Off Topic Politics Thread

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Are you calling for the deportation of white racist rioters now Os?
Make your ****ing mind up man! <laugh><laugh><laugh><laugh><laugh>

Yes. I want criminals jailed and punished for their crimes. Properly. (Deported if they aren’t from here.)

And I want that to apply equally. Whether you’re far right or an Islamic hate preacher.
 
This sort of shallow post really annoys me.

This sort of thing is trying to make light of the genuine protestors feelings. Of course people value immigration and a a shared community.

It’s the criminals and those preaching hate that people want to see removed. It’s the illegal, undocumented people that we are all paying for that are the issue.

You are trying to regress the argument to a shallow “they’re thick as ****, they want all immigrants gone” which just isn’t the case in 99% of cases. You’re doing exactly what Starmer is doing

Very often you see claims that immigrant health workers here contribute nothing because either;

A. They are public sector workers and therefore are a net drain equal to benefit scroungers (a genuine argument I have had put to me before).

B. They are merely stealing jobs from British people by undercutting the market (ignoring the fact we have a huge deficit of the skill base required).

There are people out there that can maturely debate immigration even if I don’t agree with them, however a very significant chunk of people with strong opinions about immigration don’t have the slightest ****ing clue what they are going on about.

I’ll admit my knowledge outside of the health and social care element is lacking and yes I am sure many people do recognise the small boats issue is separate from people bringing skills we need.

But the kind of people out there rioting at the moment, and those that defend them or try to find excuses for their behaviour are the sort that will conflate the issues, either deliberately or not.
 
“Huh they can hit us”

It’s a little bit like the stories of people remanded in custody and not given bail having been arrested for this. They must have thought nothing was going to happen or they would be treated leniently. I don’t know why


If you are in the habit of being drunk and getting involved in minor fracas in public, there’s a good chance you’ll have spent a few nights in the cells, before being released in the morning. Just occasionally you’ll have been charged with Drunk and Disorderly, Threatening Behaviour etc, and issued with a small fine at Magistrates Court some weeks later. Many of this lot will have been expecting that, and are in for a nasty shock.
 
Starmer IS gaslighting. Immigration really is a big issue to many millions of people. It has exacerbated NHS wait times, the housing crisis and the feeling of being unsafe on our streets. You cant add millions of people (many undocumented) into the country and then pretend like nothing has changed.

Radical Islam is also a really big issue to many people. The majority of Muslims are wonderful people, but there is a hardcore element, similar to the far right, that are extremely dangerous. Unfortunately they have been allowed to behave however they like. (Nazi salutes, anti-Jewish chants, burning poppies, singing death to the UK, from the river to the sea, etc etc). It never gets discussed in the mainstream media and they rarely get punished. Why is there such a difference in the way protests are policed?

All of these things and more have to be taken into account to explain the craziness of the last few weeks. Starmer isn’t acknowledging any of this backdrop.

As people are watching the far right thugs be (correctly) clamped down on hard, many millions are asking “well why weren’t the police acting in a similar way when Nazi salutes were shown at the Palestine rallies? Or when extremists were chanting UK troops burn in hell” etc. etc. etc.”

He is gaslighting because he is not addressing any of these things and contrary to what a few on here seem to believe, most people aren’t stupid.

Os, as always you have some reasonable points in here but then ruin it with silly slogan things, that have no basis in fact, like “it never gets discussed in the mainstream media”. When you do these things, it dilutes the rest of your message.

It never fails to amaze me how people who refuse to read any mainstream media, because it’s “mainstream media”, have such an intricate knowledge of precisely what is being reported all the time in the mainstream media.

I’m sitting here reading The Times this morning, and it’s already talked twice about the attacks by the Asian/muslim community in Birmingham, and there’s a whole piece titled “How gangs of Asian men took to the streets in defence of their communities”.

So can I suggest, if you want to be taken seriously (and you do deserve to be on some points) that rather than just spewing out nonsense tropes because they sound good, you actually check their validity. Better still, perhaps actually read some of the dreaded mainstream media - you might even find it quite interesting and informative.
 
If you are in the habit of being drunk and getting involved in minor fracas in public, there’s a good chance you’ll have spent a few nights in the cells, before being released in the morning. Just occasionally you’ll have been charged with Drunk and Disorderly, Threatening Behaviour etc, and issued with a small fine at Magistrates Court some weeks later. Many of this lot will have been expecting that, and are in for a nasty shock.
Yes I have already seen several sentences being passed to crown court. Which is unlikely to be a fine and a slap on the wrist. Although being held on remand for the rest of August should also be a clue as to that as well.
 
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Never gets discussed…

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I expect the follow up critique of this is that this is pitched as “defence of their communities” and the others are “far right riots” when the people who support the riots/are on them will no doubt state that they are “in defence of their community”.

So those inclined to bash the mainstream media will call this biased reporting
 
If you are in the habit of being drunk and getting involved in minor fracas in public, there’s a good chance you’ll have spent a few nights in the cells, before being released in the morning. Just occasionally you’ll have been charged with Drunk and Disorderly, Threatening Behaviour etc, and issued with a small fine at Magistrates Court some weeks later. Many of this lot will have been expecting that, and are in for a nasty shock.
In which case they don't know the law at all - which doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Rioting is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. And I fully expect a lot of people to get 10 years.
 
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I expect the follow up critique of this is that this is pitched as “defence of their communities” and the others are “far right riots” when the people who support the riots/are on them will no doubt state that they are “in defence of their community”.

So those inclined to bash the mainstream media will call this biased reporting

And once again that would show that those inclined to bash the mainstream media hadn’t actually read the article. This is the problem when you get your ‘news’ from Musk and his X cohorts.
 
Not sure what to make of the Walz VP pick. I can understand not going with Shapiro due to the Democrat voters that have strong feelings about Israel-Gaza

But I’d have thought they would want to shore up a swing state. Or is the logic now that with current polarisation the VP pick is unlikely to do that. I’m tempted to go and look at past VPs on both sides in recent elections

From memory :

Biden - solid blue state
Palin - solid red state
Ryan - swing state that he didn’t help turn red
Pence - solid red state
Kaine - blue state that can get close but isn’t usually a swing state
Harris - very solid blue state

So at least since 2008 bringing a state with you hasn’t been a factor. At the top or bottom of the ticket in most cases
Shapiro politically inexperienced and not squeaky clean on attitude to women
 
Your logic is flawed. How does Starmer sending racist ****s to prison send a signal to non-whites that the whole of the UK hates them?

The UK hates fascism, always has done. These thugs being stirred up by Yaxley-Lennon from his holiday home in Cyprus are a tiny, tiny minority of the British people. We don’t hate immigrants, we welcome them, because the vast majority of them work hard doing necessary jobs and pay taxes into the economy.

The other side of the coin is to ask why it is that so many asylum seekers come to Britain from their own countries. Fleeing war and tyranny, or famine and the effects of climate change, for the most part. If we don’t want a constant flow of people across the planet we have to do more to address the reasons for the migration.

I know you don’t care about any of that, because the ****s whose **** you parrot on here don’t care about it. All they want to do is stir up division and hatred between people who have far more in common than the things that divide them.

I’m done with trying to reason with you now. I have to keep reading your posts because of my role as moderator, but I won’t bother replying any more, you’re a lost cause.
To selectively quote you, is parroting hate posted by ****s acceptable on this forum?
 
To selectively quote you, is parroting hate posted by ****s acceptable on this forum?
It’s a fair point. I would have to say that the rules of the forum are fairly strong on hate speech, but to be fair to all points of view, we tend to allow more than perhaps we should. I would hope that on a post by post basis, nothing is allowed that is specifically racist, or xenophobic, or misogynistic, or anti-LGBTQ+. But we might miss something, we’re only human.

I would ask on behalf of my fellow mods that if anyone feels a particular post or poster has crossed the line as regards hate speech, please use the Report button and we’ll have a look at it.

Thanks for raising this, it’s a very important question.
 
A good message for life:

If you find yourself explaining that you are not racist on a regular basis, it is time to stop explaining and start listening.
This reminds me of a quote from the previous US Republican god-king : “If you’re explaining, you’re losing”

I have been reminded of that quote recently by Tim Walz calling Trump and Vance “weird”. It’s got right under their skin - especially Trump’s. Also it’s aimed at them it seems (and perhaps the other politicians) and not all the voters - but that hasn’t stopped Republican voters thinking it’s aimed at them (not helped by Democrat supporters misinterpreting it and applying it more broadly as well). And I’ve seen plenty online of Republicans (and notably Trump himself) desperately trying to say it doesn’t bother them when (at least with Trump) it clearly does. And the main argument for it apparently not bothering them and it not sticking is them explaining both that they are not actually weird and that the other side are the weird ones
 
It’s a fair point. I would have to say that the rules of the forum are fairly strong on hate speech, but to be fair to all points of view, we tend to allow more than perhaps we should. I would hope that on a post by post basis, nothing is allowed that is specifically racist, or xenophobic, or misogynistic, or anti-LGBTQ+. But we might miss something, we’re only human.

I would ask on behalf of my fellow mods that if anyone feels a particular post or poster has crossed the line as regards hate speech, please use the Report button and we’ll have a look at it.

Thanks for raising this, it’s a very important question.
I’ll have to leave that to the non-igniters, but happy to receive a PM on a post that someone thinks I might want to challenge if they didn’t want to themselves and think it might break the rules

Not wanting to imply I’m a mod in any sense at all, just that I won’t duck responsibility of my views, but won’t remove my ignore

In the real world I’d say my piece, walk away and avoid, not so easy here
 
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