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October 29, 2005
Why I can never be a liberal socialist
Recently I have had the opportunity to be challenged by a number of my more "liberal" acquaintances on a number of issues central to my belief in what society should look like and how it should respond to a number of issues currently troubling it. What I have found particularly strange is that twenty or so years ago I was considered to be a raving left wing liberal in my then environment, and now, without changing a single item in my stance, I find myself considered, in my present environment, to be somewhere on the extreme right of Ghengiz Khan.
In part, the problem is in my core belief that for society to work there has to be respect for the people at the top of the tree, there must be openess and there must be a discipline within every person within society. Excusing a persons criminal activities because they are drug addicts - and therefore somehow not responsible - or because they are beneath a certain arbitrarily chosen age - and therefore not responsible, is, to me, lunacy. It ignores that fact that individuals make choices, sometimes acceptable in the wider sense of the society in which we are placed, and sometimes not. Those choices remain ours, and the consequences must be ours as well.
Then there is the facet which I find least attractive among my supposedly "liberal" friends, one they seem to be unable to acknowledge, but it is also markedly noticeable in all individuals of this ilk. That is the urge to deride any country or nation that does not share their socialist ideals or liberal values as somehow flawed or even uncivilised. Thus, all the good work and all the technological achievements of the US can be ignored or belittled while heeping scorn and derision on the US government - and by proxy its citizenry - for its refusal to kowtow to such things as the Kyoto garbage sheet, nuclear disarmament, ludicrous demands for the reduction of energy use and so on. Hurricane Rita and the devastation wrought on New Orleans is a good example of how all the instant experts could tell immediately that it was all Mr Bush;s fault - perhaps including the path of the hurricane, while their favoured political party in opposition would, according to them, have done much better, perhaps even diverting the hurricane completely.
It is this refusal to acknowledge the blindingly obvious which nauseates me. Lock up criminals and treat them as criminals for meanginful sentences and crime rates fall, but in the eyes of the liberal socialists of this country, this is merely evidence of society's failure (meaning yours and mine) to "engage in resolving the causes of crime" - and, yes, you guessed it, inevitably they point to "poverty" and "lack of educational opportunity", or "discrimination" of one form, or another. The newly introduced private members Bill, which is aimed at giving every householder in England and Wales the Right of Self Defence will, we already know, fail, because the government is afraid of upsetting it's own adherents to the myth of the criminals "victimhood".
There is never a proper debate on any of these issues simply because, if anyone dares to challenge these myths there is an immediate barrage or abuse thrown at the challenger to the effect that to fail to subscribe to this claptrap is somehow to display one's own descent into barbarianism. Thus, the likes of Ken Livingstone can argue that promoting the violently anti-jewish ranting of a Muslim extremist is "redressing the balance". Or George Galloway can defend his friendship with Saddam as "defending civil liberty and civilised debate", while anyone expressing a contrary view is immediately branded a "fascist".
In this lunatic view, respect is never earned, it is always questioned, it is always challenged - except, of course, by those least deserving of it who simply demand it - or you could get knifed, shot or simply beaten to a pulp. Thus, our "child protection" squads defend the out of control juveniles and even those above the age of criminal responsibility (at sixteen far to high!) by arguing that until the magic age of twenty no one is able to tell right from wrong - and will even perjure themselves to argue that "right" is really "wrong" because it infringes the "rights" of the criminal. The problem is that the court system has now been so corrupted that it usually upholds this!
Our education system, our health service and even the Quangos set up to dole out the huge amounts the National Lottery sets aside for "charitable works" are now entirely run by the liberal socialist clones. Thus, no matter what government directive, nothing will change, simply because it does not meet the criteria set by the people in charge - all supposedly "liberal socialists". So, a Lifeboat station that applies for a small grant to buy a new towing vehicle for their inshore rescue boat is turned down because it cannot provide detailed statistics of the ethnic and socio-econmoic backgrounds of the people the rescue service they provide has helped and will help in future. The education system is now set up to pump children's heads full of the socialist nonsense that if only there were no national boundaries and everyone accepted that all religions are the same, all cultures are the same and we can all exist as one big happy family if only we will trust the nanny state to distribute everything fairly, there will be universal peace. Or even that children who grow up with no consideration whatsoever for anyone else's property, personal privacy, achievements or a sense that work is required in order to obtain rewards, will be model citizens in the future.
Even worse, in my view, is the constant drip feed of insidious denigration of the achievements of great figures in our national history. No matter the achievement, it may even occassionally be grudgingly acknowledged, it must always be somehow degraded by qualification such as the issue of slavery, or by the character assasination of the leader concerned. Nothing anyone does is ever good enough, particularly if the person happens to be of a different political view to theirs. Put men and women on the moon? Hear the whinging that the money could have saved X thousand from poverty in some hell hole, or provided a cure for AIDS, or some other favourite problem to throw money at. Completely ignoring the fact that the exploration of space benefits those of us who remain earthbound by the creation of some technologies which would in all likelihood never have seen the light of day if the denigrators had been funding research projects. Just look at the advances in photovoltaic cell technology in the last thirty years - all for powering up space craft. Computers, electronics even terrestrial transport - and most definitely air travel - have been improved as a result of technology developed for the space projects.
Take a look a country run by supposedly "liberal socialists" - the UK - and what do you find? A country which has no funding for research in aerospace, nothing whatsoever for new technology in energy generation and, despite the hype and spin, no investment in anything other than those areas which will gaurantee the continuance of the socialist myths - "full employment under state control", "fairness and dignity for all under social security" and "free at point of delivery health care" which is anything but. It certainly isn't efficient and it is most emphatically not fair - it practices a definite bias against elderly and infirm patients and the management of worthless civil servants make decisions which deny effective treatment of many ailments purely on the grounds of cost, without any reference to medical opinion and advice - unless it agrees with what they want.
No, I can never subscribe to the liberal socialist ideal of universal mediocrity. Human nature is not tolerant, it certainly is programmed to take advantage and that is all this culture is encouraging. The universal benefits system - again it is anything but universal - simply encourages the feckless and idle to remain so. The lack of an element of punitive action for criminals simply reinforces the belief that the criminally inclined can do as they please and take whatever they want and society is powerless to deal with them.
About the only comfort I can draw from this is that sooner, rather than later, something, some threat, will arise that will wipe these ideologues from power and replace them with precisely the sort of regime they so decry - only it will not be tolerant of their criticism. Perhaps then they will come to their senses and realise that cuddling up to dictators and appeasing lunatics, pandering to criminals and defending the indefensible, is not the best way to ensure a fair, reasonable and decent society.
But, by then it will be too late!
Posted by The Gray Monk at October 29, 2005 09:48 PM
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Comments
I agree with much of what you say, however, we must not forget the real reason behind the space race - it was to ensure military supremacy for either the USA or USSR. Agreed that there have been very worthwhile benefits (like velcro, for example!); but now our corrupt regime is looking at spending obscene sums of money on the new generation of nuclear weapons. We will be able to sleep easier though...
We can also look at recent events to see how easy it is for 'myths' to unravel. Take the July 7 bombings - a challenge that struck at the heart of 'multiculturalism'. Perhaps we don't live in such a fluffy, cuddly sort of world we are told we are in. Have you noticed how any meaningful debate on this matter has been stifled? Other recent conundra include the 'crime-is-falling-but-prison-populations-are-rising' debate; also the creation of a Licensing Act that encourages 24-hour and binge drinking, despite the calls from Her Majesty's Hypocrites that this is a problem that must be tackled at source. Have I just landed on another planet?
Posted by: Slim Jim at October 31, 2005 01:47 PM