Monday, July 22, 2013

More bits and pieces

I PREDICT that within the next three decades, paedophilia will be made legal after the age of 10. It is a shocking prospect but one which fits neatly into the liberal paradigm. To today's liberals this suggestion will be shocking ( that is of course, if any of them read it). But such a 'liberal' embrace of such a poisonous subject actually occurred during the 1970s, when a group known as the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE), sought affiliation with the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) later to become Liberty - and had it granted. At the time, the legal advisor to the NCCL was none other than Harriet Harman, and the NCCL's director was Patricia Hewitt the one time minister in a Labour government.
            
            At the time (1978) when PIE was affiliated to the NCCL, the organisation argued in favour of  incest and that all sexually explicit photographs of children should be made legal, unless the subject had suffered harm - and this was agreed to as a good liberal compromise.
            
            Of course, neither Harriet or Patricia has had to account for their behaviour today; but in 1976 the NCCL in a submission to the Criminal Law Revision Committee, asserted that “childhood sexual experiences, willingly engaged in, with an adult result in no identifiable damage…".  Is not progressive politics wonderful?
            
            No doubt the NCCL believed themselves to be ahead of the progressive liberal times and would be vindicated by history, as all progressive types believe themselves to be. No doubt the torch of paedophilia will be carried in coming decades by future liberals.
            
             For the liberal progressive triumph continues following the legalising of gay marriage and adoption… so then what other conservative dragons need to be slayed?  Well future liberals will see children in a different light. Paedophiles will, like the Gay community, deserve a  place in the great emporium of liberal tolerance.
            
             Children will be exposed to sexual abuse. Their parent's will have no right to plead on their children's behalf as long as the sexual abuse was 'willingly engaged in' by either their son or daughter. What a pit of moral despair we would have invited upon ourselves if the likes of Patricia Hewitt and Harriet Harman had been allowed to continue their paedophile brief on behalf of PIE.

*                                  *                                  *                                  *

NEXT WEEK the Government's Trident Review is due to be published. At the moment we have four Vanguard Class submarines carrying Trident ballistic missiles. This arrangement allows for a permanent presence at sea, and any reduction from four to two, or even three, would leave the seas empty of a UK nuclear deterrence for periods.
            
             I support the present arrangement, for without a permanent presence at sea any future enemy would have an easy target with no fear of a response: like beached whales our remaining  two or three submarines would be easy targets to be picked off , as they would be tethered to a dock.
            
             So, if we are to have an effective  nuclear deterrent, it has to be effective or else  it will be another case of further billions of taxpayer's money washed down the drain. I would sooner see us with no deterrent, than one that falls short of any true meaning of the description.
            
             There is however another aspect to having a nuclear deterrence, other than its capabilities. Would our modern generation of politicians ever be prepared to launch a counter attack on an enemy knowing that it would result in the deaths of millions of human beings? I think not.
            
              I cannot imagine Cameron, Miliband, Clegg, or for that matter, any crop of future prime ministers even contemplating  unleashing the ultimate deterrent. They will say they would, but they will never be believed by their own people, let alone an enemy. If for instance, our armed forces fighting in Afghanistan have to take cognisance of civilian casualties before they open fire (whether from land or the skies) on the enemy; and if a sniper has to ask permission of a senior officer before he is allowed to kill the enemy[1]; then what spirit is there among our politicians for unleashing Armageddon?
            
             Our military has been  effectively neutered on the battlefield by politicians frightened of their reputations and the result of the next election. As a class, our modern politicians would never contemplate using a nuclear option under any circumstance. Since the Second World War, there has been only two prime ministers who would have launched our nuclear deterrent if it had proved to be necessary; Churchill and Thatcher (remember the outcry in the UK when she ordered the sinking of the General Belgrano?).
           
             If today's politicians and future politicians cannot be relied upon to push the final button; then why should we pour billions into the next generation of nuclear deterrence. It would be better, in these days of so-called 'austerity' to go naked into the world and keep our hospitals open.

*                                  *                                  *                                  *

THERE IS ANOTHER REPORT that has caught my eye…a secret report no less. The sponsor of the report is the Unite union and its author is Steve Hart. Hart is a name familiar to those of us one time Labour voters now in the early 60s. For Steve Hart is the son of the late Judith Hart the Left-wing cabinet minister who was prominent in the Labour governments of the 1960s and 70s.
           
              Her son Steve has, in his report, attacked Ed Miliband's Labour Party. But my interest was occasioned by his reference to Ukip in his 'secret' report. I, like many thousands of one time Labour voters in my age range, have turned to Ukip in latter life as many others should do. We are not racists or xenophobes, as Mr Hart likes to consider us because of our concerns about uncontrolled immigration and the European Union.
            
              This is part of what Steve wrote about Ukip; "The UKIP vote represents a dangerous, populist Right-wing vote which is swayed by anti-immigrant and anti-European rhetoric – and nostalgia for a comfortable world that never really existed," he latter continues, "These are all the hallmarks of pre-fascist movements – which is not to say that UKIP is fascist, because it isn’t, but to point to the dangers of ignoring them and the issues or attempting to chase them.’

            First of all Mr Hart has suckled at his mother's Left-wing breast and sees any form of nationalism as 'pre-fascist', such is the Left-wing orthodoxy. He also sees any criticism of  the swamping of migrants into our indigenous culture as racist. He then offers the formula, European scepticism plus anti-migration equals "pre-fascism". Despite the fact that the latter part of the equation has resulted in pressures on our NHS that may lead to its eventual decline.
            People like Hart are idealists who tend to ignore reality or insult those pragmatic minds that try to warn against such a folly. As a first time Ukip voter, I am not trying to recover a past that I believed to be rose tinted. As far as the charge of xenophobia is concerned, yes, I believe in the nation state; and what is wrong with such a belief? Whereas our political elite are fully prepared to destroy it and make us a mere county council[2] within the Greater Europe (and if this is not pre fascist, then what is?).
            As far as migration is concerned; Ukip, like most Tory and Labour voters, are concerned about their numbers, and how those numbers will affect the life chances, whether in education, the NHS, or housing, of the indigenous white population. Hart chooses to ignore such an impact, believing that it is a conspiracy of the Right.
            As a former aide to Ken Livingstone, Mr Hart's report is a tendentious piece that serves its purpose regarding the author's own prejudices. He is not (academically speaking), a neutral observer engaged upon dispassionate research. He is a Left-wing ambassador clinging to his mother's apron strings and seeking to fulfil her dream of universal socialist love.
             






[1] As has happened in Afghanistan
[2] Ken Clarke (not one would have thought a friend of Mr Hart) actually looks forward to the day

No comments: