British Genetics 101

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The first three programs from the television series Monarchy by the British historian David Starkey are currently being featured by TOO in its video section. The program first aired on British television from 2004 to 2006. The BBC page on the series is here. The DVD can be purchased through TOO here.

The program is one of many contributions to an ongoing discussion about English and British identity. Starkey focuses on the history of the monarchy, from the withdrawal of the Roman legions to modern times. The monarchy is the oldest institution in Britain, originating with the Angles, Saxons and Jutes (abbreviated to “Saxons”) who settled in large numbers around 500 A.D. The Saxons were relatively egalitarian, selecting their kings and expecting them to rule with the consent of the people. The Normans, who five centuries later literally decapitated the Saxon monarchy and took its place, were obliged after a time to adopt what had become a core feature of English political tradition. Starkey attributes English representative democracy to this ancient Saxon folkway, though he makes no attempt to compare it with the preceeding native Celtic polities. Was not Boudica a popular patriotic leader? The question is more than academic because there is much evidence that Anglo Saxon Britons carry a great many Celtic genes, as discussed further below. Read more

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Minority Rule: The Rise of Political Correctness – Documentary

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz8pzG02oxU

Money

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(translated from French by Tom Sunic)

Hieronymus Bosch: Death and the Miser, about 1485-1490

Of course, everybody prefers to have a little bit more than a little bit less. “Money does not buy happiness, but it does contribute to happiness” — as the saying goes. We need to find out, however, what happiness means. Max Weber wrote in 1905: “A man by ‘his nature’ does not want to earn more money; he only wants to live as he is accustomed to live and earn as much as it is necessary for him.”

Numerous investigations have pointed out a relative contrast between the rising standard of living and the level of satisfaction among individuals. Past a certain threshold, having more money does not mean more happiness. In 1974, in his studies, Richard Easterlin established that the average level of satisfaction expressed by the population has remained virtually unchanged since 1945, despite spectacular increase in wealth in developed countries. (This “Easterlin paradox” has been recently confirmed.) The failure of indices to measure material growth, such as the GDP, in order to assess the level of real well-being, is also well noted — especially at the level of a given community. There is no such service for undisputed choices that would be able to compute individual preferences in terms of social preferences.  Read more

Wikileaks exposes private anti-immigration attitudes among Sweden’s elite

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Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

Recently leaked Wikileaks documents reveals that Carl Bildt, the Swedish Foreign Secretary, privately believes that immigration from Iraq is problematic. These Iraqis are a mixed bunch, but are mostly composed Assyrians/Syriacs, an ethnic minority of Orthodox Christian denomination residing in several countries in the middle-east. They have settled in large numbers in Sweden where they have segregated themselves from the surrounding native population. As with all non-European immigrantion, their presence has caused many serious problems, not least among them the emergence of organised crime.

Bildt has referred to the immigrants as “difficult to assimilate” and “poorly educated.” He also cited their involvement in several “honor killings as prompting more calls for stronger immigration policies from the Swedish public.” (As far as I know, honour killings are primarily a Kurdish/Islamic “cultural practice” and not an Assyrian/Syriac one.) Read more

The threshold for anti-Semitism reaches a new low

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Jennifer Rubin

Jennifer Rubin, the Washington Post’s neocon blogger, is very upset. According to Rubin, an article by the notoriously anti-Semitic Time Magazine claimed that “Jews only care about money.”

Wow! To think a very mainstream liberal publication would publish such a thing. Surely concentration camps for Jews cannot be far behind.

So I thought I would check the Time article just to actually comprehend the evil myself. Read more

Martin Luther King voted for Barry Goldwater!

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That’s what $arah Palin, Glenn Beck, William Bennett and a whole bunch of other conservatives would have you believe. They tell us that King stood for freedom, liberty and limited government.

Conservatives love to proclaim “Bull Connor was a Democrat! And Martin Luther King was a Republican!”

Here’s just a few samples:

Martin Luther King Jr Was a Conservative Republican

Martin Luther King’s Conservative Legacy from the conservative Heritage Foundation

The Conservative Virtues of Dr. Martin Luther King from the Heritage Foundation and William J. Bennett, the Book of Virtues author

Houston group says Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican

And don’t miss this, from a Black conservative:

King recognized the tyrannical nature of the government, and he would be standing shoulder to shoulder with Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Herman Cain, Allen West, and many others in an attempt to free not only blacks this time, but the entire nation from the very same government that was oppressing blacks during King’s lifetime. Read more

On violence as a tactic

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A correspondent concerned about the connotations of some of the commentary on this site sent the following–with which I agree:

Some patriots, especially the young, become frustrated and angry and want to take direct action. That is understandable because we are facing a life-and-death threat to our national existence and our political class is demonstrably failing to show leadership; indeed, major elements are leading the attack on the American people. But it is both morally wrong and tactically counterproductive to advocate or practice violence. Read more