And?
Astonishing, the hysteria and overreaction that one man’s controversial remarks can generate. In an interview with The Times the Formula One boss expressed his belief that democracy ‘hasn’t done a lot of good for many countries — including [the UK]’ as ‘politicians are too worried about elections. . . . All these guys, Gordon and Tony, are trying to please everybody all the time.’ He added that his friend Max Mosley, who, as the papers are always quick to point out, is the son of Sir Oswald Mosley of British Union of Fascists fame, would make a good prime minister. His most inflammatory point, however, was that Adolf Hitler was ‘persuaded to do things that I have no idea whether he wanted to do or not’ and that he was ‘able to get things done’. Like, OMG, shock horror. How dare he say such a thing?
The vocal responses to his comments have so far been topped by Labour MP Denis MacShane, who condemned the 78 year old billionaire’s decision to align himself with a ‘growing’ anti-democracy movement. Evidently Mr MacShane hasn’t looked too closely at some of his own party’s policies on that subject. He continued:
‘If Mr Ecclestone seriously thinks Hitler had to be persuaded to kill six million Jews, invade every European country and bomb London then he knows neither history and shows a complete lack of judgment.’
True, true, but “invade every European country”? Hmm. It appears that Ecclestone isn’t the only one in need of a history lesson.
Now it’s one thing for people to disagree with someone’s views, but the reaction to this affair is laughable. What happened to free speech? Do these hypocrites who are harping on about anti-democratic attitudes not value the right for people to think for themselves and speak their mind? Apparently not. Being too stuffed with self-importance, political correctness, and an eagerness to scream ‘Fascist!’ every few minutes seems to limit their ability to appreciate how bigoted and dictatorial they themselves are. I would refer to them as Little Hitlers but the irony would no doubt be lost on them.
The Bernster’s views may well be unusual and historically inaccurate, but it’s a free country. He’s entitled to hold whatever ‘morally unacceptable’ opinions he likes. The last thing this country needs is a ‘watch what you say’ dictatorship of the politically correct.
Oh hang on, bugger, that’s what we already have. . . .
The thing here is that Mr MacShane, like all politicians, has jumped on a story without reading the content. What Bernie was trying to say was that in being a dictatorship, Hitler’s Germany was able to get things done because there wasn’t the requirement to go through half a dozen bureaucratic processes before a decision was made. Something needs to be done, a course of action was chosen and the “thing” got done.
I don’t believe that Bernie once said that the actions were taken were good but just that those actions were taken with the minimum of debate, watering down of actions for fear of upsetting their chances of re-election etc etc.
MacShane is a fine one to talk of a “growing anti-democracy movement”. He and his party’s government are in the forefront of any such movement, being chief cheerleaders for Britain’s membership of the European Union. MacShane himself is a leading advocate of passing ever more decisions to EU institutions which are clearly beyond the meaningful democractic control of ordinary people. The man is as slimey and disingenuous as the master of spin himself Peter Mandelson. Eccelstone might well be a berk, but who cares? All he controls is cars going in circles. What’s truly frightening is the capacity of evidently so many of our political leaders for ‘double think’ – the ability to hold two completely contradictory opinions at the same time, and believe them both. The most interesting aspect of this affair has been MacShane’s clumsy intervention, demonstrating for us all his own special brand of ‘double think’. Shame the media simply take every quote at face value and never call him on it.