In light of recent campaigns by Christian or Islamic school children to be allowed to breach their chosen school’s uniform code so that they can wear their own weird religious symbols (isn’t it verging on idolatry for the monotheists?), it seems Sikhism has felt left out. Not any more.

Today, the BBC reports:

A legal challenge has been filed in the High Court on behalf of a 14-year-old girl excluded from a Cynon Valley school for wearing a Sikh bangle.

Oh please. Is this really what the education budget should be spent on? No wonder schools up and down the country are struggling to fund real lessons (allowing creationism to sneak in), when all their budgets are spent defending against petulant teenagers wanting to rebel against the school dress codes. Gone are the days of wearing your blazer round your waist, or a funny knot in your tie, now we have court cases over esoteric religious jewellery. Wonderful.

Sadly, the much maligned liberty gets in on the act here and (IMHO) damages is standing in future causes:

Campaign group, Liberty, has made the challenge, saying the school had breached race relations laws.

Well done Liberty, you just couldn’t pass up this chance to get in the news, could you? This is not a race relations issue, it is not even a religious freedom issue. The school is not discriminating against this school girl because of her religion, race, gender, shoe size or anything else. It is attempting to uphold a uniform standard. If the school had demanded she take off the bracelet and wear a crucifix instead, then yes, I would be up in arms about it. The BBC continues:

The school bans all jewellery and has said their policy ensures equality.

After filling the challenge, Liberty said the school has also breached human rights laws.

It really is enough to make you want to cry.

I have to wear a tie to work, will Liberty defend my human right to not do so? I doubt it. Will they pay my wages when my employer sacks me? I doubt it. This girl’s parents will have been aware of the school dress codes before she started there. Why did they send her to a school which prohibits jewellery if wearing a bloody bracelet is so important?

Sadly, the BBC article continues to show humanity at its worst. It provides paragraphs of ammunition for right-wingers and neo-Nazis to continue to argue that “these people” (i.e. intelligent people who dont follow their particular brand of hatred) shouldn’t be allowed in the country. It panders to the right-wingers who bemoan how “PC” we have become and that this is a bad thing. It weakens every other “human rights” argument because this is nothing to do with fundamental human rights. I feel sorry for the Welsh Assembly (unusual for me…) being dragged into this, but at least they say it is down to the school not them.

This is not political correctness, it is stupidity. Win or lose, every one pays the price for this.

I accidentally deleted a comment on the previous “False Prophet” post which pointed to a weird site hosted by Bravenet. Titled “Welcome To Rapture In The Air” it has this blurb at the start: (insane font removed)

This is a Pre Trib Rapture forum and all are welcome who share their love for Our Beloved’s return as He promised.There is no debating on this forum about the rapture or denominational issues.We are here for one another in friendship, love, and prayer as we watch together for Jesus’s soon return.

“This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” John 15:12 (NKJV)

Will You Be At The Wedding Supper

Of The Lamb Of God?

Accept Jesus Now As Your Saviour

The Invitation Has Been Sent

Come Dine With Him.

Wow. You just know it is going to be hilarious. It has hundreds of death-worshipping posts longing for the end of the universe and being somewhat self-congratulating about how all the Born-Againers will get the rewards and everyone else will suffer. Not massively Christian in its outlook but then most BAFundies aren’t.

The site is riddled with madness. Because there is so much start staring lunacy, it is hard to know which particular bit to ridicule the most so I have gone for a random post. I clicked on one of the first page topics at random and found this: (only beginning bit repeated here, it is long)

The judgment at Midnight! (THIS MONTH?)

ALL:

The news of “JUDGMENT” is NOT readily accepted by people “of” the world
and EVEN (or maybe ESPECIALLY) Christians! That may be ALL beside
the point as we enter 2008!!!

It is almost like NOW there was provided (for those watchful) a ringside seat
to “see” some things that “MAY” be about to transpire!

Going back “5” (which means “GRACE”) years….

On 2/1/03, I was in bed watching TV (after an operation the day before) and
actually “HEARD” the words on CNN:

…”The Shuttle (Columbia) has COME APART OVER PALESTINE (TX)!”

As we come to that anniversary on February 1, 2008, there are OTHER
“heavenly” (and “earthly”) witnesses going on! As 2007 became 2008, a
“wedding ring” (URL below sent to me by Carol) produced by solar flares
was seen in the heavens:
… [loads of madness]
WARNINGS TO THE US GO UNHEEDED and Bush is about to enter Israel
this month! This month is 700 days from a 7.0 quake VERY NEAR MIDNIGHT,
Israel time (see notes below). The quake was “IN” Israel’s time zone! I’ll let the
reader decide its implications (because I am only watching, as well)!!!

This is so weird it makes your head spin. It is written in that wonderfully breathless style the real “faithful” manage. The writing style, with its interesting use of grammar, is very typical for the cranks who predict every day is the end of the world. The crazy rationale for how this “quake” being near midnight means the world is going to end is priceless. I challenge anyone to read this without either getting a headache or laughing out loud at least once.

On the subject of False Prophets, the wonderful, balanced, truthful news site FauxFOX News has reported that the lying scumbag ever so honest prophet Pat Robertson is unbowed by his previous predictions from God being complete lies and making new ones: (Source)

NORFOLK, Va. — Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson predicted Wednesday that 2008 will be a year of violence worldwide and a recession in the United States, followed by a major stock-market crash by 2010.

Sharing what he believes God has told him about the year ahead is an annual tradition for Robertson.

On Wednesday’s “700 Club” broadcast, the founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network predicted that evangelism will increase and more people will seek God as the chaos develops. Robertson said, “We will see the presence of angels and we will see an intensification of miracles around the world.”

Some people really have no shame. I wonder if they really believe the voices in their head are from God? I know when Toutatis talks to me he sounds a bit like Zeus but I put that down a bad connection as the toaster doesn’t even have a speaker…

It is a new year and as always, I have been inundated with well meaning text messages and emails saying things like “have a great new year” and a fair few saying the optimistic “I hope 2008 is an even better year for you” – not that anything went wrong in 2007 (at least for me). In the same manner, the TV has all manner of pundits going on about how great the new year will be and generally around this time of year there is a lot of optimism. We seem to assume that as the world gets older, we all get wiser and, collectively, things will get better.

Personally, I think it is crap.

As Heather alluded to in a previous post, we (*) are not getting wiser. If anything, our culture is undoing every “good” that our forefathers fought and died for. Problems which previous generations thought were “solved” have returned and it seems that the entire world is racing back to the mythical version of the dark ages(**) as fast as it can. In fact, it seems we are trying to invent a society which would be frowned upon by feudal serfs as too harsh and cruel.

It is with this at the back of my mind, that I was far from shocked to read today’s Guardian newspaper:

Smokers could be required to quit in exchange for NHS rights

People could be expected to lose weight and give up smoking in exchange for rights to healthcare to be enshrined in a new NHS constitution, Gordon Brown will signal today.

In case you get the wrong idea, I am rabidly anti-smoking and, if I had the power, it would be banned in all public spaces (open and enclosed) and smokers would only be allowed to smoke in little cages with no air escapes.

However, this strikes me as being insane. It is plain wrong and undermines the basis of the National Health Service.

In the UK we have an admittedly flawed national health service but even at its worst it is better than pretty much every other one in the world. The NHS provides care for all, not worrying about the sick being rich or poor, not worrying who is fortunate enough to have a job which comes with health care or is fortunate enough to be able to afford to treat their illness. Sickness, disease and infirmity affect everyone and (with a few exceptions) doesn’t care about the victims social status or income.

It seems our society is trying to lose this fantastic service. There are repeated talking heads on the TV news saying how “we” (the public) shouldn’t have to pay for the treatment of people who are suffering what are often described as self inflicted illness (cancer in smokers, diabetes in the obese etc). However, the problem covers more than the two currently acceptable bugbears of our society.

It is easy, and almost required, for “health experts” to vilify and demonise those who smoke or are overweight (***) – especially at this time of year – and it is also a seductive point that people who smoke or are overweight may cost the NHS more than people who don’t/aren’t. Leaving aside the argument as to if this is even true, the principle is flawed.

The Health Service is there to help care for, treat, heal (etc) the sick. People end up in hospitals for all manner of reasons and trying to deny them access to services based on what is largely a value judgement on their lifestyle is foolhardy. Today we may think of denying smokers who refuse to quit treatment for infections (reduced immune defence) or cancers, and we may think of denying the obese surgery (or pretty much anything) until they lose weight. Why stop with those two groups? When the NHS saves fortunes by this simple limitation of service, it will have its budget cut and have to seek more cost cutting moves.

Why not refuse to treat people who play sports for any related injury? Physiotherapy costs a fortune and easily as many “sporty” people are undergoing it – sprains, tennis elbow, hamstring injuries etc are all the result of a pass-time they have chosen to take part in so why should we [the public] fund their treatment?

If that is too harsh, what about people who drive too fast? If they have an accident why should we [the public] pay for their ambulance and hospital time? Not just people who drive too fast but people who are just crap drivers! The ultimate in self inflicted injury – they are too ignorant to learn to drive well so we shouldn’t treat them at public expense.

This is great. We can include people who injure themselves through incorrect lifting techniques (they should have known better), people who catch STIs from unsafe sex (they should have known better), people who travel abroad and catch illnesses (you get the idea…)

Where do we draw the line? What reasonable criteria is there to deny a “National” service to one segment of society? A valid counter argument is that everyone funds the NHS by their tax payments. Can people who are “refused” a treatment refuse to pay for it?

Equally worrying, this is another example of how an ostensibly socialist government seems happy to encourage a two-tier society. Rich people will not be affected by this, so in reality only the poor serfs are at risk. What happens when the great unwashed, overweight, chain smokers catch the Black Death is anyone’s guess…

Before I rant too much, it seems the newspapers (and TV news) might have got carried away over this. From the BBC website:

Patients with unhealthy lifestyles would not be penalised under a proposed NHS constitution, the government says.

Those offered medical guidance would be encouraged to act in a “responsible” way, health minister Ann Keen said.

Ok, not really reassuring given the governments ability with doublespeak, especially when read in conjunction with this:

A constitution would set out patients’ “rights and responsibilities”, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said.

Interesting choice of words, Mr Brown… Heading back to the Guardian, the article finishes with:

[about NHS reform] And I believe they will transform the experience of the NHS for millions of people in this country.

Does this imply their experience will transform into losing an NHS?

I was googling for some relevant examples to use about this and I came across a quote (attributed to Hitler ) which seems relevant even if its provenance is dubious:

The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode

rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible reductions. In this way the people will not see those rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes cannot be reversed – Adolf Hitler (****)

Seems a good description of modern society. Would the people of the early 1950’s think we have “progressed” towards the Utopia they hoped the post war years would bring, or are we in fact sliding back to the horrors of the Victorians?

—

(*) I use this to mean the UK for certain and the US as a probable – the rest of the west is possibly included but I make no general comment as to the rest of the glob.

(**) Before I get shouted at, I am aware the “dark ages” were not as filled with ignorance, suspicion and horrors as my school history class used to pretend. I am also aware that the Dark Ages only really applies to the west, but that is where I live so it is where I assume the whole world lives… I am not alone in this mindset…

(***) Have you seen the Prime Minister?

(****) I have tried, but I have been unable to even slightly verify this is an actual Adolf quote. It seems to be used a lot by right-wingers who want to rubbish the government and may be a form of Godwins Law. Oh, dear Thor, I am turning into a Right Wing Express reader… Strike me down now!

Sorry this is a long rant, but it is a subject I get het up about. Thank you for your patience.

Over on Pharyngula there is a bit of a debate going on as to can torture be considered ethical. Not as simply put as is generally torturing others ethical but, to quote the main commenter who supports the idea:

I can’t imagine how it’s possible to believe that torture is alway unethical. I, for one, can imagine scenarios in which ethics would positively require the use of torture. [matt]

Blimey. Ethics require the use of torture eh? Now it might just be me, and the effects of having been taught why the Geneva Convention decided to formalise the “conduct” of warfare, but I can’t get my head round this concept. I am, fortunately, not alone here and a few other commenters on Pharyngula were confused by this. Helpfully, Matt tries to clear things up a bit with a later comment:

Here is a believable situation: Based on good intelligence, the CIA has arrested a terrorist–during the arrest they find bomb building materials and schematics of hospitals and schools. He does not surrender any information under normal questioning. Despite lack of actionable intelligence, you know from interviews with him and others that an un-captured terrorist is soon going to attack a school or hospital.

Admittedly, this sounds like an episode of 24, but I am summarizing the interview I linked to in comment #21. I don’t understand how torturing an admitted terrorist to get information to stop the deaths of many innocent children is unethical.

Ah, to quote the Simpsons[*], “wont anyone think of the children!” Now accepting the fact that this is almost a script from 24/alias/[insert thriller series of choice], we can look at what is being said here and decide if it really is (as I suspect) approaching an ethical minefield.

This is an appeal to the ethical grounds that mistreating one person with the goal of saving a greater number of other people (especially children) is a good thing. For this argument to work you have to accept some basic points:

1. Life has a value based solely on quantity (i.e. torturing 1 person to save 2 is a GOOD THING™)
2. Doing a bad thing for good reasons is a GOOD THINGâ„¢

Unusually, I have no major disagreement[**] with these premises. Society often has to make judgements which end up being the greatest good to the greatest number, and some will always end up suffering. However, I still think Matt is talking out of his backside and that not only is this not a valid way of making torture ethical but even in the situation he presents it is flawed.

If we look at his 24 script example we can address a good few issues in it:

First off, it is believable. Comic references to 24 aside, it is reasonable to think that this scenario is valid in the outset (CIA arrest bomb maker who is refuses to talk). However it rapidly falls down from the basic premise onwards.

I find the need to use schools and hospitals in the example as unnecessary. Does this mean that it would be unethical to torture a terrorist to save (for example) and office block? Or a car factory? Or an abortion clinic? Are we saying here that protection of the sick and young is the reason why the prisoner (who at this time appears to be un-convicted of any crime) is tortured in a way the Inquistion would have approved of?

But more importantly, the mechanics fail. Badly. Here you have a dedicated terrorist who was (I assume) planning to martyr himself for the cause and now refuses to talk during the legal interrogation techniques he is subjected to [***]. For some reason, even though he isn’t talking, he has given you the information that A N Other terrorist is going to blow up the [insert emotional location here] and you don’t have long to find out.

This is getting a touch far-fetched and a touch self-contradictory, but we will continue.

Now, Jack Bauer turns up and the fun begins. The terrorist is tortured. What happens?

Well this is a hypothetical situation[****] so we can play with anything. Obviously the torture breaks the terrorist quickly and he starts saying things. He gives up a name (for the sake of narrative we will call the person Ahmed) and claims Ahmed is the terrorist on the loose.

What happens next?

Well, thousands of years of human study has shown that torture is a good way of getting the prisoner to say whatever he thinks will make the torture stop. Not what is necessarily true, but what ever will make the torturer stop hurting him. The basic premise that torture is required is that this is time sensitive so all our terrorist needs to do is stave off the waterboarding for long enough for Abdullah to blow up the School/Hospital/Orphanage (whatever) and he has not only won, but rendered the torture unethical. In the mean time, the CTU/CIA/FBI/Elevator Inspector Unit are busy running round chasing Ahmed (who might be totally innocent) and diverting resources away from the real threat.

In this case, was the torture ethical? It failed the ethical validity test, in that no one was saved as a result of the torture. If this is too far fetched for you, what about this scenario:

The terrorist gives up Abdullah but genuinely doesn’t know where he is so CTU/CIA (etc, you get the joke) have to use their massive resources to find him – however they are too late and the explosion goes off, with all the dead innocents. The torture of the terrorist did nothing to save anyone. Again, it fails the validity test.

As a third scenario, the CIA made a mistake and the man detained has a similar sounding name to the terrorist but is actually totally innocent and doesn’t know anything. The reason he isn’t giving anything during the traditional questioning is because he doesn’t know anything. The waterboarding commences. In fear for his life, begging to be let free, the innocent man shouts out names which sound plausible until eventually the torturers pick up on one and chase after the wrong person again. Again, the bomb goes off and the torture achieved nothing. Was it ethical do it?

There are possibly an infinite number of examples where the use of torture in this situation is unethical compared to a very small set where it can claim some ethical validity – namely in the 24-esque one where the prisoner has enough information to allow the other terrorist to be caught just in time to prevent the explosion.

The basic requirement to ever judge torture “ethical” is knowing what the outcome will be. Before the torturers begin waterboarding the prisoner they have no way of knowing what value the information they get will have. They could continue their torture until the person dies without getting the information which makes it ethical. Whatever the final outcome, the torture begins as an unethical process.

So, the question I want to ask is does a post hoc rationalisation of an act determine if it is, or isn’t an ethical act? Is the detention and mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay ethical?

Lastly, the slippery slope. Why is it only terror suspects who can be tortured? What about a murder suspect or a rapist? What about some one who knows a mass murderer – can they be tortured to give up the mass murderer’s location before he kills again? Why draw the line at murderers?

Can torture ever be ethical? I still dont think so.

Wonderfully, Pharyngula sums things up in a subsequent post:

Here is all that torture is good for: inspiring fear in a population. If you want it widely known that your ruling regime is utterly ruthless and doesn’t care about individuals, all you have to do is scoop up random people suspected of anti-government activities, hold them for a few weeks, and return them as shattered wrecks with mangled limbs, while treating the monsters who would do such a thing as respected members of the ruling clique, who are immune from legal prosecution.

I seem to recall Saddam-era Iraq was a big one for torture and this was roundly criticised in the west. Now “we” rule Iraq, opinions have changed…

—

[*] And yes, I am now aware that the Simpsons is not a cartoon / comedy show it is actually a real life documentary. As is 24. And Alias. And …

[**] I actually don’t think that doing a bad thing for good reasons is a good thing – or even an acceptable thing. I can, however, accept it is a valid point of view though so I have no intention of challenging it here.

[***] These are in no way “humane” in any real sense of the word. It is a truism to say every one breaks eventually. The problem with traditional torture interrogation is that it is too slow for today’s 24 addicted world. If the intelligence agencies worked better, they would have more time to get information out of the terrorists…

[****] Well, it is hypothetical here. Sadly there are people undergoing this treatment right now. While most may be in evil, dictatorial, third world regimes, not all are…