BBC pride: Commons backs gay marriage bill

The BBC triumphantly reports:

MPs approve same-sex marriage in England and Wales in a key Commons vote, although more Conservative MPs voted against the bill than for it.

Although I'm an atheist and he's a Christian, my own view is exactly that of Westminster's most promising MP:

My strong view has long been that the government should get out of marriage. I am not alone. In December, Matthew Parris set out essentially the same view in The Spectator and showed that it works in South Africa: Gay marriage the easy way. For The Telegraph, J P Floru explained that one “can quite easily defend the position that the state ought not to be involved in marriage at all” before dealing with the fact that it is involved. The Adam Smith Institute’s Sam Bowman replied in support, concluding, “the next push has to be for true freedom for everybody: for the state to get out of marriage altogether.”
...
As a Christian, I am well aware of the Biblical view of marriage and I support it. However, I do not think it is right for a view based only on faith to be placed in law. If the Bill were merely about whether gay people should be allowed to get married or whether contemporary society accepts homosexuality, then it would be simple. Along with, I think, most people my age and younger, I am relaxed about other adults’ loves and consenting sexual relationships. However, I am not relaxed about muddled law, democratic consent or freedom of religion — whose protection is by no means certain — and I believe strongly that defining marriage is no business of the legislature.

That is why I voted against second reading and why I expect to vote against third reading too.

The EU-funded Duchess

There's plenty of serious stuff on my list of things to blog about, but I can't really face it, so here goes ...

Last night I saw The Duchess for the second time. And I confess that for the second time, I enjoyed it. I guess I'm a sucker for period dramas.

There was a sinister surprise in the credits, though.  Apparently the film had been funded by the EU's "MEDIA film support programme". A 2009 article on their website proudly elaborates:

Seven films funded by the EU's MEDIA film support programme have been nominated for Oscars at this year's Academy Awards: Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (Germany, Uli Edel), Entre les murs (France, Laurent Cantet), Waltz with Bashir (Israel/France/Germany, Ari Folman), Happy Go Lucky (UK/Mike Leigh), The Duchess (UK/France/Italy, Saul Dibb), Slumdog Millionaire (UK/US, Danny Boyle) and the award-winning documentary, Man on Wire (UK/US, James Marsh) (for synopses, see annex).

The EU's MEDIA programme provided significant financial support to these films figuring high on the nominations list of the Oscars Ceremony. The total contribution from the EU's MEDIA programme for these films alone amounted to € 3,028,000, with even more support likely to follow for distributing the film to cinemas.

It's been running for a while ...

The MEDIA 2007 programme will provide €755 million to Europe's film industry from 2007-2013 (IP/07/169). This January the Commission also proposed a MEDIA MUNDUS programme (IP/09/26) that will provide another €15 million of funding from 2011-2013 for projects submitted by audiovisual professionals from the EU and third countries. A clear priority of both the MEDIA and the MEDIA MUNDUS programme is the distribution and promotion of European films outside their original country, across Europe (almost 65% of the total MEDIA budget) and the globe.

The MEDIA programme's overall objectives are to strengthen the competitiveness of the European audiovisual sector by facilitating access to financing and promoting use of digital technologies, to reflect and respect Europe’s cultural identity and heritage, and to increase the circulation of European audiovisual works inside and outside the European. In 2008 the MEDIA programme supported over 1,800 projects with a total €107 million.

Few things are more subtly sinister than government meddling in 'cultural identity'.

Both times I watched this particular film, I watched it uncritically, for escapism and eye candy, but perhaps it's worth revisiting.

There are two main themes in The Duchess: men had extreme and unjust power over women in the 18th century, and the aristocracy likewise had unreasonable and unsustainable power over the ordinary man.

As a libertarian, I don't really dispute either of these points. But I can't resist a couple of observations.

Whereas men once had significant state-granted power over women, the pendulum has swung back the other way. Men and women are not legally equal. Women are entitled to generous maternity benefits. They benefit from positive discrimination in the form of diversity quotas. They fare unreasonably well in custody and divorce settlement decisions, and they are granted absolute power over the lives of unborn children.

If a man gets a woman pregnant, and decides that it would be better to abort the child, he is powerless. He's not even free to walk away. He will be held financially accountable for many years to come.

By contrast, a woman can choose to terminate the pregnancy - to take the life of an innocent proto-human - even if the father is willing and able to take on sole responsibility for raising the child. How do 9 months of discomfort, and a few hours of extreme discomfort, compare with 18 years of financial enslavement?

Of course, I feel that fathers ought to care for their children. I am a father myself. And I don't believe that abortion should be illegal (though he case for state subsidised abortions is questionable).  But there is no disputing the fact that women today are in a legally favourable position. Do we really need to keep harping on about past injustices? A certain group of EU bureaucrats with their hands on your money think so.

Then there's the question of the aristocracy. Despite all their anti-democratic moves, the EU would have you believe that democracy is an unalloyed good. They pay lip service to this grand ideal, which supposedly prevents exploitation.  But look at what's happened to individual liberty as suffrage has widened, eventually becoming universal.

I haven't yet read Hoppe's Democracy: The God That Failed, and for now I'm still inclined to think democracy is the least bad option, but the tyranny of the majority does not deserve to be celebrated.

Islamophobia

As well as being Movember, last month was apparently Islamophobia Awareness Month:

Here's Pat Condell's take on it:

Hearing about the poor downtrodden muslims as victims of Islamophobia is enough to bring tears to your eyes - tears of laughter at the brazen effrontery of it.

Islamophobia is no more real than Naziphobia. There are very good reasons to beware of both ideologies. And they are the same reasons. Far from being an oppressed minority, the evidence shows that Muslims are a pushy and aggressive minority, and when they are in a majority, they quickly become enthusiastic oppressors.

From what I've read of the Koran, he's right.

That's not to say that all Muslims are bad people. I expect that most Western Muslims, like the majority of Christians, get by fine in modern society by ignoring large parts of their scripture.

Conceivably there were also 'good Nazis', who wanted a strong Germany, but didn't buy into the core evils espoused by Hitler.

What will future historians say?

Tom Paine despairs

A characteristically brilliant, if melancholy post from Tom Paine:

When I lived in Russia and China I kept quiet about local politics out of courtesy to my hosts. I seem to have fallen into the same approach here under the sheer weight of apathy. The neglect of their civil rights by the British - who only ever seem to get excited when demanding others' freedoms be repressed - is an insult to the brave peoples I once lived among.

I miss the hope of the Labour days. Not the hope that they would ever cease (they won't) to be freedom-hating miserablists, but the hope that one day change might come. The only change provided by the current government is in the tone of Polly Toynbee's screeching.

He elaborates in the comments:

Once you start dealing with rational men and women on the basis that they are acting under the influence of their "lizard brain" (however interesting that might be to help understand themselves in therapy) you are in trouble. All laws should assume us all to be rational actors (unless actually proved insane).

Statists love to think of us as automota acted upon by the forces of history or psychology; the hapless products of our background, environment or society. Both disciplines are important means of analysis and understanding of human actions, but should neither be instruments of control nor excuses for wrongdoing.

Accept the view that we are not rational, independent actors in relation to the rest of society and you open the door for the all-wise and all-knowing state to answer all your (imagined) problems. Of course, the human actors who make up that state have neither lizard brains, nor social/historical determinants. They are the perfectly rational beings they deny we can be. Funny that, eh?

In reply to MickC, he writes:

It's not ennui on my part. It's despair. When I thought we had the wrong politicians, I could hope to change them. What hope is there if (after years of indoctrination) we finally have the wrong voters?

What hope indeed?

More equal than others

BBC News reports:

A US student accused of using a webcam to spy on a homosexual encounter involving his room-mate is not a criminal, his defence lawyer says.

Steven Altman told jurors in closing statements that Dharun Ravi never recorded the encounter and that he did not act out of a hatred of gays.

...

In her closing statement, prosecutor Julia McClure told jurors there was abundant proof that Mr Ravi had a problem with Clementi being gay.

...
The former Rutgers University student could face up to 10 years in prison. However, in order to secure the maximum sentence prosecutors must prove he acted out of anti-gay sentiment.

So much for equality before the law.

Mug a man in the City out of anti-banker sentiment, and you will not face any special penalties. Foster anti-tycoon sentiment, and you will be cheered by Liberal Democrats. Voice anti-white sentiment or anti-male sentiment, and nobody will pay much notice. But speak ill of one of the groups favoured by the state, and the Thought Police will come knocking.

Daniel Hannan put it well in a recent article:

Part of the problem is the determination of lobbies and interest groups to keep themselves in business by fabricating new rows. Hence, for example, the ludicrous demands for hate crimes and other forms of separate legal categorisation. It is depressing to see pressure groups which spent decades honourably campaigning for the right to be treated equally now demanding the right to be treated differently.

UPDATE - 16 March 2012

It seems the Thought Police have secured a conviction:

A US student who used a webcam to secretly film his room-mate in a gay encounter has been found guilty of hate crime and invasion of privacy.
...
His room-mate, Tyler Clementi, jumped to his death from a bridge in 2010.

The case attracted national attention, including comment from President Obama, and prompted anti-bullying measures.

Ravi was found guilty of 15 counts as a whole, including invasion of privacy and bias intimidation, which is a hate crime.

More details are available in a linked nj.com article:

COUNT 1
4th Degree Invasion of Privacy, related to Tyler Clementi: GUILTY
4th Degree Invasion of Privacy, related to Clementi's guest, M.B.: GUILTY
(Observed Clementi/M.B. in sexual contact without their consent on Sept. 19)

Fair enough.

COUNT 2
3rd Degree Bias Intimidation
(For 4th Degree Invasion of Privacy charge on Sept. 19)
...
Invasion of Privacy, under circumstances that caused Tyler Clementi to be intimidated, and considering the manner in which the offense was committed, Clementi reasonably believed that he was selected to be the target of the offense because of sexual orientation: GUILTY

There are any number of reasons why a person may be selected as the target of an offence. What if instead of being anti-gay, Ravi was actually gay himself, and invading Clementi's privacy for his own gratification? What if he was acting out of jealousy or disgust at some aspect of Clementi's character or background? Perhaps Clementi was rich, poor, Republican, Democrat, libertarian, communist, pro-abortion, anti-abortion, intelligent, mildly dull, attractive, ugly, tall, short, humble, arrogant, sporty, or nerdy. There are plenty of foul motives for invading someone's privacy, but the state of New Jersey singles out certain categories for protection: "race, color, religion, gender, handicap, sexual orientation, or ethnicity" (NJSA 2C:16-1).

The indictment goes on ...

COUNT 3
3rd Degree Invasion of Privacy, related to Tyler Clementi: GUILTY
3rd Degree Invasion of Privacy, related to M.B.: GUILTY
(Activated webcam so other people could view Clementi/M.B. in sexual contact on Sept 19.)
...
COUNT 4
2nd Degree Bias Intimidation
(For 3rd Degree Invasion of Privacy charge on Sept. 19)
...
Invasion of Privacy, knowing that the conduct constituting invasion of privacy would cause Tyler Clementi to be intimidated because of sexual orientation: GUILTY
...
Invasion of Privacy, under circumstances that caused Tyler Clementi to be intimidated, and considering the manner in which the offense was committed, Clementi reasonably believed that he was selected to be the target of the offense because of sexual orientation: GUILTY

If Ravi had broadcast the encounter knowing that Clementi would be intimidated for having a small penis, or for being a premature ejaculator, or for simply being awkward in bed, he'd face no further penalty. If he'd been hoping to expose his roommate's masturbation, his preference for heterosexual S&M, or furry fandom, he'd only have to worry about the invasion of privacy charge. But because Clementi was a member of a favoured group, a 2nd degree offence is slapped on top of a 3rd degree offence ("bias intimidation is a crime one degree higher than the most serious underlying crime" - NJSA 2C:16-1).

None of this is to suggest that Ravi's behaviour was acceptable. It was clearly reprehensible, and most people would say it was especially so because of the element of discrimination. But it can't be right for the state to single out certain groups for special privileges and protection.

Justice must be blind.

Schlichter on cash

Another superb article from Detlev Schlichter:

Decent citizens don’t use cash. Cash is used by tax-cheats, terrorists, drug-dealers and child pornographers. Once this is established it will be a short step to severely restricting or even banning the withdrawal of cash from bank accounts. As all banks will soon anyway be mere branches of the ever-expanding central bank, which prints the money to keep the nominally private banks alive, all transactions will then be just electronic bookkeeping adjustments at the state central bank. All financial transactions will then be entirely transparent to the authorities. “Irrational” behaviour can be identified early and – eliminated.

Whatever you may think of Julian Assange’s Wikileaks, it is deeply troubling how quickly and easily this organization was crippled by Visa and Mastercard cutting it off from its donors. This gives you a taste for where we are going.

Read the whole article.

Tom Paine on feminism

A superb comment from Tom Paine at The Last Ditch, which perfectly captures my own view:

I have two splendid daughters and no-one can be more feminist (in the proper sense of the word) than I. I oppose all remnants of the dead social attitudes that might impede their progress. But I don't want them degraded by any "positive discrimination" laws that would deny them the sense of achievement I am confident their merits will earn.

This is not about laws, but ideas. The great error of modern leftist thinking is that laws are educational tools. Laws are weapons, not blackboards, and re-education at the point of a gun is seldom effective. If second-rate specimens of any minority group are forced by law into jobs they don't deserve, the resulting resentments are more likely to *generate* hostile attitudes than quell them.

Andrew Marr on repression and coercion

Reading one of Sean Gabb's articles linked from my previous post, I discovered an interesting Guardian article from 1999 by Andrew Marr. Topically, it was written "post-Lawrence inquiry", and considered what the "elite liberal establishment" should do to stamp out racism.

Though partially tongue-in-cheek, and slightly self-deprecating, the article leaves no doubt about where Marr sees himself in our society. They may occasionally be hypocritical, but Marr and his fellow Übermensch have a right and duty to mould the lower classes according to their vision for society.

What then can be done? (Apart, of course, from widespread and vigorous miscegenation, which is the best answer, but perhaps tricky to arrange as public policy.) First, we need to raise still more taxes to help regenerate inner-city ghettos and to employ more young people, white and black. ...

The next answer was given by Doreen Lawrence, welcoming the report's emphasis on education: 'I truly believe in education our history, our background, is what separates us.' But, though teachers are the most effective anti-racist campaigners in the country, this means more than education in other religions it means a form of political education. Only people who understand the economic forces changing their world, threatening them but also creating new opportunities, have a chance of being immune to the old tribal chants.

And the final answer, frankly, is the vigorous use of state power to coerce and repress. It may be my Presbyterian background, but I firmly believe that repression can be a great, civilising instrument for good. Stamp hard on certain 'natural' beliefs for long enough and you can almost kill them off. The police are first in line to be burdened further, but a new Race Relations Act will impose the will of the state on millions of other lives too.

Lovely.

Is Sean Gabb a racist?

I first read Sean Gabb's Cultural Revolution, Culture War (PDF) in September 2009, shortly before I started blogging.

To a friend who suggested it, I replied:

A very interesting read. There's much in there that I agree with.

Although I despise 'political correctness', and I'm deeply concerned about the steps towards Thought Police, I did detect a whiff of racism at times; perhaps I've been indoctrinated by the multiculturalist hegemonic ideology ;-)

My views are much more firmly libertarian now, and my disgust for the British state and the BBC has grown, so I'm minded to re-read the book and re-evaluate my assumptions.

Gabb despairs at racially biased news coverage:

To take a notorious example, everyone knows that the overwhelming majority of interracial crime in Britain and America is black on white. Yet this is not reflected in the media coverage. When the black teenager, Stephen Lawrence, was killed in South London back in 1992, the story received lavish coverage in the media; and the story continued through failed trials, a public enquiry, and the official and media harassment of the unconvicted suspects. The much larger number of black on white murders—known rather than suspected murders, and containing an obvious racial motivation—are either not reported at all or covered briefly and without comment in the local media.

It should be easy enough to establish whether Gabb's claim is true, but true or not, few people would be prepared to state it as plainly.

Gabb is perhaps even more concerned about propaganda in state-funded fiction:

look at the BBC Radio 4 soap The Archers. This is supposedly an “every day tale of ordinary country folk”. It was this once. Nowadays, it is almost agitprop street theatre in its propagandising. Every male character is a monster or a weakling, or both. The female characters are pillars of feminist strength. The village pub is run by two homosexuals. The village solicitor is an Asian woman. A few years ago, the daughter of one of the characters brought back her black South African husband. His voice made it plain what he was: not one of the characters commented.

Not having listened to The Archers, I can't comment. From what I know of the BBC, Gabb's assertions seem plausible enough, but once again, it's not the sort of argument you tend to hear in polite company.

Some time later, Gabb took up writing for the American website VDARE.com:

• 12/02/11 - The Persecution Of Emma West
• 04/29/11 - Monarchy, Nation-States, And The Failed Reign of "Elizabeth The Useless"
• 01/19/11 - John Stuart Mill, The BNP, And The U.K.'s Dying Democracy
• 11/09/10 - A Nail in the Fuse Box: The Persecution of the British National Party
• 10/13/10 - News From England: The New Ruling Class And Taxpayer Funded Brainwashing In "Sindia-Lesbianopolis"
• 05/09/10 - Everyone Loses In Britain's Election. Could be A Good Thing.
• 03/14/10 - It Happened There (3): Court Cripples British National Party For Being Too, Well, British
• 01/27/10 - It's Happening There: Britain's Emerging Police State
• 10/24/09 - BBC's Question Time and BNP's Nick Griffin: Stumbling Into The Mainstream, Against A Wall Of Bias
• 08/31/09 - The British State vs. The BNP—The Post-Modern Tyranny of "Human Rights"
• 06/08/09 - England: The Peasants are Revolting

Their FAQ page gives a sense of what VDARE is about:

• Why VDARE.COM / The White Doe?

• Is VDARE.COM "White Nationalist"?

• What is "Immigrant Mass Murder Syndrome?"

• “Why Does VDARE.COM Run All These Weird Ads?”

• What do I do if a link wants me to register to read it

• Reporting Illegal Aliens - 2006 Update

• Reporting Illegal Aliens - 2009 Update

• How can I report an Illegal alien?

• Why is VDARE.COM blocked at my office/ library/ school/ etc? [Note: we're constantly updating this].

• Do you understand what's going on with the Minutemen?

• Why Do We Keep Writing About Intelligence? An IQ FAQ

• What should I read about America's immigration disaster? VDARE.com friend Paul Nachman has written a guide to the literature [PDF] itself a fairly long article. For a brief"introduction to his guide", see here.

For all I know, they make some perfectly valid points, but it's not the sort of site that most British people, even British libertarians, would be prepared to associate themselves with. Alarm bells ring loudly.

Most recently, I was struck by the attention given to race in Gabb's The Churchill Memorandum. One the one hand, the abundance of politically incorrect language seems appropriate to an alternative 1959; its absence would have been anachronistic. On the other, one gets the sense that Gabb is more interested in questions of race than most people alive today. Chapter one gives a taste:

Somebody muttered, from a few places behind me, about the interminable wait. We shuffled forward another eighteen inches. One of my coloured porters strained with his box. Since the others didn’t think it worth the effort of moving theirs, he scraped it an inch or so across the uneven floor, then went back to sitting on it.

“They call me Major Stanhope,” came the reply in a tone that avoided all hint of rebuke. The officer turned the pages of the passport.

“Well, Major Stanhope,” he said, now mockingly, it says here you’re subject to Imperial immigration control. You sure don’t look like no nigger.”

“British bred,” came the now breezy reply, “though born in Cyprus. The law is very strict, you know—doesn’t just apply to Her Majesty’s coloured subjects. One law for all and all that.” The officer continued looking at the much-stamped pages.

“Next,” the clerk grated. It was my turn. Still trembling, I put my passport on her desk and pulled out the paper copy of my exit visa. She ignored the documents and pointed at the five wooden boxes my coloureds were still attending.

“Next,” she cried. I glanced at my coloureds and pointed at the boxes. There were hours still to go till boarding. But I could at least get out of this bloody queue.

You'll find much more of the same in chapters two to six, which are also available online, and throughout the rest of the book. All quite tame, really, but it seems extreme by modern standards.

Is Sean Gabb a racist, or is he just a valiant defender of free speech who's sometimes deliberately provocative. Does he care about race per se, or is he just interested in it as a proxy for cultural issues?

Ultimately, it doesn't matter.

When Gabb makes a factual claim on matters of race, people may be inclined to doubt it, but the claim will either be true or false, and verification is easier now than ever. People may likewise scrutinise his rhetoric, and once distilled down to its essentials, his argument will either be logically sound, or not. In any debate, we must be wary of those who appeal to motive. Arguments stand or fall on their own merits; motives don't matter.

Moving from the academic to the practical, racism in a libertarian, however distasteful and incongruous, is harmless. It is an issue for the racist, his friends, and family, but poses no threat to others. A bigoted libertarian may choose not to hire people of a certain race, or may refuse to serve them. He may say rude things. But nobody has a right to a job. Nobody has a right to be served. And nobody has a right not to be offended. The racist libertarian owes them nothing.

A racist statist, by contrast, can do tremendous damage. She will demand unequal treatment, favouring one group over another. She will interfere with voluntary transactions between individuals, requiring businessmen to act against their instincts and interests. She'll lobby for our speech to be censored, and use the institutions of the state to indoctrinate our children. If we do not at least outwardly conform to her views, the race-obsessed statist will see us arrested, and our children placed in the care of the state. She will create a climate of fear, with legitimate concerns going undiscussed, and tensions steadily rising.

For my part, I think individualism and libertarianism go hand-in-hand. Racists should be free to hold their views, and to go about their business, so long as they don't infringe on the similar rights of others, but I can't understand why they would cut themselves off from so many brilliant individuals.

Aggregates and averages are of little interest to me. The differences within groups tend to be much larger than the differences between them. Even if it's true that blacks, on average, are better lovers, it would be a foolish woman who passed up a promising suitor, simply because he was white. Even if it's true that blacks, on average, are better basketball players, it would be a foolish coach who chose players based on skin colour, rather than ability. And even if it's true that Asians tend to be more intelligent than whites, who in turn are more intelligent than blacks, it would be a foolish employer who hired based on averages, rather than assessing the aptitude of individual candidates.

Racism is stupid, but it shouldn't be illegal.

Condell on Christmas

Pat Condell's latest video is well worth watching:

I've just been reading a news report about some American atheists who have been trying to get a public Christmas nativity scene removed because they say it makes them feel excluded and intimidated and offended ... can't you just feel the emotional trauma these poor people must be suffering? No, me neither ... this is what happens when atheism meets political correctness.
...
as an atheist myself, I can't help but feel horribly tainted by association. And believe me I'm as atheist as it's possible to be. I think religion is utter nonsense, and I claim the right to criticise, ridicule, and insult it as much as I like. But not the right to stamp out harmless aspects of it, which is why I'm a secularist, and not a totalitarian.

I have a copy of the bible in my house, because it's part of my cultural heritage. Not because I think the bible is true, any more than I think that Shakespeare's plays are true, but I wouldn't be without them either. I like churches, especially the sound of church bells, and I don't want to see them bulldozed. But I do want to see the power of the church, not only bulldozed, but ground into a fine dust, and buried in the deepest part of the deepest ocean on the furthest planet it's possible to find.

Religion needs to be kept in check when it tries to step on people, or when it tries to elbow its way into their lives uninvited. The nativity doesn't do this. It doesn't even come close. It's part and parcel of the Christmas furniture. It's part and parcel of the culture that I and most people in the Western world were born and raised in, and it only excludes people who want to be excluded.
...
And yes, we all know that the story itself is ridiculous. The entire tableau is utterly barmy and worthy of open mockery and ridicule. But to claim that it sends a message of intimidation and exclusion, and therefore must be banned, is both infantile and sinister ... Yes, some people may choose to be offended, but some people are offended by anything, and frankly, they can go to hell.

I couldn't agree more.

Condell goes on to highlight some truly ridiculous research from Simon Fraser University in Canada, which The Telegraph covered on the 20th of December:

Michael Schmitt, a social psychologist behind the research, decided to carry out the study after controversy over whether Christmas should be celebrated in public in case it offends non-Christians.

He said: "Simply having this 12-inch Christmas tree in the room with them made them feel less included in the university as a whole, which to me is a pretty powerful effect from one 12-inch Christmas tree in one psychology lab.

"I don't think it's really going to undermine anyone's experience of Christmas to tone it down.

"We're not suggesting 'no Christmas' or 'no Christmas displays at all,' but in contexts where we really do value respecting and including diversity in terms of religion, the safest option is not to have these kinds of displays.

"I understand why it might feel threatening to people.

"But I think if people do care about making a whole range of different kinds of people feel included and respected, then we can make some small changes that would go a long way toward creating a more multicultural or inclusive society."

The researchers published their results in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

I'm sure Condell is right when he suggests that "if all the social psychologists on the planet were to disappear in a puff of smoke, nobody would be worse off".

Returning to the original story about the nativity scene (covered by the Daily Mail), I should add that while I share Condell's contempt for those who cry 'intimidation' and 'exclusion', I don't think it's appropriate for public funds or public property to be used for religious displays — or indeed for any other purpose beyond their essential function. There's a huge difference between resenting inappropriate public expenditure and calling for displays on private property to be banned. It's unfortunate, and perhaps disingenuous, for Condell to conflate the two issues.

But a nativity scene on a courthouse lawn is such a minor abuse of taxpayers' resources, compared to the US government's multi-trillion dollar profligacy, that anyone taking offence at it can scarcely claim the banner of Reason.

Smell smoke, get lung cancer!

The best addition to my blogroll this year was surely Christopher Snowdon's Velvet Glove, Iron Fist.

In his latest post he exposes the shameful tactics of Professor Peters, chairman of ASH Australia, and the complacency of the Australian media in the face of some truly absurd claims:

Professor Peters told Mr Lavac, 65, and his wife to reduce their exposure. After living in their flat for 18 months in 2005-06, they moved. In March, 2008, Mr Lavac felt unwell. A CT scan detected a shadow at the top of his right lung, and a biopsy confirmed cancer...

Mr Lavac, who had never smoked, lost a third of his right lung. His surgeon and Professor Peters told him that, on the balance of probabilities, the lesion had been caused by passive smoking.

Yes folks. We live in a world in which professors of medicine tell people that they have developed lung disorders because they lived in a flat for 18 months above people who smoked. This is the state of hypochondria and intellectual retardation we have reached in the last days of 2011.

One day, when sanity is restored, we will look back on such stories and laugh. For now, other emotions dominate.

Gabb: Free Yourself from the Lefty Ghetto

I just caught up with Sean Gabb's recent letter to The Guardian. It's worth reproducing in full:

Lefties, as a rule, only read other lefties. This seems to be the case with George Monbiot. His attack on libertarianism (This bastardised libertarianism makes 'freedom' an instrument of oppression, 19 December) is the usual mix of unwillingness and inability to understand anything outside the intellectual ghettoes of the left.

He claims to have asked: "Do you accept that some people's freedoms intrude upon other people's freedoms?" – as if that were some knock-down refutation never made before. Of course we do. Our difference with him isn't that we are against courts and the other modes of dispute resolution. What we deny is that social peace requires an enlarged and omnicompetent state run by his friends.

He claims we "pretend … that only the state intrudes on our liberties. [We] ignore … the role of banks, corporations and the rich in making us less free." Not quite. We do believe that the state is the foremost violator of our right to life, liberty and property. But we also observe that banks are licensed and regulated creatures of the state, and that big business in general is only big because of state-granted privileges like limited liability, infrastructure subsidies, and tax and regulatory systems that cartellise costs and flatten competition from outside the magic circle. There is a difference between believing in free markets and supporting actually existing capitalism.

You could have published an attack on libertarianism that didn't border on misrepresentation. Or perhaps not. That would have meant exposing your readers to genuine libertarian positions. And that might, in a few cases, have opened the gates of their intellectual ghetto.

Democratically elected Islamofascists

BBC News reports:

Latest results from the Egyptian elections indicate that Islamist parties are likely to have a strong majority in the new parliament.

The political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood and a more conservative Salafist Islamist party are leading, while secular liberals are behind.

...

the Salafists, who could take second place, have made no attempt to soften their uncompromising views. They want to ban alcohol, segregate men and women, impose full shariah law, and are openly contemptuous of democracy.

Democracy is not an end in itself. It is only a good thing to the extent that it protects individual freedoms.

We'll have to wait and see how Egyptians enjoy tyranny of the Islamist majority.

Human rights

BBC News reports:

Basic care for the elderly in their own homes in England is so bad it breaches human rights at times, an inquiry says.

Around 10 years ago I saw a framed copy of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights on the wall at Oxford Town Hall. By then I was already sick to death of the term, and I expected to disagree with every word of the declaration.

Initially, I was pleasantly surprised.

Article 1.

• All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2.

• Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 3.

• Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 4.

• No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Article 5.

• No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 6.

• Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Article 7.

• All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8.

• Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 9.

• No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10.

• Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11.

• (1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
• (2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

Article 12.

• No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 13.

• (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
• (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 14.

• (1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
• (2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 15.

• (1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
• (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

Article 16.

• (1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
• (2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
• (3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Article 17.

• (1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
• (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 18.

• Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 19.

• Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 20.

• (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
• (2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Article 21.

• (1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
• (2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
• (3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

So far the declaration is a bit vague in parts, and open to abuse. For example, people can be deprived of their property despite Article 17, through high and unfair 'progressive' taxes, so long as the confiscation is not 'arbitrary'. On asylum, there seems to be a tension between "to seek" and "to enjoy". Similarly, the right enshrined in Article 13 to "leave any country" must surely be constrained by the willingness of other countries to allow entry. On the other hand, Article 19 is unequivocal, and all 'hate speech' laws must surely be considered a violation of this right. A mixed bag, then, but broadly consistent with classical liberalism.

It's only from Article 22 that things start to go seriously wrong ...

Article 22.

• Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Article 23.

• (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
• (2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
• (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
• (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 24.

• Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Article 25.

• (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
• (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Article 26.

• (1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
• (2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
• (3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

Article 27.

• (1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
• (2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Article 28.

• Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

Article 29.

• (1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.
• (2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
• (3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 30.

• Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

I'm sure the signatories to the declaration didn't imagine anything like as generous as our present welfare state, but it's dangerous and immoral to enshrine any rights that require compulsory redistribution of wealth.

When they say employees are entitled to "just and favourable remuneration" and "periodic holidays with pay", they mean that employment contracts should be unequal, with employers compelled to offer pay and benefits that meet some arbitrary standard, rather than allowing employer and employee to agree the terms they see fit.

When they say that "everyone has the right to work", they imply that someone should be forced to give them work. It's not clear what they mean by "protection against unemployment", but they imply that the cost of that protection will be borne not by employees, but by employers and taxpayers.

When they say that "motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance", they mean that employers and taxpayers should be forced to support those who choose to have children.

When they say "education shall be free", they mean that people should be forced to pay for the education of other people's children.

The idea that compulsorily funded education should "further the activities of the United Nations" is really quite ominous.

If only they had stuck to negative rights!

As Wikipedia puts it,

if Adrian has a negative right to life against Clay, then Clay is required to refrain from killing Adrian; while if Adrian has a positive right to life against Clay, then Clay is required to act as necessary to preserve the life of Adrian.

The Wikipedia article also includes a good quote from Bastiat

M. de Lamartine wrote me one day: "Your doctrine is only the half of my program; you have stopped at liberty; I go on to fraternity." I answered him: "The second half of your program will destroy the first half." And, in fact, it is quite impossible for me to separate the word "fraternity" from the word "voluntary." It is quite impossible for me to conceive of fraternity as legally enforced, without liberty being legally destroyed, and justice being legally trampled underfoot.

Of course, the BBC article mentioned at the top of this post appeals not to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but to the ECHR:

The commission said such problems could be said to be in breach of various parts of the European Convention on Human Rights.

My blogging time for today runs short, so I'll have to leave the ECHR for another day, but I expect it to be far worse than the UDHR.

Halal vs animal rights

An interesting little video from BBC News. Here's the blurb:

Next month the Dutch parliament is expected to approve a ban on halal and kosher methods of slaughtering animals for food.

Those who proposed the ban say it is simply an issue of animal welfare, but it received strong support from the right-wing Freedom Party.

Many see it as a violation of their religious freedom, and among the Jewish community it is a worrying echo of a similar ban brought in by Hitler.

It's always amusing when different BBC causes come into conflict. Animal rights versus Muslim rights, who wins?

Left-wing defence of Islam has always been a bit strange, since most things you'll read in the Koran are antithetical to most things you'll read in The Guardian. But lefties are masters of doublethink.

It's also interesting to see the Nazis dragged into this. If you consider Islam as an ideology, it has quite a lot in common with Nazism. Both are totalitarian, anti-Jewish, and anti-free speech. Both require the individual to submit to the collective. Islam shares the Nazi desire for global domination, and condones, even encourages, the use of violence in pursuit of that goal.

We must rejoice that so many Muslims are bad Muslims, who don't take the Koran at its word.

My own view is that we should afford no special respect to religious beliefs. If society decides that a certain method of slaughter is inhumane, "God told me to" is not a valid defence.

Although I have nothing but scorn for animal rights extremists, I don't think that animals should be made to suffer unnecessarily. Animal welfare isn't high up my own list of concerns, but it seems like a perfectly reasonable thing for libertarians to support. I'm not going to stop eating meat any time soon, but I have a lot of sympathy with the position set out by David Graham:

I find it strange that so many of my fellow libertarians and anarchists oppose and ridicule animal rights with such passion. For one thing, an animal right is perfectly libertarian in that it is a negative right. Unlike incoherent positive rights, such as the 'right' to education or health care, the animal right is, at bottom, a right to be left alone. It does not call for government to tax us in order to provide animals with food, shelter, and veterinary care. It only requires us to stop killing them and making them suffer. I can think of no other issue where the libertarian is arguing for a positive right — his right to make animals submit to any use he sees — and the other side is arguing for a negative right!

It will be interesting to see how the argument develops over the coming decades.

Tebbit on the civil service

Lord Tebbit writes:

Some very odd things are going on in the Civil Service. Until very recently it has been a model of integrity and (despite all the jokes), in its upper reaches in particular, more competent than almost any other. It owed its quality to the great 19th-century reforms which ended the practices of buying commissions in the Armed Services and promotion that depended on who you knew, or who your father was, in the civil service.

Tebbit asked

about the Government's policy to develop a civil service "representative of the community it serves", and was told that there is a strategy which "sets representation targets for the senior civil service covering ethnic origin, disability and gender" and that departments must report progress to the Civil Service Capability Board....

The strategy "also gives departments freedom to develop policies on representation covering religion/belief, sexual orientation, age, gender identity and educational/social background, but not educational attainment, criminality or physical attributes".

So much for meritocracy.

Tebbit concludes:

I am left wondering why it seems to be thought that quotas for Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and for that matter atheists and Jedi Knights of varying sexual orientation would lead to a better civil service than simply appointing the best person for the job. Or is it that the Government puts the excellence of the Civil Service second to juvenile social engineering?

If I were a fighter pilot or an infantryman going into battle, I think I would be happpier if the chap covering my back had been chosen as the best for that job rather than for his social background, religion, sexual preferences or the colour of his skin.

For my part, though I loathe this sort of 'positive discrimination', I wonder if it might be a good thing that the civil service is increasingly incompetent. After all, their interests do seem to run quite contrary to our own.

The Last Ditch: Advancing liberty, one smoke at a time

A good post from Tom Paine:

The cross-party group of MPs hosting this afternoon's sunny reception on the Commons Terrace comprised only non-smokers. Two, like me, had never smoked but felt strongly about liberty. The Labour host Roger Godiff- to cries of "don't give them ideas" - suggested it would be more honourable for antismokers to call honestly for abolition. Until then, if it was legal, it was wrong to proscribe it. It was nostalgic to hear a Labour man talk in such terms; an echo of the days when the working-class members of that party at least, were not looking to replace one boss class with another.

They all spoke eloquently enough to a good crowd, but I was most moved by the plain speaking of Mick McGlasham, General Secretary of the Workingmens Clubs & Institutes Union (CIU). He was genuinely baffled that, when pubs and clubs are ready to make ventilated smoking areas, anti-smoking fanatics are still determined to shatter the institutions at the heart of working-class communities. "Just give us the technical specs", he said, "and we will comply. It's time for some commonsense on smoking legislation". He also pointed out that young children are being more exposed to cigarettes because their parents now have nowhere to smoke but at home.

Trial for racism

This morning a story was reported on BBC Breakfast casually and without comment. Though noteworthy, they must have seen it as the most natural thing in the world: John Galliano will stand trial in Paris today on charges of racism.

Had he been burning crosses in the gardens of Parisian suburbs? Had he been desecrating graves? Had he been walking about, face covered, violently attacking those he disapproves of? Had he even been inciting others to violence?

No, it's nothing you might traditionally think of as a crime. As CBC reports,

Prosecutors have said Galliano could face up to six months in prison and $31,000 US in fines if convicted of "public insults based on origin, religious affiliation, race or ethnicity."

Six months in prison for public insults. Six months in prison for causing offence.

Perhaps he will be let off, but the frightening thing here is that the law exists and prosecutors are prepared to use it.

Couldn't happen here? Consider this, as reported in The Guardian:

[Nick] Griffin was given a suspended prison sentence in 1998 after being convicted of "publishing or distributing racially ­inflammatory written material", an offence under the 1986 Public Order Act

In 2005, as BNP leader, he was charged again

accused of using words or behaviour intended or likely to stir up racial hatred.

The trial opened in 2006, as reported by The Guardian:

Opening the prosecution's case, Rodney Jameson QC said that both of the accused had tried to win BNP votes by creating a "nightmare vision" of Asians carrying out attacks on white people.

Mr Jameson said: "The prosecution allege that each of the six speeches ... included words which were threatening, abusive and insulting towards, in particular, people of Asian ethnicity. Such words were used with the intention of stirring up racial hatred."

I hate the Labour party. I hate the trade unions. I hate the EU. There are plenty on the Left who openly declare their hatred for Margaret Thatcher, Tories, toffs, and bankers. Some even chanted "off with their heads" to Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall. Unlike Galliano and Griffin, they backed up their words with actual acts of violence.

But should 'hate' itself be illegal? What is 'hate', on its own, but a poisonous emotion that affects the one who holds it? Is 'racial hatred' really so different that it deserves special treatment by the law.

As Tom Paine wrote recently

A Jew, a German and two Poles are among the ten best people I have ever met. There are two Jews, three Germans and a Pole among the ten worst. From this, admittedly anecdotal, evidence I have concluded that peoples of all nations, tribes and religions come in all ethical flavours. That's why racism is so stupid as to be not worth worrying about. People who have no better criteria than ethnicity for ranking themselves against the rest of humanity are cretins.

I couldn't agree more. We should pity racists, not prosecute them.

Do we really want to live in a society where holding certain opinions, or expressing them, is punishable by prison. Can we call such a society free?

Equality before the law

Via DK, I discovered a good article by bella gerens:

Contracts, and the ability to enforce them, are a basic pillar of civilised society. In the absence of Rothbardian private justice, one of the legitimate functions of government is to arbitrate and enforce contracts. Marriage, whilst for many people religious in nature, is just a particular type of contract in the eyes of the state. It carries implicit agreements about child custody, insurance, inheritance, and so forth. There is nothing special about marriage that should make it any different to any other type of contract—in the eyes of the state.

Except that in the US, for some reason, there is a strange moral attribute to the marriage contract. Homosexuals cannot enter into this contract with each other. They are specifically and specially debarred, in a way that is utterly exceptional in a country that usually only refuses to recognise your right to contract if you are (a) a child, or (b) non compos mentis. There is nothing, even, to stop a gay person from marrying someone of the opposite sex. It’s only each other they can’t contract with in this way.

The state is not there to enshrine the religious or moral connotations of marriage; in fact it doesn’t do so for straight people at all. Straight people can contract marriage in front of the state without ever getting close enough to sniff a priest or a rabbi or an imam.

So why should gay people be denied this same legal status? The US government isn’t trying to pretend that gay people are as incapable of consenting to agreements as children or the mad; it isn’t trying to pretend that straight marriages always and everywhere carry a moral or religious weight. It’s either (a) bowing stupidly to pressures from people who would use the government to impose a moral sanction, or more worryingly (b) sees nothing wrong with making arbitrary exceptions to normal jurisprudence when it suits.

In Britain, like most other western countries, our laws enshrine a very warped sense of rights. If we genuinely cared about equality, and respected people's rights as individuals, the law would have nothing to say about the various groups that people can be divided into. Our rights wouldn't be constrained, but nor would we get any special privileges for belonging to one group or another.

Catholics would not be forbidden from marrying the Sovereign, but nor would they get any special protection against 'hate speech'. Homosexuals would be free to have sex with, and marry, any consenting adult they like, but they would not be entitled to anti-discrimination treatment in the workplace. Women would be truly equal to men; neither paternity nor maternity benefit would be provided. For it is also important to treat parents, childless couples, and single people equally.

All people would be equally free to denounce others as toffs, ponces, chavs, and pikeys; kafirs and kaffirs; not to mention coconuts and watermelons. Hopefully, as a matter of basic human decency, they would avoid causing unnecessary offence, but it is not the job of the state to compel politeness.

We are all individuals, and the law should treat us as such.

A supreme court?

The latest "human rights" violation to be declared in the UK concerns sex offenders.

Personally, I don't like the idea of a sex offenders register. Any offender who poses a danger to the public should not be released. If that means they spend their entire life in prison, so be it.

This time the ruling came from the British Supreme Court, but the law they appealed to was not our own:

Five supreme court justices upheld a decision by the Court of Appeal that the lack of a review was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, the strongest judgement they can give against a piece of legislation.

This is the same convention to which John Hirst appealed for the right to vote. At the time, the Supreme Court did not exist, so after being rejected by the High Court in April 2001, Hirst took his case to the European Court of Human Rights in March 2004. Had the case been brought today, it seems likely that our Supreme Court would also have saved Hirst a trip to Strasbourg, and provided the same ruling with a veneer of domestic respectability.

According to the Supreme Court's website,

The Supreme Court is the highest court of appeal in the United Kingdom. However, The Court must give effect to directly applicable European Union law, and interpret domestic law so far as possible consistently with European Union law. It must also give effect to the rights contained in the European Convention on Human Rights.

Under the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (article 267), The Court must refer to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg any question of European Union law, where the answer is not clear and is necessary for it to give judgment.

In giving effect to rights contained in the European Convention on Human Rights, The Court must take account of any decision of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. No national court should “without strong reason dilute or weaken the effect of the Strasbourg case law” (Lord Bingham of Cornhill in R (Ullah) v Special Adjudicator [2004] UKHL 26).

An individual contending that his Convention rights have not been respected by a decision of a United Kingdom court (including The Supreme Court) against which he has no domestic recourse may bring a claim against the United Kingdom before the European Court of Human Rights.

Not such a supreme court after all.