[Top part of this post - in italics - added onto this post by Will]

Pictured: a user of clever sounding words that don’t actually say anything of substance; purely verbal; he has his own iconography (or otherwise known as silly little scrawls) - the earnest look, the bookish appearance and that is what his picture intends to cultivate. It embraces the elitism of the academy and one who is really good at artificial earnestness and displays of his ‘weighty’ nature. Whatever — carry on… utter, utter fuckwit.

I appear to have wasted a considerable amount of time yesterday arguing the toss with centrists over at Bob from Brockley’s gaff. The subject of debate was Marko Attila Hoare’s silly diagram and various responses to it, including those of the Fat Man and myself.

Not only are Hoare’s arguments and the rhetorical devices he employs absurd, he is such a humourless bore.

One thing that stands out in Hoare’s post is his use of the term “homogenous citizenship”, when defending his vision of an egalitarian society. Homogenous? Hoare’s support for an “ultra-liberal immigration policy” aside, this reeks of the aculturalism that I associate with Burkean liberal-conservatism. The last thing I want to see is a homogeneous society. It would be the social equivalent of thermodynamic heat death.

There are other issues I have with Hoare’s post, including the display of what is for an historian a shocking ignorance of the struggle for enfranchisement of the working class in western societies. But I suspect that others in the house will have something to say on such matters. I shall conclude with a comment on Hoare’s frankly laughable characterisation of the diverse community of writers that is the Drink-Soaked Trots.

Pretty much the only things we have in common apart from a commitment to human emancipation, and in some cases at least a fondness for the water of life, are a certain robustness of approach and an unwillingness to suffer fools gladly. I define my comrades by their possession of such human qualities, and not, within reason, their professed political ideology.

Sunny Hundal has a post up titled Hapless Neocons. Strangely, his article is concerned with bigoted and mindless critics like Steyn, Wilders, and Philips. His definition of neocon appears to be someone who bashes Muslims, rather than any actual understanding of what neoconservatism actually is. For good measure he makes sure that leftwing critics of Islamist terrorism, so-called muscular liberals, are lumped in with the “neocons” et al.

This is the possibly the worst piece of analysis I have every read in the past two or three years:

Its evidence that the neocons are running out of steam. There are two directions they have tried to take their arguments, albeit unsuccessfully.

One is a point over demographics; that regardless of whether they’re all terrorists or not, European Muslims have a higher birthrate than white Europeans and hence in about [insert scary time] from now there will be sharia everywhere. It’s time to go forth and multiply, brave soldiers!

This is sometimes combined with the view that what Europe actually needs is a resurgence of good old-fashioned “Judaeo-Christian values” to act as a bulwark against Islamism. Ignoring the fact that traditional European Christian fundamentalism involved healthy doses of anti-semitism, even the estimable Melanie Phillips has been pushing this line.

The problem for Steyn, Phillips and their core supporters is that at this juncture they lose the interest of their “muscular liberal” atheist fans.

Let’s leave aside the neocons, muscular liberals, Fitna and the rest for now. This debate isn’t necessarily about re-interpreting, reforming or revolutionising Islamic texts for a modern world either. This is more about political maturity.

There is an immense vacuum between the ears of Sunny Hundal, which he fills with random associations and glib assertions.

Yes, Sunny Hundal is the Melanie Phillips of the liberals.

Truth is, Comment is Worthless is a godsend to the blogger. Short of something to vent your spleen about? Simply follow the link above and within about forty-five seconds you’re sure to find something. But a reassessment is in order because here’s Ruth Fowler having a pop at “puritan bourgeois liberals”:

“[M]isinformed and bigoted hatred is also a trait peculiar to the humourless bourgeois liberal. By singling out people, including themselves, on the basis of race, class and economics - traits that they simultaneously and hollowly decry as utterly unimportant - they perform a spectacular feat of unintentional postmodern irony, or what can be more commonly termed wankerism.”

I have to say, living and working in Glasgow I never come across the sort of puritan liberals she describes.

There are two possible explanations for this:

1) They exist but have already wisely decided that talking to me is a complete waste of time and potentially a traumatic experience.

2) The few that existed have all been killed.

Perhaps they live in Edinburgh, in which case Will can take care of them.

Anyway, how fabulous is Ruth Fowler? Pretty goddam fabulous, in my view. Here’s some info:

“Ruth Fowler was born in 1979 and grew up in the mountains of North Wales. She received a first class BA (Hons) in English Literature from Cambridge University in 2000. She is sure they let her in as the token comprehensive school northerner.”

Hmmm - 1979? Bit of an age difference here, but not insurmountable… Did I mention my grandfather was Welsh? First class honours? Hey, I’ve got one of those too. (Is there no end to the things we have in common?) Means slightly less than fuck all - but you knew that already because you’re just so gorgeously intelligent. Tokenism? No, no, no - apart from the usual mundane shit you need to get into the university of your choice, this was because you are an angel, a veritable goddess.

What an improvement to Comment is Bullshit! Why, her very presence even induced that rarest of things - a funny comment on a CiF thread:

“Julie Burchill and Christopher Hitchens had a baby.

It was a girl.”

Funny - yet disturbing: while I enjoy both of these writers from time to time, frankly the idea of them doing the deed that leads to procreation puts images in my mind that I don’t want to be there. Furthermore, while I intend no disrespect to either of them, I doubt very much whether the fruit of their loins would end up looking like this:

What - you find all this vulgar, un-PC and altogether too laddish for your taste? Ah, but herein lies the point, comrade sister, comrade brother: if so, her article’s about you.

The ‘Sacred Flame’ (NSDAP™ 1936) had a truncated journey today, well away from the public eye, surrounded by hundreds of police with batons drawn, reportedly finishing with an ad hoc ceremony on a motorway overpass.

News 24 is reporting that Gordy will not attend the opening rally–for what that is worth.

The saga of the Chinese olympic torch continues, in fine style.

The San Francisco leg of the Olympic torch relay descended into farce last night after the authorities cut the route in half and hustled the torch away from waiting protesters and supporters of the Beijing games by driving it a mile inland.

At the opening ceremony preceding the afternoon’s relay, the first torchbearer took the flame from a lantern brought to the stage and held it aloft before quickly departing again, running behind the scenes and into a warehouse. It was unclear exactly what had happened to the torch, with even the news channel helicopters unable to find it.

After a 40-minute hiatus, during which rumour spread among the waiting crowd of thousands gathered along the waterfront route, the flame reappeared about a mile inland, away from the crowds. Authorities, apparently in a last-minute decision to avoid the protests that had plagued the torch on its parade through London and Paris, reduced the six-mile route to three miles. A closing ceremony for the torch rally was also suddenly relocated away from the waterfront area.

I have come to the conclusion that the Olympic committee awarded the games to the Chinese in the full knowledge that the Chinese government would attempt to stage-manage the torch run around the world, like they can at home, and during the process would be humiliated. While the olympics have increased oppression within China, rather than the opposite, every day draws yet more attention to their failings. The Chinese Gauleiter of Tibet has said of the torch’s progression in Tibet.

“During the torch relay in Tibet and in climbing Mount Everest, if anyone should attempt to disrupt or undermine the torch relay, then they will be dealt with severely according to the law,”

Way to go with those PR skills!