Gregory Yates: thoughts, theses and collected theologies.

I actually did have a brilliant post, good-to-go, about judiciary and how, essentially, law is arbitrary by definition - but then IE decided that I didn’t, in fact, deserve to blog. I find it hard to be too aggravated by this, though, as yesterday I recieved an offer to read English Literature at Corpus Christi college, Oxford; understandably, I’m wearing too much of a grin about the place to be significantly affected by a technological hitch.

I’ll part with some ironic words:

"The anarchist is the enemy of humanity, the enemy of all mankind, and his is a deeper degree of criminality than any other." - Theodore Roosevelt, 1901.

I wholeheartedly agree. An anarchist is the enemy of humanity and mankind, as those imply organised collectives that, in some way, gain some validation by merit of them being collective; an anarchist views humanity as a huge group of separate individuals, and mankind as a similar collection of individual men. To an anarchist, there is no banner behind which people can unify, as we all possess wholly different politics, philosophies and desires; when this is attempted, individuals are forced to yield to a majority, or even a minority (as with government) viewpoint. It is a dangerous fallacy to act on the presumption that there is a ’mankind’ so much as there is a ‘lot of men’ - so, yes, anarchism is the enemy of humanity and mankind.

As for ’criminality’, well, yes, but I find it very difficult to be insulted by a word that was effectively contrived to explain an already contrived idea. If I reject concepts of ‘legal’ and ’illegal’ as pointless and arbitrary, in the manner that I have described on this blog, then it follows that a word with the function of describing one who does just this is a little feckless. Law is an extension of authority, which in turn is something anarchy opposes viciously; therefore, when Teddy refers to anarchists as ‘criminal’ he is essentially arguing that anarchists are anarchists.

Never mind, eh?      

The standard argument against the rejection of arbitrary state ‘rules’ goes as follows:

1. The rules of Britain are clearly defined and concern the whole of Britain.

2. You live in Britain.

3. If you did not like the rules, you could just leave.

4. You have not left, so you must appreciate the rules. 

I’ll challenge two significant premises of this argument - the first being that we are expected to be aware of the ‘rules’ of this country and the second being the more general idea that these policies are reasonably entrenched within society. I will begin, naturally, with the first.

Consent implies knowledge. If a CEO of a particular business I have just been employed by for details for me, on my first day, the company policy - perhaps it is considered unprofessional to wear a brightly coloured shirt, among other things - and I agree to work according to these principles, then of course I have consented. My boss has a legitimate mandate to impose sanctions on me, providing I was aware of the punishments for transgressions in the first place. If I wear that ostentatious pink shirt, I can expect reprecussions. Nothing wrong with that. 

However, let us suppose that he murmured and mumbled parts of it; I asked him to speak up, but he largely ignored me. As a result, I know the vague outline of the policy, but the details escape me. Unbeknownst to poor I, wearing brown shoes is a gross violation of this corporation’s ethical code; when I wear them the next day, I am punished severely, more so than I could have possibly expected. I was aware that flamboyant clothing was generally off-limits, but not that brown shoes crossed the threshold of ‘unprofessional’! Far from it.

Now picture the government as this ambiguous CEO. The analogy (like all my carefully picked analogies!) stands up surprisingly well. The government, quite simply, has laid out a contract. By living in Britain, and working for the government - we pay taxes, which equates to financial labour, and are in return given law and order, foreign defence and economic regulation - we agree to take on company policy. Problem is, the terms and conditions laid out are difficult to comprehend. In the same way the dithering CEO mumbles certain parts of the company code, so does the government give us hazy, sometimes incredibly difficult to comprehend, details on the law. For example, I know that assault is illegal, but what about self-defence? I know I am allowed to defend myself, but what constitutes ‘reasonable’ force?

Obviously, I can go to look this up - but this is one issue among many that I would presume the vast majority of the population are blissfully unaware of. Nobody, save for perhaps the judiciary (and even they are unsure of certain aspects of law) could know every regulation involved with living in this country, especially given the incomprehensibility of many legal documents; some date back decades, even centuries. It is just not practical to ask a member of the public to memorise each and every law, but if they don’t, they find themselves at an ignorant loss. Perhaps if we did know the entirety of the British law, we would scoff and say: "I’m not agreeing to that!" and thus refuse to vote for any political party continuing this law at the time of a general election?

We probably never will. Again, it just isn’t feasible. The government’s mandate to impose their rules upon us seems to be little more than an extremely long contract, predominantly comprised of barely legible small-print.

If this is what passes for consent in government, I’ll stick with anarchy, thanks. 

Government taxation amounts to theft.

I do not believe that at any point I gave consent to pay British ’Value Added Tax’ in addition to the base price of products I regularly purchase; yet, the government collects this sum from me. I did not vote for this policy on a party manifesto, either, as I did not vote this current Labour party into government. This collection of tax from me is therefore unmandated and non-consensual - effectively theft.

I refuse to accept that my continued living in England equates to consent, either; I’ll tackle this idea another time, when I can get my thoughts together.

Government makes us ‘less good’ as individuals.

This is not as ambiguous as it sounds.

There is an old adage that a good deed undertaken with forced hand is not a good deed at all; in layman’s terms: if somebody makes you do a good thing, you can’t be credited as a good person for doing it. If a Big Issue seller drew a pistol and forced members of the public to donate to their cause, the victims could hardly be called generous or liberal. It was not their choice.

Government taxation represents exactly this. Let us assume that, perhaps, every twenty pence in every pound I am taxed goes to the poorer families of my state - and that this taxation, like all taxation, carries a penalty for evasion. When I pay my taxes, and thus provide for these low-income households, I am attempting to avoid reprecussions such as a fine, community service or jailtime. Though the money is going to good ends, I am effectively being intimidated into paying it; ergo, the act is not undertaken out of compassion but out of fear of reprehension.

This is not a good act! This is government blackmail.

Now, given a chance, the public may well have decided to give this sum of money to a just cause. They may equally not have done so; this is immaterial, as the point of the matter lies in their free choice to do so. I may not have enough money to pay both taxes and give to whichever interest my moral compass indicates - so I am left with merely the forced deed. The best I can do is give my taxes willingly and happily, convincing myself that I really did it for the greater good and not because I feared the penalties for neglect.

An anarchist state insists upon no form of taxation, thus allowing for the individual to redistribute their wealth and resources as they deem appropriate, and thus allowing others to respect their free choice, and thus their goodness - rather than have it marred by state control.

Anarchists destroy the model of government simply by wishing it…

The concept of democratic government hinges upon the tenuous ideal that my views can be represented in policy.

I support the abolition of all government.

This will, obviously, never be represented in the House of Commons, as no government could support ‘abolition of government’.

I am therefore not represented and never can be. The government has failed its fundamental role.

It follows that the more anarchists there are, the more the theory of democratic government falters simply by anarchists willing it to be so.

Referring to my previous post: Democracy - A two way failing…

Everyone ought to take a ‘British Government’ exam before they are allowed to vote. This would ascertain whether or not they are capable of making an informed decision; this would ascertain, essentially, whether they are politically illiterate, as most are.

Impractical, yes, but so is government.

I advocate anarchy. Seems much simpler than all this election crap.

Democracy is, on the whole, an inappropriate system for 21st century politics. I will explain why, using an example I conceived whilst watching the latest episode of X Factor.

Let us propose for a moment that this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature is being decided, through some colossal error on the part of the administration, by a group of judges that cannot read. They have simply never bothered to learn - and despite their miraculous opportunity to partake in such a prestigious award ceremony, they are not about to any time soon. Yet, no prize can be awarded until they have come to an agreement on which author’s work is worthy of such a decoration. They will, perhaps to the dejection of many, determine the outcome.

There are a number of ways they could go about this. For a start, they could look at the authors themselves; are they neat and tidy, or do they look a little rough around the edges? Are they well-dressed, or are they going for a ‘bag lady’ chic tonight? Slightly more discursively, these incompetent judges could look to the way the authors presented their work. Did they speak well? Did they sound convinced that they ought to win the Nobel Prize? Finally, they could attempt to judge the competition by the reputation of the author, checking various sources for past scandals and dirty secrets.

Common sense tells us that this is presposterous; the Nobel Prize ought to be awarded to the best work of literature, after all! These superficial observations could, and probably would, given the eclectic tastes of some authors, lead to a wholly inappropriate choice. The judges are simply not qualified to make an educated decision in this situation.

I should posit that the electorate of most democracies are no different.

Suppose we replace ‘judges’ with ‘voters’, ‘author’ with ‘politician’, ‘literature’ with ‘policy’ - and ‘ability to read’ with ‘ability to understand their respective political system’. The analogy reveals itself to be a worrying parallel to our current political climate. Voters are akin to the blind judges in the sense that they, on the whole, have at best a rudimentary knowledge of how their political system operates, whether this be the conventional intricacies of the British Houses of Parliament, the checks and balances present within the U.S Congress or the legislative function of the Japanese ‘Diet’. The majority certainly do not have enough knowledge to accurately select a politician who is able to enact positive change in the state; it is unreasonable to suggest that they ought to, as the majority of the workings of, say, the British House of Lords are entirely irrelevant to the average British subject’s working life.

This ignorance, though it is understandable, maintains to be a problem. Just like the illiterate judges, one can observe the electorate instating politicians for their ability to speak confidently, as we British have seen with Tony Blair in ‘97 and are currently experiencing ex adverso with the ‘flash’ camera antics of David Cameron, or even for such superficial reasons as the aforementioned dress sense - as with the unfortunate result for Michael Foot and his ‘donkey jacket’ fiasco in the early ’80s. As for scandals… well, take your pick; the sensationalist media need only a few grimy secrets to ruin a politician’s approval rating. John Prescott’s continued abuse at the hands of the newspapers is fair evidence of that.

The sting in the tail here is that none of this essentially matters. Policy is more important than personality. It doesn’t matter how verbose and charismatic a politician is; if the policy is impractical, it is impractical. Ambitious, radical ideas are all well and good, naturally, but if the support is not there, it is dead weight as far as the House of Commons is concerned. The Liberal Democrats, the ‘Real Alternative’ are a regrettably notorious example of this. The abolition of student top-up fees, a policy made clear on their manifesto in 2005, is a noble idea, but actually one that hurts the demographic it attempts to support: students. In every state devoid of fee-paying universities, the quality of higher education is lower; this is because the money paid by students helps them to be competitive (offer the best service possible for the price) and able to expand at a rate according to their quality - unlike the Liberal Democrat utopia in which the government keeps all universities at equal standing. Whilst this would, granted, revive the lower echelon of education, it would also ruin the upper counterpart. If one caters for the worst, one alienates the finest; this is the nature of welfare. Though the abolition of top-up fees, prima facie, appears to benefit students, it would actually leave them with academically weak degrees that would mean less than they do now. Yet, this does not stop students, even those at the highest levels of University education, voting for the Liberal Democrats!

The analogy becomes frighteningly accurate. A little knowledge may be a dangerous thing, but a lack of it is by far the greater of two evils. Why?

Let us return to the example of the judges, but from a different point of view. Assume you are a candidate in the literature award, desperate to win the prize - but you are painfully aware of the illiterate panel. You face a dilemma: do you devote your time and attention to writing a masterpiece that is worthy of the prize, or tailor your image, countenance, oratory and personality to the competition and hand over any old rubbish? The latter carries with it a greater chance of winning, but the former actually makes you worthy of repute within your profession. A difficult choice, one should think.

Modern politicians seem to have already made their minds up - the ones that win elections, anyway. They have opted for the politically cheap latter; why else would Tony Blair appear on the Catherine Tate show? Why else would Gordon Brown discuss his love of the ‘Arctic Monkeys’ in an interview? Why else would David Cameron devote precious time and resources to maintaining a Facebook account? These publicity stunts are as politically viable as lewd jokes are a respectable form of humour, but they keep going on. Party manifestos are not nearly as important to the public as the highlights of Prime Minister’s Question Time on the news - so why bother with them! The majority of the electorate probably do not understand what an Act of Parliament is, anyway.

The British political scene seems to be locked in a vicious cycle that, by general ignorance, is irreperable. The public, because of their lack of knowledge of the fundamental system that governs their country, are vastly unqualified to make a choice, and thus the political parties lower themselves to this childish level to gain support. Decent policy is increasingly buried in meaningless rhetoric and overshadowed by image.

For this reason, democracy is a bilateral failure.

I’ll muse upon a solution.