Okay so I have been outrageously slack in updating this blog since January.
I have said 200,000 Hail Maries, bleached my hair (and eyes) to look like that guy from The Da Vinci Code and will now try to make ammends. By killing Tom Hanks. And uploading some columns.
below should be some new ones.
Many sorrynesses.
Jonty
A bank once had me arrested. I want to admit that up-front, to be honest about potential resentment I might harbour while commenting on banking news. Here’s the sordid story, in all its tabloid glory: Years ago, in South Africa, I thought I was funny and some people disagreed (some things never change). While waiting in a bank, I wrote what I thought was an amusing note on a deposit slip.
My message read thus: ‘I have a gun some gum [‘a gun’ crossed out, replaced with ‘some gum’]. It is minty and fresh. Chewy chewy chewy, yum yum yum! Give me all your money.’ I left the note on the writing desk, happy to let my brilliant surrealist joke pass into legend without claiming any glory for myself.
I was, of course, an idiot. South African banks have a similar sense of humour to that of British airports, and the next time I went into the bank I was arrested on charges of attempted armed robbery. And put in the holding cells of Johannesburg’s violent crime police station for three days.
Since then, banks seem to have developed a robust sense of humour. Take last week’s news, for instance. The Office of Fair Trading won a court-case it had brought against Britain’s banks, asserting that the OFT should have the right to adjudicate when customers queried excessive bank charges. That means that over the last few months, while banks have been bombarding us with adverts about how much they love us, all-singing, all-dancing, laugh-out-loud feel-good romps designed to convince us that they care about their customers, they’ve been campaigning against fairness for them. That is hilarious.
Let’s be clear. What banks have been fighting against is not a specific judgement on what they may charge when we ‘dip into the red’. They have been campaigning against such charges even being assessed for fairness. The court battle they lost was trying to prevent the OFT from having any say in the matter.
Now, I’m no financial expert. And far be it from me to cast aspersions on any individual or business’s character. But if a person I’m doing business with seems very keen that independent standards of fairness are never applied to our dealings, I may be disinclined to trust him. If someone campaigns against fairness, the cynical part of me thinks that perhaps they are not keen on fairness. Shocking, I know.
The Bible obviously talks a great deal about unfairness in trade and business, and yet I find Christians I talk to are divided about this issue. While many, like me, think that banks should be forced to be fair, many others believe what one banking industry spokesman said on the BBC’s Moneybox programme on the weekend. When asked whether the penalty charges in question bore much relation to what the infringements by customers cost the banks, he repeatedly replied in terms of the banking industry being a competitive market. Apparently, those charges have less to do with cost and more to do with what the market will bear, what people are willing to pay. In other words, they may be unfair, but that’s just business.
As Christians we may not be conformed to the thinking of this world in terms of promiscuity, drugs or abortion, but I find myself assuming that businesses must obviously maximise profit at all costs, that such thinking is natural, that notions of ‘fairness’ are naïve and misplaced in business. And yet that is not what my Bible says. You don’t have to be a communist, an anarchist or wilfully stupid to believe that people are more important than profits. And you don’t need to write a note to steal from people.
more in this simplistic but fairly accurate series about what is really wrong with the banking system thatunderpins out economics, click here.
It’s a rich house, reeking of money. Big stair-case, crystal chandelier, and a guy at a huge grand piano. His wife, in evening-dress and pearls, says: ‘Play some blues, darling.’ At least, that’s how I remembered the Gary Larson cartoon last week as I listened to a programme about ‘The Non-Doms’ on Radio 4. I don’t want to appear childish, bat as I listened to one super-rich git after another talk about how tough it is to earn millions from the financial sector and how they felt hurt and a little betrayed by Britain, all I could hear after a while was a high-pitched whining. It sounded like this: ‘me me me me me!’
Occasionally someone would admit that paying £30,000 for the privilege of avoiding a just rate of taxation was not a problem, that the amount was chicken feed. And like magic, the whine would resolve into words. But seconds later, when he complained that while Britain had been good to him, ‘there are plenty of other countries out there that would be happy to have me,’ the sound (which I’m calling Selfish Rich Bloke Tinitus) returned, this time sounding like this: ‘bitch bitch bitch, moan moan moan.’
It’s the same thing I hear when a difficult middle child (between first-born and baby) is complaining that nobody loves them. In fact that’s what the ‘non-doms’ (super-wealthy business-people who avoid paying tax on their massive incomes because they technically don’t spend enough time here) are: difficult middle children of the rich kids family. Flamboyant, fun to be around, bringing a lot to the party when they’re at it, but fundamentally very stroppy if something’s not going their way. They are the very essence of the well-heeled wanting to play some blues. Showered with blessings, they are surprised when nobody has much sympathy for them.
‘Ah, but Mr Langley, be fair!’ you cry, ‘these people work very hard for their money!’ I don’t dispute it. But do they really work any harder than a teacher, a factory worker, a church worker? Those people can’t afford great tax lawyers. Those people pay the full rate, and you know what? Good. It is an immense privilege to live in a country where, for instance, the fact you get sick doesn’t mean you will die just because you don’t have money for medicine. As a Christian, that pleases me. And that’s paid for by taxes. Don’t get me wrong: I have my share of hatred for Inland Revenue. Just a few weeks ago, as I was rhythmically beating my head against the wall, self-assessment forms in hand, whimpering: ’take it all… take everything, just make the form-filling stop,’ I would gladly have strangled Adam Hart-Davis while screaming: ‘What did you ever do for us, you Roman-loving geek?! I’ll give you tax needn’t be taxing!’
But our frustrations with the (possibly satanic) bureaucracy involved should not distract us. Income tax is not the most just system (and I would recommend the works of 19th Century economist, Henry George for a brilliant alternative) but it is the next best thing.
The alternative is to privatise everything, meaning that those running tax-supported services will no longer be accountable to the government (and thus to you, me and the teacher/factory-worker who government serves), but to a bunch of shareholders and directors with profit on their minds. What we gain in saved taxes we will pay in service charges and the poor will pay in quality of life on our behalf. There are alternative systems to the current tax regime, and those should be given a chance, but if we care about justice we should be wary of the motives of those just trying to avoid it.
‘Half man, half tree’: it’s not a news headline because it’s not news. It’s exploitative tripe, the title of a the latest in a series of Channel Five documentaries about people with severe deformities. You know the sort of thing. They’re usually called ‘remarkable lives’, ‘being human’ or ‘just like you and me (only with something spectacularly wrong with them)’, because some clever marketing type knows that if you play sympathetic music and pretend to be making a serious, sensitive documentary, people won’t notice that what it is is a freak-show. The callousness we deplore in people who jeered at Joseph Merrick has been given a different gloss. In the nineteenth century, it was ‘scientific’, today it’s all about ‘human interest’. We know it’s sick, but we watch it anyway, because it’s on tv. Because it’s as easy as a click of the remote, we sit for hour upon hour, voyeuristically taking amusement from someone else’s suffering. Because it’s on tv, even the Telegraph last week ran a piece about the man with warts that resemble roots on his hands, creating legitimate news out of PT Barnum style exploitation.
Because something is on tv, because it is given tv budget, scripting, direction and visual treatment, we think we are somehow better than Victorian crowds looking at human beings in cages at a fair-ground. That is the illusion of television. One of the many.
But before I get on what channel five might call ‘the boy whose pony did heroin’ (or: ‘my high horse’) let’s be honest: it’s not about watching better tv. TV, in itself, as a whole, is of the devil. Too harsh? Okay, answer this: why do so many Christians live only for themselves from day to day rather than running soup kitchens or witnessing to their neighbours? ‘No time,’ is the common answer. And what is the greatest time-thief of them all? Where can we lose an evening without realising it, every day of the week? I’ll give you a clue: it’s not the gym and it’s not church. In 2006 the average American tv consumption was 8 ½ hours a day.
Many Christians dislike tv because of the filth and violence on it. They are missing the point. Beyond the ADHD it breeds in children, the negative messages about sex, body image, violence, money and consumerism, tv is bad because it is so good at entertaining us we have given over most of our free time to being entertained. And every Christian who doesn’t realise that being entertained is not why we were born (or born again) has missed the point of his faith.
It’s not the content, the physical freak shows of Channel Five or the social freak shows of most day-time tv. It’s the fact that it occupies both of your most powerful senses, making you a passive receiver of whatever information it spews out. It’s the fact that it sucks away your time in increments of hours or half hours. It’s the fact that we’ve become so addicted to it, ‘family time’ is now ‘tv time’ (not sure that’s true? Where do the sofas point in your living room? What does that say about our ‘family values’?).
From 21 to 27 April 2008 is International TV Turnoff Week. Think of it as fasting, think of it as a second Lent. Think of it as an opportunity to see for yourself what a hold tv/PS3/Wii/Xbox has over you and your family. Go cold turkey for a week. Who knows what you’ll do, who you’ll spend time with and what God might show you when you’re not staring at that screen? Visit www.turnoffyourtv.com , www.whitedot.org and www.adbusters.org/tvturnoff for information on the 2008 and 2007 campaigns.
Without a hint of irony i now share something from tv:
‘Bob Mugabe Becoming A Bit Of An Embarrassment’ was not a headline that appeared in newspapers last week, but it did in my mind. You see, I have a confession: I am a fan of African leaders who stand up to the UK, the US, the IMF and the World Bank. I admit it. I want them to succeed. I want to defend black leaders in post-colonial Africa because I think they have a virtually impossible job in trying to build, on broken foundations, a society that satisfies international definitions of success and stability while still serving the interests of people downtrodden for centuries. I want to defend them because I am all too aware of the bias against them. Perhaps I am defensive and paranoid, but I simply don’t buy that we are as free of racism in our hearts as we like to believe, and I suspect that those attitudes make us all too willing to say and report the worst about black African leaders.
For many, Mugabe justifies this. From genocide in the 1980s (death-toll: over 6,000 people) to his corruption of the land reform programme of more recent years, Mugabe has proved those who want to discredit every strong African leader right. And that annoys me. Yes, reports on Zimbabwe are often embarrassingly biased and that bias goes largely unquestioned. Yes, it took white people losing land to make anyone care about Zimbabwe. Yes, there are worse tyrants, more oppressive governments, less democratic countries and places where leaders have killed many more people that Mugabe and we know or care little about them. But that does not change the fact that Robert Mugabe has disgraced himself as a leader and should leave. His corruption, killings, and oppression make it imperative, but so does the fact that every day he stays in power is another day when those below-the-surface racist beliefs of white or self-hating black people are confirmed: Africans cannot govern themselves.
Mugabe is doing to the image of African leaders what Tony Blair last week did for faith. The former PM was quoted in a speech about his faith’s impact on his policies saying he had no regrets. Columnists lambasted him. But the right to faith informing politics is not undermined by the fact that the architects of the Iraq invasion (independently estimated civilian death-toll: 80,000 people) exercised that right. It proves the importance of that faith being tested, accountable and rooted in the teaching and Spirit of Jesus. The fact that a thug in Zimbabwe continually rants about the West interfering in the affairs of Africa does not make the acknowledged and unacknowledged 20th century history of European and American-supported coups, invasions, wars and despots in Africa disappear.
So let me ask a question: if we’re praying publicly and prophetically for the MDC to win, what are their policies? If they turn out to be despots in the Mugabe mould, are we going to shrug shoulders, muttering ‘that’s Africa,’ and absolve ourselves of involvement? 
And if they do what they are no doubt being pressured to by Western allies who’ve unquestioningly supported them (privatise state assets and sell them to American and European corporations, introduce GM crops only available from overseas, liberalise their markets in a way that would make Christian Aid’s trade justice campaign scream), will we still be praying for change and justice? Will we retain our prophetic zeal when this particular bogeyman is gone? More importantly, will we ever have the courage to pray and preach and write and speak against our country’s allies rather than our enemies? Because if we are unwilling to point the finger of blame at them and at ourselves, it’s not prophecy, it’s propaganda.
Excuse my French (and the fact it has nothing to do with Monsieur Sarkozy), but what the hell is going on? When did liberals in the right-to-life vs science/a woman’s right to choose debate actually become the caricature they have been portrayed as by the Conservative Church? It pains me to use hyperbole and sensationalist language about my liberal brothers and sisters, but, when did they actually start hating fetuses?
Perhaps I exaggerate. But last week we read about the human embryology bill and the controversy surrounding the Catholic Church’s statements in opposition to it, and something occurred to me. The pro-life view that it is always wrong to kill a fetus is often derided because it takes into account only one position: that human life is valuable from conception. But the almost unquestioning liberal support demonstrated in debates last week for embryo-tampering research suggests that some people will find any reason to be anti-fetus.
When we’re talking about abortion, the justification is ‘choice’. A woman’s right to decide what happens to her body. But at other times, the same people come out and say the reason fetuses need to die this time is ‘science’. Finding many justifications for the same end is not helping paranoid fetuses, who already think: ‘they’re out to get me’. They clearly are.
Now, I’m no fan of kids. I have, on occasion, wanted to throttle, punch or otherwise lightly kill some underage member of our species because it was annoying me. But even I don’t understand the fear among my liberal friends, Christian and non-Christian, of expressing pro-life views. It’s like the only reasonable opinion to have on any matter regarding unborn children is the one in which the fetus gets it in the neck.
So I want to ask my liberal friends: why do you hate unborn babies? What did they ever do to you? Sure, they look like the live snake-food you buy in pet-shops, and, when you get right down to it, they’re not really bringing much to the table in terms of conversation, work-ethic or sex-appeal. But is that any reason to side against them in every argument?
I think Christians are to blame. The pro-life lobby, mainly. The unloving attitude of those campaigning for fetal rights towards unfortunate women (who have chosen to have abortions) and the ignorant ravings employed against scientists have damaged our reputation, obviously. But more than that, they have damaged the reputation of the pro-life cause. Our own disgraceful behaviour has made it easy for cynical individuals and institutions, motivated by profit from research or just a nihilistic rejection of basic human
worth to win the argument before it has begun. ‘If you’re pro-life’, they insidiously suggest, ‘you’re intolerant, a nutter, a bigot, a superstitious fool.’ And many of us (Christians, liberals, thoughtful people), not wishing to draw social fire, would rather change our heartfelt views, or at least keep them secret, than suffer the shame of aligning ourselves to an embarrassing opinion.
While there is much rubbish bandied about in the media about fetal-rights issues (‘dumbed-down science so we, the masses will understand; dumbed-down politics so that we will obey; dumbed-down ethics so that we will assume we must keep our faith separate from our politics), we should be clear in our minds. There is no overwhelmingly powerful argument, scientifically or otherwise, for believing that a human fetus is not fully human. And if we care about adults dying in poverty or war, if we object to parents killing their toddlers, if we use terms like ‘basic human dignity’, we should not automatically ashamed to apply those standards to the unborn. That way, real debate may take place, instead of caricatures on both sides.
‘Warning: Crucifixion is bad for your health,’ was the best headline last week. FOX News and a few other news carriers ran the story (no doubt out of their deep and abiding respect for Christianity rather than for a cheap Easter laugh), about warnings from Filipino bishops that people re-enacting Christ’s flagellation and crucifixion could be opening themselves up to the risk of tetanus. You may be thinking: ‘If the health and safety brigade were around back then, Jesus would have been crucified under anaesthetic, in a bed of cotton wool.’ Well, okay, you’re probably not thinking that, but I would not be surprised to hear it. Some people have issues with Health and Safety.
I myself have found the phrase: ‘Health and safety,’ used as a discussion-ender, an argument in itself against some proposed course of action, as if just by saying those magic words the debate is automatically won. That is annoying, as are the many other ways in which the legislation (intended to protect workers from unscrupulous employers who endangered lives in the pursuit of efficiency and profit) has been taken to an illogically extreme conclusion.
But let’s be clear: a world in which petty oxygen-wasters and mindless bureaucrats annoy us is preferable to one in which miners are guaranteed an agonising death from lung disease and the poor have no choice but to do jobs that could result in losing a finger, a limb, an eye.
If we have been ‘swaddled in cotton-wool’, as so many people are so fond of saying so very often, how come can I still hear them complaining? I think these people, like the ‘it’s political correctness gone mad’ gang, like to have something to whinge about. And it really doesn’t matter to them that they are essentially undermining what the powerless in society have worked for hundreds of years to establish, because of the same tired examples of the woman who spilled her coffee and sued a restaurant or a burglar who sued a homeowner for bodily harm.
Oddly, I haven’t read much in the related line of ‘this litigious society is out of control’ clichés about Kate and Jerry McCann’s victory last week over some tacky newspapers in a libel case. Everyone, it seems, thinks it’s a good thing that newspapers had to cough up money for saying the parents were responsible with no evidence to prove it. It seems that, in the minds of the right-wing back-lashers (lash-backers?), if your daughter is missing, whether or not it has been proven to be your fault or otherwise, then suing people is apparently not a symptom of a decadent society, but a victory for decency. Personally I applaud the victory. Not because I necessarily believe the McCanns are guilty or innocent (there has hardly been much conclusive evidence either way), but because many newspapers, not just those found guilty, have not so much delighted in this couple’s suffering so much as callously used the story for profit. Siding with the McCanns or demonising them have both served to sell newspapers and while they might be victims, we, the public are all dupes. Perhaps we should sue.
Or perhaps China should. News last week lambasted the admittedly oppressive state for the way it treated protestors who were rioting. Which is interesting in a country where holding up an offensive sign can get you into jail. Some papers have asserted that China does not belong in Tibet. Fair enough. I happen to agree. But isn’t that a bit rich in countries like Britain and US, which still hold colonies (I’m sorry: ‘protectorates’ and ‘states’)? What’s Chinese for ‘Falklands war’ or ‘Diego Garcia‘? Think that’s an unfair comparison? Sue me.
Like a downtrodden nerd who’s just been stuffed in his locker by an American movie jock and shouts ‘Oh yeah?’ too late to be effective, I’ve just thought of a comeback. It’s a year and a half late, but I’m going to say it anyway, because, as the kids say, that’s how I roll. Remember that British Airways employee banned from wearing a cross? At the time I was sympathetic, but also uneasy about something. I said nothing then, but here it is: I don’t care! If she works for an airline, she’s the enemy.
This has nothing to do with climate change. I just hate airlines. Apart from the fact that they are masters of shifting blame (you miss a connection because bad weather slowed your progress to the airport? Tough luck: your problem. But if you’re there on time and conditions hamper the airline is it their problem? Not so much). And apart from the fact they seem to think that getting your luggage to your destination with you is a bonus rather than an essential service you pay through the nose for, I believe they’re power-mad.
In what other customer-led business can you have someone arrested for making an obvious joke about a (or even saying the word) ‘bomb’ at the wrong time?
Airlines claim this is for safety. I think nobody wants to question their power. Why should one not be allowed to make an obvious joke about a bomb? I can understand hoax bomb-threats or wasting security staff’s time with serious allegations, but saying: ‘Ha ha, what’s that ticking sound inside your bag?’ or answering: ‘not a bomb’ when asked what’s in the suitcase is insensitive, but not dangerous.
Humour is the first casualty in any scary situation, and as someone who has actually spent time in a cell for the sake of a joke, I am aware how serious that casualty can be. But I do not think that justifies it. Comedy is a good way to deal with fear, with tension and with boredom. Those three things are essential aspects of the modern airport, so I’d like to call for Terminal 5 (opened last week by Her Royal Ha Ha Haness, The Queen) to be a comedy-amnesty zone. If anyone does or says anything to do with hijacking, bombs or terrorism that is not obviously a joke (like the idiot who ran onto a runway last week with a backpack and is frankly lucky to be alive), please feel free: let the most frustrated, downtrodden, resentful member of security staff lead them away, a gleam in their eye with a week’s supply of glee with which to rub their hands. But if it is clearly a joke, in Terminal 5 I think staff should be ordered to laugh or to critique the joke for originality, timing and cleverness. They, after all, will have heard most of them before. Followed by the sounds of tazers, screams and attack dogs.
I’m aware of the danger here. I’m aware that in between submitting this column and the paper going to print there could be a terrorist attack on an airport. It is important in these situations to remember that laughing does not mean you don’t care. In terrible circumstances, Christianity and comedy can have a similar message (if the style and approach of both is right, sensitive and well-timed): ‘The world is not meaningless; you still have power and choice over your reactions and control over your ultimate path; no matter what horrors confront you, you are still human; there is still hope, there is still reason for joy.’ Luckily there are no laws against preaching the Gospel in airports or on planes. Yet.
Pics taken from this site. Check it out.
Church youfworkers and youth-workers – can you tell the difference? Here’s a crash-course for you: your youth-workers work with the youth. That is to say, the young people in or around the church, whose backgrounds are middle-class or aspirational working-class, who are generally polite and, if not, are described as ‘having a few personal problems.’ If they wear hoodies, they do so unconvincingly. If they carry a knife it is probably for buttering toast. Youf, on the other hand, wear hoodies like they mean it and when they act up we call them ‘vicious little thugs’ or simply ‘the enemy’. Youf are the kids whose problems are so far removed from the experience of a middle-class liberal such as myself that even though ideologically I want to embrace them (while remaining within Safe-To-Grow guidelines for best-practice, obviously), in reality a lot of the time I get the urge to shout ‘shoo! Go away! You’re getting dirt on the carpet!’
In my mind I know what they need is the Joseph Rowntree (19th Century philanthropist with a concern for eradicating the causes of disadvantage) treatment. In the moment, I often think they need more Richard Rowntree (20th Century black movie icon with a gun and a concern for being a ‘bad mother’ and telling people to ‘shut your mouth!’).
Last week’s news saw a local story about a charity that was collecting chocolate for young offenders. My initial reaction was: ‘are you insane?! Do you know what sugar does to children?!’ I thought it was hopelessly naïve to think chocolate was going to be any help and that these people must be working with youth, rather than youf. Reading further, however, I discovered that the charity had warned people to remove the chocolates from their wrappers, as these might be used to smoke drugs. Ah, that’s the youf I’m familiar with.
Youf, of course, need prayer, resources and people who can hide their discomfort (a youfworker friend honestly once advised me: ‘don’t let them see fear. They can sense fear.’), but sometimes they also just need to be shown kindness. And as Christians that is something we should easily be able to offer: treatment that communicates that, despite being freaked out by and frightened of their behaviour, their attitude and, if we’re honest, the sheer overwhelming magnitude of the challenges they face, we see youf as valuable human beings. So bravo for the chocolate.
But kindness won’t protect you from the ultimate weapon they have: making you feel old. When you hear a kid say they are ‘catting for draw’ and have to ask them what it means (‘craving cannabis’, apparently), it is a pivotal moment in your life. It’s the moment you realise you’ve become your dad, so uncool, so disconnected from ‘the street’ you no longer even speak it’s language. And there is nothing as desperate and pathetic as a youf (or even youth)worker trying to use young lingo he does not understand. It’s like a monkey being made to play the piano: it may be cute, it may be funny, but it doesn’t breed respect and should probably be illegal. It’s like David Cameron trying to appear ‘down with the kids’ and shake off the ‘nasty party’ image by hugging hoodies or appearing on YouTube (Cameron, incidentally, was in the news last week opening a new printing press for the Daily Mail – make of that and what it says about his true attitudes what you will).
None of that is as embarrassing as the advertising scramble to be associated with the success of Facebook. IT’s bad enough when the iPhone does it. But PG Tips? Even in the credibility-bereft world of advertising, that leaves me catting for authenticity.
now, here’s a song that expresses it all perfectly. Some almost strong language and almost violent imagery, so if you don’t like that sort of thing, don’t almost watch it. My Chemical Romance (the band) said they were aiming for a Creedence Clearwater Revival sound. That and the fact that the Daily Mail hates them is enough for me.
Poor Prince Harry. If he hadn’t gone to Afghanistan he’d have been accused of abusing privilege. Because he did, he was criticized for endangering lives by making himself a target. It’s hard to be too sympathetic, though. Media attention is tough, but let’s face it: there are worse countries to be a young royal than Britain. It is, after all, Great.
That’s right. You heard me. Great. I think this country is brilliant. In fact, I think it is better than other countries and we are lucky, as Christians, to be here. That is not because I’m so darn proud of Prince Harry. It’s because the way things are done here are better. Better than a lot of places.
A Guardian story a while back about the evils of union-busters made an interesting point: these blighters have a tougher time keeping workers unorganised and powerless in Britain than they do in the States.
Stringent labour laws? Maybe. But I think that’s just the way British people do things. Charity shops, Make Poverty History, middle-class white evangelicals who campaign for the poor, the fact that both Respect and the BNP may legally operate – you don’t find these things everywhere. Britain is, for all its faults, still open to doing the right thing, and through the Commonwealth, the Special Relationship and, well, our money, the world still listens to us.
Which is why two bits of news disturbed me last week. One had to do with the government agreeing to allow GM testing by bio-tech companies in secret locations because the pubic opposition was too strong, and the other was the tone of news reports about suspected Islamist terrorists playing paintball in the New Forest.
By allowing secret testing to avoid public outcry, the voice of public opinion is actively silenced in favour of the voice of big money. That speaks to me of an erosion of one of the greatest things about this country: that one has a sense that the government is looking out for you, that if terrible things are done here they will not be allowed to continue, and that the will of the people matters.
When a man is tried in the court of public opinion because he is a Muslim and shouts ‘Allah Achbar’ while paintballing, that speaks to me of an erosion of freedom of conscience. I love living in a country where I can believe whatever I like. And I love that the content of my beliefs does not determine whether I can hold or express them. And I hope a Muslim guy can for a moment fantasise that his life is more interesting than it really is by picturing himself as a freedom-fighter rather than, say, Conan the Librarian while playing with friends. This man’s faith and his political views on our many wars should not change that.
The Americans have an interesting idea as part of their constitution. The right to bear arms is entrenched there not to protect them from burglars or Al Quaeda, but so that citizens can rise up against an unjust government if they need to.
No guns is another reason to love this country, but in always being prepared to push their leaders back in line (at least in theory), I think the Americans have something. Because this country will not stay as genuinely great as it is if we do not protect what makes it so. And that’s not our wealth or even the beautiful scenery, culture or language, at least not for the Christian. It’s a society in which people need not fear oppression – not from the wealthy, not from the politically powerful and not even from majority opinion. That’s a nation worth fighting for.
Hmmmm… he’s Ginger, he’s clearly familair with the queen or he wouldn’t talk like that, he’s a bit of an oaf… familiar?
