Quotulatiousness

March 5, 2012

The European Court of Human “Rights”

Filed under: Europe, Liberty — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:41

Luke Samuel thinks it’s time for people to declare themselves to be “human rights sceptics“:

You don’t have to be a little Englander, or even right wing, to recognise that it is an affront to democracy that unelected and completely unaccountable judges, who have absolutely no democratic mandate, are able to override the decisions of elected representatives. It is appalling that European judges can make significant political decisions over a body of citizens across Europe to whom they will never have to answer.

But there is a more fundamental reason that liberals should be sceptical of human-rights law: because it makes us all less free. Human rights are not ‘rights’ in a liberal sense at all. They bear no resemblance to the ‘rights’ fought for by the radical liberals of the English Civil War, or the French and American revolutions, which sought to limit the power of the state and protect the autonomy of citizens. Instead, human rights treat people as fundamentally vulnerable and in need of state protection. This view of human vulnerability, in the eyes of the human-rights lobby, justifies the granting of absolute power to the state to set the boundaries of freedom.

Take, for example, the ‘right to a private and family life’ protected under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The courts will not consider a claim under Article 8 unless it is convinced in the courtroom that you have a ‘family life’ worth protecting. How the courts have defined ‘family life’ for the purposes of Article 8 is laughably antiquated. In 2002, the courts ruled that ‘family life’ does not exist where a relationship between parents and their grown-up children is ‘only emotional’, in that the children are no longer economically dependent on their parents. Neither are unmarried parents likely to be considered a family, unless they maintain sufficient levels of contact with their children. How can any ‘liberal’ support the idea that your family life is only worthwhile if it conforms to what the state decides a family should look like?

Or take Article 10, which purports to protect our freedom of expression. Of course, the very concept of ‘freedom of expression’ owes its existence to radical liberals like John Stuart Mill and Voltaire, who argued that there can be no exceptions to free speech, otherwise you do not have free speech at all. But human-rights lawyers will tell you that Article 10, along with most other human rights, is a ‘qualified right’ because there is a long list of conditions under which the state can interfere with it. This list includes where it is necessary in the ‘interests of public safety’ or for the ‘protection of health or morals’. Such broad qualifications mean that as a means of limiting state power, ‘qualified’ human rights are all but useless.

February 29, 2012

Ireland introduces the doomsday scenario: allowing voters to have a say on the Euro

Filed under: Europe, Government, Law — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:33

The EU is not a democratic institution, and is actively hostile to any attempt to consult the people as it tries to become a super-state. Ireland just tossed a medium-sized spanner into the works:

Premier Enda Kenny said Dublin was acting on legal advice from Ireland’s attorney-general that “on balance” the fiscal compact requires a vote under the country’s constitution. “It gives the Irish people the opportunity to reaffirm Ireland’s commitment to membership of the euro,” he told ashen-faced members of the Dail.

All three major parties back the treaty but analysts say there is a high risk of rejection by angry voters in the current fractious mood. The compact gives the EU intrusive powers to police the budgets of debtor states, and has been denounced as feudal bondage by Sinn Fein and Ireland’s vociferous eurosceptics. The Irish voted “No” to both the Nice and Lisbon treaties before being made to vote again. Dublin has ruled out a second vote this time.

The Taoiseach’s announcement sent the euro into sharp dive against the dollar, though it rebounded later. Europe’s leaders thought they had tweaked the wording of the text just enough to avoid an Irish vote.

Note that last sentence closely. Avoiding consulting the very people who’ll be most affected is standard practice in the EU. Good for Ireland that they aren’t willing to be steamrolled yet again.

February 24, 2012

“[T]hose who pass for our leaders are largely anti-democratic, elitist and have little compunction about intruding into our private lives”

Filed under: Economics, Liberty, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:21

Daniel Ben-Ami at spiked! recommends reading Robert H Frank’s The Darwin Economy: not because it’s well-written (he says it’s not) but because it exposes the mindset of our would-be tyrants.

Everyone interested in contemporary society should read Robert H Frank’s The Darwin Economy or a book like it. It is not that it is amazingly astute or beautifully written. It is neither. But it does give readers an exceedingly important perspective: an inside view of how the current generation of politician-technocrats thinks.

Identifying some of the key themes of contemporary political debate is easy enough. A glance at the media reveals that those who pass for our leaders are largely anti-democratic, elitist and have little compunction about intruding into our private lives. Working out how they reach the conclusions they do, understanding the internal logic or their approach, is more difficult.

In many ways, economics is the discipline best suited to the technocratic mindset. This has nothing to do with its traditional subject matter. It is not about debating how to produce goods and services or how to distribute them. Instead, it relates to how economics has emerged as an approach that distances itself from democratic politics and provides little room for human agency.

[. . .]

Finally, the narrow vision embodied in technocratic approaches leads to a blinkered approach to problem-solving. For example, most economists discuss tackling climate change in terms of the optimum design of a market for carbon trading. There is little critical debate about the nature of the threat the world is facing or of the range of possible solutions. One alternative to tinkering with the demand for carbon might be to have a huge programme for building nuclear reactors. Such an initiative would also have the advantage of helping to tackle a vital but often forgotten problem: the need for massive amounts of additional energy to fuel economic development.

The technocratic approach to policymaking has become immensely influential and pernicious. Although it is often expressed in terms of economic arguments, it has an impact across the whole range of social life. It is anti-democratic, anti-political and anti-human. To counter the rise of technocracy, it is necessary to delve deep into how its arch-exponents think.

February 16, 2012

Getting rid of that messy, obstructive “democracy” thing in Europe

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Europe, Government, Greece, Liberty — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 10:40

Bruno Waterfield on the destruction of democracy in Greece and what it will mean for the rest of the European Union:

What happens in Greece will mark the opening of a new era in European politics. It is important therefore to understand what is and isn’t going on. The crisis is not, as many believe, being driven by ‘neoliberal’ economic policies. It isn’t caused by any Greek cultural propensity to fecklessness either. And, despite the protest graffiti and the timeless appeal of Nazi references, the Greek tragedy is not a plot to restore an explicit German hegemony in Europe. Angela Merkel is no Adolf Hitler.

What is happening in Greece is a crisis of European proportions because it is the sharpest expression of a destructive trend common to all countries in the EU: the twenty-first-century elite mission to place institutions, policy and statecraft above society. The Greek catastrophe, then, is an indicator of what happens when the question of interest or politics becomes the sole preserve of bureaucratic or state structures decoupled from, and increasingly defined against, the public.

Measures imposed on Greece are explicitly declared, even celebrated, as being in opposition to Greek society. Any attempt by political parties to uphold the democratic representation of Greek interests is met with aggressive hostility. Moreover, the EU-IMF programme, or so-called Memorandum of Understanding, for Greece is utterly divorced from economic reality. As documented in the Daily Telegraph, the Eurozone’s policies are pushing Greece into a ‘death spiral’ that defies any economic logic.

February 8, 2012

A spectre is haunting the EU elite: the spectre of democracy

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Europe, France, Greece, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:25

Bruno Waterfield on the worries of the movers and shakers in the fancy office suites in Brussels:

The European Union is currently straining every sinew in a campaign to stifle outbreaks of politics across Europe.

For the EU oligarchs, democracy sucks. What if the Greeks — voting in elections this April — decide to tear up an austerity programme painstakingly hammered out by their betters in the EU and the IMF? Imagine — and the memory of all those lost referendums still smarts among Eurocrats — if a country should decide it has had enough of the economic mismanagement and diktat that has characterised the Eurozone’s handling of the economic crisis.

A spectre is indeed haunting the corridors of Brussels offices and it is real: a well-founded fear that voters will reject the ‘fiscal compacts’, ‘debt brakes’ and ‘golden rules’ aimed at securing the EU’s reign in de facto perpetuity.

[. . .]

Pierre Moscovici, the Socialist campaign manager, has further horrified the EU by hinting that a new French president could hold a referendum — a taboo in contemporary European politics. ‘I am convinced that we will find allies for a renegotiation aimed at a policy change to pull us out of this austerity spiral and recession. We don’t like the idea of a popular vote because we are pro-Europeans and we don’t want a “No”, but nor can we allow tensions to spill over’, he said last week.

January 9, 2012

What is really meant by the term “Deliberative democracy”

Filed under: Government, Liberty, Media, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:21

Frank Furedi explains the intent of “consultations”, “public conversations”, and “deliberative democracy” — which are neither conversations nor democratic in nature:

In these situations, ‘consultation’ is turned into a tool of management masquerading as genuine deliberation. The demand for deliberation always comes from above, and the terms of these ‘public conversations’ are always set by professional consultants. The process of deliberation depends on ‘procedures, techniques and methods’ worked out by experts. The exercise itself is overseen by professional facilitators, whose rules are really designed to assist in the observation and management of the participants. These phoney conversations are not forums where the participants interact as equals — rather, skilled facilitators are employed to create the right kind of environment and desirable outcomes. One writer sings the praises of ‘citizens’ juries’ — a common form of deliberative democracy — by saying that such juries rely on ‘trained moderators’ who ensure ‘fair proceedings’. With zero self-consciousness, the writers endorses such a highly manipulative environment as being superior to ‘liberal institutions’, which apparently only encourage passivity amongst citizens. What we have is a pretence of deliberation and a reality of manipulation.

Deliberative democracy is neither deliberative nor democratic. Rather, it is about promoting propaganda through the pretence of having an open conversation. However, when it comes to manipulating the public imagination, ‘deliberative polling’ beats deliberative democracy to the finishing line. Deliberative polling stage-manages an allegedly open discussion on a controversial issue in order subliminally to alter people’s views and convictions. According to one of the advocates of deliberative polling, the beauty of this exercise is that ‘many participants changed their voting intentions as a result of the dialogue’. The author, Carne Ross, offers a scenario where, prior to an exercise in deliberative polling, 40 per cent of people surveyed said they would vote for mainstream centrist parties, 22 per cent for socialists, nine per cent for centrist liberals and eight per cent for greens. However, by carefully finessing the wording of the choices available to the participants, the deliberative manipulators successfully increased the number of participants who wanted to ‘emphasise the fight against climate change’ from 49 to 61 per cent.

Deliberative democrats are not shy about acknowledging that their support for conversational forums is contingent upon the participants reaching the ‘right’ decisions. Deliberative democracy is often promoted on the basis that it provides an environment conducive to changing people’s minds and having them adopt the ethos of the forum’s organisers. Deliberation is the preferred method of communication, because it can be a useful tool for transmitting the outlook of the organisers. To ensure that this objective is achieved, the group’s interpersonal dynamic is carefully controlled. To prevent the spontaneous emergence of informal group leaders, ‘most moderators are alert to the manner in which deliberations can be dominated by confident and outspoken individuals’, assures one assessment of deliberative democracy. It appears that deliberative democracy works best when ‘confident and outspoken individuals’ are put in their place.

The depiction of an exercise in brainwashing as a new form of democracy shows that political rhetoric is just that these days — empty rhetoric. It is a sign of the times that a procedure that could have come straight out of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four can be presented as an enlightened alternative to representative democracy. The assumption that the professional facilitator has the moral authority to determine how people should think and emote speaks volumes about the patronising attitude of today’s ‘deliberators’.

December 15, 2011

Mick Hume: Dispelling Euro-myths

Filed under: Britain, Europe, France, Germany, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:49

In this post at Spiked, Mick Hume pours cold water on five Euro-myths:

Euro-myth No 1: ‘It was a triumph for Cameron — or Sarkozy’

Depending on who you listen to, either UK prime minister David Cameron bravely stood alone for Britain by rejecting a new EU treaty, or else he was beaten by the wily French president Nicolas Sarkozy who got what he wanted by the UK’s omission from the new deal around the Eurozone.

In fact, what the rupture showed was that both the six-footer Cameron and the diminutive Sarkozy are, to coin a phrase, pygmies in political terms. And so are German chancellor Angela Merkel and the rest of Europe’s political elite. Far from a triumph for anybody, it marked an embarrassing failure of basic diplomacy among substandard statesmen and women. There are always tensions and ructions at international summits. But in other times they would have been kept under control by careful diplomatic preparation and consultation beforehand – not left to break out in a schoolboy spat on the day, with Cameron and Sarkozy reportedly almost coming to blows. Even far more strident Eurosceptics such as Margaret Thatcher knew how to play the great power game without tripping over their own laces. Europe’s destiny is now in the hands of self-regarding pygmies who think more of their next headline than the shared future of the continent.

As for the notion that Cameron struck a noble blow for the British people and ‘our’ national sovereignty — come off it. Indeed, one of his main motives appears to have been to avoid giving the British people any kind of say on the matter, by dodging both the referendum that would be demanded if he accepted an amended EU treaty, and the general election that would follow if he went too far the other way and broke up his coalition with the EU-loving Liberal Democrats. The government would rather fall out with the French than risk the wrath of British voters.

December 7, 2011

Time to end the “forced march” to Fiskalunion?

Filed under: Europe, France, Germany, Government — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:40

Patrick Hayes outlines the way European national leaders and unelected EU officials are steadily blocking any democratic influence over the future of Europe:

Missing from this deal-making has been the European public, which has been held in complete disregard; whether such a ‘forced march’ is acceptable to the European populace is deemed utterly irrelevant, a triviality, in the face of impending doom. After all, as Merkel reminded us recently, ‘nobody should take for granted another 50 years of peace and prosperity in Europe’. The need for such fundamental changes to Europe’s government and economic system are deemed to be beyond debate.

Even when raising the importance of the national sovereignty of their countries, European leaders do so by pointing out too much economic and fiscal integration would get in the way of solving the short-term crisis. There is little discussion of sovereignty as a matter of principle, as the basis upon which voters can hold politicians and technocrats to account. Actually asking the people directly what they want, through national referenda on any new treaty, is regarded as an unnecessary distraction from the urgent task of saving the Euro, to be avoided at all costs.

[. . .]

Once again demonstrating who is actually wearing the trousers in the partnership between the two wealthiest Eurozone countries, Merkel largely got her way. Only last week, Sarkozy was calling for a return to greater democracy in the European Monetary Union: ‘The reform of Europe is not a march towards supra-nationality’, he said. However, Merkel also had to water down her desire to haul naughty countries before a supra-national authority such as the European Court of Justice or a ‘super commissioner’ in Brussels. Instead, sanctions for breaches of the new Eurozone rules would be enforced internally within countries, who would adopt new laws promising they will obey EU rules.

Despite this, as is evident by a leaked document being circulated by EU Council president Herman Van Rompuy and to be discussed by senior EU officials today, the full arsenal of punitive measures for rule-breaking Eurozone members remains on the table. Van Rompuy suggests that bailed-out countries could be temporarily deprived of political voting rights in EU councils; pension reforms, social security systems, labour-market policy and financial regulations could be ‘harmonised’ across EU countries; and there could be ‘more intrusive control of national budgetary policies by the EU’. Development aid for poorer EU countries could be cut, too.

[. . .]

Whatever gets decided at this week’s summit, and whether the fiscal rules are accepted by all 27 EU nations or just by the 17 Eurozone members, it’s clear that greater intrusion into member countries’ national sovereignty by EU officials is the way the wind is blowing. Should countries overspend and breach EU rules, they may no longer be allowed to decide how they set their taxes, how much they can borrow, even the make-up of their budgets. Such decisions, fundamental to a country’s sovereignty, get ripped from the hands of the people living in the countries and their elected representatives, with decisions instead being forcibly guided by European technocrats in Brussels.

November 29, 2011

European democracy is now “the preserve of right-wing populism”

Filed under: Europe, Government — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:09

Frank Furedi on the urge to omit democracy from European government:

Over the past month, it has become clear that the European Union doesn’t simply suffer from a democratic deficit; rather, it has decided that in the current climate of crisis and uncertainty, the institutions of government must be insulated and protected from public pressure. In Brussels, and among an influential coterie of European opinion-makers, the idea that ordinary people have the capacity to self-govern is dismissed as at best a naive prejudice, and at worst a marker for right-wing populism.

As we shall see, this desire to renounce the politics of representation is by no means confined to EU technocrats. To no one’s surprise, many businesspeople and bankers also prefer the new unelected governments of Greece and Italy to regimes that are accountable to their electorates. And such elitist disdain for nations’ democratic representative institutions is also shared by sections of the left and the intelligentsia, too. So in his contribution on the crisis of democracy, Jürgen Habermas, the leading leftist German philosopher, writes off national electorates as ‘the preserve of right-wing populism’ and condemns them as ‘the caricature of national macrosubjects shutting themselves off from each other’.

Indeed, it isn’t the old-fashioned conservative detractors of the multitude who are at the forefront of the current cultural turn against democratic will-formation — no, it is liberal advocates of expert-driven technocratic rule who are now the most explicit denouncers of democracy. The current political attack on the principles of representative democracy is founded on three propositions. First it is claimed that the people cannot be trusted to support policies that are necessary for the preservation and improvement of society. Secondly, it is suggested that there is an important trade-off to be made between democracy and efficiency, and that in a time of crisis the latter must prevail over the former. And finally, anti-democratic ideologues believe that governments, especially democratic governments, have lost the capacity to deal with the key problems facing societies in today’s globalised world.

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