Robert Sharp

Pupil Barrister

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Acting on Doubt

13 November 2006 / / 0 Comments

I’ve been reading a lot of Andrew Sullivan’s blog recently. He’s been plugging his new book, The Conservative Soul, and writing a great deal about how doubt is the essence of conservativism, as he sees it. By contrast, he says, much of right-wing politics in the USA has an Evangelical hue, and the certainty of the Christianist zealots is not actually very conservative at all.
This take has attracted many critics, including Jonah Goldberg at the National Review (which I came upon via Reason Magazine):

The fact that evil is rarely defeated by people who are unsure they are right is lost on Sullivan.

I disagree. Just because you are unsure whether you are right, it does not mean you cannot be sure that other people are wrong! You only really need confidence in the latter premise, to make a stand against evil.

That's just what they want you to do!

10 November 2006 / / 1 Comment

Michael Leeden at The Corner, one of the National Review Online blogs:

You can be quite sure that the terror masters saw the election as a great victory, and Rumsfeld’s ritual sacrifice as a moment of glory.  It will encourage them to redouble their efforts, both in Iraq/Afghanistan, and elsewhere.  They believe they have Bush’s number, that they have broken him, and all they must do now is keep the blood flowing to accelerate our retreat.

This rhetoric from the terrorist perspective really annoys me. Why should we care about the terrorists’ opinion of us? Why do we let them get under our skin in this way?
The US mid-term elections were apparently free and fair. Division of power. Checks and balances on the executive. A 219 year-old constitution working exactly as it should. Democracy, working.
The terrorists might think that that they are winning. But by demonstrating a robust democratic system, we know that actually, it is we (or rather, our American friends) who have the upper hand. Doing something that is right, despite what opinion others may have of us, is the true sign of integrity and strength.
The obverse is also true. Doing something that is wrong, merely to save face, is a sign of weakness. This is why George W Bush is essentially a poor leader, lacking integrity, as we saw this week with volte-face regarding Donald Rumsfeld. An infringement of our civil liberties, or human rights, in the name of the War on Terror may well worry a few of those who are planning to do us harm. As we torture and detain, the terrorists may indeed think “Ooh dear, they have struck a blow against us.” But once again, those terrorists would be wrong. Just because these fanatics do not percieve the value of civil liberties, that does not mean such concepts have no place in our own thinking.

Crime on Colonsay

10 November 2006 / / 3 Comments

Beach on Colonsay
I was on the Isle of Colonsay last weekend. The dunes were unspoilt and beautiful. This picture shows a south-west view over to Oronsay in the foreground. That’s a ‘pap’ of Jura in the background, on the left.
The sky was clear on Bonfire Night, so we had a good opportunity to look through a telescope at another “magnificent desolation“, the Sea of Tranquility.
How odd, then, to hear that four days later, the peace of the islanders has been disturbed. There has been a crime on Colonsay! Apparently someone stole a couple of cars and went for a joyride.
I heard the news on the radio late last night, but can find no mention of it online this morning. I do not imagine that the perpetrators have escaped… so perhaps there’s been a cover-up on Colonsay too. Some friends of mine return from the Island today, so I will glean some more information from them over the weekend (unless, of course, they have been detained at Oban Police Station).
Update: I think I may have misheard. Armin Crewe’s Islay Blog has found some more details about housebreaking on the Island. The car thefts were a few years ago.
Meanwhile, my friends are stranded on the island. Poor weather meant their ferry never managed to leave Oban.

Kriss Donald murder 'racist'

8 November 2006 / / 4 Comments

The men who killed Kriss Donald have been sentenced to long prison terms. Kriss was murdered by a gang of Muslim men, in Pollokshields (my old, brief, haunt) in 2004.
In the past, the authorities have been criticised for branding a murder ‘racially motivated’ only when the violence is perpetrated by whites on racial minorities, but not vice-versa. This tendency, say the critics, is a symptom of the Politically Correct malaise that has swept through the country.
It is worth noting that the police had no qualms in making the ‘racially motivated’ categorization in the case of these three thugs.
the killers

Gay pride in Israel and Palestine

7 November 2006 / / 1 Comment

I see that another gay rights march in Jerusalem has been given the go ahead.
Earlier this year, a planned World Pride march in Jerusalem was cancelled, due to massive opposition from both Jewish and Muslim groups.
My feeling was that Jerusalem could be a beacon of multiculturalism, and a World Pride march there could be a positive example for the future. The Intifada Kid begged to differ:

I disagree that holding this in Jerusalem, the Eastern part of which has been occupied by Israel since 1967, should be a cause for celebration. There is a growing movement against this idea, supported by progressive and informed activists for sexual rights based locally and globally. See: boycottworldpride.org.

I can understand how a boycotting of the march would follow from the idea of boycotting Israeli goods and travel to Israel in general, as a means of peaceful protest against the illegal occupation of Palestine. However, I wonder if larger (or, at least different) ideas are at work here, and whether an exception could have been made.
The acceptance of homosexuality is an anathema to all the Abrahamic religions, and the fundamentalists who seek to impose their world-view on others. Surely, therefore, the World Pride March acts in opposition to these people.
So, in reply to the Intifada Kid: Is an acceptance of homosexuality compatible with Zionism? If not, then allowing gays into Jerusalem would radically undermine that Zionism, no? Would World Pride in Jerusalem not be a temporary ‘liberation’ of the city?
(I supposed this argument could be reversed for the other side of the argument. If Islamic fundamentalists were the cause of the impasse, then a gay pride march undermines them, too. Of course, all this depends on an analysis of the conflict in religious terms, which is not a given by any means).
Not that any of this matters, really. As mentioned, the World Pride march in August never went ahead, and was replaced by a protest instead. That, in turn, was drowned out by the nasty conflict in Lebanon.

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