Jubilee... Celebrations?

It is a fundamental rule of a liberal society that men are judged on actions, effort and talent, rather than immutable unerring characteristics of themselves. For instance, factors that men cannot change, such as race, gender, skin colour, sexuality, ought have no reflection on their capacity to succeed, achieve their potential or fulfill their ambitions.

In this vein, the additional condition of family and nepotism ought to be irrelevant to one's success/ finances/ popularity. In essence, one should get out of life what one puts in.

Therefore, with these sentiments in mind, I am perplexed as to the incessant mania surrounding the Royal Family and their progeny. In fact, I am inclined to believe that this is the one area in which the French (and I rarely credit them with anything) are more socially advanced than we poor savages on our lonely Isle.

The Royal Family and their inherited inequities embody the rot that is thriving in the latest British generation. Tens of thousands of school-age children growing up with the notion that they can get something for nothing, that wealth is the be all and end all of success. These ideas are evidenced by the October Riots and are often blamed by analysts upon the influx of American celebrity culture such as The Hills and Jersey Shore. Shows which have become so popular that British versions have been commissioned with such orange idiots as Joey Essex and Amy Childs to flog the ever-increasingly desperate aspirations of glamour.

However, these 'celebrities' are mere extensions of an acceded culture, one that has existed ever since the first savages were subjected to the will of another. Namely that of royalty, a world where wealth is derived from parentage, where not a drop of sweat need be shed, where everything is on a plate from birth. And the worst of it is that such conditions are revered, they are aspired to, people look at the monarchy and dream of that lifestyle, they look at Kate Middleton and see a role model, someone to show the kids and say 'that could be you some day'...

Well, I conjecture that Kate Middleton is little more than a prostitute; famous and wealthy merely for sleeping (yes, and loving and marrying - I didn't say she wished to be a prostitute) with someone famous and wealthy. She has done nothing of note with her own talents and toil to merit being a role model, and therefore to revere her and her ilk is to merely pass along the message that one can succeed without working. And that is why the inherent inherited inequality of the Royal Family must be abolished if Britain is to achieve its productivity potential...

No-one has ever 'HAD' to kill...

So, this is a little off-topic. Well, I just mean I'm bringing it forward a bit, I would probably have got round to it in the end.

I've just been watching 'SAS: Are You Tough Enough?', a sort-of documentary/ competition to see if civilians can hack it in SAS selection. It's very entertaining and I recommend it, but that's beside the point.

The issue I wish to address here is a small sentence, near the end of the show, from Barry Davies (Ex-SAS WO) in which he says 'Until you've had to kill somebody, errm, it's really very hard to talk about it.'

Now, I don't dispute the main message, that someone who hasn't killed another can not talk about such things with such ease, but I do take umbrage with the insinuation that killing is a necessity, a duty, an unavoidable occurrence.

There is no-one who has ever 'had to kill somebody'; killing has always resulted from a conscious choice and consequential decision, ergo, a desire. Whether it be the decision to pull the trigger, aim at the target, or even just to join the Armed Forces (in the knowledge that you will be forced to make those decisions), there has always been the option to not kill.

Yes, this may mean abstaining from service, firing wide, or even simply not pulling the trigger, but the fact remains that every man killed has been the result of another's intent and desire.

Even when one's rights and freedoms are threatened, the act of killing is a conscientious decision that those rights are worth more than the other man's life. Whether you agree that they are or not, there is no disputing that killing is a choice, one that every soldier must make and live with the consequences.

There is no shifting the buck to someone else and, therefore, Barry Davies ought to choose his words more carefully, in order to avoid appearing casuistic...