Who would Matt McCarten prefer?

Oh yes, it shouldn't be a surprise. Matt McCarten's tired old Marxist rhetoric about US foreign policy. Apparently wanting to be an ally of the US is "fawning support", something no country apparently should seek. Why? Because it Matt's world, the US is bad - very bad. In fact given his political heritage I wouldn't be surprised if he missed the Soviet Union, given that the anti-nuclear policy he supported was, in effect, New Zealand opting out of the Western alliances that saw it siding clearly with the US, NATO and Australia against the Soviet Union and its satellites. The middle ground was the middle ground of not giving a damn about which side won.

So what does he believe in?

1. That after 9/11 the US should NOT have attacked Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and overthrown the regime that provided safe haven and support for the 9/11 attacks. Of course not. Did the US deserve it Matt? Do you believe it was a conspiracy? So you prefer the stoneage misogynists of the Taliban who deny girls an education? No, you wont answer them. It's simple enough, the US shouldn't respond militarily when attacked. Of course not. The US is to blame anyway, right Matt?

2. Israel shouldn't build settlements in the West Bank. Well funnily enough Matt, the Obama Administration doesn't believe in that either. However, what would you do? Cut all aid from Israel? Tell Israel it's on its own? Let all of Palestine become a bloodbath of Islamist terror against the state of Israel? No. He doesn't have an answer to this.

3. Gaza should have open borders, and Israel should allow Hamas to import whatever it wishes, presumably including rockets to start attacking Israel again. Oh but it's ok for war to be waged by heroic militants isn't it Matt? You relate to them. After all, just because they attacked Israel proper doesn't mean anything. Not that you're going to tell Hamas to stop waging war, because it's only peace if the US or Western side surrenders right?

4. Iraq is apparently "occupied". Who by Matt? I guess that democratically elected government is illegitimate, although you claim the war against the Saddam Hussein criminal gangster regime was illegal. That means you believe the Hussein clique was legitimate. You'd prefer the Iranian back Islamist insurgents ran Iraq? The same ones who impose draconian sharia law in areas they controlled? Ahh they're not backed by the US so MUST be ok right? Yes, would have been far better to let the insurgents win. Better still to have left Saddam in power. After all, he didn't occupy Iraq did he?

5. New Zealand shouldn't be in a military alliance with the USA. Why? Because Matt and his buddies on the left don't like it. Would it harm New Zealand? Well hardly, but it does put New Zealand squarely against a whole range of rogue states that Matt presumably would like to appease. So why not Matt?

Or is it just your inherent hatred of individual freedom and capitalism that the US still (with many flaws) represents that drives you?

Police don't understand Twitter

"Robin Hood airport is closed," he wrote. "You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!"

That's what Paul Chambers said on Twitter, jokingly frustrated about snow closing his local airport.

He was arrested under the Terrorism Act for being suspected of creating a bomb hoax. He has his iphone and computer confiscated, and was questioned for seven hours straight.

According to the Daily Telegraph: "I had to explain Twitter to them in its entirety because they'd never heard of it. Then they asked all about my home life, and how work was going, and other personal things," he said.

This hardly surprises me, as one recent experience I had with Police showed a complete lack of understanding of the internet (e.g. what's a blog, what's a message board, how can you find out who people are on the internet?).

Now Paul was foolish, and it may have been appropriate to ask him a few questions. However now it has become a thought crime, a crime to joke about blowing something up. He wasn't at the airport, and it would be clear he just should have been told his statement worried the airport company.

No. Instead he is to be treated like a terrorist, by Police who don't even know the medium he used.

Silence from the anti-Americans

If you absorb the sneering, semi-automatic anti-Americanism of the left, which is seen in the words of many intellectuals, journalists and bloggers, you'd assume the USA engages with other countries purely in an exercise of imperialism. It intervenes where there is oil to plunder.

So when the USA goes to the aid of Haiti, on a grand scale, when there is no apparent economic imperative, then you notice how silent the left are. How so many of them, who probably haven't contributed a thing to any aid appeals, don't say "thank you USA", or notice that even with rampant budget deficits, the USA is still prepared to help on a scale that dwarfs all others. US$100 million in emergency aid, and a flotilla of vessels and aircraft bringing in rescue crews and supplies.

The nasty comment from the vile Lumumba di-Aping, comparing developed country approaches to climate change as "a solution based on the same values that funnelled six million people in Europe into furnaces" is shown up for the disgusting, dishonest envy that permeates so much of the politics around the developing world. "Give us more" they all want, so many unprepared to produce the conditions that generate wealth in the first case. It doesn't matter that because of the wealth of the USA, it can afford to go in, anywhere in the world, and save lives - with a spirit of benevolence you will find rare in any of the kleptocratic criminal gangs that call themselves governments in much of the world.

It isn't an act of self sacrifice of course. The USA knows that a healthy vibrant Haiti is good for the Caribbean, and good for the US. It would no longer be a source of refugees, but a potential trading partner.

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!