We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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This thread features TimC comparing unenforced laws to fence posts without the panels.
Here is a clear example of an uninstalled panel.
A vicar who lit his pipe in a Kent police station as a protest against the smoking ban has failed in his attempt to get himself arrested.
The totalitarians typically begin each step by enforcing it against those who garner the least sympathy. Clearly a pipe smoking vicar is too sympathetic of a target this early on. Beginning with social outcasts, progressively less unpopular targets are chosen for enforcement until the ‘Why should ___ be allowed a ‘privilege’ that I am not?’ argument takes over.
And notice that in a five word headline about the vicar’s smoking protest, BBC managed to use the words “unholy”, “stunt” and “failed”.
On this day, 231 years ago, thirteen colonies declared themselves to be thirteen states.
Less known is that Thomas Jefferson wrote the “original Rough draught” of that declaration. Today is a good occasion to read in that rough draft what the full scope of grievances were before the representatives “in General Congress assembled” took the pen and scissors to it to assure unanimous support.
The last paragraph is the final treason of a treasonous document and had we lost the war that ensued, the greatest thinkers, doers and leaders of this continent would certainly have been executed for the crime of attempting the liberty of self determination.
We therefore the representatives of the United States of America in General Congress assembled do, in the name & by authority of the good people of these states, reject and renounce all allegiance & subjection to the kings of Great Britain & all others who may hereafter claim by, through, or under them; we utterly dissolve & break off all political connection which may have heretofore subsisted between us & the people or parliament of Great Britain; and finally we do assert and declare these colonies to be free and independant states, and that as free & independant states they shall hereafter have power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, & to do all other acts and things which independant states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, & our sacred honour.
Like they say, read the whole thing. It wasn’t just about tax. It wasn’t even primarily about tax. Some of the grievances have returned to us in force today and are worse perpetrated today by the government in Washington than they were by the government in Britain when this document was written. But some of the grievances may come as a surprise, particularly to some of you feeling the colonization by the EU. That is EU ‘colony‘ as in definition 2.
In the Daily Telegraph of Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007 there is the following letter from Lesie Watson of Swansea (in Wales).
Ireland, Scotland and Wales have all introduced smoking bans without problems. But we read “thousands of smokers defy [English] ban” (report, July 2). What does this say about the English?
If the report is true Lesie, it means that there is still sometimes a reason to be proud to be English.
This comment was left by a person calling herself Jasmine, responding to Sam Leith’s fine piece bemoaning the attitude of mind that led to the UK smoking ban in privately-owned places:
Has it occured to you that this is a nanny state because we need nannying? I don’t think anyone can dispute that smoking is not good for you. I read somewhere that having a smoking “section” is like having a peeing “section” in a swimming pool. It’s just not enough to have a partial ban and wait for the natural goodness of people who simply don’t know any better, to stop. They need to be forced to stop.
A question I would put to this woman, and quite a few of the other control-freaks out there is this: what gives you the right to tell an adult that he or she should adjust their habits for “their own good”? Does Jasmine think of herself as being some sort of god? Has it never occurred to these people that their obsessive desire to regulate all aspects of existence is in fact a sign of a deep psychological problem, which needs to be fixed?
The most invidious part of ‘health authoritarianism’ is that it takes a very reasonable aspect of a state’s responsibility, that of defending against the truly collective threat of infectious plagues, and debases it to interfere with non-infectious diseases which only pose a risk to people who voluntarily enter private property where certain very obvious conditions pertain.
And so we have the smoking ban on enclosed non-residential private property in Britain being imposed by classifying private property as ‘public places’. Never mind that you do not have to enter that privately owned property if you do not like the smell of it, or that the owners should be able to exclude people they want to exclude (such as smokers or for that matter, non-smokers) or that employees who do not like the working conditions can quit and go work somewhere else.
No, the political class loves the idea of eliminating emergent civil society and extending political control ever deeper into people’s lives (this is usually described as making things “more democratic”), and the idea that private property is actually private is an intolerable obstacle to those whose world view is based on violence backed control of the lives of others.
Many people have a deep seated psychological need to see others controlled, not because they are genuinely threatened by them but because they simply get off on controlling other people. The world is full of curtain twitching busy bodies who feel enlivened by calling down the power of the state on those of whom they disapprove for no other reason that it ’empowers’ them (it used to be ‘queers’ who got reported, now it is different types of nonconformists). No totalitarian system that has ever come to power has been able to sustain itself for long without appealing to this all too common psychologically defective demographic, relying on denouncement and informers to perpetuate a political order.
And the only way to resist is to, well, resist. Find ways not to obey the rules. Subvert the meaning of statutes. Do not accept the ‘rightness’ of the prevailing bigotries. Speak out against the orthodoxies of though that underpin the control freaks. Call them what they are. Just find ways to be awkward, find ways not to cooperate, and confront those who assume they on on the moral higher ground and pour contempt on their world view. Just do not meekly cooperate.
Kilt wearers could face prosecution if they do not have a licence for their sporran under new legislation which has been introduced in Scotland.
I’ve just heard the latest news
I’m not impressed and I’m nae amused
They say if I want my kilt to use
I’m going to need a licence
Let the wind blow high, let the wind blow low,
Through the streets in my kilt I’ll go,
And all the lassies shout hello
Donald, where’s your licence?
I tried to fill in all their forms
Tae get approval for my sporrans
But there’s too many beasties coats I’ve worn
So I will’nae get a licence
Let the wind blow high, let the wind blow low,
Through the streets in my kilt I’ll go,
And all the lassies shout hello
Donald, where’s your licence?
From the Isle of Mull to the Forth and Clyde
I always wear my kilt with pride
I’ve centuries of history on my side
So why do I need a licence?
Let the wind blow high, let the wind blow low,
Through the streets in my kilt I’ll go,
And all the lassies shout hello
Donald, where’s your licence?
They’d prosecute me if they can
But I’m nae scared of their stupid ban
You can’nae put the brakes on a Highland man
And they can stick their bloody licence!!
Let the wind blow high, let the wind blow low,
Through the streets in my kilt I’ll go,
And all the lassies shout hello
Donald, where’s your licence?
You really couldn’t invent this if you tried. Or at least I couldn’t. It is real ad, from the Guardian Online:
Smokefree Coordinator
Organisation: ENFORCEMENT JOBS
Salary: £26- £28 p/h
Date posted: 31 May 2007
Closing date: 30 Jun 2007
A formidable position has a risen for a Smokefree Coordinator.
The role will involve the implementation of the smoke free action plan. This will involve report writing and presentation, training, giving advice and information to stakeholders of council primary care trust (PCT), and the business community. Preference will be given to candidates who have previous projects experience.
The ideal candidate will have excellent communicative and interpersonal skills and be confident in delivering a project plan.
We require candidates who have been a Environmental Health Officer or other Health Practioner. Otherwise a professional with a history of working within a council. A good understanding of the enforcement issues around Environmental and Consumer Protection Law. Must have knowledge of current developments around smoke free legislation.
The contract is for a 6 month period, due to the level of experience required for this is paying between £26-£28 p/h.
Enforcement Jobs is a member of the Red Snapper Recruitment Group and acts as both an Employment Agency and Employer .The Red Snapper Recruitment Group is an equal opportunities employer
The government scheme to ban smoking in public places in Britain is currently reported as about £100 million over budget, at somewhere in the region of £1.6 billion. But I am not sure that counts local government expenditure, which this is.
Not only is innocent until proven guilty on the way out. The idea of limited and defined punishment for crime is too.
It appears the Sex Offenders Register which is supposed to…. well, I am not really sure what it is supposed to do, other than provide meat for the slavering tabloids, creates an ad hoc police power to get you banned from performing on TV. The BBC reports Police alert over TV contestant, in which a police spokesman says:
“There were concerns that with him being on the programme he might be seen by his victim or the victim’s family and there would be consequences from that. Lancashire Police spoke with the producers and suggested that it would not be in anyone’s interests for him to continue with the programme.”
One does not suppose the “victim or victim’s family” could remain unaware after an entirely predictable national media alert. And the consequences for the man concerned of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people who had no reason to know being told in the broadest terms he is “a sex offender” and the rest left to the mob’s squalid imagination? While ‘sexual offences’ is a broad category, from thought-crime, to bad manners, to genuinely consensual but officially barred conduct, … to the most serious violent crimes, one can be registered for any of them, even if there is no trial and no other punishment. The public obsession runs only one way, however.
There is an interesting article on New West by Christian Probasco, called California Looms.
California is a trendsetter state. Much like the weather, every Californian fad eventually makes its way over the Sierras and diffuses into the intermountain West. That’s wonderful, and it’s frightening, because there are some pretty disturbing things going on in the Golden State right now. O.K., I’ll admit: disturbing to people who take their civil liberties seriously. But I’m one of them.
His description of California reminded me of… Blair’s ever more authoritarian Britain. Another example of creeping democratic totalitarianism?
APPLICATION FOR A CHANGE OF UNDERWEAR LICENCE
Personal Details
Your Full Name
Address
Contact Telephone Number
E-mail Address
Date of Birth
Occupation
Ethnic Origin
Are you making this application on your behalf or as agent or carer for some other person(s)? If the latter, then please provide their personal details on the attached Supplementary Form
Do you wish to be visited at home by a Personal Hygiene Co-ordinator? (This is not mandatory but voluntary participation in the Personal Hygiene Home Consultation Scheme will speed up your application). → Continue reading: Progress
This is a rather gloomy public service announcement.
I wrote about the Serious Crime Bill in January. Since, it has proceeded quietly through the House of Lords, almost unchanged. Yesterday, so suddenly that I did not know it had happened, and was talking today about how NO2ID should brief MPs for its appearance, it received its Second Reading in the House of Commons. It is amazing that there has been no large scale protest about this
If you live in the UK (or are a voting ex-pat), you have a few weeks to write to your MP before it becomes law.
Update:
In response to popular demand, some more information. Here are:
On Part I of the Bill, a briefing note on Serious Crime Prevention Orders from the Conservative Liberty Forum.
On Part II, a somewhat more technical briefing (pdf)on the mindboggling abolition and replacement of incitement at common law from Liberty.
On Part III, A briefing I wrote (pdf) on the data-sharing aspects for NO2ID.
Which may collectively clarify what I’m going on about. Or not. But take my word for it, this is very bad indeed. Worse than ID cards. If you have an MP, write to them.
It is a story told of more than one matinée idol, and no doubt actionable, so let us call him The Star.
The Star was rumoured in a big Hollywood prostitution case to have been one of the most regular [I almost wrote “biggest”] clients of the latest martyred madam. An interviewer caught up with him.
– “Mr Star, is it true you hired call-girls.”
– “Now I’m not going to comment on the case, and I never had any contact with Miss X; but it is no secret I have used call-girls plenty of times in the past.”
– “But Mr Star, you are known as one of the sexiest men in the world. You could surely have all the girls you want for free. Why pay anyone for sex?”
– “I didn’t pay them for sex. I paid them to go away afterwards.”
It seems our madly interfering government now wants to police our private lives a bit more closely, and thereby make them a bit riskier. According to The Times:
Unmarried women and men will be able to make claims against their partners to demand lump-sum payments, a share of property, regular maintenance or a share of the partner’s pension when they separate. They will also be able to claim against their partners for loss of earnings if they gave up a career to look after children.
The reforms are to be published by the Law Commission, the Government’s law reform body. It is expected to drop any proposal for a time stipulation, so that only couples who had lived together for, say, two years, could bring a claim; or any bar on childless couples.
Plans that would have made it harder for the partner who stays at home to lodge a claim have also been dropped. Courts will no longer have to be satisfied that the unmarried couple jointly decided that one of them should give up their career and stay at home and that the decision was not made just by one of them. […]
The reforms would apply to both opposite and same-sex couples in “an intimate relationship.” But the Law Commission emphasises that the plans are about granting individuals a remedy, not rights, when they split, and says that the measures will not undermine marriage but make the law fairer.
A marriage or civil partnership is a clear, deliberate, decision. I don’t think the state should control the form of family that is possible, but at least those particular controlled forms are optional, and formally delineated. This opens the way for officialdom to delineate and the courts to investigate any relationship for an actionable degree of intimacy, and for divorce lawyers to open a whole new field of speculative actions. Divorce lawyers will just love the idea that there’s no minimum length of ‘intimate relationship’ involved, and that unilateral reliance by one party can create a liability for the other. And they’ve been agitating for it for years (e.g. in Solicitors Family Law Association, Fairness for Families: Proposals for Reform on the Law on Cohabitation, 2000 – sorry, can’t find that online).
It would be an impressive feat on behalf of the state to make both marriage less attractive (some of its appurtenances – for those who want them – would come free) and at the same time to make sex and friendship outside marriage more risky – and possibly more risky the more affluent you are.
It might do some good of course, undoubtably there are people who are mistreated by partners or mistaken about their rights. But to punish every other single person in Britain for the cruelty or ignorance of a few is an appalling way to go. The parade of motivated winners tells you what you need to know: mad clingy girlfriends, scrounging scrubs of boyfriends, family lawyers, smug marrieds, investigators, officialdom, and prurient tabloids.
I can see a spin-off gain for the proprietors of anonymous, deniable, premises for lovers’ assignations. (Brighton?) Perhaps the Argentinian or Japanese speciality hotel businesses would get emulated here. But that would still be risky for the rich and famous. The only people certain to come out with improved credit (in both senses): proper, professional, prostitutes.
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