564: Huh? The who what now?

The internet makes no sense whatsoever. Somehow the top site referring to this blog today, behind Googles dot-com and dot-co-dot-uk, is one pointless little hate-spout called Americans Who Hate Obama dot-com. Presumably these are the sort of deluded self-hating confused bigots who would have been forming Christians Who Hate Christ sects in Judea circa 25AD. I have no evidence for that, but whatever. It's the sort of website that contains such self-defeating gems of babble as:

We urge you to make your voice heard now, so that generations from today will not look back and say, like they now say for Hitler's regime;- Where was all the good Germans? Where are all the Good Americans?

Er, yeah? I just can't help looking at Obama and being reminded of Hitler. It's like whenever I see Postman Pat I'm reminded of Genghis Kahn. Whenever I see Dr Sam Beckett I'm reminded of Dame Edna Everage. Whenever I see Chandler Bing I'm reminded of Harold Shipman. Humphrey Bogart reminds me of a mutant turtle called Donatello, teen-aged and skilled in the art of ninjitsu. Richard Feynmann reminds me of General Zod and, conversely, King Zog reminds me of Nina Ricci.

This is because I have a chemical imbalance in my brain stemming from a severe head injury in a previous life. The shockwaves of the incident reverberate through time and I am still bobbing on the eddies generated in past aeons. That bloomin' Hitler, eh. What a twat he was. Such a bastard. Always trying to provide better access to affordable health care, wasn't he. We never did see Hitler's birth certificate did we. We did? Pah, obvious fakery.

I'm babbling badly-written nonsense obviously. But no more so than the extreme Americans who seem stubbornly ignorant to the complete differences between Socialism and National Socialism. The thought path seems to be: Obama wants to help the weakest in society and prevent the strong from unfairly exploiting the weak & society equals Socialism & Socialism equals Fascism. As if all of a sudden the strong need protecting from the weak. We demand our freedom to oppress. Blah blah blah.

This post was going to be about how boring, middle of the road, emotionally flat, and samey all those dreary songs by Adele are. It still is about that, but it's also about a pile of other crap too. Or something, or nothing. I think I might have drifted off halfway through. Bedtime, fo' real. Stop writing and go to sleep.

553: Politics makes me feel stupid

Remember when Richard Nixon said "When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal"? No, me neither. It was before I was born (Aside to self: would it be too arrogant to rephrase "before I was born" as "BKE: Before Kevin Era"? ... undecided ... ); back when it was all black and white. Way back in 1977; the year Elvis the King died and Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols was vomited onto the Queen's face. History. And that megalomaniacal utterance (the one from Nixon, not my stupid BKE thing) is one of the reasons he will be remembered as one of history's great big bell-ends. Much in the same way as Britain's current coalition government will be remembered after events of this last week.

Hooray Henry rah-rah we're going to smash the oiks braying their victory of public opinion and banging their destructive oily hands on their antique Bullingdon-battered tables. They destroy the NHS and the lives of Britain's poorest and most vulnerable with the wild abandon, social disregard, and lack of shame that Cameron and Boris Johnson destroyed restaurants in their student days. Cameron, Andrew Lansley and all other associated cunts and cronies are having the times of their pampered, privileged lives. The rich will get richer, and the poor will get poorer and deader. And the rich will not give a shit.

I don't know what I'm talking about, but perhaps that's the set trap I've fallen into. These things are supposed to be complicated and tedious and as a result I'm uninformed and ignorant. They are supposed to be unjust and infuriating and as a result I am confused, frustrated and angry. The upshot of all this is that the public (I'm speaking for myself, if even I am speaking for anyone at all) are helpless and impotent as the ruling class repeatedly punches down, smashing the oiks.

Political injustice is so easy to get furious about, but so difficult to do anything about. It's not even easy to get a basic understanding of what is going on and why. It's not even easy to understand if what is perceived as injustice actually is. Perhaps it is the lesser of all possible evils, a temporary step back, a regroup. Political decisions aren't for ever. But can they cause irreparable damage? Is there an alternative to the Coalition which has the strength and intelligence to undo the damage being done? Sigh...

524: I always thought Dawkins looked kind of slave-ownery

According to The Telegraph today, it turns out Richard Dawkins isn't in fact Britain's greatest living public intellectual and liberal secularist (as people like me believe), but he's actually a carrier of the evil slave-owner gene. That explains why he is so militant and smug; it's to distract us from the unpaid cotton-pickers he's got chained up in the cellars and stables of his vast hereditary estate. Of course he doesn't really have slaves, and nor does he have a vast hereditary estate, but let's not get facts, reality, proportion, or obvious ulterior motive get in way of a good blog post.

Is it news that a living person has ancestors who did things that would be considered unacceptable by today's standards? Aren't something like one in two hundred of the world's male population supposed to be descendants of Genghis Khan? On the very real chance that I am one of them I would like to apologise and offer reparations to all descendants of his raped and pillaged victims. Except that I'm probably descended from those people too. And what about the high probability that I'm also descended from slave-owners, and slaves. And murderers, rapists, inbreeders, cannibals, small vole-like mammals, lunatics and single-celled lifeforms. The only thing my ancestors have in common is that they all lived to reproductive age and successfully bred; an unbroken chain of billions of years of baby-makers.

And guess what. You all share that exact same line with me. You only need to go back a few generations before we all have the same names and faces in our tree. You, me, Richard Dawkins, the wacky-doodle author of the Telegraph blog, the catfish I ate from a tin yesterday, Adolf Hitler, Jackie Chan, and Justin Bieber. We all descend from slaves and slave owners (except maybe the catfish, I think it might be not guilty of that charge). Some of us can trace this directly, by being a member of historically significant, wealthy, and influential family. Dawkins is a member of a minorly significant family who made money and kept good records. Unfortunately for him, a more recent ancestor than his rich slave-owner ancestor, pissed it all away on frivolous law suits. Now the family riches is a share in a struggling working farm, and a weird attack in a broadsheet newspaper. Dawkins' money is his own, not the ill gotten gains of the proverbial father.

There are larger, wealthier, better documented, and more powerful families who owe their current wealth to a history of violence, oppression and slave-ownership. The founding fathers of America, the royal families of Europe, the Catholic Church, the Church of England, the... oh wait, it's everyone. But if everyone is a descendant of slave owners and slaves, who do we pay our reparations to? Our friends? Our family? A random stranger from across the planet? People who have inherited the surname of a slave? People currently enslaved? Do we have a mass mess of money being sent willy-nilly in the name of reparations?

A quick search into a random public figure's ancestry: I have chosen David Cameron. There is a Wikipedia page about Cameron's family with a link to his great x4 great-uncle Admiral Sir James Hanway Plumridge, KCB, MP (1788-1863). During the Crimean War, as a Rear-Admiral, Plumridge attacked Finnish settlements, receiving criticism for targeting civilian populations and destroying Finnish goods which had already been purchased by British customers (ie pillaging his own nation). Even after this he continued rising up the ziggarut. Look forward to hearing about this in the Telegraph as a personal attack on David Cameron.

The original Telegraph piece (if it hasn't been edited or deleted):

Slaves at the root of the fortune that created Richard Dawkins' family estate

Dawkins' own response:

The Sins of the Fathers

Some tweets:

Dawkins slavery article becomes butt of jokes on Twitter

519: an offered opinion on a thing

“I believe that decisions about the timing and manner of death belong to the individual as a human right. I believe it is wrong to withhold medical methods of terminating life painlessly and swiftly when an individual has a rational and clear-minded sustained wish to end his or her life.” 

Professor A C Grayling, Dignity in Dying Patron 

I was guided via twitter, as happens, to a blog post I find so baffling and stupid I just had to speak up; so here goes. It's written by a man called Simon Duffy and is called How Euthanasia leads to Eugenics. I've never heard of Simon Duffy and know nothing about him; that's not meant to be a snide who is he comment, just a statement of fact. According to his biography he is leader of The Centre for Welfare Reform, of which I also know nothing about, but it seems decent. It aims "to increase social justice, promote citizenship, strengthen families and enrich our communities," which sounds good to me; and although I am going to comment negatively on Simon Duffy's blog post I make no similar comment about the good work of the Centre for Welfare Reform. (At least, I assume they do good work, because as I mentioned I've never heard of them!)

How Euthanasia leads to Eugenics

…a [Nazi] Ministry of Justice Commission on the Reform of the Criminal Code drafted a similar law sanctioning "mercy killing" of people suffering from incurable diseases. The law read, in part:

"Clause 1: Whoever is suffering from an incurable or terminal illness which is a major burden to him or others, can request mercy killing by a doctor, provided it is his express wish and has the approval of a specially empowered doctor.

"Clause 2: The life of a person who because of incurable mental illness requires permanent institutionalisation and is not able to sustain an independent existence, may be prematurely terminated by medical procedures in a painless and covert manner."
From Forgotten Crimes by Susanne E Evans

Notice that the first clause is almost exactly what those seeking to advance euthanasia in the UK are putting forward as a reasonable legal measure. And notice the easy and natural step to by-passing the question of voluntary choice for those who might be deemed lacking mental capacity.

There is hardly a break between euthanasia and eugenics - the first creates the licence to ignore the dignity of human life, the second gives others the duty to ignore it.

I really don't know where to start with the blind, vicious and bloody embarrassing stupidity of this statement.  (I quoted Simon Duffy's post in full as it is short and appears convinced of its own completeness. Read the original here.) The title How Euthanasia leads to Eugenics sets out a difficult and bizarre idea and claims that it will offer evidence How.

Let's be clear: Eugenics is an awful idea and one that has no place at all in a civilised, humane and egalitarian society. But euthanasia is a good thing; the right of a terminally ill individual to choose the time and place of their own death, to allow them the dignity of choosing the end over a long and painful drawn out death.

Simon Duffy seems to believe that because a statement numbered "Clause 1" about euthanasia is followed in some list somewhere by a statement numbered "Clause 2" about eugenics, that this some how magically constitutes evidence of 1 leading to 2. I'd like to test this logic and see if it holds up to scrutiny by writing my own list:

Clause 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Clause 2: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

The first clause is Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the second is from the bible, Exodus 22:18. They clearly have nothing in common; I have just semi-randomly chosen them to appear in a list together. I chose the first because I agree with it, and the second because I don't. It's a stupid and pathetic point I'm attempting to make, but no stupider or more pathetic than the one Simon Duffy fumbles with.
(From now on whenever I mention clauses I'm talking about the ones Simon Duffy quotes, and not the irrelevant ones I just picked.)

He claims there is an easy and natural step between the two clauses, from voluntary in the first to involuntary in the second in the case of individuals whose mental illness does not allow their consent. I can see no easy or natural step there, nor any evidence that their may be one lurking in the shadows. One is voluntary, the other is not; these are not similar, they are opposite. Where is this easy and natural step? Where is it?

After his weak, fleeting and begging the question argument to support his hypothesis comes the poor conclusion: "There is hardly a break between euthanasia and eugenics - the first creates the licence to ignore the dignity of human life, the second gives others the duty to ignore it."

I argue that the right of a terminally ill patient, in full mental capacity to understand their choice, to choose to die is demanded by human dignity. Personally if I was in constant agonising pain, immobile in a bed, living with the knowledge of a certain imminent death I would demand the right to choose my own way out. If I was suffering from a degenerative brain disease, during the time I was still with it I would like to request that when it got to the point when I was no longer able to think, write, and recognise my loved ones I be euthanized. At that point, I believe there would be nothing left of me.

The second clause needs further consideration before a conclusion can be reached. A point that Duffy has failed to mention is that it refers to "incurable mental illness requir[ing] permanent institutionalisation". If this was on the Criminal Code of Nazi Germany it was written not only in a part of the world where illiberalism was destroying millions of lives, but it was written in a time when mental illness was much less well understood.

In the past just about any mental illness was considered incurable and people were institutionalised with all sorts of things that today are treatable. They even considered all sorts of crazy things to be mental illness that we don't in today's more enlightened times; homosexuality for example.

Of course the second clause is disgusting, but its probable meaning when it was written bears little relation to how it can be interpreted today; and above all there is no reason to suggest it logically follows from the first clause.

In conclusion:
Reasonably consented euthanasia: good
Eugenics: bad
Obviously.

(If my argument comes across as rambling or confusing, don't worry, it probably is. It's not supposed to be an essay; I'm not handing it in to be marked. I've just rushed it out. It's more of a rant than anything.)

“I wish to be treated as a responsible adult and believe that people should be legally able to register their wish for an assistance with suicide, if needed. I support Dignity in Dying primarily to help change the law on assisted suicide.” 

Sir Michael Holroyd CBE, Dignity in Dying Patron

515: Make mine a Top Totty

Instead of doing something important like sorting out this country's fucked-up libel law, you know like they should be, some MPs, well, one, is engaging herself with something entirely more trivial, and all together more overstepping the mark and impinging on free speech and free enterprise. That was a rambling and overlong sentence I know, but I'm full of petty and futile rage. According to MEN, Metro and BBC News, Labour MP shadow equalities minister Kate Green took offence to a beer called Top Totty being sold at the Westminster pub, The Strangers' Bar. The pump has a cute drawing of a blonde lady in a white bikini and a description of Top Totty, a blonde beer, as a "stunningly seductive, voluptuous variety of hops with a fruity, fresh finish".

Kate Green saw it, was offended, (or perhaps didn't actually see it because the BBC says she was "'disturbed' to hear it was on sale" my italics) and within 90 minutes her actions had somehow lead to Top Totty being withdrawn from sale. This can only be described as a gross misuse of her influence to stifle free speech and free enterprise. No members of the public she represents were offended, she was acting entirely on own whim, and even if it is offencive, so fucking what? Free speech is of paramount importance, even if it causes offence. Being offended by something does not give you the right to remove it from the public domain; it gives you the right to complain and be upset. The right to cause offence should always trump the right to be offended.

What makes this especially disgusting is Kate Green's abuse of her power. Today I walked past the main entrance to the shop I work in. I rarely see in the windows because I enter and leave via a staff entrance on the other side of the building. I noticed a very very large poster advertising underwear and comprising entirely of a photography of a staggeringly sexy model looking sultry in her bra and knickers. Sights like this are common and I am confident in saying that Kate Green sees them as often as we all do. Is she constantly staggering around in a persistent tut of indignant offence? Does she fight against every commercial sexualised image of a semi-clad female? Or is she merely flexing her muscles against Top Totty and The Strangers' Bar because she knows she has some direct influence?

Every single person, or official body, she took her complaint to should have said, "you are entitled to be offended, but you have no right to remove this from sale. It is none of your business; if you don't like it, tough." What I really hate about this whole thing is that the most sensible statement appears to have come from Mike Nattrass, a MEP for horrid populist right-wing party UKIP: "This sort of knee-jerk Puritanism does more damage to the cause of equality than a thousand beer labels. It suggests that to be in favour of equality you must be a dour-faced, insult-searching misery".

As an aside I would like to address anyone who wants to complain about the objectification of women as sexual objects: I would like to suggest that women are sexual objects, as are men; indeed humans are sexual objects. How could we be described as anything else? We are objects who think about sex, have sex, think about sex, have sex, ecsextra, etc, &c... Of course we are so much more than just sexual objects, men and women alike. We are thinkers, workers, friends, scientists, artists, geniuses, idiots, and everything else and in between.

511: Can't Read, Can Use Chopsticks

It was pay day on Friday so I treated my female companion and I to Yo! Sushi (get a soft-shell crab hand-roll, it's delicious), then I treated myself to the new Nick Cohen book You Can't Read This Book. If you're reading this Nick, I'd like to say two things to you: firstly, I can read it and, indeed, am reading it. How dare you make such an assumption about my literacy. Secondly, I love you Nick; every word you write speaks the truth to me; I hate you Nick, you show me how poorly I write and how dopily I think, how lazy I am in my own thinking and writing, you embarrass me in unwillingly prompting me to gush like a newly pubescent sufferer of Beatlemania. I, you know, like, don't really love you.. I was only joking, it was a joke, pff godddd, but you know, I do, sort of, admire you, I guess.

I could discuss the content of the book, You Can't Read This, which is about censorship, particularly in the 21^st century, and how the liberal Western world has become permeated with an incipient form of self-censorship designed to appease religious fundamentalists and fanatics, and is driven by fear of violent reprisal. It condemns the idea that it is bigoted to oppose Islamists (Islamic fascists using fatwa and murder to silence free speech); it condemns the liberal politicians, journalists and intellectuals who abandon their principals in favour of double-think when the rights they hold dear are challenged by the enemies of liberalism; the abandonment of Ayaan Hirsi Ali as she fought for the rights of immigrant Muslim women in Holland to live free from violence and intimidation, over the rights of immigrant Muslim men in Holland to live free to inflict violence and intimidation on their women; it condemns the idea that all cultures should be equally respected no matter how totalitarian and illiberal they are; it condemns the idea that free speech should be curtailed to spare the blushes of the pious; it condemns the idea that the illustrator of a comic or the author of a book is to blame for the violence carried out by people claiming to be offended by comics or books.

I could talk about these issues, but Nick Cohen can and does do it better than I do. As do Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, etc. I on the other hand would like to quote Grayson Perry, then proceed with an unrelated, inoffensive and trivial story about Yo! Sushi:

"The reason I have not gone all out attacking Islamism in my art is because I feel the real fear that someone will slit my throat," said Grayson Perry with candour rare when discussing the lack of mainstream criticism of Islamo-fascism.

So, I was in Yo! Sushi, yeah? It's a popular chain of restaurants serving Japanese food. The diners sit on bar stools along a bar circling the open-plan kitchen, while the food travels around a conveyor belt on tiny plates, colour-coded for different prices. You just lift what you want off the belt, and/or order from the menu. It's good; over-priced, but fun. Sat to my right were another couple of a similar age to us. The woman was really struggling with her chopsticks, he was managing but clumsily, and I am highly proficient having lived in Japan for eight months (Go! Me).

She said to him, "I'm not very good with chopsticks; what's the right way to hold them?" His reply both amused and annoyed me: "There is no right way; you just hold them however you like." This was so stupid and wrong that I did what anyone else would do: I started showing off, picking up very large items of food like the hairy prawns, or tiny items like single grains of rice; putting down and picking up my chopsticks without looking and in a single swift fluid motion, so they just fell into my hands perfectly placed. It was subtle: I didn't want to look like I was conspicuously showing off, but if she looked over I wanted her to see that there clearly was a right way to do it, and neither her nor her partner were doing it right. He held them as though he had just jabbed them through his clenched fist. His chop sticks had no room to open and close, no pincer movement; dear god, I was embarrassed for him.

492: First they came for the...

Rick Santorum, former Pennsylvania senator who I've never heard of either, is apparently rising through the ranks of jostling homophobes clawing to be Republican candidate for the US Presidency. He is known for his considered, insightful and forward-thinking statements such as, "In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing." He thinks that people should not be allowed the right to privacy; to consensual relations with the partner of their choice; he appears to think homosexuality is equivalent to child rape and bestiality. Here he is expressing himself, over compensating for something, in an unedited interview with Associated Press.

Santorum wants to mess with the private lives of millions of people, delving into details that are absolutely none of his business, choosing to surround himself in the details of activities he claims to abhor. In 2003, back when Santorum was still senator, gay rights campaigner Dan Savage decided to mess with Santorum by launching a sort-of competition to give a crude definition to the word santorum. The winning definition was "Santorum 1. The frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex. 2. Senator Rick Santorum." A website was created declaring the meaning of the word, and it quickly shot to the top of Google's search ranking for the term santorum. It remains at the top, and must be quite a problem for the nasty homophobic Christian extremist and the nasty homophobic Christian extremists whose votes he lusts after.

I added my liberal, wishy-washy, limp-wristed, deviant-empowering, Satanic, dog-fucking two cents to the story mainly for the reason of being able to link to the definition of Santorum and thus contribute to its remaining at the top of Google search results. I think he deserves it, and it scares me that such extremists could seriously be considered for the Presidency of a modern country.

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't Jewish.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
-Pastor Martin Niemöller

437: Europe and the United Federation of Planets

Just because the Euro zone is in monetary crisis (as it seems, is everywhere else) is no reason for terrified and confused jerk reactions of quick, let's get out of the European Union, we need a referendum. Apparently the countries of Europe have never been in such danger, disagreement, turmoil, etc (don't mention the war... it seems not to count...), and the Eurosceptics and xenophobes that comprise corners of the Conservative party (freaky fringe parties like UKIP and BNP, and vicious post-football firms like EDL) seem eager to use and abuse the financial uncertainty to kick-start a period of National Isolationism to rival sakoku of Japan's Edo period.

To be clear, if we were to have a referendum on the United Kingdom's European Union membership, it would be indicative of faddism, weak-thinking, and fear in the Houses of Parliament. If the British public were to vote in favour of leaving the EU, this would be disgusting and terrifying beyond belief; for once stories of the decline of Britain would be true. International co-operation and unity is one of the strongest signs of progress we have. Look at the world of Star Trek; the United Federation of Planets is a socialist utopia where all are equal and free to strive for self-improvement in a world free from economic struggle. They didn't build that world and that union by jumping ship at the first sign of trouble. Back in the real world and the European Union is facing a major challenge; one that needs to be overcome, and can be overcome given time, and the collected efforts of its member states, of which I am proud to be a resident of one.

On a personal note, I worry about the legal status of friends, neighbours and work colleagues from across Europe who have chosen to make Great Britain their home, as is their right as citizens of the European Union. If Tory back-benchers and who-ever are successful in their petulant fits to stir up anti-EU sentiment, what will this do to the rights of EU-citizens living here? If we left the EU what would happen then? I have no idea, but imagine I hear the tolling bells of ominous portent (whatever they are, Mr. Pretentious). What about you, yes you; the man (or woman) who wants to retire to Spain, buy a holiday home in France or open a business in Czech Republic? Fancy having to apply for a visa every time you want to pop through the Channel Tunnel, or across the border from Norn Iron to the southern Republic? That might not happen, but it could you know; so be afraid of this thing that I've just made up. Point is, it's not much fun. Imagine how lonely and stupid we would feel, sitting here just North West of this great Union; once part of it, but now separate, silent, petty, reactionary, and ignored.

Ignore UKIP, and that EU flag-burning old hag tunelessly atoning Rule Britannia on the news reel, and look to the UFP for guidance. Unity not isolation! (I am getting married after all.)

Let's not even dwell on the unsettling thought that a referendum might find the British public voting us out of the EU. I sincerely hope people aren't that reactionary, but I have no evidence either way. Anyway, looks like there won't be a referendum just yet... fingers crossed for a United future.  I am an unashamed Europhile, out and proud.  While I'm at it, I hope I claim to allophila also.  Here it is on a scale, from prejudice to tolerance to allophilia; nice isn't it?  Bloody, bleeding-heart, PC liberal.

397: September 11

Ten years ago today (as half-a-billion other blog posts will open with) I was sitting in my tiny box-bedroom at my parents old house. I was on the computer - an old desktop thing, probably with an Intel Celeron processor – messing around on Cakewalk. My sister, just back home from school making it about 3.30 or 4pm (UK time), knocked on my door and came in. What are you doing she asked. Odd I thought - Why? Oh, there's nothing on TV she replied – just news on every channel. Sensing this was important, more important than a little sister can properly convey, I asked what was going on. I don't know, something about planes falling out of the sky in America. To this day I still cannot figure out the thinking there. I ran down stairs to the TV, and remained there for the next 150 hours.

Now is as good a time as ever to revisit the history of the Crusades, or the sorry history of partition in Kashmir, or the woes of the Chechens and Kosovars. But the bombers of Manhattan represent fascism with an Islamic face, and there's no point in any euphemism about it. What they abominate about "the West", to put it in a phrase, is not what Western liberals don't like and can't defend about their own system, but what they do like about it and must defend: it's emancipation of women, its scientific inquiry, its separation of religion from the state. Loose talk about chickens coming home to roost is the moral equivalent of the hateful garbage emitted by Falwell and Robertson, and exhibits about the same intellectual content. Indiscriminate murder is not a judgement, even obliquely, on the victims or their way of life, or ours. Any decent and concerned reader of this magazine could have been on one of those planes, or in one of those buildings – yes, even in the Pentagon.

Christopher Hitchens, The Nation, September 20, 2001

Many people like me (self-obsessed, politically-micromotivated, liberal but pissed off, unable to make sense of the world, aspirations of intellectualism and writerliness) have attempted to "come to terms" with the 11^th Sept 2001 attack on liberalism and modernity that caused the death of thousands of innocent people. I even went through a flippant phase (I was a student, and a dick head) of wondering if bin Laden and his flock were freedom fighters, a la Che Guevara or even Nelson Mandela. Admittedly I was trying to be contentious, but more importantly I was being an idiot. Like many confused liberals I bought into the idea that America was somehow intrinsically evil, and any opposition to it was justified. Sorry if you still believe that, but it is a truly cretinous and intellectually embarrassing belief.

Having said that I still don't know what "coming to terms" with this could possibly mean: why should I; how should I; should I; do I have a need to, or even a right to? I don't believe there are answers to any of these questions. I do believe that we, "the West" if you want to call the Modern world that (Japan is not in the West, but it is in "the West"), have a right and a duty to battle fascist ideals, overthrow tyrants, and aim towards a world united by Universal Human Rights. Perhaps 11^th Sept 2001 was a terrible, tragic wake up call; a reminder that the democracies and rights our parents and grandparents (etc) fought for continue to need protecting. A reminder that the rights and freedoms we enjoy are still denied to billions of people across the world, and that oppressors are prepared to use extreme violence to propagate their evil ideas.

Just to clarify, I am not talking about peaceful Muslims the world over. I am talking about the Islamic fascists that rule many countries, the mullahs beating down the rights of men and women. As terrible as the attacks on New York (London, Madrid, etc) were we should remember that Muslims living in Islamic countries are sadly the biggest victims of fascism and brutal ancient dogma. What have we learned? I don't know. What have I learned? I don't know. I do know that I prefer liberal democracy to religious fascism. I shouldn't have to explicitly state that, but sometimes it seems I need to.

I don't know what I'm talking about, but Sam Harris does: read his September 11^th blog post here.

376: X, Y & MCR

Post-Aug '11 Manchester riots (I callously am not feeling emotional about those in London, Birmingham, or Liverpool; and by 'Manchester' I mean 'Greater Manchester' so include Salford) I have felt a welling affinity with this beautiful city, my adopted home, which feels almost like the joyous and tearful confusion of fresh love. I first felt the onset during the riots, as the twitter Mancophiles were so fast in organising volunteer forces to sweep and dust the broken glass. It grew stronger and warmer, seeing the police out in force the next day; seeing my fellow Mancunians heading off to work despite the previous nights destruction; seeing the legal system's quick and efficient response; seeing and feeling the decent camaraderie which spread over our city.

This was a little over a week ago, and some of the boarded windows have been reglazed (the ever present sticker-based slogan 'Love United; Hate Glazer', wittily became 'Love Manchester; Love Glaziers') others have been decorated, painted, muralled. Shop windows proudly display 'We Love MCR' posters, mugshots of the wanted looters, reminders that they are open or will be opening again soon. During the events I responded furiously in this blog, condemning the looters with liberal use of swear words. I received a mixed reaction ranging from reposts and 'likes', to accusations of rightwingery. I didn't make any calls for undue or unusual punishment of the perpetrators; what I did do however was suggest they be expected to take full responsibility for their actions. My posts felt like visceral, immediate and uncensored purges of my disgust. I am pleased that in my haste to react, despite my ripe language, I did not say anything I fundamentally disagree with.

Politically I've generally thought myself left of centre, but why should being a leftie mean I should think the government is to blame for the underlying causes. Just because someone is poor, or disadvantage, or uneducated, or even stupid or bored, does not mean they should not be held accountable for their criminal actions. The government provides education, hospitals, emergency services, defence, benefits; why should it also be expected to give our lives meaning? If we are not content look inwards not outwards; self improvement, not blame placing.

The political spectrum does not simply run from left to right along the X axis; it also runs from libertarian to authoritarian on the Y axis. Also, contrary to the assumptions of many of the people in my life, left does not equal unwavering good, and right does not equal unwavering bad  (Whether or not anyone actually believes these things, the common use of language seems to imply this is the case). There is little to separate New Labour from the Conservatives, and the extremes of Left leaning politics have arguably killed more innocent people that the extreme right. However this is deceptive, because in this country the extreme Left sells magazines and collects anti-government petitions outside health-food shops, and the extreme right shouts racial abuse at the mirror when it reflects a sun-tanned face.

I identify more closely with middling-Libertarianism than with the Left, however what I believe seems to be a combination of conservative, progressive, and libertarian. I believe that the individual is important – individual responsibility primarily, as opposed to selfish attainment at the expense of others – but that the individual cannot (or at least does not) exist outside of society. By providing free health care and education, society does the most it can to improve personal freedom, without falling down the route of replacing freedom with comfort. Once a society starts to favour comfort over freedom, it begins to lose grasp of both, and once a society worries too much about the cause of mindless criminal damage it risks losing its sanity. A society should not be expected to provide absolutely everything for its inhabitants, and should not be expected to pamper and coddle those inhabitants who demand more than they have earned and are not entitled to.

Political Spectrum

Some of my beliefs might edge towards right the X axis, but nothing in my belief system is on the authoritarian side of the Y axis. I am however a bit of a hypocrite; let me explain. During my two rants against the riots, I bitterly complained about the ungrateful nature of the rioters. How dare they turn so pettily against this comfortable and prosperous nation that allows them to live relatively undisturbed and free; even the poorest in this country are still better off than billions of people the world over. Well, despite the riots, we still live in a fantastically safe and comfortable country; one that I am increasingly more proud of.

Yesterday I began reading Christopher Hitchens' account of how his affinity with the United States of America lead to him applying for US citizenship as a direct response to the terrorist attacks of 11/09/2001. The great British-born journalist Hitchens speaks of his love of his adoptive country and the protectiveness he felt after the vicious, barbarous attacks. He speaks of the inane mumblings he began to hear from Left-leaning friends and colleagues about 'the chickens coming home to roost'. How the wrongheaded and the blindly liberal (in the sense of believing that everything Western is evil, everything bad is the West's fault; everything opposing the West is doing so driven either by the forces of good or the fight against Colonialism) tried to place blame with everyone and everything, except with the calculated mass-murders and the evil ideas that drove them.

Hitchens' response and experiences are clearly far more extreme than my own affinity with Manchester; but I understand the stance he took, and currently feel for Manchester what he must have felt for the United States of America. And now I'm so tired I can't remember if I'm still making the original point I started off with. Such is the nature of blogging – it all goes out there, whatever the quality or the comprehensibility.  This is a writing exercise primarily; I follow the words hither and thither.

314: Unfriended (or 'Is Canada Fascist? The Facebook Fracas')

Pavini Vijay Kaushik, Clothes Line, 2004

At some point I said I didn’t want to use this blog for airing laundry, but with fifty or so years of blogging ahead of me I’ll need to write something about everything to ease the repetition.  So, today a brief facebook discussion resulted in a sudden unfriending and me being told where to go.  Here is the dialogue, unedited except I have removed the names, and the video that prompted the original poster:

Original poster: Watch this! And Then Try and tell me that Canada isn't a Fascist State!

Me: Canada isn't a fascist state.

Second Poster: Damn! I was gonna put that. This is bad but I think fascist state is maybe a little bit too far! Cheer up Original Poster, it's not that bad :)

Me: The world has plenty of actual fascist states where this sort of thing happens as policy. Countries like Canada, the UK and the US are as free and admirable as we currently have, and flippantly denouncing them as 'fascist' helps no one. All this video shows is one police man doing some thing terrible; one isolated incident without context. It teaches us nothing.

Original Poster: Really... It's beginning to show the hallmarks of one. The UK, USA & Canada all are: People arrested for kissing (US), Shotgun attacks to unarmed women (Canada), Police attacking disabled people in a wheelchair (London), Increasing levels of Police Brutality (people arrested for riding a bicycle through a public park - London), ever growing levels of persecution towards Minorities (emergence of the EDL) (which is publicly endorsed by the Government through their permission to exist despite being a group preaching hate), Aggressive Military Policies (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya), Plans to introduce Compulsory ID's (UK, US), The indoctrination of Young People through declining education standards (UK, US) ,Delibrate Miseducation through the main stream media (UK, US), The introduction of toxic psycho-neurotic chemcals in drinking water (US and UK) and the food chain which have the effect of damaging brain cells and making people docile, Manipulation of currencies to ensure the vast amount of people stay poor (ALL THE ABOVE). Shall I go on...........?

Me: You can go on if you like, but I'm not really interested. It's waffle. Sorry mate, but if anyone's indoctrinated I think it's you.

Original Poster: Really, OK? So I'm just making this stuff up? Just look at youtube... put in Police Brutality and you can see that the Police have repeatedly overstepped the mark with attacks on frail elderly women, disabled people, special needs people, ethnic minorities........

Original Poster: Anyways, If a unarmed woman getting shot at pointblank range with a riot shotgun is just WAFFLE to you, Then I suggest you go crawl back under the rock from whence you came from. I no longer consider you a friend. NOW FUCK OFF!

At this point I was ‘unfriended’ and thus denied the right to reply.

Third Poster: How dare you Kevin???? I have a very close elderley friend who will be 90 this year, he was born in bremen in 1921, he has told me repeatedly that they had no idea that nazi germany was a police state from 1933 onwards it did not feel any different to before because of the sophisticated cleverness that was used to introduce it. The same friend has told me in no uncertain terms that that way the USA and UK have been going for the last 10 years is exactly a mirror replica of what happened after 1933 and that he is only able to realise it coz he has the benefit of hindsight..............
I hope you did not have any relatives that died in ww2 coz you just pissed on there grave.

Fourth Poster: Wow guys -Please CALM DOWN (calm down; calm down) LOL

Where do I begin with this; do I defend myself against the disgusting and bizarre accusation of describing an unarmed woman being shot at point blank range as “waffle”, or do I explain the weak fallacies in Original Poster’s arguments?  In an ideal world the answer would be neither for the following reasons:

The only comment I made specifically about the scene shown in the video was that it was “one police man doing some thing terrible”.  The waffle I spoke of was obviously the long paragraph of waffle spewed by Original Poster (from now on to be referred to as OP for sake of brevity), which came less than one minute after my previous comment.  From this quick turnaround I infer that OP had already collated his unattributed, unconnected list of events (“emergence of EDL, deliberate miseducation, etc”) and therefore had a prewritten response to use regardless of what was argued against him.  Typically of this sort of thinker, OP seems to be unable to actually discuss things and can only regurgitate things he doesn't understand as if they are his own thoughts.

That brings me to why I shouldn’t have to explain the irrelevancy of OP’s (and by extension Third Poster’s) arguments.   In discussion is a 15 second youtube video showing an unarmed woman (with a camera around her neck, and who seemed to turn her head away a split second before) being shot from extremely close range with what appears to be a ‘non-lethal’ projectile; and whether or not this means Canada is a fascist state.  I should not have to patronise anyone by pointing out that there is no logical connection to be made there.  (I used inverted commas around ‘non-lethal’ because something like that cannot be guaranteed.)


My argument against OP's assumption is that Canada is not a fascist state, and that the video provides no evidence to contradict me.  I made the statement 'you can go on if you like, but I'm not really interested' because the list OP churned was just unattributed non-evidence which I can provide no specific argument against.  This is not due to an inherent weakness with my position, but due to the argumental stance taken by OP which is more concerned with minor semantic victories than the truth.  The fact is that Canada is not a fascist state, but OP feels that if he can shut me up by blinding me with lists, then he can appear to have proven his point.


When I refused to rise to his list of waffle (the details of which may or may not be true; I make no comment on their veracity because I have no relevant information) OP was incredibly quick to quote me out of context to make me appear to be an unfeeling monster, take the moral high-ground based on what I didn't say, personally insult me, and then deny me the right to reply.  His sudden violent defensiveness speaks to me of the weakness of his argument.

Luckily OP had Third Poster to back him up (I'm being sarcastic now).  The less said about that rant the better, but I want to go on public record as saying I have never pissed on the graves of my ancestors.  In fact I would even be bold enough to claim that I have never knowingly pissed on anyone's grave.

In summation: Call me crazy if you want but I don't believe that the UK, the USA, or Canada are fascist states.  I believe it is puerile and pathetic to claim otherwise.  As nations they are less than perfect but, when judged in perspective against other contemporary countries and world history, they are undeniably Great.  The modern world (you can call it the Western world if you want; proudly or sneeringly, it's up to you) is a wonderful achievement.  Of course it is open to criticism - everything is and should be - but don't pretend it is worse than it is, and don't pretend it is some evil empire of comic books and conspiracy forums.  I believe that in the long run globalism is a force for good, and as such the atrocities committed by genuine extreme-right (or extreme-left) governments or groups across the world are more serious than occasional (relatively-) minor atrocities committed in the otherwise peaceful pool of home.

I plant myself firmly on the left, and the country I see around me is largely liberal, free, and peaceful.  I wish I could say the same about the entire world, but unfortunately there are huge areas not so fortunate.  As a lefty I strongly believe that other lefties should stop this solipsistic inward criticism, concentrate on global human rights abuses, and stop mindlessly siding with anyone or anything which takes an anti-Western stance.

Anyway, I'm tired, and all ranted out.  For anyone still reading and interested in what I am trying to communicate you may like to read Nick Cohen's What's Left? How Liberals Lost Their Way.

Now the question hangs in my mind... "Do I click 'publish post' and commit myself fully..?"  I suppose I do.

Blck Chp Sxty Sx:

Scanning the news and other online points of interest looking for something to write about.  I’ve had an uneventful day, no explosive surprises or unusual encounters to pique my interest.  No adventures, revelations, or long-lost friends falling down on my doorstep.  I slept off a hangover, woke feeling flu-y, listened to music and played Civilization 4.  All together it makes for a dull day, and has left me with a dull, unimaginative brain.  Last night I learnt the slow-cookers make incredible beef curry, and the new Robin Hood film is boring beyond belief.  Tonight I’ve learnt that the Sun and the Telegraph are jumping on a pathetically prudish bandwagon to voice their uncritical support of a one-sided report criticising the NHS spending a few quid on porn for use in sperm banks.  I’ve learnt that robots can manoeuvre like dragonflies, and soon we’ll all be living in San Angeles or Mega City One.

I’ve learned I don’t know whether to use learnt or learned, and I don’t know the Millibands from the Eds from the Balls (and I don’t really care).  It’s hard to maintain an interest in politics between elections.  There are no clear-cut definite goals (i.e. get elected), no simple plots to follow with set-up, conflict and resolution, no storyline, and no emerging victor.  The day to day runnings of a country seems vague, and even someone like me who considers themselves politically minded, feels distant and unexcited.  I want to be involved but I’m just not.  At a guess I’d say the first step in becoming involved in politics is preparing the mind.  I have my own issues that interest me (mostly secularism), but that is no preparation for the everyday things.  Perhaps simply watching Question Time and Prime Minister’s Questions are good ways to start.  But watching them on my own is like watching comedy on my own.  I laugh out loud when I am watching with other people; the laughs are mostly inside when I watch alone.  As with televised political debate.  I live with my girlfriend who has no interest in politics.  Watching politics with someone who is bored by it is like watching comedy with someone who says ‘I don’t get it’ after every joke.

Unfortunately watching the news no longer seems to be a viable way to learn about politics.  Non-stories are all over the place; the headlines are always things like ‘Family member expresses feelings about something that happened to relative’, or ‘Someone reacts to something that someone else said’, or ‘Public figure apologises to the public for something that is none of their business’.  None of these constitutes worthwhile news, and the important stuff gets buried under piling mounds of shit.  So a footballer shagged someone; why should they apologise to their fans, and why do we need to know about it.  People might want to know about it, but that still doesn’t make it news.  News should only be things we need to know, anything else – pop stars going to prison (unimportant, gossip), Prime Minister’s calling a bigoted old woman ‘a bigot’ (unimportant, cynically-motivated), reality tv star’s sexual revelations (pointless) – should be kept out of newspapers and news programmes.  Any newspaper featuring such gossip, or Rupert Murdoch-style financially-motivated political pestering, should be punished by Trading Standards for their incorrect use of the word ‘news’.

So that’s my plan.  Completely change the world first, including all media outlets, and then get interested in politics, so I can change the world...  before the robots take over. 

Idea for Electoral Reform

Everyone feels we have a need for electoral reform.  We have a hung parliament, people continuing to call for proportional representation (as always happens around election time), and a stale out-dated, un-elected upper house - The House of Lords.

I propose a simple solution which I feel will come some way to solving all these problems.  Step one:
Abolish the House of Lords
Out with the unelected illegitimate great grandchildren of King George/Henry/Edward and some forgotten peasant maiden; out with the bishops; and out with those who bought their seats.

Step two:
Keep the House of Commons UNCHANGED
Yes, keep the parliamentary elections as they are.  You go and you vote for your local candidate, the MP you wish to sit in the Commons to represent you.  Each constituency gets one seat and that's that - no change there.
Here we see my constituency Withington winning a seat in the House of Commons for the Liberal Democrats.
And here we see anyone who voted Conservative or Labour being pissed off that their vote is now pointless - lost, the democratic process ends for another 5 years.  This is the cause of popular disenfranchisement.

Image (c) BBC MMX taken from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/constituency/c82.stm

Here we see the House of Commons as it currently is, with the Conservatives hold a non-majority lead.  Notice the apparent massive difference in influence between Labour and Liberal Democrats.

Image (c) BBC MMX taken from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/default.stm

Step three:
Create a new Upper House
Lets call it 'The House Formerly Known as Lords', or even better 'The Upper House'.  Create a number of seats therein - let's say 300.  It's a good number, not too high to get unwieldy, but high enough for our purposes.

To fill these seats we use Proportional Representation.  Let's look at the current full UK Scoreboard, paying particular attention to Votes and %.

Image (c) BBC MMX taken from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/default.stm

Conservatives lead Labour by 41 seats and 1,932,907 votes.  Labour lead Liberal Democrats by a massive 199 seats, but only 1,817,580.

We continue to fill the House of Commons using the number of seats, however we fill the Upper House using the percentage of total votes across the whole country.

Based on my number of 300 seats in the Upper House, this would give:
Conservatives 108 seats
Labour 87 or 88 seats
Liberal Democrats 68 (possibly 69)
Democratic Unionist Party 1 or 2
Scottish National Party 3
etc.

Parties will then be allowed to fill their seats with representatives of their choosing (as long as they don't also sit in the Commons, and have no other conflict of interest).

Some details would need to be worked out such as how to represent Sinn Fein's 1.5 seats, and what to do with tiny minority parties.

Also this system would give the much hated British National Party 5 or 6 seats.  However this is what happens in a free democracy.  Unpopular stupid opinions are thought, expressed and sometimes agreed with. Giving them the 5 or 6 seats that they have earned will allow them to express their idiotic views, and for the majority to respond appropriately, and it will also have the major benefit of helping BNP voters to feel they are being heard.  This I feel will be a major step towards enabling everyone to feel they have an active part to play in parliamentary politics and a voice that is being heard.  It may also result in a swing away from extreme party support, which may have only had it's resent upsurge as a way of protesting against the stagnation and bullshit of the major parties.

In Summation


Conduct the elections exact as always.
Continue to fill the Commons seats based on number of constituencies won.
Abolish the Lords and replace with an Upper House.
Fill the Upper house based on percentage of total votes.
Simple