Lockdowns have made me realise there are 2 types of people: advocates for freedom and advocates for safety.
I have been a lockdown sceptic since about May 2020. At one point last year I posted on Social Media Benjamin Franklin’s famous quote about freedom:
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety”
To which a friend, who I know to be an ardent supporter of lockdowns, responded as follows:
“They who can’t give up a little temporary liberty to obtain essential safety don’t deserve safety or liberty.”
So, that was all quite funny. However, this response revealed a truth to me: some people value freedom over safety while others value safety over freedom, and neither side can quite understand the other side’s position.
Those who are more concerned with freedom will believe that the lockdowns are an over-reaction. Such people will then be drawn to evidence that supports their view: that the costs of lockdown are going to be much greater than the benefits; that the PCR tests are not fit for purpose; that the deaths have been exaggerated; that lockdowns are going to cost more lives than they save.
When lockdown sceptics talk about the ‘costs of lockdown being higher than the benefits’, lockdown zealots tend to think we are just referring to economic costs. They then attack us for only thinking about money while they lecture us from the moral high ground about the value of human life. We then have to point out that their thinking is one-dimensional if they can only equate ‘costs’ with money. There are many costs of lockdown that don’t involve money: unemployment; collapsed businesses; depression; anxiety; lost education; under-socialised children; State authoritarianism; preventable deaths caused by cancelled treatments; cancelled weddings; the inhumanity of lockdown-era funerals; people dying in hospital without the presence of their families; people not being able to visit their relatives in care homes suspended lives etc.
Also, scientific evidence that neither lockdowns nor masks have made any difference will enforce the opinion amongst advocates for Freedom that freedoms have been removed for no good reason.
We also know from history that, once freedoms are lost, it is incredibly hard to win them back. For example, the Government are going to be much more prepared to implement lockdowns in the future now that they realise how compliant we are. This has set a dangerous precedent. Freedom lovers are increasingly distrustful of the Government.
Those who are more concerned with safety are preoccupied with the Covid death rate and fear that worst case predictions of future deaths are about to come true. They are not so concerned with predictions of non-covid future deaths caused by lockdowns because they are living in the moment of current deaths. They are prepared to accept any limitations on their freedom in order to reduce current deaths. They believe that lockdowns and masks have saved lives. They are not concerned about future deaths caused by lockdowns because they believe those numbers are but a small fraction of the lives saved by lockdowns. Loss of freedom does not concern them: they are more than prepared to pay the cost. They look to the Government to protect them. They will gladly accept a vaccine that is licensed for ‘Emergency Use Only’ for which the manufacturers have immunity from liability for harmful side-effects. The Safety brigade will happily accept a vaccine passport. These are the people you see wearing masks while they drive alone in their cars. This group support every restriction introduced by the Government (many of them think the Government hasn’t gone far enough).
These two groups will never see eye to eye on lockdowns which explains why I have never been able to change the mind of a single lockdown supporter: members of each group have a fundamentally different mindset. They have a different prioritisation as to what is important, which is not answerable to reason.
“A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.” ~ John Stuart Mill (1806 – 1873)
Unfortunately, for me, the ‘safety at any cost’ brigade outnumber the ‘if we give away our freedoms we will have to fight to win them back’ group.
I would say that ‘safety’ is the emotional argument in that it is myopically focused on the single metric of deaths while ignoring all other considerations. ‘Freedom’ is the rational position that asks why 100% of people have had their rights and freedoms removed for a disease that kills 0.03% of people.
The Freedom argument reflects a healthy mistrust of authority. The Safety argument reflects total trust in authority. History has taught us that it is never wise to place all your trust in authorities.
The freedom vs safety theory also explains why The Left have embraced lockdowns so much: The Left are very much drawn the the care/harm moral foundation (as described fully in ‘The Righteous Mind’ by Jonathan Haidt). Also, The Left always look to the Government to look after them. Those on the Right, on the other hand, having a wider spread of moral foundations and placing greater emphasis on personal responsibility than State control, will place freedom first.
Governments working hand-in-hand with Corporations is never a good idea.
Both of these structures have a lot of power. In a well-functioning capitalist economy, each structure would be antagonistic to the other. Problems arise if the objectives of these functions start aligning with each other. Such alignment is not going to be healthy for democracy. In fact, it’s a feature of fascism:
Fascism can be defined as a capitalist economy that is subject to stringent government controls.
Which is why I have become concerned in recent years as to how much influence Corporations have over our Governments. It began to occur to me that Corporations may never have had so much influence and control of both government and cultural policy. So, the twist from ‘normal’ fascism is that rather than governments controlling business, we are seeing a model emerge whereby business is controlling governments. Either way, the co-operation between these two branches of the nation is too close to be healthy.
So what symbiosis am I referring to?
Well, I am writing this in early 2021 and we all know that Big Tech has given hints of its true power in recent weeks. Big Tech is now feeling brave enough to dispense with the pretense that it is merely a platform and not a publisher. Big Tech now revels in its preferred publisher role. These companies can promote their social justice, anti-white ideologies with gay (LGBT?) abandon which they achieve by censoring, suspending and deactivating posts, memes and people that they disagree with. Even President Trump has been silenced.
Now that Big Tech are ardent publishers, are governments going to revisit the communication laws that treated these companies as platforms only? It doesn’t look like it. In fact, Western governments are mimicking the behaviour of Big Tech by suppressing free-speech through the introduction of hate speech legislation. Here is an example of Governments and Corporations working in perfect harmony to undermine a key freedom of liberal democracies: free speech.
“True power resides with their [politicians’] donors: the bankers, the CEOs, financiers, and tech oligarchs who don’t run for office, but are content to buy off those who do. The end result is the same either way: economic globalism and financial consolidation of power in a declared meritocratic but actually semi-hereditary class.”
The Left have always distrusted large corporations. However, more and more, people from the Right are realising that corporations are a threat to our way of life. Perversely, this is happening at just the time when most of the Left are embracing the attacks on free speech and enjoying the ‘woke’ advertising campaigns from multinational corporations.
Multinational corporations do not care about their employees. If they could replace 50% of their staff with AI tomorrow, they would do it.
Such companies benefit hugely from globalisation: they gain access to a much bigger pool of resources, either people or commodities or markets – and can leverage these to increase profits. Also, they can offset their revenues and profits in loss-making countries to minimise their tax obligations. Furthermore, they ensure that any tax they do pay is paid in tax friendly locations. These are the reasons that all large corporations were anti-Brexit. The EU was another example where corporate and political governance were perfectly aligned. In fact, the unaccountability and non-transparency of the EU provides the perfect cover for corporate lobbyists and EU politicians to work together for their mutual benefit.
I wrote the following about lobbyists in my blog piece arguing for Brexit. I wrote the following:
‘…let me describe the ‘jobs for the boys’ culture in play within the EU: senior EU politicians usually walk into heavily remunerated roles with multi-nationals as soon as they relinquish their EU roles. For example, Jonathan Hill – the UK’s former (unelected) EU commissioner – had taken on 6 lucrative roles with multi-national firms within 2 years of leaving his post: Aviva Insurance; Deloitte; Freshfields; Iberdrola; Times Newspapers and UBS. Is it probable that Mr Hill was offered at least some of these positions whilst still in his role as commissioner? It seems likely. Either way, this represents a huge conflict of interest. The role of a commissioner is to define the laws that will be voted on by the EU parliament. Who was Mr Hill representing during his time at the top of the EU power structure: multi-national firms or the citizens of Europe?‘
Further evidence of the anti-demicratic influence of lobbyists is provided in this Guardian article that describes how 30,000 lobbyists influence 75% of EU legislation:
This is not healthy. We are seeing more and more evidence that Corporations and Governments are working closely together. In fact, Corporations are unofficially taking on roles that the Government would like to expedite but cannot be seen to do so for political reasons. An example of this is the Covid19 health identity cards that are being pushed by the media, under direction from the government. ID cards are a tricky thing for a liberal government to introduce. Tony Blair failed in his attempt to introduce them. However, many corporations – almost certainly at the behest of governments – are introducing rules whereby unvaccinated people will not be able to use their products or services, eg. airline flights, hotels etc. This is unofficial vaccine coercion that achieves government objectives.
The noose is tightening.
I predict this situation is going to get worse. We need to recognise how anti-democratic this is and fight it. This is creeping fascism. We, the people, are being ‘nudged’ by undemocratic forces.
I’m done with the Conservatives. 10 years now. They’ve had every chance to instill proper conservative policies and they have failed every time. They talk the talk and then nothing happens. The only worthwhile thing they have done was Brexit (and that was an accident). There is nothing else I expect them to deliver because I have realised they won’t stand up for British people and British history and British culture. Nor will they confront the woke mob. Nor will they tackle TV news bias or Ofcom’s new hate speech regulations.
The police have turned into a liberal joke under the Tories. That is not going to change now that only graduates can become police officers.
The Tories have been in government for 10 years but they haven’t been in power. That honour goes to the liberal left that is dominating the culture wars. What a wasted opportunity. I won’t be voting for the Tories again. That’s my pledge. #nomoretories #mypledge
I wrote all of the above as an angry post on social media a couple of weeks ago in response to some new failure of the Tories to stand up for Conservatism (I can’t remember what it was now). I stand by it. Basically, the Tories are not challenging the woke agenda that is dominating political debate. They are the Progressive-lite party. They will take us to the same end point as Progressive maniacs, like the left wing parties of Labour and Lib Dems, but we we will arrive at the destination slightly later.
I cannot see that Conservative policies are going to help the working class people of this country.
Some examples:
Zero carbon: This policy is going to hit the working class hardest. It will cause energy costs to shoot up. Petrol cars will no longer be available from 2030. This will push up the costs of driving which will also hit the poorest. I imagine that taxes on flights will be levied. We know that the minerals required for batteries are becoming increasingly hard to find which will lead to hikes in the cost of batteries and the associated effects that will cause.
Hate speech laws: the Left are mad keen on such laws. In response the Tories repeatedly flirt with the idea despite the fact such laws trample all over the right to free speech which used to be the cornerstone of any Liberal Democracy.
Update 18 March 2021: The Tories are going to add women to the list of groups protected by hate crime laws. This means that the only group not protected by hate crime legislation will be white men.
Transgender identification:
Theresa May tried to bring in rules that transgender people could self ID as whatever gender they wanted and that is how they would be treated in law. Boris has moved away from the idea but it’s only a matter of time.
ID cards: Tony Blair tried to implement identity cards when he was PM but couldn’t carry enough support. Now, when faced with a bad flu season – i.e. Covid19 – the Tories are pressing ahead with the idea:
Big Tech: Big Tech grows ever more censorious in its assaults on free speech. The Tories have had 11 years to kerb its excesses. They have done nothing.
Legal Immigration: Tony Blair opened the floodgates on immigration promising to “shove diversity down our throats”. Since 2010, the Tories have down nothing to stem the tide. In 2010 David Cameron promised to bring the annual immigration figure down to “tens of thousands” per year. However, in the year to March 2020 total immigration by non-UK citizens reached 633,000. Home Secretary Priti Patel announced that post-Brexit, immigrants to UK would need to earn >£30k so that only skilled workers entered the country. However, in Feb 2020 that requirement was reduced to £25,600. Is that a salary a skilled worker would receive?
Illegal Immigration: illegal crossings of the Channel, by dinghy and by vehicular stowaway, have escalated in recent years. Priti Patel, the Home Secretary as of writing, makes frequent promises to : a) put a stop to this activity and b) find a way to deport those illegals that have arrived in recent years. Patel’s sounded tough and determined, at first. However, over time as her credibility has collapased, she has responded by making her pronouncements ever tougher to the extent that, today, her threats ellicet merely an eye-roll and a shake of the head
Cancel Culture: Right wing voices are attacked for cultural transgressions and non-alignment with group think on a regular basis. They are deplatformed. They often lose their job. Example: Toby Young. The Tories never stand up for these people. Silence, in this case, equals “we’re scared”.
BBC: Boris Johnson said during the 2019 election campaign that he was looking at abolishing the BBC licence fee. This was a wonderful piece of news. Needless to say, after the election the message changed. He’s going to give the BBC another chance.
The Police: The police have become a joke over the last 10 year. They are more interested in street dancing at Pride Festivals and investigating ‘incorrect’ opinions on social media than they are in preventing or investigating genuine crime. However, the Tories have implemented a rule change that guarantees absurd behaviour from the police for decades to come: the Tories have decided that, from 2021, only graduates can become police officers. Which means that the police are going to be inundated with over-educated, metropolitan twits that love to dance at Pride festivals and chase down ‘hate crime’. The police are going to become completely disconnected from large portions of the commumities they serve. It won’t end well.
Policing Bill: Authoritarian measures to control public dissent
Online Harms Bill: Clampdowns on Freedom of Speech.
I will continue to add more examples. It won’t take long.
In July 2018, students at the University of Manchester painted over a mural of a poem by Rudyard Kipling, arguing that the writer “dehumanised people of colour”. Kipling’s poem was replaced by a poem by the civil rights activist Maya Angelou.
In response, I wrote my own 2018 version of ‘If’ to reflect the difficulties of being a conservative in this era. Here it is:
If you can keep your shit together when all about you Are freaking out and blaming it on racism If you can get through the day without being accused of a microaggression By keeping a very low profile If you can speak to a liberal and give that liberal freedom Of expression despite knowing that the liberal despises everything you stand for And doesn’t really understand the consequences of their virtue-signalling But likes the feeling of being on the moral high-ground.
If you can live with accusations of white privilege but not make white privilege your master If you can know that your success is down to diligence and hard work If you can meet with triumph and disaster Yet not try to blame the patriarchy for the disaster If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools Or watch the culture you gave your life to, broken, And stoop to pick up the pieces in the name of ‘progress’
If you can be an advocate for equality of opportunity And know that equality of outcome is a fool’s errand And take responsibility for those around you And realise that there can only be ‘society’ when everyone else does the same If you can force yourself, through your own endeavours, To not be a drain on society To give more than you take Yet accept that sometimes you will need help
If you can be true to yourself To the values and traditions that were instilled in you If you realise that sometimes difficult decisions need to be made If you can make those decisions yet not shun the consequences If you can keep your head raised high and know That you are doing the right things for the right reasons Everything will be ok And this insanity will pass.
‘A Perfect Storm’ describes a situation whereby a number of seemingly unrelated factors came into alignment to cause an awful situation that no one could have predicted. The sinking of the Titanic is the classic example. Stock market crashes provide many other examples where many, often quite slow moving forces create an unstable environment that is poised for disaster.
It is my contention that the Covid19 policies that have been enacted in the UK are another example of A Perfect Storm whereby egos, incompetence, opportunism, corporate and media influence, globalism, censorship, virtue-signalling and unpreparedness have coalesced and led to the worst possible outcomes: lockdowns and a rushed vaccine.
The factors I believe are in play here: 1. Boris Johnson as PM: Johnson’s hero is Churchill. Churchill is credited with winning WWII. Johnson has said that Covid19 is the biggest threat faced by the UK since WWII. This has created an obvious parallel whereby Johnson could become a hero like Churchill if he could be credited with winning the war on Covid19.
2. The symbiosis between Corporations and Government: Corporate lobbying of Government is more widespread than it has ever been. Private enterprise now carries out many government functions. Corporations expect to make big profits from these arrangements. The Government sees Corporations as an extension of itself. Corporations see lockdowns and vaccines as an opportunity to make money. Governments and Corporations have different, non-aligned objectives but the Government does not appreciate this difference. Instead, the Government like to outsource to Corporations those functions that might make it unpopular. So the Government encourages Big Tech firms to censor certain ‘misinformation’ and hospitality businesses are encouraged to bring in checking of vaccination status.
3. The reduction of capacity in the NHS over recent decades: This exacerbated government fears that NHS would quickly be overwhelmed.
4. The expectations of the public: As the State becomes ever larger, people look to it to service their every need. As such, the remit of the Government expands. The public expected the Government to take measures to protect them from a viral infection. This explains why Johnson retreated from his original position to follow WHO guidelines for pandemics. The Government also thought they could benefit politically by providing a strong, pro-active response to Covid19. It also explains the Government’s u-turn on masks: the Government went from saying masks don’t work to mandating masks when they realised mandates would look good politically.
5. An aggressive, politicised media: The MSM no longer pretends it is neutral. It chooses a position and actively promotes that position. In the case of Covid19, the MSM decided early on that it wanted lockdown. A Government policy that is aligned with the wishes of the MSM (eg lockdowns and mass vaccination) will face a much easier time than a policy that is contrary to wishes of MSM (eg Brexit). This leads to an echo chamber where the Government policy is not adequately scrutinised and contrary positions are not given air-time.
6. Following the science: The government insisted throughout they were following the science. However, they were following the science they wanted to hear. There were plenty of relevant scientists that disagreed with the government’s policy from the start. But the Government aligned themselves with the pessimists in SAGE that included modellers and psychologists but no epidemiologists and no immunologists.
7. Globalisation: we live in a connected world. The news of the new coronavirus coming out of China and moving across the planet towards the UK had a huge impact on levels of fear amongst the public. Videos ‘smuggled’ out of China also added to fear. Intranational organisations such as the WHO were chief scaremongers when covid19 first emerged. This made the public much more amenable to policy of lockdowns. We now realise that the videos of people in China falling ‘dead’ as they walked along the street were fake.
8. Censorship: All media – mainstream and social – have worked hard to support and encourage Government propaganda whilst ignoring experts with contrary opinions. Censorship never works out well, however governments tend to become addicted to it.
9. Virtue-signalling: We live in an age where no one does a good deed without publicising the fact on social media. Social media also give people the perfect platform to show how righteous their political opinions are. Governments are tapping into this epidemic of morality one-upmanship to promote a vaccine that people are encouraged to take in order to protect others! No one wants people to think they are selfish so they are falling over themselves in their excitement to get to the vaccination centres so they can show everyone how caring they are.
I believe that the alignment of these 9 factors led to the non-scientific overreaction to covid19 that we have witnessed. I would say it is down to the combined influence of all 9 of these factors that has led the government to focus so myopically on this virus despite the relatively small number of deaths. The impact of this Perfect Storm has taken the form of economic destruction and preventable non-covid deaths. Many other impacts, such as divorce and loneliness will never be quantifiable. Not to mention a vaccine that I guarantee will have unforeseen consequences. If there are found to be harmful, long lasting side effects from the vaccine(s), this will be another impact caused by the ‘Perfect Storm’ that is whirling around us. I hope there are no harmful effects from the vaccines but I am not confident that there won’t be.
The 9 factors above have led to a government that is desperate for a vaccine to dig them out of the hole in which they have placed themselves. The fact that the vaccine development has been rushed through in record time, despite being an entirely new type of vaccine, is another red flag that everyone is choosing to ignore. Ignoring red flags is ALWAYS a key component of a Perfect Storm. If there are no big problems with the vaccines, I would put it down to luck rather than design.
This Perfect Storm perfectly captures the idiocy of the point our civilisation has reached. A civilisation that is ready and willing to cut off one of its legs to cure a blister won’t continue much longer.
In 1998 Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes published a study that presented Earth’s temperature record over the previous 600 years. This document included the ‘Hockey Stick graph’ that showed a projection of Earth’s temperatures escalating rapidly in the near future. This document became known as ‘MBH98’. A graph based on MBH98 and it successor, MBH99, was used in several parts of the IPCC’s ‘Third Assessment Report’ (2001).
Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick produced a critique of MBH98 in 2005. This blog piece presents excerpts from their 32 page investigation of the techniques used by Mann, Bradley & Hughes that led to the conclusions presented in MBH98.
First, here is some info about Steve McIntyre from Wikipedia:
In 2002, McIntyre became interested in climate science after a leaflet from the Canadian government warning of the dangers of global warming was delivered to his residence. McIntyre states that he noticed discrepancies in climate science papers that reminded him of the false prospectus that had duped investors involved in the Bre-X gold mining scandal.
The Canadian government pamphlets were based on the IPCC Third Assessment Report section, which prominently displayed the hockey stick graph based on the 1999 reconstruction by Mann, Bradley and Hughes (MBH99). McIntyre began studying Mann’s research, which had produced the graph, and met Ross McKitrick. McIntyre has remarked on how his suspicions of this graph were aroused: “In financial circles, we talk about a hockey stick curve when some investor presents you with a nice, steep curve in the hope of palming something off on you.”
And some background on McKitrick:
Ross McKitrick (born 1965) is a Canadian economist specializing in environmental economics and policy analysis. He is a professor of economics at the University of Guelph, and a senior fellow of the Fraser Institute.
The following is my summary of the 32 page critique of Mann’s document known as ‘MBH98’. MBH98 was the document in which the term ‘Hockey Stick’, in relation to future global temperatures, first appeared. However, the critique is quite long and very technical so here is a easily-digestible summary of the main issues as stated by Ross McKitrick:
A very brief summary of the problems of the hockey stick would go like this. Mann’s algorithm, applied to a large proxy data set, extracted the shape associated with one small and controversial subset of the tree rings records, namely the bristlecone pine cores from high and arid mountains in the US Southwest. The trees are extremely long-lived, but grow in highly contorted shapes as bark dies back to a single twisted strip. The scientists who published the data (Graybill and Idso 1993) had specifically warned that the ring widths should not be used for temperature reconstruction, and in particular their 20th century portion is unlike the climatic history of the region, and is probably biased by other factors.
Mann’s method exaggerated the significance of the bristlecones so as to make their chronology out to be the dominant global climatic pattern rather than a minor (and likely inaccurate) regional one; Mann then understated the uncertainties of the final climate reconstruction, leading to the claim that 1998 was the warmest year of the last millennium, a claim that was not, in reality, supportable in the data. Furthermore, Mann put obstacles in place for subsequent researchers wanting to obtain his data and replicate his methodologies, most of which were only resolved by the interventions of US Congressional investigators and the editors of Nature magazine, both of whom demanded full release of his data and methodologies some six years after publication of his original Nature paper.
Mann had re-done his hockey stick graph at some point during its preparation with the dubious bristlecone records excluded and saw that the result lost the hockey stick shape altogether, collapsing into a heap of trendless noise. However he never pointed this out to readers…
Mann’s PC [principal components] step was programmed incorrectly and created two weird effects in how it handled data. First, if the underlying data set was mostly random noise, but there was one hockey stick-shaped series in the group, the flawed PC step would isolate it out, generate a hockey stick composite and call it the dominant pattern, even if it was just a minor background fluctuation. Second, if the underlying data consisted of a particular type of randomness called “red noise”—basically randomness operating on a slow, cyclical scale—then the PC step would rearrange the red noise into a hockey stick-shaped composite. Either way, the resulting composites would have a hockey stick shape for the LS [least squares] setup to glom onto and produce the famous final result.
The 32 page critique was produced by Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick and can be accessed here:
The PDF I am referring to is the one highlighted in red on this screenshot
Here are Steve and Ross’s words:
Page 2:
‘Unfortunately Mann et al. have refused to provide the source code used to generate their results, other than the limited (but essential) programs used for tree ring principal components (PCs). They have also refused to provide supporting calculations for the individual calculation steps in MBH98, especially the controversial step from 1400-1450 (the “AD1400 step”). Mann used trickery to obtain the results he wanted.’
Here is extract from page 4:
Once again, MBH98 contained a misrepresentation, this time about their PC method. After the University of Virginia FTP site was made publicly available following MM03, by examining PC series archived there and, by examining source code for PC calculations, we were able to determine that MBH98 had not carried out a “conventional” PC calculation, but had modified the PC algorithm, by, among other things, subtracting the 1902-1980 mean, rather than the 1400-1980 column mean, prior to PC calculations, so that the columns were no longer centered on a zero mean in the 1400–1980 step. By this procedure, series are more decentered, and their variance more inflated, the larger is the difference between the series mean and the mean of the 20th century subset. The effect of this transformation would have been mitigated if they had carried out a singular value decomposition on the covariance matrix, but they carried it out on the de-centered data matrix. We have shown elsewhere that this method re-allocates variance so that the PC algorithm then strongly over-weights hockey stick-shaped proxies and that it is so efficient in mining a hockey stick shape that it nearly always produces a hockey-stick shaped PC1 even from persistent red noise [McIntyre and McKitrick, 2005; discussed in Muller, 2004].
Page 5:
We have reported that this algorithm nearly always yields hockey-stick shaped series from persistent red noise networks
Page 7:
In the MBH98 de-centered PC calculation, a small group of 20 primarily bristlecone pine sites, all but one of which were collected by Donald Graybill and which exhibit an unexplained 20th century growth spurt (see Section 5 below), dominate the PC1. Only 14 such chronologies account for over 93% of the variance in the PC1,4 effectively omitting the influence of the other 56 proxies in the network.
Page 10:
The sensitivity of 15th century results to such slight variations of method and data show a fundamental instability in MBH98 results, related especially to the presence or absence of bristlecone pines and Gaspé cedars. This flatly contradicts some claims by Mann et al. about the robustness of MBH98 results.
Page 14:
Despite the reliance of MBH98 on the North American PC1, the validity of this series as a temperature proxy was not independently established in peer-reviewed literature…The strong difference between the Briffa re-construction, comprised of many species, and the MBH98 PC1 (representing only bristlecone pines) should also have raised questions about whether there may be species-particular effects related to any of the numerous unusual features of bristlecone pines.
Page 16:
Mann et al. [1999] purported to adjust the NOAMER PC1 for CO fertilization, by 2
coercing the shape of the NOAMER PC1 to the Jacoby northern treeline reconstruction in the 1750–1980 period, arguing that the northern treeline series would not be affected by CO levels. Once one gets into such ad hoc adjustments, many new questions need to be answered about the validity of the adjustment procedure
Page 23
Mann et al. [2003, 2004a, 2004b] argued that their results are similar to those of “independent” studies, such as Jones, Briffa et al. [1998], Crowley and Lowery [2000], Briffa, Jones et al [2001], Mann and Jones [2003] and Jones and Mann [2004], calculated with different proxies and different methods. This “similarity” is typically shown by “spaghetti” diagrams supposedly illustrating the similarity, rather than through detailed analysis.
Page 24:
These studies are hardly “independent”. If all the authors in the multiproxy articles are listed, one sees much overlapping. Mann himself was a co-author of two supposedly “independent” studies; his sometime co-author (as well as Bradley’s sometime co-author) Jones was co-author of two of the others. Even Crowley and Lowery [2000], where there is no apparent overlap, stated that they used data supplied by Jones. This hardly amounts to “independence” in any conventional use of the term. Many proxies are re-used in these studies, a point which Briffa and Osborn [1999] acknowledged Page 24: the prominent reliance on MBH98/99 in the Third Assessment Report is a matter of public record and cannot now be undone.
Page 26:
The ability of later researchers to carry out independent due diligence in The M&M critique of the MBH98 Northern Hemisphere Climate Index 93 paleoclimate is severely limited by the lack of journal policies or traditions requiring contributors to promptly archive data and methods. King [1995] has excellent comments on replication. In this respect, paleoclimate journal editors should consider changes taking place at some prominent economics journals. For example the American Economic Review now requires, as a precondition of publication, archiving data and computational code at the journal. This is a response to the critique of McCullough and Vinod [2003], and earlier work by Dewald et al. [1986]. The files associated with paleoclimate studies are trivial to archive. In our view, if the public archive does not permit the replication of a multiproxy study, then it should be proscribed for use in policy formation [McCullough and Vinod, 2003]. In addition, we are struck by the lack of policy both in paleoclimate publications and in climate policy reports (e.g. IPCC, ACIA) regarding the reporting of results adverse to their claims. While it may be assumed that results adverse to their claims would be generally disclosed, we are unaware of any paleoclimate journal which explicitly articulates this as a requirement to authors. In contrast, for a prospectus offering securities to the public, officers and directors are required to affirm that the prospectus contains “full, true and plain disclosure”, which requires the disclosure of material adverse results. In MBH98, there are a number of examples, where results adverse to their claims were not reported (and in some cases, actual misrepresentations)
My children are reaching the age when they need to gain a deeper understanding of the world in which they live. They certainly need to know about politics. An understanding of politics leads to a better understanding of the self since knowing how you stand on political issues will highlight those issues that are important to you.
I’ve been thinking how I could best explain the differences between The Left and The Right. As always, I knew that writing a blog on the subject would help me clarify my own understanding.
Firstly, however, I need to lay out some groundrules: This blog will describe the differences between Left and Right as they exhibit themselves today. I am not referring to the Tories of the 18th century. Nor am I referring to the Left at the start of the Labour movement in the 20th century. Furthermore, some people say that ‘left’ and ‘right’ are meaningless terms these days. They say “well, I am right wing on some things and left wing on other things”. I would respond that you are just trying to make yourself sound interesting. Either that or you’re too embarrassed to admit you’re right wing. There are fundamental differences between how those from the left and right think. Michael Malice asks a single question to determine if someone is left or right wing: ‘Do you think that some people are better than others?’
If you answer ‘Yes’, you are right wing. If you answer with a speech, you are left wing.
I thought that was a great way of getting to the heart of the matter. All the rest is just chaff.
Here we go:
Government:
The Right believes in small government, i.e. a government that doesn’t put its nose into all aspects of our lives. We believe everyone should be free to live their lives with the minimum of intervention from the government. The Right will shy away from rules and regulations. The Right believe in personal responsibility.
The Left wants Big Government. The Left like to be told what to do. As such, Leftists will always look to The State to solve the big problems of the day. An example of this was evident during the 2020 Covid19 calamity: the Left wanted the government to step in and impose restrictions. The Left supported firmer restrictions at every step of the process. The Left put a great deal of trust in governments to fix things because the Left believe that everything that is wrong with society can be corrected by government regulation. This is why Socialism is so appealing to Leftists because it is a system of total government control that can be designed to create utopia. However, I am reminded of something I heard Bret Weinstein say during a podcast:
“The future cannot be designed, it must be discovered”.
The Left also have controlling tendencies which they satisfy by having a government that sticks its nose into everyone’s business. The Left love regulation: it’s their way of imposing conformity.
An example of the Left’s belief that the State us the answer to all our problems is this: the Blair / Brown government of 1997 – 2010 employed 950,000 more public sector workers in 2010 than it inherited in 1997. How else were the many rules and regulations introduced by this Government to be overseen?
Insecurity is a common theme with Leftists which is one of the reasons why young people are Leftists but are likely to become Rightists with age (as they become more confident dealing with the world around them).
Under a Liberal governnent vs. a Conservative government
The Poor:
The Right believes that the rising tide lifts all boats. This translates into giving a free hand to the wealth creators to create wealth. Increasing wealth leads to increased jobs and increased standards of living for everyone. Also, the Right realise there are optimal tax rates that maximise tax revenue. Once taxes increase beyond certain rates, the tax revenue declines. See ‘Laffer Curve’. The Right also believe that reward should be earned, that people shouldn’t be given something for nothing, that people should be motivated to strive for a better life and that welfare payments destroy such motivation. In effect, I like to believe that all Rightists believe in ‘equality of opportunity’.
The Left go further than supporting ‘equality of opportunity’. They largely support ‘equality of outcome’. To that end, The Left believes that the rich should be clobbered financially to fund the poor, preferably through the Welfare State. A free market economy creates large wealth inequalities. Leftists don’t like this because their philosophy is that everyone should be equal. The Left would always prefer a lower average standard of living with less wealth ineqality than a higher standard of living allied to greater wealth inequality. The lower standard of living is always the result because the Left’s tax policies are a disincentive to wealth creation: the rich move to other countries and the future entrepreneurs are not as successful at creating new products due to the combination of the punishing tax regime and the increased rules and regulations implemented by Leftist governments that increase costs and make profits hard to come by.
However, the Left used to support the white working class. They no longer care about the white working class. In fact they now dislike this demographic because this group do not buy into the identity politics that the Left has embraced.
The Blank Slate:
The Right believe that people are different: differing intelligence; differing conscientiousness; differing levels of ambition; differing levels of imagination; differing physical abilities. These differences cause the different levels of success amongst people. The Right recognise that inequalities of human aptitude exist and those with more aptitude should be allowed to benefit from those qualities. It is fair and correct that people should be able to benefit if they have good ideas or they want to work harder etc. Recognition and reward of talent allows more successful products and services to be produced which raises the standard of living for everyone.
The Left start with the premise that everyone is the same and that it is only life experiences that create differences. The Left believe that we all have the same potential. They believe that nurture, not nature, is responsible for any and all differences. This is the ‘Blank Slate’ philosophy. Steven Pinker destroyed the ‘Blank Slate’ philosophy in his eponymous book.
The Left believes that certain people do less well at life because they have not had the same opportunities as other people. The Left also believe that structural biases mean that women and minority groups suffer from prejudices that hold them back. The Left believe that the poor are held back by growing up in poverty. Or blacks are disadvantaged because they have to deal with racism. Using this philosophy, leftists can excuse any group that isn’t successful and blame it on ‘structural’ issues. The Left avoids discussing why East Asians and Jews aren’t affected by racism.
Personal Responsibility:
The Right take responsibility for their actions.
The Left do not take responsibility for their actions because they believe in the Blank Slate (see above). Since they believe they absorb and are moulded by societal pressures, Leftists blame those societal pressures when they do something wrong. Nothing is ever their fault. There’s always something they try to hang their bad behaviour on. My wife just angrily told me that major Hollywood libtard Ben Affleck has just blamed his recent months-long period of alcohol fuelled debauchery and degeneracy on feeling trapped as a husband and father. You see, it wasn’t his fault: it was his family’s fault. And with one leap he was free. Check it out with other celebrity lefties: they always play the blame game.
Inequality:
The Right accepts that Successful people will – and should – earn more money than unsuccessful people. The Right adjusts for this by claiming more tax from successful people. This is the basis of progressive tax rates. This is why in UK, 29% of ALL income tax is paid by the top 1% of earners. However, the Right accepts that successful people deserve to have a better quality of life than less successful people because they are the income generators. Successful people run the businesses that employ people and so grow the economy. This is the carrot offered by the Right: work hard and do well and you can enjoy a good lifestyle.
The Left is inclined towards imposing equality on everyone because they believe that is ‘fair’. What they don’t appreciate is that people are not equal and never will be. If you make everyone the same, then there are no longer incentives for working harder or for having good ideas. So people will stop doing this. This is why Eastern Europe fared so badly, economically, under Socialism: incentive had been removed. This is a refusal to accept innate differences among humans.
Moral Codes
Jonathan Haidt, in his book ‘The Righteous Mind’, described how he had discovered 6 moral foundations that guide people’s political beliefs:
1. Care/ harm foundation
2. Liberty/ oppression foundation
3. Fairness / cheating foundation
4. Loyalty / betrayal foundation
5. Authority / subversion foundation
6. Sanctity / degradation foundation
Haidt showed that liberals, i.e. The Left, only use 3 of the 6 moral foundations in their morality (Care, Liberty and Fairness) whereas conservatives have a morality built on all 6 moral foundations. In effect, The Left abide by a narrower moral code than The Right.
Haidt further concludes that this means that conservatives can understand the political positions of liberals much better than liberals are able to understand the positions adopted by conservatives.
The Family:
The Right believe the family is the basic social unit. The family is a strong, stable unit that supports everyone in it and that members of a family can look out for each other. The strength of families mean that The Right do not look to the Government as their primary means of support.
The Left believe in individualism and, therefore are often found trying to undermine the family unit. The Left realise that single people are much more likely to look to The State for security. The Left want individuals to be reliant on the State for support, rather than each other. As such, the Left make divorce ever easier to encourage families to break down, and increase welfare so that the government can fulfill the role of ‘husband’ for single mothers. They also try to prevent families occurring by encouraging women to work so they are not dependent on a man. Once in work The Left will give women the message that if they give up work to have a baby they will be missing out on their career. The Left also makes abortion ever easier. It is no coincidence that Marxist organisations like Black Lives Matter declare their intention to destroy the nuclear family as per this text that appears on the BLM website:
‘We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable’
Tradition:
The Right has a strong attachment to tradition and history. Rightists agree with the sentiment that
‘Unless we learn the lessons from history, we are condemned to repeat its mistakes’.
Everything that Western culture has achieved has been built upon the efforts of previous generations.
The traditions that have passed to us are the connection we have to our ancestors. Those traditions ground us. Those traditions are part of our shared history. Those traditions encapsulate the culture of the country.
The Left hates tradition because tradition acts as a brake on the change they want to instill on society. The Left is always trying to re-interprete history for political gain. Leftists always try to destroy statues and call for changes to the way history is taught in order to break those connections to our past and facilitate the process of change that they promise will make everything better, but never does. We saw this during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 where protesters immediately turned to pulling down or defacing statues and other historical monuments.
The left is for everything that divides us — multiculturalism, critical race theory, sexual indoctrination in the schools and unisex bathrooms — and against everything that unites us.
Change:
The Right support slow, gradual changes that are carefully considered and will deliver benefits for the greater good. The changes that are introduced by the Right build on what came before.
The Left are very dissatisfied with the institutations and traditions that, they believe, act as a brake on the radical change that, they believe is needed. You see, the only type of change the Left believe in is radical change. The Left want to destroy everything in order to rebuild everything in the progressive manner that will finally deliver Leftist heaven here on Earth. This is why Leftists have no respect for any of the institutions and traditions that define the country: in their view it all needs to go.
Immigration:
The Right believe that immigration must be controlled to ensure that only people that can make a positve contribution to the country are allowed to move here. Also, the Right is interested in protecting the cultural traditions of the indigenous population. As such, the Right believe that immigrants should assimilate the culture of their adopted country. Commonality of culture in a country ensures high levels of social cohesion and social trust. Hence, Rightists support the concept of a multi-ethnic society but not a multi-cultural one.
The Left believe that everyone who wants to move here should be allowed because that is ‘fair’ . Also the Left are petrified of being thought racist. As such, they feel that allowing all race and cultures to move to UK proves how not racist they are. Also, the Left knows that immigrants from 2nd and 3rd world countries are more likely to vote for Leftist parties. The Left also appreciates that mass immigration gives them a chance to portray national history and traditions as racist and so downplay these cultural markers. The Left can use immigration to change the national culture in the name of ‘inclusiveness’ and, thereby, implement their progressive agenda. Leftists love to promote foreign cultures but rarely their own culture because they dislike their own culture.
Multiculturalism:
The Right recognises that multiculturalism leads to tensions: differences between groups of people – religion, food, language, colour – lead to wars. Look at the wars over the last 500 years between Catholics and Protestants: a small difference of religious doctrine leading to confrontation and persecution on a massive scale. That is just one small example of the trouble caused by different cultures. Now what’s going to happen if we force lots of different cultures to live side by side within the same country? Even Angela Merkel said, in 2010, that multiculturalism had failed.
The Left don’t study history very much so they don’t understand the reasons for most wars. Leftists believe that wars are caused by ignorance and so if people of different cultures could live side by side, tensions would reduce as people saw that different cultures are nothing to be fearful of. It’s a nice idea but, as usual with Leftist philosophy, detached from reality. The fact that social cohesion is very low in multicultural regions is evidence that people do not trust people from different cultures. That lack of trust causes tensions. Humans have evolved to want to be around like-minded people.
Meritocracy:
The Right believe that everyone should be free to reach their potential and that opportunities should be offered to the best person based on work and qualifications.
The Left believe that meritocracy cannot be left to its own devices. Instead, the normal processes must be engineered to take account of the struggles that certain victim groups have had to overcome. Therefore, we see the Left impose targets and ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ officers to ensure that all groups are proportionally represented. The Left would not necessarily want the right person to get the job, or university place or research grant etc but the right type of person to keep things ‘fair’. This is typical Leftism: The belief that more rules and regulations can correct for the defects of human behaviour. This belief also requires the huge government infrastructure, so beloved by Leftists, to manage. Ultimately, The Left doesn’t trust people. People need to be managed. That’s why socialist states are so joyless: the people know they are not trusted by the governing class.
Work:
The Right believe that people need to work in order to provide for themselves. Work is very important for the Right, as it is in Christiantity whereby a man finds satisfaction in his work and also a sense of purpose. The Right believes that without the sense of purpose provided by work, man becomes listless. We are, in effect, Beasts of Burden: the more we work, the more capable of work we become. But do not overlook the need for people to work in order to provide for their families and the satisfaction that comes with that: man providing for his family is an instinct that goes back to the earliest primates.
The Left feel that work is a burden and that if people were freed of this burden, people would then have the opportunity to reach their utmost potential. This is why the Left are always looking at UBI and welfare and other ways whereby a minority of taxpayers can pay for the rest of us to sit around working on our pottery. Or our baking. Or becoming actors. The Left believes that, freed from the constraints of work, everyone will become an artist. They also believe that the world needs a 1000 fold increase in the numbers of artists. As I’ve written before, the 80 year history of the welfare state shows us that freed from the inconvenience of work, people do not perfect their lace-making: instead they choose to spend all day watching TV and eating too much processed food.
The Right have a ‘live and let live’ attitude to other people. Keep out of my way and I’ll keep out of yours.
The Left believe only their view is the correct one and are unbelievably intolerant of anyone with different views. We only have to remember the reaction to the Brexit vote for evidence of the infamous tolerence of the left. Or the reaction to Trump’s election victory in 2016. Or the efforts to ruin the careers of anyone that does not adhere to Leftist orthodoxy. Leftists do like diversity of opinions because, as we saw in the section on moral codes, they often can’t relate to the thinking that underpins different opinions. As such, they are driven to destroy what they don’t understand.
Human Nature:
The Right: The Right realises that human nature is a complex thing. People are very different and have very different motivations in life. The best thing that can be done is to let people be who they want to be, as long as their actions do not have a detrimental impact on anyone else.
The Left: The Left have an idealised view of human behaviour. Leftists feel that human behaviour can be moulded to fit with their vision of ideal human behaviour. They think that if you subject people to enough propaganda and scream at them if they don’t behave the way they want you to behave, that they will eventually come round to Leftist thinking. This is why Leftists want to control children as they feel that children can be moulded to accept Leftist ideas. As mentioned previously, Leftists cannot accept opinions and moral codes that are different from theirs so they try to force their cookie-cutter view of human behaviour on everyone.
Childhood Sexuality:
The Right: The Right do not like to expose children to sexuality. The innocence of chidren needs to be protected. Adult sexuality can be frightening to children.
The Left: The Left are always angling to expose children to adult sexuality and to encourage sexuality in children. It’s always Leftists that want to lower the age of sexual consent. It’s always Leftists that protect and support paedophiles. It’s always Leftists that are overjoyed to see toddlers twerking or pre-pubescent boys becoming drag queens.
It’s always the Left that think its healthy for children to be exposed to adult sexuality:
In the article referenced in the tweet above, the author writes:
‘Children who witness kink culture are reassured that alternative experiences of sexuality and expression are valid—no matter who they become as they mature, helping them recognize that their personal experiences aren’t bad or wrong’.
‘Kink visibility is a reminder that any person can and should shamelessly explore what brings joy and excitement,” the writer added. “We don’t talk to our children enough about pursuing sex to fulfill carnal needs that delight and captivate us in the moment.’
Leftist politicians regularly try to test the boundaries of the public’s attitude to paedophilia. In the UK, there was an organisation called the ‘Paedophilia Information Exchange’ (PIE). This group had affiliations with the National Council on Civil Liberties (NCCL), later known as ‘Liberty’. Two women who later become Cabinet members of the Labour Party – Harriet Harman and Patricia Hewitt – both had senior roles in NCCL during the affiliation with PIE.
Not every Leftist is a paedophile but every paedophile is a Leftist.
Isn’t it strange that the white working class are the most patriotic of people when, it could be argued, their country has done very little for them. Yet it is the middle class, specifically the liberal middle class, who have benefitted so much that hate the UK the most.
I used to find a lot of fault with the white working class. I stood in judgement of their unhealthy lifestyles, general ignorance, their abundance of children, their propensity towards teenage pregnancy and their failure to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. [My Dad Left school at 14 in 1950 before attending night school for 7 years during his 20s en route to becoming a design engineer and sending his son to private school so I do know something about bootstrap pulling].
However, the Brexit vote showed me another side of the white working class and I realised that I have more in common with them than I realised.
In short, the working class are socially conservative. They are deeply patriotic. They value the history and traditions of the UK and they don’t want to see that wiped away in the name of progress. Also, they don’t embrace the latest political causes in order to show how modern they are.
They don’t care that liberals have decided that such attitudes are unfashionable. They reject the fashionable lunecies of the liberals such as a man being a woman if he decides he is a woman.
As a result, the liberal middle classes have turned on the white working class. Until the last couple of years I spent my whole life hearing the liberal middle classes demand that more be done to help the poor. However, since the EU referendum, they are now openly scornful of the working class. The referendum revealed that the working class are no longer the pet monkeys of the liberal middle class: they won’t do what they’re told and they don’t know what’s best for them. Since then the divide has continued to grow: the working class have shunned the cultural Marxism that has been embraced by the liberals, such as believing that unlimited immigration is a good thing for the country, and they have even started voting Tory as the best way to prevent young children being given hormone treatments to change their gender.
For their part, the liberal middle classes no longer need the working classes in order to indulge their saviour complexes. Thanks to multiculturalism there are now lots of other niche causes the liberal middle classes can rally around such as Islamophobia; BLM; cultural appropriation and white supremacy. (Unfortunately, anti-semitism cannot be added to that list.)
The vitriol the middle class unleashed on the working class after the referendum was truly eye-opening: people were ‘gammons’; they didn’t understand what they were voting for; they had fallen for the lies of populist politicians; they were racist; they were manipulated; they were small-minded Little Englanders etc etc.
So, as a result of such disloyalty, the middle class have cut their ties to the working class. They’re not even pretending anymore. They have progressed from denigrating their country to denigrating the people in the country. White people in the UK can now be attacked and insulted without recrimination. Most commonly these attacks are falling on the white working class. Liberals rail against the concept of ‘punching down’ yet because their perverse ideology of ‘identity politics’ places all white people at the top of the tree of unearned privilege, they can justify attacking the white working class as a form of revolt against their oppressors. So, really, they are punching up not down, do you see?
Now we have a situation where the working classes are an underclass in the UK and no one cares. White working class boys have the worst educational performance in the UK. This group does not recieve as much attention in the classroom as other groups. No one fights for the working class. This bothers me a lot. I deeply believe in ‘equality of opportunity’ yet white working class boys are not receiving the same opportunities as everyone else.
However, you don’t see the white working class destroying statues, or defacing war memorials or rioting or going on stabbing sprees. No, that’s the privilege of the liberal middle classes.
The working class continue to love their country even though their love is unrequited.
Update 16th March 2021:
This article provides a good history of the Left’s attitude to the white working class over the last 35 years…
Many women in the West believe – or pretend to believe – they are being oppressed by a system of Patriarchy
Such women believe that the world would be a better place if the patriarchy were destroyed. However, what does ‘destroying Patriarchy’ mean? We’ll come to that later
In the meantime, it is hard to determine what Western institutions are oppressing women. Women have access to every field of endeavour that exists. There are no legal impediments that would stop a woman achieving whatever they wish to achieve. The only hurdles to their success lie with their abilities and their motivations.
Yet, because women haven’t reached 50% of all top jobs in all industries, this is held as evidence that there is a secret network operated by men – The Patriarchy – that somehow organises to ‘keep women in their place’.
True, all Western institutions were created by men. That was the split of responsibilities agreed upon back in the day: women would look after the kids and the home and men would provide economic and protective security.
I can completely understand that, once women saw what men had created they wanted to get in on the action. I understand that their side of the deal must have started to look a little underwhelming by comparison. Once upon a time, women knew that they were ahead of the game when their menfolk faced either back-breaking work in the fields or death during encounters with rival tribes / armies. However, ever since men created labour saving devices, and the threat of death from enemies has rescinded, women have realised that the scales of life may have tipped in favour of men. As a result, women felt no shame in emerging from their households to demand a piece of men’s labour.
And men gave it to them. We recognised the equality of women and provided access to what we had built.
And women have been doing very well ever since. In fact, such has been the impact of women in politics and corporate life that I would argue that we now live in a matriarchy. Here is my evidence:
Education: more women than men attend higher education and girls perform much better at schools than boys.
Feminism: in feminism, women have a movement that is on high alert 24 /7 to protest about anything that may have a negative consequence for women. This movement set its sights on men only spaces and determines to win access to those spaces with the result that the Boy Scouts of America must now accept girls and men’s college fraternities must now accept women. Men do not have such a movement. Women are allowed to have their own spaces, men are not. Consequentally, politicians are aware that they must always act to promote women’s causes rather than men in order to not attract negative attention.
Corporate diversity: Corporations are falling over themselves to ensure the constitutions of their companies reflect society. Hence, women are sought in ever greater numbers so that 50% quotas can be met. In industries that are not attractive to women, this has meant lowering the entry standards expected of men so that sufficient women qualify to hit those diversity quotas. Sexism, much?
Earnings: women under age of 25 earn more, on average, than men of the same age. The gender pay gap only exists as the fever-dream of militant feminists.
Advertising: I doubt you have seen an TV commercial in the last 5 years in which the man shows a woman the error of her ways. Only men – white men – can be shown to make mistakes or to be olympic-standard morons that require patronising behaviour from women to show who is the brightest and the best.
Public visibility: spokespeople for causes; companies; charities etc are nearly all women. So are most news readers. There has been an explosion in the numbers of female presenters and journalists covering males sports recently to the extent that the 50% target must have been met.
Wokeness: the Woke movement is evidence of tbe influence of women in our society. Wokeness is all about being ‘fair’ and pro minorities.
If anyone still believes that men have it easy, let me present the following facts:
1) Men are more likely to be homeless
2) Men are more likely to die from a workplace injury
3) Men are more likely to commit suicide.
4) Retirement age for men is older than for women (even though men die younger).
5) Men are more likely than women to go to jail for the same crime (and serve longer jail time when women are jailed).
6) Men are less likely to win custody of children after separation.
The truth of the matter is that there is no patriarchy. If anything, we live in a matriarchy such is the extent that every aspect of our lives is dominated by females and female thinking. Patriarchy is just a synonym: what people mean by ‘destroy patriarchy’ is that they want to ‘destroy society’, that is they want to destroy the institutions that ensure that society runs successfully: the judicial system, the police force, government, private enterprise and private property etc. Militant social justice groups like BLM and 5th wave feminism are Marxists intent on replacing the free-market with socialism. If you are a woman, don’t think that smashing the patriarchy is going to benefit you: it isn’t. If the Marxists get their way, it’s much more likely that you will be picking potatoes despite – or, maybe, because of – that fancy degree of yours.
The following struck a chord with me:
“This belief that men and women are essentially the same leaves both sexes chronically at risk of misunderstanding human sexuality. A measure of male sexual aggression is neither entirely a social construct nor wholly curable via education. It has a biological substrate. And it’s not even undesirable to women, provided it’s in the right context. But managing it takes a measure of realism, compromise and — sometimes — a willingness to adopt social norms that treat the sexes differently.”
Atticus Fox 