If I wanted Britain to fail…
If I wanted Britain to fail …
To follow, not lead; to suffer, not prosper; to despair, not dream.
I would start with energy.
I’d cut off Britain’s supply of cheap, abundant energy. I couldn’t take it by force. So, I’d make the British feel guilty for using the energy that heats their homes, fuels their cars, runs their businesses, and powers their economy.
I’d make cheap energy expensive, so that expensive energy would seem cheap.
I would empower unelected bureaucrats to all-but-outlaw Britain’s most abundant sources of energy. And after banning its use in Britain, I’d make it illegal for Biritish companies to ship it overseas.
If I wanted Britain to fail …
I’d use our schools to teach one generation of British that our factories and our cars will cause a new Ice Age, and I’d muster a straight face so I could teach the next generation that they’re causing Global Warming.
And when it’s cold out, I’d call it Climate Change instead.
I’d imply that Britain’s cities and factories could run on wind power and wishes. I’d teach children how to ignore the hypocrisy of condemning logging, mining and farming — while having roofs over their heads, heat in their homes and food on their tables. I would never teach children that the free market is the only force in human history to uplift the poor, establish the middle class and create lasting prosperity.
Instead, I’d demonize prosperity itself, so that they will not miss what they will never have.
If I wanted Britain to fail …
I would create countless new regulations and seldom cancel old ones. They would be so complicated that only bureaucrats, lawyers and lobbyists could understand them. That way small businesses with big ideas wouldn’t stand a chance – and I would never have to worry about another Thomas Edison, Henry Ford or Steve Jobs.
I would ridicule as “Flat Earthers” those who urge us to lower energy costs by increasing supply. And when the evangelists of commonsense try to remind people about the law of supply and demand, I’d enlist a sympathetic media to drown them out.
If I wanted Britain to fail …
I would empower unaccountable bureaucracies seated in a distant country to bully Britains out of their dreams and their property rights. I’d send agents to raid market stalls for using the wrong weights and measures; I’d force homeowners to tear down the homes they built on their own land.
I’d make it almost impossible for farmers to farm, miners to mine, loggers to log, and builders to build.
And because I don’t believe in free markets, I’d invent false ones. I’d devise fictitious products—like carbon credits—and trade them in imaginary markets. I’d convince people that this would create jobs and be good for the economy.
If I wanted Britain to fail …
For every concern, I’d invent a crisis; and for every crisis, I’d invent the cause; Like shutting down entire industries and killing tens of thousands of jobs in the name of saving spotted owls. And when everyone learned the stunning irony that the owls were victims of their larger cousins—and not people—it would already be decades too late.
If I wanted Britain to fail …
I’d make it easier to stop commerce than start it – easier to kill jobs than create them – more fashionable to resent success than to seek it.
When industries seek to create jobs, I’d file lawsuits to stop them. And then I’d make taxpayers pay for my lawyers.
If I wanted Britain to fail …
I would transform the environmental agenda from a document of conservation to an economic suicide pact. I would concede entire industries to our economic rivals by imposing regulations that cost trillions. I would celebrate those who preach environmental austerity in public while indulging a lavish lifestyle in private.
I’d convince Britain that Europe has it right, and Britain has it wrong.
If I wanted Britain to fail …
I would prey on the goodness and decency of ordinary British people.
I would only need to convince them … that all of this is for the greater good.
If I wanted Britain to fail, I suppose I wouldn’t change a thing.
Original words by Ryan Houck. Watch the video too.
I’m a oldish lad who is sad that so much of life is making him mad.
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1
April 25, 2012 at 09:03 -
Aside from the stuff that needs to be addressed, like the so-called democratic system that we are the victim of, the lack of a coherent binding together of our constitution (rather than some shitty document cobbled to gether by the elite), the real key to ending 100 years of failure is to institute control over the annual Finance Bill.
I am sure that you are aware of Richard North’s “Referism” concept SBMLad, an annual referendum on whether we accept any new demands therein, would ensure that the crapani that we are being fed by the fascists (corporates + politicians + bureaucrats), that has led to the situation related by Mr. Houck and anglisized by yourself could not happen, and instead would be slowly unwound.
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April 25, 2012 at 09:54 -
“I’d make it easier to stop commerce than start it – easier to kill jobs than create them – more fashionable to resent success than to seek it.”
It is a very British thing to resent the success of others. Success is viewed with suspicion in that in order to succeed someone or something must have been exploited on the way. The successful man must be a “toff” or “rich” or a “capitalist” – this is often pointed out by so-called comedians (Jeremy Hardy, Marcus Brigstocke, Mark Steel, Mark Thomas spring to mind) without any hint of irony whatsoever.
The Labour Party thrive on this envy of others’ success.
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3
April 25, 2012 at 10:02 -
Well said, and exactly right. You might also want to subsidise projects and behaviour that produce nothing while taking money from working people?
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4
April 25, 2012 at 10:24 -
I suspect the writer’s opinions on mining would change if they had a fecking big opencast mine outside their back door harming their children’s health on a daily basis.
How pro-mining would the writer feel if they knew that the value of their house was now so minimal that it’s not worth anything more than the clothes that she’s wearing?
How about if that mine exists because a government inspector overturned the legal democratic process used to refuse permission for the mine, dismissing, out of hand, the evidence against it before leaving with the representatives of that company? – As long as it’s not in her backyard eh?
Oddly enough, I read this article because I actually agree with much of the sentiment, but living through the reality of local mining I feel the statement referring to mining in this article is one made by someone who doesn’t consider the true cost of what they advocate.-
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April 25, 2012 at 12:25 -
Odd one, isn’t it – mining?
We used to have lots of deep pits that regularly killed people and significantly shortened the life expectancy of many more, and wasn’t profitable either – cost the taxpayer billions in subsidies. So they were shut down. Lots of huffing and puffing about ‘destroying communities’ – a lot less about lives that would no longer be blighted.
Now we have safer ways to extract coal, but they have their downsides as well. So does any industrial process – is an opencast mine better or worse than a steelworks, a shipyard, a major power station, an abbatoir?
By the way – if your children’s health is genuinely being affected by the mining, you should firstly seek the advice of the Environment Agency, who’s job it is to see that such sites act responsibly. They might well monitor such things as dust and noise. If that doesn’t work, then take legal action against the mining company – they are legally obliged to act in way that does not affect the health of their neighbours.
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6
April 25, 2012 at 11:53 -
And if I wanted Britain to fail I would encourage untrammeled economic migration, because importing young, well-educated, (and even uneducated but hungry) get-up-and- go foreigners to outcompete for the unskilled jobs that our not-so-academic kids need (does the bell-curve of IQ ring any bells?) is a benefit to the economy. Ignore the fact that many turn to crime – once they have discovered the streets aren’t paved with gold. Ignore the fact they remit most of their salaries home, they are young people paying tax to bail out our ageing population that has £10 billion spent abroad against its will. Ignore the fact that the benefits of immigration are outweighed by the need extra school places, maternity beds, (what do young people do best?), translation costs, increased demand for housing which causes increased housing benefit because nearly everyone is treated fairly in England.
Ignore the fact that all of this was demanded by those entrepreneurs to make a fast buck for themselves before they move abroad because England’s not like it used to be, too crowded, dirty, corrupt …. -
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April 25, 2012 at 12:09 -
Can’t disagree with any of that.
The odd thing is that if you listen to the news and current affairs reporting on the BBC, much of that would be regarded as ‘reactionary’. However, when you talk to ordinary people going about their normal business, most of them would regard most of that as plain common sense.
A very unscientific way of looking at it might be this – a Telegraph reader would pretty much agree with the above. A Guardian reader wouldn’t. The Telegraph outsells the Guardian by about three to one.
So if the majority of public opinion (roughly) agrees with much of the above, why do the political classes and quite large chunks of the media tend to give the impression of believing the complete opposite?
(Don’t answer that – we all know why….)
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10
April 25, 2012 at 13:23 -
And I would sell off my assets and property to foreign owners.
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11
April 25, 2012 at 13:37 -
WOW! Good or what – NO Feckin’ brilliant
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12
April 25, 2012 at 17:40 -
Ed & Ed are going down this list ticking off their collective failings with pride.
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13
April 25, 2012 at 19:20 -
Unsaid, but surely implied is……if I wanted Britain to fail, I will continue to elect university-educated politicians with no life skills. (I make no distinction of which parties they represent)
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14
April 25, 2012 at 19:43 -
Not preventing hordes of illegal immigrants entering the country to sponge off our welfare state doesn’t help.
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April 25, 2012 at 22:14 -
Saw the original video a couple of days ago. Before I watched it I was worried it was going to be just another ‘jingoistic’ piece. But it’s not. It’s extremely moving and well focused.
I am pleased that someone has taken the trouble to transcribe it to ‘English’ and I have now sent this on, with due credit, to my own circulation list in the hope that the word will get out.
I am now thinking that I need to provoke people in the same way that the film Network did (‘Mad as Hell’). My perhaps lame evocation is:
Wake up England!
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16
April 26, 2012 at 07:09
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April 26, 2012 at 00:19 -
But before all of these, a crippling blow I would cause. I would demean men. I would villify men with names like ‘rapist’. I would say ‘All men are rapists’. I would call them ‘deadbeats’. Fathers especially.
Indeed Fathers would be a high priority. I would portray them as stupid and feckless. Abusers.
I would pay vast amounts of public monies, taken from those men, to women’s groups who would loudly broadcast my message.
I would introduce laws and ‘new’ types of Courts where rules of evidence are not needed and accusations alone are sufficient. I would ‘protect’ women and be seen, by women, as ‘Good’ when they wish to dispossess men of all they have worked for, and even hand over men’s children to mendacious ex-wives.
I would reduce reference to men so that whenever some good was done in the world terms like ‘soldier’ or ‘fireperson’ or Police Officer would not recognise men. When disasters occur I would say ‘miner’ not men. I would say ‘passengers’ not men.
I would put women into jobs traditionally done by men who normally step up to do them and call the jobs ‘male dominated’. I would turn entire industries, such as Education over to women and exclude men with threats of false allegation of improper ‘thoughts’. I would never mention female dominated industry.
I would forbid men from becoming MPs by having ‘all-female’ selection lists. I would call it ‘Fair’.
When the men were so distressed and demoralised, THEN I would do all the other damaging things mentioned above, safe in the knowledge that whenever a man raised his voice against them, no-one would listen.
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18
April 26, 2012 at 02:15 -
You all voted Blair over and over and got what you wanted.
As well Britain became the UK became England – pro temps.
As you sow so shall ye reap.
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