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Patriotic oaths
Tony Blair co-conspirator Lawd Goldsmith has clearly been doing some deep thinking since leaving office as Attorney General from which he helped mastermind the illegal Iraq invasion. His latest 'idea' which he's launched in the public arena and which the idiot government of Gordon [is a moron] Brown is 'considering', is to have all teenagers swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen on the point of them leaving school. This is drawing howls of derision, criticism and mirth as it deserves to do, especially from teachers who have to control the little buggers much in the manner of lion tamers in the old animal-based circuses, although a chair isn't considered necessary as defence just yet. Far from doing anything constructive to heal rifts in a 'divided nation' it will open up rifts nobody knew existed, and will almost certainly open up the whole republican debate again, which can't be what Lawdy Lawdy Goldsmith really wants. Anyone who knows teenagers will know they are a pretty disparate bunch, much like adults, and grouping them together like this is unlikely to endear Goldsmith or his political chums to them. Some are doubtless monarchists and would jump at the chance to swear this in a public arena. But I would guess many are republicans and would just refuse to swear allegiance to any overprivileged monarch. In fact, I'm sure many would refuse just on principal no matter how they viewed the monarchy. The idea is apparently borrowed from the US, where else, and is based on American children swearing allegiance to the flag, something I find highly suspicious and dangerous, an automatic patrotism which may be one of the causes for America's belligerance in the world. I'm always suspicious of anyone spouting patriotism - the last refuge of the scoundrel, according to Sanuel Johnson - and prefer the healthy British scepticism and unwillingness to go along with jingoistic blandishments. There are still times when the British can be manipulated by politicians, notably the morally bancrupt Thatcher when she got the tabloids and some of their readers waving Union Jacks and singing Land of Hope and Glory over killing Argentinians. We are even expected to turn out to cheer 'our boys' when they return from killing Iraqi babies, although this idea has failed to catch on sufficiently to stage even one victory parade - the fact that Iraq has seen precious little victory may have something to do with it. The forcible swearing of anything is surely counterproductive; it's an external utterance that does not in any way reflect the internal thoughts, many of which would be utterly counter to the wording of the oath, which Goldsmith has yet to formulate. If he or anyone in government thinks it will diminish the violence in the streets, the no-go areas in some cities or the inter-ethnic tensions caused by multiculturalism, they had better t5hink again. In the modern world of the 21st century, we are a long way from the flag-waving patriotism that earlier politicians used to motivate and control the population; we are a much more sussed, more critical and more cynical people than existed back then. |
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PLEASE VISIT THE CONTRIBUTOR'S WEBSITE
Fool on the Hill
A blog about the state of the world
www.oneworldnet.co.uk/blog/index.php
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