An actual post about current affairs

The media has a habit of latching onto a story and then only fixating itself upon stories which support its current crusade but nontheless for a story to be reported it generally has to have happened.
So we hear the story of the 11 year old Rhys who was shot in the back of the neck on the 22 August by an 11-15 year old youth on a BMX, the shooting at of a Police Car on a regular roadside check, the murder by shooting of an ex-pro boxer in a Nightclub…it goes on.
But hang on I hear them cry, those parasitical vermin of Daily Mail subscription, we don’t have guns in this country, they are banned.
Yes they are banned and you’ll notice that a ban only affects those people willing to obey and chance would have it that the majority of those people willing to obey are exactly the same people who wouldn’t go out and shoot and 11 year old in the neck.
Ah but Hungerford, Dunblane, both massacres carried out by liscenced firearm holders a bit of a kick in the teeth for the pro gun lobby really.
I don’t think there is any particularly right side to this argument because we’re discussing weapons which give the bearer the ability to end a life within seconds with little effort, pull a trigger, bang, subject expires its pretty simple, in the hands of criminals or in the hands of the ‘law abiding majority’ they are deadly things.
However this has to be said banning handguns has failed to bring gun crime under control and in disarming a populace which in general handle firearms with restraint and control, power has been handed over to those people who have no respect for other people. their lives, rights or families and are quite happy to blast away at pre teen boys.
As a wider critique of general society, I noticed the heading of the Sun newspaper which a colleauge brought to work; it read simply ‘Anarchy in the UK’ in relation to the spate of shootings and murders which have been prominent in most of the national media.
Now firstly what we’re seeing here is not ‘Anarchy’ which is directly translated as ‘without rulers’ we’re seeing something called primitive society as in the rule of the strong over the weak, we’re seeing a society based on ‘get what you can and if you cannot then take what you can’ the philosophy of Anarchism at least in a mutualist sense is entirely different.
Its nieve to think that the crime and disorder we see broadcast onto our screens and printed in our newspapers is appearing out of nowhere, it appears out of society and the society we live in is one which promulgates gross injustice and then added to that has removed power and decision making from the collective (in some cases this is no bad thing) but in general we as a nation have handed our freedoms over to the state.
So what are we to do?
I maintain a position in which there is no inherent evil in a person but a pliable soul which can be twisted and turned and I also maintain that whilst Idealistically I ascribe to Anarchism the pragmatic way to get there is throught the existence of a state which rules fairly and justly until such time when it naturally dissolves.
I could sit here and write out a long, long list of things that I think society needs to do in order to improve but instead I think I’ll go simple and suggest just a couple of things.
I think it should be the responsibility of schools to teach the subjects of History, Philosophy, Maths, Physics, Chemisty, Biology, Geography, Theology, English Language and Modern Languages as their core subjects with an emphahsis on self realisation, I think that expulsion should be the very last resort and that those expelled should be brought into centers that have specifically been set up for those who have problems and have been excluded, these centers again should revolve around education with self realisation being the central tenent of teaching.
It comes down to my belief, however tenuous, that knowledge is inherent in the human soul, the example of Socrates and the Shepherd who came naturally to a mathematical conclusion without prior knowledge stands in my mind at least that I think it is in everyone when they really think about things to determine what is wrong and what is right, what is true and what is untrue.
In my mind no one who has grasped the concept of the soul, and of wrong and right will commit ‘evil’ because no one who understands such concepts will do something which will harm their soul.
This of course is Idealism but where exactly would we be without Idealism? wallowing in our mudpits discussing how rubbing two sticks together and getting warm is just too idealistic and therefore not worth thinking about.