Motor_Sailor
Well-known member
[QUOTE="GlennG, post: 7109171, member: 13663" Listen to Lord Sumption . . . [/QUOTE]
Completely different point - you were moaning that we had all become risk averse and wanted to wrap ourselves in toilet roll. Now you're talking about poeple surrendering their civil liberties. He in his dotage is also confusing civil liberties with the demand for action.
At times of stress and fear, people quite naturally want to feel their safety and well being is protected. The nature of this 'safety net' is most effective in the short term, if people feel there is a plan, that it is workable, consistent, fair and proportional.
(You can read all sorts of stuff about a parallel situation with the provision of air raid shelters in the UK from the 30s through to the end of the cold war. Politicians constantly tried to balance the needs of physical protection, against cost, the sense that people thought 'enough was being done' and the danger of people being so cosy in their shelters that they wouldn't come out to work. It was a very nuanced and despite some glaring injustices, morale and productivity remained high).
Here, the government has not won over all the population: They have been seen to dither, to change plans, to have unworkable 'requirements' from the public, to be unclear amongst themselves what the 'rules' are, and not having a consistent enforcement regime from the Police.
Not only does that put the whole scheme on a dodgy footing, but risks an escalation in legal powers to try and shore up a badly established scheme. That's where the threat to civil liberties will come from.
So as a 'concerned member of the public' we have options: do we try to go with the spirit of the restrictions and make them work as they're the only game in town, or do we constantly undermine them and act as a right clever dick knowing full well it will simply increase the authoritarian nature of their implementation with then the real loss of civil liberties.
The plan at the moment is to 'buy time': Not just for the NHS, but also for the politicians and experts to come up with perhaps a better plan or at least an exit strategy. Without time all the smart arse arguments will count for nothing - things by then will be completely out of hand.
Completely different point - you were moaning that we had all become risk averse and wanted to wrap ourselves in toilet roll. Now you're talking about poeple surrendering their civil liberties. He in his dotage is also confusing civil liberties with the demand for action.
At times of stress and fear, people quite naturally want to feel their safety and well being is protected. The nature of this 'safety net' is most effective in the short term, if people feel there is a plan, that it is workable, consistent, fair and proportional.
(You can read all sorts of stuff about a parallel situation with the provision of air raid shelters in the UK from the 30s through to the end of the cold war. Politicians constantly tried to balance the needs of physical protection, against cost, the sense that people thought 'enough was being done' and the danger of people being so cosy in their shelters that they wouldn't come out to work. It was a very nuanced and despite some glaring injustices, morale and productivity remained high).
Here, the government has not won over all the population: They have been seen to dither, to change plans, to have unworkable 'requirements' from the public, to be unclear amongst themselves what the 'rules' are, and not having a consistent enforcement regime from the Police.
Not only does that put the whole scheme on a dodgy footing, but risks an escalation in legal powers to try and shore up a badly established scheme. That's where the threat to civil liberties will come from.
So as a 'concerned member of the public' we have options: do we try to go with the spirit of the restrictions and make them work as they're the only game in town, or do we constantly undermine them and act as a right clever dick knowing full well it will simply increase the authoritarian nature of their implementation with then the real loss of civil liberties.
The plan at the moment is to 'buy time': Not just for the NHS, but also for the politicians and experts to come up with perhaps a better plan or at least an exit strategy. Without time all the smart arse arguments will count for nothing - things by then will be completely out of hand.