In Defense and in Praise of Danial Hannan (and Enoch Powell)

According to the Telegraph Dan Han 'risks angering David Cameron by praising Enoch Powell'. Well Mr. Cameron risks angering true conservatives like yours truly by admonishing Mr. Hannan. I mean honestly, how pathetically low have the standards of political discourse in this country fallen? As the Telegraph article notes, Cameron 'faced calls to sack' Daniel Hannan after he called the NHS a mistake on American television. When people want a Conservative politician fired for expressing conservative views, it's time to stop and smell the bullshit. In fact calls to sack any politician for expressing any reasonable opinion is a terrifying prospect. One would think he was advocating mass murder. Seriously - most people in the United Kingdom seem to feel more comfortable about discussing the idea of abolishing the Monarchy than they do about making even the slightest of fiscal reductions to the NHS. That my friends is a disgusting state of affairs.

And now, simply for mentioning Enoch Powell as an influence, arguably one of the greatest Tory minds of the twentieth century, the leftist scum are again calling for Hannan's head. So what if Powell made one stupid speech that cost him his career. That shouldn't negate his brilliance and, excluding his views on immigration (which Hannan himself has criticised), his entirely sound political opinions. And Lord Mandelson has the audacity to speak of the 'face' of the Conservative Party that 'attacks the NHS and praises Enoch Powell.' How many lefties prance about in t-shirts depicting that murdering terrorist Che? A true Conservative Party would be attacking the NHS and praising Enoch Powell, and for good reason. Below are just a few of the more spectacular words from old Enoch:

It is no accident that the Labour Party... should share this craving for autarchy, for economic self-sufficiency, with the pre-War Fascist régimes and the present-day Communist states. They are all at heart totalitarian.

Compassion is something individual and voluntary. You cannot compel someone to be compassionate; nor can you be compassionate be compelling someone else. The Good Samaritan would have lost all merit if a Roman soldier were standing by the road with a drawn sword, telling him to get on with it and look after the injured stranger. Because there can be no such thing as compulsory compassion or vicarious compassion, therefore it is a humbugging abuse of language, intended to deceive, to talk about a 'compassionate Government' or a 'compassionate party' - or even a 'compassionate society', unless one simply means by that a society which happens to contain a lot of compassionate individuals. Nor let anyone protest: 'Oh, but when I vote for a party which will "make provision on an unprecedented scale for those in need of help", it means I too shall have to pay my whack and so I am being compassionate after all' . Nonsense! The purpose of your vote is not to subscribe - that you can freely do at any time - but to compel others.

A single currency means a single government, and that single government would be the government whose policies determined every aspect of economic life.

And my personal favourite,

Yes, I am a virus. I am the virus that kills socialists.

It's no wonder the left would despise Powell with such zeal; he was, for the most part, right. It's scary that an ideology that prizes economic freedom, individual liberty, and personal-responsibility is constantly under attack while a political ideology among whose ideological influences advocated eugenics, severe restrictions on civil liberties, property redistribution by force, dictatorial government, and at times outright murder is considered 'modern' and 'progressive'. When Parmjit Dhanda, Labour MP for Gloucester, asks 'is it acceptable for a the modern Conservatives Party to attack the NHS and praise Enoch Powell?', I should bloody well hope the answer is yes, else Jonah Goldberg is right and 'we're all fascists now'.