h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Afternoon Effers

No apologies needed I assure you.

I actually added the 'Secret Donations' bit as the news began to break, it was an opportune afterthought to my post. I wasn't trying to hide my agenda but I did feel the two subject might be linked. As it turns out, after the last 24 hrs., I could be right to link them.

I wish earnestly that clocks could be turned back, that honesty and probity in both business and politics could be returned to. There was a time in my life when a deal was cemented on a handshake. I will maintain till my last breath that what I ( and perhaps only I ) see as a moral slide in our society is because we have collectively turned our backs on any 'inconvenient' beliefs which got in the way of progress to Nirvana, which has turned out for many to be less than they had hoped for.

Unlike some posters I don't write anything other than a personal feeling or a personal view. I don't claim that it is RIGHT, simply that it is like conversation in a pub, when after one or two we often put forward unsupportable arguements - but feel them none the less.

Novo

Werent the peolpe responsible for taking us into an illegal war both....christians/

The leader of the Labour party, accepted dodgy donations, he's the son of a Vicar and a chritian too isnt he?

I think in that case the fewewr christians we have around the better.

Novo Isaid it time and time again. You can look back with yor rose tinted specs but there was just as much skuldugerry in high places and just as rich of a vein of low life in our streets as there were ni times gone by its just that today we have red-top papers willing to dish the dirt and CCTV shows willing to pipe into you home edited higlights to scare you witless.

The kind of reasoning you espouse that people are now worse gives people who do have lower moral standards a leg to stand on and its that "Things are worse" i dont think they are i think you can see scummy people in any age you look at.

As someone here is fond of telling you I am scum, yet not everything I do is scummy. If I accepted that label Id see no reason to ever attempt doing anything more than being scum.

one love

Evening Blicky

You are quite right about the Christians in Parliament and The White House. I don't think I advocated any specific faith though, just a morality and a set of values which 'normally'' go with the main body of a belief. Note here that I mean main body as opposed to extremists of any kind.

As to the rose tinted specs, I expect you are right there too. The fact that news is instant doesn't mean that it is for the good, and as you imply we all get to hear of the bad quickly and continuosly.

I would maintain however that there are many things which make life 'richer' in consumer terms and at the sme time vastly more unhappy now than in the time I look bsck to.

Finally Blicky I do not regard you as scum as some might.

It is not what you did yesteday or in the past that counts, it is what you will do tomorrow and in the future. You are entitled to a clean page from me. If you crap on it then it's down to you.

Novo

You are entitled to a clean page from me. If you crap on it then it's down to you.

I think we both would like this country and the people in it o be nicer. Sometimes you get my back up (and Id bet the same is true the other way sometimes) when you go on about the way things and people now are just worse for such nebulous and illdefined reasons as a lack of faith or because women "arent ladylike" anymore.

On the subject of religions influence on morals:
http://russellsteapot.com/comics/2007/Dra-Til-Helvete.html

Ive recently started coaching a womens rugby team. (in the real world people reagard me a likeable and charismatic)

Any how it always gets on my nerves how the first things out of peoples mouths tend to be on the subject of lesbianism, or nudge-nudge wink-wink that must be fun for you Blicky.

OK I guess a protion of them are just kidding but I got into a bizarre chat/debate with one parent about him not wanting his 10 year old daughter to be "turned lesbian" by playing tag-rugby, girls should stick to girls sports and why everything was better in the old days.

Thing is I grew up with him and he was a big a scally as me and saw nothing wrong with breaking the "rules" that he saw as not being appropriate for him to keep.


Sorry you can keep you class deferance and "knowing you place". You can keep shaving even if your only going ouot to pick up the paper. Those things dont make a civilised society they coexsisted alongside some good things and it has to be said some bad things but I dont think that the length of womens skirts or the swearing on Eastenders are the central reasons for th bad things that affect us now.

If there is one thing I think we ought to keep from the past I would like to see respect for elders return but its not something that will because familiarity breeds contempt and we have loads of old people knocking about nowaday. When an coffin dodger was a novelty it ws a big deal but now they are seen as a burden taking our jobs and talking in their funny words we cant quite understand.

one love

<>

Just as an aside, what constitutes a 'legal' war? Aside from which ever side you are and your own perspectives?

Well Nick, hard to say...hard to say if its an aside or a question you have used a question mark. Im no expert on the English language as you probably already know.

I think I'll take it as a snidey comment and plough in my usual idiom.

Right as you say depends who you are asking, but in the case I was talking about its important to note that the people prosecuting the war had previously stated what would be legal and then went and did it despite there actions being outside legality as they had previously defined it. There are documents proving that a senior legal advisor was sent away and asked to come back with the advice they wanted to hear. The legal quivalent of "does my bum look big in this darling"

Sure ultimately there is no legally binding international convention that work in exactly the same way as the laws of nation states within those states. Thing is both the UK and the US would have been making representations about the breaking of rules if other countries had done the same or similar things.

As i say it proves that christianity or religious faith in general is no sure fire way of ensuring moral action.

one love

No, it wasn't a snidey question. A simple one that I have pondered a number of times. Just as I have the term "international law" that is commonly tossed about, and yet some great minds here have declared that there is no such thing. Until the international communities actually agree on anything, there just isn't.

In any case, if I read your reply correctly, the invasion was illegal by the standards (due to deviousness and deception) of the specific countries who invaded. Is this what you are saying? Just for clarity, if you will.

Oh, and as a by-the-by, I don't toss any considerations of faith, Christianity or Muslim ways into the blend of anything currently going on in Afghanistan or Iraq. There are more than enough generations-old battles and feuds, economical and political advantages, and simple personality conflicts involved, that the quagmire of your god versus my god versus no god ...

Its fairly clear that as and when it suits them the permanent members on the UN securty council ignore rules they espouse that other nations should keep the rest of the time.

However those rules dont actually apply in their own countries. So while they use the word illegal it has no real meaning, I was simply using it in the same way they use it. As recent history has shown the UN hasnt got the power to stop massacres so expecting it to stand up to the US and UK is asking for a lot.

Never the less it is one of my continula bug bears that institutions and individuals who accept the duty of and are excpected to act within a certain code bare facedly dont and then aftwars seek a veil of modesty to hide behind.

What sickens me more is when before during and after those same people wave their bibles or other little books around as if that is a source of reassurance or gaurantee of good conduct.

Ive nothing against Christians, but whne people tell me I can trust them because they are good christians right thn alarm bells start ringing. I think "why is this person trying to *tell* me how moral they are"? Cant I just see by their actions? Why are they trying to flim flam me with this declaration which can denote some deeply held feeling, but can just as easily be affected by:

saying "I love the lord"

wearing certain jewelery

sitting in a big drafty building and singing out of tune every now nad then?

Thank you for the first part, the inadquacies of the UN and other organisations, how they do and don't interpret their own 'rules'. I easily see where you are coming from.

The rest ... <> and then the <>

Well, self-contradictory so I have nothing to say there.

Thanks.