I tend to catch up with Facebook every ten days or so. I look forward to hearing about births, death, marriages, anniversaries, job changes, and seeing holiday snaps, photos of exotic meals at expensive restaurants, idyllic country scenes, garden redesigns, kitchen extensions, and music and cute puppy videos etc. Whenever a "friend" has insisted on regularly posting political opinions or links to annoying pundits (e.g. the one who kept linking to articles by - of all people - Paul Krugman, or the chap whose friend request I accepted only to be instantly bombarded by a mass of pro-BBC propaganda interspersed with attacks on UKIP racists, or the expert software coder who turned out to be a fanatical atheist) I defriend them: I'd prefer to remember them with fondness - and vice-versa, I'm sure.
This all tootled along sedately and pleasantly until, during the run-up to the EU referendum, my timeline was suddenly polluted by occasional pro-Remain items from two or three "friends". I decided to ignore them, because they'd surely stop after some post-win crowing. But their side lost, and when, a few days after the result had been announced (looking for some temporary relief from news of political turmoil) I look at Facebook, I found - to my astonishment - an overwhelming deluge of rage and despair. Leavers had (1) destroyed the economy (2) split the United Kingdom asunder (3) ruined young people's chance of a happy, prosperous life (4) unleashed a tsunami of racist hatred across the realm (5) shown contempt for our noble and selfless European allies, and (6) made every informed, intelligent person in the country cry their eyes out.
I discovered that the reason Leavers had voted the wrong way was because they were stupid, blinkered, frightened, read The Sun, were working class, lived outside London, had white skins, were old, had never been to university and - my dear! - simply never travelled in Europe. Of course, the vote had to be overturned at once, because.... because there was this petition and lawyers were saying it might be illegal to leave the EU and Europe was relying on us to save them and even (bizarrely) because it was Britain's destiny to lead Europe (I think Germany might have something to say about that) and wouldn't it be great if MPs simply refused to do what they had after only been advised to do by the public and anyway all the Leavers had already changed their minds and now wanted to stay and...and...
For God's sake - you're British! Get a fucking grip!
My wife, who uses Facebook regularly, has oodles of "friends", and thoroughly enjoys it, was so distressed and angered by the barrage of hysterical bullshit on her timeline she even posted a comment asking one of her younger relatives why her (my wife's) vote should be discounted. A reply followed - 17 million people could go to hell because, you see, Leavers didn't realise what harm they'd done, and they'd been lied to, and they simply didn't understand that young people no longer saw the Channel as a barrier to Europe (mind you, that non-existent barrier came in quite handy in the early 1940s, so I've heard). Now, I'm not quite sure why a childless person in early middle-age would be better-placed to interpret the world-view of young people than the mother of a 22-year old son, but we'll let that pass. We're not talking about rational responses here.
I wasn't going to bring this subject up at all, as I've argued before that anyone who wants to share their political opinions with the world would be far better off setting up their own blog or signing up to Twitter, where political obsessives like me hang out. But I took a look at Facebook about an hour ago for the first time in five or six days - and they're still at it! If anything, it's got worse. I think I'll give it another month before dipping my toe back in the water: maybe by that time the Remainers will have realised that their fellow-Britons voted to leave the EU because they don't like being bossed about by arrogant foreigners and their lickspittle fifth columnists inside this country. Britain has regularly gone to war at the very prospect of French or German rule: with any luck it won't require a war - civil or otherwise - to call a halt to it this time.
Excellent piece. I gave up on Facebook almost four years ago, and can honestly say I have never regretted my decision.
ReplyDeleteThank you, LeftyLovesRefutingNeoliberalLies. If my "friends" don't stop yakking about politics,, I'll be (reluctantly) following your example. (At some stage, I'm going to have to seriously consider weaning myself off Twitter, to which I've become increasingly addicted. It's like Crack to a former TV news journalist!)
DeleteI do so appreciate your blog. Of course I read it as spoof. The convert is always so much more of a proselytiser than the indigenous believer. You benefitted for decades from the very organisation you despise. That takes skill - to take from and to walk amongst those you despise, disguised as a friend. You are a caricature - a big fake British bulldog. Norwegian and Scottish - and shouting louder than any Brit I know about your Britishness. Your references to WW2 are sad cliches -you look to the past glories of a country you don't actually belong to and ate dazzled by them. Your lickspittle damnation of 'lefties' amuses - it's not original and it is more nor less than what is to be expected from an aged far right-winger - but it is occasionally funny. Thank you for the entertainment.
ReplyDeleteI’m glad that you do so appreciate my blog and find it entertaining, Anonymous. But for someone who reads it as a “spoof”, you seem mightily vexed by my opinions and my mode of expression: you aim for a tone of lofty disdain, yet your scattergun ad hominem attack suggests frothing rage rather than contemptuous amusement.
DeleteWhere you make any sense at all, you’re wrong. If you enter the word “Norway” into the search box on the left-hand side of my blog, it crops up 123 times, while “Norwegian” appears 142 times. I have often (probably beyond the point of tedium) pointed out that, although I’ve grown to love this country, I don’t have a drop of English blood in my veins. As for my alleged faux-Britishness, well, I’m 50% Scots (with a bit of Irish in the mix), but, as you seem to have a thing about racial purity and “belonging”, I expect my mudblood status falls well short of your exacting standards. If I go out of my way to praise England’s achievements and its people, rather than dwelling on its or their failings, it’s probably because the English themselves are often so diffident when it comes to singing their own praises. As a long-term guest, I almost feel duty-bound to celebrate this country’s merits. I can do so without being accused of boasting, and I suppose it’s a way of saying thank you for having me (I do like well-mannered guests, don’t you?)
As for my reference to WWII being a cliché, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. My country was invaded by Germany during that conflict, my father flew 100 bombing missions for the RAF, my mother and her sister served as WAAFs, and a Norwegian uncle spent several years imprisoned by the Germans. I don’t imagine France or Germany are planning to invade Britain any time soon - but to discount the benefits of this country’s geographical separation from the rest of Europe (the Napoleonic Wars? 1588?) would seem obtuse, not to say reckless. Mind you, as your purpose is clearly to spew venom, I shouldn’t really expect anything resembling a rational argument.
By calling me a “far right-winger” you reveal an astonishing level of political ignorance. The designation suggests that I am either a libertarian or some sort of neo-Nazi who believes in a powerful central state controlling all aspects of people’s lives - with violence if necessary - fuelled by some deranged racial and/or class doctrine and, possibly, dreams of conquest. I would have thought that even a cursory glance at one or two posts on this site would have made it obvious that I’m a right-wing conservative who believes in the rule of law, freedom of speech, free trade, constitutional monarchy, liberal democratic government, and a state too small to interfere with each and every aspect of people’s lives - but big enough to protect them from each other and from invasion. If you think that’s far, extreme or ultra-right, I suggest you read some books.
Lickspittle doesn’t mean what you seem to think it means - I suspect the term you’re grasping for is “foam-flecked”.
I’ll address the issue of the BBC and my “hypocrisy” separately.
I'll just step over that steaming pile left by 'Anonymous' (how typical of a Leftist) to say that I have never partaken of Facebook because I have no desire to make a Left wing fascist like Zuckerberg even one cent richer. Also because playing along with Facebook would compromise my own data security and, ultimately, freedom to enjoy the Internet.
ReplyDeleteHell can't come soon enough for Zuckerberg and his legions of the undead.
I can't help wondering whether these young Remainers have been groomed by the way history has been taught in this country over the past couple of decades. Perhaps I have been looking at the wrong syllabus, but it seems to me that children have been working on "projects" in isolation of any idea of chronology. I wonder what they have been taught which encourages an understanding of, and a pride in, their country. Have they just been groomed to be little Europeans? Do they really think they will be unable to travel after Brexit? Or to study abroad?
DeleteLeftist? Broadstairs and UKIP. One of your own. But one who wonders at hypocrisy - at those who do not live their values. The person who serves the very organisation that they profess to despise - well, that is someone with only very questionable integrity.
DeleteI don’t much appreciate having my integrity questioned by someone who chooses to cower behind a cloak of anonymity. Nevertheless… I’ve praised the BBC numerous times on this site, because it does a lot of great work - which is rather what one would expect from an organisation which levies a £4Bn annual poll tax on the public. It takes money from conservatives and right-wingers (at least 40% of the population) and then spends much of it on programmes which ignore or mock their views. Many of its current and former employees - including Andrew Marr, Rod Liddle, George Orwell, Peter Sissons and Chris Grayling - have pointed this out time and time again. And yet nothing ever really changes: the BBC has a clearer political agenda than any major political party, and that agenda is unremittingly left-liberal. One thing that’s rightly dunned into you as a BBC employee is that you’re working for the public, who pay your wages without being asked if they mind doing so. While that doesn’t mean the BBC should cater to extremist minorities (racists, religious fanatics, totalitarians etc.), it always struck me that treating around 40% of licence-payers (52% in the case of the EU Referendum) as if they were mad, evil or simply didn’t exist was wrong. While I was at the BBC I always complained when I thought money was being spent extravagantly, or when I thought a large portion of the audience was being treated with contempt. I'm sure most of my colleagues (including my bosses) were perfectly aware of my unexceptional mainstream political views - I certainly didn't do anything to hide them. I haven’t written anything about the BBC on this blog that I wouldn’t have said when I was there. To characterise that as hypocrisy is outrageous. I don’t despise the BBC - far from it: on the whole, it’s been a force for good. I just believe (as I always have) that it should do a lot less for a lot less, that it should focus on doing what commercial providers are either unwilling or unable to do, and that it should do this while being politically neutral - as its charter requires it to be.
DeleteI suspect you're right about the way history is taught, Helen. The distinguished conservative historian, Niall Ferguson, said that his daughter (who was doing A level history) was only taught three topics - The Rise of Hitler, the Russian Revolution and the American Civil Rights Movement - but that she and her classmates had no idea in which order they took place!
DeleteUnfortunately, cultural Marxism (or cultural relativism) requires that you view your own country's culture as no better than any other country's culture - otherwise you run the risk of being judgmental, arrogant and racist. The philosopher Allan Bloom warned about this in his superb 1987 book, "The Closing of the American Mind", but Britain and America's educational systems had already been captured by cultural Marxists. I know there are many teachers out there swimming against the tide - but it really can't be easy for them. I don't know if its true, but I've heard that many state school teachers thought that Michael Gove's education reforms led to a genuine improvement - but couldn't say so out loud because it would have destroyed their career prospects. Pity.
Unfortunately, GCooper, my social media platform of choice, Twitter, is going the same way as Facebook, as it has taken to suspending "controversial" (i.e right-wing or libertarian) Tweeters - not just ranting racists, but mildly saucy posters like Old Holborn and Milo Yiannopoulos, who occasionally make "unacceptable" comments about Muslims, the former because he's a libertarian, and the latter because (among other things) he's a homosexual and suspects Muslims aren't all that keen on gays. Banning people who post threats of violence and libellous tweets I can understand - they're illegal in any case - but banning them for pointing out that some Muslim countries execute homosexuals? What's strange is that users who don't want to read tweets they consider offensive don't have to sign up to receive them in the first place, or can simply block the sender from their timeline. It's funny how intolerant people who pride themselves on their infinite tolerance often turn out to be.
DeleteBy your logic, Anonymous, Ralph Wigram should have stayed loyal to the FCO as his wage paying institution, rather than exposing to Churchill the depth of the culture of pre-War appeasement at the heart of the Chamberlain government..
DeleteFirst rule of rational argument: a lefty, once challenged outside his safe space, will always resort to insult. Consider your phrase 'a country you don't actually belong to', and imagine it applied by a commenter to a large bearded Nigerian of over 50 years residence in our country rather than a large, bearded Norwegian. Get the point? Thought not.
Always in search of cheap relief I keep an eye out for fresh pronouncements from Saint Anonymous, Sage of Broadstairs and Man of Integrity. Come back to us, Anon. Sprinkle some star-dust.
DeleteSorry, G Cooper, I am not very computer literate, and my comment below was not intended as a reply to yours. I really must do better.
ReplyDelete