harryd
Established Member
I’d like to begin by thanking everyone, from whichever side, who has contributed to this monster thread for the plain hard work they have put into it, and for the thought-provoking quality of contributions.
However, I feel that, in common with most people, from either side of the debate, my position hasn’t changed since the beginning of the national debate. I have been deeply unimpressed (absolutely not by this forum) by the quality of both national campaigns.
I’m not swayed at all by the economic arguments – three economists together will notoriously come up with four projections, and then say, ‘On the other hand…’
The immigration question, which can look very threatening, could be managed by adopting a points-based system, so we get the immigrants we actually need.
What does bother me very much, and it’s my main reason for being in the ‘Out’ camp, is the erosion of our sovereignty, and our acquiescence in the continued acceptance of what looks to me like a bureaucratic and very undemocratic tyranny – an apparently benign, tyranny, but a tyranny nonetheless, with ambitions far beyond what we signed up for when we thought we were joining a free trade area.
I offer two observations on the nature of the EU from two long dead but prescient figures, C. S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton.
C. S Lewis died in 1963, so knew nothing about the Common Market. He wrote, and I think he pinned down the EU machine perfectly:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)
G. K. Chesterton, in ‘The Secret People’ with similar accuracy ( and please don’t dismiss the poem on the basis of a possible anti-Semitic reference – he was of his own time, when attitudes were different) pinned it down:
a new people takes the land: and still it is not we.
They have given us into the hand of new unhappy lords,
Lords without anger or honour, who dare not carry their swords.
They fight by shuffling papers; they have bright dead alien eyes;
They look at our labour and laughter as a tired man looks at flies.
And the load of their loveless pity is worse than the ancient wrongs,
Their doors are shut in the evening; and they know no songs.
….But we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet.
Smile at us, pay us, pass us. But do not quite forget.
However, I feel that, in common with most people, from either side of the debate, my position hasn’t changed since the beginning of the national debate. I have been deeply unimpressed (absolutely not by this forum) by the quality of both national campaigns.
I’m not swayed at all by the economic arguments – three economists together will notoriously come up with four projections, and then say, ‘On the other hand…’
The immigration question, which can look very threatening, could be managed by adopting a points-based system, so we get the immigrants we actually need.
What does bother me very much, and it’s my main reason for being in the ‘Out’ camp, is the erosion of our sovereignty, and our acquiescence in the continued acceptance of what looks to me like a bureaucratic and very undemocratic tyranny – an apparently benign, tyranny, but a tyranny nonetheless, with ambitions far beyond what we signed up for when we thought we were joining a free trade area.
I offer two observations on the nature of the EU from two long dead but prescient figures, C. S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton.
C. S Lewis died in 1963, so knew nothing about the Common Market. He wrote, and I think he pinned down the EU machine perfectly:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)
G. K. Chesterton, in ‘The Secret People’ with similar accuracy ( and please don’t dismiss the poem on the basis of a possible anti-Semitic reference – he was of his own time, when attitudes were different) pinned it down:
a new people takes the land: and still it is not we.
They have given us into the hand of new unhappy lords,
Lords without anger or honour, who dare not carry their swords.
They fight by shuffling papers; they have bright dead alien eyes;
They look at our labour and laughter as a tired man looks at flies.
And the load of their loveless pity is worse than the ancient wrongs,
Their doors are shut in the evening; and they know no songs.
….But we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet.
Smile at us, pay us, pass us. But do not quite forget.
Oh, I knew I was right. 
