We are all Animals

I don't know if simply wanting life to be fair makes me a socialist, or if I believe that the State has a responsibility - as do all tax paying members of that State - to ensure those who cannot look after themselves are treated fairly, with dignity and their needs met. I don't think there's anything wrong with people paying taxes to ensure the country runs smoothly, that the NHS is there for me, and others and that there are police, social services and public services to ensure a government's work is done regionally.

If this happened, I don't really care who's in power just so long as there is some balance, there is little or no corruption and therefore the divisions that now exist in the country and even in individual homes wouldn't be there.

I'm an altruist. Get over it.

Over the last year I've seen more and more vile intolerant nasty people come out of the woodwork and attempt to verbally piss all over sensible debate by shouting shite very loudly and then taking the 'freedom of speech' stance. The world, quite simply, is becoming an intolerant place and we're at last a world leader in something again.

This is why I'm finding it remarkably easy not to get involved in this preamble to destruction we're calling a General Election. I know that everyone has got to fight to try and restore some parity to the country, but, you know, I said it the other day and I'll repeat it - this is a foregone conclusion. Labour will be lucky to have 180 seats at the end of this and a man who essentially wants pretty much what I'd like to see from British politics is castigated, repeatedly, by enough people to ensure that people who actually support him also feel he has less chance of winning the election as any of us have of being the first person on Mars. The fact that the majority of the people in this country think a man who wants fairness in society is some kind of a freak suggests that we're a long way down the road of no return.

The other day, while talking to people in my dog walking fields, three times in the space of 10 minutes different people asked if 'foreigners' were responsible for whatever setback or calamity we'd been talking about. Intolerance is like a virus that spreads like the most contagious of diseases and it usually leads to war or civil unrest.

The world at present is being run by some of the scariest people never to appear in apocalyptic movies; the fact that half of them are blundering about like blind giants in Toy Town should make people worried, but instead we're getting sabre rattling like it hasn't been seen since a time when we were supposedly less sophisticated.

Humans are animals, lest we not forget. I suppose basic instincts will always kick in when the frustration people are feeling cannot be expressed at the right people, so pick on the weakest, the way wild animals will. The one absolute about that is eventually everyone has a turn at being the weakest.

The irony I see every day is that so many of the nasty people inhabiting everywhere at the moment will eventually need the State - most people earning under a certain amount will - when it isn't doing anything for that demographic and they join it, will they accept it or will they bleat and moan about it not being fair? I think we all know the answer to that.

As humans are animals we're all going to die. It would be nice to think that we could live in a world where exploitation, greed and inhumanity were eradicated so that people can do what they have to, to earn what they need, to have what they want and die in the knowledge that their children should be slightly better off and live in a safe and all-encompassing world.

I can dream.