Individual liberties stop where the common good commences. And minorities must never overrule majorities.

[Daphne – You’ve got your democracy in a bit of a twist. The rights of a minority must be safeguarded. This does not equate to minority rule.]

God forbid if ever we allow the small section of perverts in our midst to dictate the way we live and act. Society is based on families and families are based on sound values.

Break one of these and goodbye to the Malta we know. It would be like living in Denmark where the rates for suicides is enormous.

[Daphne – Perverts? My, my. There are a lot of suicides here too, you know. And lots of people on pills for depression and anxiety, so don’t run off believing that it’s paradise, because it’s not. Living in a small community with no escape is actually far more stressful than living in a metropolis, for the same reasons that animals in cages sometimes go nuts under the stress and confinement and end up scratching out their own fur or banging their heads against the bars. Cabin fever.]

That is exactly why I choose to put it that way, because with the lack of secularism it is the people that will suffer from the deprivation of individual liberty, not the bureaucrats in government.

The most amazing thing is that since 1972, China has made dramatic political changes. The Partit Laburista hasn’t: same leaders, same philosophy.

Hua Guofeng rose from the ranks in the 70s but was eventually removed from power in 1981 – 30 years ago – and never made a come back, until his death in 2008. In contrast, those Labour fossils in the background in the picture are still lurking for power.

Not to making sweeping statements, Daphne, but if that were the case, then they would legalize abortion “in the case your daughter sleeps with an Arab or black man”. I’ve heard that opinion from 3 people today and I was only out for three-quarters of an hour.

It is being revised because facts about our recent history are uncomfortably ugly: the ugly years of the Malta Labour Party brought hardship to Malta. Mintoff aped a number of close regimes in the non-Aligned and other alliances: Kim Il Sung’s North Korea, China at the height of its murderous cultural revolution, Nicolae Ceauşescu, Tito, Gaddafi (our friendly colonel to the south of us), and others.

Labour’s past can be best understood not as the foundation of modern Malta, a Mintoffian myth anyway, but if compared to, for instance, Mugabe’s politics and tactics which are still making news today.

In common with the way Mintoffian colleagues ran their countries, Malta experienced repression, violence, corruption, the loss of civil liberties, not to mention a floundering economy. During the 1970s and 1980s, we also experienced the beginning of terror attacks, bombings and assassinations.

Some people also disappeared. Others had to go into exile. Some of Malta’s best minds risked all they had to start life again away from what was becoming the Mediterranean Cuba.

These were Labour’s glory days. It is all so sinister now to think that a few people are out to revise history. It is sad that our historians stand spineless in all of this. They shy away from moral issues in a most unethical way.

Not to write history is tantamount to supporting this revisionism. It is a dereliction of a historian’s duties. Perhaps our history department should be closed down! And for those disgruntled few who do not like to discuss the past, or who think that the past is not relevant to the political development of our future, let them note that their abdication from their moral duties to remember is an abdication from their responsibilities towards present and future generations.

The greatest nations of the world are those that actively remember, not just their dead, but also their collective past. The Maltese must stop being petty, take their place among nations and face the future with the optimism of the lessons learned from the past, however ugly a history lesson has to be! It is a sign of social, cultural and political decline that some of us choose to be guided by a terrible past which they glorify.

Nelson Mandela showed us the way. Truth and reconciliation are what different generations need to develop their identity, and move into the future. But the signs we now see in Labour are those of decadence and missed visions. Will Malta’s future be very much like Malta under the Malta Labour Party? Did we not learn anything from our history? Should we continue to trivialize our past?

I have been considering my voting options for the coming general election, but I cannot ignore a factual past through which many of us have been made to suffer.

Reminds me of the only time Malta was mentioned on the brilliant UK satire show “Mock the week”. They had pictures from Gadaffi’s birthday party, highlighting the fact that there was only a single leader of a western country present – President George Abela of Malta.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/
8327989/Kim-Jong-il-celebrates-69th-birthday.html

If we truly were a secular nation…then we wouldn’t assist to the current fiasco of the divorce debate in 2011.

[Daphne – ‘Nation’ means the people, not the government.]

Officially we might be a secular nation, but in reality we’re far from it.

The whole ruling elite of the nation are products of the church. Even self-proclaimed liberals such as Joseph Muscat are as such.

And yes, church schools are the root of the whole thing. They don’t educate our children, but constantly brainwash them to become products in safeguarding the ruling elite interests.

Secularism is indeed the issue, around the whole divorce debate. Those against divorce are not in such position to protect the family and all the hypocrisy they are dishing out, they are simply threatened that the introduction of divorce might translate into another step towards a true form of secularism.