What Next?

It has been over a month since I wrote my last blog entry.  It’s not that I haven’t thought about things to write about, but things have moved so quickly in the month of January that if I had written anything, it would probably have been outdated by the time I finished it.  But since things have apparently come to an end on a couple of issues, I will try to at least catch up on things.

“. . . the principle of dictatorship; perhaps human nature was incapable of using power arising from dictatorship without succumbing to the temptations of its abuse of power.”

 - John Toland, from his book “The Last 100 Days”

Anybody who has been following the impeachment of Donald Trump have just seen the biggest travesty of justice that we will probably ever see in a supposedly law abiding country.  That the Senate of the United States could put partisan politics above the law is appalling.  One Senator, Mitt Romney must be given some credit for moral courage for voting guilty to one of the charges.  He will probably be vilified for the rest of his career for doing it as has already started.  I don’t think you can argue that trying to get a foreign government to investigate a political rival amounts to some sort of offence.  The US Constitution does not specify that impeachment must be based on any specific law, only that it is based on “high crimes (breaking the law) and misdemeanors (acts that defy acceptable practice)”.  Some of the arguments used by Republicans to justify their exoneration are ridiculous.  My favourite was “let the voters decide”.  If letting the voters decide was the answer, why was the impeachment clause put into the US Constitution at all?  You cannot argue that using your position to “improve” your chances of defeating a rival is beyond acceptable practice.  But the question now is, having got away with this act, what will Donald Trump do next?  He will now feel that he is above the law and will undoubtedly use this feeling to justify other questionable acts.  Remember, this is the man who said that he could shoot someone dead on New York’s Fifth Avenue and get away with it.  He now knows that he probably could. 

 “A conservative is a man who believes that nothing should be done for the first time.” (including impeachment apparently”)
  - Alfred E. Wiggam

On the other side of the ocean, Brexit has finally arrived.  Although there are another eleven months of negotiation on a possible trade deal, the die has been cast on the separation.  It is going to cause all kinds of problems for Great Britain. Scotland now has a very strong argument for separation from England, an argument it did not have when a previous referendum was held that narrowly lost.  We’ll have to see how long Boris Johnson can deny Scotland another referendum.  The British PM has talked about laying down stiff terms for any trade agreement with Europe.  But what leverage does he have to demand these terms?  Almost none.  He is basically having to beg Europe or any other country for concessions on a trade deal.  Europe has every reason to be very tough in such negotiations.    Europe wants to make it very difficult for any other country to leave the union and making it hard for Britain will act as an example.  Canada, if approached by Britain, should do the same.  This is no time to cave into the “mother country”. In my opinion, Britain, the country where I was born, is in for a much-weakened economy in the years to come, and a lot of its people are going to be very upset at the rosy pictures that were painted by the Brexiteers.  Boris Johnson and his cohorts like Nigel Farage created a crisis where one didn’t really exist and used that crisis to create the current situation. 

 

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
  - George Orwell

Eventually, lies do catch up with you.  Beware Mr. Trump and Mr. Johnson.