A Guest Post by Ron Hardie.
At the last job interview, I attended in person pre Covid I was asked the question. “If I (the line manager) asked you to do something to complete a task that maybe broke a procedure, what would you do?” A very good question. There are numerous answers from strictly following procedures to trying to find acceptable deviance or just going ‘gung ho’ to do it anyway. My answer, rightly or wrongly, was “I would get the job done within the confines of health and safety regulations.” To me this gave me sufficient flexibility to bend a procedure or two but not put harm in anyone’s way. In my career I have always delivered, and this has required an element of calculated risk taking, the odd exaggeration and some artistic licence. I’d generally call myself an honest guy, which is why work politics has previously been a problem as I have stood up to ‘the man’ for the betterment of the individual and not the company bank balance. However, there are times where a little white lie which will not impacted the client financially and will benefit their blood pressure, may be required. Such as the extension of a target completion date for a few days.
As it transpires, apparently, the job was not filled as the current incumbent decided not to leave, probably with a pay rise as they called the companies bluff. However, I do think about my answer quite often, especially with few and far to do between interviews at the moment. I was honest, I would get the job done and it may need a hook or a crooked white lie. I would expect any employee to also get any of my requests done. Obviously if the expectation is ridiculous then he or I as boss need to reassess but at the end of the day you have three options. You can say no, it can’t be done. You can say I will try, but as Star Wars,Yoda says, “Do or do not, there is no try” or you can get the job done fully aware of what you have been asked to do and sign up to the consequences. In every working decision I have made I have known and accepted the consequences and not let anyone else take the fall. (not that there has been much falling 🙂
To put this into context, you could say I’m a ‘yes’ man. I strive to carry out the goal of my employer to the best of my ability whether this was within the NHS or private sector Energy companies. Note though that I do not blindly follow orders. I assess what I am requested to do and in the world of IT my decisions are likely to have only a financial or reputational impact. It’s not likely that my decision will cause one or thousands or hundreds of thousands of people to lose their lives. Yup, you got it, I’m better than a Nazi or one of the Star Wars Stormtroopers (Finn, played by the excellent John Boyega, excepted). They literally followed orders and without question. Millions of Jews and a whole planet were destroyed prior to writing this blog. This is not belittling the Holocaust but setting perspective between the movie fiction and the Hitler fact. Either or both of which should have set alarm bells ringing to any sane person. But they didn’t. Fictionally Alderaan’s destruction gave Obi Wan a ‘tremor in the force.’ Factually Auschwitz operated over 4 years killing at least a million innocents but now 75 years on it seems like the learning has been down tooled in exchange for Brexit shirts, badges and discrimination.
Fact nurtures fiction here as the Star Wars Stormtroopers were clones and initially programmed to serve the Empire. The Nazi’s were different. They executed orders which were often carried out by run of the mill soldiers.These soldiers are likely to be below average IQ, or they wouldn’t be infantry. World War 2 was obviously a different battleground than today, however there are reports out there that ‘grunt’ soldiers are less intelligent than officers. This makes sense if you look at the warlike expectations of arrow/cannon/rifle/tank fodder? The U.S. army will not recruit above average intelligent people as ground units. Why would this be? The theory is that they are easier to brainwash with patriotic nonsense, they are happy to not question their superiors and in many cases they are very happy to carry out the orders given from high command regardless of what that may be. Brainwashing is a powerful tool and our Western governments use this as well as terrorist organisations. Of course, it isn’t called brainwashing, its called training and I do not doubt the training the troops of any country has, I’d just question their ability to say no.
In April and May of 2021 on the run up to the Scottish elections for Holyrood the current (at the time) governing party pursued an SNP1/2 vote. This meant that the SNP was promoting SNP1 on the constituency vote and SNP2 on the regional list vote. The foot soldiers (but not activists as they had jumped to Alba. ) lapped it up as this was a sound strategy in 2011 when the SNP was not going to landslide the constituency votes. However, that was a one off Battle of Yavin and because of the d’Hondt voting system one likely to never be repeated (as the voting system was designed). In 2011 the unionists let the Deathstar waste 30 minutes clearing the planet before trying to obliterate Yavin IV where the SNP were hiding this was a strategical voting mistake they would not do again. Therefore in 2021 when opinion poll after opinion poll pointed to SNP walking the constituency votes, thus massively, and negatively, impacting their list vote performance, it begs the question why were the SNP officers (cleverer than infantry?) telling the SNP infantry (less than average IQ) to vote SNP2 if they wanted independence (Princess Leia wouldn’t have). In Star Wars just as we look to a New Hope, Darth Vaders TIE (see what I did there) fighter escapes. This is the equivalent of letting useless Scotland hating MSP’s from the Lib Dems, Labour and Conservatives into Holyrood on the list. Had Darth Vader not escaped, had SNP2 voted Alba2 instead it wouldn’t matter if he escaped or not.Darth Vader did not get shot down and so his like can continue to belittle Scots at every turn, still getting the financial benefits etc.
Now lets just say that prior to the assault on Yavin4 by the Deathstar that another group of freedom fighters turned up to defend the moon and attack the Empire. If they both worked together they could destroy the Deathstar, shoot down Darth Vader and unite to free the galaxy from tyranny.If the SNP worked with Alba for a 66% super majority in the Scottish parliament the Empire would have no say and dwindling resources.This IS required to stuff it up the British Empire. Instead the SNP preferred to work towards the status quo. Alba were not enemies, Labour, Tories and the Lib Dems though? This was like Grand Moff Tarkin at the end of Star Wars (A New Hope) shouting “Evacuate? In our moment of glory!” before being royally shafted by Luke Skywalker. He could have evacuated, the SNP could have worked with Alba but no, while Alba promoted SNP1 Alba2 to maximise the amount of independence MSP’s in Holyrood, the SNP stuck with SNP1/2 (and ended up with SNP / Greens woohoo). The SNP tribe followed the mantra with no question, no self thought, no understanding of the voting system and opportunity of independence available (and the Stormtroopers are clones?) This may be a bit harsh as I’m sure many SNP voters knew the consequences of SNP2 letting 40 or so unionists in on the list – BUT THEY FOLLOWED ORDERS ANYWAY! to spite an independence supporting (possibly now the only independence supporting) party.
We’ll find out over the next few years where this leaves the independence movement but as a ‘yes’ man, and independence ‘YES’ man I’m not hopeful of any progress under the current government in Scotland.
Coming next – How Bohemian Rhapsody is a YES song – well something like that.
Had to stop reading, sorry. The conflation of real world politics with crap American popular culture pablum was just too strange and stupid for me.
Did that make you feel better about yourself sending in that comment? Perhaps you could share some of your writing with us, so we can contrast and compare?
A good analogy, Ron. After WW II, when psychologists took an interest in discovering why so many people just went along with the regime, the single most influential thing they found was that no one wanted to stick out like a sore thumb. It takes courage and conviction to stand out from the crowd, and most people will not even attempt it unless they have many, many others around them. It’s like that children’s game, Kerplunk, is it?, where you pull out sticks carefully until that one stick being removed makes the lot fall.
When they questioned ordinary policemen seconded to death units in Russia, they asked them why they had not protested, why they helped to murder innocent men, women and children as if they were nothing, and the main reason they got was that no one wanted to stand out from their fellows and be “the one to let everyone down”. No record of anyone being punished for refusing to participate was ever found, remember. It seems almost unbelievable, doesn’t it? Ordinary family men, probably utterly traumatized by their experiences in killing people who had offered no resistance and no threat? I’m afraid therein lies your answer, Ron. Most people are moral cowards even when they know that what they are doing is wrong. Some don’t even see the moral question – until they do.
The Nazi leadership was not unintelligent, and they knew how to manipulate the least intelligent to do the most heinous work, and the others, the middle, would follow as a kind of second front, backing the first wave. That is why the ordinary German citizens were taken out of their villages and towns in 1945 to see the camps for themselves: not to discover what had been happening in the camps; but to corroborate what they knew had been happening in the camps; and to confront them with their sheep-like acquiescence. They weren’t doing the deeds, but they were enabling those who were, to do them, with the full knowledge of the Nazi hierarchy. That, in a nutshell, was the mentality of the SNP 1&2 sheeples.
Even now, as they know full well, encouraged by the SNP hierarchy, that their wives and daughters and granddaughters are being crushed by the trans lobby’s demands, they are willing to sacrifice them for the greater prize of independence – which they all know is impossible without the votes of the very females they are sacrificing, and therefore, cannot be achieved without them. It’s madness, but it’s the way those with little moral fibre operate to justify their inaction. I’m not judging. God forbid. I faced up to the prospect of my own death through an illness that could have been fatal at the time, but for prompt and much-appreciated treatment, so very, very few things hold real terror for me now. For most people, they just have too much to lose, or imagine they do, till they lose it and they realize they could and should have acted sooner. It’s just how it is. In the next couple of years, maybe sooner, many of those who voted SNP 1&2 will come to realize that they made a terrible mistake and seek to rectify it. In the meantime, a goodly number of very brave bloggers, and others, are sticking their heads above the parapet for us all and standing out like sore thumbs.
The other side of moral cowardice, of course, is that people have a tendency to shoot the messenger because they cannot face they own collusion. That, to an extent, is what is happening within the independence movement, but that will pass when the bulk of the population starts to move – and it will.
Horrendously morally condescending and sneering. I often find that people who use the worthless word ‘sheeple’ are just as guilty, if not more so, of the ‘crimes’ they are accusing the poor, unwashed, unthinking masses of. This sort of stuff does not help anybody, and Ms. Campbell, your female-centric views, splashed all over Scottish sites on the net, are pretty damned selective and sexist.
Doc Gonzo have you been indulging in a similar range of mind-bending substances as your namesake ? .
Lorna is well capable of defending herself , but as someone who has been prompted to deeply reflect on the madness that has * possessed * the current SNP * Leadership * and it’s sycophantic devotees and enlightened on issues ( not only the Trans/GRA/HCB , also our Constitutional predicament/route to Independence ) by her superbly thought-out and articulated comments I find your comment both unfair and wildly off the mark .
What else could her views be other than ” female- centric ” , seeing as she is a woman – though as she points out above —– the implications of the path Sturgeon et al taking our country are just as relevant to men as women , at least , should be – .
” Splashed all over Scottish sites ” what a nerve eh ? using her own time and intelligence to try to share her insights on deeply troubling aspects of how we’re being abused by those we elected and – formerly – trusted to act at all times in our best interests , and who are patently doing the very opposite .
Your opinions strike me as an example of Scotland’s tragic propensity to attack the very people who are doing their best to protect it , a national character flaw that more than anything – even 300+years of English domination within the Union ( would such domination have been possible without the implicit and tacit support of so many of our fellow Scots ? ) has held our nation back for so long .
Fear and Loathing in North Britain ? Aye , watch out for those bats Doc , their bite can be lethal
Have to say Doc Gonzalos that as a man, born a man, and now getting on a bit, that I agree with everything that Lorna Campbell has just said.
And you know what ? – Lorna Campbell’s views are echoed by many and will become even more so as this parliament wears on.
Of that you can bet your bottom dollar.
In response to doc gonzalos, Robert Hughes and Willie thank you for that , as you both have evidenced Lorna Campbell has done more to contribute and educate people to the evils facing Scotland from the corrupt and vile SNP and her minions than doc gonzalos failed contribution
Oh dear, you forgot to watch Episode 8, where the woman in charge, Vice-Admiral Holdo, decided the female approach was much better than those gung-ho males which results in the remnants of the fleet being picked off by the First Order.
Life really does imitate Star Wars. The only question left – Is the Force really gone from the Universe?
Going by the available data and the obvious maths, anyone who wanted Unionists out of Hollyrood should have voted ISP, Green or whatever pro-Indi party was on the List. Not SNP.
Most voters don’t know the dynamics of the D’Hondt voting system for the acceptable excuse that they have lives. The NEC did. They knew perfectly well what “1+2” would achieve and they pursued it with rigor.
Most of the SNP supporting Facebook pages locked out Alba supporters as soon as Alba arrived. That was tactical and probably centrally coordinated.
I’m blocked from those I belonged to, because whenever I see someone complaining about Boris, I check if they were repeating the “1+2” mantra, and tell them to own their shit.
But the central problem is, inasmuch as they trusted Sturgeon, is she completely betrayed that trust. But she is a safe and secure traitor. It’s so unpleasant, unethical and contrary to the image they have of “our Nicky” most of them will never be able to believe it or even imagine it.
This was the triumph of psychology over the laws of arithmetic.