Thursday, April 26, 2007
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Sound Logic
"False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.
Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, the most important of the code, will respect the less important and arbitrary ones, which can be violated with ease and impunity, and which, if strictly obeyed, would put an end to personal liberty... and subject innocent persons to all the vexations that the guilty alone ought to suffer?
Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. They ought to be designated as laws not preventive but fearful of crimes, produced by the tumultuous impression of a few isolated facts, and not by thoughtful consideration of the inconveniences and advantages of a universal decree."
--Cesare Beccaria
Dei delitti e delle pene, [On Crimes and Punishments] ch.38 (1764)Translation is as quoted by Thomas Jefferson in his Commonplace Book.
Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, the most important of the code, will respect the less important and arbitrary ones, which can be violated with ease and impunity, and which, if strictly obeyed, would put an end to personal liberty... and subject innocent persons to all the vexations that the guilty alone ought to suffer?
Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. They ought to be designated as laws not preventive but fearful of crimes, produced by the tumultuous impression of a few isolated facts, and not by thoughtful consideration of the inconveniences and advantages of a universal decree."
--Cesare Beccaria
Dei delitti e delle pene, [On Crimes and Punishments] ch.38 (1764)Translation is as quoted by Thomas Jefferson in his Commonplace Book.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Mr. President, Put Your Damn Foot Down for a Change
While some pundits claim Speaker of the House Pelosi is simply irritating President Bush with her unauthorized visit to Syria, she’s also playing patty-cake with one of the world’s major sponsors/supporters of terror (Bashar Assad has built four terrorist training bases in Syria, which crank out terrorists who travel to Iraq and attack and kill our troops) and breaking the law.
Under the Logan Act, Nancy Pelosi has committed a felony. In my humble opinion, Mr. President, you should quit fucking around and throw the goddamn book at her … and anyone else behaving similarly—Rep. Darrell Issa (R, CA), for example.
Friday, April 6, 2007
Teachers Avoid Offending Muslims by Avoiding the Holocaust
Max Bojo, Associated Press
According to a recent government-backed study, many schools in the UK are no longer covering the Holocaust in history class. While after first hearing this news, many people might believe the Holocaust is no longer being taught because it is too frightening for schoolchildren (much like teaching global warming has been reported to cause nightmares, bedwetting, and premature balding in American children), teachers have actually decided to exclude it from their lesson plans because they don’t want to offend Holocaust-denying Muslim students.
In an article on www.dailymail.co.uk, Laura Clark claims the Department for Education and Skills used the study to look into “emotive and controversial history teaching in primary and secondary schools.” Although no one Stateside is quite sure what primary and secondary schools are, Posey Daniels, a self-proclaimed “Harry Potter Scholar,” has informed me that primary and secondary schools are essentially the European equivalent of American grades one, two, and sometimes five. And although the children in these classes age anywhere from four to twenty-seven, some teachers interviewed claimed that certain subjects already elicit an anti-Semitic response.
“Well, it’s really quite unfair to us then, isn’t it?” a teacher wishing to remain anonymous complained. “About a month ago, before I gave up teaching the Holocaust, I said ‘Hitler was a bad, bad man who killed many innocent Jewish people.’ A little boy, aged seven I believe, stood up, screamed something in Arabic, charged at me, grabbed my leg, and tried to detonate himself with a flashlight. At the time I didn’t realize what all the fuss was about. In fact, I thought it was a prank his schoolyard chums had put him up to. But later that day as I left school grounds, that same little boy, along with thirty other children, threw rocks at me whilst chanting ‘kill the Zionist-Jew-loving monkey-pig.’”
This dedicated teacher did what any sensible teacher would do and scheduled a meeting with the boy’s parents.
“They informed me, quite frankly, that they believed the Holocaust never happened. When I asked them why, they hung me upside down by my toes, put a large knife to my throat, and explained that their religious leaders teach the Holocaust was some sort of ‘Jew lie’ and that if I knew what was good for me, I would watch my ‘Jew-loving, infidel ass.’ I stopped teaching the Holocaust the next day.”
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident. Teachers all over the UK have either had similar experiences or were so fearful of them, they simply decided to change their lesson plans immediately. Of course there were teachers who refused to kowtow to Muslim students. One such example is Nigel Derbywrimple, a secondary school football coach.
“When I first heard about all this, my response was ‘Oi! Fuck all that rot. History’s history.’ I may not be a history teacher, but I like to tell my team to crush the other team like Churchill and our Yankee allies crushed that tosser Hitler. I’m not going to censor myself for any touchy Pakis. You can ask me wife, you can. She’ll tell you. I wouldn’t change me ways for the Queen herself.”
Shortly after I met with Mr. Derbywrimple, he was in an accident involving some Muslim students, fifteen feet of extension cord, and a machete. Mr. Derbywrimple couldn’t be reached for further comment, but his wife says he plans to return to coaching when his head can be located and reattached to his neck.
There are always two sides to every story, however, and Muslim groups across the UK insist that threats against teachers were never made—certainly not by Muslim students, anyway. Hashish Shabar, President of Muslims Against Historical Discrepancies (MAHD), had the following to say:
“The issue here is very simple. It isn’t about radical Islam or radical Islam’s fight against modern societies, whatever that even means. We simply want our youth to be taught the truth. The Holocaust is nothing more than a fabrication the Jews concocted in order to make people feel sorry for them. I mean, come on, guys: Adolph Hitler? That name is so fake it would make me laugh had Allah and his holy prophet Mohammad not prohibited laughter.
“We Muslims just wonder why perfectly capable teachers would fall for such obvious Jew trickery. We are just like everyone else. We want our children to have a good education, free of Zionist influence. If it weren’t for groups like MAHD, teachers would probably be telling your children that not only did the Holocaust occur, but Israel is a real country, the earth is round, and women don’t deserve savage beatings for blinking without male permission.”
Other teachers and teacher’s advocacy groups see things similarly, yet completely differently at exactly the same time. Anton J. Flipertypop of Fairness for All Groups (FAG) explains that he is fine with whatever teachers decide to teach or not to teach so long as no one is offended.
“Our teachers are here to educate, yes, but they can’t go about thrashing the feelings of other students. Even though some meany-meany jelly-beany types in the United States and those of like mind here refuse to embrace political correctness, I believe it is certainly the cure for all of society’s ills. By simply avoiding awkward subjects like the Holocaust, we are able to spare the feelings of others and thereby avoid future conflict created by insensitivity. Simply put, we need to strive to avoid offending anyone.”
When I asked Mr. Flipertypop whether leaving out the Holocaust to avoid offending Muslims might be offensive to students of Jewish ancestry or to others who believe the Holocaust is a tragic yet historical fact, he called me an “intolerant, brutish, Islamophobic, neo-con, racist, barbarian,” threw up on himself, dropped his pants, and limped away rapidly flapping his arms and making duck calls.
This is by no means a simple problem. There are so many different sides to consider that an easy solution is as elusive as a heterosexual male sexually attracted to Rosie O’Donnell. Until some kind of reasonable solution can be reached, teachers in the UK will continue to avoid mentioning the Holocaust, the Crusades, Catholicism, feminism, human rights, Israel, soap, toilet paper, science, Buddhism, democracy, pork cookery, dogsled mechanics, music, and personal hygiene in order to protect Muslim sensibilities.
According to a recent government-backed study, many schools in the UK are no longer covering the Holocaust in history class. While after first hearing this news, many people might believe the Holocaust is no longer being taught because it is too frightening for schoolchildren (much like teaching global warming has been reported to cause nightmares, bedwetting, and premature balding in American children), teachers have actually decided to exclude it from their lesson plans because they don’t want to offend Holocaust-denying Muslim students.
In an article on www.dailymail.co.uk, Laura Clark claims the Department for Education and Skills used the study to look into “emotive and controversial history teaching in primary and secondary schools.” Although no one Stateside is quite sure what primary and secondary schools are, Posey Daniels, a self-proclaimed “Harry Potter Scholar,” has informed me that primary and secondary schools are essentially the European equivalent of American grades one, two, and sometimes five. And although the children in these classes age anywhere from four to twenty-seven, some teachers interviewed claimed that certain subjects already elicit an anti-Semitic response.
“Well, it’s really quite unfair to us then, isn’t it?” a teacher wishing to remain anonymous complained. “About a month ago, before I gave up teaching the Holocaust, I said ‘Hitler was a bad, bad man who killed many innocent Jewish people.’ A little boy, aged seven I believe, stood up, screamed something in Arabic, charged at me, grabbed my leg, and tried to detonate himself with a flashlight. At the time I didn’t realize what all the fuss was about. In fact, I thought it was a prank his schoolyard chums had put him up to. But later that day as I left school grounds, that same little boy, along with thirty other children, threw rocks at me whilst chanting ‘kill the Zionist-Jew-loving monkey-pig.’”
This dedicated teacher did what any sensible teacher would do and scheduled a meeting with the boy’s parents.
“They informed me, quite frankly, that they believed the Holocaust never happened. When I asked them why, they hung me upside down by my toes, put a large knife to my throat, and explained that their religious leaders teach the Holocaust was some sort of ‘Jew lie’ and that if I knew what was good for me, I would watch my ‘Jew-loving, infidel ass.’ I stopped teaching the Holocaust the next day.”
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident. Teachers all over the UK have either had similar experiences or were so fearful of them, they simply decided to change their lesson plans immediately. Of course there were teachers who refused to kowtow to Muslim students. One such example is Nigel Derbywrimple, a secondary school football coach.
“When I first heard about all this, my response was ‘Oi! Fuck all that rot. History’s history.’ I may not be a history teacher, but I like to tell my team to crush the other team like Churchill and our Yankee allies crushed that tosser Hitler. I’m not going to censor myself for any touchy Pakis. You can ask me wife, you can. She’ll tell you. I wouldn’t change me ways for the Queen herself.”
Shortly after I met with Mr. Derbywrimple, he was in an accident involving some Muslim students, fifteen feet of extension cord, and a machete. Mr. Derbywrimple couldn’t be reached for further comment, but his wife says he plans to return to coaching when his head can be located and reattached to his neck.
There are always two sides to every story, however, and Muslim groups across the UK insist that threats against teachers were never made—certainly not by Muslim students, anyway. Hashish Shabar, President of Muslims Against Historical Discrepancies (MAHD), had the following to say:
“The issue here is very simple. It isn’t about radical Islam or radical Islam’s fight against modern societies, whatever that even means. We simply want our youth to be taught the truth. The Holocaust is nothing more than a fabrication the Jews concocted in order to make people feel sorry for them. I mean, come on, guys: Adolph Hitler? That name is so fake it would make me laugh had Allah and his holy prophet Mohammad not prohibited laughter.
“We Muslims just wonder why perfectly capable teachers would fall for such obvious Jew trickery. We are just like everyone else. We want our children to have a good education, free of Zionist influence. If it weren’t for groups like MAHD, teachers would probably be telling your children that not only did the Holocaust occur, but Israel is a real country, the earth is round, and women don’t deserve savage beatings for blinking without male permission.”
Other teachers and teacher’s advocacy groups see things similarly, yet completely differently at exactly the same time. Anton J. Flipertypop of Fairness for All Groups (FAG) explains that he is fine with whatever teachers decide to teach or not to teach so long as no one is offended.
“Our teachers are here to educate, yes, but they can’t go about thrashing the feelings of other students. Even though some meany-meany jelly-beany types in the United States and those of like mind here refuse to embrace political correctness, I believe it is certainly the cure for all of society’s ills. By simply avoiding awkward subjects like the Holocaust, we are able to spare the feelings of others and thereby avoid future conflict created by insensitivity. Simply put, we need to strive to avoid offending anyone.”
When I asked Mr. Flipertypop whether leaving out the Holocaust to avoid offending Muslims might be offensive to students of Jewish ancestry or to others who believe the Holocaust is a tragic yet historical fact, he called me an “intolerant, brutish, Islamophobic, neo-con, racist, barbarian,” threw up on himself, dropped his pants, and limped away rapidly flapping his arms and making duck calls.
This is by no means a simple problem. There are so many different sides to consider that an easy solution is as elusive as a heterosexual male sexually attracted to Rosie O’Donnell. Until some kind of reasonable solution can be reached, teachers in the UK will continue to avoid mentioning the Holocaust, the Crusades, Catholicism, feminism, human rights, Israel, soap, toilet paper, science, Buddhism, democracy, pork cookery, dogsled mechanics, music, and personal hygiene in order to protect Muslim sensibilities.
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