Stuart Heritage is driven to angst by….charity tokens. Yes.
Really.
You're supposed to put these tokens in one of three boxes, each representing an individual cause. Conservatively, I must have spent a third of my life slumped in front of these boxes, agonising over which cause to pick. Should I give it to the dilapidated care home or the local postnatal unit? There's one here collecting money for beehives. Who do I like more, babies or old people? I certainly won't give my token to the beekeepers. But what about the documentary I saw that said we'll all die if the bees go extinct? Perhaps my token would do more good there. Yeah. That's what I'll do. Screw you, premature babies. God, did I really just think, "Screw you, premature babies"? I'm an awful person. On and on and on it goes. Eventually, withered and hungry, I'll give up. I'll press the token into a stranger's hand. "You look like a kindly fellow," I'll croak. "I trust you to make the right decision."
What a man of action you are!
It's also, broadly speaking, my attitude towards voting.
Well, I’m surprised. Not.
Call me naive, but it seems sensible to assume that an MP would be better at making important decisions than me.
Really? Well, actually, you may have a point. Frankly, I don’t think there’s much in it though!
I don't think I'm alone in thinking this, which is why Nigel Farage's newfound love affair with referendums is doomed to failure. This week, Farage declared that a Ukip government would hold regular public referendums for everything from foreign affairs to housing schemes. Direct democracy, he calls it. A massive pain, I call it.
Of course you do – thinking’s hard. Better to get someone to do it for you. Relieve you of that terrible burden of responsibility.
…really, I don't want that much of a say. Nobody does. That's what elections are for. An election is a genius act of delegation. I don't want to spend the next five years embarking on an in-depth series of work and pension spending reviews. That's why I went to the trouble of picking a representative to do it for me.
Hey,
I want a say. So do lots of people. You speak for them about as well as those ‘representatives’ you seem to favour speak for….well, for you.
One presumes that this whiny little jess would then be all butthurt and hand-wringy if his MP voted the 'wrong' way on an issue; "Oh, but I trusted him to represent ME, not all those other people"
ReplyDeleteArsewipe! The vote should definitely be reserved for the thinkers, a case of weighing heads rather than merely counting them!
I had to check the source, despite being fairly sure, to find, yes, it was...a Guardianista. Whiny lefty bollocks - do they really get paid by the sinking GMG ship for this sort of vacuous filler?
ReplyDeletePasty faced, hang wringing, odious little twat. I remember beating these idiots in the school yard circa 1972. Being an oik meant I was blessed with prescience and insight and just knew they would metamorphose into Guardian journalists. My one regret: I should have nutted them harder. Wouldn't have changed their profession though; brain damage rarely does. And who can afford to shop at Waitrose these days. Somali immigrants with 20 kids of which 2 are their own and 18 are their relatives, and swapped around and passed off like currency. Mix and matched and claimed on the state, regardless of parentage. Shit, I can only afford to shop at Aldis- at least the canjeero is cheap. And folk wonder why I want to burn stuff…..
ReplyDeleteI would if he would have said in the 17th century, I find decisions too hard. I think the King should decide everything
ReplyDeleteMy God! Total and utter faith in and obedience to the state.
ReplyDeleteIt's people like him that deserve the country we're building. Trouble is, they won't let the rest of us opt out as seeing free will in action terrifies them
Anglo-Saxon direct democracy was best. When a ruler became unpopular, you simply cut his throat, ravaged his wife, sold his children into slavery, and burned his house to the ground. It acted as a kind of incentive to other rulers.
ReplyDeleteNo matter WHO you vote for, some arsehole always "wins." So why bother?
ReplyDeleteI can't believe someone wrote down how stupid they are in such a way. What a divvy. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised although I was shocked to find he wasn't already a politician.
ReplyDeleteIf he's lucky enough to be in the ward that Emily Benn is contesting he'll have an easier time of it because the choice will be from just two useless candidates...
ReplyDeleteThe male Glenda Slagg - or perhaps not male.
ReplyDeleteMost activists will appreciate the good point made by Stuart Heritage. The former have personal experience of generating political awareness and interest throughout a blind and submissive flock.
ReplyDeleteI cling to the tiniest possibility of the latest de Menezes spying allegations invoking a notable public response, Julia. But a referendum on whether we should abolish corrupt plod 'services' is akin to unearthing a five carat diamond in the vegetable patch.
Leaving aside his actual grumble, about having to make difficult decisions, how hard can it be to choose between the 3 'deserving' causes he was offered. A run down care home (that charges either the residents them selves or the tax payer many hundreds of pounds a week for 'care'). A local, probably NHS run, tax payer funded post natal group, or help out someone trying to raise bees (most likely with out any form of tax payers assistance). It really is a no brainer isn't it. I for one am quite relieved that this particular idiot is happy to hand his choices over to someone else. Some one that might actually be able to tell the difference between giving even more public money to state run and/or funded operations that quite obviously cannot use their already quite substantial income wisely, or give it to a small, independent, local business that is actually trying to do something that will benefit all the people whether or not they wish to actually support it.
ReplyDeleteOnce again the Huddersfield bore turns each post back to his favorite hobby-horse,so sad and predictable.
ReplyDeleteJaded
Woman Police Clairvoyant Jaded...
ReplyDelete...never saw it coming when she was sacked from her last job for making no prophet.
I'm obviously hopeless at this charity token thing. I go to the box first, see how many schools etc there are then take that number of tokens at the checkout.
ReplyDeleteShould I be stressing over it instead?
@FT: given Bosworth have seemingly elected a nutter who believes in astrology, I think you are right !
ReplyDeleteAh the poor wee man. I feel so sorry for him. How to decide what to eat, what to drink, what (or whether) to drive, where to live- the list of his tortures must be endless!
ReplyDeleteBut help is at hand. For a modest fee I am willing to have him as a slave and make all his decisions for him.