Bag's Rants

Apologising for history. I apologise for my ancestors.

With Blair apologising about his personal part in the slave trade and the whole guilt trip it seems every man and his dog is falling in behind the Holocaust guilt trip.

Now from Tim Worstall we have what should, if there was any justice on this planet, happen in court. Read here. Now it was a while ago but I only came across it because Tim linked to it from his blog after Blair's apology.

Just so we are clear. I too look back on those time and think of the misery and moral costs but I look at it slightly differently. I thank the people that looked at this at the time and changed the laws to make what was legal illegal. They were the ones that righted this wrong. They, who lived with this situation, looked at it and corrected what was an anomaly in their society. I applaud them for that. It must have been difficult to face up for injustice at that time. But, even those didn't try to punish the perpetrators for what was legal at the time.

Now our current Government seems to love putting in place legislation which they then backdate to make it illegal years before. In effect making someone that followed the rule of law at the time a criminal and liable for arrest or forfeiture of something. To me that is despicable. To give true justice we should use the same technique to bring Blair, Brown et al, to justice and execution for treason. Does this mean we will now backdate our obligations to pay, from the public purse, for these people that have done little for themselves over the years and yet it's our fault. Does the sin's of the Father really mean the sins of the Great, great, great, great, great, ........, great grand father?

Well, if it does, I'm fed up with it.

We need to take this whole thing into perspective. It may mean that injustice from many generations ago goes unpunished but such is life. Why should I be punished for something that I didn't do? That wasn't a crime when it was done and was even corrected because it was immoral by society back then. These politicians should get some backbone and just say that. Isn't it funny how when they personally do something it needs to be forgotten and put in the past with a line underneath it but when they can appear sympathetic and maybe get a few votes, especially when they personally didn't do anything wrong they play it up for all it is worth.

Although, now I think of this guilt trip, our ancestors have a lot to answer for. 1,000 generations ago when one of my, our, ancestors picked up that first rock and bashed the brains out of one of his mates he wiped out a thousand future generations in a heartbeat. Clearly, that branch of our future society had the decent politicians in it. The ones who selfishly worked for the people and were not useless, corrupt and liars.

I apologise to all that my ancestor did that. And I really am. Don't ask for compensation though.

posted by Bag @ 1:08 pm