BARVENNON.COM

JOHNES
LATEST DIARY
KILLERBELT
GUNS
TRANSPORT
FUTURE
SOUTH ASIA
LINKS
7th November 2003
AUSTRALIAN (OZ) DIARY

- PAULINE HANSON FREED ON APPEAL -

When Pauline was jailed, Australian Diary wanted to know where the "mens rea" (latin for guilty mind) was.

Now she has been freed by the Queensland court of appeal.  (From what I understand, Queensland is a lot like Texas.  They have wide spaces, and also have their own way of doing things.)  At least their appeal court has shown a bit of responsibility.  They didn't just reduce the sentence, they quashed the conviction.  Ms Hanson is now free to again challenge the powers in Canberra.

The powers that be will not allow her to win.  If necessary, the assassin's bullet is the answer.  Her policies would virtually guarantee that.  She stands for
CIR.

CIR stands for "Citizen's Initiated Referendum".  That means ordinary Australians could modify their constitution without the "filtering" effect of politicians.  (
Remember the "Politician's President.")  We could call elections whenever we wanted, over-rule legislation we didn't want, even over-rule decisions of the High court. 

I do not think that those shadowy powers (the ones who are the root cause of conspiracy theories worldwide) would permit even a second rank power like Australia to show the citizens of the world that a people can responsibly and effectively govern themselves democratically.  The people of California are already exercising far too much direct democratic (as opposed to representative democratic) power.  I would not be surprised if Schwartzenegger was whiteanted, and would suspect those same shadows before whatever "obvious" reason for his failure is produced.

- NORTH KOREA -

A North Korean merchant boat was captured after unloading a huge haul of Heroin onto Australia.  Their ostensible reason for travelling to Melbourne was to upload about six Mercedes Benz motor cars.  (Haha.  The fuel bill would have exceeded the cost of six new Mercs.).  With such a weak reason for travelling in Australian waters, it is obvious that both the political officer and the ships captain must have been in the plot.

They are all pleading not guilty, and saying that the Pyongyang government was not involved.  Hey fellahs, our justice system might have lots of checks and balances, it might look pretty wussy when compared to your own streamlined justice system, but we are not naive.

- EUROPE ADVANCES BACKWARDS, US RETREATS ONWARDS -

On these pages I have long held the view that Europe is (economically) stuffed, mostly because of the heavy taxes that are imposed to pay for their overweight bureaucracies.  On the other hand, I have maintained that the US is bounding ahead, undergoing an internet boom that is below the horizon for classical economists.   (Mostly because they are measuring the wrong indices).

This week "The Economist" in an editorial "The Tortoise & the Hare" seems to be beginning to suspect that my predictions might have been right.  They will not, of course, ever admit the reason.  "The Economist" is an entrenched power because of the political system in the UK, and the political system's blood is the taxes & the bureaucrats that those taxes buy.

- BUREAUCRATS IN AUSTRALIA -

In Australia we pay social security of about $170 per week.  Our total social security bill is around $80 billion.  Our population is 20 million.  If we divided the social security bill by the population, we get $80b/20M = $4,000 per capita, or $160.00 per fortnight per man, woman & child.

In other words, if they sacked all of the bureaucrats who essentially are there to interview applicants and make sure that they are not ripping off the system, then we could pay everybody (man, woman child & old aged pensioner) about $160 per fortnight.  It should not be too hard for the government to set up secure accounts based on the electoral roll, and banks have already solved the security problem, so there should be no great expense in distributing that money.

All the sacked bureaucrats could live on their $160 p/f = per fortnight, (more if they are married, $320 p/f, and even more if they have children, an extra $160 p/f per child).  I feel sure that enterprising people like them would soon find gainful income.

Of course such a sensible solution won't happen.  Next we might think that we could do without politicians and their support staff (about $10 billion, or 5% of the Australian tax take)

Perhaps my readers can begin to understand why "Direct Democracy" is a no-starter.


EMAIL

ARCHIVES.