President Putin hit a nerve with his deliberately provocative pronouncement at the G20 that liberal democracy was dead. He is wrong. Democracy everywhere in the developing world is strengthening; political engagement is growing, consciousness of the issues is awakening, citizens are becoming defensive of those seeking to rob them of their hard-won democratic rights.
However, what is dying is the illiberal hijacking of Liberalism; a hijacking that has given us and continues to give us moral relativism, multikulti, the erosion of social culture and identity, the growth of 'benign' authoritarianism, the destruction of competitive capitalism by global corporates, rule by unelected functionaries, the abnegation of control to unaccountable supranational bodies including the EU, UN and IMF. What must die is this perversion, this abomination - illiberal authoritarianism.
We must suffocate fake-liberalism's parasite actors - the fake charities, NDPB's answerable to no-one, the Soros funded underminers of our nations and cultures, the destroyers using self-identity to undermine the values of developed nations, a compliant print and broadcast media, a global social media enchained to illiberalism and repression.
Putin is a thug who rules by terror, secret police, political assassination and brutality. He is certainly no champion of our kind of Liberalism - free speech, freedom to associate, freedom from State interference. Putin and the authoritarian Statists of the EU are actually not so far separated; they are united in anti-democracy, in riding roughshod over the people to maintain a corrupt cabal of unrepresentative bigots in power. Tusk made his usual plea for the supremacy of the 'rule of law' as all monsters do - forgetting that it was the 'rule of law' that made quite legal the sending of scores of children to the fallbeil by Roland Freisler. As Lord Sumption has succinctly demonstrated, it is not law that should rule but democracy, not legality that should triumph but justice.
There is little justice either in Putin's Russia or Tusk's EU. But hold onto your arses, gentlemen; we are reclaiming democratic Liberalism from the frauds and shills. We are coming.
24 comments:
It's a great pity that the EU does not have an FBI-style federal police.
It would have knocked on the head the electoral fraud, VIP child abuse, NHS outrages, banking scandals, and so much else that we have suffered with our Establishment-controlled CPS and police.
Sadly, the EU has none of the democratic checks, balances and systems of scrutiny with which the USA is endowed - so a Federast security agency in the EU would rapidly assume all the characteristics of the Stasi or the Gestapo. Something which the patrician, pro-globalist establishment would welcome, no doubt - but inimicable to the interests of citizens.
To destroy the illiberal authoritarians who infest Parliament and the wider public sector we are going to have to ensure that the Brexit Party remains a strong political force even when the CONs have delivered a version of Brexit.
Nigel and team must not "stand down the troops" again.
I would say Putin is right, for all the reasons you go on to mention.
You talk of the abandonment of the rule of law in favour of what you call "justice" and "democracy".
I surmise, from what your thralls here often say, that what you really mean is the persecution by your mob, of those whom you assert, according only to your own uninformed prejudices or sheer delusion, to be deserving of such persecution.
It's hardly surprising that you want rid of ECHR, is it?
The rule of law works, because in civilised countries, a person can enquire as to what that law is, and conduct himself accordingly with some confidence that he will not be subject to arbitrary sanction. Your commenters often bay for retrospective "justice" against those who have behaved absolutely properly in the past, but whom they evidently hate. Your last sentence demonstrates that.
This has been seen before in action.
Edward - Laws have moral validity when they made by democratic process. Laws enacted by illiberal authoritarians - whether the Communist Party, the NSDAP or the ECtHR - have no such moral legitimacy. It is not the rule of law that is paramount, but the supremacy of the democratic processes that enact, change, modify or repeal those laws.
Tou are being deliberately obtuse.
MASSIVE straw man spotted...
Raedwald 09:04: "It is not the rule of law that is paramount, but the supremacy of the democratic processes that enact, change, modify or repeal those laws."
Spot on.
R you may call Mr.Putin a thug but when you see the anti Brexit treachery from our own so called representatives, well a thug or two would come amiss, I could live with that.
If what he said was accurately reported I happen to agree with him.
Edit 29 June 2019 at 09:16
would = would not
Whilst I still can (or am allowed to, pending ECHR ruling on 'spoiling someones day' or somesuch bollox I'm sure they'd like to introduce), I can call Cheerful a cunt and 'thank the Lord' that this is still permitted.
Which leads me on to perhaps the greatest of abuses of modern society, the denial of free speech.
No matter how much we might object to what is said we cannot allow anyone to close it down - Radders included - so if you want to champion the return of true liberalism you need to start with the basics.
Or is the return of (t)Liberalism to be under some (clearly illiberal) special ruling? i.e. nothing really changes?
@ Tearful Ted 29 June 2019 at 07:22
"It's a great pity that the EU does not have an FBI-style federal police."
Coming from you, I expect you mean the version of the FBI that attempted the biggest electoral fraud in US history.
DaveG - I defend absolutely and without reservation your right to set up a blog, webpage, newspaper, radio broadcast or whatever and to say and show whatever you want within the limits of the law
However, asking the Guardian, Daily Express, LBC, or Sky to give you unrestricted access to their media space is not really a reasonable extension of the notion of free speech.
R it's not just about broadcasting or blogging, it's the whole suffocating control process brought about by the offended lefties. Good golly miss Molly, remember the little paper cut outs of a childs doll that used to be tucked behind the label of Robertsons jam, save enough and get an enamel badge. Myriads of little thing like that, the death of a thousand P.C. cuts.
By deleting my polite observations, you confirm that I hit dead-centre bullseye, Raedwald.
Thank you.
Checks and balances can only be provided by institutions established by law. If you don't have the rule of law, then those institutions cannot be secure.
Implicit in all you say is that your minority are the only people entitled to make moral judgements. We've seen that before too.
I can live with Putin. He has excluded GMO crops, has his own independent CB, with a woman as chief economist, kicked out Soros and has the admirable Sergey Lavrov as Foreign Min ( he thought Boris inadequate).That's for starters - lots more pluses.
RAC, yes I'm sick and tired of all this namby-pamby, wet-lettuce PC nonsense too.
Let's call things what they are eh? Take that silly euphemism "populism".
That just means mass, morally-degenerate, vicious, cretinism, doesn't it?
Edward - that's your lot for the day. Take your pill and have a lie-down.
1. "...say and show whatever you want within the limits of the law"
isn't that the issue though? Should there be 'limits' or should it be 'free' speech? Any limitation is by its defintion a form of censorship and hardly liberal is it?
2. "However, asking the Guardian, Daily Express, LBC, or Sky to give you unrestricted access to their media space..."
I equally don't see how owners of blogs/whatever that consider having an open platform for comments as per your example above to be liberal if those comments are only what is perceived by them as acceptable. If they are 'scared' for the content they shouldn't be hosting an 'open' forum.
That said, I do believe in being polite in good company and understand what blog owners find acceptable or not and, like any decent house guest, wouldn't abuse the hosts invitation to access.
I, personally, find your own position on 99% of subjects in line with my own and enjoy the privilege of contribution.
Long may you continue.
@CE - you may define populism how you see fit. The accepted version is, however:
a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups.
Your obvious failure to understand this makes you the 'cunt' I observed previously.
I think the word "populism" is used to mean that somebody you don't like has won an election by a good margin.
Don Cox
@ 29 June 2019 at 11:10
Oops have I drilled into a nerve ?
Don't worry I can't feel a thing, but you must tell me when it hurts.
DaveG - so terrorists should have the right to preach murder and genocide? Gangsters to promote and glorify crime? Kiddy fiddlers to spout their vile perversions? Race haters and knuckle dragging neanderthals the rights to spread their fascist shit? Im sure there are places on the dark web where those who want to post such things can do so - but Google' Blogger platform is not one of them.
If you agree that a line must be drawn then you are only discussing where I have chosen to draw it, not that it is drawn at all.
Hey, don't insult Neanderthals. They were not Fascists, nor did they drag their knuckles on the ground as chimps do.
Speaking as one with about 1% of Neanderthal DNA, I am deeply offended.
Don Cox
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