...Earth Calling Adam Smith....hiss...

by Zach Neal

Earth calling Adam Smith. Earth calling Adam Smith…

Come in, please.

,,,,,hisss……………………………………………………………………….  …………     ……..    ….

***

He’s been called away or something. We’ll try again later.

So anyways, Wikipedia has a little article on Adam Smith.

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”

And of course my interest lies in having dinner. I give the butcher money, he gives me some meat, the brewer gives me beer, (hey, this is fun) and so on and so forth.

As aphorisms go, that one seems fair enough.

I’m only going to discuss one of his points, just to show how it’s done:

“Agriculture is less amenable than industry to division of labour; hence, rich nations are not so far ahead of poor nations in agriculture as in industry.”

The last part of the sentence holds true. There are plenty of undeveloped parts of the world where agriculture is still conducted with a low level of technology, not much better than Smith’s time, with predictable results.

Things are a little different now.

The gulf between the developed nations and undeveloped nations in terms of agriculture is vast.

That spread, that ratio has changed since Smith’s time. Back then, the gap in technology between the developed and undeveloped world was much narrower. The world has changed, and to the nth degree.

Nothing written hundreds of years ago on the subject of economics is Gospel. Too much has changed. 

Another of his points supports this thesis by saying, ‘manufacturing lends itself to the division of labour more than agriculture.’

That’s probably still mostly true. Partially true…

That’s due to the complexity of the processes, for example making steel—and feeding raw materials, labour and some kind of motive power into the plant that makes it.

But in the 21^st century, agriculture is more than just lambs in a field and a wife drawing the iron plough with the baby in a bowl at the end of the furrow, which back then was divided up to approximately what a man and an oxen could plow in a day. The fields were common land, narrow strips that were rotated in terms of crops, fallow and pasture.

Now, agriculture includes a certain amount of high-technology industrial plant for producing corn starch. It includes a plant for making vegetable oil, and it includes the makers of combines, tractors, specialty tires and the chemical industry. It includes distribution warehouses, transportation systems by land, air and sea, and buyers scouring the world for new and marketable flavours. All of it is now connected digitally in a system that allows instantaneous communication globally, something that would have taken months, back in Smith’s time.

The visualization required by the modern commercial landscape is inconceivable to a man of Smith’s day. 

They didn’t have the electronic and digital terms of reference. They wouldn’t have known what we were talking about, and yet we have the advantage of knowing what they were talking about.

They are history and we are the future of their agricultural knowledge of the time—some of the speculative philosophers of Smith’s time might have theorized us, but only in the most limited fashion.

The division of labour would seem to be fairly complex, when you consider the GPS and the onboard computers, engine and brake and transmission control, and all the cell phones and hearing aids, spectacles on the farmer’s eyes and in the farmer’s pockets and the satellites in space needed to make such a vast information and communication system actually work.

In that sense, agriculture is totally integrated into the overall economy. It’s not that it wasn’t before, but now it is more complex and more far-reaching in the sense of global commerce. This might include a sixty-cent New Zealand apple, shipped and trucked 12,000 miles, ending up in your supermarket, (and how much of the food in there doesn’t have some kind of agricultural basis?)

Someone had to figure out how to make that happen, and surely it’s not a farmer, it’s a specialist.

We are so much more specialized now, and in that sense the system has evolved into something new.

Our food chain is un-recognizable to our ancestors.

That process, from start to finish, has mushroomed, and in a sense flourished, all based on some motives of enlightened self-interest and mutual benefit, all based on that simple notion of a division of labour. Division of labour causes efficiency in this great economic engine.

There is also such a thing as division of rewards, especially when labour is exchanged for money, as this isn’t exactly the same as an exchange of commodities.

Anything Adam Smith said, way back when, is only of historical note at this point in time. He set the art of formulating economic theories on a rational basis, a scientific basis, one using measurable quantities, and leaving out all supernatural and mystical elements.

Also, I doubt if he foresaw globalization, or if he could account for a sort of fungus-ring effect, like ripples going out in a pond from a rock being tossed in. The way industry and jobs were farmed out and outsourced and ultimately exported to less expensive labour markets, even in the face of growing prosperity for an ever-increasing number of people.

Maybe free trade is a good thing, but unregulated free trade might not be such a good thing. Unsupervised and uninspected free trade might not be such a good thing.

According to Thomas Hobbes (or somebody) ancient men led lives that were ‘nasty, brutish, poor and short.’

Their lives were pretty simple back then. The human condition has improved by all statistical measures, and with the increase in population we can take a better sample even.

You have to be able to measure things, even such things as progress.

Are we making progress?

Are we backsliding, or is this just a temporary glitch in a system that works?

What causes such glitches?

When all this has worked itself out, what comes next?

***

Back then, Smith knew virtually nothing of ‘entitlements,’ everything from the GST rebate here in Canada to pensions, home heating grants, student grants, all kinds of government largesse. Although he would have recognized patronage, even corruption, as some of the Prime Ministers of the time (back then, when the whole notion of party was coming into being) governed by patronage, handing out key appointments, and they somehow kept a government going. Some would forget that that’s what a government is for—to manage and run a country. As to whether Smith had any great philosophical notions about social questions, such as the rise of social capital or the welfare state, or secular humanism, or social democracy, that is unknown to me. These entitlements are a tool of government fiscal policy, make no mistake. The government has a social agenda, and well it should have.

“A monarch’s greatest glory lies in the health and happiness of the people,” still holds true today although I forget who said it—probably some monarchist somewhere.

However, the point I am trying to make is that a marketplace, which is what Smith was talking about in his book, is certainly social, but it is not a government in any sense of the world.

These are two different things, no matter how closely intertwined in mutually dependent self-interest.

It is a dichotomy, and a struggle at times to see which system will rule the other.

It is cause and effect, supply and demand, but it is up to the government to manage the equitable redistribution of excess wealth—and the wealth of nations was the subject of his book after all—for the market seems incapable of doing that fairly and equitably.

Surpluses and excesses that are not reinvested into the marketplace end up being hoarded and essentially dead to the economy when its reinjection would do much social good. Cash flow trumps bullion held in reserve any day of the week.

A nation’s wealth consists not in its visible wealth, the result of seven or ten years output, but in its actual output at any given moment in the instantaneous digital world we now inhabit.

As for pensions and the like, which tend to stimulate local economies, (and everything is politics, and all politics is local politics,) rather than the government develop an infrastructure of arbitrary redistribution (strictly merit-based) they have delegated the supervision of aforesaid monies to me.

Maintaining the health and welfare of the people, and without people a state has little or no reason (or right) to exist, creates its own commerce. Adam Smith, I think, would have, or at least should have, been opposed to austerity. To him, the ideal marketplace was a model of rationality, but of course real life isn’t like that all of the time.

I choose to redistribute the funds to a local grocer. They are the most efficient local grocer—hence their prices are lower and I get more bang for my buck. They have merit. Some folks patronize other stores—based on their relative perceived merits.

The citizen subsists, commerce flows, the progress of civilization continues, and the state is perpetuated in a symbolic dance.

The interconnection between commerce for all, and prosperity for all, is easy enough to see.

END

Check out ‘The Vatican Caper,’ my debut thriller at Barnes & Noble. Available as an ebook or in 5 x 8” paperback.

Hearts and Minds.

Secl. (Wiki.)

by Zach Neal

Community journalists have always faced the challenge of objectivity.

There’s no real litmus test for it and we should probably always assume that we ourselves have some kind of bias or prejudice towards one point of view or another.

There are two sides to every question. It’s an unfortunate truism because there is a third side, an uncommitted side.

On the question of global climate change, there are believers and disbelievers. There are also the uncommitted.

This helps to explain all the time, money and effort in the quest to sway public opinion, always the surest guide to changes in the political, social, and economic landscape.

It is nothing less than a battle for the hearts and minds of the people.

We all have a stake in its outcome.

I, personally, do not have a string of thermometers all over the globe, reporting back in real-time to some heavy duty algorithm-crunching hardware, in order to determine if global warming is real or not. And I’m smart enough to know that I can never really find out the truth for myself. And there is no good reason for any other person to take my word for it, even if I could do so.

Unless I was prepared to present my evidence, one way or another and they were prepared to accept the data.

That works both ways.

I don’t necessarily have to take someone else’s word for it, either. I don’t have to accept someone else’s data.

I could just shrug my shoulders and roll my eyes and say I don’t know.

I can remain uncommitted.

Interestingly, the uncommitted hold the balance of power. This is why both sides court, educate, attempt to persuade, or even just intimidate the uncommitted into a state of apathy.

Sometimes just muddying the waters helps, especially if one side or the other isn’t clearly winning the battle.

If the water is muddy, it must also be deep, or something.

No matter who you are talking to, no matter what the subject matter, no matter what the time and place, you will never, ever be getting more than half the story.

If the person doing the talking is lying or mistaken, then you are not even getting that much—you’re getting a lot less than half a story.

That’s why a good journalist listens to both sides—and this requires a certain amount of objectivity. It’s a good skill to have, because it works as a full-time bull-shit meter.

Little warning bells go off when things don’t add up and you recognize that maybe someone has an interest.

And when you figure out whose interest is best served by facts and truth, and whose interest is best served by lies, half-truths, uncertainties and smoke-screens, then basically you just need to ask more questions.

The more specific the questions, the more specific the answers should be, and if a speech full of rhetoric ensues then you are onto something.

One side has facts, figures, measurable statistics, long-term studies and the other side has a smoke-screen and a lot of rhetoric.

What you do next is your call as a journalist, but if you’re any kind of a writer at all, you’ll get your point across in a professional manner.

Other than that, brevity is king.

END

History, my ass.

Young Isoroku Yamamoto chillin' with Secretary of the Navy Curtis E. Wilbur.

History my ass.

One of the oft-quoted fallacies of history is that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, December 7, 1941, was ‘inspired’ by the successful night attack by Swordfish torpedo planes on the Italian fleet at Taranto. This took place in November 1940. The British used a handful of planes, at night, whereas the attack on Pearl Harbour used 363 aircraft, timed for dawn or thereabouts on a Sunday morning.

While the Japanese decision to attack might have been encouraged by the success of the British attack, it was clearly not solely inspired by it. There are too many facts that speak otherwise.

This idea, and this might surprise the reader, has been largely promulgated by British historians.

The story is so much more complex than that, and while writers can be excused for national pride, the highlights of the full story are worth the re-telling.

U.S. Army Air Force General Billy Mitchell demonstrated bombing techniques against ships at anchor, (high-level, precision bomb-aiming) and his crews sank the Ostfriesland with 2,000-lb. bombs in 1921. This was under ideal conditions, with no air cover and the ship at anchor. There were no time constraints in the sense of a scramble of defensive machines or anti-aircraft gunfire.

In WW I, British cruisers engaged, out of sight of the enemy, using naval guns, German raiders hidden in creeks in East Africa, with the help of naval reconnaissance aircraft. I can’t find a specific link for this, but a friend’s dad served in light cruisers and escort carriers in WW II. He had a lot of books on the shelf, one of which was about British light cruisers. All the navies of the world were experimenting with the use and coordination of aircraft and fleet units.

The Bremen, a commerce raider of WW I.

In WW I, the British launched Sopwith Camels off of towed barges, as well as capital ships, to attack German dirigibles.

LZ 66 was destroyed on August 21, 1917. The British aircraft was launched from a platform on the cruiser H.M.S. Yarmouth.

There was no shortage of naval strategists between the wars. Japanese naval staff had read all the books, all the newspapers, all that was to be known about modern warfare when they began to have Imperial aspirations, and built up both a strong Army and a strong Navy. They knew all about Billy Mitchell, in fact Yamamoto spent time in the U.S. as a naval attache if memory serves.

Hans Ulrich Rudel, Stuka pilot and the Eagle of the Eastern Front in the German press, sank the Russian battleship Marat in September 1941.

In 1940, the German cruiser Konigsberg, damaged by coastal guns during the battle of Norway, was sunk in harbour by British bombers. They were light bombers at that.

Bombers were an important component of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, as shallow water and constricted space meant torpedoes were only of limited effectiveness, although deadly when the planes could drop them and running time was sufficient to arm the warhead. The Japaneses took special pains to modify the torpedoes for the conditions of the attack. They were really meant to attack ships at sea in the context of a classic naval battle, if such a thing can be said to exist. The Battle of the Coral Sea demonstrates this. (Described as the first battle in history when the fleets never saw each other.) That’s because the tactics of the previous war envisaged long lines of battleships and cruisers, engaging at extreme range (visually, hence the high observation towers on the vessels) with naval artillery, with destroyers laying smoke screens and racing in to launch torpedo attacks. In such an engagement, numbers and weights of ammunition delivered would be the deciding factor. Jellicoe crossing the ‘T’ at Jutland does nothing to contradict this notion. The weight of broadsides would always be superior to frontal guns only. In WW II, battleship engagements, with the exception of the Bismarck, (and to be fair, the sinking of the Hood,) were actually rare exceptions. The range of a battleship without refueling was limited, the range of the guns was limited, and the cost of a mistake was very high. The whole history of German commerce raiders bears this out. Sooner or later, a bigger ship, with bigger guns, would come along, or the raider would be swamped by force of numbers vectored onto a point of reference: last-seen here.

Aircraft, more specifically, aircraft carriers, would be decisive on the oceans in the same way as the massed panzer formations would be decisive on land. (Massed panzer formations were used against dispersed armour reinforcing classic infantry dispositions.) Their force could be concentrated when the enemy’s was dispersed, unprotected by strong and vigilant air cover of its own, on land as in the Maginot Line, or at sea and better yet, at anchor in harbour on a sleepy Sunday morning Japan’s doctrine at sea was one of mobility, just as the Germans’ doctine on land was one of mobility.

The Val dive-bomber was designed in 1936.

The Kate torpedo-bomber was designed in 1935.

These, along with the Zero fighter, were the principal aircraft used at Pearl Harbour. The great tragedy from the Japanese standpoint was the fact that the U.S. carriers were absent when the raid occurred. The Japanese were sobered by this realization at the time.

Long before the raid on Taranto, the whole Japanese Navy was predicated on aerial attack from the sea—Japan’s six large carriers, concentrated into one strike group, make this simple fact undeniable. These strike groups were not designed for a defensive war. They were designed for attack. Their only enemies of consequence could be the U.S., whose Pacific Fleet was anchored at Pearl Harbour, and the British Asiatic Fleet, based on Hong Kong and Singapore. The French and the Dutch, the other colonial powers in the region, had substantially smaller naval presences in the Pacific.

What is surprising is that the Japanese Navy did not go on to smash San Diego or disrupt (or even capture) the Panama Canal, surely logical objectives in any navy man’s book of strategy. A dozen large tankers in waiting positions would have sufficed to have achieved this objective.

General Isoroku Yamamoto was responsible for a number of innovations in Japanese Military Aviation.

‘In January 1941, Yamamoto went even further and proposed a radical revision of Japanese naval strategy. For two decades, in keeping with the doctrine of Captain Alfred T. Mahan, (an American) the Naval General Staff had planned in terms of Japanese light surface forces, submarines and land-based air units whittling down the American Fleet as it advanced across the Pacific until the Japanese Navy engaged it in a climactic ‘Decisive Battle’ in the northern Philippine Sea (between the Ryukyu Islands and the Marianas Islands), with battleships meeting in the traditional exchange between battle lines.

Correctly pointing out this plan had never worked even in Japanese war games, and painfully aware of American strategic advantages in military productive capacity, Yamamoto proposed instead to seek a decision with the Americans by first reducing their forces with a preventive strike, and following it with a ‘Decisive Battle’ fought offensively, rather than defensively. Yamamoto hoped, but probably did not believe, if the Americans could be dealt such terrific blows early in the war, they might be willing to negotiate an end to the conflict. As it turned out, however, the note officially breaking diplomatic relations with the United States was delivered late, and he correctly perceived the Americans would be resolved upon revenge and unwilling to negotiate. At the end of the attack upon Pearl Harbor, upon hearing of the mis-timing of the communique breaking diplomatic relations with the United States earlier that day, it is reputed Yamamoto said, ‘I fear all we have done today is to awaken a great, sleeping giant,’ however, there is no documented evidence the statement was made.
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The Naval General Staff proved reluctant to go along and Yamamoto was eventually driven to capitalize on his popularity in the fleet by threatening to resign to get his way. Admiral Osami Nagano and the Naval General Staff eventually caved in to this pressure, but only insofar as approving the attack on Pearl Harbor.’ > (Wikipedia.)
On December 10, 1941, the British battleships Repulse and Prince of Wales were sunk by Japanese naval aircraft using bombs and torpedoes. The ships were at full steam and underway at the time of the engagement. The Japanese needed little or no inspiration from the British, and this writer can state with some accuracy that their tactics, their strategy, and their doctrine had been a long time in the development.
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By the end of WW II, off the coast of Japan were over a hundred U.S. aircraft carriers. The tactics were by no means superior, the skill and bravery of the men by no means any more superlative than that of the Japanese pilot, sailor or soldier.
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What won WW II was industrial capacity—and the wealth to fuel it, and to sustain it, over a long war when the enemy was counting on a short one.
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Let us not forget the lessons of history, otherwise we are doomed to repeat them.

You and the Law.

Zach Neal is not a barrister nor a solicitor, and
neither does he play one on the tellyvision......

     A surprising number of people will tell you, “I know the law, man…” What is even more surprising is how wrong they can be.

     At some point if you are subject to harassment, you may have to get the law involved. Yet the police can be ineffective when dealing with harassment. For one thing, it is

extremely time consuming. In one case the local police had to spend $14,000 in overtime in order to catch a man harassing a former partner. They also expended untold man-hours during their regular duties. All these resources, all this time has to be paid for by the taxpayers, and it takes the police away from other duties. “Little cases,” or cases where there is some doubt in their minds, do not get the highest priority, it’s fair to say.

     In the stated case, the police knew the victim, they knew where she lived. They new where the perpetrator lived. Since he was a firefighter they knew his work schedule, they knew where he lived, where he worked, they had his photo, license number, they knew his vehicle, phone number, et cetera. Why was it so hard to catch him? It wasn’t, really—they caught him a number of times.

    Because of the nature of the court system, they had to have enough evidence, but they needed more than that. They had to get enough evidence to convince a judge and jury to give the gentleman a serious sentence, a previous conviction not being enough to convince the perpetrator to leave the lady alone. We won’t discuss the particulars of the actual evidence. However it is sufficient to say that a suspended sentence was not enough, probation was not enough, fines were not enough.

    The gentleman was convicted of various harassment and stalking-related offences. He got a two-year sentence, and since he threatened a police sergeant, he got an additional six months tacked on. If I was the victim, I would be fearful when he got released, and while time may hang heavy on the hands while a person sits in jail, to those on the outside it actually goes by pretty darned fast. She will have to confront this issue at some point in the future, and she may in fact still have to move just to feel safe—even in the absence of further incidents. Even in the absence of further incidents, the harassment, the stress, the anger, the fear just keep on and on. With all due respect to the reader, as a writer it would be uncomfortable to go and ask her about it. But I feel it’s true. (I know damn well it’s true.)

     The local paper over the course of time is full of these cases. By reading “provincial court,” you can get a pretty good idea of the type and nature of crimes of harassment. 

     When I realized I was the subject of harassment, in my case more of a witch-hunt really, I sought out some professional advice. Typically, a lawyer will provide a half-hour consultation free of charge, and I suggest that is one of your first steps. Nothing in this post should be considered a definitive statement of law. You need a real lawyer for that.

     Interestingly enough, the law says it is illegal to be a “false witch,” and provides stiff penalties. It is not illegal to actually be a witch. Presumably the onus would be on the Crown to prove you aren’t! (Some interesting case law might be written here, but we’ll leave that one for another day.)

     I was told, “Document everything,” but I really didn’t ask enough questions.

     So when followed by a certain vehicle, I made a note of it when I had a chance; you can’t take notes when driving down the street very well, although I got better at it.

    I wrote down the make and colour of the vehicle, license number if I could get it, number of occupants, but to get a good look at a number of individuals in your rear view mirror; it’s hard to make a description or even get a proper look. At night, in bad weather, or in heavy traffic, I could usually distinguish “two males, about twenty-five or thirty years old, average build,” that kind of thing. “One guy had glasses,” that kind of thing. So I wrote down what I could, but generally speaking, you have to be able to identify the

driver, and you also have to be willing and able to testify against them. So you have to give up some of your time.

     Going to court even as a witness is fearful; and most people aren’t willing to do that “just for one little incident.” That was my problem. In the early stages, no one single incident was enough to get me to go the police. After a year and a half of “attentions,” maybe then I was ready, but not at first. Within three months of buying a house, I knew there was some kind of a problem. At first, it was just noise, and when I called up one night to the  police with a noise complaint, the dispatcher asked me, “Is it really important? We’re having a kind of a busy night…” Well, I hemmed and hawed and pretty quickly decided just to try and make it through with no sleep, try not to get mad, it’s just a party, you know the score. I think we’ve all gone through a noisy party night in the neighbourhhood.

     The dispatcher asked me, “Have you tried talking to them, sir?” I told her, “I’m not going out there in the middle of the night and confront twenty-five or thirty drunks…”

     I should not have backed down to the police dispatcher. I’ve never had a lot of confidence. I don’t know why. Cops are intimidating, or something.

     But the harassment was already there. That’s why I called in the first place. After only three months I knew there was some kind of a problem.

     Bearing in mind the theories of medical science; this behaviour had already been habituated in the minds of the perps. And by the time a year and a half of stress had begun working its little magic on me...and I was already stressed because buying a home is always stressful, and I didn’t have a lot of disposable to money to throw around. After three months there was a problem, it took longer for it to be clearly harassment.

    “The fear often expressed by clients is that, if they tell the full story, a lawyer may refuse to take the case. A lawyer, and ultimately a court, must be armed with all the facts to properly solve a legal problem. Full disclosure is essential to this process and must be encouraged.”—Les Vandor, QC, Frequently Asked Questions About the Law, ECW Press, 2002.

     Every case is different, every new fact puts a new wrinkle on the case. Provincial and federal laws often vary, and they change quite often as well. Don’t ever think that you can handle a legal problem involving harassment or abuse yourself. You need a professional.

     The law starts with some general rules. Section 6 of the Criminal Code of Canada says you are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Section 13 says that no person under the age of 12 can be convicted, as child protection laws kick in; Section 14 says that you cannot consent to being killed.

     Perhaps more relevant, Section 19 says “ignorance of the law is no excuse.”

     Perhaps irrelevant, the laws says, “you have to commit a crime intentionally to be convicted of it.” How the judge reconciles these conflicts is what we call “justice.”

     In Sections 25 to 33 police are given the power to arrest and to use force if necessary.

     If you are arrested for an offence, and you know you are innocent, do not make them use force. You will have to go with them, and take up a complaint later, unfair as it seems. I’ve been on disability for about eleven years, and lawyers are expensive, but that’s just the way life is sometimes. If you are innocent, what is the point of being tasered? The cops have always had guns and batons, but I have some concerns about

tasers. They are lethal in a small number of incidents, and that just doesn’t happen with pepper spray. But pepper spray is “uncomfortable” for the officers, due to persistent effects of a good dose of liquid, which is all over the suspect. And then the officer has to put the suspect in a vehicle and drive him to the station. But my real concern is that while a gun or baton may be a tool of last resort, the taser seems to be more a tool of

convenience. A time saver for the police. It seems to place punishment in the hands of the police and takes it out of the hands of the court. Why punish yourself? Funny thing is, the court would never punish someone by ordering them to be tasered. It’s too risky—too much chance of death by heart attack.

     Ignoring the possibility of a heart attack or seizure, if you are innocent it’s definitely not worth it.

     In Section 34, self-defense is allowed if you are the victim of an unprovoked attack. If you charge someone, they may claim that you provoked them. Far from a confession of guilt, it becomes a “he-said-she said” kind of thing. The court has to decide which party’s evidence is more credible, which carries more weight. Sheer number of witnesses can tip the balance, with unfortunate results.

     In a noise incident, to go out and confront a large party, well in court, they might not be drunk, and they’re not going to testify against a buddy, are they? Don’t get assaulted if you can help it. Certain situations are just trouble waiting to happen, especially if you’re upset and come on like gangbusters.

     Self-intoxication, when you have no sense of what you are doing, is not a defense to a charge under the Criminal Code of Canada, often referred to as the “triple C.”

     If the police ask you questions, you pretty much have to answer them, otherwise you could be charged with interfering with a police investigation. Here’s something I didn’t know. The police do not have to warn you that every thing you say can be used to charge you; “until you become a suspect.” This one troubles me a bit, my advice is “never try to explain anything to a cop.” Explain it to a lawyer, and let him explain it to a court.

     If you call the police, and all of a sudden they seem to be taking the other party’s side, that is exactly the time to shut up. You’re teetering on the brink and it is time to back off, unfair as it will seem at the time, I say this for your own protection.

     According to Les Vandor’s book, “you are allowed to fence your property, and you are allowed to post signs that it is private property. However if a neighbour refuses to respect your property, you should give him or her ample warning that you intend to take appropriate measures. They include calling the police and using reasonable force to protect your property.” More on this one later.

     “Many cases require funding from Legal Aid plans as people just can’t afford a lawyer or the cost of a trial. Unfortunately many of these plans are running out of money and many a plan, in an effort to save money, has set the threshold for qualifying quite high.”

     In some provinces you will only qualify if you make below $12,000 a year. A bare subsistence living, in other words. If you make more, you won’t qualify for aid. Recently many lawyers in some provinces have gone on strike in support of more funding for their clients. Legal Aid will not help you with a civil suit, only if you are charged with a crime; and only if certain thresholds are met. In my case, a lady once came and took my application for Legal Aid. I later received a letter rejecting my application. The reason given: “Not much of a chance of my going to jail…” Interesting, eh? The original application was taken in a jail, while awaiting a bail hearing. What if I had been convicted? Because I had part-time work, as well. I might have made $12,001.00 dollars that year. The charge was later withdrawn, after nine months on bail.

     The conclusion I drew is that disabled, mentally ill people, permanently unemployable people, the working poor, are easier to harass. They can’t afford to sue, and if accused of a crime themselves, they simply can’t defend themselves. Once they get a rap sheet, they are even more vulnerable to abuse, and to abuses of the system as well.

     In the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, people have lived with the threat of terrorism for a long time, stemming first from the Irish Republican Army and more recently Al Quaeda. The right to privacy is often subject to the needs of society.

     In England, public video cameras are the norm, and people have become accustomed to the loss or invasion of their privacy. However in Canada, the debate is ongoing; as to how much of our privacy to give up. When I lived in Oakville and Hamilton a few years ago, there were about 1400 video cameras along the highway system of the Queen Elizabeth Way, the 401 (Macdonald-Cartier Freeway), et cetera. You would have no reasonable expectation of privacy while driving or parked on these roads.

     Now, Section 184 of the Criminal Code dispels a very common myth: you cannot record the conversation of another person without their permission. And most people think that only one person, one side of that conversation; has to give permission. I think that’s due to U.S. TV influences—most of what we “know” about the law comes from TV. The code sets out guidelines for when the police can get a wiretap, and when a judge can grant permission to set up a wiretap. When you call some agencies and companies, a

recorded voice will tell you “this call is monitored for quality control purposes.” You can hang up if you want, and send a letter, but for the most part you should never threaten, harass, swear or otherwise abuse the people on the other end of the call, although it’s very tempting sometimes when you want the telemarketers to get off your back.

     The important thing to remember for the purposes of this book, is that your neighbour cannot videotape your comings and goings. That’s because you have the right to privacy, and to paraphrase a recent Supreme Court decision, you cannot photograph a person without their permission unless they are part of a crowd. Tip: two is company, three is a crowd. As the photographer, you don’t count.

     If someone calls you and makes threats, you cannot record that call. You need permission orally or in writing, and abusive people are rarely stupid enough to give it. I suggest you ask them for it, if they don’t hang up, turn on your tape recorder. Keep the recording, do not tell the cops about it. Let a lawyer listen to it, but not the cops. They can’t use it anyway. Evidence that is not gathered by the police is tainted, they don’t know how and when it was gathered, or under what circumstances it was gathered. And it can get you in deep shit.

     Let’s say someone is going around telling everyone that you are a thief. You are innocent. What can you do?

     According to Les Vandor, “When someone makes a statement about you that is untrue, you have the right to an apology and the right to sue for damages to your reputation. Damages may include lost income or opportunity caused by the false statement. If it is serious enough, the police may well get involved. Your first step is to get witnesses to support your version of events. You should then write a polite letter asking for an apology. If you get a letter of apology in return, you should send it on to whoever heard the false accusation. If you don’t get an apology, consider dropping the matter, or as a last resort, suing the person.”

     Essentially, if you don’t get a letter of apology, but the behaviour stops, the best thing is to try to forgive and forget. Make sure you keep a copy of your letter, this is part of the documentation process, which I consider all-important. That’s why it’s a good idea to tell other people if you feel you are being harassed, “within limits,” and if you can’t afford a lawyer, at least take advantage of the half-hour free consultation. At the very least now some credible person knows about your problem. Document your trip to the lawyer. Keep notes of what you do. If you can remember the date of an incident, you have a lot more credibility than someone who can’t.

     “Take notes—they help you to remember.”

     Anyhow, Section 297 of the Criminal Code covers criminal libel, and the law provides civil penalties for libel, slander, and defamation of character. The law also makes it illegal “to spread false news.” Quite frankly if someone is going around saying bad things about you, it endangers you, physically, psychologically, and even financially.

     You can sue someone for damaging your name and reputation, if you have the means to do so. This kind of damage is called defamation; if it is by printed words, it is called libel, if by spoken word it’s called slander. Both are regulated by the Criminal Code and are subject to “civil liabilities and remedies.”

     Your neighbours can be your best friends, or your worst enemies. People say, “I don’t care what the neighbours think,” that’s very short sighted. Your neighbours can get you hung, or they can prevent a lynching. Anyone who goes around attempting to label you something bad, that might be a prelude to something they plan to do later on.

     “To dehumanize someone is often a prelude to further civil and human rights violations.” In short, Jack the Ripper preyed on prostitutes, serial stalkers prey on women and other vulnerable types, abusive men would seldom beat up a female co-worker in the workplace. The wife waiting at home is so much more vulnerable, isolated, and available.

     So much safer. She is often to blame for everything from a bad night’s sleep to financial insecurity to a spouse’s drinking problem.

     To beat or attempt to beat another without actually touching them is called assault, the beating of another that includes touching is called battery; hence “assault and battery” charges.

     Collection agencies are regulated by federal and provincial laws. They may not threaten you, your employer or your family. They may demand repayment, they may sue you, but they cannot threaten you. If a collection agent threatens you, call the police.

     In your community, there may be a free legal assistance clinic staffed by several professional lawyers and a number of paralegals. 

     Talk to them. Get them to help you write that letter. It’s part of your documentation process. (I wish I had done that.) If the behavior stops, all well and good. But if it doesn’t, you have a record of the first incident. And other people know about it.

     When the police find that an offence has been committed, they “lay an information”against a person. This might cause an arrest warrant to be issued.

     Anyone can lay an information. You don’t have to be a police officer. If you complain to the police about some kind of incident or activity, and they refuse to proceed, under Section 504 you can lay an information about a person. This goes before a justice of the peace, who examines the evidence. If they are convinced there is ‘just cause’, charges may be laid and the police will have to arrest that person for trial. However, even if you fail to convince the justice of the peace, at least you have properly documented your complaint.

     The basic rule of life here, is “cover your ass.” And your ass comes ahead of any perp.

     Under Section 264.1 of the Criminal Code, it is unlawful to threaten to cause harm to a person, their property or a pet. The statute provide for up to five years in jail. 

     If someone hits you once, and you let them get away with it, over time it gets harder and harder to lay a charge. Losing has become habituated in the victim.

    

     Statements from victims are useful to judges in imposing sentences. This information is also considered when the convicted person applies for parole. You need to provide ways to document harassment and abuse; and to protect yourself for a number of reasons.

     At first it may be hard to talk about, but over time, you may wish you had done a better job of documentation. A history or documentation going back a few years might carry a lot of weight with a jury. Without being unduly alarmist; it could even help solve a murder or disappearance.

     Speaking of parole, let’s go back to the lab rat studies. When females are taken out of a social group and isolated for a certain amount of time, then re-introduced to the group, there is no big spike in violent behaviour.

     But when males are taken out of the group, and isolated, then returned after a time; there is a significant spike in violent behaviour. Males don’t do well in isolation, and males with a history of violence do even worse in isolation. Jail is social isolation, with massive stress levels built in.

     As a society, we have not confronted the problem of violence with any knowledge of human nature. “We ignore the beast we are trying to tame.”

     Men and women who are in jail are in there mostly for the same reasons: murder, arson, assault, fraud, theft, etc. They commit those crimes for all of the same reasons.

    There are fewer women in jail, but that’s because the court treats them differently.

     It is true that women commit far fewer crimes that we would consider classic: bank stick-ups, “running numbers for the mob,” or “hit men,” but then crime is under no obligation to be an equal opportunity employer. It’s probably fair to say that a lot of women live off or benefit from the proceeds of crimes committed by spouses, and some at least must be aware of it. Women are much more likely to be perceived as victims in this scenario; rather than as accomplices.

     Women are far less likely to go to jail, because they often have dependent children, and the state is unprepared to care properly for them. Women are far less likely to go to jail for anything but a seriously violent offense.  

     Women are less likely to re-offend, while some may believe this is gender-based, I think it’s because they weren’t incarcerated in the first place. The opinion among professionals is that the more people diverted from the prison system, the more crime rates fall. Crime rates are good for conservatives, reactionaries, interested parties, just who you’d expect.

     For women, in the workplace, a situation may develop when a co-worker goes beyond the boundaries of normal friendliness. There is a huge grey area legally; in terms of sexual harassment. It’s scary for both men and women, but for a normal male of the gentlemanly type, certain hints will work, they accept and realize that “no means no.”

     But if a man always stands where he can see down your top, or the boss makes disparaging remarks, insults you all the time, then you either put up with it, move on to different employment, make a formal written complaint, or lay a charge.

     “No one wants to bring a charge, it poisons the whole atmosphere in the workplace, but that unfortunately is the only thing sometimes,” according to women’s advocates. Yet some practical advice might help to solve the situation in a diplomatic manner. Look at the set-up of the office furniture, it may help to move some stuff around, put a couple of good chairs by the desk. Stake out your personal territory and defend it symbolically.

     Play the game, snap a little at the guy and blame PMS. Tell him your boyfriend’s mom is real sick, describe her colostomy operation. “What with the kids, the dog, Harry’s skin condition, I’m just worn to a frazzle…” Keep a bottle of anti-gas pills, or something for fighting diarrhea prominently displayed on your desk, workstation or dashboard.

     If unwanted sexual advances are persistent, yet the guy is basically well-meaning and is merely infatuated, first try and have a private talk. Make your position absolutely clear to him. If you have to comment again, do it in front of witnesses, but not the big boss.

    You may need to use it later. This is a measured response to a situation you don’t have to put up with. If the guy is clearly not a criminal, just has a big crush, a little firmness laced with kindness will work most of the time.

    Whatever. If a man grabs you in the warehouse or something, rake his shins with the side of your shoe, step down smartly on his instep, or boot him appropriately. No court in the land will convict you.

End

My novel, Master of Darkness, and my novella, the Painted Killer, are free from Smashwords until July 31.

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