Wrong side of the curtain

If your old enough you'll recall the days when British people used to regard the lot of those unfortunate enough to dwell outside these shores with more than a small degree of pity. Sure we weren't the wealthiest, most powerful of even the most content nation on earth but there was a certain degree of satisfaction to drawn from the knowledge that we were the least barmy and that, for the most part, enjoyed an unparallelled degree of personal liberty.

I recall many occasions from my adolescence when I'd witness news from abroad. Things like, civil unrest in the US, the antics of paramilitaries in France, food shortages in the Soviet Union or just the general petty injustices that foreigners seemed to endure, firm in my assurance that these things couldn't happen here.

Yes, that was a long time ago and in truth perhaps a rather a too rose tinted view of the past. But times have changes because, back then, we didn't put people away for saying the wrong thing or throw them out of work for their politics or impose summery fines or arbitrarily persecute motorists to raise revenue.

So when did the apple turn into a pear? Wish I could pin it down, things started to go wrong in 68 with the Irish thing but that was localised and had little impact on daily life in the rest of the country. How about The Common Market? as it was then called, well that certainly opened British culture up to the European method of non-de jure enforcement that we see in things like the way Customs an Excise enforce alcohol and tobacco limits, even though there aren't supposed to be any. In truth though, I don't think it's possible to pin it down to a particular event, it's more a case of the simmering frog. A liberty here an injustice there, chipped away in gradual process that we barely noticed. One thing I do know though, it's only going to get worse and no better.

It's not all bad though, remember those foreigners that we used to view with such pity? Yeah I know the US and Europe are in suicide mode but further afield things look more promising. The successor state to the Soviet Union, Russia, has been called The New America, the population already enjoys a greater degree of civil liberty than we do, now there's a sobering thought. China is the major prospect though the population is still relatively impoverished, largely because western economies are in dept to them for so much.

Personally I've given up trying to counter the ubiquitous disinformation and moral panics spawned by my culture's decline. Much better to just go with the flow and make best of it then perhaps I'll be able to retire abroad.