God’s law and the law of the State

What happens when you have a particular group in society who are not minded to follow the law of the State, but prefer to follow God’s law as they interpret it?

Recently this question has come up in relation to Sharia law, particularly after the Archbishop of Canterbury said that some aspects of sharia law would inevitably be adopted in Britain. But the question doesn’t just arise in relation to Islam. Many religions have a group within who prefers the laws of God to the laws of the State. For example, orthodox Jews in Australia may take some disputes between one another to the Beth Din, a religious court where rabbis hand out judgment. And some indigenous Australians may prefer that a dispute be dealt with under traditional law rather than “whitefella law”.

My personal opinion is that as long as the law of God does not transgress fundamental human rights, then parties can consent to that particular law binding their actions. It is rather like an agreement to arbitrate in a contract where any disputes are referred to a mutually agreed arbitrator. The problem occurs when a particular practice or punishment which is said to be required by the law of God or tradition is illegal under the laws of the State: eg, stoning, spearing through the leg, promise of child brides etc. My personal opinion is that such things should not be allowed. The issue is slightly more vexed with indigenous tradition than it is with other religious laws because indigenous people didn’t “choose” to move here and to be subject to our laws, they were imposed upon them from colonisers. Nonetheless, as I have explained in one of my very early posts, as a feminist, I just cannot countenance the assault and rape of a teenage “promised bride” by her tribal husband, for example. Cultural relativism be damned.

It is a difficult question however, because it is a balance between religious tolerance and universal human rights (which should apply to all, regardless of race or religion or anything else).

Consequently, I was really interested to read this article in Slate about the American legal system and the Amish and the Mormons. I hadn’t really thought deeply about the conflict that would arise between State law and the traditions and laws of these two groups.

Amish are Anabaptists of Swiss-German origin who live in separate communities. They dress in conservative dress, do not use much modern technology and do not educate their children beyond 8th grade because of the “worldly values” they might learn. Study is focussed on the Bible, and children are expected to work in the fields with their parents once they leave school. They do not believe in Social Security, and do not either make payments or accept payments from the government. The educational practices and expectation that children will work in the fields has brought them in to conflict with US education and child labor rules. In Wisconsin v. Yoder 406 U.S. 205 (1972) three Amish parents were fined by the Wisconsin authorities for taking their children from school before the age of 16, but the US Supreme Court ultimately upheld the right of the parents to do this. Amish refuse to participate in wars, and their conscientious objection has also gotten them into trouble. As the article in Slate observes, the Amish have been given a fair degree of latitude, in part because they are peaceful and because they have managed to broker compromises with the State.

Mormons are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints. They believe in the Book of Mormon. The Church of the Latter Day Saints officially abandoned polygamy after pressure from law enforcement in 1890, but some other fundamentalist groups continue to practice polygamy. The practice of taking multiple wives and taking child brides has brought the Fundamentalist Mormon Church into conflict with the law. In the last few weeks, Texan authorities raided a Fundamentalist Mormon compound after a 16 year old girl called authorities to say that she had recently borne a child to her 50 year old husband. Other US States are concerned that this raid may ruin their efforts to make Fundamentalist Mormons trust them and cooperate with them. As the Slate article outlined, a large raid on a Short Creek Fundamentalist Mormon community in 1953 was ultimately counterproductive. The Slate article concludes that the Mormon groups are in a different situation to the Amish:

But the fundamentalist Mormons groups are in a state of evasion. The ban on bigamy functions as a zoning ordinance: Plural marriage is fine in isolated communities, but not in Salt Lake City, and certainly not on TV talk shows, as Tom Green found. So long as the fundamentalists remain in hiding, the extreme ugliness of conducting raids creates a form of tolerance. They are thus in a “don’t ask, don’t tell” state of legal limbo that could break open at any time. They are outside the law in a different way.

It will be interesting to see whether the Texan raid is counterproductive or forces the Fundamentalist Mormon church into submission.

These situations remind us that the conflict between God’s law and the law of the State has many facets, and there are different ways of resolving the issue. Have a read of the Slate article and see what you think.

Jah on their side…

This article about the collapse of a legal trial against some Rastafarians cracks me up.

Apparently the five Rastas had been charged with cannabis dealing, and the trial had been running for two weeks when one of the police officers recognised a paralegal from the defence team for one of the defendants. The paralegal was said to have telephoned the police and complained about alleged drug running at the Rastafarian temple, although she denied this. What were the chances of that?

The trial descended into chaos, and the prosecution decided not to tender any further evidence. The judge decided that the defendants should be acquitted.

(Hat tip to Dave Bath at Balneus)

Judicial activism

The common law is an interesting and organic beast. To explain: our basic system of law is judge-made law. The common law became somewhat inflexible in medieval times, and thus many litigants started appealing to the King. The King got sick of dealing with the petitions, and palmed them off to the Lord Chancellor. Eventually, the Lord Chancellor set up his own court to deal with these questions, called the Court of Chancery (the court of Equity), which dealt with cases on the basis of conscience and fairness. It was a parallel system, separate from the common law, but when the two conflicted, it was equity which prevailed over common law: Earl of Oxford’s Case (1615) Mich 13 Jac 1; 21 ER 485. The Chancery courts used an inquisitorial system rather than an adversarial system, and accordingly, cases before these courts became increasingly drawn out and inefficient, as famously portrayed by Dickens in Bleak House. Thus, the legislature decided to “fuse” the two systems by means of the Judicature Acts of 1873 and 1875. Accordingly, a judge in a “fused” court could apply both rules of equity and the common law. In all Australian States apart from New South Wales, Judicature Acts were also enacted shortly after the UK versions were enacted. New South Wales did not fuse its common law and equitable courts until 1972. Consequently, the New South Wales Equity Bar produced some fine and learned equity lawyers, but they also tended to be very conservative indeed.

Obviously, these days, legislation (enacted by Parliament) plays a very much greater role in the development of the law, but the common law and equity are still important, and still keep developing.

Why the mini lecture at the start of this post? Well, I was reading a New South Wales Court of Appeal case called Harris v Digital Pulse Pty Ltd [2003] NSWCA 10, and it raises some interesting questions about “judicial activism”. Judicial activism is a perjorative term. It is directed at judges who ignore precendent, and instead mediate a dispute in accordance with their own personal prejudices about what is appropriate social and political policy. The Mason Court of the 1980s was frequently accused of judicial activism, as it produced decisions giving rise to an implied right of political freedom of speech in the Constitution and the Mabo decision, among others.

In Harris, Heydon JA (now a judge of the High Court) had this to say about the role of creativity and the judiciary at [456] – [458]:

As to Sir George Jessel MR’s account of the development of equity in Re Hallett’s Estate, it is true that the rules of equity have changed from time to time, and true that individual Chancellors – and Masters of the Rolls, Lord Keepers and Vice Chancellors – have effected these changes. It is also true that the rules can be changed in future. But those deeds of single judges were done when there was no appellate jurisdiction in the House of Lords, or very limited access to it, at a time before modern parliamentary democracy had developed, and members of parliaments consisted largely of wealthy men who in turn supported Cabinets composed largely of aristocratic oligarchs whom it was difficult to interest in the details of private law. What individual judges did in those constitutional and forensic conditions is not a sound guide to what modern Australian courts, at least at levels below the High Court, can do. A single equity judge in the time of Sir George Jessel MR had the power, the competence, the authority and the capacity to compel acceptance from other judges which only the High Court has now, at least where the change goes beyond the application of existing principles in a new way or marginal extensions of the law.

In In re Diplock. Diplock v Wintle [1948] Ch 465 at 481-2 Lord Greene MR, Wrottesley and Evershed LJJ said of the equitable claim made in that case by next-of-kin against persons who had wrongly received the testator’s assets under an invalid bequest:

“if the claim in equity exists it must be shown to have an ancestry founded in history and in the practice and precedents of the courts administering equity jurisdiction. It is not sufficient that because we may think that the ‘justice’ of the present case requires it, we should invent such a jurisdiction for the first time.”

The defendants relied on those words. That is a sound modern approach, at least for courts below the High Court, and at least where anything more than non-radical change is involved.

Sir George Jessel MR’s judicial life coincided with the time when democracy in a modern form was beginning and the responsiveness of Parliament to social or legal ills was starting to develop. It was a time when the judiciary was small, highly skilled and united. It is now large, less skilled, and far from entirely united. For courts below the High Court to act in the manner of the single judges sitting in Chancery who made modern equity is to invite the spread of a wilderness of single instances, a proliferation of discordant and idiosyncratic opinions, and ultimately an anarchic “system” operating according to the forms, but not the realities, of law.

As I read it, his Honour is essentially saying that no judge except one who is on the High Court can develop a new doctrine of law or equity. Anything else is “judicial activism”. Lower court judges just have to apply “the law”. The judgment of the High Court in the case of Farah Constructions Pty Ltd v Saydee Pty Ltd [2007] HCA 22 displays a similar sensibility, which was one of the reasons why I suspect it was penned by Heydon J.

It is very important that like cases be decided in a like manner, otherwise unfairness could result. This is why the common law has the doctrine of stare decisis or following precedent. So if X fell off her bicycle and got compensation, and I fell of my scooter in almost identical circumstances, I would expect to be treated in much the same way as X. It would not be fair if the trial judge had an unreasoning dislike of scooters and decided that I should not get compensation because she did not like the proliferation of scooters in society. Nonetheless, if there was a “right answer” as to what the law was in every dispute, we lawyers would be out of a job. The whole point is that one can usually argue the point either way in cases which actually make it to trial.

Next point: not all cases will be exactly like a case which went before. Indeed, surely if it was exactly like a previous case, it is likely that one side’s solicitors would have advised them to settle. In the event, if the case is not quite like any previous case, the judge has to look at the cases and legislation which govern the area and decide how the law applies to this slightly different situation. The more different the situation is from anything that has gone before, the more difficult it is for the judge to decide on the basis of existing law. What a judge should do in this circumstance is develop principle in a way which is consonant with previous cases, but which also adapts to the new circumstances. In this way, the judge is not indulging in judicial activism. She is extending the law out to a new situation, but in a way which is consistent with principle.

Indeed, it could result in great inflexibility and injustice if a court cannot deviate from principle which has gone before even though the circumstances are different to anything which has gone before. This was one of the reasons why the law of equity arose: because of the failure of common law courts to adapt to changing circumstances and difficult situations created great injustice. Heydon JA’s judgment seems to me to be out of touch with the spirit and genesis of equity. Also, it may be scary for some lawyers to know this, but the law is slowly changing and developing all the time. Otherwise we would still be stuck applying some kind of medieval common law, unchanged for millennia.

Now, a very important point. What happens if I have a novel legal situation, but I cannot afford to appeal all the way to the High Court (as Heydon JA seems to think necessary)? In that circumstance, it is up to the trial judge to make the best and fairest decision that he can, and to show some creativity. We can’t all afford to take litigation up to the High Court and hire silks. (Well, I doubt if I could afford to indulge in any litigation whatsoever, but fortunately for me, that’s not an issue I’ve had to face). Obviously a trial judge cannot overrule a High Court decision, and cannot ignore law that has gone before. But I definitely think there is room for a trial judge to show creativity in a situation which is novel and does not bear any analogy to a previous case. And it should not be necessary to require litigants to go all the way to the High Court. Such a point of view is unrealistic and elitist.

Aaah. I feel much better now I’ve gotten that off my chest.

Toddlers as witnesses

The other day, I was driving my 2 year old daughter to creche. She announced with satisfaction and great confidence from the back of the car, “One day, Mummy broke my fingers.” I saw her make an illustrative wiggle of the said fingers in the rear view mirror.

“What?” I cried with horror. “I have never done that. What are you talking about?”

“Mummy shut my fingers in the door at Nanny and Papa’s and I did cry and Nanny got bandaids for me,” she explained.

This incident is the bane of my life. About a month ago, I had started closing the door to the outside loo at Mum and Dad’s when a little Miss stuck her finger in between the hinges, and the door started to close on two of her fingers. Of course, as soon as I heard the cry, I stopped the door swinging, and although there was a little bruising, there was no blood. I was simply horrified, and also burst into tears. What was worse was that my daughter blamed me, and wouldn’t give me a kiss when she went to bed. But all was forgiven the next day when she woke up and announced, “I love you Mummy!” Or so I thought…

She keeps bringing the incident. Clearly, I am not entirely forgiven. Like her mother, she is a bit of a drama queen, and “Mummy broke my fingers” sounds far more dramatic than “Mummy accidentally bruised two of my fingers, but I was fine by the next morning.”

The moral of this story is: Never trust a two year old to recount events accurately.

I couldn’t help thinking of this when I read of a legal bid for a toddler to give evidence at a murder trial. Apparently, half way through the trial, it became apparent that the poor little boy could have possibly witnessed the killing of his mother. He was two years and five months old at the time of her death, and is now four years old. The boy’s account suggested that it was not the defendant who “hurt” his mother, but the defendant’s son (also the boy’s father). Justice Lasry refused the application for the boy to give evidence. In the event, the defendant was acquitted of murder but convicted of manslaughter.

Of course I can understand why the defence would have wished to lead the child’s evidence, but I think that the judge was correct to refuse the application. My own experience with my daughter the other day has convinced me even more firmly that the evidence of a toddler is not reliable!

Now I’m really disturbed

Someone found my blog via a google search for “whale penis”. I didn’t even know that I had used that second word in this blog! I know I used the word “whale” in a post featuring a picture of a little boy swimming with a whale.

I don’t even dare think why someone might be searching for that particular term. There’s some sick puppies out there.

Update

I actually did use the word “penis” once on this blog, when discussing social mores with regard to dress (or lack of dress). The extremes were Afghan women wearing burqas to New Guinea highlanders wearing only penis gourds. Obviously this is what the search picked up.

Anyway, a friend has suggested that perhaps the searcher was a connisseur of Chinese penis cuisine, described in this article here (I’d actually seen this article before via a link on J.F. Beck’s site). Ugh. Quite revolting. I’ve eaten fried bettle before in Cambodia, but I draw the line at eating schlongs.

Property law and the One Ring

Can it really be true? Yes, it is true. The blog Law is Cool features an essay about Lord of the Rings from a property law perspective! Here is a brief extract:

Consider the following facts which seem ripped from a first year property law exam:

1. Sauron holds ownership in the Ring through accession, by working one thing (base metals) into a new thing (a ring of power)
2. He is dispossessed by Isildur, who now holds possession in the Ring.
3. Isildur loses the Ring (he has a manifest intent to exclude others but no physical control) when it slips off his finger as he was swimming in the Anduin river to escape from Orcs.
4. Déagol finds the Ring.
5. He is dispossessed by Sméagol (a.k.a. Gollum).
6. Gollum loses the Ring and it is finally found by Bilbo.
7. Bilbo gifts the Ring to Frodo. Later, Aragorn (the heir of Isildur) tells Frodo to carry the ring to Mordor, making Frodo his bailee.
8. Sam, assuming that Frodo is dead, takes the Ring according to instructions to help Frodo with the Ring in grave circumstances. Sam is acting here as a (fictional) bailee and he returns possession to Frodo after finding him still alive.
9. At the end of the book, Gollum restores his possession of the ring. Seconds later, he and the Ring are both destroyed. At this point all property held in the Ring disappears.

Gee, I wish I’d thought of that. It is just too cool for words. My favourite part is where the priorities battle between the various parties is described. Perhaps I will use it as an example in future classes.

I have a number of thoughts on the matter, but I’ll have to wait until I’m more awake to develop them.

(via The Volokh Conspiracy)

P.S. check out the comments at both Law is Cool and the Volokh Conspiracy – hilarious.

Fitna

The other day, I watched the film Fitna on YouTube, a film about Islam by Dutch right wing politician Geert Wilders.  I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I had read some interesting reviews by Skepticlawyer at Catallaxy, Pommygranate at Australian Libertarian Society Blog and Saint at Dogfight At Bankstown.

I must say that I felt considerable ambivalence about it. I’ve waited over a week to write on it.

On the one hand, I support freedom of speech. Furthermore, there is no denying the fact that there are extremist Muslims who in the world who advocate terrorism or jihad (as I’ve argued previously). I think this kind of behaviour is unacceptable from anyone of any religion, and should be condemned.

But on the other hand, I wonder what this film will really achieve other than deepening the divide between the West and Islam. Among other things, it extracts news, film and photographs of all the worst instances of Islamist extremism and terrorism, and juxtaposes them against sura from the Qu’ran. It has a scaremongering feel which I do not like at all – it makes broadbrush generalisations and depicts the worst of a particular group. As I have said in a previous post, I find scaremongering propaganda to be problematic, regardless of whether it is on the Left or the Right, or from the West or Islam. It makes people behave in an irrational manner.

As Pommygranate noted in a post at the Australian Libertarian Society Blog, there is a rather odd dichotomy in this film – Wilders preaches Western values of tolerance and free speech, but he is essentially calling for intolerance of a certain religion. Pommy says:

He [Wilders] is essentially a hypocrite as on the one hand he champions Holland’s proud history of tolerance and freedom, yet on the other, seeks to introduce discrimination back into the Constitution (by banning further immigration of Muslims), wishes to ban the Koran as a fascist book comparable to Mein Kampf, and wants a complete ban on the wearing of the headscarf. 

The ironic thing, as with the Danish cartoons, is the way in which various Islamic groups and countries are claiming that the film is offensive and inaccurate for saying their religion is intrinsically violent and intolerant, but radical Muslims are also making death threats against LiveLeaks for posting the video… Don’t those guys who make the death threats have any sense of irony whatsoever? Any violent retaliation against Wilders will prove his point rather nicely.

The film makes me think of a book by Chester Porter called The Gentle Art of Persuasion. He argues that using fear to get your point across is not an intelligent way to put an argument. I concur. The central message I got from the film was “Muslims are terrorists, intolerant people, anti-Semites, bashers of homosexuals, genital mutilators and oppressors of women’s freedom.” But I am still wondering: what was the point? How are people (Muslim, Dutch and others) meant to respond to that message? How does this film fix anything?

If this film’s central message is that Muslims need to rethink the violent and unpleasant aspects of their religion, which is one of the film’s claims, then I don’t think a vehicle such as this would be the way to achieve it. It would immediately make even a moderate Muslim defensive of his or her religion, rather than open to reasonable criticism.

I suspect there were two responses Wilders wanted – to provoke a backlash among Dutch people to Islam (or at least, some extreme practices of some Islamic groups), and to make a point that the response to films or writings which criticise Islam is often violence (although I note that the Dutch Muslim population seems to have sensibly decided that the best response is to be moderate).

I’ve noticed in blog comments threads that a common response to the film is that “Christianity is just as bad” (see for example the comment thread which has developed at Iain Hall’s post). Yes, one could do the same with Christianity and find some nutbag Bible bashers who wanted to stone homosexuals or whatever, and intersperse it with Biblical quotes (particularly chapters like Leviticus). But I think that misses the point of the film. As Skepticlawyer has indicated in her post at Catallaxy, I think one of the particular concerns Wilders is focussing on is the interaction between Muslim immigrants in Holland and the mainstream Dutch culture, which is tolerant of homosexuality, prostitution, drug-use etc. Thus, it’s obviously not relevant for him to make a film on the shortcomings of Christianity, because the Dutch Christian attitude is generally tolerant; or at least, most Dutch Christians turn a blind eye to those things in Dutch culture which they disagree with. If a whole slew of US Southern Baptists emigrated to Holland and started questioning Dutch values, it would obviously be relevant to question Christianity, but that’s not the particular conflict he has in mind.

And ultimately, so what if you can do the same with Christianity? It doesn’t make the conduct of Islamists who espouse the same views right. It cannot be denied that there are a proportion of radical Islamists who believe many or all of the things in this movie. A plague on all the houses of those who seek to convert by the sword, kill and persecute those of different religions or oppress and use religion to justify violence towards women and homosexuals.

What is the best thing to do about Islamist terrorism and intolerance? I’m just not sure that this movie is a constructive solution to the problem: it may just make things worse. Yes, it is important to be honest about the problems of Islamist extremism, but it is also important to find ways to solve those problems rather than to inflame them.

Postscript

Incidentally, I heartly agree with Skepticlawyer that many Muslim commentators, politicians and imams need to get over calling anyone who disagrees with Islam’s tenets “Zionist”. A Jordanian media coalition described Wilders as “extremist and Zionist deputy Geert Wilders” in a press release. Wilders is not Jewish, and I don’t know if he supports the establishment and/or expansion of the State of Israel or not. Even if he does, that wasn’t the point of the film anyway. As soon as I hear insane frothing at the mouth about Zionists such as this, I start to doubt the credibility and sanity of the source.

Some people will try anything

I thought I’d seen all the pathetic excuses possible for trying to get out of legal proceedings (including seceding from Australia, declaring the Court to be a hotbed of Freemasons and/or claiming that the Constitution is invalid for spurious reasons). But this is one of the best:

Richard James Howarth was remanded to appear in the Ipswich Magistrate’s Court to answer a string of traffic offences, including four counts of driving with a blood alcohol content more than three times the legal limit.

However, his lawyers said he failed to appear after having earlier informed them he would not talk to them because he is was [sic] the almighty and above answering to Queensland laws.

Early this month, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service solicitor Kevin Rose, for Howarth, told the court his client refused his office’s attempts to talk to them.

A court and a mental health expert have already deemed Howarth was mentally fit for trial, but Mr Rose maintained he has obvious mental health issues.

Mr Rose said he did not doubt Howarth genuinely believed he was God.

The Magistrate issued a warrant for Howarth’s arrest. Now if Howarth can turn the handcuffs into loaves and fishes, he might have some possibility of being believed…

Incidentally, if he is God, I have a number of questions for Him:

• Why do bad things happen to good people?
• Whose God are you? It would sure help if You mediated some religious conflicts waged in Your name.
• What is your point of view about homosexuality? (a la Southpark)
• If you are God, why couldn’t you just magic the alcohol away from your bloodstream before you got into the car? (I’m thinking here of Aziraphale and Crowley in Good Omens) 

(Via Iain Hall)

Update:

A friend has asked that I recount one of my own craziest litigant in person stories. I came across this litigant in person who had exhibited the Magna Carta to his affidavit. Now that’s pretty stock standard with these guys. But the extraordinary thing was that his primary source for the Magna Carta seemed to be a novelty tea towel. I’m guessing it was a tea towel because of the fabric weave visible in the photocopy. Also there was kitschy gothic script. None of the judges commented on it, and I’m not sure that anyone else noticed.

Updates

Update 1:

Thomas Towle, the Mildura driver who killed 6 teens and seriously injured 4 others, has been sentenced to 10 years in gaol. I told you it would be interesting to see what his sentence would be! Although Towle was convicted of dangerous driving (a lesser offence), he will be serving more time than the average sentence for culpable driving (a greater offence). Cummins J chose to treat the sentence as culmulative rather than concurrent, meaning that Towle was sentenced for a longer time. The defence had tried to argue that because the maximum penalty for dangerous driving was 5 years, the greatest Towle could face would be 5 years.

Update 2:

Someone else is thinking about whether animals with higher cognition should have more legal rights. I got there first! (thanks to Dave Bath)…

Earth Hour – what a crock

I am very pleased that I managed to avoid Earth Hour: what an absolute crock. In fact, I was at a Chinese restaurant at the relevant time. “I wonder if they’ll turn out the lights?” mused my husband. Not a chance, and thank goodness for that. I didn’t see much evidence of participation on the drive home either, but nor did I see much evidence of excessive lighting use either.

I saw the whole thing as a giant publicity stunt with very little real impact on the environment or carbon emissions. It was just a way for middle class greenies to feel good about themselves without actually having to sacrifice much at all.

I can’t help thinking of a documentary I saw recently about strict Mennonites trying to survive in the modern world. The strictest adherents to this sect do not use electricity and use old fashioned means of transport such as horse and buggy. In modern times, this has meant that the communities cannot compete economically. They are not self-sufficient, and cannot generate enough produce, because they do not use modern farming methods and implements. Some communities have decided to use electricity in an effort to survive. Others continue to refuse to use electricity, and keep to the old ways, but it is extremely hard.

Proponents of Earth Hour should try living like strict Mennonites for a month. Turning the lights off for an hour? Pshaw. What a weak gesture. To make a real difference, turn out the electricity for a month, and in a world that has electricity all around you. 

From what I could see, life without electricity was very, very hard. Some of the people were the same age as I, but looked years older, presumably because they had been working in the fields since they were young and because they had many children to care for. One of the most poignant moments for me was when a woman from a community without electricity was discussing dentistry with a man from a community with electricity. I couldn’t help being appalled at the idea of dentistry without electricity. Yowch. I also wonder what kind of training these people had in dentistry; schooling is very limited, and teaching outside the Bible is not allowed.

Interestingly, all the strict Mennonites had an ambivalent attitude to electricity. Those whose communities had introduced it said that in some ways, it made work a lot easier, and it certainly helped their communities be productive enough to survive. On the other hand, they also said it meant that the young men of the village were able to escape and get drunk, and that young people were exposed to television and the outside world a lot more. The innocence of the young had not been able to be preserved in the same way. Nonetheless, I can’t help thinking that keeping young people from knowledge and learning is wrong: innocence really comes about through ignorance. Obviously, I don’t want my daughter to be exposed to certain kinds of knowledge until I consider that she is old enough to understand it, but I don’t want her to be ignorant either. Another sad vignette concerned a young man who had decided to leave his community, but he did not have enough education to do much outside his community. His ignorance prevented him from having choice.

No, one shouldn’t waste electricity, and we certainly try not to do so in my household. Quite apart from the environmental issues, we can’t afford a big electricity bill. But I do wonder about these people who call for us to “drastically cut our carbon emissions”. How do they propose that we achieve that, precisely? If turning the lights off for an hour has very little or no impact, clearly they would call for more “drastic” measures. Well, I’ll let them try living like Mennonites first. I wonder how long they’d last?

Update

Forgive me, I’m a cynic. But apparently it’s all about branding, darlings. Earth Hour was the brain child of advertising agency Leo Burnett. Now why doesn’t that surprise me? As Peter Foster, the author of the Canadian article linked above, says:

The presence of Leo Burnet [sic] indicates that this is very much about business and branding (a bit ironic for the No Logo crowd, surely). Guidelines about how the Earth Hour brand must be used are available on the WWF Canada Web site, along with the information that: “The Earth Hour tone of voice is human, optimistic, inclusive, passionate and caring. The Brand should never appear to be aggressive or use scare tactics to incite participation.”

How this squares with all the greatest-threat-the-world-has-ever-seen stuff escapes me, but what the hell, this is about business and power, not truth.

I’m sure the WWF is loving all the extra publicity. Not to mention the SMH.