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Threatened at American universities

25.11.2012. At Yale University, you can be prevented from putting an F. Scott Fitzgerald quote on your T-shirt. At Tufts, you can be censured for quoting certain passages from the Quran. Welcome to the most authoritarian institution in America: the modern university—”a bizarre, parallel dimension,” as Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, calls it. Mr. Lukianoff, a 38-year-old Stanford Law grad, has spent the past decade fighting free-speech battles on college campuses. The latest was last week at Fordham University, where President Joseph McShane scolded College Republicans for the sin of inviting Ann Coulter to speak. Continue reading Sohrab Ahmari's article about censorship at American universities.

 


More police sought against foreign gangs

20.11.2012. Switzerland needs 1,500 more police officers to deal with foreign gangs and rising cases of burglaries and thefts, according to the working group of the conference for cantonal justice and police ministers, according to The Local.

 


Could be censored by the U.N.

20.11.2012. Dozens of countries have had closed-door meetings in preparation for an upcoming worldwide debate over changes to a telecommunications treaty, which threaten to block Internet freedom, according to cnet.com.

 


Did they sail the Mediterranean?

15.11.2012. Neanderthals and other extinct human lineages might have been ancient mariners, venturing to the Mediterranean islands thousands of years earlier than previously thought. This prehistoric seafaring could shed light on the mental capabilities of these lost relatives of modern humans, researchers say. Continue reading in Live Science.

 


Its people are being disenfranchised

01.11.2012. With acronyms like EFSF or ESM and mantras that preach that there are no alternatives, such as “If the euro fails, Europe fails”, politicians are undermining Europe’s historical democracy. And they won’t pull through that way, writes German author Hans Magnus Enzensberger in his article The disenfranchisement of Europe. He also writes (link added by HT):

What’s least noted is that the countries of Europe for a long time are no longer ruled by democratically legitimate institutions but by the horde of abbreviations that have usurped them. Where it's going is spelled out by EFSF, ESM, ECB, EBA and IMF. Only experts can puzzle out these acronyms.

Not just that: the who, what and how of decisions in the European Commission and the Euro Group are revealed to insiders only. What all these “facilities” have in common is that they are not mentioned in any Constitution anywhere in the world, and that no voter has the slightest say in their decisions.

The equanimity with which the inhabitants of our small continent have accepted their political ouster seems a little eerie. This may be because it is a historical novelty. Unlike the revolutions, coups d'état and military putsches that European history is so rich in, this is happening to us silently and without violence. No torchlight processions, no parades, no barricades, no tanks. Everything is playing out calmly in the back room.

Abolition of the rule of law
That no heed is paid to treaties surprises no one. Existing rules such as the principle of subsidiarity in the Treaties of Rome or the no-bailout clause from Maastricht are being undermined at will. The principle of Pacta sunt servanda (“Agreements must be kept”) is reduced to an empty phrase dreamed up by some legal fussbudgets of antiquity.

The abolition of the rule of law is proclaimed openly in the ESM treaty. The decisions of the controlling members of this rescue team are effective directly under international law and are not bound to the approval of parliaments. As was customary in the old colonial regimes, they call themselves governors and they are, just like directors, not accountable to the public.

On the contrary, they are expressly sworn to secrecy. This is reminiscent of the Omerta, which is part of the code of honour of the Mafia. Our own Godfathers are beyond any judicial or legislative control. They enjoy a privilege that not even a boss of the Camorra deserves: absolute immunity from criminal prosecution. (It is written down in Articles 32 to 35 of the ESM treaty.)

Read the entire article in Der Hauptstadtbrief.

 



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HonestThinking is dedicated and committed to the art of thinking honestly. Yet honest thinking is not the same as true thinking, for it is possible to think honestly, but be mistaken. For the same reason, honest thinking is not identical with objective thinking either. Honest thinking is striving to get things right. This involves being truthful about whatever one publishes, but just as importantly, it involves an uncompromising dedication never to suppress relevant data, even when data collides with dearly held prejudices. Such an approach may sometimes cause hurtful revisions in one’s belief system. That’s what HonestThinking is all about! Read the entire manifesto.



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Please send e-mail to postmaster at honestThinking.org (replacing ' at ' with '@') if you would like to tip us about a web resource that we should link to, or if you wish to submit an article for publication here. Quality contributions are welcome from anyone.

 



 

The current European immigration and integration policy is profoundly disrespectful of both Muslims and Islam, because it is built on the tacit assumption that the Muslims will become like us. One claims to have respect for Islam and for Muslims, but one also expects Muslims to give up their orthodox faith when they come here. At the same time one is assuming that Islam will be reformed and modernized as soon as the Muslims become integrated and understand and appreciate how superior our Western culture is compared to their own. This is cultural shauvinism and arrogance indeed! The unspoken premise for this scenario is that Western socities are superior to Islam. Read more.

 


 

 

Human rights and democracy are under pressure. One threat comes from the Western world, in the form of lack of or dishonest thinking. There exists a peculiar Western "tolerance" which is so "tolerant" that it even tolerates totalitarian or anti-democratic ideologies. A tacit assumption underlying such an attitude is that all cultures, world views, and religions are really equally good. As a consequence of this assumption one is cut off from the possibility of critically examining the above mentioned ideologies. Read more.