THE LAST DITCH An Englishman returned after twenty years abroad blogs about liberty in Britain
So much for that
Simon Jenkins speaks sooth

Be afraid

It's Christmas for the left-liberal consensus. They are still in their glee from the undoubted success of their suspiciously Campbell-esque campaign against News International. They are still earnestly blabbering over state-dominated airwaves, without a hint of irony, about the supposed 'dominance' of a private company struggling to compete with the funded-by-force BBC. A Norwegian nutjob has now made them an even greater gift. Watching the Andrew Marr and Murnaghan shows this morning (and wondering as usual why the Conservatives are as little in evidence as they were in opposition) their delight was manifest.

Jacqui Smith, well-deservedly-former Home Secretary, told us on the BBC that 'we' (a plural pronoun, as used by her, that does not embrace you and me) must 'insist' on certain 'shared values.' I doubt if - beyond the least controversial of the Ten Commandments - Mrs Smith and I share a single value. Minutes later, she was telling us that the internet provides a 'virtual community' for warped individuals. The BBC held out for mere seconds before dropping the 'extreme' from 'extreme right wing.' Compare and contrast with the way they never describe socialist violence as any kind of left wing but wrap it in the false black flag of 'anarchism'.

After the merest pause for a respectful nod to Norway's dead, it was on with the usual smear tactics and guilt by association before demanding that something be done about people whose opinions are readily detectable by their use of social media. If you tweet, blog or post any non-conforming opinions in comments, you should be very afraid this morning.

Try the following checklist:

  • You do not trust the British state
  • You believe that the Labour Party and its fellow-travellers are the greatest enemies of our liberty
  • You believe the BBC has a left-liberal bias
  • You believe that British academia is dominated - and our education system warped - by the left
  • You believe that immigrants have been allowed into Britain faster than they could reasonably be assimilated into our way of life
  • You believe that the left-liberal consensus facilitated this deliberately to create client groups for its own electoral advantage
  • You are tired of our capital being known as 'Londonistan'
  • You believe that citizens have the right to armed self-defence
  • You have called for politicians to be held personally to account (perhaps with a few lurid 'swinging from lamp-post' references)

Tick any two or three of those, and you are suspect. If, when details emerge about Breivik's political motivations, it proves he has more in common with smug statists than with you, it will make not a shred of difference.

Comments

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Bill Sticker

I think that the labels of 'Right' or 'Left' are becoming increasingly irrelevant, and that the real political differential is increasingly between statists and libertarians. Statists willingly murder to obtain their so-called utopias, true Libertarians do not.

tomsmith

But that's just it Tom, the words "right wing" are only meaningful now if you accept the distortions of the left. They have seized and now control the meaning of these words as they do with so many others.

The term "right wing" is applied to a vast range of completely unrelated ideologies and in a stroke of genius has the effect of tying them together.

It can reasonably be argued that liberalism is a radical reforming leftist ideology and this is the line I tend to take for no other reason than that it confuses socialists.

Libertarian Political Analyst

Tweet what you want! This is America and if I can't put it on my Blogs and rant about things, I wouldn't have a job. So by someone stating their opinion, thoughts, or feelings, they are committing a crime in the eyes of the BBC?

Tom

If words have no meaning, how do we think? Personally, I would rather be banged up as a 'right wing nutter' forever than '..identify myself as left wing...'

Many libertarians focus on the statist/classical liberal continuum, which makes sense as statists of left and right have far more in common with each other than with us. However there are 'left-libertarians' and 'right-libertarians', so the distinction needs to be made (a distinction based upon attitudes to property rights).

Whether you justify state power by reference to hate figures selected by class or race, is equally daft to me. My friends (and enemies) can be of any race or class, but the state is a consistent foe.

Tom

[Regular commenter Ms Moggs Tigerpaw has had technical difficulties posting a comment, so here is her contribution to the debate]

Well I tried to comment on your "Be Afraid" post.

But it just didn't like my URL and would not let me leave it out, so I am emailing it ^_^

Yep. I was really horrified about what happened in Norway.

...and as soon as I heard about the killer's "manifesto" I was automatically horrified to be thinking some of the stuff on your checklist.

...and starting to wonder if I should just hand myself in to the police.. Like because it had been in his thoughts it was somehow dirty.

Then I thought; Hey, lots of people can spot the same problem, but they don't all agree how to handle it best. That is what politics is really.

Some are sensible some get all wishful thinking and one or two put on a special tin-foil hat...

Like public spending maxing out the UK credit card as an example. you can try to cut it fast, or more slowly, or not cut it but raise taxes instead, or bury your head in the sand.

And I guess if you are a real nut job take a rifle to the top of a tall building and make like postal.

I did spot that the 24/7 BBC reporters seemed desperate to find, or imagine, some sort of link to right wing exctremists in the UK, right after they realised the massacre was done by a blue eyed blonde Norwegian and not a dark haired guy with a beard and a hook.

Now they seem happy to swallow his pathetic puffing himself up with his "Uniforms", secret contacts and "cells" if it matches their own particular notions.

Moggsy

tom smith

The answer is to refuse to identify yourself as right wing. Doing so plays into the hands of your enemies. Currently "right wing" means something like "not-normal and not accepting of the societal norms all sensible people identify with (i.e. not socialist), and probably a violent hate filled racist to boot".

Calling people "right wing" is a tool of the left. It is a tool used to stifle debate, much like the terms "extremist", "racist" and "denier". I always identify myself as left wing before disagreeing with any socialist.

Suboptimal Planet

I too was struck by Cable's remarks. I was expecting his usual economic illiteracy, but his choice of words seemed cynical rather than careless (48m 18s):

"The irony of the situation at the moment ... is that the biggest threat to the world financial system comes from a few right wing nutters in the American Congress, rather than the Eurozone"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b012z1cp/The_Andrew_Marr_Show_24_07_2011/?t=48m18s

Tom

Thank you sir. I don't think I have ever called for politicians to be strung up either, but many people I respect have done so (fairly jocularly, I suspect). The scope for "Prevent" to be extended to all who fall outside the leftist establishment is clear.

Suboptimal Planet

Excellent post, Tom.

The BBC's coverage drove me to paroxysms of Twittering rage over the weekend.

I tick all boxes save the last ...

Surprisingly, a quick search through my blog doesn't turn up anything suggesting that Labour politicians are a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be first against the wall when the revolution comes.

Tom

It is certainly convenient for the left but sometimes shit just happens, David. The enemies of liberty are as disorganised as any humans. Indeed, having been a leftist in my youth, I would venture to say they are *more* disorganised. Except, thank God, when it comes to the relentless squabbling amongst themselves which soaks up most of their energy.

David Davis

Is it not rather convenient, ladies and gentlemen, that the Murdochalypse and the Oslo Massacre have occurred within the "live time frame" of people's attention-spans nowadays? It will be easy for the MSM to conflate the two, plausibly, in the minds of today's evening-couch-TV-news watchers. Amy Winehouse (I had to be told who she was) nearly spoiled it by dying in the middle of the window, but she seems to have been "buried as bad news"....

...sorry. Perhaps my old imagination is too active these days. I'll shut up now!

David Davis

Let's all hope that I'm completely wrong then. If I was right, where does that ultimately leave the struggle for individual liberty?

Ian B

My prediction is that the Murdochalypse and Oslo Massacre are going to dovetail into an enormous censorship clampdown; this is what they've needed to wrest control of the internet. They already have the technology (CleanFeed) and the bureaucracy (IWF) in place, now they have the justification.

Tom

That's a conspiracy theory too far for me David.

David Davis

He even looks and dresses like some sort of cartoon Nazi. This sadly is the impression the BBC has been trying to give of people who are classical liberals or "conservatives".

David Davis

Over at the Libertarian Alliance, I have today commented that this awful fellow who has done this thing, is so "cardboard cut-out", so "crafted" if you will, as sort of cartoon-"right-wing-extremist" that he has perhaps been put in as a false-flag operation by the gramscian fascists. Suspciously, he has neither shot himself nor so far "fallen against a sharp object in the course of being questioned", suggesting to me pessimistic brain that he's going to say all sorts of what appear to be half-baked "neo-conservative" twaddle which will be lapped up and rebradcast by the world's MSM as "what right wing activists believe today".

I think he's a deliberate plant. The gramscian left takes no notice of millions of innocent deaths: why should causing a hundred even cause them to bat an eyelid?

Tom

Archbishop Cranmer is on the case too - and implicating the Prime Minister in the matter;

http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2011/07/demonisation-of-right.html

jameshigham

Raedwald ran a similar test. I score badly - I must be a rightwing nutter.

Peter Whale

Tom put me on the list, ticked all boxes. Just took a three month old Belgian Sheppard Boxer cross from a rescue centre, does that count as armed self defence.

Single Acts of Tyranny

Likewise, let's get fake passports or something

Tom

Please do. The posts are only an excuse for the comments you know.

Tom

Oh dear. We appear to be a 'virtual community.' Leave your doors open tonight. It may save a locksmith's bill later.

WitteringWitney

Oh hell, Tom, like Ranty I can tick them all - does that guarante me a 4am wake-up call from Plod?

Woodsy42

I'm in trouble then, I agree with the lot, and could add a few more

analiensaturn

Guilty of most of them, Labour are the Tories and visa versa

Captain Ranty

Good Gravy!

I would tick them all.

Am I now in danger from my own countrymen?

CR.

QX

I am an immigrant and I agree with most of those. What are they going to do with me?

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