Rule Britannia?

最近讀了劍橋英國史, 外加偶然在 Youtube 上看了 BBC Proms 08 年的片段, 讓我有了一些感嘆：

男中音是威爾斯男中音特非爾 (Bryn Terfel)

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Sorry, but we are not all “Keynesians.”

It is a well-known quote commenting economic policies:”We are all Keynesians right now.” It is true, at least in political arena, and even for free-market economists becoming careered politicians. Stimulus plans, aimed to substitute the lost purchasing power due to the financial crisis, are setup just within such a short time and are so roughly [...]

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Freedom House Calls for Inquiry into Taiwan Clashes

Although our government is too arrogant to respond to the students on the Freedom Square, their actions seem to raise some international concerns.
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Freedom House Calls for Inquiry into Taiwan Clashes
Washington
November 20, 2008

 
Freedom House urges Taiwan’s government to create an independent commission to thoroughly investigate clashes between police and activists protesting Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin’s historic [...]

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Remember, Remember, the Sixth of November…

那天傍晚，我也被架上了警備車……
＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊

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中山南路散步小感

下午趁著工作的空檔，和同事一同去中山南路散步，這是在台大法學院附近住了幾年的習慣，每當有抗議遊行的時候，都要去湊熱鬧。

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Mourning for Taiwan’s Democracy and Human Rights

My excessively enthusiastic and immature conjectures that the democracy of Taiwan has been mature enough to withstand the power concentrated on KMT are proved totally incorrect. President Ma has been in office only for less than 180 days.  The conducts of his party have raised worldwide concerns about Taiwan’s media freedom and the justice system:

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給英勇的台大學生

謝謝你們勇敢地捍衛台灣人得來不易的基本自由！
當警察們盲目地服從錯誤的命令時，你們仍捍衛著天賦人權，也為我們守住最後一點的自由！

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台灣之歌

茲以台灣之歌感謝昨晚（2008/11/05）為台灣言論自由走上街頭的勇敢台灣人！

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自由與奴役的一線之隔

人權思想家常以「滑坡理論」(Slippery slope)論證基本人權的重要，簡單說，政府對基本人權的侵犯就像踏上滑坡一樣，一踩上去難免一路滑到底。政府侵犯個人言論自由，很難就此打住，勢必也會侵犯到宗教信仰、集會結社自由等等，最後就是自由權、平等權等基本人權了。而台灣的現況似乎正踏在這條分界點上。
政治人物也需要尊嚴，很少有人像陳水扁前總統一樣，能夠忍受紅杉軍在他辦公室門口抗爭那麼久，所以政治人物容許憲法第十一條「人民有言論，講學，著作及出版之自由。」與NCC並存，也容許新聞局透過董事長與董事的遴聘權操縱中央通訊社的人事與營運。另一方面，又允許集會遊行法與憲法第十四條「人民有集會及結社之自由。」並存。一旦政權落入對於民主自由價值認同不足的政客手中時，政府有權恣意操弄的法律與機構將把台灣帶到奴役之路的彼端。

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Krugman得諾貝爾獎小感

看到Paul Krugman得獎，我不自覺地想起Milton Friedman，他們同樣是傑出的經濟學家，也同時是相當活躍的公共知識份子，Krugman的文章擲地有聲，而Friedman辯才無礙。但是，他們最大的不同點在於Krugman和Friedman各站在經濟政策光譜上的兩邊。Krugman相信政府的力量，Friedman則信奉自由主義。

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