Author: David Landon Cole

Ways in which Barack Obama is different from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Posted on by David Landon Cole

The Pennsylvania Republican party have run an advert where the ‘O’ of Obama’s surname is replaced with a hammer and sickle in a circle. Just for the avoidance of doubt, I thought I’d do a little list of ways in which Barack Obama is different from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

CPSU Barack Obama
Ran a country through one-party rule Has never run a country through one-party rule
Killed up to sixty million kulaks Has never killed up to sixty million kulaks
Signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany Has never signed any pacts with Nazi Germany
Crushed uprisings in Hungary and Czechoslovakia Has never crushed uprisings in Hungary and Czechoslovakia
Ran a command economy Runs a free market economy
Persecuted Christians and executed Orthodox priests Is a Christian

Do I really need to continue? OK, Republicans, we get it. You think Obama is allowing the federal government to grow too large. This does not make him a communist.

xD.

In response to James ‘Nourishing Obscurity’ Higham

Posted on by David Landon Cole

My friend James Higham – learned counsel for the other side – has replied at length to the video I posted of Philip Spooner saying, in answer to whether he was supportive of gay rights, ‘what do you think I fought for at Omaha Beach?‘, saying “Marriage is the union of two people for the purposes of procreation – end of story“. Well, gauntlet thrown, gauntlet picked up.

The first objection is this – not only was the question wrong for anyone in a polling place to ask because it presupposed that the wrong answer would impact on the person’s right to vote, something not provided for by the constitution but if it did not prevent the man from voting, then why was the question there in the first place?

If the question was asked actually inside the polling place, where people are actually putting the cross in a box, or whatever the local variant is, that would be a problem. I suspect that this was just as Mr Spooner was going into or coming out of the polling place. I’m not familiar with the procedures in Massachusetts, but the election officials in the UK would come down on you like a ton of bricks if you did that. There is no restriction, though, on speaking to people near the polling place (so long as it isn’t intimidatory). Secondly, the fact that something is not provided for in the Constitution is irrelevant. The Constitution is based on negative liberties – unless it says you must do or refrain from doing something, you can do what you want. Indeed, the tenth amendment reads

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

.

There is nothing in the US Constitution that prevents two people, on the way to vote, from discussing how they will cast their ballot.

The second objection is that it is a false question. You and I know full well that to just drop in the word “equality” and ask people to say whether they favour it or not will always produce a majority opinion in favour. That, however, is not what was really being asked. What was being asked was whether the person was in favour of gay marriage or not.

This becomes a semantic question. Does gay equality mean that we must allow gay marriage? I answer in the affirmative; James in the negative. James acknowledged this, and goes on to say

This is a blurring of two separate issues:

1. Do you believe that adult gays and lesbians should be able to pursue their lifestyle, insofar as they conform to the law, without fear or prejudice being shown towards them?

Most would say yes to that.

2. Do you agree that gays and lesbians have an equal right to marry as much as any heterosexual?

I think there is a real problem with that division. Let us substitute the term ‘people with blue eyes’ for ‘gays and lesbians’, mutatis mutandur, and see what happens.

1. Do you believe that adult people with blue eyes should be able to pursue their lifestyle, insofar as they conform to the law, without fear or prejudice being shown towards them?

2. Do you agree that people with blue eyes have an equal right to marry as much as any person with brown eyes?

In the second case, it’s very obvious that the law has been constructed to favour those with brown eyes against those with blue eyes. People with blue eyes can do whatever they want so long as they conform to the law and it is that law which prevents them from doing what they want to do. The law is cast unfairly.

Moving on, James says:

Here’s the logical fallacy. Same sex cannot marry, by definition. Here is the Merriam-Webster definition [until 2003, when the PCists got in and forced it to be changed]:

Main Entry: marriage
Pronunciation: ‘mar-ij also ‘mer-
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English mariage, from Old French, from marier to marry
Date: 14th century
1 a : the state of being married b : the mutual relation of husband and wife : WEDLOCK c : the institution whereby men and women are joined in a special kind of social and legal dependence for the purpose of founding and maintaining a family
2 : an act of marrying or the rite by which the married status is effected; especially : the wedding ceremony and attendant festivities or formalities
3 : an intimate or close union

To which I say nonsense. All James has done is chosen a definition of marriage that he likes. I could simply choose a different one, or say that a family does not necessarily include children, or say that the definition was changed in 2003 to reflect changes in how the term is used.

Not only that but polls such as this one show that the majority do not accept that what gays have is a marriage – it’s a civil partnership. Even if they did achieve a majority that way, it is still pointless because it is like changing a science text to say that the sun rises in the west, just because a concerted propaganda campaign has convinced people of it.

In classical Greece, the household included slaves; in mediaeval Europe, servants. It can be extended or nuclear. The way in which we live changes; terms like ‘family’ are subjective in meaning.

The third objection is that not only are they blurring the question and presenting a false construct as a valid alternative but they are also lying about history. On the Meriam-Webster page, a commentator said that the only reason for that definition of marriage was that the man who wrote it was a fundamentalist Christian.

James then goes on to detail how marriage was seen as between a man and a woman in classical Greece, pharaoic Egypt and so on. Certainly, marriage was conceived of as between a man and a woman before Christianity appeared. I’m not sure that the construct is false – morality in the west is at least based on Judaeo-Christian values, and so, as marriage in those value is generally conceived of as being between a man and a woman, that it persists is no surprise. Judaeo-Christian values may be based on other values, or incorporate features of them, but the absence of many temples to Osiris in central London would suggest that the Egyptian mythos is not a major force. Marriage as described pre-dates Christianity, but it could have died out and Christianity was implemental in seeing that it did not die out. The inflexibility can be attributed to the fundamentalism.

In any case, I don’t really care what the ancients considered moral. Quite apart from their genocide, slavery and credulousness, to define one’s morality by any other’s actions, past or present, is to give up your rationality.

James then goes off on something of a flight of fancy, suggesting that ‘socialists’ are trying to rewrite history. Er… no. As I’ve tried to show, past definition does not apply today to a subjective term. Apparently, we are aiming for

1) Abolition of all ordered governments
2) Abolition of private property
3) Abolition of inheritance
4) Abolition of patriotism
5) Abolition of the family
6) Abolition of religion
7) Creation of a world government

I’m not sure where this came from – no link provided that I can see, but it is a load of garbage. (1) and (7) cancel each other out, the Christian Socialist Movement would have something to say about (6). (3) is a subset of (2), and that’s something than could be attributed to communists, not socialists or social democrats. Quite how we would go about abolishing feelings of kinship – (4) and (5) is beyond me. They survived the USSR, after all.

Ultimately, I see marriage as a contract between two adults. It’s no-one’s business how or why they enter into that contract. The only arguments other than ‘we don’t like gays’ against gay marriage have to do with marriage necessarily being a vehicle for procreation. That is a stupid thing to say – many couples can’t have children, many don’t want children.

xD.

Of marriage, race and contract

Posted on by David Landon Cole

While Jan Moir has been issuing her homophobic drivel and being roundly castigated by the internet, another story in the news of quite astounding bigotry caught my eye.

In Tangipahoa Country, Louisiana, a justice of the peace, Keith Bardwell, refuses to give marriage licenses for mixed-race couples. Yes, you read that correctly.

The story first surfaced in the Hammond Daily Star. Mr Bardwell says he will not perform mixed-race marriages because the children will suffer as neither black nor white society will accept them.

I don’t want to get into a semantic discussion about whether this is racism. I would say that it is and, even if it isn’t, it’s simply flat wrong. I would like to point out some of the other screaming idiocies that this puisne justice has committed by his actions.

Firstly, he has awarded the state the right to choose those fit to breed.

Secondly, he has misapplied this principle in choosing a single category and not looking at others.

Thirdly, he has made childbearing a necessary consequence of marriage.

Fourthly, he has made the ability to contract marriage contingent on the approval of the state.

Fifthly, he has ignored the ruling of the Supreme Court in Loving v Virginia, where the unanimous opinion said, inter alia

There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy.

Sixthly, in so doing he has violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. (emphasis added)

Seventhly, he has legalised the tyranny of the majority by making social acceptance a condition of action

Eighthly, he has confused correlation with causation and taken his small number of instances to be indicative of the bigger picture

Ninethly, he has done what he thinks is just; his role is to enforce justice. That may or not be just, but it is not his place to second guess the law in this way.

Tenthly, he has not realised that the election of a biracial president suggests, at the least, that the mood is changing.

His actions, or rather inactions, are a travesty of justice. He apparently intends not to restand for the office of justice of the peace when his term expires on the last day of 2014. I hope we do not have to wait that long for him to be removed from office.

xD.

Guardian Local – a good thing

Posted on by David Landon Cole

A little while back, I wrote a piece arguing for a ‘Guardian London’ supplement to the Guardian, similar to Guardian America or Comment is Free, both here and at Liberal Conspiracy.

Whether or not the Guardian read, let alone paid any attention to, my thoughts, I am very glad to see this:

Guardian Local planned to launch next year
Starting with Leeds, Cardiff and Edinburgh, guardian.co.uk is planning to launch a local news project in a small number of locations. At the moment guardian.co.uk is looking for bloggers – with journalistic qualifications “desirable” – to help cover community news, and report on local developments. The project will emphasise local political decision-making, and is scheduled to go live next year.

“Guardian Local is a small-scale experimental approach to local newsgathering. We are focusing on three politically engaged cities and we expect to launch in early 2010,” said Emily Bell, the director of digital development at Guardian News & Media.

Read more over at the Guardian. Now, I think there is a difference between the ‘local’ and ‘hyperlocal’ and the coverage I think London – the fifth home nation – needs. However, it takes the same line of wanting to build and support citizen journalism. London also needs better local coverage and, if coverage at the local level in London can be improved, we might be able to do the same for London level coverage.

xD.

Off on my travels

Posted on by David Landon Cole

I’ve spent the past few days in Kyiv, Ukraine. One way and another, I’m travelling quite a lot at the moment, but all I tend to see is the inside of hotels and conference centres, so I was determined to do a tour of Kyiv. Unfortunately, by the time the allotted day came round, I was absolutely exhausted, so I haven’t seen nearly as much as I would have liked.

General impressions, though, are very good. The streets in central Kyiv are all very wide – probably fifty metres between buildings on the main roads – which means there is plenty of room to stroll through a city that was either not too badly affected by the ravages of communist architecture or is doing a good job of renovating itself. It also makes the city quiet, despite the heavy traffic. There’s plenty to see and do – the Museum of the Great Patriotic War is very interesting, and it’s lovely to walk along the Dnieper and see the islands in the river.

The Atlantic Treaty Association’s 55th General Assembly brought me to the Ukraine. Ukraine is, as we know, on a path that may, if the people desire it, take it into NATO. While it remains controversial, the people I met here, from the government and broader civil society, suggested to me that there is commitment to modernisation and Euro-Atlantic integration, whether or not that actually means signing up to the Washington Treaty or not.

The next few weeks see me in Macedonia, Slovakia and maybe Montenegro.

xD.

Why did Obama receive the Nobel Peace Prize?

Posted on by David Landon Cole

I’ve been trying to work out why the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Obama.

Prima facie, it appears a strange decision.
The citation makes it clear that the award was made in expectation of future achievements –

“democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.”

That is a precedent. Recent laureates – Martti Ahtisaari, Al Gore & the IPCC, Muhammad Yunus & Grameen Bank, the IAEA & Mohammad El Baradei, Wangaari Mathai and Shirin Ebadi – have received the prize after the achievement, following the logic that Al Gore & the IPCC raised knowledge and awareness of climate change. Jimmy Carter received the prize not for his presidency but his work thereafter. However, there are other comparisons to be drawn; Kim Dae Jung received the prize, although North and South Korea remain divided; Rabin, Peres and Arafat received the prize, although the conflict still goes on in the Levant.

The will of Alfred Nobel says that the prize should go

to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.

I suspect that the members of the special committee of the Norwegian Storting, Thorbjørn Jagland, Kaci Kullmann Five, Sissel Marie Rønbeck, Inger-Marie Ytterhorn and Ågot Valle, opted for Obama on the basis that he had done work for building fraternity between nations – the Cairo speech – and the reduction of standing armies – or at least standing nuclear weapons. The President of the USA saying that the USA at least wants a world free of nuclear weapons or that there can be a better relationship between the Western and Muslim worlds probably means by default that he has done good work. Indeed, the citation says

“The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.”

I do not think that the members of the committee wanted to court such controversy, and so conclude that they must not have been aware that it would have riled a section of American society and so possibly made things harder for Obama, as well as raising questions about the prize. Perhaps when he had more concrete achievements under his belt, it would have been appropriate; as it is, the predictable, political fallout means that Obama should have been seen by the Committee as a poor choice – at least for now.

xD.

PS I’m currently in Kyiv at a conference with representatives of forty-two countries. The universal reaction to the news was ‘what the fuck?’

A short letter to Mr Djanogly

Posted on by David Landon Cole

Jonathan Djanogly, MP,
House of Commons,
London SW1A 0AA.

Dear Mr Djanogly,

Re: Conduct of Mr Patrick Mercer

As you will be aware, there was a story in the press earlier this year about a hit-list of prominent British Jews, including Lord Sugar. The Sun has since admitted it was false, apologised and withdrawn the article. The inspiration for the article came from Mr Glen Jenvey, who Mr Mercer has described as ‘a man who needs to be listened to’.

A colleague of mine, Tim Ireland, discovered the story’s inaccuracy through his investigation in his own time. Since then, Mr Ireland has been branded a child molester and had his home address and ex-directory telephone number published on the internet.

I am writing to you because your colleague, Mr Mercer, has caused a number of the problems Mr Ireland faces through both his actions and inactions, including denying contacts with Mr Jenvey despite evidence in the public domain to the contrary. A summary of the events can be found on the Guardian’s website (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/sep/25/the-sun-ummah-unite-bardot) and on Mr Ireland’s own website (http://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2009/09/patrick_mercer_boom.asp).

I should be very grateful if you could find the time to discuss this with Mr Mercer and if you could inform me of the results of that discussion.

Yours sincerely,

David Cole.

The London polity

Posted on by David Landon Cole

The London Evening Standard is to become a freesheet, the BBC report. thelondonpaper was pulled by News International last month. We are now down to three, non-specialist, London-wide newspapers, the ES, London Lite and Metro. I’m excluding things like Sport, Shortlist and City AM.

This is not good. We will shortly only have two newspapers in London. Television and radio news for London is largely a joke, with the possible exception of the City Hall slot on BBC1’s Politics Show.

London has a population on the order of seven and one-half million. If it were an independent country, it would rank ninety-second out of two hundred odd, behind Burundi and ahead of Switzerland. In terms of GDP per capita, it would be third, behind Luxembourg and ahead of Norway. It is a population, financial and cultural centre. In other words, London matters. From the point of view of the UK, London really matters. What happens within London matters. The politics and governance of London matter.

However, there is no London polity. It is starting to develop on the internet, but the lack of coverage of London politics in traditional outlets (including, I would add, the Standard) suggests that the desire for coverage of the politics of the city is not yet there (or at least not yet recognised). Of course, it’s hard to see to what extent that desire exists, or to generate it, without that coverage. We find ourselves in a catch-22. I think that greater awareness of the existence of London as an important political entity below the national, UK level would be a good thing, for the reasons I describe above. Perhaps the development of some sort of London national sentiment would help, although that has historically required the generation of an imagined community through what Benedict Anderson refers to as print capitalism. Given that we need better and wider supervision of London governance in order to make the same London governance work, I think we have to use the inelegant principle that when you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow; perhaps giving powers to London similar to those Wales had after the first devolution might be a start.

xD.

UPDATE 1550 – I’d like to flag up a couple of posts relating to the London Evening Standard by the Tory Troll and 853.

Credit where credit’s due: Nadine’s right on this one

Posted on by David Landon Cole

I’m no fan of the Hon. Member for Mid Beds, but, credit where credit’s due, I wholly agree with her on the question asked by Andrew Marr of the PM.

Attacking the man in such a personal way, and not at all professionally, took journalism to a new low and eroded what respect is left within society for politicians. It moved us one step further along the road of a society concerned more with image and gossip than substance and fact. It was a very significant and sad moment.

Do go and read the full post. When you’re done reading that, read this excellent post from Graeme Archer on the same subject over at CentreRight. It’s just a shame that the comments on that piece aren’t as well considered.

It’s one thing for guttersnipes like Paul Staines and the bloggertarians to harp on about the subject of Brown’s mental health; quite another for a reputable journalist to ask a question based on nothing more than innuendo.

I wrote about this subject earlier this month.

xD.

UPDATE 1400 – it would appear that the blogger who originated this story admits that he has no evidence (C4 news).

UPDATE 1815 – please see Tim Ireland’s comment below. Dorries is a hypocrite; even when she’s right, she’s wrong.

The influence of the Crown

Posted on by David Landon Cole

On the 6th April [1780], Mr. Dunning moved … ‘that the influence of the crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished.’

– Erskine May, The Constitutional History of England since the Accession of George III, Ch. 1, available free online here.

If the constitutional settlement that comes down to us from the Glorious Revolution and the 1689 Bill of Rights means anything, it is that the Crown does not interfere in the political life of the country – no political patronage, no advocacy and certainly no interfering with democracy. The heir apparent cannot be separated from the reigning monarch for three reasons. Firstly, it would be too easy for the heir apparent to be a means for the monarch to avoid the restrictions on their action. Secondly, the heir apparent receives a stipend from the state and the Duchy of Cornwall; they are bound by the same constitutional principles as the monarch. Thirdly, they can effectively give the imprimatur of the state – without recourse to Parliament.

It is worth remembering that the first grievance in the Bill of Rights reads

Whereas the late King … did endeavour to subvert and extirpate … the laws and liberties of this kingdom; by assuming and exercising a power of dispensing with and suspending of laws and the execution of laws without consent of Parliament

While it might no longer be a matter of life and death, Chelsea Barracks is the largest urban brownfield site in the EU and were sold for £959m – no trifle. Moreover, the Prince’s actions over Chelsea Barracks are an interference in the lawful action of a private citizen in a manner not approved by Parliament.

Prince Charles, as we know, has been interfering in the democratic process by advocating his preferred architects*. However, it goes beyond this.

Through the Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health, there is criticism with a crest of ‘orthodox’ medicine and advocacy of homeopathy and chiropractic, amongst others.

Through the Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment, there is the promotion of the old against the new.

Through Duchy Originals, there is distortion of the market and a removal of opportunities for small companies to enter the organic market.

I do not mean to diminish in any way the work of the charities supported by the Prince. However, his recent comportment, leading to damage to the constitutional settlement and criticism for his action, can be said to be favourable neither to the charities nor to the country. If the Prince is prepared to make a quiet phone call to advance the interests of one of his favoured architects, who is to say that he will not do the same to force a business’s hand?

All the other activities the Prince undertakes carry the same risk. Advocating these things aren’t necessarily bad – with the exception of the dangerous guff and nonsense spouted about medicine. If, in Bagehot’s phrase, the monarchy is the dignified part of the constitution, they must both remain and be seen to remain dignified; that implies a step’s removal from society. If their cause is worthy, none of the charities supported by the Prince would struggle without his involvement. If they are dependent for survival or eficacy on his involvement, the monarchy is entering into the political realm. I would add that there is a difference between an established society looking for a royal to be a patron, and a royal setting up a society to promote a particular interest.

One day, Charles will be King. It should be clear that intervention by the monarch in a democratic process of our country would provoke a constitutional crisis. I feel that the same principles apply to the heir apparent. I fear that the future King, even if he doesn’t breach this important principle of the constitution, may by his past actions weaken it unless it is made clear that there will be no repeat of the interference. Mr Dunning’s motion of 1780 seems appropriate now.

xD.

* – While that was going on, I was reading Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. There seemed to be certain comparisons to be made between the naf style of pastiche favoured by the cultural elite in the novel and those favoured by Prince Charles. Everything has to be old; anything contemporary is a priori bad.