Brit Rant: The Other Harry - Seeking Perspective

[Steve]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Tim Regan" <timregan at m...> wrote:
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> Steve wrote:
> >>> Britain has far too many atrocities associated with it's own 
> uniform to be casting stones at Prince Harry for an ill-chosen fancy 
> dress costume. <<<


> Dumbledad:
>
> The evils of Nazi Germany are a huge and dangerous topic ...
> 
> But I'd like to take Steve's comments in a more personal way and 
> endorse them. ... But I'm troubled by the question "What would I 
> have done?" Would I have been brave and actively resisted Nazi evil 
> (I hope so)? ... Points like Steve's encourage me to examine myself,
> ..., and my ability to stand up against prevailing moral failures.
> 
> But back to Prince Harry. It was clearly a stupid thing to do. He 
> should sit down and examine whatever motive lead him to that choice 
> of costume, though I doubt the press hysteria has left him with the 
> personal space to do that honestly. ... When I was young I did 
> several stupid things and I'm glad those around me haven't held them 
> against me. We should do the same for Harry.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Dumbledad.

bboyminn:

In case you haven't read this entire thread, let me refer you to a
couple other posts in this thread, so I don't have to repeat myself at
length.

bboyminn:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/25727

Caius Marcius:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/25746

Caius posted a link to a British journalist who took a far more
realistic position. That link was broken by Yahoo's wordwrap, so I
will post it again.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/01/18/do1802.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2005/01/18/ixopinion.html

This is an Opinion piece by Mark Steyn from which I will quote the
leading sentence.

"It's a good rule of thumb that, no matter how big an idiot someone
is, he can never compete with the political class's response to his
idiocy."


One must ask if a valid legal party costume is sufficient for the
British government to waste it's time holding meetings, making press
releases, and forming committees. Thousands, if not millions, in
taxpayers money is being wasted on this. That's simply too much
because Prince Harry did something in bad taste.

In my previous post, linked to above, I point out that I am not trying
to demonize the British, or minimize what happened to the Jews and
other people under the Nazis. I am simply making a plea for reasonable
prespective.

My reference to the British is simply pointing out that I too can
adopt a ridiculous hyper-inflamed over-blown out-of-proportion
waste-of-time-and-money position that is none the less based in truth.

The only thing that made this a story was the fact that they had photo
that they could splash across the front page. Lacking that photo to
put on the cover of the newspaper, the story would have hardly gotten
a mention, and would have blown over immediately.

The newspapers are only in it for the money. I remember seeing an
extremely blurred, barely recognizable tabloid photo of Prince William
walking back from the corner grocery store. The simple fact that they
had a photo was enough to get William on the front page, and the
newspaper managed to manufacture a controversial story out of that
photo with a lot of pointless, unfounded, and overblown speculation
about William's alledged girlfriend and what terrible things they
might be doing behind closed doors, and whether she was good enough
for the darling prince they were in the process of scandalizing. A
total non-story, filled with over-blown, hyper-inflated, unfounded,
none-of-their-damn-business speculation.

The politicians on the other hand are simply seizing this opportunity
to get their name in the paper. God forbid that they should do
anything about war, famine, plague, or the atrocities of dictators and
tyrants. OOOHHHHH NOOOOOOO, those aren't nearly as important as
Harry's party costume.

And finally, as Mike Steyn of the Telegraph points out, this costume
came from a costume shop. Anyone can and does walk in off the street
and rent one. 

And most important of all, there is absolutely no sign that this was
anything other than a party costume. As I said, Harry isn't/wasn't
goose-stepping down Oxford Street shouting 'white power' slogans.
There is no indication that he took the meaning behind the costume
seriously, and the casual way he wore the uniform clearly showed no
serious respect for it. 

So, Harry isn't a Nazi, he simply went to a fancy dress party. I will
also say again, that he was probably drawn to it for no reason other
than he liked the military look, and that it make a simple convenient
costume to wear.

To show you my perspective on the young Royals, a while back when
Harry punch an intrusive photographer outside a night club, I thought
he should have given the lout a swift kick in the bum while he was at
it. If anything, in my opinion, his response was too restrained.

I also think the Royals and other celebrities should be able to
copyright their images. Since the media has turned those images into a
big money industry, the Nazi!Harry photo brought 10,000 Pounds
($18,724), the celebrities should be able to get a royalty of the use
of their image. I can't think of any other industry in which a person
can make many thousands of dollars off of you without you also getting
fair compensation. I think the amount they pay the celebrity should at
least be equal to the amount paid to the photographer. I think that
should be tempered with some 'fair news standards', but the current
system has gone far far far beyond fair.

Just one man's opinion.

Steve/bboyminn