« February 2006 | Main | April 2006 »
March 18, 2006
What is going on?
Seem to have a problem with the Bloggin software here...
Posted by rakhier at 02:20 PM | Comments (0)
March 15, 2006
Why the ICC is Happy Milosevic is Dead
A very interesting entry in the ChicagoBoyz blog on why the International Criminal Court is happy Milosevic died three days ago.
3. Evidence: Simply put, there isn't any. Of the over 2000 people initally slated to testify against Milosevic, all but 5 have refused, partially over the sovereignity dispute, and the testimony of those 5 is both weak and unreliable. There is no paper trail or any sort of documentation that links Milosevic to any of the alleged crimes. It's literally Milosevic's word against the prosecutors.
5. Legality of the Court: This is a finer point of law, but was Milosevic's main argument, which the court had no answer for. Milosevic claimed that the ICC had no legal basis to hear his (or any) international case. The judge interpreted that as a question of jurisdiction, but they are not the same thing. Jurisdiction concerns the power of the court over the defendant. I could set up the court of "plezercruz" in my back yard with Jon holding a gun as my bailiff, and, if you stumbled into my back yard, I could declare jurisdiction over you because I CAN force you to comply. But it certainly wouldn't be "legal." Jurisdiction is about power, not right.
Legality concerns whether the court actually is an agent of law in the first place. Milosevic's argument was, basically, that since the UN Security Council itself had no right or ability in law to sanction him personally, it was impossible for that same council to create a court to do that for them. Courts are agents of the sovereign, and the UN has no sovereignity by defintion. By his argument, the ICC had no more right to try him than I have of trying you in my backyard. This argument crippled the ICC. It had no answer for it.
Milosevic asked the ICC to seek a ruling from the International Court of Justice (a non-criminal UN court which settles inter-sovereign disputes and is nonbinding) as to it's own legality, but the ICC basically ignored his request, despite amicus briefs from all over the world urging them to do so, probably because the ICC likely has no legitimacy in law.
Good arguement. I personally think he died from natural causes but maybe he contributed to his own health problems?
Posted by rakhier at 09:25 PM | Comments (0)
Mexico is moving into 2nd World Status
According to some recent data:
40% of Mexican households are in the middle class.
Mexico is in the middle of a housing boom. 560,000 new homes were built last year -- a record -- and 750,000 are expected for 2006.
Posted by rakhier at 09:23 PM | Comments (0)
The Road to Serfdom
Friedrich Hayek wrote a short little booklet called The Road to Serfdom that was illustrated and shows very clearly why Totalitarian governments are able to take control. Its well done if very simplistic.
Posted by rakhier at 09:20 PM | Comments (0)
March 03, 2006
A Government that does not defend its people has lost its reason to exist...
Amit Ghate, writes a long and impassioned essay called All for One.
In this essay he argues that western governments main reason for existance is to protect the lives of its citizens, because the lives of its people are important.
He further argues that westerns goverments have failed to do this in response to the Islamist threat, starting with Khomeini supporters taking over the American Embassy in Tehran in 1979, continuing with the fatwa ordering the death of Salman Rushdie in 1989, and going on and on. Till today, people that want to speak freely and openly about Islam, are threatened with death and are not protected.
- No Western government has taken a single action to eliminate the sources of the bounties on the heads of Western citizens, to hunt down the issuers of death threats against editors and publishers, nor even to pledge full and unconditional protection to any citizen who wishes to exercise his statutory rights in the face of violent Islamic opposition.
The historical pattern is clear and consistent. For twenty five plus years, Islamists have isolated and targeted Western citizens around the world with impunity, and have succeeded in fostering fear in most citizens...
To stand together means to assert our rights with our government as our agent. To those who threaten us with force, asserting our rights means responding with force, in fact, with overwhelming force. We must say to Iran (which on February 14 just reconfirmed the Rushdie fatwa) “oust and turn over the regime which sees fit to condemn a single citizen of ours to death, or face all out war.” And if they refuse, give them the war they started, but be sure to win it decisively, not protecting their mosques and infrastructure, but instead doing everything necessary to ensure they have no capacity to ever threaten us again. To Pakistan and India, which host clerics bold enough to put bounties on the heads of our citizens, demand that they turn over the men and their supporters, and if they refuse, go in and take them by force.
For if we fail to reverse our pattern, men will continue to learn that their rights are a sham, that the government’s promise to protect the individual is a hoax, and that only by refraining from thinking and speaking out might they be momentarily safe. Men will then go on to realize that they must seek out true protectors, in the form of some gang; ethnic, religious or otherwise; who may afford them a measure of security, albeit at the cost of complete obedience. Eventually the gangs will fight it out in an effort to wrest absolute power and to subjugate the others.
I agree with his analysis. Our basic freedom is being threatened by governments and organizations from other countries and our own government is standing to the side and doing little or nothing to protect us. We have the right to say what we want to say, regardless if other people in this country don't like it and especially regardless if people in other countries don't like it. If our government will not protect this right, then it has ceased to have real meaning. A right that is not defended does not exist.
People need to learn all they can about Islam. People need to understand just how morally bankrupt this relgion really is. Their death threats against cartoonists is just the tip of the iceberg. Islam needs to be reformed.
Posted by rakhier at 10:35 AM | Comments (0)