Nick Griffin's Tweet and the British Quality of Justice (that should not be "strained")

http://twitter.com/nickgriffinmep

Tweeted Nick Griffin today:

"Second killer on run with a shotgun in a month suggests that the financial crisis is starting to cause real strain in society. Britain going mad. It's not the gentle place it used to be. Such a shame."

While I disagree with the Chairman that Derrick Bird and Raoul Moat's grievances are anything to do with the financial crisis, I do think there is a theme of "No Justice, No Peace" running through the stories of both men.  They are clearly very angry about the legal system, the behaviour of the police and the quality of justice they received from the government.  


Many non-serial killers are too.  Let us hope the government does not push too many of us beyond the limit with which we will not put. 

The quality of mercy is not strained (The Merchant of Venice, IV.1)
The beginning of Portia’s famous speech is often quoted, but it is so familiar that many people never consider what it actually means. It’s often vaguely assumed to mean “mercy can spread a long way”, or “it’s not difficult to be merciful”, but I would suggest that in fact the meaning of “strained” is closer to our modern sense “restrained”. In its context, the line would therefore mean “mercy is not subject to control by man’s laws.”

Read more at Suite101: Misunderstood Shakespeare: Famous But Frequently Misapplied Quotations from The Bard http://shakespeareantheatre.suite101.com/article.cfm/misunderstood_shakespeare#ixzz0symRAoGe

 Mercy is of course a crucial ingredient of Justice.

No Mercy for Madonna

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1167729/Madonna-met-silent-Guy-arrives-Britain.html

This story demonstrates precisely the perversity of our age.

There was nearly a national day of mourning for the death of Ivan Cameron, the 6 year old whom everyone knew would never speak or move.

At the death of Baby P, the great British public were spitting and hissing about how social services and Ofsted had failed him and other children like him.

But we can all imagine, can we not, what sort of adult or feral youth Baby P would have grown into? It is quite probable he would have turned into one of the boys who caught and killed Jamie Bulger for fun.

So that was another blessing in disguise.

For some reason, Madonna not getting Mercy from Malawi was hailed as a great triumph of social services over Madonna by the Madonna-haters.

It seems the unspoken assumption is that social services must play God over the lives of orphaned and abandoned children and desperate couples looking for a child to adopt.

The very idea that adoptive parents should go and pick one that they both liked the look of, as we would if we were going to Battersea Dogs' Home to pick a pet, is somehow offensive to the social workers, who require that at least 3 years to elapse before parents can be deemed fit to adopt.

By that time the adoptive parents will have given up, divorced, or lost the will to live. The child in question will of course have been psychologically damaged by its time in care under the ministrations of social services and its care home paedophiles.

Mercy as an adult living in Malawi in low-born circumstances would no doubt be wondering what might have been if the interfering busybodies had allowed Madonna to take her home, and what perversity of reasoning, spite and envy possesses the British public to cheer the denial of Madonna's application.