Peter, I know your interest in pursuing this conversation any further is limited,

[Peter]

You know I love you, P. I honestly didn't think you would disagree with any of that.

I think it is the assumption about what I want. For the record, I want the bad guys (the rapists and van hirers) out and the good guys (ye of every faith and creed, bereft of hate, of spite, of greed) to all go for a beer together (or whatever your poison of choice).

How we do this is just details. I leave that to those who are paid to arrange such things.

And without wishing to start the muck spreading, I am getting a bit ****ing sick of you all adopting the American version of the term liberalism as though it were some sort of insult.

Liberalism is a british invention; it enshrined so many of the things we take for granted today as our civil liberties. It is in the USA that it is used as an abusive term to beat the ‘left’ with. I will have no part of it whatsoever.

I am bit ****ing disappointed that Berni hasn’t pointed this out to be honest.

[redgunamo]

I think it is the assumption about what I want. For the record, I want the bad guys (the rapists and van hirers) out and the good guys (ye of every faith and creed, bereft of hate, of spite, of greed) to all go for a beer together (or whatever your poison of choice).

How we do this is just details. I leave that to those who are paid to arrange such things.

And without wishing to start the muck spreading, I am getting a bit ****ing sick of you all adopting the American version of the term liberalism as though it were some sort of insult.

Liberalism is a british invention; it enshrined so many of the things we take for granted today as our civil liberties. It is in the USA that it is used as an abusive term to beat the ‘left’ with. I will have no part of it whatsoever.

I am bit ****ing disappointed that Berni hasn’t pointed this out to be honest.

Before all that though, don't you see that it's those very same principles which prevent you from supporting the kind of things that would get them out? It seems you're only whining because you, personally, might get blown up, which seems rather selfish as it fails to take into account any of the other undesirable social aspects. How are you going to throw them out? You couldn't even throw the redgunamos out! And the Islams know it.

B understands, I think, but he is at heart, one of you anyway.

[Ash]

I think it is the assumption about what I want. For the record, I want the bad guys (the rapists and van hirers) out and the good guys (ye of every faith and creed, bereft of hate, of spite, of greed) to all go for a beer together (or whatever your poison of choice).

The great thing about North London Turks, such as those you grew up with, is that you can go for a beer with them. wd Ataturk. Shame Turkish secularism has just been batted back into the 20th century.

And without wishing to start the muck spreading, I am getting a bit ****ing sick of you all adopting the American version of the term liberalism as though it were some sort of insult.

Liberalism is a british invention; it enshrined so many of the things we take for granted today as our civil liberties. It is in the USA that it is used as an abusive term to beat the ‘left’ with. I will have no part of it whatsoever.

It really might help if contemporary liberalism wasn't so bleedin illiberal, of course. Free speech? LOOOOOOOL! Tolerance for different opinions? ROTFLMAO! and so on.

Shake we call it #fakeliberal?

[Burney]

I think it is the assumption about what I want. For the record, I want the bad guys (the rapists and van hirers) out and the good guys (ye of every faith and creed, bereft of hate, of spite, of greed) to all go for a beer together (or whatever your poison of choice).

How we do this is just details. I leave that to those who are paid to arrange such things.

And without wishing to start the muck spreading, I am getting a bit ****ing sick of you all adopting the American version of the term liberalism as though it were some sort of insult.

Liberalism is a british invention; it enshrined so many of the things we take for granted today as our civil liberties. It is in the USA that it is used as an abusive term to beat the ‘left’ with. I will have no part of it whatsoever.

I am bit ****ing disappointed that Berni hasn’t pointed this out to be honest.

What you're saying is that you don't have a problem with the sea - just the bits of it that are flooding into your lungs and drowning you.

You can't separate the two things. The baddies don't spring fully-formed from nothing. They are educated,informed, tolerated, nurtured and tacitly encouraged by a community, a culture and a religion whose ideas should clearly exclude their adherents from your list of 'good guys'. And yet, legally speaking, the members of that community may not have done anything illegal, merely adhered to the tenets of their faith and culture as they see them. And here's the problem: your liberal (in its proper sense) belief in the freedom of others to worship and live as they see fit may have dire consequences for your (and others') ability to do the same.

In other words, you face the nightmare of a choice between competing and contradictory liberal values. Thus far, modern liberal western democracy has shown itself to be very bad at making that choice. Instead, it ends up giving lip service to one side (gay rights, women's rights, protection of children, etc), while in fact backing the side that explicitly opposes all those things. If that is your choice, then that's one thing. However, I don't think it is. I think most liberals (in its improper sense) genuinely believe in these things, but are so paralysed by their terror of being called racist or Islamophobic that they make hypocrites of themselves at every turn.

For instance, what could be more illustrative of this than modern, feminist women wearing hijabs in order to virtue signal about race? The sheer cognitive dissonance required to perform such an absurd act and not perceive the absurdity is at the heart of everything that is currently rendering the left ridiculous. For women who have long screamed that girls are oppressed, pigeonholed and coerced into harmful and oppressive sexist norms by everything from Barbie to push-up bras to stand there and nod bovinely while someone explains disingenuously that the hijab - a garment forced on women by patriarchy - is worn only by choice and in fact liberates you from the male gaze would be laughable if it weren't so sad.

Anyone who can perform such a wilful act of self-delusion is just intellectually and morally bankrupt, I'm afraid. And the left currently couldn't find a consistent intellectual or moral line with both hands and a flash lamp.

[Burney]

That is the worst thing you've ever said.

Call the hate crime police imo.

Unwarranted accusations of Irishness can be pretty damaging imo.

[Burney]

But many of them do drink, that's the point. Well, all the ones in the pub, certainly.

Oh, p! Bless your well-intentioned soft lefty assimilationist fantasies.
You think we're all going to end up one happy band of drunkards?
No. No, I'm afraid not.
Kipling knew it. East is East, West is West and all that. The twain will only go so far.