Hate Crime is Thoughtcrime

On a bus this morning, I read the following, plastered to the back of the bus in front of me.

"A Hate Crime is any behaviour (verbal or physical) that is motivated by hatred of another person simply because of a particular characteristic of that person. Typically, hate incidents are related to a persons [sic] race, colour, religion, faith, gender, disability, age and sexuality."

Interesting. Historically, so far as I know, the notion of motive has been used to establish only the likelihood of a particular person having committed a crime, i.e., motive is assessed only insofar as it indicates guilt. This is, of course, a tenet of equality under the law: all citizens should receive an equal measure of protection by the law. Insulating certain sociological groups from "hatred" seems to me clearly to contravene this maxim; likewise, commit the same crime as someone else and you should receive the same punishment.

But no. "The Criminal Justice Act 2003 introduced tougher sentences for offences motivated by hatred of the victim’s sexual orientation (this must now be taken into account by the sentencing court as an aggravating factor, in addition to race or religious hate motivation)." (What a terrifying website, by the way.)

So, if I went out now and assaulted a straight man, I might get, say, five years (more like five months, but never mind). If I assaulted a gay man, I might similarly get five years. But if I assaulted a gay man while explaining to him that I was doing so because he was gay, then I would get, perhaps, seven or eight years.

It's not just a question of violence either. "Abusive gestures" are apparently hate crimes, if they are motivated by hate. Flipping someone off is now illegal if the sentiment behind it is, for example, racist. But flipping someone off is not, to my knowledge, illegal per se.

I can't see how this isn't thoughtcrime. The crime is the same; the only thing different about it is a perceived motivation, which results in a higher sentence. The extra time on the sentence is punishment for thinking a certain way.

To be sure, I don't particularly like people who think that way; still less do I like people who commit violence based on such ignorant thoughts. But the thoughts cannot be punished.

The crowning absurdity, however, is this inconspicuous little sentence, explaining the Home Office's definition of a hate crime: "Any incident, which constitutes a criminal offence, which is perceived by the victim or any other person as being motivated by prejudice or hate." (My italics.)

Wonderful. The interfering busybody's charter. I love my country.

Elitist populism

An astonishing conversation with two friends on Friday night. I learned, in rapid succession, that there were moves afoot to instigate a ban on the playing of music on mobile phones on public transport, and that my friends thought this was a capital idea and could see nothing wrong with it. "It's anti-social behaviour," said one. Well, duh.

Where to begin? Of course, I'd prefer it if idiotic children didn't pollute the atmosphere of a bus or tube with the pathetic, tinny attempts at reproducing music made by the average mobile phone loudspeaker. Their music is almost universally awful; and even when it isn't, no enjoyment can be gained from hearing it in such low quality. There can really be no denying that the primary purpose of playing it in public is not, therefore, to enjoy it (even though they actually like it) but to impose it on others: it's the 21st century version of swaggering into a peaceful diner and choosing some obnoxious rock n' roll on the jukebox. But I'd also prefer it if they were gagged when on the public, so that neither did we have to hear their obnoxious conversations about inanities conducted in appalling accents. That, to me, is just as annoying and if anything more intrusive, yet I can't see anyone campaigning for bondage on the buses.

The answer to life's little problems is surely not to keep banning things we find unfavourable, something that you'd think would be appreciated by my friends, both of whom work in the creative arts. No doubt both would argue until blue in the face that no piece of art, however objectionable or transgressive, should be banned no matter how many people clamoured for it to be so - as would I. Equally certainly, both would at this point argue that art is not the same thing as a bunch of chavs on a bus listening to drivel and forcing everyone else to do the same. Leaving aside the notion that public art leaves people equally little choice in observing it, and that much of it (e.g., Alison Lapper pregnant) is dreck and politically-motivated dreck at that, the question is merely a matter of perspective. As the elitist snobs we are, naturally we consider artistic freedom to be of greater importance than that of feral juveniles to listen to music on buses - and so it is, in cultural terms. But the law must be above culture: it must be objective.

Such a law would be arbitrary and would discriminate against a stratum of society, which is undesireable regardless of how much that stratum of society is disliked by lawmakers or "the elite". The best guarantee of freedom of expression in the arts is to observe the same for the feral juveniles - it is the old principle of equality before the law, the maxim that the law is applied equally to all, blindly and without favour. Laws passed to eliminate specific forms of behaviour that are not in themselves illegal but are merely annoying, that do not in themselves cause physical or financial injury or institute coercion, cannot be said to be just under the rule of law, no matter how many people find that behaviour irritating. I personally, as I have said before, find the niqab offensive in the extreme, but I appreciate that banning it is probably not an option, even though the niqab is representative of coercion in a way that crappy music on buses simply is not.

"If it is to survive, democracy must recognise that it is not the fountainhead of justice and that it needs to acknowledge a conception of justice which does not necessarily manifest itself in the popular view on every particular issue." - F.A. Hayek

Tell me about your mother

Sir Clement Freud today gives a perfect example of how to forge a career in journalism despite having nothing to say but a famous name under which to say it. See also Peaches Geldof, George Monbiot, Celia Walden, Paul Foot, Poppy Sebag-Montefiore, Harry Mount ... in his youth Sir Clement despaired of being famous solely as Sigmund's grandson and yearned for a solid basis for his fame; naturally, he became an MP (which, implausibly enough, appeared to satisfy this desire for legitimacy) and after 14 years undistinguished by much in the way of achievement, other than being "out-grandfathered" in China by Winston S Churchill, was knighted. Clearly feeling he had put paid to any suspicion that his name had opened any doors, he became a journalist. This morning's article was the first of his I can remember seeing in the Telegraph, possibly ever - although I dimly recall a few Times articles a decade or so ago.

With such a rarefied workrate, you'd think that when this giant of the Press vouchsafed to comment on a piece of news, it might contain a germ of an argument, painstakingly conceived and honed over a considerable period - but that would presumably be rather too modernist and would therefore jar with the real thrust of the piece, in which Sir Clement rails against the infuriating habit language has of evolving and the way most people, lacking his own patrician certainty of superiority (which is nothing to do with having such a famous name, of course), manage to keep half a thumb on such developments.

Salman Rushdie offered his own opinion on the niqab: "Veils suck". As a connoisseur of foppish belletrism, I can certainly think of more impressive ways to phrase such a proposition, but the sentiment it expresses is second to none. Sir Clement, conversely, clearly feels that as a successful and much-admir'd author, it is incumbent upon Mr Rushdie to use better words and dismisses as "attention-seeking" undertaken by those who feel the limelight is beginning to desert them such inapt uses of modern slang. The notion that Mr Rushdie is seeking any more attention from, for example, the kind of people that force their women to wear sacks on their heads is among the most preposterous and laughable as has been advanced for many years.

Sir Clement is clearly not short on attention himself (because of his glittering political and journalistic career, you understand, and nothing to do with his name) and so needn't trouble himself to think of language as a living thing. Unfortunately the same appears to apply to the women behind the veils. Having innacurately defined "suck", for the benefit of the moustachioed Colonels spluttering into their marmalade, as a word popularised by its similarity to a well known expletive, ie having failed to realise that saying that something bad "sucks" is merely a shortened version of saying it "sucks cock", Sir Clement deigns in his last paragraph to proffer an substantive proposition, opining that veils do not, in fact, suck, unlike "bad plays, excruciating opera [natch] - and, in this instance, Salman Rushdie". He does not, of course, trouble to defend this opinion. It is surely enough that it has come from a Freud and has been elegantly expressed (one assumes his advice that Mr Rushdie "keep [his] gob shut" was offered in the spirit of irony).

So, keeping women hidden in bin-bags is OK, but using modern slang despite being a successful author merits an article castigating the miscreant? I should go into psychoanalysis, if I were you, Sir Clement. You've got nothing to say here.

The return of the cokehead

Here we are then. After an absence from our screens (or monitor, in my copyright-infringing case) of three whole US TV seasons, he's back with a new show. Of course, I'm still smarting that the ingrate NBC network, unforgivably, fired him from his last show, thus depriving us of the chance to see the entire arc of Bartlet's presidency realised according to his considerable vision and, of course, with his unmatched writing skills. Instead we got the Soap King John Wells and his team of scratching hacks.

Bygones. Apart from having Brad Whitford in glasses and not having yet found a role for Janel Moloney, Studio 60 has the makings of a classic Sorkin series. His customary astonishing writing and seemingly endless invention are present and correct. It is as carefully and as flawlessly cast as both The West Wing and Sports Night were - and I admit to throwing four separate devil-horns during the opening credits for the pilot: one each to greet "Music by WG Snuffy Walden"; "Director of Photography: Thomas Del Ruth"; "Written by Aaron Sorkin"; "Directed by Thomas Schlamme". We're puttin' the band back together....

Still, it's hard to see how he can ever top The West Wing: not only because I don't think even a genius such as he can hit such a run of form again (those first two seasons ... gah) but also because, simply, nothing he can choose to write about can possibly have the built-in electricity or emotional and intellectual weight of a series set in the White House - especially Bartlet's White House. To get his audience to care about the Studio 60 characters half as much as we came to care about Bartlet and his senior staff will be some considerable feat. I look forward to watching him try.

You'll find out when you reach the top: you're on the bottom

Gosh. Three weeks since a post about Islamist insanity. Anyone would think they're developing a facility for pluralism.

No such luck, of course. It's simply too exhausting and too depressing to summon the faculties necessary even to try and make sense every day of the knots into which we as a society tie ourselves in an attempt to pacify extremist opinion. That's why it's so cheering, particularly so given the source, to hear Jack Straw's comments on the niqab.

Of course, he's positioning himself for a run at the deputy leadership of the Labour party. Whatever. There could scarcely be a worse person to occupy that post, which while Labour is in power means being Deputy Prime Minister, than John Prescott, for whom the word "yob" is perhaps an overestimation of his gentility and intelligence. If self-interested profile-raising is the only thing that will rouse politicians from their trough (of which more later) and get them to raise unpopular issues, so be it. It is particularly noteworthy in Mr Straw's case, since no-one gets elected in his consituency without carrying the Muslims. (Mr Prescott's attempt to slap Mr Straw down for his remarks merely betrays his (Prescott's) inability to come to terms with the fact that his time in high office is, blessedly, nearly at an end.)

But! Surely as one with strong liberal (ie libertarian, for the avoidance of confusion) leanings, I frown on attempts to dictate dress, whether forcing women into or out of the niqab? Well, yes. The difference is that whereas women forced to wear bin-bags are generally themselves the objects of coercion - from their hypocritical menfolk who are happy to wear all the relaxed Western clothes they can get their hands on while trying to shield themselves from the horror of temptation by forcing the female form to conceal itself - any law banning or restricting the use of bin-bags would merely codify our disapproval of such coercion; since so few women wear them voluntarily, it can hardly be said to be an infringement on choice. The state has the monopoly on coercion, and that coercion is best used only in the prevention of other, illegitimate, coercion.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. Mr Straw has been untypically brave enough to start the debate, and we must now lean back and give gangway to the blast of self-righteous opprobrium that will signal the Left's attempt to stifle the debate by branding racist or bigoted anyone who doesn't buy into their orthodoxy. So much we know. Thereafter, however, ground must not be conceded.

Much the same can be said of, or more accurately should be made clear to, David Cameron, who in one of his recent "Webcameron" vidblogs asked, inter alia, three questions you'd never expect to hear from a Conservative: in fact I'd never expect to hear them from anyone but the most dyed-in-the-wool statist. "Should we ban advertising to children?" "Is it time to end cheap air travel?" "Are companies a force for good or not?"

The first two are reasonable enough points to raise. The targetting of non-adults by advertisers is certainly ethically questionable, and there are of course concerns beyond the economic regarding the proliferation of cheap flights. However, Cameron's mistake, one he makes worryingly often for an alleged Conservative, was, of course, to suggest that it is the place of the state to do anything about these problems. Children, of course, can be advertised to as much as advertisers like, but without the parents' involvement it would be a total waste of money since children get the vast majority of what money they have from their parents. It is surely therefore the parents' responsibility to ensure either that their children don't spend their money unwisely or simply to refuse to buy them the things they saw advertised and consequently want. As well as keeping the state out of family lives, this might teach children who would otherwise never learn anthing about it a little about the value of money. Similarly, "ending" cheap air travel, even on non-economic grounds, clearly entails price-fixing and would be yet another step on the road to a command economy and the concomitant state. Far better to continue to try to inform people about the true cost of their choices and try to persuade them to make different ones. Anyone at this point suggesting that most people are incapable of making the "correct" choices without coercion (coercion which would not, let it be noted, serve to prevent any more fundamental form of coercion, and would therefore be undesirable) I can safely denounce as an elitist with no understanding of liberty.

It is the last question that is truly staggering. "Are companies a force for good or not?" Uh, "Dave"? You're asking this question on a video that's being recorded on a tiny device prior to being uploaded on the Internet to be downloaded in minutes by people all over the world, who will then be able to transfer it to small portable devices and then watch and listen to you while they go to work! Who pioneered these technologies?

"Never mind that," is the answer. "The really important thing is, can I make political mileage out of exploiting people's ignorance of capitalism? Can I persuade them that companies desperately need regulating more severely and that I'm just the chap to do it? Can I make myself and my party seem indispensible while continuing to enjoy all the perks that come from my vocation being treated like a job?"

Companies are nearly always a force for good. Ambitious politicians are a much greyer area.

An avalanche of sanctimony

Oh dear.

It would seem Little George has misbehaved. He is in disgrace. He has "misbehaved". He is in disgrace.

Oh dear.

What nonsense it all is, of course. It is tolerably widely acknowledged, to say the least, that one of the most readily identifiable, not to say most widely recognised, traits of autism (or at least a certain type of autism) is an unusual, even freakish, mental facility, whether that manifest itself in ability as a human calculator or as an instinctive musical genius. Strange feats of memory certainly fit into this overall theme: I first heard of autism watching a documentary many years ago about a boy who could draw, from memory after one look, the facade of any building, even the most floridly over-designed Gothic styles (which I love, but they are indubitably overdesigned). The conversation in question, let us not forget, was about Mr Osborne's peculiar feats of memory - and it was his interlocutor, not the shadow Chancellor himself, who first described it as autism. The Chancellor, of course, is also renowned, rightly or wrongly, as a man of considerable intellect and a devastating command of figures in support of (if not actually germane to) his argument.

Not that this mattered to any of the heroically pompous commentariat that were invited to opine. It is apparently OK for the journalist in question casually to describe as autistic an unusual mental or mathematical facility (which is accurate) but not for the shadow Chancellor to say the same of Gordon Brown. Even assuming that Mr Osborne was referring instead to Mr Brown's equally renowned social maladjustment and inability to work with others (which is also accurate), why is it OK for the journalist to offer one lazy stereotype of autism and not for Mr Osborne to offer another? Because one's perceived as negative and one isn't? Please. Can you say cognitive dissonance?

The difference is, of course, that beating a journalist's imagined slight into the ground isn't going to do anyone's career any good - but not so the shadow Chancellor. Lib Dem spokesmen have a living to make, after all. Nick Hornby was just being his usual idiotic self, one assumes.