The Legacy of Racist Eugenics in North Carolina under the Democratic Party

Reading The Wall Street Journal this morning during a visit to an American friend, I came across an article by Valerie Bauerlein with the headline “North Carolina Atones For Its Sterilizations” (behind the paywall, so you likely won’t be able to read it unless you are a subscriber). The upshot of it is, while most states suspended their eugenics programs in the 1940s after the Nazis discredited the eugenics movement, North Carolina actually ramped up its forced sterilization program after WWII, and continued sterilizing citizens through the 1960s before finally ending the program in 1974. While blacks made up 25% of North Carolina’s population, over 60% of those sterilized were blacks.

So me being me, I announced to my wife and friend, “I’ll bet you North Carolina was run by Democrats”. Immediately, the friend, a political “moderate”, said “you don’t know that, I’ll bet you are wrong”, the pop culture propaganda pinning racist rule on Republicans being that strong. So, I headed to Google. And lo and behold, what did I find: North Carolina was run by Democrat governors from 1901 until 1973. Yes, in the first year of a Republican governor after 73 years of Democrat rule, the forced sterilization program of largely black citizens was ended.

“OK, that’s the governors. But the legislature really runs the state. Which party was in charge of the legislature?”

Google once again: the North Carolina legislature switched from Democrat to Republican control in 2011, after more than 100 years of Democrat rule.

Further proof that pop culture propaganda usually trumps truth, that monstrous anti-human policies almost always come from the left, and that the left has always found a welcome home in the Democratic party.

UPDATE: I have been informed by the husband of the friend, a Democrat, of the following: the Democrats used to be racists, but they switched to being the not-racists when the racist Republicans took over as the racist party. Oh, the tortured logic you’re forced to believe on the left!

Don Cherry & Rob Ford: A Right that Fights is a Right that Wins

When the left gets challenged, it rarely engages on the issue. Instead, it resorts to whining about “civility”, calling for “unity”, and, when that fails to silence its critics, cries “racist-sexist-homophobe-islamophobe”.

When the right figures out that they can walk right through this veneer, and fight back fearlessly, they can win. That’s why this is such a heartening development: Toronto’s new Mayor, Rob Ford, inviting Canada’s greatest bombthrower, Don Cherry, to introduce him at his inauguration, and letting him give this speech:

Both Cherry and Ford have been unapologetic to the “outraged” leftists on council. If this is any indication of what is to come to Toronto City Council, the next four years will be a delight. Viva Ford!

Toronto City Councillor Paula Fletcher Shows Off Ugly Face of the Left

A taxpayer listens to John Tory’s drive-time radio show on 1010am, and is encouraged to attend a public budget consultation meeting at Toronto City Hall. After asking a question about rising property tax rates, Toronto Ward 30 City Councillor Paula Fletcher does us all a great favour, and shows us off the true face of the leftist crew that currently runs Toronto council: utter contempt, absolute condescension, and pure venomous hatred for the middle class. Her public denunciation of the taxpayer is indistinguishable from the tactics used in Maoist and Stalinist purges. Listen and be amazed at the treatment afforded to a man who, like us all, pays her salary!

Toronto City Councillor Paula Fletcher Freaks Out on Constituent, Radio Host, Political Enemies.

UPDATE: Did I say “Marxist Hatred”? I didn’t even know how right I was! For, alas, this is the same Paula Fletcher that led the Communist Party of Canada – Manitoba from 1981-86, standing as a candidate for the legislature under that party’s banner twice.

Former leftist speaks truth: The Wilding of Sarah Palin

Despite growing up in a largely hedonistic liberal-Jewish community and family, I never felt comfortable with left-leaning politics or the cultural mores of those around me. Although my conservative awakening started to emerge quite early (I remember feeling great sympathy for Preston Manning and his Reform movement for the snobbish bashing he was taking back in the early 1990s, when I was barely 20), it took until sometime just after 9/11/2001 for me to finally and forever consider myself “of the right”. As liberals – whose propaganda throughout my youth created the myth of “liberal compassion” versus “right-wing hate” (as in “The Holocaust is what happens when the right gains power”) – fell over themselves to make excuses for Islamic hatred, ignore the celebrations in the Arab street, promote the non-existent “anti-Muslim backlash”, and in many cases not-so-subtly imply that “America had it coming” (as if the hundreds of children whose fathers would never come home to tuck them in to bed at night ever again were somehow acceptable collateral damage in some sort of acceptable counter-attack to some sort of unacceptable American sin), I discovered the truth – that “liberal compassion” is indeed a myth, and the reality is that liberalism is cruel, selfish, and harmful. (The next major event to confirm this conclusion came a couple of years later, when liberals from Nantes to Nunavut were adamant to diagnose with certainty that a woman in a home for the disabled in Pinellas Park, Florida was brain dead, and insisted she be starved to death for the convenience and profit of her conniving husband).

For “Robin of Berkeley” (the pseudonym for a Berkeley, California based psychotherapist and former leftist who now writes for The American Thinker), the realization that liberalism really stands for cruelty came only after 30 years of hard-left activism. Probably in her 40s now, Robin abandoned liberalism and swung to the right less than two years ago, and gained affirmation that “everything I believed was wrong” in last year’s US election campaign thanks to the obscene treatment of, first, Hillary Clinton, and then Sarah Palin. I highly recommend going back and reading Robin’s earliest entries in her regular American Spectator career by browsing her columns here, particularly for her views on Clinton’s treatment; however, I insist you read her latest installment, “The Wilding of Sarah Palin”. In the column, she reveals the ugly parallels between the left’s hard-core sexualization, dehumanization, and humiliation of the Vice Presidential candidate, and the use of gang-rape as a tool of intimidation, dehumanization and humiliation in tribal war. By violating Palin and her family in the most personal way, the left seeks to both destroy Sarah Palin as a human being, and emasculate the men of the conservative movement who stand by powerless to stop the abuse.

The paradox here is that the Palin phenomenon is only gaining steam, as the former Alaska governor continues her rise to prominence and power. This is because, unlike the tribal primitivism that still dominates much of the world and still informs the sensibilities of the left, the progressive world of Sarah Palin and the American heartland does not believe that a raped woman has been shamed and must submit to a shunned second-class status or worse. Thank God, most Americans believe that a raped woman is simply a victim with the power to recover and come back stronger; in a civilized society, it is the rapist that must be shunned and must submit to a second-class status or worse.

It doesn’t take much more than a pinch of wisdom to recognize who, in any public persecution, is the rape-victim, and who is the rapist. It does, however, take great moral weakness to allow the rapists of “your team” get away with it. It takes great intellectual weakness to delude yourself into confusing which party is the victim, and which the perpetrator, or to use the “slutty dress” defense to convince yourself that “she had it coming”. And it takes a great spiritual emptiness to sit back and enjoy the wilding of an innocent woman, guffawing at the latest Palin joke as another installment of today’s soul-destroying revel-in-the-brutalizing-of-people-for-televised-amusement culture.

(h/t goes to The Tammy Bruce Show for this one. Listen to the former radical feminist Tammy for a month, and you’ll understand the left for a lifetime.)

(For more on the near-equivalence between the rape of a body and the rape of a name, read Dennis Prager’s seminal column, “The Rape of a Name is Also Rape”.)

The Cost of Liberal Tribalism: Iranian Freedom Marchers Hung Out to Dry

Much has been said about the situation in Iran over the past couple of weeks. The images of peaceful opposition demonstrators, and the thuggery displayed by the Islamic Revolutionary rulers of Iran, speak for themselves. It was absolutely clear: the demonstrations were not about vote-counting fraud, or about the non-reformist “reformer” Mousavi. The demonstrations were about freedom. Handed an opening by Mousavi and his brave wife (who seemed to be the one pushing her husband far beyond where he ever expected to go in his opposition to the Mullahs), hundreds of thousands of fed up Iranians took to the streets and shouted “Down with the Dictator”. While many in the west took this as opposition to the psychopathic lackey Ahmadinejad, Iranians know this was a chant not against the apocalyptic holocaust denier, but against the Ayatolla and the regime itself. The vast majority of Iranians are fed up with Islamic revolutionary rule. The vast majority of Iranians want a new revolution.

Now, what Western liberal wouldn’t stand with freedom-yearning demonstrators against a tyrannical theocracy? Ten years ago, you probably couldn’t find one. And yet liberals throughout the Western world followed their new messiah, Barack Obama, off an amoral cliff, ignored their own instincts, and worked overtime to justify the US administration’s official policy: do not show any support for the Iranian opposition. “Don’t meddle”…”if we speak up, they will blame us”…”we don’t want to encourage them, in case they get slaughtered”…”we still have shame because of some 1953 coup”. 

The cowardice displayed by most liberals over the past two weeks is the cost of the liberal tribalism of the past decade. Lefties everywhere spent eight years following orders: oppose, mock, and deride George W. Bush without hesitation. If it’s Republican, it’s wrong. If you’re part of the liberal tribe, you fall in line, and accept the new marching orders. Mockery of Bush’s freedom agenda, which aimed to support democracy and freedom anywhere and everywhere – a bipartisan agenda if there ever was one – was labeled “neo-con” and thus unacceptable. A principled position became Bush-bashing fodder for Democrat operatives and late-night television idealogues. Millions of Iraqis celebrating free and open elections joyously in the streets were ignored almost completely by the mainstream culture. A generation’s Berlin Wall moment was treated like it never even happened.

Liberal tribalism of this most heinous kind got Barack Obama elected. Unfortunately, it seems that the President not only accepts the anti-freedom-agenda as a tribal position, he takes it seriously. His absoulte abandonment of the young freedom protestors in the streets of Tehran led to the slaughter of many, the arresting of thousands, and the snuffing out of freedom at the hands of Islamo-fascist thugs. Would the crackdown have occurred anyway? Perhaps. But the message would have been sent: the free world supports freedom for all, and stands against thuggery everywhere. Now, we cannot say this, which is a travesty.

Now that the inconvenient little uprising is more-or-less over, Obama can return to negotiating with that “unclenched fist”. Hopefully, some of Obama’s tribal acolytes will have had their eyes opened, and understand that what has happened is an absolute moral tragedy that must never happen again. This shame cannot be washed off.

Words of Wisdom in an Age of Stimulus: Milton Friedman on Spending

With an extremely busy and challenging few months ahead with my business, and a home life that includes raising two energetic little boys aged 1 and 3, I’m putting Flaggman’s Canada on hiatus until Summer 2009. I apologize to my loyal readers, and I look forward to returning later in the year. In the meantime, in this age of “Stimulus Spending”, read the timeless wisdom of the late, great Milton Friedman, and commit it to memory:

There are four ways in which you can spend money.

1) You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money.

2) You can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost.

3) I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch!

4) Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government.

Harper, Cannon: Unrelenting in Support for Israel

From Sunday’s press release out of Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, addressing the increase in hostilities between Israel and Hamas:

“We urge renewed international diplomatic efforts to achieve a sustainable and durable ceasefire, starting with the halting of all rocket attacks on Israel. Canada maintains that the rocket attacks are the cause of this crisis.”

Once again, God bless Stephen Harper. To the opposition leaders (and Lizzie May) who can’t bring themselves to call a spade a spade and support Israel against murderous thugs: enjoy your adulation at the next big fascist Hezbo-rally, you cowardly, despicable losers.

A blow to liberal fascism in Canada: Moon recommends repeal of 13

November 25, 2008 was a momentous day for opponents of Canada’s creeping march towards liberal fascism. A week after administrators at one of our most prestigious post-secondary institutions, Queens University, sent a gang of thought police out to campus cafeterias and lounges to eavesdrop on private conversations, the long-awaited Moon Report on the future of the Canada Human Rights Commission was released to the public (read the full report here). Despite the fact that the Commission’s own leader hand-picked the report’s left-leaning law professor writer, and paid him handsomely with Commission funds, Prof. Richard Moon made explicit in no uncertain terms in his report: the now world-famous Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act must be repealed! (More details in op-eds from Ezra Levant and the National Post Editorial Board).

Amazingly, the Canadian Human Rights Commission’s chairwoman Jennifer Lynch, seems ready to throw the report down the memory hole, and start again in her attempt to whitewash the fascism of Section 13 and preserve the legal activist community’s make-work racket. In this context, it’s not hard to understand why Canada’s “official Jews” (a term coined by Levant that I have gratefully adopted) continue to wage battle against those who wish to strip the Human Rights Act of its most heavy-handed powers of summary execution. Here’s the official response of Bernie Farber of the Canadian Jewish Congress – an organization that clearly has the interests of lawyers and leftists, rather than Jews as a whole, at heart. Typical response of liberals to failure – double-down on the rejected policy, and blame the problems on “poor implementation” (reminiscent of Barack Obama’s upcoming return to the New Deal in America).

Farber may be the most egregious proponent of Section 13, but he’s not alone. Leo Adler, head of the Canadian branch of Rabbi Marvin Hier’s excellent L.A.-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, has tarnished his organization through vocal support. The B’nai Brith, a Jewish community and charitable organization to which I belong, has also supported the draconian speech code law. I’ll be following Levant, and doing what I can to hit these organizations in the pocketbook. I will be doing my best to participate in his “Jews against book burning” campaign, and ensure that no donated funds of mine will go to the CJC or Friends of Simon Wiesenthal (who is probably turning in his grave at Adler’s antics) until their policies change.

In the meantime, I look forward to the law’s repeal in Parliament. Get it on the agenda, Mr. Harper!

The speech denied by noxious liberal Jews: Sarah Palin on Israel and Iran

Yet another reason why, as one who grew up a liberal Jew, I now identify more closely with America’s Evangelical Christians than my own community when it comes to virtually any issue of importance – including, amazingly, the security and support for the State of Israel.

The liberal Jewish movement – which, in the US, is essentially an arm of the Democratic party – ultimately decided last week that hatred of Republicans should be stronger than hatred of the Iranian regime that publicly advocates the destruction of Israel, and is closing in on the nuclear arsenal that could accomplish that goal. This is the speech that Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin was supposed to deliver to the rally against Ahmadinejad outside the UN today, before she was disinvited by partisan dirtbags (as published today in Israel by Ha’aretz, the leading liberal daily; and by the New York Sun, a conservative daily). This is a friend of the Jews, and we reject her at our own peril:

I am honored to be with you and with leaders from across this great country — leaders from different faiths and political parties united in a single voice of outrage.

Tomorrow, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will come to New York — to the heart of what he calls the Great Satan — and speak freely in this, a country whose demise he has called for.

Ahmadinejad may choose his words carefully, but underneath all of the rhetoric is an agenda that threatens all who seek a safer and freer world. We gather here today to highlight the Iranian dictator’s intentions and to call for action to thwart him.

He must be stopped.

The world must awake to the threat this man poses to all of us. Ahmadinejad denies that the Holocaust ever took place. He dreams of being an agent in a “Final Solution” — the elimination of the Jewish people. He has called Israel a “stinking corpse” that is “on its way to annihilation.” Such talk cannot be dismissed as the ravings of a madman — not when Iranjust this summer tested long-range Shahab-3 missiles capable of striking Tel Aviv, not when the Iranian nuclear program is nearing completion, and not when Iran sponsors terrorists that threaten and kill innocent people around the world.

The Iranian government wants nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency reports that Iran is running at least 3,800 centrifuges and that its uranium enrichment capacity is rapidly improving. According to news reports, U.S. intelligence agencies believe the Iranians may have enough nuclear material to produce a bomb within a year.

The world has condemned these activities. The United Nations Security Council has demanded that Iransuspend its illegal nuclear enrichment activities. It has levied three rounds of sanctions. How has Ahmadinejad responded? With the declaration that the “Iranian nation would not retreat one iota” from its nuclear program.

So, what should we do about this growing threat? First, we must succeed in Iraq. If we fail there, it will jeopardize the democracy the Iraqis have worked so hard to build, and empower the extremists in neighboring Iran. Iran has armed and trained terrorists who have killed our soldiers in Iraq, and it is Iran that would benefit from an American defeat in Iraq.

If we retreat without leaving a stable Iraq, Iran’s nuclear ambitions will be bolstered. If Iran acquires nuclear weapons — they could share them tomorrow with the terrorists they finance, arm, and train today. Iranian nuclear weapons would set off a dangerous regional nuclear arms race that would make all of us less safe.

But Iranis not only a regional threat; it threatens the entire world. It is the no. 1 state sponsor of terrorism. It sponsors the world’s most vicious terrorist groups, Hamas and Hezbollah. Together, Iran and its terrorists are responsible for the deaths of Americans in Lebanon in the 1980s, in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s, and in Iraq today. They have murdered Iraqis, Lebanese, Palestinians, and other Muslims who have resisted Iran’s desire to dominate the region. They have persecuted countless people simply because they are Jewish.

Iran is responsible for attacks not only on Israelis, but on Jews living as far away as Argentina. Anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial are part of Iran’s official ideology and murder is part of its official policy. Not even Iranian citizens are safe from their government’s threat to those who want to live, work, and worship in peace. Politically-motivated abductions, torture, death by stoning, flogging, and amputations are just some of its state-sanctioned punishments.

It is said that the measure of a country is the treatment of its most vulnerable citizens. By that standard, the Iranian government is both oppressive and barbaric. Under Ahmadinejad’s rule, Iranian women are some of the most vulnerable citizens.

If an Iranian woman shows too much hair in public, she risks being beaten or killed.

If she walks down a public street in clothing that violates the state dress code, she could be arrested.

But in the face of this harsh regime, the Iranian women have shown courage. Despite threats to their lives and their families, Iranian women have sought better treatment through the “One Million Signatures Campaign Demanding Changes to Discriminatory Laws.” The authorities have reacted with predictable barbarism. Last year, women’s rights activist Delaram Ali was sentenced to 20 lashes and 10 months in prison for committing the crime of “propaganda against the system.” After international protests, the judiciary reduced her sentence to “only” 10 lashes and 36 months in prison and then temporarily suspended her sentence. She still faces the threat of imprisonment.

Earlier this year, Senator Clinton said that “Iranis seeking nuclear weapons, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is in the forefront of that” effort. Senator Clinton argued that part of our response must include stronger sanctions, including the designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization. John McCain and I could not agree more.

Senator Clinton understands the nature of this threat and what we must do to confront it. This is an issue that should unite all Americans. Iran should not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. Period. And in a single voice, we must be loud enough for the whole world to hear: Stop Iran!

Only by working together, across national, religious, and political differences, can we alter this regime’s dangerous behavior. Iran has many vulnerabilities, including a regime weakened by sanctions and a population eager to embrace opportunities with the West. We must increase economic pressure to change Iran’s behavior.

Tomorrow, Ahmadinejad will come to New York. On our soil, he will exercise the right of freedom of speech — a right he denies his own people. He will share his hateful agenda with the world. Our task is to focus the world on what can be done to stop him.

We must rally the world to press for truly tough sanctions at the U.N. or with our allies if Iran’s allies continue to block action in the U.N. We must start with restrictions on Iran’s refined petroleum imports.

We must reduce our dependency on foreign oil to weaken Iran’s economic influence.

We must target the regime’s assets abroad; bank accounts, investments, and trading partners.

President Ahmadinejad should be held accountable for inciting genocide, a crime under international law.

We must sanction Iran’s Central Bank and the Revolutionary Guard Corps — which no one should doubt is a terrorist organization.

Together, we can stop Iran’s nuclear program.

Senator McCain has made a solemn commitment that I strongly endorse: Never again will we risk another Holocaust. And this is not a wish, a request, or a plea to Israel’s enemies. This is a promise that the United States and Israel will honor, against any enemy who cares to test us. It is John McCain’s promise and it is my promise.

Thank you.

Cowardice and Ugliness from the American Jewish Left

A few days ago, I wrote about Hillary Clinton cancelling her appearance at Monday’s Jewish Community rally outside the United Nations, because – GASP! – the organizers (Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations) invited Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin to address the gathering. Whether it was a hissy-fit by Hill (“I won’t share the stage with that woman”), or a nefarious attempt to undermine the Obama campaign (my theory, bolstered by Commentary’s Jennifer Rubin here), it didn’t look good on Democrats, who had the gaul to claim that Palin’s appearance would have politicized the event, at the precise moment that they were politicizing the event by walking out.

Well, now, the cowardice of the “official Jewish leaders” once again rears its ugly head, as it has so many times before in history – by now, under pressure from the Obama campaign, DISINVITING PALIN! As a Jew, I could not be more disgusted. There’s not a single moral code – Jewish, or otherwise – that would condone humiliating a distinguished, invited guest. And there’s not a single better way to show weakness of spirit and emptiness of soul, than to cave in to the craven political self-interest of any party.

UPDATE: Barbara Geller, on her Atlas Shrugs blog, links to the radical Jewish leftist group J-Street as they take credit for the Palin disinvitation. Truly despicable.

Just as ugly is the virulent reaction of liberal Jewish women against Governor Palin. I understand why they are reacting this way – because, somehow, abortion became the holy grail of liberal Jewish women’s life, and hatred of God-fearing Christians became an acceptable prejudice in the community. What I hope these women understand (and this includes many in my own family and social circle) is how intolerant, and just plain ugly, it makes them look. Want a glimpse? Look in the mirror, ladies, at this “comedy” clip of liberal Jewish “comedienne” Sandra Bernhard:

More on the topic of “feminists” lashing out at the Republicans’ first-ever female Vice-Presidential candidate here, in S.E. Cupp’s comprehensive New York Daily News column.