A while ago (2 Oct 07 to be precise), I wrote a post about how the weird idea people have that being armed is a “good thing” (for whatever reason) had led to the death of a young girl and the destruction of a family – she was killed by her brother, playing with his mother’s illegally owned revolver. (Post was titled “One Bullet Destroys Three Lives.”)

Today I have a comment from someone calling themselves Logic. Although I want to respond to the comment, I can’t really do it justice by simply responding with a comment, so I thought I would repost the comment and address it here. Here we go.

does any one know what a .38 revolver looks like,…. i do, and if you dont then a quick search on the net will show you pictures,

Its ok, I know what a .38 revolver looks like. You may be thinking they all look the same, but they don’t. There are similarities, however if you do not know what you are looking for it is easy to make mistakes.

the POINT is ,,,.. Kasha Peniston (the brother) must of knew it was loaded as you can SEE the bullets, he should of got more then 2yrs he should of got 5years in time, no less,

You are assuming a few things here. First off, if it was a .38 special style revolver (the one on the right above), then yes it is possible to see the brass ends of the rounds in the cylinder. However, this assumes the person knows enough to look. If the brother was, as claimed, simply playing with this as a toy, then it is unlikely he thought enough to check the cylinder to see if there were bullets in place. Even trained people make mistakes about the state of a weapon, so it is a bit comical to assume a teenager will be thoughtful and thorough enough to carry out normal safety precautions.

Secondly, what difference would the extra 3 years on his sentence have made? I suspect you have picked a completely arbitrary sentence and decided that would be more suitable. His family is destroyed. 5 years or 50 years is not going to change that. If we accept the courts findings that this crime was not malicious, then what are you seeking to punish here?

Sad, and traumatic, that this event might be, the boy still basically had an accident while playing. Because his mother (for whatever reason) had a loaded weapon in the house, the accident didn’t result in something trivial like a cut arm but the death of his sister. Punishing the boy will not deter this from happening again. His life is already destroyed, so why add to the suffering?

he’ll do 1yr and get out on bing the idol inmate, (aka good boy) either way he will be out by age 19,

So what? Are you saying that rewarding inmates who show good behaviour with reduced sentences is a bad thing? What do you think the purpose of prison is? If, as I thought, Prison is there to rehabilitate offenders then rewarding good behaviour is the right thing to do.

Also, why do you have a problem with him getting out by the age of 19? Would you rather he spent longer in jail, became a hardened criminal and then spent what remains of his life damaging society?

and the sotry reads ….the mother went to london for the weekend etc etc, and told the Boy where the gun was,.. he inturn got the gun and MUST of knew it was loaded but still played around with it,

Again, so what? The case reporting never disputed that the boy was playing with the weapon. He admitted to shooting his sister. You are basing all this on the assumption the boy had looked to see if the weapon was loaded.

Now the mother is trying to pin it on the so called bad boy image boy friend,

Once more, this cries out “so what?” In the original post, I was pointing out the flaw in the idea that people being armed / carrying weapons at home made things safer. I highlighted this was a situation which had totally stemmed from the mothers insane idea that having a gun in the house was sensible.

I am, totally, at a loss as to the point you are trying to make here.

this blog is a load of sh!t,.. if your going to tell the story tell it how it is.,,.. not bits a bats,

Well, thanks for taking the time to comment when you have such a low opinion of the blog. What part of the story do you feel was missed out? The post you have commented on was not a “news report,” it was an analysis of how the tragedy had come about, especially in light of recent jingoistic claims by various politicians.

and if you block the comment,. atleast u know ur talkin crap

Great. I didn’t block it. As you can see, I rarely talk crap and this certainly wasn’t one of those times. In a similar vein of human charity, I will point out that I suspect you are simply doing a drive by trolling. If you don’t come back and elaborate, at least you know you are talking crap.

More than just a philosophical question in this day and age – we seem to have an answer. Reading the BBC online news today, it seems that the recompense for spending two days under wrongful detention is a measly £7,500. In a great example of how the “freedoms” we cherish in western democracies are being thrown away as the government panders to the fear generated by a largely right-wing media we get this news item:

A man accused of being an illegal immigrant while on holiday in Northern Ireland has been paid £7,500 after he was wrongly put in prison.
The Immigration Service wrongly detained the man in Maghaberry jail.
Frank Kakopa who is originally from Zimbabwe, was on a short break with his wife and young children in 2005, when he was stopped at Belfast City Airport.
Despite showing documentation that he lived and worked in England, he was taken to prison.
He was strip-searched and held for two days.
This had happened despite his manager in England confirming both his legal residency and employment position.

So, let me see if I understand this. Mr Kakopa was carrying the proper documentation for his residency status, his employer confirmed his residency and employment status yet the Immigration Service still strip searched him and detained him for two days.

What on Earth is going on here? Are we now so firmly entrenched into the habit of dismantling human rights that this news item is buried in a relative backwater are of the BBC (I only found it by chance – it hasn’t made any of the major news bulletins). Now, I have actually used Belfast City Airport (comically named “George Best Airport”…) and the staff there are, generally, officious, obnoxious and obstinate – however the thought of them deciding to detain me for two days despite being a British Citizen is mind boggling.

The lack of an outcry over this is equally shocking – I am sure if it had been a white businessman people like Lord Rees-Mogg would be the first to complain how we need to reinvigorate our human rights approaches.  As this person seems to meet all the criteria for an outrage – a professional worker (structural engineer) travelling with his family – I can only assume that his detention, and the total lack of news about it, is entirely related to his skin colour. (Not an original assessment, I agree – even the BBC article implies it…)

The article continues:

Mr Kakopa, a structural engineer, said the experience still haunted him. His family were left at the airport and Mr Kakopa said he had no idea what had happened to them.
“They wouldn’t allow me to make phone calls – I was actually detached from the world,” he said.
“I did not know where my kids were taken to.”
“It is still difficult to believe that what was supposed to be a relaxing break for my family turned out to be our worst nightmare.”
“I was locked up with convicted criminals, having committed no crime, while my wife and young children were left abandoned at the airport of a strange country worrying about where I was and how I was being treated.”

In some respects Mr Kakopa is very, very lucky in that he was carrying a lot of proof and documentation – if for whatever reason he had left one of the critical documents at home in England, he may have found himself detained indefinitely until the Immigration Service deported him. Wouldn’t that have been good? I wonder, how much the out of court settlement would have been then…

All my life, I have read about this sort of behaviour in “foreign” countries, and it normally accompanies some diatribe about how this is proof [insert dictatorship] is a bad regime etc. It is the sort of you expect to hear the evil Commies doing, or Mugabe or Korea. But good old Blighty? Shocking. No wonder the home office declined to comment – what could they ever say which would justify detaining someone who was carrying the correct documentation.

In this day an age, a mistake (or malicious act) by the immigration and security personnel is not a trivial thing. These unelected, barely accountable people have the power to detain without trial or deport people without reason. Despite this already shocking state of affairs we seem to be sleepwalking into granting them more and more powers – all while removing what little safeguards remain.

A very sad state of affairs. I wonder who really won the cold war…

But then again, would you expect anything different from Lord Rees-Mogg? For some odd reason, the Times Online blog area subtitles his blog with:

Wisdom online from Lord Rees-Mogg, Times columnist and former editor

Blimey. Do they have a different meaning for the word Wisdom?

Anyway, in an outpouring of idiocy I have only just stumbled upon (it is from May), Lord Rees-Mogg shows that he is no coward when it comes to hypocritically reversing his viewpoint when it his “kind” of person who gets targeted. Titled “Bring Back the Prima Facie Test” it gives an insight into the double standards that rightwing hate-mongers love to live with. This article begins:

After 9/11 Britain signed a Treaty with the United States to make extradition easier. That was a natural response to the threat of terrorism. However, the Treaty has not been used against terrorists, but against a number of businessmen. There is now a fear of American extradition, which has led to the suicide of Neil Coulbeck, an innocent witness in the NatWet case.

This pretty much says it all. Lord Rees-Mogg was one of the pundits clamouring for harsher laws and reduced burdens of proof following the 11 Sep attack, and this increased after the 7 Jul attacks in London. Prior to this extradition treaty, a nation which wanted to extradite a UK citizen for trial had to provide sufficient evidence that a “reasonable person” would find the accused guilty – this is a lower standard of proof than is required during an actual trial and it can get a bit confusing. Even Lord RM writes: (Emphasis mine)

Prima facie is not a very high standard of proof; it only requires that evidence should be produced on which a reasonable man could think the accused was guilty of a crime. Yet it is a very important protection.

Yes, it is a very important protection. The idea that a citizen of this country can be sent abroad to face trial without the requestion nation providing this basic level of evidence is horrific. Any citizen. Remember (and this is important) a terrorist suspect is an innocent person. They are protected by the same rights which protect every one else. It has been stressed time and time again that removing the rights from one group of innocent people removes them from everyone. This seems to have been overlooked by the jingoistic right wingers.

I can only assume that, Lord Rees-Mogg assumed that this change to the treaty (“a natural response to the threat of terrorism“) would only impact those guilty of terrorism. That these people would be extradited without sufficient evidence to pass the basic prima facie test was ignored, because lets be honest here, the people getting extradited were going to be a bit, erm, different, than Rees-Mogg’s circle of people. Who cares if a few swarthy characters from lower income groups get sent to illegal detentions eh?

I can only sympathise with the family of Mr Coulbeck and my heart goes out to them for their loss. I do notice, though, that Lord Rees-Mogg has passed sufficient judgement on him (“an innocent witness“) to make me question why he would kill himself rather than provide evidence at a trial. Is it because he was actually a suspect – placing him in the same “innocent suspect” category as the potential terrorists this legislation was aimed at? Lord RM writes:

British businessmen do not trust American criminal law because of plea bargaining, in which the horrors of some American prisons are used as a threat to impel people to plead guilty in return for an agreed sentence. The difference between a possible fifty years in a violent prison and two years in a country camp can be a very compelling argument.

Well, blimey. If British businessmen – with access to lawyers and political support – do not trust the American criminal justice system what hope is there for some one on terrorist charges? Plea bargaining has no place in any justice system but that is a topic for another day, and can you imagine the amount of bargaining which would be taking place if someone was accused of terrorism. Under duress (i.e. threat of execution, threat of years in a borderline legal detention centre etc) people will say anything they think will help themselves. This means people will lie, will implicate innocent people, anything. If businessmen are scared that other businessmen will burn them to avoid huge fines, imagine what people will do and say to avoid the death penalty or a life in Camp X-Ray’s descendants… With a stunning skill of stating the obvious, Lord RM adds to one of his paragraphs:

… Counter terrorist laws, and laws against organised crime can apply to ordinary businessmen, and frame the judgment of business transactions.

Who would have thought it eh? Laws apply to every one. If you make something illegal for terrorists, it becomes illegal for every one else as well. Wow. This touches on another topic which should wait for a rainy day – should businesses and businessmen be treated differently from “ordinary” citizens in the eyes of the law? Corporate actions can destroy the lives of millions, leave countless numbers bankrupt and in poverty and even result in countless deaths (or does it no longer count when they are in, say, India?). Despite this, there is still the idea it is a bit of a “victimless crime” and not something the government and police should be interested in. In fact (if you read most right wing rhetoric) they should spend more time stopping that poor youth robbing the equally poor little old lady and let the big businesses get on with the job of robbing everyone.

With a final burst of hypocrisy, Lord Rees-Mogg concludes with:

I do not know whether the 2003 Act is compatible with Human Rights law, but I should have thought not. We should bring back the prima facie evidence requirement, which still governs extradition to the vast majority of countries.

For once I agree with the Lord, but for vastly different reasons. It is entertaining to read someone like Lord Rees-Mogg citing Human Rights law to defend his opinion, normally it is a diatribe about how human rights are a farce and how the UK should withdraw from the agreements to uphold the laws.

Still, is anyone really surprised when a hate filled rightwing windbag displays masses of hypocrisy when it comes to their “chums?”

In the times recently, there was a piece on the boss of the army, General Dannatt claiming more should be done to equip soldiers for a life after death:

“In my business, asking people to risk their lives is part of the job, but doing so without giving them the chance to understand that there is a life after death is something of a betrayal,” he said.

Now, it goes without saying that, while soldiers who think death will give them a wonderful afterlife (where have I heard this before) may well fight better, it is worrying that the Chief of the General Staff is becoming concerned about the soldiers’ afterlives. Does he anticipate lots of them dying? Is he revving up for a jihad holy war in Iran? Is he trying to soften the blow when hundreds of body bags come home – at least the families can think their loved ones are in a better place (along with all the goldfish, cats, dogs, budgies, etc…)?

Personally, I hope not and I do actually think this is just an example of how evangelical Christians are fundamentally idiots. Dannatt continues:

“I think there is very much an obligation on . . . a Christian leader to include a spiritual dimension into his people’s preparations for operations, and the general conduct of their lives,” he said. “Qualities and core values are fine as a universally acceptable moral baseline for leadership, but the unique life, death, resurrection and promises of Christ provide that spiritual opportunity that I believe takes the privilege of leadership to another level.”

Which pretty much proves my point. Well spoken idiocy is still idiocy. Moving on from his witterings though, the comments are where the real stupid burns away. As you can imagine, the words of a rightwing, Christian soldier appeal to all the baser instincts of the Times’ readership. This leads to comments like:

Would that we have a world free of all violence: until then, our armed forces serve to protect US. Forget the rights and wrongs of Afghanistan or Iraq: our forces are there whether they like it or not and so THEY at least deserve our full support. Why should not a general offer spiritual support and advice? Oh, and does God exist? Or can anyone here prove that they exist rather than being a figment of my imagination? Paul R. Kent

Would that I could meet Paul R from Kent and see if his imagination makes his nose hurt. I agree 100% that our forces deserve our full support, but I have to question what value support they are getting from being told that death is great and a wonderful afterlife awaits them as long as they adhere to Creed X.

Gen Dannat is not a war Monger, nor a fanatic, If he were he’d be keeping our Boys out there instead he’s going against Govt Policy & trying to get them back home to their families And trying to get them better equipped and paid so if there is a need to fight they are More likely to survive than they are now. As for his Christianity, look around you…this country could certainly do with getting back to it’s traditional British Christian based Family Roots. Adrian Peirson, Bedford, Awakening Britain

Wow. It is that special kind of history again. “This country” (assuming Mr Peirson means the Great Britain) has no “traditional British Christian based Family Roots.” Giving them capital letters doesn’t change anything. Traditionally the British peoples are worshippers of dead religions with a family and social structure unrecognisable today. If he means that weird form of “traditional” which has an arbitrary start date then when is it? Does he mean the Catholic traditions, Anglican traditions? Both? Neither?

When people write idiotic things like this, they tend to mean the Victorian traditions which are far from traditional (yet have captured the public imagination as “real history” – especially in Scotland, Wales and Ireland). Any one who harks for a return to “Victorian” values is certifiably insane.

True, religion (or rather our response to God) is a personal matter, but it is clearly not a private matter, as Jesus clearly demonstrated by his final words to the disciples to ” go and make disciples of all nations… ” So, General Dannet’s comments are entirely understandable. Jesus requires a very personal decision from every single one of us to either believe what He said or choose not to believe what He said. General Dannet is simply wanting to ensure that each soldier does infact know what Jesus said so they can make that very personal choice for themselves prior to going into battle because after death, if Jesus’ words are true ,as in His parable of the rich man amd lazarus ..it will definitely be too late to change ones mind. rebecca pluke, hemingford grey,

Hmm. I assume Rebecca thinks every soldier in Britain managed to avoid the compulsory religious education lessons and a quick chat from Gen Dannatt will rectify their ignorance. Hmmm. Still, her nonsense is mild compared to this bit of drivel:

The Victorian British Army would have understood where General Dannatt was coming from. The British nation and it’s great army then was a God fearing nation who honoured Jesus Christ and respected the Bible. God’s favour on England from the reformation to the second world war is obvious, God made us great. Now we have turned away from christianity and become weaker and embraced other religions and no religion. Queen Victoria said….The secret of Britain’s greatness is the Holy Bible. Only the blood of Jesus Christ can wash away sin and make us fit for heaven. Nothing else has the power to do this. Therefore British soldiers and us dying outside of Christ have no hope. Philip, Dorset, England

The only positive thing I can take from this is that is proves my point about how people (idiots) think anything Victorian is traditional and good. For those outside the UK, Dorset is very rural with all that implies about peoples intelligence. Philip has obviously been reading too many novels about Sharpe et al., to realise that the “God Fearing” nation under Queen Victoria was very dissimilar to what he describes here. The whole “Gods Favour” thing is so stupid it burns. Philip also seems to assume Queen Victoria was so knowledgeable that everything she says has divine authority – Tutatis forbid she say something stupid or proven wrong… As for the blood of Jesus Christ… Does this mean that EVERYONE who died before Jesus went to hell? What sort of sacrifice was it for Jesus to make when he was actually giving up the mortal realm to go home? It is a bit like me claiming leaving work at the end of the day is the ultimate sacrifice (the opposite is true).

The stupid, painful as it is, continues:

Jesus, the author of the Christian Faith said “Except a man be born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God”. Dying on the battlefield does not guarantee a place in heaven. Obeying Jesus’ commandments does. Brian Pennington, Launceston, Tasmania

Actually, I would have thought the killing part of being on a battlefield makes it hard to obey Jesus. Did he have some sort of get out clause which allows a secular authority to override his dads main commandments? Is the override only allowed for killing (which could explain why homosexuals are still persecuted)? Also, more obviously, where can I find this book called “the Christian Faith” which Jesus wrote? I mean, he didn’t even have the courtesy to write the bible…

From the depths of idiocy came this nonsense: (emphasis mine)

At one time it was gays who had to stay in the closet – now it’s anyone with a faith that is serious enough that they want others to think about the big issues of life too. But good for General Sir Richard Dannatt in raising his head above the parapet by daring to suggest that believers have as much right to speak about their faith as atheists do about theirs. The snipers will no doubt attack him for what they will dub his outrageous involvement of personal views in a public office, for they always manage to think that their atheistic, secular worldviews are soemhow neutral in a way that the General’s aren’t. But never mind the snipers, Sir Richard. Thank God for a man who faces up to the realities of life and death! Mike Beaumont, Oxford, UK

Blimey. Since when have the bloody “faithful” shut up talking about their belief? All the major newspapers have religious correspondents. All have daily references to God and the Christian faith. The rest of the imagined oppression (a Christian speciality…) is pure drivel. A secular worldview is, almost by definition, more neutral than Dannatts….

Fortunately it is not all bad – and I have had my fill of nutters, if you want to read more go to the Times article itself – for balance (does this count as “Both Sides?”) we have:

Soldiers beware – your military leader believes there is something good waiting for you after death! Let’s hope operational planning is not based on this delusion. ken Jones, Dundee, UK

and

It’s bad enough having religious nutters on the other side let alone your own. TomS, Essex, UK

Strikes me, as that says it all.