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Continue reading →: Justice vs Social Justice 2
One of my old posts most found from Google et al is this one. People are curious about what "social justice" really means and rightly so. It is one of the most dangerous and deceptive phrases in current use and it pains me when even a "Conservative" like David Cameron…
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Continue reading →: In intellectual exile?
I have been wondering if I am really a libertarian at all. Don't worry. I am not going to join the army of people who think they know better than you how to live your life. I have just been thinking about my thinking. A holiday gives a chap time…
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Continue reading →: Inequality causes stabbings. Really?!
Chinese teenager stabs 8 people to death – Telegraph. Almost everything good, encouraging and promising about modern China can be traced to Deng Xiaoping's unleashing of market forces. Almost everything bad, distressing and depressing about it can be traced to the totalitarian rule of the Communist Party. Yet the Daily…
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Continue reading →: The weaponisation of politeness
Libertarians, classical liberals, whatever you choose to call us accept that others differ in their lifestyles and opinions. Whether we approve of their choices or not, we respect their right to make them. Unless that is, and until (and to the precise extent), they impede those of others. So why…
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Continue reading →: Quotes of the day, from the extremes of modesty and arrogance
I am no sports buff and find cycling – quite literally – a pain in the proverbial, but it's hard not to like our Wiggo. His down to earth modesty is affecting and what spin doctor could better his wife's answer to a journo's question about family sacrifices made for…
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Continue reading →: How to deal with Twits
Let Twitter twits stew in their own juice | John Kampfner | Comment is free | The Guardian. John Kampfner's linked article refers to trolls as "the green ink brigade." This made me smile. Before there was a 'net people used to communicate (sometimes maliciously) by analogue means. There were…
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Continue reading →: That way, madness lies
It is such a cliché to tell a policeman engaged on trivia that he should be catching burglars that – though we all think it – only the least educated of us now say it out loud. Yet what else, really, is one to say to the Dorset Police? They…
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Continue reading →: Love the show, troubled by the message
I watched the Olympic Opening Ceremony from start to finish on French channel TF1. It's fair to say that much of it bemused the French commentators, but reading around this morning I see that – as the BBC used sports commentators for a cultural event – it was just as…
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Continue reading →: Drivers to have 10-year health checks
Drivers to have 10-year health checks under driver licence reforms – Telegraph. I have absolutely no desire to survive my driving licence. Life without driving a car is unthinkable to me. It's bad enough that the government claims the right to decide who may operate this particular type of machine…
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Continue reading →: Blogger on his hols
I am not sure it means a break in blogging but my sojourn on the beautiful island of Mauritius may well change the tone of my posts. My only worry right now, truly a first world problem, is as to whether my friends’ French satellite TV package includes a channel…
THE LAST DITCH
Your blogger
Tom is a retired international lawyer. He was a partner in a City of London law firm and spent almost twenty years abroad serving clients from all over the world.
Returning to London on retirement in 2011, he was dismayed to discover how much liberty had been lost in the UK while he was away.
He’s a classical liberal (libertarian, if you must) who, like his illustrious namesake, considers that
“…government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”
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There are many reasons they’re not passed down, Tom. The Triune code, laid out in scripture in all reputable versions…
I’ve always tried to live my life doing no wrong but life isn’t like that so you make compromised but…
Hate to tell you this, but it’s not going to end until you end it. You think people to whom…
[…] – Tom Paine […]
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First post (in case you want to read it from the beginning)
The Last Ditch by Tom Paine 
A little bird tweeted in my ear that it was time to come over and see how things are.