It strikes me that the Far Right, Culture Warriors and Brexiteers have a penchant for tripping themselves up at every conceivable opportunity.
Culture Warriors excoriate people traffickers today, but seem indifferent to the same trafficking in the 17th century - and those trafficked then weren't gaining liberty, but going into slavery. They say slavery was perfectly legal then, but so is landing on our shores today and claiming asylum.
"We don't mean those traffickers!"
They hate refugees, but they go on about Britain's contribution to WWII (if you listened to them, you wouldn't believe the USA and Russia contributed anything to the victory) and the way in which we took thousands of German Jewish refugees.
"We don't mean those refugees!"
One of the pillars of Conservatism is the rule of law, but the right seem intent on undermining the rule of law at every conceivable opportunity and subverting it to its own purposes. Even trial by jury is now in their headlights, which is enshrined in Magna Carta. So much for changing history!
"We don't mean those laws!"
As for statues, they're quite happy for the statue of the paedophile philanthropist, Jimmy Savile, to be removed from its spot in Leeds, but not a statue of a mass murdering philanthropist in Bristol that took over 30 years to be taken down because of right wing intransigence.
"We didn't mean that kind of statue!"
The right loves freedoms, but our government is currently engaged in the biggest grab of our freedoms since Cromwell. Bullying of regulators, stacking of boards, challenges to the independence of the media, criminalising civil protest, restricting the right to vote, attacking the independence of MPs, challenging the judiciary, curtailing its powers and reversing its decisions, abandoning the Convention on Human Rights and, more recently, complaining about jury verdicts.
"We don't mean those freedoms!"
Right wing (they're predominantly right wing) climate sceptics wax lyrical about; "All the money people are making from green tech, renewables and subsidies," when in reality fossils are given billions in government subsidies every year.
"We don't mean those subsidies!"
Brexiteers are no better. They claim record employment shows how well Brexit is going, but we also have record vacancies that can't be filled due to Europeans leaving the UK in their droves, and every vacancy unfilled reduces pre-Brexit GDP.
"We don't mean that GDP!"
Brexiteers also respond with Remain Lies. Remainers in the media came up with high projections, but the high magnitude was based on a hard Brexit, which was expected, but has not happened. The direction of the vector has nevertheless been 100% accurate, as evidenced by recent headlines in the Brexit house journals, the Telegraph and Express. Once harsh realities come to light as incontrovertible facts, the term of the argument change so as not to have to confront those uncomfortable facts. Hence we have Rees-Mogg and Gove moving the goalposts for the Brexit benefits to at least 10 or 50 years hence. If you stick with the original terms - a bonfire of rules and regulations and an immediate surge of competitiveness - it's been a colossal failure.
"We didn't mean that immediate!"
The cry of Sovereignty was loud. Sovereignty to to whatever we want. Like allowing water companies to continue polluting our rivers with sewage?
"We don't mean that kind of Sovereignty!"
They love freedom of speech, except when you challenge them, when they maintain they can no longer say what they want anymore, despite them clearly doing so. The truth is that what the Culture War Warriors are really fighting for is a right to espouse their views without dissent. They are not arguing for free speech, they are arguing that you should not have the right to challenge it by using your own right of free speech.
"We don't want that kind of Free Speech!"
No comments:
Post a Comment