Sunday 19 February 2012

Rights V Privileges

The current ongoing moaning by religious people that stopping them using public meetings for prayer meetings, shows that they cannot tell the difference between rights and privileges. The moaners are complaining that they are being treated in the same way as those oppressed by dictatorships.
The situation is somewhat different the various Christian churches have, in not too distant history, been the dictators, when the established church got too lax they left to set up their own country where they could oppress whoever they wanted.
Over the years civil authority has gradually replaced the church, but for the majority of that time the people in power were members of the Church who felt that they could still exert power behind the scenes. Now, finally civil power is largely disconnected from the Church and the religious are getting nervous. They have over thousands of years never accepted that humanity rules itself. They have imagined a Sky Daddy to lay down the laws for them and so remove from them the responsibility of oppressing people, as they just claim to be doing what they are told.
Now that position doesn't wash, simply claiming the Sky Daddy wants a rule enforced doesn't work and gradually the privileges that were granted to religious, to get their way whilst others pay, are being removed and they claim this is persecution. Persecution would involve the removal of rights and that isn't happening, what is happening is the removal of privileges. They are being reduced to the level of the rest of us, oh and how it hurts, that others don't recognise the authority you claim and that your invisible friend is not a source of authority any more.
There is a price to pay for this though, and that is the rise of conspiracy theories. These are needed to explain why the world isn't perfect, before it could be the work of the devil now it must be the work of people and it cannot be an accident.
Society has moved from pre enlightenment times to Newtonian and the expectation of a clockwork universe, we  are going to have to wait another few hundred years before society has got up to the quantum level of understanding complete with chaos and emergence.

Monday 13 February 2012

Dark side of the Sun.

It's amazing, the Sun is usually so far up the Polices arse it must hurt. Convicting people as soon as they are arrested. Taking immense joy at the violation of the lives of "crims". Now the police are looking into the activities of some of their staff and the Sun staff. The Police staff for accepting bribes and the Sun staff for paying those bribes.
The sight of Bloggers like Fleet Street Fox, normally strong Police supporters, almost Law and Order freaks, moaning at the activities of the Police because it affecting their colleagues is very sad. If we wonder why parts of the press thought they could get away with phone tapping it far easier to understand when the degree of self righteousness is fully exposed.
They see themselves as the Fourth Estate, beyond the law and so full of integrity that they should not even be questioned. Paul McMullan got away with his activities not because everyone would have done what he did, but because of the pervading view that the ends justify the means. The press see the ends as being holding governments to task, they are all Woodward and Bernstein and they should be allowed a free hand on the off chance that they, while rummaging through the bins of the rich and famous, may find a major scandal.
In reality they have the "Public Interest" defence but they have to be in a court to use that defence. What they want is to be beyond the law, while judging everyone else.
The claims that the raids are excessive are ridiculous up and down the country people will have been woken up by a search team with a warrant for investigations into far less serious offences. It may be true that it's heavy handed but when the hand was on the shoulder of others it was OK, especially if the journos got to tag along and sensationalise the events in there outlets.
Will we see are more sympathetic portrait of the accused and the people subject to the subtle investigation techniques of the police as a result of these events. No.