John Ward February 24, 2020 Does contemporary democracy render liberty unsafe?

At the End of the Day

The Great Barrier Reef between real and élite.

Yes, and it’s looking good…..here’s Clare Foges about to write something off-message for The Times…..yes…..”An obsession with issues such as trans rights distracts us from the greater challenges of our age..”…..Great Scott, she’s said it, hooray and then “..like climate change….”……aaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHH.

I think we need to up her meds again.

I have taken to calling Keir Starmer Steer Karma, as this appears to be his only insight on offer in the thrilling race for the leadership of the Islington Collective for Solidarity with the Migrant Trans-Manche Proletarian Religion of Peacefully Misogynist Gang-rape.

Asked at the weekend what was the most exciting thing he had ever done, Our Steer answered, “Taking my kids to the football”.

I’ll just repeat that: the most exciting thing he had ever done was to take his kids to the football. Of course, he made sure before setting out that the Big Day would be perfectly safe, because both children were equipped with H & S approved earplugs to protect them from homophobic chants and the tympanic dangers of crowd noise.

All things being equal, the first time I took my elder daughter to a cinema was pretty good, and watching my younger offspring starring in a school play while chatting to Jerry Hall was, you know, cool.

But the most exciting thing I ever did?

Not really. Moving, yes: I’m good with the moving thing. A tear in my eye during the performance, and the pleasant surprise of discovering Ms Hall (then Mrs Jagger) was not just very bright but also very funny.

Playing with dolphins off Santa Monica beach, hitching a ride on a turtle off Dunk Island, coming face to face with a very angry Bull Elephant in Botswana, watching a mother leopard in South Africa trying to discipline her cubs….that moves us up a gear. Facing off a wild boar in France, jumping out of a burning house in Streatham, being hit by lightning on an Alitalia flight….yup, that stuff rated from odd to terrifying.

But really exciting? The moment a sperm whale rose out of the water at close quarters, and I found myself looking at an eye bigger than me.

Contemporary politicians need to get off-red-carpet more often. If they did, they’d be refreshingly off-message more often.

What I described in the two examples above is the barrier that lies between We the People and the multivariate élites. The first was to do with media, the second with ideological politics; however, they are but two examples: there are dozens more.

Feather-bedded, well-pensioned Whitehall & Washington barons, globalist CEOs able to evade almost any real tax, overpaid footballers morphing into overpaid TV pundits, military officers who cannot think beyond geopolitical energy goals, accountants suffused with inhuman measures like ‘headcount’, show business luvvies with no grip on reality, scientists with a tight focus on the Nobel Prize at the expense of Truth, central bankers who equate gatd communities with “safety”, neoliberal economists convinced that monetarist claptrap represents settled science, Leftlib denialists convinced that systemic crushing of the individual represents settled science….they have myriad conflicting aims, but one commonality: they don’t get the nature of mass Homo sapiens.

Neoliberals cannot grasp the Goodness in Man. Collectivists cannot see the flaws.

Worse still – and here, we are about to tread deeper and more ideologically dangerous waters – is the near-zero awareness among the mass of humanity about how they’re being manipulated. This represents not so much the blind leading the blind, as the delusional leading the unimaginatively sane.

Better and more intrinsically inquisitive education would provide part of the solution in the medium term. But nothing I know of can overcome a genetically inherited inability to turn introspection into civilised social awareness.

Liberal democracy is only a “safe” form of government if the electorate can discern shit from sugar. From roughly 1880 onwards in Europe and US, better education, increased literacy and new perspectives brought to the table by women kept intelligent, eclectic social democracy alive.

Universal Suffrage in 2020 – and the internet’s willingness to hand undue influence to the boneheads – is a dangerous weapon in the wrong hands. From Zuckerberg to Murdoch, from the Barclay twins to Jack Dorsey, all of these people will buy influence….and happily be bought in order to flex that power to the full.

An alarming percentage of our Western electorates haven’t a clue that any of this is in play.

Given that context, should their vote be sacrosanct?

I’m trying to start an open-minded debate here.

Feel free to discuss.

16Comments

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1

Dai O'Rear on February 25, 2020 at 8:50 pm

Awkward truths.
Most of those who scream “democracy” want to deny it any power.
Most of those who self-define as “iiberal” want contrarians to be prosecuted.
Is liberal democracy in 2020 therefore élite Communism?

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2

GILMAR on February 25, 2020 at 6:22 pm

For the past 70 years the country has embarked upon an equality mission with the inevitable levelling down of standards but with a greater say in affairs for an increasing majority. This in turn creates a circumstance whereby a small minority have the ability and muscle to become part of the elite 3%. In order to arrive at this point the industrial base where the previous elite was based was attacked and they sold out to the emerging conglomerates. At the same time a massive growth in persons employed in public services with extensive trade union interference and excessive pay and benefit levels being achieved now combined with the conglomerates forming the elite 3%.
There are able people within this group but too many who are ineffective. How do we change direction for the better ? I believe that we are reaching stalemate within a democratic political structure and evidence for this is the quality and standard of those who now get elected to Parliament – do not forget that they come from the people. Massive population increase of 50% in 60 years and the demand upon services coupled with a serious reduction in our industrial base is not a recipe for a thrusting thriving future. The rising Muslim threat played down at every level by those whose hands are on the levers of power is a concern for freedom at every level in the coming decades. Can the UK escape dictatorship before the end of this century – that is not a spurious question.

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3

martin on February 25, 2020 at 2:25 pm

Thanks John for the reference. That’s what I like about The Slog – further education.

My time at grammar school was the worst period of my life – all about teachers’ favourites getting to Oxford or Cambridge, and being left on the wayside for the bullies to play with. I even had a stammer during this period. My life turned round when I left the school with one “O” level and took up a printing apprenticeship, going to Leicester Poly and doing a typographic design course for 3 years, working in advertising agencies, Northampton Development Corporation, a shoe research centre. I then decided to go self employed and run my own hotel and restaurant with my wife before we got divorced in 1999. I then got on my push bike and spent a year cycling around Spain returning to work in the local chicken factory and ending my working days as a postman in rural Herefordshire. Now retired and a full time carer for my partner who suffered a stroke and is coming home after 2 years in various hospitals and rehab centres.

John, you are right we should care and create local communities to achieve the greatest happiness. I have had a good and interesting life and would cherish another 20 years to see my time out.

As Jeremy Bentham stated:

“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think” ..

Its such a shame that everything at the moment seems to suppress all good and meaningful motives.
—————————
Martin
Cannot fully express how my heart goes out to you.
I too was bullied at Grammar School, but got through it by making the bullies laugh. If one doesn’t have that talent as a starting point, however, life can be grim indeed.
Most people are frightened by/jealous of/wary about contrarian intelligence. They despise sensitivity in men, but envy how it tends to help us survive.
If one has a cross to bear, then the most courageous thing one can do is not hit everyone else with the cross. That, I have come to believe, is the core of decency.
Thank you for your honesty.
JW

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4

wiggia on February 25, 2020 at 9:03 am

“Taking my kids to the football”.
Almost certainly not the most exciting thing he has done, though in his case it could be true, but it fits with the current shtick that the Labour leadership hopefuls use all the time in their efforts to appear ‘normal’ such as working class, whatever that means these days and tall stories about having only one pair of shoes when young shared between ten of us etc etc.
Boring talent less people pretending to be relevant.

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5

Derek Reynolds on February 25, 2020 at 8:34 am

The most exciting? Hard to choose. Sleding has been exciting; flying a glider & more. The most terrifying? Standing in front of a group of people to give a talk.

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6

Harry Again on February 25, 2020 at 8:32 am

All societies have rules therefore government.
Even two people living together have rules.

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7

Phil E on February 25, 2020 at 7:36 am

Hi John. One man who has done more than any other current member of the journalist profession to speak truth to power is Julian Assange. He is currently facing a political show trial in London to extradite him to Donald Trump so he can be made an example of to discourage journos for telling the truth to the public about American war crimes. A bit of support from you against the violation of principles by the British and American states his case exposes would not come amiss.

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8

Ron on February 25, 2020 at 4:05 am

Today marks the day when freedom to be human and real comes under the watchful eye of the globalists. In a small ‘public’ court at the back of an ‘anti-terrorist’ prison one man stands between freedom and savage imprisonment. Yet nothing can be found in the media about it.

It appears that it is more acceptable for state criminals to invade, murder, lie and remove anything they do not like across the planet – it is being normalised – than it is to make claims about this sort of behaviour by anybody. Justice is being tramelled into the ground, the guilty of crimes are being expressed as our saviours and the innocent are being punished. The law is an ass and the world has gone mad. Everything is upside down. And it is a dangerous place to be despite its innate beauty

Killing and injuring millions of people across the planet is what we do best. I despair at the human race and can see a clear case for its extinction …..

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9

Mr McGill on February 25, 2020 at 1:22 am

Instead of the current system could we not have key cabinet posts not tied to any political party. So we could just advertise for a chancellor of the exchequer, interview them on live TV and the public could vote like on X Factor. A maximum 5 year contract with a decent salary to attract the best not the muppets we get as MP’s. An annual appraisal and if they are not performing they get fired. We could do this for all the key jobs in cabinet.
The PM would be chosen in the usual way through election and would direct based on the winning parties political beliefs.

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10

Len Jones on February 25, 2020 at 12:42 am

I too John enjoy your writing. I’m envious of your turn of phrase. Please keep it up

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11

martin on February 24, 2020 at 10:54 pm

JW: Better and more intrinsically inquisitive education would provide part of the solution in the medium term. But nothing I know of can overcome a genetically inherited inability to turn introspection into civilised social awareness.

Have We lost The Common Good
The fundamental question is whether we can restore the common good and rebuild trust in the system.

“If we are cynical about the system, then it causes us to stop being involved. If you stop being involved, if you basically give up, then you’re giving up on our democracy. And if you give up on our democracy, you are ceding the entire system to the moneyed interests that would like nothing better than for all of us to grow cynical and give up. So we can not and we must not.”
— Robert Reich

Looking across the Atlantic where we follow, is this the template that Boris hopes to emanate the attack on the rule of law.

THE TOP 1% OF AMERICA HOLDS 40% OF THE WEALTH.

———————————-
Martin, if you go to the search engine you will see that Benthamite Common Good is right at the core of what The Slog is about.
His form of devolved mutualism & greatest potential of the greatest number is the way forward
JW

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12

boomrx on February 24, 2020 at 10:23 pm

I am not quite sure what the questions is, John. Something about voting rights and who should and should not have’em? An easy one is non-citizens should not be allowed to vote, which is relevant if there is any truth to the headlines coming out of Nevada. Also, the fact there is two-tiered justice alive and well in western so-called democracies and there is no groundswell of public outrage is a pretty good indicator that most of us are asleep at the wheel. The emergence of the Clown World meme is not rooted in humor but desperation.

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13

Caratacus on February 24, 2020 at 10:01 pm

Just thinking how much more impressed I would have been if he had ‘fessed up to narrowly escaping the clutches of an enraged husband as he jumped from the balcony of a beach-side villa in the Algarve, clutching his trousers and underpants under one arm as he raced through the surf.

For myself; while working at a zoo, (big cat section, many centuries ago), I carelessly bypassed the safety system and kicked open a door separating me from a supposedly empty tiger den. The female tiger shot past me and pounced on the hind-quarter of beef in the corner of the cage while I did my best impression of the Six Million Dollar Man to close the gate between her and a whole pile of misery for me if she got out. I made it. Just. I sat down and had a bit of a think as she tore into the meat, and resolved there and then to approach Life in a rather different fashion than hitherto. Had it been the male tiger I wouldn’t be here now, reminiscing; where he hated the very ground I walked on, she rather liked me. I remember looking down at my overalls and noticing the gold and black hairs that had brushed off as she swept by. Now that was exciting.

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14

EddieB on February 24, 2020 at 9:39 pm

Terrific article. The public are caught in a vice from which there seems no escape. Because I think many can grasp this barrier of lies, but they seem completely incapable of acting on this intelligence. Then there’s cowardice. Cowards, whose fear of death and social ridicule dwarfs their self-respect, can console themselves with the notion that they are doing the right thing even when it is plain that they are not. As for the unthinking herd, they’ve been ideologically contaminated by a culture that has preyed on their natural stupidity, cultivated it, and transnational predators are simply reaping the harvest. Judging from the millennials in my own family, I think the future is bleak for most.

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15

rogerglewis on February 24, 2020 at 9:27 pm

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

Thomas Jefferson

https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/jefferson-the-works-vol-5-correspondence-1786-1789
I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians) which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under the European governments. Among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, & restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere. Among the latter, under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves & sheep. I do not exaggerate. This is a true picture of Europe. Cherish therefore the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you & I, & Congress & Assemblies, judges & governors shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions; and experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and [254] to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

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Alec Swan. on February 24, 2020 at 9:20 pm

John Ward – I do so enjoy your writing – it’s mostly the honest and prosaic effect.

Good man, kept up.

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