Martin van Staden

The first journal article on my thesis has appeared in the Journal of South African Law (English abstract below). 𝗡𝗼 𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗽𝗹𝗲: The authoritarian statism underlying South Africa’s legal discourse of “transformative constitutionalism” jutajournals.co.za/no-limiting-pr…

@ExpatInSA @bryan_caplan Is white genocide in the room with you now, Chris? Are they coming for you in particular? You seem to be talking about genocide an awful lot, even bringing it into conversations it wasn't present in!

@bryan_caplan Hi, American living in SA here. White people in SA are not oppressed. There is no white genocide. @Martin_ASFL is full of shit and so are you.

Never begrudge white South Africans getting refugee status in the US. They're just getting the sanctuary that all oppressed people around the world deserve.

@NWoodeSmith Privatisation is complex! Will have to wait until day 2 at minimum!

@Martin_ASFL Not enought privatisation. Mxm. Socialist!

Assuming I have the same uncritical parliamentary support as the average ANC president: Use every opportunity to put actual constitutionalists on the bench, especially the Constitutional Court and Supreme Court of Appeal. Order the parliamentary caucus to immediately repeal the - Expropriation Act, NHI Act, Labour Relations Act, Basic Conditions of Employment Act, BEE Act, Employment Equity Act, National Water Act, Public Procurement Act, Minerals Acts, and Competition Act. Convene a task force to identify further laws for repeal. It will have a very tight timeline (weeks, not months or years). If (big if) any of these laws are to be replaced, it will likely be with codifications of the common law. I will wield the power of cadre deployment to its full potential. Cabinet and senior civil service positions will be reduced by orders of magnitude, and filled with people who above all (1) worship the taxpayer and (2) understand economic incentives. These people will not be "leaders" because my government would not "lead" anything - it will be service provider, not a parental figure. Every organ of state will be asked to submit a list of names representing no less than 20% of their workforce/contractors within a week. All those names will be fired the second the labour laws above are repealed (process will be fast-tracked). Any ongoing court cases or state actions undermining civil and commercial self-determination will be withdrawn. The case against Israel at the ICJ will be ended. The diplomatic mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran will be expelled. What remains of the SANDF will be rationalised and mobilised for immediate deployment against any tyrannical conduct by a foreign actor in southern Africa against its own people. Given the budgetary implications, the SANDF will essentially become an elite-only institution with mass military ambitions more or less abandoned. The expensive, top-heavy general officer corps will be hollowed out and the old practice of contracting in specialist officers from abroad (US, IDF preference) will be revived while domestic skills are developed. The unitary police service will be internally federalised. Every police station in the country will be handed over to the control of the neighbourhood in which it sits. Police officers must live in or very near the neigbourhood they police. Station commanders appointed by the CPF. Any and all constitutional challenges to any of this will be Stalingraded using every tool in and outside the book while constitutionalists are put on the bench. This will be a busy first day.

@Bisbille3495611 And of course we'll do public participation. In fact, we'd do it the exact same way the ANC has been doing it. I won't change one thing.

@Bisbille3495611 Keep going. Tell us how radically cutting the power of government and handing that over to the people is what Kim Jong-un is actually all about.

Take note, the ANC did not allow the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court to have the final say on anything. It saw to it that a whole new court was created for it - the Constitutional Court. To present this new status quo has somehow objective or superior - that the ANC need not be subjected to a paradigmatically hostile court, but everyone else must be - is to be historically opportunistic.

@Onelekm Sorry, we're talking past each other. How did I give the impression that privatisation is not the answer? In every grievance you had, the state was the problem.

@Martin_ASFL So all in all privatization is also not perfect as some people always suggest. But failure of one private business doesn't result in demands for nationalisation. One SOE failure, it becomes headlines and all hell break loose.

We don't have to continue living this way. The hospital can simply be privatised, and most of this just goes away, with low-cost options (which the evil state prohibits) for the indigent. But, instead, we will choose to keep living this way.

As a born Vereeniging boy myself, allow me to help identify the problem here: You expected them to account for anything. That's the mistake. You overestimated them by orders of magnitude. Start smaller. It is a good day if they can find the bathroom and aim correctly.

I regard myself as pretty tolerant/agnostic about the transgender phenomenon, but you gotta leave the kids alone. Parents and doctors cannot be doing this stuff to physically healthy children. Take a deep breath, hands off, and let them decide this for themselves in adulthood.

Add the obscenely expensive welfare state, refusal to privatise SOEs, huge Cabinet? Come now.

Hilarious cope. The ANC nationalises water, minerals/adopts law to expropriate private property without compensation/always raises (never lowers) taxes/adopts some of the most anti-business labour laws in the world, and still "they're neoliberals!" Socialism discredits itself.

@jsteenhuisen It's time for you to step out of the way now.

I note the interim order handed down by the Gauteng Division of the High Court relating to the procurement and administration of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) vaccines. I note that the practical effect of the matter is now largely overtaken by the gazetted Section 10 animal health scheme, which already provides a lawful framework for participation by private industry role players in the national vaccination effort. Government has consistently supported a coordinated public-private approach to combating FMD.   Millions of vaccines have already been allocated to organised industry structures, including the Milk Producers’ Organisation (MPO), while further allocations are being rolled out to feedlots, stud breeders and commercial farmers. Our primary focus remains the implementation of the national FMD Strategy through the Ministerial Task Team and the Industry Coordinating Committee on FMD. Our objective remains to vaccinate at least 80% of the national cattle population with two doses of vaccine as swiftly as possible as part of South Africa’s pathway toward achieving WOAH-recognised FMD free with vaccination status. This would unlock significant export opportunities for South Africa’s red meat sector. In demonstration of this commitment, since February this year, the Ministry and Department have procured every available local and international matched vaccine available. Approximately 13.5 million FMD vaccine doses from local and international sources have been procured as part of government’s intensified response to the outbreak. We remain unwaveringly committed to ensuring the success of the strategy and ensuring this outbreak is the last major outbreak of FMD and becomes a turning point in strengthening South Africa’s long-term biosecurity capability and defeating FMD once and for all.

Every country that moves toward capitalism jumps in prosperity. Every country that moves away from capitalism bounds toward poverty. It isn't hard to see.

@Onelekm And the same government must tell it to make money on the open market or close its doors.

@Martin_ASFL Iscor was privatised. Today it comes to the same government as ArcelorMittal seeking bailout.

For all the socialists demanding higher taxes and more state control, here are just a few ways you can voluntarily give more money to government: • Pay extra tax to SARS • Donate to government institutions • Buy government bonds • Leave money to the state in your will You’re welcome.

Farmers and their organisations had a rapport with Steenhuisen. They had a good working relationship. And then, with no mandate from his voters, the law, or international organisations, he declared war on them, for no good reason. Why has he not been recalled?

@lesangvd TRC is a meaningful and valuable symbolic exercise. But it cannot work if everyone isn't agreed about reconciliation. We made the mistake of believing everyone was.

@Martin_ASFL not the trc again? we did that already. just the far-lefters/righters never trusted it. including thabo mbeki himself.

We're at that stage of South Africa's development that we need to have a serious conversation about righting the lefts of the past.

Counterpoint: The Joburg Bar is just putting the requisite checks and balances in place to prevent the emergence of a new Bram Fischer, Isie Maisels, Rex Welsh, Sydney Kentridge, or Johann Kriegler. No more young advocates will be permitted who might go on to contest the dominant racial nationalism of the day.

@Onelekm That's PIC/government misconduct. Not a problem with privatisation. There should be no rentseeking.

@Martin_ASFL When that private hospital fails, PIC will provide a bailout disguised as an investment. How cute is that?