Saturday, July 21, 2007

"Church" is a Trademark
Though I am a protestant both by tradition and by free choice (baptized evangelical-reformed), I can fully understand why the Roman Catholic Church is firm in the defense of it's status as "church". This is a question of trademark protection.
The most dangerous challenge that the Roman Catholic Church faces these days does not come from individualistic Lutherans, Calvinists or Zwinglians, but from Scientology with it's perfect financial management.
In a very clever move, the Vatican has enlarged it's trademark protection to the orthodox churches in Russia, Byelorus, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey and the Middle East.
This partial exception to the Roman monopoly is aimed at easing the renewed tensions between Eastern and Western Christianism that had been fuelled by the activities by Roman Catholicm missionaries in Russia after the fall of the Soviet System.
No wonder if Chinese who want to be baptized tend to turn to become Lutherans rather than Roman Catholics - they will be safe from institutional constraints and will face less problems of trademark protection.

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Fooling around with the Law




















Image to the Left: Honoré Daumier
Image to the Right: Christoph Blocher Copyright Dan Cermak

Foolish things are happening these days in Switzerland. Only a few days after a popular inititiave launched by the Swiss People's Party demanding for the introduction of a detailed list into the Federal Constitution of criminal offenses that would automatically lead to expulsion of foreigners from the country, the Federal Supreme Court has decided that it is unlawful to demand tax deductions for funding political parties. The case that had been brought before the court was provoked by two tax payers in the Canton of Zurich that had formally asked a tax deduction for a donation to a political party which they never had made.
By intentionally making a false statement in their tax declaration, the two citizens were able to bring their cause to all levels of cantonal and federal judicial authorities. Their abuse of the law produced a paradoxical result: while the Canton of Zurich intends to increase the amount of tax-deducible donations to political parties, the Federal Court prohibits it, explaining that political parties are of no use for the common wealth. Without political parties, a democratic society cannot function properly, and Switzerland has been fortunate enough to avoid state funding of political parties so far...
It was the privilege of the Swiss People's Party to continuously undermine the confidence of the citizens in our political system and into the judiciary, but now it seems that our Supreme Court has caught the deconstruction virus, too...

Saturday, July 07, 2007

Fooling around with the Constitution

In it's never ending quest for the applause of citizens frustrated and estranged by the problems of migration, the Swiss People's Party has launched a popular initiative which demands an amendment to the constitution that explicitly describes the criteria for expulsion on unwanted foreigners. By doing so, the party contradicts it's own critera of reducing the inference of the state in "things in particular" and violates the principle of restricting issues to be treated in the Constitution. Fooling around with the Constitution: a bad omen for politics under a domination of the Swiss People's Party in the near future