The P³:
I would stress, that there is no such thing as social murder in British law. Whether that is a good or bad thing is open to debate. What is clear is that no one can be charged with an offence that does not exist. That said, I do wonder how far from manslaughter it might be?
I have three thoughts ion this article, which has been the subject of much debate in the Murphy household over the last few days.
The first is to ask whether this is a useful concept. My suggestion is that it is. In a recent post I suggested that I thought the primary goal of the government was to protect people from fear. I suggested that our government was not doing that. One way in which it fails is by not protecting them from unnecessary early death.
This is over covid of course. If public policy was recklessly bad then people die and that’s social murder.
Fair enough. So, what next?
Well, economic policy in both Venezuela and Zimbabwe was print the snot out of the money supply and go spend it. Modern Monetary Theory that is. The results were that many people have in fact died as the economies imploded.
Therefore MMT enthusiasts must be punished as accessories to social murder, right?
I await with interest, the first court case brought against this Government for the negligently hasty implementation of the covid vaccine programme in the UK.
which has been the subject of much debate in the Murphy household over the last few days.
Him and ….. ? Wife come back or does he mean his budgie?
One way in which it fails is by not protecting them from unnecessary early death.
About half of all Gays will die of HIV. Ban homosexuality then. Some times, in a free society, we accept that people’s choices may lead to early deaths. So what? Policy is always about trade offs.
Protect people from fear? How does that work, then? The way to stop people socialising, to curb the easy transmission of a deadly disease, is to scare the Bejessus out of them. So they should be prosecuted for that….?
Tuber theogony: the primary goal of the government was to protect people from fear.
Back when we were a Christian nation of stiff upper lips bearing heroically trimmed moustaches, we had an answer to the problem of fear.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”
Now, even the Jews of the Old Testament who spoke directly with God struggled with human emotions like fear (and greed, lust, pride, jealousy, wrath, etc.) so it’s a lot harder to do than it is to hear. God didn’t give us a spirit of fear, but we are mortal beings and the longer we live the more aware we are of our own fragility to pain and suffering.
If the Creator of Space-time Himself can’t convince you not to go all wobbly on Him, what chance does Matt Hancock have? What kind of crazy religion is this?
there is no such thing as social murder in British law. Whether that is a good or bad thing is open to debate.
Let’s invent imaginary laws to prosecute my enemies, as I cannot get them on existing ones.
I thought the primary goal of the government was to protect people from fear
What?
How exactly does a Government do that? Oddly, when people fear mass immigration, or crime, what is Murphy’s plan?
Him and ….. ? Wife come back or does he mean his budgie?
The budgie is the brains of the outfit. (I realise the ex is a GP, but how thick do you have to be to marry Spud?)
It’s strange to think that there could be someone as thick as Spud. Perhaps they deserve each other. Back in the day, we would stroll through Bedlam and laugh at them. These days, they write blogs
much debate in the Murphy household
He’s talking to his trains as is only fitting since they’re all loco.
If the government was powerful enough to protect us even from fear, we would all be terrified of it.
“there is no such thing as social murder in British law”
So what is corporate manslaughter then? Just askin
@SMFS
which has been the subject of much debate in the Murphy household over the last few days.
Him and ….. ? Wife come back or does he mean his budgie?
He has a budgie? How can he cope with it answering back?
I disagree with the above commentators who describe Murphy as thick. He passed the 11+ so was in top quarter or third (depending on locality) of his age-group and went to a third-class (out of more than three classes) university.
There are two alternatives: he is deranged or he is deliberately misleading his readers.
John77, It’s quite possible to be both quite intelligent and quite thick…
I think we all can point to a Manager or two we’ve encountered in Real Life™, but those are low-hanging fruit. There’s the Religiously Afflicted ( encompassing god-bothering, politics, and Activism ) as well, for one.
As far as my understanding of english ( as a humble secondary language with 35-odd years of practice) goes, “intelligent” does not equate to “smart”, and “thick” does not equate to “stupid”.
But I’m but an egg, and am still grokking some of the finer delicacies of the language.
When it comes to “social murder”… Aren’t there already legal concepts that cover that one?
Like willfull/malicious incompetence, abuse of mandate up to treason, and plain old corruption?
@john77
No, Murphy isn’t stupid. He’s simply pathologically incapable of receiving any kind of adverse feedback on his ideas. Thus he never transforms them beyond ‘mildly interesting’, because they’re riddled with flaws that he perhaps could have fixed, had he only listened to his “far-right trolls”.
Excellent by Grikath
Can we charge these people as well?
https://reaction.life/ten-times-corbynistas-praised-chavez-maduros-venezuela/
He’s talking to his trains as is only fitting since they’re all loco.
Very good. 🙂
Grikath: “intelligent” does not equate to “smart”, and “thick” does not equate to “stupid”.
Sometimes these and similar are used indiscriminately, just for variety; but they may also imply some subtle distinctions which are hard to pin down. It has long been my opinion than the fundamental problem with ‘artificial intelligence’ is that it is so difficult to define the real thing.
Blair sent Britons off to die in a foreign country for a very vague reason, based on flimsy evidence. He isn’t likely to be prosecuted though.
The evidence suggests that the purpose of the British state is to protect the British state, not its people.
– If the Creator of Space-time Himself can’t convince you not to go all wobbly on Him, what chance does Matt Hancock have?
At least Hancock turns out and makes his case. A “Creator of Space-time Himself” might be fairly convincing if he could find his way to the present instead of hiding in the past, behind layers of nasty, cultish bullshit.
– What kind of crazy religion is this?
¯\_ (ツ)_/¯
““intelligent” does not equate to “smart”, and “thick” does not equate to “stupid”.”
I think the missing link we are looking for is intellectualism. The educational system tests for intellectualism, not intelligence. And intellectuals can be very dim in other ways – falling for incredibly obvious cons for example, or indulging in all manner of behaviours that anyone with half a brain could see would end in tears, or be unable to manage simple practical tasks that a ‘dim’ teenage apprentice could manage with his eyes closed.
The problem society has is that it has assumed that success at school and uni means you are intelligent across the board, when in reality it means you are above average in one facet of life. Just because you can pass exams does not mean you are necessarily more generally intelligent than those whose who can’t, or can’t be bothered to. It certainly doesn’t qualify you to make decisions as to how best to run society. We might as well test everyone on their brick laying skills and then make the best bricklayers the people who run the country. Its about as sensible as testing everyone for intellectualism and choosing them best of them to run everything.
Jim +1
But if running the country were dependent of bricklaying skills then ‘bricklaying’ would not be about being able to build walls, Freemasons anyone.
OT, The largest Finnish newspaper HS.fi had a headline “Navalnyi is a patriot who fights and believes in climate change and is a Greta Thunberg fan”. It is OK to be a patriot if you’re against Putin and for Greta. If you’re an American republican and support Trump then being a patriot is same as being a nazi far-right devil who belongs to a re-education camp.
Grokkath: But I’m […] still grokking some of the finer delicacies of the language.
You’re coming along nicely but happily there is still potential for further progress.
Jussi February 7, 2021 at 10:10 pm – “If you’re an American republican and support Trump then being a patriot is same as being a nazi far-right devil who belongs to a re-education camp.”
I do not want to stray too far into Jonathan-territory but I could say there is at least one ethnic community that is allowed to be patriotic and no one much minds. They can build walls and deport Africans and it is fine. Navalny may belong to such a community.
However I think this time I will go another route – the media is likely to be calling Navalny is a patriot in the same way they call Biden a Catholic. That is, he isn’t but they want to persuade low information voters that he is not an internationalist but loves Russia.
Jussi: You’ve certainly lowered my opinion of Navalnyi.
SMFS: Clearly, with regard to N, I’m a low information voter.
PJF – At least Hancock turns out and makes his case. A “Creator of Space-time Himself” might be fairly convincing if he could find his way to the present instead of hiding in the past, behind layers of nasty, cultish bullshit.
This is one of the many ways in which I’m a crap Christian, I suppose, but I understand the limitations of my powers of persuasion re: people who don’t believe in God.
On t’other hand, the black legend of Christianity is bollocks on stilts, masturbating furiously and crying at the same time (the kind of bollocks that has a penis and a mouth then, don’t judge me it’s late). Christ is the centre of our civilisation, and it’s not a coincidence that the wheels came off when we abandoned faith.
Irregardless of the incontrovertible truth that the universe has a sentient creator who loves us and is an Englishman, the sociological purpose of religion is to generate social capital through shared ritual, symbolism and belief.
The angry fedora wearer gets vicariously outraged by the Inquisition, noncey clergymen and the like and concludes this religion business must be the cause. The enlightened Bible-fondler knows that all of the bad things people ascribe to religion were going to happen anyway, because people are wicked and cruel and constantly seek domination over each other (as all vertebrates do).
As it turns out (hello cratering fertility and kids not even knowing what gender they are) we can’t collectively live without religion – or more accurately the shared sense of empathy, purpose and meaning provided by religion – for very long.
So sayeth Steve.
we can’t collectively live without religion
That’s OK then… In the UK we’ve substituted Christianity with the NHS.
. . . the sociological purpose of religion is to generate social capital through shared ritual, symbolism and belief.
. . .
. . . we can’t collectively live without religion – or more accurately the shared sense of empathy, purpose and meaning provided by religion – for very long.
This is the interesting stuff; sciencey ponderings about the evolutionary basis of religious tendency and how deeply entwined it is in our nature. And just to show, there you are with insight into all that but still subject to the details of a particular manifestation that the same part of your brain can surely see as preposterous.
Just to be clear, Steve, I have no special gripe about your God bothering (or God bothering in general). Mine isn’t a puritanical disbelief. It’s just that if (when!) you drop it in the comments threads it risks the same treatment all the other ideas might get.
Maybe it’ just that you believe we come from God whereas I suspect God comes from us. Well, music comes from us and music is real enough amongst ourselves, innit. It’s complicated; more complicated than me, that’s for sure.
Boganboy February 8, 2021 at 12:35 am – “Clearly, with regard to N, I’m a low information voter.”
Well Navalny may be a good guy. Anyone who doesn’t like Putin can’t be all bad.
But anyone that the Economist loves is likely to be the sort of person the Economist loves. Not a patriot. Not someone who likes the likes of me. A Slavic Chalabi probably.
Speaking of music, this (#1 on all YouTube music) isn’t my taste:
https://youtu.be/2l6JUNFAJ9o
But, bloody hell, isn’t it encouraging?!
Even saved it to disk so the cockstainmccuntybastards can’t censor it away from me.
“the Creator of Space-time”
To give him his proper due he is also the creator of all viruses and bacteria, which historically killed getting on for half of all children.
If we’re going to worship a magic pixie – if only for reasons of social cohesion – at least make it a heroic figure such as Lucifer who had the balls to lead a revolt against Yahweh, that most evil of daemons.