More Laws, Less Rule of Law

Augusto Zimmermann & Gabriël Moens have a very interesting Quadrant piece on a pernicious Australian problem which is also a British problem - too many laws and regulations are destroying respect for the law. In some areas of UK law, that should read have destroyed respect for the law.

Hence the Two Tier Keir jibe which was far more than a mere jibe. It is exceedingly unlikely that Three Tier Burnham will even acknowledge the problem. 

More Laws, Less Rule of Law

On February 3, 1949, Winston Churchill, the UK’s wartime prime minister warned in a House of Commons speech that “If you make 10,000 regulations you destroy all respect for the law.”[1] He argued that the proliferation of laws, which defined the post-war Labour governments, undermines free markets and erodes the public’s trust in the nation’s institutions.

Churchill’s warning is timely, considering the explosion of legislative activity in Australia which has made compliance with the law difficult at best and impossible at worst. For example, it is estimated that the Australian tax law is contained in over 14,000 pages – clearly an impossible task for even the most disciplined tax lawyer to know or understand.

The whole piece is well worth reading. Here in the UK, uninformed voters effectively vote for even more laws with no prospect whatever of understanding even the gist of those we have already.


One former Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, even boasted on one occasion that no other Government in this nation had passed as many laws as her government had,[5] as though this were something to celebrate rather than viewed as a potentially serious problem for the realisation of the rule of law in Australia.

Of course, matters have become considerably worse since Gillard made that notorious statement. If it were not bad enough that Australians have since enacted an enormous number of additional legislative measures, many of such measures also have undermined an important element of our Western legal tradition: the legal protection of inalienable rights – that is, our fundamental human rights to life, liberty and property.

Taking Us for Fools

A Climate Depot piece by Roger Pielke on a familiar problem, the success of climate propaganda. Familiar but worth reading because of Pielke's stress on what he calls the use of symbols, authority, and institutions of expertise to build the propaganda.


Taking Us for Fools: How a turnkey method attributes any trend to climate change

By ROGER PIELKE JR.

Excerpt: One of the most brazen — and successful — propaganda campaigns sits out in plain sight. I am referring to the concerted effort by climate advocates to create a belief that “climate change” causes bad weather and disasters, and that we can prevent those bad things from happening with climate policies.

At the center of the propaganda campaign are scientists who perform political alchemy by turning the symbols, authority, and institutions of expertise into public and policy maker (mis)understandings of climate science. These scientists all well know that “climate policy” — however construed — cannot reduce the number or intensity of extreme weather events in any meaningful or detectable way in my lifetime, or even my future grandkids’ lifetimes.

I am using the term propaganda here as a technical term, which Harold Lasswell defined almost a century ago as, “the management of collective attitudes by the manipulation of significant symbols.”

As progressive as candles and oil lamps

Burnham gambles on radical progressive plan to help Britain rise again

Andy Burnham has staked his future on a gamble that the public will back radical progressive policies on social care, electoral reform and Europe, telling voters that his agenda will break the mould of the last 40 years and “allow us to rise again”.

In a deeply personal speech at Labour’s conference, Burnham began building his next general election manifesto, acknowledging that he may end up paying the price for creating sharp new dividing lines in politics.

“I won’t pretend some of this won’t be difficult,” he said. “I accept I may pay a political price. But someone has to go through the pain barrier and rip the plaster off.”

It must surely be clear to even the dullest dullard that there is nothing remotely progressive in putting on the shackles of EU failure again. Neither is there anything progressive about slithering back to tax and spend which is what 'social care' will be. 

That same dullard would surely understand that electoral reform will aim to make it permanently impossible for voters to dislodge regressive political parties. Otherwise it wouldn't be supported by a man who may tun out to be the most regressive Prime Minister we've had for years.

Slightly less regressive than going back to candles and oil lamps for domestic lighting, but not much.

No gleam of reason, no momentary return to first principles, no abstract asking of any obvious question, can interrupt this mad and monotonous gallop of mere progress by precedent. It is a good way to prevent real revolution. By this logic of events, the Radical gets as much into a rut as the Conservative.

G K Chesterton - What's Wrong with the World (1910)

Bloke of the North

 

I say, that when a thing completely surpasses my comprehension, I am accustomed not to dwell on that thing, but to pass to another.

Alexandre Dumas - The Count of Monte Cristo (1844-46)

A new tool for the versatility of madness

Corporations claim their fossil fuel emissions are a drop in the ocean. But what if we could count the real cost?

The biggest coal project before authorities in New South Wales, the Hunter Valley Operations mine, will emit the equivalent of about 809m tonnes of climate-warming carbon dioxide if it wins approval.

That number, for most people, will carry little meaning, as might the calculation that adding that amount of greenhouse gas to the atmosphere will cause an extra 0.00036C of global heating.

But what if the public was instead told that that amount of carbon dioxide would expose almost half a million people to unprecedented heat, or kill nearly 15 million coral colonies on the Great Barrier Reef every time it bleaches, or lead to more than 100 additional deaths from heatwaves in Europe to the end of this century.

All those statistics come from a new tool that translates the emissions from burning fossil fuels into estimated real-world climate effects taken from peer-reviewed climate studies.

But the brilliance, the versatility of madness is akin to the resourcefulness of water seeping through, over and around a dike.

F. Scott Fitzgerald - Tender is the Night (1934)

The greatest orator of our time

Is she entirely sober? Maybe a Democrat voter would know. 

Puppet speech crackdown

A longish but interesting Daily NK piece on remarkably obsessive North Korean government efforts to prevent the spread of popular South Korean slang. 

It's an interesting example of a totalitarian government understanding the power of language and how difficult even the most extreme efforts at official control can be.


Puppet speech crackdown gains new legal weight from North Korea’s constitution

Years of harsh punishment failed to stamp out South Korean-influenced speech, so authorities turned to the constitution itself

North Korea’s 2026 constitutional amendment protecting Pyongyang Cultural Language has fueled a renewed puppet speech crackdown. Schools, workplaces and neighborhood organizations have stepped up enforcement.

South Korean-influenced expressions such as “jagiya” (honey), “oppa” and “jjokpalrida” (embarrassing) are not treated as harmless slang. “Oppa” is a term South Korean women traditionally use for an older brother or close male friend, popularized abroad through K-dramas. North Korean authorities view all three as a political and class threat to the socialist system.

Daily NK examined the situation in Pyongyang and Sinuiju through sources in Pyongyang and North Pyongan province. Both cities held lectures and study sessions in late July through party organizations, workers’ groups and schools. The sessions stressed use of Pyongyang Cultural Language and elimination of what officials call puppet speech, a derogatory term the regime applies to South Korean-style expressions.