The twisted narrative of extremism cannot be ignored or wished away – Theresa May

–Photoshop was never my strong suit, but the hat gives him a certain charm

“For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone.”
–David Cameron, 2015

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I don’t think anything else needs to be said does it?

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But then again, 11,334,576 UK citizens did vote for this, didn’t they?

World, David Cameron’s intention seems dangerously clear, obeying the law should not be enough to protect UK citizens from being tried in secret courts, imprisoned, or perhaps even hung at the behest of Her Majesty’s Government, should they find your (non criminal) opinions in contrast to their own.

I don’t know about you, but I struggle to think of a better example of post WWII twisted extremism than that. In what messed up extreme logic does dismantling our Human Rights and denying our freedom justify protection from terrorists who (guess what) want to deny our human rights and take away our freedom?

I’ll leave you with some modern Orwellian Torisms to ponder on.

“I want to see new civil powers to target extremists who stay just within the law”
— Theresa May, 2014

“Hanging may seem barbarous, but the greater barbarity lies in the slow abandonment of our common law traditions. Were I ever alone in the dock I would not want to be arraigned before our flawed tribunals… I would prefer a fair trial, under the shadow of the noose.”
–Michael Gove, 1998

“For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone.”
–David Cameron, 2015

“The twisted narrative of extremism cannot be ignored or wished away”
— Theresa May, 2015

…Never were truer words spoken Theresa.

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How Stuff Works – Tory Supporters (Part 1)

Take a deep breath. I have an admission – My name is James and I used to vote Tory.

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Still here? Good. I’d like to try and take a moment over the next two articles to justify explain why I believe right wing people are as they are, what makes them tick.

First and foremost, there are two broad types of Conservative voter. This article is going to focus on your ultra rich, self aggrandising super elite. Their key motivations are the desire to hoard resources beyond their capacity for personal use, and to jealously protect this wealth in offshore tax havens regardless of it’s potential domestic philanthropic and economically beneficial applications.

Backed up by a sense of Social Darwinism which allows them to comfortably cling on to the notion that they are superior to other people, and that those who are poverty stricken are deservedly so for their fecklessness, these elitist individuals see it has their given right to occupy the top orders, reaping the benefits of a modern society whilst offering very little back in return.

Such as what, you may ask? Ask yourself how far these individuals would have got without an educated and healthy workforce (paid for by taxpayers), or a road and rail logistics network (paid for by taxes again), or even protection from the police, fire department, and national military (all paid for by the gratitude of billionaires taxpayer). All we’re asking is that those to whom society has been overtly generous, punch at their weight to ensure that (as their forebears did for them) the same opportunities are afforded to everyone else.

But no, sadly for these individuals it is not to be. They harbor massive resentment to progressive taxation, and often attempt to hold the government to ransom with ill considered threats to take their ball money and leave at every opportunity. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you might hear the phrase “Trickle Down Economics” uttered as a rather flimsy sounding excuse. It essentially boils down the neo-liberal idea that ‘as those at the top get massively rich, they will create more wealth and jobs to lift up the lower orders of society’. But it doesn’t quite work like that now does it?

Bear in mind that it has been the dominant economical ideology in the Western world since the Thatcher era in the 1980s, it’s greatest achievement, as Oxfam highlights, is that the 85 richest individuals on planet Earth have more combined wealth than the bottom half (3.5 bil) of the entire global population.

If I was a cynical man, I’d be tempted to say that everything is going according to plan for these people, it’s just that the plan was never intended to be a better society, the plan was to hoard more wealth and power and wealth and power and wealth and power. And wealth and power.

10/10 for execution boys.

Thanks for reading, I look forward to your commentary below the line, look out for the followup article coming soon.

Your votes don’t count – 2015 General Election

Yesterday, 63.1% of the population of the UK voted “No” to David Cameron and the Tories.

Yet we have been rewarded for our efforts with a powerful David Cameron lead, Tory majority in parliament, meaning that everything that those 63.1% want to see for their country will, and can legitimately be ignored in Westminster.

For the next five years, no pain you suffer, no evidence you present, no matter how hard you press your local MP, none of it will amount to anything. If you’re not one of the tiny 36.9% then you don’t count.

Sorry.

If this seems unfair to you, the bare minimum that you can do about it would be to sign this petition from the electoral reform society, with enough pressure from the forgotten 63.1% we can force the issue.

The Electoral Reform Society has been working since 1884 with varying degrees of success across the UK to replace the hopelessly unsuitable First Past The Post (FPTP) system we currently have, with something that leads to fairer political representation.

The problem with FPTP is that it was designed for political systems populated by two choices, in those situations it is very effective at delivering majority governments. However, since 2010 no one can seriously make the claim that the UK is a two party political system anymore, and the myriad of choices that our voters are presented with means that FPTP produces blatantly illegitimate governments such as the one we must now suffer for five years.

Our political leaders often pay lip service to the idea that they want greater voter turnouts at elections. In truth though, they gleefully preside over a system which ignores the will of 63.1% of the active electorate, then have the audacity to expect more people to step up and waste their time to lend their broken system more credibility.

Obviously, this sorry shambolic impression of democracy cannot be allowed to continue in 2020. If you’ve not already, please sign the petition. Vive la révolution!

I look forward to reading your comments below the line.

If you want to do more to help, please share this post on your Twitter and Facebook pages.

Thanks,

James