Will there be Perfidy at the UN Tonight?

Let's see how the US Votes in the UNSC...   TBC

"Objective Science" and its Limitations

The Lancet - perhaps the most politically motivated medical journal in the world has in the past accused the US of killing hundreds of thousands in Iraq, it has accused Israel of a deliberate onslaught against civilians in Gaza while ignoring Hamas rockets, and now acccuses the IMF of aiding and abetting the current Ebola crisis in the most affected countries. In short, it is edited by a bunch of third-worldist progressives who are suffering from serious post-colonial guilt and modern-day Orientalism.

As such, it was both surprising and encouraging to see this comment in a newspaper op-ed:

"We so easily default to a Western-centric view, where it’s our aid or financial policies that are responsible for the success or failure of poor countries. It’s egoistic and exaggerated, and ignores domestic politics."

This just goes to show you that even "objective science" can be hijacked by ideology.

Read the article

Political Hipsterism on Campus

Here's a follow up video from the Berkeley campus about what the students there actually know about the Islamic State. To be honest, this would be hilarious if it weren't so sad. Unfortunately, I have no doubt that many of these self-same students have strong, unequivocal, and pro-Palestinain positions when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Based on personal experience, I am sorry to say that this is a pretty accurate examplar of the current level of political discourse on American college campuses. By this I mean that everything boils down to one of the following:

1) Strict materialist explanations that verge on determinism (i.e. It's all about the oil).

2) Post-colonial guilt (i.e. It's all really our fault).

3) An extreme cultural relativism that is essentially indistinguishable from apologetics ("Plenty of people lop off heads. Besides, it's really not that bad.")

4) A fetishization of indigineity (to the point of "No True Scotsman" arguments such as the Islamic State is "not really" Islamic.)

Last, but not least, "positions" more often than not boil down to a lazy political hipsterism that do not involve even the minimal investment in time and effort to research a topic (as evidenced by the almost willful ignorance of the Islamic State and what they espouse.)