Monday, October 26, 2009

Wail, Britannia: the BNP and the Collapse of the British Liberal Order?

What do you think? Blurb:

By smearing as racist everyone concerned with illegal immigration and the overboard tolerance for radical Islam, the British left is desensitizing everyone to the legitimate charge when it is directed at the BNP. People think, “Well, I’m concerned about illegal immigration, Islamists, the white poor, etc., and I’m not a racist so maybe the BNP isn’t either.” The overuse of the left’s catch-all denunciation deprives it of meaning and force. People may simply stop listening to the left’s warnings because they’ve so many times labeled people with legitimate concerns as racist. By their own narcissism, self-righteousness and contempt, the left is actively driving people to fascist solutions just as their more radical ideological ancestors did back in the 1920s.

Worse, entire generations of Britons have been conditioned to believe that the state has a moral obligation to care for them cradle-to-grave. It is a short step from there to the belief that the government has a moral obligation to care for native Britons first and foremost before all others.

. . . If the mainstream parties cannot [or, perhaps, will not -- MM] address the real concerns of many Britons, and if they cannot at least pretend to respect and value lower-income white Britons, then Britain may be only one ugly incident away from a political seismic shift. A major native Islamic terrorist attack or an immigrant riot might be all it takes to push Britain over the edge. Other European nations are at risk as well, for the same reasons. Screaming accusations at absolutely everyone even mildly opposed to far-left ideas isn’t a substitute for effective policies that address the concerns of the people. If a liberal order cannot provide economic and physical security, a population conditioned to see state power as the solution to all problems can slide into authoritarianism almost overnight.
Uh-oh. Sounds like a toxic combination of political correctness and identity politics. The Insta-Prof says that the new appeal of the (rotten, fascist fringe) BNP is born of lousy mainstream politics. I'd say so.

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