On the Need to Annoy Politicians

It is very important that politicians should not live comfortably. Those who would take our money and our liberty must be constantly reminded that these things are ours, and not theirs. I do not advocate violence, of course, at least not in democracy, but turning up in a group in public places, to annoy them, bother them, discomfit them, remind them that they are supposed to work for us, and that their power is ours, delegated to them for specific purposes, and that they answer to us, is necessary. They must not be allowed to forget it. It doesn't matter whether you agree with whatever the protest is about, or with the exact motivation of those carrying out 'escrache', 'acoso', recently in the name of those who haven't paid their mortgages, but as long as their behaviour remains within certain bounds, we should applaud them, for they are carrying out the vitally important act of making our rulers' lives more uncomfortable.

The same applies, to a certain extent, to civil servants also. I will recognise that there is a considerable difference of degree, since they are, on the whole, simply trying to make a living like the rest of us and happen to have found that particular path. Some of them are even useful to us, rather than to the government.

But having acknowledged these points, they are people who have chosen to work for the government,* which pays them with our money. They do not answer to us, they answer to other people like themselves, and we have almost no power boycott them, as we would a professional or company who hadn’t served us well, or we simply didn’t need. We have nowhere else to go. Whether we want to use them or not, whether they are necessary to the public that pays them or not, whether they are competent at what they do or not, they are paid by us, but they do not serve us. None of them create employment. Very few of them are directly productive. Most do not even contribute, very indirectly, to the growth of the economy. They pay no tax, of course, they are a great financial burden to us and most of those who are useful to us rather to those who make and enforce the rules perform their functions in a very inefficient way because of the structure and regulation of their organizations.

They are different from those of us who produce things, are paid voluntarily by people using their own money, pay tax allow the political employment to exist in the first place. I do not advocate harassment of civil servants, but I see no reason why their anomalous position should not be mentioned from time to time, and kept before the general public and themselves.

*No, I haven’t come over all paranoid. The older I get (the less young, shall we say), the more I realize that politicians are not doing it for me, or for you, or for the country or its people. Therefore they should be encouraged to do as little as possible, and to answer for what they do do. Nothing should be easy or comfortable for them. Everything I do in my work is open to the scrutiny and criticism of my employees and my clients, and they exercise that privilege whenever they think it appropriate to do so. This is, on the whole, a good thing, and I see no reason why those who pay the politicians and the government employees should not exercise the same privilege, with the same benefits for us all.

Government is Not Us

Some of the comments here are quite interesting. But among the usual misunderstandings is a very important one. Government as we understand is something outside society. It is perfectly possible for people to get together to protect their property from robbers. It doesn't have to be done individually. But that group which has pooled its resources and to a certain extent its freedom of action in order to obtain a solution at least acceptable to all members, and cheaper than it would otherwise be, never, however you stretch it and expand it, becomes a government. Even if it included every member of a given society, and did what we think governments do, efficiently and acceptably to its members, it would still be a collection of private individuals, not a government, because 'government' is above and outside the 'people'. This shows clearly that governments in the sense that most people use the word do not have to exist at all. They exist, not because the people need them, but because someone will also be willing and able to take power from others and stand outside the subject group. (Government and the state are the same thing here).

Some things, many things, are better done collectively, co-operatively. This does not mean they are better done by government. We are a social species, we do many things together. More usefully, many of the things that we do are a consequence of our being a social species, thus it is natural that many of the things that are important to us are better done together.

That absolutely does not mean that such things are better done by a group of people outside and above the main group, motivated by different desires, largely unaffected by the restrictions they impose on others, who can take money by force from their subjects, and who have no emotional interest, or social investment in the people they control. Socialism, statism presuppose these things, and collectivism assumes that co-operation will not be corrupted by those who love power over their fellows.

Homage to Catalonia

I recently re-read Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, inspired by exhanges with Brett Hetherington in comments at his place and mine. These are the quick notes I made when about halfway through:

 He freely admits that when he went to Spain he had no idea what he was fighting for, and was quite ignorant of the politics. He seems to have gone to the Republican side because the British press suggested they were in the right. He was just sucked in by baseless propaganda, peer pressure and the thrill of war.

He says that journalists did nothing but scream hatred from the comfort of their offices, and he hoped one day to see a 'jingo' with a bullet hole in him. He says the Communists tried to destroy the incipient 'workers' revolution', which he thinks was taking place, rather than just a reaction against the uprising. He clearly says that the Communists hated the Anarchists more than they did the Nationalists and were responsible for a lot of repression and death on the Republican side. It was pure People's Front of Judaea out there and I don't really understand why he stayed. He seems to have had, despite his professed ignorance and the treacherous, almost comically ridiculous circumstances in which the Republican position was being defended, an unshakeable conviction that he was on the right side, and that it was worth his while to fight with them. It seem to be based on nothing more than the belief that the far left is always the right side to be on.

And these are more considered and structured remarks written when I had finished reading:

Orwell's tale of his experiences in the trenches and in Barcelona in the first year of the Civil War are very instructive, about him and about the war. He clearly wanted the glamour of being killed or badly wounded. He was there as a kind of war tourist, satisfying his ego and justifying his beliefs by jumping into something he didn't understand and didn't care to.

He speaks of his fellow English and American mercenaries as though they were the most important people there, whereas they were just having their fun and would go home when they were tired of it. He speaks of the bourgeois hiding among the workers, pretending to be one of them, which is exactly what he was doing himself.

The fighting between the factions of the left is quite farcical. When it breaks out, however, Orwell stays with his group of anarchists and is fighting against the government. This reveals as false the original justification of fighting for the legitimate government against the uprisen. He is fighting fo his own, rather confused, political philosophy, which seems to involve control of everything by the working class. Whether this means anything at all in a practical sense is not clear. And the question of whether it could possibly work is another matter. He does at least have a fairly clear and consistent aim, revolution followed by rule by the working class. He contrasts this with capitalism, by which he appears to mean private ownership of the means of production (and implicitly, although the point is usually ignored, private organization of work and distribution).

He predicts that whoever wins there will be a dictatorship, but prefers a Communist dictatorship to Franco. He says that the Communist dictatorship would abolish serfdom, distribute the land among the peasants, and would create good communications, public health services and update the infrastructures that the country needed. If he had lived to see Franco do all of that (except steal other people's property, of course), he would have been astonished. If the Communists had won, I think we can be sure that they would have done hardly a fraction of it.I reread

How Spain Looks to me

Blogger Sackerson has suggested I might have some thoughts on the protests in Spain and on the circumstances that inspired them. I do have such thoughts, naturally, and the desire to express them. As a blogger and not very successful writer, I have an opinion to hand on anything you may care to name. Whether it is worth reading is another matter, of course.

I don’t follow the details of the political and economic situation very closely. The Spanish press is little better than the British, and most of what journalists and politicians have to say is partisan, ignorant and rather infantile. The reality behind it all is important, but it is very hard to uncover, and I don’t have the time, and I increasingly lack the inclination, to do it.

Nevertheless, I do have an insider’s view of it all, and it’s possible that my opinions are interesting if only because they are informed by a slightly different perspective. So here we are. It should be noted that since I cannot pretend to offer an informed, non-partisan view, it may become clear with whom I do or do not sympathize.

It might also be useful to know that I do not live the life of an ex-pat as it is usually understood. I live, in every important respect, the life of a Spaniard.

The 15-M ‘movement’, which started at the time of the local elections in 2011 (held on the 22nd of May) mainly consisted of the usual young, hairy types who like to think that they can change the world by shouting slogans. They began peacefully, and in most places they continued peacefully, and the arguments they made were, on the whole, valid criticisms of the cumbersome and opaque electoral system, which multiplies parliaments and civil servants at many different levels, which gives members of those parliaments no incentive to represent the people who vote for them, as they owe their position entirely to the often unknown party controllers, to whom they must be loyal. Parties are state-funded and you cannot choose, and sometimes do not know, who you are casting your vote for. That is decided by the party.

Some of their complaints were about the banks, and showed a certain ignorance of economics typical in the young and those who have not yet worked for anything of their own, but I found them to be approachable, peaceful, not stupid, and I wondered if the government would actually start to take them seriously at some point.

Noises were made, but nothing much happened. As usual. What tends to happen is that these protests, even when based on good ideas and conspicuously peaceful, are taken over by the usual suspects, or fade away to nothing. Both of these things happened. The Occupy movement was quiet different from the 15-M, and the original purpose and form was lost, and just fizzled out.

Once the government started to recognise the gravity of the situation and actually do something rather than make political noises, it started by doing the wrong things, then attempting the impossible. They decreed, back in 2009, a programme of digging holes and filling them in again, in an attempt to pretend unemployment was lower than it was. Some useful work was done, but much of was a waste of money. They raised VAT, in an attempt to bring in some very short term income, while depressing commerce and investment in the medium term. Only a politician would think that a good idea. They also got rid of as many contracted personnel as possible, in order to reduce their wage bill. Something they were, at the same time, trying to stop other organizations from doing.

Civil servants in Spain have jobs and pensions for life. They cannot be laid off if they become unnecessary, and they are extremely difficult to sack even for laziness and incompetence. Whenever I have to deal with the civil service the difference I see between them and similar workers in the productive economy is enormous. (I could go on about this for hours. Forces self back to point.) So there are two ways the government can reduce its wage bill. One is to terminate the contracted staff, that is those who are not full ‘funcionarios’, or who work for companies hired for specific projects. These are mainly building works working on roads and public buildings. The local and national governments here threw many thousands of them onto the dole when the money really, really ran out.

The second way is to reduce the salaries of the permanent workers. Incidentally, the idea of giving public employees unbreakable contracts for life comes from the 19thC and was intended to stop incoming governments from sacking most of the civil service and filling it with their friends. But a solution to a specific problem of corruption when the civil service consisted of only a few thousand people at most, has been allowed to continue until the present day, when there are over 4 million people whose wages are guaranteed with our money. There has never been the political will, or courage, to touch this system and there probably never will be. It is possible though that it will slowly be allowed to wither, at least by governments of the right, and most public employees will indeed be on contracts which can be ended when they have done what they were hired for. I am not too sanguine, however.

The early protests were led by the Civil Service unions, for this reason. They got little sympathy from the public because with 4 million unemployed (it’s nearer 5m now) and a similar number unable to reach the end of the month and with the possibility of losing everything at any moment, the public felt that people with a salary for life had little to complain about, even if that salary was a bit less than it used to be.

The unions see it as a good excuse to increase their standing with their members and attack the new, centre-right government. The new opposition suddenly claims to have all the answers it couldn’t find when it was in charge. Everybody complains, but everybody expects someone else to get them out of trouble. That is human nature, but it makes the problems worse, and more difficult to solve.

The trade unions regularly appear on the streets, waving flags and shouting slogans that express their grievances and suggest some solutions. They achieve nothing, of course, but it adds to the circus of life. They have not normally been violent except during the national strikes they called in May and November last year. These were poorly supported but in the larger cities the far left makes sure they are noticed and make the evening news, by giving their members permission to break things and attack people. This is for their own political ends, and is not going to solve any of the social problems that exist.

Beggars are also appearing on the streets. Not the usual drug addicts and gypsies, but ‘normal’ people were clearly once working families and who’ve tried every other way they can think of of making ends meet. This shows that, despite what I say in the next paragraph, there are problems much more serious than ‘the government isn’t giving me as much as I would like’, which you hear from most people.

People don’t realize or have forgotten what it is that makes an economy work. So many people now believe that government spending is the economy, and that banks are evil, that it will be hard to re-create a country where hard work, investment, successful businesses employing people, are recognised as good things, to be encouraged and aspired to. The Chinese immigrants are now doing what the Indian and Pakistani immigrants did in Britain forty years ago. They are taking over small shops in large numbers, working long hours seven days a week, offering people things they want, when they want them, at good prices, bothering no one and making sure their children study hard so they can be doctors and lawyers and won’t have to spend 12 hours a day in a little shop. The number of people who routinely moan about this as though it were a bad thing shows that the recovery will take a long time. It doesn’t occur to them that they could do it themselves. It’s too hard for them, so they want someone else to do it. They then seem to assume that they themselves should somehow earn more for not doing it than the people who do actually do it.

Similarly, there are many immigrants from South America and Eastern Europe (The non-gypsies and non-gangsters) who are working very hard at what the local people don’t want to do. Most domestic cleaners, carers for children and the elderly, and many agricultural workers and bar staff, for example, are now immigrants, and have been for some years. Some unemployed people would jump at the chance to look after the elderly or work long hours in a bar, but most wouldn’t, and anyone with any kind of qualification fails even to understand the question.

It’s going to be long, slow and messy.

On Freedom Again (Part 1)

Oh God, here we go again. What is freedom, and why does it matter? No, stop there. What is freedom? That’s a big enough question on its own for a Friday afternoon.

Why ‘should’ that bloke be allowed to make bad jokes about a dead girl? Why ‘should’ that Muslim be allowed to wish that British soldiers would die and burn in Hell? It is not immediately obvious that it is in our interests, or in some sense ‘right’, to accept, as a matter of principle, that others may think and say what they wish.

In any case, ‘accept’ does not mean ‘cravenly refrain from all reaction’. It means that our reaction should be constrained to expressing our own thoughts in the matter. We are perfectly entitled, indeed to some extent we are obliged (with freedom comes responsibility, and that responsibility can pertain not only to the person who exercises freedom, but also to the one who allows it to be exercised), to respond to positions and ideas we disagree with and dislike. We are entitled to attack, dissect, analyse, dismiss, the position of someone we disagree with, to attempt to prevent others from being influenced by it and to mitigate the harm we think it might do.

In other words, we are entitled to talk to each other about our ideas and beliefs, to exchange opinions and to persuade.

Why should we not try to forcibly prevent people from saying, or believing, things of which we disapprove? There are clearly two arguments to be made, one moral, one practical. The history of humanity- and doubtless its future as well- is full of the gruesome wreckage of attempts to stop people thinking things that somebody doesn’t like. One of the most basic lessons of history, a lesson still unlearnt by many people, and largely ignored by those who can obtain power, is that people who are free in a number of important ways live happier, longer, more satisfactory lives. Deprive them of that freedom and you deprive them of that happiness, comfort, satisfaction, and in the end of life itself. Who are you to do that?

Why is it right to shut people up, by force, or more commonly to bully others into doing it, because we don’t like what they say. It is very tempting to remove from our presence things we dislike, and so we find ways to justify doing so. We create notions of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, and we attribute them to something greater than ourselves, ‘God’ or ‘our humanity’ or some such thing, to invest them with an authority which we ourselves do not have. In doing so we are still savages throwing rocks at the neighbours for coming too close, but more rational, nobler savages.

The freedom of others is our own freedom. If we recognise and defend the freedoms of others, we expect some kind of reciprocity. If we recognise and defend the freedoms of people we dislike to do things we disapprove of, we place a value of that freedom which is more than the value we can obtain from it, we state that it has intrinsic value greater than, independent of, the benefit we, personally, may extract from it.

On the other hand, stopping people from hearing something someone says, by force or abuse of authority, is not considered good by those who believe in freedom.

If we like the rule of law, and it seems to be good thing, there needs to be clarity in definition and interpretation. Many people will disagree about what a specific law should say, but on the whole we like them to exist. They keep other people in check, and we know what consequences our actions are likely to have. (Legal consequences. I assume we are sufficiently socially competent to know how people around us might react to the things we say and do. They are also likely to be limited, whereas the state has long arms, great patience and a thirst for blood.)

A Reaction to Ayn Rand

Does the world need another amateurish review of Atlas Shrugged? Why try to write a review of a book that has already been examined from every possible political, literature, personal and critical perspective? Why write about a book that is of no interest to anyone who hasn’t already heard about it? Er, because I'm a blogger with nothing better to do just now. Not a good reason, I know, but it'll have to do.

Anyone who hangs around libertarian blogs hears references to John Galt, Ayn Rand, and the book. There comes a point where you think you might as well read it, rather than take your opinion of it from anyone who happens to comment on someone else’s blogpost.

Firstly, it is a very long and boring book. Very long indeed, and extremely dull much of the time. There is no real story, everything, every character, every conversation, every event, is driven by the need to make a particular statement, or to allow something to happen. As literature it is pretty much worthless. I don’t think it ever aspired to literature.*

It does, however, articulate its ideas very well. It is a refreshing, uplifting, dynamic read, reminding you constantly of how those with small minds and hearts drag down those who might contribute, albeit by chance, to the greater benefit of mankind.

The great problem of life is always other people. The leeches and moochers of Atlas Shrugged are a caricature, but they represent deeply influential currents of belief in most developed countries today. It is hard for many to understand that ‘sharing the wealth’, ‘sharing the jobs’, however good and just this sounds, requires that someone create the resources we are all going to share. If those who are capable of doing it don’t get the biggest share, or at least, if they are given no hope of getting a significant share, they simply won’t do it. And there is nothing to share out, fairly or otherwise. Wealth does not grow on trees and when the usual people stop its creation they look around desperately, wondering where it’s gone. The answer is that it was never there. They refused to let it exist, and they can’t make it themselves.

I say it is refreshing and uplifting even though it offers no solution to the problem. The book’s response to the situation is so fantastic as to be inconceivable. It wouldn’t work, even if it were put into practice. After all, in those countries where creators of wealth are not allowed to exist, they are still blamed for the resulting poverty. Even so improbable a strike as Ayn Rand describes would not change the minds of those who don’t want to see. In the current economic crisis, governments, with the help of the press, have successfully sold the myth that there isn’t any money because the banks have taken it all.

No, the book is refreshing and uplifting because it repeats, relentlessly and unapologetically, the message that some people create wealth, while others only consume it. The creators of wealth do not have to exist. In a sufficiently large and free society they will probably exist if they are allowed to. But it is a matter of chance.

*Years ago I read ‘We, the Living’. I read it as a novel, a literary novel, before I knew that Ayn Rand had any greater significance to some people than that of a writer who had lived the hell that was Stalinist Russia and could articulate the horror dramatically and poetically. I remember it as a novel that was good on its own terms, a story well told, regardless of the background which was, I now realize, the main reason for writing it.

I have also just read ‘The Anthem’, which has a political and philosophical message. The book is mostly that message, but it is told through a story, a genuine literary creation. It’s short, and worth reading for what it is.

On World Peace

How would you work for world peace?

I shall fight the urge to comment on the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the EU. I doubt there is much I can add that hasn’t been said (not that that usually stops me, but I shall resist the urge*). But I will ask, and completely fail to answer, a question ignored by the process, though not perhaps by Nobel himself, who essayed a form of answer: how do you contribute to world peace in any way that could mark you out for recognition or awards?

“…one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

I have long wondered what Nobel meant by ‘peace conferences’. It is probable that he lived in a world very different from our own, and it was possible to imagine that if leaders of nations, or their favoured officials, could be persuaded to sit down together, peace would result from it. Despite the incompetence and corruption of that perpetual peace congress that is the UN, despite the failure of NATO, the EU and similar organizations to keep absolute peace in the areas they try to control, despite the abject failure of many meetings convened for the specific purpose of ending or averting conflict, the fact is that at least they exist, to an extent perhaps unimaginable a century ago, and that a significant number of people cannot conceive of a war breaking out in the country they live in, suggests that things have improved in the presence of such congresses.

Economic growth and the material comfort it brings are undoubtedly important as well, as is a fair bit of luck, but I think our Alfred, casting an eye about him today, would be fairly happy that he had identified a way of bringing some improvement to the world in general.

The abolition of reduction of standing armies is a trickier matter. The negotiated death of the arms race, and the subsequent ending of the Cold War, certainly made the world in general a much more peaceful place, and I think Nobel would consider this within the scope of ‘reducing standing armies (not that those responsible for it were ever recognised by the Nobel Committee). So one up to Sir Alfred.

The dissolution of the Japanese and German armies after WWII led to unprecedented peace in Western Europe and the Far East, but it was an expression of the desire of those countries and their peoples (in the case of Germany at least) not to start further conflict on the scale they had previously been responsible for. The reduction in the standing army was a consequence of the fervent desire for peace, not the direct cause of peace. A scoreless draw there, I think.

And then there is the contribution of armies to peace, something which Nobel could probably not imagine. The idea that armies could prevent conflict rather than be the cause of it by their very existence is unlikely to have entered his head, as it was obviously indisputable at the time that war was caused by armies. I might be misjudging the times, not being remotely expert, but I assume the thought process was something like that. Now an Army, in the sense of a body of men trained and disciplined for certain rôles requiring controlled authority, can contribute to the peace of their own or more frequently other nations.

And then there is the Fraternity between Nations. Hard to define, harder to quantify, but how would you work to achieve fraternity among nations? Much as I hate to admit it, we have to let the governments help us out on this one, not because they are likely to be any good at it, but because they can very easily stop it happening. The global trade, comfortable lives (in some countries at least) and cheap travel that freedom and stability have brought about lead to an increase in understanding and knowledge about people who are not quite like us, and a (slightly) reduced desire to kill each other unthinkingly.

Governments, the press, others with a voice and some kind of control can very easily persuade us (for some value of us) to hate some given ‘them’, and frequently find it useful to do so. They have a harder time persuading us to like ‘them’, usually having to resort to abuse and the law. In fact, you would think from reading the papers that no one would like anyone at all if we weren’t forced by law to pretend that we do.

But the fact is the more we travel, the more we surf the internet, the more we expose ourselves to news, entertainment, food and other artefacts of culture from around the world, the fewer the obstacles to that fraternity which Nobel wanted. There is surely a case for awarding the prize to Bill Gates, Tim Berners-Lee, Freddy Laker, Michael Ryan, or some combination of little-known people who have made communication around the world so much easier. Or from a slightly broader perspective, to the world’s major banks, which have, over the last century, made investment easy, with the result that we have the prosperity that has allowed bars to fraternity to be broken down. A serious suggestion, though perhaps not a popular one.

It has often been observed that free, wealthy countries don’t go to war with each other. To bring about peace and fraternity we should try to bring about freedom and prosperity. We know now how to do that, although there are many who don’t want it to happen.

*In consequence of which the whole of paragraphs 2 and 3, much of paragraphs 4 and 6, and quite a lot of the introduction, have been struck out.

Reading the American Election

I haz had ice-cream

The blog Neuroself, written by Peter Freed, who is, I think, a psychiatrist as well as a psychotherapist, is always interesting for anyone who is fascinated by the human mind. He has live-blogged the US Presidential and Vice-Presidential debates, and very interesting it’s been. He has been looking at the body language to try to learn about the state of mind of the candidates and, as or more importantly still, to try to predict how the audience will react to the paralinguistic communication. Most of what was said wasn’t especially interesting or memorable in itself, but the behaviour of the candidates, the impression their bodies left, will be remembered and may influence voting. (I didn’t watch any of the debates, I’m quoting my sources.)

I am not American, do not live there, do not expect whoever wins to invade Britain or Spain, or to solve the world’s economic problems- the rest of us will do that, eventually- so it is for me only of sporting interest who wins and who loses. Neither of them impresses me. They both look like politicians to me. Different types of politician, very different, but politicians nonetheless.

I don’t know Peter Freed’s politics, if he has any. He appears to be doing a clinical analysis with no partisan intent. In italics are his comments, all from the final debate between Obama and Romney on the 22^nd inst.

It’s common wisdom in psychotherapy and policing alike that the willingness of someone to talk depends on the autonomic nervous system status of the questioner.

I wish he had clarified in what sense the correlation goes, and how it works. Also, why it was relevant here.

3. Mouth moistness: blood (and plasma) moves to muscles during high sympathetic tone. It moves to the internal organs and mucus membranes in parasympathetic tone. Mouth dryness is therefore a sign of sympathetic tone – whoever’s mouth is dryer is losing.

I could have done with more explanation of that as well, but there is enough to know what is happening when one or other changes tone in that way. What he doesn’t quite say, but I assume to be true, is that in contests like this, each combatant is aware of how the other is feeling. They both know who’s winning and who’s losing.

4. Sentence complexity: sentence complexity is governed by the prefrontal cortex, which orders, sequences, and prioritizes ideas. PFC is turned off during stress – the neurons literally have cortisol receptors that depolarize them during stress. This forces the organism back on tried and true evolutionary strategies. Sentence complexity is therefore a marker of parasympathetic tone.

This is absolutely fascinating. It is simply a physiological explanation of the fact that it is harder to think when under stress. But it gives you something quantifiable to watch for.

And do they look at their opponent first or second? In primate fights monkeys don’t look at other monkeys unless they want aid.

Humans, of course, do the same. In confrontation, they look only at the opponent if they are confident of beating him. If they look around, they aren’t happy.

Obama has the forced, memorized facial expressions of a natural beta.

'Obama is a beta.' If I were a journalist, that would be my headline. But I am not interested in creating truth, rather in finding it (today, at least). I don’t wish to put words in Peter Freed’s mouth. He has made a technical interpretation of an observation of a particular gesture at a specific moment, nothing more. But I find it easy to take it as a general truth about Obama. He is a beta male, one of those who benefit by their ability to serve the leaders. They may become leaders themselves, but unless they can win, or inherit, alpha status, they are only surrogates, allowed to front for the real leader, by his gracious permission.

Many political leaders are mere figureheads, bureaucrats, with no real ability to lead. Obama is not Gordon Brown, or that Belgian chap with the glasses, but he isn’t an alpha male. Romney, perhaps.

Romney is raising his eyebrows frequently as though teaching in a caring way a young mentee. This is the behavior of a benevolent elder. Obama does not raise eyebrows as though teaching – but rather when surprised by his own ideas. This is the behavior of a talented student. In split screen, Romney seems to be higher status.

Hmmm. He knows his primatology. I wonder if Obama does.

In the split screen look at Obama’s flat forehead as he gazes at Romney. This means that cranial nerve 7 is not animating the face with nonverbal dominance signals. This studied eye contact, not automatic. I still say he’s feeling submissiveness signals from his limbic system, hypothalamus, feeding off Romney’s confidence, despite cognitively rejecting Romney’s legitimacy.

More fascinating insight into the physiology of primate confrontation and social hierarchy. This was, undoubtedly, a brutal, bloody battle. Both are fighting for something which probably means more to them than their lives, at least at that moment, and they have to convince a huge, unpredictable audience that they should live and their opponent die. The stress of these occasions must be enormous. It is only the preparation of the candidates, who have been doing this all their lives, that stopped them from screaming at each other like guests on Jerry Springer.

The Existence of Leaders

The reality is that there will always be leaders, and their attitude to those over whom they have power is not guided by the conclusions of moral philosophers. Those who can gain power will want it, and those who have power will exercise it. There is no point whatsoever in speaking of right and wrong, in trying to determine what they mean in any given situation, in analysing what the laws should permit or forbid, except as an academic exercise or, in the case before us, as a rhetorical or dialectical tool in the constant battle to stop those who have power from using it. They might be swayed by it, they might not.

Because there will always be leaders, who will act in their own interests, those who are not able to exercise power to the same degree have to protect themselves as best they can. One of the weapons they have is their own freedom. Not just using it well, but defending it at every turn, exercising it and being seen to exercise it by the leaders, making it an object of reverence, taking the rhetorical battle to those who would diminish its importance, and having them explain themselves.

This is only possible where the government is prepared to recognise the importance of personal freedom at all, and will be, or must allow itself to be, drawn into the rhetoric of freedom. Many governments, historically and currently, would be bemused by the very idea that their subjects could have such a thing as freedom, could act independently of what they have been instructed or permitted to do. One of the great things about democracy, for all its defects, is that it requires governments to recognise the rhetoric of freedom as part of the political process. Totalitarian governments do not have to do this. It’s one of the ways we recognise them.

It is, therefore, important to oppose on principle any restriction of freedom, to demand that it be explained and justified, and to extract a high political price, in support or acceptance of legitimacy, for any imposition upon our freedom. This is true of even the most justifiable impositions. Few people would argue that others should be free to commit murder, just in case they themselves wish to commit it at some point. Nevertheless, the right to defend ourselves from murderers has been arrogated to the state by itself. An individual cannot himself punish a murder committed on his property, nor, any longer (I’m thinking of Britain, Spain and the US- this last based more on watching Westerns than anything else), can a town, collectively, act against those who commit murder within it*. Although we are happy enough to give up the freedom to murder, the freedom to act against murderers has been taken away by the government and put in the hands of its appointed agents. We may agree that this is a good thing, a better guarantee that most murderers will be caught and only real murderers will be punished, and that therefore the restriction on our freedom is justified, but in exchange for that restriction we should demand that the actions of the government in acting against murderers be perfect, and they should know that we are checking and will hold any failure against them.

*The village I am writing this in, like many in Castille, still has its ‘picota’, also known as a ‘rollo’, basically a stone column that served as a gallows. It was permanent and usually stood in a high, visible spot (ours, for some reason in beside the river, but most of the ones I have seen, and quite a few still stand, are up high). It was a symbol of the right of a town, a right recognised by the crown, to defend itself on its own terms. Judgement was by the whole town (well, the committee of burgesses, basically the adult males). There may have been errors, demagogues, petty vengeances and other problems, but society as a whole took the decisions, not some outside agent appointed by the state. However expert and well-intentioned those agents are, they are not society, they are not the town and they do not genuinely represent its interests or its wishes.

Medals for 15M

The young are revolting. Nothing new there. They want us to know that the electoral process does not deserve the name of democracy and that the economy is in big trouble(and that they don’t much like other people having money and also that they will not eat their greens, so there!)

We know this already. Why do they expect to be treated like heroes simply for telling us something we already know and for living off other people’s money when those of us who are working hard (very hard) to try to actually solve those problems are somehow considered as the enemy?

I respect and defend their right to think for themselves and express their ideas and beliefs freely (this time there has been almost no violence) but until they respect my rights and freedoms, which they don’t, and until they realize that strutting up and down constantly restating the problem in a number of linguistically innovative ways is quite different from providing some kind of solution, I shan’t be respecting them personally.

If it weren't for capitalism and the hard work of others half of them would be dead and most of the others would be literally on the streets, instead of just playing at tramps and hippes. And it's capitalism, or rather, investment and incentives for success, which is what they think capitalism is, which will eventually get us out of the crisis. Nothing else can.

I am getting tired of people telling me things I already know and demanding my money as the answer to all problems. The people who are shouting loudest are, whether they like it or not, through their own fault or not, part of the problem, not the solution.

On Freedom of Expression Again

The Spanish Cup Final was played on Friday. The result doesn't matter (I'm trying to forget it) but some of the circumstances surrpunding it are worth commenting on.

It was played between two teams from areas with a strong sense of their own historical identity and considerable popular support for some form of independence from the rest of Spain.

The Cup is known as the King's Cup, and before that it has had various names, all of them directly referring either to the Head of State or to Spain itself. Despite which both these teams, and their fans, are very proud of the fact that they have more Cups than any other team, and they, and their supporters, probably take it more seriously than any other clubs.

Between them these two teams contribute about half the Spanish side at the moment, and have done fairly regularly over the years, a fact of which both the players concerned and the clubs are also very proud.
In 2009 the same two teams met in the Final (we lost then, too), and before the match the clown who led the Catalan communist party organised a protest outside the ground against the King, who was present, against Madrid, against the world in general, I suspect, for laughing at him, which stirred the fans inside the ground to whistle in protest against the entrance of the King and the playing of the National Anthem. I imagine the said clown was hoping he could provoke violence, rather than just a peaceful and momentary protest, but he failed, as usual, and there was no trouble at the game.

A few days before this year's game the President of the autonomous community of Madrid (where the Final was played this year) declared that if there was a repeat of the whistling this year the game should be suspended and played in an empty stadium. I don't know if she has any authority to do such a thing, I rather doubt it, but it an exyraodinarily tyrannical statement to hear from a centre-right politician in a democratic country.

She clearly has no idea of what freedom of expression means. She was, I imagine, taken to one side and told to shut up before every football fan and every lover of freedom in the country decided never to vote for her or her party again.

Worse still, she mumbled something about it being an offence to insult the King or the Anthem. If this us true the law needs changing quickly. Remember we are not talking about violence or the threat of violence, merely the expression of a sentiment against something some people disagree with. Crimilalising opinion is where it all starts to go downhill.

Viva la Libertad de Expresión

Since I am usually held to be a card-carrying capitalist with special baby-eating privileges I’m expected to be strongly opposed to the 15-M ‘indignaos’ marches being held around Spain. I’m not opposed to them at all, in fact. I have many times defendedthe right to freedom of speech and opinion, to peaceful protest, and to strike, even- especially- when I disagree with the way they are exercised.

I don't know why the right gets blamed for 'trying to suppress freedom of expression', though. In my experience it's the left that believes only opinions they agree with may legitimately be held or expressed.

(Note to self: stick to the point, this is not a political rant.)

I believe in freedom. I dislike any kind of control or restriction. Which doesn't mean that some such controls and restrictions are not necessary, but there have to be very good reasons and they need to be questioned always.

There is no but here. If we cannot say what we think we are not free. Their freedom is my freedom.

There were perroflautas, hippies, wanderers, unemployables, civil servants, professionals, most of them young. There were many placards with different messages. some I agree with, some I don't. some were serious, some trivial. The ones you can see in the photo have banners calling for 'Real Democracy Now'. This was how it started a year ago, at the time of local and regional elections here. People were begin to realize and to get exercised about the fact that the system of closed lists that has always been used for these elections puts enormous power in the hands of (often unknown) party controllers, and almost none in the hands of the demos. It's not a good way of doing representative democracy. In this I agree with them completely. The mostly unemployed younsters who joined them added their own grievances, mosly picked up, I would imagine, from a variety of sources in which their own experience didn't figure too highly.

There is also a reference to the cost of higher education and why should their parents have to go begging to pay for it, one that says 'Long Live Iceland', for some reason I don't understand, and another that rejects the presence of private companis in schools. I haven't heard much about this process in education, but several hospitals in the region have had their management placed in the hands of private companies, the idea being that these companies know what they're doing and how to do it more efficiently than the monolithic civil service, and what we want is better and cheaper services. It might not work, but if it doesn't, that will surely be the time to protest, not before it has had a chance to work.

There were half a dozen relaxed-looking policemen, in normal uniform. no trouble was expected and i don't think there's been any. in madrid and the other big cities it's likely the usual ignorant extremist thugs, some of them not so ignorant, just scum, will join in (apparently not, there seems to have been very little violence around the country), but it doesn't tend to happen here. Here people say what they want and that's that.

They should have, and thankfully do have in this country, the right to hold and express their opinions, whatever they are.

They marched through the streets, at times obstructing the traffic. Despite their distrust of politicians and authority in general, I wonder what would have happened if someone had refused to let them block the street in that way. I suspect they would have said indignantly that they had permission and you couldn't stop them. You also wonder, when they blame the banks for everything, if they would rather go without the house, the business or the car that they or the parents used a bank to finance, or to sacrifice their parents pension on the altar of ideological purity. Perhaps not. But hey, how many of us are coherent in everything? And in any case, there is no coherence clause attached to freedom of belief and expression. Just as there is no intelligence clause. Nor should there be a morality clause, although it seems there sometimes is.

There were drums, there was dancing, there was laughter.

They had fun, they made their point, which won't be explicitly heard by those they were mostly talking to, but an impression is left and they will have achieved a little of what they wanted. And no one was hurt or more than mildly inconvenienced. The way it should be.

It's not freedom of speech we right-wingers object to. It's mob violence. Some people can't tell the difference.

The Unpolitics of Car Racing

I’m glad the Bahrain Formula 1 Grand Prix went ahead as planned, simply because I like Formula 1 and I would have missed the race.

The protests were against the government. The unrest was nothing to do with the race. But the protesters, who have far more serious things to worry about than a car race, have used it to give themselves an international audience, because the press don’t care about Bahrain, but Formula 1 sells. The Sunni opposition in Bahrain is not stupid.

A lot of people said that the race should not go ahead. A lot of other people said that it should. These latter include the people whose opinion is actually relevant and who have some idea of what they are talking about, and so the race will go ahead. And the opposition, who may well be the good guys here, will be heard.

The leader of the Labour party has said something that he thought he was expected to say to get the headlines which would benefit his party. His opinion, based, I imagine, on monumental ignorance, is of no interest to anyone who has to make commercial decisions and safety decisions about the race. Milliband does not know and does not care what is happening to the people of Bahrain, he only wants to gain some political mileage. It is extraordinary that there are people who do not appreciate this, but if too many people understood the trick, the magic would be gone and it wouldn’t work. ‘We’ would have to invent new ways to fool ourselves, and they might be even worse.

But the race was run, the FIA are happy, and the opposition was heard, in that confused and partisan way in which the international media transmits these things. Now more people know that Bahrain is run by an oppressive minority which denies representation to the majority, and that that majority is desperate to change things. This is probably a good thing.