Monday 8 February 2016

Comment At "Thinking Taiwan" Article On The UK Petition To Recognize Taiwan

Here. I suppose it won't be long now before I am banned and accused of being a "troll", as is the standard practice among Leftists when dealing with someone who disagrees with them. Maybe I should take a break for a while and stop commenting, for the sake of my own sanity.

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The petition is little more than virtue signalling.

To take it at face value is ridiculous; it is in effect asking a government (Britain) whose own constitution is said to be "unwritten" though it is arguably laid out across several different historical documents, whose Parliamentary sovereignty and national independence is compromised by membership of the European Union, and whose constitutional safeguards (due process in the courts, trial by jury, the political independence of the Crown Prosecution Service etc) have been poisoned by legislation of successive governments (particularly Blair's)... to actually help another country whose diplomatic status is a mess, whose written constitution cannot be properly reformed for fear of Chinese aggression, and whose constitutional safeguards are little more than a questionable commitment to the absurd UN convention on human rights.

But it's a good idea because "democracy" or something.

This shallow, sanctimonious mythologizing of "democracy" is a serious problem which is not being taken seriously. There are at least two aspects to this "sacred democracy" problem. First, it clouds the issue which concerns the proper function of government; is it to safeguard the individual rights of the population and maintain some semblance of freedom, justice and order, or is it merely to pump out good numbers for GDP, CO2 etc and provide rule consistent with "the desires of the public" (i.e. instant mob-rule)? That clouding of the issue will serve as propaganda to protect the new government elect from criticism, in ways which the previous government could only have dreamed of. Second, it diverts attention away from the importance of constitutional forms and the limitations they set on the scope and exercise of political power.

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