Dimesmeric Andersonphosphate and its effects on the Shatner's Bassoon

… Is anyone actually proud of where we are? "

Nope

There’s good and bad in our society and I believe the majority are genuinely ok/good. But the Govt has taught a lot of the population to demonise those who need social help though.

We’re not very good at dealing with the scrotes either (see acid attacks, mental moped thieves, knife crime, drug gangs, banking fraud and Barry’s favourite - extremism)

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While it’s nice to celebrate any victory and those drug figures show that we are the leaders in Europe, recent events hinted at where we are as a nation.

Ordinary people of all faiths rallied around when fellow citizens needed help in Manchester and London, showing incredible solidarity, but politicians failed, and continue to fail their communities.

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You’ve got to be holistic in assessing these situations. I think you also have to be present, experience the day to day. Some of the worst pontificating about our country comes from people that don’t live here, yet feel super-qualified to enumerate the ills of our nation, be they self-satisfied expats or Donald Trump.

We live in a news culture that only presents the very worst of British life front and centre, yet largely fails to report on the structural problems and is mostly in line with UK government policy.

Ultimately though, the situation in Britain is one that would be recognised by a Roman. Optimares and populares, a ruling class and the rest, and a system that seems to have survived millennia without a great deal of substantive change. Any rights the poor actually get are hard fought for, usually only conceded when that ruling class is at risk, and usually watered down in the implementation to favour the incumbents of power. This has gotten a shitload worse in the last forty years, except we usually cover it with the term inequality again.

Returning this ramble to @stickywhitedovepiss 's topic of the high rates of substance abuse, I’m going to speak in the abstract.

Whenever people do something they know could be harmful to them, and do it anyway, there is always an internal moment in which someone says “fuck it”. As much as I admire my compatriots that have shown good humour under these circumstances, this country has given people more and more reasons to say “fuck it”.

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I am pretty proud of who we are, and by that, I mean the British people at large.

I’ve never been to a country that despite its problems, is more racially inclusive. The US is nowhere fucking near us, despite all the rainbow coalitions they put front and centre in their top-rated TV shows to make you think they are.

I was deeply uncomfortable with some of my experiences with African American dudes in the South of the USA. I just could not cope with the deference to white people some of them had. I don’t know if Suzanne Collins ever had any real life inspiration in mind when designing Panem and the districts, but she _could have _picked Paris. London is heading that way more organically by way of gentrification and prohibitive costs for ordinary people. We need to stop that shit.

The other thing that is quite common in the US is people that don’t ever face any challenge to their political views. I worked with some otherwise lovely people that were real Republican gun nuts. They’d drive into work, then go back to an area where almost everyone shared the same skin colour and political views.

We are far from perfect, as any black mush driving a nice car will tell you. We haven’t solved racism. We haven’t solved equality. We’re not done with feminism. We are a shitload further down the line than anywhere else I have been, and we might just be about to elect a left-wing government.

I am very proud of this country.

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Thanks for your suggestion which I am now giving lengthy consideration to on the basis that self justification is probably something you little people know an awful lot about. Not that one could easily tell from your posts of course. It’s not like you mention your humble upbringing on the flower estates, your many daring scraps and your regular trips to diverse far flung parts of the world every other post.

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I have had a very busy week, but even so, every other post is a little bit of a stretch.

I’m from a council estate you know. I’ve been to far flung places in the world. I have had many scraps.

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Point of order: I am not self satisfied I get a tart to do it for me.

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Yeah, good thread.

If only the UK stopped being so apologetic for everything and introduced proper non-politicised performance based Education Systems, removed the entire implication that the State is at fault for everything that happens to an individual, and removed all benefits and of course privatised Healthcare and copied the American Dream.

And of course the wealthiest most benevolent highest rated Educational System part of the world has absolutely none of these issues

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Jesus, there’s like, 400K smack addicts in the UK? That’s mental. That’s almost the entire population of Glasgow.

Sound about right.

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I would love to join this thread but am clearly too thick to understand what the thread title means, so I’ll just go and find some more prog rock to put on the music thread.

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I think SWDP is contradicting himself - I think it is clear? from his OP that substance abuse is rife where he lives

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No, you’d do much better to read the thread and fully understand it. Really, you would. :lou_lol:

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I got it immediately :lou_sunglasses:

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A second can feel like a month

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I want to know what affect it is actually having on Captin Kirk’s woodwind instrument!!!

At least it doesnt involve a pink oboe.

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I expect you did. I was going to downvote @stickywhitedovepiss for his superfluous apostrophe and the spelling of bassoon, but I found a nice big yellow piece of cake and was climbing the walls for hours.

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Originally posted by pap

I expect you did. I was going to downvote @stickywhitedovepiss for his superfluous apostrophe and the spelling of bassoon, but I found a nice big yellow piece of cake and was climbing the walls for hours.

For the record I updated this title before Paps comment above. Pap used some kind of forum spy software to instantly report back edits to thread titles and posts. At least we now know what he is capable of. I’m pretty sure he stores and reads the unposted uncompleted comments we enter in the comment boxes as well. Beware.

As Roy Walker used to say, it’s good, but it’s not right.

In this particular case, your wicked little scheme was undone by a functioning memory and an aversion to mispelt words. I try to ignore it, and I certainly manage that most of the time in public, but the mind remembers.

Thank you for crediting me with such superb tools of surveillance though. I’m genuinely flattered.

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