David Davis
I know! I’m French! F*** les docteurs et les chirugéons! Let me through….I’m an énarque! L’état: c’est moi!
I’ll tell the Israelis to send in loads of food and medicine to the enemy!
Gordon Bennett…..
Very logical as you can see.
Why ought Gaza to need aid? What is wrong with its government and its polity, that it can’t provide for itself? Why has “aid” always to come from whom it says is its sworn enemy? What is Egypt (not) doing, and why not? What is Iran (not) doing and why not?
And where’s Saudi Arabia in all this: where’s the money gone? Don’t come crying to me that some “princess” has auctioned her lingerie for food for Gazans….And don’t all you lefties come in here and tell me that Israel won’t let the stuff in. Bastards you are, liars and scumsucking turds.
If Israel goes down, it will be a setback for liberalism. You’ll all have to work much harder, later, for less certainty. You heard me say this here, read my lips, on the LA blog, on 30th December 2008, at 19.44 GMT. Out.
UPDATE: Counting Cats sums it all up. But nobody will listen.
Dave (wearily):
All residents of Gaza are not members of Hamas.
Libertarians recognize that all men (and women) are endowed by their Creator with Rights, among which are the Rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
“All men” includes Palestinians AND Israelis.
Hamas in Gaza has no means of bringing Israel down; whereas the combined wrath of outraged Arab opinion may do. Arab leaders (and not only Arab leaders) strive to portray Israel as Goliath.
It is not smart for Israeli military leaders to make that misrepresentation any easier for them.
Best,
Tony
PS: If I invite my friends here, and they read things like:
“And don’t all you lefties come in here and tell me that Israel won’t let the stuff in. Bastards you are, liars and scumsucking turds.”
what do you expect them to make of it?
How, pray, does this advance the cause of Libertarianism??
Tony, old fella,
You can let your friends read anything I write, without question. If they want to comment to me here, I will try to answer them.
You can tell them that, in only 42 years, I, David Davis, your (I guess slightly intelligent friend although not a genius) have seen a complete inversion of the world’s perception and attitude towards Israel from that which prevailed at and just before the “6-day-war”.
You can tell them of my ancestry, and who i would have been expected to support.
You can articulately explain to them why the “Palestinian Nation” is a Gramsco-Marxian fabrication, and why it actually does not exist.
You can try to explain to them the unalloyed joy in the voices of wireless newsreaders, in 1961 – on the BBC! – who graphically related the death-throes of Adolf Eichmann, whom you will agree deserved to die, along the lines of … “and the handsome young Israeli hangman, an army reservist in his speare time! – pulled the lever, Eichmann fell and swung, and in a few seconds, he was DEAD!” I was nine, Tony, nine, and I remember it to this day – and we all cheered in the kitchen (except my mother who was Lebanese – she mumbled angrily about “our orange groves which the Jews took….”
You are older than me, and you thus know enough to explain what a Gramsco-Marxian is, too!
You will also be able to explain, having been born in WW2 or about that time, how it would feel of your sovereign territory is attacked, not just by a real state such as NSDAP Germany was then (you oculd not call it by any stretch of the imagination an “imaginary” or “failed” one, now could you!) but by a really (truly) imaginary State such as “Palestine”!
You know too that the UN and the EU are great at creating phantasms and imaginary constructs, such as the “Non-Aligned Nations”!
If Isreal was attacked by real weapons fired by an imaginary “state”, what should it do, then? “Imagine” a “real” response?
Cheer up, Tony, I hope the Israelis advertise to the world who is killing socialist bastards and why. Think of Conrad Henlein, the imaginary leader of an imaginary people, and what damage he did – not just to Czechoslovakia, but to you and to me and to our civilisation.
The “Sudeten Germans”, who were imaginary just like the square root of minus one, are as imaginary as the “Palestinians”.
Are Welsh-speakers in England an oppressed “nation”, or an imaginary people? There certainly must be some of these chaps. What do they do?
Happy new year Tony and cheer up! DD
Peter thanks you for your comments on his posts and hopes you are well. I told him about Beeper and what he was and did – he’s not really into cats but he understood.
Dave:
It would be fascinating to know who now occupies your Mother’s orange groves. If indeed there are still any orange groves there. Google Earth?
I have to say that the negative change in the world’s perception of Israel corresponds rather too closely with the rise of the Likud and the Israeli ‘Right.’
However, my Jewish friends advise me to stay well clear of involvement in Israeli politics.
I hoped that you would see the point of:
http://www.israel21c.org
Which presents a far more cheerful “everyday” view of life in Israel, along with reports of progress in the Arts and Sciences and culture.
I still miss Beeper, ever since he arrived ar high speed through my bedroom window in a tiny wet ball, one rainy, cold midwinter night in the Kent countryside. He shot down to the foot of my bed and huddled there. And just sort of “stayed on.” Competing for space and food with Ben, our Rhodesian Ridgeback; they used to play scary games together.
I am so sorry that Beeper and the Chairman did not get on. I can understand the Chairman’s outrage at having his space invaded. Beeper meant him no harm. I mean, he could co-exist with a Ridgeback.
Beeper was lain to rest in a mahogany writing-desk, in a Sussex garden in 1983, on Margaret Thatcher’s birthday. He was just 7 years old. However, he fathered five kittens by a prize Persian, and all the kittens sold well. So his genes are still around, I guess. >:-}
Tell Peter I’m interested it the books he likes.
Happy New Year to you all!
Tony
Tony,
My mother’s family never owned a single blasted, murrain-infected orange-grove, ever, nor even a nice one, not anywhere, and certainly not in what the so-called “Palestinians” call “Palestine”. Nor in Lebanon either.
She was of course Lebanese, which is some tens to hundreds of miles north of there; maps are deceptive, the places are much bigger than you think on the telly, and I have been there. She used the pronoun “our” when referring promiscuously in her talk to what she called “we Arabs.”
She was a fierce supporter of Vichy France in the 1940s. she hated and despised the British, who she said had “betrayed” the “Arabs” to the “Jews”.
My father, a highly educated and intelligent “poor boy” whom Imperial College (yes that one) welcomed with open arms, unfortunately and weakly, supported her at the dinner table.
Although I think in his heart, even though he was an “East End Boy” and even though he thought that he hated “The Jews” because he said they “ran corner shops and charged high prices”, didn’t really mean it.
The Chairman had to go to other better-placed people, sorry. He was a bit too fragrant and too self-assured with it, to be a long-term partner in the libertarianisation of the planet. His fragrance stank out 102 Denmark Street MK40 3TJ, for many yards! Girlfriends came in reluctantly. (Mine, not his.) He could have, for example, taken a shower more often, and gone to the dental-hygienist at least once every ten thousand years.
But it sounds like Beeper is in a safe and OK place. Better cat altogether than the poor Chairman! I didn’t know he’d passed on while so young? Not old for a cat.
Peter is currently reading the “hitchhikers” set for about the umpteenth time. He likes it. I don’t mind, it’s funny. It’s not real hard-SF, or even sci-fi. I want to get him onto Asimov, Poul Anderson, Pournelle and Niven etc, also Philip Dick and some J Blish.
When he is older I’d give him John Wyndham I guess. But he’s hard to please.
He knows all about the Dambusters, and how the “mine” worked, and one of my old physics teachers, Barnes Wallis (yep, the very one) who took us for some A-level stuff on mechanics at school in informal sessions towards the end of his life when he was well enough (you didn’t know that, did you!)
I’d like him to read some John Buchan and Kipling and Conan Doyle, but he associates them too closely with “school” “history”, and won’t.
You should come and visit sometime. DD
We just need to take a look at what the Bible says. This is the start of a for told story of Israel and the Muslim terrorists around the world. We are now seeing them come out of all countries with their support of Hamas, and as they demonstrate we need to just take them all out as the terrorists they are supporting. But this is going to be the start of the end of this shit hole world we all live in. Obama is also Hamas now in charge of this shit hole country. You all try to blame Israel and Hamas, Well blame the one that is responsible for our salvation off of this shit hole we have built and destroyed like a bunch a maggots that are running out of garbage. You want liberation, then pray that God has mercy on this shit hole we live on. Happy new year, well that will have to be seen but I don’t think so other than I will be happy to see this world fall to war, destruction, and a fiery hell as God has for told and man has just pushed him aside for mans greed and glory… See ya in hell or heaven, its your choise
Then there is choice and Hamas made the choice for war, They do not want Israel to be at peace and Israel has the right to protect themselves. Iran is at the head of Hamas and supplying weapons into Gaza. But this is a total diversion while Iran plans it’s nuclear strike on Israel and the USA. Look in the Bible and it talks of fire coming from the skies that will burn your flesh off before you are dead. but we as dumb as we have become, just sit in our own little greedy world as people die and we say, it can’t happen to us because we live in the USA. Well this year you are going to see millions die, millions more laid off and death will become a daily thing as it has already started in this country. The government has plans to destroy many lives and help the rich get richer. But their riches won’t help them as other come to take what they have and money can’t buy what we don’t have. I truly believe that by 2012 we are going to see the destruction of this country and life as people know it. Most will come from our own government as we have already seen them denying the peoples wishes with their big business bail outs that will fail anyway and make the American people pay for their mistakes. It use to be if a company failed, they failed, but now our government is making socialism in this country and life for normal people will come to an end and the rich and greedy will also see their end when we have this countries new revalotion, race war and war against your own neighbor for the garbage we will look for to eat. Get ready people we have made our bed and now we have to sleep in it, and sleep we will…….
Barnes is a true hero of mine, a truly great British Engineer. He came from Ripley, in Derbyshire, which is only a bus ride from my hometown of Nottingham. It always perks me up to think of people like Barnes Wallis, George Green and D.H. Lawrence, they all came from around these parts.
Was the cat’s name Chairman Meow by any chance? Ten points if it was!
‘Fraid not – he was merely The Chairman. He used to occupy my largest sitting room chair, and growl if I tried to evict him. I had to sit somewhere else.
Dave:
God help me, I’m starting to feel really sorry for the Chairman now! Heaven knows, I tried to be nice to him, even as I was deploying “air-locks” between him and Beeper. I’ve never seen such ferocity (in a cat, anyway).
I wish he could have been a happy moggie… I love cats. All cats. And I’ve been less than ten feet from four of John Aspinall’s Siberian tigers, with nothing between us but fresh air. Enthralling.
Best,
Tony
Charles:
As an example of myth-making, this from the “IEA” Tory site:
‘Britain is a country where the state persecutes shop keepers who sell in pounds and ounces…”
No longer EU policy.
“… but allows murderers to use the Human Rights Act to kill again;”
You cannot use a Human Rights Act to kill anyone. Especially not the pitiful, diluted effort that Blair left us with.
“… where law-abiding citizens are spied on”
Well, he got that right. But how would he know?
“… but teachers are frightened to discipline violent children.”
Trans. from TorySpeak: “Teachers should attack defenceless children.”
” With literary verve and philosophical insight, Dominic Raab tears into a justice system which has turned Britain ’s liberal values upside down. A book that could make Gordon Brown vote Tory.’ Nick Cohen, The Observer”
One IEA event that I’ll give a miss to.
Tony