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Old 05-07-2004, 07:33   #50
BBKing
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Re: Bleeding-heart liberal do-gooders

Out of the three terms in 'bleeding-heart do-gooder liberal' only one is likely to be used by the subject of the accusation. Since the only use of the phrase is pejorative, the other two must therefore be made up by someone hostile to the idea of trying to do good, empathise with other people and have a live and let live attitude.

In this country the most vociferous opponents of such attitudes are found in the right-wing press (think Littlejohn, Wade, Dacre).

Hence logically the term is a smear by the right-wing press.

Quote:
he will always argue and ask us for proof that people are cheating
Gosh. Good thing that questioning attitude isn't more prevalent, Kevin. What kind of society would we be in if people actually asked for proof of accusation.

Me, if anyone's interested?

I'm not an outreach co-ordinator, nor am I going round libraries editing their content. I'm an engineer by inclination, training and occupation, and as such can see the damage caused by short-term thinking. However, all the short-termism I see emanates from right-wing thinking - that financial considerations are all that's important, that the way of financing something is more important than the thing itself (think PFI), that short-term profits are the only ways to go, that humans are a 'resource', that experience is unnecessary and sometimes downright unwelcome (cf Railtrack signalling policy), that regular maintenance is a waste of money, that you can win a war in three weeks and not worry unduly about the subsequent occupation, that history has no lessons for us, that lawyers and accountants should run the world rather than people who build things.

This thinking is much more prevalent amongst those in power (every British government since 1979 for instance and such thinking is *demanded* by large PLC shareholders) than any alleged do-good liberalism, which even those believe in it think is limited to areas without real power. If the school library where your putative Three Little Pigs is found is unusable due to Jarvis doing things on the cheap under a PFI deal, or the school being moved onto a smaller site at the behest of property developers looking for a quick buck, then the removal of one book looks rather small-time.

If I was being a conspiracy theorist, I'd posit that blaming a few small individuals for the ills of society is a classic tactic to shift attention from those who have been given responsibility but failed in their duty (are you listening Messrs. Blunkett, Bush and Blair). The best example I have is the fear of crime - we're more scared of muggers nicking a few quid and a mobile phone than a portly grey-haired fund manager in a BMW nicking our pension fund.
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