On occasion over the last 20 years I have met an animal-rights hysteric who sobbingly insisted the ALF “are not terrorists”, and that their campaigns of persecution were justified – though never someone who would say scientists should be murdered. Equally I have only rarely come across Irish republican sympathisers who passively supported the IRA in fighting ‘British colonialism’ – though never anyone who thought bombing civilians was a good idea. But yesterday alone I spoke to three people, respectable middle-class people in politics and business, who volunteered remarks on our latest letter-bombings that very much suggested they were pleased, and they expected me to be too.
That is surprising enough. But the trouble is, dear reader, I was.
I certainly do not want more bombings. I hope it is stopped before anyone is hurt. I would not countenance doing something myself that by deliberate action might injure some unknown other person. But nonetheless there is something in me that exults in this violence in way I – a person revolted by boxing and war-footage – have never felt. Someone, somewhere, is fighting back!
There is no excuse for this. I am fighting back myself in a peaceful liberal way, through the legitimate means of political campaigning within the law. The persistent fantasy about long-handled bolt-cutters that springs out of the back of my mind 100 times a day, every time I see the snakey armoured cables of a CCTV camera, remains a fantasy. No need for violence. Not even against things, let alone people. And the spreading conception, that resort to violence is a right if people do not do what you want is a recipe for bloody anarchy. Violence is counter-productive.
But my emotions, and those of my interlocutors, hint that just beneath the surface parts of Britain are boiling. A lot of people have had enough of the surveillance state, though they are bonded, compliant, cowed by the suggestion that to oppose it makes them “a friend of terrorists,” an enemy of Helfansafey, or even of Skoolzanospitalz. The people who spoke to me believed that whoever is doing it is doing it as a protest against the tracking of motorists, and that my public position as an uncowed opponent of the securocrats made me someone it was safe to say such things to.
I hope that this is not as bad as it seems. I am sure that we are not so desperate, yet, in Britain that liberty requires insurrection. But I also hope that the bomber is not an isolated madman. I hope he is an extreme outlier of a general public anger at being constantly watched and continually chivvied by officialdom. If is, then a peaceful counter-revolution does require people to speak out against the inspectorate, not just to those they think might share their views, but publicly.
Guy, I’m not sure what it is about humankind that gives rise to the emotions you describe, but that’s exactly how I feel too. I wonder what it is in the heads of the people who put into place such restrictions on their fellow men, and then are surprised at the reaction. Not a lot of forethought and putting themselves in the pace of others, sadly, is probably the answer. Tony Blair whipping down the closed off lane of the M4 to avoid the traffic that “ordinary” people couldn’t avoid a couple of years ago probably sums up their mentality.
Childish bastards
I took issue with your Privateeyesque sneering at Capita in a previous post, but then I have to confess the DVLA one made me laugh.
So is this just the same schadenfreude that makes the worst anti-war types smile at American casualties? Or is it a noble stirring of democratic defiance? Hmmm…
Introspection and honesty childish?
I took issue with your Privateeyesque sneering at Capita…
Not mine. (Though I might sneer at them for being a bloated para-statal bureaucracy, I’d be unlikely to take the Foot line against “privatisation”.) Samizdata is a voluntary collective, and we often fight among ourselves. There’s more tendance than groupuscular orthodoxy among us.
I am sure that there are many ALF and IRA supporters who similarly feel a thrill of pleasure at this kind of applied violence.
In fact, this gives me hope for the UK – perhaps people are seeing through the ludicrous pantomime of democratic elections, and realizing that the only way to keep the government in line is to threaten it with violence. Perhaps we shall see the formation of a Samizdata Kamikaze squad in the near future?
I wonder if people’s attitudes toward the letter bombs would change if turned out that young muslim men were behind it.
(I really doubt that’s the case, I just wonder what the reaction would be if ymm were targeting unpopular statist symbols instead of random civilians)
I think the means are wrong, for those hurt are not those who enact it. It is cowardly. Further, it brings sympathy to the organs in question. Further still, if it is protracted it will be the perfect excuse by the advocates to dismiss ALL opposition to road tolls etc becaue it would be “giving in to terrorism”. On that last note, the more cynical and conspiritorial may venture to say it is a plot BY those advocates to specifically disregard opposition. It would not be the first time.
I think it would have been more mischevious and to the point to clone the registrations of those who enact these laws and let them get a few PCNs, speeding tickets and have the state say “compoo’er sez no” when they try to get out of it.
“I wasn’t driving!”
“Tell us who was”
“I don’t know!!!!”
“We don’t care…you are…in the Village…”
This would make those who create the system to directly suffer the consequences.
It strikes me that protest through spray paint (or perhaps using paint-ball guns at range) over the camera lens/window is less harmful to persons and property, and hence less undesirable.
I also wonder about the relative views of Guy (and me) on draconian speed-limit enforcement and say moderate Muslims concerning anti-terrorist measures such as no-fly lists and 28-day detention.
Best regards
Does it? I don’t think so. Sympathy perhaps for the collaborators working for the State machine but not for the organization itself.
Guy, I felt the same thing too.
Still don’t see any difference between the individual carrying out these bombings and the ALF/IRA types who bomb and maim for their own selfish reasons and psychosis, and only a slavering imbecile would justify the bombing of an innocent person as a way of getting back at some slight done to them in the past by that person’s employer. Did the terrorist actually believe that the packet he/she sent in the post was going to reach the chief executive of Capita or the DVLA and not, as any rational person could have told them, some unfortunate lowly postroom worker? I doubt it.
In significant protests I would have to be with Nigel’s proposal above, that there are ways of significantly harming the property of these leeches without resorting to bodily injury and while very much maintaining support from the general public.
It is quite different because some violence has legitimate moral justification and some does not.
Sorry but that makes little sense. By that logic a German factory worker making weapons in WW2 should not be a target (i.e. he is ‘innocent’) just because Hitler (his “employer”) was a warmongering madman.
If someone chooses to work for a company doing bad things by design, they must take at least some of the blame for being a party to that badness. If people are being crushed by the machine of state, it is not just the “directors” of the machine who are culpable but also the person who chooses to make his living turning the handle to make the wheels go around when the boss tells him to.
Praxis – the wonderful thing about moral justifications is that there are so many to choose from. The animal rights extremists believe they are morally justified too. To me, they are a bunch of deranged, dangerous lunatics – but they’re secure in their belief that so long as it is for the animals, anything they choose to do is acceptable under their morals.
‘Course, when one set of morals goes against the majority morality, it is deemed amoral behaviour…
As may have been gleaned, I intensely dislike the actions of Capita in their administration of the TVLA; as far as I am concerned, no-one who works for them can be unaware of their behaviour, so for them to remain employed by them is to condone it.
Pardon me, but that is such as tenuous example as to be rather risible. Are you seriously suggesting that bottom of the ladder postroom workers for an organisation are legitimate targets due to the actions of their CEO or their corporate policy? Does it also follow that the office trainee for the Overground Network in London is a fair target for disgruntled commuters to vent their anger upon? If we were to go down such a suggested route then we might as well accept that the, albeit somewhat suspicious (given the way the Labour Party briefed journalists ahead of the police arrests), intent of West Midlands muslim fundamentalists to kidnap and decapitate a muslim British Army soldier would be justified in that, to their view, that soldier is a representative of an organisation they have a disagreement with.
Not just a disagreement. A soldier signs up to a nation’s army with the express willingness to go and kill for the objectives of its government. That is something postroom workers are rarely called to do.
As legitimate targets go, if you consider yourself at war with a country (and Islam is a permanent state of war with all Kaffirs according to the WYSIWYG version followed by some) then a soldier from a voluntary, not conscripted, professional army would logically be fairly high on the list of targets. I view the potential beheading of a British soldier as a detestable act but then I don’t get my moral compass from the Koran.
Nigel:
It strikes me that protest through spray paint (or perhaps using paint-ball guns at range) over the camera lens/window is less harmful to persons and property, and hence less undesirable.
You have to point that out?
I also wonder about the relative views of Guy (and me) on draconian speed-limit enforcement and say moderate Muslims concerning anti-terrorist measures such as no-fly lists and 28-day detention.
That’s easy. I feel considerably less worried about speed-limit enforcement in general than I am about no-fly lists and detention without charge. I think speed limit policies are often wrong, but I don’t object to the existence of speed limits per se. In this I suspect I am close to the opinion of many British Muslims, “moderate” or otherwise.
For the record I felt this way when I did have a car and didn’t have anywhere near as thick a security file.
How is working to make an organisation’s objective attainable in any way a tenuous link with what those objectives are? It’s in fact a direct link.
That’s exactly what I’m suggesting, just as a worker in a Messerschmit factory wasn’t making any meaningful decisions regarding the initiation or conduct of WW2, he was nevertheless an essential element in making the conduct of the war possible and was therefore a legitimate target.
Target for complaining to them bitterly about the company they work for? Sure, why not? Target for violence? No, because the company they work for does not solely exist to appropriate your money for the government in the way that Capita does. It is just a company. There is no general rule and one size does not fit all.
“permanent state of war with all Kaffirs according to the WYSIWYG version followed by some) then a soldier from a voluntary, not conscripted, professional army would logically be fairly high on the list of targets.”
Fair enough. Let’s say the enemy are legit soldiers as they claim to be. OK. When do we get to treat them as if they were. When do we get to shoot ?
I totally abhor the use of violence against innocents (post-room workers) who are in no way accountable for the actions of their organisation and hope when the bomber is caught they get the book thrown at them. But yes a tiny germ inside me cheered to see someone fighting back against the massive over-weening para-state and state bureacracies designed to extract fines from us and enforce NuLabs political will through these financial penalties.
On a similar vein has no-one noticed the hidden campaign of destruction being faught against speed-cameras? This is almost never reported in the msm. I wonder why?
I was highly cheered on driving into Brighton and seeing the highly contentious gatso on the corner of Preston Park occasionally torched with a sussex police plaque asking for witnesses. I’m sure nobody saw nothing! So they put CCTV in looking at the Gatso. Imagine my joy driving in to see both the CCTV and the Gatso torched. Now they have put the CCTV in on a high mounting. Anyone got a rocket launcher?
I’m with you on this and feel the same way.
The only problem is that everybody draws the line in a different place. You and I draw it before violence but others don’t. I don’t agree with the death penalty, others do. Clearly some are over the line towards violence but don’t want to kill, Yet!. Others are probably willing too but don’t know where to start.
99% of the population are nowhere near the line. I’m a long way off, but I’m not sure if I would actually go out of my way to help catch these people either. That must be a problem for our police.
As a slightly different view how much closer to the line do you think people will move when a daughter or son dies due to a decision made in a hospital or one is executed by our police force. It’s the next logical step. It’s going to happen and when it does if the person is a planner and not a hot blooded nutter then we will start a new era in UK politics.
Guy,
I think the ALF didn’t necessarily say to you what they might have felt because they felt you wouldn’t be sympathetic to them.
You say those respectable types “expected” you to share their pleasure at these letter-bombings. Perhaps that’s why they expressed their feelings.
The comparison with WWII is risible. The surveillance state may yet be ended by direct political action such as No2ID. With the Third Reich, by the time, bombs were being dropped on Messerschmidt factories it had gone very far beyond that being an option. I’m going to right a strongly worded letter to that nice Mr Hitler and ask him to stop all this nonsense.
Similarly, Islamic terrorism is on a totally different order of magnitude to a few silly letter bombs and a few wrecked speed cameras. If these latter-day Robin Hoods were to carry out something on the scale of 7/7 for example then I think we’d see a very large shift in public opinion.
Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.
The difference between this incident and, say, Muslim terrorists or ALF terrorists, is that Muslim/ALF terrorists are not striving for liberty–they are striving to supress liberty.
That being said, though violence has its uses, I don’t think that this particular use of it was productive.
If the young muslim men are as pissed off as many are about the ridiculous attitude to “green” taxes and other fantastical levies placed on motorists and decided there was no other option but to send some fireworks in a letter, then I wouldn’t care one iota.
When Downing St brags about ignoring 600,000 signatures on their own online petition against road pricing, and when there is overwhelming opposition to the c-charge extension gleaned from what Livingstone fatuously terms a “public consultation”, and yet still they forge ahead, is it any wonder people are losing faith in democracy when even the small things don’t get any traction in the corridors of power?
Injuring people who haven’t injured you is not the way to go.
I am sympathetic to the camera vandals but not to letter bombers. A better protest would be to shit in a bag and mail that instead. It would garner more headlines, more sympathy, and a laugh.
I, too, felt a bit of schadenfreude at the bombing. We are starting to grow enforcement-style red-light cameras here in Minnesota.
But to keep a sense of proportion – this is like the abominable Ward Churchill saying “little Eichmanns” as he celebrates the destruction of the World Trade Center.
AEN,
There is also a difference in that violence should only be used in extremis and when there exists no plausible alternative. If the ALF/muslim terrorists had negotiable goals (rather than ban all animal testing/institute sharia in the UK) then, just perhaps they might have sought to get their way through political means. Unfortunately their world views are so incompatible with everyone else’s that their only resort is to use violence.
I don’t think it has come to that with CCTV, ID cards and road pricing.
Shitting in a bag? A method of protest worthy of MLK or Gandhi. If only Washington had sent Cornwallis a stool sample how much suffering could have been averted?
Better yet, why don’t you just go on a dirty protest?
I think your comment was childish and immanure. You know you’d only end up in the tabloids as “Charlie the Crapper”.
BTW they can DNA test it these days.
I’d have no sympathy with letter bombs, but even the police have stated that these pyrotechnic devices are designed to cause shock rather than any serious injury. They have created a news event out of all proportion to the damage caused, and therefore the perpetrator has succeeded in his aims, and if he is wise will stop now, when he stands a very good chance of getting away with it.
I really hope that actions like this, along with the stout yeomen who necklace gatsos, will give our lords and masters pause for thought. Will we really, all 60 million of us, meekly agree to be fingerprinted, photographed and charged £95 (at least) for an ID card? Will we all submit, and no doubt pay for, a big brother box in our cars, recording our every journey? Might there come a time when the British people, or at least enough of them to matter, just get sick of all this oppressive bullshit, and tell Mr State and his army of prodnoses just to fuck off?
I think even the most obtuse nothing-to-hide-nothing-to-fear merchants are finally cottoning on to the limitless desire of the state to snoop on everything they do. When it gets to the stage that the Man wants to put scanners in lamp posts to see through our clothes, it must be clear to anyone with a brain that they are just seeing how far they can go, just how much the docile sheeplike British public will put up with. Personally, I’ve reached my limit. I have always to tried to obey the law, and in return the state has not given me a criminal record. If I am going to be fingerprinted and photographed like a criminal, then fuck them, I’ll bloody well behave like one.
As the lady once said, “with our matches and necklaces we will liberate our nation.” The day is getting nearer and nearer as the UK moves closer to what can only be called Fascism.
Well said, ThePresentOccupier
As appears to have been overlooked by many correspondents, Capita as a matter of company policy, break the law. Not the law as myself and other Samizdata readers would like to see it, but the law as it actually is.
Now when someone attempts to rob you of your wallet in the street, you are justified in using violence to prevent them from doing so, although you would not be justified in using violence on any law-abiding pedestrian.
Since Capita are breaking the law, we are justified in using violence to prevent them. A postal sorter or secretary working for Capita is actively aiding and abetting their illegal activities, and doing so purely for pecuniary benefit.
The only question left to be settled is whether the violence is excessive and proximate to resisting their crimes. As anyone attempting to prevent Capita’s crimes by conventional means will assuredly be unsuccessful and is quite likely to be arrested, we can be sure that lawful means will be useless; on these grounds the use of letter bombs is clearly justifiable.
The only question that remains is whether this use of force is excessive.
As it has, so far, been unsuccessful in preventing Capita’s criminal activities, I respectfully suggest it is not.
Does this discussion remind anyone else of the Death Star scene in Clerks?
I work a short distance from the Westminster office to which the first device was sent. I share Guy’s loathing of the surveillance state but like a few others on this thread, I utterly condemn the person(s) sending these vile devices out there. There are peaceful ways to oppose what is happening.
This sort of thing is bound to play into the state’s hands. They are bound to try and portray anti-ID folk etc as potentially violent. Let’s not give them that chance.
How are they breaking the law? Please provide specifics. How are we ‘justified’ in using violence against crime, if such exists, when no violence has been used against us? I would imagine that the latter part of your statement is exactly the sort of frothing mitigation the defendant will used when dragged screaming from the court to start a long period of reflection in jail.
“America is at that awkward stage. It’s too late to ‘work within the system’ and too early to shoot the bastards.” -Claire Wolfe, 101 Things To Do Until the Revolution
“Every man occasionally gets the urge to spit on his hands, hoist the Black Flag, and start slitting throats.” -Edward Abbey, but I think he was quoting Mencken.
I suppose that I’m supposed to chime in to defend Capita and speed cameras as a Paid Lackey of the State, and defend the concept of Ordered Liberty Under Law, and tell you the Policeman Is Not Here to Create Disorder; The Policeman Is Here To Preserve Disorder.
I can’t do it, though. DVLA and congestion-charging black boxes are nothing more than a penne-ante half-assed version of holding people without charges and claiming they have no right to be brought before a judge. I see these stories and want to quit my job, even though I’m in a foreign country and have SFA to do with UK law.
Any Samizdatistas in the western US want to hire someone whose been a cop for years and has no other salable skills?:-)
Oh Guy, you silly Brit, the Colonists threw out your kind in ’76 for far, far less than what you are going through right now. (Though their pliable descendants wouldn’t follow their rebellious example).
Just face it– you are screwed.
Self-correction–the war was finally over by 1780’s although we had another spat in 1812.
Actually the colonists threw out the British for far less than your own government is doing to you right now. RICO? Eminent Domain? Patriot Act? Forfeiture laws? Hell, under hated Colonial Sedition Laws you could have your property seized for saying nasty things about the Crown but you did actually have to be convicted of sedition first… under current US law the Federal Government can take your property without even changing you let alone convicting you if they think you have done certain things they disapprove of.
The US Fifth Amendment is not worth the paper it is written on. People in glass houses…
I don’t get it. The policy to which ALF objects and the other one you don’t like have both been enacted by a government elected by a wide franchise. You freely participated. If you don’t like the results, but your personal prerogatives are not significantly restricted, you really have no reason to complain. A real election must include the possibility of losing. Losing an election implies that the legislature will pass laws you would rather not see enacted.
I detest the idea of surveillance cameras. I especially detest them when I suspect that ordinary crimes are not being prosecuted and punished. When we in the US started tarring and feathering representatives of the British crown, in the person of its tax collectors, we had no other avenue for registering our complaints other than pleading. After independence, whatever usurpations may have been perpetrated by our elected representatives are nearly as much our fault as theirs, since it was within our power to dismiss them and overturn their decisions.
There is never any guarantee that the people will decide wisely. Nevertheless, it is better that they decide. If a policy is mistaken, it can be changed. If the majority of the British people don’t mind cameras all over the place, too bad for them. If they can vote them away, let them do so or live with the cameras.
There is something within my psyche that really relishes seeing the casual violence meted out by the state getting turned back on the perpetrators by angry and outraged citizens. These deep seated emotional reactions are what underpins the logical construction of a belief in the power of individuals, liberty and the rule of law.
It was unashamedly good to see how CeauŠŸescu met his end. I feel guiltier about a similar reaction to the letter bombs targetting the servants of the panopticon. My belief in the power of the rule of law means that I would have no difficulty turning in the perpetrator – but I would be hoping he opted for trial by jury and that the jury knew about nullification.
I said I would turn in the culprit So, here he is.
And here is the explanation for non-Brits.
Somehow, I was expecting Hugo Weaving in a mask.
Ah but “Elthnsayfty” and “Skoolznospytalz” are sacred and it is almost politically incorrect to criticise anything to do with them. Therefore one would have to be careful speaking out in relation to them. It could be career destroying, tantamount to advocating extermination camps. Many organisations and companies have humourless thought police (often in HR) specifically employed to weed such thoughts and the individuals harbouring them out.
As for motorists and particularly 4WD users. Well we have been told, on good authority, that they are personally (and deliberately) responsible for destroying the planet, killing babies – and they hate kittens and puppies for good measure.
That’s why people keep quiet. For fear of being accused of a thought crime.
I was once threatened with disciplinary action (by a “Team development officer”! Not even a proper Human remains director) for pointing out that “Elfnsayfty” was about the health of the inspector’s pension plan and the safety of his annual holiday entitlement. “Skoolznospitalz” is a euphemism for LEA apparatchniks isn’t it?
Taking the same logic, I think Oxford should rename their new laboratory: I like the sound of “The Motherhood & Apple Pie research facility”.
So now it would appear that this is not the work of a lone protestor against the evil corporate traffic infrastructure, but an effort by the Animal Liberation Front (terrorists, like state bureaucracies tend to name themselves the exact opposite of their true function), or some other animal rights extremist. And as is usual with these sort of people the vain imbecile had to go and show how much cleverer he is than the police by telephoning a BBC radio phone-in.
I think the Army recruiting stations are open and there is a fair chance of getting a posting in Iraq.
What are you waiting for?
I’d just like to note that there’s no “t” in Helfansafey, which is usually pronounced with heavy emphasis on the initial aspirate and all consonants mumbled.