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Opinion – Is This What Democracy Looks Like? – Cherwell Online

Getting Brexit done is now the irrefutable,irresistible, unarguable decision of the British people. These are thetriumphant words of our Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, hours after hisresounding win in Decembers general election. Yet even a cursory glance at thepopular vote casts doubt on this supposedly unequivocal mandate. Compared withtheir disappointing 2017 performance, the Conservatives only rose 1.2% to 43.6%of the overall number of votes cast. Yet faced with a divided opposition, they gained48 seats and a remarkable parliamentary majority that leaves them free toimplement to govern as they see fit for the next five years. Many of theiropponents will feel hard done by, and with good reason. The question is, why isthis system so broken? And can we should we rectify it?

British general elections are based on a system knownas First Past the Post (FPTP). This means each of the United Kingdoms 650constituencies, whichever candidate wins more votes than all others, theplurality, represents that area in the House of Commons. Though simple tounderstand and carry out, this system is inherently flawed andunrepresentative. On one hand, voters in so-called safe seats such as JeremyCorbyns Islington North, whomever they may support, are discouraged fromvoting by their inability to have any effect on the result.

In more marginal areas, MPs can be voted into power despitecommanding nothing near an actual majority. The constituency of Kensington is aprime example of this, where Liberal Democrat convert Sam Gyimah received over9000 votes. This allowed his Tory rival to win with 38.3% of the vote, defeatingthe Labour incumbent by just 150 votes, a deficit she would have likely overcomehad the Liberal Democrats not split the vote for Remainers. This is known asthe spoiler effect. Smaller parties risk damaging their own interests by stealingvotes from larger parties they agree with somewhat and handing victory to thosewith whom they disagree far more virulently. As a result, a reluctantelectorate finds itself forced to vote tactically and compromise on itspolitical convictions.

One possible solution to this problem is a systemknown as Mixed-Member Proportional Representation (MMPR). Under this model, alsoused in elections for the devolved Scottish Parliament and the London Assembly,candidates would be divided into two groups: local and national. Localrepresentatives are the winners of their constituencys vote, while nationalrepresentatives are then assigned so as to ensure the governing body is aproportional reflection of the preferences of the whole population. Using MMPR,the SNP would not, as they did this year, have over four times more Westminsterseats than the Liberal Democrats, despite winning barely a third of the votes. Whatsmore, every vote counts, so a Green vote in their Brighton Pavilion strongholdis as important as a Green vote anywhere else.

That said, MMPR is not without its flaws. Itscomplicated processes can be difficult to understand and impractical to carryout on a broader scale, explaining why only a select number of countries, suchas New Zealand, use it in nationwide elections. Proportional systems can alsolead to the growth of parties on the extremes of the political spectrum, such asthe BNP, which, though a technically more democratic outcome, may not be aparticularly desirable one. Perhaps the most significant problem, however, islegislative stagnation. Outright popular majorities in countries with diverse,multi-party systems are very uncommon. This makes broad coalitions necessaryand serious reform grindingly slow.

FPTP certainly does not share these drawbacks, diminishingthe power of widespread minority groups and favouring comfortable, or at leastworkable, majorities for parties with a widespread base of support. But therewill always be a trade-off between a system that faithfully represents the manyshades of popular opinion and one that is actually able to pass legislation andaddress key issues.

Perhaps the most effective and feasible compromisebetween these two goals is the Alternative Vote (AV). In this type of election,voters are allowed to rank their options from most to least favourite. If thereis no single party with an outright majority, the votes of the smallest partyssupporters are redistributed to its voters next preferred choices. Thisprocess is repeated until one candidate achieves a majority, and they areelected as that constituencys Member of Parliament. This system was roundlyrejected in the 2011 referendum on the subject with over two thirds of voters opposingit. Indeed, AV is far from perfect. It doesnt eliminate safe seats, couldincrease the likelihood of a hung parliament and can seem confusing and opaqueto the general public.

Nevertheless, AV is better than FPTP in one keyrespect: there is no spoiler effect, meaning the incentive to vote tacticallyis vastly reduced. Take Hartlepool, for instance, where Labour held on withjust 38% of the vote to the Tories 29. In an AV election, most of the 26% ofvotes cast for Brexit Party chairman Richard Tice would likely have beentransferred to the Conservatives, giving them the victory in an area that votedoverwhelmingly to leave the European Union in 2016. AV favours compromisecandidates that most constituents can live with, even if they arent theirabsolute favourite. Though by no means revolutionary, this system would help torestore the faith in politics of a disillusioned populace whilst also allowingfor functioning governments that most people can support.

It should come as no surprise that the ConservativeParty was vehemently opposed to the Alternative Vote in 2011. After all, it wasthe FPTP system that put them into government and has kept them there for thepast decade (though ironically, had the 2015 election been held under AV, it isthought the Conservatives would have won a larger number of seats). Genuineelectoral reform of any description is always difficult because those with theability to institute change rarely want to bite the hand that feeds them. In1997, New Labour were elected on a promise to reform the voting system. But havingwon a huge majority under FPTP, they were understandably unwilling to changeit. However, if we honestly value the principle of a true representativedemocracy, it is crucial that we dont just settle for a system as problematicand unsatisfactory as First Past the Post. Though Proportional Representation maybe an idealistic and impractical alternative, AV could serve as a sensibleGoldilocks option between these two extremes. A future without the need tosecond-guess other peoples decisions in the voting booth is undoubtedly apositive one. We should not let a blind aversion to change deter us from thepossibility of meaningful progress. It is only ironic that the best way toimprove Britains democracy might be to introduce a reform rejected at theballot box only a few short years ago.

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Opinion - Is This What Democracy Looks Like? - Cherwell Online

Ann Coulter: Happy Kwanzaa! The holiday brought to you by the FBI – Cleburne Times-Review

Kwanzaa, celebrated exclusively by white liberals, is a fake holiday invented in 1966 by black radical/FBI stooge Ron Karenga aka Dr. Maulana Karenga, founder of United Slaves, the violent nationalist rival to the Black Panthers. Liberals have become so mesmerized by multicultural gibberish that they have forgotten the real history of Kwanzaa and Karengas United Slaves.

In what was ultimately a foolish gambit, during the madness of the 60s, the FBI encouraged the most extreme black nationalist organizations in order to discredit and split the left. The more preposterous the group, the better. (Its the same function MSNBC serves today.)

By that criterion, Karengas United Slaves was perfect.

Despite modern perceptions that blend all the black activists of the 60s, the Black Panthers did not hate whites. Although some of their most high-profile leaders were drug dealers and murderers, they did not seek armed revolution.

Those were the precepts of Karengas United Slaves. The United Slaves were proto-fascists, walking around in dashikis, gunning down Black Panthers and adopting invented African names. (I will not be shooting any Black Panthers this week because I am Kwanzaa-reform, and we are not that observant.)

Its as if David Duke invented a holiday called Anglika, which he based on the philosophy of Mein Kampf and clueless public schoolteachers began celebrating the made-up, racist holiday.

In the category of the-gentleman-doth-protest-too-much, back in the 70s, Karenga was quick to criticize Nigerian newspapers that claimed that certain American black radicals were CIA operatives.

Now we know the truth: The FBI fueled the bloody rivalry between the Panthers and United Slaves. In the annals of the American 60s, Karenga was the Father Gapon, stooge of the czarist police. Whether Karenga was a willing FBI dupe, or just a dupe, remains unclear.

But the left has forgotten the FBIs tacit encouragement of this murderous black nationalist cult founded by the father of Kwanzaa.

In one barbarous outburst, Karengas United Slaves shot two Black Panthers to death on the UCLA campus: Al Bunchy Carter and John Huggins. Karenga himself served time a useful stepping-stone for his current position as the chair of the Africana Studies Department at California State University at Long Beach.

(Speaking of which, the cheap labor lobby certainly was right about how the GOP could easily win over socially conservative minorities. Look at how California has swung decisively to the right since whites became a minority there. Good luck winning California now, Democrats!)

Back to the esteemed Cal State professor: Karengas invented holiday is a nutty blend of schmaltzy 60s rhetoric, black racism and Marxism. The seven principles of Kwanzaa are the very same seven principles of the Symbionese Liberation Army, another invention of The Worst Generation.

In 1974, Patty Hearst, kidnap victim-cum-SLA revolutionary, famously posed next to the banner of her alleged captors, a seven-headed cobra. Each snakehead stood for one of the SLAs revolutionary principles: Umoja, Kujichagulia, Ujima, Ujamaa, Nia, Kuumba and Imani. These are the exact same seven principles of Kwanzaa, or Kawaida, as Karenga calls them. (And heres something interesting: Kawaida, Kwanzaa and Kuumba are also the only three Kardashian sisters not to have their own shows on the E! network.)

Kwanzaa praises collectivism in every possible area of life. It takes a village to raise a police snitch.

When Karenga was asked to distinguish Kawaida, the philosophy underlying Kwanzaa, from classical Marxism, he essentially said that, under Kawaida, we also hate whites.

While taking the best of early Chinese and Cuban socialism (is that the mass murder, the imprisonment of homosexuals or the forced labor?), Karenga said Kawaida practitioners believe ones racial identity determines life conditions, life chances and self-understanding.

Theres an inclusive philosophy for you!

Sing to Jingle Bells:

Kwanzaa bells, dashikis sell

Whitey has to pay;

Burning, shooting, oh what fun

On this made-up holiday!

Kwanzaa emerged not from Africa, but from the FBIs COINTELPRO. It is a holiday celebrated exclusively by idiot white liberals. Black people celebrate Christmas.

Merry Christmas, fellow Christians!

Ann Coulter is an American conservative social and

political commentator, writer, syndicated columnist and lawyer.

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Ann Coulter: Happy Kwanzaa! The holiday brought to you by the FBI - Cleburne Times-Review

Coulter wrong in blaming immigrants – Thegardenisland.com

Ann Coulter, the mouth(?)piece for the presidents 2020 campaign, has made it clear what Trumpism is about, and the stark choice presented in 2020 (TGI Forum, Dec. 14, A National View).

Trump stands for the modern American white male, which Ann hails as the most gentle, protective, chivalrous creature God has ever created. While sex crimes are otherwise rampant, sexual fetishes and abuse of underage women by white males has happened NEVER, says Coulter (overlooking Jeffrey Epstein, Tim Nolan, Harvey Weinstein, Richard Strauss, Larry Nassar, Thomas Incantalupo, Catholic Church pederasty scandal, David Carpenter, William French Anderson, John Burt, Jeffrey Dahlmer, Michael J. Devlin, George Feigley, Jared Fogel, Will Hayden, etc., etc.).

Trump is the bulwark protecting those gentle white creatures against other darker (in skin and deed) races, which are child-rape-happy cultures. Actual and thwarted immigrants are child kidnappers and child molesters. Ann says that although (i)ncest and child rape are not native American habits, immigrants come from primitive, peasant cultures whose hallmark includes not only those behaviors but (b)estial behavior towards women and children as well.

This would simply be overt ugly racism, unless the statistics established disproportionate immigrant criminality as a fact. Lets look.

Border state Texas, with over 15% foreign-born population, is the only state to directly track convictions by immigration status. Over 2011-2018, undocumented immigrants were about half as likely as native-born Americans, and legal immigrants were about 80% less likely than native-born Americans, to have been convicted of a crime.

For 2017 in Texas, according to one analysis, the conviction rate for 100,000 Texans of different groups was 1,702 for natives, 899 for illegal immigrants, and 599 for legal immigrants. Thus, illegal immigrants were over 47%, and legal immigrants 65% less likely to be convicted of a crime than native-born Americans.

For homicides in 2017, conviction rates for illegal and legal immigrants were 29% and 57% below those of natives. Ann might argue that conviction rates are artificially low, since the undocumented are often deported before conviction. But the arrest rate for illegal immigrants was 45% below, and legal immigrants 58% below, that of native-born Americans.

Coulter was talking of sex crimes. The same analysis showed the 2017 sex-crime conviction rate for illegal immigrants was about 14% below the rate for native-born Americans and the sex-crime conviction rate for legal immigrants was 60% below that of natives.

Going beyond Texas, a meta-analysis of 51 studies from 1994-2014 on the relationship between immigration and crime in the United States found that immigration reduces crime, although the relationship was very weak.

Contrary to Trumps 2020 campaigns race-baiting hysteria, immigrants do not disproportionately commit crimes; they are more law abiding than the native-born Americans.

So why the racism and hate? Catering to the worst in human nature. And, deflection: as the Wizard said to Dorothy, Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

Jed Somit is a resident of Kapaa.

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Coulter wrong in blaming immigrants - Thegardenisland.com

BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Matt Latimer, partner at Javelin – Politico

Courtesy of Matt Latimer

By POLITICO STAFF

12/30/2019 07:42 AM EST

How/where are you celebrating your birthday and with whom? With my wife, Anna, our three children, and unquestionably the best in-laws in the world, David and Robin Sproul. We will be here in town. Nachos will be involved.

How did you get your start in your career? Right out of Columbia Journalism School, I got a job in D.C. working for a Republican senator from my home state of Michigan -- in fact, the only Republican senator from Michigan in my lifetime -- Spence Abraham. One of my coworkers was Ann Coulter, who was just starting out on the pundit circuit. She was, well, herself even back then, but I will say she was one of the only senior staff members who spent any time talking to the rest of us grunts. My goal was eventually to become a presidential speechwriter -- a goal I did eventually achieve thanks to George W. Bush. I wrote a whole book about it in fact, though I was harder on him and others in some respects than I might have been looking back at it now.

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Whats an interesting book/article youre reading now or youve recently finished? And why? Well, the last book I read cover to cover was Tim Albertas American Carnage, which explains better than any book Ive read where we are as a country today. But since that might seem a little self-serving (as his literary agent), the book Im reading solely for pleasure is The Black Count, the story that inspires my favorite book, The Count of Monte Cristo. Im a big believer in both justice and revenge. Not in that order.

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BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Matt Latimer, partner at Javelin - Politico

No Safe Spaces Movie Review – Book and Film Globe

I saw the No Safe Spaces movie. In this conservative documentary about the importance of free speech, talk-show host Dennis Prager and lad-mag TV star and podcaster Adam Carolla spend a lot of time walking in slow-motion toward the camera and sucking on cigars. They make a persuasive case that todays college students are fairly intolerant of non-woke opinions. They provide an intermittently amusing and also chilling reminder that the First Amendment rests on somewhat precarious footing and that our civics education has gone to hell. But Im not entirely persuaded that America is in as much danger as No Safe Spaces claims.

NO SAFE SPACES (3/5 stars)Directed by: Justin FolkRunning time:100 min

No Safe Spaces is at its best when it presents actual evidence of its thesis that kids today dont respect the First Amendment. Theres some frightening footage of an anti-Ben Shapiro protest at UC Berkeley and of a Toronto college teaching assistants railroading at the hands of a moronic super-woke academic committee. Most effectively and prominently, it features a long and effective retelling of the Bret Weinstein saga.

For those of you who observe online flame wars as a hobby, youll already know that Weinstein was a liberal lecturer at Evergreen State College in rural Washington. Evergreen has a tradition of a day, based on the ideas of a radical Harlem Renaissance playwright, where black students disappear so white people can specifically feel how much they contribute to society. A couple of years ago, the black students informed the white students that the black people would remain on campus and it was the duty of thewhitestudents to disappear. Weinstein rightly declared this an illiberal tendency. Students protested him and forced other students to denounce him, Gang Of Four-style. And then the college fired him. They deserved to pay ten times the $500,000 settlement that Weinstein eventually received.

Your tolerance of No Safe Spaces may vary upon whether or not you think this is an isolated case, or a harbinger of a left-wing Big Brother future. Prager and Carolla think it might be the end of freedom. Im not so sure. Woke culture is mostly ridiculous, and violent protests against righty gadflys like MiloYiannopoulos and Ann Coulter are completely ridiculous. But its not like people areactuallybeing canceled because of their ideas, expect for maybe Milo, but one could safely argue that he cancelled himself by being a huge jerky weirdo. In the end, Ann Coulter still gets to appear on TV, as does pretty much everyone else. No Safe Spaces also prominently features the voices of Van Jones and Bill Maher, hardly fascist sympathizers, reflecting the movies central thesis that speech should be free. Not everyone agrees, but enough people do.

No Safe Spaces weakens its case with lame cartoons interspersed thoughout, including a bad Schoolhouse Rock parody where Antifa riddles the First Amendment with bullets, and a superhero cartoon called Social Justice Warriors thats about a thousandth as funny as the Robert Smigel and Adam McKay-written X-Presidents cartoons to which its indebted. Meanwhile, the rich get richer.Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson, two of the major victims of this movement according to our documentary hosts, make a lot of money and have careers that many politically-correct pundits would envy. Peterson gets a custom-tour of Carollas personal garage, where they gawk at vintage sportscars. The movie ends with Prager conducting the L.A. Symphony Orchestra and Carolla driving fast around a racetrack. These dudes are not gulag-bound anytime soon.

For the screening, my safe space was a comfortable recliner in a fancy walking-mall multiplex in the southwestern suburbs of Austin, Texas. At the time, this film was, apparently, the number-one doc grosser in the country, despite only playing on 300 screens. There were six people in the audience midday pre-Christmas, four of whom applauded at the opening credits, so I assume they know someone who worked on the picture. In any case, thats about what you expect for a movie whose projected audience is people who legitimately believe that the progressive left is about to set the world aflame. Millions of those people exist, but they tend to watch such material on Twitter, and Twitter is about as unsafe as spaces get. Maybe thats why theyre so worried.

This concludes my review of the No Safe Spaces movie.

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No Safe Spaces Movie Review - Book and Film Globe