Haaaaaaa, I'm wicked and I'm laaazy (General)

Member Name: theediscerning

Product:	General
Date:	25/06/04 (63 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Wanta rant...?

Disadvantages: You hate theed afterwards

A great philosopher once wrote:~ "Naughty, naughty, very naughty."

But that's irrelevant.

Jill Murphy once wrote:~ "I thought we might all like to play lazy debating. So here are a few issues for you to think about - and write about. By filling this in, we get to distil our views into just one paragraph. I rather like this idea, because I am a lazy opinionator, who doesn't like to plan or research, but just likes to type as the mood takes her. I have lots of strong opinions on current debates, but I'm just too lazy to sit and properly structure an entire piece on any of them. A few gut reactions in one paragraph is a format that suits me fine. So, here goes?"

Which is more to the point. And lo and behold, theed joined in.


● Do you believe in life after death?

Aah now, this is a tricky one to start with. Ghosts etc *must* exist, too many people (S for one) have seen them, so they are around us. Quite what they are is not for theed to guess at. So if there is some sort of inexplicable post-life, er, life, out there, theed would have to say yes. If the question was more along the lines of 'does theed believe in something that will enable him to return to creation after his death in a different form?' the answer is that no, he doesn't believe in any such thing, and so he doesn't expect to.


● Should smoking be banned in public places?

Again, a toughie. All smokers are of course evil, infringing on the majority's rights to have clean air around them to breathe. If you take away someone's liberty like this ~ not enabling them to inhale pure industrial fume and traffic exhaust instead ~ then you should expect some come-uppance. Ten years off your life is not enough, though ~ in the meantime you should expect to feel ill at the sausages TV ad, and to be frowned upon as a sad-sack. If we can't put you in the stocks to prev
ent you puffing up, or whatever the term is, then we might just as well have to keep you in your own little dens of iniquity. Hospital staff common rooms, they're often called.


● Is capital punishment wrong?

Absolutely, entirely, comprehensively a *NO* on that one. Yes the state is a corrupt, evil monstrosity, whichever state you think theed is referring to, and as such they shouldn't have the powers to kill the innocent. But there have been cases in life when guilty people have requested to be put down, from guilt, or some horror at their future living in a cushty little private lodging at Her Majesty's... And there's nothing in any libertarian thought that means they should not have the right to be topped off. Why the heck should any tax payer (that obviously doesn't include theed) have to foot the prison bill for some bastard who did whatever s/he did, and yet wants out? Yes the victim of some unmentionable crime concerned might feel short-changed, but if all parties agree, then there's your man, there's the mains...


● Should cannabis be legalised?

Oh dear, another hot potato (soon to be street slang for a lit spliff, you watch...) Theed would much rather the whole bloody weed was exterminated from the face of the earth, much as tobacco should (as above), and all other illicit drugs (but hands off his booze). But then theed has already written on this site about attitudes to drugs ~ they are all in his personal Room 101 as each and every one is wrong. Especially calling drug takers "casualties" ~ whoever would do such a thing as that??!! They're allegedly mature people taking what they know is wrong for them, even though there must have been something wrong for them to want to change their life for the worse in the first place. It's not the only problem with legalising cannabis ~ if we did there'd be even more awful 70s-influenced music being m
ade (theed remembers Kula Shaker, you know...). To extend this paragraph to its only proper conclusion, it would make such little difference if it was legal, it might as well be. And please don't harangue theed about this waffle ~ he's got the get-out clause of knowing his attitude sucks and is wrong, see?!


● Is beauty only skin deep?

For brevity's sake, no.


● Do animals have rights?

Aah, if they wanted rights they shouldn't have been made of food. Er, theed has some sympathy for farm animals etc, unless they're ready to be served up to him. He does agree privately that using horses, especially for blood circuses like the Grand National, is a very sorry case. Give us back our mustangs, he says. On the whole, it really depends on what animals you're referring to. Street pigeons, for example, have no rights. They are at perfect liberty to be kicked into the next post code.


● Does Britain still need a monarchy?

Well this handily coincides with all the headlines that the nation spends 61p on the Queen and her ill-found offspring for every woman, man and child. It's not that much, one supposes, three loaves of bread for Pete's sake, but some years the humour quotient just isn't there and we're getting short-changed. If we had to replace them we'd need a President, and one who did as little as this lot do, and for quite a few pence less. That, of course, wouldn't happen ~ they'd be some bureaucratic behemoth, Norman Foster would build another ugly building for him to sit in, and we'd be swamped with proclamations about piffle. As for the monarchy, if you can laugh at them enough to get your 61p worth, then we might as well keep the ineffectual, ugly, in-bred lot of them, for they do little harm. Except to foxes...


● Should fox hunting be banned in England and Wales?

For brevity's
sake, yes. For the fox's sake, yes. And for cryin' out loud keep your hands of badgers, too. They don't cause TB any more than the Wombles do.


● Should Britain join the Euro?

Many people are going to think from all this outpouring that theed is a Mail-reading, right-wing little tosser ("oi, less of the little" he cries), but the answer here is a resounding "NO" again. It won't put us on a level playing field with anyone, it will only mean that everyone has to double everything and divide by three to work out how much something is actually worth, just as we have to do every time we go abroad to Europe. Prices will soar just as throughout Europe, and no nation there is actually happy with the bloody thing. Theed reckons Britain would be better off outside the EU, for the bureaucracy, corruption, fairness, etc reasons we all know about. And that doesn't mean we should lean the other side to our bastard son Uncle Sam (no offence to any North American reading this, but your state sucks big time). We should try and be good at being ourselves for once. (Stop tittering at the back.)


● Should all fire arms be banned for private use?

Again, here's that Mail-reading flag. NO. Theed can see absolutely nothing wrong with the Tony Martin law. If you've gone a hundred miles or whatever to invade some poor mentalist's farm, and rob from it, you have lost any rights you thought you had, sonny Jim, including the right (and the left) of your scrotal sac. They are the property defender's to do with as he pleases, which includes shooting them off.


● What is your opinion on legal prostitution?

Er, not a subject theed has thought about a great deal. It makes sense, though, that way people can walk home any direction from the train station at night in any city ~ there'd be no specific area of 1920s housing that shelters all the
low-lives who need the "service".


● Are we living in rip off Britain?

Er, if the previous subject wasn't on theed's mind, then this is even further distant. If he went back to watching TV, he might glance at Watchdog (is it still on?) and he might actually be concerned that cars are cheaper in Europe. If the question is about the fact that taxes and house costs rise to extraordinary levels while the majority of the nation lives in unhappy, unhealthy and unlovely surrounds, then there is a problem somewhere. But you see theed isn't exactly a consumer ~ no mortgage, no car to run, no kids to smack, etc, so all that is irrelevant to him.


● What is your opinion on pornography?

It's a quick fix, however unsavoury it is. Some mild titillation is OK, but as someone once very accurately said (one of the Amis pair, if memory serves) ~ if you want a w**k, a w**k is fine, if you want a f**k then only a f**k will do. Theed won't deny that while S is away the hand doesn't play, but the joystick isn't stuck on any porno game, if you get the drift.


● Is genetically modified food right?

For theed, no, even though he's eaten enough of the bally stuff over the last decade ~ so little ready-made stuff is without it. For the farmers being pressured into the stuff by Monsanto and the American Government, and the wildlife that will be altered irretrievably by any mix-up that may happen, no. For devastatingly underfed countries in Africa more concerned with civil wars than feeding their own citizens, the debate suddenly becomes lengthier. And probably too long for this paragraph, so if this one can be hedged in no uncertain terms, theed would rather leave it as it is.


"There. Finished. How did I do?! Why don't you have a go?" That's the last pair of Jill Murphy's questions. You needn't answer those, althou
gh one supposes you will in some way, but all the rest should be tackled for those lovely miles...

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