Hooray! We’re off to the moon. UK scientists are working on the deisgn of a moon lander that would also be used on Mars missions.
It seems to me that if we are to spend billions of pounds on firing rockets into the air, how much better it would be if they flew off to the moon or Mars, in a spirit of discovery and exploration. Instead we develop rockets designed to vapourise hundreds of thousands of people. We are a very silly species.
Of course, supporters of Trident cite the unreliable regimes of North Korea and Iran as proof that we need to maintain a deterrent. But I reckon a trip to the moon would be better than a deterrent – it would be a demoraliser. Can you imagine a bigger “fuck you” to send to Ahmadinejad, than an YouTube message from the moon?
As an incentive, countries that disarm would be offered a seat on the spaceship. The sight of your country’s flag, billowing in the vacuum by means of a support wire. What could bring greater glory to your land and people?
Tag: Politics (Page 53 of 57)
Thinking about women rulers, it is interesting to see how progressive South-Asia has been in this regard. Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have all had female leaders. In fact, the latter two have had more than one, as has India if you were to count Sonia Ghandi.
Critics of Asian culture in general, and Islam in particular, do like to remind us of the essential backwardness of the regions and religion, with a general misogyny being the primary exhibit. To those Muslims who voted for Benazir Bhutto, say, this might seem a spectacularly unfair accusation… especially when the USA (moralizer-in-chief) is turning itself inside-out over the question of whether the country is ‘ready’ for a woman (or a black man) to lead.
Perhaps an alternative measure of democratic maturity is not the length of time a country has sustained democracy, but the point at which the populous begins to elect leaders whose sex, race, and religious combination differs from that of the traditional ruling elite.
Continue reading
Over at the Demos blog, Duncan O’Leary notices that several politicians have been invoking the metaphor of a house in order to convey whatever political point they wish to make that day. David Cameron’s renewal of the Tories is being built “brick by brick“, while Gordon Brown wants to raise educational standards by “raising the floor and removing the ceiling.”
I am reminded of how often it is that buildings are used as a by-word for institutions. We do not talk of the office of the Prime Minister: We say Number Ten. When we hear of interference from those next door, we hear of The Treasury. Either might incur the displeasure of The House of Commons. If a member of the Royal Family does something noteworthy, Buckingham Palace or Clarence House issues a statement. It is The Bank of England that rises interest rates. The United States’ Foreign Policy is conceived and implemented by, variously, The White House, Congress and The Pentagon.
These are all familiar, innocent, journalistic short-cuts, but they can be unhelpful. By embodying the institution in the building, they give the impression that these institutions are inpenetratable. It is as if to influence them, we would literally have to penetrate the six-foot thick walls. When we hear (as we so often do), of a feud between “Number Ten” and “The Treasury”, this conjures the idea of two megaliths colliding in a kinetic, titanic battle – Mere flesh and blood mortals do not stand a chance against them. In reality, the ‘clash’ is between less than half a dozen civil servants, men and women shorter and older than you or I, sending curt e-mails via Outlook Express. The Great Failures of the New Labour (read: Alastair Campell’s) spin machine, were precisely those instances where the facade of the institution crumbled, and the profoundly human cogs that drive the system were exposed. Jo Moore’s memo to “bury bad news” and the David Kelly affair are the most memorable examples of this.
A few years ago I spent a short time working for a think-tank in Westminster. One valuable lesson I learnt is that politics and governance are not a high-brow interactions between great institutions of State. It just a load of people wandering around corridors and pavements in the SW1A vicinity of Central London. Most people who spend time working in the ‘Westminster Village’ are already aware of this, but for a provincial suburbanite such as myself, it was a welcome revelation.
Often, ‘taking on the government’ need not mean a well-financed campaign planned with military precision. It just means getting the e-mail address of the civil servant who is best placed to help you: no battering ram required.
The argument over the proposed gay rights legislation, already in force in Northern Ireland, has been brought to the boil once again. Much of the debate centres around a hypothetical Bed & Breakfast, where the ‘deeply religious’ proprietor would be having to go against their own beliefs in order to legally provide serivces.
Critics say the regulations would mean hotels could not refuse to provide rooms for gay couples
This is a popular argument for those arguing against the laws, because it conjours sympathy for a single person (probably white and middle-aged) being persecuted for their religion. However, it is a highly problematic hypothetical, for several reasons, and should be questioned.
First, it is not just homosexuality that all the major religions label immoral. They also say that any sexual intercourse outside of marriage is immoral too. So, the aldulterers who sneak away to a seaside hotel for the weekend are also offending religious beliefs of the owner, and could be denied service on this basis. For the sake of consistency, we would expect that the same hotel would also ban a couple with children who were not married.
To this, the ‘deeply religious’ proprietor might say “well, I didn’t know that the first couple were adulterers, or that the second couple were not married.” This would be an unwittingly ironic, since it evokes the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. If it is good enough for the US Military, it should be good enough for the good old British B&B! If they do not know for sure that those two men will be having sex, then it cannot be said that the proprietor endorses such behaviour, unless it is also said that they endorse the extra-marital heterosexual activity mentioned earlier. There is a definite hypocrisy here, and ‘religious belief’ is merely a politically correct shield behind which plain bigotry can hide.
If the claim to religious belief is genuine, then these service-providing adherents might find themselves in even more trouble. There are passages in the bible and Qu’ran which forbid inter-religious marriage and can even be interpreted to mean a ban on inter-racial marriage (for example Deut. 7). Are such couples – immoral in the eyes of the religious – to be denied services too? If not, why not?
The debate, as framed, grants the religious a special privilege which is not extended to those with other kinds of beliefs. If an exemption were made for those of a particular religious creed, an aetheist proprietor who also happened to disapprove of same-sex relationships would still be subject to the law, and would rightly claim to unfair treatment under that law. Whether or not one subscribes to the effectiveness of anti-discrimination laws, one must concede that they be applied equally. If the religious complain that their beliefs are under attack, then we who support this legislation must begin by saying “well, yes, necessarily”.
Next, supporters must assert that the debate is not between two minority groups (gay libertines and religious prudes, say)… but between the majority view (which says homosexuals should be treated equally) and the minority view (which says homosexuals should be treated differently). The onus is on those who support the legislation to explain why the values of the population as a whole trump the values of those with religious belief. Unity at Ministry of Truth has already taken a tweezer to this issue.
In balancing the respective rights in such a case; those of the hypothetical plaintiff, who has a ‘public right’ not to be subjected to discrimination, against those of the hypothetical defendent, who has a ‘private right’ to manifest their personal beliefs, one must first consider whether the matter at the heart of the complaint belongs to the public or private domain. If the matter is ‘public’ then the public rights of the complainant take precendence, if it is private, then the private rights of the defendent should win out.
I am inclined to the idea that if you charge money for people to stay in your house, you are opening it up to the public realm. I think it is difficult to argue the opposite, since you will be bound, and indeed protected, by the public laws of commerce. Furthermore, the regional development agencies will have spent tax-payers money to encourage punters in your direction – an especially pertinent point in the case of the rural or seaside B&B. If you choose to provide services, then you have to give equal access to all tax-payers, even the gay ones.
Update: bookdrunk at the Rhetorically Speaking blog is always lucid on gay and women’s rights. ‘Revisiting Asymetrical Prejudice’ was written last year, reposted as the cherry atop a couple of other blogs on this issue.
[photopress:cameo.jpg,full,pp_image]
Ah, Edinburgh! This Athens of the North, this home of the Enlightenment. What perfect Sundays you provide for its denizens. Snuggled beneath a warm blanket of idleness, a shroud of irresponsibility, I am free to sit in the re-vamped Cameo Cinema Bar and take advantage of their gratis wireless, and complimentary newspapers.
And for a blogger, a 21st Century gentleman-pamphleteer, what could be a more perfect afternoon than this? I scythe through The Observer, and the myriad possibilities for unsolicited opinion leap out at me. I am spoilt for choice. I could muse on Scottish Independence, perhaps? Or comment on the USA’s relentless march towards totalitarianism? It is, in a way, surprising that Blogistan becomes so quiet at weekends. Isn’t everyone else making electronic notations on the Sunday papers?
Jasper Gerard caught my eye, with a short piece on the Countryside Alliance:
And while I opposed banning hunting as I oppose banning anything without overwhelming reason, I also suspected those who enjoyed killing for its own sake were tossers. Like deposed dictators, perhaps foxes need to be killed, but huntsmen seem to snuff out life with all the tearful regret of the Iraqi prison service.
This precisely captures my feeling. I don’t care particularly for the fox, which is a pest. But killing things for fun seems an affront to nature, and if one is going to do it then you should have the decency to eat what you have killed. This is possible when you shoot game birds, deer, or when you go fishing. But since the hounds rip up the prey beyond what is edible, I do think “hunting with dogs” is a sensible distinction to make.
Should we have banned it though? Reconciling this “illiberal liberalism” (as Gerard has it) will no doubt occupy my thoughts for the rest of the afternoon (I suspect my answer would have something to do with our laws on animal cruelty and bear-baiting). With my back to the window and the outside world, I sink deeper into this leather armchair, and philosophize.