Here we are at the two hundredth anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth and the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of his seminal work ‘On The Origin of Species‘ and if, in the darkness of night, there are scrabbling and shuffling noises to be heard echoing around Westminster Abbey then that will be him, turning in his grave, struggling to get out so he can shout out something politically incorrect.

I recall Darwin did not much like the term ’survival of the fittest’ which is – let’s face it – a bit of a ‘News of the World‘ type spin on his preferred term ‘natural selection’ but if he did manage to claw his way out of his grave, clambering over Isaac Newton on his way out, then it might well be his term of choice.

What he should notice, after a little bit of research and good old fashioned observation, is that evolution – in terms of the homo sapien anyway – has quite possibly started to go backwards.

Call it what you like, evolution has rolled along nicely and undisturbed for many millions of years doing it’s thing. A little change here, a small improvement there. Wings for that one. Opposable thumbs for this one. Binocular vision over here. Improved sense of smell for the one with the long nose. And it will continue to roll along as well. We can’t actually stop it and nor should we. But we can make the huge mistake of messing with it. And when people discover they can do something there is always some bozo who goes ahead and does it.

And one of the bozos in this case is the one who came up with the idea of the Health and Safety Executive – a body whose sole aims are to remove all of the fun and the risk out of life. Natural Selection doesn’t mean people born with disease or disability are left to die before they can reproduce although let’s be totally honest here and recognise that this was once the case and still is outside of us humans. Natural Selection means that the idiot who doesn’t use a ladder properly, falls off and dies is removed from the gene pool to the betterment of us all. These days he probably can’t even buy the ladder in the first place without a three week training course and an NVQ in ladder usage. And should he borrow a ladder from someone else the H&S men will slap a fine on him and send him for corrective therapy.

Evolution basically works by promoting the good bits, the clever bits, the enhanced bits and letting the bad bits and the useless bits fall by the wayside. And the ones who have got those good bits get to pass them on like a family heirloom. And those with the bad bits fall off ladders. But other bozos, including those who came up with the life-stifling theory of Political Correctness, have decreed that we all have to be equal. Or all the same. As I have said many times before, this means we all have to be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. So those with good bits that are really worthy of evolutions attention have to have those good bits repressed. It’s happening all around us. They get forced to go to Comprehensive Schools. They get turned down for jobs because one of the candidates was clearly more stupid than they were or comes from an ethnic minority and can’t speak the language buy hey – positive discrimination is on their side.

We are in the process of screwing evolution up big time. People survive disease and disability that would have once – and not so long ago – taken them out of the gene pool. Being clever, intelligent and inventive is almost frowned upon. Being competitive is OK as long as you restrict it to buying lottery tickets. And taking risks or having fun is outlawed.

And before we realise it, we’ll all be growing more body hair and starting to suffer from a strong urge to climb trees.

88 year old Heinrich Boere, a Dutchman of Dutch-German origins, is currently on trial in Germany for the murder of three Dutchmen during the Second World War. Boere clearly sided with the German side of his family and joined the SS serving in occupied Holland. When the war was over, he admitted the killings to Dutch authorities but escaped to Germany before he was tried – presumably for war crimes. Now – an old man and 65 years after the event he finds himself in the dock.

Please let me make it clear. Boere sounds, from the newspaper reports, like a thoroughly distasteful man. He is reported to have said in an interview with Focus magazine – “Yes, I got rid of them. It was not difficult. You just had to bend a finger”. Clearly there is no remorse in this mans soul and my sympathies lie entirely with the families of those three men. They certainly do not lie with Herr Boere. And the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazi regime are abhorrent and a lingering stain upon modern Germany.

But I am still somewhat puzzled by this. Whether Germany now likes it or not, the SS was a legitimate and government sponsored paramilitary organisation that carried out the will of the incumbent regime of the time. They were also in the middle of a war. And, it is claimed, the three Dutchman that caused Heinrich Boere to “bend his finger” were active members of the Dutch Resistance and, as such, enemies of the State. To Boere, his SS cohorts and the German regime, these men were terrorists.

And their execution is no different to thousands of other executions that have taken place throughout history. Wars are littered with the bodies of such people.

Now I am not unhappy to see Boere put on trial. One wonders why it took so long. But for me it raises a serious question. If 65 years after the event the current government can decide that Boere’s actions that day constitute a crime then what of every other soldier in every other war that has – or may – face the order to execute an individual for their activities against the state? Do they need to stop and think to themselves that one day, their own country may turn against them?

If it wasn’t for the state of modern medicine then I would be dead by now. And so would my wife. So, probably, would quite a number of people I know who still enjoy a fairly healthy time of it. We are all thankful that we live in an era where surgeons no longer amputate with a rusty saw and a bottle of strong alcohol or cover us in leeches. And while we still almost certainly know a small fraction of what is yet to be discovered we also know these are better times.

When it comes to our health we seem to wander into a twilight zone where we are willing to accept all kinds of humiliation and indignities that we would not dream of allowing at any other time. We will stand before men and women we have never before met, stripped naked, and let them probe our bodies in the most intimate of ways that in other circumstances could land people in a lot of trouble. We freely give our consent to such assaults without argument or rancour.

But somewhere in this zone between normality and surrender there are other aspects that have little to do with what is to be done to us yet we accept them all the same and like any uniform they reduce us to a common level. And in normal circumstances we would surely not comply. Take, for example, hospital garb.

A couple of days ago I found myself in hospital for a slice of bodily assault known as a ‘procedure’ which I am not going to elaborate on. Well… OK. It involved a small camera being inserted into an orifice all right? Yes – a delicate orifice. This involved a trip to a theatre – I know not why it has this name – for which I had to be suitably dressed.

First up the gown which ties at the back. Women, so adept at connecting hook and eye on their bra can probably tie a neat bow behind the middle of their back but men are just not used to it. If you are without help then the only recourse is to try and tie the knot before getting into the gown which generally results in not being able to get your arms through the holes. You end up with the gown tied in the one place – at the neck – letting your bum see daylight for all to see.

Then come the knickers (shown in the picture). These are one size fits all and are made of a sort of stretchy tissue paper and for something so seemingly fragile they grip the bits men have got with a fierce determination. But they cover the bum which was previously available for public scrutiny although the view is hardly an improvement.

The feet go into a slipper made of light foam. These slippers are not really foot shaped and have no conception of left and right but here’s the tricky bit – they stick to the floor. To be able to walk in them you need to develop a special hospital waddle where you pick each foot up as if wading through six inches of custard.

And the final indignity? Suitably attired with the waddle mastered, you have to walk through the hospital corridors to get to the theatre!

Oh no – sorry. I forgot the hat. It looked like a hat but of course I had it upside down. It was, in fact, a bowl and you know what that’s for. And where else but a hospital would you urinate into a cardboard bowl and, flushed with pride, hand it over to an attractive young lady with all the delicacy of offering her a bunch of flowers and asking her out on a date?

I shouldn’t be doing this as I suspect I’ll just get myself into trouble again. Just like last time. But sometimes you just have to stand up and join the debate.

Exactly a month ago I wrote a piece entitled ‘Scary People‘. You don’t need to read it but it might help. It attracted around 37 comments and then, as always happens, it gets buried deeper into the stack and finally forgotten. And then up pops a new comment from someone calling themselves CarpetGuy (who is a first time commenter on this site) which I reproduce here:

When I first started reading this post, I was a bit offended, but as I read on, through the comments that followed, I could see that things here are as they are everywhere, a bit confused. Sarah Palin never got any orders from God, she simply prayed that what was happening was God’s will, as we all should. I am an American, but lived in Germany for more than a decade and my daughter is a citizen there. As for the reason of fearing Barack Obama, as an American it is simple, here in America, we DO NOT want to be a socialist society as in Europe. I know, as a European, you cannot understand this, but that is because you have never known the true Freedom of Capitalism in it’s purest form. No offense intended, it is just different here. Barack Obama represents everything that a true “Capitalist American” hates, as in Welfare and such. I know, it sounds crazy, but we believe that the people are in charge, not the government. We just want to be left alone, no taxes, no welfare, no social programs, simple right? The problem is that many Americans do not want to work, and want the government to send them a check, and that is what Barack Obama represents.

This is a clear, concise comment written, no doubt, from the heart and could probably have only been written by a true, patriotic American citizen. I have no real problem with patriotic Americans but I do have problems with historical inaccuracy and that overwhelming American belief that they all know how the rest of the world works. But let’s get Sarah Palin and God out of the way first:

Sarah Palin never got any orders from God, she simply prayed that what was happening was God’s will.

We are truly splitting the proverbial hair here. I did not say God ‘ordered’ her to do anything but if her statement that it was “God’s will” to build the new pipeline came through prayer then it seems to me she is making the statement that this is a project personally endorsed by her God. Actually, of course, as she resides and operates in a secular society where the separation of politics and religion is a constitutional directive one should question what God was doing advising her on a purely political decision in the first place. The woman just becomes scarier and scarier.

But on to the real issue here:

As for the reason of fearing Barack Obama, as an American it is simple, here in America, we DO NOT want to be a socialist society as in Europe. I know, as a European, you cannot understand this, but that is because you have never known the true Freedom of Capitalism in it’s purest form.

This truly is one of those marvellous statements that Americans of all persuasions come out with much of the time and, in my experience, have a rock-solid belief in. Let’s start with Capitalism, both in it’s ‘purest form’ and in it’s more modern form of a ‘mixed economy’. Capitalism, in it’s purest form, was not only a British doctrine but flourished here for a good 350 years much to the detriment of the vast majority of our citizens. On one side of the coin it created a huge Empire and kick-started the Industrial Revolution (both for good or bad). On the other side of the coin it also delivered America’s ‘Great Depression’ and notwithstanding the current markedly ’socialist’ activities of the current Republican administration, may well usher in another one. Unbridled Capitalism is like unleashing a rabid wolf into a dog pound.

Socialism, in it’s purest form, has never really been practised in European countries although we have all dallied with it and tried it on for size. What we have here is a watered down variant that is getting less and less support as time goes by. But it came about as a direct reaction to the long period of Capitalism that went unchecked for such a long time.

I may not personally agree with the policies of our more recent governments and I am the first to state that we are over-regulated and that government gets involved too much where it does not belong but I much prefer the compassion we show for the under-privileged and for those less able to compete for their daily meal.

The problem is that many Americans do not want to work, and want the government to send them a check, and that is what Barack Obama represents.

You heard it here first folks – Barack Obama wants to send all lazy Americans government checks. Which, of course, he doesn’t. Any more than any world government does. Any more than any working citizen of any nation does. Apart from those on the receiving end, nobody can actively want to see their hard earned tax money get spread around like this. This has nothing whatsoever to do with Socialism and probably has more to do with the Capitalist way of disenfranchising people. It is most certainly a symptom of a society with problems. But the notion that any politician actively supports such behaviour is quite obviously ludicrous. Britain’s most recent right wing government was unable to solve a problem it loathed in it’s 18 years of tenure as has the current right wing American administration. Perhaps this is because to a certain extent it is not quite so easy as it sounds.

In pure Capitalism, the small few get educated, can look after their health, can own property and ride roughshod over the majority who remain doomed by the circumstance of their birth. In pure Socialism the incentives, challenges and goals that people need are removed. Neither doctrine can work without seriously diminishing the growth and progress of a nation. The world saw this clearly in the downfall of the Soviet Union and the legacy that was left behind. CarpetGuy predictably sees this event as the direct result of US policy – whether of the late President Reagan by negotiation or – as he would have it – the sheer dominance of American armed forces firepower. Indeed it seems to have become part of the American collective myth that they alone were responsible for the breakup. It wasn’t, of course, the primary reason, although it may have helped a little. The Soviet era finally unravelled because the will of the people made it happen. It is what eventually happens to all extremes of political doctrines imposed by the few on their nation. The nations with stability and longevity steer a course somewhere between extremes and accept that to have the good bits, you need to deal with the bad as well.

Well, a heartbeat and five minutes if our beloved leaders get their way. That is five minutes after your last heartbeat and you become an automatic second-hand body parts supermarket.

In a drive to get more ‘donated’ organs the rules will be changed to the opposite of what we have now. If you want to allow your organs to be re-used after your death you currently need to carry a donors card or in some way make your preference known. But soon, it will be assumed you are happy to donate them if you don’t have some sort of opt-out declaration. At the same time the process for pronouncing you dead will change from brain death to 5 minutes after flat lining.

Now this is your death we’re talking about here. It only happens once and most people (I reckon) do not want it to happen but if it’s going to happen you want it to be right. You want those managing your death to be really, really sure. What you don’t want is some guy standing in the corner of the room with a scalpel, body saw, cool box and a stopwatch.

We will be told by those empowered to lead that there will be safeguards. There are always safeguards. That’s why, for example, hardly a week goes by without some government department losing huge quantities of personal data. Safeguards. That’s why the NHS is constantly in the middle of lawsuits. And the first time something goes wrong and some poor bloke is carved up who should not have been or was carved up after only 4 and a quarter minutes, we will be told that ‘lessons have been learned’. And they’ll say that the second time and the third time and… on and on. Because that is what they always say.

The practice of medicine today makes the practice of medicine even just fifty years ago look frighteningly hit and miss. Yet I believe what we do not know still far outweighs what we do. I was, up until now, happy to carry a donors card. Now I want one of the other ones.