An honest politician is a national calamity

At first glance, this seems preposterous. People of all shades of opinion agree that at least on the axiom that we need more honest politicians, not more crooked ones. Please remember, however, that people of all shades of opinion once agreed that the Earth is flat.

Your typical dishonest politician (bocca grande normalis) is interested only in enriching himself at the public expense, a goal he shares with most of his fellow citizens, especially doctors and lawyers. This is normal behavior for our primate species, and society has always been able to endure and survive it.

An honest politician (bocca grande giganticus) is far more dangerous. He or she is sincerely committed to bettering society by political action. In practice, that means by writing and enacting more laws. Indeed, many groups of idealistic citizens publish rating sheets on politicians every year, and those who have created more laws are estimated as having higher value than those who are frequently absent when bills are voted upon. The assumption is that adding more laws to statute books is a positive achievement, like adding more money to our paychecks or more art works to a museum.

A little thought, however, shows that this assumption is not tenable. Every law creates a whole new criminal class; for instance, when marijuana was illegalized in 1937, several hundred thousand formerly law-abiding citizens became criminals overnight, by Act of Congress. As more and more laws are passed, more and more citizens become criminals. The chief cause of the rising crime rate is the rising number of laws being enacted. An honest politician, who keeps his nose to the grindstone and enacts several hundred laws in the course of his career, thereby produces as many as several million new criminals.

It is furthermore mathematically demonstrable that the more laws there are, the more restrictions there are on the freedom of the individual. If there were, say, only three laws in a given society—e.g., Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not lie or defraud—there would be only three restrictions on freedom, which all rational persons would accept as obviously necessary to the maintenance of order. When there are several hundred thousand restrictions on freedom, most of them are felt as extremely irksome by large segments of the populace.

In fact, it would take a brigade of lawyers several weeks, minutely examining your affairs, to determine if you are a criminal. Certainly, no ordinary citizen has the time or research facilities to discover if he or she is in violation of one out of skillions of laws currently on our statute books. In many cases, two lawyers consulted independently will give opposite opinions about whether or not a given course of action is in violation of the statutes.

And new laws are being enacted all the time. Obviously, unless there is a sudden paper shortage, the number of laws on the books will eventually reach the point satirized by T.H.White, in which “everything not prohibited is compulsory.” It would then probably only take a few years or decades more for a cadre of honest politicians diligently writing even more laws to reach the complementary point where “everything not compulsory is prohibited.”

At that stage the nightmare world of Orwell’s 1984 will be achieved. Crooked politicians, merely interested in the normal human activity of making themselves rich and comfortable, could never create that ultimate horror; but honest and idealistic politicians bring us closer to it every day, with every new law they enact.

From Robert Anton Wilson – The Illuminati Papers

Please remember: Hagbard Celine is a fictional character. The views and opinions expressed by him are fictitious and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Tom Lennon’s Blog or any of its affiliates. This disclaimer, of course, does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Hagbard Celine.

Step away from the fnord.

I know that this will involve me stepping out of my made-to-measure comfort zone of pop culture, obscure literary references and knob gags, but I have to confess that this whole MPs’ Expenses Scandal malarkey has left me feeling somewhat bemused. Yes, that’s right, bemused. Not angry, not apoplectic with rage, not even baying for the blood of every front bencher, back bencher or side bencher in the land. It’s just left me feeling somewhat bemused.

Sorry about that.

Maybe its my age. I used to get angry about stuff like this, but I’m fast approaching the tip of the tail-end of my third decade and – while I’m no expert on neurology – I strongly suspect that violent and disproportionately hysterical emotional reactions are bad for one’s blood pressure. Adopting a detached and slightly bemused demeanour seems to do wonders for my endorphin levels. For one thing, I seem to get fewer veins on my forehead.

That’s not to say that the steady eruption of sordid revelations gushing out of Westminster (via the Daily Telegraph) haven’t managed to elicit any negative responses in me whatsoever. I try my best, but I’m only human. I’ve felt the occasional twinge of schadenfreude as I’ve watched a group of individuals who – as far as I can tell – seem habitually inclined to scapegoat other groups of individuals for all of society’s ills become, well, the scapegoat for all of society’s ills. I’m no expert on Eastern Mysticism, but I believe that’s called Karma.

The fact that the British government have increasingly resorted to psychological scare tactics and Orwellian mind-fuckery to discourage the rest of us non-political critters from benefit cheating, TV Licence evading and miscellaneous acts of no-good shit dishonesty doesn’t help. Part of me would like to see an aggressive high profile advertising campaign aimed at the nation’s politicians. It should, of course, be meticulously designed so as to create an overwhelming sense of paranoia and mistrust in the target audience. Stark black and white imagery, distressed jump cuts and a final lingering shot on an expenses claim form should do the trick. Maybe throw in a catchy slogan like: “There’s no second home allowance in Jail” or “What’s that really worth, you patronising bastard?”

For the most part, though, I try to be bemused.

To elaborate on that previous post (which, truth be told, I knocked out in a bit of a rush):

The Today programme’s Jim Naughtie was talking to David Davis (ex-shadow home secretary) and Derek Barnett (vice president of the Police Superintendents’ Association of England & Wales) about calls for a debate about how police should handle public protests in the future. The conversation moved on to the recent arrest (and subsequent release on bail) of 114 people in Nottingham who were apparently planning to stage a big-ass protest at a power station.

The bit that made my ears do a double-take was when Davis said:

“We are getting into… a sort of pre-crime mentality. The idea that we’ve got to somehow interview people before the crime takes place.”

Which is all a bit disturbing, at least to a simple fool with leftish, anti-authoritarian tendencies like me. What made it worse was the fact that this was the first time I’d heard the term ‘pre-crime’ outside of a Phillip K. Dick science fiction novel. What next? Robert Peston reviewing the latest figures from Ubik Industires? John Humphreys grilling Palmer Eldritch over his three stigmata?

But I digress. As far as I know, the term ‘pre-crime’ first appeared in PKD’s 1958 short story ‘The Minority Report’ (which Steven Spielberg turned into a Cruiser-starring blockbuster in 2002). In the story, the police arrest people for crimes that they would have committed before they’re actually committed. Like so many of PKD’s stories, the central conceit is fiendishly smart and deliciously bonkers. I like it a lot.

I’m just not quite ready to see it happen for real.

You can find the original Today programme interview here (it’s about 7 minutes in)

Former shadow home secretary David Davis was just on Radio 4′s Today programme. He was discussing the role of police crowd control following the G20 demonstrations. He said that policing in this country is in danger of becoming increasingly ‘pre-crime‘ based.

David Davis a PKD fan? Who’d a thought it…

From The Hollywood Reporter:

TORONTO — “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek is set to moonlight on the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. as host of the reality competition series “Canada’s Next Prime Minister.”

Canadian-born Trebek, who got his start at the pubcaster, will share the stage March 18 with three former prime ministers as they field pitches from four would-be politicos before choosing a winner.

Last month, the CBC got into hot water after admitting to breaking contestant recruitment rules and contacting political organizations to invite former young political candidates to compete on the series.

The CBC has sold “Canada’s Next Prime Minister” as a format to the BBC.

Italics mine, as is the jaw on the carpet.

I have a confession to make.

It’s not an easy thing to admit to. In these rheumy-eyed, cynical times it can be considered dreadfully unfashionable, politically naïve and more than a tad suspicious. In certain circles it is regarded as an early indicator of the onset of water on the brain. However, at the risk of losing my friends, my credibility and even my credit rating I have to come clean:

While listening to President Barack Obama’s inaugural address today I found myself experiencing an overpowering sense of optimism.

There. That wasn’t so difficult to say.

I’ve never been one to anthropomorphise business entities, so I don’t tend to get too upset when a major High Street retailer goes out of business. Sure, I’ll always sympathise with the regular people who end up losing their jobs on account of other peoples’ errors of judgment and catastrophic SNAFUs, but I don’t feel any great sense of personal loss when a well known retail outlet shuts its doors and goes to Jesus. When Ratners went bust, Bejams bit the dust and Rumbelows took its final dirt nap I didn’t wear a black armband, close the curtains or shed any tears.

Until today, that is. While walking through Cotteridge in Birmingham I saw my first dead Woolworths store. The place was gutted, the shutters were down and a rather pathetic handwritten sign declared that the shop’s safe and a few fittings and fixtures were still available for purchase. As I read the sign, I felt my default setting of disregard be thrown into disarray.

I felt rather sad.

Woolworths, you see, was the place where I bought my first 7″ single. The record – for the record – was Cool For Cats by the criminally underrated Squeeze and I bought it with my pocket money from the bargain bin at the Hawthorn Road branch of Woolies in 1979. For most of my childhood, the Hawthorn Road branch of Woolies was the only place I bought records from. Long before I discovered places like Virgin or HMV – or independent outlets like Swordfish, Tempest and the late Frank’s Wild Records – Woolies was my local record store.

I bet it was for lots of other people, too

This morning I paid a visit to the corner shop to get some milk, bread and Marlboro Lights. As usual, I made a beeline for the fish ‘n’ chip paper rack and scanned the headlines. The one on the Daily Mail jumped out at me:

Holy shit, I thought, it must be Election Day in the US. Had I really overslept by a week? Of course, it wasn’t and I hadn’t. The Daily Mail headline – in fact, the front page story on every tabloid, broadsheet and freesheet this morning – wasn’t about the US elections, the violence in Congo or anything really important. It was about two famous blokes who get paid a lot of money to be rude, obnoxious and controversial getting into a lot of trouble for being rude, obnoxious and controversial.

I quite like Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross, but on this occasion I think they acted like a pair of thoughtless and sadistic eejits. Broadcasting a series of lewd messages left on a 78 year-old veteran comedy actor’s answermachine is not what you might call best foot forward behaviour. Of course, the production team didn’t help matters. They might have been trying to repackage Derek and Clive for the iPod generation, but I’m sure the producers of Ad Nauseam and Come Again were savvy enough to keep Pete and Dud away from the telephones.

I hate to think that I agree with anything the Daily Mail has to say, but I do think its right and proper to treat older people with a modicum of respect. I suspect, however, that the relentless media shitstorm they’ve kicked off has less to do with respect for our elders than it has to do with feeding our atavistic resentment towards highly successful people. I guess that means that I can carry on respecting old people, then.

In any case, the next time high profile iconoclasts feel compelled to piss off the Daily Mail by verbally abusing a senior citizen might I suggest they pick on a target that’s a bit more deserving than Manuel from Fawlty Towers? Perhaps, say, a ruthless military dictator, a power hungry press baron or maybe even a former prime minister.

There’s plenty of names that spring to mind.

From MSNBC News:

Rumors are flying that filmmaker Morgan Spurlock of “Super Size Me” fame may have done what the United States government has failed to do for the last six years — find Osama bin Laden.

The speculation first began at the Berlin International Film Festival in February, where Spurlock showed a select group of potential buyers 15 minutes of footage from his new documentary, “Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?” The film follows Spurlock through the Middle East in his search for the elusive leader of al-Qaida. According to Slashfilm.com, The Weinstein Co. quickly snapped up the picture after seeing the clips.

Adding to the belief, Daniel Marracino, the film’s director of photography, is quoted in Variety, saying of the movie, “We’ve definitely got the Holy Grail.”

BBC News haven’t picked this up as yet, and perhaps with good reason. The way I see it, it either has the potential to be the single biggest body blow to the Bush Administration’s legacy or it’s a misguided cosmic-scale hoax that would put Morgan Spurlock in the Clifford Irving league and potentially wreck his career. But it does present a tantalising prospect: could a likeable documentary-maker who made his name bingeing on burgers have accomplished what the world’s only super power and the global intelligence community have monumentally failed to do?

Sometimes a ‘WTF?’ just isn’t enough.

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