Politics – Page 33 – More Zonkyness

Tories Want To Take Away Your Human Rights

Oct 032014

According to the Tory party conference, they are planning to “do something” about the European Court of Human Rights, and to stop the British government being overruled by the ECHR. Most of the time we hear about the work of the ECHR through ridiculous stories but the court deals with tens of thousands of cases a year. So most of the time we do not get to hear about it’s work. After all sensible decisions do not make good news stories.

Let’s look at the rights that the ECHR is there to protect :-

respecting rights
life
torture
servitude
liberty and security
fair trial
retroactivity
privacy
conscience and religion
expression
association
marriage
effective remedy
discrimination
derogations
aliens
abuse of rights
permitted restrictions

Which is a long list, and could do with some additional explanation, which can be found here.

The reason the Tories are giving for abolishing our human rights is that they don’t want interference from the European Union in their actions. Which when you come down to it is kind of worrying – our government finds our human rights and the organisation created after World War II to protect those rights “inconvenient”.

There are those who will ramble on about sovereign rights which are important, but not as important as human rights. People are more important than states.

The more the Tories want to evade the oversight of the ECHR, the more I want the ECHR to be keeping an eye on the behaviour of “our” government. The judges of the ECHR may be unelected but they’re more trustworthy than a bunch of corrupt politicians who find our human rights inconvenient.

In The Wake of The Scottish Independence Referendum

Politics 2 Responses »

Sep 202014

Well we’ve lost our brief opportunity to send scad loads of illegal immigrants back home north in the window between Scotland becoming independent and it joining the European Union 🙂

Now thing get interesting … because of the promises of the “No” campaigners, Scotland has been given some vague promises of greater devolution with more powers for the Scottish parliament.

Which has been immediately seized upon by the Welsh parliament and the Northern Ireland parliament as justifying extra powers for their own parliaments.

But what about an English parliament? The Tories have ruled that out straight away. I’m not sure I want an English parliament, but I do know that I would like to have a discussion on the merits of one. Ruling out the option of an English parliament is representative of the contempt the Tories have for the will of the people.

If the Welsh, Scottish, and Northern Irish are mature enough for the responsibility of devolved powers, shouldn’t the English be considered mature enough too? Admittedly, the English do have a tendency to send too many vote the Tories’ way, but perhaps giving us some additional responsibility will lead us to leave our childish ways behind us.

But perhaps England is too large a unit rub shoulders with Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland in a UK parliament. Perhaps we should be considering a larger number of smaller sub-countries. Vehement English nationalists would be up in arms at the suggestion that we can sub-divide England – which by itself is a reason to consider the idea.

England as a country is an artificial creation brought about through conquest, and there is no reason to devolve powers to England if those powers could be devolved to smaller and more sensibly sized sub-countries. As an example, what about :-

Cornwall (and probably Devon too).
Wessex (Oxfordshire, Hampshire, Sussex, Kent, Dorset, Somerset, and Gloucester)
Northumbria (Lancaster, Yorkshire, Durham, and Cumbra)
Mercia (the bits in the middle)
London.

In the same sense that the UK is too large for us to feel connected to the government, so would England be.

If we are going to look again at how the UK is structured, we need to look closely at all the options no matter how radical. It’s all too possible that the politicians will do as little as possible to keep their comfortable lives the same.

Islamic Extremists Buy Into The Myth of The “Weak West”

General, Politics, Religion No Responses »

Aug 202014

The average Islamic extremist when he has time to think about anything other that licking his favourite pig, is under the mistaken belief that the western world is fundamentally weak. Weakened by our dissipated and irreligious lives; weakened by our usual sympathy for the underdog.

This is perfectly understandable for the moronic medieval minds that most Islamic extremists carry around with them. Because in some ways the west does look weak.

But the west is not weak as it has shown again and again since the start of WWII. However it is reluctant to start anything without taking care that it is doing the right thing. Time and again, whenever the west has gotten involved with something without thinking enough in advance (Vietnam, Iraq, etc.) it has gotten bogged down in something it realises that it shouldn’t have started.

But the west will get involved if it is provoked enough and it believes that it is on the right side.

The beheading of James Foley by the pig-licking thugs sometimes known as ISIS, ISIL, IS or just Daesh would appear on the surface to be an attempt to discourage the US and the west from getting involved. It would seem that the US air strikes and the push by the Kurdish and Iraqi military have started making things difficult for IS, and they would like to stop the US air strikes.

What they have accomplished is to encourage the US and the rest of the west to stay involved and take more measures.

They may regard themselves as some sort of ultra-religious freedom fighters, but anybody who uses extortion, flogging, amputations, rape, and indiscriminate killings are nothing more mindless pig-licking thugs.

Israel & Russia: Two Countries Responsible For The Indiscriminate Killing Of Children

Politics No Responses »

Jul 202014

Last week we have seen two “incidents” where two rogue states attempted to pursue a political end via direct action, or action via a proxy. I’m going to concentrate on the deaths of children because then certain apologists won’t be able to say: “But they could have been terrorists” … or at least won’t have much in the way of credibility if they do.

In the first case, we have what appears to be a Russian-backed independence movement firing off a missile to bring down a commercial airliner (MH17) killing 80 children.

In the second case, we have the Israeli military trying to stomp on Hamas, and as a result of disproportionate military force and an inability to target accurately, have killed over 50 children.

It is interesting to compare the two to see what similarities and differences there are.

In terms of how accidental those deaths were, it’s fairly obvious that the downing of MH17 was an accident given that it appears that the Russian-backed separatists were boasting about shooting down a Ukrainian military transport plane at the time the airliner was downed. It’s also self-evidently not in the interests of Russia or the separatists to shoot down that plane.

In the case of Israel’s thugs (oops! I mean their military of course), it is probable that the children were not deliberately targeted, but you do have to wonder given Israel’s past and present behaviour (according to the Jewish Virtual Library, the total number of Israeli deaths since 1860 is 20,000 and the total number of Palestinian dead is nearly 100,000) whether Israelis regard Palestinians as sub-humans whose deaths don’t really count.

In terms of an individual, anyone who shoots at a legitimate target and misses, and “accidentally” kills a child instead is guilty of manslaughter. I see no reason why nation states, governments, and the military should not be held to the same standard.

If you cannot shoot without risking civilian casualties, then do not shoot.

The most interesting aspect of these two incidents has been the reactions to them. In the case of the deaths caused by the Israeli indiscriminate military action, it seems to be more or less: “Oh no, Not again!” whereas the reaction to the deaths of the aircraft passengers has been quite justified outrage at the actions of the Russian-backed separatists, and the denials from the Russian government.

Where is the condemnation of Israel’s military action? And where is the condemnation of the USA for backing a bunch of thugs?

It is true that Hamas are also a bunch of thugs who continue to target Israel with poorly targeted missiles, but these are in no way comparable to what Israel is doing – recall those earlier figures of 100,000 Palestinian dead and 20,000 Israeli dead. And yes, it is quite possible that Hamas is using human shields to “embarrass” Israel with civilian casualties.

Yet in all the time I’ve been watching this unending conflict I have yet to see Israel embarrassed by any Palestinian dead.

Even ignoring the morality of indiscriminate killing of civilians, it is about time Israel realised that this sort of thing doesn’t work as demonstrated by the fact that it is still happening today. Perhaps they could try something else more radical – like talking to Hamas.

Without any real expectation of something like this happen I would like to see :-

Israel admonished and sanctioned for indiscriminate killing of civilians.
USA admonished and sanctioned for it’s military support of a rogue nation state (yes that does mean Israel).
Russia admonished and sanctioned for thinking us foolish enough to believe it’s denial of involvement in the shooting down of MH17.

Jean-Claude Juncker: Good For European Democracy

Politics No Responses »

Jun 282014

Given all the fuss over David Cameron’s hissy fit over the appointment of Jean-Claude Juncker (henceforth “JCJ” as it is easier to type when I’m not entirely sober) as the European Union’s president, it may come as no surprise that something has been lost in the noise. And that is that JCJ has been appointed as the European Union’s president because he has effectively been elected by the European Parliament.

Most pan-European political parties campaigned with the intention that their leaders would be appointed European President … or at least that the European Parliament would ask that they would be appointed European President. And the European People’s Party‘s candidate was JCJ.

I would say in exactly the same way as David Cameron became Prime Minister except that didn’t happen as David Cameron did not have an overall majority.

To oppose JCJ’s appointment is anti-democratic. It is to oppose the will of the people. We should be celebrating the election of a president by the will of the people rather than being an appointment made by back-room deals as has always been previously the case. The acid test for the acceptance of democracy is to accept democratic decisions even when you disagree with them.

So Mr David Cameron, whilst you think you are protecting Britain’s interests, you are also opposing the will of the people – which is beyond contempt and exactly the sort of thing we expect from Britain’s politicians (said in exactly the same tone of voice I would use for the phrase paedophile).

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