Redstate

Posted at 8:45am on Jun. 27, 2008 One tendentious opinion away.

From the same tyranny.

By Paul J Cella

A quick read of this article will surely leave you outraged. The story is simple enough: a neat amalgam of barbarism and PC bureaucracy, the sort of anarchy compounded by oppression that Liberalism so excels at producing.

A former British soldier endures as his neighborhood terrorized by a pack of feral young thugs (“yobs,” as they call them over there) for several days. He calls the police; they never come. He looks for an officer; finds none. Coming home one day to find his wife in tears and terrified, he finally has enough, and goes out to execute a citizen’s arrest, dragging one of the thugs into house and calling his mother. Thereupon the police arrive with the mother — and naturally arrest the homeowner.

This is justice under Liberalism.

Let it be noted that there was a somewhat similar case in Illinois five years ago, where a man who fought off an intruder in his house was charged with a handgun violation. State Sen. Obama voted against bills to remedy this manifest injustice twice.

Yesterday we all sat around in worried anticipation, hoping the Supreme Court would manage, this time, to maintain the plain meaning of the words of our Constitution and restore to us our self-government. The outcome was a good one — barely. But the tyranny of the Court is still in place. The four Liberals very frequently succeed in persuading Justice Kennedy to join them in their usurpations. They care not one whit about the plain meaning of the Constitution. They do exactly as they please.

Here in America, packs of feral youths exist in appalling abundance, just like in Britain. But most of them are well aware that their potential victims may be armed. On that fact, friends, much of our liberty hangs.

And we are only a tendentious opinion from one of the Liberal Usurpers on the Court, or their creature Kennedy, under the spell of the New York-DC elite adulation — one tendentious opinion citing foreign law, or sweet mystery of life, or mystical evolving standards, away from the same tyranny that would send the homeowner who defends his wife against thugs to jail, while showering the thugs with sympathy.

Posted in D.C. v. Heller | Great Britain | Guns | Law | Supreme Court | thugs — Comments (5)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:20pm on Feb. 17, 2008 I Guess They Must Miss "The Winter Of Discontent"

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

The saga of Northern Rock, a stricken mortgage lender in Great Britain, appears to have reached a shocking and appalling turn. Instead of allowing the private sector to work to rehabilitate Northern Rock by allowing the lender and its shareholders accept a favorable buyout deal and letting new management set things right, the government of Gordon Brown has decided to go ahead and nationalize Northern Rock:

[Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair] Darling said the legislation to be brought to parliament on Mondday would appoint independent arbiters to determine what the shares were worth, but the legislation would propose that the government should not be required to compensate shareholders for any value that is dependent on taxpayers' support.

The government's move stunned shareholders, who were on Sunday night considering action. Jon Wood of the SRM hedge fund, the bank's biggest shareholder, said: "This is a very sad day for the stock market, banking industry and the reputation of the UK as a financial centre."

Noting that the chancellor insisted the bank was solvent, he added: "We will pursue all avenues to protect that value for shareholders."

Robin Ashby, founder of the Northern Rock small shareholders group said he was "shocked and appalled" that shareholders "were having the bank stolen away from them".

As well they should be. This is Chavezism run amok and its consequences for the British banking industry could well be disastrous. Nationalization of industry and resources only serves to distort the market, promote inefficiencies and, as the story indicates, utterly and completely deprives shareholders of their holdings. This lack of respect for basic property rights will only serve to undermine confidence in Britain's management of the intersection between the rule of law and economic prosperity.

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne is quoted as promising to fight and defy efforts to nationalize the lender. Here's hoping that he succeeds. Nationalization is a disastrous policy, no matter how many times it is tried.

Posted in Archived | Great Britain | Nationalization | Northern Rock — Comments (3)/ Email this page » / Read More »