Neptunus Lex

Come out of Charity

lex — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:23:07 +0000

Sticking with today’s Euro theme our gaze turns to Ireland, the land of my mother’s people. It seems like only yesterday that the Irish punt gave way to the euro, but time has run on and now the hand of distant Brussels reaches over to Eire:

THE EUROPEAN Court of Human Rights is considering a case that could lead to the end of the current system of jury trial, The Irish Times has learned.

However, the Government has robustly defended the Irish jury system in a document submitted to the court.

This follows a decision last year from the human rights court, in a case against Belgium, that a man had not received a fair trial because the jury in his case had not given reasons for their decision.

If this decision becomes the authoritative view of the Strasbourg court it will have to be followed by the Government as a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights. This would lead to a fundamental change in the centuries-old system of jury trial.

Participating in the Eurozone clearly comes as a mixed blessing, for Ireland’s increasingly globalized financial sector is now aggressively pursuing a seat at the table of the Islamic banking system, according to IslamOnline:

Seeking to get a share in the growing Islamic finance industry, the Irish government has presented a new bill allowing Shari`ah-compliant financial transactions, reported the Irish Times on Friday, February 5.

(The measure is) one of the most significant boosts for the IFSC [International Financial Services Center] n the last decade,” said director Brendan Kelly.

Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan on Thursday proposed amending tax laws to allow Shari`ah-compliant transactions.

The changes would help to “make Ireland the location of choice as firms rebuild in the aftermath of the global economic crisis,” Kelly said

Good business, I’m sure, but at what cost to the Emerald Isle?

A muslim is taking a landmark High Court case demanding that the Irish state recognise his polygamous marriage.

The man is from Lebanon, where polygamy is permitted. He is married to two women and has been granted Irish citizenship.

Seven years ago the Department of Justice refused to grant the man’s first wife a visa. The Lebanese entered Ireland with his second wife and claimed asylum. His first wife did not arrive until much later. The man has children with both women.

After its decision was challenged, the justice department agreed to quash its refusal to issue a visa to the first wife. But as part of this settlement the man is required to ask the High Court to rule on the validity of his marriage under section 29 of the 1995 Family Law Act.

The state and the wives are all represented in the case. The residency rights of both spouses will depend on the decision. A number of similar cases are awaiting the outcome.

But not by jury trial it seems, not unless Irish jurors can give sufficiently compelling reasons for their decision.

‘I am of Ireland,
And the Holy Land of Ireland,
And time runs on,’ cried she.
‘Come out of charity,
Come dance with me in Ireland.’ – W.B. Yeats

Free Speech

lex — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:59:49 +0000

Citizens of the Netherlands have no enshrined, constitutional right of free speech, which has led to the travesty of a man being tried for speaking his mind. In the US, of course, people do have a nearly unlimited right to spout off in the face of government, a fact that the US media has often happily turned to advantage. So it’s a more than a little ironic that while the Geert Wilders trial unfolds in Holland, so little is being said over here, either about the cultural issues in play, or the underlying and dominating issue of the state’s smothering an inconvenient citizen.

This probably has to do with the fact that, for most in our media, Europe represents some kind of ideal: Excellent restaurants, beautiful vistas, guaranteed employment (for those that already have jobs), free health and child care. Europe, famously, has culture while – apart from elite coastal bastions – the rest of America is a slightly embarrassing collection of country cousins gathering in fly-over country strip malls when they’re not pathetically clutching their guns and bibles or voting “against their economic self-interest.”

It probably does not help that Wilder’s ire is expressed against a minority, which is the kind of thing that enervates rather than stimulates sympathetic coverage in the US press. Because for many of America’s most enthusiastic advocates of free speech, there remain certain things one ought not to say, or even think about. Even if they’re true.

Like the potential need to defend Western Civilization. (Readers of a certain age will remember that Western Civ was once thought important enough to be taught in school. This was before we learned that all civilizations are inherently equal, and anyway, who are we to judge? Because of the Indians, and slavery and so on.)

If the press were interested in this story, the narrative might well unfold thusly.

A man who may or may not be a dangerous crank is on trial for speaking his mind. He may or may not be correct about an existential threat to the continent that gave our own precious democracy birth. But if you want to understand these things and place them in context, you will have to go elsewhere than the US news media.

It’s a pity, because this is certainly a discussion we ought to be having.

Evropa

lex — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:34:09 +0000

For many of us here in the colonies, the Old Europe became gradually less interesting after the Berlin Wall came down, except as a tourist destination. German reunification was an interesting blip, as was the experiment of the single monetary policy. The apparent trend was of a peaceful, settled continent whose future would look much like its recent history did, with quaint local twists adding flavor to a genial, cradle to grave social democracy. Interesting things were now happening in more dynamic regions like the Pacific Rim, in South Asia and Brazil.

But Europe may be getting interesting again. Not for the first time, the engine of change may well be Germany, and the catalyst could be the dire economic circumstances in Greece and the rest of Club Med:

There is no doubt Germany could afford such a bailout, as the Greek economy is only one-tenth of the size of the Germany’s. But the days of no-strings-attached financial assistance from Germany are over. If Germany is going to do this, there will no longer be anything “implied” or “assumed” about German control of the European Central Bank and the eurozone. The control will become reality, and that control will have consequences. For all intents and purposes, Germany will run the fiscal policies of peripheral member states that have proved they are not up to the task of doing so on their own…

Taking a firmer tact would allow Germany to achieve via the pocketbook what it couldn’t achieve by the sword. But this policy has its own costs…. the premium on Germany is to act — if it is going to act — fast. It needs to get Greece and most likely Portugal wrapped up before crisis of confidence spreads to the really serious countries, where even mighty German’s resources would be overwhelmed.

That is the cost of making Europe “work.” It is also the cost to Germany of leadership that doesn’t come at the end of a gun. So if Germany wants its leadership to mean something outside of Western Europe, it will be forced to pay for that leadership — deeply, repeatedly and very, very soon. But unlike in years past, this time Berlin will want to hold the reins.

We like to think that history is something interesting that happens to other people. But the wheel never stops moving.

Bad Old Days

lex — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:04:09 +0000

It was sometimes easy for veteran Cold Warriors to miss the old days, when at least we had a clear vision of who the enemy was, and that the enemy – although objectively on the wrong side of history – at least wore a uniform and was rational. Strategic deterrence was founded on a “MAD” principle, but we had the satisfaction of knowing that the adversary made cost-benefit analyses whose math you could follow, and potentially even influence.

Farewell to all that in the GWOT, and worse yet, the Bear hasn’t tired of making himself a nuisance:

As France finalizes deal to sell Russia helicopter carrier warships, President Dmitri Medvedev declares NATO “Russia’s greatest threat” and welcomes leaders of the Palestinian terrorist group HAMAS to the Kremlin.

Hamas is an Iranian client, which bodes ill for Russian assistance to bottling up the Iranian nuclear threat. Russia is well on the way to a shocking demographic decline, while Iran’s explosive population growth has only lately started to ease.

It’d be nice for if Russia, embarked on a path into that good night, went quietly. Nice, but improbable. Instead they seem content to play spoiler, and leave a mess behind for the Organization of Non-Insane States.

De Mortius

lex — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:33:45 +0000

Nil nisi bonum. But sometimes it’s hard.

We Haz Stamps!

lex — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:48:50 +0000

The US Postal Service (or is that an oxymoron?) is issuing a set of naval themed stamps:

William Simms I had remembered from my Boat School days, he was an innovator and reformer who flogged the Navy into precise naval gunfire. And everyone knows about Admiral Arleigh “31 knot” Burke, who drove his squadron so hard at the Battle of Cap St. George that a boiler blew. Dorie Miller’s fame is ensured as the mess cook who manned the guns at Pearl Harbor.

But I had to admit innocence of John McCloy, one of the very few servicemen ever to be awarded two Medals of Honor, not to mention a Navy Cross.

Standards for awarding of the CMOH have of course changed over the years, but it has not been until recently that the award became almost de facto a posthumous one. Not to say that the nation’s highest military honor should be passed about like candy, but I wonder what motivational effect attends to having an actual, living awardee walking about in ranks might be.

It appears we’ll never know.