My detestation of the urban sub-culture which spawned the recent crime wave is longstanding. It is ugly, self-centred, materialistic and vicious, and in large part imported from the United States. Those who disliked my views on the looting, if surprised have not been paying attention in the past.
But the House of Commons debate is managing to look like a manifestation of a still uglier sub-culture. Fat-jowled smug men who look like that caricature of the yeomanry at Peterloo, and shrill unpleasant lean-faced women.
So far they want the revocation of the human rights act, powers to close down Twitter, censorship on the internet, tax allowances for married couples (sic), and have suggested that the killing of Ian Tomlinson was a good example to follow.
By comparison Cameron is coming over as almost sane. But he himself has said that convicted looters should lose their social housing. This is crazed populism. I am in favour of custodial sentences for looters. But the custodial sentence should be aimed at better equipping for participation in society. How on earth can you achieve rehabilitation if you deliberately force homelessness? Putting criminals homeless on the streets will reduce crime? Does anyone really believe that?
Presumably he does not intend to throw family dependants on the street too, or does he?
“Dreoilin, there appears to be a subset of dictators whose regimes utilise humour as propaganda” — Suhayl
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I don’t know if Mugabe uses real humour? the man seems totally off his trolley. But Iran’s recent suggestion (was it Iran?) that the UN needed to be brought in to look at Cameron’s handling of rioters – that caused me a belly laugh also. And yer man in Syria was accusing Cameron too, as if the looters in London were agitating for a change of regime after 40 years. Maybe it’ll come to that yet … But there have been glimmers of humour along the way. Not least on Twitter, which I’m sure Cameron would be quite happy to shut down. The wits (the intelligent ones) on Twitter never fail to cheer me up when things look bleak.
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By the way, your typo on the other thread is A-OK. I know you’d never knowingly call us an island. 🙂
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I must away, and stay away. My eyes are wrecked after keeping up with the news, the articles, the links on Twitter, and everything else, for days now.
PS, an aside, Suhayl: a University of San Diego study claims that statins interfere with mitochondria. Don’t know if you’ve heard this. I’ll see if I can find a link. The list of adverse affects is getting longer.
@ John,
In reply – I think that the attack on the 16 old girl is a genuine flashpoint that fuelled the riots. Watch the video:-
http://www.tntmagazine.com/tnt-today/archive/2011/08/08/london-riots-16-year-old-girl-and-police-clash-video.aspx
And as so eloquently put:-
” It’s a girl, it’s a girl, it’s a girl…you fucking cunt!”
I believe that there would be a lot of upset over this.
Old Mark, thank you for repeating what you – just like Alfred – term, my “smear”. You went one further than Alfred and did answer (in the negative) the initial question about whether or not you would vote for the BNP/EDL and for that, I am grateful. However, you haven’t answered my follow-up question. So I shall repeat it here, together with its context:
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“And may I ask why you would not vote for the BNP/EDL? Is it because you fundamentally disagree with their core ideologies and find these ideologies abhorrent and absurd, or because you agree with their core ideologies but think they that are ineffective political vehicles for these ideologies?”
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You did not render a direct answer, Old Mark.
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I would wager that 99% of the bloggers here would have no difficulty in providing a direct answer to that question if it were posed to them.
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Any chance of a direct answer from you?
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Thank you.”
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I do not see myself as a “gatekeeper”. I simply would like to allow you iterate your views in a clear and cogent manner. I would suggest that the apparent difficulty you seem to have in answering a very simple political question calls into question either the clarity, or the intellectual honesty, of your views.
Dreolin, if statins interfere with mitochondria, that’s rather worrying. Indeed, statins and their widespread use worries me in general. We know too little about the precise determinants of individual (as opposed to population) cardiovascular disease risk to be able effectively and safely to apply such pharmacological therapies in the context of primary prevention. The principle, too, is wrong.
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The silver lining, though, might be the “genocide” of the British Mitochondrion, the end of the British Race as we have known and loved it since the time of the Permian Extinction. Indeed, there is evidence that two species of sea-urchin of the time possessed ancestral British phenotypic features and indeed, even today, as has been proven by triple-blinded, randomised, controlled trials, the spermatozoa of these sea-urchin species will swim through the ocean at an enhanced rate when played ‘God Save The Queen’ and ‘Land of Hope and Glory’. Given statins, the urchins fail to respond to the aforementioned musical pieces.
‘You did not render a direct answer, Old Mark.’
I see the political commissar in you is going into overdrive Suhayl. Nice try, but I’m not taking your bait.
I repeat-I am not a neo Nazi,or a ‘white nationalist’ and I do not vote for parties of that stripe. I have expressed my views,(on immigration, on the virtues or otherwise of multiculturalism, and on some of the factors behind this weeks riots) here and on other threads, without the ambiguity you ascribe. They are not views you share- a fact over which I won’t lose any sleep.
I defer to your superior knowledge on the subject of sea-urchins- whose relevance to the argument we are having I find mystifying.
Insinuate away all you like from what I’ve just written.
I didn’t describe “ambiguity”;, I alluded to “clarity” and “intellectual honesty”. These are different things.
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But thank you, Old Mark, for making clear your position wrt ‘White Nationalist’ and other Far Right parties. I appreciate it.
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One might draw the conclusion, then, that you agree with much of the central platforms/ideology of such parties in relation to ‘multiculturalism’, their general attitude to black, brown, yellow, etc. people in Britain, their understanding of the concept of ‘race’, their views on immigration, religious diversity and economics and so on, but that do not agree with the obvious and ‘unBritish’ Neo-Nazi/quasi-mystical panoply? Would that be an accurate description of your political position? Or not? Please expand.
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We all know that there are a variety of political positions on what might be termed, ‘The Right’, some of which, in some respects, overlap with some positions on ‘the Left’ (perhaps the dualistic model now is simplistic).
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I don’t think this is a ‘commissar’ question, I think it is an open, valid one, given the views you have expressed. Why would you feel awkward about answering it? I am giving you the opportunity to expand on your theses.
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Sea urchins are fascinating beings.
Dreoilin, re. Mugabe, yes, he’s become a pathetic murderous nutter; that he wasn’t always like that intensifies the bathos (?tragedy) of the situation. But one funny thing was that after the deeply disputed US Presidential election result of 2000, Mugabe offered to send election observers to the USA.
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That was funny – or darkly ironic – precisely because of Mugabe’s own enormous crimes in relation to electoral fraud and violence. I mean, if the PM of, say, Sweden had said it, it wouldn’t have been funny.
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It wasn’t funny for Mugabe’s victims, of course, nor for those of Bush’s USA. It is arguable that Bush ought never to have been President in the first place.
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Now, let us await the entrance, from Stage Right, of the Daffodil Fanatic: “How dare you insult the hanging chaos of Daffodils, you, you, you… Tulip, you!! Until my dying day, I will stand on the beaches and on the river-beds and will defend the flowerbeds of America! Yo!”
“hanging chaos” – eh? Bizarre. “hanging chads”, I meant. But maybe “hanging chaos” is better! Since we’re into gallows humour right now, the execution of Saddam Hussein was “hanging chaos”.
‘One might draw the conclusion, then, that you agree with much of the central platforms/ideology of such parties in relation to ‘multiculturalism’, their general attitude to black, brown, yellow, etc. people in Britain, their understanding of the concept of ‘race’, their views on immigration, religious diversity and economics and so on, but that do not agree with the obvious and ‘unBritish’ Neo-Nazi/quasi-mystical panoply? Would that be an accurate description of your political position? Or not? Please expand.’
Now that you have dropped the inquisitorial tone Suhayl, I’ll sketch out my views in greater detail. I am strongly opposed to the ideology of multiculturalism, and believe the criticisms of it from, inter alia, Chris Caldwell, Theodore Dalrymple/Anthony Daniels, Walter Lacqueur,and Thilo Sarrazzin are accurate and valid, and should be heeded by our political elites. I am ashamed and embarrassed by the fact that far right parties here exploit the justified resentment of the ‘white British’ at the impact on them of this ideology, and the affirmative action industry that it fosters. I bitterly resent the fact that supporters of multiculturalism, affirmative action, and high levels of immigration often smear those who disagree with them with the neo Nazi/white nationalist brush. I would never endorse the main remedy for the ills of multiculturalism espoused by the far right, namely, the mass expulsion (to where ?) of the brown, black & yellow populations of western Europe (including those born here and holding citizenship). I personally enjoy cordial relations with friends , work colleagues and neighbours who do not share my ethnic (white English) & cultural (nominally Christian) background- indeed my wife of nine years is non white, and a practicing Bhuddist.
I think I have now taken ‘the opportunity to expand on your theses’ enough for you to get a better idea of where I am coming from.
“Indeed, there is evidence that two species of sea-urchin of the time possessed ancestral British phenotypic features …”
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“I defer to your superior knowledge on the subject of sea-urchins – whose relevance to the argument we are having I find mystifying …”
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“Mugabe offered to send election observers to the USA …”
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Gentlemen, I am doubled up laughing. Which cannot be a bad thing.
I’ll leave you to your discussion of multiculturalism, since I am not very well qualified to discuss it. Ireland had net emigration for decades, and had barely started on the road to multiculturalism when the Celtic Tiger slipped and banged his head off the wall of a bank. I don’t have figures for who’s left and who stayed, but our graduates are taking to the road again.
Oh, I should add, yes of course, “darkly ironic”. But if we didn’t laugh occasionally, we’d go mad.
Or as my mother used to say, “You have to let your soft out”.
Thank you, Old Mark. That is very interesting and engaging and I do appreciate you taking the time to explain it. I also have criticisms of, for example, the fostering and ossification of ‘difference’ and the unthinking dominance of identity politics that in part (there were/are other important factors as well) has contributed to some of the esp. religious-based problems we face and also among some groups, to a type of self-defeating self-ghettoisation mentality. I’ve also spent much time arguing with, for example Islamists and others like that on various forums (including this one). It’s not just whites who might resent all of this, btw.
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I don’t agree with much of what the writers you mention write – I’ve read some, but not all – but there are valid points in their work which we ought not ignore. It’s just that when you come along with reductive formulae like : ‘Iceland, Japan’, Monocultural, or India, Multicultural: Choose’, etc. it tends to almost invite a simplistic reaction. Especially in the context of the hysterical tone and content of contributors like [I paraphrase both] ‘Jamie’ (Pack ’em all off back home!’) or Alfred (‘By your very presence, you are committing genocide in Britain!’).
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I get where you’re coming from now. Okay, thanks for expounding.