Tag Archives: Politics

DEMOCRACY DEMOCRACY DEMOCRACY!

Chatting to a friend of mine about politics the other day I told him that all Tories were scum. He accused me of being over emotional and offensively irrational by claiming that ( he did not notice that it was not a claim, it was a fact!). He could not understand that I hold that view, not because of any political allegiances that I may have but because it is my ‘Lived Experience’ that I have never met a Tory who wasn’t scum.

Scum is the term for the thick layer of unpleasant effluvia and detritus that floats on top of a liquid or whatever stagnating and polluting it.

So why are Tories scum?

It is the role and responsibility of a democratically elected government to care for the welfare of all of it’s citizens and to foster an environment where these citizens are able to work towards achieving their aspirations, it is not the purpose or right of a government to ostracize or ignore the needs and wants of one section of the populace in favour of facilitating the desires of another.

Conservative/Tory governments have always been what Matthew Arnold, the 19th Century essayist and social commentator termed as ‘Aristocratical’ a term he used to include not only the landed gentry but the oligarchs and wealthy citizens of the land, the aristocrats cronies; all those who have a vested interest in there being a ‘small’ state intervention in the internal structure of the nation and there being ‘allodial’ rights to land and property ownership (allodial rights are where the property owner has sole rights without state intervention, although the state can exact punishment or fines if the property owner does something untoward. Since the ‘aristocrats not only own the land but comprise the State, the government that sets and exacts the punishments levied, there is a clash of interests and no great impetus to set punishments at a worthwhile or deterrent level)

A Feudal system allows a property owner rights over his land but also it insists that he has responsibilities towards his tenants and the law upholds the rights of those tenants to be treated responsibly. With the eventual and inevitable decline and extinction of the Feudal System there came to the fore a plutocracy and an untrammeled aristocracy that could ride roughshod over the rights of the plebeians and ‘working classes’ nnnmmm

The Conservatives praise a ‘low tax economy’ where citizens have more money to spend on what they want but do not explain that people will need to spend that ‘extra’ money on health care, education costs and pension provision for their old age; these financial outgoings of the populace will be administered by privately owned agencies who will take an administrative fee for doing so. So a low tax more spending money regime implies a low tax more statuary outgoings scheme and more money and profits for private companies. Is that fair?

The Tories/Conservatives still hold to the methods and means that they held to back in the days of yore, dividing society, ignoring the least ‘worthwhile’ and exacting hardships for the needy. In Victorian times the Workhouse was the place appointed for the needy to go to but the authorities made the places so hard to access and so unpleasant and undignified that people would rather die than go there. In the current day Universal Benefit is made so hard to access and to survive on that people have to jump through hoops to get it and to live in fear of losing it when they get it and to rely on food banks to feed themselves, a system which some Conservatives see as a thing to be proud of whilst they and their companies and consortiums pay less tax than is equitable.

That is why they are scum.

in a future post I may have something to say about the Labour party abandoning their principles and the Working Classes and thereby becoming ‘aristocratical’ bedfellows of the Tory scum.

Think about it

Feudalism versus Democracy Pt 2

So what would my version of a ‘new’ Feudalism look like?

One of the ‘benefits’ of Feudalism was the mutual rights and responsibilities of each social strata and of the commitment to a ‘higher power’ an ‘ultimate power’-God. This belief in and commitment to the authority of the ‘Ultimate Power’ animated Feudalism. Alas there was, as in every human organised system a tendency towards corruption and entropy. some critics of Feudalism claim that as it is founded on heredity there is no real place for it in modern society where Democracy rules. (or so they claim, poor misguided fools!)

There have been a number of instances in history in which a king or leader/Chief was chosen by public acclamation and who had a role to play in Society, if he failed to fulfil that role he forfeited his position and role (sometimes his life).

The Pharoahs in Egypt were able to keep their job as long as they managed through prayer and sacrifice to ensure that the Nile flooded each year and irrigated the land. In pre-Colombian America some Mayan kings could ‘enjoy’ the high life and the adoration of the people of their community as long as they exerted control over some of the features of the geological activity in the area. No control, no kingship. No kingship, no life. The list goes on of ‘elected’ kings. The role of the Leader was to appease the gods to avert calamity or to bring about a wanted/needed event.

The people were all serving or at least aware of the force and strength of Higher/Ultimate Power; the gods.

In my ‘new feudalism’ the Ultimate Power would be ‘The Law’ and all people would live obeying the law. There could be an elected Parliament but it would be bound by the Law, an electoral system that allowed every electors views to be reflected, a parliament that aspired to cater for the needs and cares of all it’s citizens not just a select few. The Government of the day could only enact Laws that had been scrutinised and passed by the House of Commons, no ruling by diktat or committee. The Law would stipulate for how long a Parliament could sit; no snap or surprise elections called by the Government. Constituency boundaries could be altered only by the Electoral Commission and not the politicians.

Citizens would be ‘encouraged’ to take an active role in the fabric of the nation, a nation that plays an active role in the fabric of their lives.

There is a social democracy at work in this Feudalism, not necessarily communism but communialism akin to the aims of the Labour Government of 1945 where all people have their basic needs met by a welfare state and strive to serve the needs of the nation and their neighbours.

Such an idea was not dreamed up by the Socialists in 1945 but actually it’s roots are in Plato’s Republic some few years earlier.

I am not trying to write a manifesto here just to bring up an alternative to the divisive politics of nowadays and the social corrosiveness of the ‘Me Ideology that pollutes our nation/world.

Could such a system work? No not for too long before it degenerates into entropy, but that entropization is brought about by neglect and stagnation in the system but that doesn’t mean that we should not aspire to bring about a fair and equitable society nor work towards it’s inception. The watchword for a functioning democracy is ‘vigilance’.

THINK ABOUT IT