Responsible citizenry

When is breaking the law not an offence and offensive?
Much of the time if you look at the behaviour of many 'responsible law abiding' citizens.  At least that's what they'd like to think of themselves as.
Think traffic act speeding, parking on double yellows, cycling on pavements or without lights at night and you'll understand what I'm getting at.  This type of offence seems to be accepted as OK by many people, plus a fair number of police who think they've got better things to do.  the really surprising thing about these offences is that the perpetrators know full well that they're breaking the law but seem to indulge themselves in some form of doublethink that they're not criminals!  The job of the police is to enforce the laws as enacted by government.  In some of the above cases they seem to want to make the law and allow some of the offences to go unchallenged. Surely even if resource restraints prevent 100% effort to prosecute the above offences, there should be periodic crackdowns to remind everyone what the law says.  A bit of publicity in the local papers beforehand and there would be no need for warnings - immediate prosecution or fixed penalty fines should be the order of the day during a crackdown.
As always the best route is for individuals to willingly obey the law, but if individuals won't comply, enforcement is a necessity in any civilised community.  If any individual wants to make their own laws, they can't complain to the law when someone assaults them for doing something the other person doesn't like!

Another issue is ignorance of the law.  This indeed may apply to youngsters riding bikes on pavements when their parents say it's OK and the police fail to enforce or inform.
The particular issue I'm thinking of here however is public nudity.  Subject brought up on another forum I've been looking at.  It's not illegal to be naked in a public place.  How many people in England would agree with that statement.
"Under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 it is not an offence to be naked in public in England and Wales. It becomes an offence if it can be proved the person stripped off with the intention to cause distress, alarm or outrage."  Quote from BBC news item.
I find that quite surprising and would expect to be arrested if I walked down the local street nude.  That word 'intention' in the causing alarm bit is very interesting - I wouldn't have thought anyone could walk down the street nude without realising it was very likely to cause offence and or alarm - it's just not done.

That's enough from me for now.  Today's issue in a nutshell is the difference in what the law says to the public perception of what's OK.

Cycling on pavements

Letters in our local papers often complain about people cycling on pavements.  Counter letters from cyclists claim they have to because of the dangers of cycling on the road.
The thing I find most interesting about this is the attitudes shown by the cyclists involved.  They appear to think they have an absolute right to break the law if they can justify themselves - they don't consider that pedestrians have a right to walk down the street in complete safety.  The cyclists may consider they're in danger from car traffic and move on to the pavements, but where do the pedestrians go if they consider they're in danger from the cyclists?
This attitude isn't unique to cyclists.  Car drivers seem to think they have a right to speed and park on double yellows.  Young people think under age drinking and sex is perfectly acceptable.  Narcotics use seems accepted by sectors of society.

What is so corrosive of society is not so much the actual offences, but the attitude that it's OK to ignore laws that an individual finds inconvenient.  That's bound to cause offence to other members of the community who will then use that behaviour as a justification to commit other offences, or maybe as a justification to assault or otherwise attack the original offenders.  If we all want to live in anarchy that's fine, and if everyone could agree on what's acceptable without a legal system and enforcement anarchy would work.

Talking to people, the individuals holding these attitudes often query whether anyone actually minds about their illegal behaviour.  It's quite clear from local newspapers' letter sections that people mind very much.  People don't complain directly to the offenders about illegal and anti social behaviour because of the climate of fear we live in.  You're very likely to be told to F*** off if you politely ask an offender to desist, I have quite a bit of personal experience of that!  I've also been told by professionals not to interfere as it's possible I may get stabbed.  Not surprising then that people cycling on pavements get the impression nobody wishes to complain about their behaviour.

If it's allowed to continue, the type of offences that people will think OK and self justify will creep up.  My car had various parts stolen and vandalised some years ago.  The thief was eventually caught, but he was not ordered either to return the parts or compensate me.  (Who says crime doesn't pay).  I took the trouble to investigate a private prosecution to recover my losses.  His attitude was that he had no money, all his friends were doing the same, and that I wouldn't mind as I'd be insured - very similar attitudes to the criminal cyclists.

Ideally individuals need to think about what they're doing and the consequences if we all follow their example of picking and choosing which laws we wish to obey.  When people committing these type of offences are dealt with by the police, they often complain the police should be dealing with 'real' criminals.  If they stopped committing the 'minor' offences then the police could indeed get on with stopping more serious offences.

Given that a minority will be scofflaws, the authorities do need to have the occasional crackdown on particular offences to prevent the idea building up that an offence isn't ever enforced.  this attitude has certainly built up in the minds of cyclists.

My own opinion is that all law should be enforced.  It's OK saying there are limited resources, but if an officer is on patrol with no priority matters, it doesn't take much to hand a fixed penalty to a pavement cyclist.  I'd also say, and this applies to all offences, that if anyone continues to commit any offence repeatedly, the deterrent of the penalty is clearly not working and needs to be ramped up.  A six month prison sentence for littering may sound extreme, but if anyone continually ignores penalties handed out by the courts, even the most minor offence becomes contempt of court (and contempt for everyone else's rights) rather than simply littering.  Another issue is compensation.  Courts often refrain from issuing compensation orders because the criminals have no assets.  How come we can arrange for law abiding university students to rack up debts for when they have money, and we can't do the same for criminals.  even if there is insurance in place, the criminal should repay the cost of their criminality to the insurance company - in every case.

Owning Land / Planning permission

This is the subject that pushed me into starting this blog.  A guy I visited owns a fairly large plot of land and has built many large shed type structures to live in;  He's got a caravan and several old cars.  His general philosophy is being eco-friendly' (and there are certainy some elements I admired), but the general impression on me was more of a rubbish tip.  I wouldn't want to live next door!  My thoughts below are also applicable to travellers and others who wish to ignore planning rules.
Firstly, nobody actually owns land.  Might seem strange as a statement, but it's only through our social systems and laws that individuals can purchase rights over any property, including land.  So any rights you may have by purchasing land are within the framework of the society that let you buy in the first place.  A fox certainly isn't going to recognise your 'right of ownership' because they're not part of human society.  If you simply take possession of land without purchasing, then you're definitely acting outside society's rules.
In an ideal world there would be plenty of any commodity, including land, so it would either be cheap to buy, or there would be spare land for the taking.  This country (UK) is so densely populated that land is in short supply - so much so that society has put in place special rules as to what you can do with the land you may purchase.  There are also specific procedures to change the uses land may be put to.
The price of land reflects the shortage, and the use or potential use is also reflected in the price.  Building land where you may live is in very short supply and commands very high prices.  This tempts many to buy land  which is reserved for agriculture or to buffer towns (green belt) and try to build homes there.  If this is permitted certain areas of the country will become uninterrupted swathes of dense buildings, including areas of  perhaps poor quality buildings not conforming to building regulations.  National Parks and other desirable areas may become dotted with uncontrolled residences.  Some may see this as OK, and if there was plenty of room, or it could be guaranteed the scale of the problem would be small, I'd agree - but I think if a few are allowed to build like this, many more would follow, citing the few as a precedent.

The ideal solution is that every individual wanting to build or live on land should recognise that they only hold that land by courtesy of our rules and laws and must respect their responsibilities:  They must apply for permission to do what they wish to in the proper way and abide by the community's decisions.  They must not simply go ahead covertly and rely on lack of enforcement.

Some will argue that they do not wish to be bound by society's rules.  That's a fine argument if they don't want to use what our society provides.  No running water, electricity, transport infrastructure, NHS, education for their kids or DSS benefits may make them realise they do need to operate as part of society.

The big stick solution is one I will return to again in this blog.  If people wilfully refuse to abide by the norms and rules of our society, they lose the rights they have acquired through being part of that society.  In this case their right to the land would be either compulsorily purchased or simply confiscated and sold to a responsible landowner.  Where land is illegally occupied, depriving the rightful owner of their rights, that is simply theft.