RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/483213-maduro-acknowledges-his-socialist-delusions

Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro’s quiet move to restore elements of free enterprise to his nation’s economy should serve as a cautionary tale for anyone listening to Sen. Bernie Sanders’ siren song of socialism in the Democratic primaries or who is still tempted by promises of socialist bliss.

Maduro’s move represents a desperate attempt to dampen public outrage, and thus maintain his grip on power, in the midst of an astonishing economic collapse that economists view as the world’s worst in decades in the absence of war.

Venezuela’s tale is hardly a unique one. In recent decades, socialist nations across the world have scrapped their doctrinaire visions and incorporated elements of free enterprise to rescue their ailing economies. Perhaps most striking, a post-Mao China opted for a more market-based economy as Deng Xiaoping conceded that his nation could not otherwise compete with the United States.

Maduro’s bow to reality is particularly instructive. It comes a decade after the Great Recession and financial collapse of 2008 and 2009 shook confidence in capitalism and emboldened the proponents of socialism and other alternative models. With that crisis long over, however, capitalism has again proved its mettle by nourishing more prosperity and higher living standards while Venezuela’s economy continues shrinking at an alarming rate.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15290/the-terrorists-migrating-into-europe

“Most migrant terrorists involved in thwarted or completed attacks were purposefully deployed to the migration flows by an organized terrorist group to conduct or support attacks in destination countries.” — Todd Bensman, “What Terrorist Migration Over European Borders Can Teach About American Border Security”, Center for Immigration Studies.

Bensman’s report indirectly proves that the three EU countries — Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic — which refused to take in any of the migrants that came during the migrant crisis, citing security concerns, were right.

The leadership of the European Union, however, initiated legal proceedings at the Court of Justice of the European Union against the three countries over the issue…. A ruling on the issue by the Court is expected early next year.

In response to the Advocate General, Polish government spokesman Piotr Muller, said that “ensuring security for our citizens is the most important goal of the government’s policies. Our actions were dictated by the interests of Polish citizens and the need for protection against uncontrolled migration”. — Polish government spokesman Piotr Muller, Reuters, October 31, 2019.

A new report, “What Terrorist Migration Over European Borders Can Teach About American Border Security”, by Todd Bensman, a senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, describes the extent to which terrorists disguised as migrants have entered the European Union to commit terrorist attacks. Although the study was written primarily for an American audience to prevent the same mistakes from being made on US borders, the study is extremely relevant for the European public — especially as Germany recently warned of a repeat migration crisis, similar to the one that occurred in 2015. According to Bensman:

“Between 2014 and 2017, 13 of the 26 member states lining the so-called Schengen Area’s external land borders recorded more than 2.5 million detections of illegal border-crossings along several land and sea routes, an historic, mostly unfettered surge that came to be known as the ‘migrant crisis’. The Schengen Area, which generally encompasses the European Union, consists of countries that combined immigration enforcement of a common external border of 27,000 sea miles and 5,500 land miles while removing all interior border controls to facilitate the free movement of goods and people.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/02/2_13_2020_19_20.html

On January 30th of this year, a 12-year-old girl in Egypt died as a result of her parents having Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) performed on her. Egypt has had a law outlawing the practice since 2008. The parents have been charged.  This law was written to protect females because Islamic social norms permit and encourage this practice.

According to Ian Askew, World Health Organization Director for the Department of Reproductive Health and Research:

FGM describes all procedures that involve the partial or total removal of external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.  It has no health benefits.

More than 200 million girls and women alive today are living with FGM and many are at risk of suffering the associated negative health consequences as a result.

These include death, severe bleeding and problems urinating.  Longer-term consequences range from cysts and infections to complications in childbirth and increased risk of newborn deaths.

FGM is a grave violation of the human rights of girls and women.

Another term used for FGM is female circumcision.  Some countries prefer the term FGC, as it is seen as “more neutral.”  (The “C” being a reference to “cutting.”)  This “more neutral” term allows their medical personnel to package FGM into the “birth package.”  Ebony Ridell Bamber, the head of advocacy and policy at Orchid Project, a UK-based NGO working towards ending FGM, states that.  “It really contributes to legitimizing and entrenching the practice even further.”

In Islam, legitimization comes when shariah, Islamic law, endorses and promotes a practice.  Under shariah, female circumcision is required of Muslim females. This is documented in Reliance of the Traveller: 

e4.3   Circumcision is obligatory (O: for both men and women.  For men it consists of removing the prepuce from the penis, and for women, removing the prepuce (Ar. Bazr) of the clitoris (n: not the clitoris itself, as some mistakenly assert).  (A: Hanbalis hold that circumcision of women is not obligatory but sunna, while Hanafis consider it a mere courtesy to the husband.)”

Islamic scholars have been found using this piece to declare to non-Muslims that shariah does not agree with FGM, going so far as to claim it is unIslamic if carried out to the extreme and totally removing the clitoris:

Female circumcision, known pejoratively in its extreme form as female genital mutilation or cutting, is not prescribed in the Quran and there are no authentic prophetic traditions recommending the practice.  The basis in Islamic law is that it is not permissible to cause bodily harm and any such practice of female circumcision proven to be harmful would be unlawful.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/02/the_new_russian_geopolitics.html

Recent domestic political changes in Russia, including the process of amending the Constitution, have become the subject of close attention.  Most experts believe that Putin’s main goal is to formulate new political structure to preserve his rule over the county after the end of the term in 2024.  However, the reasons for these transformations have deeper roots that are associated with changes in the geopolitical picture of the world.

Imperialism has always been the core of Russian political culture: its forms and formats could vary in different eras, but the essence remained the same.  It lies in the fact that the main function of the Russian ruler (prince, tsar, emperor or president) is to ensure the state’s territorial integrity.  According to Russian strategists and thinkers, this goal is possible to achieve only when Russia has one of the central places in the system of international relations.  The mission to maintain the great power status has unified all the laeaders aof the country, no matter how different they have been: even Emperor Peter the Great, who promoted the Western model of development, and Tsar Alexander III, who followed a special Russian way.

To a certain extent, having led the country in the late ’90s, Vladimir Putin became a hostage to objective circumstances.  Being a moderate conservative who sympathized with the philosophies of Peter the Great, he set the task of ensuring consistent political and economic integration with the West.  This direction failed since the parties perceived the process differently.  Russia hoped that the United States and the European Union would build dialogue as equal partners, not as winners that dictate the rules of the game.  Many actions of leading Western countries (such as NATO’s expansion to the East) played into the hands of the part of the Russian elite who convinced the general public and the president that Washington and Brussels did not respect the opinion of Moscow and were the source of the main threats to national security.  In fact, it was the shortsightedness of Western policy, which completely ignored not only Russia’s global, but also regional interests, that left no arguments for Putin to maintain the strategic orientation toward the West.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/02/three_nations_going_insane.html

A collection of three samples of outright stupidities from the news.

CHINA SACKS PARTY CHIEFS

China has sacked the top political leaders of virus-stricken Hubei province and its capital Wuhan, the highest-profile figures to be removed so far in a crisis that has killed 1,355.

The removals are the latest in a purge that saw Hubei’s two most senior health officials fired earlier this week as criticism grows over the way the outbreak has been handled, with claims of under-reporting.

The problem is not so much the party chiefs, who may or may not have been incompetent, but the increasing tyranny that rules over China.  The news and social media are full of reports that indicate that the Chinese government is lying about the scope of the event.

For a while, a few years back, it seemed as if China would grow into freedom along with its economy.  However, in 1996, the Chinese started constructing the Great Firewall of China to censor the internet.

In 1996, Beijing enacted a set of interim provisions for governing computer information, and in 1998, the Ministry of Public Security launched the Golden Shield project — a national filter that blocks politically sensitive content from entering the domestic network.

Over time, the Chinese dictatorship has gotten worse.

In 2018, China got rid of term limits to allow Xi Jinping to remain in power.

Then, in 2019, China ordered that sacred texts be rewritten.

CHINA is to rewrite the Bible and the Quran to reflect its archaic Communist ideology, new reports claim.

The bizarre order came from the all-powerful Committee for Ethnic Affairs which oversees all religious matters in the state. …

Reports say bible-bashing China wants all major religions to review their holy texts and to adapt them to the “era of President Xi Jinping”.