The Euro break up edges closer

Italy was not hit as badly as the rest of the Eurozone by the resent economic troubles. It did not suffer the same huge drop in growth or bursting of a property bubble, but that is because Italy has been bouncing along the bottom in a permanent slump for years. It is one of the countries that needed the low interest rates to keep its economy alive, while those same low interest rates were blowing up enormous property bubbles in Ireland and Spain. What it needed, and still needs, is to get out of the Euro and devalue in order to try and regain some of the competitiveness that it has been loosing against Germany for the last decade. This has been the case for a long time. The last time that it bubbled up to the surface was back in 2005 and some Italian politicians were even willing to say it, something that seems unthinkable to the political class of any other EU country. However if Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the Telegraph is correct and the debt contagion is starting to effect Italy then this time they might actually get the medicine they need by being forced out of the Euro. There is absolutely no way that the other EU members could raise enough money to bail out the third largest Eurozone without it dragging them down as well. Germany might stand to gain by a little chaos around the edges of the Eurozone keeping the price of the Euro down to aid its manufactures, but it stands to loose everything if Italy sucks it down with it into bankruptcy.

Guess what happened at the lefty protest?

Violence which should come as no surprise. Neither should the way that the Labour councillors chose to implement their cuts in the way that would have the most negative impact at the front line, but what are people's lives when you can score a few partisan points?

the lefty bleating goes on and on

The lefties are still bleating about how the police stopped them from rioting when they really really wanted to. Oh dear the little dears got bottled up my the police and poor Jocasta hasn’t been so cold since daddy’s driver broke down on the way back from the gymkhana.

Demonstration one: there was no kettle, so the students rioted smashing up a building and attempted to murder police officers and their fellow rioters.

Demonstration two: there was a kettle, and there was no riot or serious injuries.

The police have a set of procedures for dealing with potentially violent crowds. They initially didn’t think that the student protests where going to be violent so they didn’t use them; they where wrong. On the next protest they learned from the first and changed tactics. If the protestors did not want to be treated like they where violent then they should not have been violent, simples.

the illiberal conspiracy of eugenics

Oh dear the illiberal conspiracy is getting all hot under the collar with an attempt to claim that one of the left's horrible ideas wasn't actually a left wing idea. The left wing idea is eugenics and the fall guy they are using is Lord Flight. All he did was point out the obvious that fact that people respond to incentives. If you remove a subsidy for something you are going to get less of it. The actual effect of the removal of child benefits for the well off is unlikely to produce much of a change as it does not do much to change the incentives, the level of the subsidy to them was simply too low. However this is absolutely not the same as saying that undesireables should be sterilised, as the left would like to twist his words to mean. Sterlisation of the wrong sort of people is much more of a Left Wing idea, and not something of the right.

During the interwar period Eugenics was highly popular amoungst the intelligentsia, and that did include those from both left and right, but it was mainly a left-wing progressive thing. The leading lights of the eugenics movement included icons of the modern left such as John Maynard Keynes and William Beveridge. Proponents also included the Fabians H G Wells and George Bernard Shaw. Amoungst Wells' fellow Fabians Sidney and Beatrice Webb were also strong supporters of Eugenics, when they were not shilling for mass murderers like Stalin. It is not a co-incedence that when a bill to introduce Eugenics in the UK was put before the house it was done so by the Labour Party MP and Fabian, Archibald Church.

Not that left wing support for Eugenics was confined to the UK. In Germany Alfred Ploetz who coined the term racial hygiene, and laid the foundations of the Nazi ideology, was a socialist and had to flee Germany because of Otto von Bismarck's anti-socialist laws. Ploetz himself wasn't actually that anti-semtic in his early life (this changed later) citing Marx as proof as to the quality of the Jewish race, but Marx's own final solution to the Jewish question was "the emancipation of society from Judaism". Polly's social democratic paradice of Sweden had forced sterilisation until 1975. Some countries behind the Iron Curtain, such as Czechoslovakia, also had forced sterlisations, and others, such as Communist Romania, had it as state policy that women should be turned into baby factories. The largest ongoing programme of state enforced sterlisation is in China under the Communist government there, a programme with eugenic elements as it allows for different numbers of births depending on which ethnic group the parents belong to. The left's need to control is insatiable so it comes as no suprise that it extended as much into the bedroom as it did everywhere else.

The reasoning that there might be some kind of right wing connection to eugenics was basically that it is nasty and so inherently right wing, while making sure not to mention how much eugenics is a left wing thing. In so much as a reason was given it was to try and position Lord Flight into some kind of intelectual tradition stemming from Malthus. He couldn't use any more modern proponents of eugenic for the obvious reason that would have quickly ended up showing how deeply eugenics and the left are linked, but if you want to find the real heirs to Malthus then you need to look no futher than the Green movement, which is indesputably part of the modern left. Charles Goethe a leading member of the early enviromentalist movement in the USA and a member of the Eugenics Society. He was not alone as an enviromentalist there, there were plenty of others. The need to reduce the population is still very much a part of the green movement with its strong anti-human undercurrent creating such organisations as Optimum Population Trust. The OTP might be rather blunt in its anti-human message but sentiment that there are too many people can be found in the core green arguments that there are simply too many people wanting requiring too many resources for the planet to sustain.

Labour MEP tells UK to join the Euro

The Euro is strangling the countries trapped within it. It was always going to do this as it was always going to be wrong for most of the countries using it. Keeping us out was the one good thing that we must praise Gordon Brown for. Eurosceptics have been predicting that this would happen for years, but now that the crisis is finally here what kind of idiot would advocate that the UK joins? Only the kind of idiot that can become a Labour MEP.

The illiberal conspiracy

Another violent protest, another po-faced article supporting it at the illiberal conspiracy.

"On the train on the way home last night, a woman opposite – very prim middle aged and upper middle class – surprised me by expressing her heartfelt support"

Which does not surprise me at all. It is much better for her that her little Tarquin gets his education paid for by those worse off than herself, than for her to have to reach into her own designer handbag in order to support the little darling.

"The truth is that protesters do not need to win sympathy because we are not fighting for the rights of protesters, and we are not politicians. "

Nope, you are fighting because Labour lost the last election so now you are throwing your toys out of the pram in a fit of pique.

"When the issue is as close to home as ‘can my child afford to get A Levels’"

Which just shows that this protest is just about lefties doing what lefties do and smashing stuff up, rather than any actual policies that are being proposed since nobody is proposing that there is any need to pay for A Levels.

"And so it was with the waitress who brought me my post-protest Pizza tonight."

Dinning out in London, an obvious sign of improverisment.

"She was worried about her windows being smashed."

And possibly her head as well, from thrown bricks and fire extinguishers as happened in the previous protest. Luckily the police decided contain them this time so it was only smashed windows and there was no repeat of the attempt at murder.

"She was cross with the protest."

Good thing they don't need any public sympathy then.

"But she had decided that she opposed increases in fees ‘where will people get £9000 from?’."

Here I am sure that this waitress would become even more cross if she knew where that £9000 would be coming from? Under the coalition proposal it would be coming from their pay packets once they have qualified and are earning a sufficient amount of money, far more money than that waitress would have been on. That if they earn £25,000 she will be taking home £1,600 per month out of which she will have to pay £30. My God! That’s a whole SKY-TV package, or two outings to Pizza Hut! For education? What sacrifices are we asking poor little Tarquin to make.

However at the moment that £9000 is still being taken, but it is being taken from everybody including that waitress herself. But then to these lefties it is preferrable for a poor waitress to subsidise those that are already in a privileged position extend their privileged position rather than to change the status quo. I hope that Adam Ramsay tipped well.

faux-anarchists and student protestors

Isn't it interesting how when the left does not get its way all of its commitment to democracy evapourates. When the Tarquins and Jemimas of the oh-so-chic radical left see their side loose they petulantly stamp their feet and demand that it be declared the winner anyway. They do not realise that there is no money left and that the state, unlike their daddy dearest, cannot keep on writing big cheaques to buy them whatever toys their heart is set on this week. There is no money left. All but the most fringy parties understood that most people realised this and campaigned to be the ones that would implement the cuts. Labour lost. Get over it.

This does form a pattern that can be seen a lot:

If lots of people want a lefty policy then it is the democratic will of the people, and cannot be denied.
If lots of people want a policy that lefties disagree with then it is evil popularism, and must be stopped at all costs.

If socialist policies get the a party thrown out after one term then they add up the vote share of all of the parties they consider lefty to claim that socialism always had majority support.
If non-lefties combine in a coalition with over 50% of the vote share they say it is illegitiment and they have no mandate.

There was an election to decide the parties that would implement the cuts to stop the UK looking like Ireland, and they lost. The coalition parties gained over 50% of the vote, and the Tories alone gained more individual votes that Labour had in their landslide victories. But as this was not a victory for the left, so lefty thugs and boot-boys start smashing things up in order to get through violence what they cannot get through persuasion. I wonder if the faux-anarchists that were smashing things up yesterday realise the irony of supposed 'anarchists' protesting against reducing the size of the state? Probably not.

Still no sign of that double dip

The economy continues to grow nicely, with expectations that this will continue. In fact both of the countries that have the most to commit to subsequent decreases in government spending have plenty of confidence about the future. Not that that will stop the left for banging on about how the only way to growth is spending borrowed money until the country is bankrupt.

More lefty protests ...

... more lefty violence.

... because scary stories are fun

One of the annoying things about reading lefty websites is the way that they constantly bang on about how a double dip recession is inevitable because of the rather feeble cuts that the government is going to make to state spending. But why should the Left get all the fun making up scare stories which almost certainly won't happen? Here is another scary scenario for a possible future, but one that is much more likely than Britain going the way of Ireland because the government cut the level of government spending back to were it was in 2007.

1. The auditors come in and demand that Ireland keeps on cutting the size of government spending, they can do nothing else to get rid of their debts, in exchange for EU loans. The EU will now scrutinise the Irish budgets for as long as Ireland is reliant on EU money.
2. The state cuts, but with debt-deflation now firmly in place, thanks to the Euro, things just keep getting worse domestically.
3. This causes the next wave of defaults sending Ireland even further up shit creek.
4. As the second crisis flares up the Irish government is forced to go to the EU for even more money, trading in even more of their power over Ireland to get it.
5. The money is provided, but with harsh penalty clauses because the German electorate, who are paying for all of this, don't want their money wasted.
6. Of course with the EU now in charge the chances of the money not being wasted are roughly zero. Those with EU connections get wealthy and everybody else gets screwed.
7. The Sinn Fien expands in the south into a small but real political power. However since it is anti-EU everything is done to keep it, and its supporters, marginalised. The fact that it is made up of former terrorists is not the problem, the fact that they are anti-EU is.
8. As the Irish depression continues people start to blame various 'out groups' with, nasty populist measures being proposed to deal with them which strangely never seem to create any problems for them with the ECHR despite being exactly the kind of thing it was supposed to stop. This scape goating has no positive effect what so ever.
9. Along with this there is a dramatic rise in the far left. This is another aspect of the previous point, since all the far left do is scape goat sucessful people.
10. There is significant civil disobedence against the authorities, getting violent as the far left gets involved.

Here we get to the tipping point either things can get slowly better and Ireland return to a new equilibrium as a poor vassal of Brussels or:

11. The far left switch from civil disobedience turns to outright terrorism.
12. The EU sends in its gendarmrie bolstered by units from the EU Rapid Reaction Force under the extensive powers that the Lisbon Treaty has given the EU for internal security. For political reasons the UK sits this one out, the idea of British troops marching through the streets of Dublin has too many historical resonances.
13. That they were not British does not matter and areas of Southern Ireland become like Northern Ireland.
14. The long Second Irish War of Independence begins.

A clash of symbols

I've just read Laurrie Penny's article on Thatcher at the New Statesman, it isn't good but apparently it is OK to do a research free hatchet job because to her Thatcher is a symbol. However one thing that I doubt crossed her mind as she ground out her latest offering was that to other people Atlee is also a symbol, a symbol of decline and failure. He is a symbol of financial and moral bankruptcy. It was his government that formed the post-war socialist consensus. It was that consensus that Britain must inevitably decline, while those that stuck to free market principles speed ahead. It was that consensus that said that left wing violence was fine, and it was OK to use your boot boys to hold people to ransom if you could claim to be a lefty. It was that consensus that rising in crime was unstoppable and inevitable, as the murder rates climbed when those that grew up under the socialist post-war consensus hit their villainous peak in their late teens and early twenties.

Thatcher did not believe in Atlee's post-war consensus. She believed that British industry could actually produce things that people wanted to buy. She believed that people would be better off working rather than being forced to go on strike. Above all she believed in Britain. But that is not the reason that the left hate Thatcher so much, the reason for the hate is that she was right. The British decline was not some inevitable historical process. It was the result of failed policies: Atlee's policies. He took a Britain of reducing crime and increasing wealth, and threw it away in a failed socialist experiment. Thatcher started the, long, slow, painful process of reversing Altee's failure. It was hard going, and is nowhere near finished even now, but it worked, and that is why the left hates her.

Good and Bad ways to protest

This is a good protest: peaceful and audatious. This is a fairly good protest: a completely tastless but a non-violent expression of their views. This is a bad protest: it was violent to the point of attempted murder (so obviously left wing). Hopefully next time Tarquins and Jemimas will learn attempting to kill people because Labour could not win a free and fair election is not a good thing.

Violence and the Left

Oh dear, the left has shown once again how little respect it has for democracy. The country as a whole is in a hole thanks to years of exessive state spending. We cannot possibly continue spending so much more than we earn like during the Labour years. State spending must be reduced. Everybody knows this, and everybody knew this before the recent elections to choose the government which was going to implement the cuts. But the left does not like the fact that their party was not the one chosen, so they riot. What they cannot get through reasoned debate and gentle persuasion, they demand through violence and threats. This should suprise nobody, the history of the Twentieth century stands as an object leason to the violence constantly bubbling beneath left-wing politics. Violence and left wing politics fit together like an iron fist inside a chain mail glove, but it cannot be given into because the only alternative to cutting the state is that the state goes bankrupt.

The killer Hirst weakens the cause of human rights

The remorseless killer John Hirst was been ripped apart on the Jeremy Vine Show. Which is a good thing. He, of course, will think differently about that. Just as he thinks differently about whether normal humans to feel remorse when you blugden an old lady to death, or whether remorse is just a middle class thing.

The recording is a car crash and will be used again and again by people that want to get rid of the whole of the ECHR. He compares killers, like him, not being able to vote is compared to Hitler’s genocide of the Jews. It is not comparable in the slightest degree. The right to life is a true human right, like the right to freedom of speech or freedom of conscience, and other ‘negative rights’. Voting is not a human right, it is a civil privilege, and because the ECHR mixed up these two Hirst’s actions have helped those that want the entire thing, including the real human rights, removed from the statute books.

The killer Hirst gloats over his victory. It is as if he has just won some complicated game in order to stick it to ‘the man’. He has a no idea of what his little victory might cost everybody else, but then he has spent his whole life not thinking of anything but himself. His is a life of taking from society and never giving anything back. He has never held down a job for long and spent most of his life leeching off of others: before he killed his old and infirm landlady as a petty thief, afterwards living at tax payer’s expense.

Maybe to him this is just a game to pass the time, a game that he now thinks he has won. Having won the killer Hirst says that he can now dictate to everybody else what the law is, not parliament, as in the recording the killer Hirst says it is now him that gets to decide who votes, and for somebody that has spent so long fighting to change the law, at our expense, he has very little concept that the law also applies to him.

What brings the ECHR into disrepute

This is the kind of thing that brings the ECHR into disrepute. It is also the kind of thing that is inevitable because it contains so many 'positive rights' that are there to be used to try and re-engineer society, rather than true 'negitive rights' which are simply about stopping other people imposing their will on you.