American Sovereignty in Danger
By Bob Bauman
I happen to hold to the old fashioned notion that America's national sovereignty is the foundation of our freedom as a people and of our individual liberty.
Sovereignty is the status, dominion, supreme authority and independent power held and exercised by a government. In America the prevalent founding theory was that the people rule as sovereign. Indeed, we gained out sovereignty by a famous revolution that stirred much of the world to emulate our system of government.
If that be true, then sovereignty rests strictly with the American people. We cannot allow foreign countries or international organizations to make decisions and impose policies that should be our own exclusive province. And that is true of every other sovereign nation.
End of History?
Robert Kagan, the noted author and a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, writing in The New Republic (The End of the End of History, April 23, 2008) noted that "For three centuries, international law, with its strictures against interference in the internal affairs of nations, has tended to protect autocracies. Now the democratic world is in the process of removing that protection, while the autocrats rush to defend the principle of sovereign inviolability."
He quoted "...no less an authority than Henry Kissinger [who] warned that 'the abrupt abandonment of the concept of national sovereignty' risked a world unmoored from any notion of international legal order."
The New Autocracy
"Autocracy" used to be defined as a government in which one person has uncontrolled or unlimited authority over others, as in the government by an absolute monarch.
But I suggest, based on the outcome of the infamous G-20 London meeting last week, that the "new autocracy" should be defined as government imposed on the majority of the people by an elite group of politicians and their allied activists who think they know what is best for everyone else.Their righteous certainties include plans for economics, politics, trade, international relations, but also for our lives – prescriptions that determine the extent of our freedom and liberty, our privacy, even our right to earn and accumulate wealth and private property.
Illegitimate Acts
What raised my concern was the utter disregard shown by the leaders of the G-20 countries, including President Obama, for American sovereignty, as well as the sovereignty of other nations as well.Put aside Mr. Obama's mistaken surrender of the theoretical control of our national currency, our financial and banking systems and our economy to some newly formed, nebulous international groups. That betrayal is bad enough in and of itself.
Acts of War
But Mr. Obama, the world conciliator who likes to contrast himself as a man of peace compared to his bellicose predecessor, Mr. Bush, didn't blink an eye in his endorsement of a frontal attack just short of war aimed at numerous independent jurisdictions that the G-20 scornfully calls "tax havens."
It seems this new American leader never considered what he, (or the millions of Americans he represents), would do if the United States similarly was threatened with an organized global boycott, blacklisted as a financial pariah, subjected to trade and banking restrictions, and punishment was promised for foreigners who dared to do business with America. Yet that is what the President of the United States (and the other G-20 London delegates) have decreed is to be the fate of a fluctuating number of countries (and British colonies) that arbitrarily have been smeared by a blacklist drawn up by a non-government group known as the Organization for Economic and Community Development (OECD).
(I would suggest, based on its overt selective hostility towards some communities, the last word of its name be change to the more appropriate, "Destruction.")
Far less serious international acts between and among nations have produced not only border conflicts, but all-out prolonged military actions.
Abominable List & Sanctions
Good guys:Argentina, Australia, Barbados, Canada, China, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guernsey, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Japan, Jersey, Korea, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russian Federation, Seychelles, Slovak Republic, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, U.S. Virgin Islands.
Bad guys: Andorra, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, The Bahamas, Bahrain, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Cook Islands, Dominica, Gibraltar, Grenada, Liberia, Liechtenstein, Marshall Islands, Monaco, Montserrat, Nauru, Antilles, Niue, Panama, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent & Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Turks and Caicos Islands, Vanuatu. Malaysia, Costa Rica, Philippines, Uruguay. Source: OECD Above is a list of the OECD's good and bad guys, the sole OECD criterion being which countries automatically will turn over requested tax information about foreigners with bank or financial accounts in those countries. Note that every major country (the ones that wrote the list), listed itself as one of the good guys, whether that is true or not.
I have checked news sources and here's a list of the possible sanctions that various denigrators of national sovereignty want to impose on the tax havens that refuse to follow OECD orders:
* French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said national regulators should increase capital requirements for domestic banks that do business in tax havens with looser financial and fiscal regulation to compensate for the additional risk.
By Bob Bauman
I happen to hold to the old fashioned notion that America's national sovereignty is the foundation of our freedom as a people and of our individual liberty.
Sovereignty is the status, dominion, supreme authority and independent power held and exercised by a government. In America the prevalent founding theory was that the people rule as sovereign. Indeed, we gained out sovereignty by a famous revolution that stirred much of the world to emulate our system of government.
If that be true, then sovereignty rests strictly with the American people. We cannot allow foreign countries or international organizations to make decisions and impose policies that should be our own exclusive province. And that is true of every other sovereign nation.
End of History?
Robert Kagan, the noted author and a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, writing in The New Republic (The End of the End of History, April 23, 2008) noted that "For three centuries, international law, with its strictures against interference in the internal affairs of nations, has tended to protect autocracies. Now the democratic world is in the process of removing that protection, while the autocrats rush to defend the principle of sovereign inviolability."
He quoted "...no less an authority than Henry Kissinger [who] warned that 'the abrupt abandonment of the concept of national sovereignty' risked a world unmoored from any notion of international legal order."
The New Autocracy
"Autocracy" used to be defined as a government in which one person has uncontrolled or unlimited authority over others, as in the government by an absolute monarch.
But I suggest, based on the outcome of the infamous G-20 London meeting last week, that the "new autocracy" should be defined as government imposed on the majority of the people by an elite group of politicians and their allied activists who think they know what is best for everyone else.Their righteous certainties include plans for economics, politics, trade, international relations, but also for our lives – prescriptions that determine the extent of our freedom and liberty, our privacy, even our right to earn and accumulate wealth and private property.
Illegitimate Acts
What raised my concern was the utter disregard shown by the leaders of the G-20 countries, including President Obama, for American sovereignty, as well as the sovereignty of other nations as well.Put aside Mr. Obama's mistaken surrender of the theoretical control of our national currency, our financial and banking systems and our economy to some newly formed, nebulous international groups. That betrayal is bad enough in and of itself.
Acts of War
But Mr. Obama, the world conciliator who likes to contrast himself as a man of peace compared to his bellicose predecessor, Mr. Bush, didn't blink an eye in his endorsement of a frontal attack just short of war aimed at numerous independent jurisdictions that the G-20 scornfully calls "tax havens."
It seems this new American leader never considered what he, (or the millions of Americans he represents), would do if the United States similarly was threatened with an organized global boycott, blacklisted as a financial pariah, subjected to trade and banking restrictions, and punishment was promised for foreigners who dared to do business with America. Yet that is what the President of the United States (and the other G-20 London delegates) have decreed is to be the fate of a fluctuating number of countries (and British colonies) that arbitrarily have been smeared by a blacklist drawn up by a non-government group known as the Organization for Economic and Community Development (OECD).
(I would suggest, based on its overt selective hostility towards some communities, the last word of its name be change to the more appropriate, "Destruction.")
Far less serious international acts between and among nations have produced not only border conflicts, but all-out prolonged military actions.
Abominable List & Sanctions
Good guys:Argentina, Australia, Barbados, Canada, China, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guernsey, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Japan, Jersey, Korea, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russian Federation, Seychelles, Slovak Republic, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, U.S. Virgin Islands.
Bad guys: Andorra, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, The Bahamas, Bahrain, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Cook Islands, Dominica, Gibraltar, Grenada, Liberia, Liechtenstein, Marshall Islands, Monaco, Montserrat, Nauru, Antilles, Niue, Panama, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent & Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Turks and Caicos Islands, Vanuatu. Malaysia, Costa Rica, Philippines, Uruguay. Source: OECD Above is a list of the OECD's good and bad guys, the sole OECD criterion being which countries automatically will turn over requested tax information about foreigners with bank or financial accounts in those countries. Note that every major country (the ones that wrote the list), listed itself as one of the good guys, whether that is true or not.
I have checked news sources and here's a list of the possible sanctions that various denigrators of national sovereignty want to impose on the tax havens that refuse to follow OECD orders:
* French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said national regulators should increase capital requirements for domestic banks that do business in tax havens with looser financial and fiscal regulation to compensate for the additional risk.
* Asked if the government should prevent banks in Germany that have accepted government bailouts funds from doing active business in tax havens, Foreign Minister Peer Steinbrueck told Berlin's Taz newspaper: "The answer is yes."
* A task force is being formed by the Obama administration that will issue a report in December detailing still more sanctions to attack the tax havens.
* U.S. trade unions and politicians are opposing the U.S.-Panama free trade agreement on the grounds that Panama is on the OECD blacklist.
* British Virgin Island's Premier Ralph T. O'Neal, says it smacks of colonialism when developed nations dictate standards for financial operations, especially when they don't comply with the rules themselves.
* U.S. Senator Carl Levin said that the OECD did not go far enough and he will still push his Anti-Tax Haven legislation that could bar Americans from doing business in tax havens and would presume any American who did so was engaged in tax evasion.
* OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría, said what the OECD wants is "...is an exchange of tax information on demand."
As I was saying, what ever happened to national sovereignty?
As I was saying, what ever happened to national sovereignty?
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