Letters to the Editor

Sir,

In his "final Jottings (Free Life No. 34, September/ October 1999), Brian Micklethwait issues the command: "Consider that awful perpetration of one of Margaret Thatcher's speech writers: 'There is no such thing as society'". He himself insists: "Yes, there is".

I wish that, before launching his offensive against that utterance, he had first taken the trouble to examine its context. Had he done so, he would have discovered that it was not precomposed by a speech writer but spontaneously uttered by the lady herself, in an interview, published in Woman's Own on the 13^th October 1989. What she actually said was: "I don't believe in society. There is no such thing, only individual people, and there are families".

The most appropriate comment was provided by Marx and Engels in The Holy Family:

History does nothing, it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real living men, who do all this, who possess things and fight battles. It is not 'history' which uses men as a means of achieving - as if it were an individual person - its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.
(Vol IV, p.43 of the Collected Works - emphasis original)

Yours sincerely,

Antony Flew

Reading

I believe the occasion of the friendly quarrel between Brian Micklethwait and yourself hinges on a lack of precision about who exactly is evil ( "Sean Gabb, Brian Micklethwait and the Debate over Libertarian Strategy", Free Life No. 34, September/ October 1999).

Your remarks, which rely on the understanding that politicians are self-interested and will necessarily do what they can to increase the revenue and power accruing to their offices, is appealing, especially to me, who am being trained as a professional political scientist.

Mr Micklethwait makes the plausible rejoinder that ordinary people are not evil: they are just befuddled and (rationally) ignorant, another argument appealing to the political scientist. We cannot decry all citizen supporters of the invasion of Yugoslavia, for example, as bloodthirsty fascists: they know not what they do. On the other hand, the leaders of states know very well what they do, and they do what they do for reasons.

What does this understanding imply with regard to libertarian strategy? I believe it means that education is important, as Mr Micklethwait argues, for "the common man". They are open to persuasion. It is equally true, however, that the leading officers of the state are not open to persuasion. Monkey-wrenching and subversion are therefore also necessities.

Regards,

Jason P. Sorens
jason.sorens@yale.edu

I write regarding your article "Sean Gabb, Brian Micklethwait and the Debate over Libertarian Strategy" (Free Life No. 34, September/ October 1999). I wish that Brian Micklethwait's approach would work, but it won't.

In the first place, those in power have no reason to debate him; his status is nowhere near theirs. Secondly, were he to be able to talk with them in public, they would not change their minds; they would merely protect their histories. Third, were he to meet them in private, and even miraculously find them intellectually honest, they would still not change their public actions, as their continuance in power demands that they act as they do. (As you say, their loyalty is to that power and nothing else.)

I believe your opinion of officials and bureaucrats is wholly valid, at least in the United States, at the federal level. (We have so many officials and bureaucrats at state and local levels, that I am hopeful that there may be a virtuous man somewhere among them. I found one, once; but I feared what exposing him might do, so I never told anyone.)

Unfortunately, I do not believe that you, Dr Gabb, can, without their having a basic moral foundation, sway public opinion, either. It is easy enough to incite crowds to topple statuary (or even governments); it is impossible to erect a government upon the ruins of the old, without believing oneself of a superior nature, and thus above common peoples' laws. When you thus establish yourself as leader, you are faced with the problem of imposing your plan on others, or gathering enough support for individual freedom to encourage everyone to try it. If you try to establish the primacy of individual rights as a basic tenet, those raised on the socialist teat will call for your head, establish a democracy, and tyrannize the minorities; and today, in both Great Britain and the United States, most people believe that the only milk

available is someone else's, which they who have it must have gotten through their exploitation of the little people. (Strangely, "public servants" are looked upon with awe and admiration when they become wealthy in their government positions.)

Watching the Clintons, I understand clearly how Hitler sold out his people: they wanted him to do it. His view of his own superiority and his view of the absolute perfection of his plan allowed him to be entirely feckless in that plan's execution. Any means were justified. The people praised him and obeyed him, as long as their plates were full. (Men in prison are generally docile, too - as long as their plates are full.)

"The purpose of government is to decide who gets what." When that is its purpose, the governed are destroyed. They will destroy themselves, whenever the government gets big enough to fulfil wishes. They will insist that government be big enough to do its job of redistribution, and they will see that the job gets done, and they will rein themselves, while trying to rob their neighbours.

Tim Kern (former economics and US government teacher)
Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
Radiotimk@aol.com

I write regarding your article "Sean Gabb, Brian Micklethwait and the Debate over Libertarian Strategy" (Free Life No. 34, September/ October 1999). Wonderful. You have persuaded me. I must admit that I've been suffering under the illusions of options one and four. I should have know better, having been around politics and those power hungry apparatchiks all my life. My father was a politician at the state level. I used to play with toy cars in the floor of George Wallace's office while my Dad discussed statecraft with the Gov.

Looking back shamefully on the time I spent working within the Republican Party, you are totally right about a complete absence of ideas in comparison to the raw heady atmosphere of power politics. It's actually so bad that being called an idealist is one of the worst appraisals a politician can get from Big Media.

I will remain in the Libertarian Party, however, because I like to do stuff -- knowing full well that it is mostly fruitless. Here's a happy note for you: those empty headed power moths have started showing up in the Libertarian Party as we have become more successful.

Liberty,
Jim Albea
jwalbea@plateaugame.com

I read your commentary on the Gary Glitter trial with interest ("Reflections on the Gary Glitter Case", Free Life No. 35, January 2000). I do not agree with your conclusions, nor do I agree that possession of indecent pictures of children is a victimless crime. Possession of pornographic images of persons over the age of 16, i.e adults for these purposes , in the ordinary course of events involves no harm to anyone. An adult is capable of consenting meaningfully and therefore in the vast majority of cases the model poses willingly and of his or her own free will.

With minors, however, it is different. I understand you to agree that there should be an age of consent. My own belief is that 16 is probably right do not accept that children are capable of consenting freely to being the object of indecent photography.

My view is that the taking of a pornographic picture involves the infliction of harm on a child, be it immediate physical or longer term emotional injury. Therefore to say that Gary Glitter's actions harmed no one is a bit like trying to argue that receiving stolen goods is a victimless crime. The circumstances in which a picture is taken may therefore be highly relevant to the assessment of whether possession can be said to constitute harm.. If Mr Glitter downloaded pictures from paying commercial sites, then is it not a valid argument to say that the main purpose in taking the pictures was commercial gain?

Suppose then, for argument's sake that the number of people willing to pay for such images dropped significantly and the number of pornographic images of people too young to consent meaningfully declined as a consequence, would it then not be reasonable to argue that as non-possession involved the infliction of less harm, then possession involving more harm should be proscribed?

Suppose again that a member of your family or a close friend was murdered. Suppose then that photos of the corpse of that loved one were distributed on the World Wide Web on a pay for access site, then how would you feel? Suppose then it transpired that some unscrupulous persons were actually having people done to death for the purposes of entertainment and profiting from sickoes willing to pay to amass photos of the corpses of murdered people, would it then be a valid excuse to say, "Oh well, I only paid for these photos. My acquiring them and possessing them doesn't involve anyone's rights being violated"?

I will readily concede that my visceral disgust for what Gary Glitter was doing influences my views. By all accounts these were not photos of young ladies in schoolgirl outfits but involved what were unambiguously very young children.

Does my less than perfect critique of your argument on the grounds of "consent" and the apparent lack thereof in what I consider to be meaningful terms undermine the basic proposition that what Gary Glitter appears to have done should remain criminal? I think not. Of course there is a very powerful taboo against indecent behaviour between adults and minors and I see no reason why that should change. I would venture to say that it is probably a well-nigh universal taboo in all civilised societies. What is the derivation of the very concept of rights? Are they founded in nature, reason or custom? Are they universal, or timeless? Or do they arise from practice, emotion, prejudice (in the Burkean sense) or a combination of these?

Perhaps they are a civilisational result or achievement, as I recall Oakeshott argued. Can it then not be said that our very beliefs as to the existence of certain human rights rest on certain taboos, or assumptions that most people may not find easy to articulate in rationalistic terms. but are views which ultimately rest on the proposition that "Well, you know, it's just plain darn wrong!"

What this means therefore is that conventional "rights" and "harm" analysis may not be a closed system.

Simon McIlwaine
smc22@ormerods.co.uk