EVOLUTIONNEWS.ORG -- Canada has gone all in for euthanasia. The statistics are startling and illustrate that once euthanasia consciousness infects a culture, it grows like a fungus. And it's just going to get worse because in 2022, Canada started allowing it for people with chronic and disabling conditions, and in 2023 it will be allowed for those with dementia and mental illnesses. The number of assisted deaths increased by 32.4% representing 3.3% of all deaths in 2021. One woman asked to die because of isolation from COVID lockdowns. Her family was allowed to attend her death, but not visit to relieve her isolation. Once a society falls into the cultural abyss, it is very difficult to climb back out. And here's a shocking truth ...

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IFSTUDIES.ORG -- INSTITUTE FOR FAMILY STUDIES -- Pollsters asked kids in the USA, UK and China "What do you want to be when you grow up?" The #1 choice of American and British kids was YouTuber; astronaut their last choice. The #1 choice of Chinese kids was astronaut; YouTuber their last choice. Historically, culture sets the context for finding purpose and meaning but, by most measures, our culture now comes up short. Between the 1960s to 1990s, the most popular TV shows taught kids moral lessons. Now they focus on winning and fame. Consider music. The sexually-explicit, profanity-laced lyrics of the 2022 #1 song, "Jimmy Cooks," are too graphic for IFS to print, but the New York Times praised it. This means, we need to limit our kids' exposure to the worst of American culture ...

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[H/T MOHIB EBRAHIM] -- HOOVER.ORG -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Hazar Imam, 1989: "On the question of modernity the issue is essentially whether one is affecting the fundamental moral fabric of society..." ~~ Writing in 1997, the author felt the Internet would help bring the changes in morality needed. However, 25 years later, we now know that the opposite happened. Nevertheless, the article remains true and is essential reading.] ARTICLE: The mere absence of centralized state control does not mean there is freedom, and soulless forces operating freely is actually tyranny in another guise. So what is the moral basis of a free society? Today [1997], citizens and leaders world-wide are looking to America for answers. However, while others look to us, we Americans are seeking answers to painful and bitter questions. We are learning that capitalism and democracy are not enough for a healthy society and that a self-governing nation is made from self-governing individuals. For example, can a free society survive the collapse of the two-parent family? A breakdown in the moral fabric of society has dire consequences and the stakes are enormous. If America makes the necessary moral changes, the rest of the world has a chance. Otherwise ...

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AMERICANEXPERIMENT.ORG -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Hazar Imam, 2015: "Is that message clear? You listen to people you don't like!"] ARTICLE: Economist Paul Krugman wrote: "I know we're supposed to pretend that both sides always have a point; but the truth is that most of the time they don't." I think Krugman is fundamentally mistaken. After all, what is the best use of our limited time? The affirmation from reading what we already agree with? Each day I read an old Newsweek column by economists Milton Friedman and Paul Samuelson. I disagree most of what Samuelson writes. But by reading arguments you disagree with, you become better prepared to rebut them. And who knows, they might even convince you. Just as boxer Marvin Hagler got better by sparring with a good opponent, similarly, for your intellectual health, read someone who you disagree with. Try it. ...

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RT.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: While we normally do not post on political matters, we think it is important the Jamat be aware of long-term, tectonic shifts now unfolding on the global, geopolitical landscape. These have been noted by keen observers and Western leaders, however, their remarks are, by and large, unreported in the Western press.] ARTICLE: A new epoch of world history is approaching and only "truly sovereign" states will succeed in the changed environment, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. By "sovereign" he means "freedom of national development, and thus of each person individually." Such a state, he said, will serve as an example for others when it comes to "standards and quality of people's life [and] protection of traditional values." The Western-dominated uni-polar world order, in Putin's opinion, is "becoming a brake on the development of our civilization" and said that despite attempts to preserve the existing world order, the changes are "irreversible." The new "multi-polar" world has been discussed in the West, too, most recently by German Chancellor ...

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CLIMATECHANGEDISPATCH.COM -- The rich world's self-inflicted energy crisis over Ukraine has fully exposed their fossil fuel and climate hypocrisy. While wealthy countries lecture the poor to only use renewables, Europe and America beg Arab nations to expand oil production, Germany reopens coal plants and Spain and Italy ramp up African gas production. The poor are told to "leapfrog" from no energy to a sham green nirvana of solar panels and wind turbines, while the rich don't accept off-grid, renewable energy themselves. Consider Greenpeace promoted Dharnai, India's first solar-powered community. Fridges, TVs and electric cookstoves were prohibited so villagers were forced to continue burning wood and dung, whose indoor pollution kills millions every year and WHO says is like smoking two packs of cigarettes every day. A study found ...

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WATTSUPWITHTHAT.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Hazar Imam, 2007: "Skyrocketing [electricity] costs work to reinforce the cycle of poverty for millions ... Continuing power shortfalls can be a downward spiral of disappointment and discouragement.... It is striking [that Africa], with fully one-sixth of the world's population, produces only four percent of the world's electricity."] ARTICLE: Now, with Europeans facing blackouts, their governments are turning on their coal-fired plants. It's like vegans running to steak houses over a vegetable shortage. But what about Africa? Africans are being forced by Western elites to a fossil fuel free future rife with poverty. Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò calls it climate colonialism. Globally, fossil fuels have been the predominant driver behind long-term economic development: North America and Europe during the industrial era and India and China, more recently. A British family boiling a kettle just twice a day uses 5x more electricity than Malian in a year. An American uses as much electricity in 1 month than a Tanzanian in 8 years. While a freezer uses 10x more electricity than a Liberian in 1 year. More and more African ...

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[H/T MOHIB EBRAHIM] --THEFEDERALIST.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Hazar Imam, 1965: "Left-wing attitudes tend not only to destroy the Faith of a man towards his religion but also the respect of one individual towards another. When the Faith is broken down everything goes with it: the family, society, the individual, the intelligence."] ARTICLE: Arguably, wokeism is defined by its rejection of Nature on gender, sexuality, the laws of economics, energy and rationality itself. But, Nature always has the final say, and we're seeing that in the slow retreat of leftists from wokeism. Hardly a day goes by when a writer confesses some variation of, "I'm a proud progressive, but these new leftists are crazy, and I'm done with the Democrats." The cognitive dissonance created from suspending reality has become too much. But do liberals realize their dissonance is due to leftism rejecting God? All forms of leftism are a house of cards that will collapse, like Nietzsche going insane after using words his whole life only to then say words are suspect. We can only handle so much cognitive dissonance before Nature ...

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[H/T MOHIB EBRAHIM] -- AMERICANMIND.ORG -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Hazar Imam, 2006: "How can we inspire people to reach beyond rampant materialism, self-indulgent individualism, and unprincipled relativism?" ~~ Hazar Imam, 1999: "It's clear that uncontrolled freedom becomes license.... It's probably the most challenging issue that I have to address today."] ARTICLE: To understand today's society, it is useful to look at Plato's four stages by which minds become progressively disordered and the corresponding four increasingly corrupt societies they create. For Plato, reason is that faculty by which we understand objective facts. He, therefore, rejects the relativist view that what a thing is, and what is good for it, are matters of human convention.... For Plato, democracy is characterized by the "diversity of its characters" and "treats all men as equal, whether they are equal or not." In particular, it treats all ways of life as equal, no matter how irrational or immoral. The young "throw off all inhibitions" and celebrate "insolence, license, extravagance, and shamelessness," becoming ever more extreme." All pleasures are equal and ...

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