Car Insurance and Statism

The problem with a multi-author blog devoted to liberty is that people, almost by definition, have to be free to write what they want. And that includes, as this post at the Orphans of Liberty shows, giving them the right to write illiberal bilge.

At the end of a slightly rambling and definitely racist post, the Quiet_Man writes:

It strikes me that the system used if we must legally hold car insurance needs to be overhauled to a state where it would be difficult to own a car and not have insurance. Or more draconian would simply be the crushing of any vehicle found being driven without insurance or a license and jail time for the uninsured.
Yes I know that isn’t very liberal of me, but I do believe that if I abide by the rules (unfair as they sometimes are) then others should abide by them too, particularly when the cost of not abiding by the rules hits me in the pocket.

It strikes me that if the system needs to be overhauled the best way in which to do so is not to increase the ability of the government to seize private property and imprison its citizens - especially if that system of rules is unfair. Anything else is fundamentally statist, and fundamentally illiberal. Yeah, car insurance is far too expensive and yeah, the price is forced up by those who drive, and then cause accidents, while uninsured. But the answer is not greater state control, but rather a real attempt to reduce state intervention in the cost of getting cars and drivers on the road. Reduce road tax. Reduce the staggeringly high tax on petrol. And yeah, review the nature of car insurance in this country, which does play into the hands of insurance companies. But more car crushing and more people going to prison is nothing more than the solution of the draconian, illiberal statist.

I don't have a great deal to say about the London Riots, and next to nothing that hasn't been said already. But I'll throw my thoughts into the maelstrom of thoughts on these riots that is swirling incessantly out there anyway. There's a bandwagon, so feel free to witness my attempt to jump on it.

One of the reasons why I have so little to say about the riots is because this is a political blog but, as far as I can see, there is precious little that is political behind the violence that has broken out in London and, to a lesser degree, elsewhere. I hear about social deprivation and inequality, and about how the police gunned down a man who may or may not have been a gangster of some sort and who may or may not have shot one of them in a chest. Then I see images of a Greggs burning, I hear about a CarpetRight that has been torched, and I hear about trainers being stolen from a JD Sports that was looted during one of these riots. And I see that these events have precious little to do with politics and everything to do with an infectious, uncontrollable rage and a real lust for taking goods that haven't been paid for. Indeed, one of only two of the political dimensions I see to all this is that failure of the police, and the British state, to respond to those who have turned the poorer areas of the capital city into what is effectively a war zone. It is one thing to protest against the state, another to take to the streets and indulge in a self-perpetuating orgy of looting and mindless violence.

Furthermore, even when some of the rioters and looters are put on trial for their actions, what do we think will be the result? Does anyone seriously think that their claims that these were legitimate acts of protest will be taken seriously? And what do we think the long-term political reaction to these crimes will be? Do we honestly think that the state will use this as an opportunity to anything other than flex its muscles and expand its power and control over us? And as we hear that Facebook and BlackBerries have been useful tools in the co-ordination of these riots. So what do we think the government will do - leave us to use our BlackBerries and Facebook in peace? Or demand the right to intrude further with regard to both things? I know what I would put my money on, and this is the second political dimension to these events - there will be another encroachment on our freedom and our civil liberties.

And when will it stop? I don't know. I suspect that there is more violence to come. But I also suspect that these events have become embarrassing for the police and will become more so the more often they happen. So I suspect that the next time the riots start, the police are going to be more and more likely to seriously start cracking skulls. Then, at the next legitimate protest, the police will go in heavy handed, determined to take no chances and therefore to take no prisoners. They won't be able to take the risk of the repetition of that mindless violence, so they had to club that person to the ground and, while they are sorry that it ended in this way, that's why he had to die... and so on.

So all we have here is a largely self-indulgent outbreak of violence that will get Middle England tutting at the perpetrators and in doing so this violence will strengthen the state. And if the motivations of the rioters were genuinely political, then they would see that what has happened is, to a massive extent, a disaster for their cause. But they don't have a case, and, furthermore, I suspect that a substantial number of them will just be happy to have got themselves new acquisitions without having to go through the trouble of buying them.

Things can get worse...

“Things can’t get much worse in this country” a friend said to me recently. They were speaking from a socialist perspective, and lamenting the spending cuts and the fact that the coalition is not quite as spendthrift as its predecessor. The validity of these justifications are not my main concern today – I think anyone who reads this blog regularly will know where I stand on such issues – but the notion that things can’t get much worse in this country is not unique to the left. It can be seen in some in the right. It can be seen in statist and in libertarians. And it is, of course, bollocks.

While things ain’t grand at the moment, it could get much, much worse in this country. You can look elsewhere in the world, to countries like North Korea, to see just how bad things can get with ever increasing state intervention. Likewise, you can look to various war-torn African nations to see what happens when the state collapses in on itself and effectively disappears. Yeah, you might be paying more tax than you would like (I know I certainly am) and you might be sick of paternalistic types tutting at you when you enjoy a drink or a cigarette, but you aren’t dodging bullets in a civil war or avoiding the secret police in an authoritarian regime. Things could be worse.

Because one of the things we still have in this country despite the continued erosion of our civil liberties by successive statist government is the right to bellyache about it all. You can protest – in writing, verbally or in person. Sure, you might not like the fact that the state attempts to control your protest (and again I don't) but you can still do it. And you can protest about anything you like – it doesn’t even have to make sense. So you can have a pop at the government about spending cuts, even though they have precious little choice but to decrease the rate at which government spending rises. You can also have a go at nonsense conspiracy theories like the currently fashionable idea of the domination of “cultural Marxism” (a spurious concept that seems to be an attempt to add an ersatz veneer of respectability to the old claim of “it’s political correctness gone mad!”) While we have the right to protest, things can get much worse. And history has shown us just how bad things can get. The worst case scenario isn’t social shunning of the non-comformist or even legislating against them; it is the death camp for that non-conformist.

And the wonderful yet terrifying truth about our current situation is that what happens next remains, to a large extent, in our hands. It’s wonderful because we can potentially shape a version of tomorrow where we are freer. It is terrifying because we might not take that opportunity or fuck that opportunity up. But we should always remember, no matter what our frustrations are in the here and now, that things can get much worse. And that can be a motivator; to make sure that they don’t.

Shop an Anarchist, say Police

And the police continue their slow transition into the thought police with this sort of illiberal bullshit:

This was the surprising injunction from the Metropolitan Police issued to businesses and members of the public in Westminster last week. There was no warning about other political groups, but next to an image of the anarchist emblem, the City of Westminster police's "counter terrorist focus desk" called for anti-anarchist whistleblowers stating: "Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy. Any information relating to anarchists should be reported to your local police."

The move angered some anarchists who complained that being an anarchist should not imply criminal behaviour. They said they feel unfairly criminalised for holding a set of political beliefs.

And anarchists should complain because they are being criminalised for their political beliefs if this sort of thing becomes standard practice. But the rest of us should also be very worried. This is a clear point on a very slippery slope to where any non-conformist thoughts is considered a matter for the authorities. Not non-conformist behaviour, mind. No, here we are talking about non-conformist thoughts.

Furthermore, look at the language used to call for whistle-blowers (a term surely being abused here - state snoops would be a better description): anarchists believe that the state is a problem; therefore, they need to be reported to the state. The unspoken, unquestioning devotion to the concept of the state is inherent within these words. The implication is that questioning or resisting the state should be reported to the police; therefore, such behaviour is criminal.

We live in a world where all sorts of groups aspire to commit terrorist atrocities, where MPs rob us blind, where the media our invade privacy with police facilitated impunity and mindless violence is the reality on the streets on most Friday and Saturday nights in some cities. But forget all that - the real problem is people holding anarchist beliefs. Yeah, the police should *definitely* focus on that. And you should definitely help the state by snooping on any anarchists.

And the irony is that through such statements the state shows precisely why it is not a benign entity, and should be resisted, reduced in its size and scope if not dismantled completely.

Quote of the Day and Another Rant About Conspiracy Theories

From Longrider on yet another post at OoL expounding dubious and unconvincing conspiracy theories:

I have to say that conspiracy theories really undermines what we are doing here. When we point out genuine, provable malfeasance on the part of those who would steal our liberties, our opponents will point straight back to the conspiracy theories and laugh.

Couldn't agree more. While I absolutely believe that James Higham et al should have a right to publish what they want, especially on a site co-run by Higham, I have to say the conspiracy theory guff does nothing for the cause of liberty and will probably end up harming it. We don't need a conspiracy theory about 9/11 to show that the Patriot Act was wrong, and we don't need a conspiracy theory about 7/7 to show that all the attempts to increase the detention periods in this country were wrong. All those conspiracy theories create straw man arguments that our opponents can easily bat away, making themselves look right in the process. And the worst thing is, in articles like the one linked to above, we create those straw man arguments, not our opponents.

And I don't understand why we have to create these largely unprovable and, in my humble opinion, false ideas that cultural Marxism has taken over the world, or that Obama is closet Marxist, or that Christianity is being undermined by arguably the most incompetent organisations in the world (namely, local governments). We're not dealing with opponents who are generally very subtle about what they do. There's no great attempt to hide the fact that the DNA of innocent people is being kept on the DNA database in what represents a massive u-turn and a real concern to anyone interested in championing civil liberties in this country. They're doing it, right now, down in London. We don't need to fight members of the Frankfurt School who have been dead for decades when Clegg and Cameron are doing tangible things to damage freedom in the here and now, right in front of our noses.

But anyway; enough. Fighting conspiracy theorists is a waste of time and effort. I believe in freedom and that belief encompasses the freedom of conspiracy loons to spout their paranoia on any platform they see fit. But that same freedom allows me to point out that what they are doing doesn't help the cause of freedom and actually hinders it.

Conspiracy Theory Loons

Whenever we are faced with a mix of tragedy and terror, two things tend to happen. Firstly, the government of the nation concerned flexes its muscles and - by intention or otherwise - suppresses freedom in an attempt to make the land safer. Secondly, the conspiracy theorists flex their limited intellectual muscles, and see the atrocity as part of a wider government led conspiracy to control the citizens. To date, the former hasn't happened in Norway. But in relation to the events of Friday, the latter certainly has - as some of the comments on this Orphans of Liberty post so ably demonstrates.

See, it isn't enough that a man might have gone a bit mental and killed loads of people. No, that isn't ghastly and terrible enough. Instead, we need the spurious and completely farcical notion that the governments of the nations concerned have run lethal operations in order to inflict draconian policies on their people. So the conspiracy nuts won't see Breivik as working alone or with one of two accomplices in the manner of Timothy McVeigh. No, he's a cipher - part of a "false flag" operation run by the government and/or its associates.

Of course, this is utter horseshit with no real grasp of reality. I mean, most governments are incapable of lacing their own fucking shoes without a government leak and the accurate accusation of incompetence. Look at the Watergate scandal - a genuine attempt by a government to create a conspiracy around a pointless fucking burglary. And the conspiracy unravelled within months despite all the power of the imperial presidency leading Nixon - who had just won one of the most stupendous electoral victories in US history - to resign. If a government runs a conspiracy, it will probably be the worst conspiracy in the world.

Yet this sort of analysis is not good enough for a conspiracy theorist. And so JFK was murdered on the orders of LBJ, just as the US government destroyed the Twin Towers with help from a Jewish Cabal. The fact that no government would be capable of the sort of secrecy involved in this sort of conspiracy is irrelevant. Instead, the conspiracy loons see malign shadows that are, at best, tricks of the light for the terminally naive. They are adding 2 and 2 and getting not just 5, but 55.

But why does this matter? Why not let the loons babble their nonsense without passing comment on it? Well, the answer is twofold. When so-called friends of liberty start spouting this shite, it reflects badly on us all. We cannot credibly point out the draconian knee-jerk reactions by government to terror attacks when so many of our numbers are unconvincingly accusing the government of having commissioned that atrocity in the first place. It obliterates what little credibility we have.

And then there's the creation of paranoia in the minds of the loons. For the most part, this is harmless. But the Norway killer seems to have believed in one of the increasingly popular conspiracy theory bollocks - that of cultural Marxism. And that may well have motivated his carnage. Of course, it is more than possible that the motivator for the killing spree is irrelevant since Breivik would have found an excuse for his killing anyway. But the more people believe in this non-existent underworld of absolutely non-existent conspirators, the more they lose connection with reality and with that the ability to respond to reason. Everything feeds their paranoid theories; nothing can be disprove those theories. It makes trying to debate with them like trying to debate with a block of concrete - completely pointless.

As an advocate of free speech, of course, I don't want to suppress the loons, even if the bollocks they spout has all the connection with reality as an episode of the Teletubbies. But I will use my right to free speech to call them on the shite they vomit forth, and in the process hopefully elucidate an analysis of the threats to freedom that actually has a connection to the real world.

Towards a Libertarian Union?

Ok, so, following on from my pessimistic post from the other day, what next for UK libertarians? I’m not going to rehash my arguments about why I think LPUK is screwed. What I will point out is this – the members of and advocates for the party who approach a realistic position are those who, like me, would argue that any real success for that party lies in the distant future. And given the constant encroach of statism and its advocates, the question is pertinent – what do libertarians do while waiting for LPUK to get up and running/do if the party disappears?

We can find a clue in the Rally Against Debt. A grassroots campaign started by two UKIP members has grown massively in a very short space of time. Indeed, its growth is something that LPUK could, and perhaps should, be jealous of. Why has it been so successful? In part, it is about topicality. Debts and spending cuts are at the heart of the debate raging in British politics today. But there is another reason. The rally against debt is not party political, and thus it is not exclusive. It can attract people from the Tories, the Liberal Democrats, UKIP, LPUK and independents. Whereas a political party can only really attract those with no other party affiliation, or an affiliation that they are happy to sacrifice. That automatically limits its potential. So topicality and being inclusive rather than exclusive. What sort of organisation could allow for that?

It occurs to me that some sort of Union might be the way forward (or Federation, for those right-wingers who can’t cope with the idea of Unions). An organisation that can offer people membership in tandem with membership of other organisations – just as members of Trade Unions can be (and often are) members of the Labour party. But rather than offering representation in the workplace, this could be an organisation that fights for its members in the pursuit of liberty. As a Federation/Union, it could do things other than fight elections directly. It could offer support to campaigns run by other organisations (like No2ID, the IEA and the Adam Smith Institute) and highlight events like the Rally Against Debt. At the same time, it could run its own campaigns. It could also have spokespersons on crucial issues and topical events – for example, an organisation that might offer Tim Worstall as Economics Spokesperson and Chris Snowdon as Health Spokesperson (or at least debunking the spurious claims of health “experts” spokesperson) would be pretty formidable. And it could do so without demanding they join a particular party. Likewise, it could attempt to attract high-profile libertarian politicians to write for it on occasion.

But where it could be most formidable is through having a dedicated band of volunteers who could work on behalf of libertarian leaning politicians in election campaigns. Politicians like Douglas Carswell, Steve Baker and Dan Hannan. And LPUK, if they ever become credible contenders in elections. On the flipside, it could also campaign against egregiously statist politicians. A host of Libertarian inclined people pounding the streets in Ed Balls' constituency arguing against his re-election could make all the difference, for example. Indeed, the organisation could replicate the influence of the Tea Party in America (albeit without that organisation’s occasional lapses into insanity). Not backing one party or running its own candidates, it could instead offer support to any candidate it perceives to be a champion of liberty.

Of course, it wouldn’t be easily achieved. Getting libertarians is, as numerous people point out, like herding cats. And there would be a need for the organisation to be professional at all times. There’s no point it being a super-swear-blog; candidates should want to be associated with it, rather than embarrassed by it. But a looser organisation than a political party, one more able to choose what battles it fights, might be able to circumvent the inherent anti-small party biases of our political system. A powerful, grassroots pressure group that can make or break candidates in constituencies maybe far more effective than entryism into an existing party or LPUK. The aspiration would be to have a UK based version of the NRA or a major Trade Union (albeit not necessarily with the core beliefs of either). It wouldn’t be easy, but it might just be worth it.

Good. One piece of control-freak, illiberal legislation down, about a billion to go.

More like this, please, Con-Dems. A lot more like this. And quickly.

The Coalition's Progress

The coalition came to power promising a new politics; a common enough aspiration, and it is easy enough to understand why the Con-Dems would want to distinguish themselves from the completely compromised failure that was the Brown administration. But, as Obama has so clearly demonstrated in the US, it is far easier to talk about change in politics than to actually implement it. So how have the Con-Dems got on thus far?

In terms of spending cuts, they’ve obviously made a start – although the caveat about a reduction in future spending not being the same as an actual cut in spending is ever present and ever relevant. However, where the Con-Dems have completely failed is in the battle to dominate the discourse when it comes to spending “cuts”. Rather than making the case for spending cuts, and thus reducing the size of the state, they have treated cuts as something nasty that they are being forced to do. A bit of empty, half-hearted rhetoric about the Big Society is not enough to make the case for a smaller state and a freer, but more responsible, populace. Plus, the Con-Dems have completely failed to punish Labour enough for making these cuts inevitable. Every time Ed Miliband opens his stupid mouth to spout spurious nonsense about the “cuts”, the coalition should be responding with “well you and your party caused them!” There is an opportunity here to keep Labour out of power for a generation, but that will only happen if people truly understand the cost of Labour’s incompetence during their thirteen years of misrule.

The coalition has also made a small start with civil liberties. It is great that the ID card scheme has been scrapped, but that is simply a reversal of one of Labour’s most egregious attacks on our civil liberties. It is not the start of a genuine move towards a freer society in any meaningful way. And the much vaunted commitment to civil liberties from the coalition is not materialising in terms of practical politics. The state can still spy on us to a massive extent; landlords are not allowed to decide whether to allow smoking on their premises or not; protest is still draconically policed; we are all still “nudged” towards the sort of behaviour the state wants from us. If there is a distinction between the coalition and the last Labour government, then it is in a commitment to paternalism rather than overt coercion. Thus, we’re in a better state of affairs than we were under Blair and Brown, but there is still a hell of a long way to go.

The area where the coalition has had its most success is in maintaining what is a fragile and unlikely union between two different parties. Sure, there have been grumblings – particularly from the Lib Dem contingent, but generally speaking the coalition has defied cynics and managed to hold itself together, even through deeply divisive issues such as the rise in tuition fees. It is well within the realms of reality to now predict that the coalition will serve a full five years in office – something that, on paper, never really appeared possible even in the first flush of the new political union last May.

But this is somewhat depressing; the most effective the coalition has been, according to this analysis, is in clinging onto the reigns of power. In other words, by acting for itself. The self-interest that has dominated so much of recent political history is present and correct in the “new politics”, rather sadly. And the progress of the coalition thus has not been impressive; at the moment, the very best that they can claim is that they haven’t been as bad as Labour. But if they genuinely what to do something new, and create a decisive break with the past, then they have to spell out a decisive vision for a smaller state and at the same time turn their rhetoric in civil liberties into something meaningful and practical. Forget the Big Society; the coalition can be genuinely ground-breaking if it speeds up the pace of change and gives us a free society instead of the status quo.

I must be missing something...

...because I really can't figure out why this man has been arrested. Listing MPs he claimed voted for the Iraq War can't be a crime - isn't that information publicly anyway? Isn't it on a number of different websites and contained in public documents like Hansard?

I suppose it must be something to do with what he put with the list of MPs because otherwise there's surely no cause to arrest someone for publishing information that is already in the public domain, and has been for over half a decade. The alternative is that we've drifted into being a totalitarian shithole far quicker than I ever anticipated, even in my most cynical moments...

Exhaustion

DK’s struggle to comment on what is happening is typical of Libertarian bloggers – we’ve seen so-called change occurring in May, and now have to make the same arguments for liberty for a new bunch of gurning, illiberal idiots.

Sure, the coalition is not the same as the last Labour government – and anyone who claims that it is misses the point. But the differences are outweighed by the massive similarities – in particular, the faith that the state is the answer to all of our problems – it is just a case of getting the “right” party into power.

So we make the same points again, again and again. And the government either doesn’t hear, or doesn’t care, or is simply unwilling to change.

Yet I still have hope – hope that at some point the people of this country will finally see through the nonsense spouted by statists. But what worries me is just how big, how terrifying the crisis will have to be for the people to finally lose their faith in the statist propaganda. We’ve had a nonsense war on terror, an attempt to bankrupt a country through propping up failed banks, and a continual war on civil liberties and still nothing – people still vote for the statists. What will it take to stop them from doing so?

But given the complete absence of change (or even the desire for real change among the majority), those of us who have been banging on for years about the growth of the state and the ensuing diminishing of our liberty are bound to feel dispirited and exhausted. Yet the case we make still needs to be made and I hope that, despite the weariness many bloggers are feeling at the moment, that there will still be some who go on making that case.

Student Radicalism

Or rather, the lack thereof.

Once upon a time, and for a fleeting moment, students were genuinely radical and – in the case of France – actually looked, for one fleeting moment, like they could have a real impact on political history. Indeed, some Marxists – such as Herbert Marcuse – began to see students as the impetus for revolution rather than the proletariat. But that faded… until now, in this day and age, we have the spectre of student protests again. Not over war or discrimination in society, however, but rather over the amount that they have to pay in order to get their university education.

I’d imagine that some of the potential protestors – such as the socialists shouting “Stop the Tory Axemen!” on campus last week – see themselves as radicals, taking direct action and “fightin’ the power”!

In a sense, of course, they are right. They are fighting the government, and the right to protest is something I absolutely support. But I do think that those involved in the protests should be under no illusion what they are doing. They are not being radical, they are being fundamentally conservative. By definition, conservatives resist change – and what are these protests about? Conserving the status quo. Resisting change. Nothing radical about that.

And what motivates these conservative protests? Self-interest. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with self-interest – it motivates vast swathes of politics, and always has done. But this is a world away of protesting to end the Vietnam War, or for civil rights.

Following on from this, you can see just how student radicalism is at least wasting away, if not a terminal case. Look at what has happened over the past few years – the police killing people, the attempts to bring in extended periods of detention, the bailing out of failed banks with public money (that could have been spent, among other things, further education) and so on – all met with nary a mutter from the majority of students in this country. Yet come a potential increase in the costs of education or a reduction in the amount of money some institutions have to spend, and the sleeping student behemoth awakens.

So by all means, have your protests, make your voices heard – that is your right as participants in a democracy. But please don’t pretend that you’re being anything other than self-interested conservatives.

Why We Shouldn't "Respect the Government"

Via the Angry Teen, a gem from our old friend Richard Murphy:

Respect the right of government. Don’t try to undermine their income streams. Pay the tax they expect. Enjoy the benefits that flow from doing so.

AT does a lot to rebut the idiocy of this statement:

Tax destroys growth, allows politicians to get us involved with wars which kill thousands—sometimes millions—of people, allows the state to decimate our civil liberties, and countless other things. It is impossible to overestimate the damage done to society by government. Its services are always inferior to the services of the private sector The NHS is a good example of this. It seems to only be able to "improve" when the price is skyrocketing.

In fact, I've got little to add beyond this observation - there is something very dangerous in the fundamental assumption that underlies this argument. It assumes that the government will always be benign, working in the best interests of the people. By accident or design, that is not always the case. Think about it: there are no shortage of governments in history that have actively damaged their people, and many more who have done so by accident or through negligence. The benefits that Murphy sees flowing forth from government are by no means guaranteed. For example, our taxes payed for the war in Iraq - something that cannot be described as a benefit by anyone other than a Nu Labourite politician.

Now, I'm a Libertarian, not an anarchist. I do believe there needs to be some sort of government in place. But I don't believe that we should "respect the right of government" - quite the contrary, the government needs to respect our rights. And they need to justify every penny and any liberty that they take from us. A healthy attitude towards government isn't blind obedience and thoughtless compliance - it is a constant suspicion of the political class and the resulting scrutiny to ensure that they act in our interests, not their own.

Murphy - and all other statists - assume that government will always be benign. Those with even the smallest knowledge of history know that this is not always going to be the case. Which is why government must always be challenged and restricted. The blindly obedient and the meekly compliant like Richard are like the devoutly religious - they hope those they have put their faith in will do good, while ignoring the damage done by the political class in our name and at our expense.

Health and Safety

This is the sort of news I welcome - the government apparently preparing to give some responsibility for the lives of its citizens back to those citizens. This is the sort of thing that should be celebrated - particularly after 13 years of grinding, illiberal, controlling politics from Nu Labour.

Now, I'm not the sort of person who gets worked up about individual examples of what is termed "the nanny state". I cannot get excited about the banning of a cheese-rolling event in Gloucestershire. Both the event and the banning of it seem pretty idiotic to me, but that's it. But what does bother me is the impact that all these little bans and controls have on us. They make us unwilling to take responsibility for ourselves. They make us dependent on the state. We end up not being able to think for ourselves. And that is a very dangerous state of affairs, because then we cease to be a nation of adults capable of making decisions for ourselves and without government guidance.

Of course, when installing health and safety guidelines and laws, the government can appear benign. They are making rules, they are restricting freedom, in order to stop people being hurt or worse. What better thing could a government do? Except this notion - the idea that the right combination of regulations and laws will eliminate risk from society - is just not possible. Part of being alive is being at risk - and also essential to live is making calculated risks.

Then we get the claims that the government is trying to make children safer - the age old cry, now hackneyed beyond belief, of "won't someone think of the children?" Well, yes, someone should. Their parents. Seriously, if you are going to have kids, then take some responsibility for them. You're their parent, not the government. So if you don't want your kids, for example, to play conkers, then don't let them. If you're actually going to be a parent, then you should do some parenting, rather than expecting the government to do it for you.

Because can you really blame the government when they say you shouldn't smoke, or drink, or be anything other than an optimum weight given the culture of abdication of responsibility in this country? Can you really blame the government when they decide that your children should only hear certain words in their school, or when they decide you're not fit to be a parent when the government has been allowed to control so much of what constitutes parenting in this country? Every meaningless or pointless restriction that appears, by itself, not to matter actually does matter - it is a sign to the state saying we want them to take responsibility for us.

As a nation, we should welcome the idea of restricting government intervention on the grounds of health and safety. And we should push it to do far more in order to give us our freedom - and therefore our lives - back. And we should also grow the fuck up and remember we are adults. Everyone in this country needs to take responsibility for ourselves and any offspring we bring into this world.

Health and safety? Your health, your safety. Act accordingly.

Miliband Minor and Freedom

Over at The New Statesman, a wonderfully stupid comment about the illiberal voting record of Ed Miliband on the day he decided that he does kind of like civil liberties after all. It's from someone who (presumably ironically) is calling themselves Rebellionkid:

It's important not to take individual pieces of the voting record out of context. He was elected in 2005 so we only have one parliament to go on, and for most of that time he was in and around cabinet. He did not rebel on any vote and turned up to most of the more contentious ones. Almost all party members that senior or above will have an identical voting record including unambiguous support for the "anti-terror" disasters. It's important not to assume this reflects his opinion, simply how he had to vote to get on.

Right, so we're supposed to excuse Miliband Minor's poor choices when voting on legislation that affects every single person in this country because he needed to vote that way to get on. That seems fair enough, doesn't it? Britain was made a less free place in part through the votes of that Pob-faced cunt but we shouldn't worry about that, because it helped him get where he is today. That's fine, isn't it? No, of course it fucking isn't.

Don't believe me? Well, let's take a controversial piece of Tory legislation. Section 28 springs to mind. Now, in order to get ahead in the era of Section 28, a Tory politician would have to vote for that vile piece of policy. But, dontcha see, it's ok to back that homophobia, because it allowed them to make headway with their career. Same logic, see? There we have it - backing homophobia is ok, and Rebellionkid would have to agree. Except it isn't - never was, and never will be. Just like shitting all over civil liberties for careerist reasons really isn't ok.

Ultimately, we're left with two scenarios. Either Miliband Minor backed the attack on liberty in the last government against his better judgement for reasons of expediency, or he voted for the legislation because he believed in it and now is jacking in those beliefs to try to outflank the ConDems. Either way, Miliband Minor is no friend of freedom. Quite the opposite - he is the very definition of a Nu Labour politician, where cheap political gestures are far more important than real ideological commitments. Ed Miliband - fuck 'im, and his false claim to now be a champion of freedom.

A Tax on the Stupid

Y'know, a lot of people used to call the National Lottery a tax on the stupid. I don't think that's quite fair - it is a tax on the idiotically optimistic. Sure, you're pretty stupid if you enter the lottery but in the near impossible circumstance that you won, not many people would be remarking on that stupidity. Unlike, say, if you gave money to the last government in return for one of their pointless, invasive and pointlessly invasive ID cards.

Therefore, I've got no sympathy whatsoever for people affected by this:

Labour have failed in attempts to get compensation for people who bought ID cards, which are set to be scrapped.

They say thousands of people who voluntarily spent £30 on cards did so in "good faith" and should be refunded when next renewing their passports.

But they lost a vote in the Commons during a debate on proposed legislation to abolish the cards.

If you got an ID card before you had to, then you are either a Labour minister, utterly thoughtless or blindly obedient to the state. All of which suggest you are a person of limited intellectual capacity. Furthermore, if you paid for an ID card knowing that the opposition parties opposed them and that opposition party would almost certainly form the next government, then you are doubly stupid. Basically, you wasted your money. You lost out on the money you sunk into the ID card scheme. Boo-fucking-hoo for you.

Normally I support the government returning whatever money they can to the people. In this case, though, I don't - partly because they cannot afford to refund those stung by this scheme. The entire ID card folly cost the taxpayer millions - each ID card is estimated to have cost £20,000 each. This isn't just government waste - this is government waste pumped up on speed and steroids. The comparatively small amounts of money individuals have lost by signing up to the scheme is gone - as is the taxes of many others who had to pay the government under duress for this scheme, even if they didn't get an ID card and thought the whole thing was a shit idea from the very start. If you paid for an ID card, you don't deserve a refund. You're just a bit dumb.

Which is perhaps the sole achievement of the ID card scheme - it finally managed to create a tax on the stupid.

Democracy: a Threat to Freedom?

One of the biggest threats to freedom that is emerging in today’s society is democracy. That is not to say that democracy is in some way fundamentally illiberal – rather, the fact that democracy, which is a means rather than an end, has become an unchallenged synonym for freedom is a key problem. Democracy may play a part in a free society, but democracy itself is not freedom, and can be detrimental to freedom in some respects.

Democracy gives power to the people to choose their leaders; it does not, however, guarantee that the leaders chosen will respect freedom. Democracy, at least in the modern sense of a political system based on open elections, gives people the freedom to choose, but it does not follow that people will automatically choose to be free. The 2004 US Presidential election illustrates this contradiction; in a free election, the people choose to re-elect George W Bush – a President who brought in the deeply illiberal Patriot Act and who backed state torture of terror suspects. In this case, democracy worked against freedom; it allowed the re-election of a man who eroded the civil liberties that are so essential to a free society.

Furthermore, the term democracy has also been abused to such an extent that it has become almost meaningless. The Iraq war illustrates this: the invasion was meant to bring democracy to Iraq, and in doing so, bring freedom. Yet the concept of forcing democracy – which is fundamentally about the will of the people – on a nation without consulting the people is as completely contradictory as it is undemocratic. There was nothing democratic or free about how democracy was brought to Iraq; in a truly free and democratic society the people would have chosen what political system they wished to have, rather than having that system chosen for them by an occupying power. Here, “democracy” was neither about freedom or genuine democratic choice.

Finally, democracy itself has become detrimental to political life in many Western societies. Because democracy has become synonymous with freedom, it is assumed that if the people get the chance to vote every four to five years then they live in a free society. Inbetween those elections, politicians are simply not challenged as they should be, and the notion that freedom requires constant vigilance is lost as long as the people get to give the nod to one party or another at regular intervals. As the recent Labour administration in the UK shows, a government can do a great deal inbetween elections to corrode civil liberties in a nation without provoking uproar from the people losing their freedoms. The modern ideal of democracy seems to require only that people vote when they get the chance. Freedom, however, requires a lot more from its people.

Ultimately, democracy has a part to play in freedom, but the modern day reverence for democracy and the constant, incorrect conflation of democracy with freedom represent at the very least challenges, if not direct threats, to freedom.

This post is an entry in the blog contest responding to the new book, New Threats to Freedom edited by Adam Bellow. The contest is open to all and further information can be found here.

Iain Dale: Against Protest, Against Democracy

It's a couple of days old now, but Iain Dale has another post up about those protestors who were in Parliament Square. And it shows him at his smuggest, illiberal and most insufferable worst:

Oh dear, I seem to have upset some people on Twitter this morning. Hey ho. I can't see why. What part of what I wrote can be disputed?

Let's see what Dale wrote on Twatter Twitter then:

Going past Parliament Sq on the 87 bus. Rejoice! The squatters have been evicted. Dirty, filthy layabouts.

Hmmm. I have real problems with his statement on Twittier, but let's see how he defends it:

They have indeed been evicted.

That doesn't make the eviction right, though. It may have been rubber-stamped by a judge (although only on appeal) but that doesn't automatically make the judge correct of the law correct. It is possible for the justice system to be unjust in its decisions.

And the fact that the whole site stinks of urine and faeces indicates the people who squatted their had issues regarding personal hygiene.

Well, my understanding of Parliament Square suggests that there are no toilets there. And my understanding of camping is that the longer you do it for, the more compromised your personal hygiene will become. It isn't pleasant - especially for those who have to clean up - but it seems to be a fact of life that those who camp in areas with no toilet or washing facilities will end up with some personal hygiene problems. Which, as an aside, is one of the reasons why I don't go camping.

And I hardly think the word layabout is going over the top to describe them. What else should I have called them? Fine, upstanding members of society? I think not.

Yep, but this is pure opinion, and the concept of what constitutes a layabout is both relative and very much in the eye of the beholder. Some would argue that these people are upstanding members of society since they are directly using their democratic right to protest. They might even argue that these people are contribute much more to our democracy that preening egotistical bloggers like Dale.

Good riddance to bad rubbish. This is not, as someone said "a sad day for democracy". It is the day when the silent majority fought back and said "enough".

Really? You're really going to do that? You're going to use one of Nixon's terms (the President when the Kent State Massacre took place) to justify your tweet? Now I've got to admit, that's bold.

But this isn't the day when the Silent Majority fought back. It is the day when the Mayor of London managed to stop protest from happening in front of the Houses of Parliament (which does make it a sad day for democracy, by the way) - to the applause of illiberal idiots like Dale. This is all about an elite dictating the terms of protest, and making sure that it does not happen in their line of view. It is not a victory by some sort of grassroots movement.

And while we're on the subject, I seem to remember reading once that many of the letters sent to Nixon from "the Silent Majority" were actually fabricated by Nixon's aides for political purposes. I suspect that Dale's "Silent Majority" is rather like Nixon's - all in his head.

Well done to Boris for carrying through on his promise.

Or to put it another way, well done to Boris for doing something that Dale agrees with.

I'm not going to rehearse the arguments about why backing a clampdown on protest in the very heart of democracy in this country is bad, but Dale's objections still mainly seem to be about the aesthetics of the protests and the fact that he thinks the people protesting smell. It just goes to show how paper-thin Dale's liberalism is, and how in reality he is socially conservative through and through.

The Burkha Ban and the Tyranny of the Majority

And so it's raising its ugly head again - the talk of a ban on the burka.

Regular readers will know my stance on this; I'm not for any ban on full-face veils. That's not to say that I like the concept of the burka, or the niqab - however I feel the same way about them as I do most religious symbols. They are pointless, but not threatening. I think they are silly, but not offensive. If anything, I think a t-shirt with Che Guevara on it is more offensive than a Muslim veil. And no, I'm not calling for a ban on crass t-shirts. I don't think the state has any right to decide on what its citizens wear - if it starts to, then it may as well give Cabinet positions to those nauseating judgmental gits Trinny and Susannah.

And I also don't believe that the burka is synonymous with misogyny and sexism. I'm sure that some women are forced to wear the burka against their will, but that it doesn't then follow that all women who wear the veil are forced to do so. Some might choose to wear them. To believe that all women are forced into wearing the garment is like arguing that all western women who wear a short skirt are forced to do so by abusive and/or domineering men. That isn't the case; it maybe true in some scenarios, but by no means all. Besides, I think there is something very odd about trying to make the banning of the burka into a feminist crusade - effectively, this is saying that we're going to make women more free by removing the choice of whether or not they can wear the burka.

However, a couple of new arguments have come up from the pro-ban brigade. Firstly, we have the assertion that we should do it because the French have also done it. Sorry, but no dice. The French have done many things throughout their history that we have not done; the fact that another country has chosen to do something does not make it (a) right or (b) something we have to do as well.

Perhaps the better new argument from the pro-ban brigade, though, comes in the shape of the results from a recent poll mentioned in this Daily Telegraph article:

A YouGov survey last week found that 67 per cent of voters wanted the wearing of full-face veils to be made illegal.

And so, the argument goes, if 67% of the people want it, surely we should go for it, given we are a democracy?

Well, first up, polls are notoriously unreliable. According to the polls, Thomas Dewey won the 1948 US Presidential election, and Neil Kinnock won the 1992 UK General Election. Part of the problem with polls is that they don't actually ask the voters - they actually ask a tiny group of voters that they believe is representative of the people as a whole. This then allows for all sorts of distortion, including in how these things are reported. The line from the Telegraph article above should read "67% of the small group of potential voters approached as part of the survery want it" rather than claiming that "67 per cent of voters want it".

The other problem with polls is about the question(s) being asked. You might get 67% of those asked claiming that they want a ban if you ask something like this: "In order to combat the ever-present threat of international terrorism, do you believe the oppressive burka should be banned?" However, if you change the question to something like "do you believe that as an open, tolerant and non-racist country Britain should continue to allow women to chose whether they wish to wear the burka", you might find 67% against the ban. And neither question would test just how much people care about the issue of a burka ban. There is much truth in the idea that you can make polls say pretty much anything you like.

But even if over 50% of the British population were demanding the ban of the burka right now as a matter of absolute top priority, it still wouldn't make it right. Indeed, many liberal theorists committed to democracy were deeply worried about the tyranny of the majority - which is exactly what this would be. 51% of the population can be wrong, and they can be wrong and oppressive...

Ultimately, we won't solve the problem of religious fundamentalism or sexism/misogyny by banning the burka. However, the ban would make Britain a little less liberal and a little less free. And it will also perpetuate the patronising and repugnant myth that all women from ethnic minorities are not capable of making their own decisions, and require others to make them "free" - whether they want this ersatz enforced freedom or not.

Revealing Labour and the Con-Dem attitudes to freedom

This is a very revealing section from a BBC news report on the smoking ban - revealing, that is, of some of the attitudes of the main political parties in this country:

The government has dropped a planned review of the smoking ban in England.

The previous Labour administration had promised it would be looked at again in autumn 2010, but the coalition says it has "no plans" to do so.

Publicans - who feared a review would extend the ban into beer gardens and doorways, damaging trade - backed a campaign to partially lift the ban.

First up, you might have thought that a review of the smoking ban might lead to the smoking ban being repealed, if only in part. If so, more fool you! No, for the Nu Labour government, a review is an opportunity to extend an illiberal, invasive and stupid policy. But that's Nu Labour for you - determined to interfere in your life as much as they possibly can, and then a little bit more.

Secondly, it is very interesting that the Con-Dems are not going to go through with the review. On the one hand, this is a good thing - no review, no extension of the smoking ban. On the flipside, no review, no repeal of the smoking ban. The Con-Dems increasing seem to be labouring under the delusion that if they don't extend the limits of state control in this country then they are being inherently liberal. That is, of course, absolute nonsense. If anything, it makes them conservative. If they truly want to be liberal, they need to roll back the impact of the state on its citizens that so dramatically increased under the last draconian government.

As things stand, it almost feels as if we are meant to be grateful when the state chooses not to further extend its often malign control further into our lives. I'd be far more grateful to the government, though, if it decided to roll back the frontiers of the state. But, as always, I'm not holding my breath.