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| More!? More!? |
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| One Two .. Many | |
The US killed innocent
people in Afghanistan
after September-11.
Unofficial estimates were of 5000 dead out of a population of 27
million. That's about one in 5400. This was the price of regime change, and it
sent the left into spasms
of protest. Lets translate that into Australian numbers. Suppose a band of psychotic Muslim fanatics were to take control of Australia by force, and they
carried out summary executions, forbade women to work, go to school, travel
outside without men etc etc etc. Imagine if the US were prepared to reinstate
democracy, but one in
5400 innocent Australians (about 3500) would be killed in the process. Would
you support the US? 3500 people is less than two year's worth of Australian road fatalities! Of
course it would be worthwhile. The only people who would not take those odds
would be sympathizers, and would be liable to be shot after the event. Of course the 'democratic' government propped up in Afghanistan is far from
perfect, and there is evidence that the country is slipping back into
fundamentalism, but the underlying analysis doesn't change. Not even when we apply the analysis to George Dubya's 'axes of evil'. How many people have to be killed in the coming Gulf War for it to not
to be justified? The left will reject this question outright, which in itself is good reason
to consider it. If the war were to bring human rights, removal of
sanctions, and democracy to the 22 million people in Iraq, but were to cost the life
of one innocent Iraqi, would it be worth it? If your answer is 'no', then think again. Innocent people are dying in Iraq now:
- from direct involvement of the Hussein regime (torture, killings etc);
- from the effects of sanctions on the country (lack of suitable medicines etc); and
- from the the usual effects of poverty (lack on nutrition,
proper sanitation and so on).
Some may think that regime change will actually make Iraq worse off,
and that Saddam will be replaced with something worse. That is hard to
imagine, but can these supporters of Saddam Hussein please step forward
and say why? Modern Western military personnel are not given orders. They are given
objectives, and populations of democracies have some say in the nature of those
objectives. Let's suggest one:
"Take out Hussein if the number of innocent civilians is less than X,
otherwise don't."
The challenge to the anti-war lobby is to set the US military an objective. How
many innocent deaths would
make the war unjust? A negative answer means you are a redneck who thinks the purpose of
the war is to kill as many innocent Iraqis as possible. And an answer of zero means you either support the Saddam regime,
or you believe in the validity of every government except your own. A positive answer means that you have a metric for judging the success of
the war after the event. Sounds good - any volunteers?
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| North Korean take-out? | |
They say that as soon as someone achieves greatness, their emotional development
stops. This would explain why Michael (Whacko) Jackson has an emotional age of
six - that's when he became famous. It could also help explain the irrational tantrums of Kim
(Dear Leader) Jong Il. The 'Dear Leader' has been the heir apparent since childhood, and the
People's Paradise Democratic Republic of North Korea has been
throwing tantrums on the international stage. After making a no-nukes deal with
the Clinton administration in exchange for aid, and admitting
cheating, they have started up their nuke program again. It's not clear what they intend to achieve from this. Starting wars is a popular diversion
strategy for threatened governments. Both democratic and dictatorial governments
start wars to draw attention away from 'destabilizing' domestic factors (like
sagging popularity). But there are no indications of a revolution in the air
for North Korea, so the behavior is a bit mysterious. What is clear is that North Korea will try to get concessions from the US, but unlike Bill
(compromise-is-always-best) Clinton, the George (lets-not-beat-around-the) Bush
administration is prepared to meet recalcitrance with recalcitrance and force with force. However, both sides have toned down the initially strong rhetoric. North
Korea is about to watch the US make an example of Iraq, and the US doesn't want to
take on China on the Korean
peninsula. Neither side wants a war, but neither side is prepared to lose face.
So what is the most likely outcome? There is talk of the US is sending food to North Korea. Forget technological transfer,
forget oil, fuel or equipment -
the US will send them food. The North Korean people are virtually starving
because of the incompetent, corrupt command economy forced
upon them, and they need food donations to survive. But North Korea has always had an incompetent, corrupt, command economy.
What's changed? Not much. Except for the death of Kim Il Sung, and the
succession of his playboy son Kim Jong Il. There was genuine affection for Kim
Il Sung among his people - much of it was misguided, and it most of it was
based on propaganda, but it was still genuinely felt by a population who had
lived through the conflict with the US, and had no access to other points of
view. Opponents of socialism frequently
underestimate the power of personality. Many people can be programmed into
working hard by consistent propaganda, and by a strong leader. Collectivism is
not a socialist invention - it is an instinct which can be nurtured, expressed
and exploited by
clever people. Hard work, loyalty and dedication may not overcome the
limitations of a corrupt command economy, but it can stop the population
starving. Just as many Chinese believed in Mao Tse Tung, and worked hard in spite of
China's problems, so too many North Koreans worked hard under Kim Il Sung.
It kept them fed. There is no such affection for Kim Jong Il. No cult of personality. No
loyalty. The people understand they have been had. They are not 'working
towards communism' to
make North Korea better. They have been conned and they know it. And as a
result, the people are starving. And the Americans will probably feed them. Partly because they want to
avoid a war with China, but mostly because it is the final degradation of the
socialist ideology which once threatened the world - an admission that
socialism can't even feed people, and that it makes them beggars to capitalist countries. And there is another bonus: aid to countries damages their economies -
their economies get distorted and simply shift to take advantage of the aid -
not to become self sufficient. Feeding the people will have a short term
benefit, but in the long run will simply make them grow less food, and less
able to grow food. Less food, more dependence on the US, and America will be able to stop the food
supplies at any moment to starve the country back into submission. North
Korea's defiance in the face of this is very quaint. It would be fun to watch the final death throes of socialism if it weren't for
having to watch the suffering of 22 million innocent people in the process.
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| A thing of the past? | |
In the wake of the government's failure to
protect people and property in Canberra last Saturday perhaps it is appropriate
to examine more closely the role of government. Imagine what would happen if the government issued a decree that
- After the end of the month it would no longer support fire-fighting services.
- All fire-fighting assets would be auctioned off at end of the month to the
highest bidder.
- Buyers could do whatever they liked with their new assets.
Readers who want to imagine hundreds of people watching their homes burn
down without a fire-truck in sight won't have to try hard - it happened in
Canberra last Saturday even under the highest taxing government in Australian history. Such fire-fighting assets would be bought by the insurance companies. Why?
As soon as a company sells you insurance, they
have an interest in not having your house burn down. As soon as a company sells
insurance to a high-rise lessee insuring people in their premises, they have an
interest in those people not burning to death, or dying of smoke inhalation. If your house were burning, it would be in your insurance company's
interest to send around someone to try to put it out - they wouldn't have to
pay out on the insurance. If you were in a burning high-rise building, it would
be in the lessee's insurance company's interest to send someone around to
try to rescue you - they wouldn't have to pay out on the insurance. All people would have to do if there were a fire is to let their insurance
company know, and leave it to them. While there may be some free-loaders who ring up and say "I don't have
insurance, but my neighbor's place is insured for 1 Million, and it's likely
to go up too, you might like to dump some water on my house", but so what?
There may be some confusion about which insurance company to call, but it
wouldn't matter. Insurance companies know that fires spread, and it would be in
their interests to let the appropriate insurance company know. Putting out
bush-fires would also be in their interests because extinguishing fires before
they reached city suburbs would be in their interests. In practice insurance companies may even pool their resources and use the
same fire trucks and stations, so they would get the same (or better) economies of scale as
the government. Why would this be better than the existing system? Because multiple
insurance companies would compete, and individuals
could choose the one which gave them the best value for money. The problem with
a government juggernaut forcing people to pay taxes and handling all services is
that the what-if experiments can't be run in parallel. A politician can simply waffle
on about 'unforeseen circumstances', 'the improvements we are
currently implementing' and 'it could have been worse with a different
system', whereas private companies would be compared on the value they
were actually returning to their clients. And all without forcing anyone to
join if they didn't want to. An efficient system which saves lives and property without initiating or
threatening force against anyone? Nah - the government would never let it
happen.
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| Next Stop - Baghdad | |
The peace demonstrators
have failed. Consummate politician
Johnny (of-course-I-want-peace) Howard has worked out a way to satisfy the war-mongers and peace-niks at the
same time. The peace-niks don't want to him to declare war - he hasn't. The
war-mongers don't want to get left out of the Baghdad Blitzkrieg - they
won't. Australian troops
leave for the Gulf tomorrow to join the US led Iraqi invasion. It might seem a little premature to send people to a war that hasn't yet been
declared, but just because they made up their minds, doesn't mean they can't
invade Baghdad. Why? Well, George Dubya is sick of the fiasco: asking for more time,
changing the rules mid-stream, deceiving, playing political games. And that's
just the UN! Imagine
how cross he is with Saddam! And why now? Well the war may start on February 1 - when there is no moon,
and the Australian SAS will be really cut if they get there too late to join
it. Unlike parties, it's not fashionable to turn up late for wars. Some
armchair generals are tipping the third week of February, but the Iraqi desert
starts getting warm that time of year and wearing those stuffy chemical warfare
suits in the heat would drive up the deodorant bills. The mounting pressure may succeed in making Saddam's inner circle of
psychopaths to quit the country to avoid unnecessary blood-shed, but the power vacuum could create a
blood-bath in itself. This is the Middle East, and regime
changes tend to be a little more dramatic than the boring concession and
victory speeches we see in the free world. Smart Iraqis will be hoping for a US-puppet government, but the
majority - influenced by the persistent organized propaganda and cultural hatred of success -
hate the US nearly as much as Saddam. The US will be unpopular guests even in a
liberated Iraq, and any government likely to replace Saddam will not be very
friendly. A decision which would truly test Dubya's mettle is whether to go into a
Saddam-less Iraq. Maybe he hasn't thought that far ahead? Whatever - Let's roll!
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| Fahrenheit 451 | |
With 4 dead, scores of injuries and 451 homes burned to the ground, there
were bound to be recriminations. Canberra is a city of politicians - both the
elected parliamentary types and the non-elected public servant
types. Successful politics
is about taking taking credit for other's successes, while blaming others for
your mistakes, so it came as no surprise that the blame-game started while the
corpses were still smoldering. Should the government have done more?
Should they have spent more
money on fire prevention? Was it the fault of the ACT government for not
spending more on back-burning? Was it the commonwealth's fault for mismanaging
the pine tree plantations which burned with as much savagery as the native
bushland? 'The government should do something' is
the mantra which naive citizens have been trained
into, especially in Australia's Public Service
city. Consequently all of the recriminations are based on what more the
government should have done. There have been the usual media ghouls interviewing
people who have just lost their homes, asking them questions carefully designed
to produce tears, but the strongest testimony from these people after
ferocity of the fires, is the fact that the authorities failed them. Interviewee after interviewee said that they expected the authorities to
come and tell them when it was unsafe and they had to leave. They waited and
waited, and the authorities never came. These people were tax-payers, they had supported
their government, their government was supposed to protect them during
disasters. The decision had to be made whether to fight or flee - and the
government was supposed to make it for them. And the government never came. Four people are dead, and we may never know how many people realized too late
that the government wasn't coming; that the government was overwhelmed; that
in times of true emergency, the best judge of danger is the individual. When
your home and your life are both threatened, only you can make the decision. What could the government have done? Perhaps a better question is what could
the government not have done. If the government had not forced these people to pay the
exorbitant stamp-duty on these homes, the people would have been free to use
the money on prevention. If
the government had not discouraged (or even banned) water tanks, they may have
had enough water to put out the fires. If the government had not passed
legislation preventing people from cutting down trees on their own land, they
may not have been there to explode in fire. If the government had not passed
legislation effectively banning the recycling of gray water, people would have
been able to water their gardens during the water restrictions, keeping them
alive, moist and less likely to burn. But none of these things will be done even now. Already governments are
promising new laws, rights to
force people from their homes, greater regulation and more restrictions on
people's lives, to live up to the promise of ever-growing government. All these government initiatives have to be paid for somehow. Is that smoke
haze over Canberra, or just the lack of clarity which precedes another
tax-hike?
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| Political Capital goes up in Smoke | |
Many Australians
would have been happy to see Canberra actually feel some hard-ship today at the
destruction of some 400 homes, deaths of 4 people, and scores of injuries as
Canberra suffered the worst bush-fire losses on record. Canberra is the tax-sink of
Australia. Australians work hard to pay taxes which get spent largely on the
Canberra public
service on 'administration' overheads. Consequently Canberra (and
Canberrans) are sometimes rather unpopular with mainstream Australia. Canberrans have though, developed an isolationist mind-set to cope with
this. The logic that high-taxes automatically generate more wealth seems quite logical to someone who has
always enjoyed greater opportunities when more money sloshes through the
Canberra routing-trough. A recession in Canberra means having to wait an extra
3 months for that well deserved promotion, and a major recession may even mean
a reduction in overtime opportunities! The rest of Australia are regarded as
ignorant or unappreciative of their hard work. This explains the satisfaction felt by the rest of Australia, but how could
such devestating fires occur in the nation's capital? Canberra's dominant religion is political
correctness, and tree-hugging is the preferred form of worship. While
referring to the Aborigines as the 'rightful
owners' of the land (as
long as they stay of their bit), Canberrans refuse to understand how
the Aborigines actually managed the forests before European colonization -
regularly burning it, and hence clearing the thick undergrowth. Australian wildlife was not in a natural state at European arrival - it had
been managed (if somewhat crudely) by the Aboriginal population for 60,000 odd
years. And while the colonization of Australia by the Aborigines was
initially devastating, 60,000 years of extinction, natural selection and evolution created an
Australian flora profile which was designed for regular burning. But tree-huggers are not keen on tree-burning (they might get singed having
a quick grope), and they have choosen to rewrite Australia's pre-European
history in ways which involve mother nature 'taking care of herself', and use
words like 'harmony' in preference to 'steady state' or
'adaption'. Consequently many try to build their homes as close as possible to national
parks containing bushland, and instead of planting lawn, and green ('European
cultural cringe') plants, they choose to grow native Australian plants - ie
plants evolved to burn. So when the bush gets really really dry (like, say in a drought), and
really really hot (like, say summer), and the winds blow really really strong
(like, say yesterday), critical mass is reached, and Canberra burns! Maybe the Canberrans could feel closer to the Aboriginal population by
sleeping in bark huts from now on? Or maybe they could hand the management of
the national parks back to the local Aborigines who could regularly burn it,
and make it safe for everyone? No no, Canberrans will continue to subscribe to the politically correct
fiction of the noble savage, and occasionally suffer the savagery of a feral
landscape.
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| Living in Hope | |
Simon (what can I do) Crean has actually taken a position on
military policy. He has said that the ALP will oppose joining the coming war against Iraq unless the UN approves
it. Specifically he said that he will oppose it if it is 'unilateral action
.. lead by the United States'. At least he had the common decency to look embarrassed as he said it, because
he realized what he was saying was stupid. Simon - if it is lead by
the US, then there are others involved, and hence the action would not be
unilateral - go check a dictionary. Apparently action taken by free world nations, lead by the most successful
democracy in the world would be entirely unjust, but a majority approval of
corrupt dictatorships in the form of the United Nations would
make it Australia's duty. Should anyone be surprised that Simon Crean, representing a party now
rejected by the democratic process three
times running, holds democracy in such low regard? This comes as Labor tries desperately to position itself in the political landscape, and
Simon tries to position himself within the ALP. ALP votes keep getting
getting nibbled away by the looney left parties, and Simon has
suffered a few bites himself from the Carmen (lying low in the back
benches)
Lawrence faction. But the sharks on the left have now been fed, and Simon has delayed the
inevitable. Now the risk that
he runs is that the Iraq war will be a roaring success, and that he will be
portrayed as the man who wanted to keep Saddam in power, to continue the
repression of the Iraqi people, and to continue the production of WMDs in Iraq
(if any are found). Simon's only hope in the war is a large number of dead innocent
Iraqis. Funny - that is just what the rednecks are hoping for too. Politics does indeed make for
strange bedfellows.
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| Court out! | |
Sheik Taj El Din Al Hilaly's court case came up to day, and the Sheik was
represented by his solicitor, and a bunch of heavy weights from the Muslim
community, including Keysar (Muslims-are-victims) Trad. The astonishing thing about this circus is that the Hilaly alliance has
admitted that the Sheik was driving an unregistered and uninsured car, but
have refused to concede that he did anything wrong at all. Instead of coming clean, admitting the problem with the car, and defending the
other accusations, they have remained in total denial. Perhaps, like the pope,
the Sheik is regarded as infallible - perhaps the Australian legal system must
be at fault? The Sheik was not required to to show up to the court proceedings, and he
didn't. When asked why, his solicitor claimed that he had many other duties,
and he was just too busy. Apparently trivialities like Australian law don't rate very highly on the Sheik's list
of priorities.
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| Someone has to .. | |
Muslim friends have been
quick to defend their friend and colleague Jack Thomas, who has been arrested
in Pakistan on suspicion of Al Qaeda involvement. It's good to see the Muslim community call for a fair trail, but Jack Thomas is
a Muslim convert who chose 'Jihad' as his Muslim name. The sound-bytes from his religious colleagues have been too attractive for
the media to pass
up. 'I don't think that Jihad has anything to do with Al Qaeda',
'Jihad must be given a fair hearing', and 'Bring Jihad to
Australia'. Of course the politically-correct
ABC has been quick to point out
that technically Jihad means
'struggle'. But didn't say what with. 'The infidel' might not have been
politically expedient. Needless to say, neither the Australian government or the
mainstream community has been up in arms about this. A Muslim calling himself 'Jihad', and expecting sympathy from mainstream
Australia is a bit like a redneck calling himself 'The Rapist' and expecting a warm
welcome from a feminist
group - or a Negro choosing to join the KKK, and expecting to be promoted to
Chief Wizard. It ain't going to happen anytime soon.
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| Kim Says No to Non-proliferation Treaty | |
Playboy dictator Kim Jong Il, of the People's Paradise Utopian Republic of North Korea has pulled out
of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This is arguably the most honest thing he has done in his entire career. Mostly the left is staying silent about recent developments on the Korean
Peninsula, being unable to blame the US for the developments without
using the kind of bent logic
that would embarrass even a self-justifying Cheryl Kernot. But others are carrying on about North Korea breaking international law by
pulling out of the treaty. This has to be expected of people who are naive or
dishonest enough to believe in the existence of international law - a
fundamental contradiction in itself. Treaties are not
enduring. Unless the treaty specifies a given expiration date, participants can
pull out of them when they choose. North Korea agreed to be a signatory to the
treaty - and have now announced that they no longer are. The fundamental dishonesty in the actions of North Korea was in continuing to
develop the nukes while they were still signatories. But did anyone think
the Korean government was honest? [OK, thanks Bill - put your hand down now,
and do up your trousers too, and can you stop that young woman doing that
until we are finished ..?]. Does the North Korean government have the right
to abandon the treaty. Well, they have the same rights to abandon it as they
had to sign it in the first place - none. The North Korean government is not a
legitimate government in that it gives its people neither democracy or freedom. When the US, and the corrupt undemocratic rabble
in the UN accepted
the late Kim Il Sung's signature on the treaty, they accepted his regime as the
legitimate government. They have little choice now, but to accept as
legitimate Kim Jong Il's right to abandon it. Dubya kind of inherited this from
Bill, just as KJI inherited rights from KIS. Of course the US are also quite within their rights to take pre-emptive
defensive action. Whether the threat is great enough to nuke Pyongyang is a
question that we will be debating for a very long time - regardless of whether
it happens or not. But the Korean peninsula is a bit cold this time of year (that's must be
why so many North Koreans are freezing and starving to death, while the South
Koreans are doing so well). The Americans are going to spend this winter
someone a little warmer. Somewhere where there's more .. sun.
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>> Please Sir, I want some more
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| Feedback/Forum |
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- ANON -- Anonymous Coward 2011-12-02
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