Curiouser and Curiouser!

Curiouser and Curiouser! on civil-society http://matt.blogs.it/ RSS feed for topic civil-society Copyright 2006 Matt Mower Squib/0.1 self@mattmower.com self@mattmower.com en-gb Getting golden conduct out of leaden instincts Tue, 30 Mar 2004 13:37:55 +0100 Great article by Butler Shafer <a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer65.html">Utopia and Reality</a>: <blockquote>If you seek perfection, my advice is to study mathematics. Otherwise, as the study of economics suggests, learn to evaluate options on the basis of comparative advantages. But, in doing so, be certain you are considering all the costs and benefits of your actions; the long-term as well as the short-term; the psychological and spiritual as well as the material. Do you endorse political programs because you truly consider them more beneficial than non-political ones, or have you simply failed to account for many of the costs of such programs, costs which their authors prefer to keep hidden from your calculations?</blockquote> ... <blockquote>The diamond may serve as a useful metaphor for the design of social systems grounded in the connected, horizontally-based strength of their members, rather than in vertical power structures. The Amish who have no coercive political organization and who embrace the private ownership of property know what we have long since forgotten: politics divides us and, in so doing, weakens our social connectedness. Political systems set group against group, engendering a distrust of everyone except, of course, political leaders. By such means, the networks that would otherwise connect us to one another as we pursue our various self-interests, become cleaved.</blockquote> ... <blockquote>Those who persist in trying to breathe life into dead horses are the real utopians. The political structuring of society has long been grounded in pie-in-the-sky fantasies that power-hungry men and women can make us better than we are; that ever-more sophisticated weapons of death and destruction can bring peace to the world; and that, in the words of Herbert Spencer, there is a "political alchemy by which you can get golden conduct out of leaden instincts." As our formal world continues to disintegrate before us, it is time that we abandon the utopian fictions in which we are conditioned and face the stark reality that whatever future we have will be decided by the content of our thinking. Because only you and I are in control of and, thus, responsible for our thinking, only you and I are capable of bringing order to our world.</blockquote> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002038.html Mistaken Identity Fri, 14 May 2004 17:36:08 +0100 <a href="http://www.stand.org.uk/">The Stand</a> are stepping up to the plate on ID Card starting with an <a href="http://www.stand.org.uk/mistakenidentity.php3">event</a> on May 19th <blockquote> <h1>Mistaken Identity</h1> <h2>A public meeting on the Governments proposed National Identity Card</h2> Wednesday May 19, 2004; 13:3017:00 hrs The Old Theatre, London School of Economics Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE Organised by <a href="http://www.privacyinternational.org/">Privacy International</a>, in association with <a href="http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk">Liberty</a>, <a href="http://www.statewatch.org/">Statewatch</a>, <a href="http://www.stand.org.uk">Stand.org.uk</a>, <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/">The Register</a>, <a href="http://www.blink.org.uk/">The 1990 Trust</a> and the <a href="http://www.fipr.org/">Foundation for Information Policy Research</a>. Hosted by the Department of Information Systems of the London School of Economics The government has introduced draft legislation for a national identity card. The card system will cost at least £3 billion and is likely to become an essential part of life for everyone residing in the UK. If the draft legislation is accepted by Parliament, everyone will be required to register for a card. Biometric scans of the face, fingers and eye will be taken. Personal details will be stored in a central database. A unique number will be issued that will become the basis for the matching of computer systems. The proposed card may be required to access vital public services and to receive benefits. The government proposes to enforce the programme through numerous new criminal and civil offenses, including provision for unlimited financial penalty and up to ten years' imprisonment. The implications for everyone in the UK are far-reaching. Join us at this important meeting to hear from key figures in the fields of law, politics, security, technology and human rights. Decide for yourself whether this is a plan that should be supported. The meeting is free of charge. </blockquote>I'll be going and I hope lots of other people will as well. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002234.html A long ramble about law & terrorism Wed, 23 Jun 2004 09:17:53 +0100 My thoughts this morning were triggered by a piece about the <a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts53.html">dissolution of attorney-client privilege in the US</a>.<blockquote>Faced with the threat of being declared uncooperative, KPMG announced that it would pay its employees legal fees only if they waived the attorney-client privilege and "cooperated" with the investigation. Invariably, "cooperation" requires self-incrimination and negotiation of a guilty plea. By making it impossible for a defendant to defend, the government never has to have a real case.</blockquote>I think I've said before that I don't trust my government. It's not that I think the government is actively hostile towards me, but that I think it has no regard for my life, liberty, or prosperity whilst persuing its own agenda. The state, as an entity, is becoming more important than the individuals it's supposed to serve. I think that the way my government has acquiesced to America's actions in Guantanamo Bay clearly demonstrates that.<blockquote>There may be trouble ahead But while there's moonlight and music and love and romance Let's face the music and dance</blockquote>So what is my fear? My fear is to wake up one day in a fascist country. Fascism places the state foremost. The country does not serve the citizen; the citizen serves the country. Fascism does not recognize the idea of the independence of the common man. Now I am not suggesting that the US or UK is a fascist country now or that it's just around the corner. What I am suggesting is that the legal system is a good barometer for detecting this sort of change and I see stormy weather ahead.In the last 12 months I've read a lot about how the American legal system is, and has been, deteriorating. About the ways that "Department of Justice" (sic) with the complicity of the rest of the government has made the USA into a prosecutors paradise. A prime example is the use of the RICO legislation.  Passed in the 1970 the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act was intended to destroy the Mafia. And for about a decade it was used for that purpose. However by the 1990's prosecutors were using RICO against individuals, businesses, political protest groups, and terrorist organizations. Because so-called Mafiosos were considered to be murderous and ruthless, RICO was created to be equally ruthless. Those accused under RICO could find their assets seized and be unable to pay for their defence. Used this way RICO is the prosecutorial equivalent of the Hydrogen bomb.<blockquote>There may be teardrops to shed So while there's moonlight and music and love and romance Let's face the music and dance</blockquote>What concerns me is how, in both the US and the UK, the "War on Terror" is being used to hand more power, with less accountability, to the state. "The law is too soft" is the constant refrain from government ministers seeking new, and ever more draconian, powers. Powers which, sooner or later, get pointed at the rest of us. Meanwhile the state continues to act in a way that seems almost calculated to extend the threat of terrorism forever. But anyone who suggests that terrorism is the new communism (i.e. the most direct way of funnelling money to people in the arms industry) must, of course, be parnaoid.I think there needs to ba full debate about what it means to be a citizen in our society. A debate which spells out the freedoms and protections we enjoy and attempts to understand how those can be balanced with the responsibilites we bear. That includes responsibility for the actions of the state. I believe that a sane outcome would be a re-establishment of fairness in law and a severe curtailment of the power of the state to meddle in the affairs of others.  Maybe if we poked less sticks in their hives, we would annoy less hornets. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002352.html