THE LAST DITCH
Is the internet as addictive as tobacco? | Anonymous | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.
These people soo obviously feel they have exactly the same, literally patronising, entitlement to treat the rest of us as serfs, just as any of the worst aristocracy most anywhere ever did.
Heaven help us if we ever let them get that much power over us, but it is suffocating our spirits.
Creeping in like some rising tide of cold mud or quicksand and we need to be free from them to breathe clean air.
When I really think about it… it scares me.
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” heaven help us if we ever let them get that much power over us” They already have-they’re more successful at it too because whatever they want to do is always couched in terms of ‘democracy’rather than the old message of define rights against the serfs. But serfs is wot we is
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My American niece had several college student peers who were thrown out for failure to meet work deadlines because they spent too much time on RPG. If we’re as rational in the pursuit of our own best interests as we like to think, how does this happen?
But that doesn’t make Guardian readers grown up, either. We’re all weak and fallible to some extent.
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I imagine the parents/private scholarship funds paying for those college students had something to say on the subject. It’s none of my businesss (or yours) however, as in America, no taxpayers would have been robbed to fund their RPG activities.
No-one (least of all highly fallible me) disputes human fallibility, but the more we are held responsible for our failings, the less fallible we will get, right? That certainly seems to be the logical converse of the observable effects of the Welfare State.
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It’s not suffocating all our spirits, Moggsy, as your regular and valiant contributions attest. Chin up!
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The confusion between democracy and freedom is annoying, isn’t it? One can be free under a benevolent absolute monarch and enslaved under a democratic president. It is the limit on a ruler’s power that matters, not the way in which he or she is selected.
Democracy is clearly the least bad way of picking legislators, but their powers still need to be limited. If every voter in Britain tired of me and voted to have me put to death, I still assert my right to life. Thus far even most Guardianisti will follow me. However, they lose interest when I assert my claim to live that life (short of using force or fraud on others) my way.
It’s damned hard to like them for it – however woolly-soft their intentions. I confess I long since abandoned the attempt.
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Kind of a Darwinian argument. Except if so, then “we” don’t get less fallible, we merely get replaced.
I understand Nietzsche said, in effect, compassion is for the weak, and we should aspire to “master morality” not “slave morality.”
I accept that second-chancing can simply result in second-offending (but not always), yet I’m very reluctant to buy into the hard-hearted winner-loser Gordon Gecko approach.
Oh dear, now I have to produce my papiere at Checkpoint Charlie again and type in email, name etc. Is there really no shorter way?
And can we sign up for email alerts on comments somehow?
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Rocket propelled grenades?-wow tough school.
Where was it Chicago or Detroit?
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I am not sure it’s nearly as hard-hearted as giving everyone (including those who don’t remotely need it) into the hands of a “kindly” state. We learn from our mistakes, is all I am saying. Protect people from the consequences of error and you get more error. One of the worst errors is the “kindly” notion that it would be nice if some crypto-parent could shield us from risk just as our real parents tried to do when we were young.
I researched your questions about commenting. I am sorry but my blogging platform doesn’t provide for email alerts. You can however subscribe to any comments thread (or to whole categories of them) in an RSS feed. If you follow me on Typepad, you will also get a free Typepad ID which should spare you some of the “Checkpoint Charlie” stuff. It’s Liberty Hall here and you can also just walk past the checkpoint without giving ID at all.
Thanks for your comments. I hope to see more of you here.
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Sackerson, I think Nietzche is maybe wrong about compassion and the weak.
There is a good body of research shows co-operation all over in nature and has mankind tagged as the most co-operative of all, more than insects even. There is co-operation even at cellular levels.It is really interesting.
Also, it is maybe unfair that “Darwinian” has come to mean ruthless competition. It is not, “fitness” can come from way more than dog eat dog.
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‘It’ “wants” to squash our spirits. Squash them until they are quiet and grey and flat and still.
If we are not careful one day we may not dare to speak out, maybe not be awake enough to know we should, and any one who does will be “put somewhere quiet for their own good”, and no one will question it.
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Tom is a retired international lawyer. He was a partner in a City of London law firm and spent almost twenty years abroad serving clients from all over the world.
Returning to London on retirement in 2011, he was dismayed to discover how much liberty had been lost in the UK while he was away.
He’s a classical liberal (libertarian, if you must) who, like his illustrious namesake, considers that
“…government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”
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The Last Ditch by Tom Paine 
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