The Legacy of Margaret Thatcher - & Her Take On Class Warfare

The grocer's daughter who grew to be Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, aka The Iron Lady, aka Attila The Hen, the lady famously described by French President Mitterand as having "the eyes of Caligula and the mouth of Marilyn Monroe" - is in the news this week as a movie documenting her life, The Iron Lady, hits the theaters. This from the Heritage Foundation via Nice Deb:

As moveigoers head to theaters this weekend, many will want to compare the person they saw on screen to the real woman. As we explained this week, there is no resource better than the Iron Lady’s own words. Our new video attempts to shine a spotlight on her important legacy—one that continues to inspire.

Like President Ronald Reagan, her political soulmate, she came to power at a desperate time in her country’s history, when real leadership and bold ideas were most needed. And by applying conservative principles to the challenges she faced, she was able to achieve real and lasting success. Then, as today, she faced an extraordinary set of challenges and a chorus of voices saying her country’s best days were behind it. Thatcher’s successes are a comforting reminder of the power of a bold, conservative vision at work.

You can find a thoughtful review of the film at Diogenes' Middle Finger.

And now for some bonus footage. As noted above, Thatcher led her nation to an improving economy that saw the incomes of all citizens, from poorest to richest, rise. Yet she was attacked on class warfare grounds during "Question Time" near the end of her term because the income divide between rich and poor had widened.



How's that for hitting the nail on the head.

(H/T Althouse)

As an aside, let me add that I think the British political system is screwed for a number of reasons, but the one thing they do right is Question Time. Every Wednesday when Parliament is in session, the Prime Minister makes an appearance on the floor of Parliament and fields questions from the members of Parliament. It is healthy debate and high drama. It also explains why the average Prime Minister is, in terms of speaking and debating skills, head and shoulders beyond our average President. If there is one British custom we should take from Britain, this would be it.

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The Road To U.K.'s Hell Is Paved With The Best Of Intentions

The EU Convention on Human Rights was promulgated in post-WWII Europe in response to the horrors of Nazi Germany. Not only did the ECHR spell out the rights of individual citizens - it also established a supra-national body to have the final say over those rights. For a long time now, the decision to adopt and join the ECHR has haunted the Brits, and I have blogged frequently here on the insanity of Britain being unable to deport some of the most vile and dangerous of radical Islamists because of the ECHR. That said, a recent series of outlandish decisions from the European Court of Human Rights is finally starting to choke the Brits. This from the Daily Mail:

For the third time in a week, Strasbourg’s unelected European Court of Human Rights is under the spotlight.

First, Tory MPs made it clear they have no intention of bowing to the court’s demand to grant the vote to tens of thousands of prisoners.

Next Lord Carlile, the Government’s reviewer of anti-terror laws, said its rulings against deportation had turned Britain into a ‘safe haven’ for those who wish the country harm.

Now Damian Green, the immigration minister, has said its rulings have turned human rights into a ‘boo phrase’.

He said the court’s judgments – and our own judiciary’s liberal interpretation of them – meant the public immediately expected bad news when the phrase ‘human rights’ was uttered. ‘Clearly, something is wrong if you get to that stage’, Mr Green said.

His remarks will fuel the anger of MPs towards the European court.
In 2005, 17 judges ruled in favour of John Hirst, who argued prisoners should be able to vote. He had been in jail for killing his 69-year-old landlady with an axe, after which he calmly made a cup of coffee. Under pressure from the court, the British government announced last year that it would comply with the ruling. Hirst celebrated by drinking champagne and smoking cannabis – and put a video of it all on YouTube.

The court believes it can overrule the UK Parliament and Supreme Court.

But the astonishing truth is that its 47 ‘representatives’ need never even have served as judges in their homeland. . . .

The judges – one for every nation in the Council of Europe – have blocked the deportation from Britain of countless foreign criminals and awarded thousands in compensation to alleged Islamic terrorists.

The court gave £4,700 to Soviet spy George Blake for ‘distress and frustration’ after the Government banned him from publishing a book about how he betrayed Britain.

And £7,000 was handed to Stuart Blackstock, who shot PC Philip Olds in the 1980s, after his release from jail was delayed. . . .

The British judiciary is in no doubt that the European court is seeking to impose a federal law upon the UK.

Ex-Law Lord Hoffmann said: ‘The Strasbourg court has been unable to resist the temptation to aggrandise its jurisdiction and to impose uniform rules on member states.

‘It considers itself the equivalent of the Supreme Court of the United States.’ . . .

Britain has the Magna Carta and the 1649 English Bill of Rights, among other sundry compacts with the Crown that, in toto, establish an English Constitution. Indeed, these same compact largely inform the U.S. Bill of Rights. So why would Britain possibly need to adopt the ECHR and submit their nation to the whims of a supra-national body?

They did so because the British system is dysfunctional, to put it kindly. None of the ancient compacts with the Crown are binding in Britain today, except as subject to the whim of Parliament. At least a century ago, the British Parliament unilaterally claimed complete sovereignty - i.e., that they have the final say not subject to review - and that the ancient compacts were binding only on the monarchy, not the Parliament.

What that means is that whatever Parliament passes, whether it be restrictions on speech or the ownership of guns, for but two examples, it is not subject to any check and balance. It is a tyranny of the majority. And that is why former PM Brown was able to sign away Britain's sovereignty to the EU - thus presenting a complete break with the ancient compacts - without a referendum of the people of Britain. It is a tragedy that will not end until the people of Britain rise up against the Parliament the way they rose up against the Crown in 1642. The fact that they are just now getting rightfully upset with the ECHR suggests that may be long in coming.

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A Hung Parliament - Updated

The election is over in the UK, but the byzantine maneuvering to create a government is just beginning. With the vast majority of results in, the BBC is predicting:

Tory - 306
Labour: 262
Liberal Democrats: 55
Others: 27

To form a government, there must be a party - or a coalition of parties - holding 326 seats. The Labour Party, which has deconstructed Britain over its past 13 years of socialist rule, still managed to lose only 100 seats. And even though the Tories will be by far the largest party in Parliament, the fact is that the Labour may well be able to retain power through a coalition with the Lib Dems - also a far left party - and a few of the far left minor parties. This from the BBC:

Gordon Brown may start coalition talks with the Lib Dems, who, Nick Clegg admitted, had a "disappointing night" .

The BBC projection suggests David Cameron's Conservatives will have 306 seats. If there are 10 Unionists elected in Northern Ireland then Mr Cameron might be able to command 316 - probably still slightly too few for him to be sure of winning a Queen's Speech.

But Labour and the Lib Dems together would have 317 seats, according to the BBC figures, which even with three SDLP MPs would still leave them at 320 - again probably just a few votes short.

So everything is still at issue - though Labour has a slight advantage. All of this is truly horrendous. David Cameron, who has misled the Tory Party for a decade, attempting to turn it into a light version of Labour, has managed to pull defeat from the jaws of what should have been a victory so thorough as to have banished Labour the halls of government for a decade or more. You could track the recent downward spiral of the Tory party towards this election from the date the boywonder officially reneged on his promise to hold a referendum on the issue of EU.

Assuming Labour forms the next government, Cameron should be booted so fast from the Tory leadership his head should spin. The Tories need to replace him with someone who is actually a conservative and who will actually be governed by his ideals rather than pure political calculation, though it might already be too late. Labour has so deconstructed Britain that it may well be the damage it has wrought cannot be undone. A few more years of Labour misrule - or Cameron misrule for that matter - will like insure the damage is permanent.

Update: It appears that the Lib Dems have already slapped down Gordon Brown and Labour, saying that the Tories should have the first opportunity to form a government. That is code for "make me an offer."

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A Tale Of Two "Conservative" Parties - Part 1: The UK

At a time when the left has swung the pendulum hard to the left in both the UK and the US, at a time when the electorate of both US and UK appears poised for a massive move to the right, the "conservative" parties - the Tories in the UK, the Republicans in the U.S. - seem far from up to the task. When we need Churchill and Reagan, we instead have leaders in the mold of Clement Attlee and Herbert Hoover. The problem is particularly acute in the UK.

The UK's political structure has failed systemically. Democracy in Britain does not result in a "representative" democracy. The people of Britain only get a vote for their own local representative. The position of Prime Minister is never voted on by the people, but rather is chosen by the party. The people get no say in the House of Lords - and it is a body that has been politically emasculated by the socialist Labour Party at any rate. Britain has no constitutional limitations on the power of government, despite centruries of agreements that specified such limits and that enshrined individual rights, begining most famously with the Magna Carta. That is because, over two centuries ago, Britain's Parliament declared their decisions the paramount law of the land, thus enshrining what is today a tyranny of the majority. Indeed, it should be noted that the U.S. Bill of Rights is little more than an amalgam of the rights of Protestant Englishmen that existed as of 1776. Unfortunately, many of those rights are circumscribed in Britain today. What all this means in the aggregate is that the wants and desires of the electorate are significantly minimized, the role of a left wing media is greatly magnified, and the desire of politicians to accrete power goes all but unchecked in the UK.

Labour has spent its years in office deconstructing Britain with multiculturalism - including as part and parcel thereof active discrimination against the indigenous population of Britain - open borders immigration, a massively expanding welfare system with incredibly perverse incentives, an ever more intrusive nanny state, huge increases in government spending, an insane energy policy centered on the canard of global warming that is driving up enery costs exponentially and threatens the viability of their energy infrastructure, a war on Christianity, and the transfer of Britain's sovereignty to the EU without the promised referendum of the people. On top of that, only a few short months ago, an MP (Member of Parliament) expense scandal rocked the Labour Party and brought the popularity of the Labour government already at or near its nadir, to a level of popularity slightly below that of the ebola virus.

By all accounts, Labour should be knocked from government in the next election in a blood bath. Yet so weak are the alternatives that it is actually an open question today, but a few short weeks from Britain's next election, whether Britain's conservative party will manage to pull a defeat from the jaws of what should be a victory so vast as to result in a banishment of Labour from political power for years to come. Indeed, EU Referendum reports that the Tories maintain only an 8% lead in the polls over Labour as of today.

When speaking to a very close friend the other day - a woman of uncommon perceptiveness and intellect born and living in Kent - she stated that, while the electorate is poised for a radical move to the right, the problem is that there is no political party to lead them. She thinks that David Cameron, the head of the Tory Party, is the worst kind of unprincipled political opportunist. The Tories, she said, have done nothing to differentiate themselves from the socialist Labour Party and are promising, in essence, to continue many of the same policies that are destroying Britain. The Lib Democrats are even worse. The UKIP is perhaps the only true conservative party, but they are wholly ignored by the media and stand little chance of making significant gains. The BNP is demonized by the media and, while many of their policies are good, their history of racism and anti-semitism makes them an unacceptable choice. In short, the people of Britain are, at a critical moment in their history, being disenfranchised by a broken political system.

My friend recommended a recent article by Simon Heffer as accurately summing up the situation (or, in her vernacular, "spot on.") This from Mr. Heffer at the Telegraph:

. . . The Labour Party has failed utterly in government. It has not merely wrecked the economy, with long-term consequences: it has taken a path of repairing the damage that will, through its emphasis on high taxes, borrowing and public spending, cause more harm before it does any good – if it does any good. It has also been derelict on matters of such significance as our schools, our universities, law and order, immigration and our Armed Forces. . . . Mr Brown's stewardship of our nation has been shocking. He does not deserve to have it renewed.

Yet, despite this atrocity, the Conservative Party has, in the five years since its last debacle, done remarkably little to convince the public that it understands what is going on, let alone that it has any concept of how to make our country more prosperous, better run and generally happier. When David Cameron spoke to activists on the Embankment yesterday morning, one was at once splashed in the face by the cold water of the obsession with image: almost everyone in sight was young, several of them (including a man Mr Cameron ostentatiously embraced with that warm insincerity that is his trademark) from ethnic minorities, a correct proportion of them women. His approach has always been about ticking the boxes of militant superficiality. His main argument is that he is not the Labour Party. Well, not in name, at any rate.

And the Liberal Democrats? They have a flexibility of principle that leaves even that of Mr Cameron standing; a record of opportunism and incompetence in local government (the only place they have had any power) that puts Mr Brown's moral and intellectual inadequacies in the shade. One would be inclined to ridicule them entirely were they not likely to do as much damage to Labour in some parts of the country as the Tories are, and because of the far from impossible prospect of Vince Cable having some say in the running of our economy in a month's time. With various useful independents standing in certain seats, with the Greens in with a chance in Brighton Pavilion, with Ukip a not impossible prospect for the Speaker's seat in Buckingham, with votes being split in a way they have rarely been split before, not just by the Greens and Ukip, but also by the knuckledusters of the BNP, anything could happen.

As I am not an astrologer – and also because I genuinely don't have a clue – you must forgive me if I don't predict the outcome. We shall know soon enough. All that is certain (and here comes another rare fact) is that we shall end up being governed by a social democratic government of some sort. This is not because I expect a coalition including the Lib Dems, though that joy may well await us. It is because the likely programmes and conduct of another Labour or a new Conservative administration will be broadly social democratic. By that, I mean that the state will play a large role in the management of our country; there will a strong redistributive element to policy; levelling down, whether through the education system or the welfare state, will continue. What this means is that a significant proportion of the electorate that wants none of these things will have been effectively disfranchised. Our understandable boredom is tempered by a frustration that none of the main three parties seems to want to represent what so many of us believe in. . . .

For the frustration of the non-social democratic majority in this country has only just begun. No one from the main parties will tell the truth about the need to sack hundreds of thousands of people on the public payroll in order to ensure we live within our means. Nobody will tell the truth about how lower taxes increase revenue, because there are too many cheap votes in bashing bankers who earn lots of money. Nobody will properly defend capitalism as an essential ingredient of a free society. Nobody will champion selective education, which gives such a chance in life to bright children from poor homes, and nobody will be truthful about the pointlessness of much university education.

Nobody will dare to be radical about the corrupt effects of the welfare state. Nobody will take the radical approach needed to counter the results of unlimited immigration. Above all – and that last point leads on to this – nobody will confront the public with the realities of our membership of a European Union governed by the Treaty of Lisbon, which has left us with a choice of staying in on Europe's terms, or getting out.

All these things matter to people who are honest, hard-working, love their country, and seek only to be allowed to get on with their lives, undisturbed by the state, and to keep more of what they earn. There will be millions of voters missing from the polling booths on May 6 because there is an agenda missing from the discourse of our leading politicians, all of whom fear challenging a consensus that exists more in their minds, or those of their teenage advisers, than in reality.

The tedium to come can be obviated by not turning on the television for a few weeks. Newspapers, believe me, will ensure the diet of politics is kept to the minimum: our readers are precious to us, and we wish neither to bore them with the self-importance of politicians nor to insult them by bombarding them with propaganda. Strong drink and martial music may be useful. That still leaves the problem of how Britain will ever be run properly, whether by a tribal introvert who wishes to suffocate us with his "values", or a PR spiv whose "big idea" is to appoint 5,000 commissars to assist the development of "communities". There will be more absurdity yet. "Democracy," wrote Carlyle, "which means despair of finding any Heroes to govern you!" How right you were, Tom, how right you were.

These are dark days indeed in Britain. And there is no light at the end of the tunnel. I would highly recommend the blog EU Referendum for following this election and the various issues associated therewith.


See: A Tale Of Two "Conservative" Parties - Part 2: The U.S.

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Viva La . . . British Revolution?

Is England on the verge of revolution?

To those who know this most peaceful of nations intimately, the question is bound to sound bizarre. Boasting attachment to the rule of law and democratic government, the English have not had a revolution since the 17th century.

Nevertheless, these days it is hard to be in the company of Englishmen without hearing talk of the need, indeed the imminence, of revolution.

Amir Taheri, Coming Soon, An English Revolution, May 29, 2009

[Art: Oliver Cromwell After The Battle of Marston Moor, by Ernest Crofts]

The British sat silently by for years as the Labour government deconstructed society. Englishmen have suffered an ever growing nanny state with nary a peep. When, last year, Prime Minister Gordon Brown reneged on a promise to hold a referendum about transferring British sovereignty to the EU, there were no mass demonstrations. I have long expected the British rank and file to one day say, enough is enough, but given their collective placidity, I had no idea when it would be or what it would take to light the fuse.

Well, the fuse has now been lit, it would seem. And the matches are the expense claims of the elected Members of Parliament (MP's). All across the UK, people are dusting off their copies of Oliver Cromwell's speech to the MP's dissolving the Long Parliament in 1653. That's the speech that begins:

It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice . . . "

The irony of it all is just amazing, since, by all rights, this is far more the story of a corrupted system than it is the story of an intrinsically corrupt political class.

Britain's MP's are well remunerated - but only partly by salary. A British pound is worth $1.62 today. Per capita GDP is about 20,000 pounds. According to Brits At Their Best:

MPs earn £63,000. They have allowed claims "on everything from staff costs of over £100,000 to the additional cost allowance of up to £24,006 and a so-called incidental-expenses provision of £22,190".

Dr. North, at EU Referendum, documents that the MP pay structure was changed in the 1970's in an effort to increase MP remuneration without raising the ire of the electorate. Parliament established an expense allowance scheme that ostensibly would allow MP's to claim reimbursement for costs relating to their duties. But it was never simply that. Indeed, few if any in Parliament, over a period of decades, treated this as anything other than a pay raise in disguise. MP's have routinely been told to submit any sort of reimbursement claims for rubber stamp approval. As Dr. North explains it:

That is the way the system was designed, and it has worked this way for over thirty years. This is exactly what Booker wrote yesterday: "MPs are told they can claim their 'allowances' as an automatic right, so long as they go through the charade of handing in largely meaningless invoices."

That may be the case, but as Britain suffers the severe effect of the current recession, rank and file Brits upon whom this deception was being played went ballistic when they were told about some of the expense claims. This from the WSJ:

A week or so ago, the Telegraph newspaper got its hands on some of the juiciest secrets in Britain -- the dubious expenses claimed over the last few years by British politicians. The scale of the cupidity is astonishing. The evidence suggests that members of all parties -- Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, even, most impressively, representatives of Sinn Fein, the Irish republican party whose members for years actually refused to take their seats because they didn't recognize Westminster's writ -- have been bilking the system for all they're worth.

The scandal threatens to be as corrosive as anything seen in Britain in decades -- this isn't just about a party abusing power; it threatens to undermine the public's remaining faith in the probity, not just of politicians, but of Parliament itself.

. . . Politicians have sought and received reimbursement for claims ranging from a bag of manure and light bulbs to home-cinema systems.

The perquisites claimed offer a colorful reminder of the resilience of the class system in Britain: from the Tory MP who claimed for the upkeep of the moat at his country house [my personal favorite], to the Labour man who charged for a couple of toilet seats.

Some have been caught "flipping" their designation of a second home, for which they receive an allowance, from one residence to another, each time collecting money for redecoration.

Communities Minister Hazel Blears submitted expenses for £5,000 ($7,588) of furniture for second homes over a three-month period and has now paid back £13,332 she claimed for a housing tax. Elliot Morley, a former environment minister, has been expelled from the Labour Party over allegations that he claimed expenses of more than £16,000 for interest payments on a mortgage he had paid off more than 18 months earlier. Andrew MacKay, a Conservative member of Parliament, resigned as political adviser to party leader David Cameron after it came out that he claimed a full "second-home allowance" on his London address -- while his wife, fellow Conservative MP Julie Kirkbride, claimed the full allowance for another home. . . .

This has all hit Britain like an atomic bomb going off in the middle of London. It has become a focal point for a host of issues with the current state of Britain. As Camilla Cavendish wrote in the Times:

. . . one of the reasons public anger goes a lot deeper than Sir Peter Viggers's duck pond is because we feel we can no longer change our laws by voting out politicians. The EU machine marches on, constraining everything from the future of the Post Office to what vitamins we can take. The promised referendum on the Lisbon treaty has been ditched. The quango nanny state has acquired a momentum of its own. Politicians have given away powers that they held in trust for the people. They cannot be altogether surprised if people now lump them all together in impotent fury.

You can see the same reflected in this post from An Englishman's Castle:

BBC NEWS Politics MP's fears of expenses 'suicide'...MPs were walking around "with terror in their eyes" and likened the atmosphere to that surrounding Senator Joseph McCarthy's "witch-hunts"...

Good, as they say only the guilty have anything to fear, but they are all complicit in creating a Britain where ordinary people are spied on, reported on, fined and criminalised for "innocent" mistakes. Every self-employed person lives every day in fear of the State "investigating" their business and personal circumstances. So it is excellent news that every single Member is now getting to feel just a little bit what it is like to be a subject..

As Mr. Taheri writes, revolution is in the air. The real question is to where it will lead. I do not doubt that, as Mr. Taheri writes, the next set of elections will bring about an entire class of new faces to British Parliament. But whether any of this will result in the type of structural changes from which the UK might benefit is another matter entirely. The British Parliamentary system is a sort of tyranny of the majority at the moment, with no real system of checks and balances - at least not since Blair finished tinkering with the House of Lords - no constitution,** and what appears today to be a monarchial rubber stamp. Some have talked about changing that. For discussions on the topic, see EU Referendum (here, here and here). You will find similarly intelligent discussions in some of the posts at Brits At Their Best (here).

Whether this current state of affairs may lead to substantive change, that is an open question. Reforms will clearly be aimed at cleaning up the system of remuneration for MP's. Beyond that, nothing will happen unless there arises someone who can actually capture the public's imagination with some specific plans. I am not hearing that anything like that yet in the mainstream British media. But, being a deeply committed anglophile, I will remain very hopeful.
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** For those who maintain that Britain has a Constitution, but merely one that is in pieces - i.e., the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Rights of 1689, the Coronation Oath, etc., I concur. Indeed, the U.S. Constitution is not all that much more than a codification of those rights as they existed in 1776. I strongly believe that those documents should be collated and formally recognized as the British Constitution. But the reality is that Parliament has long claimed precedence over those documents. Thus do British citizens no longer have the right to "keep and bear arms," for example, even though such right is granted all Protestant citizens of the realm by the Declaration of Rights of 1689. See Justice Scalia's discussion of the 1689 Declaration of Rights here. Perhaps formally recognizing these documents as creating a Constitution might be a starting point those who want to see structural change arise out of the current civil discontent.

Update: Speak of the devil . . . today in the Times (UK):

We Need A New Constitution For Britain — And The Debate Has Begun

For the first time since the suffragettes, constitutional reform has become a popular issue. The crisis over MPs’ expenses has convinced many that Parliament has become insulated from the people. MPs must become accountable between general elections, not just once every five years.

MPs have also lost authority. If, far from being better, many are worse than the rest of us, their right to monopolise legislative power comes into question. Many people believe that they are at least as well qualified to take decisions as their MPs. That means more direct democracy — primaries, recall of MPs and referendums.

Gordon Brown has long been a constitutional reformer. He supported devolution long before it was fashionable and, in 1980, co-authored a book on the subject. He appreciated that reform must mean more than a shifting of the institutional furniture.

Yesterday he suggested that the agenda of constitutional reform should embrace reform of the electoral system, reform of the Lords, a Bill of Rights, votes at 16 and a written constitution . . . .

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Two Very Different Congresses

Heh

One country's Congress is torn by division, unable to pass major legislation, and highly unpopular. The other country's has come together to pass several major pieces of legislation and is today highly popular. Roll tape:



Gateway Pundit has the rest of the story and more.

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A Constitutional Lesson In British History

In a post below, responding to a post by Dr. David Abbott at Brits At Their Best, I added my agreement to his assertion that the British have forgotten - or as I see it, have been taught to devalue - their history. In either case, both roads lead to the current circumstance, where the British have passively acceded over time to giving up the freedoms and liberties hard earned by their progenitors. One of the freedoms the British people held for centuries was an individual right to own and bear guns. That right has been extinguished over the past century. This is at variance with America, yet we both started from precisely the same place in 1776. In the U.S. Supreme Court's decision yesterday in Heller v. District of Columbia, Justice Scalia explained the British history of this right to bear arms.
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This from Justice Scalia's opinion in Heller [citations removed for ease of reading]:

. . . Between the Restoration and the Glorious Revolution, the Stuart Kings Charles II and James II succeeded in using select militias loyal to them to suppress political dissidents, in part by disarming their opponents. Under the auspices of the 1671 Game Act, for example, the Catholic James II had ordered general disarmaments of regions home to his Protestant enemies. These experiences caused Englishmen to be extremely wary of concentrated military forces run by the state and to be jealous of their arms. They accordingly obtained an assurance from William and Mary, in the Declaration of Right (which was codified as the English Bill of Rights), that Protestants would never be disarmed: “That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defense suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law.” This right has long been understood to be the predecessor to our Second Amendment. It was clearly an individual right, having nothing whatever to do with service in a militia. To be sure, it was an individual right not available to the whole population, given that it was restricted to Protestants, and like all written English rights it was held only against the Crown, not Parliament. But it was secured to them as individuals, according to “libertarian political principles,” not as members of a fighting force.

By the time of the founding [i.e., the drafting of the U.S. Constitution in 1789], the right to have arms had become fundamental for English subjects. Blackstone, whose works, we have said, “constituted the preeminent authority on English law for the founding generation,” cited the arms provision of the Bill of Rights as one of the fundamental rights of Englishmen. His description of it cannot possibly be thought to tie it to militia or military service. It was, he said, “the natural right of resistance and selfpreservation,” and “the right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defence.” Other contemporary authorities concurred. Thus, the right secured in 1689 as a result of the Stuarts’ abuses was by the time of the founding understood to be an individual right protecting against both public and private violence. And, of course, what the Stuarts had tried to do to their political enemies, George III had tried to do to the colonists. In the tumultuous decades of the 1760’s and 1770’s, the Crown began to disarm the inhabitants of the most rebellious areas. That provoked polemical reactions by Americans invoking their rights as Englishmen to keep arms. A New York article of April 1769 said that “[i]t is a natural right which the people have reserved to themselves, confirmed by the Bill of Rights, to keep arms for their own defence.” They understood the right to enable individuals to defend themselves. As the most important early American edition of Blackstone’s Commentaries (by the law professor and former Antifederalist St. George Tucker) made clear in the notes to the description of the arms right, Americans understood the “right of self-preservation” as permitting a citizen to “repe[l] force by force” when “the intervention of society in his behalf, may be too late to prevent an injury.”

There seems to us no doubt, on the basis of both text and history, that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms. . . .

While the British wrote down the right of individuals to bear arms as against the Crown in the 1689 Bill of Rights, they wrote down no limitation on Parliament circumscribing Parliament's ability to extinguish their rights. Thus Britain lives under a tyranny of sorts today. Without any recognized Constitution, and with Parliament over a century ago having claimed for itself unlimited sovereignty, there are no permanent rights in Britain. Thus today you have in Britian a populace that has not only been largely disarmed of firearms over the past century, but a populace wherein the law abiding among them are prevented from carrying any sort of weapon for self defense. Even carrying the innocuous pepper spray is illegal.

And then of course there is the penultimate tyrannical act. In what amounts to a coup, the current Labour government has broken its promise to the people of Britain, given but three years ago, to give the people a vote in the decision to extinguish the sovereignty of Britain and become a province in a socialist and anti-democratic EU superstate. By this act, and in the even larger sense that this transfer of sovereignty severly and forever more degrades the democratic right of the British to choose their government, Labour evinces utter disdain for the liberty of Britian's citizens. And with that in mind, there is at least one more passage highly apropos from Justice Scalia's decision:

St. George Tucker’s version of Blackstone’s Commentaries, as we explained above, conceived of the Blackstonian arms right as necessary for self-defense. He equated that right, absent the religious and class-based restrictions, with the Second Amendment. See 2 Tucker’s Blackstone 143. In Note D, entitled, “View of the Constitution of the United States,” Tucker elaborated on the Second Amendment: “This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty . . . . The right to self-defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine the right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.” . . .

I think the appropriate phrase to finish on is the truism, "those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it."

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Change & The Cessation of British History

All things change, whether for better or worse. In the case of Britain's decision to transfer sovereignty to the EU and the manner in which the socialist Labour government is executing that transfer, the change indeed seems to be for the worse.

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Today marks a major landmark along the road to Britain's internal dissolution. In December, socialist Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown signed the Lisbon Treaty - the EU's new Constitution - transferring the majority of Britain's sovereign powers to the EU, subject to domestic ratification. Brits At Their Best puts this in perspective:

For American readers, imagine the US giving up its independence and sovereignty, abandoning its constitutional protections and joining a conglomeration of Canada, Mexico, Central and South American countries under new laws dictated to it by bureaucrats in Buenos Aires. That is what we are talking about with the EU.

As characterized in today's Telegraph, the "EU is profoundly anti-democratic, secretive and hungry for power." It is a grand experiment in socialism, running against British traditions of democracy, capitalism, and individual rights. Life as a citizen in a province in the EU portends to be quite costly to the average British citizen, and EU law is working an irrevocable change to the make-up of Britian by mandating an open borders type of immigration that is out of control.

In 2005, the Labour government campaigned on a promise to the people of Britain that they would be allowed a referendum on whether to take this huge step of transferring sovereignty to an EU super-state. It turned out to be unnecessary then as the EU Constitution was rejected by other countries when put to a vote of the people.

But in late 2006, the EU Constitution was dusted off and relabled the "Lisbon Treaty". The EU strong-armed its members not to allow any referendums by the electorate on the treaty. PM Gordon Brown acquiesced to this highly undemocractic strategem. And yesterday, efforts in Britain's House of Commons to force such a referendum failed. EU Referendum explains:

The Daily Mail puts it somewhat luridly, with the headline, "Day they betrayed British democracy", then declaring, "Yesterday will go down in history as the day our politicians surrendered most of what was left of Britain's sovereignty and trusted the nation's future to a European superstate."

We would prefer to say that the these politicians have surrendered another tranche of their powers to a super government, rather than state. But that – in this particular context – is pedantry. The term "surrender" is perfectly adequate, and it truly represents the tawdry performance of that motley lot we watched today.

For that reason, we concur with the Mail's view that:

What we witnessed last night was the political class ganging up against the voters who gave them power… Is it any wonder that more and more Britons are losing their faith in the political process? . . .

Read the post here. The matter will now go to the House of Lords, but no different result is expected.

What happens with Britian is of vital importance to America for several reasons, not the least of which is that Britian is both the closest natural ally of the U.S. and has historically been the bridge between the U.S. and Europe. But Britain is also important in another respect.

It was Britain that bequeathed the anglo-saxon traditions of democracy and individual rights that define America and, indeed, all of the world's most free and prosperous countries today. The Bill of Rights is essentially an amalgam of the rights of Englishmen that existed by common law and solemn compact with the crown at the time of the American Revolution. Britain has since moved beyond those traditions. And in that regards, what we can observe in Britian today is a kind of laboratory experiment demonstrating what happens when a nation leaves behind the natural rights theories of Locke in favor of the socialist theories of Rousseau.

In the aftermath of World War II, Britain embraced socialism, voting in 1945 to reject their war-time leader Winston Churchill in favor of Labour PM Clement Attlee. Attlees's first orders of business were the creation of the welfare state, the nationalization of major industry, the creation of nationalized medicine, and the divestiture of the empire. And while Labour has since done away with the most radical economic aspects of socialism - i.e., dispensing with the infamous "Clause IV" of Labour's plank calling for nationalization of industry and truly wide-scale redistribution of wealth - many other aspects of the socialist experiment, including an incredibly poisonous welfare system that promotes a permanent underclass, have remained fully alive and malignant in Britian to this day.

In comparison, the U.S. has moved much slower to embrace of the socialist ethos. In post-WWII America, the conservative movement rose to oppose it upon the quill and wit of William F. Buckley, a man who did indeed stand athwart history. Britian's post World War II history has also seen several conservatives who have tried to slow the tide, with possibly the best known being Margaret Thatcher. Ironically, she lost power becasue of her stance against further expansion of the EU. Britain as a whole has been a far more favorable environment for secular socialism than the U.S.

Steeped in the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and born in the crucible of the French Revolution, socialism was meant to wholly rework society. Socialist philosophers, most notably Karl Marx, rejected class and religion as the bases for societal structure and advocated remaking society under the watchful eye of a central government that would redistribute the nation's wealth and mandate social equality. At the center of the socialist revolution was the Marxian beleif that all events could and should be analyzed in terms of the oppressor and the oppressed, the victim classes and the victimizing class - a simplistic and distorting theme that makes up such a large part of our political discourse today. It creates, in its myopic view, a world of demons and perpetual victims. As Marx wrote in the opening lines of the Communist Manifesto:

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

Inherent in that proposition is a rejection of Western values, history and norms and, in its stead, an embrace of militant secularism, moral relativism and multiculturalism. And what we see being played out today in Britain is the incredibly destructive end result of over half century of movement towards socialism - an act of national suicide by the socialist Labour government. As to the British electorate, far too many of their number have been taught to be ashamed of what little of their history was covered in a British schools curricula increasingly animated by the socialist ethos and which includes even the denigration of Churchill. The majority are now silent and apathetic as the final light in their great country is blown out by those who see in its history and traditions nothing worth fighting for.

Socialism has won in Britain - in all of its well-meaning banality. And Britain will soon be no more. For a time at least. Until things change.

Update: "Londonistan" author and Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips has composed an exceptional article, describing in detail the societal costs of Britain's experiment in socialism and how many are seeking to recapture in Britain the patriotic spirit and national cohesiveness that they observe across the pond in America. As Ms. Phillips observes, their attempts are focusing on the superficial, not the substantive ills of British society. I highly recommend her article , particularly as an adjunct to this post.

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Bad News From Iraq

The Provincial Elections law, one of three major pieces of legislation passed by the Iraqi Parliament this month, was vetoed by the Presidency Council and has been sent back to Parliament for reconsideration and revision.




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The provincial elections bill, which would create moderately strong provinces, is at the center of a debate in Iraq over whether there should be a strong or weak central government. History would suggest that this is not an easy issue to resolve. In American history, we had the Articles of Confederation, creating a weak central government, that was finally replaced with our Constitution in 1788. And then we fought a civil war over much the same issue. Now its Iraq's turn, and the issue seems equally divisive. This from the NYT:

Political momentum in Iraq hit a sudden roadblock on Wednesday when a feud between the largest Shiite factions led to the veto of a law that had been passed with great fanfare two weeks ago. The law had been heralded by the Bush administration as a breakthrough for national reconciliation.

The law called for provincial elections by October, and it was hoped that it would eliminate severe electoral distortions that have left Kurds and Shiites with vastly disproportionate power over Sunni Arabs in some areas, a factor in fueling the Sunni insurgency. It would also have given Iraqis who have long complained of corrupt and feckless local leaders a chance to clean house and elect officials they believe are more accountable.

But the law was vetoed at the last minute by the three-member Iraqi presidency council, which includes President Jalal Talabani and two vice presidents. The veto came after officials in a powerful Shiite party, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, objected to provisions that they contend unlawfully strip power from Iraq’s provinces.

Politicians involved in the debate said the main objections came from Vice President Adel Abdul Mehdi, a Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council member. The bill now goes back to Parliament, where its prospects are unclear, given the acrimonious debate over the issue that led to the veto.

. . . The veto is “somewhat of a setback,” Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, acknowledged Wednesday during a hearing in Congress.

A common refrain among American combat commanders is that new local elections could help sweep out ineffective leaders while remedying deeply uneven provincial councils, a legacy partly of the Sunni Arab boycott of previous provincial elections.

. . . The Sadrists, who were furious at the veto, want to retain a strong central government that has the legal muscle to deal vigorously any province that Baghdad leaders believe is acting against the country’s best interests. They said the veto breached the historic agreement among political blocs two weeks ago that allowed the simultaneous passage of the provincial powers bill, the 2008 budget and another law granting amnesty to thousands of Sunnis and others in Iraqi jails.

“It’s a struggle of two wills,” said Nassar al-Rubaie, a legislator from the Sadr movement. “One side wants to strengthen the central government and federal authority, and the other wants to undermine it and grant the provinces greater powers.”

Read the entire article.

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Krauthammer, Iraq, & And The Moving Target

Charles Krauthammer ponders the same question I raised last week. Given the very real gains in security Iraq and the Iraqi government's passage of several important laws for reconciliation, how can the partisan left still attempt to justify surrender and withdraw? Some on the left have in fact given their answers.

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I posted the other day on how surreal and transparent the partisans on the left were becoming in attempting to justify defeat in Iraq in light of clear progress towards peace and reconciliation. Charles Krauthammer weighs in today on the same issue and, not surprisingly - Krauthammer leads with the report of CSIS's Anthony Cordesman:

"No one can spend some 10 days visiting the battlefields in Iraq without seeing major progress in every area. . . . If the U.S. provides sustained support to the Iraqi government -- in security, governance, and development -- there is now a very real chance that Iraq will emerge as a secure and stable state."

-- Anthony Cordesman,

"The Situation in Iraq: A Briefing From the Battlefield," Feb. 13, 2008

This from a man who was a severe critic of the postwar occupation of Iraq and who, as author Peter Wehner points out, is no wide-eyed optimist. In fact, in May 2006 Cordesman had written that "no one can argue that the prospects for stability in Iraq are good." Now, however, there is simply no denying the remarkable improvements in Iraq since the surge began a year ago.

Indeed, although Krauthammer does not point it out, Cordesman's prior criticisms were sufficiently harsh and pessimistic that the New York Times had them permanently linked at the bottom of their opinion page. To continue with Krauthammer:

Unless you're a Democrat. As Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) put it, "Democrats have remained emotionally invested in a narrative of defeat and retreat in Iraq." Their Senate leader, Harry Reid, declares the war already lost. Their presidential candidates (eight of them at the time) unanimously oppose the surge. Then the evidence begins trickling in.

. . . After agonizing years of searching for the right strategy and the right general, we are winning. How do Democrats react? From Nancy Pelosi to Barack Obama, the talking point is the same: Sure, there is military progress. We could have predicted that. (They in fact had predicted the opposite, but no matter.) But it's all pointless unless you get national reconciliation.

"National" is a way to ignore what is taking place at the local and provincial level, such as Shiite cleric Ammar al-Hakim, scion of the family that dominates the largest Shiite party in Iraq, traveling last October to Anbar in an unprecedented gesture of reconciliation with the Sunni sheiks.

Doesn't count, you see. Democrats demand nothing less than federal-level reconciliation, and it has to be expressed in actual legislation.

The objection was not only highly legalistic but also politically convenient: Very few (including me) thought this would be possible under the Maliki government. Then last week, indeed on the day Cordesman published his report, it happened. Mirabile dictu, the Iraqi parliament approved three very significant pieces of legislation.

First, a provincial powers law that turns Iraq into arguably the most federal state in the entire Arab world. The provinces get not only power but also elections by Oct. 1. U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker has long been calling this the most crucial step to political stability. It will allow, for example, the pro-American Anbar sheiks to become the legitimate rulers of their province, exercise regional autonomy and forge official relations with the Shiite-dominated central government.

Second, parliament passed a partial amnesty for prisoners, 80 percent of whom are Sunni. Finally, it approved a $48 billion national budget that allocates government revenue -- about 85 percent of which is from oil -- to the provinces. Kurdistan, for example, gets one-sixth.

What will the Democrats say now? . . .

Despite all the progress, military and political, the Democrats remain unwavering in their commitment to withdrawal on an artificial timetable that inherently jeopardizes our "very real chance that Iraq will emerge as a secure and stable state."

Why? Imagine the transformative effects in the region, and indeed in the entire Muslim world, of achieving a secure and stable Iraq, friendly to the United States and victorious over al-Qaeda. Are the Democrats so intent on denying George Bush retroactive vindication for a war they insist is his that they would deny their own country a now-achievable victory?

Read the entire article.

So far, four on the left have responded to the changes in Iraq, with Nancy Pelosi being the most completely ridiculous:

. . . [Y]ou can't get anymore surreal than Nancy Pelosi and her response to this de-Baathification law. She dismissed it during a CNN interview the other day on the grounds that it had occurred . . .

. . .

(wait for it)

. . ."

too late."

Yes. That's right. Reconciliation does not count in her alternate reality because it did not occur in time. The House Democrats apparently passed a double secret time limit. If only Maliki and Bush had known. Amazingly, Wolf Blitzer let her get away with that response without challenge - or at least no challenge I could hear over my laughter, but I digress.

Read the article here.

And Michael Kinsley has responded by not merely moving the goal posts, but moving them outside the bounds of any logic. According to Mr. Kinsley, neither the security gains nor the political progress matter in assessing whether the surge has succeeded or in judging how to proceed in Iraq. His incredibly sophmoric argument is that the surge can be labled a failure solely on the basis of how many troops we have in Iraq at the moment. But even he is not calling for withdraw now. Which sets him apart from the LA Times.

The Los Angeles Times has responded to the good news from Iraq. Captian's Quarters covers their bizarre justification for still legislating surrender, which they never quite come to grips with because they start arguing with themselves:

The Los Angeles Times editorial board not only contradicts its previous editorials on Iraq, today's editorial contradicts itself. After pushing for withdrawal from Iraq on the basis that the US and Iraqis had made no real political progress, today they argue that we should withdraw because political progress has undeniably begun. And in conclusion, they wind up arguing for exactly the opposite.

Read the post here.

And in what can only be called a major surprise, the only other far left entity to finally stop calling for withdraw after the latest legislation out of Iraq is the New York Times editorial board. Go figure.

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The Iraqi Parliament

Iraq's internal politics are at the center of the debate now in Washington about how to proceed in Iraq - i.e., whether to abandon Iraq or whether to stay and continue the process towards democracy and stabilization. Long War Journal has an exceptional series of articles on the inner workings of Iraqi politics, efforts to build a functioning bureaucracy, and the challenges to provide service. LWJ's most recent article is on the the workings of Iraq's Parliament.


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I blogged here on Long War Journal's articles on the Iraqi executive and ministerial bodies and the efforts to build infrastructure and provide services. The article provide an in depth analysis of what is going right, what is going wrong, and the challenges being faced. LWJ continues its series with a look now at the Iraqi legislative body.

Understanding the constitutional structure and current composition of Iraq’s legislative branch is a prerequisite to analyzing the much-maligned progress of key legislation. As with the executive, the political diversity of Iraq’s legislature presents many significant challenges and a few opportunities to meeting the legislative benchmarks considered important to stability and reconciliation.

The structure and function of the Iraqi legislature

Iraq’s Constitution ostensibly vests legislative power in two entities: the Federation Council and the Council of Representatives, or COR. The nonexistent Federation Council is vaguely outlined as a body of representatives from various regions, but its exact authority and makeup remain open issues to be determined by the COR. The COR is Iraq’s functioning parliament, consisting of 275 elected officials who oversee the executive branch, pass laws, ratify treaties, and approve the nominations of government officials.

Elected in December 2005 and having first met on March 16, 2006, parliament members also elect Iraq’s president, who in turn appoints the prime minister from the majority political coalition within the COR. The body is supposed to meet for two four-month sessions per year with two-month breaks in January-February and July-August, though this schedule has been altered as needed when members have failed to meet legislative deadlines. The COR is currently in one of these special sessions because its members failed to pass the 2008 budget at the close of 2007. A minimum of 138 members is required for quorum, though the parliament can continue to function with less if the previous legislative session was never closed. Poor attendance has been a problem in regular sessions.

“On any given day, about 100, sometimes fewer, sometimes more members are absent,” said a Western diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity. “The speaker and … even more strongly, the first deputy speaker, have made the point that the members should attend and that it’s their responsibility. However, it remains the case that many members do not attend.”

While many members miss sessions, “real” political agreements are often brokered outside of official COR debate, spurring sufficient participation when issues come to a vote. This paradigm is similar to how the US Congress works, though Iraq’s parliament has a greater degree of absenteeism.

“When there’s an important vote and once the political agreements done behind the scenes have been accomplished, what usually happens is the membership will come together and the bloc leaders are able to pull enough people in so that a vote can take place,” said the diplomat. “When push comes to shove, [they] can be gathered together.”

Laws can be created in two ways: initiated by the executive branch and passed to the COR for debate and ratification, or initiated by the COR, passed to the components of the executive, and then bounced back through the parliament. Typically, bills are drafted by the prime minister’s office, then debated and approved by the Council of Ministers – a body within the executive branch consisting of about 40 of the heads of Iraqi ministries – then moved on for debate, revision, potential judicial review, and approval by the parliament.

After majority approval by parliament, bills are presented to the Presidency Council – the president and two vice presidents – who can sign it into law or veto the legislation. Once signed, the proposed legislation becomes law after it is published in the official government gazette, a summary of parliamentary action. This extended debate process – spanning fractious deliberative bodies in both the executive branch (the 40-member Council of Ministers) and the legislative branch (the 275-member COR) – demands a level of coordination difficult for Iraq’s politically diverse government and prohibits speedy passage of legislation.

“The lack of coordination and cohesion between the executive and the legislature … is a particular problem that has to be solved in order to make the kind of political progress that this country needs,” said the Western diplomat. “And there are people working very hard to get that political cooperation. It’s not easy, but I think things are headed in that direction. There are some signs of the urgency, the need for political leadership by the prime minister and the Council of Ministers.”

“[It’s] very difficult for a democratic body of legislators – let alone an executive branch with a ministerial group that’s a mixed and fractious coalition – to come to agreement on key things,” said Phil Reeker, Counselor for Public Affairs at the State Department. Reeker noted that democratic processes familiar to Westerners are brand new to Iraqis, who have also been struggling to learn how to govern in the midst of extreme violence.

“Now, with better security, you do have a little less trouble at least getting to parliament and focusing on passing legislation,” said Reeker.

. . . Iraq’s parliament is composed of political blocs made up of various parties that reflect the demographic diversity of the country.

The speaker of the COR is Mahmoud Mashadani, who is with the largest Sunni bloc. First Deputy Speaker Sheikh Khalid al Attiya is an independent within the largest Shia bloc, and Second Deputy Speaker Arif Tayfur is a member of the main Kurdish bloc. The sectarian groupings are reflected in the leadership as well as the composition of the COR itself. The membership changes frequently because of resignations or political moves, and various US officials can offer only approximate numbers for the distribution of political parties and blocs within parliament.

The largest political bloc is the United Iraq Alliance (UIA), a primarily Shia group that currently holds about 85 seats. The UIA is dominated by two better-known political parties: the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) and Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s Islamic Dawa Party.

Some analysts consider the conservative Shia SIIC an Iranian proxy, others see it as a US ally, and all regard it as the major competitor to the Sadrists in southern Iraq. Recent platform changes by SIIC have stressed nationalism and distanced the party from Iran, including a politically loaded name change and pledge to seek guidance from Iraq’s top cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, as opposed to a previous focus on Velayat-e-Faqih, a school of Shiite governance led by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Analysts debate the motivation behind the changes – some argue they earnestly reflect the Iraqi nationalism and anti-Persian sentiment among SIIC’s constituency, while others suggest the shift has been executed with Tehran’s practical blessing. In any case, the new platform generally advances the concept of nationalism, which could enable reconciliation.

The Islamic Dawa Party is a conservative Shia Islamist party that had been outlawed by the previous regime and its members sentenced to death by Saddam Hussein. Dawa also has ties to Iran, a relationship historically characterized by the party’s previous support of the Iranian revolution and Tehran’s welcome of exiled Dawa leaders and backing of their insurgency against Hussein. But the relationship is complex; party leadership moved from Iran to London in the late eighties, and Dawa officials have been involved in forging ties to both the US and emerging Sunni leadership. These moves include recent negotiations regarding a long-term security and economic agreement with the US, the legal authorization for continued US military presence in Iraq, the government’s adoption of grassroots Sunni security forces, and an increased distribution of reconstruction funds to the predominantly Sunni Anbar province.

Another large Shia group of about 28 seats is held by the Sadrist Movement led by radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al Sadr, the son of legendary deceased cleric Mohammad Sadeq al Sadr. The younger Sadr has very close ties to Tehran, characterized by his flight to Iran at the start of the US military “surge” in February 2007. And in contrast to SIIC’s moves away from Iranian influence, Sadr is studying to become a cleric under Khamenei’s Velayat-e-Faqih. The larger Sadrist Movement is a loose confederation of elements not completely under al Sadr’s control, some of which were complicit in past sectarian cleansing, others which are more moderate.

. . . The Kurds are largely grouped in the Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan (DPAK), considered the most unified voting bloc in the COR. The DPAK consists of 53 members primarily drawn from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). The bloc is closely allied with US interests, though its members are strong advocates of weak federalism, and sometimes make independent moves that seem to conflict with Iraqi nationalism. Independent or otherwise affiliated Kurds hold another five or six seats outside of the DPAK.

The current major Sunni bloc is called the Tawaffuk or Iraqi National Concord Front, which holds about 40 seats and is composed of three parties: the General Council for the People of Iraq (GCPI), the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), and the Iraqi National Dialogue Council (INDC). Tawaffuk’s platform is anti-Iranian and pro-Sunni, though its parties are not considered widely representative of Iraq’s larger Sunni population by some American officials, because many Sunni leaders sat out of national elections.

The Sunni bloc is led by Ayad al Samarrai of the IIP, and its former chairman is the controversial Adnan al Dulaymi of the GCPI, who is widely believed to be involved in insurgency and sectarian violence. Terrorism charges against Dulaymi have spurred several US and Iraqi raids on his offices over the past two years and calls by other members of parliament for his prosecution. Last December, Dulaymi’s son and many of his bodyguards were detained in connection with the manufacture of car bombs, which “provoked issues within both Tawaffuk and … a great deal of controversy and some significant time within the COR,” said the Western diplomat. “Several days running were spent talking about his issues within the COR debate.” Dulaymi, who has survived several assassination attempts, has thus far avoided prosecution because rivals fear a backlash against his arrest.

. . . Overall, the distribution of sectarian-based political affiliations in the COR is about 45 percent Shia, 20 percent Kurdish, and 15 percent Sunni Arab, roughly reflecting the proportion of the three major ethnicities and sects in larger Iraqi society. The remaining 20 percent – approximately 54 seats – are divided between Shia and Sunnis who are explicit secularists, independents, and minority representatives, . . .

Change wrought by the Anbar tribal Awakening is a vital component of evaluating the interest and intent of Iraq’s Sunnis, as well as possibilities for Iraqi federalism and long-term reconciliation. The current Sunni representatives in parliament are “minimally” representative of the wider Sunni population because most Sunni leaders and tribal structures boycotted the last national elections, according to various US military and intelligence officials.

“Because most Sunnis boycotted those elections, IIP was able to sweep the field,” said a US intelligence official speaking on condition of anonymity. “But despite being the Sunni voice in Baghdad, they have been completely unable to prevent either the anti-Sunni pogroms in Baghdad or the rise of al-Qaeda in the Sunni provinces.”

Provincial elections that are scheduled to take place in October and subsequent national elections in late 2009 will be important, as they will give Sunnis with the popular and US-allied Sahawa al Iraq, or Iraqi Awakening, official status within the government. This will consolidate their de facto influence through democratic means, codifying both Sunni rejection of insurgency and lasting status within larger Iraqi society.

“While a number of the sheikhs are skeptical about the prospects for democracy in Iraq, as a general rule they are more than happy to consolidate the practical power they already wield through democratic means,” said the US intelligence official. “The Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP) and its Tawaffuk Front coalition partners recognize the amount of popular support that Sahawa al Iraq has, and have done everything in their power to stall local elections until they can find a way to ... retain their current power.”

Some US officials argue that the emergent Sunni leaders are predisposed to reconcile and realistic about their new role in Iraq society.

“[Reconciliation] would just be letting them come back and be the minority they are and now recognize themselves to be,” said Stanton. “Because being a minority doesn’t mean you’re powerless in this parliamentary system, because the Shia are fairly fractured and there will be Shia from time-to-time who will caucus with the Sunnis and Kurds to make deals.”

While the media has focused on a narrative of unrelenting sectarianism as the cause of the COR’s inertia on passing legislation, many American officials believe this view ignores some context, including the decentralized design of the government under the Iraqi constitution and a lack of experience with democracy among Iraqi officials.

“[Sectarianism] is clearly an element; political parties are formed along sectarian lines and political blocs, too,” said Reeker. “That’s not uncommon in countries all over the world. That does not have to be a recipe for disaster. What it means is finding the mechanisms under the constitution they have to get through those things and do what it takes to govern, so that all the parties in government and the citizenry can feel secure and comfortable.”

And despite the splintered character of the country’s political and demographic makeup, as well as the enhanced sectarianism that flared during the bloody conflict in 2006, both Americans and Iraqis are quick to describe the existence of a strong nationalistic sentiment in Iraq.

“There’s a sort of nationalism in Iraq that frankly people don’t realize,” said Reeker. “Sectarianism is not as etched or hard-wired into the society here … as people think based on what was absolutely brutal, horrific sectarian violence … after the Samarra mosque bombing in 2006. If you look back in history, Iraq was a place where the Sunnis and Shia mixed, it was a place where there was a certain strong Arab nationalism. So [reconciliation is] something they have to keep working. They have these very difficult debates, but they have found certain mechanisms … to get some of this done, whether it’s passing budgets, executing them, getting money moved out to the provinces.”

With improved security, only time will reveal if such nationalism will result in sufficient accord within the Iraqi legislature. Many US officials shun the term “reconciliation” in favor of “accommodation,” given the difficult diversity of Iraq’s sects, ethnicities, and interests.

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Fighting the UK's Transfer of Sovereignty to the EU in the Courts

The battle in Britain over whether to transfer sovereignty to the EU by approval of the Treaty of Lisbon is now fully engaged. The Labour Government of Gordon Brown, having renigged on its promise to allow the people of Britain to vote on this transfer, is now in the midst of forcing passage of the Treaty through Parliament. To follow this travesty and to understand what is at stake, there are two sites I highly recommend: EU Referendum and Brits At Their Best.

This fight has taken a fascinating turn with the filing of a lawsuit challenging the Labour Government's right to transfer British sovereignty to the EU on "constitutional grounds." What's fascinating about that is that there is no single British Constitution, if there is any at all. The rights of British citizens are set forth in an amalgam of documents that start with the Magna Carta in 1215 and continues with other similar compacts signed by the people and the Crown during the course of British history, such as the Declaration of Rights of 1689. And there are a series of common laws written by judges as part of their judicial decisions that are generally recognized as limiting the power of government.

If you want to know what "rights" British citizens had in the latter part of the eighteenth centurty, just open up the U.S. Constitution. The vast majority of rights we have as U.S. citizens, from the right of a free press to the right to keep and bear arms all derive from English law as it was in 1776.

But here is the rub. The Parliament has taken the position that its laws are supreme. Under this theory, the Parliament can pass any law it desires - extinguishing whatever rights - and the Courts have no power to rule on the constitutionality of any act of Parliament. Thus, while we have a triparte system of checks and balances, in Britain, you have a tyranny of Parliament.

Thus, you go from a society in which all Protestants had a right to keep arms for self defense to a society where, as a practical matter, only the criminals get to keep them. And you go from a country with half a millenium or more of democratic tradition whereby the citizens elect their officials with the intent that the officials govern to a country where the elected officials, without the say of the people, abrogate their responsibility and transfer the right to govern Britain's citizens to the EU.

But that claim of Parliament to be the supreme and unquestioned arbiter of what is legal is now being challenged. As Brits At Their Best point out, a law suit has been filed that seeks to duplicate in Britain our own Supreme Court's 1803 decision in Marbury v. Madison. Our own Constitution does not say anything about our Courts having the duty or right to decide wether any legislative act comports with the Constitution. Chief Justice John Marshall's decision in Marbury v Madison established that duty as a part of interpreting the Constitution, and his decision was fundamental to the development of the judiciary as an independant and co-equal branch of government. The UK citizens have filed suit to declare that some amalgam of the courts and the crown are co-equal branches of government with Parliament and are imbued with Marbury type powers to declare acts of Parliament null as unconstitutional.

This today on the lawsuit and all that animates it from The Telegraph:

As the Government embarks this week on its concentrated procedure to persuade Parliament to approve ratification of the EU Reform Treaty, to which Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have already committed the United Kingdom, Stuart Wheeler, who founded the spread-betting group, IG Index, is preparing a determined challenge in the courts to confront the EU constitution head-on.

For a referendum, even if granted, would only indicate public opinion; the question may be slanted and the result shouldn't be binding unless it reveals the settled will of a clear majority of the whole electorate.

. . . [Gordon Brown's Labour government] has reneged on a manifesto pledge to hold a referendum on the EU Constitution, contrary to the wishes of over 80% of voters, because the new treaty signed in Lisbon is "not a constitution".

This is pure deceit based on the redrafting and amalgamation of the 2004 Constitution Treaty voted down by the French and Dutch and the 2007 Reform Treaty, but it retains some 96% of the constitutional principles published by former President Giscard D'Estaing in the original draft treaty.

. . . Amongst many restrictive conditions that are in conflict with our own long-established Constitution are first that the Lisbon Treaty establishes for the first time a single legal personality - a supranational state to be represented at the Security Council and global conferences, whereas in due course Britain may not.
Second that EU laws shall have supremacy over those of member states and third that the arrangements ratified in the Reform Treaty shall be for an unlimited period; i.e. forever. Fourth that henceforward the new treaty may be amended without further debate.

A pivotal question to be answered by the courts is whether Parliament really enjoys, or has ever enjoyed unfettered "supremacy" to do whatever it likes, as it is wont to claim.

We have been studying the British Constitution, most of which is written but not codified in one document, for ten years. We believe that ministers are limited by the confines of the Constitution; that they have no authority to surrender, or lend, sovereignty to another power, especially one that is unelected, unaccountable, irremovable and owes no allegiance to the British Crown.

They have no power to assume Royal prerogative or the right to break their oaths of allegiance and office, or cause the Sovereign to break his or her contract (Coronation Oath) with the people to govern according to their laws and customs.

If ministers try to enact bad or damaging law, the Crown, one of the three legs of governance, has a duty to refuse assent. Anyway, how can the strictly impartial Crown accept partial advice based on political whim?

We belive parliamentary "supremacy" and the doctrine of no government "binding its successor" are confined to the statutes of administrative law, not constitutional law.

We also believe that constitutional law cannot simply be repealed by introducing a new act. If it can be repealed at all, it must be repealed expressly in full and normal procedure.

Furthermore if the doctrine that Parliament may not destroy its own "omnipotence" is correct, by adopting permanent subservience to Brussels, from which already nearly 80% of our laws originate, its so-called "omnipotence" would indeed be destroyed.

In 1803 in the United States in a significant case, Marbury v. Madison, a Supreme Court Judge, Marshall, held that the US Constitution, based on the English original, was superior to a certain ill-conceived Act introduced by Congress and he declared the offending statute void.

We urgently need a Marbury v. Madison type case here and every one in Britain should be thankful that Stuart Wheeler is to ask the courts urgently whether there is any lawful authority for our government to over-ride our existing Constitution and impose the EU version.

. . . [To support this lawsuit, please] send contributions marked DT and payable to, CONSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGE c/o This England, PO Box 52, Cheltenham GL50 1YQ.

Read the entire article. To simply say that I support Mr. Wheeler is an understatement.

I have stated my own observations and thoughts on this before, but will do so again here, if for no other reason than I love the sound of my own voice and etchings of my own quill. With a constituion (see here) created by Treaty of Lisbon, the EU will become a fully fledged state and the central government for subordinate "states" - i.e., EU member countries. The EU is a grand experiment in undemocratic socialism. It's manner of government and the goals of the socialists who control the reins of power in the EU differ in many respects from those of America. It is a measure of how undemocratic and unpopular the thought of an EU superstate is that none of the creators of this byzantine monolith are willing to allow the electorate in any of the member states to vote on whether to join with the exception of Ireland, whose constitution requires such a vote. The EU's creation is not by popular acclimation, but by socialist coup.

Some of the EU policies are suicidal. For example, open borders immigration within the EU and the EU dictated policies that allow huge immigration from Islamic countries is causing untold problems in the major countries, and in particular, Britain. The regulatory scheme of the EU is growing exponentially and threatens to strangle the member states. And then there is what portends to be the EU's economy busting response to global warming. Global warming is a concept that the EU has incredibly opted to write into their new Constitution.

While the EU seems a step up for many of the member countries whose governments have been historically dysfunctional, that is decidedly not the case for America's most important ally, Britain. Britain, whose anglo-saxon ideals of capitalism, the common law legal system, and democracy have animated the most advanced and free countries in the world from the U.S. to India, is about to see those traditions extinguished with its transfer of sovereignty to the EU. And indeed, if Britain remains in the EU but another decade it will see a massive and permanent change in the charachter of its country through immigration and emigration. The EU controls Britain's borders and the EU's goal is to extinguish nationalism and replace it with loyalty to the EU. The damage the EU is doing to Britain is severe and permanent.

The best thing that Britain can do for itself is to extricate itself from the EU immediately. Britian can then negotiate a trade agreement with the EU. On balance, that will save Britain economically, it will likely be a huge boon the economy, and it will save Britain's anglo-saxon heritage and traditions that are at the heart of democracy and free enterprise.

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