Kosovo independent: an all too easy solution?

The Serbian province of Kosovo has declared independence, a move that for Kosovo Albanians is "freedom", but for Kosovo Serbs is not welcomed. The US and the UK have declared they will recognise an independent Kosovo, but is the solution to what is essentially conflict based on national identity division? The EU is putting a lot into it, with 2000 troops being sent in, but more importantly Kosovo laws will be subservient to EU supervision. Yes, you read that right. Kosovo will essentially be an EU protectorate for the indefinite future. The EU chief representative will have veto powers over Kosovo government decisions and the right to fire officials obstructing relevant UN Security Council resolutions.

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So this is quite something different from what has happened with all other declarations of independence, it is more a declaration that power has moved to Brussels, for now.

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Kosovo’s independence is different from that of the former Yugoslav republics of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia and Montenegro, not least because it never was one. It follows many years of repression of the Kosovo Albanian majority, an oppression that was more severe after the erosion of communist rule, when the cancer of nationalism replaced Titoist Marxism as the blight on freedom and individual rights in Yugoslavia.

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It is partially dismembering Serbia, partly to punish Serbia for its long racist fascist politics that succeeded Titoism, but more importantly to protect the Kosovo Albanians. Instead of being a minority in Serbia, they will be the majority in Kosovo.
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This is not the place to go into the Serbian/Albanian conflict over Kosovo, lest to say that the Serb nationalist bullies like Slobodan Milosevic who pined for Serbia’s “golden age” of being defeated in Kosovo since 1389 (yes only nationalist Serbs understand). The vile bigotry of Milosevic’s nationalism saw the Albanian language banned and cooked up fears that Albanians were harassing Serbs, which clearly would justify Serbs harassing Albanians. The conflict over Kosovo was not as bloody as Bosnia-Hercegovina, but it did involve slaughter. Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo by and large despise each other in a mutual lack of trust. The Albanians remember the repression and fascism of Milosevic and the fascist Serbian authorities, the Serbs fear the Albanian majority’s own hatred towards them, and see Kosovo as being part of Serbia, which until today it has been.
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So why is Kosovo a big deal? Shouldn’t it become independent because the majority want it?
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Unlike the US and the EU I don’t believe the answer is yes.
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The philosophy that says Kosovo Albanians should be independent could also be applied to Serbs in Bosnia, Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, Russians in Abhazia, Basques in Spain etc. It is the notion that ethnic identity should determine statehood. The problem with this idea of course is that the psychological state of ethnic identity (which, by and large is all ethnicity it. It is in the mind), isn’t shared by those for whom boundaries are drawn around.

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More importantly, this is exactly what has been the problem in what was Yugoslavia – the notion that people shouldn’t live together with different ethnic identities. The scourge is NOT Serbs, it is the scourge of nationalism. That is what the EU, US and the UN should be confronting. It is not confronted by bowing to Kosovo Albanian nationalism.

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The butchers who rounded up Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica, marched them out of town and shot them – the butchers who went from house to house in the Krajina and rounded up Serbs to remove them from “Croatian land”. All expounded the philosophy that people could not be treated as individuals, but be treated as part of a group. Either you were one of us or a member of the "other". It's what collectivists do, you hear the same philosophy from them all.

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In Kosovo it has been the same, and now it will be Kosovan Serbs who will be the other, in a small rump state with desperate economic prospects.
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Carving up Serbia sends a message that countries should exist according to the philosophy that Serb nationalists have been fighting for since the early 1990s, except this time the Serbs lost and the Albanians won. The Serbs wont forget, sadly.

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You see Serbia offered full autonomy, and could have also had a peacekeeping presence so that Kosovo autonomy could have worked. Serbia could have had a chance to experience tolerance, individualism and freedom first hand, even if it involved a continued heavy peacekeeping presence in the province. However, now it has simply been punished, and the EU and the US will pay for Kosovo to be rebuilt as a rump state, and Serbs in Kosovo will live in fear.
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Russia has said it will take action if Kosovo becomes independent. Hardly surprising, as it has many scores it can settle, in Georgia and Moldova for starters. Will the West intervene if Russia attacks Georgia to apply the same rule to its ethnic majority areas? Would it be a surprise if Putin decides he can flex his muscles on his borders without provoking a serious response?

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No. Because the philosophy of nationalism has created rivers of blood for generations.

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I note Helen Clark has stated a "neither confirm nor deny" approach to recognising Kosovo's independence, although Australia will recognise it. I suspect this is simply part of the MFAT philosophy that rejects "recognition" of states formally, but it is the wrong approach. Clark claims "It's never been the New Zealand Government's position to recognise in such circumstances." Um East Timor?

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Either there is a principled stance against independence or in favour of it. My call is that, sadly, independence has to be formally recognised. Either New Zealand will treat Kosovo as part of Serbia or not, and to not recognise what will be fact (no rule from Serbia), is of little effect.

Tariana Turia's tribalist bigotry

According to the NZ Herald Maori Party MP Tariana Turia thinks all Maori deserve an apology. What for Tariana? What did I ever do to you?
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She, no doubt like many, thinks that Rudd's apology is actually about everyone individually apologising to all Aborigines, rather than what it SHOULD be, which is the Australian federal government apologising to specific victims of its own policies.

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Sorry Tariana, there is no collective guilt by people against another people. All Maori are not victims. If Maori want to sue the state for any wrongdoing by it against them individually then they should feel free to do so. However, I think that many New Zealanders could claim the same. The ones let down by socialised medicine, statist education, the non-inheritable superannuation scheme, the miserly socialist ACC scheme, the limp wristed law and order system, the mixed performance Police force, NaZis on Air jackbooted bullying of the past, criminalisation of people committing victimless crimes etc etc. The government could apologise for not delivering what was promised with the money collected by force from the public, and for its coercion against people's lives.

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That I'd like to see.

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Your ancestry doesn't make you special. You should be judged by what you do and your character, and both are sadly lacking. It has nothing to do with your identified Maori ancestry - that is irrelevant. It is that you're a mystic worshipping socialist nationalist statist, and you and your party perpetuate division, racial judgment and victimhood.

Obama's economic backwardness

So Obama has got an economic policy. Well I'm not impressed, it is a leftwing programme. It will hurt New Zealand, and will hurt the economic growth of the USA. It is beholden to protectionism of industry and unions, and indicates that when Obama says the word change he really means to "turn the clock back". Obama is about going to the tired old solutions of the 1960s and 1970s of spending money on pet projects, instead of setting people free to innovate with their own money.

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Here are some of his policies:

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Fair trade: Yes a favourite of environmentalists, the Green Party and others. Fair trade is a euphemism for tariffs, quotas and bans of imports, because after all who decides what is "fair"? He wants to spread "good labor and environmental standards", which presumably means pricing businesses out of developing countries, but also doesn't mean spreading private property rights which COULD address environmental standards. Perhaps he means paying more for commodities than the market price, increasing their overproduction. All that is clear is that he doesn't believe that people should be able to exchange goods and services freely.

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Subsidise inefficient industries: He wants to prop up the US automotive industry to make fuel efficient vehicles in the USA, he wants to "invest in America's highly-skilled manufacturing workforce and manufacturing centers", invest with money taken from businesses and individuals through taxes. How does he know best how to "invest" money taken from others? Back to the tired old policies of the 1970s.

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Create jobs through destroying other ones: He goes on about creating jobs, mainly by using money taken from businesses and individuals through taxes that THEY could have created jobs through their own investment and consumption. It is sleight of hand and old fashioned childlike socialist economics. Policies like "create a federal Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) that will require 25 percent of American electricity be derived from renewable sources by 2025" could cost the USA a fortune, diverting investment on cheaper energy into more expensive options, reducing the competitiveness of businesses either through utility fees or taxes. It is easy to point to jobs socialists create, but harder to point to the many they destroy by eating away at spending of others. He will "will invest in rural small businesses" I only wish he would do it with his own money, why take it from others?

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Price more unskilled jobs out of the market: He does this by wanting to "raise the minimum wage, index it to inflation and increase the Earned Income Tax Credit to make sure that full-time workers earn a living wage that allows them to raise their families and pay for basic needs". Tiring indeed, and he wonders why unskilled manufacturing jobs move south.

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On top of that he wants to regulate and subsidise housing lending, and heavily regulate credit cards and the like, because he thinks Americans are too stupid to look after themselves.

Do you want "real change" which is about going back to big government knows best?

Are you worried about Obama yet?

As Barack Obama catches up with Hillary Clinton in the latest Democratic Party primaries, Hat Tip for Trevor Loudon, pointing out the Marxists who are cheering him on, such as this blogger.

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Change you can believe in? He could well be the most leftwing major Presidential candidate since George McGovern.

He's an inspirational speaker, but plenty of big government statists have been.

He is no better than Hillary Clinton, in fact he's worse. Clinton's foibles are clear, obvious, everyone knows what her weaknesses are. Obama is untouchable. It is about time that he is asked some serious questions about what he believes in besides being nice and "beyond the old politics". What does he want besides to make people feel good?

Greens want look at political addiction to gambling

Sue Bradford is right.

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There is a political addiction to gambling, it is gambling with OTHER people's money.

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Sue Bradford is concerned about those who gamble with their own money (and their families), which is at best just stupidity, and at worst a sad reflection of a deeper affliction. However, the enjoyment of thousands should not be sacrificed because a small number can't control their behaviour.

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Sue Bradford is in a political party that gushes at the chance to gamble other people's money, taken by force through taxes, at any pet project that their own faith calls them to support. The Greens want to gamble money on "renewable energy", rail based public transport, state broadcasting, recycling, state health care, state education, increased welfare benefits and state housing. This is far more insidious that private gambling because the money is taken by force from taxpayers, and there is no accountability for those taking it. At least those wasting their own money on gambling miss it, they could have bought something else with it. In addition, those spending the proceeds received the money by choice, not force.

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The Greens are ever addicted to taking more and more, regardless of how badly it performs. Their faith based initiatives on pouring money into rail completely ignore economics, but cost people their money - but the Greens ignore that. They are so addicted to gambling with other people's money they don't realise it IS other people's money and that the Greens want to use force to take it for their purposes.

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So go on Sue, stop the political addiction to gambling, look in the mirror and stop advocating gambling with the money of other people.