Either I have lurched to the right in recent times or the Mail has lurched to the Left but I find it too much to stomach these days. It's as if it was invaded in the night, all the journalists tied up in the basement and replaced by rabid leftists possessed by pathologically politically correct tendencies.
Hardly a week goes by without the Mail launching a crazed zealous eco driven campaign against some product whether it be plastics bags or posturing indignantly against the latest business takeover bid spearheaded by the economics editor Alex Brummer whose narrow,parochial,chauvinistic economic nationalism and hysteria against foreign companies stealing our economic heritage would not be out of place in the Guardian or Mirror.
When it is not riding these leftist hobby horses it is railing against businesses for not paying enough taxes or campaigning for more taxes on sugar and unhealthy food products like the worst sort of bbc- type nudging, nannying, statist do-gooder. And don't even get me started on its nauseating, fawning unquestioning, servile, forelock-tugging, sycophancy towards the Monarchy..
Enough already, my near lifelong association with the Mail is at an end or at least until it clears out the Augean stables and pumps some invigorating pro capitalist free market blood into its tired veins.
Monday, April 30, 2018
When is a Monopoly not a Monopoly?
When its a private one. There are no private monopolies,the only monopolies are government State enforced protected ones. Even in a mixed economy with relative freedoms and lots of regulations and restrictions on business and trade monopolies cannot exist as witnessed by the fact that companies that are riding high one decade can suffer irreparable damage the next,whether by error, lack of innovation, complacency, taking its eye off the ball, to say nothing of the disruptive technological changes that have revolutionized the way consumers purchase products - see the radical churn in the high streets in recent years with large household names going under or being overtaken by upstart new kids on the block - and online.
State monoplies on the other hand are the real deal and like bureaucracies they endure eg the NHS, the BBC, State education system. There is no way anybody can compete with them as they operate outside the market, they are unchalengeable, untouchable; they stand there generation after generation, untouched by the winds of change, solid, stolid, adamantine, monolithic, Stalinist monuments to sloth, sclerosis, complacency, State patronage and corruption.
If the dictatorial illiberal stassi-like CMA were to apply the exact self- same rigorous standards and criteria as to what constitutes a monopoly to the Public sector as it does towards privately owned companies (which it has no business meddling with and interfering in whatsoever) then the NHS, the BBC, and the State education system would all have been broken up into separate parts a long long time ago.
But of course no such thing will happen because the State operates under a grossly hypocritical double standard when it comes to private enterprise and 'monopolies', a sort of political schizophrenia overtakes it, a double book keeping which reduced to Orwellian terms would be: Public Monopoly Good, Private Monopoly Evil.
State monoplies on the other hand are the real deal and like bureaucracies they endure eg the NHS, the BBC, State education system. There is no way anybody can compete with them as they operate outside the market, they are unchalengeable, untouchable; they stand there generation after generation, untouched by the winds of change, solid, stolid, adamantine, monolithic, Stalinist monuments to sloth, sclerosis, complacency, State patronage and corruption.
If the dictatorial illiberal stassi-like CMA were to apply the exact self- same rigorous standards and criteria as to what constitutes a monopoly to the Public sector as it does towards privately owned companies (which it has no business meddling with and interfering in whatsoever) then the NHS, the BBC, and the State education system would all have been broken up into separate parts a long long time ago.
But of course no such thing will happen because the State operates under a grossly hypocritical double standard when it comes to private enterprise and 'monopolies', a sort of political schizophrenia overtakes it, a double book keeping which reduced to Orwellian terms would be: Public Monopoly Good, Private Monopoly Evil.
Sunday, April 29, 2018
Icke the Gift that keeps on Giving
Having watched a few of his excruciatingly tedious videos lately a few last comments on the absurd character Mr Icke. The sheer banality of his political views,the standard left wing conspiracy theories trotted out with their clunking predictability peppered with hackneyed phrases and words such as regime change,weapons of mass destruction lies,neocons, yada yada ad nauseam but most telling of all the recurring word in most of the recordings watched so far: Perception.
The hapless Joe Public is forever having his 'perceptions' monkeyed with and that word is appropriate because as Mr Icke thinks humans being live on a soley perceptual level of conciousness they are reduced therfor to nothing but animals in some Pavlovian game beyond their ken.The conceptual level of conciousness is clearly completely beyond Icke's grasp and we are all just brainless dolts subject to flickering images on a screen who cannot think objectively beyond the cognitive level of a 2rd old who has yet to form his first concept.
What else is left to such a tribalistic perceptual conciousness than the utterance of New Age mystical burblings from the beyond.
The hapless Joe Public is forever having his 'perceptions' monkeyed with and that word is appropriate because as Mr Icke thinks humans being live on a soley perceptual level of conciousness they are reduced therfor to nothing but animals in some Pavlovian game beyond their ken.The conceptual level of conciousness is clearly completely beyond Icke's grasp and we are all just brainless dolts subject to flickering images on a screen who cannot think objectively beyond the cognitive level of a 2rd old who has yet to form his first concept.
What else is left to such a tribalistic perceptual conciousness than the utterance of New Age mystical burblings from the beyond.
Intellectuals
I have almost exclusively been interested in words and ideas rather than people and everyday life. From the first novels I encountered at 15 I became entranced by the written word.Here were people,novelists who by dint of their imagination had managed to escape the fate of the average human, not for them the workaday life of the factory or shop,having to rub shoulders on a daily basis with the great unwashed masses,the vulgar hoi poloi , not for them to suffer the insolence of office, no, thy had created an independent world peopled with strange characters, full of surreal events and adventure,totally immersed in the realm of ideas, so naturally from then on I could not contemplate going to work in an office or factory myself, ekeing out a mundane existence.
In his book Intellectuals the historian Paul Johnson discusses how Marx who became famous for writing about work, economics and factory life, never once set foot in a factory himself but got his financial supporter Engels to go traipsing round factories doing his research whilst he Marx sat in the British Library all his life writing his practically unreadable tracts.
Was it the remotenes of Marx's life, his complete isolation from the common man that made his theories of communism and socialism when put into practice so disastrous and calamitious,killing hundreds of millions and producing oceans of blood?
I wondered this when thinking of Ayn Rand and recalling that in her biography Barbara Brandon claimed that Rand admitted to her that she was an ivory tower intellectual and whether or not this story is accurate it is undoubtedly the case that Rand was was another impractical intellectual theorist who spent her working life in solitude as writers must,never mixing on a 9 to 5 basis with real people,who when she did attempt to work as a waitress before she became a writer was a complete failure and was sacked on the first day,who could not learn to drive so impractical was she but who yet created a whole fantastic world and brilliant philosophy of Objectivism which has yet not born any fruit whatsoever outside the drawing room in the political arena with Objectivist forever saying that it is too early yet.
Of course I am not comparing the two abovementioned writers as Rand was clearly a genius and I am sure her 'dry as dust philosophy' as it was called rather unfairly in a Daily Mail article a decade ago can no doubt can be traced back to practical concretes but rather to say all those who live by their intellect do not live as the average person does, subject as they are to the coarseness of every day life.
Maybe this is the root of the traihson de clerics - treason of the intellectuals phenomena (see my post on the Postmodernists), intellectuals are generally speaking a weird bunch. Try listening to Jordan Peterson on faith versus mysticism to know what real casuistry sounds like -or the even more ridiculous David Icke who lives in his own autistic parallel universe, admittedly notwithstanding his essentially philistine anti conceptual anti intellectualism.
The British and indeed Americans have been praised in some quarters for their anti intellectualism and although there is a grain of truth in this and seeing how insane most public intellectual have been and continue to be such suspicion of the intellect is justified, it is however the only tool we have to make sense of the universe and the only alternative is mysticism and its concomitant barbarism.
In his book Intellectuals the historian Paul Johnson discusses how Marx who became famous for writing about work, economics and factory life, never once set foot in a factory himself but got his financial supporter Engels to go traipsing round factories doing his research whilst he Marx sat in the British Library all his life writing his practically unreadable tracts.
Was it the remotenes of Marx's life, his complete isolation from the common man that made his theories of communism and socialism when put into practice so disastrous and calamitious,killing hundreds of millions and producing oceans of blood?
I wondered this when thinking of Ayn Rand and recalling that in her biography Barbara Brandon claimed that Rand admitted to her that she was an ivory tower intellectual and whether or not this story is accurate it is undoubtedly the case that Rand was was another impractical intellectual theorist who spent her working life in solitude as writers must,never mixing on a 9 to 5 basis with real people,who when she did attempt to work as a waitress before she became a writer was a complete failure and was sacked on the first day,who could not learn to drive so impractical was she but who yet created a whole fantastic world and brilliant philosophy of Objectivism which has yet not born any fruit whatsoever outside the drawing room in the political arena with Objectivist forever saying that it is too early yet.
Of course I am not comparing the two abovementioned writers as Rand was clearly a genius and I am sure her 'dry as dust philosophy' as it was called rather unfairly in a Daily Mail article a decade ago can no doubt can be traced back to practical concretes but rather to say all those who live by their intellect do not live as the average person does, subject as they are to the coarseness of every day life.
Maybe this is the root of the traihson de clerics - treason of the intellectuals phenomena (see my post on the Postmodernists), intellectuals are generally speaking a weird bunch. Try listening to Jordan Peterson on faith versus mysticism to know what real casuistry sounds like -or the even more ridiculous David Icke who lives in his own autistic parallel universe, admittedly notwithstanding his essentially philistine anti conceptual anti intellectualism.
The British and indeed Americans have been praised in some quarters for their anti intellectualism and although there is a grain of truth in this and seeing how insane most public intellectual have been and continue to be such suspicion of the intellect is justified, it is however the only tool we have to make sense of the universe and the only alternative is mysticism and its concomitant barbarism.
Saturday, April 28, 2018
Should the UK ban RT?
I am of course a libertarian who believes in a free market of the airwaves but in times of conflict when acts of aggression have been committed by a foreign power in this case Russia with its chemical attack in Salisbury it would surely be appropriate for the Sovietised Kremlin State broadcaster RT to be given its marching orders.
The station spews out an unbroken vomit of disinformation,distorions and anti Western,virulently anti Israel propaganda claiming the Salisbury attack was fictional and it uses stooges and lickspittles like George Galloway and Mad Max Keiser to push its anti freedom agendas.
Until relationsare normalised between the UK and Russia which seems hard to imagine happening any time soon as the sick bear has gone back to its Soviet vomit then it seems reasonable to take this course of action particularly as scores of Soviet like diplomat/spies have been expelled and to allow RT to propagate its falsehoods unchecked seems inconsistent at best and cowardly at worst.
Of course the UK would be on more consistent ground if it dealt with its own State broadcaster which churns out endless pro Brussels,pro monarchy,pro Left propaganda -the BBC but Rome was not sacked in a day.
The station spews out an unbroken vomit of disinformation,distorions and anti Western,virulently anti Israel propaganda claiming the Salisbury attack was fictional and it uses stooges and lickspittles like George Galloway and Mad Max Keiser to push its anti freedom agendas.
Until relationsare normalised between the UK and Russia which seems hard to imagine happening any time soon as the sick bear has gone back to its Soviet vomit then it seems reasonable to take this course of action particularly as scores of Soviet like diplomat/spies have been expelled and to allow RT to propagate its falsehoods unchecked seems inconsistent at best and cowardly at worst.
Of course the UK would be on more consistent ground if it dealt with its own State broadcaster which churns out endless pro Brussels,pro monarchy,pro Left propaganda -the BBC but Rome was not sacked in a day.
How the West was Won -and Lost?
For centuries religion and un reason ruled,millions were enslaved and died. Then advocates of reason came along,religion was vanquished,science emerged,freedom,prosperity,the enlightenment,reason,the industrial revolution.But not everyone was happy not least some intellectuals the most prominent of whom was the 18th century philosopher Kant who sought to unseat reason from its throne and replace it with discredited faith on the grounds that objective reality is unknowable,reason is flawed ergo embrace faith.
Kant was largely ignored and reason won out but the intellectuals feeling as bereft as the priest class centuries before as their power was taken from them mounted a defence of unreason with the likes of Hegel,Fichte,Schopenhauer,Heidegger -all of the suspects Germans and after over over a century of incubation these toxic views found their unltimate expression in the horrors of the totalitarian nightmares of the 20 th century.
After the hideous outcrop of such irrational intellectual philosophies in the form of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia most of the intellectuals of the Left and Right had to throw in the towel and admit defeat but a hard core rump doubled down on failure and began the Postmodernist Movement started by Kant and Nietzche,denying objective reality,reducing meaning to deconstructing language such as the French intellectuals Derrida and Foucalt,denying reason or meaning, but it could not escape notice that the anti ideologues of this movement all had left wing beliefs which led some to think that Postmodernism was nothing but a figleaf for the collectivist to make yet another assault on the institutions of learning as to bring about their not so hidden statist socialist agendas by other indirect means.
Fast forward 40 years and it could be argued that the Postmodernist movement has found it full expression and fruition in the excrescenes of such pathological manifestations in our universities as no platforming,gender studies,trigger warnings,micro aggression,censorship and the use of intimidation force and violence to prevent speakers expressing views contrary to the left statist Marxist feminist orthodoxy.
Where will this battle end -who will prevail? Nostradamuses can apply here...
Kant was largely ignored and reason won out but the intellectuals feeling as bereft as the priest class centuries before as their power was taken from them mounted a defence of unreason with the likes of Hegel,Fichte,Schopenhauer,Heidegger -all of the suspects Germans and after over over a century of incubation these toxic views found their unltimate expression in the horrors of the totalitarian nightmares of the 20 th century.
After the hideous outcrop of such irrational intellectual philosophies in the form of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia most of the intellectuals of the Left and Right had to throw in the towel and admit defeat but a hard core rump doubled down on failure and began the Postmodernist Movement started by Kant and Nietzche,denying objective reality,reducing meaning to deconstructing language such as the French intellectuals Derrida and Foucalt,denying reason or meaning, but it could not escape notice that the anti ideologues of this movement all had left wing beliefs which led some to think that Postmodernism was nothing but a figleaf for the collectivist to make yet another assault on the institutions of learning as to bring about their not so hidden statist socialist agendas by other indirect means.
Fast forward 40 years and it could be argued that the Postmodernist movement has found it full expression and fruition in the excrescenes of such pathological manifestations in our universities as no platforming,gender studies,trigger warnings,micro aggression,censorship and the use of intimidation force and violence to prevent speakers expressing views contrary to the left statist Marxist feminist orthodoxy.
Where will this battle end -who will prevail? Nostradamuses can apply here...
The State is a Gun
Never mind outright tyrannies like North Korea though -that evil is obvious, let us turn our attention to the free liberal West for a moment. The State is a gun,it represents force and coercion. Behind the soft outward trappings of benign democracy is the gun,is force,is coercion.
No one pays their taxes voluntarily,they are taken by force,without consent with the State acting as the criminal demanding money with menaces. Against everyday common garden criminals there is legal recourse but against the State in its perverted existing criminal manifestation and form man is powerless. Democracy is a smiling face with a gun.A ballot box in one hand and an armalite in the other,such is democracy.
How have we been persuaded that it is other than this,how have we been so easily gulled and hoodwinked? Surely our old friend or adversary religion and specifically the ideology behind it altruism has done its work brilliantly.
'You didn't build that,its not yours,society did it,your selfish,give something back,share,we are all equal,redistribute,egalitarianism,welfare,fairness,tax!
2000 years of altruism has forged the chains man lives in,centuries of lies and distortions,corruptions of logic and reason and here we are manacled man,disarmed obsequious to the State,repeating its propaganda that freedom consists in slavery and individual rights must bow to collective rights and anything to the contrary is hate speech,thought crime to be eliminated by the self or failing that the State.
No one pays their taxes voluntarily,they are taken by force,without consent with the State acting as the criminal demanding money with menaces. Against everyday common garden criminals there is legal recourse but against the State in its perverted existing criminal manifestation and form man is powerless. Democracy is a smiling face with a gun.A ballot box in one hand and an armalite in the other,such is democracy.
How have we been persuaded that it is other than this,how have we been so easily gulled and hoodwinked? Surely our old friend or adversary religion and specifically the ideology behind it altruism has done its work brilliantly.
'You didn't build that,its not yours,society did it,your selfish,give something back,share,we are all equal,redistribute,egalitarianism,welfare,fairness,tax!
2000 years of altruism has forged the chains man lives in,centuries of lies and distortions,corruptions of logic and reason and here we are manacled man,disarmed obsequious to the State,repeating its propaganda that freedom consists in slavery and individual rights must bow to collective rights and anything to the contrary is hate speech,thought crime to be eliminated by the self or failing that the State.
How to Build a Nuclear Arsenal -(and get away with it)
1. Build a nuclear weapon whilst teing the world you are not building a nuclear weapon
2. Starve your people,turn them into slaves to fund the building of a nuclear weapon
3.Sanctions imposed by foreign countries designed to stop you contribute to mass starvation but you carry on building your nuclear weapon
4. Dummy trial test your weapons by hurling them hither and thither to intimidate all opponents near and far
5.After years of faux dialogue and faux negotiations with naieve liberal and duped negotiators in the West designed expressly to buy you time to conclude building your nuclear weapon which you have now successfully built you enter into negotiations for foreign aid in return for not using your nuclear weapons.
6.Restablish good relations with your immediate neighbour to peel it off from its relations with the West which neighbour will serve as a buffer zone and human shield should the West be foolish enough to attempt a nuclear attack on your country.
7.The American President hails the negotiations as a huge success and an illustration of the moral superiority and strength of the West.
2. Starve your people,turn them into slaves to fund the building of a nuclear weapon
3.Sanctions imposed by foreign countries designed to stop you contribute to mass starvation but you carry on building your nuclear weapon
4. Dummy trial test your weapons by hurling them hither and thither to intimidate all opponents near and far
5.After years of faux dialogue and faux negotiations with naieve liberal and duped negotiators in the West designed expressly to buy you time to conclude building your nuclear weapon which you have now successfully built you enter into negotiations for foreign aid in return for not using your nuclear weapons.
6.Restablish good relations with your immediate neighbour to peel it off from its relations with the West which neighbour will serve as a buffer zone and human shield should the West be foolish enough to attempt a nuclear attack on your country.
7.The American President hails the negotiations as a huge success and an illustration of the moral superiority and strength of the West.
Friday, April 27, 2018
Arc de Trumphe
From the you couldn't make it up dept comes Statist France's Macron lecturing an American President on the importance of free trade and the dangers of protectionism! Whether Macron's Thatcherite union and employment reforms come to fruition or get crushed under the barricades remains to be seen but his dressing down of Tourettes Trump and his Poujadist tendencies was a poke in the irony indeed.
Of course its not a one way street as Macron sported the mandatory environmentalist badge de honeur and the standard appeasement and collaborationist approach to Iran which Trump seems ready to resist -for the moment as you always have to add with the mercurial president.
Trump's Sinophobia and his economic nationalism is characterised best by his infamous 'China is eating our lunch' whinge as if the pie is of a certain limited size and everyone must get an equal portion. The irony barometer is indeed off the scale when communist China starts lecturing Trump as well on the inadvisability of protectionism....
Of course its not a one way street as Macron sported the mandatory environmentalist badge de honeur and the standard appeasement and collaborationist approach to Iran which Trump seems ready to resist -for the moment as you always have to add with the mercurial president.
Trump's Sinophobia and his economic nationalism is characterised best by his infamous 'China is eating our lunch' whinge as if the pie is of a certain limited size and everyone must get an equal portion. The irony barometer is indeed off the scale when communist China starts lecturing Trump as well on the inadvisability of protectionism....
Icke's Nut bush City Limits
So we have a bit of intellectual slumming on today's post but sometimes its just too hard to resist. In a current podcast the redoubtable Mr Icke is explaining to the great unwashed unenlightened (that's us folks) that the housing shortage is caused by (this bit's true) the governement but it is the valorous Icke who is going to 'join the dots' for us and 'put it in context' and he shows an extract from a 10 hour talk would you believe -(right up there with Castro Guiness book of record stuff) in which he explains that successive governments have made it impossible for young and no old alike to be homeowners and have driven them into the city so they can be (roll of drums) more easily kept under surveillance with cameras watching and recording their every move 1984 Brave New World style -you get the picture.
It wouldn't have anything to do with government's decades long environmentalist drive, planning restrictions to prevent building,the creation of the infamous Green Belt, or its pernicious socialist 1946 Town and Planning Act and its successive incarnations,regulations,taxes, market distorting socialised housing programmes or that simply people come to towns because that's where the jobs are as we are no longer thankfully, a rural economy. All of that context so beloved of Icke is completely omitted so everything can be squeezed down the idee fixee funnel of his feverish mind to arrive at the predetermined destination of: another conspiracy.
I get the feeling that Mr Icke is a bit of a lefty under all his obscurantist circumlocutions so perhaps he should appreciate that a government which openly declared 70 years ago that it was going to take care of its subjects 'from the cradle to grave' needs to have them under constant surveillance so perhaps he should repudiate the socialist ideology behind Big Brother Statism of which the surveillance State is a logical and inevitable manifestation.
It wouldn't have anything to do with government's decades long environmentalist drive, planning restrictions to prevent building,the creation of the infamous Green Belt, or its pernicious socialist 1946 Town and Planning Act and its successive incarnations,regulations,taxes, market distorting socialised housing programmes or that simply people come to towns because that's where the jobs are as we are no longer thankfully, a rural economy. All of that context so beloved of Icke is completely omitted so everything can be squeezed down the idee fixee funnel of his feverish mind to arrive at the predetermined destination of: another conspiracy.
I get the feeling that Mr Icke is a bit of a lefty under all his obscurantist circumlocutions so perhaps he should appreciate that a government which openly declared 70 years ago that it was going to take care of its subjects 'from the cradle to grave' needs to have them under constant surveillance so perhaps he should repudiate the socialist ideology behind Big Brother Statism of which the surveillance State is a logical and inevitable manifestation.
Thursday, April 26, 2018
'What's the Meaning of Life?'
When people want to appear deep they ask the pseudo profound question 'what's the meaning of life?' the implicit assumption being that the meaning is out there somewhere,outside of the individual, external and separate from him or her and it has to be searched for and when found internally absorbed. Furthermore that meaning is from a different supernatural dimension and one has to divine its will and obediently act out its decrees and that is the meaning of life.
The true meaning of life could not be more opposite than that in that it lies within the individual to determine by his own actions,his chosen trajectory though life in the form of a career,a long term plan and purpose, man being of a self made soul and life,reduced if you will to the rather shop worn cliche and common vernacular, 'life is what you make it'.
Part of that meaning lies in the forming of relationships,aesthetic pursuits etc. Man is tabula rasa at birth and he proceeds to write the story of his life therafter,creating in effect his own actualised self created universe that gives form shape and meaning to his life.
The true meaning of life could not be more opposite than that in that it lies within the individual to determine by his own actions,his chosen trajectory though life in the form of a career,a long term plan and purpose, man being of a self made soul and life,reduced if you will to the rather shop worn cliche and common vernacular, 'life is what you make it'.
Part of that meaning lies in the forming of relationships,aesthetic pursuits etc. Man is tabula rasa at birth and he proceeds to write the story of his life therafter,creating in effect his own actualised self created universe that gives form shape and meaning to his life.
NHS Needs More Money!
The socialist soap opera that is the NHS is sticking to the tired script -it's on the brink of collapse and needs more infusions of tax blood from the British subjects yada yada yada. As its failures become more glaring and intractable the politicians do what they always do namely double down like crack machine addicts and demand yet more taxes to feed the NHS habbit.
We have pet insurance,house insurance,car insurance and every other insurance all working perfectly well -except health insurance as the NHS being a socialist shibboleth has to operate outside the laws of commonsense and economics because it is an ideological project in age when ironically we are constantly told that ideology is dead and should be avoided like the plague.All ideologies are equal apparently but some ideologies are more equal than others.
Imagine if you had to share your pet insurance with your neighbour and you had a chiahouha and he had a great dane -take it from there - or your house insurance when you had a tiny bungalow and your nieghbour a multi million pound mansion, ditto, or life insurance when you are fit and healthy and your neighbour is dying of cancer, ditto. That ladies and gentlemen is the crackerbarrel logic of the NHS -welcome to the Alice in Wonderland Socialist Project of Healthcare. You need look no further for the cause as to why it it is in a permanent state of crisis and collapse.
Still the politicians just today have announced yet another 5 year Plan or in this case a 12 year one and guess what they have come up with: they need £50 billion more and it has to come through the tax system! A cross party research group has arrived at this amazing conclusion and is expecting a consensus among the major political parties (see my recent post on the consensus tyranny and the collusive racket of One party politics).
The NHS is sick but the ideology behind it is the sickest of all -socialism and altruism and people are dying in the tens of thousands on its ideological altar and all roads lead to Venezuela.
We have pet insurance,house insurance,car insurance and every other insurance all working perfectly well -except health insurance as the NHS being a socialist shibboleth has to operate outside the laws of commonsense and economics because it is an ideological project in age when ironically we are constantly told that ideology is dead and should be avoided like the plague.All ideologies are equal apparently but some ideologies are more equal than others.
Imagine if you had to share your pet insurance with your neighbour and you had a chiahouha and he had a great dane -take it from there - or your house insurance when you had a tiny bungalow and your nieghbour a multi million pound mansion, ditto, or life insurance when you are fit and healthy and your neighbour is dying of cancer, ditto. That ladies and gentlemen is the crackerbarrel logic of the NHS -welcome to the Alice in Wonderland Socialist Project of Healthcare. You need look no further for the cause as to why it it is in a permanent state of crisis and collapse.
Still the politicians just today have announced yet another 5 year Plan or in this case a 12 year one and guess what they have come up with: they need £50 billion more and it has to come through the tax system! A cross party research group has arrived at this amazing conclusion and is expecting a consensus among the major political parties (see my recent post on the consensus tyranny and the collusive racket of One party politics).
The NHS is sick but the ideology behind it is the sickest of all -socialism and altruism and people are dying in the tens of thousands on its ideological altar and all roads lead to Venezuela.
Wednesday, April 25, 2018
Is Religion an Ideology?
I have heard Islam called an ideology so I suppose it is one, especially allied as it is to politics -there is no separation in Islam and it was only a few centuries ago that Christianity had the same status as a State religion -(and was equally barbaric before it was reformed) and is ergo an ideology as well.
When the essence of Christianity is altruism,self sacrifice, symbolised by the image of Christ on the cross dying supposedly for everyone's sins with the explicit injunction that believers should take up their own personal cross and follow him which is the exact self same philosophy behind all the collectivist ideologies of the 19th and 20th centuries from Nazism -sacrifice for the Fatherland the Aryan race and tribe,Communism -sacrifice for the Motherland,the common good and Socialism sacrifice for the poor,working class,common welfare it is clear that religion and collectivism are ideological peas in a pod -choose your form of sacrifice and self immolation.
So the likes of Jordan Peterson have nowhere to hide when he seeks to disparage the Marxists and co by calling them ideologically possessed when he suffers from the same pathological plight with its same identical philosophical roots -self sacrifice as a moral duty.
When the essence of Christianity is altruism,self sacrifice, symbolised by the image of Christ on the cross dying supposedly for everyone's sins with the explicit injunction that believers should take up their own personal cross and follow him which is the exact self same philosophy behind all the collectivist ideologies of the 19th and 20th centuries from Nazism -sacrifice for the Fatherland the Aryan race and tribe,Communism -sacrifice for the Motherland,the common good and Socialism sacrifice for the poor,working class,common welfare it is clear that religion and collectivism are ideological peas in a pod -choose your form of sacrifice and self immolation.
So the likes of Jordan Peterson have nowhere to hide when he seeks to disparage the Marxists and co by calling them ideologically possessed when he suffers from the same pathological plight with its same identical philosophical roots -self sacrifice as a moral duty.
4 Pillars of Tyranny
There are 4 institutions that represent a soft tyranny namely the Monarchy, the Lords, the BBC and the Church of England and Britain will not have properly arrived in the 21st century until these archaisms and moribund structures are abolished.
Power has a way of disguising its true nature in order to preserve its tyrannical purchase. In the House of Lords which is a defacto gerontocracy -rule by the decrepid - its outward appearance is one of benign gentlefolk ruminating in their senescence on house of commons business, belying its true nature as a redoubt for unelected octogenarians holding illiberal sway over democracy.
The Monarchy has cleverly contrived to humanise its true nature using the disgustingly craven and fawning docile media to propagandize its cause with brilliant effect disguising its tyrannical nature with images of new born babies and faux domesticity.
The Church Of England continued existence makes it much harder to challenge the existential threat of political Islam when England itself has staggeringly enough not yet effected a separation of Church and State further enabling those who still have not got over the Reformation from averring that Britain is a nominally Christian country even though the the statistics of dwindling church goers totally belies the assertion.
The BBC prides itself on its putative public service but it is one that is delivered at the point of a gun as those who refuse to support it through the state imposed licence - a tax by any other name - end up in jail.
When these 4 Pillars of Soft Tyranny are toppled we can start to address the remaining institutional excrescences that stand between this nation and the bright sunny uplands of liberty
Power has a way of disguising its true nature in order to preserve its tyrannical purchase. In the House of Lords which is a defacto gerontocracy -rule by the decrepid - its outward appearance is one of benign gentlefolk ruminating in their senescence on house of commons business, belying its true nature as a redoubt for unelected octogenarians holding illiberal sway over democracy.
The Monarchy has cleverly contrived to humanise its true nature using the disgustingly craven and fawning docile media to propagandize its cause with brilliant effect disguising its tyrannical nature with images of new born babies and faux domesticity.
The Church Of England continued existence makes it much harder to challenge the existential threat of political Islam when England itself has staggeringly enough not yet effected a separation of Church and State further enabling those who still have not got over the Reformation from averring that Britain is a nominally Christian country even though the the statistics of dwindling church goers totally belies the assertion.
The BBC prides itself on its putative public service but it is one that is delivered at the point of a gun as those who refuse to support it through the state imposed licence - a tax by any other name - end up in jail.
When these 4 Pillars of Soft Tyranny are toppled we can start to address the remaining institutional excrescences that stand between this nation and the bright sunny uplands of liberty
Welcome to the One Party State
Whether the vagaries of the first past the post electoral system or the very nature of the mixed economy lends itself to consensus politics which precludes any radical departures from the statist quo is unclear but it is undoubtedly true that we now effectively live in a One Party State!
The tyranny of consensus rules,the death of adversarial politics is the result which means the destruction of democracy itself. I do not have any truck with conspiracy theories normally but am prepared to make an exception here where I say there appears to be a consensus conspiracy in which all parties are now one party and are engaged in faux wars of the narcissism of small differences.
Ultimately however these are essentially issues of process and would not be insuperable if a radical change in the intellectual culture took place. This would lead to the death of Labour and Tory parties which is long overdue and can only take place after a philosophical revolutiona rather than an infrastructural one.
The tyranny of consensus rules,the death of adversarial politics is the result which means the destruction of democracy itself. I do not have any truck with conspiracy theories normally but am prepared to make an exception here where I say there appears to be a consensus conspiracy in which all parties are now one party and are engaged in faux wars of the narcissism of small differences.
Ultimately however these are essentially issues of process and would not be insuperable if a radical change in the intellectual culture took place. This would lead to the death of Labour and Tory parties which is long overdue and can only take place after a philosophical revolutiona rather than an infrastructural one.
Tuesday, April 24, 2018
How is David Icke a Thing?
Judging by the stadium venues Icke can command he certainly has a sizeable and loyal following and I think it would be instructive to explore why that is and what the Ickean phenomena says about our culture and the state of public thinking today - or possibly the lack therof.
If the general public were treated to a rigorous training in basic logic and reason and taught how to think rather than what to think such bizarre characters, mountebanks and out and out charlatans such as David Icke would never see the light of day and would have to conduct their public talks inside a telephone box which ironically enough is preisely how it was when he started out on his career of weird.Then something happened and he was filling ;arge stadia.
It would be equally instructive to work out why the cultural madness we are witnessing in the last few years with universities losing the plot completely and instead of being places of learning and enquiry becoming hotbeds of neo Maoist cultural revolution where intolerance and censorship are the default positions with the active connivance of lecturers and administration alike -why this has happened now or maybe it was in a long period of incubation and has now burst forth in all its horrific toxic excrescence. A country rots from the head down and it is a long time in the gestation.
A basic grasp of logic as I say would send Icke packing along with the rest of the new age fraudsters and conspiracy theorists if they can be dignified by that word.
A simple example will suffice. In a recent youtube podcast Icke opines that he has become the victim of a smear campaign regarding his putative anti semitism.The fact that his idee fixee appears to be the malign global influence of Zionism,secret bankers and the Rothschilds and how Israel is practically behind every ill in the world he conveniently disengenuously ommits to mention.
How does he deal with such accusations? It goes something like this. As human beings we are made up of atoms and mere flecks of dust so it follows that black and white, semite and ergo antisemite cannot possibly exist because human beings do not exist,skin colour does not exist -indeed individuals do not exist as single entities but are all part of the collective conciousness 'with different experiences'.
If this is so David Icke does not exist and nor does his pet hates such as Zionism either because if concretes and percepts like human skin does not exist then their subsequent conceptual constructs eg race and Zionsim cannot either since they are dependent as concepts on their antecedent derivatives,concretes which according to him do not exist.Ergo he is a walking talking contradiction.
If the general public were treated to a rigorous training in basic logic and reason and taught how to think rather than what to think such bizarre characters, mountebanks and out and out charlatans such as David Icke would never see the light of day and would have to conduct their public talks inside a telephone box which ironically enough is preisely how it was when he started out on his career of weird.Then something happened and he was filling ;arge stadia.
It would be equally instructive to work out why the cultural madness we are witnessing in the last few years with universities losing the plot completely and instead of being places of learning and enquiry becoming hotbeds of neo Maoist cultural revolution where intolerance and censorship are the default positions with the active connivance of lecturers and administration alike -why this has happened now or maybe it was in a long period of incubation and has now burst forth in all its horrific toxic excrescence. A country rots from the head down and it is a long time in the gestation.
A basic grasp of logic as I say would send Icke packing along with the rest of the new age fraudsters and conspiracy theorists if they can be dignified by that word.
A simple example will suffice. In a recent youtube podcast Icke opines that he has become the victim of a smear campaign regarding his putative anti semitism.The fact that his idee fixee appears to be the malign global influence of Zionism,secret bankers and the Rothschilds and how Israel is practically behind every ill in the world he conveniently disengenuously ommits to mention.
How does he deal with such accusations? It goes something like this. As human beings we are made up of atoms and mere flecks of dust so it follows that black and white, semite and ergo antisemite cannot possibly exist because human beings do not exist,skin colour does not exist -indeed individuals do not exist as single entities but are all part of the collective conciousness 'with different experiences'.
If this is so David Icke does not exist and nor does his pet hates such as Zionism either because if concretes and percepts like human skin does not exist then their subsequent conceptual constructs eg race and Zionsim cannot either since they are dependent as concepts on their antecedent derivatives,concretes which according to him do not exist.Ergo he is a walking talking contradiction.
BBC and the Monarchy
At first glance one would expect the BBC to be antagonistic or at least skeptical towards the British monarchy being as the former is - despite its routine and vehement protestations - broadly, comprehensively and consistently leftish in its preoccupations. But when examined it is obvious why the BBC should be so uncritical and supine towards the anachronistic moribund and corrupt monarchy -they have these very things in common after all.
Monarchy is a gun pointed at the heads of the British people -they are forced to finance it on pain of inprisonment if they refuse and so too is the BBC financially sustained -don't pay your licence you go to jail. Both institutions rely on the threat of State force and coercion to maintain their existence hence the BBC's superficially anomalous indulgence towards this fossilized monstrosity and throwback to another epoch.
Monday, April 23, 2018
Which is Legitimate - Islamaphobia or Judeophobia?
It seems morally justifiable to be Islamaphobic because of Islam's appalling human rights record huh, its barbaric behaviour wherever it gets a foothold in the world and its all round toxicity and immorality.
Judeophobia on the other hand is totally irrational as last time I checked there are no Jews blowing themselves up across the world and their only ambition is to own a tiny pathetic strip of land no bigger than Wales to call home and are not causing havoc and mayhem across the world wherever they lay their hats or turbans.
Judeophobia seems to be motivated by that ugliest of, emotions envy, correctly identified by Rand as hatred of the good for being the good. Israel is resented for its virtues,for standing up for itself. It was only loved particularly by the Left for a brief period of time when it was the underdog and driven by its millions to death in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany.
Fear of Islam on the other hand is justified and appropriate as it is expressly designed to bring fear to the unbelievers and be merciless towards them and its barbaric behaviour throughout its whole wretched and misbegotten existence has been to strike fear in its detractors and spread terror across the whole world - something jews have never done or would never aspire to do.
The only reason to reject Islamaphobia as a term which of course is expressly designed to silence all dissent against its toxic nostrums and half baked Bible-plagiarized drivel is because a phobia is an irrational fear and there is nothing irrational whatsoever in fearing such a monstrous inhuman religious ideology as Islam.
Judeophobia on the other hand is totally irrational as last time I checked there are no Jews blowing themselves up across the world and their only ambition is to own a tiny pathetic strip of land no bigger than Wales to call home and are not causing havoc and mayhem across the world wherever they lay their hats or turbans.
Judeophobia seems to be motivated by that ugliest of, emotions envy, correctly identified by Rand as hatred of the good for being the good. Israel is resented for its virtues,for standing up for itself. It was only loved particularly by the Left for a brief period of time when it was the underdog and driven by its millions to death in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany.
Fear of Islam on the other hand is justified and appropriate as it is expressly designed to bring fear to the unbelievers and be merciless towards them and its barbaric behaviour throughout its whole wretched and misbegotten existence has been to strike fear in its detractors and spread terror across the whole world - something jews have never done or would never aspire to do.
The only reason to reject Islamaphobia as a term which of course is expressly designed to silence all dissent against its toxic nostrums and half baked Bible-plagiarized drivel is because a phobia is an irrational fear and there is nothing irrational whatsoever in fearing such a monstrous inhuman religious ideology as Islam.
Sunday, April 22, 2018
Silly Billy 2
In the aforementioned debate with Bragg and Luke Johnson entrepreneurial son of the famous historian Paul Johnson Luke was very apologetic about 'capitalism' (otherwise correctly known as the mixed economy#) justifying the 2008 corporate bailout by the state and thereby handing his argument to Bragg who said the money should have gone to British consumers. To be a consistent and thereby credible defender of 'capitalism'# one has to be against both forms of welfare -corporate and individual or one has lost the argument before one has begun.
Johnson correctly and repeatedly pointed out to the bovine Bragg that far from being underregulated the economy and business is highly-regulated already to which the socialist Bragg replied it needs to be more.
Now for the rich and well heeled like Bragg it is fine to clamour for yet more regulation because they are largely immune to its deleterious and calamitous effects namely price rises that hit the poor who the likes of Bragg are forever ironically purporting to represent.
Big business tends to favour more and more regulations because it can more easily absorb the costs and it effectively protects them from would-be competitors seeking to enter the field who are prevented by the prohibitive costs and it can always pass on the those costs in higher prices anyway. So every new regulation is another burden on business and potential price rise to those least able to pay but the main purpose of calling for such regulations is the old left motivation of virtue signalling and another darker psychological motivation namely unearned liberal guilt.
Many in the entertainment business are lefties because they feel guilty for their wealth and seek to expiate themselves by making a noise about the need for higher taxes and more regulations. If they think they can get away with it they will often seek to shelter their wealth in circuituitous tax avoidance schemes and every now and again they are exposed in the 'right wing press' -names such as Russel Brand, Bono head and Alan Carr to name just a few of the more prominent suspects.
Far from needing more regulation the economy and business should be 100% deregulated and a private banking system allowed to grow up which means privatising the Bank of England and having a complete separation of economy and state so the latter can no longer print money,corrupt the currency and go on spending splurges which has taken the country to the brink of bankruptcy.
The Labour government of 1945 nationalised the Bank of England so it could pay for the Welfare State and thus began the moral and economic decline of the nation with government as a printing press for funny money . Unlike the non state ponzi schemes that always eventually collapse, the State just cranks up the printing press for another orgy of spending. No one ever goes to jail.
The only reason ridiculous characters such as Bragg proliferate is because their alleged opponents such as Luke Johnson are invariably apologists for the mixed economy, crony capitalism with bailouts for corporations -statists of the right who obviously cannot stand up to statists of the left like Bragg because they are so compromised in their position so they come across as weak,pathetic and on the defensive and amoral characters like Bragg get away with it and manage to claim the moral high ground which by rights they have absolutely no claim to whatsoever.
Johnson correctly and repeatedly pointed out to the bovine Bragg that far from being underregulated the economy and business is highly-regulated already to which the socialist Bragg replied it needs to be more.
Now for the rich and well heeled like Bragg it is fine to clamour for yet more regulation because they are largely immune to its deleterious and calamitous effects namely price rises that hit the poor who the likes of Bragg are forever ironically purporting to represent.
Big business tends to favour more and more regulations because it can more easily absorb the costs and it effectively protects them from would-be competitors seeking to enter the field who are prevented by the prohibitive costs and it can always pass on the those costs in higher prices anyway. So every new regulation is another burden on business and potential price rise to those least able to pay but the main purpose of calling for such regulations is the old left motivation of virtue signalling and another darker psychological motivation namely unearned liberal guilt.
Many in the entertainment business are lefties because they feel guilty for their wealth and seek to expiate themselves by making a noise about the need for higher taxes and more regulations. If they think they can get away with it they will often seek to shelter their wealth in circuituitous tax avoidance schemes and every now and again they are exposed in the 'right wing press' -names such as Russel Brand, Bono head and Alan Carr to name just a few of the more prominent suspects.
Far from needing more regulation the economy and business should be 100% deregulated and a private banking system allowed to grow up which means privatising the Bank of England and having a complete separation of economy and state so the latter can no longer print money,corrupt the currency and go on spending splurges which has taken the country to the brink of bankruptcy.
The Labour government of 1945 nationalised the Bank of England so it could pay for the Welfare State and thus began the moral and economic decline of the nation with government as a printing press for funny money . Unlike the non state ponzi schemes that always eventually collapse, the State just cranks up the printing press for another orgy of spending. No one ever goes to jail.
The only reason ridiculous characters such as Bragg proliferate is because their alleged opponents such as Luke Johnson are invariably apologists for the mixed economy, crony capitalism with bailouts for corporations -statists of the right who obviously cannot stand up to statists of the left like Bragg because they are so compromised in their position so they come across as weak,pathetic and on the defensive and amoral characters like Bragg get away with it and manage to claim the moral high ground which by rights they have absolutely no claim to whatsoever.
Friday, April 20, 2018
Silly Billy
Embarrassing in the extreme to listen to the half wit Hill Billy Bragg on r4 Today prog yesterday holding forth in his excruciating faux cockney accent presuming to lecture the bankers who foolishly opened their doors to him in Thread needle st in an act of masochism and moral cowardice as he laid out his half baked sub marxist juvenile socialist drivel.
No doubt after indulging in this gross act of ideological jerk off he went back to his mansion imbued with a warm glow of self righteous validation.
Perhaps he should reflect on the fact that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eyes of Thread needle st than a rich man to enter the socialist kingdom of heaven.
No doubt after indulging in this gross act of ideological jerk off he went back to his mansion imbued with a warm glow of self righteous validation.
Perhaps he should reflect on the fact that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eyes of Thread needle st than a rich man to enter the socialist kingdom of heaven.
Monday, April 16, 2018
Why is Jordan Peterson a Thing amongst Some Objectivists?
It is a bit of a mystery this interest in Objectivist circles of the very oddball Peterson with his wild rambling lectures overladen as they are with mysticism and the irrational 20th century psychologist theories to say nothing of his prediliction for Dostoyevsky's nihilism and Nietzche's equally dubious philosophical ideas.
If Peterson wants to example a great debunker of collectivism why not go to the most preminent source Ayn Rand rather than the limited journalistic concrete bound account by Solzhenityn who of course gets Peterson's imprimatur chiefly for his Christian theological beliefs.
Peterson makes no attempt to conceal his own agendas in the lecure hall which is surely a violation of the university principles of non partisan,non doctrinaire educational standards to mention nothing of his highly emotionalist browbeating harranguing style.
But Peterson is studious in his avoidance of Rand refusing to recognise that she represents the only alternative to his false opposing alternatives of nihilistic destructiveness,collectivist ideologies or mysticism.
Amy Peikoff has spent over 4 hours discussing Peterson's ridiculous best seller 12 Rules for Life which consists of nothing but embarrassingly bromidic platitudes and commonplaces such as,stand up straight improve your posture,don't let people take advantage of you,regulate your sleep and eating habits,don't let your children behave in a way that would make other people hate them -a regular Guide Book of Duh.
But worst of all of this is his malevolent view of human existence which flies directly in the face of everything objectivism believes, the world is a dark forboding Hobsian place controlled by evil supernatural forces,man is a fallen being and the way to confront it is with fortune cookie wisdom.
It is hard to believe that Peikoff needs such kindergarten instructions from Peterson but even if they have some shop soiled value it it does not forgive or justify tolerating his appalling metaphysics any more that a doctor who diagnosed a perfectly healthy man as being riddled with cancer and then advised him to eat healthily and get a good night's sleep should be respected or hailed as a fine physician.
This is not to say that Peikoff and co have not critiqued Peterson merely to question why they have given him any attention and publicity at all seeing that his fundamental philosophy is 360 degrees opposite to Objectivism.
If Peterson wants to example a great debunker of collectivism why not go to the most preminent source Ayn Rand rather than the limited journalistic concrete bound account by Solzhenityn who of course gets Peterson's imprimatur chiefly for his Christian theological beliefs.
Peterson makes no attempt to conceal his own agendas in the lecure hall which is surely a violation of the university principles of non partisan,non doctrinaire educational standards to mention nothing of his highly emotionalist browbeating harranguing style.
But Peterson is studious in his avoidance of Rand refusing to recognise that she represents the only alternative to his false opposing alternatives of nihilistic destructiveness,collectivist ideologies or mysticism.
Amy Peikoff has spent over 4 hours discussing Peterson's ridiculous best seller 12 Rules for Life which consists of nothing but embarrassingly bromidic platitudes and commonplaces such as,stand up straight improve your posture,don't let people take advantage of you,regulate your sleep and eating habits,don't let your children behave in a way that would make other people hate them -a regular Guide Book of Duh.
But worst of all of this is his malevolent view of human existence which flies directly in the face of everything objectivism believes, the world is a dark forboding Hobsian place controlled by evil supernatural forces,man is a fallen being and the way to confront it is with fortune cookie wisdom.
It is hard to believe that Peikoff needs such kindergarten instructions from Peterson but even if they have some shop soiled value it it does not forgive or justify tolerating his appalling metaphysics any more that a doctor who diagnosed a perfectly healthy man as being riddled with cancer and then advised him to eat healthily and get a good night's sleep should be respected or hailed as a fine physician.
This is not to say that Peikoff and co have not critiqued Peterson merely to question why they have given him any attention and publicity at all seeing that his fundamental philosophy is 360 degrees opposite to Objectivism.
Sunday, April 15, 2018
Foreign Policy as Virtue Signalling
In the dead of night,with parliament still in recess Theresa May clinging desperately to the coat tails of Tourettes Syndrome Trump lets loose the dogs of war on pathetic Syria in an act of craven cowardice. If chemical weapons was the issue they were used on British soil by Russia and the only response by May was empty rhetoric and the pathetic dispelling of a few Russian bureaucrats so the Syrian attack is clearly feel good politics, displacement activity which is fooling nobody and is proof if proof were still needed that May has no judgement whatsoever and operates in a moral and intellectual vacuum driven by pragmatism and cynical amoralism.
Tuesday, April 10, 2018
Syria De ja vous all over Again
Here we go again, the UK contemplating yet another misbegotten Middle East adventure folly debacle,following the petulant child President into another blundering ill sorted foray into the Arabic morass to nowhere,feel good posturing and virtue signalling.
May bloody well better go to parliament before she dabbles in this madness with France and parliament better send her away with a flea in her ear doubling down on insanity with Einsteinian purblindness as she appears to be.
Get this,our obsession with the use of chemical weapons as if they are uniquely horrific is a dangerous shibboleth we could do well to abandon henceforth.War is about killing people and the methods that are used are irrelevant and to fetishise chemicals is simply windowdressing to excuse yet another foolish intervention.
A sane foreign policy would be to only ever ever engage in hostilities with foreign countries that directly threaten our own people in the UK period. Anything else is self immolation and that ugliest immoral and evil of all motivations: altruism.
May bloody well better go to parliament before she dabbles in this madness with France and parliament better send her away with a flea in her ear doubling down on insanity with Einsteinian purblindness as she appears to be.
Get this,our obsession with the use of chemical weapons as if they are uniquely horrific is a dangerous shibboleth we could do well to abandon henceforth.War is about killing people and the methods that are used are irrelevant and to fetishise chemicals is simply windowdressing to excuse yet another foolish intervention.
A sane foreign policy would be to only ever ever engage in hostilities with foreign countries that directly threaten our own people in the UK period. Anything else is self immolation and that ugliest immoral and evil of all motivations: altruism.
A Legend Comes to Whitstable
It was good to see Nigel Farage turn up to Whitstable harbour to support the beleaguered fishermen in their heroic protest against the dark forces of Brussels, their tory cohorts and their cobbled together treasonous transitional sell out.
The usual suspects turned up to protest and rain on the fishermen's parade but they were outgunned and out shouted by the amazing Whitstable crowd and even the vile Julie Wassemer with her megaphone could not drown them out. The latter rentamob of leftist fascists were actually hosed down by a fisherman from his boat to the amusement and applause of the crowd of loyal Brexiters.
Then the coup de grace was the highly symbolic ritualistic burning of the fisherman's boat festtoned with Brussels flags that burned beautifully in the pre twilight evening.Joy was it to be alive...
It was even more delightful to run into the 80's comedian Mark Arden now a local Whitstablean, an otherwise delightful chap in peevish mood it must be said who tried to deny that Farage was a charismatic figure as I put it to him in what I thought was a non confrontational way -knowing full well his Remainer disposition. But he was in no mood to agree even on the bleeding obvious insisting that Farage was a cynical opportunist and went off muttering to himself.
There were some heated exchanges amongst the interlocutors,highly emotionally charged and the odd scuffle but by and large the event was conducted in good spirits all round.
Henry Bolton the ex Ukip leader who even the party has forgotten already was in the crowd with his 25yr old bit of fluff - who brought him down,an odd couple indeed but such is his characterless non descript appearance he went largely unoticed by the crowd and they cut solitary figures he no doubt reflecting ruefully on his lost 15 minutes of fame as he observed Farage on the fishing boat wallowing in his well deserved attention fame and glory the cynosure of the press and the crowd alike.
Yes the flotilla of hooting honking fishing boats with their loud pink trail of flares thrown up into the evening sky were largely engaged in a futile gesture of impotence and rage, the event heavy on symbolism light on political significance but sometimes such things are needed,a cry of defiance against the tin pot tyrants who would subject them to humiliation and oppression but it is of such symbolism that revolutions are sometimes made.
The usual suspects turned up to protest and rain on the fishermen's parade but they were outgunned and out shouted by the amazing Whitstable crowd and even the vile Julie Wassemer with her megaphone could not drown them out. The latter rentamob of leftist fascists were actually hosed down by a fisherman from his boat to the amusement and applause of the crowd of loyal Brexiters.
Then the coup de grace was the highly symbolic ritualistic burning of the fisherman's boat festtoned with Brussels flags that burned beautifully in the pre twilight evening.Joy was it to be alive...
It was even more delightful to run into the 80's comedian Mark Arden now a local Whitstablean, an otherwise delightful chap in peevish mood it must be said who tried to deny that Farage was a charismatic figure as I put it to him in what I thought was a non confrontational way -knowing full well his Remainer disposition. But he was in no mood to agree even on the bleeding obvious insisting that Farage was a cynical opportunist and went off muttering to himself.
There were some heated exchanges amongst the interlocutors,highly emotionally charged and the odd scuffle but by and large the event was conducted in good spirits all round.
Henry Bolton the ex Ukip leader who even the party has forgotten already was in the crowd with his 25yr old bit of fluff - who brought him down,an odd couple indeed but such is his characterless non descript appearance he went largely unoticed by the crowd and they cut solitary figures he no doubt reflecting ruefully on his lost 15 minutes of fame as he observed Farage on the fishing boat wallowing in his well deserved attention fame and glory the cynosure of the press and the crowd alike.
Yes the flotilla of hooting honking fishing boats with their loud pink trail of flares thrown up into the evening sky were largely engaged in a futile gesture of impotence and rage, the event heavy on symbolism light on political significance but sometimes such things are needed,a cry of defiance against the tin pot tyrants who would subject them to humiliation and oppression but it is of such symbolism that revolutions are sometimes made.
Meet the New Party.....Same as the Old Parties
The old corrupt political elite are planing to re brand themselves in a new party,a Blair switch project which as I predicted would be the old statism dressed in new garb of centrism. The centre of what exactly? A mad leftist demagogue and a soft socialist tory surprise surprise. False positioning which will fool absolutely nobody.
But hey ho anything that threatens to destroy the Labour party is fine by me as lots of New Labour outcasts will no doubt join the new party and the slavish europhiles like Ken Clark, Heseltine and their lesser satellites,although why would they need to when they run the tory party anyway headed as it is by a Remainer who even to this day cannot bring herself to say how she would vote were a theoretical 2nd referendum take place(we know,Thersa,we know). and 70% of the cabinet are equally treasonous Remainers.
Still it was quite refreshing to hear Blair on r4 Today - in comparison to the mad Marxist who no heads up the party. But this new incarnation of the old will be of course pro Remain and will probably campaign for a 2nd referendum, a transparent Trojan horse that will fall at the first hurdle as all third parties do under the present electoral dispensation.
The Establishment is in desperate need of a makeover, but like a seasoned raddled whore with a facelift the result will only be an embarrassment to participants and spectators alike -albeit amusing enough I suppose.
Blair made the now common oft repeated and quite absurd critique of the tory party that it is run and dominated by mad Reese Mogian Leavers. Ah if only....
But hey ho anything that threatens to destroy the Labour party is fine by me as lots of New Labour outcasts will no doubt join the new party and the slavish europhiles like Ken Clark, Heseltine and their lesser satellites,although why would they need to when they run the tory party anyway headed as it is by a Remainer who even to this day cannot bring herself to say how she would vote were a theoretical 2nd referendum take place(we know,Thersa,we know). and 70% of the cabinet are equally treasonous Remainers.
Still it was quite refreshing to hear Blair on r4 Today - in comparison to the mad Marxist who no heads up the party. But this new incarnation of the old will be of course pro Remain and will probably campaign for a 2nd referendum, a transparent Trojan horse that will fall at the first hurdle as all third parties do under the present electoral dispensation.
The Establishment is in desperate need of a makeover, but like a seasoned raddled whore with a facelift the result will only be an embarrassment to participants and spectators alike -albeit amusing enough I suppose.
Blair made the now common oft repeated and quite absurd critique of the tory party that it is run and dominated by mad Reese Mogian Leavers. Ah if only....
Monday, April 09, 2018
To Dream the Impossible? Objectivist Dream
Objectivism is a hard sell. A streak of masochism is almost a sine qua non for engaging in such a thankless task. Indeed,as even the head no less of the Ayn Rand Institute himself Yarron Brook frequently opines it is depressing and dispiriting how little headway into the culture objectivism has made.
If someone at the top of ARI is openly lamenting the dire situation of the 21st century state of Objectivism one wonders what future it realistically has. And yet,what's the alternative but a headlong descent into the abyss -one has to persist in making the case but it is Sisyphean labour.
Part of the problem is linguistic.Objectivism is so alien to Western culture it proponents can often seem like they have just beamed down from another planet and it requires an extremely articulate person to convey its complex challenging revolutionary concepts requiring as it does almost the adoption of a new language as so many redefinitions are needed.
Try for instance telling people that selfishness is good when thousands of years of conditioning have dinned into them its inherent evil. Good luck with that one.Who is going to criticise motherhood and apple pie.
Where on earth do you begin? As most people are not taught to think in principles or at all come to that and have been through an educational system of cognitive assault and battery,indoctrination,almost brainwashing into the altruist statist dogma one would have to get to someone extremely early before such damage is done in order to stand any chance of having a salutary influence.
A culture can get so corrupted it can reach a critical point of no return and one wonders indeed whether that stage has not been reached already; certainly the radical deterioration in the last few few has been breathtaking and staggering to witness - on a veritable exponential level and has taken even the most seasoned objectivists by surprise. Rather as I said than it being too early for Objectivists it has turned to be out much much later than they thought.
Who would have imagined just a few short years ago that a truly terrible figure like Donald Trump would emerge to become president of the most powerful country on earth, or that a far left Bernie Sanders would almost pip Hillary Clinton to the post as head of the Democratic party -or that Jeremy Corbyn would become leader of the Labour party 25 years after Margaret Thatcher had to almost universal acknowledgement kicked socialism into the dustbin of history forever?
Yet here we are in an Alice Wonderland world where 6 impossible things have happened before breakfast and the time that Ojbectivists thought was on their side has been contracted to almost nothing hence the bemusement of Brook and co which is beginning to look like desperation if not outright despair.
The situation is made even more awful by the staggering fact that people who call themselves objectivists have gone over to the dark side, openly defending Trump and his economic nationalism,his insane anti American protectionism and tarriff impositioning.If Objectivists are now behaving irrationally what hope in convincing those unversed in its principles?
It is now looking like a monumental mistake on the part of objectivists finally not to have started making inroads in politics decades ago. When I asked Peikoff years ago of the existence of an objectivist manifesto he replied tersely monosyllalabically in the negative. Such lofty academic detatchment and disdain for the political arena amongst the higher echelons of Objectivism has now come back to bite it and the consequences could alas, prove to be fatal.
If someone at the top of ARI is openly lamenting the dire situation of the 21st century state of Objectivism one wonders what future it realistically has. And yet,what's the alternative but a headlong descent into the abyss -one has to persist in making the case but it is Sisyphean labour.
Part of the problem is linguistic.Objectivism is so alien to Western culture it proponents can often seem like they have just beamed down from another planet and it requires an extremely articulate person to convey its complex challenging revolutionary concepts requiring as it does almost the adoption of a new language as so many redefinitions are needed.
Try for instance telling people that selfishness is good when thousands of years of conditioning have dinned into them its inherent evil. Good luck with that one.Who is going to criticise motherhood and apple pie.
Where on earth do you begin? As most people are not taught to think in principles or at all come to that and have been through an educational system of cognitive assault and battery,indoctrination,almost brainwashing into the altruist statist dogma one would have to get to someone extremely early before such damage is done in order to stand any chance of having a salutary influence.
A culture can get so corrupted it can reach a critical point of no return and one wonders indeed whether that stage has not been reached already; certainly the radical deterioration in the last few few has been breathtaking and staggering to witness - on a veritable exponential level and has taken even the most seasoned objectivists by surprise. Rather as I said than it being too early for Objectivists it has turned to be out much much later than they thought.
Who would have imagined just a few short years ago that a truly terrible figure like Donald Trump would emerge to become president of the most powerful country on earth, or that a far left Bernie Sanders would almost pip Hillary Clinton to the post as head of the Democratic party -or that Jeremy Corbyn would become leader of the Labour party 25 years after Margaret Thatcher had to almost universal acknowledgement kicked socialism into the dustbin of history forever?
Yet here we are in an Alice Wonderland world where 6 impossible things have happened before breakfast and the time that Ojbectivists thought was on their side has been contracted to almost nothing hence the bemusement of Brook and co which is beginning to look like desperation if not outright despair.
The situation is made even more awful by the staggering fact that people who call themselves objectivists have gone over to the dark side, openly defending Trump and his economic nationalism,his insane anti American protectionism and tarriff impositioning.If Objectivists are now behaving irrationally what hope in convincing those unversed in its principles?
It is now looking like a monumental mistake on the part of objectivists finally not to have started making inroads in politics decades ago. When I asked Peikoff years ago of the existence of an objectivist manifesto he replied tersely monosyllalabically in the negative. Such lofty academic detatchment and disdain for the political arena amongst the higher echelons of Objectivism has now come back to bite it and the consequences could alas, prove to be fatal.
Friday, April 06, 2018
Alt Left Statism or Alt Right Statism?
Labour statism or Tory statism? The hung parliament tells its own story: there is no essential difference between the parties. The real political spectrum would be Tory and Labour statism v capitalism but as there is no party representing capitalism we are in effectively a one party state.
The standard Objectivist line has always been its too early in the culture for Objectivism but looking at the political and cultural landscape it would be more accurate to say its too late for Objectivism, game over.
Someone once said a communist is a socialist in a hurry. It is also undoubtedly true that a socialist is a Christian in a hurry. Without Christianity there would never have been a socialist and communist movement. Many Christians abandoned the faith and switched to socialism but the core socialist values of altruism and self sacrifice were lifted directly from Christianity so much so that they even framed their socialist programmes in religious terms referring to the welfare state as the New Jerusalem.
So a capitalist party would have to be prepared to jettison the whole Western Christian ethic- tradition of altruism and self sacrifice which strangely enough should not be that difficult as most people in the UK abandoned their religious faith generations ago but they have retained its altruist essence in their political outlook and it is this deep profoundly embedded,cellular,psychological visceral secular christian ethic that the statists from both Left and Right and right play on so skillfully so that whatever party rules the statist song remains the same and the creeping authoritarianism proceeds apace.
Those wishing to fight socialism have to understand that they are not fighting a 2oo year old ideology but a 2ooo year old ideology of Christian altruism and will have to go right into the beast's lair to root it out.
The standard Objectivist line has always been its too early in the culture for Objectivism but looking at the political and cultural landscape it would be more accurate to say its too late for Objectivism, game over.
Someone once said a communist is a socialist in a hurry. It is also undoubtedly true that a socialist is a Christian in a hurry. Without Christianity there would never have been a socialist and communist movement. Many Christians abandoned the faith and switched to socialism but the core socialist values of altruism and self sacrifice were lifted directly from Christianity so much so that they even framed their socialist programmes in religious terms referring to the welfare state as the New Jerusalem.
So a capitalist party would have to be prepared to jettison the whole Western Christian ethic- tradition of altruism and self sacrifice which strangely enough should not be that difficult as most people in the UK abandoned their religious faith generations ago but they have retained its altruist essence in their political outlook and it is this deep profoundly embedded,cellular,psychological visceral secular christian ethic that the statists from both Left and Right and right play on so skillfully so that whatever party rules the statist song remains the same and the creeping authoritarianism proceeds apace.
Those wishing to fight socialism have to understand that they are not fighting a 2oo year old ideology but a 2ooo year old ideology of Christian altruism and will have to go right into the beast's lair to root it out.
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