42 Comments

1. Tcobb:

“What happens when the government runs out of other people’s money to spend?”

I don’t know and can’t imagine. What do tapeworms do when they’ve managed to kill their host?

Jan 24, 2009 - 8:50 pm 2. wildernesscalling:

They will not be found! the Black hole is in the process of swallowing whats right in America, will the last freeman please turn out the light or should we say turn off the torch….

Jan 24, 2009 - 8:50 pm 3. fred:

The young people of our country and of other nations where socialism is being put in place have been deceived by their teachers and professors. They were told that socialism will work when the right people are running it and the right policies are in place. The kids were never told about the utter failure that socialism is. I’m afraid they are going to have to experience this rot and tragedy for themselves. Unfortunately, it will be hard on the rest of us who already know the lesson and know the reasons why socialism is wrong and a failure of reason and fact.

Jan 24, 2009 - 8:58 pm 4. PA Cat:

According to an article published in the Telegraph last year, the UK is experiencing its worst brain drain in 50 years:

“Record numbers of Britons are leaving – many of them doctors, teachers and engineers – in the biggest exodus for almost 50 years.

There are now 3.247 million British-born people living abroad, of whom more than 1.1 million are highly-skilled university graduates, say the researchers . . . No other nation is losing so many qualified people, [the report] points out. Britain has now lost more than one in 10 of its most skilled citizens, while overall only Mexico has had more people emigrate.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1579345/Biggest-brain-drain-from-UK-in-50-years.html

Are any BCers surprised?

Jan 24, 2009 - 9:15 pm 5. twobyfour:

The ratio of highly-skilled emigrants would increase dramatically when Jews are starting to leave, which would be shortly.

Jan 24, 2009 - 9:29 pm 6. Leo Linbeck III:

PA Cat,

Great link. No surprise here.

As government becomes a bigger part of the economy, a progression of events unfolds:

First, capital leaves. Then the government imposes capital controls.
Then, people leave. Then the government imposes emigration controls.
Then, to protect the people and capital trapped in the country, the government erects trade barriers that shuts down the flow of imports and exports.

Combined with demographic trends that promise to invert the age pyramid, these controls cause the country to revert back to output levels of 100 years ago.

In the coming years, we will see a new category of country emerge: the undeveloping world. The only question is will Europe go with a bang or a whimper.

Cheers.

L3

Jan 24, 2009 - 9:43 pm 7. Kayak2U Blog » Blog Archive » ‘ello, comrade, guv’nor!:

[...] Via:  Belmont Club [...]

Jan 24, 2009 - 10:04 pm 8. Bob Murphy:

Hi, L3, Euros do a good whimper. I doubt there will be any bang. As for their replacment population, already in situ…

I like your sequence, the only possible way to stop the outflow is with a fourth point, the DDR method.:)

Jan 24, 2009 - 10:08 pm 9. Bob Murphy:

I was implying that any bang as the Euro weenies flounder will be that of their Islamic youth whomping on the wimps.

Jan 24, 2009 - 10:10 pm 10. E. Nigma:

Having worked with British ex-pats over the years, I suggest that those coming to America are no bonus to the US. Much like the Californians escaping the oncoming economic disaster in that state, they bring with them the same flawed (unthinking and unexamined) political values that are bringing down the UK.

Exhibit one:
I give you……..Andrew Sullivan.

Jan 24, 2009 - 10:39 pm 11. Bret:

I think South Africa will take more than five years to become Zimbabwe.

The beauty of Britain, Europe, etc. is that they are far enough ahead in the unfortunate progression relative to the United States that it’s possible that we’ll wake up and smell the coffee before it’s totally too late.

Jan 24, 2009 - 10:39 pm 12. Alexis:

I had been under the impression that socialism is supposed to be about ensuring that workers own the factories. The problem is that socialists never seem to be interested in letting workers control the factories; instead, the Party or the State controls the factories in the name of “the working class”.

I think it’s rather interesting that the most successful experiment in worker owned cooperatives has been in Mondragon, Spain. It developed under Franco. Although I’m not suggesting that we have more right-wing dictators such as Franco to ensure the growth of employee-owned enterprises, the notion that conservative regions (whether in Spain or the rural Midwest) could be more fertile ground for worker-owned industries than bastions of liberalism is worthy of consideration.

From a classically conservative perspective, worker ownership of the means of production is not a bad idea because (1) it gives the workers a stake in the enterprise and (2) it forces workers to take responsibility for the fate of their industry, as opposed to relying upon management, union bosses, or the government for leadership.

Socialism is stuck in a rut, a very deep rut, and a very predictable rut amply described in The New Class, by Milovan Djilas. Socialists have become blinded to any solution to the problems they describe other than statism. Yet, in the name of causing the “withering of the state”, they cause everything else to wither. It’s rather like our new president promising the balance the budget, but only after a gargantuan stimulus package is passed, and then another stimulus package, and another stimulus package…

Perhaps the best route to the kind of society that socialists claim they want is through a laissez faire policy that doesn’t compromise their ideals by making them dependent upon the fickle hand of the State.

Jan 24, 2009 - 10:43 pm 13. Eggplant:

Wretchard said:

“Jacob Zuma, its new leader, it has quietly adopted a radical platform of social policies which the business community claim are unaffordable.”

Many white and educated Bantu South Africans are terrified of Zuma. Many believe he could evolve into a South African Robert Mugabe. Zuma is an ANC member but most of his politic beliefs are indistinguishable from the South African communists (the ANC and South African Communist Party are closely connected).

Zuma is a very nasty man. He has been tried in South African criminal courts for charges of rape and corruption. Unfortunately he has always been able to avoid conviction.

Ironically, Zuma was one of the few South African politicians who tried to do something about Robert Mugabe (most South African politicians look the other way when the issue of Mugabe comes up).

If Zuma becomes president of South Africa, the nation is doomed.

Jan 24, 2009 - 10:55 pm 14. Alexis:

Although I have some serious disagreements with many of Rosa Luxemburg’s ideas, I find her comments about Bolshevism’s bureaucratization to be quite interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxemburgism

Socialism has become bureaucratized to such an extent that few people can tell the difference between socialism and the power of a parasitic state. The Soviet experiment is not only a failure, but it is a very predictable failure.

Socialists who cannot tell any difference between destroying capitalism and building socialism have effectively become a class of pirates who use “socialism” as their slogan. Given that Islamist ideology is piratical in nature (with its demands for jizya), it should be no surprise that pirates in socialist garb should feel an affinity for Islamist thought.

Jan 24, 2009 - 11:32 pm 15. NahnCee:

Last time I paid any attention to South Africa, all the welfare funding and reparations were going just to blacks. Whites were being laid off from their jobs so that blacks could take them, etc.

Does anyone have any sense of whether the socialism described in Wretchard’s citation applies equally to white and to black South Africans, or just to its blacks?

Jan 25, 2009 - 12:02 am 16. Eggplant:

NahnCee asked:

“Does anyone have any sense of whether the socialism described in Wretchard’s citation applies equally to white and to black South Africans, or just to its blacks?”

South Africa has much bigger problems than socialism and corrupt politicians:

1) Extreme crime to the point that most of the population with propery are prisoners in their homes.
2) Extreme HIV infection rates. I’ve heard 40% of the Bantu adult population are HIV positive but no one really knows. Surgeons are afraid to practice their profession due to the risk of infection.
3) Exodus of the educated/skilled population from South Africa, i.e. if a South African has a skill and a foreign passport or immigrant’s visa then he/she will almost certainly flee the country.
4) Capital flight. People are taking their money with them as they flee the country. South African companies are fearful of nationalization or asset seizure by the ANC (socialist) government so they’re moving their equity out of South Africa, e.g. De Beers is registered in Switzerland, etc.
5) Ridiculous poverty. I’ve seen shanty towns with my own eyes that stretch out to horizon. Most major South African cities are surrounded by “townships” of shantytowns populated with thousands of impoverish, unemployed HIV positive people.
6) Extreme affirmative action has removed most people of European descent from management positions to be replaced by Bantu who tend to be much less competent.
7) Resource depletion. Most of the big gold mines in the Johannesburg area have been mined out and refilled with tailings or allowed to flood.

South Africa can be regarded as a microcosm for the entire world. All the nasty crap happening today in South Africa will happen in the future to the rest of the world as the starving hordes from the developing world swarm into the developed world in the hopeless search for a better life. This process will stop only after the economies of the developed world are reduced to the levels of the developing world –or– a world war changes the relationship between the developed and developing world (think: Spartiates vs. helots). Globalization was an attempt to address the issue of wealth inequity through gradual nonviolent economic means. However the imploding world economy probably indicates that economic globalization has failed.

Jan 25, 2009 - 12:58 am 17. Al_Batross:

“This process will stop only after the economies of the developed world are reduced to the levels of the developing world” – Eggplant

Depressingly correct, I fear.
Britain has being undergoing a process of Third-Worlding for many years, which one would expect to accelerate as the money runs out, though I don’t think I had been expecting the government to actually strive to accelerate that process.
Regarding AIDS in South Africa, around the time of the Zuma rape trial I read a report that there is a huge gender difference in infection rates: 1 in 4 in young women, 1 in 12 in young men. I could not find it today, but I did find this:

http://www.mg.co.za/article/2006-04-05-zumas-aids-remark-hugely-damaging

which says “the prevalence of HIV/Aids among South African men between 30 and 40 is one in four (25%) and even higher for younger age groups”. Whatever the detailed truth is in this respect, it is unlikely to be pleasant.

Jan 25, 2009 - 3:50 am 18. DaveinPhoenix:

To answer the question, when the government crowds out the private sector and there is a lack of entrepreneurial activity, the standard of living drops. Again – the standard of living drops. Hope President puberty and the deadbeat congress are listening………

Jan 25, 2009 - 5:59 am 19. jjmurphy:

Leo – I think your sequence is quite correct.

Bret – I agree we can use Europe as a “teaching moment”, for people capable of independent thought. However, when have socialists EVER learned from the past, in any country? Ugh.

Jan 25, 2009 - 7:37 am 20. Storm-Rider:

Marxist Socialism is the anti-Declaration of Independence; it is an anti-American system in all respects. Karl Marx was the anti-Thomas Jefferson. Marxist Socialism does not lead to human equality; it sets up an elite Socialist governing class of “Philosopher Kings” who are above the law. Marxist human equality is the same as French Revolutionary human equality, i.e.: government-forced economic equality (of a low order – the economic equality of serfs).The ruling Socialist elites of course will ensure their own wealth, thus the phrase “equality” is Orwellian. Since Marxist Socialism is built upon the religion of Marxist atheism, there are also no God-given human rights; no unalienable right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness for serfs you know; what human rights the Marxist Socialist State grants to serfs can be ignored or rescinded by law, which of course is simply the word of whichever Marxist leader wills it so. As Fjordman says: “Marxism is an organized crime against humanity.”

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/2125/print

Marxist/Socialist economics boils down to property rights. The free enterprise system of our founding fathers ultimately derives from the Bible, whereas Marxist/Socialist property rights derive from the Communist Manifesto, the holy book of Socialists:

Moses/Bible on property rights:
• “You shall not steal”
• “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife; and you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”

Karl Marx/Communist Manifesto on property rights:
• “The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property”
• “In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend.”
• “You must, therefore, confess that by “individual” you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible.”
• “In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things. In all these movements, they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time.”
• “The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state… Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property”

And what exactly is the purpose of Marxist law on property rights? Government-forced economic equality; but this turns out not to be social justice, only economic equality of a low order, the economic equality of serfs. Marxist government turns out to be a self-serving, gun-clinging, giant tyrannical Robin Hood; redistributing what it robs from Peter to pay Paul. This arrangement suppresses the human work ethic; it suppresses the human impulse to be creative and to creatively pursue happiness. Marxists know too, that by setting themselves up in this catbird seat; they’ll always have the vote of Paul, and may therefore become a possible permanent form of self-enrichment and tyranny. This is what Saul Alinsky agitated for, and what the Democratic Party is pursuing: Marxism in the United States. You can expect freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and many other sacred human liberties to fall in tandem with our God-given rights to own what is created by the sweat of your brow. Human rights which derive from human government are not sacred, and are not unalienable. Marxism is un-American because it directly contradicts our highest law: The Declaration of Independence.

Jan 25, 2009 - 7:38 am 21. Storm-Rider:

Contrast the ideas of property rights of our founding fathers with that of Karl Marx:

“The personal right to acquire property, which is a natural right, gives to property, when acquired, a right to protection, as a social right.” James Madison

“The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.” James Madison

“Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.” James Madison

“Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.” John Adams

“Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist.” John Adams

“Now what liberty can there be where property is taken without consent?” Samuel Adams

“Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can.” Samuel Adams

“In the general course of human nature, a power over man’s substance amounts to a power over his will.” Alexander Hamilton

“In a free government almost all other rights would become worthless if the government possessed power over the private fortune of every citizen.” Chief Justice John Marshall

“To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father’s has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association–the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.” Thomas Jefferson

“Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have … The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.” Thomas Jefferson

“The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property and in their management.” Thomas Jefferson

“Take not from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.” Thomas Jefferson

“The Constitution of most of our states, and of the United States, assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of press.” Thomas Jefferson

“A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property, and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means.” Thomas Jefferson

“Property is the fruit of labor…property is desirable…is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.” Abraham Lincoln

Jan 25, 2009 - 7:44 am 22. jjmurphy:

Storm-Rider – Excellent quotes. You read some of them and you want to cry at how far we have fallen from that time.

Jan 25, 2009 - 7:58 am 23. steveaz:

Sounds like the good ship Brittannia is taking on water and going down fast.

Like America, Britain used to be able to rely on her surrounding seas to curtail unwanted imports of culture, persons and goods.

This defining advantage, it seems, has been deliberately eroded by the “Anti-Colonial” movement. A politico-semantic “bridge” was crafted by her invaders: a sense of guilt was drummed into the British that caused them to pierce their own ship-of-state’s bulwarks and to effectively flood their own hulls.

Now, the once-glistening galleys, quarters and engine-room are under water, and the ship’s ballast that was the Queen is off on holiday. All that’s left above the waves is a water-logged Union Jack drooping limply at half mast astride the subsiding hulk.

Jan 25, 2009 - 8:26 am 24. Tcobb:

Time and time again people repeat the theme that socialism doesn’t work. This is incorrect–it works very, very well for the people running the show and their chosen apparachniks. The fact that the common folks don’t live very well is not a bug, its a feature. People who can prosper without needing a check from the government will be unlikely to extend unconditional loyalty to the powers that be. Dependency brings stability, although some might choose to call it stagnation.

The middle class has always been the thorn in the side of those in power. It can be argued that many of the socially transformative events like the “Great Society” programs were really an alliance of the rich and poor against the middle. It was a brake upon the growing economic power of the middle, much like National Health Care will be.

Jan 25, 2009 - 8:48 am 25. fred:

Storm Rider @20 – the best exposition of socialism in a weblog discussion I’ve read recently. Absolutely SPOT ON. Particularly when explaining how we serfs would no longer have the document which states our liberties as given by God. They aim to dilute the Constitution and then blend it into international law, while injecting the socialist impulses of international law into our system. They appoint judges to the bench who subscribe to this view.

Nothing short of a new revolution is going to stop this in its tracks and reverse it.

Jan 25, 2009 - 9:02 am 26. Alexis:

One huge problem with abolishing property rights is it abolishes any incentive to maintain capital.

In the ante bellum South, slaves were notoriously careless about maintaining equipment. Animals suffered and died. In the early 1800’s, hoes were sold in two different varieties. There was a light hoe sold to free farmers that was designed to get work done. Then, there was a heavy hoe sold to planters for slaves to use. The heavy hoe was inefficient and difficult to use, but it was highly resistant to sabotage.

Milovan Djilas pointed out that when the “New Class” has the use of resources, the Communist master class feels no responsibility to maintain anything. A government apparatchik may have exclusive use of an item, but because he does not own the item, it costs him nothing to be careless with it.

A world without property rights is a world where everything (and everybody) is disposable.

I remember a strong disagreement I once had with a socialist professor when he was horrified by the idea of worker ownership because I was seeking to turn the working class into capitalists. Over time, I have come to the realization that worker ownership over the means of production is an essentially conservative idea that is implicitly antithetical to the Marxist dream of abolishing property. From my point of view, any form of empowerment of the working class must come with the responsibility that can only come from ownership.

While Rosa Luxemburg may have been wise in her attacks upon the ideal of “self-determination” and her criticism of Bolshevism, I doubt she thought through the implications of what the abolition of property would actually mean. Abolishing property effectively means abolishing wealth.

Jan 25, 2009 - 10:49 am 27. ESDana:

To learn more about Karl Marx and the vicious vision he and Engels developed, read, “Marxism: Philosophy and Economics” by Thomas Sowell. Most of it is thick on economics, but toward the end Sowell describes Marx the man, a despicable human being. Sowell and Victor Davis Hanson top my list of brilliant writers, along with Wretchard.

Jan 25, 2009 - 11:17 am 28. JFSanders:

“Ironically, Zuma was one of the few South African politicians who tried to do something about Robert Mugabe”

It is always thus with those that are just like yourself. He wanted to do away with his main competitor. The lead dog brooks no other alpha in the pack.

Jim

Jan 25, 2009 - 11:21 am 29. Anodyne:

E.Nigma @ 10:

“Having worked with British ex-pats over the years, I suggest that those coming to America are no bonus to the US. Much like the Californians escaping the oncoming economic disaster in that state, they bring with them the same flawed (unthinking and unexamined) political values that are bringing down the UK.”

No sense living with the consequences of one’s actions, eh? That’s for the poor suckers too immobile to escape. Just up and move to a new place that hasn’t quite been run into the ground yet.

Back in the 70’s a great many of my father’s university colleagues were staunch proponents of forced school busing as a means of helping achieve desegregation, the most strident of whom naturally sent their kids to private schools. The Left not too keen on school vouchers, either – why is that?

Spent about a total of 6 enjoyable months in the UK back in the early to mid-80’s (my college years). A fair number of those I met there were “on the dole” and a good fraction of those “UB40″ types were well-educated and competent from what I could tell, but just enjoyed taking things easy. And whether on the dole or not, most I met made unsuccessful attempts to convince me that Ronald Reagan/America were the primary threat to the world, not the Soviet Union and her SS-20s. Loved the place (and still do) but despite the rich history and the “sophistication” (I grew up in Central Ohio – everything is “sophisticated” to me!), there was a kind of malaise there, a kind of rigidness I’d never seen back in the US. I’d ask why this problem or that hadn’t been solved yet and describe how I’d seen similar challenges tackled back home, but would invariably be told, “Well, that’s not the way we do things, HERE.” Indeed.

Hard to imagine the home of the Magna Carta, “The Sun never sets on …”, Churchill, Spitfire & Hurricane pilots, etc. deliberately placing itself so between a rock and a hard place. Then again, those weren’t all Britannia bred.

Jan 25, 2009 - 11:27 am 30. Bart Hall (Kansas, USA):

The figures apparently do not include *municipal* spending. Even if they do, getting 51% of the economy to pay for 49% leaves little margin for error, presuming one thinks it’s a decent idea in the first place.

Jan 25, 2009 - 11:27 am 31. steveaz:

I’ll bet that underneath those stark statistics Wretchard reprints above is a concomitant growth in the underground British economy.

With every law produced and every new tax levied, a new segment of the citizenry is newly criminalized. But, it doesn’t mean that the citizens cease the verboten behavior, nor that they pay the tax. They just go underground.

This is why the so-called “black market” is a writhing, existential threat to statism. It’s very existence refutes daily the powers of control that governmentalists profess to possess.

If we could measure every untaxed pot deal, or the real volume of hard currency exchanged between free Britain-ers for nanny services, haircuts, or gardeners, I believe the data would significantly decrease the bleakness of the statistics above.

And I haven’t even mentioned the barter economy, yet.

Jan 25, 2009 - 12:13 pm 32. rrpjr:

Great exposition, Storm-rider. And Fred summarizes the co-opting and corruption of education by the Left, the key to our fallen state. An entire generation (and then some) has now grown up both in unprecedented prosperity and yet, thanks to their education, with no idea or appreciation how this prosperity is related to liberal capitalism. Our national legacy is misrepresented and smeared by their teachers from grade school. Instead, alternate and ludicrously impracticable conceits and “constructs” are erected and taught and worshipped. I attended the graduation at a major liberal arts women’s college last year and saw more beaming and budding Marxists that I could bear. I was filled with sadness at the ceremony, absent a flag or an invocation, complete with a list of relentlessly ridiculous senior theses on “hegemony” and “imperialism” and “inequality” and the “paradigms of inherent discrimination in American society” and “modes of corporate neo-exploitations,” all taught and regurgitated back, students and teachers alike smugly lost in their little worlds perfected by parental portfolios compounded into wealth by evil capitalism, and lavish college endowments from beneficent trustees clueless to the perversions of their trust. Students basking in the glow of their “personal journeys” and “radical exegeses” and their comicaly narrow, self-referential and illusory definitions of daring thought. In fact, I was depressed for weeks, thinking of my niece off to work for Obama, her Berkeley parents proud, if unconsciously, of her life removed from inconvenient debates and truly challenging ideas. An entire generation completely ignorant of our unique national greatness and gifts, and by pedagogic conditioning hostile even to its possibility.

Jan 25, 2009 - 12:19 pm 33. gdude:

Bret @11:

You’re obviously not from San Francisco/Berkeley, are you? They think the EUROS are the teachers…

Jan 25, 2009 - 12:20 pm 34. Jim Nicholas:

Storm-rider #21

Thanks for the collection of thoughts about property from the writings of our founding fathers. I have taken the liberty of forwarding them to a number of friends–giving credit to you and the Belmont Club.

Best wishes,

Jim

Jan 25, 2009 - 1:26 pm 35. Eggplant:

Al_Batross said:

“… says “the prevalence of HIV/Aids among South African men between 30 and 40 is one in four (25%) and even higher for younger age groups”. Whatever the detailed truth is in this respect, it is unlikely to be pleasant.”

The statistics concerning HIV infection in South Africa are all over the place. Part of the problem is most of the Bantu population live in huge shanty towns with the population in a high state of flux and with a large component of illegal immigrants, e.g. people from Zimbabwe and other parts of southern Africa. No one knows what the total population is, let alone the percentage that is HIV positive.

My brother-in-law was an orthopedic surgeon in Johannesburg (the 40% HIV statistic came from him). His patients kept infecting him with HIV (full on infection by HIV can be prevented if one immediately takes AZT after initial exposure). My brother-in-law’s wife was held-up at gun point in their own home (normally she would have been raped and executed but there were children in the house at the time of the crime). This crime in his own home coupled with the constant threat from HIV infection convinced my brother-in-law to immigrate from South Africa to New Zealand.

Now my brother-in-law is enjoying the good life in New Zealand. No criminals threatening his family (they don’t bother to lock the doors of their home) and no worries about HIV. It’s a mystery why any trained professional has remained in South Africa.

Also the woman (Fezeka Kuzwayo) who was raped by Jacob Zuma has since fled South Africa to the Netherlands. No doubt she would have been murdered had she remained in South Africa.

Jan 25, 2009 - 2:23 pm 36. Derek:

>Euros do a good whimper. I doubt there will be any bang

Euros run things until they explode. A boiler with a plugged pressure relief is very quiet until it kills you.

Derek

Jan 25, 2009 - 5:39 pm 37. Subotai Bahadur:

#36 Derek

With all due respect, I see no evidence of any pressure building. Submission seems to be highest goal of the populace. If you choose not to fight or flee, you have chosen to submit to whatever comes along.

Even expressing thoughts in Europe [Humble (formerly styled "Great") Britain included] to the contrary in any sphere; political, religious, economic, or social is to make oneself an outcast and bring the full weight of the almighty State down upon yourself.

The majority of Europeans appear to be a natural Helot class. There are some few who would gladly be the Satraps, but the question remains whether they will rule in the name of a European Reich, Marx, or the Caliphate.

To be honest, one would have a hard time believing in a European victory for liberty in any case because the demographically European culturally descended segment of the population is spiralling towards extinction.

All we can do is watch as they implode. There is no point in even considering helping them, if they will not fight for themselves.

Subotai Bahadur

Jan 26, 2009 - 12:21 pm 38. NahnCee:

“There is no point in even considering helping them, if they will not fight for themselves.”

Ditto Russia. And China. And Africa. Makes you wonder why we’re so insistent upon helping the barbarian Arabs who not only will not fight for themselves but fight FOR slavery, lying, rape and war.

Jan 26, 2009 - 1:29 pm 39. Bob Murphy:

Ditto China, Nahncee???

Jan 27, 2009 - 5:08 am 40. NahnCee:

Bob – yes China. Not right now, maybe, but I think their system is basically rotten and bound to implode too. Too many peasants at the top with too many elites unwilling to support them. Not to mention the one-child thing so they don’t have enough females for wives. On the other hand, they don’t seem to have any problem with a brain drain and exporting lots and lots and lots of Chinese bodies out and about around the world, so maybe that’ll ease their pressures.

Jan 27, 2009 - 10:44 am 41. Subotai Bahadur:

#’s 38-40

China hopefully is about to implode. They need 4.5% annual growth just to keep up with population growth. Our economic collapse, which is just in the beginning stages, has already devastated their export dependent economy. And they need their exports to pay for their import dependent energy supply [China has been the worlds largest oil importer for the last couple of years.], steel supply, concrete supply, etc. They have a horrible demographic imbalance. And they have a government that has not been turned into EU style eunuchs. They also have our inbred belief that China is superior to the rest of the world [Your Humble Servant is ethnically Chinese, and knows his Chinese history.].

I welcome the implosion as a chance to overthrow a regime that is a multi-faceted, deadly threat to this country. But I have to realize that there are major risks as it falls. The best way to unify a fractious population is an external war. Guess who is the ultimate target, and guess whose new “Maximum Leader” makes Neville Chamberlain look like the Incredible Hulk?

“Interesting Times” that we live in, indeed.

Subotai Bahadur

Jan 27, 2009 - 2:09 pm 42. Storm-Rider:

Glad to have you on our side Mr. Bahadur. I believe that all people are created equal (equal before the law – not social engineered Marxist/Socialist government forced economic equality – of a low order for serfs) no matter what their genetic differences. We need patriotic Chinese Americans who love the idea of Divine and Unalienable Human Liberty, i.e.: real human rights; the human rights our founding fathers died for. You are no doubt more patriotic and a lover of the principles in our Declaration of Independence than many Americans of English ancestry (Your humble servant is of English ancestry).

God bless you, and God bless America.

Jan 27, 2009 - 4:39 pm

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