current state of the UK

[qapmoc]

Is it me or is does the UK seem to be getting to the stage where anything which might ''offend'' somebody is going to be banned or changed :-(

ban fireworks...ban Xmas lights...No BC dates...Ban loud music...stop smoking...ban fox hunting etc... etc... etc... ad infinitum.

I suppose part of the problem is that people in the UK (and other developed countries) seem to be out of touch with the real world where by numbers alone most of the other people exist, things such as poverty, hunger, no jobs, lack of resources, wars etc.. keep people busy surviving, but the developed world obviously has very few of those things happening and so it seems that many people in th UK have nothing to do except sit around thinking of things which might annoy them and then they make an effort to stop other people doing it.

[Buddy]

Some you must admit are justified.Fireworks should have been banned years ago and there are people to this very day are testament to that.I am personally against smoking in public places - people can still smoke in their own home.Loud music in the early hours specially if you are on your own or elderly can actually be quite intimidating and can cause health problems for some eg lack of sleep,anxiety and the fear of confronting the perpetrators.

I do agree however that a lot of the newly banned things are jobsworths justifying their jobs.

As a democratic country why are we the elecorate not given the opportunity to vote for or against?All we can do is protest.

[Zen]

"George Best would be turning in his grave if they hadn't given him that transplant, but it's not just football, the whole country's going to pot . Sperm counts are down, the papers are full of perverts, paedophiles and ***********. Take my granddaughter. In her class they've got kids with nut allergies, gluten allergies, pollen allergies, dyslexia, anorexia, bulimia and hyperactivity... If you find a normal kid it's a miracle. The teachers are no better. If my dad had been signed off from Dunkirk with stress we'd all be eating sauerkraut and listening to David Hasselhoff".

[Zen]

http://www.capc.co.uk/

[Buddy]

Zen - Fair point but in the case of the kids you are bang out of order.In your day those children with the various allergies would have simply died because it was not recognised.When I was at school in the sixties/seventies they had 'special classes, where I daresay dyslexic children were segregated and suffered ritual humiliation at the hands of so called normal children.High school was no better - those children were segregated as young adults going through their awkward teenage years being battered and taunted.

I am glad to see those children as adults doing a damn sight more with their lives than I have - power in the face of adversity.

You should be ashamed of yourself for the comments re the children!!

[Chessman]

The questions been asked, and i'm afraid I totally agree, willingly or not, the people of the last war bought the freedoms we have, with their lives I'm absolutely fed up with this country at the present, or to be more precise, the people in power who are making these rules, You have to watch what you say, or you might get sued or prosecuted. You have to watch what you do, or you might get sued or prosecuted, in some parts of the country, you can't call Christmas Christmas, you children can't play on certain things, in case they get hurt, and the council sued etc etc etc, I blame this goverment more than any of the others, they are selling us down the river, without a paddle.

[january_bug]

I would just add that we should all be wary of using this word "banned". A lot of the time people are voluntarily restricting themselves. As was said in the thread about "BC", it's not like the use of the phrase has become illegal. I agree there are some instances of "over-regulation" but we should not get paranoid quite yet. After all, the BNP offends me to the max, but it still seems to be perfectly legal !!! (And I agree it should be legal, even if I hate everything they stand for).

Buddy - I quite agree with your sentiments about criticising children for having potentially fatal allergies - it WAS out of order. I also extend things to say that, Zen, criticising teachers is WAY out of line. There are HUNDREDS of good teachers in this country who do an amazing job. There are THOUSANDS more who would do a very good job, but they are unable to get round some of the restrictions imposed by the National Curriculum (which was designed to help, but has sadly often hindered). There are SOME bad teachers, sure, but many many more are brilliant. If you had a bad haircut, you wouldn't declare that all hairdressers in this country are rubbish, so please don't make such generalisations about people who are often very passionate about their jobs and working very hard to educate children, often in the face of extreme ill-discipline that often only comes about through extremely poor parenting.

Rant over! :-)

PS - Rant is only over because I've decided not to start on Zen's homophobia.

[Zen]

My rant was cut and pasted from a humourous site,hope you enjoyed it ?

[Buddy]

Thanks Jan-bug.

Zen - You are a ****

[surfer mike]

This is not meant to have a pop at the question or the questioner..But This i fear is going to be yet another long and winding thread, punctuated with the occasional right wing rant by the usual suspects..with the usual sweeping generalisations that the country is doomed and its all the fault of the commies, blairites, lesbians, liberals, immigrants, feminists, the young etc... and how it was all so much better in the past, a familiar refrain used by every generation since time began....

[Buddy]

I agree surfer - mike but I feel entirely justified in my defence of his critisicm of children.I have a long memory.This particular thread should be taken out the equation - too many young peoples lives have been and still are blighted by disabling conditions.I wonder if his grand-daughter - god forbid - went into anaphylitic (sp?) shock would he be so general in his observations.

[qapmoc]

hi zen, I am interested in your ''carpet munchers'' i am obviously a bit out of touch here but what the ??? does it mean?

[january_bug]

That was the homophobic comment. A "carpet-muncher" is a very disrespectful term for a lesbian.

zen - the mere fact that you posted it, without ANY indication whatsoever that you were doing so with irony, did imply that you agreed with every word it said, just that you were too lazy to think of your own words. Please clarify that you meant the exact opposite of eveything said in there, or at least that if read outloud, the whole thread should have a heavy lilt of sarcasm. If so, I will apologise for calling you homophobic, and for thinking you actually meant to criticise all the teachers in this country.

[Loosehead]

Zen, you're right about the new names for so called "sydromes" "conditions" etc. Now there have been genuines cases I'm sure but now days if your kid can't spell, must be dyslexic, unruly little sod? we have a "disorder" for you to hide behind. Now I'm not saying that there aren't genuine cases just that I think a lot of the time they are being used as excuses.

[january_bug]

Heaven help us Loosehead, I agree with you again!

I really feel that there are some people who find SPAG and English language generally, genuinely difficult, but dyslexia is something I'm very cynical about. Educational psychologists seem to split into two groups: those who believe it exists and those who don't. Funnily enough, only the former group is prepared to do testing for dyslexia, and, a cynic might be tempted to think that they would tend to find that all those examined have the condition (perhaps to further their own arguments!?). After all - does anyone know someone who was tested for dyslexia and found not to have it? Now, I'm sure I'm being VERY cynical indeed... but there's a certain logic to my argument I hope people will agree!

[Zen]

Political correctness is an attack on free speech, clear thinking and discussion. Political correctness is perpetrated by the left in politics as a cover for their flawed ideology - a sort of cultural Marxism. Political correctness is an attack on all the cohesive elements of our society using the grounds that they are repressive and need liberalising. Political correctness is Marxism without the gun. It seeks to inhibit personal freedom of speech and action, replacing it with a Marxist dogma that we are all supposed to embrace. In reality though, Political correctness has done untold damage to our society by giving supposedly 'repressed' groups freedoms without any sort of balancing responsibility. Worst of all though, political correctness is an insidious ideological disease which has spread unchecked because most people just think of it as a joke.

Political correctness has made common sense a thing of the past. If you catch a burglar in your house then it's best to help the poor soul by carrying your possessions to the front door lest he should trip up and hurt himself and it's you that end up in court!

[january_bug]

Who are you quoting now Zen!?

 

[surfer mike]

What right wing blog did you copy and paste that from?

[mimififi]

I was a teacher and I know kids who have been tested for Dyslexia and been found to not have it. However, they are few because (and I know this is off subject) but a dyslexic child has many many symptoms and their dyslexia affects many areas of their life, not just their spelling/reading. As a teacher, you would look at the whole child who probably also can't read well and who has a massive discrepency between their reading and their verbalisation and then look at other areas of the child's learning and deduce that they might have dyslexia and then put them forward to the ed Pysche. After this, most are found to be dyslexic

I know this also, because I am dyslexic and I didn't make it up.

I agree with you though Bud, re the kids with allergies. My 3 year old did not thrive properly for the first 18 months of her life. We found her to be dairy allergic and also to have coeliac disease. I asked the HV the same question, how come so many more kids have this these days. She said the same as you; "Mrs T, if your daughter had been born 50 or 60 years ago, she probably would have died before she was 2. Cause of death would have been 'failure to thrive', it is on a lot of death certificates for children back then".

Diversion over, rant over, and now just smile, smile, smile.!!!!!!!

[january_bug]

mimififi - I hope you didn't find my previous posting too offensive - I wasn't meaning to say that they/you all make it up. I just feel that it's a label too easily given, and that because of that, it's discrediting the condition. I honestly don't believe that every kid who's dyslexic, genuinely is, and I think that for some, a false diagnosis leads them to stop trying.

[mimififi]

Oh I definately agree with that Jan. I even know some parents that say "oh, well, he's dyslexic, in 'e" when actually 'he' hasn't had any diagnoses at all, and it is just an excuse.

I didn't have mine diagnosed until I was in 6th form, and yet I had worked my Butt off all through school to get to where I was. I think you are right, in some cases, children are diagnosed and instead of it just being a way of making teachers aware of SEN, it makes parent's believe that they don't have to make their child work hard anymore...that they should get it all done for them??? (not in all cases, but certainly some) There are parents out there who look for a lable, rather than admit that there is something wrong with the parenting, or that maybe the child just insn't a genious.

The one that really gets my goat is the increasing number of kids diagnosed ADHD. IT is a lable that is abused so much and so often isn't completely true, and it undermines the kids that genuinely are ADHD. In some cases, it is a euphamism for 'poor parenting'. Grrrrr. It makes me cross because the kids that genuinely do have a problem, get tarred with the same brush, double Grrrrrrr!