This post is
a commentary on three recent news items.
The first is a comment by a communist idiot, published in a
supposedly Tory newspaper. He labels
UKIP as extremist and racist, and reveals that his sense of humour is seriously
deficient by describing some inoffensive jokes as racist. Does he think that Irish jokes are racist?
The second
is the news that a Liberal Democrat handbook alleges that racism is a
characteristic of at least some UKIP voters – or perhaps all of them. It is unclear.
The third is
that a Tory MP has described UKIP as literally akin to the Nazis. Apparently this is part of a change of
strategy for the Tories, who are now increasingly likely to be confrontational
when dealing with UKIP.
Let us
examine the words used here. Extremist
is a meaningless word. An extremist is
not a moderate – that much is obvious. But
who is to say who or what is extremist as opposed to moderate?
The word racist is fairly close to
meaningless. Suppose a crime is racially
motivated. It can then be termed racist,
in which case racist is simply a synonym for racially motivated. However a lot of actions or beliefs could
realistically be described as racially motivated, and therefore also racist. This might seem obvious, but the problem
arises that the word racist appears never to be used except pejoratively. Is being racially motivated really of
necessity a bad thing?
Nazi, like
fascist, appears to be a word which communists tend to use about people they
despise. It is always or nearly always
the case that these words are used pejoratively. It occurs to me however that someone once
labelled a political party as Nazi because it wanted to protect manufacturing. Was the word used pejoratively on that
occasion?
Leaving
aside the question of what these words truly mean, it appears that their true
meaning is generally subservient to their negative connotations. They are demon words, aimed not at
identifying the truth, but rather at stifling genuine debate.
The Nazis
bombed other countries, and yet our Prime Minister David Cameron also bombs
other countries. Does Robert Halfon MP
think that David Cameron is akin to a Nazi?
Another
important observation is that for many years now communists and their fellow
travellers have used words like extremist and racist and Nazi about the British
National Party, and yet so far as I am aware the leadership of UKIP have never
sought to distance themselves from such irresponsible behaviour. Now that such words are being used about
themselves though, I wonder if they would care to rethink their point of view.
My final observation
is that the people who are now seeking to demonise UKIP may have gone a step
too far. The more that pejorative
language is bandied about, the more likely it is that people will tire of
it. Maybe the enemies of UKIP should
rethink their approach.
I do not support
UKIP and will never vote for them, but all the same I recognise that the Labour
Party and the Conservative Party have ruined the lives of millions of ordinary people
with their repeated failures of government.
Maybe it would help matters if Labour and Tory and Liberal Democrat
politicians owned up to their own failings before they dare to use strong
language about UKIP or any other party which has never been in government in
this country.
Related previous posts include:
No comments:
Post a Comment