Nativists

The word “nativism” is often used as a pejorative term, referring to people who are chauvinistic and want to restrict their country’s inhabitants to its “native” peoples, or likewise want to preserve the country’s original culture (whatever that is).

There’s another kind of nativism that has nothing at all to do with the people  of the country, but of its flora and fauna.  Ignoring the animals (fauna) for a moment, let’s look at the flora (foliage, plants and trees).  An example of this is (of course) South Africa, where there has been a great push to restrict and even destroy what are called “foreign” plants — even if said plants were imported more than a century earlier and are now as “native” as any other plant.  Thus the jacaranda trees, which are so popular and so widespread that the nation’s capital Pretoria is known as the “Jacaranda City”, and the northern suburbs of Johannesburg are likewise full of these trees with their gorgeous purple flowers.  Here’s an aerial view of Joburg’s northern suburbs:

…and what it looks like at street level:

But to the Seffrican government, because the trees originally came from South America (back in the 1880s), they are “foreign”, may no longer be planted or even maintained, and in fact can be chopped down for firewood without penalty.  Sic semper Africanis.

But that’s not the full purpose of this rant.  This is.

Let’s say that you own an area of great natural beauty, but a bunch of the fauna in the area are not native to the area.  So you partner with an organization which concerns itself with the “national heritage”, agree with them to restore the area to its original state, and set about removing various shrubs, flowers and bushes.  Then the following happens:

Scottish Natural Heritage had agreed a tree management plan for ‘selective felling’ of non-native trees on the island in 2013 but did not tell landowner Luss Estates of the change to the plan for the widespread killing of more than 300 trees.

David Maclennan, SNH area manager for Argyll and the Outer Hebrides, said: ‘Although Luss Estates was party to the original management agreement in 2013, which posited the removal of rhododendron and, by selective felling, of ‘non-native species’ over a five year period, Scottish Natural Heritage accepts that the subsequent amendment, which proposed to kill all the beech trees on Inchtavannach in a single operation by chemical injection of glyphosate was not shared with Luss Estates Company.
‘SNH apologise for what was, with hindsight, an error on our part.
‘We should have ensured that Luss Estates Company was informed of and consented to the proposed operations.’
He added: ‘The speed, scale, and visual impact of the operation was much greater than anticipated and we recognise that this has caused considerable detriment and upset to Luss Estates Company and to Sir Malcolm Colquhoun personally. For this we unreservedly apologise.
‘There remains a need to undertake works to remove fallen timber from agreed areas – and we have offered to do this through a new agreement.’

Here’s a pic:

All those dead trees were poisoned by the SNH.  And forgive me, but a little “oopsie” apology wouldn’t cut it with me.

Were I Sir Malcolm Colquhoun (the owner of the estate), the “new agreement” would insist that the poxy SNH not only pay for the removal of the dead beech trees but also take on the cost of planting new fully-grown trees as replacements (look up how much it costs to replant a single fully-grown pine or oak tree, then multiply it by 300).  Then I would include in the agreement a demand for the hanging of the SNH manager who signed off on the poisoning action, and a public flogging of all the minions who actually performed the filthy deed.  (“Ve voss chust obeyink orders!” is indefensible.)

My ire in all this is not caused by the damage to the estate — at least, not much — but by the sheer fucking arrogance of an organization which thinks it can just ignore the property’s owner and do whatever they want.

And yes, I know that non-native species can cause damage to the indigenous fauna — witness the kudzu overgrowth in the Southern states of America — but beech trees are native to Britain (just maybe not in that area of poxy Scotland), so that was never a concern.  As far as I’m concerned, this is all of a part of the stupid Scottish Nationalist movement, where anything not Scottish is awful and needs to be removed or destroyed.

If I were His Lordship, once the dead trees are replaced I would order my groundskeepers to shoot these SNH pricks on site, but no doubt someone would have a problem with this.

Although the mindset of the South Africans and the Scots is identical, I can somewhat excuse the South African government’s war on the jacaranda because they’re stupid fucking Africans;  but the SNH weasels?  Strap them all to large rocks and toss them into Loch Lomond, the tartan fuckers.

Undecided

There are things that are crimes (e.g. murder, acting like a Clinton etc.) which carry penalties and punishments.  Then there are things that are sorta-crimes (like spitting on the sidewalk, or voting for a Socialist) which carry few if any penalties.  Then there are things that are technically  non-crimes, but which should  carry a penalty.  Like this one:

PARENTS were left furious after a nursery [preschool daycare] banned meat and dairy and instead force children to eat from a completely vegan menu.
Mums and dads have blasted the controversial move to switch their kids to an entirely plant-based diet which they claim was done without consulting them first.
Meat, fish, eggs and dairy products will be completely off the menu from January for 260 children, aged 0-4, at Jigsaw Day Nurseries in Chester.
Instead, staff at their two nurseries will offer the likes of a lentil-based “Shepherdless Pie”, coconut rice pudding desserts and cereal served with soy or oat milk.
Some parents say they are fuming at the decision to “impose a lifestyle choice” which “discriminates” against their meat-eating children.

Here’s the loony boss’s opinion:

Claire Taylor, founder of the nurseries, which is Chester’s largest private childcare provider, defended the decision which she says was “made with the children and the planet’s future in mind.”
She added: “We appreciate that this is a decision that comes with a business risk associated, however we feel passionately that a sustainable path is the one we wish to follow for the benefit of our children’s future.
“The food that the children eat within our nurseries not only has an impact on everyone in the setting but also on the health of our planet.”

She cited the “overwhelming” evidence published over the past few years highlighting the impact of animal farming on the planet.

So my question, O Gentle Readers, is this:  what this stupid bitch is doing is clearly not illegal.  But other than withering scorn, what should the penalty be for this kind of idiocy?  (And don’t say, “Just pull the kids out of the school” because some parents have no choice in the matter.  Myself, I’d just feed my kids steak every night and give them biltong to take to school to make up for the nutritional shortfall, but that’s not the matter under discussion.)

It’s not an infringement worthy of scourging or suchlike;  but I feel that it should  be punished in some way.

I welcome suggestions in Comments.

Quote Of The Day

Via Insty:

Kelo  comes to mind, and a couple others also dealing with property seizures.  The big one, which if re-litigated now would result in its overturning, would be ObamaCare because the “tax” enforcement has now been annulled.  Not even Roberts could save it.

Educating Immigrants

From Gates Of Vienna comes a “tl;mr” (too long / must read”) post by a teacher at the sharp end — probably literally so — of the effort to get newly-arrived immigrant children to integrate into the host society.  As you can well imagine, it’s going to fail dismally:

I know I will be called a “damned whore”, “damned pussy”, and I know I will hear, “You don’t decide for me.” There will be mess and noise in the classroom, the hallways, the schoolyard and the dining room. Changing rooms where classes change for physical education classes will, as usual, be places where girls don’t dare change since boys will show up and sneakily photograph the girls.
Showering is not on the world map for girls and even for some boys in school. It is enough that one or two pupils refuse to follow the instruction and scream “shut up” at me every time I am going to say something; thus is the lesson destroyed for 28 other pupils who want to learn something.When I call parents in for a conversation, I hear that I don’t have the right to tell their children off, that I should be careful so that I won’t be reported to the principal or school inspectors. They know where my family and I live, what car I drive, and I know that the risk is great that my car will get scratched or destroyed in some other way. I know that certain pupils threaten other pupils, but I don’t dare get in the middle because I risk being beaten.

Read it, and don’t weep;  get angry.  Because this (and the mindset which enables it) either has come, or will soon be coming to a school near you.

Hidden Agenda

Talking about legislatures passing laws which seem to be quite insane, not to mention un-Constitutional and unenforceable, Joe Bob Briggs nails the mindset perfectly:

“We don’t like things as they are, and so we’ll make it really, really expensive for certain people to enforce their rights. We’ll make them fight every day for what should be rightly theirs for free. We’ll take away their birthright. We’ll screw with their businesses and screw with their wombs and screw with their assumptions about what the courts have guaranteed them, and some of them will give up, and some of them will make mistakes, and we’ll just make sure they have many bad days, and eventually they’ll get tired of fighting with us and we’ll get a team of brutal lawyers to take them down and put them in their place.”

And then having said that, Joe Bob concludes with the killer line:

Well, okay, I guess it worked with the Indians.

To us normal people, this is known as the “beating a dog till it snaps at you, then killing it because it’s dangerous”-style of government.

The only problem with this approach is that we’re not Indians.  And we have some serious fucking teeth.

Nah, Bring It On

Found via Insty (thankee, Stephen) these words of wisdom come from Bill Maher:

“Lately we’ve been hearing more and more about a second civil war which sounds impossible in this modern, affluent country. It is not. We talk about Trump as an existential threat, but his side sees Democratic control of government the exact same way. When both sides believe the other guy taking over means the end of the world, yes, you can have a civil war.”

“We are going to have to learn to live with each other or else there will be blood.”

Well, we conservatives have taken over (sorta), and the world hasn’t ended.  Much to my disgust, cops haven’t started shooting down Pantifa rioters in the streets, the editorial board members of the New York Times  haven’t been sent to the guillotine and we haven’t planted millions of landmines along our southern border — to name but three areas of disappointment.

Something else Maher said:

“And never forget, the single shining truth about democracy: it means sharing a country with assholes you can’t stand.”

Which would be absolutely true, except that we have Democrats trying their level best to subvert democracy with massive voter fraud and a sham impeachment of an elected President — and we’re not even going to mention the disgusting attempts to make America a land of popular majority government instead of the representative republic that it always has been, as laid down in the Constitution.

And speaking of subverting the Constitution, we also have Democrats attempting to end our First Amendment right of free speech with nonsense like hate speech codes, and we all know that Democrats everywhere want to overturn the Second Amendment by disarming Americans — to name yet another  two areas of conflict where the Left and conservatives are irreparably separated.

Simple truth for the Left?  I don’t want to live with Leftists, Communists, Progressives or whatever you call yourselves today.  The essence of the matter is that the two sides have radically different perspectives as to how this country should look, and the two are mutually contradictory.  Your side leads to Venezuela and Cuba, even though you say it leads to Sweden.  Our side just wants us all to live as the Constitution promises.

So why should  we live together?  For fear of revolution?

Don’t make me laugh.  We already had one Revolution in 1776, and the Constitution won.  The Russians also had one in 1917, and the Bolsheviks won — but only readers of the New York Times  could possibly think that Russia ended up better than we did.

Don’t even think you can emulate Lenin in the U.S. because you can’t, and you won’t.

We don’t have to learn to live with you;  you  have to learn to live with us.  Or else you can go and live in Sweden, Russia or Cuba because this is our  country, you Commie bastards.  This is the country of the U.S. Constitution, not Das Kapital.