The Last Ditch

A pitiful substitute for thought

Link: Zoe Williams: Bulletproof but loaded | Comment is free | The Guardian.

We laughed at the obsessives on our University campus who could explain everything in terms of race, class or sexual orientation. University was such an exhilarating experience after the squalid anti-intellectualism of our comprehensive schools that we could not take seriously those who preferred such formulae to thought. Most hilarious of all were leftist students from privileged backgrounds who, on any logical application of their own formulae, were the enemy. They simply decided that holding with greater intensity the views that cast them as such would exonerate them. Indeed, in a classic piece of doublethink, heterosexual whites from wealthy backgrounds seemed to think themselves more virtuous for being leftist witch-hunters of racists and homophobes.

How we chortled at the way such people saw such issues where there were patently none. How we chuckled at the way losers cast themselves as heroes for possessing random attributes, rather than for the content of their characters. They were no different from their "enemies" who were supposed to believe themselves superior for possessing other random attributes. They were perpetrators of identical fallacies; walking refutations of their own pretended logic.

My favourite University moment was the impassioned declaration by a Trotskyite at a Union meeting that there would be "no real sex" until the Revolution. What a wonderfully transparent descent from the abstract to the personal. I wonder if he still blushes at the memory of his inadvertent revelation?

We should not have laughed. While those of us who were there to learn left University to get on with our lives, the class/race/sex retards stayed on as academics or left to go into politics, journalism or both. They would do anything to escape the need to think, it seems. Zoe Williams' piece on the Guardian "Comment is Free" site today is a case in point. I can honestly say that I had never considered "hoody" a codeword for black youth. Any mental images I had formed when I heard the word had involved the sort of pizza-faced yob who constitutes the main threat when walking the streets of my home town. In her warped view of the universe however, Zoe has scored bonus points for "discovering" concealed racism in public discourse. Sadly, she has more influence in the world than those of us who can see her for the obsessive thought-avoider that she is.

Compare and contrast this little article by Theodore Dalrymple. Isn't it remarkable how little press the chocolate bar killing has had? I don't know the races of the accused. In British journalism, that usually means they are from a background which would contradict the standard formula of "ethnic minority = victim". Try googling "Dejon Thompson Patrick Rowe images" and you will get a picture of the victim and of the Lion bar featured in the fatal affair, but no pictures of the named killers. Maybe that is because they were minors at the time of the crime, but why is their ethnicity never stated, while that of the victim is mentioned everywhere? It is hard to avoid the conclusion that we are allowed to know he was Turkish, because that fits the formula. After all, we always know that the perpetrator is white or heterosexual in a so-called "hate crime". Indeed the concept of "hate crime" only serves the purpose of reinforcing such thought-free formulae. As the wonderful DCI Gene Hunt character played by Philip Glenister in Life on Mars asked, when introduced to the concept; "As opposed to what; a love crime?"

Behaviours that are consistently rewarded, increase. Behaviours that are consistently punished, decrease. This is because people have free will and are capable of controlling their own behaviours. That is true of all classes, sexes and races and the people who really demean minority groups are those who formulaically explain human behaviour by reference to such matters. A crime is a crime, regardless of the perpetrator and all should be equal before the law. Those who use sex, race and class as factors in social formulae threaten the future well-being of us all, as well as insulting the humans they categorise.

Australia returns a favour

Link: Paedophile who lived in Australia for 56 years sent to UK | UK news | The Guardian.

Although this man lived his entire adult life abroad, and committed all his crimes in Australia, this story is a nice illustration of the state of contemporary Britain. Admittedly, in Moscow the only television news I see is the relentlessly trivial Sky News. I suppose I can hope that it was covered better by other broadcasters. Judging by the online media, I suspect not.

This man has served a long prison sentence for his terrible crimes. Given their nature, I am sure that he did not have an easy time of it. Nor should he have. But now his punishment is over and he is a free man. I know that to be true, because the retired Scotland Yard specialist in paedophiles wheeled out by Sky News said that was the problem. "He has the same rights now as you and me," he exclaimed, in the incredulous tone a medieval peasant (sorry Deogolwulf) might have used at the prospect of suffering a witch to live.

The tabloids are having a field day with this "fiend" and "monster," inviting their readers (when their lips have stopped moving) to call the newsdesk if they see him or know where he is living - so that their journalists can doorstep him again. Comically, they are also condemning Australia for doing with their foreign prisoners what tabloid journalists usually demand we should do with ours. Hypocrisy, pace the folk wisdom of the French, has always been the true "English vice."

Citizens of a decent, caring nation, such as Britain endlessly declares itself to be, would help this ex-offender build a new life. I am not naive. Those with small children will of course take care to warn them against him. Prudent parents will of course look askance if they see him nearby. He is scarcely in a position to complain if they do. However, his best chance to avoid recidivism would to make a new life. He needs work, companions and everyday occupations to distract him from his sick sexual urges.

What chance of that now? He has been demonised on national TV, reviled in the press and "outed" with pictures and other details in the blogosphere. I have no personal sympathy, but it makes no practical sense to condemn him to a solitary, miserable life. Anyone who reaches out to him now will be suspected of the same witchcraft. I must expect a hostile response myself, merely for pointing out the modern witchfinders in full cry.

When I was briefly a defence lawyer in my youth, I had a rather simple criminal client (a redundant description since only the stupid ones are usually caught). This lamentable specimen had served a sentence for a crime he did not commit. Before being falsely accused he had been respectable enough, though he was never going to get an OBE. His response to injustice was to commit the crime for which he had been punished - over and over again. I hope this paedophile does not apply a similar warped logic. He could scarcely be in more trouble now whatever he does. In fact, he might be better off in the controlled circumstances of a prison than under the restrictions Britain now applies (while all the time "campaigners" bay for more blood).

This is not a question of being "soft." This is an entirely practical matter. Our emotional desire to be seen to be "caring" is probably putting children at more risk. Whatever happened to calm, common sense?

Truly caring people - rather than hypocrites and frauds - would conditionally wish this "monster" well. As long as he did not return to his old ways, they would at least tolerate him. Yet somehow in "inclusive", "diverse" and "sensitive" Britain, I don't see that happening. Our vile ersatz "kindness by force" through taxes, laws and social workers is far removed from the real thing. Indeed it seems to have crushed the real thing, or displaced it.

As my readers know, I am not a religious man. At a time like this, I could wish that more of us were. The only people likely to help in this situation are those guided by a "higher power." And I don't mean Gordon Brown.

Put young children on DNA list, urge police

Link: Put young children on DNA list, urge police | Society | The Observer.

I am not even going to comment on the suggestion in this article. If it is not patently absurd, then Britain is finished. I link to it only to pose a question. Should the police - tasked with enforcing the laws - express public opinions on what those laws should be? Given that any debate which ensues will - by nature - be political, does it not damage the perceived impartiality essential to good policing?

I would be fascinated to hear what my favourite police blogger and his forthright band of commenters have to say on this subject.

Abducted, abused... survived

Link: Abducted, abused... survived - Times Online.

All reason is suspended when dealing with child abduction and paedophilia. I have commented before about society's much greater concern for abducted blonde girls than others, for example. I did not want to set the hares of racism and sexism running, but it is evident that the media gets better viewing figures by exploiting the parents of such girls than by exploiting the parents of other abductees.

These are dreadful crimes and perpetrators deserve no sympathy. If you cannot satisfy your sexual desires with a consenting adult or inanimate object, I am afraid you are condemned to chaste frustration. Sexual urges are very powerful; they often find expression in bizarre ways. Yet no civilised society can accept them as an excuse.

The perpetrators of many other crimes, however, as their actions are not the subject of such a powerful taboo, are able to win sympathy by passing themselves off as victims of "society" or their upbringing rather than of their own selfish urges. Theodore Dalrymple's excellent book Life at the Bottom; the Worldview that makes the Underclass says more than I ever can about the Guardianisation of criminals and their skillful use of psychobabble to put social workers and judges on their side. I merely observe, from limited personal experience as a defence lawyer in my youth, that criminals invariably describe their actions in the passive voice as something unfortunate that happened to them. I have been suspicious of anyone using the passive voice ever since.

I remember one whingeing rogue saying to me "Oh, Mr Paine I was doing so well; keeping out of trouble - and then this happened." The "this" in question was being apprehended on the roof of an electrical goods store with his socks on his hands. [British criminals know that carrying gloves can, in our mild climate, be considered going equipped for burglary, so - before DNA evidence - they used their socks to avoid leaving fingerprints]. My sorry task was to plead mitigation for this waste of space. I did it to the best of my youthful ability, but confess that I was delighted by the scorn in the magistrates eyes as I did so. I guess I was not cut out for the noble and important profession of criminal advocacy, which is perhaps as well as I could not really afford to live on what it pays.

Those who undermine personal responsibility, which is the foundation of civilisation, should (oh feeble, hopeless word, "should") answer one day for the damage they do. A rational society would treat all perpetrators of serious violence with the same unremitting hatred and contempt it feels for paedophiles. Even those who commit property crimes, forcing honest folk to work longer and harder to pay for security devices, higher insurance premiums and replacements for their goods, should be despised not pitied. A rational society would hold everyone accountable for their own actions, unless legally insane (a much tougher definition than the clinical one).

Those who speak of "causes of crime;" those Guardianistas who see criminals as victims and find excuses for them should at least be intellectually consistent. Either they must also see paedophiles as helpless victims of their natural urges, more to be pitied than condemned, or they must condemn all others whom they now tend to excuse, exonerate or even celebrate. My view may seem hard, but it troubles my conscience much less than it would to hold theirs. My harsh view is also mitigated by a classical liberal preparedness to allow paedophiles (and all others whose sexual urges cannot be expressed in real life) to have access to CGI pornography or other outlets that do not involve the abuse of children, however repulsive I might personally find it. My expressing that view gave rise to one of the most intelligent debates in comments that I have ever stimulated (at the risk of associating this blog unfairly with the issue).

This particular story is refreshing, because the girls in question, despite all advice and guidance from busybodies and other grief-leeches, showed traditional English common sense and practicality. They have refused to have their lives defined by one horrible experience and I admire them for it. Yes, a terrible thing happened to them at the hands of a criminal, yet a moment's rational thought reveals that - against all "expert" advice - they have made the sensible choice.

Our sentimental, afternoon-tv, society finds that choice strange. A commenter at The Times site says she cannot conceive how the girls can think they derived benefits from their terrible experience. Of course they did. Many have learned about themselves and others, discovered new strengths, found true friends from terrible experiences. The happiest man I ever knew was left for dead at 16 on a First World War battlefield. He spent the rest of his war burying every young friend of his generation at a military cemetery in France. He could have succumbed to self-pity and lived a miserable life. He could have suffered from "survivor guilt." He chose instead to learn that life is a gift that can be lost at any moment and resolved to live every moment as if it were his last. He was a superb human being, largely because of that choice. When I feel sorry for myself, I remember him to try to put my problems in context.

There is nothing weird about the fact that these girls found the therapy imposed on them after their ordeal as bad as the assaults themselves. Therapy can help some people, sometimes. For those strong enough, with the support of family and friends,  to put bad experiences behind them and move on it can be a pointless reliving of horror. With that in mind, I wonder why they consented to be the subject of a documentary that can only revive their victim status?

I won't be able, from Russia, to watch The Girls Who Were Found Alive (Channel 4, Thursday, February 28, 9pm) and I am not sure that I would want to. I can only admire the spirit of those who refuse to let criminals set the agenda by making their victim status permanent.

Drug smuggling case to be heard without jury

Link: Drug smuggling case to be heard without jury - Telegraph.

Readers who feel voluntary arbitration on sharia law principles is "the thin end of the wedge" for the future of the English legal system have missed the thin ends of so many more important wedges. Jury trial, for example, was the last English institution in which we could have any confidence. For so long as randomly selected citizens decided guilt or innocence, we had a protection against wrongful conviction.

Apart from protecting us against the cynicism of case-hardened judges and the bias of those selected over a long period for their attractiveness to a politician (and perhaps even on the basis of their political donations) juries provided something more fundamental. What legal historians call "criminal equity" (refusal to convict the "guilty" where the law is unjust) means that a tyrannical government cannot guarantee to enforce its will as long as juries exist. A government criminalising one formerly legal activity per day must always have been painfully aware that criminal equity would kick in.

"Hard cases make bad law" and, no doubt, many readers will feel that there is "a real and present danger that jury tampering would take place" in this particular case. You are meant to feel that way. The option for a non-jury trial was introduced four years ago.  The government has waited patiently for such a good opportunity to swing its axe at one of the key planks of English justice. Rest assured; there is such a "real and present danger" in every jury trial. The relatives of the accused made a point of hanging around in the car park noting the numbers of jurors' cars during the trial in which my wife was a juror last year. The response of the jurors was that of the English yeoman. They came by bus and on foot and they convicted. Future governments will undoubtedly wish to protect such citizens from their own courage. "For your own good" is the mantra of the totalitarian everywhere, from the overly-protective mother to other ruthless dictators.

Note also the phrase "jury tampering." Would you consider a threat to injure or kill yourself or your family to be mere "tampering" dear reader? What this anodyne phrase means is that law and order has so broken down that the government admits it cannot protect innocent citizens doing their civic duty. All the more reason to protect the last effective institution in the justice system - and the only one not controlled by the government which wrought such chaos - I should have thought.

Since the government measures the efficiency of criminal justice by conviction rates (as if a wrongful conviction were just as good a thing as a rightful one) I predict that this first non-jury trial will be hailed a success. Pretty soon, there will be more and more such "successes." One of them, dear reader, may be the trial that convicts you of a crime you did not commit. All of them will help to make English criminal justice the sort of "success" only its mother could love.

In a quiet county town

Yesterday, three men attacked the sole security guard outside the door of a jewellery store in a small county town in the North of England. Normally there are two guards, but one was on his lunch break. Evidently the store and the habits of its guards were under observation. A robber threatened the guard with something, errm, I think it's called "a gun." You know; one of those terribly useful things honest citizens are not allowed to have in England. The robbers jammed open the security door. As the staff looked on, they smashed the display cabinets with crowbars and stole the contents. Then they escaped.

Mrs Paine heard this story repeatedly today as she was shopping (we are visiting our home town to spend time with the younger Miss Paine who has the weekend off from school). When my wife dropped into the jewellers to pick up a repaired item, she mentioned that everyone in town was talking about the robbery. The staff confirmed what she had heard, but were apparently under instructions not to talk about it; presumably so as not to alarm the customers.

The incident happened at 3pm yesterday. Shortly afterwards, the streets were awash with armed response police officers carrying automatic weapons (you know; more of those things forbidden to defenceless citizens, but freely available to criminals). They made a big and utterly pointless show of force. The populace was unimpressed.

We know the staff concerned quite well and feel for them. Clearly this was a scary experience. Mrs P. reports that person after person offered unsolicited opinions about the uselessness of the current government; bemoaning the way it has been soft on crime and even more on the causes of crime (aka criminals). All mention of the government's statistics showing crime to be down was greeted with derisive snorts.

I sense the mood is finally changing even here, in Labour's heartlands. The people have finally had enough of these useless losers, their lies and their endless distractions from the real business of government. I only wish the manner of their going could be as terrifying for them as yesterday's incident was for the staff of that store.

Jeremy Clarkson clashes with 'hoodies' - Telegraph

Link: Jeremy Clarkson clashes with 'hoodies' - Telegraph.

Jeremy's words make the problem with Britain clear:

"I was standing there holding this boy by the scruff of his neck, and instead of worrying about being stabbed I was actually thinking, 'I'm going to get done for assault if I'm not careful'.

Those who misbehave have the rest of us in fear. It is simply not acceptable. And the crazed education, welfare and social policies of the barking mad ruling party are to blame.

Rape Conviction Rates

Link: Rape Conviction Rates.

Following on from my post yesterday, Tim Worstall posts about a Times article reporting that conviction rates for rape are higher than for murder. The figures bandied about by politicians and "activists" are the percentage of accusations leading to conviction, not the percentage of cases brought to court which end in a guilty verdict!

There is a real danger of a politically correct witch hunt here. You do NOT show your concern for victims of rape by demanding that innocent people are convicted to meet an artificial target. This is gesture politics at its worst and - as usual - all three political parties are guilty of it.

For whom do we vote if we want to live freely under just law?

Government to unveil rape law reforms

Link: Government to unveil rape law reforms | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited.

On my reading list before my first year studying law was a great little book called Straight and Crooked Thinking by Robert Thouless. It did me more good than any other book I read at that time. I may have to buy a copy for every journalist at the Guardian as a Christmas present. Just look at all the loaded language in the linked report.

"Reform" itself is a loaded word, suggesting that a bad law is about to be made better. Given that we haven't seen the draft yet, that's a little premature. "Unveiling" suggests that what it about to be revealed is appealing. The dance of the seven veils by Hazel Blears would not, after all, draw much of an audience.

Briefing juries on the "psychological effects of rape" is only relevant if a rape has actually been committed. That is - lest we forget - what the jury is there to decide.

Consider also the use of the word "improve" in the context of the conviction rate. Would a 100% conviction rate be perfect? Only if every allegation of rape were true and if every accused had been correctly identified. It is true that conviction rates are higher in some other countries than in the UK. It is also true, however, that there are fewer accusations of rapes in those countries. Perhaps people there make the accusation, or prosecutions are brought, only when there is a good chance of a conviction? Perhaps the legal protection of those making the accusation in Britain, and the societal pressure on police and prosecutors to take unsupported allegations seriously, has led to the rise in reporting of rape, rather than any increase in the crime itself? If this is true, then the conviction rate may as easily be too high as too low.

Rape is an horrific crime. It is also a terrible crime of which to be accused. The only "perfect" conviction rate is 100% of those who are guilty, which is - sadly - very difficult to achieve. Rape is always a problematical crime, not least because the chances of it being witnessed are low. The common sense of ordinary men and women on a jury is far more likely to help here than the lobbying of pressure groups. If I were falsely accused of rape, I would be much happier for my fate to be decided by a jury which had not first been schooled to believe that my accuser's evidence was intrinsically superior, or fitted a particular psychological profile.

In any crime, it is dangerous to focus on the conviction rate. It is crooked thinking indeed to see a higher conviction rate as "success." It is particularly dangerous to do so when, as in Britain, the courts protect the identities of those who make false accusations. The only sensible way to go in rape cases is surely to protect the identities of both accuser and accused until after the case is decided and all appeals exhausted?
 

Police 'had no order to shoot de Menezes'

Link: Police 'had no order to shoot de Menezes' - Telegraph.

I have two questions today. They acted, according to the commander in charge on the day, without orders. Indeed, they were ordered to "stop". Why then have the killers of Jean-Charles de Menezes not been charged with murder? My second question is, given how she has just hung her men out to dry, how would you like to have this woman as your boss?