Not So Cushy Behind Bars

The Sun was excited today in its front page story about the report into the killing of Zahid Mubarek, by his racist cellmate, at Feltham Young Offenders' Institution. Prison officers were said to have put the two together deliberately, in order to bet upon the outcome. The only thing that I will say about this is that, without the Human Rights Act, the investigation would never even have taken place.

The Rights Stuff

It is time for me to post about human rights. This is to a large extent in response to recent discussions, in the media and in political circles, about the Human Rights Act, culminating in David Cameron's promise to repeal it. I have been reluctant to go into too much detail thus far but I feel that it is now necessary for me to do so, in order to explain just how ill-conceived Cameron's approach really is. I am also aware that the Goldfish's excellent blog has often touched upon some of these issues in the past and so the following is also partly in response to her comments. However, I will be sure to tread carefully. I used to have quite libertarian leanings and so I have a tendency to respond to her opinions rather like an ex-smoker confronting someone who is enjoying a cigarette. With any luck, this discussion will help to explain the reasons for the altering of my stance although I have no illusions (only hopes) that it will actually change anyone else's mind.

The first thing to note is that there are two distinct philosophical schools of thought, one European, and based mainly upon the work of Kant, and one British and American, based primarily on the utilitarian philosophy of Bentham and Mill. Cameron's proposal broadly reflects this split and effectively advocates replacing the Kantian approach of the European Convention of Human Rights with the traditional utilitarian approach that existed in the UK prior to the Human Rights Act being passed. Kant claimed that morality can be reduced to a set of rules (with suitable exceptions where necessary, and exceptions within those exceptions), while the utilitarians regarded all ethical decision making as a mathematical exercise, performed by weighing up the amount of pleasure and pain caused by each possible outcome.

Both perspectives make liberal (geddit?) use words like 'freedom' and sometimes even 'rights' but they mean very different things by them. The best way to characterise this distinction is to distinguish positive from negative rights. A negative right is merely the right to do anything that is not banned - therefore, to gain more negative rights, we need to have as few laws restricting people's behaviour as possible - and hence they are beloved by libertarians and utilitarians. The archetypal example is the British tradition of free speech. A positive right is like a Kantian law that prevents people from interfering with something. Therefore, a right not to be tortured is a right enforced by actually placing restrictions on people's behaviour. Many of the most important rights in the European Convention fall into this category.

One obvious thing to note about positive rights is that, although they limit negative freedoms, it is primarily the freedom of governments that is restricted. In short, they protect individuals against people who are more powerful than themselves. The huge disadvantage of the libertarian approach is that, as well as allowing citizens to do whatever they want, the state is also given unbridled freedom, even to engage in oppressive acts. The most shocking example is a UK court case from as recently as 1980. It was ruled to be permissible for the police to bug someone without any authorisation. There was no law allowing surveillance to take place but also no law stating that it was illegal so, by the principle of negative rights, the activity was deemed to be lawful. This decision was overturned by the European Court of Human Rights and, for me, there is no better illustration of the superiority of their viewpoint over the traditional British one.

Many ethical issues can be tackled from either perspective but there is plenty of woolly thinking around this point by many commentators. For example, pro-choice campaigners rarely distinguish rights-based and utilitarian justifications for abortion even though they are often mutually contradictory. A Kantian approach genuinely gives a woman a "right to choose" and places her physical body at the core of the issue by preventing others from interfering with her decision making. The utilitarian approach allows abortion but only if it is for the "greater good". The most ludicrous extension of this idea is the claim by Peter Singer that it makes no difference whether a child is inside the womb or not, when deciding whether it can morally be killed. For him, the mother is a complete irrelevance. Should a government need women in order to breed a master race, it would be hard to see how even a complete ban on abortion could be rejected on utilitarian grounds.

It's time to bring this long entry to an end. I have only really touched upon the topic here. There is a doubtless some posting to be done on my personal bugbear, so-called "free speech", at some point in the future. But, hopefully, this gives you some idea of where I am coming from, and my inevitable future comments in this area can be placed into some sort of context. In essence, I believe that human rights are of fundamental importance, but that they can only be maintained by limiting the freedoms of those who seek to abuse them.

Don't Mention the Guinea Pigs

The editors of British tabloid newspapers must have been gutted by England's draw with Sweden, which meant that we avoided Germany in the second round of the World Cup. All their diligently prepared copy, with oblique references to events that took place more than sixty years ago, has had to be discarded. Instead, England will be playing Ecuador, a country with whom we have not only never been at war, but for which there are no easily accessible national stereotypes.

However, help is at hand. The xenophobia department at the Daily Star has come up with a gem, producing a piece under the headline "We'll Roast 'Em Just Like Guinea Pigs", a reference to a delicacy of Andean cuisine. Notwithstanding the rather worrying use of the verb 'to roast' in the context of footballers, it seems that the problem has been solved. A similar solution has also appeared in the Sun.

In order to offset such crises in the future, I suggest that a useful reference guide be compiled, The Daily Star Bumper Book of National Stereotypes. The newpaper's crack team of researchers can discover ludicrous labels to pin upon the teams of every country in the world (Ivory Coast - elephants?), in case we ever compete against them in a sporting contest. This would make life easier for editors everywhere.

Grammatically Incorrect

During Radio Five Live's rather interesting World Cup coverage, there was a discussion yesterday about the correct way to refer to Ukraine, which has given me much food for thought. Apparently, it is regarded as offensive to describe it as "The Ukraine", which was an invention of Soviet propaganda, and was designed to reduce the country to the status of a region, such as "The Dordogne". This, of course, reminds me of the ongoing debate about the all-too-frequent use of the term "the disabled" to refer to disabled people.

Linguists tend to give political correctness rather short shrift. Many commentators, such as Steven Pinker, argue that it does not matter whether we describe black people as "black", "coloured", or "African-American" because, just as they do for Humpty Dumpty, words mean whatever we want them to mean. Therefore, if the word "coloured" is offensive, this is a reflection of a problem with our attitudes rather than the term itself. This argument has some support from modern linguistic theory. The structure of language seems to be hardwired into our brains, to some degree, and so the extent to which it can be shaped by culture is limited. Meanings are assumed to be taken from our collective memory and slotted passively into a fixed syntactic framework, thus having no effect upon our existing beliefs. From this perspective, it would be plausible to suggest that any adjective can be used to describe people with dark skin without any ill effects.

However, this logic does not apply to the examples given in the first paragraph. Grammar does have an effect upon the meaning of words, otherwise "man bites dog" would be equivalent to "dog bites man". When the word "the" was placed in front of Ukraine's name, there is a case for saying that it was weakened from being an unambiguous proper noun and became little more than an ordinary functional noun. Now it could feel that "going to the Ukraine" was no different from "going to the supermarket" or "going to the toilet". In the disability example, the change is even more profound - what was an adjective in "disabled people" is turned into a noun in "the disabled". Even the most hardened disciple of Noam Chomsky would struggle to justify claiming that its meaning has not changed. Because adjectives tend to describe less central features of individuals than nouns, the effect of saying "the disabled" is to reduce us to our disablement, and so to reinforce in listeners the making of generalisations across the group.

That is why, from now on, I shall always be describing the country whose capital is Kiev as "Ukraine", without a definite article in sight.

Three Continents on Tottenham Court Road

Today I had the sort of postmodern experience that we Londoners like to claim is only possible in our multi-cultural city. I saw a white van, upon which the writing on the side indicated that it delivered products imported from Japan. Flying from its bonnet, like the many crosses of St. George displayed by English drivers, was the national flag of Ghana, celebrating their recent achievements at the World Cup.

Accra meets Yokohama meets Essex. Brilliant!

Success Secrets

One question that I have frequently been asked on application forms is to describe my proudest achievement. I find this to be rather sad because I would not dare to mention any of those in my personal top three to a potential employer. For the record, they are listed below:

1) accepting my autism and pushing on with life regardless
2) overcoming my clinical depression
3) fighting for my rights when faced with disability discrimination

The particularly ridiculous thing about 3) is that, for various reasons which also must not be disclosed, I can't even discuss it very much on here (so much for free speech). When I mentioned it on an online application, it was "accidentally" erased. When I resubmitted it, the employer declined to interview me despite being a member of the "Two Ticks" scheme, requiring them to interview disabled applicants meeting the minimum criteria. I won't be making that mistake again.

And who was this organisation? Which right-wing pit of conservatism and intolerance would have the nerve and the sheer arrogance to do that? In fact, believe it or not, it was the Guardian newspaper.

Hyper-Inflation

Since I left my job, I have been conducting an empirical test of the famous Parkinson's Law. I have found that, remarkably, even though I have absolutely no work to do whatsoever, it still somehow manages to expand to fill the time available. How can that be possible?

Overexposure to the Sun causes Hysteria

Yesterday, Britain's most ridiculous tabloid 'named and shamed' judges who it claimed had given overly lenient sentences, including one who imposed a minimum six-year term on the baby-rapist Alan Webster, reduced because he pleaded guilty after being caught red-handed. This was a woeful exercise in deliberately and manipulatively missing the point. It is not the role of judges to decide sentencing policy, but merely to follow the guidelines set down by the government, a point appreciated even by the Daily Mail, an unlikely voice of reason, albeit a no less hysterical one. By taking this stance, the Sun is promoting the idea that judges should act without reference to the wishes of the electorate, a policy with far more devastating consequences to the rule of law than any number of lenient sentencing decisions.

It is depressing news coverage like this which is slowly eating away at my increasingly precarious commitment to freedom of the press. While this would seem to be an incredibly important constitutional principle, it cannot be untrammelled so that the media can undermine and weaken even more fundamental aspects of the constitution, especially when core human rights (yes, ones even more necessary than free speech) are at stake. This has led me to propose a new criminal offence - incitement to idiocy. It should be possible to charge any newspaper that causes people to say or to do idiotic things. That should keep the Crown Prosecution Service busy for a while.

What an Ass

I find it slightly worrying that many of the country's leading law firms, who purport to advise large corporations on employment issues, don't even seem to know how to produce an application form that is in full compliance with the Disability Discrimination Act.

World Cup Predictions

At this point in the four-year sporting cycle, it is a traditional blogging thing to do to make predictions for the forthcoming World Cup. I also have a personal tradition of having a gamble on the outcomes of the first round groups. This kind of bet is called a 'perm' - nothing to do with Kevin Keegan - it is short for permutation and means that I make a large number of small bets on many different possible combinations. As a consequence, I have a situation rather like the lottery. My bet costs ten pounds in total and if three of my six predictions prove to be correct then I will win a decent amount - probably something like one hundred pounds - but if all six come in then I will win a happily astronomical sum of money. It sounds great in practice but I have been doing this sort of bet since 1994 and I haven't had any luck so far. I always back outsiders, and a few outsiders usually end up doing well, but it always seems to be the wrong ones, unfortunately.

My predictions are below. I must clarify that these are not necessarily the teams that I think will win the groups. Rather, I think they are ones that have a chance of pulling off a shock and hence offer decent value to the punter. The prices were obtained from Ladbrokes. Other bookmakers seem to be rather stingier for those backing outsiders.

Group A: Poland at 7-2
Group B: Paraguay at 7-1
Group C: Ivory Coast at 9-1
Group E: Ghana at 12-1
Group G: South Korea at 8-1
Group H: Ukraine at 2-1

Our Misfortune

And another thing. It should be bad enough that Jo Whiley has introduced a feature on her radio show called 'Changing Tracks', uncannily similar to the vomitfest known as 'Our Tune' inflicted by Simon Bates a few years ago. However, to make matters worse, today's listener picked an entirely inappropriate track to mourn the death of her sister - 'One' by U2. It's a great song but surely she realises that it expresses anything but affection. This phenomenon also occurs when people choose 'Song for Whoever' by the Beautiful South, a brilliantly cynical anti-love song, in those truly horrid love dedication spots - I've heard played at least twice. In this case, it is possible that the requesters know what they are doing and are just being cruel, but I think it is unlikely. Listen to the lyrics, people!

Copying Error

The anti-piracy advert currently showing at UK cinemas offends my deeply pedantic spirit. Don't get me wrong - I entirely agree with the message - but it doesn't make any sense to say that, on a pirated DVD, your view will be obscured by someone getting up to go to the toilet, as if that couldn't possibly happen in the cinema itself. Unless there are enforcers out there, who make it their business specifically to get in the way of people with camcorders, this is a silly sales pitch. A bad argument leads to an ineffectual impact and so this advert could simply end up damaging the cause that it purports to support.