OUR round-up of the best, most pertinent and amusing comments of the week that have caught our eye.
In response to Kateri Muys: Why masks are a waste of time,
John Howard wrote:
Mask mandating has nothing to do with health. It is about power, regimentation, and uniformity. I refuse to wear a mask except when robbing banks, bankers being a form of virus themselves.
Gleepoid wrote:
Possibly one of the most baffling places I’ve seen masks being worn is in cars.
In response to Laura Buckley: Mrs America, the first woman President the US never had?
Audre Myers wrote:
Standing ovation! Outstanding article!
I was in my late teens in 1970 and had not one cell of interest in politics. When I read the name Phyllis Schlafly, I thought – oh, that terrible woman! I remember hearing and seeing terrible things about her on the radio, TV and newsprint. I am tickled to death to have you straighten out my memories! Today, the state of politics in America open for all to see, I’d vote for her for any government post! The higher the better!
D. A. Christianson replied:
Like Audre, I remember her, but despite the many negative things (neither the author nor Audre are exaggerating) said to and about her, she never wavered, but stayed true to her cause, right up to her death. An honoured heroine in real American conservatism.
In response to Chris McGovern: Macron’s Mad Assessment Disease,
blackbox2 wrote:
What fools they are. The Bac was a highly respected qualification.
In response to Joe Baron: The great Labour ‘centrist’ con trick,
Cameron Smith wrote:
I seem to remember Nick Clegg, on the day after the EU referendum and with all the awareness of a sleepy tortoise, still talking about Brexit as being a ‘fringe’ position. The question isn’t whether or not they are centrists, but why do they feel compelled to think of themselves as centrists?
In response to Tal Tyagi: How to choose a degree that will make you rich,
abbie wrote:
I am puzzled by the association of having a degree with earning power, especially being wealthy. When I went to university I do not recall it being because I was looking to get rich quick, if at all.
I wanted to go because I was ‘clever’ and that was the pinnacle of achievement for intelligence. It was proof itself of ability and of getting on. I was the first in my family (my dad should have gone but didn’t manage it because of the war and being working class. Financial pressures when he came home from war, meant he was not able to take the scholarship he had been awarded before the war.) It made my parents proud that I went to university (this was when only around 6 per cent got there).
Then, of course, I wanted to learn. I wanted to know things. I wanted to be educated. That was an end in itself.
In response to David Cann: The woke tragedy of RADA,
ANGELINTERCEPTOR wrote:
It’s no longer about talent, it is politically controlled art.
ladyshalot wrote:
Bravo David Cann, I salute you for being one of the few astute commentators who have been able to correctly link this woke movement with Mao’s cultural revolution. This was basically authoritarianism (created to deflect the populace from Mao’s disastrous economic policies). This was bolstered by its widespread denunciations. The modern day equivalents are the calling out and cancelling. People are losing their livelihoods just as they did in Mao’s China.
In response to Jane Kelly: I am living proof – you CAN forget how to ride a bike,
PierrePendre wrote:
Since the elections on June 28, France’s biggest cities, including Paris, have Green or Green-friendly mayors dedicated to making them anti-motorist. ‘On yer bike’ is the cry of these enlightened zealots though none has ever heard of the Chingford polecat and would be horrified if they did.
City centres are to be pedestrian and pedallised and in at least one case forested for the first time since the paleolithic age which is appropriate given the politics of our new masters. Stanley meets Livingstone in the centre of Lyon.
One mayor said the ideal was that everyone should be able to walk to all the facilities they need within a radius of three kilometres. I can still just about walk three km but I’d need a lie down before the return. Will there be beds? Carrying anything, like shopping, would be a non-starter.
Fortunately, it never rains or snows in France’s biggest cities and the global warming the Greens obsess about means it’s never cold so we can donate our longjohns to the musée de Vêtements.
In response to Paul T Horgan: Bye bye, BBC. I won’t miss you,
Julia wrote:
This is very timely and useful piece for me as we too are due to renew our tv licence this month. We haven’t been watching any mainstream tv at all this last three months, because it’s been utterly unwatchable. The fear porn propaganda on the news, the ‘woke’ culture shoe-horned in every new programme, and all the repeated dross in between. It’s been totally liberating to get away from it. Reading all the comments on here as well has confirmed my decision to join you. Cheers!
In response to Dr Kevin Donnelly: 1984 is nearly here,
Tee2 wrote:
The culture of 1984 is most evident in the limiting of language, we’re not quite at Newspeak stage (yet!) but we’re getting closer and closer as permitted words and phrases are gradually withdrawn from the leftist approved lexicon.
The Newspeak dictionary in 1984 decreased in size with each edition as words deemed superfluous and archaic were trimmed away, leaving only the means to express oneself on a purely functional level. The purpose of this would be to limit vocabulary and, by extension, thought. If you cannot articulate a thought it will remain unspoken, merely an intangible notion which cannot be communicated to others.
We are currently being presented with a growing list of phrases and words which are ‘problematic’ by MSM. We should refrain from using gender specific terms, for instance. This is not limited to ‘He’ or ‘She’ but also to phrases such as ‘to master a subject’. Master is too male, implies male authority and carries connotations linked to slavery. It is a word which carries with it the double sin of being considered both sexist and racist in the muddled thinking of the liberal left.
Other seemingly innocuous phrases fallen foul of the woke crusaders (another word which the left hate, so I’m determined to use it) include ‘good egg’ because it is too close to ‘egg and spoon’ (racist because it’s rhyming slang for a racial slur). What happens to the innocent egg spoon race, do they rename it, ban it?
Further to the above, a police officer was actually investigated for saying ‘good egg’, for the reason outlined above. Whilst another senior Met officer, some may recall, was suspended from duty pending an internal inquiry, on allegations of racism and gross misconduct, for using the words ‘whiter than white’ whilst briefing colleagues. He meant, of course, that police should be above reproach, as anyone with an IQ above a gnat could recognise, but to the left he was advocating white supremacy, an entirely white police force. Add to which there’s the inference that white = clean, unblemished and good.
Newspeak eliminated ‘bad’ as a word because it was superfluous to requirements, being merely the opposite of good. All concepts of the differences between the two extremes could be expressed with variants of good, ungood, plusungood, doubleplusungood. Perhaps, for the sake of leftists’ delicate sensibilities, ‘white’ should similarly become ‘unblack’. Unblack wedding, unblack knight, unblack trash, unblack Christmas. It would lend an added element of disapproval to the idea of ‘unblack van man’. This would also deal with the racism of chess: the maligned unblack would go first. Finally there could be ‘people of indeterminate gender in unblack coats’ ready to whisk these lunatics away before they ruin everything.
Let’s not wave the unblack flag yet.
The Contemptible wrote:
Orwell meant 1984 to be a warning. The Left are using it as an instruction manual.
In response to Michael St George: TCW’s Brexit Watch: Beware Whitehall’s Remainer Resistance,
Toby wrote:
In the past, the thought of finally escaping from the sinister European Commission and its absurd directives would have cheered me up no end.
But now, it increasingly looks as though we are under the control of a cabal of globalists who are pushing exactly the same kind of agenda as the EU: zero net carbon, population surveillance and control, censorship and state control of industry.
This isn’t what I voted for in 2016.
In response to Marianne Locke: My granny outclassed the woke-class pseuds,
Lucy Dawe wrote:
I grew up in the early 60s on a council estate, from a large family with very little money. My parents instilled in us the importance of honesty and integrity. We were taught that it didn’t matter what job you did as long as it was honest and you did it to the best of your ability. Bad language was frowned upon as were loose morals. You could be sure that any small misdemeanours would have been reported to your parents before you had even arrived home from the school bus and then dealt with accordingly. We were taught not to let down our parents, our schools, our communities and most importantly not to let down ourselves.
Without this strong moral framework we risk damaging our whole way of life.
