ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG is celebrating Trump's success in keeping transgenders out of the U.S. armed forces.  Zeg is himself a former Army man





Why the Australia Day debate, and discussion about any other divisive issue, is now basically pointless

It's true that Left/Right hostility is now at a high level but who pushed it there?  Who was it who introduced all these new claims of Leftist righteousness and corresponding conservative infamy -- such as trying to destroy the patriotic holiday of Australia Day?  It was not conservatives.  They have just stuck with doing what they have always done and saying what they have always said.  It is the Left who are behind all these new hates and rages. 

The article below talks as if Left and Right were equally to blame for all the hostile arguments but all conservatives have done is to defend themselves and their customs from a whole wave of new and vitriolic attacks.  The Left have started it and only the Left can end it.  But they seem to be eaten up with hate at the moment so no change seems likely. 

Why are they do full of hate?  Because people worldwide are rejecting them and hate is how they react to rejection. Humility is beyond them. Trump, Brexit, nationalist regimes in much of Europe, Bolsonaro in Brazil, AfD in Germany, the big vote for the  Sweden Democrats and now the yellow jackets in France signal a severe cutback in Leftist influence worldwide -- and it enrages them

Leftist hatred of those who disagree with them is not new however. Thomas Jefferson in 1808 said: "It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish between political and social opposition; who transferred at once to the person, the hatred they bore to his political opinions."

So it's no surprise that there's a similar hostility situation in Britain -- only there the issue is Brexit.  We read:

"The traditional January spike in divorce applications is off the scale, and it’s all because of Brexit. Leaver and Remainer couples are leaving each other in droves. Apparently.

According to one survey by the dating site eharmony, Brexit bust-ups were named as one of the biggest factors in breaking up with a partner since the 2016 referendum - with 1.6 million people nationally saying that they had split up with a long-term partner or stopped seeing someone new because of the arguments".


This time in 12 months, the country will once again find itself bitterly divided over whether to keep Australia Day on January 26 or move it out of respect for indigenous people.

It’s a safe bet that we’ll also still be arguing over how, or if at all, we should respond to climate change and whether immigration is too high, among other contentious issues.

The reality is that Aussies can’t agree on much these days and have become so rusted on to their existing beliefs that a discussion or debate usually descends into a verbal brawl.

“It’s human nature to want to find our tribes and fit in with them,” behaviourist Phil Owens told news.com.au.

“As we do that, we shift further and further to extreme positions. The leaders of those positions usually take more and more extreme positions, and if you’re only in that group, you get confirmation bias — you believe your view is the majority view.”

While this kind of natural behaviour has always occurred in some capacity, the rapid rise of social media has given it a nuclear effect, he said.

And it’s destroying the way we converse with each other — particularly those with different views.

We now increasingly digitally curate our friends based on their views, cherrypick the information we receive and build like-minded online circles to move in.

And it’s bleeding into real life, researchers say.

A study by a popular dating website in the US last year found 72 per cent of American singles wouldn’t date someone who supported an opposing political party.

This trend has prompted a number of right-wing dating apps to launch, while existing services have introduced political filters.

It’s one small example of how opposed to opposing views many of us have become.

Take the debate about Australia Day.

On one side, there’s a group who want to keep it as it is, while on the other are those who think it’s disrespectful to indigenous peoples.

One might think a good approach would be to rationally engage both sides, respecting their differing views, to try to find some common ground.

“What Scott Morrison did recently in saying we one group can have Australia Day as it is and those who don’t want it can have another day, the day after, is so divisive,” Mr Owens said.

“That’s not the way to solve an issue. There’s a lot of meaning put into Australia Day from both sides. Until we can pull the heat out of it and have a conversation, nothing will change.”

So he rejects compromise as a solution.  His solution is a "conversation".  As if we haven't been having a huge conversation already!  It is tempting to dismiss the man as a dolt but if you know what Leftists mean by a conversation, it is a bit different.  It means the Left badgering you to into agreeing with them

SOURCE 






Crowd-funder for Sarah Jane Parkinson's victims

An email from Bettina Arndt, who highlights female abuse of men

I have been doing some fun radio interviews about #MenToo in recent weeks. As expected, I had real trouble getting any of the ABC announcers interested, apart from two interviews, one in Cairns and the other in Hobart. I thought you might enjoy the lively discussion with Adam Stephens in Cairns and some of the talk-back from the Hobart show.

I loved the feminist calling in to say she was glad she wasn’t drinking a hot cup of tea when listening to me because she would have splattered it everywhere!

Here’s the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA8Dvj-XNk0. Please help me circulate it.

It would be great if you could contact your local radio stations and try to persuade them to do an interview. The main point of my book was to use it to promote public discussion of men’s issues. That’s starting to happen but it is an uphill battle getting the media to come on board.

GoFundMe under feminist influence?

I’ve been engaged in a frustrating battle this week with the crowd-funding organisation, GoFundMe. Following many requests from people who watched my last video about the false rape accuser, Sarah Jane Parkinson, I am now starting a crowd-funder to raise money for her victims, Dan and his family. Parkinson’s malicious campaign to destroy Dan and his family, with the help of crooked cops, led to Dan’s parents spending over $300,000 trying to protect their son.

We were just getting organised when GoFundMe suddenly stalled on launching the campaign, demanding details of my relationship with the recipients of the donations and ominously, ‘anything else you feel may help us better understand your campaign’s purpose’.

That was odd since I was not asked for such details in previous campaigns such as the one for Rob Tiller. I can only assume that a red flag went off over the idea of a false rape accuser but my subsequent hissy fit finally convinced them they might not enjoy the publicity if they persisted in obstructing the campaign.

So we’re finally up and running. Here’s the link to the crowd-funder and I hope you will dig deep to help this shattered family.

https://www.gofundme.com/47bx5q.

(Note we’ve made a short version of the interview with Dan, which might be easier for you to promote on social media.)

https://twitter.com/thebettinaarndt/status/1088261228844134400

Write to ACT Attorney General seeking an ex gratia payment for Dan’s family

We also need you all to write to the ACT Attorney General seeking an ex gratia payment to Dan’s family to recover their legal expenses, given the fake charges and corrupt police involvement in the case. Here is the page on my website containing details you need to write to the AG.

http://www.bettinaarndt.com.au/letter-to-act-attorney-general-re-ex-gratia-payment/

bettina@bettinaarndt.com.au






Owner of ‘The Battered Wife’ fish and chip shop closing down after ‘abusive witch hunt’

You must treat feminist causes with deadly seriousness. Any jokey mention of such causes brings vicious attacks from the "sisters" -- even if it is a "sister" they are attacking

When Carolyn Kerr named her Far North Queensland fish and chip shop “The Battered Wife”, the former cop was trying to start a dialogue around domestic violence. Instead an “abusive witch hunt” has killed her small business.

Ms Kerr made headlines in November when a photo of her Innisfail shopfront, depicting the words “The Battered Wife … The only battering anyone need know”, was posted on social media.

The words divided Australia after domestic violence groups [i.e. feminists] accused Ms Kerr of making light of men hitting women. A number of Queensland politicians also condemned the name.

But less than three months after the uproar, Ms Kerr has taken to social media to post a tearful video explaining why she’s shutting up shop. “It is with a heavy heart that I inform you that The Battered Wife will cease trading on Monday,” Ms Kerr, a survivor of domestic violence herself, wrote.

Through tears, Ms Kerr said her decision to close was one made with “deep, deep sadness”.

“I’ve been the subject of an abusive witch hunt by a not-for-profit organisation who are anti-abuse however they threatened to throw bricks through my window, they complained to ASIC to have my business name revoked but I got through that one,” she said.

Since opening her shop in 2017, Ms Kerr was forced to regularly defend the business’s name but an upcoming audit from Fair Work has left the Queenslander unable to stay open.

“I don’t know how much the accountant is going to cost me to get the information together just to get through the hoops,” she said.  “I just can’t see any way that I can trade my way through it.”

The Innisfail business is being sold for $69,000 however Ms Kerr has offered up the entire property, including a house behind the shop, for $330,000. “Virtually everything you see is for sale,” Ms Kerr said.

“My biggest disappointment is informing my team that they no longer have a job.”

Ms Kerr was interviewed by Today last year and labelled suggestions her shop name was promoting domestic violence as “ludicrous”.

“There is a lot of beautiful, intelligent women out there in really bad situations and to assume that I was making light of the subject, that I was promoting it … No-one is going to walk past my shop and say, ‘The Battered Wife. Hey, how about we take some advice on this?’” Ms Kerr said.

“It is just ludicrous. The way it has been misconstrued is quite offensive. “It is disappointing that the mentality of the people who have thrown this at me [feminists] is that they condemn the violence. They condemn domestic violence but they are using that same intimidation and abusive tactics … They are no better than anyone else.”

She explained on Today how she came up with the name. “Originally it was suggested to me as a little bit of a joke. But it seemed, yeah, like an interesting option with a bit of spark, you know,” she said.

“Something that could provoke questions, could provoke curiosity. But also the play on words for the shop itself, being a fish and chip shop.”

SOURCE 






Feminists should learn from John Howard: it’s a matter of personal choice

Janet Albrechtsen uses some Australian examples to highlight the Fascist nature of feminism:

How galling it must be for feminists that John Howard understands modern women better than many of them do. How exasperating for them that his feminism is far more liberating for, and respectful of, women than theirs.

A few years ago, during a National Press Club address, the former prime minister suggested that a 50-50 representation of men and women in politics is utopian planning. It is not grounded in reality, he observed. In the real world, women make choices. And many choose children over a demanding career in politics. This week, Kelly O’Dwyer proved Howard’s point. Her decision to resign for deeply personal family reasons is not a defeat for women. It is a celebration of women’s choices.

The usual band of women went wild over Howard’s straightforward remark that many women choose not to go into politics for sensible reasons. It’s a killer on family life. It takes parents away from children. And many women choose not to go down that path.

How dare he suggest women might not want to aspire to a political career in numbers equal to men? What would he know? He’s plain wrong, they said back then.

And they keep saying it. Last month, in a puff piece for The Australian Women’s Weekly, former Liberal MP Julia Banks took aim at what she called “Howard-era” thinking about women and work. It’s entrenched, she insisted.

The warrior for “gender equality” who deserted the Liberal party took a swipe at Prime Minister Scott Morrison as a traditional man, a religious man whose mentor is Howard. Then she took aim at women who make different choices to hers, women who are stay-at-home mums.

“Now I don’t have an issue with stay-at-home mums,” she said. “But I do in the sense that I believe all women should be, if not at some period in their life, they should ­ensure their financial independence … and not to be dependent on anyone.”

If you think stay-at-home mums have made the wrong choice, it’s an easy leap to demand that women and men fill up parliament in equal numbers. But notice the glaring gaps in the claim by women such as Banks that a 50-50 representation in parliament is a matter of fairness?

The first, and fatal, flaw is that these faux feminists are not interested in women’s choices. Fuelled by arrogance and paternalism, they imagine that all women must choose as they do, that women will want to go in politics in equal numbers to men. Ergo, if women choose anything else, it must be a coerced choice made under the weight of structural biases, patriarchal demands.

When O’Dwyer announced her intention to leave politics at the next election, she spoke from the heart about missing special times with her children “and how many more I will miss” if she stayed. The cabinet minister said she was no longer willing to consistently miss seeing her children in the morning or at night. “They clearly want to spend more time with me too.”

Sadly, O’Dwyer felt the need to satisfy the band of feminist ideologues that ignore the beauty of women’s choices. You don’t need to choose between family and public life, she said.

But her actions spoke louder. Sacrifices are made in any career, more so in those that involve long hours away from family. After a decade in Canberra, O’Dwyer chose family over politics.

Her decision mirrors that of many women who have come or will come to the same conclusion, only sooner than she did. There is no right or wrong here, only a deeply personal decision. What is wrong is an ideology that demeans the choices women make.

I made a similar decision when a very senior Liberal suggested a nice seat in federal politics for me. My children were on the cusp of teenage years, a time when I wanted to be around them more often than not. It’s when kids think they don’t need you that maybe they do. Scheduling quality time made no sense to me, so I chose quantity and that meant saying no to politics. Working from home didn’t guarantee a bump-free ride for them or for me. But my choice to work from home to raise children will always be, for me at least, life’s greatest privilege in all its messy and demanding, frustrating and rewarding glory.

Not every woman can stay at home with their children. Money and other matters can get in the way. But when that choice exists, it should be respected and celebrated, not dismissed as part of some kind of “entrenched” patriarchy. Maybe when we celebrate caring for children, more men will embrace it too.

Alas, women who wear a feminist label on their sleeve have a nasty knack for deriding the choices of other women. Union leader Sally McManus accused O’Dwyer of “throwing in the towel”. No empathy there for O’Dwyer’s very personal reasons for leaving politics. No celebration of a woman’s desire to spend more time with her children. What a cold world McManus inhabits.

Banks has planted her red flag with the same band of ideologues. She deserves credit for winning a seat, but in the end, she was a poor fit for politics. Her feminism is not an empowering one, sitting at odds with a liberalism based on respecting individual freedom over the ­arrogance of central planners like her.

Along with Labor’s Emma Husar, Banks’s feminism is framed by gender tantrums. When women stop blaming men for their own misfortune, mistakes and misdeeds, perhaps feminism will come of age.

The siren call for 50 per cent female representation in parliament is central planning nonsense. The reality of women’s preferences suggests that a 30 per cent target is closer to the mark. Anything more exposes the second killer flaw in the “fairness” argument — it relies on discrimination in favour of women.

It is no coincidence that those who push hardest for a 50 per cent target or quota that does not reflect the full gamut of women’s choices are usually those who most need the additional 20 per cent to make it in politics.

It’s even worse in the corporate world, where the incompetence issue is more pronounced. That’s not to say there are no incompetent men in business and politics. Plenty of men need to be moved on. But to set up a system that demands promotion for those in the red zone of incompetence is a sign of how gender ideology is making the political arena, and business, dumber for a political cause.

The “gender equality” ideologues understand the golden skirts phenomenon only too well. In business, generous targets and quotas that promote the incompetent drive up the economic value of the scarce number of competent women. The incompetent love quotas because they’re in with a chance; the competent love them too because it inflates their economic value. They are swamped with offers. In politics, the neat pay-off is not so much about more money, but greater power.

Howard’s understanding of women isn’t rocket science. His feminism is not stubborn ideology. It is based on celebrating the beauty of women’s choices, something that should be the core of modern feminism.

SOURCE 

 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here