The death throes of progressive liberalism

Actually, the title of this post isn't what I was intending. Although we're coming towards the denouement of progressive liberalism we''re not quite into the death throes just yet. The post was going to be entitled "the twilight of progressive liberalism", but as progressive liberalism has been just one long period of perpetual murky twilight this didn't seem quite right.

Progressive liberalism has dominated British political life and society for fifty years now and in that time it has taken all that was good about Britain and thrown it away. By just about every measure of societal progress, Britain has gone backwards over the last 50 years.

The progressives claim that life is better because of the material goods we can own or the improvements in health care - but these things would have happened regardless of progressive liberalism and given that some are suggesting that the current generation of children will be the first to have shorter life expectancy than their parents, they are dubious claims anyway.

I've had arguments with progressives where they sneer that the days of social conservatism were days of rationing, rubbish cars and rickets - but they refuse to acknowledge that these things were not caused by social conservatism. Rationing was caused by a war against fascism, the "rubbish cars" were improvements over what had gone before and were always getting better and as for rickets - well, it was eradicated under social conservatism, but since progressive liberalism took over we've replaced rickets with AIDS, chlamydia and syphilis - wow, such progress!

As I said, social conservatives fought a war against fascism. It stood up for freedom of speech against a bully regime which tried to enforce a particular doctrine of thought and persecuted those who would not follow it. Today, progressive liberalism is trying to enforce a particular doctrine of thought and persecutes those who will not follow it. Fascism is alive and well and living in Britain thanks to progressive liberalism.

Social conservatives fought a long war against slavery and, although slavery continued at a low level in certain parts of the world, it was eradicated from Britain. Today, thanks to progressive liberalism, slavery exists within our borders once more.

But why do I believe that progressive liberalism has had its time? Whoever wins the election on Thursday we are going to have a progressive liberal government so surely they still dominate?

Well - yes, they do, but they do not have any answers to the problems we face, They do not have any answers because they created the problems. More than that, progressive liberalism IS the problem. More and more people are starting to see this and, once the real economic turmoil hits home as it will in the not too distant future the number of people who understand that the progressive liberals not only can not fix the fundamental problems of this nation, but are the very cause of them will escalate.

Our economy is on the brink of total collapse. This is a very important point to understand. Our situation is even more dire than that of Greece. The only reason we are not where Greece is now is because we still retain some basic control over our economy which enables us to stave off the inevitable collapse for a little longer - but it is not something that can be sustained for much longer.

When our economy finally teeters over the edge then progressive liberalism will be held accountable not just for that, but for all the other harm it has done - the rise in crime, the corruption of our political, governmental and democratic systems, the collapse of our education system, the destruction of our industrial and manufacturing base and the sell off of our sovereignty.

There is a noticeable trend towards social conservatism amongst the young. Don't be fooled by the younger generation wheeled out on to our television screens - carefully selected from the ruling progressive liberal elite - because they are not representative of the generation that will follow us.

That generation are the ones who have most been affected by the damage wrought by progressive liberalism. They are the ones whose parents divorced or never married. They are the ones who are most often the victims of the appalling level of crime in this country. They are the ones who went through a decrepit education system that left many barely able to read and write and others with worthless degrees, no job prospects and massive debts. They are the ones who are going to have to pick up the tab for the profligacy of my generation and rebuild the shattered remnants of this once proud and precious jewel of a nation.

More and more of them are starting to see it and more and more are looking to what their grandparents - the generation before this current ruling one - had with envy. They want that world themselves - ordered, benign, peaceful, law-abiding, content and socially conservative.

That is what they want and I believe they will get it. I'm just so sorry that they will have to spend their lives putting right what my generation have wrecked.

Be careful who you pick on

I've just been reading Boris Johnson's tale of littering over on The Telegraph.

It's an anecdote which manages to be amusing and worrying at the same time. Amusing because it reminds me of something that happened to me many years ago and worrying because it highlights the attitude of many young people - their contempt for law and authority, their propensity to lie freely when law and authority catch up with them and their worship of celebrity.

It's all very well for mayor Boris to confront these people - it's not so easy for the rest of us. Johnson got away with this because of who he is but, as many have found out, when the average Joe Public does the same thing the response is often to have their head kicked in.

Anyway, back to the anecdote. It reminded me of a time back in the eighties when I was working as a van courier. On this occasion I had the company of a colleague called Brendan - a remarkably phlegmatic and even tempered chap from the Black Country who was happier on a motorcycle than in a "tin box".

We were making our way one summers day along the outside lane of Marylebone Road in my Ford Escort van when we came to one of the many sets of lights on red. While we waited for the lights to turn green a BMW 3 series pulled up on our left with four yuppies braying and whooping inside.

As the lights turned green the BMW sped off, but not before one of the yuppies had launched a half eaten apple through the open window of our van barely missing Brendan. He wasn't too pleased at their behaviour.

Of course, they were stopped at the next set of lights and we soon drew back alongside. Brendan, in his broad midlands accent, asked what they thought they were doing - in a pleasant way. Far from being apologetic they seemed to find the situation and his accent terribly funny.

The lights started to turn green again and, as they were about to speed off once more, Brendan took a last draw on his cigarette and then launched it through the open window of the BMW with a deft flick of some considerable power. I saw it explode with a shower of sparks on the dashboard of the BMW and spew a myriad of hot coals all over the interior of the car.

As we drove off we could see them stuck at the lights frantically trying to extinguish the various embers burning into the cloth of the front seats - and probably their clothing too - while the cars behind hooted impatiently. Brendan coolly finished off the apple and the BMW never caught up with us again.

I'm not sure if that tale has a moral - except maybe that if you're going to annoy somebody then it's best not to pick someone who happens to be a member of a Hell's Angel chapter.

Time the youth took some responsibility

I briefly caught a discussion on the radio last night about youth and politics. I didn't hear the start or the end, but the discussion seemed to revolve around the revelation that something like 56% of 18-25 year olds have not bothered to register to vote. Furthermore, at the last election, although the overall turnout was just above 60% of the electorate the figure for those under 25 was just 37%.

I didn't catch the names of those involved in the discussion, but I heard someone say that young people were turned off politics because of the language used with "the right honourable this" and "the right honourable that". What a load of tosh. Why would the youth of today be put off by that when they weren't bothered in the least 50 or 60 years ago? Does this idiot think things would be better if Cameron referred to Brown as "the Labour dude" or Hague referred to his colleagues in the Tory Party as his "homies"?

I heard someone say that it would help if 16 year olds were given the vote. Why? If they can't be bothered to register at 18, what on earth makes this person think they'd do it at 16? In my opinion the voting age should, if anything, be raised not lowered.

The reality is that the youth of today, in general, prefer to whittle away their time on FaceSpace or MyTwit discussing clothes, pop music or gap years in Thailand. Those that do take an interest in politics generally prefer not to align themselves to some democratic process or political party, but prefer instead to sign up to non-democratic, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) who seek to impose their agenda without having to go through the dreary process of competing in elections.

Today's youth have never been so popular. They have TV stations dedicated specifically for their entertainment but funded by licence fee payers. Even the non-specific TV stations tend to plan their output for the 16-35 audience (can anyone explain to me why BBC One's Friday night line up consists almost entirely of shows aimed at that age group when the vast majority of them are out getting plastered in some drinking warehouse on a Friday night?).

On our high streets we have shops who only seem interested in people aged under 40. Our pubs, clubs and restaurants seem to cater specifically for younger clientele - except those that want to exploit us older people by making us pay rip off prices for half a plate of barely cooked pureed sludge (I don't want a jus or foam or froth - I have my own teeth and I like to chew my food not suck it!).

Why do we have to keep making allowances for the youth of today? Particularly as they are, apparently, amongst the most stupid in Europe? They must be - why else would we have the highest teen pregnancy rates, binge drinking rates and drug taking rates? Everyone over the age of 10 knows that sexual intercourse leads to pregnancy, drinking too much makes you fall over in your own vomit and taking hard drugs leaves you as a hopeless brain-addled addict - but they still do it in more numbers in this country than any other in Europe!

I'm fed up of this pandering to the youth of today who are forever being told that we must do more for them*. Why? Isn't it about time we stopped treating them like children and made them face up to their responsibilities? If they don't want to vote - don't let them vote. Raise the voting age up to 30 and see if that gets a response. Tell them now - use it or lose it.

* At the same time as we are pandering to adolescents and perma-adolescents (those over 20 who refuse to behave like adults) we have become the most child unfriendly society I can remember.