Thursday 18 June 2020

Virtuous evil

During the 20th century there were numerous political revolutions. Three of them stand out for the impact they had on the wider world. These are the Russian Communist revolution of 1917, the Nazi power grab in Germany in 1933 and the Islamic revolution of 1979 in Iran. Theoretically each could claim to have been motivated by a virtuous objective. The communists could claim that they wanted a much larger share of the economic cake for ordinary people. The Nazis were motivated by patriotism, namely a love of one’s own country, and a wish for it to prosper. The Islamists would argue that their actions were motivated by devotion to the service of God, the creator of us all.

So all these revolutions, in principle, could claim to be based on a desire to create a better world, as envisaged by their supporters. But as we all know they resulted in totalitarian tyrannies in which many of their citizens were casually murdered or incarcerated, and their freedoms and liberty curtailed. Another factor they all had in common was that they very swiftly seized control from the previous authority, and immediately set about introducing a complete change of policy, that was soon apparent to all citizens.

Over the past half century and more Britain and other Western countries have been undergoing a similar revolution, whereby the old order has been thrown off, and a new one entrenched. This revolution has also been motivated by virtuous intentions, this time the pursuit of equality to empower those who had previously been marginalised, ignored or the victims of injustice and discrimination. But the one big difference with this revolution is that it has happened very gradually, step by step. Thus it has been introduced by stealth, with the result that many people are only dimly aware of what has been happening.

Instead of the hard totalitarianism of the Communists, Nazis and Islamists the Western revolution has so far confined itself to engaging in a soft form of totalitarianism. There have been no state directed murders of citizens, and the numbers incarcerated for political crimes are presently at a fairly low level, although they do exist, and the numbers are slowly increasing. These include the state harassment of Tommy Robinson, the imprisonment of ‘far right’ activists (to appease anti-racists activists) and also men handed down prison sentences for alleged historical sex offences on the accusations of a single complainant during a rigged trial procedure (to appease misandric feminists).

Currently the favoured method of thought control is dismissal from employment of anyone deemed guilty of wrong speak, which has proven to be highly effective in muzzling dissent. But given the incremental approach, the present stage is likely to be only the beginning, since the demands of the zealots is always being ratcheted upwards. There is no doubt that the freedoms and liberties of ordinary British citizens are being increasingly threatened by a powerful and unaccountable minority with a determined political agenda.

The agenda behind this new soft totalitarianism is ruthlessly promoted by the vocal hard left and comes under a variety of names, such as political correctness, identity politics, cultural Marxism and woke culture. It has been embraced by academia, the trade unions, mainstream media outlets most notably the Guardian and BBC. In politics it has taken control of the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and both the Scottish and Welsh Nationalists. These notionally separate political parties are in practice now a single party, having the same agenda and policies (apart from the nationalist question). The only disagreements between them are confined to arguing about who can impose the same agenda most effectively.

Politically correct values have been embedded in the civil service, local government, the education system, the Church of England, the police, quangos, advertising, charities, the film industry, celebrities, sport , the scientific community, and many business enterprises. It is enforced through social media most notably Twitter. A history and outline of this politically correct agenda is outlined here http://bit.ly/2gpklQz

There is still some opposition but it is relatively weak. The most strident is the Daily Mail group, followed the Telegraph group, and to some extent The Sun which has the disadvantage of not being a serious newspaper. There are in addition dissenting political websites such as Spiked and Conservative Woman together with some others. We live in a democracy so in theory we should be offered a choice by political parties offering some resistance to this soft totalitarianism. However, they have failed in this task.

The largest party of the right, the Conservatives, is divided between those who regularly appease political correctness and those from the right wing of the party who are more sceptical. The latter occasionally provide a challenge, but they are invariably emasculated by the former. The minor parties, demonised as ‘far right’, have all self destructed, most recently UKIP, which before its demise did at least provide a manifesto offering some hope to political dissidents. Something similar to this manifesto, which is outlined here http://bit.ly/2yXEP9t , needs to be adopted by the Conservative Party, since if implemented it would bring a swift end to the politically correct agenda.

Although the growth of political correctness has been slow it can be reversed fairly quickly. The first step has already been taken, leaving the European Union. As we have all seen, this generated a collective howl of rage from the politically correct class, coupled with innumerable attempts to reverse this decision. For decades our new cultural establishment has been pushing the boundaries and receiving very little resistance. They came to believe that they were invincible, developing a sense of entitlement and privilege, that encouraged them in their belief that they had a right to impose their values on the rest of society. They were so absorbed in their own sense of moral superiority, that they haughtily dismissed their critics as unenlightened bigots whose opinions should and must be brushed aside.

Now that we are an independent nation once again we are free to introduce measures to reverse decades of politically correct legislation, and to introduce policies to foster social cohesion and mobility. Briefly, based loosely on the UKIP manifesto, these are; restore grammar schools everywhere, limit university places to 20% of school leavers funded by taxation, severely limit all immigration for the foreseeable future and ramp up the training of our own people, significantly increase housebuilding, repeal all so called hate crime and equalities legislation (other than physical disability), scrap the Climate Change Act, renationalise public utilities including the railways so that they are operated in the public interest, and initiate a debate with minority and religious communities to ensure that they better integrate themselves into traditional British values and way of life, and eschew identity politics together with their embrace of the grievance and victimhood culture. Further administrative measures will also need to be taken to dismantle the politically correct apparatus embedded in public bodies. These measures take together should end the pernicious cultural take over of our country and foster a much needed sense of national identity.