David Davis
Now they’re getting at restaurants and the poor-people’s takeaway joints first. These will cave in because there is “no-one to stand up for them”.
“part of a new Government drive to prevent obesity, climate change and global food shortages”
My trousers!
And furthermore, how can a person give a job to a man called “Hilary”?
When he’s the son of the man that knows that what is wrong with the world if *freedom* and *capitalism* and Margaret Thatcher, I guess, like the king, he can do any thing.
I have had four pints of lager and now understand “David” “Davis”‘s posts. The world is so insane, the only sane response is inverted commas. Fair enough. And yes, “Hillary” Benn is a weird goose-like creature.
Didn’t a man with that name climb Mount Everest?
HHOK… Smiles
Tony
That was his surname, Tony!
Never trust any man with a christian name for a surname.
As to why… anglosocialism. That is my catchphrase. Moralist salvationism. The mithering weed Hilary is just about the type species. Virtually all vegetarians, except for medical reasons, or buddhists, are anglosocialists. The remainder are national socialists, like Adolf Hitler. Greenism is of course what you get when you mix the two together.
Is that the Hilary or the Benn?
[Just realised my typo above – should have been ‘is’ freedom, not ‘if’.]
Yes. As the freedom to make one’s own decisions (whether I get obese or not) is taken away, we become zombies.
Would zombies sing about being the land of the free? I guess they could.
Are the British naturally authoritarian?
No, we’ve been naturally liberal since pagan times. The authoritarianism we now take for granted began with the religious reformation and, in Britain, the puritans that led to the Cromwell regime. Then we were quite free again for a century or so, and then they struck back and created the Victorian Values ideological hegemony- a cultural revolution that was so successful that most people now think we’ve always been this way.
The British are “naturally” bawdy individualists. It has taken more than a century and a half of fierce ruling class political correctness to turn us into the pathetic sheeple we are today. That which we actually currently term Political Correctness is just the latest phase of the cultural revolution.
But why would they attack the British, Ian, and why so violently? Would not they have done better to assault the early Americans or Australians?
But.. but.. I buy one and get one free to reduce the number of times I drive to the supermarket…
They don’t want you to buy on get one free – they want you to not have food, except when they sya, and what…
Authoritarianism is an attitude – the desire to boss other people about. (Which I regard as the problem with all human affairs, in human terms.)
Those bawdies no doubt made life hell for others so there in lies the problem, not the better way.
We, now, regard it as a liberating “virtue” because of the current situation and type of control.
Oliver Cromwell was the guy that got rid of those evil royals that slaved and en-serfed, and is a great hero of some libertarians, politically. And I guess one cannot completely divorce the man from his ideology.
The PC dictatorship we endure now is rooted in humanism, and the belief that man can successfully control his own destiny without the individual freedom and responsibility that comes from God alone.
Man, left to himself, slowly reverts to the beehive or antheap, or wolf pack at best?
It’s just more headline grabbing to make it look like they are not just doing something but that they care.
It’s just coincidence that they want to cut down on the number of people that use the service they unvolountarily pay for. (NHS) Pure coincidence that they rig how they measure the statistics and the “experts” that they consult to back up their actions.
Goverments are like a crap burger, once you have had one only a fool would go back for another (the world is full of fools unfortunately and the crap burger seller is raking it in.)
Why would who attack the British, David? I’m not sure what you mean.
Ian, I suppose I mean the British Enemy-Class, which seems to direct most of its fire onto us and our own liberal institutions – its own people.
Well David, I think you have to see that in terms of their worldview. Basically, they are at war with sinfulness.
Marxists (real ones) idolise the proletariat, and in their interpretation the proleteriat are the victims of the ruling class (bourgeoisie)- so the solution under Marxism is to eliminate the bourgeoisie.
Anglos believe that the state of the proleteriat is due to their own sinfulness and thus seeks to save them by preventing them sinning and “re-educating” them. The proleteriat (basically, everybody but themselves) thus must be placed into a controlled environment in whcih they can be separated from sinful temptations and surveilled for signs of sinfulness- thus the attempt to turn the country (and indeed world) into a large scale version of the nineteenth century philanthropist’s model village. You get a library but no pub.
Another way to look at it is that Marxists see the class structure as bourgoisie and proleteriat. Anglos see the classes as equivalent to Calvin’s “Elect” (those predestined for Heaven) and, er everybody else. It is the duty of the Elect to rule. They are, of course, the Elect. They use such structures as the education system to identify other Elect and elevate them into their (Elect) ruling class.
I think the key thing about the Calvinist heritage is that mystery of Calvinism- if you attain Heaven not through grace or works, but by predestination, why bother being a good person? You’re going to Heaven anyway. The answer is that while good works won’t get you into Heaven, the *desire* to do good works is a proxy for Electedness. That is, if you’re doing good works, it’s an indicator that you are Elect. So, to publicly do good works is like walking around with a neon sign on your head saying, “Look at me, I’m going to Heaven, unlike you schmucks”.
So for Anglos, their constant interventionism is effectively a conceit. They are demonstrating their Elect status by doing their “good” works. To interefere is holy.
So, they plague us because we are sinners.
Ian B, Is this an intellectual version of vandalising church property? Well, I had wondered why churches in England were so lacking in (spiritual) life and colour, except for some country ones. If your version of events is a percentage right I guess it goes some way to explaining.
However.
You start off with the Anglos or Marxists wanting to stop people from sinning.
This would seem to go back to the “boss other people around” principle, which I regard as the cause of most (all?) human woes, in human terms. So it is, of course, already in error of truth.
And why, if it is just a question of separating people from their sinfulness, do they have to proclaim they are going to heaven? That does not sound very altruistic.
However, since you asked:
The Bible version of events is that all, every single human on this planet, has come short of the glory of God, ie, sinned. There are no exceptions except One. We are all separated from God because sinlessness is not possible for those separated from God. It is what sin is.
Jesus is God who became man. He is God who took on sin and accepted the reality of sin: separation from God. Hence His cry in His last moments on the cross: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
He endured that dark (3) nights of separation, but being sinless was not able to be separated from God. He has become, and is, the entirely navigable bridge into heaven, or for oneness with God, for any who will accept Him.
Thus: He died for my sins.
There is no judgement here between people. (We are all under the judgement of sin, separation from God.) There is abslolutely no place or logic for anyone to think they are better than anyone else.
Good works can indicate that a person is moved by love but it has no bearing on whether they have a heaven pass or not.
If Jesus works in someone’s life, though, the most amazing things can happen. Success, failure, and all. His mercy is beyond knowing exept, as Paul says: Through a glass darkly.
John, I’m attempting to explore the roots of anglospheric socialism/statism and the development of its worldview. Your interpretation of the Gospel is not much use here, since the point under discussion is the interpretations by historical personages and movements. It’s the same thing as, with Islam, some muslims saying, “Islam is peace”, which for them may well be the case, but what we’re interested in is what Osama Bin Laden thinks Islam is.
The point I’m trying to elucidate is that the socialism/statism that arose in Britain, spread to the rest of the Anglosphere, and is now attempting to (and, in many ways succeeding in) dominate the world descends not from Marx, but from the reformist impulses of certain Christian movements. It is missionary reformism, not marxism.
I’m not vandalising the Church. To extend the metaphor, I’m describing those who vandalised it in the past, and the rest of society along with it.
You can’t discuss the development of the western mind without discussing Christianity, since it plays such a pivotal role in Western history. I believe it is very useful for libertarians to try to understand how we got to our current state. I also believe that it is a grievous error to blame our state on an invasion of foreign marxism. Our condition is the result of our own history.
I would like to support Ian in his project of trying to unravel how, if he is right, and then why (importantly) Christians in the Anglosphere have -whether on purpose (which I doubt) or accidentally (which I fear is the case) have brought about the situation in which the British (in particular) find themselves unable to avoid rubbing their own noses in socialist shit, every few years, just when things seem to be getting going again.
Ian, and John B: that was a rather long sentence and I apologise: but I think Ian has raised an important and highly significant point about whay and how we are now in the cesspit where we are, and I want as a libertarian to see it sorted out.
Sorry: I should have typed: “GramscoFabiaNazi shit”.
(1) These people are Nazis, for they want to integrate individuals into groups who can be demonised or exalted at will by the fat controllers, under an “overarching” ideology,
(2) These people are Fabians, for they understand how to Boil The Frog Slowly while we are too bust and too busy to pay attention or notice,
(3) These people are also Gramscians, a way of thinking which in libertarians I could find it in my heart to admire and praise, for they realise that they have to cut down, destroy, erase and re-construct entirely the ways in which normal humans traditionally think about how and why a civilisation is organised, and what beliefs it is based on.
I am a “Gramsco-Marxist turned upside-down”, as an important member of Nick Clegg’s speech-writing team (whom I have know for many, many years since Oxford, and who is a great friend and a devout Christian) said in 1982, over drinks at about 2 in the morning in my house at the time.
And no, I will never tell you who that is.
Sorry about the italics above: they are not significant and I can’t see how to unformat them.
Er, sorry….
Thanks David. I’d like to see other libertarians pondering this. I think one key thing with the narrative is that what started off as christian reformism then secularised and mingled with other socialisms- communism and fascism and so on. It’s not a simple narrative, which is unfortunate, because complex narratives are hard to communicate. But history just isn’t simple.
Neither I must emphasise am I saying that christianity naturally leads to socialism, rather that some interepretations of christian philosophy have led us here. As a faith, it can (and often has) just as likely lead to independence and individualism.
For me, I think the key era to explore is the revival that started in the late C18 and through into the C19; that IMV was what started us on the slippery slope. Liberals frequently see the C19 as a time of free market individualist capitalism and so on; but I think we should recognise it as the period when the dark clouds of statism gathered as a reaction against the industrial revolution and all its benefits. By the start of the C20, Britain had been spiritually transformed to such a degree that as statism really bit with WWI, hardly anybody batted an eyelid.
As has already been mentioned, all of the isms are about control.
The big difference now is that the “elite” don’t even want to bother coercing you into giving over your rights and wealth, they just want it.
The same “game” has been played for thousands of years. Control, power and wealth for the few with the many doing the bidding/work for the few.
For a very long part of our history the few who had the power held it through hereditory means until their well looked after (a position that was mainly hereditory but a good sycophant could gain a position of) underlings took that power away from them.
Later down the line the hereditory power was taken by the underlings (notice how the power shifts down a little but only to sycophants) for their own (think about the likes of Cromwell[landowners], they were losing money through Charles taxes and like the barons before them were merly looking out for themselves)
Now we have the elected having the power taken from them and given to unelected sycophants .(yet all of the previous holders of power are kept in place so that the many do not realise what the true order of control is)
How long will it be before the unelected decide that their power should be retained through hereditory means?
And in the mean time the conquest of land and resources still continues with groups (as well as nations) paid to cause a bit of confusion etc so as to give the excuse for more expansion (and always the many by into the belief that the conquest is the right thing to do)
Think of the hundred years wars, they were about gaining wealth and showing that the new holder of the throne was powerfull and should be backed (failure in France for one king led to the wars of roses !)
You have the British empire and it’s colonies (more through trade and trickery than conquest but the end result was the same)
WWI as well as WWII were more attempts at military conquest.
The next age of empires was started through communism which we are still currently in and the elected no longer hide it.
i Hope that makes sense as i am not an acedemic and struggle to explain myself in print (painting, music and wargames are more my thing)
Hi Ian,
My interpretation of the Gospel conforms to fairly much the only one that is.
If Christianity is relevant then at least it should be truthfully understood, and as liberalism has been completely inverted in modern usage, so what is called Christianity has very little to do with it other than a misinterpretation. It was never intended to be some convenient pillars on which to erect a power structure. Christianity is about the inverse of what is popularly understood as power or influence in the secular world.
It is about the advancement of spiritual power which lies in the genuine prefering of others. It is power of a different realm, that does have tremendous relevance here and now. But anyone who seeks to use that which Jesus established to build a power structure in this world is just plain wrong. And that is completely obvious if one reads the Book.
In other words the whole thing has been a mistake.
Anyone who has ever tried to, or did, make a political process from Christianity is wrong. So why must one persist in the charade. A deception.
Would you make Keyenes the reliable source for economic wisdom and good housekeeping?
“Spend as much as you can, my dear, it’s what the good book says.”
My perception is that socialism/statism is a faith in man’s ability to be his own reference. It is the religiopn of man. It is humanism.
And I think Marxism spread from London to Moscow, not the other way around?
Extraordinary, that a libertarian can advocate turning the whole society on its ear (or trying to) without a viable template or extant model to show us how they expect it to function. Such attempts usually result in unintended consequences for all concerned. Not all of them will be small, and most will not be quick. Some will be unpleasant.
Murray Rothbard advanced”The Button Pushing Test”, whereby if he were to press a button, all the changes he desired would result, starting with the dissolution of the State. Rothbard stated that he would wear his thumb out pressing that button. Would anyone here advocate such a course?
Tony
Yep I think I would, Tony. People have to realise how hard it is getting to stomach the future changes proposed by the “Choice-Editing” lobby, for people in the real world these days who have any imagination.
I wouldn’t. Most of the population have been rendered incapable of fending for themselves, and many are just plain dependent on the institutions of statism. The collateral damage would be catastrophic. You can’t just tell people who have been reduced to poverty by decades of state exploitation to e.g. sort out their own medical care.
One of the challenges for libertarianism is to produce a feasible strategy for reversal. It is best not to drive into a canal. Once you’re in there, getting out will require more than simply engaging reverse gear.
No, I would not either.
There is so much that can be done, so many laws, regulations, restrictions, protections, illogicalities that can be repealed and undone.
I think if one just began to scratch the surface of this leviathan one would experience immediate change for the better.
As happened with Thatcher, and she did not really undo very much?
Some would no doubt say she didn’t do anything, but she did turn a sentiment and got some results. The Institute of Directors/Economic Affairs were able to do some things, in their protected ways.
Gentle approach is best. Absolutely.
Hey, there’s nothing wrong with discussing Keynes and his theories, of course. But as to whether one wants to consider it relevant of true economic theory is another thing, I guess.
Dave:
How can you be so insouciant?
Are you willing to live with the inevitable adverse consequences? Would anyone else want to? Easier to destroy than to build…
Tony
John:
Inner-circle Thatcherites foresaw this problem: there would be adverse effects which would result, and this means that opposition to the changes would have time to organize resistance. Increasingly, people would say “STOP!!!” and could give good reasons for doing so. The attempt to impose “free markets” in Russia exemplified this. The changes weren’t producing the predicted results, and life expectancy fell to a level lower than during Stalin’s time. The advisers to Chubais and Sachs increasingly saw this disaster, and signed off. Societies are made up from very complex relationships, and there is considerable “flywheel effect.” It will take decades to build something resembling normal life in Russia. The reaction is ineluctably authoritarian. This does not make for a more fully free society.
Tony
I understand the points that Tony makes.
Too many changes at once and you face problems due to unseen cirmcumstances arising due to knee jerk reactions both from the people and council officials (remember the poll tax and how councils used it as an excuse to raise revenue when it was supposed to make it cheaper for every one in general!)
As for the free market in russia, it never existed Tony, it was regulation upon regulation in knee jerk responses to what was happening at the time, very much like what has and is happening all through europe.
It is a case of steady steps combined with education as well as taking power from the state and giving it to the people (all in steady steps to ease the transition for both the people and the state.)
The hardest part is to get those within the state to actualy help in this as a lot of people have vested interest in keeping power within the state as this in turn gives them the power (much akin to how the sycophants always take the power from those they serve as i mentioned earlier.)
Presuming somebody one day gets into a position to attempt a libertarian “cultural revolution” (oh ho!) they will need a very cunning plan, there’s no doubt of that.
As to the Poll Tax, that was an error of monumental proportions and showed a total lack of political nous. Any liberal revolutionaries must, as a very first rule, avoid imposing new costs on anybody, or at least on the mass of the people- whose anger would then be used as a pretext by the Enemy- as with the SWP etc organising the poll tax opposition.
The trick is a plan that takes off the brakes, doesn’t impose new costs on people and maintains welfare (until some point at which it can be reduced due to lack of demand). Not an easy specification, but possible I think.
Tony, yes, I agree. And the following points by Chris and Ian. Poll Tax was a mistake. Also raising VAT to 18 per cent from 8. I think the enemies of freedom within the Tories probably had a hand in destroying the positive that was done, as well as just mistakes.
The controlling elites hate to see the serfs getting some liberty?
Thatcher; Freddie Laker, etc were folk heroes? Not really from the elite?
It is probably very simple to “create” freedom, simply roll back the restrictions and controls without harming anyone too much.
All con men hate simple solutions.