2. Any mistake the owner made could be picked up as he went to extraordinary length in his blog. And he kept repeating key statements of fact.
3. A number of days after the post Case was published on 01 Mar 11 noise went up for about a week, then down and the owner's computer that was under attacked was back to normal. On 25 Mar 11 his computer was targeted again. These were co-ordinated. Noise from the neighbour continues to be heard each day. They are making use of the flat for their works as the family do not live there.
4. The whistleblowing policy for civil service and statutorys board announced in parliament on 28 Feb 11 enables insiders who present evidence to be protected from exposing themselves. But this should be secondary to a formal inquiry. Having one would show the authority is serious, and allow people to come forward.
5. The quotes selected here are of particular relevance to the case:
a) In any society where government does not express or represent the moral community of the citizens, but is instead a set of institutional arrangements for imposing a bureaucratized unity on a society which lacks genuine moral consensus, the nature of political obligation becomes systematically unclear. Patriotism is or was a virtue founded on attachment primarily to a poltical and moral community and only secondarily to the government of that community; but it is characteristically exercised in discharging responsibility to and in such government. When however the relationship of government to the moral community is put in question both by the changed nature of government and the lack of moral consensus in the society, it becomes difficult any longer to have any clear, simple and teachable conception of patriotism. Loyalty to my country, to my community -- which remains unalterably a central virtue -- becomes detached from obedience to the government which happens to rule me.
Just as this understanding of the displacement of patriotism must not be confused with the liberal critique of moral particularity, so this necessary distancing of the moral self from the government of mordern states must not be confused with any anarchist critique of the state. Nothing in my argument suggests, let alone implies, any good grounds for rejecting certain forms of government as necessary and legitimate; what the argument does entail is that the modern state is not such a form of government. It must have been clear from earlier parts of my argument that the tradition of the virtues is at variance with the central features of the modern economic order and more especially its individualism, its acquisitiveness and its elevation of the values of the market to a central social place. It now becomes clear that it also involves a rejection of the modern political order. This does not mean that there are not many tasks only to be performed in and through government which still require performing: the rule of law, so far as it is possible in a modern state, has to be vindicated, injustice and unwarranted suffering have to be dealt with, generosity has to be exercised, and liberty has to be defended, in ways that are sometimes only possible through the use of governmental institutions. But each particular task, each particular responsibility has to be evaluated on its own merits. Modern systematic politics, whether liberal, conservative, radical or socialist, simply has to be rejected from a standpoint that owes genuine allegiance to the tradition of the virtues; for modern politics itself expresses in its institutional forms a systematic rejection of that tradition.
After Virtue (2008), Page 254--255, Alasdair MacIntyre
b) For Aristotle, the purpose of politics is not to set up a framework of rights that is neutral among ends. It is to form good citizens and to cultivate good character. It's about learning how to live a good life. The purpose of politics is nothing less than to enable people to develop their distinctive capacities and virtues--to deliberate about the common good, to acquire practical judgment, to share in self-government, to care for the fate of the community as a whole.
[A]ny polis which is truly so called, and is not merely one in name, must devote itself to the end of encouraging goodness. Otherwise, a political association sinks into a mere alliance...Otherwise, too, law becomes a mere covenant..."a guarantor of men's rights against one another"--instead of being, as it should be, a rule of life such as will make the members of a polis good and just.For Aristotle, this is the primary purpose of law--to cultivate the habits that lead to good character. "Legislators make the citizens good by forming habits in them, and this is the wish of every legislator, and those who do not effect it miss their mark, and it is in this that a good constitution differs from a bad one. It makes no small difference...whether we form habits of one kind or of another from our very youth; it makes a very great difference, or rather all the difference."
Justice:What's the Right Thing to Do? (2009), Michael J. Sandel.
c) So how is it possible to acknowledge the moral weight of community while still giving scope to human freedom?
Alasdair MacIntyre offers a powerful answer to this question. As an alternative to the voluntarist conception of the person, MacIntyre advances a narrative conception. Human beings are storytelling beings. We live our lives as narrative quests. "I can only answer the question 'What am I to do?' if I can answer the prior question 'Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?'"
The contrast with the narrative view of the self is clear. For the story of my life is always embedded in the story of those communities from which I derive my identity. I am born with a past; and to try to cut myself off that past, in the individualist mode, is to deform my present relationships.They can't be captured by an ethic of consent. That is, in part, what gives these claims their moral force. They draw on our encumbrances. They reflect our nature as storytelling beings, as situated selves.
Justice:What's the Right Thing to Do? (2009), Michael J. Sandel.
d) First, Confucian humanism places great responsibility on the shoulders of the individual person and regards it as the ruler's responsibility to teach individuals how to be essentially self-governing: "Lead the people with governmental measures and regulate them by law and punishment, and they will avoid wrongdoing but will have no sense of honor and shame. Lead them with virtue and regulate them by the rules of propriety (li), and they will have a sense of shame and, moreover, set themselves right." At the same time, Confucianism would reject the notion of the human person as an individual, if by this term one means to suggest the presence of a free and autonomous self.
Confucian Political Ethics, Daniel A. Bell.
e) Appearance. In Plato's Republic Glaucon presents a challenge between the perfectly unjust man and the perfectly just man. The unjust man is truly unjust but has the skills and resources he needs for a prosperous life and to get away with his misdeeds while maintaining a reputation for justice. The perfectly just man is the exact opposite--he has nothing but his justice and a false reputation for being unjust. The challenge given to Socrates is to prove that the life of the just man is preferable even under the stated conditions.
What Don't You Know?, Michael C. LaBossiere.
( The excerpt from Republic could be found in Philosophy 101, Stanley Rosen.)
f) Led by degrees, people will agree not only that men ought to abstain from doing evil but also that they ought to prevent evil from being done and even to alleviate it when it is done, at least as far as they can without inconvenience to themselves. I am not now examining how far this inconvenience can go. Yet it will still be doubted, perhaps, that one is obligated to secure the good of another, even when this can be done without difficulty. Someone may say, "I am not obligated to help you achieve. Each for himself, God for all." But let me again suggest an intermediate case. A great good comes to you, but an obstacle arises, and I can remove that obstacle without pain. Would you not think it right to ask me to do so and to remind me that I would ask it of you if I were in a similar plight? If you grant this point, as you can hardly help doing, how can you refuse the only remaining request, that is, to procure a great good for me when you can do this without inconvenience of any kind to yourself and without being able to offer any reason for not doing it except a simple, "I do not want to"? You could make me happy, and you refuse to do so. I complain, and you would complain in the same circumstances; therefore, I complain with justice.
(Paragraph from Reflections on the Common Concept of Justice by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.)
Philosophy 101, Stanley Rosen.
