“it has in fact become the most harmful instance of what, after Shakespeare’s ‘I can suck melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs’, some Americans call a ‘weasel word’. As a weasel is alleged to be able to empty an egg without leaving a visible sign, so can these words deprive of content any term to which they are prefixed while seemingly leaving them untouched. A weasel word is used to draw the teeth from a concept one is obliged to employ, but from which one wishes to eliminate all implications that challenge one’s ideological premises.

That last sentence sounds eerily familiar.

I’d guess the desperation and nastiness stem from the very small number of hits his blog actually gets. Our Dickie doesn’t suffer the foolishness of mere mortals with much grace.

Besides being a moron, Our Dickie is also an intolerant, self-satisfied twat.

I suppose Tim deserves some credit for not making the main point that I saw in the linked Richie post, that seriously religious types tend to go for authoritarian bollocks irrespective of their nominal party allegiance…

I remain of the view that he has yet to succeed in converting any dissenters to his view of the world, which makes you wonder why he sees fit to bother.

john b is not a WGCE. For many reasons, not least of which is his ability to come to this blog and make his argument politely. And also because if the revolution came then he would speak up for any of us (Ritchie Boy, I feel confident to say, would be wearing a peaked cap and carrying a revolver to finish off the wounded.)

@11 amuses me, too. It reminds me of the arguments people used to make for utopian socialism…

@ Tristan, yes, of course there are lots of things that the State does which are inimical to a free society (whether culturally or economically) but the distinction between ‘civilisation’ and ’state’ in itself is somewhat artificial; once you have ‘civilisation’ you have, by very definition, ‘a State’, i.e. some means whereby those people who break the generally accepted rules (written or unwritten) are punished (by whatever means).

“Conservatives darkened the ideological atmosphere with obscurantist calls for romanticism, tradition, theocracy, and irrationalism. ”

Shorn on the amusingly pejorative tone that would be the Party aware of the emotional spiritual and dimenions of a man .The one that does not treat people as rational units which , I have to say it is screamingly fucking obvious they are not , thank god . Far from being dead or dying Conservatism is reborn and triumphant.

And a corresponding hugely favourable view of their own attributes.

Not one backed up by objective fact, mind…