who understands and is committed to that. A nation founded on laws that apply to everyone, where neither rich nor poor or supposed to be above the law, must have the law enforced to maintain its integrity, fairness, justice and opportunity. If we secure and enforce our border properly, Mexico’s drug cartels are reduced dramatically, which reduces corruption and lawlessness in Mexico, and, thereby, helps Mexico finally achieve its place as one of the top economies and vibrant countries in the world.
A good neighbour would help Mexico in this way, which also returns America back to being a nation where the law matters and where we can continue to allow more lawful entries into the United States than any other country in the world. Thankfully, we have a President who not only understands the importance of security and the rule of law, but is doing all he can to make such security, propriety, and opportunity a reality.”
FALLOUT OVER PRESIDENT TRUMP’S PRESS CONFERENCE
President Trump has been heavily criticised for appearing to defend the alt-right in the wake of the devastating Charlottesville car attack in a press conference Tuesday afternoon.
Throughout the conference, Trump appeared agitated and defensive. When asked why it had taken him so long to condemn the Unite the Right protesters, Trump answered:
“I didn’t wait long. I wanted to make sure, unlike most politicians, that what I said was correct. Not make a quick statement. The statement I made on Saturday, the first statement was correct a fine statement, but you don’t make statements that direct unless you know the facts. It takes a little while to get the facts. You still don’t know the facts. It’s a very, very important process to me. And it’s a very important statement. So I don’t want to go quickly and make a statement for the sake of making a political statement. I want to know the facts. If you go back to my original statement … I brought it.”
Trump went on to defend his statement on Saturday, saying:
“Excuse me, excuse me, take it nice and easy. Here’s the thing. When I make a statement, I like to be correct. I want the facts. This event just happened. In fact, a lot of the event didn’t even happen yet as we were speaking. This event just happened. Before I make a statement, I need the facts. So I don’t want to rush into a statement. So making the statement when I made it was excellent. In fact, the young woman who I hear was a fantastic young woman, and it was on NBC, her mother wrote me and said though I guess Twitter, social media, the nicest things. And I very much appreciated that. I hear she was a fine, really actually an incredible young woman. But her mother on Twitter thanked me for what I said. And honestly, if the press were not fake, and it was honest, the press would have said what I said was very nice. But unlike you and unlike the media, before I make a statement, I like to know the facts.”
Then Trump switched his focus to attacking the “alt-left”:
I’ve condemned neo-Nazis. I’ve condemned very different groups. But not all those people were”I’ve condemned neo-Nazis. I’ve condemned very different groups. But not all those people were neo-Nazis, believe me, not all of those people were white supremacists, by any stretch. Those people were also there because they wanted to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee. And you take a look at some of the groups and you see, and you’d know it if you were honest reporters which in many cases you’re not, but many of those people were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee. I noticed that Stonewall Jackson is coming down. I wonder, is it George Washington next week, and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You really do have to ask yourself where does it stop. But they were there to protest, excuse me, take a look at the night before, they were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee.”
Republican Senator for Florida, Marco Rubio defended President Trump’s statement on twitter:
“Mr. President, you can’t allow #WhiteSupremacists to share only part of blame. This is simple: we must condemn and marginalize white supremacist groups, not encourage and embolden them.”
However, the reaction from both Republicans and Democrats has been overwhelmingly negative. Democrat Congresswoman from New York, Kathleen Rice, tweeted: “President Trump is a racist. Period. He’s gone out of his way to make that clear, so let’s not tip-toe around it. He’s a racist.” Similarly, Democrat Senator from Hawaii, Brian Schaltz tweeted: “As a Jew, as an American, as a human, words cannot express my disgust and disappointment. This is not my president.” Meanwhile, former House Majority Leader and Republican Congressman from Virginia, Eric Cantor criticised Trump for equating the counter-protesters with the alt-right.
Trump’s plight certainly hasn’t been helped by the support he has been receiving from white supremacists. Richard Spencer told the Washington Examiner that he was grateful to Trump for “defending the truth.” Likewise, Ku Klux Klan leader, David Duke, tweeted:
“Thank you President Trump, for your honesty and courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville and condemn the leftist terrorists in BLM/Antifa.”
There can be little doubt that President Trump deserves wide-spread criticism for his refusal to directly name and shame neo-nazis, white supremacists, and the alt-right for their role in the events in Charlottesville on Saturday. He rightly deserves criticism for refusing to condemn the alt-right during his Presidential campaign.
And the people who should be criticising him should be the American people, not the hypocritical mainstream media and political left who only seem to find their moral indignation when evil can be attributed to the right.
This, after all, is the same media that overhypes every threat of right wing violence and turns every crime committed by a right winger into a condemnation of all conservatives, but conveniently turns a blind eye to the violence committed by antifa in Seattle, Sacramento, and Berkeley. The same media that has presented right wing violence as a bigger threat to people’s safety than Islamic terrorism, which has routinely downplayed its threat, and vilified anyone who wishes to talk about the issue as being an “Islamaphobe.”
Then there’s the left wing media’s remarkable lack of criticism towards Barack Obama. They did not condemn Obama’s speech in Dallas, Texas, where he blamed the murder of five police officers on the legacy of Jim Crow and slavery, and claimed the police were unfairly and systematically targeting African Americans.
Does President Trump deserve criticism for his refusal to name and shame those responsible for the violence on Saturday? Undoubtedly yes. But the mainstream media and political left have no moral authority to do so.
FBI RAIDS PAUL MANAFORT’S HOME
On July 26th, the FBI raided Paul Manafort’s home in Alexandra, Virginia. The FBI seized documents and other materials from Manafort’s home in relation to the Russia investigation.
Manafort, who was Trump’s campaign chairman, has appeared cooperative to investigators in public. Even going as far as to voluntarily testify before a Senate Intelligence Committee on July 25th.
However, there are clearly questions that the FBI felt still needed to be answered. According to Politico, Federal Investigators approached Manfort’s son-in-law, Jeffrey Yohai, in an attempt to get inside his head.
Peter Zeidenburg, a former prosecutor for the Justice Department, commented:
“It is a big deal. Prosecutors do not take aggressive steps like this with subjects who the government feels are being open and cooperative. And they also do not do this to ‘send a message.’ They do it because they think there is evidence to be found and that if they do not act aggressively, it could be destroyed.”
The simple fact is that obtaining a search warrant usually requires investigators to have a rational reason to believe that there is evidence of a crime. Nor does the FBI execute warrants on cooperating witnesses, they don’t need to. What the investigation will prove cannot be known. Nevertheless, the President Trump’s Administration has cause for concern.
PLAN TO REFORM US IMMIGRATION SYSTEM
President Donald Trump has joined Republican Senator for Arkansas, Tom Cotton, and Republican Senator for Georgia, David Perdue, in reworking the “Reform American Immigration for a Strong Economy” act (RAISE). This act will help Trump to fulfil his campaign promise to reform the immigration problem.
Trump told reporters that the Raise Act will “reduce poverty, increase wages and save taxpayers billions of dollars.” Trump went on to say:
“This legislation demonstrates our compassion for struggling American families who deserve an immigration system that puts their needs first, and that puts America first.”
A press release from the White House states that the current US immigration rate does not prioritise highly skilled immigrants over immigrants with low skills or no skills. At the moment, only six-percent of the one-million immigrants the US accepts annually emigrate because of their skills. Instead, the US has experienced decades of emigres with little to no skills. (To make matters worse, fifty-percent of immigrant households receive welfare compared to thirty-percent of native households). According to the release, the mass influx of cheap, unskilled labour has depressed wages and harmed vulnerable Americans.
The RAISE act seeks to replace the current permanent employment-visa framework, especially the diversity visa lottery system, with a new system which rewards applicants based on their merits. This system, which echoes similar immigration system in Australia and Canada, selects immigrants based on their level of education, their ability to speak English, their past achievements, and their entrepreneurial initiative.
A DIVIDED HOUSE: JEFF SESSION’S RELATIONSHIP WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP SOURS
Tensions between President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions continue to rise over Session’s decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation.
President Trump has been engaged in a series of attempts to publicly humiliate Sessions, who he blames for the Justice Department’s Russia probe. On Twitter, and in public, Trump has expressed disappointment in Session’s decision, and has referred to him as ‘beleaguered’ and ‘weak.’
Sessions defended his decision to recuse himself, telling Fox News:
“I am confident I made the right decisions, a decision that is consistent for the rule of law. An attorney general who doesn’t follow the law is not very effective in leading the Department of Justice.”
Sessions also referred to Trump’s attacks on him as ‘hurtful’, although he expressed sympathy commenting that the Russia investigation had been a ‘big distraction’ for the President:
“Well, it kind of is hurtful. But the president of the United States is a strong leader. He is determined to move this country in the direction he believes it needs to go to make us great again. And he’s had a lot of criticisms, and he’s steadfastly determined to get his job done, and he wants all of us to do our jobs and that’s what I intend to do.”
The Trump-Sessions conflict may cause significant problems for the Trump Administration if it continues to fester. Many Congressional Republicans have warned Trump against firing Sessions, pointing out that it may be seen as an attempt to kill the Russia investigation.
