British Election Frenzy!

Here in the UK it seems politics has suddenly become popular - I think it has passed the Weather Report popularty-wise, but it is still behind the ever present favourite, sports (but who can compete with the Premier League?!). So far I continue to remain neutral, I cannot vote here and, quite frankly, I don't see anyone worth voting for. I have written positive things about David Cameron and the Conservative Party and Nigel Farage and his UKIP on this blog before, but I don't consider even them good enough. The Conservatives have some issues: for example, even though the have a plan to cut spending, they want to increase NHS (National Health Service) spending! UKIP - they want to introduce a gargantuan 31% flat income tax and freeze all immigration for 5 years. Unfortunately there is no genuine small government party anywhere in sight right now.
As I walk around Cambridge I see three other parties with a lot of support - Labour, the LibDems, and the Greens. I won't even talk about these lefties, they all pretty much disgust me.

So this is my advice to all UK citizens and residents: Sell out and move to Hong Kong people!

Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts... or Taking Them?

President of the Euro Group, Jean-Claude Juncker (That bureaucratic bloke from Luxembourg who is very important, but no one heard of him.), has announced today the amount that will be spent on the gigantic bail-out of Greece. 110 Billion Euro. ONE HUNDRED AND TEN BILLION. Where have they suddenly found this kind of money? A nation-sized welfare package out of thin air - in effect this is fiat money at its "finest" disguised as a part-loan, part-gift. I was really praying (rather hopelessly) that someone might veto this thing before it happens. This "aid" has a huge economic importance, but also huge symbolic implications. We can now see that the countries which make up the EU are no longer sovereign; they are simple American-style States. This has been true since the Lisbon Treaty was signed as many people have warned (Nigel Farage, Janusz Korwin-Mikke, Daniel Hannan...), but now we have concrete proof that nobody can deny. This money has strings attached, as "free" hand-outs always do. Greece has to, for instance, cut government spending and lower its deficit. These are not bad things, but they are being thrust upon the Greeks by a higher order bureaucratic entity. This now directly states that the EU (or Euro Group to which everyone seems to want to belong) has the right to meddle in the affairs of countries I care about, such as Poland or the United Kingdom.

It seems the Europeans have sent Greece a horse, and they're gladly pulling it in...

Feudalism - A Good System?

Today Feudalism is a system mainly associated with the Middle-Ages, primitivism, and serfdom. It is true that in some cases of looking at feudal society serfdom appears to be present, but it is not this aspect that distinguishes feudalism from other political systems (After all serfs also existed in highly centralized Tsarist Russia and to some extent in Communist regimes, where agricultural workers were not permitted to relocate themselves to other areas.) An important aspect of the Feudal system was rather its decentralized character. The concept of lords, vassals, and their contractual voluntary relationships makes Feudalism unique. A Feudal-based Monarchy is something I would advocate (whereas I would certainly NOT advocate any sort of totalitarian rule through absolute Monarchy). True enough, feudal lords often expanded their realm by conquest, but it was not commonly the case. A landlord would usually swear fealty to a more powerful lord or a King because the latter offered him a high degree of security and protection. The King (or lord), in turn, offered the vassal protection of liberties and property for some sort of earlier agreed fee (perhaps a tax, tribute, or a form of military service). Thus the vassal's rights were fully protected - he could at any moment break the contract and join another lord or become independent. No taxes were superimposed on the vassals - they had to be agreed to by the people being taxed. These are hugely important rights which none of us have today (in a supposedly "free" democratic system). Apart from those advantages (protecting regionalism and individualism), Feudalism also allowed many voluntary bonds to be created and many non-governmental institutions to prosper. One of these great institutions was the Catholic Church and its Monastic system - to which our society owes a tremendous debt (I highly recommend the book How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.).
I think it is imperative that we all rethink our stance on Feudalism - which was a more natural and less corrupt system than we live under today.

Public Healthcare revisited...

On a funny note, I am going tell a little anecdote I am borrowing from the ever-wise and genius Janusz Korwin-Mikke:

Imagine three horses, two donkeys, and one zebra being harnessed to one carriage. The driver then proceeds to take his seat, invites the passengers in, and sets off. Now this carriage is never going to be able to travel properly! Even if all the animals are well trained and work their best, it's not going to work. The physical differences between them are just too vast.
Now - who is the person responsible for this abysmal failure? The amiable and hardworking animals, the helpless passengers, or the idiot why put this whole venture together?

The responsibility is, of course, borne by the politicians (the people who arranged the whole system) not by the medical professionals or the customers forced to act within the unworkable system. This is pretty much how every government venture works, whether it is the railways, the hospitals, or the education system.

Births and Deaths...

Today is Her Majesty the Queen Elizabeth II's birthday! I wish her a sincerely happy 84th and many to come! I have already mentioned on this blog that the British Monarchy is a bit of a farce, bot nonetheless the royal blood should be honored. Who knows, maybe someday people will come to their senses and we will see the House of Windsor enjoy some proper rule and respect again.

On a more sad note, today we say goodbye to Anna Walentynowicz, a founding member of Solidarity and great fighter against Communism in Poland. She was 81 and died in the Smolensk disaster last week. May she rest in peace!

Socialism, Sensationalism, and Scaremongering

The socialists have done it again! Mr. José Manuel Durão Barroso, the President of the European Commission (i.e. the EU Politburo), has announced that there will be an investigation and "emergency talks" about the volcanic ash cloud over Europe, which at present is hampering air travel all around the continent. This is of course just a bunch of nonsense and another way to take our money and put it to their ridiculous uses. The EU have to be seen doing something about everything, a tactic well employed by Communist regimes in the former Eastern Block as well as Fascist governments (Mussolini famously declared "battle" and "war" on every problem he attempted to solve). Thus they try to keep us all scared. First of Global Warming (now rebranded "climate change" - since there is no warming...), then Swine Flu (the UK government wasted billions of pounds on unused flu shots), now - THE VOLCANIC CLOUD! The Earth attacks! Fire, ruin, airplanes falling out of the sky at will of the mighty beast! The truth is that over 99% of the cloud is water vapour from the melting glacier and the particles thrown up by the eruption, although some can be harmful to jet engines, are mostly miniscule and not dangerous at all. However, when I watched the BBC News last night I got the impression that the end of air travel in Europe was imminenet and that any airplane would crash minutes after take-off after being overwhelemed by dangerous fumes. If that is the case, then how come the airport in Reykjavík, the capital city of ICELAND(!), is functioning normally? Also, Ireland, the country closest to the eruption (aside from Iceland itself) has ceased all restrictions on air travel. I find this whole business highly reminiscient of the previous scares which proved to be hoaxes. The governments (both EU and national) have to be seen as protecting people. Meanwhile, they are causing massive damage to the economy - what a time to be doing that!

There is no better time than this to remind ourselves of a great saying by a famous man, Stefan Kisielewski - "Socialism is the system under which people bravely combat problems not present under any other system!" (My own transaltion) He couldn't be more right! Ash cloud or not, we need to be fighting something, eh Comrades? And I thought Don Quixote was a fool to battle windmills!

Martyrdom Disease

As Lech Kaczyński was buried on Wawel Hill today (in the tombs with Poland's greatest heroes, Kings, and patriots) a certain era has ended. Firstly, Mr.Kaczyński is now regarded as a "saint", and secondly, he has become (instantly in the moment of his death) a great hero of the Polish People. You can see these crazy beliefs all around in Poland; my homeland is sadly very susceptible to the syndrome of the cult of personality. Now, Lech Kaczyński, as I wrote earlier, was a good man, but certainly NOT a good president. He singed he dreaded Lisbon Treaty and thus sentenced Poland to the great European "Anschluss". Poland as a country pretty much no longer exists (not as a sovereign state anyway) thanks to President Kaczyński. There is absolutely nothing a good Pole ought to be thanking that man for. For some reason, however, whenever this gets mentioned other Polish people just tend to accuse the speaker of being such a horrible person he deserves a life-time in jail (again this is a symptom of the cult of personality growing around Kaczyński for the simple reason he died while "on duty"). This applies to a lesser degree also to other people who dies in the Smolensk airplane crash. I cannot help to draw a parallel here with US history. There are two US Presidents who I consider absolutely horrendous, not to use the word evil who are subject to the same treatment as President Kaczyński. One is Abraham Lincoln and the other J.F.Kennedy. Both of these men were plain nuts (Lincoln was literally crazy; he took large doses of mercury-based anti-depressants throughout his life). Lincoln slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Americans (including civilians in Nazi-like tactics) in the bloody War to Prevent Southern Independence. JFK was a socialist and warmonger who, without provocation or cause, invaded Vietnam and started the bloody war there. However neither of these men can be touched so to speak, their reputation is thought to be untarnished by the average American. Why? Not least because they died while "on duty", both assassinated...

O tempora, o mores! How can we, rational human beings, ever be this stupid?