The "Trust Gap", "social licence" and the rule of law

Giant PR firm, Edelman, does a global annual survey to gauge of the "trust" the public has in its institutions: 1) Government 2) Business 3) Media, and 4) NGOs.

The people surveyed are categorized into three groups:
1) Informed Public 2) General On-line Population, and 3) Mass Population (all population excluding Informed Public)

The results are published in the "Edelman Trust Baraometer".

2016 Edelman Trust Barometer  Widening Trust Gap
2017 Edelman Trust Barometer   An Implosion in Trust! (Brexit, Trump, immigration/refugee crisis?)

Interesting, considering recent events but one does wonder about the validity of the results as a measure of "trust". If it isn't trust that's actually being measured, what is it? It's worth reading this bit of skepticism: "Can You Trust The Data On Trust?"

The surveys show that the "Informed Public", which includes the elites that control the four institutions, have much higher "trust" in those institution than the general public (ie the definition of the "trust gap"). Hardly a surprising result.

With the advent of Internet, the general public is in a position to be better informed and less subject to control of the message by the elites (especially the legacy MSM).  A widening "trust gap" might be a natural consequence of this.  However, a potentially serious downside is a diminishing respect for the rule of law and the constitution.  For example, certain of the elites (Justin Trudeau for one) have been pushing the fuzzy notion of "social license" ("governments issue permits, communities grant permission").  In the case of pipeline approvals this suggests that decisions by lawfully appointed and mandated regulatory bodies (like the NEB) are subject to being overruled by vocal interest groups ("communities") who have no legal status. Mob rule is "permitted" to supplant the rule of law.  Not good!

The left's lies about Stephen Bannon

Stefan Molyneux thoroughly de-bunks leftist smears against Steve Bannon.  He discusses the left's smear tactics, the hypocrisy, anti-semitism, racism and cowardice in their rhetoric about "white" nationalism.  Molyneux also concludes that the left's claims to champion diversity are phony; the left is not pro-diversity, they are only "pro-all-groups-who-vote-for-the-left" - it's why, for example, they support open borders - for votes. If they thought that poor Mexican border jumpers would vote Republican instead of (overwhelmingly) Democrat, they'd be clamouring for a giant wall - diversity be damned.

The low moral and intellectual state of the left

Dennis Prager recently wrote a column in the Jewish Journal expressing his concerns:

"... about the Torah and the current unprecedented attempt to blur male-female distinction in biology and society."

It ignited a firestorm of hatemail from the Jewish left.

To which Prager responded "The hate is all in one direction":

... Virtually every one of them is shameful. If you care about the moral nature and intellectual viability of American Jewish life, they are actually frightening.

... I am accused of cruelty, intolerance, bigotry, hate, publicly humiliating someone, ignorance and more.  Yet, there is not a hint of any one of these things in my column.

... Other letters and comments accuse me of intolerance, bigotry, ignorance, transphobia, maligning, defamation, slander, xenophobia, foolishness, mean-spiritedness, inflicting “spiritual violence,” lacking compassion, anti-knowledge and more — all without providing a single example.

... It is these letters and comments that are filled with hate; it is these writers who intend to humiliate; it is these people who are intolerant of any view but their own.

And, yesterday he followed up with: "The moral and intellectual state of the Jewish left."

First, the low intellectual state. ... Bret Stephens ... succinctly put it recently in his Wall Street Journal column, “American academia is, by and large, idiotic.”

... characteristic No. 2: Instead of intellectual discourse, what we have is the dismissal of the decency of the left’s opponents. If you oppose the left, you are rarely debated. Instead you are dismissed as sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, racist, bigoted and spewing hatred.

Third, and finally, there is a willingness to make up falsehoods in the service of progressive ideals.

Of course this isn't a problem just with the American Jewish left on the issue of male-female blurring, but with the left throughout the entire West over a wide range of issues.


[Via Blazing Cat Fur]

Lord Moncton's prediction of Harper's defeat and why Tony Abbot was dumped

Monckton's backstory about UN global governance ambitions and skullduggery is the mother of all conspiracyies theories:

George Jonas on Alan Borovoy

George Jonas: When my old leftist friend, Alan Borovoy, saw the light

A few days ago I reminisced about an old friend in this space, the founder and General Counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, A. Alan Borovoy, who passed away last weekend.

... I noted that he and I agreed on almost nothing, except the importance of liberty.

... Central to our debates were Canada’s human rights commissions: The laws and institutions Borovoy and like-minded civil libertarians, mostly leftwing activists, created, or at least played a major role in creating, ... Alan and his friends couldn’t imagine how civil liberties had anything to fear from laws and organizations they themselves, champions of civil liberties, were bringing to life.

... In the 1980s, with civil liberties already halfway down the throat of the voracious state, Alan was still dismissing the slippery slope as a shopworn myth. It took him another decade and a half to change his mind.

... By 1998 he did. “Ever since the government embarked on a course of trying to outlaw expressions of hatred, it’s shown that there is a slippery slope. One thing has led to another,” he said in relation to a proposed “hate speech” legislation in British Columbia. ..

... once he saw the light, Alan didn’t pull his punches. He was as outspoken in defending freedom against his own creation, the human rights bureaucracy, as he had been defending it against its traditional enemies. 

Resurgent Jew-hatred

Charles Krauthammer:

Anti-Semitism has returned to Europe. With a vengeance.

... It has become routine. If the kosher-grocery massacre in Paris hadn’t happened in conjunction with Charlie Hebdo, how much worldwide notice would it have received? As little as did the murder of a rabbi and three children at a Jewish school in Toulouse. As little as did the terror attack that killed four at the Jewish Museum in Brussels.

...  In Berlin, Gaza brought out a mob chanting, “Jew, Jew, cowardly pig, come out and fight alone!” Berlin, mind you.

... European anti-Semitism is not a Jewish problem, however. It’s a European problem, a stain, a disease of which Europe is congenitally unable to rid itself.

In the comments it's clear that it's not just a European problem.  Canadian Jew-haters came out in force, as usual.  (In America its no doubt the same, plus, the hug-a-Muslim, kick-a-Jew mentality extends to the very top.)

By contrast, the comments behind the e-paper pay-wall harbour no such sentiments. Here are two:

Stephen Boyling:

I say this without reservation - Israel's dilemma is the West's dilemma.  No ifs ands or buts.  There's only one "cure" for anti-Semitism and that would be death.  By any means necessary.  I'm not talking about those confused and crazy nobodies, the "rebels without a cause" that pick the non-thinking obvious - Israel specifically, and Jews generally.  I include union leaders and university professors in that group.  And skinheads.

The enemy is Islam.  The example to be set is Islam.  It's state enablers and financial backers.  Gone.  By any means necessary.  And then maybe I can get on a plane without taking my shoes off.  Or my belt.  Or leaving my trusty pocket knife in a desk drawer.  By any means necessary.  Until that job is done.  Unfortunately, not any time soon.

Alastair Gordon:

It is appropriate to see the term "Jew-hatred" replacing the anodyne "anti-Semitism". How many "progressives" have told me that they cannot be anti-Semitic because, after all, Arabs are Semites too?

Time to call out the Muslim world and their useful idiots - the United Church, Sid Ryan, CUPE, Noam Chomsky, student unions, academics, liberal media, and many on the left for what they really are - Jew-Haters.

CIA "torture" report's "pathological sanctimony"

Wall Street Journal editorial writer, Dorothy Rabinowitz:

... [The Senate report] is "as good as any expression of pathological sanctimoniousness that has characterized every attitude towards every effort America has taken to defend itself.

... [It is] rooted to the hostility of the idea that America is anything but a flawed, deeply immoral nation.  You cannot go on the campuses of the United States without hearing this as the general opinion." ...

CIA "torture" report - unctuous condescension and hypocritical nonsense

Charles Krauthammer:

The report by Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee regarding CIA interrogation essentially accuses the agency under George W. Bush of war criminality.

...It’s a common theme (often echoed by President Obama): Amid panic and disorientation, we lost our moral compass and made awful judgments. ...

... It’s a kind of temporary-insanity defense for the Bush administration. And it is not just unctuous condescension but hypocritical nonsense.

... To make that case, to produce a prosecutorial brief so entirely and relentlessly one-sided, the committee report (written solely by Democrats) excluded any testimony from the people involved and variously accused. None. No interviews, no hearings, no statements. ...

Then there's the media:

Google - sanctimonious, hypocritical, rent-seeking BIRD KILLER

In the Wall Street Journal, headlined "Google Kills Birds":

Our headline has the virtue of being true—as we will explain—unlike Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt's assertion this week that people who oppose government subsidies for green energy are liars. The real charlatans are businesses like Google that use climate change as a pretext for corporate welfare.

Google, whose motto is "Don't Be Evil," announced on Monday that it is quitting the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) because of the conservative outfit's putative denial of climate change.  "Everyone understands climate change is occurring," said Mr. Schmidt. "And the people who oppose it are really hurting our children and our grandchildren and making the world a much worse place. And so we should not be aligned with such people—they're just, they're just literally lying."

In fact, ALEC takes no position on the substance of climate change.  ...

 Consider Google's pledge to fund over $1.5 billion in non fossil-fuel energy. Yet Google derives most of its energy from non-renewables on the grid... It's no coincidence that Google's server in Iowa is located near one of the cheapest sources of coal-fired power in the Midwest. 

Also not a coincidence is that nearly all of Google's solar and wind farms are located in states with renewable-energy mandates, which create opportunities for politically mediated profit-making ... 

Google has invested about $600 million in California's solar plants such as the Ivanpah system in California's Mojave Desert. ... Ivanpah's "power towers"—which burn natural gas—incinerate about 28,000 birds annually.  ...

The $2.2 billion bird fryer was funded with a $1.6 billion federal loan, which Google and its business partners plan to repay by applying for a federal grant. ...

... Mr. Schmidt shouldn't disguise his company's mercenary motives behind false and trendy appeals to green political virtue.

... etc, etc, etc ...

Eric Schmidt - holier-than-thou, hypocritical, rent seeking bird killer.  No doubt about it.  It's what we might expect from any knee-jerk progressive crony capitalist.

 

Naomi Klein, the narcissistic one percenter who thinks she's Gaia

Naomi Klein has a new book out.  James Delingpole outlines what you need to know about it (and her).  A sampling of headings:

It's all about Naomi. ...

Naomi may possibly be under the illusion that she is Gaia ... 

Naomi Klein is a one percenter - and therefore happily cushioned from all the economy-destroying measures she proposes ...

The interview she gave to (a clearly infatuated, slavering) Vogue is both depressing and unintentionally hilarious ...

Inside "the sham Robocall scandal"

Greg Renouf, on his blog GenuiNEWitty, provided a very detailed account of who was behind the fraudulent promotion of the Robocall "scandal".

Here's Greg with Ezra Levant:

Leftist "think tank" urges Obama to reject Keysone XL

Globe and Mail:

... the Center for American Progress (CAP) challenged the assumption that the project would have little impact on the amount of future investment or production from Alberta’s carbon-intensive oil sector ...

... CAP plays on the left side of Democratic Party policy making. Its founder and former chair is John Podesta, who is now serving as senior environmental adviser to President Obama. 

... CAP’s director of climate strategy, Daniel Weiss, said Canadian optimism about a pending approval may be misplaced. He noted Secretary of State John Kerry will play a major role in the decision-making, and Mr. Kerry has ratcheted up his department’s activism on climate change since taking office.

Also on the CAP Board of Directors - climate alarmist billionaire and Obama cheerleader, Tom Steyer.  CAP is a big climate catastrophe booster that regularly produces junk science based propaganda like this. 

A misguided pope?

Pope Francis Attacks Capitalism, Calls for State Control

In a far-ranging 50,000 word statement released by Pope Francis on Tuesday, he illustrated that he is sympathetic to the tenets of liberation theology and hostile to capitalism. 

... Before the advent of  liberation theology, Catholicism hated socialism and communism, regarding them as “godless.” Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) wrote an entire encyclical condemning socialism.

But now Pope Francis seems to be embracing a condemnation of capitalism instead, and an embracing of socialistic principles.

Some of the Pope's conservative supporters, like Michael Coren, defend his rhetoric, saying that his critics misunderstand him:



I think Anthony Furey is closer to the truth, but even if you accept Coren's point of view the fact that so many on the loopy left just love what Pope Francis has to say is deeply problematic.  He's feeding them ammo.

About that quote from the Pope:

 His opinion of capitalism seems clear.  But he's dead wrong.  Free markets (under the rule of law) actually do "bring about greater justice and inclusiveness".  Everyone is free to participate, and if "justice" includes raising 100s of millions of people out of poverty, then the "facts" overwhelmingly favor free markets.

He's full of BS on everything else as well.  The "naive trust ... in the goodness of those wielding  economic power ..." he says has not benefited some ("the excluded are still waiting").

Capitalism excludes no one.  And what are they "waiting" for? The odds are that if they are waiting in poverty it's because they lack freedom and free markets, not because of capitalism.  One could just as well point to the Catholic Church, centuries old champion of the poor, as having failed those same supposedly "excluded" people.

Justin Trudeau's "China Derangement Syndrome"

Peter Foster:

Justin Trudeau’s mind may be a bit like a teenager’s bedroom, but the Liberal leader’s recent praise for Chinese dictatorship was surely more a case of careless wording than careless thought. He used “dictatorship” when he should have used something like “sustainable well-designed central coordination.”

... Dictatorship – that is, control of people’s lives — has always been the central motivating force of leftist ideology. Praise for dictatorship as a more efficient and even more moral system has a long history among not just Fellow Travellers and Useful Idiots on the left.

The Marxist cat-fight in Toronto Centre

Terence Corcoran: Linda McQuaig and Chrystia Freeland stage Marxist battle in downtown Canada

On the left running for the NDP stands journalist Linda McQuaig, co-author of The Trouble With Billionaries, a book that plays to ancient leftist theories of alienation ... She prescribes tax rates of up to 70% and radical confiscation of the assets of the wealthy ...

Ms. McQuaig came out swinging Monday with a direct video challenge to her opponent, Liberal candidate Chrystia Freeland. “Hi Chrystia. It’s Linda McQuaig!”  says Ms. McQuaig in her best innocent-friendly trap-setting manner. “You’ve written a book on income inequality and I’ve written a book on income inequality.” But they are very different books, she says, with very different policy prescriptions.  So let’s have a debate, one on one, “any time, anywhere.”

Ms. Freeland’s book is Plutocrats:  The Rise of the New Global Super-rich and the Fall of Everyone Else.  The premise is false—everyone else has not fallen. ... To say that Plutocrats is “very different” from Ms. McQuaig’s The Trouble with Billionaires is somewhat misleading. ...  Both books are identical in their foundations, political tracts that popularize class warfare ... her analysis is no less Marxist in its origins.  She frequently quotes Karl Marx, the granddaddy of state socialism. Marx, she says, understood the dangers of a capitalist class ... 

... The poor voters of Toronto Centre are about to get a heavy dose of such crypto-Marxist revivalism. ...

Do Canadian university professors lean left?

Do fish swim?:

... A 2011 study found that Canadian university professors were left leaning but were not "hugely different in this respect from the Canadian university-educated population."

So, for left leaning professors - "mission accomplished".

Leftist envy hustlers set to compete for Toronto Centre riding (home to Rosedale)

Peter Foster - Whiner-take-all in Toronto Centre:

The riding is set to be a battleground between the left and the farther left, in the shape of two leading journalistic peddlers of envy: Chrystia Freeland, who is reportedly a shoo-in for the Liberal nomination, and Linda McQuaig, who is vying for the candidacy of the NDP.

... It is no coincidence that Ms. Freeland’s reflexive assumptions of ever increasing wealth gaps, immiseration of the poor and the disappearance of the middle class first appeared in The Communist Manifesto.

... Envious demonization of the capitalist rich amounts to demonization of those who drive the wealth and welfare of us all.

More by Peter Foster on Chrystia Freeland and her book, Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else

Pierre Trudeau, the worst Prime Minister in Canadian history

Bob Plamondon on his new book, The Truth About Trudeau:


Though, should Justin become PM, Pierre would slip to runner-up position.

Nudge, nudge - the Sunstein doctrine

Peter Foster:

Cass Sunstein obviously takes pride in having been called “The most dangerous man in America”...

... Mr. Sunstein dangerous was that ...  he is the leading peddler of the “nudge” doctrine, which aims at bigger, smarter, more subtle government.

The Orwellian rationale for this Brave New Government ... Nudgery says that governments should use these foibles in a clever form of policy jujitsu, utilizing individuals’ own stupidity to guide them towards falling on the “right” choices.

... the complex of psychological quirks that determine their own immoveable, history-free, left-liberal interventionist mentality, not to mention the fact that politicians invariably use public ignorance not for the public good, but to gain power.

... The clear and present danger represented by Mr. Sunstein is on display in his new book, Simpler: The Future of Government, and in an article he penned for the Globe and Mail on Saturday, titled Green by default.

... According to Mr. Sunstein, the answer to using more green energy is to make it ... the default “choice.”

... Ontario’s experience ... shows that Mr. Sunstein’s suggestion that “green default” would “save money” is pure biomass.  

...

 There's lots of evidence of green nudgery being applied here in BC:

Our provincial carbon tax is being used to bribe BC cities, towns and municipalities to sign on to the BC Climate Action Charter. (All driven or guided by UN Agenda 21 and ICLEI)

Vancouver Mayor Gregor ("Moonbeam") Robertson's and other cities' "smart growth" schemes (thanks again to UN Agenda 21 and ICLEI) with everything from laneway housing (boosting population density) to dedicated bike lanes (discouraging automobiles).

My own city's planning documents are saturated with green "sustainability" bafflegab that drives everything from building construction to casino approvals to our brand new, expensive (and pain in the ass) waste collection and recycling system.

This is why the left are so dedicated to pushing the global warming theme.  It enables easier nudging of the sheep into their socialist pens.

Ezra greets IdleNoMore's pathetic anti-Sun protest

The mob looked and sounded like it was recruited from the "movement's" (or just the street's) most pathetic denizens.  Trying to conduct a coherent interview with any of them was impossible.

Kathy Shaidle:

Many of them were indistinguishable from the panhandlers who clutter up the streets: ... Others are under the impression that — you’ll never guess — “Jews own the media,” and say so on camera.

... this protest was heavily promoted by the Ontario Federation of Labor ...[who] relied upon (paid?) glorified homeless people to act as their brown shirts, to protest SUN’s right to bring the Mafia-like corruption on reserves to light. ...

Only slightly less pathetic were the lazy, useless, politically correct cops who tried to remove Ezra "because it was easier".