Quote Originally Posted by Nowake View Post
Oh dear, I’m not ignoring you Philipvs, not as a person, I simply do not care to devolve into your type of arguments, where the main focus is, in my opinion of course, not clarifying viewpoints, but rather the raising of easily disproved yet very, very obsessive objections in desperate bids to avoid making any concession to the logic or facts.
You seem to read in short sentences, and never pay much attention to the nuance in another's argument. Your first interpretation of someone's post is the one you cleave to even if they develop their position. Beginning your address with "Oh dear" just comes accross as more condensension and is likely to raise the blood pressure of your interlocutor further.

As to your allegations, it speaks to the state of the general political debate today that your average public has such a limited horizon of interpretation that it can only place a benign assertion as being pro or against fascism.
Not really, one of the hallmarks of Facism is oppressing the people for their own good, and that is essentially what is being imposed however benign the rhetoric.

On that note, I keep saying that we really, really have to create an 26ptBoldIronicFont, else wit is totally wasted on you lot.

I posted the remarks to which you so object in the hope that someone in this thread crawling with Brits will recognize the paraphrasing and cheer up on being reminded of the amazingly good, most widely known British television political satire of all time and Thatcher’s declared favourite, Yes Minister, the two paragraphs being some of the program’s most infamous quips.
Hell, I even placed a wink before the first one by writing: /theatrically pretends to faint
Just to make sure no freak could miss the irony, I placed before the second the caveat: hidden reference.

And here are the actual quotes – providing larger quotes from the original, since they are so hilarious.

Yes Minister
*The discussion takes place between two Civil Servants*
Bernard Woolley: I don't know if I want power.
Sir Humphrey: If the right people don't have power, do you know what happens? The wrong people get it! Politicians, councillors, ordinary voters!
Bernard Woolley: But aren't they supposed to in a democracy?
Sir Humphrey: This is a British democracy, Bernard!
Bernard Woolley: How do you mean?
Sir Humphrey: British democracy recognises that you need a system to protect the important things of life and keep them out of the hands of the barbarians! Things like the Opera, Radio 3, the countryside, the law, the universities... BOTH of them. And we are that system!
Bernard Woolley: Gosh!
Sir Humphrey: We run a civilised, aristocratic government machine tempered by occasional general elections. Since 1832, we have been gradually excluding the voter from government. Now we've got them to a point where they just vote once every five years for which buffoons will try to interfere with OUR policies and you are happy to see all that thrown away?
Bernard Woolley: Well, no, no, I didn't mean...
Sir Humphrey: Bernard, do you want the Lake District turned into a gigantic caravan site? The Royal Opera House into a bingo hall? The National Theatre into a carpet sale warehouse? Do you want Radio 3 to broadcast pop music 24 hours a day? How would you feel if they took all the culture programmes off television?
Bernard Woolley: I never watch them.
Sir Humphrey: Well, neither do I, but it's vital to know that they're there!
My paraphrase
hidden reference The goal we should aim for in the next half a century is to run a civilised, technocratic government machine, only tempered by occasional general elections. Brussels is for the next few decades a supra-national organism. Therefore, it must seek to gradually exclude the voter from government, up to the point where it picks every few years whichever pack of incompetents will volunteer to interfere with European policy and send them to Brussels.

Yes Minister
Jim Hacker: It’s the public will. This is a democracy. And the people don’t like it.
Sir Humphrey: The people are ignorant and misguided.
Jim Hacker: Humphrey, it was the people who elected me.
*Sir Humphrey smiles suggestively*
My paraphrase
/theatrically pretends to faint My dear chap, where do you get these ideas?!
Europe is not ready for direct democracy. Petty nationalism would run rampant.
The people are ignorant and misguided. Case in point: it is the people who elect the politicians you so despise in the first place.


Congratulations, you're so far from the original quote that no one who saw the sketch recognised it. I suppose that makes your allusion clever, but it's not really witty if no one got it, and no one did. Things have also moved on from the time of Yes, Minister, and parody has become tragedy.

Of course, I had to run into the one Brit whose beliefs and sense of humour are, I suppose, the exceptions which prove the positive stereotype regarding British wit.
Plus all the other Englishmen who didn't get it. Beskar might class himself as a "Brit" but there aren't any othere here.

No worries, I know your Christian humility does not allow you to apologize.
Don't blame my religion for the faults of me Ego, it's offensive to all the humble christians out there.

By the by, for one turning so red-faced in a previous debate that he couldn’t help himself from correcting me:

Your posts are generally perplexing – the latest:
I'm sorry, I'm dislexic and I adopt spelling that make sense with the phonetic pronunciantion I have of your name in my head. I'm been reading a lot of medieval English, and there long "A" goes ar, hence the confusion in my spelling of your name.

Through this response I hope to reply to Apache and Cecil as well.
The second part of my post simply addressed the lack of information many of the ones frothing at the mouth against the German golden rule seem to suffer from. And I re-quote, as it remains salient and your misinterpretations buried it with no cause:




It's all we're talking about, and the consensus is that it is not acceptable to vest bugitary power in unelected technocrats, which includes judges.