Politics

[B Arrowsmith]

No: HPFGUIDX 71472

I was slightly disappointed by Manawydans posting, not with its 
implication that anyone with intellect or feeling would (by their very 
nature) fall towards left of centre, and everyone bigoted, ignorant or 
vicious would be right of centre, but with the ease with which labels 
are applied. Yes, I realise that it is not meant to be taken too 
seriously, but there are some discussions on this site that do raise 
the blood pressure; mostly about stereotyping. Muggle, Wizard, 
Mudblood, Gay, Straight, Left, Right.

Beware of labels!

Of the four great killers of the 20th century, three were so called 
socialists or communists. Hitler came third if you count the numbers 
murdered by each. ( First,  Mao, approx 60 million; second, Stalin; 
approx  25 million; third, Hitler, approx 10 million; fouth Pol Pot, 
approx 7 million.)

It is also interesting that the word Nazi is an abbreviation of the 
German for National Socialist, even though he is thought of as an 
archetypal right-wing monster. How do you define L/R here? The only 
difference between him and the other killers is that he was voted in.

If you think about it, there is no MORAL difference  between murdering 
someone because  of their race, and murdering them because they are of 
a social class defined by the murderers..  Stalin's 'rich kulak' who 
deserved to die, was anyone who owned a cow, Pol Pot, anyone who wore 
glasses and was therefore an intellectual.

It's not about political bent, it's about power and how to gain it. 
Find a weak spot in a target population, raise anxieties and claim that 
you, and only you, can resolve the 'problem'.

This is what the Directives passed by the MoM are about. Raise 
anxieties among the parents of Hogwarts pupils about the existing 
regime; claim that the MoM can solve them (without looking too closely 
at legality), take power by claiming to be the over-riding authority at 
the school and as a bonus, eliminate a thorn in the flesh (DD), that 
can't be removed by other means. Once power is achieved, legal defences 
and individual rights are irrelevant. It's lucky that Fudge is an 
incompetent.

Lord Acton's  quote about power and absolute power becomes 
self-fulfilling.

If you once, in a civilised society, label an opponent as someone to be 
hated or eliminated because of their beliefs, rather than their 
actions, then you have taken the first steps on the road built by 
monsters. Political (and emotional) rhetoric is,  unfortunately, rich 
in such terms. If they are right, they  must be vicious and stupid; if 
they are left they must be enemies of personal freedom and religion. 
Ridiculous! It doesn't matter which side of the road they  travel, it 
is their ultimate destination that potential followers must question.

Trouble is, it's not easy finding out the truth before it gets very, 
very messy. The media do not help.
I'm probably a good bit older than most of the posters on this site. 
That does not make me wiser. I wish that it did. What it does give me 
is a longer memory. An awful lot of  people held up to be admirable 
examples of this or that turn out to be liars  and frauds; sometimes 
murderers too. But the media do not want to be out of the current 
political flow, so the true story tends to get lost and finally 
surfaces many years later, if we are lucky.

Sorry to lecture, but sticking a label on some-one is the first step to 
taking away their individuality; the next step is to de-humanise them. 
Then they are just a statistic, and who  cares about statistics.

Glad to have got that off my chest. And no, this is not an attempt to 
start a political discussion. Just a
reminder that this is a civilised site and it would be nice to keep it 
that way.