There are two things the modern left cannot tolerate. In second place is dissent from their opponents. The modern left - i.e., the outgrowth of the 60's radical left - wholly jettisoned intellectual honesty and a desire for free and fair debate long, long ago. Any fact that does not support their side is ignored and every effort made to delegitimize the person speaking (Media Matters and the White House war on Fox is a classic example.) The modern left's playbook calls for shutting down debate as soon as possible.
The only thing the modern left hates more than dissent from their opponents is a heretic - one of their own who crosses the Democrat's plantation boundary and thinks for themselves. Yet that is what happened to independent film maker Eric Allen Bell, a man sufficiently far left that he was, at one time, a prolific diarist on Kos. Yet over the past year, while doing research on opposition to a new Mosque in Tennessee for what he intended to be his latest documentary - (more specifically, it was intended to be about racist Christian Islamaphobic yahoos). But Bell had an epiphany. He discovered that the vast majority of modern structural Islam - the mosques, the front organizations, the polemicists - they do not share his values. Indeed, it would be fair to say that he found that their values were wholly antithetical to his own.
As Bell began to sound the alarm in the left wing blogosphere, he ignited a firestorm of debate there.
Heh. Just joking.
His facts were ignored, he was labeled an Islamaphobe and quickly excommunicated from the left. You will find his fascinating story told in detail here. I'd like to highlight one point that he makes:
[O]ne thing Horowitz did say that came through with stunning clarity was an assertion that there was an unholy alliance between the Left and Islam, with radical Islam using the Liberal media to create a smoke screen for it – a place where radical can appear moderate and receive Liberal support. He also went on to say that in many universities across America that students were being radicalized, indoctrinated into the far Left. And I remembered something. Nearly all of the organizers for the college aged activist group who demonstrated in favor of the new mosque in Murfreesboro were either Socialists or Communists. These were kids and they all seemed to share one Professor in particular who was something of a mentor to them, a Socialist who always seemed to be hanging around their college parties, infiltrating into their social scene, taking the smarter and more articulate ones under his wing as their campus group called simply “Solidarity” grew in numbers – in fact recruiting quite a few students while organizing in favor of the mosque. Yikes.
There is a reason the socialist left is willing to make this tactical alliance with the Islamicists. The Muzzies help in pursuing what has been a, if not the, central goal of the socialists since their very inception, the destruction of Christianity and Judaism as the basis for our nation. And in that, Islam is the perfect momentary ally. The radical Muzzies make no secret of the fact that they seek to conquer Israel and to drive out Judaism and Christianity from all areas under their control. The left's faustian bargain with the radical Muzzies really is like the Hitler-Stalin pact, as the only thing the radical Muzzies hate more than the Jews or Christians are the godless - at least once the Muzzies have lost their use for them.
Until now, there was only a common law right to self defense in Britian that was at best unclear and which often functioned to make a criminal of a law abiding citizen doing nothing more than acting to protect their person and property. That is true no longer. Britain passed a law in September (I completely missed it) that goes into effect today outlining what appears to be a fairly robust right to self defense. This is superb news for Britain and it is a law I never expected a Labour Parliament to pass. I stand corrected. In a post written within the past 24 hours, Britain's Devil's Advocates, I took the socialists to task for the harm that they were doing to religion and law and order. My comments as to the former stand. My comments as to the latter, many of which were precisely on the British lack of a clear right to self defense, obviously are no longer accurate. It is not often that I am happy to be proven wrong and actually savor the taste of finely cooked crow. _______________________________________________________
This from the Telegraph:
Home owners and “have-a go-heroes” have for the first time been given the legal right to defend themselves against burglars and muggers free from fear of prosecution.
They will be able to use force against criminals who break into their homes or attack them in the street without worrying that "heat of the moment” misjudgements could see them brought before the courts.
Under new laws police and prosecutors will have to assess a person’s actions based on the person’s situation "as they saw it at the time” even if in hindsight it could be seen as unreasonable.
For example, homeowners would be able stab or shoot a burglar if confronted or tackle them and use force to detain them until police arrive. Muggers could be legally punched and beaten in the street or have their own weapons used against them.
However, attacking a fleeing criminal with a weapon is not permitted nor is lying in wait to ambush them.
The new laws follow a growing public campaign for people to be given the right to defend themselves and their own homes in the wake of a number of high profile cases.
In 2000, Tony Martin, the Norfolk farmer, was sent to prison for manslaughter for shooting an intruder in his home.
Earlier this year, Tony Singh, a shopkeeper, found himself facing a murder charge after he defended himself against an armed robber who tried to steal his takings. During the struggle the robber received a single fatal stab wound to the heart with his own knife.
The Crown Prosecution Service eventually decided Mr Singh should not be charged.
Until now people have had to prove in court that they acted in self defence but the changes mean police and the Crown Prosecution Service will decide on cases before this stage.
Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, said that people would be protected legally if they defend themselves "instinctively”; they fear for their own safety or that of others; and the level of force used is not excessive or disproportionate.
He added the changes in law were designed to ensure the criminal justice system was weighted in favour of the victim.
Mr Straw – and other Labour ministers – have previously repeatedly blocked attempts by opposition MPs to give greater protection to householders.
. . . The new self defence law, which came into force yesterday, is contained in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 and was announced by Mr Straw last September.
He is understood to have decided new laws were necessary after he was involved in four "have-a go’’ incidents, which included chasing and restraining muggers near his south London home.
. . . Mr Straw said: "The justice system must not only work on the side of people who do the right thing as good citizens, but also be seen to work on their side.
"The Government strongly supports the right of law abiding people to defend themselves, their families and their property with reasonable force. This law will help to make sure that that right is upheld and that the criminal justice system is firmly weighted in favour of the victim.
"Dealing with crime is not just the responsibility of the police, courts and prisons; it’s the responsibility of all of us. Communities with the lowest crime and the greatest safety are the ones with the most active citizens with a greater sense of shared values, inspired by a sense of belonging and duty to others, who are empowered by the state and are also supported by it – in other words, making a reality of justice.
"These changes in the law will make clear – victims of crime, and those who intervene to prevent crime, should be treated with respect by the justice system. We do not want to encourage vigilantism, but there can be no justice in a system which makes the victim the criminal.". . .
Read the entire article. You have to love how the law came about - the Home Office Secretary involved in chasing down criminals personally. One, my hat is off to him for his personal bravery. Two, the fact that his acts led to his support for a change in the law suppports a critical hypothesis that I formed long ago, that the elitist left has only a tenuous hold on reality and that their utopian attitudes change only through the rare personal exposure to reality. Now if Britain would only send the Lord Chief Justice and the Archbishop of Canterbury over to live in Saudi Arabia for a few months and get a chance to gain a greater understanding of Sharia law . . .
In the movie "Devil's Advocate," Satan returns to earth as a defense lawyer with the goal of destroying society by destroying respect for the law. Whoever wrote the script was incredibly insightful. Maintaining the rule of law is the foundational responsibility of government. If the government can't provide order, than society breaks down and individuals supply their own justice. A millenium ago, British society gave up, for the most part, trial by combat and private justice when the government instituted a fair system of laws and applied them with some balance. But what has taken the British a millenium to build up, the socialists are destroying at simply an amazing pace. Their new draft police guidelines could only have been drafted by an utter fool or a person bent on the destruction of British society. And what the socialists in Labour are doing to government and justice, the socialist occupying the position of Archbishop of Canterbury is doing to Christianity. ______________________________________________________
This from the Daily Mail:
Guidelines ordering police to respond to emergency calls within three hours and to attend less urgent incidents such as burglaries within three days have been drawn up by the Home Office.
The astonishing proposals were designed as 'national standards for local policing' in England and Wales.
They laid down a three-hour target for officers to reach an incident which 'requires policing intervention'.
And they allowed police to wait a leisurely three days where 'there is less immediate need’ for their presence.
The leaked draft targets were to be included in the Government's long-awaited Green Paper on police reform.
But after a barrage of criticism from the Opposition yesterday – which accused the Government of being out of touch with the public – Home Office officials insisted the targets will not appear in the final version of the paper when it is published tomorrow.
The apparent disarray follows Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's startling U-turn over proposals to force knife-crime offenders to confront victims in hospitals. That plan was floated and ditched within 24 hours.
The proposals for response times – part of a ‘Police Pledge’ to the public – appear to be so modest that they would be of little value as performance targets.
. . . The suggestion that householders who have suffered a burglary should wait up to three days for a visit raises serious questions about the fate of any forensic evidence left at the scene.
. . . A major review of policing earlier this year by watchdog Sir Ronnie Flanagan warned that police were becoming increasingly ‘risk-averse’, and that ‘excess bureaucracy’ was encouraging them to ‘overrecord and under-deliver'.
Read the entire article. This all takes on even more sinister ramifications when one realizes that British law essentially has disarmed the populace and that anecdotal evidence suggests that self defense is likely to send you to jail quicker than committing an actual crime. [Update - That is no longer true. Britian's new law of self defense came into effect about ten hours after I wrote this post.]
And even if one is actually are apprehended for a crime, Britain is simply not enforcing its laws with realistic jail sentence. There is an insane leftist bent on emotional catharsis as providing both punishment and redemption instead of the true punishment of repaying a debt to society in a jail cell. You can see it Jacqui Smith's call for the perpetrators of knife crime to be made to "confront" their victims. When I was Britain in 2003, I can recall a plan being debated on the BBC to significantly adjust jail sentences downwards if the perpetrator would issue a formal apology to their victim. Britain's socialists suffer from the dual disabilities of, one, not trusting individuals to manage their own lives - including to be armed and to act in self defense when police are on their three hour meander over to the scene of a serious crime - and two, looking at law enforcement and justice from the standpoint that society is somehow the root cause of crime. This is a disaster in the making. Were the Devil's Advocate based on reality, one could well imagine Satan leaning back in his office next 10 Downing St. feeling quite confident that all was on schedule.
And then there is Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Cantebury, doing to Christianity what Labour is doing to Britain. He is the man who prior to this day had praised Islam, damned America as an imperialist nation to a crowd of Muslims, blamed America for Muslim violence against Christians in the Middle East, refused to proselytize for Christianity among Muslims, and advocated implementing at least parts of Sharia law in Britain. The Archbishop's latest assault on the Christian faith has come in an apologia to Muslims for the violent history of Christianity and what seems an apology for one of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith - the Trinity. This from the Daily Mail:
Christian doctrine is offensive to Muslims, the Archbishop of Canterbury said yesterday.
Dr Rowan Williams also criticised Christianity's history for its violence, its use of harsh punishments and its betrayal of its peaceful principles.
His comments came in a highly conciliatory letter to Islamic leaders calling for an alliance between the two faiths for 'the common good'.
But it risked fresh controversy for the Archbishop in the wake of his pronouncement earlier this year that a place should be found for Islamic sharia law in the British legal system.
. . . The Archbishop's letter is a reply to feelers to Christians put out by Islamic leaders from 43 countries last autumn.
In it, Dr Williams said violence is incompatible with the beliefs of either faith and that, once that principle is accepted, both can work together against poverty and prejudice and to help the environment.
He also said the Christian belief in the Trinity - that God is Father, Son and Holy Ghost at the same time - 'is difficult, sometimes offensive, to Muslims'.
Trinitarian doctrine conflicts with the Islamic view that there is just one all-powerful God. . . .
Read the entire article. Its hard to know where to begin with idiocy of this magnitude coming from a man charged with defending the Anglican Christian faith.
Let's of over some basic facts for the Archbishop's benefit:
1. The use of force motivated by Christian beliefs is a part of the historical record. The use of force motivated by the desire to impose Islam is a matter of current events. The two are not morally equivalent.
2. Any original sin Christians suffer was wiped off by Christ's forgiveness on the cross. Any historical use of Christianity thereafter as a basis for violence was not done by anyone alive today. There is no need to apologize for it. There is an absolute need to demand that Islam break with violnece in the here and now.
3. A look at the historical record will show that, but for the Crusades, Christianity has been on the receiving end of Islamically motivated violence for approximately 1,300 years.
4. Even the Crusades were not an act of Christian aggression. They were a counterattack initiated after Christian lands had been steadily conquered by Islam for half a millenium and only after the Egyptian Caliph ordered the destruction of the most holy Church in Christendom, the Church of the Holy Sephulchre in Jerusalem.
5. Pretending that violence is not a part and parcel of how some of the sects of Islam interpret their religion today - including Salafi and Wahhabi sects - is suicidal and wholly out of touch with reality.
6. Apologizing for the Trinity is just beyond belief. If the good Archbishop has a firm belief in his convictions, then it would be impossible for him to apologize for his faith.
Archbishop Rowan Williams is every bit of a danger to Christianity as is Wahhabi Islam. Who will rid us of this troublesome priest, eh? That said, I am sure the Devil's advocate would want him to remain in place.
A porkbuster’s update from Instapundit: Senator Jim DeMint is proposing a one year moratorium in the Senate on bills containing earmarks.
Democrats trying to tag McCain as a friend of lobbyists may make for a sound bite today, but it is very far from the reality of the Real McCain.
From Gateway Pundit, free speech under fire in New Mexico as a Christian photographer is hauled before the Human Rights Commission for refusing to accept a job that would have required her to photograph a same-sex wedding.
"Death to . . . the Islamic Regime of Iran." Not the usual crowd chant in Tehran, but it was the one being shouted during a riot after the modesty police attempted to arrest a young woman for not dressing modestly enough to suit Ahmedinejad and his cronies. PJM has the story.
The Irish Elk weighs in on the NYT hit piece on McCain, providing an interesting historical anecdote. And TNOY has the scoop on new bombshell facts the NYT intends to expose in their next McCain piece.
At BizzyBlog, reporting on state government financial woes ignores the woeful over-spending that led to the problems in the first place.
Jules Crittenden’s site is unique in combining biting sarcasm with thoughtful commentary. And he is at it today with Gunga Din.
That said, as Rick Moran rightly states, "Enough with all this "Obama is a Muslim" crap." I concur, though I strongly disagree with Rick’s suggestion that the use of the word "Crusades" by Bush was a major faux pas. I refuse to bow down or rewrite history to serve anyone’s sensibilities – be they Muslim, Catholic or whatever. And the Crusades were merely the first time Christianity fought back against a Muslim onslaught that had been on-going for centuries.
The UN has finally identified the source of Palestinian terrorism. If you thought it might be Salafi Islam or Arab nationalism, think again. Its Israel, of course.
The Conservative Beach Girl still thinks that Hillary is in the race. But, she notes, if you want real Socialism in a hurry and not incrementally, Obama's your man.
From the Intergalactic Source of Truth, is supporting Kosovo independence a wise idea? I have not thought so. IGST offers some thoughtful commentary.
Victor David Hanson ponders whether the ailing Europe wants a President Obama. As he so eloquently puts it: Europe is in a classic paradox. Emotionally and culturally, Europeans are invested in a leftist such as Obama who reflects their soft socialist values and fuzzy multilateralism. But given their inherent military weakness and rough neighborhood, they have grown to count on an antithetical America — religious, conservative, militarily strong — that is not afraid to use force to fulfill its obligations to preserve the shared Western globalized system from its constant multifarious challenges.
Siggy needs to start doing stand-up. See his proposal for the new government seal.
From JoshuaPundit – Obama gets caught in another whopper. He does seem clueless about the military. Having led an infantry platoon and commanded an infantry company, I can assure you that Obama’s pronouncement gets just about ever possible wrong – all of which JP does a good job of cataloging.
Seraphic Secret notes the power of movies to motivate, and the power of movies to in the hands of people with an agenda to spread lies. It is a double edged sword – but the answer to lies is a determination to make the truth known.
I am not the only person worried about the economically illiterate, anti-capitalist and anti-free trade statements of she who would be President - a topic on which I posted here. It seems that Hillary Clinton's sophmoric musings have also disturbed Peter Mandelson, the EU trade commissioner, who sees in her words a serious danger to the world economy. This today from the Telegraph:
Peter Mandelson, the EU trade commissioner, has warned Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, that she risks stirring up a hornets nest by inflaming protectionist sentiment in the United States.
"The things she's been saying reverberate around the world," he said. "This is the last year the Doha trade round can survive. There is little chance of a breakthrough after this president leaves office. People in the current administration tell me the US is turning into a protectionsist country. It is a serious concern."
Mr Mandelson, the ex-architect of New Labour, once had close ties to the Democratic Party. But his duties as defender of the EU trade system now put him starkly at odds with his former allies and soulmates.
"The Democratic Party is not where it was in the free trade heyday of Bill Clinton, but I don't think it is irretrievable," he said.
Hillary Clinton has vowed to "review" America's main trade treaties, including the North American NAFTA pact signed by her husband. She has called for measures to "shelter" US companies from foreign investors.
Her arguments appear to go beyond campaign rhetoric. She now argues that "free trade" doctrines have been overtaken by the rise of cheap labour rivals in Asia, forcing the US to adopt a radically different strategy. "We just can't keep doing what we did in the twentieth century. We have to drive a tougher bargain," she said. . .
Read the article here. If Hillary Clinton believes half of what she has said about economics in America, she is tuly an economic illiterate and poses a danger to our economy and the world's economy if elected.
Several months ago, columnist Charles Krauthammer opined that he could live with a Hillary Clinton presidency. As he said of Hillary, "She has no principles. Her liberalism is redeemed by her ambition; her ideology subordinate to her political needs." While I agree with his assessment generally, I do not agree with his conclusion.
Hillary's economic ideology is different in both substance and degree from her husband’s. She clearly does not share her husband’s affinity for business and trade. Hillary's economic views appear socialist if not marxist, and they, in many ways. seem superficial and sophmoric. That notwithstanding, Hillary gives every indication that she intends to push the government into the center of America’s economy if elected as President.
Ms. Clinton has clearly stated her economic philosophy over the years. For example, in a 1996 interview with C-SPAN’s Brian Lamb, Hillary was asked about a quote she had included in her book, "It Takes a Village," that expressed severe criticism of free market economics. The exchange and response were:
LAMB: There's a quote here. I want to ask you if you agree with this. This is from Alan Arenhault, author of "The Lost City" -- you put it in your book. "The unfettered free market has been the most radically disruptive force in American life in the last generation."
CLINTON: I believe that. That's why I put it in the book. . . .
That is an incredibly strong statement. And to the best of my knowledge, it is not one she has ever retracted, either in deed or substance. Further, during the same interview, Hillary discussed her appreciation for the socialist policies of Europe – and I assume here that they are many of the same one’s Sarkozy is today trying to strip from France so that his country can compete economically. As she states:
CLINTON: Well, I am a fan of a lot of the social policies that you find in Europe, . . .
"Other developed countries, including some of our fiercest competitors, are more committed to social stability than we have been, and they tailor their economic policies to maintain it."
The NRO reports a 1995 conversation with Dennis Hastert on Social Security in which Hillary argued against personal accounts saying, "We can’t afford to have that money go to the private sector. The money has to go to the federal government because the federal government will spend that money better than the private sector will spend it."
In 2004, Clinton, speaking to an assembly in San Francisco, stated "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."
All of the above constitute merely antecdotal evidence. But Hillary's specific economic proposals are fully in keeping with this antecdotal evidence. For example, it was not long ago that Hillary proposed to strip American oil companies of their profits so that she can fund R&D for new sources of energy.
She really needs to take a course in basic economics. The oil industry has been the subject of recent investigations – several of them actually – to look into price gouging, price fixing and profits. In no case was anything found to be wrong. And furthermore, the reality is that the majority of their profits were being reinvested into finding and exploiting new sources of energy. I hate to begin to contemplate what damage an unchained Hillary could do to the energy sector, energy supplies and energy prices in the U.S. were she to attempt something so utterly ludicrous as what she has suggested here. (And as an aside, if we wish to achieve energy independance, the first things that we need to do are remove the impediments to exploiting our domestic resources - and Hillary is a major part of that impediment.)
"I have a plan - a moratorium on foreclosures for 90 days [and] freezing interest rates for five years, which I think we should do immediately," Clinton announced at what was the last Democratic debate before the Nevada Caucus on Jan. 19.
A government enforced control such as this would severly distort the market. As the writers at Fortune magazine see it:
. . . such a freeze would be disastrous. Interest rates on new mortgages would skyrocket - perhaps past 8 percent, as the mutual funds, pension funds and other investors who typically provide capital to the mortgage market shift their money into other investments where the government isn't impairing returns. With higher mortgage rates eroding buying power, the downward pressure on home prices would only increase. Lower home prices would lead to even more defaults, as more folks who'd lost the equity in their homes choose to walk away from their mortgages.
"It certainly would not speed the recovery of the housing market," says Doug Duncan, chief economist of the Mortgage Bankers Association. "The problem now is that investors are already worried about what the risks are, and (a rate freeze) would only widen risk premiums more."
Do you see a pattern here? Hillary, for all her intelligence, has woeful economic ideas and an anti-business animus that could truly injure our nation’s economy. And, if elected, she fully intends to use the power of government to manipulate the economy.
As she said in the NYT just yesterday, she does not trust "market forces." Rather she believes that the government should "play an active role" to correct "the excesses of the market and of the Bush administration." Compared to her husband, "she has long been more skeptical about the benefits of freer trade and other aspects of a free-market economy." Read the entire article.
I think the only way to characterize Ms. Clinton is as a strongly committed socialist, bordering on being a marxist. Yes, it is possible that she is simply blowing populist smoke at the nation with her incredibly sophmoric suggestions for massive taxation of oil company profits and imposing a five year mortgage interest rate freeze. But I will never vote for someone on the hope that they are lying to me about their intentions. And even if Hillary is more economically sophisticated than her pronouncements suggest, I think that she is sincere when she says that she wants to use the power of government to manipulate the economy. And I beleive she is sincere in her expressions of dislike for free trade or free markets. And lastly, she has convinced me that her knee-jerk reaction will be to intervene with the heavy hand of government in response to any perceived inequities or downturns in the market.
To put this in perspective, we are now facing some rather dismal economic news for which the President and Congress must take responsibility. President Bush’s economic policies have been, I would say, poor. Although we have had good growth and a relatively strong economy under Bush, in the long term, it was not sustainable under his policies. His "weak dollar" policy threatens havoc to the world economy so long as it stays dollar based and he has done nothing to rein in out-of-control spending by Congress. Arguably, the fed held interest rates too low for too long which has had a significant hand in causing the current sub-prime crisis. But indications are that the market is already correcting for these discrepancies, and that we should be able to weather this downturn without too much pain so long as our government does not act irrationally. Some ineffectual intervention – such as the one now being considered by President Bush - is necessary politically because the nation demands the appearance of action. To the extent that intervention is minimized, so much the better.
The next President will inherit the world’s strongest economy – and one that has already weathered or is about to come out of a recession and market correction. We have the world’s largest economy by far because of free market capitalism and free trade - though arguably with far too much existing regulation. That notwithstanding, there has not been a socialist nation yet that can even begin to compete with the U.S. economically. What the next President needs to do to keep our economy strong is, first and foremost, do no harm. Beyond that, the economy would benefit were the next President to pursue more free trade agreements and act to improve the business environment in America by repealing Sarbanes Oxley and by reducing the corporate tax rates that are so high as to be approaching non-competitive. Further, the next President would do well indeed to strengthen the dollar and get spending under control.
Hillary Clinton would seem to be the last person to undertake any of these tasks. Indeed, taking her at her word, she would clearly lead the nation in the opposite direction. The few economic ideas she has posited would be laughable if not for being so utterly dangerous to the economy. And her desire to manage the economy and adopt a socialist economic structure portend only ill. Thus, I am nowhere near as sanguine about a Hillary Clinton presidency as Charles Krauthammer seems to be.
Update: I am not the only person concerned with Hillary's apparent economic illiteracy. She has the EU Trade Commissioner concerned also.
At some point it will be generally acknowledged that the enemies of free speech and liberalism in the world today are those who occupy the left side of the aisle, whether they denominate themselves as progressives, socialists, secular humanists, or quite disingunously, liberals. Today's example comes from that grand experiment in socialism, the EU.
At the EU Parliament, those MEP's who seek to argue that the new EU constitution imposed by the Lisbon Treaty should be subject to a referendum of the people are being silenced and disciplined for their temerity. As the authors of the blog EU Referendum cogently comment, the EU "may have gone for the trappings of democracy, with their votes and their "parliament" but they will not brook dissent."
For backround on this issue, see here. What is occurring today in Europe with the EU is nothing less than a socialist coup. And now today, the latest from Euroskeptic MEP Daniel Hannan in the Telegraph:
. . . Once again, I and a group of other MEPs asked to exercise our right to explain, in not more than one minute, why we voted as we did. Once again, the European Parliament chose to ignore its rulebook and deny us that right, cutting off the session after 20 minutes. You can watch the Deputy Speaker’s explanation of why he did so here.
Let us be clear about what is happening. We Eurosceptic MEPs have never before, in 30 years, sought to delay the business of the House. We are doing so now only to protest about the outrageous cancellation of the promised referendums on the European Constitution, and about the EU’s illegal implementation of large parts of that document in anticipation of formal ratification. Our action would not have halted parliament’s business: all it would have done is to slow things down very slightly. Had they been sensible, the federalist MEPs would have rolled with the punch and allowed us to make our point peaceably — as Diana Wallace, a likeable Lib Dem who happened to be in the chair yesterday, did. But we Eurosceptics often have an unsettling effect on our colleagues. Whenever one of us stands up, a red mist seems to descend on the integrationist majority. They can’t bring themselves to do anything we ask — however reasonable our request, and however unreasonable they make themselves look by denying it. (See, for example, the pompous blog by Labour MEP Richard Corbett, despite his reported private acknowledgment that the parliamentary authorities were behaving illicitly.
Fourteen MEPs, including my Tory colleague Roger Helmer and various UKIP members, have now been summoned to be disciplined over their participation in the pro-referendum demonstration last month.
Sanctions might include a €1000 fine or suspension without pay for up to ten days. Now it is true that some Euro-MPs behaved yobbishly on that occasion: it would have been better had they held up their “REFERENDUM” placards in silence. But, as I recorded at the time, the tumult was sparked by the Speaker’s decision to send his officers to tear away the placards (which the poor ushers did apologetically and with great charm). In other words, the Speaker would not even tolerate the word “referendum” in the chamber.
Meanwhile, I am continuing to mimic Marcus Porcius Cato, who ended every speech with a call for Carthage to be destroyed (usually recorded as "delenda est Carthago”. This afternoon, I spoke on the European Human Rights Institute, on Europol (the federal police force), on Turkish accession and on the EU’s policy towards the South Caucasus, and each time I ended with a call for the Lisbon Treaty to be put to the vote. . . Pactio Olisipiensis Censenda Est. . .
In the mean time, the European Parliament has put itself so at odds with natural justice, with democratic principles and with its own rules of procedure that it is doubtful whether we can still call it a parliament. . .
Read the entire article here. The more one pays attention to the world, the more one has to be convinced that George Orwell was a prophet.
Operation Iron Harvest is going on in Northern Iraq to push al Qaeda out of their final footholds. The Washington Post reports that the operation has resulted in 60 insurgents killed and over 200 captured during the past week. The NYT apparently missed the briefing.
The NYT is a case study in the failure of journalistic ethics and yellow journalism. Their latest the other day was a lead story clearly meant "to convince Americans that combat experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan are turning troops into murderers when they come home." True, returning vets committed or are charged with 121 murders in the United States since our current wars began. But, as Ralph Peters points out – but the Times does not – in context that means our soldiers "are five times less likely to commit a murder than their demographic peers."
And according to the NYT in an editorial yesterday, Iraq and the surge are no longer of importance to the general election. The Weekly Standard sees it a bit differently. "As the surge in Iraq has succeeded, the presidential campaign of John McCain has risen from the ashes. This is no coincidence, and the message is simple and unmistakable. The surge is now a powerful force in American politics. In the jargon of the 2008 presidential race, it's a game-changer."
The Iraqi Minister of Defense sees a security need for U.S. troops in Iraq for about another decade. He estimates that Iraq "will be able to take full control of the internal affairs of the country" by 2012. "[R]egarding protection from any external threats, our calculation appears that we are not going to be able to answer to any external threats until 2018 to 2020." The Defense Minister made these statements as the U.S. and Iraq negotiate U.S. troop presence in the country following the end of the UN mandate.
Bringing much needed sanity to the tort bar’s the search for deep pockets irrespective of responsibility is the Supreme Court with its 5-3 decision in Stoneridge Investment Partners v. Scientific-Atlanta. The court held that third party actors and business associates of the corporate entity that committed fraud cannot be held liable for the fraud if investors did not rely on their statements in making an investment decision. Read the entire decision here.
The spectre of Islamic radicalism in Pakistan is very much a Frankenstein’s monster. Radicalism was nurtured in Pakistan by Pakistan’s ISI and funded by Saudi Arabia to produce militants useful in pressuring India and controlling Afghanistan. But those radicals have long since cut the imbelical cord, and the ISI itself is suspect.
In the People’s Republic of California, the state plans to take control of the thermostats. One is both amazed at the incredible hubris of the left and the amount of damage and mischief their schemes of centralized control for the greater good of mankind inevitably portent.
Freedom of speech is under assault today in Britain. A British blogger whom I have had occasion to read, Lionheart, has posted on his website that he expects to be arrested upon his return to the United Kingdom for things that he has posted on his blog. Likely as a result of his commentary on Islam, he will be charged with "stirring up racial hatred."
Lionheart is a modern pamphleteer. He uses his blog to shine a light on the evils of radical Islam, primarily within the borders of the UK. He sees the growth of radical Islam in his country as insidious and a threat to the very existence of British culture, if not Britain itself.
(Update) As to the foundation for Lionheart's belief, please see these recent revelations in the British press. The first, from the Telegaph, discusses the existance of Muslim 'no-go' areas in the UK where the indigenous population dare not tread. The day after that article was released, the allegations were confirmed by Manzoor Moghal, chairman of the Muslim Forum in Britain, who, writing in the Daily Mail, expressed his horror at the rise of radical Islam in Britain's Muslim population, and, in a stinging indictment, expressed his judgment that the U.K. socialist's policy of "multiculturalism has backfired spectacularly." Not surprisingly, PM Gordon Brown denied that any major problem exists. And it is telling that all of the major British political parties, including the supposedly conservative Tory party, "have responded with knee-jerk predictability, desperate as ever not to offend Muslim sensibilities." Lastly, there is this from the Times, discussing how multiculturalist policies have fanned the flames of radicalism in Britain to the point where the majority strain of Deobandi Islam now present in Britain is more radical and militant than that to be found in Pakistan. To put that in some perspective, do recall that it is Pakistan's radical Deobandis that form the core of the Taliban.
With all of that in mind, do visit Lionhearts blog. Lionheart’s descriptions of what he sees in his own local community are dire. But while his language may be emotional, Lionheart ultimately is no different than thousands of bloggers in the U.S. who similarly note, deconstruct, and critically discuss radical Islam. He just happens to be living in Luton, ground zero for radical Islam in the UK. It is also important to note that Lionheart does not promote violence against Muslims. (Update: Phyllis Chessler provides more background and an interview here)
I contacted Lionheart to get additional information about his claim that he faced imminent arrest, and he put me in contact with the attorney whom he has retained, Anthony Bennett. I spoke with Mr. Bennett, who confirmed the following facts:
1. The Bedfordshire police have contacted Lionheart to arrange for him to submit to arrest.
2. Lionheart asked the police why he would to be arrested. A Bedfordshire police officer sent Lionheart an e-mail, forwarded to me by Mr. Bennett, which read in pertinent part:
The offence that I need to arrest you for is "Stir up Racial Hatred by displaying written material" contrary to sections 18(1) and 27(3) of the Public Order Act 1986.
You will be arrested on SUSPICION of the offence. You would only be charged following a full investigation based on all the relevant facts and CPS consent.
3. Mr. Bennett adds "There are already a number of aspects about this case involving not only ‘Lionheart’ but concerning other friends of his which are almost certain to result in a complaint being made to the Independent Police Complaints Commission."
4. There has been nothing filed yet by the police that will tell us precisely what blog posts they will be using to prosecute Lionheart. That will only become known after his arrest. Further, we do not yet know who was responsible for making a complaint to the police.
The Public Order Act of 1986 makes it an offense to "stir up racial hatred." The act defines "racial hatred" as "hatred against a group of persons defined by reference to colour, race, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins." The law does not define the word "hatred." The specific provisions of the Public Order Act of 1986 mentioned by the police in their e-mail to Lionheart are:
18 (1) A person who uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, is guilty of an offence if—
(a) he intends thereby to stir up racial hatred, or
(b) having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby.
27 (3) A person guilty of an offence under this Part is liable— (a) on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding seven years or a fine or both;
To call this law a gross assault on freedom of speech would be the height of understatement. It criminalizes the content of speech and it applies a wholly subjective threshold – "hatred" – for finding guilt. There is no question that this law would be unconstitutional in the U.S. This is ironic because our 1st Amendment freedoms of speech and the press derive from British common law as it existed in 1776. Yet Britain never adopted a written Constitution, thus setting the stage for the modern day socialists to silence and stifle free speech by merely passing laws through Parliament.
To put this in the broader context, socialists in Britain and throughout Europe, are using their laws to protect Islam from substantive criticism as part of a suicidal marriage of convenience. That marriage combines the socialist's core ethos of multiculturalism with the creation of a reliable, and increasingly critical, Muslim electoral bloc. As Bret Stephen wrote in the Wall Street Journal:
For Muslim voters in Europe, the attractions of the Socialists are several. Socialists have traditionally taken a more accommodating approach to immigrants and asylum-seekers than their conservative rivals. They have championed the welfare state and the benefits it offers poor newcomers. They have promoted a multiculturalist ethos, which in practice has meant respecting Muslim traditions even when they conflict with Western values. In foreign policy, Socialists have often been anti-American and, by extension, hostile to Israel. That hostility has only increased as Muslim candidates have joined the Socialists' electoral slates and as the Muslim vote has become ever more crucial to the Socialists' electoral margin.
The mere existence of the hate speech laws on the books is chilling to freedom of speech as the potential penalties are severe. And there is a mountain of evidence beyond the prospective arrest of Lionheart that the socialist Labour Party in Britain are using their hate speech laws to stifle speech and proscribe certain thoughts.
Perhaps the most infamous example of the misuse of hate speech laws by the socialist Labour Government comes out of the BNP prosecutions and, in particular, statements made by then Chancellor, now Prime Minister, Gordon Brown.
In 2004, the BBC surreptitiously filmed a speech by members of the British Nationalist Party (BNP). Caught on film were BNP members who described Islam as a "wicked, vicious faith" and who said that Muslims were turning Britain into a "multi-racial hell hole". The Crown used the Public Order Act of 1986 to prosecute the BNP members for stirring up racial hatred. After two lengthy trials, the first of which ended in a partial hung jury, the BNP members were acquitted. Their attorney argued at both trials that the speech was a part of legitimate political discourse. Gordon Brown commented after the trial:
Laws protecting Britain's ethnic and religious minorities may be tightened after the leader of the British National Party was cleared of trying to stir up racial hatred, Chancellor Gordon Brown said last night.
The Chancellor promised a fresh look at the law in the light of the decision of a jury at Leeds Crown Court yesterday to clear BNP leader Nick Griffin and his fellow activist
. . . Mr Brown said: "Mainstream opinion in this country will be offended by some of the statements that they have heard made. Any preaching of religious or racial hatred will offend mainstream opinion in this country. And I think we have got to do whatever we can to root it out, from whatever quarter it comes."
Does that take your breath away - trying to convict someone and sentincing them for up to seven years in prison for "offending" "mainstream opinion?" PM Gordon Brown will never be confused in the history books with Voltaire. It is both amazing and telling that Brown's statement raised not a hue and cry in Britain.
Regardless of how one feels about the BNP, there is a reason to protect their free speech rights that goes to the very heart of a liberal democracy. As George Washington once said "If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter." And there is no doubt that the people of Britain today are being led by their socialist government like sheep to the slaughter. Freedom of speech is stifled, criminalized or manipulated by the socialists on all of the major challenges Britain faces today, be it open borders immigration that threatens to swamp the country’s infrastructure, the surrender of sovereignty to the EU, or the challenge of Europe’s most radicalized Islamic population. More particularly, the socialists are using the hate speech laws to enforce their brand of politically correct multiculturalism on Britain.
Another example is also illuminating. On January 15, 2007, Britain’s Channel 4 broadcast Undercover Mosque, an expose of the hatred and violence being preached in Britain’s mosques. Here is part 1 of that program. It clearly exposes the type of radicalization going on in Britain’s mosques – and indeed, it is precisely the type of things shown in this video that Lionheart rails against in his blog. Parts 2 through 6 are embedded at the end of this post.
If you are wondering who was investigated for violation of the Hate Speech laws as a result of this program, it was none of the Wahhabi and Deobandi clerics who appeared therein preaching violence, hatred and seperatism. It was Channel 4 for broadcasting the show.
In another recent incident, a Reverend was investigated by police for a hate crime for merely making an innocuous posting about Islam on his website. In commenting upon that situation, Simon Davis, a British subject, said:
Clearly, this is no longer a free country. Expressions of opinion, taste and preference are now heavily policed - but not in every case. Oh, no. Take for starters the case of the Channel Four documentary which exposed the genuine religious hatred given voice by certain Islamic preachers. Instead of acting against the guilty, the police investigated the programme makers! What, I wonder, would their order of priorities have been had the preachers been Christian? Or white?
Again, when Islamic extremists were giving utterance to death threats outside the Danish Embassy some months ago, the only people arrested or stopped were those white persons foolhardy enough to object. A Christian who distributed leaflets bearing Biblical texts hostile to homosexuality was subjected to all sorts official enquiry. Sir Iqbal Sacranie, meanwhile, airs his anti-gay opinions on national radio and nothing is done.
Once we did not police thoughts and subjected utterance to minimal restraint. Our target was action - violent action and it was punished with swift severity. The result was a lively, stimulating and peaceful environment. Now the courts act on the assumption that most violent action can be excused, whilst crusading against any defendant whose motives might appear on the list of proscribed opinions.
The second truth to emerge is that if any group in British society is now subject to prejudice and de facto legal disability it is the idigenous, white population. This is the logical outcome of so-called "positive" discrimination. It is the end result of a world-view which portrays the ills of the world as issuing from the culture of Europe. Not only does the present generation of Europeans have to expiate the sins of its forefathers but they are denied any sense of having forefathers at all.
No wonder we are all so demoralised as to have given up the business of "generation" altogether. The monstrous but influential web of hard left opinion - which has come to oppose reason and objectivity themselves as merely "western" and therefore false concepts - is now threatening to asphyxiate our culture. The case of the bullied clergyman is now sadly typical of life in this country.
That explains the why of what is happening to Lionheart. Britain of course has the right to commit national suicide. What they should not have the right to do is convict a blogger for merely contesting the suicide. Lionheart deserves our support. And that support is not given wholly out of charity. Britain is the lynchpin of democracy and western values in Europe. If Britain should ever lose its character, which appears well on its way to happening, our own country would increasingly be isolated.
FREE SPEECH? WHAT'S THAT? British blogger to be arrested for inciting racial hatred. What, are they channeling the Saudis in Britain? If you're interested in supporting free speech rights, the British Embassy's contact page is here. As with the Saudi case I don't know much about the blogger, but I don't need to -- people shouldn't be arrested merely for blogging things that the powers-that-be don't like. . .
I concur. My suggestion is that we need to do all we can to publicize this case through our blogs, to write letters to our Congress, and attempt to get the MSM involved. The case of Lionheart needs as much light shined on it as possible – for his sake and ours.
Addendum: There is some significance to the fact that Lionheart is being prosecuted for stirring up racial hatred under the Public Order Act of 1986 and not being prosecuted, at least as of yet, under the new Racial and Religious Hatred Act of 2006. To the extent that Lionheart’s arrows are pointed anywhere, they are being pointed at radical Islam irrespective of nationality.
The new law, which just came into effect on Oct. 1, provides:
29A Meaning of "religious hatred:" In this Part "religious hatred" means hatred against a group of persons defined by reference to religious belief or lack of religious belief.
29B (1) A person who uses threatening words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, is guilty of an offence if he intends thereby to stir up religious hatred.
29J Protection of freedom of expression. Nothing in this Part shall be read or given effect in a way which prohibits or restricts discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents, or of any other belief system or the beliefs or practices of its adherents, or proselytising or urging adherents of a different religion or belief system to cease practising their religion or belief system.
Amazingly, this bill to criminalize "religious hate" was first introduced without Article 29J after the attacks of 9-11, with politically correct cries of Islamaphobia filling the air waves in Britain. It did not get through the House of Lords. However, the socialist Labour government continuously pushed this legislation at the urging of such groups as the Muslim Council of Britain. The House of Lords eventually agreed to a watered down version with protections for freedom of expression in Article 29J. There are no such provisions protecting freedom of expression in the Public Order Act of 1986.
Article 29J likely applies to virtually everything about which Lionheart blogs. Thus, it would seem that the government is attempting to silence Lionheart’s speech by portraying his criticism of Islam as racial rather than religious in nature. The problem with that of course is that Islam is not a race.
If global warming is the new religion of world socialism - and even the Pope seems to think so - than the IPCC's Bali Conference, now ended, was its High Mass. And from the way some of the particpants have reacted, one might think that . . . well, a noxious fume had been let loose amongst the otherwise pristine sea air circulating in the Global Warming Cathedral. Much to the chagrin of the true believers present in Bali, the US apparently could not be cajoled into putting a stake in capitalism by agreeing to a massive redistribution of its national wealth via a carbon tithe. That in fact was a major motivation of many of the faithful who were present for the services, as reported by one attendee:
A common theme [at the Bali Conference] was that the "solutions" to climate change that are being posed by many governments, such as nuclear power, carbon capture and storage (CCS) and biofuels are false and are not rooted in justice. Another point was that as this current economic system got us here in the first place, a climate change response must . . . [provide for] a redistribution of wealth and resources.
See here. And the U.S. didn't even agree to come on board for an economy busting massive decrease in its carbon footprint, though it did agree to talk more about it.
All of this was apparently too much for the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Yvo de Boer, the man negotiating on behalf of the UN at Bali. Fashionably dressed in eco-friendly church attire - a floral shirt - Mr. de Boer had to be led away when he broke down in tears over the failure to reach an agreement for a hard target reduction in carbon emissions. The "Crying Dutchman's" emotional outburst was emblematic of the angst that many of the parishioners seemed to be feeling when they characterized the end result of Bali as "fatally flawed." It should go without saying that such characterization is all a matter of one's perspective. But not all in Bali were held back by ecognosticism. Britain's Labour government certainly was not.
The socialists in Britain's Labour government are true believers. Indeed, Labour is trying to indoctrinate Britain's young in this new religion, making the Goracle's "An Inconvenient Truth" part of the national school curriculum for children aged 11 to 13. And Prime Minister Gordon Fawkes Brown considers himself a standard bearer of the faith, vowing to "lead Europe on climate change." Shortly before the Bali service convened, he committed Britain to a massive 60% reduction of carbon emissions by 2050. Its not hard to forecast what that will do to Britain's economy if it ever comes to fruition.
Of course, the reality is that Britain's economy no longer belongs to Brown, he having unilaterally signed over the sovereignty of Britain to the EU the other day. But, that aside, is hardly the end of PM Gordon Fawkes Brown's madness. Christopher Booker comments in the Telegraph upon Gordon's latest folly in Bali, or, as Booker characterizes it, "the maddest single decision ever made by British ministers." Booker is referring to Gordon's decision, announced through his Secretary Timothy Hutton "amid the clouds of self-righteous humbug billowing out from Bali," to build "7,000 giant offshore wind turbines round Britain's coast by 2020, to meet our EU target on renewable energy." Booker examines this "megalomaniac project" that defies reality:
For a start, no one mentioned costs. Mr Hutton spoke of his turbines, equivalent to one every half mile of coastline, as having a capacity of 33 gigawatts (GW), a hefty chunk of the 75GW of power we need at peak demand. But with the cost of giant offshore turbines, as tall as 850 feet, estimated at £1.6 billion per GW of capacity, this represents a bill of more than £50 billion - equivalent to the colossal sum earmarked last week by central banks to shore up the world banking system.
But of course the point about offshore turbines is that, because wind blows intermittently, they only generate on average at a third or less of capacity. So Mr Hutton's 33GW figure comes down to 11GW. To generate this much power from "carbon-free" nuclear energy would require six or seven nuclear power stations and cost, at something under £20 billion, less than half as much as the turbines.
This, however, is only the start of the madness. Because those turbines would generate on average only a third of the time, back-up would be needed to provide power for the remaining two thirds - say, another 12 nuclear power stations costing an additional £30 billion, putting the real cost of Mr Hutton's fantasy at nearer £80 billion - more than doubling our electricity bills.
. . . The turbines' siting would mean that much of the national grid would have to be restructured, costing further billions. And because wind power is so unpredictable and needs other sources available at a moment's notice, it is generally accepted that any contribution above 10 per cent made by wind to a grid dangerously destabilises it.
Two years ago, much of western Europe blacked out after a rush of German windpower into the continental grid forced other power stations to close down. The head of Austria's grid warned that the system was becoming so unbalanced by the "excessive" building of wind turbines that Europe would soon be "confronted with massive connector problems". Yet Mr Hutton's turbines would require a system capable of withstanding power swings of up to 33GW, when the only outside backup on which our island grid can depend is a 2GW connector to France (which derives 80 per cent of its electricity from nuclear power). . .
Amen. If only Ted Kennedy had a summer home overlooking the North Sea, Booker and his small number of like minded heretical Brits might able to generate some staunch opposition to such a project.
The bottom line of all this is that socialists are largely ascendent throughout the world today, they are using global warming as a tool to advance their political philosophy, and we may well get dragged into this if we are not careful. While we desperately need to get off oil, and we do need to husband the environment, those things have precious little in common with goals and methods of the religion of global warming. Newt Gingrich's A Contract With The Earth is well worth a read in this regard.
Addendum: Reading the Treaty of Lisbon the other day was quite educational. The Treaty of Lisbon is the one just signed that marks the EU's debut as a true state and establishes a Constitution for the EU. The fine folks at the EU have taken the dubious scientific proposition of global warming, turned it into dogma, and made it a matter of Constitutional law.
By Article 4 of the new Lisbon Treaty/Constitution, the EU takes primacy to pass laws on the "environment." The Treaty/Constitution amends Article 179 to explicitly recognize the problem of "climate change" as an "environmental" problem and provides the EU with a constitutional mandate to take appropriate measures to "deal with" it. It is a constitutional excuse for centralizing power and redistributing wealth on a scale unheard of. And as Constitutional law, that means that judicially, "climate change" is a settled issue. No amount of scientific argument will even be heard as a means to challenge any law the EU chooses to pass in which they claim global warming as a justification. The ramifications of that are just jaw dropping. If global warming is a socialist's wet dream, than the people that staff the EU are going to bed warm and comfy each night in globally warmed pup tents.
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