Warnings regarding passions of the popular majority devastating the minority

To some the shutting down of debate and the end of certain ideologies is the aspiration of society. The below is penned response to the effect on the individual when religion, beliefs, ideology, values, morals, history, and law are only in favour of the popular majority.

I have been vilified and told I am the greatest monster known to humanity. But what are my crimes? I am afflicted and distressed, but no offence has been caused by my hand, nor mind or mouth. Yet my enemies have increased and they fiercely hate me. My opinions of love, responsibility, and order have brought the scourge of the mob. When I stand for the rights of the minority, the populace mock me, decry I am what is wrong with society.

All I ask for is strength to carry this through and to be rescued in the end. The only things I carry are my integrity, uprightness, and faith in hope. The nations have entered troubles. Friend and foe is blurred. Right and wrong is not the same as legal and illegal. The legislatures seek to vanquish those out with vogue.

No expression of thought outside the accepted is tolerated. Defence of a liberty becomes grounds for treason. Institutions for free thinking have become the systems for memorization and regurgitation of politically accepted material.

Our legal system punishes the helpless and makes heroes of the wicked. Those with malice live on, but the innocent who incest on privacy are accused of dreadful crimes. Guilty, until proven innocent has become the standard of our system.

History is rewritten and glories of our national past are now shameful to mention. Good deeds are recorded as having guilty intentions and the act of helping one another is written as a mere front. Heroes are vilified and the historic lessons learnt from past mistakes are lost in the rhetoric of advancing an ideology.

The masses have brought loneliness to me. I have retreated to my refuge. My hope is that no shame will be brought one me. Hope is not lost, for I have integrity, a belief in my faith, and a path in truth. I ask for vindication for I wash my hands in innocence, abhor the assemblies of the malice and deceitful. Life is redeemed with mercy and feet resting on level ground.

The law concerning polygamy

Today while I was reading and annotating a few in preparations for my International Private Law tutorial I was reminded about an original aim of the Grand Old Party. In the mid-1800s there was wide-spread public hostility towards the practice of polygamy, meaning being married to more than one person concurrently. Joseph Smith, the founder and prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), had a revelation in 1843 in which he called for men to marry more than one woman. Nine years later the Mormon Church officially announced polygamy was religiously superior to monogamy. Public outcry led to religious leaders, journalists and politicians denouncing the practice. The Republican Party, organized in Jackson, Michigan on 6 July 1854, had as their first national platform a denouncement of polygamy and slavery as “those twin relics of barbarism.”

The seminal case of polygamy came in England with Hyde v Hyde [1866] 1 LR-P & D, in which the Court declared marriage as being between one man and one woman. The leading American case is that of Reynolds v U.S. (1878) 98 US 145, in which the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a Mormon leader for polygamy by rejecting the appellant’s claim to religious liberty as protected under the First Amendment of the US Constitution. In the UK most legal rights and privileges concerning married and cohabitating couples have been extended to same-sex couples by virtue of the Civil Partnership Act 2004. The concept of only two parties being privileged to a marriage or partnership was preserved. The common law in the UK has made special allowances for bigamy on a case by case basis.

The concept of bigamy (having two spouses) at common law was and is no different than that of polygamy. The U.S. Model Penal Code, s 230(1) classifies polygamy as a third-degree felony and the offence subsists until all cohabitation with and claim of marriage to more than one spouse terminates. Aliens from other jurisdictions visiting the US or the UK will not be any violation of criminal laws, so long as polygamy is lawful in the alien’s nation of origin.

The future of Britain: a battle between rationalism, anxiety, fear, and civil liberties

If you are in a city and in public, you are most likely on multiple CCTVs, plus at night when the pubs and clubs start to close they have the police vans with huge cameras onto that swivel like a turret would on a tank.

Britain is also changing its student visa requirements to include DNA samples and registering with the local police, who then take your photography and put in there current students database. In addition to all this UK banks are no longer allowed to let non-residence open accounts, thus all my accounts are now grandfathered into the system, because of the 4.5% interest, I am thinking I might not close my account when all my studies are finished.

Britain though has a tougher educational system than the US in general, though it is declining due to the concept of parents not taking responsibility for their children's education. Seeing as how only a limited amount of time is in the classroom, parents need to take responsibility. In 2007, 50% of all births in the UK were to single mothers - is that a scary stat or what?

The UK is actually losing its native population, as the indigenous Brits are dying faster than replacement by indigenous Brits. The same is true in France. The reason Great Britain and France are still growing in population is from immigration (mostly from former territories - which include a lot of Muslim countries and from former Eastern Bloc Countries) and from births to non-indigenous residences / citizens / transients.

Only 7% of British people attend church on a weekly or semi-weekly or holiday basis. Much of the people's desire for a moral compass and meaningful existence is place in government. Modern Demagogues, similar to those seen in ancient Rome are starting to emerge, though the only obvious one currently seems to be Obama. Though one could argue that Gore, Clinton, the UN Sec. Gen., and random other politician could be lumped into that category too. Obama is very much seen as a messiah figure in Britain and even more so on mainland Europe. Though he appears to be seen as the World's President and not the American President - another scary thought. I am just arguing that religion is a better place to rest hope than in socialism, though the current trend of the world is moving towards socialism, so this could be a moot point in given time.

Freedom "of" religion vs. Freedom "from" religion

The 2 April 2009 issue of the Economist had a very interesting article, regarding the UN Human Rights Council's Resolution A/HRC/10/L.2/Rev.1, however, I have to criticize the author for not following the topic of his arguement. Instead of talking about the UN Human Rights Council March 26th adopted resolution, he attacks the US concept of religious liberty in the end. America has a continually balancing system for religious liberty, which is entrenched in the Bill of Rights and to criticize the American system when that wasn't even the article's premise seems like a cheap shot. It is the difference between freedom "of" religion vs. freedom "from" religion. The US has adopted the latter, but the former seems to be the final thought of the author. His argument breaks down by not having a conclusion which reflexes what it is he is actually arguing, which should be the resolutions undermining of the Universal Declaration of Human Right.

_______________________________________________________
From The Economist print edition

Apr 2nd 2009
Why freedom of speech must include the right to “defame” religions

AT FIRST glance, the resolution on “religious defamation” adopted by the UN’s Human Rights Council on March 26th, mainly at the behest of Islamic countries, reads like another piece of harmless verbiage churned out by a toothless international bureaucracy. What is wrong with saying, as the resolution does, that some Muslims faced prejudice in the aftermath of September 2001? But a closer look at the resolution’s language, and the context in which it was adopted (with an unholy trio of Pakistan, Belarus and Venezuela acting as sponsors), makes clear that bigger issues are at stake.

The resolution says “defamation of religions” is a “serious affront to human dignity” which can “restrict the freedom” of those who are defamed, and may also lead to the incitement of violence. But there is an insidious blurring of categories here, which becomes plain when you compare this resolution with the more rigorous language of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948 in a spirit of revulsion over the evils of fascism. This asserts the right of human beings in ways that are now entrenched in the theory and (most of the time) the practice of liberal democracy. It upholds the right of people to live in freedom from persecution and arbitrary arrest; to hold any faith or none; to change religion; and to enjoy freedom of expression, which by any fair definition includes freedom to agree or disagree with the tenets of any religion.

In other words, it protects individuals—not religions, or any other set of beliefs. And this is a vital distinction. For it is not possible systematically to protect religions or their followers from offence without infringing the right of individuals.

What exactly is it the drafters of the council resolution are trying to outlaw? To judge from what happens in the countries that lobbied for the vote—like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan—they use the word “defamation” to mean something close to the crime of blasphemy, which is in turn defined as voicing dissent from the official reading of Islam. In many of the 56 member states of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, which has led the drive to outlaw “defamation”, both non-Muslims and Muslims who voice dissent (even in technical matters of Koranic interpretation) are often victims of just the sort of persecution the 1948 declaration sought to outlaw. That is a real human-rights problem. And in the spirit of fairness, laws against blasphemy that remain on the statute books of some Western countries should also be struck off; only real, not imaginary, incitement of violence should be outlawed.

In much of the Muslim world, the West’s reaction to the attacks of September 2001, including the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, has been misread as an attack on Islam itself. This is more than regrettable; it is dangerous. Western governments, and decent people everywhere, should try to ensure that the things they say do not entrench religious prejudice or incite acts of violence; being free to give offence does not mean you are wise to give offence. But no state, and certainly no body that calls itself a Human Rights Council, should trample on the right to free speech enshrined in the Universal Declaration. And in the end, given that all faiths have undergone persecution at some time, few people have more to gain from the protection of free speech than sincere religious believers.

The United States, with its tradition of combining strong religious beliefs and religious freedom, is well placed to make that case. Having taken a politically risky decision (see article) to re-engage with the Human Rights Council and seek election as one of its 47 members, America should now make the defence of real religious liberty one of its highest priorities.

See: America rejoins the argument over which human rights are sacred