Beetle,
I don't know if I'm excluded for commenting given that while I still hold a British Passport, I am a permanent resident in the US and the 15 year rule makes it impossible for me to vote in the UK. Please let me know if the "too Americanized" rule excludes me from commenting here.
I hate to admit it, but after the Coup D'etat that drove Maggie out of office, and then the tepid Major government I lost almost all interest in British politics. The philosophical differences between the main parties have narrowed to almost nothing at all, with all of the parties firmly committed to socialism and social liberalization in principle and only differing in the degrees to which they are willing to implement them. When I go back to the UK to visit family, I am forced to realize that culturally at least I have become a stateless person.
Of course I'm not arguing that the differences have been erased to the point that in local elections you don't still occasionally see the truly Looney Left red brigade candidates and the Fox-hunting old-guard Torries, but it seems to me that both major parties are largely rudderless and soul-less and neither has anything resembling a full-complement of statesmen.
But then again that does seem to be a reflection of our British culture, which appears to set short-term personal peace and prosperity as its only goals. Our pop-culture is a thin imitation of American pop-culture, and we seem to have been drinking deep at the Euro-well of cynicism, enui, and contempt for anything that smacks of "tradition" or moral certainty these days. Oh, and we all agree that we must roll our eyes and/or spit at the mention of "George Bush" or "neo-cons."
All of the bills I see introduced these days seem to be aimed at cheapening the culture, erasing the things that made us distinctively British as opposed to merely European, and of course erradicating the last vestiges of morality unless they are knee jerk restrictions aimed at mismanaging the economy or dealing with the increasing violence and anti-social behavior that goes hand-in-hand with cultural collapse. Meanwhile, the fastest growing religion in England is Islam and each month more and more Churches are closed down to be replaced by Masjids and Maddrassas.
Its just my ultimately worthless opinion, but the UK seems hell-bent on committing slow cultural suicide and at this rate the children of the builders of the "sceptred isle" (those that aren't sacrificed on the altar of convenience that is) are not going to have an inheritance. We have created a cultural vacuum and stronger cultures will inevitably fill that vacuum, especially because we no longer can offer anything worth assimilating into. "Come destroy your family" generally doesn't sell well with cultures that don't view that as inevitable or even necessary.
I'm saddened when I think of what the UK once was; a thriving global center of thought, art, religion, missions, science, trade, and vision, and then reflect on what she has become; decadent, cultureless, moribund, cynical, shallow, amoral, balkanized, and visionless.
What I pray for is revival and reformation in our country, and I pray that someday a party will arise from the ashes that stands for something other than tearing down the old order, promising hand-outs, cultivating envy, and complaining about the opposition. I long to see a party arise with the old spirit, vigor, vision and certainty of Pitt, Burke, Wilberforce, and Churchill. Will that happen? Well not without considerable change in the culture and not unless and until we realize that agendas that merely offer welfare, legal drugs, porn on demand, mandated sexual confusion, dumbed down schools, situational ethics, "animal rights," euthanasia, and laxer sentences have never and will never sustain a society.
- SEAGOON
