It is interesting that the French government is now apparently seriously trying to stop people eating Ortolan, a delicacy I once tried some years ago (that said I ripped it apart rather than the traditional method of eating it whole). A small matter to be sure but It really does seem to me that the control obsessives like to pick on the people who have tastes or habits some despise, as a way to gradually control more and more aspects of civil society.
Smoking is another interesting example: wait until social attitudes mean smokers are not in the majority and only then use the force of law to repress the hard core. This dynamic is why I have often thought that people who are statists and also homosexuals, i.e. who are members of a group that is always going to be disliked by a significant portion of the population, are really quite stupid. There will come a time when they reap what they sow.
I suspect all of us do something that a lot of other people will dislike and there is an entire class of people out there who use that fact to convince ‘us’ to support the use of the state to “do something about that”.
Why don’t they breed the birds in captivity? At £100 per bird it sounds like a profitable business.
I find it very strange, how the state is almost continuously dedicated to controlling people’s behavior in an aggressive fashion. I’m an anarchist, so it shouldn’t be surprising to me, but I’m amazed at the overall theme.
I think this is one reason “right wing” states and countries are very often both a) highly capitalistic and b) highly controlling of one’s personal life (i.e. they legislate sexual behavior and drug use, like Singapore) or at the far end simply murderous (like Pinochet’s Chile). They don’t have much control over the economy, so they seek control over personal behavior. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s how it seems.
As government increasingly becomes a welfare state, control appears more easily justified -after all, our taxes are paying for it. Like your example of smoking Perry, at some of our local outdoor parks its banned. I think the reasoning is its a bad example for the children? And if we go to socialized medical care think of all the justification in banning so much that is “bad” for our health. After all, if a person is diagnosed with lung cancer and they are a smoker, why should we have to pay their bills?
Speaking of demonising and imposing the collective will of those who know better upon those who don’t, when are they going to make it illegal (child abuse illegal) for a pregnant woman to smoke or drink?
An unfortunate who gets lung cancer from smoking saves us all from paying his pension for 20 + years. We all die anyway and will incur medical expenses and care over those 20+ years. Stop worrying about smokers killing themselves.l
I’m not sure what to make of Nasik’s comment above, as it is so directly contrary to my general take on things, so I’m not going to go into it any further.
The idea that “controlling things” is somehow a modern phenomenon, however, is incorrect.
Ancient records indicate all sorts of rules and restrictions on how and where people lived, where they worked, what they were allowed to make, prices, and so on.
The world was utterly class driven. Aristocrats had opportunities that were completely closed off to the lower levels, and this continued into the modern world in many places.
It is no accident that Marx’s appeal was to end the rule of the upper classes, and that class was a key to the subsequent lunacy carried out in his name.
After centuries of being told that they were peasants, and could not aspire to anything more, ever and ever, the pent up rage was explosive, and exploded on a regular basis in numerous times and places around the world down through the centuries.
The statists of the current incarnation are merely using a time honored tactic—“look at those ishy people over there, they don’t have any right to behave that way”—that has been used repeatedly over the ages to separate out the uppers from the lowers, the “correct” religion members from the incorrect, the right tribes or clans from the wrong ones, the suprerior races or nationalities from the inferior, and ad infinitum.
In mideval Europe, I recall reading it was illegal for the “wrong” people to wear certain colors or clothing styles, eat certain foods, especially game prized by the nobles, own much of anything or accumulate wealth above a modest degree, or, in general, to live “above their station”.
The modern variation is little more than an echo of this long standing repression.
It should come as no surprise that both the left and the right conspire in different areas and for somewhat different motives, to restrict the freedoms of their fellow citizens.
The right has never really gotten over the idea that the peasants needed to be kept in line, especially since they aren’t really “our kind of people, don’cha know”, and the left has never forgiven those evil men who dared to claim that individuals mattered more than the mass, and had rights the masses couldn’t tamper with.
This is an ancient serpent, able to shed its skin and recast itself according to the fashion of the age, but with the same poison, stultifying and deadly, always coiled and ready to strike.
There are many passages in the Bible about the snares and traps of the evil one, and a famous account of who is neighbor to whom.
My neighbor is he who treats me with respect, and leaves me be to live my life in peace. In the final analysis, that is exactly what this discussion is all about, and also those contests that loom on every horizon, between those who demand control and those who refuse to be controlled.
Who is your neighbor?
Where is Thaddeus when we need him?
I am working on a novel set in the near future of Australia, where McDonalds is banned because of obesity factors, so it goes underground setting up ‘meat-easies’, heavily-sauced fast-foods, etc. Now I’m sure Thad could do a great job along these lines!
Veryretired, Medieval sumptuary laws were barely enforced, and generally ignored by the population.
Out modern democratic states are far more powerful, due both to technological improvements, and the greater “legitimacy” they gain by performing the voting ceremony. Worse, they oppress us for “our own good”, and are therefore all the more implacable. The idea that this is more benign than a few geeky nobles trying in vain to stabilize society by inventing clothing laws is .. uhm .. wrong.
Sumptuary laws are wrongly seen as intrinsically medieval. If you read any of the “progressive” thinkers of 15th century England, you’ll find them chomping at the bit for a raft of these silly laws as well as proper enforcement. Their complaint was that none of this had been done previously. Oppressive legislation increased in tandem with the growth of the modern state, obvious really. The Cromwellian squad in the 1530s with all their proto-fascism (no, this is not hyperbolic) were not medieval relics, they were precisely anti medieval modernisers.
The problem with the middle ages was that the local lord could rape your wife if he chose and there was shit all you could do about it. Every so often there would be some form of civil conflict in which all your fields would be burnt to cinders and, with no-one to enforce contract, if it was decided that you had to get off your smallhold you bloody well got off before you got your head smashed in. In short, lawlessness not over-control was the central problem. Though no-one would deny that there was a superfluity of tribal-type taboo. (There were also many arbitrary constraints on trade, though much less in England than most of Europe.)
The Collectivist Barbarism-Enlightenment-Retreat narrative is very persistent among libertarians but I think “uhm .. wrong” more or less sums it up.
It’s interesting to ask when the growth of the state went past the stage where it was necessary to protect individual rights and started to become oppressive. I suspect that there is no such point and bad was mixed inextricably with good from the beginning.
The ortolan bunting is now locally rare in France but not at all endangered globally. So there is not really a strong conservation case anyway.
But more generally – can there ever be a case for hunting bans on certain birds or animals? If a species was on the verge of extinction could legislators be justified in outlawing individuals killing that animal for fun?
I’d be interested in opinions as I’m still reconciling my libertarian outlook with what some of you would no doubt describe as a “sentimental” feeling of disappointment when I read of certain animals/birds going extinct. Naturally that does not extend to insects etc. I’m aware there is some arbitrariness here..
Gabriel – I think you get it about right. Some primitive societies were ‘free’ in an anarchic sense (such as the vikings), others were just badly implemented authority, such as feudal England. I really do think it is a case of moving from small groups (e.g. a manor) being tyrannized by a few (the lord and his family and friends) to large groups (a nation) being tyrannized by many (the majority).
Jon B –
I suppose you could consider animals like birds to be a bit like water, and create rights to it. A river flows through the land of many people, as birds fly through the land of many people, and you can either limit how much water/birds may be taken, or you can just say to hell with it and the guy upstream wins.
The difference is that when you stop polluting / extracting the water upstream, the river returns to normal, but if you extract all the birds they are gone for ever and ever.
A similar situation with some ancient artwork. How rare do artifacts become before you stop people buying and destroying them, so that future generations have a chance to see them? Mainly a problem with ancient buildings…
Nasikabatrachus is mistaken.
The idea of “we will control the economy, but we will not control your personal life” is very old hat.
The modern left are very much into banning “hate speech”, telling people what they can and can not eat, drink or smoke……. and so on.
Even sex is not outside the concern of the modern left. “The personal is political” and the modern femminist movement (at least most factions of it) should tell a person that – on things like porn and other such.
Of course the old line was a mess anyway. The “economy” includes a lot of this moral stuff. For example, if the state (sorry “the people” or whatever) controls all printing presses should it allow the printing of pornography – and if so how much?
Should people really be allowed to spend money (assuming money is allowed, remembering that commodity money, of various forms, evolved in trade long before big states existed) on betting and prostitutes when babies are starving to death? And babies are always staving to death somewhere (we do believe in “one world” do we not?).
Of course some believers in “free love” thought they had a solution to that. For example, Fabian Socialists like H.G. Wells simply wanted to exterminate the “inferior” races (and a lot of their own race as well) in the hopes that this would end poverty. But I doubt even Planned Parenthood would go that far these days.
As for “the right”.
This term is used to mean all sorts of wildly contradictorary positions. Everything from anarchists (or anarcho-capitalists if you prefer) to National Socialists and “everything for the State” Fascists.
However, in 19th century America it was the Free Trade, Low Tax Democrats (the opposite of what Democrats gradually became after the terrible Convention of 1896 – the party of Jackson and Van Buren gradually became the opposite, the party of Wison and F.D.R.) who tended to be hostile to prohibition and other “moral legislation”.
And in Britain such organizations as the Personal Rights Association tended to be Conservative dominated.
The British story is very mixed, but normally it was the people who were in favour of such things as government schools who were also in favour of drink laws and other such.
If Edmund Burke defines what it is to be “on the right” (as many political philosophers have claimed over the last couple of centuries – at least in the English speaking world), then it is not “right wing” to be in favour of laws on drink, drugs and other such.
Jon B,
J beat me to it with a very similar example. Any one who is going to try to defend the taking or destruction of migratory species while they transit their property will have to defend the castles on the rivers of Europe who took ‘tolls’ to let goods pass by. They ‘owned’ that piece of river so they were entitled to claim or tax anything that passed by on it. In actual fact, those river rights they ‘owned’ were never willingly granted to them by anybody, they just took them. Our society, whether by logical process or not, has not chosen to grant certain rights regarding wildlife to property holders.
While not philosophically sound in its present implementation, there is rational, philosophically sound basis for not granting unlimited rights at the time title of ownership for a piece of property is granted.
Kit asked “Why don’t they breed the birds in captivity?”
Here’s the answer form the article:
It’s illegal. If it were not, they probably would be bred routinely.
Does anyone have any idea if the hunting is what is causing the decline in numbers?
Kit asked “Why don’t they breed the birds in captivity?”
Here’s the answer form the article:
It’s illegal. If it were not, they probably would be bred routinely.
Does anyone have any idea if the hunting is what is causing the decline in numbers?
Actually English common law has notions of right-of-way which work very well. For example I have a side entrance to my property that can only be reached via my neighbours property and likewise the Church next door to my neighbour has an emergency exit that does likewise… we both have a common law right of way to access our doorways in a reasonable manner that does not deny the neighbour’s ownership of the land but just accepts that we have a pre-existing right of access. It is really an issue quite amenable to common sense.
Thanks J, Midwesterner. Re property rights – actually I thought there might be a more red-blooded response along the lines of “I should have the right to kill whatever animals / birds I like on my own property.” Weren’t arguments like this put forward in the defence of fox hunting ?
Susan – “Does anyone have any idea if the hunting is what is causing the decline in numbers?”
As ortolans are small birds with a large brood and shortish lifespan – then hunting is only likely to affect them on the margin. (Unlike birds of prey). It is much more likely that changes in habitat, farming practices are the main cause. Indeed as the ortolans have presumably been hunted for centuries and only now are in decline then I think that implies the effect of hunting is only secondary.
Perry is quite correct about property to being complex thing that traditionally included such things as access – and also light and air.
M.J. Oakeshott often that certain 19th century legal judgements (by the progressive judges of the time – such as Wensleydale) overturned traditional Common Law principles about property in air and water supply.
On the Middle Ages (i.e. the debate between Gabriel and J) the subject is so vast that one can get facts to support either position.
One can point at terrible cruelity and tyranny from both various Kings and local lords. And one can point at examples of lawful conduct and high honour.
One thing to keep in mind. In the LATE middle ages at least the longbow was a common thing in English villages (yes I know it is Welsh RAB) indeed training with the lowbow was complusory, and even if one could afford (and many a local lord certainly could NOT) high quality armour from say, Milan, (cue jokes from various people about suits from Milan) one could hardly wear it all the time.
In short a local Lord lived surrounded by armed folk who could kill him at any time.
Even if a Lord lacked any sense of law or honour, the fact that the villagers could shoot him down like a dog would rather put a dent in any plans he might have to rape and practice other tyranny.
Most often a local Lord (who would must likely be the Justice of the Peace) would rely on, rather than oppress, the locals. The Hue and Cry and the Possie (the muster) show a throwback to Anglo Saxon notions of relying on the ordinary folk (rather than just the servants of the Lord). The concept seen in the Hundred and other subdivisions that started as ways of local people organizing for common defence.
Of course in some periods (closer to our own time) the locals themselves could be rather nasty – for example witch hunts in which the locals would use the local J.P. (i.e. a respectable local landowner) as their “legal” front man for things that they (i.e. the locals – the mob) rather than he wanted to do.
The rise of gunpowder altered the balance of power between the ordinary folk and the state – as the Crown tried to get a monopoly of the new weaponary.
Although even the Tudors (who Gabriel rightly attacks) understood that ordinary folk must be allowed to own firearms in such counties as Cumberland and Northumberland (for defence against Scottish raiders). And in the 17th century local Lords (both for King and Parliament) showed that firearms and even cannon were not impossible to get hold of.
It was one of the basic principles won in the struggles of the 17th century that ordinary folk must be allowed to own firearms (the right of free people to own weapons – going back to the longbow, and before it to the hand weapons of the Anglo Saxons). A principle lost in the 20th and 21st century were people seem to be returning serfdom (with weapons in the hands of bandits or the servants of the government).
A similar story could be told of the decline of Classical Civilization. Where once the most basic right (and duty) of a Roman citizen was to own and to train with weapons – under the Empire weapons and training became the monopoly of the state, thus leaving the people as helpless prey to both tyranny and to bandits and barbarian invasion.
Historians often talk of the “importance of the revolution in government” organized by Thomas Cromwell.
It was important – but NOT as the formation of “modern government structures needed for development” (these “modern structures” did not really get under way till the 19th century).
It was important because perhaps alone of all the large nations of Europe (whether Protestant or Catholic) in England the “revolution in government” FAILED.
The grand schemes of Thomas Cromwell collapsed in the end (with his fall), leaving only his vandalism (such as the destruction of the Religious Houses), not the “postitive” state machine he wished build.
So English Kings and Queens and Parliaments could push through all sorts of demented regulations – but there was not much of a structure of administators at the centre, and out in the country there were just unpaid local landowners (J.P.s and other such) who often had very little interest in enforcing such regulations.
In such places as North Wales, or Lancashire, or the West Riding of Yorkshire Tudor and later regulations were a dead letter.
In some places this did not lead to an industrial revolution (all the lack of enforced regulations did was open the door. other factors were also important), but in such places as Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire it did, eventually, lead to one.
As for the point about unpopular people:
Whether someone is a homosexual, or black or Jewish (or whatever) having a firearm and the knowledge and experience of using it, is the only real defence against popular opinion (it is no accident that some Southern State governments in the late 19th century were quite supportive of gun control regulations – if they were designed to keep firearms out of the hands of black people, who might object to being murdered by the local community).
“Call the cops” – the police are also human beings, they may have similar opinions to other folk.
A common misconception. The English tradition of longbow archery in Herefordshire was entirely contemporaneous with the Welsh one. The only reason the Welsh bow made such an impression on the Normans from as early as 1075 (onwards) was that the Welsh were shooting at them and folks in Herefordshire were not.
.. so distressingly true.
That’s how the Federal laws concerning “violation of civil rights under color of authority” at 18USC241 and 42USC1983 came about. When the Klan was first active, it actively recruited sheriffs and prosecutors for the obvious reason: to commit the perfect crime, one need only control the investigation afterwards. It got to the point that in certain areas, one couldn’t realistically stand for local office without the Klan’s blessing.
They were like a political machine, only they managed to be a terrorist group at the same time. Draw your own conclusions from that. It’s tragedy and farce in the same show, if you ask me.
If you saw the movie Mississippi Burning, I can’t speak to the specific events therein but the context (where the sheriff was in league with the murderers) was distressingly common back then.
I won’t say it’s completely gone now. That sort of corruption is largely absent in my corner of the Mountain West, but the city where I was born (not a southern city, BTW) has never been famous for honest governance or honest policing.
Quite so Sunfish.
Perry – one could go further.
There have been bows found in this island with almost equal power to one of the lesser longbows of the Middle Ages – that are thousands of years old (i.e. before the words “England” and “Wales” had any meaning).
The tradition of the man with the great bow is a very old one on this island.
Although (before someone jumps in) the best yew for making longbows may indeed have been from Spain.
On the border county thing, Cheshire was long a place apart (neither England or Wales). But yes Herefordshire is English – how willingly its folk put up with the taxes and forced labour of Offa the tyrant I do not know, but they would have called themselves English and spoke English.