The level of irrelevant whataboutery by those seeking to distract from the disgraceful behaviour of the current incumbents has reached stratospheric levels.
Off Topic Politics Thread
- Thread starter ChilcoSaint
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Just corrected the last sentence, in your post.A ****ing disgrace. But just what we’ve come to expect of this bunch of privileged, cheating, thieving, bastard scum. And what really hurts? None of this will be reported in the rightwing media, but if an opposition MP spends something ( just seen the post about Rayner) those ****ing rags tear them apart! And, the stupidBritishEnglish voter will still vote the bastards back in …..
I put a comment on Facebook, not long ago, which Facebook removed because it “contravened” their rules.
The comment was something like “The Tories are only in power because of the stupidity of the English voter”.
I am English, and I don’t consider this to be a racist remark as it reflects the truth as I see it.
What is that saying about stupidity? Something like not learning from previous mistakes and continuing to do the same, in the hope that things might change.
That, for me, defines many English voters, especially those who glibly claim that the others will be worse, or they are all the same etc.
Try using deluded and guliable. Stupid ****s often causes offense I'm happy with that it was intended.
Mind you, I am just about as English as it’s possible to be, but I have never had the slightest inclination to vote Tory.
Problem is, no one will vote for Labour no matter how bad the tories get.
They are too heavily associated with raising taxes and giving everyone’s money away.
It’s not necessarily true, but it’s how most of the country feels thanks to the mainstream media
They are too heavily associated with raising taxes and giving everyone’s money away.
It’s not necessarily true, but it’s how most of the country feels thanks to the mainstream media
Intriguing given the Tories are about to raise taxes and have given everyone’s money away - partly to people for furlough (they had no choice really) but also to their mates in dodgy contracts
It boggles my mind that people consider them the economically responsible party
It is exactly like the discussion earlier about Rayner and the AirPods - a single misstep and the print media will scream and point fingers and people seem to go along with it
I guess it is part of that idea that most Tory MPs are really rich so therefore must know how to deal with money. Which is nonsense. Running an economy is completely different
Alas I doubt it will ever change
I always use a house inheriting analogy, to explain the difference between the two parties and to explain why Labour are always accused of overspending.
Whenever Labour come into power, which is not very frequent, it is like they are being left a house that has been allowed to fall into disrepair which means that they have to rebuild from the bottom up, in order to make it habitable.
New plumbing, new flooring, new electrics, plastering the walls and ceilings, new kitchen and bathroom, fitting a new heating system, new windows and doors, new roof, pointing all the brickwork and an overhaul of the garden.
If there is any money left, maybe add a conservatory and a nice paved, off road parking area.
All the time they are doing this, they are heckled by the Tories and the Tory supporting media, and accused of overspending and wasting money.
The English then vote the Tories back into power.
They inherit a house that has been renovated to a level that it hasn’t seen for years and immediately stop caring for it by not funding repairs and upgrades, telling everyone it’s a waste of money and the house returns to the sorry state it was, when they were last in charge of it.
For all the parts of the house you can substitute things like NHS, Social Care, Welfare, Social Housing, Schools and so on.
Labour always has to repair the long term damage created by the Tory governments and that costs money.
Perfect analogy Badge, and one which is very easily proven by example.
Honestly Os, your thing about "the mainstream media" is so wildly wide of the mark.
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I agree with this too. Although I would like to say that Labour aren’t exactly geniuses when it comes to the economy either - neither of the parties are addressing the real issue which is loose monetary policy. In my opinion the majority of problems in society that we all feel are caused by monetary debasement.
At least if Labour get in they will hopefully spend some of the magically printed money on making society better. The tories just dish it out to their friends.
The real solutions as I see them are to get of the fiat standard and onto a money which is backed by tangible assets, make government smaller and let the free market dictate things more than government control, and wake people up to the propaganda that is printed in the papers every single day.
But all of those are difficult to do, and no one in government is even looking in the correct places.
That seems to be some disconnected thinking there. A government is unlikely to be able to make society better by making government smaller.
Because it relies far to much on benevolence and altruism from the population and the return of actual communities. I would like to think I don’t need to point out the issues there
If I am off base then I would really like to hear how things can be fixed and kept that way with a smaller government. Have I missed something really obvious?
And as to letting the free market dictate things - it is too early for me to think about that comment in any detail
Because it relies far to much on benevolence and altruism from the population and the return of actual communities. I would like to think I don’t need to point out the issues there
If I am off base then I would really like to hear how things can be fixed and kept that way with a smaller government. Have I missed something really obvious?
And as to letting the free market dictate things - it is too early for me to think about that comment in any detail
Essentially, statist governments are extremely inefficient. They waste insane amounts of money and time. Plus they are based on the fundamental idea that central control is better than market incentives. In my view this has corrupted the financial system from the top down, and warped incentives. (For example, this is why banks etc get paid insane amounts compared to those that grow food, work on medicine etc.)
Long story short, this all leads to big inflation, which leads to purchasing power being eroded. Meaning everything goes up in price, whilst wages don’t. This all leads to society feeling like it’s getting worse and worse
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Central control is, for the most part, an absolute myth. What differs between nation-states on the spectrum between laissez-faire and social democracy is the level of influence that governments retain over those market incentives, but within limits. Government steers far, far more than it controls.
However, if you think that the waste of governments is high, let me introduce you to the modern corporation. Or, better yet: let me introduce you to the five or ten or fifty corporations that would be necessary to replace the function of one government agency, with incredible duplication of effort, no information-sharing between them, generally only the most superficial competition (wherever possible, they will seek to carve out territory for themselves rather than seeking broadly to compete), and far more overhead and administrative expense than even the most lackadaisical government agency could hope to approach.
If you doubt that, compare the administrative costs of the free market American health care system with the almost wholly government-run Canadian one. For every dollar, on a per capita basis, spent on health care administration in Canada, the US spends five. And that's not because the Canadian system is a world leader in efficiency, far from it. It's because all of those health-management organizations and privately-run hospitals all have to have their own large, parallel systems, and you also have to have complex billing departments, and corporate strategists, and all that annoying tripe that does not actually provide health care. And that doesn't even touch on advertising, because as privately-run companies they have to spend money to convince you that you should join an insurer who utilizes their hospitals; as of 2016, $29 billion was spent private companies to advertise their services:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2781615
And the net result of all that competition? The most expensive health care in the world, but hardly with the best outcomes. Because competing on price has proven far less beneficial for those corporations than the cartelization of the industry. As generally is the case, unless governments step in to regulate.
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I noted that I was basically asking for tangible examples or proposals (one would have done)
What I got was seemingly a high level description of Libertarianism as per a Political Theory class. Sure - may sound like it could work in theory. So does Marxism. And people on the right are all too keen to point out how those experiments turned out
edit : not dismissing the idea. But the response was lacking in any kind of detail to allow a real conclusion to be made. Just too much theory
What I got was seemingly a high level description of Libertarianism as per a Political Theory class. Sure - may sound like it could work in theory. So does Marxism. And people on the right are all too keen to point out how those experiments turned out
edit : not dismissing the idea. But the response was lacking in any kind of detail to allow a real conclusion to be made. Just too much theory
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