Over-simplification?

During an interview of Jeremy Paxman by Guido Fawkes, the accusation is thrown down that Guido's desired situation and black-and-white attitude is a gratuitous oversimplification of the way things work.

He is, of course, correct. But as ever in the world of complexity he neatly sidesteps the point. As complexity is the root of deception, so simplicity leaves it nowhere to hide and it is the search for honesty that leads Guido to the quest for simplicity.

It is, of course, a battle for moderation: namely the flag that the minds of men plant in the sand between the extremes of opinion presented to them. This boundary has gradually been stretched out to the point where it is acceptable to tell an outright falsehood with impunity... words designed to be both factually correct and utterly misleading. There is the growing perception that those charged with holding such bounders to account are now in their pay, be it the payment of money or the payment of favour (or rather the absence of being out of favour). Carrot or stick, we cannot help but suspect there are mules here.

Is that position truely any more reasonable or moderate than Guido's? We assume that, dwelling in an era of moderation, the current state must naturally tend toward the moderate... but if it has come to pass that we have fallen from that height, how would we see it unless by getting perspective. By taking a ludicrous position it is intended to shake people's beliefs until they think about them... and set a new flag of moderation between posts that include two extremes, not just one.

Quis Custodes ips Custodii? Guido Custodes ips Custodii... and they must learn that to battle him it is not enough to brand him false: they must make what he is saying untrue.

And so it begins...

... and other pretentious phrases.

Who is Athos? He's a character in a series of novels by Alexandre Dumas, the most famous of which, "The Three Musketeers", has been made into a number of very enjoyable movies over the years (and "The Musketeer", which missed the point a little). The person posting as "Athos" is a late twenties, gainfully employed white male who happened to get vaguely interested in Politics while wandering online...

As Iain Dale conducts an experiment it comment quality control, those of us without blogs are left unable to riposte the remarks of the active blogging community. No bitterness here, it merely spurned me to do what I had been tempted to before: set up an account on Blogger so I could post the occational rebuttal on my own terms... and get an easier time of posting comments on a multitude of blogs.

For the moment, this post exists to let people insult me for what I post in other threads before I get around to making actual comment... so lets put a few things down:
1) I have no plans to use my real name on this blog and I doubt I will ever rate the attention of being 'outed'. Please don't bother.
2) I promise not to post in the third person. It has been done (well and badly) before and even if I do it well, I'll still be copying.
3) I don't promise to care what you say to me, or to not care: I can get offended if I want to and ignore people if I can't be bothered to reply. Sorry, but I thought I'd lay it up front.
4) Potty mouths are acceptable, although they will likely make me think less of you.
5) Pointless posts are just that and are unlikely to remain: this includes posts denouncing other posts as pointless.
6) I hope everyone can be nice to each other and take opposing viewpoints into account, even if they do not agree with them. I don't expect it, but a man can dream.