spEak You're bRanes

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.

Jamie sent us this…

Having been flying back and forth to Europe several times a year for many years, I have experienced several European airlines, BA being the latest. The multinational cabin crew, while attentive is still multinational (mostly Brazilian, probably cheaper). Regret to say that BA has lost the kind of “British” service one had come to expect. Air France goes out of their way to make sure their customers feel they are in France at 30,000ft as do Iberia and Lufthansa in varying degrees. In any event, BA’s fares are currently not competitive in the face of their rivals on the same routes. A great shame.
Charles Jordan, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Yeah, more national stereotyping on our British Airways flights, please. How about some rigid, posture-correcting seats for starters, and complementary bottles of upper-lip-stiffener handed out after take-off? The captain’s announcements could be heralded by bursts of Elgar. Laura Ashley decor. Window shutters replaced by nets. Maybe they could replace the Brazilians with a surly, disinterested – but above all, WHITE BRITISH – cabin crew that begrudgingly responds to calls for assistance ten minutes after they’ve been made. Drinks could be accompanied by endless free shots that taste like cough medicine, until we’re fighting in the aisles and waving our cocks about, shouting, “wwwwaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy!” while other passengers in bowler hats or twinset and pearls or both look on discreetly over the tops of their middle-class tabloids and tut disapprovingly. For entertainment, 10-year-old boys could be paraded up and down the plane to be spat, sworn and swung at, then locked in the hold until they’re 18, whereupon they’re released anonymously into a humming fart-cloud of hatred and speculation. All this in a pressurized atmosphere of simmering racial tension and repressed sexuality.

As a white male, I’ve often thought, “why isn’t there more stuff for me?” You just have to walk around town – well, admittedly you have to walk quite a long way from the bit where I live, where all the curry restaurant owners have the good grace not to go outdoors in the daylight hours – to see signs proclaiming “Diwali” and “Eid” with no consideration whatsoever for the western English speaker who might not know what they are and therefore be offended by them. Similarly, as soon as you go out and buy a digital radio, scroll through the 40-odd inoffensive housewife music and sports commentary stations, and find the BBC Asian Network there, you’re assaulted by “bang-rah” music and people discussing issues that I could only care about if I wasn’t white. For now, at least.

There has NEVER been a good reason for ever having an Asian Network paid for by the TV licence payer.

An ‘Anglo Saxon’ radio station would never be tolerated, neither would a ‘White British’ channel be tolerated by the powers that be. And for goodness sake, even England doesn’t merit a radio channel of its own although Wales, Scotland and NI do! So why on earth the Asian community should be so specially treated is a mystery.

Or is it?

- Alan, Bewdley, Worcs

And you know, as a White British (not in Wales, Scotland or NI) myself I find his logic hard to escape. I can’t have a channel tailored to my interests – I mean, what kind of channel would show endless repeats of Top Gear and QI – so no-one should get a channel tailored to their interests. The BBC should identify the Average Licence Payer – Middle-Aged, About 5′ 7″, No Non-White Genes At All, Lives In Bewdley, Worcs – and make only television and radio for that person. But you can’t say that without a bunch of PC drones accusing you of being some kind of selfish white imperialist bastard.

I’ve always had a sneaking suspicion that the world of right-wing opinion is actually one big competition. Rod Liddle, Melanie Phillips and the angry gaggle of delingpoles that make up the Fucking Blogosphere, it’s all a race to lay down the hardest line on the most sacred PC cow. Nobody wants to be left behind in the Great Conservative Biscuit Game where the loser eats a tofu salad and has to blow a Muslim.

So what do you do when xenophobic petty nationalism goes mainstream? When the rabidly pro-multicultural BBC commissions the White series, Islingtonite haunts like Waitrose and M&S celebrate traditional English cuisine and even Labour ministers are hostile to foreigners just for arriving in Britain. Well, you could always get angry at a dead guy for writing books:

Never heard of him, never read his books. My English school gave me books by English authors to read. Theres enough Americanisation in our culture without having to inflict it on our children. Why dont we remember English authors rather than someone whose work has had little or no influence on Britains children.

[OrangeBugsy], Wiltshire, United Kingdom

It’s a nice thought, but the struggle will never be over while treacherous Communist teachers are indoctrinating our kids to read of their own accord.

Incidentally, have you ever wondered how you’d go about starting a sentence with “Would this be the same pope”? It makes for a delightful party game.

Would this be the same pope whose catholic religon King Henry VIII kicked out the country hundreds of years ago?

He has no valid opinion on anything that happens in this country. He’s an irrelevance.

Richard Hill, Birmingham, United Kingdom

When a fat man with six wives and a manky toe shows you the door, you stay shown the door. Put that in your pope-hat and smoke it, Fritz.

It must be tiring, logging into Have Your Say every day and trying to somehow twist the subject round to war. Imagine that you’re very, very good at fighting and love to chat about it (not that you fight very much, you understand… in fact, you never fight, but I bet you could… well, you could if you met someone reasonably short and unarmed.. who was quite tired… and you were half a mile away with a massive gun). Imagine you know a lot about battles, can name 12 kinds of tanks and have possibly painted upwards of 1,000 miniature soldiers (in the RIGHT colours for the period!). You’re going to want to tell the world a thing or two about warships and armies aren’t you? The last thing you need is another discussion about cervical cancer, A-level results or Susan Boyle isn’t it?

Well it seems that the HYS mods have taken pity on horny young war-lovers everywhere and created a thread where they can get it all off their bravely puffed-out chests. Come on little fellas. It’s your chance to shine.

A massive expansion of our Armed forces, this will create Jobs in high tech industries, with good export potential, bring in conscription for 18 year olds, 1 years service to learn self worth, discipline and a worth while trade, be it Cook, Medical, Electronics etc.
Enough resources to allow us to engage in to Regional Wars plus enough reserves for a 3rd emergency response.
Nuclear Deterrent based on SSN’s firing Cruise Missiles, similar to the converted US Ohio Class (SSGN)
Crusader, London

You had me at “massive expansion”.

1. stop fighting America’s wars, we had no help from THEM during the Falklands conflict, why should we care about their interests.

NOT TRUE: The US supplied us with the newest version of the Sidewinder AAM (AIM-9) that gave us an edge over the Argentinian AIM-7, also an Amphibious Assault Ship was put at our disposal incase one of our Capital ships was sunk or damaged.
Iraq & Afghan are the Western Worlds wars, or do you relish the thought of becoming a Shiara muslim State.
Jake, London

Dammit Jake. I was standing proud for a moment there, surface-to air, nearly ready to fire and then you had to go and bring forruns into it. Fucker. Now I’m looking down, somewhat wistfully, at a launch site suitable for a surface-to-surface attack at best.

The people who say we should never fight abroad are viewing the world through rose-tinted glasses. It is an absolutely excellent policy to fight your wars on someone else’s soil. Waiting until the enemy is coming up the beaches is far far too late! We nearly got caught out that way before. Defence sometimes does mean offence. How many lives would have been saved if Hitler had been stopped sooner? It’s easy to be all touchy feely when your protected, but don’t ignore human reality or history.
[numenius], England, United Kingdom

And let’s not forget the exciting world of espionage. We need to get spies in there stealing their secret chocolate recipes before they steal ours.

‘Scrap Trident.’
Jacques Cartier

Without Trident, our country would have no deterrent against invasion or nuclear annihilation. Scrapping Trident is NOT an option.
Paul

Eggsfuckingxactly. The Channel and the army might be able to save us from frenchy fuckers like Jacques, with his “kissing” and “garlic”, but if Godzilla turns up we’re gonna need nukes.

Old post, I forget the topic. Not that it ever really matters.

UK at that time had invaded and enslaved 70 countries. My grandpa who was barely a teenager at the time spent a couple of nights in Churchill’s prison for listening to a German broadcast while Churchill was waging a war for freedom of speech.

Ali Kazmi, Rawalpindi, Pakistan

Well perhaps your grandfather shouldn’t have been a traitor against “the forces of democracy and liberalism”, as Nehru himself called the British-Indian armies fighting against Nazi and Japanese totalitarianism, eh?

[hubertgrove]

That’s YOU told Ali KAZMI. Answer THAT one, QUISLING. Yeah.

We’ve decided to divvy up the gay execution thread, just because there is so much fail of so many sorts to go round.

These people are just human beings like any other. The only difference is they choose to live a different kind of life. We should not discriminate them from others. They have the same rights like every body else. Such laws are very retrogresive and create acrimony for nothing. We should learn to have respect and appreciate other persons lifestyle. We can not all have the same lifestyle. The way we differ in appearance is the same way we differ in thinking.

AUBREY CHINDEFU, LUSAKA ZAMBIA

Aside from minor typos and the fact that it’d do as much good to the world if Aubrey Chindefu had drawn a picture of a walrus on the screen in marker pen, this is an intelligent, reasoned and eloquent comment. I even had to look up ‘acrimony’ and I’m like, really clever. It reminds us, if we needed reminding, that Africa is a huge and diverse place, and the gulfs of opinion can be as wide between two next-door neighbours as they can between Cape Town and Tripoli. Of course, at the close of play, this had all of 3 recommendations because, on the subject of whether Africans should be killing Africans for having the wrong bum-sex with Africans, HYSers aren’t really interested in the African perspective. Not when they could be telling savage, childlike foreigners what to do, anyway.

Are they serious? Seriously? When the rest of the world is trying so hard to recognise Africa as civilized, why do they have to shoot themselves in the foot like this?

licoriceallsorts, candyland

You fucking idiot Africa.

What a barbaric and ignorant proposition. If Africa wants help from the west then I see no reason why we should not attatch some cultural conditions to that aid.

Killing someone because of a personal and private choice is medieval and reflects the emotional immaturity of African socieities. The West needs to stand firm against rubbish like this. If Ugandans want to oppress minorities with death threats then they can ask the Chinese for billions in aid instead, and see how far they get.

A shocked gay man, uk

I understand you’re shocked, shocked gay man, but do you really think stopping Africa’s pocket money will help? With something as extreme as executing gays it should be a simple case of “grow up or get a smacked botty”.

“Nations do not have a right to execute homosexuals,”

Yes they do. They can kill whoever they want. Fortunately we have bigger guns than them, and should currently be sabre rattling.

Matt, Manchester

Hang on Matt, surely a sabre’s a bit excessive. Maybe just pull Uganda’s pants down and use the flat of your hand. Or bomb it from the skies a bit, whichever works for you.

This is a difficult situation to comment on because, as a white person, I know I should be polite when I talk about black people, mindful of 100s of years of European oppression.

But, while generally respecting black people as a race and a culture, I can only describe the Ugandan politicians who are supporting this bill as primitive, superstitious barbarians.

I hope all the decent Ugandans do not allow their country to become synonymous with violent stupidity. Reject this bill

Rocket Scientist

Congratulations. You’re like, the least racist person on HYS. In fact, I’ve made you a special plaque in the form of a very small swastika.

I’m going to end on another sensible comment because we need to remain positive in the face of such massive, massive bollocks. It works best if you picture Ibraheem Hameed as the scatty but amiable vicar of a small country parish, haring into the church and vaulting onto the pulpit to gabble this short comment at breakneck speed, before dashing off to be somewhere else ten minutes ago and leaving his glasses behind.

Death penalty or whichever kind of sanction it may be for homosexual act, the poor masses suffer from it. It is not an act of murder or it like therefore, let them do what they think is good for them. For all of us are sinners.

Ibraheem Hameed, Khartoum

Cast first stone. Forgiveness. Amen. A sermon for the twitter generation.

You’re the captain of a Royal Navy tanker. You see a British couple being kidnapped by Somali pirates. You crew isn’t trained for such a situation, and wouldn’t be able to attack anyway without putting the couple in danger. What do you do? According to the comments on this MSN thread, you KILL THEM! KILL THEM ALL!

And, with the same cavalier disregard for relevance as you’d have for the safety of the innocent, you might also sieze the opportunity to do yet another stream-of-consciousness belch about Everything That Is Wrong With This Country, right in the internet’s face. Thanks to Pete.

Like the rest of this country under Gordon Brown the Royal Navy is hide bound by stupid health and safety regulations. Bring back Vian and the cry ‘The Navy’s here’ when they boarded the Altmark in Norwegian waters to rescue the British prisoners held aboard her.
Phil Adwick

Fucking Gordon Brown, can’t stop messing around with the Royal Navy, constantly wandering into their headquarters at three in the morning, naked but for a pair of socks and a floral hat, waving around pieces of paper with yet more stupid health and safety regulations on them, stupid health and safety regulations such as:

• Don’t fire on civilians!
• Try not to endanger the lives of civilians!
• Don’t kill civilians! Especially when trying to rescue them!

Something must be done to halt these blatant acts of piracy. As an ex military man my response would be to destroy every craft on the Somali shoreline and every craft on the South Yemen shoreline if they support these criminals. If that proves insufficient then level Somalia to glass, leave nothing. They think life is cheap….then let us make theirs so.
Lurcher

That dishonourable discharge still rankles, doesn’t it?

Unfortunately the lawyers run the asylum, where people in authority know it is better to play safe than act. Nobody will sack the captain (teacher, policeman, doctor, electrician) for doing nothing. It’s doing something which leaves you vulnerable to the blood sucking lawyers and the judges. Judges who claim their judgements seem ridiculous but ‘their hands are tied’. Kids sue teachers, yobs sue anyone who intervenes, burglars sue the home owner. Captains of Navy ships would rather see an old couple be dragged off by ruthless pirates than risk making a mistake. And I’d have done the same. Britain is in a hell of a mess, getting worse each generation.
wshrtbe

I think washitterbee must keep this comment on a text file somewhere, and just copies it into any thread he/she/it blunders into, with some token reference to the actual topic clumsily stapled to its balls.

But there’s an interesting twist. Check out the admisson that: “I’d have done the same”. I think this basically translates as: “this country is a massive shitbasket of cowardice and opportunism, and I’m as much to blame as anybody. When is someone else going to come and make it better again?”

Well, we were waiting for you to sort it, wooshtibrubber. But you let us down and now we want blood. You might’ve heard a knock at the door just now – that’s the Royal Navy come to blow your face off with a massive battleship on wheels. Apparently you’re exempt under the stupid health and safety regulations.

If you can spare five minutes, and can to get sound, why not watch this?

I sometimes wonder why we bother. We just can’t compete with that sort of thing. I might as well mellow out, put on my Union Jack slippers, make a cup of True British-Born Tea and settle down by the window, ready to switch on the Royal Bat Signal if a brown person walks past.

Thanks to RadiatorLizard. Do African women still need men? Quite clearly:

The word “Woman” means taken from Man. Technically, a Woman does not exist, or only as a piece or extension of Man. The concept of “Independent Woman” is absurd; moreover, she was created for man and as a last resort, because Man would not settle for the array of animals that was made instead. She is not a creation in its own right, like any other including Man, not an independent clay statue. She can only achieve superiority to Man in the afterlife by serving him first in this one.

alain, London

Of course, they didn’t speak English in the Garden of Eden, but as any Bibliolologist will tell you, the Hebrew word for ‘woman’ is derived from the א-י-ש root, meaning “otherwise useless bint God made to cook my tea and house my tiny peen once I get bored of humping oxen”. So you can tell that to your imaginary wife next time she wants the key to the imaginary padlock.