Libertarian meat eater, right wing in the sense of conservative with a small c.

Monday 20 August 2007

And / Or

Elmar Brock is a twat not only because he doesn't want the British public to have a referendum, (not that it's any of his fucking business given that he is a German politician), but because he gets 'and' and 'or' confused.

Smellygiraffe Ref

What Elmar said: 'Stop moaning or leave the EU'

Choices: Stay in the EU and stop moaning or keep moaning and leave the EU


What Elmar should have said if anything: 'Stop moaning and leave the EU'

That's more like it.

Hang 'em 'n' flog 'em brigade vs. It ain't my fault guv

In the latest bit of joy to hit our justice system there are complaints that prisoners are being held in inappropriate cells at Magistrates Courts because not only are the prisons chock a block but so are the police cells.

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2289194.ece

You have the usual loonies from both ends of the spectrum with one lot demanding that they're all hanged and the other decrying the poor prisoners broken homes and saying that what they really need is counseling.

Personally I'm, more on the right than the left on this, (quelle suprise), but I don't think that petty criminals deserve hanging and I can't even support killing the very worst. I can't agree that killing someone as punishment is always morally wrong, (pick your own 'evil people who don't deserve to live'), but it is with the practicalities that things fall down. No justice system is perfect and we do mistakenly lock up people for years and later find that they are innocent. Start executing people and no matter how hard you try to ensure that 'only the very, very, very guilty' will die and sooner or later you will kill an innocent man.

However, this does leave non lethal physical punishment as an option. The question is why don't we do it anymore? It is not enough to decry it as barbaric, cruel or painful and humiliating. Corporal punishment is supposed to be painful and humiliating, that's why it's a deterrent. It could also be described as cruel but is it any more so than prison? Finally to describe something as barbaric is merely to say that you don't approve, not why.

So what the hell, lets bring back the stocks and flogging , see what happens to the crime rate and then reassess. We would need to keep some prison places for those who need to be locked away for the public's safety but this would deal with prison overcrowding 'at a stroke', (sorry couldn't help myself). As for value for money, deterrent effect /cost to administer, what would you bet on?

Friday 17 August 2007

Too damn good

Dear Go they're ....sane?

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0001c672-4cb9-11dc-a51d-0000779fd2ac.html

Hard to believe but it does appear that the Tories are getting they're act together. Personally I don't believe that inheritance tax is a particularly vital one to target in terms of cost. However, it is a very emotive tax that has hit more and more people as house prices have risen and allowances have failed to rise at the same rate. The main thing is that it is the kind of tax cut that all but the most rabid lefties will tend to support and shows a tax cutting agenda.

More important is the proposed reduction of corporation tax, though I would hope that the 25% is merely a first step. Socialists, (defin. fucking tosswankers with no clue how to run an economy who gargle the fetid felch juice of bansterbation, (this definition will be expanded and corrected upon my whim)), will cry "NOOOOO!!!!! You giving all the money to EVIL CORPORATIONS!!!!!!". This is presumably because they fail to acknowledge the rather direct relationship between corporation tax and wage depression, (0.8% decrease in wages for each 1% rise in corporation tax).

I have never voted Tory before, I just missed out on the 1997 election and then voted Lib Dem and was even a member for while. Eventually I had to give up on them, it was not Charlie's alcoholism, (better a pissed but decent chap than a sober puritan), nor was it the fact that they were never likely to form a government. No, what got me in the end was that they were no longer liberal in a broad sense. This is not to detract from the Lib Dems stands on some civil liberty issues, (although the Lords seem more effective), it is the high tax high spend mentality that will always end up interfering in peoples lives because "something must be done".
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