In her second “free speech pub night” Lindsay Shepherd of The Laurier Society For Open Inquiry introduced Andrew Lawton to speak on Ideological Conformity in Politics and the Media.
Andrew Lawton is a writer, columnist, broadcaster, and former radio talk show host. With a quick wit, entertaining speaking skills, and personal anecdotes he reveals the lunacy of post-modernism and the problem with politics in both Canada and the United States.
On the heels of Ontario’s newly elected Progressive Conservative majority government under Doug Ford, expectations of ‘change’ – for the better – are high. It would be difficult to imagine anything worse than what Ontarians endured under the ousted Wynne Liberal Party, which no longer holds official party ‘standing’ in the legislature.
However, it must be recognized that the conditions under which Ontario currently suffers are a consequence of the cumulative actions and directions taken by all of the parties in the legislature. Kathleen Wynne and her government merely continued in the political direction (Leftward) already established and entrenched by previous governments – including those of the Progressive Conservatives.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to predict or evaluate what the PCs may do under Ford, since the party won its majority mandate under a single objective: getting rid of Kathleen Wynne.
In the absence of any substantive or credible commitment to actually ‘change’ the Leftward direction in which Ontario is heading, Ford and his PCs have left us little to speculate about. After all, how does one reconcile a promise “to increase government spending, reduce taxes, and balance the budget?”
What we do know about the PC party is its history and tradition. Continue reading »
As the last broadcast before next week’s Ontario provincial election, there is a sense of urgency in our sounding one last pre-election alarm about Ontario’s very alarming state of affairs. It is a situation not unlike that in many other jurisdictions around the globe.
What’s at stake is freedom itself, and freedom has no voice in the Ontario legislature, and a very limited voice in the current Ontario election as heard only through representatives of the Freedom Party of Ontario.
For those on the Right, Ontario’s political crisis boils down to one of IDENTITY. If ever there was a need to place ‘identity politics’ in a valid context, it is with regard to political parties. In particular, it is the failure to properly IDENTIFY Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party as being on the Left, even as the party continues to be intentionally associated with values of the ‘Right’ by both the media and many ‘conservatives’ alike.
This is significant, because individual freedom itself IS a value of the Right, but the philosophy necessary to achieve individual freedom is not being either preached or practiced by any other party besides Freedom Party. Continue reading »
In the world of identity politics, common sense, logic, justice and reason do not rule.
Feminism is one form of identity politics – politics specifically motivated by sex and gender issues. Whether it’s the #metoo ‘movement’ or the ‘gender gap,’ feminism’s goals are all directed against the assumed superior status of men (referring to individuals who are male and possess a penis, for those confused by various ‘gender identities’).
On the social front, feminism’s success in ‘convicting’ selected males in various arbitrary courts of public opinion continues to undermine justice, both in the social sense and in the criminal sense.
On the economic front, feminism’s calls for closing the ‘gender gap’ is in fact a ‘gap’ in logic and morality. There is no such thing as a ‘gender gap.’ It’s a fiction.
A given ‘difference’ in economic status – whether in income, wealth, property, or productivity – is just that, a difference. It’s not a ‘gap.’ This principle applies not just to gender, but also to race, culture, language, intelligence, physical traits, or any other ‘group identity’ that one might imagine. Continue reading »
Is it possible? Is it probable? Is it plausible? Those are just a few of the ‘p’ words that strike at the heart of Obama-appointed ex-FBI director James Comey‘s stating it was “possible” that a “pee tape” involving Donald Trump and Russian prostitutes actually exists.
“I don’t know whether the current president of the United States was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013,” said Comey on a broadcast breakfast television interview relating to the release of his book.
It’s possible, but I don’t know.
Welcome to the politics of ‘possibilities’ – an increasingly popular way of spreading fake news without accountability. Continue reading »
On April 6, a tragic highway accident claimed the lives of 16 people associated with the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team on their way to a playoff game in the town of Nipawin, Saskatchewan. The outpouring of international support resulted in a GoFundMe campaign that raised millions of dollars for the families of the victims.
So it is understandably beyond the understanding of most people why anyone would express ‘cynicism’ about the “maleness, the youthfulness and the whiteness” of those who died. Yet that’s exactly what left-wing activist and journalist Nora Loreto posted to her Twitter account in her ostensible effort to promote “justice and more for so many other grieving parents and communities.” But when one considers that Loreto’s past tweets include comments like “White men are the worst beings that orbit the Sun,” it is clear that she is not motivated by any sense of “justice” for “other grieving parents.”
That Loreto is a racist and a sexist is undeniable – by any objective definition of those words, and by the comments and actions of Loreto herself. But racism and sexism are mere symptoms of a greater social disease: thinking of individuals as mere members of some subjectively pre-defined collective who all think and look alike. Continue reading »
The term ‘social metaphysics’ was coined by philosopher-novelist Ayn Rand to describe the philosophy of those who regard the consciousness of others as superior to their own – and to the facts of reality. Fascinatingly, the term ‘social media’ appears to describe much the same phenomenon.
Having passed away long before the evolution of on-line social media, Rand could never have guessed just how literal and visibly explicit her description of a social metaphysician would become. “It is only a social metaphysician who could conceive of such absurdity as hoping to win an intellectual argument by hinting: ‘But people won’t LIKE you!’”
Our experience with posters to Just Right’s Facebook page regarding our past two shows offered us a glaring illustration of just how impossible it is to have any meaningful dialogue with social metaphysicians – in this case, with Progressive Conservative and Doug Ford (‘Ford nation’) supporters. Their blatant (and proud!) dismissal of unequivocally accurate facts, of history, and of ideas goes a long way in explaining many other negative observations increasingly being made about social media.
The recent controversy involving Cambridge Analytica’s use of Facebook’s database to spread false news to millions of people during election periods is merely one of many scams made possible thanks to social metaphysicians. Continue reading »