Even though this election is directly related to Northern Ireland within the context of a UK election, emphasising the EU is vital to our self-interest. It is also vital that democracy and the subsequent government is limited in its scope so that our fundamental rights are not usurped, or malign forces can make use of democracy and the subsequent government to achieve the same outcome, for their benefit.

The EU   Rates   Crime and Policing  The Armed Forces   Education   Healthcare
Employment   Transport   Housing   Energy    Pensions
The Environment   Terrorism   Immigration

The October / November 2007 snap election was called off. Even so, this page will be maintained on an ongoing basis because the issues which must be addressed will remain a concern until an election is called.
Begun: Sept 27, 2007. Updated: Jan 28, 2008.

Why a vote for Charles Smyth of Procapitalism
is the best choice for your vote.

Since the Athens of more than 2300 years ago the democratic deficit has been well recognised as the way to create majority rule government which is barely distinguishable from the mob-rule of Ochlarchy and the travails of tyranny.

As of 2007, as if to put out a fire by throwing petrol on it, the democratic deficit have been further exacerbated by way of Human Rights as a substitute for property rights in order to legitimise the concept of equality. This problem boils down to how much of one's property one is prepared to relinquish in order to pay for others' idea of equality.

For instance: Education is a right and must be freely available to anyone who demands it. Healthcare is a right and must be freely available to all who can demand it, no matter who else must do without. Home owners must realise that they are now a privileged class and must accept higher and higher burdens of taxation in order to provide homes for others. Car owners and those who choose to fly must accept that they are destroying the planet and be prepared to do without personal and convenient transport in order to finance others' ideas about what constitutes socially responsible transport, irrespective of the truth or economics. Citizens of the former eastern European, now EU member-states, knew a lot about this form of equality: You can have any car you like, so long as it's a Trabant.

A further complication is that the democratic deficit has to accommodate the diversity of cultures across the EU, especially the threat from radical Islam which would use the democratic process, as it is currently understood, to introduce its way of life. To date, that particular issue has been avoided due to a majority mono-culture within the EU member-states. But this cannot be avoided any longer, and represents the most urgent of issues. This is because to do otherwise will usher in ever more restrictions to our freedoms until we have reached the point of tyranny along with the instability and conflict that would entail.

Towards eliminating that outcome, the following proposals are presented for your consideration.

The EU : (TOP)

Viewed as a multiplicity of member-states with their own national interests to pursue, the EU is simply a mess of bureaucracies and competing and conflicting demands. Some would argue that we now enjoy greater freedom of movement across borders and mostly enjoy a common currency to make purchasing goods and services more convenient. But, left to their own devices, EU citizens would have chosen to do this anyway. So governments have simply reduced their impediments, and have not performed some amazing feat for which we should be grateful. It's akin to arguing hat we should be grateful for the toppling of the Berlin wall, which shouldn't have been erected in the first place.

There is also the argument that the EU has been a benefit to better law. Not so. It is on historical record that after the collapse of the Roman empire free trade, money exchange and travel across Europe was commonplace, by voluntary choice and law by way of the law-merchant, for example, which served to provide efficient and agreed to outcomes whenever disputes and claims needed to be settled. In other words, the citizenry is perfectly capable of self-organising many of today's functions of government when self-interest is at stake.

As per the democratic deficit, contemporary government across all member-states has almost destroyed the principle of elf-interest, and replaced this principle with principles which only have context in government: equality, fairness, society, etc. This is a disaster which will not be remedied by a mere treaty or a mish-mash of a constitution predicated on such principles. For the EU to be a meaningful development, it must adopt the principles of self-interest and freedom as the fundamentals for a constitution which constrains democracy.

Since proper government matters, it is therefore imperative that a democratically elected government is only granted a monopoly to secure our rights and to create the necessary uniformity of law which is consistent with justice and which does not violate our rights to satisfy the democratic deficit, across the EU. This would mean that an EU citizen would enjoy the same justice wherever and whenever within the EU disputes or claims had to be justly settled. And having achieved that, the EU would indeed be a worthwhile project.

The alternative is for one to decide upon how much of one's property one is willing to forfeit to maintain the status quo.

Rates: (TOP)

1. Domestic, commercial and industrial rates must be scrapped in favour of a system that charges for services used.

2. Public services must be limited in their scope and replaced over time in favour of privatisation.

The rates system is how money is made available for the funding of public services at the district and regional level. But too many public services are services that shouldn't exist, and too many are services which would be better provided by the private sector.

Crime and Policing: (TOP)

1. Policing must be separated from government's social policies or effective policing will be impossible.

2. Prison is for the purpose of punishing criminals, not a place to perform social rehabilitation.

3. Criminals must be made to make financial restitution to the victims of their crimes in as many instances as possible.

4. The Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) is a positive benefit to policing in lieu of a fully trained police professional as a 'bobby on the beat.' A PCSO must not to be confused with the dangerous concept of the Community Restorative Justice (CRJ) scheme. There must be no, no-go areas for the police.

5. Effective and joined-up technology across the EU, and less bureaucracy, makes for better policing at all levels.

6. From an EU perspective, more member-state collaboration between police forces should be developed in order to create better knowledge of the diversity of crime across the EU, so that Europol can be properly developed.

7. Immigrants who have settled should be encouraged to join the Police. But given that, according to a PSNI 'Spokesman,' not one of 973 Polish candidates in the last round of police recruitment made it to the merit-pool stage, this will be a challenge.

******

Because social policies including their associated moral values and crime have been essentially bundled into one and the same thing, it is now almost impossible to fight crime unless that crime can also be equated with an offence against society for which society can be blamed, and the remedy for which is more social policies to be paid for by non-criminals. This only serves to make crime pay for criminals and make everyone else less free and the bearer of the costs associated with the social policies deemed necessary to rehabilitate the criminal into society.

A further weakness of this approach is that any activity deemed not to be consistent with the social morality is a criminal act, which is leading to people being criminalized who are not at all criminals. For example: A business man or woman who does not give due and approved weight to their social responsibilities as a Stakeholder, whilst also ensuring a high return on investment, is now a criminal. A kid throwing a sausage at a pedestrian is given an ASBO and has their DNA sample permanently placed on a database so that they are now criminalized. Those who exercise their right to free expression are now criminalized if such free expression is deemed to be inciting distress, hate or racism.

Bearing in mind that there is a democratic deficit which can easily run counter to freedom, the right to life and one's property including one's body and mind. And that democracy is the means by which the government is granted a monopoly over the law, justice and security of rights, crime must be properly specified for justice to prevail and for such a monopoly not to become unjust and ineffective.

To take two particular examples: Drug use and dog fighting are not crimes. In the case of drugs the criminal aspects are: selling drugs to minors, drug dealers excluding other drug dealers from an area through the use of violence, drug dealers misrepresenting the quality of their product, drug users driving a vehicle or operating plant and equipment which would imperil others due to impaired awareness, drug users resorting to violence and theft in order to fund their use of drugs. In the case of dog fighting for sport or financial gain, the criminal aspects are: dogs bred for such activities, including those that are recognised as such, are not prevented from harming persons beyond their owners, or other dogs and animals, including their use to intimidate or coerce as if they were a personal weapon.

In both of these cases the principle is to identify the crimes and not attempt to prevent crime by way of prohibition. Prohibition is the hallmark of a failed state and simply exacerbates the impact of the democratic deficit.

Identification of crime and limiting law to dealing with the crime is more likely to deliver the justice that is the hallmark of proper government. Furthermore, when crime is properly identified, crime is a modest risk to one's life and property. But if the threat from crime is contrived by way of cherry-picking issues which lend themselves to overt dramatization into a huge menace, requiring that legislation is heaped upon legislation in order limit crime by limiting everyone's freedom, freedom and the property with which to maintain freedom will become a hostage to criminals and terrorists.

Crime and its consequences now extend much more easily across the EU. Fighting and resolving crime is thus much more difficult for the local police. The development of Europol including the better use of settled immigrants from other parts of the EU to provide the necessary policing would help greatly, but English language skills are a major challenge. Whilst not cited as a particular obstacle because of confidentiality rules, a PSNI 'Spokesman' revealed that not one of 973 Polish applicants for the last round of police recruitment archived acceptance to the merit-pool stage. Given that 973 was 14.3% of all applicants, and was totally declined, the lack of English skills would not be an unlikely factor.

The Armed Forces: (TOP)

1. Armed forces members have the same rights as non-armed forces members.

2. The requirements of foreign policy must not disregard the rights of armed forces members.

3. Armed intervention must be limited to contracts between legitimate parties including Private Military Contractors(PMCs).

The armed forces are solely for the purpose of defending the state against foreign aggression. Bearing that in mind and also bearing in mind that even though the armed forces are voluntary and not conscripted, they retain the same rights as non-armed forces members. Thus, it is immoral for members of the armed forces to be engaged in foreign policy matters which demand that they sacrifice their rights in order to secure others' freedom. If it is deemed vital that foreign policy must address others' freedom, armed intervention must be limited to agreements with sound and reputable Private Military Contractors (PMCs) on a free market and contractual basis including the legitimate parties involved.

It is an utter disgrace that the youngest and fittest of our armed forces are either killed or mutilated in the line of foreign policy driven action, so that foreign antagonists may fight amongst one another to secure the monopoly powers of central government by way of the democratic deficit.

Education: (TOP)

1. Better success for numeracy and literacy in primary school needs more, and suitably trained classroom assistants. And classroom assistants must be paid over the school holiday breaks.

2. A proper education demands that a skill with Concepts and Principles is developed. It is simply no longer enough to have a great deal of accredited knowledge.

3. It should not be compulsory for school to be attended. Nor should the government and its agencies have any responsibility to ensure that it is.

Without a proper education the young person of today will face a zero or very limited choice in future employment. This is now made even more difficult because it is the right of persons from all across the EU to come and work in Northern Ireland, and employers have much more choice in the labour available for employment and the wages to be paid for less skilled labour. For instance, employers from local call-centres can now recruit English-speaking French, German, and Dutch college or university graduates to work from Belfast, to service foreign and local accounts at not much better than minimum wage.

In the face of these facts, too many local students that shouldn't, now leave primary school at eleven years of age with no numeracy or literacy skills, or barely any numeracy or literacy skills. It is at this primary school level that the need for more effective education is needed.

The most probable way to achieve better success in numeracy and literacy at primary school level is to employ more, suitably trained classroom assistants. These extra classroom assistants would be able to spend the necessary time with students so that the students are better able to achieve their potential, and the extra time spent with the students would enable the classroom assistants to identify issues that may need to be addressed by specific methods. Dyslexia and Dyspraxia being two of the more common issues that affect numeracy and literacy outcomes, both of which require experience and specialised knowledge to deal with.

Whilst success at primary school is vital for success in secondary and third level education, the issue still remains: What constitutes a proper education? It used to be the case that students who studied the professions such as medicine, and engineering, for example, tended to have future employment pretty much guaranteed in their field of study. But because of the right of EU members to freely work in any other EU member state, they too face as much competition as their less skilled counterparts, and face even more competition from the Indian sub-continent and the far east, with doctors working as cabbies (That'll be twelve-pound-fifty, Mucker :-), etc, waiting for the chance for work in a cash-strapped NHS.

A proper education comes down to these choices: A proper education is for the student to have the necessary skill with Concepts and Principles so that the student can better acquire gainful employment in new and innovative lines of business. Or be able to create, by way of self-employment, and the employment of others, a new and innovative line of business.

Because school attendance and as much success as possible is so important to a student's life, the responsibility for their attendance must be borne by the student's parents, parent, or guardian. It must not be the responsibility of government or its agencies to directly or indirectly coerce a student to attend school. This policy would significantly address the very serious issue of disruptive and disinterested students who are causing teachers to abandon teaching in droves. And it would significantly address the issue of a drastic decline in the number of persons wanting to become school principles because of the impossible pressure placed upon them.

Healthcare: (TOP)

1. More use must be made of resources from across the EU.

2. No person is too impoverished to eat well and exercise meaningfully.

3. It costs £20.00 per month to insure your dog with Petplan, for example. It costs £40.00 per month to insure yourself with BUPA, for example. Which is more important?

As provided for under the NHS, healthcare has escalated in cost until it is now approaching £4-billion of the overall budget for Northern Ireland. And that is approximately 25% of the block grant from Westminster. The demand for ever more services and speedier care is likely to demand double this in the not too distant future. In other words, instead of £2,200.0 for every man woman and child in Northern Ireland, we are looking at £4,400.0. This is an entirely realistic possibility, and an entirely unrealistic goal for the NHS.

Considering the magnitude of the monies involved and the possible demands to be met, there is little to be gained by changes in management without causing great difficulties in the interrelationship of services and their binding to the shifting sands of government initiatives.

To at least put a significant brake on the monies required and also address clinical demand, the following proposals are valid.

More use of existing infrastructure from across the EU must be adopted. For instance, instead of insisting that a larger cardiac unit is built locally, the services should be bought from an ROI,German, French or Dutch provider. Flights within the EU are stunningly inexpensive and spare capacity abounds. This would give management something constructive to manage and significantly reduce the backlog of cardiac patients. This can also be applied to patients needing hip replacements, or where the waiting time is too long and may lead to further unnecessary complications and distress.

Potential NHS clients must be more proactive in avoiding clinical issues which are brought about by poor lifestyle choices. There is no person too impoverished to eat healthy food. There is no person too impoverished to take regular and meaningful exercise. And there is no dearth of information from one's doctor, and elsewhere, about how to eat healthily and exercise adequately. Simply limiting the availability of services relating to willfully poor diet and exercise would be sufficient penalty.

What resources the NHS does have, are better directed towards the women who currently have to shame government ministers on local television, and then take them to the high-court, at further public expense, in order to obtain cancer treatments on the NHS.

Private healthcare insurance is also a worthwhile addition whenever a clinical issue is not serious enough for speedy NHS treatment. It costs £20.00 per month to insure your dog with Petplan, for example. It costs £40.00 per month to insure yourself with BUPA, for example. Which is more important?

Employment: (TOP)

1. The tax burden in all its forms to business must be drastically reduced, so that businesses will have more capital to invest, and inward investors will be more likely to invest.

2. Setting a minimum wage raises prices and production costs. This increases unemployment for less skilled and low paid workers. The minimum wage must be abolished.

(government fiat: government demand/decree)

Employment opportunities are totally dependent upon the capital available to invest in established or new and innovative lines of business. The murderously high tax level which local businesses must endure, and which are to be further increased by way of a myriad of eco-taxes, are making local holders of capital look elsewhere to invest in new lines of business or expand those they already have. This also applies to any significant inward investment for the following reasons.

(A). Inward investors now consider low cost, far east labour allied to rising educational standards, a much better incentive to invest their capital than any grants that may be offered by our government. (B). Unlike the 1980s and 1990s the far east is now a worthwhile market in itself. This is because much more of the far east’s population is engaged in productive activity and have money to spend as a consequence. In other words: A market composed of labour which is producing nothing of significant value and has no money of significance to spend, is not a market.

Another complicating factor is the minimum wage. A minimum wage set by government fiat, is nothing but a disaster for those who receive it, and for those who must pay it. In short, a minimum wage set by government fiat, in the hope of gaining votes from low paid workers, achieves the following: Rising prices as a consequence of higher production costs. And an increase in unemployment for less skilled workers whose jobs are invariably taken over by fewer and more highly skilled workers. Thus we have university graduates working in jobs they are too qualified for, and unnecessary unemployment for less qualified workers. Another way to consider the effect of the minimum wage is this: Government can demand that a minimum wage is paid by employers, but employers cannot demand that a minimum price is paid for what is produced.

Lowering the cost to business will also enable training to be made the sole responsibility of the employer and not government. Making training the employer's responsibility will also reduce the need for fair employment and discrimination policies . This is because someone whom the employer has had to train at their own expense, with probably a contact to retain the trainees services, will be more highly valued than someone who has been trained to some arbitrary level by the government and its tax burden. Training will also be significantly less expensive because of more choice of training providers, especially in IT where training can be had online, from anywhere in the world.

Transport: (TOP)

1. Car owners must not be seen as a target of opportunity.

2. Wheel-clamping must be abolished.

3. Aggressive parking meter policies must be stopped.

4. More use of the bicycle can be easily encouraged.

At what time, and by what means, only the traveller can properly decide. That being so, the car owner must not be seen by government as the target of opportunity from which they can fund public transport and coerce travellers to use it. Fuel duty is the most obvious method of attack. But other methods such as aggressive wheel-clamping, aggressive parking-meter policies allied to the restriction of car parking spaces, are becoming too common.

Car ownership and the freedom to use one's car is vital. People have to get to work, get the kids to school, attend hospital appointments and treatment clinics, and be in a better position to live in areas which cannot be adequately serviced by public transport.

Many of the shorter local trips are much more conveniently made by bicycle. Especially trips into the city centre and its surroundings. The bicycle is good exercise, too. To encourage more bicycle use, there must be more provision of bike-stands including shackle points and rain cover. And the edges of roadways must be repaired to avoid cyclists having to cycle too far into the line of traffic and to reduce the damage to bicycle wheels.

Housing: (TOP)

1. High prices and lack of availability can be solved within two years.

2. Housing provision must be left to the private sector.

3. Planning regulation must be severely reduced.

4. Inheritance taxes must be abolished.

A basic house for a first time buyer is running at 80% of wages and six times annual salary. And this is for a very basic house indeed. A house of less than 1000 square-feet of floor space. This has come about because of planning regulation which puts land at a higher value than a home owner. In other words, government places less value on people in comparison to the dirt on which a house may be built.

In addition to the planning legislation, the insistence on building social style housing from public monies makes for the horribly inefficient use of land. This pushes up the price of land for building on. Creates unnecessary sprawl. Exacerbates the problems of transport in built up areas, by extending the built up areas. And helps to destroy the environment we do not want to destroy.

The proper solution to the majority of these problems is available today. And the onerous expense and lack of housing availability could be very satisfactorily resolved in less than two years.

For this to be possible: Planning regulations must be severely relaxed. Government must not be engaged in the provision of housing. The provision of housing must be only undertaken by private developers. Brown-field sites should be directed towards high-rise which is much more suitable for brown-field sites than traditional single or two-story housing. And high-rise will be more valuable to everyone when retail and other commercial possibilities are incorporated into the design.

The only place for government in housing would be to pay housing support to the least affluent, who qualify for housing support.

Inheritance taxes on property given to an heir or designated beneficiary must be abolished. This is because inheritance taxes are a violation of the property owner's right to decide how to dispose of their property. Inheritance taxes also divert capital from the development of new and innovative lines of business, and deprives the inheritor or beneficiary of a better quality of life.

Energy: (TOP)

1. More energy is needed to increase prosperity and live better.

2. Wind-turbines and solar panels are hopelessly inadequate.

3. Better energy management can be helpful. But there must be no grants of public money to encourage better energy management.

4. Nuclear power must be accepted.

Our quality of life and the prospects of improving it for ourselves and future generations depends on the availability and use of energy. In addition, a country's prosperity can be directly related to the amount of energy it uses, no matter how it is provided. The contemporary debate about energy is centred on the burning of carbon-rich fuels and the subsequent emissions to generate energy in a suitable form. For example: The combustion of gas for a domestic cooker or water heater. The combustion of petrol or diesel for car, bus, and industrial engines, etc. The combustion of oil, coal, or gas in electric power stations.

Hydroelectric power is not a possibility due to limitations of geography and a water supply barely able to supply the demand for water. Wind-turbines and solar panels are hopelessly inadequate and hopeless value for money. It is true that in spite of their limited potential to supply energy, they do not pollute when in use. But the manufacturing processes used to create wind-turbines and solar panels, far outweighs any benefit. This is the same for the petrol-electric hybrid cars that are being heavily promoted as an answer to reducing the pollution from cars.

There is the possibility of not using so much energy for a given application. Home lighting can be just as plentiful if low-energy bulbs are used instead of the usual filament bulbs These are more expensive to purchase, but usually work out the same, or less expensive, over time. And low voltage Halogen lighting can be useful, too, if more instant lighting is needed.

Heat loss from homes can be improved. The methods for managing heat loss from homes have been criticised as being not cost effective for too long a time, but its implementation will add value to the property, and the less a home owner has to spend on heating, the more will be available to spend on other things. Grants of public money must not be offered to improve heat loss management. Even 44-pence a day is £160.60 per annum, which pays the bill for water services in many instances.

Even with a reduction in energy usage, there are always new products that need energy. New products are necessary for employment and wages, etc., so they cannot be simply dismissed. For instance: A colour television in 1974 used approximately 650 watts of power because it used a lot of valve/tube technology. As solid state technology became more usual this dropped to 120 watts. But this energy saving has been surpassed by the introduction of many energy using products, more than one television per home due to televisions being less expensive, video recorders, computers, DVD players and recorders, to name a few.

The demand for electricity will continue to grow. To meet the demand for electricity without the international issues associated with carbon-rich fuels and their depletion to a point which is uneconomical to acquire, and the subsequent pollution, we will have to accept nuclear power as the only viable answer. There are objections to this, of course, but there is no other technology. It is ironic that nuclear power is simply a continuance of the steam-age, but we cannot return to the living conditions associated with that historical era. More forwards please :-)

Pensions: (TOP)

1. Members of Parliament (MPs) must not be entitled to have a special right to the especially generous pensions that they currently enjoy by way of demand. To be a member of Parliament is a voluntary act, so tax payers must not have their prosperity and self-interest held hostage to Parliament and the demands of MPs. Instead, MPs should be left to purchase private pensions of the quality they choose to afford to make provision for from their Parliamentary income including any other sources of income. if this is thought to be an onerous imposition, they can always choose work some place else which compensates them more favourably for their skills.

2. Public sector employees including the police, armed forces, etc., must not have their pension security tied to their employment as a form of compensation and a means by way of which to coerce discipline. Instead, they should be compensated sufficiently well, so that they can purchase a pension of their own choosing, and which cannot be directly jeopardized by their employers.

3. Employees in the private sector must have the option in their terms of contract to be compensated sufficiently to purchase a private pension of their own choosing so that employers have much less scope to make use of pension funds counter to the well being of the employee, or to avail themselves of benefit via government policy which can leave pension funds drastically under funded or exhausted.

The Environment: (TOP)

1. The environment is the source of materials for our way of life. It needs no protecting from us.

2. Environmentalists in government will imperil our future prosperity and quality of life. The global warming issue is a €35-billion a year swindle.

3. Properly implemented property rights law will protect anything in need of protecting.

4. New technologies on a free market will address all outstanding issues.

First and foremost, the environment is the source of materials which enables us to live as we do, and would like to live. The environment offers barely any direct means for us to live at all. Certainly no better than an animal in the wild. Only through the exploitation and transformation of the environment is it possible for us to have a life beyond extreme poverty and insecurity.

The bulk of what environmentalism purports to be concerned with can be stated by this simple metaphor: 'Don't do the toilet where you eat.' A. Wiseman.

Almost everyone instinctively understands this principle, and do not need a government agency to intervene. But environmentalism is not about this at all. Instead, environmentalism is the tactic that would enable its advocates to use the power of government and its unelected associates to limit freedom. The freedom to build a house. The freedom to travel affordably and swiftly at a time of one's choosing. The freedom to keep warm. The freedom to eat and enjoy a variety of foods from across the world. And so on.

In short, environmentalism allied to government is simply the tyranny of total state control. The state control that would dictate how we are to live and prosper. The environment already does this to the extent we cannot control it in our favour. The environment needs no protection from us.

For the parts of the environment that are of concern to those interested, their concerns can best be addressed by privatisation. For example, If a piece of marshland is of interest, buy the marshland and its virtues will be protected by properly implemented property rights law. If a building is of architectural merit to some group they should buy the building and its virtues will be protected, too. It is properly implemented property rights that will protect what is deemed important to protect. Not environmentalism and its advocates in government.

New technology on a free market will solve many environmental issues. But this new technology will be impeded in its development and effectiveness if government interferes in its provision. Wind-turbines and solar panels for the home are of no use whatsoever. In fact, the means of manufacturing wind-turbines and solar panels far outweighs any possible benefit.

Terrorism: (TOP)

1. Multiculturalism, as it pertains to government and its institutions, encourages terrorism.

2. Terrorism from radical Islam is global.

3. The government must be exclusively committed to defending our culture of freedom.

4. Terrorism is not a direct result of race or Mosque.

5. The right to Free Speech must not be undermined.

6. A written constitution would be a good idea.

Terrorism is the tactic used by the advocates of an ideology to defeat their enemies. And such ideologies that use terrorism as their tactic are always morally inferior to the ethics that is the hallmark of freedom. To defeat terrorism it is imperative that we do not allow ourselves to accept the dangerous fad of multiculturalism in the mistaken belief that this will promote cultural harmony. This is because multiculturalism is the acceptance of a multitude of competing and conflicting ethical standards, which would result in the impossibility of a just and proper legal system. And without a just and proper legal system, we would have lost freedom. In other words: multiculturalism is to tolerate the intolerable.

It has been stated that we now face a terrorist threat without precedent. This is true to the extent that the threat from radical Islam* has introduced the suicide bomber and terrorism on a global scale, as a way to demonstrate total commitment to the ideology of radical Islam and strike terror into the hearts of its enemies. But the ideology behind radical Islam and the subsequent terrorism must also be defeated. For example, it has been supposed that simply assassinating Adolf Hitler would have been sufficient to prevent World War 2. But the ideology of Nazism and its democratic support was much bigger than Adolf Hitler.

The radical Islamist ideology is: equality for all under their God and the Shariah and its natural representatives. To object is to die.

To a large extent, the power of terrorism from radical Islam is not the direct result of race, or Mosque. It is the result of not defining our culture, and not having a government committed to defending it in the face of deadly opposition from a few irrational malcontents from the world's Muslim population.

Whilst the number of irrational malcontents may be a few of the world's Muslim population, It should be understood that this few is probably not less than 24-million in number. This threat has to be now considered as a global threat. This is because reducing poverty and increasing prosperity in places such as Africa, the middle-east and the far east necessitates the free movement of people and ideas from all over the world. And as we have already witnessed with 9/11 and 7/7, it takes less than a dozen determined suicide bombers to wreak havoc in a modern culture such as our own. This havoc includes the destruction of property, the death of innocent people and a reduction in the quality of our culture due to the panic-application of inappropriate legislation. A diminution in the right to Free Speech, for instance. The right to Free Speech is our only way to object and to express our ideas. To limit the right to Free Speech in the face of intimidation from terrorism is a pyrrhic victory.

To defeat the ideology and subsequent terrorism of radical Islam, we must be fully aware of what we stand for, and not give victory to the terrorists by undermining our freedom with a drive towards a countering religion or by limiting the right to Free Speech. A written constitution based on rational principles and which limits the scope of government would be very helpful to underpin our understanding about who we are, and what the government is elected to to defend.

* Note: Radical Islam is the violent, political expression of the religion of Islam. The advocates of radical Islam have interpreted Islamic teachings to support their political cause and the associated terrorism. Radical Islam is the enemy of Islam and all other religions, and should not be confused with the Islam practiced by the vast majority of Muslims.

Immigration: (TOP)

To make this a reality, and as speedily as possible, the simplified 'Special English' promoted by the VOA (Voice of America) would be of huge benefit. This would require no development of course material or undue burden of costs. Whilst the simplified 'Special English' of the VOA is comparatively simple, it is not at all simplistic.