Wednesday, March 12, 2008

When is an oath not an oath?

When it's coerced. Surely, for an oath to be worth the promise it's spoken by, it has to be freely made? Otherwise it has no more value than a forced confession.

But then this idea to compel all teenaged school leavers to swear an oath of allegiance to Queen and country comes from the same report [opens pdf] by Lord Goldsmith QC which suggests giving financial incentives to 'encourage' people to be proactive at the local community level, for example by running pressure groups or recycling schemes.

Financial rewards, for that? Is there nothing these people think can't be obtained from people by stick and carrot? Whatever happened to people doing things because they wanted to? Or because they thought it might be a good idea? Do those kind of motivations simply not exist in the world of Lord Goldsmith et al?

I wonder what they think we'd do if we weren't being threatened or rewarded. Or encouraged or 'incentivised', whatever. I'd love to know.

4 Comments:

Blogger Pete Darby said...

Dear Lord goldsmith:

I have created a group to campaign against grants to groups for campaigning. Please give me a grant.

Paradoxically yours...

10:11 am, March 13, 2008  
Blogger Gill said...

LOL, yes! Let's do it ;-)

Oh wait a minute *penny drops*. Is this designed to exert control over pressure groups? "We'll fund this one, but not that one," sort of thing?

10:24 am, March 13, 2008  
Blogger Elaine said...

They have legislated communities out of existence with CRB checks and elf and safety and now they are gonna pay state indoctrinated youngsters to organise community activities etc.
Well it makes sense to me I think I will bulk order various uniforms from china ready for the market explosion when 'communities' adopt their 'individual' identities at the suggestion of a well paid community cohesion officer.

1:14 pm, March 13, 2008  
Blogger Gill said...

It's such a weird idea, isn't it? I mean, is there a shortage of people volunteering to run pressure groups? I don't think so. So if the system ain't broke, why try to fix it? Unless they're not trying to fix it.

7:23 pm, March 13, 2008  

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