The success of the West, from the philosophical basis of the free-market, mass literacy, democracy and fundamental freedoms are rooted in the single most important idea in the history of philosophy. This is to be found in the work of Erastus who began the shift away from the medieval world of arbitrary government and dictatorship of free will by theological superstition. He stated in significant contrast to his times that, in simplest terms, it was the state who was the final arbitrator of sin (right and wrong) and not the church. In essence it was for man to reason and decide what the yardsticks of acceptable conduct were. It placed the significantly onerous task of self-responsibility on the human-being and the governments he would create, by giving him the most important freedom of all: Reason. Of course we have struggled with the freedom that reason has given us, and the victory of saving man from the darker parts of himself is far from being won. What is, however, of significant concern in Britain today is how our politics has begun to support the irrational- how the sharper swords of intelligence have given way to emotion, and how emotion has confounded both common-sense and sensibility.
The clearest example of the Erastian yard-stick in a democracy is the level of detailed debate that politicians are capable of delivering, and the public are capable of engaging in, during an election. In the 2010 UK General Election, the Erastian short-comings lay with the leaders not the people. The critical signs of politics being rules by emotion rather than intelligence were the following issues raised to the national agenda: Climate Change (ruled by scientific consensus, not fact); International Development (ruled by the emotion of charity not by the propagation of the ideal of self-responsibility. In any event, ludicrous in a time of significant budget-deficit); Equality espoused by the Conservatives (not understanding that this is the right to prevent others from doing better than oneself); Social mobility (not appreciating that one needs a very large state apparatus to do this, the cost of which is in unaffordable, and that it advocates the abdication of self-responsibility at its very core); multi-culturalism and diversity (words that will lead first to the destruction of identity, and, following from this, of the nation state). (That the link between the word 'diversity' and the words: 'diversification', 'alienation', 'separation' and 'segregation' leading to a lack of social cohesion are not seen by the media is quite surprising).
We have come to difficult waters in the UK. Unless we are willing to speak the supposedly unspeakable, our heritage will be lost and with it our sense of nationhood. Courage is needed, as well as the strength to frown upon and despise cowardice when the spirit of 'Reason' is at threat in public debate. I recall a splendid passage in Heffer’s majestic biography of Enoch Powell. Powell attended a meeting of the Conservative One Nation group in 1950, where the odious Heath and the mercurial Macleod were present. Powell stated unequivocally, ‘that there was no such thing as social justice’. It was crystal clear then to him, as it should be now to all of us, that such a concept simply cannot be compatible with a meritocracy. Further, that without meritocracy one cannot get competition and a free-market based democracy. So what does the Conservative Party do when unable, due to post 1997 emasculation, to intellectually defeat Blair’s egalitarian (the opposite of merit) social justice model? It allows a former abysmal Party leader, Duncan-Smith to form ‘the Centre for Social Justice’ and use it as a back-bone for Conservative Party policy-making. The ghosts of the concrete socialists; Cripps, Gaitskell and Dalton; all laugh from their graves.
Cameron has wonderfully started off this coalition with a unique duplicity of moral vision. He proposed the 55% vote entrenchment of his Government for a fixed term to shore up the failings of the Conservative Manifesto in not getting a workable number of seats. He must have been reading a biography of Robert Mugabe when he thought of this. He then has the sheer idiocy to say that David Laws is ‘a good and honourable man’ for stealing £40,000 of tax-payers money for the character flaw of insecurity. Yes Laws stole because he was obsessed with what people thought of him. And as Cameron's PR experience informs him, it is right, just and 'honourable' to be concerned of public perception, so much so that it great that one can admit this publicly. It so evidently, so Reasonably, offers a valid excuse to wrongdoing. This is a leader who has little grasp of logic, and one whom massaging public relations- from whatever rationality, is more important than thinking through the rationality of so doing. It is thus clear that from manifesto to politics in practice that the Conservative Party will offer very little different, expenses included, from New Labour.
The staring road to reason is to talk about the very issues that lay at the heart of Britain’s problems. It is to speak the unspeakable, the impalatable, that which is most difficult to stomach. It is to reason things through. To not do as Duncan-Smith did, spend thousands of pounds in a centre for social justice, delivering a paper on social mobility that does not deal with skills training or employment building. It is to understand that a clear figure, a cap, is needed to put immigration under control to preserve our heritage and identity. To road to reason and honesty is to admit that multi-culturalism was responsible for the 7/7 attacks and British born youths fighting against the armed forces in Afghanistan. Unfortunately on the present course the Erastian spirit is far from our political agenda. Without reason we could not have had created the modern world, and we can only have a democracy which comprises banter based on fear, control based on spin and PR, and emotion. On our current course, despairingly, common-sense will be spoken in the impossible climate after lunacy has taken grip. If we are not already there…
Copyright Abhijit P.G Pandya 2010
Copyright Birkenhead Society 2010
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
Monday, 31 May 2010
Irresponsible international relations prejudging Israel over the gaza flotilla.
In international law, it is up to a state to police its internal waters as they are a part of its territory. Furthermore, by extension in international law states can act, at their discretion to police incoming vessels. Where a vessel continues on its path into a state, a state can legitimately use force. This is a similar rule to the right of hot-pursuit where states can sink ships that leave their internal waters where there is a (subjective) possibility of a threat or crime regarding their sovereignty (see Professor Malcolm Shaw's colossal work on International Law, 5th Ed, p.549). The real concern for international relations is not Israel's act, but the reaction of several states and non-state entities before the facts came to light. A classic example of this is the Egyptian President's uttering that Israel, 'had excessively used force'. How he can ascertain what is excess without any regard to the nature of the incident or the threat posed by the ship is really quite astonishing. This is important as there is a generic international paranoia leading to prejudice every time Israel is involved in an incident using military force out of the confines of its territory. Peace is never achievable when minds are gorged with passions and prejudice. Often the first step towards peaceful relations is realising when passions and prejudices begin and reason ends. Understanding that boundary and erring on the side of reason and caution will lead to a far safer and harmonious world. That this is not realised as demonstrated by the reactions of states means that international public order (accord between states) is on slippery footing. Historically, the international community is in serious trouble where leaders of states throw logic out of the window and breathe only on the emotion in the air. These statements are indicative of the gap in maturity in international relations that needs to be overcome, before any progress can be made. My concern is that these statements were made before any of the facts were raised. Thus they are reflective of predetermined positions on Israel, or in simpler words: Prejudice. Thus the Russians claimed - 'a violation of international law by Israel', where it is quite feasible that the law is on the side of Israel.
Iran - 'this is maritime terrorism', despite the fact that the states have a right to protect their internal waters and a right to determine who comes into their territory. Far worse is the following language used immediately after the incident by the following: The Turkish Prime Minister stating that 'this is state terrorism', whatever that means. Hezbollah - 'a premeditated crime against humanity'. Hamas - 'Muslims must now rise up'. PLO Abbas - 'this was a massacre'. What these latter entities should have done is followed the more mature approach that the U.S. took regarding the incident, which was a simple statement which focused on the most important issue: 'the regret at the loss of life'. It seems clear to the undergraduate law student that several of the above mentioned statements were taken without due advice on the law or on the limits of the state action. This is not a responsible approach to international relations that bodes well for the future of international public order. The worst statement of all, perhaps, came from William Hague. Hague stated that Israel, had 'unacceptably blockaded Gaza'. This is nonsense as Israel has every right to blockade access to Gaza, as Gaza is not a land-locked state covered by international law. This is frightening because the Foreign Office in the UK has one of the most astounding international lawyers around working for them, Daniel Bethlehem QC who would, if no doubt consulted, given Hague advice to the contrary. If a country like UK, well equipped with lawyers at the tax payers expense can't get this right, then there is little hope of decent UK leadership in the Security Council on this and the other issues relating to international security.
Hague is setting a woeful example to the rest of the world. A wise adage of 'the greater the possibility of outrage, more tempered recourse to vocality' needs to be followed.
Copyright Abhijit P.G. Pandya 2010
Copyright Birkenhead Society 2010
Copyright Abhijit P.G. Pandya 2010
Copyright Birkenhead Society 2010
Monday, 17 May 2010
Why we should leave the EU- The simple and forgotten truth of its redundancy, and a worrying future ahead.
The purpose of entering into an international institutional arrangement by a state is rarely gratuitous. As all serious international relations scholars know, they do not exist to ‘preserve peace’- that is phrase is simply a selling term for a portion of the public. Rather, the purpose of an international institution is to further a nation’s foreign economic policy and foreign affairs strategy. A rarely recalled or argued position nowadays is why Britain had an obsession to fight De Gaulle’s veto on its membership of the European Economic Community in the 1960s. The crucial answer is that this was a part of trans-Atlantic policy on cold war containment of communism. That case is no longer existing; an economic union is not required to promote capitalist growth in a world of conflicting ideologies. Furthermore, global trade tariffs between states have decreased significantly since the Second World War, from around an average of 12% to over 2% today. Unfortunately for the UK's past foreign economic strategists the most significant reduction in tariffs occurred in 1973 when the Tokyo round of trade negotiations came to an end. This was just after the UK's accession to the EEC. The EU has now become almost redundant mechanism for advocating free-trade, on the contrary its regional protectionism is working the other way.
In contrast to the ideological containment from communism granted by the EEC in the 1960s and 1970s, the flow of socialism today is coming the other way: from within Europe. The Lisbon Treaty is expressly predicated on social market economics (Article 2(3)), though the implications of this are lost on the current cadre of British Conservative politicians. Priority emphasis on social policy by the US Congress was a key strategy in centralising and increasing the power of the US Federation between 1936 to 1976. More significantly, one of the key factors that made nation states successful were their ability to control the public and private divide, and the distinction between the state and the market. For some international relations scholars this is the key attribute of the nation state, and it is wholly waived away with the consent given to Europe to create a social market and thus decide where this delineation is to be made. Though we consented through referendum to an internal market in 1975, there was never a contract, so to speak, between the British people and its Government to handover such a significant policy making role to an external institution. The power that this provision alone grants to the European Commission on economic matters and the clear mandate it gives to a federal project has been underestimated by the House of Commons in 2009 where there was no motion for referendum. Further, it changes the nature of those who support the EU. Those who were pro-membership of the common-market, must now re-think their position as to whether they want welfare and economic matters to be conducted at the European level. In blunt terms one can no longer be pro-common market without also being a Federalist.
Unfortunately, the current political leadership of the UK was educated in period of British history when there was a dominance of an uncritical approach of the raison d’etre of the nation state in University education that was primarily motivated by the 1960s revolt against a virtuous and rightly puritanical imperial conceptualisation of Britannia. The result today is a generation that, though has shed its historic identity built over centuries, has not found an equivalent ideology from which to defend the nation state. This is why the importance of Lisbon, and then the corollary importance of holding a referendum is lost on them. Without being able to conceptualise the historical importance of creating nation states those currently in Government cannot simply make the simple deduction that Britain after three hundred years of Unionism is not in the same position as California entering into the US Republic in 1850. Alas, the future does not bode any better- Nowhere today in the education of a British child from the age of 3 years to 16 is the history and purpose of the nation state found. Particularly the invaluable lesson of the importance of the British nation state to act as a bulwark against anti-liberal ideologues in recent history is not made, let alone Britain’s contribution to the current global blooming of democracy. Instead paltry school teachers constantly confuse basic terms such as ‘nation’ and ‘nationalism’, the latter unfairly dominated in its characterization by post Weimar Germany. The significance of this is not just that Britain, through those who Govern it, will accept Lisbon- but those will Govern it in the future are just as likely to accept a Federal European structure through the same causal problem of ‘denationalisation’ in education being as likely to be endemic in the next decade as in the previous few.
Lisbon of course is an extraordinary treaty. To take a few examples: one could read thousands of international treaties and not come across one that proclaims that states have the right to denounce it. Yet Article 50 of Lisbon does just that, making the most crucial matter of national sovereignty delineable on the international sphere. Article 67(2) of the Treaty ensures that immigration policy in the future is no longer to be conducted at the national level. In no previous European treaty was there a provision that permitted the Commission to make uniform laws for all member states on any matters it sees fit, yet that appears in Article 114 (1) of Lisbon- a basic supremacy clause, unlimited undefined over national legislature. At the time of writing, it is extraordinary that no British journalist has seen the implications of this provision or made an appropriate hue and cry. In the 2010 General Election, no major political party explained this to the electorate. When Cameron hollowly cried change, how little his voters new that this is soon to be coming in an enormous way, but necessarily from the source they might expect.
At present, Cameron is certainly the wrong leader for a critical approach to European polity. His own politics has brought the Conservative Party closest to a French Republic egalitarian model than any time in its previous history. The media point out how much of the centre ground Cameron’s conservatism has taken; how odd that the more painful and important reality is how much closer to the centre ground he would be in the European Parliament, dominated by social democrats, if it was reflective of national polity. On this reading, his embracing of the social market model is such, that one can no longer make the case that Edmund Burke, the truest blue theorist of all time, could really be the progenitor of the current Conservative party. By not making a case for the nation state coupled with a referendum, Cameron also demonstrates that he does not have a subtle grasp of real-politick on the international sphere. He has failed to concretely grasp that international relations is meaningless without a nation, and that a nation amounts to very little without legislative sovereignty. When Foreign Policy is conducted regionally on the European level it may finally come home, to those who were prescient, that the nation state is finally dead. Lisbon has opened the door to this with the crucial and broadly drafted new Article 22(1). The critical point comes not with further erosion of Sovereignty, as awful as that is from the perspective of democratic legitimacy, but where European Governance determines when one can and cannot enter into international obligations- this is the point when independence ends and complete dependence and subjugation begins. Lisbon is making that door already: Where national defence objectives do not meet the common defence interests of member states, Title V Chapter 1 provisions in Lisbon would defer to an international approach. This generic approach is not a good omen for the future positioning of Britain in Europe or in the on-coming new World order where China will be a dominant player. Nor there is an argument of how the European Council will or could come to an agreement over what are ‘common security matters’, the system of Lisbon is only at present predicated on disenfranchising national political discourse on foreign policy from the supra-national level.
With such features in the Lisbon treaty it must be asked in all seriousness to maintain legitimacy of the European project in Britain, that the very least the British people deserve is a neutral source such as a Royal Commission explaining to them what Lisbon involves. Then only can they make an informed and valid choice at the next election.
Copyright Abhijit P.G. Pandya
Copyright Birkenhead Society 2010.
In contrast to the ideological containment from communism granted by the EEC in the 1960s and 1970s, the flow of socialism today is coming the other way: from within Europe. The Lisbon Treaty is expressly predicated on social market economics (Article 2(3)), though the implications of this are lost on the current cadre of British Conservative politicians. Priority emphasis on social policy by the US Congress was a key strategy in centralising and increasing the power of the US Federation between 1936 to 1976. More significantly, one of the key factors that made nation states successful were their ability to control the public and private divide, and the distinction between the state and the market. For some international relations scholars this is the key attribute of the nation state, and it is wholly waived away with the consent given to Europe to create a social market and thus decide where this delineation is to be made. Though we consented through referendum to an internal market in 1975, there was never a contract, so to speak, between the British people and its Government to handover such a significant policy making role to an external institution. The power that this provision alone grants to the European Commission on economic matters and the clear mandate it gives to a federal project has been underestimated by the House of Commons in 2009 where there was no motion for referendum. Further, it changes the nature of those who support the EU. Those who were pro-membership of the common-market, must now re-think their position as to whether they want welfare and economic matters to be conducted at the European level. In blunt terms one can no longer be pro-common market without also being a Federalist.
Unfortunately, the current political leadership of the UK was educated in period of British history when there was a dominance of an uncritical approach of the raison d’etre of the nation state in University education that was primarily motivated by the 1960s revolt against a virtuous and rightly puritanical imperial conceptualisation of Britannia. The result today is a generation that, though has shed its historic identity built over centuries, has not found an equivalent ideology from which to defend the nation state. This is why the importance of Lisbon, and then the corollary importance of holding a referendum is lost on them. Without being able to conceptualise the historical importance of creating nation states those currently in Government cannot simply make the simple deduction that Britain after three hundred years of Unionism is not in the same position as California entering into the US Republic in 1850. Alas, the future does not bode any better- Nowhere today in the education of a British child from the age of 3 years to 16 is the history and purpose of the nation state found. Particularly the invaluable lesson of the importance of the British nation state to act as a bulwark against anti-liberal ideologues in recent history is not made, let alone Britain’s contribution to the current global blooming of democracy. Instead paltry school teachers constantly confuse basic terms such as ‘nation’ and ‘nationalism’, the latter unfairly dominated in its characterization by post Weimar Germany. The significance of this is not just that Britain, through those who Govern it, will accept Lisbon- but those will Govern it in the future are just as likely to accept a Federal European structure through the same causal problem of ‘denationalisation’ in education being as likely to be endemic in the next decade as in the previous few.
Lisbon of course is an extraordinary treaty. To take a few examples: one could read thousands of international treaties and not come across one that proclaims that states have the right to denounce it. Yet Article 50 of Lisbon does just that, making the most crucial matter of national sovereignty delineable on the international sphere. Article 67(2) of the Treaty ensures that immigration policy in the future is no longer to be conducted at the national level. In no previous European treaty was there a provision that permitted the Commission to make uniform laws for all member states on any matters it sees fit, yet that appears in Article 114 (1) of Lisbon- a basic supremacy clause, unlimited undefined over national legislature. At the time of writing, it is extraordinary that no British journalist has seen the implications of this provision or made an appropriate hue and cry. In the 2010 General Election, no major political party explained this to the electorate. When Cameron hollowly cried change, how little his voters new that this is soon to be coming in an enormous way, but necessarily from the source they might expect.
At present, Cameron is certainly the wrong leader for a critical approach to European polity. His own politics has brought the Conservative Party closest to a French Republic egalitarian model than any time in its previous history. The media point out how much of the centre ground Cameron’s conservatism has taken; how odd that the more painful and important reality is how much closer to the centre ground he would be in the European Parliament, dominated by social democrats, if it was reflective of national polity. On this reading, his embracing of the social market model is such, that one can no longer make the case that Edmund Burke, the truest blue theorist of all time, could really be the progenitor of the current Conservative party. By not making a case for the nation state coupled with a referendum, Cameron also demonstrates that he does not have a subtle grasp of real-politick on the international sphere. He has failed to concretely grasp that international relations is meaningless without a nation, and that a nation amounts to very little without legislative sovereignty. When Foreign Policy is conducted regionally on the European level it may finally come home, to those who were prescient, that the nation state is finally dead. Lisbon has opened the door to this with the crucial and broadly drafted new Article 22(1). The critical point comes not with further erosion of Sovereignty, as awful as that is from the perspective of democratic legitimacy, but where European Governance determines when one can and cannot enter into international obligations- this is the point when independence ends and complete dependence and subjugation begins. Lisbon is making that door already: Where national defence objectives do not meet the common defence interests of member states, Title V Chapter 1 provisions in Lisbon would defer to an international approach. This generic approach is not a good omen for the future positioning of Britain in Europe or in the on-coming new World order where China will be a dominant player. Nor there is an argument of how the European Council will or could come to an agreement over what are ‘common security matters’, the system of Lisbon is only at present predicated on disenfranchising national political discourse on foreign policy from the supra-national level.
With such features in the Lisbon treaty it must be asked in all seriousness to maintain legitimacy of the European project in Britain, that the very least the British people deserve is a neutral source such as a Royal Commission explaining to them what Lisbon involves. Then only can they make an informed and valid choice at the next election.
Copyright Abhijit P.G. Pandya
Copyright Birkenhead Society 2010.
Saturday, 13 February 2010
Why the human rights lawyers are the ‘true anti-liberals’.
The European Convention on Human Rights is a unique hypocrisy amongst
Instruments claiming to protect liberty. For all the supposed liberties it grants (which reflect select values of a few lawyers and civil servants and not the people of Europe that its title grandiosely seems to claim), it allows the state to define circumstances in which to take them away. But it is more than this, in classic ‘anti-liberal’ spirit, the Convention also defines the limits of the right through the exercise of the provisos upon which it can be used.
The nature of rights is to have an unlimited number of claims against the state. That it is the duty of the state to provide for them, irrespective of the merit of the individual bringing forward the claim. One sees in its most primitive political form as the bogus: ‘all men are equal’ doctrine. For the claimants it is conveniently forgotten that the state is really the public personified. The human rights brigade forget that with every claim there is a burden and a cost. The only way these claims are to be met is by increasing the size of the state to meet those demands. This reduces the choice of what those that do not want rights in the machinery of Government. For example, the right to housing is a burden of tax. The right to privacy will encumber some other legitimate claim to information, and so on. This is the inherent ‘anti-liberalism’ of the claim.
In the true John Stuart Mill sense of liberalism, a right cannot legitimately exist if it is a burden to others. Otherwise one is simply claiming the right to swing one’s fist despite punching others on the nose. Secondly, Mills tells us that a right cannot be espoused in the spirit of liberty unless it can manifest through legitimate state action that prevents its exercise interfering with others. The one proviso is ‘harm’. As far as the European Convention is concerned it is for the Government in question to define harm. However, this cannot be a liberal reading of the concept of a right. The liberal reading must be that the right exists 'unrestrictedly unless it is exercised harmfully'. Otherwise state action could define the limits to exercising the right, before the right is exercised. This is exactly what, however, the growing European Human Rights law does.
Now to demonstrate how the claims machine works in practice, look no further than the tragic case of Gita Saghal. Gita was sacked by Amnesty international for criticizing its pro-terrorist approach to rights claims. But of course she was, this sits in with the ‘anti-liberal’ approach: rights must be for all irrespective of duty, conduct and demonstrable vindication of obligation to one’s fellow man. Worryingly of all for the state is the more subtle espousal of immoral greed of human action without responsibility that this conceptualisation of rights espouses. Taken to its extreme it leads not only to anarchy in practice when these claims remain unfulfilled, but anarchy in theory when the state is seen as secondary to any individual interest. Therein lies its potential to destroy the equilibrium of society, through its imbalance of the economy of public policy. To echo the words of Thomas Paine, it is better to have no rights and a state, rather than the other way around, as in the latter there is no rule of law.
Lawyers and Governments that seek vindication of these political choices through the legal system, do so at the cost of politicizing the judiciary and weakening it through allowing it to infringe the separation of powers. This reduces the legitimacy of the judiciary in the eyes of the public, undermining the rule of law.
Another spurious logic fostered by the human rights vigilantes is the overall benefit doctrine. E.g. Signing up to rights can be likened to telling a taxi driver that he is better off being restricted in his trade through licencing, as the safety that licencing brings increases the trade. Unfortunately it does not, as once the cost burden outweighs the incentive to trade, there is, well simply: no trade. In this way one persons unrestricted right can cause harm to others (e.g. my right to cross-roads safely, against the number of drops a cab can make). The problem arises when one argues polar opposites of this example, the subtle balancing act that is needed to preserve liberty, is lost as the proverbial baby with the bath water.
Abhijit PG Pandya
Copyright Birkenhead Society.
Instruments claiming to protect liberty. For all the supposed liberties it grants (which reflect select values of a few lawyers and civil servants and not the people of Europe that its title grandiosely seems to claim), it allows the state to define circumstances in which to take them away. But it is more than this, in classic ‘anti-liberal’ spirit, the Convention also defines the limits of the right through the exercise of the provisos upon which it can be used.
The nature of rights is to have an unlimited number of claims against the state. That it is the duty of the state to provide for them, irrespective of the merit of the individual bringing forward the claim. One sees in its most primitive political form as the bogus: ‘all men are equal’ doctrine. For the claimants it is conveniently forgotten that the state is really the public personified. The human rights brigade forget that with every claim there is a burden and a cost. The only way these claims are to be met is by increasing the size of the state to meet those demands. This reduces the choice of what those that do not want rights in the machinery of Government. For example, the right to housing is a burden of tax. The right to privacy will encumber some other legitimate claim to information, and so on. This is the inherent ‘anti-liberalism’ of the claim.
In the true John Stuart Mill sense of liberalism, a right cannot legitimately exist if it is a burden to others. Otherwise one is simply claiming the right to swing one’s fist despite punching others on the nose. Secondly, Mills tells us that a right cannot be espoused in the spirit of liberty unless it can manifest through legitimate state action that prevents its exercise interfering with others. The one proviso is ‘harm’. As far as the European Convention is concerned it is for the Government in question to define harm. However, this cannot be a liberal reading of the concept of a right. The liberal reading must be that the right exists 'unrestrictedly unless it is exercised harmfully'. Otherwise state action could define the limits to exercising the right, before the right is exercised. This is exactly what, however, the growing European Human Rights law does.
Now to demonstrate how the claims machine works in practice, look no further than the tragic case of Gita Saghal. Gita was sacked by Amnesty international for criticizing its pro-terrorist approach to rights claims. But of course she was, this sits in with the ‘anti-liberal’ approach: rights must be for all irrespective of duty, conduct and demonstrable vindication of obligation to one’s fellow man. Worryingly of all for the state is the more subtle espousal of immoral greed of human action without responsibility that this conceptualisation of rights espouses. Taken to its extreme it leads not only to anarchy in practice when these claims remain unfulfilled, but anarchy in theory when the state is seen as secondary to any individual interest. Therein lies its potential to destroy the equilibrium of society, through its imbalance of the economy of public policy. To echo the words of Thomas Paine, it is better to have no rights and a state, rather than the other way around, as in the latter there is no rule of law.
Lawyers and Governments that seek vindication of these political choices through the legal system, do so at the cost of politicizing the judiciary and weakening it through allowing it to infringe the separation of powers. This reduces the legitimacy of the judiciary in the eyes of the public, undermining the rule of law.
Another spurious logic fostered by the human rights vigilantes is the overall benefit doctrine. E.g. Signing up to rights can be likened to telling a taxi driver that he is better off being restricted in his trade through licencing, as the safety that licencing brings increases the trade. Unfortunately it does not, as once the cost burden outweighs the incentive to trade, there is, well simply: no trade. In this way one persons unrestricted right can cause harm to others (e.g. my right to cross-roads safely, against the number of drops a cab can make). The problem arises when one argues polar opposites of this example, the subtle balancing act that is needed to preserve liberty, is lost as the proverbial baby with the bath water.
Abhijit PG Pandya
Copyright Birkenhead Society.
Saturday, 12 December 2009
Climate Change- The Beginning of decline and fall, and the end of the Enlightenment in British Parliamentary Politics.
Waugh’s quintessential novel depicts the down-ward spiral of the life of Mr. Pennyfeather who, having left behind common-sense at University, is marred with the frustrations of tutoring at a minor Public School. Though the novel principally flagellated and marred the minor Public School into the English psyche, its plot is a tempting metaphor for the effects of the current debates on climate change upon British politics.
Climate change is fascinating and disturbing for one clear reason: it reflects the fantastical, fanatical and dangerous truth that bottom-up politics still exists. That the media are the true purveyors of the public’s opinions and that their vintage liquor can not only immediately affect political discourse, but also vehemently soak through the agenda of policy. Take a step back from the rows over whether a particular approach or empirical outcome is veracious and deliberate over the overall methodology used to promote the debate. The first overreaching of reason is the following logic, expressed in general terms: That there does not need certain proof of a matter for it to take up Government time, and resource. Secondly, that it is now possible to contend that the greater the supposed harm of an issue, the more the requirement certainty of empirical proof can be over-reached. Taken to its logical conclusion, we enter into a new primitive approach to political agenda setting- namely that the more ‘hue and cry’ and ‘hyperventilation’ over an issue to which there is a supposed general, undefined harm, the greater the priority that issue should take. The fundamental risk this leaves us with is to undermine the very requirement of political agenda setting, and to falsely prioritise one or more issues over others, leaving important matters of Parliamentary consideration at the bottom of the heap. The Victorians tried very hard to iron this ‘shout and leap’ approach out of Parliamentary debates; though, one would concede, with mixed success. Note this following reflective passage in Anthony Trollope's 'The Prime Minister' concerning the debates regarding Irish home rule: 'Had some inscrutable decree of fate ordained and made it certain,- with a certainty not to be disturbed, that- no candidate could be returned to Parliament who would not assert the earth to be triangular, there would rise immediately a clamorous assertion of triangularity amongst political aspirants. The test would be an innocent one- candidates have swallowed and do swallow many a worse one'. A persistent Westminster problem that had to be overcome was that the more emotion an issue caused the more time it would take up in the house. This is where acute reason, one that does not seek harmony or concord on an issue to further expediency over legitimacy, is needed. I for one, (and this maybe an immense failing of mine) cannot recall a debate over legitimacy of this issue with respect to overall policy agenda. If this has occurred, then it is surprising to me that those who see questioning the validity of the issue do not raise this in counter-argument.
That man has an impact on his climate is by no means clear. Further, that man has ‘detrimental’ impact is no means clear, particularly as the word ‘detrimental’ here is primarily anthrocentric- yes life on this planet would not necessarily continue with respect to man, it not being implausible that some obscure aquatic specie might not benefit from supposed man made climatic changes. Then there are general arguments, sociological, not scientific that are ignored- society as it stands would have to change. It is not as if this would not happen anyway, but there is a strangely Delphic presumption that this would be harmful. What is and is not ‘harmful’ is not necessarily important to qualify, mere change to common behaviour and contemporaneous societal customs is enough. One could go one with the various oversimplifications and assumptions that lie in the heart of presuming the issue once the debate moves beyond science. Another key one that has been overlooked is the weakness of scientific methodology itself. That statistics fuelled scientific research is by its nature empirically questionable, that when one demonstrates a trend one has to, importantly, demonstrate the non-existence of a counter-trend. This latter issue is not placed at the heart of the debate, because it has not had to be as the agenda is set and the legitimacy of the issue is assumed. Thus the approach of presumption makes it harder, not easier, to vindicate any truth in the argument in the long-run. One obvious solution might be is to have a separate Parliamentary committee or body where the skeptics can put their own papers forward. Perhaps, only such an approach is fair and democratic.
APG Pandya
Copyright Birkenhead Society.
Climate change is fascinating and disturbing for one clear reason: it reflects the fantastical, fanatical and dangerous truth that bottom-up politics still exists. That the media are the true purveyors of the public’s opinions and that their vintage liquor can not only immediately affect political discourse, but also vehemently soak through the agenda of policy. Take a step back from the rows over whether a particular approach or empirical outcome is veracious and deliberate over the overall methodology used to promote the debate. The first overreaching of reason is the following logic, expressed in general terms: That there does not need certain proof of a matter for it to take up Government time, and resource. Secondly, that it is now possible to contend that the greater the supposed harm of an issue, the more the requirement certainty of empirical proof can be over-reached. Taken to its logical conclusion, we enter into a new primitive approach to political agenda setting- namely that the more ‘hue and cry’ and ‘hyperventilation’ over an issue to which there is a supposed general, undefined harm, the greater the priority that issue should take. The fundamental risk this leaves us with is to undermine the very requirement of political agenda setting, and to falsely prioritise one or more issues over others, leaving important matters of Parliamentary consideration at the bottom of the heap. The Victorians tried very hard to iron this ‘shout and leap’ approach out of Parliamentary debates; though, one would concede, with mixed success. Note this following reflective passage in Anthony Trollope's 'The Prime Minister' concerning the debates regarding Irish home rule: 'Had some inscrutable decree of fate ordained and made it certain,- with a certainty not to be disturbed, that- no candidate could be returned to Parliament who would not assert the earth to be triangular, there would rise immediately a clamorous assertion of triangularity amongst political aspirants. The test would be an innocent one- candidates have swallowed and do swallow many a worse one'. A persistent Westminster problem that had to be overcome was that the more emotion an issue caused the more time it would take up in the house. This is where acute reason, one that does not seek harmony or concord on an issue to further expediency over legitimacy, is needed. I for one, (and this maybe an immense failing of mine) cannot recall a debate over legitimacy of this issue with respect to overall policy agenda. If this has occurred, then it is surprising to me that those who see questioning the validity of the issue do not raise this in counter-argument.
That man has an impact on his climate is by no means clear. Further, that man has ‘detrimental’ impact is no means clear, particularly as the word ‘detrimental’ here is primarily anthrocentric- yes life on this planet would not necessarily continue with respect to man, it not being implausible that some obscure aquatic specie might not benefit from supposed man made climatic changes. Then there are general arguments, sociological, not scientific that are ignored- society as it stands would have to change. It is not as if this would not happen anyway, but there is a strangely Delphic presumption that this would be harmful. What is and is not ‘harmful’ is not necessarily important to qualify, mere change to common behaviour and contemporaneous societal customs is enough. One could go one with the various oversimplifications and assumptions that lie in the heart of presuming the issue once the debate moves beyond science. Another key one that has been overlooked is the weakness of scientific methodology itself. That statistics fuelled scientific research is by its nature empirically questionable, that when one demonstrates a trend one has to, importantly, demonstrate the non-existence of a counter-trend. This latter issue is not placed at the heart of the debate, because it has not had to be as the agenda is set and the legitimacy of the issue is assumed. Thus the approach of presumption makes it harder, not easier, to vindicate any truth in the argument in the long-run. One obvious solution might be is to have a separate Parliamentary committee or body where the skeptics can put their own papers forward. Perhaps, only such an approach is fair and democratic.
APG Pandya
Copyright Birkenhead Society.
Friday, 11 December 2009
Revival of old Economic Theory to match these uncertain times is needed:
Labour has fluncked Britain’s economy, as much as Britain’s economy has flunked itself. The Government of course is only to blame if the huge rise in public spending, is related to the lack of credit in the markets. The link would have been clear to even the most disgruntled, asinine of economists twenty years ago: multiple raising of taxation, to slowly and surely dry the credit swamp. And credit swamp it was. When rebranded old-Labour first came into power in 1997 the economy was in a period of growth and there was a steady increase in working capital in the country to allow for a slow expansion of the market.
The problem today resulted from an acute ideological short-coming in the New Labour propoundment of the mythology of a socialist brand of commerce. In simple terms: that whilst Blair was pretending to show he loved business, his Party had never truly signed up to free-market ideology. It forgot about the premise of low taxation and more importantly that this premise should run through all areas of policy making and Government function. Au contraire, Labour’s post 1997 strategy was in tight fitting with much of its traditional socialist economic position: (i) tax and spend and (ii) oppose the free-market with increased cost associated regulation. The Tories, however, doing well in the polls are missing a trick here. Whilst current Shadow Treasury focus is to emphasise the deficit, and thus lay the ground for an agenda of cuts (which both mainstream parties have now conceded), they are not taking the opportunity to bring back free-market ideologues into the current economic discourse. It should be made clear to the City that Friedman style approaches to fiscal policy that resulted in an overall paradigm of growth in the 80s and 90s, shall once more become the mainstream- and there shall be a gradual claw-back of taxation on all fronts. Basic macro-economics will show a relationship between taxing the end of any line of consumption and the primary producer of credit: thus cutting tax on all fronts for a member of the public or corporations, will assist the lenders and the market as a whole. Excessive critiques of bankers should also be curtailed: the modern economy is credit based, and in large parts credit driven. Bankers are thus one of the cornerstone and first foundation stones of our economy. They turn its first wheel. We could do more than reflect on whether the fault lies with them or, more truly, with New Labour. As long as we have our modern economy and society, we will need them and their revival will be, in both short and medium term, the path to our economic recovery.
APG Pandya
Copyright Birkenhead Society.
The problem today resulted from an acute ideological short-coming in the New Labour propoundment of the mythology of a socialist brand of commerce. In simple terms: that whilst Blair was pretending to show he loved business, his Party had never truly signed up to free-market ideology. It forgot about the premise of low taxation and more importantly that this premise should run through all areas of policy making and Government function. Au contraire, Labour’s post 1997 strategy was in tight fitting with much of its traditional socialist economic position: (i) tax and spend and (ii) oppose the free-market with increased cost associated regulation. The Tories, however, doing well in the polls are missing a trick here. Whilst current Shadow Treasury focus is to emphasise the deficit, and thus lay the ground for an agenda of cuts (which both mainstream parties have now conceded), they are not taking the opportunity to bring back free-market ideologues into the current economic discourse. It should be made clear to the City that Friedman style approaches to fiscal policy that resulted in an overall paradigm of growth in the 80s and 90s, shall once more become the mainstream- and there shall be a gradual claw-back of taxation on all fronts. Basic macro-economics will show a relationship between taxing the end of any line of consumption and the primary producer of credit: thus cutting tax on all fronts for a member of the public or corporations, will assist the lenders and the market as a whole. Excessive critiques of bankers should also be curtailed: the modern economy is credit based, and in large parts credit driven. Bankers are thus one of the cornerstone and first foundation stones of our economy. They turn its first wheel. We could do more than reflect on whether the fault lies with them or, more truly, with New Labour. As long as we have our modern economy and society, we will need them and their revival will be, in both short and medium term, the path to our economic recovery.
APG Pandya
Copyright Birkenhead Society.
Sunday, 15 November 2009
Effective Border Controls Could Protect our culture:
Since Labour came into power in 1997 immigration has reached unprecedented levels, incomparable to any figure in recent centuries. The Times recently reported that Labour had deliberately told immigration officials to overlook borderline migrant cases (Minette Marrin 01/11/09). This insidious approach was also an abrogation of duty; there were several thousand unemployed in Britain that may have lost job opportunities or the resources to create businesses (such as credit). It is hardly surprising that so many of those struggling to get on the social ladder voted for the BNP in the European Elections this year.
However, Immigration Controls are not just there to prevent resources, but also to protect culture. To protect our culture rates of assimilation are relevant. The post Enlightenment rational approach to society, education and politick is not only uniquely Western, but is more uniquely British. Victorian liberal values of toleration, including not censoring speech that others might want to hear because of selfish sensitivities, took time to absorb and become main-stream social norms. The idea of free-discussion for national interest in politics that formed the key to Parliamentary democracy, was of course first developed in Britain as a result of post-reformation progress based on individual reason. British culture, which is intrinsically humanist, is not everyone’s cup of tea. It is a product of a rare formation of a myriad of factors that makes it difficult for any foreigner to digest. Few that arrive will pick up copies of Macaulay, Dryden or any abridged account of our culture. Often it is not just the comparative poor literacy amongst migrants that is the issue, but rather their cultural traditions, based often in superstition, that are incompatible with the intellectual rigor that British cultural integration requires. The indigenous common man does not have such a problem, as great British thinking is his through being filtered down socially. There is also the issue of will and motivation amongst some, though not all, newcomers. Once migrants are here, they often do not wish to jump several hundred years of history and assimilate. Thus immigration controls need to be in the hundreds, with rigorous testing designed to determine cultural assimilation, rather than the thousands or tens of thousand that politicians arbitrarily claim.
For those that are already here accepting freedom and individual responsibility in a liberal society is a tough choice, and scary. People need to come out of their foreign cultural shells and embrace British plurality. Language and lack of local knowledge are huge barriers. Assimilation can only effectively work through direct personal contact, when others have time to give to foreigners. Huge numbers of migrants will not make this possible. Huge numbers will alienate most people from indigenous folk who aware of important nuances of local history and society. Political correctness, and multi-culturalism do not help assimilation either. Developing states all aspire to market-liberalism and freedom of society, yet multi-culturalism denies all the important cultural aspects that go into allowing this, to migrants in the UK. It fetters assimilation, which has already been made so difficult by the huge swathes of foreign folk that now swamp the concrete social housing ghettoes of inner cities. Worst of all multi-culturalism was disguised as a moral approach, whereas in reality it was an abnegation of social and Governmental responsibility to assimilate migrants. When huge numbers of those with foreign culture (not race as the BNP have tried to flag the issue upon) are given votes, they can work to operate against the British cultural value of toleration. Without assimilation their primary affinity may also be with their state of provenance. This means that they may be willing to vote for measures or people who have interests other than Britain’s at heart. This may be particularly acute in the field of foreign policy as the 2005 electoral success of George Galloway showed.
Lack of willingness to compel assimilation is also a result of a maligned understanding of the global contribution of British culture. The Nehru’s and Gandhi’s of this world were created through the post-enlightenment British education method. Political activists for rights, such as Mandela, had found their values from their education in both Anglican Christianity and post-Enlightenment English Common Law. The victory over the closed autocracy of communism of the Soviets, was predominantly based on two key enlightenment philosophers: John Locke (who conceived the importance of protecting private property rights, which had a significant impact on ideologies that formed the market state) and Adam Smith (whose work placed effective resource usage into the process of Government). Many immigrants from Less Developed Countries, have little appreciation of the importance of upholding contracts and how a rule of law state operates. The difficulties of bringing the idea of individual responsibility and institutional accountability to the developing world, is something that those who work in the field of law and development are all too familiar with. All these problems are too quickly overlooked in Parliament. Time is pressing. The time is now here to put our culture back at the heart of our nation, and to ensure that immigration numbers are curbed significantly to protect it. Or else we are at risk of not losing who we are, but the essence of all we are.
APG Pandya
Copyright Birkenhead Society.
However, Immigration Controls are not just there to prevent resources, but also to protect culture. To protect our culture rates of assimilation are relevant. The post Enlightenment rational approach to society, education and politick is not only uniquely Western, but is more uniquely British. Victorian liberal values of toleration, including not censoring speech that others might want to hear because of selfish sensitivities, took time to absorb and become main-stream social norms. The idea of free-discussion for national interest in politics that formed the key to Parliamentary democracy, was of course first developed in Britain as a result of post-reformation progress based on individual reason. British culture, which is intrinsically humanist, is not everyone’s cup of tea. It is a product of a rare formation of a myriad of factors that makes it difficult for any foreigner to digest. Few that arrive will pick up copies of Macaulay, Dryden or any abridged account of our culture. Often it is not just the comparative poor literacy amongst migrants that is the issue, but rather their cultural traditions, based often in superstition, that are incompatible with the intellectual rigor that British cultural integration requires. The indigenous common man does not have such a problem, as great British thinking is his through being filtered down socially. There is also the issue of will and motivation amongst some, though not all, newcomers. Once migrants are here, they often do not wish to jump several hundred years of history and assimilate. Thus immigration controls need to be in the hundreds, with rigorous testing designed to determine cultural assimilation, rather than the thousands or tens of thousand that politicians arbitrarily claim.
For those that are already here accepting freedom and individual responsibility in a liberal society is a tough choice, and scary. People need to come out of their foreign cultural shells and embrace British plurality. Language and lack of local knowledge are huge barriers. Assimilation can only effectively work through direct personal contact, when others have time to give to foreigners. Huge numbers of migrants will not make this possible. Huge numbers will alienate most people from indigenous folk who aware of important nuances of local history and society. Political correctness, and multi-culturalism do not help assimilation either. Developing states all aspire to market-liberalism and freedom of society, yet multi-culturalism denies all the important cultural aspects that go into allowing this, to migrants in the UK. It fetters assimilation, which has already been made so difficult by the huge swathes of foreign folk that now swamp the concrete social housing ghettoes of inner cities. Worst of all multi-culturalism was disguised as a moral approach, whereas in reality it was an abnegation of social and Governmental responsibility to assimilate migrants. When huge numbers of those with foreign culture (not race as the BNP have tried to flag the issue upon) are given votes, they can work to operate against the British cultural value of toleration. Without assimilation their primary affinity may also be with their state of provenance. This means that they may be willing to vote for measures or people who have interests other than Britain’s at heart. This may be particularly acute in the field of foreign policy as the 2005 electoral success of George Galloway showed.
Lack of willingness to compel assimilation is also a result of a maligned understanding of the global contribution of British culture. The Nehru’s and Gandhi’s of this world were created through the post-enlightenment British education method. Political activists for rights, such as Mandela, had found their values from their education in both Anglican Christianity and post-Enlightenment English Common Law. The victory over the closed autocracy of communism of the Soviets, was predominantly based on two key enlightenment philosophers: John Locke (who conceived the importance of protecting private property rights, which had a significant impact on ideologies that formed the market state) and Adam Smith (whose work placed effective resource usage into the process of Government). Many immigrants from Less Developed Countries, have little appreciation of the importance of upholding contracts and how a rule of law state operates. The difficulties of bringing the idea of individual responsibility and institutional accountability to the developing world, is something that those who work in the field of law and development are all too familiar with. All these problems are too quickly overlooked in Parliament. Time is pressing. The time is now here to put our culture back at the heart of our nation, and to ensure that immigration numbers are curbed significantly to protect it. Or else we are at risk of not losing who we are, but the essence of all we are.
APG Pandya
Copyright Birkenhead Society.
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