My response to US Conservative Outpost on the Second Amendment

Gillingham,

Kent,

United Kingdom,

1st January 2013

Dear Sir,

         I am writing to you in response to your open letter to Senator Rubio that was posted on the Conservative Outpost website.

As an Englishman, I do not presume to be familiar with your politics or systems, however I'd like  to maker a few suggestions and observations in response to your letter.

Firstly and foremost, the Second amendment says a little more than The right to bare arms.

For the benefit of other readers please allow me to quote the text;

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

The historical context is buried in an older document, the English constitution which was written in reaction to a period of state oppression by James II. It was felt that the protestant populace should be ready to fight for their freedom and be ready to mobilise against an invasion from the Catholic continent.

The Redcoats are certainly not coming

Similarly in the fledgling United States, and at the insistence of George Washington, who was against the foundation of a National army (which could be used as the British Colonial Army was) to suppress rights. A militia was seen as a more local and representative force.

Your fore-fathers also had many other problems to deal with. Law enforcement was limited and everyone had to defend themselves and community. There was also a threat on the frontiers from Native Raiding parties and the possibility of a British incursion from Canada. Communities would need to be mobilised quickly.

Times have indeed changed.

After the massacre of Wounded Knee in 1890 there has been no threat from the native population. There is a police system, federal, state and city based, in place to deal with crime, Britain no longer has an Empire nor designs on marching south and the United States military exists for your defence and the National guard representing the militia somewhat loosely.

Also weapons have evolved. The weapon the Founding fathers had in mind were flint lock muskets like the English "Brown Bess" which in the hands of an expert (A British Grenadier guard, the World's best in the 1770s) could be discharged three times in a minute. In the hands of a novice it could manage one shot maybe two.

Today's semi-automatic weapons can fire many times that. Even in the hands of a novice who no longer has to contend with complicated reloading procedure. Careful aim at a target can be replaced with spray fire which, in an enclosed space like a cinema or school room can cause many casualties by sheer amount of fire.

I suppose our middle ground would be that Semi-automatic weapons should only be issued to people who know how to use them and kept secured where any Tom, Dick or Harry could not reach them. However as a former service man I'm sure you will have seen perfectly sane, well trained men crack under pressure. Who is to say that someone who is well adjusted and knows how to use such weapons may not snap and go on a killing rampage with a semi-automatic one day. After all Timothy McVeigh was considered safe and had served his country in the military. Private William Jones RA who had served at Rorke's and received this country's highest honour also became unstable with Post traumatic stress syndrome but it was kept hushed with in the family until his suicide.

There are countless people with Mental illness that spans from paranoid Schizophrenia to depression, most are not reported. If such a move was to become mandatory you would be impinging upon their civil liberties. Who's liberty is more important? Would they have to carry identification papers, make themselves known to communities all because they have an illness?

With the US military and the Law enforcement agencies carrying the most up to date weaponry would it not be prudent to leave those weapons in the hands of an expert and have civilian grade weapons for home use? Then you would have your Arms and defend yourselves but it would also make communities safer as someone armed with a 9mm pistol can be disarmed quicker by an unarmed person than someone with an M-16 or Uzi. I would also consider a hand gun, rifle or shotgun more than adequate to defend yourself against a;

a deranged lunatic created by their secular progressive humanist agenda to take my only defense against their miscreant bastard offspring

After all, it only takes one bullet to kill or seriously wound.

As I say, I'm an Englishman with a centrist political standpoint but you must be aware that the whole world is watching and judging. The USA sets itself up as a paragon of freedom and democracy but is being seen as a place where children can be murdered at anytime in their schools, where cinema goers can be mowed down in their very seats, where street corners are just not safe. This is what your liberty to bear arms has bought sir, for the freedoms and liberties of the many you should cede the right to bear Semi-automatic weapons.

Yours Faithfully

Chris Sams

Ps. You may be interested to read my other work on the subject here.

European Court of Human rights & votes for Convicts

Wednesday night I was stood in our local Chinese take-away waiting for my order and leafing through The Sun when I came across an article on the court of Human rights over ruling Parliament and declaring prisoners should be allowed to vote.

This made me cross.

Not because I am opposed to Convicts voting - I mean I am but I acknowledge I'm a little right wing when it comes to justice and policing and personally believe that if you've been excluded from society by Prison you cannot and should not take part in Society through voting. This is by the by though.

I was annoyed by the language of the piece that kept repeating that Murderers and Paedophiles may now vote like regular people. This is true however there are other criminals who've committed other offences in prison who make up the majority. Yes people like Ian Huntly and Ian Brady are the lowest of the low but they are human beings, barely, but there you are. They should be accorded the same rights as everyone else.

That said, it was The Sun and I had no high hopes of literary genius.

What really got under my skin, and bare in mind that I disagreed with the Court's decision, was the comments made about the Human rights court.

The Court was set up after the Second World War (1959) to enforce human rights cases throughout Europe. The Court is not part of the EEC or EU and, yes as the Sun pointed out, the judges are "un-elected" and preside over cases that may be in violation of the Human rights declaration (1948) within Europe. They are an external body that is meant to be devoid of politics.

The Sun's article displayed a lot of anger that Europe was again dipping its oar into our affairs and contradicting a democratically elected British parliament.

To quote someone from the American War of Independence ( can't remember who);
An elected legislature can trample a mans rights just as much as a dictator.

The NSDAP government elected to Germany's Reichstag is a clear example of this as is President Assad in Syria, President Mugabe's administration in Zimbabwe etc. The point is, whether we agree with the Court's ruling or not the fact is they feel that not giving prisoners the right to vote is clearly a violation of the Human rights declaration. There is still a right to appeal.

The Court, like any legal court has made an informed decision and consulted and deliberated over the laws and the protocols that we, the British people have signed up to and helped to create. We cannot disregard things that we don't like when it comes to Human rights just because its not convenient to us and hiding behind an "elected legislature" doesn't mean that abuses aren't or can't happen and we have to respect the Court's decision whether we agree with it or not.

Schisms between Left and Right in the Coalition

Happier times, but now is there a drift?

As the Coalition continues to trundle forward it appears that limbs of the two parties, the Libdems and the Conservatives, are trying to pull the fabric apart. On the right of the Conservative party we have Europsceptics and those who are frustrated with the Human Right's act and Abbu Qatada's release. On the left an army of angry Libdems who are getting more and more angry over Austerity cuts and the worrying drift to the right that has happened within the party.

The Conservative right, who have never really liked the idea of the Liberal Democrats being in Government with them, in fact if anything a necessary evil to help prop up their majority in May of 2010 and now a parasitic symbiont that is passing through their policies under a bigger party's guise and blocking them from doing what they want or feel needs to be done.

The case of Abu Qatada is a prime example of our two parties not agreeing. The case is being used as an extreme example of the problems of the Human Right's act.
The Right cannot see why the man cannot be held for an indefinite period of time or be forcibly deported to Jordan. To add salt to the wound the Government's efforts are being thwarted by the European court of Human rights.

Although the Qatada case is fairly extreme, I find myself agreeing with the courts.

Should Qatada be deported to Jordan he faces possible torture, as do witnesses in any trial. On top of that he has not actually been charged with anything and under law you cannot hold a person in prison without charge. Control orders, likewise imprison someone in their home and restricts movement, whom they speak to, police can make unannounced visits - basically you are owned by the state and your freedoms revoked which is just wrong. If they are guilty of an act and there is sufficient proof to have them found guilty by a jury of their peers then fine if not - I'm sorry - but they should be freed.

The state, wanting to control its citizens, to hold them indefinitely without trial or conviction, forcible deportation and removing their freedoms is, to me reminiscent of a certain far right German Government from the middle of the century. If you open up that box, even a little, you sacrifice the very freedoms and ideals that you are trying to protect, and it is a slippery slope to the Nacht und Nabel laws.

The European Court of Human rights, separate of course from the European Union and Common Market, is there to assist Governments making decisions that effect Human rights and therefore are a force for good. In this case torture can never be condoned.

Another source of tension is Sarah Teather. Peter Bone MP, asked at PMQs this week why she was still a government minister as she did not turn up to the pivotal vote on Welfare reform. Sarah Teather had always objected to the bill and when she was held up in Sheffield, by design or, as she has told everyone, by work the Conservatives have seen it as a slight.
True, under normal circumstances, a Government minister should vote with the Government - however this is a Coalition, and in the agreement no one needs to vote a certain way. If Ms Teather was strongly opposed to the policy, as many Libdems are, how could she vote - in good conscience for it?
If anything absentia from the vote is preferable for the Government than voting against. The point is she is a Libdem, and she stuck by her principles in the same way as those Conservative Eurosceptics who voted for a referendum did despite the whip.

On the Libdem side, there are left leaning Liberals who are horrified by the extent that the party seems to have drifted to the right and even become a diet Conservative party. Others believe that Clegg et al have sold their souls for their Ministerial positions and that the Coalition is truly pulling the party into the Darkside.

I must admit, there are times I agree.

However, I take solace in the good work that the parliamentary party are also putting through and the ends that justify some of the means. The nation is in a dire state and working with the Conservatives is the only way for improvement as Labour still seem entrenched and blameless.
Yes, there are bitter pills to be swallowed, and these aren't the decisions or policies that we would put through on our own but we're in Coalition and we're going to have to do things we don't want to do and agree with things we don't always agree with in the same way they are.

This is for the benefit of the country and both parties will need to rein in their respective wings to keep the Coalition on course.

Over using the N- Word.

The more I read about protests and campaigns against the Government/establishment the more and more I see people using the N word.

Nazi is a word that is thrown about too much. That and Police state. A lot of protesters throw out these insults as the Police try to establish order or carry out a Governmental order but I'm not sure they know what it means.Nazi is an abbreviation of for the German National Socialist Workers' party which was established after the First world War and taken over and transformed by Adolf Hitler. After the fall of the Third Reich the party was made illegal in Germany and across the world. The party stood for regaining lost territory and prestige for Germany that was lost in 1918 and sought to create a greater German Reich that would stand for a Milena. Its hallmarks included a centralised state, military growth and anti-Semitism mixed with eugenics. It would be safe to say that anyone who describes themselves a Nazi are probably not in any possible way - but are more likely anti-Semites or racists.

The state also established the Gestapo for keeping a track of the civilians through a network of informants and used the "Nacht Und Nebel" decrees to arrest suspects late in the night. Many people would wake to find their neighbours gone and never to be seen again, doomed to disappear into Concentration camps or disappear into the torture chambers of the Prinz Alberct Strasse HQ. At no point would anyone call for the release of "Political prisoners" without disappearing into the night and fog themselves. As for anti war protests such as Brian Hawes peace camp? Lets just say that a married couple who left postcards in public foyers with anti-war statements were beheaded.

To describe any Law enforcement in this Country as Nazi is just naive.I'm not saying that law enforcement is perfect in this country or that those who are friends of liberty and freedom should not take their eyes off Government legislation. It is easy for even well meaning measures to become oppressive. Take for example Control orders, national ID databases... it can so rapidly spiral out of control.

So how would the Dale farm incident be dealt with under a Nazi rule? Well the Wehrmacht or the SS would have gone in on the day, not after ten years of council and legal wranglings, and they would have cleared and liquidated all who stood in their way. It wouldn't have even made the news.

The Riots? No Police lines stood watching for three days. Action that day from the Military Kommandant of London. When the Warsaw uprising started the Wehrmacht troops began to struggle but then the Government ordered a strike and the SS and the Dirlwanger units went in and cleared the streets brutally whilst artillery and aircraft systematically flattened the city. On the second day we would begin to bury our dead.

The same is true for the student protests and marches on Parlaiment square would have been met with MG42 machine gun nests, live rounds and even half-tracks. Think final battle in Captain Corelli's mandolin (chapter 14 on the DVD). There would be no kettling.

Other states like Syria or Yemen have demonstrated true Police state or Naziesq measures to deal with civil unrest and rebellion. People have died and continue to die in the name of freedom and democracy. Here, someone who doesn't agree with the Government or is protesting something are often quick to call "Nazi" or "Police state!" however in reality they don't know how lucky they are to be born in a country that does cherish freedom and democracy.

Is it perfect? No, but we are not a Nazi state nor a police state. If you find yourself up against the Police at a demonstration then thank your stars that he is not a German Stormtrooper armed with an MP40 and a superiority complex.

 Lets try not to use the N word unnecessarily.

Dave vs. Nick; Alterations to the Human Rights act.

Since the Conservatives gained a majority in parliament there has been a worry that the Human Rights Act may suffer a redraft or complete revision. The first was when Priti Patel asked in PMQ's;

"When will the government overturn the Human Rights act?"

More than a few Libdems began to worry what they had got themselves into but all went quite on this front until recently, with the bout of Civil disorder which gripped the country. Reports of offenders hiding behind the Act and using it to escape justice has lead many to question its use in public life and legislation it is, in the words of Jack Straw;

"A Villians' Charter."

David Cameron has in the past called for the act to be scrapped completely in the past ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1560975/David-Cameron-Scrap-the-Human-Rights-Act.html)  and then on 21st August Mr Cameron wrote an article on change and what the Coalition was going to do to try and rectify the situation. (http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/266219)

There are some concerning sentences;

There are problems in our society that have been growing for a long time: a decline in responsibility, a rise in selfishness, a growing sense of individual rights come before anything else.

Or

I am determined we get a grip on the misrepresentation of human rights.

and...

sense of personal responsibility that has been eroded over the years by many things, ... to the twisting and misrepresenting of human rights.

These are all quite vague and alarm bells are ringing in the Liberal world that the Right are going to meddle to everyone's detriment. After all the Individual has the right not to be trampled on by the state and that a person's rights are there to be protected before it is trampled on by the larger state.

It would make sense that the riots and the civil disorder act as a catalyst or spark to bring about change to the act, when public feeling is against the perpetrators. It is a way to get public and media support, the kind of reaction that looks like an understandable knee jerk. We've also seen these in the form of evictions of
rioters from Council housing and harsh sentences that have come out in subsequent trials.
The Spectator also points out that Cameron may be playing to the crowd somewhat... He talks of fighting Europe to rectify the European Court of Human Rights - Boo Europe!!!
He neglects to say that actually they are two different bodies. To alter the ECHR you need the backing of 47 member states rather than the 27 involved in the EU.

Worried? I was... then Cue.... NICK CLEGG!


Nick's comments in the Guardian are very reassuring. He sounds like the reasonable half of the debate, explaining what his interpretation and the party's stance (hopefully) will be standing for rather than the rant of the right playing to the crowd. He outlines that the act has been misused in the past and very famously lambasted in the media, often used by money hungry lawyers who will take a hyped up cases. It is these loop holes need to be closed, the act needs to work for everyone
and that the balance of between individual rights to the rules and laws of society balance needs to be readdressed. He also talks about the paranoia of officials who do not want to break the human rights act, the Policemen who went to go and get a KFC meal for a fugitive who claimed it was his human right, law enforcement is scared not to act at times and enforce the law. We as a society will continue to lose out if law breakers are able to call upon a misrepresented act.

He reassures the party faithful that we stand for strengthening the commitment of the human rights act and the rights of the small person against oppression by the state. He talks about the way that the act has helped people already;

Preventing local authorities from carrying out surveillance of law abiding families,

Removing the innocent from the DNA database,

Stopping rapists from cross examining their possible victims.

He states;

The reality is that those who need to make use  of human rights laws to challenge the decisions of the authorities are nearly always people who are in the care of the state: Children's homes, mental hospitals, immigration detention. They are often vulnerable, powerless or outsiders and are sometimes people for whom the public feels little sympathy. But they are human beings, and our common humanity dictates that we treat them as such.

In a similar vein to his article in the Orange Book, he talks about reform of the ECHR but from within the system with everyone's support and for the benefit of everyone. These are our rights, the law should benefit the many not the few and that the state should be able to act to protect the majority.

In short I am more confident in the changes knowing that Nick and the parliamentary party will not back changes in specific rights (Theresa May's aim), or alter the way we work with the ECHR, which appears to be Mr Cameron's aim or even to leave the convention altogether which is an aim of the far right and some backbenchers! If we were to back down on these, if we allow the Conservatives to achieve any goals that would threaten the very existence of Human rights and personal freedom from state interest - We might as well pack up and go home, it is the very foundation of the party and THE cornerstone that once removed will bring down the house of Gladstone, and rightly so.

He has managed to get the commission into a "Bill of rights" almost solely with Liberal Human rights lawyers Phillipe Sands, Lord Lester and Helena Kennedy! This will guarantee that we will keep our rights and that the party will maintain its dedication to rights and Liberalism laid down in Mills and Liberal philosophers who
followed.

Whilst David Cameron postures and talks of the Right's aims and wishes, whether he is playing up to the crowd or whether he truly believes that this sort of change is what is needed, I can feel safe that Nick's words explain the bluster and his calm and reassuring article belays all fears that a state where the Government and its bodies DO hold ALL the power will not and cannot exist. He once described the party as the heirs to Mill, Lloyd George, Keynes, Beverage and Grimmond, I hope that we can carry on their grand legacy of Liberalism and not succumb now to external pressure.