spEak You're bRanes

Thanks to Luke for dredging this shit up from an HYS debate about the merits of university.

Is a university degree necessary?

Er… try asking a coherent question if you want a sensible answer.

A university degree is not necessary in the same way as air, food and water are. You can live a happy and fulfilled life without a university degree, you won’t survive five minutes without air to breathe.

If you want to be a medical doctor, a university degree is necessary for you to attain your ambition. (Note for aspiring medics: you also need air to breathe!)

If you want to learn how to learn and how to think, to explore a subject of interest to its fullest extent… well, you can acquire these skills elsewhere, but a university degree is a good way to set your feet on the right track. Oh, and you still need air to breathe.

Define ‘necessary’ and you might be able to answer your question for yourself. Trouble is, I learned how to craft such debate by, er, going to university. Oh, and I still need air to breathe too!
Megan

BA (Hons) in Smug Pedantry, right? I did the same course, which is why I feel qualified to craft this equally smug response: the actual, entirely reasonable question was, ‘is a university degree necessary for success in later life?’

I’ll give you a 48-hour extension to resubmit your answer. Any later and you’ll be forced to wear one of those striped beanies with the little propeller on top for the rest of your life. People will laugh openly as you walk by and small children will follow you around for hours at a time, poking you with sticks, but at least it’ll draw attention from the long, silvery thread of drool perpetually dangling from your chin.

It’s usually a bit below the belt to lay into someone just on spelling mistakes, but Stephen Murray from Middlesbrough, who I found chatting shite on an old Mail article about Baroness Scotland’s housekeeper, is an exception. Firstly, he’s an idiot. Secondly, he’s an idiot racist with weird paranoid delusions. Thirdly, these are just magical.

She employed this woman nowing she was a imigrant thats why she employed her in the first place ,if you had the slightest dought and you had a job of such importance you would play it safe and look around for uk citizen no problem no fine ,she never thought she would get found out and now she and the labour party are trying desperatly to find some sinario which thay can save her job ,weak priminister and weak goverment.

- stephen murray, middlesbrough

Look at ‘dought’, for a start. Despite his obvious shit-for-brains thought-processes, Stephen understands about silent letters and ‘gh’, he even knows a fair few words that are spelt funny. So he clearly has the makings of a good speller in him. And look at ‘priminister’. It actually seems quite logical if you’ve never seen a newspaper and have no idea what the word is meant to look like. It’s implausible, the more I think about it the more it explains a great deal about the internet, and to be honest it frightens me a little. But the only conclusion I can come to is that Stephen Murray can write but not read.

Thanks to Throbbe who found “anti-fraudster” nearly answering the question “How should schools teach religion?”.

I think that it should be, but that it should include a full expose ( with acute accent on the e) of the mystery religions/ occult religions practised by many of the most powerful people on the globe…e.g those who go to Bohemian Grove and spend so much time trying to persuade others towards their dark tawdry and thoroughly kitsch rituals and immorality towards others.
anti-fraudster

Mon Dieu! Vous parlez Francais? Avec un circu.. ced.. squiggle sous la “c”?

For too long now I’ve assumed that everyone on “Have Your Say” was either a halfwit or a quarterwit so coming across someone this clever really knocked me sideways. Finally, I realise that my blase (with a very cute accent on the “e”) attitude has caused me to miss some truly insightful comments (with a hairy, groaning umlaut on the “o”) .

But anti-fraudster didn’t stop there. He knows all the isms you’ve ever heard of and at least one of his own.

Hmmm …ruralwoman…darwinism? Not without some trenchant criticism on offer about social darwinism and its horrible links with eugenicism, one of the most evil and horrid beliefs out there. It might scare people so would have to be handled with care. Which is always part of the problem. While some religious beliefs e.g love God, love your neighbour, are beautiful and of highest goodness, others options: child sacrifice, puttee, suppression of women, and so on are to the vast majority abhorrent… and can cause nightmares. No use being prissily politicially correct, there is evil religion as well as good.
anti-fraudster

I’d go even further and suggest that eugenicismologists invented the halon women-suppression systems and silly puttee I’ve been having nightmares about.

As an aside, anti-fraudster has so far left around eight comments in that thread, including one where he has a dig at someone for getting the apostrophe wrong in one of their words. I thought that was pretty rich coming from somebody who can’t even get the words right.

Anyway. What’s the answer?

R.E. should get back to text. There are some really really important texts that should be part of everyone’s basic knowledge. For some the text will never come alive. This is the same for all texts.
For some inexplicable and very dumbed-down reason focussing on texts has gone out of fashion. Education without a decent amount of focussing on text breeds an unlearned and malleable generation whose idea of debate is to shout unconsidered and unvalidated slogans from different sides. My children have told me you can pass R.E exams with knowledge of one parable. Textual illiteracy unfortunately. Where are the well-read in the next generation? Who is to blame for this shocking ignorance? Many on this board have little to no knowledge of text, and just loads of prejudice. Once this question is posed in a “should we be aware of important texts?” frame the answer is stunningly obvious.
anti-fraudster

So. Is it all about really, really important texts? Are there very dumbed-down reasons for things not being textual enough any more? How can we validate our slogans? Should we listen to anti-fraudster?

I tried to emulate him and come up with a pithy answer – a different frame for the question that cuts through the bullshit and makes the answer stunningly obvious. Here is the frame I made. It’s the “You’d have to crush me to death under a pile of fossilized mastodon turds, weep remorsefully for an hour over my mangled remains, pull me out by my face, then crush me to death again under another pile of reassuringly expensive, prehistoric tods before I’d even consider paying attention to this pompous ass-hat’s content-free, pseudo-intellectual prattling for a single, interminably boring picosecond” frame.

The BBC has asked “What sequel would you like to write?” and, as usual when books are mentioned, the gnomes have largely misheard this as “What’s that book you heard of on here once that you think might be all about how New Labour are radical socialists and about how that’s, like, really, really bad? Something by Orwell? Nineteen-eighty-farm was it?“.

It’s not all bad though. Thanks to Tony and Stephen for finding some proper intellectuals on there.

My sequel would be 2084 the sequel to Orwell’s 1984. In 2084 The party would be replaced by The Council of Imams – for England is now an Islamic state and its government is a tyrannical theocracy. Orwell’s proles are replaced by us infidels, and the hero of the original would be replaced by Gemma Smith a women in her early 30s who tries to rebel against the suffocating life imposed on her by the Councils strict application of Sharia law.
I might even have a stab at really writing this.
Chazz Trinder

It’s such a great idea that I’m surprised nobody thought of it 25 years ago, wrote the book, and then won loads of awards. But why “Gemma”? I reckon, if you’re going to use her as a transparent space where you can put a “Vote BNP” sticker, you should call her:
Ofsomedickwhoshouldmaybereadacouplemorebooksbeforeattemptingtowriteone.

Not so much a sequel, but a spiritual successor to Martin Amis’s ‘Time’s Arrow’. It was a World War II story told in reverse. If he was up for it, I’d love to see him attempt it once more.
BulletMonkey

It could start off with everyone saying “Yeah, it’s not very good is it?”. Then he could slowly erase everything he’s written, word by word, until he only has good books left and everyone notices he’s stopped being a racist.

Thanks to Justin for finding “chelsea” reviewing a film on the HMV site.

Rubbish
This film was rubbish as it was in french and i am english!!!!!!
chelsea

Tell me about it. Just last night, I saw a film that was 104 minutes long whereas I’m 6’2″.

My top tip for coping with this kind of shit is to get yourself at least 498 friends on Facebook then join the group “I Love Xmas!”. Puts it all in perspective.

“Should Catholic priests remain celibate?”

Celibacy isn’t a Christian idea, it comes from St Paul who, last time I checked wasn’t Jesus.
Wardonia

You could interpret this one in a couple of ways at least. It could be that she’s making a subtle allusion to the idea that, rather than being handed down to us by a benevolent beard in the sky, organised religions have actually been carefully domesticated, nurtured and husbanded by humans. She could be trying to gently suggest that any god shit you feel you absolutely have to indulge in should probably be personal. Or it could be that Wardonia is dangerously thick, permanently wrong, inexplicably smug and generally a shoo-in for the title of “World’s Most Ill-equipped Pedant – 2010″.

I went and read a few more of her comments, to see if I could tell. You’ve probably got a fair idea how that went.

“England’s children’s commissioner says the age of criminal responsibility should be raised from 10 to 12. Do you agree?”

From the age of nine to ten the human brain destroys a lot of brain connections it thinks it no longer needs and no further development of morals or conscience is possible.
Scientists have described this cull as ‘savage’.
Does this idiot think she knows better than scientists in this field? Or, as I suspect, this is the first move towards moving the age of criminal liability to age 25.
Wardonia

Do you think anyone has ever said “You’re not as stupid as you look” to Wardonia? Personally, I doubt it. But I guess there’s a chance she rides around on a tinsel-covered tricycle and has a cock and balls on her chin.

Thanks to Emily. From the Mail. Don’t click on the link.

I HAVE NOT READ THIS ARTICLE…

Because why should I or anyone else care?

- Jo, Bournemouth, England

I went one better. Didn’t read the article, didn’t comment. Kicking myself I didn’t ignore Jo from Bournemouth as well.

The Mail reports a court ruling that benefits overpaid as a result of OFFICIAL ERROR – that’s: OFFICIAL ERROR – can no longer legally be clawed back. Cue vibrating parade of point-missing…

This action is about right for LABOUR. Gordon Brown has no respect for our taxes, anyone can fiddle them or be over paid and do not have to pay them back, or paid back over 77 years. Brown seems to forget the people of this country has to work very hard for the money he is squandering.
BRING ON THE ELECTION to get rid of this incompetent government.
Maggie, Cheshire

You’re right, Maggie. The current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is doing a shit job with these benefits and legal rulings. Instead of personally overseeing every single award issued by the DWP, he should delegate decisions on benefit claims to, ooh, let’s say, civil servants. And maybe he could entrust the application of law to… hey! How about the judiciary?

unbelievable; here’s my wallet help yourself
rob, a taxpayer, chesham, bucks

That’s basically how it’ll work, rob, a taxpayer (I see what you did there ha ha most amusing): rather than simply write off overpayments that have already been made from a pool of public money to which you’ve already contributed, the DWP will send large men called Wayne round to strip your home of valuables, empty your bank account and give everything to the first person they see wearing a tracksuit.

Then they’ll shit in your dinner.

And give that to a tramp.

now if they where politicians they would get off with it
jon uk, uk

There’s a lot of righteous fury in this thread about the expenses scandal. Which is to be expected, given that the expenses scandal has been making the news again recently, what with Sir Thomas Legg very much not letting these bloody politicians get off with it.

Cheers, though.

So who made this mistake? Some idiot cost the nation an absolute fortune. Name?
Rick, Scunthorpe, Lincs

Gordon Brown, forgot to carry the fucking 1 or something, didn’t he? Haven’t you been listening? God.

The following text is about private organ transplants:

Should private transplants be banned?
The government will ban all private transplants of organs from dead British donors to stop foreign patients paying for scarce organs needed within the NHS. Do you agree with the decision?

Is the government:

• a) banning them
• b) in favour of them
• c) personally carrying them out?

As with everything this Labour government views everything as a cash cow, even our bodies after death.

My donor card has been cut up this morning.

Steve Wright

I’d be banging my head on the desk right now if I didn’t suspect that Steve Wright cuts up a donor card for every HYS debate.

I have no problem with my organs going to the person in greatest need – whether there are a UK citizen or not. If the Government implements a racist allocation policy then I will get rid of the donor card. I do agree that no-one should jump the queue by paying, but this should apply regardless of where they are from.

Peter O’Connell, Croydon

I like this comment. I like to picture the smirk spreading across Peter O’Connell’s face, as he presses ‘submit’, thinking “I’m so different from the rest of the rabble here. So much more liberal. So much more enlightened. So much more…literate”.

About time moves were made to stop non-nationals coming to the UK and getting whatever they can at the expense of a UK tax-paying citizen.

[BostinJack]

I heard Somalis are getting THREE lungs EACH just for turning up and then using them to inhale benefits.

No I don’t see the problem in private transplants. I do see a problem in foreign patients having them.

Guy Flowers, Sheffield, United Kingdom

It’s ok if they bring their own organs in with them though, right? If they pay like a kidney in import duty or something.

I have may friends abroad who use this website as a language learning exercise.

The amount of xenophobia displayed in this (and other threads) makes me despair.

How do decent people, eager to learn about British culture, feel?

Gala

This could be the most spine-chilling thing I’ve ever read on Have Your Say.

Thanks to James. There must be another thread up on knifecriming or something. I guess these things go in cycles. One week it’s “What, specifically, do you hate most about Muslims?”, and then a bit of “On a scale of nine to ten, how terrified are you of the under-35s?” for balance.

How about this for a radical idea, we quickly pass the relevant legislation all over the UK and for one month no police leave. Every officer spends every day and night on the streets. They stop every young person and remove every weapon and charge every one with carrying an offensive weapon. If they did this regularly and did not listen to all the silly people who say we must respect the human rights of people who are carrying offensive weapons we may again clean up our streets. We need sense
LYDIA REID, EDINBURGH Don’t mention Christianity or the HEFA Bill

Lydia has obviously misunderstood something about the term ‘sleeping policemen’, but I can’t quite put my finger on what.