Would the proposals made after the Paris atrocities actually help? And would they be consistent with the frequently asserted British values?

 

Now thrive the armourers

As the FT reports that US defence stocks rise after the Paris attack, one of its columnists, legal eagle David Allen Green asks these two questions following the Paris attacks, in his Jack of Kent blog:

“In the aftermath of the Paris atrocities there are demands for action: dropping bombs and air-strikes, shoot-to-kill policies, more special interrogation techniques (ie, torture), less freedom of movement, more intrusion and less privacy, more powers for the security services, and so on.

“What seems to be a feature of many of these demands is that there is no attempt to explain the supposed cause-and-effect. It is almost as if the merit of the proposals is self-evident, a sign of virility: something bad has happened, and so something must be done in return.

“But each such demand raises two issues: one of practicality, and one of principle. That is: would the proposal actually help, and does the proposal conflict with the supposed principles, and way of life, we are presumably seeking to defend”.

• Practice: ‘just doing “something” does not mean you are doing the right thing. It may make no difference, or it may make things worse’.

• Principle: there appears to be a genuine risk that we could end up undermining – even subverting – the very principles of personal autonomy, the rule of law and freedom of expression which the West can and should be defending and asserting.

Read the article here:

http://jackofkent.com/2015/11/two-questions-about-something-must-be-done-following-the-paris-attacks/

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More about the author: http://www.hampshireskeptics.org/?page_id=1638

Is the answer to the professor’s three questions, ‘for the profit of the few’?

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Alexander McCall Smith, a British writer and Emeritus Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh, who became an expert on medical law and bioethics, has expressed the feelings of the civilised ‘ninety-nine percent’.

 One of his characters in peaceful Botswana, asks:

“How could people sleep if they knew that somebody, in their name, was dropping bombs on other people, or breaking into their homes and taking them away somewhere?

“Why did they do it?

“Why was it necessary to kill and maim other people, when the other people would be just the same as yourself – people who wanted to live with their families and go to work in the morning and have enough to eat at the end of the day?

“That was not much to ask of the world, even if for many the world could not grant even that one small request”.

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