It seems they like omelette
As if the police hadn't made themselves look sufficiently stupid already, they have now appealed Magistrate Mizzi's decision acquitting the 31 foreign lap-dancers.
I'd love to know what goes on in these people's brains, if they have any. I'm no conspiracy theorist, but all this enthusiasm in the pursuit of a case that clearly has no merit and has already cost their credibility (and the public purse) dearly strikes me as rather odd. In a small country like Malta where everyone knows everyone else and where conflicts of interest are the norm, it is not seemly for the authorities to fail to provide adequate public justification for decisions that have consequences on the marketplace (in this case the entertainment industry of the Paceville/St. Julians area).
3 Comments:
We're getting good coverage Piet.
Now would you say that we are becoming over reliant on regulatory safeguards or is it more accurate to state that we are now having to place our faith in enforcement systems that are themselves in dire need of reform?
The marginal utility of lap dancing in the GDP sense is negligible, it does little to further our competitive advantage in the marketplace, but might as previously discussed tarnish our standing as a financial centre of excellence.
Hence in my view egg or no egg, scrambled or whatever the action taken at a political level was justified. Magistrate Mizzi provided the necessary balance by resisting the urge to make sweeping statements about the merits or demerits of off-season titillation.
Well, I wouldn't say that contribution to GDP is my gauge for the value of personal freedoms. I doubt that religious freedom, for example, can be adequately expressed in GDP terms.
We are not, unfortunately, a financial centre of excellence - and the reason for this is certainly not our lap-dancers. I assure you that much bigger financial centres, such as London and Luxembourg, are by no means as prudish as we are.
As far as the question of whether political action was justified or not, that depends on one's view of what the state is supposed to be. For those who believe in a secular state, actions to impose a specific religious code on everyone could hardly be seen as justifiable.
I'm OK with the secular bit, it's the definition of state that is much less fluid. Think superstate, nannystate, microstate etc.
As for the financial centre concept, I propose a Singapore but without the chewing gum.
Whither my theocracy? Well, I'm experimenting on no.1 before I try it on others.
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