Bel is thinking

Just reading the Guardian’s report into the sentencing of the former Ukip MEP, Ashley Mote, for benefit fraud.

This sentence struck me:

The court heard he used this money to pay off credit card debts that he had run up funding an ‘extravagant lifestyle’, including restaurant dinners, private healthcare and holidays to the US, France and the Caribbean.

Hmm. Not sure exactly what form Ashley Mote’s payments took, but why is ‘private healthcare’ classed as an example of an ’extravagant lifestyle’? I speak as one who has recently had some dealings with the NHS - far from being an ‘extravagance’, taking out private healthcare, where affordable, is actually a very prudent move. In fact, given the dire state of Britain’s health system, the time is fast approaching when private healthcare, in some form or the other, will be the norm for most.

Heartened to see that the place hasn’t completely fallen apart in the last few weeks, although, from what I gather, not from want of trying. Children are still shooting each other, soldiers are still dying needlessly in unnecessary wars, politicians are still up to their deceitful self-serving ways …

Still, it’s good to be back.

The Daily Mail appears surprised that a couple who have been running what it calls ‘an x-rated fetish website’ have not been banned from attending their local church.

But why should they be? I would have thought that these were precisely the sort of people one should be welcoming into a church. The church was never set up to be a meeting place for saints, but rather as a place where everyone is welcome. Everyone. Especially those whom the Daily Mail would regard as sinners.

Reminds me of a story in the Bible. Jesus, not really one to turn down a good feast, went to the house of a tax collector, where he ate and drank with people of dubious moral fibre. The ‘righteous’ men of the day were shocked, and muttered amongst themselves. When Jesus realised their displeasure, this is what he said:

They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

So yes, the x-rated fetish-loving couple are welcome in their local church, and with open arms, too. That’s the way it should be. Reminds me of an old saying among Protestant circles, and one the Daily Mail writers would do well to keep in mind:

‘There is no such thing as a perfect church. However, if you ever find one, don’t join it, as you would ruin it.’

He was instrumental in the smoking ban, he would love to take the organs of deceased folk without permission, and he thinks he has the right to tell you how to live your life.

Yes, I am talking about Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer.

I would love to see a copy of his job description. Perhaps there is something in there that gives this man the confidence to make statements like this:

The first thing you see when you walk into a supermarket is a wall of cigarette packets, we need to do something about that, and let’s get the cigarette out of Kate Moss’s mouth.

Sorry Sir, but are you proposing to tell shops how and where they may display their cigarettes? Are there not laws already that inform shopkeepers of the sort of people to whom they may not sell cigarettes? Is that not enough? So long as the shopkeepers are selling to people who may legally buy, of what concern is it to you that the goods are displayed in a prominent place?

Or do you believe that the mere sight of cigarette packets lining a wall is enough to tempt us all into a lifetime of nicotine dependency? Would you rather the cigarettes were hidden under the counter and passed over to the customer in a brown bag?

And as for Kate Moss, please leave the girl alone. She can smoke wherever she pleases, within the limits of the (recently changed) law. So long as she is not smoking in a prohibited place, her cigarette may dangle from her lips with impunity.

And why pick on her at all? Surely you don’t buy into all that ‘role model’ nonsense as well? Do you think that she is a ‘role model’ and must therefore behave in a manner approved by yourself and other such well-meaning figures in authority? Do you not think that there is a problem with society if our children forsake all the worthy examples before them, and choose instead to look up to an inarticulate, scandal-ridden girl as deserving of their adulation? Rather than chasing such a girl down the street and ‘getting the cigarette out of her mouth’, would it not be better to educate people about the health benefits of not smoking, and then leave it to them to make up their minds?

Personal responsibility is one of the most empowering drugs out there. Why do you not advocate it more? Is it because a society of free and responsible adults is one in which there would be precious little for you to do, fewer opportunities to meddle in our lives, and no audience to whom you can preach?

Another week, another story of BBC dishonesty.

This time, it turns out they have (again) been deceiving viewers of phone-in shows.

So that’s what we pay the compulsory TV licence for, is it?

Daily the BBC continue to dig their own grave. No one else makes the case for the abolition of the licence fee in such a compelling manner.

Says the Daily Mail.

Apparently, she would wish instead to be known as something called a ‘princess consort’.

I sincerely hope she’s joking. And even if she’s not, I don’t really think there is much she can do about it. We are not that enthusiastic about morganatic marriages in this country, surely she should know that. When Charles becomes King, she should become Queen. That should be the end of that.

Perhaps she is worried about public opinion. However, I don’t think that is sufficient grounds for her to forsake her rightful title. In any case, the Telegraph reports that the public is slowly coming round to the idea of a ‘Queen Camilla’. But even if that were not so, that should not, on its own, bar her from taking what is legally hers.

The two British girls arrested in Ghana on suspicion of drug smuggling insist that they were set up. Says one of them:

There were basically two boys over here who gave us two bags, and told us to bring it (that) it was an empty bag.

We never thought anything bad was inside … and they told us to go to the UK and drop it off to some boy … at the airport.

The two boys gave us bags in Ghana to bring to London, to give to the boy in London.

It was basically like a set up. They didn’t tell us nothing, we didn’t think nothing, cos basically we are innocent.

We don’t know nothing about this drugs and stuff, we don’t know nothing.

I am trying not to be cynical. Are they really that naive? I know that they are both only 16 years of age, but I find it surprising that these young girls could be duped so easily.

I have been reading the report (pdf) of the Commission on Integration and Cohesion, which was published yesterday. Among other things, it considers the effect of immigration on integration and cohesion.

The report is rather good at laying out the perceptions of integration and cohesion from point of view of the different players in this issue; the settled indigene, the immigrant, the voluntary sector and the State. Considering the dramatis personae in this way led me to thinking about what constitutes a just society.

I took this train of thought because I began to wonder, reading through the report, whether it was at all possible to have a society which all the above players would agree to be ‘just’.

Of course, I know that unanimity is not really possible in these things. What I mean is, is there really, as far as immigration and cohesion are concerned, a framework of rules that can be described, objectively, as ‘just’, regardless of the ‘player’ involved. So can we have a society that is ‘just’ in the eyes of the immigrant, the indigenous Briton, and even the voluntary sector? I exclude the State from consideration in this question, simply on the basis that I assume it, for these purposes, to be ‘outside’ society, in such a way as not to be affected by whether or not the society is a just one.

This train of thought led me to Rawls’s door. John Rawls was a political philosopher who did much thinking on the idea of justice. In particular, he thought a lot about what principles of justice should obtain in a society. Rawls wrote that this could be considered under a setting he called ‘the original position’. Basically, the rules of justice were determined by parties behind a ’veil of ignorance’. Put very simply, the question Rawls postulated was this: ‘what sort of society would you regard as a just one, if you did not know what role you had, or what you would be, in that society?’

So for the purposes of this post, let us try this very simple thought experiment: let us imagine the following people sitting blindfold  around a table: an Eastern European immigrant, an  Englishwoman with roots in  this country going back to the 12th century, a pensioner of limited means, a single parent, and a rich man.

None of these people know what their identities in the society would be, because they are behind the ‘veil of ignorance’. So, for example, someone at the table would have no idea whether he would be the immigrant, the rich man, the pensioner, or the single mother. The task then is this: considering that that they do not know which they would be, what laws would they then create to ensure a just society?

If, for example, someone at the table proposed a law whereby all immigrants were given free housing ahead of single parents and pensioners, and that this was to be paid for by very high taxes, it could backfire on him if he ended up being the rich man, the single parent, or the pensioner. He could only benefit from this law if he were the immigrant. However, the fact that he does not know which he would be in the new society, would force him to think carefully before he proposed such a law.

What the exercise seems to suggest is that there is a point in the middle where all the participants can agree; a consensus ad idem. It suggests that there must be a place where they would all agree that the rich man would not be taxed too much; that the pensioner, immigrant and single parent would be treated fairly according to some agreed criteria; and that whatever accommodation is made for them, it would not be such as to anger the Englishwoman whose family have given their all to this country, and who has never asked anything of the State, but the space to enjoy her country as she remembered it as a child.

So will the Commission’s report find that meeting place? I don’t know yet. I don’t even know that such a meeting place exists. I am still reading the report, and will let you know my views later.

Am I the only one who feels sorry for Paris Hilton? Not because she has been sent back to jail. If she has committed an imprisonable offence, that is where she should be, so I am fine with that. My sympathy arises rather from the way she has been torn to shreds by the public. Yes, I can understand the anger when people feel that the laws are being bent in favour of the rich and famous. What I cannot understand, though, is the delight, nay, ecstasy, of some people in another human being’s obvious distress.

I have been reading the story on newspaper websites and forums, and following the comments left by readers. Most of the comments I have read from those taking pleasure in watching Paris Hilton being dragged back to jail, are along the lines of ’serves her right, the spoilt girl, she deserves being taken down a peg or two.’ So, in most cases, it’s not really about justice being served. It seems more to be about darker, unpleasant human traits: smugness, self-righteousness, Schadenfreude, and much, much worse.

The Paris Hilton case has revealed (although it was always clear to anyone who looked) an unpleasant and nasty element of society. True, the girl did wrong, and she has been punished for it. But answer me one question: would anybody who has been jailed, and who has the means and opportunity to do so, not use any lawful means at their disposal to get out early? It is up to the authorities to accept or reject applications for early release, and any blame for the early release should be directed at the officials who let her out.

What I would advise Paris Hilton to do would be to serve out with dignity her remaining days in jail. She should make no further applications for early release. She should repay every last coin of her debt to society, and then re-emerge from prison when the debt has been repaid. Then she can walk out with her head held high, knowing that, to her screaming and hysterical detractors, she owes not one cent. Were Paris Hilton to be released from jail without serving her complete sentence, this deeply unpleasant part of society will forever feel that she owed them something, a part of her soul, perhaps. They would make her life hell. And for someone whose life is lived out in public, that would be hell indeed. That, in my opinion, would be a far worse prison than the one she currently occupies.

From the Daily Mail, we learn that the Department of Education has ‘called on teachers to create an atmosphere in which it is trendy to work hard and “boffins” are not bullied for being too brainy.’

Yes, teachers and all those in authority should ensure that bullying is stamped out in any place where they have a say, whether or not it is a ‘boffin’ being bullied, so that goes without saying.

I am more interested in this new assignment to teachers to ‘create an atmosphere in which it is trendy to work hard’. For starters, if any school can achieve this, it will be the first school ever on the face of the earth to do so. Schoolchildren have never, since the beginning of time, seen hard work as ‘trendy’, and they are not about to start now. In any case, I do not think they should be encouraged to do so. They are children, after all, and it is only to be expected that there are some things (school work, etc) that they will not embrace with the same enthusiasm as they do other things (playing, etc).

In addition, the notion that something must be made ‘trendy’ before we can encourage our children to do it, is something I find baffling. What about instilling in them the idea that hard work may not be fun, but in the end, it yields the fruits of success, a sense of achievement, and respect among peers? What about the idea that applying oneself to something, whatever the difficulties, frustrations, and challenges, might be something worth doing? What about the idea that sometimes we may not feel like doing something, but that self-discipline and dedication, irrespective of the views of others, are values to be exalted in every case? These are the lessons we should be teaching our children.

By trying to get teachers to pretend that hard work is ‘trendy’, the Department of Education is sending out a message that nothing is worth doing unless one can get superficial pleasure from it. They are preaching to children, telling them that they can attain things in life on their own terms. This is grossly irresponsible. Children do not rule the world, and sooner or later, they will learn that ‘trendiness’ does not make things happen. Far better to put trendiness in its real place, as a sometimes fun, often times diverting, ineffectual concept. In the real business of life, there is very little room for trendiness. There are many issues in this life in which the views of children are irrelevant. They need to be told that some things (eg hard work) are necessary, whether or not they are trendy. And they need to be told why.

Children should be encouraged to reach out for the tray of goodies that life can offer. However, with all this ‘trendiness’ talk, what the Department of Education is doing is kneeling at the feet of children and offering them the world on their (the children’s) own terms. Instead of encouraging them to aim high, and reach for a world outside their own, the Department is reshaping the valuable things in life so that they accord with the fleeting values of children. This I find surprising, and somewhat saddening.