UKC

There has been a lot of chat on here about how hateful and nasty "the left" are, particularly on social media - and that this is specific to the left, not just a reflection of social media content more generally. I've said many times before what utter dogshit I think this is, that there is about as much evidence to support this as there is to support astrology or the efficacy of penis enlargement supplements, but here's a much better presented case for what absolute and
total bollocks this idea is.

youtube.com/watch?v=IpBaXWJV3NY&

Now if you're the sort of person who believes the horseshit about the unique intolerance of "the left", you probably won't get through a full 12 minutes of Owen Jones, which is understandable. But give it a go for at least half of it, and if you can critique what he's saying and make a convincing case that the left is indeed the overwhelming source of bigotry in our society - or at least on social media - it'd be great to hear from you!

In reply to Jon Stewart:

Mmm - shown as 'unavailable' to view when I use the link you give. Should I be worried?

In reply to Greenbanks:

Should work now.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

Horseshit, Dogshit, have you got a shit fetish?

In reply to Jon Stewart:

5 mins 37 seconds, dull dull dull, don't get me wrong, he highlights that Tory youth hold and express unpleasant right wing views luckily for us they grow up and become even duller but less extreme, not sure right wing youth have monopoly on unpleasantness, you yourself often use really unpleasant language for no reason I can understand.

In reply to Jon Stewart:


You were doing great until, well, you started.

Gizza half dozen links - I haven't seen any threads saying "the left are hateful and nasty". But I don't see them all, so happy to receive the update and be persuaded your interpretation of them should be my interpretation of them.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

Furthermore, having watched the links my (own, personal, not imposed on others) conclusion is that far from being a reaction to threads on here, you simply found a way of doing the thing that you so criticise in reverse?

But, hey, I vote LibDem so as you were.

In reply to John Kelly:

I'm thinking there's a difference between views and language. Is it the OP's views you don't like, or the language he sometimes uses?

This probably sounds like I'm nit picking, but I'm not, there's a distinct difference.

In reply to Timmd:
Just the language, it detracts from his point, does it all the time, don't get it, my ten year old loves swearing, he's ten.

In reply to John Kelly:
Fair enough, just seemed worthwhile to check. I can find it easier to read and digest posts without lots of swearing and things in.

In reply to Timmd:

Actually, now I come to think of it, I don't agree on his view re. cleaning routes - he's a 'cleaner' guy, I'm a 'let nature creep back in' chap

In reply to John Kelly:
I think you're completely wrong to equate swearing about what rubbish you think people's ideas are with bigotry and hatred.

And I'm kind of sorry that you don't like swearing and think it's immature. Although truthfully, I'm not sorry at all. Pretty much all the things I like include quite a lot of swearing. I'm a fan of stuff like The Thick Of It, Tim Minchin, Stewart Lee, etc, and so I don't think that this type of language "shows moral or intellectual paucity"*. And I think swearing is a great way to express a certain tone which I deem to be appropriate in this context. I can't swear at work, so when I'm around my friends or posting online, I swear all the f*cking time.




* youtube.com/watch?v=JkOHDoEkPW0&

In reply to Jon Stewart:
I got you can't swear at work, I think this is an outlet, I just don't find it easy to listen to you

Edit
'I think you're completely wrong to equate swearing about what rubbish you think people's ideas are with bigotry and hatred.'

I don't understand that sentence, nothing to do with swearing, what do you mean?

In reply to John Kelly:
Ah, bollocks. A well crafted rant, seasoned with carefully chosen expletives, is a thing of beauty and one of the finer pleasures in life...

Billy connolly made a career out of them, and if you don't find him funny, there's no hope for you...

;-P

In reply to Deadeye:


Well, they're going to be in the pub aren't they, and so deleted, right?

There have been a couple in the last couple of months that have gone down this path for a while. If it helps, the people who subscribe to this include Postman Pat and David Martin.

Here's one from Off Belay:

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=667344&v=1#x8597431

And you don't seem to have quite followed the argument. I said that bigotry and hatred were not unique to the left, I didn't say that the opposite was true, that they were only present on the right. If you trawl through the thread linked here, you'll see that that's what I said last time too.

Satisfactory?

In reply to John Kelly:


not sure right wing youth have monopoly on unpleasantness, you yourself often use really unpleasant language

'I think you're completely wrong to equate swearing about what rubbish you think people's ideas are with bigotry and hatred.'

Clear now?

In reply to no_more_scotch_eggs:

He was a comic not a politician, difficult to tell em apart most the time mind - all jokers

In reply to Jon Stewart:

Ok - don't think I did that but to be clear, I don't like the way you express yourself outside of work and I also don't like bigotry or hatred.

In reply to John Kelly:

Fair enough, I can't argue with that. But in all honesty, there's little hope of me changing that for your benefit!

In reply to Jon Stewart:

Don't go changing

In reply to John Kelly:

Sounds like the start of a song there...

In reply to Jon Stewart:

I don't mind the swearing. I swear a lot whenever Owen Jones comes on the box, he gets right on my f*cking tits with his over earnest 'you know I'm right guys' hectoring tone. The bit where he put on the baseball cap made me want to gag (why are 99% of politicos so shit at humour?).
I also swear at TV appearances of Boris , Rees-Mogg and any number of other smug, over privileged right wing tw*ts.

Politics in this country seems to be getting increasingly divisive. I don't believe either side have all the answers and both sides continually throwing shit at each other does nothing to build consensus.
All it achieves is turning the UK political scene into an area that no sane individual would want to get involved. This might go some way to explaining the current distressing lack of quality among Britain's senior politicians.

In reply to Stichtplate:

Other than not liking his deliver, what do you think about Owen Jones's ideas?

In reply to Timmd:

Mixed bag. Agree on some things disagree on others. His book 'the establishment' was pretty poor, but it's more his moral certainty that gets up my nose. I prefer people who go looking for answers rather than people who go looking for facts that support their viewpoint.

In reply to Stichtplate:


Don't really agree - we've seen consensus politics, and it's Tony Blair. He thought he could do whatever he wanted, and ended up being guided by god into a war which killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people and his chancellor then claimed to have ended the economic cycle, only to preside over the greatest recession for a century! Is this what you want?

Although really I think that the economic cycle is the route cause of the type of politics on offer. If everything's going fine, we'll have bland centre ground politics, but then when there's a downturn, it'll all go polarised and divisive: we'll get a right wing govt claiming to "put the country back on it's feet" by shafting the poor, and demonising them to excuse it - and that's not a recipe for consensus!

In reply to Jon Stewart:



Don't agree either!
Do you remember the huge marches against the Iraq invasion? Can't recall a less popular military intervention.
I'd agree that there has been too much shafting of the poor over the last few decades, including times spent under Labour governments.

In reply to Stichtplate:


Do you remember who won the General Election in 2005!?


I think it's unfair to accuse Labour of "shafting the poor". "Wasting a f*cktonne of money" perhaps...

In reply to Jon Stewart:


Do you remember Mandy going yachting with the oligarchs and all that 'intensely relaxed with the filthy rich' guff? It all went a long way to cementing the idea that everyone in the uk, left or right, were happy to give hardcore capitalism free reign.

In reply to Jon Stewart:


Who has said it is specific to the left only?

In reply to Big Ger:

Trawl back over your comments in the thread I linked to...

In reply to Stichtplate:


True. But that's not quite the same as shafting the poor. New Labour were saying that they think it's great if you create the conditions for high growth and people getting filthy rich, in the context of high taxes and big redistributive spending programmes. The Tories on the hand say that you need to reduce taxes to allow growth, and then reduce them some more when you get growth so the people who benefit will continue to vote for you. Increasing tax revenue and spending it on policies that improve opportunities for everyone don't feature in Tory policies because low taxes are a goal in themselves. They allow greater freedom for the individual (so long as you've already got freedom, of course) and are therefore good. If you don't have a house to live in or food to eat then either a) f*ck you, or b) some individual will be nice enough to give you food and shelter out of charity, exercising their freedom as they do so, and thus being really great.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

Speaking of penis enlargement, here's a thing about the top ten foods to eat for a whopper schlong.... it's quite surprising btw....I'd always mistakenly thought Cumberland Sausage would be good, but no ..... youtube.com/watch?v=qY7sLkmNgXI&

In reply to Jon Stewart:

Ok, not once did I say anything was exclusive /specific to the left only, so, your point?

I even admit;


Now, if you want further detail, let's have a look at these;


(The latter being complete bollocks of course.)

Now then, nastiness or not?

In reply to John Kelly:


youtube.com/watch?v=nBQdf2ZlDR0&

In reply to Big Ger:
In fairness, the point you seemed to be making was that the left were specifically *hypocritical* in their nastiness, rather than that they were just nasty. So I apologise if I misrepresented what you said. "I never said that the right weren't the same" isn't a defence when you specify something about "the left" I'm afraid. If you'd meant everyone, you would never have said "the left", yeah?

I'm not going to enter a discussion about who's nastier on this site, people with left or right wing views. The discussion I opened here was about whether the idea that's popular in the media (referencing the Andrew Neil clip in the link) and has been taken up by people on this site (who aren't nasty IMO by the way, just reliable at demonstrating poor reasoning) that "the left" are uniquely nasty and bigoted, particularly on social media in general, was bollocks or not. And it is.

(Edited to complete the sentence, sorry.)

Further edit: You don't honestly think that much of that stuff is really "nasty", given the stuff you post yourself. Insincere, I'm afraid. Crying wolf.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

Fair enough, but in reality, Labour balked at the high tax bit and kept the rest. We're seeing the nett result now ,accelerated by massive Tory cost cutting. A vicious circle perpetuated by both parties, and while the very rich seem to be doing fine out of it , the very poor certainly do not.

Edit: balls, completely off topic (again).

My only point.... go far enough to the left or the right, and people tend to get a bit daft.

In reply to Stichtplate:

True.

In reply to Jon Stewart:


This is why I continue to engage with you Jon, you're decent.


Nah, come on, we all use group terms, and I think we are all adult enough to accept that if I use "the left" or your use "the right" we are not saying "anyone and everyone who has ever had a left/ right inclination of any degree," but the main hardcore support of such groups, (accepting that there may be deviance even within their norms.)

There may be an argument for never using group names, but that would make for some VERY long winded discussions.

I don't know who said it but the adage; "Generalities are acceptable when applied to groups, but not individuals" is just about right.


Again; you find me someone who claims; "that "the left" are uniquely nasty and bigoted" and I'll join you in stomping on them. However you must be willing to give that the left /right, have some nastinessess which are unique to that group , (Tory Toffs? Bankers? Never worked and inherited a fortune? Champagne socialists? etc.)

In reply to Jon Stewart:


It's hardly "polite" is it? The fact is that it degrades the debate.

I posted;


Your reply was;


So instead of countering the point, or ignoring it if you found it contemptible or stupid, you chose to swear and rant. Not that I mind swearing and ranting, but, you know, hardly illuminating is it?


An example of where I have posted something "nasty" not in reply to something nasty said about me please? I have a principle Jon, I won't insult unless insulted first.*

So your claim "Insincere, I'm afraid. Crying wolf." is untrue. It's sincere, and not "crying wolf" but pointing out the culpability of others.

Go back to that thread, and see where I was the first to insult someone?

*I'm not totally perfect, and yes,m I know I don't always abide by that. But I do apologise when it is pointed out to me. that I have

In reply to Big Ger:


That made me feel all warm inside.


What I'm talking about here is not against generalising in this way. I think that without generalisations, it's hard to have a conversation about anything in society.

Certain generalisations about "the left" and "the right" are true, I think. E.g. "the left think that the rich should make sacrifices, but don't think they should have to make the same sacrifices themselves". This is an alright generalisation in my view. Similarly "the right are good at convincing themselves that people deserve the wealth or poverty they end up with in life, rather than attributing it to luck or circumstance". I think this is a fair generalisation too.

The problem I have is with the generalisation "these days on social media, the bigotry and nastiness comes from the left, rather than the right". I think it's bullshit of the highest order. I don't think that bigotry or nastiness in general is confined to the right, but I do think that the specific bigotry of homophobia and racism are vastly more prevalent on the right (as OJ argues), and that the idea of the "nasty left" has a purpose, and that is to mask and play-down the real right-wing homophobia and racism that exists in specifically right-wing contexts (e.g. Activate).



Yes, these "nasty" ideas exist. But I don't think they're nearly as nasty as the homophobia and racism you'll get from small sectors of the rgiht (e.g. Brietbart). In fact, while you seem so terribly offended by this nastiness, I just don't think it's very nasty. Attacking the privileged is a very different game to attacking the vulnerable. Take right-wing prick extraordinaire Ben Shapiro and his attacks on transsexuals. What the f*ck is his point? I'm not saying he represents all right-wing people, but as a right-wing writer, he is a representative of the right, and he is a bigoted bastard who makes money out of attacking the people with the least power in society. This is not equivalent to left-wing writers being nasty about bankers who caused the financial crash!

In reply to Jon Stewart:

Ermmmm .... Sorry, I'm not on the same bus as you. Let's leave that there....



Agreed.


I have to agree again. Though I think that to claim the "nasty left" is just a mask for right wing homophobia, is a bit much. The left can be nasty.


I'm not "terribly offended" at all, what gave you that impression? I find most left wing nastiness childish and amusing, it also provides evidence of their naivety, lack or real world experience, lack of fiscal probity, and a great deal of their denial.


Agreed.


Well see, as a right wing person, I would say that he doesn't represent me nor my views. that he's a hate filled bigot, and someone I would happily spend a few hours on a quiet evening punching hard in the face.

I think as a collectivist you're mistaking the perceived desire for unity of the left, and conflating it with those on the right

Edited to change "send" to "spend"

In reply to Big Ger:





I thought your point about "the left" was a load of crap, and I said so. I've had the argument with the chap about swearing, this is just the same thing about me being a dreadful person, which I'm perfectly happy to admit to. Being an arsehole in this way is something I find fun. I'm not interested in defending the style I've written something in, I'm always quite sincere and if I think "total bollocks" then that's exactly what I'll write. If you ask me to, I'll justify it, and in that case you'll see that I did precisely that.


I just don't think that stuff is particularly nasty. Certainly not the stuff I said about "being an arsehole is just the common standard of humanity" isn't mean to anyone, it's as even-handed as you can hope for. It's also true.


This is absolutely true.

In reply to Jon Stewart:


Oh I agree. As I say, I was just pointing out that any perceived "nastiness" didn't come from or start with me.


I don't think it's particularly nasty either, in fact anything I think which was genuinely nasty wouldn't pass the mods here. However, it does change the tone of the debate.


My thanks.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

I don't see the left as the home of bigotry. Indeed far from it. But within the field of social media, I am gobsmacked at the hypocrisy of a position which says "We care and therefore we own the moral high ground. And everyone who disagrees is selfish and an enemy of the people. We don't have to question our behaviour because they're Tory c*nts, even if most of them are working class. In fact let's abuse them constantly to show how just how much we care."

"Nobody likes a Tory."

I can't count how many times members of my almost unanimously left-leaning FB community, doctors, nurses, musicians, university lecturers, vets, artists (don't I have cool friends? ), have posted hatred and bile directed at conservative party supporters in what appears to be an effort to demonstrate how caring they are. It's bizarre!!

As for the swearing, my daughter is going to study English Literature at a good university and is as potty-mouthed as her multi-lingual father. I'm much filthier offline. Keep up the good work.

In reply to BnB:

I don't read stuff any of that stuff on Facebook and twitter, but I understand there's plenty of it, and I don't try to deny that at all. I just think it's irrelevant to the underlying political philosophy.

The substance of your political beliefs is in what policies you think make for a better society. If you argue for left wing policies and believe this to be morally superior to supporting the shafting of the most vulnerable, and you call people c*nts while you're at it, I don't think that undermines the point particularly. There's more to morality than politeness, don't you think?

In reply to Jon Stewart:



I disagree. The juxtaposition of a claim to the moral high ground with a simultaneous demon-isation of any contrary philosophy and its adherents is an oxymoron of the highest order. One simply cannot condemn (in the most vicious terms) the largest bloc of voters and then claim to be "for the many". I'm not arguing whether the left is (morally) right but I am condemning a hypocrisy which erodes its legitimacy.

In reply to BnB:
I don't think your argument makes sense. If you take any political position, you claim the moral high ground by doing so, unless you're incredibly cynical. No one's going to admit that they vote tory because it's in their self interest and they're perfectly happy to see those with the least have their support from the state withdrawn because they don't have to think about it. If this was the position of the right I would respect it more.

It's only a matter of politeness how you express that claim to the moral high ground, and social media encourages people to be rude and tribal. That's all there is to it.

If you're looking for people who'll say, "I respect all political philosophies as genuine attempts to improve society for everyone, and my personal appraisal of the evidence is that this one is most likely to achieve that goal" then the Internet is not the place to look!

In reply to Jon Stewart:

"Class hatred, racism, bigotry and bullying is rife" amongst the conservatives Owen claims. What about the left?

Do a Google search on Bret Weinstein (www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTnDpoQLNaY) to see a great example of where left views are leading us, and how organisational management is siding with them. See what passes for post-colonial theory and is presumably acceptable channel 4 viewing as a result (youtu.be/pSdG-RRlqpw?t=16s). As long as it is taken as a given that only whites can be racist, that “check your privilege” is an appropriate response to arguments, you don’t need to look far to find their everyday examples of hatred, bigotry and bullying from the left that match anything the right has to offer.

He finishes with “Decent people on the right, its incumbent on you to do something”. Lead the way Owen, and speak out against these excesses of the left. You’re a decent chap, reign in the extremism that alienates would-be supporters and results in the Tories still managing to march away with an election win despite a catastrophic campaign.

Owen bangs on about references to “Nazis” but doesn’t provide a shred of evidence that anyone actually is a Nazi. Just people dressing up or making jokes in poor taste or making offensive statements. Should I claim someone flying a hammer and sickle emblem supports the death of millions? While “offensive” statements appear to be increasingly seen as extremism, the left hardly bats an eyelid at “Punch a Nazi” despite the criteria of what is a Nazi (Harry in fancy dress?) being extremely broad, and seemingly including anyone who isn’t to the left of the Lib Dems.

And the main example of absurdities from the left that Owen can come up, as a sort of inverse straw-man, are occasional “anti-semitism”. How out of touch can he be? The exact things he accuses the right of are rife on the left. This is hardly surprising from Owen – he penned a piece just a few weeks back that accused “centrists of being the true ideologues”. He doesn’t understand his opposition in anything other than old fashioned class warfare terms and I’m afraid Blair was years ahead of Owen here – class, at least as it has classically been viewed, is basically dead. Working classes and middle England vote for the Tories too. The appeal of Thatcher (and of the Conservatives in general) is that even if you aren’t wealthy, you take personal responsibility, don’t constantly claim to be a victim and you get somewhere through hard work. Maybe dirty ideas to the much of the left but they have appeal across wealth and class divides.

The days of the left being able to claim some moral high-ground, on account of not stooping to the lows of the hard right, appear to be out the window. While those on the left may view the "overwhelming source of bigotry" as coming from the right, he should step in to the shoes of those he derides for a day or two.

In reply to Jon Stewart:
Slightly tangentially, but linked to a core criticism of the left (which Owen completely fails to recognise, but is specifically articulated 23 minutes in here), this is a very interesting video.

https://youtu.be/6G59zsjM2UI?t=21s

In reply to David Martin:



Oh gosh. I hadn't expected a rebuttal of OJ's points about the mainstream youth conservative movement here in the UK to centre on the SWJ US college campus lot. A decent rebuttal would take an example that can be meaningfully compared, not just resort to what looks ever more like the only thing that people with right-wing views care about: US college students being arseholes about issues of race and gender. This is not a good example to rebut OJ's point. It has no relevance. I have no idea how you can cling to this idea that the US SJW thing has got anything to do with left-wing politics in the UK. How can it not be obvious to you that when you're talking about "the left" in the UK, these people have a completely different set of interests to the people you keeping insisting represent "the left".

And what's the clip with the radical Muslims about? You've completely lost me I'm afraid.

OJ was talking about Activate, the obvious target for rebuttal is Momentum. Why am I helping you put together an argument that makes sense?


You want OJ to talk about the thing you're interested in - SJWs and radical political Islam - but he has no interest in these topics as far as I know. He's interested in the Labour movement. If you think that the Labour party's aims are in line with SJWs and political Islam then your understanding of it is so far from reality that there's no way we can have a sensible conversation.


I agree that some of the examples from Tory student groups are jokes in bad taste and not much more. But the point that the youth conservative movement has a significant toxic element stands. I think there is a valid point to be made about the toxic element of the far left, so let's hear it. What is the stuff that Momentum say and do which matches the toxicity of the Activate examples?


You haven't shown that yet, your examples were irrelevant tripe.


This is an interesting point that does actually relate to right versus left philosophy. While it's a lovely idea that anyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get to the top, what we actually know by looking at evidence is that where you get to depends on where you started, and that people who buck that trend are outliers. The idea that people are poor because "they constantly claim to be victims" shows an unbelievable lack of understanding of what it means to be born into a disadvantaged position in society. You only base your philosophy on outliers (those who get somewhere from a poor start) if you're employing motivated reasoning: it suits people on the right to believe that we're all personally responsible for our destiny and that we live in a meritocracy, when the reality is that privilege is handed down the generations. I agree it's an appealing idea, the problem is that it isn't true.

In reply to John Kelly:


You let your ten year old swear, what's wrong with you FFS!

I like a good swear but don't do it around children, and it wouldn't be acceptable for my 10 year old child to swear.

In reply to David Martin:



Link not working. I will try to watch it if you repost, but it might not be for a day or two. Thanks.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

Owen clearly obviously isn't specifically talking about Activate. He is simply using it as a convenient example of right-wing extremism, with the useful comparison of Momentum as a counterpoint, to make his point. It is a cherry-picked example, hence my own as he never once highlights what are the actual current criticisms of Momentum or leftism are. Anti-semintism? The left has stepped in to new ground with criticism moving way beyond that - Owen is in the dark ages.

Owen’s point is that the right should shut up about bullying etc because he views the vast majority of bullying as coming from the right. He doesn’t acknowledge any from the left at all – he is incapable of doing so as he simply doesn’t see, or doesn’t want to see, it.

In failing to recognise a core criticism of the left is its inability reign in its extremes means you miss the point. Non Labour voters don’t vote for other parties because they want the poor to suffer - polls constantly show the general population to be strongly egalitarian in nature. They vote against Labour because the see Labour as creating suffering and meddling with fundamental rights.

You don’t think the left and Momentum are not linked to SJWs? If so, I agree, we can’t have a sensible conversation. SJWs are defining the language of the left, dictating what can be said and defining who are victims and who has power. As I said, its not about class any more. You can have academic debates about left policy, but that's not where the narrative is at street level.

As for the Conservative philosophy, I’m actually somewhat in agreement with you. Where I disagree is with the level to which institutionalised poverty and victimhood narratives should be used to explain a failure to achieve or demand preferential treatment, with these excuses then become self-reinforcing.

In reply to David Martin:



I don't agree with your point. The Conservative party *is* responsible for reigning in the excesses of the conservative youth movement: they are it's future and they really should care. Similarly, the Labour party may as you say, have a responsibility to reign in its extremists, and that's what I'm asking you to show. Not radical Muslims or US college campus kids, something to do with the Labour party that they *are* responsible for.


That's an analysis you've just imposed on the UK political landscape without justification and I don't find it in any way compelling. I think a lot of people if not most vote simply for perceived self-interest, many people out of pure tribalism (in the word's of a colleague of mine "it's the way I was brought up"), and many for all sorts of other reasons. I don't know what you base your analysis on, I suspect you're merely assuming that other people think the way you do.


I'm sorry, we're not going to meet on this, I think it is unadulterated shite. I listen to loads of left-wing commentators and not one of them supports the restriction of expression espoused by the SJW lot. You're just completely wrong about what the left in the UK - those who support the Labour party - believe in, and you won't budge.

Can you show me some examples of real, influential voices on the left who support the SJW agenda? Or will you just continue to chant the mantra that this is what defines the left, without a shred of evidence, and in the face of every influential left-wing thinker who supports freedom of expression? Power, by the way, is in the hands of those who run the big institutions in our society. That's what power means. The argument that "the left" are defining who has power is bizarre to say the least and bears no relation to reality.


I just don't see the preferential treatment. I'm a member of one of these minorities accused of "playing identity politics" and I cannot think of a single example of being offered preferential treatment because of this, or of anyone using it as an excuse for "not achieving".

In reply to Jon Stewart:

I thought it was a bit confused to be honest.
First I'm not sure that his premise that appeared to be that the left, as a whole, are demonised unfairly was necessarily true.

As he himself pointed out there is an element on the left that let them down, but they shouldn't be judged by that, seems reasonable.
He then goes on to discuss an element on the right, but suggests that is symptomatic of the whole of the right, seemingly the same sweeping assertions that he has just objected to being made on the left.

Then a bit of a side detour into class war. It's easy to present an argument if you are selective (and sweeping) in the presentation of your evidence. But hang on, I thought that's what he said we SHOULDN'T be doing....?
Suggesting that the right have demonised the working class is an interesting point to make, in the backdrop of Gordon Brown's "bigot" comment or Thornberry's "white van man".

Finally a bit of a diversion as to why the Government are not being held to account for the behaviour of the Young conservatives in the same way as Corbyn is being held to account for Momentum.
He has the semblance of a point here, except that there is a fundamental difference between May (and "the Government") relationship between the Young conservatives/ university conservative groups, and Corbyn and Momentum.

As i understand it, it was Momentum that are the "power behind the throne" masterminding his election, retention and campaigning for election, so there does appear to be a closer link between this group and Corbyn specifically, unless he has disassociated himself and I am unaware of it.

Specifically regarding left/right behaviour on social media, I would say that there are broad trends of poor behaviour from extremes of each side.
The extremists on the right will go full on racist/sexist/homophobic, the extremists on the left will close down debate by screaming, racism/sexism/homophobia (sometimes in an exceedingly contorted manner!)
TBH I'm not sure there is anything particularly new about it, the echo chamber nature and anonymity of social media probably making things slowly worse.

We can argue all day about how "typical" that behaviour is of the broader left or broader right - but that will be ultimately influenced by our own views, who we listen to and what we are exposed to - back to the echo chamber again.

In reply to Jon Stewart:





I lost the will to carry on watching after about the first minute, why can't he keep his hands still?

In reply to Jon Stewart:


Sorry, that shows a lack of awareness for how aligned much of SJW and mainstream left actions are, and how an entire focus of left thinking is at odds with a substantial proportion (possibly a majority) of the UK population. You appear to see differences between SJWs and the left as a gulf, whereas to anyone not of the left you will be seen as slightly different shadings of the same end of the spectrum.

SJW actions aren’t limited to a producing the extremes visible in the youtube clips I sent. SJWs surely consider their views to be extensions of your own that are simply being repressed by “structural inequalities” that need tearing down. As such they appear at the vanguard of policing ideals already pushed for by the left: identity based politics, subjective over objective truths, a fixation with class warfare, and visible in anything from immigration and asylum debates, to support for the Tim Hunt or Damore sackings, to claims of white privilege, Islamophobia, or cultural appropriation. These are all concepts of the left, theorised by left-wing academics and propagated out in to the mainstream. SJWs are embedded in that mainstream, the only difference being they may be less likely to realise when their arguments have descended in to idiocy.

The issues championed by both are all claimed to be beyond debate, to the point that even contesting them is seen as a marker of a sexist or racist viewpoint (as the Tim Hunt, NASA scientist shirt debacle, and Damore cases showed). This is all the more ironic as the left is clearly the side of the political spectrum that champions subjectivity (anywhere from organisational discrimination policy to concepts of race-hate crime), yet seems to think only it knows what is just and right.

Just because Chomsky might not focus on those issues doesn’t stop George Monbiot, Laurie Penny and obviously Owen Jones from jumping on the bandwagon.

So the problem with showing you evidence of the extremes in left thinking is that for one, you can go straight to the Momentum pages yourself and find the examples easy enough, and two, you are going to dispute that the extremes are even extremes.

Labelling people racist, bigots, fascists or misogynists, simply because they hold a non-left viewpoint is no different from calling people niggers, faggots, or fat chavs. If these labels used against the left are cited as hate-speech or abusive enough to make people afraid to put forward their views, how does someone labelled Tory Scum or a Nazi feel?


Really? You really think people vote Tory because they want to step on the poor though? The reasons you cite may be accurate, but they are not mutually exclusive from people seeing the labour party as representing a Left that is against their own interests. And if the tories just serve an elite, doesn’t that say something that the majority would still prefer that to what the Left offers? Might the left be failing to see why they are so offensive, and that people they are offending can’t be written off as bigots? In my own case, the increasing paternalism of the left is actually making conservatism look attractive…to a liberal, that’s a pretty big failing of the left.


Bollocks to that. The people who run big institutions are not some monolithic entity. About all they share in common is they have the drive and ambition to put in the hours, and hold the single-minded ambition to want to run such institutions. And they are still answerable to consumers or voters, so the majority hold the power. If I am a lone dissenting voice in a group of 3 people who decide I am a racist, they hold the power, not me, regardless of their gender, orientation or skin colour. All the more so if they accuse me of having power I don’t have – as SJWs and the left are prone to claim.

In reply to krikoman:


Not sure I said that, it's something we're working on to improve together, he is very fond of 'damn' and dam.


I'm glad you have a hobby and accept you are a better person than me

In reply to Big Ger:

If you want examples of right wing nastiness there's plenty on here pick any topic on this forum:-

http://www.grumpieroldmen.co.uk

In reply to Jon Stewart:

I'll just leave this here...

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7xxmad/the-alt-right-and-antifa-are-wagi...

In reply to Removed Userjess13:


Gasp, thanks!!

In reply to John Kelly:


Why not just tell him to stop!

In reply to birdie num num:

I tried the coffee one but the beans kept falling out, while salmon just made my winky smell of fish.

In reply to krikoman:


'Why not just tell him to stop!'

I try and save that for the big important stuff plus he might just tell me to f*** off

In reply to David Martin:


The gulf is blindingly obvious when you listen to what mainstream left commentators say about SJWs. If I understand the issue correctly, the problem with SJWs isn't that what they're saying is wrong (we all want to hear opinions we disagree with, yeah?), it's that they try to restrict other people's freedom of expression. So while yes, the left in general believes in equal rights for minorities and sees this as one priority, the left in general disagrees totally with the counter-productive, immature and wrong tactics of SJWs. I'll provide as many links as you like to support this, but I'm on my phone now. I would expect you to return the effort by providing links to the mainstream left supporting the SJWs agenda.

>...claims of white privilege, Islamophobia, or cultural appropriation. These are all concepts of the left, theorised by left-wing academics and propagated out in to the mainstream. SJWs are embedded in that mainstream, the only difference being they may be less likely to realise when their arguments have descended in to idiocy.

There's plenty of academic guff in the fields of gender studies etc that I would find just as ludicrous as you do. But so what. I'm on the left because I believe that the best policies to improve society involve those who can afford it putting their hand in their pocket to fund high quality public services for all. This way, opportunities are shared better rather than concentrated amongst those who already have plenty. If I'm debating with someone on the right, I expect to be challenged about this view, not just to listen to the same tired old crap about how the left are all obsessed with pronouns for transsexuals and want to take down freedom of speech. I've heard it, it's bullshit, so can we move on now?

It looks to me like the right don't want to talk about policies, and so this is a cheap and easy way to steer the conversation into fatuous garbage, before any ideas can be challenged or defended. It's a crap con trick, and it looks like you've fallen for it.


You can show me examples of far left garbage and I'll agree. Oh look, some far left garbage. I've never denied that it exists. Remember where we started? My claim was that the idea of the left being the overwhelming source of bigotry, in contrast to the right, is bollocks. You have made no headway in convincing me otherwise.


Woah! Hang on. If you don't understand the difference between abusing someone for characteristics they don't control like race and sexual orientation, and for what they believe, we're in big trouble. As someone who grew up in a homophobic society and have seen big improvements, this way of diminishing issues of discrimination against minorities is an attitude I genuinely despise. Are you certain that you don't see the difference between "faggot" and "nazi" as terms of abuse? F*ck me, this conversation could be a long haul, we're starting pretty low here.


No. Scroll up to see exactly why I think people vote tory.


I didn't imply that, I just implied that they weren't lefties, and I'm correct. The people who hold power in society are those that run the big institutions, and that's not lefties. That's bollocks is it?


In the imaginary scenario in which you're trapped in a room with a bunch of SJWs, they'll come out with a load of crap and you'll have a shit time. And that's a crucial issue in politics today. Christ, we're really nailing it here, aren't we?

In reply to Jon Stewart:
I recently got called a "left-wing bigot" and "an apologist for child abuse" for pointing out how racist a thread on Sarah Champion was.

The idea of the "left-wing bigot" is a product of what Angela Nagle calls the "online culture war" or "digital counter-revolution": it emerges from a subculture of white men who spend too much time online, getting paranoid about how multiculturalism has, somehow, led to them being disempowered and subjected to discrimination from what they suppose to be a liberal "PC" mainstream. The people on UKC's forums who getting cranky at "left-wing bigots" are the same sort of people who accuse the BBC of being "left-wing", think that feminism is undermining men's ability to be men, and think that teachers and university teachers are all "Cultural Marxists" - whatever that is supposed to mean. In short, UKC has become a place for cranks in the same way that 4chan is...

In reply to C Witter:



Don't think the BBC is particularly left wing.
Don't at all feel undermined by feminism.
Think calling all teachers cultural marxists is ridiculous.

....also think you calling out the Champion thread as racist was total bollocks.
Yes, there probably are a very few genuine cranks on ukc and yes you're probably one of them.

In reply to Stichtplate:

The aim of many on the thread was to racialize child abuse, with those who criticised this shouted down in the name of "defending open debate" - i.e. the right to racialize the problem of child abuse. You yourself argued that large child grooming gangs is a problem specific to "men with a nominally Muslim cultural background".

Someone called "baron" got 7 likes for writing:

"What 'these' people have got is a view of white girls being less worthy than their own women.
This allows them, in their own minds, to treat these white girls as trash.
The white girls are their to be used and abused and then discarded.
Whatever label you want to put on them it is either their religion, their culture, their environment or a combination of all of these factors that are the root causes."

Wow.

I cannot see how you can defend this line of "debate" as not being extremely racist. A simple test: find one "nominally Muslim" friend and show them that thread and see if you can walk them through the arguments without cringing with embarassment, and whether this person is still your friend at the end of the conversation.

Anyway, I don't want to reprise such a deeply worrying, upsetting and unpleasant thread here. So, we can leave it at this: I find that behaviour racist; you and many others don't. If that makes me a crank, I'm proud to be one.

In reply to C Witter:

>



Because racism is about prejudice.

In reply to C Witter:

You were criticised on a number of levels, by a variety of posters. Including me, I think.

If it makes you feel happier in your little bubble to dismiss everyone who disagreed with you on that thread as a crank and a racist, then you kind of reinforce the argument that "the left" (as I presume you identify) are unable to actually discuss the issues and prefer to stick their fingers in their ears, and shout down dissenters, whilst crying "Poor me, I'm so put upon".

In reply to C Witter:









That's a new spin on the ”I've got a friend who's a Muslim" line. Either you are being satirical or your sense of irony is dead.

I'm not sure I'd agree with that particular post, but to suggest that is representative of the whole debate is total misrepresentation.

How about looking at the arguments of Nawaz and others as discussed in the thread. Or are they the "wrong sort" of Muslim.

(And WTF is a "nominal" Muslim? )

In reply to C Witter:




I argued that this was true for the multiple cases of street grooming gangs.
It's very easy to prove me wrong. Quote me a similar case involving offenders with a different background.

In reply to off-duty:

Thanks, that was exactly the sort of critique I was interested in and why I posted the obviously-irritating-to-those-who-disagree clip in the first place.


I've heard Andrew Neil's line "all this bigotry is coming from the left" countless times. A genuine successful meme.


I think his point is that his examples aren't just right-wing nobodys on the internet, they are the actual mainstream conservative youth movement, the people who will be standing as MPs in a few years. He's also saying, as I am, that there is a *big* difference between insulting people whose beliefs you hate with insulting people because they belong to a minority, which is what is rife not on "the right" generally (the Parliamentary Tory party don't do this!) but specifically in the mainstream conservative youth movement. He's saying: look at the beliefs of the young people at the top universities who want to be Tory MPs, and may well be soon: they are scum. [To anyone who thinks that me calling them scum is as bad as them talking about the problem of chavs breeding, then please, just get better at thinking].


Good point! Although embarrassing, Brown and Thornberrys' remarks weren't quite comparable to the stuff about gassing the poor, were they?


I agree. But I do think that it's far, far more harmful for society to encourage racism and homophobia than it is to be a shouty lefty "shutting down debate". The idea that the two things are just as bad as each other is IMO complete horseshit. Where are the casualties, the suicides, the lack of economic opportunity associated with the actions of the shouty lefties. Drawing the equivalence to me is appalling, because it diminishes everything that has been done to achieve equal rights, which was not an easy thing to do.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

I think you may be making some valid points. Owen from my viewing of video, doesn't make them as far as I can recollect, and I'm not sure I can face watching him again to confirm that.

In reply to Jon Stewart:


But...


But....


But...


But...


But... What's yer favourite biscuit in a WWII aircraft?

Your silence speaks volumes.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

I think some of this debate about the left closing down debate is coming from a playbook that the right have used very successfully over the last few decades, they cried foul with the "overwhelming liberal" media in the states even though it was fairly centre or soft right in most cases and shifted the debate right and to the extreme right in certain cases, they have done the same with items like global warming stamped their feet and demanded an equal presence in the debate which led people to believe that there was genuine scientific debate as too wether it was happening and now we have America walking out of the Paris accord.
This steady drip drip is very successful in moving things in the direction the right want, look at the Brexit debate, Nigel Farage played the underdog card and basically guilted the "liberal media" into giving him a platform, even though there were larger groups cut out of the debate, there were many groups like the Greens, Plaid Cymru etc that weren't given a place in the debate despite at the time having a much larger base.
This debate is about basically some politicians and commentators want to call a spade a spade and that will mean some rather unpleasant characters given a voice on mainstream media in the name of "balance"
I think debate on many things should be opened up but it should be reasoned debate, I think if the many (often sponsored)climate deniers that popped up in debates had been "deplatformed" by a little background researching of their backers and funding plus their peer reviewed papers and having a policy of not giving a platform to bad science then we may have been a couple of decades further ahead in the battling of climate change.

In reply to jethro kiernan:


Which make you wonder, why is the Left unable to reciprocate in any meaningful way?

In reply to jethro kiernan:


That's a good point when it comes to climate change, because it's science. There is a right and wrong answer (or to be pedantic, there is one range of answers that are overwhelmingly more likely to be true than an opposing set). But we have a problem with people (well, idiots) confusing matters of fact and matters of opinion. There's nothing valid about an opinion that climate change isn't caused by humans, that's just being thick and ill-informed. However, when it comes to political rather than scientific questions, there is no right and wrong answer and that's where "deplatforming" is dangerous and wrong. I agree that factually incorrect opinions on climate change shouldn't be given the oxygen of publicity (ref. BBC and that old Tory prick with the attractive daughter who makes cakes and innuendo on telly). But the same can't be applied to political opinions about whether we should leave the EU, or burn gays or whatever.

In reply to Big Ger:


This is all a bit vague. "The right" come out with a load of bollocks about "the left closing down debate". What, precisely, do you want "the left" to do? "The left" - say, the BBC, Channel 4 news, left-wing youtube political shows, all the rest continually bring on right wing wankers to spout their shite ad infinitum. What more do you want "the left" to do?

In reply to Jon Stewart:

Well, that was my question. If the left cannot come up with effective or creative methods of getting their message across, they're going to slowly vanish.

We saw Corbyn's technique of giving away freebies, like cancelling Uni tuition fees, that was a vote grabber, so what more can "the left" do to gain advantage and momentum.

Or would you like "the right" to do it for you?

In reply to Jon Stewart:

Here you go look, maybe this will convert the doubters!

Jeremy Corbyn has said he is increasingly eating vegan food but Labour has denied he is switching to a diet without animal products. The Labour leader said he was “going through the process” of eating more vegan food after decades of being a vegetarian because it is improving in quality. But a Labour spokesman denied he was in the process of becoming a vegan, saying he had simply meant to talk about eating more vegan-friendly food.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/sep/04/some-of-my-best-friends-ar...

In reply to Big Ger:
As much as I believe in left wing politics, I am also a pessimist/realist. I think that society would be better with higher taxes and better services : excellent, clean, fast, punctual trains; schools with brilliant state of the art resources and well paid, motivated teachers; tremendous hospitals providing first class care and researching new ways to prevent and cure disease. This is perfectly possible with the resources at our disposal.

However, human beings are stupid selfish creatures who are unable to cooperate sensibly to achieve goals that serve common interests. They like to compete instead. They'd much rather that no one had a brilliant school or hospital so long as the one that they had was slightly better than their competitor's, although both were crap.

So for this reason, human nature - our biological characteristics - you can't get people to vote for left wing policies. They don't satisfy the human urge to compete and win. Politics is just a game of tricking people into ticking one box on a ballot paper rather than another. It's not something I can genuinely engage in, but I can argue about what I believe in. The left is fundamentally f*cked because the ideas don't align with human beings' innate adequacies, their biological instinct not to cooperate. Right wing politics plays into these flaws and presents them as virtues, even if these virtues mean people who are unlucky end up with no food or shelter.

So don't ask me how the left will win an election. Winning an election doesn't mean you're right, it just means you're good at manipulating people en masse.

In reply to Jon Stewart:
Couldn't agree more! You have firmly and squarely hit the proverbial nail on the head!

In reply to Jon Stewart:
Posts like that make me I'm glad I'm an optimist, not a pessimist.


Maybe if the left didn't perceive everyone in that way, they'd have more chance of making converts. People want the best for them and theirs, we just have different views on how to achieve what's best. Calling others "stupid selfish creatures" because they do not agree with your perspective, just goes to show how bigotted the left can get.


But people do vote for them, at the last election 12,878,460 voted labour.

1945
1950
1964
1966
1974
1997
2001
2005

All those elections resulted in Labour party victories.

If the Labour/left could present a well argued and costed agenda more people would vote for them. I'd vote Labour if what they offered seemed more reasonable than what the other parties offered.

Again, I think your rather warped perspectives on society in general serve you poorly.,

In reply to Jon Stewart:




Not every human being is stupid or selfish. And some clever, selfless people vote Tory - amazing but true. However those that effectively own our "democracy" either through direct influence over those in parliament or via lobby groups / think tanks are the same people who own lots of the media, and they do a very effective job of suppressing discussion about what is in the public interest.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

I don't advocate deplatforming and think that reasoned debate should be open, but my concern is more with the false narrative used by the right to move the debate away from reasoned discussion to just opinion without reason even getting a look in, the ooh look some students have boycotted someone therefore the whole left are closing the debate down.
We also forget that politics is a science probably very much on a par with climate science in as much the outcomes can't be precisely modelled but general outcomes can be predicted by "experts" actions A in public policy may result in an outcome somewhere between E&F opinion is important but it needs a little reason and thought and a little science to balance it out.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

Isn't the desire for ever improved health and an extended lifespan an unrealistically selfish viewpoint?

In reply to Jon Stewart:
Right wing politics plays into these flaws and presents them as virtues, even if these virtues mean people who are unlucky end up with no food or shelter.
>
This is a fundamental misportrayal. Proponents of market economics accept and embrace the benefits of competition but their philosophy is based on the benefits of free association and co-operation in the form of companies and organisations (profit making or not) that are fundamental to it's success. Capitalism is all about co-operation and trust. Nor, despite your oft repeated assertion, do they accept that "those who are unlucky end up with no food or shelter". They absolutely believe in a safety net that protects these people but also in a system that encourages and enables people not to become dependent on it.

When you say "excellent, clean, fast, punctual trains; schools with brilliant state of the art resources and well paid, motivated teachers; tremendous hospitals providing first class care and researching new ways to prevent and cure disease. This is perfectly possible with the resources at our disposal." and promoting a bigger State to do this,all you are really saying is that a benign dictatorship could provide these things. It's not exactly a great insight.

In reply to Big Ger:

The left did try in a meaningful way, science, reason, a bit of truth and allowed the right a platform to offer their opinion even when the latter were obviously in short supply. Are you saying the left should come up with some alternative facts to counter the rights alternative facts?

In reply to Postmanpat:

You are doing your usual thing of taking one high-minded strand of right-of-centre thought and assuming it applies to all those who are in or support right-of-centre governments. There are plenty of people who don't believe in safety nets and such like - the OP's video highlights some who think burning cash in front of the homeless is the way forward, for example. Similarly there are plenty who don't believe in cooperation - Brexit being an obvious, glaring example and Trump's approach to trade another.

In reply to Big Ger:





oh god i cant get involved in another detailed discussion so soon but a (hopefully!) quick point...

i think Jon overstates the case, but he has a point- and his perspective is not of society, but of human beings themselves. our evolutionary heritage supplies us with an innate tendency to favour those who share our genes- JS Haldane encapsulated it when (though it may be apocryphal) asked if he would give his own life to save his brother, his reply was, "no, but i would to save 2 brothers, or 8 cousins".

there is clearly more to human behaviour than naked kin selection, and a whole scientific discipline which investigates altruism, and which i'm not sufficiently familiar with; but i think that societies are things that humans develop in order to negotiate the problem of living alongside people that we are not biological close kin of, and therefore have less innate drive to treat favourably.

there are an almost infinite number of ways to approach this, and some go further than others in the level of 'enforced altruism' (ie taxes...); but all are constrained by the attitudes that are held by the individuals that make up the society. in some ways, the UK has remarkable levels of altruism- the existance of the NHS in particular being an example. But any party that goes past a tipping point in requiring people to disadvantage themselves for other people will not prosper at the ballot box, and at any given time the UK population will have a point where the are not prepared to go past. labour's position has at times been quite a long way past that point, though maybe less so at present as the point is not a fixed one

In reply to MG:


Jon is arguing about political philosophy so that is what I am doing. We'll leave the brexit argument out of it (brexit has supporters of different political strands eg.Gove and Corbyn and anyway your point is not true).

I think you would struggle to find a vaguely mainstream British politician of the economic "right" who doesn't believe in some form of safety net.

That some idiotic student behaves like an 1idiotic student is a demonstration of nothing, (although it should be noted that he was drummed out of the Conservative party forthwith unlike the equivalents in Momentum.)

In reply to Postmanpat:


You are presenting one strand of political philosophy.

>We'll leave the brexit argument out of it

How convenient.


It demonstrates that way of thinking is accepted (until caught on camera) in the Conservative party. There are plenty of similar, if less extreme, examples around.

In reply to MG:

>
It's the bane of all parties that they want to attract the "yoof vote" but that this will inevitably include some immature idiots.
Despite jon's straw man, I would not pretend that the Conservative party doesn't still include some unpleasant elements. The point is that so does the Labour party and its current leadership not only fails to remove them but actively encourages them, promotes them, and is partly dependent on them. Its supporters should therefore do the decent thing and accept that they are in no position to preach to anyone on morality and politics.

In reply to Postmanpat:
I agree that capitalism is an exercise in trust, but we are in the process of failing spectacularly in applying it to government, all the points you mention are lacking when companies are brought in to carry out tasks that benefit society or semi government tasks because the false structures we build to encourage competition and measure success are fake structures, look at the prison system in America it has failed society but the share holders and lobbyists are happy or the American health care system the worlds most inefficient system.
back in the UK.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/prison-privatisation-chris-gr...
//www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2282614/Camerons-Back-Work-scheme-branded-5bn-failure-3-6-claimants-lasting-jobs.htmlhttps:
//www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/12/edinburgh-schools-pfi-racket-crumbling-scotland-tax-avoiding-governing-classhttp:
//www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2017/02/06/britains-rail-franchise-model-has-failed-purpose/

There seems to be plenty of evidence of failure in capitalism where it tries government yet many people still believe the myth that governments couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery whereas in reality the average Fortune 500 company has a lifespan of 15 years not the sort of lifespan I would hope for in a stable system of government
the revolving door between senior public servants and the private sector doesn't help matters, its very easy to convince yourself that something is in the public interest if there is a nice warm directors seat and £250,000 per annum to supplement your government pension at the end of your career.

In reply to Jon Stewart:


I think what SJWs say is wrong though. How can you separate what they say from what they are doing? Inhibiting discussion of issues by dictating the terms and language that can be used to express it and denying the existence of counter narratives….all appear to be run-of-the-mill stuff for them.

There’s a significant cross-over here with the mainstream left. It wasn’t just SJWs championing the sacking of Tim Hunt, going mental over the shirt a NASA scientist wore, refusing to say “Steady on” when conservatives are referred to as “Tory Scum”, laying accusations of murder at the feet of the Tories over Grenfell, invoking class warfare, identity politics at every opportunity. It is mainstream left thinking, not just SJWs, which makes claiming white-privilege an acceptable counter argument, or which supports the Damore sacking.

You only have to break ranks on one or two of these issues to be considered a deplorable. From Trevor Philips and David Goodhard down to the man in the street, query the orthodoxy on approaches to gender, race or immigration, and the reaction is likely to be slurs and ostracising.


Hey, I’m in support of these policies. That’s why I’ve long considered myself nominally on the left. It’s why I’m not engaging in debate with you about them.

But I’ve seen the left shift underneath me. It’s no longer simply about better funding for public services, ensuring minorities aren’t blatantly maligned or enshrining equal rights in law.

We’re no longer in the business of seeking out institutional examples of racism, for example. We’re now in vigilante mode; seeking out offense and micro-aggressions, punishing anyone who fails to keep up with the times, deciding that groups who were victims can’t be racist, supporting reparational acts of racism. After winning core battles, the left hasn’t moved on. It keeps trying to find more villains under rocks, rooting out the wolves in sheep’s clothing who don’t buy into the doctrine fully. That’s why the Left is losing the exact people it could once count upon for its support. It keeps turning on its own.

The moment the mainstream Left tells me I’ve lost my job because I quote unpopular but reasoned arguments or because someone decided my viewpoints hurt their feelings, all the extra social welfare and employment protections in the world mean FA. You’ve just decided I am unemployable because of the way I speak or the views I hold – it’s no different to sacking someone because their “face doesn’t fit”.


On social media? I’d say they’re as bad as each other. There’s no disagreement there and I don’t think there ever was. In that unregulated environment, it’s the law of the jungle. So be it – not wanting black eyes I stay clear of bare-knuckle cage fights, but don’t begrudge anyone who wants to step into one themselves.

My argument is that in day to day life, in the mainstream it is the Left that is (through labels or direct action) declaring areas off-limits either on grounds of offense or of the truth having been established so no further debate can occur. Not long ago it was the right declaring “niggers”, “fags” and “silly ladies” as being incapable of holding an opinion. Now it’s the Left deciding who can be engaged with. SJWs might be at the sharp end of that, but you only have to watch the news to see yet another apology being delivered or head being called for over perceived offense, with those on the right dismissed out of hand by the Left.


If I am right, you are saying I cannot call someone a “faggot” because it’s a derogatory term for a characteristic they can’t change. Yet it's ok to call someone a “Nazi” because Nazism is just a belief and should both be changed and deserves derision?

There is a problem with this.

What if someone is being labeled a “Nazi” for no other reason than them having presented a contrary opinion?

If I am extolling the right to free-speech and someone calls me “sexist” for doing so, your implication is “tough luck”. I can simply alter my viewpoint to no longer fit that criteria. If I don’t I can reasonably expect to continue being labeled a sexist.

The left is policing thought through the constant use of these labels, every bit as much as calling someone a “chav” or a “faggot” leaves the recipient under no illusion as to where they stand in the pecking order and what their opinion is worth.

Lumping someone in with an ideology that exterminated millions, because you don’t like their choice of language, is every bit as debilitating to debate as calling someone a “nigger”.


I’m all for tolerating a shit time.

Unfortunately, “having a shit time” in the world idealised by the left (e.g being faced with a memo such as Damore wrote, or hearing the joke spoken by Tim Hunt) is sufficient grounds to have people sacked.

The reality of the world championed by the left is that giving anyone “a shit time” is tantamount to physical abuse or a form of aggression. That, again, is the reason for anger not just with SJWs but the left in general – both are way off left-field together on this.

In reply to Postmanpat:


I agree with that, also with a lot of David Martin just said

In reply to Postmanpat:



No it isn't, it's an exaggeration.


I understand that there *are* good arguments for right-wing economics, and you are one of the only people on here that ever articulates them. I would be delighted to discuss this sort of thing in a more measured way more often because it's stimulating to have one's views challenged. But you're totally naive if you believe that most of the Tory party - and Tory voters! - have any interest in implementing that philosophy. Look at the policies - it's just demonising the poor and aiming for tax cuts soon as poss. I judge the right - and by that I mean the Tory party and those who vote for them - by the policies. And the policies look a lot more like "f*ck the poor" than the sophisticated, benevolent philosophical argument you put forward.

And while there's a whole lot of stuff I hate about capitalism, I do see it as the least worst option; the interesting policy questions are how to reduce the greed and corruption and drive up good outcomes for people. I'm afraid I just don't see the Tories doing any work at all in this direction.


I know.

In reply to jethro kiernan:

>
Yes, the market system has been corrupted by the power and influence of big institutions, notably big corporates. The solution to this is difficult but the least likely solution is endow the State (or the supra State in the case of the EU) even more power. That just creates a monopoly on power which is more easily corrupted from within and outside.

The more likely solution is reform the current system to diversify and decentralise power and address the issues of lobbying and "revolving doors" that you highlight.

That most big corporates only survive 15 years is actually evidence that the system is not entirely broken. If they were to survive indefinitely it would imply they have corrupted the system so far to make themselves inviolate.

In reply to David Martin:




Can you really not see the difference between using derogatory labels that may or not be being used with justification or appropriately in any given circumstance, and using derogatory labels that can never be justified in any circumstance?

Of course it's not ok to call someone a nazi without reasonable grounds for doing so, just like it's not ok to call Stephen Hawking ignorant. But that doesn't mean there aren't people about whom the use of the terms nazi or ignorant can be justified. Not so the term faggot.

In reply to timjones:


Very amusing. I suppose that a moral imperative to make hospital *worse* is one way to justify voting Tory. But no, I don't think the aim of healthcare is to prolong life, it's to reduce suffering, but if you want to increase it then hey, you know who to vote for!

In reply to David Martin:

Your view of the left appears to be just a Greatest Hits of the worst behaviour of a small subset of the left sampled from Youtube videos mainly relevant to the USA. I live in a virtual wall-to-wall echo chamber of lefties and no one thinks SJWs are anything other than an embarrassment. The reactionary right is in the ascendancy right now, so I'm sure feeding your confirmation bias is easier than it's ever been.

What day-to-day contact do you currently have with the English/British mainstream left?

In reply to john arran:
>
Of course there is a difference but there is ultimately a similarity. A "faggot" is never a "faggot" and most people abused as "nazis" are not nazis. The effect is thus the same. People are abused for something that they are not in an attempt to demean them and delegitimise them and their views.

I really find it bizarre that people who identify proudly as "liberals"and "democrats" refuse to accept the threat to both that David Martin highlights from elements of "the left".

In reply to jethro kiernan:


They didn't sell it very well then.


Not at all, see above

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:


Given that it was popularized as part of an alt-right linked campaign that tried to silence a journalist using threats of physical violence for speaking out of line by computer games, and continues to be used - in exactly the same way that people object to "racist" or "fascist" being used - to pigeonhole people whose position you don't like and avoid having to engage with them, I'm getting really disturbed by the way that SJW used as a perjorative seems to be entering the mainstream around here.

It also makes me immediately assume that the person who's using it lives in their mum's basement, plays too much World of Warcraft and is generically angry with women because they can't get a girlfriend. Just sayin.

In reply to Big Ger:


And stay that way, you'll be healthier and happier. You'll also be wrong, but there's a perfectly good argument for saying "so what".


They don't. My post doesn't represent the views of the left, it represents nihilism (some philosopher may come along and correct that, maybe there's a more accurate term).


You've totally misunderstood. I'm accusing *everyone* of being stupid, selfish monkeys, not just Tories.


As I said, politics is just ticking a box on a form. The vast majority of those votes won't have anything to do with policies, they'll just be a reflection of the way someone's parents voted, their social identity.


I think you need a bit of Rustin Cohle in the room to keep the debate grounded in reality.

In reply to Jon Stewart:


It's not supposed to be amusing it's a serious question. Do you think that ever increasing lifespans are sustainable?

The research into disease prevention that you are asking for will almost certainly increase lifespans so we need to consider the costs of that not oly in financial terms but also the wider costs to society and the planet.

We have made huge strides in healthcare decade on decade after decade throguhout all of our lives an as far as I can see the claim that anyone is trying to make it worse is merely a left wing campaigning ploy.

In reply to David Martin:

I think you extended post above neatly captures the reason I moved away from the left.

In reply to john arran:

The not so subtle play, campaign for your right to call a spade a spade, but steer clear of calling a Nazi a Nazi http://uk.businessinsider.com/neo-nazis-celebrate-trumps-remarks-about-char...

I do think that we still need to be careful about cutting out voices out of the debate and no side should have a absolute veto on dialogue, but it would be worth bearing in mind some of the lessons of climate change and remember if all we bring to the table is opinion and no learning, knowledge and expertise then we are f***ed.

In reply to Postmanpat:

This shows a profound lack of understanding about the battle for equal rights. When we lived in a world in which it was acceptable to call people "pakis" and "poofs", these minority groups were treated as second class because of characteristics they can't control. In the case of "paki", this was severely limiting to their economic opportunity: the idea was cemented in society that the place of people from the Indian subcontinent was behind a shop counter, not in a hospital or in a courtroom or a boardroom. In the case of "poof", gay kids were told they were inferior and bullied, ending in suicide in many cases, and violence against gay people on the street was rife. Use of these insults was symptomatic of vile, toxic attitudes in society that ruined people's lives.

I find the idea that calling someone a "nazi" because of their beliefs is in any way equivalent to be a total betrayal of everything achieved on equal rights. I'll ask again, where are ruined lives, the suicides, the loss of opportunity?


I find it bizarre how people get so incredibly worked up about something that just isn't very important. If you think that being called a "nazi" by a teenager is the biggest problem one can possibly face in society today, and reoresents a threat to democracy, then your outlook is unbelievably cushy, and you're a spoilt cry-baby.

In reply to timjones:


Answered already. Please re-read.


Yes, we need to consider the costs. That doesn't mean you don't do any research because there's a risk that life expectancy might increase! There might be better ways to make sure we don't have an impossible care bill for 110 year olds than not doing research.


It was a joke, in the spirit of your ludicrous argument - which actually turned out to be serious!

In reply to Jon Stewart:

>
Just as being called a "faggot" wasn't the be all and end of all of persecution of homosexuals or racial minorites, being dubbed a "nazi" isn't the be all and end all of the abuse of people with different views. People live in genuine fear of their jobs because people lose their jobs or are made deeply unhappy in their jobs by the attitude of the witch hunters. They are ostracised from social groups and communities.

So yes, the imposition of such "groupthink" leads to stress and unhappiness and suppresses free debate and therefore free thought. It also harms the institutions in which it is prevalent by dissuading potentially able recruits from joining.

And saying "it was/is worse for minorities" isn't not a valid argument to defend such behaviour.

In reply to Postmanpat:

I'm not defending the behaviour I'm saying that drawing the equivalence reveals your priorities to be out of whack by orders of magnitude. Drawing the equivalence says to me "pah, equal rights, what a load of PC shit". I know you don't intend that, but you're making zero effort to avoid that interpretation.

The trend to dismiss pretty much any mention of the treatment of minorities as "identity politics" and therefore worthless is a bandwagon of the alt-right, who genuinely *don't* support equal rights. I'm worried that so many reasonable people are quite happy to jump aboard that bandwagon. Look who's in the driving seat, it's the f*cking Brietbart wankers. If that's not where you want to position yourself, then maybe take more care to draw the distinction?

Edit: Sam Harris explains well what "identity politics" actually means here: youtube.com/watch?v=KPRhJeFNico& Now, on UKC for example but more widely, "identity politics" just means "stuff about minorities and I hate all that PC crap". It's dire use of language for sinister political motivations.

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:



Yes, still lacking is a single example of someone who we can agree is "mainstream left" supporting the SJW agenda.

In reply to Jon Stewart:


There are increasing examples of university authorities (who, one might hope would be politically neutral in their policies and accept a diversity of opinion), buying into an SJW agenda.

Here's an example today (though so far it is only an "investigation"):

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/edinburgh-law-student-robbie-travers-who...

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/student-probed-uni-bosses-hate-1111382...

In reply to Ramblin dave:



You're absolutely right. I should have given it the "inverted commas treatment". Anyway, my Mum's shouting me for lunch.

In reply to Coel Hellier:
Sorry to be so blunt, but speaking with you is like speaking with a politician. You only ever answer the question you want to answer, and consistently ignore the question being asked, presumably because you don't have an answer. I could help you by writing "mainstream left" in bold, but why should I have to use the additional keystrokes, when I know it would make absolutely no difference to the complete irrelevance of your response.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

It's a trope of particularly u.s. based or at least funded ring wing YT commentators - strokers like PJW - partly true at least as far as the most extreme left wing types are concerned. Of course 'the Left' is as fragmented and illusory as 'the right' containing liberal and authoritarian elements but its easy gruel for the yt masses who follow these personalities to have an easy paint by numbers and necessarily divisive view of the world. Clicks baby. Schooled, destroyed, annilated.

Black is white and up is down - the rightwing is the political outlook that spent a century championing civil rights, gay rights, health and safety in the workplace etc. Oh, wait...

D

In reply to Coel Hellier:
I'm not sure a Milo Yiannopoulos wanna be trying to generate a social media frenzy is indicative of a vast left wing conspiracy, also the University are going through a process, someone makes a complaint you investigate as far as I can see that's all it's done, and this is all part of brand "Robbie" playing the martyr for their own personal gain.

https://thetab.com/uk/edinburgh/2015/10/28/meet-robbie-travers-edinburghs-b...

In reply to David Martin:
Thanks for the detailed reply, but I don't really think we're moving on. You care enormously about stuff that I think is trivial in the wider scheme of things, and not, as you seem to believe, the crumbling of western democracy's foundations. I've responded to most of the points in my posts to others: your priorities are miles out of whack and you're aboard the bandwagon of the Brietbart wankers (although I do trust that you don't actually share their toxic views, you're just careless in not distancing yourself from them).

I really think you should reflect a bit more on the difference between calling someone a "faggot" and calling someone a "nazi".



My argument is obvious, and this isn't it! If someone calls you sexist, or a nazi, then you say "no I'm not, and here is why". It's an argument about beliefs and actions, and while it's low quality one if you're being called silly names, it's still an attack on your beliefs and actions which is then up to you to defend. When someone calls me a "faggot", I think "f*ck me I hate living in this shit society" but there's not a lot I can say unless I fancy my chances at convincing them that I deserve to be respected equally to straight people, or just shouting "f*ck off" in their face and dealing with the consequences of that...

In reply to Coel Hellier:


Christ, his dress sense is enough to provoke a hate crime

In reply to Jon Stewart:

You sum up nicely what the money should be spent on. I am amazed that you focus on excellent,clean, punctual trains (bit of a leftfield one that) as compared with say social mobility.Still trying to figureout where that fits in.

Nothing at all about how you generate the wealth in the first place for all of the these shiny things.

Where's the focus on creating wealth for jobs or companies to pay for the taxes.Or for example increasing UK productivity.

In reply to Postmanpat:


Boo hoo. People live in genuine fear of their lives because of people who share views and ideals with historical nazis. If someone wants to sympatise and associate themselves with the ideas of a failed genocidal racist regime then IMO they deserve to be reviled and ostracised. Of course they also deserve a chance at redemption and the protection of the law.
jk

In reply to jkarran:

>
What an unhelpful post. As was made very clear, people are being reviled and ostracised NOT because they sympathise and associate themselves with the ideas of a failed and genocidal racist regime but because others (some of whom do indeed sympathise and associate themselves with the ideas of failed genocidal regimes) choose to characterise them as such in order to close down debate.

Indeed, by failing to recognise the gulf between the two things you area not far from falling into the same trap.

In reply to neilh:

OK, I'll go into a bit more detail if you like, but it's all pretty obvious stuff.

The goal is to spread opportunity more fairly, so I focused on a little cartoon picture of what the society under the policies I favour could look like and didn't say much about how you get there. So what you're doing with big programmes to improve public services is making sure that if you grow up somewhere poor, then you'll get a great education because the school is great, and you'll be in good health because of great healthcare, great food at school, great access to sports facilities, you'll get opportunities to learn about the arts and to play musical instruments, all funded centrally. The social mobility is the result of this spreading out of opportunity by targeted redistributive spending - the money goes into programmes that are proven to generate good outcomes. We know that the rich are going to get good outcomes anyway, they always do, so we're concentrating on programmes that improve the life chances of those who get a crappy start in life. Early years is a good policy area for this kind of bang-for-buck.

So how do we pay for it all. Well, we need a healthy economy, decent growth. There's no actual evidence to support either side of the Keynes / Hayek debate due to lack of counterfactuals, but let's say that I'm not too sold on the case for austerity. Don't spend any money on schools, then you have crap schools and that's going to let you down in generating growth as those kids enter the labour market. Don't spend on transport and that slows the economy. Don't spend on welfare and you get loads of social problems you've got to mop up, so you end up spending more. Etc, etc. Unproven though it is, I'm opting for Keynes, as that doesn't seem to be obviously, logically, a terrible idea.

So you borrow, invest, generate growth, tax high and spend big, in order to create a virtuous circle that continues to generate growth, allowing you to manage the debt (you do both bits of Keynes, unlike Labour who only do the "spend big" bit and tell you that they've abolished the economic cycle so it's fine...that didn't go so well). You're aiming for good outcomes, that is, health, well-being, lack of poverty and social problems such as addiction and crime. What you're not trying to do is maximise the number of people who can live in a mansion and drive a beemer, because they're not good outcomes, they're just people spending money on ostentatious, gaudy tat, and that doesn't improve society.

The trick is that you've somehow got to harness the stupidity and greed that makes people tick "I want a beemer because that shows my position high up the dominance hierarchy" and milk it. It's not easy to get those policies right, and that's the reason that we have a ludicrous tax system where it's all divided up into a million different taxes, so you get loads of money out of people in a way which doesn't hurt their little feelings.

The reason I don't vote Tory in order to get better growth through better economic management is because their "economic competence" is probably the most ludicrous claim I have ever heard made in my entire adult life following politics. These people got Britain to leave the EU *by mistake*. If that's "economic competence", then I have gone through the looking glass and I am Alice in Wonderland. Then, should they manage to achieve high growth, I don't think for a minute they're going to put the money to good use through public spending to spread opportunity. Right-wing philosophy champions the right of the individual to keep all that money and spend it on gaudy tat. And keeping the opportunity to yourself and passing it onto your kids through private schooling and old-boys networks.

The aim of right wing policies is just to get growth so you can lower taxes so you can get more growth. But the distribution you end up with as you fail to invest in public services concentrates opportunity with those who start out with it, and so militates against social mobility.

This is why I would prefer to remove my scrotum with a rusty hacksaw than vote Conservative.

In reply to Postmanpat:
I think the real danger is not the left closing down debate from the Right (which is becoming less open to debate in its own way) but turning debate within the left into a minefield, political correctness has helped people gain more equality within society and the workplace (and I don't use the word minorities because I don't believe women are a minority) I think what worked in the 70's and 80's has now needs recalibrating because it has made it difficult to debate certain subjects within the left because every liberal brought up on campaigning for equal rites and free Mandela has a visceral fear of being labeled racist and there can be a tendency to skirt around some subjects This does mean that finding subtle working solutions to difficult issues like FGM, arranged marriages, interrogation of immigrants,
shiria law etc, this doesn't mean that challenging people for dismissing groups as unworthy should end it just means the left need to tackle some of these issues using evidence, committees and experts and allow that debate without crying foul or it it will fall to the right and their populist Gordian knot solution to every problem to provide the answer.

In reply to jethro kiernan:

>
You appear to be echoing David Martin's thoughts, "But I’ve seen the left shift underneath me. It’s no longer simply about better funding for public services, ensuring minorities aren’t blatantly maligned or enshrining equal rights in law.

We’re no longer in the business of seeking out institutional examples of racism, for example. We’re now in vigilante mode; seeking out offense and micro-aggressions, punishing anyone who fails to keep up with the times, deciding that groups who were victims can’t be racist, supporting reparational acts of racism. That’s why the Left is losing the exact people it could once count upon for its support. It keeps turning on its own."

I agree with both of you. If debate is closed down and inconvenient truths are suppressed then solutions will not be found.

In reply to Postmanpat:

My point is that someone displays the traits of a nazi, you know: marching around shouting 'seig heil', throwing roman salutes, fantasising about gassing or sterilizing an underclass then they should be called a nazi and suffer the associated social stigma. I'm not suggesting anyone and everyone with right of center views should be labeled as such because that would be totally mental.

If that makes me a rabid extremist in your eyes then fine, I'll not be losing any sleep over it.
jk

In reply to Postmanpat:

To counter David I think that Coels example ( he may not have intended it as such) of some one provoking a reaction to muddy the water of debate is also an example of the problem not being as bad as it made out to be and really isn't a problem of the right being oppressed by a PC left, I think it is far more subtle and really about the opening up of some more debate on certain areas on the left.
Also the right has learned from PC, the demonisation of the poor, as scroungers, chavs, benefits cheats etc has largely avoided the issue of political correctness by being vague, but has meant large groups of people have not had the political voice heard.
Grenfell gave us a taste of this, where a group of people tried to make their concerns known (excert their political power) and were completely ignored, think of the weight of media behind that decision to ignore, all the episodes of benefits street, Jeremy Kyle, all the daily mail headlines about benefits cheats and scroungers ,all the chav jokes, then think about being a councillor with a mainly rich constituency getting a request from a group wanting their "free" housing sorting out, file that in the bin who they going to complain too?

In reply to Jon Stewart:


I own a beemer...its a nice car......lol...

In reply to jkarran:

Why would I? I agree with you. Hence your post was unhelpful because it was tilting at something that nobody on the thread had said.

I'm just left wondering why you would do that.

In reply to Jon Stewart:



It might also mean that we shouldn't be fretting if research isn't funded at the drop of a hat.


Doesn't it seem ironic that in a thread discussing bigotry you resort to claiming that lines of discussion that you don't want to follow are ludicrous and calling people who don't share your opinions stupid and selfish?

In reply to timjones:


Yeah medical research, what a waste of money. I don't know what kind of people you'll find supporting this argument, but please, please, don't introduce me!


No it doesn't. I have called all human beings stupid and selfish, because of their evolutionary instincts and I've explained this, even though it's obvious, to someone else upthread. And now I'm doing it again. My view might be a bit nihilistic, but it sure as hell ain't bigoted.

In reply to Jon Stewart:



Maybe the people who believe that we should prioritise the effective delivery of what we already have available?


Couldn't it also be argued that it is stupid and selfish to keep on pursuing technologies that allow us to pace an ever greater burden on the planet thhat we all live on?

Our inability to accept our own mortality and allow the next generation the space to thrive seems to be the ultimate in selfishness.

In reply to timjones:

The way I see healthcare isn't that we should try to live longer and longer for the sake of it. We should be trying to minimise the suffering caused by disease, and if you want to do that, you have to fund research and hospitals. I would say (and this is guessing, not fact!) it's pretty much the best bang-for-buck spending you can get if your aim is to minimise human suffering.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

Unless you are only talking about pain relief how can you minimise disease without increasing lifespan?

What factors are going to limit our lifespan if we keep on pursuing cures for everything?

In reply to timjones:

Surely you should prioritise the stuff that kills young people, and creates horrible chronic reductions to QOL and life on the sick, not the stuff which bumps off 90 year olds? So yes, there's more people around, but there's more working people, if you like to see things in terms of the cold hard cash.

In reply to Jon Stewart:


My concerns have nothing to do with "cold hard cash."

I thought you were the one that was desperate for never ending economic growth to fund your aspirations for the human race

I suspect that both economic growth and the capacity of the planet to sustain a growing population are finite.

In reply to Jon Stewart:


And I guess a more important question might be how do we define "the stuff which bumps off 90 year olds"?

In reply to timjones:

There was a chap who used to post on here who's a health economist who could help us here. But to give an example of how some good research would be handy, how about a cure for AMD (the leading cause of blindness in old people). If we had a cure, we wouldn't be extending life, we'd just be increasing the quality of life massively for those who find they can't read or use a computer etc for the last 10 years of their life. Worth a few quid, eh?

In reply to Jon Stewart:


Certainly, but will it ever have the same appeal to the masses as a cure for all cancers?

IME people tend to support research into the things that they believe will kill them and that is where I believe that selfishness comes into the equation.

In reply to timjones:

The late Hans Rosling has some good, optimistic stuff to say about this. I think this is one:

youtube.com/watch?v=2LyzBoHo5EI&

But the whole thing is here:

youtube.com/watch?v=eA5BM7CE5-8&

These clips are great too:

youtube.com/watch?v=QsBT5EQt348&

In reply to timjones:



Yes, that's why it's best to centralise funding and prioritise spending using ideally objective (utilitarian) criteria. Hurrah for the big state.

In reply to Jon Stewart:







Sadly I haven't got time to watch it all now as it has stopped raining outside.

However his opening assertion appears to be that death is tragic, is it really tragic or have we just failed to come to terms with it and accept it?

Are we being governed by our own fear?

In reply to timjones:

Evolution makes pretty damn sure we're afraid of dying. A conscious organism that wasn't scared of death would not be very successful.

In reply to Jon Stewart:


Are you really happy for the state to choose who lives, who dies, when they die and how they die?

An objective and utilitarian big state seems rather soulless, I think I'd rather leave myself in the hands of fate even if it means that I die tomorrow.

Wouldn't easing off on the drive to find new cures whilst striving to deliver what is currently available to everybody in equal measure be a more pragmatic and potentially less discrimnatory approach

In reply to Jon Stewart:


And that is why we are selfish, there is nothing stupid about it as long as we don't take it to far.

The knack is in knowing when to stop.

In reply to timjones:


Well you either have healthcare, or you don't. And if you have it, someone is making decisions about who lives and who dies, and how. I'd rather a utilitarian state (of which we're all stakeholders) was making the decision than anyone with a profit motive - that to me would be much, much darker.


I'm not sure you'd be saying that if it was your mum or your daughter who was getting treatment from the soulless utilitarian state.


No. If you find better ways of doing things through research, you get more done with the same money.

In reply to Jon Stewart:


That's a different debate, you seem rather obsessive about money and profit?

I have no problem with the state subcontracting some services out, but I do have huge concerns about the state robbing patients and their families of choice.


I'm 50 years old FFS, I've experienced it 3 times already. It's not pretty when the state dictates that paramedics must get patients to hospital at any cost.

I watched my mum "die" 3 times in less than 3 times when anyone with any sense and compassion would have accepted that she was beyond resuscitation when they first arrived.

If the state are going to continue to develop cures then there is also a responsibility to define when and how it is acceptable to die in order to allow patients and their families some peace and dignity.

If I could relive the morning that mum died I quite simply wouldn't call the ambulance. If the state wants to control our health then it must be big and bold enough to make the same decision rather than driving for life at any cost to kowtow to the electorates delicate sensibilities



I think you're more than smart enough to know that it isn't that simple.

In reply to Jon Stewart:




I would rather healthcare professionals were making that descision along with the people involved and their families.

Just like it is at the moment.

I don't see how that is in any way a left/right argument.

The left seem hell bent on convincing everyone that the right only look at it from a financial point.

I'm fairly sure that the only financial aspect they look at is whether one person is more likely to have a positive outcome than another. We all have to accept that rescources (not just financial) are limited and that not all people will respond to treatments.

In reply to timjones:

If your mum had survived you would be saying something different.

The descision has to be made on an individual basis by people properly experienced and trained. Not by you, me or a paramedic.

I'm not sure I would want my son or even a stranger deciding not to call an ambulance because I was 'beyond help' by their amateur diagnosis. That opens up a legal minefield.

In reply to timjones:


Really? Do you go to the GP when you're ill? Would you forgo calling the ambulance if you had an accident at work? Turn down antibiotics for a chest infection? I doubt it.

What's the difference between fate as you now see it (which is nothing of the sort given the wide range of state funded interventions available) and what Jon is promoting?


Why should learning stop now, it seems very arbitrary? Who knows what we'll find in the years to come.
jk

In reply to timjones:

I don't know what you mean by obsessive. I think there are some places where the market is the best way to provide the service (e.g. baking cakes), I think there are others where the market is wholly inappropriate (e.g. healthcare). That doesn't mean that the private sector can't take any part in healthcare, it means that private companies' involvement - if they can be shown to be the best way of delivering something on behalf of the NHS - must be very carefully managed such that their profit motive has no impact whatsoever on decisions about patient care.

As an optom I work in the private sector in healthcare and it's absurd. Would you go to a doctor whose salary was paid for by the sale of his company's drugs? Who was on targets to prescribe as many of the company's drugs as possible? Who was being measured on their "conversion" of appointments into prescriptions for the most expensice drugs? Thankfully, I can't do much harm with all the useless glasses and contact lenses I'm encouraged by the profit motive to prescribe, but I'm incentivised to be dishonest about what a patient needs (or what would be best for them), and more importantly I have no incentive to put any effort at all into seeing patients who have real, serious problems that can't be helped by me selling them something. I've got the training to do loads of useful stuff for people struggling with their vision, and I'm really accessible, but the profit motive means that all I'm going to do is sell people glasses. The system works to serve the needs of the enormous corporation I work for, and against the interests of the public. Hooray for the market!

Can you see why I might think that it makes a difference whether you fund healthcare publicly or leave it to the market? Is that "being obsessive about money and profit", or is it thinking about the best policy to generate good outcomes for society?


I don't want choice *of provider* in healthcare, I just want to go to the hospital and have no question about its quality. I want to be given appropriate options about my care when I get to the hospital, but let's not conflate the two, eh?



That sounds like a horrible experience, but that's a very difficult ethical question within healthcare and isn't an issue about funding. I haven't thought about it in detail, but I'm pretty certain I totally agree with you these sort of choices.


I think you're taking a very strange attitude about the awful experience being the fault of the state taking away control.

How would it be different if it was a private ambulance and hospital? They'd be dealing with precisely the same ethical dilemma about when it's compassionate to allow someone to die when you can save them. Can you see the ethical mine field here? A private provider who allowed patients to die - compassionately, or to save money, or because the relatives wanted to get their hands on the inheritance - would be running horrendous risks.

It's an incredibly difficult issue, and I can see how in either a public or private system, the policy might end up protecting the provider rather than the public. It's an intractable one if you ask me, and you'd need to talk to an expert in medical ethics if you wanted to find the optimal policy on when very sick people should be allowed to die. In these sorts of questions, you've got to consider *all* the possible scenarios (impossible, but you've got to try if you're going to find the right policy). The obvious one to consider here is when the judgement goes the other way - the patient is left to die and the family know they could have been saved and feel that decision was wrong.

But as I say, it's got nothing to do with state or private funding. And cutting funding for medical research is absolutely not a sensible way to approach the dilemma!

In reply to Jon Stewart:


All of us wearing NHS specs? I thought my John Lennon look when I wore them in the 70's was far out man.

In reply to DancingOnRock:



You're talking bollocks.

She was never going to survive, when she was last in hospital she had a "DNR" notice because her heart muscles were so knackered due to muscular dystrophy that she could never survive if she needed shocking to restart her heart.

If the state want to control how we live and ie they need to be better at it!

In reply to Jon Stewart:

I'm not talking about how it is funded, I'm talking about the implications of what we deliver and how we deliver it.

Forget the money, I support the concept of personal choice rather than state control in matters as personal as how we live and how we die.

I don't want to die under optimal criteria dictated by an "expert in medical ethics", if it's wrong to profit form healthcare how can it be right to profit from playing god over the way that a whole nations die?

In reply to Big Ger:

Well they set the fashion in specs for the last 10 years...

In reply to timjones:



You don't mention the DNR. That changes things somewhat. Why did you call the ambulance against her wishes?

Apologies if this is recent and still raw.

My mum went home to die. There was no ambulance, no DNR, just an acceptance that it was time. No 'state' involvement. Most of the time it's handled properly.

I'm typing this sitting in a well known cancer hospital waiting for a follow up appointment for cancer I had 14 years ago, where a descision was made whether to treat me or some other people...

In reply to timjones:

How exactly does 'the state control' that?

In reply to timjones:



Who doesn't? I'm all for assisted and dying and what have you too, very important and interesting legal question. I'm trying to point out that when there is an incredible difficult dilemma just saying the word "choice" doesn't solve it. Whose choice, what about when there's a conflict of choices? It's not easy!


I don't understand your argument. Can you outline what you're in favour of and how that's preferable to what we have now?

In reply to timjones:


I don't think anyone is suggesting that - if someone doesn't want treatment, it isn't forced on them. However, I would hope that in situations of doubt of which there must be many, treatment is provided.

In reply to John Kelly:


You could hardly blame him

In reply to timjones:
The emergency crew turn up a house or car crash and may not even know the name of the patient let alone the medical history or the patient's wishes.

Hence the default for state or private health care is attempt to save lives.

With hindsight the ambulance crew probably agree with you but unless there is some sort of instantly accessible and totally reliable living will what else can they do?

It's a bloody difficult problem to solve on the timescale of a 999 call.

Does any state or private health care system have a living will system for ambulance crews rather than hospitals?

PS sorry for any clumsyness or insensitivity

In reply to jethro kiernan:


The impression I got was that to head the inquiry they didn't want anyone white, they didn't want anyone who didn't live in a high-rise, they didn't want someone with a university education, and they basically didn't want anyone who didn't live in Grenfell or such like.

They accused anyone white and educated as being racist and against them - that sounds extremely like racism to me.

In reply to fred99:

You seem to be making a lot of assumptions there, there seems to be two main areas of contention with regards the enquiry.
The scope of the enquiry, will it cover the broader social questions that led to the fire and the way it was dealt with, and the immediate causes of the fire, and I believe there is an intent to cover it in two parts.
The other point of discussion was the chair of the investigation was seen as an establishment figure, for a group of people who appear to have been roundly ignored by the establishment this could be seen as a bit of a white wash especially as the original proposal was to ignore the wider issues as part of the investigation.
Obviously it does highlight a problem in British society, I'm not sure your " they wanted a "one legged, lesbian women of colour" to run the investigation helps it sounds like something written by a student subeditor at the Sun ????

In reply to jethro kiernan:

>
What problem do you think it highlights

In reply to Postmanpat:
There is the obvious financial rifts that seem to be widening and obviously Kensington and Chelsea is an extreme example.
But the also the talking down of the poor has reduced their voice, wether this led directly to the fire will hopefully be part of the enquiry.
Britain does have a weird class system that does seem to make communication between groups a bit difficult and a believe that austerity has cut down some of the formal structural lines of communication with the aforementioned talking down of the "poor" as a group probably more people feel disinfranchised wether they be former miners in Barnsley steel workers in Swansea, former ship yard workers in Glasgow or cleaners living in grenfell or workers in sports direct warehouses

In reply to jethro kiernan:



I doubt that the financial rifts between the average council bureacrat or councillor and the tenants have widened much nor that the "talking down of the poor" is a new phenomenon. Indeed, the construction of tower blocks in the first place was an example of just that attitude.

In terms of the choice of Chair, to which I was referring, I would have thought that the problem was the belief that professional training, competence and experience should be trumped by empathy or skin colour.

In reply to jethro kiernan:
From what I have read of the backgrounds of the victims of Grenfell, quite a few of them were not from what you might call poor uneducated families.

You had for example teachers ( of Morrocan background), professionals ( the Italian architects), you even had from what I recall a specialist in overseas disaster recovery zones.

So it is a mixed bag. Portraying this as an issue becuase of poor backgrounds is just wrong.

In reply to neilh:

It is quite possible for a single income teacher in Kensington to be "poor" my point is the creeping demonisation is actually affect lots of people, many people who rely on some form of welfare support are working, the requirement for social housing extends to nurses, firemen, police etc in areas of London so when people make decisions based on their perception of welfare recipients as Jeremy Kyle stereotypes it has a real knock on effect on regular people.
I don't think we disagree at all

In reply to DancingOnRock:



Well at the moment, we have the big, soulless, utilitarian state deciding who lives and dies: NICE guidelines do precisely this.


The left/right part comes in when you consider how the resources are going to be made available. So, if the NHS has a pool of resources that needs to be managed, and it's in poor shape and can't offer the best treatments, but a private provider can, then you'll get the rich being saved while the poor die. That's a pretty left/right issue if you ask me. The answer, of course, is to ensure that the NHS *can* provide the best treatment available - which is why you should never, ever consider voting Tory. If anyone thinks Jeremy Hunt is the right person to be put in charge of meeting that goal, they need their head examined.


Exactly. The crucial issue is about how you distribute scarce resources. Go down the right-wing path and the rich will end up with all the healthcare resources and the poor with none. Are you going to vote for that?

In reply to Jon Stewart:
It depends on what your version of privatisation means.

'Free at the point of delivery' certainly doesn't mean only the rich get all the best treatments.

That's exactly the kind of bigotry the OP is talking about.

.

In reply to DancingOnRock:



This is really unclear, but I think you're saying that you agree with the principle that healthcare is provided for all (equally?), free at the point of delivery, but that there are ways involving private companies that achieve that. I don't disagree with you, if this is what you're saying.

The argument I make above is that Tory policy will mean that the NHS will, in time, due to underfunding and mismanagement at the hands of Hunt, fail to provide that. The consequence of this is that private providers, outside rather than inside the NHS, will overtake the NHS in terms of their ability to do important treatments which save lives.

I think what you need to do to justify your side of the argument (as I'm guessing it might be) is to show that under the Tories, the NHS will continue to be able to offer the best available treatment, and that my fears about the future are unjustified left-wing claptrap.


I have given an argument for why I think right-wing policy - keeping taxes low, under-funding public services so that they crumble - will lead to bad outcomes in society. You can respond in various ways: you could try to undermine the argument, showing where it's flawed and possibly even presenting an alternative (that's what I was hoping for, but you can't have everything); or you can say "you're a bigot", which is rather like me saying that anyone who votes Tory "is a nazi", i.e. it's complete bollocks and has no justification. If you don't have the time or will to respond properly, you could just not bother, or just say "I think you're wrong but I haven't got the time to explain why". The choice was yours.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

The fears about the future of the NHS also encompass every party as I see it. From what I remember at the last election even Labour did not promise to fill the funding gap.

Going back further I can recall that in the previous election, NHS England kept saying we need this many billions and no party came up with a realistic proposal.Granted labour were close, but still did not meet NHS Englands recommendations.

Its a very complicated issue,but to say that one political theory like left or right has the real answer is just well idealistic poppycock.

In reply to jkarran:


Rarely.


We usually administer our own first aid or drive the casualty to hospital.


See my answer on GPs having just recvered from a 3 week chest infection I never even made it to the doctor.


these are all choices that we can make when we are concious and capable, my point is that as medecine advances we need to continue to be able to make those choices when we are less able. I'd really like the opton soemwhere in the near future to be able to state that if I'm at home in bed and my heart has stopped then please respect the fact that I am dead rather than attempting to revive ne because of your narrow concept of medical ethics.




How will we handle the long term implications of this as yet unknown discovery and will we allow individuals to opt out of it?

In reply to timjones:
We do have in most cases as far as I am aware the option of opting out if any treatment and this is an ethical debate, being excluded from the option of certain treatments is more of a political debate with regards funding

If we take hypothetical treatments of the future, what if there was eventually a cure for spinal injury but was hugely expensive and was only available as a private treatment.
What would your feelings be knowing that if you had broke your back there was a cure but it had been placed out of your reach and you were in a wheel chair for the rest of your life, and even if the treatment became available in the future the intervening time atrophied your muscles to the pint of rendering treatment only partially successful.

It's a safety net the NHS, we all have choices how we use it on a day to day basis until the point we have no choice and non of us know when that will be.

In reply to neilh:

I agree that Labour don't have solid proposals to deal with the problem. Which is why I vote LD (kind of, my vote is pretty much dictated by the ludicrous FPTP system, an additional reason to vote LD or Green if possible) - they're the only people who'll raise taxes for everyone rather than coming up with unrealistic "tax the rich" schemes.


I've argued what the *ideological* objection to the right-wing approach is - the path it leads down and why it's undesirable. Just saying "well there aren't better left-wing proposals on the table" doesn't deal with this, it just attempts to sweep it away without engaging. Because I'm saying that *there are* better left-wing proposals: we should raise taxes (or introduce another way of getting money out of individuals, I don't care if people would prefer to pay "compulsory insurance premiums" than "tax") and fund better healthcare, which should be centrally planned with consistent standards for all. The fact that Labour haven't worked out what their policy is is neither here nor there when what I'm attacking is the *ideology* behind the Tory policies.

There either *is* a good justification for the right-wing policy approach, or I'm right in saying that when you vote Tory you're lending your approval to the path of underfunding, mismanagement, running down, private providers overtaking, and a two-tier system. "Labour don't have the answer" does not answer this.

In reply to DancingOnRock:


Because the DNR was a practical reality rather than a personal choice, she hadn't been sent home to die but had been steadily deteriorating for over 30 years with occasional hospital stays in the latter years. You call the ambulance as soon as you find a person seriously unwell, because you don't have the equipment or skill to diagnose the problem 100% reliably, what you don't realise until you experience it is that from that point you are all just passengers. The outcome would be very different if a DNR could be reliably flagged once the patient had left the hospital.


It's not recent but it is still raw, that is why it concerns me that we can't keep extending life and curing illnesses without addressing the trickier question of how we die.


it was the same with my dad, but it was clear that the end was near and it was managed by Macmillan Nurses rather than paramedics without the necessary knowledge of the patients medical history.


Good luck.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

I am a swing voter.

As far as I am concerned it's all a load of ideological c~~p as all parties in the end want just about the same thing just have different ways of getting there.

Central planning of the type you want is something for a wartime economy and rarely produces outstanding results outside that.

In reply to neilh:


Not convinced. There are substantial philosophical differences between left and right in terms of what a good society looks like. Is it one in which the individual has the freedom to succeed or fail, or is it one in which we cooperate to ensure no one gets left too far behind?


Central planning is exactly what the NHS is. Your statement sounds like an argument to get rid of it.

In reply to neilh:
Putting a man on the moon
Iradication of small pox
The NHS
Concorde
Work wide airtraffic control

Plenty of times a society has got behind a big project with a little central planning, it isn't good for everything but things like a national railway system or health service it can work

In reply to Jon Stewart:

But it's not in practise.It adjusts and flows depending on numerous local, regional and national issues.

In reply to neilh:


It's funded through general taxation. I rest my case!

In reply to neilh:


This sound like an argument for a centrally planned system.