My Evil Glare, the Sin of Laughter, and of course Kiev,

At random:

 

Mr ‘P’ goes on about the Russian ‘land-grab’ in the Crimea. This entirely misses my point that this action was a *response* to Western intervention, using postmodern mob-and media-based destabilisation methods, not a free-standing unilateral action . It must be judged as such.  Of course it greatly suited the Russians, but ‘we’ in the ‘west’ gave them the opportunity.

 

My own guess is that, as well as being a riposte to the Ashton/Nuland/ Westerwelle offensive it also has a lot to do with President Yanukovich’s ruthless use of the Sevastopol naval base to squeeze a very advantageous gas deal out of the Kremlin a few months before, in return for an extension of Russia’s right to stay there.  Such  blackmail simply couldn’t have taken place had Crimea never been included in the independent Ukraine, as it obviously shouldn’t have been under any properly-considered drafting of borders. It’s just that there was no such properly-considered drafting of borders in 1992, just a panic rush to ‘independence’ by several new nations without the means to sustain such independence, morally, politically, militarily or economically.  

 

The idea that Mr Yanukovich was a friend or puppet of Mr Putin, by the way,  simply doesn’t survive knowledge of these acrimonious talks. Note that Russia has now revoked the gas agreement , on the grounds that it now has Sevastopol permanently anyway, thanks a lot. And Moscow is demanding large and increased gas payments from the new Kiev government, which Kiev, being a long way on the bad side of bankrupt already,  cannot possibly meet. Perhaps the ‘EU’, or rather the taxpayers of EU states, will end up pouring their money into this, having sought and now got responsibility for this  failed state.  It will be yet another bottomless chasm. In this case, it is comical to know that most of the money will end up in Moscow, one way or another.

 

‘Tom’ tells me that the Kiev government was corrupt, as if this were a justification for its unconstitutional overthrow.  Tom, *all* Kiev governments are corrupt. But it’s only the ones which don’t befriend the EU that get attacked by mobs. Can ‘Tom’ perhaps see a pattern in this? As for Yanukovich’s laws to ban various forms of protest, these may have been ill-conceived and ill-timed,. And indeed have contained repressive elements. But they were still an attempt to deal *constitutionally* with a violent and lawless threat. The idea that the violence began with the shooting is also absurd. Long before any guns were used, the demonstrators had made generous use of large stones and petrol bombs, along with iron bars. These are not necessarily as bad as bullets, but the sue of them licenses the use of reasonable lawful force in response. I shall be interested to see how #Tom# regards any repressive measures the new government may find itself taking against violent pro-Moscow demonstrators in the Ukrainian east.  He may say (and he may be right) that these are orchestrated by the Kremlin, but then again, the demonstrators he likes have also accused of being orchestrated, and were certainly openly encouraged, by outsiders.

 

It’s just occurred to me that quite a lot of the guiding spirits of the new EU must have been participants in, or enthusiastic spectators of, the May events in Paris in 1968. This could explain their fondness for this form of politics.

 

Mr Courtnadge repeatedly says that Brigadier Ioannidis actually intended to provoke the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. It’s not relevant to the point,  though it is interesting (Nobody’s saying the two events are identical, just that they are parallel). Can he give us references which provide historical warrant for this?

 

Why does anyone who says that Christianity *improves* morals in a society get told that it doesn’t make them perfect, or that Christians sometimes do terrible things? I know. But Christianity has learned from these mistakes and these days is quite well-behaved. Not so atheist idealists:  Political Revolutionaries can be guaranteed to censor, imprison and ultimately kill those who get in the way of their Utopian schemes.

 

The point about ‘Game of Thrones’ (and one thinks particularly about the very early scene where an incestuous couple are disturbed and observed by a child, and the man involved deliberately and casually hurls that child from a high window, intending to kill him but actually crippling him for life) is that conscience and fear of judgement are entirely absent from the lives of all, and that this is most evident in the deeds of the most successful characters. Compare Hamlet’s self-torture over whether he can kill Claudius , when Claudius is at his prayers. Or the genuine horror of the English people at the alleged murder of the Princes in the Tower by Richard III.

 

Yes, I have heard of the Crusades, and the Cathars. I’ve also heard of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, and of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot.  

 

I’d also make this simple point. Fictional characters, in prose and even more so in TV and films,  influence the behaviour of those who identify with them , or even those who just watch them. They make actions thinkable which previously were not, and can corrupt the mind. If this were not so, why do advertisers spend billions on their trade, and  millions on placing their products in the hands of fictional characters?

 

The very fact that my brief point was viewed as shocking and laughable by so many people (who felt no need to explain their response)  underlines this point. The most responsive targets of this kind of thing are those who are wholly unaware of the process.

 

I am chided for being ‘unChristian’ for laughing at the cyclist who fell over when I glared at him. Someone will have to explain this to me. The man involved had been ( as I clearly explained) riding at speed towards a pedestrian crossing,  while people were on it, intending to ignore a clear red light (which is just as bad as, if not even worse than, doing the same at a zebra crossing) . All I did was to glare at him. I have to say that the sight of someone , for no apparent reason, slowly toppling sideways on a racing bike, is irresistibly funny. As a cyclist myself, I knew he’d come to no serious harm. I also felt that he’d completely deserved his discomfiture, and that it was entirely his own fault. My purpose had been to get him to stop at the light

 

If there is an obvious explanation for what happened, I suspect that my glare made him panic with guilt, and possibly fear of what would happen if he carried on, and as a result  he forgot to pedal and lost his balance.

 

As for it being unChristian to laugh when a bad action leads to a mild but painful experience, I’d be grateful for any scriptural references on that.