Monday 18 April 2016

Count me out

I don’t think I believe anything any more. I stopped believing ‘in’ things many decades ago – things like deities and the possibility of humans co-existing in everlasting peace and the like - but I was always open to facts and accepted truths. Later I began to judge all such facts – statements, statistics, reportage and the like through the microscope of my own widening experiences and disappointments. It turns out that most of it is a crock.

For instance, I thought science was the bedrock of all established understanding of the known universe. But then along came ‘climate science’ whose acolytes and adherents bear more resemblance to the faithful, bowing and scraping at the altar than the sceptical ‘prove it’ monkeys that rigorous research needs. And a whole lot of other fields of conjecture also queer the factual pitch by masquerading as ‘science’ – economics, psychology and pretty much the whole of the humanities.

In the end people believe what they want to believe and most of us come to trust our own nose before the nasal appendage of others. Right now the biggest field for fake science, guesswork and general mountebankery is, of course, the state of Britain post-June 23rd. Nobody knows what a post-Brexit world will look like, but we all know that, despite David Cameron’s feeble fiction about some specious ‘special status’, remaining a member of the EU will not satisfy a majority of the public; even many remainders are deeply suspicious of the EU’s direction of travel.

When the facts are absent the feel of the campaign takes on a greater importance and just lately it has been feeling dirty. The Remain campaign’s Project Fear is starting to yield returns and alongside their prognostications of doom is the belittling of those who wish to leave. How long will it be before they start referring to the Leave camp as fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists?

They say we are fantasists and dreamers who would put the common good behind some vainglorious hankering for a long gone Britannia. Little Englanders who would return us to some backwoods existence, grovelling for scraps from the world trade table. But we saw last week what sort of a man turns from a lifetime of opposition to grovelling subservience. Once dubbed a ‘Labour firebrand’ Jeremy Corbyn’s wooden performance in sackcloth and ashes showed a beaten man.

The beaten man of Europe

Forget about what ‘facts’ turned him. Corbyn’s lacklustre surrender to a hated higher authority had all the hallmarks of an orange-suited hostage forced to read statements on YouTube shortly before their bloody despatch. Convert or die, convert and die; I didn’t believe a word of it. If this is the true image of the new European count me out.

5 comments:

  1. I cannot understand any lefty not being in love with the EU. After all it is a socialist construct run along socialist lines. Chief among it's ways is central planning and control, statism, authoritarianism and lack of democratic accountability all manna from heaven for a lefty. If they do not recognise that which obviously most do not then they are really as stupid as we believe them to be.

    Sure the private sector is allowed to flourish but just like China under the heavy strictures of a central committee. Brussels has it's own politburo in the form of the commission.

    We do not want to leave the EU because we are little Englanders we want to leave because we believe in devolving power not centralising it and self determination. As a completely sovereign state we wish to join any club that allows tariff free trade and offers way to coordinate our activity in areas where it is of mutual benefit to do so but be free not to join in activities that are not mutually beneficial.

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    1. I have long thought that the average Leftoid will, come referendum day, be mopping his/her/xe/it brow in a frenzy of uncertainty.

      Leftoid principle one states that the bigger the authoritarian stick being held over one the more one has to love it, so der EU fits the bill perfectly. However Leftoid principle two demands that all thinking must be directed towards hating the Tories and rejecting all the right holds dear. Yet the Tories, hated that they are, want us to stay in the EU.

      For the Leftoid, this presents a dilemma of what to do for the best? Vote to leave is to spit at the Tories and earn Socialist brownie points, or vote to stay because the left demands bigger sticks to hit one with, and socialist sticks the size of the EU are the best...

      Oh if only the Left had a god other than a dead Marx to pray to in order to resolve this terrible dilemma.

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    2. The do have a god - it's called the NHS. They pray to it daily and hold vigils in the streets to mourn its demise, despite it refusing, year after year, to actually die. Keep pushing the 'TTIP will kill the NHS' lie and all bets are off.

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  2. You can't have one big happy Europe if the people of the EU nations won't move.

    The EU insists on free movement of people. It's the one thing they will not budge on. So the EU is not about trade its about People.

    The EU wants everyone to live somewhere other than their country of birth. This will weaken and then destroy Nation states.

    The argument seems to be that because we went to war in the past we must destroy nationalism or we'll all be at war with each other by Christmas.

    Am I allowed to say 'Christmas', don't want to offend the religion of peace and end up with a 'fat wife' or what ever it is they give out. Hope i didn't offend any fat wives by the way. Goodness its hard to write anything these days.

    Anyway. The EU is a club that once you've joined you leave at your peril. A bit like any cult you've heard of.

    Normally if you don't like the terms and conditions of any agreement you make, you can refuse to sign and either renegotiate or not enter into the agreement.

    The people of Britain, England in particular, don't like the terms and conditions. So we'd like a vote on whether to sign an agreement we don't like.

    The EU don't like the people having referendum. That's too much like democracy. But at least people can see what they're getting. The EU has exposed itself in recent years. The trade they offer is the trade in people. People are going to be moved around until they become easier to manage. Corporations get cheap labour, and nations won't fight each other, because there won't be any.

    Islam might have a different vision of the future, but time will tell on that one.

    If people want a future for their children (If they have any) different from the one the EU has envisioned, then they'd better make their argument heard because the IN campaign has the backing of everyone but a few 'brits' who are all old, fat, bald racists loonies led by that Mad Cap son of an Immigrant, Boris 'ottoman' Johnson. (if only Bono was available)

    Does anyone truly believe the UK would leave the EU with 51% of a voting public, which might be less than 80% of those eligible to vote.

    What if Scotland, Wales or Ireland votes overwhelmingly to stay while England votes to leave. The splits to the Union (that are already there) could be fatal.

    Could it be that Scotland and Wales rejoined after a Brixit. The connotations are many. What ever you decide you'll be Damned if you do, Damned if you don't.

    If you don't know what to vote for at the referendum, Don't be fooled by all those health freaks. Drink Will Help!. ( please drink responsibly).

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    1. You are pretty much right but you have got your economics wrong. You obviously prefer Keynes and the like to Adam Smith, Hayek and Mises. Actually the only things the EU has got right is the free movement of labour and a tariff free common market. Those do make economic sense and do enrich us all. The concept of it at least the practice of it very much less so. What the rest the EU does and wants to achieve is totally wrong.

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