On 3 Feb., 03:10, archytas <[email protected]> wrote: > No morals involved Francis. We do people for pennies in benefit fraud > on the basis of information from much slimier sources.
This, of course, is the deeper point, Neil. I often think we want to have it both ways in the western "democracies." (i) We want to believe, at least at some level, that government is (however imperfectly) the result of our collective approval, the implementation of some kind of social contract renewed through regular exercise of the electoral franchise - "in the name of the people." (ii) We also generally agree that morality is important and even - in certain areas at any rate - demand morality from our elected representatives. (iii) At higher collective levels, however, we seem to have no problem in accepting a totally pragmatic, realpolitikal view of communal activity, which, ultimately, reaches its peak in the Clausewitzian definition of war as a continuation of politics by other means [actually a misinterpretation of Clausewitz's thinking, but that's beside the point]. This is a kind of schizophrenia, or at least deep inconsistency, in our attitude towards the "res publica". I'm not in the least suggesting that I myself am free of this attitude! Personally, as a salaried, PAYE employee, whose tax is deducted at source from his wage packet, I have absolutely no sympathy for fat-cats, who get caught trying to cheat the system. I'm not sure, however, that I'm comfortable about the idea of rewarding criminals to shop other criminals. It implies a sort of double-standard which can often be the thin end of a very dangerous wedge. Maybe the best we can hope for is that, having weighed-up costs and benefits, we do approve of this kind of action by our elected governments but continue to have a collective bad conscience about it, that we do not simply regard it as ok and go on with business-as-usual, even using such arguments to justify persecution of the weak little guys, often hounded in our welfare systems (because, basically, they're much easier to blame and nail than the powerful, well-regarded, big-bucks, white-collar criminals). In this sense, perhaps we DO get the governments we deserve. Francis -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/minds-eye?hl=en.
