Blogging again

Apologies for the long radio silence. I'm moving house... so although I now feel that there are things I want to blog about again and that might be worth someone else reading (though only 'might'), I may not have much time.

But I thought I should draw this to the attention of anyone who might still be listening...

As much as I harbour doubts about Guantanamo, we in the West are in a fight with an enemy that knows no boundaries to what it will do to destroy us and our freedoms. A real challenge to anyone who is a liberal (and by that, I mean liberal rather than socialist - Sunny Hoondal take note) - do we stick rigidly to our principles, or compromise ourselves (and perhaps sacifice others' lives as a result)? I don't think the answer to this one is easy...

Oh dear, did I mispell his name? Drat! ;-)

Compare and contrast... my declaration of freedom

Man attacks drug dealer who won't stop selling heroin to members of his family. Gets two months in prison, for what is effectively a minor assault on someone who deserved it - and who won't be punished by the police, CPS or any of the other cunts who supposedly provide 'justice' in what is laughably called our 'criminal justice system'. The Penguin's commentary on Old Holborn's blog says it all.

A lorry driver who killed a family of 6 people (crushed between 2 lorries so that their bodies were not recognisable) on a straight road where there is no good reason for him not to stop (no bad weather, etc.) gets 3 years in prison, which will be 18 months in reality. The family were not criminals and had done nothing wrong. The lorry driver simply couldn't be arsed to concentrate on the road. Hope the cunt dies of cancer.

Lord Ahmed is the Labour peer who successfully threatened - with total impunity - to bring 10,000 Muslims to the Horse of Lords to prevent a Dutch MP, Geert Wilders, from showing a film which depicts the violent nature of Islamists. Strangely enough, he didn't show any religious concern for the lives of others when he was sending a text message whilst driving on the motorway, and killed a man. He will get a maximum of 2 years in prison, i.e. 1 year after parole - and, of course, because he's a Labour peer and a Muslim to boot (better if he were gay and disabled, although, given Derek Draper's comments, only a non-'windowlicker' disability...), I guess he will get a suspended sentence. The fat, stupid, terrorist-loving cunt.

And people wonder why increasing numbers of us have no confidence in our 'justice' system?!

Well, I announce today that I am renouncing the protection of this so-called system of 'justice'. As is my right, I will defend my family using whatever measures are necessary. I do not recognise the authority of the police or any court in the UK. Any action taken against me by those authorities is illegitimate and an abuse of my fundamental rights of self-determination and self-defence.

Wanker of the Week

Back by popular demand...

And today's wanker is... Derek Draper.

Primarily for this post. Presumably, 'revenge' for Guido pointing out that he didn't go to Berkeley (even though it would have been an appropriate place for him...).

Derek - fuck off you tedious, totalitarian cunt. None of the comments you cite are racist - they simply reflect reality in Brown's Britain. But, of course, socialists have always shouted, 'Racist!' at anyone with whom they disagree.

But racist comments like 'British jobs for British workers' are, of course, OK if they are uttered by socialist cunts like Gordon the Moron.

Anyway, given that Guido has apparently deleted the non-racist comments, I'm more than happy for any reader to leave similar ones on this blog. As a reminder, this is the picture:



And, Derek, keep your totalitarian shit on LabourShite - there's no room for it in the rest of the blogosphere.

Honestly, you'd think he had better things to worry about, like his mental boss, who's taking the country down the toilet - or just shagging his wife (after all, we all know the risks of not keeping your spouse happy in bed...).

One of those irritating but have-to-do quizes...

Via Obnoxio, another one of those annoying quizes...

You are a right social libertarian.
Right: 7.23, Libertarian: 3.68



Apparently, I am a moderate libertarian - but with a neo-con twist :-)

Clearly, my pro-gay marriage, being able to say what you like about any ethnic group, etc. and violent video game but anti-abortion and pro-banging up criminals for life views completely fuck up their American-based 'Culture War' thingy though...



This has probably been debated to death on the interwebby, but what is it that makes someone a libertarian, i.e. what are 'core' libertarian views?

I would say:

- Belief in negative rights - free speech, freedom of association, all equal before the law, etc. This includes proper punishment for those who infringe those rights, not 5 seconds of 'community service'.
- No such thing as 'positive' rights
- Belief in a small state
- Economic liberalism (which might mean regulation when markets fail, provided the government failure isn't even worse)

Clearly, not all would agree with me though:

- The Chicago School libertarians take what is a useful simplification for analytical purposes - that markets work - and make it into dogma. Whereas markets do sometimes fail. What is then important is whether state intervention can make it any better, without imposing massive costs or distortions, and without infringing basic liberties. I think that it can in some cases.
- Some also have some slightly mad (in my view) opinions on returning to the gold standard and the like. I like to think that I'm radical, but... Basically, human psychology means that wages can't easily drop - they're not sufficiently flexible. So we're stuck with some inflation as the price...
- Many libertarians dislike /hate my more interventionist views with regard to foreign policy, e.g. in principle, I support the intervention in Afghanistan, although we're fucking it up somewhat...
- It is very difficult to deal with irrational individuals, particularly Islamists who want to make the UK into an Islamic state, by force - I tend to feel that they should go live in an Islamist country and leave us alone; whereas a classic libertarian would allow them to live here and simply imprison those who commit crimes. My problem with this is that I don't think a rational approach works with people who cannot be appealed to with reason;
- Most libertarians rather idealistically believe in open borders - I don't think this is practical in a world where most countries don't practice this and there are such disparities of wealth.

Still, libertarianism's a broad church... isn't it? :-)

Tim Ireland - Necessary Evil or Just a Knob?

I guess I am not the first to blog about this... and I'm sure I won't be the last :-(

I have had the unfortunate 'pleasure' of reading comments from Tim Ireland on various blogs over the last week, having only heard about him second-hand via Guido and Iain Dale.

My instinctive reaction, as I put it on Recess Monkey, was to tell him to get a life. And his response was martyrdom!

And I see he is being his usual irritating self on Labourist.org - self-appointed fount of righteousness in the blogosphere that he is.

The guy is clearly a knob... and yet I am inclined to believe that there is a place for all, even for the most nakedly self-righteous, in all of our 'occasional' blogrolls. Even though Guido is clearly a million miles from the level of power exercised by Rupert Murdoch, we should always think about the underlying interests of all those whose opinions we read, because they can all have an influence over our developing views. Well, obviously with the exception of the genuinely stupid and self-serving (Polly Toynbee springs to mind, as the Devil illustrates nicely in his latest post).

But... Tim - and I mean this in the nicest way - could you at least try to be a little less pompous and self-satisfied in the way that you perform your important social function? After all, we all have to eat fibre - but it can be in the form of tastier fare like rye bread rather than the cardboard taste of bran flakes (and you can even put sugar on those!).

The bishop is back... and angry as ever!

Dear Reader

Apologies for the absence of posts recently - I've been enjoying a (well-earned?) holiday.

I gather that I'm not the only one... Mandy Pandy has apparently been spotted in Marrakech (incidentally, not his first time there...). Some of Guido's co-conspirators have even suggested that he might have been enjoying some of the, ahem, adult entertainment that Marrakech offers.

Well, clearly the Bishop isn't in a position to judge the truth of the matter - nor, as a libertarian, does he care if Mandy or anyone else indulges in such activities, provided they involve consenting adults. But, if this was what Mandy was doing, and given Harriet Harperson's Jacqui Smith's new law which will insist that clients check prostitutes' ages and that they aren't trafficked, perhaps Mandy could let us know whether he took similar precautions in North Africa, and how he ensured that he was told the truth?

Or, as anyone outside the Labour Party knows, will the legislation not work? There was an excellent article by Hannah Fletcher and Claudia Fromme in the Times on this, back in November. In particular, it points to experience in Finland, where, 'Since [similar] legislation came into effect, there has not been one single prosecution', because it is impossible to prove 'beyond reasonable doubt' that a client knew that a prostitute was trafficked.

Perhaps this is all part of Labour's ongoing attempts to turn England into a police state? The failure of the legislation will mean that 'beyond reasonable doubt', the backbone of a fair and just legal system for centuries, will be changed - no doubt, to 'if you support Labour, you're a victim and we'll pay you vast amounts of taxpayers' money, and, if not, you're an evil criminal who doesn't understand social justice, and we'll send you to the gulag'.

Perhaps the Prime Mentalist is more like Stalin than Mr Bean, after all?

Getting back to the subject in hand, I think it is worth reflecting on some of what the article says in detail...

When Richard Gere picked up Julia Roberts in his Lotus Esprit in Pretty Woman, it was the start of a great Hollywood romance. The classic prostitute with a heart of gold, she was transformed almost instantly into a glamous sex kitten, equally at home shopping on Rodeo Drive, decorating his arm at the opera in San Francisco or stamping the divots at a polo match. And, of course, there was a fairytale ending in which the corporate prince rescued the fair maiden as she promised to “rescue him right back”.

But if an English Gere — perhaps a hedge-fund manager trying to find Notting Hill in the dark — attempted a similar stunt in the brave new world of Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, he wouldn't be handing out strawberries in the hotel penthouse but having his mugshot taken at the nearest police station.

Well, yeah. I mean, does anyone seriously think that prostitution is glamorous? Pretty Woman is a shit film, and hardly compares to reality (for a start, Richard Gere [edited for legal purposes! ;-)]). Seriously... (I guess they had to do this, as such sensationalisation seems to be a requirment even for broadsheet journalists these days... But forgive them - the rest of the article is unusually balanced and fair).

Andy Hayman, former assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, thinks that the new proposals are ludicrous. “The police have so many other priorities, such as knife crime,” he says. “They don't want to hound prostitutes who obviously need the money, or their clients, unless they are causing serious problems.

“What these women need is help. Many of them are drug addicts or behind with their rent; they already have criminal convictions so they can't find another job. They don't need to be forced farther underground. Most are already very co-operative, and they are great informers. Coppers will ignore this one.”

Wow! The police being sensible? Perhaps Inspector Gadget despairs too much? Although it is an ex-copper talking... And they probably should go after the people traffickers....

"This is an disaster for many working women,” says Virginia (not her real name), who works in a sex parlour in southeast England that is run by a middle-aged couple. “These measures will make our jobs far more dangerous. The couple I work for are not pimps, they check my clients and make sure I'm safe. The sex between my client and myself is a consensual act.”

Nicky Adams, a spokeswoman (NB not 'spokesperson' - naughty, naughty!) for the English Collective of Prostitutes (NB note that 'union' seems to be a dirty word here - perhaps this explains Labour's hatred for them?), adds:

...prostitutes are now terrified of ending up with the most unscrupulous pimps. “All this will do is hound the decent parlour owners. The Government is trying to take the moral high ground but it's a low blow for women who are struggling to make ends meet, whether they are from Croydon or Croatia.”

But, as Harperson argues, isn't prostitution just, well, wrong? If women demean themselves by being prostitutes, why should we want them to be protected? After all, if we can get murder and rape figures up, then we can put all men (the raping bastards!) in prison and have a much better world! And we don't want any pretty Eastern European women here, showing how ugly many British women are! After all, how's a girl to get a girlfriend against that sort of competition?

If only women would simply look and dress like Harriet or our dear Jacqui (especially in her knife-proof vest, and with her protection squad, vital for any Labour Minister given what they've done to this country), then no man would want to fuck them! And then there would be no prostitution.

Except for rent boys in Marrakech, accessible only to senior Labour Ministers. Nothing wrong with that - after all, gay and Labour, now that's a minority group that deserves the full protection of the law...

Losing Their Religion Too...

Whilst senior management at the Diocesan Council are as depressing as ever after their summer break - resorting to pleas, nay, begging (!) to the rank and file of priests, nuns and bishops for information as to why we think they're shit! - the Bishop has been cheered up this week by a seeming rebellion rising in the ranks - it appears that the Bishop is far from alone in feeling that he is losing his religion...

One priest is leaving the Bishop's team, having decided that she would rather carry out missionary work in Newcastle or Manchester (!) than continue to work at the Diocesan Council.

This follows the departure of another colleague to join a far more 'liberal' church, also to engage in missionary work.

Another is showing symptoms of the same 'disease'.

And yet another told me on Thursday that he was looking forward to my leaving speech (a little worrying as I have not yet made definitive plans to leave - does he know something I don't?!).

Sometimes it's good to be open about how you really feel - you'd be surprised at the positive reaction and support you receive.

Those in authority need to know when to back fuck off - it was the story of Civil Serf that inspired the Bishop. And, like the Devil, Cranmer and many of my co-religionists, I won't be shut up by wankers in the European Parliament or fuckwits in what appears to now be popularly known as ZaNu Liebour (at least now I understand why it's OK to intervene in Iraq to get rid of a dictator -something the Bishop, to the annoyance of others :-), supported and continues to support, albeit recognising that Cheney et al fucked it up - but not, apparently, in Zimbabwe...)

I see there may even be some more 'Civil Serfs' in need of anger management sessions... (scroll down a bit to find the relevant article - unfortunately, the link doesn't seem to work, but the precis is enough...)

Oh, and lest I forget, note to the senior beggar Archbishop who made the pleas this week:

• You're not the problem - at least, from what people around the Council said afterwards, we quite like you!
• But the same can't be said for your deputies! Particularly Archbiship D'Inde - apparently, the Bishop is not the only one that thinks he's a total and utter cunt!
• So when you do your 'Heartbeat' surveys which ask us what we think, how about asking about different layers of the Curia, rather than lumping yourself with gobshites like D'Inde.
• And recognise that we're (at least, mostly) intelligent people - trying to spoonfeed us propoganda is going to make us (even) more cynical. Tell it like it is, be honest - and you'll earn our respect. Just like I and many others have more respect for Cardinal Sam after his comments to The Tablet recently...

BB

Blows for Freedom

Friday the 13th - the Curse is Lifted! As Mrs T once said, Rejoice, Rejoice!

How proud the Irish should be*. After David Davis struck a first blow for freedom yesterday (on which I may blog later, although others have already done so wonderfully, particularly DK and Guido), another blow was struck today.

God willing, may these be the first of many!

*The Bishop should make it clear that he is half-Irish, but cannot claim any credit, as he failed to gain citizenship in time to vote. If those cunts in the Commission think they can try again to reverse a democratic verdict (as with Nice and Maastricht), I hope I will be joined by many in the UK who have been denied a vote by that lying sod Brown but are entitled to Irish citizenship in applying for it, and then voting for a 'No'...