Fianna Fail
(They were great under
Charlie McCreevy
and
Bertie Ahern.
But they have gone downhill since.
First they got rid of these two, the best Minister for Finance ever
and the best Taoiseach ever.
They introduced the offensive blasphemy law.
They had the awful
Micheál Martin
as our anti-Israel Minister for Foreign Affairs.
(And now the FF leader.)
And finally they killed the Celtic Tiger by losing billions
bailing out the banks.)
Discussion:
Economics
The ideas of the PDs made Ireland rich, and did more to end poverty in Ireland
than all the work of the left-wing parties
since independence.
Indeed, Ireland's history seems to suggest that right-wing parties end poverty,
while left-wing, statist parties cause it.
Fianna Fail sensibly adopted the PDs' ideas on economics for a long time.
After they got rid of Ahern and McCreevy, though,
and the PDs dissolved,
FF started to drift, so it is hard to know what they stand for now.
They spent billions saving toxic banks that should be closed down.
Whatever this is, it is not capitalism.
America
On foreign policy, FF may not share my ideals,
but they can probably be trusted to do the right thing.
They are a sensible, pragmatic party, and will never offend our
western democratic allies
(Britain and America) in order to make some stupid point.
They haven't the slightest interest in standing
with France (or anyone else)
to make a point against America.
FF and the PDs allowed America use Irish airports in the War on Islamism, 2001 onwards.
William Sjostrom
comments on an RTE TV program in
Mar 2003:
"I had the pleasure of watching John O'Donoghue, a government minister,
lambast a political opponent, John Bruton of Fine Gael, when Bruton demanded to know
whether there were any circumstances when the government would deny use of
Shannon. O'Donoghue told Bruton the government would not let Saddam Hussein use it."
Memo dated 5 Sept 2006 (leaked 1 Dec 2010) from US ambassador to Ireland (under Bush), James C. Kenny,
to US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.
He says the FF Government is
"supportive of continued U.S.
military transits at Shannon Airport ...
The
Irish Government has repeatedly defended U.S. interests in
the face of public criticism".
FF is tolerant of US problems:
"Occasional and
inadvertent breaches of weapons and uniform policies .. are met with public and press scrutiny, but also
with Government understanding."
Who could imagine Labour being so supportive?
Use of the airport is good for the war effort, and good for Ireland:
"Shannon remains a key
transit point for U.S. troops and materiel bound for theaters
in the global war on terror, while yielding diplomatic
benefits for the Irish Government and significant revenues
for the airport and regional economy. ...
U.S. military access to Shannon Airport in western
Ireland is among the most tangible benefits of traditionally
strong U.S.-Irish relations."
I think Bertie Ahern
is the best Taoiseach ever.
Far from perfect (e.g. on foreign policy).
But, I think, the best Ireland has had to date.
I blame Brian Cowen, not Ahern, for wrecking the Celtic Tiger by
bailing out the banks starting in Sept 2008.
Ahern was gone in May 2008.
Maybe he would have bailed out the banks.
Maybe he wouldn't.
But the fact is, he didn't.
Made Ireland rich.
Privatisation (especially of airlines and telecoms). Low tax.
Ended unemployment.
Ended emigration.
Ended poverty.
Helped US and allies in War on Islamism (kept Shannon open).
Ended NI conflict.
Established power-sharing in NI.
Only major black mark:
Anti-Israel.
Set up a democracy.
Defeated violent anti-Treaty forces.
Ended the 1916-23 violence.
Stabilised relations with Britain.
1922 constitution (much better than 1937 one).
Peacefully surrendered power when lost 1932 election.
Today,
only 10 countries in the world
have been democracies as long as Ireland.
Only major black mark:
Executions without trial in Civil War.
Crap economy. State monopolies. Sexual repression. Catholic Church rule.
Neutrality.
Opposition to Falklands War.
Entrenched partition.
Personal corruption.
And before he was in power:
Burnt Union Jack on VE-Day in 1945.
Crap economy. Protectionism. State monopolies. Economic War.
Sexual repression. Catholic Church rule.
1937 constitution.
Irish language compulsion.
Censorship. Neutrality.
Treachery in WW2.
Sneering moral equivalence.
Condolences on death of Hitler.
Entrenched partition.
Personal corruption.
And before he was in power:
Refused to accept pro-Treaty vote.
Caused Civil War.
Doctor Death by Frank McGahon,
who sums up my views
here
about the pointlessness of
trying to "understand"
the
hallucinatory, hate-filled killers
of innocent women and children:
"a serial killer may have any kind of half-baked ludicrous "rationale"
for his murders.
Pehaps they were inspired by listening to a Beatles LP:
who cares?.
It is of little use in preventing future serial killers to examine
in minute detail the "reason"s
proferred by such a killer.
There will always be crazy people.
The first priority is to protect yourself
against crazy people.
Getting sucked into the crazy worldview is a very
good way of losing sight of that priority."
Executing homosexuals
and killing British soldiers
are apparently now ok with the new
Liberal Democrat party.
Khatami receives honorary degree from Scottish University.
He is the first senior Iranian to visit Britain
since the 1979 revolution.
"It is disgusting that St. Andrews university is conferring an honor on this man,
he is responsible for more than 1,300 deaths during his presidency,"
said Maryam Namazie, of the Iranian Women's Liberation group.
"This regime was responsible for the oppression of people that I knew and loved."
Nick Clegg, Jan 2009,
calls on Britain and the EU to block arms sales to Israel.
Lembit Öpik
works for Iranian state
Press TV.
Iran is a brutal dictatorship
that has helped and is helping
the killing of British soldiers
in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the 2010 election,
The Guardian and The Observer both
endorsed
the Liberal Democrats.
On Madrid:
"Let me use this occasion to make one point absolutely clear. If the
terrorists hope they can gain their ends by perpetrating in Britain a similar
outrage to that in Spain, their wickedness will be in vain. Whatever my
disagreements with Tony Blair, any government that I lead will not flinch
in its determination to win the War against Terror, wherever it has to be
fought."
On Iraq:
"The British Conservative Party has been consistent in its support for the
British Government, and for our armed forces, over the war in Iraq.
Indeed Tony Blair would not have won last year's vote in the House of
Commons .. which gave him the mandate to go to
war, without the support of the Conservative Party.
...
The
war against Iraq was necessary. It was just. It was, indeed, arguably
overdue. And, let us not forget, it was overwhelmingly successful"
"We won the Second World War because we fought side-by-side with
America. We won the Cold War because we stood side-by-side with
America. And we will win this war on terror if we wage it side-by-side
with America."
On Europe: "it is true that
there are some who see a European State as a partner of America. But
many have as their main motivation the desire to establish a rival pole of
power in Europe. If their views were to prevail many of the achievements
we value would be at risk. I shall do all I can to resist their ambitions."
He is pro-capitalist and pro-free trade,
and correctly links it all to helping the
Third World.
He quotes Hernando de Soto.
Good stuff.
Then I went off Howard:
Howard keeps being tempted to make capital from Blair's
troubles on Iraq, despite the fact that he agrees with Blair
and would have done the same.
This achieves nothing except
making the Tories look unreliable and unprincipled -
in contrast to
the honourable, principled Blair,
who many conservatives now admire.
Howard should start caring about Bush
- Mark Steyn on Howard's idiotic and unnecessary alienation of Bush
by trying to make capital over Iraq.
Or consider his unnecessary alienation of people like me.
I have never supported the Tories in my entire life.
I have actually voted for Blair (when I lived in the UK,
general election 1997).
After 9/11
I was just, after all these years, for the first time stumbling towards
the view that the Tories weren't so bad after all -
because they are strong on the defence of the west.
And Howard is telling me no, that's not true actually.
If you want really strong in defence of the west, vote Labour.
"Despite the great gaping nullity of the [Conservative] party this past decade,
there was still one thing it stood for: like the Republicans, the Tories were the party
that took foreign policy and national security seriously. That's what Howard threw away
when he chose to repudiate his own Iraq-war vote, accuse Blair of "dereliction of duty"
and demand his resignation."
"how stupid do you have to be to kick away the party's last remaining leg,
the one that still seems relevant to the world we live in? If the Conservatives
are no longer credible on foreign policy, what's left?"
The Tories
do have a problem with
the
conservative pessimism,
that allowed them do nothing as the
Bosnian genocide
raged in Europe in the 1990s.
This Tory isolationist tradition is exemplified by:
"A new approach to foreign affairs - liberal conservatism",
Cameron's foreign policy speech, Sept 2006,
is somewhat mixed-message.
Pessimist Melanie Phillips
puts the most negative spin possible on it,
saying it looks like Cameron will cool things with America.
Bizarre Tory isolationist
Geoffrey Wheatcroft
enthusiastically agrees
(and, unlike Phillips, thinks that would be a good thing).
I suspect both of them are wrong.
I think Cameron is a neo-conservative, no matter what he says.
He's not afraid to say openly he agrees with much of neo-conservatism,
which hardly anyone in Europe says.
He then claims his is a slightly different form, and perhaps it is,
but not that different.
Cameron, Oct 2008, says he is not a neo-con.
And search.
"We should accept that we cannot impose democracy at the barrel of a gun; that we cannot drop democracy from 10,000 feet - and we shouldn't try.
Put crudely, that was what was wrong with the 'neo-con' approach, and why I am a liberal Conservative, not a neo Conservative."
Cameron is a neo-con?
Cameron stands encircled by zealous Anglo-neocons, Geoffrey Wheatcroft, March 22, 2007,
has second thoughts about Cameron's Tories.
Hurray.
If Wheatcroft doesn't like him, then
Cameron is definitely safe to vote for.
Wheatcroft compares Britain's support for America in the War on Islamist fascism
to Vichy France's
support for Nazi Germany in its war on democracy and the Jews.
Again, one always has to wonder
if whining isolationists like this
would have really supported the troops in the second world war.
Whereas it's obvious that the "Anglo-neocons" would have.
Wheatcroft mentions the admirable
Douglas Carswell, who says
"it is in our national interest to support Israel".
Carswell apparently says he does not like to criticise Israel
"because I believe they are a front-line ally in a war against people
who wish to destroy our democratic way of life."
The weirdo Wheatcroft
describes these unexceptional views
as "extreme",
"plainly absurd"
and "terrifying".
Finally!
Prime Minister Cameron, June 2011, finally moves UK government policy towards a hardline approach to sharia.
Anyone supporting sharia law will (finally) be considered an extremist by the UK government.
They are finally going to base government policy on
"the notion that violent extremism is incubated within the ideology of non-violent extremism.
...
Central to the .. strategy is a broader definition of extremism that will be extended beyond groups condoning violence to those considered non-violent but whose views, such as the advocacy of sharia law, fail to "reflect British mainstream values"."
David Cameron talks rubbish about Islamism, May 13, 2007
- "First, a concerted attack on racism and soft bigotry.
You can't even start to talk about a truly integrated society
while people are suffering racist insults and abuse,
as many still are in our country on a daily basis.
...
many Muslims I've talked to about these issues are
deeply offended by the use of the word 'Islamic' or 'Islamist'
to describe the terrorist threat we face today.
We do need greater understanding of the true nature of the terrorist threat.
There's ... too much denial of it in the Muslim community.
But our efforts are not helped by lazy use of language.
Indeed, by using the word 'Islamist' to describe the threat,
we actually help do the terrorist ideologues' work for them"
For heaven's sake, the word
"Islamist"
is used
to allow some clear water
between the jihadi Muslim terrorists (Islamism) and moderate Muslims (Islam).
"Islamism" describes accurately the popular philosophy and world view that motivates jihadi terror
around the world.
Cameron is missing the point that
all Muslims should reject Islamism
and not be offended by insults to it.
Any Muslim who defends Islamism is not someone whose opinions we should care about.
Maybe Cameron will be useless on the war after all.
Can't we get Michael Gove instead?
He attacks Israel over Gaza. He calls Gaza "a prison camp".
Nice response by Ephraim Sneh, former Israeli deputy minister of defence:
"Cameron is right - Gaza is a prison camp, but those who control the prison are Hamas. I'm totally against the double standards of a nation which fights the Taliban but is showing its solidarity with their brothers, Hamas."
Cameron condemns Israel's self-defence against the violent Turkish Islamists in the
flotilla clash:
"The Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely unacceptable".
Cameron strongly supports Turkey joining the EU,
despite the clear wishes of the British people.
The 2006 Eurobarometer poll
(see Question 33.13)
shows
30 percent of British people in favour of Turkey joining the EU,
and 52 percent against.
"It's Turkey that can help us stop Iran from getting the bomb",
Cameron absurdly says.
Talk about naive!
In reality it is Israel - the country you have just attacked - that will stop Iran getting the bomb.
Cameron shamefully laid a wreath at the tomb of the butcher
Ataturk.
And not a word (of course) about the persecution of Christians and other minorities
in modern Turkey.
Blair's grasp of the War on Islamism is better
than almost all leaders in Europe,
but it is still sometimes confused with the stale conventional wisdom
of his left-wing wife
Cherie Booth
and his centre-left peers.
Blair says:
"Unless we re-appraise our strategy, unless we revitalise the broader global agenda
on poverty, climate change, trade, and in respect of the Middle East,
bend every sinew of our will to making peace between Israel and Palestine,
we will not win."
In reality, not a single one of these 4 issues will make any impact on stopping the
global jihad against us.
Tony Blair's
sister-in-law,
the rabidly anti-Israel
Muslim convert
Lauren Booth.
Jack Straw, The Times, 14 June 2011, bizarrely described
Turkey
as
"the strongest, richest and most democratic state in the wider Middle East."
Turkey of course is only a proto-democracy compared to the true liberal democracy of Israel.
Maybe he meant most democratic "in the Muslim Middle East"?
If Straw has clarified this, please tell me
here.
Republican
(two big-tent parties, but ultimately this is the only one we can trust to defend America and the West)
Why I would vote this way:
Essentially, because the
Democrats
have not taken the War on Islamism seriously.
They have been, especially in Bush's second term of 2004-08,
the party of defeat and surrender.
Maybe now they are in office this will change.
Even though I describe myself as a
libertarian,
I would never vote for
the Libertarian Party
since they are isolationists.
Nine prominent Democrats
show why
no one who believes in victory in the War on Islamism
should vote Democrat.
Somebody like
Rep. Thad McCotter (R)
would be my choice for President in the 2012 election.
Victor Davis Hanson, 25 Sept 2010, predicts that even after Obama loses in 2012 (let's hope), he will never go away:
"He is petulant and angry at us for not appreciating his genius and divinity. ...
A savior like Obama comes around once in a century. If we cannot see that we are blessed with a Mandela-like laureate, then let us lose our souls. ... he shall trump the Bill Clinton lucrative post-presidency.
... He will .. for the next thirty years parrot a Carter on 60 Minutes assuring us how awful were his successors, how brilliant his unappreciated record was, and how illiberal and dense we remain - as he jets from Indonesia to Paris on missions of world peace from a corporate and Middle East funded Obama Peace Center."
"Speaking Democrat: A Primer",
a hilarious speech actually delivered in the
U.S. House of Representatives
by Rep. Thad McCotter (R), June 2008.
See
transcript.
The section on "Speaking Global Democrat" allows us finally translate Obama's speeches:
"DIPLOMACY" = "MAGIC"
"Democrats will protect America from Iranian nukes through tough, principled diplomacy."
Translation: "Democrats will protect America from Iranian nukes through tough, principled magic."
"ENGAGE" = "APPEASE"
"Democrats will engage America' enemies."
Translation: "Democrats will appease America's enemies."
"END" = "LOSE"
"Democrats will end the Iraq War."
Translation: "Democrats will lose the Iraq War."
Voting is of course not for idealists.
You almost always have to choose the lesser of two evils
and vote for someone who promotes some policies you hate.
I have serious problems with all of
the above parties.
For all of them, I would be
voting for a lesser evil.
There is so much space for a party I would prefer to
any of the above parties.
Why can't I find a party that is
secular,
anti-drug war, anti-censorship,
pro-gay rights, tough on real crime,
pro-capitalist, pro-free trade, pro-West
and pro-War-on-Islamism?
Why does such a party not exist?
Postscript:
But you don't have a vote! What is the point of this?
The reader may think: You can't possibly have a vote in all 3 of these
countries. So why are you talking about who you would vote for?
Second, I used to live in the UK, and I had a vote there
(I voted for Blair).
Indeed, this website used to be in the UK.
Some immediate family are UK citizens,
and it is possible I may live there again in the future.
I have also lived in the US
(and paid taxes),
but never had a vote.
Again, some immediate family are US citizens,
and I have permanent family ties there.
I thought of moving there once myself,
but it didn't happen in the end.
This website is actually hosted in the US.
So I'm hardly from another planet.
In fact, if current trends continue,
about half of my children's 1st and 2nd cousins
will be British, Australian or American.
And two more general answers:
It is reasonable
to be interested in foreign policy
and what other countries are doing.
Apart from anything else, our country could help
(e.g. we let America use
our base at Shannon
for the Iraq War).
Therefore it is reasonable to be
interested in figuring out
what policy you would like other countries to adopt
and who you would like to see in power.
Who is in power in the UK and US most certainly affects my world,
but I don't have a vote to influence it.
Nor should I - but it is not unreasonable to be interested.
Finally, my ideas - if people like them
- may be worth as much as a vote.
Several thousand
American and British readers come to my website
every month.
No one forces them to, and no one forces them to stay.
Many will disagree with what I say of course.
And all get information from a million other places.
But if I influence just one or two readers a year,
then I do in effect have a vote in the UK and US.
You may call this "foreign meddling" in your election,
but the fact is such influence has always been there.
If you allow your citizens read material written by foreigners,
then it can affect their thinking and their votes.
This is as true in the 18th century as it is today.
It's just normal.
And in case you think that, being Irish, I know nothing about US politics:
I took
this Pew test
and
I knew more about US and international politics than 83 percent of Americans.
I got 7 out of 9 on the questions about U.S. politics.
I got 100 percent on the questions about international politics.
(see Question 33.13)
shows
30 percent of British people in favour of Turkey joining the EU,
and 52 percent against.
Since 1995.
