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POPSFreedom From Speech ~ Editorial The U.N. is no stranger to assaults on decency and common sense. Indeed, the new ban on religious defamation is essentially a restatement of a measure approved by the General Assembly last year but barely noticed at the time. What makes this year’s resolution different, and more dangerous, is that it is supposed to move on from the General Assembly to another forum, where it might acquire real teeth: the second World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, scheduled to convene next April in Geneva. Many legal scholars believe that the decisions of international conferences of this sort can be incorporated into international law, putting them under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. Individual nations could not be forced to amend their laws, but they might find Interpol knocking at their doors, serving them extradition requests to hand over their cartoonists and novelists.
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POPSA monument to intolerance? No peace for the dead, either! This project, started in 2004, was frozen due to public outcry, most especially from Muslim religious authorities and the Israeli Islamic movement, as well as Orthodox Jews, about disturbing family graves, and the graves of venerated figures from Arab history and religion going back to Saladin and Muhammad. The site, near Independence Park in the centre of Jerusalem, is on disputed land, taken over by Israel's Land Administration in 1948 as absentee property, whose ownership is claimed by the Islamic authorities as waqf land, with their very present dead. It has been described as "disused", but local Muslims disagree and point out that it is still visited by relatives of the dead.
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POPSAnti-Intellectualism, Universities, and the Right To be sure, some subset of the conservative movement does seem to find policy arguments much more alluring when made with a regional accent, and there is no doubt that elite-bashing can be simple-minded and extreme, but the idea that conservative movement as a whole is turning its back on "book-learnin'" is just silly. We revere Churchill and Lincoln just as much as we ever did. The academy — and, consequently, our educated "elite" — do not. The problem is largely cultural, not political. The university system as a whole is culturally dominated by a system of thought that not only rejects conservatism (especially social conservatism), it considers it not even worth discussion. Conservatives can nominate attractive and urbane candidates all they want, but unless their ideas change, they will see increasing problems winning over an "educated" class that has spent year after year hearing only half the story.
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POPSLiberal Tolerance - Item 234,882 Those who oppose must be crushed. Seems like we see this all the time from the loving and heart-felt supporters of mankind who call themselves "progressives".
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POPSAnother View Earlier I clipped the TED video about this movement. Here's another take on this issue. I'm on the fence somewhat with this. On one hand, finding a way to reach fundamentalists and attempt to weaken their message seems like a good idea even if it doesn't address the problems with religion as a whole. Then we have Myer's take on this here which is much more antagonistic. Which will have more of an impact? I honestly don't know.
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POPSIs Proposition 8 Behind the 8 Ball? It should be!
When I read the questions on my Fl. ballot, I thought, “Why is Prop 8 there in all it's intolerance?” This election should be about issues not the same old worn out divisions, propagandized by the religious right for far too long. The GUNS, GAYS AND GOD mantra Karl Rove and his like, peddled, until the United States did not resemble anything UNITED, more like The Divided States of Amer. How naive of me, believing their divisive plan didn’t work and was therefore, over. With Separation of church & state a survivor. But here it was a religious question written into a civil ballot. Then, I thought, PROP 8 WILL SURELY BE DEFEATED... Wrong again. What will it take to keep religion out of the lives of people who do not wish to buy into it? What will it take to keep the prying eyes of the law out of our sexual orientation? It probably will never end but when the blind faith of religion wishes to erase that separation, we who are in possession of common sense must always fight back.
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POPSReligion: A Tool to Keep the Parasites Away? Sociobiology is criticized by many for promoting a sense of biological determinism reminiscent of social Darwinism or eugenics—although, one has to wonder, does that mean proselytization is a form of evolutionary suicide?
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POPSRepublican Rule Is Dangerous Altemeyer believes about 25 percent of the adult population in the United States is solidly authoritarian (with that group mostly composed of followers, and a small percentage of potential leaders). It is in these ranks of some 70 million that we find the core of the McCain/Palin supporters. They are people who are, in Altemeyer's words, are "so self-righteous, so ill-informed, and so dogmatic that nothing you can say or do will change their minds." In my book Conservatives Without Conscience, I set forth the traits of authoritarian leaders and followers, which have been distilled from a half-century of empirical research, during which thousands of people have voluntarily been interviewed by social scientists. The touch points in these somewhat-overlapping lists of character traits provide a clear picture of the characters of both John McCain and Sarah Palin. Altemeyer is a social scientist based in Canada (see the list at the site)
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POPSIntercultural Understanding We must always try to make life better and learn from our errors. In education we must show that we have learned and through education we must avoid the evils of intolerance, stereotypes and racism, which, alas, still exists and terrorize the existence of so many people around the world. “Education for Intercultural Understanding and Dialogue” 21. October 2008.
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POPSBarry Goldwater's Granddaughter: Why McCain Has Lost Our Vote
Also from the source: My grandfather (Paka) would never suggest denying a woman's right to choose. My grandmother co-founded Planned Parenthood in Arizona in the 1930's, a cause he supported. I'm not sure about how he would feel about marriage based on same-sex orientation. I think he would feel that love and respect for ones privacy is what matters most, not the intolerance and poor judgment displayed by McCain over the years. Paka respected our civil liberties and passed on the message that that we should conduct our lives standing up for the basic freedoms we hold so dear. Nothing about McCain, except for maybe a uniform, compares to the same ideology of what Goldwater stood for as a politician. The McCain/Palin plan is to appear diverse and inclusive, using women and minorities to push an agenda that makes us all financially vulnerable, fearful, and less safe. Nothing about the Republican ticket offers the hope America needs to regain its standing in the world
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POPSMuslim McCain staff, fans, confront anti-Islam pitchman This is cheerful: At McCain rally, a McCain staffer who is a Muslim, along with many passers-by, confront an anti-Muslim, anti-Obama pamphleteer. "Are you trying to lose this election for us?" "That's it; I'm voting for Obama." "I'm a Muslim and John McCain endorsed my run for Congress." Bravo! for some decent and courageous folks. Since it's a Brightcove video (3:09), click thru to the site - well worth it!
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POPSMuslim McCain Fans Confront Intolerance At Rally I give credit to the people, including the McCain campaign person, who cleared the bigot/idiot out of there. The other McCain supporters who pushed this racist person out of the rally also handled the situation well.
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POPSMuslim McCain Fans Confront Intolerance At Rally Video after the link and it finally restores my faith in McCain / Palin supporters. It's good to see some people standing up and denouncing these tactics. I still think it should be McCain / Palin doing the denouncing though.
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POPSHuman Rights Watch report on Venezuela: An echo of US propaganda This concerns me. HRW obviously has a strong reputation but this article questions its report on Venezuela. This article is quite convincing in its dealings with the HRW report. I sympathise with Latin American countries in the USA's backyard having once done a stint as a brigadista in Nicaragua in 1985
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POPS Sarah and the Earth--Incompatible Her deplorable environmental record was such common knowledge that John McCain couldn't have missed it, even if he napped through his vetting committee's report. So if the McCain/Palin ticket is elected, you should know what to expect. Although John McCain may once have openly refused to subscribe to the beliefs of the Republican Party's religious right, famously describing them as "agents of intolerance," his selection of Sarah Palin is a message (and not just to the party's fundamentalist right): If you thought that he understands the need to kick our fossil-fuel addiction and address global warming, if you believed his promises to build a green economy, forget about it. A McCain/Palin administration, just like the one before it, will continue -- and this is the best-case scenario -- to fiddle while the planet burns.
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POPS"Dos Caras" Obama Is Stoking Racial Antagonism
Here's the relevant part of the Spanish-language television commercial Mr. Obama is running in Hispanic communities: "They want us to forget the insults we've put up with . . . the intolerance . . . they made us feel marginalized in this country we love so much." Then the commercial flashes two quotes from me: ". . . stupid and unskilled Mexicans" and "You shut your mouth or you get out!" The first sound bite was extracted from a 1993 humorous monologue poking fun at the arguments against the North American Free Trade Agreement. Here's the context: "If you are unskilled and uneducated, your job is going south. Skilled workers, educated people are going to do fine 'cause those are the kinds of jobs Nafta is going to create. If we are going to start rewarding no skills and stupid people, I'm serious, let the unskilled jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do -- let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work." "Dos Caras" Obama es la gran mentir
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POPSOy vey Intolerance is catching on across religious lines. I say burqas for all!
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POPSIntolerance on the Left
If book banning is such a life-and-death issue to these celebrity foot soldiers for free speech, where were they four years ago when John Kerry and his rabid minions were pressuring Regnery Publishing to withdraw Unfit for Command from bookstores? Where were they when members of the Borders Books Employee Union were openly advocating sabotaging book sales? A message on the union’s members-only website urged: You guys don’t actually HAVE to sell the thing! Just “carelessly” hide the boxes, “accidentally” drop them off pallets, “forget” to stock the ones you have, and then suggest a nice Al Franken or Michael Moore book as a substitute . . . I don’t care if these Neandertals (sic) in fancy suits get mad at me, they aren’t regular customers anyway. Other than “Left Behind” books, they don’t read. Anything you can do to make them feel unwelcome is only fair. They are the people pushing retailers to cut costs, don’t forget. And they would censor your speech, your books,
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POPSWorld’s Gutter Governments To Sit In Judgment Over U.S. Human Rights Record However, even in other highly advanced English speaking nations such as Australia and Canada, these offences can be defined in such a way as “disparaging” a religion. This can consist of claiming that the doctrines of your faith are superior to that of another sect under consideration such as in the case of a Canadian ministry that pointed out the shortcomings of the Watchtower Society and in the case of McClean’s Magazine where those pointing out the intentions of radical Islamists have been sued for racial defamation but no action has been taken against the aspiring Jihadists wanting to kill people. Frankly, one could spend several lifetimes rifling through the human rights records of many of the nations on the U.N. Humans Rights Council and still not have the time to air America’s dirty laundry which is nothing more than a single used piece of toilet paper when compared to these cesspool countries.
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