I came to Britain from India in the early 90s. It became obvious to me early on that the easiest way to appear an 'intellectual' was to claim to read the Guardian and to blame Mrs Thatcher for the appalling poverty of human spirit that I saw in the council estates. The same week that Peter Lilley committed political suicide by claiming that young women were getting pregnant to jump the housing list, I met just such a woman who had indeed done precisely the same and was amply rewarded by the state for doing so. I have since watched with a mixture of amusement and horror as the likes of Polly Toynbee have led the debate on issues that strike at the very heart of a civil society.
Polly I salute you and your kind. To have reduced a country that once ran an empire to a place where victimhood rules, the reciprocal relationshsip between effort and reward, crime and punishment, rights and responsibilities has been dismantled, and a third of the population still wishes to vote labour is an enormous achievement. I wonder if sometimes you have moments of insight at what damage you have wreaked and how you deal with these. I suspect that any such moments would cause so much cognitive dissonance that you probably climb the moral ground a little higher, prepare some more sanctimonious outpouring for the Guardian readers, and pat yourself on the back. But one day, surely, your work will come back to haunt you.
Meanwhile I think Britain is stuffed. I say this with no relish, my Children are British as now am I. We are well and truly stuffed. Like the protagonist in Koestler's Darkness at Noon, we will spend our fading days imprisoned by the almighty state in learnt helplessness.
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7 comments:
That is some comment by 'Osho' and spot on.
Following Gramsci, the Polly's of this world have achieved control of our allowable culture: and it is cultural control, rather than economic, that wins the prize.
He, and you, should have a look at the historian Michael Burleigh's new blog, where he addresses these 'cultural' issues directly and makes no bones about the task we face to overturn the current situation.
http://michaelburleigh.com/wordpress/
"Following Gramsci, the Polly's of this world have achieved control of our allowable culture"
Well they have tried to. Sadly for them they have busily built a dam where all the things they hate can be kept out of their reality. Now and then the dam springs a leak and they quickly plug it again, but all the while the waters behind the dam grow bigger and bigger. The pressure on the dam becomes immense, and when stormy weather comes the dam will inevitably fail. All that the liberal left have tried to achieve since the war will be swept away, and much more besides. The whole of Europe will be engulfed. Human nature will always prevail.
The stormy weather is with us now. The dam will not hold for much longer.
"So why do you have a history of drug abuse, violence and a string of illegitimate children?"
"Cos Fatcher denationalised the Railways! Innit?"
hugh oxford, to be picky, major denationalised the railways. 'spect.
The destruction of our people does not result from the supposedly demoralising effects of the welfare state. This is so much middle-class crap. Things were not like this 30 years ago.
The "progressive" disintegration is a result of the draughts of liberal economic poison which Thatcher poured down our throats.
eg Worksop.....from brass bands to smack......what else it to be expected when the people's livlihood is destroyed? Let's see how much more morally upstanding the precious liberal middle classes are now the financial house of cards is collapsing.
"Cos Fatcher denationalised the Railways! Innit?"
And a right bloody shambles it's been too - parasites setting up profit centres all over the place and sending each other invoices, with lawyers feasting on the resultant squabbles - and the bill to the taxpayer gone through the roof with the cost of travelling on their trains.
Sgt Troy - top man! You should do your own blog.
Railways - like so much other stuff we've ended up with pretendy privatisation. Somehow managing to merge the worst aspects of private and public ownership. Its well known that taxpayer subsidy to the railways is now bigger than when it was publically owned.
The police & military have been pushed to oust long serving personnel and replace them with 'cheaper' younger recruits.
The destruction of our people does not result from the supposedly demoralising effects of the welfare state. This is so much middle-class crap. Things were not like this 30 years ago.
I wouldn't disagree that there are other causes but it is foolish not to understand that welfare has had a progressively demoralising effect.
They weren't like this 30 years ago, but even in 1978 it was clear that a change had occurred since 1948. In 1948, the understanding of welfare was that is was based upon qualification - you paid your stamp, you had a right to a service. That model was already changing in 1978. By then you had a entitlement to services. Today, there is little public debate that non-citizens have a right to use the NHS.
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