Labour, The Scales of Justice & Our Far Left

In the UK, a group of knife wielding thugs invaded a home and terrorized a family, seriously beating at least one of the family members. They ran when two of the family members managed to arm themselves with clubs. The two family members caught up with one of the thugs - who also happens to have 50 prior convictions - and administered some severe street justice. The end result, the knife wielding thug was given a "two year supervised order" - i.e., probation - and the two family members who seriously beat this career criminal after he had threatened their lives end up sentenced to jail for over two years each. You can read the whole story at the Daily Mail.

As I've blogged before, see here and here, the British justice system is an utter travesty tearing at the fabric of British society. Average citizens are given criminal records, while people convicted of serious and repeated crimes go through the revolving door of the British justice system. Under the Labour government, the British justice system has devolved to become ever more lenient in the treatment of criminals. In Britain, "rehabilitation"takes precedence over punishment. Leaving aside for a moment the moral imperative of government to punish a criminal on behalf of the victim, If history tells us anything, it is that rehabilitation in the absence of punishment rarely occurs. Most criminals merely realize that they will not be punished and carry on. The people who get the book thrown at them are common citizens who commit the ultimate sin of violating one of the left's socialist policies - or, as in this case, act in their own self defense. Rob twenty houses, get probation. Make an anti-gay reference, prepare for legal proceedings.

At the heart of today's far left is the belief that the unwashed masses must be controlled by their governing superiors. At the turn of the 20th century, British citizens were able to carry weapons, including hand guns, and it was a much more crime free society. Today, but a decade into the 21st century, not only can you not own a hand gun or a rifle in Britain, you are not even allowed anything as innocuous as pepper spray or CS gas. The Labour government is utterly convinced that its subjects are incapable of acting responsibly and must themselves be completely disarmed and dissuaded by police power from all but the most limited acts of self defense.

The thing that ought to scare readers on this side of the pond is the realization that the far left who have run Britain for the better part of the past six decades are mirror images of are own far left. Everything that Obama is seeking to install in America is already in place in Britain. If you want to know where the path leads that our far left wants to take, you need look no further than the UK. And indeed, note that the UK is no longer even a country. It is now subdivided into separate provinces of the EU. That was accomplished without even a vote of the people, despite a promise to allow a referendum. The far left of the UK has no respect for participatory democracy. Neither does our own far left government. These people are dangerous.

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Britain's Devil's Advocates (Updated)

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.
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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.

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King Pardons Saudi Victim of Gang Rape

We now have a minimaly acceptable end to what has been a Sharia human rights nightmare. The matter arose in Saudi Arabia out of the brutal gang-rape of the 19 year old "Girl from Qatif" and her subsuquent sentencing to 200 lashes and six months in prison.

The Washington Post is reporting:

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has pardoned a female rape victim who had been sentenced to six months in prison and 200 lashes, a Saudi newspaper reported Monday.

Saudi Justice Minister Abdullah bin Muhammed al-Sheik told al-Jazirah newspaper that the pardon does not mean the king doubted the country's judges, but instead acted in the "interests of the people.

"The king always looks into alleviating the suffering of the citizens when he becomes sure that these verdicts will leave psychological effects on the convicted people, though he is convinced and sure that the verdicts were fair," al-Jazirah quoted al-Sheik as saying.

The facts of this case have been well documented to show the incredible brutality and misogyny of Saudi Arabia's Sharia law. Those facts are documented here, here and here. Prior to this pardon, it appeared that the Saudi Justice Ministry was attempting a very ham handed and transparent cover-up. Indeed, as you can tell from the Justice Ministry quotes above, it would seem they are still trying to spin the unspinable.

While King Abdullah has done justice in this case, the reality remains that there has been no systemic change to the medieval Saudi system of justice and punishment that was able to produce this travesty. What has happened is the tremendous international criticism - and internal criticism - over this case likely motivated the pardon.

In all fairness to King Adbullah, who is what amounts to a "reformer" in Saudi Arabia, he has tried unsuccessfully to reform his country's justice system. The attorney for the Girl from Qatif, Abdul-Rahman al-Lahem, was hopeful that this case might indeed provide the impetus for reform. Let us hope he is right, or there will be other such "girls" who may find themselves being judicially flogged for little more than being the victims of rape.

And that said, al Lahem was himself threatened with suspension of his law license by the Ministry of Justice over his defense of this case. What happens to him might be a better indicator of the likelihood of reform than the much needed pardon for the gang rape victim in this case.

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Khomeinist Justice

In a case reminiscent of the horrific murder of Canadian journalist, Zahra Kazemi, Radio Free Europe is reporting on the case of yet another young woman brutalized by the Khomeinist theocracy after being arrested by the regimes thugs, the Basij. Her crime was to be seen holding hands with a man not related to her. This from Radio Free Europe:

Zahra Bani Yaghoub was a 27-year-old medical university graduate from Tehran who some two years ago volunteered to work in the western city of Hamadan.

Bani Yaghoub was due to return to Tehran next year to complete her medical studies and become a specialist in urology. But instead she died in suspicious circumstances in Hamadan prison on October 13.

Eyewitnesses said she was arrested by Iran's morality police while walking with her fiance in a Hamadan city park. Her fiance was released an hour later, but she was kept in prison overnight.
The next day, her lifeless body was handed over to her parents with the police claiming she committed suicide by hanging herself.

Bani Yagoub's family, however, say they have no reason to believe that their daughter would take her own life.

. . . The family says Bani Yaghoub's body was bruised and that there was blood in her nose and in her ears.

Bani Yaghoub's death has caused worries in Iranian society about basic civil liberties and personal safety.

Iran's state media has briefly reported the official version of the event. The independent media, however, have been covering all sides of the story and public reaction to her death.
Isa Saharkhiz, an independent journalist and a member of the Association of Press Freedom in Iran, says the details of this woman's tragic death in prison have reached the Iranian people through the country's independent media and foreign news agencies.

Saharkhiz says that under the Islamic regime, Iranians have somehow become accustomed to political activists or independent journalists being arrested and even killed in suspicious circumstances, but this ordinary woman's death while in custody has shocked society.

"Now people see that even an ordinary person does not have basic security; and a person simply can get arrested on a street and, instead of returning home, their bodies are buried in a cemetery," he tells RFE/RL. "It has become a very sensitive issue in our society and created many questions." . . .

. . . Both Kar and Saharkhiz say the chances are slim that the authorities would hold any police officer or a prison worker responsible for Bani Yaghoub's death.

They say the authorities cannot ignore the case, which has taken on a high profile with all of the media coverage. But they believe officials will probably drag on the investigation for months and even years until publicity around it eventually fades. . . .

Read the story here.

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