Youtube comments of Cinderball (@cinderball1135).
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I think the real underlying message of Populism is, "You're either with us or against us. Fall in line, or get run over." If we can't say that at the outset, any subsequent explanation is going to fall short.
Populism is not just the idea that you want to enforce the "will of the people" (whatever we decide to believe that is) - but it's also achieving it by "any means necessary", whether lawful or not. Populism is about opposing the rule of law and effecting the removal of any potential obstacles to the leadership of the country. This is the common thread that runs through all types of populism, whether that's a Latin American-style socialist regime, or an Eastern European dictator, or a sub-Sahara African generalissimo, or a Pacific island junta.
Fascism is itself a strand of populism, but I think the talk struggled to articulate the relationship between the two movements. (I think the easiest way to explain it is that Fascism is one branch on the tree of Populist thinking. Fascism is the type that makes more aggressive use of the military, and which amalgamates the power of the executive with the military branch.) But I think any video which tries to explain these topics too generally or broadly is going to fail to articulate exactly what the problems are with these movements.
I really want to underscore this - Populism is dangerous. It's appealing, but it's a poisoned chalice. It feels great to free yourself of the need to show empathy for marginalised groups - to feel like you are somehow the real victim. You then get the head-rush of tearing down big-named people that you've never quite liked, but you can't prove did anything wrong. But what you fail to comprehend in that moment, is that the institutions and people you've destroyed along the way were the ones protecting you from the leadership you empowered. Sooner or later, you too will be taken down because in the final analysis, everyone is part of some minority, whether that's by age, race, culture or gender.
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I have two questions for Anna:
1 - What do you want to happen?
2 - Who do you think is upset?
Because I'm pretty sure that the only people who are upset are her and her Dad. But she can't say that, so she insists that she's speaking on behalf of other people.
And what she wants to happen is either that these "asylum seekers" (who sound more like they're happily and productively settled in the area, having started to make their own way in this country, paying for their own keep) is that they get booted out, or that they have their cars taken from them. (Which, in all likelihood, they paid for themselves).
When she says that they have phones and cars, well, how else are they expected to be able to get to work? If you take these things away, they'll be costing the state even more, meaning there's even less left over for her Dad. Her logic falls apart if you follow it through, and I suspect that on some level she knows this.
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Here in Britain, we have a similar situation. A law was passed requiring the Prime Minister to sign a letter requesting an extension to our Brexit negotiating period. The Prime Minister and his aides have repeatedly telegraphed their intention not to send that letter - or to immediately follow it up with a letter countermanding the first one. This would be illegal, but it's unclear what the consequences would be, and seemingly, we have a lawless government that is prepared to find out the hard way.
We're in a dire situation, and the parallels between Britain and America continue to pile up. Here in Britain, it's expected that the Brexit saga is going to be going right back to the Supreme Court, where the government has already suffered a crushing defeat after attempting to illegally prorogue (suspend) Parliament. I expect that Trump's fate will long continue to mirror that of Johnson, so hey, if you ever get tired of the viewing coming from your side of the Pond, just flip over to UK News, and watch pretty much the same events play out in a completely different way.
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"What does Fauci have that I don't?"
"Intelligence, good looks, a voice that doesn't curdle milk, a wife who loves him, a family that can stand him, a bank balance that doesn't require fraudulent accounting to look good, honesty, integrity, a vocabulary exceeding two thousand words, taste, style, Hollywood actors who would like to play him on TV, invitations from major league baseball teams, a decent head of hair, the ability to dress without using an entire can of spray tan, a medical license, a genuine degree with grades that he earned himself, a Twitter account that doesn't have to be flagged for hate speech and misinformation, friends that don't need to be forced to sign an NDA, a winning personality, a nice smile, a functioning moral compass, a positive approval rating, a body that is not clinically obese, regularly proportioned hands and a functioning you-know-what... oh, and he's not going to be charged with a litany of felony offences in 2021, so that's something."
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[Mild rant!]
I'm afraid I find it difficult to take people seriously when they dismiss Labour's defeat as being solely because they were "too left wing". It's grossly simplistic, and it glosses over the purpose of having multiple parties in the election. Why bother having two different parties at all, if both of them are vaguely centrist / right wing, and both broadly echo each other's policy positions?
And what's this about Boris Johnson's government somehow being "moderate"? It's not. The only way you can present Johnson as a moderate is by ignoring 90% of what he says and does, and cherrypicking the bits you want to hear. The reality is that breaking off our ties with the EU without a deal is an incredibly extreme position, and one that even Nigel Flipping Farage wouldn't dare stand on, during the 2016 referendum campaign!
I think right-wingers like him only make sense, if your memory and understanding of politics doesn't stretch back to the days before 2016. People like me who studied politics before Brexit was a glimmer in the mingy milkman's eye, will recognise a No-Deal scenario as a sudden and extreme divergence away from a course that we plotted nearly 50 years ago. There is nothing moderate about that.
And that's before we mention the fact that for no readily apparent reason, the Conservatives have decided to go after child refugees' rights and protections. Like I say, no readily apparent reason - it's not as though they promised to do this in their manifesto, and literally nobody asked them to do this. They just seem to have plucked this idea out of thin air, and included it in their white paper, without the remotest consideration for the harm it might do. This is not what a Moderate would do.
But hey, I suppose the purpose of panels like this is to get us discussing politics and engaging with other people's points of view, so mission accomplished. It's just a shame that people like Ollie are now considered part of the mainstream, instead of the right-wing kooks they really are.
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A friendly reminder to some peculiarly angry commenters on this video: Channel 4 reports the news - it doesn't make the news.
If you're interested, I'll provide a broad overview of the problem below - please keep your replies civil:
It just so happens that we live on a planet with limited resources. I'm going to keep it simple, but the two resources which matter in this case are arable land and CO2 absorption. If you emit more CO2 faster than plants can absorb it, then that excess gas remains in the atmosphere, building up over time. Elementary stuff, I know, but not everybody's as clever as you, smartypants.
The purpose of farming is to produce calories for human consumption. Again for the sake of simplicity, I'm going to just boil it down to two broad ways we can obtain calories - meat and vegetables. Using the same amount of land and allowing the same amount of carbon emissions, vegetable farming wins every single time. When you want to produce meat calories (by raising animals) you actually have to create vegetable calories first and then feed them to your livestock. At a conservative estimate, when you farm animals, 90% of the calories produced by the system are straight-up wasted this way.
Remember, the amount of arable land in the system is a fixed quantity. So once we reach a certain population count, the land simply cannot support a growing population that relies on meat. If we swap over to vegetable production, then we can increase the carrying capacity almost ten times over.
In fact, because of the cavernous difference in efficiencies, it would be very possible for people to continue eating meat in reasonable quantities well into the future, without cutting the population at all, and potentially leaving quite a bit of arable land to spare. However, there will be a tradeoff. Either we exceed the carrying capacity of the Earth, or we cut our present meat consumption down.
Notice how I explained this without once adopting a political viewpoint. That is what Channel 4 has also done. Raging against vegans isn't going to change the cold, hard, mathematical realities of living on a planet with finite resources.
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You are an intelligent, articulate young person, and you give me hope that Russia can change. My one piece of advice for you is very simple: do what you must to stay alive, and keep the flame of hope burning. Reach out to people who are like-minded, create your own private spaces away from the watchful eye of the Kremlin. Watch out for each other and cover your tracks so that nobody investigating you will find anything solid. You need to stay alive.
Don't be ashamed of the darkness; when you live under an oppressive regime, the shadows are your friends. Don't be ashamed not to take a public stand. Martyring yourself, especially at such a young age, might be noble but it won't change what Russia has become. What the world needs is more people like you, who are quietly gathering in the shadows, waiting for the right moment. It's better to survive to fight later than to die early and achieve nothing. You need to stay alive.
When it comes to talking to the brainwashed and the ideological, start small. Don't confront them - don't say anything that could get you caught. Just ask innocent questions, to plant the seeds of doubt in their minds, to get them thinking. Don't tell them what to think, just let them start to doubt. Your work is to sow dissension and uncertainty among people who have never thought for themselves before. You don't need to teach them the truth - you just need them to doubt the lie. And above all, you need to stay alive.
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This video touches on an excellent point, and something which I've actually had experience with in moderating a small Minecraft community: excessive punishments tend to breed resentment, galvanise opposition, and lead to the community's collapse - or to the collapse of the admins' ability to punish wrongdoers. Something that I found very helpful when I came to moderate abuses was that I would use much weaker punishments than the other mods (fewer outright bans, and more constructive punishments like fines, or asking people to personally fix the damage they'd done). In fact, by doing this, I was able to incentivise good behaviour on the part of former miscreants. Quite a large proportion of our community, within two years of my modship, were people who'd previously have otherwise been banned.
In our politics, I think the idea of punishments that are proportional to the abuses committed would be a very powerful one. "Locking up" a politician for a white-collar crime seems excessive, but punishing campaigns that break finance rules by actually emptying their wallets of the misappropriated cash seems only too appropriate. And what if campaigns could have punitive taxes applied to them? Say, if a campaign breaks the rules, an electoral commission can demand a 10% cut of any money they spend on campaign ads - meaning that they'll have a negative modifier applied to any future spending, no matter how much they receive in donations (preventing them from simply overwhelming the fine with billionaires' donations).
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The political crisis we face is not to do with Brexit, or sovereignty, the EU or our international partners - it's domestic. For generations two parties have dominated British politics, while having policies which are almost exact deadringers for one another. These two parties have been free to get sloppy, to get detached, to stop caring what the people who voted for them actually wanted. They didn't need to worry whether their voters would hold them to account - because who were they going to vote for? The other lot? Even if they did lose an election, they were practically guaranteed to win the one after that, so they could just keep taking it in turns to bleed the country dry. And while Labour has been gobbling up the middle ground (leaving its old working class voters scrambling for somebody, ANYBODY to represent their interests) the Conservatives have been running to the hard right, for fear of getting outflanked by UKIP.
Meanwhile, the office of the Prime Minister has grown in seniority and has been vested with far more power than its historical counterparts. Now, we essentially have a President - but not one who is elected by the people, or even by Parliament, but instead is simply appointed by the largest party, according to the internal, usually rather opaque and baroque rules of that party, whichever it happens to be. The Prime Minster has absorbed responsibilities for making Britain's foreign policy, for setting the tone for the national debate, and deciding what Parliament will vote on and when. Frankly, when you see it laid out in front of you, it's more of a surprise that things didn't blow up spectacularly before now.
Brexit isn't actually a relevant issue AT ALL. The issue for generations has been that our "democratic" system is nothing of the kind. It's a hand-me-down from the 1800s, from a time when the mere idea that all people should have a vote and a say in the future of their country was highly controversial. We can't blame the EU for the screwiness of our system. That's on us. It's high time we fixed it. An end to the hegemony of the Labour and Conservative Parties, and the beginning of a new Democratic Britain, with proportional representation, ensuring that the governments of our future will actually speak with the mandate of the majority of voters - and will serve the interests of us *all*, not just their constituencies and their donors.
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I don't agree with your assertion in this video - I don't see Trump on a path to reelection - and it seems like this is one of your "devil's advocate" style of videos, where you take a controversial viewpoint in order to then deliver your actual point. I do think people need to realise that if they don't vote, Trump getting reelected is a serious possibility - but at the same time I dislike scare tactics. As somebody who's lived through the 2016 referendum here in the UK, let me tell you, even if your facts are accurate, scare tactics only serve to antagonise your supporters and whip up your opposition.
Here's a more viable strategy: I think Democrats (and by extension, more liberal or centrist platforms like your own) should focus on airing good policies and talking about the concrete steps we could collectively take to build a better future for America and the rest of the free world. Talk about legislative reform, abolition of the Electoral College, a more comprehensive welfare system, medicare for all, environmental protections, clampdowns on government corruption, disentanglement of the judiciary from political appointments, term limits for law enforcement officials as well as members of Congress - these are things which Trump supporters may actually cross the floor to accomplish, and are universal goods. They may well listen to policies like these and think "huh, that's a good idea, why doesn't my Republican representative want to implement these?" and boom - you have paved the way to change somebody's mind. That person will then maybe go out there and find the candidate who does promise to implement those policies (or at least is running on a platform more friendly to them).
Call me naive, but I think the one thing which can cut through the negativity and the vitriol of our politics right now is actually a little bit of positivity and genuine compassion. The power of heart is something Trump will never understand, harness or defeat - why else are Republicans apparently so afraid of AOC? :)
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@2020_Visi0n I would have moved on already, but you're now engaging me in a debate over tactics, haha, so take that for what it's worth. :P
I do think there is value in providing a once-and-done rebuttal to misinformation, because it sets the narrative down for neutral and undecided minds that might happen to wander into the comment section. It's best done early, and then not followed-up, because long debates don't really help persuade anyone.
In this instance, I didn't spend long debunking their argument, and instead laid out a clear and memorable case for people to understand how to think about climate change. Treat skeptics' comments as an opportunity to once again set out your pro-climate stall, and say your piece. Just spreading the word helps to familiarise people to it, and that helps work on undecideds and neutrals: the more often they see a given argument in a new place, the more likely they are to take it into serious consideration.
Also bear in mind that while YOU may be informed, many people are not. It's dangerous to assume that everyone CAN indeed see the holes in a faulty argument - as the whole reason that these are propagated in the first place, is that many people cannot see said holes. Having it spelled out may actually be helpful for those who sense that there might be something off about that comment, but can't put a name to why.
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From here in Britain, I'd like to say I've been predicting that Warren would win, for some considerable time now.
Why? Well, she may not excite her base like Bernie does - but she has broad appeal - crucially, she unites young and older voters. Moreover, she seems like a versatile political operator: She's as at home among hardscrabble working class men and women as she is among the élite. And ultimately, being a generalist is a good way to get elected. It allows you to pull wealthy donors while also appealing to voters.
Bernie's problem is that while he's very popular among those people who like him, he struggles to shake off the "crazy old man" archetype. I don't think it's a helpful stereotype, but I'm not the one who's going up against Donald "I Give All My Opponents Crass And Offensive Nicknames" Trump.
You may not love Warren - but she is at least a progressive, and my money is on her to win, even in front of Bernie (whom I do like too!)
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The problem underpinning Brexit is not, in my opinion, our relationship with Europe. I think the problem is two competing visions for the future of the country.
Brexit is just, and always has been, a cover story to obtain British people's consent to sign away their rights and their democracy, back to the elites (such as Johnson, Rees-Mogg and Farage), who for centuries have held power and are now seeing it nibbled away from all sides. Europe is a threat to their inherited right to power, because institutions like the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights) will always serve as a guardrail against the very reactionary policies they'd most like to implement (crackdowns on LGBTQ identities, attacks on reproductive rights, constriction of religious and political freedoms, closing the borders, implementing tougher and more punitive prison measures). Meanwhile, the people of this country are better educated than ever, and the young are more capable than ever of fiercely opposing them at the ballot box.
So now, here we are. On the cusp of finally being rid of the aristocracy, the British people are being offered a blank cheque, by the aristocracy. Sign here, they say, and we'll solve all your problems. Just give us all the power, and don't ask too many questions. All we need to do is take away the naughty policemen in Europe who might stop us from running away with the family silver.
For the people who continue to support Brexit, I doubt that the strides towards totalitarian government (attacks on the media, shutting down Parliament, branding opposition voices as "traitors") are disturbing. They downright applaud such brazen fascistic steps. In Britain, like in most other countries around the world it would seem, there's between 30-35% of the population who would (even if they are reluctant to admit it) rather like to be governed by a strongman or a dictator.
So, what'll it be? Will you sign on the dotted line, and let the Big Man take away all your problems.... and your freedoms? Or will you open your eyes, and oppose Brexit, oppose Trump, oppose the voices of fear and unreason, who would consign our planet and our freedoms to the dustbin of history?
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For all the right-wingers who say that "humbug" is not a bad word, I have a message for you:
I agree. Of course it's not. But as you delightfully, weirdly pedantic troll-folk of the internet well know, it's not the word that is itself that upsets people. It's the context in which that word is used.
You yourselves know, from your personal lives, exactly what I mean by this. You know how irritating it is to have somebody tell you "have a nice day!" after they just interrupted your nice day to cold-call you with insurance options you don't need. You know how "I love you" can be spat back at you ironically by a partner whose affections have already gone astray. You know how "yes Daddy", can actually mean "I'm going to pretend to hear you Daddy, but don't worry, I'm going to go right back to eating the fridge magnets when you're not looking Daddy."
Well, "humbug" is the same way. It is not that Boris Johnson said "humbug", but the context in which he said it, which is offensive.
An MP has been killed because of violent, militant rhetoric. And when Johnson's colleagues brought this up to him, he laughed it off with that word.
So continue to mock Lefties, if you must, Lord knows we find reasons to make ourselves look stupid from time to time, but don't imagine for a second that we don't know what you're doing. If you're one of those thin-skinned, two-bit bullies who are mocking people for their rightful fear of political murder, then you are the problem. Not the word humbug. Not Boris Johnson. YOU. It's revolting, and it has to stop.
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Scary as it might be, Coronavirus doesn't look like a civilisation-ender.
What it does do, I think, is highlight the challenges faced by a growing world population - especially as that population increasingly moves away from the countryside and into densely-packed cities. Our approaches to hygiene, travel and even holidaymaking are likely to change as a result of Covid-19. For one thing, I wonder if this might be the next nail in the coffin for the cruise-ship-holiday industry. These ships have never been a sustainable way to provide holidays, serving as nothing more than factories for pollution, and hothouses for the spread of disease.
I also speculate that our fashion may change quite drastically over the coming years. Masks will go from being a novelty, to being an unwelcome intrusion, to being a normal fact of life, again, especially in those densely-packed cities. Wearing gloves may once again become the norm, and shaking hands may become passé - even frowned upon! - a gesture to be reserved only for the most honoured and esteemed of business partners.
It also highlights the need for better public information services - where there are ads for fake products online, and scam treatments for the disease, there should be bulletins from credible public health authorities, advisories as to which areas we should avoid. There should be a campaign to raise public awareness of the need to protect the vulnerable and the elderly, by getting our vaccines (instead of freeloading off other people's herd immunity), and public health classes provided, as standard, in every school.
Finally, we need to start funding the NHS properly again - we cannot have A&E departments operating on emergency footing year-round. If the NHS can't stay open when we aren't facing the teeth of a pandemic, how do we expect it to cope when the sick and dying start flooding in?
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Beware: this Brit is going on a rant:
Brexiteers are pretty awful to try and talk to. If you aren't spouting their slogans back at them within two minutes, they'll call you a traitor "and that's a fact". They believe the press are out to get them, that social media are hand-in-glove with the government, and that Nigel Farage - who for his entire life has been campaigning for godawful things like privatised medicine and a flat tax (which makes poor people pay as much as, or more than, bankers) - is somehow going to be their saviour from the "deceptive" and "dishonest" politicians of Westminster. All this, while ol' Nigel refuses to publish a manifesto before running an election campaign.
I know people who are going to be hurt the most by Brexit who have still voted for the Brexit Party in this last week's European Parliamentary Elections. They depend heavily on benefits and welfare - the exact things that Nigel will be going after with a chainsaw. The worst of it is that these people, in person, would never have expressed a prejudiced view in their lives - but they're so uninformed, so ignorant, and so frickin' gormless that they'll buy any political snakeoil that's sold to them. They don't know a con artist when they see one.
I mean, for crying out loud, his plan for writing a manifesto is literally "let the members decide what they want, and I'll promise to deliver it - that's democracy". Um, chumps. Nigel is telling you, to your faces, that he'll promise whatever you want, no matter how implausible, with no plan for how he'll accomplish it. You're talking about a guy who's flip-flopped on so many issues that he could walk into any beach-footwear shop in Britain and be mistaken for an employee. First he was for a deal, now he's suddenly a No-Deal, Crash-Out kind of guy. His stance on Brexit has always chased after the angriest, loudest voices, and he has no fixed values of his own. HOW CAN YOU NOT SEE THIS?!
Sigh. I know the answer to that. They've bought the line that the media are the enemy of the people, just like Trumpists have - and in one fell swoop, they are fortified against any possibility of learning the truth. They aren't capable of scrutinising their own side - politics is a football game to them, and they only care about scoring goals. They don't care that their lead striker is corrupt, or that their goalie is a fraudster. They don't care if they have Nazis running on their left flank, or Communists on their right. It's depressing. While they push my country to the brink of a civil war over a totally fabricated crisis, our climate collapses before our very eyes - but that's alright, I suppose. After all, as Nigel says, this Climate Change thing is a bunch of nonsense anyway. Just buy thicker soles for your wellies.
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From Britain: I feel your disappointment. Bernie was, unarguably, the best candidate for America.
The sad truth is, like in our country, we on the Left have got to get better at winning elections. This happened to us not so long ago, and I think it would be helpful for my fellow American Lefties to take some of these same lessons to heart:
- Stop getting so invested in individual, special candidates. Nobody's perfect, and they will often let you down.
- Build up movements, and rally around teams - don't get caught up in hero worship.
- Don't dismiss reporting and polls that tell you you're not winning. Use bad news to guide strategy - don't yell at it.
- If people in the Centre don't vote for us, we lose. We need to win their votes if we're going to achieve power.
Finally, and most importantly: be prepared to take second best. If you vote for a winning candidate, you will have their ear. If you vote for a losing candidate, you still don't get the man you wanted, and the actual winner is going to have no need to pay the blindest bit of attention to you. By definition, Trump will have won without you. Vote for Biden, even if you have to hold your nose for it. He will be, objectively, less harmful to you (and to vulnerable Americans in general) than Trump is. It's not about what you want - it's about the harm that you can prevent. A second Trump term would be a global disaster, make no mistake.
I know these words are hard to hear. These are hard times for Progressives everywhere. It's my hope that we here in Britain can blaze a trail for you to follow, with the recent election of Keir Starmer to lead our Labour Party. Stay strong, stay safe. <3
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I am going to make a prediction: if Brexit is not cancelled, it will devour the careers of one Prime Minister after another, at an accelerating pace. It will eat Leadsom first, then Gove, then Johnson, then Mordaunt, then Rees Mogg. One after another, they will ascend to primacy, they will draft their life's Magnum Opus, they will deliver it to the Commons and watch it get burnt to a cinder. Then they will be escorted out of Number 10, to be swiftly replaced by another, even more degenerate and incompetent chancer. Eventually, perhaps after five or six tries, a candidate for leadership will observe the suspiciously fresh pile of prime ministerial cadavers, piling up beside the door, and say "You know what, I don't think this job's for me, thanks".
There is no workable form of Brexit. The truly great thing for a Prime Minister to do would be to stand up in front of that podium, and address the nation with the words: "Britain - you have been scammed. Brexit was a lie sold to you by hucksters and careerists looking to make fast money at your expense, and at the expense of our democracy. I am going to the House, to put a bill to revoke Article 50, and then I am going to resign. God save us all."
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I feel like the whole abortion conflagration makes no sense.
Let's say I'm a Christian (which I actually was, at one point!) and I want abortions to end (which I actually do!)
-> Surely I can see that criminalising it doesn't work - enforcement won't catch everybody, and foetuses will be aborted. Bummer.
(Also, this fills the prison system with vulnerable women who have already often been traumatised by rapists. Man, this isn't looking good)
-> Okay, so instead, let's address the causes of abortion, and prevent people from ever getting unwanted pregnancies in the first place.
-> Provide comprehensive sex ed to kids in school, provide free contraception in the form of condoms, pills, implants, whatever.
-> Work to eradicate other underlying causes of teen pregnancy - the best contraception is education, so increase funding for that.
-> Work to alleviate the effects of poverty - child poverty is a huge predictor for the likelihood of teen pregnancy.
-> Close the gap between rich and poor, and nurture the growth of the middle class (the people most likely to adhere to the nuclear family model)
See, I'm a progressive, and I want the same thing that radical Christians want - I'd like abortions to be a thing of the past. It's simply that we're attacking the problem from completely different angles. They want to punish people who get abortions. I want to prevent the need from ever arising, through social and humanitarian reform. Is this not a platform that could ultimately unite us?
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I'd agree with you Maanze, except to my mind, Brexit was a vehicle designed from the bottom-up for the so-called "hijackers". It was a blank cheque which, if signed, would give completely free rein to any politician ever to do whatever they wanted, and claim their mandate from that vote. Crash out and lose access to the customs union? "Leave means leave." Declare martial law and suppress riots following a crash-out Brexit? "Will of the people." Swingeing cuts to the NHS? "It's all in pursuit of Brexit, and after all, the people voted for it."
All of this, assuming it did win. If it didn't, it would've been a boon to the careers of men like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, even Nigel Farage - an actual Brexit isn't particularly good for them, because inevitably they'll start upsetting people who don't like the outcome. But a hypothetical Brexit that they can agitate for whips up the kinds of voters that have been falling by the wayside for some time - in other words - racists and ultra-nationalists. Boris was looking to martial the votes of the BNP-loving crowd, while still keeping his "centrist" credentials intact. So in fact, had he lost, he'd have been in an even better position to go after the premiership. Winning was, if anything, a rather inconvenient upset that they themselves hadn't counted on.
That's why I voted Remain - not because I love the EU, but because I (rather presciently, if I may say so) anticipated exactly these kind of shenanigans.
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I suspect a female leader will just be ground to pulp by the right-wing media machine, just like Corbyn was. On principle, I think women should be able to lead a party - but practically speaking, they'll just be torn apart in this macho political climate. Just look at Jess Philips, Hillary Clinton, Diane Abbott, Elizabeth Warren - all of them turned into hate figures.
This needs to change, but until Labour has actually won an election, now just isn't the time. Somebody generic and safe like Starmer is Labour's best bet - somebody who will be able to credibly offer people an end to the chaos. Labour can "be the change" once they've won office. Until then, even if we find the rules of the game repulsive, it's time to focus on winning.
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The choice has always been deceptively simple: leave without a deal, crashout - or revoke Article 50. There simply is no in-between, no compromise that will please enough people.
Either you're a hypernationalist and think that the economic disruption is worth "restoring our sovereignty", or you're like everybody else who breathes air, drinks water and eats food, and realise that sticking two fingers up to your closest trading partners when you depend on them for your daily necessities is not a bright idea.
The vote in the House of Commons that almost got through, proposing to leave the European Union but remain within the Customs Union is a dead end, just like May's deal. It's the plan with the least flesh on its bones, and the least clarity about what it would actually mean in practical terms. It would please none of the Brexiters who wanted Brexit in the first place, since it leaves us firmly in the EU's sphere of influence, and it pleases none of us Remainers who want to continue to have a say in the future of Europe and how it is governed (and yes, I realise how ironic that is, given the sheer incompetence of our government, but there you go).
In short: revoke Article 50, or put it to a People's Vote (which amounts to the same thing).
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You can be assured of one thing, Theresa: you won't be the last Prime Minister to fall to the rampaging, all-devouring monster that is Brexit. Your successor will too, and probably their successor as well. Eventually, perhaps we'll get a Prime Minister who, noticing the suspiciously fresh pile of severed limbs by the door of Number 10, will decide to turn back. Perhaps by that point, they'll decide it's just easier to blame the Opposition than to try and follow through on a doomed policy.
It's a wild prediction to make, but I think it's not unreasonable to imagine that this time 12 months from now, we'll have had no fewer than five different Prime Ministers all try, and fail, to make Brexit happen. By that stage, we might all be thanking our lucky stars for revoking Article 50 - and not just hardcore Remainers like myself.
Should the Conservatives continue to pander to the far-right, they will forever find themselves outflanked, with the Brexit monster gnawing on their legs - because Nigel Farage and his Brexit party will always find some new, even more outlandish demand - and will then declare that anything less would be a "betrayal" of the "People" who have "spoken". Should the Conservatives try to forge a new compromise, their own (largely geriatric) supporters and activists will take them out and leave their ashes as burnt offerings to the Brexit monster - lest it come for them in the night.
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This isn't a particularly good take. The polling averages for Biden are much better than they were for Clinton. On average, Clinton was consistently within about 5 points of Trump - Biden has been polling well ahead of that. Sure, some outlier polls put her higher than Biden's current position, but there are equally strange outliers for the current electoral cycle. Even if you're looking at just ONE pollster, there's a good amount of variance on display, so it's better to take the aggregates from a large number of streams of data, as 538 does. There's a reason that reputable polling analysts and aggregators don't tend to come out with shock headlines like this.
While I appreciate your intentions David, your analysis of polling does not quite equal your analysis of other issues - you can find a poll that will prove nearly any point you want to make, and that goes for any candidate in any electoral cycle. All the same, still very much enjoy your videos and will continue to recommend them to others. I just think that when it comes to polling, you might be fighting upstream to argue that Trump is doing better than we think. The data just doesn't support that viewpoint.
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@ErikDayne You're sounding a lot like other committed leftists I know here in Britain. Those people, I'm sad to say, have run our Leftwing parties into the ground, and we face a desperate scramble to rebuild between now and the next election. Their unwillingness to compromise led to the installation of the furthest-right, most tyrannical government the UK has had in over a hundred years.
A word of advice: Politics is the art of the possible. If you want to change people's lives for the better, you are going to have to accept the prospect of shaking hands with people you don't 100% agree with, for the sake of getting things done. Sometimes you may have to compromise in the short term, because the alternative will be a much worse outcome for everyone.
Never surrender your objectives, and always keep an eye on what it is you want to achieve - but be under no illusions that it will be a long struggle to get there, and you will need to make allies, even among your former opponents. You're afraid of being used by centrists - I get that. But why not try thinking about it the other way around. Why don't you use the centrists, for a change? Be part of the coalition that puts a moderate in power - and then make sure to collect on the favour they owe you.
That's how you get shiz done, instead of expostulating ineffectually about it online. Enough chest-thumping, it's time to make a difference.
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With the greatest respect David, as somebody who very much enjoys the majority of what you put out, I think you're stepping a little too far towards the point of "taking contrarian positions for the sake of generating buzz", and I think that's a peril to the future of the show. I understand that what you're putting forward is a subtle argument about how, pragmatically, his apologising would be inconsistent with his business model, and on a selfish basis apologising cannot possibly help him with his audience. But I think maybe that misses the larger point: sometimes in life, morals should come before pragmatism. If we're prepared to sacrifice our decency or even our humanity in order to achieve a goal, is it any longer praiseworthy when we accomplish it? Tucker should apologise not because it's convenient *but because it's the right thing to do*.
Again, love the show most days, have the greatest respect for your analysis of American politics, but as I'm sure you'll be proud to know, we (the audience) are supporters, not cultists, and we will take to disagreeing with you on cases like this.
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And yes, before I'm deluged in angry replies, here's a more in-depth, nuanced and respectful summary of my views:
America seems unique in the world in that it has become almost religiously, dogmatically wedded to its guns - the more lethal the better. Other countries have guns too (Switzerland and Sweden for example) and they are even quite well-entrenched in those cultures - but Europeans have a different attitude towards their guns than Americans seem to. For example, in Switzerland, the people who own guns are almost exclusively reservists for the military, have been thoroughly trained, and own them as a part of their national service obligation. They don't own them with a view to personal defence.
There are two main driving factors in America that seem different than anywhere else in the world: you have an arms race afoot between local law enforcement and organised crime, and you have the NRA. Both are considerable problems, and require liberal solutions.
The arms race between criminals and police will only end when police stop acquiring bulk shipments of military-grade castoffs. There is absolutely no need for neighbourhood police forces to be armed and trained like Seal Team 6, and it leads to them attacking problems with wildly excessive use of force. And because the police are heavily armed goons, criminals feel obligated to match them. And, because there are both criminals and police running around armed to the teeth, homeowners (especially ethnic minorities) are driven to panic, and so they start buying the deadliest gear that they can get their hands on, to protect themselves against the first two groups. Meanwhile, the NRA works its butt off to aggressively market the most lethal weaponry on the market, and to mobilise its not-inconsiderable following against any steps that might deescalate this extremely profitable arms race.
After all, who wins in a game where everybody is heavily armed for no clear reason? Why, the people selling the guns, of course. And who does the NRA really work for? The people selling the guns. Sorry for the essay, but this is an important topic, and I know it's going to generate a lot of buzz.
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As somebody who started getting really interested in politics (as it was one of my studies) about 10 years ago, I quickly realised that, aside from their rhetoric, both the Labour and Conservative parties were essentially hewing to the same governmental doctrine. It struck me at the time, that this rendered the entire democratic system rather meaningless. Lo and behold, here we are now, and it seems like everybody's finally waking up to the reality, that whether you vote Red or Blue, you still get exactly the same loud-mouthed incompetent in Number 10.
For those who are liberal-minded, and want to see Britain progress into the future with social welfare and inclusion for everybody, then the Lib Dems and the Greens are our best hope. For those who think that closing the borders and preserving "cultural norms" are more important than prosperity (or even happiness) then I guess vote Brexit Party and try not to look too deeply into your comrades' backgrounds...
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Our Theresa,
Which Art in No 10,
Harrowed Be Thy Name,
Thy kingdom's glum,
Thy deal be done,
In England as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread ration,
And forgive us our restlessness,
As we forgive those stupid restless Remainers,
And lead us not into redemption,
But deliver us unto evil,
For the Kingdom, the power and the vainglory are yours,
Now until next Tuesday,
Amen.
@philipeaton3102
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As hinted at in the video, while deserts may get a lot of sun, they are often very remote from human settlements. There are a few challenges you'd have to overcome to make desert-based solar arrays work - for example, your maintenace crews would presumably have to travel much further to reach a broken or malfunctioning panel. Another potential problem would be due to the desert climate itself, which is extraordinarily unforgiving. Yet another challenge is that across our planet, many of the deserts that we can think of are spread across international borders, and they are often right at the centre of conflict zones. Political instability in those areas may make it risky to set up serious infrastructure. The final problem is the matter of bringing power FROM those deserts to populated areas. The further you are, the more challenging it is, and the more expensive cables you need to lay into the ground to transport it.
There are a lot of challenges involved in setting up large solar arrays - and as the video suggests, these are actually largely pre-solved if you install them alongside existing agricultural industries. Farms are typically sited quite close to human settlements, you have potential maintenance staff right there on-hand working on the farm, and arable fields present a much more suitable environment for solar panels, without excessively harsh weather to contend with (i.e. dust storms). Even if only 10% of each field is occupied by a solar panel, that's potentially a colossal surface area that we're giving over to solar generation, and the marvellous thing is that these farmers have discovered they can avoid direct competition between power generation and agriculture, by having the two functions coexist in the same space.
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It's a fairly endemic problem to the internet - people's need to react is greater than their ability to read, in many cases.
About 70% of my time spent writing messages to people on the internet on forums, I'm basically having to ask people and go back to read what I wrote in my first post, because they have abstracted some obscure and twisted meaning from my words that definitely is not a reflection of my actual position - or might be straight up irrelevant to the conversation at hand. The best strategy for dealing with it, I think, is to laugh at it. Don't get mad - that just gives them the idea that they're onto something. Literally just laugh in their faces and let them feel like the fools they are. It's the kind of reaction that will sting, but will stop it dead in its tracks.
Or, if you want to be the good guy in the conversation, just say what you have to say, leave, and don't read the replies.
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@rayray2613 A bioweapon isn't a poor man's nuke - it's a very rich man's suicide button. They would take trillions of dollars to develop, and would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to control. Think about it, which of these scenarios is more likely?
- A virus makes a leap from an animal host to a human one, in an unsanitary street market in China, where thousands of people have unprotected contact with raw meat.
- An impoverished nation magically develops a powerful bioweapon using its non-existent scientific capability, and then uses it to attack its nearest and largest ally.
If anybody was actually going to release a bioweapon, you know what they'd actually do? They'd break into the labs holding the last samples of the Smallpox virus, and they'd release that back into circulation. That would be how you did it. Far more cost-effective, and a virus that's proven to work.
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Referendums are not the same as votes in a general election. This is a widespread myth that the Brexiters have given more than enough oxygen to, but it needs to stop. Referenda are actually the least democratic way to vote.
Don't believe me? See how the mathematics shake out:
In a two-option, winner-takes-all referendum, only the first 50.001% of votes count. Provided they get one more vote than the other side, they win. Every vote cast after that point - whether it is cast for the winner or not - might as well be thrown in a big shredder. In a referendum where a million people vote, 499,999 are guaranteed not to be represented in any way whatsoever. This is what is called a "Democratic Deficit" - it's a number of people who actively participated in the system, in good faith, and got diddly squat for their trouble.
See, Democracy is supposed to be government by the people, with the people, for the people - not just some of the people. In a representative and proportionally-represented Democracy, almost every single vote will count towards a seat, meaning that every person does have somebody to speak for them. Even first past the post is generally a better representation of the population than a referendum.
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I think you've got it a little back to front, Cenk. Conservatism isn't about any kind of rationale - it's more about going off gut feeling. Abortion is a yucky topic - and because it's unpalatable, they want to exterminate it, put it out of people's minds - try to simplify the issue until it somehow doesn't exist any more.
Notice what anti-Abortion groups in Alabama have done with Family Planning centres that they've managed to shut down. What do they do? Do they content themselves with simply shutting down the facility? No. They establish their own quasi-reeducation centre, to try and persuade mothers of the virtues of having the baby. Does that actually fix the problem that rape victims and underage girls and women in general are going to seek out abortions? Of course not! But it puts it comfortably out of sight - sanitises the whole thing. Your pleasant Christian neighbour's wife can rest easy at night, because she's exiled this difficult, thorny topic so that she and her children might never again have to stumble across it. Same thing with the environment, same thing with child welfare, same thing with immigrants. They find all these subjects unpleasant to think about, so their policies and their approach to debate are the same - deliberate, reactionary exclusion. They'll do anything they can to stop the conversation. If that means undertaking radical policy, that's what they'll do. If it means rebranding their opposition and marking them out for harassment online, that's what they'll do. You don't have to acknowledge a problem in society or do anything for your neighbours in need if you block out the fact that they exist in the first place.
Perhaps this is why Conservatives are so angry all the time. Us on the left are constantly pointing out rather inconvenient, unacceptable truths that they'd really rather not have to deal with.
Rapes happen, and bad relationships happen - but they're yucky, so by taking away women's rights to seek abortions, this is the Conservative way of saying "out of sight, out of mind". They won't actually care if women seek out unsafe illegal abortions - so long as it's happening to brown people, or the poor - far away from their pleasantly-mowed lawn out the back. And so long as they can, they'll conjure up a fantasy world for their daughters to live in, so they'll never have to answer the hard questions.
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@jameswhiteley6843 Carl has openly joked about wanting to rape a specific Labour politician, and he's been part of a "comedy" panel where he laughed along to jokes about university students (female students) being acceptable targets for rape.
I'm not especially interested in your buzzwords or your catchphrases, I know them all by heart by now, believe me. I'm just curious as to what it is you actually think you believe. Every time I've had a conversation with somebody like you, to this point, and tried to dig into what specifically it is they want to happen in the world, they've either laughed it off as a joke, or they've refused to actually explain themselves in detail.
In this case, you haven't actually answered my question yet. Do you support censorship of your political opponents? Are you against all censorship, or is your beef with MSM and social media for shutting down a specific set of speakers that you happen to support?
If your movement really is going to grow into something relevant, these are the kind of questions you're going to have to find answers for, rather than deflecting.
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Sam Seder seems like a nice enough guy - a bit of a harmless loudmouth, if I'm honest. His heart is in the right place, his politics are on point, his analysis is correct - just a bit unfocused. If I were a politician or a pundit of any calibre, I would be delighted to go into a debate against him. If I played my cards right, I could get my ideas heard out - and in the worst case scenario, I could sit in my chair and act mature while Sam goofs off, and score points without trying.
If you can't manage even that, you're failing at politics, and should probably find a less strenuous subject. Looking at you, Jimmy.
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I actually just watched the film for the first time last night, and here's my take:
- It was not great. It was okay, but not great.
- Most of the real problems it has, were simply its grim inheritance from its two predecessors.
But my overall level of investment in Star Wars is fairly low, and to be quite honest, I have always found it difficult to take the franchise terribly seriously, like so many people have. This is not the first Trilogy that created weird anomalies in the canon, or which had poorly fleshed-out characters, or which had major gaping plot holes. It's not the first time that Star Wars has had cardboard-cutout villains, or a plot that ran on clichés and smooth graphics.
Star Wars is an okay franchise, but it is and has always been very simply a vehicle for selling merchandise. The films are, to all intents and purposes, a gigantic, feature-length ad for the toys, collectibles, miniatures, stamps, coasters, mugs and various other knick-knacks. It's there to push games, toys and silly fuzzy toys. Did I wince when Rey magically whipped out a healing ability from nowhere? Yes. But then, I felt the same way every time I encountered a new Force ability.
I think where the film particularly failed, is that it failed to follow through plots which had been clearly seeded in the first two films of this cycle - it failed to deliver on themes of ambiguity in the relationship between the Jedi and the Sith - and it failed to give its newcomer characters a real time in the sun. I was pining for Rose to get more action on the screen, and I missed seeing Tiny-Eyes-Alien-Grandma - she was a cute character concept, and deserved better than to be merely Leia's undertaker.
But ultimately, Star Wars is not a sacred franchise to me, and I think anybody who came to it for its epic lore... was... looking in the wrong place the whole time.
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@jameswhiteley6843 Oh I sincerely doubt that this is a C4 problem. I think YouTube is just playing up. Here is what I wrote:
"I am obviously concerned about fundamentalist Islam, but I don't think that the White Helmets are a valid target for that concern. From what I can tell, they're the nearest thing that Syria is going to get to having any "good guys". They're average joes who don't have any weapons or any political agenda - they're just operating bargain-bin ambulances to try and save lives.
The mere fact that the Russians and Assad want to brand them as terrorists doesn't make them so. After all, Russia, America, Assad, even the UK, everybody has an agenda that they're trying to pursue, so I'd rather look at the facts on the ground (such as we can get) and base my views off that. I've yet to see any evidence that the White Helmets are anything other than what they claim to be - humanitarians trying to save lives. Of course Assad doesn't like them - anybody who might conceivably save the life of a rebel soldier is automatically an enemy, according to his world view. He doesn't care about international law, or human rights, after all.
Assad's regime, make no mistake, is an oppressive, totalitarian nightmare, and Assad himself has no compunctions about murdering his own citizens to maintain control. He is far from being the lesser of many evils. The only reason he tolerates religious minorities is because faith is less important to him than absolute, unswerving loyalty to the Syrian state (and him as its leader).
If we want to agree on something, let's agree to be very suspicious of all the many, many outsiders - Americans, Russians, Iranians, Israelis, Turks, British and the rest - who have shipped arms and assistance into Syria, to try and put a finger on the scales of the conflict. Throwing more guns into a powder keg like Syria was never going to end well, and I think offering sponsorship to "moderate" Islamists is bound to end up biting us all in the collective behind. We should never have allowed Syria to become yet another international proxy war.
As for social lives, I hear you man, it's hard talking to lots of people. What I find is though, is that the pace at which I can meet new people rarely exceeds the pace at which existing contacts kind of drift away. It's constant effort, especially for somebody like me, but it's better than being shut indoors all day, every day. Which is a thing I have experienced."
And now I must say good night, and see you in the next one, haha
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@x-popone6817 I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're speaking from sincere belief, and not merely trolling:
Your facts are completely backwards. You've been given a narrative, which has been contorted over time to try and fit facts that constantly strive to disprove it. You cling onto the idea that Covid is not serious because nobody can apparently prove to you that it is. If people die, you hand-wave it as "preexisting conditions". If your own family get sick, "you got unlucky." If people point to climbing mortality rates, you'll either say it's not that high yet, or you'll say flu is worse, or you'll try to argue that most of those deaths don't count for some reason.
There's a much simpler explanation for what's happening: Covid19 is a serious illness, and it kills a lot of people. The risk to an individual might be low, but the risk to a population is much greater. Masks help to control the spread of the virus by ensuring people don't spread it on their spittle when they speak, shout or simply breathe out. Most of the world outside Asia did not appreciate this simple piece of equipment, and is now paying the price for it.
There is no conspiracy among the media classes to mislead you. The Democrats and the Chinese didn't collude to bring it to the US. It wasn't created in a lab, and it isn't going to go away because it's upsetting you to see the news reports.
This should be a nonpartisan issue - the reason it is partisan is because of news sources like the ones you've been drawing your information from. They have been deliberately turning this into a left-versus-right issue, to help Trump get reelected. People like me take no pleasure in watching anyone die a preventable death, and we would love nothing better than for Trump supporters to do the right thing and start wearing masks to protect one another.
You and people like you have more power than most of the rest of us to change teh course of this virus, because holding the opinions that you do, you speak the language of Trump supporters. Your word is worth a thousand people like me. So go out there, and spread the word: Covid is serious, and you can't afford to ignore it.
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And this would be the long answer:
At the time, in 2017, the fallout from Brexit was only just beginning to settle. Theresa May was still new, and so was Jeremy Corbyn. Their respective positions on the Brexit debate remained unclear, allowing both Remain and Leave voters to project their wishes onto their leadership. Both Labour and the Conservatives benefited from this, and they were able to fight the 2017 election along traditional lines. We should've known at the time that this wouldn't last, but many pundits predicted that the old-school bipartite system of government was beginning to reassert itself (perhaps overlooking the fact that the election had still yielded a hung parliament).
This would not last, however. Theresa May tried no fewer than three times to bring back a compromise from the EU - a deal which the EU promised it would sign if only she could steer it through Parliament. Unfortunately for her, there was no appetite for compromise, either among her party's backbenchers or among the people of the country. It soon became clear that her promises to negotiate a fair compromise that would satisfy everybody was nothing more than hot air and platitudes. She had promised the impossible, and inevitably, had failed to deliver it. And because Jeremy Corbyn was saying the same thing, promising the exact same kind of negotiations would take place under his premiership, he actually wound up getting tarred with the same brush. Why vote for an even less competent leader to try and do what the previous one had failed to?
Fundamentally, the myth that it would be possible to craft a "Soft Brexit", evaporated.
And now today we can finally see the new political terrain in front of us. The smoke has cleared. Both the Remain and Leave camps have hardened. Voters are now pretty clear on what they want - on both sides of the aisle. And a "middle ground" position, as offered by Jeremy Corbyn and the "moderate" Tories has been resoundingly rejected - and yet many of them continue to hew to that same line. The Liberal Democrats and the Brexit Party, by contrast, adopted hardline positions that appealed to the uncompromising single-issue voters. Thus, in 2019, they scooped up piles of votes from the Tories and from Labour.
At a stroke, the debate around Brexit has essentially deleted our entire country's political internet search history. We're starting out as if from scratch, with Internationalists and Liberals on one side, Nationalists and Authoritarians on the other. Neither the Labour party nor the Conservatives are suited to fighting an election on this kind of ground, and their efforts to pivot to more clearcut Brexit positions are likely to fall on deaf ears - their reserves of goodwill and trust among the electorate have been utterly spent. Meanwhile, the Liberals' history been reexamined. Many people who held them accountable for the worst excesses of the Coalition government are now prepared to lay the blame where, perhaps, it should have been placed all along - at the door of David Cameron and his Bullingdon cabinet. People are willing to forgive them, because right now, the Liberals offer Remainers the last best chance they have at a redo of the Referendum result, and to save the country from the madness that would be a crash-out exit.
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@jagerisbae6481 See, the problem you have is a fundamental misapprehension of how politics works. You want to vote once, and get the perfect candidate - so you can forget all about politics for 4 years.
It don't work that way.
The only way you're going to keep any politician honest - Bernie included - is with not only activating around a candidate, but remaining activated over a long term. If you want democracy to work properly, and to get a good government, you need to enroll with your party, and become an actual activist.
Donating to a candidate, or voting for them once in 4 years is not engaging in democracy. It's the absolute barest minimum.
If you vote for Biden, but remain an active member of the progressive community, agitating to get the attention of Congress, you will be much harder to ignore. If you remind Biden your vote put him in power, that will oblige him to take your demands into consideration.
Whereas if you withhold your vote, he won't have to thank you for anything, and you can count on him bulldozing over your progressive values.
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Yeah no. It may be satisfying to imagine retribution against inept politicians, closing the borders at this stage wouldn't have helped much.
Controlling the spread of a pandemic is about more than containing the virus - it's about containing the social damage inflicted by people going into panic, and markets collapsing. If we shut down all international travel and trade, yes, you probably could stop the spread of the virus - but you'd have a humanitarian crisis on your hands, as nations like ours (which import huge amounts of food) would abruptly face acute shortages.
Even if it were as simple as just closing the borders, how exactly would you "sue" politicians for that? Who would you sue, for starters? The Prime Minister? The Cabinet? The entire Parliament? And what would be your charge? Negligence? Do you think you could construct a compelling, bulletproof case for that? The burden of proof would be enormously high - and politicians have walked free from much greater, and much better-evidenced charges.
TL/DR: if you want real change, what we need is to elect better politicians - not empty slogans or empty threats.
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This was not a General Election however, and comparing the results in that way is unbelievably deceptive, in a number of different ways.
1) Euro elections turnout is always low compared to General Elections - and this one was no exception. This amplifies the power of Conservative voices, since Conservative voters (who are often older and retired) will be able to turn out, even when the rest of the population stays home.
2) Euro elections use a different electoral system, which makes it far safer to vote as your heart leads you - whereas in General Elections, tactical voting makes far more sense, since the two main parties have such secure control over most seats. Many Brexit Party voters would likely revert to the Tories were it a General Election, just to prevent Labour from getting in.
3) In the case of this specific election, it comes at a very opportune moment for Farage and his goons. The Brexit Party has only just been established, and has no real history or manifesto to be measured by. Enthusiasm for it is at an all-time high - and will likely never be any higher. Any future elections will leave them scrambling to hold onto the votes they already have, rather than adding to their pile.
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I've been saying this for years now. When Boris Johnson took over the Tory Party, what he did, essentially, was to lobotomise it. He removed anybody smart enough, strong enough or credible enough to challenge his position, through the very useful device of testing their loyalty to Brexit. All the clever Tory MPs were culled, right away - including Rory Stewart. What the Conservative party has left is the dregs, the leftovers, the off-cuts.
There's no "moderate" Tory Party there to pivot back to, now that the Brexiteer loons have lost the plot and lost the confidence of the electorate. There are no Rory Stewarts that can be elected PM or who can staff a credible and competent cabinet. Even if this hadn't happened, the Conservative party would likely be facing a very uphill challenge to pull things back and win the upcoming General Election, but without those people around, the only choice left to the Brexiteers is to double down on the culture wars, the divisiveness and the foul play, and hope like hell that the public suffers a collective seizure and reelects them in 2024.
And as a leftwinger myself, I can't thank them enough for imploding by themselves, because I'm not persuaded there's anything we could ever have done to them that will ever compare to the sheer destructive capacity of putting Boris Johnson in charge of their party.
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Just a heads-up Cenk, referring to the Stanford Prison Experiment that you discussed in this show - and I mean it as no disrespect, since your heart is in the right place, and cruelty is a serious problem in the US prison system - the Stanford experiment has been largely discredited due to serious flaws in its experimental methodology. The guards were actually briefed, right at the start of the experiment, to be as cruel as possible, for one thing. There were no control groups either, no comparisons drawn - just a scenario being acted out by students.
While we have few other examples of serious experimentation into this subject, the Stanford Prison Experiment is famous despite no longer being actively cited by real world psychologists and students - in a similar vein to how Doctor Andrew Wakefield created a spurious study which became famous almost overnight, and continues to be influential, despite being repeatedly and thoroughly discredited.
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@steveandjohn3259 Yes, we could send lots of people back to work, to slave at low-paying jobs in close contact with lots of customers and colleagues, most of whom won't be wearing any form of PPE, putting them at greater risk of contracting the virus.
Or we could do the humane thing, and offer them welfare, like a civilised country. But we can't have that, oh no no. Throw more another poor person on the fire, Jenkins!
Seriously, don't bother with this regurgitated, half-digested right-wing corporatist bullshit. I haven't got the patience for it tonight.
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You had me until you started going into the idea that the UK system is somehow worse than the US because occasionally it throws up a problem with getting a drug approved for use on the NHS.
As a kid, I grew up with asthma. Guess how much it cost my parents. If you guessed zero, you would be correct. For the overwhelming majority of people, it's a no-brainer. The NHS is simply a better way of doing things than relying on health insurance. Health insurance exists for one purpose - to facilitate price gouging. The implication you wrapped in there, about foreigners somehow being subsidised by American consumers, is frankly laughable - almost Trumpian in its provocativeness, and its lazy disregard for facts.
The fact of the matter is that yes, medical research is expensive - but if you think Big Pharma isn't making a killing by selling these drugs, you are gravely mistaken. In the UK, and in other countries, we are simply buying drugs at a price which is closer to cost. The companies still make a profit, but they're not robbing sick people blind. This is not up to your usual editorial standard, Vox, and I think you should reevaluate your position on this issue.
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I have read what you've written, and it's increasingly clear that you're following the same exact script that other faux-middle-grounders use.
By its nature, this is a women's prison. These people aren't in a position to fix the prison system as a whole. All they can do is set an example and make the lives of their inmates better, leading them to a lower rate of recidivism. That somewhere else, men have it worse, is neither here nor there - either as far as this prison is concerned, or from the perspective of these journalists at Channel 4.
The existence of segregated prisons means that inevitably, there are going to be differences in how the genders are treated, because perfect equality is impossible - but a policy which proves to work well in one context may eventually be applied in the other.
So if you really care about the wellbeing of men, or just people in general, you should support projects like this one, because its existence strongly improves the likelihood that one day a men's prison will go the same route. @thepolticalone961
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In my country, the UK, we have similarly prejudiced, self-entitled and officious old women who like to brandish whatever feeble power they've got, to intimidate anybody that's younger or weaker than them. The difference is that they don't have ready access to firearms.
I feel like the whole complexion of this situation was very different because of that stupid revolver she had in her back pocket, and the way she was walking around with it says to me, at any rate, that it's like a lunch lady's employment badge, or a gardener's hat - it's something she falls back on casually because she feels like it gives her some authority so she can get her own way. I don't think it ever occurred to this woman that what she was doing was issuing a lethal threat to an actual human being's life (and yes, this is where the racism part of the incident comes into play). The fact is that somebody's life can depend on something as tenuous as an old woman's unsteady trigger finger - and I ask again why anybody in their right mind would want to own such a damnable little machine - or indeed to live in a society where any Tom, Dick or Harry might be carrying.
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@Adele K I'm looking through the results and comparing the difference between 2017 and 2019, and it's really hard to say that there was actually that much of a swing away from Labour direct to the Conservatives. The Conservatives gained around 3000 votes (going from 18,000 to 21,000), but Labour lost 8000 (going from 24,000 down to just 16,000), which seems to underscore my point, not yours.
As I said originally, it's not that Labour voters converted en masse to the Tories - it's that Labour voters didn't turn up, or potentially voted for third parties (which amounts to the same thing).
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@Adele K I should clarify then, I don't really mean to suggest anything more complex than that it is wrong to think that 8000 Labour voters swapped to the Conservatives, which is the impression one would get from listening to the beginning of this report. I framed it as saying that a lot of Labour voters stayed home, because that's an alternative narrative I've also heard, but that's probably just as shaky, in all fairness.
If I were pressed, I'd just say that the results were messy, and I expect a combination of factors were responsible, rather than any one. Yes, I imagine Brexit was a key factor, but so too was the state of the leadership, and so too was the manifesto (which was populated with excellent policies, but too many for the average voter to have faith that it was serious).
Of course, without stopping and interviewing every single Bolsover voter, it would be hard to know for sure, but this is why I should try to keep my assertions fairly tight and limited. I hope that makes sense. :)
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@el loco
This is both true and false, and I think worthy of expanding upon. The Parliamentary system that we have now was essentially codified in the 1850s, and the role of the Prime Minister was frankly a codge. Back when England was a direct monarchy, the Prime Minister was simply the man (invariably a man, of course) who the King selected to form a government on his behalf - therefore, quite literally, he was the King's favourite minister. The Prime Minister didn't even have to be an elected representative - the King would often actually choose an aristocrat for the job, and if the man wasn't an aristocrat to start with, the King would simply elevate him to the Lords so he could legally serve as the head of government. Don't believe me? Go to Wikipedia and find out how many former Prime Ministers' titles begin with "Lord".
Over time, as the power of the Monarchy was ceded to Parliament, the role of Prime Minister has continuously expanded to fill the void. It was clearly expeditious that the Prime Minister should now be somebody drawn from among the majority party in the Commons, since, after all, without the consent of the majority, you couldn't pass a Budget, and that means you don't have a government.
In the 1990s, we here in the UK started to realise that we were seeing the slow death of cabinet government, where no longer were the discussions that affect the country taking place in Parliament, but instead within Cabinet - and then increasingly, simply within the confines of the kitchen at Number 10 (home of the Prime Minister). What we have now is effectively a President with maybe a little less executive authority than your Presidents over in the United States - but nonetheless an extraordinarily powerful office-holder with the ability to set the agenda for Parliament. Meanwhile, the House of Lords - the only alternative centre of power which might check the tyranny of the Commons - has seen its power gradually chipped away, while the elected politicians chip away at the legitimacy of the unelected Lords.
The daft thing is that at this stage, the only people who hold any credible amount of power are the ones we would consider least deserving of it. The people who have most consistently backed good policy are the ones with no power - such as the Lords. In fact, the kind of debate that goes on in the Lords outclasses the chest-thumping and grand-standing that you see streamed every week on Prime Minister's Question Time.
The British Parliamentary system is broken, and just one major reform bill isn't going to be enough to fix it. Merely introducing Proportional Representation at this point, wouldn't be enough. We need to create a more robust system of checks and balances, to prevent any one Prime Minister from ever again accruing so much power.
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@jameswhiteley6843 See, here we are going to have to differ. Hate speech is not determined by the recipient. That's a ludicrous proposition. By that token, I could call anything hate speech, and nobody on earth behaves that way.
Hate speech, clearly defined, is any speech which is likely to give rise to hatred towards any group or individual based on cultural, ethnic, religious, social or political lines.
That might be somewhat subjective, depending on what you consider "likely to give rise to hatred", but I would argue that joking about raping somebody is very likely to cause them harm, especially if I have hundreds of thousands of militant followers, who are likely to act on even my subtler suggestions.
What you have outlined here is possibly the most extremist possible interpretation of "freedom of speech", which amounts to "mob rule". You won't find many people who agree with that interpretation.
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@jameswhiteley6843 See, right from the start of your comment, you've got the whole concept back to front. When somebody commits a crime, seemingly your first question is "what race was the culprit?" - which I think is a rather loopy way to break down crime. Since when did the race of the perpetrator have anything to do with how they're treated? Nobody is above the law - especially not on grounds of race. I think it would be far more pertinent to ask "who was the victim?" and see if there's any correlations in the pattern of who gets targeted for abuse and threats.
And wouldn't you know it, but if you're a woman, a person of colour or from a socially deprived group, you are far more likely to be attacked or abused than a white man would be. But that's neither here nor there. Crimes are crimes, and should be punished. The fact that you don't like it that hate crimes are punishable by law doesn't change that law. The law is the law.
And please will you stop wittering on about the "dishonest media", some of us are trying to have a serious grown-up conversation here. If you can't stay on-topic, then get off this forum. For the record, the far-right doesn't have a monopoly on critique of the mainstream media. I have a few words of my own for them, but that is not the topic of this conversation.
Another thing which we are not talking about is "criticism". What I'm seeing from people like Karl Benjamin isn't criticism, it's just stoking hatred. Again, I see no possible way to justify the comment "I wouldn't even rape you".
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You have to hand it to these people - every time you think they've reached peak stupid, they go and break that record all over again.
But let's be real here - they didn't get this stupid on their own. This is the culmination of decades of careful, deliberate work. They have been drip-fed a slow, poisonous cocktain of propaganda from Fox News, OANN, right-wing talk radio and a glut of scam fake news sites on Facebook. They're just repeating the garbage they've been exposed to for decades, and it's addled their brains. Meanwhile, protests like this one are not organised at a grassroots-level - they are seeded from on high by billionaire oligarchs with massive social media teams and shell organisations, that plant ideas for these manufactured idiots to bring to harvest.
These people you see on the video are lost, and beyond redemption. To save our future, we must seek out and destroy the wellspring of hatred that they're drinking from.
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@craig194590 If you actually are a severe dyslexic, then that explains the spelling, and I apologise for any offence caused on that front. You understand of course that this is the internet, and there's no shortage of people making bold claims - such as your 210 IQ. I'm not going after you on a personal basis - it's just equal-opportunity pedantry on my part. Frankly, I don't care what your IQ is anyway, I'm only interested in the quality of your arguments.
And that's the issue. Your arguments seem a bit... insubstantial. You're quoting statistics that you literally made up off the top of your head. Now, as the holder of two doctorates, I'm sure you can tell me how that kind of practice would get graded on one of your academic papers, yes? I realise this is only a comment section, but you can't make things up and expect strangers on the internet to respect it like it's gospel truth.
Anyway, have a nice day. I don't feel like wasting any more of your time... or mine. <3
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alan peaco First of all, why would you want to, seeing what a disaster this go around has been? Second of all, if you're so afraid that you won't get a second chance, maybe that's because it just doesn't command majority support - in which case, in a democracy, it probably isn't going to happen.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly - the conversation isn't over just because this round is over. Democracy is about discussion, compromise, sounding people out, building support and working together to solve common problems. If you're looking for it to work like a sports game, one game only, winner takes all - sorry, you're going to be disappointed at some point.
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@Louis Stuhler It depends a lot on where you are, and it depends a lot on which particular group you're talking to. I can only speak for the two groups I'm part of - my local Constituency Labour Party, and then the local Young Labour Group.
The CLP is lovely - there's one or two harmless cranks who attend our meetings, but they're interesting to listen to nonetheless. (Ex trade-unionists, basically).
The Young Labour group has been absolutely riven with toxic behaviour. I was on the cusp of making a formal complaint about the bullying against one of our members, because it had reached such a point. Importantly, the people bullying my friend were all Corbyn diehards, while my friend was openly a Corbyn detractor. On the night of the 2019 election, he apparently mortally offended them, by commenting that he'd seen this coming a mile away.
The good news for us is that things are getting better. I was able to break through to a couple of the other senior members of the group, who realised that their behaviour was straight out of line - and we're beginning the slow, painful process of mediation. Things will get better, and the bullying is going to stop.
When it comes to dealing with Corbynites, the reason that they're so difficult is also something that you can actually exploit to break through to them: they're extremely highly principled people, who hate to compromise. If you can show them that their behaviour violates their own aspirations, they'll listen. The important thing is not to approach it as a "Starmer supporter", a "Moderate", or anybody else they can paint as a "Blairite". If they think that's your angle, they'll close their ranks against you.
But, like I say, rapprochement is possible. It's going to be a long process - only made the more painful by Corbyn's recent antics re. the antisemitism case. But things are slowly getting better.
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@stevengrice7502 I think you've touched on something which I've been bellowing from the rooftops for some time now - referendums are a terrible way to decide national policy. If you already know what outcome is likely, then they're a waste of time and resources. If you don't, then you're essentially flipping a coin, and locking yourself in to whatever result you get - knowing that it really is a matter of chance which way it goes.
As with the Brexit referendum, the implications are deep and far-reaching, and to this day, most people still don't understand the full ramifications of it. I think that matters of foreign policy, like this, are beyond most people's ability to get straight in their minds. I've studied this subject and I still find it overwhelming. When people are unable to apply reason, they fall back on raw emotion, and that's what we've seen hurled at us by the Brexit side of the debate, in spades.
On that basis, it doesn't seem like a safe and reliable way to decide national policy, and like I say, once you've had a referendum, you're locked in - even if the thing that people voted for turns out to be undeliverable, impractical, disastrous - and whether or not the vote was won fairly or whether it was won by fraud. On top of that, when the result was so close to begin with, the losing side will rightly feel that it's being discarded, and unrepresented.
Referendums are not democratic. They are the least democratic of all possible votes.
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Another major problem with this change is that it means that international viewers like me get absolutely deluged by American cable news videos. I'm a left-leaning Brit. Why in good gracious would I EVER want to see a video produced by Fox? And what's more, why should I have shows like that recommended to me, over channels like this one - which I am subscribed to? It's sheer madness, and I've actually spent time on my YouTube home page deliberately pressing buttons to ask them not to recommend mainstream media channels to me.
Most people won't do this, I know, but please let me urge you to do the same thing as I do: when you see recommendations from mainstream media outlets, find the settings button (shaped like three dots, one on top of the other), use that to open a little drop-down menu - ask YouTube not to recommend videos like this, and then, if you want to go the extra mile, select the option that will block out the channel as a whole. This will help you to curate the pages that YouTube offers you. It's the only way I've been able to keep my sanity while continuing to use this site.
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@petar4002 Nice try, troll.
Neither you nor the Russians care a bean about Nazis. If you did, you wouldn't have fully adopted their tactics, their methods, their goals. You wouldn't be comfortable with committing war crimes on an industrial scale, deporting Ukrainian men, women and children, executing prisoners, threatening nuclear power plants, blowing up civilian infrastructure, terror bombing populated areas.
The Ukrainian government is fighting for the freedom of its people from Russian imperialist barbarity. May they win, and may your soldiers quickly discover the value of surrender.
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So it doesn't actually sound as though he was ever really sure of his politics - and may still not be. When you've gone through serious trauma like that - I mean, the JWs are just this side of being an out-and-out cult - I'm not sure politics is the best medicine for anybody to be taking. It can feel cathartic to go on a rampage against "the man", but for those of us trying in good faith to make the world a better place, people like that are landmines to be avoided.
All of what I've seen of him and his fans reinforces this feeling I've had from the start - these are not people who are well-informed about politics, or about how the game is played, for the most part. They have valid critiques, on many occasions, and they're good at poking holes - but they're not so very good at offering a better alternative - and they don't seem to know the art of sensitivity - the importance of not offending everybody in the room for no good reason.
I mean, the first rule of politics, after all, is that you need more than 50% to put yourself over the top, and that often means breaking bread with your enemies, in order to get something done for the collective benefit of everybody. Calling them rude names and starting fights in comment sections isn't going to add much to the 30% pile you started with.
I appreciate the chance to learn a little bit about the inside of the other man's bubble though - it's not very often we can reach across the aisle and have a serious exchange of information, so for that much at least I'm grateful.
@demarcusblack1328
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@demarcusblack1328 You're using all the right terminology, but you seem to have a very hard-and-fast, very unilateral understanding of what you think "The Left" is like.
Leftists are a very, very broad church. There are extremists, sure, but they're fairly few and far between, and you seem unable to distinguish between Marxists, Social Democrats, Liberals and your garden variety nice guys who just like healthcare.
That's my fundamental point here. You seem to have pivoted to an extremely combative stance in our conversation just now, which I find rather strange. Are you 100% sure I'm the offended person here, or are you getting upset because I might possibly be touching a nerve?
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I'm rather disappointed the conversation has gone this way, though sadly unsurprised. I'm not especially interested in the kind of conversation where I try to say something, and you bounce it right back at me. ("No u!!!")
I would simply challenge you on your assertion that "all left-wing people are easily offended" and that "not giving a shit" about causing offence is a valid stance. It seems, at the end of the day, that you guys "don't give a shit" about an awful lot other than scoring points in debates. Your facts (like the idea that right-wingers don't have a social media bubble) don't pass muster, and it seems like a waste of time to fact-check them, because no matter how many garbage claims one debunks, another three or four will emerge to take their place - and that's assuming I can find any legitimate sources that you won't also try to disqualify.
If what you want to do is chalk up wins in amateur debates, then mission accomplished - it's just terribly easy to "win" by that metric, since all that's required is to assert that somebody's irrational, overemotional, illogical or what have you, and then immediately declare victory before they can respond. Roll on the up-votes and the "You go guy!" comments from your chums.
It's just that with that behaviour, no information has changed hands, no new agreements have been established. If you want people to take you seriously, stop launching accusations and name-calling (no matter how justified you might feel) - because right then and there, the discourse stops. Bear in mind that with a username like yours, the fact that I'm treating you with any respect at all is a kindness. If you want to keep receiving that kind of kindness, you'd better show some respect yourself.
All I can hope, in conclusion, is that you'll some day climb down from your high horse, and engage in civil conversations (like the one we'd had in our first couple of messages!) which may prove more fruitful than the mess you've accomplished towards the end.
@demarcusblack1328
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Your positions, one by one.
1) "I don't care about people getting offended, least of all me. I only care about what is correct, factual & true." - This is objectively false. Your "facts" throughout our conversations have been wild oversimplifications at best, fictitious at worst. You seem to straight-up make things up out of thin air (like the all leftists are easily offended children!) kind of guff we talked about earlier, and then mysteriously forgot about. Meanwhile, feelings are important, believe it or not. Should we therefore throw out all the science that people dislike and bow to anti-Vaxxers? Hell no. But if you want to engage in political discussions, we have to acknowledge that feelings and opinions carry real weight.
2) Your "refutation" of my point, that right-wingers have a problem with social media bubbles, was to provide me with three examples of social media bubbles that right-wingers might be found using.
3) On the subject of your username, I'm not here to defend older men having child brides (although applying modern ethics to historical figures is a bit of a rum game - by that standard, Abraham Lincoln would be chewed out for the racist that he was - even though by the standards of his time he was a great man) - but leaving all that aside, I am going to point out that the only possible reason to select that kind of name for your profile is because you want to advertise your edginess.
4) I already told you I'm done with this conversation. You are getting no further replies, as I smell a troll here, and I've given you more than enough nosh for one night. :)
@demarcusblack1328
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We actually have a similar problem with tabloid journalism here in the UK with papers like The Telegraph, The Sun and The Daily Mail.
They essentially work as mouthpieces to major political parties, and then more "respectable" broadsheet journalists are forced to take the story seriously, because it's become a legitimate controversy (and controversies sell papers). And, weirdly, it's once again a Conservative-leaning base of hacks that is producing this garbage in the first place. All I can think is that, on a fundamental level, Conservative and Nationalist readers are far less proficient when it comes to critical thinking - far less likely to call bullshit when a story is too convenient or too salacious to be true. So the story gets picked up and widely disseminated, and soon comes to suffocate all other conversation that's being had in the country. And the mere effect that "a lot of people are talking about" something can create the impression that there's a real story, that there's a kernel of truth. "It's true enough."
Big example: before the Referendum here in the UK - before the campaigns of Vote Leave and what have you - polls showed that people in the UK overwhelmingly did not care about the EU in either direction. Now, it's the biggest story of the day, and it's ended two Prime Ministers' careers, and is well on its way to ending the next Prime Minister's, before they've even taken the job. Why? Because millions of people bought into this inescapable narrative that "the people have spoken" and "democracy is being betrayed".
Immoderate tabloid journalism in the UK has led to a potential constitutional crisis - we are genuinely looking at the total breakdown of our party political system.
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British guy here. I just want to give my American brothers and sisters a word of advice. I like Bernie Sanders in many ways, and I like that he has opened up American politics to accepting left-wing ideas again. But in many ways, he reminds me of Jeremy Corbyn in my country - the leader of our left-wing party whom I actually supported right from the start of his run. They're both older guys, representing an older brand of politics. They're soft-spoken, but fairly fixed in their points of view. Their advisers can struggle to make headway with them, and they risk blundering into minor, easily publicised gaffes because of that. They're honest-to-God good men, and their hearts are in the right place.
But in my country, Jeremy Corbyn has come up against a brick wall of his own making. He's refused to lead the Opposition against our Government in a way that would inspire any confidence in his ability to lead as a Prime Minister. He just comes across as a man promoted beyond his level of competence - an idealist, who, in a position of power, is visibly uncomfortable, and would have been better off serving as the spiritual leader of a movement, rather than its temporal one. (Kudos to anybody who understands what I just said, haha) Labour is now on the rocks, and facing a drubbing at the next general election, because they won't take a firm stance on Brexit. Corbyn is simply too weak to hold a cabinet together and have it do as he says.
I think Bernie Sanders is the wrong person to lead the Progressive movement. I think he's the perfect person to be its spiritual guide and way-finder - but he is likely to fall foul of being too genteel, and not enough of a fighter. Presidents and Prime Ministers require one thing in order to govern effectively, and it's not competence, it's not goodwill - it's authority. Progressives need to choose a leader who commands immediate respect - who can quiet a room full of chattering voices, and make them listen. That might be Kamala Harris, but my money would be on someone like Elizabeth Warren. Either of these two would make a more fitting presidential choice than Sanders.
Again, I say this with all the love and admiration in the world. Some people are born to be generals - some people are born to be soldiers.
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I am on Facebook, albeit reluctantly. It's something I was never keen on in the first place, but friends insisted it was the best way to keep in touch with them. It has categorically failed at that job. Most of my Facebook friends are not people I could write to, and expect a response. And yet instead of politely forming a line they are there to remind me, every day, and it adds to the loneliness that being online made me feel through my teenage years.
What's more, the things I learn about people on Facebook are largely things that damaged my view of them as people - things I never really wanted to know about them - things which it would've done me no harm to have never learned about them. Do I really need to know that my Mum's old friend now supports UKIP? Do I need to hear my uncle expostulate on the normalcy of online pornography?
Now, I only use Facebook to communicate with one specific group of people, because the leader of that group insists on using Facebook as the principal way of distributing necessary information to us - but I don't read notifications, I don't view my news feed, I don't share, I don't like, I don't comment, I don't follow.
If I could persuade everybody to transition back over to pure email, I would, but I think people's attention spans are now so shortened that it would do little good. I had a friend over to visit at the beginning of the year, and she lives far away, on the other side of the country. Half the time she was here, out came the phone, checking Facebook messages (which were empty 75% of the time). Facebook and social media are a plague, memes are viruses, and I wish we could rekindle the dying arts of genuine conversation and quality study time.
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@stepheniebailey6760 You shouldn't speak of yourself that way, Stephanie!
On a slightly less flippant note, I think you need to understand respect is earned. You are not going to win my respect, or that of any other young person, with your frankly atrocious attitude.
For one thing, you (wrongly) assumed my gender online, with no basis whatever. For another, you've slung around accusations of rudeness, stereotyped an entire generation including your damn son. And yet you feel entitled to our fullest courtesy and deference? Yeah, screw you.
If you're really such a grown-up, start acting like one.
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@KIMJUNGEUNism No, by my logic, America, Canada and Mexico should form a preferential trade agreement. OH WAIT, THEY HAVE.
When it comes to trade, geographic proximity may not be the ultimate decider of who you ally with - but it's a pretty powerful incentive to get along. Like it or not, if two countries are situated at great distances from each other, the costs of trade are going to be much greater than if you were to trade with a closer neighbour.
As for the "Commonwealth Countries" - I think you're conflating those with Crown Dependencies and the like. And yes, I do think we should be thinking about returning them to their rightful owners - with their citizens' consent.
As for "Democracy must be delivered, deal or no deal" - well, please allow me to invite you to consider a slightly broader definition of the word 'Democracy'. Democracy is an ongoing process of debate, discussion and procedures - the referendum in 2016 was a snapshot - a moment in time - and people have moved on since then. The clear majority of people in this country now wants to remain in the EU. Do you think you, a member of the minority, ploughing ahead against their wishes is a particularly "Democratic" thing to do?
No. You only feign love of "Democracy" because it's a convenient posture for you to strike, right now, and it shuts up a fair proportion of polite democrats who lack the spine or the appetite to fight back. You don't care about democracy - you care about getting Brexit at any cost, to anybody. Nothing else apparently matters, because, underneath it all, at the very bottom of it, you're just angry, and you want to lash out at somebody.
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"Spying occurred" - a nice, vague, undefined, impossible-to-falsify catch-all bit of bullshittery right there.
They don't say it because they believe it to be true, or even that they can persuade YOU that it is true - it's just conversational chaff, thrown out to confuse you. They're running scared, you see. Trump knows that if we keep talking about his tax returns, the Mueller report, Russian meddling in the election, and his many, many illegal acts as President, it's going to hurt him. But he hasn't got a good answer for any of that, so he bullshits.
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Okay, I'm going to respond to both of these replies as best I can, in the hopes that this can be a productive, respectful conversation. I'm sorry my reply will be so long, but it's unavoidable, given the heavy subject matter, and I don't want to patronise you with anything less.
James, Bernie isn't a true socialist, and therefore doesn't merit the comparison with leaders like Stalin or Mao. Bernie is a democrat more than he is a socialist - a Social Democrat - somebody who aims to achieve social welfare by democratic means. Bernie advocates policies which are extremely mild, and is certainly not asking for a violent revolution, the overthrow of the political classes or a dictatorship of the proletariat.
Prez, nationalism is a very dark ideology that has been experimented with on a number of occasions in world history. If you were to seek out a nationalist party that doesn't have a black track record you would find a sum total of *none*. In my country, Britain, the "Nationalists" have always ended up being disbanded because of rampant antisemitism and street violence. In Germany, they exterminated millions of their own citizens. In Spain they launched a bloody civil war against "Communists", and labelled anybody who opposed them with that moniker. Nationalism tends to go hand in glove with nativism, autocratic drives and cults of personality - and these kinds of ideals often are used to justify attacking people within the boundaries of your country. Think of it this way: if I tell you I want to promote the welfare of the American people, but I lack the resources to do so, how can I resolve this problem? Easy. Reclassify some people as subhumans and exclude them from the utopia I'm building. Perhaps even invade another country and seize its resources to add to my pile. You'll say "but that's alarmist, nobody would do that!" Oh, but yes they very much did. I'm sorry. I myself have dabbled with the excuse you're making, and it just doesn't hold up to academic scrutiny.
Being an advocate for your country is not nationalism - it's patriotism - patriotism being the milder and more inclusive breed. Be a patriot - don't be a nationalist.
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@prez8434 Well, I am here trying to gently change your mind - I won't pretend I'm not, as that would be dishonest.
Ideas can be harmful. If I subtly, subliminally suggested you didn't take your medicines, or didn't cook your food, that would be empirically bad for you, if you were to follow through with it. And perhaps, if I worked you round over weeks and months of coercion, suggestion and bargaining, you might be more agreeable than you imagined at the start. So with an idea, carefully presented and reinforced over months, I could absolutely cause you physical harm.
Politics is the same way. Nationalism, more than any other idea in history, has trended towards violence, extremism and the jettisoning of entire populations of people in order to conserve limited resources for the "chosen few", rather than exploring avenues to increase the size of the pile (Capitalism) or sharing what we have more fairly (Socialism).
What's more, Nationalistic ideas gradually embed and normalise another, more aggressive concept - the idea that some people are worth more than others. That some lives aren't really worth preserving, and can be taken with impunity. This is an idea which might seem alien to you or me - but drink the kool aid of Nationalism, and it won't seem so far-fetched. The extermination of all outsiders seems very logical to somebody who views the world according to Darwinistic principles - that resources are scarce, and we must fight to ensure our fair share.
You see where I'm going with this? Nationalism, as a concept, is dangerous. If you ran history a thousand times over, without any knowledge of what went before, nationalist ideas would always trend towards violence, more so than any others.
Ultimately, if you strip the context provided by "real life" from the idea, then what you have is so sanitised and esoteric that it's not really worth having a conversation about. In the words of Winston Churchill, "no matter how beautifully constructed the plan, it behooves you to check in on how it's actually going once in a while" - (I paraphrase maybe a tiny bit).
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@prez8434 I think you're confusing multiple political concepts there, to justify what you believe Nationalism to be. Merely acknowledging the effectiveness of the Nation State as a system of governance doesn't mean you're a Nationalist. In fact, it would be far more accurate to characterise most Western countries as being under a Liberal umbrella.
Furthermore, you can't just pick and choose pieces from an ideological platform and discard the bad bits - and then claim back the moniker. If I could do that, then I could probably persuade you that you're actually a Marxist - all I'd have to do is discard the rabid antisemitism, the wild fascination with violent revolution and the attempt to scientifically classify the various stages of human development along a fixed, arbitrary trajectory.
If we're going to pick and choose only the bits we like about a philosophy, then we undermine what the terminology means. Nationalism is a package, self-consistent and whole. Either you take it in its entirety (which means you like having a strong military and an aggressive demeanour on the international stage, that you value foreigners' lives less than those of your countrymen), or you're not a Nationalist.
TL/DR: I don't believe you are a Nationalist, Prez. You're a moderate, and you would do well to seek out your ideological peers, rather than try to somehow claim back this tarnished label from the racists and the xenophobes.
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@prez8434 I'm saying that if you think you're going to somehow find the Nationalism that doesn't go horribly wrong, then you're very naive. It's an exclusionary ideology and it draws people who, for one reason or another, want to sideline minority groups from our society. You may not choose them, but the "friends" you will attract by outing yourself as a Nationalist are people like Klansmen, Skinheads and your general internet far-right trolls. They are the baggage that goes along with Nationalist ideas.
Do yourself a favour, don't try and pick your side yet. With all due respect, I don't think you're well enough informed, and that renders you vulnerable to radicalisation by people who will be far less honest and upfront about their positions than I have been. Before getting too deep into these discussions, I'd suggest reading some American Civil War history, and then working your way forwards from there. Education is your weapon. There's lots of material right here on YouTube that is highly educational and relatively unbiased - stuff like Crash Course, PBS Digital Studios, Extra History and the like.
Whatever you do, don't pick the most maligned ideology in Western History, and expect that you can somehow be the one to cleanse it. Down that path lies only shame and infamy.
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Here's the thing David - in America, you're not used to seeing Leftwingers truly represented in your politics. Here in Europe, where the spectrum is more balanced, you do see the occasional far-left party or individuals. And the funny thing about the Far Left is that they have quite a lot in common with the Far Right - their commitment to ideological purity against the moderates - their willingness to throw people's lives and wellbeing under the bus, in order to achieve some future utopia.
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None of this is actually new. What I think has caught you by surprise is that you have far left people in your audience, and up until this point, you didn't have the vocabulary or the context with which to categorise and understand them. When you're talking about "radical" progressives or "true" progressives, what you're really talking about are a cadre of people that moderate leftwingers in Europe have known to steer clear of, for decades. They are, by definition, people who have sworn off any form of negotiation or compromise, and are willing to see the world burn, so long as they get to sculpt its ashes. These people don't necessarily see their political opponents as fellow countrymen, who can be disagreed with, but ultimately coexisted with - to them, either you're a comrade or your an enemy.
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What does this mean for you? You are a moderate, and you mostly want to speak to an audience of the Centre-Left. It is not surprising to me at all, that once in a while, you find yourself under siege from the Far Left. This is just how they operate, and you're going to have to get used to dealing with them, as their numbers grow going into the future. The coming century will be a time of unbridled Leftwing politics, and actual Communists, Anarchists and revolutionaries are going to become a part of the American political landscape, in a way that they never have before. This will require new tactics to help contain and address them.
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You are embarking on the very first step of a long journey, in America, towards a more normal, healthy and diverse form of politics - and these "accelerationists" are simply the vanguard of that coming Spring for the left. They're not a particularly attractive bunch, but if you look at the trends rather than the people, I think we can look at it as a cause for optimism. In the future, there will still be cranks, but there might be a more even spread between the Left and Right wings of politics.
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@garywright8137 Wall of text alert! Apologies in advance:
I think the problem with Corbyn is that he's an honest man, sure, but he's been utterly toothless in opposing Johnson and his incompetent shower of buffoons.
More worryingly, his hands are far from clean, when it comes to the in-fighting going on within the Labour party - with his own close associates and allies stitching up New Labour hold-ons like Tom Watson, to try and get them out of a job. That kind of ideological purge has nasty resonance with other Socialist movements through history.
My biggest quarrel with Corbyn though, is his Brexit policy. To my mind, it's a no-brainer that Labour policies would be far easier to achieve from within the EU - since they're actually very closely aligned with EU standards. And yet it seems likely Corbyn would actually rather that we left?
This position is especially puzzling when you consider his pledge to select Labour policies democratically - and has then proceeded to completely stymie the Remainer majority within his own party.
I don't think Corbyn deserved to be demonised like he was prior to his election - if anything, it only poured petrol on the fire. But I think it is dangerously naive to see him as anything other than a liability for Labour, and by extension, the country, going forwards.
Labour is supposed to be our answer to Conservative incompetence, and yet under Corbyn, the possibility of a Labour government has never seemed more remote.
Sorry for the long post, but you seem like an articulate, respectful gentleman, and I feel like to write a shorter and pithier comment would be to invite an unnecessary misunderstanding. We on the Left need to be especially careful going forwards, as the differences between us should not blind us to the fact we are each other's natural allies, against Johnson and the Vote Leave cabinet.
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What McConnell is doing is an argument from (bad) semantics. "You voted for us, and we are your representatives, therefore if we know about it, what are you plebes complaining about?" He's trying to imply that Senators are part of the public (or represent the public) and therefore, it's a stupid question. The fact that this definition is completely at odds with the way the word is actually used, doesn't matter. He's found one niche definition of it, that he's going to adopt as the new gold standard, for the duration of this conversation.
It makes sense of the way he asked the question - he's trying to bait her into acknowledging that, as somebody who works in the Senate, she ought to know this weird, wacky definition of "public" that he's arbitrarily decided to invoke, just for the purpose of mocking her.
It's the kind of shady behaviour that we've come to expect from internet trolls and Kremlin sockpuppets over the past five years. It's disturbing to see such a so-called "statesman" engaging in the same dishonest oratory. I'd bet all the cash I've got that you, reading this, have engaged in an argument exactly like it - where somebody you're talking to suddenly pulls out a niche, obscure definition of the terms you're using, and tries to outflank you with it. Even though it changes nothing about the substance of your question.
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I think anybody expecting Republicans to dump Trumpism is sadly going to be disappointed. 2016 was clearly no aberration.
Republicans have learned they can lie, cheat, steal, commit fraud, threaten democracy itself, and face no serious consequences. They have an ultra-loyal hardcore base that will excuse any and all behaviour so long as they "own the libs", so I see no pragmatic reason why they'd ever give that up. Why play normal politics when you can harness a literal cult of personality to drive you most of the way to the finishing line?
And besides, if the Republicans turn their back on Trumpism now, they'd have to rebuild their base from scratch. They've depended (tacitly) on the vote of white supremacists for years. If they go after Trump, they'll lose those voters, and they'd have to stitch together an entirely new constituency - and they'd now have to poach Democrats' supporters to build it. That's a tall order for a party that was only recently in power, and I'm willing to bet they'll give Trumpism at least one more spin.
And finally, from the perspective of Republican politicians, opposition is good for business. They're getting fat stacks of lobbyist money either way, and if they're OUT of power, they can campaign to their millionaire friends that much more persuasively. Whereas when they actually hold power, it's more difficult to secure those kind of donations. See, when you're in opposition, you can promise the earth and never have to worry about the means of delivery - with no danger of ever disappointing your donors. So in a sense, it suits them just fine to be locked into opposition.
So yeah, no. Trumpism is here to stay for the foreseeable future. At least for the next 4 years. I'm sure they'll find plenty of mileage in whining that Biden "stole" the election.
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@rhyfelaherwfilwrol6732 In the past, before Brexit, I would've agreed with you. Like I say, it seems to me that the "unwritten constitution" has proven to be worth jack squat in the time since that vote - if conventions and norms are not followed, then said "constitution" simply ceases to be. Poof, it's turned back into hot air. We then fall back on our various other laws, which, I hasten to remind you, are not a formal constitution.
And I think in practice, our politicians have demonstrated repeatedly their contempt for both law and convention. Governments have attempted to operate without Parliamentary consent repeatedly, and they keep testing the boundaries of what they can get away with.
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@some body The thing is, his big mouth is doing real harm to both you and your cause - and it's whipping up some genuinely disturbed individuals to do things they'd never normally have contemplated. People like the recent mass-shooter in New Zealand cite Trump as an inspiration for their terrorist attacks. Words have consequences. Those consequences may not be immediate, they may not even be visible for a long time - but you can't ignore them forever.
I know that a lot of people would hand-wave what I just said, and reply "but how can words really cause all that?" - and the answer is that they do so in aggregate. Small doses. If you tell mildly racist jokes often enough, you can embed the association in somebody's mind, and eventually, you've got them to believe that black people are inherently stupid.
If Trump had never been elected President, and had remained a well-loved (if rather sleazy) reality TV star, none of this would matter - but he's setting the tone of the conversation for an entire nation, and I think we should expect better from him. Sadly, it seems as though Republicans have decided that keeping him sweet is more important than standing up for old-fashioned good manners.
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@alexanderwinn2896 Cherrypicked example. New York was suffering a wave of gang violence at the time. Lower levels of gun ownership is why the UK has lower rates of gun homicides, end of discussion. It really is that simple.
Before I sign off, can we just stop and take a moment to recognise the fact that there is a disconnect between having loose gun laws and having a lot of guns? You keep falling back on this "but Britain had looser laws!" talking point, but even assuming it's true, I don't think it actually proves your point at all.
Back in the early 1900s, guns just weren't available to most people, so it didn't matter if the laws were loose. Today, due to economies of scale and the progress of modern industrial technology, they're cheap and easy to make, so without laws to prevent it, they could be mass produced and sold to consumers at very affordable prices.
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The firestorm that's breaking out across Labour has been simmering quietly for months now. We all knew this was coming, and the Corbyn supporters have been keeping their swords sharp for this very moment. Dare I say it, Corbyn's support base has transformed into something of a cult of personality - something that accelerated when he was replaced as leader. I say this, as someone who actually used to support Corbyn back in the early days. Labour has become two parties trapped in the same ageing structure.
The irony is that Labour, without the far-left, is probably a lot more electable. It's their power and position to lose - they can easily go ahead and form another leftwing party, but they'll not win any seats, and they probably won't even get to steal much of Labour's share of the vote. That said, for both sides, I think a split in the party is the best solution for us all. Better to be allies sitting in two different tents, than to be forced to break bread with people you hate.
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@joeybarnes01 "Betrayal" is a very loaded term. I don't think you can fault them for trying to enact Brexit - but they clearly can't form a consensus on how best to do it, and we're now staring down the barrel of the gun.
You may think your vision for Brexit would work, and that people should "just" fall in line with it and agree. Yeah, sorry, that's not how democracy works. Building a consensus means you have to participate in a discussion, and be prepared to make compromises - instead of expecting to simply dictate terms from on high. (Mrs May's mistake, right there)
You may not see the harm in a crashout Brexit, but they do - it's their job to be informed on these things. If you're angry with your politicians, by all means, vote them out, but absolutely do not call them traitors, betrayers, and all of that jazz, and then expect me to treat you with anything other than contempt.
If you want respect, show some yourself.
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@Thirdfish When have I been patronising? And since when was a single vote suddenly binding for all time, sacred beyond all other measure? The majority of the country doesn't want Brexit - and certainly the vast majority doesn't want us to crash out. The referendum result should've been the start of a national conversation - but instead, you are trying to bulldoze this hardline policy through without even consulting those of us who voted the other way.
And let us not forget, leaving aside the manifold polls that show Remain far ahead of Leave since the referendum - that result was a narrow majority - 52% to 48%. You need us on-side if you're going to take the country forwards, and you have done nothing but hector, bully, threaten and preach. You haven't done anything to change our minds - and meanwhile, a lot of your former voters have slunk out the back door in shame and disgust. Your idea of compromise, seemingly, is to hold the other person at the end of a sword until they agree with you.
That's not how Democracy is supposed to work - and that's not even touching on the sheer uncertainty about what Brexit people even wanted in the first place, the dishonesty of the campaign that led to Leave winning the referendum, and the sheer impossibility of transacting such a deal without inflicting crippling damage on the governance and the economy of our island nation. The very integrity of the Union is at stake, and all you can do is yell slogans and thump your chests.
Finally, on the subject of the Brexit Party's lack of a manifesto - Nigel Farage says that he's going to let the Party membership decide that. It sounds like a democratic pledge, but it's really an abdication of responsibility. He doesn't have any real positions, and what he's actually doing is demonstrating his willingness to promise anything, irrespective of his ability to deliver it. In that, he's no different than any other corrupt, scumbag politician.
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