I’ve had to wait a few years for it but finally there’s another proper exchange between two of my favourite writers. Further to what I had to say on the matter they’ve both said their piece here and here. Riddled with reformism though it unforgivably is Seymour is easily the victor here. This is because Hari suffers from his usual, crippling flaw: rather than argue critically each point as it comes he constantly references his thoughts to the looming and increasingly inevitable prospect of what the Conservatives would do. So his view of Labour policy is only condemnatory to an extent sharply restrained by his disdain towards the Tories. This is a highly limiting constraint for any writer. Consider this:

In the Labour model, you will never be cut off, provided you are willing to work. In Wisconsin, you can only receive benefits for two years in your entire life, and every week you claim, the clock is ticking. Once you hit your two years, that’s it: your benefits are severed forever…In the Labour proposals, you don’t have to go to work until your youngest child is seven. In the Wisconsin model, you are forced to leave your baby at three months old.

This does indeed demonstrate that the Wisconsin system is horrific in terms of impact and folly to consider worthy of an introduction. But it is in no way a defence of the Labour system to say that it doesn’t go horribly awry in the way that the American model Cameron wishes to adopt would. A piece of public policy should not be doing such perverse things anyway and the fact that it doesn’t is what we should expect.

As I have said before what this policy amounts to is a low-cost version of social democracy, that has the unfortunate end result of a model more akin to prison earning than state employment. If this is the sort of relationship which wariness towards statism left unchecked leads to then we are left with scanty improvement on outright opposition to the welfare state. So long as you are willing to work as the near slaves of the government, runs the line, you shall continue to be granted state cash.

A perverse outcome, and what a pity that Hari’s binary vision has him so distracted with the outright hostility towards the poor on offer from the Tories that he can not witness the idiocy being planned and plotted by the present party of power.

This bears a startling resemblence to a piece of recent euro-legislation. Compare:

The first stage of the campaign will involve hundreds of thousands of letters being sent to net users suspected of illegally sharing music.

The BBC has been told that the firms have agreed to ensure their customers know it is illegal to share copyrighted music.

It is believed that the memorandum also requires net firms to go further in their attempts to tackle illegal file-sharing.

At the same time the government is also expected to start a consultation exercise that could result in laws that force net firms to tackle music piracy.

With:

The legislation would oblige ISPs to disconnect (suspected) filesharers from the internet after two warnings. It wouldn’t matter who’d done the sharing; it wouldn’t matter if it was someone else in the house; it wouldn’t matter if your machine had been assaulted by malware and used without your knowledge. It wouldn’t even matter if filesharing hadn’t taken place - note suspected filesharers.

This clearly isn’t as drastic - largely because it’s thus far just a memo. But the details are similar; an emphasis on attacking suspects, forcing ISPs to do the dirty work, a very clumsy means. That the BBC relate the BPI’s three-strikes policy in the same article worries me even more; implying, surely, it’s what, “go further,” might mean.

So - a similar move, which will receive a similar response. It’s a vague document likely to precipitate an attack on all filesharers regardless of their status, and in a fairly arbitrary fashion. Hardly what the public desires, you’d imagine, given their continued file-sharing. Perhaps the only hope to be salvaged from the article (beyond its embryonic nature) is the line suggesting net-firms will commit to developing legal file-sharing systems - the only way they’ll ever contain the activity.

Until then, though, this doesn’t look to be a very pleasant memo.

On Boris’ plans to criminalise young adults:

“Dear [Assembly Member]

I’m writing to you because I’m very concerned about the Mayor’s scheme to encourage shops not to sell alcohol to those between 18 and 21. You’re my Constituency Assembly Member, so I hope you’ll raise the issue with the Mayor.

The scheme might be voluntary, but the precedent it sets is disturbing. The drinking age is 18, not 21. The young people whom they move discriminates against are adults. If they want to buy alcohol, it’s their right. The GLA shouldn’t make decisions for them - unless they want them to behave like children.

It’s also the right of businesses to sell to whom they want. Many shop-owners are feeling the pinch, at present; some may need these sales to stay in business. And yet, they’ll feel obliged to comply, or be attacked for it. Who wants the editor of a local newspaper, hungry for lurid headlines, denouncing them as soft on yobs? Small businesses face a stark choice; lose money they can ill-afford, or get a bad name.

Nor will the scheme have many tangible benefits. The Mayor believes the drinking culture amongst young people to be deeply ingrained; so how does he think this will help? The move does nothing to address the desire for alcohol which makes binge-drinking happen. It makes it harder for people to get their alcohol - so they try a little harder to get it, and probably look beyond sources where real regulation is possible.

What the move will do is further alienate young adults. The media already demonises youth at every opportunity. This just adds to their social stereotype of young people as incurable monsters. A move against 18-21 year olds to tackle binge drinking, rather than a move against binge drinkers, suggests one thing; that all adults between 18 and 21 years of age are virtually alcoholic. That’s patently untrue, and rejects the vast majority of young adults who comply with the law. Why should they listen to their elders, when those elders just criminalise them? If the Mayor wants to address

I hope you’ll speak to the Mayor about this counter-productive and unjust scheme.

Best Regards,

[Concerned of London]“

Thoughts? I’ve an increasingly large facebook group protesting, and nothing to do with them. There’s little use in gathering an angry e-mob unless you mobilise them…

The government’s new policies for unemployment were, according to the Tories, lifted from the Conservatives. This wouldn’t surprise me, seeing as they pause only from outright theft to try a spot of outflanking {the Tories have lately, finally, wisely, taken to simply claiming the centre instead of plunging further outwards towards fascism}.

Irrespective of their origins I am left wondering what exactly distinguishes this proposal, that able bodied people shall be put to work in exchange for their benefits, from the standard social democrat solution to unemployment of job generation. It’s an old trick practiced by reformists and revolutionaries, right and left, alike: the revisionist Marxists who reached power throughout Europe had the people participate in the construction of public parks, dams other massive projects, the National Socialists built the autobahn, Roosevelt had people hired to scare pigeons away from public monuments with lengthy sticks, the Paris Communes kept people occupied through having some of them dig large holes and others fill them in again.

So why would New Labour follow such a radical tradition? Why would it engage in something so closely resembling the socialism it had previously denounced? And, more curious still, why would the Conservatives lay claim to such policy? Why would they desire to be seen as the architects of this piece of outright statism? Does their view of the relationship between the British people and British State really involve a significant increase in people who deem it their employer?

Well, a singular thing separates this proposal from the rest of those examples: in all of them the workers were given a proper wage; whereas here the de facto state employees will be getting the usual pittance they were anyway in exchange for full time labour.

I was awaiting the inevitable legislative response to what has surely reached the stage where it can be described as a cultural phenomenon. As that preamble suggests I was also expecting it to be counter-active and dire, but was this was beyond even my low anticipation. It seems that the government’s approach to dealing with the “Causes of crime” is to turf the poor out of their houses. How exactly they intend to authorise the eviction of those families suspected of potential criminality and where they expect these homeless masses to move to is not made clear, but this is New Labour legislation, no requirement to focus upon the details so long as the headlines look “tough”.

Of course the Tories are no better, law and order being their traditional stomping grounds and all notions of them being civil libertarians being dispelled by this news, which demonstrates how even David Davis, the supposed champion of the freedom-loving right, is happy to see pub land-lords carrying blades for professional purposes locked away.

Not that I am a libertarian, but their position on weaponry is a rare place where almost all are united. The consensus runs roughly as follows: carrying any item is not something worthy of being a crime, it is commiting an act that breaches another’s personal autonomy which is a crime. So someone could own an automated shotgun and still be within the law, within the liberatarian’s ideal world, and the only breach would occur when they fired it at another living being (for some libertarians another living being which had not given consent).

Therefore the only appropriate stance for anyone truly of such an ideology would be to declare that Britain’s laws are not to leniant on weaponry carrying but already far too harsh. Why, we have even outlawed handguns!

The genuine libertarian position is one which we can extract some value from: it is correct that not all carrying weaponry have intent to stab others (although cutting themselves is bad enough) and that we should be wary of any law which demands they serve time and gives the judge no leeway. The victims of any “Crack Down” would be likely to include the innocent along with the would-be guilty.

But seemingly both parties have, as they tend to, embraced the worst of statism and the worst of authoritarianism. Of the two at least Labour seem to have decided upon a course which makes some measure to cutting off the problems at their source. The failure of parents is not always the cause of such crimes, as is so often imagined, but in most cases is doubtless a contributory factor. But although their intention is sound and their approach not without merit the details are, as ever, hazy. Who schedules these lessons? Who performs them? Who identifies the traits of a “Problem Family”? How can we be assured that being amongst the “Disruptive young people” will not be a badge of honour?

A more fundamental problem is the dependence upon a peculiarly fierce form of social liberalism. Even Thatcher begrudgingly added “…And their families” onto the end “There are individuals…” during her “No such thing as society” speech and Brown appears to be sticking to roughly these limits. Social liberalism can accept interaction within the confines of domestic life, as can the vague communitarianism espoused uncertainly by various Conservatives, but beyond this it struggles. So Brown blithely disregarding the rest of society rather conflicts with the copious research which suggests that it is formative peer groups, rather than parents, which shape the individual most substantially.

But disregard he must: bad parenting causes problems, educate parents on how to teach their children not to knife people and they will become good parents. Free lessons in something valuable for those in need. It is, at least, a start.

Cameron meanwhile appears to have adopted the standard Tory response of attempting not to get outflanked by an eager Labour Party and took to the pages of the Metro lately to declare that the problem was owing to society. By this, he went on to explain, he meant that those who stabbed or dealt drugs were simply unaware that they were doing wrong. This could be resolved by voting Conservatives at the next election.

And, of course, slashing benefits. Fucking over the poor unable to find work in a crashing economy is unquestionably the way in which to deal with knife crime largely committed by members of the underclass, you see!

He speaks also, entirely off topic, of obesity. He begins well, stating “There are many reasons – by no means all of their own making – why people have bad diets.” but then follows poorly with: “Their neighbourhood, their school, and the choices their parents make all have a huge impact.” Leaving out entirely the corporate muscle which can make far more profit from flogging sugar filled crud than anything worthwhile.

Best of all though is his sketching of all the undesirables that fill the fears of Daily Mail readers minds: the drug addict, the thuggish young ruffian, the irresponsible parent. Are they alienated? Impoverished? In the case of the former simply craving endorphins that the brain is no longer able to produce?

No, according to Dave:

There’s a simple reason for this. It’s because society has become far too sensitive to their feelings.

Yes, if there’s one thing I’ve noted from anyone encountered by a starving plunger-pusher desperate for junk its empathy.

I preffered the Tories as atomists. At that, at least, they were skilled.

Excuse me while I gibber in bafflement for a moment. A homophobe doesn’t want to perform civil partnerships for gay couples on religious grounds - and an employment tribunal says that’s okay. Why? The whole point of civil partnerships is that they’re secular; religion doesn’t come into it.

But, apparently, it does now. The tribunal sets a dangerous precedent with their decision. It’s okay for the religious to discriminate against gays on the grounds of their sexuality, it says - even in secular situations. And it’s not okay to ensure secular functions are carried out if the religious functionary due to carry them out isn’t comfortable. Note that sexuality isn’t often considered a conscious choice. Religion very definitely is.

And, guess what? That’s how the fundies read it too. Quoth Lillian Ladele, the bigot concerned:

“I am delighted at this decision.

“It is a victory for religious liberty, not just for myself but for others in a similar position to mine.

“Gay rights should not be used as an excuse to bully and harass people over their religious beliefs.”

And, of course, selective, homophobic readings of an ancient text should be used as an excuse to bully and harrass people over their sexuality. Ladele claims to have won a victory for liberty; she hasn’t. She’s set a precedent where public servants - who exist to serve the whole public equally, on the basis of need - may discriminate against that public on the grounds of their own irrational prejudices. A victory, in short, for discrimination.

Hadn’t we got past all this?

Quite why am I reading Robespierre? Specifically, his Justification of the Use of Terror. It’s terrifying (hah…):

It has been said that terror is the principle of despotic government. Does your government therefore resemble despotism? Yes, as the sword that gleams in the hands of the heroes of liberty resembles that with which the henchmen of tyranny are armed. Let the despot govern by terror his brutalized subjects; he is right, as a despot. Subdue by terror the enemies of liberty, and you will be right, as founders of the Republic. The government of the revolution is liberty’s despotism against tyranny. Is force made only to protect crime? And is the thunderbolt not destined to strike the heads of the proud?

Emphasis mine. The doublethink inherent here boggles the mind. State-terror is justified should it be directed at enemies of liberty, he cries. That this terror requires a basic negation of liberalism appears beyond him. If some people are legitimate target of oppression, and others are not, then clearly freedom from that oppression cannot be a universal value. If that freedom isn’t a universal value, then we clearly aren’t born equal or free - and so on. Robespierre’s words are those of a tyrant.

They represent an extreme perversion; the enabling state gone bad. He posits that we must rid ourselves of tyrants to be free. True enough. But here he falters, with crashing rhetoric demanding an outright tyranny against tyrants. That requires a universal negation of liberty - and a restoration of tyranny. The enabling state exists to make basic freedoms viable for all. When, in order to create liberty, those basic freedoms are cut off - very literally, in Robespierre’s case - that concept ceases to make sense.

Now, let’s put this arcane rambling into a modern context. Quoth Robespierre:

Society owes protection only to peaceable citizens; the only citizens in the Republic are the republicans. For it, the royalists, the conspirators are only strangers or, rather, enemies. This terrible war waged by liberty against tyranny- is it not indivisible? Are the enemies within not the allies of the enemies without? The assassins who tear our country apart, the intriguers who buy the consciences that hold the people’s mandate; the traitors who sell them; the mercenary pamphleteers hired to dishonour the people’s cause, to kill public virtue, to stir up the fire of civil discord, and to prepare political counterrevolution by moral counterrevolution-are all those men less guilty or less dangerous than the tyrants whom they serve?

Emphasis mine. The same principles abound as before; some are permissible targets for Terror, and so liberty isn’t a universal value. We can kill some of you to make the rest free, and you’d better appreciate it or you’ll be next.

And guess where that logic crops up today? Substitute, “terrorism,” or, “anti-social behaviour,” for, “counterrevolution,” and it becomes clear. The same clear logic of the, “Justification of the Use of Terror,” runs through virtually all modern counter-terrorist thought.

Even the rhetoric matches, give or take the linguistic drift of 214 years and translation. Take that last question - on whether the servants of tyrants are as guilty as those tyrants. Doesn’t that sound just like Bush’s axiom that, “if you feed a terrorist, or fund a terrorist, you are a terrorist?” It’s exactly the same principle; if you’ve any connection with terrorism/counter-revolution, you are a terrorist or counter-revolutionary.

Thus, Melanie Phillip’s, “terrorist nation.”  A wall around the West Bank because Hamas exists there, regardless of the blameless children who also happen to exist there. Because, in this system, they’re not blameless.

And it goes beyond that. The enabling state and the values of positive liberty again become perverted. The 42 Days detention farce serves as the perfect example. Labour claims it protects the basic freedoms of life and liberty by introducing the measures; but effectively jeopardises those basic freedoms by allowing the police to grab a citizen off the street and hide them away for 6 weeks without telling them why. In a perverse twist of illogic whereby liberty becomes tyranny for liberty’s sake, liberty loses. And so do we.

It’s absurd to equate Revolutionary Terror with the present situation. But it’s the same thought that underlies both; freedom must be restricted for its own sake. It’s a perverse step which attacks the real purpose of the Enabling State. Certain intervention can make greater liberty available to all - but not when that liberty is undermined at a basic level. Modern politicians would do well to learn that, or face the consequences of their own petty tyranny.

It doesn’t matter why David Davis resigned. Perhaps it’s the genuinely principled stand I’d like to believe it is; perhaps it’s simply political grandstanding. We’ll very likely never know, and shouldn’t waste much time speculating. What we should do now is use this opportunity, and use it properly.

Whether Davis likes it or not, this will never be a single issue campaign as it is. If Labour runs against the Tories, then it will turn into a campaign of Labour against the Tories, not libertarians against fascist cunts. Davis might want to campaign on the single issue of 42 Days, but is seems unlikely that Labour would let him if they even bother to stand. They don’t want to win the argument on their little piece of state terrorism, and have never wanted to - surely the dodgy doings with the DUP were enough to prove that?

No, they won’t fight on 42 Days. They’ll respond to any arguments Davis puts forward, perhaps - but only that. Otherwise, they’ll run on a full slate of policies, and hope for public apathy on their own liberties compared to the other issues they’ll campaign on to deliver them an increased share of the vote - and trumpet that as a victory in a Tory safe seat. They’ll attack the Tories, ignore the issue of freedom and duck as much that is thrown them as possible. That’d be the case whichever issue Davis ran on, simply because he’s a Tory; the only way you’ll get away with a single issue campaign is to belong to a group founded on that single issue. Shami Chakrabati would get away with it here. Davis won’t, as he’s a member of a national party with a policy platform which it’s now in Labour’s interest to bring up. They’ll would portray it as a cheap partisan trick, and avoid the crucial issue that they themselves are behaving in such a reprehensibly authoritarian fashion that even hardline Thatcherites will vote against them. They’d fail and lose the election because the seat is in the Conservatives’ pocket - but at the same time they’ll try to bury any debate on civil liberties.

We can’t let that happen. Anyone who values their freedom to walk the streets without being swept away into anonymous and unaccountable penury - for that is the precedent this sets - must make their voices heard. Whether you approve of Davis’ decision to resign or not, it’s crucial to act now; he’s resigned, we can’t do anything about that, and must work with what we’ve got. And that’s a potential national debate on civil liberties which the government will attempt to dodge at every opportunity, as it knows it’ll be hammered in a fair fight. They will try to divert the debate, and we must stop them.

So we must make a noise. We must get out there, shout, scream, petition, abuse, argue and campaign on the issue so Labour simply can’t escape. If people in every constituency from every party that values the simple concept of freedom come out and let the government know just how angry they are, then they won’t be able to paint this election as a Punch and Judy sausage fight. And the frequently illiberal Tories (not least Mr. “Gays don’t need rights” Davis…) won’t be able to co-opt the issue, as it’ll be clear everyone except the DUP are furious. Davis will win the by-election, yes - but if everyone makes a noise and makes it clear they’re only supporting him because of what Labour have become, then the Tories won’t take anything from that. If we want to stop the 42 Days legislation, we need to start now, and we need to show that it’s everyone. It’s our last chance.

So fetch the megaphone…

We will be covering the Commons debate and vote on 42 days’ detention without charge. The vote is expected at about 6.00pm.

Opinion polls show a very strong support for 42 day detention without charge.  The public support the move, which is far less controversial in the country than it is in Westminster.  When Gordon Brown decided to fight a battle to look strong, credit must be given that he picked a popular subject.

But MPs are more concerned about civil liberties than the public, and a defense of liberalism is despite not because of the public will.  As many have argued, the population would support the re-introduction of the death penalty, but Parliament cannot stomach it.  A largely London-based clique of politicos and journalistic media types see detention without charge as a moral absolute in a way the rest of the population does not.

It is hideously patronising for people like Liberty’s Shami Chakrabarti to argue that the public are ignorant about liberal issues, but she has a point.  People tend not to care about wrongdoing until they are affected, and are blinded by the argument that “it’s not that bad really…”.  It is good that Parliament can stand against those it represents in order to do as it sees fit, according to conscience.  It is good that Parliament banned state executions, and good that it has defended basic civil liberties despite the authoritarian will of the population.

Some will argue that 42 days is a clear-cut issue: the police want the powers, they will only be used in rare circumstances, and six weeks imprisonment without any accusations made against you is not all that bad really anyway.  Some might cite public opinion on the issue.  It doesn’t make it right, or reasonable, or sensible.

There is a danger that the Westminster Village becomes divorced from the country as a whole.  There is certainly a case to answer for MPs acting without reference to the public mood.  It is clear that Parliament stands up for liberal ideas far more than the population as a whole would like.  There is a risk that people feel separated from their Parliament, and the very real concern here must be considered long and hard.  But it is good that Parliament acts in defiance to the public will on occasion, so long as free and fair elections allow rigorous opportunities for accountability.

It is for MPs to judge next week whether the impact on the lives of those potentially innocent people incarcerated for six weeks for no reason is worth risking for the sake of the potential protection of the population from terrorism.  I do not believe it is, and I hope MPs will make a level-headed judgement and vote against the public will next week.  If they do not, of course, those of us siding with liberalism still have that rigorous accountability available at the next election - and those siding with liberalism, more than any others, know how to keep Parliament accountable.