US-Swiss relationship being re-assessed... by the Swiss?

Swiss party wants to punish U.S. for UBS probe

http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssFinancialServicesAndRealEstateNews/idUSTHO15017420090221

The fact that there was a probe should not be too surprising. Switzerland has long had agreements with the US and some other countries to reveal the identities of Swiss bank account holders, if there is credible evidence they are engaged in criminal activities.

The difference here is that it seems the Swiss were heavily pressured to provide the names, "or else", and that seems to be part of what the SVP is protesting.

Here's the part that makes me sad.

1. Switzerland and the US have for a very long time had amicable relations, the sort you would expect between two vigorous democracies with similar political traditions. The US founding fathers spoke admiringly of the Swiss.
2. The current Swiss banking secrecy laws were implemented in the 1930s, primarily to shield Jewish account holders from Nazi officials trying to track down those peoples' wealth for confiscation. If the guy in the Berlin branch of a Swiss bank doesn't have the real account numbers, you can't beat the info out of him. And if you try intimidating a Swiss banker or his family inside Switzerland, you are likely to get shot.

Based on the US behavior in question, and the outcome our recent elections, I wonder if Switzerland is now re-assessing its relationship with the USA, much as it had to with Germany in the 1930s.

"Well, Hans, it seems the US electorate has fallen for the same thing the German one did in the 1930s. Time to start limiting our interactions with them?"

The Swiss banking laws remain in place because there are many countries in the world run by people little better than the Nazis, who would be glad to unjustifiably extort perfectly legitimate money from their citizens if it knew they had some overseas. The Swiss provide a legitimate safe haven for such money.

Sad to think if the US may now be moving into the category of 3rd world kleptocrat governments the Swiss have traditionally been on guard against.

Joseph McCarthy: New Labour Hero?

Reading about the upcoming implementation of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act, and its likely chilling effect on comics (and other forms of expression), I had a sense of deja vu.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/4370072/New-pornography-laws-could-make-comic-books-illegal-claim-campaigners.html

Ah, yes. The 1950s crusade against comic books in the US, during the McCarthy era.

Intolerant, tiny-minded ignoramuses crusading against free expression, past and present.

I think we can all agree that child pornography, in any form, is unacceptable. But the Act's provisions are broad enough to cause a chilling effect on other forms of expression, long considered acceptable, and at times of artistic and dramatic merit (and what's wrong with just plain entertaining?)

What will happen to magazines like Viz under this measure? Surely Big Vern's serial suicides, and the activities of the Boy Scouse, will not be tolerable under the Act.

And yet, in the blunt and brutal (and hilarious) fiction of Viz there is surely more social and political truth to be gleaned than in many an issue of Labour-approved publications such as, say, The Grauniad.

It's been said that Labour dislikes Viz more than the Tories ever did. And one suspects that, as with the McCarthyites, the real goal of this legislation is to stifle social and political commentary of all kinds, based in a brittle intolerance of satire in any form... an intolerance common to those whose who are painfully aware that their activities do not bear close scrutiny, sometimes to the point of laughability.

During the US hearings, Willam M Gaines, the publisher of horror comics now considered classics, not only of comic art but of social and moral comment, printed the following brilliant pictorial analysis in one of his other publications, the early MAD magazine.

(click the image to see the entire thing)

The McCarthyite inquisitors were not amused. Given that it is Labour pushing the current restrictions, perhaps the ghost of Mr Gaines may be amused to see who it is that's out to ban comics in this case.

Incidentally, the wording of his analysis could easily be modified to reflect other forms of political intolerance: "It's not that they don't like free political expression for THEM. They don't like it for you!" "It's not that they don't like guns for THEM. They don't like guns for you!" and so forth. But I digress.

How wonderfully progressive the UK's Labour party is. The longer they stay in power, the more the UK progresses into the past.

We now need permission to exercise Constitutional rights? Which ones?

Someone has died in a part of the US where the Constitution is not fully respected, arguably due to that very reason. And now, in order to honor him, the rest of us need to lose our own Constitutional rights? Huh?

Here we go... someone has brought a bill to the US Congress to introduce national gun registration.

But well, gosh, who could argue with that... right?

http://www.snowflakesinhell.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/hr45.pdf

This process began in the same manner in Weimar Germany. And in the UK. Gun registration has always later been used for confiscation, everywhere it's been instituted.

So much easier to round people up for torture, or simply intimidate them into silence, once that confiscation has occurred.

Outright confiscations aside, in practice, every renewal cycle there are more excuses not to grant the renewal, and more prohibitions applied. This was the UK model. In prewar Germany, if you had a Jewish name or were on Hitler's sh*tlist, no renewal. This is similar to how "discretionary" gun registration approval tends to work in those few (but highly violent and corrupt) US jurisdictions where registration is required.

Of course, it's been argued since day one that the FBI instant check system is an instant registration system, and I have never had reason to doubt that's been happening. If most of the country is buying on a daily basis, who cares (much) ? But now it's out in the open... and if this passes, there will no longer be the potential to jail or fire people for violating the "no archive" principle of the current setup.

Worse, there will, of course, be a new inherent requirement to periodically "prove" the right to ownership.

Do I also now need to periodically "prove" my right to free speech, or not to be enslaved?

14 ... The Attorney General shall issue
15 a firearm license to an applicant who has submitted an
16 application that meets the requirements of section 102 of
17 this Act, if the Attorney General ascertains that the indi
18 vidual is not prohibited by subsection (g) or (n) of section
19 922 of title 18, United States Code, from receiving a fire
20 arm.

He shall? After what maximum amount of time has passed? Oops, I guess they forgot to add that part.

"Says here you complained a lot about Obama on the Internet, so we'll need some more time to do the ascertainin'. Haw haw haw!"

Lastly, Blair Holt (for whom the bill is named) was killed in Chicago, which already bans guns, yet has far more shootings per capita than neighboring communities that don't.

Never mind. The proponents of this bill already know these things (or if they don't, they haven't done their homework on the issue and don't belong in office). They don't care. To them, facts and logic standing in the way of their private agenda are just tiresome obstacles.

Remember how the founding fathers warned that if slavery, as an affront to the principles the country was founded on, was permitted to persist the country would end up tearing itself apart?

What about regions where other affronts to the Constitution -- such as tight restriction or prohibition on keep and bear -- have been allowed to fester for generations, for the sake of "getting along" politically?

Entire US cities and states filled with people who've been made to suffer under those political setups, hating those in other parts of the country who aren't oppressed the same way, yet failing to see the real reasons for their suffering. Or they just don't care, and are happy to see other people made miserable like them, or "put in their place". Like Orcs (who started as Elves, don't forget) going to battle in support of their master and oppressor Sauron.

I shouldn't have to prove my right to own something the Constitution guarantees me. I shouldn't be considered guilty until "proven" innocent by some bureaucratic rule.

No more than Obama should have to prove he shouldn't be enslaved by some white cracker. "Hey, the Constitution bans slavery!" "Constitution? Ah don't see no Constitution, bwah! Someone done shredded it!"

That's why we have a Constitution, isn't it? To say that there are certain things the government can't do, even if a majority votes for it?

If we really want to honor Blair Holt, restore the right to keep and bear to the citizens of Illinois, and of Chicago. If the shooter had had reason to believe the bus driver, or one of the parents, or a local resident or passerby might be armed (an impossibility in Chicago) he might have stayed home that day.

"Outmoded" Constitutions... and Civil Disobedience

We keep hearing from the Obama camp how the US Constitution is outdated.

What I'd like to see is their summary of exactly which bits are "outdated", and why.

Freedom of speech? Freedom of association? Prohibition on slavery? Freedom to be armed, against criminals and tyrants? Freedom of religion? The notion that government should be limited to specific, enumerated powers? Which one is "outdated" and why?

The real answer, of course, is that in their Orwellian lexicon, "outdated" simply means "inconvenient"... to their purposes.

By them sagely speaking of something being "outdated", a lot of people who want to appear and feel "reasonable" will nod "reasonably" and go along with it.

The funny thing is, all of the above, and most else in the Constitution, is still considered revolutionary by many governments and "leaders" in the world, and they do not approve. Well, for the sake of being "reasonable" and going with the opinion of "most people", we should ditch the Constitution in order to please them... right?

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Here's a related question.

If a majority in the US Congress voted to reinstate slavery, would we expect US citizens to participate in rounding up members of the targeted race? Would we expect members of that race to turn themselves in, or for people to turn in their spouses and children of that race?

Well, why not? If a government creates a law, then it must be OK and we should follow it without question, right?

This why we have a Constitution. Because even majority decisions, or decisions by the Executive branch, need to adhere to certain principles. At least in a society where the Executive isn't given unlimited arbitrary powers.

In the event of the latter... massive, primarily peaceful civil disobedience may be useful to contemplate.

When they demand that newly proscribed people (or items) be turned over, stay home instead. When the newly drafted gangbanger thugs led by lickspittle "political officers" show up at 2AM to collect, the entire neighborhood turns out to suggest they leave quietly.

Too many times in history, people have not responded like that when the thugs turned up and went house to house. I'd like to think that, by now, maybe we've all collectively learned something about this from the 20th century.

Civilized people worldwide must demand to be armed, or become slaves

The Belfast Telegraph reports (link below) the comments of a reporter who witnessed the shootings in the Mumbai train station.

Armed police stood by and did nothing while people were being shot. The photographer expressed a wish to have had a gun rather than a camera.

I think he has the right idea. The nice, reasonable, civilized people of the world have, to far too great an extent, played along with the notion that legally owned guns in private hands are a vice to be restricted or banned, rather than the great (I would say indispensable, in a democracy) force for social good they actually are.

It is a mark of the genius of the criminal and dictatorial classes of the world that they have managed to convince millions that the instrument of their individual freedom and security is actually something to be feared. Freud would undoubtedly have had something to say about this.

In those few countries that permit wide legal ownership of guns (which does NOT include India), crime rates tend to be low and shootings rare. In the US, shootings are frequent and crime is high only in those few jurisdictions (such as NYC, Chicago and LA) where guns are tightly restricted. In those jurisdictions, as in Mumbai, criminals have free reign to abuse and shoot whom they please, with a high likelihood of getting away with it.

There has been talk, long before John McCain mentioned the idea, of an international League of Democracies. I would say that a requirement for membership should be that those countries grant their citizens the legal right to gun ownership and carry (pending a background check, as is the case in most US states), and to bring those weapons along when traveling between those countries.

The initial membership would be small. It would include Norway, Switzerland, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, the USA, and perhaps a few others.

It would be nice to think that England, and perhaps India, might someday aspire to be full members. It's a bit sad to reflect that England would once have led the club, in days when gun ownership in the UK was wide and crime numbers a tiny fraction of today's.

If just a few UK and Indian victims of the Mumbai shootings had been armed, many lives might have been saved.

And perhaps the terrorists might never dared to have mount the attack to begin with. The best crime is the one that never occurs, because of quiet deterrence. That deterrence was not permitted to operate in Mumbai, and we have seen the results.

Until and unless the reasonable, civilized people of the world demand their governments get the hell out of the way of their right and means to effective self-defense, I fear we will see more cases like Mumbai.

.....................................................................

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/article14086308.ece

But what angered Mr D'Souza almost as much were the masses of armed police hiding in the area who simply refused to shoot back. "There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything," he said. "At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, 'Shoot them, they're sitting ducks!' but they just didn't shoot back."

"What is the point if having policemen with guns if they refuse to use them? I only wish I had a gun rather than a camera."

.....................................................................

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/30/asia/hotel.php

The Oberoi Group employs many plainclothes security officers in its hotels, but these are unarmed, Oberoi said. Obtaining a license for even a single officer to carry a gun is extremely difficult in India, which has tight gun control laws.

.....................................................................

http://www.abhijeetsingh.com/arms/india/

Gun Ownership in India, by Abhijeet Singh

"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest." -- Mahatma Gandhi

.....................................................................

When will we see someone like Dr Susanna Gratia Hupp on the international stage?

http://www.wmsa.net/gratia-hupp_1992.htm

Twilight of the slow suicide of Liberalism in the UK

When reasonable, fair-minded people render themselves defenseless, and sociopolitically prostrate before thugs, sooner or later they end up dominated in all aspects of their lives by those thugs.

Sharia law should be introduced into legal system, says leading barrister

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/3523672/Sharia-law-should-be-introduced-into-legal-system-says-leading-barrister.html

And what does this brave man have to say about such minor issues as the treatment of women under Sharia?

Sharia law has been criticised for its prevention of some rights for women. Mr Hockman reportedly conceded: “The position of women is one area where the emphasis is, to the say the least, rather different.”

Do tell. And what do you propose to do about that, exactly? Offer to keep women at home, barefoot and pregnant?

He said: “I am also sometimes confronted by those who point out that there are elements within the Muslim community who pose a threat to our very security. My answer is not to dispute them but to suggest that it is for those of us forming part of the majority community to address such problems.”

By choosing to submit to a system that is promoted and administered by the most extreme representatives of that community?

This person reminds me of those German Jews who cooperated with Hitler in the rounding up and ghettoization of their co-religionists, in the belief that by cozying up to a murderer, he might treat them more mercifully. Or the collaborators at least.

These disgusting collaborators ended up in the camps like everyone else.

Who the "Fairness Doctrine" is really for

The Fairness Doctrine isn't about making sure all ideas are heard equally. That tends to happen naturally in a society with free speech AND where people can feel free to speak without something bad "unofficially" happening to them afterward.

What it's really about is "fairness" to people who are saying things that can't stand up to scrutiny, or who are doing things that are indefensible -- things that no one could credibly justify or defend verbally if people knew what they were doing.

Consider this. If someone's doing something they'd be ashamed of and for which they have no justifiable explanation, or which is explicitly criminal and would get them arrested, the only response they have is to try to shut the person up who's spotlighting them.

As we know, the "fairness doctrine" in some countries (and a few US cities) is that journalists or others who point out unflattering things about the powerful simply end up dead or in mental hospitals.

But come on! That's a small price to pay. Consider the self-esteem of the person doing the unjustifiable thing in question.

Can you imagine how embarassing it must be for them to be doing something indefensible, and to have someone point out both what they're doing AND its indefensibility?

Why, it's just not FAIR. The poor little dears.

We just can't have that kind of unfairness. So we need the Fairness Doctrine to make sure it doesn't happen.

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Of course, some people might suggest those people could avoid this embarassment by not doing things that are indefensible, or saying things that don't stand up to scrutiny.

But that suggestion would be judgemental. And God knows, people being judgemental is simply the worst thing that can possibly happen in a society.