Punishment Is Good for You

Leftists - namely the socio-communist end of the totalitarian bloc, the other being the Nazi-fascist - keep telling us how terrible, inhumane and even ineffective prisons are.

The truth, as usual, is the opposite of what they say.

Not only prisons maintain offenders in the impossibility to offend while the sentence lasts and, if there is a high probability of punishment (which, alas, is not the case in Britain now), the criminals' knowledge of arrest and imprisonment acts as a deterrent, making jails the most effective way to reduce crime, so they are good for the innocent. They are also good for the guilty, the criminals themselves.

Theodore Dalrymple, who knows a thing or two about the subject, declares that they are the delinquents' own version of the rehab centres of the rich and famous.

Dalrymple, with his decades-long experience as psychiatrist in prisons and hospitals of underclass neighbourhoods, knows what he's talking about, unlike the many socio-communists who've never come even close to the squalid realities they are so fond of pontificating about. He writes:

He was thin and malnourished in the manner I have described. Five feet ten, he weighed just over 100 pounds. He told me what many young men in his situation have told me, that he asked the court not to grant him bail, so that he could recover his health in prison—something that he knew he would never do outside. A few months of incarceration would set him up nicely to indulge in heroin on his release. Prison is the health farm of the slums.

Indeed prisons are not the only punishment which is good for both the punished and everybody else.

Children and teenagers have become a health threat. If you are on a London double-decker bus and a school or another large group of kids get on the bus, you will be subjected to such amount of high-decibel screaming noise that you'll risk becoming deaf.

My neighbour's two toddlers use loud screaming and screeching as their main, nearly only, form of communication.

In addition, their favourite game is to throw all sorts of things, from toys to shoes, from rubbish to clothes, into our garden, which borders theirs.

Kids are kids, of course. But it's the responsibility of parents to educate them, indeed to socialise them, so that they don't grow up as total savages.

Anti-spanking fanatics are just that: fanatics.

Spanking doesn't hurt the child, physically or psychologically, and is an essential tool of communication between adult and child when the latter is still not capable of understanding certain words and concepts:

For most children, claims that spanking teaches aggression seem unfounded. Some studies suggest that aggression is more closely linked to permissiveness, negative criticism, and watching television than spanking, and even more so than even abusive physical punishment.

What do children have to do with prison inmates, you may ask. Not much. We are just talking about the way the mind works.

The whole learning process of animals, including humans, is based on a system of rewards and punishments.

What is worse: to spank a kid or to render the whole population of the world deaf?

Noise is of course not the only problem here. Children who grow up without discipline will become the sort of antisocial adults who throw litter in the street, show no respect for the others, are rude and in not-too-extreme cases become criminals, in short the kind of adults that we see more and more numerous around us. From the same source:

With spanking bans have come increased rates of child abuse, aggressive parenting, and youth violence.

In this, as in many other cases, the Christian teaching is the best:

Today's outbreak of out-of-control children can be directly traced to the failure of parents to discipline their children. Modern advocates of "timeouts" and similar forms of discipline miss the essential point that God intends spanking to underline the cause-and-effect relationship of disobedience and punishment. Swift and firm parental punishment is the necessary means of teaching children that their disobedience will not be allowed, and that they will be brought into obedience, one way or the other.

Of course, the Bible refers to punitive corporal punishment, not to injurious abuse. Parents should learn the method of judicial spanking, never using spanking as a demonstration of anger or wrath. As a judicial act, the spanking should be administered in a serious, private, and sober way by a parent who teaches the child that this punishment is necessary for the specific act of disobedience. Spanking is judicial in the sense that it is not the result of a parental loss of temper, nor of a parent's whim, but of moral necessity.

Of course, parents should inflict sufficient pain to make the point clear, and to make certain that the child fears the punishment. The very act of spanking affirms parental discipline, and humbles the spirit of the child. The pain is real, but temporary. The lesson must be equally real--and far more enduring.

Healthy discipline must emerge from a healthy family life and from the loving relationship between parents and children. Parents tempted to find an easier or less controversial method of discipline must realize that timeouts and grounding are generally more counterproductive and frustrating than anything else.

The attacks on spanking are thinly disguised attacks on parental authority. If current trends continue, Christian parents may find themselves forced between obeying the law of the land or the law of God. Who knew that parenting in the 21st century would require such courage?”

The Caliphate Means Constant War on Us on a Scale Not Yet Seen

While the British government is making its own citizens pay for the jihadis allowed to return to the UK from Syria and Iraq, both in terms of money – through the £1.1 billion cash injection for defence announced today, £800 million of which will fund an extra investment in intelligence and surveillance to deal with the threat of terrorism – and in terms of intrusion and greater state power – through emergency laws to monitor phone and internet records “to stop terrorists" –, people hear of the establishment of a caliphate in the Middle East without the media – with few exceptions – providing any explanation of its real significance.

In Islam, only a caliphate has the authority to declare offensive war on infidel countries. That's why Osama bin Laden was so keen on it and called for Muslims to "establish the righteous caliphate of our ummah", after Abdulhamid II’s Ottoman caliphate was abolished by the Turkish Republic of Kemal Ataturk in his secularisation (short-lived) attempts in 1924.

And that's why jihadis always explain their acts of terrorism in terms of defensive war, as a response to the infidel's armies occupying Muslim lands, for example.

Egyptian-American scholar of Islam and Middle East history Raymond Ibrahim over 3 years ago explained the caliphate concept and predicted the re-establishment of a caliphate. If, as in science, accurate predictions confirm the validity of the theory from which they derive, we must take his words very seriously:

The very existence of a caliphate would usher a state of constant hostility: Both historically and doctrinally, the caliphate is obligated to wage jihad, at least annually, to bring the “disbelieving” world under Islamic dominion and enforce sharia law. Most of what is today called the “Muslim world”-from Morocco to Pakistan-was conquered, bit by bit, by a caliphate begun in Arabia in 632.

A caliphate represents a permanent, ideological enemy, not a temporal enemy that can be bought or pacified through diplomacy or concessions — economic or otherwise. Short of agreeing either to convert to Islam or live as second-class citizens, or “dhimmis” – who, among other indignities, must practice their religions quietly; pay a higher tax [jizyah]; give way to Muslims on the street; wear clothing that distinguishes them from Muslims, the start of the yellow star of David required for the Jews by the Nazis during World War II; have their testimony be worth half of a Muslim’s; and never retaliate against Muslim abuses-the jihad continues.

A caliphate is precisely what Islamists around the world are feverishly seeking to establish – before people realize what it represents and try to prevent it. Without active, preemptive measures, it is only a matter of time before they succeed.

Another US expert on Islam, Robert Spencer, has recently written:

And now it [the caliphate] is here, although it is by no means clear, of course, that The Islamic State will be viable or long-lasting. If it is, however, the world could soon be engulfed in a much larger conflict with Islamic jihadists even than it has been since 9/11. For in Islamic law, only the caliph is authorized – and indeed, has the responsibility – to declare offensive jihad against non-Muslim states. In his absence, all jihad must be defensive only, which is why Islamic jihadists retail laundry lists of grievances when explaining and justifying their actions: without these grievances and a caliph, they have to cast all their actions as responses to Infidel atrocities. With a caliph, however, that obligation will be gone. And the bloodshed in that event could make the world situation since 9/11, with its 20,000 jihad attacks worldwide, seem like a harmless bit of “interfaith dialogue.

Offensive jihad to force all the world to submit to Islamic law is a duty for the ummah (the worldwide Muslim community), and no amount of media whitewashing can change that. The source to consult is not The New York Times but the Quran:

“Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” (9:29)

Leninist Scotland Can Go Its Own way

Watching last night's Question Time, which was in Scotland and devoted half of its time to the question of Scottish independence - it was also the last QT before the September referendum -, confirmed and strengthened my opinion that England would be far better off without Scotland.

We are used to seeing on that BBC panel show constant displays of the worst that British Marxism-Leninism has to offer, but last night's programme really took the biscuit.

The discussion consisted in a non-stop talk of equality and increasing gap between social classes. A chap in the audience, with his face contorted by hatred, expressed the view that it's disgusting that rich people exist. No doubt, if he had half a chance, he would make sure that none are left, by robbing them blind if not by bloodier means.

Such unadulterated class hatred and communism will guarantee the economic collapse of an independent Scotland, as the history of all attempts to run a socialist economy will attest.

Hearing these people talk, you would have thought that they've never seen a history book, never heard of Stalin, Mao, Fidel Castro and what they did to their countries.

The discussion sounded surreal. There was no public debt - mostly created by their favourite party, Labour -, money was found on trees or fell from the sky like a Biblical manna and it was endless, always there to prevent food banks and maintain people happy and free to pursuit their favourite activity, doing nothing, and choose their preferred lifestyle, idleness.

When the subject became public health, more scorn was poured on Westminster and England - where cuts and food banks reigned supreme - for not spending enough money on the NHS, which in England was practically being taken to pieces.

Not in Scotland, oh no. There, more and more funding will be made available to the NHS. Where the money will come from nobody even thought of asking, it's such a non-compassionate question.

By the way, "compassion" was the most frequently uttered word of the night.

In this context, it wouldn't surprise me - but it would rather be totally consistent with the whole picture - what one of the panelists highlighted: that the SNP has devoted only one page out of the 650 of its manifesto to the subject of economic policy. The panelist in question was Alan Savage - not coincidentally a businessman -, the only sensible person participating in the debate, who was totally isolated the whole evening and at times mocked.

I don't know where the prevailing Scottish acidic and vitriolic political views - also evident in the voting patterns of that land - come from, but they have all the appearance of inevitably leading, if the vote to the referendum is Yes, to the establishment of the Soviet Republic of Scotland.

The prospect of a Yes vote looks increasingly likely, as the gap between the groups of people declaring themselves for a Yes or No vote in opinion polls narrows. The latest survey, carried out today by Survation, gives this result: Yes - 41%; No - 46%; Don't know - 13%.

In early January of this year the corresponding figures were: Yes - 28-29%; No - 42%; Undecided - 29-30%.

Let's hope Scotland goes its own way and take all its poisonous Leninism with it.

I end quoting from a piece in The Spectator, whose title, "Vote yes, Scots – and set the English free", sums up my feelings:

When we weigh such considerations, we start to realise some of the practical benefits to England of Scotland voting yes. Mr Salmond claims Scotland is self-supporting. This is true in the same way that grown-up children who live with their parents are self-supporting. The higher per capita spending that flows north of the border would stay in the English Treasury. Just think what the English (and Welsh, and Northern Irish) could do with it. Scotland has a culture of welfarism: England is seeking to rid itself of one. Separation means one nation no longer has to accommodate these damaging differences. The area north of Leeds and Manchester that Mr Miliband has this week complained is economically underperforming could become home to businesses fleeing what may well have to become a penal taxation regime in Scotland. Indeed, Mr Osborne should stand by to grant special tax status to Carlisle and Newcastle to make them the Cayman Islands of the north. [Emphases added]

Hobby Lobby: A Lesson from America

Not many people in Britain have followed the Hobby Lobby case, named after the American company that won an important battle for religious freedom against the bullying of the totalitarians - in this episode feminazis and supporters of state intervention in personal affairs.

In this area the United States seems more progressive in the true, not socialist, sense, and less prepared to submit to cultural Marxism's oppressive demands.

Hobby Lobby is a company owned by Christians. At issue was whether, according to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare, "closely held companies like Hobby Lobby could be forced by the government to provide abortifacient coverage to its employees, in defiance of its owners’ deeply held religious beliefs".

"In a 5-4 ruling written by Justice Samuel Alito, the Supreme Court ruled that Hobby Lobby and other closely held companies do not have to provide contraceptive coverage that conflicts with the religious beliefs of the companies’ owners."

Non-profit companies already enjoy this dispensation, and now the government must provide religious accommodations to “closely-held” for-profit companies too. “Closely-held” means for example, as in this case, owned and controlled by members of a single family, as opposed to impersonal, publicly-held corporations.

One of the main reasons the Obama administration’s arguments failed to convince five justices is that the federal government did not necessarily need to mandate employer-provided contraceptive coverage in order to ensure access to contraceptive coverage. For example, rather than mandating employer coverage, the government could have easily established its own program to provide or pay for contraceptive coverage.

Like the the employees of non-profit companies that hold religious beliefs, the employees of for-profit companies with similar religious objections will still have access to insurance coverage without cost sharing for FDA-approved contraceptives; Hobby Lobby's objections concerned only abortifacient drugs, namely substances that induce abortion.

This is a very reasonable, well-though-out decision.

The way many (anything but) "liberals" reacted showed very clearly how the average IQ of Lefties is so much lower than that of conservatives and Right-wingers, very likely because it requires brains to oppose the dominant ideological orthodoxy, whereas any idiot can just unthinkingly follow the easy, lazy, non-intellectual path of going along with it.

A criticism of the Supreme Court’s decision from our politically-correct geniuses was that it denies women access to birth control, as if not being able to force someone to pay for something were the same as not having access to that something. In fact, bosses, by paying their employees a salary, enable them to pay for whatever they wish to buy.

Another "argument" was that the court ruling discriminated against women. In reality, the opposite is true, as "the only contraception-related discrimination baked into law by Obamacare was against men. After all, male contraception like condoms or vasectomies was never covered by the law".

The scream "It's not about abortion, but birth control!" showed the inability of some people to understand the difference between substances that prevent conception and substances that intervene after conception and destroy a fertilized egg. This case concerned only 4 types of contraception that can result in the destruction of a fertilized egg, while Hobby Lobby paid for 16 different types of non-abortive contraceptive coverage for its employees.

Some "pro-choice" brainboxes compared a human embryo to a fingernail: let's hope they don't choose medicine as their career.

"If you're going to argue human life doesn't begin at conception, the burden is on you to create human life in its absence" tweeted in reply Sean Davis of The Federalist.

But those contorted views do not represent the majority.

A Rasmussen poll of 1,000 likely US voters found that they approve of the Supreme Court’s decision by a 10-point margin. 49% of them agreed that business owners should have the option of exempting themselves from ObamaCare’s HHS contraceptive mandate if it violates their religious beliefs. Only 39% opposed the Hobby Lobby court ruling, while 12% were undecided.

In addition, the poll found that 58 percent of voters say a company’s level of contraceptive coverage is not an important part of their decision to work there, compared to 38 percent who say it is at least somewhat important to their decision of where to work.

While 43 percent of voters think businesses should be required by law to provide health insurance that covers all government-approved contraceptives for women without copayment or other charges, 47 percent say companies should not be required to comply with the contraception mandate.

The same poll found that 48 percent of voters believe the government is a threat to Americans’ religious rights, while only 30 percent of voters believe the government protects those rights.

Intrusive Emergency Laws "To Stop ISIS Terrorists"

Predictably, having so many terrorists in our midst - in addition to the danger - will have the consequence of more intrusion in our personal lives and more state power. From The Telegraph, "Emergency laws to monitor phone and internet records 'to stop terrorists'":

Emergency laws will be brought in next week to force phone and internet companies to hold records of customers’ calls, texts and visits to websites.

The fast-track measures are necessary to defend national security against the terrorist threat from Iraq and Syria, David Cameron said.

The consequences of not acting are “grave”, the Prime Minister said.

The measures are a response to a ruling by the European Court of Justice which struck down regulations that enabled communications companies from retaining data for police use for a year.

Internet and phone companies will soon start deleting it – a move that will have “serious consequences” for police and counter-terror investigations, Downing Street said.

The emergency laws will also create a “clearer legal framework”, at the demand of companies, for when police and intelligence agencies want to intercept terrorist and criminal communications.

The need for new laws is “urgent”, Downing Street said. There is cross-party agreement.

“It is the first duty of government to protect our national security and to act quickly when that security is compromised,” David Cameron said.

Except that the only really effective security measure, not letting these would-be terrorists back into the country, is what this government is not prepared to enact.

“As events in Iraq and Syria demonstrate, now is not the time to be scaling back on our ability to keep our people safe. The ability to access information about communications and intercept the communications of dangerous individuals is essential to fight the threat from criminals and terrorists targeting the UK.

“No government introduces fast track legislation lightly. But the consequences of not acting are grave.

“I want to be very clear that we are not introducing new powers or capabilities – that is not for this Parliament. This is about restoring two vital measures ensuring that our law enforcement and intelligence agencies maintain the right tools to keep us all safe.”

Protect Our Borders from Syria and Iraq Jihadists

Why should people who take a bus or Tube train in London be in fear for their lives from a bomb attack? Is it right that air passengers should be afraid of terror threats when they board a plane and also be subjected to continuous disruptions for the same reason?

Every day we hear news of more young Muslims – often born and bread in the UK but not “British” in any true sense of the word – travelling to Iraq and Syria to join groups fighting in a jihad (Islamic holy war) to establish an Islamic state over there. These Muslims also promise to come back to Britain and create a climate of terror over here.

Their threats have to be taken with the utmost seriousness: we have seen from media reports and internet videos how ruthless these fighters are with the lives of others and how determined they are to ethnically cleanse the Middle East of Christians.

Despite Prime Minister David Cameron’s empty reassurances that Britain will not ignore this security threat, former MI6 director of global counter-terrorism Richard Barrett has said the numbers are too high and the security services won’t be able to monitor all the jihadists returning to the UK. It is "out of the question", he added.

Top counter-terrorism expert Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Police's assistant commissioner and head of specialist operations, has warned that Britain will live with the consequences of Syria and the rise of Islamic extremism within its own borders “for many, many years to come”.

The jihadists returning from Syria, due to its relative vicinity to Europe, are considered “the biggest threat to Britain's security” and a “greater threat than al-Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan”. The British Home Office identifies Syria as “the most significant development in global terrorism.”

Charles Farr - the Home Office’s terror chief - and others warned that the Syrian war is stoking the biggest terror threat to the West since September 11, and this problem is predicted to persist for as long as the hostilities will continue.

It is simply foolish to believe that the threat is minimal or behind us. So far we’ve just been lucky

Sir Malcolm Rifkind, Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee - which oversees the UK’s intelligence agencies -, wrote that new measures increasing security checks at airports are “unavoidable” because jihadists are deploying "devilish technical skill" to create ever more sophisticated devices to evade existing security measures.

He wrote that he had encountered a level of complacency among some elements of the public which he found "seriously disturbing", adding:

It is simply foolish to believe that the threat is either minimal or now behind us. We have, indeed, been fortunate but, sadly, this has not been because the terrorists have, since 2005, given up trying to do us harm. As Andrew Parker, the head of MI5, has made clear, each year there have been serious plots which if they had not been identified and disrupted would have led to the deaths and mutilation of many British citizens.

The police and the security services have been very successful but we must not underestimate the devilish technical skill of those terrorists who design ever more sophisticated means of concealing explosives in mobile devices, in clothing and in otherwise innocent objects. They have been hard at work over the last year.

Only last week Britain's airports were put on a new terror alert following intelligence warnings that al Qaeda's chief bomb maker - Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, who is now said to have sworn allegiance to ISIS - had linked up with jihadists in Syria to pass on his skills.

It couldn’t be clearer that these people mean business. Some “British” Syria fighters have admitted preparing to carry out terrorist acts.

Possible links have also been found between three Muslims based in Cardiff, Wales - Isis militants who were present in a propaganda video filmed by the group - and two other men from the same part of the city, who are in prison for having planned to blow up London's Stock Exchange.

Black flag of Islam over Downing Street

A “British” jihadist has warned of the “black flag of Islam” flying over Downing Street and Buckingham Palace.

Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the “Caliph” of the Islamic State spreading between Iraq and Syria, has promised support to “oppressed” Muslims everywhere and told his soldiers: “You will conquer Rome and own the world”. Islam supporters hacked a Facebook page dedicated to Pope Francis and filled it with vulgar and offensive words and images: just a warning about things to come.

There is no doubt that militant Islam is on the rise in the world, and we’ll ignore it at our own peril.

We must protect our borders from these would-be terrorists

We must protect our own borders. It’s suicidal to allow would-be terrorists who have already shown their allegiance to violent jihad and acted on it to return to Britain, when top intelligent and security experts have made it clear that we cannot accurately monitor this threat once inside the country.

The party Liberty GB has among its party policies the only measure that would guarantee a greater safety for British people:

“Stop from returning to the UK anyone, including British citizens, who has left the country to fight alongside or support Muslim militias or jihadist groups abroad.”

Italy Is One of the EU Largest Net Contributors

Net receipts from the EU budget, based on 2009 budget data (negative amounts show net contributions)

Member state	Per capita (in euros)	Percentage (of national GDP)	Total amount (in million euros)
Austria	−59.7	−0.18	−499
Belgium	90.0	0.29	968
Bulgaria	77.4	1.76	589
Cyprus	−34.0	−0.18	−27
Czech Republic	150.4	1.11	1,575
Germany	−107.3	−0.37	−8,797
Denmark	−211.0	−0.53	−1,163
Estonia	416.2	4.02	558
Finland	−113.8	−0.36	−606
France	−100.4	−0.34	−6,461
Greece	267.2	1.30	3,009
Hungary	265.1	2.68	2,660
Ireland	−35.0	−0.09	−156
Italy	−100.7	−0.41	−6,046
Lithuania	438.2	5.33	1,468
Luxembourg	2364.5	3.05	1,167
Latvia	218.8	2.62	495
Malta	17.4	0.13	7
Netherlands	−90.2	−0.26	−1,488
Poland	160.5	1.66	6,119
Portugal	196.4	1.25	2,087
Romania	74.8	1.24	1,609
Spain	9.7	0.04	444
Sweden	−43.6	−0.13	−404
Slovenia	92.8	0.55	189
Slovakia	88.8	0.78	481
United Kingdom	−62.7	−0.24	−3,865

One William Gruff left this comment to my post The Looting of Italy:

Italy is not and has never been a nett contributor to the EU. Not a nett contributor means not a contributor at all in precisely the way that being a public sector worker means not a tax payer. In the same way, Scotland makes no contribution to the 'U'K, despite partisan claims to the contrary.

This sums up the kind of widespread ignorance and prejudice about Italy, largely due to media distortions, that my Italian journalist friend Alessandra Nucci laments in her article, "The Looting of Italy", that attracted that comment.

The comment requires a documented reply.

Above is a table for the year 2009 reproduced from Wikipedia, based on research by Deutsche Bank Research. The net contributors are shown in blue.

Wikipedia says:

The four largest net contributors in absolute terms are Germany, France, Italy, UK.
The four largest net contributors in per capita terms are Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy.
The four largest net contributors as a proportion of GDP are Denmark, Italy, Germany, Finland.

Only Italy and Germany are among the four largest net contributors in all categories. It's also easy to see from the table that in absolute terms Italy contributes almost double the net receipts from the UK, the country from which our commenter friend William Gruff hails.

As you can see, in total amount Italy is third, little behind France, which Italy, though, overtakes in terms of per capita contributions. As a proportion of GDP Italy comes before both Germany and France, and is second only to Denmark, an economic lightweight compared to Italy.

Also observe how Italy is usually placed by the international media together with Spain, Portugal and Greece, which are among the largest net recipients - along with Luxembourg and some Eastern-European countries -, therefore at the other end of the spectrum.

A table showing member states' net contributions to the EU’s annual budget for the period from 2000 to 2011, compiled by the European Commission, can be found here. Again, somewhat counterintuitively, if the figure is negative it means that the country has received fewer payments from the EU than it should and is therefore a net contributor to the EU’s budget.

This table shows again that, except in 2000, Italy has been a large net contributor all these years.

Even the German news magazine Der Spiegel wrote at the end of 2012, accompanying the article with a clear graph:

Italy is the country that most contributes to the European budget...

Compared to the 2011 Gross Domestic Product, no other country has contribuited so much to the European budget as Italy...

...but, despite its strong debt, [Italy] has not yet received a cent from the various European "parachutes".