I have been a libertarian since university but in politics I hold the greatest contempt not for those who have diametrically opposed political beliefs but rather for those who insist on always occupying the so-called "middle ground." At university one of my best friends was a revolutionary Marxist. He used to joke that "come the revolution you'll be first up against the wall...bang, bang, bang!" My response was always, "not if I get to you first!" We both knew that neither of us was entirely joking and that, given the right circumstances, we might one day find each other on opposite sides of a fight that involved more than just rhetoric, but we were best mates nevertheless and liked nothing more than a heated political debate. Occasionally we found common ground, such as our contempt for crony capitalism and religious conservatives.
When I lived in the UK in the 1980s there were two politicians whom I admired. Both towered over their peers in the philosophical sense. Margaret Thatcher, of course, was the first of these. The other was Tony Benn. The former Viscount Stansgate (for Tony Benn had renounced his peerage in the 1960s so he could sit in the House of Commons) was a doctrinaire Marxist and as such, I had little in common with him politically. But I admired his principled beliefs and his forthright manner in expressing them.
Benn believed in a pure, democratic Marxism that is, in my analysis, as illusory as fairy dust. He stuck to his principles, even when they put him in conflict with those who would ordinarily be his allies. He detested the Soviet Union and he was as much a thorn in the side of the Labour leadership as he was to the Tories. I had the impression that there was a reluctant mutual respect behind the open contempt between Benn and his political nemesis, Margaret Thatcher. Certainly, he had a sense of humour where Thatcher was concerned, introducing to parliament in 1990 a private members' bill entitled the Margaret Thatcher (Global Repeal) Bill.
Tony Benn died last week aged 88. I tip my hat to him as that rarity in politics these days - a man of principle and courage. Give me a Tony Benn any day over the unprincipled likes of Tony Blair, David Cameron or John Key.
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Sunday, March 16, 2014
The hypocrisy of the West towards Russia
Tomorrow, Crimean voters get to decide in a referendum whether they shall rejoin Russia. This vote has been condemned by Western leaders who, when it suits them, love to make a big issue out of self-determination.
Gauging the reaction to Russia's response to the state of affairs in the Ukraine, you'd think the former was the biggest threat to world peace since Nazi Germany. Western leaders such as Obama, whose countries have invaded numerous independent nations over the past couple of decades, posture and pontificate as though Putin was a foaming maniac who is about to launch another world war. Here's a few facts to consider.
Russia gave Crimea to Ukraine in 1954 when both countries were part of the USSR. As part of this deal, which survived the break-up of the Soviet Union, Russia was allowed to maintain troops in Crimea. The Western media has reported that Russia has invaded Crimea. It hasn't, it was already there.
The events in Ukraine over the last few weeks have seen the (albeit somewhat corruptly) elected government of Viktor Yanukovych overthrown by violent protests by a unholy alliance of opposition groups that include a significant presence of Neo-Nazis. The symbolic leader of those groups is a former Yanukovych ally and gas industry oligarch named Yulia Tymoshenko, who heads the All-Ukrainian Union "Fatherland" party.
After the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1990, the United States gave Mikhail Gorbachev assurances that it would not expand NATO east into former Soviet republics. These assurances counted for nothing with Germany joining NATO in 1990, Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary joining in 1999, and Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania and Croatia all joining since then. Thus NATO now virtually surrounds Russia from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Is it any wonder the Russians are nervous about Ukraine moving into the Western European alliance? Imagine if Canada and Mexico had joined the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War and you get a sense of how Russia must see these developments.
Gauging the reaction to Russia's response to the state of affairs in the Ukraine, you'd think the former was the biggest threat to world peace since Nazi Germany. Western leaders such as Obama, whose countries have invaded numerous independent nations over the past couple of decades, posture and pontificate as though Putin was a foaming maniac who is about to launch another world war. Here's a few facts to consider.
Russia gave Crimea to Ukraine in 1954 when both countries were part of the USSR. As part of this deal, which survived the break-up of the Soviet Union, Russia was allowed to maintain troops in Crimea. The Western media has reported that Russia has invaded Crimea. It hasn't, it was already there.
The events in Ukraine over the last few weeks have seen the (albeit somewhat corruptly) elected government of Viktor Yanukovych overthrown by violent protests by a unholy alliance of opposition groups that include a significant presence of Neo-Nazis. The symbolic leader of those groups is a former Yanukovych ally and gas industry oligarch named Yulia Tymoshenko, who heads the All-Ukrainian Union "Fatherland" party.
After the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1990, the United States gave Mikhail Gorbachev assurances that it would not expand NATO east into former Soviet republics. These assurances counted for nothing with Germany joining NATO in 1990, Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary joining in 1999, and Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania and Croatia all joining since then. Thus NATO now virtually surrounds Russia from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Is it any wonder the Russians are nervous about Ukraine moving into the Western European alliance? Imagine if Canada and Mexico had joined the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War and you get a sense of how Russia must see these developments.
We saw a further example of Western hypocrisy during the Sochi Olympics with Western politicians and celebrities jumping on the bandwagon to condemn Russia's new law against promoting homosexuality. Personally, I think this is a pretty despicable law, but it needs to be put in perspective - homosexuality is legal in Russia and remains so and eight US states still have similar laws on their books to that introduced by Russia. Besides, where was that chorus of protest from all those Western politicians and celebrities when Iran recently hung two men from cranes for their homosexuality?
Vladimir Putin's Russia is not a paragon of liberty and human rights, but neither are many Western nations. President Obama claims the right to extra-judicial killing by drone of anyone, anywhere in the world. His government still imprisons suspected terrorists without trial or due process in Guatanamo Bay, Cuba, and his intelligence agencies claim the right to extra-judicial mass surveillance of law-abiding people both within the United States and abroad. Perhaps Obama and other Western leaders should put their own liberties in order before taking such a sanctimonious attitude towards Russia.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
North Korean Regime Compared to Nazis
The crimes against humanity perpetrated by the North Korea communist regime are 'strikingly similar' to those of the Nazis according to Michael Kirby, the Australian judge who headed the United Nations inquiry set up to investigate the abuses. Kirby said the commissioners had written to Kim Jong-un, the young despot who inherited the North Korea leadership upon the death of his father, to say they would recommend the matter to the International Criminal Court. Although this may be cold comfort to those who continue to suffer in North Korea and their relatives in the South, it is encouraging that someone in the usually ineffectual UN has had the backbone to state the facts as evidenced by the accounts of more than 300 witnesses. The video in this Sky News article shows the stories of a mother and son who escaped from the hideous North Korean political prisons and even these brief accounts are tear-inducing.
The comments by Michael Kirby are interesting in view of my last post reviewing Jonah Goldberg's book about the fascist origins of the modern political left-wing. Many of today's so-called 'liberals' claim sympathy with Marxist doctrine and some even go so far as to defend the genocidal regimes of Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung. Few challenge them on these sympathies. And yet, as Michael Kirby points out, Marxism as it exists in North Korea is indistinguishable from Nazism. The evidence about North Korea has been available for many years but there have been many in the West, including in my own country, who have defended this most indefensible regime. I do not accept ignorance as an excuse any more than we now accept that as an excuse for the collaboration of many in Occupied Europe with the Nazis. People who excuse the North Korean regime, and who defend Marxism, are complicit in these crimes.
The common factor in all dictatorships is the subjugation of individual to the interests of the state. It is the belief that individuals should be forced to live their lives for the benefit of the collective - whether that is defined as the nation, the race, or the proletariat - and this is the moral slippery slope that ultimately leads to North Korea. Once you have decided that individuals should be forced to live their lives for the benefit of the collective, there is ultimately no sacrifice of the individual that you can't or won't justify. You start with supposedly noble, altruistic aims and end up with concentration camps. It is the moral dilemma defined by the joke about the millionaire and the pretty woman - once you've established the principle, all that's left to argue about is the price.
In respect of the immediate problem (if you can call a problem that has existed for 60 years 'immediate') presented by North Korea, the world must now back up the courage shown by Michael Kirby and his team and force the North Korea leadership from power and release its subjects from slavery. Just as we judged our forefathers by their response to Nazism, so we will be judged by our response to North Korea's awful Marxist regime.
The comments by Michael Kirby are interesting in view of my last post reviewing Jonah Goldberg's book about the fascist origins of the modern political left-wing. Many of today's so-called 'liberals' claim sympathy with Marxist doctrine and some even go so far as to defend the genocidal regimes of Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung. Few challenge them on these sympathies. And yet, as Michael Kirby points out, Marxism as it exists in North Korea is indistinguishable from Nazism. The evidence about North Korea has been available for many years but there have been many in the West, including in my own country, who have defended this most indefensible regime. I do not accept ignorance as an excuse any more than we now accept that as an excuse for the collaboration of many in Occupied Europe with the Nazis. People who excuse the North Korean regime, and who defend Marxism, are complicit in these crimes.
The common factor in all dictatorships is the subjugation of individual to the interests of the state. It is the belief that individuals should be forced to live their lives for the benefit of the collective - whether that is defined as the nation, the race, or the proletariat - and this is the moral slippery slope that ultimately leads to North Korea. Once you have decided that individuals should be forced to live their lives for the benefit of the collective, there is ultimately no sacrifice of the individual that you can't or won't justify. You start with supposedly noble, altruistic aims and end up with concentration camps. It is the moral dilemma defined by the joke about the millionaire and the pretty woman - once you've established the principle, all that's left to argue about is the price.
In respect of the immediate problem (if you can call a problem that has existed for 60 years 'immediate') presented by North Korea, the world must now back up the courage shown by Michael Kirby and his team and force the North Korea leadership from power and release its subjects from slavery. Just as we judged our forefathers by their response to Nazism, so we will be judged by our response to North Korea's awful Marxist regime.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
The Liberal Fascist
I am currently reading Jonah Goldberg's book, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning, and I recently read Victor Klemperer's I Shall Bear Witness, his personal testimony to life as a Jew in Nazi Germany. These books have in common the subject of fascism, its origins and its language.
Goldberg's book is a revelation. I had not read anything else by this American writer and I was not expecting much of his book, despite it being a New York Times bestseller (I am sure much to the New York Times literary editor's chagrin), but I discovered his book is very well researched and his theories backed by much evidence. The gist of the book, as you might guess from the title, is that modern liberalism (i.e. left-wing) politics has its origins in fascist ideology.
This is not entirely surprising to me and I have blogged on the topic of socialists being kin with National Socialists before, but Goldberg shows the provenance of modern liberalism following a direct line from philosophers like Rousseau, through the Jacobins of the French Revolution to Mussolini (both in his initial allegiance to the Italian Socialist Party and subsequently his establishment of his Fasci di Combattimento), and thence to Adolf Hitler's National Socialist German Worker's Party. Along the way he traces the origins of American Progressivism as adopted by Woodrow Wilson (undoubtedly the most dictatorial US President ever), Franklin Roosevelt (the second most dictatorial), and on to modern liberalism through Lyndon Johnson and ultimately Barack Obama.
The interesting thing about the provenance that Goldberg outlines is how successful modern liberals have been in covering the trail. These days it is accepted wisdom that Hitler and Mussolini were right-wing reactionaries just like modern conservatives such as US Republicans. But anyone the least bit familiar with Hitler and Mussolini's political beliefs and writings knows that they were first and foremost socialists (and certainly both proclaimed their socialist credentials right to the end) with a large dollop of popular pragmatism, just like modern liberals. Hitler, in particular, held to many of the same beliefs as the modern Green parties - that the patrician state should regulate every aspect of our social and economic life for our own good health and that of the environment.
Hitler (but not Mussolini) was also a racist and eugenicist. Surprisingly, so was Woodrow Wilson and, to some extent, FDR. As recently as 1972, the Democratic Party was fielding as a candidate for president a prominent racial segregationist, George Wallace (and he probably would have won the nomination if it hadn't been for the assassination attempt that left him paralysed). Today, people forget it was a Republican president who abolished slavery and Southern Democrats who led the rebellion to retain it.
The parallels between Goldberg's book and Klemperer's first hand account of fascism in practice is interesting. Like Goldberg, Klemperer focuses to a large extent on the language of fascism (and in fact he later wrote the authoritative treatise on the subject, The Language of the Third Reich). He concludes that the Nazis, like Big Brother in George Orwell's 1984, were able to achieve so much of their hideous agenda because they controlled the language. Many Germans came to believe the Jews were greedy, dirty, degenerate, sub-human beings because Hitler was so successful in inculcating these beliefs into the language. If you repeat something often enough, people come to accept it as truth, just as today it is accepted wisdom that US Republicans are racists.
It is tiring, as well as ironic, to be branded a racist when you believe all races should be treated equally before the law, to be branded a fascist when you believe in a small, non-authoritarian state, or to be branded a 'denier' when you point out that the scientific method has been abandoned in the extreme predictions of some climate scientists. It is interesting that it is the so-called liberal side of the debate that is always most ready to engage in such propagandist name-calling when anyone challenges their policies on these matters. Goldberg may be engaging in the some of the same techniques that he abhors in modern liberal discourse, but if he is giving liberals some of their own medicine, then that is apposite. And he certainly weaves a credible story about the origins of their techniques.
Finally, I am saddened to see the very brilliant British blogger James Delingpole (whose blog is listed on the sidebar) is giving up his pen. I have corresponded with James on one occasion and found he was as engaging individually as he is in his blogs. James has been one of the greatest fighters for classical liberal views in the world over the few years and we can ill afford to lose him. I hope that he is not giving up the fight for good, although if he is, I can certainly understand why (for the reasons outlined in the previous paragraph). I hope he will pop up in a new role in which he will be just as great a thorn in the side of cowardly, liberal fascists as he has been in his blogging career. Thank you, James. It's been a laugh.
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
What Has Happened to Great Britain?
I have a soft spot for Britain. I lived there for several years in the 1980s and as a New Zealander of predominantly British extraction I look to it for symbols and trends that inform me about life in my own country that shares so many institutions and traditions with the Mother Country. Unfortunately, these days I do not like what I see.
Great Britain gave us the Magna Carta, the Common Law and the rule of law, the (original) Bill of Rights, John Locke, Thomas Paine, Adam Smith, the abolition of the slave trade and the bulldog spirit that stood alone against fascism for the first two years of World War II. These great traditions made Britain by the 19th Century not only the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world but probably the best to live in for the vast majority of its population. And it wasn't just the homeland that enjoyed this great, liberal tradition - it was the template for successful nation states all over the world. But today Britain is choosing to abandon all that has made it great and, in a sad irony, is adopting the characteristics of the despotic regimes its people have fought against down through the years.
Britain has more surveillance cameras per person than any other country on earth with an estimated 20% of all the world's public CCTV cameras - 5 million in total or 1 for every 11 people. It has revoked the right to silence in criminal cases (an important historical protection against the use of torture for obtaining evidence). More recently British judges have started jailing people for abusive comments on Twitter and following the Leveson Inquiry into hacking of cellphone records by News of the World journalists, the three major British political parties have agreed to introduce the regulation of all content of newspapers and other media. And in the latest assault on a free press and on free speech, a proposed 'deregulation bill' enables judges to authorise the seizure of journalists' notebooks and digital files in secret hearings.
That great British writer, George Orwell, would recognise all of this from his prescient novel, 1984. Orwell modelled his fictitious society on the Soviet Union when he penned his novel in 1948 but he was sounding a warning for his own country. It is a shame that the model for liberal, democratic society all over the world is now looking like the model for Airstrip One.
Britain has more surveillance cameras per person than any other country on earth with an estimated 20% of all the world's public CCTV cameras - 5 million in total or 1 for every 11 people. It has revoked the right to silence in criminal cases (an important historical protection against the use of torture for obtaining evidence). More recently British judges have started jailing people for abusive comments on Twitter and following the Leveson Inquiry into hacking of cellphone records by News of the World journalists, the three major British political parties have agreed to introduce the regulation of all content of newspapers and other media. And in the latest assault on a free press and on free speech, a proposed 'deregulation bill' enables judges to authorise the seizure of journalists' notebooks and digital files in secret hearings.
That great British writer, George Orwell, would recognise all of this from his prescient novel, 1984. Orwell modelled his fictitious society on the Soviet Union when he penned his novel in 1948 but he was sounding a warning for his own country. It is a shame that the model for liberal, democratic society all over the world is now looking like the model for Airstrip One.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Labour's cynical election bribe just more legalised theft
The New Zealand Labour Party has announced that if it becomes the government later this year it will introduce a new welfare payment of $60 for babies born to families earning under $150,000 per year for the first year and continuing payments for families with lower incomes. This is on top of the Working for Families scheme that Labour introduced when last in power, which extended welfare to families on incomes of well over $100,000 per year, and other existing welfare benefits.
As welfare commentator Lindsay Mitchell points out on her blog here, this means that a first time mother in Auckland on welfare will receive $672 per week and a further $124 for every child after that. The median New Zealand full-time wage (June 2013) is $844 per week. An individual taxpayer will pay about 15% tax on their income so will receive about $720 in the hand. Beneficiaries get additional entitlements such as lower cost government services and discounts from many private sector organisations, so you would have to conclude that most young, single women would be better off having babies than working for a living.
The inequity of this situation, and even the fact that all the evidence says that encouraging welfare dependency produces poor social outcomes, are not my primary objections to this policy. It is the cynical opportunism of it that gets to me. No one can seriously argue that New Zealanders incomes of up to $150,000 need welfare, so this policy is not about need. As with Working for Families, it is about making more and more New Zealand families dependent on, and grateful for, the largesse of a Labour Government. Elections are won and lost on the votes of the middle class and these policies bring almost all of the middle class into the welfare system.
All taxation is, by definition, legalised theft (OED defines theft as to 'take another person’s property without permission'). Most people justify the taxation and welfare system because it enables government to provide for the needy in society. Labour's new policy doesn't even have that merit. As Lindsay Mitchell points out again here, the most commonly used measurement which counts children in households below 60 percent of the median household after-housing-costs income, has fallen from 37 percent in 2001 to 21 percent in 2012. No one needs this policy, least of all higher income earners. Where is the morality in taxing a young school leaver earning the minimum wage ($13.75 per hour) so the government can give money to someone earning say $145,000 per year?
Fortunately I think most New Zealanders will see this policy for what it is - a cynical election year bribe. However, between Labour and its fellow-traveller Green Party, they may muster enough votes to out poll the governing National Party and implement their dishonest policies.
Monday, January 20, 2014
Taking up the cudgels again in 2014 in defence of individual rights
I have had a very relaxing start to the year, partaking of some great weather, wonderful sights, delicious food and fine wines in some of New Zealand's most beautiful holiday spots. The relaxation was undoubtedly enhanced by confining my holiday reading to some excellent books (Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch and Bill Bryson's One Summer stand out) and consuming as little of the execrable mainstream media as possible. But it is time to return to the challenges that will face us in 2014.
In New Zealand, the Government led by John Key seems to be determined to pursue a political agenda that is as secretive, and frankly as corrupt, as ever. Key and his coalition of right-of-centre hypocrites and and racial determinists will continue to expand the power of the state and debase the rights of some New Zealanders in order to retain power.
Late in 2013 it the Key Government introduced a bill to enable the nefarious US FATCA regime, which I have blogged on before. FATCA treats any New Zealander with the misfortune of being born in the United States, or even born here to American parents, as "United States taxpayers that are resident in New Zealand." The Government acknowledges that the proposed law explicitly overrides the Privacy Act, Human Rights Act and New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. To what purpose does it treat some New Zealanders as non-citizens? It is to enforce a US taxation regime that is one-sided, unique in the world and inconsistent with OECD model taxation agreements. This analysis on the New Zealand legislation from the Isaac Brock Society sets out the issues in more detail.
Another nefarious piece of legislation the Key Government introduced in late 2013 is the Treaty of Waitangi settlement bill that gives redress to the Ngati Toa tribe for alleged wrongs committed against the tribe by the Crown in the early 19th Century. These Maori grievance settlements have become more and more outrageous over time, establishing two classes of citizenship in New Zealand - a privileged Maori tribal citizenship and lesser rights for the rest of us - but this one really takes the cake. Ngati Toa was the tribe of chief Te Rauparaha who committed what can only be described as genocide against other Maori tribes in his violent rampage through the North Island and top of the South Island in the 1820s and 1830s. British forces intervened against Te Rauparaha and his nephew Te Rangihaeata in the late 1830s and 1840s, stopping their horrific attacks against other Maori tribes and European settlers. Giving compensation to Ngati Toa today for the actions of British forces is like giving compensation to Bosnian Serbs for what happened at Srebrenica in the 1990s. Former Maori Treaty claim researcher John Robinson provides background and opinion on this claim in this article.
In the United States the Obamacare legislation is being shown up for the disaster some people always knew it would be, with even former supporters shocked to discover the huge cost increases that it is imposing and President Obama being exposed as having lied through his teeth when he said Americans would be able to keep their existing healthcare plan. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy said the legislation would "change the relationship between the government and the individual in a profound way." He meant that socialised medicine makes citizens dependent on the state in a way that Americans have traditionally not been, and he is being proved right.
On the positive side in America, President Obama has said he will rein back the extent of spying on citizens and foreign leaders that were exposed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Many commentators have said the president's pledge does not go far enough and have expressed scepticism about whether there will be any meaningful change. Obama has pursued more prosecutions under the Espionage Act than all other presidents combined, so people are right to be cynical about his intentions.
So as much as I enjoyed my holiday and have been slow to take up the cudgels again in defence of freedom, I am mindful of Thomas Jefferson's (or Edmund Burke's similar) saying, "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."
As Shakespeare said, "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more..."
In New Zealand, the Government led by John Key seems to be determined to pursue a political agenda that is as secretive, and frankly as corrupt, as ever. Key and his coalition of right-of-centre hypocrites and and racial determinists will continue to expand the power of the state and debase the rights of some New Zealanders in order to retain power.
Late in 2013 it the Key Government introduced a bill to enable the nefarious US FATCA regime, which I have blogged on before. FATCA treats any New Zealander with the misfortune of being born in the United States, or even born here to American parents, as "United States taxpayers that are resident in New Zealand." The Government acknowledges that the proposed law explicitly overrides the Privacy Act, Human Rights Act and New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. To what purpose does it treat some New Zealanders as non-citizens? It is to enforce a US taxation regime that is one-sided, unique in the world and inconsistent with OECD model taxation agreements. This analysis on the New Zealand legislation from the Isaac Brock Society sets out the issues in more detail.
Another nefarious piece of legislation the Key Government introduced in late 2013 is the Treaty of Waitangi settlement bill that gives redress to the Ngati Toa tribe for alleged wrongs committed against the tribe by the Crown in the early 19th Century. These Maori grievance settlements have become more and more outrageous over time, establishing two classes of citizenship in New Zealand - a privileged Maori tribal citizenship and lesser rights for the rest of us - but this one really takes the cake. Ngati Toa was the tribe of chief Te Rauparaha who committed what can only be described as genocide against other Maori tribes in his violent rampage through the North Island and top of the South Island in the 1820s and 1830s. British forces intervened against Te Rauparaha and his nephew Te Rangihaeata in the late 1830s and 1840s, stopping their horrific attacks against other Maori tribes and European settlers. Giving compensation to Ngati Toa today for the actions of British forces is like giving compensation to Bosnian Serbs for what happened at Srebrenica in the 1990s. Former Maori Treaty claim researcher John Robinson provides background and opinion on this claim in this article.
In the United States the Obamacare legislation is being shown up for the disaster some people always knew it would be, with even former supporters shocked to discover the huge cost increases that it is imposing and President Obama being exposed as having lied through his teeth when he said Americans would be able to keep their existing healthcare plan. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy said the legislation would "change the relationship between the government and the individual in a profound way." He meant that socialised medicine makes citizens dependent on the state in a way that Americans have traditionally not been, and he is being proved right.
On the positive side in America, President Obama has said he will rein back the extent of spying on citizens and foreign leaders that were exposed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Many commentators have said the president's pledge does not go far enough and have expressed scepticism about whether there will be any meaningful change. Obama has pursued more prosecutions under the Espionage Act than all other presidents combined, so people are right to be cynical about his intentions.
So as much as I enjoyed my holiday and have been slow to take up the cudgels again in defence of freedom, I am mindful of Thomas Jefferson's (or Edmund Burke's similar) saying, "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."
As Shakespeare said, "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more..."
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