What Right?

Here is the background to the story in news-article form. Alternatively:

If you don’t want to read the link, what happened is that back in November, someone leaked a list of personal details of members of the British National Party (BNP). The fallout from this action was a little more muted than some expected, at the time there was great concern about vigilante action against people who were perceived as being racist.

The actual consequences of this leak have been far more subtle, but no less worrying. The primary cause for concern is the growing acceptance of the concept of companies and organizations to ’screen’ their workforces of particular political views and allegiances. For years the Civil Service has barred BNP members from working within its ranks, (and by implication, barring its employees from joining said party). Similarly, the police have had similar blocks in place for a long time also, as can be seen from the story above.

The issue I wish to take up here is not the moral standing of the British National Party. In fact, the presence of the BNP in this debate is almost an obscuring one, since my point is independent of any individual politicla parties, but focusses on a wider concept:
Is it Legal or Right for a person’s political views to render them a target for discriminatory treatment?

I would be the first to admit that there are some circumstances under which it is sensible to ensure the operational neutrality of an employee, a fine example would be the returning officer at general and local elections, who is usually a high ranking local civil servant. Another examples of necessary operational neutrality can be found in the top ranks of the civil service (such as Cabinet Secretary) and throughout the military.

Operational neutrality however, need not necessarily mean that the person in question is not permitted to hold views, or even to express them in his or her private life. It simply means that these views must not be allowed to interfere with their day to day duties in which neutrality is assumed. I have yet to meet a person who is truly ‘view neutral’ rather than ‘operationally neutral’, and I am unconvinced that it could even be possible for a person to be entirely neutral in their personal views.

So why the obsession with preventing a particular viewpoint from being represented in our institutions and employment market? Would the civil service ban socialists on the grounds that they might try and ‘redistribute’ some wealth? Should the police ban those with morally conservative views in case they arrest people for being out too late? It is my feeling (and hope) that any such attempt would provoke utter outrage on the part of the general population.
It is instead assumed that people who hold such views are capable of reigning them in and keeping them in check when the moment to do so arises.
By implication then, the measures to bar some views but not others have an unstated, underlying assumption: that those who hold such views are not capable of such restraint, and that the contamination and of the impartiality of their work is therefore inevitable.

This is a very slippery slope, dangerous for the same reason that blaming society for an individual’s actions and crimes is dangerous: it removes a portion of the attributes of humanity from the subject in question.
Stating that a member of a party, however undesirable that party’s views may be, is incapable of putting those views aside for the sake of integrity is just as demeaning as the removal of personal responsibility implicit when pundits say of a criminal “society made him that way, it’s the system’s fault.” In each case, the individual is still in command, and still charged with the responsibility to make the right decision at each given moment as opposed to the wrong one.

The next fundamental reason to be concerned by this attitude of permitting political screening is that it sets a terrible precident.
If one day, one party is considered ‘ban-worthy’, it does beg the question of who is next? whilst I personally disagree on almost every level with the BNP, I am also aware that many people view the conservatives as “evil”, which would render a large portion of the population targets for vitriol and discrimination.

One principle in which I fundamentally believe in is the notion that I can, may and often will disagree vehemently with what someone else believes, but will defend to the hilt their right to believe it. Tragically I fear that this is greatly out of step with our current political times, where a small army of PC think-tank & pressure groups, along with a socialistic media believe in the doctrine of silencing opposing views rather than defending the very liberty of the right to hold a view. It is with great irony that, as much as I disagree with this ideology, I am willing to defend its right to exist.

One thing is for certain here: as long as opponents of each side continue to use emotive arguments and counter arguments in such settings, a true debate will not emerge. It is very difficult to establish which side is ‘right’, when all that can be heard across the battlefield is an ad-hominem bedlam, where each side is unwilling to counter the argument of the other with anything more convincing than”Racist!” or “Bigot!”.