tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post6322933773291508027..comments2024-03-17T11:05:22.464+00:00Comments on The Life And Opinions of Andrew Rilstone: Humbug (2)Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-58536226621531214072006-11-22T11:34:00.000+00:002006-11-22T11:34:00.000+00:00Of course, the penultimate paragraph should read:
...Of course, the penultimate paragraph should read:<br /><br />Now, it is a particular muslim's democratic right to <i>wish to</i> live under sharia law, or wish Britain to be an Islamic <i>state</i>, or, indeed, for there to be no freedom of speech. But it is the Briton's right (muslim or non-mulsim) to have a sense of animosity towards these things.Tom O'Bedlamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12749223186592744456noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-43581837584607422862006-11-21T16:15:00.000+00:002006-11-21T16:15:00.000+00:00I think that perhaps the worst thing going on here...I think that perhaps the worst thing going on here is that the Daily Express is hi-jacking a growing sense of discontent among the public for their own racist ends.<br /><br />The exact nature of this discontent, its causes and its legitimacy, is a matter of debate. But I do think that, rightly or wrongly, your average Briton (even including a significant proportion of Muslims) are becoming irked by the hypocrisy involved in decrying the liberal democracy of the west as hopelessly corrupt while simultaneously enjoying the benefits it affords (free healthcare, education, freedom of speech etc). <br /><br />Now, it is a particular muslim's democratic right to live under sharia law, or wish Britain to be an Islamic, or, indeed, for there to be no freedom of speech. But it is the Briton's right (muslim or non-mulsim) to have a sense of animosity towards these things.<br /><br />Unfortunately, people like the Daily Express pick up on this inarticulate sense of unease and use it to their own ends.Tom O'Bedlamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12749223186592744456noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-44033064281597332652006-11-21T09:29:00.000+00:002006-11-21T09:29:00.000+00:00(By the way, I never suffered too much trauma from...(By the way, I never suffered too much trauma from school mashed potato. The discover that <i>custard</i> could be a really, really nice thing, on the other hand, was a very traumatic revelation.)Phil Mastershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12533451060065715833noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-33915066885141739352006-11-21T09:28:00.000+00:002006-11-21T09:28:00.000+00:00I was actually hospitalised by a school dinner bec...<i>I was actually hospitalised by a school dinner because the dinner ladies didn't believe that food allergies were real and insisted that I eat my peas anyway.</i><br /><br /><i>We might not be in a society that considers others as much as it really should, but we are at least moving in the right direction...</i><br /><br />In relation to your childhood experience; bluntly, the obvious reason why it wouldn't happen nowadays is that schools are rightly scared sh*tl*ss that they'd be dragged through the courts and sued for about five years' county education budget if they did anything so stupid.<br /><br />As with the idea that there should be a law about everything, I'm not at all happy with the increasing litigiousness of society. But one reason why such things are happening is that, sometimes, dragging people through the courts seems to be the only way to get them to pay attention - including, getting them to consider other people.Phil Mastershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12533451060065715833noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-63144719369922072112006-11-20T19:47:00.000+00:002006-11-20T19:47:00.000+00:00I was actually hospitalised by a school dinner bec...<b>I was actually hospitalised by a school dinner because the dinner ladies didn't believe that food allergies were real and insisted that I eat my peas anyway.</b><br /><br />I am sure that "school dinners" come only slightly below "P.E lessons" in the league table of childhood trauma. It took me a long time to accept that there was no necessary connection between mashed potato and flagellation.Andrew Rilstonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05786623930392936889noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-67784127842459215722006-11-20T19:44:00.000+00:002006-11-20T19:44:00.000+00:00It is, I suppose, just possible that Nick Griffin ...It is, I suppose, just possible that Nick Griffin sincerely believes that the Koran permits (even obliges) Muslim men to rape infidel women. Or perhaps he sincerely believes men from a Muslim background are committing a large number of assaults on Christian women, and has drawn the conclusion that there must be something in the Muslim faith that tells them to behave in this way. But I think it is much more likely that "Muslims rape Christian women" is simply a new way of saying "White men, you must defend your women from insatiable foriegners with big black cocks" -- a prejudice that has been popular with under-endowed white men at least since <I>Othello</I>. Griffin is clever enough to know that, at present, there is no specific crime of stirring up hatred against a religion. (If I say "All Africans are cannibals" I am breakign the law, but if I say "All Catholics are paedophiles" I am not.) So he has rebranded his racist party as an anti-Muslim party, and has established in court that you can say what you like about Muslims without breaking the law. <br /><br />The entire point of my campaign agaisnt the <I>Daily Express</I> is that they are not in the least bit interested in "Christianity" as a spiritual practice or a collection of beliefs about God; they use the term "Christian" as a signifier for "White English People." (Note that when they talk about attacks on Christmas and Christianity, they talk about "this country's Christian heritgage" presumably missing the fact that "this country" isn't remotely interested in Christianity, and if not for Afro-Carribean immigrants, most protestant churches would go out of business, and if not for Irish and Italian ex-pats, you would hardly fill half a pew of a Catholic church.) Last Christmas, the <I>Mail</I> made up some lies about a town called Havant abolising Christmas, and claimed that this was a particularly bad thing to do given that the population there was 95% "white". It is my contention that what the <I>Daily Express</I> objects to is foriegn, dark skinned alien, imigrants; but that it stays on the right side of the law by spewing its racist vitriol at Mulsims. I "conflate" Islam with "brown people" and Christianity with "white people" because it is clear that the <I>Express</I> is using the one as code for the other. I am perfectly well aware that in any Mosque, there will be as many as six or seven white British converts to Islam.<br /><br />I am sorry if this has been in any way unclear, and I promise to be less subtle and more strident in my attacks on the <I>Daily Express</I> in future.Andrew Rilstonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05786623930392936889noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-36300151750638224012006-11-20T19:42:00.000+00:002006-11-20T19:42:00.000+00:00Can it possibly be that it hasn't even occurred to...<i>Can it possibly be that it hasn't even occurred to you there are dark-skinned Christians and light-skinned Muslims?</i><br /><br />I think his point is rather that it hasn't even occurred to the <i>Daily Express</i> (or that they are ignoring it as inconvenient to their aims).Brendan Moodyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18029384135423483043noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-77691714849785312932006-11-20T13:34:00.000+00:002006-11-20T13:34:00.000+00:00Oh, as for Scrooge, I suspect the more luxurious t...Oh, as for Scrooge, I suspect the more luxurious turkey was a sign of wealth in Dickensian times. So getting a turkey instead of a goose highlights Scrooge's newfound generosity.Andrew Stevenshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13453328821252013152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-56884235492091248362006-11-20T13:18:00.000+00:002006-11-20T13:18:00.000+00:00I wouldn't be too comfortable with my neck out on ...I wouldn't be too comfortable with my neck out on that one. The time before refrigerators was also the time of the extended family and it was common to get everyone together to eat Christmas dinner (still common in this country). It's not at all unreasonable to expect a dozen cousins to eat a whole turkey. (My family has done so on more than one occasion.) Americans have been eating Thanksgiving turkey since at least the days of Abraham Lincoln and it appears the tradition goes back much further. Turkey became the traditional American Christmas dinner as well since, in America, turkeys were both wild and plentiful. Turkey then spread from America back to the Old Continent (first arriving in the 16th century). I couldn't tell you when turkey supplanted goose as a traditional Christmas meal in England, but I don't think refrigerators had much to do with it. There was a Sherlock Holmes story in which a Christmas Goose Club figured prominently, so we can assume it wasn't the case yet during Victorian times, so it certainly seems like a 20th century innovation in England (though not in America).Andrew Stevenshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13453328821252013152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-9755963357410257032006-11-20T13:03:00.000+00:002006-11-20T13:03:00.000+00:00Andrew,
Much as I enjoy your usual deft analysis,...Andrew,<br /><br />Much as I enjoy your usual deft analysis, it does seem to me that you're making a habit recently of conflating religion with skin-colour. Can it possibly be that it hasn't even occurred to you there are dark-skinned Christians and light-skinned Muslims?Mike Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06039663158335543317noreply@blogger.com