Apparently it's all our fault. Voter disconnection. Voter apathy. We're to blame. We bloggers are shrill and impolite. So says Blair lackey Matthew Taylor HERE and President George Bush Senior HERE.
Matthew Taylor reckons that part of the problem is the "net-head" culture itself, which is rooted in libertarianism and "anti-establishment" attitudes, according to the BBC report. No Matthew, people like YOU are the problem. You sit there in Downing Street, in your little ivory tower and think that you know best and that we, the little people, will meekly go along with whatever authoritarian and anti-democratic measure you dream up next. Wrong. It's because of people like you that the blogosphere is growing and feels the need to rail against establishment thinking. But you are right, whether on the left or the right, we are rooted in libertarianism. And most of us are proud of it. Get used to it.
29 comments:
Taylor says you are at the stage
of keeping the citizens in
"righteous rage"
So talk is cheap and comments shrill
and Taylor thinks you wish him ill.
So moderate the spleen and rancour
and pay attention to the wanker.
Not surprised he is an idiot. I heard Phillip Gould once and this kind of rubbish is quite symptomatic of the way that these people think
Wrong trousers grommet. O posted my agreement with you on the Sue Cook article. Oops.
Howver I agree in part. However it is not just the libertarian position. It is also the ability for people to get together and discuss practicalities of the things that politicians say or do.
Rather more importantly is that we can't be bought like a media mogul. There are just too many of us.
All to the good I say!
It's no good just frowning when you look at 10 Downing
If your'e feeling truly louty
get yourself to
18 Doughty
Which is like al-Jazeera - only queerer.
Mr. Dale,
I've never voted in my now long life.
yah boo.
Hate to say it but this is your best blog ever.
Being libertarian (to say no and to ask why?), it's what it is to be a Brit.
Libertarian is center-right, now? I love it. Let's legalize drugs immediately, a fitting tribute to Milton Friedman. And then there's the question of Freedom of Speech: "Freedom of speech is freedom for the speech that we hate".
Are we ready to be Libertarian?
Iain at your best.
Glad to see you have woken from your media trance.
They will try and control the internet it is their instinct to do so.
The truth must be realy getting them down
I don't know if there is an intentional campaign going on to fuck up the blogosphere, but there are endless 'technical' troubles according to Mike Rouse of Blue Torch Solutions. He advised me to close down my blog on beta blogger, 'the tap' listed in your Top 100 Conservative Blogs, as he knew of so many similar complaints to mine.
It's locked at a certain date. New posts only appear in the lists - not at the top of the blog as they should.
I'm restarting as 'tapestrytalks.typepad' where they charge money to keep the blog working.
If we're hurting the powerful, they are likely to take countermeasures...and practise black internet arts as well as their usual media games. It stands to reason.
Iain, I'm worried. I agree with you.
Taylor is a complete and utter prat. He's got the intellectual depth of a cornflake.
The fact is that blogs and blogging are regarded by most as a means of expression - with the vague hope that some of this will get through to the likes of Taylor. Clearly it ain't working in his case.
Maybe he needs a short remedial course in 'Literacy' or, as I still like to call it, Reading.
What annoys especially about this rant is the way this unelected authoritarian referes to us as "the citizenry". Actually, we are not citizens we are subjects, not of the the civil government but of the Crown. That's where an important difference lies. The centre of legal and moral authority is HM Queen Elizabeth and it is to her we owe our loyalty and to her we look for protection, not to any government in Downing Street. Significantly, the armed services are HM Forces and their oath of loyalty is to the Monarch not to a politician. The sinister cabal heading NuLabour is trying to "remedy" that by having officers of S.O.C.A. swear their oath to the Home Secretary. Citizens live in republics and that is why NuLabour (constantly and knowingly) erroneously refers to us as such for that it what they desire, a Presidential republican government.
The nerve of the guy is absolutely incredible.
To say that bloggers are the cause of the political rot just leaves me breathless. Blogging is a symptom, not a cause - if we were all happy with the state of politics in the UK, I doubt bloggers would have much of an audience but their growing popularity is a clear and undeniable thumbs-down verdict on politicians.
What an idiot.
'
Sehr geEhrter Iain
Freiheit, du von Gott gegeben, Tochter aus Elysium
[Isn't Freedom a wonderful, God=geGiven Heavenly Gift]
It seems Herr Taylor loves us not and that we have upset him
Je suis tout desolé - evidently, we have upset him, but not enough
This is certainly not a case of that Saddest of Experiences (at least for a Gentleman), namely unRequited Love
Your obedient servant etc and
Tot siens
G E
Apparently, we are making "incommensurate demands" on politicians. Does that mean expecting them to tell the truth when asked a straight question?
Newspaper readership, support for mainstream political parties, electoral participation, support for the Monarchy even ... there are many indicators of change in this country. There are, of course, many causes. But the principal two are the lack of democratic accountability and the sameness of left/right-liberalism.
I am a blogger, a conservative and an English racial-nationalist who can see forward perfectly well to the loss of the English homeland. This is the greatest of all issues for Englishmen, yet it is studiously avoided by mainstream politicians and political commentators - whether or not they are libertarian (ie right liberal and no less race-blind and universalist than any Socialist Workers Party member).
Since I want to prevent the loss of homeland and reverse the process that is leading to it, where but the internet am I to look for knowledge of and support in that endeavour.
The poster is correct, but he is part of mainstream opinion too, and part of the problem. Just being a blogger doesn't put you on the side of good.
I am not so sure that the rise of blogging has a lot to do with distaste for politicians as there are blogs that cover a wide variety of subjects both domestic, international and other wordly.
However Taylor's comments are truly daft and will only enrage bloggers every more. My thoughts are here with some choice quotes.
Laughing Cavalier,
We are subjects to the Crown and citizens of the (democatic) State.
The armed services are HM Forces and their oath of loyalty is to the Monarch. Very true but I would hate to see this tested.
BBC piece quotes "Like "teenagers", people were demanding, but "conflicted" about what they actually wanted, he argued.
They wanted "sustainability", for example, but not higher fuel prices, affordable homes for their children but not new housing developments in their town or village.
But rather than work out these dilemmas in partnership with their elected leaders, they were encouraged to regard all politicians as corrupt or "mendacious" by the media, which he described as "a conspiracy to maintain the population in a perpetual state of self-righteous rage"
But taking "sustainability" as the example given - the demand for this did not originate with ordinary people but with anti-technology activists co-opted by the MSM & politicians who have sold the public a bill of goods about various sorts of catastrophe which can be averted only by more government regulations.
The last line reminds me of HL Mencken's "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence, clamorous to be led to safety - by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblin, all of them imaginary" which I consider profound.
The difference is that Mencken was quite correctly blaming the politicians & media for doing this this while Blair's idiot is attacking the blogsphere & libertarians for noticing.
I hope a third contribution to this thread is not too indulgent, but I have had a few hours to think about it.
Taylor is quoted thus:
"a conspiracy to maintain the population in a perpetual state of self-righteous rage"
Iain, will you tell us how many meetings you have with Guido et al, about the grand plan? Do you arrange the agenda for rage in advance or is it more ad hoc?
I could go on in the same vein but I have made the point..one of many that can easily be made to rebuff Taylor's libellous.
We have a gratuitous and pellucid insight into the Orwellian animadversions and antinomies at number 10.
He calls the internet a "problem" and that it promulgates a
"shrill discourse of demands"
and that
"It's important for people..to move from that frame of mind, which is about attacking the establishment"
Well Mr Taylor. I am asking Iain, right now, to stop making demands and also to stop attacking the Government.
Will that be O.K?
He is only articulating what we have all long suspected. Its good to know that they are reading all this stuff and they don't like it.
It may be time for some to get a grip.
This country in the 70s was almost a communist one with currency controlls and 98% tax rates. This after only 2 Labour terms. You silly buggers voted socialist 3 times and seem shocked by the iliberal consequences.
GET RIDD OF LABOUR and FREEDOM will never be great again, but at least things will stop getting forever worse.
Quite frankly the British people deserve the media and the politicians they have.
One more term of a socialist government in Britain will not only be the last nail in the coffin of British liberty it WILL result in the end of liberty in the whole of Europe as well.
Without the ability of an individual to earn and controll their own personal wealth, libertarianism and liberty has no practical positive meaning at all for the ordinary people.
Which is why Libertarianism is a FAR RIGHT wing concept, which is fine by me.
Controll by the state is a LEFT WING concept. The sooner the people of Britain get this into their THICK skulls the better for everyone.
What a silly wonker. No doubt the governors of Colonial America thought the same thing about the pamphleteers. And look where that anger led....
It might help top twit Taylor to come out of his ivory tower and live in the real world with the rest of us instead of spouting Roger Irrelevant cobblers. Then he would understand why our blogs are full of anger.
ITS THE POLICIES STUPID!
Thanks to the comments on the excellent 'lagwolf's blog we learn that the disgusting Taylor is leaving the Blair inner circle "to become the chief executive of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts (RSA).”
Can we have an undertaking that when you and your party are installed in government this particular piece of slime will be winkled out of his well paid sinecure and despatched in the direction of the Job Centre?
The problem isn't just politicians. It's "ordinary" people who want policitians to force us to fund an NHS whether we want to or not, tell us who we can or cannot employee, tell us whether or not we can allow smoking on our property, tell us what substances we can abuse, tell us how much we can pay our employees, tell us what words we may or may not say.
GET OFF OUR BACKS!
If I was loaded I'd be ploughing money into the Libertarian Alliance.
I don't think "ordinary" people are opposed to funding the NHS or rules about who "they" employ. They may be economicly unwise about at least the 2nd point but these are not issues I would seek a populist landslide on.
"If I was loaded I'd be ploughing money into the Libertarian Alliance."
which begs the question - why isnt business doing that? thats something thats always perplexed me - why dont we have a strong and highly vocal libertarian counterbalance to the prevailing statist attitudes in all of the major parties?
Because business knows that as long as we have the FPTP electoral system the Tories are the only right wing game in town. So do the Tories which is why Cameron is only concerned about placating green & Lib Dem supporters.
I think that limits new ideas & freedom of choice & is a perversion of democracy but then I'm one of those who think, at least to some extent that "leaders are out to shaft you" as Taylor said so what do I know?
Libertarian?
Weren't you advocating keeping drugs as illegal a few weeks ago?
Please explain how you can be libertarian, and yet support government interference in personal choice.
It has taken me a long time to work out that I am a libertarian. I'm surprised it was the internet that caused it though. I though it was to do with the government stealing all my money and forcing me to behave in a fixed, conformist way.
So, will the term libertarian be kidnapped and used by the left in the same way as liberal now means the total opposite of what it did in the days of Lloyd George?
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