Liberal Scotland » Civil Liberties

Charged with illegal sex for being raped

niallrowantree — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:13:43 +0000

Little can cause a liberal more outrage than this story.

The Dubai police seem to have been more interested in the actions of the woman that may have ‘encouraged’ the act rather than investigate the rape itself.

Inevitably it is when things like this happen to Western ex-pats that our attention is drawn to it and we get understandably exercised. We musn’t forget that such laws apply to native Saudi women – see here for an even more horrendous example.

There must be a better way to confront this than our government simply saying they are ‘horrified’ or in the USA’s case not really saying much at all. You don’t need to be a believer in human rights to figure that this plain wrong.

The Slovakian Government’s Approach to Civil Liberties

niallrowantree — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 12:08:09 +0000

What in the name of all that is holy is this all about?

What if it was accidentally detonated? What if this was retrospectively detected by the security services mid-flight – could we have seen a repeat of Jean Charles de Menezes? Is it normal for governments to do this?

Crazy…

Are rewards liberal?

niallrowantree — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 13:07:43 +0000

There are several examples of people being rewarded for ‘good’ behaviour (see this and this) that I can think of. This seems to be related to RCM’s beloved nudge principle – try and use people’s psychological propensities to achieve policy. In these cases you’re rewarding behaviour with money or merchandise, providing a tangible and quick reward for exhibiting certain behaviours. My big problem with ‘nudging’ is related to my distrust of all forms of government control – who decides what the ‘positive’ outcomes are? Where does nudging stop – are we going to be nudged into thinking that life would be much easier if everyone submitted to police stop and searches on a constable’s whim a la Prevention of Terrorism Act?

Anyway - this news story made me think about this issue from a different angle. Would it be right to reward people who made conscious decisions relating to their health, consumption, pollution etc by cutting their taxes? In a sense we already do this with Road Tax (tax less polluting cars less) so why not tax people who are less of a burden on the state less? If you keep your BMI below a certain level, don’t smoke, don’t drink excessively, excercise heaps etc etc then why should you pay as much tax as somebody who exhibits all of these ‘polluting’ and costly activities? In the USA where, depending on your definition of liberal, the most liberal healthcare system (and many, me included, would argue unfair…) exists this is reflected in lower insurance premiums for people with ‘healthier’ lifestyles (and in the UK – here).

Is this liberal? I think there are arguments on both sides. On the one hand the state increases your liberty by reducing your tax burden (similar to the Easyjet council model we’ve heard so much about – here). On the other, like the nudging objections, someone has to decide what the ‘good behaviour’ is. Another obvious objection is the inequality that would be created between healthy people who find it easy to lose weight, keep fit etc and those who for whatever reasons find it more challenging. Also would it be a breach of the universal coverage the NHS provides?

I’d be interested to hear peoples’ opinions.