Tag: EU

Dumber than the GOP

It’s really remarkable when you can find a modern political party anywhere in the world more tone-deaf than the Republican Party. But there is one in the United Kingdom:

Nick Clegg is to launch an ‘aggressive’ defence of the European Union in a direct challenge to the rise of the UK Independence Party. The Liberal Democrat leader will use his New Year message next week to pitch his party as the only one ‘fully committed’ to Britain remaining in the EU. He will argue that with a tide of Eurosceptism engulfing the Tories and Labour wavering about even promising a referendum, only the Lib Dems will make the case as the ‘party of in’.

The Liberal Democrats have long been a joke. And while Clegg is a confirmed Europhile, this strategy strikes me as so stupid that it must be a purely cynical grab for cash from the European Commission. It won’t win the Lib Dems any votes, but it will guarantee Clegg a handsome payday and a cushy post-political retirement.

It tends to remind one of the squatty demon in Spawn, watching the teenage devil-worshippers and lamenting the way in which their followers tended to be morons.

Correcting the NYT

The New York Times has Europe precisely backwards as falsely equates fascism with populism. In Europe, it is the anti-immigrant populist parties that are pro-democracy and anti-fascism; some of them are openly left-wing. Fascism is not returning to Europe, it is already there in the form of the openly anti-democratic and corporatist European Union.

Across the Atlantic, however, populism is resurgent. Indeed, many fear that the European Parliament may be at risk of a right-wing populist takeover following elections in May 2014. In France, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Front has, for the first time in that country’s history, pulled ahead in polls for the European Union election. Ahead of the elections to the European Parliament, Ms. Le Pen recently announced her intention to form a “Eurosceptic” alliance with the Dutch politician Geert Wilders , whose right-wing Party for Freedom demonizes Islam and attacks immigration.

In Italy, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who controlled politics in that country for decades, peppered his Thatcherite free-market nationalism with spectacular doses of scandal, shady dealings and corruption. In his wake, “populism from above” has given way to a staunchly anti-political populism from below. Beppe Grillo, a comedian turned activist, sent shock waves through the establishment in February when his Five Star Movement won 25 percent of the vote. Mr. Grillo, who in the run-up to the election called for a referendum on whether to keep Italy in the euro zone, stressed the need to wrest power from the oligarchic elite and return it to the people. Prime Minister Enrico Letta, who took office in April, recently warned that populism posed a threat to European Union stability.

While they may seek the breakup of the European Union, most of these new European populist movements don’t aim to eliminate democracy altogether. In Greece, however, the emergence of a strand of populism deeply rooted in the fascist past is particularly troubling. The country’s crippling financial ills, and Brussels’ insistence on austerity measures, have generated populist responses that evoke the worst of interwar European fascism. The neo-fascist Golden Dawn party, which won 7 percent of the vote in Greece’s 2012 parliamentary elections, openly uses a logo resembling a swastika. Its supporters have perpetrated violent physical attacks on immigrants and political opponents (including murder); its party line includes anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. Similar sentiments are also on the rise in Hungary, where the nationalistic, anti-immigration, anti-Semitic Jobbik party is in line to become the second-largest in Parliament.

With their radical stance against pluralism and minority rights, Greece’s right-wing populists and their Hungarian counterparts — along with dozens of anti-European Union parties poised to win seats in next year’s parliamentary elections — make today’s burgeoning European brands of populism much more frightening than their Latin American counterparts.

There is nothing at all frightening about the much-needed resurgence of nationalism in Europe. The European people have turned aggressively against multiculturalism and mass immigration, and because the European media is dominated by social democrats rather than the rabid immigrationists that run the US media, the reporting is considerably more even-handed there. The article fails to note that there are twice as many Golden Dawn members murdered by its political opponents than there are Golden Dawn-affiliated murders or to point out that its anti-democratic political opponents have actually tried outlaw the party.

Europe isn’t religious in the same sense that America is, but on the other hand, their sense of belonging to an identifiably Christian nationalist culture tends to runs more deeply and is firmly entrenched in many of the most secular Europeans. They have seen the consequences of multiculturalism and most of them hate it. And unlike Americans, even the most famously tolerant Europeans, the Swiss, have a history of practicing rigid ethnic, religious, and linguistic cleansing.

In a comment on a previous post that is relevant here, Steve notes that
everything we used to believe concerning the positive aspects of both the European Union and American
left-liberalism were based on lies: “The same people who used to skate by on “commitment to scientific
truth, democracy, and tolerance” are increasingly discarding the velvet
glove in favor of the iron fist now that science is strongly suggesting
they are wrong, the popular will is moving against democracy, and their
“tolerance” is now proven to go only one way –  towards tolerating
sexual perversion,anti-Christian religious persecution, and anti-white
racism.”

An amusing revelation

Keep in mind that Alex from London is the sort of Englishman who invariably mocks American ignorance of the world:

This is the terrifying moment a trio of gunmen stormed into a disco and opened fire on a crowd of terrified dancers.CCTV captured the moment when the men pull out their guns and push past bouncers to get inside the disco in Cali, Colombia, before they start spraying bullets around the room.The victims’ blood flowed out of the nightclub and into the street after the gruesome 20-minute long attack.

 Alex, London, United Kingdom, 2 hours ago
“Absolutely horrific! Hopefully Obama will be able to change their gun law. It can’t carry on the way it is.”

It should certainly be fascinating to see what Obama can accomplish with regards to the gun crime in Cali, Colombia. This should take place not long after David Cameron deals with the pressing issue of the undercapitalized banks in Athens, Greece.

Mailvox: A European perspective

A Spanish reader weighs in concerning my comments on the different challenges faced by Western civilization in Europe and North America:

I have been following your posts for several years and, although I never had an interest in fantasy, I just started reading The Wardog’s Coin. (I figured that since I enjoy so much your thoughts on economics, politics, and gender issues, I should also check the fiction.)

After reading you post titled “Why there is hope for Europe” I would like to share some thoughts with you about the differences between the situations on both sides of the Atlantic. Perhaps I should begin this by mentioning that I am European, Spanish to be precise.

In your article, you enumerate these three differences:

1.    Parliamentary systems
2.    Trans-ideological nationalism
3.    No popular pro-immigrant mythology

I agree with the first, not so much with the other two. But, most importantly, I would add two that I consider crucial.

1.    America’s immigration problem is with Spanish-speaking (mostly) Christians, whereas Europe’s is with (mostly) Muslims. I am really surprised that you did not include this one among your three differences.

The Americans’ memory of the Mexican War or the Spanish-American War is nothing compared to the Europeans’ memory of centuries fighting against Islam (almost 800 years in the case of Spain). Not to sound patronizing, but can an American wrap his head around the idea of a national identity forged in a conflict that triples the age of the United States of America (711 A.D. to 1492 vs. 1776 to 2013)? Some things are so big that they are routinely overlooked.

An American notices a South American moving into his neighborhood and he may have some very valid concerns, if nothing else, as a taxpayer. But he never really fears that Juan Garcia is going to show up one day in a subway station and blow himself up killing dozens of innocents. Our American John Doe has never witnessed Juan Garcia peeing in broad daylight on the façade of an American church. John might fear that his baby girl will marry Juan and then he’d have to attend a Catholic wedding, he does not fear that his baby girl will spend the rest of her life in a burka. He may fear that his grandchildren will play soccer rather than American football, he does not fear that they will learn how to behead infidels (like John himself).

In Europe, you find croissants, which were created in the image of a crescent to be eaten in defiance of the Muslim invaders centuries ago. You find Spanish families named Matamoros, literally ‘Moor-slayer’. And so on. In Europe, a nationalist party has plenty of symbolism to use against immigrants. There is absolutely nothing in the American culture against South Americans even remotely resembling that deeply rooted pathos. The closest thing being what? The ballad of El Álamo?

Plus, a South American is not going to tell our John Doe to stop eating burgers, but a Muslim cannot tolerate jamón, and to a Spaniard jamón is several orders of magnitude more important than the national flag, the national anthem, and the King, combined.

Worse still, after two devastating world wars and a traumatic cold war dividing the continent, Europeans happily (hippily?) embraced this kumbayah idea that if you don’t annoy others then they will leave you in peace. This was not meant only between France and Germany or between the metropolis and the former colonies, but in a vaguely general universal sense. So it is now particularly vexing to receive so much animosity from some immigrants (while the official politically correct tune goes on unaltered). America has not at all gone through such an emotional roller-coaster; you see, it happened over there.

So John Doe is not that concerned; certainly not as concerned as his European counterparts.

2.    If I am not very mistaken, immigration in the US is very concentrated in the Sunbelt. Whereas In Europe, immigration in Scandinavia, Britain, and Germany is as much an issue as it is in Spain and Italy. This would be equivalent to Alaska, the Dakotas, and Vermont having as much an issue with immigrants as Texas and California. Clearly, they don’t. (Again, this is not to overlook the federal fiscal implications.)

Plus, European towns are typically much more densely populated and geographically contiguous, so much so that you can actually walk from one neighborhood to another, so when a neighborhood suffers it is much more evident to all and so it is easier to genuinely worry, to empathize (even if the media tries to ignore it). But urban sprawl in the US, I suspect, has had a detrimental effect on what Ibn Khaldun called Asabiyyah, the nation’s social cohesion, by creating some sort of watertight compartments. An American neighborhood goes to hell and the people over the county border do not even notice because, to begin with, they’d need to drive there to notice but they never go (and the media dutifully ignores it). By the way, I think this phenomenon also helps explain why American Conservatives in the last presidential election where so mistaken about their real chances, they have lost sight of the nation by living inside a monochromatic bubble (Dems too, but their aggregated Blue State bubbles are demographically larger, it seems).

I think these two points are much more powerful than the pro-immigrant mythology. Indeed, it was, in part, because of the strength of this mythology all across Europe that so many nations made it so easy for immigrants to move in.

Finally, all this relates to perceptions, not necessarily actual threats, and to how easily and how much political parties can gain from that fear and what they do with that. Almost every Muslim I have personally met in Europe is too busy making a living to spoil it by going radical. And since they often live in several European countries before they settle down it is quite normal for many of them to speak several European languages. And let’s not forget that it was not them who drafted or even voted for all the idiotic legislation that’s gotten us into this mess (ditto for South Americans in the US). Obviously if it was all bad news then all the continent would be soaked in blood once again. But the really amusing twist (and isn’t History rich in amusing twists?) is that these growing nationalist parties have much more in common with what most adult Muslims have seen in their own homelands than with the political parties that have dominated Europe since 1945. Perhaps they will feel more at home? It’s not a cruel cheap joke. After all, General Franco, won the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) with the help of the African volunteers, his beloved Moorish Guards. Perhaps the key to real multicultural understanding was not to be found in kumbayah Social-democracy but in something better time-tested.

He’s entirely correct to call me to account on my failure to mention the demographic differences concerning the two invasions, especially since I’ve written about them in the past. Most Americans are astonished to learn that Muslims make up less than 5 percent of the European population, whereas Hispanics make up around 20 percent of the U.S. population.

As one American friend was surprised to observe, she saw more Muslims on her last visit to Minneapolis than she did in Rome.  Londonistan and Amstarabia no more indicate the Muslim occupation of Europe than New York City proves that most Americans are Jews.

That being said, our Spanish friend is incorrect about the invasion of the U.S. being primarily concentrated in the Sunbelt. It is certainly most severe in the four Sand States, but when Somalis are being elected in St. Paul and entire neighborhoods are being renamed to reflect who is now controlling them, the idea that the problem is localized is clearly incorrect. To put it in the proper perspective, there are only about 4x more Muslims in Europe per capita than there are Somalis in Minnesota. 

Why there is hope for Europe

And why it is more likely that it is America that will end up experiencing third world status:

As right-wing populists surge across Europe, rattling established political parties with their hostility toward immigration, austerity and the European Union, Mikkel Dencker of the Danish People’s Party has found yet another cause to stir public anger: pork meatballs missing from kindergartens.

A member of Denmark’s Parliament and, he hopes, mayor of this commuter-belt town west of Copenhagen, Mr. Dencker is furious that some day care centers have removed meatballs, a staple of traditional Danish cuisine, from their cafeterias in deference to Islamic dietary rules. No matter that only a handful of kindergartens have actually done so. The missing meatballs, he said, are an example of how “Denmark is losing its identity” under pressure from outsiders.

The issue has become a headache for Mayor Helle Adelborg, whose center-left Social Democratic Party has controlled the town council since the 1920s but now faces an uphill struggle before municipal elections on Nov. 19. “It is very easy to exploit such themes to get votes,” she said. “They take a lot of votes from my party. It is unfair.”

It is also Europe’s new reality. All over, established political forces are losing ground to politicians whom they scorn as fear-mongering populists. In France, according to a recent opinion poll, the far-right National Front has become the country’s most popular party. In other countries — Austria, Britain, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland and the Netherlands — disruptive upstart groups are on a roll.

This phenomenon alarms not just national leaders but also officials in Brussels who fear that European Parliament elections next May could substantially tip the balance of power toward nationalists and forces intent on halting or reversing integration within the European Union.

Unless you live in Europe, you probably cannot understand why its long term prospects are actually better than the USA’s. For some reason, probably because they only visit a few of the largest cities, Americans tend to be under the impression that there are far more Muslims in Europe than there are. They also don’t understand that left-wing European intolerance would make the average KKK member look like a multiculturalist.

Remember, both the post-Lenin Soviets and the National Socialists were left-wing parties that were strongly nationalistic. Whereas in the US, nationalism is very weak and only a right-wing phenomenon, in Europe, it spans the political spectrum. Notice that the votes for the “right-wing” nationalists come from Left and Right; in the UK, the BNP draws from Labor whereas UKIP is draining the Tory Party dry. Whereas the rise of the new parties has the mainstream parties visibly terrified, the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street remain the object of late-night TV jokes.

There are three primary reasons for the difference in outlook between Europe and the USA. They are as follows:

  1. Parliamentary systems
  2. Trans-ideological nationalism
  3. No popular pro-immigrant mythology

The parliamentary systems are more favorable to third parties. Whereas the Tea Party has gone nowhere and accomplished nothing, several anti-central, anti-globalist parties are on the verge of taking control of their national parliaments. As in the USA, the established parties have allied against them, but that has only bought them a little extra time before being voted out. The American system is much more conducive to effectively barring policies and politicians deemed non-mainstream.

I’ve already explained the trans-ideological nature of European nationalism. A French Communist and a French Gaulist are both French before they are communists or gaulists. And to both of them, a Senegalese individual is still Senegalese and therefore not French, whether he is communist or a Gaulist.

The absence of the mythology of the melting pot is also important. No one in Europe except a few idiot university students genuinely believes in what isn’t true of the USA and has no application in Europe. The EU has turned out to be a fraudulent, corrupt, Germanic empire and most of Europe will celebrate when it inevitably collapses.

Now, I hope both the nations of Europe and the USA will come to their collective senses and cast off the multicultural myths that have Western civilization hurtling towards collapse and conquest. But, on the basis of the political tectonics, at this point, Europe actually, unexpectedly, appears to be in better shape, mostly because far more of them already recognize who their villainous elites are and what they have done.

Front National wins in France

One wonders if the Socialists will try to take a page from the Greeks and ban the French nationalist party as a “criminal organization” before they get booted from office by the electorate.

France’s Front National swept to victory over the country’s mainstream centre-right opposition in a closely watched local election on Sunday in a vote widely seen as presaging big advances by the far-right party in next year’s European and municipal elections.

In the decisive second round of the poll for a departmental council seat representing Brignoles, a town in the south of France, the FN candidate comfortably defeated his rival from the UMP, the party of former president Nicolas Sarkozy, by 54 per cent to 46 per cent.

The knockout blow came despite calls from President François Hollande’s Socialist party for its supporters and other leftist voters to rally behind the UMP candidate in a bid to block the FN. The left’s candidate in the poll, the incumbent Communist, was easily knocked out in the first round of the election last weekend.

Marine Le Pen, FN leader, called the vote “a great victory”. She cautioned that it was only a local by-election, but added: “This shows a desire for change among the French people, who are making their voices heard, who are mobilising. It augurs towns gained and hundreds, maybe thousands of municipal councillors [for the FN in next March’s local elections].’

The FN, riding on a wave of recession-fuelled disaffection with the two mainstream parties, is mounting its biggest campaign to date to make gains in both the local elections and the European elections that follow in May. Last week an opinion poll for the first time put the FN ahead in the running for the European poll, with 24 per cent backing the party, giving it a two-point lead over the UMP and five points over the Socialist party.

Manuel Valls, the interior minister, told the Financial Times in an interview last week, that it was possible the FN would emerge as the leading party in the European elections.

Across Europe, the globalists and transnationalists are all but finished democratically. From the UK to Eastern Europe, the trend is clear. Now the question is if they will go gracefully or otherwise, turning to violent, anti-democratic tactics while incessantly screaming “fascist” and “neo-Nazi” at the populist parties.

In the meantime, there isn’t any mystery about the growing mass appeal of Marine Le Pen and the Front National: 

 “I will negotiate over the points on which there can be no compromise. If the result is inadequate, I will call for withdrawal. Europe is just a great bluff. On one side there is the immense power of sovereign peoples, and on the other side are a few technocrats.”

Asked if she intended to pull France of the euro immediately, she hesitated for a second or two and then said: “Yes, because the euro blocks all economic decisions. France is not a country that can accept tutelage from Brussels.”

As I wrote in June, the Front has been scoring highest in core Socialist
cantons, clear evidence that it is breaking out of its Right-wing
enclaves to become the mass movement of the white working class.

Vive le franc! The Euro is finished once France turns against it.

Fascist “anti-fascists”

The government has taken several steps toward open civil war in Greece by attempting to criminalize the political opposition:

Nikos Michaloliakos, 56, was arrested on Saturday morning on charges of
founding a criminal organisation, with arrest warrants issued for dozens
more party members and lawmakers, officials said.  The arrest of Michaloliakos, along with 13 other party members including
spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris, comes as part of a wider crackdown on the
far-right group following the murder of anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas by
an alleged Golden Dawn member, which sparked riots across the country.

Pavlos Fyssas – known by his stage name of Killah P – was stabbed to death in
an Athens commuter town on September 17, triggering violent anti-fascist
protests across the country.

At least 10,000 people demonstrated in Athens on Wednesday in a protest
organised by left-wing political parties and unions. Golden Dawn has denied it had anything to do with the killing, but he was
stabbed to death by a self-proclaimed supporter.

The so-called “anti-fascist” protests are tiny compared to the general strike with which the Greeks have been protesting the government. To put it in perspective, this is as if Bill Clinton and twelve Congressional Republicans were arrested because Tupac’s killer was a self-proclaimed Democrat.

Both the Egyptian and the Greek governments are making the mistake of forcing their populist political opposition to turn to violence. The popularity of Golden Dawn and the Muslim Brotherhood are only going to increase as a result of this shamelessly political stunt, especially in contrast with openly anti-democratic governments that are shamelessly robbing the people on behalf of the IMF, the EU, and other globalist institutions.

The irony is that the Eurofascists are attacking their critics as fascists while operating in an observably fascist manner in cooperation with the international corporate megabanks. Meanwhile, in Italy, the resignation of Berlusconi’s alllies appear to have brought the Letta government down and made it likely that the anti-Euro Movimento 5 Stelle will soon come to power.

All five ministers from Silvio Berlusconi‘s centre-right party said on Saturday night they were resigning from Italy‘s
grand coalition government in a dramatic move that plunged the country
back into political uncertainty and raised the possibility of fresh
elections.

Note that Berlusconi’s action was the direct and predictable consequence of prosecutorial actions directed against him by his political foes.

Greek military union challenges government

A statement released by the Special Forces Reserve Union demands the resignation of the government. From Zerohedge:

Greek government authorities are on alert after a union of Greek army reservists of Special Forces issued a statement urging the Greek administration to step down and make way for a national unity government. As Keep Talking Greece notes, the statement on the union’ website included 15 demands – including the resignation of the Greek President – and urged people to gather at the infamous Syntagma Square on Saturday. The statement was interpreted by some as a call to a “coup d’etat” – denied by the union – but prompted Greece’s Supreme Court to meet to discuss it.

The 15 Demands…


“OUR PRIMARY PURPOSE DEFENSE OF OUR COUNTRY.
Reservists Special Forces and the Greek people to implementation of Article 120 of the Constitution requires:

1. IMMEDIATE RESIGNATION OF GOVERNMENT of the impossibility of
providing the people as provided in the Constitution at Work (Article
22), health, education, justice, security.
Two. ESTABLISHING A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT PLANS chaired by Supreme
Court of personalities on proven outside politics and consultants from
the Academy of Athens.
Three. SUSPENSION OF APPLICATION NOTICE MNIMONIAKON laws and within
two months, with a ban on participation of all citizens who participated
in the governments responsible for the current economic situation.
4. EXAMINING BOARD of the supreme court and accountability for the
HOW and WHO led us to Catastrophic Agreement Memorandum. Establishment
of Constitutional Court Effective power impose its will.
5. Immediate suspension of dismissal from the State.
6. SUSPENSION further TAX for Family Income up to 25.000 €.
7. SUSPENSION auctions and bank claims until the Completion Audit of Banks of Certified Public Accountants and accountability.
8. Complaint EPACHTHOUS DEBT.
9. PROHIBITION OF SALE PUBLIC PROPERTY, Resume Defence Industries.
10. DIRECT confiscation German (Retail / Business / Office) FULL
COMPENSATION until the Greek government for war reparations and
occupation loan.
11. BREAK THE LAW ON LIABILITY minister and VOULEFTIKIS ASYLIAS.
Regardless of all “THE GREEKS ARE EQUAL BEFORE THE LAW” (Article 4).
12. CONTROL assets of those involved in economic positions of
government, prosecute illicit enrichment and Efficiency to the State.
13. OPERATIONAL CONTROL – LICENSING LEGALITY broadcasters and immediate return to the Greek government debts.
14. Protection from Hostile Elongation at AEGEAN, Macedonia, Epirus,
Thrace and Cyprus, while suppressing the various groups that see inside.
15. REMOVE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS with a similar promotion in European
countries and the server. EXPORT BAN MONEY Over 20% of the taxable
income of such.
• The KK PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC INVITED WAIVED as an appropriate time to facilitate desired development of the Greek people.
• THESMOS WARRANTOR all of the above may be the ARMED FORCES OF THE COUNTRY AS POWERFUL ANIDIOTELIS ENTITY TO ANY THREAT.
• Bodies SECURITY REQUIRED TO SECURING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE
ABOVE AND SMOOTH MIGRATION IN ACTUAL constitutional legality. ”

It should be fascinating to see the High Officials of the EU babbling about the need to respect democracy after they initiated post-democratic coups in Greece and Italy. There is no reason why the various national militaries shouldn’t follow their example… and they’ve got the guns.

There isn’t much question that nationalist military governments would be vastly preferable to unelected Eurofascist rule. It is looking like the government’s attempt to crack down on the increasingly popular Golden Dawn was a very, very bad idea that is likely to backfire.

Opposing predictions revisited

You may recall that after the mass shooting of dozens of larval Labor politicians in Norway, there was a discussion of whether this would turn the Norwegian electorate to the right or to the left.  Many predicted an anti-nativist backlash that would strengthen the ruling Norwegian Labor party and support its vision of a multicultural, multiethnic Norway. I, on the other hand, predicted that Breivik’s action would eventually be seen as a harbinger of Norway’s belated move towards the ethnic nationalism that is sweeping across most of Europe.

I believe we can safely conclude that the verdict is now in:

Norway will be holding elections for Parliament on September 9, just two weeks before Germany votes. If polls taken over the last year are accurate, the eight-year-old Labor-party government of Jens Stoltenberg is headed for a landslide defeat.

Normally, you would think it would be a shoo-in for reelection. Labor’s social democrats have long thought of themselves as the natural party of government — Labor has been the leading party in Norway for all but 16 of the last 78 years. While much of Europe is wracked by recession, Norway’s economy grew by 3 percent last year, and the unemployment rate is only 3.5 percent. Norway’s GDP per capita is now over $60,000 a year.

But Norwegians appear likely to elect a conservative coalition government for the first time in over a decade. Polls show the Conservative party leading with 32 percent of the vote, which should give it 58 seats in the 169-seat parliament, a dramatic increase from 2005, when it won only 23 seats. The Labor party has about 30 percent of the vote, and its left-wing allied parties are floundering. The Progress party — a populist party that supports low taxes and stricter limits on immigration, and that worries about Muslim extremism – has about 16 percent of the vote, and it and the Conservatives, together with their smaller allies, look to have a clear majority in the new Parliament.

Charles Martel, William Tell, and Winston Churchill are all seen as national heroes for their violent opposition to foreign immigration and occupation, so while some might find it very hard to believe now, it will not be terribly surprising if Anders Breivik is one day revered by Norwegians for his murderous stand against the invaders and quislings of his homeland.

Double-damned lies and comparative statistics

It’s not as if government statistics weren’t already unreliable, but this mea culpa demonstrates why you should look very, very, very skeptically at any argument that compares the statistics from one country with the statistics from another.  Even with something as superficially straightforward as the murder rate, they simply cannot be trusted at face value:

I have frequently in this series referred to the English murder rates as historically low and currently very low compared to US murder rates.  I blandly accepted the murder statistics published by the UK Home Office as definitive.  I overlooked the details of what and how the English counted “murders.” It turns out that was a big mistake.  (I was first turned onto my error by this post at Extrano’s Alley.)

I fell into a definitions trap you may not be aware of. The shortest version is this. We count and report crimes based on initial data. The Brits count and report crimes based on the outcome of the investigation and trial. Yep, that says what I meant it to say.

In the US, the count of people murdered kept by the FBI is pretty darned straightforward. Got a body, not natural causes, not suicide? Must be murder of one sort or another. Count it.

So, if you ask the FBI, they will tell you that for 2011 there were 14,022 murders or non-negligent manslaughters.  On the same line of that chart, they tell us the population was 292,364,075 which gives us a “murder” rate of 4.8 per 100,000 population. Those counts are based on crimes reported by local police agencies.  They say nothing about the clearance rate, nor if anyone was ever identified or charged or convicted or whatever.  Body, not natural, not negligent, homicide.  Duh.

Now, on to England. It turns out that the Home office is very restrictive in what they report as “murders.”  Still, looking at the detailed report for 2010/2011 the Home office tells us that in the reporting period there were 636 murders “provisionally recorded” for a murder rate of 1.15 per 100,000 — less than 1/3 the murder rate in the US.  (See page 16 of the source document)

I’ve reported these numbers blindly many times, and quoted sources with many (sometimes silly) explanations for the lower murder rate in the UK. There’s a problem with that as it turns out. What about all those murders which were not solved? The ones where a conviction wasn’t gotten? The ones where the appeals are still on-going? Not only that, but when exactly were these homicides performed?

“Since 1967, homicide figures for England and Wales have been adjusted to exclude any cases which do not result in conviction”

OOOoooooops.  We’re not comparing apples to apples, we’re comparing apples to meatloaf. 

Keep this in mind the next time you hear someone extolling the wonders of gun laws in the UK or the excellent performance of the Scandinavian health care system.  It’s possible the statistics are relevant.  But then again, it is entirely possible that they are not.