IMOS.org.uk

Seeking Wosdom

Warning: Many people would consider this book to be deeply offensive!

Balance

  It's very PC, safe and conciliatory for politicians (and others), when faced with a dispute of some kind between two opposing sides with opposing arguments, to say, "Well, it's a question of finding a balance between the two."
  Sometimes, it is reasonable to seek this "balance" between opposing concerns, but, very often, all this balance-seeking by politicians is just a bullshit smokescreen to cover up for their lack of principles and general gutlessness. It's simply a case of them resorting to expediency when they haven't been thoughtful or courageous enough to recognise and follow fundamental principles and decide upon clear priorities.
  For example; "We've got to find a balance between allowing freedom of speech and preventing people being caused offence." Bollocks! No we don't! We just have to decide what is more important - Freedom of Speech or pandering to people who want to dictate to the rest of us what we are or aren't allowed to say. Principles, for fuck's sake! You allow freedom of speech and anyone who wants it to be abandoned in order to protect their precious sensitivities can take a running jump - there's no fucking balancing to be done!
  Or, when religious people express "negative" views about homosexuals, "We've got to find a balance between people's religious freedoms and people's rights not to be discriminated against." Bollocks! No we don't! There are clear principles involved!
  Homosexuals should have every right to engage in whatever sexual practices they like amongst consenting adults, and religious people should be totally free to criticise them or deride such practices as sinful and abhorrent. And if a homosexual ridicules Islam or if a Muslim hotel owner refuses to give a room to a homosexual couple, what business is that of the state?
  In such cases, the state only has a balancing dilemma because it has started down the slippery slope of interfering in people's private lives and seeking to dictatorially impose its own value systems on private individuals.
  Our political leaders seek a "balance" because they've been pandering to disparate interest groups, offering them all sorts of "rights" they can never deliver (including the absurd idea that you can have a right not to be discriminated against by anyone, ever!) and now they're in a quandary because two or more of these ridiculous "rights" have been shown to conflict with each other. They're left having to find a "balance" that avoids any extreme backlash from either side, but resolves nothing.
  Occasionally, on some more practical issues, an optimal solution can be found at some sort of midpoint. Often, however, this "middle way" is merely the result of dithering, cowardice and fruitless compromise that seeks to avoid serious debate or conflict rather than to find solutions that might actually work!
  Very often, "balance" does not lead to an optimal, or even desirable, outcome. Indeed, it is often the case that decisive action in one direction or decisive action in the completely opposite direction can bring results - but 'umming and ahhing' in between brings only disaster!
  For example, it may be politically-incorrect, but if our schools reintroduced the cane and had old-fashioned iron-fisted discipline, this could bring enormous dividends in terms of educational attainment. No longer would bright students be continually interrupted by the poor behaviour of others.
  On the other hand, if we took completely the opposite approach and said that children didn't have to turn up to classes if they didn't want to and didn't even have to turn up to school, this would also bring enormous dividends because pupils who want to learn would no longer be hindered by the mindless yobs who messed around all the time because they didn't even want to be in school in the first place.
  The middle way, however, is a disaster. Yes, yobbish children are forced to go to school, but they aren't interested in learning anything and the discipline is not sufficient to make them learn - so they spend their time in school disrupting the lessons of children who do want to learn.
  Another problem is that "balance" often ends up splitting valuable resources between two (or more) divergent objectives, neither of which is ultimately achieved. It would have been better to have made a decisive decision about which objective to pursue and to have put all available effort and resources into that - and thus, perhaps, actually achieving something!   For example, we provide aid to dozens of countries around the world - but that aid is spread so thinly that it is doubtful whether it makes any lasting difference to any one of them.
Wouldn't it be better to pick a single country - one that was actually grateful for our help and was willing to fully cooperate with us in order to make the most of our investment? Maybe then we could actually solve some of that country's problems. Instead, the government spreads aid around so that it can make endless announcements, jump on every passing bandwagon for a short trip and claim to be everyone's friend whilst, ultimately, failing to actually solve any problems at all or achieve anything of lasting consequence.
  The idea of "balance" has a place, but all too often it is the expedient resort of lily-livered, fudge-seeking, compromise fanatics, too afraid of upsetting people to express any clear values and principles and too indecisive even to decide upon priorities. The "midpoint solution" is reached for only because the people involved just don't have the balls to make clear, principled, decisive decisions that could actually make a positive and meaningful difference to our lives and the future wellbeing of our society or the world in general.

Women's Sports

  Why do we have women's sports? Why can't women just compete with the men?
  "But that would be unfair!" some might argue. They may say that, in many sports, especially the ones that require physical strength, women are genetically disadvantaged. So? Lots of people are genetically disadvantaged. You wouldn't expect a 5ft 2in man to win the men's 100m - but you don't get a special Olympic event for short people.
  You might get a paralympics event for people with "dwarfism" - but then, if women need a special event because of the genetic disadvantages that handicap them, perhaps that should be in the paralympics too!
  In the Olympics, the men's 100m and 200m track events are almost always won by black men of West African descent. They have a genetic advantage, so everyone else is at a genetic disadvantage, but you don't have a special 100m for white men or for Asian men, so why have a special race for women?
  We even have separate women's events in many sports where there is no obvious physical disadvantage anyway.
  Thinking about it rationally, most women's events don't make much sense in a world where we are supposed to have put patronising sexism behind us. I'm not suggesting they should be banned by law - but I think it's ridiculous to insist that such events should have equal prominence as the "men's" events.
  Of course, in many sports, the women-only events aren't treated with the same respect as the open-to-both-sexes main tours. For example, women are free to compete with the men at the top level of golf or snooker or motor racing if they can. There are women-only events, but these don't get anything like the news coverage, prestige or money that the "men's" events get.
  In other sports, however, the story is different. Tennis is a good example. The women often seem to assume that they ought to get the same coverage, the same prestige and the same money as the men, even though they often play fewer sets - but why should they? They should have to compete directly with the men. "But women can't compete with Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal!" So? Neither can I - but I don't expect a special event to be invented just so I can win Wimbledon anyway!
  Why shouldn't the best women just compete with the men? If they're not good enough to compete with the best men, then they can compete lower down the leagues like everyone else has to.
  In an applaudably non-sexist way, spectators generally want to see the athletes with the highest levels of skill, the greatest speed and strength and the most cunning - regardless of whether they are male or female, black or white. We want to see the people with the skills to compete at the highest level. For the paying public, lower leagues or women-only events are of less interest and importance - and we ought to be allowed to treat them as such without being irrationally and unreasonably accused of being sexist.

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Other chapters include: Inappropriate - Islamic Extremism - Rape - Tits - Torture - and many more!