I’m a member of clubs online, where discussion between members is lively and encouraged. However if someone attacks the speaker and not the principle, they are halted in their tracks and reminded of the correct way to conduct an argument. This is in a club full of children – why is it that a country full of adults can’t seem to grasp this same concept?
Despite feeling particularly disillusioned with the Tories I will probably always vote for them as I can’t possibly vote Labour as I disagree with too many of their policies, not to mention their entire ideological basis, and a vote for the Lib Dems is a wasted vote imo.
However as much as I dislike Labour, the flack Tony Blair is getting is more reminiscient of teenage girls hurling insults before a moderator locks the topic, than of an election in a country that claims to be one of the most prominant of the Western democracies. It’s farcical – he is not one man making decisions on his own. He has teams of people providing him with information which may or may not be accurate, he has other teams making sub-decisions that may affect his main decisions, and he has to reach a decision with the support of the cabinet. To hold him soley responsible for the mistakes made by his party is akin to a sacrifice – he’s the scape goat. When things go well, the entire party is hailed as a smooth running, modern thinking machine. When things go badly, the party prevails and the leader is slaughtered. He’s someone who went into politics presumably because he wanted to do some good, and to think that after 8 years of trying to do some good and even suceeding in some aspects, he’s facing having to step down with his reputation ruined and his life probably shortened by the stress. I won’t vote for him, but no-one should have his credibility shreded in such a way over something so pedantic. And beyond the fact that it is an unnecessary and almost embarassing character assassination, it’s distracting people from the real policies.
Although the Iraq war was a political disaster (any decision would have been the wrong one) and seems to be featuring highly in the election campaign it is fundamentally not that important. The day to day running of the country is important, and local government is even more important. Those are the things that make a real difference to our lives. Although what happens in other countries may be important for our national sense of wellbeing and self-rightousness, it does not actually affect us personally. Yes, I know, that’s a typical national anti-social tory view, but it is I believe based on a solid argument.
Saddam could have amassed a huge nuclear consignment, and we wouldn’t be at risk. Even if we don’t re-establish our own nuclear deterrent we still wouldn’t be at risk. Saddam had made himself sufficiently unpopular with the superpower and it’s “allies” that had he tried anything on with any WMDs he might have had, he would have been happily annihilated and the victors squabbling over the oil reserves before a day was out. The US’s huge nuclear supremacy makes country-to-country WMD use suicidal. Whether we like it or not, the US is huge, rich, powerful and potentially lethal – we may not agree with its agenda or how it sees itself as a world policer, but since we’re more or less on the same side they are handy to have as a deterrant should anyone wish to attack us large-scale. WMDs like nuclear and biological weapons have only 2 ways of affecting our lives; 1) they will be set on us by individual terrorist groups who cannot be pre-emptively struck, nor who can be retaliated against since they have no country and 2) large scale destruction of the human race.
*steps off soap box* and there endeth my political ranting for the day. More to follow no doubt.
And on to topics more relevant to the sane continuation of the world as we know it – the Rocket has been knocked out of the Championships?! And I missed it. Ronnie was supposed to win, darn it. I have a fairly selective interest in sports – when the person I’m rooting for loses, I lose interest. I don’t particularly care who wins, I only watch it for Ronnie O’Sullivan’s incredible performances. Bla.
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