What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. – Christopher Hitchens
George Rebane
Cindy Hren, local student and purveyor of things constitutional, published a refresher on the form of our government in the 17feb17 Union (here and here). Then as if by clockwork, several embarrassingly (but not to them) ignorant progressives lit off against Ms Hren, displaying their intellect in all available glory. Today she answers her critics (here) and attempts to shed some light into the dark corners of their minds.
RR has extensively documented the decline of the Millennials and now the iGeners in the paucity of their knowledge bases and their ability to manage critical thought. The Left has, of course, abetted their own ignorance of these multi-decadal developments by accusing any messenger of such news as sufferers of bigotry, racism, xx-phobias, up to and including the heartbreak of psoriasis. Today we receive further and ongoing confirmation of these generational deficits from none other than the left-leaning policy analysis Brookings Institution. They have completed and published a “survey showing that American college students have no clue what the First Amendment means.” Brookings’ author of the survey, Dr John Villasenor, concludes, “Freedom of expression is deeply imperiled on US campuses.” (more here)
‘Trump Shock at Turtle Bay’, so heralds the 20sep17 WSJ the president’s UN speech. In reading our president’s words, I find myself among the celebrants of someone finally cutting the bullshit in that longstanding and ineffective international body where the same has reigned supreme for generations. The speech also highlights the legions of media outlets in the extremis of Trump Derangement Syndrome that have quoted out of context parts of his speech – ‘Trump vows we have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea’ – and are enraged at the president’s view that a prudent nations-serving globalism is possible while still maintaining the Westphalian world order. Thus continue to flare the fanned fires of fake news.
[22sep17 update] Do nothing Republicans beware!
Occam’s Razor restated by the late “slashing polemicist” Christopher Hitchens reads, “What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” I have always agreed with Hitchens’ principle here, although it is not always easy to apply in the public forum, especially in today’s era of the uncritical consumption of fake news. Occam’s original version has long served as one of the stout legs on which science has made great strides – ‘Given two theories which explain all the known facts, embrace the simpler of the two.’ Falsification, the other leg, is even more persuasive, ‘If a proposed theory does not contain the clear elements that enable its own falsification, then it is religion and not science.’
HuffPost, the unabashedly elitist leftwing outlet, has been losing readers in droves and is desperately attempting to rebrand itself. It can’t be that the younger set is getting smarter, as we have presented here, there is too much evidence countering that. It must be the older leftwingers getting smarter as they age, and have now the perspective of deciding what works and what doesn’t. Well, at least HuffPost’s new management is admitting what most critical thinkers have known for years. (more here)
‘Right to Work Isn’t Theft’ – Union hubris has hit new heights recently with their suits against ‘right to work’ states arguing that the government is violating the Constitution’s takings clause. How’s that?! Well, the buggers have taken it for granted that the money in workers’ pockets that could go for union dues is actually already theirs, and laws that let workers decide how they want to spend their earnings are, in effect, taking what innately does and should belong to unions. That position is so ludicrous that state supreme courts have thrown out the suits with rulings that such arguments are “fatally unsupported and lacking in merit”, dunning the lower courts’ rulings as “not merely imprudent, but profoundly legally incorrect.”
The Left’s panic over Graham-Cassidy’s latest GOP attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare is producing fake news bereft of facts by the ton. Relate what’s happening here to the above comments about HuffPost and Occam’s Razor restated. (more here)
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