The Geopolitics of it all

[Kirkhill]

The fertility rate for U.K. in 2022 was 1.753 births per woman, a 0.06% increase from 2021. What some British women are saying, to pollsters, and what most British women are doing (or not doing) seem to differ. The 'replacement rate' is 2.1 births per woman.

Seen but...

Wanting isn't getting.

It is not impossible that more women want more children than they are having but feel themselves constrained by their situation.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Seen but...

Wanting isn't getting.

It is not impossible that more women want more children than they are having but feel themselves constrained by their situation.

Fair enough ... wake me up when the British fertility rate is above 1.9 births/woman.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Check your specs FJ. That is Four with an F.

Holy shit! That's funny. However, I am wearing my old prescription and am currently waiting for a cataract surgery appointment.

Tanks! K.

 

[Kirkhill]

Fair enough ... wake me up when the British fertility rate is above 1.9 births/woman.

I doubt if I'll be around to see it.

 

[daftandbarmy]

It looks like Canada has more in common with China than we thought

Ranked: The Most Innovative Countries in 2023

In this graphic, we show the most innovative countries in the world, and the factors underlying their innovative strength.

www.visualcapitalist.com

 

[Halifax Tar]

It looks like Canada has more in common with China than we thought

Ranked: The Most Innovative Countries in 2023

In this graphic, we show the most innovative countries in the world, and the factors underlying their innovative strength.

www.visualcapitalist.com

We steal American tech and sell back to them poorly made, sub par copies of that tech ?

 

[Kirkhill]

The conveners failed to invite us - yet again.
Our door opener appears to be facing resistance.

Ottawa’s exclusion from Indo-Pacific talks worries business group

Canada was left out of the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific economic talks between Washington and 13 other Indo-Pacific countries

www.theglobeandmail.com

A group representing many of Canada’s largest employers says it’s troubling that Ottawa remains left out from a U.S.-led effort to expand economic co-operation among Indo-Pacific allies and partners as a counterweight to China.

Talks between Washington and 13 other Indo-Pacific countries yielded a partial agreement unveiled Thursday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in San Francisco, which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is attending.

With members including India, Japan, South Korea and Australia, the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework For Prosperity (IPEF) announced co-operation on clean energy and anti-corruption measures Thursday.

The talks were launched in May, 2022, without Canada, and Ottawa expressed interest in joining in the fall of last year.

Goldy Hyder, president of the Business Council of Canada, who was in San Francisco for the APEC summit, said the fact that Canada has yet to be invited to join IPEF is concerning. His council represents 170 chief executives whose companies account for 50 per cent of Canada’s annual economic output

“Canada’s standing in the world is directly proportionate to how America perceives us. Other countries take us seriously when they see America take us seriously,” Mr. Hyder said. “As such, being left out harms us.”

Canada has been left out of several significant developments in the Indo-Pacific region, including the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue – known as the Quad – between India, Japan, Australia and the United States, as well as AUKUS, the defence pact involving Australia, Britain and the United States.

Australia appears to be outpacing Canada when it comes to security, Mr. Hyder said.

“Is Australia being taken more seriously on something like defence? I think the evidence speaks for itself. Yes, they are,” he said.

He acknowledged that Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly has “fought hard” to gain access to IPEF.

“At least now there’s an expression of interest from Canada, but it’s not going to be dealt with any time soon. That means we will not be able to have our voice heard as IPEF takes shape.”

Mr. Hyder said what’s at stake is not just trade but Canada’s relationship with the United States.

The IPEF will lead to alliances between member countries. “Strategic partnerships are being formed,” he said.

U.S. President Joe Biden touted the IPEF effort Thursday during his speech at APEC, calling it a partnership dedicated to “tackling urgent issues like pandemic response, vulnerable supply chains, climate change and natural disasters, which we have learned can gravely impact our economies.”

Is India important?

 

[GR66]

The conveners failed to invite us - yet again.
Our door opener appears to be facing resistance.

Ottawa’s exclusion from Indo-Pacific talks worries business group

Canada was left out of the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific economic talks between Washington and 13 other Indo-Pacific countries

www.theglobeandmail.com

Is India important?

Canada's Liberal Government under Trudeau is playing the diplomatic version of FAFO

 

[Fishbone Jones]

If people would pay attention to the international media, they'd find their reasons. Trudeau is despised outside of Canada as an idiot child and a dictator. However, most don't look outside their local newspaper and broadcaster. They don't know what's happening on the other side of the country, never mind the world. Until they become affected personally, with great loss of home, wage, food and fuel, most just don't care. We are apathetic.

 

[Kirkhill]

​

Lessons for Canada in this.

​

The unbreakable Tory alliance between Court and Country is finally shattering​

Ever since Disraeli, the Conservative Party has been a coalition of clashing factions. They may no longer be able to live together
ROBERT TOMBS17 November 2023 • 7:00pm

Assailed by hostile forces: How long has the party built by Disraeli got left?

Is the Conservative Party on its deathbed, lingering on until electoral demise? This prospect is no longer unthinkable. Political parties do disappear or dwindle into irrelevance. In France and Italy the once mighty Socialists, Communists, Gaullists and Christian Democrats have faded away.

Canadian context - is the Liberal Party on its deathbed

Established parties are declining in Germany. Rebellious movements are rising in Holland and Sweden. Even in the United States, whose parties are comparable in age and history with ours, the system has stalled. The Conservative Party is one of the oldest and most successful political parties in history. But that cannot guarantee survival. There is a global political pandemic from which it is not immune, and indeed its characteristic features make it susceptible.

The disease is a general disillusionment with conventional politics caused by transferring power from accountable governments to a multitude of quangos, international organisations, law courts and central banks. We have seen this dramatically in the past week. Whatever one thinks of the Rwanda plan, it is not in the gift of the elected government. For years throughout the democratic world, fewer people have been joining political parties and fewer have bothered voting. Mainstream political parties once had a strong identity, drawing on mass membership and on civil society organisations such as churches and trade unions.

Now who and what they represent is unclear to themselves and everyone else. They lack intellectual and moral self-confidence. Lobby groups and activists have taken their place, along with dissident movements of Left and Right. Yet the Conservative Party had, and to some extent still has, advantages. Since the 1840s when it was created, it can claim to be what Benjamin Disraeli called “the national party, the truly democratic party of England”. It has long represented the smaller towns, the counties, the stable and contented bedrock of middle England. It crosses social classes and regional boundaries more than its rivals.

Disraeli fashioned his "national party". Laurier fashioned the "natural governing party".

The structure of British politics is fundamentally Tory versus anti-Tory, with the latter representing the more peripheral, unstable and indeed disgruntled groups in society. The Liberal Gladstone saw this, and he was able to bring Irish Catholics, Scots and Nonconformists under his banner.

In Canada Laurier pulled the French, the Irish, George Brown's radical Scots and Ryerson's Nonconformists into his Liberal party. Sir John A represented Bishop Strachan's Anglican Tories. Canada's structure is fundamentally Liberal versus anti-Liberal. Laurier's coalition has outlasted Gladstone's.

Since then, they have gone through many manifestations – Liberal, Labour, Lib-Dems, nationalists, Greens – and the Tories’ crucial advantage has been their opponents’ fragmentation. Their own unity has been rewarded by an electoral system which delivers power to the largest coherent political group, rather than relying on the paralysing compromises of proportional representation.

The Liberal party has dominated Canadian politics since the days of Laurier. Up until Chretien. Then the coalition collapsed. Along with their vote and Stephen Harper was the result.

A new coalition was fashioned that usurped the Liberal label with Trudeau as the figurehead and there was a rallying to the colours and Harper was evicted.

This may no longer be enough. After their triumph of 2019, the Tories have brought themselves to the edge of extinction. They have lost much of their middle-class vote and their working class vote too.

Have the New Liberals done it to themselves as well?

Personalities aside, there is a fundamental tension within Toryism that goes back well beyond Brexit, Johnson and Sunak. The Tory party is both a Country Party (as it was called in the 18th century) and a Court Party. The Country Party defends local and private interests against a high-spending and interfering State. The Court Party governs the State.

The names are changed but the tensions are the same. Local and private interests versus the State.

To manage to be both at once demands a careful balancing act, with Conservative governments restraining their own actions and financial appetites. The Country Party also wants a government that will defend its beliefs and liberties. Various forms of culture war have always been part of this. Nineteenth-century popular Toryism was a rejection of progressive Nonconformist puritanism, not least its crusade against alcohol and its perceived lack of patriotism. That was what finally brought down Gladstone, our greatest progressive politician.

The Liberals succeeded by being neither too English nor too French, too Blue nor too Red.

The Tory balancing of Country and Court has collapsed.

And so has the Liberal balancing.

High taxes, mass immigration, projects like HS2 and hasty attempts to impose net zero flout Country Party feelings. So does indifference to nihilistic attacks on national history and culture, now visible in practically every school, museum and university in the land.

Short of the HS2 project the rest of the list is truly Canadian.

Brexit glaringly exposed the tension between the Country Party, which voted to Leave, and the Court Party, which wanted to stay. Michel Barnier, the EU negotiator, found Theresa May “infinitely preferable” to a Brexiteer, as she “doesn’t like Brexit”, and “never wanted it”.

Remainers of the Court Party caused a constitutional crisis by trying to take control of government policy. Some 20 Conservative MPs, including former ministers, joined with Labour to pass the “Benn Act”, constraining their own government’s freedom of manoeuvre following Boris Johnson’s 2019 victory. This deep split has not been resolved. There is an alarming historical precedent: Sir Robert Peel’s abolition of agricultural protection – the Corn Laws – in the 1840s. Leaving aside the economic pros and cons (which are far from clear cut) this was a clash of cultures, temperaments, and even of morality.

Peel, the founder of modern Conservatism, was the epitome of a Court Party Tory, high minded, intelligent, without people skills. He believed that Britain as a growing industrial nation needed the cheapest food available. His opponents – including young Disraeli, accused of cheap populism – believed that agriculture and rural society were the foundation of the nation and its institutions, and that they were being sacrificed to greedy businessmen.

This became a quarrel about political honesty and keeping promises made to the electorate. Peel was accused of “deceiving our friends, betraying our constituents”. Peel thought he knew best, and many of his followers, including Gladstone, left to join the Liberals. It took the Tories a generation to recover, when Disraeli created a new image and purpose.

Canada didn't have Brexit - on the other hand Harper may have been as much a shock to the "Court Party" as Brexit.

Since the return of Trudeau there has been one crisis after another and scandal after scandal.

“deceiving our friends, betraying our constituents”. Peel thought he knew best, and many of his followers, including Gladstone, left

The Tories only became the main party of government once more in the 1920s, when the anti-Tory vote split between Liberals and Labour.

Gladstone left the Tories in 1859. The Tories only regained ground in the 1920s after Gladstone's party collapsed.

Leadership matters, but so do circumstances. The great Tory leaders have been maverick outsiders. The two dominating modern figures, Churchill and Thatcher, met mistrust and opposition within the Civil Service and the parliamentary party, which preferred centre-ground reassurers such as Baldwin, Chamberlain and Macmillan.

Harper and the Civil Service, and the Courts, and the press/church.

But the centre ground collapses in emergencies,

And we are having our fair share of emergencies.

and Churchill and Thatcher won the support of the country outside Parliament because they were seen as willing and able to act in a crisis. Their positions were precarious, at least at first. Churchill was dependent on the success of the Dunkirk evacuation. Thatcher on North Sea oil and victory in the Falklands. They were lucky, but also made their own luck by boldness and clarity of purpose. This meant that they could make the Court Party follow them despite its misgivings.

For the remaining paragraphs substitute Liberal for Conservative.

I am not sure there is much comfort for today’s Conservative Party in its remarkable history, and certainly no easy lessons. Its past successes, and arguably its justification as a political organisation, lie in the ability to reconcile Court elitism and Country populism. In 2019 it had a historic opportunity to do just that. It may never have such an opportunity again. What is fatal to a party is not failure, but a sense of betrayal.

If the Conservative Party is to survive and govern again, it has to find 21st-century ways of reconciling Court and Country, which means that “taking back control” and “levelling up” must be more than slogans.

But the present party is exhausted. It will need new leadership with more than a merely managerial vision. Otherwise we shall at best have a long period of Labour government, and at worst a directionless, fragmented and impotent political system.

---

Robert Tombs is a historian and fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge

The key question in all of this is not Liberal or Conservative or the nature of the coalitions formed at the ballot box but whither the Court Party, the State, the Bureaucracy.... the Establishment?

And our enemies don't care - so long as we are not focusing on them.

 

[Kirkhill]

For instance, it’s worth noting that not only does Biden appear to be losing generally to Trump, but the incumbent is losing his own dependable voters to his rival. Polls show Biden is hemorrhaging black, Hispanic, suburban, and young voters — all demographics that reliably vote Democrat.

It could have something to do with how Biden has handled major crises he’s either caused or exacerbated. According to Quinnipiac, voters disapprove of his response to the Hamas attack and subsequent fallout (54 percent disapproval to 37 percent approval), his economy (59 to 37 percent), his foreign policy (61 to 34 percent), his border crisis (65 to 26 percent), and his response to the Russia-Ukraine war (49 to 47 percent).

Biden's Poll Numbers Are Even Worse For Dems Than They Think

Democrats are stuck, and they did this to themselves.

thefederalist.com

The West, the OECD, all reacted to the crises the same way. Bureaucrats in Seoul, Washington, Berlin, London and Ottawa are all aligned in their thinking.

And what happens when they all get it wrong at the same time?

 

[Kirkhill]

Nothing more American than a service club. Rotary, Lions, Kiwanis, IOOF, Altrusa, Shriners. Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville rode all over the United States in the 1830s and was struck by the influence of religious congregations, fraternal associations, civic organizations, and secret societies, on American democracy and concluded that they made communities stronger, more interesting, and more engaged. So why our service clubs are dying?

All of these service clubs, once the backbone of community life in America, have been in significant decline over the past 2-3 decades. It is not that our clubs have changed. America has changed. Thus the imperative is for us to reinvent our clubs for a new America.

Declining Social Capital

In his 2000 book, “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community,” Robert Putnam documented that attending club meetings, such as those held by Rotary and Kiwanis groups, has declined by 58 percent in the period 1975-2000. This trend continued and even accelerated in the 21st century. Putnam notes it’s part of an overall trend by Americans who also have 43 percent fewer family dinners. Thirty-five percent fewer of us have friends who drop in to see us at our homes.

Pick an organization and the numbers are telling. In the past two decades Rotary down 20%, Jaycees down 64%, Masons down 76%. Recalling de Tocqueville’s observation about the role our clubs play in civil society, this decline represents a tangible loss to the community. The question remains, ‘Where do we go from here?”

Why Our Service Clubs Are Dying | Michael Brand

Service clubs make our communities stronger, more interesting, and more engaging. So why are they dying? What can we do about it?

michaelbrand.org

Add in the decline in church attendance, bowling leagues, scouts and guides, football and sports.. you name it.

Top it off with the last bastions of socialization, the office and the factory, and you have modern western society. Isolation.

Where the only form of social activity seems to be the Flash Mob - which has the additional attractions of being of short duration, intense and instantly gratifying.

 

[Kirkhill]

True that!

We in the West like to imagine that liberal democracy spread because others were attracted by its intrinsic merits. It didn’t. It spread through military victories – a fact that the rest of the world has not forgotten.

Only now, perhaps, are we learning how limited its appeal is. Several countries which we thought were in our camp turned out to be pro-Western only contingently and transactionally. The moment they saw our power waning, they began to look elsewhere.

The decadent West has come face to face with the future - and the end of its dominance

The summit between Xi and Biden underlined the severe cost of the trade wars destablising the world

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[Kirkhill]

The best argument for free speech - clarity.

Apologies to J.D. Tuccille and the National Post but it is worth reproducing in full.

J.D. Tuccille: Free speech lets us know who the antisemites are

I oppose efforts to muzzle pro-Palestinian protesters because I want to know exactly who might target my Jewish loved ones

nationalpost.com

J.D. Tuccille: Free speech lets us know who the antisemites are​

I oppose efforts to muzzle pro-Palestinian protesters because I want to know exactly who might target my Jewish loved ones
Author of the article:
J.D. Tuccille
Published Nov 19, 2023 • Last updated 7 hours ago • 5 minute read


Students participate in a protest in support of Palestine and for free speech outside of the Columbia University campus on Nov. 15, 2023 in New York City. The university suspended two student organizations, Students for Justice in Palestine, and Jewish Voices for Peace, for violating university policies. PHOTO BY SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES

One of the great benefits of a strong culture of free speech is that you get to see who people are. Are your neighbors principled? Are they hateful? Are they just plain nuts and worth avoiding? When my son saw who attended dueling protests on his college campus in recent weeks, he didn’t have to guess who everybody was; they put it all on display and he’s planning his interactions accordingly.

In the United States, free speech culture prevails, however imperfectly, across the country.

“At least tens of thousands of people gathered in the nation’s capital on Saturday for one of the biggest pro-Palestinian protests in the U.S. since the Israeli bombardment of Gaza began in response to the attack by Hamas militants last month,” NPR reported Nov. 4.

Days later, supporters of the victims of Hamas’s attack met in the nation’s capital for “the largest pro-Israel gathering in the U.S. since the start of the Israel-Hamas war,” according to CNN.

There was no love lost between attendees of the two demonstrations, but little confrontation either. The two sides had opportunities to air their mutual contempt and rally further public enthusiasm for their causes, doing their best to lean on politicians. They also gave us a good glimpse of who they are and what they believe in, so we can support those with whom we agree and shun others whose views we don’t just oppose but find repugnant. All in all, gatherings like these are productive exercises in free expression and nonviolent outlets for passionately held opinions.

“Freedom of expression serves its most important function at times of deep polarization, where the sense of righteous indignation tempts us to silence the viewpoints we hate with scant regard for the collateral damage to democracy, freedom and tolerance that constitute the necessary precondition for social peace in diverse societies,” commented Jacob Mchangama, CEO of the Danish human-rights think tank Justitia and a senior fellow with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

Not every country shares the American commitment to letting people fly their freak flags. France and Germany both banned pro-Palestinian protests. They justified the bans as efforts to prevent antisemitic outbursts.

“Pro-Palestinian demonstrations must be prohibited because they are likely to generate disturbances to the public order,” huffed French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin.

Yeah, good luck with that. The protests predictably went forward anyway and attendees rumbled with police while feeling virtuous about their defiance. Nothing makes people feel like they’re on the right side of a dispute like a whiff of tear gas.

That’s a big part of why I oppose efforts to muzzle pro-Palestinian protesters despite being married to a Jewish woman. I don’t want them to be able to pose as martyrs for their cause. I also believe in the natural right to liberty, no matter what government officials may prefer in the name of “order.” And I have a strong interest in seeing who might hate my wife and my kid and potentially target them at a later date. Step forward and be counted, folks.

As mentioned earlier, my son took his own notes at the University of Arizona. He called us to express his disappointment at a protest that wasn’t just pro-Palestinian but took on a tone in favor of Hamas. He was relieved that he personally knew few of those in attendance.

He took solace when campus Jewish organizations organized a vigil for the hostages held by terrorists.

Both protests were peaceful, albeit with a strong security presence. That hasn’t been the case everywhere: a University of Pennsylvania student was charged for stealing an Israeli flag, Jewish students took refuge from protesters in the library at Cooper Union and a Jewish man, Paul Kessler, died after a confrontation with pro-Palestinian protesters in Los Angeles.

Worried about escalating rhetoric and conflict, Brandeis University rescinded student group recognition for Students for Justice in Palestine, saying its support for Hamas is unacceptable.

There are boundaries to acceptable speech, beyond which lies actual violence of the sort that led to Kessler’s death. When it comes to post-Oct. 7 protests, Will Creeley, writing for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, described the boundary as “a fraught line.”

“Now as ever, it is vital for all of us — students, faculty, administrators, alumni, law enforcement, elected officials and the general public — to hold steadfast to the First Amendment, remaining both cognizant of its carefully defined exceptions and confident in its continuing protection,” Creeley wrote.

Private institutions like Brandeis aren’t bound by the First Amendment; they can make their own rules about expression. Still, they’d do well to abide by the culture of free speech so that we have peaceful outlets to keep ideas in circulation even if officially disapproved, and so hateful people can’t pride themselves as resisting authoritarian restrictions. People should be able to tell us who they are.

Not everybody appreciates the culture of free speech, though.

Several years ago, Richard Stengel, a former editor of Time, joined a chorus of voices who consider the First Amendment an embarrassing outlier in a world where many governments regularly muzzle voices they consider inconvenient.

“I’m all for protecting ‘thought that we hate,’ but not speech that incites hate,” Stengel insisted, as if officials could be trusted to honestly parse the difference.

And they can’t be trusted. Among the first people targeted by Germany’s NetzDG law against “hate speech” were satirists and opposition politicians, according to a 2018 report in Politico.

“Germany’s ongoing crackdown on online speech has been closely watched, and copied, by authoritarian governments eager to curb political dissent,” Justitia’s Jacob Mchangama and human rights advocate Joelle Fiss warned in 2019.

America’s culture of free speech is messy, always disorderly, and sometimes hard to watch. But when allowed to flourish it’s certainly not a weapon for thin-skinned functionaries to use against their critics. Instead, it’s an outlet for expression and an exercise of natural liberty.

It’s also, importantly, an opportunity for people to show us who they are.

National Post

 

[Brad Sallows]

The best argument for free speech - clarity.

Apologies to J.D. Tuccille and the National Post but it is worth reproducing in full.

Exactly why I stand against any kind of speech policing. Better to know who and where they are.

 

[daftandbarmy]

True that!

The decadent West has come face to face with the future - and the end of its dominance

The summit between Xi and Biden underlined the severe cost of the trade wars destablising the world

www.telegraph.co.uk

The fact that millions of people would, literally, risk their lives to travel as refugees to attempt to permanently relocate to various liberal democracies tells me that we've got something desirable in comparison to the dictatorships of the world.

Last time I checked, there weren't alot of desperate migrants storming the gates to get into China or Russia

 

[Fishbone Jones]

The fact that millions of people would, literally, risk their lives to travel as refugees to attempt to permanently relocate to various liberal democracies tells me that we've got something desirable in comparison to the dictatorships of the world.

Last time I checked, there weren't alot of desperate migrants storming the gates to get into China or Russia

Lately, around here, there's been a spate of news stories about refugees. Apparently, many are giving up and going back home. They were sold on old Canada and got here to find trudeau's new Canada. They can't afford it, can't get jobs, can't get the government to work for them. They are abandoned in local ethnic qhettos where they meet the same type of criminals and activity they had at home. So they are leaving. Wait until they see their first real Canadian winter

 

[Kirkhill]

The fact that millions of people would, literally, risk their lives to travel as refugees to attempt to permanently relocate to various liberal democracies tells me that we've got something desirable in comparison to the dictatorships of the world.

Last time I checked, there weren't alot of desperate migrants storming the gates to get into China or Russia

But...

Do they just want to come here because we have stuff and they don't?
Do they understand how we ended up doing so well?

Or...

Do they think we got lucky?
Do they think we stole what was rightfully theirs?

Yes, people want to come here. But do they want to live by our rules? Do they accept that there is an association between our rules and our lifestyle?

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Yes, people want to come here. But do they want to live by our rules? Do they accept that there is an association between our rules and our lifestyle?

The ones that leave third world countries, to escape the life they have there. Then come here and try make here like there.

 

[Kirkhill]

And a nicely argued piece on the role of academia -

And it is a world away from the spectacles at Concordia.

Don’t Burn Down the Ivory Towers

The pursuit of knowledge and truth is more important than ever—which is why we must fight to save our universities.

www.thefp.com