Neil Oliver on the Ruling Class: Are They Deliberately Making Life Harder For Us?
Neil Oliver…
All manner of freedoms are being eroded. The simple freedom to jump in the car and go where we want looks set to be made a thing of the past.
Editor writes…
Do you agree with Neil’s forthright commentary on the state of life in the UK today? If so, given that our freedoms come from God and not from any politician, political party or government, this is all very serious.
Today, history was made when the UK Government invaded our privacy to send an alleged test, an “emergency alert”, to our mobile phones at 3pm. Well, not to mine. I made a point of switching my phone off well before 3pm and only switched on again once I’d checked that said “alert” was a thing of the past. “The past”? Nope. It’s likely to be a thing of the future, truth be told; next thing we know we’ll be getting messages telling us to go out of our homes, and turn left twice, then right and then … blah blah. You’ll get the picture. We’re being programmed again. Remember this… Stay home; Protect the NHS; Save lives…? Worked a treat first time round so prepare for the ever-so-new-normal, folks, round two. It won’t be long now, if it’s not already here…
As Neil Oliver said in another broadcast on GB News, an interview with Nigel Farage in Aberdeen a few days ago when this latest Government over-reach was discussed: we buy our mobile phones. We own them. We give the number out to family and friends, so that we can all keep in touch. The Government has no blankety blank right to use our numbers without our blankety blank permission. Well, I added the “blankety blank” but that is the sum and substance of what Neil Oliver said (and Farage agreed). What about the rest of the historically weak, compliant, timid, UK population, though. Are they going to continue to allow their freedoms to be eroded? Your thoughts…
Comments (27)
Is the ruling class deliberately making life harder for us?
Good question. I am minded to answer in the affirmative for many reasons, but could it not also be the case that we, as individuals, are also making life harder for ourselves? After all, it is too easy to blame government alone for our ills, just as it is too easy to blame food for our being fat, or guns for episodes of mass murder.
I have always been attracted to the view that people get the kind of government they deserve; that, especially in a democracy, those who rule us are unlikely to be either very much better or very much worse than we are as individuals. It is a view which fits in well with the basic facts of life, one of the most important of which is that virtue cannot be manufactured, but is always a personal conquest. We live in a country in which virtue is at a premium – the virtue of truth-telling in particular. Can we really be surprised, then, that things have gone so awry?
Governments know full well that they cannot manufacture virtue, but instead of accepting this natural limitation on their power and actively encouraging virtue through the exercise of freedom – a slow and delicate process – they take a shortcut and delude themselves that ever higher public spending, coercive laws and doing evil that good may come of it can compensate for virtue, when exactly the opposite is true.
Even if governments are making life deliberately (I would also add ‘unnecessarily’) harder for us, a good long, hard look in the mirror will be an essential part of the rebellion.
Leitourgos,
I would only agree up to a point that we get the kind of government we deserve. I’d say that for those who continue to vote SNP for example, that’s true now when it seems very clear that those politicians are not working for us, at all. But, generally speaking, people vote in good faith and are let down by what turn out to be the fake promises of those we elect to govern us. People’s moral compasses have been eroded through the evil laws imposed, such as abortion. Instead of rising up against that, Catholics have kept silent and continued to vote, thinking it’s wrong to vote on a “single issue”, as they think of it, instead of a life or death issue, which is what it is.
I’m afraid I cannot agree at all, not even up to a point, that the politicians we elect try to “manufacture virtue”. They are power hungry and want to change things to suit their own ideas which seem to be totally delusional, key among those ideas, population reduction so that they can draw a line in the sand and create a world in their own image of what is good for them. That’s not virtue, but a self-serving philosophy which puts the majority of us at risk of totalitarianism and ultimately, extinction.
So, yes, I think our government is deliberately making life difficult for us, very much so, but to their way of thinking it IS necessary, so that they can achieve their end goal of a totalitarian new world order. What we are living through is pure evil and I think Neil Oliver expressed it perfectly.
1) ‘It is a view which fits in well with the basic facts of life, one of the most important of which is that virtue cannot be manufactured, but is always a personal conquest.’
2) ‘Governments know full well that they cannot manufacture virtue, but instead of accepting this natural limitation on their power and actively encouraging virtue through the exercise of freedom – a slow and delicate process – they take a shortcut and delude themselves that ever higher public spending, coercive laws and doing evil that good may come of it can compensate for virtue, when exactly the opposite is true.’
I may have missed something, but I don’t think I did say that elected politicians try to manufacture power, not even remotely.
I didn’t say you said the politicians try to manufacture power. I quoted what you said about virtue: I’m afraid I cannot agree at all, not even up to a point, that the politicians we elect try to “manufacture virtue”
Maybe you could define what you mean by “virtue” in this context.
You use the verb ‘agree’. ‘Agree’ (in this case ‘disagree’) with what or whom, exactly? I thought presumably you disagreed with me and what I stated. But let’s not get bogged down in secondary matters.
Virtue is a very ancient notion which pre-dates Christianity. Aristotle defines virtue as ‘a point between a deficiency and an excess of a trait. The point of greatest virtue lies not in the exact middle, but at a golden mean sometimes closer to one extreme than the other. However, the virtuous action is not simply the “mean” (mathematically speaking) between two opposite extremes. As Aristotle says in the Nicomachean Ethics: “at the right times, about the right things, towards the right people, for the right end, and in the right way, is the intermediate and best condition, and this is proper to virtue.” This is not simply splitting the difference between two extremes. For example, generosity is a virtue between the two extremes of miserliness and being profligate. Further examples include: courage between cowardice and foolhardiness, and confidence between self-deprecation and vanity. In Aristotle’s sense, virtue is excellence at being human.’ (I quote from Wikipedia.)
The foregoing definition of virtue is what I intended in my original post. For the Catholic definition, which largely incorporates the above, see:
https://www.catholic.com/qa/whats-the-catholic-understanding-of-virtue
What I should have said, but did not, is that is while virtue qua virtue emphatically cannot be manufactured, it certainly can be taught and fostered, both by individuals and institutions, including governments.
I have long been convinced that one of the failures of modern governments generally is that not only do they not care not a jot for the moral formation of their citizens, but they make morality coincide increasingly with obedience to positive law, as if they are the arbiters of what is right or wrong. This in itself is gravely immoral.
It is one of the most important functions of institutions, including governments, is to ‘let the good flow’, for want of a better expression, by which I mean keep society open to the highest expression not just of goodness, but also of truth and beauty.
Leitourgos,
I just don’t have time to read carefully and respond fully to your highly educated comments but I stopped by for a sec just to say WOW! I am SO impressed, you just cannot imagine what I’m thinking but “genius” is in there… More in due course…
Are you taking the mickey? 😉 (I don’t know to do emojis on my computer, just on my phone.)
I saw that Neil Oliver monologue live on Saturday – it’s fantastic. But I always think he is too optimistic about the public reaction to come; personally, I think people will just comply with whatever comes – 15 minute cities, the lot. Only a minority of people ever have the courage to rebel against such domination. Look at the size of China’s population, yet they are still ruled by a bunch of dictators. That’s the same here.
I also got the impression that Neil was rushing to get everything said, as if he knows Ofcom is coming for him and he’ll soon be cancelled by GB News, like Mark Steyn was thrown under the bus. I sincerely hope not as nobody else is quite as outspoken as Neil.
Laura,
I agree that Neil is too optimistic by far and it has no foundation in reality because most people will have kept their phones on for the “emergency test” yesterday and if they get one giving them instructions to go here or there and do this or that, the majority will unthinkingly follow. Stupid is as stupid does, so it amazes me that Neil Oliver can’t see this. He seems to think there will be a wholescale uprising soon but I seriously doubt that.
Bernie,
Sorry, but I cannot agree. If I were a resident of Los Angeles and were I to receive over my phone a message from the government instructing me to evacuate because of an imminent earthquake, I’d be stupid not to. (I am speaking hypothetically here, of course.) The question surely is not about the legitimacy of the government messaging the population in an emergency situation (SMS messages are, after all, the modern version of the town crier, the bonfire and the siren of yesteryear); it is about the abuse that such a system is open to.
Another example springs to mind, this time from real life. One of my childhood memories is of watching television with my mother and father late one evening in November of 1976 when scheduled programmes were interrupted for a public service announcement. Two prisoners had escaped from what is now known as the State Hospital at Corsairs. They had killed two of their fellow prisoners and went on to kill policeman outside the perimeter of the hospital itself. Sirens sounded to warn the local villagers that there was imminent danger. In such circumstance, I certainly would not have a problem with the authorities sending me an SMS message on my phone which is capable of communicating far more detailed information than the mere fact of an emergency. (Sirens can be set of accidentally, after which it is difficult to correct the message. If an SMS message is sent out erroneously, it may be corrected far more easily and in real time.) Again, the problem is the potential which the system has for abuse.
For ‘Corsairs’ please read ‘Carstairs’. Sorry. I need to get my eyes tested.
Watching and listening to Neil Oliver again, I think that his most interesting point — and one, I must confess, I had not thought of, although it is pretty obvious — is whether the Brexit referendum and Trump’s victory over Hilary Clinton have been catalysts for a sort of government authoritarian crackdown, I think that, looking especially at the United States, he is right. I dread to think what will happen if the Democrats win another term (as I fear they will).
On the subject of the United States, I do not believe I am alone in failing to understand the voting habits of this great nation. Having visited the country many times, I know that it is a veritable continent, spread over four time zones (nine, I believe, if we include Alaska, Hawaii and the U.S. Territories). This means that people have a very different perspective on local vs. state vs. national news than in the U.K., where national news tends to prevail most of the time. But even so, how can so many Americans even contemplate voting for Biden again when he has wrecked the economy, opened the door to millions of illegal immigrants, plays fast and loose with the Constitution and is seemingly corrupt? Is there something I am missing here? I would very much like to hear from RCA Victor on this matter. Maybe he can enlighten us. Also, who does he think will win in 2024 and why?
Leitourgos,
I’ll have to begin by excusing myself as a source of enlightenment about [fill in the blank], but the oft-repeated alt-news narrative about the consequences of Trump’s 2016 victory is that he delayed the timetable of the left/Luciferians by four years, thus requiring an acceleration of their agenda once he was removed via a fraudulent election. That agenda is known as “controlled demolition,” whereby it appears to be the result of a corrupt, incompetent shell of a man who can’t even complete a sentence, when in fact it is the calculated work of his puppet-masters (such as Obama and his former staffers, and, at the next level of the food chain, Soros, who has publicly affirmed his hatred of America and who puts his money where his mouth is).
Acceleration also required exposure rather than continuing with the boiled frog process.
As to the alleged ongoing approval of Biden by so many Americans, I would suggest that such poll numbers are every bit as manufactured as Biden’s 81 million votes in 2020, although from personal observation I’d confirm that there are indeed many Americans who (a) take at face value what they see on the evening or radio “news,” which continues to be their primary source of [dis]information; (b) would vote for a Democrat even at the prospect of being pushed off a cliff; (c) have been conditioned by media brainwashing to consider Trump, patriotism, virtue, and goodness itself as evil, and the various perversities and depravities pushed by the left as “good.”
Sidebar: if you have the opportunity, see the independent movie “Nefarious,” a thoroughly unique and extremely powerful portrayal of demonic possession, and which obliterates several “enlightened” leftist arguments along the way. I saw it last night with three fellow parishioners, and I was glad I brought along my container of holy water! I sincerely hope that this movie puts a stumbling block in the juggernaut of unrecognized, commonplace evil.
Regarding Trump, I stopped paying attention to his many misadventures and misfortunes at the hands of weaponized “American” government agencies, as well as keeping up with various alt-news websites, at the beginning of Lent, and have not returned to my former browsing habits. Yes, I feel much calmer these days. I honestly don’t know what he hopes to accomplish by running for President again, when our election system has been rigged beyond repair by the many well-paid stooges of the left. Who do I think will win in 2024? Whoever the globalists appoint…and it won’t be Robert Kennedy, Jr., either…
I hope I’ve answered your questions, but if not, let me know and I’ll try again….
Thank you, RCA Victor; very interesting.
I am like you in the sense that I need long periods away from it all. Otherwise I just cease to function.
RCA Victor and everyone else,
Have you seen this:
https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2023/04/24/fox-news-suddenly-parts-with-tucker-carlson-last-show-was-friday/
Well, well, well! Actually, I am surprised he lasted as long as he did.
Leitourgos,
I saw it on MSM earlier, but no concrete reason is given; commentators are outraged, blaming his outspokenness – calling “trans” people “crazy” may have been the last straw for his bosses. Anyway, the general sentiment is that Fox is finished now and “where Tucker goes, I go” to which I say “hear, hear – me, too!”
As far as I can see, it appears, at least on the surface, to have a lot to do with the lawsuit which Fox News has just settled with the Dominion voting machine company whose products were the object of such controversy during the last U.S. presidential election. The sum agreed between the parties, as reported in the press, is simply astronomical, although I understand that the final settlement will be for much less. Internally, Tucker is being blamed, although it is difficult to see why he should be sacked and not the television executives who wield power behind the cameras. I have a feeling that Fox, Tucker especially, has become too right-wing for the Murdochs who must be embarrassed by it as they float around the Manhattan cocktail circuit.
Who are the big winners in all of this? Newsmax and Trump. Newsmax (available through YouTube) is now the unrivalled conservative new channel in the U.S., and I would predict that Trump supporters will flock to it in droves. Trump, because he does not have to contend with a channel which is intermittently conservative and which, in the years since he left office, has basically ignored him while at the same time affording space to Never-Trumpers. Fox and CNN will both move to the centre (today CNN sacked the infamous Don Lemon — no coincidence, in my view), leaving Newsmax to emerge on the right.
Do not underestimate Trump’s supporters or the strength of their feelings. They already made their anger known in no uncertain terms when Fox put its finger on the scale by calling Arizona too early for Biden in the last presidential election (it turned out that the journalist who took this decision is or was a registered Democrat), thus interrupting Trump’s momentum. In the days following the election, Fox’s audience share went through the floor and it took months to repair the damage. Now I think that we will see something similar.
Sorry for going off-topic, but this is very important.
Leitourgos
Public service announcements are a whole different ball game. I don’t pay for the town hall or wherever they make those announcements from, what I object to is having my privacy invaded and if you seriously believe that this latest example of government interference in our private lives is “for our own good/safety” – if you really think the government care about you/us – I can get you the Forth Road bridge at a massive discount.
We already get plenty of weather warnings every day on TV and if there is an earthquake or hurricane on the way, we’ll be well warned. There is no need for this latest scam.
We will have to disagree.
Actually, you do pay for the town hall which is funded from your taxes.
I am under no illusions about the government not caring about — nay, despising — us, except perhaps in our capacity to produce and pay taxes. (AI is about to significantly alter this paradigm, which is why it is so dangerous.) Just look at how the sick and elderly are treated once they are no longer contributing to the system, but are actually net beneficiaries of it. And I cannot argue with the fact that governments taking years to admit to even the possibility that COVID-19 may have leaked from a laboratory in China, as well other government interventions and provisions in regard to the treatment and management of that disease, lend colour to your position. I am just saying that, at the present time, I have no objections to the government sending me an SMS about an imminent emergency and would not consider receiving such a message a violation of my privacy. For other, more mundane messaging of this type, I do think that the prior consent of the citizen should be sought and obtained.
As for the Forth Road Bridge, you can keep it, even at a discount. I have never been into painting at the best of times, as my humble abode amply testifies.
If you look at the context in which I said I don’t pay for the town hall, I meant (obviously) personally unlike my mobile phone
As for the benign use of our mobile phones to send us only “emergency” alerts – well, there are theories out there querying this, and I’m with Neil Oliver in the sense that I don’t mind being labelled a “conspiracy theorist” but in this you are undoubtedly with the majority of the population who will, without a doubt, have obediently kept their phones on for the 3pm “emergency test” yesterday.
May you all rest in peace… so to speak 😀
The problem is, Leitourgos, that the government’s definition of an urgent or emergent situation and yours may well differ significantly. Notice of earthquakes, tornadoes and volcano eruptions is all well and good; but the vast majority of these intrusive government messages here in America (that come in at all hours of the day and night) have to do with “Amber Alerts”.
At first blush, you may say that notices of a child abduction are a good thing; but in our society, — and this has been true now for decades, since someone came up with the idea of putting pictures of “abducted” children on milk cartons — the child is, in the vast preponderance of such cases, with a parent who has been disenfranchised by the leftist courts for the most incredibly “woke” reasons. (Mom wants to allow the child to transition to the other gender, for example, and the dad whisks the child to safety without permission. Hence, an Amber Alert.)
When I say the vast preponderance of cases, I mean far higher than 95% of these so-called abductions deal with parental custodial disputes, in which the children are in no way in danger. And yet, at 2 am, you are likely to be awakened by a squeal telling of another parental dispute. I say, for volcanoes, move away from them. For tornadoes, just look southwest to the sky. If it looks bad (as those of us who have lived in tornado country have done for hundreds of years), move to the basement or storm shelter. For earthquakes, well, stay confessed . . .
Editor,
You can also turn the alerts off in your settings. This means that you don’t need to make sure your phone is switched off.
Petrus,
I don’t trust the government telling us we can turn off alerts in settings. I just do not trust them. I think this is about a lot more than a test for future emergencies. I did turn off alerts in my settings but I also switched my phone off. I did both.
Fidelis,
Good point!
Petrus, on my Samsung A53, and Mrs. Marinaio’s S23, there doesn’t seem to be a way to do this. There used to be; but now, even with everything silenced, the government alerts still come through. Maybe I’m just not technically proficient. But Neil is right about his assessment of so-called government protections; if we’re not careful, America will become a Nanny state like Canada or Australia. I even have a nanny car, now, that — if my hands are too light on the steering wheel — flashes an icon of a steaming coffee cup and says: “Time for a break!” Good grief, I didn’t even know about this stupid feature (that can’t be turned off) when I bought the vehicle. Ford has gone control-crazy!
This callous attitude from the Bank of England is clear evidence that they are making life harder for us and that they just don’t care. I was shocked when I read this, that we should just accept being poorer.
really shocked. His stupid “we’re all worse off” made me sick. I’d love to see his payslip.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/households-should-accept-being-poorer-bank-of-england-s-top-economist-says/ar-AA1ak8Rm?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=c06d63a42a9b4f508e179732bbd404a3&ei=23