Fundamental Rights - On Glasgow, Edward Snowden and the Inconsistency

Last week the Student body of Glasgow surprised everyone by electing Edward Snowden as University Rector, a notion subject to a number of jokes, including my personal favourite "The most important feature of a rector is the ability to leave Russia".

I'd like to add an interesting inconsistency with this entire debate, about surveillence, personal liberty, integrity etc. Snowden said the following in an interview given to the Guardian:

"If we do not contest the violation of the fundamental right of free people to be left unmolested in their thoughts, associations and communications - to be free from suspicion without cause - we will have lost the foundation in our thinking society." - Edward Snowden

Key points here are unmolested in their [...] associations. Most people would agree right.

Let's now apply that to other areas, say economic ones. Tax rates, for instance, or even food regulation laws. Where does that leave us?

How is any rate of taxes consistent with "unmolested in their associations"? Politicians decide to take some percentage of anything you make/sell/earn, add VAT to anything you buy, and also take chunks of a large bit out of corporative profits. If anything could come close to "MOLESTING", this would be it.

Ok, let's go with food regulations. In my native country, the rules that apply to retailers of food, producers, restaurants, café or anything connected to food, are extensive and the Government even has its own authority to give permits, inspect and decide upon what you can or cannot do in the food business. Likewise the UK, Germany, France (not to mention EU standards) have regulations for how such business is to be made. Yet again, how can anything be more in line with "molesting free people in their associations"? If I enter into a transaction of, say, disgusting and rotten food, that's my responsibility. Not to mention the obvious point of WHY I would enter such a transaction? (and, if food contains whatever substance I can't inspect on my own and that makes me sick, I say it's safe to assume that neither me nor anyone I know would buy from that company again - i.e, incentives align to produce good-quality food).

Point is, our Socialist Governments (including those labelling themselves as Liberal, Conservative etc) are filled with regulations, tax rates, fees, distortions to freedom - all of which represents "violation to the fundamental rights of free people to be left unmolested in [...] their associations".

Now tell me, if integrity, personal freedom and "Freedom to be left unmolested" are such virtues in terms of tele-communications, surveillence - how come they're NOT virtues in the fields that actually matter? THat is, taxes, price-levels, regulations to people and business and virtually all parts of British society?

Inconsistency. Hypocracy. Lousy. If freedom and integrity are good enough reasons to sanctify Edward Snowden, why are they not good enough reasons to reduce taxes, remove regulation and increase real freedom? Stuff that actually matter.

If you seriously want to embrace freedom, I'll be the first to congratulate you. But until then, stop pretending you're a supporter of freedom only because you agree with Snowden. Get real.

Public vs. Private

Yesterday I had two particular interactions with certain institutions. The first, a publicly run and funded health care service, the second a privately owned and operated retailer of pharmaceutical products.

At the first, I was making an appointment. The receptionist was bitter, somewhat angry and seemed genuinly unhappy with being there. I asked for an appointment, and she firmly answered me that 15.00 would do. I politely asked if she could make it later (or even earlier, perhaps?) as 15 was not a very good time for me.

- 15.00 or nothing, now leave. 

Thank you, oh humle Party Representative, for rationing according to what you see fit, and distributing the available resources regardless of my wishes. I am thee eternally thankful.

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The second interaction was with the pharmacy retailer, who looked up when I entered, greeted me politly, had a look on my prescription and excused himself for a moment in order to look for that particular drug. A minute later he returned, apologizing heavily - perhaps three times - explaining that it won't arrive until the day after at 11 o'clock, if I would be ok with that. He asked if I was in a lot of pain, and I answered that I was, though not worse than the days before. He apologized on behalf of the firm again, and promised to have it readily available and waiting for me at 11 the next day. I thanked the nice man, left, and felt somewhat happy anyway.

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Now, this is not an attempt to prove that private is better than public, although I firmly believe that is the case. Besides, this is probably more of a personal issue than anything else; if the awful women in the reception would have been in the pharmacy I suppose she'd still be awful, bitter and unkind whereas the nice man placed in a public situation would still be nice. And again, the women was probably held back by silly regulations saying that appointments had to be allocated in the exact order people came in etc.

But, I still can't get that feeling out of my head; in private organisations/companies there tends to be a lot nicer people, they treat their costumers with dignity and respect, whereas the opposite tends to be the case in public organisations. There certainly is something weird about that, and I am inclined to believe that it's due to the format public-private.

Responses? Experiences?