Name the Patron Saint of Snitching …
If there’s one thing that runs to the heart of British culture, it’s being a stickler for rules and “the small print”. Oh, and we love snitching too, apparently.
In news that seems surprising, but then immediately isn’t, a police force says it has had a surge in calls from people reporting their neighbours for “going out for a second run”.
Government lockdown rules allow people to leave their homes to take one form of exercise a day. And Nick Adderley, from Northamptonshire Police [pictured below], has told the BBC that during this overstretched and stressful time his force has received “dozens and dozens” of calls about people allegedly ignoring the order.
Police now have the powers to fine anyone found to be flouting the law. But, to be honest, aren’t there better uses of everyone’s time? Such as dispersing big groups and, you know, dealing with serious crimes?
Adderley said: We are getting calls from people who say ‘I think my neighbour is going out on a second run – I want you to come and arrest them’ We have had dozens and dozens of these calls.
To make matters even more ridiculous, the force has also been getting reports from people whose neighbours are gathering in their back gardens.
We won’t have police officers crashing through garden fences to check the ID of everyone who is there to see whether they live at the house or whether they should be self-isolating.
We wouldn’t want to discourage people from making us aware, but we have to set expectations. If people think we will be descending on these houses with blue lights, then we won’t.
But be under no illusion, we will be using these powers if necessary.
Ash Tuckley, who leads the force’s control room stressed the “need to exercise caution”. Pardon the pun.
One man who’s absolutely not happy about this news is Nigel Farage. He compared the UK to “east Germany” after learning the news that people were calling the police over these matters.
But sorry Nige, at least this means that Brits are finally taking these regulations more seriously, which is a good thing. Though maybe people should refrain from calling the police unless it’s definitely, 100 per cent necessary.
Comment:
Can you name any canonised saint who would be likely to call the police to report a neighbour for breaking these temporary rules, set by a secular Government, given that nobody seems to complain about real immorality in UK society? Only a minority of people actively complain about the murder of unborn babies, and same-sex “marriage” is OK with the majority now, despite the majority in Scotland having voted against it – twice. Seems that if the secular Government makes the rules, they must be kept – God’s laws, on the other hand, are expendable. Is Nigel Farage right to argue that “We have become East Germany c.1985 overnight. Next thing children will be encouraged to report on their parents. ” [Twitter].
Would you report a neighbour in these circumstances? Can you name a saint to support doing so?
Comments (24)
Sorry – I cannot find one.
It is interesting that the Mayor of The Angels (los Angeles) last night stated that the 0.1% who were not obeying the Gestapo were being tracked by their spy phones (google?) and would be sent to the camp.
So I suppose Bill Gates could be the saint you are looking for.
Btw Editor did you know that up to the tenth century saints were not canonized as such but were proclaimed by popular acclamation.
So come on bloggers – how about St Patricia of Partick.?
Patrick Healy,
I don’t know if editor has any connection to Partick, but she told us she made her First Communion in St Teresa’s which is in Possilpark, so St. Patricia of Possilpark is a better fit, LOL!
Patrick,
Laura is correct – I’ve no known connection with Partick, but Possilpark – yip! Saint, however, not remotely. However, thanks for the vote of confidence 😀
It would appear that people are as susceptible to government brain-washing as they were/are to Modernist brain-washing in the Church. The “masses” dutifully accept the virus-hyped police-state and, Communist-style, start snitching on their neighbors. I wonder how many of those being snitched on have openly scoffed at this “pandemic.”
And the Catholic “masses” (pardon the pun) dutifully accept the lie that the Novus Ordo is Catholic, that it is another form of the traditional Roman rite, and part of a “new springtime,” and condemn and social-distance themselves from those (i.e. “traditionalists) who present the ugly truth about it.
Meanwhile, thank God for Christopher Ferrara – who, once he sinks his teeth into an issue, is virtually impossible to refute. And he has now sunk his teeth into this NWO-hyped “crisis”:
https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/fetzen-fliegen/item/4825-trump-deflates-the-media-s-covid-19-narrative-but-the-threat-of-dnc-19-remains
Yes, Nigel Farage is correct.
Although, Editor (not sure I can post a comment with two links, without being consigned to the Spam folder), your emails from The American Thinker blog today should contain a very interesting article about unrest seething in Red China as a result of their government lies and mishandling of the disease – including being herded into pens like cattle. The article is “China ‘back to normal’ – riots break out in Wuhan.”
Perhaps UK residents should follow suit.
RCA Victor,
I’ve looked up that article and it’s very interesting indeed. I will post the link here
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/03/china_back_to_normal__riots_break_out_in_wuhan.html
Sorry, but the above comment went up before I’d finished!
I wanted to add that I smiled when I read the bit about “nobody believes Chinas is over the virus” (or something like that) because they believe it here. I have been amazed at how the TV news reporters say that it’s ended in China, without even any sign that they know this is highly unlikely. Politicians are like that too, they don’t seem to realise that Communist leaders lie! It’s incredible to think just how gullible they are.
Laura,
I tried to copy your second comment in order to place it with your first, but whatever is wrong with the system now, the latest problem, in other words, it’s not letting me.
Anyway, you are absolutely right to take everything coming out of China and any other Communist state, with a pinch of salt. Lying is what the Communist regimes do
RCA Victor,
I will read the Ferrara article asap – he is always on the button, as you indicate.
Yes, I’ve seen the American Thinker piece on China being back to normal. Not at all surprised. As Laura says, it’s pure gullibility to take anything coming out of any Communist country at face value. I once experienced that gullibility at close quarters, so I may share that some day. Keep tuned 😀
RCA Victor
That Remnant essay by Christopher Ferrara puts everything in a nutshell, Absolutely first class piece of writing and exactly what a lot of us have been thinking, though without some of the salient facts Ferrara cites. Every government leader wants to get a copy of that.
No, there is no Patron Saint of Snitching because it is completely uncharitable to do that. Even if people can’t see how contrived all these measures are, the hype, they ought to know instinctively that it is wrong to phone the police to report ordinary everyday behaviour like going out twice for a walk, tut tut!
People are so self-righteous about all the wrong things, and tell us we are “judgemental” for warning of Hell for mortal sins. Our Lady warned us of the diabolical disorientation to come and if this hype isn’t part of that, I don’t know what is.
Just to be clear – I’m not saying there’s no problem or that the virus was man-made or any of that conspiracy theory stuff, but just looking at the numbers they are not even close to the number of people who die every year from the flu. I copied this from The Times, 19 March, because it won’t let me read the whole thing without subscribing:-
“Covid-19 is the focus of headlines but seasonal influenza has almost certainly claimed more lives this year. The flu is estimated to kill between 290,000 and 650,000 people worldwide each year, including about 17,000 in Britain. Covid-19 has been linked to more than 9,300 deaths so far and there have been nearly 230,000 confirmed cases.
So which is more dangerous? From the data available so far, Covid-19 appears to kill more of those who become infected.”
Yet , you’d think it was a killer plague the likes of which we’ve never seen before. I feel sorry for the people, young people especially, who will have a prison record after this. A few days ago, somebody rang in at the BBC Q & A session to say she could see young people in a group on her street, should she call the police? The answer from the BBC presenter was “yes”. It’s disgraceful.
I agree – totally uncharitable, although the guilt may be less in these circumstances since everyone has had their brains re-set to default “panic”.
Yes, we need to be safe but I’m not a fan of all these government snoopers and curtain twitchers reporting each other for being in the garden.
Like those people who sometimes get on my bus, taking photographs of the bus driver whenever the driver speaks to someone or checks his phone. I assume that the same people must then go on social media (just as the Police have done this week) to shame the driver and send the footage to the Police or the bus company…like the Stasi.
Editor: no driver should check his phone while driving…
Lily,
Very well put. Whilst I respect your viewpoint on conspiracy theories in general, you should be aware that many of the global warming cult are already welcoming the economic havoc this Huhan Flu is causing.
This enforced imprisonment has allowed me to revisit my other hobby.
It is not directly connected to the subject matter but I believe it is tangentially
The Ice Age
When we ponder past ice ages
We wonder what they used for fuel,
As they huddled close for warmth
Was the stuff they used ‘renewal’;
Cro – Magnon man could not survive
A world beneath a great ice sheet,
He never learned he could exploit
The fossil fuel beneath his feet.
Strange then that our so-called leaders
Want to bring back the last stone age,
They get their science from shamans
And from a child who’s underage;
By banning grown up energy
For power that’s unreliable,
They’ll ‘solve’ the population growth
Cull those who are not viable.
So should we believe the experts
Whose forecasts have never yet been right,
Or the ingenuity of man
Who has turned darkness into light;
Those who demonize plant food
To put us in a twilight zone,
In the stone age would be happy
As they would not run out of stone.
You better believe that the power of Satan is abroad and is manifest in people like Soros who are full on the global warming religion – sadly like our present pope. Population culling is happening before our eyes.
Just look at today’s news. Cancer operations are suspended but abortions are full steam ahead.
Pray the rosary.
This report carried on MSN news is that the police are charging a 14 year old boy with coughing and spitting at a 66 year old woman.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/boy-14-charged-with-spitting-at-woman-during-coronavirus-crisis/ar-BB11Qi1O?ocid=spartandhp
I do not know the circumstances of how this came about. And wonder if this is a step up from just snitching on neighbours being out and about.
Theresa Rose,
Anyone who has ever taught in a secondary school, or even watched the behaviour outside at the end of the school day, won’t be surprised to read that. There are some very nasty 14 year olds out there, unfortunately. They are treated with kid gloves by their parents and school staff, and then everyone is surprised when they end up being known to the police.
I agree about snitching for trivial things but that was really nasty and also dangerous. I would have reported that to the police even without a dangerous virus going around.
Theresa Rose,
What a vile creature. 14 or not, he should be stuck in a police cell and left for a few days with only bread and water.
Michaela, Vianney,
The more I thought about that article, the more I thought on just how vile that action was. The injustice will be if he gets off without even as much as a slap on the wrist.
This is the price of living in a Godless society.
This is one of those questions in which one can never decide if human beings have always been like this, and what we are seeing today is just our normal behaviour amplified by Social Media and the MSM, or if we are assisting at moral degeneracy on a grand scale, caused, or at least facilitated, by the same SM and MSM. I suspect that a bit of both is probably near the mark, although I for one would be lost to quantify the mix.
That said, the British are a very compliant people with a very strong herd instinct. At least in our recent history, the BBC and the broadcast media generally have a lot to answer for in this respect. Across all their output — most obviously in news and current affairs, most subtly in their drama departments, above all soaps — Auntie and her sisters have, from the 1980s onwards, promulgated with the zeal of converts, which they were, the new cultural orthodoxy which is basically atheistic Western Liberalism with the shiboleths all of us here know and loathe profoundly. Most people have been unable or unwilling to resist this onslaught and have surrendered hook, line and sinker, being afraid of being thought of as being behind the times or just plain stupid. Thus any meaningful debate around the great social and political questions of the day were and are effectively shut down by these arbiters of taste and thought.
The role of the police is more sinister. They have moved from being a force primarily engaged in the prevention of crime to being an instrument of social control through the various hate speech laws, with the prevention of crime relegated to just a sideline. Thus they have become increasingly the enforcers of a socio-political orthodoxy and are seen as such. This is especially dangerous in Scotland. The Scots are politically very immature, valuing ideology over liberty, and never seem to realise that politicians, of whatever persuasion, should be kept on a very short leash. Their penchant for a one-party state — the independence question aside, the SNP is in practically every other respect Labour by another name — makes the recent establishment of a national police force dangerous in the extreme.
To the more narrow issue of snitching, there seems to be a need in people not only to aspire to virtue, but to feel virtuous. Virtue can either be the real, morally objective deal, or it can be just what the herd approves of at any given time. Same name, but two very different realities. Real virtue is always in relation to our conscience, the voice of God within us, and is not afraid to differentiate itself from the herd; false virtue is a matter of social consensus and a function of personal pride, whose essence is to go with the flow, but seemingly just that bit faster than the rest of the herd.
Theresa Rose has brought up a particularly egregious example of bad behaviour by a school boy which has a wider relevance to the topic under discussion than we perhaps we realise. Now, bad behaviour by school boys (and girls) is as old as schools themselves. Until very recently, it was viewed as a ‘crime’ requiring a punishment. Today it is considered as a process of psychological corruption requiring therapy, as wee Johnny deviates, under the pressure of unjust social conditioning, from the state of human perfection into which he was born and in which he would have certainly remained had levels of public spending been adequate, had his mother not been a victim of someone or something, and had his father (if he had stuck around for Johnny’s formative years) been taught to suppress his toxic masculinity. Thus wee Johnny is not only effectively taught that human beings have no meaningful free will, which is essentially the death of morality and of the criminal justice system on which it is based, but he is positively encouraged to blame everyone and everything around him for his personal failings. Thus we have what really is a perfect storm: a society in which the strong herd instinct pulls in the direction of the prevailing consensus and, at the personal level, a grievance culture which pulls in any and all directions as blame and resentment abound, and all of this without any regard to objective truth which is the one and only thing that could stop this process of human fission. This really is a master-stroke by the Father of Lies who cloaks this chaos of subjugation and suffering in the guise of personal liberty.
Prognosticum
Every word you have written is spot on. What you have just described are nations now under the control of cultural Marxism, just as Our Lady of Fatima warned. It’s worldwide and it’s under threat thanks to Trump in the U.S., Brexit in Britain, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Orban in Hungary, etc. Hence the economy-busting Covid-19 mass hysteria which is designed to bring down the “Right” and re-establish the “Left”. It’s demonically clever geopolitical manoeuvring by the world’s Left Wing media.
What a masterful analysis of the (morally) sick society we have bequeathed to our children. Bravo.
Keep asking our Blessed Mother to intercede for us sinners.
I’m just continually amazed at how everyone is toeing the line, strictly keeping to the rules, and looking down on anyone who makes a mistake. I wasn’t standing just right behind the line in the supermarket the other day and I felt like I’d held up a checkout at gunpoint, the way everyone looked at me so accusingly. It would be funny if it wasn’t for the fact that it shows the kind of people we have around us, who would snitch on their neighbour in a heartbeat, IMHO.
Laura,
I’ve had similar experiences and it is quite unnerving. People consciously move to the other side of the road when I’m out, and if I say a word to someone in passing, they look panicked and rush off. It’s beyond ridiculous since the virus is not a killer plague and I remember the World Health Organisation said weeks ago that it was nothing to worry about. I honestly don’t know what to believe about it all. I don’t want to believe conspiracy theories but this is definitely sinister, what is going on.
I definitely think people would snitch, a very low thing to do, because their values are askew to begin with, and they think like Communists, that obedience to the State is all important.
Laura and Josephine,
It’s unfortunate that you have both had these experiences but I have to say I have not encountered anything like that. On the odd occasion when I do go out, either for a walk or to the local supermarket for some messages, I have experienced the opposite. The pavements where I stay are not very broad but nobody has crossed the road to avoid me, they just pass and usually smile or say “morning.” It’s the same at the supermarket, I’ve seen folk standing over the line but never saw any nasty looks.
Also, about COVID-19. It is now in over 200 countries on all continents, and has even reached the Pacific Islands. Sadly, we now see young people without any underlying medical problems dying and a nurse who is caring for victims told me that it is horrendous, and those who die of this virus do not have peaceful deaths. So there is a lot to be worried about.
I have to be honest and say I’ve not noticed any funny looks or strange behaviour. I’ve had to go out a good few times and everyone seems to be ok.
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