Links to Consider, 3/21
Vaishnav Sunil on Islamophobia; Mariam Memarsadeghi on the Iranian women's rights movement; Katherine Mangu-Ward on legalizing marijuana; Ryszard Legutko on democracy run amok
poll data consistently shows that over 50% of Muslims in Britain think homosexuality should be criminalized, over 39% think wives must always obey their husbands, and over a third refuse to condemn violence against those who insult Mohammed. Think about that last statement. In an anonymous poll where one can reasonably rule out fear as a motivation, a third of British Muslims supported, in principle, the right for Muslim vigilantes to enforce Islamic blasphemy law with violence in Western societies.
It can be true that all the Muslims you know are reasonable. It also can be true that there are a lot of Muslims now living in the West who are anything but reasonable.
So why did the Woman Life Freedom revolution fail?
The most obvious reason is that the regime has proven adept at sustaining fear through widespread brutality—executing protestors, torturing even children, conducting its campaign of sexual violence against the detained. That brutality is paired with a sophisticated, well-funded cyber army dedicated to defaming and dividing the opposition. Those efforts have kept Iran’s democracy movement from achieving united leadership.
I am waiting for President Biden’s hot mic promise to have a “come to Jesus moment” with the mullahs.
In February, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued a draft report noting that “unlike the research consensus that establishes a clear correlation between [blood alcohol content] and crash risk, drug concentration in blood does not correlate to driving impairment.” In other words, we don’t yet have enough information to make sound laws. A return to prohibition will make obtaining funding and data for continued study more difficult.
Last Wednesday I went for a bike ride, and it seemed as though every time I was near a car I smelled marijuana. So I sure hope that it does not impair driving. In general, she cites studies that are favorable to legalization.
I came away from her essay with the impression that for every study, there is an equal and opposite study. Depending on which study you choose to believe, pot is either bad for you or pot is harmless. But if there is a study that finds marijuana provides long-term cognitive benefits to the user, that would be news.
Interviewed by N.S. Lyons, Ryszard Legutko says,
Democracy, as I understand it, is a system of procedures that secures a safe transition of power. It is not a system of ideas, an ideology, an article of faith, or a philosophical outlook, and should not become any of these. Excessive democratization leads to excessive politicization and a tendency to interpret everything in terms of a power struggle, like in a multiple-party system. The differences between the political parties are not intellectual because they are not usually resolved at a seminar through an exchange of arguments but at the ballot box, where one of the contestants acquires power and the legitimacy to use it within the existing rules. If we reduce intellectual and artistic differences to politics and partisanship – as it has been happening for some time now – then ultimately it is also political power, not truth or beauty, which settles every controversy.
…In the name of democracy, one can violate the elementary procedures of democracy and present it as a higher form of democratic culture. For instance by excluding certain parties from the political system (as happens in the European Parliament) or preventing millions of voters from attaining any influence on politics by discrediting them as “populists.” The most recent example is, of course, the Polish case from which we started our conversation. All these horrendous practices are hailed as the victory of democrats over populists.
His concern is with the tendency for politics to take over every sphere of life (religion, family, and so on) under liberal-progressive government.
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The medical literature becomes more anti THC every day. The psychiatrists and addiction people present articles every day on the bad effects of THC. The European literature shows that ANY THC causes impaired driving. This agrees with the old USN studies from the 1970s on why carrier pilots who had smoked THC within 7-10 days were crashing into the carriers. (Survivors only, which took a while to get enough). Marijuana appears to be more carcinogenic for lung cancer than tobacco. 30% of people who use any THC products in States where it is not prosecuted have THC abuse syndrome, ie are defined as "addiction". This is higher than ETOH by far. The few studies which claimed no bad effect suffered from lag issues, ie too soon to show the effect. ER visits from THC and MVA involving THC are high and rising in Colorado. Her article is an example of "both sides syndrome" not an exploration of the issue.
It would be a rather strange thing to count on, in my view - this important (and perpetual?) divide between British and American Muslims.
Going to the grocery store in my hometown, the one in the hood* that Mother likes to go to against mild family objection, because: it's nearer; mostly a little cheaper; she thinks the produce is better; it has the Sunmaid raisin bread an old lady prefers to Pepperidge Farm - I find I am frequently surrounded by women in full niqab. This is obviously pretty immaterial but overall, if I were pressed to say how it feels to be surrounded by sand people from Star Wars, it is much more like being alone, than not.
This calls to mind an NYT article or editorial that someone paraphrased to me the other day. It reflected the NYT's very recent interest in the possibilities of the immigration "issue" for selling papers, via a fake concern that engages readers of more than one stripe, the barn door being open, the fertility of the newcomers being what it is, and thus the issue now moot - by framing it in a slightly novel, tilted-90 degrees fashion - because it went something like this:
*We have all this immigration. (The denial period is, I guess, over - again, for fiscal reasons.)
*But we could *not* have it.
*Like, right now we could not have it.
*No supporting evidence for these prior 2 assertions, so the implied suggestion that if we continue to "have it" - then it must be that you guys "want it". (Because the citizenry is so in control, lol, gaslight much, NYT?)
*But if we don't have it, prepare for there to be "no people".
*Would you like that - "no people"?
*That's right - the population would stabilize somewhere north of 350 million people - which is "no people" in the NYT's view. 350 million = "no people".
*It would be like when you were a kid, remember, when there were no people?
*Not like now, when you go to the store and have the pleasant community feeling that arises when you are in the company of faceless black-clad women. That's "having people".
Rather than be kidded in this way, I think I'd just as soon the NYT went back to the old script: the newcomers are better than you, die and make way!