Comments on Obsolete: Littlejohn-watch: They were whores and it's all the liberals fault...

Nicotine addiction is an uncontrollable dependence...

2009-02-18T03:42:00.000+00:00

Nicotine addiction is an uncontrollable dependence on the highly addictive nicotine stimulant present in tobacco products. Nicotine alters the levels of certain chemicals in the brain that causes smokers to experience pleasurable changes to mood and concentration. When a smoker stops smoking they crave the nicotine effects and can suffer withdrawal symptoms such as anxiety, depression and irritable.

Oh, and I don't know if you're the same Anonymous ...

2006-12-29T20:52:00.000+00:00

Oh, and I don't know if you're the same Anonymous which took exception to Mr Eugenides post, but I direct you there because you're making much the same arguments that have been dealt with there also: http://mreugenides.blogspot.com/2006/12/memo-to-google-richard-littlejohn-is.html

And your point of the first paragraph is what exac...

2006-12-29T20:45:00.000+00:00

And your point of the first paragraph is what exactly? Yes, if you were an alcoholic, it would be your fault, but what would you be able to do about it on your own? Nothing, except remain an alcoholic. This isn't about personal choices, this is about taking the opportunity to sort the wrong choices out once they've been made, or stopping them from being made in the first place. Your attitude suggests that you believe people should be responsible for everything they do and to hell with the consequences if they mess up. I disagree. This is not about caring about life's wasters, as you refer to them, it's about sympathising and wondering what can be done when things go horribly wrong. Instead, you're offering nothing other than condemnation.

"Littlejohn condemned no one to death. He kicked the situation into touch as I said. They arent a great loss to society. Most peoples deaths are no great loss to society."

Yes, and I dealt with this in the piece. Would you or Littlejohn suggest that the death of Sharon Beshenivsky was "no great loss" and that her death was an "occupational hazard", because that was certainly what it was. No, because that would be utterly heartless, and show a distinct lack of humanity. This isn't about crying over death, but rather the fact that someone felt that it was necessary in the first place to suggest that the death of anyone is no great loss.

"Who is saying these women do not have a right to live? Not I, not Littlejohn. Why do you have to look for things that are not there? They have a right to live. They also have a statistically greater chance of dying violently due to doing the "work" they chose."

And so do the police. So do the army. That the drug they chose to take meant they had to take "work" they way they did does not remove the right for their lives to be dismissed so arrogantly.

"Talking of the left wing press, I should have said Britain in general. To see how far we have gone the wrong way, hug a hoodie anyone?"

Oh yes, the thing that Cameron never actually said and which the right-wing press attacked him for doing. Good example.

"Do you think the focus of having a baby should be on the "chance" it gives the parents?"

No I don't, but surprise surprise, thousands of babies are born to couples who aren't ready for them, who don't have jobs, to teenage mothers whose lives are ruined as a result, not to mention the life of the child. This is called life. This is Britain in the 21st century. We adjust. We make do. We try to pick up the pieces when things go wrong.

""Things" such as drug addiction do not just "happen"."

Rubbish. Those without your apparent willpower have suffered them, and they do just "happen", sadly. Choices they may be, but damning the person and doing nothing else is not the answer.

"What particular aspect of these womens lives do you think is noble or one that we should all adopt?"

None, but this isn't what my original post was about. This is about Littlejohn damning and condemning, just as you are, while providing no solutions or not being open to them in the first place. Is there not a problem here? Simply saying these people had a choice is not good enough.

I have never had a puff on a cigarette or taken an...

2006-12-29T20:08:00.000+00:00

I have never had a puff on a cigarette or taken any kind of illegal substance. I have however been drunk. Sitting here at a computer in my own house, being in full time employment and having just returned from the gym however shows me that occasionally being drunk is not equivalent to taking crack and ending up a street prostitute. Furthermore, I take full responsibility for having been drunk. If I had become an alcoholic, guess whose fault it would have been? Mine. So I would not expect liberals to hand wring for me about how tough I have made my own life. I would take it as condescending tripe from people who go out of their way to show how much they care for all of lifes wasters merely to demonstrate the size of their hearts. Then we can all look in admiration and say "wow I wish I could be as caring as you."
Therefore I dont damn any of the population that make mistakes. I do damn them when they try and pass responsibility for their own mess onto other people. I do when they then moan about the mess they are in. When it comes to things like heroin, its not exactly a bolt from the blue that it will mess your life up, unless the taker is totally moronic.

Littlejohn condemned no one to death. He kicked the situation into touch as I said. They arent a great loss to society. Most peoples deaths are no great loss to society. Painful for those who knew them yes, but do you honestly expect me to believe your heart bleeds for every single murder? You would never stop crying. We also never even hear about most murders (murders which, I may add, are happening somewhere all the time). It isnt because they are prostitutes. Its because thats life. There was nothing about these prostitutes lives that was courageous or a good example for anybody to live by. In fact, they serve as examples of how not to live, of how living for the moment and making one awful decision after another can end your life.

Who is saying these women do not have a right to live? Not I, not Littlejohn. Why do you have to look for things that are not there? They have a right to live. They also have a statistically greater chance of dying violently due to doing the "work" they chose.

Talking of the left wing press, I should have said Britain in general. To see how far we have gone the wrong way, hug a hoodie anyone?

Do you think the focus of having a baby should be on the "chance" it gives the parents? My ignorance does indeed show because I always felt both parents should be stable, together and thoroughly established in whatever it is they are doing in their lives to provide security for their future child. Not have a child as a gamble that then it will all work out. But then you have all the answers because if it DIDNT work out, the boyfriend could have brought the child up. Yes, the boyfriend who knew his girlfriend was on the game but did nothing, virtually acting as her pimp (unless they had separate bank accounts?) sounds like a brilliant role model to bring up the child in a fractured family where the mother is out whoring or dead. Is that how you were raised or is this another case of a Liberal patronisingly explaining away the behaviour of others that they would never allow for themselves. Do you think the above scenario is one that will give a child the best possible chance in life?

Again your language betrays your state of passivity. "Things" such as drug addiction do not just "happen". They are choices. Yes the state can provide services to help. The addict has to want to use them though and it is not the states fault that the addicts frequently fail.

Of course, welfare is not enough for a healthy heroin habit. So again, whose fault is it they are on the game? Whose fault is it they took drugs? Whose fault is it they almost all had children, yet none of them lived with them? What particular aspect of these womens lives do you think is noble or one that we should all adopt?

And you may have felt your cheap dig to be justified, but then the retort was just too easy so you left yourself open there.

"I have too much self discipline, too much self re...

2006-12-29T18:43:00.000+00:00

"I have too much self discipline, too much self regard, and too much strength of character to fritter away my time looking for cheap highs."

I take it you've never so much as took a puff on a cigarette, got drunk at the weekend or so much as inhaled the wicked weed then? If so, I congratulate you and your high-mindedness, because I plead guilty to all three of the above. I'd also wager that the vast, vast majority of both the readers of this blog and of this nation have also done the above. It is a choice, you're right, and as humans we are weak, we are pathetic and we make mistakes. Cheap highs are what keep some of us from opening up our wrists. Are you going to damn the whole of the population for doing so?

"Littlejohn is not suggesting their deaths are any less relevant due to them being prostitutes. He is rebutting the myth that these women were some kind of street heroins. In the left wing press (ie most of the british press) these women have been elevated to a grandiose scale. Littlejohn is trying to kick this nonsense into touch. It was the Liberals that tried to make these prostitutes something they are not, it was not Littlejohn."

There's so much that's wrong with this paragraph that it's difficult to know where to start. Littlejohn was arguing that their lives were less relevant; he suggested that they were no great loss purely because of their lifestyles. That he was damning in one case a 19-year-old woman to death because of mistakes she had made, when she had her whole life ahead of her is completely despicable.

In the left wing press, which you claim is much of the British press, despite the fact that only three newspapers that can be truly defined as left-wing, the Guardian, the Independent and the Mirror, which combined have a circulation of less than the Sun, there was no attempts to idealise these women or what they did; rather they were blunt and told the truth, instead of sneering at them and their fractured lives. Littlejohn was just being the heartless man he is; his hatred of the lower-orders is such that he can justify their deaths as an occupational hazard and as being no great loss. The "left-wing" press, and much of the right-wing press rejected this, except for the usual suspect columnists, instead recognising that these women had as much right to live as you and I do.

"For the record, of course they knew."

And you provide a whole one example to prove this. Sadly, families tend to fracture, prostitutes don't tend to tell close relatives of what they are reduced to, and putting on a false pretense is a lot easier when contact is made. As for the boyfriend being selfish for bringing a child into the world, your ignorance shows. When hospitals get involved with addicts about to give birth, they do as much as they can to help. It could have been just the chance they needed. Even if they had failed, the boyfriend could have brought up the child.

"No one is denying how hard it is to get off crack. What Littlejohn is saying is its THEIR OWN FAULT THEY ARE ON CRACK IN THE FIRST PLACE. Its tough that its hard to get off a drug that you yourself chose to go on. But whose fault is that if not your own?"

Believe it or not, it makes sense once these things unfortunately happen, and will continue to happen, for the state to provide services to help sort their lives out. These services, as I mentioned in the post, are just simply either not there or are hopelessly overstretched.

"As for alternatives to the street, how about the glorious welfare system? They could live with their supposed loving families for an address, claim benefits and earn more than work could ever pay them. Remember the woman up north earning some £70,000 in benefits a year due to the amazing feat of producing vast numbers of children? Im sure thats a skill they could have put to good use."

Nonsense. Living with their families would instantly reduce the amount of benefit they could get. If the women managed to get on income support for example, to start with the amount they get per week is around £55. That's not enough for the drugs for one day, let alone a whole week. The glorious welfare system could not have helped these women unless combined with drug treatment programmes. Springing out sprogs every 9 months is not something a prostitute can afford to do, even with benefits.

"Your cheap dig asking Littlejohn how he knows about saunas is easy to answer. Maybe he reads the law and applies factual arguments to a case. I could ask how you know so much about prostitution, but it would be a cheap retaliation."

I took a cheap dig in return for numerous cheap digs by Littlejohn throughout the article. I think it was more than justified.

You talk about "experiencing" drug addiction as if...

2006-12-29T13:47:00.000+00:00

You talk about "experiencing" drug addiction as if it is simply something thrust upon random people as an act of God as opposed to a wilful act involving the individual injecting themselves with a needle, sniffing powder up their noses etc. It is a choice to begin the cycle of drug taking, so youre damn right I cant enter the mindset required. I have too much self discipline, too much self regard, and too much strength of character to fritter away my time looking for cheap highs.

Littlejohn is not suggesting their deaths are any less relevant due to them being prostitutes. He is rebutting the myth that these women were some kind of street heroins. In the left wing press (ie most of the british press) these women have been elevated to a grandiose scale. Littlejohn is trying to kick this nonsense into touch. It was the Liberals that tried to make these prostitutes something they are not, it was not Littlejohn.

If the family and friends of the prostitutes did not know of their vices then that tells me just as much about them as if they had been their pimps. It made me sick seeing story after story from these prostitutes families claiming they are devastated by their deaths, that they just didnt know blah blah. If only they had paid their daughters as much attention when they were alive, as they paid the media now they are dead. For the record, of course they knew. I saw one of the prostitutes boyfriends on tv claiming he was devastated. They were about to have a baby and he thought this would help them sort their lives out. The immense selfishness of that statement, the fact that he was willing to bring a kid into the world when his "girlfriend" was a drug addled prostitute gives an indication of the kind of person we are dealing with. Of course they knew, regardless of how many times they say otherwise.

No one is denying how hard it is to get off crack. What Littlejohn is saying is its THEIR OWN FAULT THEY ARE ON CRACK IN THE FIRST PLACE. Its tough that its hard to get off a drug that you yourself chose to go on. But whose fault is that if not your own?

As for alternatives to the street, how about the glorious welfare system? They could live with their supposed loving families for an address, claim benefits and earn more than work could ever pay them. Remember the woman up north earning some £70,000 in benefits a year due to the amazing feat of producing vast numbers of children? Im sure thats a skill they could have put to good use.

Your cheap dig asking Littlejohn how he knows about saunas is easy to answer. Maybe he reads the law and applies factual arguments to a case. I could ask how you know so much about prostitution, but it would be a cheap retaliation.

Oh. My. Oh. My. .... That the man is a small-minde...

2006-12-21T19:53:00.000+00:00

Oh.
My.
Oh.
My.
....
That the man is a small-minded offensively selfish bigot really isn't news.
But this one is...breathtaking.
If he had any respect left for him in the profession, that'd be the end of it. But he doesn't. (So we're into negative respect, then).
In an ideal world, outraged letters would flood in from Sun readers.....but....
Hm.

A fine deconstruction of an odious yet predictable...

2006-12-21T18:24:00.000+00:00

A fine deconstruction of an odious yet predictable article. Perhaps you'd appreciate my friends email sent to Littlejohn on the site

http://customerservice.blog.co.uk/2006/12/19/customer_service_writes_to_richard_littl~1456771

No reply as yet...

Hazel

p.s. Thanks for the quote crackers.

Great deconstruction of an odious yet predictable ...

2006-12-21T18:15:00.000+00:00

Great deconstruction of an odious yet predictable piece (and thanks FiveChineseCrackers for quoting my comment). A friend of mine has emailed Littlejohn a more eloquent response detailed on

http://customerservice.blog.co.uk/2006/12/19/customer_service_writes_to_richard_littl~1456771

as yet he awaits a reply from Littlejohn...

Sounds like he's trying to get himself worked up e...

2006-12-21T14:19:00.000+00:00

Sounds like he's trying to get himself worked up enough to go and clean the streets himself with the aid of his trusty hammer.

Good post.

Great post- you've really got him to use tabloid l...

2006-12-21T11:31:00.000+00:00

Great post- you've really got him to use tabloid language bang to rights.

Anonymous: There's a time and a place for jokes ab...

2006-12-21T01:56:00.000+00:00

Anonymous: There's a time and a place for jokes about everything, but the time is not now and the place is not here.

Yes, I imagine the football fans observed the minu...

2006-12-20T17:57:00.000+00:00

Yes, I imagine the football fans observed the minute's silence out of Political Correctness. Yes, that's it. Leeds United fans are, as we all know, the most politically correct in the country.

There are loads of negative comments about this on...

2006-12-20T12:27:00.000+00:00

There are loads of negative comments about this one, wich is unusual given how strictly the Mail censors negative comments. There must have been a deluge. Rather too many twats who agree too, but there you go.

But I like this one:

Of course the men who choose to use these "disgusting, drug-addled street whores" can be excused a moment of relief from their charity work and medical research.

You know how to press the most deeply unpleasant reactionary little buttons Mr Littlejohn, I'll say that for you.

Sadly your article on the Ipswich women merely outlines how prevalent grubby misogyny still is today. And ignoring this by aiming abuse at "bleeding hearts" or "feminazis" etc. only highlights how much growing up you need to do before you stop needing a regular "massage".

Like most easy victims, not many of us would have cared much for these women when they were alive -perhaps that's what has affected people at this time of year supposedly devoted to peace and goodwill - to all men at least.

- Hazel, Wivenhoe, Essex