News from the home front: the Green Party Christmas Fair, always massively attended by Lancastrians whether Green or not, has moved from the old, historic Quaker Meeting House near the Castle to St Thomas Church (C of E; Evangelical) in the town centre: a spacious single-storey setting for second hand bookstalls and food. They also cleared all the benches out of the church, making even more space for woodwork, jewelry and other craft stalls. Apparently, the Quakers objected to a raffle as gambling although it is not clear why they had not objected in previous years. A guy I recognize as a member of the Public Library staff turns out to be one of the large group of Green City Councilors. Our present Government proposes to abolish all existing County and City or District Councils and replace them with unitary (single level) local authorities, larger than Cities but smaller than Counties. The Greens want the smallest possible unitaries.
I am typing this, hyperbolic although it is, because it is easy and does not require too much thought. This is about all that I am up for today although I will probably report back later.
Happy Sunday.
27 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I know Protestants (mostly) don't regard churches the way Catholics/Orthodox do theirs, esp. consecrated buildings dedicated solely to the worship of God and for religious purposes, but I am not happy about that Anglican church being used for so secular a thing as a fair. It jars on me.
Get over your cold fast!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
The Quakers do likewise. When the Fair has been in their Meeting House, the room that they use for worship has been full of stalls. Many groups hire rooms there. Our meditation group meets upstairs and I also attend political meetings in another room downstairs.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
It still jars on me. Years ago, a robber dashed into a local Catholic church during Mass and grabbed the chalice, spilling the transubstantiated wine/Blood of Christ. The sacrilege defiled the church, which had to be reconsecrated/rededicated by the Archbishop of Boston.
And I don't like how the Starmer gov't wants to concentrate more power into fewer and fewer local gov'ts. The logical end result of such centralizing being London incompetently trying to run even the smallest local affairs. Local gov't should be handled by local political entities, going down the scale from counties, cities, towns, villages.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
One problem, I think, is that resources are continually invested in reorganizing and again reorganizing public institutions instead of just getting the best results out of existing institutions. (I do think that more needs to be done than that! - but not just by endless reorganization.)
Paul.
Early recovery to you, btw.
Paul: agreement on the "continually" reorganized nonsense.
Thank you for the good wishes and the same to Sean who said it earlier.
Kaor, to Both!
At least we agree that endless "reorganizing" is nonsense. I also believe it too often leads to concentrating more and more power into fewer and fewer hands. I'm currently reading THE HOBBIT PARTY (by Jonathan Witt and Jay Richards) and I was reminded of this bit from page 122: "The Allies won the war, but Britain was never the same. "Until August: 1914," A.J.P. Taylor wrote, in his ENGLISH HISTORY, 1914-45, "A sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of state, beyond the post-office and the policeman. He could live where he liked and as he liked. He had no official number or identity card. He could travel abroad or leave his country forever without a passport or any sort of official permission.... All this was changed by the impact of the Great War." Changed vastly for the worse in the direction of an increasingly autocratic state in the UK/US, no matter how ostentatiously "democratic"!
Ad astra! Sean
It's busywork, to give the appearance of doing something. As the poet said:
"For forms of government
Let fools contest
What'ere is best administered
Is best."
When I worked for a living, my attitude to work was, if a lot of work came into the office, work hard, but, if there was a slack period, appreciate that.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: Too true! Compared to now, the UK/US of 1914 seems almost unbelievably libertarian, where the State in both countries focused mostly on what really and properly belonged to it. Huge chunks of the gov'ts we have now could be abolished with no loss to these countries, and the resources they absorbed far more usefully used in the private sectors.
Paul: Before I retired on October 31, that was the case with me. Sometimes we got long spells of hard work, or we had slack spells.
Ad astra! Sean
I'm outraged and disgusted! I recently read that the Labour gov't is thinking of abolishing trial by jury for many offenses. That would eliminate a solid check on the bias or malice of judges and prosecutors.
Too bad the Lords are no longer allowed to reject Commons bills, or that the Crown feels constrained to give the Royal Assent to whatever Parliament passes. The Commons has gained too much power!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Agreed about juries.
Which government departments would you abolish?
Surely we need more democracy, not less? The Commons is elected. The Crown and the Lords aren't. Not that I am happy with the way Commons works, either.
Paul.
Sean: well, the World Wars made a -big- difference. The thing is, a lot of what you do in a total war is workable... for a couple of years. Mistaking that for being workable in the -long term- is a bad blunder.
Many people returned from World War expecting a better world. Our parents got a National Health Service which is now under threat.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: Exactly, you reminded me of how Alexis de Tocqueville said much the same thing in THE OLD REGIME AND THE REVOLUTION. The kings of France, in the four centuries before the hideous Revolution, many of them brave and able men, were struggling to cope with chaos and hold France together. The problem being that many of their ad hoc measures, however sensible they seemed at the time, had bad long term consequences.
Paul: I can easily list many departments the US can and should junk. We don't need departments of Commerce, Labor, Education, Energy, etc. Or agencies like the National Endowment for the Arts, or that ancient barnacle on the hull of the ship of state called the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Disagree, the more and more "democratic" any political entity becomes after a certain point, the more and more reckless, autocratic, and irresponsible it gets. The end result, as Anderson stated in A MIDSUMMER TEMPEST, are demagogues and would be tyrants ranting about "democracy" to seize power.
I don't share your faith in "elections." The Commons, and the US House of Representatives, needs to be checked and restrained to be truly effective. That means upper houses and executives with real teeth. US Senators were designed to be resistant to popular whims, fads, passions. And that is exactly what the Lords should do, regardless of whether they are hereditary or life peers. Ditto with US Presidents and the Crown, the latter of whom should at least be able to sometimes say NO to bad ideas.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Who says what is a bad idea?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
The most practical way to find out is by lengthy argument and debate, with the Commons being forced to craft bills which truly has to pass muster with the Lords, not just ram them thru with only minor delays. Which is the situation in the US, where the Senate can still reject House bills.*
Ad astra! Sean
*We occasionally get yelps and howls from House members enraged that that the Senate rejected their pet bills.
Sean,
But, after all the debate, democracy is a majority decision. A minority should not be able to overrule that.
Yelps? Howls? Pet bills? Hostile and uncharitable language.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
No, the men who drafted the US Constitution deliberately wrote it in ways attempting to make sure majorities would be forced to get what they want by consensus, bargaining, log rolling, inglorious compromises, etc. Which is exactly how it should be done in the UK as well.
Yes, yelps and howls. There has even been demands that the Senate be abolished, meaning unicameral autocracy.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Yes, majorities should get what they want, not be blocked by minorities.
"Unicameral autocracy": contradiction.
Does your own impatience and intolerance sound like "yelps" and "howls"?! I do think that we need more civilized language.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Reread what I wrote, "majorities" should be forced to work hard to attempt getting what they want by the means I listed. And accept sometimes being blocked.
No, "unicameral autocracy" is not a contradiction. It's exactly what you are going to get when a single body can do whatever it fancies.
I've been seeing far more extreme language from leftists in the US over the last few years. Compared to them, I'm mild!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I did read what you said. Majorities should not be blocked by minorities.
I have just looked up a definition of "autocracy." It is a state or society ruled by one person with absolute power.
A single elected body doing whatever it fancies is democracy.
I am not defending those US leftists. That surely is not the point.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Disagree, because not all "majorities" are always going to be right, just, prudent. That is when they should be blocked. A majority tyrannically trampling on the rights and legitimate interests of anyone would be behaving autocratically. An unrestrained single chamber legislature can be despotic. I'm using "autocracy" in a wider sense.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Disagree.
Can we just discuss instead of "disagreeing"?
You are using "autocracy" in the opposite sense to its clearly stated meaning.
If a minority decides what is right, just or prudent, then that is not democracy. Blocking majority decisions is the opposite of democracy. Obviously.
Of course the majority should not tyrannically trample on rights or legitimate interests! (Loaded, extreme language.) However, what can we do in a democracy except argue and campaign for the rights of minorities to be respected and valued?
If I think that local or national government is disrespecting a minority, then I join with others in demonstrating, campaigning, petitioning, lobbying and picketing but I do not wish for dictatorial powers to impose my solutions against a majority vote in a City Council or Parliament. That would make everything infinitely worse.
Paul.
Kaor,. Paul!
Very well, I believe majorities can be tyrannical or despotic.
Again, no, majorities can be wrong, and, at the very least they should not get what they want too easily. Which is why the US Constitution gives all states, no matter how small or large the population, only two senators, an Electoral College deliberately designed to give smaller states a bigger say in electing Presidents, a two thirds Senate majority for removing a President from office, etc.
I don't share your faith in pure, undiluted "democracy." Humans are too flawed and prone to folly for that kind of faith. I believe in the limited state, and an unlimited democracy can be just as tyrannical as anything else.
Anderson would mostly agree with me.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But a limited democracy is worse.
We have established that I do not always agree with Anderson!
Paul.
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