Black Bucks

Whenever I hear declared that there is ‘overwhelming evidence’ for or against anything whatsoever, I immediately consider backing the opposite side. In recent years there has been ‘overwhelming evidence’ for man-made climate warming, for man-made climate cooling, for mass unskilled immigration, against the return of the death penalty and for the economic benefits of the EU, among many others. All forms of excessive repetitive behaviour – eating, drinking, gambling, spending, drug taking, thieving and sex are no longer voluntary but as a result of severely debilitating medical conditions with names ending in ‘aholic’. The evidence is overwhelming and ‘surveys show’.

What all of them have in common – from a 20-a-day habit to cataclysmic global something -is money. The money it costs you and me – those who are not afflicted with faith or ‘addiction’ – who are still capable of functioning, working and hence paying tax. I couldn’t care less about those well-off individuals who seek out private quackery to pander to their delusions. If you want to buy a wind turbine and stick it on a hill you own and run in the ruinously expensive infrastructure to make it boil the kettle occasionally, then be my guest. If you regularly drink yourself into oblivion and later check yourself into The Priory at your own expense then bully for you. But why should I have to chip in?

There must also be overwhelming evidence that we need to protect us from ourselves and any kind of hurt is everybody’s public business. Our Father, who does art with Kevin, deliver us also from: racism, sexism, heightism, ageism, chronyism, intellectualism, anti-intellectualism, schism and schism-ism, for there is overwhelming evidence that each of these over-inflated and often fictional hate crimes alone is more deadly than a man with a gun. Oh and, bung in islamophobia, homophobia, xenophobia and any others you think we’d like, there’s a good god. Amen.

Now, about that man with a gun.

“The one the police shot?”

“Yes. The evide…”

“Then he is an innocent victim.”

“But he was a gun-toting, drug-dealing, hoodlum. He actually had a gun with him. He was a lowlife, nasty muthafucka and proud of it. He probably liked gangsta music. The evidence against him was as long as your arm.”

The usual suspects, Diane Abbott, Laurie Penny, Owen Jones, Lee Jasper and their willing acolytes took up cudgels on behalf of the Duggan family and Twitter lit up like a Christmas tree. It was HILARIOUS. Just as with free speech, when you are agreeing with them, The Left are all for it but once they’ve made their up mind you can only ever be in the wrong and thus hateful for voicing your vicious, disgusting opinions. It’s the same thing with evidence. A long as it supports their world view then they will tax you to the grave to pursue their various agenda, but should the evidence – or even, god forbid, plain common sense - point to a contrary view it must be supressed and discredited at all costs.

The Accused (posed by a model)

And besides, there is another far more important piece of information to take into account. Had he been a former miner’s boy from Merthyr Tydfil or a Tyneside Stevedore’s lad out on the rob... had he been a Glaswegian docker’s teenage son going equipped, or a Cockney wide-boy Kray worshipper, the police’s actions would have been fully justified. But Duggan was a member of the untouchables and therefore bears an affliction that justifies every rabble-rousing word of the massive overreaction. Just like Laurie Penny, he was black.