Blind Justice

Law and disorder

Recently superhero film studio Marvel has seriously gone off the boil.

After the triumph of its multi movie Avengers/Iron Man arc which culminated with truly epic End Game in 2019, it has released stinker after stinker. Movies like Ant Man 3, The Marvels, and most recently the unwatchable (despite the presence of Sydney Sweeney) Madame Web.

Its recent output has been preachy, woke, and most unforgivably of all, dull. Even the special effects, which once lent Marvel movies a real sense of cinematic spectacle,  look increasingly bland, fake and half arsed.

It’s a long time since Marvel tried something genuinely different and innovative. Like when, in its pre Disney+ days, it experimented on Netflix with the deliciously brutal series, Daredevil, from 2015.

Daredevil, a sort of Spider-Man with anger issues, dishes out justice in his New York neighbourhood, Hell’s Kitchen. And when I say ‘justice’, I mean exactly that. Because Matt Murdoch is pro bone crunching superhero Daredevil by night. And a pro bono defense lawyer by day.

Oh. And he’s blind.

It’s a neat metaphor.

Justice is meant to be blindly impartial, dealing judgement without fear or favour, caring not for the who, but only interested in the what and the why.

Obviously it doesn’t always work like that. But the ideal, at least, has always been, equality before the law.

But not anymore.

Now the justice system is actively, and intentionally putting a thumb on the scales.

All, of course, in the name of ‘equity’. The fair and balanced system where the people our bosses favour get more stuff, rights and privileges than everyone else, while those people our bosses don’t like, get to pay for it all, and threatened with prison if they complain.

Here in the UK, the Sentencing Council, the official body which sets the rules and guidelines for judges and magistrates, has officially set out, for the first time, the  ‘mitigating’ circumstances which should be taken into account before sentences are handed down to convicted criminals.

Suggesting more lenient sentences should be given to offenders whose circumstances match these new criteria. There are twelve in all.

Let’s take a look at some of them.

Firstly, to qualify for a sympathetic hearing, and a softer sentence, the convicted person must be from a hard working, stable family. They must be someone who has paid their taxes, and up until they committed their offence, had proven themselves an upstanding citizen, a pillar of the community, and an asset to wider society.

Only joking.

The new guidance actually suggests you should get a more lenient sentence if you are somehow ‘deprived’ or come from a ‘difficult’ background, have ‘experienced’ poverty, didn’t excel at school, or have been forced to endure something called ‘insecure housing’.

At first blush these concessions might seem kind and compassionate, but they’re not, they are instead, condescending and crass.

They imply that poor people, or people who didn’t do well at school, are dull brained, dumb dumbs who cannot really be held responsible for their actions. That a lack of money leads to a lack of morals, that poor housing leads to poor judgements, that a hunger for food leads inexorably to a greed for other people’s property.

They strongly suggest that it is not the individual’s fault that he became a criminal. It’s society’s, for not providing him with enough free stuff in the first place.

And it transforms the cry of ‘But it’s not fair’ from the whine of a tantruming child, to a viable courtroom defence.

Of course this patronising attitude goes hand in hand with the elite assumption that since the lower orders are mindless babies, incapable of making their own choices, someone better qualified, more virtuous, enlightened, and lets face it, superior, will have to make them for them.

And our progressive elites, are very happy to step in and do exactly that.

Recasting themselves from our bosses to our saviours gives them easy licence to micromanage every aspect of our lives.

Using legislation to mandate what we eat, what we smoke  (if you were born after 2008-nothing) censor what we can read, dictate what we can watch, where we can drive (nowhere, and really slowly), to monitor what we say, and admonish us for how we think.    

And it reveals our elite’s contempt for the 99% of people from those same backgrounds who struggle through life, obey the law of the land, and somehow manage not to steal, mug, shoplift, burgle, vandalise, drink drive, stab, or fill their fat faces at family restaurants before doing the dine and dash.

In fact most regular working class people are upstanding members of society, paragons of virtue who never even consider something like, I dunno, breaking electoral law, or committing council tax fraud.  They’re decent law abiding people, like Angela Rayner.

Alex Chalk. The Lord Chancellor, and (in)Justice Secretary has claimed that

“The Government is clear that …… low educational attainment and poverty, ought not to be relied upon as excuses to commit crimes.’

Before The Sentencing Council ‘an independent, non-departmental public body of the Ministry of Justice’ (nope me neither) goes on to tell judges to accept low educational attainment and poverty as excuses to commit crimes.

Also on the list of factors which could earn crooks a handy get out of jail free card is.

‘Experience of discrimination’.

Well, since we supposedly live in a ‘systemically racist’, ‘homophobic’ ‘ablelist’, ‘Islamaphobic’, ‘sizeist’ society, awash with bigots, transphobes and trolls, this means basically anyone, from any minority or identity group whatsoever (apart from you-know-Jew), could, and inevitably will, demand special treatment before the law.

I know that these are simply ‘guidelines’, and judges have, at their own discretion, always taken account of mitigating circumstances. And that is fair enough.

But this seems like something else.

Judges and magistrates themselves don’t seem very keen on the new rules, and I’m not surprised. Baking these criteria into the legal system is a way to play favourites, to unlevel the playing field, and to institutionalise softer sentences for anyone our progressive elites choose to portray as a victim.

While encouraging the courts to come down like a ton of bricks on those who ‘should know better’, essentially middle class people who work hard, and usually follow the rules.

It all makes sense. The state gains far more benefit from rinsing the law abiding citizen for traffic fines, parking violations and overdue tax penalties, than it does from sending actual criminals into our expensive, overcrowded, and increasingly ungovernable prison system. So it inevitably prioritises the former, and does its best to avoid the latter.

That this is clearly against the interests of the majority of regular people, matters not a jot.

Two tier justice isn’t just taking hold in our courts. It’s also evident at ground level, on our streets.

Policing is no longer simply about right and wrong, every crime must be seen in ‘context’.

At least that’s what the Met police are telling anyone who complains about aggressive anti-Semitic hate marchers family friendly anti Zionist peace protesters, strolling down our streets, displaying swastikas on their placards. You know swastikas. Like what fans of that nice man Mr Hitler used to wave.

(Disclaimer: This is irony. I am not claiming Adolf Hitler was a nice man.)

But let’s not jump to conclusions says Plod. Many different groups have happily displayed swastikas over the years.

Of course! Maybe these marchers aren’t far right anti Semites after all. Perhaps they are simply 7000 year old Buddhists displaying the old Sanskrit symbol for ‘well being’ and ‘good fortune’, and so are actually wishing the Jews all the very best of luck. For the forthcoming jihad.

It’s so difficult to tell.

And then there’s the case of Gideon Falter, the man who famously had the gall to stroll through our capital city while being ‘openly Jewish’.

And came a cropper when he attempted to cross a London street, occupied by a crowd of happy go lucky ‘Pro Palestinians’.

He was told, that if he insisted on continuing to provoke the peaceful mob with his blatant Jewishness then he should be arrested.

In both these cases it must be stressed that the individual police officers were only trying to be ‘reasonable’. But when police officers resort to intellectualising the waving of swastikas, or accept that a man cannot walk the streets of London because he is a Jew, then we clearly have a problem.

Gideon Falter promised to return the following week, and go for another walk. Which the police attempted to get him to register as a protest.

He refused. Mr Falter was right to do so. What he was doing was not a protest. He was not demanding the right to walk freely along the thoroughfares of London. He already has that right. He was simply exercising it.

In the end he cancelled his plans. Citing safety concerns.

Sadly, this was the sensible choice.

Meanwhile when a crowd of working class white men arrived in central London to celebrate their national saint’s day they brandished something much more heinous and objectionable than a mere swastika.

The St George’s Cross.

Once the proud flag of England, but now dismissed as little more than a signifier for beerguts and bigotry, lard arsed loutishness, and neanderthal nationalism.

I’m actually surprised Keir Starmer didn’t turn up. He can’t seem to get enough of the flag of St George these days.

Maybe that’s because the BBC happily informs us that St George is not English, as one might have assumed, nor even Turkish, which is what they told us last time, but is in fact, Palestinian. Obviously.

Yup. Queen Charlotte was black. Roman Emperor Elagabalus was a trans woman.  (No he wasn’t.) And Shakespeare was gay. Or maybe a woman. Or probably a gay woman. But definitely not a straight white man.

Anyway the point is, tough luck gammons, even your patron saint is an immigrant.

Unlike the anti-Jewish marchers, posh Just Stop Oil idiots, or BLM crusaders, this St George’s Day crowd weren’t treated with kid gloves.

They were kettled in one area, refused access to Whitehall, and surrounded by riot police.

Because unlike Palestinian nationalism, (Not actually a nation but what evs) or Ukrainian nationalism, or Scottish nationalism, or even boozy St Paddy’s Day Irish nationalism, displays of English nationalism in you know England, are regarded with contempt.

I don’t know if this bald and blobby bunch of sweaty men represent the terrifying ‘far right threat’ that Rishi Sunak got so exercised about recently. But if you’re reading this MI5, [We are definitely not reading this, please stop being so paranoid-MI5] I think you can stand down.

Most of this lot look like they could be neutralised by a couple of flights of stairs.

They were joined by Tommy Robinson. Of course they were.

Tommy Robinson is attracted to England flags in the same way that Rishi Sunak is inexorably drawn to electoral annihilation.

Incidentally, I love the way that the mainstream media always insists on giving us Tommy Robinson’s real name, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.

Fair enough.

I just wish they would treat all cheeky name changers equally, and do the same with everyone.

‘Now back to the studio for some glamorous Glow Up tips with the gorgeous India Willoughby, real name Johnathan.’

Plus Piers Corbyn turned up. Forget St George’s flags. That’s a Red Flag for me.

Although in an amazing twist, the organisers refused to let Corbyn take to the stage because they said he was anti Semitic. (Really? Jezza’s brother? Who’d have thunk it?)

So now, on the left we have literal Queers for Palestine. While on the right, Tommy Robinson (real name, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) sides with  the Jews.

It really is, a funny old world.

These weekly protests have become a massive drain on our resources.

The police must have better things to do than help peaceful mobs of swastika wielding protesters intimidate openly Jewish people in our streets.

Surely it’s time for the police got back to doing what they do best.

Ignoring burglaries. Intimidating old women photographing stickers. Arresting autistic teenagers. Committing serious sexual assault. And refusing to evict squatters.

Don’t get me wrong.

I fully support the right to protest. And despite my bile, I do genuinely accept that many of these protesters are motivated by an understandable concern for the fate of regular Palestinian people, rather than simply a hatred for Jews.

But this is too much. This has been going on for over thirty weeks. The opportunity cost, as well as the actual cost, is immense.

Enough is enough.

I’m definitely not suggesting these, or any other protest group, be banned. (Apart from Just Stop Oil. Fuck those guys.) But surely it’s time to make a trade off between protesters right to protest, and regular people like Gideon Falter’s (yes I know he is CEO of Campaign Against Antisemitism, but the point still stands) right to walk across the road without being intimidated by the mob.

The police could say to the pro-Palestinians, we will allow you to continue to demonstrate once a month. Within a clearly defined area, (A restriction immediately imposed on the St George’s Day lot) away from the hustle and bustle of regular Londoners, businesses, and tourists.

Yes. It’s a balance, a less than ideal compromise, I get that.

But surely any reasonable anti-zionist would agree that it’s time to stop expecting the rest of us to subsidise their increasingly peaceful demands for jihad, through the British tax system.

On our streets, one group of protesters are indulged, while another, less favoured group are kettled and corralled. In the courts, one set of criminals are shown leniency, while regular law abiding citizens face the full force of the law.

It seems that the law has ceased being simply a tool to keep order, and fight crime. Instead it is being employed as a cudgel, an instrument which our ruling classes use to play favourites, enforce compliance, and punish dissent. To impose on the masses, the orthodoxy of an ever more out of touch, censorious and authoritarian elite.

It’s not just Britain, we haven’t got time to go into it here, but it’s a trend which can be seen across an increasingly autocratic world.

There’s a vindictive, pernicious and anti democratic lawfare against the pariah presidential candidate in America. The ECHR pushing an apocalyptic climate agenda in Europe, under the flimsy cover of protecting Human Rights (surely we have also the right not to be hungry, cold, and miserable). Attempts to use the law to ban political parties in Germany. The legal censorship of dissenting media in Brazil, Canada and Australia. And many many more examples.

It’s clear that the rule of law is expanding at an ever increasing rate. Which might be fine. If there was just one of them. But now it seems increasingly, that there are two.

One law for them, the elites, their client groups, their favoured ‘identities’ and the promoters of their ideological agenda.

And one law, heavy handed, imperious, uncompromising, and petty, for the rest of us.

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As ever I look forward to seeing you in the comments. I’m torn about the London protests obviously. Should we allow them to continue? My free speech instincts tell me we should. But after thirty weeks I feel they have morphed into something else entirely, and risk irrevocably poisoning my city, and our society.

Let me know your thoughts.

That’s it for this one. Thanks again for all your support.

Best LSO