Struwwelpeter: When they come for you and your possessions the constitution will be of little comfort
Where is our so-called “best constitution in the world”, as it is so often described?
SOME worrying comments from Magnus Heystek:
If you thought SA is not hurtling towards being a failed state, then I’m sure these hopes were finally dashed by what happened in Parliament on the evening of November 13, 2014.
When the president of a country, according to some reports, starts sending in his jackbooted thugs into the most hallowed halls of democracy in order to silence dissenting voices, then you need to realise that the end is near for what is described as a constitutional democracy.
In a country where most concerned middle-class citizens were hoping against hope that South Africa would escape the now familiar cascading collapse of the economy, infrastructure and political tolerance in most post-colonial African countries. But it is happening, right before our eyes and we can see just how powerless we are.
Uhuru (Swahili: freedom) in Africa, the cynics often said, lasts for about twenty years before everything starts collapsing: the infra-structure, the economy, the collection of taxes. Does that look familiar to you?
The world is watching and the world is worried.
Every time one of the international credit ratings agencies downrate our country, it is laughed off by our politicians as not being important. We will see how important it is when we get downrated to junk-bond status and our bond, property and currency markets suffer in the fall-out.
The ANC has only one political objective and that is to remain in power.
It will use every mechanism available to it. It will use legislation that was drawn up by the Nationalist Party in 1961 in order to control the flow of money, namely foreign exchange control.
It will use the legal system for as long as it can at the expense of the taxpayer. It will use the tax system to spy on taxpayers. And it’s bound to get worse.
Where is our so-called “best constitution in the world”, as it is so often described?
When they come for you and your possessions the constitution will be of little comfort.
(Thanks LL)
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This quote is from 1957; how accurately it describes South Africa 2014!
When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion.
When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing.
When you see money flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favours.
When you see that men get richer by graft and pull rather than work, and your laws don’t protect against them, but protect against you.
When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice, you may know that you may be doomed.
Ayn Rand Russian Jewish philosopher
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A true story from the pages of the Manchester Evening Times:
Last Wednesday a passenger in a taxi heading for Salford station leaned over to ask the driver a question and gently tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention.
The driver screamed, lost control of the cab, nearly hit a bus, drove up over the curb and stopped just inches from a large plate window. For a few moments everything was silent in the cab.
Then, the shaking driver said: “Are you OK? I’m so sorry but you scared the daylights out of me.”
The badly shaken passenger apologised to the driver and said: “I didn’t realise that a mere tap on the shoulder would startle someone so badly.”
The driver replied, “No, no, I’m the one who is sorry, it’s entirely my fault. Today is my very first day driving a cab. I’ve been driving a hearse for 25 years.”
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It is said that during the recent cease-fire, the leader of the Palestinian terrorist organisation Hamas, Khaled Mashal, sent a gift to the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, in an elaborate box with a note. After having the box checked for safety reasons, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened it and saw that the content was human faeces.
He opened the note, handwritten in Arabic by Mr Mashal, which said: “For you and the proud people of the Zionist Entity.”
Mr. Netanyahu, literate in Arabic, pondered the note and decided how best to reciprocate.
He did so by sending the Hamas leader a very pretty package with a personal note.
Mr Mashal and the other leaders of Hamas were very surprised to receive the parcel and opened it very carefully suspecting that it might contain a bomb.
But to their surprise they saw that it contained a tiny computer chip.
The chip was rechargeable with solar energy, had a 1.8 terabyte memory and could output a 3D hologram display capable of functioning in any type of cellular phone, tablet or laptop.
It was one of the world’s most advanced technologies, with a tiny label, “Invented and produced in Israel.”
Mr Netanyahu’s note, personally handwritten in Arabic, Hebrew, French and English, stated very courteously…
“Every leader can only give the best his people can produce.”
(Thanks BJ)
