Friday 20 February 2015

Policies for others affect you as well

I remember back as far as the 60s, listening to the intellectual north London professionals and businesspeople around me talking about how people have too much money, it's not fair, and it should be taxed heavily (at a time when the top rate was already around 97%) to somehow even things out. The first obvious thing hit me, as a small child under ten, was that how did they make their money and wouldn't it hurt them and people like them the most? Of course it would. In fact my erstwhile friend of the 1970s, Toby Young, also made the same observation where his family and their friends, many times wealthier than mine, would discuss exactly the same things over the most expensive wine and then drive home in their Rolls Royces and Jaguars, and such hypocrisy was the major reason for him becoming a Tory.

Money is not the only area, but the clearest. Besides the fact once you take more than about 40% of people's earnings you collect less (as people cheat more, work less and move abroad), so it is punitive and bad for the country, and it doesn't actually go directly to poor people but the treasury pot, who then decide where it goes using their own current policies. Nothing has changed, people I know who have done well in business and the professions are the most raging socialists, advocating policies which would take away their houses (mansion tax), cars (green tax and restrictions), and power (green taxes and renewables). They, having the most, will of course lose the most. Their cars, not mine, now cost them maybe £400 for road tax compared to around £100 for me as the policies were changed to relate to the size, and I can't afford anything like it. In smaller ways like this which they can easily afford the irony goes straight under their radar, but even as they renew their Labour Party membership, where they want to reverse tax cuts for 'millionaires' (it's actually people who earn more than £150,000 p.a. so they are liars) from the measly 45% back to 50%, even though they've found people paid less overall since it was increased to 45% from the original 40%. I won't pay 50,40, or nowadays even 20% as I don't earn it, but I still fight for those who do, mainly  as it's their money among various other equally logical reasons, and also because unless they stole it or cheated to obtain it then it's the combination of their hard work and superior talents, often paid for in years of study.

Forget the reasons for greater wealth, the left only see the differences in wealth and virtually dismiss the actual causes of it, basically painting anyone wealthier than they are as some form of shady criminals. Including overlooking their own wealth though somehow if they are in the top whatever percent, they and the friends and family are discussing the best ways to remove said wealth from others, are both exempt from the tar brush of  suspicion, and forget somehow they will also be that much worse off. Apparently as they know they earned their money genuinely they don't count, but everyone else does. The money, as alluded to already, is just one aspect of 'we will tell you how you should live' campaign, extends now since the creation of global warming to suffering for a greater unknown future benefit, including saving the lives of people that don't yet exist. The same mental framework is required behind it, that life is not fair and it must be made fair as otherwise it's not fair, or something. Pretty much the entire philosophy of Dave Spart, who for all I know is still writing for Private Eye after 50 years or so. Have they actually imagined the consequences, not just for the poor sods called 'everyone else' who will not have constant reliable power as the coal stations had been closed down 'to save the planet', and the remainder will cost so much as it's being generated by rocking horses and special elastic bands (you really wouldn't get much difference) paid for at source from your higher taxes, higher energy bills, and subsidies to manufacturers and operators. They don't work though as the wind rarely blows at the required rate and the power can't even be stored when it's generated in excess periods, and solar panels tend to only work when you least need them and any excess isn't enough to store in sufficient quantities.

The Incas typified the ancient mindset of sacrifice, using the well publicised 'precautionary principle'. As newspapers and even courts of law did not yet exist, subtlety was not a consideration, so the virgins regularly had their throats slit and hearts removed to sacrifice to the gods of weather for the greater good. Making 3,000 extra people die of cold a year in Britain alone from not being able to afford their heating bills is doing the same thing indirectly, enough so that they can't actually (yet) be connected under the law, but are still 3,000 people who would probably all still be alive had the prices not been ramped up with green taxes. Then when the energy is rationed when each year more power stations are closed under the EU laws everyone will lose their power at times as Lord Stern already stated in his report. This is not even in question. These laws were designed in the 1992 Kyoto Protocol, and clearly state that they are not designed to replace fossil fuel generation with renewables, but reduce demand for energy. Think about that in detail. How do you reduce demand for water, or air, or even food? Basically by having fewer consumers of it, ie people. You can't quite survive on too little of any of these, including heating, so reducing demand for any of the essentials which have a medical optimum level of calorie intake, air intake, water intake, and indoor temperature, once you drop below that line your health will deteriorate and you just watch the level decline as the requirements are further reduced for any of them.

I have yet to hear anyone even from Greenpeace try and claim we drink too much water, let alone could save the planet by learning ways to breathe in less oxygen (maybe to save it for our unborn grandchildren), so why do they want to reduce demand for energy which is just as essential to normal levels of life and health?

A rabbi, of all people, was reported last week lecturing a hall of presumably willing and admiring idiots, advocating bringing about the end of driving, flying and eating meat, 'to combat climate change'.

Think about it. Even if the climate was changing that much, and in a bad way, the suffering involved in any or all of these is known. Even the greenest of far out weirdos get a car occasionally even if they don't drive themselves. Maybe they have relatives abroad and would like to see them from time to time. As he didn't mention shipping (I think on their criteria that's a pretty major source of emissions so expect he probably forgot) they could maybe take a week to America and back, just as we did in Victorian times, except then the population was a fraction of today and as a result the demand that much lower. And imagine someone asking to take six months holiday off work as he wanted to go to Australia. Consequences. Not unseen or indirect, but as I saw at about the age of eight, the bleeding obvious ones.

Bottom line, making people suffer today to avoid problems tomorrow outside a direct linear relationship is a crime against humanity. These policies affect the entire populations of each country, and just like the politician who doesn't take any notice of complaints about a local train service till the day his chauffeur has the flu and he has to urgently get to a meeting and discovers it directly, and like magic within a couple of weeks the problem is fixed. It could always have been, but unless they were affected directly they didn't care. There was a wonderful survey on the BBC Radio 4 Health Matters once, where they said doctors had poor hygiene in hospital as the consequences didn't affect them but their patients. This was a serious official survey, that proved that despite rules and regulations, doctors frequently and regularly overlooked them as it didn't hurt them if they did. Of course the flip side of this is when you don't think of what would happen when a change that hurts other people will hurt you equally you really need to stop and imagine if it did. They never do though.

Jealousy, envy, all the lower of the deadly sins in Christianity and motivations in Buddhism, along with ignorance and stupidity are the drivers of such views. Imaginary formulas where if you remove money from the rich it makes the poor better off, or by not realising making more money the rich actually increase the total in the economy are the foundations of these policies despite many of their greatest advocates being professors and other academics who lead willing wealthy and educated students to join the revolution. Noam Chomsky, George Galloway and many others before and since have advocated with exactly the same results when put in place, suffering and disaster. They are so overwhelmed with misguided compassion for the underdogs, the poor, minorities, slaves (albeit 200 years ago), women, gays, transgendered, and any other group not doing as well as average that regardless of the policies advocated which were alleged to improve their lots they appear to support them regardless. Their initially well meaning motive for fairness and equality became so strong, and was exploited by less scrupulous and sane individuals, they ended up becoming programmed pawns with little capacity to think for themselves or process information from any other source, who they had been trained to see as a dangerous enemy- capitalists, big oil (which doesn't exist, they're energy companies), climate change deniers (including the great majority who accept it's happening but not nearly as much as they expect it to), racists, Islamophobes, homophobes and misogynists. I've discussed the labelling elsewhere, but suffice to say they take any comment relating to said topics and if it isn't 100% positive or on message then the meme is operated.

In the end as a result they are an almost homogenous army, only varying in degree and range of pet issues, and it appears the only way they would see the reality would be when they were put in a similar position to the politician and have to suffer the consequences of their own policies. Sadly on the margins some may actually not recognise, or even claim was an unfortunate but unavoidable consequence if one of their relatives died of cold or was hospitalised (as many thousands are per year in Britain as a direct result of higher bills), so really they must be affected personally before sooner or later the true pain of the policies some have camped outside parliament for months to advocate actually become reality. The trouble is by the time things get that bad it won't just affect them but everyone else, and the damage will have been done already.

Mankind still has a long way to go since the stone age, mentally at least. Little has changed at the lower end.

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