Primary Colours

You know, for those that have the ability to embrace a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-social, non-binary, rainbow world it is quite alarming how they can only actually see things in binary black and white. While they simultaneously adopt contradictory positions - feminists against feminists, gays backing immigration from profoundly hetero-centric cultures - they cannot conceive, even in their cognitively disordered minds, that others who do not share their doublethink could ever be right. They appear to accuse us of having a monotheistic stance to everything.

In their world view anybody who does not automatically confer uncritical approval on even the tiniest minority proclivity is an unreconstructed caveman with a single bigoted brain cell. It is far easier to cast a bogeyman as wholly bogey than of having shades, hints, of common decency. Far more effective to tar the whole man as just a part of him; that way the feathers are going to stick wherever they fall. They talk of us ‘othering’ those who don’t fit neatly into our world view, yet they do precisely the same when they assume that somebody with a different vision for society from them must be an inhuman monster.

So, a Tory voter is automatically a hater of the poor, a denier of human rights, a money-grubbing investment banker working for the global anti-humanist cabal, when the reality is that he or she almost certainly works, struggles to make ends meet, believes in the social contract and loves their children just as much as somebody who insists it is the state’s job to feed and house them. All humans are non-binary in their views; there are very few absolutes, but in order to foment rage against those of us who feel no need to constantly protest, we are painted in single, primary colours to mark us out for vilification.

But why are we not allowed to be sceptical when things are not as clear cut as some people want it to be? It’s not that we completely refute that human activity has an effect on climate change, but that knee-jerk punishment taxation may not be the most effective way of combating it. It’s not that we think people of different skin hues are inferior, but when crime rates soar as a direct result of mass immigration from the third world, surely we need to establish why and take measures to protect ourselves. And it’s not that we don’t accept that some people are genuinely born with the wrong sexual equipment, we just don’t believe it is a great idea to suggest transgenderism to malleable young minds.

But none of these qualifications are recognised; we are climate change deniers for questioning policy which financially disadvantages those least able to afford it. We are labelled racists because we object to female genital mutilation and organised ethnic rape gangs. And we are monstrous transphobes for believing that the gender dysphoric are a truly tiny minority. We can’t order society to recognise and respond equally to all differences; in a democracy the wishes of the majority are used to direct policy and the compassionate consideration of the minorities seeks to include them wherever we can. I wonder how all these differences competing for attention would fare under a mob rule system?

No matter what our true beliefs, we will be excoriated as racist Nazi scum for daring to suggest that we should each seek to heal ourselves. That self-reliance is a far better strategy than expecting others to come to our aid; that jumping to conclusions about another’s allegiances based on one strongly held belief is naïve and unhelpful. But what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander (although PETA would frown on such vegan-phobic language) so we all indulge in similar miscasting of our adversaries’ motives.

Whadda you got?

But the phenomenon isn’t even-handed. The devil, they might say, makes dogma for the idle to adopt and those occupied more fully in leading good lives, supporting a family, instilling values of fairness and a genuine work ethic don’t pay much heed to labelling. Those who recognise that waiting for outside agencies to wave a magic wand over your life chances is futile have little need for the conjuring up of demons to hate. But those who would most benefit from adopting the mindset of the strivers are apt instead to give way to envy and blame all their ills on the ordinary people who are, out-of-character, going to march in London on Sunday in yellow hi-viz vests to protest the sidelining of democracy. Colour me shocked  

Smash the Cis-tem!

“What’s this country coming to?” Was almost the last tweet I saw last night, in reply to exactly what I didn’t bother to find out. It could have been the second instalment of Benefits Street, or possibly the news that the muslim Brotherhood have set up shop above a disused kebab shop in Cricklewood. Or maybe it was a response to @IDS_MP’s latest effortless and always entertaining trolling for untermenschen off Twitters rocky shores. Social media is like a wrecker’s beacon luring to their doom the earnest, the agenda-driven and those bowed down by the weight of heavy causes. It’s like the ultimate shit magnet, collecting faecal matter in a never-ending storm of ordure.

And always quick to heed the siren call are those whose brief twitter biographies are nevertheless revealing of deep anguish and unnecessary pain. Yes, I’m talking about the passionate ones. I worry about passion; after all it’s another way of saying “I probably care about this particular subject more than I should really be telling you.” You should never have to tell us you’re passionate about your family – it would be odd if you weren’t. But to describe yourself as passionate about, say, cream teas or a political party borders on the uneasily obsessive.

‘Enthusiastic about’ or ‘supporter of’ or even ‘backing’ are all reasonable descriptors of your interests, although I remain to be convinced whether such declarations are necessarily the best introduction to potential followers. Imagine greeting a new acquaintance with “Hi, I’m Danny and I am a fearless and unapologetic defender of our religious freedoms!” And a string of vaguely related hashtags is another giveaway that your life and thoughts are dominated by preoccupations that may make you incapable of always playing nicely with others.

Once you acquire a passion, of course, the next essential lifestyle accessory is a label. Labels, labels labels… it’s that lefty obsession with over-complication again. While ‘the right’ tend to shrug and accept things, getting on with the world as it is and overcoming adversity during the week, leaving the weekends free for a spot of downtime, there really does seem to be a passion for lefties to immerse themselves, 24-7, in a good fight or two. And it isn’t enough for ‘a left’ to believe in something, passionately or otherwise. No, once they have had their meetings the task is to bend everybody to their will.

Thus it was that yesterday I was informed that, as a ‘normal’ I am no longer allowed to use the word ‘normal’ in the normally accepted sense. Some of you were there and saw the ridiculousness of the stance while others were there and helping along the ridicule. Yes, it was that troublesome word, ‘cis’ a microscopic wordlet, too small to survive alone in the wild and chosen, no doubt, for its oddness, to describe those who hitherto needed no such label.  A tiny, tiny… tiny minority of people are unhappy with the physical gender they were born with. It’s complicated for them and they deserve support and compassion but browbeating the rest of us is no way to gain sympathy.

What? You don’t know what ‘cis’ means? Well it describes a gender identity where your self-perception of your gender matches the sex you were ‘assigned’ at birth. Just read that again; if your birth certificate says you were born a girl and you grew up happy to be a girl then you’re no longer just a girl, you’re now a cis-female, whether you like it or not. In other words, you’re normal… except that word is now verboten, you nasty oppressor. How dare you.

'Duane' Abbott - gender uncertain

Being me, I tend to shrug off such things, because they make absolutely no difference to my life, but it seems that’s just not allowed any more. For those who are ‘passionate’ (or ‘deranged’ as evidenced by their tenacity) about such things it is not enough that we just get on with our own lives. We must bend, once again, to the will of the minority. And if we don’t comply, no doubt another term will be coined to label us as the hateful humans we are. Take the rat out of racist and what have you got? It’s not normal, I tell you.

Don't be late!

Sorry I’m a bit late today, but it’s not my fault. I have a medical condition that makes it literally impossible for me to meet deadlines. Yes it was diagnosed by a doctor. At least I assume it was a doctor; I was twenty minutes late for the appointment. What’s the condition called, you ask? Hang on while I find the paperwork… Yes, here it is, it’s just called ‘Chronic Lateness’. I know, you couldn’t make it up… although my ‘doctor’ appears to have done just that

Reported in the Daily Mail today is the strange case of Jim Dunbar, who has been late for everything in his life; work, holidays, first-dates, funerals – you name it, he’s been late for it. His chronic tardiness has been diagnosed as a medical condition, related to that other well-known imaginary ailment, ADHD, which is, of course, brilliant news. At last I know that my poor result in that crucial exam was simply because I was late to finish the paper; it wasn't my fault I ran out of time. It was medical, see? Not my fault at all.

In this world where we routinely refuse to condemn and correct what was formerly seen as aberrant behaviour this should come as no surprise at all. Thus a steady decline in rigorous educational outcomes can be dismissed by a whole series of lengthy, acronymic disorders and treated with suitable drugs, relegating teachers to junior nurses in the national lunatic asylums we used to refer to as ‘schools’.

Thus parental failings, antisocial behaviour, repeated offending, drug addiction, welfare dependency, wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy and gluttony can all be chalked up not to individual or collective failings, but regarded as the inevitable outcome of some sort of syndrome. And the list of such crippling diseases is ever added-to by an army of selfless practitioners, ready to diagnose yet another acronym on, if necessary, an individual basis.

Thus my chronic idleness is different from your chronic idleness because it has different letters in it and pity the poor worker with no label because he or she will have no excuse come the day they dare to throw a sickie because of some piffling excuse, such as a broken leg. Who wouldn't want to have a prescription that says they stay at home watching Jeremy Kyle and drinking White Ace cider not because they are worthless but because they are a bit poorly?

This explains so much. It explains New Labour’s inability to recognise the unaffordability of the welfare state and its failure to prevent major failings in some NHS Trusts. It explains why it took so long for Ed Miliband to grudgingly confess that its open door immigration policy had been incompletely thought through. Maybe the labels, inter alia of racist, sexist, Europhobe, homophobe, bigot and misogynist are actually not meant to be pejorative at all, but are simply the collective medical terms for an inability to recognise when a politician is right and you, little person, are wrong?

Tony Blair displays his horrific injuries

So relax, fellow sufferers, it really is not your fault. It’s a disease, plain and simple and such diseases affect not just the masses, but the great and the good. When Tony Blair says, from a billionaire’s yacht, that we should intervene in Syria, he is not being a war monger. Neither is he protecting his own not inconsiderable financial interest out of any form of greed. No, not at all. You see, dear Tony suffers from a terrible affliction which makes it impossible for him not to recommend the annihilation of thousands of foreigners on a regular and predictable basis. His syndrome is called Middle East Peace Envoy.

Goodies and Baddies

In amongst all these world changing coup, counter-coup, insurgency, revolution, resignation shenanigans it’s hard to tell right from wrong, left from right, up from down. The world is a complicated place and it’s high time we straightened it all out. We should make it easier for any one of us to tell the goodies from the baddies, just like in the golden days of Hollywood. The goodies could wear white and the baddies could wear black… decorated with a handy and stylish skull and daggers motif. Or wear a badge. Or have a facial tattoo,or even hide their baddie faces.

Good old Auntie Beeb has been doing this on our behalf for years. I’m surprised it’s taken this long for somebody else to notice, but then if we’re too thick to work it out for ourselves I suppose we need to be drawn pictures. Nigel Farage drew attention to the practice in this interesting piece for the Daily Telegraph (Why do they never ask me… and what are their rates?) about the recently revealed bias of the BBC extending his observations to drama where, “ those who oppose mass migration are bigots, stupid, physically ugly, those on the other side are sensitive, beautiful, intelligent.”

We all go about bearing coded identification already, actually. The way we dress, the way we behave and in particular the way we pass on those traits to our dependents and so forth. Notwithstanding the odd out-of-character outburst, first impressions are a bloody good way of deciding ‘U’or ‘non-U’ and these days you need to be more aware than ever of your audience before revealing your allegiances. The bird in the burka? Probably not going to be ultra-receptive to a tirade against immigration, even if she was born here. The kid with the can of Stella at ten in the morning? Unlikely, I’d have thought, to respond well to a Tebbitarian, get-on-your-bike, pep talk.

Of course, part of the problem is we don’t carry around mirrors with which to ‘check our privileges’ before we engage in what was “only words, your honour” and we are often blind to the shortcomings of our own tribe. While sympathy might be easy enough to rustle up, or at least fake, empathy is a poorly developed part of the human psyche, especially in approximately fifty per cent of the world’s population. Just as we think all the Chinese look alike, so they also believe we are indistinguishable from one another. And it’s the same for non-physical expressions of where we belong too - cultural norms, innit?

No wonder the country’s in a mess. To the hot-house-raised gilded elite in Westminster who only ever see an outsider as a potential vote we all look the same to them. They don’t see what we see when we are swamped in ‘diversity’ and they seem genuinely mystified that we can’t just rub along as they pretend to do. There is a name for inbuilt human preference for those who look, dress, act and think like oneself but to keep it simple, a much shorter version is generally used. They call it racism.

Those who prefer the company of the left recognise and applaud the heroic workers’ struggle against oppression and believe in fairness and equality. Those who align with the right see only oppression in leftist big government, resulting in unfairness and squalor. What’s needed is a middle way, one that sees liberty and democracy in equal measure; we could call them, I dunno, lib-dems? (*irony klaxon*) But wait, even democracy fails if the demos is insufficiently informed and educated to be able to operate it. Pull the wrong levers and you get Egypt, where a democratically elected government has had to be overthrown by military action. This is harder than it looks...

Boo? Yay? I dunno... It's behiiiind you!

The problem for Egypt & Syria and all those emerging from the dark ages is now abundantly clear; if even THEY can’t tell the goodies from the baddies how can we decide which side to help? This is clearly a job for the wardrobe and makeup department because right now they all look like baddies to me.