Tag Archives: freedom

Errant Satrap

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That’s how the European Union views Great Britain as the EU continues to demand that Great Britain accede to demands they wish to impose on a sovereign nation—solely to bring that subordinate polity to heel. Examples of the EU’s demands:

  • post-Brexit sovereignty to make Britain more competitive via deregulation, environmental rules or tax reform—these must not occur
  • UK’s ability to subsidize industries in line with EU state-aid regulations—this must be curtailed

The first must not be allowed explicitly because of that competition. The second may be bad business overall, but it’s a domestic matter.

And this, regarding tariffs:

new tariff schedule London published last month eliminated levies on some 2,000 goods, or 17% of goods in the schedule, and simplified tariffs on another 40%. Measured by value, 70% of Britain’s imports from other World Trade Organization members will now be tariff-free, compared to 52% under the EU-wide tariff schedule.

Here is the EU’s attempt to prevent British competition.

And the EU’s demands regarding fishing:

bind the UK permanently in EU fisheries rules governing where British and other fishermen can cast their nets. The UK instead wants the same level of sovereignty other coastal countries enjoy to negotiate fishing rights annually.

And that’s the rub: the EU continues to demand to reach into—deep into—British national sovereignty to impose EU governance imperatives on British domestic matters. The EU does not accept Great Britain’s sovereignty.

Every one of those demands individually are deal breakers, and their aggregate demonstrate the EU’s (continued) bad faith in its “negotiations.”

The Brits should walk away from Brussels today and stop wasting their time and effort on the EU’s sham. They have better and more pressing things to do with their resources than negotiating with those who will not.

Affirmative Action in California

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The good citizens of California banned discrimination on the basis of race and sex when they voted up Proposition 209 nearly 25 years ago. That proposition barred affirmative action programs.

Those citizens of a generation ago understood that affirmative action programs, by their deliberate use of race and sex as selection criteria, are fundamentally racist and sexist.

Here we have the California Assembly affirmatively supporting just that racism and sexism.

California Legislative Black Caucus Chair Dr Shirley Weber, primary sponsor of ACA 5, which is designed to rescind Prop 209 and to that end puts the matter on the November ballot, said this about her bill, claiming that the current political and social environment is

forcing Californians to acknowledge the deep-seated inequality and far-reaching institutional failures that show that your race and gender still matters[.]

However, rather than addressing the root causes of “inequality” (carefully undefined, that—inequality of outcome? of initial opportunity? of…?—of whatever seems convenient to the politician, apparently) and of “institutional failures,” the California Assembly has chosen to expand those failures, to strengthen the prejudice, by reverting to those inherently bigoted programs.

My irony alarm is sounding.

And the Assembly as a whole is proud of its bigotry.

Timidity, or What’s the Point?

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The European Union is claiming to be dismayed with the People’s Republic of China and with Russia over their

“targeted” campaigns to spread health hoaxes and false information about the [Wuhan Virus].

In a “statement,” the European Commission wrote

Foreign actors and certain third countries, in particular Russia and China, have engaged in targeted influence operations and disinformation campaigns in the EU, its neighborhood, and globally….

And

a “massive wave” of health care hoaxes, false claims, online scams, hate speech, and COVID-19 coronavirus conspiracy theories circulating on social media platforms—as well as attempts by foreign actors to insert themselves in domestic EU issues.
“Such coordination [by third country actors] reveals an intention to use false or misleading information to cause harm[.]”

Strong words, it would seem, and maybe the EU is finally starting to stand up against such misbehaviors.

Not so much.

The Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell

assured China’s foreign minister that the bloc “is not going to embark on any kind of Cold War with China.”

Never mind that the PRC has been waging its Cold War for a long time.

Just…never mind, I guess.

Progressive-Democrats Sue

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Progressive-Democrats, in particular the Democratic National Committee the Arizona Democratic Party, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, are suing the

Arizona secretary of state and a gaggle of county officials over a rule in the state that automatically rejects mail-in ballots without signatures, whereas voters whose mail-in ballot signatures do not match their voter registration are given five days to remedy the situation.

This might seem, superficially, a valid beef.

However.

Mismatched signatures and missing signatures aren’t close to the same thing. Voting monitors are not handwriting experts; it’s easy for them to mistake signatures and think there’s a mismatch.

It doesn’t take a handwriting expert to see the difference between a signature and no signature at all.

Nor would it be difficult functionally to stuff ballot boxes with deliberately pre-marked and unsigned ballots followed by operatives of any party using the “remedy” facility to sign those ballots—with no proof available that the Johnny-come-lately signers actually are the ones who filled in the ballots. Or even that each ballot was individually marked by separate individual voters.

The parties to the suit claim, with wide-eyed innocence, that automatically rejecting those unsigned ballots would disenfranchise voters. This is nonsense. Allowing these pre-marked, unsigned ballots to be signed later, with no way of knowing that the signer is the person who voted a particular ballot—and only that ballot—would disenfranchise the legitimate voters by having their votes diluted, if not canceled altogether, by all those illegitimately cast false votes.

The DNC, ADP, DSCC suit can be read here.

Irredeemable, Deplorable

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That’s not the Progressive-Democrat Hillary Clinton. This time it’s the Progressive-Democratic Party’s Presidential candidate Joe Biden.

Do we really think this is as good as we can be as a nation? I don’t think the vast majority of people think that. There are probably anywhere from 10 to 15 percent of the people out there who are just not very good people, but that’s not who we are.

Ten to fifteen per cent of us Americans just aren’t very good. Between thirty-three million and fifty million of us Americans are just beneath contempt.

Biden’s contempt for Americans generally is an expansion of his contempt for, his outright bigotry toward, black Americans, which he exposed when he said to a black interviewer,

I tell you if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black[.]

This is the second Party campaign in a row where the Progressive-Democrats demonstrate such utter contempt for Americans.

This is the Party that wants to rule over the United States.

What kind of government can we expect from a ruling organization that so hates the subjects over whom it would rule?