Insulting Police in Georgia: Totalitarianism Criminalizing Politics

Whereas the Georgia in North America has been a member-state of the U.S. from that union’s beginning, the Georgia in Europe was still not annexed by the E.U. slightly more than 30 years after that Union’s beginning. Whether to join an empire-scale union of states is a political decision, as a union of states is a political animal. When a prospective state government criminalizes political protest and public discourse on that decision, such a government violates the federal requirement that the state governments adhere to democratic principles, which exclude criminalizing the political opposition. The government of Georgia in Europe crossed this line when a politician of the opposition was arrested for insulting the state police.

Just days after protests against the pro-Russian leanings of the ruling Georgian Dream group began in May, 2025, police detained Nika Melia, “one of the figureheads for Georgia’s pro-Western Coalition for Change” and who was in his car at the time rather than at a protest.[1] That “he was bundled away by a large group of people in civilian clothing . . . on charges of verbally insulting a law enforcement officer” undercuts the government’s claim that the arrest was of a criminal rather than a political nature.[2] Typically when a motorist is given a speeding ticket, a large number of people not wearing police uniforms does not deliver the ticket and haul the driver away.

As for the charge of verbally insulting a police employee, which is distinct from assaulting such an employee, not even municipal employees are gods (although generals on a battlefield may come close). In fact, Nietzsche’s expression human, all too human sadly applies all too often to police around the world because such power as in being legally permitted to use a club, taser, or gun is all too tempting for human pride and presumptuousness to abuse. In other words, police itself can be said to be a necessary evil because human nature itself is not strong enough to responsibly and proportionally use police power.

Continuing on the distinction between verbally insulting and physically assaulting someone, only the former can fall under free speech (i.e., political speech). Only the former brings to mind the thought police in George Orwell’s book, 1984. In other words, to make insulting a state functionary a crime comes dangerously close to making certain thoughts or beliefs illegal if they are verbally expressed. Even criminalizing publicly insulting a deity, which no police employee has been, is, or ever will be, essentially makes certain thoughts or beliefs, which are interior to a mind and thus inherently beyond the reach of the state, verboten. The contradiction is in making something inherently beyond the reach of the state to control subject nonetheless to such control. Totalitarianism itself may be said to end in such a contradiction.

Georgia’s chances of being annexed by the E.U. were thus being lessened by the criminalizing of verbally insulting police employees, who are, after all, taxpayer funded, and the detention of Nika Melia in particular. His criticism of the pro-Russian ruling Georgian Dream group was also a criticism of that government putting on hold the annexation process. Russia’s President Putin had made no secret of his strong preference that the E.U. not extend eastward, and the Georgian Dream group in Georgia’s government may have been doing Putin’s bidding in literally arresting pro-E.U. political beliefs. If in fact the vast majority of residents in Georgia were in favor of their state being annexed by the E.U., then the Georgian Dream regime was on tenuous grounds from a democratic standpoint not only in unilaterally bringing that process to a stop, but also in arresting pro-E.U./anti-Russian politicians. Interestingly, most of Serbia’s residents may have been opposed then to Serbia being annexed by the E.U. because of the higher prices and decrease in population (and increase in immigration) that had occurred in Croatia since it had become an E.U. state; and yet, Serbians tended to oppose Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. So being against annexation by the E.U. did not necessarily come from pro-Russia sentiment.

---

1. Euronews Georgia, “Georgia Arrests Second Opposition Figure in Days as Ruling Party Faces More Protests,” Euronews.com, May 30, 2025.
2. Ibid.

The UN Court Obviating War: The Ruling on Kosovo's Independence

The UN’s highest court ruled in 2010 that Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia did not break international law. President Hisashi Owada of the International Court of Justice said international law contains no ”prohibition on declarations of independence” and therefore Kosovo’s declaration ”did not violate general international law.” Kosovo’s statehood had been recognized by all of the United States and most of the States of the EU.

Critically, the court’s ruling is nonbinding.  Hence China and Russia are under no obligation to recognize it, though as both states are members of the UN one might suppose that the UN’s ruling is binding on them as members of the UN. What sanctions, one might surmise, could the UN issue against its members that do not recognize the rulings of its court? Short of cancelling their memberships, what could the UN assess that it could enforce?  Perhaps the UN could effectively withhold their voting privilege in the UN while maintaining their membership (and fees).  I contend that such “teeth” is necessary if the UN is to be an honest broker concerning questions of declarations of independence such that war is obviated. In The Least Dangerous Branch, Alexander Bickel argues that the judiciary is the least dangerous branch because it does not have control of the purse or an army.  A court whose rulings are nonbinding is to render it nearly impotent—nearly because just being a court carries with it some legitimacy and thus influence. Even so, as an improvement on the alternative (i.e., war), the UN’s court needs something more binding. To tout an absolutist theory of sovereignty of the nation-state as an obstacle to recognizing the UN court as binding would be enervate a possible improvement of mankind with respect to conflict in international relations.  Particularly in an age in which mass  human destructiveness is possible, we can ill-afford a Bodinean theory of sovereignty. In spite of the dangers in continuing the status quo in international conflict resolution, we advance at a snail’s pace—particularly as compared to technological development. I contend that it is high time for political development in international relations. Yet for this to occur it seems that human nature itself—particularly, its intractability—would have to be overcome, which might render the original problem moot.  Even so, it is worth a try. We may be closer than we think to being able to give the UN’s highest court a bindingness sufficient to reduce the likelihood of war appreciably.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/07/22/world/europe/AP-EU-World-Court-Kosovo.html?_r=1