Anita and 555, have left comments over the past month, so I have made an episode in which I go through their comments and expand upon them.
Length: 30 minutes
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Victoria's Premier Dan Andrews has earnt himself a nickname over his handling of the Covid-19 panic...Dictator Dan. In this episode I talk about how hard it can be to get medical care in Australia due to the panic. The economic and legal consequences and why so many people like our new Dictator.
Length: 34 minutes
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Whenever capital punishment is raised someone will inevitably ask 'what about if someone innocent is executed?'.
Well my first response is that the courts failed and that they should be punished for failing. After all the entire court system exists to determine if someone is guilty or innocent. But apparently getting it wrong is capital punishments fault and not the court system. But if someone is wrongly convicted it's not the fault of the police, nor of the jail, nor of the rope, it's the courts fault.
Although maybe there is another way to get the court system to work as it's supposed to, a permanent Royal Commission into Capital Convictions.
Three Judges would run the Permanent Royal Commission. They each serve for 9 years, with a member leaving and a new member being appointed every 3 years, at 3 yearly intervals, on a rotating basis. All decisions have to be made within 365 days from the date of conviction and all executions must take place within 365 days of the Royal Commissions decision to proceed. All convictions for murder and treason should be punishable by capital punishment. The purpose of the Royal Commission would be:
1) To check that all procedures and legalities are meet. In other words did they receive a fair trial.
2) To determine if there is a possibility that someone else may have committed the crime.
To obtain a conviction under English law (the bases of most law in the English speaking world) the prosecutor must prove that whomever is on trial is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Clause 2) would raise the stand for capital punishment, but not for conviction. So a murder conviction would still stand even if the Royal Commission said that it was possible that someone else committed the crime. Possible does not mean likely, it does not mean they did not commit the crime, it means that it can only be proven to beyond a reasonable doubt but not to a higher standard of evidence.
It is also important that the Royal Commission be put into it's proper context:
1) It is not an appeals court, it cannot set anyone free or reduce anyone's sentence.
2) It's purpose is not to stop executions, it's purpose is to make sure that every care has been taken to execute the guilty and no one else.
3) It has all of the normal powers of a Royal Commission, it can call witnesses and release recommendations as it sees fit.
The Royal Commission can provide one of three outcomes:
1) Proceed with the sentence
2) Do not proceed with the sentence
3) Order a retrial
Like cold cases any conviction that has not been proceeded with should be look at again as time passes to see if the situation has changed. Anyone who is sentenced to death but that the Royal Commission has said not to proceed with the sentence should be given an automatic life sentence for their natural life, with no possibility of parole. If not death then life.
To often the fear of executing the innocent is used as an excuse to not execute the guilty. Here we can get rid of that problem.
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My apologises for the past few weeks, I haven't been writing as much as I should be. This month I've only written two articles. I think the lockdown has gotten to me, not enough stimulation. I haven't gone out of my driveway in over a month as I refuse to wear a mask. I haven't even gone out for food as my car is playing up. Everything is being delivered, what a bizarre way to live. The number of visitors to the site has fallen and the numbers on Youtube are dismal. Which discourages me to write, which of course does nothing to help visitor numbers. Although on Youtube something goes up everyday, so thats not the problem there. Anyway I did put up a episode this week and it deals with things people can do to move things forward. An optimistic piece from a depressing month, go figure!
Length: 24 minutes
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A strategy is:
The skilful planning or management of anything, such as a military campaign
Or a political campaign. Strategy is something that we often talk about when our enemies do anything. But rarely do we talk about strategy, and for good reason, we hardly ever have a strategy. We have desires, ambitions but no skilful plan or management to achieve those things. I think it's about time we started to think about strategy.
First lets look at the hierarchy of strategy, starting with the highest level and working down past strategy.
Grand Strategy
Strategy
Operations
Tactics
Grand Strategy is an overarching plan or goal, such as the US Policy of Containment during the Cold War. Another way of looking at it is that this is the plan that includes a number of strategies operating against various objectives all aimed at achieving the same outcome.
Strategy is a plan to deal with a particular part of a Grand Strategy or a plan without a need for any overarching strategy.
Operations is the next level down, an intermediate level between strategy and tactics. More complex than tactics but more local than strategy.
Tactics are the methods used to achieve results at the local area.
Strategy and tactics are often confused, strategy is a plan, tactics are the methods of achieving that plan. For example let us imagine a campaign against immigration.
Strategy is the overall idea, Stop Immigration.
Operations is organising the protests, or letter writing, or what have you.
Tactics is what happens within each part of that organisation. What do you do at the protest or who do you aim your letter writing campaign towards.
Strategy or Grand Strategy needs three aspects to work.
1. All Round Defence: It needs to cover a wide area of activities. It cannot have a single front but it must be able to be employed against any threat to the strategy. For example, the first version of the Policy of Containment was nearly entirely about Europe and the military aspect was neglected. It didn't cover a wide enough area to achieve it's objectives. Once those two areas were expanded the policy worked as it stopped the strategy from being flanked. If your strategy can be flanked then it will fail. You must have all round defence., you must be able to attack and defend on as many fronts as needed.
2. Simplicity becomes a Logic: A strategy must be able to be explained clearly in one sentence. For example The Policy of Containment was 'stop the spread of Communism', in WWII the Allies plan was 'destroy the Axis powers', both clear and simple. Which means that everyone can work towards achieving these aims because everyone understands them. That simplicity means that they become a logic, in many cases the next step is simply logical, it's not complex but something that people can do without having to think about it to much.
3. Formulating a Plan: Without a plan or plans then we simply have ideas and ambitions. Plans turn ideas into objectives. Objectives mean that work can be done to achieve results. Once a plan has been formulated then it can be implemented. That is the ultimate aim of a strategy.
There are also ideas that should not be part of any strategy.
It is always tempting to short circuit a strategy to obtain a short term advantage. This is nearly always a mistake. Most strategy is long term and should be treated as such.
There is no room for cynicism within strategy, A cynical strategy will fail because it is not simple or logical. People will become confused and lose focus on what the objectives are and once that happens it can be very difficult to get it back on track. Lying to others is a bad strategy, lying to yourself is even worse and can only end in disaster.
One thing that people do not want as part of their strategy is failure, but as it is a part of every aspect of life it cannot be avoided. Failure needs to be both accepted, that it will occur, and it must be built into your strategy. What happens when a part of the plan fails, is it a setback or is it time for a complete rethink?
That depends upon how badly damaged the strategy is, if it in danger of collapse then maybe it does need a rethink. If it simply a defeat in one part of the plan then it probably needs no change.
If we are to achieve our objectives then we need to do more than have ideas, dreams or ambitions. We need plans. We need strategies and even a grand strategy. Liberalism has one and it's working, look all around you at it's success. If we are to achieve anything we need to do better and get organised and that includes having a strategy.
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I am beginning to hate this new interface!
I have just spent over an hour putting together an update with lots of detail and it is now lost because something that I could do easily in the old interface is now impossible. If Bloggers new interface was a real face my fists would be very busy right now!
In August I had 3108 vistors, this month I have had 999 visitors. My best day over the last month was the 6th September when I had 188 visitors, my worst day was the 19th August when I only had 65 visitors.
I have been blogging for 7 1/2 years and at this time of year I give out the top 10 most read posts. This list is different from what is on the left of the front page. I believe the reasons for that is that the list on the left is weighted towards more recent visitor numbers. While the list that I will provide is not. Listed below are the top 10, the numbers in brackets are the number of times they have been clicked on.
(6616) What Do Traditional Conservatives Believe?
(3849) Free Trade Versus Protectionism
(3628) Why Don't The Poor Marry?
(3404) Why Do Conservatives Believe In Different Social Classes?
(3149) What Is More Important, The Past, The Present Or The Future?
(2542) Feminism, Why We Are Not Feminists
(2476) The Balanced Society
(2329) The Problems Of Monarchy
(2273) Housewives, Good For The Economy And Society
(1585) Multiculturalism: The Conclusion
Over the past ninety months I have had a grand total of 265,206 visits to the blog. That has included over 111,000 Americans, 44,000 Australians and nearly 17,000 Russians.
I don't have any other numbers here as Blogger destroys whatever I've already written if I try!
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On the Right we don't often talk about Aborigines and we need to develop rational and sane policies as they aren't going anywhere.
Length: 39 minutes
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They Don't Understand Us
We have been told our entire life's that our abilities are unlimited. We can achieve anything if we only set our minds to it. Reach for your dreams, achieve your ambition, strive for success. Don't settle for anything less!
But most people do settle for less, we find that not everyone can be good at everything. We have limits and we find that hard to admit. We should be better than that, we should be able to overcome whatever is put in front of us. We should be able to overcome our own limitations. But we often find that we cannot.
Instead we find that often our limitations define us as much as our successes do and we hate it. But there is the honest truth, we are defined by our limitations because we really do have them. In reality our dreams cannot always be reached, our ambitions are not achieved and while we can strive for success it is no guarantee of success. Certainly we do succeed, but life is not all success. It's a hard lesson, but it seems that we all get to learn it.
Maybe we have gone about this all wrong, maybe we should have accepted our limitations all along. I'm not talking about defeatism, or despair. They are part of our limitations. I'm talking about being realistic, which is hard because it can easily go into defeatism and despair. Everyone is good at something, no one is bad at everything. It is about defining what we are good at and what we are bad at. It is about being realistic.
Once that has been done we can accept our limitations, which frees us to concentrate upon those things that we are good at. Accepting our limitations is not about limiting ourselves but but liberating ourselves.
People, individually and in groups have limitations, it does not make them bad or stupid or incompetent. It simply makes them human. It also makes decisions and public policy easier as we can concentrate on what works instead of concentrating upon what should work. We find too often that there is too much emphasise on trying to achieve some impossible goal, when we could achieve success by being more modest, or should that be more realistic.
This is not about saying that better can never be achieved, it is not about saying near enough is good enough. No it is about being realistic. By accepting our limitations we can do better because we can actually achieve success.
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Liberalism More Options, Less Choice
