Sometimes one just gets tired

[fpb]

Why is it that so many people cannot reject one stupid and dangerous extreme without diving head-first into the other? I had got into the habit of reading a blog called The Brussels Journal for all sorts of opposition news about Europe, but I will have to reconsider it. It had no less than THREE separate puff pieces for the anniversary of Enoch Powell's odious attempt to reintroduce racism into British politics, his "rivers of blood" (or, as I prefer to call it, "misquotation of Virgil") speech. Which the author disingenuously tried to peddle as an attack on "multi-culturalism"; though you cannot read it with any care without realizing that what it really is against is the presence of people of different colours. It is specifically and clearly skin colour that is the discriminant in Powell's speech. A man who tries to bring it back into repute not once but three times must be said to be shilling for racism. Now what bothers me is that, while I know where to look for oppositional views in Britain and the States without actually touching poison, this ugly revelation of the real agenda behind TBJ leaves me with no sensible conservative source for the Continent.

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[fpb.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, the speech commits the minor but heinous (in a Classics don) sin of misquoting Virgil. When Virgil's King Latinus foretells that the Tiber will be foaming with blood, it is exactly because, under the insurgent leadership of Turnus, his own Latin subjects are proposing to drive the Trojan immigrants into the sea instead of welcoming them as the gods want. This kind of "text-proofing" is notorious enough among Christians, but it is positively inexcusable in a supposed Classicist. The only thing it proves is that he is trying to assert his superior status with a quotation he expects others not to know.