Absurd rules are more than farcical

OVER two centuries ago the polymath Benjamin Franklin famously observed that it was better that one hundred guilty men go free than that one innocent person should suffer. How attitudes have changed.

Today, it is politicians, rather than the judiciary, who decide whether entire sections of the population should be subject to house arrest, or be under threat of fines, simply by using specious public health data as justification.

Policy decisions are made based on the infamous R number. But what is this magical number? Based on figures from Europe, or England, or the street where I live? All may well be vastly different so why a single response, or even punishment? Infection levels are likely to be vastly different in Manchester from those in Minehead.

It is more than farcical. The numbers of people permitted at funerals are twice those allowed at weddings. As a teenager I visited Glasgow (at a time from memory) when pubs closed at 10pm with frantic drinking and close social interaction in the final hours. Such restrictions are totally unrelated to disease spread.

Those who insist on attempting to enforce absurd rules should look further back in history. Aesop may be all but forgotten today, but his views on using persuasion rather than force to alter personal behaviour are just as relevant. anyone continuing to use and subscribe to such social-networking sites will be guilty of tacitly endorsing the activities of the evil scum who prey on children. Anyone with an ounce of integrity should discontinue using such platforms.

Over 200 years ago, the great

Irish statesman and philosopher, Edmund Burke, wrote that “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”.

Which is as true (if not more so) today as it was then.