Ban the niqab?

With France moving to ban the niqab in public, it has proven more difficult than was first thought. It looks more like it will be a ban on specific public premises, rather than all public spaces. However, the UK Independence Party (UKIP) is now supporting the idea. No doubt knowing that in doing so, it will have the support of more than a few Conservative voters, but also tap interest from the great unwashed who see something in the BNP.

You can see women wearing the niqab regularly in London. It provokes fear in some, seeing someone completely concealed. Others see it as representing repression of women, that a woman would be required by a man to only go out in public so shrouded. It is highly likely those that wear the niqab, especially in a Western liberal democracy, and those who support women wearing them, are unlikely to be supportive of liberal capital Western society. No doubt many shopkeepers and others would prefer that people enter their property not wearing the niqab.

So is it the right response to ban it?

No.

All shopkeepers and indeed all owners of private property should rightfully be able to set rules on what clothes people can and can't wear on their property without fear of so called "human rights" legislation deeming it "discriminatory". It isn't. If I don't want people wearing certain items of clothing on my property then it is fundamental to me exercising private property rights.

However, to criminalise those who wear the niqab in public is to say the state has the right to criminalise what anyone can wear in public. That is fundamentally contrary to having a free open liberal democratic society. To criminalise it may mean some women are effectively kept at home, which is not to their advantage. Moreso, it criminalises those some who deem to be the victims, not those who enforce this ludicrous tradition.

Freedom includes the freedom of others to offend you, it includes the right to hold silly beliefs and to wear ridiculous clothes in a public place. To surrender this is to ask the question "what next" and it is to hand to Islamists demonstrable proof to them that freedom is not to be embraced, because those who purport to believe in it will abandon it when they are offended. Like banning the vile Islam4UK, banning the niqab wont reduce the presence of Islamism in the UK.

Islamism in the UK will only be confronted when central and local government agencies stop funding or supporting any non-government bodies with a religious affiliation, but most of all when all major political parties, and the general public, stop fearing declaring their utmost support for free open liberal secular British society. Britain allows all citizens to choose whether or not they want religion and to live their lives as they see fit according to those beliefs, but by no means does it tolerate those who seek to use force to change that.

In Britain it should be clear there is a very simple deal - you have freedom to choose how you live your life, and that freedom includes a right to disseminate your point of view, but not to use or threaten force to change the views or lifestyles of others.

One of those freedoms is to wear a niqab, but it is also the freedom of others to ban you from their property if you do so, and to criticise you for doing so, and to call for others to stop wearing it.

Sadly not one of the major or even secondary political parties in Britain really does believe in a free liberal capitalist society.

The spendthrift Scotsman

Scotland is predominantly governed by a devolved administration run from Edinburgh. This administration receives most of its funds from Westminster, and its government is led by a coalition dominated by the Scottish National Party (SNP) - a socialist party dedicated to Scotland becoming an independent nationstate (no relation to the neo-fascist British National Party).

It has faced a bit of a fiscal crisis along with the rest of the UK, but unlike the debate on the UK budget, Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond, is pretending there isn't a problem. He is blaming a lack of money for Scotland on Westminster. He is either an economic illiterate (for which there is some evidence) or simply a nasty little nationalist who happens to be a socialist, pretending that the enormous budget deficit of the UK has nothing to do with Scotland.

He faces a budget cut in real terms of £35 billion, but is blaming Labour and by implication England, for him being unable to meet his spending promises according to Alastair Darling.

Scotland already has a GDP of which over half is generated by government - in other words it's like Hungary before the fall of communism. Scottish voters voted for the SNP because it offered the best chance to remove Labour, but the SNP has shown itself to simply be old Labour with nationalist drag. Sadly most Scots are so wedded to Nanny State, that even though the SNP is disappointing, and they are fed up with Labour, they wont dare vote for parties that ask them to take more responsibility for their lives.

You see the Scots who believed that have mostly long ago emigrated!

British Labour Pledge Card

He abolished boom and bust apparently. He ran constant budget deficits, he sold billions in gold reserves at the bottom of the market (to offset his overspending) and now he's devaluing the pound to offset his overspending, and prevent a full asset price correction.

Sadly because around a third of Britain lives directly or indirectly off the state tit, (and the Conservative party is an inspiring as a plastic wrapped premade sandwich) this lot still have a reasonable chance of continuing in their jobs.

(Hat Tip: Old Holborn)

Pity Haiti and the Vatican's hypocrisy

The earthquake has been devastating for a country beset for decades by corruption, kleptocracy, dictatorship and mysticism. It can only be hoped, and no doubt I expect private and government relief to come to this country with a history of being one of the most damned places in the Caribbean. It is ranked 156th by the CIA in per capita GDP, with the average of only US$800 per person per annum, alongside the likes of Cambodia and Chad, and the lowest in the Americas.

If ever there was a country that long needed rule of law,a culture of reason and respect for individual liberty and property rights, and the end of kleptocratic violent government, it would be Haiti.

However, whilst Catholic news services and the Vatican no doubt show true concern about conditions there, even though one questions why a military jet to fly a Bishop from Brazil does anyone any good (except a conscience), it is a shame that the Vatican can't truly be said to be morally consistent about Haiti at all. No, I'm not going to start on the idea that a loving omnipotent God might not strike the most poverty ridden countries with natural disasters like this (that's too obvious).

You see, in 1981 Mother Teresa of Calcutta went to visit Haiti. Not a big deal you might think? Well at the time Haiti was run by a criminal family called the Duvaliers. Papa Doc Duvalier ran the country with an iron fist, all media was controlled by the state and all broadcasting generated a North Korean style personality cult around the Duvalier clan. By 1981 he had been succeeded by his son Jean-Claude (Baby Doc). The Ton Ton Macoute acted as the personal army of the Duvaliers, and would abduct, torture and murder suspected opponents of the regime. Tens of thousands died at the hands of the regime. The Duvalier's meanwhile enriched themselves enormously by creaming off profits from government export monopolies, spending extravagant sums on themselves.

Did Mother Teresa go there to call for freedom, to end abuses of human rights, to call for the Duvaliers to share their ill gotten gains? No.

She received the Legion d'honneur award and praised the Duvaliers for their treatment of the poor. The picture above is of her holding the hand of Michele Duvalier, Baby Doc's wife, who endured the estimated US$3 million wedding not long before Teresa visited. She said of Michele Duvalier that she was "someone who feels, who knows, who wishes to demonstrate her love not only with words but also with concrete and tangible actions . . . the country vibrates with your life work". Vibrates with fear.

Mother Teresa provided open explicit moral support for this gang of thieving murderers. A gang who all up inflicted misery on Haiti for nearly 30 years. It was used as propaganda in Haiti, which has a strongly Catholic population. What more could the Duvaliers have wanted? How disgustingly evil was she in provide succuour to the despicable?

Pope John Paul II by contrast spent only a few hours there in March 1983 and damned the situation in the country.

Yet the Vatican still beatified her. Beatified one who gave warmth to some of Haiti's most evil rulers, who told complete lies about them, and who turned her back on the reality of the country.

No doubt Haitians will warmly welcome any assistance from Catholic charities in the coming days, weeks and months.

However, an appropriate footnote would be to strip Mother Teresa, or rather (her real name) Agnesë Bojaxhiu of her beatification, and to apologise for Haiti for her complicity in supporting the Duvalier regime. There are reports she received funds from the Duvaliers at the time as well. This should be investigated and if found true, it should be spent on providing humanitarian assistance for Haiti.

After all, it is one thing to ignore evil and say nothing, it is another to take a very long trip, to sup with evil, to receive an award, to praise it, to give it credit when it is dripping with the blood of those you purport to care for - and then for your employer to grant you one of its highest honours and respect.

Until then, the Vatican's claim for compassion is deeply darkened by its sympathy for one of its own who did great evil in embracing great evil.

Next UK government must cut spending.

Given it is UK election year, I have decided to start a secondary blog. It simply will report on every announcement by the two major UK political parties calling for increased state spending or decreased state spending.

It is entirely UK focused, and the main purpose is to expose the lies and deceit behind politicians promising to spend more money that isn't theirs, that they don't have, that they would need to borrow from future taxpayers and voters, and not be the slightest bit accountable for.

An election is an advance auction of stolen goods. This UK election is now an advance auction for future stolen goods.

Gordon Brown for 13 years has overspent and borrowed to pay for it. He did so in the good times, and has done so on a grand scale in the bad times. As a result it cripples the public finances for the next decade or so, makes the next government face the need to cut spending and/or hike up taxes. It is a chance for the next administration to seriously address the role of the state in British society, but the chances of that appear slim indeed.

So in the next few weeks there will be more on the Cut Government Spending blog.