Political manifesto (2017) for a small country

I wrote this in 2017, when I had changed my mind about running for President of the Republic ...?

Manifesto of a candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of Slovenia

Introduction

The candidate must clearly and uncompromisingly address the issues that are critical to the Slovenian individual and to Slovenian society. Politically correct and pleasing manipulation of public opinion is typical of those who are concerned with fame. The point is that the candidate must have thoughtful and non-partisan views on the critical issues of the nation, on other world-view issues, etc. The question of whether he or she will be elected must be a distinct afterthought. The point must not be a naked power struggle. Where that is all that is at stake, the candidate will seek - because that is the way formal democracy works - only the lowest common denominator.

The President is elected by universal and direct suffrage. His election must be a referendum on his worldview. A candidate may have one, or he may not have one at all. If he does not have one, he will avoid all post-conflict issues. The elected one must then be a President of all Slovenians with at least informal authority; only with it can he influence all three branches of government (executive, legislative and judiciary).

After independence, the drafters of the constitution feared that Ku?an would be elected. The office of President of the Republic therefore lacks serious empowerment. Because of their history, Slovenians are not susceptible to authority. If the candidate is not merely interested in the office of President, he or she should explain his or her views. If the people accept these views by a majority, he will be elected. If they do not, he will not be elected. It is a matter of his personal realisation of the truth.

Such a view is extremely rare in our country and in the world today. A politician must not speak against the prevailing public opinion, he must be 'politically correct', he must avoid controversial issues, etc. Everywhere, not only here, this is a perversion of democracy and freedom of the press, manipulation of public opinion, manipulation of the controlled media, submission to interest pressures and, in the extreme, incipient corruption in the financing of the presidential campaign itself. Today, politicians are often and everywhere on the scene, and their only characteristic is that they lie.?

Only those who do not care about the office itself will dare to speak out, to expose their perhaps even controversial convictions. Most people only have opinions. There are few who have principles. People who do not have convictions are, of course, easier to manipulate.

Slovenian society

The Slovenian state has all the childhood diseases of democracy. Slovenian society is also a victim of continuity, formerly ideological, now financial. The previous tried and tested cadres managed an apparent "fall from power", replacing it with a financial one. But in a democracy, every society has the power it deserves. That is, as far as public opinion allows itself to be twisted. France Bu?ar saw this and finally left politics, telling me that "we Slovenians have already wasted our country" and that "our neighbours will rob us". So it is necessary to be on the side of the bell.

No one can ho-hum influence the socially ingrained impatience, susceptibility to cheap persuasion of political candidates, etc. An individual, as a candidate for the presidency of the Republic, can only hope that people who share his world-view will come out strongly on his side - to influence and persuade others.?

In this sense, too, society has the power it deserves. Every general election is a clarification of the profile of the candidate, as has been the case in the US. Trump, whoever he is, was elected in the end, despite the hostile media coverage. In France, for example, this did not happen. That says something about the Americans - unlike the Europeans. I spent fifteen years in the United States. I spent eighteen years in France. I know what I am talking about.

The new counterculture

All the areas in Slovenia so far have not only been characterised by Bu?ar's continuity. Slovenia, as a peripatetic society, has followed and continues to follow misguided Western moral examples with a lag. We are not talking here about capitalism as a social system in deep moral and real crisis. Here, the delay is even to our benefit.?

The Slovenian media have slavishly followed the dictates of Western societies. A different opinion, as has been shown in my case, is not allowed! As a young man, I was a member of the first counter-culture that brought down Nixon in the USA and de Gaulle in France. There and then the march through the institutions began. The results are in the palm of my hand.?

Even covertly ideologically, the 'Brussels poodles' have so far misled Slovenia into dependence on the European Union. The Visegrad Group (Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia), such as it is, has strongly resisted this. Brexit is also part of this revolt against the unelected Brussels bureaucracy. And the Slovenian authorities are meekly following even mere hints from Brussels.

The EU is the seat of neoliberal and previously counter-cultural politics and ideology. The EU is itself manipulated and out of touch with maturity. The former counter-culture has prevailed and has ruled for the last forty years. Here, too, there has been a march through the institutions. It is in the US that this invisible brainwashing has been resisted. A new counterculture has prevailed. It can be called noble and neo-conservative, although that adjective does not say much.

That is why there is an angry silent majority in Slovenia. No one has represented this majority politically for the last twenty-five years. But people see what is happening and they are outraged. Because of the terrible mistakes of each and every authority - more on this later, which sweeps its mistakes under the carpet - the people have given up and are no longer even going to the polls. There are no products in the political buffet that are worthy of their consumption. This is evidenced by the high level of electoral abstention.?

It is disastrous party cadre politics and primitive bureaucratism that are also to blame for the recent fires in three parts of this country. These are environmental disasters to which politics and the domestic bureaucracy respond 'appropriately' by spell-checking regulations. This is something that Mr Komat and I have been pointing out for at least twenty years.

Slovenians, who are very concerned about a clean environment, wonder how these vermin ever got environmental permits in the first place. The Prime Minister's response to this has also been bureaucratic: he will ask for a review of all 250 critical environmental permits. Already, but who and how professional will the person be who will check this? We can only suspect bribery here.

What can the President of the Republic do in this case? His office gives him the opportunity to become the spokesman for the silent majority in the political arena. It will then no longer be forcibly silenced, as it has been until now.

Meritocracy?

Unlike formal democracy, "meritocracy" means the rule of the (more) capable. The damage caused by the militant egalitarianism characteristic of the last phase of socialism, for example, destroyed the Slovenian university. It is now somewhere around 550th in the Shanghai rankings. (But more on that later.) The characteristic cynicism, sheer malice and blatant aggressiveness in public discourse, including on social media, are also the consequences of undistributed influence and power. Those in undeserved positions with richly deserved inferiority complexes defend themselves unscrupulously.?

Communism has exploited envy, fuelled it and used "equality" as a vanguard slogan. But mindless egalitarianism is a severe violence against the able and capable - and a repression of the incompetent and incapable. It is safe to say that communism and socialism have failed because of adverse selection: the rule of "proven cadres" and fools.

The ideal functioning society is one in which there is a perfect correspondence (correlation) between ability on the one hand and influence (power) on the other. This is what Plato had in mind in his "State": gold on top, silver, bronze and iron below. Any society that transgresses against the meritocratic principle is doomed. Because that is how communism and socialism have failed.

But this trend continues to a large extent. There are still people around who would never have existed anywhere if it had not been communism, despite their incompetence, that had brought them to the surface. Perhaps this is the worst legacy of communism. I know that this is the case because the European Court of Human Rights has also had judges and vetted personnel from Eastern Europe coming to it with the same problem. And of course the converts are, as always, the most ardent believers.

That we Slovenians are capable of meritocracy in an economy where selection of the fittest is natural, especially also in small start-ups and family businesses, which are the main exporters - society shows a very different picture. Anton Trstenjak spoke of Slovenians as hard-working and modest people. No, these people are extremely innovative and creative, they sell their patented products all over the world, they increase exports and they save the country macro-economically. The number of patents per 100 000 inhabitants is an excellent measure of economic health.?

Here we Slovenians have the beginnings of the healthy society we deserve!

Slovenia in the world

Near neighbourhood

Genetically, Slovenians are similar not to Croats, Serbs, etc. - but to Czechs and Slovaks. In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, we were part of a wider empire and in a relationship with related people. Not with the Germans, of course. Slovenia was then, from Pre?eren to Cankar, who wrote about who our real "cousins" were ( Czechs and Slovaks ) - a province, but a cosmopolitan one. People were educated in Vienna and elsewhere in Europe, my father in Leoben.?People don't know this, but anti-Slavic Europe will never accept us as equals.?

After the creation of the Kingdom of the SHS, we went from being a province to being the most advanced part of the new state formation, from inferiority to self-centred and undeserved superiority. And we were cut off from our cultural hinterland. Historical memory was fading because this was essentially the state of affairs from 1918 to 1990. Seventy years...!

Independence should have brought a fresh wind to the Alpine valley, a clean break. And it did, but too slowly. The fact that I am even able to stand as a candidate and that I was previously a judge of the European Court of Justice, etc., proves something. It was not possible before.

As President of the Republic, I will, of course, work for harmony in the Balkans, but not to make concessions to those who want to take advantage of our weakness. I also studied in Zagreb and I know the Croats. It was an incredible stupidity that we let Croatia into the European Union without first resolving the contentious and border issues. If the Greeks can formally block Macedonia just because of its name, then we would have serious and substantive reasons for doing so. Why did we give in then?

I get on perfectly well with the Serbs and others.

Geopolitics

Relations with Austria, Italy and Hungary are not problematic. But these countries are no longer on the geopolitical map as they once were. Even the French are stuck in their imperial past and, despite the atomic bomb and one aircraft carrier, do not mean much.?

The great powers today are the US (less and less), Russia and China (more and more). Napoleon said of China that it was a sleeping lion. I already know a little about the Chinese, having lectured there a few times. After 15 years in the USA, I understand the Americans.

If we are, we Slovenians are on the geopolitical map ostensibly as members of the European Union, but we know what Victoria Nuland said about it in Ukraine. The EU is an American creation, as is the Council of Europe in Strasbourg and the European Court of Human Rights there. Our role in NATO is illusory, nominal.

My position, as President of the Republic, will be that Slovenia only has a chance to be heard and to be heard if it is able to put forward original and good arguments. Our foreign policy cannot be held hostage by Brussels, as it is now. In this context, our ability to deal with the Chinese and with the US, who do not have European prejudices, is much greater than any pressure on Brussels.

Geopolitical forecast?

The atomic clock is counting down the minutes and already the seconds. Even the superpowers, except perhaps China, have unbalanced personality structures in power. America's current positioning vis-à-vis North Korea is dangerous. Someone needs to tell Trump this openly, too, that an unbalanced person with his finger on the nuclear trigger is someone who must not be backed into a corner. The survival of the planet is at stake here.

The world is becoming more chaotic and more violent every day. The capitalist system as a system has been slipping since 1968, and now we are in the speculative financialisation phase. When the situation comes to the boiling point, the world will turn for the better or much for the worse. We simply have to realise that we are no longer on a smooth road to the future. But at this boiling point, the individual can mean more than revolutions have meant before.

The world will not change because of or in Slovenia. If the world, what a world, Europe sneezes, we get pneumonia. Europe, however, has a developmental lag behind the USA, for better or worse, of about twenty years. That is why a productive dialogue with the US is essential for Slovenia: and Trump cannot be prejudiced against Slovenia.

And it is precisely in this overheated and overstretched geopolitical situation that the President of the Republic, by virtue of his office, has the opportunity to act with arguments. When nuclear power is deployed, nuclear war can happen, as it is happening now in North Korea. But before that happens, the atomic powers cancel each other out. No one dares to pull the trigger. In this stalemate, which has been going on for seventy years, that is precisely why arguments are possible that would otherwise mean nothing.

Views

Environment (Anton Komat)

Abortion

No party in Slovenian politics has dared to raise this issue. If they do not already support abortion (as a right of the pregnant woman), they are carefully silent on the issue.?

Abortion was decisively supported by comrade Vida Tom?i? under communism. The generally correct Slovenian position on abortion is also part of the communist heritage (continuity). Thus, abortion was legalised in Slovenia as early as 1952.

What is the actual number of aborted children?

According to official data from the Institute for Health Protection, 381,713 surgical abortions were performed in Slovenia between 1979 and 2011. To these must be added at least 50 000 abortions carried out by artificial insemination and some 100 000 abortions carried out with the help of so-called chemical abortifacients (hormonal pills, coils, RU486, etc.). Abortion, together with procedures carried out before 1979 (for which no statistics are available), claimed the lives of at least 700 000 children. The number of victims also includes some 220 000 mothers who have been suffering for years from the so-called post-abortive syndrome. (source) The incidence is declining, but the number today ranges from 7,790 (in 2001) to 4,060 (in 2014) (source)

Legal regulation of abortion

The law was vague, stating that abortion was permitted if there were medical indications and the pregnancy was the result of a criminal offence, and "if the pregnant woman could reasonably be expected to damage her health by giving birth to the child because of her particularly difficult material, personal or family circumstances." (What health? Mental? Physical?) The poignant vague clause at the end of the previous sentence, of course, allowed and still allows virtually any pregnant woman to obtain surgical intervention at state expense.

The Independence Constitution, in its Article 55, says this: The decision to give birth to one's own children shall be free. The State shall provide opportunities for the exercise of this freedom and shall create conditions which enable parents to decide on the birth of their children.

This language of the Constitution also contradicts itself. When the Constitution speaks of 'childbirth', it inadvertently recognises that children, because they are children, can be bearers of human rights, that they have legal subjectivity.?

European Court of Human Rights: Lambert v France

In Strasbourg in 2015, we had the case of Lambert v France (source). Vincent Lambert, represented by his parents, half-brother and sister (but not his wife), had been living in a neurovegetative state for seven years. Completely unconscious, he was fed and hydrated by a probe inserted directly into Vincent's stomach. Neurologists were unanimous that this was a condition in which a large part of the brain no longer functions.

The case came from the French Supreme Administrative Court (Conseil d'Etat), the rest is legalese. The relatives' lawsuit was directed against France because the Conseil d'Etat had allowed Vincent's hydration and feeding to be interrupted. This would have led to Vincent's starving death, first from dehydration.?

Vincent was therefore (and still is) in a complete neurovegetative state. But the European Court of Human Rights has explicitly recognised his legal personality. Vincent Lambert was not an object without rights in these proceedings, but a legal subject. It was about his right to life. Every human-legal-subject is a bearer of human rights, first and foremost, of course, the right to life. The embryo (embrio or foetus) is therefore a legal subject, a legal bearer of rights. This has been declared by the European Court of Justice in Strasbourg itself.

However, we are not talking here about the early limit of life, but about the related question of legal subjectivity, the embryo's personality. That is why the case of Lambert v France is so decisive. The European Court of Justice did not even think at the time, and I was there, that the question of legal personality could also have its mirror image.?

But if a court has recognised the legal personality of someone in a complete neurovegetative state, it is absurd not to recognise that personality in a fetus that is alive, that reacts to the abortionist's intrusion and murder in the womb by evading the instrument and by having its pulse rise to 200 beats per minute out of fear (source). These are vital signs that Vincent Lambert did not have, but the European Court of Justice has nevertheless debated his right to life.

Position

I do not get involved in abstract ideological, politicised, feminist, etc. debates about whether abortion is acceptable one way or another.

My position is strictly legal-logical. If the 1952 law merely closed the door with an apparent legal exception, then, as is always the case, the door was opened wide afterwards. The same thing happened 22 years later (!), with the same consequences, in France in 1974, when, after a fierce battle in the National Assembly, the so-called Veil Law came into force. Nor is it the case that abortion was a criminal offence everywhere before, but suddenly became a common and acceptable practice afterwards. As I said, for us Slovenians, this is yet another horrifying aspect of the continuity to which 700 000 children, almost half the population, have been sacrificed.

The legal question is whether the foetus is a legal subject, that is to say, a bearer of human rights. As early as 1953, the European Convention put the right to life first. The drafters of the Convention took the embryo's capacity to be a bearer of human rights for granted, and the Slovenian law of 1952 certainly did not hinder them in this respect, quite the contrary.

Having said that, I would say the following.

Abortion is the termination of the physiological state of pregnancy. Abortion is a shock to the pregnant woman, including a hormonal shock. At least in the Slovenian environment, I sincerely believe that many women, thankfully fewer every day, decide to have an abortion only as a last resort.?But hospitals around the world alone end the lives of more than 40 million unborn girls and boys every year, or more than 125 000 every day. What this means in terms of the extreme emergency (rape, deformed foetus, etc.) in which an abortion might be permissible is anybody's guess. It is impossible to be indifferent to this.

He who marches on an acorn in a forest has not destroyed an oak tree. But if the seed has taken hold and grown into a half-metre-tall, viable oak tree, that is a different matter. We can discuss how high that tree must have grown, but that is already a relativisation of the fatal question. It is a medical-ethical and biological issue as well as a legal one. The limit is sometimes set earlier and sometimes later in pregnancy.

Branches of authority

As the President of the Republic is directly elected, he is not part of any of the three branches of government. With his authority, if any, he can watch over the party activities of the National Assembly, the government and the courts. A system of checks and balances operates between the branches of government. The National Assembly imposes on the government, the government proposes laws. Both can be checked by the courts, and ultimately especially by the constitutional courts. Judges are elected or confirmed by the National Assembly. The President of the country can only propose candidates to the National Assembly as constitutional judges, this is one of his recognised functions. At the end of the domestic judicial path, the Constitutional Court is the decisive court, but above it, thank goodness, is the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The case of the erased was decided differently than at home, and this is also true of the Vaskrsi? case, in which the domestic courts allowed a confiscation for a paltry 128 euros.

The executive branch

The executive power is reserved to the government, which is the operational and concrete part of the State, with its ministries and its administration. The President may propose, but the government is not obliged to respond to his call.?

Legislative branch

The President has no formal influence on law-making. When they are submitted to him, he must sign an order promulgating the law (promulgation). He has no influence on its promulgation. He can, however, speak in the National Assembly on critical issues and has a chance to be heard.

Judicial branch

This is the rule of law, the so-called rule of law. The courts are only there to resolve disputes impartially, with quality and speed. The President of the country and the other two branches of government are not even allowed to have their say when it comes to a specific dispute.?

Slovenian law, on the other hand, is self-perpetuating, protected by a customs barrier of language, as is no other science or discipline. The staffing of the courts is poor, but that is the fault of the law faculties. They are largely responsible for the collapse of the rule of law, because they graduate the less capable. The Slovenian legal profession, however, is at a higher level than the courts.

Slovenian banks and Swiss franc loans?

Slovenian banks have been pushing loans with a currency clause on people. Counting on the rise in the value of the franc, people's loan amounts and interest rates rose unbearably. They are still being ripped off, and this has now been left to a Swiss firm. People are under severe pressure, families are breaking up, suicides are happening.?

Instead of judging in their favour, the Slovenian courts have so far been completely insensitive to their plight. Incredibly cruel! Only after we threatened the European Court did things move forward. An intervention law is being drafted and should be adopted by the National Assembly under the fast-track procedure. Hungary, Croatia and others have already intervened.

Nobody knows what they are and what the banks are up to now. The fact that they have been pushing such credit has already been judged a criminal offence in France. In our country, the country's immune system (courts, prosecutors, police) does not react at all.?

The banking system is non-transparent and the Bank of Slovenia did not react as strongly as it should have done from the outset. No one, not even the excellent investigative commission of the National Assembly (Dr An?e Logar), knows exactly what is going on behind the financial scenes. It is clear, however, that the banks are politically controlled, that the same people are in charge of the bankers.?

Proven personnel, continuity personnel. Finance is the gun, politics is the trigger.

Equality between men and women

There can, of course, be no doubt about this issue. But Slovenia is so deeply feminised (judiciary, education, public administration) that the question of women's equality has long ceased to arise. Since we are already in a Slovenia-specific matriarchy, the only question that should be raised is the equality of men. Slovenia is the eighth most feminised country in the world!?

This is the wise answer, because the question is deeply psychological, from a lady and a woman who understands the personal side of the issue:

"If a man does not set boundaries and does not express his feelings, he forces his wife to challenge him more and more, she will become capricious and will put pressure on him. She feels that she cannot rely on him. Such a man does not give, but only takes - he endures everything.

It is necessary for a man to set boundaries, to say clearly what he wants. That way the wife knows what she can count on. A woman needs that. If this does not happen, the woman growls and presses harder and harder. A woman needs security and wants to feel the man's limits. She wants to feel that the man will protect the family. A woman wants to know how far she can go. She will only respect a man if she knows how to set boundaries. If a woman is capricious, fickle, it is the man who is responsible. A man should not let a woman jump on his head, but should tell her clearly what he thinks, what he feels and what he wants. A woman wants to hit a limit, not just shake a stick of cotton wool. Boundaries are absolutely necessary. A man who knows how to set boundaries is committed, respectful, caring, dignified and empathetic." There is no better way to put it.

This is what a gentleman said to her. That is also true. "'So a wife knows what she can count on. A woman needs that.' This is a half-assed conclusion. It is also necessary for a woman to say clearly what she wants and to set her own limits, and a man needs that too. In short, there is a necessary and necessary dialogue in a certain coexistence between man and woman."

This is not about the mechanical equality of feminists, as someone describes them here, but about a deep harmony of the sexes: in Taoism, Yin and Yang. Everything else is designed...

Health, education, etc.

In Slovenia, for all the years since independence, the team has been dominant. The "deep state", i.e. continuity, with its disastrous personnel policy, among other things. This is the crux of the problem. Everywhere, including in health, education and elsewhere, people are coming to influence who would not otherwise be there. Until now, no one has been able to live up to this interconnected matrix. This is also due to the inability of the right, which should have been an opposition worthy of its name and dangerous.

Continuity with the previous system means that the bad practices of the past have continued for twenty-five years. The dysfunctionality of the health service (i.e. long queues), education, universities, etc., are all consequences of continuity with the previous regime.

Health

In France, which is in reality much more of a welfare state, the public and private sectors are intertwined. The latter is financed (here "concessions") from the public sickness fund. Doctors in public hospitals (also in the USA) are not civil servants in a pay grade in competition with the bureaucrats in their offices, but, because their sacred mission demands it, in a class of their own.?

Here, too, the responsiveness of the private health sector is much better, but in the public sector we have problems with corruption because they are attached to public money like the ever-relentless parasites they are. The current Minister for Health is a disaster.

Education

My mother was a teacher, my father a professor. I myself was vice-rector of the University of Ljubljana. As a professor, I fought to raise the quality until I was eliminated by this same continuity. I then fought unsuccessfully in the Constitutional Court for the autonomy of the university.?

I know the problems and I have publicly reprimanded them many times without a whimper.

As President of the Republic, I will have a say, just a say, in these matters. But that word will come from a position that the contunitas and the deep state will not be able to ignore.

Conclusion

Half of Slovenia lives below the poverty line!?

People have no influence on the economy, the environment, the bureaucratised administration and judiciary, etc. Meanwhile, the bribed and controlled media attack anyone like me, which could threaten the hegemony of continuity.

People are frustrated and angry - but they remain a silenced silent majority. Despite the semblance of democracy, their voices are not heard. They do not know where to turn to make their case.?

They are waiting for the voice of the crying in the wilderness ...