Month: November 2018

Utopia

 

Every grand scale Utopian idea has involved a militant desire to put an end to individuality, enterprise independent of the state and free will. The idea of Karl Marx, the founder of Communism when put into practice became a prolonged nightmare. It spread like a virus from Russia to China and Cambodia causing a death count of something around a staggering 160,000,000, excluding war deaths. The new version, Neo-Marxism is an ideology present in our time, partly hidden within the themes that determine Post Modern thought. If you have wondered what kind of society you live in then you need to know the following.

An ideology is a set of of beliefs or principlesespecially one on which a political systemparty, or organisation is based. Neo Marxism is alive and well today and masquerading under some surprisingly modern labels, embedding itself into the political and legal fabric of most modern democracies.  This article is about how visions of the good life can be corrupted. Nazism from the perspective of Hitler and others was a Utopian ideal. To National Socialists it was a great idea! Get rid of all perceived lower forms of human life and fill the world with a fine well bred Aryan super race. In the decades leading up to these great dictatorships there had been great interest taken in the ideas of eugenics: a movement aimed at improving the genetic composition of the human race by sterilising unsuitable human stock, those with disabilities, mental or physical, and any other groups which it was thought threatened the good of society. A very nasty creed. Historically, eugenicists advocated selective breeding to achieve these goals. This was a fertile seedbed for those thinking in terms of a super-race. Thinkers of this period were fully conversant with the sub title of Charles Darwin’s book: On the Origin of Species. It reads: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. How to preserve the favoured races against degradation from the unfavoured races became a major issue in Nazi Germany. A brief glance at history gives an idea as to how solving this problem ended up as an example of one of the worst criminal atrocities ever to have scarred the face of our planet: most notably the extermination of six million Jews. Darwin cannot be altogether exonerated from what came to pass. In his writing he contemplated the extermination of what he called the anthropomorphic apes: by which he meant Negroes and aborigines. This seems incredible to us, but at that time such topics were discussed among intellectuals. Darwin was certainly not a monster, he was strongly opposed to slavery and there is good reason to think his ideas were thoroughly misused. However he undoubtedly made this statement.

“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state as we may hope, than the Caucasian and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.”

Quote from The Descent of Man by Charles Darwin.

If this needs any reinforcement then the comments of the world famous evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould (1941 – 2002) should wrap it up. He admitted: “Biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1850, but they increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory.”

The German philosopher Nietzsche, commenting on English society over 100 years ago, wrote: “They have got rid of the Christian God, and now feel obliged to cling all the more firmly to Christian morality…When one gives up Christian belief, one thereby deprives oneself of the right to Christian morality.”

Nietzsche is right, ridding yourself of the Christian God has consequences for society. This includes the decision to remove creation from God’s realm of creativity. God creates out of love and for a purpose; nature as Darwin perceived it was born out of the ground and without any higher purpose. From the roots up rather than as described in the book of Genesis. By God’s word all things were created mature with the inborn capacity to propagate through seeds according to each kind of plant and creature. Every kind of man came from the original couple. This means equal in value. Race, colour, lifestyle have no bearing on the integral God given dignity of humankind. In Genesis mankind was given the mandate to name, nurture and protect. For Darwin, progress was a simple matter of survival and advantage. The fittest did well, the unfit headed in the direction of extinction. By the time Darwin had published his two great books he no longer believed in God or biblical revelation. In fact he wanted to disconnect the Genesis account of creation from the realm of science altogether. There is a strange unity of thinking when God in Christ and the truth of the Bible are overthrown. The inhumanity which arose from that denial can be traced through the histories of politics and science. Darwinism had its perhaps unintended impact on that stain on the twentieth century known as the Holocaust. To doubt his ideas and writings, whether or not they were misapplied, did not influence the thinking of National Socialists is to deny the obvious. 

Nazism is the most used example of an extreme right wing, fascist manifestation of all that is worst with humanity. Everybody knows this, but what is far less known are those regimes of the far left which have done similar things but on a greater scale and over a much longer period. Why is one evil so well known and hated while the other is given a free pass? The reason maybe is that Nazism is racist to its core, whereas Communism gave the impression of existing to benefit the oppressed poor with the intention of creating a level playing field. One where elites are brought down and the common people, the proletariat are raised up. So on the face of it Communism has the appearance of moral virtue, but ideologies give rise to dictators of the most malevolent kind, and Stalin in Russia, Pol Pot in Cambodia and Mao Tse Tung in China were the worst mankind have seen so far. What is to come in the future? Is something stirring which should give us cause to fear? Because if the Bible is correct, whatever is coming will be worse and give rise to a ruler more evil and powerful than any who have preceded him.

Over the last few decades we have been fed a type of Utopian ideal: a multi faith, multi-cultural society in which the religious and secular worlds are united. In order to be stable a society needs managing, and the easiest way is through some kind of consensus driven vision. Examples from history show that to build a longstanding political and social system you must first establish control, and to do that with the least resistance people must agree to be  led. There is always opposition from those prepared to make a stand and these are usually the first to be eliminated. Those that survive, like Alexander Solzhenitsyn, write histories that move and educate one generation, only to be forgotten by the next, which is why so few learn the lessons of history. These tyrannies develop a vision around which a vast intrusive bureaucracy is founded. Government officialdom in totalitarian regimes will employ large numbers of  informers and make use of the state police, the law and if necessary the military. The society created is one in which its people are trained to follow the lead. I have no doubt we are being led; where is the question which concerns me.

The grand idea unfolding before us at first glance looks innocent enough. It has a manifesto: create equality for all, do away with conflict and giving offence, and encourage diversity. Give idealism a really good try, something that engages not just the solid centre, the old core of society but also the young. Give them a sense of engagement in a non religious mission. Once the idea has been seeded the results will appear, and indeed they have. But not everyone is happy, I along with many others have come to realise that what is being birthed in our day is intrusive; delving deeply into layers of society that no government in this country has attempted to do on this scale, not since the persecutions of the medieval age. Those attempts led to wars of religion and inquisitions. What is going on today appears to be a vision based on a general consensus, but it is not. No one that I am aware of has ever voted for political correctness, it just appeared in our midst. By the 1980’s and 1990’s it was being critiqued. The 1991 book ‘Illiberal Education’ condemned liberal efforts to advance self-victimisation and multiculturalism through language, affirmative action, and changes to the content of school and university curriculum’s. But nothing it seems can halt its progress. It rose to prominence from the liberal left in politics but sits equally well as part of the centre right. It acts as a politically correct bureaucracy which can remain intact through changes of political regime.

I grew up at a time when Germany was divided, East and West. East Germany was a communist regime whose rule was imposed by a vast bureaucracy of informers and secret police. I cannot help wondering whether or not we are heading in the same direction. I look around and see CCTV, the threats of hate legislation, the  constraints imposed on free speech and actions through political correctness and at social media being policed by vicious mobs on keyboards looking to take offence and report the smallest misstep: the informers. Worse is that the CPS ( Crown Prosecution Service ) are involved in this, and avowedly very serious about taking social media offences to court. The College of Policing has said we are committed to embedding equality considerations into everything we do. The Law which was devised to be a menace to criminals and the police force which was created to enforce these laws, is now a menace to the unwary innocent. People who by sheer bad luck, or lack of a politically correct trained response, may say or do something perceived as anti-social. An increasingly politicised police force and associated bureaucracy is a sign which should be carefully monitored by those who favour free speech. This causes me to think something sinister is growing in our midst. In the video below Jordan Peterson speaks of Marxism and the kind of peevish mid levels of officialdom who seem to rule over us today. Political correctness, perhaps due to its pettiness and intrusive nature into everything however mundane has been likened to cultural Marxism. That last word should scare you. It is being presented as a solution to social disorders, it could however be the cause of creating a society few people want to live in, and if that is the case, then you and I and many others need to speak out. You can find your back pressed against a wall before you realise what has happened. Basically you have been outsmarted. I know the feeling; I used to play chess at a modest level, but was good enough to know what happens when faced by a greatly superior opponent. The game proceeds as usual until, with a sudden realisation, you find you have no good moves to make. You are forced into bad moves that will weaken your defensive position. Not moving is not an option, so you make an enforced weak move. When you see all possible options and your freedom of movement closed down, then you know the end is imminent. At that point you resign. That is how things appear to me as regards our society. A superior mind and more powerful force is becoming apparent to me. All over the Western world there are examples of this closure of options, and it is most obviously apparent in the realm of freedom of speech. If you are on the liberal left then this will not be a problem for you; but if you on the right and Christian you will be feeling the pressure to conform to principles you may well abhor.

G.K. Chesterton made this remark.” Don’t ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up.”

We have for decades being removing the fences, those checks and balances, freedoms and boundaries to those freedoms which ensured our society could deal with political and social tensions, and do so without fracturing or unbalancing the whole of society. Individuality was honoured and opposing opinions could be expressed under well understood terms of reasoned debate. This can no longer be assured. I recall a recent Question Time programme during which a white man expressed his view on a subject, the details of which sadly I cannot recall. His tone was moderate, his comments calm and far from extreme. He was immediately shouted down by a Muslim woman who claimed he had no right to speak on the subject, because he was a white man. Why she was never called out for making a racist comment I cannot imagine. Perhaps because every group in this country is safeguarded from racist accusations other than those of us from the indigenous population who are white. It sometime feels like an alien abduction, the old order simply evaporated, and it happened not through democratic vote but through decrees that passed through parliamentary procedures without the knowledge or vote of the huge silent majority. Multiculturalism being just one of them, hate legislation being another. There are no obvious boundaries to these concepts and laws, which have been enacted as if they were self evident truths. 

We once had a well established view on our rights and responsibilities, but these have gone and what now exists is a concoction of mixed messages that leaves the political liberal left free to colonise and dictate every area of public and even semi-private conversation. The fences have been torn down and ideologues have been given freedom to occupy the resultant open spaces. We once had a political arena in which each person was guaranteed a safe place to grow in a community. One which did not permit others of a different mindset to trample over your rights and values. Cynicism of our historic faith has caused the Church to lose almost all its influence in the public sphere. We are encouraged to demonstrate shame over our past history rather than appreciate its many benefits to mankind. Good science has been overthrown in one area after another. Just one example: biology and genetics are scarce permitted to raise their voice in the debate about gender identity. That all nature. including human nature, in order to survive has to reproduce via the coming together of male and female in sexual union is a fixed and unalterable law. A law by which everything, from your new born baby to a goldfish exist. The binary nature of sex is the absolute requirement in order to propagate. And yet this truth is howled down as an affront to the extremists on the liberal left. These groups are responsible for influencing government policies, ideologies which reach so deep they are being used to indoctrinate young children. This of course they will accept as readily as a baby accepts breast milk. The reason being because they are hard wired to receive whatever doctrinal drivel is fed to them by those in authority. Truth itself is now just a matter of opinion; another supposed social construct imposed by a privileged white elite patriarchy in order to oppress every victimised minority. These comprise those of colour, all women,  the disabled, Muslims, and on to gays and transgenders of every variety. To have a voice that will not be ridiculed and abused you must by anything other than the following: white, male, heterosexual, conservative to any degree, middle class, and finally to add a cream topping to the list, add the further taint of being an evangelical Christian.  The fences that once gave position and protection to any of that last list have been uprooted and scattered to the wind.

In my opinion the new wired fences being erected will one day be recognised as being like those erected around the gulags and concentration camps. Way over the top you may think? Perhaps, but history has demonstrated time and again how fast a totalitarian idea can impose itself on a society and continent.  Clearing the decks of the old order so as to create a society equal, diverse and free of oppression and criticism of every minority group is a bad idea. The reason being it is a Utopian idea, and as shown above these create vicious totalitarian states, and given the necessary conditions can impose themselves very quickly. In Iran a religious revolution did happen virtually overnight on Feb 1st 1979. A pro-Western country became a hater of Western values under Ayatollah Khomeini. 

In Europe there were just fifteen years between the happy birth and tragic death of Anne Frank. She wrote her famous diary while in hiding from the Nazi occupiers. When caught she suffered the terrible consequences of being a Jew. Anne was sentenced to death in the concentration camp at Auschwitz. She was born in 1929, just 11 years after the end of the World War One. The war to end all Wars. Fifteen years measured out her life.

As for Communism under Stalin: he contrived the so called Ukrainian Genocide. This deliberate policy caused the death, largely by starvation, of 10 million people. From Stalin taking power to the completion of this terrifying enterprise took only ten years. His genocidal policies were enacted between 1932 and 1933. We sit safely in our homes thinking all is well while a Neo-Marxist world is forming like a web around us. Truth has gone, freedom of speech is going, language is being perverted for a perverted agenda, good well established science is being eroded and a pseudo science taking its place, our administrators are folding before lobbying groups which in former times would have been ridiculed and dismissed. Our youth are being turned inside out before choices which are sickening and perverse corruptions of commonsense and are to the detriment of their mental and physical welfare. We uphold and cherish a religion within our borders that is constitutionally opposed to everything we say we honour and aim to protect, while undermining the only stable religious foundation known to Western civilisation. Millennia old beliefs about ethics and morality have been largely discarded. We are mad and our governments whether to the right or the left now attempt to shut every mouth opened in protest.

” So justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey.”

Isaiah 59 v 14

Marxism is about power. Without power an ideology cannot be enforced. That power may be exercised with subtlety should not fool anyone. George Orwell made these comments.

“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”

“The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it.”

Freedoms can be snuffed out one by one as they were in the famous book Animal Farm. The oppressed farm animals got rid of one cruel human master and replaced him with another far worse: the leader of the pigs. He was called Napoleon and was cleverer than all the rest. He had a plan which was to slowly turn up the heat. The rhetoric changed, as did the propaganda notices around the farm. It was all done with a subtlety unnoticed by the animals. Their leader rose to supreme power gradually by diminishing the freedoms of the lower, more easily conned animals. He did this while taking all the reins of power to himself and to his loyal group: the pigs. What follows is a quote from the book, my point in using it is that something very similar may well be happening to us. Napoleon is Orwell’s caricature of Stalin. Orwell grew up with all the instincts of a socialist but gradually turned away from socialism; the reason being, he began to see that the avowed socialist care for the poor was secondary to their hatred of the rich. 

“…out from the door of the farmhouse came a long file of pigs, all walking on their hind legs…out came Napoleon himself, majestically upright, casting haughty glances from side to side, and with his dogs gambolling round him.

He carried a whip in his trotter.

There was a deadly silence. Amazed, terrified, huddling together, the animals watched the long line of pigs march slowly round the yard. It was as though the world had turned upside-down. Then there came a moment when the first shock had worn off and when, in spite of everything, in spite of their terror of the dogs, and of the habit, developed through long years, of never complaining, never criticising, no matter what happened, they might have uttered some word of protest. But just at that moment, as though at a signal, all the sheep burst out into a tremendous bleating of-

“Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better!” ( this rule used to read four legs good two legs bad )

It went on for five minutes without stopping. And by the time the sheep had quieted down, the chance to utter any protest had passed, for the pigs had marched back into the farmhouse.”

There is a reason we hold on to the hope of a Utopia. It is because the vision is locked into the heart and mind and spirit of humankind: put there by our Creator God. He who has gone on before us to prepare our heavenly home. We can know because Jesus told us this is what he would do, and He is faithful and true. He has promised that in His kingdom every tear will be wiped away and all memory of hurt and loss will be taken away. We are offered a paradise without equal, one which will have no ending and in which the fullness of love will be fully realised. God is love and in Him there is no shadow of darkness. Only the Christian faith offers a vision of such life, overflowing, poured into our laps without either measure or end. The cost? Just to believe in Jesus, make him in your life what he is in reality: your Creator, your Lord and your God. Remember this, the world hated him without cause. This He knew, and yet still He came. Died for our sins and rose from death to assure us that His promise is true.

So, Utopian ideas have a long history of failure which will not end until the end of history. At that time Jesus will come to fulfil the promises he has made. But until then we will continue to suffer mankind’s attempts to build Utopian societies. One of the greatest writers of all time demonstrates what can happen when a people fall into the hands of an ideology, and does so from personal experience.

The video below is by the psychologist Jordan Peterson. He has become a global phenomenon with a huge following both on the media and wherever he is invited to speak. I recommend him for many reasons, all of them good, but feel the need to add a word of caution. It occurs to me that fame on the scale that is forming around him cannot fail to have its effect. He is astonishingly self contained, but can any single person resist forever the lure to use their fame in other ways. A trajectory such as he is on will produce opportunities to do more than just influence and educate. The world is a consumer, and feeding its needs in the way Peterson does cannot leave him unaffected. Fame, controversy, politics and religion have led people in every imaginable direction, including to the pit of hell. Peterson speaks of this phenomena. He also speaks of the almost limitless excesses to which we humans are attracted, both for good and ill. He recognises the capacity for evil in the human heart and mind. My question is, where is he headed? I think that an excess of fame and its demands could push even the best of us to a tipping point. When that point arrives, what next step will be taken? Peterson knows this better than most and recommends a book titled Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. Christopher R. Browning’s shocking account of how a unit of average middle-aged Germans became the cold-blooded murderers of tens of thousands of Jews. We may think we are normal decent people incapable of committing atrocities, but that is untrue. It just takes a decision, made under pressure which ignores our conscience telling us to continue to do good regardless of the circumstances. Even if it may cost us our life. I feel, maybe incorrectly, that Jordan Peterson may soon face a similar challenge. If he does I pray he will take the right path, because he seems to me a thoroughly decent man.

 

 

If you want to see the Post Modern Marxist agenda being spoken against by Peterson, while simultaneously being protested against by students complaining about Peterson’s speech, then please watch the following video. You might also ask yourself this question? If the people protesting against hate speech are from the same protest groups who are having their agendas implemented by the state and the law all over the globe, then God help us. Because these people are tyrannical. They do not engage in conversation or reasoned debate with opponents, instead they shout and scream and threaten and are imposing their agendas at every level. Peterson having had a brief and  unpleasant close encounter with these students, described them as narcissists. You might like a definition of the word. A narcissist has  a grandiose sense of self-importance, and exaggerates achievements and talents. They believe themselves special and unique and can only be understood by other special or high-status people or institutions. They think they deserve excessive admiration. They unreasonably expects special, favourable treatment or compliance. They exploit and take advantage of others to achieve personal ends. They lack empathy for the feelings and needs of others, they are envious and have arrogant behaviour and attitudes. All the attributes of a thoroughly spoilt child. If this is true then what are the great silent, largely cowered majority to do? Exactly what a good parent would do to such a child. Remove all privileges from them, ignore the screaming, do nothing for them until they calm down, apologise and accept the rules governing good behaviour. The sign of hope are the students who attended the lecture and Q&A session. Their questions were really good and their politeness a joy to behold. The contrast between students of the right and centre and those of the left was perhaps the biggest lesson I learned, good though Peterson was. There is hope, but those that can must speak out while free speech is still an option.

 

 

 

 

If The Truth Be Told

 

The following was said about the knife crime epidemic that is becoming the shame of London. This was written in 2018.

“So the forlorn attempts by politicians and media to ignore this truth…to avoid ‘stigmatising’ minority communities…has been counterproductive, a hand-wringing dereliction of responsibility.”

“It might make ‘right-on’ white liberals feel better. But the price of their smugness is an ongoing bloody massacre of black children with a casualty list that seems to lengthen by the day.”

These are observations made by the former Equality Commissioner Trevor Phillips. He was also head of the European Convention of Human Rights. Trevor Phillips is a black man, the son of poor immigrant parents and one of the few people close to government brave enough to speak out. He states that most of the recent crime waves involving violence and knife crime are black on black. These youths, many of them children have come from war torn countries having been brutalised by their experiences. Some of these have been either victims or perpetrators of violence who grew up to see other ethnic groups as enemies. They are continuing their wars and hatreds in our capital city and in other major cities around the country. This information comes from a man of high status and impeccable reputation for honesty. He is alarmed that our government and its agencies refuse to face the issue. He describes these children as living in ghettos. He blames “white liberals” describing them as “hand-wringing” rather than doing anything. They do this not because they are unaware, but to avoid facing the racial connection. They do not want to be perceived as stigmatising minorities. Phillips says there is a black massacre going on. What do the white liberal elites do? They continue to bury embarrassing and shaming data.

We have developed a cowardly politically correct attitude to abject failures in our society. It seems to pervade the corridors of power and have infected the bureaucrats who, rather than serve the interests of the public, are instead protective of our legislators. They cover up the mess. We have created a society based not on morality and self-discipline, but on avoiding the consequences of cause and effect. Successive governments cannot face what they have done, which was to restructure our society in ways that are proving to be catastrophic. In 2011 our former Prime Minister David Cameron told us that multiculturalism had failed. He launched an attack on 30 years of multiculturalism in Britain, warning it fostered extremist ideology and directly contributed to home-grown Islamic terrorism. He urged that we in Britain must adopt a policy of “muscular liberalism” to enforce the values of equality, law and freedom of speech across all parts of society.

What did Cameron do other than make the statement? Arguably he made the situation much worse. The bureaucrats in the CPS, Police and local councils and others ensured that the issues identified were dealt with by ignoring them if possible, or hiding the evidence whenever a conscientious official became a whistle-blower. He or she would be effectively silenced; one labour MP suggested keeping critics mouths shut would contribute to the advance of diversity. This was all horribly exposed in the media and in recent Parliamentary Committees looking into the Sex Grooming cases involving men from that most protected of minority groups: Islam. Cameron and others representing the establishment then set sail in the direction of imposing British Values. To what effect? To muffle the sounds of free speech. Terrorism continued and extremism has not decreased. Muscular liberalism has ensured the very problems he highlighted would be kicked into the long grass. If it were not for people of principle like Trevor Phillips we would hear very few honest assessments.

Multiculturalism may have failed, but it has admittedly provided us with many benefits: not least in staffing the NHS and care industries. Immigrants have brightened our lives not least with different foods and tastes and restaurants. Livened us up in many ways, including meeting and interacting with foreigners from all parts of the world. That all these have enriched us culturally is hard to deny, and personally I have no desire to deny it. These benefits have entered my own family. However this is experienced against a black backdrop of terrorism, failures to integrate, a hatred of democracy and free speech, and caused an increase in crime. Major and continued terrorism from a non Islamic source was last experienced during the Irish Troubles. It was caused by two separate communities seemingly incapable of coming together. The reasons were political, cultural and religious. This was a British problem which has been in large part solved.

Islam is unique among the world’s major religions; there is no separation between religion and state, which is unlike the relationship in the West between church and state. Islam is a religion and culture of an evangelistic type, historically based on force and conquest. It holds fast to a characteristic which cannot be circumvented. Islamic countries are theocracies; they are ruled not by only by secular politicians but by their faith and their clergy. When push comes to shove the rule of Allah given through his prophet Muhammad and written in the Quran, is their law. It reigns above the secular authourities in Islamic States, and in the minds of devout Muslims above those of a host nation like ours. British Muslims who care little for their faith are no problem, but those that do adhere closely to their faith, or become through radicalisation extremely devout can be, and often are a problem. Which is a major reason why multiculturalism has failed throughout Europe. Allah will always hold the loyalty of practising Muslims and will do so against any form of coercion. How to solve it? Ask me another question. I do not have a clue other than to slow Islamic immigration to a trickle. As that would seem to be picking on a protected minority and therefore be non PC, I think this would be unlikely to happen.  Our politicians are tied hand and fist by their own blighted and cock-eyed legislation to anything beyond mouthing platitudes, and that is why they obfuscate: (obscure, confuse, blur, muddle, complicate, garble, muddy, cloud), hide from the truth and bury the negative data.

The video below is a conversation relating to the book The Strange Death of Europe by Douglas Murray. He is a British author, journalist, and political commentator. He is the founder of the Centre for Social Cohesion and is the associate director of the Henry Jackson Society and associate editor of the British political and cultural magazine The Spectator. As we are part of Europe everything said applies equally to us, and what is said is scary.

 

Fast-Forward From the 1960’s

 

Following the end of the Second World War and until the advent of the Swinging Sixties the world seemed set on a trend that understood concepts like normal and natural, and we lived in a world where the ordinary and stable was the accepted reality. Truth had a place that seemed secure, the world had been shaken to its core but it had settled into a relatively mundane order. And then came Mary Quant and mini skirts, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, Teenagers, violent demos against the American Embassy, flower power and so on. I was a teenager when the decade began. Looking back I now think it was the beginning of the end. Depending on opinion we have evolved to a higher place or hit rock bottom. In retrospect I wonder why no rock group came up with the name Rock Bottom. (Having just checked it out on the internet I see that one such band was formed in 2012). The Sixties opened Pandora’s Box, and the evils let loose rather than being expunged from society are being welcomed and applauded as social advances.

But we are where we are, and that is either newly enlightened or entering a new dark age, depending on your worldview.

I scan the media for news and note changes that would have once been thought inconceivable, even to works of fiction. A society in which genders can be made up at will. One in which schools, hospitals, offices and many other areas are having to make different arrangements for toilets, changing rooms etc. Gender blurring is altering everything, including how we act, think and speak. What was once comparatively easy, like communication between sexes, has become a minefield. Say or do the wrong thing, and who can be sure what that is, can lead to a reputation being forever lost. The redefinition of male and female will have consequences beyond those anticipated, because people must by threat of law adapt to the new reality; and some will and others will not. Sometimes not because of intent but just because they do not understand or cannot keep up with the relentless changes. From the sixties to now is roughly sixty years and in that time the world has, from my perspective, gone mad. I remember days when to be in debt was a shame; now it is way of life. The duty to live within your means and to respect your elders and betters was drilled into you as a child, but no more. The old has gone and the new has come. Was the old good? No, not always, far from it, there were many faults and failings. The sixties did address some of those, but then it moved on to become a permissive crusade which tugged at all the old certainties.

In retrospect we are beginning to see exactly what has been laid waste, what it has led to and perhaps getting an idea about where it is leading. Regret is an emotion left for the elderly to dwell on, a world once loved gone beyond recall. How did it happen? We scratch our heads and wonder. Here, in the video below is what at first glance seems innocent enough. I entered this world at the age of sixteen as an art student. There is just one hint in the commentary which links this era to our own. A comment about the young seeking their identity. You do not have to look far to see where that impulse has led us.

National papers were recently reporting an astonishing 17 pupils at a single British school who were in the process of changing gender.  Most of those undergoing the transformation are autistic, according to a whistle-blower. The teacher said vulnerable children with mental health problems were being ‘tricked’ into believing they are the wrong sex, claiming few of the transgender children are suffering from gender dysphoria: the medical term for a person who feels they were born in the wrong body. The accusation is that these vulnerable children are easily influenced because they are coping with problems caused by autism. This makes it all sound very manipulative and ideologically driven. Maybe, the first stirrings of these identity problems began in the Swinging Sixties. My belief is that this decade opened the way to love of excess in every area of human activity and thinking. When you read about a six year old being repeatedly raped at school by two other pupils during playtime, then surely it is time to take a look at the world that is forming around us. What began with the appearance of freeing up a psychedelic, drug fuelled world of innocent fun in the sixties has degenerated into something that has the appearance of being out of control. It could legitimately be described as evil.  We do not have to do the so called ‘progressive’ thing, and just keep on going. We could take a breath and consider rewinding the clock, teach moral standards, stamp down hard on anti-social behaviour of every type, and perhaps reintroduce this generation to its Christian God.

 

All Change!

 

When I was young this was the call a bus conductor would make when we reached the bus terminus. If you hung around long enough you might see the bus number and destination being scrolled round to designate it would be taking a new route. We as a society have changed route, from a people who knew who and what we were to one that creates whatever we want be. The following saying is attributed to the philosopher Nietzsche in Beyond Good and Evil. I agree with it wholeheartedly.

“Madness is something rare in individuals — but in groups, parties, peoples, and ages, it is the rule.” 

In my view those who have chosen the modern consensus have fallen into exactly that certifiable condition. If you can open your eyes to all that is going on around us by way of change you cannot help but see the trail of devastation Post Modernism has set in motion. It is as if a wild boar has been let loose in a well established smooth running household. It represents a paradigm shift in our society. What is happening can easily be missed; we are the recipient generation of a philosophical idea, the intention of which is to change us, cause us to think about everything in another way. Its promotion involved the invention a new hyphenated word: Post-Truth. This word was thought so significant it became the Oxford University Dictionary word of the year in 2016. The expression suggests Truth has had its day and as the title of this web/blog-site suggests, been laid in a casket and unceremoniously buried.

Basically it means you can throw out everything you once knew to be true and good and replace it with something called cognitive confinement. If you want to know what that means then do not ask me. I looked it up on the worldwide web and found no explanation. That perhaps is the explanation, its meaning is open only to those who dabble in the worlds of psychology and psychiatry. It could mean freeing the mind to receive almost anything, or a mental straight-jacket. Either explanation would make sense in a post-truth world. Whatever else it may mean, this much is certain; the old idea of an overarching truth that holds and explains all reality, including human nature and our relationship with our Creator is gone. Any claim to truth is reduced to that of yours and mine and his and hers and nowadays any other approved personal pronoun. Truth is fragmented and personalised and one truth is only superior to another if it is the one which conforms to the views of the State. You see the State has taken on the garb and role of God. There is an overarching truth and if you disobey its commandments ( British Values ) then your freedoms are likely to be much reduced. There are some today suffering confinement in the UK for their faith or their views. If they have avoided a prison cell they will quite likely have lost their jobs or their reputations or a large part of their wealth due to legal fees and court costs.

Welcome to the Post-Modern world! A strange one insofar that the claims made on behalf of Post Truth are of the exact variety of the one it eradicated. An overarching new truth replacing an overarching old truth. By defining all former capital T Truths as naïve or repressive, the modern state has become as doctrinaire as any former religious monopoly. But this thing that has arisen in our midst, despite its well-established creeds, is not religious. On the contrary it is root and branch secular. If you doubt, it’s domineering nature then examine the reach and influence of Politic Correctness.

Here is just a mild taste of the gathering madness. Modern Feminism has more than a hint of colonialism about it: the movement keeps looking for new areas to suck the life out of, and to spread its condemnation of male privilege into every inflection of speech and expression through touch and gesture. These, which are often signs of consideration: kindness, sympathy and the desire to protect, are rejected and sometimes categorised as assaults. It may never occur to a rabid feminist that not every expression like this is loaded with sexual intent or a desire to exploit women. Not to be able to see or discern this is a sign of a fanatic.

 

 

An Uncomfortable Truth

 

The speaker advised her audience not to hate, but to educate. In this case that means facing a truth very few want to acknowledge let alone talk about. The speaker is a Muslim, born in Iran and sold by her father at the age of 14 into marriage. Listening to this articulate woman you can still feel the sense of shock and betrayal she felt as it happened.

 

 

The video below says everything you need to know about what happened to Persia/Iran in the 1970’s. It is very short, and corroborates what was said in the video above. A country no different to any in the West transformed almost overnight by an Islamic dictatorship. You could call it a warning from history.

 

 

A Cause Worth Fighting For!

 

The heading banner of this article is a section from the original typescript of one of Churchill’s many great wartime speeches. I happened across this and it struck me as deeply significant to us right now. Britain was facing either its destruction or its occupation under a foreign power of such malignancy, that in some ways it has no historical equivalent. Nazi Germany it seemed had its hands around our throat. So how did Churchill see it? Beyond our survival what was at the core of the matter? The answer!

“Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian Civilisation.”

Can you imagine a modern politician speaking in such a way. It is worth asking why a historian, politician and war leader would consider the faith founded by Jesus Christ to be a pivotal reason for fighting on against seemingly insuperable odds. Why Christian? Because Britain was a country founded in Christian roots and values. It was the stable core of our culture and at the centre of our moral values and outlook on life. The fight was against a vile regime and in favour of our faith and the people who looked to that faith in times of trouble, and never more so than at this moment in history. A lesser man would have taken the easier option and signed a deal with Hitler, an option Churchill was urged to take by senior figures in the War Cabinet. His refusal to appease a dictator saved an entire continent and its Christian heritage.

There is a day when we as a nation remember an act of salvation, perhaps forgetting the impact made by prayer and the Christian faith. Annually we celebrate the fight and remember the sacrifices and appalling loss of life in two world wars. We have named it Remembrance Day. As part of this we also remember the famous rescue of our army from the beaches of Dunkirk: how a terrified nation led by the call of our king turned to their God. The photo below marks the occasion a nation turned to prayer.

With the entire British Army trapped on the beaches of  Dunkirk, King George VI called for a National Day of Prayer. It was held on 26th May 1940. In a national broadcast he instructed the people of the UK to turn back to God in a spirit of repentance and plead for divine help. Millions of people across the British Isles flocked into churches praying for deliverance, and this photograph shows the scene outside Westminster Abbey as people queued for prayer. Where these prayers answered?

The First Miracle

The first was that for some reason, which has never yet been fully explained, Hitler overruled his generals and halted the advance of his armoured columns at the very point when they could have proceeded to the British army’s annihilation. They were now only ten miles away! Later, Mr Churchill asserted in his memoirs that this was because Hitler undoubtedly believed ‘that his air superiority would be sufficient to prevent a large-scale evacuation by sea.’ That is very significant in terms of the second miracle.

The Second Miracle

A storm of unprecedented fury broke over Flanders on Tuesday, 28 May, (1940) grounding the German Luftwaffe squadrons and enabling the British army formations, now eight to twelve miles from Dunkirk, to move up on foot to the coast in the darkness of the storm and the violence of the rain, with scarcely any interruption from aircraft, which were unable to operate in such turbulent conditions. The Fuehrer had obviously not taken the weather into his reckoning, nor the One who controls the weather!

And the third miracle?

Despite the storm in Flanders, a great calm, such as has rarely been experienced settled over the English Channel during the days which followed. It was this quite extraordinary calm which enabled a vast armada of little ships, big ships, warships, privately owned motor-cruisers from British rivers and estuaries, in fact, almost anything that would float to sail back and forth in a desperate bid to rescue as many of those trapped on the beaches as possible, these included remaining parts of the French army.

This momentous event could be described as comparable to biblical miracles. They are difficult to explain in terms of betting odds or any so called rational explanation. These events are less than eighty years ago and still in living memory for some.

How far have we fallen since then?

The day we heralded the progressive move to become a multi-cultural, multi-faith country rather than being known as a Christian country was the day we began our slide into what we see around us now. In the rest of these articles I attempt to lay out what has resulted from political decisions largely made during the Blair / Brown New Labour governments, between 1997 – 2010. The political party that “did not do God.” During that period  it became acceptable to sneer at and apologise for the British Empire and its history. However to those who believe the British Empire was a scar on the face of our country, I would just remind you that the colonised countries that made up the empire voluntarily gave up their money, even poor Africans to the cause of defeating Nazism.  The 25 million people of Nigeria sent an amazing quarter of a million pounds to the war charities. These contributions have to be seen in the context of local wages. In Nigeria, it was only two shillings (10p) per day. The West African colonies sent a total of one and a half million pounds to the charities, and their governments granted Britain £1 million in interest-free loans. It is only fair to remark that not all was goodness and light, the black races were still held in low esteem. This remained so during the later immigration of people from the Caribbean. We still have much to learn and regret. Nevertheless Africans contributed to a war effort for which many of them had no reason to take any direct interest; let alone sacrifice themselves for an Empire that ruled over them.

The following in italics is a slightly paraphrased account from the Spectator.

For most of the war the majority of German troops were facing not westwards, towards Britain and the US, but eastwards towards Stalin’s Russia. Khan points out that no less than five million citizens of the British empire joined the military services between 1939 and 1945, and that almost two million of these, ‘the largest volunteer army in history’, were from South Asia. At many of Britain’s greatest victories and at several of the war’s most crucial turning points: El Alamein, Monte Cassino and Kohima a great proportion of ‘British’ troops were not British at all, but Indian.

Would these peoples have gathered in such profusion and fought so bravely if they had not valued the cause which drew them into this monumental fight. Why go to war against a dictatorship if they felt Britain itself represented a cruel and oppressive dictatorship? Why such extremes of loyalty? The Commonwealth of nations, which still celebrates its existence and its ties to Britain, is a testimony that despite the United Kingdom’s many failings it remains the heart of the Commonwealth. Perhaps it is time the modern generation studied some history and ceased holding its head in shame. It could if it chose look up and see that of all the empires that have existed, few if any are held in such high regard as the Empire defended by so many people who were not British. Not by birth, nationality or culture. We owe them so much, almost certainly our continued existence. So, in conclusion, why not embrace virtues like thankfulness and gratitude rather than, as many left wing university students do, despoil our heritage with rage and contempt.

 

 

 

Love

 

Without love and understanding of others there is no good basis for making judgements on anyone or anything,  There is a wise saying: take the plank out of your own eye before attempting to remove a splinter from someone else’s eye. I realised that while I feel the articles I have written are reasonable, that does not necessarily make them charitable. Much of this blog is devoted to what I perceive to be wrong. There is a long list of targets lined up like toy soldiers. My primary intention is simple: to knock them all down. These include issues relating to large numbers of government agencies, including the CPS and Ofsted, ideologically motivated protest groups, too numerous to mention at this point, and various unsubstantiated scientific theories which have become so protected and idolised they can no longer be challenged. There is also the religion I think is becoming near apostate. I mean large parts of the Christian Church which now regard some sections of the Bible as unreliable and embarrassing. That inevitably reflects badly on the character and ways of God. Best not to discuss the Old Testament, the Creation accounts, slavery, war and so on; all of which God seems to endorse. Every part of these accusations can be met head on and should be, but sadly there is a lot of cowardice when it comes to confronting critics. Then there is the religion of peace. One of the greatest misnomers every applied to anything: Islam is anything but a religion of peace. It has been at war since the seventh century, and it still is by direct attacks, such as those against Israel and those initiated by ISIS, still ongoing through terrorism on the streets of cities and in the lands of many countries and against any groups or peoples these maniacs hate. Islam built one the greatest empires on the face of the planet, largely by warfare. In Europe at its most successful Islam held virtually all of Spain, the Mediterranean islands, large parts of France and Italy and the Balkans. For the most part an unknown and untaught history of global conquest. So in conclusion, here is a combustible mixed bag containing elements of society, none of which like to be challenged. However, all these named above are filled with people, many if not most of whom are pursuing their agendas in good conscience believing they are right in just the same way as I do. Together these government agencies, religions. protest groups etc must include many billions of people and large numbers of organisations. Each and every one of these is comprised of individuals about whom I know nothing. So, I must learn to be modest and kind because I am just one voice, one person saying what he believes to be true.

There was a man named Paul. Before he met Jesus he was violent and murderous. A terrifying zealot and persecutor of the followers of Jesus. This man, following his conversion, was inspired to write the following words. And it to these words I need to pay close attention, otherwise I may become what he says: a loud clanging cymbal without compassion, understanding or love. He wrote.

‘If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.’

1 Corinthians ch 13 v 1 – 8

All of that I need to accept and apply in all areas of life at all times.

We as a society have moved on from this message and God. We think we know much better, so if I come across as angry it is for this reason: we do not know better and I will try to prove this to you. Nevertheless, we Christians are asked to forgive our enemies and do good to those who treat us badly. So I have no right to this anger. However, the anger of God against an unbelieving generation is another matter. We I believe are already suffering from his anger. That is why we are where we are; morally and spiritually adrift with our powers of reason twisted out of shape.

In this blog I criticise government officials who use the law to persecute people, Muslims who hate infidels, Islam for its doctrines, people who march under the LGBT banner, scientists who have devised theories to avoid the problem of acknowledging God, weak compromising Christians and others I accuse of being complicit in changing our society and culture in ways that are if not mad, then malignant. However every person involved in what I believe is the destruction of the once Christian West is individually created and loved by God. So I am really sorry if in the course of writing these articles, I cause hurt or seemed without love or compassion. I hope I am not quite what I seem. If you are interested in who I am then you will be pleased to know you can find out by accessing the article: Who Am I. This can be found by touching the tab Follow and then go to About.

My God of course is of an entirely different character. I know that every person is loved by God. That If we sin we have a Saviour. If we acknowledge him he offers us eternal life of a type beyond our imaginations. God is good and he seeks nothing less than the best for you.

 

 

Here Lies The Truth

 

 

The title provokes the question here lies what truth? Your truth, my truth, an agreed societal truth or something beyond both. An overarching truth such as that claimed for our historic faith. My belief is that an environment is developing in which nearly every connection to that Truth, Christianity will be severed; or perhaps more accurately, simply abandoned as an irrelevance. It may of course be replaced by another Middle Eastern import: Islam. That possibility along with many others will be considered in some detail.

It feels to me as if a subtle war is being waged. A strange one, without an easily specified antagonist or an instantly recognisable target. However, if you find yourself opposed to current trends you may well be experiencing coercive pressure to conform in ways that are unsettling. And even more bizarre, to an agenda that came out of nowhere. The battle lines in this country seem to be arranged around perceptions of British Values. These just appeared in our midst without any noticeable public vote and enthroned themselves as self-evident truths at the centre of our legal system. Astonishingly these values, the breaking of which can land you in a law court, are less than a decade old. They are defined as, Democracy, Rule of Law, Respect and Tolerance and Individual Liberty. Values that you might reasonably argue have been the bedrock of our society for some time. What harm could arise from such a wholesome collection of values and aspirations? The old saying is that the devil is in the detail; so, if something devilish has arisen in our midst it may well be found hidden in the interpretations and applications of the laws. In this case laws governing hate crime. Armed with hate legislation the Crown Prosecution Service now has the bite and appetite of a full-grown carnivore. To dare speak against the established truths of the modern state is to risk facing prosecution and possible imprisonment. The threat is clearly stated. There is no excuse not to know that some issues are now so tightly bound to notions of what is and is not acceptable, that to challenge these victim orientated untouchables is to become a social pariah. The issues at the forefront of this crusade are LGBT rights on the one hand, and the religion of peace, Islam on the other.

Our formerly Christian country has been replaced by one defined as multi-cultural and multi-faith. When I say replaced I actually mean something much more dramatic. Akin to an aggravated lover using a key held in common to enter the once shared home. The purpose being to desecrate every memory and remove all personal items belonging to the former partner. A course has been set and the signs of its “progress” are many and varied. The face of religion has changed, politics is going the same way, as are ethics and morality and even what was once considered normal and natural. What is growing in our society is at the very least unusual, at the worst almost beyond comprehension; best explained perhaps by what has been spoken and written about millennia ago.  Scriptures that are gradually becoming perceived as enemies of the State. If this little piece has not whetted your appetite I think you should look elsewhere for a good read.

Here is a demonstration of British Values as enacted in the real world. Ofsted it seems can and often does act like an ideologically driven dictatorship seeking nothing less than to impose its own views on any school that does not conform. That a Conservative government should continue to sponsor this sinister regime is a sign of our times.

 

The school was put under special measures by Ofsted.

Grindon Hall is a Christian school and was criticised amongst other things for failing to celebrate the festivals of other religions. Its headmaster Mr Gray said: “This would breach our Christian foundation which stipulates that we are a Christian school…It would certainly offend against the consciences of many of our staff, pupils and parents….Learn about it, yes. Celebrate its festivals, no.” A headmaster with character who refuses to bow to  gods he does not recognise.

That government feels itself obliged to interfere and bully an excellent school with a great reputation and high academic attainment is an illustration of what is happening to us. In my view not to protest is not an option.

 

Feminism At Odds With Itself

 

Below is a video you should watch before reading the article. A women’s protest is joined by a woman interviewer asking a very difficult question.

 

If you have watched the video you will know what this is all about. Here is a list of core feminist beliefs: Sexism exists / Sexism against women (misogyny) is enduring, pervasive, systemic, cultural, and ingrained / Men and women should have equal rights and opportunities / Women are intellectual equals and social equals to men / Women should be recognised and treated as equals to men. This may be controversial, but I will ask the question anyway. Do feminists believe what they profess to believe? They were holding placards with the words End Violence Against Women written on them. They were being asked about violence against women by Muslim men. Almost every statement on the feminists list is to one degree or another opposed by the religion and culture of Islam. Not one of these feisty women on their crusade to put men in their place are prepared to face facts they cannot handle.  Not a word is uttered in reply to the interviewer which indicates they care about Muslim women who suffer under Sharia law. I am not trying to imply that many Muslim marriages are not successful and based on loving relationships, but to deny there is a cultural problem is not an option. The facts speak against these women who seemed determined to either blank the interviewer or express astonishment at her remarks. Do they not know about the rights given to Muslim husbands over the freedoms of their wives?

This is my conclusion.

1 Sexism against women (misogyny) is enduring, pervasive, systemic, cultural, and ingrained in Islam

2 Men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. In Islam these rights and opportunities are largely dependant on the cooperation or kindness of their husbands.

3 In Islam women are not normally regarded as  either intellectual or social equals to men.

4 Women should be recognised and treated as equals to men, but in Islam they are not.

That is every rule of feminism broken and done without apparent interest or awareness. If in today’s society Christianity was seen to be supportive of doctrines even approaching those of Islam in this area of women’s rights, then the Church would be vilified without remorse by these crusaders for Feminism. And rightly so! If the knowledge of these protesters is so deficient they do not know what happens under Sharia Law, or the culture pervading much of Islam, then they are guilty of either wilful ignorance or monumental hypocrisy. I think the latter is true. Feminists regard themselves as an oppressed minority, and they cannot it appears apply their critical faculties against another supposedly oppressed minority: such as Islam.

All the information that follows which is marked by a hashtag is from a source supportive of Women’s Rights.

# Harmful practices, such as Female Genital Mutilation and “Child marriage”, are violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms. But they are all commonplace and sanctioned in many parts of the world under the rule of Shariah Law.

# Women’s rights defenders in Saudi Arabia have been arrested and accused of treason.

# Sabiha, a 32-year-old woman, was raped by a relative. Her family and local community pressured her into marrying her rapist. This to remove the dishonour put upon her family. Her rapist escaped all punishment by marrying her. She had been regularly raped for nine months. She forced him him to leave and got a divorce. Her family prevented her from continuing her work or from leaving her home. This happened in Iraq in 2018.

# A young Sudanese girl was forcefully married off at 16 years of age to an older man she was forced to marry. He raped her while three of his male relatives held her down. On one of these rape attempts she fought him and stabbed him with a knife.  The man died. The girl whose name is Noura was convicted of murder on the 10th of May, 2018 and was sentenced to hang.

These cases are not from a right wing source but from one that should be required reading by feminists. These are paraphrased accounts from reports published by Equality Now. The subtitle on the website page states: A just world for women and girls.

Just look at the crimes that have been reported in the UK concerning the sex gangs and their use of white girls as sexual currency in a criminal conspiracy that continued throughout England for close to two decades. Everything written in this section is the result of Muslim violations of human rights. But they happen in both Islamic States and in countries that have taken in great numbers of Muslim men. These crimes against humanity have two common factors, a culture that seems to accept this kind of behaviour, and men prepared to take advantage. These men are no doubt unrepresentative, but they exist in large enough numbers and are protected sufficiently to cause unimaginable suffering to females.

AND YET! The feminists on this march seem oblivious to the facts. They react as they do because they are blinkered and constrained for politically correct reasons. PC does that to both individuals and organisations. It was the reason why Pakistani sex gangs were left free from police intervention for so long, it has become a national scandal. Politically correct views on racism and Islamophobia prevented the authorities from taking action. Which makes these highly politicised bands of sisters dangerous. Pressure groups such as those represented by these protesters seem to me to wave their flags and mouth their slogans alright, but lack the capacity to see beyond their cause. They do not see nor do they want to see the other side of the argument. They are myopic and it shows in the incomprehension on their faces when confronted by a different and contrary view. I can understand why they protest, and they may have a point; however it becomes lost when the only bee in their bonnet is shown to be just one of a hive.

I have placed a video below which is relevant to the issue of feminists shutting their ears to known facts about abuses suffered by many thousands of females in the UK. Can they face an uncomfortable truth? The fact that their avowed desire to protect women from male violence has limits. That their interest in these issues depends on who these male perpetrators are? Because this matter of facing an uncomfortable truth is clearly laid out in the presentation below. It is a failure that spread itself across a wide spectrum. From feminist activists to police officers and heads of major councils and government agencies; most of which would have placed care of female children high on their list of priorities. The failure to act on their behalf relates to a culture that somehow permitted Muslim men to look at young girls and see nothing but “white trash”. Human garbage to be used at will and abused in as many ways as can be imagined when it comes to sexual violence. Those feminist protesters above cannot have been ignorant about scandals that gave rise to global publicity. The must have seen and read about it, and yet could not say a word of condemnation about the men responsible. Why? For the same reasons the authorities responsible for the girls safety could not act: their politically correct agendas would not permit them to act. If the Muslim men where reprehensible, then what can be said of those authorities which should have known so much better? If you watch this calm but deeply moving account by a very decent man you will be shocked beyond measure. There was a conspiracy of silence. The man in the video below was a key factor in breaking that silence.

 

 

Imagine!

 

Heaven and society as seen through the eyes of two opposites: Margaret Thatcher and John Lennon.

Imagine hearing your prime minister stating, as if it were a matter of established fact, that there is no such thing as society.

“I think we have been through a period when too many people have been given to understand that when they have a problem it is government’s job to cope with it. ‘I have a problem, I’ll get a grant. I’m homeless, the government must house me.’ They are casting their problems on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no governments can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours. People have got their entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There is no such thing as an entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation.”

This famous quote was made in 1996 by Margaret Thatcher, a person I admired but never really liked and a remark I never understood. However I had never before writing this read the comment in context. They are tough words that sound even more so to the modern mindset. Obligation is not a word we hear bandied about on the media, let alone in the context of meeting obligations before an entitlement is even considered. That’s like asking a builder to work on your house, and only paying after the work has been satisfactorily completed. Which is of course exactly what is expected. He has an obligation to do the work he has agreed to do and having done it is entitled to be paid whatever was agreed. We have developed a society in which many people feel free to demand their rights or entitlements without feeling any sense of obligation to anyone. For this reason I think it true to say that it is considered a mess from whatever view you take. Take a view from the bottom of the pile and it seems nothing like enough is being done. From the top, the view may be that whatever is done will never be enough. Don’t get me wrong, the poor should always be helped. But if the sense of entitlement was removed, maybe gratitude rather than resentment would become the predominant response.

What would happen if instead of thinking of ourselves first, we considered what we could do to help others? If we developed a sense of obligation to others. Not a coerced arm twisting form of action but one freely offered. If this sounds like the golden rule taken from the words of Jesus, that is exactly what it is.

“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.”

That is a life changing thought. The impulse to care for others based on what we know we need for ourselves. It begins with you and me, and if it works as it should then you and I will both benefit. Society if set up on that principle would probably thrive and each one of us would be happier. We all know that in the real world this does not happen very often. We seem to be set up on the principle of screw you mate, if you are stupid enough to give me a handout don’t expect to get anything back. And if you hassle me I will either disappear or come back with some mates and teach you a lesson.

But if the Jesus way was followed then as John Lennon wrote: Imagine! The opening line of the lyric is ‘Imagine there is no heaven’. I think that is intended as a denunciation of religion, even of heaven in the religious sense of the word. The strange thing is he has entirely missed the point. God offers everything Lennon’s song expresses. His longing for justice and goodness and open hearted charity to be seen and experienced. What Lennon desires is the heaven promised by Jesus Christ. People living in an eternal present, no countries, nothing to kill or die for, no religion, living in peace, the world as one. There will be no sense of my possessions and yours, no greed or hunger and a brotherhood of man shared by all. He described it so well. It is a description of heaven and he could have added another verse. No death, or suffering or tears or regrets and a love which never ceases or grows dull or fades away. Freedom and fulfilment and joy beyond imagining which can never be lost. He got so much right while missing the central point. He saw the vision but failed to see the only one who could make it real, make it happen. If Lennon had imagined just a little further he may have recognised an obligation to God. Thankfulness, gratitude for his life, his talent and the opportunity to use it and rise to the top of his profession.

Here is a quote from John Lennon.

“Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that; I’m right and I’ll be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first – rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.”

From that remark you can make your own opinion up about John Lennon. As to his prophecy about Christianity; in the West he is probably accurate, but worldwide he was way off. According to Pew Research, there were 600 million Christians in the world in 1910. In 2015, the number was 2.3 billion and growing. Sometime around 2050, the number will edge 3 billion. As for the disciples, they were not thick. Why should Lennon sneer at those  ordinary blokes who helped the academic St Paul spread a gospel message which converted the entire Roman Empire.