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Monday 26 November 2007

Free Speech for Unpopular People

Have the BNP really hired the UAF to give them all this publicity over a little debate in the Oxford Union about free speech?

10 coaches full of "anti-fascist" protestors converging on Oxford! Is it all quite necessary? Do the UAF really think the British people are going to turn into genocidal maniacs the moment Irving or Griffin finish speaking?

Am I naive and too trusting in believing that they will not?

All these references to Hitler bemuse me. Hitler, may I remind you, was elected under a democracy. Shall we suppress democracy too? If I remember aright, Hitler came into power after the middle classes were ruined during the hyperinflation during the term of a weak and effete Weimar Republic. Basically, they wanted a scapegoat - a concept as old as the, er, Old Testament - and Hitler gave them one.

Why not enquire into the causes of uncontrolled immigration and why both the Labour and Conservative Party wish to suppress intelligent and honest debate over this?

Being over-run by foreigners is not just a peculiarly British phenomenon, if you look at the US and the rest of the EU. People have been complaining about foreigners ever since people had legs to move around with. Neither are foreigners necessarily people of a different hue - merely people from somewhere else who are now with you whom you may wish would stay away. Perhaps this is just the human equivalent of insects being attracted to uncovered food on a sunny summer's day. The simple solution would be of course to cover the food, but below are some possible reasons why this is not done:

  • political correctness
  • an unacknowledged addiction to cheaper, more willing and skilled foreign labour
  • the existence of a Sacred Cow cradle to grave welfare state that discourages a work ethic
  • a state education system that does not educate adequately
  • a declining birth rate of legitimate productive citizens caused by
  • the unfair burden on working and married parents and
  • the increase in working and single motherhood
  • five-yearly elections which give short-termist politicians a reason to avoid dealing with problems that need medium to long-term solutions, eg education and transport

BUT MOST OF ALL, perhaps ...

  • the refusal to acknowledge that there is anything wrong with a corrupt and corrupting system of indiscriminate universal suffrage, which allows politicians to bribe the voters who take in welfare with the money of those who give in taxes ...
Vote: Should citizens who are not taxpayers be allowed to vote?

http://www.1party4all.co.uk/Home/Account/TopicForm.aspx?topicsId=32

Wednesday 21 November 2007

"The Keyboard Army of the BNP"

UAF (United Against Fascism) claims http://www.1party4all.co.uk/ is the "Keyboard Army of the BNP". They are apparently boycotting it on that ground despite repeated invitations to "join The Party" and vote. The poll on whether David Irving and Nick Griffin should be allowed to participate in the OU debate on free speech at the OU is currently 100% in favour.

Why will the UAF not participate? Is it because they know even non-BNP supporters are more likely to want to hear what Messrs Irving and Griffin have to say in greater numbers than those who would wish to suppress them altogether?

On Friday 23 November, the OU will vote on whether to cancel their debate on Monday 26 November debate. Cowardice, intimidation as well as spurious but predictable "elf n sifety"/public order policing excuses will no doubt be among the reasons cited for any cancellation.

The BNP Blackpool Conference last weekend - 16-18 November - went ahead despite a UAF demonstration 200 strong. Could it be that a Kiss Me Quick seaside resort will have a more principled belief in free speech and is less likely to be intimidated by the UAF than the privileged few who presume to inhabit the dreaming spires of Oxford yet cannot grasp either in theory or in practice the principle of free speech?

If it is cancelled, we will know precisely what kind of a country we live in, and what sort of "cream" the British "education" system has produced, won't we?

http://www.1party4all.co.uk/Home/Account/TopicForm.aspx?topicsId=87

"It ain't democracy if it ain't direct democracy!"

Friday 16 November 2007

Is an admission of racial inferiority also "racist"?

This was the rather interesting question asked by Independent Councillor Chris Cook at http://www.chris-cooke.co.uk/ in our regular debates on race and Islam who is, like me, independently-minded and prefers the a la carte method of ordering our political dishes (as demonstrated at http://www.1party4all.co.uk/) rather than the limited fare that is the set menu offered by the Big 3 political parties. He is currently having trouble with the UAF (United Against Fascism) brigade who believe that BNP supporters and sympathisers should be silenced and removed rather than defeated by argument. (Although generally sympathetic to the BNP and saying that they should remain an all-white party, Chris who was one of the founder members of the SDP, is in fact dead against the death penalty, one of the staples of the BNP policy "diet".)

Like most people, I agree with some BNP policies and abjure the others. How could one not, for instance, support their intention to raise the threshold for paying income tax to £15,000 per annum, whatever race or religion one might be??

http://www.bnp.org.uk/pdf_files/minimanifesto2007.pdf

When I attended the anti-Iraq war march in 2003 at Hyde Park I noticed to my surprise that the BNP were represented as were the Muslims. That there were and are in fact more people and parties against the war than were for it I am cerrtain. That this country was nevertheless dragged into it just because dimwit sheep-like Conservatives like Boris Johnson and David Cameron were also bamboozled into supporting it, is infuriating to say the least. From this surprising revelation came the seeds of http://www.1party4all.co.uk/ - an opinion-polling direct democracy website that makes the most of our agreement rather than allows it to be diluted under the irrational and oligarchical multi-party system led by "leaders" who do not seem to be displaying prudence, principle, talent or any understanding of realpolitik.

But I digress.

As I was saying, Chris wondered whether it would in fact be racist to make an admission of racial inferiority. If it is racist to regard one's race as better than all the others, surely the converse is also "racist"? After all, one cannot logically have superior races without inferior races.

I wonder what would happen if the BNP started saying more loudly: "We the white indigenous British are as a rule indolent, illegitimate, innumerate, illiterate, racially inferior and have very weak cultural traditions. We therefore need state protection from the better-organised, more family-orientated and better-educated foreign hordes who are now taking over our land and taking the bread from our mouths."

Actually, that is what some of them have been saying, who clamour for minority status and ask for whites-only council housing. This can only be described as the English urban equivalent of territorial reservations for the Australian Aborigines and Native Americans. I don't know about anyone else, but I find this display of defeatism in the English saddening and embarrassing.

The answer is "yes" - it is also "racist" to claim the converse of racial inferiority. There you go: the BNP are racist through and through - surprise, surprise! On the one hand, some of them feel superior to foreigners yet on the other hand claim that crafty better-organised foreigners exploit their political system better than they do.

However, it is still legal to have a sincerely-held beliefs and opinions in this country, however irrational, such as Feng Shui, numerology, astrology, the belief that Christ is Son of God, witchcraft, homeopathic medicine, etc.

But for how much longer?

Racism and what it really means

Racism is our understandable wish to think we can judge a book by its cover. It is lazy thinking and the desire to embrace lazy generalisations.

"They/You are all the same" is a manifestation of this.

"You always do X (eg leave the toilet seat up)" is another.

"You are always being X (eg late)" is yet another.

It might be generally true but is not true all the time. A good example is the selecting of a spouse on the basis of his or her probable racial characteristics. On the other hand, they are not to be entirely discounted either.

We tread the thin line of a tightrope but would like a more secure and well-trodden path. For these reasons, we embrace broad generalisations and racial prejudice as a kind of comfort blanket, thinking that these rules will guide us in our assessment of the likely behaviour of a particular person or a group of people.

It amused me no end to see a cleaning agency proudly calling itself "Polish Cleaners" as if being Polish were a guarantee of quality, service and a keen price.

The point is that it is, as yet, NOT illegal to be racist, only to act on racially discriminatory reasons (which may be rational or irrational and have a happy or unhappy outcome).

Powell was dead against the Race Relations Act 1976 outlawing racial discrimination.

Being a Libertarian, I am dead against all anti-discrimination legislation, which are examples of totalitarian liberal legislation fulfilling all the conditions of "thoughtcrime".

Meddling with Musharraf

Am I the only one a little puzzled about the hypocrisy the West has been displaying over Musharraf's Declaration of a State of Emergency?

He seems an OK sort of chap - Westernised and speaking excellent English, reasonable, good with words and not without some personal charm. Something about his appearance reminds me of Badger in Wind in the Willows.

His people are Muslim and mutinous because he is perceived to be the lapdog of America and Britain.

He has been tolerant enough of dissent to allow that trouble-maker Benazir Bhutto back into the country.

She is also a woman, and a Westernised woman, to boot. How is such a woman supposed to command the allegiance of a people steeped in medieval Muslim practices?

Ordinary people who were asked if they wanted a general election said they thought it would be a waste of time and didn't think a jumped-up Oxford educated female president whose family have a bad track record of getting into government and staying there.

Why, then, are we interfering with Musharraf's handling of his country and his people and telling him to step down as Head of the Army, conduct elections, end Martial Law when things are clearly now hanging precariously?

He asked quite pertinently: "What do you want? Some bogus form of democracy which will bring none of you any good or your country governed someone who knows what he is doing? What choice have you got anyway? Now shut up and go away." (I paraphrase, you understand.)

What the hell do we know about governing a country like Pakistan?

If he is the West's only hope and ally in that region, why are they asking him to loosen the reins of his dangerously frightened country, step down as Head of the Army when he has militants on the Afghan border to deal with, an unsympathetic and unco-operative legal establishment and Benny Bhutto stirring up trouble and clearly incapable of containing it herself when it blows up in her face?

God only knows.

Thursday 15 November 2007

Comment submitted to Nigel Hastilow's blog

"I'm sorry that the "Enoch was right" hoo-ha has so quickly turned into yesterday's news despite my best attempts to keep it live. You should have waited for the Tories to sack you, Nigel, and embarrassed the Cowardly Camoroners for as long as you possibly could, and highlighted the issue of Free Speech and Immigration for a bit longer than just a long weekend!

The latest post on my blog today 15 November is evidence of my continuing interest in your political career:

"Let us not allow Nigel Hastilow to become yesterday's news! He may yet be the prospective parliamentary candidate for UKIP or the BNP.

POLL 1: Should Nigel Hastilow have said "Enoch was right"?

POLL 2: Should Nigel Hastilow have stood by his comments and waited to be sacked (thereby prolonging media attention on the issue of free speech and immigration), instead of resigning so soon?

POLL 3: Should Nigel Hastilow remain loyal to the Conservative Party that sacked him as its Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for saying "Enoch was right"?

POLL 4: Should Nigel Hastilow join UKIP?

POLL 5: Should Nigel Hastilow join the BNP?"

Those who want to vote should go to my blog to get the clickable links to
those polls on the 15 November entry.

The BNP/UKIP candidature question is of course a bit of a contest of competency on Internet-savviness.

Do Netphobes and Net- incompetents deserve to win anything when we all know that the future of political activism is online?

Does the Darwinian theory of survival of the fittest and most adaptable to change apply to political ideologies and the quality of its practitioners?

I quote:

"The quality of the membership of any party depends on the degree of struggle there is. Success merely leads to softening and poor quality membership. Strife breeds toughness, keenness and alertness."

And I quote again:

"A man of good character without necessarily great insight into things is always better than an intelligent man without much character."

And I quote yet again:

"Politics turns more on character than intelligence: it is courage that conquers the world!"

Nigel Hastilow's future career

Let us not allow Nigel Hastilow to become yesterday's news! He may yet be the prospective parliamentary candidate for UKIP or the BNP.

http://www.1party4all.co.uk/Home/Account/TopicForm.aspx?topicsId=84
Vote: Should Nigel Hastilow have said "Enoch was right"?

http://www.1party4all.co.uk/Home/Account/TopicForm.aspx?topicsId=81
Vote: Should Nigel Hastilow have stood by his comments and waited to be sacked (thereby prolonging media attention on the issue of free speech and immigration), instead of resigning so soon?

http://www.1party4all.co.uk/Home/Account/TopicForm.aspx?topicsId=85
Vote: Should Nigel Hastilow remain loyal to the Conservative Party that sacked him as its Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for saying "Enoch was right"?

http://www.1party4all.co.uk/Home/Account/TopicForm.aspx?topicsId=82
Vote: Should Nigel Hastilow join UKIP?

http://www.1party4all.co.uk/Home/Account/TopicForm.aspx?topicsId=83
Vote: Should Nigel Hastilow join the BNP?

PC Xmas Joke

Father Christmas has been advised by the more extremist elements of the Politically Correct Brigade not to say: "Ho, ho, ho!" on the grounds that it might offend some women.

Friday 28 September 2007

The British and the Burmese

"They aren't Communists, they don't threaten British interests.

SO WHO GIVES A *%@# WHAT THE GENERALS GET UP TO IN BURMA?"

Internationalist hand-wringing, finger-wagging, futile Liberal do-gooding!

It is telling, is it not, that it is the Russians and Chinese who have a policy that resembles common sense, while the Western media egg the young Burmese firebrands into yet another Tiananmen-style massacre from the comfort of their armchairs watching it all on TV ...

The military junta have shown unaccustomed patience so far - 9 dead is really very few in the great scheme of things.

It is nauseating that most do-gooding viewers and media commentators are secretly hoping for more violence and loss of life, so long as they are the ones left alive to wring their hands and shake their heads ...

Thursday 27 September 2007

Why are allergies on the rise – and how can medicine combat them?

http://news.independent.co.uk/health/article3001607.ece

"One of the most extraordinary increases has been in peanut allergy, up 117 per cent between 2001 and 2005. An estimated 25,000 people in England are affected, and many are at risk of a severe reaction if they are exposed to the nuts."



In my opinion, these people are growing in number because they are looked after too well, live to adulthood and go on to mate with other peanut allergy sufferers. The result is a new generation of peanut-allergic sufferers. I have nothing against these people and their offspring some of whom I know to be perfectly nice people, but it seems that in schools the policy is now to forbid other children from bringing in their peanut-butter sandwiches in their packed lunches. To be honest, I find that such over-zealous practices repugnant to my Libertarian and Darwinian instincts.

It seems the medical profession are about to spend hundreds of thousands if not millions of taxpayers' money researching the whys and wherefores of this state of affairs before reluctantly coming to exactly this conclusion, ie that our health and political system actively encourages the unproductive to remain unproductive and the physically- and mentally-deficient to flourish at the expense of those who are productive, healthy and normal.

The US government used to require engaged couples to have blood tests before allowing them to marry in order to prevent a generation of mentally or physically-deficient people from becoming a burden on the state.

Perhaps all that is required is the implementation of this very sensible policy to reduce the number of those who are peanut-allergic and likely to further multiply with the predictable medical coddling these research scientists and campaigning doctors will no doubt propose, regardless of cost.

I am certain that the traditional Eskimo policy of abandoning their weak and ailing to the elements while the tribe moved on to richer hunting grounds was rooted in necessity rather than primitive callousness.

Whole tribes of Eskimos must have perished in their attempt to look after their weak before reluctantly coming to accept that those who are weak and ailing must be abandoned to the inevitable if the existence of the tribe itself is not to be sacrificed in the name of the mawkish sentimentality that now passes for compassion.

Perhaps we resemble the Aztecs way in more ways than we would like to think. While it is true that we do not actively and directly use human sacrifice to appease our Sun God, we are certainly actively and directly using the sacrifice of our Liberty to appease our God of Social Welfare while the political classes further indulge in more damaging Liberal do-gooding. (Brown's proposal to give pregnant women as much as £200 to persuade them to eat healthily is yet another example of how much they like using our money to show us how much they care.)

If Conservatives are now to be "compassionate" without the entire Conservative Party rising up in one body to hang, draw and quarter Cameron for refusing to promise lower taxes, or at the very least replace him as leader very soon, then we are all most certainly doomed, and deservedly so.

Bush and the Burmese

I have not been paying much attention to the Burmese "crisis" but I gather from the radio that Russia and China are against sanctions being imposed on the Burmese government proposed by Bush. Clearly, the world is in need of a balancing force against an increasingly irrational and insane American policy who wants to punish everyone else, from imaginary WMDs to not subscribing to the same "democratic" values and by defintion being in need of regime change.

Sanctions were imposed which isolated Burma, depriving the Burmese of an income from tourism amongst other things, impoverishing its economy, which must have contributed to the present crisis.

To show that they care, the Western powers are collectively wringing their hands now that the military junta are dealing firmly with the recalcitrant monks (now egged on by the Western media), and are now considering imposing further sanctions to make themselves feel better, whatever the consequences for the ordinary Burmese.

Soon, when the Domino Effect of the Credit Crunch has reached its devastating and depressing conclusion, we will have less of this nauseating and officious interference in other people's affairs, when the Western powers (but particularly the Anglo-Saxon economies) will find their attention drawn to the more immediate domestic problems of their own demonstrations and riots by their jobless and homeless middle classes.

Every cloud has a silver lining!

Elderly and unable to feed oneself ....

It seems that, apart from neglect, abuse and all sorts of indignities that are now rife in homes for the elderly, the latest scandal is that those who cannot feed themselves are not fed. Trays of food would be brought to such patients and then taken away uneaten with no help offered to spoonfeed such unfortunates.

It strikes me that this ought to be the test for the viability of a life.

I shall certainly be quite happy to be "euthanased", were I to end up in a care home and unable to feed myself. What would be the point of feeding me and keeping me alive in these circumstances? Starving to death would be preferable to being fed like a baby.

No doubt the penny will eventually drop when we run out of migrant workers willing to work in our care homes. We may not have too much longer to wait before even migrant workers shun a country unable to pay its debts after decades spent living beyond its means, after the full consequences of the Credit Crunch become known.

Monday 17 September 2007

America's New French Poodle

Now that the Nicholas Sarkozy has supplanted Britain in its role as America's Poodle and is apparently calling for Iran to be bombed, that may just make the case for Direct Democracy more persuasive. I am sure the French have not suddenly decided to be war-mongers and in fact prefer their traditional role of remaining the cheese-eating surrender monkeys that Bush Jr has accused them of being.

However, this was the inevitable consequence of choosing any leader who wants a greater role on the world stage, who wants a diversion from the unglamorous domestic problems of putting one's own house in order. The French elected what they hoped would be a fiscally-responsible Conservative government who would cut red tape and lower taxes (unlike the British Conservative Party), but are now saddled with the role of being America's poodle - the furthest thing from their minds when they rejected Socialism.

I wonder how many Frenchmen are now uneasy about Sarkozy's intentions and whether they are happy to be seen in this role by the rest of the world. They have a significant Arab population. Can a French version of 7/7 can be that far away if Sarkozy persists in alienating Arab and Muslim opinion by siding with the most unpopular nation on earth - more unpopular even than Zimbabwe who at least oppresses only its own people?

Let us hope that China and Russia will have something to say about all this.

Rather than merely hope that there will be other powers strong enough to disagree with foreign policies that seems deliberately designed to start the Third World War, Direct Democracy would let the people decide. I do not say that world peace and brotherly love will reign through this system, merely that ordinary people would then be more able to make their feelings known on so many things that affect them which they are powerless currently to influence. Allowing them to do so would at least give a better indication of their approval or disapproval of government policies, and this can be the only way make responsive and accountable government more likely.

How many taxpayers would have voted to started the First World and Second World Wars if they had been asked?

Not only would it be a more sensitive barometer of the public opinion, its in-built Conservatism would balance the undeniable radicalism of letting taxpayers decide on all aspects of government policy while encouraging greater interest and participation by citizens in politics, which can only assist us in preventing the wool from being pulled over our eyes and cattle prods from being used against us when we do not agree with the government of the day.

Friday 14 September 2007

Environmental Correction

World consumerism rests on creating desire and being confused about our needs and wants. Our needs are few, our wants insatiable. In this way do we shop the world to death, leaving carbon footprints and litter on our way to environmental disaster.

Environmental disaster will bring about certain benefits, however, and will cull the numbers of a species that is so plainly getting above itself and laying waste to the world. With world population increasing at its present rate, there are clearly more people around to die in floods, tsunamis, earthquakes etc. Nature will in due course rebalance itself in the only way it knows how, with war, pestilence and famine ...

Humanity will survive but in reduced numbers. Those of us who aren't fanatical environmentalists need only bear in mind that profligacy and extravagance are sins, campaign for a day of rest and make Sunday special again so that we do not drive around madly trying to enjoy ourselves spending money on things we don't really want or need. With the coming Credit Crunch and Depression, we will all be spending less anyway and have more time, having lost our jobs and our homes, to think about the more important things of life ...

Thursday 13 September 2007

How to get a legal definition of "racism"

Racism is now a term of abuse used against anyone who gives offence, whether intentionally or unintentionally, about other races or when someone treats different races differently and misjudges the situation. The "institutional racism" of the police, a phrase coined by Lord McPherson, is the grandiloquent and politically explosive term used to describe mere police incompetence and lazy thinking.

Traditionally, racism only meant the actual belief that some races are superior or inferior to others.

It is quite clear that nobody, not even members of the government or its opposite, knows what it really means.

Even the BNP does not know its own mind about whether it is a racist political party or not. Quite a few of their supporters are confused about whether they are or not (for some deny that they are racist and have friends who are non-white) and do not know whether to deny their racism or embrace it. Are they merely xenophobic (ie fearful of foreigners of any hue and nation, which is still allowed) or actually racist, whatever that means?

Does excluding someone from your party on grounds of race mean that you think they are inferior and that you are superior? Or is that just invoking the principle of free association?

Does disliking the physical and cultural characteristics of another race (who is perceived to be doing better or worse than you because of their alleged racial or cultural characteristics) mean you are racist? Or does racism actually require you to believe in your/their superiority/inferiority?

Does believing that another race is superior to yours (and praising that race) racism?

The law is undecided. On the one hand it criminalises discrimination on grounds of race, on the other it allows the BNP and NF (who wish to repatriate non-whites) to exist.

Much could be accomplished by the BNP if they started an action in defamation the next time a national publication that is worth suing describes a member of the BNP as racist. A case for libel is made out when a litigant proves to the satisfaction of a jury that, as a result of words published or broadcast, he has been brought into hatred, ridicule and contempt in the minds of right-thinking members of society.

This could run and run, folks!

Will the BNP do us all a public service and get us a legal definition of racism? Will they, hell!

Obviously, they would be helping themselves if they lifted their colour bar and removed any mention of their intention to repatriate non-whites from their constitution.

No doubt they will be saying they want to repatriate white Eastern Europeans too and will claim they are merely xenophobic - a state of mind that has yet to be labelled "thoughtcrime" in 21st century Britain.

(In case anybody has not yet noticed, it is of course already "thoughtcrime" to discriminate on grounds of sex, age, disability and sexual orientation.)


What are they for, I keep asking, if they will not even fund the litigation of members of their own party (and race) who are oppressed by Political Correctness - the ones who get unfairly or constructively dismissed from their jobs or expelled from their unions after going public about their BNP membership, the most recent of which is Mark Walker, a teacher?

Answers on a postcard, please.

Monday 10 September 2007

Pregnant women to get cash for healthy eating

The phenomenon of Western civilisations losing their marbles at roughly the same time as a result of Decadent Liberalism will no doubt make for an interesting subject of study for future students of psychology and history.

The latest manifestation of marble loss is the astonishing proposal by Health Minister Alan Johnson to give as much as £200 to every pregnant woman to induce her to eat healthily. It seems taxes are to be taken from the married and the working (who will mostly already be aware of the basics of healthy eating) and given to CHAV and never-married, under-achieving, non-working, welfare-claiming teen mums so that their delinquent little bastards (who are now increasingly likely to be shooting and stabbing our children) will have a healthier start in life.

Now, what is the point of this, I wonder?

Is it Gordon Brown's little way of showing us that he cares?

Wednesday 5 September 2007

A definition of Conservatism and Liberalism

A Liberal is one who insists that others would be as good as he is when he is at his best.

A Conservative knows that most people, most of the time, are as bad as he is when he is at his worst.

Rhetoric in defence of Conservatism

The new spirit of our age, Political Correctness, is but a manifestation of Liberalism in extremis. Its dominance can be attributed to the proletarianisation and vulgarisation of Western culture, female emancipation and indiscriminate universal suffrage, which pander to all that is mawkish, sentimental and irrational in the human breast.

It is not surprising therefore that we are in the mess we are in, when most people are culturally and socially encouraged to glorify emotion and despise prudence and reason.

Notes on a lecture I once attended on the nature and purpose of Rhetoric records that it should, ideally, be (1) corrective (2) suggestive (3) instructive and (4) defensive (as well as being of course persuasive). This is precisely what is required to defend boring old Conservatism against any ideology that promises us Utopia and Heaven on Earth, such as Communism, Socialism, Fascism etc. However, hardly anyone studies the Classics these days and our political classes these days cannot boast of even one Classicist. The last one was Enoch Powell, who was racially discriminated against by the English because he was Welsh.

With its attendant censoriousness and mania to legislate against free speech, it seems we have now entered the New Dark Age of Political Censorship, where nothing can be said without penalty against state-protected groups of people: the lame, the halt, the unproductive, the illegitimate, the coloured and anyone who can successfully claim the now coveted and honoured status of Whingeing Victimhood.

It may be some time before we emerge again ...

Sunday 5 August 2007

The Device of Direct Democracy

Has anyone else come to the conclusion that democracy is not democracy if we do not have genuine political choice? What is the point of being allowed to vote when the 3 mainstream parties conspire to only to relieve us of more of our property and income while increasing the regulations we are subject to?

True political choice means Direct Democracy in the Athenian mould, where taxpaying citizens would be allowed to vote on laws, policy and courses of action.

There ought to be no representation without taxation and greater taxation ought to entitle the taxpayer to greater representation, just as if he were a shareholder voting at a company meeting.

Imagine yourself a diner in the only 3 restaurants in town.

Are you tired of being fobbed off with the same old set menu and repeatedly told that the dishes you want are off?

Are you tired of dishes promised by the fringe parties who will never cook anything up because they haven't even got a frying pan, much less any culinary skills to speak of?

Now here is a beautifully simple solution to this lack of choice.

Fringe parties co-operatively compile a Grand Amalgmated Manifesto of all their policies. This becomes the one-stop policy shop. These policies are presented in the form of promises to conduct referenda on them should they be elected into office.

Would this approach not put the lid under all political agreements?

By agreeing to ask the question, for example, "Should the UK withdraw from the EU?" you get the attention of both pros and antis.

Well, this is Direct Democracy as a campaigning weapon against the mainstream that requires ineffectual fringe parties to join together and become an effective Big Party that could overtake the Lib Dems. This is an idea that could run and revolutonise the way we think about politics.

Tired of the set menu? Dine a la carte!

Suicide Bombing and Disillusioned Youth

I have just finished THE TIPPING POINT by Malcom Gladwell.

It mentions a spate of copy-cat male adolescent suicides in Micronesa after an adolescent took his own life, rather similar to the spate of group suicides recently in Northern Ireland.

Suicide bombers are mainly young men. Suicide bombing actually began in Sri Lanka before it became widely adopted. It was not an Islamic invention, as so many believe.

I suppose it is "one up" from throwing yourself in front of a tube train during the rush hour to express your dissatisfaction at the way life is treating you.

What could be more satisfying than to express yourself in this way (should you be suicidally-inclined young man, particularly if you were brought up as a Muslim)?

It is exciting and emotionally satisfying to give up your life for a supposedly noble cause when you have no wish to live it anyway.

Blame this on their religion if you like, but I think this sort of angst takes the form of either suicide bombing or running amuck (a Malay word for axe-murderer) with a gun, like that Korean who used his fellow students as target practice on a Virginia campus in the US. It affects all races, religions and cultures but the form it takes depends on the weapons available to the suicide. Imitation is also a significant factor.

Unpleasant emotions of adolescent alienation are as old as the hills even if the destruction wrought in their name takes new and frightening forms.

There really is nothing new under the sun.

Saturday 17 March 2007

Women in the Workplace

The state of affairs described in the February 2007 UNICEF report - that the UK is the worst place in the industrialised world to bring up children has its origins in both parents being in full-time employment, ie working mums. (I wonder if I will be condemned by every feminist in this land just for saying so!)

Most mothers believe that bringing up children is sufficient work and do not want any more. There are some who want everything and have the energy and competence to combine having well-brought up children with a successful career. Most of us are only human and only want the kind of work we can cope well with, and then not too much of it either. I suggest, as a woman, that the problem is to do with women wanting to have it all and who believe they can become Shirley Conran's SUPERWOMAN just by reading the book. More sensible and less “career-ambitious” women do not have this aspiration and do not enjoy being sneered at by working mums with careers who think that their income-generating work makes them by definition superior and more fulfilled than unpaid stay-at-home mums. Anti-gender discrimination has not helped this state of affairs.

Who, as an employer, wants to provide crèche facilities and have women complaining about sexual harassment and sex discrimination and being occasionally compelled to give maternity benefits to suddenly pregnant and unmarried mothers?

Who, as a mother, thinks dragging her toddler into work in the rush hour on the tube is a perk of working motherhood?

Have we all been mad so long we have forgotten the causes of our distress?

Saturday 3 March 2007

The Deadliest Sin

To adequately explain virtually all individual and collective miseries, we need look no further than to the indulgence of the Seven Deadly Sins: Pride, Anger, Sloth, Greed, Envy, Gluttony and Lust. But where would humanity be if we did not have these temptations to impel us into reckless behaviour and earnest endeavour with occasional successes and mistakes to learn from? Pride could prevent us from committing dishonest acts, anger unthinking submission to tyranny, sloth futile and wasteful activity. Greed is the antidote to poverty and envy that to lack of ambition. Gluttony prevents waste and from lust springs forth the next generation.

Towards pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain is all human activity dedicated. All societies have moralities designed to influence the behaviour of individuals to behave in a desired way, with desirable or undesirable outcomes, depending on the wisdom of that morality.

Religious ideologies are now deeply unfashionable while Christianity declines. Yet political ideologies of equal oppressiveness have now filled the vacuum: communism, socialism, liberalism, political correctness, to name a few. Environmentalism is now the latest morality being used to extract more taxes, but are these ideologies but a modern but equally misguided list of prohibitions promoted by puritanical fanatics, telling us that we must be compelled to be better, more generous and kinder than we really are?

Being forbidden by the state from giving offence to protected groups infringes our freedoms of expression, contract and association. If employers are compelled to pretend not to discriminate on grounds of age, sex, race and disability in order to avoid a lawsuit, if gentlemen’s and working men’s clubs are compelled to accept as members anyone whom the majority of their members do not wish to have, be they women or other races, then our traditional freedoms have been significantly curtailed. As for the most important ingredient of freedom, the right to property, it is now increasingly compromised by the state’s ever-stronger compulsion to tax us while we live and earn, when we retire and are pensioned, and yet again when we die.

Before the term “nanny state” was coined, the term paternalism was used, meaning the same thing – of looking after those weaker than ourselves and paying taxes to see that this was done. But surely no self-respecting male Tory Paternalist would have considered forbidding smoking in public places?

Women now have more opportunity than formerly to impose upon the rest of society the preferences of their gender. What could be more nanny-ish than invading a country, plunging it into chaos and then informing its populace that it was done “for your own good”?

Small children on tricycles wearing safety helmets riding on pavements seems unnecessary to someone who remembers a time when seatbelts in cars were not compulsory. Increasingly older first-time mothers vulnerable to divorce and infertility who cannot just have more children may however think differently. Apparently unrelated decisions by a woman to have a career can result in the unintended consequences of wrapping up a countryful of over-protected children in cotton wool, with predictable consequences on their character and the nation’s attitude to risk.

A balance between the masculine and feminine virtues therefore needs to be struck, and some sensible idea of what is or is not in the national interest should now be adopted, rather than to continue muddling along, thinking we know what the words mean without bothering to define them. What makes us feel good about ourselves now will not necessarily secure the future, and those who prefer safety to liberty will ultimately deserve and receive neither.

Monday 22 January 2007

Racism no longer an ideology of racial superiority or inferiority but now a subjective perception of victimhood

I thought everyone would be pleased with the happy ending of Jade and Shilpa kissing and making up on the Big Brother seat, but it was not to be. Even after Shilpa has categorically stated that she did not feel herself to be racially abused there remain a significant number of hysterics keen to hang and lynch Big Brother for allowing any act or words that can be construed as racism to take place. There is more than a hint of totalitarianism and mass hysteria, methinks.

Someone has just reminded me that the Hindu caste system had an undeniable racist agenda. (Or is it just "caste-ist"?) It seems everyone is living in glass houses these days. Either we end up breaking all each other's windows in a" war against racism" or we can stop playing the racist card and gratuitously denouncing each other now and stop being so ridiculous and self-righteous.

Perhaps a little more "tolerance" of "racism" is now in order?

Thursday 18 January 2007

The Sultry Princess and the White Slapper

It seems Britain is now a country where it is permissible to say "F*ck off" but not "F*ck off home", judging by the reaction to yesterday's goings-on at the Big Brother house.

Jade Goodie is obviously temperamentally unsuited to serve as Ambassadress for Britain and has abysmally failed in her role to bring about a golden age of Anglo-Indian friendship. But I will stand up for her, because it seems now that no one will. She is only famous for being vulgar, stupid and proletarian; ill-educated, ugly and incurably low. The proletarian viewers of Big Brother liked her because she showed spirit, perhaps, and felt she amused them sufficiently with her antics to deserve their vote, and for being one of them.

Put into the same household as an Indian showbiz princess, who is diamond compared to her coal, it was inevitable that the worst kind of feminine bitchery would be aroused. "Let's gang up on the snooty princess" was the unstated agenda of the more plebeian female members of the household, who giggled on the sofa while watching Jade gob all over Princess. Snooty Indian bitch, who does she think she is tellin' us to f*ckin' have elocution lessons, who thinks she's God's gift to the world etc etc. You can just hear their thoughts expressed in their unelocuted accents.

Princess, I seem remember, was clearly looking for trouble. Where are the stock cubes? Don't tell me you've wasted them or used them all up? On and on she went, until Jade lost patience.

If those white girls are guilty of anything at all, they are guilty of finding her irritating and expressing their feelings, in scatological terms in the case of Jade. But racist? I think not. Racist would go along the lines of "You Indian Showbiz Bollywood types are all alike, aren't you? You lot think you're all better than the likes of us, don't you? If you can't take the heat, then stay out of the Big Brother kitchen. If you pull out now or accuse us of racism just to get someone to stop us from speaking our minds in the only way we know how, you will be showing yourself up for what you really are: a snooty stuck up showbiz bitch who is going to pull rank on us the moment things get sticky for you. "

I imagine Jade will be sent packing soon enough for being a national disgrance and showing modern Britain in an ugly unflattering light. Her alleged racism, as far as I can see, extended to only deliberately and irritatingly calling attention to cultural or physical differences. An ideological assumption of racial superiority or inferiority of either party was surely the furthest thing from Jade's tiny little mind.

Friday 5 January 2007

Launched and Live!

This is the news and opinion column of www.1party4all.co.uk

It has already been featured in the Freedom Association and the Better Off Out (of the European Union) websites.

http://www.betteroffout.co.uk/lin01.htm

http://www.tfa.net/freedom_links.htm

Designed to attract the Political Activist of any persuasion, it seeks to give voice to all political opinions without fear or favour.

Many thought-provoking questions are asked and answers from you are invited and shown, to make this website a reflection of your opinions.

"Left" or "Right", mainstream or loony, all can participate while absorbing the advantages of how a Direct Democacy would work in practice.

Have a look and see!

www.1party4all.co.uk

Possession is nine points of the law from 1:34:00

1:34:00  I chime in. 1:37:00  The narrow and wide interpretation of racism 1:40:00  It is racist to say black people are good at sport and d...