Post 229--Paradise: Banning Gangs!

Good morning on a fine sunny Saturday morning in Vancouver.  Yes, after an absence of a whole month, most of it in California with Kevin, our son and his family there.  From sunshine, through sunshine, back into Vancouver's sunshine.  Sunshine everywhere.  Plus--a heatwave almost everywhere along I-5, the route we took back with our RV. And believe me, as much as my wife, Fran, and I enjoyed the visit and the ride through all that beautiful West Coast country, there's no place like home.

Today our focus is on criminal motorcycle gangs in my birth country, the Netherlands. Originally, the article was published in Dutch in the Christian newspaper Trouw of June 18, 2018. The author is Dristel van Teffelen. I present you with this article because, though there are differences between Canada and NL, in this range of concerns the similarities are much the same.      Here, then the article. Read it carefully and give it some thought. I will try to make my own comments about it a couple of posts from now.  Have a good read.

Prohibiting Satudarah Means a New Success for the Ministry of Justice in Its Handling of Criminal Motorcyle Gangs

Dristel van Teeffelen

Trouw  June 18  2018

The motorclub Satudarah is no more. The Society was dissolved after the court in The Hague pronounced a prohibition this morning. For the Ministry of Justice this signals a new and important victory in its handling of criminal motorcycle gangs, even though not all problem are solved with this step.

That the judge should resort to a prohibition was not step to be taken for granted. The right of association is in the constitution and may be restricted only when there are weighty reasons. In the case of Satudarah, a motorclub that exists since 1990, the court recognized enough reasons.The list of criminal behaviours of its members is so long and the culture of the association so violent, that Satudara endangers the public order and is even capable of destabilizing society, the judge concluded.

The society uses violence against its own members who want to disassociate themselves, but also against other citizens. Even board members of other clubs get beat up after members of Satudarah demand that their club join Satudarah. It is striking that many victims do not dare to report this violence for fear of retaliation. Furthermore, the club resists the police actively and the board justifies injustice and even stimulates it. All in all, this is enough to conclude that this society is a genuine attack on the security of the society, according to the judge.

The Ministry opted for the avenue of civil rights to achieve a prohibition, just as it did before with another motorclub, the Bandidos. In 2009, an attempt to ban a branch of the Hells Angels ran stuck at the High Court. That judge concluded that the behavior of individual members cannot be attributed to the society.  The Ministry once again aimed its arrows at the Hells Angels, this time on the entire organization and via a civil rights procedure. 

It is questionable whether the prohibition strategy will work.  Satudarah itself argued with the judge that a ban would be useless, because the members could easily continue under a different name.  The judge acknowledged this fact. Nevertheless, a ban on Satudarah in any case means that everything associated with the society, like dress, name, logo and public expression, comes to an end.  In addition, the national LIEC, an organization that is dedicated to combat the undermining criminality, affirms that a firm approach on the part of the Government to criminal motor clubs has delivered fruit.  For example, the growth in members slowed down in 2017. 

Banning of the entire society is but one of the ways by which the Government can put the clamps on criminal motorclubs. For example, in 2017, members of the clubs were imprisoned for committing punishable acts in organized contexts. In addition, many local governments during that year closed eighteen club houses of societies that were preoccupied with criminality and violence more than with motorcycle touring.   That ban also holds for “chapters” and support clubs associated with them.  
                  

Read also (if you can read Dutch!):

Public Ministry: “Time for a ban on Hells Angels in the Netherlands.”

For the oldest Dutch motorclub, the Hells Angels, there is no more place in the society, according to the Public Ministry. The Ministry of Justice has asked the judge for a ban. The club is allegedly a danger to the public order.

“Judge’s Ruling Paralyzes Motorclub Bandidos.”

There is no place left in The Netherlands for Bandidos. The society can no longer operate a bank account or rent a clubhouse, while all assets must be handed over. A Government appointee is to wind up the club’s finances.

Post 172--Why These Crummy Tax Forms?

I know, the tax season 2016 is history. We've done ours or had them done.  We've moved on. Perhaps you've received your rebate and felt happy about that, something you might not have saved on your own initiative If it were not for that tax system, you would never been able to buy that big barbeque console you've coveted for solong. 

But if you're anything like me on this subject, you dislike the system.  I don't mind paying my graduated tax. You cannot expect to get all those government services free of charge--roads, schools, hospitals, protection and security, etc. etc., not to speak of pensions. All of that is good. Those who are opposed to taxes, they could be rounded up for year, put them together in some isolated place and leave them there without paying taxes and without any services paid for by taxes. I dare say, they would soon change their mind.  

Now, we may have many questions. Why am I charged that specific amount?  And how is it all spent?  There is a lot of suspicion for good reason, for there is a lot of misspending. The media keeps reminding both citizens and governments about that. There is a lot of spending that can be defended on legal grounds but not on moral. The Senator Duffy affair is a shining example of that.

But my main question or, perhaps better put, my main objection is the forms citizens have to fill in to figure out and declare the amount they owe.  Whenever tax season is upon us my blood pressure increases along with great annoyance and a deep sense of injustice--even though I am little more than a bystander. My wife is a natural administrator and record keeper. So, throughout the year she keeps and files the necessary documents. I only ask an occasional question. When the deadline is near, she rides transit for an hour each way to my accountant nephew who does the hard work for us and usually manages to squeeze a rebate out of it for us, without, I am convinced, any shady shenanigans, something he would not engage in. 

But when he is finished and my wife brings the completed forms to be signed home, I usually page through the pile of documents to try to figure out how he has arrived at his figure. For the life of me, I feel totally dumb! I have a Ph. D., but I am left to feel a total ignoramus.  Now, that's where my indignation kicks in.  This is my money, for goodness sake. I should have the right to control its spending or at least understand why someone is charging me this or amount. I come close to yelling it out: "This is criminal!"  And so it is.  Criminal. I hate it with a passion. It may be government and it may even be legal, but I still consider it criminal.  Legalized crime. 

And sometimes it actually is. Quite a few postings ago I told the story of a BC citizen being totally abused by the tax boys for years on end till he was completely broke and a public appeal had to be made to bail him out and keep him out of prison.  

Earlier this year, Jamie Golombek, dubbed a "Tax Expert" in the Vancouver Sun, during the height of the 2016 tax season in 2017, wrote a column "Why are we filling out these crummy tax forms in 2017?"  Exactly my question and, probably, yours. Why, indeed? If a tax expert asks that question, then we should not be surprised that we are bothered by such questions. At the end of his two full-length column from top to bottom, he comes up with no acceptable answer. That's not a critique of him, but of the tax system.  

So, here's your chance to be enlightened by a tax expert. Read it at https://www.pressreader.com/canada/calgaryherald/20170422/282196535836108 and see if you understand the why or wherefore--or it is makes you any happier. We owe Jamie a mouthful of thanks for his revelation.  

Please do remember my earlier assertion that, even if I do not write overtly about religion, it is always there in the background. I wonder if you can detect the religious aspect in today's issue?