"Bomb Iran Bomb Bomb Bomb", joked Senator John McCain to the tune of the Beach Boy song, in the early days of the presidential campaign. Luckily for the world he is still Senator John McCain and not President McCain. But imagine how "Bomb Iran" from a presidential candidate sounded to the Iranians.
The Republicans were the best reason to hope for an Obama victory; or at least to view Obama as the lesser of two evils if you couldn't quite stomach the vacuity of the "Change" message, the the Blair-like (Cameron-like) contempt for the electorate that campaigning on something as non-specific as "Change" implies.
Much of what Obama has been doing on the home front has been awful: Bailout II, the stimulus, massive health care reforms, climate change; but generally on foreign policy, Obama has been an improvement. He has at least reduced the numbers of irreconciliable enemies of the free world. Reaching out to Cuba, Venezuala, Russia, especially Russia, that is good. On Iran too, he has been restrained, but is close to a lone voice. Congress voted to condemn the Iranians, with only one representative dissenting, the great Ron Paul. So politically it will be difficult.
Obama has been brave to resist calls to get heavy with Iran, but even in the first response, there was some ambiguity. Talk of "universal values" of democracy is close to neo-con/liberal interventionist talk, to the Iranians it would have still sounded like meddling, and the fear is that the realist foreign policy of "world citizen" Obama would collapse if regimes like Iran don't pass the values test. Sure enough, when the pressure gets tough, his rhetoric gets tough too. The neo-cons want the creedal nation to fight a messianic war for western democracy, and they can base their call to arms on the assumptions of the dominant liberal ideology.
As for an improvement in Iran if Moussavi wins, well look how empty the colour revolutions of Ukraine and Georgia ended up being. So don't hold your breath. Embracing western-led reforms led to terrible deprivation and disorder for Russia and Eastern Europe.
Meanwhile the American economy is heading for a lot more trouble according to Peter Schiff. It will take economic collapse to tame American, and western, hubris.
Tuesday 23 June 2009
Saturday 20 June 2009
Fighting the EUSSR: what will the Conservatives do?
The EU proposals for financial services regulation must put Kenneth Clarke and Peter Mandelson in a very difficult position. They supported more powers to the EU as the way of facilitating a liberalised economic system, financial services being an example. Not easy either for David Cameron's vision for Europe or William Hague, or anyone who hopes that our European partners will be on the side of British interests. The Charlemagne blog discusses Cameron's managerialist approach and the different face he shows to the British people - without committing himself of course.
UKIP show clarity on the issue, as Nigel Farrage says:
See also Peter Oborne on the "Blair/Cameron" pact and Clarke's support for the treaty. Expediency seems to be everything for the leader of the Conservative party.
What a waste. Labour implodes and small-time political organisers have suborned British conservativism.
UKIP show clarity on the issue, as Nigel Farrage says:
See also Peter Oborne on the "Blair/Cameron" pact and Clarke's support for the treaty. Expediency seems to be everything for the leader of the Conservative party.
What a waste. Labour implodes and small-time political organisers have suborned British conservativism.
Wednesday 17 June 2009
Unconservative immigration quotas
The official Conservative Party policy statement on immigration reads:
Immigration can be a real benefit to the UK, but only if it is properly controlled with its impact on the economy, public services and social cohesion taken into account.
Talk about immigration controls sounds promising to the vast majority of people worried about mass immigration, but the caveats are very wide. The statement goes on: "The first stage is making eligible for admission those who will benefit the economy" and "The second stage is an annual limit to control the numbers admitted with regard to the wider effects on society and the provision of public services" .
Immigration issue is reduced to another area of economic management, with a very vague nod to non-economic "wider effects" and a slightly more specific reference to the policy wonk territory of service provision. They avoid committing to the basic democratic principle that the people of this country have a right to determine who comes into their country. Immigration quotas will be set by policy makers in Whitehall, based on "pragmatic" - i.e., expedient reasons. In better economic times, they could be very high and the number won't include dependents. The "what works" mantra really means that the all-knowing bureaucracy will make the decisions for you based on their perfect knowledge of the situation, no choice being allowed to the people on the direction of policy.
It opens the way to a thorough-going managerialism. The quotas will be a similar type of decision to setting the level of interest rates, taxation or public spending. According to this logic, immigration numbers may as well be be set by the Bank of England. They wouldn't dare give it to the Bank of England of course, but it will be some government appointee, acting in the same way.
The annual limit sounds like it is changeable according to economic circumstances. Do they really think they will be able to know what the optimum number will be, even within a margin of a hundred thousand people? Where will they live? Conservatives are supposed to believe that this kind of management is futile, that's one of the things that differentiates them from socialists.
The justice of the quotas idea also assumes that the motives of Government are pure. Conservatives are supposed to be sceptical about that one too. Realistically, business interests will strongly influence decisions about the right number of immigrant considered of "real benefit" to our economy. They gain from the low wages. Knowing that the government will oblige with more immigrant workers, many companies and organisations will advertise jobs at a wages that British people can not afford to take. This will then justify more immigrants to fill all those jobs "British people don't want to do". Companies that don't follow suit will be disadvantaged. The low-wage,exploitative flexible, immigration-based economy with all the attendant inequalities will continue. Migration Watch say that a 10% increase in the proportion of immigrants leads to a 5% reduction in pay for semi-skilled and unskilled workers. Many of these will have a family, or want to start a family.
On the Radio 4 Any Questions programme, which for some reason is unavailable at time of writing (so I can't quote him), Philip Hammond emphasised the economic benefits, as I recall. The implications I am drawing were even more obvious from his phrase. Let's hope the media grill them on this, if only to expose their equivocations. It fits with everything that Peter Hitchens has been saying.
Immigration can be a real benefit to the UK, but only if it is properly controlled with its impact on the economy, public services and social cohesion taken into account.
Talk about immigration controls sounds promising to the vast majority of people worried about mass immigration, but the caveats are very wide. The statement goes on: "The first stage is making eligible for admission those who will benefit the economy" and "The second stage is an annual limit to control the numbers admitted with regard to the wider effects on society and the provision of public services" .
Immigration issue is reduced to another area of economic management, with a very vague nod to non-economic "wider effects" and a slightly more specific reference to the policy wonk territory of service provision. They avoid committing to the basic democratic principle that the people of this country have a right to determine who comes into their country. Immigration quotas will be set by policy makers in Whitehall, based on "pragmatic" - i.e., expedient reasons. In better economic times, they could be very high and the number won't include dependents. The "what works" mantra really means that the all-knowing bureaucracy will make the decisions for you based on their perfect knowledge of the situation, no choice being allowed to the people on the direction of policy.
It opens the way to a thorough-going managerialism. The quotas will be a similar type of decision to setting the level of interest rates, taxation or public spending. According to this logic, immigration numbers may as well be be set by the Bank of England. They wouldn't dare give it to the Bank of England of course, but it will be some government appointee, acting in the same way.
The annual limit sounds like it is changeable according to economic circumstances. Do they really think they will be able to know what the optimum number will be, even within a margin of a hundred thousand people? Where will they live? Conservatives are supposed to believe that this kind of management is futile, that's one of the things that differentiates them from socialists.
The justice of the quotas idea also assumes that the motives of Government are pure. Conservatives are supposed to be sceptical about that one too. Realistically, business interests will strongly influence decisions about the right number of immigrant considered of "real benefit" to our economy. They gain from the low wages. Knowing that the government will oblige with more immigrant workers, many companies and organisations will advertise jobs at a wages that British people can not afford to take. This will then justify more immigrants to fill all those jobs "British people don't want to do". Companies that don't follow suit will be disadvantaged. The low-wage,
On the Radio 4 Any Questions programme, which for some reason is unavailable at time of writing (so I can't quote him), Philip Hammond emphasised the economic benefits, as I recall. The implications I am drawing were even more obvious from his phrase. Let's hope the media grill them on this, if only to expose their equivocations. It fits with everything that Peter Hitchens has been saying.
Wednesday 3 June 2009
Vote for Liberal democrats is unchristian
The Liberal Democrats support the right to abortion as part of party policy after a conference vote in 1992. In doing so, the party stopped being officially neutral on the issue and leaving it to the individual conscience of MPs. This is why David Lord Alton left in the 1980's, he is now a cross-bench MP. To stand as a Liberal Democrat MP or councillor, to even be a member of their party, is to implicitly support a right to abortion.
The logic is clear, the party's policy is in conflict with Catholic teaching; but the bishops are quiet on this. One suspects this is partly due to the influence of liberal ideas in the hierarchy, but a more respectable reason is that the Catholic Church wants to avoid being too involved in party politics.
All very well, but Catholic commentators at least should take on the implications of the irreconcilable difference between Lib Dem policy and the duty of Catholics not to support abortion. It is the same as the Amnesty International case.
Reconciling support for a given party and Christian principles is a difficult issue, given that Christ did not mandate a set of rules to govern our lives. Christian leaders from many denominations argue that the BNP is anti-Christian, probably a counter-productive move. True conservatives, like Peter Hitchens, argue that supporting the BNP is incompatible with Christianity. No-one can accuse him of trying to be "relevant in changing times" or of greasing up to our politically correct masters, something that you can't say for the Catholic or Anglican hierarchies.
The Catholic press spouts the usual pieties. In the May 31, 2009 edition of the Catholic Times Christopher Graffius went through the voting options for good Catholics, starting with the obligatory "I would hope that no Catholic would vote for the racist British National party". Yes, but this isn't an argument: just crying "racist" is looking increasingly inadequate, given the damage that immigration is doing.
He goes further than this though: UKIP is a "dud choice" because "The church has always opposed petty nationalism". So, according to Graffius, supporting unaccountable bureaucracies and showing contempt for referendum results is OK? The Greens "advocate a population policy. A prominent advisor of theirs, Jonathan Porritt, recently backed a two-child limit for families", which is anti-life; I agree with him, but this is not quite the same as advocating abortion, although I'm sure the Greens, with their extreme liberal social policies, support abortion rights.
He continues. The Christian parties are overwhelmingly protestant and exclusive because non-Christians can not stand; I remember a Muslim stood for a Christian party in Scotland, but Graffius may well be right about the Christian party and the Christian Peple's Alliance, whom he uses as an example. But not about the Scottish Christian party".
Of the main parties, the Conservatives, as Graffius says, are no longer allied with Christian Democrats in the European parliament: "You could hold your nose when voting Tory on the basis that it would support Christian Democracy overall". The Christian Democratic parties support Christianity's place in Europe, but in the end they go with the tide. An overview of the debate is here.
Graffius bases his prescriptions on arbitrary reasons, inspired by the pious social-action, right-on version of Christianity that is becoming increasingly prevalent in the Catholic press. This philosophy has taken over "The Universe" entirely.
He doesn't mention Labour or the Liberal Democrats. So presumably these parties don't meet with his disapproval. But since Labour MPs voted overwhelmingly to keep the current abortion laws last year and the Liberal Democrats support abortion as a matter of party policy, forestalling individual choice, I find this rather shocking from a supposedly Catholic-minded commentator in a Catholic paper.
He suggests at the end making a pro-life on the ballot paper, so I don't accuse him of not caring about abortion; however, his silence on the pro-life record of the left-of-centre main parties is symptomatic of the way that the new piety of these social action Christians , while full of pursed-lipped disdain for "petty nationalism" of respectable right-wing parties like UKIP, makes them pass over the anti-Christian nature of the leftist political movements to which they want tosubordinate ally the Catholic Church.
Cross-posted on Christianity in the West
The logic is clear, the party's policy is in conflict with Catholic teaching; but the bishops are quiet on this. One suspects this is partly due to the influence of liberal ideas in the hierarchy, but a more respectable reason is that the Catholic Church wants to avoid being too involved in party politics.
All very well, but Catholic commentators at least should take on the implications of the irreconcilable difference between Lib Dem policy and the duty of Catholics not to support abortion. It is the same as the Amnesty International case.
Reconciling support for a given party and Christian principles is a difficult issue, given that Christ did not mandate a set of rules to govern our lives. Christian leaders from many denominations argue that the BNP is anti-Christian, probably a counter-productive move. True conservatives, like Peter Hitchens, argue that supporting the BNP is incompatible with Christianity. No-one can accuse him of trying to be "relevant in changing times" or of greasing up to our politically correct masters, something that you can't say for the Catholic or Anglican hierarchies.
The Catholic press spouts the usual pieties. In the May 31, 2009 edition of the Catholic Times Christopher Graffius went through the voting options for good Catholics, starting with the obligatory "I would hope that no Catholic would vote for the racist British National party". Yes, but this isn't an argument: just crying "racist" is looking increasingly inadequate, given the damage that immigration is doing.
He goes further than this though: UKIP is a "dud choice" because "The church has always opposed petty nationalism". So, according to Graffius, supporting unaccountable bureaucracies and showing contempt for referendum results is OK? The Greens "advocate a population policy. A prominent advisor of theirs, Jonathan Porritt, recently backed a two-child limit for families", which is anti-life; I agree with him, but this is not quite the same as advocating abortion, although I'm sure the Greens, with their extreme liberal social policies, support abortion rights.
He continues. The Christian parties are overwhelmingly protestant and exclusive because non-Christians can not stand; I remember a Muslim stood for a Christian party in Scotland, but Graffius may well be right about the Christian party and the Christian Peple's Alliance, whom he uses as an example. But not about the Scottish Christian party".
Of the main parties, the Conservatives, as Graffius says, are no longer allied with Christian Democrats in the European parliament: "You could hold your nose when voting Tory on the basis that it would support Christian Democracy overall". The Christian Democratic parties support Christianity's place in Europe, but in the end they go with the tide. An overview of the debate is here.
Graffius bases his prescriptions on arbitrary reasons, inspired by the pious social-action, right-on version of Christianity that is becoming increasingly prevalent in the Catholic press. This philosophy has taken over "The Universe" entirely.
He doesn't mention Labour or the Liberal Democrats. So presumably these parties don't meet with his disapproval. But since Labour MPs voted overwhelmingly to keep the current abortion laws last year and the Liberal Democrats support abortion as a matter of party policy, forestalling individual choice, I find this rather shocking from a supposedly Catholic-minded commentator in a Catholic paper.
He suggests at the end making a pro-life on the ballot paper, so I don't accuse him of not caring about abortion; however, his silence on the pro-life record of the left-of-centre main parties is symptomatic of the way that the new piety of these social action Christians , while full of pursed-lipped disdain for "petty nationalism" of respectable right-wing parties like UKIP, makes them pass over the anti-Christian nature of the leftist political movements to which they want to
Cross-posted on Christianity in the West
Monday 1 June 2009
Where the right is still going wrong
Read on article on The National Interest website against the strategic idiocy of preventative war and the obsession with biffing on the head every bad guy who pops up and says "boo".
The present reliance on warfare to defend the free world is counter-productive, but it is eroding civil liberties and sucking out its economic lifeblood. Not that the US has much of an economy left.
Toneo-conservatives jacobins and those swayed by them, torture is OK, many right-of-centre people go along with it. They vote for corporate republicans and fake conservatives.
The Republicans deserve to lose in 2012 if they continue to be dominated by the war-party. If they don't change, what is the point of the Rebublicans? They don't defend conservatism or liberty; the Obama administration is as interventionist as Bush. So Americans may as well vote Democrat if they want to bomb civilians and trash the freedoms they inherited as their birthright.
The present reliance on warfare to defend the free world is counter-productive, but it is eroding civil liberties and sucking out its economic lifeblood. Not that the US has much of an economy left.
To
The Republicans deserve to lose in 2012 if they continue to be dominated by the war-party. If they don't change, what is the point of the Rebublicans? They don't defend conservatism or liberty; the Obama administration is as interventionist as Bush. So Americans may as well vote Democrat if they want to bomb civilians and trash the freedoms they inherited as their birthright.
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