Dethroned with a shrug

Daniel Foster over at the Corner regarding the new cable series Game of Thrones and the question of whether or not its racist:

Here’s my brief answer: Of course Game of Thrones is racist. Rather, of course the show’s various ethnic groups and clans are differentiated by their appearance and behavior, and of course some end up looking and acting more barbarous than others as a result. I’ll go one further: All of the characters in Game of Thrones are racist as well, and few if any suffer even the slightest admonishment for it. But wouldn’t it be queer indeed if the residents of the Western part of an Iron Age fantasy world thought that distant (and often belligerent) cultures with strange, alien habits were to be celebrated for their uniqueness? As my friend put it, imagine the schoolkids in the capital city of Kings Landing making posters to commemorate Dothraki History Week.

I've seen the first episode of Game, but since I'm unacquainted with the books its based on, I came away wondering if I was supposed to buy a study guide because I had no idea what was going on.  Still, I find Mr Foster's take refreshing.  "Racism" is like "Fascist"; a word that has been so overused and so broadly applied that today it means "Something I don't like".    I've often worried that the insane crush of political correctness might result in a violent reaction by society to shrug it off when it becomes too oppressive.  However,. Mr Foster presents another and I think preferable alternative:  Indifference.  When the term racism is used to cover everything from genocide to a reasonable desire for free association and demands minimum terms of redress that are indistinguishable from cultural suicide, then it ceases to have any serious meaning.  In that case, the only reply to be expected to the accusation is,  "Racist?  I suppose. So what?"

That may not help much at a thoughtcrime hate crime trial of the British, Canadian, or Dutch variety (unless it's by mass resistance combined with liberal doses of rude gestures, of course), but it will go a long way toward putting the cocktail party totalitarians in their place.

Flag Waving

Proving that a stopped clock is right twice a day, Mr. Gordon Brown has seen sense and is actually allowing freeborn Englishmen to fly the flag of their country.

Mr. Brown has been advised that he shouldn't let this sort of thing go to their head, otherwise the proles and Outer Party members will start thinking that things like patriotism and liberty are their birthright rather than a sufference from the Party.

A Ray of Sanity

From the Telegraph:

Tony Blair's flagship identity card scheme, which has almost doubled in cost to £5.5 billion, could be the first casualty of a Gordon Brown premiership.

Jack Straw, who as Home Secretary vetoed an ID card, yesterday dropped the clearest hint in his role as Mr Brown's campaign manager that the scheme could be dropped.

Let's hope that it's true.

I'd far rather use the Magna Carta image more often than the Ingsoc one, thank you.

A Blow for Liberty

From the Telegraph:

Campaigners fighting EU plans to abolish imperial measures have claimed victory after the European Commission backed down over plans to ban imperial measurements.

Giles Chichester, the Tory MEP with responsibility for industry, said last night that compulsory metric measurements were "off the agenda".

I have only one reaction:

RESULT!

Now if we can just get the EU to naff off entirely and take their metric scales with them.

When Sanity Takes a Holiday

In the Blair New World, even a cricket ball in the hands of a 28-year old City accountant is regarded as a lethal weapon.

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.