Politics and Culture

Heard this on Prager.

OTTAWA (AFP) - A Canadian court has lifted a 12-year-old girl's grounding, overturning her father's punishment for disobeying his orders to stay off the Internet, his lawyer said Wednesday.

The girl had taken her father to Quebec Superior Court after he refused to allow her to go on a school trip for chatting on websites he tried to block, and then posting "inappropriate" pictures of herself online using a friend's computer.

The father's lawyer Kim Beaudoin said the disciplinary measures were for the girl's "own protection" and is appealing the ruling.

"She's a child," Beaudoin told AFP. "At her age, children test their limits and it's up to their parents to set boundaries."

"I started an appeal of the decision today to reestablish parental authority, and to ensure that this case doesn't set a precedent," she said. Otherwise, said Beaudoin, "parents are going to be walking on egg shells from now on."

"I think most children respect their parents and would never go so far as to take them to court, but it's clear that some would and we have to ask ourselves how far this will go."

According to court documents, the girl's Internet transgression was just the latest in a string of broken house rules. Even so, Justice Suzanne Tessier found her punishment too severe.

Beaudoin noted the girl used a court-appointed lawyer in her parents' 10-year custody dispute to launch her landmark case against dear old dad.

Do you think the judge is a conservative or a liberal?

This reminds me of when the Chinese communists would send officials to familys' homes to insult the parents so that the children can know who's really boss.

I don't think I have to explain this except to say that you are wrong to doubt that the left's goal is to center life around the state instead of the family.

Let me also mention that the left only wants diversity in meaningless categories like race. When it comes to how you run your household, they want complete conformity.

Or, the continuing desire to punish blasphemy, to be precise. Although leftists have initiated most efforts to control society since the twentieth century, the totalitarian impulse isn't exclusive to them. England is replacing one of its last non-left efforts to control speech by eliminating its blasphemy laws. Or are they:

In practice, the law has seldom been used, and in 2006 a new law making it a crime to incite religious hatred was adopted as a more equitable alternative. The last time anyone was imprisoned for blasphemy was in 1922, when a man was convicted after comparing Jesus Christ to a circus clown.

LA Times

Put another way, the English transferred their outrage at insults directed at Christ to verbal or written offenses against any group except Christians (de facto- for proof, read Lionheart. He seems legit, though he may be a loon. The point is that he's being charged, essentially, with blasphemy.). The impulse to control is still the same; it's the target that's different. Thus, transference, not destruction of state efforts to assure ideological conformity.

To expand from blasphemy, the same zeal that drove puritans to enforce standards of dress and marital norms now powers efforts to ban trans-fats, smoking in private establishments, fast food as well as regulate home temperature, car size, campus speech, home education, and every other human activity- except whatever the original Puritans cared about.

Parents who lack teaching credentials cannot educate their children at home, according to a state appellate court ruling that is sending waves of fear through California's home schooling families.

Advocates for the families vowed to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court. Enforcement until then appears unlikely, but if the ruling stands, home-schooling supporters say California will have the most regressive law in the nation.

It's funny. About a month ago, I was trying to make the point that many liberals have a totalitarian impulse, and I used the example of homeschooling. I offered as evidence this testimony from a home schooler about how the state harasseses her for preferring her own loving care over state care and this example from France . I was careful not to say that the the American left wanted to ban parental education so as not to overstate the case. Well, in my caution, I actually understated the case. To paraphrase H.L. Mencken, liberal fascism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, is making their own decision (without the help of experts).

This is a very upsetting story that should anger all freedom-minded people.

The absurd premise is that one needs to immerse oneself in the steamy sauna of education-school flatulence to know how to teach a kid about history, math, or how to read. Do any of you that had teachers unschooled in the faddish, brain-deadness that is education theory, feel stupid? If somebody asked you to explain something to your kids, would you not even try for fear of contradicting the latest brain research? I dare you to find one good, experienced teacher who credits her success to education school. To make anybody waste their time and money to get a near-worthless teacher credential just so they can teach their children without state intervention is outrageous.

Also, doesn't such a ruling suppose that the state is responsible for children and not parents? That the state (of California!) knows what's best for the kids? It's part of the fascistic trend that wants kids away from the mom A.S.A.P. starting with pre-school- because it takes vast amounts of education to teach finger painting and the alphabet. Then, mandatory kindergarten where kids are taught about sex-education (Did people forget that Obama suggested kindersex-ed?) which segue ways into grammar school where some state legislators want them to learn about such crucial issues as homosexuality, middle-school where the same legislators want to give them condoms, high school which ratchets a student's self-esteem up or down depending on whether he's is in one of the favored groups or not, and on to college where children start the process over again. At this point, the government may want some to cut short somebody's graduate school so that they can work a little and help the state pay for everything. Eventually, people retire. Luckily, the state will give them money for retirement because their own children won't feel any responsibility to do so.

Of course, it's a judge that decides. Not even Californians are that fascistic.

One less decision individuals have to make. Way to go, L.A. PETA fanatics also equate dog breeding with the KKK. Story here.

What have we come to when people can't choose for whom to work. The reason I care is that one way to enforce social norms is through passive resistance. In other words, saying, "You can do whatever you wish, but I won't have any of it" is how society gets along. Modern liberals are about control (for good reasons, of course).

Story here.

NEW MEXICO (LifeSiteNews) - The case of a Christian photographer who refused to photograph a same-sex "commitment ceremony", was heard before the New Mexico Human Rights Division on Monday.

A same-sex couple asked Elaine Huguenin, co-owner with her husband of Elane Photography, to photograph a "commitment ceremony" that the two women wanted to hold. Huguenin declined because her Christian beliefs are in conflict with the message communicated by the ceremony.

The same-sex couple filed a complaint with the New Mexico Human Rights Division, which is now trying Elane Photography under state antidiscrimination laws for sexual orientation discrimination.

It's about Darwinism and ID, a subject on which I'm neutral.

Here.

From here. It's their city. I actually like that cities can legislate their own style. I hope they respect other communities' rights to restrict other government agencies.

If the measure makes the ballot and passes with a majority vote, a military office seeking to open within 600 feet of homes, parks, public health clinics, libraries, schools or churches would require a use permit with a public hearing. It's a longer and more complicated city process that sometimes can be stalled or nixed in city bureaucracy.

Proponents say making it more difficult for military recruiters to locate in Berkeley hopefully will force them to stay away from the city, which has a long history of approving anti-war proclamations and opposing armed conflict.

"We believe that the youth in society today are susceptible to pressure from military recruiters," said Sharon Adams, a Berkeley-based attorney who helped draft the proposed initiative. "As a policy matter, we are trying to make it so that youth have a little bit

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In this article, the carpetbagger report essentially says:

I haven't read the book, but I can regurgitate all of the lies I've been told.

or

Since liberals (the left) believe in everything that's good, and fascism is bad, then we're not fascists.

I haven’t read Jonah Goldberg’s new book, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning, since I make it a rule to try to avoid projectile vomiting as much as possible. But I could not help but be intrigued by the subtitle.

and this:

Goldberg’s book is quite an achievement. You don’t even have to read beyond the cover to start seeing errors. Surely that sets some kind of record.

Now that's an intellectual!

Should I? OK.

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