A very high turnout for last week's poll, thanks for everybody who took part, results as follows:
Do you think the public sector strike on 30th November was justified?
No - 83%
Yes - 17%
As I suspected, the strike has back fired horribly as a PR measure. No doubt the government has done its own polling and come to the same conclusion, so if anything, the government's negotiating hand is now strengthened.
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It appears that The Righteous have are bored with pillorying Jeremy Clarkson for saying that public sector workers who went on strike should be shot, and have finally got round to criticising him for something else which he said on The One Show last week, which was to describe people who commit suicide by throwing themselves in front of/under a train as "selfish".
I'd completely agree, only I'd describe them as "wickedly inconsiderate" rather than "selfish". Those who suffer most are the train drivers themselves, followed by the poor sods who have to clear up the mangled limbs and blood afterwards, not to mention all the commuters whose trains are delayed.
Of course, there is such a thing as a Righteous Train Driver, who doesn't really know what to think :-)
So that's this week's Fun Online Poll: "Are people who throw themselves under trains selfish?"
Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.
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29 comments:
I am sceptical that your poll reflects the real picture. Most of those who voted I suspect would be of the right wing political persuasion after all your blog is right wing. However I for one would be pleased if I am wrong.
Anti, yes, an 83/17 split seems exaggerated, but it's still indicative.
Mark's blog is probably 50% about LVT. Which we all know is the most communist tax there is. There's nothing that saps entrepreneurial spirit like having to pay for local services instead of sitting on your bum, eating caviare and panda bear sirloins :-)
Re the suicide one, I wonder if the mental health charities sympathise with the suicide-by-cop method sometimes used in the US?
I have been unfortunate enough to have been touched by the scourge of suicide but the act, albeit violent, was not a final 'up yours' to the world.
M, I'd hotly dispute your first comment. I've done 6,298 posts over the years and only 477 of them had the LVT "label".
As to suicide by cop, I'm not too fussed. That goes with the job. And it doesn't make such an awful mess.
Mombers I have to skip MW's LVTs as I do not have a clue whether it is a good idea or not as the concept and arguments for and against are beyond my intellectual abilities. However if MW says that LTV is good then I will take his word for it communist or not. Communist perhaps not.
Ok Mark, exlude the cow ones and it's 50-50 maybe? I suppose I could do a bit of analysis of the blogs tags but I should do a spot of work...
Anti, thanks for giving benefit of the doubt. And no, LVT is not communist, it is the opposite of communist. Home-Owner-Ism has more in common with communism than LVT does.
M, again, I've only done 206 posts with the label 'cows'.
Land Tax is the tax that built the fleet that beat Napoleon at Trafalgar and paid for the army that beat him at Waterloo. Land Tax is the tax that allowed, nay encouraged, the Industrial Revolution to take place in Britain. Land Tax is the tax on which the Empire was built. Right up to the 19th century it was Land Tax that put the Great in Great Britain.
It was only as Britain replaced the Land Tax with Income Tax and Sales Tax that the Empire started its decline. It is not Land Tax which is communist. Land Tax has done its bit for Britain and is ready to do it again. If you want to find the real communists look for those unpatriotic types who prefer to use the EU's Value Added Tax. As for Income Tax, it may be worthy but it's just not British. Britannia didn't rule the waves because of Income Tax.
True patriots support Land Tax.
MW I read the cow blogs they at least I have no difficult understanding. As I live in France perhaps you could do some on French cows. If you do them in French give an English translation even though I have been here nearly 9 years my French is rubbish. I see a lot of cows here as I live in the Limousin.
D, agreed.
Anti, I can barely speak French. I do the German ones because I'm fluent in German and it only takes me a few seconds to summarise them in English. Plus, German-speaking cows seem to be disproportionately violent, certainly compared to British cows.
MW Although I am surrounded by French cows I have no idea how violent they can be as when I do get together with French people it is mostly eating, drinking, a lot of back slapping and because of my lack of linguistic skills the conversation is mostly Ooos and Ahs or me speaking English loudly.
You may wonder why me living in France I am so anti EU. The reason is that France operates in a way that I foresee that the EU wants all member states operate and that I would not wish on anyone. The only caveat is that the French health system is worth emulating it is excellent.
For the removal of any doubt, I'm being sarcastic re saying LVT is communism :-) I'm in love with it and just wish it wasn't like the impure fantasies that Sarah Lund in 'The Killing' induce in me, i.e. frustratingly unlikely to happen. Until the political environment changes and boring home ownerists become the minority here. Can't believe that home owners who would benefit greatly under LVT still oppose it. Government brainwashing.
Interestingly, under various communist regimes there are famous instances of people with good 'connections' in The Party getting the pick of housing. Same thing in a state controlled land allocation system with no LVT. The people who work the hardest and create the most value don't get the pick of the land. Those with pieces of paper granting them monopoly rights on it do.
Anti, being anti-EU does not mean being anti-France any more than it means being anti-Britain. You live in France, I live in the UK, so what?
If you can pick and choose, there are plenty of things which other European countries (EU or otherwise) do much better than Britain does, I've never said otherwise, e.g. healthcare, most European countries seem to do it much better than us.
M, that's what I meant about the parallels, i.e. yer top Home-Owner-Ist has a big house and a holiday home, yer top apparatschick has the nicest flat and a dacha. Neither of them has had to work for it.
The NIMBYs have their five year plans ('no new housing at all for the next five year') and the apparatschicks had their five yeay plans ('no new industries to start up in the next five years').
I don't agree on Sarah Lund though.
MW I never thought for a moment you were prejudice in any way towards Europeans. I am not either and do like France and the French but dislike most of the ways their governments run things. Although yet another caveat their local government and commune system has merit.
To criticise suiciders for killing themselves shows ignorance.
Can you think of any more noble way to make a statement than to give ones own life?
This is ignorance and selfishness of the worst kind.
Are people who throw themselves under trains selfish?
Heavens no - it's a public service.
It's not the suicide that is selfish necessarily, although suicide can be a selfish act, but the use of a moving train to do it.
Of course they're bloody selfish. I agree with JC on this one. There are plenty of unselfish ways to top yourself: slit your wrists in a bath, or wait until it snows and go to sleep in the snow, or jump off a cliff into the sea, or better still, onto rocks that are covered at high tide etc etc. The fact that the suicide is "in the darkest of places", to quote the Righteous Train Driver, doesn't mean to say that she has a right to bugger up other people's lives. What the RTD seems to fail to realise is that the grieving husband, children, parents etc etc would have been just as sad, shocked, traumatised if the wretched suicide had topped herself in the bath, it's just that he wouldn't have been traumatised either. If I was him, I'd still have sympathy for the relatives, but I'd also still think she was a selfish bitch for doing what she did.
Darn, Bayard has just said all wanted to say, except only that train drivers are retired after three suicides (if they didn't see the person burst it only counts 1/2).
So, potentially putting the driver out of work as well.
Don't jump in front of the train, get in it and go to Beachy Head.
Anti, ta, yes, there are bad things about most governments, but the UK government is no better. And probably worse in many ways.
JW, how so?
RS, you missed the point, Bayard has explained the difference between 'considerate' and 'totally inconsiderate' methods of killing yourself, if you are so minded.
Jer, ta, I didn't know that.
Jer, what about the drivers of HSTs? Often the first thing they notice is that the windscreen has gone red. Apparently, in the days of steam, sometimes it was the smell of roasting flesh that was the first indication.
So, potentially putting the driver out of work as well.
Well, surely the driver gets compensation in the same way that would happen if he got his leg chopped off at work
Jer, B, Anon. I asked a tube driver this morning, he says there is no "three strikes and you're out" rule.
After each incident they get offered counselling and come back to work when ready etc. There appears to be the option of an 'honourable discharge' after three incidents, but he said he knew one driver who has already had seven, and a new driver who's only been there twenty months who's already had three.
Looks like the usual HR dept incompetence. If their hiring practices simply targeted devotees of a number of popular video games, there would be none of these frivilous expenses for counselling and the like.
Jumping in front of a train can go horribly wrong. I know of one case who jumped in front of a tube train, botched it somehow and lost their legs.
I was speaking to a train driver after his comment of "Is it any wonder I'm the way I am after three suicides" had puzzled me.
He seemed to think it was compulsory after three, which is why he'd claimed not to have noticed the third, but your explanation does make sense.
Ch, maybe not such a good idea, what happens if they get carried away?
Rob, did he try again?
Jer, we could each speak to a dozen train drivers and no doubt we'd get two dozen slightly different responses.
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