The Age of Consent (For Meg)

By consent, here I mean the consenting of individuals to live in a society. Namely their consenting to offer up some of their liberties and power to a centralised government in return for a perceived increase in security and order.

However, my point is also linked to the 'age of consent' in the more ubiquitous sense; as that age at which one is legally allowed to engage in sexual activity.

But first let's make a distinction between two theories of how a people give consent to their rulers... the distinction between explicit and tacit consent.

Explicit consent is the everyday conceptualisation of consent, when someone has a clear choice and chooses to allow a particular course of action. For example, I explicitly consented to allow someone to go ahead of me in the supermarket queue this morning.

Tacit consent is in actuality the more pervasive form of consent, and refers to when someone upholds a norm or convention merely by failing to oppose it. For example I tacitly consent to being governed by Her Majesty because I haven't (yet) taken up arms against her/ left the country.

And this is where the recent case of Megan Stammers comes in...

One of the key arguments made by Locke is that the legitimacy of a Government rests upon the people giving their consent to be ruled. He postulates that this can come in the form of tacit consent, but only if there is the feasible potential ability of any individual to withdraw their consent... Without such a measure then the government becomes a totalitarian dictatorship as there is no alternative offered...

He argues that the two methods of withdrawing one's tacit consent are to a) express explicit discontent by overthrowing the government, whether by ballot or bullet, or b) leaving the jurisdiction of said government...

This is exactly what Megan Stammers and Jeremy Forrest did. They were born into the subjection of a government over which they had no part in creating or shaping and they therefore chose to withdraw their consent due to their inability to live under the laws created by that government. Explicitly they took issue with the law defining the 'age of consent' and therefore emigrated to France where they expected to live under a law more preferable to themselves.

Now this is exactly how Locke says tacit consent should work. If one doesn't like a law they should work to repeal it, or leave its jurisdiction. They ought not be held accountable under that law if they do not recognise its authority and are actively seeking to leave the society that it governs. Any attempt by the British government to prosecute either of them under the law they reject is simply demonstrating that the theory of 'tacit consent' is a lie, and proving that this government is unlimited, unaccountable and illegitimate... a terrifying prospect...

Jubilee... Celebrations?

It is a fundamental rule of a liberal society that men are judged on actions, effort and talent, rather than immutable unerring characteristics of themselves. For instance, factors that men cannot change, such as race, gender, skin colour, sexuality, ought have no reflection on their capacity to succeed, achieve their potential or fulfill their ambitions.

In this vein, the additional condition of family and nepotism ought to be irrelevant to one's success/ finances/ popularity. In essence, one should get out of life what one puts in.

Therefore, with these sentiments in mind, I am perplexed as to the incessant mania surrounding the Royal Family and their progeny. In fact, I am inclined to believe that this is the one area in which the French (and I rarely credit them with anything) are more socially advanced than we poor savages on our lonely Isle.

The Royal Family and their inherited inequities embody the rot that is thriving in the latest British generation. Tens of thousands of school-age children growing up with the notion that they can get something for nothing, that wealth is the be all and end all of success. These ideas are evidenced by the October Riots and are often blamed by analysts upon the influx of American celebrity culture such as The Hills and Jersey Shore. Shows which have become so popular that British versions have been commissioned with such orange idiots as Joey Essex and Amy Childs to flog the ever-increasingly desperate aspirations of glamour.

However, these 'celebrities' are mere extensions of an acceded culture, one that has existed ever since the first savages were subjected to the will of another. Namely that of royalty, a world where wealth is derived from parentage, where not a drop of sweat need be shed, where everything is on a plate from birth. And the worst of it is that such conditions are revered, they are aspired to, people look at the monarchy and dream of that lifestyle, they look at Kate Middleton and see a role model, someone to show the kids and say 'that could be you some day'...

Well, I conjecture that Kate Middleton is little more than a prostitute; famous and wealthy merely for sleeping (yes, and loving and marrying - I didn't say she wished to be a prostitute) with someone famous and wealthy. She has done nothing of note with her own talents and toil to merit being a role model, and therefore to revere her and her ilk is to merely pass along the message that one can succeed without working. And that is why the inherent inherited inequality of the Royal Family must be abolished if Britain is to achieve its productivity potential...

The Politics of Religion

Here's an interesting study from Demos (a British thinktank) looking at the correlation between religion and political persuasion...  http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/faithfulcitizens

It concludes that (1) "religious people are more active citizens (who) volunteer more, (and) donate more to charity" and (2) "religious people are more likely to be politically progressive (people who) put a greater value on equality than the non-religious."

This is surprising; religion has long suffered under the stigma of conservatism, the illegitimate authority of religious bodies being exampled as dogmatic, restrictive and stifling of free thought or action. However these conclusions seem to refute such a perception. Conclusion (1) indicates a tendency towards welfare more akin with left-wing socialism, whereas Conclusion (2) creates a image of liberal progressiveness, tolerance and idealism.

Upon reflection, it is not hard to see how Conclusion (1) is supported by scripture and the general attitudes of society. Most Labour PMs have identified themselves as Christian (this is not insinuating that Conservatives have not) and the most Christian constituent nation of the UK (Scotland), is also the most Labour-supporting. Teachings of most religious organisations include instructions to be charitable, such as the zakah of Islam and Christ blessing 'he who considers the poor'. And let's not forget that in all stages of socialism but the final there is the necessity for a strong leadership to dictate wealth redistribution and plan the economy. Therefore it does not seem a monumental absurdity to reconcile socialism with Christianity.

However, with Conclusion (2), I struggle to find the liberal values of equality for all, intellectual emancipation and liberty from authority in any form of religious pursuit. The condemnation of homosexual and female equality by the vast majority of religious doctrines are yet more examples of intolerance on the part of the monotheistic ideologies and those who purport to interpret their holy texts.

This struggle to understand how such bigotry could be labelled liberal precipitated my desire to look closer at the methodology behind Demos' report... and surprise, surprise, I unearthed some horrendous discrepancies. Essentially they asked a multiple choice question with 4 options to answer (p58) but then lumped those respondents who chose either Option 2 or Option 3 into the same group (pluralist) to analyse the results, thereby reducing four categories to three to interpret. They consequently feigned surprise that pluralists returned most results, evidently hoping that the readership would overlook their blatant search for such a skew. This bias is why they produced the correlation that they did, as the pluralist group is undoubtedly both liberal AND religious, and therefore raises several questions concerning the actualities of their claimed independence and even their fitness to practice.

God, I love it when my gut feeling is validated...