Remember The Tories Cheered When They Caused Misery?

 Politics  No Responses »
Feb 102015
 

A while back, I commented on the Tories cheering the cuts bringing in a new era of austerity. I said at the time we should remember their cheers, and now we should do the remembering.

Whether or not the austerity cuts were necessary, the cheering by the Tories showed their true colours – they would rather cut benefits to the poor and working classes to reduce taxes for their rich friends.

Remember the cheering when you listen to their wheedling speaches to get your votes.

Remember the cheering when they claim to be on the side of ordinary workers.

Remember the cheering when you go into vote. And vote for anybody else (except UKIP).

1,000 Lashes To Those Who Lowered The Flag

 General, Politics  No Responses »
Jan 282015
 

Why? Why is our flag lowered to mark the passing of a Saudi despot?

Of course, punishing those responsible with a thousand lashes would be over the top – in the same way as punishing a blogger who says something you don't like with a thousand lashes.

Unlike others I don't think it is wrong for politicians to attend the funeral of the old Saudi king – in addition to attending the funeral they are also there to keep a dialogue going with the Saudi state. And the only thing that isolation causes is a strengthening of those attributes that caused the isolation in the first place. Or in other words, if you want a despotic government to change, you have to keep talking to them and keep telling them what they are doing that is wrong.

And that is one of the jobs that polticians are overpaid to do. It's a nasty little job, but as most politicians are nasty little people it's a job they are ideally suited to.

But lowering the flag is a sign of respect from the nation, and the Saudi despot did not desrve that respect.

It's a bit late, but I've been having WordPress issues!

The “Right” To Offend

 Politics, Religion  No Responses »
Jan 172015
 

In the wake of the murders of the Charlie Hebdo journalists there is a continuation of the debate over free speech (and expression). Amongst those making a contribution are those who say things like “I believe in free speech, but …”.

As soon as someone sticks a “but” into a sentence like that, you begin to wonder if they are really in favour or not. Usually it turns out they are not.

And one of the points raised after the stereotypical “but” is the issue of offence. Which is a tricky area because who likes being offended? Or to be more precise, who likes their personal sacred cows to be offended? And perhaps that is the tipping point – if your intention is to offend someone or a group of people, perhaps you should re-consider.

But if you are intending to criticise someone’s beliefs – religious or otherwise – it is perfectly justifiable. And yes using humour to make fun of someone’s beliefs is just as much criticism as a long, tedious, and boring blog posting. Any offence caused is a byproduct of the criticism, so perhaps this blog posting should be “The right to criticise includes the right to offend.”.

And in most cases the criticism comes in response to offence caused – if you create a religion that requires human sacrifice, you can expect a Charlie Hebdo cartoon mocking your religion.

And all religions include ridiculous and offensive aspects. After all the depiction of a mythical sky-daddy and impugning the godless nature of the universe causes offence to atheists.

So if you want free expression like the cartoons of Charlie Hebdo banned because they are offensive, I’ll be asking for all those religious tomes like the bible and the koran to be banned because they are offensive – to me. Your rights as a believer in fairies, angels, and other imaginary and infectious friends do not trump my rights as an atheist. Just as my rights as a godless and amoral unbeliever do not trump your rights as a believer.

 

The Charlie Hebdo Killers Were Not Muslims

 General, Politics, Religion  No Responses »
Jan 102015
 

(Stolen from a Facebook posting)

Sounds daft doesn’t it? Because the killers themselves would have claimed they were doing it for islam. And of course there are plenty of feeble-minded bigots who are now attacking muslims and islamic places of worship.

Now don’t get me wrong: I have no patience with organised religion and think anyone who believes in an imaginary infectious friend in the sky needs their head examining. But they have a right to believe anything they want.

They just don’t have the right to inflict it on the rest of us.

Within any community (religious or otherwise), there are two sorts of people, and yes I’m being overly simplistic here. There are the majority who go along with the community and obey the dictates if they are not too inconvenient. And there are the zealots who take it to the extremes. And amongst the zealots there is a deranged minority who want to inflict the standards of their community on everyone. Some of them use violence to do so.

Now there was some idiot on the news today who claimed that despite Charlie Hebdo publishing a cartoon insulting to christians, that it wasn’t christians shooting journalists. True enough, but it there are christians murdering abortion doctors and harassing those entering abortion clinics, so it is not as if there are no christian terrorists.

Now comes a bit of a leap of faith: These terrorists whatever their faith, have more in common with each other than their co-religionists. They all espouse an extreme form of their faith, are compelled to inflict it on everyone, and resort to violence to pursue their goals.

Their most significant attribute is terrorism and not their religion. Their crimes overwhelm their faith and make their religion irrelevant.

An alternative way of looking at it is a quantitative approach. There were 3 killers involved in the attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo and the kosher supermarket. The number of muslims in France is not known precisely, but a figure of about 3 million seems a reasonable approximation for this sort of calculation, which if you work it out makes the number of killers in this incident just 0.0001% of the muslim population of France.

So why were there only three killers? Because muslims as a whole are not terrorists.

Besides which, there is nothing we could do to annoy the killers more than to deny their islamic nature.

Special Treatment for Former Members of the Armed Services?

 General, Politics  No Responses »
Dec 212014
 

Yes.

But why? Apparently there is something special about serving in the armed forces – special enough for the mythical (it has no legal basis and so is in fact not a covenant at all) Military Covenant to be a popular phrase. And even a factor in determining government policy.

But why does someone who has served 20 years in the Army catering corp deserve more and/or better services than an NHS nurse who has “fought in the trenches” (including volunteering for work in the Ebola-stricken countries in West Africa)? And who is most likely to suffer from PTSD? A nurse up to his arms in blood and gore? Or an Army cook who is up to her arms in spuds?

And when you come down to it, anyone who suffers PTSD – even a banker who has smashed up his Ferrari – needs special treatment.

Perhaps those who have been in the armed services should be first in the queue for specialist treatments but those programmes should be open to all who need them.

And perhaps the “Military Covenant” should be extended into a “Public Services Covenant” to include those other public servants whose jobs put them in harm’s way – the police, fireman, ambulance drivers, nurses, etc.

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