Home page Freedom, democracy and the rule of law The phrase, "Freedom, democracy and the rule of law" is used with monotonous frequency by leaders to justify just about anything. Today, a new international agenda largely pushed by George Bush's administration and apparently supported by Tony Blair, who does not appear to need an administration, is the advocacy of freedom, democracy and the rule of law. Freedom Freedom is a simple and valuable state in which each person can be free to think and express themselves as they wish to the limit set by the point at which this freedom would impinge on the freedoms of others. Within our formative family environments the maintenance of freedom does not depend upon law and punishment but rather upon encouragement, support, love and a sensitivity on the part of each person as to the feelings and desires of others around them. Families above all recognise that each member is a distinct and different person. If families cultivate an appreciation of the importance of freedom it needs also to instill a sense of the importance of others while sustaining in each a motivation to express feelings and thoughts in a way which is entirely productive and satisfying to each as well as to others. By way of example, artistic expression can involve an individual labouring for years developing and perfecting techniques. The endeavour is quite often a personal quest of achieving something that only that person has conceived in their head. Sometimes it is a feeling that going in this direction, or that, they can improve their expression. No matter the degree of perfection achieved by the individual, no matter what standards they set, their output will be adored by some, many will be indifferent and many will even not like the result. The artist will remain content with their voyage of perfection and better expression and will appreciate the fact that some people communicate the fact that they admire or enjoy the result. What is of importance is that expression has been permitted to advance. Some welcome that such expression be shared and become part of their life, others will not express an opinion in one direction or the other and there will be some who even complain about the output and would definitely not wish to share in the output. Freedom and the majority The concept of the process of participatory democracy, the management of the affairs of people remaining in the hands of the people, has drifted, under the manipulation of political parties, towards a concept of majority rule. There is a serious confusion between collectivism, or majority rule, and democracy a process of governnance guided by indvidual free wills. Political parties, religions and other types of institution survive by setting up "structures" on to which they hang standards, values, rules, laws and commands which they wish to convey to society as a preferable basis for managing society; all of society. The tactics used to influence and goad society towards that aim can include a large range of techniques from objective argument, propaganda, misrepresentation, manipulation including non-release of information, economic incentives, laws which threaten individual freedom and thuggery. In the end the paradox is that such institutions insist that if the majority desire something then this will be imposed on the rest of society. This involves two grand deceptions. One is that the majority referred to is not a majority at all but usually a very small percentage of the electorate. For example the current UK government is run by the Labour party with just 22% of the electorate's vote. The other is that this is a device for levering the power of institutiuons, and especially political parties, from their absolute social insignificance (no British political party has a membership in excess of 0.25% of the population) to a position where they control, in an exclusive manner, the management of the affairs of the whole of society. This is completely against the spirit and objective of participatory democracy where the management of the affairs of people remains in the hands of the people. The rule of law It does not take much imagination to perceive that law, in the hands of those who wish to see such political party power imposed on all, has become a means of controlling, through imposition, the rabble who did not or who do not support the party in power. Thus law is used to rule. This is not the same as the rule of law. The rule of law is that state of affairs under which all are subject to law, including members of political parties and politicians, and decisions are subject to the community conscience as the means of ensuring leglsiation is applied in a fair manner. The community conscience, in the form of a jury, is the cutting edge of the safeguards for individual freedom in the spirit and as a central objective of participatory democracy, where the management of the affairs of people remains in the hands of the people. Already in the United Kingdom, the English are subjected to single-party-dominated legislative decisions which criminalise certain segments of society without permitting judgement or appeals to come before juries. They restrict the degrees of freedom of certain groups and place many individuals at the margins in fear and at risk of suffering from imposed sanctions because their natural inclination, based upon family values, is not to comply with such impositions. The problem is not always that the individual ministers cannot be trusted to take sensible decisions in each case if they had such power. The problem is that law, structured on this basis is abused because it relies upon non-elected people managing these affairs. The recent debacle of the Home Office releasing criminals into the streets is an example as is the case of an elderly Jewish gentleman who heckled Jack Straw in one of his presentations. The gentleman concerned was forced out of the meeting by actions justified in terms of anti-terrorist legislation. Jack Straw should have appeared together with the Jewish gentleman and apologised publicly to him. But ministers, in governments and whose parties operate as described above, have no such rationality nor humanity; the further they can keep those they "represent" and "govern" at arms length, the better. At the extreme we have witnessed tyrants, within Europe's living memory, order the carrying out of cerimonial burning of books and works of art because their content did not reflect the "values" of those in power. We have seen a process of industrialised murder of those whose culture, values and outlook were considered by a political party to be inferior, under the third Reich. In all cases the population and the political "establishment" aped around in a sycophantic macabre pantomime all with roles which try to avoid crossing lines marked out by the dominant political party. The so-called rule of law becomes abusive as soon as the freedom of individuals to prevent such excesses has been impaired or even removed, just as juries were removed under all European Fascist regimes and incidentally have only been reinstated in diminished forms . The response of a free individual to the plight of another is invariably constructive. On the other hand when regulations and laws are the cause of the plight of another, people can fail to respond for fear of being associated with someone who is judged negatively by often arbitrary perceptions and judgements. This fear stems from the stripping away of the self confidence of indviduals to act on the imperative of following the motivation of their free will and to treat others as they would wish to be treated. Institutions do not like this sort of volition simply because it reflects the fact that they are not in control. Institutions encourage and prefer that people endure outrages which they have created rather than becoming conspicuous by rebelling against them. Such a rule of law diminishes self reliance by encouraging a societal cowardice marked by lack of social responsibility, eroded self-confidence and a general feeling of inutility and therefore of unhappiness. Human ways Humanity, left to its own devices is fair and, where common sense prevails, there is a relatively peaceful state of affairs. People do not need to be subjected to restrictive rules, commands and laws, these being necessary only to defend individual freedom from any excesses of others. As the English activist, Anne Hutchinson, once said: "As I understand it, laws, commands, rules and edicts are for those who have not the light which makes plain the pathway." Anne Hutchinson's maiden name was Anne Marbury and was born in July 1591 in Alford, Lincolnshire, England. At the age of 21, she married William Hutchinson in London. William Hutchinson, also born in Alford, was a prominent merchant and judge in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and one of the founders of Rhode Island.