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Tuesday, April 26, 2005

ASBO's

I could not believe Mark Oaten the Lib Dem spokesman on crime who was on the lunchtime news today saying Lib Dems supported ASBO's plus! I am not quite sure what the 'plus' is but I have very clear memories of him and his Party arguing against ASBO's as a serious infringement of people's rights.

Now they want a souped up version! This is known as political expediency writ large.

Charles Kennedy was struggling on ITV last night. You do get the impression that he hasn't thought through many of the policies they are pursuing not least on Iraq. Regardless of your view on the war withdrawing our troops before the Iraqi's want us to is a not a sensible policy.

According to, Mark Oaten MP, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, in his speech at Brighton on Wednesday, the Liberals want to build more prisons. He was introduced, by the person leading the speech as being a “tough liberal” - an interesting oxymoron?
I am all for building more prisons so that we can put more criminals away and for longer and I was considering changing my allegiances and becoming a Liberal – but only for part of a whimsical moment. Oaten, went on to state, he wants to build more prisons in place of the old ones, “knock them down” he pleaded. Bang goes whimsical and back to reality.
He wants to demolish the old Victorian prisons and then build 5 stars, state of the art prisons in their place. I trust he wants to build the new before destroying the old, otherwise we (the taxpayer) will be putting the convicted into temporary accommodations – such as the Hilton chain of hotels.
He passionately suggested the new prisons will re-habilitate recidivist criminals. As I see it, the “old lags” will, on release, be only too eager to return to their 5 star hotels rather than earn a living, if a legal living is to be had on the outside? Not so stated Oaten.
Part of the new 5 star treatment would include places where these criminals can be taught to “read and write” to enable to get those jobs on the outside. What jobs? Probably, they can read politics and write liberal policies and then put themselves forward for selection as a Liberal Member of Parliament? Most other employers will not knowingly employ a convicted felon and why should they?
I held the honest belief that any government of the day is required to ensure that everyone, with a sound mind, leaves school being able to do just that – read and write? Isn’t that one reason my tax burden is so high – to pay for primary and secondary education? Perhaps not, leave it until they get to prison, 5 stars of course. Then we teach them how to read and write and then become a Liberal MP.
Then, Oaten, allowed that liberal lie to trip of his tongue, “… one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”. That is why he went on to plead is why his party will not support the elected government of the day’s attempt to get the “glorification of terrorism” converted into a criminal offence. Oaten finds the concept “difficult”, finds the concept beyond “definition”, and finds it to be contrary to the liberal principle of “free speech”?
Oaten, try this: A crazy, beard stroking Cleric states on television, that the four Muslims, (promised “paradise” and access “72 virgins”) who bombed the London underground and killed innocents are “fantastic”, he even went further and grotesquely caricatured them as “the fantastic four” That is “glorification”, that is terrorism and that must become a simple criminal offence. Get the concept, get the simplicity, Oaten?.
“… fantastic four…” isn’t “free-speech”, that is speech intended to encourage others to take the innocent lives of ordinary people, living in a democracy of many creeds, colours and beliefs. That “free-speech” is intended to terrorise the many and their movements to go about their ordinary lives, “freely”.
Speech isn’t “free” – with freedom comes responsibility. That crazy Cleric, knew instinctively he had committed an “offence” within civil society, declaring the “four” as being “fantastic” That is why he fled. He appeared on ITV on Saturday afternoon, attempting to defend himself. Knowing the undercover broadcast was being aired, late on Sunday, he caught the early morning flight into the middle-east, deserting his 2 wives and children, who remain here on state benefit?
If a crazy, beard-stroking cleric, knew instinctively that he had “glorified” the indefensible terrorists, then even a liberal like Oaten, should be able to understand the concept, have the dignity to argue the legalistic value and bring it onto the statue book.
Is that being too kind to a woolly, soft and dangerous collection of beards, (sorry political party) or is it the case, as they believe “one man’s free speech is another man’s belligerent, encouraging call to arms to commit the slaughter of the innocents”?

Chairman Charlie Kennedy demanded a “strategic withdrawal” from Iraq, in his speech at the Liberals conference. He didn’t specify the strategy that should be implemented, but then Liberals are woolly when it comes to specifying anything other than higher taxes.
The weasel words “strategic withdrawal” is liberal code for “cut and run” or “run and retreat”. Kennedy is pathetically attempting to imitate Walter Cronkite (long-time CBS-TV News anchorman). Walter Leland Cronkite who nightly reported on Vietnam, in a gloom and doom manner, caused the tipping point for public opinion. Without loosing one single battle in Vietnam, public opinion pushed the Government of the People to cut and run, leaving the South Vietnamese to fend for themselves.
Kennedy “supports the troops” but “not the war” – that’s like saying he supports Surgeons, but not the live saving operations they perform and that is a breath taking contradiction But then, Liberals really do have problems saying what they really mean, unless they are talking about raising taxes.
Even, though he “supports the troops”, he also wants “the troops out”. Given they are “in” and he wants them “out”, it therefore follows that he does not support the troops in their current position and it also follows that he really does not support the troops. I wonder why liberals can’t say what they really do mean. Perhaps, trying to be all things to all men, means you have to consistently have contradictory positions and that result is contradictory statements of the breath taking kind?
Last time I looked, unless “liar” Blair has stealthy changed things, all of our troops are volunteers. They asked to join up and travel to exotic lands to kill people. In basic training they were issued with guns, taught how to strip them down, rebuild, load them with ammunition, take aim and then fire the weapon. The idea being, in battle, they would be able to kill their opponents with deadly force rather than be killed. War is deadly for both sides and our troops know that, yet they choose warfare and are professionally trained to carry it out.
If you are particularly skilful in killing people you can even progress your career and volunteer for Special Forces, such as the SAS. So skilful, that they can leave Hertford in the morning, fly to Gibraltar, shoot 3 unarmed IRA personnel in the head and fly home in time for tea.
What Kennedy and other appeasers don’t understand is what “get the job done means”. We rightly or wrongly, took pre-emptive action and went to war with Iraq. We have to get the job done and then leave. That means an elected government in place and sufficient of their own troops and police to defend that government.
To go down the Kennedy route of cut and run would embolden the terrorists, encourage them further in their bid to return us all generally and the middle-east specifically, back to medieval times. What the liberals forget to mention is that the Kurds in north of Iraq aren’t at war and most of the south aren’t.
The battle is being fought mostly in the Baghdad Sunni triangle – the centre of Iraq. There, crazed extremists are not only trying to kill foreign troops, they consistently car bomb, shoot, be-head, create mayhem and murder other Muslims deliberately, so as to terrorise them. Just as Saddam Hussein did before he was removed.
Running away from the problem as Kennedy would have us do only means that Hussein will be replaced with something worse, something medieval that respects nothing other than an extreme version, of something wrongly labelled Islam.
Kennedy states the reason the Iraqis don’t want us there is because we are seen as an “army of occupation”. If all “occupiers” run the risk of being car bombed or worse, then why aren’t the natives of Gibraltar or the Falklands bombing us? Why aren’t the Native American Indians shooting Americans or trying to Bomb the White House? Why didn’t the Hong Kong Chinese bomb the London Underground, before we handed the Hong Kong back to China?
If you follow the Kennedy line, then you blame the UK first, it’s all our fault, that we removed a creature and his murderous regime that defied the pathetic UN for 10 years or more. It’s our entire fault that our troops are voluntarily, prepared to put themselves in harms way to get a noble job done.
That noble job is to enable a democratically elected government, complete with trained troops and police to move into the 21st Century and freedom. That will not occur unless we do really continue to support our troops in an honest and truthful manner.
No doubt, Charles “Cut and Run” “Cronkite” Kennedy and his liberals do not. If he succeeds, then I wonder if he will take full responsibility for such dangerous policies. So dangerous, that we as a species become endangered when the crazy extreme terrorists are emboldened and widen their war on freedom.