Deceiving Ourselves

I suspect Colonel Gaddafi may have allowed himself a wry smile considering events of the past week.

Our boneheaded intervention in Libya, which we were told was to prevent violence and killing, was doomed to failure before it began. The enthusiastic approval of military intervention by our gullible MPs now appears even more ridiculous given our own inability to keep order on the streets of London, and prevent the deaths of innocent people across our country and Libya.

We try to throw our weight around on the international stage so our Prime Minister can pretend to be an ‘International Statesman’, and so we can continue to deceive ourselves into believing we remain a world power, and not face up to mounting economic and social problems at home.

But these foreign misadventures are not in our national interest or increasingly in our capability, as we dismantle what is left of our armed forces. Britain long ago ceased to be a major player on the world stage – militarily, economically and morally.

Our sovereignty and hard won freedoms have slowly been ceded by our politicians to the faceless bureaucrats of benevolent European integration. We are no longer a free nation, but a subservient state to a foreign and anti-democratic Empire.

Our economy lies in tatters, labouring under the weight of a bloated welfare state, crippled by government debt and sending millions of young adults to acquire meritless degrees at Universities in subjects that nobody wants.

Our society has been corrupted and atomised, with each passing generation having little in common with the next, and little sense of genuine community or belonging. Respect for others, property and authority have disintegrated after decades of state ‘entitlements’, weak justice and assuring youth that rights come without responsibility.

As we have receded from the public sphere and genuine democratic participation, the state has expanded to fill the gap, making it’s assault on our ancient liberties even easier than before. Thus, our liberties are no longer freedoms, but ‘rights’ given to us by the state – rights which can be amended or taken away should the state so please.

And the process continues. While deeply disturbing, the manner in which our Prime Minister and puppet Parliament righteously clamoured for the blocking of social and media websites during violent outbreaks was almost entirely predictable. Five months previously the same Prime Minister and same Parliament had condemned Gaddafi for doing much the same when attempting to quash the rebellion against his rule.

This is the automatic reaction of politicians who find it so much easier to invent new laws or increase the power of the state. Water cannons and rubber bullets won’t fix generations of neglect. The rot at the heart of British society won’t be undone with a few new laws, and the further encroachment of the state.

If we really want to solve the crisis then, then it will take decades to repair – as long, if not longer, than it took to undermine. But we won’t. Instead, we shall call for the seemingly quick solution, for the heads of the violent thugs rather than those that bred them in the first place. We shall call for the army (what’s left of it) to take to the streets, give the police greater powers and ultimately strengthen the state’s role and weaken ours.

An anti-mob shall arise, as unthinking and destructive as the street mobs they oppose, calling for the reduction of our liberties in order to ensure our safety. It is the rule of the mob, but of a different kind.

This is how liberty dies. Not through violence itself, but in the pursuit of ‘security’.

The Myth Of A War On Drugs

We are persistently informed, by members of the political and media establishment, that the ‘war on drugs’ has failed. One has to ask though, when was this supposed war actually fought?

This question cannot be answered because, in truth, we have never fought such a battle. If only we had. Instead, we have been sold a myth – a lie if you will – about a supposedly dogged pursuit of drugs, their users and suppliers by the various arms of the state. The reality is sadly rather different.

In response to my above assertion of there never having been a war on drugs, Joshua Lachovic wrote on his blog:

And you haven’t noticed the war on drugs? You haven’t noticed that the global prohibition kills thousands each year? You haven’t heard practically every politician of the past thirty years refer in some way to the ‘war on the drugs’? You haven’t heard any policeman who refers to the war on drugs? You haven’t noticed the £1.5bn that the UK spends yearly on the war? Nor have you noticed the time spent by every police force in the country trying to fight this war on drugs?

All the while, there are still drug users (as there will forever be), people still die because of drugs and people’s lives are still ruined because of drugs. Relaxing the enforcement and governing of banned substances? I suppose you hadn’t noticed mephedrone be criminalised because of media hysteria last year. I suppose you hadn’t noticed magic mushrooms be criminalised earlier this decade. Nor had you noticed that with a police force such as the one in Sussex, over the past decade crime has fallen, while drug crime has increased. To imply that we aren’t fighting a war on drugs is frankly naive, to say the very least.

Unfortunately for poor Joshua, he makes a number of glaring errors in his argument. To begin with, what he calls the ‘global prohibition’ of drugs (which doesn’t exist, because it is not prohibition) does not kill thousands each year. Drugs kill people; ‘prohibition’ does not.

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Smoke And Mirrors

It has now been a week since David Davis made the surprise announcement that he intended to stand down as an MP and fight a by-election on the issue of the Government’s ’42 days’ bill.

As a man of principle, unlike so many of our useless Members of Parliament, Mr Davis has put his beliefs and country before his political career and for that should be applauded. As a result Labour are running scared and have refused to field a candidate to help defend their stance.

Unsurprisingly, Gordon Brown has attempted to label Mr Davis’ resignation as a crude stunt while various Government Ministers have said the by-election to be a waste of tax payers’ money and are calling for Mr Davis to pay for its costs – which is curious since the Labour party under Brown and Blair have carelessly wasted billions on various crackpot schemes and initiatives, so are hardly in a position to lecture anyone else on the use of public funds.

However, while Mr Davis is undoubtedly a man of principle and a strong opponent of this Government’s continual attacks on our civil liberties, there is almost certainly more to his resignation than meets the eye. This is as much about the political direction of the Conservative party as it is about Government legislation.

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A Matter Of Principle

The announcement by David Davis that he intends to resign as an MP over the issue of forty two days detention is indeed a shocking one.

Most MPs that chose to resign have usually been grudgingly forced to do so after being shamefully exposed by the media with their hand caught in the till or up a woman’s skirt – or something even worse.

Indeed, so rare an event is it when an MP does anything on principle, especially taking the decision to resign over their beliefs in order to highlight the issue further, that the media establishment doesn’t quite know what to say or do with itself.

Regardless of media reaction, I expect that many people, both in Haltemprice and Howden and throughout Britain, may well be rather impressed by Mr Davis’ decision. Bearing that in mind along with the fact that it appears that the Lib Dems and potentially Labour will not be fielding candidates against him, he should therefore be comfortably re-elected.

Yet unfortunately, as always, there is a downside to this latest development. Once again media focus will regrettably be drawn away from the Lisbon Treaty and any referendum demands currently being made, and quite possibly the result of the vote in the Irish Referendum tomorrow. Not that it would have made much difference of course, but still disappointing nonetheless.