@KA

 

1) For sure, "others" could contend that individual and collective rights should be equal, or worse, that the latter should be superior to the former.  But those others are blind to empirical observable realities, both in terms of realities in Europe's history as in terms of countries around the world today.     

Pre-Enlightenment Europe did have separate legal systems for different 'groups'.  Perhaps the single greatest constitutional achievement of the 18th century (in both Europe and the US) was the recognition of the DIRECT and EQUAL status of each individual citizen before the law.  The 'real' French Revolution occurred when the Etats Generaux, representing the clergy, nobility (Monarchist take note!) and the commonality as corporate bodies, dissolved and transformed itself into an Assemblee Nationale claiming to represent directly ALL citizens. 

A constitutional and legal system that defines RIGHTS based upon any 'community' identification (be it racial, religious, ethnic or whatever) can no longer be considered a 'genuine' democracy.  Permitting any portion of the body politic to have its legal rights defined by narrow 'community' identification, rather than by (common) citizenship, would be a giant step backwards for Western countries.  It would be a return to the 18th century, or to systems one can find today in 'relatively-liberal' muslim-dominated countries like Malaysia and Jordan.  These are not "genuine" democracies, although they can still compare favorably to the actual practice in many countries around the world where 'impartial and neutral' law exists only on paper.  Take Russia for instance today.....  

2) "Collective mechanisms" should never be used to "oppress" anyone (neither members of own group, nor of other groups).  I have no illusions about the intent of many members of minorities, socialist members of the majority, etc....to either create such new collective mechanisms or preserve existing ones.  The only way in which any new generation can preserve genuine democracy and uphold constitutional protections for all, is to reject such "collective mechanisms".   If you do not, then you are no better than the dhimmi Archbishop of Canterbury.

3) No, a state must be (and can ONLY be) underpinned by the patriotism of one common 'nation', which does not preclude sub-cultures to some degree.  And the only proper raison d'etre for the state is to promote and preserve individual freedom and the welfare of all its citizens.

4) Indeed, a 'democratic' constitution will require some (rare) revision over time.  But if 'rule of law' is to be maintained then the revisions will have to follow the relevant provisions (for change) contained in the Constitution itself.  To abandon the rule of law of a democratic polity wil open the door to arbitrariness, and will not preserve a 'democratic' constitution.  

5) The way to prevent "chaos" is to maintain rule of law in a liberal democracy.  To allow a slide into 'illiberal democracy' is to ensure future tyranny.

6) Yes, people need to aspire to ideals, including one of common culture and of citizenship.  The surest way to achieve and maintain an overarching common 'national' culture is through insistance on a common "nondiscriminatory legal system".  It defies common sense to think that one could "assimilate" different people and minority cultures through explicit legal "discrimination".  That is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.   If "it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world...But for Wales!" (Robert Bolt in "A Man for All Seasons") it does not make sense to abandon 'rule of law' in a futile illusory attempt to turn men into angels.  It is profoundly disturbing that a 'conservative' like yourself continues to use the destructive language of the marxist professoriat that came out of the 1960's, and that is a major cause of the current 'people's displacement' that you (and Armor) so ardently decry.   

I. I appreciate the vehemence of your declaration that justice must be individual-centric and superior to, although not precluding collective rights. However, this is your personal opinion on the matter. Others would contend that individual and collective rights should be equal; still others that the latter are in fact superior to the former.

 

II. You naïvely assume that historically "victimised" minorities are desirous of promoting individual rights and dismantling collective ones, as the latter mechanisms were used to oppress them. Unfortunately, this is not usually the case. These minorities, far from deconstructing these mechanisms, seek to acquire control of them in order to advance their collective status, often at the expense of their former "abuser". Not unlike the majority of socialists I encounter, you are under the misguided impression that "losers" are more virtuous than "winners".

III. I did not make the distinction between "true citizens" and "citizens"; on the contrary I observed that others may do so. Citizenship is more than merely a legal-rational conferment: it has de facto and de jure aspects, which cannot diverge too far. Similarly, states must be underpinned by nations lest they lose their raison d'être.

IV. As regards the necessity of constitutions to the sustainability of democracy, I would contend that constitutions can in certain instances constrain democracy according to the ideologies and norms that shaped the constitution in question. Over time constitutions require revision in order to enable the society that abides by it to adapt to change. Often, adhering to the constitution at some point no longer serves the society's interests, and like the many that preceded it, the constitution is struck down.

V. Democracies need not be liberal to be democratic. If illiberal democracies are undemocratic due to their potential to evolve into undemocracies, then liberal democracies are equally prone to devolving into anarchic chaos.

 

VI. This "sufficient support for maintenance of an overarching common culture" is not accomplished through a "nondiscriminatory legal system". It is accomplished through the creation and promotion of the culture and question and by assimilating immigrants and minority cultures into it, a process that involves discrimination. American culture, for instance, was never designed to be a snapshot of the existing cultural milieu; it was an unapolagetic, elitist and idealistic conception of a culture to which all American citizens could aspire to, irrespective of their other affinities.

It is difficult to imagine this ever being allowed to happen.  The concept is so over the top and Politically Correct, how could any rational person think this would be legal?

 

“Now, if Labour’s obnoxious plan were to succeed, our people would be legally excluded from standing for Parliament in the constituency of their choice for the party of their choice simply because of the white colour of their skin.”

@ KA

 

1) Any human conception of "justice" must be centered on the individual human being.  This does not preclude important considerations of "collective rights".  But the latter must ALWAYS be secondary to primary fundamental individual HUMAN rights.  For example, no "collective right" can be invoked to justify the violation of basic individual rights for 'innocent' individuals.  Such invocation would be 'injustice'.   And injust societies, i.e. where individual citizens are not equal before the law, have no moral 'legitimacy'.  Needless to say, the legalistic pharisees of the United Nations will not agree.  Their conception of "injustice" will be largely driven by 'convenience', not clear principle.

2) You are mistaken.  I am not ignorant of the realities and imperfections in many so-called 'democracies', nor of the realities in the more numerous nondemocracies in the world.  Any "institutionalised discrimination" would be antithetical to 'democracy' itself.  With your 'blind' adoption of the language of the naive-left merchants of 'victimisation culture', you are the one who is confusing "perceptions" with reality.  Yes, there is little doubt that some major ethnic minorities in white-majority western countries tend to behave and vote in unprincipled ways (i.e. in both collectivist and even racist ways) more than the whites do.  However, that does NOT prove "institutionalised discrimination".  In fact, it should be taken as a sign of almost the opposite, for it often (not necessarily) reflects a demand for such discrimination-in-law.  Only to the extent that the political system as a whole, the 'polity' if you will, responds by institutionalising such 'racism' in the legal system can it be said that 'democracy' is being undermined.  Which is precisely why Harriet Harman's report should be rejected.

3) Indeed, I keep using the term "genuine democracy", and on numerous occasions I have clarified that term with specific criteria to measure it.  I do not claim to possess the full truth in that regard, only a reasonable claim to a major part of it.  By contrast, you continue to 'sidestep' the issue, or ignore it when it might conflict with your ethnic/racist obsession.  And, of course, many others go even futher and abuse the term "democracy" to denote what is manifestly the opposite, e.g. the former DDR or the current Democratic Republic of the Congo etc...

4)  No, your distinction between "true citizens" and other "citizens" is absurd.  Citizenship is a legal term which MUST be defined by clear objective criteria.  Citizenship can not depend on arbitrary fashions about what is "regarded" as such.   One is a citizen, or one is not a citizen.  But it cannot be that one is "regarded" a citizen today, but not tomorrow.  Such inconstancy would be a clear mark or indication of injustice.  Once again, when people form a democracy with (or under) a 'democratic' Constitution, they have to follow that Constitution faithfully.  If they do not, they are losing their democracy, such as Belgium in our time. 

5) Indeed, liberal democracy must be individual-centric, lest it becomes an illiberal one, which is a prelude to nondemocracy or autocracy or worse.  There is ample historical empirical evidence that liberal democracy can cope with diverse sub-cultures and or sub-collectivities, as long as there is sufficient support for maintenance of an overarching common culture, which as a minimum requires the maintenance of a nondiscriminatory legal system.  Please, do not confuse misbehavior by many "in the political realm" with the actual legal system in place. 

I. Unfortunately for your conception of justice, the majority of Western countries have hybridised legal systems accounting for both individual and collective rights.

 

II. Also unfortunately, you are ignorant that historical and contemporary individual and institutionalised discrimination, has denied socio-economic and political access and opportunities to various minorities in various Western countries. Although liberal democracies are theoretically designed for the individual and not the collectivity, ethnic representation is an issue for historically oppressed minority groups e.g. African-Americans in the United States. If the current American primaries are any indication, African-Americans and Hispanics are far more collectivist than Whites precisely due to their perceived collective grievances.

 

III. You continually refer to "guine democracy". In the words of Gordon Gekko, a fictitious American living the so-called 'American Dream, "You're not naive enough to think that we live in a democracy, are you, Buddy?"

 

IV. The explusion of British non-Whites would be undemocratic if these were regarded as true citizens. Were the British Isles to descend into inter-ethnic/racial violence, this may no longer be the case.

 

V. I agree that liberal democracy is and should be individual-centric. However, it cannot contend with multicultural states in which collectivities do exist, whose identities compete with and often overshadow individual ones in the political realm.

@ Kapitein Andre

 

Let's be very clear about what the principle is that you are defending. You either judge people (under the law) as individuals or as members of a group or 'groups'.  In the former case, you might (but not necessarily) have something approaching a 'democracy' and/or 'justice', whereas in the latter you are bound to have arbitrariness, oppression and 'balkanisation'.

So, your response to Woolly is wrong.  The word "necessarily" is the problem.  A "representative democracy" canNOT be "according to ethnic or racial representation".  Such representation would not treat every individual as equal before/under the law, and would therefore not be a genuine 'democracy'. 

It never ceases to amaze me how you continue to use the same destructive (and absurd) 'language' of the naive-left (which wants to destroy western civilisation through multiculturalism) in order for you to seek an anti-naive-left goal of racial or ethnic 'purity'.   Neither colonialism nor "institutionalised prejudice" have created "barriers to opportunity and success".  The former, (British) colonialism is in the past, and is irrelevant to the issue at hand. Indeed, the opposite is true, in the sense that (past) "colonialism" has created new opportunities - instead of barriers - for 'nonwhites' in Britain (and in some of the former colonies as well).  And the latter, "institutionalised prejudice", is a figment of the naive-left (the cultural left)'s imagination.  Prejudice is real, in all people!  But prejudice is not "institutionalised" in genuine democracies, where the law should treat everyone the same. That is precisely why the report commisssioned by Labour's Deputy Leader Harriet Harman is anti-democratic.  Just like you, it attacks the core of a genuine democracy.

Also, your last comment or recommendation, i.e. expulsion of 'nonwhites', does not solve the problem of "representative democracy".  On the contrary it is fully coherent with the typical 'behavior' of intolerant nondemocracies (where individual citizens are NOT treated as equal under the law).

The Observer: Positive discrimination is illegal in the UK...

 

Here is the operative fact...

 

Simon Woolley: ...unless we take positive action measures we are not going to have a representative democracy for more than 75 years...

 

Representative democracy is not necessarily according to ethnic or racial representation. Woolley has Obama-fever without realising that Obama is not representative of the majority of Americans at all.

 

The Observer: [Woolley's] report is understood to conclude that all-black shortlists would be needed for two decades, after which talented candidates could be expected to make it on their own.

 

I suppose that only twenty years of reparations are required in order to force non-White minorities in the United Kingdom past the barriers to opportunity and success created by colonialism and institutionalised prejudice. Then will the punishment stop? I think not.

 

The Observer: Only 2 per cent of MPs are black or Asian, compared with more than 7 per cent of the general population.

 

In that case, why does Mr. Woolley not prescribe the reparation of the democracy-lacking 5% back to whence they came? The problem would be resolved just as easily.