Why take the flak for the politicians?

By Neil Patrick

Politicians won't like this post. At all.

Whether its Trump vs. Clinton, Brexit or Remain, gender politics, millions of people every day are busy making themselves enemies online by taking a stand for their political beliefs.

Do we really want to lose friends and make more enemies by doing politicians' dirty work for them? If you do, that’s fine. Stop reading this right now, because you’ll probably hate me when you have. And I really don’t want that to happen. Honestly.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it is good to stand up for what you believe in. UNLESS it’s your political views AND you are doing it in public. Then we make ourselves targets for everyone who doesn’t agree with us.

And in the online world, one thing is a sad fact of life; many more are quick to attack than are quick to praise.

But I’m not talking about the morons who troll people. If we are adults, we should be able to take trolls in our stride, regardless of how venomous and threatening they appear.

No, I am talking about others we are connected to online who just like us are good, decent, honest people who mean well. They just don’t share our political views. That’s all.

If your social media presence in any way involves anything other than chatting with family and close friends, there are lots of things which could go on a list of don’ts. And we’ve mostly seen these many times before:

Don’t abuse others. Don’t criticize people. Don’t be a bigot. Don’t be racist, sexist, ageist or anything else which ends with ‘ist’.

Don’t be cruel. Don’t endlessly advertise yourself. Don’t share junk.

Don’t ignore others. Don’t be unkind.

Basically, don’t be an ass.

If you have intelligence and integrity these things are pretty obvious. And they are as much sensible rules for life as online behaviour.

But there is one thing that isn’t on this list which I think should be:

Unless it’s your job, don’t discuss your political opinions in public online.

We all have our political views. And I know some very fine people on social media who do this a great deal and have a lot of followers.

But the problem is that when we discuss politics online, for every person who agrees with us there will be most likely one or more, who doesn’t.

Do you wish to alienate yourself from them just because you have different political views? Some of my best friends over the years have completely different political opinions to myself. And we have enjoyed many fierce debates together.

But these are people I am close too. People whose opinion of me is based on long-standing relationships based on mutual trust and respect. People we have these close relationships with will not suddenly spurn us because we don’t agree on a political point.

These people have a multi-dimensional relationship with us. That relationship is usually a rich and mature tapestry of intermingled life events. They are based on much more than a single online post, comment or tweet.

By contrast, many of our online contacts are brief and fleeting. Often people who will see our social media content know little or nothing about us. But the moment we share something political, we risk alienating ourselves from almost everyone who has a different opinion.

Yet in every other respect, these people may very well be good, decent, folk with whom we would otherwise have a positive and productive relationship with.

If you really cannot resist expressing your political opinions online, then do it through DMs with those who you trust. There you can freely express your views without the world seeing and judging you.

As the US elections approach their conclusion, I see many tweets supporting or condemning one or other candidate. Some I agree with. Some I do not.

But if I express my opinions on social media and in public, I am pretty sure that at least some of the people I am connected with will disagree with me. And for many, such disagreements are terminal to the relationship.

And it never needed to be like that.

Have your political views. Pursue your political causes. Vote and support the politicians you think deserve it.

Just don’t do their dirty work for them and risk your friendships for a political cause.

Because ultimately our friends are more valuable to us than any politician.

Detroit: a vision of the future?

By Neil Patrick

Not many people know that in the 1950’s Detroit was the fourth largest city in the US.

But almost everyone knows that the city is now bankrupt.

The mainstream media is focused on the crazy legal merry go round that has ensued in the wake of this collapse.

But a city is not really an entity on its own, although bureaucrats may find it more convenient to organize it that way. A city is the sum of all the people and lives it contains. And in the case of Detroit, these lives have been wrecked in varying degrees, not only directly by the bankruptcy, but also by the massive collapse of the government services which resulted from it.

I wonder if in the late 20th century, we had presented people with the reality of the condition of Detroit today, anyone would have taken it seriously? I rather suspect that the majority view would be something like, ‘Oh, that could never happen here’.

But it has and to my mind it presents a terrifying premonition of what the future might look like for many other cities in the US and other western countries. The UK already has what I would call it’s own ‘mini-Detroits’.

The bottom line is that if you worked or are working for any Detroit public organisation, you are unlikely to ever see more than a tiny fraction of your pension rights actually materialize.

But this isn’t just an issue in Detroit.

You may be surprised to discover that 61 other cities in the US have a gap of more than $217bn in unfunded pension liabilities. That's right $217 billion!

And I’d like someone to tell us where that money is going to be found.

You might be tempted to think along the lines of, ‘Oh yes , my city is different, because…’ (add your excuse(s) of choice here). But is it really? Really?

The collapse of Detroit is multi-faceted. Of course it all began with the decline in the fortunes of the US car manufacturing giants based there. And there was corruption, and racial tensions, and a vicious circle of increasing government spending to try and prop things up, delivering worse and worse results, leading to yet more spending. And an exodus of the middle classes, in other words, the ones who contributed the biggest slice of the revenues that government uses to pay for things.

What can we do to protect ourselves from this type of risk to our lives? Well there are three groups of people who are not only unscathed, they are actually doing rather well in Detroit right now.

That’s urban redevelopment bosses, politicians. And lawyers.

Choose your poison.

And if you’re not scared enough already, just watch this to see the full HD version of a really scary movie about the tragedy of Detroit courtesy of Stefan Molyneux at Freedomainradio.com

The invisible threat to all our futures

By Neil Patrick

I started this blog because I am convinced we babyboomers are in a period of unprecedented danger. And not only us, those that depend on us too. Like our kids. And our parents. And because no-one seemed to have any idea what to do about it.

Just about everything we grew up believing about jobs and careers and how our lives would unfold has been swept away in a perfect storm of recession, global economic power shifts, financial crisis, government failure and transformation of the workplace.

Our education in the 1960’s and 70’s was a reflection of a different world. This was a world in which the US and the western economies still held sway. And the education system was geared to providing a workforce which fed that economic machine with the human labour and skills it needed.

Only scraps remain of that world. Just look at Detroit and any other examples of the old world which are now little more than derelict monuments to a bygone era.

As a group, we are extremely poorly equipped to respond to changes of this magnitude. If you have a job, you may consider that all this is irrelevant to you. You may consider yourself lucky. In some ways you are. But do you genuinely believe you will still have a job in five or ten years’ time?

Whatever your answer to the question, the fact is you are almost certainly going to need one.

Today, we have governments that still do not accept that this collapse is irreversible. They cling to electoral manifestos which regardless of policy or position on the political spectrum, argue that their policies are the right ones to restore the situation to something resembling what we all grew up in.

Well, I believe that’s all hogwash. It is never coming back.

The reason politicians tell us that they know what to do to restore the old world order, is simply because saying anything else would make them unelectable.

Moreover, there is a cosy alliance in place between government and big business which maintains a status quo and is a perfect mechanism for protecting the personal interests of the political and business elites.

We are actually partly to blame for this. We abdicated our responsibilities wholesale to our governments many years ago. We put our faith and trust in them. You want education for your kids? Fine we’ll provide that. You want defence against real or imagined enemies? Fine, we’ll protect you. You want doctors and hospitals? No problem. Free education for your kids? Check. You want care for the elderly, and roads and railways and waste removal and a justice system and food hygene and pensions? Don’t worry, we give you all of these. The list is endless.

And that’s the problem. Because every government has attempted to provide all these things to ensure it retains or attains power, we have asked for and they have accepted a magnitude of tasks which they are almost bound to fail to deliver. Not only that, we have to pay for it.

So on the one hand we have an almost endless and growing list of government service obligations to citizens. On the other, we have to figure out how we can pay for this. And yup, you’ve guessed it. We can’t. The money (or more specifically, the credit) has run out. You can only borrow and tax so much before you reach breaking point.

And if your economy isn’t growing, your tax receipts are falling. But you’ve still got to pay for all those promises you made to the electorate.

That’s why the promise has become impossible for governments to keep. The promise was predicated on the belief that western business and economic growth could continue to outpace the rest of the world.

Western governments have dug themselves so deeply into debt that no amount of economic improvement will get us back to where we all want to be.

Yesterday I was sent a viewpoint from someone who I won’t name, but who has had many dealings with the political elites, which I think sums up perfectly the hidden nature of the forces at work in government – and underpins my belief of one of the key reasons we cannot expect to see significant change if we look to politicians (of ANY party) to be our saviours.

The tone is heavily ironic and talks about the UK system, but is broadly relevant to the governments of all western economies, so read with that in mind.

Why do we need a new political philosophy when we already have a perfectly good one? The trouble is that people don’t understand it so let me explain.

We have a democracy. This means that we choose from among a small cadre of hereditary leaders who select a head from amongst themselves. They are in a unique position to do this: they have been trained from secondary school (usually but not only Eton) to understand their entitlement. They are then trained at university (usually Oxford or Cambridge) how to exercise it, for the most part on Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) courses.

They understand as none of the rest of us do that political leadership has nothing to do with purpose other than itself and nothing to do with us. They are not interested and, more to the point, experience has taught them that for a relatively small outlay in highly skilled lying we can be conned into anything. And if the worst comes to the worse they can find scapegoats for us to blame for any consequences that fall upon us. The workshy are blamed for unemployment, the homeless for shortage of housing, the poor for poverty, immigrants for almost everything.

They are pragmatists above all. They recognise that real power in the world lies with money and globally organised money in particular. So they look after the interests of “business” which really means very big business and finance. In return business looks after them. The price is very high: the lies with which to justify the upward distribution of power and wealth become increasingly transparent but it is not a real problem. We must after all select from among their number if we can be bothered to engage in the process at all.

So there you have it. A perfect system already exists. To oppose it creates the danger of instability which makes you a terrorist. Relax and enjoy.

You may think that what I have said so far is unduly cynical and pessimistic nonsense. You may even think it smacks of paranoia. After all I have presented no facts to support my opinion. Worse I have presented no practical alternative. Without facts and a real alternative, how plausible is my argument?

Those criticisms are all fair and reasonable. And that’s why I’ll be returning with more on this topic over the coming weeks.

For now though, I’ll just leave you with this question. Do you sincerely believe your government, or its opponents, really have a realistic chance of delivering anything resembling the sort of lifestyle we all grew up expecting over the next 20-40 years?