The Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove

The return of Right Wing Tony

1:05 Our review of the conflict in Syria. RWT on The “Muddle” East. The various groups seem to line up according to their interest in two competing gas pipelines. RWT argues the conflicts would occur even without a pipeline and we should stay out of it. It’s like being asked to pick your favourite bikie gang. The discussion moves on to North Korea and the United Nations and the role of the USA as the World’s policeman.

25:58 Sonny Bill has objected to a bank logo on his jersey. We will need a “Sonny Bill” clause in player contracts resulting in a financial penalty for failing to wear advertising logos.

33:09 Black Lives Matter has just banned white people from their group. Could a white group ban black people??

35:20 Rachel Dolezal claims race is a social construct and she can simply identify as a black woman if she wants to.

37:02 A discussion of a “River Person” and “Glacier People”. What happens when the river meets the sea? How do we get instructions in a court action, especially if the tide is out?. Presumably, guardians will be appointed. How do we determine the sex of the inanimate object?

45:17 A discussion on identity politics and its divisive influence. Instead of society, we can be said to have transient groupings of individuals who flock together only to best pursue special interest claims based on identity or ask for handouts for their particular victim claims.

46:25 People claim to be tolerant but probably, they just don’t care. The secret of Father Brown illustrates this. The bad brother killed the good brother and assumed his identity. In modern times, when Margaret Thatcher died, the people who said don’t celebrate the death of Osama Bin Laden, were happy to dance on her grave. The same applied when Hirsi Ali was vilified by “Muslim Feminists”. A poem by Yeats “The Second Coming” contains the lines “the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity”.

Is the fight over a gas pipeline fuelling the world’s bloodiest conflict?

Syria’s Balance of Terror

Sonny Bill’s ‘conscientious objection’ to bank sponsor

Black Lives Matter Just Banned White People

Rachel Dolezal claimed that race was a social construct

I CAN TOLERATE ANYTHING EXCEPT THE OUTGROUP

Instead of society, we can be said to have transient groupings of individuals who flock together only to best pursue special interest claims based on identity or ask for handouts for their particular victim claims.

3:03 The Ayaan Hirsi Ali fiasco where she was vilified by feminist Muslims via a petition and a viral video. Hirsi Ali is accused of Islamophobia.

35:01 Criticism of identity is the new blasphemy.

38:09 Anne Aly and 18C and including religion.

41:31 Gillian Triggs “sadly you can say what you like around the kitchen table at home”

47:04 The Global Atheist Convention

50:50 A former Guardian journalist blasts #prayforLondon and says these stupid beliefs are to blame in the first place.

54:50 The caste system is alive and well in Australia.

1:01:29 We need some sort of comparative religious study in schools. But religious leaders would be too biased and unqualified to speak on other religions.

1:05:07 John Howard was our worst Prime Minister ever due to his enduring influence.

1:08:29 The decline of men. A counter-argument to male privilege with lots of statistics.

1:15:56 In NSW, Catholic biological parents object to adoption because proposed adoptive parents are lesbian non-Catholics.

1:18:27 This Pope has a thing about Satan and advises parishioners to call on experts when needing an exorcist.

1:20:33 Canada has passed a motion condemning “Islamophobia”.

“In liberal societies, those on the left [are] in the grip of identity politics. This fascination is not caused by the Islamists, but the Islamists exploit it.” – Ayaan Hirsi Ali

A frightening video

A frightening petition

Sadly, you can say what you like around the kitchen table – Gillian Triggs and then Bob Brown says she is a champion of free speech!

2018 Atheist convention

Former Guardian Journalist Blasts #PrayForLondon, Says ‘Bloody Stupid Beliefs’ To Blame for Attack

India’s outlawed caste system is alive and well in Australia

School deradicalisation programs should include study of different religions

Muslim schools should be shut down, says anti-radical Islam campaigner Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Australia still plagued by destructive policies of John Howard, our worst prime minister

The decline of Men

A special episode where The Iron Fist chats with Venerable Alex.

You can check out his bio at https://law.anu.edu.au/people/alex-bruce

 

0:52 There is renewed discussion over S.18c. A plan to replace “insult, offend or humiliate” with “harass”.

10:11 Pakistan is not happy with the amount of blasphemy on Facebook and have asked Facebook for names and details of blaspheming Pakistanis.

11:43 The BBC asked what is the right punishment for blasphemy.

14:25 A Firis brochure for NSW listeners to distribute which explains rights regarding RI lessons. We should be telling RI horror stories.

17:36 The legal rights of rivers.

20:32 Flat earth basketballers in the NBA. It’s all funny until somebody gets hurt, and, we are being hurt. The recent devotion to cultural tolerance is opening the door to alternative facts. Often, the very people who cheer journalists calling out Trump’s falsehoods are unwilling to do the same when falsehoods are the product of cultures they find more sympathetic or less dangerous. We must maintain the value of objective truth.

30:57 The gay panic defence.

33:56 The hijab in Europe

36:17 King Salmon of Saudi Arabia visited Indonesia with 1000 helpers in his entourage. King Salman is poised to increase Saudi influence in Indonesia exponentially. In one swoop Saudi investment in Indonesia has gone from $US900,000 last year to $US7 billion, with the Indonesia media reporting that another $US25 billion may be waiting in the wings.While the Saudis prepare to unload billions, our fiscal investment in our nearest neighbour hovers around $605 million in foreign aid, and Indonesia is not yet one of Australia’s top 10 trading partners.

41:12

Geoffrey Cohen, a professor of psychology at Stanford, has shown how motivated reasoning can drive even the opinions of engaged partisans. In 2003, when he was an assistant professor at Yale, Cohen asked a group of undergraduates, who had previously described their political views as either very liberal or very conservative, to participate in a test to study, they were told, their “memory of everyday current events.”

The students were shown two articles: one was a generic news story; the other described a proposed welfare policy. The first article was a decoy; it was the students’ reactions to the second that interested Cohen. He was actually testing whether party identifications influence voters when they evaluate new policies. To find out, he produced multiple versions of the welfare article. Some students read about a program that was extremely generous—more generous, in fact, than any welfare policy that has ever existed in the United States—while others were presented with a very stingy proposal. But there was a twist: some versions of the article about the generous proposal portrayed it as being endorsed by Republican Party leaders; and some versions of the article about the meagre program described it as having Democratic support. The results showed that, “for both liberal and conservative participants, the effect of reference group information overrode that of policy content. If their party endorsed it, liberals supported even a harsh welfare program, and conservatives supported even a lavish one.”

In a subsequent study involving just self-described liberal students, Cohen gave half the group news stories that had accompanying Democratic endorsements and the other half news stories that did not. The students who didn’t get the endorsements preferred a more generous program. When they did get the endorsements, they went with their party, even if this meant embracing a meaner option.

47:19

Are you a soldier or a scout? Your answer to this question, says decision-making expert Julia Galef, could determine how clearly you see the world.

Imagine for a moment you’re a soldier in the heat of battle — perhaps a Roman foot soldier, medieval archer or Zulu warrior. Regardless of your time and place, some things are probably constant. Your adrenaline is elevated,

Hugh Harris joins the podcast.

00:51 Long-Awaited Medical Study Questions the Power of Prayer

5:38 Mormon church baptising thousands of dead Victorians – atheist or not

8:15 By promoting diversity over fighting ability the Army is alienating its warriors

18:08 Vatican releases updated guidelines for bioethical questions

24:36 What do Coopers beer, Peter Carey novels and Yonex have in common?

Beers and Bibles don’t mix well: Australian brewery Coopers’ Christian branding disaster

34:08 Bill Leak

39:20 Ayaan Hirsi Ali

57:02 Punchbowl story missing in action

19 schools at risk

1:12 A tool to force people to read an article before they can comment on an article.

2:42 Some pharmacies in the UK want to be able to refuse to supply contraceptives. The 12th Man’s friend asked for extra large condoms in Japan.

6:20 Pauline Hanson thinks Putin is a great guy and vaccinations should be optional.

7:57 Roe Vs Wade. The woman who helped make abortion legal in the US converts to Christianity, opposes abortion

8:38 LeBron comes to Kyrie Irving’s defence: ‘If he decides the Earth is flat, that’s OK’

12:15 On Meaning, Identity Politics and Bias in the Academy — An Interview with Clay Routledge

23:18 Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?

36:00 Moral outrage is self serving. Those feeling guilty express the most outrage and then afterwards feel less guilty.

 

Hugh Harris is back.

 

Indigenous football teams such as the NRL Indigenous All Stars – are they a good or a bad thing?

The Royal Commission into child abuse. What will they recommend? What won’t they recommend? Will anything change?

 

What needs to change and what are Hugh and Trevor going to do about it?

Two worrying events regarding freedom of speech. Ayaan Hirsi Ali billboards have been banned and at the same time, the controversy over Keysar Trad bypasses Fairfax, the ABC and The Guardian.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Sarah Haider and Gad Saad disagree with Majid Nawaz and Sam Harris on a fundamental issue. ie Can Islam be reformed?

The Fist defends humanity against an alien thought experiment and tried to get a grip on Hugh’s theory of Meta-Ethical Relativism.

Organ donation Two issues. mandatory and family consent.

Archbishop offers to counsel Palaszczuk, Trad on abortion

The Vatican, child sex crimes and how Australia is the great facilitator

Australians believe 18C protections should stay

Essential Report

Terrorism Denial on the Left

AUSTRALIAN CHRISTIAN LOBBY SAYS REMOVING THE ‘GAY PANIC’ DEFENCE IN QUEENSLAND WILL PLACE WOMEN IN DANGER

The close ties between Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch worries more than reporters

Q&A activist asked radical Islamic group for advice after spat with Jacqui Lambie

Change.org petitions for and against Yassmin Abdel-Magied

Ayaan Hirsi Ali poster is banned.

How do you solve a problem like sharia?

Muslim boys at Sydney public school can refuse shake hands with women

The Iron Fist and Hugh Harris start off by discussing how politicians should speak about Islam and then we move on to ethics generally and how they might be refined by thought experiments and then applied to our immigration debate.

4,444 victims: extent of abuse in Catholic church in Australia revealed

Royal commission into child sexual abuse: 1,880 alleged perpetrators identified in Catholic Church

Catholic use of confession to be scrutinised by child abuse royal commission

Trump and Australia. Besides the TPP another positive. Maybe we can rethink the relationship.

The US needs Australia, whether Donald Trump knows it or not

Essential Report survey

Pauline Hanson says One Nation would introduce mandatory prenuptial agreements

Citizen Initiated Referenda 

Labor Again Exposed as Morally Bankrupt on Private School Overfunding

Pauline Hanson Stay the Hell Out of My Bedroom!

Three killer facts about corporate tax cuts you won’t hear from Scott Morrison

Section 18C: a bad law that finds racism where there is none

The Rise of the Right and the Triumph of Rhetoric

What It Takes to Truly Be ‘One of Us’

Australian Catholic Church warns congregation ahead of final ‘grim’ royal commission hearing