Comments by Agellius

The French in general dislike capitalism and do not love the rich. Very well, let them elect M. Hollande and let him carry out his promises; then let the rich persons who are threatening to leave leave and all the other dire consequences you predict follow. If the cold winds of reality blow down the walls of Socialist Fortress France, as they did under Mitterrand, the people will have learnt better, at least for a time; if they do not, you will have to do some rethinking. Experiment beats argument any day.

If this index is got up by journalists, it will naturally reflect their interests rather than those of society at large, which are not necessarily the same despite media persons' self-interested assertions that they are; but what do they mean by freedom anyway? That papers may print or broadcasters say what they like without any recourse for libel or intrusion? Or that owners don't care what their newspapers etc. do, or even whether they make any money? Or that they won't of their own accord suppress stuff that some people will find offensive, as when the US media reported that some nobody of a judge had cracked a racist joke about President Obama but wouldn't say what it was?

All this palaver is absurdly unrealistic. The parties cannot survive on members' subscriptions, the politicians dare not ask the public to subsidize them, therefore donations are the only practical answer. Once the Conservative Party had become the party of business rather than landownership, it had no reason not to accept money from businessmen; and since it was the trade unions that created the Labour Party, it is right and proper for their influence to prevail over that of socialist intellectuals and other mere individuals. And there are those of us who say without irony that even corrupt party rule is better than the stinking masses any day.

In 1982, when Argentine, having invaded, was demanding negotiations, Great Britain declared that the sovereignty of the Falklands was not negotiable but was justiciable; in other words, she was prepared for the competing claims to be adjudicated by the International Court of Justice. Neither then nor since has Argentina shown any interest in that recourse, which no doubt is why no such offer has been repeated; yet until one claim has been upheld and the other rejected, there is nothing to negotiate about unless either party is prepared to withdraw on terms, which is manifestly not the case.

If as you say it is the people, not merely the candidates, that are in denial, then there is no point in telling them the truth (M. Bayrou gets nowhere); far better they learn the hard way from the harsh reality you expect to swamp them. Until then, let things go on as the people evidently want them, however little they may be to business tastes.

That, after all, is why Karl Marx said that the working class was free from property. The genius of enlightened capitalism (aided by revisionist socialism) has been to make that statement no longer true.

Quite right. True, Lukashenka has said harsh things about Belarusian, but his own name is Belarusian; in Russian the last letter would be o.

Because Iraqis are being killed by fellow Iraqis and not by Americans.

Why do Afghans deserve better? What have they done for us? Our only justification for being there is our own interest; it that is best served by staying let us stay, but if not not.

>Iran already has a nuclear weapon.< Such is the discredit into which intelligence services have fallen that this is no less credible than anything either Israeli or American agents have suggested; but if that is the case, then indeed 'Don't attack Iran'. That isn't 'Jewish tribalism', simply the logical consequence of the hawks' argument that Israel and/or the USA must strike before it is too late; if Iran has a nuclear weapon, then it is already too late and both Jerusalem and Washington (not to mention Jeddah and Ankara) will just have to live with the fact that Iran has the bomb, existential threat to Israel and cause of apprehension to other countries that it may be. Suppose the hawks had their way, the bunker-busters bounced off the concrete (or blew up a few abandoned installations left there to entice them), and Iran retaliated with a nuclear strike on (say) Tel Aviv? If Iran really has a nuclear weapon, that is the likeliest consequence of military action.

The Conservative Party has no business to be harbouring the Steve [significantly not Steven] Hiltons of this world; if they have anything useful to contribute, it ought to be contributed through a party of the dissatisfied. Those of us who have made our peace with life as it is are surely entitled to a party that has done likewise, even if it is dominated by Mr Cameron's 'posher allies' rather than 'ordinary Brits', whoever they may be.

It wasn't the government that lost its nerve, it was companies, whose duty to their shareholders does not include courage in the face of public opinion unless there is enough profit to compensate, and which clearly judged the opposition to be far more serious than the frothings of a Trotskyite groupuscule as proclaimed by the Prime Minister. Despite the alleged popularity of the scheme in theory, when it was time to stand up for it in practice, the principle enunciated by St Paul and Karl Marx that he that will not work, he shall not eat, proved weaker than that other biblical principle that the labourer is worthy of his hire.

Whatever the moral or intellectual failings of politicians or the people, one thing is ever clearer: resolution of these problems will come only after the November elections, and even then only if one side defeats the other so heavily as to crush its spirit. This is no time to split the ticket: one party or the other needs to control both houses of Congress and the White House so that it can neither be obstructed in enacting its solution nor evade responsibility if it does not work.

Conservatives are well enough off without a vision, and certainly better off than with one that nobody can understand, or if anyone does understand it they don't much like it. Everything depends on whether Osborne can find sufficient money (however funny) behind the sofa before the election to make people think the suffering has been worthwhile; if not, Labour will win despite Miliband's total lack of vision, charisma, or policy--though that not having a policy may be an advantage. by then, 'It's all Labour's fault' will have worn too thin.

Are more Republicans afraid that Santorum would hand the election to President Obama than Democrats afraid that he might actually win?

Just because a prosecution is politically motivated, it doesn't mean the defendant is not guilty.

To the barricades: so where are the champions of free trade who know, not merely how to win academic arguments in specialist journals, but how to convince the public in the political roughhouse? Most people care far more about their own income and their own employment than any collective benefit, and no snarky comments about the misguided protection of producers at the expense of consumers will cut any ice. Creative destruction is fine if it's someone else's livelihood that is destroyed; not so if it's one's own, whatever the effect on the national GDP. 'If it be not fair to me, What care I how fair it be?'

tmbass wrote:

>Republicans are only doing what the voters sent them to Congress to do.<

Absolutely true, but voters are fickle beasts: can we be so sure that's still what they want them to do?

Suppose millions are subjected to Islamist tyranny; what is that to us, so long as we are not of their number? Suppose Israel is wiped off the face of the map; what do we lose? These questions are not meant rhetorically; are we meant to take action out of quixotic knight-errantry, or out of tangible self-interest? Fine if it's the latter; count me out if it's the former. Let us have less moralistic frothing about freedom and more hard-headed calculation.

'Start with the question of Britishness. A discussion of the merits of a monarchy, from first principles, must wait for another day.'

However contentious the concept of Britishness may be, it surely includes a rooted disinclination, or even refusal, to discuss anything from first principles.