Martial Law

Strangely, I've recently pondered, whether Tommy Robinson's activism is in Britain's best interest - strangely, because of what Zerohedge is reporting about him today.

My reasoning dealt with the importance of fulfilling contracts for a country whose primary power lies in historically established ties. While there are obvious deficits in the way British institutions are being run, deficits that need to be evened out and can not, without an adjustment of the public mindset, which itself cannot occur without an arousal of passion, Britain may very well be forced to control the timing and range of the process.

But for a British judge to consider such arguments means for him to rely on martial law. The same is true of a proposed law also reported by Zerohedge today.

Now, Zerohedge is in the business of spinning current events, but whatever the precise reasons for Tommy Robinson's incarceration were, and having heard him on the Alex Jones Show I can image a few, to forbid the press to report the verdict leaves little alternative but to assume that the judge was indeed framing the problem in his mind in terms of martial law.

It's not for Mr. Lennon's protection, the prison he's been send to has already been publicised - an unlikely cover given that prisons aren't really private. No, at least it's about the public peace and at most it's about the national interest. And given the Streisand effect... how likely is the former end of the spectrum?

But can you control social processes, when you're not prepared to control other social processes as well? Or differently put: Can you raise the national interest in one area to the highest priority without raising it in other areas to the highest priority as well? After all, there is only one martial law and not many critical laws. Or yet differently put: You either hope that all goes well or you take control. Sure, even when you take control you still hope for many things, but you'll not stand idly by when a hope isn't materialising, the justification for this kind of management being martial law.

Some would argue that because of clauses governing the declaration of martial law it is really just one law that is followed all of the time. But this is not correct: Either the administration lets its subjects do however they please, as long as they stay within the established rules, not to be confused with the administered law, or it does not.

Tommy Robinson might have broken those rules, but the British press?

Israel is of course in a state of war for some time already, so that is really just spin, but China's more recent so called social credit system is rather obviously enacting martial law as well. Yes, you may say that established rules are being broken there, but part of the established rules are established punishments, and for the government to say that from now on the punishment will be whatever is necessary is martial law in and of itself.

I dare say that these things are sufficiently elementary so that no government accidentally sends out the wrong message, like: Wait, no, we didn't want to declare martial law, that was a mistake.

The message is well calculated and cannot immediately be reversed. China cannot back down at least for the next ten years, unless a hot war breaks out and is won or lost sooner.

Of course the Lennon trial cannot really be compared with China's social credit system, but the press has gotten the message, nay, more than that, the order and I don't see any chance for immediate reversal there as well. The press may fight this, in its many ways, but No word about it! is now part of the game. And realistically, this will also last for ten years, unless a hot war breaks out and is won or lost sooner.