tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-592994284096434432.post1414466556867597968..comments2024-02-11T11:30:09.490+00:00Comments on pfgpowell: Here’s one for you, Phil and Eric, in which I fess up and then some (though you’ll have to come back for Part II - The Confession if you want some real candour)pfg powellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17407148810847119242noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-592994284096434432.post-19078761443552877732014-08-15T10:53:08.106+01:002014-08-15T10:53:08.106+01:00Greetings, Dear Patrick! Thanks so much for wanti...Greetings, Dear Patrick! Thanks so much for wanting to debate and indeed communicate with me and indeed the venerable Eric. I think Eric's position on most things Middle East arises from ther fact he has lived there, and knows a greeat deal about how the man in the Saudi Arabian Street thinks. This is syuff we rarely get to hear about, primarily, I think, because our Establishment are so keen to sell weapons etc to Saudi Arabia that they don't want to create a shitstorm by revealing what the Saudis really think about us. (See Eric's recent post about the great similarity between the thinking of ISIS and the Wahhabi (Saudi Arabian) movement.)<br />Re Hamas, please don't think I support them. I have commented elsewhere on what I am beginning to see as a strange conspiracy between Hamas and the Netenyahu end of Israeli politics whereby they each provide the basis for the exisatence and primacy iof the other. Israel continues to cynically encroach on any vaguely attractive piece of 'Palestinian' territory, maintain a blockade which reduces Gaza to a prison camp for 1.5 million people and bomb the fuck out of Gaza every few years. Hamas, even more baldly cynical, fires thousands of totally ineffective rockets at Israel, to ensure that Israel has sufficient reason to keep up the good work. Hence, the behaviour of each party ensures that the other party is the only logical choice for the electorate of the respective political entities. <br /><br />Re Left-wing and right wing, I think for me this spectrum refers to the degree to which I regard the human race as great because it is above all a collaborative and socially oriented species, and at the other end, the degree to which I think the humasn race is great because of the fierce independence of the individual and the competition for resources that entails. The first position implies a certain reduction in absolute individual liberty and the second implies a downgrading of the human tendency to progress through the development and improvement of the species/group/neighbourhood as a whole rather than just the immediate gene pool. It has seemed to me that positions taken by individuals on this spectrum have usually been definable along thoise lines. When extremes are adopted, the left-wing brings out the tooth and claw competition between idealogues and interest groups, and on the right wing, the pursuit of absolute individual freedom ends up requiring the enslavement or terrorising of 'lesser mortals' or indeed, the general population of the country concerned. Clearly, I believe I have struck exactly the right balance and achieved a perfect blend of individual liberty and social responsibility. If only everyone else could be like me....lol.<br />On another note, one of the Dundee experiences I look back on very fondly, was the Charity Revue we put on in the Easter of my final year, and your contribution especially. 'Heavens, where's Victor?!?' <br /><br />All the very best to you, Patrick. Phil Weltonnoreply@blogger.com