The Rabid 48 (Rant)

Consider this a follow-up rant to yesterday's Post-Brexit Aftermath rant.

So here we are once more with another rant just a day after the previous one was voted damn. Anyone who's been following blog since October 2014 will notice that the rant's name is pretty damn familiar to a certain other rant on a similar subject...

The word "rabid" can be used with more emphasis here though as these protests are far worse than what we had in Scotland about a year and a half ago.

Speaking of here we are again, who remembers all of those pointless rallies we had back in late-2014 following the independence referendum in Scotland. Well it's happened again in London this time (#LondonStays) and it's all going down in Trafalgar Square where a bunch people think a rally will change the outcome of the referendum.

Two words. Hell no.

A lot of the stuff I'll covering here is pretty much just reiterated from that rant (as well as the Pro-Brexit Aftermath rant I put out yesterday) but it basically just boils down to this - these rants will NOT change anything. You had the chance to make your move and you simply didn't. I stated in yesterday's rant that the youth of the country (my generation sadly) had the chance to vote and the vast majority (64%) chose not to. I'm not saying my generation is lazy, but it shows that they seem to care far less about the country's politics than older generations and this is what led the Leave campaign to victory.

As for these rallies, well I already covered that these rallies are completely pointless and rarely solve anything. Did the nationalist rally in Glasgow grant Scotland its independence? No. Did the nationalist rally in Dundee grant Scotland its independence? No. Did the protests in London against David Cameron's austerity bring a halt to the government's plans? No, although I agreed with their point. Will the protests currently happening in London right now overrule the Brexit vote? Given the track record of past rallies I seriously doubt it.

That's a hat-trick right there (not counting the current rallies) and I'm sure if I do some digging I can pull up many more examples where rallies failed and while I can almost admire the passion that goes into this, a lot nastiness comes out of it too. Let me go ahead and quote some tweets.

Wait a minute, I thought it was #VoteLeave supporters who were all virulent racists? pic.twitter.com/vzwhQCposr

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) June 28, 2016

The accumulated intellect of #LondonStays came up with these toddler-level placards. Guys, #LondonsGone pic.twitter.com/cGOk1p5S8t

— Martin Daubney (@MartinDaubney) June 28, 2016

So yeah so much energy going into something so passionate yes, but the outcome has turned Trafalgar Square from a tourist attraction to a toxic cesspit of racism (not from Leave campaigners either, see the first of the above tweets.)

Your energy is far more better off being used into just accepting the result, you wanted democracy? You got it. You had a referendum, democracy was served and now you don't like it you want to overturn it. This kind of childishness is bringing awful flashbacks from #HopeOverFear in 2014. At the end of The Rabid 45 I suggested to focus all of that wasted energy on tackling ISIS, now maybe that was a little extreme, but my underlying point still stands. This is just a big waste of time although if I am proven wrong it will be interesting but I doubt it. The past three rallies have failed and this will too. Get over it, move on.

I guess I should also say something about the whole "Little Englander" bullshit as well that the Remain campaign (aka remainiacs) keep peddling. I voted out, as did many others, so we could secure trade deals with other nations where the EU has failed. This isn't pulling up the drawbridge like many are putting it, but rather opening ourselves up for more trade to appeal to the wider world. That statement alone is enough to counter the whole "Little Englander" bullshit but in case it isn't, I guess you should say talking shit about the Welsh too considering Wales also had a majority for Leave. But hey, feel free to keep the Little Englander jibes up, it just makes you seem incredibly ignorant and conveys a sense of arrogance too.

I'd like to close this rant by making a short statement about the whole Londependence movement that happened briefly on 24th June - it won't happen. While Scottish independence is very much a possibility, London is far too integrated with the UK to ever break away from the nation especially considering that the royal family is pretty much completely situated there and I'm sure the Queen (who technically has ultimate power over the UK) will veto London breaking off from the UK.

One final something to consider - Anjem Choudary (a prominent Islamic extemist living in the UK) was supportive of EU membership as it makes deportation harder. Maybe that might make you think about some of the downsides of remaining. (Source article)

And I'm fucking done on this - and I don't just mean this rant but the entire fucking topic as a whole, holy shit this has been one hell of a fortnight and I'm still waiting for the tide to pass over.

29th June 2016 Update: Shit just got even more real. There are now people actually calling for the assassination (yes you read that right) of Nigel Farage. I mean I know you guys on the Remain side of the fence may not like the guy but come on. This is especially shameful considering another MP was murdered a week before the referendum (R.I.P Jo Cox) and I'm saddened and angered that people stooping to such a low level.

29th June 2016 Update 2: A sister rally very similar to the one I just went hell-for-leather on also happened in Manchester however it was so petty it was barely even worth mentioning and it didn't last very long.

2nd July 2016 Update: Another fucking rally's going on this time under the hashtag #MarchForEurope. We had a fucking fair and democratic vote on 23rd June and your side lost. All of these rallies will NOT change a thing, the only event that had any impact in this was the referendum itself. 52% of those who voted voted to leave and if you are rallying down in London and you didn't vote then you have absolutely no right to complain as you did not do your part to stop Brexit from happening so sit the fuck down.

2nd July 2016 Update 2: Damn I don't think I've ever had to put out as many updates to rants as I have here, but sadly it seems this rally was far more contagious than its predecessor with it happening in nearby York as well as Manchester. It seems we've entered the Anger stage of grief here. Here's a fucking thought, stop this pathetic rallying (which as I've stated an incessant amount of times before, doesn't solve anything) and work on building a better UK outside of the EU.

Post-Brexit Aftermath (Rant)

DISCLAIMER: This will be the last political rant on this blog. Sorry but I guess this isn't true.

This rant will definitely strike a few nerves and believe me I did do my best to restrain myself from typing this one out, but I simply had to give in because the amount of cuntery and foolishness surrounding the whole Brexit event is nigh-on overwhelming.

As many of you are aware, whether you're from the UK or not, we had a vote on whether to leave the European Union with the outcome (surprisingly) being 52% (51.9%) to leave. I am personally very happy about that as the EU, while once being a friendly trading bloc, has become a greedy, megalomaniacal wannabe superstate with a constant lust for more power over its member states. This simply had to end so I personally voted to leave. If you voted to remain, that's your choice and I won't judge you for that. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

Unfortunately a lot of the people over in the Remain camp do not think that way.

I'm not going to bring up the recent petition on the UK Parliament's official site as that has been confirmed to have been compromised with some sources even claiming it was a 4chan prank. What I will say about this though is that this petition was hastily set up by a Leave supporter who proposed new rules for the referendum as he thought Remain was going to come out on top, This unfortunately backfired and the petition has now been abused by not only excessive numbers of Remain supporters failing to accept the referendum's outcome (some of these supporters are even willing to manipulate the petition illegally to get their way) but as well aforementioned bots allegedly set up by 4chan. Parliament removed a good chunk of signatures that were believed to be fraudulent but I'm pretty sure many still remain.

The cringeworthy petition can be found here.

With that out of the way I'll now shift over one of the main focuses of this rant.

A number of Remain voters have been looking to overturn the result of the referendum (hence the large number of signatures on the above petition.) This movement also appears to be gaining some ground in parliament as the Liberal Democrats have pledged to ignore the referendum and keep the UK within the EU despite a small majority voting to leave and with shit hitting the fan big style over in Labour a Lib Dem victory is sadly on the cards in the next general election. Sorry Corbyn, but if Labour can't get itself together then I may very well vote Tory just to keep the ironically anti-democratic Liberal "Democrats" out, that being said if TUSC contest my constituency again I'll probably hand my vote over to those guys. (TUSC is basically a left-wing UKIP, they strongly oppose EU membership while still upholding many of Labour's core beliefs.)

The largest issue within the whole shitstorm for me was the immense social divide it's created and how peoples' opinions of other people have changed. I am no exception to this - before the referendum I greatly adored the actor Sir Patrick Stewart, I was borderline fanatical over him, however now I have no strong feelings either way. On the reverse however I like John Cleese for his comedy work but when he announced his support for Brexit my opinion of him shot right up (Fawlty Towers and Monty Python anyone?)

I also have to say something about Richard Dawkins throughout all of this too. He's another one who I liked and I always assumed he took a neutral stance in it all,  I'd also like to point that he more or less said that the general public are too stupid to vote on something like the EU, before the referendum I dismissed that completely but following the referendum he's fucking right. People voted because they assumed that their vote wouldn't have an impact and if you thought then go eat shit, and if you thought that and now you're part of the cringeworthy #REGREXIT movement then go eat more shit.

And throughout all this I'd to give a major fuck you to all those who are whining about having their future stolen from them by the older generations. If you (mainly my generation sadly) wanted to stay in you should've got out there and voted. Statistics show that only 36% of 18-24 year olds turned up to the vote and as for those who whine about how the old people will die soon and won't have to live as long with the consequences that may be true, but that is an absolutely vile and sickening way to think. These people fought through World War 2 and the elderly who didn't probably parents who did so or lived through that horror, and people are saying they shouldn't vote? Fuck you!

These are the people whose votes you want to deny. Show some fucking respect. (Image from Fact File.)

And now I'd like to address those who claim that the Leave campaign is based around bigotry and hatred. Oh boy what a fucking cliche!

Now I do agree that the official Vote Leave campaign placed an exceptionally heavy emphasis on immigration but I detest the notion that most leave voters were swung by immigration, although it was a major point for many people. Many people were swung by pledges (wrongly) announced by many high-profile campaigners. I never expected a lot of that to be true, nor did they have any influence on my vote - I had my own reasons for voting out.

So let's be clear.

I am a 20 year old college student (at the time of writing.)

I voted to LEAVE the European Union.

I am pretty much dead central on the political spectrum.

I did NOT vote to leave on the grounds of immigration.

I did NOT vote to leave on the grounds of any campaign pledges.

I voted to leave because the EU became power-hungry and hated what it had become.

---

I'd like to conclude this lengthy rant with this pic which has been circulating it round Twitter after the result.

Sadly a lot of people on both sides of the fence do not wish to follow this example. (Image originally posted by Caroline Farrow)

28th June 2016 Update: A follow up rant for this has been put out - read it here.

Blog Reform

This is a blog post I meant to put several weeks ago but I found the time to do so back then, however I've now got some spare time so I figured now would be a good time to put it out before I forget.

It's no secret that this blog was originally designed first and foremost a game development blog to keep track of all things relating to my game development and what I'm doing and any games I'm putting out or any game dev events I'd be getting involved with, itch.io week for example.

However the blog has recently began losing sight of its original purpose and what it was meant for, since I started the blog I have discussed political issues (a topic I wanted to avoid when possible,) phone tech (a personal hobby) and various other issues which I have touched on in the past. The blog has been home to a number of rants while others are simply me getting involved with unrelated business which I probably should be keeping out of.

And I've decided to take stand against... myself... I guess?

I've decided to reform this blog and delegate all unrelated topics to a personal sister blog which I'll be making some time in the future. The blog will remain as it always has done up the end of this year, I'm keeping it like this as I've promised follow-ups to a number of these unrelated posts such as the Feature Removal Competition Bonanza rant (where I completely ripped smartphone company LeEco apart for making stupid decisions) where I promised a follow-up in September/October.

As of 1st January 2017, these blog reforms will come into play and all future non-gamedev related posts will be relegated to the new blog. Any current unrelated posts will remain on here and probably won't be removed unless I see fit, however any future rants and other unrelated posts will be on the new blog as of the beginning of 2017 and this blog will remain strictly unrelated.

As for my Twitter and personal social media accounts, they are orientated to me rather than my career so while there will obviously gamedev stuff on there, there will also be other things on there that I feel the need to talk about or vent. That will remain unchanged. This reform affects only this blog.