The Virtues of Meritocracy

I do apologise for having been absent for a lot of time, regular readers will know that I am now the proud subscriber to a bar job, and I am thoroughly enjoying it at that. A lot of heavy keg lifting but nothing that I cannot handle, furthermore a sudden realisation that British people are at large very rude in the pub - something which made me rather sad since the Kiwis and the Aussies are perfectly delightful (the majority) yet the indigenous do not seem to be able to quite handle the pressure of being humble when requesting something as simple as a pint. But alas I digress, I believe what is on the agenda today is meritocracy for the reason that it is slowly seeping back into the roots of Britain again.

'Death of the Fox' is a book by George Garrett, an American poet and novelist. He was the poet laureate of Virginia from 2002 to 2006. His novels include 'The Finished Man', 'Double Vision', and the Elizabethan Trilogy, composed of 'Death of the Fox', 'The Succession', and 'Entered from the Sun'. I am currently reading Death of the Fox and rather enjoying it since it revolves around Walter Raleigh but rather annoyingly all the spelling is american so it is just about readable for any English speaking person. I shall leave the content for the reader himself to google but it centres around Raleigh's life and covers the arrival of the Tudors in England in 1485 to the execution of Raleigh in 1618.

There is a passage which I would like to rip right out of the novel for it is very striking and pertinent in these days as well, even though intended to read of the 14th century.

Great men rise above their peers like the tallest trees of the forrest. Proud, but first to catch the eye, and therefore soonest to be cut down. And down they come with a groan and brief thunder. When they are gone there is only rotten stump and empty space of sky to prove they have ever been there.

Now I ask; is this statement true? Is there such a check to limit the reach of the most ambitious of men? I would say this statement has become largely moot in today's society. We live in an age of celebrities, be they politicians who are famous for the broadside of their jaw or celebrities who are famous for being simply famous but that is just about where their personal agility ends. One must for the sake of society argue that if someone who is reasonably ambitious today would stand up and declare his intentions, people would to all intents and purposes follow that man regardless of the nonsensical ideas that are spewed out of his midst. We do not question what should be and we do not replace dangerous paradigms with our own common sense. I argue that this is down to meritocracy. What is more I take the strongest and most fervent of objections to what we have become: nightingales. We close our eyes when we sing and see nothing and hear nobody but ourselves and it is quite frankly killing the whole foundation of man as we know her and turning our brief stay in this place into a perpetual opprobrium which, no matter how you argue, is detrimental to all of us.

This narrator has had the good fortune to have grown up in more than one country - it gives one perspective and perspective is good for it lets us judge things from two sets of books. "Merit" is a bad word in most of the European continent and Britain today, the best and most suited for a position are not necessarily the most likely final occupants of that post as logic would dictate. Instead rather spurious sets of selectors are used such as sex, skin colour, background, religion and many other very strange denominations which, at least in my view, should be nowhere near the academic process that is selection. This is because of biology and more importantly evolution. I subscribe to evolution and not creationism so if you are expecting an essay on that I bid you farewell for you are not about to get one.

Natural selection is the process of survival: a process resulting in the evolution of organisms best adapted to the environment. You can extrapolate this to the rather mundane task that is everyday life of the hoi polloi, you and me and everyone else in our curious little 16 hour battle period, 365 days a year which we have come to denote as our 'lives'. Regardless of what you might think of the human species we are rather fine example of what natural selection is capable of; there are certainly a lot of deceases but seen in the light of what our species has accomplished it is nothing in comparison. What is more we are able to heal ourselves out of our own means - a mighty feat which few other species can master. Now we think of this in terms of economics and more importantly the private sector and the operators within; namely the companies. The companies that provide the daily bread for million of people around the globe, if not billions. A lot of these organisations are very powerful and are powerful, wealthy, because they work hard and more relevant to us; they select people based on their ability and not their appearance. A single bank interviews thousands of people for maybe just 10 jobs and by doing this they ensure that they will get most profitable person, the person who is willings to work the hardest to deliver most dividends for himself and the company, the sort of person who constitutes and investment in itself. They select the brilliant from the brightest.

If you invest in people you want to make sure that your investment will not go to waste, that said person will come to work for your organisation for at least a couple of years so that all that training is not lost, it is simple quid pro quo economics and is used by most business outfits to reach their combined goal of making more money for such is the marked based economy that we live in today. But, what if you break the system, what if you have a planned jobs market where not only are your employes selected for you but you are obliged, under law, to accept them no matter what whacky nut jobs you end up with. You will loose money, your profits will shrink and your status in the social hierarchy will stumble and fall. Why? Because we are not all equal, we do not have the same motivation, outlook, dreams, background, parents, environments or any other number of factors. We are different and that is what makes us different from any other species. Look at birds; they are homogenous they move the same, look the same and for all intents and purposes act the same. We are omnivorous entities who succeed because of our difference, because it fosters a sense of competition; and urge to be better after the initial failure, an urge to prove to the world that you can do better that you are not part of the dregs that inhabit the lowest pits of this world. Those who refuse to work even though they are perfectly capable, those who betray, those who let others suffer for personal gain etcetera. That list could be made endless of people who have no business in interacting with decent hard working folk but such is the situation in which we perceive; we are different for good and for bad, and if we break that pattern, if we engage in social engineering we are dabbling with powers well beyond our comprehension and understanding. And it is not a matter if something very horrible is going to happen as a result, it is a matter of when.

PC gone so overboard it is sinking

The Queen’s Trinity Cross honour deemed unlawful by Privy Council. Why? Because Muslims and Hindus complained that its Christian name and cross insignia were offensive.

FFS! - For you who do not know what this acronym means, look it up in the Urban dictionary. Suffice to say this humble person wishes we could scroll back to the early 20th century when you were allowed to have things without conformity.

Without making this too much about 'them' and 'us' it cannot be passed by. First and foremost Britain is still a Christian nation; the population at large identify with this religion the most. It is still as far as I am aware the state religion of the UK. But you can be quite sure that the PC brigade will have their way in the coming years. The Privy Council in London has ruled that the decoration is unconstitutional because it discriminates against non-Christians. Aha. Are we to abolish the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force because they kill people? Surely that must be unconstitutional, no? Or maybe we should remove the 'Royal' from each service as it might offend the British republicans.

Stream line everything and society will just become one big bore with no particulars to make it interesting or rather fascinating. Britain is still a very interesting island but much is being done to erode this over inflated sense of achievement - as the Labourites would have you think. After all the British Empire did nothing but evil in the world of the leftists liberals. But for now they are gaining ground it must be said.

* The Law Lords are to be abolished because the Labour government misinterpreted a ECHS court ruling which they should not have given two hoots about anyway. They do not give a shit about what they say with regards to DNA retention but when it comes to altering 800 years of history they are all ears. Hypocrisy at its best ladies and gentlemen.

* Jack Straw initiated a review of the judiciary which resulted in the judges, barristers and other judicial functions loosing their couture and wigs. These may not be the height of vox vogue but it did create a 'hey that is kinda neat' feeling whenever the British judiciary was reviewed by an outsider. The judges et al. loved their costumes but Mr. Straw saw it fit to deprive the particulars of men and women who belittled his supposed intelligence.

* Recall how the Lord Chancellor now as a much more diminished role again we can thank Labour for this one. In their infinite wisdom they screwed up everything in their Constitutional Reform Act 2005. Now Speaker Martin (oh dear) is being trusted to handle some of the responsibilities of the Lord Chancellor.

* The Queen no longer appoints judges on the advice of the Lord High Chancellor. The Judicial Appointments Commission has been given this task. Great ANOTHER commission.


These are just some judicial details which have been given the boot by the Labour government, keen as always to remove any notion of Great Britain as a sovereign nation. Think of all the other social aspects that have shot-down by Labour - it would make you cry. How's that EU rebate coming along Blair? Ohh yes of course I forgot you gave away what Mrs. Thatcher fought so hard to obtain. Good work, good work.

But going back to the ridiculous ruling by the Privy Council (whose chamber is set to move from No. 10 to the new British Supreme Court of Justice). Do we EVER say anything when something the religionistas do happens to offend us? No, rarely because we are so blissfully reserved and have long since replaced our spine with, well, nothing.

If I was to criticise the current process whereby an Indian man is seeking to overturn the nearly century old ban on setting yourself to flames -outside- (I am obviously referring to open-air cremation) I would be called a xenophobic, racist, bigoted, chauvinistic BNP supporter. But without even mentioning the word 'race' (yes, I alluded to his religion is that not allowed?) all I contend is I do not want pieces of cremated people flying around everywhere. What if there are children around? How are you to explain to them, that they might have accidentally inhaled a dead person? Presumably why the ban was put in place in the beginning; because it is a health hazard. Surely the health-and-safety freaks in Whitehall can understand this?

My guess is this: taunting the British now is most likely like playing with fire. There is a lot of bottled up anger kicking about and you would not want to eject all of that at once. This is what happened in Germany 1933 and that ended very badly for everyone. Pray that our next government has the foresight to recuperate the situation and expel the BNP mob to the back corners of the world - where they belong.

People must be allowed to offend one another. If we create a society without any constructive criticism we create a society without fear. This might seem like a good thing but without fear you cannot appreciate happiness nor bravery. They are not mutually exclusive. They both occur at the same time and they must occur at the same time. Otherwise you create a situation where like some parliaments, notably the EU, you have no official opposition and then, in effect, you have an autocracy.

They have got to be f****** joking

When you thought that there would be more important things to contest or whine about, like the erosion of democracy and freedom á la New Labour + Tories or why not the constant hammer pounding upon the armed forces not only from the Talibans but also from HM own government.

But alas, the truly mind boggling depths of human ineptitude seems to have sunk even lower. We are told from the Guardian (do recall that since it is the Guardian they are with all certainty pushing spin and over hyping to new far-reaching horizons) that the MoD is ignoring women and ethnic minorities in its new attempt to promote the armed forces; with toy dolls.

Before surgically removing the backbone of this story let us first contemplate why they should be complaining at all. Why would you want your profession to be turned into a media gimmick by a government department, so that they can remove focus from its incompetence and focus instead the beam-of-truth on dolls. Before ranting and complaining please, oh please I beg you, consider why and what you are complaining about and do not just jump at every opportunity at some spotlight shine.

Further for the MoD, they currently have a £2 billion shortfall in their budget yet instead of spending their money on more equipment for the sorely needing fields of Afghanistan they are spending it on dolls. Yes I concur these figures might not have cost that much to produce but consider that soldiers are having to suffer at the incompetence of this government and its ministries at every single bloody turn. Did you know that they have just withdrawn the Vector from service (after introducing it only in 2007) after having paid £487,000 per deathmachine-capable-of-anything-but-its-main-purpose and they bought 200 of them giving a total bill of £974,000,00.

Giving that this is the kind of mental capacity we can expect from the MoD, saving money should be a priority for them, since you can be as sure as an "amen" in a church, that they will mess up the next big contract as well. Every penny counts as they say. The MoD should really have as their maxim 'Every solider counts' but we all know that spending money on kit, be it whatever, is better than spending money on gear which actually will blow the turban of the Talibans. For really you have got to give it to the insurgents in Afghanistan (there are more than just Talibans; ranging from foreign fighters from Europe to disillusioned Pakistanis): They are facing the full military brunt of the modern world and they are still coming out on top, as they did with the Soviets and the British before them and even Genghis Khan before them...

But lets deal with that article shall we now.

"the 25cm all-male models - including commandos, infantry, pilots, divers and parachutists - were criticised last night for insulting the 17,900 women in the armed forces. The MoD was also accused of racism after 25 images of the toy figures posted on a website promoting the range were all white-skinned."

While no-one is denying the excellent work carried out by female soldiers in HM Armed forces, not at all, you must look at the bigger picture. There are 425,500 personnel in the stated above of which females constitute a tiny tiny fraction of just 4%. Furthermore this is a gimmick aimed at boys (boys-with-toys suddenly got a whole new dimension of relevance), with all likelihood; young boys. Young boys at this age are just that, young, so young in fact that they play with action figures or to use the more common sobriquet 'dolls'. The MoD is also planning to make a buck or two on these dolls so why would young girls buy action figures when we all know that they like barbies? And if there are any of you same-sex-PC-fanatics out there who wish to take me up on this; then please be my guests. If you can find a toddler out there (female of course) who would rather play with an action packed MoD top-of-the-brass commando and the like instead of a Barbie, then please tell me. While you do that the rest of us who are, quite frankly, tired and sick of your PC bollocks will return to the real world where girls are girls and boys are boys, where the former enjoys pink and dresses and the latter mud and action-figures.

Girls, the MoD is not trying to discriminate against you (hell, if the past years of positive-discrimination does not show that I do not know what will) they are just facing up to the real world for once. Even though this is a remarkably retarded way to spend defence money they are at least being honest about it, so please do not get your knickers in a twist (I know that is slightly sexist but I could not stop myself, truly).

As for the discrimination against ethnic minorities, lets look at the figures again. Barely 10% of the armed forces are ethnic minorities. This leaves us with (assuming that no ethnic minorities are women) 86% white male personnel and people are jumping up and down, wondering why no minorities were made. If the answer has not knocked you in the head by now, like a mad football skinhead hooligan with a bad hangover, then I am afraid you live in cucko-land and only Gordon Brown can help you now for, lo and behold, he lives on the same planet.

Question is why does it have to be replicated, lied about and reflected in a product which is to put the armed forces in a good light for the toddlers of tomorrow? Why must reality be so skewed as to make a representation which is not true? Would it have been better if half the soldiers where ethnic minorities and women? Must we copy the sorry state of census-tinkering they love doing down at the BBC where half of their on-camera staff appears to be Asian even though this is not a real reflection of the Asian population in Britain (of there entire British population 12% are immigrants - not 50% if we were to believe the BBC). Even the ethnic minorities themselves have started to complain to the BBC about this, clearly something must be wrong? No, if you are going to spend your tax-payer defence cash on stupidities like these then at least make it an honest stupefaction.