The Nature of Corruption in Jersey

A US soldier defends an Opium field

Today Sir Pip finally made a statement I could agree with, Jersey needs to be more independent. I read on however and I found that we differ in both the definition of Jersey and the definition of independent.

What Sir Pip was referring to as Jersey was not the people of Jersey nor the island of Jersey but the Government of Jersey. Whilst I believe that the people of Jersey need to be more independent of the Government of Jersey, he believes that the Government of Jersey needs to be more independent of international control (or as I prefer to call it 'sanity').

In his mind he appears to truly believe that the Government of Jersey is 'good' and that it serves the people of Jersey to the best of its ability.

THIS IS A DELUSION ON THE PART OF SIR PIP

I serve myself better than anyone, I know the right decisions to make for me, I do not know what is best for you. What might be best for me at a given place in a given time might not serve you at all.

But it got me thinking as to how this delusion might arise, do all politicians and Civil Servants suffer from it?

Sir Phillip is clearly CORRUPTED. Not knowingly, not willingly, not intentionally and it is all the more fearful because he firmly believes that he is not, that he is a good man doing his best for everyone when he has become that which he seeks to protect us from, CONTROL.

Human beings are basically good, but they are frail, weak and self-deceiving it is easy through observation of the operation and methods of the Government of Jersey to see how good intentions become twisted and warped until the people who set out only to do good end up being the very people that they themselves are pursuing.

Statute is designed to pursue laudable aims, to improve the lot of the voters. Prospective candidates pronounce speeches to the electorate of how much more they will give, what improvements they will make to the lives of the voters.

Statutes are enacted and powers delegated to Civil Servants... let's take self-prescription as an example.

Someone somewhere decided that what other people needed to do was to stop taking drugs... drugs which were freely available on the super-market shelves of Victorian England. They campaigned, gained support from a number of people, their intentions were good. If many of the addicts stopped taking drugs then their lives would no doubt be different and probably better. The intent was to help, but help when not requested is the restriction of liberty.

Some politician somewhere saw more votes by supporting the imposition of a restriction on others liberties than by allowing people to exercise the free will given to them by God.

So the drugs moved off the supermarket shelves and onto the back streets, now the Customs and Police Officers were tasked from preventing the importation and distribution of these products. This was a double hit for taxpayers who now not only had to pay for extra staff, but also lost the revenue which was generated by the former trade in these products. The health and safety of those who continued to use them was put at risk as the production and sale of these products could no longer be monitored and there was no legal recourse against a manufacturer of faulty products.

The police and customs officers realised that they were losing the war and so demanded more and more resources be spent on upholding this new statute and ever greater powers to assist them with the enforcement of the law and the ability to secure convictions against the users of these products. This requires increases in taxation to pay for it all.

Eventually those same officers began bending and suspending the law, making illegal searches, but still they could not combat the use of the drugs, which actually grew more widespread.

The police realised they could not prevent it and instead began to control the flow of the drugs accepting payments and the occasional sacrifice to keep the books tidy, the occasional notable success to keep the public onside and the increases in expenditure flowing. They rationalise this by accepting that it is better to have some control over the market than simply allow a free for all, after all they require the trade to continue now to keep their budgets growing and their jobs.

In essence they have become the controllers of the very trade that they are seeking to prevent and somehow it has become their job to do this.

Of course the supply is now from the FBI and the CIA who are running drugs to pay for their own campaign against the drug producers, not quite realising that they are actually searching for themselves.

The end result is - criminalisation of a formerly law abiding section of society, increased taxation, more efficient production and distribution methods, a less competitive, less free market and greater danger to the health and well-being of a society. Was that what the Statute was intended to achieve?

The only solution is to revoke the Statute entirely and accept the better but imperfect thing that was rather than the mess that is. Ok it was a mistake, people make them, that's ok as long as it is a mistake that is only made once.