Search This Blog

Monday, May 16, 2011

consistency

a simple word. a simple idea.

most people want consistency in their lives.

when i was being a step-parent one of the things i quickly learnt was that you had to be consistent with the kid. you couldn’t tell him not to do something one day and allow him to do it the next day. that just creates confusion and it creates problems.

consistency is important in when it comes to debate and thought. it isn’t that change is bad it is to be taken seriously there has to be a reason for the change. anything else is flip flopping which means you might as well be a liberal democrat.

logic isn’t my forte yet i try to keep as much as possible straight when i argue, perhaps i should give lessons to the nick clegg?

there i was reading an article about wind farms in wales. the author makes an impassioned argument against these mechanistic monstrosities on the gorgeous welsh landscape. as a bit of a diversion her argument is also a perfect example of why localism isn’t the great powerful social movement that cameron and co believe because all it really leads to is a series of non in my backyardism.

right back to the argument: on the one hand the author claims that wind farms are no good because when they produce excess electricity it is too much for the national grid to absorb. later the author claims when talking to an engineer working on the wind farm turbines they revealed that each one would just generate enough power for one light bulb per house in the local city. so from overpowering the national grid to just doing a light bulb – something not right in the state of denmark methinks.

or take alex salmond he has said that if scotland was independent then he is not adverse to sharing their military facilities with its neighbours (well they would be empty otherwise as you can bet that if independence became even a sniffing reality that various ships, subs and planes would be relocated in double quick time). only he goes on to say that an independent nation has to have an independent foreign policy and that scotland would not have agreed to the illegal war in iraq. oh well those two positions hold well together, though i am prepared to give mr. salmond the benefit of the doubt being deliberately contradictory.

but then he is a politician so that is alright.