Donizetti: Je Suis Soldat

“La Fille du Régiment” is a fantastic, lively work by Donizetti - one of my favourites - and here is the perfect piece of opera: an introduction, then a beautiful aria, transforming into a brilliant, majestic climax.

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You couldn’t make it up

One of the headlines on respectable news programme Today this morning was that British prisons, awash with drugs, are so comfortable now that people are breaking into them, leaving ladders up, and nobody even wants to use them to break out.

It’s hardly surprising when prisoners are paid to work while in there (and even paid to play Scrabble), get to choose the colour of their cells and make a multitude of contacts at the “University of Crime”. I suppose we should be grateful that playing on their Playstations and playing pool do not count as paid activities too, but certainly the whole situation is unbelievable.

I do not understand why prisoners are not forced to work constructively for society, ideally in an area related to their crime. Why don’t I see chain gangs cleaning graffiti off walls and dredging out canals as I go about my business? There are miles of graffiti throughout London to occupy them. Perhaps they could fill in the craters and pits in the roads that the councils ignore too. This would be a warning to others to think twice before offending, and certainly a warning to those offenders, as they make their atonement.

As for prisoners being paid, they should run up debts at their own expense as the country teaches them discipline and responsibility. None of this will happen of course, not because of logistical problems, but because Brussels will always over-rule the UK and claim any such measures “violate prisoners’ human rights”. But being a constructive member of your society is a duty and not a right, especially for convicted criminals, who have a debt to repay.

One sometimes wonders if the runaway political correctness of the United Kingdom, already causing decay in the fabric the society, will lead to all-out civil war if not taken in hand before long.

Then they came…

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out -
because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out -
because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out -
because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me.”

- Martin Niemöller

Islamofacism

There’s nothing wrong with fundamentalism, providing it’s about the right things. There’s nothing wrong with being fundamentally humanist, for example. But there is something very wrong with committing fundamentally to abhorrent and out-dated texts, based upon myths, which urge such a commitment and contain overt imperialist ideology. There’s something very wrong with that.

There is no obligation on us to continually attempt to “interpret” and excuse offensive passages in books like the Bible and the Koran either. It is possible (and true) that they simply are what they seem to be: unacceptable. We can and should reject them, outright, regardless of their claim to being “the word of God”.

There are two reasons, by the way, why “moderate” muslims are slow to condemn Islamic terrorism:

1. They are afraid of becoming targets themselves.
2. They secretly know that the books themselves encourage such acts.

And Islam (like Christianity) has self-preservation built-in: the penalty for apostasy is death. So they bide their time, allowing others, further away, to take the most drastic and controversial action, ignoring the somewhat awkward position in which they find themselves, of enjoying the benefits of a liberal society that those texts would have destroyed.

If you still don’t believe that people’s blind allegiance to these texts, and the continued capitulation of the West, represent the primary threat to civilisation and liberty in the world today, and that we are morally obliged to speak out about it, take a look at this video.

George Carlin on religion

Irreverent, but true!

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Beethoven: Allegretto from Symphony No. 6, “Pastoral”

Conducted by Herbert Von Karajan.

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The disadvantages of fame

I’m not famous, but I thought twice about even making my thoughts public on this site because it has long seemed to me that fame is more a burden for people than a benefit. There are some benefits to be had from it, but I would never wish it upon anyone who had not sought it while fully appreciating its negative impact. Some of the many people who care far too much about the lives of “celebrities” want nothing more than to be famous themselves. They think it will solve their problems and make them happy. They should consider the following disadvantages of fame:

• Never being able to tell whether a person likes you for who you really are
  (This is a serious problem, presented also by looks and wealth)
• The come-down when it is all over
• Scrutiny of your private life, potentially everything you did in the past, and everything you do in the present
• Lies and insinuations about you
• Envy and resentment, often turning to personal insults
• Possible stalking, kidnap, robbery or even murder attempts
• Feeling indebted to people as they do unrequested favours for you
• Being stared at wherever you go
• Constantly being asked “Aren’t you..?” (And sometimes they’ll get the name wrong)
• Having to be careful of everything you say and do, especially due to possible covert surveillance and recording (in this day and age a faux pas could be publicised across the world in minutes)
• The fame turning to infamy

James Blunt: Carry You Home

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Observations

• Happiness comes when you have properly calibrated what you want and what is actually good for you.
• If something can be said at all it can be said clearly.

Straw man arguments

So called “straw man” arguments are even more common than ad hominem attacks in conversational discourse. They are equally underhand and equally logically invalid (the conclusions drawn don’t follow from the premises). I met somebody yesterday (a member of the political party UKIP - some of whose policies I actually agree with) who not only spoke extremely loudly but deployed so many straw man arguments that I had trouble keeping up with them all.

So, without further ado, what is a straw man argument? It is a gross simplification and misrepresentation - usually an extreme version - of an opponent’s position, either created deliberately or because of lack of comprehension that positions can be complex. In the most dishonourable cases it will be deliberate. The simplified position is easier to knock down, hence it is often chosen in preference to the true position.

This is bound to be annoying for the opponent (much to the glee of the proponent, one often suspects) because:

1. Their views are being (perhaps deliberately) misrepresented
2. Their actual argument is not being addressed
3. The argument is not proceeding (time is being wasted)
4. The proponent is behaving as if they have “won a point” when they have not

Examples of straw man arguments:

Person 1: “I think there should be more CCTV in society.”
Person 2: “You want a totalitarian state.”

Person 1: “I don’t have a problem with identity cards.”
Person 2: “You trust everyone in the government.”

Person 1: “I’m morally concerned with the problems in society.”
Person 2: “You think all of society is bad.”

And so on.

Straw man arguments should be exposed for what they are as soon as possible, but we are reluctant to be too damning of those who deploy them, because we never know if they are deliberately being underhand or simply cannot grasp the position as stated. These kind of arguments always involve rash assumptions, at best, however, so are never admirable.

I pointed out to my own “opponent” yesterday that he was deploying straw man arguments and entirely misrepresenting my position, probably willfully. To make matters worse, his response was to then deploy two other underhand tactics often used by those who see arguments as more an exercise in ego than an co-operative attempt to establish the truth:

1. Denying he had made statements of one minute ago
2. Accusing me in playground style - without any foundation - of having used the same tactics (as if two wrongs would ever in any case make a right)

It is at this point that we might rightly feel extremely annoyed, and I often wonder how people such as Richard Dawkins manage to keep their cool against others who are not arguing properly. That some people apparently want to argue for the sake of argument itself instead of for the sake of truth is truly a source of regret.

For the Wikipedia entry on straw man arguments, see here and for an excellent article on logical fallacies in general, see here.