As predicted for many months Mr Kevin Rudd and the ALP have won the Australian elections. The upside of this has already become apparent in the comic value that Mr Rudd has provided – at least for us in the rest of the world, who have heard stuff like his so many times before.
In his acceptance speech Mr Rudd came out with a lot of fatuous waffle about how everyone should believe in the future, create the future, even “embrace” the future. It was like listening Harold Wilson in about 1964. For Americans it must have been like hearing Bill Clinton do one of his JFK impressions about futurism – if I am allowed to steal a word from the Italians.
Then, of course, Mr Rudd came out with a lot of backward looking polices:
Soldiers to run away from Iraq, as if it was 2003 and it was possible for the West to avoid involvement – and totally ignoring the events of the last year that mean it now looks like we are going to win the war. The idea seems to be to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Sign up for Kyoto – as if it was sometime in the 1990s. There was, of course, no mention of reducing regulations on the expansion of the nuclear industry. In short the concern with C02 emissions was a pose – and an excuse for various new taxes and regulations.
And, of course, more money for his friends, and fellow ALP members, in the schools and universities – the people who, along with the media types they produce, worked so hard to get him elected. More money and, vague, “reform” will mean better education – pass the sick bag. Mr Rudd did not actually say “education, education, education” but he might as well have.
Some of my friends in Australia are a bit down in the dumps about the election result, although they all predicted it, but my message to them is simple – if you can not do anything about the farce you might as well enjoy it.
There will be plenty of laughs over the next three years.
Of course if the labour market reforms are reversed the increase in unemployment will not be funny.
Although I voted for his government I never had any time for Howard. Ghastly high taxing big spending nanny stater who vilified gun owners and disarmed them and who allowed a crazy christian cabal in his party.
Problem was the other mob were the same only worse managers with crazy ideological baggage and lunatic and/or thuggish supporters.
The circus is on now that the clowns are in charge.
Howard only has himself to blame. Anybody, regardless of their affiliation, deserves to be thrown out if they’ve been at the top as long as Howard has. Also, Howard’s campaign was a joke and the idiotic resorts to demagogy were risible.
I don’t really see how Australia withdrawing its troops from Iraq is particularly a bad thing. They aren’t really doing anything in Iraq anyway. And the idea that having troops in Iraq gains you influence with Bush isn’t really true. The most popular foreign leaders in Washington are Sarkozy and Merkel. Neither have sent any troops to Iraq, and both are against the war. Go figure.
I got to say, I am not that worried by the union influence. I don’t believe the aussie people would have much sympathy for union shennanigans these days, and even this union dominated government will be sensible if push ever does come to shove.
No, what worries me is the econuts, the Bill of Rights cultists and the selfrighteous PC control freaks. These are the people who’s personal lunacies will do the most damage.
The more prosperous we become, and the fewer problems we really have, the more these obsessionals push their non solutions onto the rest of us.
Be warned. Attempts to embrace a politically correct future may result in sexual harassment lawsuits.
This is not initially going to be a powerful government. The conservative parties are only one vote short of a blocking majority in the senate. The Australian senate has the ability to block all legislation. (The only circumstance in which the senate can be overriden is if an election is called specifically over a deadlock between the two houses, and the government is then re-elected such that it has a majority of the total number of members of both houses and this “joint sitting” then votes for the legislation after the election. This has happened only once in 107 years of Australian federal politics. It wouldn’t surprise me if it happened towards the end of this government though, either in the second half of 2009 or July/August 2010, which are the most suitable times under the complicated constitutional rules for it).
In order to pass any legislation at all, the government is going to have to get the votes of five members of the Green Party, one religious conservative from Victoria, and one populist anti-gambling campaigner from South Australia at the same time. This is going to be quite a feat. Watching the negotations, bickering, horse trading, and offers of pork is going to be entertaining, if nothing else. In the best case, look for lots of relatively empty environmental gestures.
(The other option would be for the government to look for the votes of the opposition. On some issues they might do this, but pretty obviously not on loony left wing stuff).
And yes, I am with countingcats. The danger is much more the econuts and the PC control freaks (who are often the same people) than the unions. The union connections of the ALP tend to mean it can’t push labour market reform, but it is not going far backwards either. There will be a watering down of some but not all of Howard’s WorkChoices legislation, and that will be the last thing the government ever does on the labour market.
Nothing will change. The Unions have been defanged – they will always be with us, but their power has gone. No government restoring Union power will be in power for long. Hopefully, the symbolic signing of Kyoto will placate the madding crowds, without actually costing more than the usual cost of big state bullshit. It will also prevnet the Watermelons from gaining traction, as the main concern that they share with the general public will have been resolved. Again, the general public are not going to live in sackcloth and ashes because of one small group of idiots. And we’ll do it all again in 3 years.
Cynic first – you do not back stab your allies in a war That is the sort of thing that if you need to ask “why” no reply is worth making.
As for the practical effect: Pulling out less than 600 men may have little effect “on the ground”, but it boosts enemy morale (“look we have driven out the Australians, just as we drove out the Spanish and the Italians and are driving out the Poles”) and also gives a talking point to their friends in the United States Congress.
I hope the people who say nothing much will happen in domestic policy are correct. But, of course, that means all the P.C. stuff will continue and get stronger – due to the stanglehold the left have on the “education system” and the media.
On tax and spend Mr Howard had a good record by standards of modern Western governments (yes I know those standards are terrible).
I put a few other bits of economic stuff on the other thread (and I am too lazy to type them again here).
Lastly WalterBoswell:
Very good.
I wish I could sum things up in a single line.
Worthless platitude. Allies are forever plotting to stab each other in the back during wars. As I pointed out, the two most popular ‘allies’ in Washington now are France and Germany, not Australia and Britain. Gordon Brown hasn’t pulled the troops out of Iraq, yet people (most of them neocons) in Washington have been slamming our forces in Iraq, and by all accounts Bush prefers Sarkozy to Brown. How many troops did France ever send though?
Allies are usually transient. An ally today soon becomes the bogeyman, and vice versa. The Mujaheeden were supposedly brave fighters for self-determination in the 1980s, now they are ‘Islamofascists’. The Germans were incurably evil in 1945, yet supposedly highly virtuous by 1947.The Soviets were great guys in 1945, yet incurable maniacs by 1947. Winston Churchill talked about obliterating the Japanese race during WW2, yet by the Korean War, we realised the Japs were actually swell fellows all along. And that Mao, who had been our ally in WW2, was actually a downright menace. The Finns were brave fighters for democracy in 1939, but by 1941 were suddenly vicious enemies of democracy. Donald Rumsfeld was able brag in 1988 that normalising Iraqi- US ties was his greatest achievement, yet within years Hussein was all of a sudden the new Hitler. And so on and so on.
Considering this (Link)is what our friends in Iraq are like, I’m finding it difficult to really distinguish between friend and foe in Iraq. In fact most of our new friends in Iraq were classed as evil enemies only months ago. Here (Link)is more evidence that we are giving aid to other people who not long ago were supposedly evil.
If all these Sunni militias end up rebelling against the coalition forces again, will it be acceptable for me to accuse you of having given aid and comfort to the enemy?
“You do not backstab allies in a war”
“worthless platitude”.
Cynic your reply may be in accordance with the modern meaning of your name. But it also shows that, whilst you may believe in some libertarian doctrines (for example in economics), you are not a man who can be trusted.
On the contrary, I am a man of my word in my private dealings. But it is a worthless platitude because you are applying it to politics, and only morons believe any politicians actually mean it when they say to another country that they will stand by them at all costs. There are vast amounts of evidence that allies plot, scheme, and backstab each other during wars. Think of how Russia backstabbed its allies in 1762, or how the Roosevelt administration tried to undermine the British Empire during WW2, or how the Soviets were flooding the West with spies while we gave it massive amounts of war material, or how all the Western promises made to assist Finland in 1939 came to naught.
In Iraq too, it would be interesting to know what our ‘allies’ in Baghdad (the Shiite elected government) think of all this aid and support the US military is giving to the Sunni militias that only months ago were Al Qaeda allies. Surely they interpret this as backstabbing?
It is not possible to draw any such line between “private dealings” and war Cynic.
And nor do politicians doing bad things in the past justify other bad things in present or future.
No one forced Australia to go into Iraq with the United States and others – it may have been dumb, but you do not turn away from a fight in the middle of it leaving your friends to die.
Perhaps reading, if you have not already done so, “The Homecomming of Beorhtnoth” by Tolkien would help you understand this (it has two men discussing the events the well known poem, “The Battle of Maldon”, is based on).
The lord was a fool (he let the Vikings cross the causeway), and the fight was hopeless (as the Vikings outnumbered the English), but you still fight – and if others run away, you do not.
And there was a lot more reason to run away from that fight than there was to run away from Iraq which is NOT hopeless (in spite of all your clever double talk above).
Nor was Tolkien a romantic (well he was – but not in the silly modern sense) just like C.S. Lewis he was a soldier in the First World War – a lot harder than Iraq.
As for Iraq, running away would NOT end the war – either in Iraq or for the West in general.
On the contrary, both the most radical Sunni and the most radical Shia (who both hold the interpretation of Islam that hold that all non Muslims and moderate Muslims ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD must be exterminated or enslaved) would be vindicated.
So the fight in the rest of the world would just get harder. For a start the fight in Afghanistan would get a lot harder almost at once.
Contrary to the late Murry Rothbard and Ron Paul the West has real enemies – not just people justly angry with our misdeeds.
Oh I don’t necessarily advocate clearing out of Iraq. I would be merely be satisfied by drafting war supporters and sending them the bill in full. If that took place, I would stop complaining. In fact, ALL government operations should be operated on such a basis. There would be much fewer socialists, worldsavers, neocons, global democracy boosters, and other such rogues if they were made to carry out and pay for their insane schemes.
Rubbish. War is a government racket.
“Send the war supporters to fight in Iraq”.
You remind of Mr Moore with his claims about Congressmen and their sons.
When, for example, Duncan Hunter pointed out that his son was fighting in Iraq (and that he had been in combat in his own youth) Mr Moore did not even reply (he just went on making the same false claims).
“neo cons” and “world savers”
That does not sound like Donald Rumsfeld (or quite a few others) to me – please get a clue Cynic.
The West has real enemies and wishing them away (or pretending that they are people who are justly angry with our various misdeeds) is silly.
“War is a government racket”.
Words from the brain of Murry Rothbard.
Do not resist the Nazis in Poland OR ANYWHERE ELSE.
Do not resist the Communists in Korea OR ANYWHERE ELSE (the Ludwig Von Mises Institute has been proundly sending out Rothbard’s anti NATO writings again recently).
The United States left as an island of semi freedom in a sea of tyranny – an island that would not have lasted long.
You are not being cynical – you are just being stupid.
I couldn’t give a damn about sending the kids of Congressmen to war. I’d much prefer to send the Congressmen. And the president, and the bureaucrats, and the think tankers, and their media gulls, and the rest of the other folk H.L Mencken derided as professional patriots and right-thinkers.
Talking of Mencken, I was reading his Minority Report today, and came across this gem:
‘Is a young man bound to serve his country in war? In addition to his legal duty there is perhaps also a moral duty, but it is very obscure. What is called his country consists merely of professional politicians, a parasitical and anti-social class of men. They never sacrifice themselves for their country. They make all wars, but very few of them ever die in one. If it is the duty of a young man to serve his country under all circumstances then it is equally the duty of the an enemy young man to serve his. Thus we come to a moral contradiction and absurdity, so obvious that even clergymen and editorial writers sometimes notice it.’
Rumsfeld not a neocon? Rumsfeld was stabbed in the back by the neocons. But if he was not a neocon, he was surely a fellow traveller. He was involved with PNAC, Center for Security Policy, Committee for the Free World, and Empower America, all neocon outfits. Joshua Muravchik of AEI admitted in Foreign Affairs magazine last year that his fellow neocons had made a mistake supporting ‘the revolution in military strategy that our neocon hero, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, has championed’. Clearly this man was very popular with neocons until it became necessary to find scapegoats for their pet project. From a neocon perspective though, Rumsfeld’s ideas on the military were sound at the beginning. The Iraq War remember was supposed to be going to be ‘cakewalk’. This (Link)cartoon has plenty of good quotes from the time. They only shied away from Rumsfeld’s doctrine when they realised that Iraq was a clusterfuck. I read regularly that Cheney isn’t a neocon either, yet he surrounds himself with them and frequently comes to the same alarmist and paranoid conclusions.
Donald Rumsfeld was not, nor had he ever been, a neocon (i.e. a social democrat who believes in using military force to spread democracy – he was not a social democrat and he believed in using military force to kill enemies of the United States, spreading democracy was a side issue for him).
“Used as scapegoat when things went wrong”.
Two errors here.
Rumsfeld wanted an “in-out” operation (to get Saddam for being a pain in the arse). Like former Gerneral Garner he wanted elections in 90 days and then get out (if the locals then proceeded to eat each other that was just too bad).
Rumsfeld should have resigned when he lost that argument – but he did not and went along with a policy (nation building) which he had no interest in at all.
If the United States was going to “stablize Iraq” that meant a very different operation (and a lot more men) than Rumsfeld wanted.
This was NOT said “when things went wrong” – the military said that well in advance (he basically tossed their plan out of the window – which was fine for the in out operation he wanted, but not for what was decided upon).
And so did political critics – for example John McCain said it so many times that he sounded like a record with the needle stuck.
“Send the policy leaders into combat”.
Wrong again Cynic – Donald Rumsfeld piloted aircraft for the Navy in the West Pacific in the 1950’s (and his closest friend was shot down by the Chinese).
Or perhaps you meant send him into combat in 2003 – when he was too old for it (in which case you are just being an arsehole).
As for H.L. Mencken:
Nazi Germany no problem, evil Britain (and Americans whose anncestors came from Britian) responsible for everything that is bad in the world and in the United States.
I do not agree.
Of course my own position on Iraq in 2003 was that the West should not go in at all (even for an in-out operation), but although the Irish side of my family might say “I would not start from here” in reality we have to.
The matter at hand is not “do we go in” but WIN THE WAR.
I have explained to you why just pulling out is not an option, but I doubt that you understood the matter. It is pointless to explain the same matter again and again.
It is the same with the point I made about not betraying your friends (being in a fight with them and then leaving them to fight alone). If you really do not understand “why” one does not do that it is pointless to talk to you.
The one is a practical matter – the boost it gives to the enemy in the world stuggle (and there is a world struggle going on).
And the other is a moral matter (a self evident moral matter).
But you seem to understand neither practical things or moral ones.
I have read a hell of a lot of Mencken. I have never come across anything he wrote where he actually praised Hitler. But of course, in the left-wing/ politically correct right view of the world, he must still be a Nazi. Never mind that he said that all the German Jews should be allowed into America!
And as I said, I don’t advocate withdrawal. I merely advocate making those responsible foot the bill (both in cash and blood). As soon as my tax money no longer has to pay for the debacle, I shall quit complaining and allow them to enjoy their bloody fun and games. Of course, they could stay for 2000 years and the Middle East will be no more peaceful by then than it was 2000 years ago. The military are merely professional killers. They are no more adept at social work than politicians, priests, bureaucrats, psychobabble quacks, charitymongers, and all other uplifters and upyankers of the lowly and downtrodden. Our current allies in Iraq- the Sunni terrorists who only months ago were killing American troops in large numbers- will no doubt turn on the US troops eventually, the Shiites will side with Iran if there is ever a serious military confrontation with Iran, the peace between the Kurds and the Turks is at the mercy of half mad generals in Ankara and Marxist vermin in Kurdistan, and as long as Saudi Arabia maintains a porous border, foreign fighters will get into Iraq easily.
But of course, this is war! So it is the duty of all right-thinking patriots to be extremely optimistic about this glorious big government programme. Onward Christian soldiers!
I never said that Mencken “praised Hitler” please TRY and tell the truth Cynic.
But he did not support resisting Hitler.
You can not play this game Cynic – well you “can” play it (because you are) but it is not good to play it.
It is the Rothbard game: The following words are NOT quotes – but they ARE a truthful account of this sort of libertarianism.
“I am not in favour of slavery – but I against against fighting the Confederacy”.
“I am not in favour of Imperial Germany taking over Europe, – but I am against resistance in the First World War, even though Imperial Germany had plans to take over Latin America and just about everywhere else”.
“I am not in favour of Nazi Germany – but I am against any resistance to it”.
“I am not in favour of Marxism – but I am against any resistance to it in Asia, Europe, or anywhere else”.
“I am not in favour of the interpretation of both Sunni and Shia Islam that hold that all infidels should be either exterminated or enslaved – but I am against resisting them even after 9/11”.
The idea used to be the United States as some sort of island of liberty in a sea of tyranny – an island that would not have existed long.
Now things are worse.
Even after a direct attack on the United States (9/11) some Ludwig Von Mises institute people (although NOT Ron Paul – I admit that) were still against any resistance.
It was not just Iraq – it was Afghanistan as well.
I have in front of me “The Mises Review” (Volume 7, Number 4, Winter 2001) where David Gordon uses the excuse of a review of a book by G.E.M. Anscombe (a book written decades before) to launch an attack upon the United States.
In Afghanistan America was fighting a way to “kill innocents” (and so on).
In short even after 9/11 it was America-is-always-wrong.
And that was in H.L.M. also.
YES I fully support what Mencken says about the wrong headed people who govern Britain and America and so on – but he lets that spill over into not supporting the country.
Not once, but again and again.
Once World War One was on the essential thing was to WIN THE WAR – where was his support?
When Hitler was about – the essential thing was to DEFEAT HITLER – where was Mencken’s support in the 1930’s (or even the 1940’s)?
In the Cold War the essential thing was to contain the Communists – where was Mencken’s support?
All we got is the polticians are stupid (yes), the politicians are corrupt (sometimes yes), the government wastes lots of money – yes, yes, yes.
But there is an elephant in the room here – the ENEMY.
The enemy is NOT made up by the politicians to get some weapons contracts (or whatever) the West has real enemies and they have to be defeated.
Of course one should not hero worship George Walker Bush (and so on).
But one should not support the enemy either.
And undermining resistance to the enemy IS de facto support for the enemy.
I repeat the West has real enemies – it is NOT a matter of people being justly angry with us for our various misdeeds.
To be fair to Rudd, he doesn’t plan on starting to withdraw until mid ’08. Since the US is planning on withdrawing over a fairly similar timeframe (although the US will leave behind a permanent force, which the Aussies will not), it seems overly zealous to be terribly upset with Rudd for wanting his troops to be out maybe a month ahead of the average American.
Howard was one of the greatest rhetorical supporters for action the world had. Rudd is never going to be able to live up to him. Still, he’s supporting the war in Afghanistan, and he seems happy to keep Australia as the reserve policeman of the world, stepping in wherever America does not (unless it’s an ex-colony retaining close ties with its previous ruler).
Of course Howard wasn’t good enough for Samizdata, but he was one of the world’s better attempts at producing someone who might have been. Rudd is less impressive, but we could still do with a lot more like him. Imagine if we had Germany run by a guy like that, or Italy, or Brazil, the heaps of praise that would be lavished.
Lastly, it seems like the biggest upside was the failure of the greens to make any headway, despite the expectation that Labor’s move to the right would make space for them, along with claims that the environment is becoming more important. That and the Climate Change Coalition failing by an even greater margin.
If you oppose the Patriot Act, you support Al Qaeda. If you opposed Tony Blair’s plans for 90 day detentions, you support Al Qaeda. If you think that the money of yours being taxed to pay for the chaos in Iraq could have been better spent by yourself, you support Al Qaeda. If you complain about having to be molested at airports by nitwit security guards, you support Al Qaeda. If you oppose giving weapons and training to Sunni terrorists that only months ago were our enemies in Iraq, you support Al Qaeda. If you were against De-baathization, you support Al Qaeda. If you are now against letting Baathists back into the Iraqi government, you support Al Qaeda. If you complain about how the country treats wounded soldiers, you support Al Qaeda. And so on. Jingoists will always interpret all of this as giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
No Cynic.
If you oppose supporting any resistance to Hitler anywhere (unless he launched a direct attack upon the United States itself) then you are, at best, a fool
And if you accuse the United States of fighting in Afghanistan to “kill the innocent” then you are an arsehole.
Supporting your country in time of war is not the same as thinking the politicians are wonderful.
And you might be surprised to learn who said that it was vital to expose blunders and mistakes in operations – in order to try and stop mistaken tactics killing more of your own side, and helping the enemy win. No matter if you really upset political leaders who you may have voted for or supported in other ways.
Clue the man owns Fox – and he learnt the above from his own father (from his father’s coverage of the First World War).
James of England:
Good points.
No, you don’t understand! You support Al Qaeda. Criticising our great leaders and generals gives aid and comfort to the terrorists! You are clearly undermining troop morale. You are just an unpatriotic leftie!
True Cynic.
There is a danger of letting support for one’s side in time of war spill over into demonizing critics of military and political leaders (for example John McCain might have found himself banned from British newspapers during the First World War for the sorts of things he said right from 2003).
But there is also a danger of going beyond attacks on the tactics (and so on) of military and political leaders.
For example, to pretend that there is no enemy (just “imperialist” plots by the West – the Murry Rothbard line on Vietnam being that it was not about communism it was “a National Liberation struggle against Western Imperialism” – this actually uses the very words of the communist agitprop machine, although that moron Robert McNamara also came out with something close to this). I wonder if the great Murry ever tried explaining his line to any Boat People.
Or that the enemy is just made up of people who are justly angry with us for our various misdeeds (such as helping kick out a pro Soviet Iranian Prime Minister in 1953).
Although I don’t like the women at all, one amusing thing that will come out of a Hillary Clinton presidency would be the possibility that we may see all the current patriotic windbags on Fox and in the Weekly Standard and the GOP party at large and so on get demonised as un-American and unpatriotic. I would have zero sympathy for them.
I don’t think the Vietcong were really a ‘National Liberation’ movement. But it seems rich to blast anti-war protesters in the 60s too harshly for believing that. The US government had been perfectly happy to treat them as a ‘National Liberation’ movement when the Japs controlled Indochina. The same goes for the Chinese Communists.
So why is FDR the great hero, yet Murray Rothbard the Soviet stooge?
Because FDR was only speaking in this way for manipulative purposes, the goal underlying which was the security of the United States. Perhaps not the most admirable way to go about running a foreign policy, but at least he was doing his job in good faith. (And I do not say that lightly as I absolutely despise FDR to the point of finding it difficult to keep dimes in my pocket.)
I am somewhat less convinced that Murray Rothbard had the safety and security of the United States at heart. I admit I have read little of his works and so am not qualified to say so, but it’s hard for me to shake the impression sometimes that he was simply another New Left goof for whom politics was an ersatz religion not at all based in reality.
Considering that the US was at war with its former Chinese allies within 5 years of WW2 ending, and at war with its former Vietnamese allies within 15 years after WW2, it is hard to see how FDR’s support for them actually improved anything. And let us face facts, FDR did more to improve the hopes of global communism than Murray Rothbard or even the New Left ever did. All that aid to the USSR, all those Soviet spies that got into government because of the New Deal and the war effort, all the skullduggeries associated with Yalta, all that aid to Mao and Ho Chi Minh, and so on.
Alright, I’m convinced.
Did I say that F.D.R. was a hero of mine Cynic?
He is not.
And I do not like President Wilson or David Lloyd George – actually I despise them (all three of them).
But that does not make me side with Hitler – or with Imperial Germany (not that I am saying that Imperial Germany was anything like as bad).
As for the protesters:
I remember Karl Hess saying that he should not be attacked for what he said in the 1960’s and early 1970’s “because I was using a lot of drugs at the time”.
Murry Rothbard WAS NOT.
He was cold sober – and he knew he was just repeating enemy propaganda.
Early in life Rothbard had decided not that the American government was a bad thing (I would agree with that – and the British government) but that it was also the worst thing in the world and anything was justified if it was attack upon it.
He would oppose any govenment action – and if it meant Europe (not just Asia) falling well that was not relevant. And he would cooperate with anyone who was opposed to Uncle Sam. He just did not care who he ended up working with – not “did not know”, did not care.
Somehow he “lost the meaning” and he lost it a long time before the 1960’s.
As for Fox News:
If there is a President H. Clinton, News International will make a deal.
Tax and regulation powers will mean that they have to make a deal.
And H. Clinton will not tolerate opposition – so a deal will be compulsory.
Actually you may be surprised at how many people walk away from F.N.C. when that happens.
They are not libertarians – but a lot of people there are not the windbags you think they are.
Their principles are not the same as yours (or mine) but they do have principles – and they are willing to pay a very heavy financial price for them.
“Names, give me names”.
O.K. for a start I think that Neil Cavuto would leave (yes I know that would mean giving up his V.P. spot at Fox Business – but he is in poor health and I think he would say “fuck it” if he was told that he could no longer say what he wants to say) and I think that Brit Hume would also leave (as would others).
I even think that the “arch windbag” (as his foes describe him) Bill O’Reilly would leave.
And Mr O’Reilly is basically a 1960’s moderate Democrat (which means, these days, that he favours Republicans).
It would not be the higher taxes and regulations that would make him leave (although he would not like the higher taxes – the greater regulation would not bother him, he likes regulations) – it would be having to support all the P.C. stuff (or at least not oppose it).
He would not accept not being allowed to speak against it.
The man has made enough money to retire and I just know that if told that he could not attack the P.C. stuff anymore (which he would be told) he would not accept it.
“You are being absurd, he would go along”.
My gut says no.
On the print publications:
That has stated already Cynic.
For example the Postal Service recently changed rates so that “Time” magazine and co benefitted – and magazines like “Human Events” lost out.
And before you say “so why should I care about pro war rags like Human Events” the magazine has always carried anti Iraq war writers as well.
I am sure that President H. Clinton and co would be very inventive in dealing with the minority of print press publications that are conservative (although some old tricks, like tax audits, would be used).
Of course castrating the W.S.J. would be part of the deal with News International – but there would be ways to deal with the rest also.
I don’t think that you are being absurd about O’Reilly at all. He slaughters sacred cows, that’s his whole shtick. If he is not allowed to do it, who’s going to watch? Anyway, I hope we never have to find out.
James of England November 28, 1.41. says: Howard was one of the greatest rhetorical supporters for action the world had.
Howard, whatever his virtues, was nothing of the sort. It took the arrival of Rudd, spouting endless party political pap, complete with mechanical “out the back door” (cue odd over-the-shoulder over thumbs up gesture) to make Howard look better than Mr Magoo as an orator.
As a Blairite supporter of the Iraq war I felt desperately let down by Howard’s complete, total inarticulacy in putting the case. Maybe his inability to put the case stemmed from the fact that he (Howard) is an old-fashioned conservative who thought the war was utopian, social-modelling foolishness masquerading as responsible foreign policy?
I do wish Paul Marks would stop being so abusive. His repeated use of “arsehole” to describe cynic is wide of the mark – based on what cynic writes – and intended to stifle legitimate argument.
Mike Borgelt complains that Howard’s nanny state opposed the gun lobby. This editorial in The Australian newspaper (7/12) says why I, and most other Australians, would disagree with him.
In contrast, in Australia, after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996 in which Martin Bryant murdered 35 people and wounded 37 others, then prime minister John Howard co-ordinated uniform gun laws in which all states and territories banned or heavily restricted the legal ownership of self-loading rifles, self-loading shotguns and pump-action shotguns, implementing a buyback program that destroyed 700,000 guns. Since then, the risk of dying by gunshot has halved and there have been no mass executions whereas in the decade leading up to Port Arthur there were 11 mass shootings, which killed 112 people. By 2003, the total number of gun deaths in Australia had dropped from 521 to 289 and gun-related homicides had dropped to one-fifteenth the rate of the US.
Chris Oliver.
I notice you do not give the stats for total violent deats in Australia.
As for the idea that “gun control” laws reduce murder rates – well I think that is a reach (considering all the other factors involved in crime).
There are many areas of the world where a very large percentage of the population own firearms and yet the murder rate is very low indeed – and some of these areas are in the United States.
It is the people who matter – not the regulations. After all someone who is prepared to murder is also likely to be prepared to violate a “gun control” regulation.
Chris Oliver.
You complain that I was “abusive” to Cynic.
Cynic would be the first to admit that he uses abuse himself – I treat people the way they treat me and others.
As for “arsehole” – I said that anyone who wanted to send a Donald Rumsfeld into combat in 2003, when he was in his 60’s, was an arsehole (Mr Rumsfeld had flown navy aircaft in the 1950’s in the Pacific and his best friend was shot down by the Chinese – so he is not exactly a stranger to combat).
I said a person who wanted to send Donald Rumsfeld into combat in 2003 was an arsehole because such a person would be an arsehole – I was simply telling the truth. However, as you describe yourself as a Blairite I fully understand how you would be offended by someone telling the truth.
Chris Oliver.
If we are talking about “abusive” how about your calling those people who regard the right of private firearm ownership as the foundation of liberty, as it is recognised in both the American and the British Bill of Rights (the latter document long since forgotten by most people), as “the gun lobby”.
I will apologize for “arsehole” (even though it was true) when you apologize for “gun lobby”, which was untrue. Untrue for it implies some financial or other self regarding motivation (for example that people are in some organized “lobby” paid for by firearms manufacturers).
Many people who uphold the right of private firearm ownership do not own a firearm – for example I do not.
If I attack someone I do it openly – and truthfully. I point out something about them which is not good.
I do not play B.B.C. or Australian Broadcasting Company style games.
If I dislike someone I let people know that I do and why I dislike them. I do not pretend to be “objective” whilst slanting things with word games like “gun lobby”.
Guess what people who play such games are….
Paul’s posts following mine remind me of a famous New Yorker magazine cartoon which has two dogs in conversation. One says to the other: ‘I’ve decided to give up senseless barking and take up blogging.’
Okay, I’ll delete the word ‘gun lobby’ not because I think it necessarily carries the weight of meaning Paul thinks it does (like most words lobby of course has multiple definitions but I was simply meaning that small group of people who agitate or stay at home and fester over Australia’s reformed gun laws) not for that reason, but because approval of the post Port Arthur gun laws has been fairly universal and lobby implies more than a few wayward and unreasonable cranks wanting their civil liberty to own deadly pump action shotguns, self-loading rifles and pistols to outweigh everyone else’s entitlement not to be shot in Hoddle Street, Queen Street, Milperra or Port Arthur type incidents. Now that I’ve dropped ‘gun lobby’, you’ll see it really doesn’t alter the argument one jot.
Sorry to have dissed you. No desire at all for this blog site to become laden with smartarsery.
Chris Oliver.
First I note that you are still pretending that you did not intend to be abusive when you used the term “gun lobby”.
This illustrates my “barking” point rather well. When I insult someone I do it openly – when you insult someone you pretend you are not doing so.
It seems a “Blairite” can not be honest even in their insults.
“But this does not change my argument”.
This would be the “argument” that a man who is prepared to commit mass murder is not prepared to break a “gun control” regulation?
“But there has not been a mass killing since …”
So what? There was not a mass killing of this type for years before the P.A. murders either.
Nor does a man need a firearm to commit mass murder (assuming that a regulation could make firearms vanish) – driving a car down a crowded sidewalk will do the job.
Instances please of a Virginia Tech or Port Arthur scale massacre committed by car? Presumably the homicide and suicide rate in America is a function of the number of firearms per capita, rather than the number of cars?
What a shame that a site I was drawn to after reading a very smart Jonathan Pearce blog has degenerated to this sort of dumbness.
Chris Oliver.
The mass murder at Virginia Tech was caused by the very “gun control” regulations that you support.
In spite of a long campaign against the regualtions (which failed to get the regulations of this State college overturned in the legislature of the Commonwealth of Virginia) Virginia Tech practiced the policy you support – which is why the students and staff (including an exIsraeli army man and holocaust survivor) had no defence against their murderer.
You have just proved that the “dumb” person around here is yourself.
In the past efforts at mass murder at colleges had been ended by the prompt action of civilians – for example the case many years ago in Texas where an academic simply got his hunting rifle from his car to deal with the problem (academics were rather different in those days).
Indeed only a couple of days ago a volunteer at a church in Colorado shot dead someone who was tryng to murder the congregation.
Had they waited for the police to turn up things we have been rather worse.
As you are an expert on the P.A. mass murder perhaps you can tell me how many of the victims were armed.
Did anyone else hear that whistle?
Half time or full time?
It will have to be at least half time for me, as I am off to bed.
It is 0438 here.
Sleep tight Paul. No desire to get into a futile private exchange – that’s not really what blogging is about, is it? Arguments for and against gun ownership have been done to death.
You and I disagree on the overall picture:
I think there’s good evidence that more guns (and, of course, all sorts of other factors in a society) are likely to lead to an increase in homicides and suicides compared to the same society without guns. You seem to dispute that.
Britain’s blight is too many knives and too much beeer-swilling.
As to the specific massacres, of course I agree with you that if there’d been a trained, armed marksman at Virginia Tech, Port Arthur etc the outcome might have been different/better. But my belief is that the more guns there are in the community the more likely it is that these events, and tragic accidents, will occur.
I’m not even sure I want untrained, agitated, fearful people trying to take pot shots at gunmen using notoriously inaccurate handguns.
Chris Oliver.
Well I did not get to sleep long – as, like most people, I had things to do at 0900.
However, I thank you for your kind words.
As you may have noticed I get testy when I get tired and “stressed out” (which is most of the time).
On the firearms point:
There is only thing worse that a tired and agitated person (for example me) having a firearm in a situation when someone is trying to kill him and lots of other people.
This is for the tired and agitated person NOT to have a firearm.
As for training – I take your point. Those who own firearms should train – a threat may be enough to make a criminal back off, but a mass murderer is not going to back down.
Shooting well is difficult. Joe Horn may be able to come out of his house in the middle of a dark night and kill two running targets with one shot each – but some of us are not Texan.
One good thing about us tired and agitated people – we never engage in mass murder ourselves. Such a thing would require far too much energy.