Toleration

 Subject: Toleration.



There are so many conflictions in our lives some of which these days are down to the priority given to minorities. Iwas not always so. The public sphere, in which we all live has many variations,  from mental health to physical health, from gender dyspraxia and the unfairness of trans people (effectively biological males) competing in female sports) to the ranking of immigration rights with an established populations right to scarce resources.

Since the 60s the rights of the ‘individual’ overtook ‘societies’ right to exhibit what it would called ‘normal practice’. A plethora of minority rights has skewed our understanding of a homogeneous society to one in which minorities now seem to carry more influence but of course, society has never been homogeneous, it’s full of quirks. Ability quirks, religious quirks, gender quirks, and many more, a problem arose when the call for equality began to formulate the Human Rights Act by trying to give equal equality rights to everyone by shoehorn people into being recognised as the same which common sense tells us we aren’t. If you display a physical disability then no amount of tinkering with the environment will make it equal.

Athletics and ‘trans’ people (males) competing against females is obviously wrong and the sports authorities have shied away from common sense for fear of upsetting minority rights but in doing so have created a mess. The solution, to create a new class of athlete, ‘trans athlete’ which exists alongside male competing with males and female with female. I suppose the argument then moves on to defining who is trans and who isn’t. Genitalia used to be the cut and dry distinction but now testosterone and even the chromosome distinction of YY versus YX doesn’t seem to clinch it and we are back to how a person feels about their gender. Perhaps the authorities they that the trans lobby will claim discrimination, that their rights of self determination are being interfered with.

As with so many issues our society these days, is scared to go against the shibboleth of human rights. From cultural rights to religious rights, minority rights  to gender rights often these rights clash with one another and then it’s a case of which group carries the most clout. So rights then become negotiable, not a physiological  argument but an ideological concept differently interpreted by different people. In this country because we have traded away what we called uniform common-sense in our attempt to appeal to everyone we have landed our citizenry in a morass of conflicting, often non-negotiatory issues.

Weakness and conciliation are the hallmark of successive government in this country and it’s only the patience of the citizenry (now seen frayed by street battles) which somehow negotiates a route between the tolerant in our society and everyone else.

Of course our TV screens show the sheer thuggery of what is calledFarRight disaffection but in reality was classed a few years ago as football thuggery when football fans travelling to have a punch up on the oppositions turf. Today’s violence is supposed to be about the problem of too much  immigration  which affects people by placing a strain on resources  and our national ability to House, Employ, and look after people Medically. Of course our real problem is a lack of real willingness to expand and build to accommodate the expansion.

One man’s thug is another’s man’s freedom fighter and of course as the Prime Minister lists the groups who fear for their existence, the nonwhite, the Muslim but little mention is made of the deep grievance within many towns about the dissembling of a more traditional way of life. We have been persuaded that we are our far too parochial, too introverted and we have to undergo re-education to understand the value immigration bings.

Most of us understand there are many things we gain from by involving ourselves in societies much older than our own, we travel to different parts of the word to see at first hand the ruins of great civilisations  but of course being old is no guarantee of being better. Listening to the hectoring tone of the ex SNP leader Humza Yousaf last night  doesn’t help neither, to be honest, the tone of Keir Starmer who’s homily seems to come from the observer class than those affected.

At least the ‘War of the Roses’ cut through Baronial influence and was home grown, this questioning of multiculturalism has been blatantly ignored by many in our national executive.