Category Archives: Natural Law

What Daniel Hannan Should Have Said About The BNP

Britain, Constitution, Free Speech, libertarianism, Liberty, Natural Law, Private Property

The brilliant Sean Gabb, academic, broadcaster, Director of the Libertarian Alliance in England, and a friend (who is not too good at keeping in touch), says what Daniel Hannan (scroll down) ought to have articulated about the British National Party (BNP), instead of disgorging the fascist epithet. The column you want to read in its entirety is “The British State and the BNP—The Post-Modern Tyranny of ‘Human Rights.'” Here are excerpts:

“We in Britain are endlessly told nowadays that freedom of speech does not involve the right to preach hatred and ‘intolerance.’ But it does. Freedom of speech means the right to say anything at all on any public issue, and to make any recommendation on what the law should be.”

“I was born into a Britain where this understanding was broadly accepted. I live now in a country where it is not. Thus Simon Woolley of Operation Black Vote dismisses freedom of speech as an ‘almost sacred cow.’ He even appeals for support to the majesty of the British Constitution:

Over centuries our unwritten constitution has given us a framework for our democracy. From Magna Carta to the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, our democracy has evolved to reflect our changing times. This framework gives us a democracy which, for all its limitations, seeks to balance individual freedoms with fairness and tolerance.

“In the technical sense, Woolley may be right. Being unwritten, the British Constitution is whatever the authorities decide it to be.

But his claim is irrelevant. A constitution does not legitimise oppression. Rather, it is legitimate so far as it protects rights. If the British Constitution no longer guarantees freedom of speech, so much the worse for the Constitution.

* Second, as said, the authorities are frightened to make a direct attack on freedom of speech. Instead, they are relying on laws that abolish freedom of association.

But this is barely less important within the liberal tradition than freedom of speech. The two rights complement each other. Freedom of speech is the right to say anything. Freedom of association involves the right to propagate what is said. It means the right of people to come together for any purpose that does not involve aggression against others. …

I am not frightened that the BNP is a party of national socialists, and that its leaders are counting the days till they can rip off their business suits, to show the black and red uniforms beneath. Under its present leader, Nick Griffin, the BNP has become a white nationalist party. The party believes in the expulsion of illegal immigrants, an in some voluntary repatriation of non-whites who are legally here, and in dismantling the Equal Opportunities police state from which people like Mr Wadham benefit. Other than this, a BNP Government might easily show more respect for the forms of a liberal constitution than have the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown—after all, this would not be difficult.

The problem is that the BNP and much of its leading personnel used to be national socialists. There are too many published statements in praise of Hitler or denouncing the Jews.” …

READ THE COMPLETE COLUMN, “The British State and the BNP—The Post-Modern Tyranny of ‘Human Rights,'” on VDARE.COM (where else?).

Update III: Code Blue! How Canada Care Nearly Killed My Kid

Healthcare, Human Accomplishment, Liberty, Natural Law, Regulation, Socialism, The State

The excerpt is from my new WND.COM column, “Code Blue! How Canada Care Nearly Killed My Kid,” now on Taki’s Magazine:

“Code Blue Intensive Care Unit,” “Code Blue Intensive Care Unit”:

When the Code-Blue alarm sounded over the hospital’s loudspeaker system, my husband and I knew it sounded for our daughter. It was 11:00 at night. The hallways of the British Columbia hospital were dark. Only one emergency operating theater was in use. She was in it. The skeletal staff came running. Resuscitation carts were rushed toward the theater.

My own heart nearly stopped, because she is my heart.

To follow Dr. David Gratzer’s plainspoken definition (the good doctor is a Canada-care whistle blower), Code Blue is “the term used when a patient’s heart stops and hospital staff must leap into action to save him.” My then 12-year-old had stopped breathing on the operating table and was being revived. …

A cursory investigation into why [my daughter] coded that night was conducted. The findings were, conveniently, inconclusive. …

If you want to understand why the “subpar care Nicky had received” was just “a day in the life of a patient interned in a state-run health care system,” read the complete column, “Code Blue,” now on Taki’s Magazine. That’s where you can catch the weekly fare every Saturday.

Update I (July 31): The child can take pain. As a child, she suffered from severe asthma, which runs in the family (a great uncle died during an attack). My child’s heroic stoic composure during some of the procedures she endured in the course of this deadly disease—I cannot praise enough.

Update II: Readers: please make a habit of posting your comments to the blog, rather than sending them to me. I cannot answer all letters (although I try). Besides which other BAB posters here will often respond eloquently to your questions about liberty.

Rebutting those who say that my experience is typical of private establishments as well lies in advancing rights-based and utilitarian/economic arguments—you must address natural rights, and the structure of incentives in socialized systems. I speak to those issue in my work, regularly; have for years. But I also explain in the current column why this episode is certainly par for the course in the sphere of the “public option.”

Please check out the Articles Archive under socialized medicine and natural rights. The Barely A Blog archive (search “Socialism,” “Regulations,” and “Health & Fitness”) is a good source too, as we’ve conducted extensive debates on this lively forum.

I’m afraid that defending liberty demands the STUDY of—and familiarity with—principles. In other words, some work, a mental effort. Quick answers won’t replace the work liberty’s defenders must do. All too often readers demand quickies. Intellectual sloth extends to not even searching my accessible web and blog databases.

Begin by signing up for the Mercer Weekly Newsletter.

A July 4th Toast To Thomas Jefferson & The Anglo-Saxon Tradition

Founding Fathers, Government, History, IMMIGRATION, Liberty, Natural Law, The West

The excerpt is from my new WND.COM column, “A July 4th Toast To Thomas Jefferson,” a version of which was first published by VDARE.COM:

“The Declaration of Independence—whose proclamation, on July 4, 1776, we celebrate this Saturday—has been mocked out of meaning.

To be fair to the liberal establishment, ordinary Americans are not entirely blameless. For most, Independence Day means firecrackers and cookouts. The Declaration doesn’t feature. In fact, contemporary Americans are less likely to read it now that it is easily available on the Internet, than when it relied on horseback riders for its distribution.

Back in 1776, gallopers carried the Declaration through the country. Printer John Dunlap had worked “through the night” to set the full text on “a handsome folio sheet,” recounts historian David Hackett Fischer in “Liberty and Freedom.” And President (of the Continental Congress) John Hancock urged that the “people be universally informed.”

Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration, called it “an expression of the American Mind.” An examination of Jefferson’s constitutional thought makes plain that he would no longer consider the mind of a McCain, an Obama, or the collective mentality of the liberal establishment, “American” in any meaningful way.” …

The complete column, “A July 4th Toast To Thomas Jefferson,” is now on WND.COM.

Miss the weekly column on WND.COM? Catch it on Taki’s Magazine every Saturday.