I saw a thing today about a 16 year old giving a speech about 16 year olds getting the right to vote. I think thats ridiculous because they havnt got a clue and don't pay taxes etc etc. But then I would, I'm an old man.
So considering its been my country for nearly sixty years am I right to think like that? I'm starting to think not, in truth. Its gonna be their country for a lot longer than i'll be alive. Ive had my time, but now im in a minority.
And this is what troubles me about Brexit.
I voted to leave and i'll always want that no matter what the consequences. I hated the way the EU treated us so dismissively before the referendum, and then how much further they have taken it since. I hated the way politicians like blair and Cameron simply disregarded that huge majority of us that just wanted them to listen, instead of dictate what we should think and feel, and then brand us as racist, xenophobic fruitcakes for not toeing their company line and agenda, having concerns they considered beneath them to even think about let alone allow discussion.
I freely admit, I want a Britain that is European, just as it always was a long long time before the common market but that still has its own sovereign identity, makes its own laws, and sets out is own boundaries. A Britain that doesn't kneel down and bow submissively before some jumped up power crazed little eurocrat and his ever increasing demands.
But.
A lot of the young seem to want that. Just as a lot of them want that terrorist loving rascally old racist Corbyn running the country. So who am I to want to stop them? it'll be their generation that reaps the whirlwind.
So now, im pretty blasé about all of it. How can you be any different? even if Brexit goes ahead, it wont be the Brexit that 52% of the country voted for. Nobody will win now, no matter what. Nobody will get what they want. Both sides will lose, because the government and those around them, and us as a nation, didn't rise to meet the challenge. Those days are gone. We are a different breed now. I sincerely believe the young don't want to lead, they just want to follow. Thats their choice, its not fr meto decry it.There was a survey the other day that said that four out of ten young people wouldnt fight for their country now.( Im guessing a lot of that is the lefts belief that it isn't our country at all, its anybodies who wants to live here.)
So when retired officers talk about there worries about us having insufficient boats planes tanks soldiers etc in the military, does it matter any more, given that as a nation it would appear we will never stand up and fight again.
Im not having a pop at the left, im really not. They are just as entitled to their opinions as I am mine.
And im not saying id ever do anything other than stand by the decision I made to vote leave.
but what I am saying, is that if thats what the young want, given that its them that will be here after im gone, perhaps thats what they should have.