Wednesday 26 December 2007

Are all individuals in a society considered potential offenders?

What did I notice in that statement from this House of Commons Hansard Debate for 08 Oct 2007 (pt 0020)?

"I particularly welcome the announcement by my right hon. Friend the Lord High Chancellor on homophobic hatred. Provisions in a Bill previously brought into play in Northern Ireland will today send a strong message to society that homophobic hate crimes are not acceptable in a modern-day society."

Send a strong message to society that homophobic hate crimes are not acceptable in a modern-day society? To send a strong message to society? Does society need messages? Messages on how to act and behave? Doesn't society know that acts against other individuals do not befit a human individual? Does it need any message, from anyone, on how to act and behave?

And in that publication of RoSPA, the royal society for the prevention of accidents, I read:

"Many such cases have been highlighted in the media which has contributed to a public perception that it is possible to ‘get away’ with dangerous and lethal behaviour on the road."

Public perception? Public, for everyone of us, every individual in a society, ubiquitous and universal. Our common and shared perception, which we use to direct and unfold our lives, its sole criterion is 'how to get away'? All the values we hold and cherish are reduced to that primary objective, 'to get away'.

How low have they put public perception. In what little regard do they hold public perception. Where each individual is considered a potential offender, or may be even, forget about potential but plainly an offender, a perpetrator. That every individual's main concern is how to 'get away', that each one of us has in mind to pillage, kill, maim and commit acts against the welfare of other individuals as long as they can 'get away'.

I find that degrading for society, for any society and reveals the mentality of the law makers and governing bodies. They are engrossed in a mind frame, a mindset so overriding they can not get away from.

The laws and rules are there because the collective mind of the individuals in the society have brought them forth and not because of some sublime enlightened mind thought them. Parliamentarians and other individuals in government bodies, are servants to the society that put them there. They were not voted or assigned to be masters and overseers of the society.

Neither in society nor in the public perception, 'to get away' is a guiding principle or in need to be taught a lesson. It is for the very few in society who stray from the rest that the laws are for. The values and respect for each other, of individuals in a society, are strong enough to need any laws to be uphold.

Your place is to follow the guidelines as given by society and not to make the guidelines for the society to follow, you are individuals in the society as everyone else and as any other individual in a society, the models you built to make sense out of the world are simplified models.

Sunday 23 December 2007

So, was Iraq's war another crusade?

Is religion about good and evil? Are the concepts of good and evil ubiquitous, universal in meaning. Something that everyone, from whatever cultural background is coming from, understands them in the same way? I read in the article of "Blair's faith fuelled his drive to join in the invasion of Iraq", from Guardian Unlimited,

"As Prime Minister, he saw the world in terms of good and evil. Kosovo, Sierra Leone, support for African development and a two-state solution in the Middle East and, above all, war in Iraq were informed by his belief. His rawest expression of motive for taking Britain into Iraq was spoken in Glasgow on the same day as the mass protest across Britain on 15 February 2003. His voice heavy with emotion, he declared: 'If there are 500,000 on that march, that is still less than the number of people whose deaths Saddam has been responsible for. If there are one million, that is still less than the number who died in the wars he started... ridding the world of Saddam would be an act of humanity. It is leaving him there that is in truth inhumane."

It is naive to consider that Blair's view of good and evil is shared by anybody else apart from himself and his followers, though I do not think that the war in Iraq was just another christian crusade, a fourth or fifth I am not sure, to apply the western culture version of good and evil. It was a pure exercise of another aspect of monetisation and the whole process needed some sort of cover. Whereas for Britain it might have been Blair's version of good and evil, as for Mr. Bush and his band of followers was the freedom fighting approach.

Unfortunately the whole exercise opened up another can of worms, as the fellow americans tend to say. But it makes no difference to them. As if they care, that british, americans, iraqis are killed and maimed daily. Collateral damage, since for both the objective has been achieved. They managed to use a lot of bombs and other disposable goodies in their arsenal before its sell-by-date run out, saving them from scrap merchants fees and costly disposal processes, gauged the efficiency of some of their smart weapons on some real targets, not some hapless platforms or much needed demolition jobs, created a stir in their war industries as new orders came in, to replace whatever was used, get ready for another war. You see their battle for good and evil, or the freedom fighters cause continues unabated and never stops.

There are baddies still out there. Iran, North Korea eminent candidates and who knows, the return of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan might create the freedom fighters too. To stir up the british and the americans noble pursuits.

Thank goodness up to know Iran and North Korea do not fall into the trap and defuse the tensions, the british and americans constantly create, in negotiations.

I hope Pakistan, likewise, will not give them a reason to invent freedom fighters and a chance to sharpen their swords. Let their brand new manufactured bombs, smart or stupid, and other high tech war equipment to rust past their sell-by-dates.

To put the war industry out of business and into the dole queues.