From: mossop@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Antony Mossop)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: Record shops (LPs)
Date: 13 Jan 1993 03:02:17 GMT
Organization: Stanford Univ. Earth Sciences
NNTP-Posting-Host: pangea.stanford.edu

In article <1iu5epINN96s@grapevine.EBay.Sun.COM> martin.baines@uk.sun.com writes:
>In article 1il2dkINNpc9@morrow.stanford.edu, mossop@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Antony Mossop) writes:
>[deleted earlier thread]
>>>Well we could start by removing the subsidy from central taxes
>>>to local government. At the last budget that put 2.5% on VAT
>>>to reduce poll tax for those individuals who didn't like
>>>having to pay for local services. 
>>Ahh you mean the community charge (close kin of the deceased Papua
>>New Guinean hut tax, killed off after the local powers deemed it
>>regressive [urban legend?]). You might not have noticed this but
>>a flat rate tax where everyone pays the same regardless of income
>>is regarded by most people as grossly unfair and exists in no other 
>>civilised country. The British public had next to no say in this
>>matter it was just dumped on them. The sole beneficiaries were people
>>with large expensive properties who strongly equate with those of higher
>>incomes, many of whom also disagreed with this tax. Later, after massive
>>non-payment the govt. admits that maybe they were wrong.
>>Forgive my cynicism but do you really believe they'd have bothered
>>to do this if everyone had paid up? If a policy is forced on people
>>that is unpopular and unfair their only recourse (and a very justifiable
>>one at that) is disobedience.
>
>You forget we live in a democracy another (legal) form of objecting
>is through the ballot box. If you are correct, and the poll tax
>as so unpopular BUT there hadn't been the campaign of law breaking
>surely the government would have lost the last election if they
>still supported it?
>
>Don't misinterpret me though: I am no great fan of the poll Tax -
>personally I have always believed in a local income tax to pay
>for local government. It just annoys me to see law breaking
>being supported.
>

The style of democracy in the UK doesn't quite work as ideally as you
would suggest. Apart from the arguable biases introduced by party funding,
media ownership, the first past the post system and the constant Gerryman-
dering of constituency boundaries there is the bias in the party system
itself. People do not get to vote on individual issues they get to vote on
a party they wish to govern them (whether this is democracy is questionable).
The parties subscribe to a mixture of popular and unpopular policies the
voter then votes for the combination they like best or dislike least
(of course most people vote according to many other criteria). The upshot
of this is that whilst the poll tax was grossly unpopular the Cons may well
have been voted back in even if they had continued to support the community
charge. So what do you do now, the majority of people disagree with a
certain policy but cannot get their will felt due to the crudities of
the electoral system? The answer is obvious, you act upon the policy in
question and disobey.

This next bit is going to be a bit crass and obvious, you'll have to
forgive me for this. When a government makes a law in contravention of
the wishes of its people the law is invalid. A govt. is the servant,
not the master of its public. The public in this case has the right to
ignore this law. There are times when disobeying the law should be
supported even when the majority of people agree with the law e.g. disobedience
in parts of Nazi Europe, civil rights activities in '60's US etc, though this 
is a lot harder to justify in terms of 'democracy'. Laws shouldn't be viewed 
as absolute rules but should be interpreted with a view to the will of 
the public and one's own moral code.


Tony Mossop, geophysics, Stanford
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british