Does anyone in our armed forces NOT think like this?
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Does anyone in our armed forces NOT think like this?
If not, why not, and if we all do, what are we doing bound up in an apolitical organisation when we should be running the country? 
http://www.grumpyoldsod.com/flashman.asp
http://www.grumpyoldsod.com/flashman.asp
UTTER STUFF AND NONSENSE!
Daily Mail tosh..................................
Daily Mail tosh..................................
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That PC should have become acceptable in Britain is a glaring symptom of the country's decline. No generation has seen their country so altered, so turned upside down, as children like me born in the 20 years between the two world wars. In our adult lives Britain's entire national spirit, its philosophy, values and standards, have changed beyond belief.
Probably no country on earth has experienced such a revolution in thought and outlook and behaviour in so short a space. Other lands have known what seem to be greater upheavals, the result of wars and revolutions, but these do not compare with the experience of a country which passed in less than a lifetime from being the mightiest empire in history, governing a quarter of mankind, to being a feeble little offshore island whose so-called leaders have lost the will and the courage, indeed the ability, to govern at all.
Probably no country on earth has experienced such a revolution in thought and outlook and behaviour in so short a space. Other lands have known what seem to be greater upheavals, the result of wars and revolutions, but these do not compare with the experience of a country which passed in less than a lifetime from being the mightiest empire in history, governing a quarter of mankind, to being a feeble little offshore island whose so-called leaders have lost the will and the courage, indeed the ability, to govern at all.
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That section is indeed very apt, it's also why we pay so much in the way of taxes. It's to keep the 
ers who think up the next piece of stupid huggyfluff legislation paid.
ers who think up the next piece of stupid huggyfluff legislation paid.
Most of the decline has happened since Mad old Maggie left office - we've suffered the worst of it under the yoke of the despised NuLabor.
Whether Comrade pr00ne likes it or not.......
Now we have the creeping cancer of the Euro-superstate to look out for. Most of us are happy with a European Economic Community, but the increasing Eurocracy being spawned is another matter!
Whether Comrade pr00ne likes it or not.......
Now we have the creeping cancer of the Euro-superstate to look out for. Most of us are happy with a European Economic Community, but the increasing Eurocracy being spawned is another matter!
Hovis Days
I enjoyed reading the attachment - good staff, but it did remind me of a Mel Smith sketch many years ago on 'Not the Nine O'clock News'. He was a Tory politician talking to the camera, along the lines of:
'An old lady stopped me on the street the other day and said 'Why, oh why, can't things be like they used to be?'
So I took away her pension book and sent her grandson up a chimney!'
Life in the past wasn't always quite so rosy - for many it was a grinding life of stultifying social conventions.
'An old lady stopped me on the street the other day and said 'Why, oh why, can't things be like they used to be?'
So I took away her pension book and sent her grandson up a chimney!'
Life in the past wasn't always quite so rosy - for many it was a grinding life of stultifying social conventions.
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Life in the past wasn't always quite so rosy - for many it was a grinding life of stultifying social conventions
There are times when I find it hard to describe what is wrong with Great Britain but I think that George MacDonald Fraser has summed a lot of it up.
He may have also accidentally stumbled upon the root cause of the disaffection with which the majority of today’s armed forces view their senior officers and government.
Genius.
He may have also accidentally stumbled upon the root cause of the disaffection with which the majority of today’s armed forces view their senior officers and government.
Genius.
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I sometimes think we confuse economic wellbeing with moral and, dare I say it, tribal backbone.
We may be materially and economically better off now but are we not becoming feckless and self centred in the process? Was it not H Macmillan who was buried for daring to say that we'd never had it so good? That was shortly before the "swinging sixties" when most people didn't give a flying f**k beyond anything other than enjoying themselves. If the Victorians and Edwardians had thought that way, we would now have parity with Romania.
OK, the working classes in the mills, ironworks, factories and fields around us lived through hell; but if we had the same pioneering spirit mixed with human compassion, would we be wringing our hands over "credit crunch", falling US economy and the general World turmoil as we do now?
When a Nation looses identity with its military ethos, it's buggered.
We may be materially and economically better off now but are we not becoming feckless and self centred in the process? Was it not H Macmillan who was buried for daring to say that we'd never had it so good? That was shortly before the "swinging sixties" when most people didn't give a flying f**k beyond anything other than enjoying themselves. If the Victorians and Edwardians had thought that way, we would now have parity with Romania.
OK, the working classes in the mills, ironworks, factories and fields around us lived through hell; but if we had the same pioneering spirit mixed with human compassion, would we be wringing our hands over "credit crunch", falling US economy and the general World turmoil as we do now?
When a Nation looses identity with its military ethos, it's buggered.
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From an ex-military type perspective, what scares me is the way history seems to be repeating itself. Rome in its heyday was quite something, and its army professional far beyond any of its protagonists. But the army, manning the far flung frontiers of Empire, maintained that professionalism protecting a home base that imploded and eventually collapsed as the population at home became increasingly self indulgent and self absorbed, demanding handouts and amusement (“bread and circuses”) from its government without feeling any need to contribute anything to society in the first place. (Does any of that sound just a little familiar to anyone who wears a uniform?)
The legions came home to find a Rome nothing like the Rome they had left, with politicians pandering to the masses with handouts they didn’t have the money to pay for, so they strangled the military budget to fund the increasingly generous handouts to a population that increasingly came to see these handouts as their God-given right. (Hmmm... That would never happen today... ... would it?)
I’m from the colonies, (Australia, although I haven’t lived there for some years), and I’m saddened to say we’re not far behind the Mother Country in what G.M. Fraser complains about – this new religion of Political Correctness. No one dares to naysay any example of it, no matter how ridiculous it may be, for fear of being immediately branded a racist or something equally damning in the eyes of this new PC society. (And in this new religion, only white people, it would seem, can be “racist”.) So the ‘silent majority’ - (and I suspect they are a very large majority) - just ignore it and pretend it isn’t happening, to the point where I’m reminded of the quite famous poem about the gradual Nazification of the Christian churches in Germany in the 1930s by Pastor Friedrich Niemöller: “First they came for the Jews... and I did nothing, because I wasn’t a Jew, then they came for the... and I did nothing... .. and when they came for me, there was no one was left...”.
I was visiting Sydney in January and nearly foamed at the mouth when the ‘sorry’ sign was written in the sky – twice – over the city during the Australia Day celebrations, almost certainly with taxpayers’ money. I was out on the harbour with a couple of hundred thousand others, on a boat that held about five hundred people. Everyone – and I mean everyone - else on the boat behaved as if they hadn’t even seen the large sign being written in the sky . It scarily reminded me of what I’d seen in the southern states in the US, where black and white co-exist, but eerily, almost never acknowledging that the other race is there on the same street. It’s really spooky, and I fear that with our Political Correctness and the ‘sorry’ culture that well-meaning people (most of whom have no idea what they’re on about) are forcing onto a mainly unresponsive – (and certainly not sorry!) – population, we seem to be heading in the same direction.
The legions came home to find a Rome nothing like the Rome they had left, with politicians pandering to the masses with handouts they didn’t have the money to pay for, so they strangled the military budget to fund the increasingly generous handouts to a population that increasingly came to see these handouts as their God-given right. (Hmmm... That would never happen today... ... would it?)
I’m from the colonies, (Australia, although I haven’t lived there for some years), and I’m saddened to say we’re not far behind the Mother Country in what G.M. Fraser complains about – this new religion of Political Correctness. No one dares to naysay any example of it, no matter how ridiculous it may be, for fear of being immediately branded a racist or something equally damning in the eyes of this new PC society. (And in this new religion, only white people, it would seem, can be “racist”.) So the ‘silent majority’ - (and I suspect they are a very large majority) - just ignore it and pretend it isn’t happening, to the point where I’m reminded of the quite famous poem about the gradual Nazification of the Christian churches in Germany in the 1930s by Pastor Friedrich Niemöller: “First they came for the Jews... and I did nothing, because I wasn’t a Jew, then they came for the... and I did nothing... .. and when they came for me, there was no one was left...”.
I was visiting Sydney in January and nearly foamed at the mouth when the ‘sorry’ sign was written in the sky – twice – over the city during the Australia Day celebrations, almost certainly with taxpayers’ money. I was out on the harbour with a couple of hundred thousand others, on a boat that held about five hundred people. Everyone – and I mean everyone - else on the boat behaved as if they hadn’t even seen the large sign being written in the sky . It scarily reminded me of what I’d seen in the southern states in the US, where black and white co-exist, but eerily, almost never acknowledging that the other race is there on the same street. It’s really spooky, and I fear that with our Political Correctness and the ‘sorry’ culture that well-meaning people (most of whom have no idea what they’re on about) are forcing onto a mainly unresponsive – (and certainly not sorry!) – population, we seem to be heading in the same direction.
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Agree with you, Strongbow. I would like to be able to say that, for all its weaknesses, the UK is a good place to live. But I can't because it isn't. I don't know where is, or whether I would want to live there, or whether I would be happier there than here or whether I would even be accepted. Cr*p, that's how I feel.
Not that I'm complaining, understand.
Not that I'm complaining, understand.
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Zedder,
The section you quote sounds like the biggest bunch of sour-grapes ever. To honestly say that the UK has had it bad, is small minded in the extreme.
Oh dear, how sad. You don't get to be an empire any more, running colonies and extracting labour and produce from dominions. How tough it must be.
For an example of self-centred Britain, look no further than Maggie and the 80s, personal profit above all else, sod community.
The section you quote sounds like the biggest bunch of sour-grapes ever. To honestly say that the UK has had it bad, is small minded in the extreme.
passed in less than a lifetime from being the mightiest empire in history, governing a quarter of mankind, to being a feeble little offshore island whose so-called leaders have lost the will and the courage, indeed the ability, to govern at all.
For an example of self-centred Britain, look no further than Maggie and the 80s, personal profit above all else, sod community.
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Sunray Minor said:
"For an example of self-centred Britain, look no further than Maggie and the 80s, personal profit above all else, sod community. "
In direct comparison to Nu-Labour who (only)appear to care for community, with their "initiatives" (that acheive diddly squat). Their female ministers who are wholly in-effective and were only employed on gender and not on ability. They are the masters of Spin and deceit. Personal Profit? Don't make me laugh, take a look at Kinnock, Mandelson et al who raped the trough in UK and now have their snouts firmly embedded in the EU trough!
Give me Maggie every day of the week! She had a spine and balls and at the very least dealt with those horrible blimmin miners. Scargill? Another loon!
The empire may have gone but lets maintain some pride in our country instead of pandering to the "Human rights, votes for wimmin (in comfortable shoes), ethnic minorities, pink and fluffy brigade" who are strangling the very life out of our society.
By the way, as a white, hetero, married man do I qualify to be part of an ethnic minority?????
"For an example of self-centred Britain, look no further than Maggie and the 80s, personal profit above all else, sod community. "
In direct comparison to Nu-Labour who (only)appear to care for community, with their "initiatives" (that acheive diddly squat). Their female ministers who are wholly in-effective and were only employed on gender and not on ability. They are the masters of Spin and deceit. Personal Profit? Don't make me laugh, take a look at Kinnock, Mandelson et al who raped the trough in UK and now have their snouts firmly embedded in the EU trough!
Give me Maggie every day of the week! She had a spine and balls and at the very least dealt with those horrible blimmin miners. Scargill? Another loon!
The empire may have gone but lets maintain some pride in our country instead of pandering to the "Human rights, votes for wimmin (in comfortable shoes), ethnic minorities, pink and fluffy brigade" who are strangling the very life out of our society.
By the way, as a white, hetero, married man do I qualify to be part of an ethnic minority?????