Off Topic The Politics Thread
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Oh yeah definitely - I sometimes look back at my posts where I attempted throwaway humour and realise that I should never give up my day job!
Sorry to be late to the debate but as outrageous as the cost of Trumps visit is, what’s more disgusting is the cost to the public (between 2-4 million I think) of that royal leech, Euginies wedding.
Now that really is an outrage
If there was another vote it would be the same if not more for leave. Too many people won't go against a democratic result. If had voted remain and there was another vote I would either change or not vote. Democracy would die. Fortuately there won't be and it's just a last ditch remoaner thing
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Yes, I'm with you on the public bearing the security costs of Eugenie's wedding, Stainsey. She does no public duties and spends half her life on holiday. Her nuptials will cost us more than Harry and Meg and at least they make a wotk contribution. And Prince Andrew is such a thick, self-satisfied, arrogant c*nt
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64% of those living in EU don't think life would be worse without bloc
by Westmonster
A new bumper 10,960-person poll carried out across the European Union has revealed that 64% of people aren’t convinced life would be any worse if the EU didn’t exist.
The poll, commissioned by Friends of Europe, also revealed that 49% of citizens regard the EU as irrelevant and that only 22% of French citizens think life would be worse without the EU.
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The poll reports 90% support for the EU to be more than a Single Market and 81% don’t think EU should prioritise decision-making to national governments. That remains to be seen given Eurosceptic forces are making considerable gains at every European election.
Two-thirds of people don’t think lives would be worse off without the EU – and that’s without many countries even having politicians arguing the case for exiting the bloc. Brexit could be the beginning…
Nice spin from Aaron Banks, ultra **** (Westmonster ffs), but the survey results are very contradictory. National sovereignty isn’t an issue for the vast majority according to this. It is of course for ***** British *******. How many emojis or emoticons or whatever do I have to add to make sure what is intended as a sincere insult can be interpreted as a joke?
well that went well
now he is getting even more publicity
now he is getting even more publicity
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We haven’t met up for a bit have we mate? I’m a stunningly trim eleven and a half stone nowadays. And most of that is my head.Says the fat bloke.........
Leave little people alone you shortist bastard
The EU is falling apart and the twats in Brussels can't even see it.
Big elections in Bavaria this weekend and Merkel could be in for another kicking. People in Germany are fed up with the mass immigration and the Popularists are doing well.
https://www.euronews.com/2018/10/11/eu-is-irrelevant-according-to-half-of-those-surveyed
https://www.express.co.uk/news/worl...lvini-Jean-Claude-Juncker-Europe-disintegrate
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Saw this in The Times and thought of this thread...
Let’s stop kidding ourselves about politics
daniel finkelstein
From Kavanaugh to climate change, we keep ignoring the facts when they lead us towards solutions we don’t like
want to talk to you about climate change, Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn and fake news, but first I want to ask you a question. Did you believe Christine Blasey Ford or Brett Kavanaugh?
During confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court justice, grave allegations were made against Mr Kavanaugh. Dr Blasey Ford said that he had sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers.
While he denied everything, more Americans believed her than him, according to opinion polls. Democrat supporters overwhelmingly believed her; Republicans overwhelmingly believed him. It was independents, particularly politically independent women, who accounted for the majority in her favour.
Why should your political beliefs determine whether or not you believe an allegation of sexual assault? And before you reply that Democrats are more likely to believe victims in such cases, remember that in 1999 when Juanita Broaddrick accused Bill Clinton of raping her, hardly any Democrat voters believed her while most Republicans did.
It’s tempting but wrong to dismiss this as nothing more than political tribalism: Kavanaugh is a Republican nominee, therefore Republican voters say they believe him and Democrats say they don’t. The answer lies deeper than that. It’s called solution aversion.
If you believe that Brett Kavanaugh did what he’s accused of then it follows that he is a liar. And you can’t put a man like that on the Supreme Court. His nomination would have to be dropped, a solution to which conservative Republicans are averse. While the president sought a new nominee, the Democrats might win control of the Senate next month, prevent a conservative being confirmed and preserve the court’s liberal direction.
So the best way of avoiding this is to deny to yourself and everyone else that Kavanaugh is guilty. You alter your view of the facts to support a solution — the confirmation of a conservative justice — that you prefer.
In a recent article on the website of the journal Behavioural Public Policy, American academic Troy Campbell outlined the results of experiments conducted with fellow professor Aaron Kay. Here is their conclusion: “People are motivated to deny problems and the scientific evidence supporting the existence of the problems when they are averse to the solutions.” In other words, we are all solution averse.
In one of the experiments, participants were asked to look at evidence that a big rise in global temperatures was on the way. Then they were asked to evaluate a policy that could prevent it. And a funny thing happened.
When participants were given solutions to climate change that Republicans opposed ideologically — tax rises, regulation and so forth — the proportion who believed the original scientific statements about the rise in temperatures was low. When told the solution was extra government regulation, just 22 per cent of Republicans believed temperatures would go up by as much as the experts said.
Yet when they were told that there were free market solutions to global warming, 55 per cent of Republicans said that they agreed with the original scientific statements.
This is not just a Republican thing. The authors showed that much the same happens when you present liberals with evidence of the rising number of burglaries and suggest that relaxing gun control is a solution. Democrats are more inclined to believe the figures when more guns aren’t advanced as an answer.
So take the announcement this week by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Members are keen to persuade us that there is a climate change emergency. To show its seriousness, they linked scientific evidence with a list of the changes they think we need to make.
Doing this was understandable. But it’s almost certainly counter-productive because it relies on the idea that we think forward, when in fact we think backwards. Logically we should begin with the facts and consider how to deal with them. In reality, we often look at the solution, see whether we like it, and then work backwards to decide if there is really a problem in the first place.
Which brings us back to Mr Kavanaugh. I bet that if the Democrats had promised they would confirm another conservative justice instead of him, more Republicans would have believed Dr Blasey Ford.
On climate change, the more that people believe there are palatable solutions, the more they will accept the science. And once they accept the science, it may be possible to nudge them towards more radical policies. Because they will be on board.
Once you grasp the idea of solution aversion, you see it everywhere. Genocide, for instance. If we accept that genocide is taking place, we have an international obligation to act. As a result there is a reluctance to label mass murder as genocide, even when it is. It took us a long time to agree that the Yazidis were the victims of genocide.
Jeremy Corbyn and his wreath is another good example. He was pictured four years ago standing near a memorial to Palestinian terrorists. There were photographs. It was him. There was a wreath. Yet many of his admirers simply denied the whole thing. It was exasperating.
Yet in retrospect, the way to get them to accept the truth was not to force them to swallow the solution at the same time — that Jeremy Corbyn had done something wrong and deserved criticism. If they’d been allowed simply to acknowledge the facts, perhaps later it might have occurred to them that it hadn’t been one of his best ideas.
Brexit is like that too. Is there a way to persuade hardline Leavers that a no-deal Brexit will damage the economy, as almost all experts believe? Perhaps by not demanding they accept at the same time that Brexit is inherently flawed.
This is all disturbing stuff. It’s a challenge to everyone who believes in the power of truth. It also explains the growing appeal of fake news, which gives people the solutions they’re comfortable with. In the future, we may have to persuade people of the truth by suggesting that it doesn’t lead to tough policies even when it does. This is not a great place to be in. Yet if you want others to accept the truth about the world we live in, you can’t start by denying the truth about how they think.
Let’s stop kidding ourselves about politics
daniel finkelstein
From Kavanaugh to climate change, we keep ignoring the facts when they lead us towards solutions we don’t like
want to talk to you about climate change, Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn and fake news, but first I want to ask you a question. Did you believe Christine Blasey Ford or Brett Kavanaugh?
During confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court justice, grave allegations were made against Mr Kavanaugh. Dr Blasey Ford said that he had sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers.
While he denied everything, more Americans believed her than him, according to opinion polls. Democrat supporters overwhelmingly believed her; Republicans overwhelmingly believed him. It was independents, particularly politically independent women, who accounted for the majority in her favour.
Why should your political beliefs determine whether or not you believe an allegation of sexual assault? And before you reply that Democrats are more likely to believe victims in such cases, remember that in 1999 when Juanita Broaddrick accused Bill Clinton of raping her, hardly any Democrat voters believed her while most Republicans did.
It’s tempting but wrong to dismiss this as nothing more than political tribalism: Kavanaugh is a Republican nominee, therefore Republican voters say they believe him and Democrats say they don’t. The answer lies deeper than that. It’s called solution aversion.
If you believe that Brett Kavanaugh did what he’s accused of then it follows that he is a liar. And you can’t put a man like that on the Supreme Court. His nomination would have to be dropped, a solution to which conservative Republicans are averse. While the president sought a new nominee, the Democrats might win control of the Senate next month, prevent a conservative being confirmed and preserve the court’s liberal direction.
So the best way of avoiding this is to deny to yourself and everyone else that Kavanaugh is guilty. You alter your view of the facts to support a solution — the confirmation of a conservative justice — that you prefer.
In a recent article on the website of the journal Behavioural Public Policy, American academic Troy Campbell outlined the results of experiments conducted with fellow professor Aaron Kay. Here is their conclusion: “People are motivated to deny problems and the scientific evidence supporting the existence of the problems when they are averse to the solutions.” In other words, we are all solution averse.
In one of the experiments, participants were asked to look at evidence that a big rise in global temperatures was on the way. Then they were asked to evaluate a policy that could prevent it. And a funny thing happened.
When participants were given solutions to climate change that Republicans opposed ideologically — tax rises, regulation and so forth — the proportion who believed the original scientific statements about the rise in temperatures was low. When told the solution was extra government regulation, just 22 per cent of Republicans believed temperatures would go up by as much as the experts said.
Yet when they were told that there were free market solutions to global warming, 55 per cent of Republicans said that they agreed with the original scientific statements.
This is not just a Republican thing. The authors showed that much the same happens when you present liberals with evidence of the rising number of burglaries and suggest that relaxing gun control is a solution. Democrats are more inclined to believe the figures when more guns aren’t advanced as an answer.
So take the announcement this week by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Members are keen to persuade us that there is a climate change emergency. To show its seriousness, they linked scientific evidence with a list of the changes they think we need to make.
Doing this was understandable. But it’s almost certainly counter-productive because it relies on the idea that we think forward, when in fact we think backwards. Logically we should begin with the facts and consider how to deal with them. In reality, we often look at the solution, see whether we like it, and then work backwards to decide if there is really a problem in the first place.
Which brings us back to Mr Kavanaugh. I bet that if the Democrats had promised they would confirm another conservative justice instead of him, more Republicans would have believed Dr Blasey Ford.
On climate change, the more that people believe there are palatable solutions, the more they will accept the science. And once they accept the science, it may be possible to nudge them towards more radical policies. Because they will be on board.
Once you grasp the idea of solution aversion, you see it everywhere. Genocide, for instance. If we accept that genocide is taking place, we have an international obligation to act. As a result there is a reluctance to label mass murder as genocide, even when it is. It took us a long time to agree that the Yazidis were the victims of genocide.
Jeremy Corbyn and his wreath is another good example. He was pictured four years ago standing near a memorial to Palestinian terrorists. There were photographs. It was him. There was a wreath. Yet many of his admirers simply denied the whole thing. It was exasperating.
Yet in retrospect, the way to get them to accept the truth was not to force them to swallow the solution at the same time — that Jeremy Corbyn had done something wrong and deserved criticism. If they’d been allowed simply to acknowledge the facts, perhaps later it might have occurred to them that it hadn’t been one of his best ideas.
Brexit is like that too. Is there a way to persuade hardline Leavers that a no-deal Brexit will damage the economy, as almost all experts believe? Perhaps by not demanding they accept at the same time that Brexit is inherently flawed.
This is all disturbing stuff. It’s a challenge to everyone who believes in the power of truth. It also explains the growing appeal of fake news, which gives people the solutions they’re comfortable with. In the future, we may have to persuade people of the truth by suggesting that it doesn’t lead to tough policies even when it does. This is not a great place to be in. Yet if you want others to accept the truth about the world we live in, you can’t start by denying the truth about how they think.
Both thought provoking and persuasive. I am certainly guilty of solution aversion. Sadly I can’t see any solutions to solution aversion.
Only fair to point out though that in the Kavanaugh case a couple of the more usually right of centre posters on this thread came out strongly for the Blasey Ford version of events. So it’s not necessarily a self fulfilling prophecy, we do have some free will and agency.
Ha, yes, I'm not quite sure what the solution to solution aversion is either! Agree re Kavanaugh too, although I'm never sure how well centre-right (or any other position on the spectrum for that matter) in the UK translates to US politics.
Yeah, quite right.
Those patriotic Scots are great aren't they? But if an English person gets patriotic they're thick racists eh?
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Woman guilty of 'racist' Snap Dogg rap lyric Instagram post
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Image copyright ReutersImage caption Russell's profile was updated with the lyrics in 2017
A teenager who posted rap lyrics which included racist language on Instagram has been found guilty of sending a grossly offensive message.
Chelsea Russell, 19, from Liverpool posted the lyric from Snap Dogg's I'm Trippin' to pay tribute to a boy who died in a road crash, a court heard.
Russell argued it was not offensive, but was handed a community order.
Prosecutors said her sentence was increased from a fine to a community order "as it was a hate crime".
She was charged after Merseyside Police were anonymously sent a screenshot of her update.
'Grossly offensive'
Liverpool Justice Centre, sitting at Sefton Magistrates' Court, heard Russell posted the lyrics to her account after the death of a 13-year-old in a road accident in 2017, the Crown Prosecution Service said.
The words Russell used on her account contained a racial label which some people find extremely offensive.
The screenshot was passed to hate crime unit PC Dominique Walker, who told the court the term was "grossly offensive" to her as a black woman and to the general community.
The Liverpool Echo reported that Russell's defence had argued the usage of the word had changed over time and it had been used by superstar rapper Jay-Z "in front of thousands of people at the Glastonbury Festival".
Prosecutor Angela Conlan said Russell's defence also argued her profile "wasn't public", but it had been proved in court that anyone could access it and "see the offensive language".
She said prosecutors also "sourced case law that showed that posting the profile on her account constituted sending it and making it public".
Russell was found guilty of sending a grossly offensive message by a public communication.
She was given an eight-week community order, placed on an eight-week curfew and told to pay costs of £500 and an £85 victim surcharge.
No. If they’re thick racists they’re thick racists. Stick a flag outside if it makes you happy.