I’ve said before many times on this blog, the left-right divide is a fiction. The real differentiation in politics is between Libertarianism and Populism (aka Totalitarianism). Left-wingers and right-wingers merely squabble over what freedoms they choose to repress first: economic or personal. Both harbour a pathological urge to control the lives of others, and both regard Libertarians—and not each other—as their real enemy. Just look at the trolls’ comments on James’ blog, and you’ll see what I mean. Some of them claim to be members of the Fabian Society; others screech that they’re Republican (US) or Conservative (UK) voters. Their desperate claims to differentiate themselves from each other are as repetitive and pathetic as they are irrelevant.
That’s why it makes no difference to me that the man arrested by police in connection to yesterday’s mass murder in Norway, one Anders Behring Breivik, is a blond, neo-Nazi extremist, and not some Red Brigade remnant, bearded jihadist (as many originally thought) or sundry communist fruitcake. As far as I’m concerned, if they all want to tell us what to do, then they all belong in the same basket: the waste basket.
Be Responsible - Be Free! 
Farmer Braun is tempted to express his dislike for extremism , in all its forms. He hesitates to do so ( yeah right), knowing that some will find his idea that theism, in all its forms, is extremist superstition or superstitious extremism, more than a little challenging. He does not wish to cause offense, so is hopeful that no offense will be taken.
But he does wonder when we will begin to question the idea that religious belief is sacrosanct.
farmerbraun unfortunately believing in something even if it is the local potato God is hard wired into most of humanity on a genetic level so unless we embark on an eradication policy for those bad genes we are stuck with religion.
Or those of us not religious need to move off planet and let those left get on with killing themselves in ever inventive ways for King Edward God of the Potato followers.
Ozboy as we have not heard the reasoning behind Breiviks motivations fully and probably never will as his death is likely to happen ala Oswald it is hard to know which part of crazy he is coming from. The logic behind his moves is impeccable in a twisted evil way, he has sent a message to the state and that message is business as usual may meet with a violent answer. The government being socialist will now pay more attention to the oppositions views in both a good and a bad way.
This is the first incident in the fight back against multiculturalism and what will be further violence in Europe over the coming decades, it’s what happens when you shut down the democratic avenue of the people by marginalizing through the media etc.
Anyhow for the record any man who shoots 85 unarmed kids on a holiday island is a coward and deserves hanging, ironically his maximum sentence in lefty Norway is 21 years.
Kitler,
I read the 21 year sentence thing, too. Norway should cut a deal with the US and ship him over here to spend as many of those 21 years as possible in a US prison. Perhaps Jackson State Pen in Michigan, Huntsville in Texas or any of a number of others. He’d be popular in prison with those pretty Norwegian features.
21 years from today is 7,671 days. They say the final death toll could be 98. That’s 78 days, 6 hours, 36 minutes and 44 seconds for each child murdered. Very forgiving, these Scandinavians. Very – Oz
For some reason I’m reminded of this song:
Dr Dave and Ozboy is it me or do I detect a lack of revulsion or outrage on this incident from the general populace a little bit of oh he killed a bunch of lefty’s too bad so sad now wheres the crossword puzzle.
Or do a lot of people secretly think yep that will teach em for multiculturalism and having Islam foisted on us.
I could be wrong but the mood for this is different. Have we reached a tipping point in attitudes that should alarm our political masters? Is this the shape of things to come more bloodshed?
That’s even more depressing than Tucci’s comment yesterday. I’m not touching it – Oz 😦
Dr Dave good song from Wawwen Zevon.
Two very sad events, the Norway killings and the death of a meeja star. All other news disappears while the biased BBC give us their ‘take’ on these two.
Yes of course he was ‘evil’ he had ‘right wing’ connections.
Oh, and as an afterthought, those right wing Republicans are stopping that popular President Obama raising the debt ceiling and increasing taxes on the super rich.
Speak to almost anyone over here and they rely, ‘Oh. I like the BBC’.
Heaven help us !
Bufo mio, mere words cannot reflect the grief of a single child’s life, snuffed out like a candle. The sheer scale of this outrage – and that’s just what it is: not a “tragedy” (a wimpy, morally cowardly and evasive word), but a dirty, great fucking OUTRAGE – defies all attempts to understand it: my attempts anyway. Just look at the vultures circling right now – the left-wing MSM for openers. Dave, Ian: just you watch the totalitarian forces in Europe try to capitalize on this terrible event for their own ends – gun control law will be just the start of it. I’ve seen it happen before, in my own back yard.
I’m feeling sick. And it ain’t the ‘flu – Oz
toad the killer is far from evil and has very carefully over much time thought about what he can do to achieve his aims all very logical, then again so did Hitler. The scary thing is they are perfectly sane it’s just they have skated through the ice rink of morality to the other side and exited and are now using roller skates.
Ozboy can you say Dunblane massacre all over again? A mentally ill man was allowed to own fire arms and some very high up people made sure he could have them over the objections of the local police force. Draw your own conclusions.
I’m not buying into conspiracies. You can explain this without them – Oz
ozboy funny how they stopped lots of avenues of inquiry afterwards when it started to lead to some very important people. I think it may be possible to take certain people and reprogram them or prod them into extreme actions you have less free will than you think, people are easily manipulated. Our latest idiot boy like Timothy McVeigh was set up to do this.
As an observer of humanity people really are just easily toyed with fortunately for everyone I am way too lazy and was taught them morals to exploit that.
http://autonomousmind.wordpress.com/2011/07/24/what-the-norway-massacre-is-telling-us/#comments
Autonomous Mind says what I think far better than I ever could.
I’m waiting to see whether we get to hear what Breivic has to say, I have a feeling they will hold it ‘in camera’ to avoid giving him a platform for his views so we can be told only what they want us to hear.
That’s funny, I’m sure I spelled his name Breivik when I posted – more coffee needed……..
G’day Mel. I apologize for swearing before a lady earlier, but when one speaks from the heart, one does become passionate. Whether this was a genuine political act, or simply the random act of a madman, we must wait to find out. It does disturb me that the authorities would not trust us to hear what he might say at a trial; as if we might be swayed, en masse, by the words of a fanatic. Yes, it happened in Germany long ago. But today? – Oz
Well the Oslo court has apparently decided the hearing will be closed. Wonder how much we’ll get to hear now?
Oz’ I didn’t even notice – and I totally agree with the sentiment!
Hi,
I was very late onto the story, so the spin was already at a well developed stage when it reached my ears.
“Atlas Shrugs” blog has some interesting screen shots of the sudden appearance of the words “Christian” and “Conservative” on the creep’s faceless book profile, AFTER he was arrested.
Must be the touchy feely Nordic socialists, allowing those just arrested for multiple child murders to go on faceless book?
The BBC has hauled out the Euro equivalents of the SPLC to conflate the creep with anyone else whom they disagree with, and want to silence.
Those ever so caring and conflict resolving social “democrats” were doing their best to sound all responsible, calm and not to make rash moves
These are the people who’s party was keen enough to use bad laws to kidnap and castrate the kids of any who fell foul of them.
I’ve been (just one in several million) on the receiving end of the collective punishment for two of these kind of events, as have you Oz.
I do not envy the Norwegian ‘s in the coming weeks and months. here is not the place to offer them advice which is abundantly available other places. The Norwegians’ grandparents knew well – guns for fighting can be built by ordinary folks under the noses of even the most violent and intrusive of police states; the Norwegian resistance built thousands of STENs under the NAZIs noses; bans just make ordinary people less safe, they don’t stop people who are determined to, from getting guns.
I am in agreement with Kitler. When an subject of concern becomes a no go area for debate, then people will find ways to be heard.
Far better that fools can prove what they are with words rather than deeds.
Oz,
Can I elaborate on another dichotomy within the collectivists.
The link around the back between “Far Right” and “Far left” is clear, Benny Mussolini was a life long correspondent with Leo’ Trotsky, and Benny would quote ad lib from Vlad Lennin in his speaches.
Joe and ‘Dolf were happy enough to go off conquering together, and ‘Dolf was clear that National; Socialism was the classless Bolshevism.
Those were some of the collectivists who expect to have everyone on the bus they want to drive over the cliff.
We also have (a very few) harmless collectivists, who want to get on their own bus and drive away from us all;
The oldest well known western ones are probably the Amish (pacifist religious anarcho communists).
The British supermarket and department store chain; The John Lewis Partnership, a workers cooperative.
If people want to try collectivism, they are welcome to pool their resources and appoint their own central planners, go live in a culturally enriched community…
Why do so many collectivists expect to force the rest of us onto the bus, or to kneel on the edge of the pit?
Hi Mel,
I guess the bits we’ll get to hear may never even have been uttered by the bloke.
The trolls are going nuts over at JD’s blog. White, blond-haired, blue eyed, Christian, right wing, native Norwegian kills nearly 100. Soon we’ll hear that he’s a climate change denier, worships Monckton and hates cats.
When the dust settles I’ll tell you exactly what we’ll learn. The guy is mentally ill. He’s a paranoid schizophrenic with delusions of grandeur. This is typically the case. It is folly to read too much into his alleged motivations or associations. For whatever else this guy is, he is mostly just nuts.
They are also going off on Lord Tebbit’s blog as well and it looks like the same crew as on JD’s blog. As for being schizophrenic I doubt it maybe a narcissist?
Certainly a Narcissist. Boris Johnson had a good take on it in todays TG.
It seems he has posted a 1500 page manifesto, less impressive when you find out its not all his own writings but includes cut-n-paste of unibomber writings and Melanie Phillips articles.
Given the characteristics of the net it seems unlikely that the whole thing will remain inaccessible to any that are prepared to search. Although you might have to use methods other than giggle and bong depending on what country you are in.
One report about his eventual goal I found interesting. His wish for a monocultural society. Its an echo of the old agrarian versus the urban viewpoint. Agrarian societies tend to be monocultural and view outsiders as competition for a finite resource – the land.
Urban – city – societies are built on trade and require outsiders to trade with. The early cities in the fertile crescent have areas where the archaeological finds are typical of distant societies with which they traded. They had districts where lots of foreigners lived, who no doubt got bashed or burnt out when the politics got ‘agricultural’….
The mixing of cultures, people with different beliefs and social values is an inevitable result of trade. How central governments deal with the conflicts that emerge from diversity is often indicative of how much freedom of action it gives any of its citizens. Or subjects.
However for the likes of Breivik, or the Islamic monoculturalists, NO government is sufficiently authoritarian. While Breivik was reacting to the tolerance and multiculturalism of Norway the Al Queda fanatics are bombing because of the ‘liberalism’ of governments like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
The other side of the coin is the ‘Arab Spring’. With its very mixed results. Eygpt okay so far, Libya – civil war, Syria…. There the government has been killing around the same number every Friday for a couple of months.
@- Luton Ian
As the resident collectivist – (not really but…) I should take umbrage at your characterization of us as inept bus drivers with a lemming tendency.
However, There are certain elements within any society which require collectivist, centrally planned and regulated, civic governance.
From the earliest city states of the bronze age water management has been a key aspect of civilisation. It still is and I know of no example of irrigation, potable mass supply and waste water disposal carried out by purely ‘free market’ means.
Water, transport and power all either originate from governmental initiatives, or have to be ‘nationalised’ when market systems fail. The history of fire insurance and the fire service is instructive.
In most capitalist democracies the collectivist provision of basic services is farmed out (in the original meaning of the word!) to private enterprise. But that provision is regulated.
There are other aspects of social infrastructure that require collectivist agreement on a global scale. A lot of technical regulation needs to be global, the medium we use to communicate only works because of a collective agreement to (mostly) abide by a common protocol.
I think this links to the issue of monoculture and diversity I raised earlier. In a strict monoculture much less is required in collective protocols because there is little difference between the ‘players’. But if you want to have a diversity of software with competition between companies then a common protocol provides a level competitive playing field. The common protocol should also allow a diversity of content, in life as on the net inclusive systems are less authoritarian than exclusive approaches. Enabling reciprocal cooperation tends to be a better strategy than closed shop policies.
Even if it does encourge the likes of Breivik and Zawahiri
Oh dear,
where to start?
Perhaps with a few of the farmers near where I grew up, one who came back from Japan about 50 years ago with a Japanese wife, my younger brother was quite friendly with their eldest, there was another farmer a few miles away with a black African wife and kids by her, I’m out of touch with the area now, but I would be surprised if at least one of the kids isn’t farming on his own, they’ll be in about their mid forties now. Then there are my own family ties with China, Romania and Italy, along with my being one generation off the direct female line that would make me technically a Jew, and come to think of it, a farmer’s daughter whom I used to date, is raising her son in her late husband’s faith – Moslem.
I grew up in a remote hilly area, which by any measure is economically backwards, but farmers travel and farmers trade. Even in the 1950s, it wasn’t unusual for the kids to go to Australia, Kiwi Land or Canuckistan for a year or two, and that generation nearly all grew up with Germans, Italians, Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians etc, living and working on their farms.
I’m guilty of joking about areas where the invention of the bicycle didn’t end in-breeding, and others where the sheep are bred to have pretty faces, but I don’t think I could give a real example of such a place.
The collectivist bus;
I’m afraid that it doesn’t matter who is driving it, although Hayek points out that in politics, the worst tend to rise to the top, so the driver is likely to be a bad one,
The problem is the bus itself, coercive collectivisms all result in slavery, starvation and mass murder, whether you start with Mohammed and his followers, or with the violent anabaptists at the time of the protestant reformation in Europe, the pattern repeated in the French Revolution, the Bolshevik and Maoist revolutions and their offspring including North Korea, Cambodia and Zimbabwe, by the national socialists, most notably in Germany, but also in Japan, Nationalist China and the former Jugoslavia, the pattern of coercion and of murdering, starving and enslaving people to fit the utopia is repeated, so too is the cult of personality.
I don’t think anyone is going to sympathise with the Russian Tzars, even amongst absolutist monarchs, they were hard line authoritarians, yet in the first two years after the October revolution, the Bolsheviks had murdered more Russians than the Tzars had in the previous 200 years, they had also started famines and re-instituted chattel slavery. Every time a coercive collectivism is tried, the result is the same.
Social democracy’s failings appear to be in proportion to the emphasis on the “Social”, I think it was John Lott, who recently linked to a comparison of disposable incomes between Sweden and the US; The average Swede has a lower disposable income than the poorest group in the US; “Black” Americans.
There are good reasons why we don’t want to put the handcuffs on and climb aboard the collectivist bus.
Izen,
You touch very nicely upon corporatism.
A company, or industry getting government (local or national) to exert coercion (violence) on its behalf, is easier than it competing for the financial votes of consumers in a free market.
Water, gas, electricity and sewerage are the usual examples given when the fallacy of “natural monopoly” is trotted out for its regular exercise.
The special pleadings used, would have been familiar in the times of Colbert, the most notorious of the French Mercantilists.
Check out biographical notes on Vanderbilt and Carnegie, to see the upside of free competition. Heaven forbid that politicians had been involved in dividing up steel production quotas, or even worse, nationalizing it.
The half joking example which I like to use of the problem of coercive provision of a service is household dusting.
Dusting is of course necessary for hygiene, so why should it be left to “chaos”, should it not be done to the same standard, for the greater good of society, by local, democratically elected councils? Who wouldn’t rather have someone else do their household dusting for them, “Free” at the point of delivery?
Now imagine how the various females you know would react to the standard to which it would be done?
Naturally though, that failure would be argued to be evidence that more funding is required for the “service”.
Crown,
It’s a while since I’d looked in on Lord Tebbit’s blog.
Well done!
Izen,
What exactly was wrong with Insurance company provision of fire brigades?
I seem to think the insurers invented the service, and, why should someone not be able to self insure, if that is what they choose?
Memories of Ireland, and in County Cork, if the (monopoly) county fire brigade gets called out to your property, you pay what they charge you, even if they showed up hopelessly late and under equipped.
Luton Ian so we have learned that Izen drives a bus and that some sheep are way too pretty for their own good.
That depends upon which village the pretty sheep find themselves in 😉
I like mine with a bit of dressing up though
Mint sauce, broccoli, parsnip and new tetties.
Well there are a few small places in Weardale where they are very nervous that’s for sure.
I’ve checked the DT blogs a few times;
Good work!
@-Luton Ian says:
July 26, 2011 at 8:13 am
Izen,
What exactly was wrong with Insurance company provision of fire brigades?
—————————
It was not in the economic interest of the insurance companies.
In the US the insurance companies were reluctant to contribute to a fire service, the original volunteer force was taken into local civic control when a technological development – the steam pump – made provision of a fire service effective with capital investment.
Try this from the Journal of Libertarian Studies –
Click to access 3_3_6.pdf
Annelise Graebner Anderson, The Development of Municipal Fire Departments in the United States
That article doesn’t mention it explicitly, but the pursuit of Pareto efficiency is involved in this. In looking for something that covered Pareto optimal solutions and fire insurance I found this –
http://ideas.repec.org/p/ner/carlos/infohdl10016-3653.html
Mutual, collective agreement turns out to be the most effective way of covering risk from fire, at least in this specific circumstance. Its worth downloading the full paper from the link if you are into game theory analysis of economics and how cooperation can sometimes exceed competition in delivering the best outcomes for the lowest cost.
The blogosphere is going absolutely nuts today. This one’s clearly touched a nerve. My own thoughts are still with the parents of all those children. I’ll have more to say when things die down a bit.
I don’t think anyone here argues against cooperation, whether between individuals, or between groups of individuals, whether you call those groups, associations, companies, or even councils,
but, I think we’d all argue against enforced monopolies which extract payment, usually up front, with threats of violence.
For the past few years I’ve been living places with private water supply and private sewerage treatment, which works fine, if I neglect my sewerage treetment plant, my own well is the first to get the shit.
The waste collection is however organized in the worst of all possible ways. The collector is a private firm, who I buy a bin tag from, signifying to the guys collecting that I have paid, but the collector must seek and pay the local council (dearly) for a licence, for the “privilege” of making trash collections.
In other words, the council is using the threat of violence (sending cops to drag the operators of the service to court and off to prison, or to remove their money and property) in order to seek an un earned rent, and, certainly in the self stated example of Dun Laoghaire & Rathdown Council, an urban area south of Dublin, this is to “prevent the chaos of competition”.
I’ve already given the perverse example of County Cork’s monopoly fire service (We could draw an analogy between it’s effect on other provision and Gresham’s law).
I’ll leave you with a thought experiment;
Which would have the greater incentive to protect you from violence; a monopoly police force paid for by taxes? or, one run by a life insurance company? and which is more likely to favour people equipping themselves for personal self defence?)
(hint; failure of a state run service is usually used as an excuse to call for yet more money for it – failure by a competing private company looses it customers)
Crown,
Just read your impeccable assessment of evil logic
Here’s a little thought;
If democracy is a means of letting the majority have its way without having to resort to a civil war each time opinion moves on, and it peacefully achieves roughly the same outcome that a civil war would;
Should the mass murdering Draco Malfoy look alike and his violent ilk have be awarded multiple votes?
Guys.
Wretchard, has an excellent analysis up at “Belmont Club
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2011/07/26/the-lessons-of-norway/#more-15918
basically he is saying that the left and the Nazis will use this to polarise and to close down any debate in the ground between the centre and Hitler.
If you want the gist, check out Wretchard’s and Blert’s comments, especially Wretchard’s memories of the Miranda Hotel bombing.
For anyone unfamilliar with Wretchard, he spent his younger years in the none communist anti Marcos underground.
Luton Ian my assessment is based on historical application of terror and how to achieve the maximum possible effect. Just ask the Romans or the Mongols how to get your point of view across even the old testament is full of examples of carefully planned genocides to scare the opposition away from the land.
Anders may be evil in a classic sense but he is far from stupid, he still deserves to hang in my opinion. As a father the best way to empathize is to imagine it was your child lying dead because of a that murdering bastard. Otherwise it just does not seem real that anyone could do that.
However I will ask who is more evil Anders or the people trying to use his evil actions to score political points and take even more freedom from us. While we live in really politically corrupt times ala late 18th Century and it may seem we have no voice or are powerless we can if we get off our butts change that through the ballot box and it will be hard but doable, so I see violence really as a last resort. The whole economic system on which the rich rely to control us and exploit us is getting close to imploding if not in the next few years then soon in the next decade so I say just be patient oh and have a firearm handy to repel looters.
“Imagine it was your child”: yes, Kitler, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing these past few days. And it makes absolutely no difference to me that the majority of those parents are in all likelihood your typical, left-of-centre, high-taxing, politically correct, collectivist, AGW-believing Scandinavians. A child is a child is a child. If it means anything at all, many who disagree with them on other issues share their pain today – Oz
In no way diminishing the pain or the crime, the word “child” is being stretched up to the age of 22.
As one of the commenters over at Belmont Club wondered; how many potential future Prime Ministers were amongst the dead?
Luton Ian the victims ranged from 14 to 40 I think, the majority would be considered young adults but it does not excuse his crime. Now they have classed him as mentally ill a trial is unlikely and he gets away with it.
Did I not tell you they would find Breivik to be mentally ill? I still have no qualms about killing the SOB. Just give me the chance and I could kill him before or after breakfast and sleep like a baby at night. Funny moral compass Norway has. They allow abortion on demand through the 12th week of gestation (whether or not you consider this human life is a separate discussion). But they won’t execute or even incarcerate for life a murderer of 74 of their citizens (many of whom were children). Interesting paradox, don’t you think?
In the US we have had two relatively recent high profile mass murders; Maj. Nidal Hasan and the Ft. Hood shootings and Jerod Loughner in the Tucson shootings. Hasan was an Army psychiatrist and a committed “soldier of Allah” jihadist. Loughner was just a textbook case of a paranoid schizophrenic. Together they killed about 20 and wounded many more. Both are arguably nuts yet I can find no compelling reason why either should be allowed to live. I suspect Hasan will probably be euthanized but Loughner will remain a ward of the state for the rest of his life. Why? They both committed heinous murders, they’re both probably nuts, they’re both quite obviously guilty of these crimes and they’re both beyond societal redemption. Kill ’em and move on.
I’m reminded of two very old cases from my youth. Back about 1970 A guy named David Purnell got into a fight with his girlfriend, Janet Uland. He killer her…probably by accident. But he roller her body up in a rug and dumped her somewhere. Then he went home and tried to clean up the evidence. They would have caught him sooner had not been for the incompetence of the local cops. But they did finally catch him. He was sentenced to life without parole (Michigan has never had a death penalty). He died in prison a few years ago. This was probably a guy who could have been “rehabilitated” and released into society. “Crime of passion” and all that.
Another case happened in Dec of 1976. Instead of going to school, a 15 year old kid went to his friend’s house and brutally murdered his older sister. I knew the murder victim, not well, but I knew her. This kid then went to school. He showed up with her blood all over his hands. When asked what happened he said “I just killed someone and did a good job of it, too.” Obviously this 15 year old kid was “not right in the head”. They tried him as an adult, found him guilty and sentenced to life without parole. This was 35 years ago. He’s still rotting in a prison in upper Michigan. Today I don’t think they would mete out such a harsh punishment, but 35 years ago our society had more sense.
Lew Rockwell has an excellent post up at Mises Daily, elaborating from a Libertarian point of view the same theme that Wretchard covered.
http://mises.org/daily/5497/Ideas-and-the-Culpability-for-Violence
Also check out the comments on Wendy McElroy’s article, which also touch on the lack of logic in allowing abortion, but condemning (correctly in my mind) anti natal infanticide
http://mises.org/daily/5491/Grappling-with-the-Banality-of-Evil
Yep, Rockwell’s article sums it up nicely. I suspect James’ pet budgie won’t be pleased 😉
My article on abortion is coming, but I have one or two things to get out of the way first – Oz
Dr Dave in the UK the 15 year old would have sent to the funny farm however that meant at her majesty’s pleasure or basically forever, evil little kids like that never get released. It is also a maximum security mental facility they get to stay in.
We never used to get many murders maybe one a decade and usually crimes of passion or drugs, a friend of my brother got drugged up one night and went out to confront his ex girlfriend with a shotgun. He ended up killing her new boyfriend quickly sobered up so to speak and then tried to kill himself. However the good doctors rebuilt him a new lower jaw I think he got 20 to 30 years and is probably out now. Of course with all the romance prospects of Jabba the Hutt totally unemployable and will be a net drain on society for the rest of his life.
In days gone by they would have just hanged him after fixing him up of course, can’t go to the gallows feeling poorly.
Somehow, I think that the multi-culties will go to any lengths to avoid the Malfoy look alike’s words being broadcast;
They’re what you might call
inflammatory
___________________________________________
Punishment in Ireland, is a sick joke;
Breaking into a house and violently raping a woman gets about 18 months – if caught and convicted, there is a big IF there, unless of course the offender is eastern European, in which case he’ll get life.
There was a boy from near Cork, of about 17 or 19 years old back Christmas time 2004/2005, killed a child of about 11, dumped the body, stopping on his way to dump it at a filling station to buy a bottle of coke (perhaps he had a bit of a conscience- enough to get a dry throat). He then helped in the search for the kid.
He served a total of about 3 years, and got out with a new ID, and expenses paid to go to university; My psychologist friend is convinced that he’s a sociopath and will do it again.
There was a character from County Wicklow who abducted, multiply raped and attempted to murder a young businesswoman, but got spotted by some friends of an acquaintance of mine, they were out lamping deer in the woods, recognised the rapist (Murphy), who fled, and they eventually managed to rescue the girl, she fled naked and they only managed to catch up with her and calm her down after she’d attempted to climb a deer fence, Murphy had beaten her unconscious when he’d abducted her, so she wasn’t in much of a state to run, but she tried bloody hard to run. Murphy was suspected of the disappearance of about 6 other women (there were no disappearances while he was behind bars), but was only interviewed by the cops twice while he was in prison. He was released last year.
Ireland is a small country, I’m not only one contact away from the rescuers, I know the Girl’s father and a couple of her brothers. They’re very active in the GAA.
The rescuers had their rifles confiscated for the deer poaching – some reward for rescuing a woman from murder, and identifying a possible serial killer, leading directly to his arrest and conviction.
Still recuperating down here folks; apologies for no new postings of late. Keep checking in though, there’s a few topics of interest coming up. Plus I’m determined to finally get Planet Ozboy up and running. Stay tuned.
Cheers
Oz 😳
The problem is that even libertarianism is equally as bad as totalitarianism. When you have true libertarianism, you have no laws against murder, rape, theft, assault, or any other unjust crimes, because to an extreme libertarian that is impeding an individual’s right to freedom.
We’ve seen just exactly what economic libertarianism or free-market economics leads to in the Western World and specifically here in Australia- specifically economic facism. Libertarianism ultimately in its most extreme form has no intellectual compass and merely creates a situation of “might makes right”.
Of course I have no doubt that most people who are libertarians would accuse me of being totalitarian for saying that, however that’s the problem with being a centralist these days- the fascists call you communist, the communists call you fascist, the libertarians call you totalitarian and the totalitarians call you libertarian.
What people need to wake up to is that the problem with both sides of the coin is that each is an imbalance and that both are needed for a society to prosper.
Running infrastructure socially with enough regulations to just stave of fascism in the form of multinationalism, actually boosts the capitalist proudctivity of small business and manufacturing.
Likewise, small busines needs a socialist regulatory and infrastructure framework to ensure facilitation of their supply chains and to protect them from predatory pricing.
Likewise, people do need some degree of control to keep them safe, in the form of laws which exist to ensure personal safety and ONLY for that purpose (as opposed to laws which are claimed to be about that but are in fct about consolidating power and micromanagement of people’s lives).
However for society to maintain its stability, it needs prosperity which can only be accomplished by allowing people the freedom to explore new ideas and express themselves. However this can only happen in an environment where individuals have the safety and security to do so.
Much like always it is centralism that will save this country and this world- presuming the extremists on both sides don’t destroy it first….
Er…no.
What you’re referring to is “cartoon Libertarianism”, which I have dealt with here over a year ago, and differentiated clearly from anarchy here earlier this year. The political philosophy you describe as “centralism” has been tried in governments around the West in recent years, and found wanting. Why? Simple. Because it stands for nothing, beyond the acquisition of political power, and a seeming horror of offending anyone, anywhere, ever. At least “Old Labor” had a clear political philosophy, wasn’t ashamed of it, and couldn’t care less who it offended. Centralism, to paraphrase the seer, ain’t no way to run a railroad – Oz
The irony is that I would argue that in fact the reforms of Chiffley and Curtin (when Labor was in its prime, and of course, we’re talking Old Labor here) WERE centralist. They allowed for a socialist framework at the facilitation level of the economy, while maximising commerce at the commercial level. They essentially took both philosophies and applied them to the economy in a way that balanced and complemented each other (and yes, that naturally includes protectionism). That’s what centralism is in a nutshell.
You say it stands for nothing, but true centralism, and not facism masquerading as Centralism, which is what both sides of Parliament have been since Hawke and his fascist financial reforms (which even Fraser and Howard weren’t game to try on due to how radical they were).
Yes TRUE Centralism has been defeated both here and in the US, but that was entirely due to the misuse of the privy council, just as the Brittish Crown has misused Sections 58-60 of our constitution on numerous occaisions since Federation. In the case of the States, it was from buying the presidency with the likes of Obama and Truman (to cover both ends of the post-Roosevelt timeline).
True Centralism works and as Old Labor knew, it was the key to human prosperity. It’s for that very reason that the still alive and kicking British Empire have been doing all they can to sabotage it.
That’s a whole lot of issues all bundled together Andrew, and while I’d love to, I don’t have the time to discuss them all separately with you. You’d be a handful down at the pub!
My ears did prick up when you flagged the Fabian Society’s infiltration of the ALP. The FS is something LibertyGibbert will try to bring into focus later this year – Oz
Also I would add that you’ve contradicted yourself when you talk about libertarianism. The concept of maximising personal potential and freedom (within reason) while supporting free market economics is a complete oxymoron. Assertion unsupported by evidence? – Oz
Even a brief scan of the practiclities of free market economics reveals that it creates an economic “might makes right situation, where as has happened over here, the big players wipe out the small players through things like predatory pricing, while manufacturing shuts down here costing us not only jobs, but our self-sufficiency as a nation and thus our sovereignty.
But we don’t have free market economics: what we have is crony capitalism (just as bad as socialism), and both sides of politics are in on it. You only have to pick up the papers to see al the special deals being handed out re this carbon tax, the firms Obama decreed were “too big to fail”, special tax exemptions – the list is endless – Oz
Why do you think Old Labor was so staunchly protectionist?
To protect their union members’ jobs – duh. And like I said, at least Old Labor stood for something, so good for them.
You know Andrew, it’s only you and me in here; this thread ended a few weeks ago. As I said earlier to you, while this is a private blog it’s a relatively open forum and I welcome different points of view. But you’re expending a lot of effort and not reaching many people – Oz
Oz, take a good look at the behaviour of Coles and Woolies complete with predatory pricing and the way they’ve even corrupted the ACCC re the Franklins sell-off.
You talk about crony capitalism, but that’s where a free market leads, where the big players get so big that they not only start controlling govts, but they start owning more and more essential infrastructure to the point where the entire system starts self destructing, because the facilitation layer of the economy cannot properly facilitate, because it’s been altered to exist to solely make profits.
Protectionism though is more than just about protecting jobs, it’s about protecting the sovereignty of the nation, which includes its wealth, the general welfare of the people and therefore the sovereignty of the nation.