Entirely Predictable Consequences to Free Speech

I have written before about the unintended consequences, and the unspoken but intended consequences of laws, and especially of laws made in haste, made by an over-confident, bullying executive with a cowed legislative chamber or with weak or non-existent opposition.

The consequences of legislating against religious intolerance were not only predictable, they were widely predicted. Famously Rowan Atkinson and a few other comedians, making their living pointing out ridiculous pomposity of which religion can be a rich source, complained that such laws would be used to stifle entirely harmless and in fact important speech, including humour and debate.

Thus the charging of two Christians who are alleged to have argued with a Muslim guest should not be a surprise. It was not the stated intent of any law to criminalise entirely harmless disagreements, and the government at the time of the 2006 Religious Hatred Act’s progress denied that this would be the case. Worryingly the police did not even use this Act, although the same spirit is clear in the wording of the charges under the 1986 Public Order Act, an act intended to calm street disturbances, as being “religiously aggravated”. Are the police using the 2006 Act to guide their prosecution under the 1986 law, or are they making up the law as they go along? religious intolerance was not illegal in 1986, in fact I didn't think it was illegal now. Is this a generally accepted rider to a charge, and if so on what basis?

The Muslim woman in question might have been offended, but nowhere is it suggested she was threatened in any way. Where did anyone get the idea that a person has the right not to be offended? If freedom of speech is not the right to offend people then what is it? No-one objects to inoffensive speech, by its very nature, so its freedom need not be assured.

Incidentally I was reluctant to use the Daily Mail link above, due to the sometimes-justified reputation for over-the-top reporting, especially on this sort of issue. However after reading the Letter From A Tory about this my brief search only revealed one other national newspaper story. That was unsuitable because The Independent lied in the very first sentence that summarised the story, and lied in a way material to the events. Mr and Mrs Vogelenzang were not, as stated, charged with a racist offence.

Is the Independent simply incompetent? Does that incompetence show up some underlying tendency to see all politically-incorrect speech and action, from the most harmless to the most heinous as equivalent? Was this a deliberate attempt to make the Vogelenzangs look bad, and justify their arrest? It was at best farcical incompetence that should have been followed by a prominent apology and a sacking, at worst snide, disgusting, libellous dishonesty.

I Find Myself Repeating … (updated)

That the Left don’t want to know, they’d rather be Left than right

I wrote a couple of days ago about Paul Krugman not wanting to know the arguments against Obama’s changes to health-care arrangements in the US. This proposal is highly political, and of course those campaigning in favour tend to be left-wing, but also rather authoritarian, as the legislation is coercive rather than permissive. ‘Authoritarian left’ is a pretty good description of New Labour, and the antithesis of libertarian.

So the methods used to try to win support for the change interest me, regardless of whether the legislation itself is beneficial or harmful. This video, which I found on the US conservative website RS Redstate, is a meeting of the American Association of Retired People, the AARP.

The middle-aged, left-wing activists running this meeting did not want to know, and I think that is because they had no doubt that they were right.

• Notice that the woman who opened the meeting told the members what their views were, “…I think we can all agree…”. When they told her that she was wrong, she accused them of being rude. She did not want to know their views.
• When it is pointed out that she works for them, her dismissive body language says that she didn’t really want to know that.
• The man who takes over starts out solidly on broadcast mode, dishonestly giving one side of the story. He points out that the current system limits healthcare to support his advocacy of a change, implying by omission that government-run healthcare is not rationed (as we in Britain know to our cost it is).
• At the 2-minute point of the video the first woman says, quite unconvincingly, that she is sorry to her members. She then walks out, clearly in a huff. She certainly did not want to know what her members told her.
• As the meeting continues the next opinion heard is from a man saying he had never been canvassed on the issues. Someone made (left-wing) policy for the association but did not want to know members’ views.

You might say that Obama does want to know. It appears that he wants to be informed of any email or website arguing against the planned legislation. Of course if he planned to have these objections considered with a view potentially to amending the legislation then this would be a laudable if inefficient request.

Read Obama’s words, “…those who profit from the status quo, or see this debate as a political game … are filling the airwaves and the internet with outrageous falsehoods to scare people into opposing change …”.

“So we've got to get out there, fight lies with truth, and set the record straight”

That does not sound to me like a man who wants to hear the arguments. He does not want to know. It appears he has already decided that he is right and any possible argument against is wrong. Actually I think it is more to do with power and control, and Obama is not interested in the arguments against the legislation because they all concern health, wealth and liberty, and I suspect that neither is his goal (at least relating to other people).

It appears that, as is so often the case with authoritarians, Obama has broken the law in even asking for this information. I do hope this is tested in court and he is humiliated. He has already received bad publicity from this incredibly stupid email, more can only be better.

Of course more evidence of the American Left’s unwillingness to even listen on the issue of healthcare is in the video in the update to my post on the police state.

Still the Left does not want to know, because it still does not doubt. This is why, dear reader, that on the subject of the Left and most especially Barack Obama, I have always had My Doubts.

Glen Reynolds, of Instapundit, is the ultimate source of all links, so many, many fine hats tipped to the great legal academic.

Update: the US Democrats are willing to stack an ‘open’ meeting with union members just to avoid having to listen to their opponents. They don’t want to know.

Update: it appears that Barack Obama is breaking another article of the same privacy law. David Hardy, the blogger who points this out, reckons this to be a far more serious breach. Oh, dear.

Update: so keen not to know they try to start fights … with the people Democrats are calling a mob.

Update: it helps of course if you only answer written questions after your talk, but only tell your supporters that they can submit written questions. Then get your supporters to beat up opponents.

Ongoing Iranian Protests

It seems that on one level the Iranian government succeeded. Although I knew that protesters had not simply accepted the corrupted election results the government restrictions mean that a lot less information reaches the outside world, so the international profile is lower.

Display at the protest outside the Iranians embassy in London

The Twitter feed that put together a lot of information during the original protests is still very active, but chaotic as always. I haven’t seen anyone interpreting it, and that is what it needs unless you are prepared to watch it for a while and know a lot about the country. It is good for an impression though, and to see that the protest is still alive.

Fortunately former President and relatively moderate politician Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani made his contribution yesterday at Friday prayers. All protests and most gatherings (even funerals of some killed in the violence) have been banned, but the Islamic Republic can hardly ban Friday prayers; this was used for Rafsanjani to say his piece about the election. That speech and the subsequent street protests have given welcome international publicity (welcome to those who love freedom that is, not to George Galloway, Yvonne Ridley, Lauren Booth and Andrew Gilligan, amongst other less well-known colleagues at Press TV).

My only contribution is to say that Rafsanjani, like Mousavi, appears to be trying to save the Islamic Republic, not to destroy it. However both also appear to want to save the regime by moderating the oppressive side of the government. They also are currently siding with the protesters, even though many of them appear to want true democracy. It is slightly confused, and of course there are probably many protesters who support Mousavi and Rafsanjani’s wish for the regime to survive.

Overall I think that this new flare up of protests that have been smouldering for a few weeks (and started over a month ago now) is positive. Yes there are dangers. People will be hurt, people will be imprisoned and ill-treated, people will die. People are already being hurt, imprisoned, maltreated and killed. That is an ongoing process, so the sooner it is stopped the better. It is easy to forget the long and painful road that led to our freedom, and the millions of dead that litter the roadside. Freedom isn’t free.

The LA Times has a more comprehensive story, they talked to more protesters and report the activity in the street in more detail.

For more on what has been leading up to today’s events Berman Post had a roundup a couple of days ago.

If any recent visitors to this blog, welcome and feel free to scan through my previous comments on the issue of Iran, and my photo post on the protest I joined outside the Iranian Embassy in London. I think the most important thing I have put up so far is the video I have reposted below, from the London protest.

Hat tip to Instapundit for the LA Times and Berman Post links.

Update: Huffinton Post has live blogging of the situation. I understand HuffPo was good last month for that. This is a case where the left's blogs did some fine work, as did their political organisations supporting the protesters; there was broad agreement in the free world across the political divides, even if some political leaders were not sure how to respond.

Update: A more recent roundup from Berman Post, again thanks to Instapundit

Update: Again via Instapundit (what would we do for news of reality without Glen Reynolds?) a blog specifically about democracy in Iran, which has been running since 2005.

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes

Who watches the watchmen?

Ambush Predator appears to be quite cross. She has reason to be, with police community support officers, aka plastic policemen, not even real police, just walking into people’s homes, uninvited.

A plastic policemen, PCSO Steve.

This is quite a shocking liberty, taken simply because a door or window is open. As Ambush Predator points out, residents of Haringey are able to leave doors open in complete security, according to police. I have lived in many places where I would leave the door unlocked if I went out briefly. If they shut the door i might be locked out. I have certainly always left doors and windows wide open if that made the house cooler or if it was convenient when I was at home. That is not an invitation for any non-feline to just walk in (I expect cats to do so).

It is just another way that the police, instead of doing the job we want them to take it upon themselves to interfere in people’s lives, investigating a harmless joke, or accusing people of thought crime, even fictional crimes. We do not live in a police state, and I know this is shouted too often, but it does seem that the government and police sometimes behave as if we were.

In the last few years the police have demanded and so often been given new powers and new roles, or authoritarian politicians have demanded that the police address a problem that is not a justified police matter. Often this is brought through parliament without due scrutiny, and when the law is not tightly enough drafted police powers are abused. The Association of Chief Police Officers often formulates police policy and interference, yet it is not even a government organisation, but a company limited by guarantee, accountable to its guarantors.

In the USA abuse of police power has gone even further, resulting in unjustified violent raids, killing of pet dogs for no reason, police corruption and even the death of innocent civilians and of police officers.

Police and local authorities have encouraged a vast increase of surveillance they aim at us. We must return the favour, and use surveillance at every opportunity to ensure that the police are held accountable.

Which is why this is so worrying an attitude from police:

Hat tip to Prats in Power for that one, but it is not an unknown or even especially unusual for police to try to stop photography, especially photographing them about there business. This is likely to get worse, since the passage of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 which makes it an offense to gather information about a police officer “..of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”. Such information could include a photograph.

Do not allow the police to tell you what you can and cannot photograph or film. You are allowed to film or photograph anything as long as you are on your own or public property, with a few exceptions from official secrets acts. You are certainly allowed to photograph police carrying out their normal duties.

So who watches the watchmen? We do. We must continue to do so, lest wandering in through an open door gives way to violent entry at four in the morning.

For the record I favour a strong, well-equipped and well-trained police force. Libertarianism is not anarchy, the rule of law is the first requirement for freedom. The rule of law however must extend both ways.

Update: edited to add comments on ACPO.

Update: A classic example of police abuse of a photographer and the need to photograph or film police actions in one story!

Update: Face it, examples are not difficult to find, of people photographing or filming police abuse, and the police compounding the abuse to try to prevent the evidence being collected. Thy even try to stop people photographing thugs.

Conceiving Freedom

It appears that Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has difficulty conceiving of the idea of freedom of speech.

Ms Alibhai-Brown entitles her piece “Freedom of speech can’t be unlimited”, and on one level she is right. The classic example is of course that it does not include the freedom to shout “fire” in a crowded theatre. Speech that directly causes harm, which would also include incitement to violence, can indeed be limited.

However that is not what Ms Alibhai-Brown means. She discusses the case of a man who was prosecuted for writing a completely fictional account of a violent, sexual incident towards women. No harm was done to anyone in the writing of that piece. Of course just to write that last sentence looks like a piece of weak satire. The story was pornographic, but that does not mean it harmed anyone. Recent evidence contradicts the baseless assumption that pornography increases the incidence of rape, in fact rape has tended to fall with increased availability of pornography. Therefore if anything this story is likely to reduce violence against women, it certainly has not been shown to be a threat.

Now I will be the first to agree that such a story is unpleasant, deeply unpleasant in fact. However I also know that there are people who gain sexual pleasure out of things that I find deeply unpleasant. Having met some of these, I found them perfectly decent people, who would be horrified by the idea that anyone would be genuinely hurt by their peccadilloes. I suppose others might not be so squeamish, but then I have known some people who were perfectly straight sexually but quite willing to spread mayhem and hurt, that is not confined to any one sexual identity. So overall I can see no prima facie case for censorship, yet this is Alibhai-Brown's first choice to censor, and she lets the case stand on its own, as if it is obvious and undeniable. That should show the danger of censorship, that it relies on opinion, usually the opinion of people who have little doubt they are right.

Ms Alibhai-Brown identifies some of the genuine, justified limits to freedom, “We accept libel and defamation laws … national security injunctions and establishment secrets …” which of course is justified by the direct harm that could otherwise result.

However she adds, with no apparent justification, “… and underpinning all that is a general understanding of what would be inappropriate and hateful if expressed in public”. There is no such general understanding, and neither should there be. Any such understanding would, necessarily, be a matter of opinion and politics, and give power to those who decide what can or cannot be said.

At various times in the piece Ms Alibhai-Brown heads off at right angles to her own thesis. Libel is already against the law, and in fact UK libel laws are often considered overly strict. The cases given in the piece are already covered by current laws.

The fact that Ms Alibhai-Brown herself wrote something hateful on the internet, and even now gets approached by people taking her to task for it is hardly an excuse for censorship. She does not deny that she said of Iraq “…there have been times when I have wanted more chaos, more shocks, more disorder to teach our side a lesson…”, she just wants to shut up the bloggers who write about it, as it is causing her discomfort.

Freedom of speech does not just include the freedom to say what we don’t want to hear. It is that freedom. The freedom to say nice and fluffy things is trivial. It is only when there are people who don’t want something said that such freedom becomes relevant in any way. I don’t think Yasmin Alibhai-Brown can conceive of that freedom.

Hat tip Harry’s Place.

[Update: slight clarification]

[Further Update: A slightly different angle in my piece on Voice of the Resistance]