Nutts, and the Libertarian Fallacy
Posted in News under National | on Nov 02 2009
I recall from my schooldays the lesson that, yes, the civil service were a deal more capable of running the country than the politicians, but that they would be hanged from the lamposts within the week. Wind on to 2009, and a silly scientist who appears to believe that his research findings are exempt from the application of common sense is sacked by Alan Johnson who really does appreciate what politics - the art of the possible - and governance - the responsibility of the democratically elected representative to nurture the desirable - is all about.
That the wonderfully named, Prof. David Nutt, put horse riding on the same plane as getting wasted on weed shows up his grasp on logic. The Home Secretary understands that there are ‘settled’ values in society that are general and go beyond the pleasures and conveniences of individuals. People may not like them, agree with them, or even abide by them, but they recognise them. It’s in reference to such settled values that the Government has reclassified canabis in the context of the wider battle against a globally criminalised production and distribution of mind altering drugs that is entirely driven by personal demand.
Lots of us break motoring speed limits, sometimes accidently, sometimes knowingly, sometimes with good reason; most often without any harm done. We all know it’s not permitted, and take our own decisions on it. Warren Buffet owns up to shop lifting in a wild, far-away spasm of youth. He’s no hardened criminal or was ever likely to have been. It was the thrill of being naughty without a true conception of what he was doing wrong that led him on. Should we then decriminalise shop-lifting as a mostly ‘harmless’ activity, a Class C offence. Should we turn a blind eye to speeding? Define wrong. Wrong according to whose code? Define harm. Harm to whom and to what? These are complex questions that we’ve debated for as long as society has existed.
Humans have been doing alcohol for aeons. It’s part of our culture’s settled values, though not of some others such as those rooted in Islam. We distinguish between acceptable consumption and abuse, and never cease to struggle to deal with the consequences. And here’s the nub of it. With alcohol, we start from where we are, not where we would ideally have started from. Aware of where drink has led us, we try to prevent the myriad other mind altering mixtures from dragging us to an uncontrollable future of unimaginably greater complexity and danger.
There is a big, big debate on how to deal with the reality of a massive multi-billion pound, criminal/terrorist drugs trade and unbridled demand from consummers who do so in the full knowledge of being in breach of society’s settled values but within their self-given rights to do what the f*** they like, in blind and wilful disregard for the world wide consequences of their actions - thanks a bundle J S Mill. Prof. Nutt’s bleating only points up the silliness of purely inductive reasoning without reference to the realities and implications for the ‘bigger picture’. It was nuts and naive of the Government to tie public policy to the tunnel vision opinion of experts, a hostage to fortune and a car-crash waiting to happen.
Thank you, Alan Johnson for good sense and good judgement.