- Joined
- Jul 1, 2002
I'm astounded at how much publicity this case is getting.
Maybe a member of an overwhelmingly law-abiding "minority" (rather than the usual suspects) being the villain accounts for that.
The regular rent-a-mob - Diane, George, Owen - aren't accustomed to jumping to the defence of Sikhs
Simple fact is, in every society there are groups of people to whom the police do not give the benefit of the doubt and groups the police mistrust. In some countries, there are groups for which the police have downright hatred.
When dealing with these groups, the police cannot realistically be expected to act even-handedly.
I've lived in seven major cities. Five were almost monoethnic & monocultural when I lived there: Edinburgh, Dublin, Sydney, Bangkok & Seoul. The other two - London & Kuala Lumpur - were very multiethnic & multicultural.
Regardless of the ethnicity, religion, culture or ideology of the groups the police mistrusted, the reasons the police mistrusted them were almost identical in all those places.
We have created an offence in this country that is regarded as exceptionally serious, yet is very poorly defined. From the perspective of most outsiders, the definition of what constitutes that offence seems to encompass an uncomfortable amount of almost universal behaviour. The offence is "racism."
Unlike "Enemy of the People" in pseudo-socialist regimes, the offence of "racism" has not been deliberately brought to prominence for nefarious reasons. Nor has it been "defined" by the government with a feckless degree of ambiguity for self-serving purposes.
In my view, both the bringing to prominence and the debilitating lack of definition have stemmed from honourable intentions.
However, we seem to have reached the point where the existence of "racism" as an offence has a similar impact on the average citizen as the existence of "Enemy of the People."
With no meaningful definition of the offence, it is very difficult to construct a defence against the allegation.
People alter their behaviour in what would normally be considered illogical & counterproductive ways, in order to avoid the possibility of an accusation being made.
Hence the lack of intervention by officialdom in the face of seemingly indisputable evidence of organised rape gangs.
"Racism" is viewed as the most vile behaviour imaginable. Once an allegation of "racism" is made, the accused cannot expect the benefit of the doubt, from either the police or the wider criminal justice system.
It's not quite, "Who will defend the witch!?...and thus condemn himself to death by burning when the witch is found guilty!?" but we're getting there.
Most people, police included, are quick to seize any opportunity to demonstrate their "anti-racism."
I'd be confident the police in this case were seizing just such an opportunity.
With "Enemy of the People", the average citizen is likely to be hesitant about making an accusation, for the obvious reason that the chances of his own collar being felt on an identical charge are uncomfortably high. Only those in high places, confident of their secure position in the hierarchy, tend to point fingers at an "Enemy of the People."
With "racism", members of the hierarchy can also usually make accusations from a position of confidence. However, we also have groups of the lumpen proletariat who can make accusations of "racism", confident that they enjoy immunity from the possibility of the charge being brought against them. This is problematic.
In my view, the most dangerous and self-destructive thing a society can do is to allow its government to stigmatise - or outlaw - standard behaviour. In the case of "racism", we have not only stigmatised standard behaviour, we've stigmatised universal behaviour.
The easiest way to see this is the attitude to immigration.
I will say at this point that the UK's immigration system cost me €50,000+ fairly recently, when I was still in Seoul. That's a lot of money to me and it made my life very difficult for a while. I'm not going into the circumstances, but it goes without saying that I'm not too pleased about it and it does colour my view of the policies - and especially what I view as the ludicrous priorities - the UK adopts when deciding who should be allowed in and who should be hoyed out.
Every country on this planet operates a more-or-less identical immigration system. 98% of non-nationals have very little chance of gaining citizenship or permanent residence. This applies everywhere. From Communist countries to military dictatorships. This has been the case for well over a century. Every credible opposition party, everywhere, has always supported that stance. I would argue strongly that the main reasons for border control are primarily economic, but that's a different debate.
Rich countries - from Bahrain to Botswana - do not even grant visitor's visas to 90%+ of the world's population, because of a fear that they'll abscond and vanish into the black economy.
Yet, in light of this universally accepted global policy of extremely restrictive regulation of immigration, we've created a climate in which anyone questioning the UK government's decision to grant a UK passport or permanent residence to any individual will be regarded as "racist."
It's the only field in which any criticism of a government decision will be widely denounced.
Compare the situation with any other favours the government might grant someone.
Joe Schmoe is appointed to the House of Lords.
Charlie Chalk gets a job with a "grace & favour" mansion.
Sally Soap is made well-paid chair of a Quango.
Bert Bloggs is given a "golden handshake."
Mary Minger is granted a generous pension.
All five of them go on a funded "fact-finding" trip to Barbados.
Joe, Charlie, Sally, Bert & Mary can expect plenty of flak. The government can expect more.
The decisions will be scrutinised and probably widely criticised.
Same goes for other government decisions.
Introduce, increase, reduce or abolish a tax on something. There will be criticism.
Raise or lower a speed limit. There will be criticism.
Spend money on this new bridge or road. There will be criticism.
Criminalise or decriminalise some behaviour. There will be criticism.
Nobody screams a word ending in "phobia" or "ism" at the critics.
Why and how have we arrived at a situation where the most reprehensible thing a citizen can do is to criticise a UK government decision that is the opposite of the decision that the UK government (& every other government in the world) makes in 98%+ of similar cases?
As for the overall perception of "racism" that exists in The West, I'm not going into that in a post that's already too long.
However, I will say that almost nobody I've encountered outside The West believes in the existence of people so lacking in intelligence and so obsessed with appearance that they discriminate against others solely on the grounds of ethnicity, skin colour or other physical features.
In The West, we believe that such people - "racists" - are all around us.
Maybe we're right, maybe we're wrong, but almost everyone outside The West believes that if someone dislikes Jews, Blacks, Scots, Muslims, the bast... ehhh, sorry... the English or the Chinese, they dislike them for broadly similar reasons to those for which they themselves dislike certain social groups.
You know. The sort of reasons we might dislike Huns or Tories or Trump supporters. The same reasons folk dislike Goths or Punks. Or Airdrie fans. Or Jehovah's Witnesses or Seventh Day Adventists. Or Uber drivers, pipers, charity muggers outside stations, bike gangs, cold-calling salesmen, Communists, advertising executives, e-bike speedsters, Humza Yousaf, vegans or Creationists.
They do not believe there is some glaring mental deficiency involved in the process of forming a dislike of certain people, groups or other things.
Weird people, foreigners, eh?
Any way, the problem in the case of this unfortunate lad, a nutter, who just happens to be a Sikh, and a bunch of bizzies of typical bizzie intellect, is the existence of a justified paranoid around being accused of an undefined - and, in the minds of almost all non-Westerners, largely imaginary - offence.
This paranoia leads to a "treading on eggshells" mentality on one side of many everyday situations, and an enthusiasm for grandiose "virtue signalling" and dangerous over-reaction on the other side of them.
By all means have laws against unfair discriminatory practices, but laws that are so vaguely defined that they put the fear of The Almighty into normal folk, going about their normal business, are dangerous.
They need ditching.
Sent this to my fucking Kindle...
