Us & Them

With the US Presidential elections about to happen I thought it was worth remembering how things really should be in the world.

A lot of the campaigning from Trump has been about pushing one group against another. It’s painfully easy to do and so very difficult to stop once started. Probably most governments and powerful people do this and here is why …

During the development of humans we lives in small groups. This worked very well because everyone knew each other, understood the abilities and the thought process. It made for successful production of food or hunting and gave them protection from other possibly rival groups. If a group became too big it would likely split into smaller groups. The notion of the group getting ever bigger was not seen as a workable option as eventually too many would not understand the needs and abilities of others and working together would be too problematic so we started down the road of, our group and, their group.

That was all well and good when there was a mammoth to catch or sabre toothed tiger to fight off but not such a practical option now but, it’s still there in our make up, the way we think when we’re not really thinking. Reactivating it is really not difficult, as I said, painfully easy.

Let’s look at some examples of the UK:

Single Mothers were, in the 1980’s, the cause of all problems, they made headlines as the ones who caused, who were the pure example of why the welfare state wasn’t a good idea. Up to date and we’ve extended this to all those who claim state benefits and, just lately, anyone who isn’t British.

Let’s look at that for a moment, being British, what does it mean?

It could be that a person declares they are British just because they were born here and no others, in their way of thinking, could be British unless they were born here but, how do we define ‘British’ as a culture? If we say we’re British we need others who are not British to understand what we mean. Our American friends have a fairly strong idea of what British is, I think many of us who live in the UK would agree they are nowhere even close. The same could be said for many other versions of what is British around the world.

If we go on the birth argument for who is British then this must include just about any colour or religion we can think of seeing as so many are now 2nd or 3rd generation British by birth. But, then it all gets a little grey. The group ‘Britain First’ would argue that British is white, Church of England, ideally heterosexual. The National Front had similar beliefs and, UKIP isn’t so far removed. Many of our European friends now have children who were born here and yet, those who voted to leave the EU would have all Eastern Europeans sent back to their birth country …. are we OK caring for their British children? UKIP wanted the foreigners out except, it was OK if a British person was married to a foreigner. Already you should be seeing how the argument for ‘them & Us’ is not simple.

At the one end of the extreme, where would the UK be if we kicked out everyone not born here? We’d have to get a new Governor of the Bank of England for a start! Then there are all those people in the NHS, doctors, nurses, cleaners … well, a huge amount, they’d have to go because, it’s not fair to discriminate. We’d lose a good amount of teachers too and then we have service personal in the Army, the Navy and the Airforce. All those corner shops that might still be run by non birth Brits, they’d be gone, indeed, any company currently owned by a non birth Brit would need to close. That means a huge amount of jobs we don’t have the people to cover in the UK and a lot of Brits suddenly out of work because they don’t have the skills to do the vacant jobs. If we add in the insistence that everyone not only needs to be born here but also a practising Church goer, in the Church of England of course (Scotland or otherwise and they might accept Catholics) … oh dear, all the Muslims and Jews need to go as well. The country is starting to empty out rapidly. How far back does someone need to go before they  are considered true British by those who consider ‘they’ are true British? One, two or more generations? Don’t go back too far else we’ll all get expelled because not many families living here can go back too many generations before they discover they’re from another country. So, how about we just remove all the homo’s? That’s great except in that heterosexual people have homosexual kids quite often, about 1 out of every 10 kids so the statistics show. Do we immediately offer those children up to another country or just kill them off? OK, those on benefits then … sure, there are a tiny minority of people who fiddle the system, the worrying thing is, most and that does mean, the greater majority of those getting benefits are fully entitled through no fault of their own with the sort of issue which could happen to any one of us. Take a sledgehammer to the benefits system and it’s one of those hard working full blood heterosexual white Brits which might lose out.

At the other end of the extreme, we have an open door policy, anyone can come and go and no one has any responsibility to abide by the laws of the UK as long as they were born here, are white, go to an acceptable church and are heterosexual … now, that’s totally screwed up!

Is it acceptable for someone who considers themselves a pure Brit to smoke and sell cannabis for example? Is that what we want to say being British is all about? Doesn’t someone who claims to be British, pure British really have to never break a UK law and have total respect for the monarchy along with a deep desire to use their right to vote?

You see, what we have is people who don’t really have an opinion that they’re aware of until someone they respect tells them to have one and then they blindly follow that line and will defend it, it’s like having a whole range of robots who have no programming and then, when they get it are incapable of self awareness, the ability to think.

Donald Trump is using this in his attempt to become the most powerful man on the planet, there is barely a group he hasn’t attacked and people are going for it, he’s speaking their language even though they were not aware they had a language before he told them. He says something they like the sound of for their circumstances and they’re prepared to overlook anything else because, he isn’t saying that to them.

By the time the Germans realised the true horror of what the Nazi party was doing it was too late, they’d already bought into it and sold their future to the devil.

Perhaps we should look at history and work out that, when it comes down to it, we’re all just individuals, none better or worse than the other. We should learn about what each other believe, insist everyone abides by the same national laws and stop making generic judgements on entire groups of allegedly ‘same’ people.

There is no such thing as ‘all’ Muslims or the ‘Gay’ community or indeed, all blacks, Asians, or whatever pigeon hole someone might choose to use, we just people who by some weird quirk of circumstance find us all within the same political border. How about we just get used to that, accept it and move on, the only thing which makes us all the same is the fact that we’re all different.