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This article on White Rose is rather interesting and really rather heartening…
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties says it will prosecute any priests found distributing or quoting the Pope’s anti-gay document for hate crimes.
I have long feared incremental statism more than revolutionary statism, because revolutions are easy to notice and thus easy to shoot at and, more importantly, get support from other people when you do. Incremental diminution of liberty however falls within the ‘boiling frog’ syndrome. By the time people notice, it is too late.
Now I really do not care what the Catholic Church has to say about gays or whatever… that is matter for practicing Catholics, not a well and truly lapsed one like me. But I am rather interested in anything which could well cause a major collision between civil society and the state.
You see, what I see here is that sooner or later, the Irish state is going to find itself confronted by a Catholic Priest who loudly proclaims in unambiguous language what the state defines as ‘hate speech’ by strongly depreciating homosexual relationships… and the state will be faced with in effect prosecuting someone for being a Catholic and following ex cathedra Catholic doctrines to the letter.
And then all of a sudden, when it becomes clear that the state has decided it will give itself a force-backed say in what gets said from the pulpits of Catholic Churches, millions of people who are voluntary members of a civil non-state social organization called The Roman Catholic Church are going to have to look long and hard at how they see the state. I could not ask for better grounds on which to draw up an army for that particular fight.
I think rather a lot of them will come to the conclusion that…The state is not your friend.
More and faster please.
Who’d have thought it? The UK Department of Health has said ID cards are the best way for removing health tourism from the UK government’s dreadful National Health Service (NHS). What a coincidence that the Home Office, which has been struggling for decades to find a problem necessitating an ID card solution, are trying to introduce just the very thing. And at this exact moment in time? Fancy that.
And here’s the best part. State-subsidised UK family doctors already refuse people access rights to their medical lists, if they don’t have the correct UK citizenship qualifications or residency permissions. Yes, the very people whom the ID card is supposed to prevent abusing the glorious wonders of the NHS, are already prevented from abusing it, at least up to the point the government is prepared to stop them. And whatever happens, the Department of Health have said, nobody will ever be refused emergency treatment, whatever their circumstances.
So currently, without ID cards in place, all those whom the state deems invalid for NHS treatment must go to Accident and Emergency departments, which will treat everyone who turns up regardless of status. And in the envisaged ID card NHS future, all those whom the state deems invalid for NHS treatment must go to Accident and Emergency departments, which will treat everyone who turns up regardless of status. Err…Doh?
The only solution to stop ‘health tourism’, where hapless British taxpayers are forced to subsidise the health needs of various global parasites, is to abolish the NHS. Immediately.
That way, everyone pays for what they need, or insures themselves against what they might need. And Britain can start becoming a welcoming place again, which people only come to for its wet Welsh weather and its fine Breakspear ales, rather than trying to sponge off our coerced goodwill after fighting their way through malevolent Blunkettesque security, at the ports of entry, before finding the nearest organised crime ID card forger.
Is this solution too simple, or should I be strung from the nearest lamp-post for daring to suggest that the great white elephant of our wondrous National Health Service should be slaughtered right here, and right now? String me up, baby. It can’t come a moment too soon.
A great many articles have been written on Samizdata.net about the monstrous Tony Martin case (just do a search for “Tony Martin” and you will see what I mean). I have always thought that he was convicted more for challenging the state’s monopoly on force by defending his property rather than for actually killing a man.
Well even the faint fiction of the Tony Martin case being a simple matter of criminal justice (which has come to mean justice for criminals) has been abandoned. The fact he was not going to be released early is old news… the demented fact this was because he was deemed a danger to burglars is also old news.
What is new was revealed in a Telegraph article yesterday (emphasis added):
Ms Stewart [a probation officer] has previously written a report on Martin which was submitted to the Parole Board before its ruling in January. In it she said that Martin’s support base in the country had made him more likely to reoffend.
“This is a case which has attracted immense and ongoing media attention and public interest,” she wrote. “I believe this has had an impact on Mr Martin’s own perceptions of his behaviour and his right to inflict punishment on those whom he perceives to be a threat to his own security.
In short, because he has widespread support from other people who believe he has been shafted by the system, lots of support, in fact political support, he is not going to be released. Ergo, he is a political prisoner. How else can one interpret it given the reason for his continued detention is due to the support of other people?
And let us not forget the other reason: he refuses to repent his ‘crime’ of perceiving two men breaking into his isolated country home as a threat to his security. Martin does not just have the temerity to demand he has the right to defend his own property, he refuses to apologise for doing so.
At the end of many articles I have written on Samizdata.net I have used the words “The state is not your friend”. Probation Officer Ms. Annette Stewart is the perfect embodiment of why I make that sort of remark. She is just acting in accordance with the institutional imperatives within which she works. The system is not just broken, it is insane.
Oliver Letwin, the UK shadow Home Secretary for the Conservative Party, has said he remained “highly dubious” about any move towards a compulsory ID card.
Come on Oliver, you can do better than this! How about saying something more like the following:
The Home Secretary, David Blunkett, forsooth, can try to force me to carry one of these draconian internal passports, in his attempt to turn this former land of liberty, into a socialist police state. But I will rot to death as a prisoner, in the Lubyanka gaol of his choosing, before I ever carry one of these modern forms of an Auchwitz tattoo. I am not a number. I am a free man.
Obviously, you may wish to be slightly less strong than this, as any professional Westminster politician must, I suppose, agree to be bound by any laws ratified by Parliament (except Dawn Primarolo, of course, the Treasury minister who refused to pay the poll tax).
However, I currently possess a full-length poster of you, which I garland every day with fresh flowers, and I need something a bit stronger than “highly dubious”. A Conservative copper-bottomed promise, from you, to abolish ID cards forthwith, the day after an election victory, would do the trick.
I hate to be shameless about this, but a promise like this would also gain you hatfuls of votes. It’s grubby I know, but unless you want me to replace your poster, with one of the eminent Mr. David Carr, you need to show me what you’ve got; what I’ve seen so far isn’t yet good enough.
Last evening I attended a seminar hosted by the Conservative Party group, cChange on the issue of civil partnerships. Civil partnerships are being advocated by the present Labour government as a way of enabling gay and lesbian couples to legally formalise their relationships in a number of ways, allowing them to take advantage of some, if not all, of the advantages now accruing to married heterosexuals.
I am not going to rehearse all the various arguments in favour or against such a move. Suffice to say that, unless some overwhelming public interest or danger can be shown to exist, the burden of proof should rest on the shoulders of those who would ban any adult – important qualification – wishing to enter into a lifetime commitment with any other person (s). (Yep, that includes polygamy, in case you are asking).
A number of other bloggers much more qualified than I, such as British ex-pat Andrew Sullivan and the group blog at the Volokh Conspiracy have argued as to why gay marriage, for instance, would be entirely consistent with a broadly socially conservative worldview. Sullivan points out that allowing gay men – like himself – to marry would probably reduce, not raise, male promiscuity and actually strengthen the bonds of civil society, including heterosexual marriage.
Last night’s seminar was interesting for several reasons. Arguing for civil partnerships was Conservative MP for Buckingham, John Bercow. Arguing against was Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips. I was pretty impressed by the quality of arguments on both sides. Bercow gave a broadly libertarian argument, one based on the idea that although ‘traditional’ marriage was a Good Thing, there was nothing so fragile about it that enabling non-straights to marry would send the world spinning out of control. → Continue reading: Civil unions
Oliver Letwin is one of my favourite Parliamentarians, so I was pleased to find an article by him in today’s Telegraph. He is defending the right to trial by jury – which is under attack again by Our Glorious Government. He makes the very good point that the legal system should be bottom-up, rather than top-down:
There are, in essence, two models of justice. In the first, justice is an item imposed from above upon the community. In the second, justice is the means by which the community uses the power of the state to protect itself.
The significant difference between these two models is that, if justice is seen as something imposed from above, the citizen begins to regard the law and its enforcement as alien forces; whereas, in the second model, justice is understood to be something in which we all have a stake – and hence, as an activity in which all honest citizens can co-operate.
This of course helps protect individuals from abuse by the state:
The fact that amateurs have this role is one of the guarantees against the state arbitrarily imprisoning an individual.
The depressing thing is that David Blunkett just doesn’t get it. He doesn’t see why the people need protecting from him. After all, he’s an altruist and New Justice is in everyone’s interest. He’s from the government and he’s here to help.
Labour’s first term in office was relatively moderate for a Labour government. Most of the damaging policies were done by stealth or – with policies like foxhunting – put off until the future. This term, however, Labour is much more authoritarian, openly raising taxes, creating regulations and destroying civil liberties. But a third term, with Blunkett still in the Home Office and possibly Brown as PM, is not a prospect I like to think about.
Today’s news about the Home Secretary inexorably steamrolling his Big Blunkett ID card scheme fills me with gloom. It is the same sentiment that gripped me in April this year when the news of the revived ID card plans reached the headlines and made me set up White Rose, a protest blog collective.
The blog has been up and running with the help of some notable bloggers who find the issues of civil liberty a hot topic in the Western world. However, a blog alone may not be enough. Civil disobedience may be the only way to oppose the damage being done. Such actions start from individuals. And we are all individuals here, right?
For now, we have only the shining example of Mr Willcock. Let’s see what we can come up with…
Home Secretary, David Blunkett, has gained Cabinet approval to push forward his plans, for compulsory ‘Magic Eye’ ID cards, for all British citizens.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we are entering the abyss.
Make no mistake, the moves afoot to ban hunting in Britain have very little to do with animal welfare but everything to do with class warfare. It is nothing less than a clash between those who believe civil society must be tolerant to those who share different minority views and who wish to freely associate in the pursuit of a beloved activity… and those who believe that state and violence backed political interaction, rather than society and voluntary social interaction, is the core around which all activity must revolve.
The class warriors of the Labour and LibDem Parties, and a few statist Tory confreres, wish to regulate notions of free associating civil society out of existence and replace it with a regulatory democratic state in which no aspect of rights or affinity are beyond the reach of regulatory politics… nothing less than an intolerant dictatorship of the political plurality.
Well a bunch of people met in front of Parliament today who said that regardless of what the bigoted class warriors of Westminster say, they are not going to cooperate.
The class warriors are not ‘progressive’ at all… they are in fact the heirs to a view of the role of the politics which in days gone by used law to oppress other despised minorities, such as homosexuals or Roman Catholics. They are just hate filled sanctimonious collectivist bigots.
(the photos taken today courtesy of The Dissident Frogman because my camera is knackered)
A leaked memo revealed that David Blunkett is pushing the Cabinet to back national identity cards for everyone aged 16 and over, carrying biometric information, such as fingerprints, to allow police to confirm the holder’s identity. Under Mr Blunkett’s scheme, the card will cost £39 for most people between the ages of 17 and 75.
An opinion piece about the identity cards news in Telegraph is yet again explaining what is wrong with Blunkett’s argument. Basically, each of the claims made by the Home Secretary in support of his pet scheme is wrong.
- First, Mr Blunkett says that there is strong public support for the idea. In fact, the Home Office’s recent consultation exercise focused on the concept of an entitlement card, a very different prospect. (Also, according to this Out-law article, the goverment has admited that the public opposes the ID card scheme.)
- The Home Secretary goes on to argue ID cards will help fight crime. This is one of those assertions that is forever being made, but hardly ever substantiated… The public mood is said to have changed since September 11, 2001, but no one has explained – or even seriously tried to explain – how ID cards would have thwarted those bombers, many of whom died in possession of forged papers.
- Nor, by the way, are ID cards a solution to illegal immigration. The root of the asylum problem is not that we cannot find clandestine entrants, but that we never enforce their deportation.
- More faulty still is Mr Blunkett’s central proposition, as set out in a letter to his Cabinet colleagues: “The argument that identity cards will inhibit our freedom is wrong. We are strengthened in our liberty if our identity is protected from theft; if we are able to access the services we are entitled to; and if our community is better protected from terrorists.” In an appendix to Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell describes how a concept can be traduced if the words used to express it lose their meaning. The example he gives, uncannily, is the word “free”. Now here is Mr Blunkett using “freedom” to mean more state control.
- Any doubts as to the wisdom of the scheme must surely be removed by the Home Secretary’s final argument in its favour: that we are “out of kilter with Europe”. Indeed we are, thank heaven. Policemen in Britain are seen as citizens in uniform, not agents of the government.
The most worrying is Blunkett’s spin on the concept of freedom. In his view we are strengthened in our liberty if our identity is protected from theft; if we are able to access the services we are entitled to; and if our community is better protected from terrorists. This is vaguely based on the distinction between negative and positive liberty, which are not merely two distinct kinds of liberty; they can be seen as rival, incompatible interpretations of a single political ideal.
Negative liberty is the absence of obstacles, barriers or constraints. One has negative liberty to the extent that actions are available to one in this negative sense. Positive liberty is the possibility of acting – or the fact of acting – in such a way as to take control of one’s life and realize one’s fundamental purposes. While negative liberty is usually attributed to individual agents, positive liberty is sometimes attributed to collectivities, or to individuals considered primarily as members of given collectivities.
Blunkett and his New Labour chums are classic and rather unexceptional anti-liberals. (I use the term liberal in its original meaning, based on negative definition of liberty and claiming that in order to protect individual liberty one should place strong limitations on the activities of the state.) In Blunkett’s mind, the pursuit of liberty (whether of the individual or of the collectivity) requires state intervention, which, by definition, is not contradictory with limitations on personal freedom. As a result, the protests of civil liberties groups do not make sense to him.
The concept of freedom as being unprevented from doing whatever one might desire to do is alien to him. According to Isaiah Berlin the defender of positive freedom will take an additional step that consists in conceiving of the self as wider than the individual and as represented by an organic social whole – “a tribe, a race, a church, a state, the great society of the living and the dead and the yet unborn”. The true interests of the individual are to be identified with the interests of this whole, and individuals can and should be coerced into fulfilling these interests, for they would not resist coercion if they were as rational and wise as their coercers.
I will not grant Blunkett’s social and political philosophy such level of ‘sophistication’. I will say that his are the simple and toxic insticts of a collectivist and a statist and that those protesting policies based on them will have their words muffled by the Big Blunkett.
Cross-posted from White Rose
The Chancellor Gordon Brown has long been hailed as an economic wonder, a giant, a prince among men; a proto-tyrant possibly, but nevertheless an economic God. What a load of old spoons. Those feckless Tory MPs in the House of Commons may be scared of his bombastic rhetoric, his curling lip, and his comprehensive knowledge of the canon of John Kenneth Galbraith; well, at least the idiot’s guide to John Kenneth Galbraith. But let me tell you of a tale, to put a sword to the lie of this risible greatness.
It began yesterday morning, at 10am. The phone rang. A certain Englishman, of Scottish, Irish, and Jewish extraction, picked up the phone.
“Yes?”
“Hello, is that Mrs Duncan?”
“No, who’s this?”
“It’s the Inland Revenue, in Liverpool. Can I ask you some questions?” The man panicked. Did he ‘owe’ £10,000 more in Corporation Tax? Had his company secretary, or accountant, failed to send in Form IR-XYP/9100/97/a.30, his thirtieth of the year? He decided to go for the polite response, in case this was being taped.
“Yes…”
“But first, you will need to answer some security questions…” → Continue reading: Tales from the kingdom of the mad
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We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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