That's very similar to a statement Ken Clarke made on the radio a month ago about not all rape being the same.
I was commenting on the broadness of your statement, it's similarity to that of a well known politician and it's relevance to this discussion.
Different scale, but same principle. And don't give me the 'lesser evil' crap. There is no such thing as transgressing the boundaries only a little. Once you're over the line, you're over. You start by hacking the phones of politicians suspected of corruption; then it's all politicians, just in case; then it's celebrities, because hey, they have a public responsibility of sorts and should be kept an eye on; then it's the phones of murder victims and their families... Oops, how did we end up here? Same way we got to Abu Ghraib, to Afghanistan's Kill Team, to UN soldiers raping Somali kids and roasting them on a spit for fun. We focused on what the bad guys did and how to stop them more than on what we, as the good guys, should be doing. We thought that stopping their supreme evil justified us using lesser evils. And then our evil grew (as evil does), and suddenly there was no difference between us and them anymore.
The 2nd paragraph was a bit "whoa, ok stop now!" but the 1st was ok, but I disagree. The phone hacking would have continued happily, and we all knew about it last year or earlier? If it hadn't have been for the completely immoral - Milly, soldiers and London bomb victims. And I would have happily watched those mid-week NotW ads on TV about someone being caught in the act of taking bribes etc etc etc "Read all about it in Sundays News of the World!" as they would say.
That's my point. Phone hacking inevitably was going to end up with murder victims, terrorism victims and the families of soldiers who died in the war. Nobody would have been exempt. Soldiers don't intend to commit atrocities either, but inevitably it happens, every time. Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. Ask Zimbardo. Boundaries are there for a reason: to keep from straying off the path to where the wild things are.
I'm in mixed minds about the whole thing. Part of me liked the idea of someone keeping tabs on say the government but some things should and need to remain private. Our phones have been kept tabs on since the 70's so you'd be stupid to believe the government wasn't enjoying access to some of the information from this too but with the recent expenses scandal and the lying cheating *******s that where the Labour government, it's no surprise that the executioners axe has fallen. The beast got too big to control. I do agree tho that certain targets should never have been touched and that its really got out of hand. It really is big brother/nanny state thing tho. We all want to be kept and looked after without any responsibility yet we don't want anyone to interfere in our lives. This sort of thing falls overlaps that. We all want to know whats going on yet as soon as the target becomes us .....
Wikileaks working together with real newspapers have unveiled more (and more relevent) corruption and crime in high circles than the NoW has ever done. It's the same old debate: do we need to resort to breaking our own laws to uphold them? I think not. Just as we already have a firm legal framework for dealing with terrorism, and don't need some Patriot Act or other special human-rights violating measures, we already have a legitimate press to expose crime and corruption. We don't need NoW or any other tabloid to embrace dodgy practices.
I agree with this too hence the reason i'm on the fence. The problem then become in the case of terrorism that laws move too slow to actually do anything due to red tape etc but if we break one law where do we stop? Very black and white approach I know but its the grey that get people killed so to speak. Don't forget the government has used illegal methods simple because there is no evidence of a smoking gun. I'm not gonna be nieve enough to ever believe that every terrorist is gonna be the UVF of the 80's meeting in a pub where the local peelers could happily sit a table away and take notes or even work there!! The digital age has made communication faster and easier yet part of me feels it needs to be monitored. Look how easy it is to now stand in a public forum and "preach" often to many very weak minded and lost individuals. While many use it to get a different perspective, a small minority will ultimately follow one person unquestionably. I guess the other question is how much do you agree with human rights laws too? The simple case is should child abusers be protected? what about protecting your own home? I understand that murder or even possession of a fire arm is a serious offence but when laws prevent the police from even catching the intruder or in the case they do they're released within a month. A review of laws and sentencing would be nice and I feel necessary but also costly and time consuming. Look at current things here. We have enquiries into enquiries all because some people can't let go of the past. Even if a governing body is set up to over see everything people rarely take notice (parades commission is the best example). Even if Wikileaks became an effective method or an independent body was formed to observe and release public information ultimately its impossible to be impartial. The US and Italy for example the press is heavily under the governments thumb. Who's to say that the fallout from that wont result in that happening here? We have enjoyed a very free and often outspoken press. A quick question to all, where do you stand on government and even press transparency? Stuff like accounts and funding is important to see but ultimately for me, well above my grasp of understanding without an analyst, but often they report and can distort/ignore/over emphasize factors depending on who they're reporting to and for. We can also see how MPs voted already on policy but do we really want or even need to know how much they spend on coffee for example. Should all information sources (thinking the case of soldiers deaths or high profile court cases) be released to the public via a suitable channel and let them choose if governments and authorities are acting accordingly or is it really none of our business? I have stated before that I feel protests are a waste of time since often nothing but inconvenience comes of them so knowing or not knowing is rather a mute point. How do you all feel about this? in other news Harriet Harman wants the tories to appoint a judge before evidence is lost in the case, kinda ironic coming from the party that "lost" Blairs expenses accounts i thought.
Saddam Hussein's regime, like most police states, was very quick and effective in dealing with crime and terrorism. Yet somehow we found his regime unacceptable for his citizens. See, we appreciate that democracy and human rights are worth their risks --especially as long as other people run those risks. If it is us having to accept those risks, of course, we flush democracy and human rights down the toilet faster than you can say "Gitmo". You can't have your cake and eat it. You cannot break the law in order to enforce it. You cannot violate human rights in order to protect them. You cannot save the village by destroying it. I'm sure politicians do a lot of dishonest things by deceitful means, and I'm sure they break plenty of laws. But that makes them the Bad Guys. We are the Good Guys. We cannot act with the same disregard for human rights and ethics. Life's unfair like that.
to be fair.. saddam did gas his own people- it was pretty extreme.. but your right, we shouldn't have been there in the first place- especially when we found wmd meant where's my darwin award then it became a nation building mission.. or whatever it was afterwards- oil, haliburton.. phone hacking is nothing new, just a story to roll with I guess what we need is more guys talking about big foot http://articles.cnn.com/2008-08-15/us/bigfoot.body_1_tom-biscardi-matthew-whitton-rick-dyer still remember these guys yelling.. I got the bigfoot, you don't got the bigfoot! with the internet the mystery is gone.. you used to think, maybe somewhere out in the world there was a bigfoot or chupacabras
It seems to be popular opinion that dictates right from wrong these days, its almost as if it has been taken away from us as a personal choice. It is up to each individual to decide what they believe to be right and wrong. In this case i feel that they stumbled upon a good method of obtaining information that would result in them selling more papers with absolutely no regard for the people involved. I was disgusted by whet they had done. But then i asked myself...Why would they do this? The newspaper selling game is becoming less and less profitable. Every edge on competition counts right? So this constant tabloid one-up-man-ship is the cause? It is exploring the act to the full that shows us the mindset behind it, not sympathizing but to fully understand why they did what they did. Its funny how people justify their actions in there own mind. We all do it, all of us. And that makes us uniquely capable of some unforgivable acts. Be it the slaughter of millions of people, to starting illegal wars to tapping someones phone or even stealing a loaf of bread or a snickers. It is easy for us to brand them as crazy, callous or just pure evil, but this gives absolutely no insight into the why.
To be fair, when Saddam gassed his own people, we sat back and did nothing. It wasn't that we found his regime unacceptable, the invasion happened because Bush Junior saw the way Afghanistan was going and realised he needed a quick win to bolster his popularity, and Iraq was just there.
I understand why they did what they did. Fierce competition to give a dumb and voyeuristic readership what it wants with a corporate culture that encourages people to be maverick and ruthless in the pursuit of a scoop, combined with a position of power over their subjects. As is said in The Usual Suspects: "Real power is to have the will to do what others won't". Similarly, morality is to consciously boundary that will and power. There were many reasons we invaded. My point was that our governments argued that it was, at least in part, to the protect human rights of his citizens. This came of course with great sacrifices on their part. But when we have to make sacrifices for human rights in our own country --accept a risk of terrorism, welcome immigrant refugees, allow prisoners the vote-- we clamour for government intervention akin to those found in a police state. Similarly we all want people to respect our privacy. We worry about CCTV: who is watching us, and why? But apparently we have no problem if tabloids intrude on the lives of celebrities and politicians.
Ed Milliband is getting roasted on Andrew Marr. He's made the mistake of taking off his training arm bands and is drowning at the deep end of the pool. The whole interview is a facepalm tbh.
I watched the final couple of minutes and he seemed okay. Certainly better than his pathetic/robotic 'These strikes are wrong' (x9999) interview. Could be a good summer for Labour, especially since the Q2 GDP figures look to be disappointing.
10 PRINT " THESE STRIKES ARE WRONG" 20 GOTO 10 Is this what politicians refer to when they say: "back to BASIC"?
