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Politics, The Final Frontier (Politics)
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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There is no need to keep stalkers locked up. We already have the technology to monitor them. It's easy to impose restrictions on areas where stalkers are not allowed to return to stalk victims, and enforce this, but we lack the willpower when defence lawyers say you can't stop Ojay visiting his mum who lives round the corner from his ex. Or we are damaging Ojay's human rights to work as he is a retail assistant and she lives close to the High Street. We protect rights of perps, not of victims.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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I agree, yet these apparently simple, cheap and effective measures have not been adopted. Nor would they be seriously resisted on human rights grounds in cases of aggravated or prolonged offending. It cannot be entirely down to police indifference and incompetence because the police are sensitive, even over-sensitive, to public pressure and stalking gets plenty of airplay. Nor can it be, as with rape, technical difficulties of catching and prosecuting perpetrators. No, something else is going on but I'm damned if I can see it.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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The whole legal system is broken, the only people that gain are the legal profession, who are still so ungrateful as to threaten strike acton, breaking it still further.

The starting point is that only citizens have important rights, whereas non-citizens should only have basic rights.

Take the right to trial by a jury of one's peers. It's fundamental but why should it be available to someone who has only been in the country 6 months, has already committed two minor offences and is now up for a stabbing. The perps opt for jury trial (better chance of getting off) and get bailed (heyho, it's ony a stabbing). The victim is now at additional risk. Now Borders try to deport them, why should they have a right of appeal against deportation to see if this breaches their rights. It is clear they are wrong 'uns, and they are only just in the country. Borders have no hope as the courts now want to see the outcome of the stabbing trial. Justice must be seen to be done. How is it that the perp has earned the £100,000 this is going to cost the tax payer and businesses who now have their employee jurors attending a 3 day trial. The jury does its job, he is guilty. Can we successfully get Borders to now deport. Of course not, the perp now has shit hot lawyers arguing that their client is sorry, remorseful and was trafficked. He is the victim!!! He has Rights!!!

It is bonkers.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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This is why the Rwanda solution would be so effective and is so fiercely resisted. If all these things are being done in Rwanda nobody would come in the first place. So long as they are being done in Britain, everybody comes.

It is true we could expedite the whole thing in Britain so the process is virtually automated and people's feet would hardly touch but look what happens when that approach is adopted. We agreed with the Albanian government that Albanians could be (pretty much) automatically returned to Albania. We even have Albanian officials here in Britain to expedite it. Result: twelve thousand Albanians arriving, eleven thousand Albanians staying here indefinitely, one thousand Albanians being here for a year or two.... or three... though they may have to pop home occasionally and try again.

However this is only the latest layer in a misunderstanding that is rooted in British/western philosophy. We base our assumptions about 'rights' on the individual. This is truly excellent and is a major contribution to the upward path of human civilisation. But ya gotta know when individual rights have to be set aside in favour of some other desideratum when it's necessary. It's only a tool of statecraft. Don't worry about the slippery slope to fascism, there's no chance of that, individual rights are rooted in our philosophy.

We trample on the whole concept in wartime, we downgrade it for victims (usually female) who are having their rights violated by other individuals (mainly male), we ignore it when dealing with not-quite-individuals (e.g. foetuses and animals). No reason we shouldn't junk it when the immigration system has broken down.

If that's important. Personally...
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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I would guess that a lot of this concern over boat crossings is that these boats are visible (politically embarassing) whereas folks stowing away in trucks, flying in, and overstayers are not.

The price of these trips must be coming down for the Albanians (not your wealthy middle class third world types) to actually afford it. These crossings must now be the risky, poor man's cheap entry into Blighty. Do I sense that the traffickers are getting a bit desperate? I mean Albanians? All the while they were trafficking those from the Middle East or Africa, you can guarantee your NGOs, along with police and government, would play softball but sending us Albanians is really asking for a co-ordinated tough response.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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I don't think it's the visibility of the transport medium so much as the visibility of the migrants. According to the satirically-named YouGov polling organisation, when the Great British Public were offered either a thousand New Zealanders or a thousand Afghanis, ninety-eight per cent opted for the former. The other two per cent were Afghanis. Even though it is the latter that are actually needed, we've got all the dairy farmers we can use at the present time.

It is difficult to understand why race is not used to frame policy. We apply discrimination in all other choices, say shopping at Tesco, so why are we so averse to applying it when it comes to choosing our economic migrants? Has racism suddenly become a dirty word or something?
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Mick Harper
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There's an illuminating Al-Jazeera series about the American talk-radio industry. [Listening Post, The Right Frequency: Is talk radio dividing America?] The start point was essentially

The Republican Party didn't create talk radio, talk radio created the Republican Party (in its modern form).

The history of it -- it was created by Rush Limbaugh in its modern form -- is quite good, but the analysis not so much. The big problem is not Al-Jazeera's liberal bent as the fact that there just aren't any academicky commentators about the media that aren't liberals! Nonetheless one very important point emerged.

In the 1990's, the Democrats realised they were missing a trick and decided they had better get some left-wing talk radio going. Notably, Air America in New York, into which they piled money and leading-light liberals. They found they couldn't do it! No matter how hard they tried, no matter how much they aped the methods and tropes of the existing talk radios, they couldn't do it. Nobody listened Not even liberals. It is an AE matter why not.

My preliminary assumption is that the left mind and the right mind are just two different things. Right wing people say how it is, left wing people say how it should be. The former means people can just chunder on indefinitely in a sort of stream-of-consciousness speech perfectly attuned to talk radio. And perfect for listening to as well. A kind of shooting the breeze, gossipy chat among neighbours.

The left just can't do this. Their world doesn't exist (yet). You can't, it seems, conduct a seminar at the garden gate.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Most valuable.

I think we need to add this to the 9 point list.

1) Take over the universities
2) Take over the unions
3) Take over the BBC
4) Allege vote rigging
5) Swim like a fish in the ocean
6) Let a 1000 Azaleas bloom
7) Remember the Long march starts with a small step
8) Freedom or death
9) Applied Epistemology for all.
Ahem
10) take over talk radio.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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Yes, but that's because you are in the reform wing of the AE movement. I'm an ultra

1) Abolish the universities
2) Abolish the unions
3) Do something about the BBC
4) Leave talk radio to its own devices
5) Arrest all members of the reform wing of AE and pretend we have sent them to re-education centres.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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Only kidding.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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I can announce Trumpism is over. From everywhere in America people are pointing to Trump-tinged candidates doing poorly. Not poorly in numbers, the good plain folks are surging out for their hero in their zillions. But this is not what counts (irrespective of whether they are counted). In mature democracies, everything happens at the margins.

If Trump is shaving percentages off rather than enthusing percentages to beat the drum, he will be toxic coast to coast. You will find every Republican power-broker, from the ward level upwards, will be quietly ditching the brand. Next: is Biden toxic? His age rather than his brand. Without Trump in the race, Democrats do not need the white knight that slayed the dragon. There's a clue there, but I advise them to pay no heed to it. Go for a DWEM, it usually makes sense.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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One is always surprised that such a relatively civilised country as the USA retains the death penalty. One is even more surprised at how they apply the doctrine of 'beyond reasonable doubt'. When the two come together, the accused is normally a black male. Here is a white female getting the treatment https://chrissiemassey1023.medium.com/after-20-years-death-row-inmate-darlie-routier-waits-for-dna-testing-f16e6dc59c30.

Not so unusual perhaps but what prompted me to mention it here was the offer: "Admit the crime and we'll commute the death sentence." Truly an AE decision if ever I heard one.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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Though having thought about it some more, the offer is an AE matter a well. If a crime is worthy of the death penalty, why should admitting it make it not so? Genuine repentance and remorse might be considered of some mitigatory value but doing it to save your own worthless hide surely not.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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I don't know, but it seems to me that this is consistent with the whole American justice system, which is no longer based on trial but on plea bargaining. I admit this is based on Wiley watching TV cop shows like Blue Bloods.... so might be incorrect but, to Wiley's eyes, virtually all cases are now decided by deals?
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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When you have a larger proportion of your population incarcerated than any other nation on earth, some short cuts will be necessary. Of which, I suppose, the death penalty is one. Except (I believe) it takes an average of ten years between sentence and... er... execution of sentence. In China and Iran it is more like ten days.
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