Taxes, serfdom and the story of Kozina

July 28, 2010 — xanthippa

When the practice of ‘serfdom’ was first introduced, it was nowhere as oppressive as it grew to be later on.  In some instances, at the beginning, the ‘serfs’ had to provide as little as 3-4 days of service to the ‘lord’ per season – in return for the ‘lord’ being responsible to maintain peace and order in his domain..

Gradually, the amount of work required of the serfs kept creeping higher and higher, the responsibilities of the ‘lord’ to the serfs kept getting smaller and smaller and the powers of the ‘lord’ over the ‘serfs’ kept getting bigger and bigger as the ‘lords’ increasingly used their powers against the ‘serfs’ instead of in their protection.

By the end, things were not so good…. People were compelled – often forced by armed guards – to work for their ‘lord’ from sun-up to sun-down 6 days a week, every week…

These days, we pay so much of our incomes in taxes – it can reach more than 50% of a family’s income.  The State sets the level of taxation one-sidedly and The State has usurped for itself extraordinary powers to compel you to pay these taxes, even suspending your innate civil rights as irrelevant in the process!

Indeed, the parallels to serfdom are increasingly undeniable!

Which is why I’d like to tell you a story about a peasant who refused to become a serf (in the original, ‘robotnik’ – this is the root of the word ‘robot’).  His name was Jan Sladky Kozina.

This narration is not exactly the way the story is written up in the history books.  Nor does it match the ‘official’ or even ‘semi-official’ narratives put on the internet by people who claim (probably rightly) to be the genetic descendants of the Dogheads.  I am not re-telling the story with any claim to ‘factual accuracy’.

Rather, here and now – to us, this version of the story has great archetypal relevancy!

Like Kozina, this storyteller (who was in his 90’s when, I was a child,) was a Chod, born and raised as a ‘Doghead’ – but a ‘few’ generations too young to have lived through these events himself.  Still, he was not so young as to not have heard the story from the grandchildren or great-grand-children of the actual people who lived this story!  (While there are many guesses – some of them more educated than others – there is no definitive answer as to who the Chods were, where they came from or what their mythology truly was.)

OK – to the story, as I remember it having been told me by an ancient story teller:

The ‘Dogheads’ were not your ordinary peasants. They were a people of their own, with a proud and ancient heritage.

One of their unique skills was in animal communication and training – especially training dogs (hence they had the head of a dog in their clan symbol (is it a coat of arms when it refers to the clan and not a specific person?) – and the nomicker ‘Dogheads’). The Dogheads were the only bunch of people in feudal Europe to have a document officially exempting them from serfdom.

Many historians claim it was written by John of Luxemburg, the father of Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, in recognition for ‘extraordinary services’.

That was the ‘outside’ story.

Our ‘inside’ tradition says that the papers GIVEN to us by John of Luxembourg were simply his acknowledgment of much older and more powerful claims/documents (depending on who told the story, it was either ‘ancient claims that everyone acknowledged’ or a chest full of very ‘ancient documents’). (A few old Dogheads actually claimed these ‘even older’ documents put the Dogheads outside the jurisdiction of even the Inquisition – but that is hard to believe…)

For centuries, all the kings respected this.

Until a bad, greedy king came to power.

He refused to recognize the Dogheads innate freedoms and documents ordering all kings to recognize our rights to these freedoms. This bad king deeded their land to a nobleman who paid him off – effectively turning the Dogheads into this man’s serfs (this was a little over 3 centuries ago).

The Dogheds were not keen on this. They refused to submit to serfdom (‘robota’) and petitioned the king, but the king refused to hear the petition.

The Dogheads did not know what to do.

Many wanted to take up arms and die fighting rather than submit to serfdom – but taking up arms against the king was abhorrent, because it would be an open rebellion against the position and not just the evil man who occupied it.

They could never justify such violent means to achieve any good end.

So, Kozina (that is how he was referred to commonly by his clan) chose a different way: He publicly displayed the documents guaranteeing the Dogheads freedom from serfdom in perpetuity, proving to everyone that the king was indeed the one who was breaking the laws!

This cost the king dearly, because all the noble houses and all the people saw him for what he was…. a criminal thug! An usurper! An unfit king!

But, he still had a big army…

Embarrassing the king publicly was not so very good for Kozina’s longevity. The king had Kozina tossed into jail and sent in his army to install this nobleman (whatever his name was, we called him Lomikar) as our overlord.

Then, the king permitted Lomikar to have Kozina tortured and publicly hanged.

At the gallows, Kozina looked at Lomikar and said:

“Lomikare, Lomikare!  Do roka a do dne, zvu te na sud Bozi!  Hync sa hukaze – “

Kozina spoke in the old Chod dialect…..and the way the words are put together is said to have the quality of a magical incantation. Roughly translated:

“Lomikar, Lomikar!  In one year to the day, I challenge you to God’s judgement! Then it shall be shown – “

He never got to say any more, because Lomikar was wildly gesticulating to the executioner to ‘get it done’ and not let Kozina talk, because he feared he himself might get lynched by the people watching the execution, as the Czechs were rather empathetic to the Chods.

One year later – on the day which was the anniversary of Kozina’s execution – everyone expected Lomikar to be judged by God. Lomikar lives – Lomikar (and, by extension, the king) was right.. Lomikar dies (and stays dead) – Kozina was right.

To show just how ‘not worried’ he was, Lomikar put on a bit of a feast to which he invited his friends (but not the Dogheads).

Just as he was about to make a toast – to mock Kozina’s last words – Lomikar grabbed his chest, fell over and he breathed nevermore…

Nobody else wanted to be the overlord who turned the Dogheads into serfs. The king was told unceremoniously to stuff it and leave the Dogheads be, because God would punish ANYONE who tried to oppress us.

So, after one year of serfdom, the Dogheads were free people once again!

I do hope you liked the old storyteller’s tale.  We still can learn from Kozina!

Posted in corruption, freedoms, opression, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment »

Should taxes be mandatory?

July 23, 2010 — xanthippa

When is the last time you went to a restaurant – and did not leave a tip?

Chances are – never.

Or the service was so poor, you were ‘making a point’…

Why?

Because we all understand that servers rely on tips for their income.

And we wish to encourage good service and so on and so on.

Nobody has the right to force you to tip.  You may not like the practice, but chances are, you still do tip ‘good service’.

This same principle also ought to apply to taxes!

Governments would be much more careful with their revenue if they did not usurp onto themselves the power to extort taxes from its citizens.  Any government caught in corruption (AdScam, e-Health,  Sewardship Ontario and on and on), that government’s revenue would dry up – and rightly so!

This, in my never-humble-opinion, is the best (if not only) means through which citizens can keep governments ‘honest’ and fiscally responsible!

Perhaps this sounds extreme – and perhaps it is.

Still, ask yourself why is it that ‘tax collectors’ have powers much greater than police officers or the military.  Why is it that in the name of ‘collecting taxes’, governments create personal files about each and every citizen, where they collect and access decades very private information?

Governments only have the powers we delegate to them.

If you do not have the right to do something, you cannot delegate that right to anyone else (including the government) to do it on your behalf.

You do not have the right to demand to know the financial details of your neighbour’s life.  Since you do not have it, you cannot ‘delegate’ this ‘right’ onto the government.  Therefore, demanding to know the details of our financial circumstances is not a power any government can legitimately exercise on behalf of its citizens.

Again, please ask yourself:  why is it that when governments cannot seem to catch ‘careful’ lawbreakers, they try to ‘get’ them on ‘tax evasion’?

That alone should make us pause.

I know this sounds extreme – it is meant to.

The reason I am raising this point is not because I am advocating any sort of a tax revolt – at least, not on a practical level.

Rather, I am saying is that we ought to think very hard about exactly how we got into the current state where we consider it ‘normal’ that the State suspends our civil liberties in order to take from us whatever amount of money it has unilaterally set.

Posted in debate, freedoms, opression, philosophy, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , , , , . 24 Comments »

Ontario’s illegal ‘eco-tax’ scrapped and ‘under review’

July 20, 2010 — xanthippa

Last Saturday, there was a protest at Premier Dalton McGuinty’s constituency office.  Yes, even his brother, David McGiunty (a federal MP for this part of Ottawa) showed up at the protest!

The protest was sparked by a totally evil thing the McGuinty Liberals have done:  on the same day that prices went up because of the introduction of HST (no problem with the ‘what’ of the HST, but rather the ‘how’ – it was imposed on tons of products previously tax exempt – an unelected agency of the Ontario Government, whose board of directors is composed of ‘industry partners’, imposed an ‘eco-fee’ on  over 8 thousand  new items…

I say ‘new items’, because this ‘eco-fee/eco-tax’ had first been introduced in 2008:  but so quietly, on not that many items, and not so high…..so nobody really ‘noticed’ it.  Having ‘established’ this method and legitimized it (no protests were seen against it), the McGuinty Liberals then cynically decided that the danger was ‘past’ and they can begin to ‘tighten the screws’.

This is an important pattern we must be aware of:  a government – any government – can introduce some measure.  Perhaps this measure is not really noticed (like this ‘Stewardship Ontario’ program – not to be confused with a completely different and unrelated government initiative called ‘Ontario Stewardship’), or perhaps it is even applauded by the populace because it appears to remove a perceived (rightly or wrongly perceived) threat (like, say, banning the full Islamic facial veil).  Once the measure and the method has been ‘accepted’ and ‘normalized’, the government can then expand on it:  using this new ‘tool’ to their own benefit.  If anyone speaks out – they can claim this is ‘the accepted way of doing things’!

That is why we need to really really examine not just the ‘what’ of each thing a government does, of each new law passed, but perhaps even more importantly – the ‘how’ of it!    But, I am off on a tangent….sorry, I have the attention span of a gnat!

Today, the Ontario Environment Minister announced that the ‘eco-fees’ are ‘scrapped’.

Not exactly ‘gone‘….

Just their current format is ‘scrapped’.

For now, the Ontario Government will take 3 months to ‘study’ the issue – and pay five million dollars from general revenue over the next 3 months to maintain the programs while it tries to figure out another way to  stick us with the bill.

Bob Chiarelli, the Ontario Government’s Communication Minister (and thus the guy who ought to have told us about this), has openly claimed in both the press and radio interviews that ‘NONE of the money collected through the eco-fees  goes to GOVERNMENT’ – yet we are now told that programs like the ‘Blue Box recycling’, which we have been told are paid from our municipal property taxes and their cost used as a justification to raise the municipal taxes, well, we are now being told these programs are being 100% paid for through the eco-fees!

So – which is it?

Are we paying for recycling programs through our property taxes – as our municipal politicians are telling us – or are we paying for it through this eco-fee?  One level of government or the other has GOT to be lying!

But, I am off on a tangent again…

What is important – really important – about this ‘eco-fee’ is the HOW of it all…

Ontario Government had – ages ago –  created ‘Stewardship Ontario’ with a board of ‘industry partners’ to work on these recycling initiatives.   The idea was that since industry is producing the things which need to be diverted from garbage dumps, they ought to be consulted on ways to deal with diverting ‘stuff’ from the dumps.  We were told it was supposed to be a sort of a ‘think tank’ type thing.

The Board of Directors of Stewardship Ontario is  truly made up of ‘industry giants’:  from McCain Foods and Canadian Tire Corp. to Procter & Gamble and Loblaw Companies Ltd. …

So, this ‘arms-length’ organization, with a BOD made up entirely of ‘industry partners’ (read ‘big business corporations’) is given power, by the government, to tax citizens!!!

What is the definition of fascism?

Ah – fascism is DEFINED as  ‘the collusion of big government and big business’!!!

How much more ‘collusion’ can there be between ‘big government’ and ‘big business’ than for the government to give the big business the ability to levy taxes (which is what non-voluntary fees are) on the citizens?!?!?!?

Ontario taxpayers have seen some serious money mismanagement in the past.  The ‘e-Health’ scandal has been a billion-dollar program that funneled money from the woefully broke medical system to ‘advisers’ who were not just highly overpaid McGuinty cronies, they also provided exactly zero value for their services….

Now, Lisa McLeod, an opposition MPP, has revealed during a radio interview that some of these same e-Health consultants are also ‘consulting’ for Stewardship Ontario…

Please, think of this:  the very sleazy skum-buckets  who claimed the Ontario Government is not the one who imposed these ‘fees’ have had no problem ‘scrapping them’…because now, the Ontario Government is taking credit for ‘scrapping’ them.

And, in 3 month’s time, they hope to have figured out another way to weasel the money out of us!

Posted in corruption, freedoms, opression, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , , , . 6 Comments »

Even more photos from the McGuinty eco-tax protest in Ottawa

July 17, 2010 — xanthippa

Some of the photos are posted here.

Still, there were some excellent signs I didn’t get ‘in there’.  So, here are more photos:

Dalton McGrinchy

Dalton McGrinchy

Posted in freedoms, opression, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , , , , , . 3 Comments »

Photos from ‘McGuinty eco-tax’ protest, Ottawa

July 17, 2010 — xanthippa

Today, a crowd of several hundred people had gathered in front of Premier Dalton McGuinty’s constituency office to protest the illegal taxes he has imposed on Ontario taxpayers, disguised as ‘eco-fees’.

The photos speak for themselves:

There was a visible – put very polite and respectful police presence.  Their only concern seemed to be that nobody got run over by the many cars driving by (and mostly honking).  One could not help but get the impression that they kind of agreed with the protesters!

The above picture is across the street from Dalton McGuilty’s office – the parking lot in the ratty-little strip mall where he has his office was too small to hold the protest, so it spilled across the street (no sidewalk there) and even into the near side street!

Dalton McGrinchy himself made an appearance!

With his trusty ECO-VAC, he was vacuuming everyone’s money!

The  reporters/media just LOVED  Dalton McGrinchy!

OK – I am a really really bad reporter – I don’t even know the names of the people who organized it , or most of the speakers.  However, I did recognize CFRA’s popular Rob Snow, who really got the crowd whipped up!

By this point, it had begun to rain – a little.

Then, somebody (OK, Jessica) made a discovery:  David McGuinty, Dalton’s brother and a Liberal MP for this riding, was sitting in his car in the parking lot!

While we all concluded that even Dalton’s brother supports this protest, once his identity had been revealed, he drove away bravely.  Due to the rain, the picture I got turned out too foggy to use…  Sorry!

Anyhow…

It was quite a crowd:  young and old and in-between!

Dalton McGuinty was unavailable for comment:  rather than coming to the protest and facing the music, he chose to go on holiday….on our dime!

Update:  even more photos.

Posted in corruption, freedoms, opression, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , , , , , . 5 Comments »

Banning ‘the veil’: the end does not justify the means

July 15, 2010 — xanthippa

France is just one of a growing number of European countries which have been passing laws which forbid wearing veils that cover one’s face in public.

While I loath all forms of this apparel, I loath this law even more – and have said so often and loudly.

Here is my take on it:

OK – I’m not a fan…

For many reasons.

The origin of veiling women’s faces is in the practice of owning wives as a class of slaves.  This is the history.  Not good – and nothing rooted in this tradition will likely meet with my approval.

Today, some women are forced to veil their faces in public, either through physical or emotional coercion.  This, of course, is unacceptable.

In many instances, the facial veil is being used as a means of isolating a woman from the greater culture:  this form of isolation prevents her from forming social bonds of her own among the greater community – and prevents her from building a support mechanism which would help her escape from any potentially abusive situation.  I’m going to be repeating myself:  this, of course, is unacceptable.

Yes, many women today do wear the full facial veil of their own free will, as a symbol of their ‘identity’.   This, I find even more offensive!  Setting aside the whole psychoanalytical thing of women choosing to self-identify with cattle, this is an act of haughty contempt for everyone else individually and the society as a whole.  It is an aggressive assertion that they are better, worthier, more holy, than the rest of us… It is, in no uncertain terms, an outward expression of self-aggrandization and bigotry.

At the same time, it is often worn by some women as a not very subtle method of intimidation and aggression towards the greater society.  These women are themselves Islamists who understand perfectly well the fear many have of having Sharia forced upon them by the Islamits:  they wear the veil as an arrogant reminder of the threat they are posing to us all.

So, a woman wearing the ‘Islamic veil’ can either be a victim or an aggressor – either way, I don’t like it!  And that does not even touch on the whole ‘security’ issue, where criminals use the face-veil to disguise their identity…

In other words, I would be very happy never to see anyone hiding their true face!

BUT…

The ends never justify the means.

In fact, the means often undermine and invalidate the end.

I got into a somewhat heated discussion about this with Trupeers over in the comment section of BCF‘s post on this.  I think I was not very clear about it and confused the issue by poorly expressing what I mean.  Still, it helped me ‘distill’ the essence of what I mean better.

My ‘first law of human dynamics’ states that eventually, every law will be abused and stretched into unforeseen ridiculousness.  Therefore, whenever we pass laws, we must consider more than their immediate effect.  It is our responsibility to examine the not-so-obvious implications of any law and to really really foresee any potential ways in which the law could be abused.

THAT is my problem with a law that bans ‘wearing a face-covering veil in public’.

The larger implications:  we are permitting a government to legislate what people may or may not wear in public.  You know, like they do in Iran…

It is always easier to give some power to a government than it is to take it back.   Once we legitimize the practice of governments  legislating and enforcing dress codes, that aspect of our existence will be at the mercy of some  future government’s whims!

Posted in debate, freedoms, opression, politics, religion, society. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , . 4 Comments »

G20, police behaviour and the ‘split’ on the ‘right’: part 2

July 8, 2010 — xanthippa

In part 1, I pointed out that increasingly, the police have been given two goals which are not always congruent:  that of ‘maintaining public order’ and of ‘upholding the laws’.  And, increasingly (in ‘the West’), the police have been choosing to ‘maintain public peace’ – even at times breaking laws themselves in the process, instead of upholding them.

This has become very clear during the G8/G20 circus downtown Toronto.

Not only were the police given extraordinary powers to ‘maintain public order’ within the designated, fenced-off area, they had usurped even greater powers for themselves.  I use the term ‘usurped’ advisedly, because that is what they did.  The police chief admitted he had intentionally lied about what the powers police had been granted were.

Bill Blair’s justification of the lie is telling: ‘I was trying to keep the criminals out.’

It would appear that in this Police Chief’s view, all the people on the streets of Toronto were to be treated like criminals, until proven otherwise – may be!  Perhaps Chief Blair thought that he was on a crusade:  ‘Arrest them all – God will know his own!’  The police officers under Blair’s command certainly appeared to behave as if they took this adage to their hearts, as they often exercised powers never lawfully granted them – even going well past the police chief’s unlawful claims. (I will return to this later)

Following the ‘event’, the police continued to lie to the public!

The reason for this seems clear:  the evidence of police misconduct had been published and publicized, so the police attempted to magnify the ‘perceived threat’ in order to justify their conduct.  By displaying ‘confiscated weapons’ (some of which were toys – taken from a gamer who made them safe for kids to play with) and lying about what they were and where/how they were ‘confiscated’, the police hoped to portray the ‘protesters’ as a bunch of lawless anarchist thugs who were a threat to every decent human being.  Once this effort succeeded (as it mostly did), they could then dismiss any person who criticized their conduct by tarring her/him with the same brush.

That is a dangerous precedent!

First of all, it is not safe for anyone – law breaker as well as each and every law abiding citizen – to live in a society where the police arbitrarily usurp powers onto themselves and use threats, intimidation, arrests and, yes, violence, while exercising these usurped powers!

Whatever you think about the G8/G20 Toronto thing, just think about the implications of that!

We would live in a society where police are permitted to make the rules ‘on the go’ – and get rid of (through intimidation or arrest) anyone whom they perceive as challenging them…

If you think this is impossible in Canada (or another Western democracy), think again:  a few years ago, a study of downtown Vancouver policing practices documented searches, intimidation and various forms of detention of individuals on the fringes of society (least credible victims…) took place without any official records of the events – without these records, no effective legal action could be taken against the police officers.

Yes, the police were in a difficult situation.  Still…

While the evidence is very circumstantial, the police behaviour captured on video does suggest that at least some of the ‘violent protesters’ were indeed agent provocateurs – a tool which the police in Canada are known to have employed in past protests. (It evens appears that, prior to the G20, a Toronto Police representative was asked directly whether the police will be using agent provocateurs – only to be told that they are unwilling to reveal that type of information.)

I do not wish to get hung up on this agent provocateur thing.  The charges that the police utilized them have been made – along with claims that the worst of the violence and destruction was not committed by the protesters, but rather by the police agents themselves.  While I have seen some circumstantial evidence that lends credence to these claims, I am not yet convinced either way.

Why do I even raise the issue?

The police are in a unique position in our society.  In order to do their job – and do it right – they need people to trust them.  This trust is not a trivial thing – it must be earned, over and over.  Yet, having seen so many videos of police misconduct, having read so many reports of it, I fear this trust has been seriously compromised.

Do I believe all the charges against the police?

No, I don’t.  A few fake videos, perhaps.  A few trumped up charges – I’m willing to entertain that they are not as accurate as the ‘victims’ claim.

But some of the charges of misconduct come from sources I consider reputable (I know some of these people personally and they have earned my trust through their past behaviour).

Yet, I would like to give the police the benefit of the doubt.  And… had the police not been caught in so many lies, it would be easier to believe them…

Even if we completely set aside the issue of the agent provocateurs, there are serious problems with the police failing to enforce the law!  There are numerous videos (including some I linked above) where the police witness violent or destructive behaviour by specific individuals – yet do nothing to stop it by arresting, or even interrupting, the law-breakers!

That is not right.  It is abdication of their duty at best –  actively aiding the law-breakers at worst.

Even if there had not been an ‘over-reaction’ by the police on the Sunday and Monday (the arbitrary-seeming arrests of close to a thousand innocent people as well as all the other reported abuses of their powers), the police behaviour on Saturday, their failure to act and to apply the laws (which, according to some sources, came as ‘an order from above’) would be sufficient to shake the public trust in the police.

Sorry – I truly am sorry that this is so –  but that is the truth!

Oh – and as for labeling all the protesters as violent anarchists, who break the laws and have no respect for private property or the businesses along the protest route:  watch this and weep!  Not all protesters condoned lawless behaviour.  Some protested, hoping to talk sense into the violent thugs in their midst.  Others, like this guy, did more to stop lawless behaviour than the police did!

(Continued in ‘Part 3’)

Posted in freedoms, opression, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , , , , . 9 Comments »

G20, police behaviour and the ‘split’ on the ‘right’: part 1

July 7, 2010 — xanthippa

All right – this is a difficult issue to tackle.  Still, it is an important one.  So, if I go off on a tangent – please, comment and re-focus me!

The G8/G20 event cost over 1 Billion dollars in ‘security’ costs.  Many people complained – yet, though I thought the figure high, I did not complain because I thought that if the people in positions to know thought the security costs were that hight, I was unwilling to double-guess them.  In no way ought this event have been turned into a showcase for ‘unlawful people’ – if that was going to be the cost of upholding the rule of law, I was willing to pay the bill and not grumble (too much).

I am, if such a thing can be said to exist, a ‘pro-law libertarian’:  it is my deeply held conviction that it is only through the rule of law that our rights can be respected and our liberties can be exercised.

I take a poor view of each and every individual who breaks the laws – even ‘bad laws’ (two ‘wrongs’ do not make a ‘right’), provided citizens have a recourse through their ability to lobby to change or otherwise get rid of ‘bad laws’.  Even living in a totalitarian state, (though young) I thought that leaving everything behind and running away (not so bravely) was preferable to taking the law into my own hands:  it would take a lot, including absence of any other course of action, to get me to break the laws or to condone others to do so.

Having explained my philosophical bend, I also ought to explain my attitude towards the police (and, yes, I am volunteering with the Ottawa police because I think cops ought to be ‘the good guys’).

Police officers occupy a very unique position in our society:  they are the ‘Agents of the State’ whom we entrust with upholding the rule of law in our society.  As such, they occupy a position of trust unlike those of most other people in society:  trust which has to be continuously earned by their behaviour, because the alternative is too terrible to contemplate.  (Yes – I still have the nightmares…)

Unfortunately, ‘the police’ have recently been entrusted with two completely different goals:  one is to ‘uphold the law’, the other is to ‘maintain order’.  These two tasks are not necessarily in ‘extreme’ opposition to each other – but neither are they completely congruous with each other, either!

Example (from the past – to keep the current tempers even):

A large number of militant anti-Israeli protesters sees an Israeli flag in the window of an apartment and threaten to break into the building to get rid of it (presumably looting, or at least ‘damaging’ the building in the process).  The police, ‘in order to maintain public order’, illegally enter the apartment and remove the ‘offensive’ flag in order to appease the mob which is threatening lawless violence.

These individual police officers chose to break the law, in order to ‘maintain public order’, instead of waiting for law-defying individuals to break the laws, then arresting them in order to uphold the laws of the land!

That is only one such example where the police chose to ‘maintain public peace’ rather than to ‘enforce the laws of the land’:  had they enforced the laws, they would have waited for individuals to damage the property, then and only then arrested these individual lawbreakers and brought them to justice.

We have also seen a parallel to this in Canada, when a lone pro-Israeli protester (not breaking any laws) faced a large number of anti-Israel protesters in Alberta:  the police threatened the lone, law-abiding, not-violence-threatening individual with arrest in order to ‘not provoke’ the violence-threatening (and thus law-breaking) mob because the law-abiding man’s ‘presence’ was a ‘provocation’ and thus a threat to ‘public order’.  (Sorry, I can’t find the link – if you can, please, do so in the comments:  yet, this is so common, most of us are aware of many parallel incidents!)

George Jonas (a fellow escapee from a totalitarian police state) phrases his observation of the role the  police in our society are increasingly choosing to play:

‘The only group exhibiting Canadian-style restraint was the police. They cast a calm eye on the pandemonium, took a balanced view and chose no sides between people trying to exercise their rights and bullies trying to prevent them.’

These occurrences are not isolated:  over and over, in much of the ‘free world’, we have seen police preferring to aid law-breakers (who are ‘difficult-to-handle’) in oppressing the population… instead of upholding the laws of the land.

Just consider the going-ons and race-based policing  in Caledonia!!!

So, how does this relate to the G8/G20 situation – and the ‘split’ on the ‘right’?

In how the people usually considered ‘little-c-conservatives’ perceive what happened and how we evaluate the role the police played…

Let me first get a few things off my mind:  it was idiotic to hold the G20 meeting in the middle of downtown of Canada’s largest city.  Ensuring the security of the participants was going to be a nightmare.  It was a situation where just about every possible outcome was going to draw serious – and ‘warranted’ – criticism.  In other words, it was likely to be a ‘no win’ situation…

The police who were entrusted with the task of providing security for this event were in an unenviable position:  ‘ensuring security’ necessarily put them into conflict with their primary role – that of ‘upholding the laws’!

Why?

Because ‘ensuring security’ meant the police were responsible for preventing any law-breaking which would result in ‘breeches of security’ at the summit.

However, the actual and proper role of the police is to uphold the laws:  this means that they are only permitted to intervene AFTER a law has been broken!

How can a person (or collection of persons) possibly prevent a crime – when they are, by law, permitted to intervene only after a crime has been committed?!?!?

(Continued in ‘Part 2’ and ‘Part 3’)

Posted in freedoms, opression, philosophy, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , , , , , . 7 Comments »

‘Consensus-building’ and ‘leadership’

July 3, 2010 — xanthippa

From our schools to our media to our bureaucracies, every aspect of our society is so infested with Cultural Marxism that ‘Newspeak’ has seriously corrupted not just our language, but our very ability to think clearly.  We no longer even recognize it when we hear it.

One such example is the currently popular claim that ‘leadership’ requires one to be skilled at ‘consensus building’.

First, let’s look at the meaning of ‘leadership’ and what constitutes ‘a leader’:

‘Leadership’ is the ‘ability to lead’, fulfilling the role or function of a ‘leader’.

‘To lead’ means to ‘show way by going in advance’, ‘to guide’, ‘to direct’, ‘to inspire’.

So, whom do we, as a society, regard as the greatest leaders of all times?  I did a little bit of googling on this – please, do the same.  While the leaders ‘closest’ to us necessarily dominate our cultural memory, there were some names that consistently keep being mentioned, by educational sites, journalistic/populist opinion sites and discussion boards alike.

In no particular order, these are just some of these names that keep cropping up over and over when people discuss ‘great leaders’:

  • Martin Luther King Jr.
  • Elisabeth I of England
  • Gengis Khan
  • Epicurus
  • Alexander the Great
  • Ghandi
  • Margaret Thatcher
  • Golda Meir
  • George Washington
  • Cyrus the Great
  • Winston Churchill
  • Muhammad
  • Constantine
  • Samudragupta
  • Wu Ti
  • Ivan III
  • Napoleon
  • Thomas Jefferson
  • Abraham Lincoln
  • C. D. Howe
  • Ronald Reagan
  • Bismarck

So, how many of these were known as ‘consensus builders’?

If I may quote from ‘What is ‘Cultural Marxism’?’, a guest-post on this blog by CodeSlinger:

Another example is the concept of intersubjective rationality, developed by Habermas, which replaces the individual process of reaching a conclusion based on the objective criterion that it follows from valid reasoning and known facts, on the one hand, with the social process of establishing a consensus supported by the subjective criterion that the group feels good about it, on the other hand. In today’s schools, those who do the former are maligned for being judgmental and demanding, while those who do the latter are praised for being good team players.

‘Consensus’ literally means ‘coming together’ (con) ‘of feelings’ (senses, sentiments).  Dictionaries typically define ‘consensus’ as an opinion or position reached by a group as a whole.

In other words, ‘consensus building’ is a form of governance a group of people will resort to when it lacks ‘leadership’.

How does this translate into the political world?  We are constantly bombarded with the message that great political leaders ought to be skilled at ‘consensus building’…

Our ‘Western’ societies have built-in safeguard mechanisms to ensure that ‘governments’ remain accountable to the citizens who elect them.  Perhaps the most important single element in this mechanism is that our elected bodies are based on the adversarial principle.

It is precisely because the political adversaries of those who propose a particular policy or course of action bring public scrutiny to it by publicly pointing out the flaws or shortcomings of this proposal that the issue is brought to public attention and thoroughly examined.  It is certainly not a pleasant process (nor is it meant to be pleasant), but it is one through which at least some light is shed onto what is being proposed – in as much detail as possible – and which engages the electorate in the debate (at least a little bit).

This is the method through which, in our system, we the citizens keep our elected politician accountable to us.  It is therefore important that we do nothing which would minimize this process!

What would happen if, before proposing a new law or introducing a new project, the head of the group that is proposing it went to all the elected representatives and put just enough of an ‘incentive’ into the proposal for each an every one of the representatives to not want to loose that ‘carrot’?

Certainly, any such project would be significantly costlier, because in addition to the core cost, it would now have to also bear the cost of a ‘carrot’ for each of the elected representatives – the bit that got them to ‘go along’ with it.

Of course, any such law or rule would be significantly more convoluted because it would now have to accommodate/fulfill/have exemptions for/’bundle in’ all the ‘carrots’  for each of the elected representatives – the ‘incentives’ that would be built in to it to ‘facilitate the building of the consensus’.

Every ‘quid’ would have a ‘quo’.

All policy would be shaped by back-room deals, where ‘consensus builders’ would be busy building ‘accommodations’ and ‘incentives’ into everything that would placate or mollify any potential dissent….among the elected representatives.

Once this process was done, the product would be presented to the public as a ‘done deal’.  I imagine the ‘dialog’ with the electorate would go something like this:

We have worked it all out, the proposal is so awesome that we all agree on it!

What?  You want to see the details?

Why?

We, your elected representatives all agree on this so this must the best course of action.  We have examined it in detailed and built a consensus – you needn’t worry your pretty little heads about it!

What?  You don’t like it?  You want to vote us out?

And replace us with whom?  EVERYONE agrees with this!

In other words, if there is a consensus among our elected representatives on a proposed course of action, if each and every one of them considers it in his or her best interest to proceed with it as is, it is very unlikely that the voters, the citizens, will have any opportunity to learn much about it before it is implemented.  There is another word for this type of ‘consensus’:  collusion!

In an environment like this, an environment of back-room-deals and political collusion, where there is little controversy which leads to public debate or scrutiny of proposed policies, corruption can be very easily hidden.

In my never-humble-opinion, ‘consensus-building’ among elected representatives is not just anathema to responsible government and an abdication of leadership, it is an active attempt to corrupt our governance structures and eliminate accountability of elected officials to the citizenry.

I would even go further than that:  politicians who tout governing through ‘consensus-building’ are openly admitting they intend to rule through corruption!

Posted in corruption, freedoms, language, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , , , . 2 Comments »

Why ‘secular laws’ must rank above ‘religious laws’ in every society

June 29, 2010 — xanthippa

Recently, a post I had made a long time ago where I was looking at the definitions and nature of religion received a comment which raised a very important point.  It was something that I had attempted to get across – and failed.  Here, I hope, to remedy this!

Context:  Having used the Jungian definition of ‘religion’, I argued that ‘freedom to practice one’s religion’ must never be given greater weight in our society than ‘secular laws’.

Permit me to recall ‘Xanthippa’s First Law of Human Dynamics‘ -IF there is a potential for ANY law (rule) to be applied IN EXTREME ways – never foreseen when the law was first formulated – eventually, it WILL BE!!!’.  In other words, every potential  law or rule must be subjected to scrutiny of its effects when (and it is a question of when, not if) it will be applied to a ridiculous extreme.

Therefore, in that post, I used an extreme example: ‘If there is a blanket protection for actions based on religious belief, even such extreme acts as ritualized murder would be protected’.

The comment:

‘I cannot agree with your definition of religion. Since I am Catholic, I will use my understanding of it to explain my position. At the core of Catholicism, is the belief that there are some things that, with regards to morality, are objectively wrong- wrong in every time, place, and situation. I believe that you yourself would assent to this, since you already have identified objective moral truths (human sacrifice, polygamy, ritual rape, paedophilia (child-brides), ritual cannibalism, genital mutilation).

Now, it is not enough to believe that human sacrifice is wrong, rather, one must also behave in accordance with that belief. If one does not have the freedom to act in accordance with that belief, of what value is the belief? None. It is nothing but an illusion of freedom which the state allows to placate the people.

The crux of the issue, however, lies in the contradiction between the constitutionally granted “freedom of religion” and the secular law- a contradiction that is only truly resolved if religious belief and secular law both conform to objective moral truth. You seem to assume, though, that secular law is ipso facto closer to objective moral truth and therefore has primacy, but that is a false (and sometimes dangerous) assumption. Our laws were not created in a vacuum, but created by people who drew from their religious beliefs, cultural backgrounds, and own understanding of morality. There is nothing to suggest that they inherently knew better and we should accept their moral code a priori.’

I am not, in any way, shape or form, convinced that there is such a thing as an ‘objective moral truth’.

This does not mean I don’t think some things are wrong.  Yet, I recognize these for judgments based on my observation of the collection of impressions I will, for lack of a better-defined term, call ‘life’.  I would be loath to have pretensions to any absolutes, even if I became convinced ‘absolutes’ could be defined.

First things first….   Sequentially, I suppose.

The commenter self-identifies as a ‘Catholic’ (Roman Catholic Christian, I presume).

He/she then asserts that ‘objective moral truths’ exist, and as a proof cites me that, among other things, ‘ritual cannibalism’ is wrong.  However, where I say these acts cannot be justified by ‘exercising one’s religious freedoms’ IF they contravene the secular laws of the land, the commenter goes further, calling this wrong in every time, place and situation and equating this condemnation with an ‘objective moral truth’.

HOW can a Catholic possibly assert that?

Is it not one of the core beliefs of Catholicism that the priests’ blessing physically transforms a wafer of bread into the actual flesh of Christ, wine into the actual blood of Christ?  Is the consumption of these not part of their worship rituals?

This is, by definition, ritual cannibalism.

Don’t be dismissive of its importance!  Either the person truly believes they are eating Christ’s flesh, or they are heretics to their faith and not a Roman Catholic Christian.  These definitions are not mine…  One cannot possibly be both a practicing Roman Catholic Christian and believe that it is an ‘objective moral truth’ that ‘ritual cannibalism’ is wrong in every time, place and situation – unless one believes their religion demands behaviour contrary to ‘objective moral truths’!

No, I am not trying to pick on the commenter:  rather, I am attempting to illustrate of just how quickly things get muddled when we enter the realm ‘theological principles’ and ‘objective moral truths’…  No society of free people could hope to form effective laws which respect core human rights and freedoms on such a tenuous foundation.

This is precisely why ‘secular laws’ must ‘trump’ religious ones whenever there is a conflict:  ‘secular laws’ do not and must not legislate morality.  To the contrary:  the primary role of secular laws must be the protection of individual rights and freedoms against the oppression by other peoples’ ‘morality’!

Justifying a proposed law by an appeal to ‘morality’ or ‘greater good’ or ‘public interest’ (all of these are the same thing at their core, they just wear different cloaks) should sound our ‘alarm bells’ that something dangerous is afoot and requires close scrutiny.

Why?

Passing laws on these grounds necessarily permits the morality of some to over-rule or abridge the rights of others.  Than, in my never-humble-opinion, is always a bad thing!

The commenter says:

You seem to assume, though, that secular law is ipso facto closer to objective moral truth and therefore has primacy…’

No, not at all.  I am sorry if I gave that impression.  To the contrary!

Secular laws are not created in a vacuum – not even the vacuum of some ‘alternate dimension’ where rule-making deities reside.  Rather, they are a negotiated contract among the citizens of a country how to best keep from infringing on each other’s rights as we strive to coexist and thrive.  It is a living contract, not set in stone, but continuously evolving to reflect the changes in our society – and it must be supreme because by the virtue of accepting citizenship (or residency), one voluntarily chooses to abide by them.  Or, at least, that is what the meaning of accepting citizenship (or residency) ought to imply…

Because it is a negotiated contract of ‘minimum interference’, if you will (OK – let me just say that it ‘ought to be’ as we see laws becoming more and more intrusive and ‘moralistic’….), it will necessarily reflect the moral ideals of the majority of the members of the society.  That is how it should be – provided that the core rights and freedoms of each and every individual are not infringed.

Our laws must permit every person to exercise their rights and freedoms as fully as possible – but not past the point where this activity would violate the rights of another person.  Sort of like that right to swing one’s arms stops just short of hitting someone else’s nose…

In other words, a man – say, my father – must be free to believe (or not) in whatever Gods he wants.  And, he must be free to worship (or not) them as best as he can – but the limit on his freedom to practice his religion must stop short of the right to kill me because I offended his God by wearing the wrong kind of polka-dots on Sunday!

Posted in atheism, freedoms, ignosticism, philosophy, politics, religion, society. Tags: , , , , , , , , , . 3 Comments »
« Older posts
Newer posts »