Please note that the Empire is a white supremacist (human) organization.

Deleted tweet by Chris Weitz, scriptwriter for Star Wars: Rogue One

A new book is out and it is called Forbidden Thoughts. It is an anthology of science fiction and is unusually popular; Amazon.com currently ranks the book as #1 amongst SF anthologies, and #272 of all paid content on their Kindle store. I think you should buy Forbidden Thoughts, and read it, not least because it contains a couple of my stories. It also contains stories by other, much more popular writers, some of whom are routinely tagged as racists, sexists, and all those other words increasingly used to label every American who votes Republican. For want of a better description, every story in the anthology is politically incorrect, including mine. The stories are worth reading for their provocative value, if nothing else, though they deserve more respect than that. So I do not intend to apologize for submitting my stories to this anthology, and I would never seriously consider withdrawing them because of whose work they will sit alongside. It should not be necessary to justify myself. The justification of every story is found in the story, not elsewhere. I wrote some stories, I liked the stories, I submitted them to an editor, he did not reject them. That is sufficient explanation for why those stories were published in this anthology. But I know other people are going to think differently to me. So rather than engage in some petty internet ‘dialogue’ with a series of interlocutors whose worldviews can be expressed in less than 140 characters, I will explain why I have sided with the most evil people in science fiction. For those who cannot be bothered to read beyond this paragraph, it is because some of the people who will vilify me and my fellow authors have become too restrictive, seek to make science fiction too exclusive, and so need to be countered.

You were supposed to bring balance to the force, not leave it in darkness.

Line from Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith

Like a lot of political moderates, I believe in balance. Those who understand the need for balance know that popularity should not be confused with merit. A debate cannot occur without the expression of less popular views. Balance requires that many voices be heard, even though few of us have the attention span needed to properly listen to opinions we already disagree with. Balance means extremes must be entertained, so we know where the extremes really are. A Modest Proposal was anything but; we are richer for having it in our culture. Mein Kampf was written by a moron; readers risk discovering the author was an imbecile. A tightrope walker extends his arms outwards to maintain balance; putting him in a straightjacket would increase the risk of his falling. The analogy applies to a balanced mind as well as a balanced body.

Without balance you get stupid shit of the type conveyed by a mass market business franchise like Star Wars. Without balance you start arguing that ‘balance’ is the alternative to ‘darkness’ or you reinterpret the meaning of an exceedingly successful 1977 film in order to suit the opinions of some people who voted for Hillary Clinton during an election held in 2016. Balance requires more than hearing the views expressed by the other side. It means recognizing there are truly no sides. All human lives are fleeting, all truths are subject to reappraisal on the basis of new data, whole paradigms can shift, and all coalitions of common interest are temporary. We all must eventually die, though I fear the attempts of some Californians to prove otherwise. Everything physical deteriorates over time, meaning good ideas have the best chance to persevere, unless we also have souls, and I have no knowledge of how to sustain the soul except by doing what seems to be right, and saying what I believe to be right. That is why the wheel does not need reinventing and Occam’s razor remains sharp long after Occam’s body has disintegrated. It is also why I should do what I think right, and say what I think is right, irrespective of whether other people will try to punish me or not.

And yes, I am a moderate. I know this because I have and will swap political affiliations depending on which policies most need to be implemented by government. Instead of being confined by one political ideology, I prefer to concentrate on the following facts, which are repeatedly borne out by history: the human race is prone to error; governments often need to backtrack; and people are less capable of predicting the future than they want to believe. Hence we need to muddle through, instead of seeking perfection, and that means being pragmatic rather than dogmatic. I see no problem in trying to occupy a political ground that embraces both Burkean conservatism and Popper’s piecemeal reform. Voting for Brexit and recognizing the legitimate concerns of working class people no more makes me a bigot than opposing creeping surveillance makes me an anarchist. The left-right spectrum is deeply unhelpful, and does little justice to the opinions of anyone but shallow thinkers and partisan fools. Furthermore, I have disdain for the common tendency of those who say they are moderate whilst expressing inflexible views and insisting everyone who opposes them must be extremists. Nobody can stop you from wrongly describing yourself as centre-left, but that does not mean that everyone who vehemently disagrees with you must be on the ‘far’ right. It is possible for two people to disagree about immigration without either being a racist. We can disagree on topics like religion without anybody being an Islamophobe or zealot. It is wrong to equate moderation with being in the middle. Political moderation means something quite different: accepting the possibility that you might be completely wrong, whether your views are mainstream, left field or totally unique.

Balance is the reason why future generations are unlikely to debate the simplistic thinking found in films like Star Wars and all over social networks like Twitter. Science fiction is not a good place to find balance. George Orwell was not typically a writer of science fiction, but Nineteen Eighty-Four may be the greatest work of political science fiction, and Animal Farm the greatest work of political fantasy. Orwell was of the left, but rejected its flaws. Newspeak, doublethink, thoughtcrime, “four legs good, two legs bad”, “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”… Orwell described the symptoms of a diseased left, but many modern science fiction writers and fans act as if they were unaware of his critique. By 1944 Orwell had already decried the absurd overuse of the word “fascism”:

‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley’s broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.

George Orwell, What is Fascism?

If that insult was used too widely in 1944, how can modern leftist mudslingers pretend their attempts to control and dictate language still retain any integrity? That is why the concept of political incorrectness is so potent. Science fiction is especially guilty of this sin. Some of its members are consciously seeking to compress debate within an increasingly limited ‘safe’ space. This is both undesirable both for our freedoms and for the state of the art. I cannot see much lasting appeal for a genre that should be unusually open to discussing a broad range of future possibilities, but insists it will not do so because some of those futures are unpalatable to some people.

My hope is that the children of the future will learn nothing of the current trivialities that get treated as public discourse, either because they will have created new trivial ways to pass the time, or because a few of them will still be willing to learn about yin and yang, and about the Hindu trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Some cultures understand what balance is. Others miss the point entirely. Those that seek balance also see the need for light and dark. They see the benefits of a cycle of creation, preservation, and destruction. Life requires a mix of the positive and the negative. The combination is not just healthy but essential to growth. We need the cycle of birth, death, and constant renewal, not just for our bodies but for our minds as well. Deep philosophies embrace balance. And that means they must accept the terrors of freedom, including the freedom for bad people to expound bad thoughts.

Without the balance that comes from living through day and night, we must turn ourselves into children, sheltered from the evils of the world by our parents. But who should play the role of our parents, when we are already adults? Is it the government? Would you feel the same way if a very different government is elected, or otherwise comes to power? Should the role be trusted to businesses, like Twitter, and their Safety Council? What if the business was the Hollywood movie industry of the 1950’s, bedeviled by McCarthyism? What if the business was the kind of mainstream media that Noam Chomsky railed against? If businesses and governments can make decisions that are both good and bad, what other guardians might stand in their place? Should you be in charge of who is allowed to speak? What if we deny you that power, but still give you a lot of influence over determining whose voices are likely to be heard? If forced to choose a benign dictator, I would pick me rather than you, but I would prefer no dictators at all.

Wait. WAIT. They're letting JONATHAN ROSS present the Hugos? WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK.

— Seanan McGuire (@seananmcguire) March 1, 2014

They say reading broadens the mind but I think that is self-aggrandizing bullshit; plenty of people just read books that confirm their existing tastes and opinions. Either you are the type of person who wants to be stretched and is willing to be challenged, or you or not, and both types can find pleasure in reading. Neither kind will suffer a shortage of books. I like reading George Orwell. Perhaps you like reading Seanan McGuire. When I want to tell my British friends about how skewed, narrow-minded and foolish the science fiction community can be, I tell them that Neil Gaiman asked Jonathan Ross to host the Hugo Awards when they were being presented in London, but had to withdraw after an outcry by ‘science fiction fans’, most of whom were insular Americans with no idea who Jonathan Ross is. This never fails to do the trick. My British friends might watch Game of Thrones and they might vote Labour and they might have read every book by Iain M. Banks but they will all agree that the kind of people who think Jonathan Ross cannot be safely trusted to host an awards ceremony must either be ignorant, or hypersensitive, or both. They feel this way because Ross has hosted lots of other awards ceremonies, so why would the SF community and its precious writers and fans need so much more protecting than everyone else in British society?

Perhaps safety is not the real goal. Perhaps some believe they will change society by acting like petulant children, using safety as an excuse to control language and thought. The French Revolution had its own Committee of Public Safety, and the free thinker Thomas Paine was lucky not to be executed by it. There is something deeply wrong with the oppressive thinking of many members of the science fiction community, as there has been something wrong with many people in many societies across the course of time. They turn safety into a comfort blanket into an excuse to suffocate those they fear. They marvel at the antics of anyone who deliberately provokes them, overreacting in a manner befitting a simpleton who actually wants to be upset, because they enjoy the bonding that comes from sharing the imagined status of victims. They should be opposed, through satire, parody and critique. If that means holding up a mirror and shaming their antics, then so be it, even if these children are no longer capable of feeling shame.

So I have sided with bad people, and my stories can be found alongside theirs. I have a habit of doing that kind of thing, and I hope the habit will only die when I am in my grave. I did not stop being friends with the biggest fan of Donald Trump that I know, just because I would have preferred President Rand Paul or President Marco Rubio instead. Probably that outspoken Trump fan will often be labelled a xenophobe and homophobe, though he seems to love his Japanese wife and lesbian daughter. I am not going to disavow people just because others disagree with them, no matter how passionate the argument. That is because I am not going to disavow people just because I disagree with them. To be open to ideas means being open to bad ideas too. That is how I tell the bad ideas from the good ones; I have no idea how other people attempt to do so.

I cannot speak for others, but I can be frank when stating there is no ego involved in my siding with these supposedly bad people who are rattling the cage of science fiction ‘fandom’. I am too unimportant to matter. Though I may sit on their side of the seesaw, I know I add very little weight. Nor is greed a motive for me; if money or popularity was my goal, there are easier paths I could take. Though the notoriety of the other authors in Forbidden Thoughts might lead a wider circle to discover my words, I know it will not greatly change the arc of my life story. Nor will it stop me from submitting stories to publishers who employ other kinds of dog whistles to attract attention, such as the words ‘diverse’ and ‘feminist’ and ‘multicultural’. As far as I know, the next anthology which will feature my work is from a publisher that belongs to the opposite side of the political divide. And that will change nothing about how to judge a story on its own merits, and who I am, and why we should remain open to ideas even if we disagree with them. Or maybe my story will be booted out of that anthology, but I hope not, because I cannot see how that would make the world a better place. I will continue to write stories, submit the stories I like, and then it is up to editors to reject them, or not. The stories will not change, either way. Perhaps you should read some, and see if you like them. Or read something else. You will always find stories you like, and stories you do not like, unless you keep reading the same stories over and over, because they have already proven to be safe. But what kind of adult hopes to develop their mind like that?

If you dare, you can buy Forbidden Thoughts for Amazon Kindle from here.

A minority believe the US will elect a formidable president, who will take their country forward. A majority know otherwise. As downright terrible as Donald Trump is, he remains in contention because Hillary Clinton is the lousiest Democratic nominee since Walter Mondale in 1984, and possibly worse than that. Democrats are right to call out Trump when he tries to intimidate judges by saying they are biased, and suggesting he would use the power of the Presidency to exercise legal retribution over a defeated rival. On the other hand, Clinton’s surrogates seem less interested in scrupulous objectivity when they vilify FBI Director James Comey for trying to deal with the unholy mess created by Clinton’s conniving to keep her emails secret, and the fractured marriage between her top aide and a perverted fallen Democrat hero. Nobody forced Trump to engage in ‘locker room talk’ or make himself ridiculous by promising to release his tax records and then failing to do so. And nobody forced Hillary Clinton to lie about hiding emails containing state secrets, conveniently have many of them deleted, get away with her crime, but also employ and share secret information with Huma Abedin, a woman whose taste in men is so flawed that her penis-waving jailbait-chasing husband Anthony Weiner somehow has Clinton’s emails still saved on the laptop he also uses to email pictures of his dick. Trump and Clinton are two depressing, preposterous, atrocious candidates. By selecting them as their nominees, the Republicans and Democrats have demonstrated that the USA can no longer act as leader of the free world. Their beleaguered country cannot even select a leader that Americans want to follow.

The failure of American leadership is nothing new. Obama only seems a halfway decent President because he followed the utterly inept George W. Bush. Expectations were so low that Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize just because he was not Bush. In hindsight, now that the Middle East has fallen into chaos, Russia increasingly bombs and invades its opponents, Islamic terrorism is at an all-time high, North Korea is perfecting its nuclear capability and the Iranians have only temporarily been bought off, there seems little evidence that Obama’s approach to diplomacy made the world a safer place. It is true that Osama Bin Laden was killed whilst Obama was in office, but that is like praising the world’s most powerful individual because a schoolgirl receives a perfect mark for her literature essay; only a small-minded partisan could believe Obama deserves most of the credit for work done by intelligence operatives and military personnel. The last respected American Presidents were Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, and both of them achieved economic ‘success’ by increasing or encouraging greater financial debt for one American or another. Obama did the same, but it would be churlish to criticize him for spending to avert a financial meltdown. So whilst people like to focus on the stellar Obama accomplishments of defining girls and boys in such a way that either can use any toilet, or in deciding he was in favour of gay marriage when the polls said most people were in favour of gay marriage (but not before), the best that can be said for Obama is that the US economy did not collapse whilst he was President. If he had done a worse job, it would have.

About 40 percent of Americans understand that the electoral process is so tawdry that they need not bother voting. It is little wonder that they stay at home, when the two-party system delivers candidates that treat them with such utter contempt. Donald Trump is a serial liar. He lies about things like the extent of his charitable donations. Hillary Clinton is a serial liar. She lies about things like being fired upon by snipers. In a sane world, such egregious falsehoods should automatically disqualify somebody from holding high office. Somehow neither party felt their preferred candidates were rendered unacceptable just because they engage in regular and repeated dishonesty. If anything, the two parties seem to have perfected a process designed to promote liars and fantasists. Their preferred candidate can adopt any position, no matter how unpopular or distasteful to millions of ordinary Americans, and then aspire to take the reigns of power so they can use them to whip the behinds of every recalcitrant in the country. In the near future either Clinton or Trump will make an acceptance speech where they will make token reference to healing the wounds and ending division in their country. But nobody but their most partisan dullard fanatical supporters will believe them. Clinton labelled millions as deplorable, lumping Islamophobics with sexists and pretending all the bad people must think the same way and vote the same way, even though the simplest analysis should conclude a modern liberal feminist has most reason to fear a rise in the popularity of Islam. In contrast, Trump decided to be an affront to everybody who refuses to praise him in the slavish fashion he demands. This might be a good strategy for a celebrity provocateur but a foolish one for somebody who chooses to enter a popularity contest.

In the 14th century, the great Arab historian Ibn Khaldun observed that societies reach a peak, and then they decay. Barbarians will conquer and supersede the civilization they both destroy and appropriate. English Historian Edward Gibbon reached the same conclusion in the 18th century, when discussing the reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire. I do not believe this was a coincidence. Both men saw the world as it is: strength grows from overcoming adversity, whilst wealth leads to indulgence, waste and decline. Systems can be rigged so the powerful hold on to their power; both Trump and Clinton know plenty about that. However, rigging a system encourages more of the inbreeding that fertilizes corruption. When advancement depends on political alliances rather than merit the result is putrefaction of the body politic. Favouritism favours those who cannot win a fair fight, whether the advantage is gained through trade barriers or corporate cronyism. Nepotism breeds the realization that the victory will go to the person anointed by the right friends and family connections, and that those with the tightest grip on the levers of power will only hand them over to somebody of like mind. This inevitably leads to stagnation. Advocates for Hillary Clinton will argue she had to overcome the adversity of being a woman. And yet, only a woman could have married Bill Clinton and so cemented such an advantageous political alliance. Supporters of Trump will argue that he is an outsider, though they usually refuse to give Obama the same credit. However, Obama was a genuine outsider, which is why he shocked the system by defeating Clinton in the 2008 nomination race. Obama’s mediocrity is not evidenced by his rise to power, which revealed a man of great political savvy, but by what little he did with that power, which revealed a man lacking any vision or motivation beyond aggrandizing his considerable ego.

It says a lot about how far the Democrats have declined that only Bernie Sanders provided effective opposition to Clinton’s 2016 procession, even though her flaws were perfectly illustrated during her 2008 defeat. And despite the absence of heftier challengers, the Democrats still felt it necessary to appoint not one, but two successive chairwomen who provided unfair assistance to Clinton’s campaign for the party nomination. At least Trump trumped an army of rival Republican candidates without any inside help, though many in that party must despair at the way the serious votes were divided amongst too many accomplished politicians, allowing a wave of low-interest and low-information voters to hijack the primaries and gift victory to a man best known as a television loudmouth. This intemperate diva and buffoonish hotelier overcame at least half a dozen much more skilled campaigners who could have assembled effective national teams for the Republicans, whilst also vexing Clinton far more during the debates. Clinton’s weakness is that she has adopted so many different contradictory positions she has usually adopted the unpopular one at some stage in her career. Only a bilious blowhard like Trump had the power to make her seem principled and consistent in her choice of policies.

Good people of America, a lot of you do not have a clue what the rest of the world thinks about you. Your television is too insular, and your politics more so. You only tend to hear the opinions of americaphiles, and they are not representative of the world, not least because many of them spend so much time watching inane CGI-laden Hollywood movies and frothing over gossipy US websites that they are barely conscious of the countries they actually inhabit. For your own sakes, I beg you to recognize that whether the next President is called Clinton or Trump, neither will be the leader of the free world. Neither is liked, neither is feared, neither is respected. Hillary Clinton may yet win the Nobel Prize that was so cruelly denied to her husband because of his unfortunate orgasm upon an intern’s dress. Trump would undoubtedly be a big hit on foreign TV shows, especially in countries that do not speak English. But they both represent the decline of a powerful country whose two-party system is utterly broken, and run by people with no solutions for the problems found in the real world.

Dear Americans, you will continue to have wealth, not least because of fracking, and you will continue to have more aircraft carriers than anyone else, though the Chinese will steadily close that gap. You will continue to have cultural influence, though more of your movies will feature actors that appeal to foreign markets, and you will continue to have many nukes, but so do the Russians, and their nation is an economic pipsqueak compared to yours. In many ways your decline will be gradual, and you will not notice it. The decay started years ago, and most of you have not taken it seriously, or else your parties would pick better candidates than a bombastic delusional idiot who cheats at golf and everything else, and an unlikeable legalistic manipulative scheming political hack whose idea of female empowerment is to sleep with yet another Democrat who cannot control his penis, just because he is more popular than her. And in case you forgot, these are the kind of despicable insincere two-faced elitists who get invited to, and choose to attend each other’s weddings. You may tell yourselves that your chosen leaders are also the leaders of the free world, but the rest of the world will not believe it. We know you only voted for the scumbag who was not as bad as the other scumbag, because both ran campaigns focused on just how scummy their rival is. After the election there will be an increasing number of reminders of the failure of American leadership, thanks to a growing army of antagonists like Putin and Duterte, who will gladly point out the gap between American self-belief and the country’s actual role in the world. Before long even the British will be routinely telling your leader to fuck off, just like they did when Obama instructed them to remain in the European Union. The United States of America is still powerful, and could still lead again. But first Americans must remember how to pick real leaders.

We hear it all the time. Whenever somebody has the bad manners to shout “allahu akbar” before committing murder we hear a chorus of apologists: the killer had nothing to do with Islam. The murderer is somehow automatically expelled from the faith, even though I am sure there must have been some historical Muslims who killed but were still considered good Muslims. The killer is excommunicated through the force of public opinion, even though Western societies allow people to identify their own religion, just as we allow people to identify their own race and gender.

The previous behaviour of the terrorist is deemed irrelevant to any judgement about their beliefs. He may or may not have prayed at the mosque. He may or may not have been able to quote the Koran, or demanded that others be able to do the same. He may or may not have consorted with other Muslims, and been treated as a Muslim up to that point in time. But as soon as he commits murder a magical cord is cut, and he is retrospectively banished from Islam. Not only does he stop being a Muslim, he never was a Muslim. And so, we are denied even the possibility of interpreting terrorism from the viewpoint of religion, because of this insistence that terrorism must have nothing to do with religion.

I wish he would have, somebody would have put something in his head that these are terrorists, these are criminals, these folks have nothing to do with Islam.

Those are the words of Khizr Khan (pictured), the man who recently stepped up at the Democratic National Convention to slam Republican nominee Donald Trump. Trump responded with his usual flame-throwing, grenade-lobbing antics, which further upset Khan and the people who think like him. Trump is a jackass, but that does not excuse the arrogance of Khan. Being the father of a dead soldier is not a qualification that entitles someone to pronounce who is, or is not, a Muslim. Nor is being a Muslim sufficient qualification. The followers of ISIS think of themselves as the best Muslims, and best placed to judge the religious virtues of others. Some in the West may applaud a rhetorical technique which begins with “I am a Muslim; he is not a Muslim,” but anyone with sense can see how flawed and unpersuasive that is. It invites an obvious response from those accused: “No, I am the real Muslim, and you are the kafir.”

There have been other ways to apologize for Muslim terrorists. We were told they did it in response to cartoons or books or films they found insulting. We do not hear the “provoked by insults” apology much these days, because it has become impossible to find excuses and scapegoats for all the violence meted out in the name of Islam. But back when provocation and insults were the preferred rationalization of terrorism, the excuse was that it definitely was something to do with religion, and that the terrorists were ‘fanatics’ or ‘fundamentalists’, which is quite different from asserting they are non-Muslims. The argument was that millions of Muslims are entitled to be upset if their opinions are satirized and their prophet mocked, so the violence of Muslims is mitigated, if not fully justified. We hear that argument much less these days, because now we are supposed to believe the opposite: it is not understandable to respond with any violence in any situation, because only a non-Muslim would ever respond that way. And yet, Muslims do engage in violence, at many levels, and every day.

Would Khan tour the country of his birth, to give lectures saying those who commit honour killings are not Muslims? Would he defend the rights of religious moderates gunned down by extremists, saying the moderates were Muslims but their killers are not? Would he actively campaign against the country’s blasphemy laws, where the highest penalty for insulting Islam is – you guessed it – the death penalty? And would he campaign for the repeal of this barbaric law by arguing it is against Islam? Maybe Khan would, if given the same kind of opportunity and encouragement that led him to speak at the Democratic National Convention. But if he did so he would be risking his own life, and he knows it. So who threatens his life, and who engages in all that violence, if not Muslims? Is Khan saying that millions of Pakistanis are merely pretending to be Muslims? And what exactly qualifies him to judge their faith, and prevents them from judging his?

When a guy slashes the throat of a priest, we can still find YouTube videos that provoked them, but they are always of the wrong sort: made by Muslims to encourage the murder of non-Muslims. The incitement to hatred cannot be denied, which means apologists can no longer claim that the inflammatory and intolerant behaviour of non-Muslims is the root cause of Muslim violence. Many tolerant people were gunned down in Orlando, run over in Nice. Realizing the old excuses have been neutered by the truth of Muslim violence, the apologists have resorted to the ultimate rhetorical device, oft adopted by those with closed minds: they will simply redefine words to ensure their meaning supports the desired outcome. They pretend a large group of people includes no trouble-makers, by redefining that group to exclude any trouble-makers. It is another example of how some think language is more important than reality. If a Muslim kills, then just redefine them as a non-Muslim, to logically prove the notion that no Muslim kills! It hardly matters to these linguistic connivers that they have won an argument by turning it into a meaningless tautology.

It is breathtaking that some cannot see the inconsistency in modern progressive arguments. They allow self-described Muslims to be redefined as non-Muslims, because their actions were evil. At the same time, they will agree to the notion that gender is different to sex, because anyone can choose their own gender and there is no wrong choice. How can anyone sincerely believe that gender is a subjective choice of the individual which has nothing to do with the physical truth of their own body, whilst simultaneously asserting that the religious beliefs of a person can be categorized and labelled by a third party? The source of this inconsistency is plain: some people want the votes of both Muslims and the transgendered. They do not care about the absurdities and trouble that must follow by trying to indulge both without forcing either to compromise their beliefs.

With that in mind, I want to propose four other arguments in the style of those who say terrorists have nothing to do with Islam. All these arguments are wrong. By being wrong, it should be plain that some are just picking and choosing the arguments to suit the conclusions they like.

1. Rape has nothing to do with men. Anyone who rapes is not a man. Hence there is no point trying to tell men not to rape. Attempts to reduce sexual abuse should be focused on rapists, not men.
2. Paedophiles have nothing to do with family relatives. Anyone who abuses a child cannot be related to them. Hence there is no point trying to raise awareness of abuse within families. Attempts to counter paedophilia should target paedophiles, not families.
3. Homophobia has nothing to do with Islam, or Christianity, or any other religion that says it is wrong. No homophobe has a religion. Hence there is no reason for any religion to promote tolerance towards gays. Attempts to counter homophobia should be aimed at atheists, not those who have religious beliefs.
4. Racism has nothing to do with race. If someone exhibits racial prejudices, it is because they have no race. Hence there is no reason to educate any race about racism. All races are equal. In fact, there are no races, so nothing can be done about racism.

These four arguments are nonsensical and wrong. Any decent person would skewer these arguments without hesitation. It is time that the apologists for Muslim violence to be held to the same standards as the rest of society, and have their wrong-headed arguments skewered too. I do not care if the apologists are peaceful, or good Muslims, or the parents of honoured soldiers. The argument that no Muslims are responsible for the spate of current terror attacks is not just wrong, but morally indefensible. It denies responsibility, when every person has a moral responsibility to promote virtue to everyone around them. However you want to label the terrorists, if they mingle with the Muslim community then the Muslim community has the obligation to influence them to be better people. They will not do that by disowning responsibility.

We do not make the world better by averting our eyes from simple truths. That is why we do not indulge men or whites when they complain that not all men are rapists, and not all whites are racist. Of course not all men are racists, and not all whites are racists, but some are. There are also racist blacks and women who engage in sexual violence too. We must confront all evil, whatever shape it takes, and whoever is responsible. Not all Muslims are terrorists, but some are. Any morality that pretends otherwise is morally bankrupt, and should be denounced.

Brexit has upset a lot of people. They not only lost a referendum, but they feel like they are personally lost. They no longer recognize the country they live in, they do not know their neighbours, their future is ruined, they are alienated and frightened and angry and despondent. If you are one of those people, I have some advice for you. You are reeling from the impact of a decision made by your fellow Brits, but you can turn your negative emotions into positive action that will make you feel much better about yourself, whilst securing your rights as a citizen of the European Union. And you should act now, because this opportunity will not last forever!

You could go on Twitter, or Facebook, or a petition website, and so use the internet to vent some spleen. That might make you feel better for a little while, but it is not going to change anything. Any people you abuse have been insulted before; that strategy did not work. If anything, years of venom and vitriol have hardened the supporters of leave, making them much more stubborn than you. And no matter how many people sign a petition, no government is going to want to rerun that referendum soon, and they certainly will not retrospectively change the rules so the side that clearly won is reclassified as the losers instead. So please do not waste your energy on such hopeless shenanigans. You will only depress yourself and annoy other people. If you feel deeply about preserving your right to move freely around the EU, to work in other EU countries, to be protected by the European Convention on Human Rights and all the other rights that come with EU citizenship, there is one very simple and effective solution. You should move to another country in the EU.

Despite the referendum result, the UK has not left the European Union yet. That will take a while. In the meantime, you can pack your bags, pass through the open borders, and make yourselves a new life in one of 27 countries that have not recently voted to leave the EU. And if none of those 27 countries appeal to you in the long run, there are more countries that will join in future. Just pick one of the 27 countries currently available, live there, and secure your right to exercising even greater choice in future. It is so easy! After all, unskilled workers from poorer countries come to Britain in large numbers, so every wealthy, educated, remain-voting Brit must be able to move the other way.

It is understandable that many of you feel the people in other European countries are wiser, kinder, more sophisticated, more intelligent, better informed, less bigoted, less racist, and more tolerant than your fellow Brits. All those Europeans you interact with on holiday, or via the web, are much much nicer than people who live in godawful towns in the English North that you will never visit, even though nobody has put a border control in your way. On that basis alone, it seems you would feel more comfortable in the company of other nationalities. But also many of you believe the EU benefits by being a massive trade bloc that grinds down African nations, whilst Britain’s economy will inevitably flounder outside. After all, many wise economists and big investors predict decades of financial hardship for Britain, even though they wrongly predicted the referendum result just the day before, causing them to lose billions betting the wrong way. So what are you waiting for? Get out now! Leaving the UK behind will definitely make you happier, and will almost certainly make you richer too! What could possibly go wrong?

If you truly believe the EU is so wonderful, it is clearly better that you move to a country that really wants to be in the EU than spending years in a country which has grumpily chosen to be outside. Get a job in an EU country, and look forward to increased prosperity relative to the chumps who stayed behind in Britain. Old friends will be envious when you come back to visit, as they will witness how much you can buy with your euros compared to their crappy pounds. You believe those countries are much more welcoming of outsiders than the UK, so why would you doubt your right to live in them permanently, even after Brexit is concluded? After a while you can apply for citizenship, and they are bound to accept you with open arms. As the Germans and other European nations love refugees so very much, imagine how glad they will be to see you! If anyone questions your right to live in their country, just say you were in danger of having your human rights violated, and surely no European will argue with that. They will all know about the ignorance and bigotry you had to escape. After all, you were one of the thousands who repeatedly warned your fellow Europhiles about how awful most Brits are!

Of course, you will likely face a few inconveniences whilst you are settling in. You will need new plugs on your electrical goods, because our cunning European cousins do not believe in imposing such high safety standards on their appliances. If you get into legal difficulties, you will need plenty of money for lawyers; the UK spends far more on legal aid than other European nations. Perhaps you will find getting a job a little harder than expected, because of all those national rules and regulations that actually exist but nobody warned you about during our great referendum debate. You may live longer, but you may also pay more for medical treatment; the UK is way ahead of other countries by having healthcare that is 97 percent funded by the public purse.

Morally and culturally you may also find our European cousins are not as admirable as you might like. The Netherlands, Denmark, Luxembourg and Sweden give more foreign aid than the UK; everyone else gives much less. Britain has the toughest laws to prevent cruelty to animals, reflecting a significant difference in national attitudes. The UK has least road deaths; Brits are careful about such matters. And obviously you will no longer be entitled to watch the BBC at a rate subsidized by other British taxpayers, though you could still listen to its world service for free.

And there could be other downsides to moving to another EU country, depending on who you are and where you go. Apparently some feared Brexit because it would be bad for women; I hope they never have to pursue a rape trial in Italy or join the New Year’s party outside Cologne central train station. Others worried about the impact of Brexit on the LGBT community. Those people should not move to any of the 11 EU countries that say same-sex marriage is against their constitution, and they should definitely avoid gay pride marches in Hungary. Supporters of Brexit were said to be racists, so those fleeing prejudice should keep well away from the banlieues of Paris, or else experience ghettos used to systematically exclude non-whites from the workforce. And on the topic of work, young Brits angry about losing their ‘right’ to work wherever they please may want to enquire why 50 percent of young Greeks and 45 percent of young Spaniards are not working where they would like to.

So please go. Leaving the UK will have a few drawbacks but nobody is stopping you. The time for talking has passed; now is the time to act. If you believe the European Union is fundamentally superior to a Britain which prefers to be outside then you must move in order to secure your place in the EU. That is a much more realistic choice than insisting other Brits must give up their democratic rights to please you, not least because actions speak louder than words. The door to the EU is still wide open, and there is no point in demanding a right if you never intend to exercise it in practice.

If you choose to stay in Britain, please do not repeat that hoary old cliché about staying to fight for your country. That would imply you have respect for the people of Britain. Some currently show no respect for the majority that has dared to disagree with them. If you decide this country is not so bad after all, and you would rather get along with your fellow Brits, then I recommend you stay. Despite some increasingly disturbing caricatures, the British people are generally very tolerant. They will show you decency and listen to your point of view if you treat them the same way. So if you want to remain in Britain, let us move on from recent nastiness. Let us settle on our new course and work together, making Britain the best possible country for everyone who lives here.

I was poor once. There are lots of downsides to being poor, and some of them get overlooked. When you are shivering during the middle of a bitter Winter, it hardly seems to matter if your opinions are fairly represented by the mainstream media. Poor people do not get to appear on television as much as rich people do, they are less often quoted in newspapers, they receive less attention on the internet, their opinions are easy to overlook. So when a public debate involves the diverging interests of the poor and the rich, it is easy for that ‘public’ debate to become horribly skewed. We end up disproportionately listening to the views of people who have succeeded in life, whilst taking little notice of those who are struggling. The debate over the UK’s membership of the European Union suffers this division. Polls show that poor people want to leave the EU, whilst the wealthy want to remain. We keep hearing plenty of views from those with wealth and power, and the people who represent them. In contrast the poor are not being listened to, and their insights are not being shared as widely as they should.

The European Union referendum polls show an overwhelming majority of poor people want to leave the EU. Yet our media is dominated by people who have succeeded in life – business people, scientists, actors – telling us we should remain in the EU. The bias should be plain to see. This imbalance is exacerbated because organizations that claim to represent the poor – the Labour Party, trade unions etc – have their own selfish reasons to oppose their wishes. However, many well-meaning successful people reinterpret this common bias as a problem relating to ‘education’ or ‘information’… and they make it very clear who needs to be on the receiving end of their lectures!

One medium for public debate is LinkedIn, the social network for business people. I often use it for professional reasons. It is a good place to engage with people with similar business interests, but it does not provide a representative mix of the general public. To say that the debate on LinkedIn is skewed would wrongly suggest that an actual debate is taking place. As far as EU membership is concerned, LinkedIn is just one selfish propaganda message after another. Posts with titles like “Why the EU Is Good for (My) Business” compete for attention with posts entitled “The EU Is Good for (My) Business (And That Is Good Enough for Me)” and the ever-popular “I Get a Grant from the EU so Obviously the EU Is in Everyone’s Best Interests”.

I joke, of course, but the truth about LinkedIn debate is not a lot better. Trivially selfish reasons to remain in the EU (‘I like holidays and I’m afraid of a future where I might need a visa to go to Spain!’) line up alongside absurdly apocalyptic messages (‘Without the EU there will be war!’), flooding the feed of what is happening on LinkedIn. Nobody in their right mind can think LinkedIn is a sensible place to hold a genuine debate about EU membership. A genuine debate has to involve both rich and poor, because we are all affected by the decision to remain or leave the EU. But poor people who do not like the EU are not users of LinkedIn. Regrettably, that did not discourage Ronan Dunne, the CEO of phone company O2, from using LinkedIn to call for a “properly informed debate” about the UK’s participation in the EU. So I gave him one. And I attempted to do something I am no longer well-qualified to do, by representing the wishes of all the poor people who Dunne will not find on LinkedIn.

Despite asserting the need for ‘information’, Dunne’s argument was drawn from the common litany of pro-EU talking points that have become the norm for wealthy successful people who are no longer conscious of how they talk down to everyone else. If you make assumptions about Dunne’s argument you will not go far wrong; he said the EU is good for (his) business and the economy. Dunne’s slight variations on a theme included a casual mention of the downsides of EU red tape, and he worried about relations between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic if they were not both in the EU. But that was all Dunne argued; his lecture was neither informative, nor balanced. You can read Dunne’s argument here, but you will not find it illuminating. What stood out in my mind was two things: the comical absurdity of one assertion, and the failure to mention how the EU impacts Britain’s poor, even though some of them will be O2 customers.

…I certainly don’t think it’s for businesses to tell people how to vote.

Dunne actually wrote that. Does he think the same number of people would read his post if it did not come from the boss of a big business? I think this quote sums up the way successful people lose perspective when talking down to everybody else, so I responded to it.

“I certainly don’t think it’s for businesses to tell people how to vote,” writes the CEO of a business in an article telling people how to vote.

I could have written more, but why bother? I am not the CEO of a big business, nor a nobel scientist, nor a famous film star. I have only been moderately successful in life. All I bring to this debate is the memory of what life is like for those who do not succeed, and how hard it is to climb from the bottom rung of society’s ladder. I never expect many people will pay attention to what I write, even though I am keen on genuine public debate. To Dunne’s credit, he did respond. But he did not respond wisely.

Eric – I write as an individual with an opinion, keen for there to be a proper discussion on this a hugely important question. In no way inconsistent with the view that it’s not businesses role.

In short, Dunne doubled down on a disingenuous argument. He repeats his desire for a ‘proper discussion’ despite picking a terrible vehicle to host that discussion. Worse still, anyone who has been powerless understands how unlikely it is for the CEO of a big business to have a ‘proper discussion’ with anyone beneath them. I have spoken to a few CEOs of big businesses, and ‘proper discussions’ were the exception, not the norm, because they always had more power than me, and most CEOs are prepared to use that power. So what are the chances of Dunne engaging in a proper discussion that also appropriately includes the opinions and experiences of the poorest Brits? I tried to give Dunne the ‘proper discussion’ that he deserves.

People don’t read your post because you are an individual with an opinion; you can’t be so unintelligent that you think otherwise. If you were just an individual with an opinion you could have used a pseudonym and seen how few people would have noticed you then.

As for the discussion, you provided little, and encouraged none. You mostly focused on the ways a single EU market benefits your business. That is another reason to reject the pretense that you are just an individual giving an individual’s opinion.

If you want a proper discussion perhaps you would kindly explain why voters should prioritise the interests of wealthy successful educated people like you, who benefit greatly from the EU. I would rather we focus on the interests of poorly educated, low paid Brits who suffer terribly as a result of having fewer job opportunities, downward wage pressure, greater competition for housing, and all the social challenges resulting from immigration when we know immigrants tend to cluster in areas that are already prone to poverty.

Put simply, why should we follow your lead by only talking about the ways that EU membership makes rich people like you richer? Why don’t we talk more about the ways the EU has made many poor British people even poorer?

A properly informed debate would require us to recognize the pros and cons of each option. I don’t think you encouraged that. You listed some genuine benefits of EU membership, whilst neglecting to mention that individuals like you receive the lion’s share of those benefits. You mentioned some trivial downsides to EU membership, but none of the important ones. Now that I’ve mentioned the genuine and important reasons that lead millions of poor Brits to want to leave the EU, do you care to state an opinion on why those people’s views, and the quality of their lives, matters less than being able to cheaply recruit skilled European workers and thus save yourself the expense of training Brits to a higher standard?

I have drawn your attention to the fact that millions of your customers are quite probably worse off as a result of the EU’s influence over the UK. They are no worse ‘informed’ than you; their information comes from their actual experience of life, and you should not look down upon that. I have also questioned why it is of ‘benefit’ to Britain that businesses like yours choose to recruit skilled workers from overseas in preference to developing the skills of thousands of Brits who want good jobs but have never received the educational investment needed to realise their potential. Now that I have done this, do you care to engage in a real and proper discussion, or will you stick to vapid one-sided propaganda? Will you explain to all of us who intend to vote for Brexit why protecting the interests of the poor matters less than enriching you and your business? Or would that be the kind of genuine, unlimited, balanced and informed debate which is too risky for you to actually participate in, because of the potential damage to the reputation of your business?

Instead of allowing Dunne to talk down to me, I talked to him as an equal. There has been no reply, and of course there was never going to be a reply. ‘Discussion’ is a euphemism; it means the powerful speak, and everyone else listens.

This one-way conversation means I have listened to plenty of successful people repeating selfish arguments about foreign travel and EU grants. I have heard how British businesses prosper by selling to foreign markets whilst keeping wages low and hiring from abroad to avoid the cost of training British people for better jobs. I have heard all the silly arguments that Brexit will lead to unemployment for millions, a massive recession, huge government cuts, a collapse in housing prices, a crisis for the NHS, increased terrorism, a rise in illegal immigrants, the end of human rights in Britain, the secession of Scotland, and war with our European neighbours. After listening to all that, I will vote for Brexit. I believe many British people will ultimately benefit if we leave the European Union. And I believe this even though Brexit would be contrary to my personal interests.

Life is not just about making money, having holidays and consuming goods. And I do not live in perpetual fear of the scare stories promulgated by our society’s most powerful manipulators, especially when their selfish motives are so obvious. Freedom is important, and so is social cohesion. The EU has repeatedly demonstrated that it is an enemy to democracy. Just as importantly, the adverse social costs of unlimited migration of workers does most harm to the poorest individuals in our society. These are the reasons to leave the EU. We must trust ordinary people to choose their government, instead of preferring the supposedly benign dictatorship of unelected bureaucrats. And we must refocus our attention on developing the talents and improving the lives of all British people, instead of submitting to a bogus calculus which says GDP growth is paramount, even when most new jobs are going to immigrant workers.

Businessmen like Dunne say that it is in Britain’s interests to be in the EU. I say the interests of his business need to be realigned to support the interests of all the people who already live in our country. The elites that run this country should be made to listen to the millions of ordinary people who suffer because of the EU, and they should be forced to concentrate more resources on developing the talents of British workers instead of lauding the advantages of buying in skills from abroad. The only way to ensure both is to vote for the United Kingdom to leave the EU.