(no subject)

[chess]

First, a practical thing: does anyone know much about chiropody in Cambridge? I appear to have ingrowing toenails which keep being ingrowing again after I attack them viciously with toenail-cutting implements, and I'd like to find someone competent to work out what's gone wrong, but I don't really know how to go about this without it costing lots of money.

Second, http://www.politicalsurvey2005.com/ is a very good website, and reminds me why I am distinctly puzzled how otherwise perfectly nice people can vote Tory, given their vast preference for the 'hanging/flogging' and 'free market' end of the scale. The free market is not very nice (it promotes inequality which makes people resentful, it means some people starve whilst others live in luxury, it is *not very nice*) and punishing criminals rather than trying to rehabilitate them is also not very nice. I probably have more cogent arguements why each is a bad idea, but fundamentally I object to them because they are Not Very Nice.

Thirdly, it's springtime and sunny, but everything still feels and tastes like dust and ashes to me. I just walked out of church this morning and went home because I felt I was harming the important things that were going on there (lots of prayer for the summer mission and some people going out to do primary healthcare stuff in rural India) just by being there. I'm not really sure what's wrong; I just have that big cloak of cobwebs back.

Comments

[requiem-17-23.livejournal.com]

Sorry for the party political broadcast above... ^^;

The idea of conservatism is that it's the philosophy of choosing the 'least bad' alternative. Punishing criminals is Not Very Nice, but concentrating upon rehabilitation has a distinctly dodgy record as a deterrent - which is, after all, why crimes are punished at all. There's a middle ground.

The free market is Not Very Nice, which is why we have taxes - at their basic level, they are the government enforcing you giving to charities that help the poor. But the alternative to a free market, well, that is Even Worse. Again, there's a middle ground. The parties argue over where that middle ground is.

The site... I found many of its questions rather oversimplified. I guess that may be a symptom of my generic view that The World Is More Complicated Than That.

I guess that the conservative philosophy that I subscribe to could be stated as "It would be nice if People were nice. They aren't."

[naath.livejournal.com]

If people were nice we wouldn't need a system. Employers would pay a fair wage and charitable institutions would take care of the poor and needy - the Libertarians appear to believe that we are nice... I disagree. If we were nice then communists would split everything up so everyone had enough and people with enough would be happy...

We aren't nice. We need regulating. But the torries are wrong about what regulating we need...

Or rather the Tories are racist, homophobic,sexist pieces of shit (the ones in charge are anyway) and I'm not voting for anyone who thinks I'm a second class citizen. Which is a totally different issue to how much tax we ought to pay and what it needs to be spent on and since everyone is going to raise taxes and spend it on health care, education and invading the middle east I'd rather vote according to who has the most agreeable social policies.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

We aren't nice. We need regulating.

Then we will necessarily be regulated by the non-nice. Doesn't sound much fun.

[passage.livejournal.com]

Have you read any of the disc world Guards books? I'm thinking particularly of the Vimes character in the later books.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

Yes, but not for years; why?

[passage.livejournal.com]

The character Vimes has the responsibility of enforcing 'niceness' on the population, and is very aware that he is not nice. That tension of how fallen policemen operate in a fallen world is worked out, ultimately to satisfactory conclusions.

I think the point might be that if you know everyone's 'not nice' (to continue using the rather weak langauge of the original) and that includes you, then you do actually know (or at least have some idea) of what 'nice' is, and can work towards it. In an unstructured setting groups can become mobs which is a terrible thing, but rightly managed the behaviour of a group can be considerably 'nicer' than the behaviour of its individuals would be.

'Tell me, sir Samuel, do you know the phrase "Quis custodiet isos custodes?"? (...) It means "Who guards the guards themselves?" (...) Who watches the Watch?'
'Oh that's easy sir, we watch one another'