It is said that some prisoners become so dependent on the narrow confines of their cells and the monotony of lives minutely organised for them, that they have great difficulty in adjusting to life outside the prison bars; and may even commit further crimes in order to be safely locked up again, where they are looked after and have a recognised place, even if it is a miserable place in a harsh environment. Not everyone can cope with freedom.
Notwithstanding the verses on the Statue of Liberty, not all the huddled masses are yearning to breathe free - unless that means at someone else's expense, of course! Then there's no limit to the number that our masters expect us to welcome and support. It's not enough to deal with the home grown trash, it's somehow imperative to scour the world for human refuse to import.
...''Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!''
I'm not convinced the Founding Fathers of America thought of their enterprise as the creation of a refuge for refuse. Somehow that's what it's become.
It's even more grotesque to envisage our female ministers, the 'Blair Babes', harpies, fishwives and harridans to a woman; more particularly 'Five Bellies', our contemptible greedy and absurd Home Secretary, who is the one responsible for (failing to control) immigration, posing and imitating the figure referred to thus:
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome....
Life and art parody each other. Like Circe's pigs, our rulers fail to recollect themselves and how far they have sunk below their proper station and responsibilities.
Having turned Britain into a pig-sty, our rulers attempt to degrade it's inhabitants to the level of pigs, and control their living quarters, their mating, their movements and their diet. That effort at control now seems to constitute the main activity of government. Towards which abattoir will they be be driven? For whose benefit will they be slaughtered, morally, mentally and even physically?
Those who pay the swine-herds probably consider that they own the swine and certainly mean to profit from them. Physically, the armed forces are already being expended, in a small way so far, in pursuit of interests other than the defence of Britain, or the advancement of its proper interests. There's just been a scandal about a local hospital which faked its figures to appear to be meeting government targets, (in itself a good idea, necessary for good management, but needing to be relevant and monitored), so as to achieve a more financially rewarding status. It did so by economising on trained medical staff, and failing to count patients, let alone attend properly to them. It was estimated that over 400 people had died as a result. Well that's very New Labour, the National Health Service becomes the National Death Service, to benefit the most callous and crooked. It puts one in mind of the financial sector, where the bankers most feted and celebrated by the government, turned out to be competent only at self enrichment whilst destroying the banking system. Of course nothing will be done about either set of filth. Ministers drone about investigations, reforms, lessons being learned - but they're very slow learners (except when it comes to pocketing perquisites and appointments). Hempen collars all round would be just what this 'doctor' would order. If only the dead had been Labour politicians instead of real people, the world would be a better place.
Morally, emotionally and intellectually the population is deprived of the benefit it is entitled to expect from participation, (at the levels of their various comprehensions and abilities) in its heritage of religious and cultural institutions. Instead of the bread of life they are offered only the stony life of consumerism and socialism.
The ancient Greeks thought that involvement in the life of a small city state was essential for the full development of the potential of humanity, and that the institutions of such communities - where it was possible to hear and respond to a cry from the other side of the city- provided what was necessary for humanity. Their philosophers certainly didn't believe that Jack is not only as good as his master, but a damn sight better. They didn't insist on trying to turn sows' ears into silk purses. Our rulers deny that their are any such differences, and punish anyone who points out reality. It's been noted that the citizens of the ancient Greek city states displayed and were expected to display, a great deal more ability and versatility than is true of modern states, however much they prate of democracy.
The great exemplars of modern democracy, the government of the Obamessiah, recently displayed their mettle to the world. After so many decades of confrontation with Russia, their diplomats organised a small gift for their representative, Mrs. Clinton, to give to the Russian foreign minister when they met in front of the world's media. It was a toy button supposed to represent resetting the political relations between the two powers, who each still control thousands of nuclear weapons. Almost unbelievably, their experts in the language and culture of Russia got it wrong, using the Russian word for overload, instead of the word for reset, and writing it in Roman rather than Cyrillic characters! Presumably they had got rid of anyone who knew anything, and substituted some 'equality' or 'diversity' ignoramus. Fortunately, the Russians have a reputation for patience; they're certainly going to need a lot of it.
That vermin, deserving of all vituperation, our vile, vicious and venal rulers, political and economic, have expressed their contempt for their people by the destruction of anything small scale and local, denying that the British, and more particularly the English, have any right to their own identity, institutions and territory. They foist the foul fraud of 'Britishness' - sub human socialism - upon both the British and the human refuse they have imported to supplant them. It's been revealed that now one third of primary school children in Britain no longer have English as their mother tongue. The arrogance and insolence of these protected and promoted 'minorities' imported to act as sub-rulers over the mongrelised and miscegenised population, knows no bounds.
It's not surprising that many of the immigrants resent and resist degradation and assimilation to this level of the pig-sty. Many are Muslims. Although abominating pork as meat, they are of course eager to get as much as possible of the financial and political variety. Those of better class and quality may pay lip service to the multi-cultural nonsense, but it is merely a tool to make gains at the expense of the natives.They obstinately retain their own religion and culture. Good luck to them for preserving their religion, culture and identity; even if it's Islam, it's better than the degraded socialism promoted by our would-be owners. It should be no surprise that the young men who become 'home-grown' Islamic terrorists, their warriors, spring from the the most affluent and educated and apparently assimilated strata of these immigrants - although our media appear surprised - the politically correct fools.
The same gormless idiots are shocked to find that the natives of Iraq and Afghanistan don't welcome the imposition of 'Western' decadence on their societies - apart from the crooks at the top, whose worship of Mammon is as sincere as any capitalist's or socialist's, however often they may be seen in mosques knocking their heads on the floor. Their cousins and co-religionists in Britain don't like it either. The more rowdy insult returning British soldiers, as recently happened at Luton, under the protection of our traitorous politicians and their stooge police. The quieter and more effective organise crimes and divert government grants to finance terrorism. A year or so ago there was a series of television programmes about some of these 'British' Muslims accused of involvement in terrorism, after the explosions in London, and it was revealed that there is a network of otherwise quiet and unexceptional 'British' Muslims engaged in credit card fraud, benefit cheating and various other crimes to raise money for such purposes, and that the money for the explosives and training of some of these people had come from a local authority grant to a local Muslim 'cultural'group. No follow up of that naturally. It might shock the natives and embarrass the powers that be - amongst whom are now numbered many of these immigrants' 'community leaders'.
Indeed, these people now are the Labour party (and the other main parties to a lesser degree) in some parts of the country, and there have been accusations of ballot rigging by them. The postal ballots have, seemingly deliberately, been left open by this government, to easy abuse. It's known that such abuse has occurred. Some 'British' Asians were caught with a warehouse of false ballots, and I think Asian candidates of different political persuasion, have sued each other over similar corruption. They aren't leaving it all to the immigrants. There was a very strong smell of postal voting fraud hanging over the recent by election in Glenrothes. This seat is adjacent to the Prime Minister's, and he was personally in charge of the Labour effort there. Although the polls predicted a close result in what had been a very safe Labour seat, with a possible capture by the Scottish National Party, an unexpected flood of mainly Labour postal votes secured the victory. Since then its been alleged that one of the vote counting tables was not fully in public view, and the electoral register showing who actually voted has mysteriously disappeared from official custody - more lessons to be learned, or perhaps they've already been learned too well?
So, circuitously, we come to the topic that started me thinking about this post, Scottish independence. I don't know a lot about modern Scotland and its affairs - a bit more about those of the 16th and 17th than the 21st century - but it's impossible to miss the rise of the Scottish National Party and its campaign for the independence of Scotland from England, the breaking of the Union of the two kingdoms. Currently it forms a somewhat precarious minority government in the relatively recently established Scottish Assembly, which deals with local affairs, having narrowly taken over from Labour. Browsing a few of the Scottish blogs, it seemed that the main current excitement is how soon they can or should have a referendum on independence, there not being as yet a majority in favour of the break, according to opinion polls. There's no thought of asking the views of the English.
Indeed, something I found a bit strange was the way the SNP bloggers grouped everyone else merely as 'unionists', as if this overrode any differences between them, although in the larger context of British politics their stances on Scotland are only a very minor part of their views. Both 'them' and 'us' in this context are equally and solely Scottish. Small world. (The population of Scotland, is I think, scarcely more than half the population of London.) Will it be a brave new world that has such people in it? Will there be Tempests in the independent Scotland? Judging by Scotland's history, which has been described as exceptionally treacherous and bloodstained, that's a fair bet. The fact that Scottish national dress includes a concealed weapon, a dagger in the stocking, might be a clue to something in the national character.
A while back, when the by election was held in the constituency of Glasgow East, I looked at a forum on a Scottish newspaper's site as the result was awaited, and was astonished at the level of inventive invective the locals hurled at each other. Some of them hate each other as much as they hate the English.
What would be the foreign policy of an independent Scotland? I'm told it would be peaceful and even pacifist. What, no border reiving into the north of England? No attempt to revive the Auld Alliance with France? No completion of Bruce's attempted conquest of Ireland? How will that accord with the martial traditions of Scotland? Will the successors of the men who served in the armies of Sweden, France and England stay peaceably at home - unemployed?
Once the passion for independence takes hold, and the freedom of minorities to break a constitutional union and unilaterally secede from a larger entity is accepted, where will it end? It didn't end well for those who tried to break away in mid 19th century America. If Scotland breaks from England, may the Highlands break from the Lowlands, the Lordship of the Isles be revived to free themselves from the mainland, the Orkneys and Shetlands revert to Norway? Could the Picts be reformed, and send the Scots back to Ireland? Considering the venom to which they treat each other, might there be a civil war between SNiP's and SLabs? It is difficult to suppose that there would be any enthusiasm in England for raising an army to restore or re-conquer Scotland, so we could be left with a United Nations peacekeeping expedition trying to maintain order; perhaps drawn from the armies of Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Rwanda and Nigeria with their recent experience of suppressing rebels. Might there, in future days, be tales told by old soldiers in Pakistan of service on the North West Frontier of Scotland, in the Highland tribal areas, being sniped at from the heather?
Peace also has its possibilities. How about Celtic Union with Ireland, Wales, Cornwall and Brittany? It could be based on rugby, perchance. All the politicians would be far too egotistical to concede power and privilege to each other, but they'd love the conferences, the speeches, the gossip, the travel, the limelight - the expenses! One would have to mind one's Celtic P's and Q's.
What would be the constitutional position of an independent Scotland? Would it be in the EU or not? Would it have a choice? If the English think to end their subsidies to Scotland, will they find that the EU simply replaces them - and they will have to pay more to the EU? Would the present Queen remain Head of State? Might the Stuart Pretender, Prince Michael of Albany attempt to assume the crown? Another Jacobite Rising- a 2015 to go with 1715? Could a Salmond Dynasty be the winner?
What would it be like at home for the Scots themselves? 'More Scottish Than Thou' may be an adequate slogan with which to attain power, but is it a sufficient basis for government? How different will a' SNiPped' Scotland prove to be? Will there be compulsory lessons in Highland Dancing and Caber Tossing? Will Gaelic be an official language, with equal status to English- or must we call it 'Scots'? Lots of opportunities for language teachers, sign painters and colourful cartography. Like Ireland and Wales, might Scotland force it's schoolchildren to learn the 'local' language, and require its bureaucrats to display proficiency?
What is the difference between SNiPs and SLabs, apart from tribal loyalty? Is it just the envy of 'Outs' for 'Ins'? Should we explore the ins and outs of the matter, will we find that as the Outs become Ins they are uncertain what to do next, having concentrated solely on achieving power; and as the previous Ins see themselves becoming Outs they are increasingly desperate and bitter at the loss of power, patronage, profit and perquisites, well knowing their own disinclination and unsuitability for honest labour? A naked and unprincipled struggle for power.
Rumour has reached me that the SNiPs are even more socialist than the SLabs. If the Scots choose to spend each other's money and blood, who will object, providing none of it spills over onto them? It's sad that a people who produced Adam Smith and David Hume should degenerate into socialists. I feel humanitarian regret that people are subjected to the loss of freedom and prosperity that socialism entails, especially if they have known better, and regret the destruction of Britain; but if that is the fate they choose, they will not be deprived of it.
Taking a birds-eye view, as a Raven might, one wonders what Scotland lacks of independence, apart from the name? Practically, is it not already as free as it could be, or as the EU would allow it to be? The usual features of foreign domination are not seen in Scotland. There's no English governor, supported by garrisons of English troops, imposing taxes on the Scots to pay for their occupation and remit tribute to England. They're not imposing foreign laws or an alien religion on a resentful people. Local culture and national symbols and sympathies are not suppressed. The higher levels of political and administrative office are not held by Englishmen. Big business, finance, agriculture, trade, the professions, the media, academia, religion and culture are not dominated by the English. It's very noticeable that all such positions are held by Scots. They have free elections to their own Assembly, which runs local affairs. Only foreign policy and the military are controlled by Westminster - and those are aspects of self governance where we are assured that Scots ambitions are very modest, so little change need be envisaged.
Indeed, an impartial foreign observer would note the exact opposite. It's England that is governed by Scots. It's England that is taxed to remit tribute to Scotland. It's England's sense of identity, culture, national symbols and festivals that are suppressed. Scots are prominent at the upper levels of English business, administration, politics and media in a way that the English are not in Scotland. The Scots allow the English to hold elections, but they have no English Parliament, and the Labour government at Westminster uses it's Scots MP's to enable it to control English affairs.
Something strange seems to have happened to religion in Scotland. The Covenanters and Calvinists who resisted the attempt of Charles I to impose Anglicanism on Scotland, and tried instead to impose Presbyterianism on England, have faded away to be replaced by the Son of the Manse, whose academic study was dominated by the history of the inter-war Labour party in Scotland, and who labours mightily to destroy the society, economy and finances of Britain with his socialist twaddle. It's fair to note that something as strange has happened to the Church of England. It's female priests, homosexual bishops, and black congregations would appear as hellish nightmares to those who established it, and they could hardly believe that this is now a reflection of England in both secular and sacred aspects.
Our rulers are not only socialist, they're also corrupt. Perhaps the two go together. Mao lived as an emperor,whilst imposing austerity on his people. On their lesser scale our ministers and MP's and quangocrats devote themselves assiduously to self enrichment, hypocritically exclaiming when the light of public scrutiny falls upon them, that they have done nothing wrong, followed all the requisite procedures and stayed within the law. Some are always more equal than others, but the socialists seem to be more disgustingly greedy than the others, all the more sickeningly so as they trough whilst proclaiming their efforts to help the poor.
In relation to Scotland, when following the Glasgow East by election, I noticed accusations that the previous MP had resigned to spend more time with his loot, to prevent an investigation that would have exposed him; and that Labour, especially in Glasgow was mired in accusations of thuggery and corrupt property deals. This is the political patch of the ill-esteemed and remarkably greedy Speaker of the House of Commons. Labour corruption is not new. Remembering the scandal of the 1960's when the major political figure of the North East of England, Dan Smith I think he was, was jailed along with an architect, Poulson, for massive corruption in public works, it would not be at all surprising if Scottish Labour politicians were corrupt. Since the SNiPs have taken over in Scotland, have they set the police to investigate such allegations, which would seem a useful stick with which to beat their rivals? Not that I've heard. Perhaps police and politicians already know each other quite well, there's little desire to rock the boat, and it's just a matter of snouts jostling for the best positions around the trough, without overturning it or turning on each other.
Scotland Yard - strange name for the headquarters of the London Metropolitan police - seems to have been completely Blairised, turned into creatures of New Labour. Our Home Secretary, 'Circe' Smith, was able to watch her 'pigs' invade Parliament to bully an opposition MP, and even arrest him on absurdly flimsy terrorist grounds; but Knacker of the Yard, was not allowed to feel the collar of Blair or Lord Cashpoint for trafficing in honours. It would be wonderful if the Scottish police would send Inspector McKnacker to Westminster to arrest the Speaker, and take him to the knackers yard.
Scotland already has more independence than England. Perhaps, like some birds when their cages are opened, they're reluctant to recognise their freedom and take wing, too comfortable with the old habits of subsidy dependence and abusing the English. It's said that 80% of the legislation passed by Westminster is just rubber stamping what comes from Brussels. How much difference would it make if Scotland had a direct relation with Brussels, unmediated via Westminster? Would the same complaints continue, or would the EU be accepted as a new gravy train to climb aboard, a new world to conquer? They may already have started. How long before Scots will be running Brussels, as they ran Westminster? It would not be altogether unprecedented. Just before the South Sea Bubble, long before Fred the Shred wrecked Scottish and British banking - OK, not all by himself; that famous Scot, John Law, introduced France to the delights of central banking that was going to make everyone rich, and resulted in the horrors of a debauched paper currency. He also escaped with a big bag of loot.
Will Scotland's independence mean England's freedom? Will England ever again be united, free of foreign rule and alien subversion? If the tide of EU regionalism breaks England into pieces, might something like the Anglo Saxon Heptarchy be revived? Could the North East recreate the Dark Age kingdom of Bernicia, which covered Northumberland and the south east Scottish coast roughly as far as Edinburgh. Maybe the Scots could reverse the decision of the battle of Catraeth, and take over Bernicia, thus freeing the rest of Britain from two sleazy socialist subsidy sumps, but no, they're far too canny for that.
So, at the last, what are the prospects of freedom? Some have more than they recognise, others think they still have what has long passed. If it's left to our rulers, there'll be less of it; they act as if intent on freeing us from freedom. A freedom-free zone is what they try to create, CCTV cameras spying on everyone, jobsworths bullying everyone, informers enforcing political correctness, ability crushed and failure exalted, the communist state nightmare imposed by the EU, no-one to know any better, or be able to aspire to more than the life of a herd animal, and in a badly run herd at that. Being of a low moral nature themselves, merely cunning rogues, they aim to debase everyone to below their own level to make them easier to exploit. In so far as they recognise quality, ability, superiority to themselves, they hate and despise it, and act against whatever gives people freedom to improve themselves physically or spiritually, and subvert the social institutions by which this may be assisted. Slavery is their ideal, with the slavish 'sheeple', totally dependent on their rulers, repeating slogans about how very free they are, trained not to recognise their mental chains. A population that Aristotle would have regarded as natural slaves, even if they carefully avoid the name, animated tools who exist not for themselves, but for the purposes of others.
Although the Brown Snotgobbler and his odious party are highly likely to lose the next general election, that is cause for only restrained approval, as Blue Labour may be only somewhat less statist, Clone-of-Blair having busily purged the Conservative Party of conservatives and conservatism, in 'de-contaminating the brand' to create another principle-free band of opportunist political power seekers. Put not your trust in princes, as the Bible had it.
As the external social aspects of our lives offer less scope for freedom, it becomes all the more important to develop one's inner resources. Don't be a sheep waiting for a Good Shepherd to look after you and tell you what to do. Become a goat, and do something yourself. Remember, Jesus may be busy - save yourself. Take heart from the great British heretic Pelagius, who opposed fatalism and reliance on the Church, and asserted that If I ought, I can. Or remember the parting advice of Buddha to his disciples, that they should not accept anything on authority, but should work out their own salvation with diligence. Ponder Plato's allegory of the Cave, written long before flickering shadows on the wall could be related to television or Hollywood.
To be free at last, a freedman entitled to wear the Phrygian Cap of Liberty, requires both inner and outer freedom.
Polly Toynbee, True Believer: hope springs eternal?
22 hours ago
Posts
