By Selwyn Duke

“You can’t legislate morality!” is a common battle cry today. It’s thought to be a quintessentially American idea, even though the Founding Fathers never expressed such a sentiment. Nor did the early Americans who would unabashedly enforce a biblically based code of morality in their localities, both via social pressure and governmental laws, with transgressors sometimes spending time in stocks — or worse. No, our common battle cry is a modern idea, and one of modernism. It also betrays a fundamental, and dangerous, misunderstanding of law’s nature.

In reality, the only thing we should legislate is morality. The only other option is legislating whims or immorality.

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By Selwyn Duke

Critics would say it’s fitting: a misrepresented miniseries remake partially inspired by a Machiavellian movement. The latter is Black Lives Matter, which caught fire (aside from setting fires) despite police shootings of black suspects being down 75 percent over the last few decades and the fact that whites are more likely to be shot by police. The remake is Roots, an African slave story that lives on four decades after the original despite having been proven to be, as journalist Stanley Crouch put it, “one of the biggest con jobs in U.S. literary history.”  

I was 11 when the original Roots aired in 1977, and it was quite the event. Based on a 1976 Alex Haley book by the same name, it’s still the most watched miniseries of all time; fully half of all U.S. homes — approximately 100 million people — viewed its final episode. As for cultural impact, the Hollywood Reporter tells us, “Hundreds of colleges planned courses on Roots, and more than two dozen U.S. cities held ‘Roots weeks,’ according to the Museum of Broadcast Communications.” 

So given that even films such as Children of the Corn get remade, it’s not surprising that someone would want to remake a commercially successful miniseries. In Roots’ case there are many someones, with the four-part, eight-hour project debuting “on Memorial Day (May 30), airing simultaneously on History, Lifetime and A&E,” the Reporter informs. Notably, a co-executive producer is actor LeVar Burton, who played the starring role in the original as Kunta Kinte, a Mandinka warrior kidnapped from West Africa and sold into slavery in the United States.

Now, part of Roots’ appeal was that it’s supposedly the true story of author Alex Haley’s ancestors — it traced his “roots.”

But the real root of the story is a lie.

Read the rest here.

By Selwyn Duke

In the wake of reports that Facebook censors conservative voices, media figure Glenn Beck met with company chairman Mark Zuckerberg and emerged from the meeting, as he put it, “convinced that Facebook is behaving appropriately and trying to do the right thing.” Nothing to see here, move along. Unfortunately, this is nonsense.

Beck admits in his article on this subject, “I am not an expert on data or AI or algorithms.” Neither am I. But the Facebook censorship in the news isn’t about artificial intelligence but human intelligence — and its biases. In fact, the focus on technology could be (I’m not implying this is the case with Beck) an effort at Machiavellian misdirection: “Watch what the machine is doing, watch the machine, so you don’t see the man behind the curtain.”

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By William F. Jasper

Were “election irregularities” in Austria’s presidential election on Sunday actually vote fraud? Did EU elites use extreme tactics to steal the election from a “fed-up” electorate that is rebelling against the EU-imposed migration onslaught, economic stagnation, gestapo-like political correctness, and bureaucratic regulatory tyranny? That may well be the case.

The razor-thin election result in Austria’s presidential race last Sunday was heralded by EU politicians and the establishment media worldwide as a hair-breadth “escape” from a “far-right” takeover. When the live vote was counted Sunday night, the result was too close to call. Would Austria’s next president be “far right” Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party or the “moderate” socialist Green Party candidate Alexander van der Bellen? The result would be determined by postal votes, with nearly 900,000 Austrians — 14 percent of the voters — casting their ballot by mail this year. On Monday, the tabulation of the mail-in vote was announced to be in van der Bellen’s favor, by a mere 31,026 votes, or 0.6 percent. According to election officials, van der Bellen had squeaked out a 50.3 percent of the vote total to Hofer’s 49.7 percent.

By Selwyn Duke

With Venezuela spinning out of control, it’s said that U.S. officials fear a military coup. We ought to ask “Why?”

Democracy on the brain can be a dangerous condition. George W. Bush pursued his unwise “nation-building” policies under the assumption that, as he put it, “democracies don’t go to war with each other.” (Note: technically we’re speaking of “republics,” not democracies.) So WWI was the “war to end all wars,” and now there’s the political system to end all wars; hey, if a military solution didn’t change man’s nature, maybe a political solution will?

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By Selwyn Duke

Are electric cars more environmentally mean than green? This may be the case, as a new study indicates that electric vehicles actually emit more harmful pollutants than internal-combustion cars do. How could this be? Citing the study, conducted by Peter Achten and co-author Victor Timmers at the University of Edinburgh, the Daily Caller explains that electric cars' “zero tailpipe emissions” selling point is deceptive:

Electric vehicles tend to produce more pollutants from tire and brake wear, due in large part to their batteries, as well as the other parts needed to propel them, making them heavier.

These pollutants are emitted when electric vehicle tires and brakes deteriorate as they accelerate or slow down while driving. Timmers and Achten’s research suggests exhaust from traditional vehicles is only about one-third of the total emissions.

In other words, while people understandably focus on what’s released from exhaust pipes, the research indicates that two-thirds of total emissions come from other sources. And these particulates may be especially problematic.

Read the rest here. 

By Selwyn Duke

In Hillary Clinton’s presidential run, husband Bill was once thought to be her ace in the hole. Now he’s starting to seem more like a shovel used to dig her into a deeper hole. And this reality was on stark display Wednesday night when presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump raised the matter of the rape accusations that have long dogged Bill Clinton — and that have been used to paint Hillary as a sexual predator’s enabler.

Trump’s latest comments were made on Fox News’ program Hannity. During a discussion concerning a debunked Saturday New York Times story about “how Donald Trump behaved with women in private,” host Sean Hannity brought up media double standards; he wondered if the women from Bill’s past, such as Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones, and Kathleen Willey, would also be interviewed. Then, referring to their accusations against the 42^nd president, he said “In one case, it’s about exposure. In another case, it’s about groping and fondling and touching against a woman’s will.” This prompted Trump to add “And rape.” Hannity then repeated, “And rape.”

Read the rest here.

By Selwyn Duke

“A U.S. Army training instructor listed Evangelical Christianity and Catholicism as examples of religious extremism along with Al Qaeda and Hamas during a briefing with an Army Reserve unit based in Pennsylvania,”wrote Fox News’ Todd Starnes in 2013. It was reminiscent of how the British government banned radio host Michael Savage from entering the UK, placing him on a list with terrorists and criminals. It just seems as if Western statists must have had trouble with those primary school categorization questions and now, even as adults, could think that “bomb, cannon, mortar, rifle, pistol, and pen” all belong together.

Speaking of pens, there may be another man who is on a government watch list just for wielding one: anti-jihadism crusader Robert Spencer. “I’ve been informed that someone certainly is keeping tabs on me,” wrote Spencer last week at PJ Media. It’s a reality that prompted him to ask, “Is the U.S. Government Now TRACKING ‘Right-Wing Extremists’?”

Some might chalk Spencer’s claim up to paranoia, except that he, like Savage, has also been banned from Britain. His sin? He’s the proprietor of Islam-awareness website Jihad Watch and frequently gives speeches and makes television appearances warning of the dangers posed by Islam. And this, apparently, has now also captured the attention of our government.

Read the rest here. 

By Selwyn Duke

With Congress poised to possibly require women to register for the draft, reaction from the conservative pundit class has been swift and severe. WND’s Jane Chastain calls it “worse than cowardly,” while radio host Mark Levin ferociously railed against the proposal on his Friday show. But I have just one question: do we believe in equality or don’t we?

For the record, I’m a traditionalist best described as Mayberry meets the Middle Ages. I believe in a papa bear, mama bear and baby bears and no mixing of roles considered unbearable in a Norman Rockwell illustration. And drafting women wouldn’t be an issue in my world because they wouldn’t be in the military in the first place. But this isn’t my world. It’s a bizarro world where we believe in Equality™. At least, that’s our story and we’re stickin’ to it.

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By Selwyn Duke

A number of former Facebook employees have admitted they regularly censored conservative news, denying it placement in the site’s “Trending Topics” section regardless of its popularity. Moreover, company management actually ordered that relatively unpopular stories be listed as trending if it deemed them “important.”

One of social media’s selling points is that it’s a democratic arena in which “the people” determine what’s seen and heard. Yet the revelations by the ex-employees, provided to news organ Gizmodo.com, inform that this is a sham, an illusion. In reality, “Facebook’s news section operates like a traditional newsroom, reflecting the biases of its workers and the institutional imperatives of the corporation,” writes Gizmodo. This amounts to deception, as Facebook claims that its trending module lists topics based on popularity, not political correctness.

Read the rest here.