Thatcher, another false idol

This is another one of those "serious-face" posts, this one in particular about the late Thatcher and what the Swedish Jonas Gardell wrote about her. If you understand Swedish go right ahead and find everything he said on -> http://www.expressen.se/kultur/gardell-margaret-thatcher-ingen-hjalte/

Day 2 of serious subjects,  don't worry this is still a gaming blog and won't go on for too long... I'm just going to try and reach out for opinions on the matter and perhaps influence and/or enlighten others on said matter. I had heard of that Thatcher lady, or Iron Lady to some, but since the only politicians I'm interested in are those who've done great stuff in my own country or those featured in games and movies I had no idea who she really was. In fact, the first I've read about her is the linked Swedish article where Gardell trashes her, and don't worry I will explain for the non-Swedes among those reading this soon enough!

So basically, she's famous for changing a lot about how the government works, closed some coal mines long ago, apparently saving the British economy and so on. Oh and also for being very stubborn and stuff, ergo the "Iron Lady" title. So she's hailed a hero among the conservatives while being vilified among the more socialistic people for smashing the unions or something like that (note that since English is not my native tongue I might be saying that wrong).

Although as Gardell wants to point out that some actions and beliefs would be enough for anyone to dislike her. She apparently revoked free milk that was given to poor schoolchildren, giving her the nickname "the milk snatcher", and apart from that was very homophobic and in general had weird views. When the disease AIDS came to Britain she is supposed to have expressed a desire to send gay people to gas chambers like another historical figure had done in the past and also said in public that children should learn good morals instead of thinking they got some kind of right to be gay. Oh and she also dismissed Nelson Mandela as a terrorist. If you add all this together does it sound like a nice person who you can look up to? If you do then odds are, you're an asshole.

I never cared for this Thatcher person, nor will I in the future, I will most likely not remember her name by the end of the week, so this is not really about her. I was curious on idols, I got some of my own, but honestly they've shown themselves not to be that perfect so it just caught my attention that this woman is one who may be praised by many without them knowing what kind of person she really was. Same thing with Mother Teresa, literally classified as a saint, yet that was only thanks to the fact that the church pulled a media blitzkrieg on her and showered great publicity on her. In reality, she was a shady person as well, rather greedy and stuff.

Why do we need these false idols? No person is perfect, and the better they look odds are they hide some big dark secret, be it hidden by themselves or powerful friends/media. Would we not be just as good without looking up to false idols? Are they needed? Would we be better of thinking these people have no faults instead of digging them up? I don't know, honestly we don't have many worldwide idols. Gandhi is one, Martin Luther King is one, but those also had their vices. Although to be fair those people were pretty darn awesome, and whatever their faults were they didn't do much harm.

What was my point with this post? I don't know, I suppose I could end this with these words: Whoever your idols are, whoever you look up to, do not think their perfect, admire instead the good actions and strive to match them and possibly surpass them. Humans are after all, only human, I suppose the only thing we can do is make sure the good stuff we do far outweighs the bad stuff we do.