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Openly amoral: a man designed to go far in politics? Neil Glass, who writes under the pen name David Craig, is to run against David Davies with these immortal words:
My message is that the 42 days issue is not important to most people as we are unlikely to be affected by it. However, living on the national average salary as I do, I believe that what is important to taxpayers is how MPs have become overpaid, out of touch and are wasting billions of pounds of our money when the cost of living is spiraling out of control.”
So other people’s liberty, meh, who cares about such trifles? All that matters to Neil Glass is having money wasted. Truly here we have an unabashedly amoral man …who will feel right at home in politics. The fact he would give half him MP pay if he won (which he won’t) to charity is a political device, nothing more. This is not a person I would care to shake hands with, to put it mildly, as by doing this he is overtly running against civil liberties.
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Methinks that possibly you are being too hard on the man. (Caveat: I know nothing about him other than what he says in the candidacy announcement you linked.) To be fair, he never said that he thinks 42 days is right, or that he would support it; he merely said that it was not an issue which would resonate with most voters (probably an accurate assessment) so he isn’t dwelling on it. And on the single issue upon which he is running (wasteful government spending and overpaid MPs) he seems acceptably libertarian. So perhaps you ought to find out his actual positions on “42 days” and other pressing issues (beyond wasteful spending) before excoriating him.
Call me cynical Laird, but my guess is that his book’s not selling.
How much does it cost to run for Parliament these days, about a grand?
Cheap publicity at that price
given the high profile anything to do with the campaign will produce.
We are heading for the silly season when everyone is supposed to be on holiday and according to the Media,
nothing happens.
Even if DD was unopposed, his every utterance would be reported because it is a slow new day.
This dude has just hitched his wagon to a sure fire media spotlight.
Did I miss something?
Is it not the point of this By-Election to make these issues resonate (sound again – be heard again) separately, without their sweltering in the mass of the material concerns of the NHS, Car Tax, waste of revenues, etc.?
Would 57% of the electorate find incarceration without charge for 42 days, and all the other related implications of state-ordered “security” measures acceptable as a specific issue on which to chose their representatives for governance?
Sounds like this chap Glass simply wants to “change the subject” (back to what it has been).
As David Davis has made clear it is not only the 42 days without charge (let alone trial) it is the whole drift towards a police state.
Mr Davis has compromised and played the polticial game for years and years and now believes that he can not justify doing so any more – and with his great experience of this field of policy he is mostly likely correct that this is the end of the road.
We must either make an open stand here – or things will go past the point of no return.
As for Mr Glass:
With his great desire to prevent the spending of tax money I assume that he will not be sending out an election address – i.e. using the “free” (subsidized) post.
“But my lost deposit will pay for that”.
If he assumes he is going to lose his deposit it is Mr Glass (not Mr Davis) who is engaged in a publicity stunt.
I would ask those of you so inclined to write to this guy and reasonably ask him not to run against DD. Point out the issues, enaged him if you can.
I don’t know if it’ll do any good.
Why would we want to do that Davidncl?
I want an opposition to DD just to stimulate the debate.
Otherwise the BeeB etc will class it as a single issue piece of ego puff, and go back to reporting vegetables that look like Mo, or dolphins beaching themselves.
As I, and others have said, DDs canvas is broader than the single issue of 42 days.
It is ID cards, cctv, speed traps, the whole nine yards of creeping totalitarianism, that most folk are too busy earning enough to satisfy the taxman to notice.
These “hidden” topics will now get an airing.
I dont care if George Galloway stands against him, Hell I’m tempted to enter the fray myself (and agree with every word he says. How confusing to the body politic would that be!!)
That is the point of his action.
The MSN have generally seen his stance as mad and selfish.
That is because they are within the “Village”.
They say he should have stayed in the shadow cabinet and fought from within.
Doh! do you think he would not be told, in very short order that the vote was lost.
Get over it!
It’s only a game after all
by the Cameroons?
He now has a platform, and our undivided attention, to do some good for our country
Expose ALL the shit that has come down on our heads since NuLab came to power.
Oh and expose the weaknesses and prevarications of Stepford Blair Mk 2
iDave!
And in a conversation in a pub, that is a fair enough remark as a statement of realpolitik. But he is not saying that in a pub, he is running against a man who is indicating that *IS* very important, so how can I not therefore conclude Neil Glass is in opposition to what David Davies is doing? He is running against him, ergo, he is in opposition. I am not being harsh enough frankly.
Maybe. Or maybe he’s just using this as an opportunity to trot out his particular hobby-horse, or (as cynical RAB has suggested) to get some free publicity for his book. Or maybe I’m just feeling unusually mellow today and am giving him an undeserved benefit of the doubt. Whatever. Much as I respect your opinions, I’m just not yet prepared to label Mr. Glass as unshakeworthy.
“designed”? Who by? 🙂
Of course, if the man had any moral principles, he would oppose the wasted money spent by MPs and the loss of civil liberties. Actually, the two issues are part of the same process of corruption. But he cannot, or will not, see it.
‘Squandered’ is an excellent and timely book, but I’m highly disappointed by this stunt.
IMO he should run in a by-election at some point – but not this one.
Is it not the point of this By-Election to make these issues resonate?
Yes, that was the reason David Davis threw his toys out the pram. As you rightly identify there are plenty of other crucial issues which MPs could choose to make resonate by resigning their seat.
All the complaints about horse-trading to get 42-days through Parliament were a load of tosh. Horse-trading is an inevitable consequence of having: a) lots of separate issues about which not everyone is agreed (e.g. Iraq war for some, EU Constitution for others, habeas corpus for others still) and b) representative democracy.
If MPs resigned their seat every time they felt strongly about an issue they’d be resigning all the time. We’d have to question the whole principle of representative democracy….which, funnily enough, I do. Mature adults should be consulted on all important issues in a country in which most people now have access to the internet and so have the opportunity to be informed, make up their own minds about things and publish their own independent opinions.
Lest you think I digress, this would all be irrelevant except that David Davis is being dressed up as a man of principle. The only relevant principle is that politicians in a representative democracy never have the luxury of both sticking to their principles and remaining representatives. Is Davis resigning as an MP? Nope, he’s gonna stand on the principle that ancient freedoms ought not be “traded” against other political priorities and then slink back into the most fetid den of political expediency imaginable.
Is it not the point of this By-Election to make these issues resonate?
Yes, that was the reason David Davis threw his toys out the pram. As you rightly identify there are plenty of other crucial issues which MPs could choose to make resonate by resigning their seat.
All the complaints about horse-trading to get 42-days through Parliament were a load of tosh. Horse-trading is an inevitable consequence of having: a) lots of separate issues about which not everyone is agreed (e.g. Iraq war for some, EU Constitution for others, habeas corpus for others still) and b) representative democracy.
If MPs resigned their seat every time they felt strongly about an issue they’d be resigning all the time. We’d have to question the whole principle of representative democracy….which, funnily enough, I do. Mature adults should be consulted on all important issues in a country in which most people now have access to the internet and so have the opportunity to be informed, make up their own minds about things and publish their own independent opinions.
Lest you think I digress, this would all be irrelevant except that David Davis is being dressed up as a man of principle. The only relevant principle is that politicians in a representative democracy never have the luxury of both sticking to their principles and remaining representatives. Is Davis resigning as an MP? Nope, he’s gonna stand on the principle that ancient freedoms ought not be “traded” against other political priorities and then slink back into the most fetid den of political expediency imaginable.
I also think Squandered is an excellent book – slightly excitable but if you can’t get excited about the government overspending and hence overtaxing by over £1,000 billion, what can you get excited about ?
Yes, David Davis wants us to focus on civil liberties and the 42 days and that is a good libertarian cause.
But so is overtaxation. Every pound that the bastards take in tax is an assault on liberty. Tax Freedom Day is sometime in June. Mine is sometime in July or August. That means I’m working unpaid for the government for more than half the year.
I’m also against the 42 days, but it’s a lot less important to me than the 200 days I am forced to work for the government. And that’s not just because I’m personally unlikely to be on the wrong end of the 42 day detention. To be brutally frank, if you offered me the choice between working for the government for free for 200 days a year, or working for the government for free for 100 days a year and being detained without trial for 42 of ’em, I’d take the latter.
Multiply it out across the whole population – 30 million people working as indentured labourers for a couple of months a year longer than they need to versus a couple of dozen people being detained for 42 days rather than 28, and it’s not too tricky to identify which is the greater offence against liberty.
But that makes you part of the problem, not part of the solution. What this accursed author is doing is running against a man standing on a civil liberties platform. That makes him opposed to civil liberty, and there is no spinning that to mean anything else.
In effect he is, (and in deed you are)saying, is that taxation is actually NOT a civil liberty issue regardless of how you qualify your remarks by opposing someone doing that rarest of rare things in politics. Liberty for the majority is somewhat easier to secure, liberty for the minority is much harder but you do not seem to think that matters. You are wrong.
I’m afraid I don’t follow you at all, Perry. Does the fact that David Davis is standing against this fellow mean David Davis is standing against lower taxes and against reducing wasteful government expenditure, and so must be presumed to oppose those goals ? Or is there a principle somewhere that resigning MPs views of what a by election should be about take precedence of the views of ordinary mortals ?
I confess I don’t really understand what distinguishes a civil liberty from any other kind of liberty, and if freedom to hang on to your own property is a civil liberty then, hey, an extra whoopee for civil liberties. But Shami doesn’t bang on about the moral imperative to reduce taxes, and neither Mr Davis nor Mr Marshall-Andrews seem to be majoring on tax reduction as a key element in civil liberties, so even if you are right in thinking that tax involves a civil liberty question, you haven’t managed to get that view prominently into the public domain. In the meantime I’ll stick with my view that the freedom to hang onto your own property is the sort of liberty that most people don’t associate with civil liberty, and which no Tory MP has yet resigned his seat to campaign for.
As for your liberty of the majority / liberty of the minority point, I made it clear that I regard freedom from 42 days detention without trial as less important FOR ME PERSONALLY, ie for a single individual, than freedom from being required to labour unpaid for the government for 200 days. 42 days detention would be less important than 200 days unpaid labour even if each applied to the same number of people. But since the latter would apply to 30 million and the former to a couple of dozen, the point applies a fortiori.
In reality, for someone who is already going to be detained for 28 days, an extra fortnight is not such a big thing. Yes, it is an extra infringement of liberty, but relatively small potatoes. It’s just not in the same league as 40% income tax. 90 day detention however would be in the same league, because it’s getting close to the amount of time each year that we each toil in Gordon’s salt mines, over and above what would be reasonably necessary for a liberal government’s taxes.
It may rain on David Davis’s parade, but them’s the breaks. Personally, I think a good dose of publicity for the message that Gordon has been extorting vast fortunes from innocent taxpayers, and spending it like Viv Nicholson is long overdue. Much longer overdue than the 42 day business which has been all over the news media for months.
It is simple really. Because DD is running, against his party’s leadership wishes specifically to make a civil liberty point, to oppose him for any reason is to oppose what he is doing.
And the point you seem to be making makes me think why should I care what is important to you civil liberty wise if you do not think liberty taken from a minority matters all that much? Can you not see it is the same issue?
Let’s see if I’m getting this right, Lee.
You think that no matter how intrusive and controlling government is, collecting less taxes is what really matters.
Now seriously, which do you think is more likely to reduce the taxes government collects? Restrictions on government’s power or restrictions on using that power to collect taxes? This is so no-brainer obvious that I can’t believe this discussion is happening.
If government has power, it will tax whatever it wants. If you really want to permanently reduce taxes, you must first reduce the power and scope of government.
To put it in simpler terms, the chain holding a hungry bear has come loose. David Davis is trying to reattach the chain, you are trying to convince the bear he is not hungry. Good luck.
If reducing taxes is part of a plan to reconnect the bear’s chain, then it is a plan. But reducing taxes as an end in itself is utterly doomed to failure by all measures.
Perry : And the point you seem to be making makes me think why should I care what is important to you civil liberty wise if you do not think liberty taken from a minority matters all that much?
Where did you get the idea that I think liberty taken from a minority doesn’t matter all that much ? Liberty taken from a minority obviously matters less than the same liberty taken from a majority, simply because fewer people’s liberties are infringed. But that doesn’t mean that taking a single person’s liberty may not be a very serious thing. But how serious depends on the liberty being taken away. An extra 14 days inside over and above the 28 days already provided for, is less serious than an extra 100 days working for the government for free. Whether it’s one person, a minority, or a majority.
Can you not see it is the same issue?
No idea what you mean. Liberty is indivisible or something like that ? Clearly it isn’t. Some, plenty, of liberties remain to us. They keep chipping away, of course, and all encroachments should be resisted, but freedom from 42 day detention and freedom from excessive taxation are different aspects of freedom. Mr Davis’s campaign is focussed on the former, not the latter.
Mid, Perry,
With the greatest of respect, what I think some commenters are trying to get at is that, as civil liberties go, those of Islamist terrorists come pretty low down the scale for most ordinary (non-libertarian) people. People are only getting concerned about the totalitarianism that affects millions, not that that affects those of a mere handful of people who don’t themselves believe in civil liberties for anyone else anyway.
To put it in terms of your animals-on-the-loose analogy, it is as if you are sat in a pit full of hungry bears, but that you are ignoring them in favour of the small annoying Yorkshire terrier yapping at your ankles. Yes, as a matter of theory and principle, we want the dog on a lead. It is marvellous that someone has demanded it, and sought a public mandate. But of all the issues of eroding liberty that face us it seems the wrong one to be taking such a stand over.
Within libertarian circles, it’s a big issue. What people are trying to say is that outside those circles, the world in which Mr Davies plans to be operating, it isn’t.
Personally, given a choice between spending 42 days in prison without charge, and having a restaurant full of young families being nail-bombed, I would freely choose incarceration. So would a lot of other people. The gut reaction is important.
And there are quite a lot who see human rights as being tarnished by the tendency only to support the rights of bad people. Human rights lawyers/campaigners, who spend all their time trying to defend criminals and enemies of Western values, and none defending Western values themselves, have come to be seen as simply being on the other side. Whether such efforts are justified or not, it has made talk of civil liberties a matter of extreme cynicism among those who might otherwise have been friends.
I understand what you’re saying. I agree that liberties ought to apply to everyone irrespective. I’m in favour of people taking a stand. But I think that in backing David Davies against all criticism so fiercely you’re not picking your fights wisely. The only thing to be said for it is that it is the only fight in town.
Evening Midwesternerf I’m getting this right, Lee.
You think that no matter how intrusive and controlling government is, collecting less taxes is what really matters.
No, I don’t. I think taxes at 40% of GDP are a very important infringement of liberty. But they are certainly not the only liberty that matters. But high taxes are far more important (as an infringement of liberty) than ID databases, CCTV and so on.
Now seriously, which do you think is more likely to reduce the taxes government collects? Restrictions on government’s power or restrictions on using that power to collect taxes? This is so no-brainer obvious that I can’t believe this discussion is happening. If government has power, it will tax whatever it wants. If you really want to permanently reduce taxes, you must first reduce the power and scope of government.
Like you, I think this is so no-brainer I can’t believe this discussion is happening. But unlike you I think it’s your view that is daft. Except in anarchist fantasies, the government will always have a lot of power, because government power is necessary to do the things that government is minimally needed to do – run the criminal justice system and protect against foreign attack. Ensuring that the government is too weak to do those things does not make people freer – it just means that the oppression comes from foreign occupiers, private militias and criminals rather than the home government.
The power of government in the fields where government power is undesirable – basically anything the government has started doing since about 1832 – can only be constrained by the rule of law, the separation of powers, thriving voluntary association and the idea that liberty demands that the government should butt out of more areas of life. These philosophical constructs which protect limited government in theory can only be sustained in practice by political support for limited government by the community. You will never get the community to support the idea that the government should be weak and powerless everywhere and in all things. But you can certainly get community support for the idea that the power of government should be limited by the rule of law in all fields in which it operates.
But as to whether the government should be intervening by (a) trying to prevent terrorists blowing up trains (b) taxing lots so that the NHS is well funded (c) taxing lots so that future industrial giants can be nurtured in state industrial nurseries – well you will have to try to build political support for more or less government interference in each type of case. The public does not regard all cases of government action as problems in bear control, and to persuade the public that the government should do less (or nothing) in a particular area requires, in addition to general public sympathy with the idea of liberty, a specific argument about that area. Whining about bears won’t do.
PA,
Wrong is so many ways. First, anybody who thinks that the Muslims terrorists are as potentially dangerous as the US and even UK governments as a threat to our liberty and safety is dreaming. The greatest threat of Muslims to liberty (especially in the UK and Canada) is via the government. The enemy wielding the government itself as a weapon . . . working within, not against against the government. It is the Islamic terrorists who are the “yapping terriers” in the face of the biggest, most powerful governments ever. Nobody truly conquered the Roman Empire. It smothered and devoured its human foundation.
Another point, when did ‘accused by a government functionary’ become an automatically dangerous person? I would not have expected you to discard the protections of law so cavalierly.
Also, you have created a false choice. You believe that by imprisoning everyone accused of terrorism, safety will be secured. Wrong again on both counts. It is not possible to imprison everybody accused of terrorism. It is not possible to seal borders. And even if it was possible, that would leave – prowling around loose – everybody not (yet) accused of terrorism. Horrors! Lets just lock up everybody, not take any chances.
You make an error of several scales of magnitude when you compare the relationship between our governments and ourselves with the relationship between a terrier and his man. I have two terriers. I just spanked one for digging in the garbage. Try that with the government you are calling a ‘terrier’!
And it is an ad hominem to continually accuse us of defending criminals. That is what this debate is about. When did they become ‘criminals’? You are (while not expressly stating it) basing your arguments on presumption of guilt. The entire ‘security’ apparatus is now based on presumption of guilt.
Only after you are tried by due process and found guilty, will I call you a criminal. And at that point, I will not coddle you. It is your’s and so many other persons’ persistent and perpetual conflation of ‘accused’ with ‘convicted’ that is the danger. You do not understand the politicians you are granting that power to.
What is ethical is to require an immediate (next business day, re Sunfish) charge that is adequate to hold them. Then, the prosecutors and the defense can either, or both, request time to prepare their cases. What matters is habeas corpus itself. But there need be no assumption (as you are predicating your case) that a judge, or historically a grand jury, will automatically reject all of the prosecution’s arguments and turn all suspects loose, regardless. I don’t understand why you make the stipulation that courts will reject reasonable behavior by prosecutors and investigators.
Lee,
The Constitution of the United States and the long forgotten Constitution of the UK provide all of the power that government needs.
When you reject rights that have survived so many centuries of dangerous external threats you can only be arguing for unlimited government. Totalitarian government. Your whole argument is internally contradictory.
Okay, I’m confused. I thought you were arguing against what DD is doing. But now you are arguing for precisely what he is doing. What happened to your ‘taxes are all that really matters’ argument. Because I went back and read your first comment at June 19, 2008 12:42 AM, and very clearly you are arguing for blanket opposition to taxes in general. And yet now you say “– well you will have to try to build political support for more or less government interference in each type of case.” Which is precisely what DD is doing.
Quiting Neil Glass/David Craig:
MidW : Okay, I’m confused. I thought you were arguing against what DD is doing.
Nope. I’m all in favour of what DD is doing. In my very first post I said “David Davis wants us to focus on civil liberties and the 42 days and that is a good libertarian cause” and “I’m also against the 42 days.” It’s Perry who is arguing that by standing against DD to make his point about spending and taxes, Neil Glass/David Craig must be regarded as opposing DD’s position on civil liberties. I’m arguing that Neil Glass / David Craig is perfectly entitled to think that high spending and taxation is a more important cause than 42 days, and I agree with him, from a liberal perspective. That is not the same as saying 42 days is a good thing, whatever Perry says. If you are not with me, you are against me is a Bushism, and a Perryism (“to oppose him for any reason is to oppose what he is doing”) not a Lee Mooreism.
What happened to your ‘taxes are all that really matters’ argument.
It never existed.
Because I went back and read your first comment at June 19, 2008 12:42 AM, and very clearly you are arguing for blanket opposition to taxes in general.
Nope. I did say “ Every pound that the bastards take in tax is an assault on liberty” as indeed it is, but I recognised that some taxation is a necessary infringement of liberty. I said “30 million people working as indentured labourers for a couple of months a year longer than they need to” – while all taxation is an assault on liberty, some assaults on liberty are justified. Including taxing enough to perform the necessary defence and anti-criminal functions of the state.
And yet now you say “– well you will have to try to build political support for more or less government interference in each type of case.” Which is precisely what DD is doing.
And good luck to him. My quarrel is not with DD, but with Perry’s rubbishing of the other bloke who is standing in a perfectly good, and in my opinion, better liberal cause. But I do not entirely agree with Neil Glass / David Craig when he says :
My message is that the 42 days issue is not important to most people as we are unlikely to be affected by it
I’m sure he’s right as a matter of fact, but I agree with Perry that just because an infringement of a liberty only affects a small minority doesn’t mean that it is therefore a trivial matter. 42 days is not a trivial matter, even if affects only a couple of dozen people. But it is less important than the gross overtaxation that we suffer from (note overtaxation, not any taxation) both on the grounds of being less important for each individual, if it impinged on all individuals equally, and on the grounds that even if it were equally important to each individual, it affects many many fewer people. If it affected many fewer people but was more important to each individual then we would have more of a dilemma as to whose by election cause was better. But it’s not.
Incidentally, having read David Craig’s book I don’t think he’s a liberal at all, He’s just hacked off at the scale of squandering that’s been going on. But that doesn’t prevent the battle against overtaxation being a noble liberal cause. (Note by overtaxation I mean taxation over and above what is morally justifiable – from a liberal perspective – I am not talking about economic efficiency arguments. Also note that I am using liberal in its old fashioned sense not the modern American meaning of progressive / watered down socialist.)
I’ll leave it to other readers to read your first comment at June 19, 2008 12:42 AM, and see if it is anything other than a complete and total preference for a blanket and non-specific anti-tax campaign over an articulated defense of liberty.
That is a statement of complete clarity. You will enthusiastically interfere with DD’s campaign for a return of liberty and support his opponent because DD’s efforts will not first lower your taxes . . . because of “the scale of squandering that’s been going on.” Nothing Neil Glass/David Craig wants to do will shrink government. He only wants it to do more with less money. All your hero wants is government that puts tax dollars to more efficient use and does not have any greedy individuals in it. Can you not imagine the horror of that?
Here’s another option(Link): Miss Great Britain (apparently one of several candidates being fielded by the nascent Miss Great Britain Party in various current by-elections) is also running against David Davis. I don’t know what she thinks about 42 days, other than that it isn’t the most pressing issue “in times of a credit crunch and a faltering economy”, but from other sources it appears that one of the MGB Party planks appears to be holding “a referendum on continued membership of the European Union(Link).” What’s not to like?
Mid,
I’ll answer in more detail later (it’s late here), but I’ll say this now.
You’re not listening carefully enough. I haven’t said any of what you’ve said I’ve said, and I disagree with virtually all of it.
What I’ve said is that other people don’t care about theoretical liberties, they care about practical ones. David Davies has chosen an issue that will never affect 99.99999% of the population, and which plays into the popular perception that civil rights people only make a fuss over the rights of Muslim terrorists and other criminals. You might be right, but politically it’s a seriously stupid choice of issue to be right about.
People outside the closed circle of hard core libertarians have different priorities. They value liberty not as an end in itself, but for the benefits it brings them (and society generally). I know what you guys believe, and that you do care about all the other issues too. But from an outsider’s point of view, to make such a fuss over half a dozen psychopaths while there are literally millions of good people being affected by other lost liberties on which the politicians have remained silent, and for you not to comment firmly on the inconsistency, it doesn’t go down well. People are trying to warn you of that.
Most Muslim terrorists are run and funded by governments – worse ones than ours. It’s a good way to fight a war ‘unofficially’; to tie their enemy’s hands.
Can you prioritise your opposition to governments?
MidW : Nothing Neil Glass/David Craig wants to do will shrink government. He only wants it to do more with less money
I fear that this is becoming a dialogue of the deaf. “Less money” for the government is not an “only” it’s an unmitigated boon to liberty. Reducing taxes is necessarily and by definition shrinking government and expanding liberty.
What is remotely horrifying about reducing the amount of property that the government expropriates from private individuals ?
When we get down to the government taxing less than 15% of GDP and possibly putting its defence and anti-criminal functions at risk, I’ll get back to you. Until then anyone who is trying to get taxes reduced is a good thing.
What is horrifying, Lee, is the possibility that we could actually get everything we are paying for. The only thing worse than wasteful big government is ‘efficient’ big government. Your candidate wants to optimize the amount of money being taken in taxes. His concern is that it is too much for the present economy. And no. Derailing an effort to roll back government by trying to make it more efficient is definitely not a good thing. May government’s improved efficiency ‘benefit’ you first. I promise you that it will not take the form of lower taxes.
P.A.
And that statement is wrong. It will not today affect 99.99999% of the population. But everybody is in some law’s minority. And it is precisely this ‘it will only hurt somebody else’ majoritarianism that has left the population of the UK helpless in their own land. Divided and conquered.
Laird,
I always thought Monty Python was comedy and parody. I am now beginning to realize that it was documentary and the UK by comparison makes California look thoughtful when they elected Ahnold in a midterm election.
Monty Python was parody? That’s where I’ve gotten 99% of what I know about England. Have I been mislead?
Anyway, aren’t you just following Italy’s lead? After all, they have a history of electing “pron” (don’t want to get smited!) stars to Parliament!
Mid,
Longer answer, as promised.
First, I haven’t compared the dangers of Muslim terrorists to that of the government. Certainly not in the sense you claim. What I was comparing was the different aspects of the threat of the government. Whether the government’s actions against terrorists a greater or lesser concern for ordinary people than the government’s actions against smokers, drinkers, non-greens, and so on. We have tens of millions of smokers, but only a few thousand supporters of terrorism, and probably only a few hundred of those actively engaged at any one time. To the extent that people care about what happens to the likes of Abu Qatada, they probably feel that harsher treatment is merited. They care far more about ordinary people being charged for throwing the wrong sort of rubbish in the wrong bin than they do about a handful of medieval-minded loopies being inconvenienced for 6 weeks as opposed to 4.
Now, I understand that there is an argument that being aspects of the same attitude to liberty, it is equally important to fight both. That liberties are lost bit by bit – first for people for who nobody has any sympathy, and then once that is accepted, gradually for everyone else. In the long run, that’s true. But when faced with multiple crises, one is expected to address the most immediate and urgent first.
Another point, when did ‘accused by a government functionary’ become an automatically dangerous person? I would not have expected you to discard the protections of law so cavalierly.
Again, this is not something I’ve said. I have not, at any point, advocated discarding any liberty or legal protection. I’m not even sure which bit of what I said could have made you think that I did. So I’m not quite sure how to answer it.
Terrorists exist. An accusation does not make somebody a terrorist, but neither does this fact mean that none of those accused are terrorists, or that the reasons for suspecting them are not damn good ones. I make no generalisations – sometimes people will be merely pretending to be terrorists and will have therefore been unfairly accused, and I would hope the investigative process would find that out as quickly as possible. But when I’m talking about “terrorists” in this context, I mean those who have not only been accused of it but who really are.
I don’t know which “protections of law” you’re talking about. Firstly, there is no law that makes the accused an automatically dangerous person, and nor is any being proposed. If you’re talking about discarding protection against detention without charge – this has already been discarded. The current limit is 28 days. It’s not a position I’m asrguing for, or saying is right, but the absolute “liberty” you are claiming is being discarded now has not existed for years. If you’re talking about some sort of conviction without trial – accusation automatically becoming truth – then this liberty is not being discarded. A person must still be charged and tried to be considered guilty. It is simply that they can detain you for a little longer than previously while they try to find evidence to determine whether you are guilty or not.
“Also, you have created a false choice. You believe that by imprisoning everyone accused of terrorism, safety will be secured.”
And where on Earth did you get that from?!
Not even the UK government has gone so far as to make such a claim. Not everyone accused of terrorism may be imprisoned. Not all terrorists will be accused. Some will always be missed, so of course we will never be safe. And it takes far more than a simple accusation to justify detention – you have to convince a magistrate, a high court judge, three Parliamentary committees, and a full session of Parliament that the suspicion is justified, that the evidence to convict them at trial is very likely to exist and can be obtained, and that it couldn’t be if the person was released.
Not that I have said this is enough, or a good thing to do. All I’ve said is that it isn’t the highest priority, and that treating it as the highest priority isn’t going to convince non-libertarians that your concerns are worth listening to.
“You make an error of several scales of magnitude…” I was simply extending the analogy. It’s not exactly like a bear either, is it? And I wasn’t comparing the government to a terrier. The comparison I was making was that the government on taxes and the government on healthy living and the government on environmentalism were hungry bears, while the government on suspected terrorists was the terrier. Nobody cares what the government does to suspected terrorists. They care about those issues that affect millions of them.
“And it is an ad hominem to continually accuse us of defending criminals.”
I’m not accusing you of doing so. I know perfectly well that Samizdata has taken a strong position on many other liberties, and against Islamists. I’m pointing out that the stereotype exists, and that by picking a case in which the main people suffering are Islamists, David Davies is playing into the stereotype. It doesn’t imply that defending criminals is wrong, but it does question whether the people doing so are really doing it for the sake of liberty.
“When did they become ‘criminals’?”
When they committed crimes.
The “presumption of innocence” only applies to how we should treat them. It shouldn’t be taken as in any sense defining the truth of the matter. There are criminals who have never been convicted, and convicts who have never committed crimes. (Or at least, not the crimes of which they are accused.)
But of course the security apparatus here isn’t claiming suspects are guilty, it is only saying it needs to be able to detain suspects so that it can find out if they’re guilty. The question is, is finding out important enough to justify detaining those who will be found to be innocent (for two weeks more than we already do). You seem to be confusing ‘locking people up’ with ‘punishing them for their crimes’. Security is not about justice, and isn’t trying to be.
“What is ethical is to require an immediate (next business day, re Sunfish) charge that is adequate to hold them.”
Like what?
This sounds even worse to me than the government’s scheme. A person should only be charged if there is a reasonable prospect that they can be convicted of it in a court of law. The idea of making up a charge that you don’t believe will stick, purely so you can hold on to them, is an outrageous abuse of process. So is detaining people on minor charges that anyone else would get bailed for. And the idea of criminalising the suspicious behaviour itself is a road I do not want to start down.
No. If it’s going to be done at all, I want it to be done in such a way that everybody knows what we’re doing, and why. So that it can be monitored, and the justifications examined, and abuses detected and corrected. The scary stuff is the things they can do without telling anyone, as part of the normal routine. If you start doing it with pretend charges, just to make it look like you’re still following the tradition…, all I can say is that evil thrives in such dark corners.
If they could be charged, the police would charge them. Doing it this way is a political and bureaucratic nightmare for the police – especially when it goes wrong. Don’t go imagining they’d put themselves through all that if there was another way.
“What matters is habeas corpus itself.”
Technical note: “habeas corpus” is not what you seem to think it is. I can understand this, because the terminology is in common use in the media, but the writ of habeas corpus only requires that a prisoner be brought before a court to ensure that the detention is lawful. (Actually, there are many such habeas corpus writs for different purposes, but this one – habeas corpus ad subjiciendum – is the one normally being referred to.) It does not, repeat not guarantee anything about what the law can and cannot detain you for. It asserts the sovereignty of the legislature, and prevents its agents or other powers usurping its authority. The government granting a power of arrest cannot in principle conflict with habeas corpus because by granting it they make it lawful. The only way they could “suspend” habeas corpus was if they allowed other people to set up their own police forces and their own laws they could arrest people for, and let them get away with it. (And incidentally, Magna Carta says exactly the same about it, not what people think it does.)
What you’re talking about is extended detention without charge. Not habeas corpus.
“But there need be no assumption (as you are predicating your case) that a judge, or historically a grand jury, will automatically reject all of the prosecution’s arguments and turn all suspects loose, regardless. I don’t understand why you make the stipulation that courts will reject reasonable behavior by prosecutors and investigators.”
Besides the point I’ve already made above, that I personally am not making any case for a security-liberty trade here, I don’t understand why you think this is an assumption of any case being made. There are two entirely different issues that investigators have to persuade judges of: whether there is evidence to justify detaining someone while you investigate – to prevent loss of evidence, flight, or actual acts of terrorism – and whether there is enough evidence to prove they did what you claim in a court of law. In the latter situation, the person would be charged and all would proceed as normal. The entire point of the first situation is that there isn’t enough evidence to be certain that they did it (or at least, not evidence a court will accept), and it’s to have a hope of getting it that they’re asking for the detention. Thus, by definition, a court would reject the case, if what they’re trying to prove is that the suspect is guilty. It’s not an assumption.
“And that statement is wrong. It will not today affect 99.99999% of the population.”
In other words you mean, it’s actually right, but might be wrong someday in the future.
I didn’t say otherwise. But it’s right now, and as far as ordinarily apolitical people struggling with rampant nanny-statism occurring right now and wondering whether those loony libertarians are worth backing are concerned, that’s what matters.
Finally, I’ll say again in case it isn’t entirely clear – I am not advocating for the 42 day detention, or the trading of liberty for security. I have more sense than to try that here. What I’m talking about is priorities, and public perceptions. For David Davies to take a stand on the rights of a handful of Muslims, while having blithely sat through the trashing of liberty after liberty for the vast majority, along with many of the other politicians and pundits now making noises, looks like gross inconsistency at best, and like being on the side of the enemies of freedom at worst. Out of all the serious issues in the past he might have resigned over, why did this one finally pass the rubicon? And if you gleefully imagine you finally have an MP on your side, and line up behind him to get Al Qaida’s rights restored, will you suddenly find yourself all alone again when it comes time to roll back all the other totalitarianisms? Be careful who you ally yourselves with, and pick your fights with care.
[PS. Apologies for the length. But there were a lot of misunderstandings to cover.]
I was writing a long detailed critique of your comments. About half way through, I realized that there is no point. We live in different realties. Yours is a Bayesian one where probability is truth. In mine, the truth is unknown and needs to be discovered.
I do know what habeas corpus is. We are talking about holding people without any charges against them. We are not talking about charged people awaiting trial. By definition if you don’t know what you think they are guilty of doing, you are fishing. If you reasonably suspect a grave danger, but don’t have the evidence to convict, a reasonable court will consider what you do have and if it is in fact reasonable grant the necessary time in custody.
This is about turning imprisonment from a judicial matter into an administrative one. You said:
Some points. The first two can be considered to meet ‘habeas’. You said “and“, do the rest have veto only powers? Or is it if any of the listed grant the request? Three Parliamentary committees and full session? Generations could die waiting for that. Internment by procedural procrastination. A full session of Parliament? So much for protecting sources. BTW, how sure are you that this is all required in order for somebody to be held without charge? If you can achieve all that, how difficult can it be to name a charge you intend to prove? And are they going to release them pending the result of the process. I’ve heard of ‘died in committee’, but sheesh.
The Grand Jury system as it is understood now dates from the time of Charles II. National security has survived the many grave challenges it faced while respecting habeas, it would survive a similar process now.
Just one of my many points I deleted is still worth making, though.
This is an extremely common situation that the law as is sits is well experienced in handling. Suspects reasonably believed to be a threat for flight or a danger to others is nothing new.
Mid,
I agree there’s probably little point. I’m sorry about that.
“We are talking about holding people without any charges against them. We are not talking about charged people awaiting trial.”
That’s correct, and that’s the popular understanding of the phrase. But it’s not the technically correct definition of habeas corpus.
“By definition if you don’t know what you think they are guilty of doing, you are fishing.”
Generally, you know perfectly well what you think they are guilty of doing. You just can’t prove it in court.
I’m talking about what is usually referred to as “circumstantial” evidence. The guy has publicly called for Jihad and expressed support for suicide bombings, but that’s free speech. He runs web sites where terrorist activities are often publicised and praised (beheading videos, clips of US soldiers being shot or blown up to rousing prayer music, etc.) and where terrorist recruitment takes place, but he’s not responsible for what every commenter does. He’s got friends and contacts who are convicted/wanted terrorists and phones known terrorists in Pakistan and the Middle East, but they might just be chatting about cricket. He collects money for Islamic ‘charities’, which have often in the past been used as cover for Jihad fund raising, but maybe these ones are legitimate, or he thinks they are. He was caught carrying an envelope stuffed with money with ‘for the Jihad’ scrawled on it, but writing something on an envelope does not make it so. Sources in Al Qaida say he’s Osama’s number 2, and helped to organise 9-11, but those witnesses are far away, and may be unwilling/unable to testify, unreliable, or possibly have used torture to get their information which the courts won’t accept. And so on.
They’re not going to use this law on Mr Patel at the chip shop because he’s got brown skin, just to see what they can turn up.
“If you reasonably suspect a grave danger, but don’t have the evidence to convict, a reasonable court will consider what you do have and if it is in fact reasonable [to] grant the necessary time in custody.”
That’s precisely what this is about. In fact, that’s a very clear summary of just what our government is trying to do. In the UK, a court is not permitted to be reasonable and grant you the necessary time – you get to the time limit and then you stop. This is exactly what this proposed law is trying to make more possible.
And there is no waiting for committees and Parliament – the committees have to be informed immediately and the debate has to be held within days of the application, or they walk. It’s written into the proposed legislation.
(Incidentally, Parliament can go into closed session, and the Intelligence and Security Committee are fully security cleared and will be able to report their conclusions on more confidential sources if necessary.)
“National security has survived the many grave challenges it faced while respecting habeas, it would survive a similar process now.”
Actually, it’s been suspended a few times. Even Abraham Lincoln did it, as did Jefferson Davis. (Lincoln’s act was overturned by the supreme court, but he ignored that.) It was suspended by Ulysses Grant fighting the Klan, and again during WWII.
Again, all the above might look like I’m advocating for it, and I’m not. I’m trying to explain why I think it’s a lesser priority, and a bad choice of issue to make your stand on. But I think I’ve said enough, now. Peace.