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January 7, 2010

Big Brother: France to Ban “Psychological Violence” in Marriages

He said, she said? If she said he said the wrong thing, what he said won’t mean anything.

By Selwyn Duke

We’ve all heard of hate-speech laws. Well, now France will become the
first country to enact rudeness-speech laws, making it a crime to
commit “psychological violence” within a relationship. In other words,
if Pierre and Angelique get into a shouting match and Petey happens to
drop a comment about Angie’s weight, the gendarmes could come a
knockin’. The Daily Mail reports, writing,
“The new law, which would also apply to co-habiting couples, would see
people getting criminal records for insulting their loved ones during
domestic arguments.”

I’m not sure how thoroughly this will be enforced, but couldn’t such a law place about 95 percent of all couples behind bars?

Read the rest here.
January 6, 2010

New Study Finds Spanking Is Good for Kids

By Selwyn Duke

Spanking is like milk: It does a body good — or at least a mind. No,
this isn’t the conclusion of traditionalist parenting expert Dr. James
Dobson but the finding of a study conducted by psychology professor
Marjorie Gunnoe at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
FoxNews.com reports on the story, writing,
“According to the research, children spanked up to the age of 6 were
likely as teenagers to perform better at school and were more likely to
carry out volunteer work and to want to go to college than their peers
who had never been physically disciplined.”

This may come as a relief to parents who don’t wish to spare the
rod, but have been accosted with numerous studies stating just the
opposite. But how do we reconcile these contradictory findings? Well,
perhaps the answer is that the previous scientific studies weren’t very
scientific. Fox points out that, in the past, such research was lacking
because it was difficult in more traditional times to find subjects who
had never been spanked. In contrast, Professor Gunnoe included 2600
such individuals in her study.

Read the rest here.
January 4, 2010

“Youths” in France Torch Cars to Welcome New Year

By Selwyn Duke

We really should start to
wonder if the automobile has the same status in Islamic teaching as pigs and
dogs — and as that of truthful language in journalism. In an event that was largely ignored by the
Lamestream Media, Reuters reports that “youths” in France burned, according to
its headline, “hundreds” of cars on New Year’s Eve. But when you read the very short article, you
learn that the headline certainly understates the matter. Writes Reuters, “The number of
vehicles torched was only 10 short of the record 1,147 burned this time last
year, even though the Interior Ministry mobilized 45,000 police during the
night — 10,000 more than 12 months ago. “

Read the rest here.
December 26, 2009

The Christmas Controversy: Duke Responds to Reader

Karl wrote:

Mr. Duke:

I sent your link to my list. This came in from a fellow who lives in
south Africa. He's a good man.
He gave me permission to forward to you.
If you have time to correspond with him, I would be interested in
being copied.

Sent: 12/24/2009 12:09:14 P.M. Eastern Standard Time
    Subj: Re: Pagan Propaganda: The Other Attack on Christmas
    Sorry, but Mr Duke is wrong on many points. It is well established (and has been for more than 150 years in a wide range of scholarship) that Christmas and Easter are "Christianized" pagan
    events (along with dozens of others, including Lent, "All Saints Day," and so on). I personally have studied this issue deeply and
   for some years and I'm satisfied with the provenance of the scholarship and analysis. I'm afraid he's a reverse-PC revisionist. This kind of thing does little for the credibility of the cause of Biblical Christianity.

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December 25, 2009

Merry Christmas!

I wish you all a very merry and blessed Christmas.

May the Lord shower you with grace during this holy day season.
December 24, 2009

Pagan Propaganda: The Other Attack on Christmas

By Selwyn Duke

Ah, Christmastime. Manger scenes and mistletoe, trees and
tinsel, Santa and celebration, gift-giving and gratitude . . . and the ACLU
roasting traditions on an open fire. Sadly,
the last thing has become as much a seasonal expectation as the others, and the
American Communist Lawyers Union’s practice of suing our culture into oblivion
has gotten a lot of ink. Yet there is
another attack on Christmas — actually, another attack on Christianity itself —
one that could ultimately prove more damaging than the usual atheistic
assaults. And it’s embraced by
religionists themselves.

I’m
sure you’ve heard the charges. Christmas
is a “pagan holiday,” they say. It
originated with a celebration dedicated to Saturn
(the Roman god of agriculture), which, upon coming to full flower, took place
between December 17 and 23. Or perhaps
it was inspired by the commemoration of a sun-god’s birth, and here we have two
candidates: the Indo-Iranian god Mithras and the Roman god Sol. And people often seem to confuse these two
deities — and their festivals — mixing and matching them in a game of musical
myths. But it doesn’t really matter
because both Mithras’ and Sol’s mythical births, we’re told, occurred on the
same day: December 25^th.

Read the rest here.
December 23, 2009

The Irrationality of the Left: Duke Responds to Reader on Constitution

By Selwyn Duke

Since an understanding of the Constitution is so rare nowadays, I've decided to respond to a poster who advocates the reckless and unlawful "living document" philosophy. I address his points at length, and I think you may find elements of the response useful in framing your arguments when defending the Constitution.

Robert Berger wrote:

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December 21, 2009

The Jihadists in America

By Selwyn Duke

It is a bucolic region of verdant meadows, rolling hills, and
babbling brooks, a largely peaceful place where big city hustle and
bustle and crime are very far away. Yet, like a pig in a beauty
contest, within this pastoral setting lies something incongruent: a
Jihadist training center. In this compound, women are taught to slit
throats and mount assault-weapon attacks and, presumably, some brand of
Islamic piety is the order of the day. But this place isn’t found in
the Mideast’s Fertile Crescent or in sub-Saharan Africa. It's name is
Islamberg. It's in the town of Hancock.

And it's in upstate New York.

Read the rest here.
December 20, 2009

The Constitution: Living Document or Childish Document?

By Selwyn Duke

It’s ironic that the more we
describe our constitution as a “living document,” the more we turn it into a
dead letter. As to this terminal state,
consider the current debate over health-care reform. How many politicians give the
constitutionality of the mammoth bills spawned by the Houses even the slightest
consideration? Why, Nancy Pelosi must not have, as she was so “shocked” when
asked about it that the only reply she could muster was “Are you serious? Are you serious?!” But I suppose it’s a good tactic to register
shock when you can’t awe.

When
leftists do deign to consider the matter seriously, they may take a leaf out of
esteemed intellectual Ruth
Bader Ginsburg’s book and aver that the Constitution should not be “stuck
in time.” Often missed in this debate,
however, is that conservatives don’t say it should be stuck in time — just
stuck in law — which isn’t changed by time but by people. That is, certain people.

Read the rest here.
December 19, 2009

Understanding the Global-warming Jihadists

By Selwyn Duke

"I was born with a chronic
anxiety about the weather," said John Burroughs in 1877. Today, anxiety about the weather is more
common than ever, although it’s not inborn but cultivated in schoolrooms,
through television sets and by lying, rapacious ex-vice presidents. And I have anxiety about the weather, too —
especially when it’s being used to promote a destructive agenda.

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