One of the problems this government has is with the word discrimination. They fail to distinguish between bad discrimination and good.
Let me hasten to reassure all those researchers and spin doctors for Labour who are out to get me that I do strongly condemn racial and religious discrimination as they do. I have no more wish to live in an intolerant society that discriminates against people because of their ethnicity or religion than they have. Regular contributors to this site will know I am very cautious in what I allow on these sensitive subjects, as the thought police under this government are always active in trying to twist anything written or said on these topics. We live under an oppressive regime which seems to think thought crime is more serious than crime against property.
The problem is Labour does not seem to like selection in many areas, when that is good discrimination. I want the England selectors for our national teams to choose the very best team players over the merely very good. That way we have a chance of winning. I want the elite Universities to choose the most successful and most energetic students, who will get most out of the freedoms and resources of those institutions. I want the brightest and most hard working schoolchildren of whatever background to be given a rigorous academic education, so those in state schools have a chance of competing with those at the best fee paying schools.Why do you have to have rich parents to get a grammar school style education? I want the criminal justice authorities to discriminate between the violent minority who seek to disrupt a protest, the peaceful protesters, and the general public wishing to go about their daily duties in the area of a protest. I want our border staff to discriminate between the majority of overseas students and other visitors who are welcome, and the handful who mean us harm. We do not all need ID cards because a handful of people are evil. The ID cards are not going to identify the evil ones anyway.
Labour does not agree with all these forms of good discrimination. It probably agrees with the first, accepting the need for tough selection criteria for top sporting teams. It cannot accept the results of rigorous academic selection at our top universities, and blames them for the inability of enough state school pupils to reach the standard required. It fundamentally opposes enough academic selection in schools to give more state school pupils the elite academic education they need to compete successfully with top public school talent.
More complaints about the use and abuse of state power are being brought on by the mistaken political direction of the Home Office we are experiencing under this government. I had expected a Labour government to be more careful about our civil liberties. Instead we have had a succession of Home Secretaries who have taken delight in wielding state power against the liberties of the citizens. They have at the same time failed to keep proper control of our borders, and now wrongly think ID cards will be a substitute for making decisions wisely when people first arrive in our country.
Mr Brown’s decision to put himself at the head of the attack on terrorism is symptomatic of the government’s wish to gain media headlines from sensitive and difficult tasks of the authorities. Some of these difficult tasks are best performed outside this spotlight of media attention, as Mr Quick can now tell them. The nation as a whole is united in wishing to root out terrorism. It is not united in accepting that important civil liberties are destroyed in the process.
April 11, 2009
The trouble with non-discrimation is that it is an impossible concept to apply in reality. If I buy my food from one shop rather than another on a regular basis, or choose one single malt whisky rather than another, then I discriminate. Where pray are the elderly, IT non-literate, disabled pensioners amongst the research and support staff at the Palace of Westminster? A result is all the unintended consequences and beyond that all the social, educational, and care disasters of modern Britain. Have any of the London Mediocracy much, if any idea, of what is happening amongst the ordinary people of Britain today? To get personal, when is the Conservative Party going to start saying that the pensioners have already been paying for the financial ramps, and are now going to have to pay a lot more, and that there is a looming disaster in care and incomes?
April 11, 2009
Well thought out article, but the Labour party will still smear you. I hope you get the chance when in power to return the country to common sense.
April 11, 2009
Talking of smears targeted at Conservative politicians, it seems that senior aide to Gordon Brown – Damien McBride, is already on the case. No doubt the Sunday papers will reveal more. Is this another sign that a general election is getting closer?
April 11, 2009
When Labour use the word “discriminate” they automatically add the word “against” instead of “between”. Similarly the word “select” is regarded as “discriminating unfavourably against those not selected”. In addition, they think they know best about virtually everything and they have an instinctive authoritarian approach to governing. Finally, they will ruthlessly act in whatever way they deem necessary for their own ends. They really are the “nasty” party.
April 13, 2009
Brian
Orwell called this “Newspeak” (I’m sure you knew that). I cannot believe it is flourishing in the UK in 2009.
April 11, 2009
Is it ironic? In a nation that has more cameras watching us than any other nation, that the watched are using the same technology to watch, and record, the watchers.
I expect Labour will quickly introduce legislation to ban anyone recording the activities of a public sector employee / agent; dressed in riot gear or otherwise.
April 11, 2009
“I had expected a Labour government to be more careful about our civil liberties” – certainly most of those in power now spent the 1980’s chanting “police brutality” over polytechnic barricades… but in fact socialism is inseparable from authoritarianism. Always has been.
If by some “chance” labour win the next election, by virtue most likely of some 105% turnouts (postal votes naturally) in a few key marginals, then you can expect to see it get progressively more oppressive.
April 11, 2009
JR: “that I do strongly condemn racial and religious discrimination as they do.”
Isn’t that the nub of the matter?
Of course one discriminates, each of us discriminates every day in all aspects of our lives. It is right to discriminate something right from something wrong, a heavy thing from a light thing, something hot from something cold. In matters of human relationship though, it too is right to exercise toleration. It is right to be tolerant, a characteristic the English have been renown for possessing.
A large part of the problem with todays police is that they refuse to discriminate between right and wrong and hence are largely held in contempt by the general public of below a certain age.
What the ‘PC’ brigade fail to understand and what they refuse to recognize is that you cannot force a person to be tolerant.
That by rewarding one person for those characteristics that make him or her different, you antagonize someone else whom your policy has DISCRIMINATED against. The English (British) have a keen sense of justice and recognize that on the one hand the government discriminates in favor of certain select and privileged groups. For example Politicians, who get to live cost free off the fat of the land, where as the rest of us get to pay through the nose for everything we need. Taxes rise, prices rise and politicians are insulated in a tax funded cocoon.
In this example, the rest of the population are discriminated against, Politicians seem to like that sort of discrimination! Odd, don’t you think? For people who publicly avow such ardent anti discriminatory ideals.
On the matter of Politics, speaking as a lapsed Tory. If I don’t discriminate between my former political ideals what is the point of attaching myself to a political grouping?
As it happens, I recognize that because of the cold hand of the European Union, there is little between the Tory party and the Labour party. A vote for either is a vote to continue the glove puppet of government by foreign power. No wonder the politicians don’t want us to exercise discrimination.
April 11, 2009
“We live under an oppressive regime which seems to think thought crime is more serious than crime against property.”
To unlimited governments it always is. Property crime only hurts the people. Thoughtcrime hurts government.
April 11, 2009
The quality of discrimination or selection depends entirely on the quality of the actual process. At my local Grammar School, pupils are chosen for “suitability for a Grammar school education”, a meaningless phrase that doesn’t mention the word intelligence. Primary school children are subjected to a series of tests, for which no evidence of what is actually being tested is put forward. Places are limited and demand is massive as the league table position is very high. It is therefore important to devise a test that produces a good league table position, even if the connection to ‘ability’ is tenuous. Human nature being what it is, a self propagating feedback loop has evolved whereby children who are privately tutored (speeds up response time in a fast paced test), older in the year group (see recent F.T. acticle on how Grammar Schools are full of autumn babies), have no minor special education needs (no acount taken of these in the exam despite being classified and funded as such by authorities), better at non-verbal reasoning tests as the L.E.A. tries to help those children brought up in a home without books (no account taken of bookless homes where children have fantastic verbal reasoning because they have made good use of the school library and their good teaching), are all more likely to be “deemed suitable”.
Not surprisingly the Secondary Modern Schools have some very ‘intelligent’ children in them, which in turn helps to keep their own league table position high. It’s all a horrible unfair mess.
April 11, 2009
I won’t say anything here on this subject, as what I said could be deliberately misinterpreted, edited, and incorrectly attributed in order to smear our host.
We have to deal with people who lack any scruples, who are devoid of any sense of fairness or honesty or decency.
However yesterday Daniel Hannan posted an article on his blog, entitled:
“EU anti-discrimination law provokes fury from churches”
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/daniel_hannan/blog/2009/04/10/eu_antidiscrimination_law_provokes_fury_from_churches?com_num=20&com_pg=2
and I’ve made my own comments there.
April 11, 2009
This is seriously worrying. The examples given in the speech are all completely possible. Any public body will be reduced to idiocy at the will of the central government if our parliament goes along with this. Since the socialist government is trying hard to take the place of Almighty God, I feel that we Catholics will, once again, be hammered.
But – hey – you’re not a Catholic!
April 11, 2009
No, I’m not; but I’m against this kind of law.
However, as I say, the churches have helped to bring this on themselves: instead of supporting EU integration and scorning critics of the EU, they should have read the EU treaties, in this case especially Article 7 in the Treaty of Amsterdam to amend the EU treaties, and thought through the possible implications.
It’s too late for them to start complaining about it now, by about thirteen years.
April 12, 2009
Pastor Niemoller’s objection still stands though. First they came for the Catholics – but I am not a Catholic……
April 12, 2009
Not in my case. Over the years I’ve done my best to alert local religious leaders to the direction the EU was taking – not just Christian leaders, but also those of other faiths, and not just with wild unsubstantiated claims, but with detailed documentary evidence. And I’ve not been alone in trying to do that. But if people choose not to listen, because they’re convinced that EU integration must intrinsically be “a good thing”, there’s only so much that can be done to disabuse them of that misconception.
April 11, 2009
“Mr Brown’s decision to put himself at the head of the attack on terrorism is symptomatic of the government’s wish to gain media headlines from sensitive and difficult tasks of the authorities.”
Mr Brown has not put himself forward as the driving force behind their smear campaign.
April 11, 2009
Well said, its just a shame the current Govt doesnt believe in equality but in making some groups more equal than others. Everyone is born equal and thats how it should be!
April 11, 2009
Actually, I’m profoundly against State regulation against discrimination of *any* kind.
If you, of your beliefs, wish not to see, live near or do business with (specified groups of people-ed) (to take a few classic examples) – then it is *YOUR* choice and *YOUR* business.
The basic rule which must be followed is that all contracts must be voluntary and well-informed; the only exception is that of self-defence.
A contract is not voluntary if we coerce acceptanceby law one of the involved parties. If I dislike (certain types of people-ed), and I wish not to enter into contracts with them, *it is no one elses business what I do*.
Of course, if I then attempt to impose a non-voluntary contract on (someone) (beating him up, for example), then in the slammer I go.
But the point is this – the State is violating the principle of voluntary contracts by introducing law which forbids discrimination.
You may agree with this in this *specific* case (racism is bad!) but I’m certain you would NOT agree with in the *general* case (the State can impose non-voluntary contracts).
April 11, 2009
> It is not united in accepting that important civil liberties are
> destroyed in the process.
Government is the single legal mechanism which exists for imposing non-voluntary contracts on citizens.
It is of course abused to do so.
Simple example; the Government gives money to charity.
So it takes my money and gives it to charities I would never donate to; which a non-voluntary contribution on my part.
Can I wander up to people and take their money and give it to charity? no, of course not. It’s unethical. The Government can.
Civil liberties – what does that mean, exactly? it seems to me partially to mean all contracts are voluntary and well-informed; and partially to consist of rules and regulations to bind the State such that it cannot violate the basic principle.
Of course, the State violates the basic principle in its own interest, and so it is also in its interest to dissolve civil liberties.
The extent to which the State understands the basic principle is the extent to which we have civil liberty.
April 11, 2009
The potential for the state to oppress the individual citizen is one of the key reasons why the European Convention on Human Rights came into being.
A recent example is where the UK wanted to retain the DNA profiles of innocent citizens but the European Court of Human Rights held that doing so “cannot be regarded as necessary in a democratic society”.
http://www.bailii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/2008/1581.html (see para 125)
Incidentally, the Convention was largely drawn up by UK lawyers.
April 11, 2009
And our current goverment ignored that ruling and continued it’s unlawfull database practices.
April 12, 2009
Alan Campbell, Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Home Office, confirmed that HMG would comply with the judgment: see Hansard, 23 March 2009, Column 109W.
April 11, 2009
But the case law of the European Court of Human Rights was not largely the creation of UK lawyers; and nor can our Parliament pass any statute to guide that court back to the path of common sense when it strays; it’s the rule of lawyers, rather than the rule of law; and these external, transnational, institutions are draining the lifeblood from our national democracy.
April 12, 2009
The Marper case is a perfect example of one element of the ‘rule of law’ in operation: the protection of human rights and the judicial control of state powers.
Taking into account the legislation of recent years (e.g. 28 days detention without trial, retaining the DNA of innocents, permitting the use of tazer guns on children), I am puzzled as to why you think Parliament – consisting as it does of so much lobby fodder – is best placed to determine “common sense.”
Furthermore, it is arguable whether a government that obtained a working majority of sixty-six in the House of Commons on just a 35.3% share of the vote (and that from just 61.3% of the electorate) is a fair representation of the national democratic will.
Parliament can pass any law it wants – but I am comforted that there are some checks on whether its legislation will be upheld by the courts, as indeed must Mr Marper.
April 12, 2009
Because, self-evidently, Parliament should not consist of so much lobby fodder, and need not consist of so much lobby fodder.
In fact if MPs were committed to the official Code of Conduct:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/code.pdf
they wouldn’t be so much lobby fodder, because:
“6. Members have a general duty to act in the interests of the nation as a whole; and a special duty to their constituents.”
but no duty to their party; and
“Holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organisations that might influence them in the performance of their official duties”.
which must include placing themselves under any obligation to a political party.
We don’t have many such MPs primarily because the party system has got out of control.
April 11, 2009
Might I suggest that the Government’s own intolerance of discrimination lies in their lack of core dogmas? Instead they have political spin, where the major value is the standing in the opinion polls and a major output is the denigration of opponents. Political spin is a shifting element, capable of being moved by a minority group, but implacably opposed to mainstream dogmas. It encourages ever higher public spending, and endless initiatives whilst discouraging valuable traditions that we do not fully understand and continuity.
But political spin encourages a very crude form of discrimination. Like a fanatical football supporter, it sees everything that the government does as being right, and everything else as wrong.
April 11, 2009
The reason why Brown has put himself at the front of fighting terror is because it helps to deflect the attention from his failing economic Policy, and it gives him the reason to exert more control over the population with even more laws and regulation.
99% of the population agree that we should fight against the threat of terror, so he would should be on a safe wicket on this subject.
Browns problem is that he fails even this test, as he plans to restrict the hard fought freedoms of those 99% of the population who would support him, with restrictive laws and the storing of personal information.
David Davis was right to make a public stand on this point, and he should in my opinion have had better public backing from his own Party as support.
April 11, 2009
Well, NuLab have certainly applied their anti-discrimination policies with great effect in selecting the current Cabinet and PM. there’s not the slightest jot of talent amongst the lot of them.
April 11, 2009
Comrade, you do not understand progress.
All men are created equal and that means that they must all have similar means. Differences must be eradicated.
Discrimination is right wing and reactionary, since, at the end of the day, it is based on some form of inequality or difference, either of race or class. Everyone deserves a fair chance. When some fall behind others, they are forced to do so by circumstances which it is the duty of the Cadres under their leader to eradicate. They need support and help, not discrimination.
It is up to the People’s Leader and the Cadres to change mankind scientifically by economic and legal means, reinforced by a justifiable use of policing.
With inequality among the People, the historic revolution will be impeded, as differences based on inequality and class will persist.
That is why we of the Left are so against Discrimination.
What is so scary to me is how this parody of Christian Charity has taken over, yes, even in some of the Conservative pronouncements!
April 11, 2009
Equality legalese is simply a weapon used against those who disagree with the state.
Personally I think mass movement of peoples around the EU is to destroy the Nation states of Europe, to eradicate National Identity.
(words left out).
I learned probably too late in life that through clever phraseology it’s possible to turn a wrong into a Seeming right and so achieve your aims.
April 11, 2009
The same tactics were used by a certain other party who wished to gain power and then hold onto it, we all know the suffering that came about from that episode in history.
Their are a lot of the public who support you John, you must be doing something right if they are wishing to target you amongst others in the concervative party.
April 11, 2009
John Redwood’s article is a way to debase the word ‘discrimination’ which should be used only in terms which encourages bigotry and hatred between various ethnic or religious or other minority groups. The word for the other areas of ‘discrimination’ (as he puts it) is not ‘discrimination’ at all but a ‘selection process’ of high-achieving people to maintain high standard in these areas of activity.
Knowing the conservative approach to life, society and people, this, it appears to me, to be but the thin end of the wedge to make the term disappear from the political vocabulary and nothing else- pretty puerile attempt, one has to admit ?
Reply: You do not understand the Engoish language, or else you are part of the attempt to distort it. Discriminating taste is a good thing. Why can’t we agree that the type of discrimination we do not like is that which penalises or attacks people for their race and religion, but not other types of discriminaiton.
April 12, 2009
I also doubt your mastery of the language. You want to mix up the the meaning of the word to suit the Conservative agenda.
Margaret Thatcher was extremely reluctant to see the apartheid system in SA dismantled by trying to minimise the impact of the sanctions regime.
From my name you very cleverly deduced I was not English, thus your comments about my understanding of the language.
Reply: On the contrary, it was a remark aimed at Labour who deliberately twist the language. It was not a personal remark.
April 12, 2009
ajay mitra, it is perfectly true that within living memory “discrimination” was still regarded as a virtue, not a vice, as becomes apparent from the definitions given in older dictionaries.
For example, my 1907 Chambers’s Etymological Dictionary just has this definition:
“Discrimination” – “n. act or quality of distinguishing: acuteness, discernment, judgement.”
which reflected the meaning that it had had for a long time.
Similarly the Oxford English Dictionary published in 1928 listed no unfavourable senses for the word, and cited examples of its use such as:
Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, 1823 – “It does … credit to your discrimination that you have found such a very excellent young woman” –
which was obviously intended as a compliment; and when an article in the Spectator in 1889 suggested –
“Life is a constant series of discriminations between what it is well to attempt and what it is not well to attempt” –
nobody got on their high horse, complaining that it was irresponsible for the magazine to appear to be legitimising the evil of discrimination.
Of course, words often change their meaning gradually, by a natural process of evolution; but in this case it’s quite clearly not been a natural process.
April 14, 2009
I suspect Margaret thatcher was not so much for Aparteid as against Communism gaining a stronger foothold in Africa, south africa once a rich and prosperous nation is now much like Zimbabwe, there are 50,000 murders per year.
Much like the UK and the Entire EU will be shortly unless the Media start reporting the truth.
April 11, 2009
Further to my earlier comments, I would like to add another point your readers might want to consider.
The current financial Tsunami, created by the bankers, is indicative of a lack of democracy in our so-called ‘democratic’ societies. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the people in the Western democracies have become careless and not worked at improving the system, which by definition is ‘by the people, of the people and for the people’. Power now rests not with the elected representatives of the people – who can also be accused of undermining democratic values by their behaviour, e.g. MPs ‘lawful’ [!!!] expense claims and the Lords’ cash for ‘perverting’ the course of law-making – but with a minority of the privileged class. Making as much money as quickly as possible, it appears to me, has become the mantra in the West.
April 11, 2009
Obviously, I have been pressing the ‘submit’ button too quickly- before my train of thoughts have been completed- maybe i am ‘discriminating’ against my train of thoughts in favour of the ‘submit’ button!
Continuing what I was saying, the european union is another example where the franco-german axis is trying its best to strangle democracy – note Chirac’s idiotic ‘instruction’ to the then new member states ‘to keep quiet’.
April 11, 2009
From the log entry: I do strongly condemn racial and religious discrimination as they do
Why? What is wrong with discriminating for those with whom one shares kinship?
The repetition of self-hating, anti-English, Marxist tropes does no conservative any good. We all DO discriminate all the time. It is the most natural thing in the world.
Why can’t we have some honesty from conservative politicians instead of the present, obedient rush to disclaim kinship and pretend that race has no meaning for us. It has meaning. But so does fear – and that’s the short, dishonourable answer to this question.
Reply Conservatives do condemn racial hatred, racial attacks, and unfair treatment as do non Conservatives. That is not Marxism, that is common decency. We believe in freedom under the law for all who are legally setttled here.
April 12, 2009
What about the Freedom to say the country is full, the Freedom to say we do not have the resources,
I want a country that can sustain itself, one full of trees to leave to my children not concrete.
A country where with sensible population levels our Farmers can grow both food and veg based biofuel to sustain us as a nation.
I’d like the Freedom to ask why has the state aborted 7.2 million british babies since 1970 and is even now considering sterilising our schoolchildren when it was they that decided to introduce Schoolchildren as young as 6 yrs of age to the Joys of Sex.
I’d like the freedom to ask, was this done deliberately specifically so they would indulge and then provide the excuse for Sterilisation.
I’d like the freedom to ask, are we being exterminated.
Surely if we went back to decency, christian Morals, supported the family and Marriage, and parental and school discipline there woiuld be fewer teenage pregnancies, single parent families, and fewer hoodies
I’d like the Freedom to ask, was marriage, morals, Christianity undermined specifically to create the situation we see around us.
(reference left out)
We British people ARE being discriminated against, we do not like what is being done to our society against our will, we know it is wrong, we know it is destructive yet we are not allowed to preserve our Christain, Heterosexual, Family Orientated, Disciplined ordered, Patriotic society.
April 12, 2009
Talking about discrimination, a country’s constitution, which doesn’t allow a reigning monarch to marry a RC, says it all, doesn’t it?
April 13, 2009
But what does it say? To understand the Act of Settlement of 1701 which prevents a reigning monarch from marrying a RC, one has to examine the historical and political events and reasons which led to the act becoming law, some of which have already been recently discussed on this site.
“Discrimination” in itself is not wrong. It’s how it is used that counts; it can be used in a positive or a negative way, in a right or a wrong way.
April 12, 2009
Conservatives do condemn racial hatred, racial attacks, and unfair treatment as do non Conservatives. That is not Marxism, that is common decency. We believe in freedom under the law for all who are legally setttled here.
No, the Conservative Party is highly selective in condemning racial hatred, racial attacks, and unfair treatment. But it does not comprehend – or want to comprehend – its own selectivity.
Look, it is racial hatred for the English (or the Scots or the Welsh) to be denied the right to live sovereign and free in our own homeland – a right freely extended to every non-European people without exception, so far as I am aware. It is racial hatred when political actors claim that race does not exist, or that the English, say, are not a genetically distinct people, or are a nation of immigrants, or a mongrel people … it is racial hatred to say these things and then infer that the English are not worth preserving.
Has this racial hatred ever been identified, never mind condemned, by the Conservative Party?
(Condemns immmigration as an “attack” on the English)
Has this racial attack been (words left out) condemnedby the Conservative Party?
The most profoundly unfair treatment has been meted out to the English by the passing parade of politicians at Westminster. We have been left completely without representation on the great existential question of our times. We are led to believe that economics and, now and then, Europe matter more than life and blood, and there is something fundamentally wrong with us if we are unable to forget who we are.
It is utterly unfair. But anyone who has stood up to condemn that unfairness has been subjected to instant vilification and has been sidelined.
Now, is this Marxism or this decency?
John, I’ve been a Conservative all my political life. For part of that time I’ve been a paid-up party member. I now happen to consider myself an English nationalist – not, of course, the constitutional variety who hanker after an English parliament and don’t know what is running through their veins. I recognise that, in common with European peoples across the globe, the English are ageing demographically and being replaced by Third World peoples. If we wish to survive, survival has to become the ultimate value of the political age. There is no “decency” in cleaving to economism and thereby aiding our race-replacement.
When the Conservative Party realises that, first of all things, it must do what is necessary to preserve the English (and the Scots and Welsh) regardless of obstructions along the way, then I will rejoin the party and throw my weight fully behind that effort.
Reply: I do not accept your analysis. Conservatives do stand up for England, condemning lop sided devolution and the injustices in the current settlement. We have also stood for controlled immigration, on a scale and at a pace which makes sense. We have roundly attacked Labour’s failure to control our borders or to offer a fair and sensible system for immigration. We do not think there are a limited number of English settled here who need to be protected from all change, and do not see all new people coming here as some kind of threat in the way you do. Conservatives do believe in tolerance and good relaitons within our society.
April 14, 2009
The English Democrats, the SNP, Plaid Must be Paid for in part by the EU ( rather like the BBC receives Millions from the EU, against its charter )
What possible use is a Scottish, Welsh, Irish, or English Parliament when 80% of BRITISH Laws are made in Brussels.
These parties are Blind alleys designed to splinter the votes of the Patriotic British Peoples.
The truth of the matter shines out like a gold coin on a pile of dEUng.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1024863/Like-gold-coin-dunghill-truth-EU.html
April 13, 2009
John,
You are eight weeks older than I. You were born in Dover, I in Poole. Both of us have working-class family roots. Both of us belong to the same pretty execrable generation, and have lived through the same extra-ordinary times under the same cultural and political influences.
But whereas your course took you to Oxford and Rothschilds and thence to the upper reaches of the Conservative Party, where all radical analysis and creative thought is tethered to party interests, mine has arrived at a political space where these attributes are all and where the only tether is the life-interests of our people.
The difference between us, then, is the intellectual freedom that I enjoy. Let’s look at one or two of the consequences.
First and foremost, where I see the English – our people – you are required to see only “British citizens”. Where I can be both honest and fearful for our people’s future as a fast-declining ethnic minority in a Third-Worldized, depoliticized, de-sovereignised England, you can be neither. Where I can ponder a revolutionary alternative to the postmodern liberal milieu of, essentially, neoliberalism + Marxism, you must cleave to it. For your party is ideologically contained within that milieu – and arguably began to be as long ago as the fall of Liverpool’s last ministry in 1827! The Tory Party’s very existence depends upon the continuity of liberalism.
Political reality for your party and for you, John, comes at the expense of even allowing into your thoughts the necessity to turn our people towards their own survival. The awful and fateful choice you have made, as has almost every good man caught up in national politics, is to place career, public recognition and respectability above love, fidelity and self-respect.
Except that you have allowed yourself to be convinced that an English survival is morally wrong, and its advocates are lesser men than yourself, you are not to be blamed. Our generation was and is a prisoner of the past.
Reply: Not so. The biggest difference between us is that I recognise you need to work within the political system as it exists in order to achieve progress for the causes you believe in.
April 13, 2009
Would that it were only a matter of a few changes to the law. That would be helpful, of course, and I will take whatever help comes along.
But this is a question not of political oppositionalism but of opposing the ideational system in toto. In the simplest terms, the one we have inhabited since Reform, pretty well, grants liberty to the individual at the expense of his organic self. This latter Toryism once effortlessly conserved. But that was long ago, and the last great Conservative who understood it quit the stage in 1910. I’m not expecting to see his like in the party again.
I wish you well, but I shall continue feeling my way through the intellectual problems of replacing liberalism with a politics of the organic.
Thanks for allowing the voice of a renegade here.
April 13, 2009
Not so. The biggest difference between us is that I recognise you need to work within the political system as it exists in order to achieve progress for the causes you believe in.
This is the precise point which is under debate – whether or not the system will allow such work – and the difference between you and Guessedworker is that he realizes the system will, at any cost to the English people, work to prevent the progress he believes in.
The fact that you acknowledge Guessedworkers beliefs as “progress” will be, in the not too distant future for you and the rest of Albion’s seed, enough to indict you and despite this being an honorable testament to you, it still stands as a shameful Orwellian blight on the record of your party.
Reply: I do not agree with all his beliefs and views, as should be clear from the many things I have written on these topics.
April 14, 2009
I do not agree with all his beliefs and views, as should be clear from the many things I have written on these topics.
Just the insufficient enthusiasm with which you denounce those parts of his beliefs you disagree with will one day land you in the clutches of O’Brien.
Nevertheless, the spirit of Burke lives on in this American son if not in England.
Best of luck to you and your work within the system sir.
Best Regards,
Daniel Antinora
April 14, 2009
Not all of us Brits will submit to the O’Briens or Cuffys of this world, though I would have to agree, most will.
April 14, 2009
The question then Stuart, is what do we do about that?
Are they to be condemned simply for this fact of their nature? Do we understand that our fate is intimately intertwined with theirs? Hurling invective in the same manner as the moderns, although sometimes cathartic, will not get us anywhere.
April 16, 2009
Don’t know about you but I’m going to live somewhere else, right now candidates are Andorra or Dubai
April 14, 2009
Unfortunately the political system as it exists is structured, operated and manipulated for the benefit of entrenched minority interests, not for the interests of the people at large.
And however the system may change, it seems increasingly unlikely to me that those minority interests will ever allow its fundamentally anti-democratic character to change, unless they are forced to allow that to happen through violence, or the serious threat of violence.
The British system clearly isn’t a democracy, and in reality it never has been ; it’s an oligarchical system, to a large extent a plutocracy, to some extent a kleptocracy, and still with a residue of aristocracy partially neutralised by an element of meritocracy.
But perhaps the best overall description of the way it now operates in practice was that offered by someone in a recent comment here – “kakistocracy” – government by the worst, or least qualified, or most unprincipled, people in the state.
Which may seem a tad harsh, but does reflect the reality that system doesn’t ensure that the cream rises to the top, while the detritus is filtered out, but tends to work in the opposite way.