tales from the heartland

Dropped in on the little old lady from Borris In Ossory.
She's connected.
Politically.
She'd thrown me out of her house before Christmas I think because I'd given a nuanced assessment of Donald Trump who was then the incoming American President.
She did not look displeased to see me today and tea was forthcoming.
I sipped it.
The sensation scene unfolded as follows.
She said: "A lot of people forget how much we all owe the European Union. The European Union was set up at the end of World War Two to prevent another conflagration. And it has succeeded. How many people remember that the European Union has kept the peace for seventy years?"
I lowered my cup.
"You think the EU has averted war for seventy years?"
"Undoubtedly it has."
"Where have you been?"
"Jame whatever else you say, clearly there has been no repeat of the devastation we saw in 1945."
"And you think that's down to the EU?"
"It is absolutely down to the EU."
"And not to Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul the Great, and me and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, oh and the grace of God? The grace of God it must be said, without which Ron, Maggie, the Pap, Nato and me could well have caused any number of conflagrations. You think it was the EU?"
"The EU has kept the peace by preventing the outbreak of war. We all owe the European Union a huge debt of gratitude."
Not for the first time, I felt a huge chasm open up between us.
When next I spoke it was a tad darkly.
"It hasn't kept the peace for anyone being officially and pseudo legally euthanised in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland and unofficially everywhere else; or assisted to suicide as a teenager; or being aborted as a pre born child; or being told at the age of five that they're a woman in man's body and need to transition to a new gender and at fifteen have their mickey hacked off and then remain on daily doses of maniacally powerful drugs for the rest of their lives, and that anyone who tells them different is just a transphobe. It hasn't kept the peace for a generation of the elderly being dumped in old folks homes by their selfish atheistic ingrate skanger kids and tortured by the trade unionised psychopaths we employ there. It hasn't kept the peace for all those European citizens growing up in towns, villages and cities, controlled by IRA mafia gangs, or by Cosa Nostra, or the Triads, or Al Qaeda, or the Russian mob or devil worshipping Nigerian gangs who have successfully subverted our judiciaries and police and are now effectively the power in our lands. I mean I don't want to go casting no aspoyshuns. But I gotta say this peaceful Europe of yours is not all that peaceful."
"James do I have to listen to this?"
"Well no. And that was a great cup of tea. But really. Do you really think Europe has preserved the peace? I mean, say I concede that the EU was a factor in preventing internal wars between EU member States, okay, but look around. I mean what do you think a World War looks like? I'm just asking. What on earth do Muslims have to do to get your attention? And when the German Chancellor Angela Merkel gave citizenship to millons of Muslims last year, they overnight became citizens of all our countries, precisely because of the European Union. Do you really think fifty million Muslims will live peacefully along side us? How about a hundred million? I'm telling you that Mrs Merkel, and Pope Francis when he caused the Italians to cease enforcing their borders, and the old 1980's French socialist President Mitterand who 40 years ago thought he could give Muslims citizenship and that they'd vote socialist forever, I'm telling you that between you all. you and the European Union have finished Europe."
I sensed the interview was ending and since it was her house, I reckoned it was up to me to leave.
Our parting was somewhat desultory, Lacking in joy as it were, although I fancy she might have felt a twinge of it as I vanished up the road. As partings go it lacked the pzazz of the time she threw me out when she mistakenly thought I liked Trump.
Driving on through the heartland I hung a left into Farmer Murphy's demesne.
He saluted me from the gate.
I wound down the window.
"Remember what you said to me when I tried to warn you about the Jihadis?" I called.
"I said they were hardly going to bomb that field out there," he answered.
"And I said would you really be happy for your daughters to spend their lives in that field. And never go into town. Or into the city. Or travel overseas. And your grandchildren too. And so on."
"I remember what you said."
"Do you think the Jihadis burnt down that residential tower in London?"
"You're the first one I've heard ask that."
"But what do you think?"
"Ah James, who can say."
"Just tell me what you think in your heart of hearts, Did it even occur to you for a moment as you watched those people die on prime time television, that the tower might have been destroyed because some Jihadi was mixing up bombs in his or her apartment?"
"I'm not going to go there James."
"It's getting closer though, isn't it Joe."