Sir,

It is so sad to read an article by a culture fascist in a libertarian journal ("Is there a remedy for incompetence? Restoring the National Lottery", Free Life No. 21, November 1994). Dennis Vaughan, while smugly declaring himself the "Father of the National Lottery", begins his paternalistic Tory diatribe claiming that some lofty authority should intervene to save Sun readers from cultural blight. Is this the language of free markets?

Somehow Mr Vaughan distances the "Philistine" lower echelons from culture and the "arts", whatever they are. He makes no reference to popular culture promoted by free markets. It was the free market that made Shakespeare, not the Department of National Heritage. The tragedy Romeo and Juliet is littered with sex, drink and people killing each other on the streets of Verona and Mantua - the relaxations which Mr Vaughan attributes to Sun readers.

Today popular culture has given the arts a tremendous boost through the mechanisms of the market. The Rolling Stones, the Who, the Beatles and the Sex Pistols influenced music across generations without the need for state control. Soap operas enjoyed by the masses have brought issues such as sexuality, religion, child abuse and AIDS to public attention far better than government propaganda, enticing ordinary people into the acting profession and giving them new perspectives.

I get incredibly nervous when so-called "professionals" decide what art is worth investing in. It is these dons and academics in the establishment who form the powerful arts lobby which keeps Radio 3 clinging on to the BBC license fee, with only one per cent of the radio listening population ever tuning in. Yet the commercial self-supporting Virgin Radio is confined to inferior wave-lengths, while enjoying over 20 per cent of the market, purely because it doesn't fit into the narrow creed of what is art.

Anyway, do people really want the money raised by the National Lottery soaked up by meaningless piles of bricks lying around in the Tate, a squawking fat lady singing in a language they can't understand, or bikes that go nowhere sitting in a gymnasium they won't use? I don't think so.

The National Lottery subsidies for the arts and sports will only ever appeal to a minority. This is as justifiable as any other patronising Nanny state interventionism. As a libertarian, I believe the aims of the National Lottery quite objectionable. The free market works. Leave it alone, Mr Vaughan!

Yours sincerely,
Daniel Brett,
Essex.

Sir,

I enjoyed your last Editorial (Free Life No. 21, October 1994), in which you lament our move towards a single World Government. I feel, however, that you remain too optimistic about the future.

You assume that the vices of this single government will be those of the West - that it will put higher taxes on tobacco, and make us all learn about condoms from the age of two. But, while its institutions are now being established and made supreme by the western powers, it is other elites than our own who will run the New World Order.

Though not perfect, our civilisation has so far been unique in its recognition and long maintenance of individual rights. This has been the root of all progress during the past three centuries. Though many of the fruits of progress have been enjoyed, and indeed imitated and improved, elsewhere in the world, no other civilisation has yet come close to valuing - let alone adopting - the root.

Imagine, then, a world in which population growth and the spread of existing knowledge will have seen the passing of western political supremacy. It may be the essentially sick civilisation of Islam that will dominate, or the more refined despotisms of the East. But it will certainly mean the end of humanity's second Enlightnment. That there have already been two indicates that there may be a third. Even so, when I contemplate the length and degradation of the ages that separate the death of Archimedes from the birth of Newton, I do not look into the future with the equanimity that you still appear to manage.

Yours sincerely,

Frederick Fairlie,
Cumberland.

Sir,

Aaron P. Krellburger ("Letters", Free Life No. 21, October 1994), complains about "too much sex" in your magazine.

On the contrary, I say to Mr Krellburger, there is not enough. I really enjoyed Matt Crowley's "Deadly Sex Thrills" (Free Life No. 20, August 1994). I also enjoyed the picture of the man with nipple rings on the back page of that issue.

It is all very well for Mr Krellburger: he lives in a state famous for its porn supermarkets and cheap Latino prostitutes. In Tory Britain, Free Life will soon be about the most salacious material that we can legally buy.

And so more sex please, rather than less.

Yours sincerely,

Percival Glyde,
Essex.

Sir,

We wish to thank Dr T.J. Eckleburg for his most interesting reply ("Letters to the Editor", Free Life No. 21, November 1994) to our "Reflections on the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill" (Free Life No. 20, August 1994). It is gratifying to know that someone has not only taken the time to read what we have written, but has also thought it worthy of so thorough a reply. This being said, our own reply is in two parts:

First, Dr Eckleburg makes fun of our view that pornographic representations of actual children are wrong only because the child models might be identified. But we made this our only objection because we share his belief that "children are [not] specially harmed by being objects of sexual desire". Plainly, much consensual sex is enjoyable, and all of it ought to be; and, assuming that children are capable of orgasm - and, above a very low age, they are - we make no exceptions on any grounds of age. Even so, we must take the morality established in our own country as we find it; and, though doubtless regrettable, it is the case that children who take part here in sexual acts are variously pitied and despised. Therefore, while they may not need protection on purely sexual grounds, assuming that they do rightly possess a separate legal status from adults, we believe that the law should protect children from acts which will harm them. Such acts include anything that will bring them into contempt.

We also say that this principle may justify prohibitions of certain kinds of sexual behaviour involving children, depending on the risk of contracting the nastier sexual diseases. We apologise to your readers that we did not mention this in our original article - though our omission does not, we think, strengthen Dr Eckleburg's argument.

Second, we turn to his claim, that prohibitions of child pornography might justify arguments for trade protection. Dr Eckleburg says that most photographs and videos are produced in other countries, and then that "if [their] sale in the United Kingdom - and therefore [their] importation also - is to be forbidden..., so on the same principle is the sale of Columbian coal, which is often dug by children". Obviously, it was not our intention to state a principle with so potentially wide an application, and we do not think we have stated one. To forbid the importation of child pornography is something necessarily consequent on forbidding its production in this country, since it is often impossible to know where a magazine or video has been made. But we do not need to forbid the importation of Columbian coal in order to enforce our own restrictions on child labour. So long as the principle is properly stated, we see no reason why it should be twisted to protectionist ends.

Finally, we wish once more to say how grateful we are for Dr Eckleburg's critique of our article; and we hope that he will be able to write longer articles for this journal on the same basis as we ourselves do.

Yours sincerely,

Anthony Furlong & Edward Hume,
London.

Sir,

For the past several issues of Free Life, you have been publishing attacks on the notion of a British identity card. I share your distrust of the powers that such a card would give to our already overextended authorities. I feel, however, that you have quite failed to answer the strongest argument put in its favour.

As a libertarian of sorts, I accept that the ideal is for everyone to be able to move freely about the world, and to settle and work where they please. But to open our borders at the moment might simply be to let in a hundred million paupers. Bearing in mind the probable values of the newcomers, and the use that would be made of them by the enemies already in our midst, even if their coming did not produce immediate social and political collapse, it would hardly represent an increase in the personal freedom of those of us who live here now.

But, with the impending abolition of our border controls - and their increasing present ineffectiveness - the only means likely to work of controlling immigration in the future involve identity cards - identity cards carried by everyone and produceable on demand and for all official and semi-official transactions. Banks, libraries, letting and employment agencies - all these and more must be required to demand and check the identification of their clients. Even these immense powers of inspection and control will not stop illegal immigration; but nothing else will so efficiently contain the flood to a trickle.

Together with your correspondents, Sir, you may rail against Mr Howard's proposals. But until you take an unambiguous stand against immigration control - and swear that this stand is not made in the certain knowledge that no one in authority will ever take you seriously - I must accuse you of fraud or stupidity.

I await your response.

Yours sincerely,

Alexander Richardson,
Birmingham.

Sir,

At the end of Nicholas Dykes' reply to your defence of determinism ("Over the Top for Freewill", Free Life No. 20, August 1994), you promised a reply to all your critics in the next issue. Come the next issue, no reply. In that issue, however, you did promise to bring out subsequent issues with more regularity than in the past. It is now March, and issue 22 is a month late.

Could it, by any chance, have been lost in the post?

Yours sincerely,

Aaron P. Krellburger,
Florida.