[Art Eatman]

A lot of us here have tut-tutted about Englands governmental idiocies, and Agricola has tried hard to defend them. :) I was browsing the Lew Rockwell website and ran across this:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/moseley6.html is an article about the Moseley novel, and his views about what's happening in England.

A couple of Mr. Moseley's comments that really intrigued me--or incensed me--include "the Commons has passed a bill to ban all hunting with hounds and to absolutely prohibit folk singing in pubs...Oh, where is Monty Python these days? The absurd present law (is) that a pub needs a licence if more than two people begin singing in it." (Several re-readings indicate this is fact, not fiction.)

and, "My novel was completed last October, before troops had been trundled off to Iraq. The war was quite predictable, so I’ve updated the latest edition to involve a war in Iran. In the novel, the Home Secretary...seeks a rule to obligate the once free Britons to carry ID cards and for all citizens to give a sample of their DNA to the government; he also wants trial by jury and habeas corpus to be abolished. Reality: Lord Falconer and David Blunkett are attempting all four policies – except, thus far, only charged folk will be obliged to give up their DNA (whether they are found guilty or not)."

The "Reality:" policy efforts are too reminiscent of what some would include in Patriot Act, version ???, IMO...

Sorta hard for an imaginative author to stay ahead of reality, ain't it?

Art

[Cal4D4]

I'm still wondering if Orwell and Huxley were seeing into the future or providing the roadmap for it's evolution.

[agricola]

art,

thankyou for making my Saturday, the link to the website is easily the funniest thing I have read this week, especially the part where he finds fault with Hitler and Saddam for banning hunting with hounds. Heaven forbid that they did that!

edit: if anyone wants a chapter-and-verse illustration of the errors contained on the link page, they have only to ask. It is a long list though.

[KC]

I am waiting for the day when certain authors (Swift, Huxley, Orwell, Bradbury, et al) are removed from public circulation, purely for the public good, of course. Wouldn't want anyone to commit thoughtcrime and badthink....

Or maybe we could start shipping residents (its hardly fair to call them citizens, anymore) of the UK some of their SMLE's back. Hell, they havent had a real revolution in more than three centuries. Like the line in "The King & I", the people have been protected out of (nearly) everything they own, including their persons, nevermind property. Maybe it's time they tossed things up a bit?

KC

[MicroBalrog]

KC - my father actually remembers illegally smuggled copies of "1984" in the USSR. Maybe I should write down the more technical parts of it...

[KC]

"...write down the more technical parts of [1984]."

My memories of it:
1) Big Brother is watching

2) fear BB, and your neighbor, children, co-workers, spouse...basically, everyone

3) You cannot win. You probably cant even tie.
If you think you have won:
a)you are wrong
b)you have committed thoughtcrime and
c)the collection units will be by shortly for you as you have not yet turned yourself in

4) The state exists to tell you how you may live, what is permissable. (Note: this is the structure of European law, and the basis of most asian philosophy. American law usually exists to inform what is illegal, what an individual may not do; small but important distinction). Resistance is futile and will be punished. There are no rewards.

5) There is no "individual"; only servants of the state.

6) There are no "rights".

7) Conformity is mandatory.


Anything else that I have overlooked/forgotten?

KC

[MicroBalrog]

No, I meant the more technical parts of my Dad's memory of the process of getting/transporting illegal copies...

[Art Eatman]

Well, now, Ag, this is the "severalth" time I've run across references to some of your high governmental muckety-mucks seeing such things as jury trials and habeas corpus being in the way of "proper rule". We have some of the same sort of sleaze-types here, of course, but I think there's a lot more resistance.
I see that even our Congressheeple are beginning to rethink the so-called Patriot Act.

Art

[Moparmike]

Yall have inspired me to run to the book store and buy 1984. What was the other books that yall listed?

[rrader]

Well, now, Ag, this is the "severalth" time I've run across references to some of your high governmental muckety-mucks seeing such things as jury trials and habeas corpus being in the way of "proper rule".

A low and retrograde legal system is that of the British, indeed :(

[Sergeant Bob]

Yall have inspired me to run to the book store and buy 1984. What was the other books that yall listed?
You MUST READ 1984 . If you have any trouble finding it, it may have been taken out of the fiction section by now.:what:

You should probably see the movie "Brazil" too. The director is Terry Gilliam (of Monty Python fame) and is loosely based on "1984".

[Moparmike]

I have read 1984, I just dont own it. I was wondering what the other books that were being inferred to were.

[AZRickD]

If you want a scholarly treatment on what has caused Great Britain to go down the tubes, I highly recommend historian Joyce Lee Malcolms's "Guns and Violence: The English Experience."

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/MALGUN.html

Available at Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0674007530/104-2376146-3039908?v=glance

[rrader]

If you want a scholarly treatment on what has caused Great Britain to go down the tubes, I highly recommend historian Joyce Lee Malcolms's "Guns and Violence: The English Experience."

Another good treatment is Anthony Burgess's "A Clockwork Orange"

[KC]

"I was wondering what the other books that were being inferred to were."

Huxley: Brave New World
Swift: A Modest Proposal
Bradbury: Farenheit 451, Martian Chronicles, others
Orwell: Animal Farm, in addition to 1984

Also
Heinlein: Stranger in a Strange Land, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (how? because nobody told him that he couldn't...) Time Enough for Love (or anything else with Lazarus Long, or most anything else by Heinlein for that matter)
Ayn Rand is an...interesting...read
Harlan Ellison has a number of interesting rants, essays, and stories
The Federalist Papers
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
And go visit www.jerrypournelle.com (http://www.jerrypournelle.com)

That should be enough to get you started, and in trouble....

KC

[agricola]

and them big ole biases came rollin' into town

[HBK]

Biases? I guess the truth hurts.:rolleyes:

[agricola]

none of that IS truth btw

[MicroBalrog]

none of that IS truth btw

Proove it! Proove it! Proove it!

[agricola]

microbalrog,

i) 1984 is fiction
ii) A Clockwork Orange is fiction

fiction = made up events

besides, does noone else see the irony in a group of alleged rightwingers lauding as fact the work of one of the most socialist authors of recent times?

art,

Those are proposed measures, which the house of lords have thrice thrown back in his face. When they become law, you might have a point - but they wont, because Blunkett knows it will cost him electorally. One must remember that this administration talks more than it does, and one should only really become worried when it doesnt talk about something - like the new extradition treaty that HMG have signed with the US, which pretty much means that any UK citizen can be deported to the US to be held without trial.

AZRickD,

the Malcolm book has been debated at length, both here and on TFL, suffice to say she misses out a great deal of relevant factors and her work should not be treated as canon. You should check out the works of Colin Greenwood for a more authentic viewpoint.

[MicroBalrog]

microbalrog,

i) 1984 is fiction
ii) A Clockwork Orange is fiction

fiction = made up events




And none of the predictions came true (1984 mentions gun control, for example?)


besides, does noone else see the irony in a group of alleged rightwingers lauding as fact the work of one of the most socialist authors of recent times


Orwell was an anarchist.

Besides, agricola: if you ever find a statement by me where I call myself a rightwinger, shoot me. Twice.

[agricola]

micro,

actually the rightwingers reference was to the general flavour of the board. Orwell began as an anarchist, then believed that he was a socialist - but he hated communists after the Spanish Civil War (thus showing those of you that use the words socialist and communist as interchangeable the error of your ways). Besides, he towards the end of his life was one of the editors (literary if memory recalls) of Tribune, which is one of the more leftist publications available over here.

With regards to the veracity of Orwell's predictions, on some sufficiently abstract level he will have been correct, and on some sufficiently detailed level he will have been wrong. The same can be said for most novels, and at the end of the day we each read our own interpretation into anything we read.

[Joe Demko]

It might do a few of our board members some good to read Seven Days In May by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II.

The true greatness of Orwell is shown in that 1984 is an excellent novel in addition to a vehicle for making the political/philosophical points he wished to make. This puts it into stark contrast with such drek as Atlas Shrugged and Unintended Consequences which are lousy novels apart from the points the authors wished to make. Of course, on this rather right-wing board they are typically hailed as great novels on the basis of philosophical/political content alone.

The Left, on the whole, seems to come up with better authors. What right-wing novelist has ever come along who can equal Steinbeck, for example?

[Chris Rhines]

Robert Heinlein, perhaps? He's not exactly a raving leftist...

I do agree about UC (which was a fun read, but not a particularly good novel) and Atlas Shrugged (which was neither.)

Steinbeck, on the other hand, wrote some good novels, but few if any fun reads. The Grapes of Wrath, for instance, may have been a good novel in the technical sense, but I didn't enjoy reading it at all.

What, thread hijacking? You started it... :D

Back to the topic - There's no irony at all in lil' ol' right-wing me (gagging noise) appreciating the work of authors whom I disagree with politically. Most people have the ability to seperate the philosophical content of a book, from the entertainment content, from the literary content. Three different things.

Additionally, there is no reason at all that one cannot see paralells of reality in fictional works. One of the hallmarks of good speculative fiction is that it contains such paralells.

- Chris

[Art Eatman]

Ag, I'm glad to hear the proposals were rejected. However, a word of warning: That which is talked about, today, all too often comes to pass, tomorrow. We've seen this over and over, right here.

There was merely talk against guns. Against fox hunting. Against all hunting. Various controls over the people have come to pass.

The U.S. is now "The Land of the Whiner", it seems. When one looks at the body of laws intended to control folks' behavior so that none are offended by independent private behavior, one can but wonder "Quo vadis?"

California and England provide examples of governmental controls over ever-larger areas of what once were private concerns. Permits, licenses, restrictions--regardless of intent, all of these reduce the sense of personal responsibility for consequences and reduce individual sovereignty and liberty.

Given the length of time I've been watching this old world, I'm highly amused by folks who holler "right wing" at views which once were thought of as moderate. Today, JFK would be regarded as a right wing conservative; at the time of his election, many called him a flaming liberal.

And folks wonder why I regard the world as an insane asylum?

Art

[KC]

"none of that IS truth btw"

What? It is all true. Everything is true, even the false things.
Is it factual? That's something else entirely.


"Given the length of time I've been watching this old world, I'm highly amused by folks who holler "right wing" at views which once were thought of as moderate. Today, JFK would be regarded as a right wing conservative; at the time of his election, many called him a flaming liberal."

It is amusing to note that most of what would be described as 'progressive social legislation' in the last 100 years tend to have come from Republican administrations. As far as JFK goes, wasn't it widely believed (held to be true:D ) that since all good Catholics obey the Pope, Kennedy as President would turn the office into a thrall of the Papacy?

[Art Eatman]

"...most of what would be described as 'progressive social legislation' in the last 100 years tend to have come from Republican administrations."

Er, excuse me. I always thought FDR and LBJ were Democrats.

Note that in 1964, Norman Thomas did not--once again--run for the Presidency as the candidate of the Socialist Workers' Party. At the press conference, he commented that the party's 1932 platform had been enacted into law.

:), Art

[rrader]

Golgo-13

The Left, on the whole, seems to come up with better authors. What right-wing novelist has ever come along who can equal Steinbeck, for example?

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

[MeekandMild]

Moparmike

They were probably talking about Huxley's "Brave New World" and Bradbury's "Farenheit 451". These are probably the most "literary" of the predictive novels which discuss future dystopias.

One might also consider watching ridley Scott's movie "Blade Runner", the Thea von Harbor book "Metropolis" made into a silent movie by her husband Fritz Lang in 1926, the Robert Harris novel "Neuropa", and Gibson's "Neuromancer" before they too are banned.

[MicroBalrog]

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

rrader, have you even read him in the language of the original?;)

[rrader]

Microbalrog:

rrader, have you even read him in the language of the original

Nyet :evil:

No, I don't have any ability in Russian at all beyond the simple tourist phrases. I took Spanish in College, it's one foreign language that is of daily benefit to Americans, and I have lost most of that over the decades.

[MicroBalrog]

Well, let me put this way:

Solzhenitstyn is:

a)Overesetimated.

b)Slight Anti-Semitic (as evidenced by his last book).

c)Anti-Self-defense (ibid.)

[fallingblock]

"And folks wonder why I regard the world as an insane asylum?"
**********************************************************

Danged if it don't get more crazy the longer I look at it!:D

It's good to see LBJ remembered with FDR as the instigators of U.S. socialism....

It's just regrettable that ol' Lyndon hailed from Texas:eek:

What do you reckon got into him?

Was it something along the Pedernales? Juniper pollen maybe?:D