To Antonia_Tiger: Why It's Not OK for British Rebels to Behead British Soldiers in Britain

[jordan179]

In response to antonia_tiger in Radicalising LanguageThe forces the British are fighting against in Afghanistan are the ones who approved of the attempt to and cheered on the successful murder of three thousand civilians, including British ones, on 9-11-2001. You have lost sight of the context of this war, as if America and some other countries just decided to

Comments

[philmophlegm]

Wow.

I followed your link and read the original post.

Again, wow.

There are times when I am utterly ashamed of some of my fellow countrymen and countrywomen. However, having looked at some of her other posts, she's clearly not that bright or well-educated. She is what many of us on this side of the Atlantic would refer to as a 'leftard' (someone whose opinions are so extremely left-wing that it is impossible to distinguish what they say from what someone who is mentally retarded might say). I try not to waste blood pressure on subhuman filth like that.

But I'm glad when someone from an entirely different country calls them out.

Thanks.

[jordan179]

The thing that amazed me was that she didn't seem to grasp that she was implying a set of rules by her argument, or perhaps she didn't grasp that these rules (if accepted) could and would be turned against people with whom she sympathizes as much as they are against people she apparently despises (such as British soldiers or millionaires). I guess it shouldn't amaze me, since this is apparent in the Western Left at least as early as the Weimar Republic (Communists: "Street action is good! No need to obey borgeoise laws!" Nazis (*grinning evilly and slipping on brass-knuckles*): "Sure, Reds. Whatever you say ..."

[ford_prefect42]

The part that you are missing is that leftism is inherently *identity* based. It's not a matter of what is being done, what matters is that the "good guys" win. So, when Mao kills 100 Million chinese in horrible, brutal ways, that's okay, because he's got "noble ideals", however, when the tea party kills no one, and simply asks for spending to be reduced, that's monstrous, because they are the "bad guys

[marycatelli]

Who, whom? in other words.

[galadrion]

The line I particularly liked (as in, gagged at the thought of swallowing), was this: "She is part of a government acting to shrink the already minimal welfare benefits..." Er, what? Minimal welfare benefits? In present-day Britain? Minimal compared to what? The "austerity" of Louis XIV's court entertainments?

And then she follows up, straight-faced, with this little gem: "...people such as myself, with an education and some experience of the wider world..." If these are the observations and reasoned views of someone of wide worldly experience, I find myself worrying, both about and for, the world she has experienced. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to match up with the world I have experienced (much more widely, I suspect, than Antonia_tiger), so I don't have a great quantity of worry.

[superversive]

And then she follows up, straight-faced, with this little gem: "...people such as myself, with an education and some experience of the wider world..."

‘Experience of the wider world’ is a phrase that should never be attached to a first-person pronoun. If it is true, you make yourself a braggart by using it; if not, you reveal yourself to be a fool. Besides, as Dunning and Kruger have observed, the people most likely to make such claims for themselves are least likely to fulfil them, or even to know just what it is that they are claiming, and how difficult it would actually be to achieve.

[galadrion]

*Chuckle* For myself, I'll accept a label of "braggart", although in my personal view, I'm at least somewhat justified (or, at least, justifiable) in my... egotism, shall I say? If pressed, I am more that capable of producing a considerable amount of supporting evidence for the proposition that I do, in fact, possess a deeper-than-most amount of experience with the "wider world."

Nonetheless, your reply calls to my mind the dictum "A person should never speak in absolutes".

[maxgoof]

Right!

"Only the Sith speak in absolutes!"

"What, ONLY the Sith do that?"

"Right! ONLY the....oops...."

[marycatelli]

One suspects at times that they don't want to do what they claim to be trying, because they would have to live with the consequences. They just want to be morally superior to the uniforms that guard them while they sleep.

[superversive]

As Theodore Dalrymple has trenchantly observed, most of them don’t believe in consequences, because consequences have a nasty way of being sexist, racist, classist, this-ist, that-ist, or the-other-ist. They don’t believe that they are actually being guarded, while they sleep or at any other time, because their philosophy forbids them to believe that there is anything to be guarded against. What they believe instead is that it is the mere existence of the guards that provokes people to do the things that the guards were instituted to prevent.

[jordan179]

She does not get that, absent the guards, the enemy would be doing worse.

For instance, it seems to have taken a conspiracy of around ten people to launch this attack. Would the conspiracy have been as large if the goal was to terrorize leftist hipster chicks? And note that, because of the very specific prejudices of the Muslim Fundamentalists, "leftist hipster chicks" are one of the groups they mean to terrorize into submission. If she wants to see how this works, she should read Reading Lolita in Tenran, whose author very obviously used to be a leftist hipster chick, and whose students mostly were too.

[jordan179]

They just want to be morally superior to the uniforms that guard them while they sleep.

... and they hate Kipling for putting this thought into memorable words. But notice: Britain is right now actually at war, and Antonia despises her own troops. The difference, of course, is that Antonia doesn't feel personally threatened -- she probably isn't exposed to Muslim fundamentalists in her normal life, because she's not poor. She's essentially cast-off her own poorer co-nationals as "not her kind," which is both a callous and a foolish thing to do.

[banner]

Just another f**ked in the head liberal who has never lived in the real world or had to deal with reality.

I know this guy, and he is fairly to the left in a number of things, but he has never once subscribed to the cult of personality, nor does he make excused for reality, but rather lives in the real world.

He is fond of saying: I just hate bullshit.

Needless to say we get along famously. Once upon a time this was the kind of person who made up the left. People you could talk with, reason with, have good serious debates with, and reach working understandings with. The left today is mostly made up of slaves and slave owners. Of course all the slaves think they're they slave owners, but just aren't smart enough to see the shackles that bind them.

[pasquin]

There's an inherent bigotry with excusing certain people their barbarity.

They can't help themselves, you see. They're inferior.

True equality is granted when one measures another's actions by your own.