Usual caveat, for me the EU is preferable to Westminster. Possibly it is a Scottish thing in that it's not much different having being 13/1 out voted by our rowdy southern cousins to being 27/1 outvoted in Europe over a policy that we would probably enact in Edinburgh anyways.
Teresa May has promptly forgotten that she is allegedly in the Bremain camp and gone on her usual hate rant against the Human Rights convention (which is not the same thing as the EU but it is broadly intertwined with it). This is always quite reassuring since the Home Secretary is exactly the person that the convention is meant to put the brakes on.
And helpfully up pops Patrick Stewart to do a little skit on human rights.
Which is basically spot on, even if you are a frothing Conservative who is utterly wed to the idea of democracy, so long as that democracy means picking a king twice a decade who is unencumbered by things like a written constitution which he has to abide by, the sort of thing that literally almost every other country in the world has to protect them.
Tuesday, 26 April 2016
RE: T May
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20 comments:
What a load of typical luvvy b*llocks. The UK was a hotbed of slavery, torture, summary execution and arbitrary incarceration before we signed up for the Human Rights convention one assumes!
I can't listen to The Star Trek guru now (at work).
Couple of points.
One, I really don't believe in human rights as such. I believe in human responsibilities.
Two, the trouble with drafting a constitution now is that you just need to look at who would want to get into the act for drafting it.
BTW I sympathise with the anti-Westminster sentiment. Self determination rules and all that. But I really cannot fathom why you'd prefer the EU. The EU is even less interested in the Scots than Westminster. Well, only interested in the Scots as a way of getting at the English. And the EU is far, far less democratic - in the sense of being accountable.
"If the first of human rights, that on which all others depend, is not the right to land, everybody's conception of the world about them is mistaken. But if they are not mistaken, and as there is nothing in the order of nature to show that any individual has more right to land than another, then the first consideration in a synthesis of human rights is to ensure that rights to land are free and equal. Insofar as this right is denied, other rights cannot be freely enjoyed; they must appear in practice to be insufficient, and however reluctantly, people will surrender their rights in return for some form of charity, genuine or compulsory." - Frank Dupuis
http://economicrealities.site88.net/rtsman.htm
"The UK was a hotbed of slavery, torture, summary execution and arbitrary incarceration before we signed up for the Human Rights convention one assumes!" S
Yes it was, if we were to include the British Empire, (which I rather imagine you wouldn't).
Sorry, but I'm going to have to agree with S and L on this one, and especially P, even though that was a bit off topic.
I don't think 'frothing conservative' and 'democracy' are linked. Certainly not if you are a 'Tory', which you might mean by 'conservative', but I would hold that they are different things. Toryism is not at all about democracy. Just look it up. OTH 'conservative' (small c) could well be entirely compatible with democracy. I categorise myself as slightly conservative - in that there are tried and tested things that we should cherish, Common Law, habeas corpus, property rights, etc. which are worth preserving - but I am also a convinced advocate for democracy in that the raisers of taxes must be as immediately accountable to the tax payer as it humanly possible.
A pathetic rehash of the M Python "What have the Romans ever done for us " .
Childish stuff from the luvvies who want us to live as they prescribe but we will have to pay for it . Let's leave . We can't leave . Why ?
Because we are waiting for Godot . Stick to fantasy Patrick everyone else VOTE LEAVE for the sake of Britain and your children .
This site has turned into an outlet for nasty right-wing malevolence.
As a supporter of Labour Land Campaign I look to LVT to replace direct taxes on work (including entrepreneurship) and to reduce the rent-seeking form of capitalism that battens onto revenue streams and extracts profit without putting up production.
The problem with this site is that is not Georgist but its ugly relative Geolibertarian.This means that while the rent-seeking by owners of land is restricted, alternative rent seeking by private owners of health services, schools, transport systems etc increases to compensate.
I never understand why people are determined to have a government they cannot stop apart from hoping like hell that in 5 years (assuming they stick to the current fashion, there is in fact no way to hold them to 5 year terms) that you can scrape 35% or so to topple the incumbents and get someone slightly different in.
Lola
Human Responsibilities sounds a lot like an obligation to respect someone else's rights, maybe an example would help.
Conservative is exactly what it says, an aversion to change, in the case of the UK or US harking to some perceived golden era that must be restored and preserved and which usually involves a monarch (the ultimate small government) and unlimited executive power (hence hatred of human rights that put the brakes on that).
Historically since UK is basically a 2 party system of a bit left v a bit right Libertarians would hold their nose and side with conservatives as the lesser of two evils (circa Hyek) but nobody should be under any illusion that the conservative ideology is going to keep you safe from marauding executive power.
As per my EU caveat, it's not that the EU is some sort of great utopia, jeebus it's a mess in probably 90% of it, but the UK Federal Gov just seems to hoover everything up and is determined to accrue ever more power to fcuk you.
"VOTE LEAVE for the sake of Britain and your children" CA
The irony being that 'the children' are the most enthusiastic Bremainers out there. Something to do with the older you are the more cantankerous you get...perhaps.
SK. OK. I will accept that Conservative is aversion to change. OTH it makes no sense to chuck away stuff that has evolved over time and works, e.g. The Common Law. That's what was the point I was trying to make. But as we have seen we do not have Conservative government - we have a bastardised Tory one.
I am supporter of devolution to Scotland -in fact the wholesale devolution of power away from Westminster. Preferably accompanied by proper tax reform and the adoption of LVT/CI etc.
And you are right, the executive is out of control. IMHO due to the malevolent effect of the EU, from whence most rules come from.
By 'responsibilities' I mean that if we all took our responsibilities properly there would be no need for 'human rights'. I have the responsibility not to kill you or steal your stuff, or to impinge on your property rights. Rights are demands. Responsibilities are not.
DBCR. "This means that while the rent-seeking by owners of land is restricted, alternative rent seeking by private owners of health services, schools, transport systems etc increases to compensate. Nope. operators of those things are not rent seeking at all, as long as there is competition rent seeking will be impossible. It is, in fact the other way about. It is the nationalisation of those things that creates rent seeking opportunities by way of producer capture.
@L Nope to you! House owners and land owners are not nationalised and they extract rent by the bucketful.
yeah, we're not far off Lola
however I still think your responsibilities is just a way of talking around saying "rights". I.e. I have the right to life and you will be punished for impinging on that right by murdering me. I have the right to quiet enjoyment of my property.
Your responsibility is really to observe my rights. I guess the argument then becomes who did the rights arise and you get into a huge jurisprudential debate about natural law as advocated by Aquinas and Legal Positivism, i.e. Hart's concept of law or my favourite Legal Rigorism.
Also, I'm not 100% down with democracy, it's a bit tyranny of the majority, if I could get a Kritarchy to work I'd be fairly happy, possibly this is why I'm less worried about EU since a judge can strike down the Commission's nonsense while in the UK they can only declare Westminster's action to be incompatible with X.
"that democracy means picking a king twice a decade who is unencumbered by things like a written constitution which he has to abide by, the sort of thing that literally almost every other country in the world has to protect them."
The reason is that if you write things down it tends to ossify and get elevated to the status of a religious text handed down by the elder gods. You get endless debates about what words mean, whole academic texts about interpretation etc...
BTW I didn't know we elected a king last time I checked we elected a local MP :b
DBCR. You're doing again! Putting words into my mouth. You know full well that I am fully down wiv der dudes on landowner rent seeking and LVT.
"I guess the argument then becomes who did the rights arise and you get into a huge jurisprudential debate about natural law"
The construction of the Islamic State is based upon 'natural laws' written down about 800AD in Saudi Arabia.
There are no natural rights in the enforcing law. There are only rights granted by your peers because all law is enforced by people. You can appeal to higher aspirations, but if the people around you have changed their mind you don't get it. Now you can pretend that you do, or you can accept reality. Or you can try and implement some authoritarian system.
"Also, I'm not 100% down with democracy, it's a bit tyranny of the majority, if I could get a Kritarchy to work I'd be fairly happy, possibly this is why I'm less worried about EU since a judge can strike down the Commission's nonsense while in the UK they can only declare Westminster's action to be incompatible with X."
And why should they do that? What's in it for them? Do you really think that judges are selfless philosopher-kings who are prepared to suffer for the causes that you like?
Attempts to enforce something where the majority of people vehemently oppose it nearly always leads to an utter mess.
For me if one disagrees with the corrupt outcomes of democratic decisions the important thing is to change the corrupt culture, perhaps change the voting system, not to put aside democracy.
The even weaker oversight on the higher law means that they can corrupt it to their will even easier by appealing to it.
The appeal to EU law, and the constant push of the ECJ to widen provisions and weaken restrictions will not lead to the Utopia you think it does.
I really don't like where this will end up. Not much difference between it and Sharia really.
SK. Yes-ish.
The responsibilities rather than rights things is related to the positive and negative freedom thing. If everyone is taught to think about responsibilities as opposed to rights it produces a better society. (As a child of the 60's my Grammar School majored on responsibilities. There were no 'rights' in my school. You just had to take your responsibilities very seriously. Mind you, I was a bloody awful student seeing as how I have always had very little respect for 'authority', as, in my experience, most of whom are in 'authority are, well, wankers.)
The EU is a corrupt corporatist cronyist nightmare. The Scots produced Adam Smith who was pretty good at pointing out the perils of that. The EU is a regression to the 16th and 17th centuries when we were ruled by extractive 'elites' with usually a single figure (a King say). What the EU bureaucrats have worked out is a way to dispense with the figurehead.
FWIW I an entirely content to have a UK Parliament lead by a Scotsman (not Gordon Brown or A Blair - obviously - but them's the exception that proves the rule). I actually think that the UK is an extraordinarily successful alliance. It is 'exceptional'. And the combined talents of us and you and the Welsh and the Irish have left an astonishing legacy of global liberty. I am not saying that the journey to that was all good - Cecil Rhodes would not be acceptable today - but the general outcome has on average been a success. But as Osgood Fielding III says 'Nobody's perfect'.
R: "You get endless debates about what words mean, whole academic texts about interpretation etc…"
Back in the 1980s, I lived in Germany and there was a big debate about what a certain phrase in the post-WW2 German Constitution meant. All the lawyers and journalists and experts piled in with their over-complicated nonsense.
It struck me that as their Consitution was written 'under Allied supervision' (i.e. dictated to them at gunpoint) by a few younger (i.e. not obviously top Nazi) German chaps in the late 1940s, there would have been enough of them still alive to simply ask them what that phrase meant.
But they didn't do this and the debate rages to this day.
As to the "opening of Parliament" ritual, they can shove it. It's embarrassing.
MW. Opening of Parliament ritual. We all live by various rituals. I do think that many of the UK Parliament ones are more like Two Ronnies comedy turn, but maybe they are all the better for that. And after all they are pretty harmless.
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