19 January 2016

Let's Ban the Next US President! (Rant)

So before I start this, I know I said once that I'd be making a point to avoid making blog posts (including rants) that are about politics. This was something I put forward in my anti-rant about Scottish Independence that I put up back in September. However, I'm breaking my own rule for this one, because something happened yesterday that was just fucking ludicrous so here we are in what might possibly be my most controversial rant yet! Yay.

Parliament debated whether to ban Donald Trump... a potential US president... from the UK.

This bullshite all started when someone called Suzanne Kelly set up a petition to have Donald Trump barred from the UK. This petition exploded in popularity gaining tens of thousands of signatures every minute and currently stands at over 575k signatures from all across the UK. The reason behind this ban is because he said that he wants to ban all Muslims from the UK. He also allegedly (I'm saying allegedly as I haven't actually heard of him saying this) wants to tag and track all Muslims in the states in a way not too dissimilar from Adolf Hitler and his anti-Semitic crusade.

Believe me, I'm definitely no supporter of Donald Trump's comments. They are way past the line and I think tracking them is absolutely absurd. However, there are reasons as to why there are two steaming piles of bullshit on both sides of the fence here.

First off, the bullshit behind what he said.

By banning Muslims from the country, he is literally playing into the hands of extremists groups who claim that Muslims will be turned away and shunned and I will say that there is a degree of truth to that, especially with the recent happenings in Germany where a group of refugees went round and molested a load of lasses. So yeah an argument could be made that they're not doing themselves any favours, however I also think it's unfair to paint a work of fine art with a DIY brush if you get what I mean.

Second off, the bullshit behind this whole "BAN HIM" fiasco.

I understand that many people feel strongly about the guy's comments and I am among those who think what he said is way too extreme when what should be done is let any offenders get caught by the judicial system. In the states that's fine as they already have a strong judicial system in place, however in the UK our justice system is shit. People are afraid to prosecute a refugee, or anyone helping a refugee due to fear of being scrutinised or persecuted for it. There's a point where someone needs to say "let em talk, I don't give a fuck" and I think it's safe to say we've gone past that point.

One MP in the debate said that people in her constituency would refer to Trump as a wazzock I'm reasonably confident that people around where I live would say the same. However banning him from the country is a step too far and I can put money on the fact that anyone who supports the petition to have him banned hasn't thought through the consequences that well and simply signed it as a knee-jerk reaction to what Donald Trump said. If you signed the petition, I understand why you did and I won't hold it against you, but I'd like to put a major point forward here.

The key thing we need to bear in mind is that this guy could be the president of the United States who are currently our biggest and most important ally right now. Should we ban him, and he ends up making it into the White House, we'll be in a very awkward position. Not to mention this would potentially and likely even break down our historic relations with that country. As intense as his comments were, the consequences of a ban would likely be far worse.

Trust me on this, I'm certainly no supporter of Trump, but I think banning him is certainly the wrong decision. My final word on this to parliament would be to stay out of other countries' politics and focus on issues that relate to our own country. Parliament have said "no we won't debate this" to certain petitions in the past, and they should have given this petition the same response but hey I'm just one small indie developer who feels the need to get stuff off his chest every once in a while.



This will be my last politically orientated blog post here for at least a year. I do however reserve the right to bend this rule should something truly ridiculous happen but these things are few and far between so I'm pretty confident that I'll be able stand by this rule without needing to bend it. Like I said at the beginning, political (and religious) events are a topic I aim to avoid on this blog but I just had to speak up on this one simply because of how poorly thought out this campaign was.