BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA – I have been preaching a Christian mission to the singing Evangelical churches of Australia, where the faithful do not expect wimpish five-minute sermons. The pastor of the first church where I stood forth to give my testimony told me I had spoken for only 35 minutes. That, he said sternly, was not long enough. Must do better.
By the end of my 10-day mission in and around Melbourne, I had learned to bring them hollering to their feet and clambering over the benches after not less than 90 minutes.
It is my custom at these gigs for Jesus (some of the best rock bands anywhere perform in churches every week) to try to greet each member of the throng personally. That way, one learns much from many.
And the stories I have been hearing on my progress around this great continent that is a great country have raised once again the terrible specter of predatory government.
It is becoming apparent that one of the unwisest developments in the history of economics has been the ever-growing power of the state both to regulate and to tax its citizens. Though the mantra of socialism is that the state can do no wrong, corruption is rife throughout the public service worldwide.
Official corruption causes far greater damage than peculation in the private sector, for the state seldom uses its many policing powers on itself. I will tell you a story to show you what I mean.
In Queensland, where I shall be ending my month-long tour, a small group of public-spirited citizens bought a smallholding with a few yards of river frontage. Then, at their own expense, they bought two rowing boats and refitted them so that wounded and disabled veterans of Australia's many gallant battles on freedom's frontiers might enjoy an hour or two on the river.
The vets loved it. The numbers clamoring for a chance to mess about in boats grew and grew. Everyone was delighted. Everyone, that is, except the sullen communists of the sinister Environmental "Protection" Agency in Queensland.
For the kind-hearted citizens had dared to use their common sense. They had noticed that the growing footprint of the brave veterans to whom they were generously giving a good time was making the bank muddy and slippery.
They did not want any of their guests slipping and falling. So they brought in a small truckload of gravel from a local quarry and laid it down on their few yards of riverbank to stabilize the surface.
Savagely, the E"P"A swooped. These unspeakable, heartless bureaucrats are allowed to expand their gruesome desk-jockeys' empire provided that they collect millions in fines every year. To assist them in milking the citizenry, they have their own kangaroo court, the Environment Court, whose grasping, dishonest judges share the spoils with them.
Sure enough, these cruel judges inflicted a fine on the good Samaritans. And not just any old fine. I kid you not: The fine was – wait for it – $300,000.
Just along the river, the municipality owned a stretch of the bank where various officials, in the guise of supervising the behavior of citizens on the water, disported themselves in fancy boats at taxpayers' considerable expense. They did not want to get their shiny shoes muddy, so what did they do?
You guessed it. As always, you are two steps ahead of me. They took a big truck to the local quarry, got a large load of exactly the same gravel as the good Samaritans and dumped it on their stretch of shoreline.
And did the E"P"A come down on them as the Assyrian like a wolf on the fold, his cohorts all gleaming in purple and gold? You're ahead of me again. Did they heck.
The profiteers and racketeers of the public sector look out for each other as they rape the hapless citizenry, with the blessing and active participation of corrupt judges such as the monster who inflicted the $300,000 fine on the good Samaritans.
The E"P"A looked the other way, smiled indulgently, said, "There, there!" and did nothing.
I was so scandalized by this egregious double standard that I have decided to do something about the malice and corruption that now abound among the untouchable officials of the state worldwide. For I know how to make life more difficult for savage, hate-filled judges and bureaucrats than they ever thought possible. I am of their class. I know their ways. I know how to kick them where it hurts if they brutalize the innocent.
Therefore, this column now undertakes to investigate any instances of wrongdoing in high places that you may care to tell me about, and to provide free advice on how to set right what was wrong.
An example: In and around Melbourne, the pastors and their flocks were heartbroken at a hideous law, passed by the (inevitably) socialist legislature six years ago, that allows baby-butchering at any moment until birth. The socialists hold the majority in the legislature. What, said the good Christians of Victoria, could they do about it?
I looked up the Australian constitution. It was no help at all. Unlike the U.S. Constitution, it was written to protect and defend not the citizens but the governing power. So I looked at international law.
Sure enough, I found a U.N. convention prohibiting torture. The venomous legislators of Victoria had exempted the Mengeles of the misnamed "health" service from prosecution for murder. But they had not exempted them from prosecution for torture.
There were two reasons for this omission. First, if the socialist parliamentarians had included in the law a specific requirement that every little one marked for murder must first be given an anesthetic, they would have been forced to recognize that what they chillingly call the "fetus" is a real person who can feel the pain and suffering of the remarkable variety of unspeakable procedures that they permit the Mengeles to carry out on the innocents.
Secondly, Australia had not incorporated the criminal offense of torture under the U.N. convention into its law in 2008. It did not do so till 2010.
I contacted the lawyer for the family defense group in Victoria and discovered that it had no plans to seek prosecution of the legislators for conniving with the abortionists in torturing the innocent victims of their disgraceful law.
So, when I return shortly to Edinburgh, my office will be writing to each member of the legislature of Victoria, explaining the torture law and inviting them to let me know their proposals for introducing, as an emergency measure, an amendment requiring each child marked for murder to be given its own anesthetic first, every time.
If the responses from the legislators are unsatisfactory, the matter will pass to the police. They have refused to investigate murder allegations from the pro-life campaigners in the past on the ground that the law allows it. They cannot similarly brush aside my allegations of torture: for the law does not allow that.
I shall keep you informed.
In the meantime, if you know of any public official who is corrupt or vicious and who needs to be brought into line, just let me know. That official will rue the day he or she overstepped the line between public service and private bullying or profiteering.
Media wishing to interview Christopher Monckton, please contact [email protected].
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