A majority of British people support the return of the death penalty, a Mail on Sunday poll has found.
As MPs prepare for a likely Commons debate on capital punishment later this year, the first since 1998, the survey shows that 53 per cent of voters back its reintroduction. Just 34 per cent are opposed to the move.
The last hangings in Britain were in 1964, but the issue has risen up the political agenda again as a result of the e-petitions scheme, an initiative that allows the public to help set the Government agenda and means anyone can set up an internet petition on any subject.
If it attracts more than 100,000 signatures, MPs must consider debating it in the Commons, and the return of the death penalty heads the list of demands, with more than 40 of the first 200 petitions calling for it.
The Survation poll reveals a striking gender divide over the issue: while 63 per cent of men back the move, just 44 per cent of women are in favour.
And preferences for the manner of execution have clearly changed in the half-century since the last judicially sanctioned deaths.
When asked which method they preferred regardless of their views on the ethics of the issue an overwhelming 66 per cent opted for lethal injection, which is widely assumed to be the most humane technique. Only 12 per cent still think that hanging should be used.
Nearly half, 48 per cent, of those asked believe that murders and other serious offences would go down if it were reintroduced, while 32 per cent think the level would stay the same. Mass murder, child murder, terrorism and war crimes are the main offences deemed deserving of the ultimate sanction.
The poll also reveals other clear trends: the death penalty is more popular among older people than the young; and is least popular in the south of the UK. Only 41 per cent of Lib Dem voters are in favour, compared with 45 per cent of Labour backers, 67 per cent of Conservatives and 72 per cent of UKIP supporters.
But an overwhelming majority of all voters, 82 per cent, believe that the current justice system is too lenient.
A video from Powerline that eviscerates the left in 60 seconds.
Posted by: Matt ||
08/07/2011 15:43 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
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#1
I like such simple, effective examples. Art Laffer has a simple two farm economy example: ...imagine we have two farms, and thats the whole world, just two farms. If one of those farmers gets unemployment benefits, who do you think pays for him? You can't bail out one farmer and not end up hurting the other farmer.
#1
The hardest obstacle to overcome will be the idea that anyone who challenges the prevailing consensus of the past 50 years is irrational and irresponsible. That is what is being said about the Tea Partiers. In fact, what is irrational and irresponsible is the assumption that we can go on as we are.
So the conventional wisdom that the Tea Party is a terrorist organization is rooted in fear? Or terror? Izzat what is called "projection"?
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/07/2011 15:12 Comments ||
Top||
#2
So the conventional wisdom that the Tea Party is a terrorist organization is rooted in the ancient phenomenon of "Give a dog a bad name and hang him" - the favorite tool of the MSM.
#3
Both the USA and the Euros are undergoing a catastrophe that is taking years to unfold. That's where we're both going. Still, many things can be done to mitigate and survive the disaster, although virtually nothing constructive has been done, and what constructive suggestions have been made are being hooted down by arrogant nitwits.
#4
Speaking of arrogant nitwits, Democrat Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley today on ABC This Week: We need a balanced approach, and the extremism, the Tea Party obstructionism here in Washington, is keeping us from restoring that balanced approach that America's always used.
#5
Another take on this same issue, by Daniel Goldman aka Spengler: More drivel has been written about the probability of financial crisis during the past month than at any time during my lifetime. Theres no crisisnot when all of the problems are transparent, on the table, and subject to negotiation. Instead, there is a change in lifestyle underway for Greek railway conductors, Minnesota firemen, New York City teachers, and a great many other people. Folk who only a few years ago expected to retire at sixty and spend their golden years on cruises will work until seventy and be thankful for a roof over their heads. Persuading so many people to accept this sort of change in lifestyle is not easy. It requires a bit of drama and the display (and occasional use) of instruments of torture. But there is no mystery, no surprise, no blind side.
#6
AH you nailed him. Governor Martin O'Malley is the biggest tax and spend Democrat or one among many. First time he was elected he raised taxes. I told a guy before he voted that would happen. Doesn't seem to matter to them. The economy of Maryland has benefited from all the government business and workers living in Maryland. They still will spend it faster than they can take it in.
#7
Janet Daley seems to get it. Our economy is not sustainable as it is going.
Contrary to what the Obama Democrats claimed, the face-off in Congress did not mean that the nations politics were dysfunctional. The politics of the US were functioning precisely as the Founding Fathers intended: the legislature was acting as a check on the power of the executive.
The Tea Party faction within the Republican Party was demanding that, before any further steps were taken, there must be a debate about where all this was going. They had seen the future toward which they were being pushed, and it didnt work. They were convinced that the entitlement culture and benefits programmes which the Democrats were determined to preserve and extend with tax rises could only lead to the diminution of that robust economic freedom that had created the American historical miracle.
And, again contrary to prevailing wisdom, their view is not naive and parochial: it is corroborated by the European experience.
The Obama administration has been whining and casting blame since the 2009 inauguration about the economy it inherited. Meanwhile, it continued without a budget and it ran up the debt at a record rate in 2-1/2 years--a rate far greater than any President in history. The current economic situation is different than any we have faced. Obama's minions have been saying that raising the debt limit has been routine for every previous President but not for him implying he is being treated unfairly and differently--subtly implying an underlying racism. I wish Obama were white, I'd excoriate him six ways to Sunday for the harm he has done to the country, without fear of being dismissed as a racist. As I recall Bush was criticized harshly by conservatives for his handling of the economy during the last part of his second term.
#10
D *** NG IT, clearly Janet is going Nutty because I know for a fact neither POTUS BAMMER NOR THE US CONGRESSCRITTERS NOR WALL STREET NOR S & P, ETC. HAVE EVER E-V-A-R! OFFICIALLY USED THE LABEL "SOCIALIST WELFARE STREET" IN ANYTHING!
But I digress ...
* PEOPLE'S DAILY FORUMS > S & P: US FACING [1-in-3 Odds of] FURTHER CREDIT DOWNGRADE, to potentially lower than "AA+" oer next 6-24 months iff POTUS-GOP-DEM POLITICAL GRIDLOCK CONTINUES.
EOY 2011 versus 2013.
* SAME > CHINA [bluntly] CRITICIZES US "DEBT ADDICTION".
ARTIC > XINHUA = The US Govt. MUST ACCEPT THE PAINFUL FACT THAT THE GOOD OLD DAYS WHEN IT COULD SIMPLY BORROW ITS WAY OUT OF MESSES OF ITS OWN MAKING ARE FINALLY GONE.
China also urges the US to seriously cut USDOD + PUBLIC WELFARE EXPENDITURES.
* SAME > ALL PILLARS OF THE OLD ORDER OF THE WESTERN WORLD [includ US] ARE NOW WOBBLING.
> SSSSSHHHHHHH ... [overcommitted] US-WESTERN WELFARE STATE(S).
> ECON GROWTH = Flagging; + increasingly Aging Populations wid decline in avaliable Replacement Workers due to low Birth Rates.
> GLOBAL TRADE + FINANCING that no longer serves the Common = Mutual Interests of groups of Countries, as oppos to One or Few Select States.
[IRAN's AHMADINEJAD here].
* RENSE > [True] US NATIONAL DEBT IS REALLY US$211.0TRIYUHN |[NPR.org] A [true] NATIONAL DEBT OF US$14.0TRILYUHN? TRY US$221.0TRILYUHN.
OUTSTANDING OR INDIRECT "UNOFFICIAL DEBT" OBLIGATIONS not confirmed or denied by the US Govt.
* DAILY TIMES.PK > US LAWMAKERS TRADE BLAME FOR CREDIT DOWNGRADE.
The Wall Street Journal's weekend interview. Unsurprisingly, Representative Cantor is not the reflexive brute he's been portrayed.
Mr. Cantor's insight was that no modus vivendi could be reached this year that would solve the fiscal crisis, so it was better to focus on "incremental wins with this president."
#1
ahhhh but he's Juice. Which academia and leftists really don't like.
Koch Brothers!!11!!Eleventy!
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/07/2011 13:44 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Where, oh where, to begin as per issues for POTUS Bammer in 2012 ... ...
To wit,
* RUSSIA TODAY > [Video] AMERICA WILL COLLAPSE.
* CHINA DAILY FORUM > [Itar-Tass] OBAMA: US RECESSION WORST SINCE 1930's.
* SAME > HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT IS US GOVT/PUBLIC POLICY. Getting rid of FDR's "New Deal" + LBJ's "Great SOciety" in favor of GOP-led OWG-NWO + Global Privatization aka GLOBAL RICH/ELITES???
* SAME > MORE AMERICANS TO LIVE ON FOOD STAMPS | POVERTY-STRICKEN AMERICANS USING MORE GOVT-ASSISTED FOOD STAMPS THAN EVER BEFORE, WHICH COULD LEAD TO AN INCREASE [ + Crisis] IN HOMELESSNESS.
* SAME > "[More]JOBS, NOT CUTS": BATTLING FOR THE "AMERICAN DREAM" MOVEMENT. Van Jones = The Hill.
ARTIC = More than per the anti-Obama, pro-Big Debt Obtructionisms of the TEA PARTY, MAINSTREAM AMERICANS MUST STOP WAITING + SITTING IN ARMCHAIRS, ETC. + LOOK AT THEMSELVES FIRST = "MAN IN THE MIRROR", BEFORE THEY CAN HOPE TO DEFEAT THE TEA PARTY OR SIMILAR "EXTREMISM".
* SAME > "NO [Second] JOB, NO HIRE":US COMPANIES GIVE EMPLOYMENT PREFERENCE TO THOSE ALREADY EMPLOYED.
Iff you guit your Second or Third, etc. Jobs, EITHER YOU WON'T BE HIRED = IFF HIRED, YOU WILL BE FIRED???
* SAME > MORE US BANKS ASK SMALL-BUSINESS CUSTOMERS TO LEAVE [get lost] IN ORDER TO HIT GOVT. [Small Business] TARGETS.
OH THE D **** IRONIC MANATEEES ...
* SAME > THE "D" WORD [Depression]IS BANNED BY US GOVT, MEDIAS.
All but Absolutely Positively Categorically Undeniably ...@etc. banned for PR use ASAP AMAP ALAP UNTIL THE REVOLUTION = SHOOTING/CIVIL WAR II IN AMERICA = AMERIKA STARTS???
Yet ironically, IIUC "STAGFLATION/CESSION" IS NOT???
I followed a link suggesting that Democrats were being obstructionist about some legislation. At the top of the comments section - San Francisco Gate - there was someone whose online name is This Land-Your Land, or something like that. He maintained that it was the Republicans who were stalling, because that's what they always do. His evidence:
There are even novels written about this.
That may be the most illustrative bit of reasoning I have ever seen on the internet. A thing of beauty.
Which of these is the most important question to ask in the present economic crisis: how can we promote growth? Should we pay off government debt more or less quickly? Is the US in worse trouble than Europe? Answer: none of the above.
The truly fundamental question that is at the heart of the disaster toward which we are racing is being debated only in America: is it possible for a free market economy to support a democratic socialist society? On this side of the Atlantic, the model of a national welfare system with comprehensive entitlements, which is paid for by the wealth created through capitalist endeavour, has been accepted (even by parties of the centre-Right) as the essence of post-war political enlightenment.
This was the heaven on earth for which liberal democracy had been striving: a system of wealth redistribution that was merciful but not Marxist, and a guarantee of lifelong economic and social security for everyone that did not involve totalitarian government. This was the ideal the European Union was designed to entrench. It was the dream of Blairism, which adopted it as a replacement for the state socialism of Old Labour. And it is the aspiration of President Obama and his liberal Democrats, who want the United States to become a European-style social democracy.
But the US has a very different historical experience from European countries, with their accretions of national remorse and class guilt: it has a far stronger and more resilient belief in the moral value of liberty and the dangers of state power. This is a political as much as an economic crisis, but not for the reasons that Mr Obama believes. The ruckus that nearly paralysed the US economy last week, and led to the loss of its AAA rating from Standard & Poors, arose from a confrontation over the most basic principles of American life.
Contrary to what the Obama Democrats claimed, the face-off in Congress did not mean that the nations politics were dysfunctional. The politics of the US were functioning precisely as the Founding Fathers intended: the legislature was acting as a check on the power of the executive.
The Tea Party faction within the Republican party was demanding that, before any further steps were taken, there must be a debate about where all this was going. They had seen the future toward which they were being pushed, and it didnt work. They were convinced that the entitlement culture and benefits programmes which the Democrats were determined to preserve and extend with tax rises could only lead to the diminution of that robust economic freedom that had created the American historical miracle.
And, again contrary to prevailing wisdom, their view is not naive and parochial: it is corroborated by the European experience. By rights, it should be Europe that is immersed in this debate, but its leaders are so steeped in the sacred texts of social democracy that they cannot admit the force of the contradictions which they are now hopelessly trying to evade.
No, it is not just the preposterousness of the euro project that is being exposed. (Lets merge the currencies of lots of countries with wildly differing economic conditions and lock them all into the interest rate of the most successful. What could possibly go wrong?)
Also collapsing before our eyes is the lodestone of the Christian Socialist doctrine that has underpinned the EUs political philosophy: the idea that a capitalist economy can support an ever-expanding socialist welfare state.
As the EU leadership is (almost) admitting now, the next step to ensure the survival of the world as we know it will involve moving toward a command economy, in which individual countries and their electorates will lose significant degrees of freedom and self-determination.
We have arrived at the endgame of what was an untenable doctrine: to pay for the kind of entitlements that populations have been led to expect by their politicians, the wealth-creating sector has to be taxed to a degree that makes it almost impossible for it to create the wealth that is needed to pay for the entitlements that populations have been led to expect, etc, etc.
The only way that state benefit programmes could be extended in the ways that are forecast for Europes ageing population would be by government seizing all the levers of the economy and producing as much (externally) worthless currency as was needed in the manner of the old Soviet Union.
That is the problem. So profound is its challenge to the received wisdom of postwar Western democratic life that it is unutterable in the EU circles in which the crucial decisions are being made or rather, not being made.
The solution that is being offered to the political side of the dilemma is benign oligarchy. Ignoring national public opinion and turbulent political minorities has always been at least half the point of the EU bureaucratic putsch. But that does not settle the economic predicament.
What is to be done about all those assurances that governments have provided for generations about state-subsidised security in old age, universal health provision (in Britain, almost uniquely, completely free), and a guaranteed living standard for the unemployed?
We have been pretending with ever more manic protestations that this could go on for ever. Even when it became clear that European state pensions (and the US social security system) were gigantic Ponzi schemes in which the present beneficiaries were spending the money of the current generation of contributors, and that health provision was creating impossible demands on tax revenue, and that benefit dependency was becoming a substitute for wealth-creating employment, the lesson would not be learnt. We have been living on tick and wishful thinking.
So what are the most important truths we should be addressing if we are to avert or survive the looming catastrophe? Raising retirement ages across Europe (not just in Greece) is imperative, as is raising thresholds for out-of-work benefit entitlements.
Lowering the tax burden for both wealth-creators and consumers is essential. In Britain, finding private sources of revenue for health care is a matter of urgency.
A general correction of the imbalance between wealth production and wealth redistribution is now a matter of basic necessity, not ideological preference.
The hardest obstacle to overcome will be the idea that anyone who challenges the prevailing consensus of the past 50 years is irrational and irresponsible. That is what is being said about the Tea Partiers. In fact, what is irrational and irresponsible is the assumption that we can go on as we are.
[Dawn] THE dinosaurs' last hurrah was 65 million years ago after they ruled the earth for 200 million years. Their extinction paved the way for the rise of the mammals who took another 10 million years to emerge from the desolation.
When the dinosaurs of Pakistain's politics will have their last hurrah and how long it will take for a new breed of productive mammal-politicians to establish their rule is hard to guess. But 60 years of political dinosaurs in the modern time frame seems like a million of the pre-historic Triassic period.
Volcanic eruptions are believed to have set in motion the process of the dinosaurs' extinction. Recent research by Micha Ruhl of Netherland's Utrecht University (quoted by The Economist) suggests that it was methane, a greenhouse gas much stronger than carbon dioxide, that hastened their end.
Mounting popular protests, recurring natural disasters that wreck the lives of the poor and an upheaval resulting in the loss of the more populous half of the country have driven the old dinosaurian establishment comprised of politicians, bureaucrats and generals (often sustained by judges) close to their demise. Challenging judicial orders -- already made or in the making -- could prove to be their methane. They can buy time but not for long.
Dinosaurs were brainless reptiles. Their present-day human counterparts are brainy enough to realise that they must not defy the legal writ. It is not parliament but the constitution that is supreme, and the Supreme Court, and not parliament, is its interpreter in the last resort. The fundamental flaw of our senior, or ageing, bosses is the tendency to place their wishes, or orders, above parliamentary traditions, the rule of law, fairness and human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions...
Such is the attitude that marks their dealings with public servants. When a bureaucrat resists illegal or improper orders -- mostly oral -- it is hard for him to survive. He is considered defiant, a doom-monger or partial to their rivals. It is not reason but personal pique that drives their actions.
Most civil servants barring sycophants whose number, sadly, is growing, fall victim to perverse political behaviour. The normal tenure of three years in senior and sensitive jobs was cut short for this writer to a few months on four occasions. No reason was given but, seemingly, the message conveyed was that the party boss, the chief executive or the chief martial law administrator can do whatever he likes and to whomever.
The result, notwithstanding pretensions to the contrary, has been that hardly any bureaucrat today goes by the advice of the founder of the nation "to act as true servants of the people even at the risk of any minister or ministry trying to interfere with you in the discharge of your duties as civil servants. I hope it will not be so, but even if some of you have to suffer as a victim -- I hope it will not happen -- I expect you to do so readily. We shall, of course, see that there is security for you and safeguards...."
The Quaid's hope that "it will not happen" and his promise of giving security both have been consigned to the archives. Ziaul Haq even mutilated the Quaid's exhortations to suit his own designs.
The security that the head of state and father of the nation had promised can be given only by the constitution, not by the Supreme Court. The fate of Sohail Ahmed, a civil servant of undisputed competence and integrity, who was made OSD (he was subsequently appointed secretary to the narcotics control division) for obeying the order of the Supreme Court was in the hands of the prime minister who made him OSD.
Has the Supreme Court relented to avert chaos or is it the beginning of the end of independence of the judiciary and total subordination of bureaucracy to politics is a question that haunts the people to the glee of most party bosses.
Though much is said about saving the system, the reality is that political power today, as in the past, revolves around individuals. It is hard to believe that Mr Asif Zardari is head of state under the same system and constitution as were Chaudhry Fazal Elahi and Rafiq Tarar. It is equally hard to believe that Mr Iftikhar Chaudhry is chief justice of the same Supreme Court presided over by Mr Irshad Hasan Khan who allowed Gen Pervez Perv Musharraf ... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ... to amend the constitution if it failed "to provide a solution for attainment of his declared objectives". Gen Musharraf later looked the other way when he held on to power for nine years against three sanctioned by the court.
The contention of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ... that the question of the respective jurisdictions of the organs of the state will be resolved in parliament is untenable. Such a question doesn't arise as the jurisdictions stand demarcated in the constitution itself and any dispute arising has to be settled in the Supreme Court.
Parliament can amend the constitution but it must not, even if the required majority is forthcoming, because its representative character is doubtful and its credibility low. The issue being debated, on the other hand, is fundamental and requires a fresh mandate from the people which can come only through elections held here and now. The political dinosaurs of all hues are understandably averse to that proposition for it might prove to be their last hurrah.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/07/2011 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
Don't be a'fergettin that MALAYSIA-INDONESIA'S JIHADISTS ARE RUMBLING.
#6
To be fair to the author, he (and presumably it is a 'he') writes in a charged environment where issues of power and physical safety abound. I've encountered this allusive style among well-educated Pakistani scientists and engineers who've lived and worked in the West for decades. The habit of speaking indirectly goes deep, it would appear.
Questions of constitutional law vs. judicial high handedness vs. military power vs. corruption have plagued Pakistan for a long time. They've become quite urgent due to events in the last few years, as the Rantburg archive demonstrates.
The death of bin Laden forced a crisis in the country since it directly abrogated the military's public authority and ISI's private power. This is a country in which candidates for high office have a distressingly high risk of assasination for broaching such issues, so it's perhaps understandable that those who raise them do so with a lot of insinuation and little direct speech.
#7
Agreed LOTP. But we can no longer afford to spoon feed these fuck-ups. Time to knock the dust off our feet and pray the Indians can handle 2 problems.
Get out inside the year. Evacuate everything we can, destroy the rest. Give US interests time to remove assets, but at some point it's all over. Break diplomatic relations and embargo, if necessary blockade. If it's good enough for Cuba it's good enough for Pakistan.
Posted by: S ||
08/07/2011 12:41 Comments ||
Top||
#8
To be fair to the author, he (and presumably it is a 'he') writes in a charged environment where issues of power and physical safety abound.
Still, it would be useful if a few of them studied Jonathan Swift.
If it's good enough for Cuba it's good enough for Pakistan.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
I followed a link suggesting that Democrats were being obstructionist about some legislation. At the top of the comments section - San Francisco Gate - there was someone whose online name is This Land-Your Land, or something like that. He maintained that it was the Republicans who were stalling, because that's what they always do. His evidence:
[Dawn] THE dinosaurs' last hurrah was 65 million years ago after they ruled the earth for 200 million years. Their extinction paved the way for the rise of the mammals who took another 10 million years to emerge from the desolation.
Pervez 
