[Gllug] OT!!! Re: VACANCY: Junior Systems Support

Christopher Hunter cehunter at gb-x.org
Sun Sep 13 01:24:07 UTC 2009


On Sat, 2009-09-12 at 18:03 +0100, general_email at technicalbloke.com
wrote:

> > That's "Ayn Rand",
> >   
> Hah I knew it! Obviously suffering the tedium of Atlas Shrugged and it's
> insufferable 50 page monologues has addled my brain and diminished my
> ability to spell. 

It certainly might have addled your brain!

> I can't take anyone who takes that book or that woman seriously seriously.

Ayn Rand was something of a nutter - one or two ideas were sound, but
the vast majority were just so outlandish that they hid the sensible
ones.  I certainly have never taken her seriously at all. 

> >> The solutions to big problems are never as simple and perfect as you
> >> make out otherwise we'd be doing them already.
> >>     
> > Actually, that's unlikely.  You have to consider the various "vested
> > interests" that are truly responsible for most of the decisions taken by
> > government.
> > 
> So they're NOT that simple are they?!

I never suggested that the resolutions of all the ills that ail this
society were in any way simple and they certainly can't be resolved
easily.

> >>  Do you think that the millions of minds who've asked these questions 
> >> over the years have just been too stupid to realise the key to fairness 
> >> and progress for a country is to abandon all social protection? 
> >>     
> > No.  Those questions haven't been properly asked in the UK in the last
> > 60 years, and those in power wouldn't like the answers if they were
> > truly examined.  
> 
> Really, you think none of the 100 million people who've lived in the UK
> in the last 60 years have considered these issues 'properly'? This is
> excepting yourself I assume? 

I'm certain that some of the less blinkered sociologists would have come
up with viable solutions (I know that I haven't, but I'm an engineer,
not a sociologist), but the "vested interests" just want to maintain the
status quo - obscenely high taxation, a drug-addled youth, a majority of
ill-educated slack jaws gawping at mindless television drivel, and the
top 0.5% of the population owning about 70% of the property...

> Have you considered the alternative: that
> your perspective is so far removed from what people think of as fair,
> just and humane that no serious people are willing to entertain your
> crotchety misanthropic notions?

I'm neither "crotchety" nor "misanthropic" - I'm just realistic and fed
up with being systematically robbed of my earnings to support people
unwilling to work themselves. 

> >> Every man for himself?

Probably, yes.  If you sit and consider what you've done today for your
fellow man, you'll be surprised how little it actually is.  Most of us
are too busy trying to make enough to live on to concern ourselves with
altruism. 
    
> > The reality of life is that it's actually that way, if you could but
> > recognise it.  The "social protection" is is of almost no practical use
> > whatsoever, and is just a drain on our resources.

> That's utter bollocks. 

Sorry - no.  It's an unpleasant truth.

> Plenty of people claim the dole for the brief
> periods where they are out of work and then go on to return to work,
> become productive members of society once again, pay their taxes and
> grow the economy. 

Why don't you do as I've always done, and save for those occasions where
you're unemployed.  I've had brief periods between jobs, but have always
had sufficient savings to prevent me from having to collect any kind of
"benefit".  It just takes a little planning, and a willingness to save,
rather than squander every penny of your earnings.

> Or was it money well spent seeing
> as it enabled me to get back on my feet, start my own business and
> started contributing services and taxes to the economy again?

No.  It was a waste of MY resources.  Why should I be compelled to
support you just because you couldn't be bothered to save? 

> Really, as well as providing some measure of insurance for your average
> Joe's if you want to create a climate where people are willing to take
> the risks associated with entrepreneurship you can't expect them to do
> it without a safety net. 

Your precious "safety net" should be personal savings or insurance.
Nobody else should be forced to support you during periods of
unemployment.  Indeed, there shouldn't be any periods of unemployment -
I've never been without paid work of some kind for more than three
consecutive days since I finished my formal education over thirty years
ago. 

> In your world how many people do you think would risk starting a 
> business at all?

Yes - I did!  All through the late 1980s and the 1990s I ran my own
businesses.  I sold them and went back into being employed by others
after I had a major change in personal circumstance in the late 1990s.
I have NEVER been without full-time, paid employment.

> >>  I don't think you should be allowed to vote, but I feel sorry for you.
> >>     
> > Your socialistic generosity of spirit is truly touching:  because you
> > don't agree with me, you can't vote!  How very communist of you! 
> >   
> Yeah well I felt the crap written above entitled me to a little
> facetiousness. 

It doesn't.  It actually doesn't allow you the licence to spout your own
"crap" either!

> And don't call me a communist, or a socialist, I'm not one.

You certainly want all that socialism gives, without the responsibility
of owning up to being one...  Why doesn't that surprise me?

> Just because your position if off the right side of the meter doesn't 
> make me a radical lefty!

I can't see where I or anyone else suggested that.  I just pointed out
that your stance about my right to vote was reminiscent of the ways of
the old soviet union!

> > Your vicious bile would be better expended addressing the REAL problems
> > in this world!
> >  
> I think you, and people like you ARE the real problem we face right now.

No.  The problems we face are religious fanaticism, pseudo-fascism (the
Barking Nutters Party is a good example), a malignant disaffected youth,
and the inept, muddled faux-socialism of the current government.  

I was brought up in more genteel times, where people treated each other
with civility rather than suspicion, and the religious and racial
divides really didn't exist (or were sufficiently hidden that they could
be safely ignored).  

There is no real hope of ever returning to those times, so the best we
can all do is try to mitigate the problems as far as possible.  The only
way in which that can be achieved is by some fairly radical and very
unpleasant changes to our society - most of which will be anathema to
the "socialist" types - and by disassociating ourselves from "greater
Europe", and going our own, peculiar way.

> Times like these scare people and the kind of rubbish you're spouting
> just empowers populist conservatives and fascists politicians and the
> idiots who will vote for them. 

Nonsense.  Are you happy to have a substantial proportion of your taxes
squandered in supporting inept farmers in France?  Are you satisfied
with a National Health Service that pays over £1 each for "approved"
toilet rolls, £17 to replace a light bulb, and has almost twice as many
"administrators" as it has Doctors and Nurses?  Are you happy to have
some streets of our towns and cities that are effectively barred to you
- often on pain of physical injury or worse - just because you're the
"wrong" colour or religion?  Are you happy with an education system that
produces over 40% of 16-year-olds that are illiterate and innumerate?

If all of the above are acceptable to you, then carry on the way you're
going.  Nothing will change, you'll be ever poorer, you'll be under the
permanent threat of violence wherever you go, and the socialistic
"safety net" that you fondly believe will save you when things go wrong
won't work - because you're the "wrong" colour, "wrong" gender, "wrong"
religion, or whatever else "wrong" that can be arbitrarily chosen by the
Civil Service know-nothings handing out the money...

> THAT is dangerous to MY liberty, and the liberty of anyone who doesn't 
> fit their picture of the future.

Your "liberty" is really just a figment of your imagination.  Successive
"security" Acts of Parliament and changes to the "Criminal Justice
System", and ineffectual Policing have ruined your chances of real
Liberty.

Game Over!

C.



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