Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

Starting to flag a bit

Look, it's an England flag. Look at it! It's the kind of tacky plastic novelty you'll see on cars up and down the country ahead of the World Cup, fluttering in the breeze or, most likely, littering the side of the motorway in ever growing numbers as the tournament progresses and England spiral towards their inevitable being-knocked-out-on-penalties-despite-a-brave-performance-in-which-they-get-outpassed-and-resort-t0-launching-high-ball-after-high-ball-up-at-Crouch-in-a-vain-bid-to-bundle-in-an-equaliser.

Hooray! The cross of St George flutters proudly at the top of this blog, despite the diversity Nazis and successive visits from the PC Brigade. It hasn't been banned from this blog because health and safety nuts have decreed that it would cost too much to put it on top of the page. It hasn't been banned because secretly I hate my own country because I'm a liberal fascist who loves Muslims and wants Britain to be a caliphate. It hasn't been banned for any of these reasons, because it's here, on my page, to celebrate the love I have for those brave 23 souls who may, or most likely may not (but I still harbour the hope they may) lift that golden trophy on a Sunday in July.

Yes, there are no bans at the Enemies of Reason! I'm not afraid that it might upset immigrants, or that my blog is such an international brand that it could stop overseas visitors from being delighted by the content. I'm not afraid that it could upset a Muslim. I'm not afraid of any of these things. Why not? Because I'm not a fucking moron.

There I go again, being sanctimonious. We liberal-left types aren't meant to call morons morons when they're being moronic; we're meant to imagine that if people are wilfully ignorant, or don't want to find out about things, or lack the curiosity to challenge what they've been told, that it's somehow our fault, and we should reach out to them, even though they won't believe us, for fear of alienating them. Do you know what? I try to bend over backwards as much as I can bear to, but fuck that.

Often, the reason why people are accused of being racist for what they say about the non-existent England flag/shirt/badger (oh yes! Our very patriotic fucking badgers are apparently under threat from the anti-England killjoy Gestapo!) is that they're racist. Often, the reason people are accused of being xenophobic is because they're xenophobic. Sometimes things just are what they are, and we needn't hand-wring our way into giving these fucking poisonous yo-yos an escape hatch.

Fuck that. I've read an awful lot of drivel about these supposed bans, often spilling into downright hatred of minorities; why shouldn't that be called out as what it is? Is that sanctimonious? Is that somehow wrong? Should I celebrate the diversity of a country that includes racism? Shall I mollycoddle the minority that is racist fuck-knuckles? No, I fucking won't. I've had enough of this shit.

Yes, if you go digging for long enough you can probably find examples of a couple of isolated times that well-meaning or dimwitted cops have genuinely told people to take down England flags, or someone has been told that a St George cross might offend someone, and so on. But as I said the other day with regards to immigration figures and their reporting in 'See what you want to see', that's not the whole picture.

Are these incidents, so rare that only a handful of examples can be verified despite a desperate search for them and despite numerous unverifiable tales which are described as being definitely true despite the lack of evidence, put into the context of huge numbers of cops - the vast majority - not telling people to take down flags? Are they put into the context of huge numbers of people - the vast majority - not telling their fellow citizens to stop wearing shirts, or not telling people they can't paint Big Ben red and white, and so on? Or are they depicted as being evidence of some kind of sinister trend, a clampdown on national pride? If it's the latter, then that is patent nonsense, and false, and misleading, and panders to idiots, and creates tension where there is none.

Here's the thing. No-one is offended by the England flag at the top of this page. No-one. People might think your car looks a bit shit if you plaster it with a billion flags, but that's because it probably does look a bit shit. Some people might be well-meaning or thick and think flags might offend people, but they're wrong, and they're completely and utterly in the minority, because they're wrong, and because most people understand that there's nothing wrong with a shirt or a flag. There is no clampdown, because it's just not happening. This complete bollocks gets recycled every time there's a tournament, and it gets repeated by lazy and fuckwitted journalists, not just because they're pressed for time, but also because some of them couldn't give a fuck whether it's right or not.

There is no big scary liberal PC Brigade health and safety diversity Nazis killjoy jobsworth conspiracy to stop anyone in England from enjoying the World Cup - I think you'll find the England team can manage that perfectly well on their own.

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