Wednesday 16 June 2010

Talk at the IEA

So I was at a talk today at the IEA (Institute for Economic Affairs) which was... interesting. No, it was actually really good, though it was not really a debate since well, the speakers were not so much debating, but agreeing with one another on pretty much everything and each of them just making a little speech to celebrate the occasion of their, erm, speech.

The topic of the day was 'Can a big society be a free society?' naturally referring to the "Big Society" policy which Cameron whipped out a few weeks before the election much to everyone's surprise, since no one had a fucking clue where or why that came from. But out it came and it was a big policy disaster from the beginning to the end ("5000 voluntary community workers" it must have slipped Cameron's attention that there are already some 600,000 people doing voluntary work in this country - retard). And the speakers broadly agreed on this it would seem; all wanted a smaller state, some wanted no state at all and others thought that the surveillance state was just a big joke. The most interesting guy by far, and the most convincing, was someone in a pink shirt who's name escapes me and his point was basically 'can the government just leave us the fuck alone, please' and I agree with that. A century years ago the only time you met the state was when you were born, to get registered, and when you died; to take you off the register. Simples.

Anyhow, it was a good talk with some absolutely retarded questions in the Q&A session - it must have escaped some of those attending that this was a libertarian talk and here we have a guy who basically said that crime had gone down under Labour - and by doing so actually confirming his almost unbelievable naivety in believing government figures. No one believes government figures on anything, and everyone assumes they are lying to make them look better - even the proverbial 'man on the street'.

Then there were the two fucking loudmouthed cows in the back... I fucking hated them and had a good mind of telling them so as well. First they started of by completely disrupting Dr. Eamon Butler's opening speech by opening a fucking window, a loud window, a very loud window, and these were a couple of figures in their late sixties who really should know better than to interrupt someone when they are speaking, particular if it is someone who has been particularly invited to fucking speak! But no, on they went for a full 1.5 hours interrupting people, and speakers, when they were trying to talk and when they were trying to ask questions. The chairman had to shut them up a couple of times and so had some of the questioners as well. They really made a fool out of themselves. They rounded of their pathetic existence by making a little tirade where one of them basically said "bla bla where I live everything is so nice and we all get along, the aussies, the south africans, this and that bloke la la la la, there is nothing wrong where I live" (then the other one patted her on the back and said "good good you, well done" whereas I wanted to knock her clean out) - seemingly oblivious to the fact that the rest of the fucking country does not live in bat-woman-eutopia and that the rest of us (well, not me really since I am student and all we do is get pissed, supposedly, and spread STDs - if the media are to be believed) actually have some pretty serious issues that need some serious responses from the people in power. I really hate them, and I was unfortunate enough to be standing quite close to them as well.

All in all though, it was a good seminar well worth going to and I recommend that you attend the last two debates which are held on the 24th of June and the 29th of June. I will be there, 'banging on', as it were about the EU which incidentally not a single one of the speakers mentioned tonight. I was going to point this out but then the fucking loud mouthed bastard in wig went off on her 'ohh everything is so lovely where I live' - speech. She was what could be called an academic terrorist.

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