Recently in Politics Category

[insert typical "sorry I don't blog here more often" paragraph]

The fact of the matter is that I am still writing, rather a lot, over at Making Light, a blog owned by my friends Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden¹.

This is kind of unfair to everyone who keeps looking here for news of me. I know this. I'm going to start doing pointers to Making Light when I've posted something there that people here might be interested in, and hanging out here for people who want to talk about those things with me rather than a large crowd of strangers².

My most recent post is about the quilt that I made this spring: Works and Days of Hands. It's also about the process of making something like that, and how process and design mirrored each other for me.

Another post I really enjoyed writing was Op anger tale, which is an exploration of the relationship between a particular Dutch dialect and Wikipedia.

One thing I've been talking about over there, rather a lot, has been the US health care situation. The conversation can get quite heated from time to time, of course, but that heat has certainly caused me to clarify and reaffirm my own beliefs in this matter.

• Pushing Back
• Been lied to so long you wouldn't know the truth if it came up and kissed you on the mouth
• Fighting fire with fire: an email forward
• I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours
• Touching back to principles

I wrote this in November, on a thread about what to call the war. It's actually the second -- the first was silly, and I am not minded to post silliness today.

This sonnet quotes quite extensively from one of my favourite poems, Mending Wall, by Robert Frost. It was one of my attempts to recast another poem into sonnet meter and rhyme. Both the octave and the sestet start off with Frost quotes, like a touchstone:

and

I have always used Frost's poem as a metaphor for the intellectual distinctions we make to parse the world, and the need to make those distinctions intelligently and thoughtfully. It is only now, writing this entry, that I realise that he wrote it in 1915, when the First World War was already underway. Though that conflict is far from his verse, I find this interesting.

This was written on Bonfire Night, 2006. I watched the fireworks with the children, then came inside to warm up and read some of the history of Guy Fawkes and his plot.

History can be as comforting as it is unsettling.

In technical terms, this is an okay sonnet. There is very little "turn" in this one, between the octave and the sestet. The only real transition is from the scene at the start to the message in the conclusion. The couplet does sum things up nicely. But the language is never clever, or particularly powerful.

In terms of content, this is a sonnet I believe in very deeply indeed. I think we exist in a historical context, and that it is important for us to remember that in the choices we make. I think (looking backward) civilisation has faced worse challenges than we face now, and (looking forward) that we owe it to the future not to overreact, or sell out our principles.

I have lived in the United Kingdom for 12 1/2 years now, nearly all of my adult life. I have, however, always held myself a little apart from the people around me, partly because I am an American and they are British. And I am distinctly American - my accent betrays me every time I speak, and I have a very American political philosophy. (This is in reference to the idea that sovereignity derives from the consent of the governed, for instance, and the idea that liberties rest with the citizens unless those citizens consent to surrender them for the greater good. It does not mean I think that politics should be spiteful, mean and rude.)

I have lost a little of that separation today. I have become a British citizen.

Why?

The whole process started with an immigration official in Stansted Airport when we were coming back from France last summer. After querying me about the terms of my residency here, he suggested I look into naturalisation and handed me a leaflet with the Home Office URL. I was a bit staggered - wasn't his job to keep people out?

An EU passport would be handy, though, because we are talking about a move to the Netherlands in 2007. Right of abode throughout Europe is not to be lightly set aside.

Why Not?

My major concern was with my American citizenship, because I am not keen to lose that. But a little research, including the US consular site, revealed that the American government does not deem the taking up of a non-exclusive foreign citizenship as the renunciation of one's American citizenship. (It's different if one's new citizenship requires one to renounce all previous allegiances, like the Japanese - and the Americans themselves - do. But the Brits do not require that.) They don't like it, but they allow it.

A minor, but still persistent, point was the requirement to swear allegiance to the Queen. The full text of the things I had to say today is:

I (name) swear by Almighty God that on becoming a British citizen, I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, her Heirs and Successors, according to law.

I will give my loyalty to the United Kingdom and respect its rights and freedoms. I will uphold its democratic values. I will observe its laws faithfully and fulfil my duties and obligations as a British citizen.

The second paragraph is fine. Absolutely. The first took some thought, both because of a profound discomfort with the notion of personal loyalty to the sovereign, and because I am not naturally a monarchist.

But the way I parse the oath (there is an alternative "affirmation" version for those who do not wish to swear, or do not wish to mention Almighty God, but it parses the same) is that the last clause ("according to law") modifies the entire sentence. That's why there's a comma before it. So my true and faithful allegiance is limited by, and defined by, the law. The Queen is an office-holder, even if she is born into it rather than elected into it.

But what of the office itself? Americans are as wholeheartedly monarchist as, say, ancient Romans. But remember what happened to them - they ended up with Augustus "restoring the republic" by turning it into an Imperium. And, watching the current Executive Branch grab at primacy in the US system, I'm not sure we Americans don't yearn for some sort of monarch to tell us what to do as well.

As monarchies go, the British one is remarkably powerless. In theory, the sovereign can dismiss a prime minister or dissolve Parliament. In practice, she can do that once, and the next day the UK will be a republic. But while Queen Elizabeth is on the throne, no one else can be. She is an effective blocker of any claim to absolute (political) power, while simultaneously excercising none herself. (Thanks to my university friend James for pointing this one out.)

Practical Considerations and Tests Evaded

So, having assuaged my moral qualms, I sent in my application for citizenship in October. My timing was close - had I sent it in in November, I would have had to sit a test on British life. I was one of many, too - 57,000 others wanted to avoid the test as well. Despite reports of slow processing, with some responses expected to take till June, I got my reply back within the 4-month pre-rush average.

Then I booked my "citizenship ceremony" by ringing up the City Council offices. As an American, I was bemused by the reaction, or lack thereof, of the staff. Had I called an American local government office to book the US equivalent ceremony, someone, somewhere along the line, would have said "congratulations." Here, it's like booking your car in for a service.

Martin, in deference to my American-style emotional engagement in this whole process, took the day off and took me out to lunch before the ceremony. We showed up in good time and sat in the city chambers till about 10 minutes after the hour, when Edinburgh's Lord Provost (a woman, as it happens, but the title does not change) came in. She gave a wee speech, the chief registrar gave a wee speech, and then we all stood up and mumbled through the oath and pledge. We were each then called up to shake hands with the Lord Provost, get our certificates, and get our pictures taken. Then we all had tea and biscuits.

But What Does it All Mean?

The British government introduced these ceremonies to try to give a stronger sense of identity to the new citizens. I think it does that, a little, but I am not convinced that the Brits are really interested in an American-style citizenship model. I encounter a lot of bemusement among my British friends about the test of British life, for instance - no one is sure what would go on such a test, or whether they themselves would agree with the "right" answers. And this lack of enthusiasm, which I first really noted in booking the ceremony, pervaded the whole event. The oath and affirmation were murmured rather than proclaimed, and the Lord Provost had to prompt people to applaud each new citizen as she presented the certificates.

Basically, the Brits aren't entirely sure what citizenship means to them. For instance, the Lord Provost's speech made no reference whatsoever to anything expressed in that oath I agonised about it. She spoke almost exclusively to the Pledge about upholding the UK's traditions of rights and freedoms. The Registrar was a little more forthcoming, managing to mention the "sovereign" twice, and there was a picture of the Queen looking benevolent in the room. But the monarchy was clearly not the heart of the ceremony. The ideas of respect and inclusiveness, both much mentioned in the speeches, didn't ring true either (they are neologisms in the political discourse), though the very ethnically and religiously mixed crowd needed to hear them.

In the end, I don't know what being British means to me, or to anyone there. I thought it would sum up something of these last 12 years for me, give me a label for that half of me that is not American, but it doesn't. There is no summary, no single easy definition, apart from that gentle, mild unease with the pretense of certainty that an easy definition would give.

Picture here. I would also like to express my gratitude to Jules and Fiona, who told the Home Office I was a good person despite the evidence to the contrary.

So today the new Civil Parterships Act comes into effect in the UK. The Beeb calls them Gay Weddings, but even their FAQ on the matter admits they're not.

Before we get too het up on the marriage/not marriage distinction, though, the reasons civil partnerships are not marriage are:

• They can be conducted in private. Civil marriages are public matters, with both partners signing the register simultaneously and saying certain words. A civil partnership is formed when the second partner signs the papers, even if that happens at a different time or place than the first signature.
• There is no religious connotation to a civil partnership. In this land of the established church, a Church of Scotland minister can officiate at a wedding and have it be binding. S/he cannot do the same for a civil partnership. (This does not ban religious ceremonies for civil partnerships. Ministers of non-established churches - and mosques, and temples - have religious ceremonies for weddings, but the legal marriage is not formed without intervention of a registrar.)
• No one wanted to be the politician who legalised gay marriage.

Nonetheless, I've skipped through most of the Act, and it's all there. Formation, dissolution, degrees of relationship, adoption, intestacy, insurance benefits, next of kin, pension rights, immigration... Most of the text of the law is actually a series of insertions, reading over and over again, "For 'husband or wife' read 'husband or wife or civil partner'."

On the surface, looking out over the nation today, all is quiet. No one much was talking about civil partnerships, though all the papers had stories on the subject. The chat at the office was about the lack of large cups at the coffee cart, who was getting kicked off of the reality TV show, and of course the weather.

But the first ripples of change are coming. Asda will apparently be stocking "Mr and Mr" and "Mrs and Mrs" cards. The Times has added a Civil Partnerships column to its "Births, Deaths and Marriages" page. My employer posted a vocabulary chart for the new terminology ("divorce" is now "divorce or dissolution") so that our personnel forms can be updated consistently.

And the world spectacularly failed to end. I didn't really expect it would, just because more of my fellow travellers on the biggest adventure of my life are now share my rights.

But I admit I had hoped for some dancing in the streets.

Lessons from history: the Titanic

1. Engineering can't prevent disasters. All it can do is make them less likely and make their impacts less severe. Water, in particular, always finds a way in. Plan accordingly.
2. Everybody gets a seat on the lifeboat. Anything else - like an evacuation plan that only saves people with access to a car - is criminal.

At least when the Titanic sank, rescue was prompt.

That is all I can bear to post about Hurricane Katrina. I know no one from New Orleans, yet the whole affair breaks my heart. I regret that I never saw it in its former glory, but I would trade a lifetime of longing to see it for the lives that were lost.

...to what is important. The more they hit us, the more they try to frighten us, the tighter we hold on to it.

What do we hold so tight?

community

bombs don't care who you are, but your neighbours do

justice

even if revenge would feel better

freedom

though it expose us to future danger

courage

Britain has been here before

love

even in the face of hate

Peace, dear people.

...I've joined the Establishment.

Yesterday (July 4th) was the day we were all worried about in Edinburgh, the day the anarchists planned (?) to rally in advance of the G8. Being anarchists, of course, they didn't exactly file for a parade permit.

The Carnival for Full Enjoyment was intended to protest against the capitalist system, wage slavery, and pretty much everything the G8 has ever done. The attendees (can't use the word organisers; they're anarchists) suggested some fun things - clowns, acrobatics, and drumming. The gist of the protest - as described - was to demonstrate that there is another way to run the world than the current capitalist doctrine. I'm in full agreement there.

Unfortunately, their proposals for "not this world" didn't include a lot of group self-control (yeah, yeah, anarchists, said that already), and not all of them were that keen on just enjoying the drumming. Some of them wanted to do the whole smashing and fighting thing. It didn't come across as a good advertisement for the alternatives to the current system.

The current system was represented, in this little drama, by the police.

Now, the policing strategy in Edinburgh for the G8 has focused on letting people have their say, where they want to say it, if they can do so safely and without collateral damage. They let almost a quarter of a million people dressed in white encircle the city centre¹ on Saturday for the Make Poverty History march. Saturday went off peacefully².

On Monday, the police were using the same approach. I saw the carnival as I went home that afternoon. The police were letting people have their fun, if they could do it safely. Sadly, things turned violent³. The protestors blamed the police for provocation⁴; the police blamed the protestors for throwing paving stones, benches and staves.

And I believe the police side of the story.

I saw the operation as I passed by, saw the cops using horses and walls of riot shields to control and slow crowd movements, to keep the groups from massing too greatly. I also saw them letting uninvolved civilians get across the public spaces and through the guarded gates, so our lives weren't too disrupted. I saw them letting the party go on but keeping the mob small. I saw that only a third to a half of the police had riot gear on; the remainder were wearing stab vests and flourescent yellow over their ordinary uniforms. And, of course, they were not carrying guns. I didn't see the fight begin, but that was what it was like before the trouble started.

And in the aftermath, even pro-protestor sites like Indymedia are struggling to find a lot of photos of police violence, or accounts of serious injury. That's because there wasn't much, for all the breathless press reportage about "baton charges" and "pitched battles". About 40 people were treated at hospital, with broken bones as the worst injuries. This in a confrontation where people were throwing park benches⁵.

So given the choice between anarchy, with drumming and clowning and no one asking the violent types to cool it down, and the current system, with police who let the peaceful speak and dance, but control the violent, I'm afraid I pick the current system. And that makes me Establishment.

I even stopped to thank a couple of police officers I saw on the street today. They did well.

1. This is an interesting contrast to the American government's idea of a "free speech zone" surrounded by barbed wire, miles from anything. Remind me who has a First Amendment?
2. Peaceful means two arrests, not from the main body of marchers. No injuries beyond blisters and overheating. No violence. That's an insanely good Saturday in the city, even in ordinary time.
3. Punches were thrown. Truncheons were swung. Things were thrown at the police. In the shooting people, water cannon, tear gas, and pepper spray league, this was a Sunday school picnic. No one died, was maimed, or was permanently injured. I've seen more violent Old Firm games on the telly, and been in more violent riots in Berkeley.
4. The use of the word provocation is interesting. Most of the protestors would not say that a woman can "provoke" a man to rape her by wearing a short skirt, but they allowed themselves to be "provoked" into violence by a line of men standing around looking like giant bugs.
5. As one of my colleagues pointed out, the benches in question are donated by private individuals to the city, for the enjoyment of all. They're often given in memory of loved ones, or in thanksgiving for years of happiness in Edinburgh, or to mark centenaries of civic organisations. Using them as missiles was not the way to win Edinburgh hearts and minds.

Martin and I have been married for 11 years and some months, most of our adult lives. Like any couple, we have moments of severe dissonance, when we look at one another and see strangers, or even enemies. Sometimes it's a decision one of us makes, sometimes it's disciplining the kids, sometimes it's the way money is spent or time allocated. It can affect our relationship with the outside world, or be a purely internal disagreement.

It's always painful.

The one of us observing, and reacting to, the word or deed in question may feel excluded, overridden, or disenfranchised. The consequences of a wrong choice may seem overwhelming and disastrous. The agent, meanwhile, will feel betrayed and defensive at having a good faith decision questioned.

Resolving these disagreements, finding common ground, and dealing with the risk of error are some of the most difficult tasks in any partnership. It's hard to listen to the objections of the overridden spouse; it's even harder to live with what seems to be a wrong choice by your partner. And maintaining the discipline to avoid recriminations or smugness (depending on how the controversial decision comes out) is yet another perennial task. Martin and I rarely achieve perfection in all these areas; we usually reach adequacy.

A small proportion of married people rarely face the challenge, either because they don't disagree or because they rigidly delegate responsibility. But for the vast majority of married couples, this is the source of such trouble, such strife and such grief, that they lose, for a time, the joy of their union and shared purpose Some can't overcome the alienation and start to see their partner as an opponent. That, of course, is the road to divorce court.

We who stay married endure these trials because we are richer with one another than alone, even when we are at odds. We work at marriage because we made a commitment, and because we share so much that cannot ever truly be separated. And when the quarrel ends, we savour the sweets of our union all the more because they are earned, not given, and because they are the greater for it.

Does all that make sense?

Right. Now read Republicans and Democrats in there instead of a married couple. The problems that plague my country in the aftermath of the election are the same as any couple in trouble: miscommunication, mistrust, and the sneaking suspicion that the other party isn't striving for the greater good. But even more than a marriage, a nation is all but indissoluble. We are one land and must learn to live together. The same principles of compromise, communication and determination that make a marriage work are needed to make the nation work.

Now go to it, guys.

Being an American abroad can be difficult sometimes. There's so much to defend, to explain, to demystify. Now is certainly one of those times; I spent a lot of yesterday failing in my earnest desire to discuss anything but the election.

My British colleagues asked, "Why?"

"Because," I replied, "They don't see the news you see."

The stories that don't make Fox, or Clear Channel, or the Murdoch press: the death of innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan, the erosion of the case for war, the French as a rational nation with a reasoned viewpoint. Bush the bumbler, Cheney the crook, Rumsfeld the hatchet man. Alert statuses changing from puce to chartreuse to teal whenever there's an awkward story to bury. Historical analyses of how Saddam Hussein came to power and was kept there; the deaths of Palestinians as well as Israelis; a positive view of Democrats.

"But, but, but, why? I don't understand."

"Because you don't see the news they see."

I don't see this news either, but I can make some guesses: Bush the charming, folksy man verses Kerry the cold, stiff intellectual. A judge who feels his allegiance to Christ supersedes his obligation to separate church and state. Gays lining up to marry in coastal states, intercut with deliberately shocking images of Gay Pride parades. World War 2 documentaries, the fall of the Soviet Union, the Reagan days. The 700 Club and Christian radio.

People who voted for Bush were not by definition idiots, or insane, or evil, as many people on the Net have stated in their anger and disappointment. They voted as sombrely, with as much thought, commitment and dedication, as the rest of the electorate. But their priorities, their aspirations, and their worldview are different from that of my Scottish colleagues, so different that there's almost no explaining it.

The lives they lead - or at least strive for - are classic Norman Rockwell. Small towns of good neighbors, where doors are not locked (or haven't been within living memory), where children go safely to school and families to church, where people work hard and value honesty and faith above money and power. Marriages last, teenagers don't get pregnant, no one has affairs or abortions, or suffers from domestic violence. There are no drugs, maybe not even alcohol. Summer vacations are spent at "the lake" (there always seems to be a lake); Christmas and Easter are religious holidays rather than just time off. When jobs are scarce and times are hard, everyone pulls together, and every funeral is followed by a succession of covered dishes. There are a lot of flags, and not just at the Fourth of July parade. Folks have no need to go to foreign places, because America is the best country in the world.

People may not live this way in real life, but a large proportion of Americans wish they did. I do, sometimes. And the Midwest, the farm states, are the custodians of this dream. They see themselves as the moral compass of the nation, the heart of the land. The coastal states are corrupted by their contact with foreign cultures, too much money, and too many intellectuals.

Kerry never spoke their language, though as a combat veteran he had an "in" that his East Coast lawyer image couldn't ruin. But Bush and his colleagues talk the talk, however little they walk the walk. And the anti-foreigner, anti-intellectual message has been underlined for years by Republican-owned media that panders to its viewership's biases. (Just as the New York media does, by the way, and the Californian, and the various flavors of British - a news channel that its viewers doesn't like doesn't survive.) A Midwestern voter could get up, switch off Fox News, listen to Clear Channel on the way to the polling station, and vote the way his pastor suggested (using copious Bible references), with a clear conscience. It all made sense; all the inputs hung together.

I don't know how to change the Midwest, or whether it would be a good idea to try. I don't think anyone has the right to but the Midwesterners themselves. Perhaps the Internet, with its wider spectrum of news available, will broaden views (though it's equally possible that it will simply consolidate them around a few conservative websites). Perhaps, as with Clinton's "The Economy, Stupid" message, some unifying problem will cause the heartland to vote for someone who is more palatable to the rest of the nation and the world.

I do know, however, that berating Bush supporters, calling them stupid, or ignoring their reasons for voting as they did will not get their votes in the future. Once the hurt has died down, I hope the rest of us can distinguish between the voters and their candidate. (Just as I distinguish between our soldiers, whom I respect, and the people who sent them to war, whom I criticize.) As an American expat, I may oppose any attempt to pare down our Constitutional rights, may cringe at what Bush says and does on the world stage, and may very well worry for the future he builds. But I'll still be defending Bush voters to my British friends and colleagues.

E Pluribus Unum

As part of my desire to encourage a little more civility in American politics, I have decided to give a gift to someone whose politics I disagree with. Specifically, I'm sending a handbound copy of the Constitution to President George W. Bush.

I was going to be sarcastic about it, and say something about the rules of good gift-giving. After all, you're supposed to give people something that they might find useful, for instance at work, and something that they don't appear to own already.

But really, that sort of commentary is pretty nasty and counterproductive. And I think this is a matter more for sincerity than nastiness. So here's the text of the letter I'm sending along with the binding. The language is a little stiff and florid, but the feeling behind it is sincere.

Dear Mr President,

I am an American citizen, although I have been living in the United Kingdom for almost eleven years. Living abroad has given me an interesting perspective on our shared identity as Americans, particularly with regard to our Constitution. It really is a unique and valuable document, one that has made our country what it is today.

I am concerned, therefore, by the ways in which your current policies do not reflect the values enshrined in this foundation of our nation's law. I know that, as President, you must find a balance between the security of our fellow citizens and the culture of liberty that America values. I am sure you are sincere in the choices you have made. Unfortunately, I cannot agree with those choices, which seem to me to undermine many of our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms.

I am particularly worried by the lack of trials for some citizens suspected of terrorism, the chilling effect that use of "free speech zones" has on the First Amendment rights of people who disagree with you, and the drive to use the Constitution to limit peoples' freedoms and the states' rights to legislate with regard to marriage. I am also concerned by our frequent disregard of the Geneva conventions, either by the reclassification of prisoners or by a simple failure to follow its rules.

If we are to be the beacon of liberty to the world that we hope we are, then America must take the lead in defending peoples' freedoms, both inside and outside of our borders. Peaceful, secure people do not as a rule join terrorist organizations; people who feel that their culture and religion are under attack may very well do so. By working in isolation and appearing to target Islam as a whole, we are the terrorists' best recruiting incentive.

As a token of my regard for the Constitution and the ideals it expresses, I am sending you the enclosed leatherbound copy of this most important document. I created it myself, using traditional fine binding techniques. If you prefer not to keep it, I would appreciate its donation to an educational institution, where it can inform and educate another generation of Americans.

Very Truly Yours,

Abi Sutherland

I plan to post the book and letter on Tuesday (post offices are closed tomorrow). Normally, I wouldn't post pictures and binding notes on a gift before the recipient has seen it. But I doubt that President Bush reads this blog, so I'm unlikely to spoil the surprise. (If I have, I'm sorry, George!)

Menin. Rage. Homer opens the Iliad as I'd like to open this blog entry, but smooth English grammar doesn't permit it. But rage, anger, wrath, fury, is what I want to talk about here.

I'm American, but I've lived in the UK for over a decade. I've seen a way of conducting political (or religious, or philisophical) debate that most Americans don't see, and that makes me worry about my native country.

My mother went to Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park on her most recent visit over here. The speakers and their audience were all discussing religion, both Islam and Christianity. All of the debaters were passionate about their faiths, and varied widely in their views. But, my mother commented, "It was so good-natured. We could never have something like that in the States. Someone would get lynched." And she's right.

I've seen it in politcal debates online (witness the furore over entries on The Daily Kos and the thing with Kathryn Cramer, to name but two). I've seen it in the intensive partisanship that deadlocks Capitol Hill. I've seen it in media coverage, and media coverage of media coverage. I've seen it in real life, and I've felt it myself. There's an undercurrent of eye-popping, vein-throbbing, fist-clenching and red-seeing anger in the way my fellow countrymen discuss important issues.

In British politics, I've seen Tories and Old Labour politicians, whose positions are further apart than anything you'll see in the American mainstream, debate with humor and wit. I've also seen them sling insults and sarcasm at one another without losing the plot. An entire British political institution, Prime Minister's Question Time, where the PM has to answer questions put by the opposition, in public, every week, with extra added heckling from the back benches, would not be possible in the US. Everyone would take it all too seriously and someone would burst a blood vessel.

No, not just seriously. Everyone would take it personally. The blogwars differ from the rest of US political debate not in nature but in degree, so an examination of them is useful. A typical blogwar starts with a provocative comment, followed by a reader of the opposite view losing his temper and posting some inflammatory trackback on his own site. Then a reader of the reader gets steamed and goes back to the original blog with an offer to wipe the grin off the writer's face with a belt sander. Somewhere down the line someone took a political issue personally. US political debate usually takes more steps and ends well short of belt sander threats, but the transition from abstract to personal, from factual to furious, is the same. Read the editorials and letters of the SF Chron for a view of the polarity between the two sides. (Note that I don't need to indicate a particular date's opinion pages. It's the same every day.)

This transatlantic difference leads to transatlantic misunderstandings. There is a perception in the US that the international media are "biased" against America. No doubt some media outlets are. But, at least in the UK, the media are "biased" against, in other words, critical of, pretty much everyone. Some of it's a feeling that it is the duty of the Fourth Estate to question the powers that be. Some of it's that conflict and scandal sell papers. Some of it is that the people who work in the media like that sort of conflict - that's why they work in the media. Whatever the reason, the mainstream news sources over here use a harsher grade of investigative and invective sandpaper than their equivalents in the States. But because these things aren't automatically personal, and aren't taken as such, the system works.

Now, there is a valid argument that serious matters require serious discussion. Wars, death, money, politics - these are no laughing matter. Europeans, with a cynical smile for every issue, are preceived as being careless, ineffective, and effete. It's like that little smile that Alex gets when he's being really defiant and difficult. Taking things lightly like that is bad. We must be serious. That's all very well until seriousness leads to over-seriousness and a personal identification with the cause under discussion. Then an attack on a position is an attack on the person holding the position, and we're back to rage and thoughts of power tools.

What we're not doing, when we get angry, is listening to the other side. And without listening, there can be no discussion, no cooperation, no compromise, no peace. So please, can we laugh a bit, and let go of the wrath?

Q: What do weapons of mass destruction have to do with cot death?

A: In both areas, the "experts" evaluating the evidence and acting on their conclusions have caused enormous devastation. Then, after the fact, that evaluation has proven wrong.

Why? I have an insight that may be useful.

I've held a number of jobs in my working life. The three that I've spent the longest at, though, are paralegal (2 years), financial auditor (3 years) and software tester (7 years and counting). Though they seem quite varied, they have one common factor: they're all about the evaluation of evidence.

Lawyers and paralegals, of course, work with evidence all the time: gathering it, presenting it, writing about it. There's no pretense of neutrality. A trial lawyer's job (aided by paralegals) is to find evidence that supports one particular view, and to discount evidence that doesn't.

Financial auditors are, on the surface of it, very different from lawyers. They go into companies at the year end and check the financial accounts those companies produce. Each stage of the audit is made up of tests on certain aspects of the accounts, whether it be a stock count to ensure that the inventory numbers are correct, or a check of reconciliation procedures to allow the auditors to rely on internal financial systems. And for each stage of the audit, we used to state the specific object of the test. I still remember the format.

The public used to percieve auditors as unbiased and neutral (possibly even stringent and difficult to satisfy), but of course the scandals of recent years (the Maxwell empire, Baring's, Enron) changed all that. Everyone knows the subtle, unstated pressure that the auditors are under when they go into a company, particularly one which pays the firm's consultancy arm large fees. It's almost unheard of for a Big Five firm to refuse to sign off a set of accounts.

Learning about software testing allowed me to see consciously what I knew unconsciously already. The audit process is biased in favour of approval, and any such bias makes an enormous difference to the results obtained. This is a phenomenon that testers are painfully aware of - it's the reason that software has to be independently tested.

To quote one of the foundational books on software testing (The Art of Software Testing, by Glenford J Myers¹):

"Since human beings tend to be highly goal-oriented, establishing the proper goal has an important psychological effect. If our goal is to demonstrate that a program has no errors, then we shall tend to select test data that have a low probability of finding errors. On the other hand, if our goal is to demonstrate that a program has errors, our test data will have a higher probability of finding errors."

Reread the sample "object of test" above in the light of that quote. What is the goal of the test? Is it to find "bugs" in the accounts, or to establish that they aren't there? How likely does that make it that we would find errors?

The most successful software testing teams are the ones who take a skeptical, or even hostile, attitude toward code quality. IBM's infamous "Black Team" took this to extremes, dressing in sinister clothes, cheering when they found bugs, and deliberately striking fear into the hearts of the programmers whose code they tested. The reliability of mainframe operating code is their legacy - we wouldn't have a hope of achieving "six nines" (99.9999%) availaibility had they not found the bugs they did.

So if bias affects results, how then do we view Professor Meadows and his eponymous Law ("One cot death is a tragedy, two is a coincidence, and three is murder unless proven otherwise.")? His testimony has jailed women since acquitted of the deaths of their children, and caused authorities to remove babies from their parents, sometimes permanently. Yet statisticians claim that he took a "stamp collecting" attitude toward evidence, including the cases that supported his views and overlooking the others. And given the above axiom, how did he approach the deaths of children, when asked to testify at their mothers' trials?

How a similar bias could affect the officials of two governments, when considering whether to send in the tanks, is left as an exercise for the student. But it begs the question: will any enquiry that focuses on the evidence, rather than the objectives of the people evaluating that evidence, really explain the conclusions that led to war?

1. This is listed at $150.00 on Amazon at the moment. That's pretty expensive, even for a computer book, but this one's worth it. It's 177 pages long and has been indispensible since its publication in 1979...quite a contrast to Martin's Microsoft exam books, which can run to over a thousand pages and are obsolete before the ink dries.

So the finger-pointing about weapons of mass destruction rages on. Did Iraq have any? If so, where are they? If not, why did Saddam Hussein not co-operate with the inspectors? Did the British and American governments mislead their voters about the evidence? Did the intelligence services mislead the governments? We await further information with bated breath.

In the meantime, though, the pro-war lobby has fallen back on Plan B to justify the whole exercise: Saddam Hussein was a Bad Man. He did Bad Things to the people of Iraq. So we were justified in removing him. For short, I'll call this the Bad Man doctrine.

The Bad Man doctrine is very appealing. It purports to make the world a better place by removing tyrannical regimes and replacing them with kinder, gentler ones. It is illegal, of course, under international law, but so are so many things that go on in politics.

But there are two very fundamental objections that I can see to the Bad Man doctrine.

1. The first problem is that one country's Bad Man is another country's strong leader, doing the difficult thing in difficult times. Who's the Bad Man in the Israel-Palestine conflict, for instance? We saw this a lot in the Cold War, when the definition of a Bad Man was mostly based on the political and economic ties between his opposition and the country doing the judging. This led to democratically elected but communist leaders like Allende being deposed for capitalist tyrants like Pinochet. Nor were the Soviet policies any more defensible: think Prague Spring, for instance.
2. The second difficulty is that, even if we can agree a definition of a Bad Man that is more based in the interests of his victims than his politics or personal fortune, what do we do about it? There is no country in the world with the desire or the resources to sort out every murderous regime in the world. The Coalition of the Willing, for disparate reasons, supported the invasion of Iraq. How big a Coalition are we going to get to displace Mugabi from Zimbabwe, or the military junta in Burma? Unless the Bad Man doctrine is enforced consistently, it's like the loitering and vagrancy laws in some American states - an excuse for pursuing private agendas, or for arresting people on insufficient evidence. We'd have to invent a Really Bad Man doctrine, and then we'd be back at problem one again.

Count me out.

I'd rather we faced the situation and told the truth. If there were no weapons of mass destruction, then the coalition has egg on its face. If there were, then we can debate the legalities of the war as it was presented to us. And if the politicians lied to the people, or the spooks lied to the politicians, then it's time for some heads to roll.

(Don't get me started on the Doctrine of Preemption...)