Political Punch

You might have heard by now about a black, American conservative, Mr Kenneth Gladney, being racially abused and attacked by members of a union (the SEIU) who were at a meeting to lend support to a Democrat politician who favours health-care reform. There has been a lot written even now, and I am sure more will come out.

However I found this exchange between a witness and an SEIU thug especially telling, as transcribed from video by Mary Katherine Ham in the Weekly Standard Blog,

"Two of you attacked that poor guy."

"No, we didn't."

"Yeah, you did!"

"He attacked America!"

Mr Gladney was an activist opposing the SEIU thug’s political opinion. The thug had no doubt his opinion was the correct one, so any dissent was to attack America.

Usual expansive hat tip to Glen Reynolds. I don't know what I'd blog without Instapundit!

Iranian Without Doubts

On the odd occasion I see a story that makes me certain I chose the right name for this blog. Harry’s Place has one such story, connected with the ongoing protests in Iran. A classic tale, like the Greek comedy Lysistrata, of a woman using her charms to try to stop unnecessary violence. The reason it failed on this occasion is that the man appears unable to conceive of the idea that he might be wrong. He is so certain that Ahmadinejad and Khamenei are right that the opposition must have fooled his fiancée. It seems not to enter his head that he might be the fool.

Of course he is a member of the Basij, part morality police, part volunteer paramilitary thugs for the revolution, but all Islamist. It is that oldest of reasons not to doubt, that most insidious of institutions, religion. The Faithful, as if blind faith was something to boast about, rather than the last refuge of the determinedly ignorant. Faith allows no doubts.

OK, I see the irony that the woman in question is of a conservative religious family; their folly does not alter my point.

I am pleased about the ongoing protest and defiance of Khamenei in Iran (sorry for the lack of posts – little is coming through in the news, and I have had no novel insight). Anyone of a libertarian political view can but hope that some real change comes of them. People will die, but we must remember how many more died for our freedom, and how much some of us value that sacrifice.

Update: I am uncertain about posting this link. Persians in general are such great people, I don't want readers to hate them. The Islamic revolution has twisted so much there, that is the target of my ire. I am not certain it even shows Iran, I am trusting the unknown source, although the point I make here holds whoever these people are, and I am fairly sure they are trying to follow Islamic law, Shariah.

Warning, do NOT look at this link if you have any faith in human nature, any respect for Islam or are at all sqeamish. It is truly horrible. Believers dispense justice in Iran to an eight-year-old thief. This would be impossible for any group of people with the capacity to doubt their own rectitude. Please doubt yourself.

The Unintended Consequences of the Law

or The Law of Unintended Consequences.

The legislatures of both the United Kingdom and the United States are currently being pressured into making new laws, or amending existing laws, with little debate, and even less understanding of the results of that legislation. The British Parliament is sitting for shorter times than ever, more debates are held with time limits than under any previous government. In the USA the new President’s administration is pushing new legislation with gay abandon, either in a fit of panic or, at the risk of sounding paranoid, in an attempt to push through the hard-left agenda he denied during campaigning.

We might laugh at the United States House of Representatives reaching the farcical level that those voting on the bill are not expected to read it (in fact the House Majority leader laughed at the idea that many would read it, and said that if only members who had pledged to read it first voted they “…would have very few votes”). Unfortunately in the UK our own House of Commons did not simply vote on passing control of 17% of the economy without having read the legislation. We ceded our entire constitution, ultimate control of every government decision and therefore of our lives through a treaty that was deliberately written to be unreadable.

There will be unintended consequences to this. New Labour has introduced unprecedented change. This includes creating criminal offences at an astonishing, rate, in a way that is utterly unfathomable. At times the rate of creation of new offences has been greater than one a day, the total topped 3000 long ago. Obviously this must criminalise some behaviour unnecessarily, because there was no huge clamour for these laws, there were not 3000 burning problems that needed solving. Worse than that, with so much legislation introduced with so little scrutiny some of the results of that legislation will be not as those voting for it intended.

For example under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 the police have greater power to stop and search in an area designated as a likely target. However the whole of London has been so designated since the law came into force. This is still the case despite criticism of the use of this power, including a report by the Metropolitan Police Authority two years ago.

When police are stopping people under the same Section of the Act for photographing famous buildings in London it looks like farce. However combined with the 2008 Act which appears to make it an offence to photograph a police officer, if the officer so decides, than sinister is perhaps a more apt adjective. If this sort of advice has to be given to the public and to police then the law is ill-written, and should be repealed until it can be remade. The link also describes incidents where the police abuse the Act.

There are far more cases. Anti-corruption legislation with unintended consequences for parish councils; pensions legislation that drove up costs; liquidity rules that drove down the value of pension and insurance holdings; the human rights act giving convicted criminals rights (especially to privacy) that they just should not have.

Of course even legislation that has been discussed at great length has unintended consequences. Anti-hunting bills have famously took up far more parliamentary time than they warrant, yet still the foxes suffer more since the ban than they did before, surely not the intent of the legislation.

There is one thing in common, and that is certainty. Governments that are certain they have right on their side, and that their legislation is well-drafted see no reason to debate at length. Anti-hunting campaigners were certain that they were right, so did not listen when told by the people who actually knew what they were talking about (few anti-hunt campaigners can shoot) that foxes would suffer. Suffer they did, for the arrogance of their advocates. Certainty means either that no debate is allowed (look at climate change) or that those who are certain do not listen to the other side of the debate (look at climate change).

That is why I have My Doubts.

Hat tips to Instapundit and Newsalert for the US House of Representatives story.

My Doubts

Today I was reading in Little Green Footballs about the murder of Dr Tiller, an abortion doctor in the USA, and more specifically the response in blog comments from right-wing commenters. One struck me as particularly striking, "I haven’t the fainest doubt that he is,at this very moment,rotting in the very special place in hell that he so richly earned".

The part that made me notice this was that the poster claimed to have "not the fainest [sic] doubt" about something for which he can have no possible evidence. I realised then that a common theme through my philosophy, in science, in religion and in politics is doubt. I doubt that scientists who claim to say something definitive about a complex system like climate variation can justify their claims with the current evidence. I doubt that a disembodied force for which there is no evidence beyond the writings of superstitious, credulous people hundreds of years ago controls my life and the world. I doubt that simply borrowing money to spend on people deemed worthy by political elites, and giving central government more control will improve people's lives.

So I am scientifically curious although I believe the evidence where it is strong, I am an atheist although if someone gave me a reason to believe then I would have to reconsider and I am a fiscal, economic and social libertarian in my politics.

So I finally have a title for my blog. I hope someone will read it with the enthusiasm with which I read some of those on my blog roll. I hope that some who come will disagree with me, and post comments to that effect. That is a part of the doubt which I hope to spread to the world, because far more harm can be done by the man who has no doubts.