NOVEMBER 2003
The last few week around here have sounded more like Central Bagdhad than a supposedly peaceful English market town. The fireworks and airbombs have been a constant background noice from early afternoon till late at night. I figure the local kids have spent more on this than what an average family makes in a year, but then Swinemoor Estate is classified as a deprived area, which of course explains why they can afford it.
Regular readers might remember that Moggy, the Heimbu cat, disappeared earlier this year, never to be seen again. Now Deshi, the apprentice cat, has been missing for 2 months, and we're afraid that the local urban fox has got him, too.
"Keeping a cat indoor at night may reduce the risk that it will be killed or injured in a road accident."
The finding of Dr. Irene Rocklitz of Cambridge University, after an exhaustive inquiry.
One wonders how we ever managed to excist in the old days without science. Moggy and Deshi might still be with us if I had come across this report earlier. Well, at least it is nice to see that our tax money is spent wisely.
We follow gross national happiness, not gross national product.
Prince Jigyel Wanchuk of Bhutan.
"The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness
To an opponent, tolerance
To a friend, your heart
To your child, a good example
To a father, deference
To your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you
To yourself, respect
To all men, charity"
- Francis Maitland Balfour
Last time the barbarians descended on Europe en masse the small farmers placed themselves under the protection of powerful lords in exchange for their property and certain ancient rights. A few generations later the threat of the barbarians were gone, but the former free men were serfs tied to the land with no rights at all.
This time around we are told that our masters in Whitehall and Washington need us to give up certain rights in order to combat the terrorists threat so democracy can be saved. It's all for our own good of course, nothing to worry about, big brother knows best.
I don't really want to sound like a rabid right winger on the lunatic fringe, but the older I get the more I wonder what is the point of having a Central Government. It seems to me that far from being the solution to solving our problems, the Government is the problem.
What is Central Government actually supposed to be doing apart from bleeding us all dry with ever higher taxes?
Let me try to analyze the why's and how's of this.
1. Law making
2. Law enforcement
3. Education
4. The Military
5. National Health
6. Transport
7. Social Security
8. Er, that's it actually
1. Law making.
There are now more than 500,000 laws on the statue books; most of them of no practical use. Generally speaking the only law needed is "Do no harm", but I'll go along with the fact that a few more might be neccessary. However, I believe that presedence will actually see to that we will all know what is right or wrong.
2. Law enforcement.
A lot of people in the UK today will wonder what law enforcement. The possibility of the police catching a burglar or a drug dealer is almost non-existant. Most of their time is spent on seeing to that a maximum amount of money is going into the Government's coffers, and making sure that anyone looking capable of independent thought will be dealt with at once. This month we have actually been told that if we want a policeman to deal with crime, we have to hire one ourselves. Which is fair enough, except we still have to pay for the ones who are not dealing with crime.
3. Education.
This is starting to become a real problem. The Government has for all practical purposes seen to it that no-one gets a real education anymore. Generally speaking if you have learnt to read, write and do sums, neither of which is particularly difficult, but still beyond half the people coming out of Universities nowadays, you can access just about any knowledge you would want, through books and the help of a good tutor. But most children do not have the time to study, because they have to attend school where the system is based on stopping them from learning anything that might make them think. Private schooling is an option if you can afford it, but most of us can't, one reason being that you will still have to fork out to the Government twice the money that private schooling costs even if your child is not attending a state school. As for having access to a tutor, forget it. Anyone willing to work with children will either be totally controlled or in jail.
4. The Military.
There was a time, not that long ago, when it was the duty and right of every free man to protect the homeland and to keep the arms with which to do so. But as our Government does not trust its people with arms, we now have a professional army that takes orders from our political masters.
5. National Health.
The National Health Service is a bottomless pit that swallows any amount of money thrown at it without improving the Nation's health to any noticable degree. We are being prevented to take any responsibility for our own health; a sick populace is much easier to control.
6. Transport.
This beyond a joke; the so-called privatization of the railways has been a complete disaster because the authorities could not bear to lose control. The very few places where the rail company actually control both the rolling stock and the track works perfectly well because everyone knows who is responsible, but in the majority of services no-one is responsible so they can all blame each other.
7. Social security.
One would think that this is one thing where the Government would be supposed to offer a useful service. But instead of looking after the vulnerable, a client-sponsor situation has been allowed to develop. Need is no longer the criteria, only the knowledge of how to work the system. The ability to look after oneself is regarded with suspicion and financially punished.
A Government that does not trust the people, is a Government that cannot be trusted by the people.
So what could life be like with little or no interference from Central Government? If one could actually be allowed to deal with muggers and burglars without having to go to jail, if one could be allowed to teach ones children without being locked up, if one could work in ones own neighbourhood instead of having to commute, if one could have time to prepare and grow proper food instead of excisting on pre-prepared supermarket thrash, if one could have enough money left to retire on instead of having to work til one dies, if one could be allowed to live healthily, but have enough money left for medical treatment if neccessary instead on dieing in queues to see a consultant, if one could be allowed to take up arms to protect ones country instead having the politicians selling us out, if one could be a citizen instead of a subject? What would it be like to be an eagle living free instead of being a turkey waiting for Christmas?
"Before government got into the business of protecting us from ourselves, we did have a greater measure of protection from others." Walter Williams
On Sunday I was invited by Marcus to come over for a day of hawking in the country. He's got a contract to clear the local landfill sites of gulls and crows so he's trained up a lot of new birds. He also has Bronwen, my old Redtail hawk on a permanent loan to deal with the rats, and Bronwen being Bronwen, even the rats have trouble breeding fast enough to keep up with her. Her lungs might be shot so that she can no longer outfly rabbits and hares, but she is still the ultimate killing machine within a 10 metres distance.
Anyway, we had some good flights at pheasants with a couple of Harris hawks even if there was no kill. At the end of the day I was conned into taking home a Kestrel that the RSPCA wanted to return to the wild, but so far she has had other ideas. I now fly her in the garden in the morning, and the rest of the time she sits on my shoulder or on the top of my head whenever she sees me, as we keep her in the house at night. We've named her Topsy.
In the first decades of the previous century Britain ruled half the world through the Colonial Office in London. Today the Colonial Office oversees five little islands and a piece of rock, employing twice as many people.
One of the great winter pleasures of my childhood was sledging, but a new study has branded it a deadly danger to children and calls for it to be banned. It will soon join conkers, marbles, yo-yos, sack racing and three-legged racing on the list of things that are too dangerous for the poor little dears.
The war on terrorism is still on, but I wonder for how long. Already the loss of American life in Iraq has passed the 500 mark, and everyone is starting to panic. A nation that cannot sustain losses of 0.00025% of its population is never likely to win any kind of war.
Not that things are any better here in the UK. The other day a 6 year old boy brought a pair of pliers into a local school, and some of the other children told their teacher, who promptly marched the whole class, apart from the boy, outside. The whole school was then evacuated, parents were told to collect their children because of the emercency, and both children and parents have been offered councelling in order to deal with the trauma. The boy has been permanently excluded from school, and the school governors are discussing with the police and the Council what to do to stop anything like this ever happening again.
I repeat. A 6 year old boy brought a pair of pliers to school. And we are talking about winning a war against suicide bombers who don't care whether they live or die.
Last week et was sledges, and now they are looking into banning rocking horses. It seems that the possibility that someone might fall off has got the bureaucrats panicking. How long before they notice that some children actually ride real horses? That should really get them going.