Pioneer Railway

 Welfare-police state  No Responses »
Aug 072008
 

From a WSJ article about the comeback of the Children’s Railway in Hungary (aka the Pioneer Railway). It’s run by childen aged 10 to 14.

Fun wasn’t the goal in 1948, when the line was created by Stalinist apparatchiks to train future rail workers and instill political obedience in youths.

Say, what? Install political obedience in youths? Would a government on our planet ever do such a thing?

Well, maybe it would. After all, what’s the purpose of seat belt laws and mind-numbing safety warnings on anything you can buy at the hardware store if not to get people in the habit of letting the government decide these things.

But back in Stalin’s day, Hungarian kids who qualified got special perks with which to lord it over their peers, such as Coca-Cola to drink. In our country kids can buy their own Coca-Cola.

Well, maybe a better analogy than seat belt laws would be organizations such as the Peace Corps and Americorps. And then there is Obama’s plan to institute mandatory volunteering for young people. Maybe we’re not so different from Stalin’s Hungary, after all.

My decision on Pardeep S. Gundara

 Free speech  No Responses »
Aug 072008
 

Important announcement:

Here is my decision in the matter of Ezra Levant and the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission:

I. Pardeep S. Gundara in his capacity as a private individual is hereby authorized to send a communication to Ezra Levant informing him that he respects his rights to free expression of opinion. Such communication must be made using his personal letterhead, personal e-mail, or personal phone.

II. Pardeep S. Gundara, in his capacity as Southern Director, is PROHIBITED from sending such communication, because it would have an intimidating effect suggesting that Ezra Levant may speak and publish only with government permission. No such communication may be sent using official government letterhead, official e-mail, or government telephone.

III. If Pardeep S. Gundara wishes to appeal my decision, he may post a request for review to this blog within 30 calendar days.

Also cross-posted to the Conservatism community on LiveJournal

Edited pronouns to show that Pardeep Gudnara is male, not female

Left-libertarianism

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Aug 072008
 

I posted the following over at the Libertarianism forum on LiveJournal, under the heading

Left-libertarianism = Totalitarian libertarianism

Q.  Would it be fair to characterize left-libertarians as people who want the freedom to choose for themselves while denying choice to everyone else?

A.  Yes.

A clever way to drive a post

 Bash the Messenger  No Responses »
Aug 022008
 

Image

The image is from Google News. Note that Obama admits that he was race-baiting, but somehow that’s not what appears in the headline at the Washington Post. (You can go read the article if you don’t believe me.) Instead, what makes the headline is an accusation for which the Obama camp offers no basis whatsoever. And the other newspapers aren’t much better, in that they offer their headlines to Obama to use as a megaphone. And I’ll bet Obama didn’t have to pay a dime of his campaign stash to get this kind of spin.

The stench of fascism

 Bash the Messenger, electoral politics  1 Response »
Aug 012008
 

I had almost forgotten about this. After Barry Goldwater won the Republican nomination in 1964 Pat Brown said, “The stench of fascism is in the air.” We conservatives used to put up with that kind of talk a lot, and learned to just let it roll off.

But now watch what happens when you point out that the leftwing fascists are acting like fascists. We get lectures about how we shouldn’t throw the fascist label around so casually.

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