Sunday, November 21, 2010


Sharing, not equality, is the human norm

I excerpt below an academic paper that takes a fair bit of concentration to follow but which is, I think, of fundamental importance. Its thesis is that charity (e.g. welfare payments to the poor) springs from a basic human instinct but that instinct is neither altruism nor a belief in equality. It is an instinctive expectation of reciprocity. In other words, we give to others in the instinctive expectation that we will get something back. We put resources into the common pot in the expectation that everyone else will do likewise. In modern societies that expectation is often violated, with welfare recipients giving nothing back. That offends our basic expectation of reciprocity and feels wrong. Hence there are periodic attempts made to get the poor to work for their welfare payments or to get them off welfare altogether

So the Leftist opposition to welfare reform is founded -- once again -- on a denial of basic human instincts. Despite their cloak of good intentions, Leftists are profoundly anti-human. They hate the world about them and that mostly means the people in it


Is equality passé? We think not. The welfare state is in trouble not because selfishness is rampant (it is not), but because many egalitarian programs no longer evoke, and sometimes now offend, deeply held notions of fairness--notions that encompass both reciprocity and generosity but that stop far short of unconditional altruism towards the less well-off. Recasting egalitarianism to tap these sentiments should be high on the agenda of those who worry about the human toll being taken by poverty, inequality, and insecurity in the United States and in the world.

The US public remains deeply committed to helping those in need. A 1991 ABC/Washington Post poll found that twice as many people were "willing to pay higher taxes" to "reduce poverty" as were opposed. In 1995, 61 percent expressed willingness to pay more taxes to "provide job training and public service jobs for people on welfare so that they can get off welfare." Almost three quarters of those surveyed by Time in 1991 agreed (more than half of them "completely") with the statement: "The government should guarantee every citizen enough to eat and a place to sleep."

Many also think, however, that policies to pursue these objectives are either ineffective or unfair. In a 1995 CBS/New York Times survey, for example, 89 percent supported a mandated work requirement for those on welfare. It is thus not surprising that egalitarian programs have been cut even in the face of increases in measured inequality of before-tax and -transfer income. For the most part voters have responded to the cuts with approval rather than resistance.

Egalitarians now defend their programs on moral and empirical grounds that many people, even among the less well-off, find uncompelling. In the face of a hostile public, some egalitarians have soured on what they consider to be a selfish electorate that identifies with materialistic middle-class values and is indifferent to the plight of the less fortunate.

We believe this pessimism is fundamentally misdirected. It misunderstands the opposition to egalitarian programs and the powerful sentiments behind it. It is not self interest that opposes the welfare state, nor unconditional generosity that supports it. We will show that there is a solid foundation for cooperation and sharing in two basic human motives--we call them strong reciprocity and basic needs generosity. Moreover, we argue that hostility to contemporary forms of egalitarianism is evidence for, not against, that deep foundation, and that new egalitarian initiatives are fully compatible with it.

Understanding the predicament of egalitarian politics today thus requires a reconsideration of Homo economicus, the unremittingly selfish prototype whose asocial propensities have provided the starting point for deliberations on constitutions and policies from Thomas Hobbes to current debates on welfare reform. We do not wish to replace this textbook figure, however, with a cardboard-cutout altruist, an equally one-dimensional actor willing to make contributions to others no matter the personal cost. While such motives may seem admirable to some, we doubt that unconditional altruism can explain the success of the welfare state, nor its absence explain our current malaise. In experiments and surveys people are not stingy, but their generosity is conditional.

Moreover, they distinguish among the goods and services to be distributed, favoring those which meet basic needs, and among the recipients themselves, favoring those thought to be "deserving." Strong reciprocity and basic needs generosity better explain the motivations that undergird egalitarian politics than does unconditional altruism. By "strong reciprocity" we mean a propensity to cooperate and share with others similarly disposed, and a willingness to punish those who violate cooperative and other social norms--even when such sharing and punishing is personally costly. We call a person who acts this way Homo reciprocans. Homo reciprocans cares about the well-being of others and about the processes determining outcomes--whether they are fair, for example, or violate a social norm. He differs in this from the self-regarding and outcome-oriented Homo economicus. We see Homo reciprocans at work in Chicago's neighborhoods, in a recent study that documented a widespread willingness to intervene with co-residents to discourage truancy, public disorders, and antisocial behaviors, as well as the dramatic impact of this "collective efficacy" on community safety and amenities.1

Homo reciprocans is not committed to the abstract goal of equal outcomes, but rather to a rough "balancing out" of burdens and rewards. In earlier times--when, for example, an individual's conventional claim on material resources was conditioned by noble birth or divine origin--what counted as balancing out might entail highly unequal comfort and wealth. But, as we will see, in the absence of specific counter-claims, modern forms of reciprocity often take equal division as a reference point.

We do not wish to banish Homo economicus, however. The evidence we introduce shows that a substantial proportion of individuals consistently follow self-regarding precepts. Moreover most individuals appear to draw upon a repertoire of contrasting behaviors: whether one acts selfishly or generously depends as much on the situation as the person. The fact that Homo economicus is alive and well (if often in the minority) is good news, not bad, as people often rely on asocial individualism to undermine socially harmful forms of collusion ranging from price-fixing to ethnic violence. Pure altruists also doubtless exist and make important contributions to social life. In short, egalitarian policy-making, no less than the grand projects of constitutional design, risk irrelevance if they ignore the irreducible heterogeneity of human motivations. The problem of institutional design is not, as the classical economists thought, that selfish individuals be induced to interact in ways producing desirable aggregate outcomes, but rather that a mix of motives--selfish, reciprocal, altruistic and spiteful--interact in ways that prevent the selfish from exploiting the generous and hence unraveling cooperation when it is beneficial.

The strong reciprocity of Homo reciprocans goes considerably beyond the outcome-oriented motives that define Homo economicus. We call these self-interested forms of cooperation "weak reciprocity." Examples include market exchange and cooperation enforced by "tit-for-tat" behavior--what biologists call "reciprocal altruism." Such actions are costly to the giver but still self-interested because they involve the expectation of future repayment. Strong reciprocity, like the biologists' concept of altruism, imposes costs on Homo reciprocans without prospect of repayment. Yet unlike the vernacular usage of "altruism," it is neither unconditional nor necessarily motivated by good will towards the recipient.

Students of cultural and biological evolution have long wondered how individually costly but socially beneficial traits such as altruism might evolve in competition with genetically and economically rewarded selfish traits. Like altruism toward strangers, strong reciprocity thus represents an evolutionary puzzle, one that we will seek to unravel. But first we will show that Homo reciprocans is indeed among the actors on today's political stage, and most likely has been for the last hundred thousand years.

The Legacy of 100,000 Years of Sharing

Aside from unconditional altruism, there are two distinct reasons why people might support egalitarian policies. First, many egalitarian programs are forms of social insurance that will be supported even by those who believe they will pay in more than their expected claims over a lifetime. Consider unemployment, health insurance, or other social programs that soften the blows during the rocky periods that people experience in the course of their lives. Even the securely rich support ameliorating the conditions of the poor on prudential, that-might-happen-to-me grounds.

Assuming people are broadly prudent and risk-averse, then the insurance motive is consistent with conventional notions of self-interest. The second reason for supporting egalitarian programs, in contrast, is not fundamentally self-regarding: egalitarianism is often based on a commitment to what we are calling "strong reciprocity." It is little surprise that people are more generous than economics textbooks allow; more remarkable is that they are equally unselfish in seeking to punish, often at great cost to themselves, those who have done harm to them and others. Programs designed to tap these other-regarding motives may succeed where others that offend underlying motivational structures have been abandoned.

Both historical and contemporary experimental evidence support this position. Consider first the historical evidence. In his Injustice: The Social Bases of Obedience and Revolt, Barrington Moore, Jr. sought to discern if there might be common motivations--"general conceptions of unfair and unjust behavior"--for the moral outrage fueling struggles for justice throughout human history. "There are grounds," he concludes,

for suspecting that the welter of moral codes may conceal a certain unity of original form . . . a general ground plan, a conception of what social relationships ought to be. It is a conception that by no means excludes hierarchy and authority, where exceptional qualities and defects can be the source of enormous admiration and awe. At the same time, it is one where services and favors, trust and affection, in the course of mutual exchanges, are ideally expected to find some rough balancing out.2

Moore termed the general ground plan he uncovered "the concept of reciprocity--or better, mutual obligation, a term that does not imply equality of burdens or obligations." In like manner, James Scott analyzed agrarian revolts, identifying violations of the "norm of reciprocity" as one the essential triggers of insurrectionary motivations.3

One is tempted to consider strong reciprocity a late arrival in social evolution, possibly one whose provenance is to be found in Enlightenment individualism, or later in the era of liberal democratic or socialist societies. But this account does not square with overwhelming evidence of the distant etiology of strong reciprocity. The primatologist Christopher Boehm finds that

with the advent of anatomically modern humans who continued to live in small groups and had not yet domesticated plants and animals, it is very likely that all human societies practiced egalitarian behavior and that most of the time they did so very successfully. One main conclusion, then, is that intentional leveling linked to an egalitarian ethos is an immediate and probably an extremely widespread cause of human societies' failing to develop authoritative or coercive leadership.4

And anthropologist Bruce Knauft adds:

In all ethnographically known simple societies, cooperative sharing of provisions is extended to mates, offspring, and many others within the band. . . . Archeological evidence suggests that widespread networks facilitating diffuse access to and transfer of resources and information have been pronounced at least since the Upper Paleolithic . . . The strong internalization of a sharing ethic is in many respects the sine qua non of culture in these societies.5

Far from being a mere moment in the history of anatomically modern humans, the period described by Knauft and Boehm emerges roughly 100,000 years before the present and extends to the advent and spread of agriculture 12,000 years ago. In short, it spans perhaps 90 percent of the time we have existed on the planet.

More HERE





Liberty-Loving Latinos Outshine Loud-Mouthed Leftist Latinos

Hispanics owe a debt of gratitude to African Americans for showing us what allegiance to the Democrat Party can bring

by Chris Salcedo

If the presidency of Barack Obama was responsible for the conservative awakening in the Hispanic community, then the 2010 midterm elections may go down as the event that changed America’s perception of the Hispanic community. Thanks to hardcore leftist elected officials and high-profile Hispanic activists, America has held the view that all Latinos believe in law breaking, open borders, and the importation of Latin American socialism into the United States. These liberals have tried to follow the template set up by the Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. It goes something like this: Anoint yourself the leader of a minority community by perpetuating victimhood and government reliance. And then take your voting bloc and sell your community down the river in exchange for a seat of power at the Democrats’ table. There was only one problem with the plan; Hispanics didn’t want to give up on the American dream just yet. Not the left’s DREAM Act — the actual American dream.

One of the best results of the conservative awakening in the Hispanic community was the surge of Latinos elected to high office in the 2010 elections. Marco Rubio will be the next senator from Florida. Republican Brian Sandoval will be Nevada’s first Latino governor. Susana Martinez is the newly elected GOP Latina who replaces a liberal Hispanic governor in New Mexico. Bill Flores beat Pelosi rubber stamp Chet Edwards in Texas’ 17th district. And while we’re in the Lone Star State, Quico Canseco defeated Ciro Rodriguez. Bear in mind that Rodriguez is one of those Latinos whose values are more in line with Fidel Castro than an American congressman. These are just a few examples of Latinos — over six million voted in the 2010 midterms — flexing their conservative muscles and making their views known through conservative representatives.

I’ve long held that Hispanics owe a debt of gratitude to African Americans. They, more than any group, have shown us what allegiance to the Democratic Party can bring: the disintegration of the African American family, the targeting of black mothers for abortions by left-wing groups like Planned Parenthood, the lowering of the bar for African American students in state-sponsored schools. These are just the tip of the iceberg. Oddly enough, I have the Reverend Al Sharpton to thank for my current view. Back in 2003, when the good reverend was seeking the Democratic nomination for president, he said this: “We must no longer be the political mistresses of the Democratic Party.” It was a rare moment of honesty and admission that he and compatriot Jesse Jackson may have made a mistake in taking the African American community down the road of victimhood, represented by the Democrats, instead of the road of empowerment, represented by the conservative wing of the GOP. Sharpton’s words changed my life. I was bound and determined that my family, any Hispanics that would listen, and I would never become victims and reliant on an all-powerful government for our existence. But I knew I had powerful forces aligned against me. I saw many leftist Latinos seeking to take the Hispanic community down Sharpton’s road of victimhood.

Take your pick of any Latino hate group. La Raza, Nation of Aztlan, the Brown Berets — these are the anti-American groups that have sullied the reputations of all Latinos. They get a lot of press. But they’re not alone. Groups like LULAC, Border Angels, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, and countless others have made it their mission to portray Latinos as a bunch of victims who need to be compensated for some slight perpetrated by white America. They shout slogans like, “We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us.” They fly Mexican flags on the streets of America to protest adherence to the law. They protest semantics, calling anyone a hate monger who dares call those that break the law “illegal immigrants.” It’s all part of a well-coordinated campaign to blur the lines between American Latinos and those that enter the United States without permission. The idea is to make citizen Latinos invested in those who break U.S. law to come here. And it has been wildly successful. Many first-generation Hispanics still regard illegals, from any Latin-American country, as “their people.” But the veil of deception perpetrated by the aforementioned leftist groups has begun to lift.

There are a couple of reasons for the weakening of the leftists grip over the Hispanic community. The large lurch left shoved down America’s throats by elected liberals is one reason. Since Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and President Obama took the reins of power, Americans of all ethnic stripes have been treated to a front row seat of unvarnished liberal socialism. The Hispanic community had a different reaction from other minority groups. The fracture is a result of the common denominator shared by most Hispanics. Many have fled or had ancestors who fled countries where leftists stifled prosperity and ground the human spirit to dust. It was the primary reason that Hispanics fled their home countries to live in a land of individual freedom. Latinos with any historical perspective took one look at the “axis of socialism” represented by Obama, Reid, and Pelosi and recoiled in disgust. The second big reason is generational. Fewer and fewer Hispanics feel any fidelity to the nations of their “roots.” They are, in short, Americans. They love the fact that they live in a country that was founded on the premise that “we the people” rule. A government “of, by, and for” the people is simply better than governments from nations like Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico, Venezuela, and Cuba. To these “liberty-loving Latinos,” the voices saying they represented the Hispanic community turned out to be leftist apologists who sought to import the same policies that many Hispanics fled from in the decades prior. The liberal, loud-mouthed, leftist Latinos are not able to contain the conservative awakening in the Hispanic community. The conservatives are organizing.

In past articles I’ve talked at length about the various conservative Latino groups that are springing up all over the country. From the Conservative Hispanic Society to Amigos De Patriots, Hispanics that reject leftist thought are finding a home and a voice. Another group is the The Americano. This is Newt Gingrich’s Hispanic partnership web site. It has long been my view that liberal Latinos are so adamantly against Hispanics learning English because they’re afraid that Hispanics will begin to think for themselves as a result. Many leftist Latinos want to control the information that Spanish speakers get. This is illustrated in many of the so-called Spanish language “news” sources here in the U.S. For the most part these sources are the Spanish equivalent to MSNBC, biased, liberal and unfair. The Americano is dedicated to making sure that Latinos have all the facts and perspectives so they can make up their own minds. This December, The Americano is holding its first Hispanic forum. The Americano celebrates the vibrant and rich traditions of Hispanic heritage. It strives to give Latinos who believe in traditional Hispanic values a voice. This forum will be the first of many that will acknowledge Hispanics’ role of strengthening, not destroying, Western civilization. Hispanics will come together in united purpose and launch one of the first battles for the heart and soul of the Hispanic community.

Alexis de Tocqueville once said, “America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.” The forces of liberalism have sought to change what makes America “good.” And they will not give up their power easily. The battle has been joined. The phrase “we’re taking our country back!” — though cliché in recent years — still is the best description of the conflict. Now, Hispanics are pledging to defeat leftist thought and polices that have done so much to enslave countless millions, douse the flame of liberty, and kill the human spirit. Some Latinos operate from first-hand knowledge of the destructive power of liberalism. Others are educated in world events and have no desire to sell-out their children’s shot at the American dream. Whatever their reason, they are here to fight. They are here to fight because there’s no place else to go. If America falls the way of countries like Cuba, Venezuela, and Mexico, there is no other beacon of freedom on Earth to run to.

SOURCE





Liberty-Loving Latinos Outshine Loud-Mouthed Leftist Latinos

Hispanics owe a debt of gratitude to African Americans for showing us what allegiance to the Democrat Party can bring

by Chris Salcedo

If the presidency of Barack Obama was responsible for the conservative awakening in the Hispanic community, then the 2010 midterm elections may go down as the event that changed America’s perception of the Hispanic community. Thanks to hardcore leftist elected officials and high-profile Hispanic activists, America has held the view that all Latinos believe in law breaking, open borders, and the importation of Latin American socialism into the United States. These liberals have tried to follow the template set up by the Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. It goes something like this: Anoint yourself the leader of a minority community by perpetuating victimhood and government reliance. And then take your voting bloc and sell your community down the river in exchange for a seat of power at the Democrats’ table. There was only one problem with the plan; Hispanics didn’t want to give up on the American dream just yet. Not the left’s DREAM Act — the actual American dream.

One of the best results of the conservative awakening in the Hispanic community was the surge of Latinos elected to high office in the 2010 elections. Marco Rubio will be the next senator from Florida. Republican Brian Sandoval will be Nevada’s first Latino governor. Susana Martinez is the newly elected GOP Latina who replaces a liberal Hispanic governor in New Mexico. Bill Flores beat Pelosi rubber stamp Chet Edwards in Texas’ 17th district. And while we’re in the Lone Star State, Quico Canseco defeated Ciro Rodriguez. Bear in mind that Rodriguez is one of those Latinos whose values are more in line with Fidel Castro than an American congressman. These are just a few examples of Latinos — over six million voted in the 2010 midterms — flexing their conservative muscles and making their views known through conservative representatives.

I’ve long held that Hispanics owe a debt of gratitude to African Americans. They, more than any group, have shown us what allegiance to the Democratic Party can bring: the disintegration of the African American family, the targeting of black mothers for abortions by left-wing groups like Planned Parenthood, the lowering of the bar for African American students in state-sponsored schools. These are just the tip of the iceberg. Oddly enough, I have the Reverend Al Sharpton to thank for my current view. Back in 2003, when the good reverend was seeking the Democratic nomination for president, he said this: “We must no longer be the political mistresses of the Democratic Party.” It was a rare moment of honesty and admission that he and compatriot Jesse Jackson may have made a mistake in taking the African American community down the road of victimhood, represented by the Democrats, instead of the road of empowerment, represented by the conservative wing of the GOP. Sharpton’s words changed my life. I was bound and determined that my family, any Hispanics that would listen, and I would never become victims and reliant on an all-powerful government for our existence. But I knew I had powerful forces aligned against me. I saw many leftist Latinos seeking to take the Hispanic community down Sharpton’s road of victimhood.

Take your pick of any Latino hate group. La Raza, Nation of Aztlan, the Brown Berets — these are the anti-American groups that have sullied the reputations of all Latinos. They get a lot of press. But they’re not alone. Groups like LULAC, Border Angels, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, and countless others have made it their mission to portray Latinos as a bunch of victims who need to be compensated for some slight perpetrated by white America. They shout slogans like, “We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us.” They fly Mexican flags on the streets of America to protest adherence to the law. They protest semantics, calling anyone a hate monger who dares call those that break the law “illegal immigrants.” It’s all part of a well-coordinated campaign to blur the lines between American Latinos and those that enter the United States without permission. The idea is to make citizen Latinos invested in those who break U.S. law to come here. And it has been wildly successful. Many first-generation Hispanics still regard illegals, from any Latin-American country, as “their people.” But the veil of deception perpetrated by the aforementioned leftist groups has begun to lift.

There are a couple of reasons for the weakening of the leftists grip over the Hispanic community. The large lurch left shoved down America’s throats by elected liberals is one reason. Since Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and President Obama took the reins of power, Americans of all ethnic stripes have been treated to a front row seat of unvarnished liberal socialism. The Hispanic community had a different reaction from other minority groups. The fracture is a result of the common denominator shared by most Hispanics. Many have fled or had ancestors who fled countries where leftists stifled prosperity and ground the human spirit to dust. It was the primary reason that Hispanics fled their home countries to live in a land of individual freedom. Latinos with any historical perspective took one look at the “axis of socialism” represented by Obama, Reid, and Pelosi and recoiled in disgust. The second big reason is generational. Fewer and fewer Hispanics feel any fidelity to the nations of their “roots.” They are, in short, Americans. They love the fact that they live in a country that was founded on the premise that “we the people” rule. A government “of, by, and for” the people is simply better than governments from nations like Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico, Venezuela, and Cuba. To these “liberty-loving Latinos,” the voices saying they represented the Hispanic community turned out to be leftist apologists who sought to import the same policies that many Hispanics fled from in the decades prior. The liberal, loud-mouthed, leftist Latinos are not able to contain the conservative awakening in the Hispanic community. The conservatives are organizing.

In past articles I’ve talked at length about the various conservative Latino groups that are springing up all over the country. From the Conservative Hispanic Society to Amigos De Patriots, Hispanics that reject leftist thought are finding a home and a voice. Another group is the The Americano. This is Newt Gingrich’s Hispanic partnership web site. It has long been my view that liberal Latinos are so adamantly against Hispanics learning English because they’re afraid that Hispanics will begin to think for themselves as a result. Many leftist Latinos want to control the information that Spanish speakers get. This is illustrated in many of the so-called Spanish language “news” sources here in the U.S. For the most part these sources are the Spanish equivalent to MSNBC, biased, liberal and unfair. The Americano is dedicated to making sure that Latinos have all the facts and perspectives so they can make up their own minds. This December, The Americano is holding its first Hispanic forum. The Americano celebrates the vibrant and rich traditions of Hispanic heritage. It strives to give Latinos who believe in traditional Hispanic values a voice. This forum will be the first of many that will acknowledge Hispanics’ role of strengthening, not destroying, Western civilization. Hispanics will come together in united purpose and launch one of the first battles for the heart and soul of the Hispanic community.

Alexis de Tocqueville once said, “America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.” The forces of liberalism have sought to change what makes America “good.” And they will not give up their power easily. The battle has been joined. The phrase “we’re taking our country back!” — though cliché in recent years — still is the best description of the conflict. Now, Hispanics are pledging to defeat leftist thought and polices that have done so much to enslave countless millions, douse the flame of liberty, and kill the human spirit. Some Latinos operate from first-hand knowledge of the destructive power of liberalism. Others are educated in world events and have no desire to sell-out their children’s shot at the American dream. Whatever their reason, they are here to fight. They are here to fight because there’s no place else to go. If America falls the way of countries like Cuba, Venezuela, and Mexico, there is no other beacon of freedom on Earth to run to.

SOURCE






Unstoppable social worker evil in Britain

In 43 years of medical practice, said the family’s GP, he had “never encountered a case of such appalling injustice”. To their neighbours, it was so shocking that up to 100 of them were ready to stage a public protest, until being banned from doing so by social workers and the police.

This was the case of Tony and Debbie Sims, which I first reported in July 2009 under the headline “'Evil destruction’ of a happy family”, and whom I can now name because their daughter, torn from them for no good reason, has finally, after three years of misery in foster care and 74 court hearings, been adopted.

The story of Mr and Mrs Sims was my first introduction to that Kafka-esque world of state child-snatching which I have so often reported on since. It illustrates so many of the reasons why, hidden behind its self-protective wall of secrecy, this ruthless and corrupt system has become a major national scandal.

Until April 2007, Mr Sims, a professional dog breeder, and his wife, then a branch vice-chairman of the local Conservative Party, were a respectable middle-class couple living happily with their five-year-old daughter, who was the apple of their eye. Shortly after Mr Sims was interviewed by the RSPCA over his unwitting infringement of a new law banning the tail-docking of puppies, their home was invaded by two RSPCA officials and 18 policemen, who had been given a wholly erroneous tip-off that there were guns on the premises.

When the dogs were released from their kennels and rampaged through the house, ripping apart his daughter’s pet boxer, Mr Sims strongly protested – verbally but not physically. He and his wife were arrested and taken away, leaving their little girl, aged five, screaming amid the chaos. Social workers were called and the child was removed into foster care. While Mrs Sims was being held for several hours in a police cell, she had a miscarriage. She returned home that night to find her daughter gone.

When the couple next saw their child – months later, at a “contact” – she said she had been told they were dead and had gone to heaven. For three years they tried to get her back through those 74 court hearings. The social workers claimed the child had been maltreated, because her home was an unholy mess. But this was only because of the police raid and the dogs – a WPC who had visited the house a month earlier on other business reported that it had been “neat and tidy”.

The child could not understand why she was not allowed to go back home with her parents. The courts were unable to consider a report by an experienced independent social worker which the couple were told described them as responsible and loving parents. The only evidence the court heard was that from the social workers and their own “experts”.

When the couple were eventually told that their child would be adopted, they appealed. In a judgment last year, which the media were permitted to report, Mr Justice Boden ruled that because the parents had not shown sufficient co‑operation with the authorities (after four psychiatric assessments of the couple, the father refused to submit to a fifth), the adoption had to go ahead.

One of the first people to contact the parents when this was made public was that independent social worker, who expressed astonishment, saying he had assumed that, because the social workers’ case seemed so flimsy, the family would have long since been reunited. Last week, however, Mr and Mrs Sims had a two-sentence note to say their daughter has now been adopted.

Since I first wrote about this case in 2009, I have come to recognise many of its features in dozens of others I have followed: the mob-handed involvement of the police; the seizing of children for no good reason; the inability of social workers to admit they have made a mistake; the way lawyers supposedly acting for the parents seem to be on the other side; the refusal of judges to look objectively at all the evidence, and their willingness to accept nonsense if told to them by social workers and their “experts”. Too often, these proceedings get away with standing every honourable principle of British justice on its head.

Such is the Frankenstein’s monster created by Parliament in the 1989 Children Act. Yet apart from the tireless John Hemming, and a handful of other MPs shocked into awareness by individual cases in their constituencies, the majority seem wholly unconcerned. So what do we pay them for?

SOURCE





Australia: National Party deserves praise for vetoing police state

The National Party is a very conservative, rural-based party

THANKFULLY, a draconian law backed by WA's Liberal government has been thwarted. WHILE most political commentary is understandably focused on the national stage as Julia Gillard tries to hold together her loose alliance of Labor, Greens and rural independents, last week another minority government faced a split of its own. It was an important moment for good law-making in this country.

In Western Australia, the Nationals refused to support Colin Barnett's controversial stop-and-search provisions, the Criminal Investigation Amendment Bill. It was the minor party's finest hour, exposing the heavy-handed and out-of-touch willingness of the Liberal government to trample on the civil liberties of its citizens.

In this column last year, when the issue began to be debated, I wrote about the dangers of the proposed stop-and-search laws, aimed at giving police the powers to frisk anyone in certain parts of Perth without the centuries-old requirement of reasonable suspicion.

Just stop and think about that for a moment. The Liberal government in WA wanted to give police the power to frisk and search whoever they wanted: a good-looking woman, a kid who looked at them the wrong way, or a couple that for no particular reason the police officers just didn't like the look of. It is one hell of a law for a government to try and inflict on the population that elected it.

The stop-and-search bill was a ham-fisted effort by Police Minister Rob Johnson and Attorney-General Christian Porter.

Johnson is a maverick from way back. He has variously advocated crushing cars and leaving them on speeding drivers' front lawns, chemical castration for sex offenders, and the re-introduction of the death penalty. While extreme, at least none of these targets innocent bystanders, as the stop-and-search provisions would have.

But what on earth is the more rational Attorney-General doing supporting these laws? Porter studied for a masters in political philosophy at the London School of Economics. He understands the writings of 18th and 19th-century thinkers such as Thomas Paine and John Stuart Mill, writings about rights and freedoms basic to Western democracies. He should hand his qualification back.

The Johnson and Porter argument is that the intention of the law isn't to do anyone harm. Rather, it is to make crime trouble spots safer. But that misses the point.

History is littered with examples of well-intentioned moves that led to unintended consequences. As the 19th-century writer Thomas Aldrich noted: "The possession of unlimited power will make a despot of almost any man." Police in WA shouldn't be put in the situation where they have such powers.

Just to be clear, the laws, had they come into effect, would have meant an innocent couple walking through the streets could be stopped simply on a police officer's whim. The woman (or man) would then receive a full body frisk, the contents of her purse could be tossed and both parties would be ordered to turn out their pockets. For doing what? Based on what suspicion of wrongdoing? Nothing and none are the answers.

It could be an older couple out for their anniversary, a woman going to church, a young couple on their first date. Anyone and everyone becomes a target.

And people wouldn't have needed to be walking through one of the no-go areas to be violated. While driving through the suburb (perhaps without the intention of stopping in the area), they could have been pulled over and subjected to the treatment outlined above, with their car being thoroughly searched as well.

If that isn't the stuff of a police state, then I don't know what is. No wonder the opposition and the Nationals refused to support the bill. It is hard to believe educated legislators could come up with such a law, much less get into a situation where the entire Liberal parliamentary party endorsed it.

Another argument used to justify the laws by their proponents is that it is no different to giving police the powers to conduct random breath tests. Apart from the fact you don't get felt up in a random breath test, there are other important differences, too. When you drive a car or take an aeroplane flight, you effectively sign a contract with the state that you will play by the road or air rules, such as being breath-tested or walking through metal detectors. But the stop-and-search provisions would have applied to anyone who simply wanted to walk on the streets. It would have been a contract with the state that no citizen could have chosen to opt out of, a contract would have allowed police to frisk you at will, unless you wanted to stay housebound for the rest of your life.

Removing the reasonable suspicion test from policing is draconian. Anyone who enjoys basic freedoms should be affronted by the Liberal government's attempt to introduce such laws, and the desire to do so by the Liberal Party leadership group should lead to more questioning about other legislative initiatives it pursues. If Barnett is prepared to do this, what else might he be prepared to do?

The Nationals took the view that the bill should be opposed on the back of an upper house committee that considered the proposal for 12 months. Despite many submissions to the committee raising concerns about the proposed laws - with the one exception: the police union (surprise, surprise) - the Liberals on the committee fell into line with the desires of their executive and recommended the bill become law.

The Labor, Greens and, most significantly, Nationals members on the committee disagreed, and Nationals MP Mia Davies managed to convince her colleagues to join her in opposing the proposed law, thereby killing it off. For that, West Australians, should be eternally grateful.

It isn't just that the laws would have violated the rights of free citizens. Overseas evidence suggests such laws don't work anyway.

Britain trialled similar laws to deal with terrorism. But it's terror law watchdog, Lord Carlile QC, found them "poor and unnecessary". In 2008, British police used the powers on 170,000 occasions without one conviction, but with many complaints registered.

That's what happens when people are stopped without reasonable suspicion: citizens lose confidence in the state and the state doesn't improve its policing, because it isn't targeted.

WA has dodged a policy bullet, but the public should never forget what their government tried to do to them.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine). My Home Pages are here or here or here or Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site here.

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