To all visitors of this blog, believers and non-believers alike:
A very Happy Christmas with Pat Condell's latest: Water of Life.
Enjoy!
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Fascism is back!
While the left in The Netherlands still rise to any opportunity to express their abhorrence of their companions Mussolini and Hitler, the fascists of the 1940's, their fascism has returned full force to Dutch PM Balkenende's regime. Jan Peter Balkenende's government, already having exposed itself as a traitor to the country and the citizens of The Netherlands by ignoring the people's NO in the 2005 referendum on the European Constitution and its rewrite, the Lisbon Treaty, handing over The Netherlands' sovereignty to Das Vierte Reich, is now dictating what business owners can and cannot do with their own property.
The first step onto this particular path of fascism was taken when the Dutch government forced owners of bars and restaurants to make high investments in air cleaners for their establishments to diminish the effects smoking had on the atmosphere. Reasoning behind this was 'public health', which of course has nothing to do with it. It's up to the establishment's owner whether or not he want to present his personnel and clients with clean air or a blue haze one can cut and fold.
If personnel doesn't like it, it goes to work elsewhere; if clients don't like it, they stay away and the establishment goes bust. Simple as that. The free market will decide what the client likes and thus what businesses will florish and what not.
Allowing private ownership but not the freedom to use that ownership to the owner's advantage is the defintion of (state) fascism. Combined with nationalism, one gets National Socialism, which the left claims to be far right, but which of course is as left as it can get. But hey, the best lies are the ones repeated most often, Goebbels already knew that.
Fascism means one has to pay the cost of property but cannot reap the benefits. When the Dutch government ordered a full smoking ban for restaurants and bars in The Netherlands last July, it took another step onto the path of fascism. Bar and restaurant owners no longer had the freedom to allow or disallow smoking in their establishment as they saw fit.
Now many establishment owners are facing nearing bankruptcy due to this ban, more and more are ignoring the law and allowing clients to smoke again, much to the chagrin of the non-smoking lobby and, surprise, the Association of Bar and Restaurant owners. While one would expect this Association to stand up and fight the government to get the ban lifted, it actually whines that it's not fair that bar owners get fined for breaking the law. Because, they claim, a bar owner is not a policeman, and it's the clients that break the law, not the bar owner. Thus, the client should get fined!
They do have a point, of course, a bar owner is no more a policemen than any other entrepeneur is a tax collector, but still each one of those has to collect, administer and hand over VAT on his activities for/to the national tax extortionists. But the conclusion is invalid. There is no market for non-smoking bars, otherwise they would've been in existence for a long time already. Restaurants already had voluntarily split their space in smoking and non-smoking sections, as second hand smoke is much more of a burden while eating a meal than while chatting and drinking.
Today's practice is that smokers that still visit their bar go outside to have their smoke, and now the anti-smoke lobby wants a ban on smoking in open air, as well as on smoking inside one's car. But as people do not like to have their butt frozen off just for having a smoke, they tend to stay home more as the temperatures drop and the rain pours. Because of this, bars now openly advertise that they will allow smoking.
But that was miscalculating the Dutch government's hunger for power abuse. The state has the monopoly on both power and force, and if it makes a law it will damn well see to it it gets obeyed. So it will start a strict regime on upholding the ban, as bar owners that allow smoking falsificate competition, which is an economical crime, and thus can lead to loss of the business permit, and thus closing of one's livelyhood.
Readers of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged undoubtedly recognise the rant Dr. Ferris presented to Hank Rearden, where Ferris states that governments are after power, and there's no power to be had in obedient citizens. So in order to create criminals, a government will create laws that cannot be obeyed, and then it will excert its power. Written in 1957, Atlas Shrugged frighteningly accurate describes the machinations of today's governments, from nationalisation of banks to taking away all personal freedom from those who create wealth, in order to favour the needy, the greedy, the parasites, of which politicians (and monarchs) are of course a prime example. The more people get dependent on government, the bigger it gets, and the more power it yields.
Before July 1st, a bar owner that conducted his business as he saw fit was a hard working citizen, making his living in a fully legal fashion. Now, without changing anything in the way he conducts his activities, he has become a hunted criminal, only because the state changed the rules, interfering in matters that are way beyond the scope of the state's primary but negated duty: protecting individual rights.
The Dutch are ruled by criminals.
The first step onto this particular path of fascism was taken when the Dutch government forced owners of bars and restaurants to make high investments in air cleaners for their establishments to diminish the effects smoking had on the atmosphere. Reasoning behind this was 'public health', which of course has nothing to do with it. It's up to the establishment's owner whether or not he want to present his personnel and clients with clean air or a blue haze one can cut and fold.
If personnel doesn't like it, it goes to work elsewhere; if clients don't like it, they stay away and the establishment goes bust. Simple as that. The free market will decide what the client likes and thus what businesses will florish and what not.
Allowing private ownership but not the freedom to use that ownership to the owner's advantage is the defintion of (state) fascism. Combined with nationalism, one gets National Socialism, which the left claims to be far right, but which of course is as left as it can get. But hey, the best lies are the ones repeated most often, Goebbels already knew that.
Fascism means one has to pay the cost of property but cannot reap the benefits. When the Dutch government ordered a full smoking ban for restaurants and bars in The Netherlands last July, it took another step onto the path of fascism. Bar and restaurant owners no longer had the freedom to allow or disallow smoking in their establishment as they saw fit.
Now many establishment owners are facing nearing bankruptcy due to this ban, more and more are ignoring the law and allowing clients to smoke again, much to the chagrin of the non-smoking lobby and, surprise, the Association of Bar and Restaurant owners. While one would expect this Association to stand up and fight the government to get the ban lifted, it actually whines that it's not fair that bar owners get fined for breaking the law. Because, they claim, a bar owner is not a policeman, and it's the clients that break the law, not the bar owner. Thus, the client should get fined!
They do have a point, of course, a bar owner is no more a policemen than any other entrepeneur is a tax collector, but still each one of those has to collect, administer and hand over VAT on his activities for/to the national tax extortionists. But the conclusion is invalid. There is no market for non-smoking bars, otherwise they would've been in existence for a long time already. Restaurants already had voluntarily split their space in smoking and non-smoking sections, as second hand smoke is much more of a burden while eating a meal than while chatting and drinking.
Today's practice is that smokers that still visit their bar go outside to have their smoke, and now the anti-smoke lobby wants a ban on smoking in open air, as well as on smoking inside one's car. But as people do not like to have their butt frozen off just for having a smoke, they tend to stay home more as the temperatures drop and the rain pours. Because of this, bars now openly advertise that they will allow smoking.
But that was miscalculating the Dutch government's hunger for power abuse. The state has the monopoly on both power and force, and if it makes a law it will damn well see to it it gets obeyed. So it will start a strict regime on upholding the ban, as bar owners that allow smoking falsificate competition, which is an economical crime, and thus can lead to loss of the business permit, and thus closing of one's livelyhood.
Readers of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged undoubtedly recognise the rant Dr. Ferris presented to Hank Rearden, where Ferris states that governments are after power, and there's no power to be had in obedient citizens. So in order to create criminals, a government will create laws that cannot be obeyed, and then it will excert its power. Written in 1957, Atlas Shrugged frighteningly accurate describes the machinations of today's governments, from nationalisation of banks to taking away all personal freedom from those who create wealth, in order to favour the needy, the greedy, the parasites, of which politicians (and monarchs) are of course a prime example. The more people get dependent on government, the bigger it gets, and the more power it yields.
Before July 1st, a bar owner that conducted his business as he saw fit was a hard working citizen, making his living in a fully legal fashion. Now, without changing anything in the way he conducts his activities, he has become a hunted criminal, only because the state changed the rules, interfering in matters that are way beyond the scope of the state's primary but negated duty: protecting individual rights.
The Dutch are ruled by criminals.
Monday, November 3, 2008
The Left's Wet Dream
A 13-year-old girl who said she had been raped was stoned to death in Somalia after being accused of adultery by Islamic militants, a human rights group said.Dozens of men stoned Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow to death Oct. 27 in a stadium packed with 1,000 spectators in the southern port city of Kismayo, Amnesty International and Somali media reported, citing witnesses. The Islamic militia in charge of Kismayo had accused her of adultery after she reported that three men had raped her, the rights group said.
Initial local media reports said Duhulow was 23, but her father told Amnesty International she was 13. Some of the Somali journalists who first reported the killing later told Amnesty International that they had reported she was 23 based upon her physical appearance.
Calls to Somali government officials and the local administration in Kismayo rang unanswered Saturday.
Can anybody with even a basic sense of morality understand why the 'leaders' of the western world spend so much time and (tax payer's) money on promoting the 'values' of the Religion of Peace?
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Financial Crisis
"One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary."
—Ayn Rand, 1975
Need I say more?
Monday, September 29, 2008
Geert Wilders on Islam
On September 25, Dutch MP Geert Wilders was invited to New York as a speaker for the Hudson Institute. Please take a few minutes to read the transcript of his speech:
Dear friends,
Thank you very much for inviting me. Great to be at the Four Seasons. I come from a country that has one season only: a rainy season that starts January 1st and ends December 31st. When we have three sunny days in a row, the government declares a national emergency. So Four Seasons, that’s new to me.
It’s great to be in New York. When I see the skyscrapers and office buildings, I think of what Ayn Rand said: “The sky over New York and the will of man made visible.” Of course. Without the Dutch you would have been nowhere, still figuring out how to buy this island from the Indians. But we are glad we did it for you. And, frankly, you did a far better job than we possibly could have done. More...
Pamela Geller (Atlas Shrugs) took the opportunity to conduct an interview with Geert.
For those of you that need a reminder of where this political correctness Geert mentions stems from, Bill Lind provides some clear insights.
Monday, September 15, 2008
The Road to Serfdom
It's been too long since my last post, but I've just been too busy and, actually, still am. But developments in The Netherlands are showing the political agenda of the state, set to enslave the Dutch, and proclaiming every citizen to be a criminal unless proven innocent, where every rational human being knows that a negative can not be proven.
The Dutch state is on a cruisade to abolish privacy. It wants to ensure that it knows the whereabouts of each and every citizen, as soon as he or she leaves home. Public transport is being changed in such a way that it is no longer possible for anyone to buy a ticket anonymously. Private transport is changed in similar fashion. Roadtax (taxing property) is to be replaced by a toll system (taxing use). Already the intention of abolishing roadtax is being reverted by plans of implementing regional toll, that can 'obviously' not lead to national roadtax reductions. New province-based taxes are also already thought up, to replace the taxes that will be included in the new mileage tax. But it gets worse, much worse.
The intentions of the state are to follow each and every vehicle by sattelite (GPS) in order to be able to determine when and where that vehicle was at any given time, in order to be able to charge it based on the time and location. The stated incentive is to encourage people to drive at 'cheap' times, when the roads are relatively empty, and the only way of doing that is by tracking cars through GPS. This is nonsense, of course, even apart from the fact that the roads are almost never empty anymore, due to willful neglection of infrastructural maintenance while draining car drivers' pockets.
Earlier this year, in Orlando, I saw how tolls were arranged in a purely anonymous manner, either through cash payment or through an e-pass. While in Orlando the rates seem fixed (large fixed signs indicating the amount) it should be very simple to use matrix displays to indicate amounts and change the rates based on the time of day and traffic density. While an E-pass is replenished from a (named) credit card account there's no link between the passing of the gate and the owner of the e-pass, or the license plate of the car: the amount gets deducted, and the vehicle is only photographed (linking it to the location) if the toll was not paid.
But aparently this is too simple and possibly too cheap for the Dutch state. While the systems still need to be developed (with taxpayer's money) the state has already announced the penalty for tinkering with the GPS boxes that must indicate the car's location: a fine of 67.000 euro, or 4 years imprisonment. Murder is cheaper! In the words of Camiel Eurlings, minister for traffic, the severity of these sanctions are justified by the financial implications for the state, in line with (other) tax laws.
This statement says it all. Think of how easy it will become for the state to fine speeding once every trip is monitored and every violation of any arbitrary speed limit will be known. Think of how the state will notice anybody who drives to Luxemburg a couple of times a year, thereby becoming a suspect of having a foreign bank account, out of reach of the greedy Dutch state. Think of the endless possibilities for a governement of knowing all its citizens' whereabouts.
You can get away with murder with less punishment these days. And still, there's no climate for an uproar. This will in great part be due to the fact that in Europe people are not allowed to bear arms, and thus have no real defense against the state, with its power and violence monopoly. Apart from the Swiss, that is. This should again be a warning to all Americans not to hand in their right to self defense, and fight the states that want to abolish the constitutional right to bear arms, or even want to turn it into a privilege. Privileges can be handed out and taken back, at will.
The peoples of Europe have willingly walked the Road to Serfdom for a long time. Before they reach the end, things likely will get ugly, but it can still take quite some time before that happens. People still have too much to lose. They're like frogs being cooked slowly. But for protests to be successful, these protests must be massive, and there's little chance of that. We're too decent, unarmed and not trained to fight. Exactly why the Founding Fathers made the right to bear arms part of the constitution. A criminal government cannot do as it pleases when the people can defend itself. In Europe, governments can do anything they like, and get away with it. And unfortunately, the Dutch government is as criminal as they come.
The Dutch state is on a cruisade to abolish privacy. It wants to ensure that it knows the whereabouts of each and every citizen, as soon as he or she leaves home. Public transport is being changed in such a way that it is no longer possible for anyone to buy a ticket anonymously. Private transport is changed in similar fashion. Roadtax (taxing property) is to be replaced by a toll system (taxing use). Already the intention of abolishing roadtax is being reverted by plans of implementing regional toll, that can 'obviously' not lead to national roadtax reductions. New province-based taxes are also already thought up, to replace the taxes that will be included in the new mileage tax. But it gets worse, much worse.
The intentions of the state are to follow each and every vehicle by sattelite (GPS) in order to be able to determine when and where that vehicle was at any given time, in order to be able to charge it based on the time and location. The stated incentive is to encourage people to drive at 'cheap' times, when the roads are relatively empty, and the only way of doing that is by tracking cars through GPS. This is nonsense, of course, even apart from the fact that the roads are almost never empty anymore, due to willful neglection of infrastructural maintenance while draining car drivers' pockets.
Earlier this year, in Orlando, I saw how tolls were arranged in a purely anonymous manner, either through cash payment or through an e-pass. While in Orlando the rates seem fixed (large fixed signs indicating the amount) it should be very simple to use matrix displays to indicate amounts and change the rates based on the time of day and traffic density. While an E-pass is replenished from a (named) credit card account there's no link between the passing of the gate and the owner of the e-pass, or the license plate of the car: the amount gets deducted, and the vehicle is only photographed (linking it to the location) if the toll was not paid.
But aparently this is too simple and possibly too cheap for the Dutch state. While the systems still need to be developed (with taxpayer's money) the state has already announced the penalty for tinkering with the GPS boxes that must indicate the car's location: a fine of 67.000 euro, or 4 years imprisonment. Murder is cheaper! In the words of Camiel Eurlings, minister for traffic, the severity of these sanctions are justified by the financial implications for the state, in line with (other) tax laws.
This statement says it all. Think of how easy it will become for the state to fine speeding once every trip is monitored and every violation of any arbitrary speed limit will be known. Think of how the state will notice anybody who drives to Luxemburg a couple of times a year, thereby becoming a suspect of having a foreign bank account, out of reach of the greedy Dutch state. Think of the endless possibilities for a governement of knowing all its citizens' whereabouts.
You can get away with murder with less punishment these days. And still, there's no climate for an uproar. This will in great part be due to the fact that in Europe people are not allowed to bear arms, and thus have no real defense against the state, with its power and violence monopoly. Apart from the Swiss, that is. This should again be a warning to all Americans not to hand in their right to self defense, and fight the states that want to abolish the constitutional right to bear arms, or even want to turn it into a privilege. Privileges can be handed out and taken back, at will.
The peoples of Europe have willingly walked the Road to Serfdom for a long time. Before they reach the end, things likely will get ugly, but it can still take quite some time before that happens. People still have too much to lose. They're like frogs being cooked slowly. But for protests to be successful, these protests must be massive, and there's little chance of that. We're too decent, unarmed and not trained to fight. Exactly why the Founding Fathers made the right to bear arms part of the constitution. A criminal government cannot do as it pleases when the people can defend itself. In Europe, governments can do anything they like, and get away with it. And unfortunately, the Dutch government is as criminal as they come.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Islam is not a victim
Yet another brilliant and well-balanced Pat Condell video. The man has a way with words I cannot even hope to match. But his opinions I share fully, as you'll know if you visited this blog more often. He needs all the support he can get, as he's now finally received a death threat from the Religion of Peace.
Enjoy.
Enjoy.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Reality Check
Last Sunday, Stephan Pastis published a brilliant Blogger's Reality Check in his strip Pearls Before Swine. Enjoy.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
Dutch apologies for Fitna...
As you may or may not know, Jordan is preparing an international arrest warrant for Geert Wilders because of his movie Fitna. 'Wilders has offended all muslims worldwide and should not escape punishment', according to Amman. One wonders what's so offending in Fitna. After all, Wilders only put a number of public newsitems in sequence, accompanied by the applicable Koran verses. Most people in those (video) items (not the victims, obviously) seemed to enjoy themselves pretty well, so according to Amman it's insulting to videotape a party and then show the world the partygoers' beaviour. The impression this makes on me is that muslims seem to be offended by being confronted with their own atrocities. A bit rich to blame the messenger for that...
Now the islamic world has approached Dutch companies to inquire about their position on Fitna, and most companies have presented as their official position that they are not involved in religious activity, and therefore distance themselves from 'the controversial movie'. For Dutch Airline KLM this proved not to be sufficient, as the company is now listed on the latest boycott-poster from The Messenger of Allah Unites Us.
So two Dutch companies, Zwanenberg and Friesland Foods, decided to take it one step further an sided with islam, in a futile (and can I say: typical Dutch) attempt to avoid being boycotted by Jordan, selling out to their oppressors-to-be, like true Judases; the well-known attitude so generously shown in (the run-down to) WorldWar II. They placed page-sized ads in Jordan newspapers, apologizing for and condemning Fitna and praising the islamic initiative to get islam-criticism criminalized everywhere. Willingly giving up our Western values of free speech and freedom, bowing before the tyrants, for a few pieces of silver. On their own websites, no indications of this abject activity is to be found, as they are probably afraid of losing their native customers. Cowards.
Well, wouldn't that be a good idea? Having these dhimmy companies' products boycotted by all the world except Jordan? For the list of brands to boycott, please visit here, oops, I mean here, and here.
If you'd like to complain by email, you can do that here and here.
Klein verzet also reports on the subject.
Now the islamic world has approached Dutch companies to inquire about their position on Fitna, and most companies have presented as their official position that they are not involved in religious activity, and therefore distance themselves from 'the controversial movie'. For Dutch Airline KLM this proved not to be sufficient, as the company is now listed on the latest boycott-poster from The Messenger of Allah Unites Us.
So two Dutch companies, Zwanenberg and Friesland Foods, decided to take it one step further an sided with islam, in a futile (and can I say: typical Dutch) attempt to avoid being boycotted by Jordan, selling out to their oppressors-to-be, like true Judases; the well-known attitude so generously shown in (the run-down to) WorldWar II. They placed page-sized ads in Jordan newspapers, apologizing for and condemning Fitna and praising the islamic initiative to get islam-criticism criminalized everywhere. Willingly giving up our Western values of free speech and freedom, bowing before the tyrants, for a few pieces of silver. On their own websites, no indications of this abject activity is to be found, as they are probably afraid of losing their native customers. Cowards.
Well, wouldn't that be a good idea? Having these dhimmy companies' products boycotted by all the world except Jordan? For the list of brands to boycott, please visit here, oops, I mean here, and here.
If you'd like to complain by email, you can do that here and here.
Klein verzet also reports on the subject.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Dutch webmaster 'summoned' bij Amsterdam police
On feb 1, 2008, I wrote an article here on how Dutch political party PvdA tried to silence Dutch weblog Hoeiboei. Today, Hoeiboei's webmaster was summoned (Dutch) to report to Police station Surinameplein 118, on Friday June 20 (tomorrow) at 18:00 hours, to be heard about certain texts on the internet.
Pretty short notice, and pretty vague. With the Gestapo-style arrest of Gregorius Nekschot still fresh in memory, this is the next step in Dutch oppression of freedom and free speech. On the very day that Dutch parliament debates the actions in the Nekschot affair, another Dutch freedom site is being intimidated.
Hoeiboei's webmaster is contemplating to ignore the 'request', but the wisdom of such an action is debatable: when will they come to pick her up, like Nekschot? Will her not-showing be used as an excuse for more strong-armed action? She has tried to obtain more info on the backgroud of the summons, but the police refuses to provide any further details. She will be informed as and when she will arrive at the indicated time, no earlier. Is it unthinkable that the same PvdA faction, led by Arco Verburg, is behind this new attack on Hoeiboei?
Think about that 'indicated time'. Friday evening, 18:00 hours, and only a day's notice. Friday evening, 18:00 hours, when every 'normal' citizen has dinner and starts his/her weekend. Could this be a lure to keep her in custody as 'nobody can be reached during the weekend'?
The refusal to provide any background information, neither in the summons nor in the phonecalls and visit she made to the police station, are normally ground enough to completely ignore the summons. But given the way the Dutch, and particularly Amsterdam police are more and more operating in Nazi-style (an old habit from WWII, when they were very helpful in tracking down Jews and delivering them to the occupying forces), this may well upset a judge who may later need to issue a ruling in the matter.
And from a personal point of view: is it worth lying awake at night, worrying about things to come? The best approach seems to be, given the short notice and all, to decline the invitation refering to other obligations, and setting a new date and time, preferably not on a Friday, and certainly not at a time that one will likely need to bring clean underwear and a toothbrush...
Pretty short notice, and pretty vague. With the Gestapo-style arrest of Gregorius Nekschot still fresh in memory, this is the next step in Dutch oppression of freedom and free speech. On the very day that Dutch parliament debates the actions in the Nekschot affair, another Dutch freedom site is being intimidated.
Hoeiboei's webmaster is contemplating to ignore the 'request', but the wisdom of such an action is debatable: when will they come to pick her up, like Nekschot? Will her not-showing be used as an excuse for more strong-armed action? She has tried to obtain more info on the backgroud of the summons, but the police refuses to provide any further details. She will be informed as and when she will arrive at the indicated time, no earlier. Is it unthinkable that the same PvdA faction, led by Arco Verburg, is behind this new attack on Hoeiboei?
Think about that 'indicated time'. Friday evening, 18:00 hours, and only a day's notice. Friday evening, 18:00 hours, when every 'normal' citizen has dinner and starts his/her weekend. Could this be a lure to keep her in custody as 'nobody can be reached during the weekend'?
The refusal to provide any background information, neither in the summons nor in the phonecalls and visit she made to the police station, are normally ground enough to completely ignore the summons. But given the way the Dutch, and particularly Amsterdam police are more and more operating in Nazi-style (an old habit from WWII, when they were very helpful in tracking down Jews and delivering them to the occupying forces), this may well upset a judge who may later need to issue a ruling in the matter.
And from a personal point of view: is it worth lying awake at night, worrying about things to come? The best approach seems to be, given the short notice and all, to decline the invitation refering to other obligations, and setting a new date and time, preferably not on a Friday, and certainly not at a time that one will likely need to bring clean underwear and a toothbrush...
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
The Ecologists' True Nature
This sticker shows the ecologists' true nature. Environmentalism isn't about nature, it's about destroying capitalism, the only true source of wealth and prosperity, and the number one reason why America is the leading nation of the (still somewhat) free West.
By showing their true agenda, the environmentalists show what they're made of: Franfort School. Marxists to the core. Funny how these people always prove to be the most hypocrite of all. Example: Al Gore. Possibly the most wasteful American citizen, definitely the most wasteful citizen globally who has the nerve to tell other people to change their lifestyle. In the mean time living a life so luxurious that most people connot even begin to imagine how that must be.
Oh, and being accomplice to the death of hundreds of thousands of people, if only by his support for Rachel Carson, who singlehandedly caused malaria to return by banning DDT, and whom Gore adored and commended by writing the prologue in her book. Say no more... For morality please do not look towards the liberals. Do not vote for the Dems. Then again, the GOP hasn't done much to correct these crimes either. These are dire times...
Friday, June 13, 2008
Yes! The Irish said NO!
The Irish have voted NO to the Lisbon Treaty, aka the Lisbon Treason. The pro-EU camp is devastated, certain as they were that their Goebbels-like propaganda would have ensured a yes majority. Dutch television reported disappointedly that 'this is a black day for Europe. The treaty that intended to make the EU more democratic has been rejected by the Irish'.
How's that: more democratic? The treaty was aimed at shifting more power from the nation states to the unelected leaders of Eurabia. The EU was already preparing the abolishion of the WOB, the law that forces politicians to provide insight in their governemental procedures and decisions, whenever requested.
Balkenende, the Dutch PM that boasted that he had made the Treaty acceptable to the Dutch by removing the flag and the song, and ensuring there would be no EU President, already announced that he will ignore the Irish NO and go ahead as planned. Interestingly, Dutch television also reported that preparations for selecting (mind you, not electing) the EU president (say what?) would now be delayed. It also claimed that the EU should not be stopped by only one country being against it.
What happened to the demand of unanimous consent? How is only one country against it? To begin with, there are three countries against it (FR, NL and IE, in that order) and most of the others never got the chance to speak out.
The Irish were the only ones that were granted a referendum. It was mandatory because of the Irish constitution, and it's binding: Irish government can't just ignore it. As the Treaty is almost identical to the earlier Constitution, voted off by the French and the Dutch, there are now three countries not accepting the Treaty, but the French and Dutch governments chose to ignore their citizens in favor of their own political careers.
Balkenende hopes to become the first EU president, but Blair has also put his sights on that position, as has Sarkozy. Balkenende stands a fair chance though, as he is weak and has no will or power of his own. He is the ideal puppet for the big players, as he provides them with the ideal scapegoat for their totalitarian intentions.
The Irish Connemara turned out a 85% NO vote, reason enough for me to go out and buy a bottle of Connemara Irish Peated Single Malt, as a token of my appreciation, and have something to celebrate the Irish NO with at the same time.
How's that: more democratic? The treaty was aimed at shifting more power from the nation states to the unelected leaders of Eurabia. The EU was already preparing the abolishion of the WOB, the law that forces politicians to provide insight in their governemental procedures and decisions, whenever requested.
Balkenende, the Dutch PM that boasted that he had made the Treaty acceptable to the Dutch by removing the flag and the song, and ensuring there would be no EU President, already announced that he will ignore the Irish NO and go ahead as planned. Interestingly, Dutch television also reported that preparations for selecting (mind you, not electing) the EU president (say what?) would now be delayed. It also claimed that the EU should not be stopped by only one country being against it.
What happened to the demand of unanimous consent? How is only one country against it? To begin with, there are three countries against it (FR, NL and IE, in that order) and most of the others never got the chance to speak out.
The Irish were the only ones that were granted a referendum. It was mandatory because of the Irish constitution, and it's binding: Irish government can't just ignore it. As the Treaty is almost identical to the earlier Constitution, voted off by the French and the Dutch, there are now three countries not accepting the Treaty, but the French and Dutch governments chose to ignore their citizens in favor of their own political careers.
Balkenende hopes to become the first EU president, but Blair has also put his sights on that position, as has Sarkozy. Balkenende stands a fair chance though, as he is weak and has no will or power of his own. He is the ideal puppet for the big players, as he provides them with the ideal scapegoat for their totalitarian intentions.
The Irish Connemara turned out a 85% NO vote, reason enough for me to go out and buy a bottle of Connemara Irish Peated Single Malt, as a token of my appreciation, and have something to celebrate the Irish NO with at the same time.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Still think voting makes a Difference?
Or: How the Dems ensure their preferred candidate comes out on top.
And be sure not to miss Telescoping You's equally brilliant comments halfway down page 1...
The same party that brought us the much vaunted “Count Every Vote Act of 2005” has now corruptly settled upon the “Count Every Other Vote Act of 2008.”
State leaders in Florida and Michigan, understanding the interest of their citizens lay in overturning the current silly system, dared to move their election dates. So now their votes will not be counted equally. At first they were told none of their votes would count. Now the party has compromised and said that the delegates from these states will be seated at the convention, but they will each be given only one half of a vote. Think of it as “the two and a half fifths compromise” – a modern sore on the butt of what used to be democracy.Read Mac Johnson's brilliant article Dr. Dean's Disaster on how voting is being manipulated on Human Events.
And be sure not to miss Telescoping You's equally brilliant comments halfway down page 1...
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Dutch Blogger arrested
Dutch blogger Gregorius Nekschot was arrested earlier this week for publishing 'offending' cartoons that are deemed to be blemishing islam. A force of no less than 10 police officers arrested him and cleaned out his house earlier this week. He was kept in jail for 1,5 days. Note that this was an action by a 'double hatted' proscecutor, who is both head of a so called anti-discrimination unit, run by the state, and which is focused on discriminating against indigenous Dutch citizens while 'protecting' imported foreigners of mostly muslim descent, as well as a state proscecutor. His name is Paul Velleman, and most likely he has a great career ahead of him with Balkenende's gang.
Note that no judge has ordered the arrest of Gregorius Nekschot. It was an illegal action by the Dutch so called justice department, against a citizen that has done nothing except criticizing islam and Dutch governement, as well as a number of politically correct dhimmies. Apparently his sharp pencil is deemed to have killed and maimed several people.
It becoming clearer everyday that freedom of speech and liberty in general is getting limited by the day, analogous to the situation in the 1930's. Velleman now has qualified as a true Neo-NSB member and found worthy of Balkenende's gang. The inquisition is back. The iNazi's (international socialists) are on track. As yet it is unclear whether Nekschot will be proscecuted (for what?).
The most likely goal of his arrest is to reveal his true identity to those who'd like to put a fatwa out and to intimidate other Dutch bloggers. We cannot give in to that. Dutch police is helping the thought police, like they once helped the Nazi's to get rid of the jews. It makes me sick to my stomach. It makes me ashamed to be Dutch, if that what being Dutch means these days.
This blog shows its solidarity with Gregorius!
Note that no judge has ordered the arrest of Gregorius Nekschot. It was an illegal action by the Dutch so called justice department, against a citizen that has done nothing except criticizing islam and Dutch governement, as well as a number of politically correct dhimmies. Apparently his sharp pencil is deemed to have killed and maimed several people.
It becoming clearer everyday that freedom of speech and liberty in general is getting limited by the day, analogous to the situation in the 1930's. Velleman now has qualified as a true Neo-NSB member and found worthy of Balkenende's gang. The inquisition is back. The iNazi's (international socialists) are on track. As yet it is unclear whether Nekschot will be proscecuted (for what?).
The most likely goal of his arrest is to reveal his true identity to those who'd like to put a fatwa out and to intimidate other Dutch bloggers. We cannot give in to that. Dutch police is helping the thought police, like they once helped the Nazi's to get rid of the jews. It makes me sick to my stomach. It makes me ashamed to be Dutch, if that what being Dutch means these days.
This blog shows its solidarity with Gregorius!
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
CapMag.com interviews Craig Biddle
Capitalism Magazine recently published an excellent interview with Craig Biddle, the driving force behind The Objective Standard.
A must-read for supporters of individual freedom.
"Genuine capitalism—which is not what we have in America today—is the social system of individual rights, in which the government does one thing: protects everyone's right to act on his own judgment, so long as he doesn't violate the same right of others. Under capitalism, everyone is free to keep, use, and dispose of the product of his efforts—free to achieve whatever kind and degree of prosperity he is willing and able to achieve—free to live his life as he sees fit. Under capitalism, there is no forced altruism—no stealing from Peter to pay Paul, no tying Peter's hands so he won't outperform Paul, no forbidding Peter and Paul to engage in consensual adult sex, no forbidding Mary to have an abortion, and no sacrificing soldiers to spread democracy to savages who want theocracy."
A must-read for supporters of individual freedom.
Friday, May 2, 2008
The Philosophy of Liberty
Today, a response to an article on Dutch blog Vrijspreker.nl alerted me to the fact that many readers concentrate on the blog's articles only, and pay little attention to the items in the side bars. For this reason I'd like to draw your attention to one specific side bar item on this blog: the animation about the Philosophy of Liberty. It takes less then 5 minutes to watch, and it explains in abundant clarity what Liberty is all about, and how your rights are based on rightfully earned property.
If you're in a quiet environment please mute your audio before clicking the link, if you're not, consider leaving the audio on. Some people have stated that the background music amplifies the message, either because it helped them concentrate or otherwise.
Please enjoy The Philosophy of Liberty (opens in a new tab/window).
If you're in a quiet environment please mute your audio before clicking the link, if you're not, consider leaving the audio on. Some people have stated that the background music amplifies the message, either because it helped them concentrate or otherwise.
Please enjoy The Philosophy of Liberty (opens in a new tab/window).
Saturday, April 19, 2008
The Danger of Environmentalism
Earth Day approaches, and with it a grave danger faces mankind. The danger is not from acid rain, global warming, smog, or the logging of rain forests, as environmentalists would have us believe. The danger to mankind is from environmentalism.
The fundamental goal of environmentalism is not clean air and clean water; rather, it is the demolition of technological/industrial civilization. Environmentalism's goal is not the advancement of human health, human happiness, and human life; rather, it is a subhuman world where "nature" is worshipped like the totem of some primitive religion.
In a nation founded on the pioneer spirit, environmentalists have made "development" an evil word. They inhibit or prohibit the development of Alaskan oil, offshore drilling, nuclear power--and every other practical form of energy. Housing, commerce, and jobs are sacrificed to spotted owls and snail darters. Medical research is sacrificed to the "rights" of mice. Logging is sacrificed to the "rights" of trees. No instance of the progress that brought man out of the cave is safe from the onslaught of those "protecting" the environment from man, whom they consider a rapist and despoiler by his very essence.
Nature, they insist, has "intrinsic value," to be revered for its own sake, irrespective of any benefit to man. As a consequence, man is to be prohibited from using nature for his own ends. Since nature supposedly has value and goodness in itself, any human action that changes the environment is necessarily immoral. Of course, environmentalists invoke the doctrine of intrinsic value not against wolves that eat sheep or beavers that gnaw trees; they invoke it only against man, only when man wants something.
The ideal world of environmentalism is not twenty-first-century Western civilization; it is the Garden of Eden, a world with no human intervention in nature, a world without innovation or change, a world without effort, a world where survival is somehow guaranteed, a world where man has mystically merged with the "environment." Had the environmentalist mentality prevailed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, we would have had no Industrial Revolution, a situation that consistent environmentalists would cheer--at least those few who might have managed to survive without the life-saving benefits of modern science and technology.
The expressed goal of environmentalism is to prevent man from changing his environment, from intruding on nature. That is why environmentalism is fundamentally anti-man. Intrusion is necessary for human survival. Only by intrusion can man avoid pestilence and famine. Only by intrusion can man control his life and project long-range goals. Intrusion improves the environment, if by "environment" one means the surroundings of man--the external material conditions of human life. Intrusion is a requirement of human nature. But in the environmentalists' paean to "Nature," human nature is omitted. For environmentalism, the "natural" world is a world without man. Man has no legitimate needs, but trees, ponds, and bacteria somehow do.
They don't mean it? Heed the words of the consistent environmentalists. "The ending of the human epoch on Earth," writes philosopher Paul Taylor in Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics, "would most likely be greeted with a hearty 'Good riddance!'" In a glowing review of Bill McKibben's The End of Nature, biologist David M. Graber writes (Los Angeles Times, October 29, 1989): "Human happiness [is] not as important as a wild and healthy planet . . . . Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along." Such is the naked essence of environmentalism: it mourns the death of one whale or tree but actually welcomes the death of billions of people. A more malevolent, man-hating philosophy is unimaginable.
The guiding principle of environmentalism is self-sacrifice, the sacrifice of longer lives, healthier lives, more prosperous lives, more enjoyable lives, i.e., the sacrifice of human lives. But an individual is not born in servitude. He has a moral right to live his own life for his own sake. He has no duty to sacrifice it to the needs of others and certainly not to the "needs" of the nonhuman.
To save mankind from environmentalism, what's needed is not the appeasing, compromising approach of those who urge a "balance" between the needs of man and the "needs" of the environment. To save mankind requires the wholesale rejection of environmentalism as hatred of science, technology, progress, and human life. To save mankind requires the return to a philosophy of reason and individualism, a philosophy that makes life on earth possible.
Michael S. Berliner is cochairman of the board of directors of the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif. The Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.
This Op-Ed was published in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Calgary Herald, and El Nuevo Herald (April 22, 2004)
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Fitna released + update
Tonight, at 19:00 Dutch time, Fitna was released on the internet. The movie by Dutch MP Geert Wilders shows Islam in its true form. There's nothing insulting about the movie, unless the muslims are insulted by their own actions, which, after all, would be in line with all their outrage so far.
The Dutch version can be found here, while the English version is here. It remains to be seen how long the film will stay online. For now, one can only say "Go LiveLeak" as that's the only site so far that had the guts to host it.
Here's the English version:
Dutch PM Jan Peter Balkenende has mobilized almost all the world, especially the human rights respecting muslim world (not), to ask for forgiveness for a movie he had never seen; and would they please not react violently. This is called a modern European leader. Free thinking, non-indoctrinated Dutchmen would call him today's incarnation of Anton Mussert, who was shot after WorldWar II for collaboration with the Nazis. Who had excellent ties to the muslim world, by the way.
Human rights champion Syria was allowed to issue an official warning on the movie in the European Parliament, of all places, that Wilders would be responsible for all muslim violence resulting from this movie. Yeah, like I'm responsible for being hit by a DUI driver just because I happened to be on the road.
It'll be interesting to see what will come of this. But one thing's for certain: it'll be very hard for this movie to create as much turmoil as its announcement has done over the past few months.
Initial response from Dutch muslim organisations is one of relief: there's no ground for concern. The movie is deemed to be non-insulting and non-provoking. This can only be seen as an acknowledgement of its thruthfulness, which in itself raises some severe questions about why the western world keeps promoting islam and appeasing (and funding) fundamentalist muslims.
UPDATE
March 28th: Well, that was quick! LiveLeak was forced to take Fitna offline to ensure the safety of their staff. Makes you wonder who orchestrated that threat. Never mind, Fitna is now in the Torrent realm and can be obtained by anyone who wants to download it. Here's how:
March 31st: Go Liveleak, once again. The courageous people of LiveLeak put Fitna back online.
The Dutch version can be found here, while the English version is here. It remains to be seen how long the film will stay online. For now, one can only say "Go LiveLeak" as that's the only site so far that had the guts to host it.
Here's the English version:
Dutch PM Jan Peter Balkenende has mobilized almost all the world, especially the human rights respecting muslim world (not), to ask for forgiveness for a movie he had never seen; and would they please not react violently. This is called a modern European leader. Free thinking, non-indoctrinated Dutchmen would call him today's incarnation of Anton Mussert, who was shot after WorldWar II for collaboration with the Nazis. Who had excellent ties to the muslim world, by the way.
Human rights champion Syria was allowed to issue an official warning on the movie in the European Parliament, of all places, that Wilders would be responsible for all muslim violence resulting from this movie. Yeah, like I'm responsible for being hit by a DUI driver just because I happened to be on the road.
It'll be interesting to see what will come of this. But one thing's for certain: it'll be very hard for this movie to create as much turmoil as its announcement has done over the past few months.
Initial response from Dutch muslim organisations is one of relief: there's no ground for concern. The movie is deemed to be non-insulting and non-provoking. This can only be seen as an acknowledgement of its thruthfulness, which in itself raises some severe questions about why the western world keeps promoting islam and appeasing (and funding) fundamentalist muslims.
UPDATE
March 28th: Well, that was quick! LiveLeak was forced to take Fitna offline to ensure the safety of their staff. Makes you wonder who orchestrated that threat. Never mind, Fitna is now in the Torrent realm and can be obtained by anyone who wants to download it. Here's how:
- Download uTorrent from here, and VLC from here.
- Go to http://isohunt.com . You'll find a Dutch and an English version, with lots of seeders.
- Download the version of your choice with uTorrent and play it with VLC.
March 31st: Go Liveleak, once again. The courageous people of LiveLeak put Fitna back online.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Obama and Rev. Wright
Barack Obama is probably a more dangerous candidate for the American presidency than Hillary Clinton, the lying former First Lady who will also mean little good for freedom loving American citizens (not that the republican(?) alternative, McCain, is much of an improvement). View this video (from here):
and read this article by Thomas Sowell on Capitalism Magazine:
And while you're at capmag.com, check out this article by Walter Williams as well: Obama's Speech Ignores The Fundamental Issue:
Obama is an extreme left-winger, and we can well do without those if we want any chance at maintaining at least what little freedom we have left.
and read this article by Thomas Sowell on Capitalism Magazine:
"[Obama's] voting record in the U.S. Senate is the furthest left of any Senator. There is a remarkable consistency in what Barack Obama has done over the years, despite inconsistencies in what he says.
The irony is that Obama's sudden rise politically to the level of being the leading contender for his party's presidential nomination has required him to project an entirely different persona, that of a post-racial leader who can heal divisiveness and bring us all together. The ease with which he has accomplished this chameleon-like change, and entranced both white and black Democrats, is a tribute to the man's talent and a warning about his reliability."
And while you're at capmag.com, check out this article by Walter Williams as well: Obama's Speech Ignores The Fundamental Issue:
"Some pundits ask whether America is ready for Obama. The much more important question is whether Obama is ready for America and even more important is whether black people can afford Obama."
Obama is an extreme left-winger, and we can well do without those if we want any chance at maintaining at least what little freedom we have left.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
The Lisbon Treason
What the treaty of Lisbon does
An EU Constitution
The Treaty of Lisbon is a revamped version of the treaty which gave the EU its own Constitution over and above the constitutions of its Member States, but which the peoples of France and Holland rejected in referendums in 2005. Instead of accepting that decision the EU Prime Ministers and Presidents decided to give the EU a constitution indirectly rather than directly, but not to call it a Constitution, and on no account to hold referendums on it for fear people would reject it again.
Why an Irish referendum?
A referendum must be held on it in Ireland however because the Supreme Court laid down in the 1987 Crotty case that sovereignty in this State rests with the Irish people and that only they can surrender sovereignty to the EU by referendum, or else refuse to surrender it as the case might be. The purpose of the referendum would be to change the Irish Constitution so as to make EU law superior to Irish law in the areas set out in the Lisbon Treaty.
Lisbon gives the EU a constitution indirectly rather than directly: The two current basic European Treaties are called "The Treaty on European Union"(TEU) and "The Treaty on the Functioning of the Union"(TFEU). These two documents include all the previous treaties from the 1957 Rome Treaty to the 2002 Nice Treaty. The EU Constitution which the French and Dutch rejected would have repealed these two treaties and replaced them with a document called "A Constitution for Europe". The Lisbon Treaty implements 96% of the legal content of this "Constitution for Europe" by proposing amendments to the two basic EU Treaties and thereby turning them into the effective Constitution of the new Federal EU that Lisbon would bring about.
The following are the main changes Lisbon would make in the EU's two constituent Treaties:
1. Lisbon makes the EU Constitution superior to the Irish Constitution in all areas of EU law: We would still keep the Irish Constitution, but "Declaration 17 concerning Primacy", which is attached to Lisbon, makes clear that EU law would have primacy over and be superior to the Irish Constitution and laws in any case of conflict between the two. EU law and national law deal with different areas and matters, but the EU now makes the majority of our new laws each year. The Lisbon Treaty would give the EU the power to make laws binding on us in many new areas - see points 6 and 8 below - and would take that power away from the Irish Dáil and from Irish citizens who elect the Dáil.
2. Lisbon gives the EU the constitutional form of a supranational European Federal State and turns Ireland and the other Member States into regions or provinces of this Federation: It does this in three legal steps: (a) giving the new European Union which it would bring into being its own legal personality and independent corporate existence for the first time, separate from and superior to its Member States; (b)abolishing the European Community which we have been members of since 1973 and replacing it with the new Union; and (c)bringing all spheres of public policy either actually or potentially within the scope of the new Union. From the inside this new post-Lisbon EU would seem to be based on treaties between States; from the outside it would look like a State itself. It would have all the normal powers of a Federal State except the power to force its Member States to go to war against their will. Lisbon would then make us all real citizens of this new Federal EU for the first time, owing to it the normal citizen's duty of obedience to its laws and loyalty to its authority. One can only be a citizen of a State and all States must have citizens. We would still retain our Irish citizenship, but the rights and duties attached to that would be subordinate to those of our EU citizenship in any case of conflict between the two. Post-Lisbon, we would be like citizens of Virginia vis-a-vis the USA, or like citizens of Bavaria vis-a-vis Federal Germany. This new Federal EU would sign Treaties with other States, would have its own political President, Foreign Minister and foreign and security policy, its own diplomatic service and voice at the UN, and its own Public Prosecutor. It would make most of our laws and would decide what our basic rights are in all areas of EU law.
If the EU's politicians are creating an EU Federation, that Federation should be run along normal democratic lines, with its laws both proposed and made by people who are elected to make them, either in the European Parliament or National Parliaments, and not by the EU Commission, Council of Ministers and Court. But that is not on offer in the Lisbon Treaty. Lisbon means less democracy at EU level, not more.
3. Lisbon shifts influence over law-making and decision-taking in the EU towards the Big States and away from the smaller ones like Ireland: It does this by replacing the voting system for making EU laws that has existed since the 1957 Rome Treaty by a primarily population-based system which would give most influence to the Member States with big populations and reduce the influence of smaller ones like Ireland. Under Lisbon a "weighted" or "qualified" majority vote(QMV) for making EU laws in future would be 15 States out of 27 as long as they included 65% of the EU's total population. When Ireland joined the then EEC in 1973 we had 3 votes in making European laws as against 10 each for the Big States, a ratio of one-third. Under the current Nice Treaty arrangements we have 7 votes as against their 29 each, a ratio of one-quarter. Under Lisbon Ireland would have 4 million people as against Germany's 82 millon, a ratio of one-twentieth, and an average of 60 million each for France, Italy and Britain, a ratio of one-fifteenth. Under Lisbon Ireland's voting weight vis-a-vis the other 26 Member States would fall to one-third its present level, from 2% to 0.8%. Germany's would go from 8% to 17%, France's from 8% to 13%, Britain's from 8% to 12%.
4. Lisbon removes Ireland's right to a permanent EU Commissioner: The Commission is the body which has the monopoly of proposing all EU laws, which are then made by the Council of Ministers, with some powers of amendment for the European Parliament. Under Lisbon Ireland would have no member on the Commission for one out of every three Commission terms. This means that for five years out of every fifteen, laws affecting all our lives would be put forward entirely by a committee of EU officials on which there was no representative from Ireland. The Big EU States would lose their right to a permanent Commissioner also, but their size and weight give them other means of exerting influence on that key body. As Dr Garret FitzGerald and others have emphasised over the years, being represented on the EU Commission is especially important for smaller States like Ireland.
5. Lisbon deprives the Irish Government of its right to decide who Ireland's Commissioner would be when it comes to our turn to be on the Commission: It provides that Ireland's present right to "propose" a national Commissioner and to have that proposal accepted by the others if we are to accept their proposals, would be replaced by a right to make "suggestions" regarding a name, but with no guarantee that a particular suggestion would be accepted by the 27 Prime Ministers and Presidents who would decide the list of Commissioners as a whole by qualified majority vote. If the Irish Government were to suggest someone as its EU Commissioner who had, for example, antagonised the government of some other Member State in the past, or who was regarded as not enthusiastic enough for further EU integration, it could be asked to suggest another name as more acceptable. The Commission President, appointed by vote of the EU Prime Ministers and Presidents, would in practice decide who Ireland's Commissioner would be. The new Commission President could ask a Commissioner to resign at any time, just as a Taoiseach has full control over his cabinet. The new Commission would be like an EU Government, except that this government would not be elected by the citizens.
6. Lisbon gives the European Union the power to make laws in 32 new areas that are removed from the Dail and other National Parliaments: These new areas of EU law-making include civil and criminal law, justice and policing, immigration, public services, energy, transport, tourism, space, sport, culture, civil protection, public health and the EU budget. There would be majority voting also by EU Foreign Ministers as regards implementing decisions in foreign policy. The EU Council of Ministers would obtain power to take decisions by qualified majority vote on many matters other than EU laws - amounting to 68 in all - so that Member States would no longer exercise a veto regarding them.
This increase in EU powers simultaneously increases the personal power of the 27 national politicians who make up the EU Council of Ministers by enabling them to make further laws behind closed doors for 500 million Europeans, while taking power away from the citizens and national Parliaments which elect those politicians and which have made these laws for their own countries up to now. Each shift of power from the national level to the EU entails a further shift of power from the Irish Dail and people to Irish Government Ministers at EU level. It hollows out our national democracy further. The Treaty also increases the power of the non-elected Brussels Commission, which has the monopoly of proposing European laws to the Council of Ministers, by giving it many new policy areas to propose laws for.
7. Lisbon is a self-amending Treaty which would open the way to EU control of Ireland's company taxes: Lisbon inserts a new Article 48 into the"Treaty on European Union", the "simplified revision procedure", which permits the Prime Ministers and Presidents by unanimious agreement among themselves to shift many areas of the treaties where unanimity now exists to qualified majority voting without the need for new treaties or referendums. This is called the "escalator clause", which former French President Giscard d'Estaing said was "a central innovation" of the EU Constitution he helped draft. This shift to majority voting would cover areas like company taxation, but exclude defence and military matters. A National Parliament can veto the use of this mechanism, but citizens can not, as we would have accepted this method of rule by agreeing the Lisbon Treaty. National Parliaments usually back their Prime Ministers anyway. After Lisbon is ratified there would be no need, practically speaking, for further EU referendums.
If the Taoiseach of the day has agreed with his fellow Prime Ministers and Presidents, the switch to majority voting on company taxes would go through. If he has agreed, the National Parliament could revolt against him and object, but it is not required to vote for the use of the "escalator". This leaves the citizens in the position of depending entirely on the backbone of the current Taoiseach or his successor to continue defending Ireland's company tax position, which has been so important in bringing foreign firms to Ireland and so central to our modern economic development. Already the EU Commission has drafted proposals for introducing a Common EU Tax Base for Company taxes, but has postponed its publication until after the Irish referendum. Does this encourage confidence that the "escalator clause" will not be used to bring in EU tax harmonisation?
Lisbon opens another door to EU tax harmonisation if national differences in company tax lead to "distortion of competition"(Art.93 TFEU). This amendment inserted by Lisbon would enable the EU Court of Justice to apply the EU's internal market rules on competition matters, where majority voting applies, to matters of company tax. This could be another way around the present unanimity requirement for such taxes.
Lisbon also permits the EU to raise its "own resources" by means of any kind of new EU tax to finance the attainment of its many objectives(Art.269 TFEU). The 27 EU Prime Ministers and Presidents would have to decide unanimously what taxes to impose, and once National Parliaments approved, that would be that. There would be no need of a referendum in Ireland or anywhere else in the EU, for we would have permitted this development by voting for Lisbon. It is hard to imagine the 27 EU Prime Ministers and Presidents refraining from exercising this power to give the new post-Lisbon Union its own major tax revenues once it is up and running under their political direction.
8. Lisbon gives the EU the power to decide our human and civil rights: The new Treaty gives the EU the final power to decide what our rights are in all areas of EU law, including Member States when implementing EU law. It does this by making the rights set out in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights legally binding for the first time(Art.6 TEU). This would make the 27 judges of the EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg the final decider of our rights in many areas, instead of the Irish Supreme Court or the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which decides these rights at present. If Lisbon gives the EU Court of Justice the power to decide what our rights are in the large area of EU law, it is likely that the Commission will in time propose laws to ensure their uniform application across all EU States, as has happened in the case of the other Treaties up to now. The EU Court of Justice has laid down in several court cases that National Law must be applied in a way that is consistent with EU law, for the latter has supremacy in any conflict between the two. This principle must logically apply to rights issues also. This raises the real possibility of clashes over rights standards in sensitive areas where there are significant national differences between the Member States at present: for example, the right to life, the right to marry and found a family, the right to strike, rules of evidence in court, the rights of children and the elderly, trial by jury, censorship law, the legalisation of hard drugs and prostitution, rights attaching to State churches, conscientious objection to military service, succession, property, family law, labour law. Lisbon also provides for the new Union, like any European State, to accede to the European Convention on Human Rights. It would provide plenty scope for conflict between the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and the EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg over human rights issues.
9. Lisbon militarizes the EU further: The Treaty requires Member States "to progressively improve their military capabilities". It introduces a "start-up" fund for common foreign policy and military operations to be financed by Member States outside the Union budget(Art.28). It contains an Article which the current Slovenian EU presidency has admitted is a "mutual defence clause"(Art.28A.7): "If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all means in their power." This is a new departure for the EU and would commit all Member States including Ireland. In the light of this mutual defence clause there would be no constitutional need for a further referendum in Ireland before we committed ourselves operationally to the military defence of other EU countries, for Lisbon would be that referendum. Lisbon also allows sub-groups of Member States to make more binding commitments to one another with a view to "the most demanding missions" on behalf of the EU, without a requirement of a United Nations mandate.
10. Lisbon provides that if one-third of National Parliaments object to the Commission's proposal for an EU law, the Commission must reconsider it, but not necessarily abandon it: It might reword the draft law, as happened with the Constitution, or if it considered the objection was not justified, it might ignore it.
The European Parliament cannot propose a single European law, but it gets more influence under the new Union's Constitutional structures. It can put down amendments to draft laws coming from the Council and Commission in the 32 law-making areas that would be transferred to Brussels from the National Parliaments, although the Commission and Council must agree them if they are to pass. National Parliaments would of course lose their power. Ireland has only 12 members out of 750 in the European Parliament. When Ireland was part of the UK in the 19th century it had 100 members out of 600 at Westminster, where all UK laws were both proposed and made.
The Lisbon Treaty also provides for a right of petition to the Commission by one million European citizens asking it to propose a new EU law, but there is no obligation on the Commission to do anything apart from "considering" such a request. It can ignore it or reject it. In other words the citizens, if they get a million signatures, have the right to complain and then hope for the best.
Is Lisbon necessary to make the EU more efficient?
The advent of 12 new Member States has not made the negotiation of new EU laws more difficult since they joined the EU. On the contrary, a study by the Science-Po University in Paris calculated that new rules have been adopted a quarter times more quickly since the enlargement from 15 to 27 Member States compared with the two years before enlargement. The study also showed that the 15 older Member States block proposed EU laws twice as often as the newcomers. Professor Helen Wallace of the London School of Economics has found that the EU institutions are working as well as they ever did despite the enlargement of the EU from 15 to 27 members. She found that "the evidence of practice since May 2004 suggests that the EU's institutional processes and practice have stood up rather robustly to the impact of enlargement." The Nice Treaty voting arrangements thus seem to be working well.
If we reject the Lisbon Treaty will we be forced to vote on it again? Europe Minister Dick Roche has stated that if we vote No to Lisbon, we will not be asked to vote again on the same Treaty, as happened when people voted No to the Treaty of Nice. Nor can we be ostracised or thrown out of the EU - anymore than that happened to the French and Dutch when they rejected the EU Constitution, of which Lisbon is a revamped version. We need to send Lisbon back to the EU Prime Ministers and Presidents and tell them that we want a better deal - for Ireland's sake and Europe's sake. We want a more democratic, not a less democratic EU. Ireland can do it, on our own behalf and on behalf of all the peoples of Europe, if we have confidence in ourselves and resist the misrepresentations of what Lisbon is really about, and all the bullying and threats. A Vote No is a Yes to something better!
This document has been prepared by the National Platform EU Research and Information Centre, 24 Crawford Ave., Dublin 9; Tel.: 01-8305792; Secretary Anthony Coughlan. It has veen vetted for legal accuracy by authorities on Irish constitutional and EU law. Please copy it or adapt it as you please and pass it on to others, without any need of reference to its source.
If you wish to send a donation to help support our work, which is entirely voluntary, please send it to the above address and make out any cheques to Bank of Ireland Account No.30081817.
Contact: info@free-europe.org
"France was just ahead of all the other countries in voting No. It would happen in all Member States if they have a referendum. There is a cleavage between people and governments...There will be no Treaty if we had a referendum in France, which would again be followed by a referendum in the UK."
- French President Nicolas Sarkozy, at meeting of MEP Group leaders, EUobserver, 14 November 2007
"Public opinion will be led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them directly ... All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden and disguised in some way."
- Former French President V.Giscard D'Estaing, Le Monde, 14 June 2007
"The substance of the Constitution is preserved. That is a fact."
- German Chancellor Angela Merkel, speech to the European Parliament, 27 June 2007
An EU Constitution
The Treaty of Lisbon is a revamped version of the treaty which gave the EU its own Constitution over and above the constitutions of its Member States, but which the peoples of France and Holland rejected in referendums in 2005. Instead of accepting that decision the EU Prime Ministers and Presidents decided to give the EU a constitution indirectly rather than directly, but not to call it a Constitution, and on no account to hold referendums on it for fear people would reject it again.
Why an Irish referendum?
A referendum must be held on it in Ireland however because the Supreme Court laid down in the 1987 Crotty case that sovereignty in this State rests with the Irish people and that only they can surrender sovereignty to the EU by referendum, or else refuse to surrender it as the case might be. The purpose of the referendum would be to change the Irish Constitution so as to make EU law superior to Irish law in the areas set out in the Lisbon Treaty.
Lisbon gives the EU a constitution indirectly rather than directly: The two current basic European Treaties are called "The Treaty on European Union"(TEU) and "The Treaty on the Functioning of the Union"(TFEU). These two documents include all the previous treaties from the 1957 Rome Treaty to the 2002 Nice Treaty. The EU Constitution which the French and Dutch rejected would have repealed these two treaties and replaced them with a document called "A Constitution for Europe". The Lisbon Treaty implements 96% of the legal content of this "Constitution for Europe" by proposing amendments to the two basic EU Treaties and thereby turning them into the effective Constitution of the new Federal EU that Lisbon would bring about.
The following are the main changes Lisbon would make in the EU's two constituent Treaties:
1. Lisbon makes the EU Constitution superior to the Irish Constitution in all areas of EU law: We would still keep the Irish Constitution, but "Declaration 17 concerning Primacy", which is attached to Lisbon, makes clear that EU law would have primacy over and be superior to the Irish Constitution and laws in any case of conflict between the two. EU law and national law deal with different areas and matters, but the EU now makes the majority of our new laws each year. The Lisbon Treaty would give the EU the power to make laws binding on us in many new areas - see points 6 and 8 below - and would take that power away from the Irish Dáil and from Irish citizens who elect the Dáil.
2. Lisbon gives the EU the constitutional form of a supranational European Federal State and turns Ireland and the other Member States into regions or provinces of this Federation: It does this in three legal steps: (a) giving the new European Union which it would bring into being its own legal personality and independent corporate existence for the first time, separate from and superior to its Member States; (b)abolishing the European Community which we have been members of since 1973 and replacing it with the new Union; and (c)bringing all spheres of public policy either actually or potentially within the scope of the new Union. From the inside this new post-Lisbon EU would seem to be based on treaties between States; from the outside it would look like a State itself. It would have all the normal powers of a Federal State except the power to force its Member States to go to war against their will. Lisbon would then make us all real citizens of this new Federal EU for the first time, owing to it the normal citizen's duty of obedience to its laws and loyalty to its authority. One can only be a citizen of a State and all States must have citizens. We would still retain our Irish citizenship, but the rights and duties attached to that would be subordinate to those of our EU citizenship in any case of conflict between the two. Post-Lisbon, we would be like citizens of Virginia vis-a-vis the USA, or like citizens of Bavaria vis-a-vis Federal Germany. This new Federal EU would sign Treaties with other States, would have its own political President, Foreign Minister and foreign and security policy, its own diplomatic service and voice at the UN, and its own Public Prosecutor. It would make most of our laws and would decide what our basic rights are in all areas of EU law.
If the EU's politicians are creating an EU Federation, that Federation should be run along normal democratic lines, with its laws both proposed and made by people who are elected to make them, either in the European Parliament or National Parliaments, and not by the EU Commission, Council of Ministers and Court. But that is not on offer in the Lisbon Treaty. Lisbon means less democracy at EU level, not more.
3. Lisbon shifts influence over law-making and decision-taking in the EU towards the Big States and away from the smaller ones like Ireland: It does this by replacing the voting system for making EU laws that has existed since the 1957 Rome Treaty by a primarily population-based system which would give most influence to the Member States with big populations and reduce the influence of smaller ones like Ireland. Under Lisbon a "weighted" or "qualified" majority vote(QMV) for making EU laws in future would be 15 States out of 27 as long as they included 65% of the EU's total population. When Ireland joined the then EEC in 1973 we had 3 votes in making European laws as against 10 each for the Big States, a ratio of one-third. Under the current Nice Treaty arrangements we have 7 votes as against their 29 each, a ratio of one-quarter. Under Lisbon Ireland would have 4 million people as against Germany's 82 millon, a ratio of one-twentieth, and an average of 60 million each for France, Italy and Britain, a ratio of one-fifteenth. Under Lisbon Ireland's voting weight vis-a-vis the other 26 Member States would fall to one-third its present level, from 2% to 0.8%. Germany's would go from 8% to 17%, France's from 8% to 13%, Britain's from 8% to 12%.
4. Lisbon removes Ireland's right to a permanent EU Commissioner: The Commission is the body which has the monopoly of proposing all EU laws, which are then made by the Council of Ministers, with some powers of amendment for the European Parliament. Under Lisbon Ireland would have no member on the Commission for one out of every three Commission terms. This means that for five years out of every fifteen, laws affecting all our lives would be put forward entirely by a committee of EU officials on which there was no representative from Ireland. The Big EU States would lose their right to a permanent Commissioner also, but their size and weight give them other means of exerting influence on that key body. As Dr Garret FitzGerald and others have emphasised over the years, being represented on the EU Commission is especially important for smaller States like Ireland.
5. Lisbon deprives the Irish Government of its right to decide who Ireland's Commissioner would be when it comes to our turn to be on the Commission: It provides that Ireland's present right to "propose" a national Commissioner and to have that proposal accepted by the others if we are to accept their proposals, would be replaced by a right to make "suggestions" regarding a name, but with no guarantee that a particular suggestion would be accepted by the 27 Prime Ministers and Presidents who would decide the list of Commissioners as a whole by qualified majority vote. If the Irish Government were to suggest someone as its EU Commissioner who had, for example, antagonised the government of some other Member State in the past, or who was regarded as not enthusiastic enough for further EU integration, it could be asked to suggest another name as more acceptable. The Commission President, appointed by vote of the EU Prime Ministers and Presidents, would in practice decide who Ireland's Commissioner would be. The new Commission President could ask a Commissioner to resign at any time, just as a Taoiseach has full control over his cabinet. The new Commission would be like an EU Government, except that this government would not be elected by the citizens.
6. Lisbon gives the European Union the power to make laws in 32 new areas that are removed from the Dail and other National Parliaments: These new areas of EU law-making include civil and criminal law, justice and policing, immigration, public services, energy, transport, tourism, space, sport, culture, civil protection, public health and the EU budget. There would be majority voting also by EU Foreign Ministers as regards implementing decisions in foreign policy. The EU Council of Ministers would obtain power to take decisions by qualified majority vote on many matters other than EU laws - amounting to 68 in all - so that Member States would no longer exercise a veto regarding them.
This increase in EU powers simultaneously increases the personal power of the 27 national politicians who make up the EU Council of Ministers by enabling them to make further laws behind closed doors for 500 million Europeans, while taking power away from the citizens and national Parliaments which elect those politicians and which have made these laws for their own countries up to now. Each shift of power from the national level to the EU entails a further shift of power from the Irish Dail and people to Irish Government Ministers at EU level. It hollows out our national democracy further. The Treaty also increases the power of the non-elected Brussels Commission, which has the monopoly of proposing European laws to the Council of Ministers, by giving it many new policy areas to propose laws for.
7. Lisbon is a self-amending Treaty which would open the way to EU control of Ireland's company taxes: Lisbon inserts a new Article 48 into the"Treaty on European Union", the "simplified revision procedure", which permits the Prime Ministers and Presidents by unanimious agreement among themselves to shift many areas of the treaties where unanimity now exists to qualified majority voting without the need for new treaties or referendums. This is called the "escalator clause", which former French President Giscard d'Estaing said was "a central innovation" of the EU Constitution he helped draft. This shift to majority voting would cover areas like company taxation, but exclude defence and military matters. A National Parliament can veto the use of this mechanism, but citizens can not, as we would have accepted this method of rule by agreeing the Lisbon Treaty. National Parliaments usually back their Prime Ministers anyway. After Lisbon is ratified there would be no need, practically speaking, for further EU referendums.
If the Taoiseach of the day has agreed with his fellow Prime Ministers and Presidents, the switch to majority voting on company taxes would go through. If he has agreed, the National Parliament could revolt against him and object, but it is not required to vote for the use of the "escalator". This leaves the citizens in the position of depending entirely on the backbone of the current Taoiseach or his successor to continue defending Ireland's company tax position, which has been so important in bringing foreign firms to Ireland and so central to our modern economic development. Already the EU Commission has drafted proposals for introducing a Common EU Tax Base for Company taxes, but has postponed its publication until after the Irish referendum. Does this encourage confidence that the "escalator clause" will not be used to bring in EU tax harmonisation?
Lisbon opens another door to EU tax harmonisation if national differences in company tax lead to "distortion of competition"(Art.93 TFEU). This amendment inserted by Lisbon would enable the EU Court of Justice to apply the EU's internal market rules on competition matters, where majority voting applies, to matters of company tax. This could be another way around the present unanimity requirement for such taxes.
Lisbon also permits the EU to raise its "own resources" by means of any kind of new EU tax to finance the attainment of its many objectives(Art.269 TFEU). The 27 EU Prime Ministers and Presidents would have to decide unanimously what taxes to impose, and once National Parliaments approved, that would be that. There would be no need of a referendum in Ireland or anywhere else in the EU, for we would have permitted this development by voting for Lisbon. It is hard to imagine the 27 EU Prime Ministers and Presidents refraining from exercising this power to give the new post-Lisbon Union its own major tax revenues once it is up and running under their political direction.
8. Lisbon gives the EU the power to decide our human and civil rights: The new Treaty gives the EU the final power to decide what our rights are in all areas of EU law, including Member States when implementing EU law. It does this by making the rights set out in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights legally binding for the first time(Art.6 TEU). This would make the 27 judges of the EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg the final decider of our rights in many areas, instead of the Irish Supreme Court or the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which decides these rights at present. If Lisbon gives the EU Court of Justice the power to decide what our rights are in the large area of EU law, it is likely that the Commission will in time propose laws to ensure their uniform application across all EU States, as has happened in the case of the other Treaties up to now. The EU Court of Justice has laid down in several court cases that National Law must be applied in a way that is consistent with EU law, for the latter has supremacy in any conflict between the two. This principle must logically apply to rights issues also. This raises the real possibility of clashes over rights standards in sensitive areas where there are significant national differences between the Member States at present: for example, the right to life, the right to marry and found a family, the right to strike, rules of evidence in court, the rights of children and the elderly, trial by jury, censorship law, the legalisation of hard drugs and prostitution, rights attaching to State churches, conscientious objection to military service, succession, property, family law, labour law. Lisbon also provides for the new Union, like any European State, to accede to the European Convention on Human Rights. It would provide plenty scope for conflict between the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and the EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg over human rights issues.
9. Lisbon militarizes the EU further: The Treaty requires Member States "to progressively improve their military capabilities". It introduces a "start-up" fund for common foreign policy and military operations to be financed by Member States outside the Union budget(Art.28). It contains an Article which the current Slovenian EU presidency has admitted is a "mutual defence clause"(Art.28A.7): "If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all means in their power." This is a new departure for the EU and would commit all Member States including Ireland. In the light of this mutual defence clause there would be no constitutional need for a further referendum in Ireland before we committed ourselves operationally to the military defence of other EU countries, for Lisbon would be that referendum. Lisbon also allows sub-groups of Member States to make more binding commitments to one another with a view to "the most demanding missions" on behalf of the EU, without a requirement of a United Nations mandate.
10. Lisbon provides that if one-third of National Parliaments object to the Commission's proposal for an EU law, the Commission must reconsider it, but not necessarily abandon it: It might reword the draft law, as happened with the Constitution, or if it considered the objection was not justified, it might ignore it.
The European Parliament cannot propose a single European law, but it gets more influence under the new Union's Constitutional structures. It can put down amendments to draft laws coming from the Council and Commission in the 32 law-making areas that would be transferred to Brussels from the National Parliaments, although the Commission and Council must agree them if they are to pass. National Parliaments would of course lose their power. Ireland has only 12 members out of 750 in the European Parliament. When Ireland was part of the UK in the 19th century it had 100 members out of 600 at Westminster, where all UK laws were both proposed and made.
The Lisbon Treaty also provides for a right of petition to the Commission by one million European citizens asking it to propose a new EU law, but there is no obligation on the Commission to do anything apart from "considering" such a request. It can ignore it or reject it. In other words the citizens, if they get a million signatures, have the right to complain and then hope for the best.
Is Lisbon necessary to make the EU more efficient?
The advent of 12 new Member States has not made the negotiation of new EU laws more difficult since they joined the EU. On the contrary, a study by the Science-Po University in Paris calculated that new rules have been adopted a quarter times more quickly since the enlargement from 15 to 27 Member States compared with the two years before enlargement. The study also showed that the 15 older Member States block proposed EU laws twice as often as the newcomers. Professor Helen Wallace of the London School of Economics has found that the EU institutions are working as well as they ever did despite the enlargement of the EU from 15 to 27 members. She found that "the evidence of practice since May 2004 suggests that the EU's institutional processes and practice have stood up rather robustly to the impact of enlargement." The Nice Treaty voting arrangements thus seem to be working well.
If we reject the Lisbon Treaty will we be forced to vote on it again? Europe Minister Dick Roche has stated that if we vote No to Lisbon, we will not be asked to vote again on the same Treaty, as happened when people voted No to the Treaty of Nice. Nor can we be ostracised or thrown out of the EU - anymore than that happened to the French and Dutch when they rejected the EU Constitution, of which Lisbon is a revamped version. We need to send Lisbon back to the EU Prime Ministers and Presidents and tell them that we want a better deal - for Ireland's sake and Europe's sake. We want a more democratic, not a less democratic EU. Ireland can do it, on our own behalf and on behalf of all the peoples of Europe, if we have confidence in ourselves and resist the misrepresentations of what Lisbon is really about, and all the bullying and threats. A Vote No is a Yes to something better!
This document has been prepared by the National Platform EU Research and Information Centre, 24 Crawford Ave., Dublin 9; Tel.: 01-8305792; Secretary Anthony Coughlan. It has veen vetted for legal accuracy by authorities on Irish constitutional and EU law. Please copy it or adapt it as you please and pass it on to others, without any need of reference to its source.
If you wish to send a donation to help support our work, which is entirely voluntary, please send it to the above address and make out any cheques to Bank of Ireland Account No.30081817.
Contact: info@free-europe.org
Friday, February 1, 2008
From the telex: PvdA wants to silence Dutch weblog
Dutch weblog HoeiBoei was summoned by its provider Ilse Media to remove the name of Enver HoxhaVarisli from an article and a comment both dated 2006(!). What on earth could've triggered that? Varisli was a member of "Meldpunt Moslimdiscriminatie" (Dutch Complaints Bureau on Discrimination of Muslims) then. The anonymous summon was entirely unbased, as merely Enver's full name had been mentioned in a critical news article.
Nevertheless, Ilse claimed that "a complaint had been received from city subdivision De Baarsjes" about the weblog. "Personal details of 'Enver Varisli' are being published in two places. Now that we have received an explicit complaint, it is a violation of privacy law. We therefore request to have the offending items removed within 24 hours, or else we will be forced to temporarily close down your blog." Signed: Weblog Support.
De Baarsjes is ruled by the PvdA, like the rest of Islamsterdam.
HoeiBoei responded that they checked the articles and found no violation of any law and no personal information had been published, so they requested a specification of what was deemed to be in violence of the law and a 24 hour delay. The response was as simple as arrogant:
"Our previous request was clear enough, and the grace period is long enough. Further delay is not possible and not subject to discussion. And contrary to your claim: personal details are being bublished. See definition: "any information regarding an identified or identifyable natural person". That would include his name, as "the best-known directly identifying information is the combination of first and last name"". Signed: Weblog Support
HoeiBoei has now arranged for a back-up weblog at blogger.com (Dutch).
The thought police is definitely closing in on us.
Nevertheless, Ilse claimed that "a complaint had been received from city subdivision De Baarsjes" about the weblog. "Personal details of 'Enver Varisli' are being published in two places. Now that we have received an explicit complaint, it is a violation of privacy law. We therefore request to have the offending items removed within 24 hours, or else we will be forced to temporarily close down your blog." Signed: Weblog Support.
De Baarsjes is ruled by the PvdA, like the rest of Islamsterdam.
HoeiBoei responded that they checked the articles and found no violation of any law and no personal information had been published, so they requested a specification of what was deemed to be in violence of the law and a 24 hour delay. The response was as simple as arrogant:
"Our previous request was clear enough, and the grace period is long enough. Further delay is not possible and not subject to discussion. And contrary to your claim: personal details are being bublished. See definition: "any information regarding an identified or identifyable natural person". That would include his name, as "the best-known directly identifying information is the combination of first and last name"". Signed: Weblog Support
HoeiBoei has now arranged for a back-up weblog at blogger.com (Dutch).
The thought police is definitely closing in on us.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
It gets worse
The article below, Enriching Dutch Culture, now has a sequel. After the chairman of her PvdA faction, Peter van Heemst, called Ismaili's action "very silly", he immediately smoothed over her 'mistake' as her getting so much hatemail that she could not take it anymore and lost control. Well, she had enough control left to google out that the sender of the HuT-quotes had claimed to be a freemason on another forum, a fact she used in the mail to him. In the end Van Heemst claimed people in his council had been getting death-threats because of Ismaili's mail, which could not be confirmed.
That's an old PvdA trick, by the way. Ad Melkert supposedly received a loaded gun in his mail once (makes a bit more impact in the media than just a bullet) but that proved to be a hoax. Same for torture practices conducted in Irak; another PvdA hoax. Now this. Noone inside the PvdA saw any reason to ask this stupid girl to leave. But it gets worse.
Another activity of Ismaili has now been uncovered, proving once more that she did not write the earlier mail in a state of mental distress (that is, no worse than her usual state) and even that she probably acted deliberately. A claim was laid that that very evening she signed a petition for HuT, adding the following quote: "Het wordt tijd om ons te ontdoen van een cultuur die onze islam beschadigt en de ware schoonheid van de islam uitdragen. Alleen zo zullen wij groeien in onze islam. We moeten geen energie steken in het veranderen van anderen maar laten wij zelf veranderen."
Translation: "It is about time to get rid of a culture that damages our Islam and start proclaiming the true beauty of Islam. Only thus will we grow in our Islam. We should not spend effort on changing others, but let us change ourselves". After she initially denied having signed such a petition, Leefbaar Rotterdam, the opposing local party simply produced it. After that, she had "no comment".
The HuT 'constitution' has a lot of friendly stipulations:
We are truly being betrayed by these two parties, that currently are governing (ahem) The Netherlands. This is no ignorant dhimmitude; this is wilful treason. There used to be a penalty on that.
UPDATE:
The PvdA has now changed her view. She has now asked Ismaili to give up her position, as her lying about the petition has lost her the trust of the faction. She has said to give it some thought.
Stay tuned.
That's an old PvdA trick, by the way. Ad Melkert supposedly received a loaded gun in his mail once (makes a bit more impact in the media than just a bullet) but that proved to be a hoax. Same for torture practices conducted in Irak; another PvdA hoax. Now this. Noone inside the PvdA saw any reason to ask this stupid girl to leave. But it gets worse.
Another activity of Ismaili has now been uncovered, proving once more that she did not write the earlier mail in a state of mental distress (that is, no worse than her usual state) and even that she probably acted deliberately. A claim was laid that that very evening she signed a petition for HuT, adding the following quote: "Het wordt tijd om ons te ontdoen van een cultuur die onze islam beschadigt en de ware schoonheid van de islam uitdragen. Alleen zo zullen wij groeien in onze islam. We moeten geen energie steken in het veranderen van anderen maar laten wij zelf veranderen."
Translation: "It is about time to get rid of a culture that damages our Islam and start proclaiming the true beauty of Islam. Only thus will we grow in our Islam. We should not spend effort on changing others, but let us change ourselves". After she initially denied having signed such a petition, Leefbaar Rotterdam, the opposing local party simply produced it. After that, she had "no comment".
The HuT 'constitution' has a lot of friendly stipulations:
- Article 1 stipulates that the state should be entirely Islamitic
- Article 7 stipulates that apostates must be killed.
- Article 26 stipulates that non-muslims are not allowed to vote.
- Hizb ut-Tahrir is deeply racist: muslims have privileges; non-moslims do not.
- Friendly quote from article 56: "Jihad is a compulsory duty on all Muslims. Military training is therefore compulsory. Thus, every male Muslim, fifteen years and over, is obliged to undergo military training in readiness for jihad."
- Article 109 states that "the separation of sexes is fundamental".
- And article 112 ensures us that women cannot hold "positions in power".
- Article 152 establishes that the State should care for people without money. The state is also responsible for housing.
- Article 156 determines that the economy is run by the state.
We are truly being betrayed by these two parties, that currently are governing (ahem) The Netherlands. This is no ignorant dhimmitude; this is wilful treason. There used to be a penalty on that.
UPDATE:
The PvdA has now changed her view. She has now asked Ismaili to give up her position, as her lying about the petition has lost her the trust of the faction. She has said to give it some thought.
Stay tuned.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Enriching Dutch Culture
Dutch politicians always refer to Islam as
Last Saturday, Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf had an article on a new Islamic movement in NL, Hizb ut-Tahrir. It's supposed to be an Islamic political party. Some quotes:
Nobody will take action against these movements, but try to say something half as bad towards Islam and you're in trouble (seen the items on Lionheart?).
Now someone decided to email a response to these people, and received a reply from Bouchra Ismaili (Dutch), from Rotterdam's local council for subdivision Charlois. It's totally illiterate, so I can't really bring myself to fully translate it, but it starts off with:
But then, I am 'Islamophobic' and 'xenophobic'...
enriching our cultureHere's an example on how that works:
Last Saturday, Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf had an article on a new Islamic movement in NL, Hizb ut-Tahrir. It's supposed to be an Islamic political party. Some quotes:
We do not agree with freedom of speech, for we denounce democracy
andWhat you need is a heavy bomb-attack
Nobody will take action against these movements, but try to say something half as bad towards Islam and you're in trouble (seen the items on Lionheart?).
Now someone decided to email a response to these people, and received a reply from Bouchra Ismaili (Dutch), from Rotterdam's local council for subdivision Charlois. It's totally illiterate, so I can't really bring myself to fully translate it, but it starts off with:
Listen you dirty fool WE STAY HERE hahahahahah DROP DEADShe then continues to call the writer a Satan lover, and actually states that he and his kind are the foreigners ('allochtonen'), not the immigrant muslims, and that they should convert to Islam. She rants on a bit about the writer being slave to the devil, and that she'll leave judgement to
the judge of judges ALLAH A RAHMAN OU RAHEEM!!!Guess what Dutch political party this moslima is a representative of? Only one choice really: PvdA, 'Partij van de Allahs' ('Allah Party'), Labour Party. The singlemost corrupt and Islam-appeasing party in NL. The Dutch are being sold out to Islam, by their very government. If it were up to me, this lady (cough) would be sent back to Morocco, covered in tar and feathers.
But then, I am 'Islamophobic' and 'xenophobic'...
Monday, January 7, 2008
A Nation of Sheep
Fox News legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano is among the fiercest defenders of individual rights. Both in his daily appearances on the country's most-watched cable news network and in a series of books (most recently, A Nation of Sheep), Napolitano consistently and defiantly argues that the only legitimate government is that which respects its citizens rights in all cases.
In late October, Napolitano gave the keynote address at the conference Reason in DC, where he delivered a spellbinding speech that blended a masterful understanding of American history with a blazing outrage at the excesses of the new security state. "Who [is] the greatest violator of the Constitution?" asks Napolitano. "George W. Bush has shown less fidelity to the Constitution than any president since Abraham Lincoln."
Click here to view the Judge's speech (approx. 40 minutes).
British FoS Suppression
Today I discovered the shocking news about anti-Jihad blogger Lionheart. The UK has now succumbed to Islam to a level that Freedom of Speech no longer is recognised.
Lionheart, currently abroad, will be arrested on re-entry of his native country, on charges of
When we tie in this story with the older charges brought against Mark Steyn, the sad conclusion has to be that Freedom of Speech is on the way out fast in the formerly free Western world, that is surrendering to the intolerance of and colonisation by Islam. While non-muslim people in Saudi-Arabia are not even allowed to use certain highways muslims in the West get all their demands fulfilled, including those that would not have a snowballs hope in hell in their native countries.
Words never killed people, and while the truth may sometimes hurt, it should be spoken and heard. Islam continually confirms what it is being accused of, by doing exactly those things they deny to be doing: "Islam's the religion of Peace, and anybody disputing that will be beheaded". And they're getting away with it as well, with all the anti-'hate-speech' commissions that don't even have half a brain but are there just to appease the destructive agenda of the Frankfort School and its Cultural Marxism.
Who will stop the Dhimmytude that has now firmly rooted in the West's suicidal elite's policies? When will the West say "No, I will NOT comply!", finally draw its line in the sand, and stand up to defend it?
Lionheart, currently abroad, will be arrested on re-entry of his native country, on charges of
suspicion of Stirring up Racial Hatred by displaying written material contrary to sections 18(1) and 27(3) of the Public Order Act 1986.Read his story on his blog, and the comments Pamela Geller wrote on her blog Atlas Shrugs.
When we tie in this story with the older charges brought against Mark Steyn, the sad conclusion has to be that Freedom of Speech is on the way out fast in the formerly free Western world, that is surrendering to the intolerance of and colonisation by Islam. While non-muslim people in Saudi-Arabia are not even allowed to use certain highways muslims in the West get all their demands fulfilled, including those that would not have a snowballs hope in hell in their native countries.
Words never killed people, and while the truth may sometimes hurt, it should be spoken and heard. Islam continually confirms what it is being accused of, by doing exactly those things they deny to be doing: "Islam's the religion of Peace, and anybody disputing that will be beheaded". And they're getting away with it as well, with all the anti-'hate-speech' commissions that don't even have half a brain but are there just to appease the destructive agenda of the Frankfort School and its Cultural Marxism.
Who will stop the Dhimmytude that has now firmly rooted in the West's suicidal elite's policies? When will the West say "No, I will NOT comply!", finally draw its line in the sand, and stand up to defend it?
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