Egalitarianism delivers better results

An interesting comment in the Telegraph describes how an egalitarian selection process takes place in the NHS. This was interesting to me because I heard just such a scheme described when I was at university and even then the critics were able to predict how it would fail because of human interaction. It fails at the input stage because humans have to program the criteria and it fails at the output stage because people learn to manipulate the system.

After the Cartoons

The UK governing classes seems to have agreed it's standard line on the cartoons (they were "offensive", we need to show sensitivity etc etc).

I think this is motivated by a belief that if they can just avoid trouble in the short term, then in the longer term the problem will go away. This is a foolish belief, but there you go.

I want to link to a few articles that have impressed me.

First of all a December 2005 article by Kenan Malik.

I think this is a superb piece. He is rightly critical of the role that identity politics has played in getting us into this mess.

When society defines people by their membership of ethic or religious groups then it should be no surprise that the spokesmen who emerge are the most extreme exemplars of that definition. Thus were have a Muslim community whose recognised spokesmen are linked with the Muslim Brotherhood, whose influence has tended to exacerbate the isolation of Muslim from the mainstream rather than to help integration. We have effectively ignored any Muslims who might do more to integrate their communities. And bizarrely, Identity politics endorses this insane approach. In the future, we will look back in bemusement at how our present society expected minorities to integrate when the education system avoided stressing what people had in common with each other, in favour of focusing on how blacks were still being oppressed by whites.

He particular captures something that I found so infuriating about the "offence" angle

The very fact that we talk of ideas as 'offensive' is indicative of the problem. There are many ways of disagreeing with someone's views – we may see them as irrational, reactionary or just plain wrong.

But to deem an idea 'offensive' is to put it beyond the bounds of rational debate.

Christopher Hitchens is always entertaining

The third link is to Victor Davis Hanson.

He is optimistic that although the governing classes have publically caved over the cartoons, behind the scenes, the attitudes are hardening. I think this likely in Denmark and Holland, vaguely possible in France, but totally unrealistic in the UK.

Update

Nice comment on the "nuanced approach"

Religious Hate Crime Act

Today, I find myself in the curious position of agreeing with Polly Toynbee .... again.

The UK government is making another attempt to pass the religious hatred law.

This time the debate is being made in the context of the media starting to report the events relating to the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten, which printed 12 cartoons of Mohammad. There has been conjecture that the law, if passed, would make it an offence to publish these cartoons in the UK. If you don't know this story, let me recap:

The newspaper learnt that publishers of a book on Islam could not find illustrators because the artists feared the reaction of Muslims. To test this they solicited cartoons of Mohammad and received 12 responses which they published. A few link Islam with terrorism, but most do not - a couple poke fun at the newspaper for instigating the whole process.

Muslims do not allow representational art full stop, so there is no doubt that Mohammad should not be pictured in even a positive sense. Not surprisingly throughout the World many Muslims reported being offended. There have been demonstrations, letters between governments and boycotts of Danish goods. Death threats have been issued. During the same time, the pictures have been reprinted in Norway and Belgium. In some Muslim countries a further three very offensive cartoons have been published falsely purporting to be part of the original twelve. The Danish government declined to intervene in matter of "free speech", which seems to have upset people even more. The UK Spectator didn't publish the cartoons but in a Rod Liddle comment on the affair he proved he can't draw to save his life.

I have linked to the cartoons so that people can draw their own conclusion but in doing so I recognise that I am taking sides. I do so for several reasons:
1. (To quote George Orwell via Harry's Place) "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
2. Race and gender are fixed attributes of a person. It is not acceptable to discriminate on the basis of these. On contrary religion is an acquired attribute. Since people can choose to acquire the attitudes and manner of a religion it is fair comment to debate whether such acquisition is good or bad. It's difficult to see why Cartoons should not be a legitimate part of such a discussion.

The government in presenting this act assert two things that seem to me false or contradictory.
1. Legitimate debate will not be stifled because only people who intend to cause trouble will be affected
2. Passing this law will protect a vulnerable group from hate crime.

I'm not sure why a comment against religion made by Polly Toynbee or Richard Dawkins should be regarded as legitimate when the exact same words uttered by someone else might be regarded as stirring religious hatred. We surely don't need this law to "get" Nick Griffin. The leadership of the British Movement is already littered with people with criminal convictions for various offences, showing that they aren't getting away scot-free.

More significantly, the main Muslim groups seem to believe that the law is needed to protect them from such people as Salmon Rushdie and Polly Toynbee. It is clear that some people are going to be disappointed. Either Polly will be convicted, indicating that Labour lied or are foolish, or she will not be convicted, in which case the Muslims demanding special protection will feel they have been betrayed. Neither outcome is desirable. Raising false hope of conviction amongst Muslims who feel they are already victimised will inevitably exacerbate their sense of alienation.

I also dislike the fact that such an act is being passed at this time.

We still recall the threats made against Salman Rushdie: threats of deaths vs the right to publish a work of fiction. One of his translators was stabbed. Van Gogh was murdered in Holland for producing Submission. Leaving Islam, a theatre was closed in Birmingham for offending Sikhs and there are reports about threats made against the producers of Jerry Springer. It seems as if we are giving in to intimidation. That is hardly likely to discourage the militants, who claim the act doesn't go far enough.

Last year a hate crime occurred in which 50+ people were killed in one attack and narrowly failed in a second. Yet in the months following, the media worked overtime to explain why it was wrong to blame all Muslims and to warn us about the rising tide of Islamophobia. There is at least a debate about the extent of Islamophobia - is it as bad as it was in the 1970s - is it right to talk about Islamophobia when, (I would safely assert), the average National Front member can't tell a Hindu from a Muslim? The ridiculousness of the claim is surely revealed when we learn who is one of the leading lights of Islamophobia: it's none other than Polly Toynbee????

It is asserted by defenders of the act that far right figures are able to generate hate by speaking about religion.

It is equally plausible to argue that certain figures are exaggerating the extent of Islamophobia to bolster their own power base. We might ask ourselves whether bogus claims will lead to community harmony or widen divisions risking more civil disturbance. At this point we might ask ourselves whether demonising all society with the charge of Islamophobia is a hate crime in itself. If asking questions about the validity of religion are offensive then so too is making generalised accusations of Islamophobia.

Update

via Norm I see that Jyllands Posten has now apologised for the offense caused by the cartoons. I think it instructive that 12 pictures were deemed so offensive that death threats had to be taken seriously.

Update 2

zombietime has published dozens of images of Mohammed that predate the recent pictures, many of them from Arab countries. None of these seem to have caused a similar outrage.

Plus, I noted in the original a further three pictures had appeared which were falsely claimed to be part of the twelve. It seems these originated from Danish Muslim protestors, who toured the middle east with them. One depicts a pig's head. The obvious question: if the original cartoons were so bad, then why fake three more? I note that the BBC has falsely repeated the story that the pigs head cartoon is one of the original 12. I wonder if they will apologise for inciting race hatred.

Teenage girl to hang for defending herself against rapist

This article caught my attention.

http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5183

I've worked in the middle east, including Saudi. When arrived, I assumed such stories were apocryphal dreamed up by xenophobic expatriates with nothing better to but over time I found out they were all too frequently true. To help convince me, I found that there were no shortage of Arabs prepared to not only admit such acts but to argue in defence of them. Yet whenever I repeat such tales to friends in the UK, they assume I am naive in believing in them.

Why are university educated people of my generation so willing to put on the blinkers when it comes to judging foreign peoples?

Update

This post actually started out quite long and related a tale of an encouter with a moral relativist (socialist obviously), who was unashamed about arguing that it was wrong for me (a Westerner) to impose my values on Iran (who had just executed a teenage homosexual), but I dropped it because it seemed too rambling.

Update 2

My wife has started sending her all her contacts the following email to see if something can be done to save this girl. She has suggested this be a woman only thing (which I don't agree with). The idea being that this both informs and suggests a positive action. The text reads

---------------------------------------------------------------
"Jan. 07 – An Iranian court has sentenced a teenage rape victim to death by hanging after she weepingly confessed that she had unintentionally killed a man who had tried to rape both her and her niece."

The details are below. If you think this is an injustice, please email tb-petitions@ohchr.org with your petition. You could also email the Iranian Embassy, the BBC or other media outlets that have yet to carry this story.

Please forward this email to anybody you know who might want to help.

Amnesty International are rolling this into a campaign against executing children.


More details on this story:
www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5184

Petitions:
www.faithfreedom.org/oped/WYari60110.htm

Related news:
www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,6119,2-10-1462_1859493...
www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5184
www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20060108-0927...
www.faithfreedom.org/Announcement/601081013.htm
www.amnesty.or.jp/modules/news/article.php?storyid=92&sel_lang=english

Nationalising Child Care

Many conservative commentators accuse their liberal counterparts of despising the institution of the family, which the latter of course deny. The Guardian provides us with a particularly blatant example.

In a current court case, a mother is arguing that it is absurd that a child who cannot be given a headache tablet without parental say-so can have a covert termination. The Guardian leader defends the right of the state to usurp the role of the parent in a piece entitled: "No return to Narnia" by Mary Riddell

In this she makes the argument:

Ms Axon's side has talked reverentially of 'the family', omitting to mention that this can be an institution boasting rates of abuse and murder which make Feltham Young Offenders' Institution look like Pontin's.

Did she write this with a straight face? That word "can" helps her slide from noting that some families go bad to prescribing a policy that every family should be treated as if they were bad. Perhaps all children should be brought up in Feltham Young Offenders' Institute.

Then the article of faith:

who, if not the government, is going to give all children the good start that might stop them having babies at 16?

What an odd result. We withhold trust from the class of people we call parents, even though their main motivation is love. In contrast the class of people we call child care workers are granted unquestioned trust, even though their main motivation is money.

Unfairness of being expected to compete on a level playing field

The leader in Saturday's Times was devoted to a discussion on the different speeds of broadband access available in the UK and elsewhere.

In South Korea and Japan, entire cities have already been hooked up to broadband service providers that pour data, sound and top-quality television pictures into myriad devices at up to 50 times the speed of the average British broadband connection. While Britons wrestle with outdated services and infrastructure, the technological revolution promised in the dot-com boom has finally arrived in the Far East, and its social and economic implications are clear. These will be more active, more creative and better-informed societies. Their businesses will have an unfair advantage and their people will gain a better understanding of the world around them.

I'm puzzled by the phrase Their businesses will have an unfair advantage.

Why is this unfair? Have the Japanese or Koreans forced BT or NTL not to provide better broadband speeds. I don't think so. This is equivalent to complaining that a student who got a better qualification than you, did so unfairly because they put in the necessary hours of study and revision.

Poly Toynbee's case for cracking down on poor immigrants.

In today's Poly Toynbee article, Poly explains why the wealthy want an immigration free-for-all. She isn't referring to herself - I have no idea whether she employs a Filipino maid or not. No, she refers to the Tory party.

It's tough to be a Tory. If you support any measure of immigration control, even those proposed by Labour, it must be because you are wicked. If you oppose immigration controls, it must be because you are wicked.

What does Poly herself think: pulling up the drawbridge on migration is no answer. We are where we are and the workforce is needed now. Nor is the labour market a zero-sum game. But the new skills advisory body should at least forbid importation of semi-skilled workers unless employers have done everything imaginable to recruit and train locally.

Let's see. Immigration controls are wrong but we should forbid importation of semi-skilled workers.

It is certainly true that doctors, nurses and some other high skill occupations are actively sought from overseas. Sometimes this is done covertly so that the government can claim the moral high ground of not denuding third world countries of skilled health workers but it still goes on. For lower skilled workers, the active encouragement is less obvious. Clearly people-traffickers are bringing in some, but that is already illegal. Bogus education establishments are already illegal. Many come from eastern Europe but that is legal. I believe that asylum seekers are still not permitted to seek work until they get leave to stay.

That doesn't leave much room for maneuver. The logical conclusion therefore is that Poly is arguing for tighter immigration controls.

----

For the record I sympathise with Poly's idea, despite her inconsistency.

I support high skilled immigration from whatever ethnic origin. There is no doubt that such a person makes a net contribution to the UK economy. However, I sincerely doubt that low skilled workers are a net gain. The argument in favour is that low skilled workers perform the jobs that our own people are are unwilling or unavailable to perform. In practice many low skilled immigrants displace indigeneous workers, who then become a welfare burden. Otherwise they compete to drive down pay to a level where the benefit of leaving welfare becomes marginal or non existent. The indigenous people refusing to take low skilled work are frequently the children of immigrants themselves. Whereas their parents generation were willing to take any job at any pay, they do not feel the same obligation. I have heard advocates of left and right argue that children of immigrants will become the doctors and nurses. No doubt some will, but rosy optimism doesn't explain why unemployment is so high amongst third generation West Indians. Long term unemployment clustered in minority groups does not aid social cohesion and only a fool would exacerabate the current situation. True, the problem could be ameliorated by abolishing long term welfare such as achieved by Clinton's reforms, but I doubt that the UK is ready for that.