In Ireland right now, I do not know who to vote for.
Once, a centre right person like me would vote for
Fine Gael.
But look at all the list of things wrong with them now:
A high tax party. They promised for over a decade to reduce tax but never did.
A high immigration party.
I'm not a zero immigration person.
But FG, and other Irish parties, seem to have no limits.
Their war on energy exploration, in their surrender to climate ideology.
Their ban on oil and gas exploration.
Their ban on fracking.
Their ban on turf.
Their support for the ban on nuclear power.
Their absolute war on energy sources.
And now an "energy crisis".
Forced statist (not market) regulation of housing that helped lead to the housing crisis.
Rent controls. Rent pressure zones. Bedsit ban. Eviction ban. Airbnb regulation.
Their fanatic position against an agreed Brexit with the UK.
They have encouraged the EU to keep the process in chaos.
Standard DFA, pro-UN, anti-Israel foreign policy.
The Gender Recognition Act.
Their surrender (with no debate) of women's rights to trans ideology.
There is almost nothing to like about them any more.
So how about Fianna Fail,
once also a home for the centre right voter?
I liked them under
Charlie McCreevy
and Bertie Ahern.
Their promotion of enterprise was impressive.
But they have gone downhill since. The same things that make Fine Gael unimpressive:
A high tax party.
A high immigration party.
Sabotaging energy production because of climate ideology.
The bedsit ban, that helped lead to the housing crisis.
The ideas of the PDs made Ireland rich, and did more to end poverty in Ireland
than all the work of the left-wing parties
since independence.
Indeed, Ireland's history seems to suggest that right-wing parties end poverty,
while left-wing, statist parties cause it.
Fianna Fail sensibly adopted the PDs' ideas on economics for a long time.
After they got rid of Ahern and McCreevy, though,
and the PDs dissolved,
FF started to drift, so it is hard to know what they stand for now.
They spent billions bailing out failed banks.
Whatever this is, it is not capitalism.
They drifted into center-left policies on most issues. See above.
America
On relations with America, FG and (especially) FF
may say some dodgy things about terror and war and US foreign policy,
but in practice
they have little interest in disturbing the "special relationship" with the USA.
They are pragmatic parties that will not alienate our
western democratic allies
(Britain and America) in order to make some stupid point.
FF allowed America use Irish airports in the War on Islamism from 2001 onwards.
Some in FG criticised this, but of course they continued it when they got into power.
William Sjostrom
comments on an RTE TV program in
March 2003:
"I had the pleasure of watching John O'Donoghue, a government minister,
lambast a political opponent, John Bruton of Fine Gael, when Bruton demanded to know
whether there were any circumstances when the government would deny use of
Shannon. O'Donoghue told Bruton the government would not let Saddam Hussein use it."
Memo dated 5 Sept 2006 from US ambassador to Ireland, James C. Kenny,
to US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.
He says the FF Government is
"supportive of continued U.S.
military transits at Shannon Airport ...
The
Irish Government has repeatedly defended U.S. interests in
the face of public criticism".
FF is tolerant of US problems:
"Occasional and
inadvertent breaches of weapons and uniform policies .. are met with public and press scrutiny, but also
with Government understanding."
Use of the airport is good for the war effort, and good for Ireland:
"Shannon remains a key
transit point for U.S. troops and materiel bound for theaters
in the global war on terror, while yielding diplomatic
benefits for the Irish Government and significant revenues
for the airport and regional economy. ...
U.S. military access to Shannon Airport in western
Ireland is among the most tangible benefits of traditionally
strong U.S.-Irish relations."
Ben Scallan, May 9, 2021,
does a roundup of FF and FG policies and concludes, fairly reasonably, that
there is no conservative right in Ireland.
Not really.
There is the centre, the centre left, and the far left.
The kind of thing that puts me off Fine Gael:
Simon Coveney, FG Minister for Foreign Affairs, promotes a tweet from a terrorist embassy, 13 May 2022.
Utterly shameful.
The context of Coveney's tweet against Israel, by the way, is the
funeral of Shireen Abu Akleh, 13 May 2022,
when random rioters seized the coffin and began an unauthorised mob procession, and threw objects at the Israeli police.
The "pallbearers" in the video here are not official pallbearers. They are random rioters who have seized the coffin and
hijacked the funeral.
I think Bertie Ahern
is the best Taoiseach ever.
Far from perfect (e.g. on foreign policy).
But, I think, the best Ireland has had to date.
I blame Brian Cowen, not Ahern, for wrecking the Celtic Tiger by
bailing out the banks starting in Sept 2008.
Ahern was gone in May 2008.
Maybe he would have bailed out the banks.
Maybe he wouldn't.
But the fact is, he didn't.
Made Ireland rich.
Privatisation (especially of airlines and telecoms). Low tax.
Ended unemployment.
Ended emigration.
Ended poverty.
Helped US and allies in War on Islamism (kept Shannon open).
Ended NI conflict.
Established power-sharing in NI.
Bad things:
Anti-Israel.
Set up a democracy.
Defeated violent anti-Treaty forces.
Ended the 1916-23 violence.
Stabilised relations with Britain.
1922 constitution (much better than 1937 one).
Peacefully surrendered power when lost 1932 election.
Today,
only 10 countries in the world
have been democracies as long as Ireland.
Bad things:
Executions without trial in Civil War.
Crap economy. Protectionism. State monopolies. Economic War.
Sexual repression. Catholic Church rule.
1937 constitution.
Irish language compulsion.
Censorship. Neutrality.
Treachery in WW2.
Sneering moral equivalence.
Condolences on death of Hitler.
Entrenched partition.
Personal corruption.
And before he was in power:
Refused to accept pro-Treaty vote.
Caused Civil War.
Burnt centuries of Irish historical records at Custom House.
Crap economy. State monopolies. Sexual repression. Catholic Church rule.
Neutrality.
Opposition to Falklands War.
Entrenched partition.
Personal corruption.
And before he was in power:
Burnt Union Jack on VE-Day in 1945.
This 2020 chart sums up why I prefer Bertie Ahern to current FF and FG.
These are
Fine Gael promises before the 2020 election.
I cannot see the one thing I want, tax cuts, on this list.
I see 6 items that require more tax.
No tax cuts.
Since this did not work for FG,
maybe they should sack this guy and become a party for the taxpayer,
the people who get up early.
Tory.
The Tory party
has great appeal to me.
Sensible on the EU.
Sensible on foreign policy.
Boris Johnson
is about the only senior British politician to talk sense about Islam and jihad since 9/11 in 2001.
Here is a
roundup
of what he has said about Islam, jihad and Israel.
Much better than Cameron or Blair.
I really like
Michael Gove.
Especially on foreign policy.
Not happy they got rid of Boris. Let's see how it goes.
The Liberal Democrats
rarely impress me.
On Islam and Israel, they
are normally dhimmis and appeasers, or sometimes pro-jihad.
Labour.
Blair's Labour was a grown-up party that supported the war
against the jihad.
Blair helped destroy the Taliban and Saddam Hussein regimes.
I would vote for that party.
But more recently, under
Corbyn,
Labour became a disgusting, communist, anti-semitic, pro-terrorist party
that no decent person could vote for, like the BNP.
Today, Corbyn is gone, and we will see if the party gets better.
But for the moment, No.
Doctor Death by Frank McGahon,
who sums up my views
here
about the pointlessness of
trying to "understand"
the
hallucinatory, hate-filled killers
of innocent women and children:
"a serial killer may have any kind of half-baked ludicrous "rationale"
for his murders.
Pehaps they were inspired by listening to a Beatles LP:
who cares?.
It is of little use in preventing future serial killers to examine
in minute detail the "reason"s
proferred by such a killer.
There will always be crazy people.
The first priority is to protect yourself
against crazy people.
Getting sucked into the crazy worldview is a very
good way of losing sight of that priority."
Jenny Tonge, Oct 2014, defends Hamas in the House of Lords.
"the propaganda coming out of the Israeli embassy now is to concentrate on Hamas, the so-called terrorists who of course many people in the Middle East see as freedom fighters
...
Hamas deserves the right to defend the people of Gaza
against the relentless blockade and helicopter gunships over
that area, targeting and killing so-called terrorists and, more often, many innocent civilians. The people of Gaza have a right to be defended".
Can't she be arrested for this speech?
Executing homosexuals
and killing British soldiers
are apparently now ok with the new
Liberal Democrat party.
Khatami receives honorary degree from Scottish University.
He is the first senior Iranian to visit Britain
since the 1979 revolution.
"It is disgusting that St. Andrews university is conferring an honor on this man,
he is responsible for more than 1,300 deaths during his presidency,"
said Maryam Namazie, of the Iranian Women's Liberation group.
"This regime was responsible for the oppression of people that I knew and loved."
Nick Clegg, Jan 2009,
calls on Britain and the EU to block arms sales to Israel.
Lembit Öpik
works for Iranian state
Press TV.
Iran is a brutal dictatorship
that has helped and is helping
the killing of British soldiers
in Iraq and Afghanistan.
On Madrid:
"Let me use this occasion to make one point absolutely clear. If the
terrorists hope they can gain their ends by perpetrating in Britain a similar
outrage to that in Spain, their wickedness will be in vain. Whatever my
disagreements with Tony Blair, any government that I lead will not flinch
in its determination to win the War against Terror, wherever it has to be
fought."
On Iraq:
"The British Conservative Party has been consistent in its support for the
British Government, and for our armed forces, over the war in Iraq.
Indeed Tony Blair would not have won last year's vote in the House of
Commons .. which gave him the mandate to go to
war, without the support of the Conservative Party.
...
The
war against Iraq was necessary. It was just. It was, indeed, arguably
overdue. And, let us not forget, it was overwhelmingly successful"
"We won the Second World War because we fought side-by-side with
America. We won the Cold War because we stood side-by-side with
America. And we will win this war on terror if we wage it side-by-side
with America."
On Europe: "it is true that
there are some who see a European State as a partner of America. But
many have as their main motivation the desire to establish a rival pole of
power in Europe. If their views were to prevail many of the achievements
we value would be at risk. I shall do all I can to resist their ambitions."
He is pro-capitalist and pro-free trade,
and correctly links it all to helping the
Third World.
He quotes Hernando de Soto.
Good stuff.
Then I went off Howard:
Howard keeps being tempted to make capital from Blair's
troubles on Iraq, despite the fact that he agrees with Blair
and would have done the same.
This achieves nothing except
making the Tories look unreliable and unprincipled -
in contrast to
the honourable, principled Blair,
who many conservatives now admire.
Howard should start caring about Bush
- Mark Steyn on Howard's idiotic and unnecessary alienation of Bush
by trying to make capital over Iraq.
Or consider his unnecessary alienation of people like me.
I have never supported the Tories in my entire life.
I have actually voted for Blair (when I lived in the UK,
general election 1997).
After 9/11
I was just, after all these years, for the first time stumbling towards
the view that the Tories weren't so bad after all -
because they are strong on the defence of the west.
And Howard is telling me no, that's not true actually.
If you want really strong in defence of the west, vote Labour.
"Despite the great gaping nullity of the [Conservative] party this past decade,
there was still one thing it stood for: like the Republicans, the Tories were the party
that took foreign policy and national security seriously. That's what Howard threw away
when he chose to repudiate his own Iraq-war vote, accuse Blair of "dereliction of duty"
and demand his resignation."
"how stupid do you have to be to kick away the party's last remaining leg,
the one that still seems relevant to the world we live in? If the Conservatives
are no longer credible on foreign policy, what's left?"
The Tories
do have a problem with
the
conservative pessimism,
that allowed them do nothing as the
Bosnian genocide
raged in Europe in the 1990s.
This Tory isolationist tradition is exemplified by:
"A new approach to foreign affairs - liberal conservatism",
Cameron's foreign policy speech, Sept 2006,
is somewhat mixed-message.
Pessimist Melanie Phillips
puts the most negative spin possible on it,
saying it looks like Cameron will cool things with America.
Bizarre Tory isolationist
Geoffrey Wheatcroft
enthusiastically agrees
(and, unlike Phillips, thinks that would be a good thing).
I suspect both of them are wrong.
I think Cameron is a neo-conservative, no matter what he says.
He's not afraid to say openly he agrees with much of neo-conservatism,
which hardly anyone in Europe says.
He then claims his is a slightly different form, and perhaps it is,
but not that different.
Cameron, Oct 2008, says he is not a neo-con.
And search.
"We should accept that we cannot impose democracy at the barrel of a gun; that we cannot drop democracy from 10,000 feet - and we shouldn't try.
Put crudely, that was what was wrong with the 'neo-con' approach, and why I am a liberal Conservative, not a neo Conservative."
Cameron is a neo-con?
Cameron stands encircled by zealous Anglo-neocons, Geoffrey Wheatcroft, March 22, 2007,
has second thoughts about Cameron's Tories.
Hurray.
If Wheatcroft doesn't like him, then
Cameron is definitely safe to vote for.
Wheatcroft compares Britain's support for America in the War on Islamist fascism
to Vichy France's
support for Nazi Germany in its war on democracy and the Jews.
Again, one always has to wonder
if whining isolationists like this
would have really supported the troops in the second world war.
Whereas it's obvious that the "Anglo-neocons" would have.
Wheatcroft mentions the admirable
Douglas Carswell, who says
"it is in our national interest to support Israel".
Carswell apparently says he does not like to criticise Israel
"because I believe they are a front-line ally in a war against people
who wish to destroy our democratic way of life."
The weirdo Wheatcroft
describes these unexceptional views
as "extreme",
"plainly absurd"
and "terrifying".
Finally!
Prime Minister Cameron, June 2011, finally moves UK government policy towards a hardline approach to sharia.
Anyone supporting sharia law will (finally) be considered an extremist by the UK government.
They are finally going to base government policy on
"the notion that violent extremism is incubated within the ideology of non-violent extremism.
...
Central to the .. strategy is a broader definition of extremism that will be extended beyond groups condoning violence to those considered non-violent but whose views, such as the advocacy of sharia law, fail to "reflect British mainstream values"."
David Cameron talks rubbish about Islamism, May 13, 2007
- "First, a concerted attack on racism and soft bigotry.
You can't even start to talk about a truly integrated society
while people are suffering racist insults and abuse,
as many still are in our country on a daily basis.
...
many Muslims I've talked to about these issues are
deeply offended by the use of the word 'Islamic' or 'Islamist'
to describe the terrorist threat we face today.
We do need greater understanding of the true nature of the terrorist threat.
There's ... too much denial of it in the Muslim community.
But our efforts are not helped by lazy use of language.
Indeed, by using the word 'Islamist' to describe the threat,
we actually help do the terrorist ideologues' work for them"
For heaven's sake, the word
"Islamist"
is used
to allow some clear water
between the jihadi Muslim terrorists (Islamism) and moderate Muslims (Islam).
"Islamism" describes accurately the popular philosophy and world view that motivates jihadi terror
around the world.
Cameron is missing the point that
all Muslims should reject Islamism
and not be offended by insults to it.
Any Muslim who defends Islamism is not someone whose opinions we should care about.
Maybe Cameron will be useless on the war after all.
Can't we get Michael Gove instead?
He attacks Israel over Gaza. He calls Gaza "a prison camp".
Nice response by Ephraim Sneh, former Israeli deputy minister of defence:
"Cameron is right - Gaza is a prison camp, but those who control the prison are Hamas. I'm totally against the double standards of a nation which fights the Taliban but is showing its solidarity with their brothers, Hamas."
Cameron condemns Israel's self-defence against the violent Turkish Islamists in the
flotilla clash:
"The Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely unacceptable".
Cameron strongly supports Turkey joining the EU,
despite the clear wishes of the British people.
The 2006 Eurobarometer poll
(see Question 33.13)
shows
30 percent of British people in favour of Turkey joining the EU,
and 52 percent against.
"It's Turkey that can help us stop Iran from getting the bomb",
Cameron absurdly says.
Talk about naive!
In reality it is Israel - the country you have just attacked - that will stop Iran getting the bomb.
Cameron shamefully laid a wreath at the tomb of the butcher
Ataturk.
And not a word (of course) about the persecution of Christians and other minorities
in modern Turkey.
Laws against free speech
like the Racial and Religious Hatred Act
2006,
which threatens criticism of religion.
Many UK laws introduced since the 1980s restrict free speech.
In fairness, some were introduced by the Tories.
Tony Blair
talked some sense on the War on Islamism.
But also some nonsense.
Useless Tony Blair speech, 2006,
about the cause of jihad:
"Unless we re-appraise our strategy, unless we revitalise the broader global agenda
on poverty, climate change, trade, and in respect of the Middle East,
bend every sinew of our will to making peace between Israel and Palestine,
we will not win."
In reality, not a single one of these issues will make any impact on stopping the
global jihad against us.
Tony Blair's wife
Cherie Blair
talked some
dreadful rubbish
about suicide bombers in 2002:
"As long as young people feel they have got no hope but to blow themselves up you are never going to make progress."
This completely misunderstands
why jihadis use suicide bombing.
Cherie Blair's sister is
the rabidly anti-Israel
Muslim convert
Lauren Booth.
Jack Straw, The Times, 14 June 2011, bizarrely described
Turkey
as
"the strongest, richest and most democratic state in the wider Middle East."
Turkey of course is only a proto-democracy compared to the true liberal democracy of Israel.
Maybe he meant most democratic "in the Muslim Middle East"?
But he did not say that.
Anti-Israel Labour local councillor
David Stockdale, 20 Jan 2014, describes Palestinian terrorist outfit Fatah as "Labour's sister party in Palestine".
How could he possibly describe Labour as a "sister party" of a
terror group?
It turns out Fatah
are now affiliated to the trans-national
Party of European Socialists,
and so are UK Labour, Irish Labour
and the SDLP in NI.
Good reasons to vote for none of them.
The revolting
Jeremy Corbyn.
With him as leader, no decent person could vote Labour.
Hilarious compilation of clips from the
Labour 2019 party conference.
What a bunch of loonies.
My favourite is the "workers of the world unite" guy.
Republican.
The Republicans generally understood how the world works,
and the role America plays in defending the free world.
I hated Trump,
but the Republican party still has
the sanest foreign policy thinkers,
and this came out in the Trump administration,
which was actually quite good.
Now Trump is gone, there is space for a muscular GOP without a creepy celebrity buffoon at the head.
Not these:
The Democrats.
The party of American withdrawal, weakness, defeat, apology, appeasement and isolationism.
This achieves nothing except
allowing evil and tyranny flourish and spread across the globe.
The worst examples in the modern era are when Obama chose to
abandon Iraq to the jihad
and when Biden chose to
abandon Afghanistan to the jihad.
They did not have to do this.
They chose to do this.
And it will be hard to ever forgive the Democrats.
The Libertarian Party
is not attractive either.
Even though I describe myself as a form of
libertarian,
I would not vote for
the Libertarian Party.
They are "anti-war"
isolationists,
who despise American power in the world,
and as a result can even end up defending the West's enemies.
Why I would never vote Democrat:
Nine prominent Democrats
show why
no one who believes in the War on Islamism
should vote Democrat.
"Speaking Democrat: A Primer"
is
a hilarious speech actually delivered in the
U.S. House of Representatives
by
Thad McCotter
in June 2008.
The section on "Speaking Global Democrat" allows us finally translate Obama's speeches:
"DIPLOMACY" = "MAGIC"
"Democrats will protect America from Iranian nukes through tough, principled diplomacy."
Translation: "Democrats will protect America from Iranian nukes through tough, principled magic."
"ENGAGE" = "APPEASE"
"Democrats will engage America' enemies."
Translation: "Democrats will appease America's enemies."
"END" = "LOSE"
"Democrats will end the Iraq War."
Translation: "Democrats will lose the Iraq War."
Why I would never vote for the Libertarian Party
The idea of libertarianism is appealing.
But the reality of the Libertarian Party
is repellent.
The
Libertarian Party of New Hampshire
compares Ukraine to Nazi Germany, Oct 2022.
They are so anti-state and "anti-war" that they will spin for the fascist imperialist regime of Russia.
The
Libertarian Party of New Hampshire
pimps for both Russia and China, July 2023.
Dictators everywhere love this "freedom loving" party.
From the Libertarian Party (national) in Dec 2022.
This was during the
visit of Ukrainian President Zelensky to the USA
during the Ukraine war, Dec 2022.
Zelensky's first visit anywhere during the Ukraine war.
The Libertarian Party seems to despise any struggle for liberty against tyranny.
By the way, we have no idea what this video is of.
No date. No location. No country. It may not be Israel.
No link to any news coverage. Source is a random Neturei Karta lunatic.
It could be actors. It could be anything.
Voting is of course not for idealists.
You almost always have to choose the lesser of two evils
and vote for someone who promotes some policies you hate.
I have serious problems with all of
the above parties.
For all of them, I would be
voting for a lesser evil.
My dream party would be:
Secular,
libertarian.
Anti-censorship,
pro-sexual liberty,
anti-drug war.
(see Question 33.13)
shows
30 percent of British people in favour of Turkey joining the EU,
and 52 percent against.
