I once had a conversation with another academic in which we considered what we’d do in retirement.
“I plan to try Class A drugs,” he said. “Can’t touch them now because I need my brain in full working order, but when I’ve retired I intend to see what all the fuss is about.”
I couldn’t argue. I, too, need my brain in full working order so can’t risk hard drugs but in retirement, why not give it a go? It’s probably a lot more fun than dementia, which is the only other thing we have to look forward to when the Puritans get their way. By then, heroin will be no more illegal than wine anyway, so what the hell.
Until then, I plan to do all I can to wreck Oily Al’s chances of staying in power with his Spiteful New Puritan party. All he really has is his promise of independence and most of the SNP drones I’ve met believe his bluff that ‘it’s not the right time’. It’s never going to be, guys, because that promise of independence is the only thing he has to distract you from what he’s really doing. If the other parties weren’t exactly the same, they could say the things I’ve said to those voters and chip away at Oily Al one vote at a time. They can’t, because I say most of the same things about them.
There is no independence on offer. None. All that is on offer is turning Scotland into an EU region and that was the EU plan all along anyway. Nothing new. Nothing brilliant. Nothing at all.
It is the same thing that would have happened no matter who was shouting the loudest at Holyrood. The SNP are an irrelevance, as are all the other main parties.
This is what the supporters of all those parties need to know. They also need to have their eyes opened to the Scotland (and for that matter, England, Wales and pretty much any other country west of Moscow) they are voting for.
No smoking. No drinking. No chip shops. Free healthcare only for the healthy but paid for with higher taxes on those deemed unhealthy. Windmills all over the place and the lights go out when the wind drops. Not enough power in the mains to boil a kettle and the solution will be to tax you harder. On a cold, still winter’s day, all you nonsmoking teetotal SNP voters will freeze to death becasue all forms of fire will be banned.
An old age of deadly dull deprivation where you must live as long as possible and do absolutely nothing to enjoy it.
If you vote SNP, Tory, Labour or Lib Dem, that is your future. That’s it. All of it.
When you get there, it will be far too late to do anything about it, and the youth won’t help you either. They will be too busy blaming you for the taxes they have to pay. That particular game is already well under way. Just imagine how vicious it will have become when it’s your turn. The younger you are now, the worse it will be for you.
So what’s it going to be? Another X in the same box as always, another good drone following his master’s voice?
Or will you put a little thought behind it next time?
XX If the other parties weren’t exactly the same, they could say the things I’ve said to those voters and chip away at Oily Al one vote at a time. They can’t, because I say most of the same things about them. XX
And;
XX So what’s it going to be? Another X in the same box as always,……..
Or will you put a little thought behind it next time? XX
Logical falacy?
WHICH other “boxes” are there? You say that yourself in the first quote above.
No amount of “thought” here will/can help.
There is a saying from, I believe Bismarck, it could have been Wilhelm I, but translated it goes;
“The only help against democrats is soldiers” *
(Gegen Demokraten helfen nur Soldaten.)
* (Meaning “the army” But take that as any “citizen” willing to fight).
I’d like to see the people vote in a parliament of independents. The chaos would be incredible. Those Whitehall mandarins would have to learn how to herd cats in a hurry!
Aye. THAT would be something to see.
But who, with the “right mind set….say you, Julia M, Frank Davis, me (At least as regarding the cash), has the means, ie money, to stand a cats chance in Hel of getting anywhere NEAR standing for election?
Once you have “backers” you are no longer independent.
I wonder if the tobacco industry would back us? The Smoker Party is pretty much guaranteed 20% of the vote
Anyway, time to go a-boozin’ and a-smokin’.
I am really glad America won the revolution. With the pile of shit namby pamby rules your governments come up with over there, I wouldn’t put up with this crap for a second. Thank God or whoever,,,,,,,, we still as a nation still posess enough guns in the populace that our rulers worry at night when they pass this moron based legislation. Your government wants old folks to stop drinking???? They’d better give them something to look forward to…
XX we still as a nation still posess enough guns in the populace that our rulers worry at night when they pass this moron based legislation. XX
So, we must asume there ARE no guns in California then….Or does that spoil your argument too much?
They are planning to take your guns away, you know. As well as your booze and tobacco and large cars.
Bill
S’funny, isn’t it? We always used to say over here in Blighty “Only in America …” and shake our heads in a mixture of amazement and relief at some of the things which we heard about over on your side of the pond. Now it seems that the positions are reversed and it’s you Americans who are looking askance at the some of the weird and unacceptable machinations of British politicians.
But I’d counsel you not to rest on your laurels too much about things being better over there – not because they aren’t (I honestly don’t know one way or the other) – but because if they are then you need to keep them that way. As you say, your people still have the right to bear arms and many of them do, but how many of them would be prepared to use those arms in open rebellion of ludicrous laws impinging on your freedoms, if those laws are applied (as they have been over here) little by little and bit by bit? Laws which may make no sense and be deeply unpopular, but which have nevertheless passed whatever tests are required in the US system – consultations, debates, votes etc – to be regarded as binding “laws” within a system which is, I assume, generally accepted as a civilised and democratic one by most of the American population? Politicians in all countries may make seemingly daft decisions but they are far from dumb – that’s just one of the convenient masks they hide behind to conceal their true motivations for unpopular laws. They know just what they are doing – they just don’t tell the public what it really is.
So, at what point would the population of America rise up in open rebellion against the authorities to call a halt? At smoking bans? Well, they’re all over the place now, so clearly not. At alcohol bans? Mmm. Tried that before and I don’t remember the “open” rebellion which followed, so clearly not again. At the sending out of tens of thousands of the bravest and best of your young American men and women to risk getting blasted to bits in a meaningless war which at the end of the day pretty much everyone knows has little to no chance of achieving the (artificial) aims presented by politicians as the reason for sending them there? Nope. Nada. At using tax dollars to bail out massively irresponsible multi-billion dollar banks to get them out of a hole they got themselves into? Umm, no – that didn’t happen. At Obama’s not-absolutely-universally-popular Health reforms? Err – no, seems not again. So, what will it take? And how many freedoms, in teensy-weensy, incremental steps, will you have put up with losing in the meantime?
The fact is that your politicians, like ours, know only too well that there is actually very little which would unite sufficient numbers of the American people to get them out onto the streets bearing in aggression the arms which they currently hold for self-defence. And all the time that the vast majority of the arms that you bear are likely to remain harmlessly in your homes (bearing in mind that a small number of angry arms-bearing people would be easily despatched by the authorities – because they have guns, too) then the powers-that-be can sleep soundly in their beds, as safely and securely as if you didn’t have them at all.
XX Tried that before and I don’t remember the “open” rebellion which followed, so clearly not again.XX
Na. I don’t know if it could be called “open rebellion”, but Chicago during prohibition was not exactly noted for it’s peace loving population.
FT, For sure, we all know the problems which Prohibition did cause and there was certainly no shortage of gangsters shooting each other up in order to expand their own empires, but what I was trying to get at here was that at no time whilst Prohibition was in effect did the (presumably just as armed then as now) general population, take to the streets in open protest at the authorities’ imposition of the legislation because of its sheer unreasonableness and unacceptability, as Bill insinuated might the be sufficient worry to the American powers-that-be to prevent them from overerstepping the mark …
‘The younger you are now, the worse it will be for you’.
Spot on. And not just for Scots.
Daily Mail, Daily Mash, I can’t tell the difference any more.
Emma Bradford from the institute for studies says…………….
I thought that brewing was a popular pastime for pensioners in earlier years.
They shouldn’t try to use “saving” pensioners as an excuse for minimum pricing, the pensioners may well decide to teach them a sharp lesson.
I have a feeling it’s about to get very popular once again.
Did not mean to hijack your column. Just making my comment. If you folks don’t think their are not enough armed pissed off Americans with the guts to reopen some old wounds, you should try hanging around the South or Northeast of this country during hunting season. It is not a patrician holiday like fox hunting. If you are not wearing bright red, I would not even walk down a country lane, you’d be mistaken for something that moves or a target. And I agree that we are pussies for putting up with the smoking bans, sending cannon fodder overseas with no aim of conquering anything, there are millions of things wrong with America. I just wish I could convince the rest of the world of that so they would stop migrating here….Best-Bil
Personally, I think we need some form of basic qualification for a person to be entitled to vote. A minimal intelligence test, plus a check to see if this person (or their household as defined by the person they are married to or are in an existing civil partnership with) has paid tax over a set threshold during the past year. All prisoners serving custodial sentences would be entitled to vote, provided that they can obtain leave to visit a polling station outside the prison walls. All pensioners would be eligible to vote, provided they pass the “Prove you’re not a moron or demented” test.
This disenfranchises anyone who hasn’t got a vested interest in Government being efficient and effective, and disenfranchises most of those who would make bad decisions on who to vote for. The expected effect here would be to cull a great many of the career politicians, and to clobber Labour’s vote for good. A few years of such a system would also starve most political systems down to a bare minimum needed to function. We’d still have the Righteous, but they’d have to fund themselves somehow instead of relying on parasitism off the State as modern Fake Charities do.