The Political Thread

[COMMANDO FORCES]

I reckon she was a sleeper agent, just waiting until she would be activated in the future to kill for her masters in a land outside our borders. Good riddance I say!

[Professor Bear]

It'll certainly teach her not to volunteer free time to teach kids to read in future!  You know what something you don't pay for is?

Worthless.

[Hawkmumbler]

It annoyed me, not least because of the high level of illegal activity between recently migrated groups of Hungarians in the Bolton area. But of course, you wont be seeing anything in the news about my boss's van being hijacked at gun point and thousands of pounds worth of dive kit stolen including knifes and line cutters. And yet this bright little lass gets the boot?

Fucking idiotic policy.

[COMMANDO FORCES]

Excellent sleeper tactics or so she thought

[Professor Bear]

That's an unfair comparison, HM - those criminals spend money and keep the economy turning!  They're what makes Britain great.

[The Legendary Shark]

Theblazeuk
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Re: The Political Thread
« Reply #4970 on: Today at 12:41:14 »
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Sharky, the world you live in is not the one I do. It is only the threat of penalisation that keeps the roads running smoothly. Otherwise every one would chance that red light to get through a little quicker and the pedestrians would be out of luck permanently.

And I do not know this common law that you speak of. Mob justice exists where legislation and authority does not but these are not anything more than the rule of the strong and the many against the weak and the few.

Legislation does prevent transgressive acts - if only by making them into crimes with according punishments. I grew up with a fair few people who have only stopped breaking into people's homes, mugging people in the street and so forth because they ended up in jail and don't want to go back.


I don't agree. I think it's people's inherent judgement, training and experience that keeps the roads, and everything else, running. Whilst there will always be bad drivers who make bad choices, in my (not inconsiderable) driving experience I find the vast majority of drivers to be largely responsible. There is no legislation requiring drivers to allow room for other motorists to pull out (at motorway slip-roads, for example, where the legislative requirement is actually for the motorist joining the motorway to slot in with motorway traffic or stop until a gap opens up, I couldn't count the number of times I've seen or been involved in drivers on the motorway pulling into the middle lane to allow joining vehicles easier access), or for truck drivers to flash each other when it's safe to pull back in after overtaking. People let each other out of side roads or parking spaces all the time with absolutely no legislative requirement to do so. Not one driver does the above things because they'd get arrested or fined if they don't so I'm afraid your argument doesn't hold water.

You also know exactly what Common Law is. It's the foundation of what you were taught as a child about not stealing or hurting people. The Common Law is everywhere and dominates your life. It regulates trillions of social interactions every day; every person you pass on the street, interact with at work or transact with in shops who doesn't murder, rape or rob you is abiding by the Common Law - not because it is written but because it is right.

Those ex-miscreants you mentioned, are they in the majority of people you know or in the minority? My guess is the latter and I wonder why they acted as they did? Could it be because of mixed messages and brainwashing from childhood not taking properly? On the one hand children are taught (hopefully) not to bully, harm or steal and that good behaviour is a virtue whilst on the other they are taught that subservience to authority is also a virtue. But when they realise that authority is the biggest bully, attacker and thief on the block, what kind of message does that send? It's okay for authority to kick people's doors in to get at their money, okay for authority to have people kidnapped, beaten and sometimes even killed and so, as respect for authority has been drummed into them with religious fervour from an early age could their transgressions simply be a case of "monkey see, monkey do"? 

[Theblazeuk]

It's a nice place you describe but the Common Law does not exist. You are mistaking courtesy and kindness as a universal trait. You're also misconstruing what I am saying as a claim that the law is the only reason people aren't horrible to each other.

The law exists and nice people exist. The latter make up the majority. However this common law you describe is a suggestion and the minority would ignore that suggestion. Not because of any 'brainwashing' but because of the will to do so and the lack of concern or empathy for the consequences to others. The minority's actions only have repercussions due to the law.

My argument holds water because we live in a world where this suggestion is backed up by a rule. The minority are not allowed to ruin it for the rest of us. It only takes one shit to ruin it for a hundred people.

It's the foundation of what you were taught as a child about not stealing or hurting people.

That's what I was taught. It's not what everyone is taught, clearly. And it also differs from person to person - do I really have to point to examples of people believing that its ok to beat on the gays, the blacks, the irish, the hippies...?

Beyond arguing these massively broad societal issues, just look at any murder case in the news. In this world of the 'common law' who is it who hunts down the idiot thug who kills a man for looking at him the wrong way?

[The Legendary Shark]

"In this world of the 'common law' who is it who hunts down the idiot thug who kills a man for looking at him the wrong way?"


The police, of course.


To say that common law doesn't exist is just plain wrong. Google it. Look in a law book. Ask a police constable.




I don't dispute that there will always be people who believe it's all right to demonize other people but legislation makes this demonization even MORE destructive, as a moment's thought will prove to you. Take the example of Apartheid, which "legalized" racism. Instead of individulas deciding whether or not to engage in racism on their own, racism was imposed on everybody, even those who ware against it. So even white people who had nothing against black people were forced to engage in racism or be imprisoned themselves.




I personally have nothing against immigrants, be they "legal" or otherwise, but "authority" would punish me if I were to employ an "illegal" person, no matter how trustworthy or hard working that person was. "Authority" is at the root of human trafficking and abuse. By arbitrarily deciding that huge swathes of human beings are "illegal" or undesirable simply because of where they were born, "authority" installs the foundation of abuse. Imagine you were to find a truck full of suffering human beings who are being exploited and simply opened the truck door to set them free. "Authority" would punish you for helping them, as would the criminals abusing them. Once escaped from captivity, the human beings you had freed, being demonized by "authority" would be reluctant to approach that "authority" for help as they would be treated as "illegals" anyway. Now imagine the same scenario but without anti-immigration "legislation" - how long would people smuggling continue if every human being had a right to, under his or her own conscience, open those lorry doors to free these slaves with no fear of prosecution?




Common Law tells you that it's okay to help anyone you like, legislative "law" tells you that it isn't. This is the basic cognitive dissonance that's been brainwashed into us since school; be good but do as you're told. This is so deeply forced into us that, when faced with a choice of either doing right or following orders, we have been brainwashed into following orders rather than relying upon our own humanity, experience and/or judgement.




George Orwell must be spinning in his tear-soaked grave.

[Professor Bear]

I disagree - Orwell would be pretty happy to see so much fodder for his writing, and probably heartened to see the organising resistance slowly taking shape in the likes of Occupy.  Living in times like ours would give him so much to do it'd probably put an extra decade on his life.

Imagine you were to find a truck full of suffering human beings who are being exploited and simply opened the truck door to set them free.

Replace "truck" with "privatised detention centers" and you're onto something.  The likes of Serco and Group 4 have already made the first steps towards the American model of monetising incarceration and making the creation of criminals an economic necessity, and not even a proven track record of starving, beating and sexually assaulting detainees (which include children) who've done nothing wrong beyond falling foul of technicalities in immigration law - and sometimes not even that - have so much as dented their ability to bid on other government contracts.

Orwell would be so happy.

[Theblazeuk]

A common law legal system is a system of law characterized by case law, which is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals

A little bit of reading will show that the Common Law exists, yes. And that it is dependent on "authorities". A system of government to establish said authority. This isn't the common law you've described.

Who are the police in this world without "authority"? And how are they the police if they don't have any position of authority - which they can't have since you have described all authority as inherently illegitimate?

You seem to misinterpret what I am saying into a blanket approval of all legislation due to its very nature. Of course legislation can be morally reprehensible. However I am only arguing the position that authority, government, legislation have a beneficial role not a purely destructive and "illegitimate one".

You have Jim Crow laws, you have emancipation proclamations.

[The Legendary Shark]

Heh, I suppose Mr Orwell's state of happiness, or otherwise, would depend on whether he intended 1984 to be a warning or a blueprint.Speaking of the "Occupy" movement, I'm coming to the conclusion that it (and all public demonstrations against "authority") are not only largely pointless but also rather counter-productive. It seems to me that it's logically impossible to have a ruler who serves the people - it's like having a slave owner who serves his slaves. The Occupy movement, and all other anti-this or pro-that demonstrations are like the slaves gathering outside the master's mansion saying "Master, please change how you dominate us because we don't like it but, until you do, we'll continue to accept the way you're dominating us at the moment." It's just mad.If all those thousands of people just stayed at home and instead refused to accept the injustice they're trying to get changed they'd have much better success. Instead of just whining at the powers that be in the hopes that the bedroom tax will be repealed, for example, if those same people simply refused to pay it then I think they'd get a lot further. This silly and destructive legislation would then be simply ignored into irrelevance in much the same way that the Prohibition Laws in the United States were.As the old saying goes, "suppose they had a war and nobody came?" Same principle.

[Professor Bear]

You assume the Occupy we got was the entirety of the endevour, Sharky, but it wasn't even a focused campaign, which was why it flummoxed so many commentators who couldn't grasp that this wasn't some single figure or group making people do these things with an eye on an end goal, it was just a great many people who were so pissed off at so many different things that they just had to do something, even if that something was "sit in the street" until they were moved along.  Occupy was an opening salvo in something larger, because all the things that made people pissed off haven't gone away.
As you yourself pointed out, the money racket is still in play with the same old players doing the same old thing and there will be another Occupy sooner or later - probably after the next financial crash - but this time it will be starting to change form, possibly more focused, possibly more militant - who can say?

[The Legendary Shark]

Theblaze, common law existed before authority arose and will still be around when authority fades away to nothing.

I also think you have misinterpreted the very quote you've used to argue your point. By highlighting the words judges, courts and tribunals you have overlooked the part that juries and social consent play in the legal system and you also seem to have ignored the fact that legislative law, criminal law and common law are in no way the same thing.

Common Law is based on custom and inherent human thought/behaviour.

Criminal Law, being closest to Common Law, is arrived at through innumerable trials in which juries decide whether or not an act is wrong. A publicly sanctioned judge then uses past cases and the determination of the jury to arrive at a hopefully unbiased punishment and to impose that punishment on the miscreant on behalf of society.

Legislative law, the lowest form of law, is based solely upon the whims of the ruling class, or "authority", with little or no relevance to the rights or wishes of the population expected to obey that law.

You raise an important point concerning the police but, I think, fail to realise that there are two kinds of police.

The first, and best, kind of police is the police Constable, whose job it is to uphold the common law. The second, inferior kind is the police officer, whose job it is to enforce legislative law.

The police Constable has no more powers than you or I and is simply someone employed by society to protect the lives, rights and property of every human being on his or her patch. The Constable is simply the person who, for example, is paid to break up bar fights or chase down actual thieves, rapists or murderers on our behalf. The Constable is simply an extension of our own right to defend and protect ourselves from the criminal elements in society and to find out who did what to whom so that we don't have to. The Constable is the old Dixon of Dock Green stereotype.

The police officer is an enforcer who acts in such a way as to be beyond or above the law and acts purely as a tool of "authority". The officer also has no more powers than you or I but is brainwashed th think that he has. I have no right to stop people at random and go through their pockets on the off-chance that they might be carrying something "illegal" or "immoral" and neither, in reality, does the police officer. The officer is the Judge Dredd stereotype (or even, to be wholly cynical, your basic Mafia enforcer).

When a police Constable takes off his uniform he can still perform his duties as he's not claiming any special rights or powers beyond the rest of us. When a police officer takes off his uniform he would be unable to continue with his duties as he claims special rights and powers unavailable to the rest of us - rights and powers bestowed by "authority".

The thing about legislative "law" that I don't like is that it's always either oppressive or irrelevant, though you may (and obviously do) disagree. Let me try to explain using "dangerous dogs" as an example.

A dog owner has a Hadean Pitbull Terrier that's vicious and aggressive. The dog owner's neighbours, concerned for their safety, have two options: to deal with the matter themselves or involve the police. The police Constable is called upon and can do no more than advise the dog owner to ensure that the animal is properly secured so that it can't hurt anyone. The dog owner is, of course, perfectly entitled to accept or reject the Constable's advice based upon personal judgement (frightening, I know, but this is the nature of freedom and free will). If the dog owner complies and keeps the animal safely and securely then there's no problem. If the dog owner ignores the Constable and the dog continues to be a danger, and especially if it harms somebody, then the Constable, on behalf of his community, is perfectly entitled then to have the dog destroyed. No ifs, no buts, no maybes - bullet to the head, problem solved. The dog owner, if his neighbours decide that this is not enough, can then take the dog owner to court to be tried. The dog owner is then perfectly free to acquire another Hadean Pitbull Terrier and, so long as this one isn't a danger too, there would be no problem. If it was a problem then society would be justified in sending the Constable again and even, through the courts, banning that person from keeping dogs at all and all this can be done under Common Law. Common Law only treats criminals as criminals.

Let us now bring authority and the police officer into the picture. Same dog owner, same dangerous dog. The reaction of "authority" is to make all Hadean Pitbull Terriers "illegal" across the board, irrespective of how dangerous or otherwise the individual animals might be. Suddenly, hundreds or thousands of dog owners who were law-abiding people yesterday arbitrarily become "criminals" and "authority" sends its enforcers (police officers) to forcibly remove and destroy every Hadean Pitbull Terrier in its jurisdiction and to also fine or even imprison "criminal" dog owners. Legislative "law" treats everyone as criminals.

Common Law requires that everybody takes responsibility for their own actions whilst legislative "law" requires that "authority" takes responsibility for everyone's actions.

As a side note, this is why the modern police force is in such a mess. They are still called "Constables" but are more and more required to function as officers. The roles are utterly incompatible and on the road to implosion. They are being told to function either as Dixon of Mega City One or Constable Dredd.

[The Legendary Shark]

I agree with what you say about the Occupy Movement, Professor Bear, and at the time I was all for it. Now, although I'm still largely in agreement that something has to be done, I don't think that mass petitioning of our masters is the way to go.

For a start, a big march or sit-in is something akin to "voluntary kettling" - it puts all your most active activists in one place, providing "authority" with a huge target. Taking personal responsibility and simply refusing to comply with unjust or destructive legislation in their own lives fragments and vastly multiplies the targets on offer. Say 100,000 people march begging the masters to ban unfair mortgage charges and riot officers club them away, water cannon and tear-gas them into submission or even just contain and ignore them - the media reports this and the myth that "you can't beat the system" is reinforced.

Now, imagine that those same 100,000 simply stay at home and refuse to pay their mortgages until the criminal banks capitulate. All of a sudden "authority" has 100,000 individual targets (maybe even double or triple that amount as not everyone of the same mind is willing or able to join the big march) and would only be able to attack a small number of them. This is "authority's" greatest fear and biggest Achilles heel - that there are far more of us than there are of them. They might have all the biggest guns but there's no way they can take us all on if we split up.

[Professor Bear]

They deal with large numbers of no-pay activists all the time.  The method is to target not those who can pay but those vulnerable to prosecution and public punishment - which we know because leaked documents from the Northern Ireland water bill fiasco prove this.  As you say, this is to give the illusion that the public must capitulate, but it works both ways, as the prospect of being shown up by stinking plebs made the government climb down on the water bill issue before they were humiliated with a rerun of the Poll Tax Riots - one thing about us Norn scum is that we'll riot if the local shop runs out of chunky Kit-Kats, and it was commonly accepted that water bill collectors would be skinned alive.