The Twisted Logic of the Far Right
If the tragic events in Norway on Friday show one thing, it is the bizarre twisted logic bordering on paranoia that those on the far right use to justify their behaviour. If reports are to be believed, Anders Behring Breivik, the alleged suspect, was a radical Christian, who held strong anti-Muslim views. He must have believed too, as did Timothy McVeigh, that by attacking Government targets and children and young people that he would start a backlash against the policies he hated. America seems to have carried on as before since the Oklahoma City Bombing and I suspect Norway won’t change tack by a great deal, if at all.
I could have called this post the Twisted Logic of the Far Left or Mad Dictators, as you could include Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Gaddafi, Mugabe, Assad, Bin Laden, Botha, Galtieri, Ahmadinejad and various others. All seem to have been deserted by any logic that any intelligent person would understand. Most though believe strongly in the death penalty and denying everybody who disagrees with them any human rights.
In some ways, one of the reasons such as Breivik are encouraged is that our free society doesn’t really stop these dictators abusing their own people or in many cases those who have no connection to them.
So do the Breiviks and the McVeighs, who have a personal grievance, see impotent governments, who can’t stop the injustices in the rest of the world and this means they lose their jobs to immigrants, pay excessive taxes and lose some of their precious freedoms, like the right to have firearms.
We currently have more famine in the Horn of Africa and whatever the main problem, the twisted logic of the millitants in the area isn’t helping. But only last week we had a report from Ethiopia about how long term aid and fair commercial trading of coffee, is making the lives of small farmers and their families so much better.
Is Rick Perry Running To Be President of Iran?
They are made for each other, if The Times is to believed, as they are both convinced that the death penalty is the cure to all evils. I’m told it’s very good at stopping innocent peple becoming criminals.
The Iranians are using buses as scaffolds, which is a severe misuse of a noble piece of transport. Let’s make sure that none of London’s redundant bendy buses go to Iran, as they could be used to execute dozens at a time.
It’s about time, the British government and in fact the governments of all countries opposed to the death penalty, put some meaningful pressure on countries that still use this horrendous punishment.
Alan Shadrake Freed By Singapore
Alan Shadrake, who has been imprisoned in Singapore for writing a book critical of their use of the death penalty has been freed according to this report on the BBC.
He has been immediately deported back to the UK.
This is a story that will be worth following.
Another World Cup Problem for Qatar
FIFA and the Qatari government have been put on notice about labour conditions in the build up to the World Cup 2022, according to this report on Bloomberg.
The International Trade Union Confederation and Building Workers International urged FIFA and the Qatari government to prove that migrant workers won’t be subject to “inhuman” conditions as the Persian Gulf nation begins to build stadiums in anticipation of the 2022 World Cup.
Do we really want to compete in a World Cup built by exploited labour?
But then our athletes went to Beijing, where human rights are non-existent and there have been two Olympics and two World Cups in the United States, where there is the death penalty.
Jailed For Speaking Out Against the Death Penalty
Alan Shadrake has been jailed in Singapore for writing a book about the country’s use of the death pemalty. Here’s an extract from the report on the BBC.
A British author of a book about the death penalty in Singapore, Alan Shadrake, has lost his appeal against a six-week jail sentence.
The 76-year old, convicted of insulting the judiciary, will undergo medical tests before beginning his sentence.
His book, Once A Jolly Hangman: Singapore Justice in the Dock, alleges a lack of impartiality in the implementation of Singapore’s laws.
It’s about time, that the death penalty was abolished everywhere. Jailing seventy-six-year old authors doesn’t do the case of those who believe in it much good.
An Eye for an Eye And We All Go Blind
There is this horrific story from Iran today.
That’s not justice, that’s vengeance. Iran’s justice sentence may be worse than the United States in that they execute more people, but surely this is a new low?
America’s Gleeful Vengeance
Osama Bin Laden was a truly evil man to many, or was he just someone who saw an opportunity to make a name for himself and just took it in a very evil way.
In some ways it is a pity he is dead, as he should be in a Court of Law on trial for his crimes. And when after due process, if the verdict was guilty, he should have not been given a death sentence.
We have had enough martyrs that have inspired evil movements in history. They’ve inspired some good ones too, but I can’t see this happening in Bin Laden’s case.
At least though Osama bin Laden is dead and we won’t get the sort of speculation that we did after the Second World War about whether the truly evil Hitler was really dead.
Incidentally, I have read somewhere that Hitler’s biggest fear was that he would be captured and exhibited in somewhere like a zoo. He would have been tried at Nuremburg and if found guilty would have been executed. Judging by the way we have dealt with the various African, Croatian and Serbian war criminals, who have been found guilty at The Hague, we have moved on in the last sixty or so years.
But has America, where the death penalty is still a major part of the punishment system, as it is in Iran, China and North Korea?
I am also rather worried about the almost gleeful celebrations in the United States. This is sending the wrong message around the world and in my view it is rather disrespectful to all of the good people killed in the attack on September 11th, 2001 and all the other attacks inspired by Bin Laden. I know we celebrated in a similar way after the Second World War, but that was only after the war against Germany and Japan had been brought to a conclusion. We have not completely defeated the terrorists.
It will be interesting to see how Muslim groups and people around the world react to Bin Laden’s death.
I will be holding my breath, but hoping that the good Muslims who just want to get on with their lives in a peaceful manner have more effect, than those who want to carry on Bin Laden’s evil ideology.
As Rachel Harvey has just put it on the BBC, “Bin Laden may be dead, but his ideas are not.”
Florida Tourism
I can’t understand why anybody would want to go to the United States for a holiday and especially the state of Florida. After all according to this list from an official web site, they have executed 69 people since 1976.
I did hear though on Radio 5 this morning, that the clean-up after the Gulf oil spill has gone well and that the beaches are clean and tourism is on the rise.
But then you have the murders of James Cooper and James Kouzaris.
You wouldn’t catch me going.
It would appear that the murderer of the two Englishmen, is just 16 and will be tried as an adult and could face the death penalty.
So at least Florida has its priorities right. Tourism is more important than cleaning up crime.
Surely to improve tourism, they must do the other. But of course without using the death penalty. But then American justice is not about justice, it’s about vengeance.
The Anonymous Widower 