Scotland's Real Shame

Last week there was an election. Yay for the democratic process! (The Liberal Democrats were all but demolished, boo for the democratic process). Chances are that if you take the time to read this you'll be Scottish and as such will know we had election last week. There were also elections for various councils in England, the Welsh Assembly and councils and the assembly in Northern Ireland (or "Norn Irn"). We should immediately be drawn to the assembly elections in N.I.

Northern Irish elections, since the power sharing deal was brokered, have tended to focus on sectarian issues - the stuff we're all too familiar with on the west coast (although without the serious, genuine negative feeling they have in N.I). This year was different. Most commentators have noted that this year was about the run of the mill issues. The "boring" ones that turn so many people off in our own country. The election was about the economy, the NHS; the election was about the bread and butter stuff. The people of Northern Ireland are moving on, learning to tolerate and even accept each other and their government is bound to work with each other.

Scotland's real shame is not some particular arbitrary group of football fans. Scotland's real shame is that, even as a land of genuine trouble is moving on, we cannot. We are stuck. We accept all too readily the bigotry of even intelligent and seemingly reasonable people. There are too many reasons to mention here, but it must be realised that people cling to this bigotry because it's easy to not challenge your peers; it's easy to gain the respect and acceptance of idiots by being an idiot and it's easy to forget all your other worries when all you care about is hating people. The bigotry of Scotland is not historic which is a shame since we can move past history and the bad feelings it causes - they're doing it in Northern Ireland. That they can move past it there, while we are stuck, shows that the causes of the continuation of those feelings are not the same in both places. As such we must make an effort to identify and tackle those reasons that make bigotry so appealing to a substantial chunk of the population of our country.

An answer for Leslie Strathearn

Leslie Strathearn of Glasgow asks: “Should the Liberal Democrats change their name to something more reflective of their current approach to politics? The LibDems would not consider a Holyrood coalition in 2007 because the SNP proposal of a referendum was a deal breaker. So much for Liberal, as in broad-minded and favouring reform.

“They have now thrown away their own UK manifesto, in a coalition helping Conservatives implement ideological cuts in the public sector.

“Bang goes the Democrat bit. At the moment their name is a misnomer akin to George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth. How about the Bipolar Conliberals?”

“Or the Oxymorons?”

The Herald thinks there is nothing the party can say to answer such sharp witted criticisms. I disagree with The Herald and with Leslie Strathearn. Showing why I'm right to do so shouldn't take much time.

Leslie Strathearn suggests that the Lib Dems are no longer liberal because we refused to go along with the SNP in sanctioning a referendum on Scottish independence. This is true if being liberal means having as many referendums as possible. However, Leslie clearly states that Liberal is meant to imply "favouring reform" and "broad-minded". Having a referendum may imply favouring reform, but not having a referendum does not imply a disparaging attitude towards reform. The argument offered by Leslie can be broken down as "If X is in favour of referendums, then X is liberal. X is not in favour of a referendum, therefore X is illiberal". Even the most basic logic course will drum this fallacy out of you on day one.

Still looks like we can be Liberal.

Leslie then contends that we have thrown away our manifesto. In fact, we have not. We have retained much of the manifesto and it's worth noting that they are policies of some importance which would otherwise not have been implemented (Increase in the income tax threshold, triple-lock on pensions, Green Investment Bank, amongst others). If Leslie means that only implementing some of your manifesto is as good as throwing it away, then I propose that everyone ever who has produced a manifesto has thrown it away and that it is actually impossible for any person to not throw away a manifesto. Maybe we should be a bit more generous. If implementing your manifesto is what Leslie means by "throwing away", then I suppose Leslie is onto a winner.

Still looks like we can be Democrats.

Still looks like we can be Liberal Democrats.

Westboro Baptist Church

So I watched Louis Theroux do his documentary thing and go back to the Westboro Baptist Church.

These are the guys who picket funerals for soldiers killed in war. Regardless of whether or not you agree with (the?) war, I think all reasonable people think it to be in poor taste to picket a funeral purely by dint of its being a funeral.

I can't see passed this church as anything but institutionalised child abuse. According to Louis, the only contact the younger children have with the "outside world" is the journalists who come to ask questions at their pickets. Couple this with the active depression of various emotions (including sexual ones, for those who are getting to that age) and I worry for the children who are a part of this group. Specifically with reference to the young males in the group, I can see them ending up one of four ways. The first is relatively harmless and involves the collapse of the group. The second involves the collapse of the group and isn't all that harmful, relatively speaking. The third and fourth are anything but harmless.

First: The group collapses fairly soon, before much lasting damage can be done the the children. They can go into the wider world, have the opportunity to make friends and develop social skills which may go some way towards making them happier, more adaptable adults.

Second: The group collapses and the children have suffered lasting damage, making them cynical adults who don't contribute much to their friends, family or wider society. They may not have friends and may live sadder, less adaptable lives because of it.

Third: The group does not collapse before the children grow up. The children then grow up with the attitudes of the group, namely; ultra-patriarchal attitudes to family and relationships, plus repressed sexual attitudes. I'm not a criminal psychologist but this at least seems like the kind of attitude-set which would lead an adult to committing violent crimes of a sexual nature.

Fourth: The group does not collapse at all. The children grow up but because of a lack of genetic and social diversity are forced to find a partner to marry within their own family, in the belief it the only viable option for the survival of their group. If the group did continue to have children at this point the law could finally step in, but not before more people are created to suffer in the Westboro God's name.

Let's all hope it collapses tomorrow.

My knockdown argument against the Monarchy (or any monarchy)

I'm not aiming to be unbiased here, I will be forthright. I don't like the Monarchy. Not as people or anything, I don't know them as people, but as an institution I find them every bit as disgusting as I do child poverty. In fact, I will show how those two things - royalty and child poverty - are different ends of an unpleasant spectrum to which royalists are, maybe stupidly or ignorantly, disgustingly committed.

The Monarchy. More specifically our British Monarchy, but monarchies in general also. Some staunchly support them, mistakenly claiming increased tourists visit thanks to them and thus overall they are an economic asset, or maybe thinking they do us well when it comes to diplomacy, or some other misguided claim. I hope to give here an argument that means we don't need to think about these arguments. We don't need to do some empirical test to find out if the Monarchy is a good or a bad thing to have. What I want to do is show that, just by thinking about it, we should be appalled by the very notion of royalty.

My argument is a simple one. A child who is born into poverty, even the relative poverty of a rich nation, does not deserve the erosion of life-chances (or opportunity) just because they were born into a poor family. This is because no child has had the chance to behave or act in ways we would say mean the child deserves their circumstances. From the implicit cause of our anger at child poverty we should also draw the conclusion that no child deserves, because they have not had the chance to act in a way that would make them deserving, of undue wealth and power by dint of being born to a specific family at a specific time and place.

The choices should be clear. To know this and still support a monarchy is to support the idea of child poverty. To be repulsed by child poverty should mean you are also repulsed by the idea of a monarchy. Having this made clear, monarchists can now decide whether to commit themselves to a clearly repulsive position on child poverty, or they can abandon their position that there should be, at very least in principle, any monarchy at all.

Why Nationalists Should Be Liberals

**This is not terribly well written. It's an idea I had in an airport, while tired and delayed, and haven't really explored it yet. Feedback of any sort is more than welcome**

The only excuse for nationalism (of any sort) is the need for self-determination. It’s a bold claim, maybe, but it’s one that I think stands up to scrutiny. Other excuses for nationalism are less admirable and consist of traits ranging from xenophobia to selfishness.

Arguments offered in favour of nationalism are often little more than cries to the tune “we deserve to be better off than they do”, at which point it becomes prudent to ask “who are they and why do you deserve better?” If the “they” the nationalist speaks of are people of a different skin colour or gender or some other obvious visual cue, mainstream politicians and media (and the majority of the public, while not all) have the good sense to call those opinions what they are – racist, bigoted and dangerous. Perhaps these are the most dangerous nationalists, and I wouldn’t wish to have them in my Party – these people have the BNP. But, there are others.

It might not be obvious, but when a nationalist says the group they claim to represent deserves better their thinking might just be territorial. They might not care what skin colour you have, or some other visual cue, but rather wish to discriminate based on geography. You are not from my area therefore I do not want to support you (regardless of whether people-not-from-their-area actually support locals). I have sympathy for anyone who makes this argument on grounds of language – I don’t think I’d be taken too kindly to if I moved to France, refused to try to learn to speak French and then complained at my misfortune when trying to find a job and so on (although this argument only holds if I chose to move, not everyone moves by choice). This argument is often as arbitrary as the BNP-style arguments. Just because it takes more information than what a person looks like to decide if you like them, doesn’t make the decision any less bigoted if it is still a decision to discriminate for entirely arbitrary reasons. These are also people I do not wish to have in my Party, they have UKIP for this sort of BNP-lite option.

You might wonder what kind of nationalists I wish to gesture to with this post, then. The kinds of nationalists I mean are those who seek self-determination. It is at the very heart of liberal thinking that we each as individuals have as much of a right as any other to determine for ourselves what lives we should lead. However, this does not mean we believe in some sort of anarchy. There are benefits to be had from living in a community – a pool of resources and skills which makes living life easier. This pool can be enlarged so we have more than a community, but a community of communities, at various levels. To say you no longer want to be a part of a community in search of greater self-determination is to give up all the benefits and pitfalls of one system for all the benefits and pitfalls of another system. Instead, take the third option. Allow all those powers which should be devolved to be devolved to the appropriate level whether it is to a national, regional, local or community level. Each policy area will be best implemented at a certain level, by which I mean will provide individuals the greatest amount of self-determination. And if self-determination really is your wish, and not nationalism of the second sort I outlined, then it seems this is your only option.

ROYAL WEDDING OMGZ0RZ!!!1!1!1oner!!!

That this story is front page of the BBC News website, and undoubtedly will be making the front pages of many news papers, really gets at me. Why is the fact that some rich guy is getting married to some rich girls so news worthy?

A list of more newsworthy articles on the site which have been bumped in favour of massaging the egos of the super rich, benefit claimants (just to appeal to the Doily Mail readers out there):
Payout for ex-Guantanamo Inmates
Eurozone Facing 'Survival Crisis'
Young Carers Deserve More Help
UK Inflation Rates Rise to 3.2%
Stem Cells Used in Stroke Trial

These stories are all of infinitely more importance to the public, given that these are things which might actually affect them. Which brings me to my real gripe with the whole scenario.

The wedding might affect the public. The only way it will actually do that is if the Government are left footing the bill for what is sure to be a jolly good show of pageantry and wealth. Wealth which, of course, is not their own.

Budgets in all government departments are being either cut or increased at rates less than inflation. In real terms, everything is being cut. It's not good times. There are people who will be getting married next year, paid for with their own hard earned wages. There will be people who wanted to get married next year who might have to put things on hold because they can no longer afford to, maybe they lost their job as a direct or indirect result of cuts. The royal family have no worries. If they run out of money they just need to ask the government for more. They claim more in benefits than any asylum-seeking-drug-addict-terrorist-paedophile. If the government are going to start capping housing benefit theirs should be the first.

We're all in it together? I bloody hope we are.

What Prison Is (Or What It Should Be).

I've got an interest in political philosophy. As a result, or perhaps my interest is the result, I also have an interest in what exactly we mean when we talk of liberty and freedom.

They are both somewhat emotive words, inspiring great civil movements and clouding judgement in (probably) equal measure. Talk of liberty and freedom ultimately results in talk of rights - basic human rights, civil rights, entitlements, positive rights, negative rights, the list goes on. In a society which chooses to dress up like a democracy, the right to vote is seen as one of the most important.

Which brings me to what made me want to write this in the first place.

The guy who wrote the first article is Richard Grayson. As I read the article he almost had me convinced prisoners should be given the right to vote, but upon reading the article again I don't think I can really accept his argument. Let me tell you what I read his argument to be:

1 - Either, prison is primarily about punishment or it is about rehabilitation.

2 - Prison is primarily about rehabilitation.

(2* - The Lib Dems agree with 2.)

3 - Giving prisoners the vote will help rehabilitate them.

4 - So, we should give prisoners the vote.

(4* - So, the Lib Dems should take up this issue and give prisoners the vote.)

I have two problems with this. Firstly, will giving someone a vote in the general election, people who generally don't use it outside of prison, really help educate and rehabilitate them? My answer is no. It might be a useful tool, but it isn't a necessary one. Young people can learn the importance of their future vote and of politics without actually having it. The disenfranchisement of many prisoners starts long before they enter the prison system.

Secondly, and perhaps more fundamentally, the claim that prison is either primarily punishment or primarily rehabilitation is a polarisation that needn't be made. It is a polarisation that is divisive and as such is dangerous. Prison is neither a carrot or a stick. Prisons are (or should be) a frame in which people are presented the option of chasing the carrot, either for the carrot's sake or for fear of the stick.

Prison is a controlled environment in which we can restrict liberty as a punishment by removal of rights. The most obvious being the right most commonly thought of as liberty - freedom of movement, but not limited to this. I would argue in favour of removal of all rights except the most basic - right to life. All rights which can be removed can also be returned, except that right to life. Once we remove it we cannot resurrect that person.

The reasons I chose this somewhat extreme position are simple.

The restoration of rights is vital to how I see prison as a working example of punishment as rehabilitation. I suggest good behaviour rewarded incrementally with restoration of rights and granting of opportunities for personal development. Prison is not a place I recommend equal opportunity other than the equal opportunity for opportunity, it is imperative that reward system is a meritocracy. Each prisoner will value each right and opportunity to a different degree; the most effective rehabilitation must be tailored to each person and packaged as a reward scheme. A meritocracy is best assured by starting everyone in the same position and granting rewards, like the restoration of rights, as it is merited and as they are valued by the prisoner. One man's heaven is another man's hell is the cliché which springs to mind, but it is true. What is a carrot for one man is rich tea biscuits to another. We need to make sure carrots are available to everyone.

Prisons are becoming colleges of crime, and the way to ensure they are less so is to limit the amount of freedoms the lecturers in crime have to conduct their classes. Ensuring only those who have shown a willingness to change, or who recognise their previous actions are mistakes, have these freedoms would ultimately tackle the current high test scores at HM Colleges (by which I mean re-offending).

We shouldn't approach the subject of prisons, or any problem, as a black and white issue. To approach a problem in such a way is to almost definitely get it wrong. Giving fair consideration to both sides of the argument and finding a solution which utilises the best of both is part of why I am a Liberal Democrat. I don't like being told that being a Lib Dem means being radical for radical's sake.