"British People"

This may be a little rambling as I don't seem to be able to get the ideas about this in a coherent form at the moment, needs more thinking about.

Anyway, I was listening to radio 4 this morning and a few things caught my attention, one was the criticism of an idea by the Lib Dems (I think) to have asylum seekers doing work, presumably while they wait for a decision on their case. The interviewee was against this but it made sense to me; why have people hanging around doing nothing when, for their sake and ours, they could be doing something useful with their time.

The other thing I heard was some rambling from UKIP about wanting to take us out of the EU and to limit immigration and concentrate resources on the "British People". So I started to wonder what "British People" meant? Who is "British"? Given our cultural, social, racial, and genetic mix, the only real common thing is geography, though the likes of the BNP would have you believe otherwise.

Which got me thinking some more; there are many people in this country who would vehemently claim to be "British" and yet live off the state, probably don't have much claim to any (spurious) genetic ancestry, and bemoan the fact that we're being 'flooded' with illegal immigrants and asylum seekers. On the flipside there are people that want to come to this country and work hard, not live off the state, and generally contribute society in this country.

So I wonder whether we should stop thinking about nationality strictly in terms of location, surely that means you can adopt a quite lazy attitude to being British; "I'm British therefore I deserve ...". If instead being British, or any nationality, it about contributing to the society as a whole then that mind-set leads to a much more positive and inclusive definition of what it means to be and to belong.

That probably didn't make sense at all!

Plastic Fantastic?

I read an article earlier this week regarding some research that showed that "Plastic Chemicals 'feminise' boys". This idea has been mentioned before and, according to the article, certain plasticisers are already banned or controlled in some cases because of some proven link to harmful affects. What concerns me about this research is the assumptions and methodology and even worse the stereotypes involved.

'Boys exposed to high levels of these in the womb were less likely than other boys to play with cars, trains and guns or engage in "rougher" games like playfighting.'

I would question the assumptions behind this statement and in particular the idea that 'boys' should be engaging in "playfighting" or even that girls do not, or maybe if you want to be completely P.C., should not but doing the same. This aspect in particular seems like something that could well be down to culture and society rather than any chemical feminisation. I would expect that alot of parents now, while happy to accept that boys might behave in a rougher manner, would be likely to want to dissuade the notion of fighting. Certainly media coverage of bullying and thugish behaviour would seem to make such things less acceptable.

There has been debate about whether toys are also biases towards certain genders as well, the whole nurture and nature argument that seems to flare up every now and then. What often gets missed from this is that both boys and girls can show interest in toys that don't fit the usual pattern at various points in their development and I would guess that the ages at which this occurs might be dependant on the child itself.

In short, while I don't really argue that these chemicals may pose a threat I don't think that relying on research that I believe to be using unscientific measure is a good idea. It also only serves to re-enforce stereotypes which may well be outdated, prejudicial, and ultimately that can be detrimental when they are applied in other circumstances in an overly rigid way: don't try and fit children into the conceptual boxes you have, treat them as the individuals they are.

No Joking Matter

There is currently a debate on BBC1 about "should gay jokes be banned". From what I gather there is legislation that is about to be debated that would include make it illegal to joke about gay (and trans) people.

Also I switched channel last night and saw a bit of "Live at the Apollo" where the guy was doing a joke about this saying that it would be good if the government allowed jokes about "the gays and transgendered", the example he cited was "if you take a girl home and find she has a cock you want to be able to have a good laugh about it".

In concert with the recent episode of the ITV show "Moving Wallpaper" which has probably been discussed to death on other blogs, I did feel a bit offended at the stereotype - particularly as both of these propogate stereotypes that are not true for myself or my close friends.

However, I quickly realised that this debate is really about censorship and is ultimately a test of my opinion that there such be universal freedom of speech. I remember reading the notes about a secure internet network that was completely against censorship and it cautioned that you must accept that there may be things on it that you may find offensive and you really had to believe that this is acceptable. It's hard to stick to this view when it's you that is being 'attacked'.

I don't buy the argument in the TV debate that the legislation is about "incitement" and not about jokes. It's very easy for someone offended by a joke to easily argue that it is inciting hatred in others without any absolute measure. Some would argue that a representative jury in such cases would convey the meaning of this that society in general accepts. Not sure this would happen and even if it did you're going to spend lots of money on jury trails for things that shouldn't be an issue.

Another example cited in the programme was a woman who write an opinion about gay couples adopting children; she was phoned by the police and questioned after someone (presumably gay or disagreeing with her point) complained. This shouldn't happen. Just as I want to be free to live my life and hold my opinions without interference I have to say I strongly support the right of others to do the same, even if there are contrary to my views.

Again, the legislation seems to be seeking to prosecute on "thought crime". I don't like being sniggered at or joked about, it hurts. However, I do have the power to joke and snigger at the people that do that to me for being small-minded, low-IQ, bigots. As long as both sides stop at writing/talking then I guess that is just something that has to be tolerated and society needs to mature as a whole.

Everything at the moment seems to be about protecting people from themselves in some ways - what they read, see, hear. At the slightest offence there is the knee-jerk reaction to ban anything that may repeat the same experience. And this is from all groups, it's almost like you are only officially a minority if you can get your own legislation banning hate speech about you.

Enough is enough.

Money, time, and effort would be better spent on tackling people that commit actual crimes that really do hurt people (abuse, violence against LGBT people for example) and on positive education about different lifestyles and tolerance than trying to stop people thinking/saying what is on their mind.

As the saying goes "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" - stop trying to twist that last bit by saying "Ah, but they can if ... " (insert "they incite hatred" etc after that) and take it literally and move forward.