RAISON D'ETRE /NOT BORN YESTERDAY |
A summary of what nby thinks
Society is nothing more than a pack of very varied individuals
All individuals need to accept that they are animals: just another species, and just as flawed as any other reasonably successful species
The problems start when humans start to worship. They worship themselves, they worship States, and they worship deities
There are no deities. Worship removes people from reality - whatever they worship. Self worship produces celebrity and insanity. State worship destroys liberty. And deity worship tortures, kills and misleads innocent people, keeping them unnecessarily ignorant
We live on a medium-sized planet in an obscure solar system on the edge of one of billions of nebulae in the Universe. Nobody understands more than a fraction of what it is, where it came from and why it exists. There appears to be some form of order to it, but this is far from certain
For 99.99% of us, this is irrelevant. We are one individual in a species, and our job is to be the kind of individual who becomes a good citizen
A good citizen is one who enjoys self-esteem, but not self-worship
A good citizen puts family unity before self gratification
A good citizen is one who identifies with the community, not the Ego
A good citizen is one with the humility to learn, rather than the hubris to assert
A good citizen is one who exercises self-control, and is suspicious of State control
A good citizen is one who learns from history how to do it better, not how to hate
A good citizen is one who plans for the future and shares wisdom, rather than obsessively hoarding and imposing personal will
A good citizen is one who watches and observes, not one who believes and accepts
A good citizen is one who feels privileged rather than entitled
A good citizen is one who conserves rather than wastes
Good citizens try to do their best, not come first at all costs
A stable society is one which has a citizen base chiefly composed of such people
A healthy society is one which plans for the future, remains open to better ideas, and deals with reality
A content society is one which does not feel threatened, and is not so encouraged by the State
An open society is one which always debates, and always decides
A balanced society is one which tolerates harmless diversity, but recognises potentially dangerous abnormality
A respectful society is one recognising the rights and views of its elders
A civilised society is one which takes steps to protect that which it values, but never takes revenge
So much for the apple-pie: how can we get as close as possible to this?
Rewiring from the bottom up, not orders from the top down
Civically-focused education
Devolution of responsibility to families and communities
Making the franchise an earned not automatic right
Giving commerce new, more relevant, more realistic and less anti-social aims
Changing the constitution to provide fairer representation
Dramatically reducing the influence and importance of Whitehall
Accepting the liberty-guardianship and sense-check roles of a non-elected Upper House
Keeping the police and judiciary entirely separate from Government and Politics.
So in this grand scheme of things,
What am I up to?
New thinking on better ways to approximate to Utopia
Merciless derision and ridicule at the expense of the Establishment – who are useless
And who are you then, smart-arse?
A shining beacon of wisdom, wit and experience…or an irascible old moaner who needs a better editor
(The choice is Yours)
THE EDITOR
John Ward
'John is prolifically funny, but he also has views, and he is not, generally speaking, friendly towards those in authority. I recommend him to Brits. Read him while you can, because the forces of darkness will probably silence him before long'
Grumpy old Bookman, March 2007
'He thinks everyone in public life is a tit'
Richard Eyre, 2006
"I agree with a great deal of what you say"
Simon Jenkins, June 2007
"I'm afraid we shall have to agree to differ"
Oliver Letwin, January 2009
"As regards hyper-inflation in the UK, I fear you may well be right".
John Ward has a long track-record of successful business management, commercial writing and mental illness. For all of these reasons he is now retired, and commutes in an informally disorganised manner between Devon and South-west France.
His most important conviction is thatmost UK institutions are incompetent and/or crooked, and that The Establishment no longer cares about this. For his other convictions, send an sae to GCHQ, Most of Cheltenham, England W.
After studying history & politics at University, John worked in various London advertising agencies, during which time he published two books How to Plan Advertising and Choosing an advertising Agency. The latter was translated into Slovak, so John Ward is very big in Bratislava.
In 1994 John caught prostatitis as a result of taking crap NHS antibiotics. This lasted three long, razor-blade-urninating years, and convinced him that the Health Service had lost the plot. In 2002 he suffered a bout of depression, and landed on planet Zog as a result of taking crap NHS anti-depressants. This convinced him that for GPs, the word 'consultation' had been replaced by 'negotiation'.
In 2000, he and his wife bought a barn in Devon, shortly after which an enormous and somewhat unexpected house appeared on the adjoining plot. After he sued on the basis of gross negligence by his solicitor, he decided that the first rule with lawyers is don't try to sue lawyers.
He resolved soon afterwards to found Not Born Yesterday.
The following year he chose Orange as his ISP, easily the most disastrous decision of his life to date. Over the last five years John has discovered that the people at Orange are under the ground and above the law; that Microsoft's head office telephone number is not even known to its trade customers; and that in webspeak, in the phrase 'we will never pass on your details to third parties', the 'never' is silent.
Following dealings with East Devon Council regarding planning matters in 2005, John reached the conclusion that not all was entirely above board in local government, perhaps. Allegedly.
In 2006, after a crooked retailer (reviled by everyone with whom he has dealt) tried to steal the private email addresses off his pc and was caught red-handed, John Ward took the evidence to Seaton Constabulary, who declined to do anything about it, even though the gentleman was known to them.
In 2008, this same twister opened second and third shops, defrauding both vendors and continuing on his merry task of overcharging customers, not paying suppliers' bills and refusing to honour guarrantee agreements. To mark this success, the local paper ran a laudatory piece about him, and was then bombarded with letters explaining what a complete piece of ordure the man is. He is a major advertiser in the newspaper, and thus none of the letters were published.
Over the last two years in particular, John has pointlessly broadcast accurate predictions of housing collapse, alcohol-related violence, debt crisis, dangers to individual liberty, retail crisis, a falling currency, banking collapses and spiralling national debts.
He thinks that the UK is headed for financial and cultural collapse unless the pc and globalist nutters are put back in their padded cells. He also suspects that Brown, Harman, Jowell and Smith are all insane, while Miliband and Purnell have no such excuse, being simply unpleasant shits.
Also he hates zips.