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On Hunter Biden's pardon

Presses are running hot with the news that President Joe Biden has issued a full and unconditional pardon of his son Hunter following years of swirling controversy over the younger Biden’s questionable legal dealings, which included a federal conviction for tax evasion and lying on a firearms application. In a statement released Sunday night, President Biden explained his reason for the pardon: “No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong.” At 82 years of age and with just over two months left in the White House, it is understandable that Joe Biden would use the full power of his office to grant clemency to someone he loves and deeply cares about. Viewed as a gesture of paternal affection, the Biden pardon is understandable — gracious, even. From just about any other angle, however, it’s quite troubling. With a stroke of the pen, Joe Biden became the first president in United States history to pardon his own son for criminal activity. While the Constitution grants presidents this power, such a move is unprecedented in modern history for the simple reason that it has all the appearances of favouritism and abuse of power. It was for this reason that President Biden originally vowed not pardon Hunter. Here’s his press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre assuring the press pack repeatedly of that promise: SUPERCUT: White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has repeatedly said Joe Biden would not pardon his son, Hunter. pic.twitter.com/4g2HbuOzVG — Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) December 2, 2024 And here’s 10 minutes of a fawning media praising President Biden for the incredible character and integrity he displayed in that decision: SUPERCUT!Corporate media: Obviously Biden would never pardon Hunter pic.twitter.com/gJRhASCAUs — Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) December 2, 2024

Kurt Mahlburg

December 03, 2024

Is life in today’s West really just like living in Nazi Germany? No, it’s just like living in Germany …

“It’s just like living in Nazi Germany!” – or so many excitable commentators like myself are often wont to say about life in the contemporary West whenever we see the latest egregious assault on free speech or outrageous overblown “hate crime” incident. Except, of course, it isn’t quite like Nazi Germany at all, is it? Such statements, at least on my own behalf, are often meant more as comic or critical journalistic hyperbole and bombast, not literal statements of verbatim fact. There are no death-camps in Europe, Australasia or America today, are there? And, say what you like about Brownshirt Biden, at least it ultimately proved possible for opponents to vote him out of office, unlike with Herr Hitler in the ‘30s and ‘40s. Instead, a better comparison to make might be not to say, “It’s just like living in Nazi Germany!”, but “It’s just like living in Germany!” instead, actual Nazis no longer in any way being necessary, just ordinary “democratic” politicians. Heel, Hitler! Back in the day, the Nazis themselves didn’t particularly like being insulted, to say the least. My favourite personal example came in 1941 when Nazi diplomats made persistent legal attempts to “cancel” a Finnish gentleman named Tor Borg who had amusingly trained his pet dog to raise its paw in classic “Heil Hitler!” style whenever he said Adolf’s name. Top Nazis suspected this was meant as an insult, leading to attempts at legal prosecution. When this failed, the Nazis tried to ruin Borg’s pharmaceutical business instead. As journalist Klaus Hillenbrand put it once news of the bizarre escapade finally emerged in 2011: “The dog affair tells us the Nazis were not only criminals and mass murderers, they were silly as hell. There are very few things you can laugh about [from the Third Reich] because what they did was so monstrous. But there were two or three dozen people discussing the affair of the dog rather than preparing for the invasion of the Soviet Union. They were crazy.” They sure were! No politicians in the modern-day West would ever bother wasting their time with anything as trivial as that these days, would they? Except that, in 2018, a Scottish comedian, Mark Meechan (aka Count Dankula) was successfully prosecuted in a court of British law after training his girlfriend’s pet dog to do a similar “Heil Hitler!” salute in response to his cues of “Sieg Heil!” and “Do you wanna gas the Jews?” before posting the resulting footage online to annoy his partner. Although Meechan was not actually an anti-Semite, just a prankster, he was convicted of hate speech and fined £800 nonetheless. Accordingly, here’s a new version of Klaus Hillenbrand’s 2011 assessment of the Tor Borg affair, updated anew for the age of Count Dankula: "The dog affair tells us the self-professed anti-Nazis of today’s liberal West were not actually outright criminal mass murderers, like the real Nazis once were, but it does show they were silly as hell. You can certainly laugh about it all, but really their persecution of innocent jokers and critics is at least a little bit monstrous. At a time when Vladimir Putin had already annexed Crimea, there were two or three dozen people in the United Kingdom discussing the affair of a Sieg Heiling dog rather than preparing for the potential looming invasion of Ukraine. They were crazy." Indeed so – and nowhere more so than in today’s oh-so-liberal anti-Nazi Germany.

Steven Tucker

December 04, 2024

It’s still possible to stop the UK’s assisted dying law

On November 29 a majority of MPs in the British Parliament voted in favour of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill at its Second Reading. The current law, the Suicide Act 1961, makes it a crime for anyone to “encourage or assist” another person to take their own life. It protects everyone equally from being encouraged or assisted to attempt suicide, irrespective of the health of the person being encouraged or assisted. Guidance on the use of prosecutorial discretion focuses on the reluctance of the person assisting, the nature of the assistance and whether the person encouraging or assisting is the victim’s doctor. It makes no mention of the health of the victim. Notwithstanding cases of heavy-handed police investigation in cases where prosecution was not in the public interest, the law itself is an important protection, which also admits for merciful discretion. “A hard law, with a kind face”. In stark contrast, this Bill permits a doctor to give a lethal substance to “bring about death” to a patient who wished to “end their own life” and allows a doctor to encourage or counsel such a course of action. It legalises physician-assisted suicide. It removes certain people from the current protection of the law. Evidence from overseas jurisdictions shows that those included in such a law will widen over time, and that it will be used for people who, with adequate medical treatment and care, could have lived many years (as is the case in Oregon). Even were it possible to limit the application to a small group of people, it would deprive some people of suicide prevention on the basis of their health status. This is why the Bill is flawed not only in its details but in principle. In other jurisdictions increasing numbers of people commit assisted suicide because they feel that they are a burden to others, as the law changes – corrupts – medical and general culture, including the value people give to their own lives. In addition to this core issue, the evidence from other countries is that the “safeguards” in the Bill, such as the requirement for two doctors to sign off on the provision of lethal drugs, will not stop coercion. There is nothing in the Bill, for example, to prevent the social coercion that is due to the lack of adequate health or social care or to cuts in the benefit system, a form of coercion highlighted by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

David Albert Jones

December 04, 2024

Is this really the right moment to cancel chastity?

Chastity is not a world-beating idea. Iran's recent “Chastity and Hijab” law will not enhance its appeal. Trump did not win his election by promising to “Make America Chaste Again”. Nonetheless, chastity has been a core part of the Judaeo-Christian culture for more than 3500 years. “Thou shalt not commit adultery” was one of the Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mount Sinai. This prohibition is not limited to wife-stealing. It has a positive aspect to it as well. For Christians, it means mastery of sexual impulses and using sex only within marriage. Antiquity is not the best argument for extolling the virtue of chastity, but it’s a good start. Which makes it perplexing that Australia’s first female Anglican archbishop, the Most Reverend Kay Goldsworthy AO, of Perth, has "abolished" it in her bailiwick. Australia’s 23 Anglican dioceses have “faithfulness in service” guidelines for clergy and staff. The Perth diocese is the eighth to remove the word “chastity” from these guidelines. At a moment in history when clergy are widely (and mostly unfairly) suspected of sexual abuse of all kinds, cancelling chastity seems like burning antibiotics in a TB epidemic. But Archbishop Goldsworthy has dug her heels in. She accused her critics of targeting her because she is a woman. Here are some of her changes: Instead of “maintaining chastity in singleness and faithfulness in marriage”, priests and staff should value God’s “gift” of sexuality by “taking responsibility for their sexual conduct”. The original guideline “7.4 You are to be chaste and not engage in disgraceful conduct of a sexual nature” becomes “7.4 Your sexual behaviour should be characterised by faithfulness and integrity.” This abolishes not only chastity but also the notion of “disgraceful conduct”. What would be disgraceful, if anything? Another guideline used to be “7.7 You should avoid situations where you are vulnerable to temptation or where your conduct may be construed as a breach of the standards of sexual conduct in this Code.” It becomes: “7.7 You should avoid situations where your conduct breaches the standards of sexual conduct in this Code.” This helpfully abolishes “temptation” and the ancient sin of scandal. Situations should be avoided only if they breach the new code, not if they might appear improper to others or lead them into sin. Many Anglican clergy are outraged by the changes. The Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Kanishka Raffel, told The Australian, the newspaper which broke the story, “Biblical standards have not changed and yet one more diocese has changed the guidelines to permit sexual activity outside marriage, whether in heterosexual or homosexual relationships, and other sexually permissive practices. This is neither scriptural nor Anglican teachings.”

Michael Cook

December 03, 2024

The world’s biggest pro-natalist conference will gather in Austin in March

Christmas is coming; 2025 is barreling down upon us. The New Year seems destined to bring monumental change. We are on track for more war, tectonic geopolitical permutations and the beginnings of a global monetary reset. But will there be a turnaround in that which most ails our species? Sadly not. However, 2025 will bring a most important gathering that will address the issue head-on. Global ailment What most ails humanity? The global fertility crisis, aka the birth dearth, what scholarly types call demographic collapse. It is endemic in these oh-so-modern times. In the last 75 years global total fertility rates (TFRs) have declined over 50 percent, from 4.85 in 1950 to just 2.25 today. By 2100 global TFR is projected to be under 1.6. This is unprecedented: that means never - ever - before – in all of history has there been such a prolonged decline in births. A solid majority of countries are no longer replacing themselves. The world’s most populous country, India, has a below-replacement TFR of 2.0 (2.1 is replacement level). The East Asian “tiger” economies South Korea, China and Japan have had population decline for years. The entire West is on the cusp of such decline; only decades of mass immigration have delayed it. If current trends continue, there will be a gradual, ineluctable unwinding of life as we know it, leading to dystopian scenarios of old age pension plan collapse, school closings, industry failures and a pandemic of isolated individuals adrift from family and community. There is no disagreement about where this is headed. For a detailed analysis, The Lancet’s landmark study“Global fertility in 204 countries and territories, 1950–2021, with forecasts to 2100: a comprehensive demographic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021” is an eye-opener. Since the study’s publication in 2021, indicators are that fertility is falling even faster than projected. Yet many so-called “progressives,” self-righteous “Greens” and fad-fixated wokesters view humanity’s decline as a positive development. That is manifestly misanthropic. Pronatalist pushback However, there is consequential consciousness-raising afoot. A growing number of people – transcending race, religion, politics and socio-economic class – are now aware of this debilitating trend. Thanks to pronatalist pronouncements by Pope Francis, various heads of state (Italy’s Meloni, Hungary’s Orbán, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping) and figures like Elon Musk, Malcolm and Simone Collins and Hannah’s Children author Catherine Pakaluk, pronatalism is now part of popular culture. This is critical in a world conditioned to images and soundbites. Avidly pronatalist Senator J.D. Vance is now the Vice President-elect. Here's some good news from the future: Did I mention a conference? Yes, a gathering of pronatalist partisans will convene once again in Austin, Texas on March 28-29 for the annual Natalism.org conference. Among the speakers will be the above-mentioned Ms. Pakaluk and Mr and Mrs Collins, along with Dr Pat Fagan, Institute for Family Studies scholar Lyman Stone, Professor Michael Anton and prolific blogger and mother of five “Peachy Keenan.” I wonder if Pope Francis was invited. Might he endorse the confab? The Bennett’s Phylactery blog just posted “Nobody doubts demographic decline - they just don't trust the "solutions"” about the conference. Excerpts: In December 2023, we brought together academics, founders, investors, and influencers to explore the scope of global demographic decline and its consequences. The issue of natalism was regarded as “fringe”. Many of the academics whom we asked to speak turned us down — they agreed with us that demographic decline was a problem, but said it was too professionally risky to take any public position on the birth rate. Since then, natalism has gone mainstream. We’re winning the argument that the problem matters. There are almost no countries on earth that would still have a demographic problem if everyone realized their desired fertility. We just need to help more people to build the families they want — which means we have to understand what is in the way. So NatalCon 2025 will focus on finding the root causes of demographic decline, and converting that knowledge into practical guidance. Our toxic child-unfriendly popular culture needs to change. With leading celebrities and politicians raising the issue, mounting profamily scholarship, restored online freedom of speech (thank you Elon) and folks like the happy warriors assembling in Austin, change is underway. President-elect Trump recently mentioned falling fertility as one of America’s most pressing challenges. Maybe he is listening to Elon, J. D. Vance and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Remember how Mr. Trump brought the issues of out-of-control immigration, “fake news” and “deep state” in from the shadows? Maybe he’ll help do that with falling fertility as well. No other political figure is as adept at generating fodder for popular culture.

Louis T. March

December 03, 2024

‘The pride police’ know how to use their truncheons

Last week, the Human Rights Tribunal (HRT) of Ontario ruled that the township of Emo in the far west of Ontario, Canada be fined C$10 000 for refusing to celebrate Pride Month. Its officials have also been ordered to complete mandatory “human rights” training. The HRT claims that Emo, home to a population of a mere 1,300 people, violated the Ontario Human Rights Code and failed to fly “an LGBTQ2 rainbow flag,” despite the fact that the township doesn’t have an official flagpole. Emo’s mayor, Harold McQuaker, allegedly said at a councillors’ meeting where the rainbow flag was discussed, “There’s no flag being flown for the other side of the coin … there’s no flags being flown for the straight people.” HRT vice-chair Karen Dawson said that McQuaker’s comment was discriminatory: “I find this remark was demeaning and disparaging of the LGBTQ2 community … and therefore constituted discrimination under the Code.” Where have we come to? I was a gay activist in London in the 80s and engaged in discussions which shaped The Gay Agenda. (Yes, it does exist, and it is nearing fulfilment, which includes overturning heteronormativity once and for all.) One major aspect of the plan includes using psychological warfare to silence and ultimately convert any person who might fail not merely to tolerate but to celebrate homosexuality and sexual deviancy. This would involve singling out antagonists or groups who fail to comply by using humiliation, the sullying of character, financial hardship and social exclusion. Ontario’s HRT ordered Emo to pay a fine of $10,000 to the local 2SLGBTQIA+ Pride organization, Borderland Pride, and for McQuaker to personally pay them another $5,000. These fines were lower than what Borderland Pride had originally sought. They wanted $15,000 from the township as a whole (approximately $11.50 from every man, woman and child) and an additional $30,000 – $10,000 from each of the three councillors who voted against the flying of a LGBTQ2 rainbow flag. Borderland Pride promised to return one-third of the financial reward to the Emo Public Library, as long as the library hosted a “drag story time event” on a “date of our choosing.” The online re-education course McQuaker is now required to complete by law, known as Human Rights 101, is offered by the Ontario Human Rights Commission. McQuaker is to “provide proof of completion … to Borderland Pride within 30 days.” Yes, he doesn’t need to report to the Commissioner but rather to his accusers. The latest edition of the course opens with an animated video telling viewers that the Human Rights Code “is not meant to punish,” and that “it doesn’t matter if you didn’t intend or mean to discriminate … it’s the impact on the person that matters.” [my highlight] Wasn’t McQuaker making this exact point when he pointed out that no flag was being flown for the straight people?

James Parker

December 03, 2024

Do Americans work too much — or too little?

Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Lifeby David L. Bahnsen | Post Hill Press, 2024 | 185 pages In a society awash in self-care routines, mental health days off, and quiet-quitting workplace trends, the last thing most readers would expect is a new book about how most Americans don’t work enough. Financial advisor and National Review contributor David Bahnsen is not only making that argument; he’s targeting it at his fellow religiously-observant Christians, who are likely to think that focusing too much on one’s career is a detriment to spiritual and family life. His argument is clear and, for the most part, compelling, but his pleas to readers frequently sound like that song by The Animals: “Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood.” Bahnsen is not the only modern conservative to argue that work is important to one’s sense of self-worth and that idleness is destructive to human happiness. Arthur Brooks and Robert Doar of the American Enterprise Institute have emphasised the value of work over welfare dependency in recent years. Their colleague Nicholas Eberstadt has now gone through two editions of his influential book Men Without Work, originally published in 2016. Bahnsen takes mostly for granted the argument that work is superior to simply doing nothing. His real point is that working a regular job for regular wages is equal in value to a religious calling, volunteering on behalf of the sick and the poor, or even, up to a point, spending time with your family. That’s far more controversial. Inherently good Bahnsen doesn’t go in for moral laundering. In his book, hard work and long hours don’t start out as morally neutral but get redeemed by donating one’s earnings to a good cause. Rather, the work one does in a market economy is moral simply by virtue of the value that exchanges create. He reiterated the point made by many observers of capitalism that no one in a market economy makes money, much less a great fortune, without solving the problems and satisfying the needs of others. That’s the argument against anti-capitalists of the left who claim that markets are morally deficient. It’s also proof, according to Bahnsen, against Christian arguments that earthly economics must explicitly serve God’s purposes to be virtuous. He has a few sharp words for pastors and church elders who criticise hard-working executives like himself for their worldly labours while aggressively soliciting them for donations to the church building fund. One can only imagine the number of such requests Bahnsen — as the religiously observant founder of a financial advisory firm that manages billions of dollars — has fielded over the years.