The case of the tearing down of Colston’s statue was more nuanced to locals than it might have appeared externally.
In reality the statue had been a Gordian Knot for the city for decades. Put up 170 years after Colston’s death by the v dodgy Merchant Venturer gang, it had a plaque stating that Colston was “one of the most wise and virtuous sons of the city”. The (slave-owning past) Merchant Venturers refused to allow any additional messaging pointing out that his generosity came from slavery, and that 19,000 men, women and children had died just on Colston’s boats, sailing from Bristol Harbour.
Leaving aside the bizarre ability of the commissioners of out of date public statues to control such things, the plaque had been a running sore for a multicultural city that it seemed couldn’t be legally healed. So when the protesting crowd focused exclusively on the statue it was hardly mob violence - more like surgery. And the treatment of the people arrested reflected the sigh of relief the city felt at having the issue dealt with.
Yes, this was still “Chaotic Good”, but in this case the law gave it a clear nod and a wink.
You put your case very sympathetically, but doesn't your argument boil down to "it's okay for a mob to use violence if I agree with their cause?"
Our host argued that this can sometimes be correct for a group denied the vote, but Bristol was in a democracy last time I looked. If a majority of the city actually wanted rid of the thing couldn't they have done so through a vote. Apparently they didn't, so isn't this 'sympathetic minority use violence to inflict their will on the majority'? Am I missing something about national law restraining the city council?
The bizarre thing was that the democratically-elected council *couldn’t* get a second, explanatory-context plaque put on the plinth, because the Merchant Venturers refused to accept any text proposed. Was the pulling down of the statue illegal? Yes. Was it justified? I’d say it’s definitely arguable in such a situation where local people are forced to accept a statue lauding a slaver without any context.
I admit I have not researched the fine details of the council's legal powers, but the Guardian (not naturally sympathetic to the statue, I would assume) reports that at the trial, the City Council testified that they had not considered removing it.
Which suggests they could have done if they wanted to. As surely if they had wanted to, or had tried, but been blocked by some law, they would have said that instead?
Bristolians were asking for a plaque to put the statue in context not asking for the statute's removal so the Guardian article correctly states that BCC were not considering removal of the statute. However efforts to get a plaque were consistently blocked by the shadowy Merchant Ventures.
Lots to agree with here. I'm frustrated what a huge majority of fiction protagonists, especially in children's fiction, are rebels, activists in some sense, "red" in MtG colour pie terms, with rule-breaking being certainly expected and usually celebrated. I've tried to search for kid-friendly fiction where characters have a sensible relationship with authority, and it's pretty hard to find.
This feels like one of those things that very much depends on your perspective.
The people you got cite are student activists and pretty marginal whereas I see conservative and Reform politicians figures routinely opposing the rule of law and even trial by jury when it comes to decisions they don't like. The last conservative government openly declared that they were breaking the law 'in a specific and narrow way'.
This contempt for the rule of law is basically the defaut across the right-wing print media, including declaring that Judges are 'enemies of the people', simply for declaring that parliament is sovereign.
As an aside, you say that Pride is intrinsically political, so the police shouldn't attend. If so, it's certainly no more political than the belief our head of state should be chosen by inheritance rather than election. Do you also insist that the police and the army should be neutral about the monarchy? I suspect not!
Overall, opposition to the rule of law is only on the fringes of the broad Left, whereas it is now the default for the most mainstream and powerful elements of the Right.
I did feel there was a danger our host was cherry picking examples, and wanted someone to lay out the equivalent right leaning examples, however I haven't been able to follow the specific ones you give here.
Googling "breaking the law in a specific and narrow way" the only thing I've been able to find is the UK threatening to break international law to modify the Brexit deal. I think this is bad, but a government threatening to break a treaty (and then not) seems quite removed from the mob rule described above (I guess if you think governments aren't sovereign and that we're actually under the world rule of UN + friends then they kinda collapse into the same thing, but does anyone actually think that?)
I think the 'enemies of the people' thing was from the Supreme Court's Ruling that the Brexit Referendum had no force. Was the newspaper in question advocating or threatening violence against the Supreme Court, or do they fall within the bounds of free speech that our host layed out above, rather than outside it?
I would have thought that one wouldn't want our police or army to be neutral about whether we're currently in a monarchy, but surely we all think they shouldn't discriminate against republicans joining, or discriminate in the way they police republican demonstrations?
Perhaps there are other good examples that I couldn't divine from your comment (I couldn't work out what "opposing the rule of law and even trial by jury" referred to?). The spray painting of the England flag on road markings looks to me like right wing vandalism that the police have effectively turned a blind eye to, but I couldn't think of any other examples.
Agreed. I strongly support the rule of law and equality under the law.
I used to think that everyone at least paid lip service to it, and I thought that if someone supported pro-X activitists doing Y, but opposed anti-X activists doing Y and supported punishing them for doing Y, then they were being inconsistent or hypocritical. But I think actually a lot of people don't see that attitude as a problem: they proudly and openly want pro-X and anti-X people to be treated differently by the law. Object-level thinking, in the SSC Political Compass sense. I think this is a problem and I don't know what to do about it.
"subvert the law within side of organisations" was aiming for within or inside, but not both!
"pursue directly contrary policies under the grounds that this The many, many" looks like this is supposed to be replaced by something. Probably something ending in a full stop!
for winning my Brexit essay -> for my winning Brexit essay
What are the safeguarding laws that have been set aside at the behest of Stonewall? Are these laws against prompting sexuality to the very young?
I think your examples demonstrate that the government is beginning to push back on this, but I appreciate your adding a shove to the pendulum in the hope that we swing back into law abiding rather than on into mob rule.
I also think you make an excellent point about schools promoting those who hector instead of those who do something useful. I found it totally bizarre that the girls' primary lionised Greta Thunberg for playing truant every week.
We need 'activism' to be treated as an 'aggravated circumstance' that results in a stiffer sentence when prosecuting certain crimes. This is likely to need legislation most places.
The thug's veto thing really bothers me. Like, what's the point of having a police force if they just cave to whoever shouts the loudest and threatens the most violence? Then you have de facto mob rule.
Many gender critical women have found themselves on the side of Zionism (falsely claiming mass rapes on 7th October despite the lack of evidence) and started a virulent racist islamophobic rhetoric based on fears of the hijab and of Shia Law. This article lumps treatment of gender critical women with complaints about the employment of a former IDF solder in a London University. The result is a mish-mash of prejudices that targets the left whilst offering nothing about how to deal with islamophobia much more prevalent than anti-semitism.
The case of the tearing down of Colston’s statue was more nuanced to locals than it might have appeared externally.
In reality the statue had been a Gordian Knot for the city for decades. Put up 170 years after Colston’s death by the v dodgy Merchant Venturer gang, it had a plaque stating that Colston was “one of the most wise and virtuous sons of the city”. The (slave-owning past) Merchant Venturers refused to allow any additional messaging pointing out that his generosity came from slavery, and that 19,000 men, women and children had died just on Colston’s boats, sailing from Bristol Harbour.
Leaving aside the bizarre ability of the commissioners of out of date public statues to control such things, the plaque had been a running sore for a multicultural city that it seemed couldn’t be legally healed. So when the protesting crowd focused exclusively on the statue it was hardly mob violence - more like surgery. And the treatment of the people arrested reflected the sigh of relief the city felt at having the issue dealt with.
Yes, this was still “Chaotic Good”, but in this case the law gave it a clear nod and a wink.
You put your case very sympathetically, but doesn't your argument boil down to "it's okay for a mob to use violence if I agree with their cause?"
Our host argued that this can sometimes be correct for a group denied the vote, but Bristol was in a democracy last time I looked. If a majority of the city actually wanted rid of the thing couldn't they have done so through a vote. Apparently they didn't, so isn't this 'sympathetic minority use violence to inflict their will on the majority'? Am I missing something about national law restraining the city council?
The bizarre thing was that the democratically-elected council *couldn’t* get a second, explanatory-context plaque put on the plinth, because the Merchant Venturers refused to accept any text proposed. Was the pulling down of the statue illegal? Yes. Was it justified? I’d say it’s definitely arguable in such a situation where local people are forced to accept a statue lauding a slaver without any context.
I admit I have not researched the fine details of the council's legal powers, but the Guardian (not naturally sympathetic to the statue, I would assume) reports that at the trial, the City Council testified that they had not considered removing it.
Which suggests they could have done if they wanted to. As surely if they had wanted to, or had tried, but been blocked by some law, they would have said that instead?
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/dec/14/bristol-had-not-considered-removing-colston-statue-before-toppling-trial-hears
Bristolians were asking for a plaque to put the statue in context not asking for the statute's removal so the Guardian article correctly states that BCC were not considering removal of the statute. However efforts to get a plaque were consistently blocked by the shadowy Merchant Ventures.
Lots to agree with here. I'm frustrated what a huge majority of fiction protagonists, especially in children's fiction, are rebels, activists in some sense, "red" in MtG colour pie terms, with rule-breaking being certainly expected and usually celebrated. I've tried to search for kid-friendly fiction where characters have a sensible relationship with authority, and it's pretty hard to find.
Biggles! The answer is Biggles!
Yes, I share this feeling. Especially when the organisation they are rebelling against seems to be a pretty sensible and reasonable one!
This feels like one of those things that very much depends on your perspective.
The people you got cite are student activists and pretty marginal whereas I see conservative and Reform politicians figures routinely opposing the rule of law and even trial by jury when it comes to decisions they don't like. The last conservative government openly declared that they were breaking the law 'in a specific and narrow way'.
This contempt for the rule of law is basically the defaut across the right-wing print media, including declaring that Judges are 'enemies of the people', simply for declaring that parliament is sovereign.
As an aside, you say that Pride is intrinsically political, so the police shouldn't attend. If so, it's certainly no more political than the belief our head of state should be chosen by inheritance rather than election. Do you also insist that the police and the army should be neutral about the monarchy? I suspect not!
Overall, opposition to the rule of law is only on the fringes of the broad Left, whereas it is now the default for the most mainstream and powerful elements of the Right.
I did feel there was a danger our host was cherry picking examples, and wanted someone to lay out the equivalent right leaning examples, however I haven't been able to follow the specific ones you give here.
Googling "breaking the law in a specific and narrow way" the only thing I've been able to find is the UK threatening to break international law to modify the Brexit deal. I think this is bad, but a government threatening to break a treaty (and then not) seems quite removed from the mob rule described above (I guess if you think governments aren't sovereign and that we're actually under the world rule of UN + friends then they kinda collapse into the same thing, but does anyone actually think that?)
I think the 'enemies of the people' thing was from the Supreme Court's Ruling that the Brexit Referendum had no force. Was the newspaper in question advocating or threatening violence against the Supreme Court, or do they fall within the bounds of free speech that our host layed out above, rather than outside it?
I would have thought that one wouldn't want our police or army to be neutral about whether we're currently in a monarchy, but surely we all think they shouldn't discriminate against republicans joining, or discriminate in the way they police republican demonstrations?
Perhaps there are other good examples that I couldn't divine from your comment (I couldn't work out what "opposing the rule of law and even trial by jury" referred to?). The spray painting of the England flag on road markings looks to me like right wing vandalism that the police have effectively turned a blind eye to, but I couldn't think of any other examples.
Agreed. I strongly support the rule of law and equality under the law.
I used to think that everyone at least paid lip service to it, and I thought that if someone supported pro-X activitists doing Y, but opposed anti-X activists doing Y and supported punishing them for doing Y, then they were being inconsistent or hypocritical. But I think actually a lot of people don't see that attitude as a problem: they proudly and openly want pro-X and anti-X people to be treated differently by the law. Object-level thinking, in the SSC Political Compass sense. I think this is a problem and I don't know what to do about it.
"subvert the law within side of organisations" was aiming for within or inside, but not both!
"pursue directly contrary policies under the grounds that this The many, many" looks like this is supposed to be replaced by something. Probably something ending in a full stop!
for winning my Brexit essay -> for my winning Brexit essay
What are the safeguarding laws that have been set aside at the behest of Stonewall? Are these laws against prompting sexuality to the very young?
I think your examples demonstrate that the government is beginning to push back on this, but I appreciate your adding a shove to the pendulum in the hope that we swing back into law abiding rather than on into mob rule.
I also think you make an excellent point about schools promoting those who hector instead of those who do something useful. I found it totally bizarre that the girls' primary lionised Greta Thunberg for playing truant every week.
I thought "for winning my Brexit essay" was actually meant to be "for writing my Brexit essay".
We need 'activism' to be treated as an 'aggravated circumstance' that results in a stiffer sentence when prosecuting certain crimes. This is likely to need legislation most places.
The thug's veto thing really bothers me. Like, what's the point of having a police force if they just cave to whoever shouts the loudest and threatens the most violence? Then you have de facto mob rule.
Many gender critical women have found themselves on the side of Zionism (falsely claiming mass rapes on 7th October despite the lack of evidence) and started a virulent racist islamophobic rhetoric based on fears of the hijab and of Shia Law. This article lumps treatment of gender critical women with complaints about the employment of a former IDF solder in a London University. The result is a mish-mash of prejudices that targets the left whilst offering nothing about how to deal with islamophobia much more prevalent than anti-semitism.