A paragraph says a lot...

Whilst reading Matthew Parris' take on modern western civilisation's similarity to ancient Rome, I came across a quite unbelievable comment:

He describes a mutual emulation of Roman and barbarian peoples, revitalising a lifeless culture. Contributor, Christabelle Dilks (Script Editor of BBC1's forthcoming Rise and Fall of Rome), sees Britain today as a "period of transformation ... other civilisations are taking over ... and what's to mourn really."

I've read that comment twenty times, and I'm still dumbfounded. What's to mourn about the passing of the British people and culture? Everything.

Inheritance Tax

The campaign against inheritance tax is gathering pace. I give it my full support.

My opinion has always been that, as we get taxed for an action, this is a tax on the act of dying. Therefore, it is fundamentally immoral. And surely, it is also in direct violation of the fundamental law of modern taxation?

Skills shortages

The immigration debate has heated up markedly in the last few days. First, there were stories questioning the orthodox, "they are contributing to our economy line". Then, the inevitable, hysterical backlash. Skills shortages need to be filled, they say.

My question has always been, in which industries are there shortages? So it's thanks to the CBI, today, for giving me the answer - hospitality. Right. So does that include those highly skilled professions such as plate washing, waiting-on, barwork, glass collecting and housekeeping? Okay, forgive me, I am being flippant. But seriously, what 'skills' within the hospitality industry are in such short supply?

I doubt I will get a satisfactory answer.

Housing and Mortgages

This week, the Daily Mail had another story about first-time house buyers:

Increasing numbers of desperate first-time buyers are gambling with their new homes by taking out interest-only mortgages without any means of repaying the capital.

Rising house prices are forcing first time buyers to borrow record amounts to buy a place of their own. And the larger mortgage payments are putting budgets under strain.

What nonsense! There is nothing “desperate” about them. And they are certainly not being “forced” into anything. They’re greedy and irresponsible. In an attempt to shortcut their way onto the property ladder, people have taken on ludicrous mortgages; it’s no wonder that the housing bubble has stoked back up again. They do so not out of desperation, no, these are the sort of people who invite their friends around to a dinner-party and spend all evening bragging about the rise in the worth of their property.

The media should instead, feel sorry for those who suffer the consequences of this one-upmanship. People who are sensible enough to save money and wait for house prices to stabilise, are being gazumped. Then, these people truly will be desperate, and they will take risks as well. And thus, the pyramid scheme that is the housing bubble continues to spiral out of control.

Now, I am not sure whether the housing bubble will burst, but if it does, those gamblers who had been relying on equity from the sale of their house, will be left high and dry. They will blame the Banks and Building Societies, the Chancellor, the BofE everybody but themselves. After all, nobody takes responsibility for their actions nowadays. But, for me, these idiots are headed for a deserved fall.

Great website

I'm at an all time high, with regards to the number of books I am buying at the moment. In my room, I literally have a pile of paperbacks which I have read once and will probably never read again. But, I have always been reticent to throw them away, and I am fairly certain that they are to tatty for the charity shop. So, what should I do? Well, now I have discovered Read It Swap It, a website which allows people to swap books. When you register your list of books, other users can approach you requesting a swap. Following on from that, you view their list and then decide whether you want one of their books or not. The only cost incurred is the postage. It's well worth a look.

Completely unrelated, but also interesting, is the return of Sir John Bull. Expect more rants about 'Hitler Blair', Feminists, the bankruptcy of multiculturalism and, probably, some Peak Oil predictions thrown in.

Doom?

It's very easy to feel a sense of profound gloom about the situation at the moment. Notwithstanding the Israeli-Hezbollah situation, we have now seen an attempt to commit 'mass murder, on an unprecedented scale'.

It's even more gloomy when you see police Range Rovers everywhere on your way to work. Then, whilst you are buying your lunch, seeing policemen with machine guns all around you. Such is the lot of those of us who have to work at an airport.

Reading papers and blogs hardly lifts the gloom either. Littlejohn, commenting today in the Mail, said: 'heads we lose, tails they win'. Larry Auster's prophecy also sounds depressingly realistic:

This is the unchangeable reality I pointed to in my 2004 article, “How to Defeat Jihad in America.” We will have terrorist attacks and threats of terrorists attacks and inconvenient and humiliating security measures and the disruption of ordinary activities FOREVER, as long as Muslims are in the West in any significant numbers. The Muslim terrorists are part and parcel of the Muslim community. According to a survey reported in the Scotsman, 24 percent of Muslims in Britain (I never describe them as “British Muslims”) believe the July 2005 London bombings were justified. Imagine that. Not only do these Muslims in Britain support terrorism against Britain, they’re not afraid to say so openly to a pollster! The unchangeable fact is that wherever there is a sizable Muslim community there will be a very large number of terror supporters and therefore—inevitably—actual terrorists as well.

This is our future, FOREVER, unless we stop Muslim immigration and initiate a steady out-migration of Muslims from the West until their remaining numbers are a small fraction of what they are now and there are no true believers among the ones that remain. Travelers from Muslim countries must be tightly restricted as well. Muslims must be essentially locked up inside the Muslim lands, with only carefully screened individuals allowed into the non-Muslim world.

Stanley Kurtz is also gloomy. Continuing on the theme that whatever we do is destined to failiure, he concludes that the best thing to be is a hawk - albeit one who sees no possible way of defusing the threat.

But, we are authors of our own downfall. We believe that all cultures are the same, and that being born in Britain negates your cultural and religious heritage. We believe that middle-eastern countries can be 'democratised'. Kurtz's view on this is worth repeating:

The stick of military force combined with the carrot of democracy was supposed to have provided a way out. Unfortunately, democratization of fundamentally illiberal societies cannot happen quickly. Real democratization requires a great deal of time and deep, painful, expensive underlying cultural change, almost impossible to bring about without an effectively permanent military occupation.

Liberalism's child of cultural relativism, has led us down this wrong path. Afghanistan is not a country of westerners, it's a third world country with a backward people in a mountainous wilderness. You cannot simply plant western style democracy there, and then expect it to resemble Europe. it's no wonder that 'the state' has no control over such a country. As in medieval Europe, a strong leader is needed - either a King or a Dictator.

But, our worst sin is another one given to us by liberalism. Our aversion to profiling by religion or race is unforgiveable. Maybe all Muslims are not terrorists, but all the terrorists are Muslims. And yet, Heathrow airport still employed Asmin Tariq as a security officer. We also need to look at the ranks of suicide bombers, almost all are of Pakistani origin. However, we waste precious resources on stopping all ethnic groups, in an attempt to keep false liberal delusions alive.

So Larry is right, this is our future, forever. And it's a future beggoten by liberalism.

The end of Italia?

As depressed as I am about the future of my country, others seem burdened with an even worse government. Take Italy, for example. I predicted that the Prodi government would be a complete disaster. I have been proved right.

Fabio, from the Italian Version, has listed his complaints against the government:

• The Fight against tax invasion - The Prodi government has instigated a set of measures which are both intrusive and authoritarian, disregarding privacy, presumption of innocence and property rights.
• Forced extraction of DNA - Self explanatory.
  
• Pardons - Whilst I am not aware what this is referring to, it seems youth offenders have been pardoned.
• Immigration - Not content with giving an amnesty to 350,000 illegals, the Prodi government has introduced a bill which will entitle immigrants to automatic citizenship, after five years of residency.
• Apartheid on the Beach - GalliaWatch had a great post on this. Even the suggestion that beaches should be put aside for Muslim-female only bathing, shows that Italy are following the French into dhimmitude.

It's sad to see all this happening. I had hoped that Italy would resist the inexorable march towards to becoming a 'global traffic station'. Now, they face an increasingly authoritarian and pro-EU future.

I said it before and now I will say it again. Forget the picture that the smug media in this country painted of him; all hope for Italy died when Berlusconi was voted out.

Racist Legislation

Nothing should surprise me. I shouldn't still be angered. But I am. Why? The most disgraceful piece of racist discrimination ever seen on these shores, has been proposed by 'our' government:

COMPANIES that bid for multimillion-pound Government contracts will be rejected if they do not employ enough black and Asian workers, under new proposals seen by The Times.

A powerful committee that includes seven ministers has drawn up plans to question competing companies about their attitudes to race before choosing which to employ. Firms will be asked to provide figures showing the numbers of their black and Asian employees. This figure will be compared with the proportion of people from ethnic minorities living near the company’s offices and will be a factor when deciding the winning bid.

Three pilot schemes have been authorised with the support of Downing Street — the first time that “positive vetting” in procurement has been approved by a British Government. It follows the release of figures showing that people from ethnic minorities are twice as likely to be unemployed as the white majority.

Programmes of “affirmative action” have proved controversial in America, where some business leaders say that they can hinder the employment market and discriminate against white workers.

I love this country. In fact, there is no one who could be more proud of his ancestry. The farmers, miners and labourers who trod the land in centuries gone by, are now just names in my family tree. But, to me, they played a part in making this country; however small that contribution was, it was still a contribution. The Welsh national anthem sums this feeling up, perfectly:

The old land of my fathers, it's dear to me.

However, I now wonder about the future, my future. I don't have kids, I am not married, hell, I don't even have a girlfriend! But, when/if I have a male child in this country, he will face discrimination simply for being white. That thought makes me sick to the stomach.

So, even someone as patriotic as myself is asking; is it now time to look towards the door, like so many others?

Misvaluing Manufacturing

A superb post here, from Photon Courier in 2003. Despite the age of the post, this is a subject that still seems as pertinent:

In the blogosphere and in the media, there have recently been many comments running basically as follows: "We're better off without all those manufacturing jobs, anyhow...let the boring assembly line jobs be done somewhere else, and let our people concentrate on high-value knowledge work."

I believe that comments like these reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of manufacturing.

It's true that in a typical manufacturing plant there are many jobs which are repetitive in nature and require fairly low skill levels. But there are also many other kinds of jobs--jobs requiring high levels of skill and education. When a manufacturing plant leaves, these jobs usually leave as well.