Lost Shepheards?

It has been and is said that the Church of England is the Tory Party at Prayer. That may even have been true... once: but that was then and this is now.

It is certainly true that the C of E might reasonably said to represent the “Establishment”, or rather the left wing 'hard of thinking' elite at prayer.

Well it might… except that generally, the left wing elite don’t have much time, or use for prayer. It is ok for the proles you understand - sotto voce. But the thing about the left wing elite is they always imagine themselves on top.. in charge.. the Vicar rather than the flock. In positions of power handing down “wisdom” from the mount to the admiringly grateful, but sadly unable to quite see what is best for them, populace.

In the interminable run up to this fixed term election the C of E seems to be becoming more and more overtly partisanly political. It was interesting to note they were urging business to apparently maximise their UK tax liability? Well that was what it practically amounted to - whilst (of course) being effectively exempt from paying tax themselves. 'whit′ed sep′ulcher' springs to mind...

...or it would, if they hadn't changed it to 'whitewashed tomb', less poetic language - but "modern".
Apparently easily enough understood by generations who never had the benefit of Comprehensive state education.

Do they imagine unleashing their vast hoards of fanatical believers (they wish) to vote the churche’s political line will have much impact?

One suspects that whilst their pronouncements may seem significant in the Westminster village they have less impact than vapour trails on the populace in general. At least a small proportion of the voting public do seriously believe that vapour trails are a CIA conspiracy, perhaps a few might take their lead from Welby & Co. ?

Perhaps it is time to disestablish the Church of England as Nick Clegg has called for? It is questionable that they, or indeed any religion, should be allowed to retain such a position.

Better to concern themselves with diminishing flocks, abandoned Churches in the UK and rampant Christianophobia throughout the bible lands and middle east, driving the religious cleansing of Christians fourth from their homelands. So much for respect of 'people of the book'. More whit′ed sep′ulchers anybody?

Threat of yet more laws and another huge UK State database

New-Labour’s developing fascist state moves a little closer as it’s Ministers consider plans for a vast and intrusive database of electronic information. A real move in the direction of a sinister total surveillance society.

Their plan is for New-Labour to legislate to force Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and telephone companies to pass the details of all emails and telephone calls to them to be stored in a gargantuan database.

Their current justification is national security, a marvellous excuse to make the gullible grateful for their own oppression, but if they couldn’t talk that up then they would probably look to find some other reason.

A Home Office ‘spokesman’ claimed retaining communications information is now apparently essential for protecting national security. He also insisted that powers to hold information were subject to strict safeguards.

Yes, but somehow with other legislation and systems it has still resulted in things like local councils spying on ordinary people over schools admissions, people getting criminal records for putting a little too much rubbish in their bins and the private data of huge numbers of people being lost, or given away, or even published on the internet. These safeguards and promises are clearly utterly worthless.

In fact the prime minister’s personal representative has publicly admitted that "manifesto pledges are not subject to legitimate expectation", so it is curious they expect us to actually believe any such lesser assurances.

The state claims that if only they can bring in this law, restrict that freedom, then they can make the citizen safe. It is a lie. They can not guarantee safety, not from chance, not from natural disaster, not from crime and not from terrorism. They can even genuinely try, but sooner or later they are sill bound to fail.

Quite frankly I would rather take the chance of not making it easier to catch and more problematically convict terrorists (because they are easier to foil than catch and easier to catch than convict) than to allow them change my society to the point where it no longer reflects values I would be willing to defend. That is one of the aims of terrorism.

Are we are reaching the point where the state is in danger of becoming a greater menace to out liberties, values and way of life than terrorism.

Definitely something to think about

Beaman’s World had an interesting post the other day.

It articulated something that I had trying to formulate more concretely myself:

Probably a majority of any group wishes to live in peace and quietly get on with their lives - but a majority that will not police their fanatic minorities is in fact irrelevant, when it comes to the activities of the fanatics and extremists - when it comes to how that group relates with and impacts on, the greater world.

If the majority do not oppose them then if anything they become part of the problem as they provide a form of legitimisation, and/or a medium for the fanatics to move and conceal themselves within and a resource.

There will always be fanatics, of every stripe. If they are not opposed the chances of their reaching a tipping point in numbers and momentum where they then effectively ‘own’ the rest and can do untold harm are greatly increased.

Possibly a concrete illustration of where the phrase: “If you are not part of the solution then you are part of the problem” fits well…

Go read the post.