A question

If a politician brings defamation proceedings against another politician, bringing himself into "public hatred, ridicule and contempt" in the process, has he defamed himself?

Politicians and games

Metro has a fluff piece about Conservative party leader Colin Craig, which includes an interesting surprise: Craig is a fan of the game "Diplomacy".

For those who don't know, Diplomacy is a classic strategy game based on pre-World War I Europe. Players assume the role of one of the era's Great Powers and compete to control all of Europe. Like most games of its era, its zero-sum, where victory can only be gained by trampling over the corpses of your enemies. The catch is that there is no randomness - the game has very simple mechanics, which are completely deterministic. So you can't rely on luck of the dice and gamble your way to victory. Instead, in order to win, you need to carefully build alliances, and then betray your former allies. It is therefore a game which rewards deceit and treachery - a training tool for sociopaths (its telling that it is also the favourite game of war-criminal Henry Kissinger).

Which I think tells us something interesting about Craig. But it raises a question for the rest of us: do we really want politicians who so openly enjoy treachery? Yes, its a value the political class admires (witness the popularity of the original "House of Cards" among them). But is it healthy for our democracy to be run by self-admitted sociopaths? Do we really want those sorts of people making decisions on our behalf? Quite apart from the obvious concerns about the sorts of decisions they will make, its not particularly representative, is it?

Meanwhile, I'm now wondering what our other politicians' favourite games are. And I think I'd like politicians who enjoy "Pandemic" (where players must cooperate to beat the game) or "Settlers of Catan" more than those who like Dip, let alone "Risk" or "Monopoly".

Homophobia and tradition

So, Colin Craig is arguing that its alright to discriminate against gay people by denying them the right to marry because its a "tradition". But to point out the obvious, many of our "traditions" aren't that pleasant. Racism is a tradition. Sexism is a tradition. Domestic violence and the death penalty were traditions. And our society has looked at all of those traditions and decided that they are wrong and that we are better off without them. While we have a way to go on some of them, the overt, legally sanctioned discrimination and violence of those traditions has been outlawed.

It's called "progress". And it allows each of us, including Colin Craig (a member of a religious sect which would have seen him burned 500 years ago, and barred from public office 200 years ago), to live the lives we want, according to the values we choose, free from physical and social violence from others. Removing discrimination from our marriage laws is just the latest stage in this journey. And if Colin Craig wants to stop it, he's going to need a far better argument than just "it's tradition".

I agree with Colin Craig

Colin Craig on same-sex marriage:

“Government needs to get out of the bedrooms of the country”.

I agree with this absolutely. The state has no business in our bedrooms, or in dictating to us the sorts of relationships we should pursue. If the parties involved are consenting adults, then it is none of the state's business what they do.

And this is exactly why I support same-sex marriage: because it puts all relationships on an equal footing, and gets the government out of people's bedrooms. Contra Craig, it is the privileging of some relationships over others that constitutes "social engineering". If Craig truly opposed that (rather than simply wanting to engineer things his way and make us all conform to his preferred lifestyle), then he'd support equality, not bigotry.