Sunday 10 June 2018

Competing Forms of Fascism - Free Speech

Afternoon - Sunday, bloody Sunday as Alan Partridge once said.

When I was a teenager I remember our address receiving some politically-motivated literature through the door. Written by a gentleman operating under the non de guerre of 'Cross of St George', this pamphlet called for some measures which we could comfortably slot into the Ultra-Nationalist or Authoritarian Populist slots on the political pyramid. It was the typical dog-whistle stuff along the lines of "Britain is full, no more immigration", "kick the Pakis out" etc. I had a look at it for my own amusement and concluded that in the unlikely event that I wanted to become some sort of racist knobhead, other racist knobheads would forbid me from joining them. Excellent.

Now one of the great appeals of this kind of politics is of course that it makes people who are nasty, dumb, lazy or all of the above feel like they are being victimised or 'picked on' in some way, feeding a sort of euphoric outrage. This is enabler and feelgood politics, liberating the bad, the mad and the sad from any sense of personal responsibility for their own actions. When I watched the English Defence League demo in Preston a few years ago this vibe of unleashed inner tyrant carried a poisonous scent around the city (Unite Against Fascism, a misleading title if I've ever seen one, brought a similar toxicity all of their own). In such a climate, just about anything is justified.

With the EDL the clue was in the title - when you're defending something, any action you take is one of defence regarding either yourself or something you hold dear (i.e. your country, your race, your culture/heritage etc). At the absolute worst it is one of retaliation and, just possibly in the case of extreme violence, over-reaction. I study the Toddler Right and its multitude of logical fallacies for a reason, so when someone says "the white race is under attack" or asks the silly rhetorical "does the white race not have a right to exist?" you can work out which inner bastard they are feeding. Of course in reality only individuals have rights - races, genders and sexual orientations don't.

Anyway, back to 'Cross of St George' - one of the unpleasant aspects when I was growing up was the extent to which family members and neighbours carried varying degrees of this mob/group mentality with them. My younger brother and me were in a non-racist minority amongst our household, while sweeping generalisations about ethnic minorities were a common adolescent experience. I even remember a couple of South African families moving nearby and complaining that Indian migrants had "stolen all the jobs in Serf Afrika because they were prepared to work harder than whites". That sounds awfully like like a cue to get off your lazy arse, not wallow in a misplaced sense of grievance.

I mention all of this because the smokescreen of 'free speech advocacy' is something commonly trotted out by the Toddler Right these days, just as liberals and progressives used to when a form of 'Conservative Political Correctness' existed. What is known as PC is not something which can be attached to a single strand of political or philosophical thought - what we're really talking about is the attempt by those in possession of the ball to impose a dominant discourse on the population (be that progressive, conservative, nationalistic, whatever). Along with education and the media, the licensing of expression, the regulation of what you can and cannot think or say, is a key component.

Of course those progressives and liberals of the past have gone on to morph into what is now the Toddler Left and we can see that their agenda was not one of a free-for-all in the crucible of ideas, but the seizure of any metaphorical boot in order for it to be placed on the other foot. Orwellian 'Hate Crimes' legislation, non-platforming of some rather tame and moderate speakers at Universities, the tarring and feathering of anybody who dares to defy conventional wisdom as a racist/sexist/homophobic etc. This very real grievance of 'free speech' was simply a legitimising vehicle, one that obscured their wider and altogether more pernicious aims. I'll return to that later.

Now it's worth asking what exactly Free Speech really is so we are on the same page, although as is the case with most modes of philosophy or thought the argument exists on two levels, the second of which should really filter out us 'crucible of ideas' junkies from those pursuing freedom of expression solely for their own side. A sensible enough definition is the right to hold and express any view of the world, right up to the point at which it starts to transmit direct lies about another person or advocate criminality against them. So (for example) merely being 'a bit of a racist' is absolutely fine (at least legally) while slander/libel or inciting "a few kickings" is absolutely not. Simples.

But then there's the next level - what else is free speech not, in addition to what I've just outlined above? Well free speech is not diplomatic immunity from challenge, criticism, ridicule or the wider social consequences of what you've said. It is not the right for your views (and by extension, your person) to be afforded respect or discussed as if they were of equal merit to all other opinions on the same topic. Nor is it the right to a speaking venue in the private sphere and/or a sympathetic audience (although on the first point universities, which operate in the public sphere, are a different situation). The saying "if everybody is free then nobody is free" is a very profound one in this instance.

The thing is...what if as a private individual I am prohibited from calling out what you've just said as irrational, illogical or dangerous then cutting you out of my life altogether? What if as the owner of a private venue I was put under some sort of obligation to give you a two hour speaking platform during peak hours - and the audience had to politely applaud your every utterance, regardless of its true value? What if, as your employer, I figured that the public airing of your mad and subversive take on current events was likely to cause friction with customers, suppliers and fellow employees, but I was forbidden from sending you up the road or at least pulling you in for a quiet word?

The short answer is...you would have anarchic levels of freedom while I would have none.

We've seen this recently with the Toddler Right, who are some of the most hysterical and hilarious snowflakes you're ever likely to come across - "people are losing their jobs for supporting us, people are being disciplined by their employers for things they've said on Twitter" etc. Now I'd like to think that most people are for freedom of expression within the parameters I outlined earlier, but if your boss isn't one of them and chooses to have a quiet word with you about your social media ramblings then, well, I'd rather he/she didn't do that but it's really their call. If you choose to then ignore that quiet word and continue down the same road then I have to say that sympathy is limited.

This issue came up when the recently departed Eric Bristow (an out-of the page Toddler Rightist if I've ever seen one) lost his job as a Sky pundit after describing the victims of paedo soccer-monster Barry Bennell as 'not proper men' and suggested that if they had been then a spot of after-the-fact vigilantism would have been the only appropriate course of action. Idiots defending Bristow and citing 'freedom of speech' were engaging in Toddlerism of the highest order, conflating the right not to be arrested for offensive expression with others' lack of a right to think of them as a tosser, or considering whether or not to employ them anymore. Freedom has to cut both ways or neither.

With the Toddler Left very much in the driving seat in this issue, we've seen some outrageous filth peddled by its supporters, celebrity cheerleaders and even public representatives over the last decade - stuff that itself could be considered bigoted and/or intolerant in its own way. That people who would have moaned about 'oppression' and 'licensed speech' themselves 50 years ago are more than happy to rally around those on their own side spewing anti-white racism and anti-male sexism in particular is illogical and absurd but not really surprising. In reality the Toddler Left never supported free speech in the genuine sense, and the Toddler Right, the next cab off the rank, doesn't support it either.

The last two Saturdays have seen marches on Downing Street and other places by those campaigning for the 'release' of Stephen Yaxley Lennon, aka Tommy Robinson. Now I have no time for the man or his politics and nor am I absolutely sure he is actually in prison (he may simply have gone 'off grid' and had a narrative put together for martyrdom purposes), but let's take the story at face value. Lennon/Robinson/Charlie Chaplin/whatever was imprisoned for contempt of court, having violated a reporting ban on a particularly sensitive trial while he had a suspended sentence hanging over him. Let's be clear - if this is really what happened then fair enough and no sympathy whatsoever.

However...whether or not the judge was within legal parameters to summarily send him to prison, surely anyone possessed of an antenna would know that doing so in what could later be depicted as a showtrial was a massive political own goal? Having got him bang to rights, it makes far more sense to hold proceedings in public, allow Lennon/Robinson to contest the charges (of which he was guilty based on the camera he had on his person) and leave absolutely no doubt as to who, what, when, where and how. Whether you believe the cock-up or conspiracy theory in regard to the backlash this has created is something I'll leave up to all of you as individuals. Make up your own minds.

The point is...the very worst thing you can give those with a sinister agenda of their own is something, anything which they can later distort or choose to construe as a legitimate grievance. Anyone in that circumstance can play the victim and get away with focusing solely on what they are against, when what I really want to know is what people are for. This is the true unseen beauty of genuine free speech, an almost unrestricted free-for-all in the crucible of ideas - it removes that potential for making martyrs out of morons, deprives the idiotic on all sides of the get-out-of-jail that is the 'gagged for telling the truth' card and enables their mad ideas to melt under sunlight.

Of course free speech (especially for those who disagree with you) is uncomfortable and bloody hard work - but then most things worth having tend to be.

On a brighter note, that's me done - I'll leave you with a bit of OMD and thanks for reading.

Sunday 3 June 2018

The Political Pyramid Explained

Morning. Back after a few weeks away - did I miss anything?

The attempt to analyse political differences through a linear lens running from left to right has irritated me for some years. I'm not a Conservative, but refuse to accept that any form of it logically leads to Fascism or Nazism if it is taken too far - in fact I'd suggest that Conservatism, for all its faults, is about as far from anything 'dangerously revolutionary' as you are likely to find. Similarly, is absolutely everybody who advocates some form of State intervention in the economy heading down a 'slippery slope' towards full-on Communism? Clearly, you have to acknowledge the existence of a segue between some form of welfare liberalism and the excesses of Cuba or Cambodia.

The Nolan Chart, with its small state-big state and libertarian-authoritarian axes, does a slightly better job although again the scope is somewhat limited. A healthy suspicion of the State does not make one a 'rugged individualist' by definition, which is what the Nolan Chart's four very crude boxes would imply (you could perhaps stick a fifth box around the middle of the grid and argue that this represents Centrist/Moderate viewpoints). When all is said and done you take on one of these five spaces and that's pretty much it - so is that really much better than saying Left, Centre-Left, Centre, Centre-Right or Right? I can't say it's a great deal more satisfactory.

With the focus being on the Individual vs State battle (one which us individualists are currently losing emphatically) the third dimension, namely one of 'people power', democracy, 'community empowerment' etc is the one being missed out. A populist or direct democrat will regard both the Individual and the State as roadblocks on the way to whatever it is they wish to achieve (although the State may well become a useful tool to enforce the will of the majority once it has been seized, a nuance I'll touch upon later). With the Brexit referendum having fuelled a sort of 'democratic bloodlust' amongst many, this dimension appears to be making a comeback, for good or ill.

Bearing all of this in mind, the right shape to break down where power resides cannot be a straight line or even a 2D grid, but a triangle or pyramid. This enables us to weigh up the pushes and pulls between Individual, State and Community, analyse the potential for extremism in any of these directions over the other two and attach the requisite labels to various positions. Some of them you may disagree with, or suggest alternative names for, so please feel free to offer feedback or constructive criticism accordingly. This is a work in progress, but in my view explores the nuances more deeply than most of the alternatives that have gone before.

So...here we are. Let's go through these 15 'schools of thought' individually...
 
Breaking it down we have the first tier, solely comprising of Anarcho Capitalism. Then we have the 'Individual Empowerment' tier, the Mixed/Mainstream ideologies below that, any that empower groups in Tier 4 (be they based on State power or Community empowerment) and, at the bottom of the pile, those that could be considered seriously Authoritarian in nature (and usually in outcome). Of course it is possible (and quite likely) that you might be predominantly one and then have a secondary or tertiary label which is fairly close to your primary set of ideas. Any quiz or test would need to reflect this and produce a list of top three results as opposed to one in isolation.

I have left out generic concepts such as Absolute Monarchy, Theocracy and 'Anarchy' in and of itself as they are too vague and could not be described as having unique characteristics which clearly define them from other forms of government. Some Absolute Monarchies or Theocracies afford certain degrees of individual freedom while others are brutal and repressive. Meanwhile two forms of Anarchy are covered separately here via the inclusion of Anarcho Capitalism and Ocholocracy, while worker's Anarchy (Anarcho-Syndicalism) was of course the 'unicorns and Rainbows' stuff that invariably descended into Communism. In short, Anarcho-Syndicalism has never happened.

*note that I am focussing at least to some extent on how the examples cited here package/market themselves - you may argue that they are something else in reality and are probably right.

Tier 1 - Ultra-Individualist

Anarcho Capitalism

Examples: can't think of one
Size of State: there basically isn't one
Social Policy: leave people alone
Rights: individual
Dissent: there is 'nothing' to speak out against, nobody to complain to
Characteristics: 'free market anarchism', virtually no regulation of business or enterprise, no social protection.

Tier 2 - Individual Empowerment

Classical Liberalism

Examples: liberal governments of Britain in the late 19th and early 20th century
Size of State: small
Social Policy: leave people alone
Rights: individual
Dissent: tolerated
Characteristics: small state (slightly bigger than AnCaps or Minarchists), low taxation, balance very much in favour of the individual.

Minarchism (Libertarianism)

Examples: founding fathers of the United States
Size of State: minimalist
Social Policy: leave people alone
Rights: individual
Dissent: tolerated
Characteristics: high emphasis on individual freedom in all spheres. State is there for the purposes of defence, law and order and very little else.

Tier 3 - Mainstream

Social Democracy

Examples: Democratic Party in the United States, British Labour Party for most of its existence, many SDP-type parties dominating in mainland Europe
Size of State: medium-high
Social Policy: passively progressive
Rights: mixed
Dissent: tolerated
Characteristics: socialism-lite in many ways, less hostility towards market forces, pursuit of a mixed economy and liberal values in social policy.

Centrism

Examples: Centre and Christian Democrat Parties in Europe, New Labour
Size of State: medium
Social Policy: passively progressive
Rights: mixed
Dissent: tolerated
Characteristics: does what it says on the tin, can be reached by 'third way' modes of thought or lifting bits and pieces from around the board.

Conservatism

Examples: US Republican and British Conservative Party for most of their existence
Size of State: medium
Social Policy: passively conservative
Rights: mixed
Dissent: tolerated
Characteristics: mildly socially conservative, trust in individuals and communities to solve problems better than the State can.

Tier 4 - Group Empowerment

Socialism

Examples: Socialist Parties all over Europe, Bernie Sanders' run at the Presidency
Size of State: high
Social Policy: aggressively progressive
Rights: group
Dissent: officially tolerated
Characteristics: high taxation, massive welfare state, lots of State control over the economy which may or may not include some nationalisation.

Nationalism

Examples: Sinn Fein, Scottish National Party, latter-day BNP
Size of State: high
Social Policy: aggressively nationalistic
Rights: group
Dissent: officially tolerated
Characteristics: nationalists are often socialists on economic matters - they are basically the same thing based on grievance/grudge over class/wealth (Socialism) or nation/race (Nationalism).

Populism

Examples: UKIP, the Presidency of Donald Trump
Size of State: medium-high
Social Policy: typically conservative and/or nationalistic
Rights: group
Dissent: officially tolerated
Characteristics: rabble-rousing 'charismatic' leaders such as Farage or Trump, some minority-bashing but stopping short of outright and/or deliberate persecution by the State.

Localism

Examples: governance of Switzerland by regions (cantons)
Size of State: whatever the locality wants
Social Policy: see above
Rights: see above
Dissent: see above
Characteristics: the nature of localism depends rather heavily on the self-governing population and whether or not protections exist for lawful minorities. Something of a lottery.

Tier 5 - Authoritarian

Communism

Examples: Castro's Cuba, Pol Pot's Cambodia, the Soviet Union
Size of State: huge
Social Policy: brutal
Rights: you don't have any
Dissent: crushed
Characteristics: an all-powerful state which nationalises the economy, massive human rights abuses, the removal of all possible opposition, usually through violence and/or murder.

National Socialism (also known as Fascism)

Examples: Nazi Germany, Mussolini's Italy
Size of State: huge
Social Policy: brutal, often with a racist element
Rights: you don't have any
Dissent: crushed
Characteristics: I remember being taught at school that Communism was 'far left' and National Socialism 'far right' - this occurred to me as absurd even at 13. The two are basically identical save for an emphasis on race and a preference for 'State Capitalism' over outright nationalisation.

Authoritarian Populism

Examples: Marine la Pen
Size of State: high
Social Policy: ultra-conservative and/or nationalistic
Rights: group for the 51 per cent, none for the other 49
Dissent: officially tolerated
Characteristics: populism on steroids, this is probably the maddest you can get while still at least claiming to operate in a democracy. Overt persecution of minorities is the key difference.

Direct Democracy

Examples: no pure instances, although many nations have elements of it
Size of State: whatever the 51 per cent vote for
Social Policy: see above
Rights: see above
Dissent: see above
Characteristics: rule by referenda - although a State exists it is merely to serve the will of the majority unless a written constitution is in place to override it. Potentially very dangerous.

Ochlocracy (Mob Rule)

Examples: no pure instances (thankfully)
Size of State: whatever the mob wants
Social Policy: see above
Rights: total freedom for the mob (including lawlessness), none for anyone else
Dissent: see Rights
Characteristics: probably best manifests itself in the form of vigilantism and the meeting out of 'justice' against criminals (proven or otherwise) by self-appointed street juries. Lawless, backward and the most frightening form of 'governance' there is.

One of the key points that comes out of this is that if we don't attempt to strike some sort of balance between the individual, the legitimate functions of the State and community concerns (i.e head off to an extreme degree in any direction) we run the risk of becoming authoritarian or oppressive by one mechanism or the other. The saying "if everybody is free then nobody is free" holds some weight in the instance of Anarcho Capitalism, while the State appropriating excessive amounts of power over people's lives can lead to disastrous consequences as we've seen throughout history. Ochlocracy is their equivalent when the will of the majority (or simply the loudest) holds far too much weight.

I hope you've enjoyed this, that it has provoked some thought and perhaps some new ideas of your own. Constructive criticism and disagreement is always welcome on these pages so please feel free to comment if you have anything to add.

In the meantime I'll leave you with some Pete Shelley - thanks for reading.


Sunday 15 April 2018

Special, Entitled, Front of the Queue - the Parental Fallacy

Afternoon - thanks to the half dozen or so people who endured my thoughts on the subject that follows the other day.

There is often a scramble for time off work during certain periods of the year, with some invariably being disappointed and having to come in over Christmas, during the kids' school holiday or at another time when it would better suit their living arrangements not to. What actually prompted this piece was a comment I heard on that general theme last week, namely that those with children should get priority in this regard over and above individuals who have no offspring or dependants - i.e. if there are two people asking for the same block of time off work and only one can realistically have it then Mum or Dad are at the front of the queue and the childless can go hang. Interesting.

We live in worryingly collectivist times, where the manufacturing of 'grounds for special treatment' is proving to be one of the few areas in which we can safely say that a skills crisis does not exist. With that in mind it's probably unsurprising that 'support for parents' (often dressed up as looking after children) is just the latest in a long line of 'more stuff for me' moments that have typically been on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, having had a sex change or simply being in either the majority or a minority. To say "that person over there can only have the time off work that I don't want" is a self-identification of oneself as some sort of special case, that much is clear.

We could always go further down fantasy avenue and suggest that working Mums and Dads receive more holiday time and/or are paid a higher basic salary than those serfs who have never been impregnated or impregnated somebody else, be that through good fortune, misfortune or deliberate design. Actually this happens to an extent already, with "sorry the kid's sick" being used by some to claim an impromptu day off or 'work from home' (a laughable scam that is routinely abused and employers should have more tools to clamp down on). As far as remuneration goes, a story from my late teens remains illuminating to this day, even if it makes for uncomfortable reading.

When I took my first 'proper' job at eighteen I'd replied to an advertisement that pitched the salary at precisely ten thousand pounds a year (it was there - salary = £10k in clear and unambiguous print with no asterisk next to it). Upon being deemed 'the successful applicant' I head off for a meeting with my new boss and am told "seeing as you've come straight from college we'll be paying you nine grand". Now, understanding the power dynamic in play I recognised there was basically nothing I could do, but it smacked of 'false advertising' and was an ominous portent of certain naughtiness that would follow further down the line (probably one for Patreon and not here).

Anyway, I resolve that 12 months of hard work and 'proving oneself' would remove the excuse of inexperience and see me paid the proper 'adult rate' for the job I had. Not so - despite an above average performance review I get the two per cent increase that had been applied across the board. Still aware of who was calling the shots here (or at least most of them), I decide to frame my enquiry along the lines of "please tell me what I have to do in order to make myself worth more than I'm currently on", as opposed to coming over as somebody making demands. The response I got to this question didn't really answer it at all and, on reflection, was absolutely astonishing.

Amongst the fluff, blurb and non-response that I got was an observation that "oh well, you'll just have to put up with your parents nagging at you for a while longer". Now the need to mention something like this serves as a real insight into the genuine motivations for the employer's penny-pinching and flat-out refusal to honour the content of the job advert more than a year earlier. Since I still lived with Mum and Dad, rather than having built a life with significant other and kids elsewhere, somebody had clearly rationalised that I didn't need the money as much as certain other people who had different living arrangements, so it was only 'fair' to pay me less than them in line with this.

In reality there is nothing 'fair' about this ugly form of paternalism at all - living alone is probably the 'lifestyle choice' that incurs the greatest costs of living but to suggest that I'm therefore 'owed' something over and above what I'm prepared to work for as a form of compensation would be infantile and absurd. That's entirely my problem and I have to find my own way of working it out - similarly, demanding 'free stuff for me' on the grounds of parental status (regardless of how effective a parent he or she might be) is just another variant on the collectivist silliness that appears to have engulfed modern society. If you can't afford to support a 'big family' then don't have one. Simples.

The British welfare state has always looked after parents under the guise of supporting children. One of the areas in which people on my wing of the political/philosophical thread vary wildly is that regarding the treatment of young people, and I'm actually a bit of a Statist in the realm of 'UBIs for kids' although that 'help' comes with caveats. A free education up to 18? No problem, including something that resembles the 'pupil premium' to help the poorest. Free school meals? On balance I'm more for that than against it. Free uniform vouchers if your kid's school is fashion prescriptive? Ok - I'm open to just about anything that moves benefits away from parents and to the kids themselves.

Although my first choice would be to do away with 'uniforms' of all kinds - that's for another day.

When I was growing up the next door neighbour was busted for circa £40k worth of benefit fraud, including falsely claiming disability and payments based on her husband having 'fled the scene' when he most certainly hadn't. I remember reading about her court case in the local rag and, in an attempt to avoid a custodial sentence, her solicitor had offered up the "she's got kids" defence in the hope that the judge would show leniency (to his great credit he didn't). It's an interesting concept that a Mum or Dad could rob a bank or stab somebody 24 times but get off with a slap on the wrist while the childless serve several years behind bars. So much for 'equality before the law' eh?

We're all familiar with the graduate who stabbed her boyfriend but was spared jail because she was 'supremely talented' and could go on to achieve great things, or the Anthony Joshua 'possession with intent to supply' case in which his undoubted ability as a boxer was offered as a mitigating plea. Sorry, but surely somebody in that situation should weigh up what they are potentially throwing away before embarking on their chosen course of action? Once you start affording leniency on the basis of factors that have nothing to do with the case then are you not letting down the victims of crime while giving those possessed of 'potential' or 'talent' a relatively blank cheque?

And...just as "but I'm so talented" should not detract from the facts of a case, surely the 'defence' of "but I've got kids" ought to have zero effect on the outcome?

I'm also interested and amused by the use of the "have you got kids?" line to 'win' arguments, as if merely becoming a parent represents some moment of epiphany or profound truth - out pops the kid...and Karen from Telford spontaneously turns into Tolstoy or Shakespeare. It is of course complete bollocks but I've run into something along the lines of "but if you had kids you'd think differently/agree with me" so many times that it's clearly something that a lot of otherwise sane and rational people genuinely believe. In reality it's what I've previously referred to as a 'legitimate outlet', used by those seeking to unleash their 'inner shit' and justify all manner of authoritarian nastiness.

Off the top of my head - I'm one thousand percent against any call to restore capital punishment and cannot foresee a situation in which I'd even consider changing my mind. While it goes without saying that adults knowingly having sex with kids or gorging on childporn is absolutely, completely wrong (and stick the perps in jail if there's evidence of anyone having done this) I refuse to join in with the current 'nonce-catching' hysteria which strikes me as having unpleasant motivations of its own while demeaning all of us. Torture is inexcusable, invariably yields misinformation and cannot be justified in any circumstance. Apparently if I were a parent, I'd feel completely differently about these issues.

Speaking of torture I remember an episode of Questionable Time several years ago, during which a complete bastard called Hugh Hendry stated openly that if you needed to torture somebody to get valuable information out of them then you should definitely do so. When pressed about this by a member of the audience he justified his stance by saying "Hugh Hendry's just a guy with two kids who lives in London", as if parenthood had at least clarified and maybe even radically altered his would-be answer to the question. No, Hugh Hendry supports the use of torture for the previously stated reason, because he is a complete bastard. Parenthood was just a semi-legitimising vehicle.

I haven't even got onto the curious 'parental right' to inflict GBH on their offspring in the name of 'correction' or 'discipline' - be assured we'll cover that subject separately and elsewhere.

So surely the mere status of being a parent should entitle an individual to precisely nothing. No new rights, no 'free stuff' or cash benefits over and above or at the expense of others. I'm aware that it's a difficult job (one I was probably never cut out for, although I wish many others possessed that kind of self-awareness) that most who take on do so with the right intentions and a desire to take it seriously. Hey, some people really enjoy being Mums and Dads for all the right reasons and good for them - if you're one of those people then I sincerely hope you don't take what you've just read as a 'hit piece' or anything like that. There's no ill-will intended towards you here.

It's just..."I'm a parent" is no stronger a claim on preferential treatment than one's race, gender or sexual orientation might be. After all, once somebody is a special case then everybody is.

I'll be back midweek with something on racism or the destructive effect of 'fake families' - please vote now if you have a preference.

In the meantime here's Big Audio Dynamite - thanks for reading.




Sunday 8 April 2018

Our 'Way of Life' - and the Biggest Threat to It...

Hi again - two in one day, that boy's on a roll. Promise to make this is quick as I can.

Personally I couldn't give two shits about 'the Middle East conflict' and refuse to 'pick a side' in the ongoing troubles engulfing that part of the world like many do, lining up for Israel or Palestine in the same way that people support football or rugby teams. You don't and won't hear me talking about it on these pages for precisely this reason, as I've always thought Anglo-American interference in what is essentially other people's business to be at best pointless and in all likelihood somewhat counter-productive. The nadir of our narcissistic self-obsession was probably when we appointed Tony Blair as the region's 'peace envoy' - a bad taste appointment if I've ever known one.

Yes, we bought a very expensive ceasefire in Northern Ireland (contrary to what some may tell you the underlying 'issues' have not disappeared) but it's not in our gift to do the same in Israel/Palestine and we shouldn't try to. Sometimes, as difficult as it is, you have to acknowledge that the world isn't exactly as you would like it to be and that you can't personally 'fix' everything that is wrong with the planet. My suspicion from the outside is that the main reason conflict persists in the Middle East is that the genuine pursuit of a peaceful two-State solution (with difficult compromises) is politically unacceptable to too many people on all sides - just look at the people they keep electing.

It's with this in mind that I struggled to take the 'Labour Party anti-semitism' story this week too seriously. Things reached something of a low when Jezza attended an event thrown by a group hilariously named 'Jewdas' and smirked his way through a series of foul-mouthed 'speeches' about the State of Israel, 'the Jewish history of making money' and a multitude of other topics. Now I don't think this idiot will ever become Prime Minister but for the sake of argument I'm pretty sure he'd be an unmitigated disaster if he ever did. The 'flavour' of this story, however, was more about the quality of the man's judgement and the nature of the company he keeps.

Whether it's the IRA, Hamas, Communist 'diplomats' or attending the annual Jewdas shindig it's beyond dispute that Corbyn has some 'interesting' and potentially dubious friends, although this is far more common amongst senior politicians that many probably realise (see our dealings with Pinochet's Chile, Saudi Arabia and Communist China off the top of my head). What I find most interesting in the ongoing description of his 'friends' is that they consistently represent "an existential threat to our values and way of life" - it's worth breaking that down and working out the extent to which they represent a threat and/or the biggest threat to whatever 'our way of life' is.

The last time I checked the Uk wasn't at serious risk of being invaded, nor is Sharia Law about to be implemented anytime soon. The republican movement in Ireland ended its campaign on the British mainland many years ago, while as I stated earlier we could always take a step back from matters in the Middle East and remove any potential cross-hair from ourselves. However you choose to define 'our way of life', I'm struggling to identify this potential aggressor from overseas from which we (and by extension this 'way of life') are in imminent danger. A conflation between 'people who don't particularly like us' for whatever reason and 'genuine menace' seems to have taken place.

Yes, there are alarmingly frequent episodes involving the unhinged blowing themselves up, using vehicles as weapons or shooting/stabbing people (on both sides of wherever the divide is) but it's important to ask precisely what, if anything, they're trying to achieve and respond by doing the polar opposite - I'm not ruling out the possibility that some of these 'incidents' were staged or have been carried out by people under mind control, a possibility that would have been dismissed as 'mad conspiracy theory' not long ago, but a surprising number are now waking up to. That notwithstanding, if 'our way of life' is the target then how do we go about 'not letting them win' and defending it?

Condolences to all those who lost people they cared about in terror attacks, but it strikes me that my fellow writer Pete North was onto something when he said "it's the lack of giving a fuck that will defeat terrorism". If we allow the antics of losers, psychopaths and the unhinged to dictate to the rest of us what rights we have, enable the passing of pernicious 'anti-terror' legislation and the creation of a de facto police state then we have lost emphatically. It's regrettable and you and I might be among the victims next time, but a failure to acknowledge that 'shit happens', do nothing and shrug our shoulders leaves people offering the State an opportunity to attack all of us.

So...if by 'our way of life' we are referring to basic freedoms in the areas of expression, movement, association and protections like due process then the real threat to what we claim to value comes not from Jeremy Corbyn's 'friends' but from two very specific directions. One is the British State, who we now know have been 'forgetting' to disclose evidence that would have acquitted defendants in trials (yes they 'forgot', of course they did) and mining the personal information of individuals through third parties. No police officer will be sacked, let alone prosecuted and the surveillance state could simply pass legislation do what they are already doing covertly by more legal means.

But none of this can happen without the most dangerous menace to the rights of the individual that we currently face - namely ourselves. It was Benjamin Franklin who stated that "the individual who sacrifices his liberty for the sake of his security will lose both and deserves neither" and he was absolutely right. If we keep our cool when being instructed to panic and refuse to offer up the freedom of others on the altar of some contrived 'greater good' (see 'collectivism is selfish') then those cashing in on tragedy to make power grabs for themselves will get absolutely nowhere. You have to ask why the existing mountain of 'anti-terror' legislation hasn't stopped this stuff from happening.

In short, you can't legislate 'bad things' or 'bad people' out of existence and attempts to do so only hinder the law-abiding. We need to understand this propensity we have to damage ourselves.

To answer the original question...is the Labour Party anti-semitic? Probably not.

Anyway, that'll be me done for now - catch you in the week and feel free to suggest discussion points if you have any. Thanks for reading.




Confession - I Don't Like Pensioners

Morning - a surprisingly early Rabbit this Sunday, hope you're all awake to read it.

Being the right age to myself remember being a 'younger person' fairly vividly, I'm aware of the perpetual demonisation of the young which is part of our society and has been for as long as I can remember. The narrative goes something like:- the youth of today are the worst ever, they're all thieves, louts and habitual drugtakers who go round pinching car stereos to feed their crack or smack habit. They're all stupid and lack respect, particularly for 'their elders' (who of course are 'entitled' to automatic and unearned respect for, er, reasons?). When GCSE results go up, it's because the tests are easier - when they don't, this is offered as 'proof' of their collective idiocy.

In short, young people can't win and I feel sorry for them.

The reverse thesis of this is applied to pensioners and the elderly, who of course did nothing more edgy and contentious than bake cookies and sit round a fire attentively listening to war stories when they were younger. If you've been led to believe that mods, rockers, hippies, skinheads and punks were all significant movements of youth who 'had their moments' then think again, as apparently these things never happened. Invented in 1994, 'the teenager' and his/her cousin 'the young adult' have been terrorising our streets for two decades now, much to the chagrin of those who remember when there was no crime, everyone doffed their cap when required and nobody swore.

There are a series of flawed assumptions at the centre of this 'old = good, young = bad' view of the world and it's worth tackling them individually. One misplaced assertion is that pensioners have 'paid into the system all their lives' and are therefore entitled to 'dignity in old age' as a result. The first thing worth pointing out is that the State pension, rather than representing the collection of something you have already paid in, is actually a ponzi scheme in which people currently of working age fund the ongoing pensions of existing claimants. There was no generation of 'noble contributors' who agreed to pay something in exchange for nothing and we shouldn't pretend that there was.

Even taken at face value, this concept of 'paying into the system all their lives' doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Many will have paid in and/or taken out intermittently and, given that welfare has been a valid career option for as long as I can remember, there will be current pensioners who never or hardly worked at all, taking advantage of quite literal 'cradle to grave' provision. The 'baby boomer' generation had free university education, grammar schools and could afford to buy their own homes in significant numbers to name but three advantages those in their 20s and 30s will not have. Then there's the future of the State pension itself, so it's worth asking...who's subsidising who here?

Next we have the depiction of the older generation as wise old sages who have 'been around the block' and should be bowed to on account of their superior life experience. Well, based on my slightly inferior life experience there is no correlation between age and wisdom - in fact it's a bit like the analysis of the cricket player who hasn't played 42 Test Matches, but the same match 42 times. Time spent on the planet is only as good as what is learned in that time, the ability to analyse one's successes and failures, rationalise and then learn the requisite lessons from them. People of all ages and generations have varying capacities for this, from quite a lot to some to absolutely none.

Perhaps the most unpleasant 'word association game' I see played with regard to older people is that with 'war heroes', military service etc. Now I grew up at a time when most of pensionable age would certainly have been around during the Blitz and World War Two, and it's certain that a great many of them fought in the conflict between 1939-45. However, someone who was 18 in 1945 would be 90 now and so nearly all of those who fought the Nazis have sadly left us (RIP). I don't begrudge a former WW2 soldier anything that they might get in acknowledgement of their efforts, but noted the anomaly of the shocking treatment of Nepalese Gurkhas by the British State over many years.

I remember a particularly cantankerous old man telling me that I should listen to him, mainly because he'd been in the army 'defending this country' before I was born. I asked him to name some of the places he'd fought in and the ex-soldier promptly rattled off a list (Suez was one of them). Look, none of the conflicts that the Uk has involved itself in since 1945 have been about 'defending this country' at all. Our 'Ministry of Defence' has actually become a Ministry of War, with young men signing up because there were parts of 'the life' that appealed to them or employment prospects were limited where they lived. I'm not knocking anyone for making that choice, but it's not 'heroic' either.

Another big green tick in the box for our elders is (apparently) that they tend to vote in higher numbers than pretty much anyone else and 'take part in the democratic process', whatever that means. Now this has less to do with pensioners themselves and is really a continuation of the dichotomy that voting = good and not voting = bad, or probably the best I've heard on that theme:- "if you don't vote then you lose your right to complain about what the government does" (so if you exercise a freedom not to vote you therefore lose your freedom to hold an opinion about 'the issues' - lovely). It's true that pensioners do turn out for elections in disproportionate volume, but it's also worth asking why.

There's an important statistic which goes a long way towards providing an answer - pensioners are the recipients of more than half of all welfare payments. This is when you add up the State pension plus all the other benefits that they're eligible for, but begs the question...if you're in receipt of so much 'free stuff' are you more or less likely than the average person to go out and vote for more 'free stuff', or at least for the retention of what you already have? Wealthy pensioners (some of whom live abroad FFS!!) remain in receipt of such perks as TV licenses, winter fuel payments and bus passes, and to suggest revisiting that with a view to taking some of it away would be political suicide.

Politicians know this, and so frequently gerrymander 'the grey vote', usually at the expense of younger people.

As long as we live in a representative and universal suffrage democracy, I suspect this problem will continue - with the campaign to reduce the voting age to 16 meeting major resistance (I actually think age is the wrong end from which to be looking at the question, but support changes that would mean some 16 year olds would get the vote, while some 61 year olds would lose it) it will always be politically advantageous to demonise and caricature the young, while depicting every last member of an 'older generation' as some 'hero next door', who fought off foreign invaders and continuously contributed to our society for over half a century, therefore justifying certain entitlements.

None of them were shirkers, lawbreakers or less than perfect in any way, apparently.

It's another problem that I suspect Sortition would provide a better response to than the representative system could ever dream of. Alas, that won't be happening in my lifetime.

Anyway, thanks for reading that and I appreciate the subject matter may be considered somewhat 'edgy' - will leave you with some music and catch you next time.


Sunday 1 April 2018

Not Having a Horse in the Race - the Value of Abstraction

Afternoon - hopefully the referee will refrain from jumping in and breaking this post up if it threatens to get interesting.

I'm not sure whether or not I'm in a minority but it's absolutely true that while some of us enjoy the exploration a hypothetical situation or philosophical area, there are many (perhaps more) others who regard this as 'not real world', some sort of obsessing with minutae/dancing on the head of a pin type of activity or whatever. We are of course living in times where senses of grievance, grudge and disenfranchisement drive the reaction of otherwise sane and reasonable people to whatever we are all supposed to be talking about, be it Brexit, 'group rights' or any other emotive subject. It's perhaps unsurprising that abstraction from filling the car/paying the bills is seen as 'weird' in such a climate.

As a vegetarian (and no I'm not trying to convert anybody, make up your own minds on that score) I'm as familiar as anyone with the old dilemma around "eat this chicken or two more will die". Now at the centre of this question (as well as all good hypotheticals) is a philosophical argument between the merits of a rule-based/principled way of thinking and a more practical or consequentialist one. By refusing to eat the chicken I am of course sticking to my non-meat-eater code of conduct and taking a consistent ethical stance, but then you've just told me that one way or another, two sentient beings will die immediately upon my refusal...the right thing to do?

It essentially boils down to...what matters more, standing up for 'the right thing' and 'what you believe in' or the material consequences of your actions, both for yourself and others?

In this famous 'chicken paradox' I ultimately wouldn't eat the animal and I'll briefly explain why. My refusal to eat the chicken is no guarantee that somebody else will not consume it at a later date, but even if you could provide me with something in writing to the effect of "the two 'saved' chickens will live a happy life and be allowed to die naturally", we just know that the natural demand for meat will continue to exist. This isn't a zero-sum game and farmers will continue to breed all types of animals to meet the ongoing requirements of consumers for meat, dairy and eggs. However, that wasn't a straightforward or easy call to make and I respect any vegetarian or vegan who chooses differently.

Here's one that even the carnivores amongst us can engage with - suppose you have an island comprising of a thousand people who live in  poverty (relative in western terms as opposed to abject poverty, for the benefit of the question). Now an immensely wealthy individual wants to move to the island and bring his or her billions with them (again we'll clarify this is lawfully earned money as opposed to the proceeds of crime or anything like that). Someone on the island's Parliament proposes that we either a) take a percentage of that individual's wealth upon arrival, to be shared amongst the native population or b) do not allow them to enter the island at all. What's the 'right' answer here? 

Now the case for such a measure is that someone with such concentrated and disproportionate relative resources has it within his or her capacity to basically enslave the population of the island. The potential for the democratic process to be subverted and 'bought off' in exchange for special treatment and favours is very real, as is the risk of all that hard cash flooding into the local economy and potentially devaluing the currency (as well as the material assets of others). A one-off tax as a condition for entry would alleviate envy or resentment amongst the natives, while enabling badly-needed investment in the island's education system, defence and infrastructure.

Conversely, whether you agree with income tax as a principle or not, there's a sound argument that what is basically the theft of somebody's legally acquired wealth, assets or possessions to placate a baying mob is ethically and morally indefensible. You could reasonably point out that this money would end up with the island's politicians as opposed to its people, and might be used for the purposes of electoral bribery, which is itself a form of corruption (see the squandering of oil wealth in Venezuela for further details). It's also fair enough to suggest that 'the wealthy one' could be better encouraged into philanthropy or long-term sustainable economic investment than a simple 'cash grab'.

I'm naturally more inclined towards the second argument than the first, but if you come down on the other side or some sort of compromise between the two then that's fair enough as long as you know precisely why and can rationalise it. Hopefully I can catch up with a few of you in person at some point and go through the scenario at length, but the value of such discussions is twofold. Firstly, this battle between principles/rule-based systems and utilitarian/greatest good ones should get sensible and intelligent people thinking, at least for a while. Anybody giving a knee-jerk and/or absolutist answer to such a question has either not thought it through probably or has a dangerous mind.

I wouldn't steal half of a person's money in the scenario outlined, or refuse to let them in, but then it's equally unlikely I would do precisely nothing towards keeping the peace either. The moral of such tales is that while a mentality of "I believe what I believe and fuck the consequences for others" can be incredibly dangerous and counter-productive, the 'pragmatism on steroids' which serves as the reverse polarity of this is little more than believing in everything while simultaneously believing in nothing. If some contrived 'greater good' always, always wins out against the rules protecting the one against the tyranny of the 99, then no such rules exist in reality. A 'blend' of the two is needed.

Most importantly it's the surreal and vaguely ridiculous nature of the scenario that makes you come at the subject in a dispassionate and unemotional way. This is a fundamental aspect in which 'group thinkers' differ wildly from individualists, namely that one has a horse in the race while the other does not. This is why collectivists of both Toddler Left and Toddler Right persuasions struggle desparately with abstraction and the application of philosophical rigour. You are basically asking him or her to approach the question from a starting place they are not used to occupying, and the dismissal of such intellectual archaeology as 'not real world' or lacking 'common sense' is predictable enough.

Someone I respect recently suggested that philosophy should be a subject available for teenagers at school and I'm inclined to agree that is should at least be an option (if you're proposing that philosophy replaces sex education or 'citizenship' then I'll put my signature to whatever you want). While I'm not interested in directing the thought process of any individual in a particular direction, the arrival at whatever conclusion one might reach by a rational process rather than an emotive one is likely to lead to a more intelligible discourse and stem the flow of the willfully blind into 'groups' engaged in perpetual grievance with each other. I am of course aware that it may already be too late.

Anyway, that was surprisingly good fun to write - if you want to throw down your own hypothetical/philosophical scenarios or comment on those illuminated above then feel free.

In the meantime I'll leave you with some Lloyd Cole and see you next time - thanks for dropping by.


Sunday 25 March 2018

Collectivism is Selfish

Afternoon - be assured that if this is a roaring success I'll be calling out other writers for some sort of 'blog-off' on a winner-takes-all basis. Write me a cheque for a pound if it's no good...

When I listen to the tribal battle being played out in the mainstream and on social media my reaction is a sort of mix of amusement and bewilderment. The terrain Left vs Right, Labour vs Tory, Leave vs Remain, Native vs Foreigner and Majority vs Minority is something of a dead end for all concerned. It's a bit like watching two bald blokes fighting over a comb or a couple of cats taking swipes at each other while simultaneously chasing their own tails. That so many otherwise sane, rational people not only partake in this garbage but allow themselves to become emotionally invested in it means that division and destruction are the logical consequences. No good comes from such nonsense.

As I've outlined previously the real battle lines are not between one form of authoritarian collectivism or the other, but on a whole raft of other axes where the 'right' side (at least as far as I and presumably many of our readers are concerned) are taking something of a shellacking. In the arenas of Reason vs Emotion, Responsibility vs Victimhood, Respect vs Mudslinging and Opponent vs Enemy we're seeing an 'endarkenment' within our times as Toddlers of both persuasions continue to increase their profile in terms of both volume and sheer number. Crucially, both are emphatically on the side of 'the collective', way over and above that of the rights and freedoms of individuals.

Everybody apart from those inclined towards victimhood-driven 'identity politics' should be concerned by this slow death of the individual within our public discourse. Anarchists aside, all of us on the 'lone ranger' side of the argument acknowledge the need for some sort of balance and that the collective has to prevail on occasion, at least to some degree. This may include a need for the State to dispense law, order and justice, defend us from invasion or provide some sort of safety net to prevent people from falling into abject poverty (be that in the form of a 'reduced fat welfare state' or universal basic income). Some of you may strike that balance in a slightly different place and that's fine.

This is important as pretty much any defence of the proverbial lamb against two wolves discussing what to have for lunch is frequently depicted as selfish, mean-spirited, grasping and unreasonable by those aggressively pursing a more collectivist worldview. Now it's true that full-blown anarchists and their pseudo-intellectual cousins known as Anarcho-Capitalists cross over into a somewhat unhealthy and potentially dangerous 'survival of the fittest' zeitgeist which makes no attempt to grasp a multitude of complicated realities. However, while this mentality is both inherently selfish and philosophically bankrupt, its ultra-collectivist equivalent is equally so.

One of the few positives to come out of the recent poisoning of the well is a raw expose of this dismal modus operandi for what it is. This shouldn't be necessary as history has taught us the required lesson many times over, but perhaps the biggest lesson of history is that we are doomed to either learn the 'wrong lesson' from it or precisely nothing. Be it Trade Union maniacs in the 1970s and 1980s, militant feminists, whining men's rights activists, racists regardless of colour or creed, nosy 'socially conservative' homophobes, LGBT lunatics, Nazis, Facists, Communists, big government types of all persuasions, the moral is the same. Collectivism has nothing to do with fairness or genuine equality.

While the 'struggle' of various identitarians has gathered pace the historical claim that "all we want is a fair shake" has basically been parked in favour of more outright calls for special treatment and/or an insistence that the issues of their group are somehow so much more important than everybody else's. Once you start demanding that we talk solely about subjects relating solely to black/white, women/men or straight/gay then you are by definition putting down a marker that equitable treatment before the law and in terms of civil rights is not what you're actually talking about. Where such genuine inequalities exist I am of course as keen as anybody else to end them immediately.

At the heart of all collectivism is a piece of rank intellectual dishonesty, the pushing of a generic 'group experience' over and above the reality that individuals live diverse, complicated and wholly unique lives. While I'm not exactly president of the Margaret Thatcher fan club, I've always found the attitude of many interested in 'women's issues' towards her somewhat interesting. Rather than holding up the first ever female Prime Minister as a ray of hope that not all is lost, that she achieved what she did seems to perturb a great many politically minded women who I've heard complain, amongst other things, that "she did nothing for women did she?". It depends what you mean.

Being not only a woman but a grocer's daughter surrounded by the old boy's club that was the High Tory establishment, it can be argued that regardless of what you think of her record, the achievement of first becoming leader of her party and then staying in office for a decade transcended 'issues' not only of gender but of class as well. Alternatively, while I don't dispute that some encounter closed minds and closed doors on account of what they are rather than who they are, it's quite likely that Thatcher wasn't one of them. Just because you're part of some 'historically oppressed' group doesn't mean that you will experience exclusion and inequality of opportunity on a personal level.

If you look at those who have been successful in the spheres of sport, business, politics, the arts or whatever else there seem to be two common reactions amongst those pushing the narrative of a 'generic experience' based on group identity. One is to say nothing other than to hope that their new 'champion' will do something for their denoted brotherhood/sisterhood. The other is to pontificate about their 'triumph over adversity', as if the individual must have faced ostensibly insurmountable obstacles and smashed them through talent and sheer force of will. The possibility that no such obstacles really existed (at least for the person in question) is simply not an option up for discussion.

Meanwhile the reaction to one form of collectivism in recent years has been what can only be described as the same bad taste joke in reverse polarity. The Toddler Right of Make America Great Again, Take Back Control, Men's Rights Activism and silly toytown Angry Nativist movements is simply 'another side' joining in what they perceive as the same zero-sum game, battling for control of the narrative, resources, kudos and group recognition. Instead of the 'historically oppressed' we now have the perpetually pissed-off white working class, a 'silent majority' that never shuts up, whining manchildren complaining about being 'forgotten' and how "nobody ever listens to me".

My heart bleeds - the poor lambs. Anyway, swiftly moving on...

While some of the criticisms that both sides might have of each other are valid on the surface level, how they get to that place and propose to 'fix' things are basically two sides of a highly authoritarian and anti-individualist coin. Moreover, it's this lie about 'generic experiences' that serves as fuel to both - while bad things are done by and are done to individuals of all races, genders, sexual orientations or whatever else, a manifestation of the age old maxim that "shit happens and life isn't fair" should serve as compelling evidence that this 'generic experience' narrative is bankrupt and fraudulent. This silliness even fails on its own terms when put under the slightest scrutiny.

Instead, both sides cherry-pick and wheel out material as Exhibit A for the prosecution, with the wrongdoers of 'their side' dismissed as isolated bad apples while the reverse is held up as an embedded confession to some social/institutional/systemic bias to which 'rigging the game' is the only solution (and anyone suggesting otherwise must be some sort of 'bigot' themselves and therefore part of the problem). In reality there is no Utopia and there will always be idiots possessed of dumb, immature and unpleasant attitudes towards all sorts of questions for all sorts of reasons or even none. No amount of 're-education' or 'social pressure' is going to change what people think or how they feel.

Far from being liberating, collectivism crams people into highly restrictive boxes based on a single aspect of themselves and creates a wholly false sense of obligation. I might be white, British and heterosexual, but the notion that I therefore 'owe' something to complete strangers who happen to share these traits is illogical and absurd. Beyond promising not to turn aggressive or steal their possessions I have no higher or lower obligation to such an individual as I would to anybody else. It was Ayn Rand who nailed it when she said that "at the heart of all collectivism is the pursuit of the unearned", correctly identifying the use of identitarianism to disguise crude selfishness as solidarity.

The antidote to this is not to set up your own 'rival group', advocating special treatment for itself and demanding 'free stuff' from the State, but to reject militant collectivism entirely and embrace at least some sort of balance that deals in individual liberty. If you're interested in localism then the promotion of the smallest locality there is (namely the individual) should be on your agenda. If you want to protect minorities against majority tyranny then take care of the smallest minority of all (the individual again), protect his or her rights consistently and rigorously, and punish anyone who attempts to infringe them. Once you've looked after the individual, 'groups' take care of themselves.

I'm off now to contemplate whether to write a book from scratch on topics covered here in the last 3 months, or release some of this stuff as a book (perhaps an e-book) of its own. If you have a view either way on that then please let it be known - we're all for freedom of expression on these pages.

In the meantime I'll leave you with some great music from Joy Division (RIP Ian).

Thanks for dropping by and I'll catch you midweek.