Posted on 06/05/2012 9:01:43 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Don’t be fooled by the pomp and dazzle of the Queen’s royal Diamond Jubilee flotilla easing past the tourists, celebrity-spotters, and pickpockets on the Thames. Britain is a country rotting from the inside, the first nation on earth that elected to destroy its culture with political correctness.
Asks British columnist Rod Liddle, “Who are the people who have made Britain what it is today, the ones who ensured that we became a limp-wristed and decrepit, post-imperial satrapy of incompetence, sanctimony, self-obsession and self-loathing?”
Who indeed? (By limp-wristed, Liddle means lacking in conviction, not gay). The short answer is the new aristocracy, the bien pensant, well-shod, culturally aloof types who watch the BBC, read The Guardian, and vote to nudge the country ever farther along its current trajectory, which has not even slightly been altered by the return of a Conservative to the premiership. Against the wishes of the average citizen, Britain has a government that is simultaneously abdicating its core functions and pretending to take responsibility for other duties for which it is spectacularly ill-suited. It has abandoned a proud, concrete culture in pursuit of a hazy dream of a transnational ideal. The people’s response has been to fume lightly and do nothing, because they’re British and expect things to be bad and get worse.
A few days in London will quickly cure you of any notion that, for instance, New York is a chaotic city. It only barely rated notice in most of the media the other day when five of London’s 11 subway lines went down simultaneously [1] at rush hour due to signal failures and train breakdowns. It was about 80 degrees at the time and most trains have no air conditioning. Subway unions are threatening a strike. And yet a glance at the national news sources, which are obsessed with the massacres in Syria, the Jubilee, the Olympics, and the never-ending Leveson Inquiry that vaguely promises a sinister new truth czar will be empowered to decide in advance which media stories can be published, turns up almost zero outrage at all of this.
The “respectable” media outlets don’t much bother with the latest outrages on the crime front, such as the fatal convenience-store stabbing [2] that resulted in only a ten-year sentence for the assailant, who is expected to be free in four. Unleash a nutty racist tirade on the subway [3], though, and you stand in contempt of that BBC-transnational ideal of a multiculti wonderland. Judges will express no leniency whatsoever, handing out five month sentences for the crime of… speaking.
So the government can’t make the trains run on time or make people feel safe on the streets. (a friend who lived in New York for many years tells me of how, after moving to London, he witnessed a stabbing, called the police, and waited a number of minutes for them to arrive, by which time the perpetrators were long gone. The nearest police station was about 300 yards away, but the constabulary decided to send representatives from a farther one instead, lest they risk crossing paths with any violent criminals.)
Never let it be said the government is satisfied with this state of affairs; no, instead, it is advancing into brand new areas of incompetence. The prime minister has been boasting of his exciting plan [4] to literally head a nanny state as he sets up, for new parents, an office to send texts, hold classes, and give “tiredness counseling.” (For a play-by-play of Britain’s collapse, consult the blogger-columnist Peter Hitchens [5], who, ever since writing The Abolition of Britain [6] over a decade ago, invariably takes the most pessimistic imaginable view of things and yet is rarely wrong.)
On the business side of things, a government-commissioned venture capitalist’s report called for some obvious changes in labor regulations that would make it easier to fire workers (and consequently make businesses less leery of hiring in the first place). The left-wing, Liberal Democrat “business minister,” whose relationship with his field is much like that of an “infectious diseases specialist,” called the plan “completely bonkers” and suffered no repercussions from his boss whatsoever. The plan will gather dust. Another government minister, Conservative William Hague, actually gave an interview in which he told business to stop “complaining” and just hire [7]. Currently, when a business wants to fire someone, it often has to justify the decision before a labor tribunal [8]. A proposed reform would substitute a sort of pre-settlement in which the fired worker gets a cash payout instead of the right to endless litigation.
From offshore, Britain finds itself in the absurd version of a V-2 attack, with almost weekly regulatory strafing coming in from the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights. Britain, which voted simply to join a common market in 1973 but never voted to be ruled from the continent, is so used to such indignities as being told that it must not deport al-Qaeda terrorist Abu Qatada and must furnish prisoners with ballots, that even David Cameron’s Conservatives generally respond by being loudly huffy and doing nothing. Cameron’s latest solemn vow is that he will ignore the ECHR directive to give votes to prisoners. We’ll see. If he is going to deny the ECHR the sovereignty it plainly lacks, why doesn’t he go all the way?
Because he’s afraid of the BBC.
We joke about the “state media” in America, but in Britain by far the leading media outlet is the BBC, which operates independently but is effectively funded by a tax (a large one, more than you pay for HBO). Awash in public funding, it does exactly what you’d think it would do: attack competitors and promote a left-liberal worldview, for instance by portraying anyone opposed to the grand European project as eccentric and possibly demented. Now that Europe is imploding and Britons say, by a 51 to 28 margin, that they want to leave the EU [9], the political-media complex is scrambling to prevent the issue from ever coming to a vote (though if it does, the same complex will move mountains to ensure the vote is the correct, transnational one). George Osborne, the number two man in the Tory party, has actually suggested that the solution to Europe is more Europe — fiscal and policy integration, i.e., a superstate with its capital in Brussels and its biggest source of power in Berlin. Britain would finally relinquish all claim to authority over its own affairs and essentially cease to exist as a political entity. What Hitler and Napoleon couldn’t do, the dull Eurocrats and their silky-voiced, terribly respectable media cheerleaders are intent on doing. But then again, Britain is already dead, it just hasn’t been buried yet.
1—The handgun ban was stupid, but as I have pointed out in other threads, the British public has never been a gun owning populace (highest ownership: 1.6m weapons in 1996 in a population of 60m). So most people through UK history never wanted to own one, so thats why the gun laws of the 1920’s, 1968, 1988 and 1997 passed unchallenged or actually had public support.
2—Knife crime is a serious problem here. Its our equivalent of your gun crime. So penalties are harsh for carrying or using.
You are wrong that we are not allowed to carry. We can as long as its for a valid reason.
3—Pointed sticks?. Sorry, you been watching a bit too much Monty Python?.
As usual, you get right to the heart of the matter, Catherine.
For now.
Strangely enough, I get that last bit.
Churchill was THE best man for wartime Britain. The Brits recognized this, and also recognized that he had done this job better than any other living man could have, and that the job no longer needed a Churchill.
In an odd way it was recognition of his success that paved the way for his replacement.
Hello, Windflier! Thank you. :)
It's only right and proper to acknowledge sage comments when we see them. You're welcome.
Don’t let any of them over here unless they are first examined for any hint of liberal tendencies.
Why should we kick out all the Muslims?.
The vast majority of UK Muslims are decent, law abiding people who follow their faith and are not terrorists or extremists. And what extremism there is is in certain hotspots: London, Birmingham, Bradford, Oldham. There isnt any Muslim extremism in Scotland, NI, Wales, and many parts of England. The Scots-Welsh-NI muslim communities have worked hard to make sure of that.
We didnt kick out all the Irish because of the IRA, did we?. And they have been killing us for decade upon decade....
As to guns, whilst the gun laws of 1922, 1968, 1988 and 1997 were imo unnecessary and/or stupid, the argument to bring back guns dosent wash.
Why?. Simple. The British public, contrary to recent and popular myth, have never been a gun owning public. The highest rate of ownership was 1.6m legal weapons in a 60m population in 1996, just prior to the 1997 handgun ban. The majority of the UK has never held a gun, let alone owned one. And even in ‘olden’ times, we were never gun owners.
Thats why, right or wrong, the UK public never railed against the gun laws, and even in the case of 1988 and 1997 supported the bans.
And btw, it IS legal to own guns in the UK: rifles and shotguns and certain types of handgun, as long as they are licenced.
Reports of our demise have been greatly exaggerated
“I don’t want to go on th’ cart.”
I feel happy!
“Deprived medical care?. Rubbish. On the NHS, no one, even trivial cases, are denied medical care. You have been reading myth.”
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&site=&source=hp&q=nhs+denied&btnG=
Things will change. England must re-claim herself—it will happen but not until this generation is burned away. Wait for a new king and a new Conservative Government—maybe National Front. They were destroyed by PC—just as Russia was destroyed by Communism.
David Cameron, I thought, would be a breath of fresh air. He has turned out to be a poof.
Let’s hope for another Thatcher.
And, above all, a revival of Christianity in Great Britain.
The main problem with that is that the National Front have no real policies other than ‘send the buggers back’. The British National Party have more substance but are National Socialists in all but name. Have a look at their manifesto and tell me if you like what you see.
The only real conservative option is the UKIP, and they are seen as something of a joke.
With all due respect, I don’t think muslims can be compared to the Irish, nor can Islam be called a peaceful religion.
Thanks for the reply.
Yes, you are correct that there have been accusations and controversies over denied operations and drugs. My point was more about the general denying of medical care to British people.
My point was that the NHS by definition are duty bound not to turn anyone away. The NHS for example will deal every weekend with hundreds of drunken idiots who clog the A&E depts all over the country, and whose ‘illness’ is nothing but too much booze and and copious vomit. Or idiots who turn up at hospital expecting treatment for a cut finger or a sore throat when there are much sicker/injured people.
Certainly, there IS a problem with NICE in England denying drugs on the NHS due to ‘cost’. Not so bad in Scotland, Wales and NI.
Yes, I will admit there are cases where care has allegedly been denied, my myth remark was aimed at the (American) myth that the NHS operates now as a deathpanel healthcare system.
That certainly IS a myth. I will admit there are problems, but it is far from being a deathcare system or death panel NHS as claimed by many here.
UKIP is now the fourth largest political party in Britain. They may even be the third largest - the liberal-democrats have lost a lot of ground since they had to grow up and actually DO things, rather than complain about them.
The real problem with UKIP (apart from the fact that they dont have very much money) is that they are perceived as a one issue party. They (we - I'm a paid up member) are trying to broaden the appeal but with the EU being so pervasively evil its hard not to concentrate on their inequities.
With equal respect, if your friends and/or relatives have just been blown to pieces I suspect distinctions on the ethnic or religious affiliation of the people who did it are not very important to you.
But at the same time, your reply highlights a weakness in the system. The a&e departments do get "clogged up" by drunks and wasters and idiots who can't use a plaster, but the reason they do that is because they do not have to pay for the treatment (or rather, not pay for it directly). People abuse the system because there is no downside to doing so.
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