Got a question... (now OT)

[davewitley]

Rita asked:

> << 20% for wearing a  Fair-Isle sweater >>
> 
> I hate to be serious, but what's liberal about wearing a Fair Isle
> sweater? Sometimes in USA, you can say 'wearing a sweater' (any kind
> of sweater) as an anti-liberal statement, because of Jimmy Carter's
> suggestion to save energy (petroleum oil) by turning the thermostat
> down, maybe even down low enough that I don't have to fan myself 
while
> wearing nothing but undies (please forgive the terrifying mental
> image). But (returning from that digression) I didn't think that
> setting the thermostat was a hot political issue in UK.

Allow me to explain.

The USA is a rationally-based constitutional state, and naturally the 
electorate there dispassionately makes up its mind on the issues, 
based on the best evidence available.

Sadly, in the UK, this is not always the case, and one sometimes finds 
that people draw political conclusions from quite incidental cultural 
features.  For example, one might look at a person and say "this 
person wears a Fair Isle sweater, and therefore supports entry into 
the Euro" or "this person sports a beard, and therefore sets explosive 
devices near laboratories where animal experiments take place" 
or "this person takes part in discussions of fiction on the internet 
and therefore cannot be trusted to take part in the electoral process."

It's hard to see how we can get away from this backward state of 
affairs.  My own solution is to make handguns available to the 
population on demand, and then these people would soon be put in their 
place.  It does Mr Blair credit that, in his adherence to Mr Bush's 
lead in everything, he shows that he recognises this problem.

David