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!

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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 »

Cheaper by the dozen – except in the EU

June 27, 2010 — xanthippa

If you think government interference in our daily lives is a good thing, you’ll be delighted at this tidbit of news:  EU is about to ban the sale of things ‘by the dozen’.

Yes.

Eggs will be sold ‘by weight’.

You know – to make sure the label on the package is accurate.

So, it’s for your own protection….

Of course, this does not explain why they’d be considering (as is reported that they are) to even ban selling ‘six chocolate bars for the price of 4’?

As John Robson is fond of saying: “The more governments do things they shouldn’t, the less they do the things they should.” You know, like controlling every aspect of how grocers run their business and even sales promotions instead of figuring out how to cut down on the size of the civil service which is so bloated, it is bankrupting the EU….

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Vigna vs Levant: first installment on the last day

June 26, 2010 — xanthippa

What a day today has been!

I admit, I am a little overwhelmed by all that has been happening.

And, I will try very, very hard to put down what happened, as best as I can with my very very limited legal background (which consists solely of watching ‘Jurisprudence’ on TV whenever I can).  But, most of it will not come tonight.

As those of you who read my blog on and off, I have some long term health issues.  These last two days have seen me more up and about than I have been in months, and I admit that I am exhausted.  Yeah, I know, I am a wimp….

Still, I really don’t want to try to give an exhaustive report while I am not in a serene state of mind.

I will only offer the briefest of observations… (well, brief for my standards!)

Mr. Levant appeared more patient today.  Now, I don’t know how Mr. Levant felt – he didn’t tell me.  But, it seemed to me that he had moved past the exasperation (not completely, and with a few re-lapses, of course, but he seemed less ‘overall’ exasperated ‘much’ of the time – perhaps because he was not having to explain over and over and over how his ‘sainted father’ felt bullied by Mr. Vigna’s representative(s) trespassing on his (the father’s, not Mr. Ezra Levant’s) property for reasons Mr. Vigna claims are legitimate) and, if you can believe it, I think Mr. Levant actually pitied Mr. Vigna.

Mr. Levant’ lawyer sounded every bit as good as I had hoped for, from having watched his demeanor yesterday.  I have to admit, I really like him – he has a way of understating things that permits the listener to draw his own conclusion without ‘beating him/her over the head with it’ (if you know what I mean), but which is ‘louder than shouting’…

Mr. Vigna continued in a manner similar to the one I observed yesterday.  Much of the time (when standing up) he would rest his hands on the desk and lean forward in a bullishly aggressive manner (at least, it looked so from my point of view).  At one point the judge requested him (and it almost seemed to me that the judge was a little exasperated at having to do so) to not lean so far forward because he was so close to the microphone, it was interfering with the microphone’s proper function.

(Aside:  I think Mr. Vigna was using one of the new super-awesome Sharpie pens – guaranteed not to bleed through to the next page. There are two types of this new pen – the ‘click’ type and the ‘cap’ type.  To the best of my observations, Mr. Vigna was using the ‘cap’ type, blue, if I am not mistaken.  I rather like these ones, and used the same kind (Sharpie, cap-type, blue ink) to record my notes from today between the first break and the lunch break (approximately 12:20 and 13:00 hours… I always switch pens and ink colours between breaks….  These ‘cap’ type Sharpie pens come in black, blue, red, green and purple – but, as far as I know, you can only get the purple and green ones if you buy a multi-pack.  The GTEC-C4 pen multi-packs include the same colours – but also add orange, which the Sharpie ‘cap’-type multipack does not have.)

At other times, when Mr. Vigna was not leaning against the desk, he seemed (in my layman’s eyes) to have had difficulty containing his ‘energy’ – or, in other vernacular, one could say he seemed to have had ‘too much sharp chi’, if you will.

He kept shifting his weight from one foot to the other.  Even in between ‘weight shifts’, he kind of bobbed up and down on the balls of his feet.  In addition, he kept making small little nervous movements with his hands.  And, yes, he did pull his pants up a few times – but aside from a few little glances he threw Richard Warman who sat in on part of the morning proceedings (and one glare at me that started by looking over his left shoulder, than turning about 345 degrees and finishing the glare over his right shoulder), he did not seem to pay much attention to the audience.

While I’m on the topic of ‘audience’…

When I wrote my initial observations on the ‘Warman vs Free Dominion’ appeal hearing (yeah, I know – I never DID finish my write up….I’m still thinking over some bits of it, especially the broader implications of the Irwing case), I noted that there was a pretty young blond woman with awesome shoes in the audience who looked like she had had a tooth ache,  She arrived just after things would get under way and leave just before the breaks, preventing me from saying ‘hi’ and complimenting her on her shoes (I like shoes almost as much as I like pens).

Well, that same young woman was in the audience yesterday.  You’ll be relieved – she no longer looked like she had a tooth ache.  That made me feel glad for her.  I would not have noticed her, because she sat behind me, except that her manner of arrival and departure jogged my highly imperfect memory.

And while I’m on the topic of the audience…

At just about 10 am, Mr. Richard Warman walked in and sat down in the front row in front of me.  During this time, Mr. Vigna was cross-examining Mr. Levant, and they just happened to be talking about the part of the suit where Mr. Vigna believes his reputation was damaged by Mr. Levant’s claim that he (Mr. Vigna) ‘had access to’ a neo-nazi  website.

Now, here, I have got to be careful in how I word things…. This was one of those things ‘under dispute’ and at the heart of the lawsuit – and I freely admit, I am not trained in the legal profession.  So, please, do take this as a lay person’s highly imperfect impressions and observations and nothing more.

The issue which was discussed was what Mr. Levant had written regarding the ‘Jadewar’ membership in a neo-nazi site, and its role in ‘stuff’.  And, I do not want to get into the ‘nitty gritty details’ of the case while I am tired and before I have had a chance to think it through.

Still, it is a fact that Mr. Levant specifically said under cross examination that he believed Mr. Vigna was much better a person than to join a neo-nazi group/party/site/whatever.  He (Mr. Levant) did not believe Mr. Vigna WAS a neo-nazi at all,  All he (Mr. Levant) wrote and asserted (and, I presume, still believes to be true, based on the sources he cited) was that Mr. Vigna ‘had access to’ it – as in, was aware of and could, if he so wanted, have looked up the password or found some other means (like asking Mr. Dean Stacey) to access it (because the information and password were contained ‘in the files’ which he, Mr. Vigna, presumably had access to – at least, that is my highly imperfect understanding of the testimony).

On several occasions, Mr. Levant said he did not think Mr. Vigna himself was a neo-nazi, like ‘Richard Warman’ or ‘like that man there’ – while he indicated Mr. Warman….

More to come tomorrow!

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