THE LAST DITCH An Englishman returned after twenty years abroad blogs about liberty in Britain
Liberty League Freedom Forum 2013 #LLFF13
The Thatcher Test

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Gary Spencer

The point I was originally making was that 'Thatcher-hate' has its roots not just in obstinacy or political opposition, but bridges between people that were burned and were never really rebuilt. There is a lot more to it than strikes and closures.

Of course people get money for nothing. It happens all the time. But if being born in the right family constitutes hard work then I agree with you.

I think using terms like 'losers' makes your attitude to life clear. It's not one I believe in using. I am deeply sentimental about people and some of the situations they find themselves in, and stand by that view.

Lord T

We should use more of these peoples tactics against them.

Otherwise nothing will happen. She can still have her ignorance while she is on the dole. Oh, and she will still be able to blame maggie for her being fired so she can still be a hero.

Tom

With all due respect, that's bullshit. I come from a place where the local steelworks was the main employer. It was closed during the Thatcher years and, yes, there are mindless locals who can't see past that. But the truth is that the works was losing millions a week and the jobs were quite unreal. I worked there myself as a student and could not make my job last longer than 30 minutes a day, however slowly I did it. I ended up doing it in 15 minutes and using the rest of the day to work on an essay for which I won my only academic prize.

Everyone with two brain cells to rub together knew that nonsense could not last. There is no such thing as money for nothing. The point is that it is a better, more prosperous place now than it was in the 70s. Some losers never adjusted to reality, but they are dying off steadily now. Most locals grew up in the real world and are the better for it.

My family, friends and I *were* personally affected so even if your sentimental nonsense-logic that only those with direct experience can understand were true (which would be to deny the possibility of all science) you would still be wrong.

Gary Spencer

In the balance, I personally think she was incredibly overrated, as well as mean-spirited at times. Though I also find the idea of anti-Thatcher parties - understandable in this unique context - more embarrassing than nasty.

Andrew

"Though this really isn't about an old woman dying. It's about a towering symbol of our national differences and outlook that has been brought to an almighty head."

Very grand.

But the time for celebration was when she left office.

Partying now is just plain nasty.

Gary Spencer

I don't really believe in a left or right any more. I think everyone is a work in progress that have actions and words that move between the stereotypical received-culture polarities depending on their current position in life. Moral hypocrisy is alive and well in just about everyone, and if we all recognised that as a human foible occasionally, we might all get on a little better. Though this really isn't about an old woman dying. It's about a towering symbol of our national differences and outlook that has been brought to an almighty head.

Andrew

"Instead we as a nation ended up importing cheap foreign coal to replace those substantial and still untouched reserves."

And that's why government shouldn't try to run industry.

"We shouldn't let such gratuitous acts override a more rational view of left or right ideologies."

I don't think anyone is basing their views of the looney left and the baby-eating bastards on the right purely from this.

To give an example of what I meant, a presenter of a car show makes a joke: fire him.

An old woman dies: let the good times roll.

No principles, no consistency, the hypocrisy ignored - as usual.

But hopefully this situation will make more people realise the moral righteousness of the left is nothing but an act.

Gary Spencer

Of course people lose their jobs all the time. Though there was something extraordinary about the way her words and means at the time felt like missiles being fired into specific communities. It felt tremendously personal in a way I have never seen since. In the town where I lived the majority of people worked in a mine that had years of coal left in it. Instead we as a nation ended up importing cheap foreign coal to replace those substantial and still untouched reserves. Of course, you have to draw a line somewhere, but some level of preparation and forethought over such a sweeping decision would have shown her a decent leader, rather than the hugely overrated one she has become. The fact that idiot opportunists smash up shops is a red herring, and something any decent person would condemn. We shouldn't let such gratuitous acts override a more rational view of left or right ideologies.

Andrew

"When I see people being condemned for feeling ill-will to Thatcher and everything she represents, I see only an incredible lack of insight and an increasingly reinforced reminder of the divisions she enhanced."

It's not ill-will that's being complained about. It's the gleeful revelling in the death of an irrelevant 87 year-old grandmother.

I lost my job as a result of the 2008 crash. And there was plenty of anger and tears around then, too.

But I'd end up a truly pathetic creature if I spent the rest of my days blaming someone else for my situation.

And the very idea of partying or smashing up charity shops because someone who had a negative affect on my life - thirty plus years ago - has passed away, is repugnant.

On the plus side, at least all this helps expose the left for what they really are.

Gary Spencer

PS: I am not a socialist, and dismissing 'Thatcher-haters' as socialists is pretty lazy thinking.

Gary Spencer

Based on the comments here. it is still clear that a number of us don't understand the social phenomenon of 'Thatcher-Hate'. Perhaps if they had personally been on receiving end of some of the measures she took during her position of power, for which some people have clearly never forgiven her, or at least witnessed with their own eyes some of the emotional repercussions of that time, they would have a much better idea. This particular woman's glee may have come from such an origin, or it may simply been part of the more widespread sympathy with it. Either way, the idea that people should not feel some kind of solidarity with seeing their perceived oppressor expire is irrational in itself. I saw at first hand the anger and tears caused directly by Thatcher's 'policies' during the eighties, so I can see clearly why Thatcher and all she symbolises is hated in this way. When I see people being condemned for feeling ill-will to Thatcher and everything she represents, I see only an incredible lack of insight and an increasingly reinforced reminder of the divisions she enhanced. The haters aren't all 'nasty' people, They were just really hurt people. And if that sounds trite and sentimental then I'm sure Thatcher would have agreed with you. Even good dogs might bite you if you kick them hard enough.

Chris

+10

Tom

I wasn't too broken up either, but I was concerned to know he was treated with dignity in death and I didn't take to the streets to party. Any man's death diminishes me. The actual warriors who killed him were entitled to punch the air in triumph for a moment - at least until their adrenaline subsided - but the rest of us quietly celebrated a moment of justice and the end of a threat, not the death of a fellow man.

Margaret posed **no** threat to the Left as a frail, suffering old lady and their conduct revealed the essential hollowness of their claims to be "caring". They are entitled to critique her ideas, of course. I am not complaining about any of the reviews of her life and work. But to attack her as a woman is pretty sick - and lots of it was unmistakably misogynistic too. The "anti-sexists", just as much as the "male chauvinist pigs", could never get their heads around the fact that - like Meir and Ghandi before her - she refused to fit into their stereotype of how a political woman should behave.

In the end, I am not really complaining at all. I hope they never stop demonstrating in their deeds the harsh truth behind their fine words. The people smashing Barnardo's windows in Brixton would be gleefully manning the Gulag if it existed; hatred for their "class enemies" cutting them off from their humanity. The more people who see the nastiness in their eyes, the better.

MickC

No, don't report her.

To use the "i'm offended, I'm complaining" tactic is to give it credibilty, when it deserves none because it has none.

Let that persons ignorance and unpleasantness show itself to the world-and she will be judged accordingly. As, in fact, seems to have happened.

Moggsy

What kind of human? Well I naturally thought “a scumbag” first off.

But then I remembered that I wasn't too broken up to hear Osama Bin Laden died, so maybe I am being a hypocrite? And shouldn’t be casting any stones at glass houses or something like that.

Some people absolutely hate Margaret Thatcher. I think that hate is too strong and not quite rational, maybe saing more about the hater than the hated.

But hate is often like that.

Suboptimal Planet

" but what I want to know really is, do nasty people get attracted to socialism a-priori, or does the snaring of a soul by socialism make one into a nasty person?

I'd just love to know which way round it is."

As in most such situations, I suspect the answer is 'both'. Some bad people are attracted; some good people are seduced; and both suffer from a (literally) vicious cycle of reinforcement from their comrades.

And of course the world isn't really so binary. The people are nasty to varying degrees and in different ways to begin with.

David Davis

These repellent people have always, we must admit, been cheerfully frank about what they would do, and how they would feel, when she finally died. We did, it is fair to say, have a lot of warming of their joyful anticipation of this event.

However, we know them to be socialists. They proudly advertise themselves as this thing, by themselves. All it proves is that people who get infected by socialist thinking are nasty: but what I want to know really is, do nasty people get attracted to socialism a-priori, or does the snaring of a soul by socialism make one into a nasty person?

I'd just love to know which way round it is.

Curmudgeon

I think you need to name and shame here. Hopefully you made your views known at the time.

Cascadian

Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II and Lech Walensa will be remembered as the greatest freedom-fighters of our millenia. Their achievement will live for time immemorial. I will seek out Lech Walensa's comments and ignore the neo-historical comments of todays journals.

The small group I named above made me consider the idea that politics could achieve great ends occasionally, it happens so infrequently. That brief moment of hope has been dashed repeatedly by subsequent politicians and their camp followers.

We remember those who clamoured to support the communist status quo and would turn UK into something similar, those union secretary-generals are out in full force today. The petulant, childish displays by frustrated communists show their futility. We must allow these scum to identify themselves, all the better so that we may know which products and services to boycott.

So, rest in peace Margaret Thatcher, peacebringer and fearless politician. You fought the good fight, and well.

Dick Puddlecote

+1

Andrew Duffin

What kind of person?

A socialist; need one say more?

Footnote: the death of Stalin was marked by people openly weeping in the streets; Solzhenitsyn describes the scene, and his reactions to it as a recently-released zek.

Suboptimal Planet

"What kind of human glories in another's death?"

To be fair, I probably would have celebrated the deaths of Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin.

The real question is how people can possibly view Thatcher that way.

AndyJS

Yep report her to the management. State that it was grossly offensive and get her fired

Jeremy Jacobs

How sick. Can you name & shame?

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