Link: Monbiot.com » Libertarians are the True Social Parasites.

This may just be the most offensive piece of twaddle the Guardian has ever published. From a newspaper that enjoys the services of Polly Toynbee, that is a big claim. Monbiot delights sneeringly in the hypocrisy of Matt Ridley, who went cap in hand to the Bank of England on behalf of Northern Rock’s depositors. This, despite having written articles railing “…against taxes, subsidies, bailouts and government regulation…”

Ridley is a hypocrite, perhaps. To extrapolate that everyone whose lips are not firmly clasped to the flowing nipple of Mother State is also a hypocrite is a stretch. Even for the man whose name is so close to “moonbat” that one wonders if the pejorative was invented for him.

To extrapolate that small-State libertarians are “parasites” is beyond a stretch. It’s just stupid. Were it up to us, there would be no Central Bank to bail Northern Rock out. Absent the moral jeopardy created by State guarantees of deposits, depositors would have spread their money widely and chosen banks with care or would have lost it. I doubt if Northern Rock could have attracted many depositors without the State's original guarantee (and the hope of the bigger one produced in a crisis).

Monbiot perfectly expresses the Socialist’s contempt for his fellow-man when he writes:

In what a man fears you will do to him, you learn what he would – given the chance – do to you. God preserve us all from being in the power of George Monbiot. I did enjoy the semi-digested Marxian references to the supposed paradise of the hunter-gatherer clan – the “hominid troop” for which our Georgie is so nostalgic. The purpose of the State is, in his view, to put us into the same relationship with each other that we enjoyed in that state of grace.

“…We need a state that rewards us for cooperating and punishes us for cheating and stealing. At the same time, we must ensure that the state is also treated as a member of the hominid clan and punished when it acts against the common good…”

Since, inevitably, the State will define “the common good,” one wonders whom he thinks he's fooling, apart from himself. The present British mega-hominid has pigged itself out at the common trough, and its minions in law enforcement have simply declined to bring charges. What a joke.

Where was Monbiot during the 20th Century, when cheating and stealing was elevated to new levels in societies where the State was tasked as he would wish? Who were Hitler, Beria, Stalin, Mao, Chirac, Blair, Prescott and Castro but men with “more power and better weapons” and access to the wealth of their fellow-men that only a mighty State can confer?

I read the Guardian for material for my blog. It never fails. Nor does it ever fail to remind me of the strange world of BDSM. BDSM “submissives,” however, are playing a sexual game. They have agreed codewords to alert their “dom” or "domme" that the pain has become too much. The Guardian’s “subs” relish their enslavement to that great Dominatrix, the State, but there is no codeword that will stop it from stamping on their most delicate parts with the spiked heels of State Power. They may like that. Forgive me if I don't. And forgive me if I find it deeply offensive that, having suffered from the parasitism fostered by Labour my whole life, I should be called a parasite myself.

Link: 'Menezes \'aggressive\' to officers'.

What an interesting definition of "aggressive". In our New Labour police state, it appears to mean "not submissive." Jean-Charles de Menezes reacted to being attacked by strangers in plain clothes exactly as a free man would. For this, he died.

At least he died a free man. At this rate, most Britons will not.

Link: Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | The stench of impunity wafts over the final act in this cash-for-honours farce.

Since 1997 every official inquiry into alleged government misconduct has been entrusted to loyalists, patsies and payroll wallahs. The parallel success has been to silence Tory criticism about Labour sleaze.

Quite.

Link: Prodicus: Dear Foreign Secretary,.

Gentle readers, may I commend you to the linked post by Prodicus? This sort of thing is what the British political blogosphere is for. Though he himself feels he may have gone "a little over the top", I beg to differ.

We have lived to see our country betrayed to an unelected, anti-democratic foreign power. This was done, fraudulently, in breach of a manifesto pledge by the Labour Party. Labour stands alone in its hatred of the British people and all we stand for. Not only would it cheerfully surrender power to foreign rulers,  it has imported and bribed Third World voters by the million to rig elections (sometimes literally) in its favour.

Prodicus has not gone "over the top." Frankly, it is hard to see what, short of political assassination, would be "over the top" in the face of unabashed treason. When you have read what he has to say, hie thee to the Pro Referendum Rally site, naieve though any attempt may be to hold the most mendacious political whores in our history to what passes for their word.

Link: Mars Hill: Personalities and Politics.

That insufferable, God-bothering little twerp Paul Burgin piously has a go at the Blogfather today for allegedly "making personal attacks" [on the one-eyed Fuehrer of das Schottische Reich] "for electoral gain."

I knew that, to expose him, all I would have to do would be to type "Bullingdon" into the search box on his blog. Bingo. What a hypocrite. Personal attacks are only deplorable if they are on his Leader, it seems.

Link: Police 'had no order to shoot de Menezes' - Telegraph.

I have two questions today. They acted, according to the commander in charge on the day, without orders. Indeed, they were ordered to "stop". Why then have the killers of Jean-Charles de Menezes not been charged with murder? My second question is, given how she has just hung her men out to dry, how would you like to have this woman as your boss?

Link: De Menezes firearms chief cries in court - Telegraph.

O.F.F.S. Are we sure he wasn't crying with embarrassment at the way the Met continues to try to blacken the name of the innocent it killed? What on earth does the question of whether, like so many members of the British Establishment, he was a cocaine user have to do with whether his killing was justified? Can we expect to see Angus Deayton drilled with "special bullets" some time soon?

Link: Crazy People (1990).

Mrs Paine and I were recalling the film "Crazy People" this morning. Older readers will remember it was about a stressed ad executive (Dudley Moore) who enjoys surprising success when his fellow mental patients help him devise such honest slogans as:

"Volvos; they're boxy but they're safe"

We wondered what would happen if political parties took the same approach and over breakfast we came up with:

Labour (pace Sir Bob Geldof):    

Give us your ******* money!

LibDems:                                    

If you like being dumped on, vote for us

Conservatives:                        

We're not nasty anymore, but we could be.

I am sure you must have better suggestions.

Link: Parents must support obesity fight, says minister | Health | SocietyGuardian.co.uk.

Only in New Labour's fairyland would a Minister call on parents for "support" in looking after their childrens' health. In the real world, it is parents who take responsibility for their childrens' well-being. Any government intervention is as likely as not to be counterproductive. As a libertarian, I would prefer government to stick to its knitting, but these days that's far too much to hope. The most a government which understood its place in the world might consider is how to "support" parents in doing their job.

Reducing taxation and liberalising planning controls so that parents with young families could afford to divert money from artificially scarce housing to better quality food might be a start....