British Politics
Been on holiday for a few weeks, surprised to find no general discussion of British politics so though I'd kick one off.
Tory leadership contest is quickly turning into farce. Trump has backed Boris, which should be reason enough for anyone with half a brain to exclude him.
Of the other candidates Rory Stewart looks the best of the outsiders. Surprised to see Cleverly and Javid not further up the betting, but not sure the Tory membership are ready for a brown PM.
https://www.oddschecker.com/politics/bri...
Regarding the LD leadership contest, Jo Swinson is miles ahead of any other candidate (and indeed any of the Tory lot). Should be a shoe in.
Finally, it's Groundhog Day in Labour - the more serious the anti-Semitism claims get, the more Corbyn's cronies write their own obituary by blaming it on outlandish conspiracy theories - this week, it's apparently the Jewish Embassy's fault...
I dont find it at all suprising that all these types from all walks of life target people more vulnerable than they are. It's kind of a truism. They dont pick on the relatively strong.
What’s your point here? That one group have a clearly defined mental disorder and the other just like raping and torturing girls?
I blame all those politicians and people in charge (and I'm looking at you, EU) that don't actually work to make the lives of people better, and instead either let their mates make a ton of cash or put virtue-signalling or promote 'look how great we are' over actual solid improvement. When people are left with a horrible choice of the same old thing or a horrible choice and something different, it's not a surprise they are willing to roll the dice, is it?
I think you're right and its the repeated failures of several generations of the self-serving political class that is driving people desperate for an alternative into the grubby and unprincipled mits of the far right, many of whom are just as corrupt and self-serving as the political establishment.
Well society has low social mobility right now and it had low social mobility since like forever (even if in the 60-70s it was a tad higher, it was still low).
So, you have to admit that poor immigrants will have children which will mostly keep having under-average outcomes and so be a burden for taxpayers. That's objectively true.
So just don't take poors in, use immigration by rich people / people who can earn high incomes to help native poors without taking in foreign poors.
No I don't accept that.
What's most frustrating currently (see my reply to DB) is how people have realised that their interests are not best served by the political establishment, but lacking a coherent leftist alternative have turned to the far right in desperation. It is possible that things may change again once the far right have been exposed as the charlatans we all know them to be (just take a look at the Brexit shambles).
I think you're right and its the repeated failures of several generations of the self-serving political class that is driving people desperate for an alternative into the grubby and unprincipled mits of the far right, many of whom are just as corrupt and self-serving as the political establishment.
Wise people have always known that the totality of politicians are bad faith individuals who only care about themselves, because that's the normal human nature lol.
Any political system , or ideology, has to start from admitting that and moving from there. That's why it's strictly, objectively better to limit the power of politicians a lot, to minimize it to what is truly indispensable, because it will be ALWAYS abused to further the interests of themselves at everyone else expenses.
No matter what you would like society to achieve through the state, once you realize the state will ALWAYS, INVARIABLY, be captured by horribly, evil individuals hellbent on their self interest and who hate you and me and everyone else, you should accept the state can't be the solution to most of the problems , it can only exacerbate them and be the problem in most cases.
Jalfrezi also keep in mind that it's already pretty hard to convince well off people to pay more for "their own" poor, it becomes virtually impossible to convince people to pay for foreign, imported poors.
When you import many poors, increases in universal welfare necessarily impact foreign people disproportionately more than natives, and so political consensus to increase social welfare gets even lower.
That is what happens with social housing in Italy, when people realize it's used by immigrants
You're still failing to address my question about how you pay for the increasing pensions budget without increasing the proportion of people working or raising taxes for those who can afford it, or both.
No I don't accept that.
What's most frustrating currently (see my reply to DB) is how people have realised that their interests are not best served by the political establishment, but lacking a coherent leftist alternative have turned to the far right in desperation. It is possible that things may change again once the far right have been exposed as the charlatans we all know them to be (just take a look at the Brexit shambles).
Getting back to the immigration patterns europe had a few decades ago isn't "far right" , no matter how much you want to lie about it. No majority ever existed in favor of the mass immigration which happened, it all happened against the explicit will of the people including a ton of moderates, and we should just stop, solve the problems caused by those atrocious mistakes, and never again repeat those follies.
And that will improve the quality of life of citizens.
Then there are many other topics, but immigration is clearly something the left objectively did wrong, and did it undemocratically, against the will of the people, so the people correctly are voting to solve that in many countries.
At some point you either do like smart leftists did in denmark and elsewhere and admit the rest of society IS RIGHT and mass unfiltred immigration of low skilled people from alien cultures was a treemndous mistake, or you keep losing elections.
It's not "normal human nature" and you're projecting your own failings as a person onto the wider species.
Tell me which institutions you have in mind in the present or the past, in the UK or elsewhere, that didn't end up getting captured by evil people who abused the intrinsic power of those institutions for their own self interest.
I'll wait
Tell me which institutions you have in mind in the present or the past, in the UK or elsewhere, that didn't end up getting captured by evil people who abused the intrinsic power of those institutions for their own self interest.
I'll wait
As usual you've remoulded your original claim that "human nature" is people only caring about themselves:
Wise people have always known that the totality of politicians are bad faith individuals who only care about themselves, because that's the normal human nature lol.
into something quite different.
I blame all those politicians and people in charge (and I'm looking at you, EU) that don't actually work to make the lives of people better, and instead either let their mates make a ton of cash or put virtue-signalling or promote 'look how great we are' over actual solid improvement. When people are left with a horrible choice of the same old thing or a horrible choice and something different, it's not a surprise they are willing to roll the dice, is it?
We differ on some details but I agree. We keep ****ing up badly on everything. The extremists and populists exploit it.
Not at all suprising. It's an inevitable consequence of falling for the lie of having to vote for 'not as bad as the other lot'. We have to stand for something. Not think we're winning anything by shaming and shouting at everybody.
As usual you've remoulded your original claim that "human nature" is people only caring about themselves:
into something quite different.
The original claim is that human nature is people *who are capable of reaching the top of hierarchies* (we were talking leading politicians) only care about themselves.
You need to be a sociopath to desire power so much you are willing to go through the immense effort of reaching the top of a power-structure hierarchy.
So the solution is to have plenty of medium sized power hierarchies battling each other in society with absolutely not a single one over-arching over the rest, because otherwise those who end up dominating that, will have totalitarian power over everyone.
That requires giving up on any outcome which can only be achieved through a over-arching power hierarchy who is above all others. Just accept that, in order to be able to achieve that you create the conditions for absolute evil.
That escalated quickly!
The penny's finally dropped that Farage is a grifter.
Failed to back Tommy Robinson I'd guess.
Yup
Right wing nutjob in one of my horse racing chat groups:
25 minutes later after seeing Elon's tweet:
Absolutely superb.
😆
well said imo
Far right Brexiteers: We want our sovereignty!
Also far right Brexiteers: Come and change our politics, unelected American billionaires!
I think you're right and its the repeated failures of several generations of the self-serving political class that is driving people desperate for an alternative into the grubby and unprincipled mits of the far right, many of whom are just as corrupt and self-serving as the political establishment.
Yes, it's a tragedy I think we can agree on. I think you're being too kind in your descriptions of the far right, they are the scum of the earth. But still, given what we've had already for years, we're at a point of comparing vomit with **** at this juncture.
Oh they certainly are the scum of the earth, but that's separate to the point I was making about people not realising they're swapping one set of corrupt politicians for another.
One of the major problems with Brexit was always that the far right would be energised by a vote for it.
More on the child sex abuse cases.
Who'd have thought that the Tories didn't actually gaf about working class girls being raped and have just been using it as a political weapon?
