Politics in General

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Gavin Chipper
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Re: Politics in General

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Jon O'Neill wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:20 am Ok, my point is that everyone has been very explicit that the England football team taking the knee nothing to do with the Black Lives Matter organisation, and those that argue that it either is something to do with BLM the organisation, or that the messaging has been unclear, are deliberately masking their true reasons for booing the knee.
Yeah, fair enough. I don't really exactly follow football closely anyway. But it was pretty obvious to me that it's not about the BLM organisation.

But my (poorly made) point was that people might think it's about specifically anti-black racism rather than racism or discrimination more generally.

But if you had to summarise the message, what would you say it is?
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Re: Politics in General

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Rhys Benjamin wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:44 am Perhaps I wasn't clear enough...?

No matter what England say, that particular gesture has become linked with the BLM organisation. Remember that in June last year Sky Sports removed "Black Lives Matter" branding from its content (replacing it with the Kick It Out and No Room For Racism charities) when @UKBLM tweeted a load of, er, controversial wording, shall we say, about Israel. Whatever one's views on Israel, the point here is it is crashingly irrelevant to their main cause, just as Extinction Rebellion walked around London last year with placards reading "socialism or extinction".

England can say "it's not supporting BLM" as much as they like, but that's never, ever going to cut through.
You could argue that if a gesture is particularly associated with x, then to use it to mean y makes it open to misunderundering or deliberate conflation. So maybe a different gesture and everyone's happy? I'm not sure about the history of the gesture anyway. Maybe I should look it up. It's not as if BLM invented it anyway so maybe it's wrong to automatically associate it with them.
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Re: Politics in General

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Gavin Chipper wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:52 amIt's not as if BLM invented it anyway so maybe it's wrong to automatically associate it with them.
True. But it's not as though the Nazis invented the swastika.
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Re: Politics in General

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Rhys Benjamin wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 1:15 pm
Gavin Chipper wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:52 amIt's not as if BLM invented it anyway so maybe it's wrong to automatically associate it with them.
True. But it's not as though the Nazis invented the swastika.
Swastikas are a far more specific symbol than kneeling.
Id say over 90% of people would automatically think of Nazism if they saw a Swastika. If you show a picture of someone kneeling, I would be amazed if anywhere near 90% thought of BLM (at least automatically). I know I wouldn't.




(Totally different discussion, which we'll not get in to, but Marxism as a philosophy - it's not too bad, is it? :D )
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Re: Politics in General

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Noel Mc wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 2:31 pm
Rhys Benjamin wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 1:15 pm
Gavin Chipper wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:52 amIt's not as if BLM invented it anyway so maybe it's wrong to automatically associate it with them.
True. But it's not as though the Nazis invented the swastika.
Swastikas are a far more specific symbol than kneeling.
Id say over 90% of people would automatically think of Nazism if they saw a Swastika. If you show a picture of someone kneeling, I would be amazed if anywhere near 90% thought of BLM (at least automatically). I know I wouldn't.




(Totally different discussion, which we'll not get in to, but Marxism as a philosophy - it's not too bad, is it? :D )
You might have to speak up about Marxism they cant hear you back in the 1930s
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Re: Politics in General

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Just to clarify my comments, I was speaking generally about players taking the knee in high-level, widely broadcast football (basically the Premier League and international football so far as I have seen it for myself), and not specifically about the England team, where as far as I can tell everyone seems to be fully behind the gesture.

Just on the link between the gesture and BLM, it's pretty hard to be sure of this because clearly for some people the gesture and/or reaction to it are all about BLM and for some people they aren't to do with BLM at all. Also, as touched on in this thread, there isn't really much consensus on what 'BLM' means either.

Here's a recent BBC article that explicitly states that the gesture is being made by England footballers "to show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement." Clearly it's not "obvious" to this journalist that the gesture has nothing to do with BLM.
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Re: Politics in General

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Marc Meakin wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 3:22 pm You might have to speak up about Marxism they cant hear you back in the 1930s
My tongue was planted firmly in my cheek, that's probably why they couldn't hear!
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Re: Politics in General

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Callum Todd wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 4:46 pm Just on the link between the gesture and BLM, it's pretty hard to be sure of this because clearly for some people the gesture and/or reaction to it are all about BLM and for some people they aren't to do with BLM at all. Also, as touched on in this thread, there isn't really much consensus on what 'BLM' means either.

Here's a recent BBC article that explicitly states that the gesture is being made by England footballers "to show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement." Clearly it's not "obvious" to this journalist that the gesture has nothing to do with BLM.
No, but you can be sure that this journalist is not suggesting that the England players are showing solidarity of the cause of ending capitalism, defunding the police, Marxism, free healthcare for all, or whatever else it is that they are supposed to stand for outside of their anti-racist message.
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Re: Politics in General

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Jon O'Neill wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 8:40 pm No, but you can be sure that this journalist is not suggesting that the England players are showing solidarity of the cause of ending capitalism, defunding the police, Marxism, free healthcare for all, or whatever else it is that they are supposed to stand for outside of their anti-racist message.
Kneeling at the start of a sports match like this -that has become known as taking the knee, as premiered in 2016 by CK- has many of the connotations that you have listed above associated with it. There have often been anti-racism gestures in sport, they have not been booed. [e.g. players in the Euros pointing to the word "respect"] This one is being booed because of the negative connotations that are intrinsically associated with "taking the knee".

Anyone who is attempting to redefine what "taking the knee" represents, is fighting a losing battle... like trying to lock the stable door after the horse has bolted.

I agree with whoever said that it is now too late to stop kneeling, as that would be giving in to the thugs who are booing. But they need to let Euro 2020 be the last time they use that particular gesture to raise awareness.
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Re: Politics in General

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Pretty awful human being Priti Patel (I know I've done that one before) has spoken on the subject. Basically she's pro booing.
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Re: Politics in General

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Gavin Chipper wrote: Wed Jun 16, 2021 8:24 am Pretty awful human being Priti Patel (I know I've done that one before) has spoken on the subject. Basically she's pro booing.
I thought she was, anti, anti booing.
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Re: Politics in General

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Re: Politics in General

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Marc Meakin wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 4:21 pm This made me chuckle
https://twitter.com/ladyhaja/status/1405230124396695565
Richard Madeley. Legend.
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Re: Politics in General

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It seems that white working class pupils have been let down. But this generally goes under-reported. And it shows how unhelpful and simplistic terms like "white privilege" are.

Edit - I wonder if Countdown will have a special "working class" edition?
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Re: Politics in General

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By the way, I'm a regular reader of New Scientist and they're certainly quite "woke", and they've announced an internship scheme for ethnic minority people (that they've done before). I've written them a letter (well, e-mail). They'll ignore it but whatever:
It is disappointing to read that you are again running an internship scheme exclusively for people from an ethnic minority background. While it may be the case that these people are under-represented in science journalism, this is not the way to address it. Opportunity in life is based on much more than someone's ethnic background, and addressing this means taking a more nuanced approach of looking at people as individuals and their own experiences and opportunities in life rather than as simply members of a group. Diversity should also mean more than diversity of skin colour. This also comes at a time when it has been highlighted that white pupils from a working class background fair worse than those from other ethnic groups. See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-57558746
Edit - When I read about the scheme in the most recent issue, although it annoyed me, I wasn't going to write in. But then this news story came out so it seemed the perfect opportunity.
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Re: Politics in General

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Gavin Chipper wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 8:19 am It seems that white working class pupils have been let down. But this generally goes under-reported. And it shows how unhelpful and simplistic terms like "white privilege" are.

Edit - I wonder if Countdown will have a special "working class" edition?
Who had "Gev turns Tory mouthpiece" on their bingo card? :lol:

The "white working class pupils" point has been mentioned well beyond the point of tedium.
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Re: Politics in General

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"The report faced immediate opposition, including from among the committee's own members... [One member] said she disowned the report and had submitted her own alternative version, which was voted down by the Tory majority."

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2 ... ion-report

But I do think it's at least open to debate how helpful a term "white privilege" is - this thread makes a convincing, and crucially, good-faith argument:

https://twitter.com/sundersays/status/1 ... 7601978377
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Re: Politics in General

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Phil H wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 8:58 am
Gavin Chipper wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 8:19 am It seems that white working class pupils have been let down. But this generally goes under-reported. And it shows how unhelpful and simplistic terms like "white privilege" are.

Edit - I wonder if Countdown will have a special "working class" edition?
Who had "Gev turns Tory mouthpiece" on their bingo card? :lol:
Haha, well hopefully you did.
The "white working class pupils" point has been mentioned well beyond the point of tedium.
Has it though? Is it not an important issue that needs to be addressed as much as inequality against black people? When does that reach the point of tedium? Perhaps these are just very inconvenient statistics for those who have a very one-dimensional view of what inequality is.

But actually, I don't think we should really be focusing so much on the fact that these pupils are white. But I do see it as a reaction against the obsession with non-white ethnicity when it comes to inequality. Wealth/poverty is a bigger predictor of future outcome than ethnicity. So while that's a reason to not go on about white working class pupils, it's also a reason not to go on about white privilege. I see them as two sides of the same coin. And you can see my views on the matter in my letter to New Scientist, where I said that we should be treating people as individuals rather than just as members of a group.
Phil H wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 9:11 am "The report faced immediate opposition, including from among the committee's own members... [One member] said she disowned the report and had submitted her own alternative version, which was voted down by the Tory majority."

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2 ... ion-report
From the Guardian article:
Maurice Mcleod, chief executive of the thinktank Race on the Agenda, rejected the report’s conclusions. “Today’s education committee report is just the latest government salvo in the culture war it seems hellbent on stoking,” he said.

“Instead of honestly accepting that children from all backgrounds have been badly let down by decades of neglect, this report attempts to create unhelpful divides between children based on their race.”
Without knowing the exact context, that could easily have been written by somebody on the "other side". It seems that the "woke" (e.g. New Scientist and Channel 4) and the "anti-woke" are as guilty as each other.
But I do think it's at least open to debate how helpful a term "white privilege" is - this thread makes a convincing, and crucially, good-faith argument:

https://twitter.com/sundersays/status/1 ... 7601978377
Yeah, interesting. I think it's just a poor term, because it seems designed to get people's backs up. And when you look at the complexities of it, such as the many white people living in poverty, what sort of reaction do you expect when using it?
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Re: Politics in General

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Solving any and all inequalities is not going to happen by shouting "you're just privileged" as an excuse.
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Re: Politics in General

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Rhys Benjamin wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 11:58 am Solving any and all inequalities is not going to happen by shouting "you're just privileged" as an excuse.
True. What it will actually take is properly funding education and social programmes through taxation and increasing wealth redistribution. You're for that right?
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Re: Politics in General

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Mark James wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 12:36 pm
Rhys Benjamin wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 11:58 am Solving any and all inequalities is not going to happen by shouting "you're just privileged" as an excuse.
True. What it will actually take is properly funding education and social programmes through taxation and increasing wealth redistribution. You're for that right?
I believe in a hand up, not a hand out. I also don't believe public sector programmes like those you're advocating for work effectively and a different approach is needed.

Taxation is legalised theft, and should be as low as feasibly possible.
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Re: Politics in General

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Rhys Benjamin wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 1:03 pm I believe in a hand up, not a hand out.
What do you mean by this (in particular, what do you mean by a hand up)? Genuinely interested.
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Re: Politics in General

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Thomas Cappleman wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 1:13 pm
Rhys Benjamin wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 1:03 pm I believe in a hand up, not a hand out.
What do you mean by this (in particular, what do you mean by a hand up)? Genuinely interested.
He means that rich Tories shouldn't let their children inherit their millions (which would be a hand out) but instead give them a hand up by educating them to become useful members of society.
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Re: Politics in General

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Rhys Benjamin wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 1:03 pm
Taxation is legalised theft, and should be as low as feasibly possible.
I don't see this at all. For a start a lot of wealth has just been inherited down the generations, and there might be some serious questions about where some of it came from originally.

Plus essentially money is just tokens for the world's resources, resources that don't intrinsically belong to anyone. And the tokens don't have any intrinsic value - they're just given worth by the role they play in the system backed up by the government. So from that perspective I don't see taxation as theft.

I mean, it's still preferable to the government just deciding that the pound is now worthless, which would result in a far greater loss of wealth but without any actual "theft".
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Re: Politics in General

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Legalised theft is an oxymoron.
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Re: Politics in General

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Take out the references to skin colour from the working class pupils story and it is both very true and very unsurprising.

(^That works for lots of other stories by the way! :-))
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Re: Politics in General

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Thomas Cappleman wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 1:13 pm
Rhys Benjamin wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 1:03 pm I believe in a hand up, not a hand out.
What do you mean by this (in particular, what do you mean by a hand up)? Genuinely interested.
Social security programs should not just be quote-unquote "free money", they should be helping people back into financial self-sustainability.

Therefore, simply doing a Robin Hood that Mark seemingly advocates for is not the right way to solve inequalities.
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Re: Politics in General

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The BBC have done an article on white privilege if you're interested.
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Re: Politics in General

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Rhys Benjamin wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 8:28 pm
Thomas Cappleman wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 1:13 pm
Rhys Benjamin wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 1:03 pm I believe in a hand up, not a hand out.
What do you mean by this (in particular, what do you mean by a hand up)? Genuinely interested.
Social security programs should not just be quote-unquote "free money", they should be helping people back into financial self-sustainability.
What specifically would you do to achieve this? Mark mentioned education and social programs, not just redistributing money, but you said those don't work. So interested what you suggest instead, especially that won't rely on money from taxation.
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Re: Politics in General

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Rhys Benjamin wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 8:28 pm
Thomas Cappleman wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 1:13 pm
Rhys Benjamin wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 1:03 pm I believe in a hand up, not a hand out.
What do you mean by this (in particular, what do you mean by a hand up)? Genuinely interested.
Social security programs should not just be quote-unquote "free money", they should be helping people back into financial self-sustainability.

Therefore, simply doing a Robin Hood that Mark seemingly advocates for is not the right way to solve inequalities.
I would have thought you'd be pro Robin Hood? Wasn't he anti tax and stole the tax money people were forced to pay?

Anyway. I agree, social security programs should be helping people back into self sustainability. I actually work for one. I help administer a scheme which provides the long term unemployed with a part time job, usually work within a nonprofit organisation which benefits disadvantaged members of society (in my case, our staff work for the NCBI, a blindness charity), as well as offering training opportunities to up-skill and we help our participants to eventually find full time employment.

I'm not for "free money". I'm for redistribution of wealth to pay for a society which benefits the most amount of people.

I'm for a progressive tax system for all who benefit from living and operating in a society, so everyone can pay their fair share for the costs of said society. That includes for education, a health service, municipal utilities such as providing water, sanitation and sewerage, fire brigades, the post office, policing and defense (admittedly some of those budgets could be cut or redistributed), infrastructure etc. I am for subsidising green energy to reduce carbon emissions, you know, to keep us alive, as well as for funding arts programs and sports programs that keep us all entertained and make life worth being alive for in the first place. And lots more besides. It's not about free stuff. It's about providing the most amount of good for the most amount of people.

The profit motive uber alles dynamic of laissez-faire capitalism cannot do this as it is forced to ignore externalities and is ultimately unsustainable, causes massive harm and inequality and disrupts the functioning of the system that even pro laissez-faire corporations or individuals have to operate in. Thatcher was wrong. Society does exist.

You say taxes should be as low as possible. Any idea how low that should be? What do you think should be the minimum funded by taxation?
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Re: Politics in General

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Mark James wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 10:18 pm
Rhys Benjamin wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 8:28 pm
Thomas Cappleman wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 1:13 pm

What do you mean by this (in particular, what do you mean by a hand up)? Genuinely interested.
Social security programs should not just be quote-unquote "free money", they should be helping people back into financial self-sustainability.

Therefore, simply doing a Robin Hood that Mark seemingly advocates for is not the right way to solve inequalities.
I would have thought you'd be pro Robin Hood? Wasn't he anti tax and stole the tax money people were forced to pay?

Anyway. I agree, social security programs should be helping people back into self sustainability. I actually work for one. I help administer a scheme which provides the long term unemployed with a part time job, usually work within a nonprofit organisation which benefits disadvantaged members of society (in my case, our staff work for the NCBI, a blindness charity), as well as offering training opportunities to up-skill and we help our participants to eventually find full time employment.

I'm not for "free money". I'm for redistribution of wealth to pay for a society which benefits the most amount of people.

I'm for a progressive tax system for all who benefit from living and operating in a society, so everyone can pay their fair share for the costs of said society. That includes for education, a health service, municipal utilities such as providing water, sanitation and sewerage, fire brigades, the post office, policing and defense (admittedly some of those budgets could be cut or redistributed), infrastructure etc. I am for subsidising green energy to reduce carbon emissions, you know, to keep us alive, as well as for funding arts programs and sports programs that keep us all entertained and make life worth being alive for in the first place. And lots more besides. It's not about free stuff. It's about providing the most amount of good for the most amount of people.

The profit motive uber alles dynamic of laissez-faire capitalism cannot do this as it is forced to ignore externalities and is ultimately unsustainable, causes massive harm and inequality and disrupts the functioning of the system that even pro laissez-faire corporations or individuals have to operate in. Thatcher was wrong. Society does exist.

You say taxes should be as low as possible. Any idea how low that should be? What do you think should be the minimum funded by taxation?
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Re: Politics in General

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The context of “there is no such thing as society” is often overlooked and misused. What Thatcher meant is taking personal responsibility for our own problems, not saying “I have a problem, and the government should do something about it”. Covid has proven her right: ideally, we, on an individual level, would manage the risks and make our own decisions about what we felt was safe and what was not; people would have started social distancing and staying at home without the need for formal legislation.

I have always agreed with Thatcher on this: it is better to have all levels of income better off at the trade-off of inequality than it is to have an equally poor country. “Redistribution” is a false concept: you are actively talking about making rich people poorer, and it would often seem that making the rich poorer, and not making the poor richer, is what socialists care about. And there’s no guarantee that the poor will get any investment, or areas invested in will actually make a proper, financial, meaningful difference.

tl;dr - I care about making poor people richer regardless of inequality.
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Re: Politics in General

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Rhys Benjamin wrote: Sat Jun 26, 2021 9:18 am ideally, we, on an individual level, would manage the risks and make our own decisions about what we felt was safe and what was not; people would have started social distancing and staying at home without the need for formal legislation.
Well there was so much nonsense you just spouted there it's hard to know where to begin but I'll start with the above.

Obviously that would be ideally what happens but it doesn't does it? Like, ideally we wouldn't need speed limits or even traffic lights. We wouldn't need any laws if people just acted responsibly.

But they don't, so we do.

And in fact sometimes it's not even that they are irresponsible, it's precisely because they needed to act in their own individual self interest that they possibly had to continue to go to work when they should have be staying at home and not putting themselves or others at risk of exposure to the virus.

Do you think people weren't following lockdown rules in a teenage rebellious way? They won't do it because the government told them to, whereas if it had just been a suggestion they would have?

Brazil has no government enforced lockdown and has had one of the most disastrous covid outcomes. The UK instituted a lockdown late and also has one of the worst outcomes. Countries that locked down hard and fast with what you would probably call draconian or authoritarian restrictions, came out of lockdown quicker, restoring civil liberties and ultimately doing less damage to their ecomony.

This Randian concept that everyone acting in their own self interest benefits everyone is a myth that has been debunked simply by looking at the world around you.
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Mark James wrote: Sat Jun 26, 2021 10:58 am

it's precisely because they needed to act in their own individual self interest that they possibly had to continue to go to work.

Certainly sums up Matt Hancock, considering his self-interest at work. I presume Boris Johnson has let him off because one extramarital affair is rookie numbers to him.
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Re: Politics in General

Post by Gavin Chipper »

I love how people are doing this "What does Keir Starmer stand for?" thing. First and foremost, I want to know what our Prime Minister Boris Johnson stands for.
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Post by Gavin Chipper »

By the way, does anyone remember when George W Bush was president he was pretty much universally seen as some sort of joke and a really bad president? Well, Donald Trump must have raised the bar pretty significantly, because I don't recall a single comparison when he was in office.
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Re: Politics in General

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I don’t think you’re grasping the concept of a necessary evil here, Mark. Ideally, you wouldn’t need any public services as fires, ill health, crime wouldn’t exist.

I’m not an anarachist.

My point is that at what point do you consider lockdown to be viable and necessary? For me, it is a weapon of last resort and its ONLY justification is the health service being unable to cope. If we had a health service that actually, you know, worked, then I wouldn’t have been in favour of any of the lockdowns.

In his select committee appearance, Cummings pointed out that activity levels dropped in the week before lockdown anyway as people were starting to stay at home of their own volition. The question here is simple - irrespective of the health service’s capacity, would people have stayed home without the statutory instruments? In my view, they would have done in the first wave.
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Re: Politics in General

Post by Mark James »

Rhys Benjamin wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 3:46 pm I don’t think you’re grasping the concept of a necessary evil here, Mark. Ideally, you wouldn’t need any public services as fires, ill health, crime wouldn’t exist.
Yes. That was my point exactly. You were the one who said "ideally, we, on an individual level, would manage the risks and make our own decisions about what we felt was safe" and I was pointing out that we don't live in that ideal world so we needed the restrictions.
Rhys Benjamin wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 3:46 pm I’m not an anarachist.
I agree. It's a shame as it would be better if you were. You're more of an anarcho-capitalist, or at least you seem to share many of their ridiculous views.
Rhys Benjamin wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 3:46 pm My point is that at what point do you consider lockdown to be viable and necessary? For me, it is a weapon of last resort and its ONLY justification is the health service being unable to cope. If we had a health service that actually, you know, worked, then I wouldn’t have been in favour of any of the lockdowns.
What do mean by worked? You can have the best working health service but if it gets an unexpected influx of lots of people requiring the use of the service at the same then it gets overwhelmed. You institute a lockdown to prevent the spread of the virus so it doesn't get overwhelmed. What would be an example of a well run health service that wouldn’t have required a lockdown?
Rhys Benjamin wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 3:46 pm In his select committee appearance, Cummings pointed out that activity levels dropped in the week before lockdown anyway as people were starting to stay at home of their own volition. The question here is simple - irrespective of the health service’s capacity, would people have stayed home without the statutory instruments? In my view, they would have done in the first wave.
Then you're an even bigger idiot than I thought. We know that enough people didn't stay at home or follow social distancing rules (you know people like Dominic Cummings).

The only way your argument makes sense is if you think they didn't only because they were behaving in that teenage rebellious way of refusing to follow the rules simply because they were rules rather than just suggestions.
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Re: Politics in General

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I don’t think the ad hominem merits a response, really.
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Re: Politics in General

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Rhys Benjamin wrote: Tue Jul 13, 2021 9:29 am I don’t think the ad hominem merits a response, really.
Insults are not ad hominems. I had arguments to go along with the insults.
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Re: Politics in General

Post by Marc Meakin »

Why tax salt and sugar.
Just subsidise healthy food for the poor
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Re: Politics in General

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You don't even need to do that.

40p will get you 1kg of carrots at Tesco.
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Re: Politics in General

Post by Callum Todd »

Marc Meakin wrote: Thu Jul 15, 2021 12:05 pm Why tax salt and sugar.
Just subsidise healthy food for the poor
Taxing bad shit works. [1] [2] [3]
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Re: Politics in General

Post by Noel Mc »

Rhys Benjamin wrote: Thu Jul 15, 2021 1:10 pm You don't even need to do that.

40p will get you 1kg of carrots at Tesco.

Alright there, Annunziata.

https://cookingonabootstrap.com/2020/07 ... ompassion/
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Re: Politics in General

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Apparently crime victims are barred from getting compensation if they have an unsepent conviction. The law came in in 2012, so under the Tories aided by the Lib Dems. I don't remember this coming up at the time, and I'm surprised it wasn't more widely reported. It's absolutely ridiculous and when I started reading the BBC article, I assumed it was some really old law that had managed to somehow continue to exist. But how did this ever become a thing without a massive backlash?
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Re: Politics in General

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Question Time, Afghanistan Special, in short:

James Cleverly: took so long to answer the questions that he kept being interrupted just when he was getting to the good bits.
Lisa Nandy: the government did everything wrong, but we're not saying what we'd do better.
Rory Stewart: Afghanistan was a success and US should never have left, like in South Korea.
Nelufar Hedayat: lots of problems, not many solutions but things were better with the troops in Afghanistan.
Mehdi Hasan: we should never have entered in the first place.
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Re: Politics in General

Post by JimBentley »

Rhys Benjamin wrote: Wed Aug 18, 2021 10:23 pmJames Cleverly: took so long to answer the questions that he kept being interrupted just when he was getting to the good bits.
Cleverly? Good bits? Fucking hell, you must have a low bar. His only use is to be wheeled out to defend whatever dumbfuck government position needs defending that day. And then when there's an inevitable U-turn, he'll come on and defend the new position, even if it's diametrically opposite to the one he was defending the day before. Nominative determinism in reverse with that fella.
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Re: Politics in General

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Interesting take on the Labour leadership from Ken Loach here.
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Re: Politics in General

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Gavin Chipper wrote: Sat Sep 25, 2021 2:49 pm Interesting take on the Labour leader ship from Ken Loach here.
He is very bitter for being kicked out the Labour Party.
Socialism isn't due for a comeback anytime soon.
For good or bad (probably bad) the country has moved on away from the far left, in fact it has been close to fifty years since the last truly socialist Labour Party came to power
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Re: Politics in General

Post by Gavin Chipper »

This petrol/diesel crisis is a good advert for electric cars.

RIP.

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Re: Politics in General

Post by Marc Meakin »

Gavin Chipper wrote: Wed Sep 29, 2021 10:49 am This petrol/diesel crisis is a good advert for electric cars.

RIP.

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Electric car driving vegan who is a Jehovahs Witness
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Re: Politics in General

Post by Rhys Benjamin »

The media and public managed to invent a shortage when there wasn't one by scaremongering. Well done BBC. Take a bow.

Anyone see Starmer's speech? Poundland Neil Kinnock. Doesn't have the strength to expel the Maomentum cranks who heckled him as Kinnock did.
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Re: Politics in General

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Or to bring the left with him like Blair did. He doesn't command enough support within the party, there'll remain a split until someone who can unite the party comes along, like Andy Burnham.
Starmer has been trying to impress the Tories rather than Labour members.
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Re: Politics in General

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Which, given he needs to win 2019 Tory voters, is not a bad thing.
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Re: Politics in General

Post by Paul Anderson »

Time will tell
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Re: Politics in General

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Apparently the Tory party conference is coming up. I thought that was happening on this week's Countdown?
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Re: Politics in General

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haha, yes but in Latin
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Re: Politics in General

Post by Mark James »

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 35308.html

"We have to do something about cancel culture. We can't have people being sacked for expressing themselves. In order to stop it we must sack people for expressing themselves."

Why is it that loudest entities to bemoan cancel culture always expose themselves in this way? Do they not see how they look like hypocritical morons?
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Re: Politics in General

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Well, unless you've been living under a rock, you'll have heard that the Conservative MP for Southend West David Amess has been stabbed to death. Second time in five years for an MP. Pretty bad.

MPs meeting their constituents in an informal manner at their surgeries is a good thing that we have, but stuff like this means that it's likely that greater security will be needed at all times and something will be lost. And what are the chances that James Cleverly is going to revisit his local parkrun?
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Re: Politics in General

Post by Fiona T »

Terrible terrible stuff.
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