The Isle of Wimps takes a stand!

Here’s an action by the British government that from the point of view of what I dare call the normal human conscience is so sick and evil that one is left stunned by it. But from the liberal point of view, meaning from the point of view that liberal standards must be systematically applied to all aspects of human existence, what the British government is doing here is perfectly logical and correct, indeed, obligatory. Tom Leonard in The Telegraph reports :

The British government faces a potential diplomatic row with Antigua over the shooting of the honeymoon couple Catherine and Benjamin Mullany after demanding that anyone convicted of the crime will not face the death penalty.

Antiguan officials told The Daily Telegraph that the Foreign Office attempted to make such a pledge a condition of allowing Scotland Yard detectives to fly out to help in the investigation.

One senior Antiguan source said British officials initially demanded a signed guarantee from the country’s Prime Minister, Baldwin Spencer.

The Antiguan interior minister told the Foreign Office that the government could not make any such pledge as the death penalty was decided by the Caribbean island’s judiciary, which is technically independent.

The British demand to its former colony is understood to have annoyed Antigua’s leadership. Eight years ago, the two countries clashed diplomatically after the UK tried to stop the execution of Steadroy McDougal for the murder of a Scottish woman and her boyfriend.

With Antiguan police struggling to find suspects in the shooting of Catherine and Benjamin Mullany, Britain has decided to dispatch a team of detectives despite the absence of any death penalty guarantee.

However, the Foreign Office has made clear in strong terms to the Antiguans that it does not expect anyone convicted as a result of a British investigation to face capital punishment.

A Foreign Office spokesman said that, “in parallel” to the investigation, “we will continue to seek assurances from the Antiguan government that anyone found guilty will not face the death penalty”.

Mr Spencer appealed earlier this week for Scotland Yard to send officers to help in the case and provide wider support in clearing up a large backlog of unsolved crimes on the Caribbean island.

Mrs Mullany, a 31-year-old doctor from south Wales, and her husband, a 31-year-old physiotherapist, were both shot in the head in their hotel room in the early hours of Sunday morning last weekend.

She died instantly while her husband was left brain dead. They were staying in a cottage at the Cocos Hotel, a popular honeymoon destination, which sits in an isolated corner of the south west of the island

Local police have yet to make any arrests but Western interference in Antigua’s police and justice systems is a highly contentious issue in the country.

- end of initial entry -

Morgan writes:

I’m British (Welsh), and my government does not speak in my name. I want the perpetrator/s, if lawfully caught, lawfully tried and lawfully convicted, to then have their necks lawfully stretched. This is certainly the majority view in the not particularly elevated circles I move in.

I suggest the same majority view holds regarding people who behead strangers at random.

This same view holds in my circles regarding certain crimes other than murder (excluding the more conventional murders where the act was not intentional and involved no use of weapons in other than “save your life” defensive manner—for example, a jury of my particular peers would never have convicted the Norfolk farmer Tony Martin for his shooting to death one of two burglars who entered his house in the middle of the night. This is one area of the law where, in our view, you Americans have things ordered correctly).

Perhaps the Antiguan government might be wise too shoo Scotland Yard back home to London, and ask the FBI for assistance?

LA replies:

Of course Morgan understands that when I make those derogatory and mocking statements about Britain I am not speaking of all British people. But we must face reality and speak plainly. Of all Western countries, Britain is without doubt the most PC, the most suicidal, the most eager to cringe before thugs and mortal enemies, and the most self-righteous about cringing before thugs and mortal enemies. If the character of Britain as it now exists is relentlessly exposed and criticized, that might help in the process of non-suicidal Britons gaining influence in that Island again. At present, there is zero—ZERO—sign that non-suicidal white people have any influence in that country’s public life.

Alex A. writes:

You write that in the Isle of Wimps, “At present, there is zero—ZERO—sign that non-suicidal white people have any influence in that country’s public life.”

You are correct of course. There aren’t even any British blogsites at the intellectual standard of VFR on which people like your correspondent Morgan (or myself for that matter) can communicate our despair at the ruin of our way of life.

LA replies:

You know it’s funny, now that you mention it, apart from BNP related sites, I am not off-hand aware of any right-wing or even just genuinely conservative British blogs. I’m not saying they don’t exist. I’m just not aware of them.

If I may ask, are you in Britain? I see you’re one hour east of Greenwich time.

Also, speaking of conservative writers, what ever happened to Charles Moore? I guess the alarm he expressed about his Muslim neighbors praying loudly back during the Gulf War in 1991 (in response to which Leon Wiesieltier at The New Republic said he looked forward to the day when Moore’s Muslim neighbors would overhwhelm him with their Islamic manifestations) was just an expression of emotion, lacking any principled position. Because I have not seen anything by him in recent years about the Islam problem.

Philip M. writes from England (August 5):

You are right that there are no decent right wing British blogs. Why do you think VFR-land is full of limey immigrants like myself?

Alex A. replies:

I’m not aware of any either—apart from BNP sites which, I’ll be snobbish and say, are not intellectually sophisticated.

I’m an hour east of Greenwich because I live in East Anglia—a sort of latter-day Ultima Thule.

LA replies:

I see that Ultima Thule means a far distant place beyond the borders of the known world.

But it’s funny to think that East Anglia, which begins maybe three or four hours northeast of London, not far east of Cambridge, is so isolated from the rest of today’s England that it can be called Ultima Thule. I guess because it’s undeveloped so not many people go there.

I love East Anglia. The combination of medieval churches and towns with unspoiled countryside.

Almost all the information used in Eamon Duffy’s The Stripping of the Altars, about late medieval church practices just prior to the English Reformation, was based on documents he uncovered in East Anglian churches. There are so many important churches there because of East Anglia’s wealth during the Middle Ages, based on the wool industry. The wool industry was facilitated by Edward III (reigned from 1327 to 1377), who protected the wool industry by prohibiting the importation of wool into England. So those great East Anglian churches are there because medieval England rejected free trade.

On a trip in England in 1996, driving into East Anglia, the first town we arrived at was Ely (pronounced Eelee). Right at the edge of town, looking as though it was rising out the countryside, was the huge stone tower of the Ely Cathedral. It wasn’t in the middle of the city surrounded by buildings, but, at the edge of the countryside, an astonishing sight.

And that theme, of churches and church towns in the middle of flat or gently rolling country, is something you see over and over in East Anglia.

I also discuss the Ely Cathedral at the beginning of my article, “The political religon of modernity.”

Alex A. writes:

In response to your appreciation of East Anglia, I’d like to emphasize (despite my previous levity) that it is very beautiful here—with a matchless skyscape and an almost unspoiled landscape: it’s renowned for its medieval churches. Ely cathedral was founded by a kinsman of William the Conqueror and is one of the finest examples of Norman architecture in England—though the lantern was completed much later in the 14th century.

In recent years many (temporary) immigrants from Poland and other eastern European countries have been working on the land here. They’re holding down jobs that the unemployed British won’t get out of their feather beds to do—at least for the pay that the Poles are happy with.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 04, 2008 02:08 PM | Send