The Educated Ignorantti

One of the most disappointing developments of the last 150 years or so has been the education of people. Once was a time when barely 1% of the population could read or write. It can be true to say not much development went on back then. One century went by much as the last one. But clever folk there were who nevertheless managed to rise and dispel some of the ignorance they encountered.  They were 'Elite'. 

For most people life, the world, reality was what they could see from the bottom of a deep hole of ignorance. 

That old 'Elite' actually knew a thing or two. They had worked out the value of knowledge. They had discovered ethics, right from wrong, morality and even manners. They gave us Chivalry, not to mention the combined knowledge and technologies of the past few millenia. Pretty good for far less than universal writing facility.

Much of science came from learned churchmen, for example, and from the wealthy 'amateur'.  Universities started, developed and spread, mainly to cater for those churchmen and amateurs and a growing number of 'Professionals' Then in modern times it was thought that the better we could all be educated, the better the world around us could be made. We could all grasp reality a bit more firmly. Even 'know God' a little through His works.

By the turn of the last century, around 1900, after almost a millenia of Universities, a good 2% of the British population - for example - could expect to go to a University and pretty well all children could go to schools, at least up until early teens.  The effects of education started to be felt. 

One of the first really major discoveries was made by the ladies who 'saw' with female maths, that men had a strangle-hold on university education to women's disadvantage. One and a quarter of the two percent at Uni were men !! Only 3/4 of a percent were women. ! While the difference was just 1/2% it was blown up to become 'discrimination'.  

98.75% of men didn't get a Uni education: 99.25% of women didn't. There was no statistically significant difference. As if that mattered. By the 1960's the women were furious.  Changes had to be made !! 

So, 'positive discrimination' was born, and what an ugly baby it became. The Unis became the 'empower' place for feminists and women in general. Not just clever women either. Along with the need to lower standards to allow in young women who could barely tie a bow in their hair, so to did the doors fly open for  young men who were just as thick and unable to score. 

But as the 'gap' closed and the lady-numbers grew, so did the need to cater for these women. That is, discriminate in their favour almost everywhere. That meant new rules. Simple manners and maturity would not do, as they were 'patriarchal'. Fewer young men felt any urge to go back 'grown-up kindy' with its ridiculous, infantilising rules.  

The result of all this.....?  The standard of maturity has fallen alarmingly. The sorts of matters 'taught' have expanded to meet the level of expectation of the very dim.  In recent years men have been driven out almost altogether.

Some might argue that the 'hard' subjects - Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, even Maths - have escaped such childishness and indoctrination that are common in the 'softer' and very squeltchy subjects - women's studies, gender studies, finger painting, queer studies, coloured-folk studies (no white folks studies as yet), toe-nail art etc, - but perhaps that is because they have a tightly disciplined and necessary indoctrination of their own for which there is little room for additional doctrines.

And pretty well all courses are politicised. For politics is all, today. 

We have an elite. 

And that elite follows the political prescriptives.

Joseph Pierce was supping a pint and talking of some things he has noticed.

The Arrogant Ignorance of the 'Well-Educated'

Many moons ago I wrote “The Wisdom and Wickedness of Women” in response to seeing a bumper sticker declaring that 

“Well Behaved Women Do Not Make History.” 

 http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/arrogant-ignorance-well-educated

Recently, sitting in traffic, I saw this very same bumper sticker on the car in front of me, beside another which declared the following: 

“What you call the Liberal Elite, we call being well-educated.” 

The juxtaposition of these two stickers, carefully selected by the car’s owner to teach me a lesson, set me thinking. I might even say that it taught me a valuable lesson, though not the lesson that my neighbor in the car in front of me meant to teach me.

Let’s take the second bumper sticker first. Clearly designed to offend other motorists, it is supremely supercilious and extremely arrogant. 

We, the average Joe, whoever we may be, are not as “well-educated” as the royal “we” driving the car in front of us. 

This pompous “we,” who is presumably a she, presumes that anyone who disagrees with her is poorly educated, whereas she, of course, is well-educated. If we were as well-educated as she, we would agree with her.

To be fair to her, she is basing her presumption on data that shows that those who are “well-educated” tend to vote for the Democrats whereas those who are less “educated” tend to vote Republican.

Joe is American. In Oz we would call her a Labour personage. Socialist. And it could just as easily be a chap. 

She votes Democrat because she is well-educated. We, who are presumed to be Republicans (because we are presumed to be stupid), complain that those who are better educated than us (and are therefore better than us) are part of an elite.

The problem is that her education is not as good as she thinks it is. 

If she was educated in our secular system, she would have learned nothing whatsoever about theology, presuming that, if there is a God, he, or probably she, agrees with us. If he or she does not agree with us, he or she can go to hell. And, of course, we can tell God to go to hell because he or she is made in our image (we are not made in his/hers) and we can do what we like with him or her. 

In short, we can treat God with the same arrogance and disdain with which we treat our neighbor: 

“What God calls sin, we call being well-educated.”

If she was educated in our secular system, she will know nothing of philosophy, or, if she does, she will believe that there was no philosophy worth taking seriously before René Descartes. She will know nothing of the philosophy of the Greeks, of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, and still less of the great Christian philosophers, such as Augustine or Aquinas. Insofar as she’s even heard of these people, she will presume that they did not know what they were talking about: 

“What the ancient philosophers call error, we call being well-educated.”

If she was educated in our secular system, she will know nothing of history, or, if she does, she will know it only from her own twenty-first century perspective, or from the twenty-first century perspective of those who taught it to her. 

History is not about learning from the people of the past, their triumphs and their mistakes, but is about sitting in judgment on the stupidity of our ancestors, who are presumed to be unenlightened, or at least not as enlightened as she is or her teachers are. 

“What the people of the past believed to be immoral, we call being well-educated.”

If she was educated in our secular system, she will know nothing of great literature, or, if she does, she will have misread it from the perspective of her own twenty-first century pride and prejudice, or from the proud and prejudiced twenty-first century perspective of those who taught her. She would not think of trying to read the great authors of the past through their own eyes because, living in the past, such authors lack the sense and sensibility which she has. 

“What Jane Austen calls pride and prejudice, we call being well-educated.”

Once we understand what being “well-educated” actually means in the deplorably illiterate age in which we find ourselves, we are not surprised to find these two bumper stickers side by side. One who is “educated” in this way, will obviously believe that “well-behaved women do not make history.” 

What we, the uneducated, call bad behavior, the liberal elite call being well-educated.

To be “well-educated” is to be ignorant of theology, philosophy, history and the great books of civilization. It is to believe that we have nothing to learn from the Great Conversation that has animated human discourse for three millennia. It is to treat our neighbor in the car next to us with supercilious and scornful contempt, presuming that he is stupid because he is not as “well-educated” as we. It is to treat the greatest minds and the most brilliant writers in history with contempt because they are not as “well-educated” as we. 

In short, to be “well-educated” is not merely ignorance, it is the arrogance of ignorance.

 Joseph Pearce is quite a clever fellow. He's a writer in residence and director of the Center for Faith and Culture at Aquinas College in Nashville, Tennessee. His works include: "G.K. Chesterton: Wisdom and Innocence," "Literary Converts: Spiritual Inspiration in an Age of Disbelief," "Tolkien: Man and Myth," and "Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile

My advice to anyone is do not go to University unless to study 'hard' subjects, or to attend his classes.

Every aspect of our life today has been affected. Hysteria rules.

That 'deep hole of ignorance' I spoke of that existed long ago? We hauled ourselves out. Then we dug another one and lowered our young into it.

Having won the battle for minds in the Universities, the dark forces that ruin are now after the hearts and bodies of our children. 

You might care to catch up with Kevin Donnely who had things to say in the Oz Bar, but I had things to do in the cellar.

Kevin Donnelly: 

Radicals have taken over schools, universities and the media to impose politically correct agendas

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/radicals-have-taken-over-schools-universities-and-the-media-to-impose-politically-correct-agendas/news-story/842818fc3e6fe5db88e970c0784618b3?nk=1dc4d9f3f2a05effc85fce79fb2efc8a-1498827329

There’s no doubt that Western cultures — ­especially those associated with the Anglosphere (including the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, America and Canada) — are bastions of freedom, democracy, high standards of living and scientific progress and innovation.

And it’s clear what makes Western culture unique. Compared with military dictatorships and oppressive regimes across Asia, the Middle East and parts of South America and Africa, Western nations share a Westminster style of parliamentary democracy and a political system committed to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.

We also share a legal system that guarantees the right to a fair trial, innocence until proven guilty, and the right to be judged by one’s peers. Add Christian-inspired values such as sanctity of life, free will, and a commitment to social justice and the common good and it’s clear why so many millions of refugees are flooding to the West.

Best illustrated by the Enlightenment, Western culture also has developed a unique approach to science based on rationality and reason.

Instead of superstition, witchcraft or hearsay, Western science is based on logic and what can be proven to be true or false. It should not surprise that all of the most influential breakthroughs and developments in medicine, science and technology since the Industrial Revolution have occurred in Western nations.

Campion. The only decent University in Oz?

Sydney’s Campion College is an example of how Western culture has also developed a unique approach to education, which also explains why it is so successful. The purpose of education, instead of being utilitarian or promoting self-interest, is committed to knowledge, wisdom and truth.

Cardinal Newman’s ideal of a university education is one that is “disciplined for its own sake, for the perception of its higher object, and for its highest culture”. While professional qualifications are important, a broad education including disciplines such as history, literature, music, art and languages are vital if one is to be truly educated.

Notwithstanding the strengths and benefits of Western culture since the late ’60s, it has been attacked by both enemies foreign and domestic.

You will have to read on yourselves. I have barrels to move. Follow the link above. 

I would not recommend any parent send a child to school today.  They are even more feminised than the Universities, and controlled almost totally by marxists intent in destruction.  They will poison your child. Maliciously. But that is a subject for other evenings in the bar.

Drink up.

Educate yourself.

Pax.

All Religions are the Same

How many times does a chap hear that statement; the assertion that 'All Religions are the Same'? I would be a very wealthy Tavern Keeper had I a dollar for every time I have heard someone say it. I have asked myself if the speaker was a complete idiot or simply and fundamentally wrong, and waited for evidence from their mouths one way or the other.  Compassion sometimes wells up and I think that perhaps they are simply pig-ignorant. It is often the case. But bigotry tends to rule.

An honest ignoramous would at least admit he/she just didn't know.  They are agnostic. They generally do not know about God sufficiently to decide one way or the other of His existence, let alone whether all 'religious' people speak of the same One and behave accordingly. The atheist is certain he/she is right and there is no God at all, yet even they fall into the blanket dismissal as all the same.

Few of either seem to even want to discern any even general outine of a religion by looking at them over a longish period. 

Is this Idleness? Poor education? Brainwashing in our schools and Universities?

Or your head will be chopped off.

Politicians, in the main, sit on the fence, insisting that no one religion is better than any other, but at the same time give 'protections' and excuses in a more than partial manner, and if one listens carefully you can hear the fear in their voices. They know full well that all religions are not the same but just cannot stop themselves painting good guys bad and bad guys mutlicultural. And they hold the education purse strings.

So it was a nice suprise to come up from the Cellars where I have been doing a huge stocktake this past week and more - and spending some of the time in the Crypt, washing the floors and dusting around the Grail - to find a bit of educating going on in the Tavern which hopefully should resolve the 'all religions are the same ' issue for many imbibers.

Butterfly Boxer: Stinker Thinker

Hal G.P. Colebatch was holding the centre and Laramie Hirsch introduced a mate, John C. Wright who writes sci-fi. We even had a long, involved discussion with Stephen Molyneaux that set the Wright fellow off.:

True Islam

Each new Islamic terrorist atrocity is denounced by western leaders such as our Prime Minister as a ‘twisted’ or ‘perverted’ version of Islam, the ‘Religion of Peace’. 

'True Muslims', they emphasise, are peace-loving and tolerant. What this really amounts to is a way of saying: ‘Look how broad-minded I am! I have nothing against true Islam! Also I am learned enough in Islamic doctrine to distinguish between false and true Islam.’

 https://spectator.com.au/2017/06/true-islam/

Unfortunately, this is merely self-promoting codswallop.

Some Muslim leaders are far clearer. The President of Turkey for example - the superCaliphatalistic- does not distinguish at all between 'moderate muslims and jihadists. Indeed he considers the 'moderate' qualifier as insulting. To him all muslims are the same. Who can argue with that? 

There is no ‘true’ version of Islam, and there is no false version. Or rather, there is no way of judging which is true and which is false.

Just one of the three used a sword to preach with.

It is a safe bet that many of those who deplore what they claim is a departure from Islam have only a vague idea of what Islam is and what the Islamic texts teach. 

The ‘true’ version as evoked here means simply ‘The one I find it most agreeable or reassuring to claim is definitive,’ or perhaps, ‘I know that Christianity extols peace. Therefore all other religions must do likewise’. Or: ‘If I say terrorism and beheading are not attributes of true Islam, I may persuade the terrorists and head-choppers to become more peaceful.’

There is no religious equivalent to the High Court of Australia or the US Supreme Court, whose judgements are taken as final, at least until they are superseded, to say what is true and what is not.

If a ‘true’ version of Islam exists anywhere it might be expected to be in Saudi Arabia, its birthplace. 

In 2002, 15 school-girls were burnt to death there when their school caught fire and religious police pushed them back into the flames as they weren’t properly dressed. 

True Islam?

The Pope is held by Catholics to be infallible on certain doctrinal and historical matters, but only by Catholics, and in fact Papal infallibility is a lesser claim than some think – it means only that the Pope’s decision is final, just as, in politics and law, the minutes of a cabinet meeting or a court of appeal are taken as final, regardless of what was actually said, because this is the only way to get business done and avoid endless quarreling.

A lesser claim even than that, Hal. Papal infallibility is strictly limited and cannot change Doctrine or crucial determinations of the past. 

There are a number of frequently bitterly-fighting Islamic sects, as there are a number of Christian sects, and even of Jewish sects. If you are a member of one of these, you will think it is the true faith. Every sect thinks it is true. Catholics think theirs is the true faith and Protestants are in error, and Protestants think the converse. But there is no overarching earthly power to judge which is true.

When the Muslim armies attacked Constantinople, the Christian West refused to send aid to their Orthodox brethren because of a disagreement over whether Christ was co-eternal with God the Father. Which was the true faith, and who is to say? Further, the Christian Orthodox Eastern Empire had already been pillaged and greatly weakened by the Western Christian crusaders.

It is possible to claim Nazism is a twisted version of Wagner and Nietzsche, and Marxism a twisted version of Judeo-Christianity, but a Nazi or a Marxist would not agree. Historian Manning Clark constantly likened Lenin, the interpreter and developer of Marx, to Christ, Lenin’s millionfold murders notwithstanding.

C.S. Lewis made an effort, consulting both Protestant and Catholic theologians, to strip Christianity of sectarian differences and reduce it to its essentials in the book Mere Christianity. But what ‘mere Christianity’ is, like what ‘true Islam’ is, remains subjective.

Could there be a ‘mere Islam’ from which the true shape of the religion might be discerned? 

Well, it might be said that there is, in the Koran, and it is easily referred to. But the Koran is not consistent, with the later, blood-thirsty passages extolling war, conquest and the subjugation of women being generally held to supersede the earlier ones extolling tolerance and peace. While the self-sealing nature of the Islamic writings made radical reform impossible, it did not make differences of interpretation impossible.

If the Prime Minister and others turn to the great universities of the Muslim world, which might be thought to be the guardians of any ‘true’ doctrine, they will frequently find a reversion to the covering of women (as was not the case a few years ago), teachings that Jews are descended from pigs and monkeys and the promotion of jihad. 

One can, however, discern the general shape of a religion by a kind of gestalt process of observing it in history. 

Thus, with virtually no exceptions, Islam has, from its earliest days, been spread by war and conquest. The peaceful and mystical sects of Islam have existed behind the blood-soaked frontiers in territories the warriors have pacified.

You might note some of the Tavern's left-wall hangings. Omar's poetic theme runs right through to the foundation stones. He was a Sufi, doncha know.

The non-Muslim part of the world is known as the ‘house of war’. Forcible conversion at sword-point has been unknown, with only the rarest exceptions, in Christianity, at least for the last thousand years, but is general and taken for granted in Islam. Today practically every Muslim-majority district in Europe, particularly in France, has become a no-go area for other religions and even for the civil authorities. Jews are fleeing from France and other European countries with large Muslim populations.

When, in Australia, the visit of Ayaan Hirsi Ali had to be cancelled, following threats that 5,000 Muslims would turn out for implicitly violent demonstrations against her, were all the 5,000 followers of a ‘twisted’ form of the religion?  

Are the thousands following Isis or Boko Haram? 

Says who?

Not the Turkish President chappie.  I don't think he's see eye to eye with the Dalai Lama unless he had his head on a plate.

The impossibility of settling upon a definition of ‘true’ Christianity and ‘true’ Islam does not alter the fact that Presbyterians, Catholics, Anglicans and Methodists do not as a rule fly airliners into buildings. 

The activity of Christian medical missions in Africa today is not generally accompanied by demands for conversion, although conversion is held to be desirable. 

Thus, with exceptions, ambiguities and nuances, the general shape of these religions, both in history and in the world today, can be made out pretty clearly. 

Their processes are sometimes subtle: Christianity, for example, did not, in the scriptures, specifically condemn what we see as the obvious evils of slavery and torture, but its expressed values – by the commandment ‘love one another’ – gradually made slavery and torture unthinkable in Christian civilisation.

The Jewish conception of slavery was more in the nature of entering into a bond to pay off a debt than it was life-long chattel slavery. 

Islam, however, actively condoned the enslavement of captives through the ages.

As it still does. 'Condoned' puts it very lightly.

Christianity also made war a matter of reluctance rather than enthusiasm, a regrettable necessity rather than a duty. Next time someone says jihadists do not represent the true faith, just ask them to define the true faith or its keepers.

OK, so he draws the dotted lines, delineating, fuzzily, enough major differences as to give the lie to the claim that all religions are the same.

Personally, I would go a lot further and tear the page. Islam was - is - a Satanic cry of rage in response to the Resurrection of Christ. Its arrival a few hundred years after the start of Christianity, and a few thousand after the start of the Jewish faith, and its easily discerned hatred of life speaks a volume or two that even Hal could sell. 

Some folk get 'confused' by the expressions of hurt feelings by Muslim aplologists on our TVs. Those talking heads have silver tongues and the average Joe and Josie probably do not know of the Islamic encouragement to its adherents to lie like a invoice from the mafia. Their claims of love and peace are sheer bullshit. The proof lies in hospitals and mortuaries.

Not that an atheist would agree that just timing was enough.  A discussion held by an atheist - whom I admire nonetheless - sparked a few points from John Wright. It is by taking that 'longer, historical' view that we can get general outines. As long as one is careful of whose views you take. The education system is often a trap even for those who study. He is a 'been there: done that' sort of chap.

He had been watching a longish discussion which you could wade through  or pass by right now if you wish, or just go on.  Perhaps even a solid non-believer can be brought around.

The Archangels are Hunting Him

A kind reader brought this to my attention. I found this conversation simply fascinating.

At about the 40 minute mark, Mr Molyneux makes and admission eerily similar to epiphanies  I was suffering during the days when I was losing my faith in atheism.

 http://www.scifiwright.com/2017/06/the-archangels-are-hunting-him/#more-18484

For one thing, reading history books written outside the school of thought dominated of Voltaire, Gibbon, Hegel, Marx gave credit where credit was due. And, thanks to a classical education, I knew full well that... 

Aquinas was the most logical thinker I had ever encountered outside Euclid.

(I disagreed with his axioms, but saw no error in his logic once they were granted.)

So I knew beforehand that the Thirteenth Century was not the satanic incarnation of science-hatred my high school education had falsely indoctrinated me into believing, and which most public school graduates believe to this day.

But picking up books describing the real Middle Ages, written by scholars I trusted, started pushing back on some of the wool that had been pulled over my eyes. 

It took me a long time to realize that, as an English speaker, I was getting the English (Protestant) view of history, the one where Bloody Marry was a devil and Elizabeth I was the Virgin

In real life, Queen Elizabeth was a despot who extended the laws against treason “to catch not just those who questioned Elizabeth’s right to rule, but all missionary priests and those who sheltered them. 

Torture was not permitted by the common law, but special powers were invoked to justify its regular use to extract information from Catholic suspects. The procedure in treason trials gave the accused no chance of offering an adequate defense, and unsafe convictions were common. The standard penalty for traitors was to be hanged, cut down when still alive, castrated, disemboweled and dismembered. 

Over 100 Catholic priests suffered this fate.”

Learning a wider view, and I hope a more accurate, of history was one of the several things that picked away at my hatred of Christianity.

The question kept bothering me: if Christianity is the utterly foolish superstition and enemy of progress, science, and reason I had always said it was, then why did the Christians spend so much time and effort erecting an international university system, something no other civilization ever contemplated?

If the Church was the enemy of science as much as she was the enemy of witchcraft, why was it that the Europeans, once they turned their back on witchcraft, developed science? 

Why were so many monks and priests openly doing science? None of them openly performed witchcraft.

If Christianity was just a fraud enacted to create and keep power for a priestly class to live at ease on the labor of peons, why did the priests forswear the things no secular rulers ever forswore, such as wealth, women, song and freedom from their superiors?

And why did the Christians insist, over and over again, on voluntary conversion? No other religion, and certainly no political philosophy, insists on nothing but volunteers.

Why was Christian morality in line with reality, if the Christian theology was superstition, nonsense, and cant?

Why did the Christians so fiercely object to suicide, when no other else did? The Romans were as much addicted to the romance of suicide for dishonor as the Japanese — if Christianity was a make-believe, why was not this rule changed to adhere to the Roman standards, and therefore to make the make believe more easy for the gullible to swallow?

Why did the Christians study the ancient pagans, and decipher the hieroglyphs of Egypt? The Roman pagan scholar never bothered to ask their conquered people how their writing system worked. They were not curious. The Muslims take sadistic delight in destroying the past, equaled only by the French and Communist Revolutionaries, and their Political Correct epigones here. 

Why does no one respect the prior civilizations, save for Christendom?

Why does no one respect the Other, save for Christendom. Why did no missionaries from alien religions visit Europe, with the sole horrid exception of the bloodthirsty Muslim, red scimitar in hand? And they did not come to convert, but to rape, metaphorically as well as literally, and burn the books and shatter the cities of the West.

These questions are hard to answer if Christianity is false, but not hard if it is true.

My prediction is that Mr Molyneux, if his charted course is like mine was, will suffer an increasing strain between his carefully erected atheistic theology (atheology?) and the facts of human life as history and contemporary events portray, and the Church will have an odd lure to him.

At that point he will struggle against the whispers in his soul sent by the angels hunting ruthless for him, and he might seek some other escape route, such as a polite resignation to an incomplete model of reality, where he admits Christianity has many strange virtues missing in other religions and worldviews, but no explanation as to why. 

If the angels do their job, his sense of integrity will not let him rest with any halfway mark or lukewarm compromise.

Now, if the time comes when he realizes that G.K. Chesterton is a better writer and deeper thinker than Ayn Rand, and had more and deeper insights into human nature, the snare will close about it.

Hahaha. Good one. I pulled a pint if just for that. 

He can always escape by refusing to think, by blanking out what the evidence is implying, since he is a creature with free will. He will be tempted. But his whole life as a philosopher will be opposed to yielding to that temptation.

On the other side, the demands made by Christianity, things like chastity, no divorce, no contraception, strict discipline of one’s passions, throwing away all your porn, forswearing revenge against foes who have actually and deeply wounded you, all that jazz… the burden of receiving Christ and taking up you cross seems great indeed to one who has never 'erenow been helped by the Holy Spirit to shoulder the burdens.

By the Lord Harry, pints all round ! 

Admitting one is wrong about the Steady State Theory, or changing one’s mind about Ricardo’s Law of Comparative Advantage does not require you to give up your paramours, or other vices we all love with the darkest parts of our corrupt hearts. 

But admitting one is wrong about the nonexistence of Christ has consequences.

Bowing to Christ is a blow to the pride.

But then again, there is that matter of intellectual integrity, and a philosopher’s almost erotic love of the truth.

If he is now as I was then, his false pride and his love of truth will clash. And then the struggle will be on.

Pray for him, my beloved brothers and sisters in Christ. All the angels will raise a shout to shake the heavens if a lone lost prodigal son returns to the fold.

A very apt end to the conversation considering today's Gospel.

Now I must go and find my scribe to find out what he has been doing while I have been engaged down the stone stairs.

Pax

Truth & Good Manners 1 : Feminists & Manginas 0.

Cassie Jaye has nothing to complain about, unlike the rest of us. She came, she was seen, and saw off all her nasty, foul-thinking critics who tried their damnest to rubbish her and her work, but ended up showing just what rubbish they themselves were. Good onya Oz ! Good onya Cassie.

The entire week has been spent clearing up after all the customers who poured in from the last time I posted here. A huge crowd. A week's worth. I am happy to see some 300 faces a day here and stock accordingly, but this week after being inundated by nearly ten times that number I had to send for hurried additional supplies and the Angels were kept busy.  But enough of my housekeeping trivia, what of Cassie?

Cassie managed to get into Oz in the first instance. Unlike the pro-life chap last year, Troy Newman, who was arrested the moment he stepped from the plane and sent packing back to America. So at least she was able to be here to deliver her message. One up for men at least, while unborn babies still die.

She made it onto the stage at the Men's Conference on the Gold Coast, where the reception and attention was first class, and onto the TV 'zhozial juztitz' morning and evening shows where the full fury of the manginas and feminists  was unleashed. She responded with bemused good manners.

Personally, and I speak just for m'self here, I was most encouraged that a nearing 30 American woman who spent much of her teen and early adult years as a dyed-in-the-wool Feminist, could not only change her mind when exposed to reason, evidence, horses-mouth hatreds of feminists and sheer calm persistence of good men, but show that there is Hope. Not only did she work hard on making a truthful film but she also showed that not all modern young adults are lying, whining snowflakes. Indeed, she acquitted herself with calm dignity and good manners. Far better manners than the Oz media displayed.

But let us see and hear from some who have dropped in for a refreshing pint or pina colada.

On Sunday morning, Cassie Jaye was interviewed by Andrew O'Keefe on Sunrise about her new documentary movie The Red Pill. 

During the Sunrise interview, O'Keefe admits he hasn’t even seen the Red Pill movie. Apparently they weren’t able to watch it or didn’t have enough time. How can you even comment or criticise on a movie when you haven’t even watched it?

 https://www.change.org/p/channel-7-fire-andrew-o-keefe-from-sunrise

Shortly after the interview, thousands showed their disgust for O’Keefe on the Sunrise Facebook page. Sunrise have since removed their post because they couldn’t handle the flood of criticism against O’Keefe and feminism. Like the project, they have proven that they are “journalists” lacking integrity with a strong left/feminist bias. 

 The 'Mocker' said: Quoting O'Keefe

“Personally, it horrifies me to think that my girl would be ever be attacked or belittled by a man she loved, or by anyone,” wrote former White Ribbon Foundation chairman and current co-host of Weekend Sunrise Andrew O’Keefe in 2014.

“Do I show my kids that a man doesn’t have to be the tough-guy in control of every situation?” he asked rhetorically.

Well, evidently yes, if O’Keefe’s interview last weekend with Cassie Jaye, director of the documentary The Red Pill, is any indication. The film, which has resulted in protests and cancelled screenings across Australia, focuses on cases where males are disproportionately and adversely affected. Jaye interviewed a range of people for the film, including men’s rights activists, for which she is still being castigated.

“It just seems to me you don’t really question their views in the film,” O’Keefe said to Jaye, whose prompt rebuttal — “Did you see the film?”, she questioned — saw the agitated and defensive host reluctantly admit he had not seen the film in its entirety.

Of course he had not. What need for evidence or even listening does a  drunk, woman-groper, motor-mouth former 'Chairman' of an anti-male Domestic Violence mob have. No need to answer that.

But witter we need not either so, over to Janet Albrechtsen:

It was an embarrassing moment for the former lawyer, who had committed the equivalent of appearing in court without being across his brief. 

Worse still, O’Keefe and his co-host Monique Wright attempted to blame Jaye and her producer for this abrogation, claiming the film had only been provided to them the evening before. In reality, they had been given the film a month prior to the interview, and on two other occasions.

At this point a prudent interviewer might have considered a more conciliatory approach towards his subject. But not O’Keefe, who instead patronised her. “My concern, Cassie,” he said with over-the-top enunciation, “is that… we promote an opposition between men and feminism that’s counter-productive to the genders working together to solve everyone’s problems.” 

In other words, don’t question the narrative that feminism is everyone’s friend. 

After all, it wouldn’t be like third-wave feminists to promote opposition between the sexes, would it?

But more on that later. What stood out in particular was O’Keefe’s manner towards Jaye. 

She presented as intelligent, articulate and persuasive, 

....yet he talked to her as if he were admonishing a child. The excessive hand gesturing, and the resorting to the royal ‘we’ pronoun only compounded this pomposity, as did O’Keefe’s repeatedly addressing Jaye by her first name (presumably just in case she needed reminding). 

His smirking, smugness and his over-talking were an unedifying display of rudeness in contrast to Jaye’s dignified demeanour. 

If only there were a term for a man lecturing a woman in such a condescending fashion.

O’Keefe, as have other critics of The Red Pill, has accused Jaye of tacitly condoning misogyny. Certainly, the men’s rights movement has its share of such offenders. However, feminism too has its fundamentalist elements, irrespective of the fallacious argument that misandry does not exist. One only has to look as far as Fairfax’s Daily Life for examples of this fashionable chauvinism. Fatuous and self-indulgent soliloquies such as ‘Why I won’t let any male babysit my children’ and ‘Misandry Island: This is what a feminist utopia would look like’ sadly are the norm and not the exception.

“I felt sick at the thought of something male growing inside me,” wrote teacher and feminist Polly Dunning in December 2016 as she reflected on her pregnancy. “How will I raise a son who respects me the way a daughter would?” she wailed without an iota of self-awareness. 

It demonstrates that both the men’s and women’s rights movements have an entitlement mentality. However, the media’s tendency to laud and promote feminism on the one hand, while referring disparagingly to men’s rights activists on the other, is revealing.

Ironically, O’Keefe’s pooh-poohing of The Red Pill is contributing to its success and raising awareness about biases against men, which do exist, although their acknowledgment is wanting. More than 90 per cent of Australian prisoners are male, but you will never hear a gender studies lecturer point to this as evidence of ‘structural sexism’.

In 2013 a retiring Family Court judge warned that mothers were increasingly inventing allegations of child sexual abuse against their husbands to prevent them from seeing their children. But unlike women, men enjoy no gender-specific government-funded legal centre to assist them in such cases. 

Paternity fraud? No such thing. It’s not illegal, and in any event the High Court ruled in 2006 that a mother’s lying to a putative father about the paternity of the child was not a valid action for the tort of deceit. 

Feminist and bioethicist Leslie Cannold has gone one step further by arguing that the euphemistic term “paternal discrepancies” should replace “paternity fraud”.

These are just a few examples. Raising their awareness about these and other aspects of men’s rights, as the The Red Pill seeks to do, does not diminish the campaigns against the sexism that women suffer, particularly the appalling statistic of females murdered by their spouses.

Although we rarely hear of the similar number of male spouses killed by their female partners. And does anyone ever question just how many females killed  have been so at the hand of lesbian partners?  One has to be as  deliberately deaf and blind as O'Keefe not to have known that lesbian violence far outstrips any other 'gendered' violence.

It also challenges one of the most obtuse tenets of militant feminism — the insistence that men’s rights must be analysed according to the principles of a zero sum game.

Amid all the histrionics, Jaye’s suggestion to O’Keefe that people watch her film and “make up their own mind” is the most sensible comment about this affair. Decide for yourself, and don’t defer to the tough guy who wants to be in control of the situation, one might quip.

“Changing my attitude,” wrote O’Keefe in 2008 in his capacity as chairman of the White Ribbon Foundation, “means I need to think about what I say and do and question whether I contribute subtly to the power problem; whether I’m engaging in good-hearted banter, or whether my words are denigrating or subjugating women.” 

Physician, heal thyself.

Physician he ain't so there is little chance of him opening his eyes and ears while his lips are flapping. What he needs is a sound whacking. Cassie was firm but gentle with him.

The only sound voice from the media came from Andrew Bolt. 

Sky News host Andrew Bolt felt he had to apologise to US film-maker Cassie Jaye for the behaviour of the media following two 'aggressive and hostile interviews'.

The former feminist made many media appearances in Australia to promote her new documentary 'The Red Pill', which explores the controversial men's rights movement. Speaking on the Bolt Report, Ms Jaye said other media had never treated her the way Network Seven's Sunrise and Network Ten's The Project did.

The panelists on The Project extensively criticised the film during their interview of Ms Jaye.

'I have never been treated like I have on Sunrise and The Project,' Ms Jaye said.

'A lot of people don't realise my interview with The Project was heavily edited down. The full interview was very hostile....I definitely felt ambushed.'

In the interview with Sunrise, host Andrew O'Keefe admitted to not watching the movie, claiming her publicist didn't send the link through.

Ms Jaye said a link was sent a few times as early as a month before the interview.

She said she was deeply disappointed in how she had been treated.

Andrew Bolt hit out at the network's, apologising to Ms Jaye for coming into an 'intolerant country like Australia'.

'Something serious has gone wrong in our culture and I apologise,' Mr Bolt said.

'It didn't used to be that way. I'm very sorry you've run smack into it.'

The documentary was banned by several Australian cinemas with opponents of the film threatening protests.

She said the journey was a complicated and complex one in order to try a find a 'middle ground'.

'There's obvious silence tactics happening in Australia. I urge people to watch it for themselves.'

Red Pill is the second top rating movie on YouTube in Australia.

 A lot of effort has been expended, money too, trying to prevent anyone seeing Cassie's work.  Yes, there is a focus on Oz at the moment where the vitriol has flowed like beer at a B&S bash, but elsewhere too, especially on the media outlets. Tracy Watson told those standing near in the bar:

Netflix bans “The Red Pill” movie because it contains too much TRUTH

Let me start out by saying that I have no political agenda. Like most of you, I’m just a regular, straight-down-the-middle person living my life. That said, I am open-minded and believe that getting different perspectives and listening to many viewpoints is important in shaping my own views. 

The world would be a bleak place, indeed, if we were all forced to accept only one side of any given equation. And yet, that is what we are increasingly being bullied into doing, as evidenced recently by the totally over-the-top reaction by many to filmmaker Cassie Jaye’s documentary The Red Pill.

 http://www.naturalnews.com/2017-05-17-netflix-bans-the-red-pill-movie-because-it-contains-too-much-truth.html#

In the movie, Jaye, an investigative journalist and self-proclaimed feminist, decided to go down the rabbit hole of the Men’s Rights Activism (MRA) movement, described by Urban Dictionary as “an organization of men and their women allies who draw attention to the ways in which misandry (anti-male attitudes and actions) and gynocentrism (women-privileging) harm men.”

The film sets out to examine what MRAs really stand for, what they believe they’re fighting for, and what their attitudes really are towards women.

In spite of the movie’s huge commercial success, 

Netflix has refused to air it. 

In theaters in Canada, Australia and the U.S., feminists have come out en masse to protest viewings, and independent theaters have been under huge pressure not to show it. 

CBC News recently reported that theater patrons and sponsors in Canada have threatened to stop doing business with theaters that dare to go ahead with scheduled screenings.

Gavin McInnes of Rebel Media calls this type of pressure “economic terrorism,” and makes the interesting point that many of the people who protested so vehemently against the film have never even seen it.

McInnes argues that many recent documentaries have been very biased toward one particular viewpoint, and some like An Inconvenient Truth, have been scientifically flawed and totally one-sided, yet have been accepted as fact and allowed to mold the thinking of many.

On the other hand, with The Red Pill, Cassie Jaye does “what true journalists should do,” she insists. 

“You set out with no agenda and you don’t end up where you thought you would.”

And judging by the content of the trailer, that is just what Jaye does. While providing the perspective of the MRAs, and highlighting some of their most pressing issues, she also speaks to prominent feminist activists and journalists to get their take on those issues.

The interviews Jaye conducts for the documentary highlight issues like men having virtually no rights when it comes to custody disputes, and the fact that if a woman should decide to abort her baby, her spouse or partner would have no say in the matter. 

The documentary also highlights the fact that 93 percent of workplace fatalities affect men, and that 4 out of 5 suicides are men. 

As one of the interviewees notes, men are suffering, but, “Society doesn’t want to hear their pain. We value female life more than we value male life.”

Dr. Warren Farrell refers to a “big hole in the area of compassion for boys and men,” and Paul Elam, president and founder of A Voice for Men, notes that the anti-men message is a subtle subtext in statements like “stop violence against women,” rather than simply, “stop all violence.”

In her video diary, Jaye looks really confused and says she’s unsure if the MRAs are simply “duping” her to convince her of their out-there theory that “men are discriminated against, and women have the advantage.”

The trailer also shows her listening to many feminist voices, including that of Katherine Spillar, executive director of the Feminist Majority Foundation, who insists that it is indisputable that women are still oppressed physically, financially and economically, and that in the political and business halls of power, men are advantaged over women.

All in all, the trailer certainly depicts a balanced, thought-provoking documentary that shows both sides of the issue. It’s hard to understand what all the furor is about. But then, perhaps Harry Crouch, president of the National Coalition for Men summed it up best when he said, “We just don’t seem to respect each other for who we are.”

Watch the documentary, and decide for yourself.

I have plentiful supplies of good ale for all customers, so drink deep.

Pax