Not us
I feel deeply ashamed that people who claim to represent me did this.I wish there was a way to let Mr Mohamed know that this may have been done in my name, but it was not done with my consent.
This is not us. This is not the ordinary English people. I refuse to believe that this is what we stand for. It is not what I stand for. Of course I am afraid that some lunatic will one day bomb a train that I am on, or kill people I love.
But we have built a world, at least somewhat, that is not based on fearing our neighbours, but on trying to understand and appreciate them.
This is not us. If I could tell Mr Mohamed anything, I'd tell him, this is not us, and I hope now we can demonstrate that it is not.
posted by Dr Zen @ 10:30 am
4 Comments:
"But we have built a world, at least somewhat, that is not based on fearing our neighbours, but on trying to understand and appreciate them."
I am worried that in the UK we are moving into a world where the authorities have no other way of controlling what goes on than by surveillance, and by encouraging a culture of "shopping" offenders, benefit cheats, even car tax dodgers.
Thousands of pounds are spent on adverts to convince us that if the car is untaxed, it will immediately be seized and crushed. Benefit cheats have no hiding place from the bang-bang-bang on the door.
It's entertainment, sadly; it's horror movies for the timorous citizen, and they can be reassured that law and order works night and day to protect them from the dark gibbering hordes of evil-doers.
Although you and I might express our revulsion at the imprisonments and torturing, there are many others who are saying, (openly sometimes), that it serves them right, because they refuse to blend in with our lifestyles, or they believe in a religion which makes no sense at all here.
People are impelled to those beliefs though. I don't believe that they naturally arrive at them. And of course partly it's the government that is pushing them there.
The problem for someone like me is that I believe on the whole that governments would be good things to have in principle, but not the ones we have or have had, and the question that then poses itself, and is hard to answer, is whether there would ever, could ever, be a government that was good to have. I am beginning to be convinced that there is not. I am not certain where that conviction would take me. I certainly don't think that modern states can exist without broad government, so what should I desire if I do not think any government can be good?
The governing of grown people is inherently wrong, they are not children to be scolded and spanked.
What has traditionally been called "government" should be disbanded and replaced with some mechanism through which individuals can band together and accomplish things they cannot do alone.
Individuals alone can scold others even to the death, the only need there is for involving a "government" in that sad mess is to implement a mechanism for the avoidance of individual responsibility.
boots sez:
Fucksake, forgot to initial the previous post. Have me hanged then.
Post a Comment
<< Home