This England 96
This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,–
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
-William Shakespeare, King Richard II, Act 2 scene 1
*
Liberty is all but lost in Britain, but the people make the fullest possible use of the little they still have: sexual freedom (a majority of children are now born to unmarried mothers), and the freedom to drink themselves sick.
Now we at The Atheist Conservative are libertarians, not prudes. It’s not the drinking of alcohol or extra-marital sex that we deplore, but the decadence of a nation whose recent ancestors governed – and governed well for the most part, in our opinion – the greatest Empire in the history of the world. (Our sympathies are with the Americans, however, in their revolution.)
This is how young Britons ‘saw in’ the freezing New Year a month ago, reported by the MailOnline. This England is a tawdry region on the western edge of the socialist European Union.
Binge-drinking revellers fuelled a chaotic start to 2008 as over-stretched ambulance workers battled to cope with emergency calls flooding in at a peak of one every eight seconds.
In the capital alone the London Ambulance Service had to deal with its highest number of emergency calls since the Millennium – the majority related to excess alcohol.
As midnight came and went there was mayhem as scores of drunken partygoers around the country tumbled into the streets, some wearing little more than their underwear.
Fights erupted and a string of dishevelled young men and women collapsed on benches and in doorways, too inebriated to remember or care that the night was supposed to be a celebration.
There to mop up the mess were thousands of emergency workers drafted in to provide cover on the busiest night of the year.
In the first four hours of 2008, London Ambulance Service (LAS) dealt with an astonishing 1,825 calls alone, peaking at over 500 calls an hour between 2am and 4am….
Meanwhile in the West Midlands the ambulance service fielded 1,400 calls in just five hours – a rate of one every 12 seconds. It was mirrored by the North East Ambulance Service which received 1,860 calls between 11pm and 5am.
Last night the astonishing number of calls to deal with booze-fuelled illness or injury prompted accusations that lives of those in real emergencies were being put at risk and demands for partygoers to wake up the costs of binge-drinking.
LAS spokeswoman Gemma Gidley said: “These calls put the Service under increased pressure to manage demand when we have to ensure we respond quickly to other patients with potentially life-threatening emergencies.
“People need to think about the real consequences of drinking so much that they require treatment.”
In the south, the South Central Ambulance Service dealt with three times more incidents that normal.
Control room duty manager Michele Foot said: “I think we should start charging people for the drink related stuff – it’s most self inflicted.” [The tax-payer paid for all the hospital treatment the drunks were given by the National Health Service – JB]
In some areas special temporary treatment sites were set up to cope, paramedics set out on foot in busy city centres and volunteers from the St John Ambulance Service and Red Cross were drafted in.
Alternative transport was arranged for drunken revellers to take the strain off ambulances.
Hundreds of arrests were made by police for public order offences, as well as violence and sex and drug-related crime.
Riot vans parked in city centres prepared to deal with the inevitable fall out of a night of excess….
In Birmingham a group of friend bragged they would be “crawling” by the end of the night.
In Newcastle, in scenes mirrored everywhere, a young woman – shoeless and seemingly very much the worse for wear – had to be aided by paramedics while nearby a well-built man lay face down in the street after being set upon by four other men.
“This is going to be a long night,” said one weary paramedic, confiding: “We will spend all night picking up people who are too drunk to walk and people who got into fights.”
Everywhere revellers who had lost all their inhibitions were happy to brag about their drinking exploits.
Sisters Sarah and Teri Crame, both dancers, wore burlesque outfits better-suited to the boudoir as they strutted through the rain-soaked street.
“We’ve been drinking since about seven,” said Teri. “We’re both wrecked and loving it. Mixing our drinks always leads to trouble – we’ve had wine, lager and vodka tonight.”
In Cardiff a group of young women, who would have been well-advised to cover up, tottered along in nothing more than heels and white underwear. …
Bearing the brunt of the chaos, Paramedic Martyn Sullivan said: “We’ve had a lot of drunken calls and a lot of assault. I’ve been threatened myself tonight.”
In Bristol, a young woman wearing a tiny black dress despite the elements slumped on the floor as a friend, laughing, spent five minutes trying to lift her.
Meanwhile a semi-naked man argued with police and other partygoers vomited over railings into the river.
Fights broke out long before midnight and continued into the small hours.
In Slough, Berkshire a crowd of drunken teenagers was involved in a punch up which ended with a 17-year-old boy being stabbed in the chest. Another person was stabbed in Woking, Surrey after a mass brawl.
In Hampshire every custody centre in the county was full. …
Go to the article to see the pictures.
And here are some more in the Mail.
And here are some in the Sun.
A change in the British political climate? 330
It looks very much as if the Conservative Party (the Tories) will be returned to power in this year’s general election under the leadership of David Cameron.
It will not be a big change. Such differences as there are between Cameron’s Conservatives and Brown’s (or Blair’s) New Labour socialists are small and few. The Conservative Party of today bears little resemblance to that of Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher.
Our British editor, Sam Westrop, has posted two articles in which he expresses his disappointment with the character and behavior of several people who may well be future leaders of the Conservative Party, not this year but in a few years from now.
While this is chiefly of interest to our British readers, it does give Americans a glimpse into what is happening in the political arena over there.
The only Party which could make a difference if it came to power is the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), which wants above all to detach Britain from the undemocratic, politically-correct, incorrigibly collectivist European Union (EU), governed by ukase from Brussels. But although UKIP might win some seats in Parliament, it cannot hope to become a governing majority.
The greatest threat to the nation is Islamization, but no political party is willing to tackle it, or even talk about it above a low murmur, except the British National Party (BNP), which is neo-Nazi (and not so very neo). The refusal of both the major parties, the Conservatives and New Labour, to formulate policies that might deal effectively with it, is driving many voters into the arms of the BNP.
The result is highly likely to be civil strife, violent and bloody.
Letter from Britain – Just superficial? I’ve barely scratched the surface… 182
Last week, posted at The Atheist Conservative, decrying the existence of Conservative Party members who choose to realise the (usually false) stereotype peddled by the Left – that of the uncaring, vain, white-bread, poor-hating, out-of-touch, arrogant, vulgar, sherry-swilling Conservative party member.
While there is certainly nothing wrong with sherry, it became apparent to me that on the night that the article described, there were a few individuals who choose to fulfil the afore-mentioned image and believed that sherry helped complete the picture. If they must act so boorishly, must they really draw upon such a wonderful fortified wine to do so?
The event was an annual reunion of Conservatives from around the country. The event has in the last few years been punctuated with screaming, shouting, spewing of Monday Club ideals, heavy drinking and the throwing of Brussels sprouts. [The Monday Club is a right-wing Conservative Party pressure group.]
Mere minutes after the article was posted, the accused persons spouted furious tirades through the frantic exchange of phone calls, texts and that tiresome tool known as Facebook.
Furthermore, I received a politely worded message from one attendee of the event. Duncan Flynn informed me that my article was “highly libellous” while at the same time conceding that: “you are entitled to your opinion.” A lawyer by profession (albeit I believe currently unemployed), he wondered if I had the “decency to apologise”. I replied that of course I would apologise if anything I had said was factually incorrect; I have received no reply as of yet.
What was much more heartening was the large number of messages, sent to me through many mediums, that wholeheartedly agreed with me and proclaimed the existence of such persons as a blight on the Conservative Party. These words were sent from local Tories, national Tories, ex-Tories, and even from some very un-Toryish folks in the US.
One such message however, while agreeing that the particular people mentioned were nuisances, did question whether or not my article, entitled ‘Another Reason I will not be Voting Conservative’, was giving a relatively unimportant incident too much publicity. Why, the message read, did the article not provide reasons that explained much more cogently my misgivings regarding Cameron’s Conservatives?
This is, of course, a very fair point. I might have tried instead to pen an article that laments, for example, Mr Cameron’s success at letting the Conservatives become yet another social democratic party.
I have no doubt that author raised a justified point, and it makes one wonder whether my article was somewhat superficial. I must reply: yes! – It was very superficial; incredibly superficial; monstrously superficial.
There are powerful reasons for advocating close examination of such people. It is partly a manifestation of contending with three very similar political parties that perhaps cause the voter to examine the idiosyncrasies of political figures to determine their choice of vote. However, the much more important reason is that, at least for me, the persons I met in that inn were most certainly not representative of the entire Conservative Party; but they are certainly the most loud and the most visible.
I am a Conservative at heart, a slightly apprehensive one at present, but a Conservative nonetheless. I do not want such people to plague the party with which I have some connection and I do not want such people to despoil politics any further. It is sad yet laughable that they then admit their vulgarity and follies by frantically and angrily protesting, and then set about plotting a response to the accounts of their behaviour.
It would be wonderful to be part of a political party that only contains politicians of integrity – politicians that hold office because of worthy reward; rather than career politicians who still seek to desperately re-live their university days and who possess no abilities or experience that would make them good politicians.
This superficial inspection of our politicians-to-be is exceptionally important – these are persons who will lead our country and, in these big-government days, run our lives.
And so should I now refrain from naming those who were involved? Have their names been not mentioned enough times? Can I resist the urge to state such names again? Yes! – yes I can; but I simply choose not to:
Iain Lindley
Gareth Knight
Frank Young
Richard Price
Nick Reeves
Days of wrath 92
Now that the global warming scam has been blown wide open, those responsible for perpetrating it should meet with condign punishment. Michael Mann of the hockey-stick-graph fraud; Al Gore, profiteer from the sale of carbon indulgences; Phil Jones who conned donors into giving him more than $20 million in grants to pursue his alchemy: on the necks of these and all the others who would have impoverished us and subjected us to collective misery on the ludicrous pretext that the earth is burning up, may the sword of justice fall!
It’s a wish that just may come true.
James Delingpole writes in the Telegraph:
Dr Phil Jones – the (suspended) head of the Prince of Wales’s favourite AGW-promotion institution the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia – had a narrow squeak the other day. Though the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) found his department in breach of Freedom of Information laws (Jones and his team had deliberately withheld or conspired to destroy data), Jones was able to escape prosecution on a technicality.
Next time, he may not be so lucky. Our friend John O’Sullivan at Climategate.com has been looking closely at the Climategate emails and reckons there is still a very strong case for a criminal prosecution, which could see Dr Jones facing ten years on fraud charges.
John O’Sullivan argues (at length, in an article well worth reading in full):
Yesterday the London Times broke the latest news on the fate of disgraced British climatologist Phil Jones, of the University of East Anglia (UEA). Jones breached the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by refusing to comply with requests for data concerning claims by its scientists that man-made emissions were causing global warming. The Times reports that the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) decided that the UEA failed in its duties under the Act but said that it could not prosecute those involved because the complaint was made too late. …
What is not being intelligently reported is that Jones is still liable as lead conspirator in the UK’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and may face prosecution under the United Kingdom Fraud Act (2006). If convicted of the offense of fraud by either false representation, failing to disclose information or fraud by abuse of his position, he stands liable to a maximum penalty of ten years imprisonment.
And in this article Delingpole reports how happy that would make him and one professor of Biogeography:
A mighty outpouring of rage today from [Professor] Philip Stott, foaming with righteous indignation, on the life and imminent death of the AGW scam.
Part of him is naturally enthralled:
“… as an independent academic, it has been fascinating to witness the classical collapse of a Grand Narrative, in which social and philosophical theories are being played out before our gaze. It is like watching the Berlin Wall being torn down, concrete slab by concrete slab, brick by brick, with cracks appearing and widening daily on every face – political, economic, and scientific.” …
But his overwhelming mood is one of white-hot fury at the way so many of his fellow scientists have colluded in this nauseating conspiracy:
“And what can one say about ‘the science’? ‘The ‘science’ is already paying dearly for its abuse of freedom of information, for unacceptable cronyism, for unwonted arrogance, and for the disgraceful misuse of data at every level, from temperature measurements to glaciers to the Amazon rain forest. What is worse, the usurping of the scientific method, and of justified scientific scepticism, by political policies and political propaganda could well damage science … in the public eye for decades… ”
I’m in no mood for being magnanimous in victory. I want the lying, cheating, fraudulent scientists prosecuted and fined or imprisoned. I want warmist politicians like [Prime Minister] Brown and disgusting [Foreign Secretary] Miliband booted out and I want Conservative fellow-travellers who are still pushing this green con trick … to be punished at the polls for their culpable idiocy.
Yes.
Knocking the ice down 214
Here’s more on the great global warming scam. This is about the flimsiness of evidence and the sloppiness of the scientists who are responsible for assessing it.
From the Telegraph:
The United Nations’ expert panel on climate change based claims about ice disappearing from the world’s mountain tops on a student’s dissertation and an article in a mountaineering magazine.
The revelation will cause fresh embarrassment for the The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which had to issue a humiliating apology earlier this month over inaccurate statements about global warming.
The IPCC’s remit is to provide an authoritative assessment of scientific evidence on climate change.
In its most recent report, it stated that observed reductions in mountain ice in the Andes, Alps and Africa was being caused by global warming, citing two papers as the source of the information.
However, it can be revealed that one of the sources quoted was a feature article published in a popular magazine for climbers which was based on anecdotal evidence from mountaineers about the changes they were witnessing on the mountainsides around them.
The other was a dissertation written by a geography student, studying for the equivalent of a master’s degree, at the University of Berne in Switzerland that quoted interviews with mountain guides in the Alps.
The revelations … raised fresh questions about the quality of the information contained in the report, which was published in 2007.
It comes after officials for the panel were forced earlier this month to retract inaccurate claims in the IPCC’s report about the melting of Himalayan glaciers. …
Professor Richard Tol, one of the report’s authors who is based at the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin, Ireland, said: “These are essentially a collection of anecdotes.
“Why did they do this? It is … illustrative of how sloppy Working Group Two (the panel of experts within the IPCC responsible for drawing up this section of the report) has been… what they claim is complete nonsense.”
The IPCC report, which is published every six years, is used by government’s worldwide to inform policy decisions that affect billions of people.
The claims about disappearing mountain ice were contained within a table entitled “Selected observed effects due to changes in the cryosphere produced by warming”. It states that reductions in mountain ice have been observed from the loss of ice climbs in the Andes, Alps and in Africa between 1900 and 2000.
The report also states that the section is intended to “assess studies that have been published since the TAR (Third Assessment Report) of observed changes and their effects”.
But neither the dissertation or the magazine article cited as sources for this information were ever subject to the rigorous scientific review process that research published in scientific journals must undergo.
The magazine article, which was written by Mark Bowen, a climber and author of two books on climate change, appeared in Climbing magazine in 2002. It quoted anecdotal evidence from climbers of retreating glaciers and the loss of ice from climbs since the 1970s. …
The dissertation paper, written by professional mountain guide and climate change campaigner Dario-Andri Schworer while he was studying for a geography degree, quotes observations from interviews with around 80 mountain guides in the Bernina region of the Swiss Alps.
Experts claim that loss of ice climbs are a poor indicator of a reduction in mountain ice as climbers can knock ice down and damage ice falls with their axes and crampons…
Letter From Britain – Tories Embrace Brussels 276
Despite their good chances to win the general election, there is a great deal of discontentment with the Conservatives in Britain. The old and mostly false image of uncaring snobs was recently revived by Gordon Brown after he stated that Tory tax plans were ‘dreamed up on the playing fields of Eton’. But while this author certainly has no problems with old Etonians, he finds that a somewhat snobbish stupidity exists in the Conservative Party, and it certainly does not appeal to all.
I am a student, I am a libertarian, and I define myself as right wing insofar as the political spectrum actually makes sense. The spectrum exists – it is congested, confusing and mixed up, but it is there – and I have found a spot to stand on and to defend.
It is then remarkable how disappointing, how saddening and so how very depressing it is that when I meet a Tory, he can be so very different to everything that I believe in.
I have said ‘he’ because the example I am about to use includes a bunch of male thirty-somethings, who all reminded me how unfortunate it appears the British people might be after the next election.
It was a dinner in the fortified city of York, in a cosy, warm, ale-saturated inn. Conservative party members from all over the country – party activists, parliamentary candidates and councillors – flocked to this inn to engage in drunken nostalgia of their University of York Conservative Society days. I was there discretely, a guest and no more.
Now the old stereotype that is pertained to the Tories is that of an eccentric, snobbish, uncaring, vain twit. I have never liked or much believed this stereotype, and to look at the achievements and personalities of great Conservative politicians one can rarely find any truth in this image.
This particular notion of mine was not holding up particularly well at the inn, where the eccentric, snobbish, uncaring, vain twits were screaming, shouting, drinking, reminiscing of the food fight at the previous year’s event and gleefully hoarding Brussels sprouts in case of another such incident.
They were crass, vulgar individuals who enjoyed the vanity of riches and demonstrated the decadence of those who could not truthfully attain something without the help of others.
One of my few talents is my ability to get myself into trouble. Before I was asked to leave for telling these persons what I thought of them, I did – perhaps in hindsight unwisely – tell them that they were “not the thinkers of the party.” There is a great deal of truth to this. Of the many I spoke to, most appeared to have never had a real job, but had immediately stood for some form of office and had lived off parents’ money. Are these to be our politicians – persons with no experience, no achievements, and not one example of worthiness?
Such persons present who indulged in such vulgar activity included Frank Young, the Conservative Campaign Director for London; Iain Lindley, the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Worsley and Eccles South; Gareth Knight, Director of Conservatives for International Travel; Duncan Flynn; Richard Price; and Nick Reeves.
There has come into existence a path for such like-minded people: Firstly, one joins the Conservative Party at University and gets involved locally. Secondly, one starts to perfect the image by learning of which port to drink at parties, which pinstripe suit to always wear – no matter how informal the occasion – and which public persons might be cheered and which persons might be booed. Very occasionally they might discuss politics – recycled titbits from the Times’ comment page. Finally, the slightly more intelligent ones will join the civil service while the more boorish, obtuse ones attempt to become Conservative Politicians.
The people present had followed that path’s instructions to the letter. It was noticeable that other expected guests – Chloe Smith MP and Jonathan Isaby to name but two – were not present, perhaps because they had achieved something: it would be best to call it, well, actual success.
Now I believe that the left wing is wrong; usually well-intentioned, but wrong. I take issue with the premises of their ethics and the consequences of their politics. However, I can accept and even encourage their existence because they are politically engaged, and they contribute to the academic and ethical wrangling that makes the United Kingdom a democracy. Among the people I met in that inn, there was no such engagement; instead there was a determination to become part of an ideal and all its frivolities rather than an attempt to actually discuss and achieve the ideal itself.
I must stress that these appalling persons did not represent the entire room; there were other people there that I count as my friends and I believe to be far more interesting and involved than I might ever be. And just as the vainglorious persons did not represent all those in the room, it must be said that they did also not represent the entire Conservative Party.
While the Conservatives appear to have embraced Brussels just as much as in the Conservatives in that inn, Cameron, as well as Blair, has at least helped to achieve something, that is, the end of tribal politics. Both have attempted to embrace the middle ground – they have attempted to make sure that their parties no longer exist to appeal to a particular type of person but have room for voters from a variety of backgrounds. This is laudable, but it does not endear me to Cameron.
I will not vote for Cameron because I do not trust him. Whether or not his promises speak from the heart or are a political ploy I do not care, because both lead me to disagree with him. The former I find mostly unappealing and the latter I find phoney and thus dangerous.
It was in that inn, among the Conservative Party’s foot-soldiers and political socialites, that I encountered the attitude that sickens me. The general topic of speeches during the evening ran on the line, ‘When we get into power…” This is what I find frightening: the yearning to be ‘in power’. To be a politician should be a duty and not a job; it is to be a servant and not a ruler; and it is to be an honour and not a prerogative.
So I despise the snobbish Tory and I do not trust the new Tory, and this leaves me with few places to go.
It is hopeful to note that it is unlikely we shall see the persons of that inn in the future, because having failed so hopelessly now, it is unlikely they shall succeed in years to come. But it is with caution that we should look upon the Conservative party, which appears to be either false or divided – and so neither appeal to me.
A watch on the walls 251
The law is the house of our safety. We live in it with confidence. But is it being surreptitiously undermined?
Aspects of Islamic law are being enforced in Britain and other European countries as a parallel system with the law of the land, although its is fundamentally incompatible with the ethical principles on which both British and European systems of law have been developed. This is happening at the same time as the undemocratic EU is imposing its ever more tyrannical will over the continent.
Serious and persistent attempts are being made by Muslim groups to establish sharia law similarly in America.
And it seems sharia is not the only ‘other’ system of law that may gain a foothold in the US.
This article by Barry Napier warns that an attempt is being made to remove the protection of federal and state law from individuals who enter American-Indian tribal territory. We don’t know if he’s right about the intentions behind these moves, but we think what he has to say is worth hearing.
Idaho pro-Obama bosses are trying to muscle-through ‘Custer Legislation’ … The idea is to give Indians total legal control over any non-Indian who even passes through their territory. They would be tried under separate tribal laws, and even if the accused comes from outside the reservation, they cannot call in outside help or legal counsel! And only Indians would be allowed to sit on the jury. …
The bright-sparks who are trying to bring this in are Idaho Attorney General Wasden and US Attorney Thomas Moss. They have been working out the details for the past six months… and everyone in the USA should ask “Why?” What is the point of making parts of the USA free from state and national laws?
The EU, that monolith no-one voted for and which has now taken control over every aspect of life in all member states without the authority of the people, has drawn up a new map of Europe. Literally. In it, the country of England simply does not exist. [This is true – JB.] Other smaller countries have also disappeared. It is a future map of what the EU wants Europe to be like in the very near future. At the same time, the EU encourages each member country to devolve power to smaller regional Assemblies, each making its own laws… but at least each law must be consistent with whatever the EU demands.
At first each country picked and chose which laws to implement even though they opposed national laws (just like the Idaho situation). Then, they were all harmonized, again without consent of the people. …
Why do it? That’s simple. By devolving power to smaller regional units, the EU can get rid of ‘countries’ and get on with creating a massive European state consisting only of regions, each answerable to their own ‘countries’, but each country, if it still exists, will be a rubber-stamper of whatever the EU wants. In other words, smaller units without country affiliations are controlled directly by the EU, and are much easier to bring into line than whole countries. It also means that when the EU is fully operational, regions have no power. …
Why should a state create a law-region within itself, unlinked to the greater laws? Is this the start of an EU-style take-over of power? At one end we have Obama’s promise to hand over the USA to the UN, and the UN’s decision to work in harmony with Interpol, who has immunity (for no good reason) from US laws. At the other end, we have this seemingly small ‘concession’ to create laws within laws.
Now join the dots! In between will come more states offering more similar powers to their own reservations and then even to conglomerates and others. There will then be pockets of laws-within-laws within states, each incompatible and fracturing the legal system wide open. What is the result of this? Confusion and uproar! …
Look closely at the idea of creating pockets of law within states, that are not controlled by that state. It is chaotic. And that’s what Marxists love, because making chaos is necessary for them to impose their draconian requirements on the people. Can you now see the dots joining? It is a breaking-up of power, just as in Europe. Without this notion of breaking-up state power, there is no reason at all to bring in such a foolish piece of devolution!
The Idaho Sheriff’s Association does not want this kind of devolution. But, how many laws has Obama ridden rough-shod over to get his own way? How many laws does he ignore in his mindless rush to make the USA Red?
County Sheriff Doug Giddings said he invited a lobbyist to speak to him about the idea. Then, he presented it to the Sheriff’s Association in December. They “voted unanimously to NOT back the legislation”. And, as Giddings adds, “We’ve discussed it every way but Sunday, and it doesn’t do any of us any good. The Feds and the tribe are the only ones to gain power and authority over non-tribal on the reservation…. I vote ‘No’.”
Exactly – there is no sense in it, because it makes things worse, not better! The only sense is that it is part of a far greater plan from outside. I have already outlined what that plan is. I believe my response is an ‘educated guess’, because it is based on knowledge of how Marxists work out their strategies, and by knowing the history of communism and Obama. …
Benewah County Prosecuting Attorney, Douglas Paul Payne … implies a deeper agenda in his own email to fellow Attorneys: “This issue may seem unimportant to counties that are not concurrent with a reservation, but it involves issues beyond county/tribal relations.” …
The tribe wants the legislation (of course they do!) but the Sheriffs oppose it, for real practical and ethical reasons.
The proposed bill is the State and Indian Tribal Cooperative Law Enforcement Act. One tribe has framed and pushed this proposed law, but another two have not. That a smaller unit within a state can be free of state laws is amazing, because there is no accountability … If passed, the law would “violate Art IV sec. 20 of the Idaho Constitution…”
There are numerous other violations. So, to create a separate legal entity within the state, one has to violate any laws pertaining to it. The idea also violates the national Constitution…
It would mean that any non-tribal person should be warned never to enter the tribal lands for any reason, because they could be liable to arbitrary arrest and sentencing by those not appointed by the state!
Payne goes on to say: “It is important to all Idahoans not to establish a precedent of delegating state law enforcement power to anyone not answerable to the people subjected to that power.”
He says “Counties have been enforcing state law on reservations for 120 years and there appears no immediate emergency. Curiously, this bill is being rushed to the floor.” Just like many other Obama moves! There is no reason to implement the bill… so there has to be an external prompt with an hidden national agenda. …
If the bill passes through it will create another precedent, one so huge as to threaten national security and society. …
The Central Idaho Post is bravely opposing the proposed bill and is asking for all state citizens to write in opposition to the AG of the state. I believe the issue is far bigger, as Attorney Payne tells us, and should involve everyone in the USA. …
The great global warming lie 4
The UN climate conference at Copenhagen was fortunately a failure, and the terrible consequences that might have resulted from the achievement of its impoverishing and enslaving objectives have been averted, but immeasurable damage has already been done by the propagation of the global warming lie.
Melanie Phillips writes in the Spectator:
The IPCC is now a totally discredited body which should be investigated for the mammoth fraud it has perpetrated on the world. (Questions might also be asked about New Scientist and other scientific journals which have been party to this scam).Yet on the basis of the IPCC’s anti-scientific propaganda and the hysteria it has created, the entire political landscape in Britain and elsewhere has been reshaped, with potentially disastrous consequences for the future of these countries.
In Britain, any idea that the Tories might halt the country’s gathering slippage into an existential crevasse is vitiated by the leadership’s fanatical or opportunistic (take your pick) devotion to this discredited, totalitarian dogma of man-made global warming. Interestingly, according to a survey conducted by Conservative Home, the lowest priority for the 141 Tory parliamentary candidates who took part was ‘reducing Britain’s carbon footprint’. Writer Matthew Sinclair adds anxiously:
‘That doesn’t necessarily mean that new candidates are ardent sceptics of climate change science or policy…’
Good heavens, perish the thought! After all, who could possibly think there was any doubt about it?
On our masters and commanders 227
Why do some people want power over the lives of others?
Theodore Dalrymple writes in a discussion of privileged eduction in France and whether the state should provide ‘equality of opportunity’ – which is to say, a discussion of socialist thinking – that he is mystified by this question.
The heart of the problem lies in the unassailability of the term ‘equality of opportunity,’ and the unthinking assent it commands. I was once asked on Dutch TV whether I was in favour of it, the interviewer assuming that I must be so in spite of all my other appalling opinions; and when I said that I was not, and indeed that I thought it was a truly hideous notion, his eyes opened with surprise. I thought he was going to slip off his chair.
Only under conditions reminiscent of those of Brave New World could there be equality of opportunity. But, of course, the very unattainability of equality of opportunity (in any sense other than that of an absence of formal, legal impediments to social advance) is precisely what recommends it as an ideal to politicians such as President Sarkozy, and indeed to most other western politicians, virtually irrespective of their putative political stripe. The fact that, reform notwithstanding, there are always differences in outcomes for different groups or classes of human beings in any society means that there is always scope, in the name of equality of opportunity, for further interference and control by politicians and bureaucrats. Not permanent revolution (to change the communist metaphor from Stalinism to Trotskyism), but permanent reform is the modern western politico-bureaucratic class’s route to lasting power and control.
Why anyone should want lasting power and control is to me a mystery: I suppose it must be the answer to a deep and insatiable inner emptiness.
And Bill Whittle at PJTV (here) seeks an answer to the question: ‘What type of person wants to run for office?’ He cites two men in history who attained supreme power and did not cling to it. Each of them saw his position as a temporary job, the exercise of power as a duty he owed to the people, and when he had done what was needed, stepped down from high office and returned to private life. One was the (5th.century B.C.E.) Roman leader Cincinnatus, and the other was George Washington.
If there are any politicians now who consider taking on elected office only as a service, they would be found (and it’s really not very likely that they exist) on the conservative right. Leftist politicians want above all to command, manipulate, control people, even force them to change their nature. There’s an old and ongoing debate among political philosophers of the left as to whether The Revolution will bring about a transformation of human nature, or whether it is necessary for human nature to be reconstructed first in order for The Revolution to be accomplished. (An infamous example of a Commie who fretted over this artifiical problem is Herbert Marcuse, guru of the 1968 New Left in Europe.)
Right now, ‘progressive’ bureaucrats in New York see it as their business – and of course their pleasure – to interfere not just in New Yorkers’ but the whole nation’s private lives by dictating what people may eat or not eat.
Daniel Compton writes in OpenMarket.org:
On Monday, city officials rolled out an initiative to curb the salt content in manufactured and packaged foods. But the idea behind it — that salt intake has reached extreme levels in America — is a myth, and this “solution” wouldn’t work, anyway.
City Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley aims to lead a national campaign to reduce the amount of salt in manufactured foods by 25 percent over the next five years. Cutting salt intake is supposed to reduce hypertension-related health problems. But while doctors may advise particular patients to cut down on salt, the science tells us that this is not a public-health problem. …
In other words, Farley’s trying to fight a problem that doesn’t exist. Worse, his new guidelines say that daily sodium intake for most people shouldn’t exceed 1,500 mg — which is a ridiculous 45 percent below the bottom of the normal consumption range [a] UC Davis study identified, and a full 60 percent lower than the worldwide average. …
The UC Davis study also cites surveys showing that sodium intake in the United Kingdom has “varied minimally” over the last 25 years, despite a major government campaign to reduce it.
Overall, the researchers found, salt intake “is unlikely to be malleable by public policy initiatives,” and attempts to change it would “expend valuable national and personal resources against unachievable goals.”
The New York guidelines are voluntary — for now. But the city’s ban on trans fats started that way, too. And the federal Food and Drug Administration has also been looking to get in on the action — it may classify it as a “food additive,” subject to regulation, sometime this year.
Then he comes to what all this regulation-for-our-own-good is really all about:
But this campaign isn’t about public health — it’s about grandstanding on a pseudo-issue ginned up by activists, when science clearly shows that there’s neither a crisis nor a way for the government to actually alter our salt intake.
All these initiatives do is win headlines for ambitious policymakers (New York’s last health commissioner parlayed his trans-fat activism into a promotion to FDA chief), while making food slightly more costly and leaving a bad taste in the mouths of consumers — literally.
Of course, if (or is it when?) the state is the sole provider of health care, it will claim justification for dictating to us what we may eat and how we must live, on the grounds that as it pays for our cures it has the right or the duty to instruct us to stay healthy. That’s why Obama and the Democrats so desperately want their health care legislation to be passed: not really to help keep us alive, but to have the means and the pretext for controlling us. As always with the left, they will boss us about in the name of a benign intention and an essential need.
The despotic personality is hard if not impossible for libertarians to understand. Individualists are appalled by the totalitarian vision of collectivists. Speaking for ourselves, in no conceivable circumstances would we want to organize a community. We find in the weakness of our unreconstructed human nature that it’s hard enough to run even one life – each our own.
Pikey? 115
More on the death throes of Britain, where PC once stood for the friendly, sturdy, common-sensical Police Constable, but now stands for the disease of which Britain is dying.
From the MailOnline:
A wealthy businessman was arrested at home in front of his wife and young son over an email which council officials deemed ‘offensive’ to gipsies – but which he had not even written.
And which was not said or written to a gipsy, and which no gipsy needed to have seen or read.
And it wasn’t even an ‘offensive term’ – it only rhymed with a term that is deemed offensive (and that we’ve never heard before).
The email, concerning a planning appeal by a gipsy, included the phrase: ‘It’s the ‘do as you likey’ attitude that I am against.’
Council staff believed the email was offensive because ‘likey’ rhymes with the derogatory term ‘pikey’.
What does ‘pikey’ mean? We’ve never heard it before. It is hinted in the story that it is a term that can hurt the feelings of some Irishmen.
The 45-year-old IT boss was held in a police cell for four hours until it was established he had nothing to do with the email, which had been sent by one of his then workers ….
But police had taken his DNA and later confirmed they would be holding it indefinitely.
The arraignment of this menacing criminal suspect cost thousands.
The businessman, who has asked not to be named, was also fingerprinted in the police investigation estimated to have cost taxpayers up to £12,000 [about $19,400].
He said two uniformed officers came to his house on a Sunday afternoon and said he would be handcuffed if he did not accompany them to the police station.
His computer and other internet equipment were also seized.
The email, from a computer at his company, was sent last August to a website at Rother District Council, in East Sussex, on which the public can comment on planning applications.
It was to record an objection to the gipsy’s mobile hme (mobile no longer) being concreted down ‘ in an area of outstanding beauty overlooking the Battle of Hastings site’.
The Crown Prosecution Service decided not to prosecute the man who actually sent the email, although he too was arrested by the Sussex Police on ‘suspicion of committing a racial or religious-aggravated offence’.
The police officer who made the decision to make the arrests is a female. If you call her a silly cow, which she is, you would probably be arrested in Britain for a ‘gender-aggravated offence’.
Chief Inspector Heather Keating said: ‘Sussex Police have a legal duty to promote community cohesion and tackle unlawful discrimination.
‘We are satisfied we acted appropriately in identifying the owner of the computer used and through this, the identity of the writer of the offending line.’
At the Battle of Hastings the Normans conquered the Saxons in 1066. Between 1066 and 2010 Britain rose to rule over the greatest empire the world has even seen and then dwindled to a sick little idiocracy.