Are you sexist if you tell a sexist joke?

Most people have either told a joke or laughed at a joke that contains within its verse some kind of prejudice.

I have done it and every one of my friends have done it. Does this mean that my friends and I are prejudice?

if you utter the words “oh my god” or “OMG” does this statement infer that you believe in the existence of a deity?

As spurious as most sexist jokes are I am not willing to assume that a statement or joke made by an individual automatically credits that human being with the prejudice being voiced.

giving voice to a statement that implies a prejudice does not equate to complicity in action or behaviour. as one tweeter said to me recently “If you say a sexist joke you support the acceptability of sexist jokes in society. Simple. And wrong.”

It’s not a logical argument though, and ill explain why.

I am against wars. I think most people are. In 2003 more than 1.5 million people marched in protest at the proposals for this country to go to war. those people made it quite clear that war was bad and that they did not support the planned action of our state, and yet all those people paid for the war we eventually ended up going to. anyone who paid taxes in 2003 gave financial support to the war whether they agreed with it or not because that is the system we live under. whether you believe it to be fair or just is irrelevant, the state takes your money and spends it how they please. It just so happens that in 2003 they wanted to spend it on a war.

Does this mean that as taxpayers we all supported the war because our money was spent on it? of course not. im sure that if the choice were given to us that the war would never have happened because it would have been unaffordable.

If you think saying a sexist joke means you’re a sexist or you accept sexism within society, well you must condemn the entire taxpaying collective of the nation in 2003 for overseeing the deaths of thousands of people, by paying for the war.

Make that statement to someone who calls the teller of a sexist joke a sexist and watch the reaction.

there are many other examples of views or opinions that elicit a similar reaction but what you need to remember is the view or opinion does not always come with some predetermined prejudice.

Sometimes people just say and do stupid and irresponsible things. We have all done it.

Unless someone actually comes out and admits a prejudice they have then you can’t say that a person is prejudice. you can ostracize the view or opinion but not the person unless you know 100% that you are right in your condemnation and that is not always possible.

a good example would be the couple who were recently taken to court because they refused to let a gay couple stay in their hotel/B&B. We can call these people bigots because they have come out in the open and said they don’t believe in the lifestyle of gay people. Now in this case we can call these people for what they are because they have openly admitted it. there is no argument, they are anti-gay.

It really is that simple. this couple made it clear that they have a predetermined prejudice towards gay people and they are not going to hide that fact.

My examples have made me go off on a tangent so ill come back to explaining my opinion to the question i have asked.

A view or opinion that contains some form of prejudice on its own merit does not equate to a predetermined prejudice unless backed up with the facts to prove it. Without evidence, without proof all you have is an opinion that someone is prejudice. You have no way to know conclusively that they are.

I would say the answer to this question is both yes and no. It has to be both because not every person is willing to admit to owning prejudices. Sorry for all the crap before this final statement but it wouldnt be a blog with out it.

the opinions expressed above are my own. Other opinions are available.

“This is what democracy looks like”

This was a popular chant when i joined the protest march in Manchester last year. All sorts of people Protesting all sorts of things right outside the front door of the Tory Party conference. People with passion and a desire to change things for the better. People who were happy to voice opinions and offer solutions to social concerns.

“This is what democracy looks like”

It has a certain right to it. A certain nobility to it. Its very hard to argue with thousands of people who want to see democracy work.

“This is what democracy looks like”

The problem with democracy though, is like all state apparatus, it can be abused. Democracy does not always work and will not always work. Democracy is a tool. A state tool that everyone is made to believe can and always works to solve social problems. The only problem with this statement is its not true. Democracy is not a good thing.

This does not mean i don’t endorse democracy. there are some things in this world that a democratic process can see benefits from. What i’m acknowledging is the fact that its not always good, and something that is not always good can only be described as not a good thing.

Ask the gay community in North Carolina, USA. The majority of that state just voted away the rights of a minority group. This was all done legally and democratically so please tell me how democracy is good in this situation? Can someone tell me how democracy is good for the gay community in North Carolina where a minority group of people can have their rights of free and voluntary association made illegal by a democratic majority.

Its all well and good making changes democratically that don’t affect peoples individual rights, but when the line is crossed and you start using democracy to remove individual liberties from people that are causing no harm or threat. Then you have shown yourself to be part of the problem within society and you can no longer be considered part of the solution.

If you think its OK to democratically change laws that stop the free, peaceful and voluntary association of two people who just want some recognition of their commitment to each other then the moral and ethical corruption embedded in the democratic process will only continue to get worse and will continue to punish the minority.

Lets not forget that the smallest of all minorities is the individual. when you start removing the individuals right to free, peaceful and voluntary association, You have given in to wrong!

Plurality – A Large number or amount. A multitude.

This is a long one so I don’t mind if you get bored halfway through and bugger off! if you read it all thanks.

As a Human race we all want the same things in life. We all have the same common goals. We all want our children to be educated. We want our sick to be looked after. We want our elderly to be taken care of in old age with respect and dignity.We want forced poverty eradicated. We want peace and freedom. We want liberty and virtue. We want all of this free from coercion and force

Who could argue we don’t want all the things above i just said? maybe a few people out there would say they don’t, but as far as im concerned they are evil! Yes if you don’t want sick people to be made well you are evil! if you don’t want our elderly to be looked after with some respect and dignity then you are evil!

the absence of virtue or kindness or compassion just makes a person evil in my book. If you can’t show or express it then piss off! I don’t want to associate with you and I would urge others not to associate with you. I will ostracize you and encourage others to do so in the veiled hope that you give up such vile opinions.

Sometimes people don’t even realise they are supporting evil, and it is up to kind, virtuous and compassionate people to point this out to them. Sure some people are evil but others don’t realise that they think that some evils are good and it is up to others to point this out to them. Not coerce with orce, but to persuade.

So we want all those things from my first paragraph. not a few of them, not half of them. ALL OF THEM!!! as a human race this is what we should all hope to achieve. if we can solve the above social problems, then everything else should just naturally follow right?

So how do we solve all these problems? I couldn’t possibly know really. If I knew all the answers I wouldn’t be blogging, i’d be running things wouldn’t I? so here is my theory. Here is my equation. its simplistic i know but then the problem and end result are the simple parts. its the solution that gets you from the problem to the end result thats complicated.

Here is your problem. You need to get from A (not your workplace) to B (your workplace), so list the ways you can get from A to B.

Drive yourself. Have someone drive you. Get a bus. Get the train. Cycle. Walk. Fly.

There you have seven ideas and I think im right in saying that all these options are available right now! so getting from A to B is actually quite easy for anyone because there are so many options. There is a plurality of solutions!

Each solution to the A to B problem has its differences and costs associated that’s why there are so many options. Drive yourself. You need to buy a car. that’s expensive but you have the advantage of being able to use it again for your next A to B problem. Have someone drive you. Cheap if you have a friend and it solves your problem with minimum expenditure. Get a bus or train or fly. Depending on the A to B locations this might require a bit of walking. Cycling would require not only a bicycle but the ability to ride it especially if the A to B is a great distance.

Now im not saying you can do this all the time but in the abstract getting from A to B can be used for practically everything, and as long as the person or persons you are discussing it with has an open mind then we should all be able to figure out multiple solutions for the A to B scenarios we discuss. There is one rule though and it’s the only rule you can’t break. It’s the morally virtuous rule! a solution is not allowed to be considered that involves the initiation of force or the threat of violence which im sure most people would agree with.

for example A = hole in the roof and B = roof with no hole in it. You want to get from A to B as quickly and efficiently as possible without breaking the rule, so before you start your list you must note that you can’t force your neighbour to do the work or steal money from him to do the work as it would involve coercion and violence to achieve. Its easier but it’s fundamentally wrong and evil to use force to get what you want.

so i have given you your example. now all you need to do is apply a bit of imagination and off we go. solving the worlds problems.

Sounds like the perfect plan but there is one tiny flaw! the solutions already be provided need to be gotten rid of because since the 60′s they have slowly declined and are now not working. It’s obvious to all of us that the current solutions to the worlds problems are not working because we still have the same problems. So lets change the equation.

To get from A to B you require one of your solutions. so we call this X. If X didn’t work wouldn’t you get rid of it and switch to another solution. lets say you chose the bus option but the bus was constantly late or didn’t show at all sometimes. you would stop using the bus and move to an alternate solution. You throw X out the Window and go looking for your new X. the problem hasn’t changed. You still need to get from A to B. that is your constant. its the X that changes.

So we are clear X cannot involve the initiation of force or the threat of violence, but you can have as many X’s as you like. you can have thousands if you want. the more X’s there are to solve all the A to B problems the better we all are.

So these A to B problems that have got progressively worse since the 60′s. Does anyone have any X’s that don’t involve force or violence? For most people it’s not very easy to think of a non-violent way to solve the social problems that we currently have and the sad part is they dont even realise the solution they advocate involves violence. Most people I speak with start their X’s with ‘the government should do this’ until I point out to them that, that is breaking the rule! and the X they have come up with is invalid. when they ask how it breaks the rule I simply point out that any X that involves the state is automatically disqualified because the state gets its money through the initiation of force.

Let me explain briefly why X’s involving the state are not valid and breaking the rule.

If you work you pay taxes. The amount is irrelevant, if you pay income taxes that money goes to the state. that money then goes to paying for the schools, care for the elderly and oh yes WAR. So the government is the X for a lot of these problems. Here is why the state X is breaking the rule.

You can’t choose what you want to support. You cant. If you think don’t support the wars, think again because you do, as your tax money goes to it. shock horror you already knew this right? If you tried to withhold that money, lets say you refused to pay income tax because you wanted to withdraw your support for all the wars and the bombing, first you would receive a letter, not asking for the money but asking why you haven’t paid. You could respond if you wanted. you could tell them the reason why you are withholding your economic support for wars and bombing. then you get more letters. The rhetoric in the letters starts to get nasty and you start getting threats. Then you are ordered to court, and if you still refuse your economic support they send around people dressed in uniforms to kidnap you and take away your freedom. Heres the big bad news. If you resist. if you calmly say ‘no you are not taking me away. I have not committed a crime against anyone. I havent hurt, harmed, damaged or stolen anything. why do you want to kidnap me’ then the gun comes out. that imaginary gun in the room becomes a reality and you will be shot.

don’t discount this. This is not a ridiculous proposition. If you resisted forceful arrest with force weapons are going to be used against you. The bottom line here is there is always a gun in the room. The issue only arrises when someone picks it up. it doesn’t matter what the issue is. if the state wants something from you they will use force to get it no matter how unfair or how ridiculous they will ultimately use a gun to get you to comply. If the police turned up at your door and told you they were about to cart you off to jail for refusing to comply to a letter and you physically resist them they will come back with GUN’S!!!!!!!!!

That is the brief explanation why state X’s are not allowed, despite the fact that the majority of the problems we have today could be solved in a non-violent way we are stuck with multiple failing X’s enforced with violence by the state and supported by YOU!

This is what plurality of ideas is all about. That one single solution of the state is morally wrong because it uses violence to get what it wants. where plurality is concerned you can come up with multiple X’s and none of them involve violence. Lets come up with some non-violent X’s.

Comments from people saying ‘the state is the only way’ really havent thought it through and are supporting the use of violence. If you support the use of violence i will not engage with you. If you are willing to pick up the gun in the room and point it at me! then it will be a very cold day hell before i engage in debate with you, so really think about your comment before you post it. If you are prepared to point a gun at someone in order to solve a social problem you may not realise it but you are the problem.

Special thanks to Stefan Molyneux.

How would you vote?

NHS Reform

It’s all a big pack of lies. The politicians are not giving us the truth nor are the people who work in the NHS.
Too strong for you? Touch a bone?
Tough. What I’m about to say needs to be said before we bury this country in so much debt that our children and grandchildren will be left paying the bill for the rest of their working lives.
The NHS cost the taxpayer close to £100 billion a year. That is a lot of money. It was closer to £90 billion at the turn of the century but guess what it has increased every year!!!
Yes that right you heard me it has increased every year and will increase again this year so all you idiots complaining about cuts need to get your facts right before lambasting the Tories because of what the Labour naysayers spout. But wait. Don’t you Tory supporters think for a second that I’m sticking up for you because I’m a million miles away from that? What the Tories do is even worse. The Tories continue to take our money and give it to private companies to run the NHS. They call this privatization!!!! It’s not. It’s called crony corporatism. Privatization would mean actually selling something to a private company thus putting the responsibility for the running of whatever was sold to the private company. That’s privatization.
What Tories are doing is such a perversion of privatization it could not possibly be defined as such. If it sounds like I gibbering I apologize but I need to get this down while it’s fresh in my head.
None of our parties have the slightest idea how to run a national health service because none of them understand the economics behind successfully running a business. It’s not important that you don’t agree with me that the NHS should be run as a business but that is the way things are. It is a business and guess what? The people running it haven’t got a clue. It’s gotten too big and too out of control and it needs reducing in size/cost by about 80%.
You split the £100 Billion between the population (70 mill for argument sake) and it comes to about £1428 per person per year!!!! That’s £5712 per family if you have 2 kids. That is ridiculous. Seriously that is absolutely ridiculous. Private insurance cost between £1200 -£1500 a year for a family of four and about £840 for a single person at the top end of the market! That’s a big difference. That insurance covers an entire family and would provide the care needed for a family just as the NHS does. Take the top end of that insurance premium for a single person £840 and multiply it by the population of the country. That adds up to just over £58 billion and that doesn’t take into consideration the its cheaper the more people that care covered in the policy (a family of four). That is a big difference and would bring the expenditure down by at least another half. Potentially That’s between £42-75 billion savings a year difference. That money doesn’t go anywhere else on government that stays in our pockets! That money earned by our services or our labor that the government isn’t getting its grubby hands on. That’s billions that we get to spend or save because it’s us that has earned it.
Of course the socialists are screaming at this blog now complaining that not everyone can afford that cost per year. Well let me point out that I said reduce the NHS by 80% so there is still an NHS which will then cater for the lowest 20% paid of the country.
Im not without compassion.
80% of this country could easily pay for that private insurance policy if they were not paying the tax to pay for the £100 billion cost it currently runs at.
I know there are a few holes in this proposition but the principle is sound. Give the majority of the population back their money so they can afford to buy insurance that is cheaper than paying the government to run (very badly) a system that was designed to be a safety net not an entitlement.
It’s time for us to grow up and start acting like the responsible human beings we continuously profess to be.
So we now need to find £20 billion a year to run the reduced NHS.
Tax and duty revenue from tobacco – £10 billion
Tax and duty revenue from Alcohol – £10 billion
There it’s that easy. It’s not talked about or discussed by politicians because as far as they are concerned they couldn’t care less about what’s right or wrong more a case of what gets them re-elected. What keeps them in power?

Lets the insults begin. I have no aversion to constructive criticism and if I’m proven wrong on any points then please provide me with an alternate source of info.
That’s not to say I don’t mind people insulting me (except public servants!). I love it when people respond by simply throwing an insult because it means I have won the argument.

Lastly, this is my opinion and of course others are available.

My predictions for 2012.

I just wanted to get my predictions for 2012 out-of-the-way nice and early because I made some last year that did come true but no-one believed me when I said they would happen.

1. Greece will leave the Euro before the end of the financial year (mar 31) I believe this will happen because it is unsustainable for the greek government to keep borrowing money just to sustain the interest on the debts they owe. They will eventually tell the EU commission and the banks who have been lending them money that the only way they can save the greek economy is to return to the Drachma.

2. There will be another financial collapse along the same proportions as that of 2008 probably before the end of this summer. the derivatives market is still alive and kicking and the governments of the world have still not separated the retail banks and investment banks. this means that the next time the market confidence goes down sharply it could result in a significant loss in the perceived worth of the banks. When that happens they will need bailing out again because they have not only not been separated but they still have the ‘too big to fail’ label.

3. there will be a successfully foiled terrorist attack in either the US or the UK. a lot of new laws have recently been introduced in the UK and the US that establishment politicians say are required to fight the war on terror. more independently minded and intelligent people believe these laws simply erode civil liberties. the foiled attack which I have no doubt will be staged by way of entrapment of either religious extremists or a nationalist organisation, will be Lauded as a success of the new laws, and that the price of less freedom for more security is justified.

4. the media will find some scandalous story about the england manager or one of the players days before the Euro’s are due to start. This will ultimately undermine the teams chances of doing well at the tournament.

5. No independent candidates will be elected at the up coming police commissioner elections in november. there will be independent candidates but they will all be beaten by the money, power and influence of party politics thus politicizing the police authorities in England.

6. there will be a US led attack on Iran based on spurious evidence. It happened with Iraq and it will, as much as I don’t want it to happen, with Iran. there is just far too much money to be made by the corporate interests that pay for the politicians in the west for a war not to happen.

7. the UK will enter into a recession. Until the government’s budget is cut and taxes are lowered the out of control borrowing of money will continue and the poor, working and middles classes will see the value of their hard cash earned disappear under the inflation caused by the governments continued manipulation of money supply and interest rates.

8. Ron Paul will become the republican nominee for US president. I say this because when the delegates are added up and its clear that Mitt Romney gets all but Paul’s delegates, the party will be faced with one fact. the Paul supporters will not vote for Romney and the republican party will not win, so in order for the republican party to stand a chance of gaining the presidency back they will bite their thumbs and nominate Ron Paul.

9. China will overtake the US as the number one economy in the world.

10. there will be a natural disaster of massive scale and it will be blamed on anthropogenic climate change.

11. The euro will collapse. not completely but before the end of the year the likes of Spain, Italy, Ireland and Portugal will follow Greece out of the Euro and the countries currently waiting to join will change their minds.

Land of the free and home of the brave? Not anymore it would appear.

I don’t know if anyone noticed, but there was a fundamental shift in the way freedom and Liberty is legally recognized in the USA.

The U.S. House of Representatives, which are a body of elected representatives much like our Parliament, voted for a bill (National Defense Authorization Act). This bill, which had already been voted and passed on by the senate by a vote count of 93/7 in favor of the act (there are 100 representatives in the senate) was voted in favor by the House by a vote count of 283-186.

Before I move on I should also point out that the Senate voted 88-12 on November 30^th to LIMIT the debate on this bill.

The NDAA has a section within its pages. Section 1031. This section of the bill, not only declares that U.S. soil is now officially a ‘battle zone’, what we in the UK would call a ‘theatre of operation’, and allows for the INDEFINITE DETENTION without trial for American citizens all in the name of fighting terrorism. It will give the military the LEGAL authority to arrest and detain whoever they want for whatever reason they want with impunity in the USA.

If this does not send a chill down your spine, I would say there is something very wrong with your moral compass.

Now im sure that most people would instantly think that there must be some error, or that this legislation is for fighting terrorism and that this new law could not possibly be abused or used against its own citizens. Well on this occasion that assumption is wrong. The language of this bill clearly gives the executive branch the power of discretion to decide who is a terrorist, whether they are a U.S. citizen or not.

Im not making this up! Just type ‘NDAA section 1031’ into any search engine and you will see what has unfolded in the US.

Remember back in the naughties when Tony Blair tried to push through legislation for ’90 day detention’ it was the first and only time he was defeated in the house of commons. Our politicians just didn’t have the stomach for it and it got voted down. In the states I guess the politicians have stronger stomachs and just don’t care about the civil liberties of its people as much as our politicians.

Why am I writing about this?

Because people need to know what is going on all over the world. Think about it? If the US government is happy to do this to its own people what do you think they will do to the rest of the world?

They have already started the media propaganda machine as a pre-text to going to war in Iran. Politicians in the US past and present are actually calling for bombs to be dropped on Iran right now! This is important for the simple reason that when the US goes to war with anyone, WE, the United Kingdom are the first country they come to for political and military support.

When are people going to wake up and really see the perilous road we are being taken down by our ruling class? This Bill has not been mentioned by a single media outlet in the UK with the exception of the Guardian. The piece written is from 5 days ago and a lot has happened since then.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/dec/09/us-military-detain-citizens-without-trial

One media outlet! Nothing on TV, nothing on the news, Christ, even the Daily Mail missed the boat on this one.

Here is the kicker though! Even though the bill passed the house and the senate there is still one branch of government left for it to be signed off. The executive! Oh yes the President of the U.S.A. Barack Obama must sign off and agree with this legislation. You would think that there is no way he would do this. This man that said he would bring change to the world for the good of the people. Well folks that’s exactly what he has done. He has just nullified the bill of rights and made several amendments to the constitution illegal by agreeing with this bill and not using his power of veto. Its change, but is that for change for the good?

Who would have thought it possible that the American political class would want to strip its citizens of most of its civil liberties?

How long before these policies are shipped over the Atlantic to the UK. Our MP’s seem to fall over themselves to associate with Obama despite the fact he has now proven to the world to be just as bad a POTUS as his predecessor George Bush. how long before our parliament decides that it’s a good idea to introduce some legislation that makes the country a ‘theatre of operation’ how long before our government decides that it’s better to have all citizens liberty and freedom completely removed because they think it will make us safe, for the sake of ‘the illusion of security’

Please don’t misinterpret this blog as apathy towards pacifism. I believe that nations should have strong national defenses. It’s a government’s first duty to defend its people from foreign aggression. All countries should maintain the ability to defend itself, so I’m not against having strong military, but when that military turns in on its own people you need to start worrying about its intentions

I have to say that my sympathy goes out to all US citizens, but especially to peaceful political activists.

Gun rights advocates, anti abortionists, oath keepers, militias, anti-government movements, returning veterans and even some OWS movements. Some of these groups I have no association with and would never associate with. Some of the views held by them are not only ‘fool hardy’ but downright offensive to a lot of people including myself. I will never agree with what some of these groups say but I will always defend their right to say it, because that is what liberty is about. It is these people that will be the ones having to watch over their shoulder for big brother because it is these groups that the federal government, in some instances, see now and will come to see as domestic terrorists. Now this bill is the Law it’s only a matter of time before the federal government decides to start putting them in internment camps for the ‘safety’ of the general population. the federal government has done it before. During the second world war they interned all  American citizens with japanese ancestry, so it is not outside the realms of possibility that they do it again under the guise of the ‘War on terror’.

There is one glimmer of hope for Americans. One shinning light in an abyss of potential darkness, and that hope is a congressman called Ron Paul. I don’t need to tell you what he stands for go look for yourself or don’t the choice is yours.

Good luck America you are going to need it!

Update: At the time i wrote this blog i was unaware that President Obama had not yet signed it into law. We all know what happened on Dec 31st though. He did