Like a rolling stone

Liberty and the Rule of Law; part II

Rembrandt van Rijn - Moses with the Tablets of the Law (1659)

The principle of the Rule of Law

The sovereign power rests and is invested in the Law, held to be above all. The Law exists to maintain peace between the members of a society, and is an instrument of coercion to protect the life, liberty, and property of every such member. Where there is injury, the Law shall bring redress. Where there is great wickedness, the Law shall punish. The Law is to be generally applicable, clear and just. Everyone is equal, under the Law.

Why and how this has been subverted

Rationalist extremists attacked this concept, failing to see the worth of such a noble legal fiction. Socialists assailed it in the name of class war. They had no time for equality under the Law; their whole ideology was based not on the harmony of interests, but rather antagonism between classes. Nor could they accept the idea of a higher power constraining them. The Law, for them, was no more than a licence to use the power of coercion in support of their admittedly sectional interests, and if challenged would justify themselves in the name of the majority.

What I believe needs doing about it.

Drawing upon our great tradition of common law and common sense, we must set out clearly and succinctly the Law of this Land. The aim must be to reduce and clarify all aspects of the Law, starting with the criminal law and progressing onwards through civil, companies and administrative legislation.

A series of parliamentary Acts would be needed, such as a Criminal Statute Act and a reissue of Magna Carta, re-stating our fundamental legal rights. The Criminal Statute should set forth what are considered felonies. This should be a list as short as, perhaps 20 to 30 serious crimes. It should be short enough that anyone could recite them with a minimum of effort. It must also set forth a sentencing policy, which is firm in its resolve to punish wrong-doing, and increasingly severe with repeat offenders. Magna Carta should be re-issued, as it has been a number of times in our history - and we need it now as much as ever. Jury trial, habeas corpus, the right to self-defence, liberty of conscience and free speech, and whatever other curt statements are necessary to uphold individual liberty against arbitrary misrule.

As a parlour game , try to set out 20 definitions that contain all criminal acts that are called felonies - the most serious of crimes, not misdemeanors or minor infractions. You are allowed to over-run 20, if you must. Another blogger recently wrote:

"Let us go back to my first principle and my single law: as far as I am concerned, there should only be one single law—you shall not initiate force or fraud against life, liberty or property",

That may be an inspiration, but I will go further than a list of one, ergo:

I Murder
II Manslaughter
III Torture
IV Rape
V Grievous Assault

VI Theft
VII Burglary
VIII Robbery
IX Fraud

X Reckless Endangerment
XI Violent Assault
XII Criminal Damage

Already I reckon I've covered pretty much all there is. Something like Arson would be covered under criminal damage, reckless endangerment and possibly manslaughter, depending on the actual case. The list is immediately expanded by defining various degrees of guilt in relation to a crime, such as:

Actually committing the crime
Attempting to commit the crime
Conspiring to commit the crime
Standing complicit in the crime
Involuntarily committing the crime
Negligently committing the crime

Further to these degrees of guilt, which relate to the defendant, there are degrees of severity amongst the acts which are grouped together under one heading. Some crimes are more wicked than others, so let crimes be subdivided into three degrees of severity, where the third, or lesser degree covers small (albeit it serious) matters, and the first degree is reserved for the worst offences. The degree of cruelty or the helplessness of the victim must be weighed if crimes are to be punished adequately and justly.

Readers, feel free to inform me of what crimes my list above neglects? Immediately coming to mind, cannibalism, grave desecration, necrophilia...

XIII Desecration of a corpse (grave desecration can go into Criminal Damage)

Indecent exposure? Obscenity? Possession of child porn?

XIV Obscenity

What of today's possession laws? Many of these should be struck down and not replaced, but, given that the repeal of certain drug prohibitions and reform of firearms law is an urgent need, it must be conceded that a list could be made of substances and objects that even the most liberal society would wish to control, so, and with ever the desire to be general in thinking, and to limit the Law by clear definition:

XV Possession of specifically banned substances, articles or objects, as proscribed in Schedules A, B & C, these being necessarily open to constant review, to balance prevention of threats to society with individual liberty.

Five to go. What else?

XVI Abduction
XVII False Imprisonment
XVIII Criminal Coercion (blackmail, extortion, threatening to commit a crime)
XIX ?

Cryptic Crossword Clue

9 (down) Contemptible EU scum in circle-jerk frenzy as usual

What's this? EU lunatics trying to ban a dozen eggs? Will the white knights who guard the passes beat and overturn this new tyrannical yoke descending upon us? Will the ship of fools (moored in Brussels, although sailing for Strasbourg periodically) overwhelm us with their new Imperial weights and measures?

Perhaps the Euro Assembly would-be parliament has sought the wisdom of Gandhi - first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, etc etc then you win, but the fact that they make themselves ridiculous is no sure sign that they will win. Rather we should redouble our efforts to push back on their rotten stable door and kick their loony mule in the goolies.

This country has shrugged off avaricious pontiffs and despotic kings from over the water before, and must do so again - but traitors and their dupes are everywhere. Be en garde.

Winning and losing on the playing fields of England

On the rope

The subject of capital punishment has been doing the rounds, giving everyone the opportunity to unpack their old opinions and shake them for moths. I've got slightly involved. Who knows, maybe I started it? (Correction: it was of course the firing squad in Utah. How could I forget?) In truth, it's not really a live issue (ahem), but I stumbled upon this apposite quote from the autobiography of Albert Pierrepoint, the famous hangman, the last part of which certainly rings true:

"I have come to the conclusion that executions solve nothing, and are only an antiquated relic of a primitive desire for revenge which takes the easy way and hands over the responsibility for revenge to other people...

The trouble with the death penalty has always been that nobody wanted it for everybody, but everybody differed about who should get off."

Late night listening

Martina Topley-Bird - 'Anything' from her album 'Quixotic'.

Let-it-happen, made-it-happen or just monumental fuck-up?

Alex Jones sets out some key issues regarding the BP oil spill, and makes the case for criminal investigations, based on, at the very least, woeful negligence.

Hat tip: Infowars

Getting Bond wrong

I don't know if Alan Partridge would forgive me for mixing the music from 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' with his famous exposition of 'The Spy Who Loved Me'. As he's a fictional character, I need not worry too much. I'm not sure if I've even seen the first one, but it must win a prize for the best music, including the beautiful Louis Armstrong number below.

Diane wastes her joker

Diane Abbott wanted the best for her son, so she sent him to a private school, rather than the bog-standard state facility, which was the other option. In doing so, she did what traditional morality held to be, not a virtue to be praised, but an obligation. It only becomes wrong when viewed through the distorting prism of poisonous leftist political groupthink AKA socialism.

Socialism is anti-social. It is against self-betterment. It condemns those who strive. It rewards failure. It claims to represent the poor, down-trodden, but in reality socialism is the boot that treads down upon the poor. Socialism is like a man who feeds an obese woman, and as she grows in size and weight, so grows her dependency on him, and his control over her. Socialism: the ideology of the control-freak pervert.

In attempting to justify that decision, she has fallen back on her Carribbean roots, and is now being attacked for it. She is correct, I am sure, in what she says of the cultural attitudes amongst Carribbeans in this matter, but where she is wrong is to assume that these attitudes do not or never did exist amongst the white working class. They did. Those people are the parents and grandparents of a large section of today's middle class.

Diane is making it about race, but it's not about race, it's about class, or more specifically the way socialists have used class as a political weapon. The last thing the socialist leaders (themselves, by and large middle class) have ever wanted was an upwardly-mobile working class, or for working class and middle class people to realise that, actually, their interests are not antagonistic, that they want pretty much the same things; a peaceful, affluent society, where hard work is rewarded, and a better life for their children.

Cannabis: big pharma gets high

Oh joy. GW Pharma has been given a licence to produce a cannabis-based product. The rest of us can still fuck off, as far as the monopoly-men are concerned, because it's so fucking dangerous.

Fuck off, you cunts. Nobody needs GW fucking Pharma to get the benefits of the mighty herb. All you need is a seed, and a little bit of time. God gave it to us. Got a problem with that? Take it up with Him.

(pic)

Liberty and the Rule of Law; part I

As Friedrich Hayek notes in his essay 'Why I am not a conservative', libertarians and conservatives have, over the last few decades, often found themselves in the same trench fighting a common enemy, but he cautions us not to overlook the significant differences between these two positions.

Without dwelling too long on that essay, or navel-gazing over political labels, the meanings of which naturally evolve over time, and are undermined in political discourse by being strawmanned by their foes and by lazy thinking, rhetoric and parotted slogans from all sides, it is important to assert libertarian principles with clarity, especially where they are distinct from our conservative allies. This is certainly the case with regard to criminal law.

Here on my blog, and elsewhere, two cases have been noted, which illustrate two different problems with our current justice system. In the first, and it is not the most glaring I am sure, but I think it is a reasonable example of the leniency shown by the justice system with regard to violent, pitiless criminals. A man robbed and beat an old woman almost to death, a neighbour who had tried to help him in the past. Not only did the Crown Prosecution Service accept a plea bargain, rather than prosecute the more serious charge of attempted murder, but the judge handed down a sentence which will most likely see the man out of jail in less than five years. This is because prisoners are almost automatically released midway through their sentence (in this case 10 years) and he may well have spent some time on remand. Considering the age of the man, he will be released with many years ahead of him, in which he is likely to reoffend and, as he has shown himself to be capable of gross violence, I see his sentence as an equally gross dereliction of duty on the part of the justice system. So, in this case and many others, I denounce the authorities for failing to adequately punish the convicted criminal.

In the second case, a woman is sent to jail for possessing an old pistol, which her father brought back from his travels. According to the law, she must be punished, but according to my views, she has done nothing wrong. I do not accuse the authorities of leniency, nor indeed the opposite. It is the case that the law is wrong. Where there is no offence, there should be no punishment, and she has committed no offence against anyone, by the mere act of possessing an unused, unloaded firearm. But the case makes clear that a libertarian, such as I, cannot call for 'zero tolerance' to be shown to all criminals. As the law stands today, she is indeed a criminal - she herself pleaded guilty, thereby denying the possibility of a jury letting her off in the face of the evidence (a 'perverse verdict'), a possibility no doubt very slim, but nevertheless a fundamental check on the power of the state to enforce arbitrary and wrong-headed laws.

As I've shown in earlier posts, the right to keep and bear arms in our own self-preservation and defence was historically counted amongst the essential English liberties. I can, for rhetorical effect, claim that is 'the true law of the land', and I can believe that to be so. But my confidence of finding a jury who agrees with me and would let me off with a wink and a smile if I'm hauled before them for strolling around with a 1911 tucked in my belt is not great.

This is not, by far, the only area where the current criminal law is wrong-headed. The drug laws are another glaring example - glaring, at least, to a libertarian, less so or not at all to a conservative, such as Peter Hitchens. Now, it is worth pausing a moment to consider Mr Hitchens. In many ways I agree with him, and because he speaks the truth as he sees it, he's worth listening to, even when he's wrong. At least you see a mind in action, not a party-programmed automaton. He has staunchly defended traditional values that I hold dear, such as jury trials and habeas corpus. He is right on so many things; his opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to ID cards being some. But along comes the issue of drugs and we have a real division, because he's heading for a different destination, although our paths converge for much of the journey.

If I don't press the 'publish' button soon, this'll end up forever as a draft, so I'll cut it short and take up the theme in another post. What I want to do is to give some coherence to the principle of the Rule of Law, why and how this has been subverted, and what I believe needs doing about it.

Ken Clarke: a clarification

Ken Clarke, as he appears in my mind's eye

Ken Clarke is planning to throw open the prison gates and send forth an army of darkness to rape and pillage at will, meanwhile the poor, petitioning villagers are driven from his palace gates at bayonet-point, for daring to ask for justice...

Okay, I accept this is not quite what Clarke said. I just wanted to get that out of the way, before dealing with the weighty matters of crime, punishment, Liberty & the Rule of Law.

Various artists

Not exactly something for everyone, just my random wanderings.

Merry Clayton - Gimme Shelter

Parliament - Come in out of the rain

Stevie Wonder - Thank you, love

Funkadelic - I wanna know if it's good to you

Against the Hair Shirt approach

Ellen Brown writes a very interesting article, arguing against the austerity measures that our government, inter alia, is intending to impose on us all. Within the game we're playing, austerity seems to make sense, especially considering the wilful profligacy of the last government, which saw massive spending as a means to gerrymander themselves a client population. But there is a bigger question, and that is about the money system, and who controls it. This has been a source of great controversy throughout the modern era, for one thing because the present system leads us to these periodic crises. To throw out two famous quotes which touch upon the subject; first from Andrew Jackson:

"If the people only understood the rank injustice of our Money and Banking system, there would be a revolution before morning."

Secondly, Josiah Stamp, once Director of the Bank of England:

"Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of Bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits."

And one more, for good measure, from Jefferson:

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies...The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the Government, to whom it properly belongs."

I mention these things, because it's important not to be dragged along in the current of fashionable 'thinking', which doesn't take into account the bigger picture, or rather doesn't look outside the game we're in. I do not pretend to be a master of economics, but then neither are most of the people who you will hear discussing this in the mainstream media. Anyway, here's a quote from the Ellen Brown article to get you started:

"Hyperinflation, however, is a bogus threat, and before we reject the stimulus idea, we might ask why these programs have failed. Perhaps because they have been stimulating the wrong sector of the economy, the non-producing financial middlemen who precipitated the crisis in the first place. Governments have tried to “reflate” their flagging economies by throwing budget-crippling sums at the banks, but the banks have not deigned to pass those funds on to businesses and consumers as loans. Instead, they have used the cheap funds to speculate, buy up smaller banks, or buy safe government bonds, collecting a tidy interest from the very taxpayers who provided them with this cheap bailout money. Indeed, banks are required by their business models to pursue those profits over risky loans. Like all private corporations, they are there not to serve the public interest but to make money for their shareholders."

Hat tip: Infowars & Information Clearing House. Ellen Brown's website is here.

Uncle Sam needs you back home

While US troops are stationed in 150 or more countries across the globe, they can't even guard their own southern border, or rather won't. You'd think the federal government, which has grown so much greater than the Constitution intended, would love to flex its muscles and bring peace and security to southern Arizona, but all it's prepared to do is erect signs warning Americans to keep away.

This is Arizona, which passed the supposedly controversial law on illegal immigrants, which the leftist establishment made such hay with, although all it did was reiterate the federal laws on the subject. But, seeing as the feds are aware of heavily-armed drug and people smuggling gangs crossing the border at will, why do they attack the state authorities for trying to do something about the known problem, especially when they refuse to act?

Sounds like a case for 'posse comitatus', in its original sense.

Meanwhile, money and fire power is no object when it comes to Iran. Hat tip: Infowars

Be afraid; be very afraid...

Is there any hope for this benighted nation? On the evidence of this story; no, there's no hope. We're all fucked. The children are being systematically turned into a bunch of pansified cowards.

Ken Clarke, the criminals' friend and the scum he wants to set free

Ken Clarke, as noted below, sees his priority as (wouldn't know) Justice (if it came and fucked him in the arse) Minister, to stop convicted criminals getting sent to jail and set them free if they're already there.

Yeah, because our legal system is soooo harsh, isn't it? Like this example. A man beats an old woman with an iron bar and tries to suffocate her. Then leaves her for dead after robbing her purse. Not only did this devil do this to a defenseless old woman, he did it to someone who had tried to help him.

What does the Crown Prosecution Service do? They drop the attempted murder charge, because they can't be fucked to do their jobs, and take a plea bargain of wounding with intent. What does the judge do? He gives him five years (or as it's known in legal fiction 'ten years'). So, Ken, what would you have given him? 100 hours community service? Get him to paint over some graffitti?

This piece of trash should be hanged. That's not just my opinion, that's the opinion of the overwhelming majority, and one of these days, we'll get our country back, and you better hide, Ken, cos by the look of you, you ain't gonna be running far. But meanwhile, enjoy yourself, with your fancy-dress wig and your gown and your fucking Hush Puppies. You couldn't be more out of touch if you were in a floatation tank in the middle of the Gobi Desert.

A love story, apparently

I picked up a vinyl copy of this album years ago down in Greenwich market, and something made me think of the line about the birthday cake.

Sado-monetarism and Euro-nationalism

Nigel doing what he does best - giving the EU politbureau a rocket. This is from February, but not much has changed since.

Fausty has another, more recent clip here.

The hammer of Ludwig crushes the nut of socialism

"Liberalism and capitalism address themselves to the cool, well-balanced mind. They proceed by strict logic, eliminating any appeal to the emotions. Socialism, on the contrary, works on the emotions, tries to violate logical considerations by rousing a sense of personal interest and to stifle the voice of reason by awakening primitive instincts."

Ludwig von Mises, from 'Socialism'

Where your money went: part 94

After setting up the system - cost £93 million - and running it three years - cost £30 million per year - the government's clamp-down on fraudulent passport applications has resulted in a number of potentially-fraudulent applications being turned down. The number in question is four. That's right; four. Or, to put it another way, for every £45 million spent, the government stopped one person getting a dodgy passport. None of the four had any legal action taken against them, so they probably just forgot to get their photos signed or used blue ink or something.

Ken Clarke proves his worth: anyone got change for a brass farthing?

With a shit-eating grin only the true scat-munching connoisseur can pull off, Ken Clarke laughs in the face of victims of crime across the land. In his new role as (subversion of) Justice Secretary, he intends to carry on exactly where the last terrible government left off. With his wealth and our money to pay his bodyguards, he doesn't have to concern himself with the vile criminal trash who make so many common people suffer, so what does he care if they are set free to continue their crimes?

Ken Clarke, you are the criminals' friend and the enemy of all good citizens who wish to live a peaceful, secure life, and you should remember that the true Law is clear: where courts cannot uphold our rights, and the government won't listen, no alternative remains but to defend ourselves and our property with whatever weapons we possess.

The stuff of nightmares

If you're sitting comfortably, and you've checked the doors are locked, you might dare to watch the old classic 'Dead of Night'. This is a favourite of mine. I remember my sister and I being scared as children, especially by the mirror episode, so our dad let us stay up as long as the funny golfing story, and then sent us to bed - just as well - before the ventriloquist's dummy makes an appearance.

(Next part here)

Who fans; the cure has been found!

Thanks to the Underdog, I have been perusing Rutland Weekend Television clips on YouTube, and came across this piss-take (for want of a better word) of Tommy, the ludicrous Who rock opera movie directed by Ken Russell. If you haven't seen the movie, save your time; watch this clip instead.

Having done so, it should be safe to see the real thing - the band at Woodstock:

"A very new and ominous development in our country"

"Daniel Ellsberg, who gained fame when he leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971 in hopes of ending the Vietnam War, told MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan on Friday that he not only sees a parallel between himself and the person who recently leaked a video of an assault by US forces on Iraqi civilians but also fears for the safety of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who published the video."

From Raw Story. Hat tip also to Infowars.

Last thoughts on the sinistrist circle-jerk of 'Liberal Conspiracy'

"The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of 'liberalism' they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened."

Norman Thomas, American socialist leader

The word "Liberal" was hijacked a long time ago and taken away from its original meaning and has now wound up signifying its polar opposite in many cases. This process must have been complete in America by 1953, when Joseph S. Clark, Jr, mayor of Philadelphia, said:

"To lay a ghost at the outset and to dismiss semantics, a liberal is here defined as one who believes in utilizing the full force of government for the advancement of social, political, and economic justice at the municipal, state, national, and international levels."

Clearly, the axiomatic principles of individual liberty, limited government and the Rule of Law have been stripped out and replaced by an adherence to Big Government, the 'solution to everything'.

The question of whether to attempt a rescue of the word has puzzled liberals of the older tradition for a long time. It's like if somebody steals your best suit, rips it up, wears it out, soils themself in it. It is yours, but do you want it back now? F.A. Hayek ponders this question in his essay "Why I am not a conservative", coming to the conclusion that it's not really worth it, but failing to come up with a satisfactory alternative for the philosophy of liberty that he champions.

The answer to the question seems to have become 'libertarian', which, although abused as all political terms invariably are, does represent in the discourse of today the key tenets of liberty as Hayek understood it. Notwithstanding the straw man versions of this political philosophy, which issue forth from ignorant, spiteful leftists from one position and reactionary authoritarians from another - eternally oblivious, it seems, to their essential similarities - libertarianism, with its championing of the individual's ability to take positive action on his own behalf, to raise himself up, rather than sit in his own filth waiting in vain for the government to save him, and with its reverence for common sense rather than theoretical wankery, will always endure.

Still, that old piss-stained suit of ours, 'liberalism', even if we can't wear it again, why should we let those socialist thieves enjoy it? Let us always remind them of where it came from, why they stole it and how it reveals the hypocrisy in everything they espouse.

Liberal Conspiracy: my self-denying ordinance

I vow never to comment at Liberal Conspiracy again. I never have done it much, but never again. It is populated by such ignorant, spiteful, blinkered scum, I come away feeling like I've just had a £5 handjob down a trash-strewn alley.

Which is ironic, because I went there to play Gladstone, who roamed the East End, trying to rescue fallen women.

Labour's Fists of Righteous Harmony battle economic bullets

Over at Quiet Man's blog in a post called 'Bonfire of vanities' he wrote:

"It never ceases to amaze me, both about Labour and socialists in general, in their inability to get their heads around whose money they were actually playing with. It's like dealing with demented toddlers in a sweet shop who are prepared to gorge themselves until sick without realising the consequences to those who have to pay for the gluttony and waste."

A sentiment I share, and I don't see how New Labour can escape their culpability in the dire state of our economy, all the more so, because this is what Labour, New and Old, always does. At heart they are socialists, and think they can dodge economic reality like Boxer Rebels thought they could dodge bullets.

Whether as an individual, a family, a company or a nation, you have to spend with regard to what you earn, and even if access to credit is undoubtedly useful, it comes with a cost which must be reckoned. Labour claimed it was investing this borrowed cash, but most of this spending was no more an investment than someone on the dole buying a plasma TV on the credit card.

That said, a commenter chez Quiet Man brings up the role and conduct of the bankers, which is indeed relevant. The 'light touch regulation' in the financial sector, which he attributes to rightwingers, ignoring how much of this happened under Clinton and Blair, has been instrumental in creating the world financial crisis of the last two years, as Gerald Celente discusses in the clip below, and as the Cassandras warned it would, back when the fire doors were being ripped out of the building. But none of that exonerates Labour for their reckless pursuit of economic fallacies a la John Maynard "in the long run we're dead" Keynes.

Short but sweet

I love Johnny Cash and this song, although sadly he doesn't sing the whole thing. This is from a documentary he did about American railways, called 'Ridin' the Rails'.

My contribution to the national debate

According to the Guardian:

"The government has promised to lead a national debate on the gun laws with MPs debating the issue before the end of July."

Webley Mark II, Dr Watson's choice of firearm (no licence required)

Let us start with what the true Law of England actually is:

"In these several articles consist the rights, or, as they are frequently termed, the liberties of Englishmen: liberties more generally talked of, than thoroughly understood; and yet highly necessary to be perfectly known and considered by every man of rank and property, lest his ignorance of the points whereon they are founded should hurry him into faction and licentiousness on the one hand, or a pusillanimous indifference and criminal submission on the other. And we have seen that these rights consist, primarily, in the free enjoyment of personal security, of personal liberty, and of private property. So long as these remain inviolate, the subject is perfectly free; for every species of compulsive tyranny and oppression must act in opposition to one or other of these rights, having no other object upon which it can possibly be employed. To preserve these from violation, it is necessary that the constitution of parliament be supported in its full vigour; and limits, certainly known, be set to the royal prerogative. And, lastly, to vindicate these rights, when actually violated or attacked, the subjects of England are entitled, in the first place, to the regular administration and free course of justice in the courts of law; next, to the right of petitioning the king and parliament for redress of grievances; and, lastly, to the right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defence."

Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England,
Chapter I - Of the Absolute Rights of Individuals

Murdoch's Media and the Many-Headed Monster

Graham Stewart at Critical Reaction writes a defence of Rupert Murdoch's plans to charge for access to his online newspapers. I remember rather petulantly dismissing this idea when it was touted in the past, but he's certainly entitled to charge for content if he wishes. The piece makes rather a meal about 'quality journalism', which overlooks the vested interests that move in the shadows, deciding what gets heard and what gets spiked. Needless to say, if Rupert is travelling to Beijing to negotiate a deal, you won't be reading about dead Tibetans that week. But, even if the mainstream media is inevitably biased, do we nonetheless need it or benefit from it? Perhaps so, but not be relying on any one or two sources. To get a broad understanding of what's going on in the world, you need to trawl through many sources, picking up threads here and there.

What is most concerning is that Murdoch's move will presage an attempted strangulation of the free flow of information on the web. Murdoch will want to stop his content being sneaked out of the pay-walled compound, and aggressive copyright enforcement is also on the cards, and the way these laws are being written, it is evident who's sitting round the table. When globalist cabals, such as the recently-held Bilderberg meeting, get together to discuss copyright protection, they are only considering their own interest, and free flowing information is of no benefit to them - indeed it is an existential threat.

Newspapers are no longer the primary means to disseminate the news. They still have a function as a literary product, and many people like to read them on the way to and from work (not me, I read a book), or on a Sunday morning, so there is still a market for them as objects, but when a big story comes along, by the time it hits the news-stands, we've all heard it. They are no longer at the cutting edge.

There surely cannot be a case for subsidising newspapers, like we do the theatre or the opera (I pass no comment on the validity of so doing, merely note it). They must adapt or die. The top journalists must recognise the good days are over. It may do their souls some good, if their job becomes a vocation again, and we are never short of aspiring journalists.

Looking at this issue, the privileged position of the BBC stands out like a sore thumb. As capitalist enterprises sink, the BBC sails majestically on, its revenue protected by the coercive power of the state. Whether this is right or tenable in the long term, I couldn't say, but it enjoys enough goodwill from the public to rest easy for now.

Given the choice between protecting the established media and the anarchy of the Internet, I do not have to pause a moment before answering that the latter is by far the more valuable. The Internet has brought a revolution in information, comparable to the coming of the printing press, or the breakdown of censorship during the English Civil War. Much of the joy of this has come from a relaxed attitude to copyright and an understanding of the 'fair use' principle, so necessary if ideas are to be debated. But the old media is not dead yet, and, although it may be the thing that finally kills them, they seem to be gearing up for a counter-revolution that must be resisted.

Lowly bloggers, such as I, cannot claim any great influence or power, and cannot compete with a worldwide media network, but taken collectively the micro-media make a pretty grand hill of beans, and since the worldwide media networks that exist do such a poor job in informing us, albeit in an entertaining or at least diverting way, I see no reason to resist the evolutionary tide that is sweeping in upon them.

Kissinger was at Bilderberg

How come Henry Kissinger can attend Bilderberg, surrounded by police and security, when he has an outstanding arrest warrent hanging over him in Spain?

Somebody ain't doing their job.

Bilderberg: wounded and cornered

From Infowars:

"The 2010 Bilderberg agenda has been revealed by veteran Bilderberg sleuth Jim Tucker and it paints a picture of crisis for the globalists, who are furious at the increased exposure their gatherings have received in recent years, as well as being dismayed at their failure to rescue both the euro and the failing carbon tax agenda, but more alarmingly according to Tucker, the majority of Bilderberg members are now in favor of military air strikes on Iran."

Read the article here.

The Man

I must get away from this computer, but before I go, here's Van Morrison singing 'Ballerina', from the awesome 'Astral Weeks' album.

Oh, those ghastly Americans!

I am informed that Britain has declared war on Americanisms in our language. May I say, in my best Surrey accent: bollocks to you, Matthew Engel (wanker!). Is that English enough for you, mate?

Although I believe there is a modicum of a good argument here, the rest is made up of a pathetic sense of cultural superiority that is just not merited, and ignores the fact that with many differences between American English and English English, it's because the Americans have preserved elements of our common language which we have jettisoned.

The debasement of our native tongue may be aided by certain American habits, but there are more important enemies abroad. It isn't the Americans who've spent the last hundred years attacking 'bourgeois values', such as education and aspiration, denigrating the middle class and bigging up the authenticity of ignorance. It wasn't the Americans who decided that correcting children's spelling mistakes was oppressive and counter-productive to their sense of worth, it wasn't the Americans who have attempted to manipulate language for political ends, changing the meanings of words, deciding what the 'politically correct' term of the week was.

That's right: it's the fucking Fabians to blame!

Still, I'm sure Alan Partridge would endorse it.

The Name that charms our fears

On my way back from the tobacconist's this morning, I stopped to listen to the music coming from the church on the corner of my road. I couldn't make it out very well, but it reminded me of past times. I could never sing along to Wesleyan hymns. I could never guess the twists and turns. Still, there's something that touches me in choral singing, and as it's Sunday, I will share this with those of you who care to partake: 'O for a thousand tongues to sing'.

Une faiblesse personelle...

... in my case: Charlotte Gainsbourg, here with a tune called 'Little Monsters'.

That proposed drink-driving limit change

The New Labour beast is dead, but not before passing the virus of control-freakery on to the new government, I fear.

The only safe approach is a 'contiguous cull' of all politicians who have come into contact with the ghastly fabians.

By the way, that elephant over there in the corner is called EU standardisation.

Bilderberg: dragged out into the light

The Bilderberg Club is meeting in Sitges, Catalonia, amid more coverage than ever before. Thanks to the alternative media and the information revolution of the internet, the mainstream conspiracy of silence has been defeated (even though it is still pumping out the same story - "nothing to see here", the fact they even mention it shows a big change), to such an extent I wonder whether Bilderberg will continue to play such and important role in pushing the agenda of world oligarchy. With so many cameras and microphones pointing in its direction, the puppet masters are likely to stay away and find another vehicle for their wickedness. Nevertheless, the enemy is not Bilderberg per se, but rather the powers behind it. Bilderberg is only a bullfighter's cape. It is good to rip down that cape and stomp it in the dirt (this has not happened yet, the meeting continues behind the machine guns and security cordons), but only to get a better look at the bullfighter himself.

Anyway, here's Alex from the Canadian meeting some years ago.

My vendor of choice

This ain't new, but I love this guy!

Where there's smoke, there's Goldman Sachs with a box of matches

From Raw Story:

"The brokerage firm that's faced the most scrutiny from regulators in the past year over the shorting of mortgage related securities seems to have had good timing when it came to something else: the stock of British oil giant BP.

According to regulatory filings, RawStory.com has found that Goldman Sachs sold 4,680,822 shares of BP in the first quarter of 2010. Goldman's sales were the largest of any firm during that time. Goldman would have pocketed slightly more than $266 million if their holdings were sold at the average price of BP's stock during the quarter.

If Goldman had sold these shares today, their investment would have lost 36 percent its value, or $96 million."

The welfare state we're in

"It has been well said that, while we used to suffer from social evils, we now suffer from the remedies for them. The difference is that, while in former times the social evils were gradually disappearing with the growth of wealth, the remedies we have introduced are beginning to threaten the continuance of that growth of wealth on which all future improvement depends. Instead of the 'five giants' which the welfare state of the Beveridge report was designed to combat, we are now raising new giants which may well prove even greater enemies of a decent way of life. Though we may have speeded up a little the conquest of want, disease, ignorance, squalor, and idleness, we may in the future do worse even in that struggle when the chief dangers will come from inflation, paralyzing taxation, coercive labor unions, an ever increasing dominance of government in education, and a social service bureaucracy with far-reaching arbitrary powers - dangers from which the individual cannot escape by his own efforts and which the momentum of the overextended machinery of government is likely to increase rather than mitigate."

Friedrich Hayek, 'The Constitution of Liberty' (first published 1960), from the chapter 'Social Security'.

Urine test for autism: echoes of Dr Wakefield's research

An interesting report here:

"A simple urine test could determine whether or not a young child has autism, according to new research. Children with the condition have a different chemical fingerprint in their urine than their non-autistic counterparts. It is therefore possible to differentiate between the two by looking at the by-products of gut bacteria and the body's metabolic processes in the children's urine, scientists believe. The findings, published tomorrow in the Journal of Proteome Research, suggest that ultimately a urine test will be able to detect autism in infants

People with autism are known to suffer from gastrointestinal disorders and have a different make-up of bacteria in their guts from non-autistic people. The exact biological significance of gastrointestinal disorders in the development of autism is unknown."

This was the subject of Dr Wakefield's research paper, which set out that many autistic children were suffering from undiagnosed gastrointestinal disorders. When he discovered the measles virus in the gut of a number of such children, and the strain of the virus was the same as that used in the MMR jab, he called for the triple vaccine to be withdrawn, and other measles vaccines to be used. The government then moved to prevent alternatives to the MMR being available in the country, thinking that they could force parents into having the MMR, and when that didn't work, they blamed Dr Wakefield and prosecuted a vendetta to destroy his career, which saw him struck off only recently on ludicrous trumped-up charges.

What he said

Dr Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance has issued a statement, regarding the shooting spree in Cumbria, which says what I would say, so I'll quote it in full:

"Cumberland shootings: gun bans mean more gun crime"

Speaking today in London, Dr Sean Gabb, Director of the Libertarian Alliance, comments:

The Libertarian Alliance, the radical free market and civil liberties institute, today calls for the relegalisation of civilian gun ownership in the United Kingdom as the only way for ordinary people to protect themselves against gun massacres.

"This outrage will certainly bring calls from the police and other victim disarmament advocacy groups for further gun control. However, bearing in mind that civilian ownership of handguns was outlawed in the two Firearms Acts of 1997, we fail to see, unless the murder weapon was a shotgun, what there is left to be outlawed.

"The Libertarian Alliance notes that these shootings would have been extremely difficult in a country where the people were allowed to arm themselves. We understand that the killer, Derrick Bird, was able to drive in perfect safety around Whitehaven, shooting people at random. None of his victims was in any position to return fire. Only when armed police could eventually be brought in did he feel it necessary to run away.

"In the United States, at least one campus shooting was brought to a premature end by armed civilians. The same is true in Israel, where many members of the public go about armed. Only in a country like England, where the people have been systematically disarmed, can a killer go about like a fox among chickens.

"The Libertarian Alliance believes that all the Firearms Acts from 1920 onwards should be repealed. The largely ineffective laws of 1870 and 1902 should also be repealed. It should once again be possible for adults to walk into a gun shop and, without showing any permit or proof of identity, buy as many guns and as much ammunition as they can afford. They should also be able to use lethal force, at home and in public, for the defence of life, liberty and property.

"Only then will ordinary people be safe from evil men like Derrick Bird."

Shock! Consternation! Bilderberg discussed on Radio 4 Today Programme

Finally the Bilderberg Group meeting, taking place this year in Sitges, north of Barcelona, gets a mention. Sure, it's all a big joke, a conspiracy, but even this is better than the traditional news black-out. But thanks to the alternative media doggedly pursuing this (Jim Tucker, take a bow), the secrecy has been breached.

You have a right to ... actually, no, you have NO RIGHTS under the EU tyranny

Right now, for all I know, there is a court case going on somewhere in Europe, which is finding me guilty of a crime I've never committed in a place I've never been, and one thing's certain: the English courts will hand me over bound and tethered, without a shred of evidence.

Under the European Arrest Warrant, our quisling government has violated our system of justice and sold us down the river. The case of Edmund Arapi is a prime example. Despite evidence that Arapi was actually working in Liverpool at the time of the crime, Italian authorities held a trial and found him guilty without his knowledge, and that's good enough for the British government to hand him over. Sickening.

Picking sides

The Israel - Palestine issue seems to split people of any political persuasion, and libertarians are the same. No matter what rational arguments are offered up, I think at heart one chooses sides on the basis of irrational or emotional grounds.

There are the disputed historical facts, the dodgy religious justifications, the 'who's David, who's Goliath?', the protests against bias and hypocrisy, one side's dog-eared trump card cry of 'anti-Semitism' , the other's retort 'the Palestinians are Semitic too!' On both sides is a feeling that the other side just cannot see the mastodon taking a dump on the carpet.

This current furore fits the established pattern: the Israeli paratrooper shoots dead the Palestinian boy throwing stones. The Palestinians cry 'see how these heartless criminals shoot children!'. The Israelis cry 'see how these vicious bastards send their own children to their deaths!' No doubt voices of reason and reconciliation are ignored on both sides. I recall the same situation on a grander scale recorded in Robert Fisk's 'Pity the Nation', where the PLO installed an anti-aircraft gun on the roof of a hospital, which was bombed forthwith. The challenge; 'you wouldn't dare!' doesn't work too well with the Israelis.

Personally I have always favoured the Palestinians. Maybe it has something to do with one of my close school friends who was an Arab, or that I remember the Sabra and Shatila massacres (be the first Israphile to shout "that was the Falangists!" and win a prize), which horrified me - one of the first times I'd seen dead bodies on the news. Whatever the original cause, the Palis are 'my team', and my sympathies usually go to them. So, all of you on the other side, feel free to have a go, but don't be obliged, as we've all heard and stated the arguments before, and it's all water off a duck's back.

My main concern with regard to the region is that Israel will do what it's been gagging to do for years: attack Iran. Nobody knows just what's inside that particular Pandora's box, but the term 'bloodbath' will no doubt be applicable.

Miliband confidential

Holding my nose, I visit the campaign site for David Miliband, would-be leader of the Fabian Collectivist Control-Freak Nightmare Party, or whatever it calls itself. Navigating past the terrifying headline 'Leading Labour to Power' - of the unbridled kind - I learn some interesting things, like - wow - he went to a state comprehensive. Yeah Dave, we know your dad was a commie. Football team? Arsenal. Great. Favourite book? Interesting window into the mind of a man who desires power over us all, what will he say?

'The Gruffalo'. Now, I've got nothing against 'The Gruffalo', but for fuck's sake, Mr Miliband, you're supposed to be an adult. Still, at least he didn't tell us whether it's boxers or briefs.