Preparing For The Coming Battle A Time to Stand - Dr. Steve Elwart - Koinonia House

Preparing For The Coming Battle A Time to Stand - Dr. Steve Elwart - Koinonia House

A Time to Stand by Dr. Steve Elwart

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We are fast approaching a time when each of us will have to make some decisions—decisions about our life, our relationships, and our worldview.

After World War II, the Communist Party assumed control of Romania. Once the Communists came to power, they proceeded to co-opt the Church. They spoke of love and tolerance, but these words masked their true intentions.

Those Christians (including the clergy) who did not have a strong Biblical foundation were easily deceived and many who did were intimidated into silence.

After the takeover, the Romanian Communists convened a congress of four thousand priests, pastors, and ministers of all denominations in their Parliament building with the proceedings being carried in a national radio broadcast. One by one, the ministers got up and had nothing but words of praise forcommunism and assured the new government of the loyalty of the Christian Church.

Richard Wurmbrand

One of the pastors scheduled to speak was a man named Richard Wurmbrand. As he listened and waited, his wife Sabina leaned over to him and said, “They are spitting in the face of Christ. Richard, stand up and wash away this shame.”

He said to her, “If I do so, you lose your husband.” She replied, “I don’t wish to have a coward as a husband.”

So Wurmbrand rose and instead of repeating the same thing every other pastor said, he told the assembly how wrong they were and how this flew in the face of Christian doctrine.¹

At this point, the broadcast was interrupted and the martyrdom of the Wurmbrands began. Sabina went on to serve eight years in prison while Richard served a total of fourteen years, eight of which were in solitary confinement. As Richard Wurmbrand said,

In solitary confinement, we could not pray as before. We were unimaginably hungry…The Lord’s Prayer was much too long for us—we could not concentrate enough to say it. My only prayer repeated again and again was, “Jesus, I love You.”²

After he and his wife immigrated to the United States, he was called to testify before the United States Senate, stripping to the waist to reveal the scars of eighteen wounds received from frequent tortures. A reporter with the Philadelphia Herald said of Wurmbrand’s time in prison, “He stood in the midst of lions, but they could not devour him.”

Not all the Romanian clergy were as brave as this. Orthodox and Protestant churches would outdo each other in showing their loyalty to the Communist Party. One Orthodox bishop put the hammer and sickle on his robes and asked his priests to no longer call him “Your Grace,” but “Comrade Bishop.”

The deputy bishop of the Lutheran church in Romania began to teach in the theological seminary that God had given three revelations: one through Moses, one through Jesus, and the third through Stalin, the last superseding the other two.

What Happened?

The Communist coup in Romania was not like authoritarian takeovers in other countries. Rather than the systematic annihilation of their enemies, such as with the Castro regime in Cuba or the Pol Potgovernment in Cambodia, this coup was “civilized.”

Rather than an outright prosecution of the church, they seduced it. After the seduction came the oppression, but by that time it was too late. The time to fight back was past.

What would you do if you face a situation like the one confronting the Wurmbrands? We all like to think that when the time comes to stand up for our faith, we would be as heroic as Richard and Sabine Wurmbrand.

The truth is if a person has not conditioned himself to resist evil and waits for his “big moment,” he will find himself wanting. If one spends their life compromising their values in small ways, they will continue to compromise in larger ones. In today’s politically correct world, it is easy to find ways to compromise, to rationalize one’s actions. If one subscribes to the idea of relative values, there is no place where you can say, “This far and no more.” Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) once wrote,

What is morality in any given time or place? It is what the majority then and there happen to like, and immorality is what they dislike.

While written almost 100 years ago, this philosophy still defines the secular worldview today. While a Christian defines morality through the lens of the Bible, the World defines it according to the transient whims of the time.

Though Whitehead was raised in a Christian home, he rejected every aspect of Christian teaching. Amathematician and philosopher, Whitehead’s influence was felt on both sides of the Atlantic, as he taught at both Cambridge and Harvard.

Using these universities as his pulpit, Whitehead preached his version of “process theology.” a term used in his time for situational ethics, a philosophy that can be traced back as far as the teachings ofPlato. (It is also through the Greek school of thought that theologians began to allegorize the Bible, polluting God’s basic message to us.)

Relativistic morality is pervasive in the world today. In fact, those of us who hold to a Biblical worldview are not only in the minority, we are on the brink of being ostracized.

It is easy to talk about such things in theory, but it is another thing when it happens to you.

A Personal Stand

For this writer, the recent controversy over admitting homosexuals into the Boy Scouts was the event that turned theory into reality.

The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) was founded in 1910 under a charter granted by the United States Congress, one of only two organizations so honored (the other being the Red Cross). The principles of the organization are embodied by the Scout Oath:

The Scout Oath

On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight.

When I joined the Cub Scouts in 1959, the oath was clear and unambiguous. The organization embodied patriotism, a belief in God, the promise to live by the Golden Rule and to live a moral life.

Starting in the 1960s some people began questioning the mission of the Boy Scouts.

Attack from the Atheists

The first attack came from atheists. While the BSA will grant membership to anyone who believes in a “higher power”, atheists believed that the Boy Scouts should not discriminate against them and should grant membership to those who do not have any belief in God.

This issue seemed to be settled when in 1993 the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a lower federal court ruling on the issue. The case at hand was whether the Boy Scouts of America could deny membership to atheists and agnostics without violating federal anti-discrimination laws. The U.S. appeals court in Chicago concluded that the federal law forbidding discrimination in “places of public accommodation” did not include private groups such as the Boy Scouts. The ruling dismissed a lawsuit filed on behalf of a seven-year-old Illinois boy who refused to make the required Boy Scout pledge to “...do my duty to God and my country.”

As a result, while the BSA could maintain their policy on atheists, they were barred from many schools and other public buildings because of their stance on this issue.

More Attacks

The next group that challenged BSA policy was the homosexual lobby. They sued the BSA over the policy barring homosexuals from being Scouts or Scout leaders.

This issue was supposed to be resolved with the 2000 landmark Supreme Court case Boy Scouts of America v. Dale that ruled that as a private organization, the BSA could exclude a person from membership when “the presence of that person affects in a significant way the group’s ability to advocate public or private viewpoints.”

Even with a loss in the courts, the homosexual lobby then took a different tack—they went after the money. Those who wanted homosexuals in the BSA began to put pressure on contributors to the organization to withhold funding to effect a change in the rules.

The Current Controversy

In response to growing pressure to change its membership policy, in July 2012 the Executive Committee of the BSA’s Executive Board released a statement revealing that an “11 person committee” convened since 2010 by the BSA conducted a two-year review and reached a “unanimous consensus” recommending retaining the current membership policy.

Still not satisfied with the outcome, those that wanted a change continued to put pressure on BSA’s large contributors. In February of this year, UPS and Intel both announced that they would withhold their funding until BSA changed their membership policy.

In response, BSA announced that the Executive Board would vote again on the membership issue even though they voted to retain the current policy just seven months before. This decision caused an uproar within the BSA rank and file. Many felt that it was a betrayal of the leadership, caving in to money interests.

The Executive Board then reversed themselves yet again and announced that they would postpone their vote until the upcoming annual meeting, scheduled for next month.

Rules for Radicals

What is happening to the BSA is becoming a common occurrence in today’s society. An organization that used to be viewed as being synonymous with American Values has slowly become vilified and is now being projected as anti-American.

The tactics that were used to maneuver BSA to such a state come right out of a classic book written bySaul Alinsky titled, Rules for Radicals. Rule #13 in his book is, “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Alinsky codified a technique that has been used for years for people and groups to push through a particular agenda.

In this case the Boy Scouts were the target. Their position on homosexuals in Scouting was “frozen” in place and “personalized” in the persona of a Boy Scout who was expelled from Scouting for announcing that he was homosexual and a Cub Scout Leader who announced she was homosexual as well.

As a result, BSA found themselves “polarized.” They were polarized from much of America. They went from being held up as model for good citizenship to being booed during the opening flag ceremony at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

They have also polarized their membership. The policy the BSA Executive Board has decided to vote on is the worst of all worlds. The new motion would allow local units to decide for themselves whether or not to admit gays into their troops and packs. The Board argues that the units would not have to associate with homosexuals if they chose not to. In this regard, they are being disingenuous at best. Scouting units come together for larger activities involving multiple troops and packs.

The only way to be sure a unit would not associate with homosexuals in Scouting would be to isolate themselves completely from all other Scouting groups and activities.

In the name of tolerance, homosexual advocates have moved the BSA from mainstream to almost a fringe group.

But that is not enough for these activists. They have stated that they will not rest until BSA endorses the homosexual lifestyle.

While the tolerant attitude would be to “live and let live” and start their own scouting organization, they have decided to forcibly impose their values on others. They decided that they cannot tolerate intolerance.

This leaves the Christian Scout Leader or parent on the horns of a dilemma. It is very similar to one facing many people in conflict with their church. The question for them is “Do they stay in the organization and work within or do they leave that organization?”

For many leaders the only answer is to leave. To stay in the organization is to give a tacit endorsement to the policies they espouse.

What is happening to the BSA and their leaders is a microcosm of a larger secular war being waged on several fronts. The concept of Freedom of Religion is slowly being replaced with Freedom of Worship, relegating one’s faith and beliefs to the four walls of a building. God-given rights are being replaced with “rights” granted by the state, Freedom is being replaced with “fairness.”

Decision Time

We are fast approaching a time when each of us will have to be make some decisions—decisions about our life, our relationships, and our worldview.

The first thing we need to do is be strong in our faith. Are we secure in Him?

Next, we need a firm hold on our worldview. A worldview is the framework that we hang our life decisions on. If one believes that there are moral absolutes, then the decisions we make every day become easy. If our worldview consists of moral relativisms, then every decision and life choice is studied, considered, and worried over.

Ephesians 6 is one of the best instruction manuals for preparing for the coming battle. It teaches us to put on the Full Armor of God and to put it on before the battle is joined.

But we also must act. Before his death at the hands of the Nazis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote,

Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.

Each of us has a part to play in the battles to come. The question is: will we stand tall with Christ as Richard and Sabine Wurmbrand did, or will we spit in the Face of Christ?

This article was originally published in the
April 2013 Personal Update NewsJournal.
For a FREE 1-Year Subscription, click here.

Reverse migration ( Or the Syria Syndrome)

Reverse migration

Apr 8th, 2013

by Dan Atwater. @ Amerika

An estimated one hundred young men left the Netherlands to go to Syria to help their brethren fighting in the civil war. More are leaving soon.
Investigation suggests that this reverse migration consists of Netherlands-born muslims, usually with pretty decent school grades, radicalized only after receiving feedback from a small group of similarly-minded people and the immensely popular “internet imams.” Other euro-countries are also seeing the rise of these “sharia-tourists” too. Mosques, parents, politicians and independent groups in Syria are discouraging youth from coming to the country to fight. They opt for the most reasonable alternative, which is giving money for aid.
Until recently, discussion on this topic has been limited. All current discussions produce no answers, only the same circular reasoning. The result is that important questions are ignored in order to preserve the binary nature of politics. Since votes are like purchases, political ideas are “sold” to groups cultivated by promises. You are either good or bad, with us or against us. But there is another dimension to this situation.
The fundamental question is this: if a citizen of a European nation stands for introducing sharia law in that state, what in earth’s name is he doing in democratic, Jewish, Christian, pluralist Europe? People are like this are completely incompatible with the surrounding society they live in, and yet are mysteriously out of sight by the governments of such states. It is not surprising that they choose to leave for a society that, while perhaps less affluent, is more compatible with the values that are clearly close to their hearts.
As we all notice daily, life is full of choices. We each as individuals make choices every day. Some important, some unimportant. But we all have to live by the consequences of the choices we make. If I want to migrate to another society that offers what seems like a better life to me by my own individual standard, then I’m free to start working there with a visa and from there build up my own position.
Not all of us should make such a deal. People work best and contribute the most when they are comfortable with the people and society around them.
As a country, you have a responsibility to not infect the other apples in the basket. And that leads to the more dangerous questions about this issue. What kind of signal do you give the law-abiding European worker when governments respond to this situation by making two sets of rules, one for the Europeans and one for the immigrant-born? Is a democracy injected with skilled fighters, who fought for sharia law on another continent, a safer place? How are we going to take care of these people when they return maimed and with PTSD? But most importantly, if we’re going to have people here, should we make sure the values of their hearts are compatible with our culture, values and habits?
I can imagine that Americans have way more intellectual context about this, since they are surrounded by soldiers who fought to protect the American way of life. Europeans who are engulfed by ex-sharia fighters do not need PhDs to tell that this situation is unstable. Unless your brains are caught in an Amsterdam threesome with a bag of marijuana, a cheap hooker and a tram, you can see how illogical this two-faced approach is for Europe.
Fundamentally, this is a question of responsibility. If I want to fight a battle for sharia rights, than it is my right to do so! However, at that point my government has also got the right to cut me loose and to refuse to let me participate in western society anymore. At that point, I have chosen a different values system than the one that is European. This way each party finds the surroundings that are most comfortable to them.
This is exactly what needs to be done. Reverse migration shows us the choices that people make when they think about values, and the schism that they keep in their hearts. Instead of forcing migrants to abandon their values, we should stop being two-faced and state clearly what we value. This forces each person to make the choice and face the consequences. If someone is incompatible here, we should cut them loose to find a place that fits their needs.

Labour's moral squalor | Melanie Phillips

Labour's moral squalor | Melanie Phillips

Does the Labour Party really believe it was entirely right and proper that Mick Philpott, who has been jailed for life for the manslaughter of six children – five of them his own -- should have been subsidised on welfare to the tune of upwards of £60,000 per year? It certainly looks as if it does.
Labour’s Treasury spokesman Ed Balls has been expressing his horror at the ‘divisive and cynical’ remarks made by the chancellor, George Osborne, who asked why taxpayers were subsidising lifestyles such as Philpott’s. It would surely have been rather more edifying had Balls expressed his horror instead at Philpott’s lifestyle.
For it was not just that Philpott had caused the deaths of six children in the house fire he had plotted with his wife and a friend to frame Philpott’s mistress for arson and gain a bigger house. It was that he used his women as milch cows, producing children so that he could live off the welfare benefits they accrued, raking in thousands of pounds per year in child benefit and working family tax credits as well as the money his wife and mistress brought in from their work as cleaners. The more children they produced for him, the more cash he trousered from them – while all the time treating them abominably.
In other words, he used his children’s very existence to gain money for his sexually depraved, drug-fuelled, abusive lifestyle. And while of course other benefit claimants do not deliberately torch their houses and kill their children, the fact remains that unconditional welfare payments, in particular child benefit which is paid on the birth of every child regardless of family circumstances, act as a direct incentive for the mass fatherlessness and the consequent instrumentalisation and gross neglect of children that now characterise welfare deserts up and down the country where depravity, cruelty, neglect, sexual abuse and violence are the norm.
Britain’s welfare system, in other words, is inescapably implicated in creating lifestyles of profound amorality and barbarism. It not only subsidises them, but actively creates an attitude of mind which is deeply self-centred, regarding the world as owing the claimant a living, sinking into patterns of indolence, hedonism and squalor, and treating those who should be recipients of love and duty instead as objects to be used for self-gratification and as whipping-boys when they dare make any demands of their own. Worse still, it then perpetuates itself down through the generations in inherited cycles of dysfunctionality, creating a class apart which is simply separated from civilised society.
Those who claim that such an analysis demonises the poor are themselves wholly complicit in condoning and incentivising the neglect and victimisation of children, the abandonment and abuse of women and the spreading of violence and hideous selfishness in ever widening circles of demoralisation and dysfunctionality.
There are many truly poor and disadvantaged people who, through no fault of their own, really cannot escape their straitened circumstances but who nevertheless lead lives of sobriety, orderliness and civilised values. It is hard to exaggerate the fury felt by these people, who are forced to live on welfare benefits, at the way in which people like Philpott not only shamelessly milk the system but are treated as equally deserving as themselves.
But of course, to the left the distinction between the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor is itself evil and must never be drawn because it ‘demonises the disadvantaged’. But drawing a distinction between good and bad behaviour and holding people responsible for their actions is the essence of morality. If you insist on non-judgmentally rewarding those who behave badly or antisocially, you actively encourage that bad or antisocial behaviour – and thus you help make victims of others.
Such non-judgmentalism is therefore a profoundly amoral position. And that is the position taken by the left. It not only negates personal responsibility but also free will -- which is the essence of being human. Shedding crocodile tears for the poor, the left in fact treats them as sub-human – and in its own narcissistic moral blindness, actively promotes both individual and social harm.
That is the true evil of the left; and that is the revolting yoke which, by screaming at George Osborne and Iain Duncan Smith over Philpott and welfare reform rather than crying out over the dead children and the lifestyle which created that horror, Balls and Miliband have now hung round Labour’s neck.

The corrupting of the USA is complete

The corruption of America is complete

By Lord Howard Hurts

The corruption of America is complete. The Congress is corrupt. The Supreme Court is corrupt, and the President is both corrupt and a fraud. How can this be possible? Because the citizenry of this nation, for the most part, is the product of an education system that has brainwashed it students for several decades. These "Blind Sheep" only know how to destroy, or pick apart,  any subject or person. They are not capable of logical reasoning. This birth certificate issue is one where logical reasoning would apply.

The case has been made by reasonable persons qualified in the field of document analysis that this document is a composite and a fraud. The press doesn't listen and then ask questions about the results found, it asks questions and attacks the persons who have presented the creditable evidence. THE GAME IS RIGGED. We have a Republican candidate for President who is aware of this birth certificate issue and is being pummeled in the press to give up more tax returns so that the Democrats can destroy him by nonsense. And yet this coward, Mitt Romney, refuses to attack this fraud of a President on the birth certificate issue.

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All this confusion could be ended in one afternoon. President Obama could let Sheriff Arpaio view his real birth certificate in the vault in Hawaii, under the "protective eyes" of the press, so that it could be ascertained that the Internet version of this birth certificate and the one in the vault are one in the same. But this is not going to happen for two reasons: 1. The two versions of this certificate will not match, and 2.This great distraction is a divisional issue between the Patriot's of America and the Republican, public educated, "Blind Sheep". It is good sport as we say in England.

So now, you say, "Well if the documents don't match, that fact in itself is a crime." Yes, but does anyone really believe that it is worth fighting a civil war over such an issue? Don't mentally jump ahead, continue reading. Then you have the next question: "If the birth certificates don't match, then Obama might not be an American." Well here is where the opposition is using the true facts against the persons using logic. The opposition knows that Obama was born in Hawaii and that both his parents were American citizens. They know that Obama Sr. was not the father of the President Obama Jr.  Many of these cowards in the Congress know the answer. The answer would embarrass not only President Obama, but would embarrass the nation. President Obama might not have known the actual truth of his birth until 10 years ago. Of this I am not certain, but I am sure that by the time he knew the true answer to the name of his father, he was already committed, and it was too late to correct the facts. So how do I know all this? Read on....................

I recognized President Obama as a Marxist and was determined to find a way to "spotlight" his true politician leanings. The birth certificate issue seemed the easiest issue available so I "attacked it". Well, I had no idea that it would take nearly 3 million dollars to get to the truth of the issue. And I spent 3 long years trying to find the "weak link" in the chain to bring this birth certificate to "light".

As I worked to figure a way to get into the vault in Hawaii, I had wondered many times about why Obama was so concerned about someone viewing his actual birth certificate. My mind wandered just as the minds of many others had done. I also had wondered why The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations, otherwise known as the Mossad, had not provided the proof of the "missing Obama birth certificate". I have several friends inside this organization and had "prodded" them to "blast" the Obama administration with the proof (I knew, at the  time, that they had a copy of the Obama birth certificate that is locked in the vault in Hawaii). Well, I heard no response, one way or the other. Silence.

I should have known that "Silence" meant that what they found was next to worthless (there are many outlets that would have fronted and presented this information had it been offered). But I plodded along, thinking that there was some convoluted reason for the Mossad not providing the information to "Sink Obama". I can only say that it was a difficult and most often frustrating journey to finally get a true copy of the Obama birth certificate in hand. And then suddenly, once secured, I find that this document is nearly worthless as a tool to pry this most inept, and corrupt, individual (Obama) from office.

Looking back, I should have figured if the Mossad had no interest, then it was a "blind alley", so to speak. Now I find myself at a crossroad, and at the same time in a precarious situation. The document I have procured holds nothing that a court of law would rule as an obstacle to B.H. Obama being President of the United States of America. Of this I am certain. He is in fact a Natural Born Citizen, and there is no dispute about this. Now, in my attempt to "make history", I have breached many laws, and should I make this document public, the only thing that will be accomplished is that the previously posted birth certificate, on the Internet, will not match this actual B.H. Obama birth certificate found in the vault in Hawaii. Big deal! Oh, and I would be arrested for obtaining a document by purloined means.

Now here is the key, and something that I should have picked up on years ago: Dr. Fukino says that she sent 2 copies, of this original birth certificate to President Obama. I believe her. But has anyone asked her if the birth certificate posted on the Internet, by Obama, is the same as the ones she sent to Obama? Her answer would have to be, No. She also stated, and it is documented,  that she viewed the document 2 times in the vault in Hawaii, and that the certificate was half typed and half hand written. Is the Internet document half hand written? No. Then it is not a photo copy of the ones sent by Dr. Fukino to Obama. So now you can "see" that I am in a "Stand Off" with Obama.

If he pushes to have me arrested, I can easily make this copy of his birth certificate available to some friendly media outlet. So why should he "push me" if I keep the information hidden? But then again, why should I make it known that I have a copy of his birth certificate in the first place? Because too many people who look for negative information about Obama seem to suffer from "heart attacks", and if I should have a sudden "heart attack", the document will find its way to some media outlet. Obama is ahead now, so why test fate and "push buttons" that may change the game? If you read my postings at: freedomfiles.blogspot.com you will find that I have had several incidents where individuals have been "following" me, and I have had to relocate myself, in several different countries, so as to feel safe. I am presently outside of the U.S. and will continue to stay outside until something changes. So my advice to Sheriff Arpairo is to quit while you are ahead. The trail has been nothing but a "Red Herring". Finding the real birth certificate will not gain you anything. Now a message for true American Patriot's like Sheriff Arpairo:

The Presidential election of 2012 may be the pivotal point for this great Republic. To think that the fate of the nation is based on the economy is pure folly. To believe that Republican Romney will revive the economy because he was a successful businessman is a total misunderstanding of the seriousness of a nation without a "Moral Compass". This nation, and the world, is on the brink of total collapse due to economies based on promissory paper, and political promises, rather than hard assets such as gold or platinum. What we should be concerned with is electing a leader who will provide security to the citizens while restoring integrity to government, and who will defend the Constitution as it is written.

When these three goals are met, the economy will restore itself. It is also time to eliminate the Department of Education because as the cost of education increased over the past 30 years, the American student scored lower, and lower, when compared to students of other nations; nations that provide education for half the cost of the inferior American education. And this is why I believe that Allen West is the person that the Republican's should draft as their candidate for President. In the trying times coming only a military man will be able to make the "hard" decisions needed to keep this nation from entering into a destructive civil war. Elect Obama, Romney, or Hillary Clinton, and say hello to: The United States of Socialist America.

Lord Howard Hurts

UK’s rulers ‘out of touch’ with common folk

Millionaires’ reign: UK’s rulers ‘out of touch’ with common folk

 

Britain’s new political elite is an 

assortment of multi-millionaires 

who studied at 

exclusive universities. 

But down on the streets 

there is a growing sentiment 

that those running

 the country 

are detached from 

those they lead.

The latest example of how a few careless words by a millionaire
in power triggers anger from the people affected by his governmental
decisions comes from Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith.
On Monday, he claimed in a live radio talk show that if he
had to he could live on 53 pounds (US$80) a week.

That’s the sum that one of the callers said is left to
survive on after the government’s latest housing
 welfare cuts. Starting this week, some 2.4 million
households are facing a rise in taxes, averaging 138 pounds ($210) per year.

Hours later an astonishing 97,000 people signed an
 online petition on the change.org website calling on
 Duncan Smith to prove his words. The text challenged
 him to “live on this budget for at least one year”instead
of spending his salary, which is almost 50 times higher.

At a time when the UK is facing painful public cuts,
 many feel the authorities are detached from those
 suffering from the measures being taken, reports RT’s
 Sara Firth from London.

“They’ve got no idea what it’s like, they’re making all these attacks 
and they’ve never been unemployed people living on 56 pounds a week,”
  Helen, a protesting public worker, told RT. “
They’ve no idea what it’s like to be a hard-working person 
wanting to do well when you’re having your pay cut, yours hours attacked. 
They get tax cuts we get tax increases. It’s disgraceful.”

While the ordinary citizens have to cope with less benefits and higher costs,
Britain’s 13,000 top earners are receiving a 100,000-pound tax cut, the Labour Party claims.

While Labour might be accused of scoring political points by waging class warfare,
they don’t escape harsher criticism. Ed Miliband
and his wealthy counterparts have been dubbed ‘champagne socialists’ by critics.

With Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne
having just delivered his budget for 2013 amid a
coalition-tailored climate of austerity, the question stands:
can the political elite really understand what the cuts mean for ordinary voters?

Conservatives are not looking far to explain
how it’s not their fault that the situation is gloomy.

"You can always come up with things that have gone wrong.
 With the bad economic situation that we inherited it was
 almost inevitable that we were going to lose our AAA rating,"
Conservative MP Geoffrey Clifton-Brown told RT.

UK unemployment is up, growth is down and ordinary British people feel unrepresented.
And the resurgence of the toffs to some is an indicator of a much greater malaise.

“There is a problem with the political class in general. 
It is actually out of touch with the general population. T
hey don’t really understand how a lot of families are suffering
now with rising basic costs. And of course it’s very much this top-down elites’ policies
that is driving these costs up,” Richard Wellings from the Institute of Economic Affairs told RT.

from Russia Today  

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Advice for Conservatives

Simple advice for Conservatives

Mar 2013

by Brett Stevens.

On both sides of the Atlantic ocean conservatives are in disarray. Soul-searching and rending of cloaks follows lost elections or foregone opportunities. Everyone seems to know what to do, except that means that no one knows what to do because there are too many options.

Relying on articles written in the mainstream press and their own internal debates, conservatives are generating massive storms of confused statements. In doing so, they are acting out the dreams of their enemies, because the confusion and fear are palpable, and are alienating voters at a rapid pace.
Complexity has arisen where none needs to be. Instead of relying on this completely dysfunctional process, conservatives should consider going back to the type of simple advice that has guided us in the past. Ours is a viewpoint of gut instinct and holistic knowledge, and it’s not going to fit in any other template.
1. Identify what you stand for.
An alarming number of conservatives have no idea what conservatism is. They can recite positions on certain issues, or quote public authorities, but they have no idea what the philosophy is as a whole. Liberals have a clear ideology, libertarians have a single rule, but what do conservatives have? Billions of hours of video, reams of paper, tons of commentary, and the end result is chaos.
What is conservatism? By the nature of its name, it is to conserve: this means to save what is good, pitch out what is bad, and ignore the rest. Logically, this extends to a few other ideas. First, we’re about results and consequences in reality; this is not ends over means, per se, but paying more attention to ends/goals as contrasted to results. Second, this requires a study of the past to know which ends we’ll achieve with our actions. Finally, this implicates a goal that is ongoing and timeless; in our case, it’s a quest to produce the best society possible by following “the good, the beautiful and the true.”
2. Do not be reactionary.
A non-reactionary conservative is baffling to liberals. They do not like whole truths. Their movement is social, which means it is based in individuals regulating their self-esteem through participation. This means that they do not attempt risky things like creation of new ideas, but instead focus on details of the current system that they do not like. When they spot an offensive detail, they rally the troops for a Two Minutes Hate, and then attack obsessively.
By no means should conservatives ever stoop to the liberal level and talk about details, or things we dislike. Among other things, you will never beat liberals at complaining: they are the masters, and they are a billion times better than you will ever be. Focus on the big picture instead, and where we want to be eventually.
3. Do not adopt the values of your opposition.
Right now, the right is a giant stack of people all shouting at each other. Things are wrong! Somebody fix it! Since most of them are accustomed to business, they offer a business-y solution: figure out what the other guy is doing, and imitate it.
However, in business as in politics, this is a bad idea if you’re behind. The other guy has the upper hand in that area, and by imitating him, you offer an inferior substitute, not a different option. This drives away people who want an honest option while simultaneously failing to attract people to you who will get a better deal with the other guy.
In the case of Republicans, trying to be more leftist is a strategy destined to fail spectacularly, which is why liberals consistently urge us to adopt it. They tell us that if we be more like them, we’ll get the votes; in fact, we’ll lose our audience and fail to gain theirs, and basically die out at that point.
We should have learned this with John McCain. Throughout his campaign, he waited nervously by the podium chewing his nails. When a liberal suggested a plan, he leaped into action, proclaiming his own plan which was basically the same except it had some advantage in the details. Everyone nodded and ignored him, because he made himself irrelevant.
Romney/Ryan were doing their best in the polls when they had strong conservative opinions that stood out from others, and when they emphasized common sense whole solutions like fixes to the economy and society. They lost as soon as they got cowed by media coverage of the 47% remark, and started trying to imitate leftist positions.
We cannot be bigger gift-givers or immigration-panderers than the Democrats. They offer everything we offer, and more, because Democrats are the party of pluralism, or of not having social standards at all. Democrats are the party of the ego, of the individual, of the lack of order. They offer people virtually no rules and free bennies.
We can’t beat that without becoming non-conservatives, at which point everyone will flock to the Democratic party anyway. Do not try to play this game as it will fail.
Simple ideas, deep effect
A simple detail is an annoyance; a simple highly abstract statement can summarize a belief. For example, Marxists have the idea of class revolt through dialectics; anarchists have the idea of no leaders. We need to stick to similar simple ideas as conservatives, and stop the panic and chicken little activity so that we can focus on what makes us popular with other conservatives, and use that consensus to win.

France Laid Waste | American Renaissance

France Laid Waste | American Renaissance

France Laid Waste

Rémi Tremblay, American Renaissance, March 15, 2013

Immigration and crime in la belle France.

Laurent Obertone, La France Orange Mécanique, Ring, 2013, 350 pp., €18 (in French only)

La France Orange Mécanique (Clockwork Orange France) became an instant best seller in France, finding itself in the top-ten list on Amazon.fr despite no advertising and a virtually unknown author. Even in a climate of reduced book sales, the publisher, Ring, has recently had an additional 18,000 copies printed. Some reviewers note that if this book—which describes the true face of crime in France—had been published before last year’s presidential elections, it might have had an impact on the outcome, swaying votes towards the Right.

The book, whose title refers to the 1962 Anthony Burgess novel about “ultra-violence,” begins with an all-too-common event: a white woman is savagely beaten and raped almost to death by a foreigner. This gruesome rape is presented from the victim’s perspective, allowing the reader to grasp the horror of the situation—a horror that can be washed away in a sea of statistics: 7 percent of French women are raped at some point in their lives, and there are 13,000 thefts, 2,000 assaults and 200 rapes every day in France. Behind these statistics, there are personal dramas and shattered lives. For each crime, there is a life that will never be the same. This is what Laurent Obertone wants us to remember: Crime is not a matter of numbers; it is devastating trauma.
Beyond the crime statistics, many lives are ruined by daily harassment from immigrants, but victims get no support from society and resign themselves to their fate. They suffer from depression, fear, and even suicide, but they never appear in official reports: They will be forgotten and ignored.
In pointing out how heavily concentrated crime is among immigrants, Mr. Obertone breaks a major taboo. He is frank about the vast overrepresentation of Gypsies and North Africans in French prisons. In France, there are no official statistics about ethnicity and crime, but there are figures for the number of foreigners in the prison system (22 percent). These statistics are skewed because an Arab born in France is considered a Frenchman. Ironically, Mr. Obertone has to cite a study reported in the Washington Post to conclude that between 60 and 70 percent of the prison population is Muslim.
Mr. Obertone has also found local racial statistics on crime for some towns and cities, which confirm the overrepresentation of non-whites in prison. He shows that this not a uniquely French phenomenon; in European countries blacks and Arabs are always overrepresented in the criminal population. He makes an air-tight case for what everyone knows but dares not say: The explosion of crime is directly linked to immigration.

“Ultra-violence” in the movie adaptation of Burgess’ Clockwork Orange.

France is, indeed, becoming one of the most dangerous of all Western societies: 1,200 homicides each year and 1,000 attempted homicides. Crime now costs French citizens 115 billion Euros each year—twice the revenue generated from income taxes. Common criminals now confront police with automatic rifles and assault weapons, once used only by organized crime.
Police officers themselves are victims of harassment and open provocation by criminals, but receive no support from the media or authorities. When they enforce the law they are routinely accused of “racism.” Mr. Obertone reports that the police union now says offices are afraid to use force, for fear of racial consequences. Criminals therefore no longer fear the police, and their authority is further diminished when criminals get limited or no jail time. There are few deterrents to crime and criminals know it.
This undoubtedly explains why race riots in France are more frequent and violent than in any other European country. The authorities have surrendered to blackmail and have invested billions of Euros in some 700 “sensitive neighborhoods,” proving that the more you destroy, the more you are rewarded. Police rarely enter these neighborhoods for fear their mere presence could be a “provocation.” Mr. Obertone says that the media and politicians nevertheless blame the police for the high percentage of immigrants in jail. The only accepted explanations are discrimination and profiling.

The liberal view of the police.

The French judiciary system is like that of the United States in the 1960s and ’70s: the emphasis is on prevention and rehabilitation. For French sociologists and so-called experts, it is still the fashion to blame society exclusively for crime. The focus is thus on compassion for the culprit, with no regard for the victim. Basically, only recidivists are sentenced to prison, and prison terms are often suspended.
In France, 2,250 women have been raped by recidivists. According to Mr. Obertone, the real number is considerably higher, because some rapists are never caught and because some rapes are classified as “sexual assaults” and are therefore not counted as rape.
Even with low incarceration rates, prisons are at 117 percent of capacity. Socialist politicians block the construction of new jails, which they would see as an admission that society is failing. Only in the 1980s and 1990s did Americans come to realize that long prison terms are what keep a society safe.
The media hide the reality of crime in France, using euphemisms to talk about the few events they dare to mention. Criminals are “youths,” even if they are in their twenties, and savagery is sanitized with such terms as “aggravated assault” and “sexual assault.”
The government helps cover things up, launching campaigns for traffic safety and condemning domestic violence against women, although these phenomena are statistically insignificant. These campaigns detract from the real problems, and suggest a lack of political will to solve them. On the political front, everyone is silent. The Right is afraid of the Left, and the Left is afraid of the truth.

In 2005, French “youths”–Muslims and Africans–rioted throughout Parisian suburbs and other cities, leading authorities to declare a state of emergency.

And yet, there are crimes the media and politicians are happy to discuss: those against certain minorities. Fighting anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and homophobia are important priorities, and the government spends a great deal of money trying to eradicate these evils. However, Mr. Obertone notes that only 0.03 percent of the Muslims, 0.06 percent of the Jews, and 0.007 percent of homosexuals are reported victimized each year. Why single them out, when a far larger percentage—0.7 percent—of French natives are victimized each year? Despite what the media and politicians say, it is safer to be a Jew, a Muslim, or a homosexual than to be an ordinary Frenchman. Needless to say, minor acts committed against minorities are huge stories, while luridly racist crimes committed against whites are downplayed or ignored.
Mr. Obertone writes that most of the French seem to have fallen asleep in front of their TV sets and shut themselves off from what is happening in their country. Even when they realize something is wrong, they are afraid to speak up, afraid of being called a racist and thus risking their livelihoods. As it is everywhere in the West, anyone accused of racism is guilty until proven innocent.

In France there is a myriad of antiracist groups that play the role of “thought police,” and ensure that no one questions the system. These groups, generously subsidized by the government, target only one type of racism and are completely blind towards anti-white racism—even though today, one French native in ten considers himself a victim of racism.

“Death to whites.”

In his discussion about the cause of crime, Mr. Obertone refers to IQ without explicitly mentioning race. He explains that the average unskilled worker has an IQ of 92, and that the great majority of Arabs are working class. Thus, we cannot expect the same results from them as from French natives. His logic is a simple way of implying racial differences without stating them bluntly. Candor on these matters can bring criminal charges.
Despite the serious nature of the topic of this book, the tone is sometimes humorous. The author is not overly academic or sensationalist, and the book is easy to read despite its liberal use of statistics. Mr. Obertone does not make utopian promises about stopping crime; he simply presents a realistic portrait of a situation deliberately ignored by the media and politicians. But the mere appearance of a book of this kind and the reception it has received are grounds for celebration.

Comic Relief Finances Extremist and Muslim Groups

Comic Relief Finances Extremist Groups

 

From Stand for Peace
On March 15, the British charity Comic Relief will hold its high-profile fundraising telethon, Red Nose Day. Since its creation, Comic Relief has raised £800 million from mass public donations and corporate sponsors, which has gone to over 15,000 different charitable projects based both in the UK and abroad. On 15^thMarch, the 2013 Red Nose Day telethon will distribute more millions of pounds. But who gets the money?
War on Want
War on Want is a leading British charity that has received just under £1.5 million of Comic Relief’s funds. It has also obtained just under half a million pounds from the European Commission and about £160,000 from the British Government. The stated aims of War on Want include the promise “to relieve global poverty however caused through working in partnership with people throughout the world.” Such a claim suggests a forward-thinking organization that acts in the interest of progress and prosperity; regrettably, the opposite is true.
War on Want has been criticized by many individuals and organisations, including British cabinet minister Teresa Villiers MP as well as the watchdog group NGO Monitor, which issued a report that concluded:

War on Want is an extremely politicised NGO which actively promotes the Durban Strategy and uses anti-Semitic themes to attack Israel. Given WoW’s extensive political campaigning and lobbying efforts, its one-sided approach to the conflict that ignores Palestinian terrorism, and the recurring investigations by the Charity Commission, funding from the EU and UK to this NGO is highly problematic.

In 2010, War on Want produced a list of recommended books for its supporters. War on Want’s Executive Director, John Hilary, explained:

One of our volunteers asked us the other day to recommend key books for someone wanting to learn more about Palestine. For anyone seeking a first guide, Ben White’s Israeli Apartheid (Pluto Press, 2009) gives a good overview and set of sources.

Ben White is the author of Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide. He has previously written in defence of Iranian President Ahmedinejad against claims of Holocaust Denial and anti-Semitism. Further, in an article entitled, Is It “Possible” to Understand the Rise in “Anti-Semitism”?, published on extremist website CounterPunch, White linked the rise of anti-Semitism with “the widespread bias and subservience to the Israeli cause in the Western media.” He concluded, “I do not consider myself an anti-Semite, yet I can also understand why some are.”
Hilary also encouraged campaigners to read Shlomo Sand’s book, The Invention of the Jewish People, which posits that the Jews, as a single collectivity, do not exist.
Further, War on Want openly supported a tour organized by the British Committee for Universities for Palestine, which brought extremist Bongani Masuku to speak at a number of British Universities. The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) found Masuku to have wilfully incited violence between different student groups on campus.
Hilary has blamed Jews for criticizing War on Want, claiming that investigations into War on Want’s activities were “part of an ongoing strategy by an organised pro-Israeli lobby and the Jewish press.” In the past, Hilary has been happy to work with the Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC), an extremist Islamist group that was condemned by both the National Union of Students and a Parliamentary committee for publishing anti-Semitic materials. The founder of MPAC, Asghar Bukhari, notoriously provided financial support to the Holocaust denier David Irving.
Muslim Women’s Association of Edinburgh
In 2012, just under £10,000 was given to the Muslim Women’s Association of Edinburgh [MWAE], an Islamist group that has supported the jihadist Syed Talha Ahsan, who was extradited to the USA in 2012 on charges of providing material support to the Taliban and the Chechen Mujahideen.
The MWAE has organized an “Islamophobia Awareness Conference” for next month, which it is promoting on its website. The proposed speakers include:

• Inayat Banglawala, a radical Islamist who circulated the writings of the “freedom fighter” Osama bin Laden a few months before 9/11, and who described Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, a jihadist imprisoned for planning to set off bombs in New York, as “courageous”;
• Yvonne Ridley, an Islamist convert who founded the pro-Hamas group Viva Palestina with pro-Assad politician, George Galloway MP. Viva Palestina notoriously handed over bundles of cash to Palestinian terror group Hamas on a Viva Palestina convoy to Gaza;
• Eddi Truman, the co-founder of Islamophobia Watch, an organization with a long history of attacking anti-Islamist Muslims and defending extremist groups;

Worthing Islamic Socialand Welfare Society
Comic Relief has given £4,500 to Worthing Islamic Social and Welfare Society, a local community organization whose website promotes the works of Abul Ala Maududi, founder of the violent Bangladeshi Islamist group Jamaat-e-Islami. The Society also promotes publications of the Muslim Education Trust, including a pamphlet written by Ibrahim Hewitt, entitled What Does Islam Say?, which advocates the death penalty for apostates and adulterers and demands that homosexuals suffer “severe punishments” for their “great sin.” Further, the Society offers books by Turkish cult leader and Holocaust Denier Harun Yahya as well as Muslim Brotherhood cleric Yusuf Al Qaradawi.

Trócaire

Trocaire has received millions of pounds from the well-meaning public, who are unaware that their funds will be used for highly politicized activities. Trocaire has been accused of an anti-Semitic obsession with Israel. The charity’s Palestine co-ordinator, Gary Walsh, is the former National Coordinator of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC). The IPSC has a long history of supporting Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah — Raymond Deane, IPSC chairman, described Hezbollah’s murderous and unprovoked attack on Israeli soldiers in 2006 as “perfectly legitimate”.

 

Unsustainable

Feb  2013

by Brett Stevens.

Buzzwords let us speak without communicating. They refer indirectly to a presumed shared mission, and also reference what’s current, so they allow instant entry into the theater of relevance as seen by most of our fellow citizens. The buzzword “sustainable” has snowballed from a simple idea into a mental gridlock.
Originally used to describe self-renewing resource cultivation, “sustainable” came to mean — as do all things in a world gone mad for commerce and equality — a lifestyle. It began like many things before to reek of the type of existence that people wanted to see themselves as living, namely the opposite of what they do.
Sustainability conjured up images of the fiercely independent explorers living alone on the veldt, powered by solar panels and growing their own food. It also meant pleasant visions of ourselves as a society: noble, enlightened, having transcended all that dirty technology and primitive thinking, living in New Age harmony with nature and Utopia.
Buzzwords will make you cynical because they are not actual communication, but communication by reference. When we state our goals as a string of trendy adjectives, it becomes clear that there is no plan, and the buzzwords are serving to allow us to justify doing exactly what we were doing, with a few patches applied.
However, buzzwords conceal a hidden meaning. They are popular because people like the vision they conjure up, even if it is used to manipulate them later. People want something that can keep going without constantly consuming and destroying good things, as they intuitively perceive that our society does.
When we look at modern society historically however it becomes clear that it is not “sustainable” on any of a number of levels. The obvious ones are that it depends on constant growth, and thus constant population expansion and constant development of natural resources. It is a Tragedy of the Commons writ large, albeit a slow one.
Another level where it is unsustainable can be found in the architecture of the society itself.
It takes centuries to see the effects of any political change. We don’t have centuries since we are mortal. Even more, every generation wants to make a name for itself and to produce some kind of big change that has an emotional impact. We all want to slay the dragon and take home the princess.
The result is that we’ve been piling untested political ideas on top of each other for the last three centuries. We start with a supposition, come up with a political plan, and then after implementing it, wait about five years before assuming that it worked. Sometimes we might even wait twenty years, but that’s rare.
The result is like a rambling house. Started from a small design, it grows by additions. On a whim, people add on to what is there, without testing the underlying architecture. Soon more rooms are piled on top of the same supports. The wood groans. It awaits only a small disaster to fall.
In 1789 France, we started with the idea of political equality as a goal. The goal of society was to serve the citizens as individuals, not to govern itself as a whole, like an organic entity would. Despite numerous wars and social chaos, that didn’t kill us, we kept building onto that edifice.
Our notion is that this is like an arcology, or a city built in exclusively vertical ways so that it will use less land and be more efficient. In reality, it’s a teetering structure with no actual design, with people slapping on patches or additions where possible to “make a name for myself.”
By switching to rule by every individual, instead of letting exceptional individuals rule, we have made a Tragedy of the Commons out of our own society. People take prestige, and leave behind untested political plans piled on one another. It’s only now, centuries later, that we see the full effects.
Why does it take so long to see these effects? First, because people are slow to change. Second, because most of their effects are indirect through changes to how people live, reproduce, raise kids, have values and what they expect. Finally, because the psychological effects of government are bigger than we think.
Every act of a government is either an endorsement or a condemnation. When we make a law saying that anyone driving with a blood alcohol level of more than .10 is guilty of a crime, we have officially condoned driving around after two beers. In the same way, government legislation of sexual morality, civil rights, child care, etc. has consequences.
Our rambling house of political assumptions was never very stable, but it took centuries to see it. Now, after the carnage and disasters of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, people are ready to consider that we may have taken a wrong turn, and it’s time to rip this house back to the studs and build it from a blueprint, this time.

TRAITORS Vs TRAITORS CHAOS AT BOLTONS COUNCILS COUNCIL TAX MEETING

CHAOS ERUPT WHEN PAID TRADE UNION AND MARXIST PAID LACKEYS DISRUPTED THE TREASONOUS ASSEMBLY KNOWN AS THE BOLTON COUNCIL. THAT IS RULED BY THE SUPREME TRAITORS OF THE LABOUR PARTY WHO PREFER MOSQUES TO HOMES FOR BRITISH PEOPLE!

Despite a rise in the unlawful council tax of 3.5% by the Labour led council. They have still managed to cut spending on services for the English people of £43.6 million. I can bet that they have cut the money from essential  services for the British residents of Bolton and kept the high level of spending on there ethnic allies and trade union jobs for the boys supporters who just put on a show of demonstration at said meetings to grab headlines. When as i believe they and there fellow traitors are in bed with one another to put another nail in the coffin of the true people of Bolton.

The whole episode is a sickening display of treachery and compliance in treason. all with there little unison and GMB flags why not show you true colours and fly the flag of Saudi or the Hammer and sickle. 
With a properly run and competent run council of British patriots i am sure that millions would not be wasted on PC addled culturally divisive programmes of waste, and tokenism by employing people who are not fit for purpose in there jobs , but who are there for gender or or race purposes only. And there more mediocre the better to further there common purpose aims!

Do we need IQ tests for juries? | Melanie Phillips

Do we need IQ tests for juries? | Melanie Phillips

Published in: Daily Mail

By discharging the jury which had failed to reach even a majority verdict, the judge, Mr Justice Sweeney, did not hide his astonishment and dismay at the way it had behaved.
On Tuesday, the jurors had presented him with a list of ten questions which revealed that they simply did not have a clue about what they had heard as evidence, what they had been told by himself or indeed what they were supposed to be doing there at all.
For example, they asked for a definition of reaching a verdict ‘beyond reasonable doubt’. This was despite the fact that the judge had already given them guidance on this in writing.
Mr Justice Sweeney effectively threw up his hands in despair, saying that these were ‘ordinary English words’ that he could not define any further.
Bafflingly, they asked whether a wife’s religious conviction would make her feel that she had no option but to obey her husband. But since Vicky Pryce’s religious beliefs had not even been mentioned, this was clearly totally irrelevant to the case.
Equally perplexingly, they asked whether the defendant had an obligation to present a defence. In reply, the judge reminded them he had told them that the defendant did not have to prove anything at all.
Most extraordinary of all, they asked whether they could reach a verdict based on a reason that was not presented in court and had no facts or evidence to support it.
Since a criminal trial is no more or less than a trial of the evidence, such a question revealed a fundamental lack of understanding of what a criminal trial actually is.
No wonder the judge said that some of these questions had shown a ‘fundamental deficit in understanding’ of the jury’s role, and that in 30 years of criminal trials he had not come across anything similar.
The jury’s questions open up a deeply worrying vista. Dating back to the Magna Carta in 1215, the jury system has been at the heart of our criminal justice system.
It is the historic guarantor of our liberties that people accused of serious crimes should be judged by a jury of their peers. That right has been fiercely fought for, and robustly defended during those periods of our history when it has been threatened by over-weening governments.
The tradition is believed to have its origins in Anglo Saxon custom, which dictated that an accused could be acquitted if enough people came forward to swear his innocence.
The fact that these are ordinary people, chosen more or less at random from the public, is considered rightly to be a bulwark against abuses of legal or judicial authority.
True, there have long been concerns that juries are not sophisticated enough to cope with highly complicated trials such as fraud cases. But the short trial of Vicky Pryce was hardly a complicated case.
The judge issued his guidance to the jury in clear English. And yet these jurors clearly failed to understand what he had said.
Of course it would be wrong to draw sweeping conclusions from just one trial, but it is difficult to deny that this one has exposed a breathtaking level of ignorance and stupidity.
Inevitably, the question will be asked whether the jury system is breaking down because some of the public are no longer adequate to the challenge of understanding even basic English, let alone the fundamental rudiments of a trial.
We are not allowed to know much about the jurors in a trial, so we can only speculate about the make-up of this particular panel.
Nevertheless, one is forced to conclude that this most deeply alarming development is the result of changes in British society for the worse – a breakdown in education standards, a rise in the number of people for whom English is not their first language, and a chronic inability to understand how institutions of this country operate.
So what on earth can be done to preserve our precious jury system?
In less enlightened times, the right to sit on a jury was restricted to the property-owning classes on the basis that the poor were considered too inadequate to sit in judgment.
Such a restriction now would rightfully be regarded as abhorrent and a step back from the democracy for which so many fought so long and hard.
But maybe things have reached such a pass that there is a case for some kind of basic testing of jurors’ cognitive abilities. Because otherwise the pressure from those who have already been arguing that criminal trials should be taken away from lay people and entrusted instead to judges alone will become unstoppable.
Of course, one jury that just didn’t have a clue does not spell the end of a trial system that has helped define  English justice and society for hundreds of years.
But it’s a pretty stark hint that something is going terribly awry, not merely with the justice system but with the society that it serves.

Roger Hayes - Defining the Problem | British Constitution Group

Roger Hayes - Defining the Problem | British Constitution Group