Britain makes Royal Succession more equitable. Does not realize irony in doing so.

   by Roland Hulme

Britain's Insipid Political Correctness has reached new levels of absurdity.

Royal succession inconsequentially more fair

Today, leaders from the Commonwealth and Britain's Prime Minister announced their intention to change the "unfair" system of royal succession – that dictated the next in line for the throne should be the eldest male child of the reigning monarch, passing over any older daughters.

"The idea that a younger son should become monarch instead of an elder daughter simply because he is a man is at odds with the modern countries that we've all become." David Cameron explained.

I am speechless.

Not because I have any problem with the gender of our next ruling monarch – Britain is essentially a matriarchy and historically we've always done better with a Queen ruling over us (many would argue the same about having a woman in 10 Downing Street.)

My problem with adopting this neat, twee, oh-so-21st-century change to the system is that it's absurd.

Why should you attempt to bring "equality" to a system of choosing a head of state that is by its very nature inequitable?

Making the rules of succession "less unfair" neatly ignores the fact that they're completely, absurdly, delightfully unfair to begin with. The King or Queen becomes so because of who their parents are; which is really the most "unfair" way of choosing a head of state possible (it was so unfair it even kicked off the French revolution.)

If you want to make the system "fair" have an election instead, or start choosing the next King or Queen based on some kind of X Factor weekly voting system, or a popularity poll, or something.

Don't start pretending that the system is now "fair" just because a girl can be as eligible as a boy to sit on the throne. That girl or boy still need to be the eldest child of a specific individual from a royal dynasty that stretches back hundreds of years.

It's not meant to be fair. It's not meant to be "politically correct." It's royalty, for God's sake!

If you're going to keep this grossly unfair, anarchic, backwards system of picking the head of state (which incidentally, I think we should – I'm definitely a royalist) we should at least stick with the same grossly unfair, anarchic, backwards traditions regarding it that we've maintained for longer than our Kingdom's been United.

Changing the rules to appease these blithering busybodies undermines the significance of having royalty in the first place. Those archaic "rules" and traditions exist as they do for a reason.

They have a long, storied and occasionally bloody history that shaped the way Britain's royalty works. They deserved more respect than to be changed simply to appease Guardian-reading nitwits who seem determined to suck the glory out of everything traditional and British.

I don't like Perry, but I like cheap shots even less...

  by Roland Hulme

 
Rick Perry has enough stupid policies to defend; without the media putting words into his mouth. 

Yahoo! were flirting with dirty rumors of their own here.

Lynn Sherr, from Parade magazine, recently interviewed Republican presidential contender Rick Perry.

During the course of the interview, matters turned to the 2012 presidential campaign and the current occupant of the White House. It seemed almost inevitable that this exchange would take place:

Governor, do you believe that President Barack Obama was born in the United States?

I have no reason to think otherwise. He's the President of the United States. He's elected. It's a distractive issue. 

You might be mistaken for thinking that Perry delivered a cut-and-dried dismissal of the persistent "birther" rumor - the one that claims President Obama was born in Kenya; and is not a "natural born citizen" of the United States, as is required by the constitution to become president.

But Yahoo! took it another way.

In a delicious overwrought piece of character assassination, they printed the following lead-in pictured above; casting Perry as a member of the wildly discredited "birther" movement.

Now, I have plenty I don't like about Rick Perry; but I feel the need to jump to his defense in this matter. Perry says enough stupid stuff on his own with Yahoo! deciding they need to add fuel to the fire. This "angle" on the Rick Perry interview is misleading, deceitful and untrue - and they should be ashamed of themselves for trying to leverage it.

Is Herman Cain the man the GOP have been looking for?

   by Roland Hulme

People have been asking me who I "like" for the 2012 GOP candidate. I've been marked by Cain.

From a bad bunch, Herman Cain is pick of the litter

When most people are asked who they support in Republican primaries, they take the easy way out.

It's very easy to decide who you don't like - Romney for his mediocrity, Perry for his hypocrisy or Michelle Bachmann for being so unelectable her New Hampshire campaign staff up and quit.

But if you were going to vote Republican in 2012, and the cast of curious characters doing the rounds were the only options you had to support, who would you pick? (And you can't cheat and choose Ron Paul.)

Currently, I have to admit that I have a soft spot for Herman Cain.

While there are many of Cain's professed policies that I have very little support for, there are certain facets to his character than lift him head and shoulders above the competition (with the exception of Ron Paul.)

For a start, Cain is a businessman, not a politician. That is a very important distinction; because I am of the belief that capable, competent leaders invariably go into business for themselves, while the parasitic ilk who can't succeed from their own talents are attracted to political careers to eke a rich existence on the sweat of others.

Secondly, Cain is a successful businessman. The previous Republican tycoon on our presidential roster was celebrity businessman Donald Trump; whose business failings mirrored those of the US government.

He'd amassed almost a billion dollars in personal debt, sent several businesses spiraling into bankruptcy and arguably hasn't made an honest dollar since the Trump Plaza Hotel went into Chapter 11 in the early nineties. Surely he wasn't the man to lift the American economy out of the doldrums.

Cain, on the other hand, was born to a poor family and worked his way into fortune through pluck, guts and intelligence. In an ideal world, he'd do to the American economy what he did to the fortunes of Godfather's Pizza when he took the reins of the struggling franchise in 1986.

"I'm Herman Cain and this ain't no April Fool's joke," he told employees on his first day. "We are not dead. Our objective is to prove to everyone that we will survive."

And survive they did - partly through Cain taking personal responsibility for the brand's success.

"I will lose everything," he promised, when purchasing the company from Pillsbury in 1988, "before investors lose a penny."

Wouldn't you like that attitude in the White House?

I'll admit his social policies don't just leave me cold; they positively chill me to my core. He's pledged to roll back social liberties like the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", defund Planned Parenthood and supports a constitutional amendment redefining marriage as between "one man and one woman."

None of these things I support. In fact, I'm strongly opposed to them.

But remember, the challenge is not saying which candidates you don't like (that would be easy) but which one you do - and out of the sad selection being put forward, Cain's crimes are fewer than his rivals.

Besides, there's one final aspect to Herman Cain that I think bears mentioning:

For all his old school, conservative rhetoric about social issues, Cain has shown an alarming trait towards humanism and common decency. Before the social conservative core of the GOP forced him to clam up, he admitted that for all his hatred of abortion, he'd never "directly interfere with a woman's choice in the matter."

Likewise, when a gay serviceman was booed by the crowd for questioning the reinstatement of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," Cain was one of the only candidates who expressed regret for not leaping to the soldier's defense.

Herman Cain is a better bet for the White House because of his financial acumen (remember Clinton: "It's the economy, stupid.") But more so than that - and in sharp contrast to Perry, Romney, Bachmann et. al. - there's the alarming possibility that a decent human being lurks behind that gruff Republican veneer.

And at the end of the day, I'd vote for that.

Open Letter from the Republican Party to the Tea Party

   by Roland Hulme

The Tea Party has the disdain of the Republican elite

Republican National Committee 

310 First Street 

SE Washington, DC 20003

October 21, 2011

Dear Tea Party,

We've really appreciated all the hard work and long hours you guys have put in over the last couple of years. You've invigorated much of the party, raised millions of dollars in campaign contributions and won our party and our platform a lot of attention from the media. Thanks.

But before the election season really kicks off in earnest, we thought it was important get real about something:

Shut up.

Just shut the hell up.

Nobody here at Republican Party HQ wants to hear it from you. We love the fact that you're waving placards and raising money and making Obama look like a chump, but let's make it quite clear – here and now – that we don't care about what you have to say.

Let's be real: You blue-collar bumpkins are not going to pick the candidate for the next presidential election. If anybody thinks the voting party members have any say in that, they're kidding themselves. We've already picked who it's going to be – Mitt Romney.

That's how the Republican party works, folks. The voters get all riled up, but the big decisions get made by an elite few, behind closed doors, and none of you rabble have any say in the matter.

Don't like it?

So f**king what?

Seriously, what are you guys going to do about it?

We've got you right where we want you. We can stick a candidate you don't like on the ballot because we both know, at the end of the day, that you suckers are going to vote for him regardless.

I mean, what's the alternative? Vote for Obama? Stay at home on election day and let Obama win a second term?

We both know you're not going to do that.

You might not like it, but frankly you don't have any choice. We know you'd vote for a cocktail wiener rather than Barack Obama; and that's why we don't need to give a shit about you.

So here's how it's going to go down: We're going to pal up with our corporate sponsors and, in the mean time, you folks out there with the placards are going to sit down, shut up and wait until we tell you what to do.

You don't have a say in the matter. You don't have a voice in this. You tea partiers might represent a huge chunk of the voters we need to win the White House in 2012, but we 've got you right where we want you.

In short: We own you. Don't forget that. You have no choice but to follow these three instructions:

Give us your votes
Give us your money
F**k off


With disdain and dollar signs,

The Republican Party

Is Mitt Romney the Republican's John Kerry?

  by Roland Hulme

A message to the GOP: Pick Mitt Romney at your peril.

The GOP can't count on Mitt Romney

I frustrate a lot of people with my political opinions, because I'm changeable.

In 2004, for example, I bucked the trend amongst my European friends and firmly supported George W. Bush for a second term in office.

I didn't agree with the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, and I had deep suspicions about his "spend more, tax less" economic philosophy, but I still considered him a better bet than his Democratic rival.

Why? Because Senator John Kerry was running on a single platform: "Vote for me, I'm not Bush."

Almost eight years later, it looks like that situation has been reversed. Despite the delightful pretense that we plebeians actually have a say in the matter, RNC Finance Co-Chair Georgette Mosbacher has already announced: "We know who will be our nominee." It looks like Mitt Romney is going to get the nod.

And personally, I think that's a terrible idea.

Because despite the fact that some of his rivals are deeply scary individuals – Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry especially – poor old Mitt makes the worst possible candidate precisely because of the reason he's been chosen – his mediocrity.

The GOP are planning to run a middle-of-the-road Republican based on nothing more substantial than the slogan: "He's not Barack." The problem is, Romney has a track record of so-called "statism" that rivals Obama's own!

And the voters aren't going to fall for it.

The GOP, it seems, have drunk their own Kool Aid. After spending four years bashing Barack Obama with a fervor that's sometimes bordered on the delusional, they've created a fantasy in which all of America detests the black man in the White House as much as they do.

And while Obama's approval ratings indicate people certainly aren't happy with his performance, they're no more like going to vote for Romney than they were for Kerry in '04, especially if all Mitt has behind him is the promise: "I'm not Obama."

The Republican Party need a candidate who stands for something; not just against someone. And even if that weren't the case, Romney is the worst of all possible choices because what little he does stand for mirrors Obama's own policies.

For example, he invented the "Obamacare" health care reform that the Republicans now expect him to criticize and discredit. Romney's political advisers even met with Obama to help draft the bill!

If Romney ultimately takes the candidacy for 2012, Obama will get his second term in office. That's as inevitable as Kerry losing the election was in 2004. People in America want to look forward, into a bright new future (which is why "yes, we can" and "change you can believe in" were such winning slogans in 2008.)

By contrast, Mitt Romney and the Republican Party stand resolute in preserving the status quo.

That's a losing strategy.

The Forgotten Village; Or How Emininent Domain is Government Theft

 by Roland Hulme

When Thomas Jefferson was drafting the Declaration of Independence, he toyed with the phrase "life, liberty and property" as the three inalienable rights of man. Ultimately, Ben Franklin convinced him to go with "the pursuit of happiness." At what cost did that omission come?

Welcome to palatial Long Island - a 100 miles of some of the most desirable real estate in America.

Couldn't you see yourself living here?

The pictures you see below are from a village of waterfront cottages, on the highly sought-after south shore of Long Island. Hidden behind a chain link fence, these 60-something properties have been allowed to rot for decades; forgotten, ignored and crumbling.

And yet these roads are in better condition than most in New Jersey

But why? How could millions of dollars worth of real estate be allowed to go undeveloped? Why are none of these large, well-built cottages lived in any more?

Ask Uncle Sam.

Because this forgotten village is the result of 'eminent domain' - the government's right to forcibly 'purchase' property from American citizens; often for pennies on the dollar of their true value.

That is what happened in this case: Developers wanted to built a luxury condominium complex on the waterfront, and bought off enough politicians to get them to use 'eminent domain' to make the land available.

The timeless style of American houses makes it difficult to date these properties

Essentially, the government kicked homeowners off their land, paying them below the value of their property with taxpayers money. The plan was for the property company to buy the land off the government - again, at far less than it was worth - and rake in millions of undeserved profits (with sizable kickbacks, one can assume, for the compliant politicians.)

Except, like in so many cases, that never happened.

When property values crashed, the development company ducked out of their obligations - and the government was left with 360,000 square feet of real estate and nothing to do with it. So the government did what they do best. Nothing.

Decades later, this is the result.

Who knows what era of cars were kept in these garages

In this time of economic depression, many people are looking to the government to help them. Yet this is an example - one of countless - of how the men and women we elect to the vaulted seats of Washington are often only capable of helping themselves.

I'm not as allergic to government or bureaucracy in the same way a Republican or Tea Partier might be; but I come from a nation strangled by bureaucracy; so like the back end of a horse, I have a well-deserved concern about getting on the wrong side of it.

Because for all of the free market's faults - of which there are many, especially when we try to blend it with welfare statism - one thing seems clear. If market forces and free enterprise had been allowed to deal with the land now rotting behind chain-link fences, those 60+ abandoned houses would be the site of a thriving waterfront community today.

Political Funny, Occupy Wall Street

Hey Occupy Wall Street! I'm really happy for you, and imma let you finish, but the right-wing Tea Party was one of the greatest loosely-associated movements of disenchanted voters lacking a clearly defined political objective of all time. OF ALL TIME.

"Occupy Wall Street" Needs to Remember Personal Responsibility, Too

by Sarah Marie Anderson

 

Do the Occupy Wall Street protestors expect something for nothing?

Is Personal Responsibility Missing from the Protest?

With all this “Occupy Wall Street” hubbub going on, I think it’s time for the hoi polloi to speak up.

First off, Republicans aren’t all rich old white men, as I keep hearing through this. I’m a Republican, and I’m neither rich, old or a man. We’re going to ignore the fact that I’m blonde for the time being, however.

Sure, I’m “white”, but those who focus on race are the real racists anyways (that’s an article for another time, however).

Bottom line… I don’t think the vast majority of Americans want the government involved in their lives anymore than absolutely necessary. I think the vast majority of Americans trend libertarian—stay out of my bedroom, the rest of my house, my business, my armory, my healthcare and my internet and I’ll be happy.

There are only three real functions of the Federal government: interstate travel, provide for the free conduct of trade and protect the citizens within the borders (perhaps an over-simplification, but those are the only three real purposes of the Federal government in the broadest sense).

But it seems not all Americans agree with me (too bad, the world would be a better place otherwise…). It’s those kinds of people in this country who need to learn that you need to work for something to earn it. Life doesn’t just hand you champagne and filet mignon, you start with nothing and build from there.

What you build is directly proportional to your effort. That’s the beauty of this country—anyone can truly achieve anything if they work hard enough. We have to end all entitlements (in a responsible way--I understand some people are counting on the latter three, so it has to be done right, we didn't get into this mess overnight and we can't fix it that quickly either): welfare, social security, Medicare, Medicaid... and kick the victim mentality to the curb by getting rid of unions, affirmative action, all "discrimination" laws, et al.

If we're truly a land of freedom, let's start acting like it and opening up a fair, level playing field for those who are willing to work for it. Buck up, get a job and don't blame anyone else for your problems.

All I want to see is a little more personal responsibility. Come on, America... grow up!

On a personal note, I get how hard it is to find a job. I get how it sucks to live below the poverty line. I get how discrimination is dehumanizing. I've been through it all.

I'm not just speaking on some pompous soapbox. I've worked my butt off for everything I've accomplished in life, and while my parents did the best they could, I didn't have the opportunities some people do simply because we never had that kind of disposable income. I know what it is to be annoyed that some people get to do things just because they have more money than me, not because they work for it and not because they necessarily deserve it.

However, I get very frustrated with people who won't work hard (or even work at all), and then expect me to support them. There is a different between someone who won't and someone who just needs help--and thank God for charities and churches, we need the government to get out of the charity business and let charities do their work. They do a hell of a better job than the government does.

Being just given something without having to work for it is, to me, humiliating. I can't imagine it's that different for most people.

Steve Jobs: Great businessman, not always such a great guy

 by Roland Hulme

Steve Jobs was one of America's most successful businessmen; but he was somewhat less successful as a human being.

Steve Jobs: Bad Apple?

The impact of Steve Jobs' death is quite astonishing. Tributes to the Apple CEO have come pouring in from all corners; with people reposting his inspirational quotes, the incredible story of his success and the impact his company's technology has had on their lives.

Yet while Steve Jobs was undoubtedly an incredibly smart guy, and an astonishing business guy,  he wasn't always such a nice guy. One story springs to mind that people don't seem to be talking about today.

At the age of 23, Steve Jobs vehemently denied fathering the child of then-girlfriend Chrissann Brennan.

Despite the fact that he was already wealthy at the time - while Brennan and her daughter were barely scraping by on welfare - he swore in court documents that he was "sterile and infertile, and as a result thereof, did not have the physical capacity to procreate a child."

He kept up this pretense for two years before finally coming clean; admitting that this little girl was his not out of financial need, or to protect a marriage or reputation. He'd done it because he was going through a period in his life in which he was simply a shitty human being.

Now, we all go through stages of our lives in which we are shitty human beings; and arguably Steve Jobs made up for it later, through the legacy he left on the world of technology and the millions of dollars he gave away in philanthropy.

But it was still a monumentally bad thing to do; and reminds us that for all we can admire about Steve Jobs, he died as he lived; a very human - and occasionally flawed - individual.

Occupy Wall Street Conspiracy Theory

 by Tina Hulme

Are his opponents planning to make Obama the whipping boy for Occupy Wall Street?

Thanks to cartoonaday.com

Finally, in the last few days, we’ve started seeing reports on the protests going on in the Financial District of New York City.

“Occupy Wall Street” had been going on for a full three weeks and news reports were practically non-existent.

It was bizarre - and soon the general public started crying foul on what was seemingly a situation being carefully controlled within the media (which is supposed to be unbiased.)

It turned my thoughts to how the situation was reminiscent of Hitler becoming dictator of Germany in 1933.

No, I am not comparing Obama to Hitler - quite the opposite. His opponents may be the ones taking what I call “the Hitler move” in this political game of chess.

Jacob G. Hornberger posted this on the blog site The Future of Freedom Foundation on June 28th 2004:

“Hitler and his fellow members of the National Socialist (Nazi) Party, who were determined to bring down the republic and establish dictatorial rule in Germany, did everything they could to create chaos in the streets, including initiating political violence and murder. The situation got so bad that martial law was proclaimed in Berlin.” 

Hitler actually lost the election in 1932, so created a state of civil unrest in order to make the current government look ineffective.

That’s why, when I think about the Wall Street protests, it seems oddly similar.

From the very beginning, the news refused report on the civil unrest until it had grown and spread to other cities, leading to the arrest of over 700 people. I turned to my husband and said: ”You know Obama is going to get blamed for this. I bet this is a plot to kill his chances in the 2012 election.”

When my husband asked me to explain, I went on to tell him what I’m arguing here; that the protests were suspiciously allowed to go unreported for 3 weeks, growing to a threatening size, before the media started to report on them (and this was despite bloggers posting about them for weeks.)

I theorized that if the protests got to an extremely newsworthy size, or if they grew to the point where Obama had no choice but to declare martial law in the interest of public safety, then everyone would blame him for not coming up with a solution before the problem got to this breaking point - or they’d just blame him in general.

The smartest thing for any Obama opponent to do would be to recreate the 1932-1933 Berlin scenario, which would require them to be a group with enough clout to hush and control the media, as seems to have happened here.

This may seem like conspiracy theory to most, and to a certain extent it is, but I also know that the easiest cover is to create a notion so crazy no one would think it could be true.

I have no proof that Obama opponents are fanning the flames of Occupy Wall Street, or that they controlled the media into reporting it in a way that would hurt the president’s election chances, but it seems to make sense when you think about how history has a habit of repeating itself.

Just today, GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain started what will become a ripple effect of blaming Obama for the chaos. He said:

“I don’t have facts to back this up, but I happen to believe that these demonstrations are planned and orchestrated to distract from the failed policies of the Obama administration." 

I disagree with Mr. Cain. I don’t think these demonstrations are a distraction, but the main event.

I think the protestors are being used as political pawns to get Obama out of office; and their real message is being forgotten or ignored as a result.

Let’s not forget that there’s an entire government of Republicans and Democrats alike responsible for what laws and policies have been allowed to pass while Obama has been in office.

If you think his policies are failing, you can blame them too - not just the man himself.

Obama can’t wave a magic wand and make things happen. In fact, the House of Representatives usually prevent his laws being passed; which proves we’re not living in a dictatorship.

In fact, half the time, we’re the ones making our government ineffective; by voting these people into power in the first place.

That’s why, when it comes to the government failing the American people, this quote from V for Vendetta seems appropriate:

“If your looking for the guilty party, you only need look in the mirror.” 

Now the politicians will make Occupy Wall Street about themselves, and start a crusade against the current administration.

As for me, I just want the same answers the protestors want. Answers like: “Why is it that someone who makes 40k-50k can barely make ends meet?” or “Why aren’t the banks being punished for accepting bailouts, and then not forgiving the thousands of people they foreclosed on while the government forgave them?”

This was not Obama’s doing. Those cries were started long before he hit office. Lets not make Occupy Wall Street about him, or his administration.

Don’t be fooled, people.

"Occupy Wall Street" are idiots

 by Roland Hulme

Occupy Wall Street is a protest movement that's capturing the attention of America. However, that might change once you read their list of "demands."

The 99% lack a clearly defined agenda.

Lower Manhattan is awash with civil unrest at the moment, as thousands of protestors gather in the heart of the world's financial center to protest stuff.

This stuff includes political corruption, fraudulent banking practices, illegal foreclosures, government bailouts and a host of bona fide crimes committed by banking institutions against honest, working Americans. But many of the protestors are also railing against capitalism in general; and leading the charge to bring social and economic revolution to the United States.

This is where they lose me.

Although I initially supported the movement, that support quickly dissipated when I was directed to a list of "demands" being proposed by a member of Occupy Wall Street - a list which quickly and definitively identified the author - and possibly the movement - as idiotic.

AMENDMENT: Apparently LloydJHart does not represent Occupy Wall Street with his nonsensical ramblings. They have since published an official list of more sensible demands. Find it here.  

Behold the following. Because the author didn't bother correcting his spelling, grammar or punctuation, I won't bother doing it for him (or when I quote him later):

Proposed List Of Demands For Occupy Wall St Movement!

by LloydJHart (read it here)

Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending "Freetrade" by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.

Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.

Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.

Demand four: Free college education.

Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.

Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.

Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America's nuclear power plants.

Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.

Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.

Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.

Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the "Books." World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the "Books." And I don't mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.

Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.

These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy.

My response to this lunacy is as follows:

Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. 

I believe strongly in the concept of a "living wage" - in which every American who works full time is entitled to enough income to support themselves and their family.

However, to achieve this through "re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods" and "raising the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr" shows an infantile grasp of economics.

Trade tariffs, for a start, are "protectionism", which has been shown to be a terrible idea every time it's been attempted. Just look at the War of American Independence - spurred, in part, by Britain's trade restrictions to its colonies - and the dire "Corn Laws" in Britain during the 19th century.

Besides, America already has absurdly inequitable tariffs in place. For example, corn farmers receive subsidies, while sugar imports are heavily taxed, which has made the domestic production of ethanol as impractical economically as it is functionally.  

As for the minimum wage - what sort of lunacy is that? Occupy Wall Street are calling for the wage to be more than doubled all across America. Do you think doubling payroll costs will make American companies more likely to hire or fire employees? Do you think it will make them more or less competitive against foreign imports (from producers with much leaner labor costs)?

Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. 

Occupy Wall Street demand "all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market". This is ironic because the finest health care system in the world, in France, has a thriving private health insurance industry; which exists alongside the government single-payer system.

Like with their solution to "restoring the living wage", their 'solution' to the health care crisis shows a complete lack of understanding of the problem they're trying to solve.

Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.

That's great. Didn't we cover than in Demand One?

Demand four: Free college education.

American college graduate leave school with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of student loans. That being said, they also leave school with the finest graduate degrees in the world. 17 of the 20 best universities in the world are in the United States - so it's clear that the system that's currently in place, expensive as it is, works.

Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.

I actually agree with the concept of this statement, but roll my eyes at the childishly limited vision it implies. America's future lies in pioneering alternative, sustainable energy and selling that technology to the world (bringing in trillions of dollars of revenue and creating hundreds of thousands of jobs.)

Instead, Occupy Wall Street seem to only care about turning off the coal-fired power plants and having us all heat our bathtubs with solar panels.

Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.

America's infrastructure is crumbling, and we desperately need to spend billions of dollars rebuilding it before this country turns itself into a third world nation. So Occupy Wall Street and I seem to be on the same page.

But, if you'll excuse my French, where the f**k are we supposed to find a trillion dollars all of a sudden?

(Psst! The answer is - "America's military budget.")

Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America's nuclear power plants.

Once again, you've got to ask Occupy Wall Street exactly where the f**k they think this trillion dollars is going to come from.

And unlike in the answer above, I'm not going to tell them this time - because Demand Seven is basically a call to revert America to a pre-industrialized society.

Don't get me wrong. I love forests and river systems - but I also love not living next to mosquito-infested swamps, and being able to take the highway to work.

Also, shutting down all the nuclear power stations would kind of have the opposite effect of what Occupy Wall Street is calling for in Demand Five (an end to fossil fuels.)

Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.

Dear Occupy Wall Street. This already exists. Read a law book.

Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.

This demand is so mind-numbingly stupid that it actually, physically hurts to retort to it. All I can argue is that with unemployment hovering at around 10%, perhaps opening our borders to an influx of bargain-basement foreign labor might not be the best thing for the economy at this time, and certainly won't help achieve the "living wage" they were whining about earlier.

On the upside, at least the tidal wave of foreign labor will be able to help Al Qaeda lug those heavy chemical bombs and nuclear devices over our undefended border.

Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.

While more and more countries move to electronic voting machines and systems, Occupy Wall Street wants us to revert to a paper ballot; which has been ripe for rigging throughout the history of democracy.

Paper ballots caused all sorts of problems in the 2000 elections (which, many believe, Al Gore should have won) and President Kennedy definitely rigged the 1960 election (more than 6,000 people in one Illinois district voted for him; despite only 4,000 actually living there.) Like with every other "demand" of theirs, this stems from an infantile understanding of the electoral system; and makes things worse, not better.

Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all.

This one's my favorite. Occupy Wall Street "demand" debt forgiveness of "sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now."

You hear that? Every debt in America, stricken from the books. Trillions and trillions of dollars given away; with essentially "free" houses to all who have mortgages, billions of dollars of consumer goods given away free and student loans evaporated from existence...

That's all well and good - but what about the people who loaned this money? What about the shareholders? What about the businesses that gave out car loans and payment plans for goods and services?

Of all the mind-numbing stupidity of Occupy Wall Street's manifesto, this is the dumbest "demand" yet - and it gets worse: "65 trillion dollars of debt must be stricken from the "Books." And I don't mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period."

Wow. Just wow.

Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.

Absolutely. Because what benefit is there in giving companies that issue loans or payment plans information about who does and who doesn't default on their debts?

In all honesty, this is such a stupid "demand" the reason for it being here is probably because the author of this manifesto has a shitty credit rating.

Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.

Well, in theory this right already exists; although I'll admit that many companies - such as Wal-Mart - crack down hard on attempts to create unions.

I am half-and-half when it comes to trade unions. I know they are ripe with corruption and graft, and I know their self-destructive, unreasonable demands almost led to the demise of the American auto-industry.

But then again, if you don't allow unions you end up with corporations exploiting workers to a disgusting degree; denying them fair pay and essential benefits because the employees don't have the clout to gang up and demand what's right.

I disagree with the right-wing's current "war on unions" - but union solidarity has a time and a place, and needs to be tempered by the cold water of economic reality.

The only verdict: Occupy Wall Street are idiots.

AMENDMENT: Since then, Occupy Wall Street have published a list of more sensible demands. Find it here. 

Continental Justice is Rare

 by Roland Hulme

 

Americans are spoiled when it comes to their legal system.

Today, headlines announced that Amanda "Foxy Knoxy" Knox was being released from Italian prison after four years behind bars.

After being convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering her British flatmate in 2007, the seemingly watertight case against the 24-year-old burst at the seams on appeal; as a litany of errors rendered the DNA evidence inadmissible.

Prosecutors could no longer even place Knox, or her alleged co-conspirator Raffaele Sollecito, at the scene of the crime - much less as the perpetrators of it.

The fact that the case disintegrated so abruptly is shocking to Americans; used as they are to convictions based on a presumption of innocence and proof of guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt." The truth is, though, that the law in Europe is a considerably more unforgiving creature; and who knows how many have fallen foul of it.


Napolean Versus The World

There are two types of legal system in the world. The British and American rule of law, based on the Magna Carta, and the continental legal system, or the Code Napoleon.

That code was introduced in the early 19th century, when Napoleon conquered the majority of continental Europe, and remains in effect to this day in much of Europe.

Most Americans are unaware that the Code Napoleon differs from the criminal law they're used to in several major respects; the most obvious being the theory that suspects are "innocent until proven guilty."

According to the law enacted by Napoleon, it's the other way around. Suspects are considered guilty until they prove themselves innocent. That's why cases like Knox occur.

Another example occurred in 1999, with the murder of 13-year-old English student Caroline Dickinson. Within hours of her body being discovered, French gendarmes had "solved" the case; beating a confession from 40-year-old drifter Patrice Pade who had been picked up 40 miles away from the murder scene. Yet just hours after, it was revealed that the "confession" came from a man who could not possibly have been in Pleine-Fougeres when the murder took place.

Similarly suspicious was the fate of Richard Durn; the suspect in the murder of eight Paris councillors in 2002. While being interrogated in a police building following his arrest, he managed to "throw himself" to his death, out of a top floor window; witnessed by half a dozen police officers.

The fact is, "justice" in Europe doesn't quite follow the model we Brits and Americans are used to.

Compare the most recent celebrity court case to hit the American media; that of Casey Anthony. She was charged with murdering her 2-year-old daughter, but eventually acquitted by a Florida court. Like O.J. Simpson before her, public opinion deigned that she'd actually committed the crime; but a jury thought differently.

This is because America has the rule that guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in court; and figures famously considered "guilty" by public opinion didn't face prosecution cases that proved that point. It's arguable that this has resulted in guilty people going free; but the hope is that it has prevented innocent people facing prison time - or worse - for crimes they didn't commit.

Okay, so it's not a perfect system. The recent execution of Troy Davis in Georgia - whose case had some serious holes in it - proved that the American legal system is skewed by many factors - like a suspect's race. But overall, the basic structure of criminal law originated in England and brought over to America remains the best - and the safest - in the world.