There are few things more puerile …
… than that inane, smug, adolescent incantation of ‘Can’t Stop the Signal’: at once twee, subliterate, and counterproductively annoying.
Note that I say ‘few’: not, ‘none’; whereby hangs a tale.
It is I think generally known that I do not much like Mr Obama. I don’t like his politics, I don’t like his economic views, such as they are, and I particularly don’t like his idea of what constitutes being an Ally. His treatment of the Right Honourable the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, what time that very Gordon Brown MP (for it was he) was HM First Lord of the Treasury, was contemptible and unforgiveable: barracking prime ministers is my job, not his. And I consider - as anyone watching the EU crisis, the Falklands, and anything else, frankly, must consider - Mr Obama (and his administration) to be not merely not an Ally, but an actual enemy to the Crown and the United Kingdom.
And it should never occur to me that I should instruct American citizens to vote against (or for) him or any other candidate. (It occurred to the Grauniad, who mounted a campaign in 2004 to have their lickspittle readers write, unsolicited, to random Ohioans to urge them to vote for Mr Kerry over Mr Bush, thereby, one suspects, assuring that the worthy citizens of Ohio helped re-elect the latter: very un-British, that; but, then, that’s really what one had expected from the Great Minds at the Grauniad.)
It seems to have occurred to numerous foreigners on LJ, however, to instruct us as to what we want to do: Americans, Brazilians, all sorts, have decided to undertake the duty of directing our political lives and our communications with our hon. members. These are the orders you presume to issue us (Who Do Yo Think You Are Kidding, and All That):
If you only do one thing today... [Actually, I’m rather busy with my own affairs.]
Dear UK Flisters,
I know I’m preaching to the choir with you guys when it comes to LGBT equality [do you? Are we all of one mind?], but believing something is fair and actually getting off your bum and doing something about it [something I in fact do on a regular basis, ta ever sodding so] doesn’t always follow like it should [I’m so terribly sorry we’ve disappointed you, O Mistress and Empress. We shall Work Harder! Arbeit - well, take that as read]. So here’s a little (and slightly preachy) reminder!! [‘Slightly’? Here’s a little rejoinder, then: Sod. Off. And take your excessive punctuation with you.]
Three things I’d like you all to do before you go to bed tonight (if you haven’t already) [and why in buggery, precisely, ought I to care what you’d ‘like me to do’?]
1. Go … and sign the C4EM’s petition for marriage equality [oh, how ever did I function without your instruction, and question-begging semantic infiltration, Comrade?]. This is the simplest and probably most visible way to show your support. It currently has 60,000 signatures - the petition against (by C4M) has over 500,000!!! [Good, because I signed the latter. I’d been meaning to do, but it was your intervention in our buggering affairs that motivated me. Please do come out in favour of Spain over Gib and the Argies over the Falklands, it helps those of us on the correct side immeasurably.]
2. Go … fill out the government’s consultation. It might take a little bit longer, but you can bet that for every pro-person who doesn’t find the time, there will be dozens of ‘anti’ people who will. [Me, for one.]
3. Email your MP. There’s a handy template there for you to use so you don’t even have to think [yes. That’s telling, isn’t it?] of what to say. Also, you can go here to see where your MP stands on the issue. A hugely important thing to do because the majority of MPs will be voting with their conscience [those that have one. Which is not all that common] rather than following the party line, so make sure you let yours know your feelings. [Fortunately, most of my local MPs, in adjoining constituencies, are sound (one, on the other hand, is an invertebrate LibDem). My constituency, which has been in existence since 1295 and has been represented by all manner of men from RC martyrs to irreconcilable Roundheads, and never a Labourite even in the debacle of 1945, is sound as can be.]
4. Okay, so I lied [there’s a shock]. There’s actually a fourth thing. And that is [to - Ed.] simply spread the word. The consultation ends in two day [sic] - it’s our [What was that? ‘Our’? ‘You’ are not ‘us’, damn you, and I’ll thank you to remember that] last chance to get as many people mobilised as possible. So tweet it, Facebook, blog it, beat your friends and family around the head with it until they give in!!! [Get stuffed. And your supererogatory punctuation.] And if you want to repost to your own journal (and please feel free to edit), here’s an ever-so helpful button….
I am, actually, British; and I am, actually, gay. Whilst I typically describe my pull record as ‘modest’, I have, actually, been on my knees or on my back for more fit lads than many of you shall have had hot dinners - at least decent ones (Rules, Simpson’s, Wilton’s: that sort of thing). I respect the views of, say, Staps, who I know has an argument and shall articulate it, and Tree&Leaf, who has made her argument with all the logic I should expect of her; but I do not consider that this legislative idiocy is wise or proper or good. I am opposed to upending centuries of common law and doing damage to the constitution in order to confer rights and privileges, and special obligations, upon any two subjects who happen to love one another, when the only possible justification for granting those privileges and imposing those burdens is rooted in the State’s interest in a legal status that exists, quite simply, for the orderly descent and distribution of heritable property to the presumed biological children of a marriage. You (fellow Britons) may disagree, as is your good right, and act as your principles require. But we none of us want to be directed, instructed, and taught by a pack of foreigners whose own countries do not always, or in this case, necessarily follow the policies their citizens, these same meddling foreigners, now presume in their arrogance to insist we support.
It’s nothing personal: some of you are people whose work I admire: but. I really have only one response to your well-meant intervention in matters that are none of your concern, and none of your bloody business; and I think I should say the same whichever camp I were in on this controversy (and I can be camp, in select company): and that is,
FUCK.
RIGHT.
OFF.
How dare you presume to dictate to us, damn you.