Pay as you protest?

Libertarians generally subscribe to several maxims. Here are two: 1) That everyone has the right to express their views, providing their expressions are within the law.

2) That it’s a good thing when people feel the effects of the social costs they impose on others.

A recent debate on Radio 2 – about street demonstrators possibly having to pay to protest after police look to refuse to close roads for them to demonstrate – pits these two maxims against each other. However misjudged I find the views of groups like "The Campaign Against Climate Change", "The People’s Assembly Against Austerity", "Global Justice Now", and "Friends of the Earth", there is clearly a case here of the immovable object of people's freedom to protest coming smack bang against the irresistible force of valuable resources being exhausted by the presence of these demonstrators on our streets, in this case in the shape of exhausted police resources, blocked roads, temporary traffic regulations and potential disturbances of the peace.

On the one hand I suggest libertarians wouldn’t want a situation where people’s right and ability to protest was predicated on their ability to pay. But on the other I would prefer protesters to feel the costs of their actions. So while I am all for defending people's prerogative in being able to demonstrate against actions they dislike - when those actions come at a social cost to others, some are arguing that it is not particularly unreasonable that they should pick up the bill for these negative externalities imposed on others.

It may not be unreasonable, but I don't think it should be desired either. The state chooses to have a police presence at a demonstration (it is compulsory to notify the police of any planned demonstration), not the demonstrators. A very risk averse state apparatus operates under the ethos that modern life is safe but expensive. Any restrictions of this kind on the ability of people to protest legally is bound to restrict freedom of expression, and at the same time increase the likelihood of people protesting illegally - and that is not likely to make organised demonstrations any cheaper or safer.

The nanny state's children

Scotland is seeing a hasty transfer of power from the people to the state. And a few components, including the SNP's unfaltering support from pro-independence voters that they expect to rely on for the near future, are making the transition happen with ease. Even in the face of a growing number of universally free things to adjust people to the state making our financial decisions, nothing of late has quite managed to reach the blatant level of state intrusion and awaken in people such fervent objection as the “named person” law.

This “service” means named persons will be assigned by the state to every child in the country until the age of 18. It is now set to be enforced in 2016 after the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 passed its final stages as a bill in the Scottish Parliament last year. Social workers, health workers and school teachers acting in a dual capacity of both their profession and as state informants, will have legal responsibilities that can rival those of the parent, while powers to intervene in private life and share personal information with government agencies will be handed to the state.

Educational charities and parents have joined forces under the banner of the NO2NP campaign and last week sought judicial review of the decision to enforce this law. By its opponents, the move is believed to be outwith the government’s legislative competence and to be incompatible with data protection rights and rights afforded to every citizen by the European Convention of Human Rights. In the judgement Lord Pentland said that the challenge brought before the Outer House of the Court of Session “failed on all points”, and approved the legislation. The campaigners expected there would be more than one hearing and so are not defeated as they consider their next legal steps to be heard by at least three judges in the Inner House.

It is important this policy is universal, proponents tell us, because children with additional support needs are not always immediately obvious to services and so this can ensure that intervention happens earlier to prevent crises at later stages in children's lives. A justification that has failed to quieten or satisfy parents’ concerns. But the creators of the legislation want to see it implemented at any expense. Even if it means creating bitter resentment among the vast majority of parents who are getting things right and do not want a named person overseeing everything they are doing. 

State-dictated outcomes are presupposed to be superior to all else by the legislation. But parents do not necessarily agree. The one-size-fits-all approach neglects to consider the fact that parenting is unique to each family. Should "named persons", who don’t know children well, be given the authority to have a greater say than parents - in the eyes of the law - as to what their children ought to be doing then circumstances and behaviours may be misconstrued, leading to unwarranted consequences. It is understandable that more and more parents are viewing the legislation as a breach of their human rights. Their children are being assigned an informant to the state without the option to opt out.

The impact on parents is one thing. But teachers, too, who are required to be instrumental in this new dynamic, have no say nor even a choice in the matter. It has not been made clear when an educator stops being an educator and assumes the roles and responsibilities of the named person. 

So when parents become suspicious of who they reveal information to, for fear that they are confiding in a middle-man between them and some investigator higher in the chain, more harm than good will be done. An environment of mistrust conducive to relationship breakdowns will be created. Not to mention the added time pressures and weight on teachers’ shoulders that the extra duties carry.

Early signs of the ostracising effects it will have are already visible in the Highlands where people were surprised to find it had been prematurely implemented as part of a pilot scheme. We are also seeing the wasted expenditure that this will entail, as referrals to services have risen. 

To make social workers responsible for a population’s children is a costly blanket bureaucracy. And at a time when public services are under severe strain, it is ill-conceived that scarce resources should be drawn from the most vulnerable and urgent cases in order to pry on the 95% of families this legislation will never be necessary for. The case may have failed on all points thus far, but it is in the lack of justification by those behind it where we discover the greatest weaknesses.

Most strikingly important, though, is that every parent from the offset is being treated as potentially guilty of something until proven innocent. And they have to keep on proving their innocence until their child is an adult. It is a sinister state of affairs, indeed, when the onus lies on the general public to prove why we do not want legislation imposed on us.

Restating the case for freedom of speech

One thing that’s becoming clear in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo tragedy is that when it comes to mockery, a lot of politicians and spokespeople have the backbone of a paramecium.  All these people trying to defend us against the insensitivity of mockery have missed something vitally important: Not only is there usually nothing wrong with mockery, there is, in actual fact, often something very good about it – because mockery is frequently a powerful tool for highlighting the absurd and the inane. In such instances the reason mockery usually cuts so deep to offend is that it is exposing some absurdity or inanity in the belief held. To silence mockery is to be in danger of suppressing the wit that exposes the kind of beliefs that can only be held by surrendering the mind to reject evidence and rational enquiry. If we rightly endorse free speech as one of the great human necessities, we should insist the same kind of endorsement for mockery too. Free speech is one of those issues about which it is difficult to say anything original. It has been written about so well by people like John Milton, Voltaire, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Paine and George Orwell. John Milton's Areopagitica is perhaps the best of all works on this - being acutely perceptive not just about free speech but about the need for a free press too.

Alas, even though these great men make it difficult to say anything original on free speech, if what they've said has been forgotten by modern politicians to the extent that the qualities they propounded are gradually being eroded away by our ever-increasing nanny state authorities, there will always be the need for a reminder.

The general wisdom that has been distilled from these great writers on our liberty of free expression is that we will not agree with every opinion being proffered, but we should defend everyone's freedom to proffer those opinions. We should do this not just to protect the right of the person with the opinion, but also to protect our right to hear opinions too. In other words, in denying someone the right to voice an opinion, we at the same time deny ourselves access to that opinion, so we decline the opportunity to hear something that may differ from the consensus or challenge widely held viewpoints.

We may not agree with everything we hear, and some of the things we hear may be vile, controversial or damn stupid, but we do ourselves an injustice if we fail to hear the dissenting voices, because even the most discordant and discrepant opinions may contain within them at least a grain of truth. Therefore we should be impelled to consider them carefully, for in doing so we force ourselves to question how we know what we do and whether the sources from whence our knowledge came were reliable and verifiable.

When it comes to free speech and mockery, then, so long as no threat is being made, or slanderous or libellous lie about a person being told, or employer/employer protocols breached, it is in our best interests to have complete freedom to say/write/draw whatever we wish, however controversial or repugnant.

Sadly, it becomes ever more apparent nowadays that these important principles regarding free speech are being gradually forgotten, or in some cases deliberately eroded away, by the kind of charmless busybodies who would call for the arrest of a Tweeter or the sacking of an MP or journalist or the condemnation of a satirist who says, writes or draws something they don't like. As is evident to anyone with even the sketchiest understanding of human nature and basic philosophical familiarity, the more censorious we become the more we become prisoners of our interference.

Why we stand up to bullies

Bullies succeed by making their victims fear them. The bully may be stronger than the victim, but he does not constantly use force against them. It is the fear of violence or humiliation that makes victims act in the way the bully wants them to. Once it has been established that the bully can hurt the victim, the threat is enough. Maintaining that threat is relatively cheap for the bully and for a sadist this may seem like a good deal. This might also seem cheaper for the victim, because the costs of direct confrontation may be very high.

When we tell children to stand up to bullies we do not expect that they will turn out to be stronger or more popular than them, though this is what usually happens in fiction. We assume that standing up to a bully will cause the victim to be hurt or humiliated. But it does make it more expensive for the bully to maintain his power over the victim.

Standing up to the bully means that his actions may not have the long-term effects that make them profitable. And it is good to have a general social agreement that bullies are bad, and should be stood up to. It discourages people from trying the tactic in the first place.

Terrorism often operates in the same way. Very few terrorists could ever hope to win in a full-scale war against their victims, so instead they do shocking, frightening things. Yesterday’s attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices was a very significant example of this, because the terrorists’ apparent goals (‘avenging the Prophet’ for blasphemous cartoons) seem ridiculously trivial compared to the lengths they were willing to go to to achieve them.

It is now clear that Western journalists who blaspheme against Islam may be murdered where they work. And most Western journalists don’t really want to blaspheme against Islam anyway. It’s rude, and it’s rude against a group that does not have much power in the West.

What’s more, that kind of wilful rudeness may drive moderate Muslims away from Western liberalism towards Islamic extremism. On the other hand, I’m not sure a person whose respect for free speech ends at a blasphemous cartoon was much of a moderate to begin with.

But if a bully tells you not to do something, sometimes you should do it even if you didn’t really want to do it anyway. Defiance of the bully is very important to rob him of his power over you, and – just as important – to show to others that bullying is not effective.

Simply talking about how unafraid we are of terrorism is an empty, weak reaction. Cartoons that show the power of pencils are worthless. No Jihadi is disturbed by any of this. What disturbs them is to show in our actions that they do not have the bully's power over us. The cost of rudeness is real, but it is insignificant compared to the cost of letting bullying work.

Plus ca change, c'est la meme chose

A little bit of interesting history. We used to have, here in the UK, an official of the Royal Household who determined what might be shown to us proles on the stage. The Lord Chamberlain's office included the responsibility to:

so that he could only prohibit the performance of plays where he was of the opinion that "it is fitting for the preservation of good manners, decorum or of the public peace so to do".

Of course we did away with all that fuddy duddy nonsense with the Theatres Act of 1968. The Earl Peel now has no such responsibility or power.

Yes, of course we did away with all of that fuddy duddy stuff, there's no one able to limit what the proles may see upon the stage or screen:

Seventies comedies would not be allowed on television screens today because they were so racist and offensive, the outgoing head of Ofcom has said.

Ed Richards, who stands down as chief executive of the media watchdog at the end of this month, said programmes from a previous generation were no longer suitable for today’s more enlightened audiences.

What it is that we proles may be shown seems to have changed a little, the August Personage who gets to decide it seems to have changed, but it does still seem to be that the bien pensants of the day get to decide what may or may not be shown to the populace.

Haven't we all had such a radical expansion in freedom and liberty, in cultural expression?

Not that we're in favour of racism, sexism or whatever, particularly. It's just that we can't help thinking that an actual free market in these things would work rather better. If people didn't like what was being shown then they wouldn't watch it and it would quickly fail and be taken off the air. And at least in the Lord Chamberlain's day they were very clear about this: you may not show these things because people would like them too much. The modern censorship is making the opposite argument: you may not show them because no one would like them. But if that is so then we don't need the censorship, do we, because something that no one likes won't survive. We thus suspect that the censorship survives precisely because those censoring know that the populace does not share their views.

How very liberal, eh?

Do we really want Theresa May to decide who speaks at universities?

We already have a burgeoning anti-free speech movement coming organically from politically active students so perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that Theresa May wants to chip in as well, seeking the power to pick and choose who gets to speak at UK universities.

New powers for the home secretary to order universities to ban extremist speakers from their campuses are to be included in the counter-terrorism bill to be published on Wednesday, Theresa May has announced.

The bill will also place a statutory duty on schools, colleges, prisons and local councils to help prevent people from being drawn into terrorism, the home secretary said.

She said universities would have to show that they have put in place policies to deal with extremist speakers.

“The organisations subject to the duty will have to take into account guidance issued by the home secretary. Where organisations consistently fail, ministers will be able to issue directions to them “which will be enforceable by court orders”, May announced.

Since we already have laws against inciting violence, presumably these laws will not really help crack down on terrorism advocacy which says 'go and blow people up'; to be useful at all to courts and the government it must have a wider remit. Thus, it seems like more marginal 'extremist' figures will be targeted; not just Muslim clerics the government doesn't like, but perhaps pick up artists deemed to advocate violence against women, or perhaps anti-abortion campaigners (note what the UCSB professor called the poster-holding campaigner).

Practically every political viewpoint of today would have been judged inconceivably radical and/or extremist to almost anyone from 17th Century England. The benefits of free speech come from the free exchange of ideas, a process which often weeds out bad ideas and leaves good ones alive. To guarantee we enjoy their continued benefits we have to stand against even the smallest, least objectionable infringements made—wherever they come from. Even ugly speech must be protected if we are to enjoy these prudential benefits.

Even if free speech ought sometimes to be curtailed in general, to make some areas 'safe spaces' for unprivileged groups who would otherwise be made very uncomfortable, it seems like universities are one place where we are best placed to let it run wild—you would think that they are bastions of smart, open-minded free inquiry.

Theresa May surely realises from her struggles with the European Court of Human Rights that laws can have unintended consequences. It is surprising that she seems so unworried about handing future Home Secretaries the right to decide what speech goes on in our universities.

No, Boris - we are never guilty until proven innocent

The proximity of the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta next year makes Boris Johnson's Telegraph column from Sunday even more shocking. His plan to arrest anyone who travels to Syria or Iraq without 'good reason' utterly abandons the presumption of innocence. Instead, all travelers would be presumed guilty – and guilty of the extremely serious charge of terrorism – unless they could somehow convince 'the authorities' otherwise:

We also need to be far more effective in preventing British and other foreigners from getting out there…We need to make it crystal clear that you will be arrested if you go out to Syria or Iraq without a good reason. At present the police are finding it very difficult to stop people from simply flying out via Germany, crossing the border, doing their ghastly jihadi tourism, and coming back. The police can and do interview the returnees, but it is hard to press charges without evidence. The law needs a swift and minor change so that there is a “rebuttable presumption” that all those visiting war areas without notifying the authorities have done so for a terrorist purpose.

Boris of course has the laudable aim of curbing the jihadists. But that is just the sort of ambition that has excused too many careless erosions of our ancient freedoms. Already he calls for the return of control orders and laments how hard it is to press charges against British citizens without evidence; as if the assumption of innocence until proven otherwise has not acted as the ultimate safe-guard of citizens against radicals throughout modern history.

According to the Mayor, such controls and assumptions need merely a 'swift and minor' change in the law. Are our Magna Carta liberties to be so swiftly and so triflingly abandoned?

Criminalizing consumption: Alcohol tags are a step too far

At 2:30pm, I’ll be going on Sky News to argue against the implementation of alcohol tags the Mayor of London has announced will be piloted in four major London boroughs: Croydon, Lambeth, Southwark and Sutton. For 12 months, courts will be able to instruct "alcohol abstinence and monitoring requirements” on 150 offenders for a determined period of time. Any consumption of alcohol could lead to stricter punishment, including imprisonment. As custodial sentences go, alcohol tags are highly intrusive; the 24-7 monitoring over one’s consumption undermines their entire sense of autonomy. If such a policy were to be adopted, we must ask when – if ever – this kind of policing should be enforced.

The primary problem with the Mayor’s pilot plan is that is does not distinguish between violent offenders and more minor, drunken offenses. These tags are supposed to be part of an effort to create tougher community sentencing, which one could receive for committing assault, fraud, or playing music too loudly at night; policing one’s lifestyle choices for owning a speaker system seems nothing short of absurd.

There are also more principled problems, including the assumption of a second offense, which arguably undermines the notion of innocent until proven guilty. There is also a question of misplaced priorities; why does the government always jump to scale back the liberties of offenders, rather than addressing the deep, underling problems that lead to the offense in the first place?

Some former offenders have argued that alcohol tags have helped them to overcome their issues with substance abuse that have led them to commit crimes. Such testimonies, however, suggest that alcohol tags could prove useful in a voluntary, op-in system, when the offender has decided to tackle alcohol abuse and can use the tag as part of their support system.

But apart from that voluntary aspect, this new pilot sets a dangerous precedent that the best way to create order in society is for politicians and law makers to monitor and ban consumption and behavior until everyone fits neatly into line. Autonomy is sacred; even those criminals with their iPod docks don’t deserve to lose it.