Sunday
The recent embracement of the so-called Reform Treaty, which is in all important aspects identical with the old Constitutional Treaty, is a defeat for all true European democrats and should be interpreted as such. The down-playing of its true essence is intellectually unacceptable and morally inexcusable.
Nevertheless, there is another threat on the horizon. I see this threat in environmentalism which is becoming a new dominant ideology, if not a religion. Its main weapon is raising the alarm and predicting the human life endangering climate change based on man-made global warming. The recent awarding of Nobel Prize to the main apostle of this hypothesis was the last straw because by this these ideas were elevated to the pedestal of "holy and sacred" uncriticisable truths.
Australia is lucky! Our nearest neighbour is Papua-New Guinea, and then Indonesia. Neither of these places is suggesting an Australasian Co-prosperity Sphere. The only country likely to do that might be New Zealand.
The down-side is, our government in Canberra is leftoid, and prepared to accommodate union demands. They aren't as worried about environmentalism as some, though they gave lip service to Kyoto. Still, some union attempts to go back 50 or 60 years is worrying.
Posted by Nuke Gray! at July 20, 2009 04:11 AM
I wish I could vote for Klaus, he knocks Green Dave into a cocked hat.
Posted by John K at July 20, 2009 10:20 AM
Every time I read a quote from Vaclav Klaus I feel just a little more frustration at my failure to secure the job I recently applied for in Brno.
Posted by MarkE at July 20, 2009 12:03 PM
Nuke Gray!
In logic and reason you should be correct - but sadly you are not.
The statists are so demented that they dream (not only dream, they actually work for) WORLD government - first in regulation of banking and so on, and then to prevent "tax havens" and "harmful and extreme tax competition" then in........
Certainly such evil plans (and they are evil) are old - but never before have so many powerful people in politics supported them.
For example the President of the United States and the leading members of the majority party in both House and Senate.
I accept that Harry Reid is so out-to-lunch that it hardly matters what he believes - but Durbin and co are the real people of power in the Senate.
And in the House, Speaker Pelosi may be scatty - but her collectivist (world collectivist) beliefs are central to her being - and she (and most of the other leading Democrats) are fully of energy in pushing into effect their poltical designs.
The E.U. has long supported this stuff - and China will to (hopeing to dominate it in the long time).
I doubt that such folk would be interested in allowing Australia to opt out - even if Kevin Rudd was in favour standing against the "International Community".
As for the environment - whatever the real problems (and they may well exist) it is being used as an excuse for these old plans.
Take the reply to one of the main objections to the "Cap and Trade" nonsense Bill - i.e. that it will just move what is left of manufacturing out of the United States thus just adding shipping emissions to production emissions (i.e. INCREASING C02 emissions).
"Well we must bring China and India on board then".
The editor of the Economist magazine has even suggested taxing people in the United States and the rest of the West to pay the Chinese government to enforce C02 emissions limitations there.
So American industry would be destroyed (what is left of it) and then American taxpayers would be asked to pay to make production methods in China and so on emit less C02.
If people were really interested in reducing American C02 emissions they would do such things as remove the regulations holding back nuclear power (regulations that do NOT make the industry safer) and get rid of Capital Gains Tax so that developing new methods in industry would be profitable. They might even get rid of the regulations and the pro unio laws that undermined American railroads - if they are so interested in "mass transit".
Do not hold your breath for such things.
Posted by Paul Marks at July 20, 2009 01:13 PM
