how liberals or progressives think

In a totally new twist, I have been asked why I don’t just move to Texas.

By Joel Johannesen (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
May 10, 2013 •Leave a Comment
Tagged With: how liberals or progressives think, liberal fascism, liberal hypocrisy, liberal idiocy, liberal-left intolerence

After reading my post about a recent Chinese immigrant who “was” a member and supporter of the Chinese Communist Party, and who is currently running under the socialist NDP banner in a huge riding in the BC provincial election next week (and if the NDP wins, he will probably become a cabinet minister), a reader made this intellectual, science-based, tolerant, inclusive, diversity-luvin’, multicultural-luvin’ “suggestion” (which is also very, very unique coming from today’s progressive left!):

Texas, you say!

Huh.

Anyway I responded with vigor. First, I donned my cowboy hat though.

And now I will eat steak.

• By Joel Johannesen (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
May 10, 2013 •Leave a Comment
Tagged With: how liberals or progressives think, liberal fascism, liberal hypocrisy, liberal idiocy, liberal-left intolerence
Filed Under: America, BC, Canada
• Also follow Joel Johannesen on Twitter -- @JoelJohannesen

Survey of police: Obama/left-wing gun control fetish wrong on nearly every point.

By Joel Johannesen (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
April 10, 2013 •Leave a Comment
Tagged With: Gun Rights, how liberals or progressives think, Obama failure

I’m a pro-gun rights advocate because I’m sane, and because I’m a conservative and believe in my individual rights and freedoms such as the fundamental right to defend myself.

President Obama’s anti-gun, pro-gun-control, multimillion dollar bully-pulpit campaign (and oh by the way, convenient political fund-raising stunt), currently taking place across the country aboard Air Force One at a taxpayer cost of untold millions, is ridiculous and as usual, misses the real targets, such as the mental health issues, gangs, the breakdown of the family, and more, behind the recent outbreaks.

Like so much of the liberal-left or progressive politics, Obama’s latest well-timed fetish is loaded with a clip full of specious feel-good appeals to the emotions (once again using kids — including dead kids — as his stage props), and in symbolism, rather than reason and empirical evidence. And of course his proposals promise more big government, nanny-state solutions. More government and government regulations and controls and social-engineering and increased spending are the answer to every problem (even spending problems), according to progressives.

The measures the Obama Left propose would do practically nothing to reduce gun violence, and might in fact increase gun violence. They would clearly reduce citizens’ rights and freedoms. And contrary to the blather about being “smart” and”pro-science”, as Obama always falsely claims to be, his proposed measures are not at all smart and are completely unscientific. In reality, Obama’s big-government answers are really based in nothing but pure left-wing, partisan politics, with an eye to increasing the size and scope of government, and winning left-wing power in upcoming congressional elections in 2014.

If Barack Obama were an ex-cop or some sort of expert in crime prevention, or was at least a law and order advocate with any history or expertise in that area, it might give his ideas more fire power. But his record of success is that of being a left-wing politician, formerly representing Chicago — the city with more murders (500+ last year alone) than the troops in war-torn Afghanistan — and Chicago is the city with some of the toughest gun control measures in America. So his gun control ideas are based on what expertise or success? None, inasmuch as Barack Obama has expertise and success in just about nothing except rallying the left to his sophistic causes.

But the authoritative police community website PoliceOne.com wanted to explore the thinking of their own police community, and conducted an extensive survey among its members to that end. I think I’ll take their opinion more seriously than Barack Obama’s. Here are some of the key points (not complete — see the complete survey here) I found most interesting in their survey:

PoliceOne’s Gun Control Survey: 11 key lessons from officers’ perspectives

In March, PoliceOne conducted the most comprehensive survey ever of American law enforcement officers’ opinions on the topic gripping the nation’s attention in recent weeks: gun control.

More than 15,000 verified law enforcement professionals took part in the survey, which aimed to bring together the thoughts and opinions of the only professional group devoted to limiting and defeating gun violence as part of their sworn responsibility.

Totaling just shy of 30 questions, the survey allowed officers across the United States to share their perspectives on issues spanning from gun control and gun violence to gun rights.

Top Line Takeaways
Breaking down the results, it’s important to note that 70 percent of respondents are field-level law enforcers — those who are face-to-face in the fight against violent crime on a daily basis — not office-bound, non-sworn administrators or perpetually-campaigning elected officials.

1.) Virtually all respondents (95 percent) say that a federal ban on manufacture and sale of ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds would not reduce violent crime.

2.) The majority of respondents — 71 percent — say a federal ban on the manufacture and sale of some semi-automatics would have no effect on reducing violent crime. However, more than 20 percent say any ban would actually have a negative effect on reducing violent crime. Just over 7 percent took the opposite stance, saying they believe a ban would have a moderate to significant effect.

3.) About 85 percent of officers say the passage of the White House’s currently proposed legislation would have a zero or negative effect on their safety, with just over 10 percent saying it would have a moderate or significantly positive effect.

5.) More than 28 percent of officers say having more permissive concealed carry policies for civilians would help most in preventing large scale shootings in public, followed by more aggressive institutionalization for mentally ill persons (about 19 percent) and more armed guards/paid security personnel (about 15 percent). See enlarged image

6.) The overwhelming majority (almost 90 percent) of officers believe that casualties would be decreased if armed citizens were present at the onset of an active-shooter incident.

7.) More than 80 percent of respondents support arming school teachers and administrators who willingly volunteer to train with firearms and carry one in the course of the job.

9.) More than half of respondents feel that increased punishment for obviously illegal gun sales could have a positive impact on reducing gun violence.

Bottom Line Conclusions
Quite clearly, the majority of officers polled oppose the theories brought forth by gun-control advocates who claim that proposed restrictions on weapon capabilities and production would reduce crime.

In fact, many officers responding to this survey seem to feel that those controls will negatively affect their ability to fight violent criminals.

Contrary to what the mainstream media and certain politicians would have us believe, police overwhelmingly favor an armed citizenry, would like to see more guns in the hands of responsible people, and are skeptical of any greater restrictions placed on gun purchase, ownership, or accessibility.

Interestingly, even as I write this, a group of bi-partisan senators have struck-up a deal which includes some extra background checks for commercial gun purchases (which I should note would not have prevented many of any of the recent gun tragedies), increased punishment of gun trafficking, and would bolster federal funding for school security plans — something which you’ll remember the NRA advocated but which was shot down by the left when they immediately fired their automatic weapons (their word holes) at it, using their usual knee-jerk shoot first, ask questions later, mentality.

Here is a statement from the NRA today:

Fairfax, Va. - Expanding background checks at gun shows will not prevent the next shooting, will not solve violent crime and will not keep our kids safe in schools. While the overwhelming rejection of President Obama and Mayor Bloomberg’s “universal” background check agenda is a positive development, we have a broken mental health system that is not going to be fixed with more background checks at gun shows. The sad truth is that no background check would have prevented the tragedies in Newtown, Aurora or Tucson. We need a serious and meaningful solution that addresses crime in cities like Chicago, addresses mental health deficiencies, while at the same time protecting the rights of those of us who are not a danger to anyone. President Obama should be as committed to dealing with the gang problem that is tormenting honest people in his hometown as he is to blaming law-abiding gun owners for the acts of psychopathic murderers.

• Also see my recent article “5…4…3…2…1…BANG, you’re dead!”
• and (UPDATE!) Ann Coulter’s latest: “Liberals Go Crazy For The Mentally Ill”

• By Joel Johannesen (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
April 10, 2013 •Leave a Comment
Tagged With: Gun Rights, how liberals or progressives think, Obama failure
Filed Under: America, Canada
• Also follow Joel Johannesen on Twitter -- @JoelJohannesen

“You didn’t build that”; and now his MSNBC division advertises: your kids don’t belong to you.

By Joel Johannesen (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
April 8, 2013 •Leave a Comment
Tagged With: how liberals or progressives think, idiocy, left-wing media, socialism

I’m not screaming “Socialists!” or “Communists!” or the catch-all left-wing “Progressive!” at this.

They don’t need my help. These people say it very loudly on their own.

Here’s the latest ad from Barack Obama’s far-left MSNBC division, in which one of their news show hosts declares in one of their MSNBC “Lean Forward” ads that your kids don’t belong to you. They belong to the “collective.”

In case you can’t see videos, here’s the MSNBC news show host with this news:

“We have never invested as much in public education as we should have because we’ve always had kind of a private notion of children … We haven’t had a very collective notion of these are our children. So part of it is we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents, or kids belong to their families and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.”

By the way, I’m also not screaming “Idiot!” or “Useful idiot!” or “Liberal fascist!”

• By Joel Johannesen (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
April 8, 2013 •Leave a Comment
Tagged With: how liberals or progressives think, idiocy, left-wing media, socialism
Filed Under: America, Canada
• Also follow Joel Johannesen on Twitter -- @JoelJohannesen

SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 2013

By Joel Johannesen (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
January 26, 2013 •Leave a Comment
Tagged With: capitalism, free enterprise, how liberals or progressives think, liberal media mendacity, Ontario Liberals

As I fight to stay awake not-eagerly awaiting the results of the Ontario Liberal Party leadership race, which I don’t really care that much about, and which I’m only really watching because I’m waiting for Jo-Anne to come back from walking our dog Sammy, I’ve come across some of the usual things that bug me. Here’s some:

• Many Ontarians say “aboat” instead of “about.” They speak of a “hoase” instead of a “house.” I do not know what is the matter with these people. They really should learn how to speak.

• I read another one of those articles in the paper this morning in which they pass off a state-owned, state-run government operation as a private corporation, thus continuing their long tradition of blindly, blithely blurring the lines between actual private enterprise, and big, politically progressive government mendaciously posing as private corporations, meddling in private enterprise, wrecking it and capitalism, as they have been doing for decades.

And this all reminds me to re-read Jonah Goldberg’s fabulous book “Liberal Fascism.” But anyway…

Today’s news article didn’t quite rise to the level of the egregious, oft-referred-to-by-me 2008 example from the Vancouver Sun about an aggrieved guy suing what he apparently forget or didn’t know was the fully state-owned, state-run BC Lottery Corporation, for ripping him off, and was quoted in the paper as saying “It’s about keeping corporations honest, that’s really what it’s about.” It’s hard to top that powerful an example of the success with which the liberal news media and, more generally, the progressives, have succeeded, over decades of teaching people, to fail to understand what’s really going on around them, which is progressivism or Fabian Socialism.

Today’s article in the Sun is about a rather simple real estate and property development transaction. Canada Post, the state-owned, state-run government “corporation,” which is well-known to be a government operation, just sold its mammoth downtown Vancouver mail sorting plant. That’s fantastic. I always hated that the government owned that fabulous piece of what could otherwise be valuable commercial office space, useful to normal free-enterprising citizens to conduct business. The problem is (a) that they sold it to yet another state-owned, state-run operation; and (b) the newspaper (again the Vancouver Sun), once again failed to be transparent about the true nature of the “corporation” involved. To wit:

VANCOUVER — The downtown branch of the Vancouver post office has been sold to the British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (bcIMC), one of Canada’s largest institutional investment managers.

[...]

BCIMC isn’t a household name, but it quietly invests “more than $95 billion of managed gross assets,” including B.C.’s public-sector pensions.

“Our clients include public-sector pension plans, public trusts and insurance funds,” said Chittenden.

It owns several buildings in Metro Vancouver, including downtown landmarks like Park Place and the Evergreen Building, Willowbrook Shopping Centre in Langley and Broadway Tech, a 1.1-million sq. ft. campus at Broadway and Renfrew. It is currently building 745 Thurlow, a 23-storey office tower on the old Keg site at Thurlow and Alberni.

Nowhere is it explained that the “corporation” buying the property is actually another state-owned, state-run government investment trustee, this one being provincial instead of federal. They do go so far as to describe it a little, starting with “one of Canada’s largest institutional investment managers.” But that’s it. That’s all that matters to them? I don’t really think so, but that’s all they’re telling us.

Is it not important to anyone but me that it’s not really a private corporation, despite their making it sound as though it is?

For their own part the “clients” that BCIMC lists are all government, even though they don’t actually come out and say that. The “insurance funds” they refer to include, as best I can tell, nothing more than yet another big government operation called “Worksafe BC” – which is the more politically-correct name slapped on to what is really the BC Government’s Workmen’s Compensation Board of B.C. (renamed to Workers Compensation Board of BC to appease feminists).

Like at all government operations posing as corporations, nearly half of the board of directors are appointed by the government. The BC Minister of Finance appoints three directors out of seven.

Trust me on this: henceforth, when there are complaints about the design, the style, substance, the quality, or rent increases as time goes on, within the development, they will lay blame at the feet of “the developer” or “the corporation,” and not refer once to the BC government, thus further advancing the negative narrative against actual corporations – instead of at big, huge progressive government.

So that bugs me.

• On a totally different topic, a good read today by the Globe & Mail’s Margaret Wendt about Obama’s latest rather brainless feel-good, appease-the-base move to allow military women to fight on the battle fields on the front line.

Women in combat: Let’s get real

…But please, people. Let’s get real. Women cannot equal men in ground combat, the kind of dirty, brutal stuff that (fortunately) makes up a very minor part of modern military life, especially post-Afghanistan. It’s not that they can’t be trained to kill – they can. The issue is that the physical differences between men and women are very large, and on the battlefield, they really matter, and can’t be wished away. Men are better fighters because they are bigger and stronger and can endure far more physical punishment before they break down.

The average female soldier is “about five inches shorter than the male soldier, has half the upper body strength, lower aerobic capacity and 37 per cent less muscle mass,” Stephanie Gutmann, author of The Kinder, Gentler Military, wrote in the New Republic. “She cannot pee standing up … She tends, particularly if she is under the age of 30 (as are 60 per cent of military personnel) to get pregnant.”

• And my wife (a woman) is back now, so mercifully, I can stop watching the Liberal Party leadership race. As I type, it appears to be aboat over, with an openly gay woman named Kathleen Wynne, who is married to another woman, set to become Ontario’s new premier and leader. I bet the media will make it ab-so-lute-ly clear that Kathleen Wynne is a lesbian.

UPDATE: see?

• By Joel Johannesen (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
January 26, 2013 •Leave a Comment
Tagged With: capitalism, free enterprise, how liberals or progressives think, liberal media mendacity, Ontario Liberals
Filed Under: America, Canada, Ontario
• Also follow Joel Johannesen on Twitter -- @JoelJohannesen

When I Want a Progressive’s Opinion on What Guns I “Need” or “Don’t Need”…

By Doug Giles (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Doug Giles
January 22, 2013 •1 Comment
Tagged With: Gun Rights, how liberals or progressives think

My buddy, Green Beret badass Bryan Sikes, shot a massive whitetail buck last week during our South Texas Purple Heart Adventure. He whacked said muy grande with a LaRue Tactical OBR chambered for the glorious .308 Win. round. Oh and BTW, Sikes used a high capacity magazine during this hunt.

For those of you who aren’t hip to the LaRue, it is a weapon that progressive darlings say we should not have because we don’t “need” such a weapon for hunting.

Hunting, according to these wizards of odd, is what they think our founding fathers had in mind when they penned that pesky Second Amendment, and according to these control freaks we don’t need a tactical weapon with a high capacity magazine to hunt with.

First off, dipsticks, the Second Amendment has nada to do with hunting. The founding fathers weren’t worried about their right to put the bam to Bambi (although we should be because progressives hate hunting and would love nothing more than to bring that activity to a grinding halt). If you don’t believe me, just corner one of these little darlings and ask them what they think about hunting.

Secondly, who are they to tell us what we “need” or don’t need when it comes to anything? Typical of the Left, they think they know what’s best for we the people. If you want to talk about “needs,” Ms. Leftist, we don’t need iPhones, Porsches, crazy straws, American Idol, beer, leaf blowers, and I don’t need a gorgeous Italian wife. But that’s America, folks. Stay out of our business.

Regarding the need for high capacity magazines for hunting, please tell the ranchers in the west when they’re doing depredation work on predators and nuisance animals that they don’t need such weapons. You might be surprised.

Now, for the record, I do not have a black weapon. I’m a bolt action, lever action, double rifle, and traditional side-by-side shotgun freak. I like the classic lines of beautiful sporting guns.

However, the more I contemplate our current milieu I’m beginning to think that a semi-auto, like the LaRue Tactical chambered for the .308, has got to be the ultimate gun. Why? Well, it’s quite effective on game up to moose, and it has been proven in battle against tyrants—which is exactly what the Second Amendment is all about, namely, whacking overreaching, freedom-strangling little King George wannabes should they oppress.

• By Doug Giles (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Doug Giles
January 22, 2013 •1 Comment
Tagged With: Gun Rights, how liberals or progressives think
Filed Under: America, Canada, Columnists, Doug Giles
• Also follow Joel Johannesen on Twitter -- @JoelJohannesen

Is America an Idiocracy?

By Ashley Herzog (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Ashley Herzog
January 16, 2013 •Leave a Comment
Tagged With: how liberals or progressives think, liberal media, pop culture

In 1951, Ray Bradbury published Fahrenheit 451, a futuristic novel in which books are burned, and the citizenry occupies itself by watching hours of TV on wall-to-wall sets. Contrary to popular belief, Bradbury says Fahrenheit 451 wasn’t about censorship or McCarthyism. It was about how TV undermines interest in reading and learning.

In 2006, Mike Judge released the film Idiocracy, in which the main character, Joe Bauers, undergoes a suspended-animation experiment and wakes up in the year 2505. He’s unable to communicate, because “the English language had deteriorated into a hybrid of hillbilly, valley girl, inner-city slang and various grunts.” The degenerate morons who occupy this brave new world amuse themselves with vapid, vulgar reality shows like “Ow, My Balls!” (Which, by the way, is exactly what it sounds like.)

Are you laughing? You probably shouldn’t. Fahrenheit 451 and Idiocracy aren’t dystopian fantasies—we’re already there.

In case you’re not convinced, Oxygen just announced* a new reality show featuring rapper “Shawty Lo,” his eleven children, and his ten “baby mamas.” According to ABC News, he “refer[s] to his children’s mothers with nicknames like Jealous Baby Mama, Baby Mama from Hell, and Shady Baby Mama. The show also introduces viewers to Lo’s 19-year-old girlfriend.”

Thankfully, some groups on the left and right protested, with the Parents Television Council deeming it “grotesquely irresponsible and exploitative.” Still, the fact that Oxygen believed there was an audience for a show with such a tawdry premise (and a star who calls himself “Shawty Lo”) is depressing enough.

The main consumers of this garbage? My generation, the 18-to-29 set. We have more opportunities for cultural and intellectual enrichment than any previous generation, but we don’t take them. As Mark Bauerlein revealed in his aptly named book The Dumbest Generation, less than 10 percent of young people attend plays, ballets, or musical performances, only 23 percent visited a museum in the last year, and a record low number of us read for fun.

So where are America’s teens and twenty-somethings? Parked in front of the TV, watching Jersey Shore.

You know, the reality show that added “smushing” and “gorillas” to our vocabulary. (Shockingly, the latter is not a reference to the cast members’ IQs.) In the 90s, the casts on early reality shows like The Real World had candid, intelligent discussions about everything from racism to gay rights to AIDS. They look like Rhodes scholars compared to the cast of Jersey Shore, who talk about…well, I’m not sure what, because the only episode I watched was a series of bleeps. The show doesn’t address any current events or any ideas—it’s a steady stream of drinking, fighting, and cussing.

And if you wonder where the increase in girl-on-girl aggression is coming from, tune into any of the Real Housewives series. The entire show revolves around materialistic, shallow women with bad plastic surgery cat-fighting and back-stabbing. As Ann Coulter put it, “Real Housewives is white trash pretending to be jetsetters.” And yet millions of viewers still tune in every week, admiring them, emulating them, and imagining this is how the wealthy and fashionable really live.

In August, more people tuned into TLC’s abomination Here Comes Honey Boo Boo than the Republican National Convention. In case you’ve somehow missed it, the show follows the adventures of “redneck” mom June and her four daughters (allegedly sired by four different men). This show is especially exploitative. In a recent episode, June’s teen daughter gave birth to a baby with six fingers. Instead of feeling sympathy for this poor child, the audience was supposed to snicker—all that was missing was the laugh track in the background. Laughing and leering at other people’s pain and misfortune is par for the course in this genre.

Therefore, it’s no surprise that researchers at the University of Michigan found today’s college students shockingly lacking in empathy, especially compared to their 1970s counterparts. They partially blamed the rise of reality TV for this trend.

“These shows may be profitable, but the primary basis for many of them seems to be to put people in painful, embarrassing or humiliating situations for the rest of us to watch — and, presumably, be entertained,” James Key wrote in USA Today. “This assault on our intelligence is not healthy for the soul.”

Not to mention it’s taking the place of activities that engage the mind, rather than rotting it.

If you don’t want America to become the country we saw in Idiocracy, turn it off.

* Editor’s note: On January 15, 2013, as a result of public pressure, Oxygen Network decided not to broadcast “All My Babies’ Mamas.” Read about it here.

• By Ashley Herzog (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Ashley Herzog
January 16, 2013 •Leave a Comment
Tagged With: how liberals or progressives think, liberal media, pop culture
Filed Under: America, Ashley Herzog, Canada, Columnists
• Also follow Joel Johannesen on Twitter -- @JoelJohannesen

Fellowship in the Woodlands

By Mike S. Adams (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Mike S. Adams
January 3, 2013 •Leave a Comment
Tagged With: culture, how liberals or progressives think

Most of America’s problems are cultural. Even our economic problems stem from the cultural rejection of personal responsibility and the acceptance of collective responsibility. And none of our problems would be as bad if the church was still shaping the culture instead of merely responding to it. I was reminded of this during my annual holiday trip home to The Woodlands, Texas.

I’ve attended Christmas Eve services four out of the last six years at the Woodlands Church (formerly Fellowship of the Woodlands), which is a Southern Baptist mega church that keeps its Baptist affiliation well hidden from the general public. That is symptomatic of what ails the church in 21st Century America. Production and marketing take center stage. Core beliefs are lost somewhere in the process.

Make no mistake about it; the production is good at The Woodlands Church. The set is grand and the music is wonderful. Pastor Kerry Shook and his wife Chris are largely responsible for that. Their son, a musician living in Nashville, comes home to perform in the Christmas services every year. I’ve seldom heard a more talented young singer and guitarist.

Couched in the musical productions of these mega churches, one sees an overwhelming desire to deliver a product that demonstrates the cultural relevance of the church. This is especially true on holidays when the church has more visitors than usual. This Christmas Eve, one of the singers was dressed like Michael Jackson and was moon walking around the stage as others sang. I didn’t see a likeness of baby Jesus in a manger. But I saw a likeness of Michael Jackson in a sequin outfit.

Many people dispute whether Jackson was a pedophile. No one disputes that he is still culturally relevant. Nonetheless, it was strange seeing Michael Jackson’s likeness on stage just minutes after the church staff assured parents that the church nursery provided a safe environment for their young children. Mega churches are seldom short on cash or irony.

After the music, an enormous train engine (actually, it was a life size model) appeared in the middle of the stage. It was slowly moved in on a set of make shift tracks in the midst of smoke and accompanied by the sound of a real train whistle. The pastor boasted that the whistle could be heard all the way over on highway 242. I agreed that the set was impressive. It probably took the church staff as much time to build it as would have been required to build a medium sized home for an impoverished Houston family.

The crowd at Woodlands Church also got to see a YouTube video of a man watching an old train pull into a station. I still don’t understand the point of showing the video, which featured a man so excited to see an old train that he took the Lord’s name in vain three times. Let that sink in for a minute: The Woodlands Church played (in church, mind you) a video in which a man was taking the Lord’s name in vain three times. And they did it as part of a Christmas Eve service celebrating the birth of our Lord.

It reminded me of the time I took the Lord’s name in vain in a lecture at Summit Ministries in 2010. I didn’t mean to do it. But it didn’t matter. The kids at the ministry let me have it – and rightfully so. I was absolutely in the wrong.

My question for the mega church is simple: how did the commandment-violating video get past the entire staff at the Woodlands Church without someone catching it and correcting it? It’s pretty easy to do an overdub on “oh my God” to turn it into “oh my.” But the entire staff missed it. Or perhaps they didn’t care.

Unlike my teenaged Summit students, senior pastor Kerry Shook couldn’t see anything wrong with playing that video in church on Christmas Eve – even though its narrator took the Lord’s name in vain three times. He just laughed at it. And that was all that mattered. The service wasn’t meant to honor God. It was meant to entertain.

Kerry and Chris delivered a joint sermon, which had a broad general theme connected to the giant locomotive that stood behind them. The thesis was that we need to relinquish our need to control people and circumstances and instead let God direct our lives. But during the short sermon, Kerry’s wife said something rather unusual. It had to do with holy moments in our lives. It was as morally confused a statement as I have ever heard inside a place calling itself a church.

Without batting an eye, Chris Shook stated that all of the moments in our lives are equally holy no matter what we are doing because they were all created by God. So she insisted that we must learn to live in the moment, rather than seek a holy moment – because, once again, all moments are holy, and equally so.

To illustrate the error of Chris Shook’s statement, consider these “equally holy” moments, which were “all created by God”:
-A man sees a woman being raped and intervenes to stop the attack.

-A man sees a woman being raped and decides to join in.

-A man gives his wife a dozen roses.

-A man gives his wife herpes.

-A man tells his grandmother she is a saint.

-A man tells his grandmother she is a whore.

Obviously, not every moment in our lives is equally holy or God honoring “no matter what we are doing.” It matters very much what we are doing. Everyone knows that, including Chris’ husband Kerry who contradicted his wife about five minutes later. Near the end of their joint sermon, Kerry thanked people for coming to The Woodlands Church on “Christmas Eve, one of the holiest nights of the year.”

Put simply, there can be no holier or holiest night if every moment in our lives is equally holy. Either Kerry was right or his wife Chris was right. A cannot be not-A. The law of non-contradiction matters.

Every right thinking person knows that Kerry was right. His wife needed to sit down and let her husband the senior pastor deliver the correct message unencumbered by contradictions steeped in moral relativism. The culture teaches moral relativism. The church needs to correct it.

Of course, having Chris up there was the most important thing because it shows that The Woodlands Church really isn’t a Baptist Church after all. They let women preach and that shows they are culturally relevant. A little bad theology never hurt anyone.

In our holiest moments, we recognize that sound theology must defer to the secular doctrine of feminism. Some doctrines are holier than others. And relativism is culturally relevant even when it isn’t logically consistent.

• By Mike S. Adams (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Mike S. Adams
January 3, 2013 •Leave a Comment
Tagged With: culture, how liberals or progressives think
Filed Under: America, Canada, Columnists, Mike Adams
• Also follow Joel Johannesen on Twitter -- @JoelJohannesen

CTV “online reporter/editor” skips lede, blithely tweets her love for Justin Trudeau.

By Joel Johannesen (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
November 23, 2012 •Leave a Comment
Tagged With: CTV, how liberals or progressives think, Justin Trudeau, liberal idiocy, liberal media bias

Cross-posted at JoelJohannesen.com

This tweet from a CTV reporter follows nicely on the heels of my old YouTube video called Justin Trudeau is so Groovy! I mean it is truly laughable after you watch the video.

Here’s Christine Tam’s tweet from moments ago, re this story:

Justin Trudeau can make anti-Alberta comments to me anytime! http://t.co/4nDrGVkJ

November 23, 2012 10:02 am via Instagram ReplyRetweetFavorite

@christinetam

Christine Tam

I include the screen capture of the tweet just in case she is instructed by her liberal bosses at CTV News or Team Justin to delete it. (UPDATE – 11:00 AM PST): it’s already been deleted)

I always say many in the liberal media are so liberal they don’t even know how liberal they are anymore; and that liberals speak as though everybody in the room agrees with them, but really. Do they have to spell it out for us in quite so obvious a manner? I guess they really do think we’re stupid.

Here’s a graphic of her Twitter bio:

• By Joel Johannesen (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
November 23, 2012 •Leave a Comment
Tagged With: CTV, how liberals or progressives think, Justin Trudeau, liberal idiocy, liberal media bias
Filed Under: Alberta, Canada
• Also follow Joel Johannesen on Twitter -- @JoelJohannesen

Justin Trudeau thinks only Quebecers can run Canada properly; Canada belongs to Quebec!

By Joel Johannesen (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
November 22, 2012 •Leave a Comment
Tagged With: how liberals or progressives think, Justin Trudeau, Liberal Party

Sun News busts out another of the Liberal-exposing stories that matter to Canadians this week, forcing the liberal-luvin’ Canadian lamestream media to once again — very reluctantly and begrudgingly — follow their lead. Well, “follow their lead” with copious whitewashing, and excuses, and those ever-important “context” filters applied. Sort of like how the state-owned CBC treated Sarah Palin, (as in when Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head: “Many people say that Sarah Palin … must share part of the BLAME!”), only exactly the opposite in every which way.

Justin Trudeau:

“Canada isn’t doing well right now because it’s Albertans who control our community and socio-democratic agenda. It doesn’t work.”

Then he was asked if Canada was “better served when there are more Quebecers in charge than Albertans?”

”I’m a Liberal, so of course I think so, yes. Certainly when we look at the great prime ministers of the 20th century, those that really stood the test of time, they were MPs from Quebec… This country – Canada – it belongs to us.”

In sane-ville, this absolutely kills one’s chances of winning the leadership of any national political party, in this case Trudeau’s pursuit of the Liberal Party; and obviously his chances of being the leader of my country would now be construed as a joke. And in fact the whole party has sufficiently revealed itself this week, as if it hadn’t already, as being a party of elitist Ontario and Quebec-centric asses.

And at the very least, this would obviate his immediate resignation as an MP.

But then the media is only just now coming to his and their rescue. By the time they’re done, you won’t even recognize this story.

But at least this gives me the opportunity to once again trot out my old Justin Trudeau is so Groovy video!

• By Joel Johannesen (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
November 22, 2012 •Leave a Comment
Tagged With: how liberals or progressives think, Justin Trudeau, Liberal Party
Filed Under: Canada, Quebec
• Also follow Joel Johannesen on Twitter -- @JoelJohannesen

An anti-conservative channel bias? It’s partisan politics. I think.

By Joel Johannesen (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
November 18, 2012 •1 Comment
Tagged With: anti-conservative bias, how liberals or progressives think, liberal idiocy, liberal media bias

I went through a purgation the other day when I tweeted my satellite TV provider with several of my gripes about their service.

Here’s a graphic (from today) of my TV screen representing what actually got me going that day. See how the description for Fox News Channel is “Nouvelles”? We have a word in English for that: WTF?

It’s been that way for years.

I admit I’m one of those people who swears whenever I’m trying to read the ingredients on a cereal box or trying to find the instructions on the side of one package or another, in Canada, and I always land on the annoying French side first, and have to flip it around to find the right side. Because, you know, I’m not French, and this isn’t France. But this “Nouvelles” thing is on the English side of the box, if you see what I mean.

Now, I know, you’re gonna say I’m being … well I was going to say niggardly but some douche (excuse my French), whom I guarantee will be on the left side of the political fence, will falsely and idiotically call me racist, so… niggling. Oh I see, OK, hang on…. a pettifogger.

Whatever. I’m none of those. I was just in a bad mood and sick and tired of the media running roughshod over …. yes, conservatives. And that notion is not to be trifled with, at least among us conservatives, as I pointed out in one of my recent articles.

As I tweeted out to them, it’s not just that “Nouvelles” things (which exists ONLY on the Fox News Channel description). There was more. Like this tweet:

@bell_support How come Bell satellite fails to offer Fox News, Sun News *in HD*, but does CBC, MSNBC, HLN, CTV etc.?

November 6, 2012 9:22 am via TweetDeck ReplyRetweetFavorite

@JoelJohannesen

Joel Johannesen

(Follow some of the back-and-forth at this link.)

…A legitimate question even if at first glance you mistake it for being more pettifogging or niggling. Think of how a person, who is after just a scan of all the news, surfs through the news channels. As a responsible and sane human, I only watch the high-def channels where possible, since I invested approximately a zillion dollars in wide-screen HD TVs and those expensive Bell Satellite HD boxes I’m required to buy in order to actually watch HD TV. Plus it just looks a thousand times better. So I up-arrow my remote thought the channels, hitting CNN, HLN, MSNBC, CTV News Channel, the dreadfully stupid state-owned and taxpayer-funded CBC News Channel, among some other liberal and leftist news media. They’re all in glorious HD. They’re all conveniently grouped together in the HD channel section of the Bell Satellite lineup.

What’s missing from my picture? Only two channels – which in my case happen to be my favorite channels on account of the fact that I also like to see what a conservative might think about the news, too: Sun News Network, and Fox News Channel. Both broadcast in HD, but aren’t made available in HD by Bell Satellite service. Only those two, alone, are available to me only in low def.

And as we know, once you’ve gone high def, it’s hard to go back. Low def is just so inferior after you’ve gone high-def. Bell knows that.

And so those two news channels are in the lower channel number banks, where I’m not. And so I don’t get to just passively surf to them, I have to punch numbers in, and moreover, abort the high-def realm I’ve invested so heavily in, and much prefer to watch.

Don’t worry, I do that extra work, because I’m also invested in the idea of being fully informed, and not just propagandized by the Left and their left-wing media biases. So I do remain smart, but as you see, I have to work harder for it, and not enjoy the experience. I think (and judging from the polls and recent elections), most people don’t bother doing that extra work that I do.

So I kept asking Bell through their Bell support Twitter account, and they either pretended to be ignoramuses, or they actually are. At first they tried to pass off their stock answer designed by marketing asses to appease the idiot masses, to wit, the likes of: “We’re adding new channels all the time.” Which I take as an insult to my intelligence, on account of it being precisely that.

At one point, the Bell “support” tweeter seemed to exhibit that they do not even have a full grasp of the company’s offerings, claiming, somewhat triumphantly it seemed to me, that in fact, having “investigated” the matter on their own, Fox is in fact available to me – in high-def – on channel so-and-so. They’d confused (purposely or otherwise) Fox News Channel with a regular Fox TV network channel.

I didn’t accept their insulting answers, and so like little girls who can’t win an argument, they just went away, apparently to hide under their desks, refusing to even acknowledge any more of my tweets. Nice.

They had no answer.

I’m left to wonder if all of this isn’t on purpose.

Are they purposely trying to marginalize Sun News and Fox News Channel – the only two really conservative-tolerant news channels, by sidelining them and confining them to the low-def morass? I have to think so. I have to think that someone – possibly a whole cabal of them – over there are anti-conservative, and are trying to make it difficult for Canadians to see or hear conservative ideas or points of view.

They will deny it, as they already have, by way of some kind of “we’re adding new channels all the time” -type explanation. But given what we know about liberal-biased media and big-government-reliant corporate cronies, I think I have all the credible reasons I need to back up my suspicions.

• By Joel Johannesen (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
November 18, 2012 •1 Comment
Tagged With: anti-conservative bias, how liberals or progressives think, liberal idiocy, liberal media bias
Filed Under: Canada
• Also follow Joel Johannesen on Twitter -- @JoelJohannesen

Carbon Tax is Pointless and Inflationary

By Steven Milloy (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Steven Milloy
November 14, 2012 •Leave a Comment
Tagged With: cap & trade, carbon tax, how liberals or progressives think, liberal lies, Obama failure

Climate alarmists hope that Hurricane Sandy and President Obama’s re-election will coerce panicky congressional Republicans into a “carbon tax” deal in 2013. But simple math shows the tax would have no effect other than an inflationary one.

A carbon tax would operate as a new sales tax on goods and services that are produced through or otherwise involve the burning of fossil fuels. You might pay the tax in your electric bill, at the gas pump or in the form of higher prices for other good and services.

The purpose of a carbon tax would be to penalize fossil fuel use in hopes of reducing carbon dioxide emissions, which have been hypothesized to cause global cooling (1970s), global warming (1980s-1990s), climate change (2000s) and extreme weather (2010s).

While higher prices for goods and services aren’t inherently evil, their merits must be judged by what consumers and society get in return. So let’s consider a carbon tax from a climatic perspective.

To give a carbon tax the maximum advantage in our analysis, we’ll assume that it would be totally successful in reducing U.S. carbon emissions — i.e., the U.S. emits no carbon dioxide whatsoever from fossil fuels. And let’s also imagine that this public policy wonder has this magical effect as of Jan. 1, 2013.

So what would be the climatic effect of immediately shutting down the fossil fuel-based U.S. economy?

Let’s assume that U.S. fossil fuel use results in 6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere annually and that, of this amount, about 40% (2.4 billion tons) stays and accumulates in the atmosphere annually.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide is measured in parts per million and one part per million of carbon dioxide weighs approximately 7.81 billion metric tons. Simple division, then, shows that the U.S. might be adding at most approximately 0.31 parts per million to the atmosphere every year.

If the carbon tax could magically stop U.S. emissions entirely as of 2013, then by the year 2100, we would have avoided adding about 27 parts per million (0.31 x 87) of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

That may sound like a lot, but consider that the current level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is about 391 parts per million. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels in the year 2100 could range from 450 parts per million (absolute global clampdown on greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century) to 950+ parts per million (no clampdown).

Either way, it’s plain to see that a savings of 27 parts per million over 87 years is trivial, particularly in comparison to its cost (shutting down the entire economy) and would make no meaningful climatic difference even if atmospheric carbon dioxide was the driver of global climate that the alarmists claim it is.

For further perspective, consider that 27 parts per million ago (i.e., 364 parts per million) was, temporally speaking, 1997 — since which time there has been no significant global warming, even according to the alarmists.

But remember we here have been fantasizing wildly about the effect of a carbon tax. No carbon tax enacted into law — even by an Obama-fearing 113th Congress — would come any where close to significantly reducing, much less stopping fossil fuel use in the U.S. anytime soon.

In reality, goods and services would simply be made to cost more. The atmosphere and climate would not be affected in any significant way. Consumer dollars would have less purchasing power — a phenomenon called inflation.

Sadly, some prominent conservative economists support a carbon tax.

Reagan economist Arthur Laffer would support a tax in exchange for a reduction in payroll or income taxes. Bush 43 economist Greg Mankiw supports a global tax. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, senior adviser to John McCain in 2008, wants a tax to provide the energy industry with regulatory “certainty.”

As smart as these guys may be, none of them has apparently done the simple math that shows a carbon tax is a policy futility that buys less than nothing.

Hurricane Sandy shows what life is like without fossil fuels; it’s not a reason to do away with them. President Obama doesn’t care about the realities of climate; for him and his kind, global warming is an excuse to seize greater control of the economy. As to congressional Republicans, don’t panic; do the (simple) math.

• By Steven Milloy (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Steven Milloy
November 14, 2012 •Leave a Comment
Tagged With: cap & trade, carbon tax, how liberals or progressives think, liberal lies, Obama failure
Filed Under: America, Canada, Columnists, Steven Milloy
• Also follow Joel Johannesen on Twitter -- @JoelJohannesen

The State (not North Korea, but a Canadian province) issues wine to the plebs. From France.

By Joel Johannesen (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
November 13, 2012 •Leave a Comment
Tagged With: how liberals or progressives think, liquor stores, socialism

Just a couple of weeks ago, I wrote, disdainfully of course, about how the benevolent bureaucrats at the huge British Columbia government’s huge liquor sales politburo called the “Liquor Distribution Branch” issued forth its official annual whiskey availability. The state allowed the masses to purchase these goods from the government-owned and government-run liquor stores, staffed by public-sector union employees, using scarce after-tax dollars, but only after first paying huge government markups, surcharges, and liquor taxes on the consumer goods. (See “Comrades! State-owned liquor politburo has chosen our official annual whiskey choices for us!“)

Today, with a similar government news release not unlike a Soviet-era farm report (only cheerier and more smug and glib), they have announced the government’s release of some wine that they have decided to allow the pretend-free people of BC to enjoy, now that the government has used the taxpayers’ dollars to arranged for the purchase (oops — investment!), on their behalf. (See below)

On the upside, we learn to speak more socialist. For example, did you know that one of the core functions of today’s progressive government is “Liquor Distribution Branch portfolio manager for European wine”? I for one did not know that. But there it is in the news release. Also available for more information in case you need to deploy government services with regard to wine: “Senior Communications Program Officer, Liquor Distribution Branch,” and the separate “Communications Manager, Liquor Distribution Branch.” The government’s conveniently located BC Liquor Stores (closed on Sunday) are, naturally, a part of the larger Ministry of Energy, Mines and Natural Gas politburo. I see the relationship.

Ironically, I found this all out once again via Tweet by way of one of the many government accounts at the private-sector-owned Twitter.com. So I imagine there is also a Senior Twitter Tweet Communications Social Media Program Officer, Liquor Distribution Branch, as well as a Manager of Tweeting Services, Liquor Distribution Branch.

Last time, I joked that the even bigger federal government-owned and taxpayer-funded money-losing media behemoth, the dreadful CBC, hadn’t informed me about it, which would have seemed a natural. But perhaps they’re reading my articles now, because this time, not a moment after today’s BC Government tweet popped-up on my screen, the state-owned, CBC tweeted the news for the citizens via one of their own 800 Twitter accounts.

It’s beautiful. Your progressive governments in action, providing the people with what the government deems to be their much deserved and much needed core government services. In this case, Beaujolais Nouveau.

Here’s the BC government tweet:

2012 Beaujolais Nouveau offered by BC Liquor Stores http://t.co/i8jqd6j8

November 13, 2012 11:17 am via twitterfeed ReplyRetweetFavorite

@BC_Government

BCGovernment

And here’s the federal government’s CBC News tweet:

The 2012 Beaujolais Nouveau is being released at BC Liquor stores Thursday, Nov. 15.

November 13, 2012 11:20 am via TweetDeck ReplyRetweetFavorite

@cbcnewsbc

CBC British Columbia

Here’s the news release:

• By Joel Johannesen (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
November 13, 2012 •Leave a Comment
Tagged With: how liberals or progressives think, liquor stores, socialism
Filed Under: BC, Canada
• Also follow Joel Johannesen on Twitter -- @JoelJohannesen

Good luck, America (you’ll need it)

By Theo Caldwell (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Theo Caldwell
November 9, 2012 •Leave a Comment
Tagged With: campaign 2012, conservatives, how liberals or progressives think, liberalism, Obama

And here I believed that Obamacare, chronic 8 percent unemployment, stagnant economic growth, crippling spending and the potential for more would sink a sitting president. Boy howdy, was I ever wrong. I take small comfort that people far smarter than I am were much more mistaken than I was – Michael Barone and George Will among them – but even so, I and my fellow crestfallen conservatives must ask ourselves just why we were so far off the mark.

My friend David Frum (also smarter than I am) has for years been urging Republicans to moderate if, in David’s parlance, they wish to orchestrate a “Comeback” in national politics. With a monsoon of respect for David’s intellect, I disagree with that notion.

Our previous nominee, John McCain, was as moderate as they come – even downright lefty on some issues – and he got trounced. Mitt Romney, meanwhile, despite apparently successful efforts to paint him as a corporate pirate, swinging in from the hard right with a dagger in his mouth and a briefcase full of pink slips in his free hand, is and was a moderate, too.

This may seem like utter rhubarb to those who have been fed a steady diet of Romney’s supposed radicalism, but here is a man who spoke of tax cuts as “spending,” enacted gender quotas (see also, “binders”), and, not for nothing, constructed the state-level prototype for Obamacare.

Moderate or not, we have seen that GOP presidential candidates are painted as extreme. With that in mind, can Republicans reconcile their core beliefs with an electorate that thinks in completely different terms? For example, we believe that a simpler tax system with lower rates increases tax revenue, while causing the wealthy to pay a greater share, and we can prove it by citing presidencies all the way back to Calvin Coolidge (as economist Thomas Sowell has done). But what good does that do when the reflex of every journalist, politician and undecided voter is to refer to tax cuts as something you “pay for”?

On social issues, Republican candidates will always be asked the most difficult, gut-wrenching questions, regardless of whether they choose to campaign on such matters. In a way, this is a good thing, as it forces us to scrutinize our views. But Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock ought to have known that, sure as God made little green apples, Republicans running for office will be asked about abortion in the cases of rape, incest or the life of the mother. If the best you can do is make Leviticus sound like a Planned Parenthood pamphlet, let someone else run.

To be sure, Democrats will almost never be asked to defend partial-birth abortion (or “late-term” abortion, as they insist it be called, along with attendant euphemisms like “evacuating the cranial cavity”), nor will they be asked just why an infant who survives an abortion should be denied medical care and left to die – as was Barack Obama’s policy as a member of the Illinois legislature.

But that’s just life on the right. There are many such unfair double standards; it’s why Republican Sharron Angle is supposedly too obtuse for the US Senate, yet a Democratic loony tune like Debbie “I can feel global warming when I fly” Stabenow cruises to re-election.

Republicans knew much of this going into the election, though. So again, why were we wrong and can we win without compromising our beliefs?

Columnist Andrew Klavan notes, “The smartest political writers in the country, all of whom are conservative, will now be addressing those questions.” But is it even a question of who is smarter than whom? For example, is Charles Krauthammer smarter than Paul Krugman? (Answer: Oh, yes). That said, Krugman was closer to calling this election than Krauthammer was.

Barone has been typically gentlemanly and philosophical in defeat: “So I was wrong. I take some pleasure in finding I have been wrong, because it’s an opportunity to learn more. As I prowl through the 2012 election statistics I will have an opportunity to learn much more about America and where we are today…Lots to learn for all of us.”

And perhaps therein lay the answer. Maybe we were so far off because the United States simply isn’t the country we thought it was.

As an American immigrant, I idealized this nation’s embodiment of liberty. Bit by bit, I have had to let go of those illusions. The Land of the Free locks people up at a rate 13 times faster than its population growth, and holds more prisoners than any other country on Earth. Its tax department treats citizens and their families as US government property, regardless of where they live in the world. And now that same IRS will be the arbiter of whether your health care meets the requirements of the federal government that ordered you to buy it.

Two years ago, I wrote that Americans would not stand for the excesses of a depraved organization like the TSA. And yet, polls show widespread support for that literal manifestation of government overreach, even as its perversions have spread beyond airports. Citizens born into freedom obediently line up to be molested and manhandled by government employees in the name of “safety.” No one wants to break from the herd. In truth, Americans would rather belong than be free.

Actually, it seems Americans rather like being told what to do. And that is what modern liberalism is all about – telling you what you can say, what you can eat, what kind of car you can drive, and whether you must wear a helmet while talking, eating or driving. The late William F. Buckley described a liberal as, “someone who wants to reach into your shower and adjust the temperature of the water.” Americans have voted for just that kind of official officiousness.

I never would have thought it, and it flies in the face of convention to say so but, with lower tax rates, greater freedom of movement, and a more liberated view of industry and energy, Canadians are more attuned to freedom than their American cousins are (socialized medicine notwithstanding, but just wait…).

It is said that Americans will elect anyone to Congress – once (John Edwards, please call your office). Since 2008, I have wondered if the same is true of the presidency. Obama swept into his first term amid a unique confluence of events, including a financial crisis, a deeply unpopular incumbent party, and a somnambulant Republican opponent. It could have been a fluke.

And despite his liberal leanings, I thought it was possible Obama might pleasantly surprise. As I wrote at the time, “Here’s hoping that he is such a smashing success that he gets busted onto Mt. Rushmore and his face knocks Thomas Jefferson’s right off the nickel.”

But it was no fluke, and Obama was utterly unsurprising. As I said on radio after this year’s election, nothing would make me happier than to become a fan of Barack Obama. But this time, there is far less reason for hope. He has proven to be the hard-left, big-government liberal he seemed. And Americans seem to be okay with this.

I genuinely do not know if conservatism can win again, or what this will mean for the future of the nation. While others on the right have pronounced this to be the end of America, perhaps they’ll forgive me if I rage a little longer against the dying of the light.

Lord knows I have been wrong before (and recently), so I hesitate to make hard and fast predictions. Nevertheless, it seems that in re-electing Obama, the United States has ratified its own decline. Good luck, America. You’re going to need it.

• By Theo Caldwell (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Theo Caldwell
November 9, 2012 •Leave a Comment
Tagged With: campaign 2012, conservatives, how liberals or progressives think, liberalism, Obama
Filed Under: America, Canada, Theo Caldwell
• Also follow Joel Johannesen on Twitter -- @JoelJohannesen

Comrades! State-owned liquor politburo has chosen our official annual whiskey choices for us!

By Joel Johannesen (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
November 1, 2012 •Leave a Comment
Tagged With: how liberals or progressives think, socialism

The giant BC government has tasted not just Soviet-style Kool-Aid (and they just love the stuff!), but also the single-malt whiskey from around the world. And I presume they flew the world over to do it. They must be very tired. They are ever so benevolent.

Apparently they prefer, for us, a concoction of two-parts Kool-Aid to two parts socialist (they believe in equality).

They have chosen the brands of liquor that they deem, in their inestimable and superior wisdom, that we the people shall be allowed to buy. From them, of course. Through their state-owned, state-run stores. For they don’t just own and run public-sector union-staffed liquor stores, they control the purchase and distribution and price of liquor too. Which they tax the bejeezus out of.

I learned about this official BC government whiskey news today not through the bigger state-owned CBC media behemoth, which would have been yet another oh-so terrific use of taxpayer cash, but rather, this time, through the private-sector-owned Twitter.com in a tweet from a BC Government account operated by the state bureaucrats. Which is weird on so many levels, not the least of which is the fact that it helps kill, once again, their stupid arguments for their socialist ideologies, and shows once again just how miserably they are failed.

The tweet reads like it were the Soviets announcing the state’s annual crop yields:

The link included within the tweet is to their official government news release about the whiskey, and if you can manage to forget it’s from the state, it reads like a marketing email from Sears touting their latest widgets. The words about the whiskey being made available by them to the people just seem to roll off their proverbial tongues as if this were all just a perfectly normal exercise.

By way of reminder, it’s written on government paper. About whiskey. A consumer commodity that they, the government, are making available to us, the people, to consume. We the people. Yes, it’s about a consumer product which we will be authorized by them, after they made the selection for us, to buy, at state-owned, state-run liquor stores.

In a free country.

Seriously.

In case you can’t read the above graphic representation of the news release, here it is in text form:

NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release
2012EMNG0034-001680

Nov. 1, 2012

Ministry of Energy, Mines and Natural Gas
BC Liquor Distribution Branch

Annual premium spirit release in BC Liquor Stores

VANCOUVER – Starting this Saturday, a special collection of premium spirits will be available at Signature BC Liquor Stores throughout the province.

The 2012 Spirit Release features a large collection of premium whiskies and other spirits from around the world. From traditional regions like Scotland, to emerging market leaders like Japan and France, these products will appeal to both new collectors and avid connoisseurs.

“There is truly something for everyone in this release,” said Adele Shaw, Liquor Distribution Branch portfolio manager for spirits. “This year’s release has a range of whiskies from around the world that feature a variety of styles and flavour profiles.”

This year’s collection of premier spirits is an opportunity to explore the ever-changing world of whisky. Along with award-winning whiskies from Japan, one of the rarest, old whiskies in the world – a 70-year-old Glenlivet from Gordan and MacPhail, of which only 175 bottles were produced for worldwide sale – will be available in select stores.

“There should be a whisky that appeals to every person’s palate, but if you’re not a whisky lover we also have a beautiful 21-year-old rum from Panama,” said Shaw.

BC Liquor Stores has published a 2012 Premium Spirit Release booklet listing the products available in this release, along with detailed tasting notes and information about specific bottle limits. The booklet is available in all participating stores, as well as online at: www.bcliquorstores.com

The products are available at all Signature BC Liquor Stores, however, the rarest of the selection are available in limited quantities, so some bottle restrictions will apply and buyers are advised to shop early to avoid disappointment. The broadest selection can be found at the 39th & Cambie location in Vancouver.

A release-day tasting will also be held from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 3 at the 39th & Cambie Signature BC Liquor Store. Join LDB Spirits portfolio manager Adele Shaw, along with Beam Global Canadian scotch brand ambassador Dan Volway, for a taste of this year’s spirit release products.

Learn More:

www.bcliquorstores.com/premium-spirit-release-november-3

Media Contact:
Michele Mackintosh
Communications Manager
BC Liquor Distribution Branch
604 252-3029
604 838-1105

I could go on, but let me just add my mantra, which I usually append to my anti state-owned CBC rants: the state has no business being in business. It should be banned, and that notion should be enshrined in the constitution.

• By Joel Johannesen (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
November 1, 2012 •Leave a Comment
Tagged With: how liberals or progressives think, socialism
Filed Under: BC, Canada, Columnists, Joel Johannesen
• Also follow Joel Johannesen on Twitter -- @JoelJohannesen

Public school enrollment has fallen 11.3% in 14 yrs in BC, while private schools are up 22%.

By Joel Johannesen (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
October 31, 2012 •Leave a Comment
Tagged With: how liberals or progressives think, left-wing labor unions, liberal academia, NDP, socialism, teachers unions

Once again, it’s easy to see the value of our good conservatives’ market-based arguments and solutions in contradistinction to the progressive left’s big nanny-state government and its non-market-based ideologies, which are failing the needs and desires of the market — i.e., the people. And this time it really is about the kids and schooling them.

The students at public schools aren’t getting grades that are as good as those at independent schools. If that isn’t enough, how about this: there are huge waiting lists to get into private schools; and public school enrollment has fallen 11.3% in 14 yrs in BC, while private schools are up 22%. Presumably if there were more private schools, the stats would be better — or to put it another way, worse for public schools and their ideological sycophants.

That is according to the latest statistics, as discussed at the liberal-friendly Vancouver Sun this week:

Waiting for education in Metro Vancouver

Despite the often heard claim that parents prefer public education, British Columbians are increasingly choosing to send their children to independent schools. Unfortunately for many parents who want their children to attend independent schools, thousands of children end up on waiting lists each year.

Simple enrolment statistics illustrate the fact that parents in B.C. are increasingly choosing independent schools. Since peaking in 1997-98, public school enrolment has fallen from almost 616,000 students to 546,000, a decline of 11.3 per cent. At the same time, independent school enrolment has increased by 22.4 per cent. As of 2011-12, the most recent year for which statistics are available, a little more than one-in-ten of all primary and secondary students in the province attended an independent school. [...]

– Vancouver Sun op/ed by Jason Clemens, executive-vice president of the Fraser Institute and author of Wait Times for Independent Schools in the Lower Mainland, available at www.fraserinstitute.org.

And once again, the progressives of the Left (the socialists in the NDP and the Liberals, and not a few “Conservatives”), will fail to address the problem of a shortage of independent schools honestly – in fact they’ll argue that the solution is to further restrict the tried and true market-based solutions, which people want and which would actually fix the problem. (Seriously – they want to restrict the growth of private schools, or anything else driven by the free market: “We reject the brutal and snarling, snapping and predatory world of the marketplace.” – BC Teachers Federation president Susan Lambert to members of her union this summer). And instead they’ll once again argue that the answer is to pump still more taxpayer cash at the existing problem (because, see, government fixes everything!).

To progressives, the reason any state-owned entity isn’t working is because it isn’t big enough yet, and the government still isn’t throwing enough taxpayer cash at it yet, and the simple solution is to make it bigger, more government controlled, more bureaucratic, hire more workers, fund it still more (or to use their specious terminology, “invest” more) , and generally meddle more until their ideology works. Note that this has never actually worked in real life.

As a matter of fact, if I understand socialism and communism correctly, the reason that even private, citizen-owned means of production like GM and Chrysler fail is that they aren’t state-owned, or at least controlled to the point where they might as well be.

I’ve been saying for years that it’s obvious the public schools in British Columbia, which are ostensibly run by the state but are, as is so often the case, actually run by massive militant left-wing public-sector unions which are actually political parties known in this case as the teachers’ union, are failing on many levels.

This is what failure looks like: Many kids graduate from public schools like zombie, state-reliant liberal-leftists, just as they are taught to be. They embrace the concept of government-run anything, and government social programs or entitlement programs. They love big government as a general matter. They expect government solutions to every problem. They believe not just in equal opportunity, as we all do, but in equal outcomes as well. They are generally so liberal-left, they don’t even know how liberal-leftist they are.

On the flip-side, they have also learned a disdain for, or even an abject hatred of almost anything remotely conservative, like those things we used to take for granted in this country, and which built our country: traditional families, capitalism, self-reliance rather than government reliance, a preference for small government, a disdain for government meddling and social engineering, and a traditional society ensconced by God-loving, Judeo-Christian values.

They have a learned suspicion or distrust or even an outright hatred – not of big government, as they should – but of capitalism and the free market place and even of regular businesses and corporations, large or small; and in fact anything that isn’t government-owned or government-controlled is suspect.

For example, many in this country assume that the socialism-reliant, state-owned CBC is a politically and culturally neutral media, rather than the objective truth, which is that they’re firmly left-wing or even far left-wing culturally, politically, economically, and in every which way; while the other networks like CTV and Global and Sun TV are “right-wing” (though they don’t even understand “right-wing” or conservatism) simply by virtue of the fact that they aren’t state-owned.

And why would you expect anything else? The schools are themselves state-owned, taxpayer-funded institutions, run by a far-left militant teachers’ union. Together they are totally reliant on the maintenance of an overtly non-market, socialist model – including big government – and preferably a government consisting of one socialist provincial political party which in this case is owned by and funded by them and other huge public-sector unions — the NDP. The huge union funds the party that wins elections and forms government, and then their government “bargains” with them and rewards them and pays them, and together they run the schools, and decide what they will teach, and mold the outcomes that they desire.

Parents are catching onto the progressives’ lie. In droves. And that makes the future look brighter. What BC needs is a political party to vote for, which boldly, openly, embraces the values the people are clearly seeking.