Using Hysteria and Useful Idiots to Drive Law-making

Inflate a problem, lie about it, redefine some words, and hey presto! You have a way to make a new law that will probably cause a lot of harm but will tick the boxes of certain voters whilst not alienating others.

From Wikimedia - image by Julia Costa, Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 2.5
From Wikimedia - image by Julia Costa, Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 2.5

I’m not going to say much on this one, other than to refer you to an excellent article at The Register on this subject.

There’s some subtle xenophobia in all this too, which people forget.  The notion of this law will make life a lot harder for already vulnerable foreign prostitutes, but that particular reality is completely missed because… well, knock-on consequences for foreigners are never well considered when setting legislation.

So just a short post then, something bigger to come soon.  I’m getting my teeth into this subject matter – there are so many easy targets in the Campaign for Thinking.

Author: David Coveney

I own the big bit of Standfirst, Interconnect, and Design Week. They keep me busy.

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