It still remains unlikely, but I do feel that is at least possible that the Conservative Party may win the next General Election, here in the UK. With Blair increasingly going off the rails, behind in some polls, and trying to ramrod unpopular policies through Parliament, even against the wishes of his patrons and supporters in News International, there is some hope that we may yet be rid of him before he has his heart attack.
But what will replace him? Oliver I Love Socialism Letwin, perhaps, or David Two Welfare States Willets? It could almost be better, in some ways, if Blair stayed in power, as at least then we would still possess an enemy we could focus on properly.
So, this is a call to any Conservative politician out there, anyone who is active within the Conservative Party who stands any chance of a sniff of power should the Blessed Michael shock us and actually win electoral power. Now it may be too much to assume that the Blessed Michael, himself, is a regular Samizdata reader, but if you are with us, Mr H, I have the perfect plan of action for you to make England the wealthiest, the freest, and the happiest country in Europe, except for approximately one million Guardianistas who, basically, can just sod off.
Sean Gabb’s THE ENEMY CLASS AND HOW TO DESTROY IT: A MANIFESTO FOR THE RIGHT, which I read for the first time this morning, really is or should be the plan for your next government. Take time to read it. Then act upon it. Become a hero.
Andy,
Dr Gabb’s thinking has moved on since January 2001, when this piece was published. I apologise to readers who’ve heard this before, but his later FLC’s, no.113 of 13th October 2003 and 114 of 2nd November 2003, are far more sophisticated analyses. No doubt, these two were culled from his book, Cultural Revolution, Culture War: The True Battle For Britain. That was published in Novemeber 2003 by Hampton Press.
I have tried to advance the argument on earlier threads that the Conservatives are our only chance of defeating the cultural-egalitarian drift impelled to the country by the (total) state. But they seem to have little intellectual purchase on the nature of the threat. My contention is that this is so both because the threat is subtle and Granscian and because the decades of retreat before ratchet socialism hollowed out the Conservative philosophical base. Thus they habitually argue that the Party has survived to this day by adapting and renewing themselves to a changing nation. I don’t have to emphasise out the euphemistic nature of this assertion. A Conservative Party that treats with progressivism will conserve nothing very valuable.
In summary. the culture war cannot be opposed, much less one, without a clear and consistent philosophy. Dr Gabb’s contributions to this are prodigious. We need a whole lot more.
Thanks Guessedworker. I shall read Dr Gabb’s other pieces immediatement. But, hey, you know me. I like it rough and none too analyzed! 😉
Dr Gabb, if you’re reading: Top quality.
And far far better, these days, than wasting my time in a morning reading the Torygraph.
You mean keep every welfare benefit intact?
Increase the state pension above the rate of inflation?
Increase public spending commitments by approximately £100 bn?
Sean Gabb’s economics are crackpot, but then he has admitted to me that he is not interested in economic policy.
I costed Gabb’s manifesto and found that it would have increased public spending faster than Gordon Brown has since 2001.
Michael Howard, as a former Shadow Chancellor should take one look at the manifesto and bin it as an intolerant rant, devoid of any economic sense.
I haven’t seen Sean’s latest views: does he still propose to keep the TV licence and the BBC intact?
Antoine,
Well certainly I would phrase things a little differently from Sean in this manifesto but he certainly seems to be recommending large scale cuts in state spending and the closing down of several government departments. I do not know when Sean defended the BBC but here he calls for its immediate abolition.
Its true that he allows for the continuation of welfare and pensions but the other cuts he proposes, it seems to me, would more than offset this, even in the short term.
His notion of the ‘enemy class’ strikes me as being largely the sort of mythological fairytale that people who describe themselves as ‘conservatives’ like to go in for to frighten the children. Clearly it is this sort of rhetorical style that sucks some of the less intellectually gifted people; like Guessedworker; into giving some measure of support to libertarianism. This is no doubt all to the good – heaven only knows what unsavoury types they would be fellow travelling with if it weren’t for Sean steering them in our direction.
Antoine, like Sean, I’m prepared to pay the price to destroy the enemy class, especially in its mind control operational areas of education and propaganda, both of which Dr Gabb targets for immediate or as-soon-as-can-be-managed abolition, and with all the other government cuts the article suggests, including the immediate shutdown of the BBC, I think the tax burden would still be lowered, immediately.
Once we’ve destroyed the Enemy Class, then we can go for Hoppe-world.
Though, alas, I don’t think we’ll ever destroy the Enemy Class through affirmative action, especially democratic affirmative action, as just like Mr Marx thought in the 19th century, democracy breeds socialism, as evidenced by Mr Letwin, and speculated upon by Professor Hoppe.
We’re probably more likely to destroy the Guardianistas by increasing non-involvement with any kind of political process, which I suppose is what most of us are doing and promoting. But if there is any hope for the politics-based Stupid Party, then a Gabb-like plan is it. Unless you know better?
To me, a political democratic party of the right, in Britain, has three choices:
1. More of the same ersatz EU-loving proto-socialism
2. A Gabb-like plan
3. Immediate dissolution, as what’s the point continuing?
Do they have any other options? What do you think Michael Howard should do, which is realistic in democratic political vote-winning terms, if he achieves Downing Street within the next 18 months?
He’ll probably go for option 1, hence proving Professor Hoppe right. But I would personally love it if he went for option 2.
Hey, wow, Antoine Clarke turned up just as I was going to recommend his own papers from the Libertarian Alliance, such as his alternative Clarke budget or his and Tim Evan’s Conservative Manifesto for Scotland. Not so much a case of talking of the devil, but merely thinking and he arrives!
I probably won’t vote. I am an anarchist moved but not completely swayed by George H. Smith’s views on the immorality of voting. My main reason for not voting is that there is no libertarian candidate to vote for. There isn’t even a lesser of two or three evils. There is no party out there that I can say will reduce the scope of government, and its extent, at all, let alone as significantly as I would like.
Hey, wow, Antoine Clarke turned up just as I was going to recommend his own papers from the Libertarian Alliance, such as his alternative Clarke budget or his and Tim Evan’s Conservative Manifesto for Scotland. Not so much a case of talking of the devil, but merely thinking and he arrives!
I probably won’t vote. I am an anarchist moved but not completely swayed by George H. Smith’s views on the immorality of voting. My main reason for not voting is that there is no libertarian candidate to vote for. There isn’t even a lesser of two or three evils. There is no party out there that I can say will reduce the scope of government, and its extent, at all, let alone as significantly as I would like.
Gabb’s problem is that he’s all wet — why abolish large parts of the public sector, and then give the leeches who inhabit them a means to continue living of the public teat?
Nonsense.
Abolish those parts of the public sector, and have the newly-unemployed look for work, just like everyone else has to.
For one thing, it might create a more realistic policy towards immigration and asylum, which have caused so much harm to the fabric of British society.
Sean Gabb’s Free Life Commentary 113:
Not Socialism, but Post-Socialism:The Nature of the Enemy
Sean Gabb’s Free Life Commentary 114:
Thoughtcrime and The Secret Policeman: A Case Study in Discourse Theory
“His notion of the ‘enemy class’ strikes me as being largely the sort of mythological fairytale that people who describe themselves as ‘conservatives’ like to go in for to frighten the children.”
This is an odd response. Actually, I think this notion of an enemy class is the best idea in the paper. There is a class, which has a coherent set of interests, a unifying ideology, instruments of power and control, means of forced indoctrination. “Class” is as good a word as any to describe it. We have the same thing here in the USA, of course. Milovan Djilas referred to a New Class. The key advantage this possesses is that it lends clarity to Libertarian initiatives. Instead of waiting for everybody to just wake up and realise that “freedom is good”, it recognizes that there is a hostile power which benefits from the destruction of liberty. That is really just an observation of fact. Identifying and opposing and defeating this group/class/community or whatever you wish to call it, is absolutely necessary if any progress is ever going to be made.
Also, I like Gabb’s harsh, militant, Leninist tone. It is bracing.
In the days of Empire all these coves could be sent off to be District Commissioner somewhere in the back of beyond.There was every possibility of the odd uprising which would get some of them bumped off,useful in the case of index linked pensions.But what to do with them now they can do the same thing here without venturing abroad?
Surely there are sparsely inhabited areas of the world we could rent and send them off to administer,the middle east seems to fit the bill.
Kim du Toit writes:
“Gabb’s problem is that he’s all wet — why abolish large parts of the public sector, and then give the leeches who inhabit them a means to continue living of the public teat.”
Gabb’s problem is that he is intellectually a class above most of the libertarians on this side of the pond. So deposit-losing Paul Coulam has to bitch about Gabb’s concept of the ‘enemy class’ and take the opportunity to have a bash at Guessedworker as well. So Antoine Clarke has to bitch about Gabb’s common sense on the welfare state. So Kim has to give us yet another bout of saloon-bar kneejerk vulgar-libertarian fantasy ….
I know that most libertarians are attention seeking bastards with narcissistic personality disorders — but at least Gabb has something to be narcissistic about, which is more than can be said for some of the commenters.
Thanks, Andy. for the tip — what a relief it is to read Sean Gabb again after all that nya-nyaing about the failure of the Iraq occupation policy or whatever else I’ve been doing over the past few days. Thanks, Guessedworker — much to my shame, I didn’t know Gabb had written a book — so off I go to Amazon.uk.
Guessed
Was nobody reading the earlier threads on this blog when Dr Gabb’s No.113 was thrashed around with great vigour; not to mention the stuff on Gramsci by Professor John Fonte from the Hudson Institute, still available on:
http://www.policyreview.org/dec00/Fonte.html
and:
http://www.hudson.org/files/publications/idealogical_war.pdf
For those who found Dr Gabb’s analysis interesting, they will surely expand their perspectives with Fonte’s papers.
And what about Cleon Skousen’s list of Communist Goals from 1958, all on the same theme at
http://www.spongobongo.com/em/em9817.htm
Now that one of the impresarios of the blog has picked up the theme, perhaps we can whip up a storm, rather than the sparrow’s fart than emanated from our first try. Not to mention several much earlier attempts on Melanie Phillips’s blog, which is where I first discovered that the war of leftist cultural hegemony had a name, viz. Antonio Gramsci. et al. It was the key that unlocked many secrets from my reservoir of empirical experience and as a result many things fell into place. Verity, where art thou?
Sorry – failed to mention another page that discusses Skousen’s list:
http://www.freedomtapeclub.com/geoff_metcalf.htm
I know that most libertarians are attention seeking bastards with narcissistic personality disorders
Now who could that possibly remind me of?
The problem with this is that nobody could get elected democratically with this as a manifesto,the very class you are trying to destroy would use all its resources against you.The smear and disinformation machine would go into overdrive and there are ample opportunities for the institutions to be targeted to do damage to your constuencies,then blame you.
This could only be done covertly,
Revolution.
Entryism.
Blatently lying about your real policies(Worked for New Labour)
A State of Emergency.
Peter UK is right. Michael Howard’s problem is more complicated than that of Duncan & Gadd’s big bang dispensation. Even Tony Blair’s problem, with the strongest control of the British state any PM has ever had, is more difficult than that–hence ‘the Project’ and his rolling revolution.
As things currently stand the Tories are the best chance of more liberal government for the UK, true. But Mr Howard has to win power (and exercise it in such a way as to maintain it) in the real world of British democratic politics, where a clearly revolutionary policy is a guarantee of failure. The Conservatives need a saleable platform sufficient to overcome a strong structural bias against them in the electoral system. And they probably need Blair to screw-up royally as well, if they are to have a working majority in the Commons.
This doesn’t mean they can’t have radical policies. But they can only afford those radical policies that are congenial and comprehensible to the vast majority of voters and invulnerable to traducement by the media class. And such policies need to be workable within his party as well: br(e)aking the EU would go OK at the polls, but Thatcher was destroyed by it, and Major, Hague, and Smith all suffered badly from the conduct of their own guards on the gravy train not just that of the “bastards”.
No one would vote for Sean, because as much as I cherish him, he’s too bloody relentlessly gloomy.
Sean has been predicting doom for as long as I have known him.
I read Sean’s LA pamphlet more than a year ago. Although I was somewhat taken aback by its rather alarmist tone, I agreed with his analysis that we need to a, shut down the BBC, and b, stiff the educational bureacracy. That would be a grand start since education is such a key battleground.
Class analysis makes some sense. BTW, Irving Kristol made a similar analysis more than 20 years ago in his comments about the “New Class”, that nexus of educationists, journalists, politicians and public sector workers he saw as wielding influence over the American body politic. In certain respects Sean is riding the same wave as Kristol.
Gramisci’s ideas are definitely worth a lot of attention, if only to study how ideologically motivated folk can, and have taken over key institutions.
rgds
Guy,
Bang on. But I would come back a notch or two from policies and the idea of election manifestos. Maggie didn’t tell the voters what monetarism would mean because they were addicted to inflationary pay rises and thought them just and good. Nonetheless she had a clear take on the problems of unionised Britain and Keynesian economics. The philosohical underpinnings were there and they were Austrian. The equivalent is required now in cultural terms. Once again libertarianism matters here, since the essential shape of change must be minarchist.
The search for a ideas is where it must start. That, in a nutshell, is what draws me to this blog. Of course, I get rebuffed all the time because multiculturalism, gay rights and feminism have sufficient sympathies with linertarianism to make for severe communication problems. You and I had a disagreement because of what I see as the necessarily small c nature of opposition to the Project.
Ideas, ideas, ideas are we need. The Tories have absolutely nada.
Frank,
Thanks for the links. I can commend Fonte to anyone interested in an American’s analysis of progressive transnationalism by one of the inventors of the term.
Charles,
Don’t worry about Paul. He’s probabably much more worried that we authoritarians will cease Westminster and start glancing in the direction of the closet. But we’re all big-hearted, live-and-let-live city folk really. These days, I admit, the Guesseds and little Guesseds live the rural idyll. But, as I strangle another chicken and grease the cat’s boils, I still feel an occasional nostalgia for my more liberal past.
Guessed – I’m not sure the Tories have nada in the ideas department. There seem to be some clever thinkers in the party – I expressly exclude Oliver Letwin – but they are facing a greedy magpie. Anything shiny and new that catches Blair’s little bird brain will be pinched at once. It’ll never be put into effect if Blair gets back in, but meanwhile he’ll have trashed it about and spoiled it for the Tories.
This is what Michael Howard is facing and at least he’s aware of it. And he’s aware of the sleazy nature of Tony Blair, unlike William Hague who said he “quite likes Blair personally”.
David Davies did his bit brilliantly re the immigration sleaze. He knows when to keep his mouth shut and let them guess … and he can control himself to the extent of keeping an extra little bomb at the back of the drawer for later. He was so successful that he has forced a rebranding of multiculti out of Blair. Multiculti is now to be known as “integration”. It was Davis who forced Toneboy and Trev to scramble for damage control and cook up their ridiculous new plot line.
The Shadow Cabinet has better thinkers than any of the dross of local councillors and outreach coordinators currently masquerading as a national government driven by the sovereign interests of the country.
I think Howard & Co have probably set a date for announcing and explaining their ideas and it will have been calibrated very carefully.
Incidentally, do we have any constitutional lawyers around today? Blair, knowing a vote loser when he sees one, didn’t bother mentioning in the Labour manifesto that he intended to sign a “constitution” for Europe whose stated intent is to destroy national sovereignty. Would that mean that his signing it would be invalid?
Guessed
Can you, or anyone else explain to me whether the current UK government came into being as part of the Gramscian inspired blueprint that I saw drifting about (as I said before, without a label or signature at the time) in those segments of the corridors of power wherein I was a minor apparatchik from the early 1950s to the turn of the Millennium. And if it did, was Blair aware of what his puppet masters were up to? Or is he just an egotistical evangelist and glory seeker who got lucky? I even wonder sometimes if his marriage to Cherie was ‘arranged’ so that she could keep an eye on him.
The second point is that very few of the electorate will be interested in the machinations of cultural war unless somebody in the tabloid media can explain it through the ‘Posh and Becks’ phenomenon, it seems, so Sean Gabb’s millions of words of output are confined almost entirely to the blogosphere, or books and pamphlets that are read only, it seems, by libertarians. It seems that he gets silenced even when he appears on local radio, such is the leftist influence in the media.
Maggy Thatcher and those behind her in the media managed to get the message of the bogey men of the Unions across to the nation and also sold a big segment of Milton Friedman’s creed, not to mention successfully re-labeling it ‘Thatcherism’. She destroyed much of the crude power of the Trade Unions in the process. But even she didn’t stop the Gramscian gremlins beavering away within the establishment infrastructure.
I’m sure that if the Gg’s could be identified, and a tabloid style incarnation produced, of what has been silently implemented (Thatcher and Friedman notwithstanding) for the past 50 years, the punters would throw this lot out at the next election. But I for one am not at all certain that the Gg’s are not also abundantly placed within the Tory party. Can someone convince me that they are not? And of course the libertarians on this blog would probably reject that the gay lobby has been a major part of the plan (even though many people within the gay community probably don’t know it).
Frank P:
“Tabloid style” politics is coming.
I note that ITV is to produce a reality show that will allow viewers to pick a candidate to run for Parliament with all the ensuing national publicity. The Tories are said to be very concerned that Michael Howard’s seat may be targeted as his majority is below 6,000. Surely this would be excellent news for Mr Howard as young voters abandoned the LibDems and Labour thus increasing the Tory majority. Unless the “Pop Idol” candidate won of course!
Frank P – I have often thought that Blair has puppet masters. I don’t think he’s wicked in himself – just stupid and egotistical, which is ideal for their point of view – but from Day One, I sensed that he was a conduit for evil to flow through. He seems to have been over-bearingly egotistical from early adolescence on, so someone could easily have spotted him … at university, say … (This thought was inspired by your comment that you wondered whether Cherie was a part of it. Rather fanciful, but a totally intriguing thought to play with!) Aaaargh! The Manchurian Candidate!
Frank, FWIW, as a former Marxist footsoldier (private, 3rd class), I don’t think there’s any ‘Big Conspiracy’ out there, led by a Mr Big, some otherwise unknown sociology lecturer in Birmingham who is the real ruler of Britain. Most of us Marxists in the 1980s, as a reaction against Thatcher, fellow travelled with groups like Militant Tendency, Socialist Worker, CND, unserweiter, unserweiter (oh the shame of having once sold ‘Militant’! ;-).
But the writing was on the wall. As long as we headbangers continued as some of our kindred did in Liverpool, as a bunch of unreconstructed Marxists, we were never in with a chance of taking over direct power from the impregnable blue wave of the hated ‘South-of-England’ Tories.
So most of us stopped dyeying our hair, took out our earrings, shaved off offensive facial hair, and put on suits. My betters and masters in the Labour Party may have been aware of Gramsci, particularly the University-based ones, but most of us leafletters and assorted rent-a-mob crowd, weren’t. We were just trying to achieve straightforward Marxism, but by the back door, or at the very least ‘control’ the forces of the market, to stop them being so evil. Which may just be what Gramsci is all about anyway, so implicitly I may have been a Gramscian.
But most Marxists I knew, who joined the ‘New Marxism/New Labour’ bandwagon were not intrinsically evil people, just people who saw injustice in the world, knew something was wrong, and wanted to change it. Marxism is very appealing if you are set like that, and can really add fuel to your fire, possibly through its religiosity, which is why it so appeals to atheists.
(BTW, I left Militant when it was made clear to me that I had to sacrifice a tithed religious percentage of my net income to the Militant cause – Thank God inbuilt Austro-human libertarian greed saved me from such Militant monkishness)
That all socialists figure out the wrong solution (that it is not MORE government that we need, but far LESS), is a disastrous problem, but I really don’t think it’s a conspiracy, just a horrible case of religious mass self-hypnosis. Even Professor Hoppe was a leftist! 🙂
I am sure the thinkers in the Labour Party (and I exclude Blair’s wife, Mandelson, etc, who ARE evil, but include Gordon Brown and even Alastair Campbell) really do think they are doing the right thing by humanity, deliberately trying to crush selfishness from people like us, and see the state as nothing more than a defensive club to stop individuals being exploited by we evil capitalists.
I’m not actually sure what Blair is, himself. Some kind of chameleon-like litmus-paper man who takes on whatever big ideas he is currently impressed with – I’m sure it is his Christian religion which drives him on, which is why he could easily have been a Tory PM if he’d met the right home counties girl, rather than that dragon, Booth, a vessel filled with hatred which has made her evil. He really is a lightweight. But a terribly dangerous one, for all that.
But that it is all going horribly wrong for the socialists, with policies running into the sand, genuine taxation income going down, the failure of the Rhineland economic model, and increasing terrorism in the world and greater violence everywhere, is beyond the poor loves, and they cannot explain it, except perhaps as ‘wrecking’ by malcontents, including libertarians.
But I think we’re kidding ourselves if we think there’s some kind of ominous plot in the background. It is just all the usual things. Stupidity, primitiveness, arrogance, and self-interest, held together by ideology. For though these people profess to despise Austrian self-interest, they all act in an entirely Austrian selfish manner, looking after themselves and their friends, and all the other people they value, with easy tax-paid sinecures.
The only difference between their way of behaving and our way of behaving, given that every Human Being acts in an Austrian manner, is that they have no morals, and we do. We will not harm and steal from other people, to achieve our valued ends. Whereas they will. All the ideologies they have come up with are just their figleaves to protect themselves from the knowledge that they are in fact deeply immoral people, whose ideas have killed untold millions, and made life intolerable for many millions more.
And believe me, it is a horrible feeling when you lose these ideological figleaves, and realise you’ve been a complete idiot for most of your adult life.
But hell, it’s sunny outside today, and a lovely spring day. I think I’ll go for a walk in deepest Surrey, and try to look more forward to the future. Cheers! 😉
Andy Duncan writes:
For though these people profess to despise Austrian self-interest, they all act in an entirely Austrian selfish manner, looking after themselves and their friends, and all the other people they value, with easy tax-paid sinecures.
There is nothing in any part of Austrian theory which says that people act in a ‘selfish’ manner looking after themselves and their friends. You are conflating two entirely separate ideas here. Methodological individualism, which is an Austrian idea, and a desire to look after ones own and ones friends interests, which, though common behaviour, is not praxeological as you are suggesting.
Your lack of attention to detail is leading you into serious error.
Michael Howard… yawn.. conservative party…yawn, so much happening in the world that actually is of some interest… why on earth is someone writing about the Conservatives on Samizdata?
We really couldn’t care less.
The existence of the Enemy Class is blatantly obvious, though I would not confine it to the public sphere. My Father in law, who is a self-employed taxi driver and owner, is a member of this class.
Calling it a class, and a culture, as in the neconservativer term Adversary Culture, makes a lot of sense. Its not an organised conspiracy we are dealing with, but a set of basic ideas, assumptions and prejudices shared by a large group of people. Without doubt, these people largely control the public sector, most of the media, ngo’s, and the U.N. beaurocracy, and without doubt, Gabb is right that their hold on power must be utterly destroyed as quickly as possible.
Thats why a center right government which just wants to institute mild reforms is of no use. Guy’s prescriptions are wrong for this reason. A moderate center right government has no value, and will achieve nothing of value. What is the point? Just to hold power long enough to hand it back again in a few years, while the EU and the UN continue to destroy British soveriegnty, and the BBC and the Guardian continue to churn out their propaganda? Moderate government of the type Guy wants is like a house owner sitting on his roof while the house beneath him is burning and saying “but look at these nice new roof tiles I’ve just laid!”.
Gabb’s brilliance is to recognise that leaving parts of the welfare state alone, especially old age pensions, circumvents the problems Guy is rightly concerned about, that of electability. By keeping enough of the people you need to vote for you happy for the time being, you can deal to the foundational underpinnings the enemy’s power. This was the mistake the right made in New Zealand in the 1990’s. Despite holding power for 9 years they were unable or unwilling to break the enemy’s hold on power. This was in part because instread of going after the enemy’s main weapons, the human “rights” council, the race relations conciliator, the teachers unions, the universaties and the beurocracy, they instead cut benifits for the working class and the elderly, and alienated the very people they needed most, and who, especially in the case of the elderly, would have enthusiastically supported a culture war.
Frank,
Concerning the conduct of culture war, I think it is fair to say that Dr Gabb is on the mark with his analysis in 113 and, especially, 114. There, I think, he talks of the sociology professors and their obedient students – now our rulers.
I think Andy’s motivational contrasts a la Labour Party bigwigs and activists is astute. But I don’t entirely agree that he is right about the lack of conspiracy. He is looking at the present day where, yes, the conspirators have been succeeded by the practictioners, both organic and captured. But in about 1964, after Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks re-appeared, some leading leftist academics from around the world – and necessaily not just the English-speaking world – will have gathered to exchange ideas at some conference in Rio, Paris, LA or even swinging London. Somewhere along the trail of discarded plastic coffee cups and footprints in the carpet pile were the first, tentative signs of genuine conspiracy. That must be how the beautiful idea Gramsci’s sublimely subtle methodology could inject an egalitarianising virus into the West’s cultural bloodstream first caught the marxian imagination.
The Long March became manifest here after the takeover – and marxisation – of the Birmingham School by Stuart Hall. The notion of a rainbow coalition (Identity Politics) first saw light of day in Ken Livingstone’s GLC of the early 1980’s, of all places. Political Correctness, though a technique developed in Lenin’s Russia, was perfected by American academia. But by the mid-1980’s we were already familiar with it here. And so we come to the present situation, so perilous to freedom.
Regarding your second point, no, the nature, extent and end-product of the cultural assault cannot be communicated through the pages of the popular newspapers. It is too ethereal. Anyway, the media is filled with willing little workers with progressive sympathies. The only body with the critical mass to articulate a counter-view is the Conservative Party. They, of course, are not currently fit for this task. To be so they need a clear and powerful, programmatic philosophy, something with the transformational power of Thatcherism but with a cultural, not economic, remit.
As far as minorities go, I have my doubts that people who are not heterosexual are impressed en masse with identity politics, and go into the voting booth with a single intention. But that isn’t the object of culture war. If you look around the cutting-edge, marxist ctheory website I mentioned, Frank, you will be struck by the emphasis on transexualism as a norm. This does not arise because of Andy’s old sympathy for the oppressed. It arises because it offers the opportunity to degrade and debase the hegemonic heterosexual male. People often wonder why leftists con’t care a toss for the harm they cause, and that’s why.
Paul – if you are reading this – a few weeks ago I bit your head off when you suggested that all males are naturally homosexual. I don’t know whether this was some sort of Coulamite jest. But, anyway, I apologise for the personal nature of my response. You did, though, give a damned good impression of a cultural marxist, if perhaps a captured one!
Verity,
You may be right that the shadow cabinet is more thoughtful than the dross opposite them. It is in the nature of revolutions that the fire and brilliance comes at the beginning, and ultimately dullness and repetition hasten the end.
But Dr Gabb said it: even if the Tories win an election they will not be able to enact a truly liberalising agenda because of the control apparatus all about them. I think, in any case, it is wise to assume they will lose the next one. The cultural bandwagon will have advanced by 2010, but the electorate will be ready for a change. The right, transformative ideas must be to hand in good time.
I can reassure Charles and Guessedworker that though I am quite happy to confess to a certain degree of attention seeking narcissim, I have never found Sean to be in the least bit prone to narcissism. He is a splendid fellow and certainly a great and subtle thinker behind the rhetoric. Indeed so great is his skill that he can present a robust polemic for libertarianism which is such a masterpiece of refinement and subtlety that he can even carry with him the bigoted dunderheads who might otherwise not have a hope of glimpsing the light. Anyone who can, even but for a fleeting moment, get people like Charles and Guessedworker to lift their heads out of the gutter, stop thrashing about in the grime of eugenics, race and IQ and instead comtemplate something higher and nobler, is surely touched by genius.
Though I frequently write my own opinions of particular matters, pace Shawn, I don’t go in for public strategy prescriptions, nor do I think such things are useful. (I’m available for private strategic analysis, weddings and bar mitzvahs.) I do think discussing the problems can help though.
A party in the real world, as Verity points out, must keep its cards close; and, as Guessedworker points out, needs something a bit broader than a wish-list for government in any case.
Paul,
You may, at some time, care to grown up and parley with the adults. We are waiting for you with good grace.
Guessedworker,
As a postscript, I would point out that you keep misunderstaning many of the points I make and then misreporting them. Normally I do not bother to correct you but I shall attempt to here. I didn’t, and never have, suggested that ‘all males are naturally homosexual’. This is the reverse of my position which I have made plain in a number of forums. I maintain that there is no such thing as an intrinsic homosexual. That behaviour of any sort, homosexual or otherwise, is a choice resultant upon both environmental circumstance and biological disposition. My view is that people choose to behave in a homosexual fashion and that they are fully responsible for this choice, the factors which may have determined this choice notwithstanding.
That this view is the diametric opposite of the culturally marxist poltically correct view is obvious. The PC view is that homosexuality cannot be helped and is determined by nature. This is the view put about by all the PC gay lobby groups and infact yourself. It is you, not I, who is the unwitting creature of cultural marxists in this as in all matters.
Public expenditure in the “Celtic” periphery is around £1000 per head higher than in England. Suggestion: Conservatives promise to cut this back to English levels and spend the money saved (£10 billion?) on raising the basic pension for everyone over whatever age gives £20 extra per week.Further pro-pensioner policies: tax real interest rather than nominal; allow the reclaim of dividend tax credits.
Further advantage: gives the caring, compassionate Celts the opportunity to really demonstrate their moral superiority over us callous Anglo-Saxons.
Paul Coulam writes:
You are conflating two entirely separate ideas here. Methodological individualism, which is an Austrian idea, and a desire to look after ones own and ones friends interests, which, though common behaviour, is not praxeological as you are suggesting. Your lack of attention to detail is leading you into serious error.
Oh come on Paul, stop being so pompous. Get a life.
Gabriel Syme writes:
We really couldn’t care less.
We? Who’s we? The Royal We? The ‘Samizdata Collective’ We? Funny I don’t appear to be part of this ‘Collective’. Or instead of we do you actually mean you?
Go on Gabriel, take away my Samizdata login rights. See if I care less. Actually, Gabriel, please do take away my Samizdata login rights.
I think it’s time to move on.
Paul,
In that case I apologise for a second time. I do, though, expect genetic science to resolve many currently imponderable questions, like this one, over perhaps the next five to ten years. Until that time we are all operating more on personal judgement, however refined, than hard fact. I suppose it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the marxists will be proved right about something at last!
Andy – “Frank, FWIW, as a former Marxist footsoldier (private, 3rd class), I don’t think there’s any ‘Big Conspiracy’ out there, led by a Mr Big, some otherwise unknown sociology lecturer in Birmingham who is the real ruler of Britain.”
Oh, darn!
In that case, maybe it’s a Mrs Big (or maybe Mrs Bigmouth) disguised as the PM’s wife. It’s a pretty cunning idea. I do think Blair is too inept and too dull to have made it into this position by his own drive. Someone (even if it wasn’t Mr Big, the sociology professor in Birmingham) spotted that Blair a) loves acting and saw himself in the limelight. He loves dressing up. He will do anything for a photo op. b) has a strange hunger for great admiration, not to say adulation – and believes he is worthy of it. c) is not terribly bright and is driven by his greed for the limelight and need to be adored. d) has an accent and manners that wouldn’t frighten the horses and the middle classes whose votes they needed. And e) is not terribly sure of who he is and is slightly delusional.
Thus he gets mixed up with his roles and real life. [As in the story of stowing away at age 12, on a plane from Newcastle to Bermuda. He said this on a national TV talk show. It was easily checkable. Newcastle Aiport said it had never in its life had a single flight to the Caribbean. I think Blair had a “real” memory when he was telling that lie on national television. Same with the treasured “memory” of the football game with his dad – don’t remember the details. I think he believed it while he was acting it. Otherwise, as prime minister, why be motivated to tell totally unnecessary, easily checkable lies?]
All the points above make for a very manipulable personality. I agree that Peter Mandelson is a string-puller. Why would he always be assured of getting back in? Cherie, yes; she’s a nasty piece of work.
(I digress – but did anyone else find it extremely interesting that Blair hung her on the wall to dry while she was going throught the conman and the flats in Bristol scandal? Ten days, he left her to face it by herself. Nary a word. It was only after she went on TV (sobbing out a script written by Peter Mandelson; surely a “high powered” QC should have been able to write her own script? … or even, gosh, extemporise?) that he boldly told reporters that it was time to “draw a line” and “move on”. No real love lost there, then.
I wanted to reply to some more of Andy’s post and a couple of others, but I’ve hogged enough bandwidth.
Andy:
Paul wasn’t being pompous. Our enemies are constantly harping on about how libertarianism is a philosophy of selfishness. The last thing we should be doing is lending support to that particular error. Rothbard and Mises were of course at pains to point out that selfishness is nothing to do with it.
p.s. Don’t give up your blogging rights – you would be sorely missed ;-(
Guessworker:
“I do, though, expect genetic science to resolve many currently imponderable questions, like this one, over perhaps the next five to ten years.”
I think you are missing the point. The issue is not one of science but of philosophy. The other meaning of “Libertarianism” is a belief in free will. Paul’s point (no doubt he will correct me if I am wrong) is that we are all free to choose what we do. Homosexual behaviour (note “behaviour”, not “inclination”) is no different in that regard from any other behaviour.
The source and strength of our desires and inclinations is another matter entirely, but it has no bearing on the philophical question. Why some people are inclined towards homosexual behaviour while others are not, may be because of biology or upbringing or even because that is what the Martians decided when they made us. None of it is relevant to the question of whether we have free will, or at least are to be regarded as though we do for the purpose of being held responsible for our actions.
p.s. to sundry Cherie bashers, I have it on good authority from somebody who knew her in the early 90’s that Cherie is actually a nice lady (or was then, anyway).
Wonderfully biting satire but this is a far funnier article.
MB:
The anti-Milton Friedman screed you linked to would be funnier if the author didn’t actually believe it. (Unless the author is pulling a fast one on the folks at “Dissident Voice”.)
Cydonia,
It would be comforting if all those very greata and erudite philosophers, ancient and modern, were right and we mere men were indeed possessed of free will, like gods and giants And in truth, we would be, given self-consciousness. But our normal waking state is not self-consciousness. It is mechanicity.
Thus a man may, I suppose, be tempted to adopt a homosexual lifestyle but this is no exercise of free will. Leaving aside the question of his hormonal balance, it is at best the product of rather specific life influences acting upon his own suggestibility. In that sense it is like anything else but a bit more exotic.
I say “at best” because the greater likelihood is that this suggestibility – the quality of docile receptivity of the human mind in ordinary waking consciousness – may be buttressed in the task by a degree of psychological instability. That would most likely come in the form of induced confusion or uncertainty in identity.
The libertarian meaning of this point of view would be this: we are all free to choose what we do if we are self-conscious. But even then there are caveats, most particularly in the well-known problem of the impossibility of conscous evil. So we are all free to choose good. But the choice of good does not of itself imply freedom, while a choice of evil always proceeds from slavery.
Simplified further, it is not helpful to introduce the fallacies of moral philosophy into political discourse. Politics does not deal in these things but in the dispensation of power and its effect upon what men commonly understand to be freedom (association, speech …). But freedom of the will, no.
Andy, don’t go!
Otherwise I’ll leave as well.
Paul Coulam praises Sean Gabb for his pedagogic achievements:
“Anyone who can, even but for a fleeting moment, get people like Charles and Guessedworker to lift their heads out of the gutter, stop thrashing about in the grime of eugenics, race and IQ and instead contemplate something higher and nobler, is surely touched by genius.”
Actually, Sean Gabb’s views on ‘race and IQ’ seem to be pretty much the same as my own, though perhaps I’ve misinterpreted him. It’s just that I’ve occasionally got a kinda fishwife style, while Sean has a more sophisticated way of putting things. But I would say the substance is much the same. Eugenics is a different matter – it’s a complex issue and I’ve changed my mind on the subject a dozen times. No idea whether Sean has any attitudes on the subject but then I haven’t got around to reading everything he’s written.
Paul, where can I have a debate on homosexuality with you? I’ll beat you flat down on that one any time.
What has to be challenged is the dominant mindset that has been imposed,that the left viewpoint is the morally correct one.All opposition to the enemy class is destroyed by moral argument,this has been fostered by the education system and the media.That is what you have to destroy first,this can be done covertly under the guise of reform and rationalisation.Why not undermine the Guardian’s financial base on the grounds that it is monopolistic and anti-competetive.Attack the BBC’s license fee as being unfair to the poor.Use the lefts own methods do it piecemeal to start with.
Remember the enemy class is cowardly and only has the balls to oppress the British.
Hey Gabriel, how about you stop being a dick?
Cydonia – I don’t care what you have on “good authority” from someone who “actually knew Cherie in the ’90s” … I don’t know this person and therefore have no reason to think their judgement is better than my own. I have never met Cherie, but her actions tell me everything I need to know about her, viz: she’s greedy. Despite having a QC’s income, she accepts free or discounted clothes and shoes from designers; she accepts free holidays – even at the expense of taxpayers of other countries; she was willing to consort with a conman because she hoped he would get £10K or so knocked off the price of a couple of flats; she pretended to cry on TV to get sympathy; she read out a speech written by Peter Mandelson and didn’t even write her own.
As the prime minister’s wife she doesn’t curtsey to our head of state. She is above such things as simple good manners. (Like the Queen gives a crap.) She wore deep decolletage to the funeral of the Queen Mother – a typically trashy move for someone with a trailer park trash first name. She’s a hillbilly.
She makes her living in the “human rights” game.
Paul and Charles: Like many women, I’ve always had close gay men friends. Not one of them “chose” to be gay. In fact, they all denied it to themselves until they had to face facts. One told me he was nicknamed Nancy in second grade by the other children before he ever knew what a nancy is. Others pretended to themselves they were just going through a phase and attraction to girls would kick in at some point during their adolescence. They were all also terrified that they were letting their parents down by not being “normal”.
And yet these guys – the ones I am friendly with anyway – grew up to be normal, achieving men and pretty darned balanced. Yes, some of them went through a wild stage. Some didn’t. Some are promiscuous and some have been with one partner for a number of years. Just like straight people.
I disagree that most gay men are interested in single issue politics and would vote for anyone proposing gay marriage. That is ridiculous. They are interested in what you are interested in. Taxes. Property prices. Policing. Garbage pick-up. Having a sound school board in their communities. They go to football games and root for their teams. Many sit on committees and do community service. The ones I know, and have known, are interested in politicsand they lean towards conservatism or libertarianism. I’ve never known a gay leftie.
At the same time, women adore gay men as friends. They have the best taste; they really care about whether your new hair style works; if you wear new earrings, they are the first to notice; they are (as a rule – not all of them) terribly witty; they are kind and empathetic (when they’re not being bitches, but you have to take the rough with the smooth); they have the best tableware; they give the best Thanksgiving dinners (no dinner in front of the TV watching football – no sir!); they have the best decorated flats and houses and the best kept-up lawns.
My point is, these are not acquired characteristics. Gay men are simply wired slightly differently from straight men.
Verity – a brilliant contribution. One caveat as regards the last sentence. You write:
“Gay men are simply wired slightly differently from straight men.”
Remove the adverb ‘slightly’ — it has a faint aura of political correctness about it.
Some of my best friends are home sexuals and, honest, they’re wired quite differently than homosexuals. Home sexuals go home and have kids, while homosexuals leave home and have sex.
The best stuff I’ve ever read about Cherie, anyhow.
Charles – Thank you, but I think I would take issue with you over the word “slightly”. I abhor political correctness and do not participate in it and I used the word with due care and attention.
Yes, (most) gay men do have the characteristics I referred to, in varying degrees. On the other hand, they also have a lot of the same characteristics as straight men. They rush into burning buildings to save children and old people. They stop to help on the highway if a woman has a stalled car. They’ll take a heavy bag away from a woman friend and carry it themselves. Many will open the car door for women. They have perfectly normal testosterone-fuelled aggression. If one needs a fuse changed, they’ll pop in and do it. If you have a broken window, they’ll come round and fix it for you.
This is why I consciously used the word “slightly”. Yes, they do have, again, in varying degrees, the characteristics I mentioned, and many others, but they also share the male characteristics of their straight brethern. They are not attracted to women, but they are still men, not some human halfway house.
Speaking of brethern, many families have homosexual brothers. I have read that it has to do with a mother having, for some reason, too much estrogen flowing through her body while she is carrying her child, and the over supply of estrogen inhibits the development of some specific estrogen-sensitive areas of the brain.
With respect, I’m sticking with “slightly”.
Andy,
It was good of Cydonia to leap to my defence but, in truth, I was being a little pompous – certainly in my tone. Nevertheless the distinction I made is an important one. I very much enjoy your contributions to Samizdata even though I often think that in your recently discovered enthusiasm for anarcho-libertarianism you tend to gloss over or misconstrue important details. I hope you will contiune to write for Samizdata and will not mind too much in future if I feel the need to offer some critical comment from time to time. Strange as it may seem I am not always right about everything myself.
Charles,
Paul, where can I have a debate on homosexuality with you? I’ll beat you flat down on that one any time.
No doubt an opportunity for this will arise at some juncture. I debate this issue frequently both online and in public. I do not accept this idea about ‘beating’ people in debate. I am a follower of Popper in these matters and regard debate as an opportunity to test our conjectures and perhaps exchange some error for truth. The language of the boxing ring is a very poor metaphor for argumantation.
Guessedworker,
You wear your little learning increasingly lightly. ‘Science’ will not be resolving any matters about anything anytime soon. Science is an ongoing process of the formulation and testing of hypothetical conjectures. However, as Cydonia commented, my point is philosophical not scientific.
Cydonia,
As it happens I am not a free will ‘libertarian’ rather I am a compatibilist (also known as a soft-determinist) who argues that the fully determined nature of our actions does not mitigate our responsibility for them.
Verity,
Like many women, I’ve always had close gay men friends.
Are you really sure that it is not just that, on actually meeting you, men tell you that they are gay?
Verity, you really are a veritable wellspring of petty resentments.
I love arrogance with which you claim to “know” Cherie better than someone who was actually familiar with her…
And accepting freebies or discounts is bad now? Wow.So if you were in her position, you’d refuse any gifts? No doubt, no doubt.
Anyway, I thought greed & acquisitiveness was what made the wheels of the great capitalist machine revolve at the ever-increasing rate we all enjoy. Otherwise entrepreneurs might be satisfied with a moderately successful small town shop, & never build multinational enterprises which employ thousands. Surely in that light Cherie’s acquisitive nature is setting a good example; promoting positive consumerism, no?
Note… i have no particular love for her & even less for her husband (who, incidentally, i don’t think is stupid, any more than gw bush is).
Hey, Verity, you are great when you’re spitting tacks.
I agree that inate inclination is the deciding factor in homosexuality. That is not at issue. The issue, for me, is whether man – homosexual or not – ordinarily has the full power of choice. If he has, the ethics of that choice stand alone in the light. Thus homo and heterosexuals have a certain equality. But if the power of choice is illusory, and the real determining factors of behaviour are genetics, psychology and the myriad externalities that act upon our consciousness, this equality is falls. There are no ethics in mechanicity.
The qualitative scale is one of effect and here, I am afraid, homosexuality is at a great and insurmountable disadvantage.
This is not to say that Paul’s view of better or worse choices within homosexuality isn’t useful in its own way. It’s just that it masks the reality of human consciousness – and, anyway, gives a helping hand to the less honourable notions of equality that we all know only too well. In that, of course, it is not alone in libertarian thinking.
Shawn:
I’m inclined to suspect that policies that can’t get the support of a plurality of self-employed taxi drivers has a problem.
As well as your father-in-law, who else might not be a member of the enemy class?
My neighbour? Michael Howard? Mr Patel the shopkeer? Mrs Miggins down the road?
How will we ever identify them all?
“… a large group of people… their hold on power must be utterly destroyed… center right government which just wants to institute mild reforms is of no use … Just to hold power long enough to hand it back again…
… leaving parts of the welfare state alone … circumvents the problems … of electability. By keeping enough of the people you need to vote for you happy for the time being… ”
Indeed.
Support the welfare state.
Attack the traitor culture of conspiring communists and cosmopolitans.
Democracy is a sham. Never concede power back to the enemy.
Trick people into voting for you.
Now why does this ring a bell?
One people, one country, one….oops.
A_t – Welcome back. We’ve been a little short on malice around here.
I didn’t write that I “know” LaToya Blair better than someone who is actually familiar with her. I said I had no reason to trust someone Cydonia knows who once knew Charleen Blair. Why would I be interested in the judgement of someone I don’t know, in the face of my own observations? You expected what? “Oh well, if Cydonia, who I don’t know, has a friend, or at least an acquaintance, who used to come into contact with Cherie Blair in the 1990s and says she’s a good egg, that’s good enough for me”?
What I observe about Blair is she is greedy and grasping and uses her position to get freebies from people who court her in the hope of getting publicity for their products. No designer in his right mind would want Cherie Blair appearing in his clothes – never mind for free – if she weren’t the wife of the prime minister.
She books flights in Economy, confident that she will be given free upgrades. She takes holidays at the expense of taxpayers – Italy and Egypt – in other countries. She is intentionally rude to our head of state. She makes her money in the “human rights” racket. Their combined income isn’t enough to fly First? To pay for their own accommodations? To buy their own clothes?
You write: I thought greed & acquisitiveness was what made the wheels of the great capitalist machine revolve at the ever-increasing rate we all enjoy. Yes, indeedy, A_t, yes indeed. But Cherie Blair’s a pinko, a dyed in the wool socialist tranzi, and totally opposed to the great capitalist machine. Cherie Blair wants everyone dependent on the state – except for her little forays into property speculation and who knows what else, of course.
JSF:
“Support the welfare state.”
My point was not to support the welfare state, but to leave it until it is the last pillar of the nanny state left.
“As well as your father-in-law, who else might not be a member of the enemy class?
My neighbour? Michael Howard? Mr Patel the shopkeer? Mrs Miggins down the road?
How will we ever identify them all?”
We dont need to identify people at all. We just need to take away their power by privatising the public sphere.
“Now why does this ring a bell?
One people, one country, one….oops.”
Oh dear. Is using the Nazi bugaboo really the best you can do for an argument? Puhleeease.
And your wrong anyway. What I was talking about was privatising most of the government and creating a genuine free market. Hitler was a socialist who expanded the government and regulated the economy.
But the Enemy Class is real enough. they share an ideology based on worship of the state and the U.N. They believe in transnational socialism and think national soveriegnty should be reduced. They believe in multiculturalism (the ideology not multi-ethnic societies) and a marxist interpretation “anti-racism” instead of individualism.
If we want a free society based on respect for individual rights, and a majoritarian democracy is not a free society, then we have to kick these people off the taxpayer funded payroll and encourage them to get real jobs.
So my question to you is what kind of society do you want and how do expect to get from here to there?
“A_t – Welcome back. We’ve been a little short on malice around here.”
🙂 lol.
Verity,
” …uses her position to get freebies from people who court her in the hope of getting publicity for their products”
Show me someone who doesn’t, given half a chance. I’ve known plenty people who’ve been given things because they’ve been dj’s, musicians etc, and they’ll give the products some exposure…. it never ocurred to me that this meant they were materialistic & grasping, but thanks for setting my moral compass straight.
I realise you disagree with the Blairs’ politics, but your childish jibes against them, & bitchiness towards Cherie rather detract from any serious points you may be trying to make.
A_t, if I buy a bunch of flowers for my sick Grandmother in bed, I am still engaging in a capitalist act. Greed and acquisitiveness is not what makes capitalism work. The fact that there are flowers in a stand waiting for me just as I want to buy them is irrelevent to whether my motives are greedy and acquisitive, or loving devotion to an elderly relative. Likewise, the stall owner need not be motivated by a greedy and acquisitive desire for my money – he might want it in order to support a family, or help to raise funds for a climbing frame in the local school.
We are still doing capitalism, though, so what motives our are irrelevant to the successfulness of capitalism in its ability to help us satisfy them. The fact that capitalism is the best system at making sure there is an odd coincidence between the presence of flowers on a stall at the same time as I happen to want to buy flowers is not dependent on my being greedy or acquisitive.
A_t – Yes, djs and movie and TV stars are often given free things in the hope that others will be motivated to copy them and purchase those products. I think the position of wife of the prime minister of a great country is slightly more elevated than that of a dj. Djs aren’t in a position of trust by grace of the electorate. Djs don’t earn what QCs – even QCs burrowed into the “human rights” pork barrel – earn.
Show biz accepts the trade off between freebies and being seen to promote those products. I think Imelda should not be using taxpayer-funded No 10 Downing St as a stage set for showing free designer clothes.
Why should other passengers and the company shareholders subsidise her upgrades? She’s the wife of the prime minister. What are they expecting in return? None of these businesses gives things away for free — not really free. They have strings attached.
That Cydonia’s friend or acquaintance or whatever who knew Mrs Blair back in the 90s and thought she was quite nice is off the scale of irrelevance. Even Barbra Streisand has friends.
Oh, dear, your provincialism is showing. Because I am a woman who heartily disapproves of another woman, that makes me “bitchy”? How absurd.
Shawn:
I really don’t think you’re a Nazi. I wouldn’t bother with you at all if I did (same as I never bother debating hardcore Communists).
I was using an offensive extrapolation to emphasise that I consider the tactics you advocate perilous.
Like those indicated by Peter UK as required to implement Gabb v0.1:
“This could only be done covertly,
Revolution.
Entryism.
Blatently lying about your real policies(Worked for New Labour)
A State of Emergency”
Firstly, I fear that power achieved in that way will turn against its wielders. Revolutionary conspiracies based on deception do not have a happy track record.
Secondly, I do not believe that deception is justified as a tool of politics, both on moral grounds (we’re supposed to be better than Blair, dammit) and because unless you change the underlying ideas, it the changes you make will simply be reversed later.
Just to “kick these people off the taxpayer funded payroll” won’t suffice, if enough people who work in the free market want ot see the abolished system restored i.e. if enough share the opinions of your father in law.
It’s all very well rejecting majoritarianism, but paradoxically you have to persuade the majority of the overriding import of liberty make that rejection stick.
Marxi-lite po-mo multi-culti tranzi PC right-on-ism is there, nasty, nauseating, and damaging. But trying to extirpate it by peddling a false prospectus seems to me counterproductive in principle and practice.
Contra Guessedworker, Margaret Thatcher may not have outlined all the details of monetarism in her manifestoes and speeches (or she may; cant recall;) but she made her agenda of curbing unions, lower taxes, denationalisation, curbing inflation etc. clear. Nobody can sensibly claim her actions came as a complete suprise.
You ask:
“what kind of society do you want”: a liberal one (old fashioned sense)
“how do expect to get from here to there?”: ideas, persuasion, economic reality, the ideal of liberty, objective reality, debate, dicussion, persuasion.
Come on, Marxism is dead; it’s only its spectre that haunts us now. Lets say “Scramsci” to Gramsci!
“The worst sin is despair.”
Verity, can I hazard a guess… are you an American living in France?
Oh, & Verity whether one is parochial or not,
“No designer in his right mind would want Cherie Blair appearing in his clothes – never mind for free – if she weren’t the wife of the prime minister.”
is near-perfect textbook bitchiness.
…on which note, i’m off to enjoy the English sunshine while it lasts (hopefully all weekend!).
Verity:
Personally, I tend to share your view of Cherie’s performance in public life – pretty poor and not what one would expect from a PM’s wife – but people are complicated things and it is quite possible for somebody to be undignified (or worse) in some respects but nice in other ways. In fact the “someone” whose views I was reporting absolutely loathes Cherie’s politics and all that Nulabor stand for, but still insists that Cherie was personally a kind lady when she knew her.
Cydonia
Cydonia – Forgive me but so — what?
Whether your friend loathes Imelda’s politics but judges her “nice” regardless is not the point.
The damage these two chancers have done to the respect the world formerly felt for No 10, now aka The Petit Trianon, is the point. The wife on the loose for free clothes, shoes, flights, accommodation abroad, bargains in property speculation is the point. Her husband plays for higher stakes — Bernie Ecclestone, Lakshmi Mittal, Jeffrey Robinson etc etc etc …
Apart from the above, Cydonia, a ravening, power-hungry (and they all are) socialist is not a nice person. There’s a lust for control, no matter how she disguises it as “caring”. Personally, I don’t want Imelda “caring” about me. I’d run a mile.
Cydonia,
Give it up. You know you are seriously outgunned when Verity takes against another female. What can you possibly offer in reply?
Of course, there is the minor distraction of the purpose of this most topsy-turvy thread … the hunt for the means by which Mike Howard can save the world.
Paul,
For once I fully agree with you — ekshelly I’m also a Popper devotee and, like you, consider debate as a conjecture-testing opportunity. I’m all for the Socratic dialogue rather than going for the jugular. I just expressed myself somewhat clumsily. What I ‘really meant’ when I said I would beat you flat down is that, at this moment, I think I probably would, but of course I may be mistaken: your arguments and knowledge of the facts may be better than mine, and I might learn something from you.
Anyway I’m about to google you and ferret out what I find … more on some other occasion, if Samizdata ever comes round to debating gay issues again.
Now, Guessed, when you have a point against Charles Copeland or any other gentleman of this parish, it wouldn’t cross anyone’s mind to think you were engaging in little scratchy-clawed scraggle with another of your sex. OTOH, I make a few less than complimentary remarks, all of them justified in neon lighting, about the wife of the prime minister of Britain, and suddenly it’s about me arguing as a woman against another woman.
I am debating as a person. I am repelled by Imelda in her own right, as I am repelled by greasy looking Lardbutt Brown in his own right.
If I say Brown is repellent, that’s OK? According to A_t, because I mention in passing someone who has the charm and demeanour of a ripe sausage in a two-sizes too-small sari gifted by British passport seekers the altruistic Hinjuda brothers, I am suddenly transformed into a bitch. What did I say that was so wrong?
JSF:
“”This could only be done covertly,
Revolution.
Entryism.
Blatently lying about your real policies(Worked for New Labour)
A State of Emergency””
These were Peter UK’s ideas, not Gabbs nor mine.
I dont support them and never mentioned them.
“Just to “kick these people off the taxpayer funded payroll” won’t suffice, if enough people who work in the free market want ot see the abolished system restored i.e. if enough share the opinions of your father in law.”
The question that Gabb rightly adresses though is WHY do such people support tyranny in the first place? Ask my father in law. He had a state education. He watches the BBC. The government protects his taxi monopoly. Unless you destroy these underpinnings, especially state education, state media and economic regulation, then we are not living in a free market of ideas.
“ideas, persuasion, economic reality, the ideal of liberty, objective reality, debate, dicussion, persuasion.”
Good luck with that. But the Enenmy has no intentions of giving up power voluntarily.
Andy – Back to your original post – I think the Tories are in with a chance to win the upcoming election, although by a very slender margin. They’ve got the socialists on the run re immigration, which is a subject that is of vital concern to most of the electorate – which shows you how out of touch Blair and the thugs and chancers who surround him are. And they did it so cleverly. They made a mark.
And they frightened Blair and the creepy Mandelson so badly that they suddenly rebranded “multiculturalism” – which is where their hearts are – as “integration”. Ridiculous, but it may work with some of the less perceptive voters.
Howard has two advantages in the immigration arena that Blair can never have. One, he is from a family of immigrants. In fact, I think he may be only second generation. Second, he is from an unindigenous ethnic group – he’s Jewish. Oliver (I love socialism) Letwin is also from an immigrant family and is also Jewish. They are untouchable on this subject.
I am taking it on trust that the Tories have a few surprises in other areas up their sleeves but are, of necessity, keeping schtum. And they’ve got Saatchi working away quietly behind the scenes.
My only fear is, as others have mentioned above, is, they won’t be radical enough. They’ve got to offer a real choice. The glitter has dropped off Tony Blair and what’s now in evidence is a sharpie conman. In fact, he’s being revealed as very much along the lines of that Aussie conman who helped Cherie in her venture into property speculation. A lot of people now loathe him personally.
I just wish someone could find Michael Portillo and Kenneth Clark a job somewhere a long way away.
BTW, I do not believe that Mandelson is going to be shovelled off to be an EU Commissioner. Not before the next election, anyway. Blair needs him.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Here was I thinking that we would at last delineate the Gramscian influences and their success or otherwise, given the history of the last half century, notwithstanding all the seismic geopoloitical shifts; but we have once again drifted into a number of tributaries that are confusing me even more.
Andy rubs me down with the Sporting Life and tells me that I don’t have to worry, because he saw it all from the inside during his Militant days and despite the blueprints that were drawn up, the Marxist creed will always fail because self-interest almost always prevails, as it did in his own case. As he has flounced off because of the remarks of one of the other posters, I cannot now return to his response directly, but I would find his argument more convincing if the unrepresentative control of society’s levers, situated at the basement level of the corridors of power, were not so profoundly in the hands of those hell-bent on a new cultual hegemony of the left.
And from the performance of the media over the past 40 years, particularly since 9/11, I can only infer that the blueprint has become reality in those areas of cultural life which form public opinion and therefore provide the political clout necessary to effect the dire changes that have taken place and have enabled this government.
Guessed.
Your response on 15th April @ 3. 43pm was insightful and the most comprehensive analysis so far on this thread. It modifies your other similar expositions on other threads that have drifted almost by accident into the Gramscian inspired politics that I fear so much (mainly because I had inferred from empirical experience that it was indeed afoot, without having had the necessary prior academic opportunities that would have undoubtedly have gotten me to the source and label for it – until I read Gabb’s 113).
I suspect that your very recent readings on the subject have modiified your own thinking, or at least that is what I infer from the nuances of your posts above, which differ somewhat, as I have said, from previous ones.
Your assertion that Howard is unlikely to be able to seriously impact on what has already been achieved by the Ggs is the most depressing aspect of what you express or imply, as I also fear that is true.
Nobody has answered my question, “How many of the current government, the opposition parties, the centre/right media (if such a thing still exists) are fully aware of the blueprints, or even of Gramsci and his post-mortem followers?” If you are still around Andy, perhaps your might like to address that point.
Verity
Despite your admiration for the interior decor skills, the good manners, the fastidiousness, the unrepresentative high IQ among your homosexual friends, with all of which I do not necessarily feel able to demur (except insofar that all generalities are dangerous and I could cite many examples of the very opposite from my Vice Squad days dealing with the rough trade we all speak as we find), the Gay Pride movement is highly politicised and whether or not its devotees are all aware of it, it is being used to undermine social and sexual norms, as Gramsci specifically suggested. And it has infiltrated the media to such an unrepresentative extent that many of my 11 grandchildren seem a confused about gender and its implications.
When I see Brian Paddick marching ahead of a Gay Pride rally with a large contingent of the Gay Police Association, my blood runs cold and I wonder, whither the Sexual Offences Act 1956 and the safeguards that were enacted therein?
We tried to thrash this out on the ‘abandonment of marriage’ thread on MP’s blog last November and the ad hominem fury became so personal and vitriolic (over 380 posts if I remember) that it obviously polluted Melanie’s blog to the point that she had to close down the comments section. But before she did so Reuben Chappel included an essay on the Gramscian element of the Gay Rights Movement (which others refer to as the Gay Rights conspiracy). I do find that women in general do seem to be less inclined to condemn homosexuality, as a proclivity, than men. I suppose for obvious reasons, or, maybe, not so obvious – what say you? Depravity is surely as abhorrent to women as to men on the whole, isn’t it? And when depravity becomes a leftist political tool, then surely we have a right to oppose it?
I suppose while I respect individual liberty, and that includes sexual behaviour – up to the point that it is, as the law currently allows, nobody else’s business provided that it occurs in private, between no more than two consenting adults (adult now having been redefined downwards to a ludicrously low level) I am not prepared to stand by mutely when an organised attack on sexual mores undermines many of the tenets of family life and redraws the boundaries of what is regarded as perversion by the majority of decent people. And I include, in that, overt hedonistic and debauched hetersexual behaviour. I suppose this is bound to offend those of a ‘libertarian bent’ so to speak.
But again I have fallen into the trap of taking this thread up another creek, what I really want to know, from my itellectual betters (which I wholeheartedly acknowledge – and probably demonstrate), is who can oppose the leftist cultural hegemony plot and how? I do not remember ever seeing this Italian gnome’s name or polices ever discussed in the mainstream press, tabloid or broadsheet, or through the medium of current affairs television. Why – given Cleon Skousen’s list in 1958, John Fonte’s treatise from the Hudson Insitute and Sean Gabb’s 113/114 et seq.? Surely it is a debate that should be opened up to the electorate at large. What I fear is that the Tory Party itself has its own adherents to Gramsci. “Let’s say Scramci to Gramsci” is a cute slogan, but Gramsci already scrammed, like all the other socialist engineers of yesteryear. It’s his heirs, successors and modifiers that I fear, because few in Britain seem to admit that they exist and Andy feels it appropriate to piss off and smell the roses, rather than address it. Given his self disclosed ‘previous’ methinks the gentleman doth protest too much”
Sorry Verity
I missed your last post while I was composing mine unknowing that you had already used your oar (oooh, you are oarful – but I liake you!) to get the thread back on course. Sympathise with all the points made in your last post.
Frank – As I said a few posts up, male homosexuality happens while the child is still in the womb.
These gay pride people are on the fringe, and I don’t think they started off being politically motivated, except to get recognition that they are Good As You (GAY) and they’re taxpayers and most are law abiding citizens. I knew a few people who were vaguely, but not fanatically, involved. It started out fairly harmlessly, I think, and it wasn’t until perhaps 10 or 15 years later that the lefties spied a terrific opportunity and hijacked it.
Like all these special pleading groups, they have been accorded a voice by the lefty press far louder than their membership numbers justify. (A lot of show-offs and hard cases march in gay pride parades – you only have to look at the costumes to recognise a huge attention-seeking element. In other words, furtherance of a political doctrine is the furthest thought from their minds. I don’t know any accountants, doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers, etc who march in them.)
So once again, I believe a fairly innocent grass roots movement which accomplished its ends peacefully 20 years ago, got co-opted by the militants. Without the militants to encourage them, gay pride parades would probably have dwindled to almost nothing these days. It is the hijackers who have been predictably destructive. The dedicated Marxists and destroyers of the social order.
Brian Paddick looks totally insane, by the way. But how strange that he is pandered to in this wise. The police force in Britain is all but destroyed now. I see in The Telegraph that the Met is going to “fast track” minority applicants. (How about fast-tracking the apprehension of criminals?) Who has asked for this? My guess: no one. Once again, it’s a social change being imposed from the top down and serving two purposes: one, the further weaking of the police force in practise and in the way it is regarded by the citizenry. And second, it’s on more thwack with the multiculti bludgeon to fool British people that, with around a 6% ethnic minority, the entire country is really black and muslim. Two birds with one stone.
I see the gay cleric who didn’t get to be Bishop of Reading is to be rewarded by being made Dean of St Pauls. A very timid move indeed. For their purposes, the Chairman of the Muslim Council of Britain would have been a stronger horse.
What is strange is how nebulous all this is, and how they’ve managed to wreak such vast changes in the fabric of Britain with so little opposition. The people know they hate it, but they don’t know how to stop it. And they are increasingly fearful to voice their thoughts outside their own close circle. So even the tiny amount of verbal opposition to these changes being made without permission is being stamped out.
BTW – don’t worry about Andy. He flounced back in round about halfway down the thread. He’s still available for comments and brickbats.
BTW II – The vast majority of gay men are no more interested in assaulting children than are the vast majority of straight men. This interest in converting normal children into homosexuals does not come from the gay world itself. In the main, they have no sexual interest in little boys and they don’t want to “convert” straights. They are attracted to other men of a similar mindset. Again, it is an agenda of destabilisation brought in from the outside.
And, no, everything in the garden is not lovely. I have also known gay men who walk on the wild side and they are best avoided.
Verity,
That’s the point. You never say anything that’s wrong. Your expression is so inventive and, I think, immediate that I, as a one-time pro writer, tend to get caught up in the entertainment of it all.
Incidentally, Charles and I haven’t had any disagreements. We are very happily married, as you might infer from his interest above in gay issues, and plan to adopt several black children if the Social Services Dept in Brent think we are politically suitable.
Oh dear, we’re off topic again.
I think Michael Howard & Co have a genuine chance of winning the next election, despite Mr Howard’s inclination to be straight and non-black. I think the Shadow Cabinet is smarter than the Eight Stooges (or however many there are; who can remember?) in Blair’s cabinet. They are better looking. They can think actual thoughts on their feet. Blair’s cabinet spouts thoughts that aren’t so much thoughts as vapour trails.
Saatchi is smarter than Mandelson although – here is the danger – despite being ideologically driven, his vision is normal; not world domination via the UN, World Court et Freres. A substantial segment of the British electorate seems to believe that these supranational entities actually make a mythical “international law” and run the world. This is what going to a state school does for you.
The Tories’ programme is more … hmmm … opaque? … wisely, so far.
I think if they win the European elections, Blair will wet his knickers. And I think they’re in with a skinny chance. We couldn’t have said this a year ago.
However, I also see that Blair’s cabinet of whores is urging a referendum on this Mickey Mouse “constitution”. If they manage to frighten him into submission, every legal and illegal immigrant will be accorded a vote and a threat of severe welfare withdrawal if they get it wrong. They will also try to frighten the horses by turning it into a “Do We Want to Quit The EU And Commit Economic Suicide” vote.
This is how I see the run-up (just to pull this thread back on Andy’s original track).
Final, major fear: will Bush back Blair in an election?
Is the Pope Methodist?
Frank,
I think it’s best to assume that all the active left is composed of Captured Intellects, to one degree or another. If you believe in equality in a form beyond just “under the Law” or as an economic outcome you are supporting the Project.
You seem to be expecting to find here a flow of excited, creative contributions towards a reserval engine, drivable by Tory politicians. Well I’ve tried to prime the pump twice on this thread alone. No fuel in the tank by the look of it.
I think that’s perfectly understandable. Who are we, after all? Maggie T came to office with Milton Friedman and Hayek in her handbag. There are no cultural Friedmans and Hayeks. There are plenty of good minds on the right, Roger Scruton types who could address the issue. But at present they don’t see the need, no doubt because it must involve breaking with nicey, nicey race behaviour. Dr Gabb finished 114 saying what I do – a marxian England, change by political means or the violent revenge of the right, it’s got to be one or another. But he still feels the need to distance himself from the last. He is no English nationalist. But I’m not complaining. I am extremely grateful to Dr Gabb for his efforts.
Well, I’m no political philosopher. Paul is. But this isn’t his cup of tea. Anyway, as briefly as possible this is how I see the (very few) working parts of that godammed reversal engine:-
The marxian state machinery demands minarchism, or at least a substantial gesture in that direction.
The anti-hegemonic drift of identity politics demands a reactive presumption for the majority.
The ravages to our political and social life caused by Political Correctness demand thoroughgoing renewal of the public discourse, including genuine freedom of speech and association.
Yeah, yeah. Modest. And fall of grieous errors, no doubt. So, c’mon. Knock it down. Build something better (but not even more hopelessly, idealistic libertarian than this).
JSF,My point was not that these things are desirable but that is what it would take to implement Gabb’s ideas. This would be revolution because the entrenched “Enemy Class” would slaughter a democratic approach.You can hear the slogans now,”Lurch to the Right”,”Destruction of the National Health Service”,” Dangerously Divisive”,”Racist”,”Right Wing Fanatics”,”Millions plunged into poverty”,”Thousands of babies will Die.” Wev’e heard it all before but in these circumstances they will pull out all the stops.There would be a wave of public sector strikes where they can do the most damage and the project would be dead before it started.
The only peaceful way is to destroy the moral argument of the enemy class first
Peter, your argument is sound up until your last sentence. Their way of answering argument is not debate, but bashing the life out of those impertinent enough to raise questions.
You have identified one of the two major problems. The first is the bovine stupidity of the electorate. Bread and circuses … Mmmmm … nice hay …
The other is, the right of centre, now characterised as scary-far-right-insane-people-who-don’t-even-believe-in-a-crap-free-health-service, will not be allowed to have a voice. There was a good piece in this week’s Speccie by Michael Gove, despite that he writes for The Times, on how even the Daily Mail has joined in the anti-American, anti-war baying. Melanie Phillips and Anne Leslie are the two voices left keening honourably into the night.
Gove cites writers like Matthew Parris and Stephen Glover as people who’ve been ‘turned’. I think this is a bit extreme. Parris in particular has never been a real voice for conservatism or libertarianism.
But my point is, opposing voices are being stifled. The door to debate is being clanked shut. (I know this isn’t news.)
So, the question is: what is required? That is the critical point. Libertarians and conservatives have had the microphones removed and even the formerly sound and now ownerless Telegraph, giggles at their every attempt to introduce sanity into the debate. Their editorial page cartoons are leftie ’70s student. How fortunate for the Gramcians, by the way, that The Telegraph finds itself with an editor who doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing and without the guiding hand of a proprietor at this specific juncture.
Be scared.
Verity I said “destroy the moral argument of the enemy class first”,I meant just that,not debate,not discuss,not chat about over a drink,but destroy.The enemy class assumes that their world view is the default position and that any other viewpoint is immoral.That has got to change before anything else can be achieved.
Incidentally I have a friend who collects pictures of Cherie gurning.
Peter Bocking
Peter, yes. Destroy the enemy class. How? They’re entrenched and are busy rewriting the rules. Tell us how and you will how 10,000 foot soldiers by tomorrow morning. 100,000 by next week at this time.
Re your friend: I don’t think Cherie was gurning. Her mad smiles and tonsil views are all part of what is perceived as her “charm” – you should forgive the phrase. Certainly very frightening, but then, Celine Dion is also very frightening. But she’s surviving in the free market without patronage.
Verity,
Think Abu Hamza, none of the cringeing crew have the nuts to tackle him,as I’ve said before the enemy class are cowards,we have to treat them like Hamza treats them.They are middle class,they can’t cope with being shouted at.
The man in the street likes to see the ruling elite chewed up,look at the joy when the Womens Institute ripped the seat of Tony Baloney’s pants out.
Every assertion must be challenged,for example,”National Health Service is the envy of the World”.Why? Is It? Nobody has copied it.
There are countless default positions like this that can be attacked.
Verity
This not the thread to follow it through, I guess, but I cannot agree with all your assertions about homosexuality. To suggest that corruption is not possible in puberty or even younger, unless homosexuality is determined in the womb flies in the face of facts. All sexual behaviour is part nature and part nurture. I have seen many young boys in dire straits who were not queer turn to homosexual prostitution for money. Part of the evil conspiracy in the West End of London in the 1960’s – 1970’s after the changes in the law, led to a gigantic industry of vice and corruption. This was organised in part by a cadre of homosexual thugs who made millions from ‘rent boys’ (waifs and strays from the provinces, many as young as 12-13) who were not necessarily homosexual when they arrived in the West End, but were encouraged to do it for money by ponces for the benefit of evil queers, many from the media – the BBC in particular, who used to arrive at Piccadilly Circus in their chauffeur driven cars to cruise the ‘meat rack’, as it was colourfully known. The money that the male prostitutes were allowed to keep was minimal, while the queer ponces accrued fortunes. Two in particular were responsible for part of the venal corruption of central squads at Scotland Yard. Organised predatory homosexuality is much more widespread than you suggest and I have known many women who have been ‘turned’ by cunning lesbians. I agree that there are congenital homosexuals, many harmless, who live in monogamous relationships, but the vast majority that came into my ambit were not in stable relationships, they were almost insanely promiscuous and often ridden with venereal disease; more latterly the AIDS epidemic speaks for itself. If lilbertarians insist on depravity being a an idividual choice, then lock up both your daughters and your sons. As a criminal enterprise and a political device, organised homosexuality has always been and will continue to be a menace.
Take a look at the following blog: http://www.gayconspiracy.co.uk/gayagenda.htm
You will not agree with most of it, I know, but there is a great deal of data amidst the wilder assertions that are valid. The 1956 Sexual Offences Act was a necessary law in the fight against Organised Crime. The fact that it has been tinkered with and diluted is a crime itself. And of course it deals mainly with commercial heterosexual exploitation and other serious offences such as rape, so depravity is not confined to the ‘gay’ community. It’s just that they take debauchery to a deeper level the abyss.
Peter UK – Yes. We all know where to attack the lying left. But the question is how, and this you are evading. How, for example, does the right get a voice? Do you think, even if they can bludgeon their way onto The Today Show, for example, or Jeremy Paxman or Any Questions, they would be allowed to have their say? On Any Questions, a voice from the right is howled down by an audience pre-packed with the radical left. To someone who voices a mildly rightist opinion on News Night, Jeremy Paxman looks as though he’s just turned over a stone and seen conjoined twin albino slugs. To anyone who advances a mildly rightist opinion on the Today Show – assuming he is allowed onto the Today Show in the first place – John Humphries and Jim Naughtie wallow in a sneer fest, don’t let the poor interviewee finish a sentence and express horrified disbelief that anyone holding such opinions should be free to walk the streets.
How do you propose that we fight an election while gagged?
Frank – You are referring to the sleazy underworld. You speak of what you know. I speak of what I know. Most law-abiding, taxpaying, voting gays are mildly libertarian in their sympathies. They wouldn’t vote for a leftie just because a leftie held out the promise of gay marriage was my original point. They care about house prices, tax rates, policing, the price of gas and they clip coupons to go to the supermarket. John Kerry could offer them gay marriage with complimentary designer wedding outfits and bouquets, trumpets, free Krug and Mr Universe as the master of honour and they still would not vote for him.
Peter UK,
The weakness in your argument is two-fold. First, it isn’t enough to attack the false moral foundation of the Enemy. Second, there is no “we”, no constituency united in the desire to do it.
Verity
‘Frank – You are referring to the sleazy underworld. You speak of what you know. I speak of what I know. Most law-abiding, taxpaying, voting gays are mildly libertarian in their sympathies. They wouldn’t vote for a leftie just because a leftie held out the promise of gay marriage was my original point. They care about house prices, tax rates, policing, the price of gas and they clip coupons to go to the supermarket. John Kerry could offer them gay marriage with complimentary designer wedding outfits and bouquets, trumpets, free Krug and Mr Universe as the master of honour and they still would not vote for him.’
Indeed, we speak as we find, as I agreed above. And the social life that I managed to squeeze in, midst my, at times, all-pervasive duties, did take me into circles which included the complete spectrum of humankind. I found many homosexuals with the qualities you describe above among my circle of friends and acquaintances, who were by no means proselytising and merely wished to live their lives in peace and be left alone by those who wished to ‘out’ them for the ’cause’.
But I was trying to address the political dimension of the of the Gay lobby; the ‘movement’, particularly in the context of this thread.
And I must ask, is it justifiable to excuse transnational, multicultural, leftist politics, because some of the people who adhere to such views are perfectly capable of choosing matching drapes, sofas and carpets, compliment you on your new frock and swap perfumes with you?
I may not mind too much what rituals Freemasons get up to in the privacy of their lodges or what they dress up to do it; I may even admire the charitable works of the Brotherhood; but when they use their sub-rosa alliance to discriminate against non-masons and secure privilege that they have neither earned nor are entitled to in any way, I feel that they should be exposed for doing it and deprived of whatever benefit they have arranged for each other in this way, or any immunity they have set up for themselves.
Some of the Mafia Dons of Cosa Nostra I met in their enclaves of the US, were polite, discerning, well dressed, thoughtful and fun to be with, if you could forget for a moment the underlying evil of what they represented. They had all been born into the ‘family’ and considered themselves ‘honorable’. Indeed they referred to each as ‘Good People’.
The Gay lobby seems to me to have become a Pink Mafia more powerful than any other Mafia I encountered throughout my years in office and certainly more political. And whatever organisation they infiltrate (and I use that word advisedly) they discriminate in favour of their own. It’s one of the reasons that the BBC has become so reviled on this blog and why so many straight members within the organisation complain about what is going on. If sexual ‘orientation’ (I would rather it were referred to as ‘disorientation’) becomes a political device, it requires the same opposition as any other political device, from those who dissent against it’s aims. Political correctness is now enshrined in the law to an unacceptable degree IMHO., It is preventing counteractive political opposition. I’m surprised that you don’t find this alarming, givien your trenchant views against all other strains of Marxist-Hegelian-Gramscian philosophy.
I suppose you are implying that Howard is right in being ‘inclusive’ and that you’ll be happy if he can round up the pink lobby to oust Blair, rather than assist in his re-election. I doubt there are sufficient among their numbers to be much use to the Tory vote overall, Portillistas notwithstanding. And Howard’s pandering to the Gay lobby will put off more voters than it will garner, believe me.
But then I’m from a generation that knew their arses from their elbows, the vast majority of whom regarded the crime of buggery as an abomination, as it was described in the Metropolitan Police General Orders in the explanatory notes to the legislation of 1956 (not 1856 as some would like us to believe who wish us to think that the laws regarding sodomy were biblical, or at least ‘Victorian’.)
But it is nice to see the tolerant side of your psyche and I hope we can differ without acrimony on this little diversion from complete accord. 🙂
Guessed
Glad to hear that you and Charles are a ‘thing’, I shall view each of your postings with added interest. Perhaps you’ll keep us posted when you acquire you adopted brood of Afro-Carib babies; now that’s a social study I would like to keep abreast of. In fact one of the unfortunate side effects of male old age is to to develop breasts which would almost qualifiy me to volunteer as a wet nurse for your charges. Now that would be the milk of human kindness:-)
Frank,
You should join your questionable friends in the gym and get some pectoral improvement underway. It’s never too late. After seven or eight months a man of your intellectual force should be able to press a hundred K (that was Frank Bruno’s best fighting weight) and dead-lift, say, 180 (Cyril Smith’s). It’ll put ten years on you. Of course, you will want to shower at home.
I found your following comment arresting, if you will pardon the pun:-
“The Gay lobby seems to me to have become a Pink Mafia more powerful than any other Mafia I encountered throughout my years in office and certainly more political. And whatever organisation they infiltrate (and I use that word advisedly) they discriminate in favour of their own.”
This is a separate issue, Frank. It cannot be thrown into the cultural marxist pot. Actual advantage for minorities is not what the Cultural Marxist/Gramscian seeks. Self-hatred playing upon a weak character is inevitably reflected outward upon those most like himself. And there’s the key: “that most like himself”. So, racial minority leaders are not CM/G’s. Gay rights activists are not CM/G’s. They simply grandstand to their own group advantage with the dynamic of Cultural Marxism/Gramscianism (or Gramscism, I’m never sure which). At best, these people are Captureds. The pay-off for real CM/G’s is always the debasement of the hegemonic power. That is white and heterosexual, and generally but not always male.
Staying with the homosexual theme, since it seems to have taken over this thread, one should, I think, view the CM/G’s as political HIV carriers. They have been infected anything up to forty years ago but they are still busily infecting others. And whilst they don’t go on to develop the full-blown disease we, most assuredly, have it.
The cure is freedom. We need a philosophy of freedom espoused by the Party of Freedom. I’ve tried to throw a few ideas out about what that might entail to get a debate started but no one seems interested. Pity.
Frank – I have said several times in this thread that gays, in the main, do not vote for the left. They are not tranzis. The unhinged minority probably don’t bother to vote. Middle class gays vote on the issues Ihave mentioned several times: taxes, property prices, the price of gas, policing, highway funding, etc. In other words, what other conservative and libertarian thinkers vote for.
I said above that the gay lobby has been hijacked by lefty politicians. As Guessed says above, the more outspoken and activist gays are often grandstanders, but they are encouraged and catered to by the lefties because their organisations are a useful tool. I said the same further up this thread. The people, by and large, who take part in Gay Pride marches are not political; they have a theatrical desire to show off and meet new “friends”. Same with the AIDS lobby. Gays themselves, by and large, are not attracted to the politics of the left.
They are Princess Diana manqué. She was taken over, during the last couple of years of her life and with a vengeance after her death, by the Gramscians/Marxists who saw her as a tool for getting rid of the Monarchy. I doubt whether any of them gave a stuff about her, any more than they give a stuff about the rights of gays.
I am fed up with reading and writing about gays when I want to read thoughts on what the Tories have to do to wrench the premiership of Britain out of Blair’s cold, Hitlerian hands.
Guessed
Actually my pecs aren’t too bad considering the ravages of time and tide. I was jossing, just to develop your satire. But ’tis a fact that I have noticed in recent years that as the body ages beyond 65, strange changes do tend occur, aside from the wrinkles and receding hair line (even more so post 70), so I was only half joking. I just hope yours was not a half-joke, but a full blown pisstake, otherwise my powers of perception vis-a-vis character and personality are beginning to diminish, too.
You say:
‘This is a separate issue, Frank. It cannot be thrown into the cultural marxist pot. Actual advantage for minorities is not what the Cultural Marxist/Gramscian seeks. Self-hatred playing upon a weak character is inevitably reflected outward upon those most like himself. And there’s the key: “that most like himself”. So, racial minority leaders are not CM/G’s. Gay rights activists are not CM/G’s. They simply grandstand to their own group advantage with the dynamic of Cultural Marxism/Gramscianism (or Gramscism, I’m never sure which). At best, these people are Captureds. The pay-off for real CM/G’s is always the debasement of the hegemonic power. That is white and heterosexual, and generally but not always male.’
An interesting slant, very perspicacious, and of course to some degree accords with Verity’s observations (oft repeated as she said – but I was disagreeing in various ways – not failing to read or understand the points she made) but what you both seem to be saying is that the Trojan Horse is not important, it’s the contents of it’s belly that will getcha and I agree up to a point. But I also know that co-conspirators in the crime of cultural vandalism don’t necessarily have to be allies in all matters, or even of similar political views. It’s an unholy alliance and maybe a temporary conjunction of interests, but I neither want our culture to become communist in any of its varied insidious guises, nor to become depraved and sexually dysfunctional. Know your enemy and recognise its disparate nature, is what I posit as a start in defeating it. What militant gays are trying to achieve is as inimical to out nation and culture as any of the other targets regularly fired at on this blog, IMHO. And when they team up with other facilitators, particularly in the media (where I observed at first hand during my stint in TV journalism in the 80’s) they are not as innocuous as Verity proclaims and indeed are one of the swinging balls (if you’ll pardon the expression) in the destruction of the cultural edifices that we know and some of us love. And if you haven’t already, I heartily recommend the URL I quoted in my previous post which features Reuben Chappel’s treatise (the whole blog is worth a read, just to know what’s cooking, if you can stomach some of the more spurious stuff just for entertainment). When I take up this issue, I do so having been involved in most of the background noise that accompanied all the anguished debate that took place from Wolfenden onwards and perhaps have had the rather dubious honour of interviewing more sexual cripples, commercial sexual entrepreneurs and victims in my working life than the egregious Kinsey (who incidentally should have been nicked himself as a perverted fraudster). I repeat, it is a very powerful Mafia, based on a depraved proclivity. Why is that not not aposite to this thread, when we know it is not only being used, but allowing itself to be used for nefarious leftist ends? As for suggestions about what Howard should or should not do: first do not invite any more vipers into the nest – particularly arse vipers! Stand up and proclaim centre-rightist policies, tell all the whinging minorities to go indulge in auto-intercourse, tighten the borders, throw the proposed ‘European Constitution’ proposals into a Thomas Crapper porcelain disposal basin where they belong and let’s return to being English first, British second, American allies third and use Continental Europe for the only thing it’s good for, taking holidays and dumping our sub-standard goods on. Withdraw every British parasitical politician who has his nose in the Brussels trough and make them work for their living. I want no more of it.
When they bored the tunnel under the Channel in the Eighties and invited mug punters to invest in it’s future, I proclaimed that it would be the biggest bust- out that had ever been perpetrated on the investors and the governments involved. Was I right, or wrong?Pull all the trains out of it and blow it up – officially, before anyone else does it as a terrorist biggy and inadvertantly does us all a favour (except the poor bastards trapped in it!) Uuggghhh!
Frank – you make many good points and they are pertinent.
As I said, like the gay rights gang, Diana was also hijacked by the lefties. That interview with Martin Bashir or whatever his name is was a hoot. She too, pursuing her own agenda, inadvertently handed them ammunition to use against the institution she confidently expected her son one day to head. They are incredibly energetic opportunists.
You want the Channel Tunnel blown up (while empty of trains, of course, although any foot passengers walking through with suitcases on their heads would have a brief, dramatic experience).
I want the BBC dismantled stat. I think it is a source of much of the damage that has been done to the fabric of Britain, against the will of the British. The other ills you mention could not have taken root and thrived without its connivance.
Question is, Verity, whether you are after an election victory, as per the Gabb that gave rise to Andy’s original posting, or a broader philosophical foundation for the Tories in office.
A number of commenters on this thread have referred to the non-essentiality of a guiding philosophy for electioneering purposes. Someone said Maggie T made known her aims before the 79 election. But that is only partly true. I still remember the day of Howe’s 1980 budget that replaced Keynesian economics with a soft version of Friedmanite moneterism. For its budget day presentation the Beeb had set up a small interview group of northern working folk – you know, capstan lathe operators, tea ladies, a local union organiser, a local councillor. As the economists back in the London studio explained that henceforth prosperity would have to be real and may travel backwards as well as forwards, and earnings would no longer increase ad infinitum as if by natural law, the group was thrown into a state of shock. They had come face with reality for the first time in living memory.
Moneterism was, indeed, reality. A similar cold bath is required now to publicly expose and curtail the unreality of equality – but not pre-election. Equality as pursued (chiefly) through identity politics and political correctness is not the sort of headline issue that union power was in Callaghan’s time. In any case, the administrative web, to use Dr Gabb’s phrase, ruthlessly conditions the hegemonic discourse. No anti-equality measures could be proposed pre-election without the debate becoming about Nasty Tories.
So my advice is to forget the election, or at least treat it a separate issue. Look for the cultural equivalent of monetarism. I’ve suggested one might start the search by kicking around minarchism, a reactive presumption for the majority, freedom of speech and association. What’s your suggestion?
Frank,
It is perfectly evident that both you and Verity are correct. But you have cleaved to your own area of experience and, like the proverbial blind professors groping about an elephant, have arrived at diametrically opposed opinions.
So what to do about it? Well, certainly, rather than set oneself in opposition to sexual minorities per se (I was going to write “in fruitless opposition” but realised that might not make sense to some people), I prefer to concentrate on redressing the balance between minority and majority interests.
Furthermore, I would analyse that issue solely from the majority perspective. This has two products. First, it denies the spurious group aspect of minorityism any purchase on the argument. Whatever their motivations, CM/G egalitarianism or plain pro-homosexual pleading, they are left pissing in the wind. Second, it puts the emphasis wholly on what actually works in western societies and renders only right and proper the kind of remedialism that, today, would lead straight to charges of “Nasty Tory”.
In this way, the moral argument that has underpinned four decades of liberal-left advancement can be turned through one hundred and eighty degrees quite naturally. People would find it strange at first, but not as strange as that BBC interview group found Geoffrey Howe’s landmark 1980 budget. And they’d soon get used to their government favouring their own deep and deeply normal convictions.
Guessed, with respect and speaking of elephants, you share Peter UK’s ability to ignore the elephant in the living room. Your ideas are spot on. Peter UK also has some sterling ideas.
But the elephant in the living room is not going to allow you to propagate these ideas or even put them forward for debate. The BBC dictates what will be debated in public.
Verity,
Certainly, none of it matters if Labour continues winning elections until such time as its transformation of Britain, meaning for the most part England, is complete. I’m not really concerned about how the Tories will win an election. I’m looking at why they must obtain a cultural analysis and what that might facilitate in office.
This is the principal devide between you and I. As I’ve noted before, you are are looking at the disposition of forces on the battlefield. I’m gawping into the distance, trying to make out whether those are reinforcements or just a few fleeting shadows on the horizon.
Judging from the three-cornered discussion group that has arisen here – again – its shadows as far as Libertarians are concerned.
Libertarianism is a frustrating creed. It has more than its share of the keys of freedom. But libertarians themselves seem to be so fixedly anti-state that they can’t distinguish the implications for the people and for themselves of the CM/G state in particular. They cannot grasp that its steady creation of a non-white, third-world majority here (with, I might add, a reduced average IQ, high criminality and increased libidity) is not a step towards their ideals. They cling instead to capitalism and its continuity – which is not in doubt anyway – as if that must necessarily flower into the destruction of the state machinery and hasten the new dawn of liberty. By what means I admit I have not the faintest idea. How does one get from a CM/G cultural settlement to a Popperian economic one?
As to the other gifts of CM/G – the destruction of English masculinity, the family and all cultural norms – these seem to have within them sufficient resonance with libertarians to be just dandy. It’s all a bracing extention of choice, apparently. Even when one points out the debilitating social pathologies that result now, only part way along the road to hell, they cannot acknowledge that the whole purpose IS to debilitate. So they cannot acknowledge, either, that the CM/G state is not the same as and is infinitely more dangerous than any past British state.
No, instead the process jumps back to proving the intellectual case for libertarianism. The plaint against state subsidisation of negative behaviours arises … and human nature mysteriously disappears from the equasion, to be replaced with a purely economically responsive medium. The opportunity to interest libertarians in the Tories as the only immediate means of halting the cultural onslaught is lost right there. For at that juncture there is no cultural onslaught. There is only the statism.
Guessed, I don’t think you’re being fair to libertarians – or anyway, the ones who generously run this blog. There have been several items on the dismantling of the family and the nationalisation of children, for example.
Personally, I am very concerned about the sly, intentional dilution of Britishness and the break-up of the sense of history and belonging among the indigenes by the importation of hundreds of thousands of primitive aliens who cleave to a primitive religion.
The only sensible way forward is to withdraw from all international treaties re “refugees” and/or “asylum seekers”. Or even, why bother? I would also favour deportation of hundreds of thousands of them, including hundreds of thousands who were born in Britain but whose fealty is to another state (Pakistan) and a dangerous religion. I would suggest that we put this into motion in the face of international disapproval.
I mooted this once before and no one on this blog seemed particularly shocked. The only comment was something along the lines of: why would any state agree to take hundreds of thousands of our rejects?
I would say, let Pakistan and the dumpees sort it our themselves. Let it be someone else’s problem for a change.
At the same time, outlaw age discrimination. There are tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of people over 40 who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own and cannot find a new employer. We don’t need immigrants. We need to let our own people work.
I think Britain may be the first country in the world in which the government is actually the fifth column.
Guessed
Verity’s brilliant riposte from the howdah obviates the necessity for me to repeat a prolix post I composed last night but which somehow (you may think luckily) got lost in the cybermudatriangle when I pressed the ‘Post’ button. I’m beginning to wonder whether somebody on one of the Echelon listening posts is a gay Samizdata fan, because this is the third time it has occurred!
But I agree with Verity that about your ideas being spot on and how nice of you to gently round up both Verity and I into the same pen, albeit with an elephant for company. In fact for a long time now I have believed that no corral could possibly be a satisfactory political campus without her.
Verity
I would underscore your point about the BBC, but would expand it to a vast chunk of the Western media, which seems to be in the hands of the enemy. Certainly TV is a goner, with the exception of Fox which not many Brits watch, it seems, and those that do, even among traditional conservatives, find it a bit brash and rich at times – I love it myself, but then I would wouldn’t I? (to paraphrase my old fiend Mandy. Rice-Davies that is, not the Gramscian gremlin!)
If the enemy has captured all the megaphones, our pleas are likely to rouse as much interest as an English gnat’s fart in the Hampden Stadium roar, as you observe in your posts (but phrase much more politely, of course).
I can’t see Michael Grade being much help and many of those who I knew as young men in ITV, and who have now reached the highest offices, will certainly not countenance a revival of conservatism via their channels. The sainted Rupe is the only hope and he will only jump when it suits him. His independent Murdoch party will form a coalition with any mob that he thinks will increase his power, influence and fortune and at his advancing age he has to start thinking of his heirs and successors, too, so it’s difficult to know how that will affect his political favours.
We seem to broadly agree about who is the enemy and the stratagem to defeat it. Peter UK has made some excellent posts incidentally. But where is the platform for the launch? I suppose Verity would point out that she has been employing it for some time hereupon and elsewhere. But much as I try to encourage my pals to join the blog blitz, my generation seems a bit shy about the technology. What about a new Magazine? The Speccie, as we have discussed before, has already been infiltrated and until it gets a new owner and a new editor, it will perform erratically or worse. Likewise the Torygraph.
Though I have taken to the streets in the past, it was only ‘undercover’ to infiltrate the Young Socialist Movement to establish what its plans were. Once while carrying one end of a banner and performing the Ho Chi Min chant in Kensington Gore, on way to Hyde Park Rally, I got the size 12 boot of a Kensington Police Constable about four lace holes up my jacksy. It certainly ended my desire for further surveillance of that nature. It also reinforced my aversion to buggery.
Any further street demos by me, particularly for ‘our’ cause, even with the redoubtable Verity and Guessed as bodyguards, would undoubtedly be punished with even more lace-holes, probably this time of the boot of Brian Paddick (crafted by Bruno Magli, no doubt). But then I was forgetting – the Met Police are now genteel and that sort of thing would not happen. So perhaps that’s it – to the streets!
Agree about Michael Gove, incidentally, great article. Hope the obnoxious Dacre (who obviously has a thing going with the Beeb) takes note. He’s all over the shop.
V & G
You will infer of course that I had not read you last posts when I fired off the one above.
“Time to pay, your worship?”
“No – seven days in lieu, take him down!”
Verity,
Halting the CM/G exploitation of race in England also implies a committment to preserving England as the homeland of the English. But unless one aims Heydrich-style for a 99.9% spotless white society, the first requirement is to really get a handle on what would be the maximum, numerically stable non-English component. A cultural analysis of the race issue that favoured the majority would then also be tied to that maximum.
If we wanted, we could take the opportunity to select our minority population for assimability and the other principal aspects of human difference. But with or without that, this process would mean departures since there is no doubt that we are operating above the maximum now.
It would be foolish to deny the moral dangers in this. It is not about universal love but particularist love. It is about reversal. It is not possible merely to declare the rout of the Enemy Class and peace to all mankind. All mankind may, if he’s desperate, just keep coming whether or there are “Closed” signs at our borders and folk heading out the other way. The problem may be with us until eternity or until third world peoples understand that prosperity flows from freedom and peace and learn to create them for themselves.
Dear oh dear! What a tragic farce this thread has become. You three should just take a good look at yourselves, read what you have written and feel ashamed. Half demented babblings about a ‘gay mafia’ and white hegemony. Honestly this sort of risible piffle wouldn’t have been out of place in Der Sturmer. Clearly Frank P seems to fancy himself as some sort of latter day Julius Streicher only this time spreading idiotic rumours about homosexuals rather than Jews.
All the same, Paul, these are issues taken at their most serious. Turning your back them, denying them is not serious at all. It merely necessitates accomodation of circumstances one might have preferred the opportunity to shape. One should never forget that others are busy shaping society as hard as they can and in the image they desire. It is an image neither you nor I, for different reasons perhaps, would welcome.
If you get the time to look at FLC 114 you will find that Dr Gabb arrives at three possible futures. One is marxian. One is change from the right. The other is civil strife.
You may disagree with Dr Gabb, I don’t know. But if not and if you wish to examine what future 2 might mean, this sort of discussion is bound to arise.
Paul Coulam
I wondered when the bait would get a nibble; if that the best I can manage, please note that I always throw the tiddlers back in, making sure I don’t tear their lips, lest it should grow into bigger buggers and be worth devouring eventually. I’m done with the Gay Mafia for now – we have other fish to fry as you would have noticed had you read the posts before the pink mist descended over your eyes and you reacted accordingly. I never join in rumours, BTW, only report on facts. But then empirical experience never satisfies idealogues who want the world to be as they imagine it rather than the way it is. Stand by for flock of pink Flamingos, folks! The alarm bells have been sounded. Enemy on the Samizdata blog! We’ll have David Bruno from Brussels on line any minute now. Gerroff! Paul, or I’ll set Reuben the Rottweiler on to you.
Guessed – Yes, getting a handle of the number of immigrants the can comfortably handle would seem to be one of the few legitimate duties I can see for government, as it involves protecting society. This, I believe, is what governments did before Blair and his thugs got in.
There should always be room for some immigrants, and sometimes a large chunk at a time as circumstances warrant. For example, the Jews after WWII had all to be taken in at the same time for obvious reasons; as did the Indians from Uganda. These two groups of people were hell bent on fitting in and they have enhanced our society.
No one has ever explained how having our traditions destroyed and our country overrun with the primitives which trailed in from Pakistan in the cause of multiculti would enrich the lives of the indigenes of Britain. What is astounding is, no one called them on it. The native British allowed themselves to be browbeaten in lieu of having epithets like the risible “Little Englander” thrown at them. Did any such ever exist? Is there anyone in Britain today who hasn’t holidayed at least two or three times abroad? Same goes for xenophobe.
No one asked how having notices pinned up in town halls in Urdu and Arabic benefitted Britain, nor how giving them free council housing and free medical care benefitted Britain.
But the real avalanche began at the behest of Tony Blair/Peter Mandelson and there was evil intent behind it – the dissolution of the British character and sense of mutuality and community. And elevating the interests of the non-English speaking Stone Agers above those of Britain and the British. It is astounding how powerful four words have been in this entire episode: racist, little Englander, xenophobe.
You say all mankind might keep coming even if we have Closed signs up at the borders. Not if there was no asylum and all those caught were immediately put on the next plane back.
My point is that we have to recognise the evil that has been done, acknowledge that it was intentional destruction, and set about rectifying it. Not living with it. Fixing it.
Guessedworker,
I am pleased to be able to say that I know Dr. Gabb quite well. Indeed I have had the immense pleasure of entertaining him and his lovely wife to dinner in my house and have been delighted to accept similar inivtations from Dr. and Mrs Gabb. Consequently I have been able to discuss these very issues with Dr. Gabb at some length and I can report the we are in broad agreement with each other on most matters. Dr. Gabb thinks that the whole idea that the conservative party should formulate policies about private sexual behaviour is ridiculous. Indeed he is far more socially liberal than I on many issues. You have been carried away by Dr. Gabb’s rhetoric into supposing that he shares your authoritarian tendencies. He does not – you should read his writings with a greater degree of care, you might look at Free Life commentry 76.
Certainly there are issues where Dr. Gabb and I disagree, I think his description of the Enemy Class, though perhaps containing some truth, is much too overblown to be useful. If you really take these issues seriously, as you allege, then I can only suggest that you try harder not to make such a fool of yourself but continually writing such consistently low rent rot.
Frank P,
The mere fact that you can manage to stop masturbating and sucking your thumb long enough to type things into a computer is no indication that the things you write are anything other than the most absurd and disgusting childish sexual fanatasies.
Paul
I never rise to bait myself – much too wary. But excuse me while I let off a few bubbles around your bait. Your rather pompous “I had dinner with the focus of your admiration and his dear lady wife and he would be appalled that he had attracted such cretins” is typical pseudo-intellectual blustering and I hope will be addressed by my more educated and refined correspondents on this blog, if they wish.
I’m afraid that if I were to take your arrogance apart, it would be with somewhat more primitive epithets, and this has been a well behaved blog since I have been visiting it. I am grateful to Sean Gabb ( your dear friend) for drawing my attention to the Gramscian doctrine. As for the rest of his many opinions on life in his voluminous writings I have ploughed through as much if it as I can, commensurate with the life I estimate I may have left. Some of what he asserts is good stuff. The extreme libertarian guff is a hobby of his obviously and I doubt he believes much of it himself, given his intellect which must have a pragmatic component. He is forthright, honest and it is a great pity that his ideas have not been allowed more exposure in the public forum of debate, to be tested. But I think even you would agree with us about the reasons for his curtailment.
I noticed that you failed to mention your wife attending the dinner party, though you managed to mention his. Hmmm.
As for my ‘low rent’ buddy, Guessedworker, we sometimes disagree, too, but never through the medium of snotty snobbery. I admire him for that. If you think that working in a cut price book store with, no doubt, a queer customer base (is it a cruising venue?) that may read this blog (and therefore provoke you into defence of their ilk), puts you in an intellectual class above a hairy-arsed pensioner from the Old Bill who ‘has just learned to type’ that’s your prerogative and I don’t complain. But please don’t insult my blogpals on a personal basis, you little pile of excrement. Anyway why aren’t you putting the books back on the shelves and whatever mundane tasks you are paid for by Messrs. Dillon, rather than, in their time, typing out ad hominem observations about you ‘inferiors’ no doubt on their fuckin’ equipment.
Libertarian my arse. You are just another liberty taker.
Frank,
Paul is a guest contributor to Samizdata and a highly intelligent man. He suffers from a certain floridity of expression and an insufferable smugness, it’s true. But whether that’s because he’s just very highly strung or the victim of exquisitely fine sentiments or a troll I haven’t yet made up my mind. Only he knows the answer to that one. In any event, he has a licence to be high-handed with and insulting to us beer hall types in ways to which we would never stoop. I regularly get a lambasting. Charles, too. There’s nothing to be done about it except to bear it in good grace and continue engaging in debate whomsoever else we will – whilst Perry extends us the courtesy.
Paul,
I’m not claiming Dr Gabb as some kind of philosophical soulmate, for heavens sake. I believe I am treating him with respect and circumspection. Nonetheless his writings on Cultural Marxism are, in my opinion, the equal of John Fonte’s, which is saying something. I am sure he is happy to be taken at his word and, indeed, writes with that express intention.
The low rent rot I continually write on this subject was engendered by a comment from Terry Eagleton during another moment of smugness back in the early 1980’s. I went to the trouble of discovering what he meant. Now I see it as all there is to the left today, unless you count old Labour redistribution and the pursuit of human rights abroad. So, yes, I take Eagleton at his word, too. Not to do so would be grievous complacency.
Guessedworker,
Well, its a good job that Frank doesn’t rise to the bait I suppose! For a retired policeman his prose style bears a strange resemblance to that of a jilted teenage girl.
Thank you for your very kind comments above. I shall return the courtesy on this occasion and confess that in fact I agree with many of the things you say much more often than you might think. Its just that, finding agreement intellectually sterile, I only bother to chip in where I profoundly disagree with someone. Do not assume that I am coming over all soft. I have plenty of bon mots up my sleeve yet.
I look forward to that
Guessedworker
I’m not sure whether your deference to the pompous prick is faux, half true or real. But it’s a pity that you suggest it, even in jest, because his ‘intellectual’ vanity would demand that he believe it. He has constructed a pedestal for himself, Coulam’s Column, to look down on us mere mortals, wag his fingers when he deigns to do so and pontificate about libertarianism as if it actually means something in the way he describes it.
Both you and Verity have more innate intelligence in you little fingers, than he has in his vacuous cranium and your earthy, substantial and at times profoundly humorous prose, often conveys more in a phrase than the entire output of his ethereal, ‘erudite’ sermons, scriptures and condescending crap. Moreover I find your stuff entertaining, which is why most folks visit this site anyway, I guess.
As for Perry and his comrades: when they open a blog, I suppose it’s a bit like opening a free-house hostelry, of which I know something; I did it once, as I think I told you. If one enters into it not knowing what to expect, you damn soon find out. And though the absolute right exists to dis-invite from your fiefdom those who don’t agree with you – or offend you – if that right is exercised too freely, then you finish up as a lonely sot in you own pub, pissing the collateral down the drain. It therefore succeeds neither financially nor socially (or in the case of blog, ideologically nor politically).
So I shall continue, when I have had a bellyful of his bilge, to piss up pompous Paul’s Column until the landlords bar me. And it’s no good him trying to get round me by complimenting me on my prose: I know that all my jilted teenage granddaughters are much more literate than me – I would never dare suggest otherwise. But thankfully I never handed over my brain to the arty-farty literati of academia for laundering, so perhaps that makes me the only true Libertarian on this blog? The content of my dustbin skull is the remnants of what I gathered from real experience among real people; some wicked, some saintly and all shades in between. I didn’t steal it from the cut-price books of the shelves I was paid to stack by my employer.
What I was trying to discover from you, and you have helped me considerably, along with the virtuous Verity and several others who I am sure aren’t vain enough to demand that I track back and name them, is how society can begin the long road back from Gramscian inspired cultural vandalism by the unholy alliance of mangy minorities: which I have deduced is the wrecking process before the construction of a new communist World Order. With allies like PC on ‘our’ side I am nonetheless pessimistic. He’s about as useful as Spain in the current conflict. But your contribution has been an invaluable comfort to a jaded old erstwhile Innkeeper and Keeper of the Queen’s Peace. Thank you. And just before Perry shouts, “Time ladies and Gentlemen, pleeeease!” I would like to thank the absent Andy for opening up this conversation; it was long overdue.
“So I shall continue, when I have had a bellyful of his bilge, to piss up pompous Paul’s Column until the landlords bar me.” Good, Frank. There was a valedictory tone creeping in that I was worrying me for a minute. There must be a place in the trench warfare of the comments box for a man who has discussed Shakespeare with a mob capo and been cruelly assaulted by a ploddish size 12 while marching uphill and left, left, left.
As for Paul, he is an anarcho-libertarian, which in its
way is quite extreme, but like all the regular Samizdata contributors and commenters (except A_t, I suppose) he is very definitely a man of the right. That’s worth remembering. Fight one’s true enemies.
Also, it’s worth remembering that on this blog you, Verity, Susan, Charles and I are the most elementally right-wing of all. Some of us are meted out particular treatment for that. It may not always be entirely undeserving. Often it is. But if we want to be heard and perhaps even taken seriously sometimes we must not deepen the divide. On the contrary, we must attempt, at least, to accord other opinions the respect that we might wish for our own.
Otherwise why are we? To get our rocks off, and lob a few at passing strangers? No, there’s more to it than that. We are the servants of ideas, some of them great ideas. Inasmuch as we are able – which is not enough – we should try to serve them well.
GW
LOL 🙂
I appreciate the avuncular wit of the reprimand; it’s true I don’t suffer Asperger’s Syndromic egghead weirdoes gladly, even though I know they can’t help it. I will try harder, as it is you that suggests it. Anyway, at my age one has to clear the phlegm occasionally; frank is my nature as well as my name. Sweetness and light may eventually come through osmosis, but I doubt it.
BTW, I needed cheering up, its been a gloomy day; particularly after reading about the antics of the Leicestershire Police in the tabloids earlier. In case you missed it, a homosexual sergeant was ‘disciplined’ for turning the police social club carsey into a ‘cottage’ and mutually masturbating with a male colleague while other colleagues photographed the action; apparently the wife of his co-wanker simultaneously gave a blowjob to another colleague in the next cubicle. Afterwards they all retired to a local hostelry for ‘afters’ and, in the ensuing punch-up, two of the party incurred broken bones while the other pub punters looked on. Puts a whole new perspective on the phrase Keepers of the Queen’s Peace, doesn’t it? It was reported that the sergeant took the CC to tribunal for sexual discrimination on the grounds that: because he was gay he was ‘disciplined’, but the participants in the blowjob were not. He lost his case and has been transferred to WEST MIDLANDS POLICE.
How’s that for cruel and unusual punishment – for WMP, that is!
It does seem to beg the question, “Why weren’t they all sacked?” Blunkett should sack the CC too – for failing to maintain the dignity of his force? In fact Blunkett should himself be sacked for presiding over the keystone cops’ pantomime that has replaced the law enforcement function in the UK.
What better example of cultural vandalism? I hate to think what they use their truncheons for these days. Someone should remake the old police radio series from the 1940s, “The Adventures of PC 49” and rename it “The Gay Adventures of PC 69”.
Ye Gods!
Frank,
Last post on this thread, I think – and a classic from Darwin Awards to cheer you up:-
“In retrospect, lighting the match was my big mistake. But I was only trying to save the gerbil,” Eric Tomaszewski told the bemused doctors in the Severe Burns Unit of Salt Lake City Hospital. Tomaszewski and his homosexual partner, Andrew “Kiki” Farnum, had been admitted for emergency treatment after a felching session had gone seriously wrong.
“I pushed a cardboard toilet paper tube up his rectum and slipped Ragout, our gerbil, in,” he explained. “As usual, Kiki shouted out ‘Armageddon,’ my cue that he’d had reached nirvana, so to speak. I tried to retrieve Raggot but he simply would not come out, so I peered into the tube and struck a match, thinking the light might attract him.”
At a hushed press conference, a hospital spokesman desribed what happened next.
“The match ignited a pocket of intestinal methane gas in Kiki’s colon. Flames shot out the tube, ignited Mr. Tomaszewski’s hair and severely burning his face. It also set fire to the gerbil’s fur and whiskers, causing it to scurry further up Kiki’s colon, which in turn ignited a larger pocket of gas further up the intestine, propelling the rodent out of the cardboard tube like a cannonball.”
Tomaszewski suffered second degree burns and a broken nose from the impact of the gerbil, while Farnum suffered first and second degree burns to his anus and lower intestinal tract.
Sadly, Ragout the gerbil did not survive the incident.
You win! Send ger-bil to me?
See you on another thread – when I can control the corpsing!