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'Good' laws are those which protect individuals, resolve disputes and keep the Queen's Peace. Nothing more.
18 February 2008 .
There are the offences against well-being which almost every society has felt the need to sanction from the beginning - murder, rape, incest. There are the offences which become apparent as such as society develops - theft, false witness, selling short measure, fraud; societies outlaw these offences, too, because there is a general perception that they are 'wrong' actions. With growing technology there are yet more actions which are clearly damaging to individuals and/or to the general well-being - forgery, theft of intellectual property, driving a car dangerously. In a modern nation, under the rule of law, most of us accept the framework which will attempt to dissuade us from these actions and which will attempt to apprehend and punish us if we commit them.
We also make rules, which are much more likely to vary from country to country, about actions which may not be so clearly 'against the peace' but are dictated by our moral ideas - adultery, blasphemy, indecency. We may, hopefully, alter these rules as our standards change. (Although not easily,rather evidently, where the moral standards are rigid.)
And so on: rules by political states - rules which we may find obscene, as with Nazi Germany; rules for the better management of society - tax laws, for example. Etc. Some bad, some good.
[Since the real offences, once you move past the great crimes like murder, are generally committed by one individual against another, a pragmatic Common Law, such as we have been lucky enough to enjoy here in England, reappears throughout history - in the joint accumulation of wisdom (we hope) in experienced minds, applied to everyday problems, with a loyalty to precedence - and is profoundly appealing. The legislators (of Statute Law) don't like Common Law, of course, because they can't control it.]
One of the more unpleasant aspects of the contemporary UK is that we are seeing the appearance of another kind of law, one which is not about the well-being of the community and the individual, and one which does not challenge 'wrong' behaviour: political law, law which exists for the benefit of the rulers, which criminalises actions which are not by any stretch of the normal (healthy) imagination crimes.
We may argue about whether it is really a criminal offence, warranting a L1,000 fine, to leave rubbish out on the wrong day... But it's clear that it has never been a wrong, criminal, action by a private citizen (except in time of imminent invasion) to be out and about without a written document of identification. Nor has the failure to carry identification been of any risk to the public well-being, let alone a threat to any individual. Soon, however, it is likely officially to become precisely that: the absence of an action, in fact, will suddenly be a detain-and-fine crime. Failure to carry an ID card, even if it doesn't become a criminal offence per se, will become one de facto since without it an increasing range of basic services - from health to banking - will be unobtainable.
The Supreme Leader And Father Of His Nation presumably knows what he's doing. I don't.
17 February 2008 .
In the face of sound and growing scientific evidence about the dangers of exposing children under the age of three to television, the government has made it a legal educational requirement (of nurseries and child-minders) that 22-month-olds become familiar with the use of remote controls for those same televisions. (q.v.)
In the face of manpower and resource problems in the Middle East, the government has committed the UK to providing 2,000 troops to Kosovo as that province declares its independence from Serbia (an operation which at least one member of the UN Security Council claims is illegal).
In the face of massive anecdotal (and some very well supported) evidence of illegal and bullying tactics used by debt collectors, including the charging of quite mind-blowing fees for actions (such as previous visits, known as 'phantom visits') which have never actually taken place, the government promised a fact-finding enquiry a couple of years ago. The findings, due last year, have never been seen. Instead, in May, the government will outline sweeping new powers for debt collectors under a Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act. A Ministry of Justice spokesman said that the new powers for forcing entry into people's homes (which debt collectors are already doing illegally) will be used only "as a last resort".
In the face of public disquiet about the damage that supermarkets are doing to the social fabric of our towns and suburbs, and sometimes the physical fabric as well; in the face of the catastrophic decline of the independent grocery sector over the past 15 years; in the face of the bullying and monopsonistic tactics against primary producers (such that supermarket chains have been penalised, heavily, within just the past few months), and in the face of the evidence from the US of the ubiquitous 'dead zones' (of which I've seen plenty) caused by major-chain and mall retailing... our government has nonetheless announced that we need more supermarkets and has swept away some of the few remaining constraints on their spreading.
These morsels are just four that have appeared in the papers in the last day or so (Independent and /or Times); they had appeared previously, so I assume that the evidence is fairly easy to find. I'm too depressed to gather that evidence for you here right now but, frankly, if you don't believe me, or if you think these things really don't matter, I don't think I much care any more.
Because, after all, this is the post-modernist government that invented its own narrative and invaded Iraq in the face of public opinion, overwhelming legal opinion that the invasion would be illegal, a growing international consensus as to how to deal with Saddam and Blix's evidence that the supposed casus belli, the WMDs, didn't actually exist at all. And then got re-elected. So, why would it worry about facts when it comes to a few piss-ant issues like these.
After all, if things really go pear-shaped, the government just waits a few weeks and then say 'it's all in the past now, it's time to get over it and move on', or, has an enquiry - the terms of which it dictates - and announces that it's found in the goverment's favour.
I'm really icing this cake, I admit. But if I, a fairly amicable soul, am getting so frustrated, I wonder if how many others are feeling the same way.
[Late-breaking: The Citizen's Advice Bureau believes that up to two thirds of bailiffs may be guilty of harassment and that 40% are lying about their powers of entry.]
Added 18 Feb: Apparently nobody can get an answer out of the Ministry of Justice as to what they mean by 'as a last resort' when it comes to bailiffs forcing entry to people's homes, nor who will make the decision or take responsibility. It also seems that the new bill allows the use of force against individuals, again 'as a last resort'. I don't know the truth of either of these; I suppose we just have to hope that we'll be told, preferably not by a baton-wielding bailiff as he breaks heads.
Wormy Picture Frames... ('The gift which goes on giving!')
17 February 2008 .
Another dire digital warning:
"An insidious computer virus recently discovered on digital photo frames has been identified as a powerful new Trojan Horse from China that collects passwords for online games - and its designers might have larger targets in mind.
"The strength of the malware shows how skilled hackers have become and how serious they are about targeting digital devices, which provide a new frontier for stealing information from vast numbers of unwary PC owners. More than 2.26 million digital frames were sold in 2007, according to the Consumer Electronics Association, and it expects sales to grow to 3.26 million in 2008."
(Charles Brumbelow.)
Visit http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/15/BU47V0VOH.DTL&type=business
If you've bought or been given a digital frame and haven't heard about this malware, you really should go to this page as a matter of urgency (but come back soon!)
The link is worth visiting even if you don't have one of these frames, for the postings in response to what seems a simple news item: they range from discussion about trade links with China to the nature of the government there to the relationship between government and people there and elsewhere (and from bigoted to thought-provoking).
There is a degree of paranoia there, along the lines that we in the West, even the US government, are buying more and more of our electronics from China, and we're thereby leaving ourselves open to all sorts of electronic espionage, control or even attack from a government which we know is not particularly our friend... Whether these worries are well founded or not I couldn't say (though it would be extremely foolish not to take some precautions); but they do remind me of the theory doing the rounds fifty years ago that the new-fangled transistor radios, mostly made in Japan, each contained a small bomb; when everyone in the West had a radio, all the bombs would be set off at once...
Anarcho-tyranny.
17 February 2008 .
This from the US. I don't think the UK (or the US) are quite there yet, but it's ringing a few of my bells:
Anarcho-tyranny: in which major crimes and criminals go unpunished because the authorities are unable or often afraid to act, while the police continue to enforce laws when and where it is safe to do so: Murder rages in one part of the city while minor traffic offenders and scofflaws in middle class sections are sent to jail. Cherry picking by police.
I came upon this last night on the net: I copied the passage - and forgot to note the site, for which I apologise. (Mind you, I have a sinking feeling that it may only be me who's not met the term before.)
Pakistan and South Korea.
16 February 2008 .
There is certainly an element of British (government) responsibility in some of what happens in Pakistan (as there most definitely is in McGuinness's Northern Ireland).
However, the fact remains that in the mid-50s Pakistan was in a position broadly comparable, economically, educationally, in size and resources, with South Korea.
Now, after half a century, S. Korea is a serious economic force. Pakistan's a basket-case. It makes you wonder.
The Men Of Blood (again).
16 February 2008 .
37 people killed and over 90 injured near an election office by a suicide car-bomber in Parachinar (Pakistan). Most of those hurt had been attending a PPP rally. (The PPP being Bhutto's party)
Why? What can it possibly have achieved? How do you engage with such people? Who do you engage with?
Sometimes, living amongst the human race on this planet feels like being part of a particular psychotic and dangerous troop of mutant baboons.
For some reason, my thoughts have turned to another man of blood, Martin McGuinness. But then, he became minister for education. Responsible for the children and grandchildren of men and women who were killed at his behest and/or with his approval. Funny old world, really.
Self-indulgent Twerps.
16 February 2008 .
At least the House of Lords can sound like serious people discussing serious issues.
Listening to PMQ (in the Commons) again these past few times... this is the Mother of Parliaments?
Trev.
15 February 2008 .
ITV's News At Ten used to be the acme of television news programmes, but it gradually dumbed down and finally disappeared.
It's come back. What a pity that it's come back fronted by the very newsreader who many of us feel was so much a part of its dumbing down in the first place. Neither he nor the programme seem to have learned a great deal from the programme's exile.
Not us, Guv.
15 February 2008 .
Inquest into the death of Captain Philipson in a firefight with the Taliban... Good on the coroner for his scathing attack on the under-provision of equipment to our troops - with particular reference to the then Chancellor, now The Father Of The Nation.
Now look at the apparatchiks, already trying to pass the blame for failings onto 'the supply line'.
The Man With A Sandwich-Board.
15 February 2008 .
When the man with a sandwich-board comes by, with his message that the End Of The World Is At Hand, we may glance at him without much interest - or we may even laugh at him; but we move on and forget him. He's only a nutter.
Things may not be perfect, but life's going on. There's food on the table, the house is warm, the buses and trains are running, there's electricity in the plugs and water in the taps; He's only a nutter, after all.
Twenty five or twenty years ago, some of us were beginning to wonder if the Thatcher era might be doing a nebulous but terrible damage to our society and community, whether perhaps something was being taken apart that couldn't easily be put together again. The threat wasn't the high unemployment, hateful though that was - communities had come through that time and again and rebuilt themselves; it was something more sinister, because it seemed to be engineered; the wisdom, don't forget, was that there was 'no such thing as society'. Selfishness had become respectable, rapacious greed in the pursuit of profit was to be admired; communities were being torn apart to make room for the temples of Finance - or for shopping malls or even just for the roads to get from one to the other. We were instructed to tell Sid, and the railways were sold in ways we didn't understand; we were advised, so patronisingly, to 'get on our bikes' at exactly the moment the deregulated bus companies began to reduce or close the routes we needed. Somehow we had to pay to buy the corporations we'd thought we owned, as the family silver was sold.
But life's still going on. So all the concerns of those worry-warts were unfounded. Except: how would you know that trouble's coming in the years, weeks and days before it irrevocably hits?
We've been warned for forty years, with increasing urgency for twenty, with increasing hystria for five, that climate change and global warning could spell the deaths of millions and end of our society - and conceivably the end of all of us. But life goes on; we have our SUVs and there's still fuel in the pumps. And there have always been heatwaves, and flooding, and hurricanes, haven't there? One likes to do one's bit about recycling and using less carrier bags, of course, but nothing has really changed. Except: how would you know that trouble's coming in the years, weeks and days before it irrevocably hits?
Perhaps not quite such nutters as the man with a sandwich-board, but these people who threaten us with the climate or a few disappearing liberties are being unduly alarmist.
Except, except, except... How do you know that trouble might be in the offing? Because without knowing that, how can you be sure that trouble is not in the offing?
I believe that the problem is that we look at 'what is', 'the way things are', and because they seem to be working, we assume that they are working as they should - as we want them to.
But what if we look at things from a different perspective?
What if we ask ourselves what our society would look like if the counter-Thatcher doom-mongers of the past twenty years were right? Might the answer be that, well, there'd be increasing violence on the street, fragmentation of communities, increasing drug and alcohol dependence, kids who don't care any more, public services that don't seem to work as well as they did, people who don't seem respect each other as much as before? Would there be a government that seemed more and more inclined to lose its grip, and possibly respond, like the weak men they are, by trying to pass more and more laws to control, frighten or punish us.
Society may not be in a state of appoaching collapse, nor even of decline; but the signs you might look for if society were heading for trouble are there, to be seen.
Climate change isn't so different - except that here the scientists have been much clearer about what the warning signs might be; and their predictions are being fulfilled. [Admittedly, they've got some of those predictions wrong in part - things are happening faster than they expected.]
So: two real and imminent dangers. Climate change is the more problematic - the whole world has to work together. But the greed, and the power games, and the growth of the watch-and-control-the-proles government, which are poisoning our society - we can do something about that.
I'm only the man with a sandwich board: this website may simply be the ramblings of a nutter. Just be sure, before you move on.
It's being said, time and again; our less enchanting young are only copying what they see the politicians, taipans and celebrities do, while at the same time reacting to the stifling 'care', control, schoolwork-and-test dispapproval we're putting them through. Maybe it's the role models who ought to be getting the ASBOs.
Dubya's undoubted respect for human dignity.
14 February 2008 .
George Bush today, on whether the US could still hold the moral high ground with regard to human rights: of course it could, because of its regard for human life and human dignity...
This from the state governor who, it's said, approved more executions than any other - a horrifying number, certainly; this from the president who'd just declared that he'll veto his own Senate's bill to outlaw waterboarding.
Hmmm.
A Bill Of Rights And Responsibilities.
13 February 2008 .
Jack Straw, another little man, tells us (in a speech in New York!) that he thinks there ought to be a Bill so that the British people know what's expected of them and what rights they have.
The prospect of the bland, unimaginative, self-serving bunch now in Parliament overseeing the dismantlement of eight hundred years of struggle and progress, replacing it (no doubt after big-tent consultations and focus groups) with a piece of bland, unimaginative non-history is stultifyingly depressing. I'm not sure what I can do about it, but I do know that if the people of this country allow it to happen in this way, they'll deserve all they get. Sadly, I'm afraid that most of them won't care much even if they notice, so long as there are still supermarkets open on Sundays and breasts on page 3 of the Sun. Cynical? The utter indifference of most of us to the loss of liberties doesn't really give one grounds to be much other than cynical.
Actually, I don't know why I'm talking about the prospect of dismantlement... the still-so-largely unremarked disappearance of our liberties is only one small part of the evidence that it's already happened. ( 22 down, now, and still counting.)
A generation ago, Mr. Straw, most people in these islands had a pretty clear idea of what their rights and responsibilities were; they might not have been certain of the details, they may have criticised the 'unwritten constitution', they might not have been committed to the rules - or tried to change them; but they had an idea of the structure. The disconnection which you feel needs to be remedied is largely down to the governments of the past 30 years. Some of it is even down to you, Mr. Straw, going back to your days as president of the NUS.
Or perhaps, Mr. Straw, you believe you're up there with Rousseau or Voltaire, or with the giants who wrote those profound words that are the Constitution of the United States.
You're not.
Renewed Calls For The Death Penalty.
12 February 2008 .
The yearning for condign, sometimes capital, punishment is wholly understandable, especially when it's expressed by people whose lives or families have been destroyed through though the sort of instant aggression which seems to be so frequent. Especially, too, when our system of punishment is so chaotic that serious criminals are released while their victims are still suffering - but undue harshness is apparently meted out for comparatively minor offences. There's a perception that the voices speaking against capital punishment come from persons whose wealth and privilege enable them personally to be at a safe remove from the yobs, thugs, gangs, drug-heads and general booze-fuelled nastiness that plague some of the rest of us; it seems a damned cheek for anyone whose life has escaped assault and murder to pronounce against the opinions of those who have not been so lucky.
I admit that I would be happy to see those who pass a certain line, the violent, the rapists, the murderers, the terrorists and, come to that, the men of war, simply eliminated, gone... terminated with extreme prejudice.
And yet... the whole thing has to fall flat with the first innocent person executed - because, with dreadful inevitability, sooner or later somebody would be unjustly executed. (Beyond that: do you really trust some of our recent Home Secretaries with the power of life and death? Blunkett? Reid? Smith???)
As a nation, we abjured capital punishment, along with torture; if we go back on that - against our own history - we will lose something very precious and very defining of our society. What's more, there's a risk that reintroducing judicial killing will be a slippery slope, because there's a mob out there baying for more offences than just murder to be punishable by death. Why not have the death penalty for paedophilia... or terrorism... or rape... or repeated dangerous driving... or carrying a weapon... or adultery? Do our politicians have the wisdom which would be needed for them to be good guardians? Or would some of them be there with the baying mob? They did an honourable thing by abolishing capital punishment; let's keep it that way... clear-cut.
Added later: Not only would I not trust some of the politicians, or the baying mob, with oversight of the death penalty - I know how close I could be, myself, to vengefulness.
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