Freedom of the Press

I must be getting senile. I was sure that the nice Mr Cameron, our esteemed and honourable Prime Minister had given the country his assurance that he would implement the findings of the Leveson Enquiry in full, but I was obviously mistaken, because, as I've pointed out previously that our nice Mr Cameron wouldn't tell us a lie or mislead us would he? It could not possibly have been our nice Mr Cameron, the one who promised that the measures his government would take on the Levenson findings would be in consultation with the victims of press hacking and intrusion and that such measures were to be judged by how they satisfied the victims, who addressed the press on television today, because the man who was posing as the Prime Minister on television today broke every one of these promises, and our nice Prime Minister couldn't possibly do such a thing. I simply cannot contemplate the notion that our beloved and honourable Mr Cameron is a bare-faced stinking liar up to his armpits in corruption with the millionaire elite who control news in this country, so I confess I must be completely mistaken!

As our beloved leader points out, the freedom of the press is one of the fundamental foundations of a free society. However, a problem arises when that freedom is used to abuse the rest of us and engage in criminality. You see, if we uphold the freedom of the press, then the press must reciprocate and uphold our freedom not to have our phones hacked, not to be spied on, not to be lied about or lied to, not to have our privacy invaded etc. That is, the freedom that the press demands, carries responsibilities to the society within which it operates. However, what the British press demands is the right to exploit its position of freedom, whilst denying anyone else the same rights. For example, the British press is unanimous in its denial of the rights of working people to take strike action. The press must remain unregulated, the worker must be totally regulated and denied what little rights they still possess, and the Westminster Parliament sits and nods its head sagely in agreement.

The burden of proof in our society demands that guilt is established beyond reasonable doubt, and the press in the UK has demonstrated beyond a shadow of reasonable doubt that they are vermin and will do anything at all to get what they want. In addition, their owners and editors who constantly pop up on our televisions demanding freedom for their champions of democratic accountability have demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that they will turn a blind eye to any and every form of criminality and immorality by their staff, applaud their actions and reward them handsomely as long as they don't get caught. In all this activity they are supported by Cameron and the Conservative Party, and, until recently, the Labour Party as well.

Freedom is not an infinite resource. Any increase of freedom for someone, or some groups,  will almost always involve a loss of freedom for someone else. For example, your freedom to swing your fist ends at the point of my nose. Your freedom of speech ends when you use it to abuse me, encourage violence and/or discrimination against me. Should you refuse to recognise such limits to your freedom, then you will diminish mine. As a result, freedom is not an absolute, but a relative, value. Your freedom cannot be regarded as absolute as it is relative to mine. What I mean by that is what I said above, that your freedom is contingent on your committment to respect mine. As a result, freedom has limits and you cannot make a moral case for freedom on the premise that you refuse to respect it for others.

I have previously noted how the human being is a regulatory being. Humans need to operate within a regulatory framework which we recognise, and which present to us as norms, values and formal law. No interactive human organisation should be allowed to operate without some form of regulation, and the press are no exception. The British press insist on self-regulation, but they are demonstrably not to be trusted as they are self-evidently structurally corrupt and venal. There are no arguments that the British press can make, nor their paid servants within the Westminster Parliament, that can persuade us that they can be trusted. They must be statutorily regulated as every other form of press regulation has failed. We must be protected from their criminality and never ending search for sensationalism at our expense. What the nice Mr Cameron is doing is giving the press permission to create another Millie Dowler affair, or another McCann affair, in the future as he is signalling to the British people that he doesn't give a hill of beans what the press do to us, or how they treat us 'cos they're his mates. I ask you, as you pass the newsagents each day, simply watch the headlines in the Daily Express and the Daily Mail and take note of how often each week they have a banner headline attacking immigrants, people on benefits, the EU and Muslims, and then tell me these people do not peddle lies to incite hatred.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat