Who says hipsters can't be religious? While the sane people are gearing up for Christmas, these guys are busy with the feast of St Jean the Martyr. Whether groovy liberals or prissy libertarians, the ostentatiously disengaged rollers-of-eyes have been getting ready to party like it's 1999.
Trouble is, the Great British Public is strangely unmoved by the fact ten morons, drawn from the electorate that twice voted for Livingstone as Mayor, have ruled that Kops Suck!!!!!!
Hence the hipsters' descent into madness. Still, at least some of them are keeping their heads, like libertarian Tom Paine, who writes this:
That was him criticising me for being too harsh on child molesters, but that was then and this is now, and 'chav sentimentalism' is in! My favourite is this bit:
We have actual, specific objections to the way the legal system handles paedophiles. We are opposed to the mainstreaming of paedophillia. We demand more accountability in the rehabilitation industry. We don't believe it's the government's role to help paedophiles insert themselves into unsuspecting populations. More generally, we believe the law should reflect the common morality, not the agenda of the supposedly enlightened, and definitely privileged, few.
On the other hand, what is it that these people are so ranty about? Say what you like about 9/11 Truthers, but at least there was a grandeur to their loopiness, there was Chimpy McHitlerburton blowing up the twin towers so the neo-cons could invade Iraq and steal their oil. 7/22 Truthers? Not so much. As far as I can tell, they claim there was a vast conspiracy reaching to the heart of government, all to kill a bogus electrician. Huh?
That must have been some bad rewiring job.
Ditto, for all that he wants to convince us that the operation proves that the police are knuckle-dragging, semi-literate 'chavs' with guns, wasn't the actual commander of this op, Cressida Dick, with her blue chip CV, friend of the Fortesque-Bouquets background, and Oxbridge degree just the epitome of Tommyism?
This is equally true of the organisational structure the police operated under. This too reflected the belief that the average police officer was a borderline moron. Individual units were cogs in the machine, expected to perform their specific task while exercising zero initiative. They could talk to HQ, but not to each other. Everything had to run through Czarina Cressida.
In other words, this operation proves the exact opposite of the point Tommy is trying to make. The problem wasn't chaotic, ill-disciplined thugs in uniform going on the rampage, it was a plan that demanded a tight, centralised control of operations yet collapsed almost immediately, producing the worst of all possible worlds.
The firearms team were kept in the dark until the last moment, then ordered to race forward and intercept the mad bomber just before he could complete his dastardly deed. Complaining that they hit the wrong guy is like complaining that the postman delivered stuff to the wrong place just because you put that address on the parcel (actually, that analogy only works if you also prevented the postie from talking to anyone else and the package was ticking).
We can speculate as to whether alternative structures would have served better, but they can't. The organisation structure used reflected perfectly the hipster view of the police and policing. Other structures might have worked better, but in so far as that would require Cressida, Tommy and the rest of their pals to trust the boots on the ground, don't expect that to happen any time soon.
Executive Summary: Gene Hunt was not in the building.
Of course, one big clue is this: we want to wage war on all child molesters. The hipsters? Well, like I said, how come James Ashley and Harry Stanley aren't featuring in any movies? Come to think of it, ridicule people for still be hacked off at the police's role in the death of nearly 100 people and you get to be London Mayor.
The Cult of St Jean is a rescue hypothesis. From September 11 to July 7, hipsters regarded terrorism as a punchline. As late as December 2004, Law Lord Hoffman was hailed as a hero for ridiculing the threat from terrorism and - unlike where conservatives are alleged to have said something stupid and it always turns out to be have been twenty years ago with no independent witnesses - he said this in court while striking down anti-terrorist legislation.
Right up until July 7, there was no easier way to affirm your status as one of the too-cool-for-school, fashionably cynical pseudo-intellectuals than to refer to the 'so-called war on terror'. Suddenly, with eight bomb attacks in two weeks, that joke had gone flat. It turned out that terrorism wasn't an invention of the neo-cons after all.
Hence, the sudden canonisation of St Jean the Martyr post-July 22. In less than a month we went from these people arguing that terrorism was a fraud, to terrorism being kind of bad, but not as bad as fascist state death squads roaming the land. As political sleight of hand goes, this shows a certain chutzpah, but the Great British Public isn't buying it. Hmmmm... seems like those 'chavs' aren't so stoopid, after all.
Trouble is, the Great British Public is strangely unmoved by the fact ten morons, drawn from the electorate that twice voted for Livingstone as Mayor, have ruled that Kops Suck!!!!!!
Hence the hipsters' descent into madness. Still, at least some of them are keeping their heads, like libertarian Tom Paine, who writes this:
The witch-hunters cannot have it both ways. However much they may describe any attempt at rational thought as "...near-lunatic ranting..." If they are allowed to get away with their afternoon-TV, chav sentimentalism, what next?I keed! I keed!
That was him criticising me for being too harsh on child molesters, but that was then and this is now, and 'chav sentimentalism' is in! My favourite is this bit:
This, even after the defence team walked out in protest and the bereaved family made their feelings clear.I'm pretty sure Sarah Payne's family made their feelings clear too! Where exactly is the dividing line between 'addled, tabloid emotionalis' and boldly speaking truthiness to power? Hey, the cops thought that at any second a fanatic might detonate himself and take them - plus a carriage full of passengers - with them. What was the Parole Board's excuse?
We have actual, specific objections to the way the legal system handles paedophiles. We are opposed to the mainstreaming of paedophillia. We demand more accountability in the rehabilitation industry. We don't believe it's the government's role to help paedophiles insert themselves into unsuspecting populations. More generally, we believe the law should reflect the common morality, not the agenda of the supposedly enlightened, and definitely privileged, few.
On the other hand, what is it that these people are so ranty about? Say what you like about 9/11 Truthers, but at least there was a grandeur to their loopiness, there was Chimpy McHitlerburton blowing up the twin towers so the neo-cons could invade Iraq and steal their oil. 7/22 Truthers? Not so much. As far as I can tell, they claim there was a vast conspiracy reaching to the heart of government, all to kill a bogus electrician. Huh?
That must have been some bad rewiring job.
Ditto, for all that he wants to convince us that the operation proves that the police are knuckle-dragging, semi-literate 'chavs' with guns, wasn't the actual commander of this op, Cressida Dick, with her blue chip CV, friend of the Fortesque-Bouquets background, and Oxbridge degree just the epitome of Tommyism?
This is equally true of the organisational structure the police operated under. This too reflected the belief that the average police officer was a borderline moron. Individual units were cogs in the machine, expected to perform their specific task while exercising zero initiative. They could talk to HQ, but not to each other. Everything had to run through Czarina Cressida.
In other words, this operation proves the exact opposite of the point Tommy is trying to make. The problem wasn't chaotic, ill-disciplined thugs in uniform going on the rampage, it was a plan that demanded a tight, centralised control of operations yet collapsed almost immediately, producing the worst of all possible worlds.
The firearms team were kept in the dark until the last moment, then ordered to race forward and intercept the mad bomber just before he could complete his dastardly deed. Complaining that they hit the wrong guy is like complaining that the postman delivered stuff to the wrong place just because you put that address on the parcel (actually, that analogy only works if you also prevented the postie from talking to anyone else and the package was ticking).
We can speculate as to whether alternative structures would have served better, but they can't. The organisation structure used reflected perfectly the hipster view of the police and policing. Other structures might have worked better, but in so far as that would require Cressida, Tommy and the rest of their pals to trust the boots on the ground, don't expect that to happen any time soon.
Executive Summary: Gene Hunt was not in the building.
Of course, one big clue is this: we want to wage war on all child molesters. The hipsters? Well, like I said, how come James Ashley and Harry Stanley aren't featuring in any movies? Come to think of it, ridicule people for still be hacked off at the police's role in the death of nearly 100 people and you get to be London Mayor.
The Cult of St Jean is a rescue hypothesis. From September 11 to July 7, hipsters regarded terrorism as a punchline. As late as December 2004, Law Lord Hoffman was hailed as a hero for ridiculing the threat from terrorism and - unlike where conservatives are alleged to have said something stupid and it always turns out to be have been twenty years ago with no independent witnesses - he said this in court while striking down anti-terrorist legislation.
Right up until July 7, there was no easier way to affirm your status as one of the too-cool-for-school, fashionably cynical pseudo-intellectuals than to refer to the 'so-called war on terror'. Suddenly, with eight bomb attacks in two weeks, that joke had gone flat. It turned out that terrorism wasn't an invention of the neo-cons after all.
Hence, the sudden canonisation of St Jean the Martyr post-July 22. In less than a month we went from these people arguing that terrorism was a fraud, to terrorism being kind of bad, but not as bad as fascist state death squads roaming the land. As political sleight of hand goes, this shows a certain chutzpah, but the Great British Public isn't buying it. Hmmmm... seems like those 'chavs' aren't so stoopid, after all.
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