Putting law in a spin

By Kathryn Rose

As many of you will have seen, the government set up a consultation this week, under the heading “Your Freedom”, complete with its own website. The problem with the consultation is that the coalition chose the questions. Having a group with such a vested interest choose the questions renders the venture biased before it starts.

Take a look at the question: “which offences do you think we should remove or change, and why?” This starts from a presupposition that there are too many laws and a number of them need either to be either changed or removed. You may agree with this premise; however, do you agree with that which follows: “we want you to suggest ideas for removing laws and regulations, rather than ideas for creating them.”

This second premise serves to reinforce the first and to ensure that those participating must focus on the coalition priority of law repeal rather than the question of if new laws should be created.

So, I ask you to consider how far the suggestions below – genuinely taken from the YourFreedom website – strengthen the voice of public opinion, or indeed how far they provide the coalition government with a justification for ignoring parts of it that don’t match their ideology:

“MURDER by Aitch on July 04, 2010 at 11:45PM
Rather than bringing back hanging the convicted person should be anaethetized and any suitable organs harvested and made available for those desperately needing them…”

“!..Leagalise ALL illegal substances…! by se7aq on July 04, 2010 at 09:11AM
Legalise all illigal substances and make them available for shop oweners to sell. By legalising the entire illegal drugs market this government could make miilions of pounds for the country instead of it ending up in the hands of the criminals. How much money does the government spend on policing drugs…? Millions? How many peoples live are runed because or drugs, to include victims of crimes”.

“GET RID OF ALL STATUTES – NOW! by mupstone on July 03, 2010 at 10:22PM
REPEAL all Statutes now – we do not need hundreds of thousands of ‘rules of a society’ (the infamous law society) written in ‘colourable langiage’ that deliberately misleads and tricks people into ‘invisible contracts’. We can all live by the law of the land and by the principles of equity and trust managed by Chancery courts”.

“Mind Control Should Have Obvious And Restrained Parameters by AWilliams on July 03, 2010 at 05:13PM It should be a legal necessity for anyone under mind control to know what is going on and why and what their options are. They should never be encouraged to break the law nor should anyone else be in order to harass or “develop” them. The betting on their behaviour should be illegal. If you think mind control does not happen, consider the “lie” or misinformation by T. Blair which lead to the Iraq war (although he may not have been aware of it at the time). I also think it would be a good idea for all citizens to have a free chocolate bar on Fridays, as it is good for morale in times of hardship”.

“Dealing with paedos by BettySwallocks on July 03, 2010 at 07:24AM
Why not we actually publically hang paedophiles up on lamp-posts by their bollocks? This is important for a number of reasons: it would be entertaining for the general public (who could throw stuff at them), it would certainly be a good deterrent for pederasts, it would – if done correctly – totally screw the offender’s genitalia – thus have a positive porpose in terms of preventing recidivism. In the odd situation of a female perpetrator she could be perhaps impales genitally on a post, not unlike a christmas tree fairy”.

So, what happens next?

If enough members of the public join in this consultation then the coalition can shift the entire blame for cutting back the laws it doesn’t like to the public. If people take part in this consultation then they are assisting the coalition in its attempt to claim a mandate for its ideology-based sweeping changes.

The above examples show how they can justify ignoring parts of the findings – and the evidence that such suggestions would be made is available on many online chatrooms.

When you look at the range of suggestions on the site, or even just the suggestions above, you will realise that the Lib-Con coalition can now claim support for repealing a wide variety of our laws and claim it is empowering the public by doing so.