Do the Brits have it right on the rule of law

[Darth Rock&Roll]

Singapore and Harry Lee are a great example I guess. Some people mihgt find their way of building and maintaining their society is not for them.
Meh, it's not for everybody. Some people would prefer one way over another. they're welcome to it.

[Walter Joyce]

I know what the rule of law is (I am a lawyer) I'm wondering where it is in the discussion.

[Michael]

The rule of law in England is being incrementally circumvented in favor of unaccountable EU bureaucrats, most of whom are avowed Communists, Marxist-Leninists, etc. What we know about collectivism is that it has no rule of law, which is simply an ultimate limitation on state power. Limitation of power is the essence of morality, without which there is no social progress, and therefore little individual progress. Morality can mean a long-term, sustainable social system and the collectivism overtaking England comes from a source that has never shown its long-term sustainability during the past 150 years.

[Steve James]

If the philosopher kings ruled, their laws would be just and good --just 'cause the philopher kings were good and just.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

I don't agree with you idea that collectivism is taking over the UK Michael.
Private property is still very much entrenched in their society.

I think when you look at large urban centers you absolutely have to have a way
of maintaining order within those centers.

the smaller a social construct, the more well behaved it's members tend to be, but once you go over a million people (often less) you see spikes in the crime rate and all sorts of interesting behavioural changes come about because of the lost in crowd mentality that people adopt in large urban centers.

I personally don't think out huge organically growing and for the most part unchecked growth of urbanism is natural and I think it will contribute to a fall of man of sorts eventually.

small cities designed for finite numbers are more desirable imo. People will just naturally behave better, won't feel lost in a crowd and won't need to have all the fire and police services that you find in large centers.

anyway, I don't think I'll get my wish too soon and that the collapse will be inevitable. Hopefully it happens after I'm gone and I don't have to deal with the horror of it all. lol

[Michael]

I agree with you about small cities, perhaps 50-100,000 would be the max desirable size, which begs the question of why in places like America, which used to have a much greater rural and independent population, we have been herded into the cities during the past 80 years.

I don't agree with you idea that collectivism is taking over the UK Michael.

There are some people in Oxford and East Anglia that I'd like to introduce you to, the Fabian Socialists to begin with. Admittedly, my perspective is from quite a distance, but I'm not alone in such a conclusion.

False ecological activism is one of the methods of destroying private property rights along with property taxes, imminent domain, etc. See the Kilo vs. New London, CT US Supreme Court decision from about five years ago, and a gajillion other examples recently in the US.

If it's not the real estate developers bribing the local politicos to help them with a development, the greenies are forever grabbing people's land based on ridiculous claims about saving the environment, including putting "endangered species" on people's property, like dropping a few exotic fish in a pond, and then grabbing the land after its value has been destroyed by preventing farming and disallowing development, which destroys sale price. Then the government greenies seize and sell it to themselves or their buddies a few years later. Happens a lot.

[Ian]

What in the world makes any of you think you're not slaves now?

Given that real slavery still exists around the world, I find this comment quite funny!

[Darth Rock&Roll]

What in the world makes any of you think you're not slaves now?

Given that real slavery still exists around the world, I find this comment quite funny!

"real" slavery? what's that Ian pray tell?

Is that the same as the person who is paralyzed with fear of losing their home and being destitute and so they put up with a dead end job that is working them down to a nub?

Or is it the waitress in your favourite chinese restaurant who owes a snakehead 40k for bringing her over, except, she doesn't know it yet, but she'll be gray haired before she gets out of that kitchen.

Is it the fat kid who is obese at 12 and won't watch less than 8 hours a day of television while making demands for more sugar and salt from his parents?

Or is it exclusively someone of colour who is traded for goods or sold for cash by a white person?

slavery, enslavement, the mechanism of control are wide and myriad. I find it rather funny that your view of slavery is apparently limited in scope to Hailey's roots story.

[Steve James]

slavery, enslavement, the mechanism of control are wide and myriad. I find it rather funny that your view of slavery is apparently limited in scope to Hailey's roots story.

Haley plagiarized part of his story from a novel, fwiw. But, I think that the problem here is that the word "slavery" is like a convenient metaphor for oppression. That's fine. The word comes from the description of "Slavs" used by their oppressors. It's true; it's helpful to differentiate the type of "slavery" one is talking about. We, in the US, usually refer to the chattel, perpetual enslavement of Africans. The American revolutionaries rebelled against economic "enslavement" by the British, or the one that would come if they lost the war. We don't talk about the colonists being slaves, though. Nor do we really address the conditions of indentured Irish, although we sometimes spend time examining the Chinese rail workers. And, then, still sticking to the good ol USA, there are the complaints of people (like ol George Fitzhugh) who said that most Americans were "wage slaves" and that it was even worse than chattel slavery. After all, he argued, the slave master has to feed and clothe his slave; the working American has to pay for those himself. (Maybe the perceptive will recognize this line of thought, even today).

It would be accurate to say that, even if you're royalty, we are all the descendants of slaves. Okay, but that's just trivializing the term. Yeah, I'm a slave to my girlfriend or mother; I do what they say. Oh, woe is me. As for real slavery today, it's all around. it's in Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Mauritania; and I mean that people are bought and sold to work. There's also the sex trade, which imo is the oldest form of slavery in existence --but the one that men are least interested in ending. Otoh, families are sometimes forced into selling their daughters --just like in jolly ol England long ago (see Jane Eyre, Clarissa, etc)-- without knowing exactly what will happen to them.

But, for me to sit here in front of two computers, with 2 monitors, and 2 tvs and a full refrigerator and call myself a slave is something I wouldn't dare to do. Yes, I'm a sheeple under the thumb of an oppressor. But, I don't got debt; and I'm free to pick up my check on Thursday. I think there are a lot of people who'd love to be enslaved the way we are.

[Ian]

DR&R,

I don't really feel like being right or debating this with you, I'm simply saying - we are not amongst the millions of women and children forced into labour without pay or sex slavery every year.

You touched on debt slavery which is of course another form of bondage.

But you cited Fight Club and democracy as examples of how people as a whole are slaves. Child soldiers are not free. We are pretty free.

But, for me to sit here in front of two computers, with 2 monitors, and 2 tvs and a full refrigerator and call myself a slave is something I wouldn't dare to do. Yes, I'm a sheeple under the thumb of an oppressor. But, I don't got debt; and I'm free to pick up my check on Thursday. I think there are a lot of people who'd love to be enslaved the way we are.

Thanks. This is what I meant...

[Darth Rock&Roll]

We are merely comfortable in our bondage.

Ian, I'm not looking for a volley of semantics.

I believe that the entire world is being subjected to a form of control that entails no true freedom and that we lose more freedoms with every breath we take.

the eventuality of total slavery coming upon humanity in the near future is a very real prospect.
It is in how it is implemented and it is in how we put it on and wear it for lack of impetus to do anything else but.

yes, there are harsher more cruel forms of anything at the extremes.

but I would reiterate that if you don't think you are held in bondage, then I would challenge you to see what happens when you try to step out of the control set that is put upon you.
Life gets real harsh, real hard and real fast for someone who is free.

I propose that no one actually wants true freedom. Nobody truly wants to be fully accountable.
We all want to be taken care of at some level and we do not run towards freedom so much as we run away from it.

slaves can be happy too if treated well.

[Ian]

Well honestly I see where you're coming from, but I don't feel like debating this. Peace!

[KEND]

The moment of Truth


London Times
January 29, 2010

Iraq is our Watergate. Blair must tell the truth
No more dissembling, no more lawyerly evasions. Today the public wants the former Prime Minister to admit his errors Anthony Seldon
Today is the most important day in Tony Blair’s life since he left No 10 — hence his intense preparation, so desperate is he to clear his name of the accusations against him, and to show that his decision-making over Iraq was flawless in conception and execution. We will know by 5 o’clock today whether he has chosen to conduct himself as his own defence lawyer or as a statesman worthy of the high office he held. At stake is his reputation.

We have never seen a day like this in British history, with a former Prime Minster being publicly questioned about such a contentious policy. Once the Second World War was over, the key figures were not interrogated about the events of the Munich Crisis and the fateful events surrounding the appeasement of Hitler seven years before.

But seven years after Iraq, Mr Blair is being questioned, and the pressure on him is intense. As with Munich over Neville Chamberlain and the Suez crisis over Anthony Eden, so does Iraq cast a deep shadow over Mr Blair’s entire premiership, eclipsing all the achievements in his ten years in office.

Mr Blair believes that he acted morally and wisely, taking decisions in the interests of Britain and the people of Iraq, and also of world security. He will want to dispatch for ever any notions that he lied or behaved inappropriately, asserting instead that he acted courageously in a grave moment in our history.

But at issue is much more than Mr Blair’s personal place in history. Britain’s standing in the world and its moral authority have been stained by Iraq. The relationship between the Government and the British public has also been badly damaged. Trust in politicians has still not recovered from what many see as Britain’s entry into a controversial war on a false prospectus, with the Prime Minister lying to achieve it. This has engendered the pent-up fury with politicians that we saw unleashed last year in the expenses scandal.

Iraq parallels the great scandal across the Atlantic, Watergate, in the yearning of the public to see the leader accept responsibility, not evade it. In the US, President Nixon was in the dock. Now it is Mr Blair. He must not hide behind his traditional plea for clemency: “I did what I believed to be right.”

No one is interested in his own self-estimation. He is a deep and principled man, but he has allowed himself to become a shallow and evasive one over Iraq. His guiding light today must not be to explain or defend himself, but to be totally honest. Deep down, he must know he has been dissembling.

However painful for him personally, and however much he may think (wrongly) it will scar his reputation, he must tell the truth, a truth that he refused to see when he visited the Pope on February 22, the month before hostilities commenced.

The Pope was known to be implacably opposed to the war, but the ever-confident Mr Blair believed that he could convince him. Exhausted on arrival, Mr Blair had been desperately seeking some solace and understanding. The Pope gave him none. He left Rome bitterly disappointed, but even more resolved on his course of action.

[KEND]

An interesting view of Blair
London Times 1/30/2010 Matthew Parris
Blair’s world view: simply goodies v baddies
For him the Axis of Evil was not just a soundbite but a profound philosophical insight. That’s why he has no regrets
Within minutes of the start of yesterday’s proceedings of the Chilcot inquiry, a tanned Tony Blair gave us the key to understanding his motivation. But it took the whole day’s grilling, right through to his final, defiant Je ne regrette rien, for me to solve a bigger puzzle: our own motivation. Why the national and media infatuation with making this man squirm?
First, to what makes Mr Blair tick. How many viewers, watching the inquiry yesterday, noted his answer to a very early question? He rolled together in a single two-word phrase two political groupings in the Middle East who were in fact bitterly opposed to each other: “these people” was his collective term for Baathist nationalism and internationalist Islamic fundamentalism.
Worlds apart, surely? Forgive the italicisation, but this cannot be overemphasised: Tony Blair believes that all bad people are on the same side.
The key to explaining this man, and to understanding his genuine fellow-feeling with the former President George W. Bush and with the mindset of the American Right, is his religious outlook. Until you recognise that Mr Blair really does do God — and recognise the way in which he does God — you will miss the philosophical mainspring.
I was, to my shock, confronted with this recently when by chance I encountered Mr Blair outside Westminster Cathedral, where he had been queueing to touch a casket containing the touring bones of a Roman Catholic saint. I was reminded of it again yesterday when, for all his slipperiness in avoiding difficult questions from the Chilcot committee, I got the strongest of impressions that Mr Blair was utterly sincere about the decisions he took on Iraq.
He was asked why, in 2002, his attitude changed to the already well-known risk posed by Saddam Hussein, even though the facts remained the same.
“After September 11,” Blair replied, “I realised we could not take risks with these people at all.” These people. Which people? But Tony Blair does not confuse them. He acknowledges (he did later) that Saddam had no links with al-Qaeda.
Mr Blair does distinguish the many and various dangerous forces around the globe. He distinguishes them but he sees no difference between them.
This was evident later when he was asked about other threats, his questioner citing Yemen, North Korea, Afghanistan and Iran. “I’m afraid,” Blair replied “my view is that they’re all part of one picture.”

Tony Blair is a Manichean, or dualist. He believes that the Universe is best understood as an eternal struggle between the forces of good and evil, in contention for dominance. Christians are supposed to believe that the battle is already won, and Mr Blair’s dualism is (paradoxically) closer to Islamic fundamentalism than to the Gospels. For Mr Blair at least “Axis of Evil” was not just a Bushite soundbite: it was a profound philosophical insight into the meaning of world history. Once you understand this, there is no arguing with him.

[GrahamB]