You aren’t allowed any, and haven’t been for quite some time.
(quick info – I have two more hospital appointments this week, the second is on Remembrance Sunday but it’ll probably involve far less discomfort than the one on Wednesday which I hope, this time, really will be a one day visit. Then, I hope, they’ll have finished meddling with me for a while.)
The earliest instance I can clearly recall, and I’m sure there were much earlier ones, was the question of gay marriage. When asked if I supported gay marriage, I’d say ‘no’. The instant response was ‘Well that means you oppose it, homophobe’.
No. I don’t support gay marriage and I don’t oppose it either. I simply don’t care. I’m not gay, and I don’t have any religion, so I have no feelings about it one way or the other. It’s something that has no effect on me, it’s something I can’t do anything about either way and have no interest in trying to, and that makes it quite definitely an SEP*.
This means that the loony left (not the actual gay people, note, it’s the usual proxy victimhood shouty sweaty wild-eyed loonies who always do this) demand that I declare support for something I don’t care about, while the intensely religious demand that I denounce something I don’t care about. Well, both sides are welcome to watch me not care.
Fast forward to the Ukraine/Russia unpleasantness. I am neither Ukrainian nor Russian. In fact, looking at it from a dispassionate viewpoint, I’d actually be happy if they both lost. There isn’t an easily identifiable ‘good guy’ in that fight.
But the flaggies with the blue and yellow flag in their bio demand that I denounce Russia and the Putinites demand that I call Ukraine Nazis. What the hell do they think I’m going to do about it? Rush over there and bang Putin and Zelenskyy’s heads together and tell them to go home and behave? Obviously I’m not going to do that because the only difference that will make in the world would be my rather sudden departure from it. Nothing else will change. This war is, to us ordinary plebs, an SEP. There is absolutely nothing we can do that will make any difference at all.
More recently, we’ve had the whole trans thing. There are aspects of this that do move me off the middle ground. Magazines declaring a bloke in a dress to be one of the most beautiful women on the planet? No, that’s just funny. Dullard Mulvaney and his comical attempts to resemble a titless Audrey Hepburn? Nope. Don’t care. Businesses using him as advertising and then getting all shocked when nobody wants to buy their stuff? Well that’s just stupid marketing. It’s an SEP. Theirs.
There are lines in the sand though. When burly blokes who are fucking useless competing with other blokes decide they are going to bash women in sports instead, now that’s just wrong. When green haired tattooed freaks, with enough piercings to register on a metal detector a mile away, posing as teachers, persuade kids to chop off their bits and become a sterile parody of the opposite sex, that is reaching into the pit of actual evil. ‘Don’t tell Mum and Dad, it’s our little secret’ is not a new phrase. We all know the kind of person who says it. Parents who actually do this to their own children, well I can only thank Darwin that they have permanently removed their genes from future generations. No grandkids for you, dinosaurs. And don’t expect your kids to look after you in your dotage, once they realise what you’ve done to them.
That said, I do still have a middle ground on the trans issue. Adults who want to dress as the opposite sex, and are of an age and sufficient mental development where they are able to decide whether to go the whole hog and have their anatomy altered, well, fine. It’s their life, their body, they can do with it as they wish. I still balk at the idea of a bearded lump of a man with a stiffie holding his skirt up being allowed into women’s bathrooms and changing rooms but as long as they don’t do that, I personally have no issue with them.
This attitude is enough to label me ‘transphobe’. Well, call me whatever you want but don’t expect me to call you by some made up pronouns. If you do, know that when you’re not around I’m using the pronoun ‘that deluded git’ whenever referring to you. Because I don’t care about your attention seeking nonsense.It’s an SEP. Specifically, yours.
The British, especially the English, have a long history of tolerating and sometimes even delighting in the antics of eccentrics. We don’t mind at all if you’re a bit odd. So you like to have a ZZ Top beard and wear a gingham dress and fishnet tights. No problem. You carry on with that. As long as that’s as far as it goes.
And so we come to the Israel Palestine thing that’s currently the Flag to Fly. These two have been taking pot shots at each other since long before I was born and are likely to continue doing so after we are all dead. The basic ideology on both sides means it can never end until one side or the other is eradicated. Both sides have made this clear, both sides believe they are the Chosen People of their gods and neither will stop until the last one of The Other is dead. Negotiation is futile. You will be eradicated.
So, there is much talk of Israel breaking international law by targeting hospitals and schools and residential areas, but those are where Hamas puts its missile launching stations and command centres. The results are predictably horrific, and probably deservedly condemned by the usual Mindless Marchers. However, there was no sign of the Mindless Marchers when Hamas went into Israel, killed many civilians and took well over a hundred as hostages. Which they still have. No condemnation of Hamas for putting their military bases in schools and hospitals. It’s all a bit one-sided…
So are Israel blameless? Hell no. They are still stealing land and houses from Palestinians in the West Bank, even now, even though Hamas are not there. They have bombed airports in Syria to prevent arms coming in for Hamas, although the more sensible route for Gaza would be by sea or through Egypt.
There are other twists in the story. The seabed off Gaza’s coast is rich in oil and gas which belongs to Gaza as long as it exists. Also, the Ben Gurion canal…
The Red Sea splits into a V shape at its northern end. The west point of the V leads into the Suez canal. The east point of the V touches the tip of Israel. They have plans for another canal which would go from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. The route I saw took it past the top of Gaza. A far easier route would be through the middle of Gaza. There are money and political reasons to want Gaza gone, and not just by Israel.
It’s more than just a war this time. The money people are deeply invested in the outcome. I am sure that many, if not most, of the people living in Gaza and Israel just want to live in peace but those in charge of both countries have a different perpective.
You think the Israeli government care about their people? They’ve just forced their own people to be an experiment for Pfizer. You think Hamas cares about the people of Gaza? They are just human shields to hide behind.
A popular phrase these days is ‘Your government does not care about you’.
It’s true in every country on the planet.
*SEP – Someone Else’s Problem.