May 06, 2005
Meanwhile, back in the real world
Squander Two did not like the "I, Dalek" episode of Doctor Who.
A famous name learns first-hand about postal vote fraud.
My husband was listening to election stuff on Radio Four this morning and came up to tell me that James Naughtie said that he had been unable to vote because - get this - someone had fraudulently registered his name for a postal vote. "Ho," said I, (whilst deploring etc.) "That'll get 'em buzzing. Nothing stirs up a high priest of the chatterati like being denied his legal rights. The culprit probably targeted him to make that very point."Then my husband rather spoilt this post by saying, "Or it could've been that other bloke."
Whichever bloke it was, Naughtie or Humphrys* or whoever, I hope he goes to law and wins a packet. A nice loud legal case with a famous lefty media plaintiff is about the only thing that will persuade the government to take vote fraud seriously.
Ashby v White, 1704 might not be a perfect precedent since the Returning Officer who denied Matthew Ashby his vote acted maliciously, and there was also a conflict regarding Parliamentary privilege that need not detain us here, but surely the general principle should still apply:
"It is Resolved, by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, That, by the known Laws of this Kingdom, every Freeholder, or other Person having a Right to give his Vote at the Election of Members to serve in Parliament, and being wilfully denied or hindered so to do, by the Officer who ought to receive the same, may maintain an Action in the Queen's Courts against such Officer, to assert his Right, and recover Damages for the Injury."
*It was Humphrys. (Hat tip - Verity.) He wasn't the only one - not even the only BBC presenter. Many more accounts of lost votes can be found here.
It looks like the Lib Dems took seats off Labour rather than the Tories. That was opponents of the war, obviously. Wonder if it will last. The Tories took some damage from UKIP splitting the Eurosceptic vote in marginals. Not a great night for the SNP (gains but overtaken in share of Scottish vote by the Lib Dems), and an actively bad one for Plaid Cymru.
George Galloway beat Oona King, unfortunately. The BNP upped their vote.
Ian Gove has got in. Good.
Peter Law, who left Labour after a dispute about all-women shortlists, gained his seat as an Independent.
Veritas nowhere.
Northern Ireland - why does NI always have to be so slow? This BBC article asks but does not really answer. Sight unseen I bet a lot of extremists have done well.
May 05, 2005
Thinking about it, the link above takes you to one particular permalink. A better link to follow for regular updates would be this one to the main blog.
Tony Blair. What to say?
Here is a damning indictment.And here is a moving tribute.
(Free Iraqi link found via Normblog and Harry's Place)
Inexorable incompatibility.
A few days ago Best of the Web was too dismissive ("And some people think Christians are weird!") of Steven Spielberg's belief that aliens will be friendly. Spielberg said:"I can't believe anybody would travel such vast distances bent on destruction. I believe anybody who would travel such vast distances are curious explorers, not conquerors," Spielberg said. "Carrying weapons a hundred-thousand light-years is quite a schlepp. I believe it's easier to travel 100,000 light-years with their versions of the Bible."If it is weird to think about such things, sign me up to the weirdo club. Problems may arise for which it is useful to have around a few science-fiction-loving weirdos who have got some thinking done in advance. A more significant criticism of Spielberg's argument is that his mention of aliens bringing their version of the Bible is not an entirely reassuring model even to believers in our version. As my fellow Christian weirdo C S Lewis said in his 1958 essay on whether Christianity could be reconciled with the existence of aliens, 'Religion and Rocketry', "'Gun and gospel' have been horribly combined in the past."
This post of mine got started when I saw a post about Spielberg on Thought Mesh. AOG wrote:
Conquest isn’t going to be profitable for the same reason we don’t have slavery and the USA is uninterested in conquering other nations. Once a society reaches a sufficient level of technology, brute force and large scale coercion becomes a liablity, not an asset. This is of course the same effect that doomed the USSR and other Communist nations.I agree with this as far as it goes. Of course aliens could wish to conquer for other reasons, such as a species need for dominance, to gain sentient sacrifices to Xfffa-peB[click]-nx, or the desperate need to fyoing the frupbooples of the poor Earthmen who will be grateful in the end.
Yet I find none of these prospects as scary as the next one AOG raises:
What is far more likely than hostility is complete indifference. It’s far from obvious that that would be preferable. For instance, a automaton swarm that dissassembled the planets to build large scale space structures would be indifferent to humans but hardly beneficial.I am haunted by the fate of the Amerindians at the time of first contact with Europeans: vast numbers of them were wiped out by diseases to which Europeans had immunity and they did not. The Europeans did not plan that, or want it. (There are some accounts of deliberate infection via gifts of blankets infected with smallpox, but in general even the most conscienceless European conquerors wanted living slaves.) Neither the natives or the newcomers knew why one group of humans died from contact and the other did not. Not even the germs themselves, who to alien observers might seem as important as the humans, can be said to have "wanted" so many Amerindians to die; strains of disease that kill off their victims too fast tend to be relatively unsuccessful in replicating themselves.
Should we ever make contact with aliens a similar fate might befall us, or them, or both. I don't mean that alien diseases would be likely to harm us or vice versa: surely our respective biochemistries would be too different. (Or would they? What about some microscopic natural or created von Neumann machines that ate more or less anything and used it to replicate themselves?) But I fear being consumed by some inexorable incompatibility, some phenomenon without purpose yet beyond our understanding. I fear the fate of the moth that flies into a flame.
This is not an argument for pulling in our horns. It behoves the moth to study fire. If there are dangers out there, better to know.
Once we know that one other intelligent race exists, or has existed, it's a safe bet there are more. Even if these aliens are both benevolent and compatible, what about the next lot, and the next, and the next? It's as if the Amerindians had to survive their interaction with not one but a thousand Europes.
I've delighted in science fiction for many years. I'm used to thinking that the discovery of an alien race would be tremendously interesting. The day the news of discovery came I would go half mad with wanting to know what they were like, how they lived and died, their ideas of good and evil, what they knew how to do, and how they got here - especially if that last item involved faster than light travel. I still do think I would have all of those reactions. But when I imagine that day as it would be to live rather than to read about, I think that fear would take a grip of my heart that would never entirely loosen, however many years went by with no harm done.
Lots of comment from readers on banning the BNP.
Anonymous writes:
I observe that in the United States and Canada where we have real live (neo) nazis that leaving them to be open has proved very useful. Cockroaches don't thrive in direct sunlight.
They are much easier to observe, infiltrate & generally keep an eye on when they are in the open. They serve to remind people that there are, indeed, morons of this ilk alive and well.
The wannabe nazis get to blow off steam, well photographed by the FBI, RCMP, and despised by almost everyone. Many recover and go on to be embarassed about their youthful indiscretion. ( Happens to various communist cretins too.)
The more hardcore Nazis get caught doing something stupid, or sold out while doing criminal stuff (Making bombs, beating on Asok at the Jiffy Mart, whatever) and the local prosecuters (and Judge Weinstein or Judge Subramanian) throw the book, kitchen sink and anything else they can at them.
They are maintained at the minor nuisance level. Agressive law enforcement of existing law and observant attitude.
What you'd do to any dangerously stupid subculture.
Yawn.
Pete James writes:
Hi,
The Rod Liddle piece you quoted was one reason I've been keeping an eye on the BNP site of late. His prediction of when Griffin would be appearing in court was a tad out as to date but even more fortuitous as to timing. The election was called on 5 April and so overwhelmed the news on the 6th. Griffin was re-arrested and presented in court on the 7th making both the evening Radio 4 news and a mention the following morning in bulletins largely concerned with election issues. A cynic would judge this immaculate timing if it wasn't inconceivable that the authorities would use the police & judicial system as a spoiler against a political party that threatens the government's majority in crucial seats.
It was interesting that the commentator on my post should respond by discussing the National Front. [I think he's just using it as a catch-all phrase. Must admit I sometimes do the same. I call CDs "records" too. - NS] As far as I'm aware, the two are entirely separate entities although they do share common antecedents and no doubt, despite the BNP's strong denial, there's a certain degree of cross-fertilization. The BNP however does seem to be trying to develop a complete manifesto with policies on industry, health, schools and the economy whereas it's doubtful that the National Front would recognise an economic policy if it bit it in its collective ankle.
I've never been sure of what the epithet fascist means outside of its Italian context. There are certainly echoes of National Socialism in a lot of BNP ideology but interestingly, if you wanted to go looking for a true child of the Nazi party I don't think you'd have to go much further than New Labour. The sense of ends justifying the means, the contempt for democracy, the casualness with truth and the law were all hallmarks of Hitler and his followers although Blair hasn't yet seen fit to combine his office with that of Chancellor, Perhaps this is less surprising when you remember that the Labour Party, National Socialism and for that matter Marxism all have their roots in 19th century utopian liberalism. (In passing I've always liked Terry Pratchett's observation that a communist is someone who has read Marx and hasn't got the joke. It took me some time but then Das Kapital is hardly a one-liner.)
Personally, I agree with you. I've no objection to being told what to do. Even anarchist groups tend to have leaders. I do object strongly to being told what to think.and by extension being denied the right to share those thoughts with others without fear of legal consequences. If you do not like what I say, as an individual you are welcome to punch me in the eye. I accept the risk. What you should not have is the legal right to silence me.
That is why I believe we need a party like the BNP and wish them well in their campaign. For that matter I would welcome a resurrection of the Communist Party and if an islamic party wants to advocate the delights of sharia.... well as long as they've no objection to the extraction of copious amounts of urine, why not? Within that broad spectrum I feel safe in my conceits. When the centre ground, when what ordinary folk believe and say, are treated as radical extremism I worry for the future.
Regards,
Pete James
If you still have the cherrypicker download try Winamp -download free at: http://www.winamp.com/player/ it's foolproof or at least jamesproof.
After visiting at the BNP site it's always a good idea to run a spyware check. They've been extensively targeted by hackers.
JEM writes
...By the way, I do not favour banning the NF, but the question deserved to be put. Free speech famously does not extend to shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre; ultimately the principle could be considered the same.
Even in Germany, I wonder about the notion of an indefinite criminal ban of all things Nazi. Oh, I am sure it is still right for today, but as Germany has once more become a “normal” country, and indeed one that has done so much more to rescue its national reputation, honour and self-respect than Austria (the Führer’s homeland, as so many forget) or Japan, so one fine day Germans should enjoy just exactly the same degree of freedom as the rest of us.
Also it is interesting to observe that there is no similar banning, however more modestly or watered down, of the in some ways equally repellent former Communist regime of East Germany. The Stasi were far more pervasive and effective and in some important ways more criminal than the Gestapo, for instance. It was quite startling the first time I drove in former East Germany as I did a couple of years ago to come into a small rural village along its main street, Leninstrasse, and park in the main square, Karl-Marx-Platz. After all, all the Göringstrasses and Hitlerallees are long gone; but at least Karl-Marx-Stadt has reverted to being Chemniz once more, which is something.
My personal guess is that to some degree, unconscious left bias in the media, etc. has a lot to do with this failure of nerve, or of consistency. After all: “Socialists are fundamentally good, Fascists are fundamentally bad. Communists are really just decent people who couldn’t make the economy work, but Nazis are rightwing racists.”
Right?
Well here’s today’s awkward fact: “Nazi” is short for “National SOCIALIST German Workers Party”. That word was not put there just for fun, or to confuse. They meant it.
Enough, already,
Happy election day—although I don’t think either Saffron Walden or Suffolk West (where I live) could be considered to be anything close to marginal.
Interesting to note the points of disagreement and agreement in the letters above. While I agree that the National Socialist party did have true socialist elements I must stress that I think the great gulf between any democratic party or politician and totalitarians should always be acknowledged. My admiration of Blair's stand on the Iraq war and my anger at his curtailment of ancient liberties I have discussed in other posts. But as the editor of the Times used to say, "This correspondence is now closed."
May 04, 2005
My election prediction.
A much reduced Labour majority. The Conservatives will do better in the popular vote than polls now suggest, but it won't translate into that many more seats. The Lib Dems will gain a few and be insufferable. Remember, you heard it here millionth.
Things too obvious to see.
I'm interested in why people make mistakes. So is Anthony Cox, although the sort of mistakes he studies usually have more serious consequences than mine.One day my friend and I set off to a check out a new branch of IKEA. With what care and concentration did I, as navigator, trace our route through the highways and byways, bringing us at last to the fabled blue edifice. My curses turned the air blue when I noticed that plastered across the top of the very map over which my head had been bent so low, in a type size suitable for a headline announcing the invasion of Poland, were the words "NEW STORE OPENING ON..." followed by a date two weeks into the future.
We both felt that it was inconsiderate of IKEA to write that bit in print so big that any normal person would assume it was a special offer.
I thought of all this today while sniffing the brake pedal of my car. I do not do this for pleasure. It was all part of an attempt to open the bonnet. In the good old days all my cars where full of character, in the iron oxide sense of the word. Of course I knew how to open their bonnets; even when they didn't oblige by doing it spontaneously on the M11, they were always going wrong and I was always peering into the footwell to find whatever recycled impaling-stick the manufacturers had deemed the most amusing means to unlock the interior. What threw me this time was that, the car being (as my cars go) fairly new, the bonnet was opened by an enormous bright red lever placed directly under the steering wheel. Deceivers! I'd always thought that was the ejector button.
Should we ban the BNP?
JEM writes:Natalie,My short answer has to be no, not just on the grounds (very probable grounds though they are) that banning them would help them recruit, nor even on the grounds that once the State had banned them it would, as Niemöller's poem suggests, be emboldened to ban UKIP and/or RESPECT, but on the grounds that everyone should have freedom of thought simply because they are human.
Here's what Niemöller actually said, which was in fact a poem. In German, of course:
Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Kommunist.
Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.
Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten,
habe ich nicht protestiert;
ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.
Als sie die Juden holten,
habe ich nicht protestiert;
ich war ja kein Jude.
Als sie mich holten,
gab es keinen mehr, der protestierte.
Accurate translation:
As the Nazis took the Communists,
I stayed silent;
I was no Communist.
As they locked up the Social Democrats,
I stayed silent;
I was no Social Democrat.
As they took the trade unionists,
I made no protest;
I was no trade unionist.
As they took the Jews,
I made no protest;
I was no Jew.
As they took me,
there was no-one left to protest.
So Pete James is quite right about the order-- Communists first, Jews (second) last.
We were obliged to learn this poem, in German of course, during our school German classes. (They didn't bother teaching me French. Somehow, I have coped.)
When a few years ago I visited Am Grossen Wannsee 56, which is a rather fine looking lake-side villa (now a museum) in a beautiful leafy suburb on the S-Bahn just southwest of Berlin, it was truly difficult to believe that such a lovely place could be the birthplace of the Holocaust. But here in early 1942 was held the Wannsee Conference that established Jewish extermination to be the secret national policy of the Third Reich, under the auspices of Heydrich and the SS.
Two things echoed around my mind as I visited the rooms of that villa.
One was Arendts memorable phrase after the Eichmann trial, of the 'banality of evil'. Of course Eichmann had been present at the Wannsee Conference as Heydrich's SS sidekick.
And the other was Niemöller's poem.
Which brings us back to the National Front. In Germany today, the Nazi Party, Nazi organisations (starting with the SS but also many more) and Nazi insignia--swastikas, and so forth-- are prohibited under criminal law. Also banned can be other organizations that are deemed by the courts to be fronts for extremists of a fascist persuasion.
Has this been a bad thing? Although it impinges on freedom of speech, on balance I don't think so; certainly not in the particular circumstances of post war Germany. Is it still justified today? In the German context, I think so certainly.
So, would a similar prohibition be right for our own home-grown National Front?
On the face of it, absolutely not; it would play right into their hands, drives then underground setting up replacement organizations that are not banned, and in general provide them with the biggest recruitment opportunity they have ever had.
But suppose the NF grows anyway, to the point of becoming a serious threat to freedom and democracy? Ultimately, in that situation, there would be a choice between banning it (which again would play into their hands, but on a much greater and dangerous scale) or sitting back and allowing all we are supposed to hold dear be swept away. In other words, it would be far too late to ban them by that time.
So, should we bite the bullet now, after all?
JEM
That said, there are obviously some infringements on freedom of thought that outrage me less than others. The ban on Nazi activity in Germany just after WWII - well, it was just going to happen, that's all, and is no more to be complained of than the fact that a man who has just fought off a lethal attack keeps a knee to the neck of his downed assailant. No way were the Allies going to allow their enemies to reorganize having just defeated them at such ruinous cost.
May 03, 2005
Selective law enforcement directed at the BNP.
Pete James writes:Hi ,I couldn't make the media player thingy work, but, as you all know, that's not exactly unusual for me. Nothing would suprise me less than to see the police seeking to win favour with the government and the Guardian-reading classes by hassling the BNP. Rod Liddle (the journalist and former editor of Radio 4's Today programme who has me cursing and cheering in equal amounts but who cannot be credibly presented as a closet fascist) has written well in the Spectator on a related topic. Some time ago the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, was arrested for making speeches that said that... er, actually, not even the cops arresting him could clearly put their finger on what words of his broke the law. His words were just generally offensive, they said. They probably were, but that's not the point. As Rod Liddle said:
You might want to hold your nose and go here [Link to British National Party site] and watch 6 minutes odd of video shot of the Manchester police 'dealing' with a BNP vehicle. What we're talking about here is a cherrypicker - one of those erectable platforms used to change streetlight bulbs- mounted on the back of a truck and adorned with BNP banners. The police have stopped the vehicle and force the driver to remove the advertising.The question I'm asking is why?
OK the driver or the vehicle may have committed a traffic offence. Any copper worth his salt can prove anybody's committed a traffic offence - even a 3 y.o. in a pedal car. But what's that got to do with election material? I can't see that they're doing anything the other parties don't do. Earlier today I was following a Haringey Council minibus, yellow & black with the lightning bolt on the side plastered with Labour Party stickers. I'm pretty sure that's illegal, using a council vehicle for party electoral purposes, but in this Peoples Republic who would I complain to?
Anyway, back to the BNP. Watch the vid and see if you can work out what's going on. Taxation class of vehicle?- but I've seen farm tractors used in canvassing and don't tell me they drain out all the red diesel and refill at the garage pump because of the VAT issue.
I keep thinking of this quote from Pastor Martin Niemöller
'First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I said nothing. Then they came for the Social Democrats, but I was not a Social Democrat, so I did nothing. Then came the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist. And then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did little. Then when they came for me, there was no one left to stand up for me.' (Incidentally as far as I can ascertain this is the actual quote, some versions put the Jews first)
It just makes me feel very, very uncomfortable. This is a legal party, whatever else may be said about it. This is s'posed to be a democracy. I don't suppose we are exactly enamoured of Gorgeous George but we wouldn't want Respect hassled by the Met would we?
... don’t you suspect that this was precisely a politically motivated and, indeed, directed operation which will, in the end, do nothing to improve race relations and only ensured that a few more burglars and other such recidivists, who are a genuine menace to the public, were able to go about their business unhindered because of the priorities of this government? Would West Yorkshire police have spent so much time and effort on the case had it not been for political involvement from — as that errant officer put it — ‘higher than that’?"Higher than that" means the Home Office, the government department concerned with ensuring the laws are enforced without fear or favour.
Mollycoddled Miss.
Yay to this post from Hrairoo of Silflay Hraka, addressed to that American woman who made up a whole bunch of lies to cover up wedding day cold feet:You want to report your escape as a kidnapping, complete with perp descriptions and a blue van? Interesting. The intelligence graph of your choices is taking on a noticable downward trend. You have now graduated from "panicked moron" to "panicked moron criminal."It used to be the custom that if the best man failed in his duty to ensure that the groom was both present and sober on the church steps on the day of the wedding, then he had to marry the bride himself. I can't remember if the parallel duty fell to the maid of honour, but it should.If you have done these things, you should now be arrested and prosecuted for falsely reporting a crime and making false statements. You should not be coddled. You should not be cuddled. You should not be the beneficiary of the bizarre sympathy expressed by the Albequerque police, who think that criminals should be shown some sort of soft glove treatment if they are "in crisis."
Put Not Thy Trust in Princes, Part MMDCCCLXIX.
That leading light of redistribution from rich to poor, the government of Zimbabwe, celebrates May Day by breaking up trade union meetings. That leading light of toleration ("Tolerance must extend to those of all faiths and practices" - Prince Abdullah), the government of Saudi Arabia, arrests Pakistanis for the crime of Christian worship.
May 02, 2005
"Can we talk about this later?" says the EU...
Tim Worstall examines a nice bit of political manipulation and news management on the part of the EU. I never read this sort of post without thinking, this is the future they want for us. However EU skulduggery about textiles was not the only thing that prompted the title of this post.
...and answers, No.
The mighty Worstall content fountain also, of course, hosts the Britblog roundup. One of the roundees-up (roundup-ees?) is this post from the EU serf, which (honest guv) I had noticed independently but hadn't had time to blog. The Serf quotes an article in Forbes Magazine, "Liberty, European-style" by Dan Seligman. Frighteningly it seems that a perfectly natural and unforced reading of the EU constitution might forbid discussion of measures to change what it defines as rights. The EU constitution says:
"Nothing in this Charter shall be interpreted as implying any right to engage in any activity … aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms recognized in this Charter or at their limitation."Seligman writes:
This seems highly problematic. If someone were to mount a campaign favoring the death penalty, or opposing collective bargaining, or opposing preferences for women, or limiting the options of asylum-seekers, this would plainly constitute an effort to destroy rights recognized in the Charter--an activity characterized as an "abuse of rights" and therefore prohibited. The Bruges Group, a think tank in London, has published an essay arguing this case. The essay was written by Brian Hindley, a British economist, and was endorsed (in a prefatory note) by Oliver Letwin, who is now Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Tory "shadow cabinet."An EU spokesman on cultural issues called this argument "nonsense." I am not reassured. Many a time we have been promised before a new abridgement of liberty is made law that it would only be used against obvious nutters and evildoers but that has not been the case. To take an obvious and only apparently trivial example, if someone had said at the time of the 1972 referendum on the EU that one day the law would be turned on humble market stallholders if they sold fruit in pounds and ounces then the speaker would have been denounced as a paranoid fantasist.