August 19, 2003
SWINGIN' DICK
Peacenik Richard Neville was once part of a schoolyard coalition of the willing:
When I was a boarder at a stuffy prep school, my best friend’s big brother was the school bully. In some ways he wasn’t such a bad bloke - funny, smart - aside from his penchant for hurting younger boys. The bully had a few suck-ups, with whom he shared extorted lollies. After a couple of miserable terms, a few of us ambushed the bully and gave him what’s what. He sobbed, abdicated power, shook our hands and the playground became a better place, even for him.
Violence is never the answer, Richard.
(Via reader Tony N.)
Posted by Tim Blair at August 19, 2003 03:59 PMClearly, the accountants have been severely chartered.
Posted by: ilibcc at August 19, 2003 at 04:12 PMOnce upon a time there was a nasty big bully called Saddam, and he did all sorts of mean and naughty things, like pulling the girls hair, and sending the little boys off to prison camps, and torturing them, and stealing all their money, and other things.
Then one day an Even Bigger Bully called George W. Bush decided to 'take out' Saddam, and he got together a big gang of his fellow schoolyard friends, and there was a big fight.
But then the teacher came along and said, "Boys, boys! Violence is never the answer! Sure, Saddam might be a little bit evil and a little bit nasty, but it's only because he had a traumatised upbringing, or you made fun of him, or something else ... isn't that right Saddam?"
And Saddam sniffed and nodded his head.
Then the teacher walked away and Saddam chopped off George Bushs head and pulled out a kalishnikov and started firing randomly at all of the other little boys and girls.
The moral of this story?
Umm... I dunno... maybe, sometimes, violence can be the answer?
What a dickhead. Even his fictional, fucked up analogy has holes in it. One asshole bully can prevent 50 other assholes trying to bully each other to the top, wouldn't you agree?
Posted by: Opticon at August 19, 2003 at 04:14 PMProbably overwhelmed him with yoghurt breath and mungbean farts- violence is bad enough, but chemical weapons are in breach of the UN charter.
When is Richard Butler and Scott Ritter going to investigate Neville's digestive system for further hidden stockpiles? (or ordinary piles for that matter).
The whole 'school bully' analogy has long become a tired, hackneyed cliche, but the left still persist in using it and overusing and over-overusing it.
The trouble is, there's no way you can compare a dictator like Saddam Hussein, responsible for the deaths and torture of millions, to a schoolyard bully, unless you're being sarcastic.
No probs, Opticon. No offence taken.:)
Posted by: TimT at August 19, 2003 at 04:45 PM"Most Third World poverty stems from the unfair rules of trade imposed by institutions and banks controlled by the major powers. In almost every case, the involvement of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) makes matters worse."
And here was silly me thinking that civil war, drought, poor farming techniques, overpopulation, poor education and corruption might have had something to do with it. Thanks Richie, all we need to do is scrap the IMF and all banks and poverty will be erased, why didn't someone think of this earlier?
Posted by: Gilly at August 19, 2003 at 04:46 PM
Ha ha ha!
I have just finished reading the whole link.
Up until then I had assumed:
The suck-ups who shared extorted lollies = terrorist sponsoring countries
Bully = Iraq
Brave ambushers = USA and Australia
And then I assumed the ending was Richard just taking the piss...
..."The bully would just tearfully give up and shake hands. Yeah right. In ya dreams!"
Talk about missing the point.
Sorry for wasting your bandwidth with my idiotic comments. I am on a pension for the mentally subnormal, so please forgive me.
Posted by: Big Ramifications at August 19, 2003 at 05:52 PM
Weeeeeeeeeeee!
Only cool people get stalkers, right?
Posted by: Big Ramifications at August 19, 2003 at 06:02 PMWhy not ask yourself who started this? Weasel.
Posted by: Big Ramifications at August 19, 2003 at 06:20 PMIs that right? Hide behind your teabag, asshat. Look! I can't see you!
Posted by: Big Ramifications at August 19, 2003 at 06:52 PMYou ain't answered the question yet, feller, and I doubt you will. Crayon got your tongue?
Quote from Big Rampoopshoot's fake email from a little while back ... "isuckbigtime@being funny".
Yay Rammy!
Posted by: Big Ramifications at August 19, 2003 at 07:16 PMchrist, you even sound like that nevilee fuckpipe
Posted by: Hargraves at August 19, 2003 at 07:39 PM
>>> You ain't answered the question yet, feller, and I doubt you will. Crayon got your tongue?
>>> Quote from Big Rampoopshoot's fake email from a little while back ... "isuckbigtime@being funny".
Fake email.
Ooooooooooooh. Brilliant work Perry Mason.
I've just checked a few recent threads to see "myself" commenting there when I hadn't.
You've got the wrong man. Apparently Tim has records of all the IP addresses of posters, and he could probably confirm that (if he even gives a shit).
So maybe Tim has got a serial pest on his hands??? Either way, I'm not lookin' for a fight so that's why I'm not answering your question, you cumrag thief.
OK. I called you a cumrag thief, so I suppose I *am* looking for a fight after all.
If this is the truth, I'm sorry. I take it back. I apologise. I was wrong. It wasn't you.
I never wanted want your cumrag, though.
Posted by: Big Ramifications at August 19, 2003 at 08:38 PM"Most Third World poverty stems from the unfair rules of trade imposed by institutions and banks controlled by the major powers. In almost every case, the involvement of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) makes matters worse."
To put it down to four letters, J-e-w-s.
Posted by: Andjam at August 19, 2003 at 08:47 PMJeebers!
"I never wanted want your cumrag, though."
King of the ungrammatical or what?
Maybe I do want it?
Here endeth the last post from the fake Big Ramifications.
Posted by: Big Ramifications at August 19, 2003 at 09:12 PM
.…Apart from the other fake Big Ramifications who I noticed posting in a couple of other threads.
I see Jim Treacher
has disable his comments section because of this. How long, I wonder, until there's so much FUD here that Tim will have to do the same?
Or introduce registration?
"Apparently somebody posting as "Jim" is putting up personal information about people in blog comments. Deja vu. And again, it's not me. That's a shitty thing to do, which is what I've been saying all along. It's why I don't have comments anymore. Anybody can put anybody else's name on a blog comment and try to start fights between people who don't have any beef with each other. Please resist the urge to fall for it."
Posted by: Big Ramifications at August 20, 2003 at 02:30 PMNo, that was me as well. This started because someone was doing the same thing to me, and I guessed it was you. I was evidently wrong. I apologised. It's over. You can ramify all you want.
Posted by: BR at August 20, 2003 at 05:39 PMOh fuck, you got a fulsome apology, why can't you stop tugging it? No wonder I thought the dirtbag was you.
Posted by: BR at August 20, 2003 at 06:36 PM
The apology was in my email addy!!!
You obviously didn't think to hover over my name.
Therefore, you fail in my test to recruit a squadron of Intergalactic Starfighter pilots…