I was unable to upload this video onto Substack, so please view it on Rumble here! Do consider giving the Rumble channel a follow too, in case I’m ever unable to upload to Substack. Having spent a few days in the garden, I’ve been exercising both body and mind.
A couple of thoughts from me - 'common law' is at least three different things already. There's an area of HM judiciary known as common law which (I think) is the area where a judge can make a ruling based on precedence where there is no specific legislation to fall back on. Then there's the FMOTL and Common Law Malcolms who (even though I am sympathetic to their fundamental cause) blindly refuse to accept they are taking a knife to a gun party and get themselves into far more trouble ultimately shouting 'Unlawful!' as their houses get reposessed. Finally there's the moral and metaphysical code of conduct which I think you are probably describing here. I've come across that in many different forms and Mark Passio might be a high risk reference as his demeanor can put people off but academically he's put the work in and what he calls 'Natural Law' might be more along those lines.
I've been a member of several community farm projects for years and two of them ended up at polar opposites on the scale of how to self-organise. One farm society collapsed after having to deal with a bunch of sociopaths who had voted themselves into governance and the other got it just right where everyone seemed to find their place naturally. With reference to the bad place, we reluctantly had to create extra society legislation to prevent these people exploiting weaknesses in the trust-based voting system. Honestly, it made the Biden election look legit and faced with months of taking it to union mediation we just called them out and made the whole thing the subject of a society meeting. The chair ran off and the full board of directors resigned, it mostly just needed some sunlight but we also voted in the new legislation clearly on the back of their actions. I mention this because the good guys needed extra rules to deal with a bad situation and while I'd like to trust the gentle anarchy of a good community, when push came to shove we had to throw the law at them in public (and create some new laws) to solve this problem.
Moving on to a more pleasant farm topic - growing. I'm a no-dig devotee and would suggest you just do whatever Charles Dowding does as its pretty much textbook permaculture and over time the win by a mile. I've given up the allotment and have a small no-dig bed in the garden but otherwise its the greenhouse and lots of containers for me. Good luck!
Good rant Craig!
A couple of thoughts from me - 'common law' is at least three different things already. There's an area of HM judiciary known as common law which (I think) is the area where a judge can make a ruling based on precedence where there is no specific legislation to fall back on. Then there's the FMOTL and Common Law Malcolms who (even though I am sympathetic to their fundamental cause) blindly refuse to accept they are taking a knife to a gun party and get themselves into far more trouble ultimately shouting 'Unlawful!' as their houses get reposessed. Finally there's the moral and metaphysical code of conduct which I think you are probably describing here. I've come across that in many different forms and Mark Passio might be a high risk reference as his demeanor can put people off but academically he's put the work in and what he calls 'Natural Law' might be more along those lines.
https://www.youtube.com/@MarkPassio/videos
I've been a member of several community farm projects for years and two of them ended up at polar opposites on the scale of how to self-organise. One farm society collapsed after having to deal with a bunch of sociopaths who had voted themselves into governance and the other got it just right where everyone seemed to find their place naturally. With reference to the bad place, we reluctantly had to create extra society legislation to prevent these people exploiting weaknesses in the trust-based voting system. Honestly, it made the Biden election look legit and faced with months of taking it to union mediation we just called them out and made the whole thing the subject of a society meeting. The chair ran off and the full board of directors resigned, it mostly just needed some sunlight but we also voted in the new legislation clearly on the back of their actions. I mention this because the good guys needed extra rules to deal with a bad situation and while I'd like to trust the gentle anarchy of a good community, when push came to shove we had to throw the law at them in public (and create some new laws) to solve this problem.
Moving on to a more pleasant farm topic - growing. I'm a no-dig devotee and would suggest you just do whatever Charles Dowding does as its pretty much textbook permaculture and over time the win by a mile. I've given up the allotment and have a small no-dig bed in the garden but otherwise its the greenhouse and lots of containers for me. Good luck!
Thanks for that comment Nick, enjoyable read. I'll check out that channel. We've got our work cut out.