Nick Clegg makes another fatal error by offering unconditionally, to scrap the laws that the public want scrapped. Once the lists of legislation to be repealed start to be compiled, he will panic and have to backtrack, whereupon he will be correctly accused of welshing on the offer.

Nick Clegg: tell us the laws that you want scrapped

Sure thing, add these for starters.

The most radical redistribution of power from the state to the people for 200 years is to be made by the new coalition Government, Nick Clegg is to claim.

The public will be asked what laws they want ripped up, in far-reaching reforms designed to put back “faith in politics”, the Deputy Prime Minister will say.

This is nothing to do with having ‘faith’ in politics. Faith is the exclusive purview of religion… of course to some the state is a religion… but we will leave that for another time. This is about getting government out of our lives and off of our backs. Permanently.

The reordering of power will sweep away Labour legislation and new criminal offences deemed to have eroded personal freedom.

This is not ‘reordering power’ it’s an offer of relinquishing power.

It will involve the end of the controversial ID cards scheme, the scrapping of universal DNA databases – in which the records of thousands of innocent people have been stored – and restrictions placed on internet records. The use of CCTV cameras will also be reviewed.

All good.

Dubbed the “Great Reform Act”, the measures will close down the ContactPoint children’s database. Set up by Labour last year, it includes detailed information on all 11 million youngsters under 18.

Paedophiles, marxists, fake charities and statists are all weeping into their cereal right now.

In addition, schools will not be able to take a child’s fingerprint without parental permission.

They should not have this ability in the first place. It’s like saying, “schools will not be able to tattoo serial numbers on the arms of children without parent’s permission”. A school is not a tattoo parlour or a police station, where fingerprints are normally taken.

In an attempt to protect freedom of speech, ministers will review libel laws, while limits on peaceful protest will be removed.

Mr Clegg said the Government wanted to establish “a fundamental resettlement of the relationship between state and citizen that puts you in charge”.

I hear weasel words….

In a speech in London he will say: “This Government is going to transform our politics so the state has far less control over you, and you have far more control over the state. This Government is going to break up concentrations of power and hand power back to people, because that is how we build a society that is fair.”

The word ‘fair’ is beginning to irk me in a very volcanic way. Libertarians do not accept that majority rule is ‘fair’ and that handing the illegitimate power to steal and use violence on others is ‘fair’. You read BLOGDIAL. You know this!

He will describe the plans as “the biggest shake-up of our democracy since 1832, when the Great Reform Act redrew the boundaries of British democracy, for the first time extending the franchise beyond the landed classes”.

Redistribution of power is not a shake up, at least, it is not one that really matters. Only the diminution of power matters. Only the removal of laws matters. We have been saying this for ages.

Mr Clegg has been the most vocal of the three main party leaders arguing for political reform since The Daily Telegraph exposed the expenses scandal a year ago.

Today, he can put in train the measures which, he claims, will deliver “a power revolution”.

As long as there is a gatekeeper like him, it will never happen in the way it should. We all know that when they get this list of laws, they will… weed out the ones that they simply cannot stomach. This will make the whole process illegitimate, as you would expect it to be.

What is different this time, hopefully, is that after having been handed this laundry list of laws that should be repealed, and then Clegg and his statists refusing to obey, the reaction of the public just might be, “well, sod off then, I’m not obeying any more“. This is the only proper response; imagine if Clegg and co refused to remove miscegenation laws, or alcohol prohibition or anything that is so obviously contrary to your rights as a free human being. Would you throw up your hands and say, “oof marron, it’s the way of the world!”. Perhaps before, but now? after everything Britain has just suffered?

He will say that reform will not simply mean “a few new rules for MPs [or] the odd gesture or gimmick to make you feel a bit more involved”.

That means we expect REAL action to repeal EVERYTHING that people will no longer obey, even if you refuse to repeal it. I keep coming back to the issue of drugs, not because I want it to take advantage of this particular repeal personally (I despise habitual marijuana smokers), but because it is a perfect example of millions of people doing exactly what they want no matter what the law says. If Clegg really wants to return to some form of sanity, he is going to have to repeal all laws that restrict the imbibing of anything whatsoever. This means throwing out all drug classifications, and the entire prohibition infrastructure, without exception.

I have a prediction to make.

He hasn’t got the BALLS to do it.

And of course, they will all give the excuse that the majority do not want this, but once again, if the majority wanted miscegenation laws, would that make them moral and legitimate? of course it would not.

Mr Clegg will announce that he wants to hear about which laws should be scrapped to roll back the state encroachment into people’s lives.

How does he want to hear this? Through what mechanism? Thankfully, in the age of the internetz, anyone can start a wiki where you can list the laws you want to see repealed. There are a few of these running right now, and for sure, there will be more to come.

I think the deluge of requests will be very large… comprehensive in fact.

“As we tear through the statute book, we’ll do something no government ever has: We will ask you which laws you think should go.

And we will tell you which ones should go. Will you repeal them, or make glib, weasel word excuses for keeping them on the books? That is the question!

“Because thousands of criminal offences were created under the previous government. Taking people’s freedom away didn’t make our streets safe.

“Obsessive law-making simply makes criminals out of ordinary people. So, we’ll get rid of the unnecessary laws – and once they’re gone, they won’t come back.

What he is saying makes sense of course, but what on earth is an ‘ordinary person’? Is an ordinary person someone who grows marijuana in their greenhouse? Or is that someone Mr. Clegg would call a ‘criminal’? Is someone who does $your_recreation_or_right_that_is_banned an ordinary person, or a ‘criminal’?

That is the question: who decides what ‘ordinary’ is, and should there even be someone who defines what ‘ordinary’ is?

“We will introduce a mechanism to block pointless new criminal offences.”

OK fine.

The measures to repeal so-called surveillance state laws will be included in next week’s Queen’s Speech.

Under the coalition agreement, Mr Clegg and David Cameron said they would end “the storage of internet and email regulations and email records without good reason”.

What is ‘good reason’?! In this case, ‘good reason’ is a gaping crater ten miles wide on an asteroid that is eleven miles in diameter.

This is likely to mean the end of plans for the Government and the security services to intercept and keep emails and text messages.

Good. The only purpose for that is to harass, humiliate and threaten ordinary people. There we go with the ordinary people bit again… I meant INNOCENT PEOPLE.

The £224 million ContactPoint database can be accessed by 300,000 people working in health, education, social care and youth justice – leading to fears it could be exploited or fall into the wrong hands.

The readers of BLOGDIAL know all about ContactPoint.

Mr Clegg will add: “It is outrageous that decent, law-abiding people are regularly treated as if they have something to hide. It has to stop.

True.

“This will be a government that is proud when British citizens stand up against illegitimate advances of the state. That values debate, that is unafraid of dissent.”

[…]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/nick-clegg/7738343/Nick-Clegg-tell-us-the-laws-that-you-want-scrapped.html

You forgot the rest of the list of what ‘your’ government will be Mr. Clegg.

All in all, the most important thing is the scrapping of ContactPoint, the NIR and the ID Card. Without them, a totalitarian police state is much harder, if not impossible to construct. Even if they do not repeal the prohibition laws, no one is obeying them anyway and so the decline an fall of democracy will continue unabated.

Whatever happens, repeal act or no, it’s the end of things as they were, and the end of the power of the democratic state. If things go well, it will be replaced with the best possible alternative…

NOTHING.

UPDATE

It’s started. Melissa Kite in The Telegraph reels off some of her hated statutes to be excised:

Be careful what you wish for. Nick Clegg says he wants people to send him ideas of bad laws that ought to be repealed.

I hope the Deputy Prime Minister has an efficient customer services department in the Cabinet Office, because he is about to be inundated. He may need to set up a Ministry of Silly Laws to sift through all the suggestions that are going to pour in. Here are my submissions:

Pet Passports: A law requiring you to take a photo of your cat’s face and stick it on a piece of paper claiming to be an official document is not the sort of thing that made this country great. If Mrs Pomfrey wants to stuff Tricky-Woo in a basket and take him to Cannes on the Eurostar, let her do it without paperwork, I say.

The same goes for Horse Passports: We were told these were necessary to stop anti-inflammatory drugs getting into the food chain. Well, yes, or we could just white knuckle it and take a chance that the overwhelming majority of British horse owners won’t suddenly wake up one day and decide to turn their mounts into salami.

Speed cameras: It would be more honest if the police set up road blocks, randomly flagged down drivers and charged them a £60 protection fee to continue their journey unmolested.

The Licensing Act: Restrictions on small venues that rein in the more dangerous excesses of little old ladies holding tea dances in village halls. What say we just gamble on the Women’s Institute not playing heavy metal and trashing the joint?

The hunting ban: Country folk still cannot quite understand why they are prohibited from killing vermin in the quickest way possible, while Halal butchers are allowed to hang animals upside down and slit their throats. Puzzling, to say the least.

All health and safety regulations: Please, just let us injure ourselves. I personally would deem it a signal honour to take a conker blow to the head if it meant an end to being wrapped in state-sponsored cotton wool.

Data protection: “Your call is being recorded for your own safety”. No it isn’t. It is being recorded because we are living under the lash of an overweening state stuffed with busybodies who need taking down a peg or two.

‘Verbal abuse’: A concept invented as a way of prosecuting middle-class people for losing their rag as they deal with all of the above provocations. It should not be an offence to shout or swear, or tell bureaucrats to file their forms where the sun doesn’t shine: it should be a basic human right.

[…]

Telegraph

If the Telegraph had the same internet expertise as the Grauniad, they would already have a wiki up so that everyone could add their submission. It would automagically find the law that covers your pet peeve from a search term, populate the relevant fields and in two clicks you are done!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 19th, 2010 at 11:59 am and is filed under Idiocracy, NIR, Politricks, Post Tipping Point, Someone Stupid Said.