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MPs, Party Politics, Reminiscences and Musings, society, Uncategorized

Someone I Met Recently

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A couple of days ago, I needed to buy a new mouse for my laptop computer and also to ask advice on a technical issue. I decided to go to a PC World outlet about 15 miles from where I now live. The PC World store was outside a small town on the coast of Southern England. I was there by 0900 hrs, its opening time. A routine matter, of course, but I felt that I should blog, briefly, about it because it confirmed some of what I have been saying online for years.

There was only one other customer in the large hangar-like store at nine in the morning. I was greeted on going to the service desk by a youngish blonde woman who looked rather fed up. I feared that she would be surly or unhelpful. I could not have been more wrong.

The woman, who was not as young as she looked (she turned out to have a daughter aged 16; well, the police now also look young to me…) dealt with my technical question in a matter of seconds (completely correctly, it later transpired). She also directed me to the part of of the store which displayed “mice”. I chose one, brought it back and, the store now being empty, was told that I could pay for it there at the enquiries desk rather than going to a check-out. I did that.

It might be asked at this point why I am bothering to write about this? Well, I ended up having a chat with the blonde woman employee who had been so useful and helpful, and what she said was very concerning. I don’t know why she confided in me, whom she had only just met, except that people often do. They seem to divine that I can keep a secret, for one thing, though that does not apply in this case. I think that people also know that I want to help if I can.

The blonde woman worked full-time in the PC World store, but lived in a housing association property and received Housing Benefit to pay for the rent or part of the rent. That alone confirmed some of my expressed views over the years. Here she was, in a full-time job, and moreover one which actually required some skill and knowledge, which job she was doing really competently too (as I myself saw), yet was unable to pay her modest rent (after all, this was a housing association property) out of her pay!

Now this is just plain wrong. Here we have a large chain, part of a group (Dixons Carphone, formerly Dixons Group) which, in the financial year 2017-2018, made (pre-tax) profits of £382 million, yet is not paying its staff enough so that they can even pay their domestic rent! Instead, PC World relies on the State to stump up monies (Housing Benefit and also, perhaps, Working Tax Credit— I did not talk to the woman in such detail).

In other words, the profits of the employer are being bolstered by the State, meaning taxpayers (and including, at least via National Insurance and VAT etc, the employee herself in this case).

Previous visits to PC World had been far less satisfactory. That woman had made the difference, yet was struggling to survive. When will British businesses realize that they are only as good as their employees, at all levels?

There is something wrong about a system or society in which the pay received by an employee for full-time work is not enough to allow her even to pay her rent.

Further, I was told that, because the Housing Benefit was delayed by a few days, routinely, the woman had fallen into arrears and, though the arrears were always only in existence for a few days, the Housing Association had taken her to court at least once and, as a result, she had had to pay £100-something in court costs and also a financial impost of about the same to the Housing Association! This surely must be seen as unfair and unjust.

The woman also told me that her daughter was autistic (I do not know, of course, to what extent) and had been getting Disability Living Allowance (DLA) in respect of that. Recently, the daughter had reached the age of 16. As a result, she had been forced off DLA and forced to undertake a “test” for “Personal Independence Payment” or PIP [off-piste, someone must one day do a sketch on the vulgar cheesy names for such things: “Personal Independence Payment”, “Jobseeker’s Allowance”, “Job Centre” etc].

The daughter had, subsequently, been awarded nothing. So suddenly, this girl, long diagnosed as autistic, had now, despite the diagnosis and her previously accepted status, been cut off from State funds by reason only of a change in policy by government (Iain Dunce Duncan Smith and the jew “lord” Freud, Esther McVey, not to mention David Gauke and Chris Grayling etc).

I went away from that encounter at PC World thinking about how unjust and in fact how simply inefficient the system in the UK is, in that instead of a person being able to work and provide for herself and her daughter and/or get help from the State in a simple manner, she (a useful member of society at that) was being made anxious and being forced to jump through hoops in order to survive.

The present system is not efficient, is callous and unfair and is a complicated maze. Hopeless. Parliament is hopeless. “Democracy” (as we know it) is hopeless. The MPs and “peers” are hopeless. Business is not pulling its weight. The people are not only not being helped but are being impeded unnecessarily by the overall system in which they live and work.

Notes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_World_(retailer)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44286924

Defence, free speech, Reminiscences and Musings, society, Uncategorized

Barbarians at the Gate, Facing Nothing but Decadent Plutocrats and Soft Plebs

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Increasingly, it becomes hard to believe the news, not only because of the various kinds of “fake news” around, but because so much news now, though perhaps completely true, reflects the galloping madness of our society. Take the report I just saw from the [UK] Daily Express (see link in Notes, below), admittedly not the most accurate of newspapers, but there seems to be little doubt that the basics of the report are true. Extracts:

  • “University lecturers told DON’T USE CAPS as it frightens students”

  • “UNIVERSITY lecturers have been told not to use words in capital letters when setting assignments because it might frighten students into failure.”

  • “Generally, avoid using capital letters for emphasis and “the overuse of ‘do’, and, especially, ‘DON’T’.””

Reading the Express report led me to consider related ideas. We already see that almost every school student who is not actually retarded or absent now gets high marks and that the majority now get “A” grades (often in everything, usually triggering the Americanized phrase “straight-A-student”). The same is true at degree level. Only the drop-outs and mentally-disordered now fail or get Thirds. Even a lower Second (the norm of, say, 30 years ago, awarded to such as Tony Blair) is rare. Sweeties for all and Firsts for over half. No-one must be upset, or offended.

Then there is the calibre of recruits to the armed forces. It will be said that many recruits are fit, healthy, brave, resourceful etc; people will point to exceptional cases such as successful SAS candidates, individual heroic actions etc. The reality, though, is that the armed forces have been forced to lower their physical entry requirements, and not only because women now comprise a quite high proportion of the intake (about 9% across the armed forces).

It will be recalled that, when Iranian forces captured a dozen or so British naval and Marine personnel in 2007, one or two not only told the Iranians everything they knew, but in one case did so because the Iranians threatened to confiscate his iPod! Several of those held later sold their stories to the UK tabloid press (one, Faye Turney, a married naval rating aged 25, is said to have made £80,000-£100,000).

In case anyone thinks that I am criticizing without ever having been in such a situation, all that I can say is that in fact I have myself been in a few difficult situations overseas, albeit not exactly similar.

The point is that wars are not won by the few elite or heroic exceptions, but by the rank and file generality, by what Germans used to term the Feldgrau. That brings us onto numbers. The British Army now consists of 81,000 regular troops and 27,000 in The Reserves (formerly, Territorial Army). A number lower than at any time since the late 18th Century. The same is true, mutatis mutandis, of the other armed services.

Now I hope that we shall never war against Russia, and I certainly do not regard the Russians as “barbarians”, but to some extent Russia does stand in the same relation to the “West” as the barbarians stood to Rome 1,500-2,000 years ago, as Amaury de Riencourt pointed out in his 1950s book, The Coming Caesars.

Russia can field, across all arms, over a million men (and women) in regular service and a further nearly three million in reserves. Four million…

Then we have the other and more obvious “barbarians at the gate”, ranging from China (about 2.5 million service personnel), through Islamist forces and terrorists, to the migrant-invaders from Africa and elsewhere. We must also not ignore the fact that the barbarians are, in many cases today, already inside Fortress Europe.

In order to defend a society, one must have strength. Strength comes from both numbers and moral force (and, today, advanced weaponry, but that is, in reality, not quite the gamechanger many imagine). As Hitler said, “it’s not the weapon, it’s the man behind it.” History is replete with tales of how small forces have defeated larger ones, but those smaller ones were always in possession of superior spirit and tactical sense and, usually, superior (or at least more capable of further evolution) race and culture. Is that what we see when we look at the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Scandinavia today? Hardly!

Look at the seething urban masses of the UK, for example: a very high proportion of non-whites, for a start. Not that every “black or brown” is a “bad person” by any means, but few really share our culture; most (even those born in the UK) are in fact entirely ignorant of our culture and history, and few are ready to fight for it, and us.

Look too at the mass of white British. Can one really say that they are ready to fight for race and culture? I think not. In fact, they have proven the reverse over the past decades. Indeed, since 2010, they have proven themselves incapable even of fighting against their own reduction to near-serfs: pay reductions (in real terms), benefit cuts and oppressions, migration-invasion on a scale that not even Enoch Powell can have foreseen.

Brexit. The EU Referendum brought out the generational differences: about 70% of 16-24-y-o persons favoured Remain (if only out of ignorance, so be it), whereas over-70s were about 80% (maybe more) for Leave. There were many reasons why people favoured either Leave or Remain, but part of the Remain vote was certainly younger persons —and especially younger under-24s— who were scared of not having Big Brother EU to tell them what to do and what to think. The same applies to social media, where so many younger people just want to ban anything or anyone (they think) “offensive” (anything that challenges their spoonfed view of the world).

A good proportion of the white UK population is covered adequately by the pejorative term “plebs”. Culturally-weak, racially-insecure, with quite a number further weakened by drink and drugs. As for the “upper classes”, they are mainly socially and culturally decadent, interested only in selfish concerns and quite as mired in such vices as drug abuse as are those characterized as “plebs”.

I see no sign that the British population as it is can stand up to any of the threats to the present British state, population or way of life. The only solution or possible way out is for a very radical social nationalist movement to take power and impose its will on the unresponsive masses.

Notes

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1046977/university-lecturers-not-to-use-cap-letters-student-failure

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1548129/Faye-whispered-theres-going-to-be-a-rape.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-468434/Hostage-Faye-Turney-given-share-cash-crewmates.html

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/apr/07/military.iran

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amaury_de_Riencourt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Armed_Forces

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Liberation_Army

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_European_Union_membership_referendum,_2016#Voting_demographics_and_trends

Afterthought

The Asia Bibi case surely shows “lack of moral fibre” in the UK “establishment”. I am not, of course, in favour of allowing in “refugee” hordes, but if ever there was a genuine individual “refugee” case, this was it. Refused asylum in advance because few UK politicians and civil servants want to take the risk of agitating the millions of Pakistani Muslims in the UK, many of whom want to turn the UK into a facsimile of their own native (hole of a) country.

Again, I do not much like Katie Hopkins, but is she wrong here?

https://twitter.com/KTHopkins/status/1061054559320240129

This too. Again, is she wrong?

https://twitter.com/KTHopkins/status/1064947316182999041

…and if you think that my blog post title (about the decadent wealthy and their equally drug-soaked and useless pleb contemporaries) is a harsh judgment, take a look at this:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6415315/How-Twitter-helped-turn-Lady-Beth-prodigy-prostitute.html

Update, 4 December 2018

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/04/half-uk-population-now-unhealthy-unable-pass-initial-army-selection/

Update, 10 December 2018

Trawling through some of the “me too” idiots who joined the Jew-Zionists in attacking me at least once on Twitter in the past few years, I noticed a typical waste of space today (for the first time): one Peter, Twitter name “@_binbag”; 23+, gay, with a “degree” from somewhere or other, and “working for” an equally-worthless MA. Semi-literate, probably (judging from his tweets) deeply ignorant, and totally signed-up to the “rainbow” nonsense multikulti society of the doomed. Does someone like this add anything even to the present decadent society? Would such a person be “wanted on voyage” to a better society? I think not.

Update, 21 December, 2018

https://dailystormer.name/uk-british-army-devolves-into-complete-farce-male-words-banned-by-higher-ups/

Update, 27 December 2018

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6532247/African-soldier-sues-MoD-accusing-Army-failing-protect-British-winter.html

(If you don’t like the UK weather, stay in Africa or return there)

Alison Chabloz, Alison Chabloz, Campaign Against AntiSemitism, David Irving, free speech, historical, historical revisionism, Ian Millard, London Forum, Reminiscences and Musings, society, Tommy Robinson, Uncategorized

Free Speech: Individuality and Collectivity

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Rudolf Steiner often spoke of the ever-increasing individualism in our age (that period which he named the “Fifth Post-Atlantean Age”, which started around 1400 AD and is due to run until about 3500 AD). This is an inevitable continuing process and will bring many benefits if people are guided by conscience. However, if people are not guided by individual conscience, the forces of the individual will tear apart society.

Against the forces of individualism stands “society”, which encompasses law, unwritten “laws” of convention and expectation and also the powers of the State (which holds itself out as the concrete expression of the people as a whole).

Society is, of course, a good thing. In proper measure, it makes possible and supports such aspects of life as law, public order, organized help for the sick, disabled, elderly, poor etc. It is a structure which supports the family, too. It also provides, via the State,  the structure for defence against outside forces (hostile states, natural calamities etc). However, if taken too far, society and/or the State becomes oppression, involving the repression of individual liberty in various ways (most obviously, perhaps, suppression of free speech or other freedom of expression).

Society restricts freedom of speech. It is hard to imagine a society beyond the most primitive or germinal in which complete freedom of speech exists (eg spoken or written threats against the person). On the other hand, when society (the State, or perhaps a religious or political cult) prevents individual expression, reasonable restriction becomes unreasonable repression. One thinks, perhaps, of the more extreme socialist states of the 20th Century, such as the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin, China under Mao Tse-Tung, Albania under Enver Hoxha, Cuba under Fidel Castro. The same was true of anti-socialist tyrannies such as Nicaragua under Somoza.

Particular emergency conditions may lead to a temporary tightening of what is regarded as acceptable free speech. In the Second World War, the various combatants restricted free speech considerably. In the UK, those who spoke out against the war or government policy faced both prosecution (State) and persecution (society generally). Even the USA, with its famous Constitutional safeguards, clamped down on freedom of expression.

As in other fields of life, we can see that the tension between the demands of the individual qua individual and those of the collective results in what amounts to a compromise. It is a question of either where society (in practice, usually the State, but possibly a smaller community such as a town or even a family) decides where the line is drawn, or where the individual draws the line, based on conscience or preference and regardless of where the State and/or society has drawn it.

Most people, most of the time, obey the dictates of the collective. Were that not so, law could not exist except as a facade with nothing behind it (cf. Stalin’s Russia etc); neither could the State or its power, in the end. On the other hand, the individual must always obey conscience and it therefore becomes vital to distinguish between individual conscience and individual wilfulness or egoism. No outside force can decide what is conscience and what is wilfulness or egoism. The individual, the individual human soul, is the only judge or arbiter here. Where the individual and the collective collide, the results can range from martyrdom of the individual to reform or even revolution affecting the collective.

Where do I myself, as both individual and citizen (i.e. part of the collective) draw the line? For me, freedom of expression about social, political and historical matters should be absolute. Other forms of expression (eg threats, libels, fraudulent misrepresentations) can be (and commonly are) restricted to a greater or lesser extent.

It follows from the above that I prefer the approach taken in the United States to that of most EU states (including the UK). Restrictions on freedom of expression are often imposed for or from outwardly “good” motives, but rapidly become a slippery slope with evil results. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

Notes

  1.  http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/a_to_c/communications_sent_via_social_media/
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_defamation_law
  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution