Tagged: collective punishment
Droit 43 État civil biologique et état civil déclaratif : Conséquences juridiques
Juillet-Septembre 2024 FR-EN
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État civil biologique et état civil déclaratif :
Conséquences juridiques
Un État ne peut forcer une personne à renoncer à son opinion sur le sexe d’autrui, c’est-à-dire ne peut traduire son revirement de politique et admission de changements de sexe à l’état civil en criminalisant l’opposition à cette politique. L’État qui pratique cette criminalisation ne reconnaît pas la liberté d’opinion : or les États signataires de la Convention européenne des droits de l’homme s’engagent à reconnaître et respecter cette liberté.
Ce que prétend une telle persécution, c’est forcer les citoyens à renoncer à leur opinion sur le sexe comme donné biologique. Parce que l’État a procédé à un revirement de politique et accepte maintenant de changer l’état civil des personnes (même mineures au sens de la législation) en fonction de leurs déclarations, il prétend que, tout comme l’état civil « biologique » n’était pas une décision contestable, ce nouvel état civil « déclaratif » doit tout aussi légitimement être garanti contre les remises en cause. Or, puisque ce nouvel état civil est à présent le résultat d’une opinion, il n’est justement plus garanti comme acte d’autorité publique mais est ouvert à la libre critique des opinions divergentes en vertu de la liberté d’opinion. Nul n’est contraint de tirer les mêmes conséquences que l’État d’un état civil déclaratif.
Dès lors que l’État renonce à ce que l’état civil d’une personne soit déterminé par son sexe biologique constaté à la naissance, la déclaration d’état civil à la naissance n’a plus la moindre justification. L’État a de fait renoncé à établir un état civil des personnes en fonction du sexe sans déclaration à ce sujet des intéressés. Or, puisque cette caractéristique est à présent laissée par l’État à la libre appréciation des individus, il est évident aussi que la mention du sexe à l’état civil n’est pas une propriété personnelle reconnue et garantie par l’État mais une simple opinion, soumise en tant que telle à la critique des opinions divergentes.
Dans le cas du professeur Enoch Burke en Irlande, celui-ci a été incarcéré pour avoir contesté son exclusion de l’école où il enseignait, en continuant de s’y présenter physiquement. Ce moyen de protestation n’était sans doute pas le plus indiqué mais la question n’en est pas moins posée de la légalité de l’exclusion d’Enoch Burke compte tenu des principes rappelés ci-dessus. S’il s’agit d’une école publique, l’État doit bien sûr respecter ses propres principes, à savoir que le nouvel état civil déclaratif ne peut lier personne de manière contraignante. Dans le cas de contestation par un professeur sur le sexe déclaré par l’élève, c’est bien plutôt à l’élève de changer de classe ou d’établissement. Si c’est une école privée, il n’est pas non plus possible à un contrat passé entre l’établissement et le professeur de faire renoncer ce dernier à un droit fondamental, à savoir, ici, celui d’avoir une opinion sur ce qu’est le sexe d’une personne.
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Embrassades en politique
Les amendements de l’opposition sont rarement retenus, et cela n’arrive que s’ils sont techniques. On voit donc, avec les images d’embrassades émues entre la présidente réélue de la Commission européenne Von der Leyen et la députée européenne LFI M. Aubry si fière de son travail d’amendements non votés au Parlement européen, qu’être « productif » en amendements, comme l’intéressée, a surtout pour résultat de faire de députés de l’opposition des collègues et amis des gens dont ils dénoncent la politique. L’effusion que montrent ces images d’embrassades et de sourires radieux est très au-delà du simple « respect républicain » invoqué par l’intéressée pour se justifier après la diffusion desdites images ; c’est un épanchement qui montre une connivence, une joie d’être ensemble ; quiconque voit ces images sans être au courant de qui sont les personnes en question pensera que ce sont de bonnes amies. C’est une faute monumentale. Ces politiciens de carrière se respectent plus les uns les autres qu’ils ne respectent leurs électeurs. Ces embrassades délirantes de joie glacent le sang de l’électeur qui croit envoyer des programmes, des idées dans les institutions représentatives.
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Du vote au Parlement de ministres démissionnaires
Sur le vote des ministres démissionnaires à l’Assemblée nationale pour l’élection du président de cette chambre, en juillet, c’est le Conseil constitutionnel qui est responsable de l’usine à gaz et de l’arbitraire. Le Conseil constitutionnel a été saisi en 1986 de la question et s’est déclaré incompétent pour ne pas imposer au Parlement son interprétation de la Constitution, au nom de l’indépendance des assemblées parlementaires. Or le Conseil constitutionnel est l’interprète ultime de la Constitution et si son interprétation s’impose à l’exécutif elle s’impose aussi au législatif, de même que quand le Parlement vote des mesures inconstitutionnelles le Conseil les censure. L’indépendance des assemblées est vis-à-vis de l’exécutif et des tribunaux (immunités parlementaires) et non vis-à-vis du contrôle constitutionnel.
En 1986, le Conseil avait seulement à dire si le vote de ministres démissionnaires est permis ou non à l’Assemblée. En refusant de répondre, il a potentiellement créé une crise politique majeure à chaque renouvellement. C’est ce qui s’appelle ne pas savoir pourquoi l’on est payé, même s’ils appellent cela, quant à eux, « l’indépendance des assemblées ». Comme si les assemblées étaient indépendantes de la Constitution ! En bref, c’était une décision grotesque de ces clowns qu’on appelle « les sages ».
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Un journaliste de chaîne privée n’est pas un fonctionnaire ayant un devoir de neutralité. Comme tout salarié, il a un devoir de loyauté envers son employeur privé, sous peine de licenciement. Quand un employeur est un sioniste enragé, ses employés auront sur ces questions la même position que leur employeur dans leur travail. Il appartient donc aux gens d’arrêter de consommer du média sioniste, non aux salariés d’être « neutres » comme des fonctionnaires alors qu’un contrat de droit privé prévoit au contraire une loyauté envers les positions du patron sioniste. Cependant, les conventions passées par les médias privés avec l’État prévoient des obligations de pluralisme qui alignent le travail journalistique sur une neutralité du même type que celle de la fonction publique : il faut donc dénoncer des manquements à ces conventions, et cela seul, car il n’existe en dehors de ces textes contractuels de droit public entre un média et l’État aucun principe qui ferait des journalistes salariés des fonctionnaires.
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Cérémonie officielle insultante et prétendue laïcité
La cérémonie d’ouverture des Jeux olympiques de 2024 à Paris comportait une parodie insultante de la Cène.
Plan : (i) Le principe de laïcité ; (ii) Des excuses ; (iii) Mais aussi du déni.
(i)
Le principe de laïcité
Ce n’est pas une question de liberté d’expression : c’est la question d’un État supposé laïc qui insulte une religion, car cette cérémonie est une cérémonie officielle. La liberté n’est pas pour l’État : ce n’est pas pour que l’État soit libre que les gens se sont battus. Même en supposant que si ce spectacle avait eu un caractère privé la justice française n’aurait pu la condamner pour de la haine envers un groupe de personnes à raison de la religion, l’État est sorti de sa neutralité laïque en détournant par une cérémonie officielle le sens d’un fait religieux. C’est un manquement à un principe fondamental et si notre régime ne permet pas de faire condamner ce manquement en justice, c’est que l’État français ne connaît pas le principe de laïcité et trompe les Français.
Les médias français nous assurent que l’extrême droite veut gâcher la fête. Or nul besoin d’être d’extrême droite pour voir que l’État français a manqué à son devoir fondamental de laïcité et neutralité dans une cérémonie officielle, en détournant l’imagerie religieuse des confessions chrétiennes. Un avocat dit vouloir saisir la justice : il sera intéressant de suivre la procédure pour savoir par quel moyen l’État pourrait être condamné pour une violation manifeste d’un principe fondamental dont il nous rebat par ailleurs les oreilles. Ne pas insulter une religion serait un bon commencement pour un État laïc… L’État français s’est essuyé le derrière avec sa Constitution.
Même s’il existait un droit au blasphème (ce que l’on entend maintes fois répété par des ignorants et qui est juridiquement faux, comme nous l’avons montré à l’aide des textes : voyez nos Cours de science du droit I-II), il ne s’applique pas à l’État qui a une obligation de neutralité et de respect de la laïcité, obligation enfreinte quand dans une cérémonie officielle l’État détourne l’imagerie religieuse de telle ou telle confession.
« Il y a une liberté de l’artiste. » Dans un État laïc, une cérémonie officielle ne doit pas insulter une religion. Quand ce principe fondamental n’est pas respecté, ou bien l’État est condamné pour le manquement, par une juridiction compétente, ou bien cet État est un régime arbitraire puisque, alors qu’il prétend garantir la laïcité, en réalité il attaque une religion sans conséquence judiciaire. L’État arbitraire qui se cache derrière la liberté de l’artiste pour insulter une religion, c’est abject.
(ii)
Des excuses
« Les excuses du Comité olympique ».
L’État français doit lui aussi présenter des excuses puisqu’il est coresponsable de cette cérémonie officielle. Par ailleurs, il doit être sanctionné pour le manquement à ses obligations de neutralité et de respect de la laïcité.
(iii)
Mais aussi du déni
La chaîne publique France 2 a parlé de « mise en Cène légendaire ». Le déni, dans le cas présent, est une bien piètre défense. La référence a été immédiatement perçue par toutes les personnes non dépourvues de culture et l’on ne saurait prétendre que, parce qu’il existe une partie de la population qui n’a pas la moindre idée de ce qu’est la Cène ou qui est Léonard de Vinci, le détournement et l’insulte ne sont pas caractérisés. Le tollé vient d’apprendre aux organisateurs de cette cérémonie officielle, au cas où leur déni serait de bonne foi car ils appartiendraient à la catégorie des gens les moins cultivés de la population, qu’ils viennent de commettre une faute par ignorance et négligence. Ils se rappelaient vaguement un tableau mais croyaient aussi que c’était une publicité pour une marque de chips : il n’en reste pas moins que l’État a manqué à ses devoirs et obligations et que si la justice administrative de ce pays est une justice elle doit le condamner à la suite des saisines dont nous entendons dire qu’elles se préparent.
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« Laïcité », c’est le nom que donnent les islamophobes à leur islamophobie depuis que la loi condamne l’islamophobie.
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Thiaroye
Tirailleurs « morts pour la France » à Thiaroye en 1944. (France 24)
C’est du négationnisme. On n’est pas « mort pour la France » quand on est mort victime de la France. Ces six tirailleurs, mais aussi les autres victimes du camp de Thiaroye, ont été exterminés par la France. Cette reconnaissance du statut de mort pour la France est une façon de ne pas présenter d’excuses officielles. Nous les avons massacrés, donc ils sont morts pour nous ! La France s’enfonce dans l’indignité.
Ces six tirailleurs (pourquoi seulement six alors qu’on en dénombre des dizaines ?) ne peuvent pas être dits morts pour la France puisqu’ils ont été massacrés par la France. Si la France considère aujourd’hui que c’était une faute, il faut qu’elle présente des excuses officielles. Ce négationnisme est une bassesse. La France veut faire croire que des gens qu’elle a massacrés sont morts pour elle ! Qu’ils sont morts à son service quand elle les criblait de balles parce qu’ils demandaient leur dû financier à la fin de la guerre, après la guerre dans laquelle ils avaient servi ! Le fait qu’elle les ait massacrés signifie qu’elle ne les reconnaissait plus comme étant à son service, au service de la France. Mort pour la France voulant dire « compensation » (à savoir, selon le code des pensions militaires : sépulture perpétuelle dans un cimetière militaire aux frais de l’État, inscription sur un monument aux morts communal, gratuité des droits de mutation par décès, pension de veuve de guerre le cas échéant, reconnaissance des enfants comme pupilles de la Nation), ici la compensation doit être double ou triple parce que ces tirailleurs ne sont pas morts en servant la France, tués par l’ennemi au front, mais massacrés traîtreusement dans leur camp par les autorités qu’ils servaient.
Si ces tirailleurs sont morts pour la France, alors c’est que ceux qui ont donné l’ordre de les tuer ne représentaient pas la France, et la reconnaissance de la mort pour la France des uns implique nécessairement une condamnation, même posthume, par exemple la dégradation nationale, pour les autres, leurs assassins.
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Digital Services Act (DSA) européen
et loi de 1881 sur la liberté de la presse
Les principes du DSA (Digital Services Act) européen sont contraires à ceux de la loi française de 1881. En effet, ce règlement rétablit une censure administrative. La loi de 1881 n’existe donc plus, en raison du principe de primauté du droit européen, dans sa dimension la plus fondamentale qui était censée nous distinguer des anciens régimes, monarchie et Second Empire. Mais le pouvoir français entend faire comme si rien n’avait changé, après avoir activement soutenu le DSA qui balaie un principe majeur d’une des lois fondatrices du régime républicain en France.
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Political Asylum
Big Shock For Sheikh Hasina From UK; This Is London’s ‘Reply’ To Ex-Bangladesh PM’s Asylum Appeal [namely, refusal]. (Times of India)
A state cannot refuse to grant asylum unless the application is unwarranted. In the present case the application is clearly justified, especially seeing the storming of the deposed PM’s house by a crowd of angry people. UK authorities seem to believe the right to asylum leaves them with a discretionary power to cherry-pick people, regardless of the people’s objective situation in their country. This is not how it works: There can be no right to asylum without a state duty to accommodate asylum seekers. If the refusal here is UK’s last answer, it means British authorities deny the existence of a right to asylum in international relationships.
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Designed Asymmetries of Hate Speech Laws
As long as one supports hate speech laws, that is, criminalization of speech based on content, their proffering the f-word (f for fascist) will elicit a mere shrug of the shoulders. Such laws have an obvious chilling effect on criticism of Israel and Zionism. This is where their effect is maximal. To be sure there are no such laws in the US and yet criticizing Zionism comes at a risk there too, by other mechanisms. However, this is an international question: In the US the Zionist lobby must fund its repressive campaigns against criticism, whereas in Europe, where there are hate speech and other such laws, Zionists only have to give the police a call. By supporting and promoting hate speech laws, the delusional Left gives Zionism a wonderful repression tool. All critics in Europe must defend themselves from possible criminal suits. At least in the US it costs the Zionist lobby some dollars to gag people; in Europe it gags people and earns money in the bargain through civil damages.
If you think the hate speech laws that you promote chill Islamophobia as much as criticism of Israel, think again.
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UK Riots
That people be charged for “anti-Muslim rhetoric” is nothing to be surprised of, as UK has had hate speech laws for decades and these laws aim at defending groups based on race, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, but also religion, from so-called group libel. If Britons disagree with this, this is not against law enforcement, namely the government, police, and courts, that they should complain, but against the legislation itself: namely, they should call for its repeal.
However, that a court allege, besides, “anti-establishment rhetoric” is strange and worrying, as one doesn’t see how such rhetoric could lie in the purview of hate speech laws. Three possibilities: 1) UK law against speech is much more comprehensive than its neighbors’ similar laws and includes anti-establishment rhetoric in the prosecutable hate speech category. This is unlikely. 2) The media report is not accurate, and the court did not mention anti-establishment rhetoric, which is not a legal category as far as hate speech is concerned. 3) This court is blatantly incompetent.
(ii)
Hate speech laws have been in British legislation for centuries. “Free speech” British-wise since Blackstone means one’s speech won’t be subjected to prior censorship but the author of illicit speech will be prosecuted. This is what was supposed to be a progress. Therefore, what might be new, if anything is new here, is that internet content is censored by the administration, not that people are punished by courts for their speech.
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Trump’s plan: Deport anyone [any foreign resident, that is, as American citizens cannot be deported legally] who “wants to eliminate Israel.”
This trashy rhetoric is already policy in France, where foreigners are subject to deportation for speech that is allowed by national law. That is, foreigners do not have the same speech rights as nationals although freedom of speech is a fundamental human right according to the European Convention on human rights ratified by France.
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Of “Values” and the Law
“Islam must adapt to Swedish values or leave.” (Swedish Deputy Prime Minister Ebba Busch)
Such speech is discriminatory according to the European Convention on Human Rights ratified by Sweden. Legal migrants do not come uninvited by the host countries, and they cannot be told to comply with a different set of rules than the natives as far as fundamental rights are concerned. Their only obligation is to comply with the law, because all are equal before the law. To imply they would have to comply with more than that, namely, to adapt to values while they already abide by the law, is discriminatory. And if adapting to values means that migrants should abide by the law, it goes without saying and this speech is offensive.
A statesperson cannot ask for more than abiding by the law because their mandate is either legislative (lawmaking) or executive (execution and enforcement of the law). Besides, one fails to see how a law-abiding individual can be found at fault re a state that is based on the rule of law. The spirit of the law, as some would call it (the letter and the spirit), is either the law itself, and in this case one either abides by it or not, or it is something alien to the law and therefore outside a statesman’s mandate.
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On Collective Punishment in the USA:
Kinship Punishment Against the Right To Bear Arms
Charging the mass shooter Colt Gray’s father, Colin Gray, for “involuntary manslaughter” because he gifted his son a gun, is legal insanity. If gifting a gun to a minor is legal, the father did nothing illegal. If it is not legal, the father committed this crime, not manslaughter. Gifting a gun to a minor is obviously legal in the state of Georgia because Colin Gray is not charged with gifting his minor kid a gun but for involuntary manslaughter after the kid shot people; one of the most absurd and unprincipled charges one has ever heard of.
Prosecution says Colin Gray had been warned about threats made by his son. What about that? Many more threats occur than shootings. Obviously, the father didn’t take the threats more seriously than the authorities themselves, which did not charge the kid for threats, therefore didn’t think it was a serious matter. At most the father is civilly liable for neglect, just like the authorities (except that the law conveniently gives the latter qualified immunity), not criminally guilty of manslaughter. It is a fundamental principle of civilized countries that collective punishment does not obtain. If a father is guilty of his son’s shooting, then the gun dealer is guilty too, and so on. One probable cause for arresting the father would have been that investigators had hints that he knew his son would shoot people with the gun, for example if he had gifted the gun on the proviso that his son shot people, but we hear nothing about this; it is only known that the father bought the gun despite “warnings” by authorities, but what warnings were these since the authorities did not act according to serious threats and failed to charge the kid for making these threats?
Threats are crimes. Courts’ decisions limit these laws’ purview to “true threats” (Watts v. United States, Scotus, 1969), that is, when authorities don’t prosecute threats, they admit they can’t stand a trial for true threats. Absent a trial for threats against Colt Gray, the authorities can make no claim to have warned his father. The alleged warning is a mere figment of I don’t know whose imagination. In a free country with a Second Amendment protecting the right to bear arms, one simply does not have to heed to a police warning against buying guns to one’s kid when/if the law allows one to do it. Even as the warning was followed by a shooting, the father committed no crime, at least not the crime of “involuntary manslaughter” for the demise of these people. Absolutely not. He cannot be found guilty of this without miscarriage of justice.
I am told the police warned the father about threats of which they did not keep evidence. That settles the matter. There is no record of threats, no record of the father having heard of or remembering them, no record of anything and certainly not of criminal manslaughter by the father. The father can only be guilty of a crime if he intentionally assisted in committing the actual crime. The alleged criminal being the son, even a reckless disregard of the consequences of buying a gun, if proven, can only be civilly liable recklessness, not a criminal liable offence, because it took an intentional shooter to slay people and the mens rea (intention) of this crime lies with the son alone. Therefore, one’s pointing to allowing an “unstable” minor to get a gun has nothing to do with a crime (everything that is not forbidden is allowed) and only, at most, with a civil tort. As a public prosecutor cannot charge with civil torts and only with crimes, the “involuntary manslaughter” charge is criminal and hence gravely misguided.
A man can’t be charged with a crime if he has not committed or participated in it, and both commission and participation require an element of mens rea (intention) that is obviously absent here: No one claims the father bought his son a gun so that the kid shoot people. Therefore, criminal guilt of the father must be discarded. There only remains the possibility for victims to raise the issue of tort liability for reckless behavior but that is an altogether different issue that has nothing to do with criminal charges. Such a prosecution is in blatant disregard of principles, the latest attempt by opponents to the Second Amendment to stifle the right to bear arms.
To make parents guilty of their kids’ crimes is called collective punishment and doesn’t obtain. In such cases, parents can only be held liable for civil torts. The intervention of a prosecutor for criminal charges where no mens rea is claimed, as such criminal charges already lie with the kid, is out of place and abhorrent to well-established principles. The father cannot be criminally charged for “involuntary manslaughter,” this is out of the question in a civilization of the rule of law. Relatives should ask for damages in a civil trial. A prosecutor does not protect single victims as much as the society as a whole, and a criminal court pronounces penalties, not damages. When these penalties are financial, they don’t accrue to the victims but to the state. Many trials have both civil and criminal sides but as far as Colin Gray is concerned, prosecution and a prosecutor are out of place.
While some forms of extremely reckless behavior may be treated as crimes, such as throwing stones randomly and one stone hits a person on the head, in the present case the existence of a mens rea on the kid’s part locates the crime on the kid’s person, and it is not possible to charge the father with “involuntary manslaughter” for making a gift with the same intentions as all other people who are making such gifts every day without dire consequences. Acts with dire consequences but no harmful intent are at most torts, not crimes, when the consequences are the direct result of an existing crime committed by someone else.
Colin Gray would have been complicit in the murders according to the district attorney (DA) if the latter said that the father bought his son Colt a gun so that Colt shoot people; this is being complicit. However, the DA is not saying this. The DA says the father bought his son a gun knowing he was unstable, and the DA alleges police warnings about threats made by his son. If the police had a record for threats, they should have charged the kid with threats, because threats are a crime. Absent charges for threats, the father was not compelled to heed a warning because ultimately one’s right is what the law says, not what police officer x tells you. Absent actual criminal proceedings against Colt for threats, the warning was as much as nonexistent: As the authorities didn’t draw consequences from threats, namely prosecution, why would the father have? Therefore, he bought his son a gun and the two went hunting together. The DA wants to reinstate long-vanished kinship punishment, forbidden by international law.
(ii)
Some are trying hard to disarm the people. No well-established principle will detain them, they’d rather steamroll principles before the bemused eyes of a law-blind population. Here they’re claiming that it is criminal for this father to have ignored a police warning about his kid, a warning not to buy a gun, while the law says Colin Gray had a right to buy the gun. Do you understand? It is criminal to ignore the police when they instruct you to give up your protected rights!
If you think there are more shootings in the US than in Mexico or Brazil where gun laws are stringent, think again. Wikipedia: “Mexico has restrictive laws regarding gun possession”; “In Brazil it is generally illegal to carry a gun outside a residence”. Those who oppose your rights only focus on shootings on this side of the border. When you lose your rights, you will be living secluded in your homes while heavily armed gangs and cartels roam the streets.
The father’s criminal trial for involuntary manslaughter is a political trial by the opponents of the right to bear arms. A few words on the Second Amendment, then. The Second Amendment prevents anyone from claiming that a standing army has made militias irrelevant. The Founding Fathers would not admit it, because they knew that a standing army is an instrument of tyranny; and not only that but also that a standing army would be an instrument of tyranny even under their own Constitution absent an all-inclusive right to bear arms.
What we’re seeing is kinship punishment in its blatantest, most disgusting form. “International law posits that no person may be punished for acts that he or she did not commit. It ensures that the collective punishment of a group of persons for a crime committed by an individual is forbidden…This is one of the fundamental guarantees established by the Geneva Conventions and their protocols. This guarantee is applicable not only to protected persons but to all individuals, no matter what their status, or to what category of persons they belong…” (Wkpd: Collective Punishment) The principle of individual responsibility opposes the notion that a father is criminally liable for the crimes of his son, even a minor. However, there probably are some statutes in Georgia allowing for tort action against parents for some form or other of neglect, and allowing victims to ask civil damages, but we don’t hear about this here and now. We only hear of the eager violation of the principle of individual responsibility by unhinged authorities in what is a political trial to curb the right to bear arms.
There is the possibility to ask civil damages to parents for the trouble made by their minor kids, but to criminally charge two people for the same crime, the shooter and his father, is something different called collective punishment, forbidden by the international law of civilized nations. They’re not saying the father is an accomplice; instead, they’re claiming that he’s guilty of involuntary manslaughter while his kid is guilty of voluntary murder, as if the father ever crossed the victims’ way. Some people will stop at nothing to curb the right to bear arms.
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The Inconsistency of Statutory Rape Legislation
Current legislation in France says a sexual relationship between a 14-year-old boy and a thirty, forty something woman is statutory rape, but the legislation back in the days when such a relationship allegedly occurred between the current President of France and his wife, I don’t know.
I have an issue with the legislation. According to French law, statutory rape is limited to cases where one is a minor (say 14) and the other an adult, or the age difference between the two is more than 5 years. So, if both are minors and about the same age, everything is fine: These kids can have group sex parties together. But if one of them, with the sexual experience she has legally acquired by having sex parties since she has been 13, has sex with a 19-year-old virgin boy because she wants to teach him sex, the 19-year-old is a rapist. Go figure.
As designed, the law deprives itself of reasonable ground. One simply cannot assume that kids are victims of older people without further inquiry, because the law allows for practices among kids that may grant them the experience, knowledgeability, and confidence to act as sexual predators or seducers. At the same time, the law demands that authorities make illegitimate assumptions and punish accordingly the older person without further inquiry. As it is obvious, given the circumstances created or allowed by the law itself, that every case in strict justice requires an investigation of the conduct of the kid, who may be more sexually knowledgeable than the person five years older than him or her, we cannot talk of “statutory” rape.
Law 28: Breakup as abetment to suicide and other weird tales from the real world
EN-IT
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Vanity Fair
“Saudi bans ‘Abaya’ for Muslim students in exam halls; Crown Prince orders adhere to uniform.” (Hindustan Times, YouTube, Dec 2022)
The video does not show the uniform that female students will have to wear instead of abaya, so this piece of news is wanting.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) otherwise said: “The decision is entirely left for women to decide what type of decent and respectful attire they choose to wear.” Not so for female students, as they will have to don a uniform other than the abaya. – Still, at the same time that they defang the mutawa, the religious police, this. Consequently, I believe Saudi women will wear indecent and disrespectful attire in public, because there no longer is police enforcement of the decency rule. The abaya is a consensual sign of decency. For every innovation in female attire, there will be a question regarding its decency but no one to properly enforce the rule and, at last, no one to bother about it because it will be too much strain to monitor each fashion change in the endless race of vanity.
If you look at Pakistan’s current Minister of State for foreign affairs, Mrs. Hina Rabbani Khar, you’ll see she wears a veil. Yet her veil reveals all her hair, and not only the hair but also the hairdo; it is only a piece of cloth attached to the back of the head. If this is decent attire, then wearing no veil at all is no less decent because the difference between this sort of veil and no veil lies somewhere between nil and minimal. Presumably, Saudi women’s fashion will follow the same direction as a result of Saudi authorities’ current stand against the traditional and rational abaya. Instead of decency, mockery.
With Mrs. Rabbani Khar’s veil, you also see the ears. With the earrings. It would be a pity not to be able to show such expensive jewels, would it not?
Meanwhile, in Western countries, the next trend in lawmaking will be menstrual leave. Mark my words.
(Post-scriptum. According to some, the abaya ban in exam halls has been motivated by a will of Saudi authorities to prevent the use of crib sheets, as the attire would facilitate it.)

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“Bulldozer Crackdown”
“BJP government in MP [Madhya Pradesh] punishes man with bulldozer action for assaulting girlfriend.” (Hindustan Times, YouTube, Dec 25, 2022)
(i)
On the one hand
The man’s house being “illegal,” it was bulldozed because of its illegality and certainly not because of assault and battery by the owner on his girlfriend. Can you image a system where the administration bulldozes one’s house because of battery, and this even before any judgment by a court of law? No, the assaulter was not punished by the government for assaulting somebody: he will be judged for his assault and, as to his house, as it was found illegal it was bulldozed. If the house had been bulldozed by virtue of an extrajudicial decision of the government, and that were normal, then India would not abide by the rule of law. But the whole story has nothing to do with administrative “punishment” of a wrongdoer. This is not how the law works.
(ii)
On the other hand
If certain illegal houses, a certain slum had been brought before a court already, MP government had a court order to demolish the slum, not a permission to demolish some of the houses at the government’s discretion. Then, assuming MP government chose to ignore the order based on governance considerations, by allowing some people to live in illegal houses it detracted from the principle of equality before the law. Then, when it punishes a wrongdoer from the slum by bulldozing his house, the government commits another breach of the principle, as the wrongdoer will be punished not only by way of the penalty prescribed by law but also with demolition of his dwelling, which presumably is not in the code under the head of assault and battery. The government may believe to correct one breach, a “plus breach” for the individual (who benefits from government tolerance, in disregard of real estate law), with a “minus breach” (adding an administrative penalty, namely cancellation of said tolerance, to the usual, expected judicial penalty), but in reality it only accumulates breaches of the equality principle.
My take on the issue is that operations of this kind do not reduce crime and are not even aimed at this. If it took bulldozers to prevent violence, the laws should be rewritten to replace prison by bulldozing. But the government thinks it’s got a convenient tool to exercise a judicial power of its own, which it does not have by virtue of the separation of powers. By ignoring real estate law and, in many cases presumably, property rights of landowners whose land is illegally occupied, it creates a slum jurisdiction in which the real judicial power is the government, instead of courts, because there is no defense against an administration that can send a bulldozer to demolish one’s house, and slum dwellers therefore fear not as much the courts as the government. This preeminence of the executive is authoritarian. Slum dwellers are at the mercy of officials, completely dependent on their flippant whims, without recourse. (In such grey zones, drugs and prostitution rings could be run by law enforcement and other officers themselves.) Such governments have no enticement to eliminate slums and on the contrary a direct interest in maintaining them. The only way to see that change is to reject the government’s claims to behave as property law enforcer against individual slum dwellers.
In (i), I overlooked the slum dimension of the issue, which is that slum dwellers are at the mercy of government officials. Also, as several people live in the house, there is a collective dimension to the punishment which is contrary to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, of which India is a signatory state (although, technically, the wrongdoer and his family are not punished with bulldozing for the wrongdoer committing battery but for the family’s illegal occupation of land).
Some people argue that MP government’s maneuver is good deterrence, as trials are long processes. – However, even if a trial can be long, there is such a thing as pre-trial detention, especially for murderers and violent criminals, which are named by these people. Many accused are kept under arrest while their trial is going on, so the remark is absurd. Then, bulldozing the illegal house of a wrongdoer, not because of illegal occupation of land but because of something else, is not permissible. First, the government tolerates illegal occupation of land regardless of landowners’ rights. Then, officials blackmail the squatters by threatening to bulldoze illegal houses not because a landowner is harmed by illegal occupation but because a squatter does something wrong, and that something can be anything, from battery as in the present case (but the criminal code has no such penalty as bulldozing a house in punishment for battery) to looking askance at one or the other official’s conduct. Finally, bulldozing a house where several people live in retaliation for the wrongdoing of one person is against legal principles of the civilized world and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This story, once understood, is appalling publicity for the Indian regime. It talks of slums, that is, lawlessness for landowners; it talks of extrajudicial punishment, that is, lawlessness for slum dwellers; it talks of collective punishment, that is, lawlessness for everybody.
(iii)
And then
“J&K [Jammu and Kashmir] government bulldozer action against Hizbul Mujahideen deputy chief. According to authorities, Ghulam Nabi Khan alias Amir Khan had a wall built on encroached land as an extension to his house in Liver Pahalgam in the south Kashmir district. Khan is a self-styled operational commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen outfit and had crossed over to Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) in the early 1990s and is operating from there.” (Hindustan Times, YouTube, Dec 31, 2022)
Is “bulldozer crackdown” (Hindustan Times) the specific penalty against “terrorists,” then, rather than the legal response to encroachment? – India fighting terrorism with excavators. Now I better understand the phrase “the long arm of the law”: it talks of the articulated arm of excavators.
I’m impressed how Indian authorities punish terrorists for their violations of urban planning.
What a show of powerlessness by Indian authorities! To have people labeled terrorists and punish them for estate encroachment…
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“‘Burn Indian High Commission’: Maldives ‘India Out’ campaigner Adil Riza arrested.”(Hindustan Times, YouTube, Dec 25, 2022)
I disagree that the tweet, as presented, is incitement to arson. Abbas Adil Riza claims the 2012 riots and arsons in Maldives were provoked by India and the damages have not been compensated. “We should start with embassy” is to read in this context, the asking of compensation. In the same way that some threats are true threats and others are merely rhetorical tools in controversies, this tweet is rhetorical, not incitement. The tweet means Maldives has a right to compensation for the 2012 arsons. As India may acknowledge its debt and pay it, the payback alluded to, arson for arson, is not a true threat; it is obvious that arson cannot repay arson, this is merely a way to express the urgent need of compensation after the alleged damaging interference. The tweet is not about Maldives’ retaliation but about Indian reparations. There is, to be sure, a form a rhetorical threat in it, namely: “Absent reparations, Maldivians may retaliate with arson against the embassy and other Indian estate in Maldives.” However, as the threat is conditional, it cannot be incitement, and rather a rhetorical tool in an ongoing debate about reparations or about the events of 2012.
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Only in BJP India:
Breakup as abetment to suicide
“BJP [political party with Hindu nationalist ideology] MLA [Member of the Legislative Assembly] R. K. [I do not wish to publicize the MLA’s name on this blog] said if there is any love-jihad angle in actor [actress] Tunisha Sharma’s suicide, then the police will probe that and take strict action. The BJP MLA added the communal angle after Tunisha’s co-actor Sheezan Mohammed Khan was arrested and sent to police custody for four days based on the complaint [for abetment to suicide] by Tunisha’s mother.” (Hindustan Times, YouTube, Dec 2022)
The love-jihad spin deserves some explanation first, for a Western readership. Some Hindus believe that Muslims practice a form of jihad these Hindus call “love jihad,” which takes the form of relationships between Muslim males and Hindu females, the aim of which would be to alienate the latter from their religious community and any other malice conceivable. And now to the point.
Breaking with one’s lover is not abetment to suicide. First of all, extramarital relationships are not protected by law. When you are dropped like a bag of dirt, you get a broken heart, whether you can live with it or not. If you want your relationship to be protected, do not consent to anything outside marriage.
“The FIR [first information report] says that the breakup may have pushed Tunisha to the edge.” A man arrested for breaking up with his girlfriend is the salient and weird piece of news here. The love-jihad spin by a MLA was unfortunately predictable, given the arrested man is a Muslim; it is the predictable and deplorable sequel of something unexpected and very lawfare-like. Merely breaking with one’s girlfriend is not abetment to suicide, which requires intent and some form of direct incitement and/or active psychological pressure. Even if the breakup were the direct cause of suicide, it still would not be abetment, absent further elements hinting at intent and pressure; therefore, that such a vague FIR (“breakup may have pushed Tunisha to the edge”) can serve to arrest a man is appalling. The police themselves may be engulfed in love-jihad fantasies and prejudice, to allow this.
“Cops … maintain that there is no angle of blackmailing or love jihad yet.” So why was Sheezan Khan arrested? Do they intend to torture him to get false confessions? The mother’s declarations, as described, do not support the case for abetment to suicide. There used to be, in Western countries, a crime of fraudulent or deceitful seduction (tentative translation of French “séduction dolosive”), which would apply to false promises of marriage as alleged by the mother. However, it is obsolete in the liberal “emancipated” West, and as India is so eager to be as liberal as the West on morality issues, I believe it does not exist in India either. But to talk, in lieu of this, of abetment to suicide, on the grounds presented, is frivolous.
Sheezan Khan has nothing to do in police custody. Police said there is no blackmailing or love-jihad angle “yet,” and the complaint for abetment to suicide is frivolous: to presume intent to abet suicide in a breakup is unwarranted. A man being grilled in police custody after his lover’s suicide is appalling publicity for the Indian regime; it is outrageous. In any case, a breakup cannot per se give enough reasons to presume intent to abet suicide, or love jihad, or blackmail, or whatever, and arrest a man.
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“Gujarat Shocker: BSF [Border Security Force] Jawan [soldier] lynched after fight over his daughter’s ‘obscene’ video. The soldier along with his wife had decided to confront the accused teenager for allegedly circulating the video. However, on raising the issue with the teenager’s parents, the accused’s family attacked them.” (Hindustan Times, YouTube, Dec 2022)
The more liberalism ruins authority within the family and community, the more it is compelled to repair its mistakes with harsh liberticidal legislation, such as against so-called revenge porn. Liberalism is against families because it is against freedom. If you don’t want obscene videos of yourself on the web, then don’t allow videos to be made of you to begin with. Liberal laws do not have in view payment for acts but rather shielding from payment for acts. You agree that a video is made of you, but you call the police when it is released; yet it is you allowed the release by allowing the video to be made. You’re asking the state to repair your own mistakes. You were lured by promises of lustful liberty and now you beg the police to beat up your lovers with bludgeons and torture them in dark cellars. You are the ones asking for a police state.
In police states, women have their lovers killed by police in basements to prevent revenge porn. Termination is paid by the taxpayer. What kind of state is India?
In France, revenge porn is admissible evidence in a divorce case, yet it is a crime. Think about it.
A man should not marry a woman whose obscene videos are circulating on the internet.
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“Twitter’s Deep Involvement with CIA [after FBI] Now Out in the Open | Twitter Files” (Firstpost, YouTube, Dec 2022)
So, Twitter is basically an intelligence department within the public administration, and yet all this commercial advertising on the platform? Shocking.
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In the Year of the Rabbit
Not one country will lift a finger to help Taiwan. China’s quarantines have had an impact on the world economy, with tensions on many production lines. You can’t wage a war against the workshop of the world, it would have to be a blitzkrieg and that’s impossible against China. It must be a war of attrition and you can’t fight such a war against the very workshop of your armies.
(ii)
On hypothetical Western sanctions against China: the phrase sounds so unreal! How could any country impose sanctions against the workshop of the world? The workshop would keep producing, but its “sanctioning” outlets would collapse.
It is because of foreign investment that China became the workshop of the world, and why has foreign investment gone to China to begin with? Because of profit maximization and free trade. That is to say, companies won’t leave China unless it becomes less competitive, less attractive, or because national states see China as a threat and force companies to leave the country, i.e., if there are sanctions against China. Western sanctions against China are no more unthinkable than a completely different makeup of the world economy, but they are unthinkable in today’s situation.
Companies coming in a country on commercial considerations and leaving on political considerations, are leaving to their own commercial detriment. In Europe, so many factories have shut down over the last decades. As unions say, when this happens, this is not only a factory that is closing but also know-how that goes lost; as the industrial base has been narrowing, redundant skilled workers cannot find jobs for their specific skills any longer and must apply for unskilled jobs. National relocation of industry would be a long process, and this must deter nations from taking sanctions against their workshop, China, because in the short run they will suffer from the sanctions more than sanctioned China.
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Criminal trials do not require complaints. Imagine a man without family and he is murdered. He can’t complain because he’s dead and relatives can’t complain because he had none; yet the authorities will investigate the case to bring the culprit before a court of law. Another example: A man having one relative is murdered by his relative. The victim won’t complain because he’s dead and the relative won’t complain because he’s the murderer. Complaints are not needed in criminal cases for justice to be done.
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On Indonesia’s extramarital sex ban. If governments are allowed to ban drugs, there is no reason why they could not ban extramarital sex. When you take drugs, is it any less your own business? Extramarital relationships are the business of any government having marriage regulations, that is, of all governments. Pay attention that, where adultery is not banned, it is a legal cause of punitive divorce. Where adultery is not banned, there is divorce for misconduct. However, when the situation between the spouses is asymmetrical, this civil procedure is wanting, so a criminal procedure may correct the asymmetry and restore harmed spouses in their rights.
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The lèse-majesté laws of UK are shrouded in mystery. 1) When one cabinet member said these laws are no longer valid, the statement was later recanted. As it was recanted, it is to be assumed one still faces imprisonment for life in case of lèse-majesté. 2) Police arrested demonstrators with placards “Not my queen etc.”; the demonstrators were later released, and the authorities explained it was the demonstrators’ right to demonstrate. So what, if I’ve got the right to demonstrate and am nonetheless arrested (demonstration terminated) and later released? This is very convenient. No trials: oh so liberal! No demonstrations: oh how they love their monarchs!
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IT
“Italia e Turchia sono storicamente i due attori principali del Mediterraneo.” (Giorgia a Bali) Bello. Adoro. Dato che Giorgia Meloni non è sposata, dovrebbe provare a diventare la seconda moglie di Erdogan, per consolidare i legami dei due attori principali.
