Heading For A Fall

Afilonius Rex, Caerdydd, Monday 20th January 2025

The Britain of my youth wasn’t quite the gaggle of internet-enabled basket cases that it has become today. Once, most people were generally more respectful, introspective and considerate. Now, any fool with an opinion as racist, prejudiced or stupid as it can be can shoot their mouth off on a scale never seen before. Of course, there are exceptions, and there were some thoroughly vile people in the past, just like there are many decent people in the present.

Nowadays, however, there have been serious concerns raised about the volume, vulgarity and intensity of hate speech, lies and verbal aggression of various types on different internet platforms.

One factor that is disproportionately energising the hate fest on internet platforms such as X or Facebook is the surfeit conceited, ignorant and disturbed man-children who use the same moral compass as Zuckerburg, Musk and others. These people are abusive, bullying and innate psychopaths, but that’s not the real problem. The real problem is that many more alpha males seem to think that these maniacs are the sanest people in the coral. They take them as role models, at the same time feeding and expanding their own hate whilst spreading their vile toxins far and wide.

Even more sinister than their constant bullying, lies, and prejudices is the fact that their hate is seen to have far more validity in the eyes of specific sectors of communities than those of legitimately elected representatives. People are deemed to have more political weight than our politicians simply because they are far wealthier than the regular political representatives. This represents a significant challenge to constitutional democracy and the civil society of freedoms, rights and obligations. Those who would bring about authoritarian and totalitarian regimes are no better than the fascists, Nazis and other assorted dictators of the 20th century.  

However, what also cannot be overlooked is the disproportionate influence they have over people who feel the need to hate and how this is manifested at the ballot box.

In my mother’s village there are people who complain about knife-crime in London, as if it was happening on their doorstep rather than more than 350 kilometres away. People in that also complain about immigration, and this tends to come from English people living in Wales who complain about other immigrants, but it is nt cinnfined to them. Also people take a hypocritical attititide to crime, like as if the same crime commited by someone from an ethinc minority shoudl be regarded as far more heinous. And there are a raft of more examples. A veritable Tsunami of expressions of hate, ignorance and prejudice. Funnily enough, these attitudes are expressed more often than not by people who voted for Brexit. Funny that… but getting back on track…

Yet, again, some will make light of or dismiss the deep concerns of the thinking person. This is what happened in the 1930s. And we only got the wake-up call then when Nazi jackboots marched into Czechoslovakia, and the Luftwaffe blitzed Poland.   

So, there is a clear message in all of this: If we fail to destroy these people at the ballot box, we will have to put our lives on the line further down the road, either that or join the dishonest, evil and hate-ridden men. But what decent person would want that on their conscience?