ALAN writes:

In “The Baby Philosopher,” you wrote:

                “The baby is not capable of conceptual thinking. But still he acquires an important philosophical premise early on through all this investigation. He is mostly a scientist, but he starts to become a philosopher too….”

Entirely correct. Few people understand that what is often dismissed as “just playing” is not always play and is never “just” anything, but rather the most earnest endeavor by an infant to make sense of what he sees, hears, and feels.  No endeavor in life could be more earnest or less corrupt.

But your essay also struck a chord in my memory because of that phrase about “the baby is mostly a scientist…” In a letter printed by a St. Louis newspaper in 1971, I wrote:

       The claim that very few children would acquire any more than a very superficial grasp of science if artificial motivations were not used is a ludicrous conjecture. Actually, all evidence indicates the opposite.  Indeed, every baby is a scientist and remains such until the schools have mutilated his natural love of learning by turning it from an active into a passive process. 

The occasion for my remarks was a clash of opinions with a philosophy instructor about Charles Silberman’s book Crisis in the Classroom (1970).  The instructor contended that Silberman’s critical assessment of mindlessness in American public schools was unfounded.  He also made the common mistake of confusing schooling with learning.

I contended that Silberman’s assessment was valid and that schools are not about learning but about training for docility.  I argued that the most important things children learn, they do not learn in school or because of school.

Silberman’s work was funded by a private company.  The philosophy instructor was employed by a tax-supported “community college.” People who feed at the public trough are not likely to welcome suggestions that what they do can be done better and at less cost by private schools, companies, or families.

In 1971, I was quite young and my views on the matter of education vs. schooling were not fully formed.  Nor was I exempt from being influenced by a few writers who leaned Leftward but also echoed my sentiments against compulsory school attendance laws.  Some of what I wrote then was poorly expressed or just plain wrong.  But I stand by the essence of the paragraph quoted above. (more…)

Democrats and liberals accuse Republicans of conducting a war on women. Assault, rape, and murder are the worst things that can be done to a woman. I would bet a lot of money that most of the assaults, rapes, and murders of women are done by people who identify as liberals, and if they voted or had a party affiliation, it would be Democratic. -- Walter Williams

FORTUNATELY, we know the status of women has vastly improved. Otherwise, judging from the history of Western art, we would be tempted to conclude otherwise. A few examples:                    

  And Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary his mother: Behold this child is set for the fall, and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted; and thy own soul a sword shall pierce, that, out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed.  (Lk. 2: 33-35)

The misuse of military force has only spread violence and chaos across the Muslim world and spawned an explosive mix of political disintegration, rule by militias and warlords, a dizzying proliferation of armed groups with different interests and loyalties and, ultimately, more blowback for the West. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey, Israel, Qatar and other “allies” have been only too eager to exploit and redirect our aggression against their own enemies: Iran; Syria; Libya; and different ethnic groups, minorities and political movements in what was, for centuries, a diverse, tolerant region of the world. The U.S. has become a blind giant stumbling through a thick forest of shadows and unseen dangers, striking out with its devastating war machine at the instigation of self-serving allies and the same dark forces in its own “intelligence” bureaucracy who have stirred up trouble, staged coups and unleashed war in country after country for seventy years. --- Nicolas J S Davies, author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq

FROM The Independent Institute:

According to the Cato Institute, the United States admitted 3,252,493 refugees between 1975 and 2015. Twenty of them were terrorists. This represents some 0.00062 percent of all refugees. Only three attacks carried out by these refugees were successful.

In total, in a span of forty years, “terrorist refugees” have killed three people in the United States.

But what about the attacks in San Bernardino, the Orlando Pulse Nightclub shooting, the Boston Marathon bombings, and 9/11? [False flags all.] Are these not “proof” that such a ban is warranted? After all, the individuals responsible for the attacks had some connection to foreign countries.

In reality, the current executive order would have stopped exactly none of these attacks. (more…)

DANIEL McADAMS wrote yesterday:

It wasn’t hard to see this coming. President Trump’s National Security Advisor, Gen. Michael Flynn, delivered a clear threat to the government of Iran today, ominously stating that “as of this day, we are officially putting Iran on notice.” What is less clear is the General’s rationale for issuing the threat.

Flynn cites two justifications for bringing the US on war footing against Iran. Both are dubious. First, he blames Iran for a recent attack on a Saudi naval vessel carried out by Houthi forces in Yemen. According to Flynn, because the Houthis are backed by Iran — itself a specious claim — it is Iran that is actually responsible for the attack.

Even if it were true that the Houthis are Iranian proxies, this kind of guilt-by-association reasoning gets quite awkward when considering what some US-backed rebels in Syria have done with US-provided weapons and training. Like beheading young boys. (more…)

THE beast in Disney's new version of Beauty and the Beast has horns -- like Baphomet. See the report at Fellowship of the Minds, where Dr. Eowyn writes: The message of Disney’s new Beauty and the Beast movie is this: The Devil is just misunderstood! He just wants your love! The Devil loves you and wants to give you riches and finery. All you gotta do is tell him you love him, and he’ll turn into a handsome prince, and you’ll live happily ever after.

A CLERK OF OXFORD, a blog about medieval England, has a number of interesting posts about the celebration of Candlemas, or the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary, which brings to a close the 40-day liturgical Christmas season and marks the occasion when Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem. On this day, candles are blessed and carried in procession. From the day’s Gospel:

At that time: After the days of Mary’s purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they carried Jesus to Jerusalem, to present Him to the Lord, as it is written in the law of the Lord: Every male opening the womb shall be called holy to the Lord; and to offer a sacrifice according as it is written in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle-doves, or two young pigeons. (more…)

PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS writes: The easiest and surest way for the Trump administration to stop the refugee problem, not only for the US but also for Europe and the West in general, is to stop the wars against Muslim countries that his predecessors started. The enormous sums of money squandered on gratuitous wars could instead be given to the countries that the US and NATO have destroyed. The simplest way to end the refugee problem is to stop producing refugees. This should be the focus of Trump ... [and his critics.]

  PLANNED. Carried out. Orchestrated.

  THE BRITISH MEDICAL ASSOCIATION says it is offensive to "transgenders" to refer to "expectant mothers," Breitbart reports. They should be referred to as "pregnant people" instead. This seems crazy -- even crazier than usual in a crazy time, but the progressive elimination of "mother" and "father" is nothing new and has been well underway for some time. The promotion of transgenderism is one more stage in the ongoing destruction of the family.

ANN CORCORAN has been following the refugee resettlement “humanitarian-industrial complex” in America for ten years. She reports on the abuses, and is not opposed to all help for refugees. She writes today at her website Refugee Resettlement Watch:

Over the years I have concluded that the program is out of control and is desperately in need of reform. 

I am paid by no one to write RRW, this has been a charitable effort on my part. I have no office, no staff, no interns!

I fully support President Trump’s EO on a moratorium on the US Refugee Admissions Program and have no comment on other aspects of the so-called ‘ban’ because many issues raised are outside of my area of expertise.

That said, although I support the short moratorium, it does not go far enough. It is an insufficient amount of time to fully investigate how the program has been administered since it was signed in to law by Jimmy Carter in 1980.

The USRAP has operated in virtual secrecy for the ten years I have followed it where local communities are kept in the dark until refugees start arriving.  Largely driven by nine major federal contractors*** who along with the US State Department collude to keep citizens from knowing what is planned for their communities.

When citizens learn what is happening and start asking questions about costs, security, cultural upheaval they are unfairly labeled racists and haters.

The USRAP as a multi-billion dollar a year industry is unsustainable and it is time Congress performed a much needed review. (more…)

ADAM GARRIE writes at The Duran:

In order to make American culture appear freer and more open than the Soviet culture, in 1950 the CIA established the Congress for Cultural Freedom, an organisation which would promote the most radical art of the western world, art so radical that most people in the West didn’t particularly care for it. One might cynically say it was more Operation Paganini than it was Operation Gladio.

Out were composers whose melodies everyone implicitly knows, and in came atonal music, dissonant music poly-rhythmic music.

I personally  listen to all of it from Beethoven to Stockhausen, so I write this without fear or favour. But I must say, if one wants to attract a general audience, I should think Tchaikovsky’s 6^th or Beethoven’s 9^th have wider appeal than Pierre Henry stabbing a tape recorder with a pencil (yes, it sounds more or less as you think it would do).

The CCF organised concerts throughout the world featuring the mostly atonal music of the so-called Second Viennese School including composers like Schoenberg, Berg, Webern and latterly Hindemith – in other words the composers whose records never sold much in the free market place compared with the likes of Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms and Mozart.

So the CIA, in promoting ‘the American way’, were actually promoting music that most people in America shunned.  Instead most people actually preferred the accessible orchestral music promoted by the democratic Soviet ideal!  You really couldn’t make this stuff up.

Here’s an hilarious cartoon.

Hello, Paris Symphony Orchestra?

This is the CIA. You play anymore Tchaikovsky and we’ll break your oboes.

Could the CIA be behind the awful music in supermarkets (and drugstores, clothing outlets and chain restaurants?) There’s a conspiracy theory for you! (more…)

GLENN GREENWALD writes at The Intercept:

In 2010, President Obama directed the CIA to assassinate an American citizen in Yemen, Anwar al-Awlaki, despite the fact that he had never been charged with (let alone convicted of) any crime, and the agency successfully carried out that order a year later with a September, 2011 drone strike. While that assassination created widespread debate … another drone-killing carried out shortly thereafter was perhaps even more significant yet generated relatively little attention. (more…)

[Post revised. Read full text of Trump’s executive order here. I have reconsidered some of my initial appraisal of it after giving it further thought.]

RON PAUL says sensible things about foreign policy. From Paul’s Institute of Peace and Prosperity:

President Trump’s recent Executive Order banning entry to citizens of seven mostly-Muslim countries for 90 days has sparked protest and outrage. Lost in the din created by the protests is the fact that these seven countries have something in common: they have been targeted by the US for bombs or regime change. Where Iraq and Syria are now considered terrorist threats, for example, before US regime change and invasion there was no terrorist problem. Iran has never attacked or threatened the United States, but it is on the list of banned countries. Saudi Arabia was [allegedly] complicit in the 9/11 attacks on the US and 15 of the 19 attackers were Saudi citizens, however somehow the Saudis escaped President Trump’s notice. Is this really about protecting us from terrorism, or is it about politics? We discuss today in the Liberty Report. (more…)

MORE than 1,700 American rabbis have signed a public letter calling for America to take more refugees:

We, Rabbis from across the United States, call on our newly elected officials to keep America’s doors open to refugees.

Faced with the largest refugee crisis in all of human history, the United States must continue to be a safe haven for people fleeing religious persecution, genocide, and terror. (more…)