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Democracy & Diversity: Not In the Constitution

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UPDATE 2.28.24: Recently, users of Google’s Gemini AI system were astounded to see the results of their requests for artificial images. Thomas Barrabi reports at the New York Post:

Google’s highly-touted AI chatbot Gemini was blasted as “woke” after its image generator spit out factually or historically inaccurate pictures — including a woman as pope, black Vikings, female NHL players and “diverse” versions of America’s Founding Fathers.

Gemini’s bizarre results came after simple prompts, including one by The Post on Wednesday that asked the software to “create an image of a pope.”

Instead of yielding a photo of one of the 266 pontiffs throughout history — all of them white men — Gemini provided pictures of a Southeast Asian woman and a black man wearing holy vestments.

Another Post query for representative images of “the Founding Fathers in 1789″ was also far from reality.

Gemini responded with images of black and Native American individuals signing what appeared to be a version of the US Constitution — “featuring diverse individuals embodying the spirit” of the Founding Fathers.

Another showed a black man appearing to represent George Washington, in a white wig and wearing an Army uniform.

When asked why it had deviated from its original prompt, Gemini replied that it “aimed to provide a more accurate and inclusive representation of the historical context” of the period.

Generative AI tools like Gemini are designed to create content within certain parameters, leading many critics to slam Google for its progressive-minded settings.

Ian Miles Cheong, a right-wing social media influencer who frequently interacts with Elon Musk, described Gemini as “absurdly woke.”

Google said it was aware of the criticism and is actively working on a fix.

“We’re working to improve these kinds of depictions immediately,” Jack Krawczyk, Google’s senior director of product management for Gemini Experiences, told The Post.

“Gemini’s AI image generation does generate a wide range of people. And that’s generally a good thing because people around the world use it. But it’s missing the mark here.”

Read more here.

UPDATE 9.15.23: The Italian island of Lampedusa, usually home to about 6,000 people, has been swamped with illegal immigrants from Africa. Over 7,000 intruders have arrived on the island in the last 48 hours. The Italian Deputy Prime Minister, Matteo Salvini, has called the arrivals “an act of war.” Watch the distressing videos below for a glimpse of what the residents of Lampedusa now face:


UPDATE 7.13.2022: After losing its majority, in a recent election, French President Emmanuel Macron’s La République En Marche Party, the country’s ruling party, is being pushed to the right by Marine Le Pen’s rebranded anti-immigrant party, National Rally (Rassemblement National in french, and formerly called National Front). National Rally picked up a record number of seats for itself in June, putting pressure on the establishment parties to take the concerns of the French seriously.

The governing La République En Marche now wishes to show voters its tough stance on immigration by expelling all immigrants who commit serious offenses, even those who came to France before they were thirteen (these immigrants are currently exempt). Emma Morgan reports in Connexion France: 

France’s government is to present a new law which would enable it to expel any foreigner  who has “committed a serious offence,” regardless of the circumstances of them being in the country.

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin told Le Monde this weekend that this measure would be integrated into the Loi d’orientation et de programmation du ministère de l’intérieur (Lopmi), which will be presented to ministers in September.

“At the moment, a foreigner who commits a serious offence cannot be deported if they fulfil certain criteria, such as having arrived in France before the age of 13,” Mr Darmanin said.

“We want to enable the expulsion of any foreigner who has been found guilty of a serious crime by the courts, whatever the circumstances of their presence in France.

“We are prepared to discuss, to amend and to find compromises with Les Républicains, the centrists and even a section of the left,” on the terms of the future law, he added.

“We look at foreigners for what they do, not who they are, unlike [the far-right party] Rassemblement National. I respect them as parliamentarians, but we have nothing to discuss or negotiate with Rassemblement National or with [the far-left party] La France Insoumise.”

Laws can only be guaranteed to pass now if they are supported by MPs outside of the ruling party.

Mr Darmanin said that since he became interior minister, some 2,761 foreign people with criminal records have been deported from France, 60% as they were released from prison.

This figure is five times more than in previous years.

Mr Darmanin did not give examples of the crimes which would warrant expulsion from the country, but the list would include murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, organised crime and rape.

A proposal welcomed by Marine Le Pen

Rassemblement National’s Marine Le Pen welcomed Mr Darmanin’s ideas, saying: “If he wants to expel foreigners who are guilty of crimes (crimes) and offences (délits) it is 100 times yes [from me],” during an interview with BFM Politique.

UPDATE 1.24.2022: Pat Buchanan wrote the words below back in 2014, and America sits today with an inept administration, which has placed Kamala Harris in charge of “fixing” the border. Harris has so far done NOTHING, and in fact the administration has made things worse by removing as many of the successful Trump-era controls as possible from their operations.

Originally posted July 16, 2014

Nope, neither concept was on the minds of the Founders. And neither concept shared a place in the Constitution.

Pat Buchanan writes here that in Federalist No. 2., John Jay wrote, “Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people—a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs…”

Pat continues, “We were not a nation of immigrants in 1789.”

Pat writes that we are no longer that “band of brethren. …. Nearly 4 in 10 Americans trace their ancestry to Asia, Africa and Latin America. We are a multiracial, multilingual, multicultural society in a world being torn apart over race, religion and riots.”

France, as Debbie and I have found first hand in recent trips, is way ahead of the United States in moving to reform immigration and return to a “France for the French” policy. For a number of years, we have observed the fast-building power of the far right Front National party that recently, in the European elections, kicked the teeth out of the Socialist party of Francois Hollande.

Pat Buchanan asks, “If a country is a land of defined and defended borders, within which resides a people of common ancestry, history, language, faith, culture and traditions, in what sense are we Americans one nation and one people today?”

FN is forming a base to shut off the immigration spigot aiming at Eastern Europe, the Muslim countries, and Africa. FN wants to ship out all immigrants who are not seen as making a substantial contribution to France.

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Richard C. Young
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