Y’all be Vying, Lying but probably not Dying, for My vote

The irony of a lazy argument is that the detractor has to expend their energy fleshing out the argument before they can dismantle it.  Lucky then that I had this time spare from not bothering to walk to the voting office and back today!!

‘But, people died for your vote!!’…Or so goes the exclamation when I say I’m not interested in voting in local, mayoral or general elections. I hear this parroted to me at work, at home, in the pub, at work and at home. Maybe on one occasion a friend furrowed his brows and called me a Communist, but for the most part it’s definitely a fist thumping fulmination of ‘But they died…DIED for YOUR sins vote!!!’.

Mussolini bit his weenie, and now it doesn’t work

But did THEY, and if THEY did, was it for MY VOTE?  The common assumption of who they might be is those who gave their lives in World War Two to rebuff and destroy the Fascist menace.  A worthy cause, no doubt.  But were they dying for MY VOTE – my once in a few years right to cast a vote upon whether I think the party of the rich, or the party of the former left wing former students should be  richer in power?  Of course they weren’t.  If there is a homogenous motivation that could be ascribed to British soldiers in WW2 (and of course, there isn’t), it would be that they died for freedom – the freedom not to live under an odious tyranny.

But what of those who did die for the right to vote, both in World War Two and before, when lives were laid down for the rights of first poor men and then women to vote?  And of those under repressive regimes around the world today who continue to die for the right to vote?  Well, it seems to me that people die(d) for the right to vote, the right to have a choice to vote, and the right to exercise that vote if so desired.  I don’t recall ever hearing that people died so that I MUST vote.

The reason why we enshrine ‘the-died-too-young’ in immemorial, objective ideas like ‘dying for a vote’ is because we fear our own dying for nothing, our own failure to have achieved in life, progress or posterity.  Consequently we confer inalienable rights or concepts on those who have ‘died young’ so that they may have died ‘for something’.  The right to vote, the right to express and live democratically is inalienable.  The system or form that we cast that vote under is not.  The system and form that says once every 5 years you get to choose between two of yesterday’s men is one of the poorest forms I can imagine. I don’t wish to reinforce this system by supporting it, tacitly or explicitly.

If I wanted to at this point I could go down the road of trying to interpret whether those who ‘died for my right to vote’ did so with today and tomorrow in mind. But this probably can’t be known and to tie their sacrifices to my beliefs would be an insult to their memory.  So instead I’ll leave that to those who go on insisting that people ‘died for my vote’.

So It’s 2.24 o…

So It’s 2.24 on a tipsy Friday when the last two minutes of Question Time come on BBC 2. The hot topic is breast implants, specifically faulty French ones, and whaddayknow – suddenly my boy JOhn flips the fuck out!!!!! 

The hit US show ‘Suits’ can lick THE balls before it takes up any of my time. WIPEOUT!!! I rated this show when it was BRITISH but now I’m like meh, Hilary was a better candidate than J Kerry.  Who shot ya? Go barack. a flacka flames.

 

Ray J and Norma Jean – This our song of love

Although I’m currently naked and about to get into the shower, I still see fit to post this without delay. Enhoy:

Plucked from the Shallows of Eminence

Here are 3 tunes from illustrious artists I’ve never quite managed to properly sit down and listen to.  Despite loving the songs and living in an age where any two-bob Oblomov can just roll onto their front and download an artist’s catalogue at the click of a mouse, I’d still rather hear rare gems on sites like Soul-Sides.   The first step to casting away such obscurantism? It can only be to present 3 lesser known jams by famous artists.  And word to Alex, who linked me the Smokey joint only to go on and post Denny Blaze to me on the same day.  Truly a dichotomous Jekyll and Hyde cat (n dog).

David Starkey’s top tips to winning an argument, even if your views are incoherent or Plantagenet

Of course he’s a racist. He’s also an extremely shit historian. But in this exclusive diary, David Starkey tells us his top tips for sacking your opponent’s argument and pillaging their protestations. Brigands, be warned!

“I’m David Starkey. Mmmmm, monarchy. Slurp.

Presentation: Most men and house-wives can’t afford a £4,000 suit, and the chances are you can’t either. In that case you’re poor, which means you can’t read too. Which means I’ll tell you something you will understand: GET OFF MY LAND... Now where was I… ah yes, an embroidered  bow tie ought to do it.

Attention to detail: Over the passing of the Royal houses, the English language has undergone a number of subtile changes.  As such, it’s important to keep a grip on what your challengers are actually talking about. For instance, responding to a question on a recent rise in shootings, with ‘yes, just the other day I went for a spot of clay trap only to find all sorts of riff-raff mercantilists occupying the gunnery’ will have you ridiculed by the yellow-sheets. On the other hand, responding to a question on a recent rise in shootings with ‘all policemen should be issued with handloaded muskets’ will raise your peerage level.

Interceding: Disrupt your opponent whenever possible. If shouting doesn’t work, Guilded Trebuchet and Son of London, Londonhampton sell a miniature joust for a paltry faberge egg. Keep it in your pocket and jab opponents under the debating table. As they stumble and fall from their metaphorical mount, you’ll be in for the verbal kill. Then you can just have a spare footman actually kill them later. I’ve lost count of how many of my serfs are in gaol for such crimes!

Argument structure: Reference the past, but make sure it’s the good past. I’ve sold 100s of books by adhering to the old adage ‘if it’s after the House of Stuart, ye must eschew it!’  Just pluck the views and concerns of monarchs and land-owning nobility from 500 years ago and refresh them for 2011. Anything that predates the idea of an idea is good. Ignore all that appears to contain analysis or thinking.

Argument conclusion: Confound your opponent by asking a question and just as they’re about to respond, ask it again and stick an ‘indeed’ on the end. For instance ‘Why do riots happen at the same time as black people exist?’  ‘Well, I hav–’WHY INDEED!? They’ll be completely thrown. Alternatively, after nailing your conclusion, just turn your back on them and walk into a large manorial property – the hounds will do the rest and you’ll be victoriously enjoying a glass of heraldry…after all, what’s more English than the English!?”

I’m David MONARCHY”

David Starkey’s latest book ‘The myth of the 20th, 19th, 18th, 17th and 16th centuries‘ isn’t available to buy anywhere but he insisted we reference it. He also asked us to post his opinion that ‘NY rap fell the fuck off after BIG passed’. Who’d a funk it eh?

Halogen Days: Who wants Fluoride in the Solent?

I’ll be vindicated when Flow Rida becomes Fluo Rida, and ‘Fluoride Monster’ precedes ‘Swine Flewride: Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ as wood and platinum selling classics, respectively.

For all you suckers who don’t keep with up with Southampton’s drama (or stumble across conspiracy websites that scupper ‘the left’ on a daily basis) you might not be aware that back in February, the question of what goes in Southampton’s water went all the way to the high court. Although shit was going on in Libya at the time, a battle between South Central playaz Strategic Ballaz Health Authority and local residents was pretty much the key post-xmas news item in Southampton (there is a serious aspect to this, but I’ll get to it later).

On the one side, the Health Authority wanted to fluoridise the water, whilst on the other local community groups opposed the move. For several months the two sides verbally assaulted each other with arguments about poisoning real, and poisoning metaphorical. On 11 February, Justice Holman finally brought the gavel down and sided with the health authority. Easy for him to say – his water isn’t siphoned from Southampton’s famous mountain springs.

Despite the good Justice’s promulgation, the debate on fluoriding water continues.  Beyond Southampton, local community groups have slugged it out with the British Fluoridisation Society for a number of years now. Does fluoride offer a cheap way to protect teeth or is it a poison? Or is it both? Or none? Or one of the other, but not the other!?

Now, nobody’s saying this is as big or important as the chlorine vs. urine argument in swimming pools, or even the mustard versus mustard gas in ham sandwiches debate, but some people are saying that putting fluoride in water is a worldwide genocidal conspiracy (and thereby a risk to the entire existence of human life).

If that sounds like crazy talk to you, then you should watch Three the Hard Way. The plot is white supremacists concoct a lethal chemical that kills only African-Americans. When they attempt to release it in into the US water supply, only three bad-ass dudes can stand in their way. Luckily, one of them is a record executive who keeps a revolver in his office draw. Check it out, it’s a zillion times better and worse than it sounds:

Basically what’s happening in Southampton now. Except that racist supervillian Monroe Feather (who’s intro is ‘light as a feather’)  is replaced by evil Sherriff Derik Berke (his intro is ‘like the rhyming slang’). God only knows what nightmarish plans could be formulating in Sherriff Berke’s head even now:

But as I said earlier, there is a serious aspect to all of this. The town’s residents very clearly opposed water fluoridisation and that the health authority have forced the policy through despite this, raises all sorts of questions about democracy and who is determining what is good for us. You can say what you like about Rousseauian concepts of the general will, but should not the townspeople of Southampton have the final say in what they want for their town?

Obviously not, otherwise they’d make up their fucking minds about that ice rink centre that seems to get mooted every winter. And the balloon festival. If people in Southampton really knew what they wanted, they’d build a statue of Craig David in the town centre, remove their SFC shirts and dance naked around it from Wednesday to Saturday only.

The real problem with Southampton’s water is that we’ve extended the land too close to the Isle of Wight. They should let the sea come back in and reclaim all that stuff below the city walls.