Freedom of Expression .. again.

“Freedom is an absolute state, there is no such thing as being half-free.” 

Daniel Delgado

This is brief, just another rant really. As an aside, I am aware that anything I write on this blog is utterly irrelevant and will have no effect on a damn thing. However, it is a place where I can, at least, write a little and express my views.

Freedom of expression (in speech, writing, art, music, video games and so on) is an absolute. One either has it or one does not have it. If one says "Yes, we have freedom of expression ... but ..." then freedom of expression has evaporated.

This is a point I have banged on about before until people are sick of me. But I won't stop because I really believe that freedom of expression is under threat. There exists censorship from large, powerful corporations and from many governments.

IF a group wants to march down the road sieg heiling, carrying the Swastika flag and singing the Horst-Wessel-Lied, then they should be allowed to. If they want to march down the road waving the Hammer and Sickle flag and singing the Internationale, they should be allowed to. If they want to march down the road talking gibberish and waving the Antifa banner, they should be allowed to. The same goes for Moslems, of all kinds, white nationalists, racists and the vilest examples of thought one can imagine.

This will, of course, provoke opposition. And that is good, ideas must be allowed to clash and combat each other. BUT - the use of violence instantly ends the right to their marching or whatever.

The USE of violence, not the THREAT of it.

At that point, the state has the right to exercise one of its few legitimate functions and use its monopoly over the use of force. All individuals engaged in the use of physical violence must then undergo the due process of the law.

NOTE: All of the above flags and banners above represent ideologies that are deeply obnoxious to me and are, for me, moral equivalents. But we must never stop the expression of those views.

The Lincolnshire Regiment.

The Lincolnshire Regiment was the county Army Regiment of my home County, Lincolnshire, in England. It has now been amalgamated out of existence. Of passing interest is the fact that Lincolnshire natives, like me, have, or used to have, the nickname of 'Yeller Bellies' (Yellow Bellies) possibly, just possibly, due to the facing colours of the Regiments uniform in the 18th Century.

The colour in the background is Lincoln Green - the colour of Lincolnshire. This colour is also closely associated with Robin Hood.

"The Royal Lincolnshire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army raised on 20 June 1685 as the Earl of Bath's Regiment for its first Colonel, John Granville, 1st Earl of Bath. In 1751, it was numbered like most other Army regiments and named the 10th (North Lincoln) Regiment of Foot. After the Childers Reforms of 1881, it became the Lincolnshire Regiment after the county where it had been recruiting since 1781. After the Second World War, the regiment was honoured with the name Royal Lincolnshire Regiment, before being amalgamated in 1960 with the Northamptonshire Regiment to form the 2nd East Anglian Regiment (Duchess of Gloucester's Own Royal Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire) which was later amalgamated with the 1st East Anglian Regiment (Royal Norfolk and Suffolk), 3rd East Anglian Regiment (16th/44th Foot) and the Royal Leicestershire Regiment to form the Royal Anglian Regiment. 'A' Company of the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Anglians continues the traditions of the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment.

Battle Honours of the Lincolnshire Regiment:

Steenkirk 8 July 1692, War of the Spanish Succession 1702–1713, Blenheim 13 August 1704, Ramillies 23 May 1706, Oudenarde 11 July 1708, Malplaquet 11 September 1709, Bouchain 13 September 1711, Peninsula 1816, Sobraon 10 February 1846, Mooltan 21 December 1848, Goojuarat 21 February 1849, Punjab 1857, Lucknow 1858 1863, Atbara 1898, Khartoum 1898, Boer War 1899–1902, Pardeberg 19 February 1899, South Africa 1900–02,

Great War:

Mons, Le Cateau, Retreat from Mons, Marne 1914, Aisne 1914, '18, La Bassée 1914, Messines 1914, 1917, 1918, Armentières 1914, Ypres 1914, '15, '17, Nonne Bosschen, Neuve Chapelle, Gravenstafel, St. Julien, Frezenberg, Bellewaarde, Aubers, Loos, Somme 1916, '18, Albert 1916, '18,Bazentin, Delville Wood, Pozières, Flers-Courcelette, Morval, Thiepval, Ancre 1916, '18, Arras 1917, '18,Scarpe 1917, '18, Arleux, Pilckem, Langemarck 1917, Menin Road, Polygon Wood, Broodseinde, Poelcappelle, Passchendaele, Cambrai 1917, '18, St. Quentin, Bapaume 1918, Lys, Estaires, Bailleul, Kemmel, Amiens, Drocourt Quéant, Hindenburg Line, Épéhy, Canal du Nord, St. Quentin Canal, Beaurevoir, Selle, Sambre, France and Flanders 1914–18, Suvla, Landing at Suvla, Scimitar Hill, Gallipoli 1915, Egypt 1916

Second World War:

Vist, Norway 1940, Dunkirk 1940, Normandy Landing, Cambes, Fontenay le Pesnil, Defence of Rauray, Caen, Orne, Bourguébus Ridge, Troarn, Nederrijn, Le Havre, Antwerp-Turnhout Canal, Venraij, Venlo Pocket, Rhineland, Hochwald, Lingen, Bremen, Arnhem 1945, North-West Europe 1940, '44–45, Sedjenane I, Mine de Sedjenane, Argoub Selah, North Africa 1943, Salerno, Vietri Pass, Capture of Naples, Cava di Terreni, Volturno Crossing, Garigliano Crossing, Monte Tuga, Gothic Line, Monte Gridolfo, Gemmano Ridge, Lamone Crossing, San Marino, Italy 1943–45, Donbaik, Point 201 (Arakan), North Arakan, Buthidaung, Ngakyedauk Pass, Ramree, Burma 1943–45"

Note: It didn't serve in North America during the slight trouble we had with the Colonists there in the 18th Century.

(Information from Wikipedia)

The march of the Regiment was The Lincolnshire Poacher:

When I was bound apprentice in famous Lincolnshire

Full well I served my master for more than seven year

Till I took up with poaching, as you will quickly hear

Oh! 'tis my delight on a shiny night, in the season of the year

As me and my comrades were setting of a snare

'Twas then we seed the gamekeeper - for him we did not care

For we can wrestle and fight, my boys and jump o'er anywhere

Oh! 'tis my delight on a shiny night in the season of the year

As me and my companions were setting four or five

And taking up on him again, we caught the hare alive

We caught the hare alive, my boys, and through the woods did steer

Oh! 'tis my delight on a shiny night in the season of the year

I threw him on my shoulder and then we trudged home

We took him to a neighbour's house, and sold him for a crown

We sold him for a crown, my boys, but I did not tell you where

Oh! 'tis my delight on a shiny night in the season of the year

Bad luck to every magistrate that lives in Lincolnshire

Success to every poacher that wants to sell a hare

Bad luck to every gamekeeper that will not sell his deer

Oh! 'tis my delight on a shiny night in the season of the year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJdRxUPTKvU

The official flag of Lincolnshire is:

It has only existed since 2005 however. The red cross is the Saint George's Cross representing England. Yellow represents the crops grown in the county, as well as the nickname "Yellowbellies" given to people born and bred in Lincolnshire. Blue represents both the sea of the East coast and the wide skies of Lincolnshire, and green symbolises the rich lushness of fenland fields. The fleur de lys is a recognised symbol of the City of Lincoln.

The flower of Lincolnshire is the common dog-violet:

Just for information and interest.

Was Adolf Hitler a Socialist?: Preface.

Recently there has been an argument flying around about the question of was Hitler a socialist. It is, I think, a really stupid question. What difference does the answer, whatever it may be, make? I will admit that my immediate emotional reaction is "Of course he was!". 

But, upon reflection, I have to say that Hitler, personally, was probably not a socialist. He was an opportunistic, romantic, racist, nationalist gambler.

However, my immediate emotional (beware emotional responses!) reaction to the question is based on the idea that the ideology of fascism shares the same roots as the other great destroyers of the 20th Century - Communism and Socialism. Nazism was a form of Fascism, just a lot more racist than fascism generally. So around Hitler arose a whole body of ideological fantasising that was clearly more socialist than Hitler was. I don't think Hitler cared too much about it. He was prepared to exploit any situation that would help him up the ladder of power. He became an almost a religious figure in the Germany of the 1930's. And he was quite happy to exploit that too. If one scours his speeches on can find a snippet that supports any view - he was a socialist, he wasn't a socialist. He was Christian, he was an atheist and so on.

However, as I mentioned above Fascism, as an ideology, shares the same roots and goals as Socialism and Communism.

When I was a student, over 40 years ago (Oh no, the old man talks!) I did some courses in politics. The professors and lecturers, many no more than 10 years older than I was at that time, accepted it as an obvious, well documented, fact that these three ideologies were connected. Were variations on the same theme.

These professors and lecturers, by the way, stood head and shoulders, intellectually, above the average university professor of today. They were the product of a system that valued genuine scholarship, sound empirical evidence and sound argumentation. I knew that some of them were socialist, but that did not appear to affect their teaching or their scholarship. So I put a lot of weight on their arguments. I was, at that time, a serious Marxist by the way.

In broad terms these ideologies have several things in common:

1. Prioritise the collective over the individual;
2. The use of state power to achieve their ends;
3. A hostility to free enterprise and capitalism;
4. A tendency to romanticise aspects of their ideological position;
5. A focus on 'collective identities' - such as nation, race, class, the disadvantaged and to romanticise these too;
6. A tendency to create an almost religious dogma to which one must adhere - this varies but is always there; 
7. A tendency to create a pantheon of 'saints and sinners';

Now, I am aware that many of these points apply to other social phenomena too. One could argue that they are always present in any large collective of human beings. Identity politics on a grand scale. And all states stand on a monopoly of the use of force, and all states will use it. But these ideologies exploited these traits and refined them into an almost religious system. In fact, I regard most ideologies as 'religious' and most religions as 'ideological'. 

This is just an off the cuff ad hoc drafting of some thoughts I have, hence the word 'Preface' in the title.I do intend to write more on this when I have time. So it could be quite a while yet before I do.

Not that it makes any difference to anything in the world what I write or say. But, I just feel the need to do so.

Peace.

Si vis pacem, para bellum

Islam delenda est