THE PSYCHOLOGIST
-- R.G. Menzies
LIBERTARIAN/CONSERVATIVE DIGEST AND COMMENTARY FROM AN ACADEMIC PSYCHOLOGIST in Brisbane, Australia
Laugh of the day: SMH claims to be independent
There's "A letter to the reader" in the SMH today which is a barely camouflaged admission. The SMH does of course publish some conservative views but its lean to the Left is unmistakeable. So now they are in effect apologizing for that! One can only hope that it is a promise to do better that will be kept. They are obviously worried that their slant has alienated half of the population and sent them off to buy Murdoch publications instead. Bias is bad business. See the apologia below
In 180 years of publishing, The Sydney Morning Herald has never wavered from its core values and promise to its readers – to deliver journalistic integrity and independence.
The Herald is launching a campaign today to re-state its commitment to journalism without fear or favour, to journalism which is above political influence and to journalism which serves the community with the utmost integrity.
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The line between trusted sources of journalism and unmoderated noise has become blurred.
We appreciate that readers need information they can trust. Information that assists them make to make sense of their world.
In the first issue of the Herald, the publishers declared the publication would be so stridently independent that all sides of politics would come to view it as an opponent.
We remain committed to this ideal. We work in the public good.
The Sydney Morning Herald is neither a recipient of government funding nor a mouthpiece for a media magnate.
We do not take your trust for granted. We know we have to earn it every day.
The Herald's commitment to journalism with integrity and independence has never been so important as it is today.
We hope you agree and we thank you for your support.
Peter Fray
Publisher and Editor-in-chief
By JR on Monday, November 21, 2011
All comments containing Chinese characters will not be published as I do not understand them
This blog is written solely by John Ray, who has a Ph.D. degree in psychology and 200+ papers published in the academic journals of the social sciences. It does occasionally comment on issues in psychology but is mainly aimed at giving a conservative psychologist's view on a broad range of topics. There are very few conservative psychologists.
The blog originated in Australia and many (but not most) posts discuss Australian matters. Australians have an unusually good awareness of events outside their own country. Australian newspapers feature news from Britain and the USA not as an afterthought but as a major part of their coverage. So Australians do tend to have a truly Western heart, which is the reason behind the old name for this blog. So events in Australia, Britain and the USA all feature frequently here, plus occasional coverage of other places, particularly Israel.
A primer in American politics for non-Americans:
SCOTUS is the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest court in the land
The "GOP" stands for "Grand Old Party" and refers to the Republican party. The GOP is at present center/Right, while the Democrats have been undergoing a steady drift Leftwards and now have policies similar to mainstream European Leftist parties.
The ideological identity of both parties has however been very fluid -- almost reversing itself over time. In the mid 19th century, the GOP was the party of big government and concern for minorities while the Democrats advertised themselves as "The party of the white man" -- an orientation that lasted into the mid 20th century in the South. The Democrats are still obsessed with race but have now flipped into support for discrimination AGAINST whites.
Was Pope Urban VIII the first Warmist? Below we see him refusing to look through Galileo's telescope. People tend to refuse to consider evidence— if what they might discover contradicts what they believe.
Calibrated in whole degrees. Larger graph here
Climate scientist Lennart Bengtsson said. "The warming we have had the last 100 years is so small that if we didn't have meteorologists and climatologists to measure it we wouldn't have noticed it at all."
The term "Fascism" is mostly used by the Left as a brainless term of abuse. But when they do make a serious attempt to define it, they produce very complex and elaborate definitions -- e.g. here and here. In fact, Fascism is simply extreme socialism plus nationalism. But great gyrations are needed to avoid mentioning the first part of that recipe, of course.
Two examples of Leftist racism below (much more here and here):
Beatrice Webb, a founder of the London School of Economics and the Fabian Society, and married to a Labour MP, mused in 1922 on whether when English children were "dying from lack of milk", one should extend "the charitable impulse" to Russian and Chinese children who, if saved this year, might anyway die next. Besides, she continued, there was "the larger question of whether those races are desirable inhabitants" and "obviously" one wouldn't "spend one's available income" on "a Central African negro".
Hugh Dalton, offered the Colonial Office during Attlee's 1945-51 Labour government, turned it down because "I had a horrid vision of pullulating, poverty stricken, diseased nigger communities, for whom one can do nothing in the short run and who, the more one tries to help them, are querulous and ungrateful."
Defensible and indefensible usages of the term "racism"
The book, The authoritarian personality, authored by T.W. Adorno et al. in 1950, has been massively popular among psychologists. It claims that a set of ideas that were popular in the "Progressive"-dominated America of the prewar era were "authoritarian". Leftist regimes always are authoritarian so that claim was not a big problem. What was quite amazing however is that Adorno et al. identified such ideas as "conservative". They were in fact simply popular ideas of the day but ones that had been most heavily promoted by the Left right up until the then-recent WWII. See here for details of prewar "Progressive" thinking.
R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. He pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a war criminal. Both British and American codebreakers had cracked the Japanese naval code so FDR knew what was coming at Pearl Harbor. But for his own political reasons he warned no-one there. So responsibility for the civilian and military deaths at Pearl Harbor lies with FDR as well as with the Japanese. The huge firepower available at Pearl Harbor, both aboard ship and on land, could have largely neutered the attack. Can you imagine 8 battleships and various lesser craft firing all their AA batteries as the Japanese came in? The Japanese naval airforce would have been annihilated and the war would have been over before it began.
FDR prolonged the Depression. He certainly didn't cure it.
WWII did NOT end the Great Depression. It just concealed it. It in fact made living standards worse
Joe McCarthy was eventually proved right after the fall of the Soviet Union. To accuse anyone of McCarthyism is to accuse them of accuracy!
The KKK was intimately associated with the Democratic party. They ATTACKED Republicans!
People who mention differences in black vs. white IQ are these days almost universally howled down and subjected to the most extreme abuse. I am a psychometrician, however, so I feel obliged to defend the scientific truth of the matter:
The average African adult has about the same IQ as an average white 11-year-old and African Americans (who are partly white in ancestry) average out at a mental age of 14. The American Psychological Association is generally Left-leaning but it is the world's most prestigious body of academic psychologists. And even they have had to concede that sort of gap (one SD) in black vs. white average IQ. 11-year olds can do a lot of things but they also have their limits and there are times when such limits need to be allowed for.
America's uncivil war was caused by trade protectionism. The slavery issue was just camouflage, as Abraham Lincoln himself admitted. See also here
Did William Zantzinger kill poor Hattie Carroll?
Did Bismarck predict where WWI would start or was it just a "free" translation by Churchill?
Leftist psychologists have an amusingly simplistic conception of military organizations and military men. They seem to base it on occasions they have seen troops marching together on parade rather than any real knowledge of military men and the military life. They think that military men are "rigid" -- automatons who are unable to adjust to new challenges or think for themselves. What is incomprehensible to them is that being kadaver gehorsam (to use the extreme Prussian term for following orders) actually requires great flexibility -- enough flexibility to put your own ideas and wishes aside and do something very difficult. Ask any soldier if all commands are easy to obey.
A good article on Leftist hate
The real history of social Darwinism
Some personal memoirs
Memoir highlights
▼ November 2011 (153)
Britain's poor whites 'feel like they are last in ...
Is Breivik a paranoid schizophrenic?
White woman arrested for saying what many Brits think
How going green goes against the environment
Australian Islamic College bans Afro hairstyle
Must not criticize Obama (again)
Growling grass frog cost $2.6 billion
The University of Sydney Ranks 18th in the World f...
Chinese medicine could double the chances of child...
Bitch Wisconsin prosecutor
Alice in Liberal Land
Screwball ADL Sponsors Israel Trip for Rick Sanchez
Germany once again has global ambitions
DNA proves man is not child's father, mother must ...
British Father Christmases told children can no lo...
Moron speech from Hollywood
Soldier reacts to Leftist hate speech at a Boston ...
Warmists muzzle skeptical meteorologists
Getting unqualified blacks into university is poin...
The "Occupy" movement has plenty of haters and agi...
Should the Rich Be Condemned?
"Asylum seekers" in Australia's suburbs
Evidence? Who needs evidence?
Win for the Greens, but a loss for Australia
But would you let someone shout "Fire!" in a crowd...
European court says ISPs can't be forced to monito...
Fiat ad under fire
Looks like the sky is falling in Canada
Boat arrival tally passes department danger level
We Can't Kick Off U.S. Immigration Reform With Am...
Free the Market. Save Lives
Sex appeal now incorrect in Britain
Ya gotta laugh: Loss of Sea Ice is 'Unprecedented...
Professor expresses outrage at University of Queen...
Underweight patients more likely to die than mildl...
The authoritarianism, simple-mindedness and failur...
Atheists Launch 'Naughty, Not Nice' Holiday Campai...
THE BIG STORY OF THE DAY
Australia's forgetful Green/Left
Compassionate Liberalism?
Britain's "elf n safety" [Health & safety] police
Wishful Thinking From The Love Media
Must not joke about rape
British wind turbines turned off when it's windy ...
Poisoner targets birds in Australian city
Generation Mutant: Occupiers are the Natural Spawn...
Don't Cry For Me, America
Must not tell Muslims to clean up after themselves
Another heavy-duty coverup
Four Legacies of Feminism
The Brain-Dead Left
England 'is world's sixth most crowded country: Hi...
Bare-faced lie from Warmist "scientist"
Appalling child protection service in Victoria
Unbelievable: Woman left to die because of Britis...
You never know what will offend
GWPF Responds To New IPCC Report
Credulous woman makes scurrilous accusations aga...
Was this Obama's first national TV appearance? Hil...
U.S. Department of Justice Seeks Law Against some ...
Europe's social failure
Number of British secondary school children from e...
The Fukushima disaster gave a test to all the Gree...
Diet fraudster still in trouble with the wallopers
Useless workshy British youth
Must not support normal marriage in Canada
Chinese scientists diss global warming
Parents support Judeo-Christian teachings, say Que...
Drunk at Work vs Lazy at Work
Men sue Swedish police for sexual discrimination
Is America past its prime?
Orgasms all round in response to a graffito
Forgive me while I laugh
Marriage breeds better children?
Mainstream Economic Theory Meets Reality
Leftist Head of Australian Press Council Struggles...
CA: Court backs school in flag-tee dispute
Excitement! The draft of the next IPCC report fel...
California Carbon-Offset Plan Scrapped
The million dollar man is still keeping shtum (sil...
Britain's judges continue to defy democracy
Another out-of-control government agency
Perfume too sexy for Britain
The ocean acidity hoax
Nameless cab drivers?
Another Leftist claim of psychological dysfunction...
White male Swedish firefighter wins compensation f...
Must not criticize Obama's various betrayals of Is...
Britain's fruit and nuts are ripening 18 days ear...
Your regulators will protect you -- NOT
The limited effect of political correctness in co...
Nearly 200 suspected English Defence League suppor...
Pig-tailed Pippi Longstocking books branded 'racis...
The "Telegraph" has been conned
Insane murderer free to drive a Melbourne taxi
Disabled benefit? Just fill in a form: 200,000 got...
Europe's Entitlement Reckoning
Obama rolls back immigration enforcement, again
The "disabled": Many could work