On Astra Zeneca it the decision to give the Oxford vaccine to a company with little experience in vaccines may well come to be seen as one of the worst mistakes of the pandemic, from a global point of view. AIUI it AZ weren't their first choice, and they were unfortunately pressured into giving it to AZ by the British government.
It's because Merck wouldn't agree to the "at cost" clause that AZ agreed to and wouldn't agree to the distributed third party manufacturing network and preferred to keep the whole manufacturing pipeline in the US. The risk that Trump would block exports was very real, the pressure from the UK government was well founded, given that Trump went on to restrict exports of feed in materials.
It seems extremely unlikely that the billions of doses that have been manufactured globally would have been without Indian etc manufacturing that AZN have used.
With Merck as the main partner the vaccine would have cost $10-12 per dose and limited to manufacturing in the US.
Interesting that he has such links to a high profile person in Serbia. I wonder how that came about.
I was slightly angry when they decided to let Novax in; now I'm finding it all very amusing. From supporters trying to make out he is more persecuted than Christ, to the rather odd array of people who have come out to bat (racket?) for him, it has all gone rather odd.
showing your inner superiority again , a bit patronising .He will have his supporters and detractors over this and most would not welcome you calling them odd
I will happily call any supporters of the RT favourite and admirer of Putin Nigel Farage not just odd but fucking weird and I couldn't give a shit whether they would welcome it or not. Farage supporters/anti vaxxers - seriously fucking odd.
Interesting that he has such links to a high profile person in Serbia. I wonder how that came about.
I was slightly angry when they decided to let Novax in; now I'm finding it all very amusing. From supporters trying to make out he is more persecuted than Christ, to the rather odd array of people who have come out to bat (racket?) for him, it has all gone rather odd.
showing your inner superiority again , a bit patronising .He will have his supporters and detractors over this and most would not welcome you calling them odd
If he gets this one wrong though, his career is probably in effect over. He will struggle to get visas for Aus and AIUI the US as well. He'll be restricted to Europe.
well fine , I quite admire his principle and honour to himself (even to the point of him damaging his sport prospects). He will win less and Australia will have a diminished championship. To some people honour to themselves and their beliefs are indeed more important that their day to day life and career and that is quite moving
Hmmmm.
Surely taking a principled stand would have been boycotting the tournament from the start, rather than trying to get in under an exemption that has been misapplied?
On Astra Zeneca it the decision to give the Oxford vaccine to a company with little experience in vaccines may well come to be seen as one of the worst mistakes of the pandemic, from a global point of view. AIUI it AZ weren't their first choice, and they were unfortunately pressured into giving it to AZ by the British government.
That is a factor (although the U.K. has other pharma companies) although trying to say that this was a bigger factor than European leaders such as Macron and Merkel trashing the vaccine in public plus the US authorities’ actions is wrong.
Quasi-ineffective, anyone?
People here massively overestimate Macron's influence outside of France (and Britain it seems). Hardly anyone in Germany has even heard of Macron's "quasi-ineffective" remarks.
No, they heard the remarks of that German newspaper from which Macron's remarks were based.
Yes, and the German newspaper report was based on a misinterpretation of AZ's sloppy trial results.
Even in English-speaking countries, where his remarks seem to have been given endless publicity (going by how often they are repeated here), how many people were persuaded not to take AZ by Macron's remarks? In the UK maybe less than were encouraged to take it to annoy the French.
A dangerous misinterpretation, given the documented effects on confidence in the vaccine.
And really, there were loads of reports of people turning down AZ. To claim otherwise is absurd.
Because of Macron?
He certainly did not help. It was one of the most cretinous and irresponsible things that a world leader could have said at that time. It almost certainly did cause people to refuse it and ultimately cost lives
On Astra Zeneca it the decision to give the Oxford vaccine to a company with little experience in vaccines may well come to be seen as one of the worst mistakes of the pandemic, from a global point of view. AIUI it AZ weren't their first choice, and they were unfortunately pressured into giving it to AZ by the British government.
That is a factor (although the U.K. has other pharma companies) although trying to say that this was a bigger factor than European leaders such as Macron and Merkel trashing the vaccine in public plus the US authorities’ actions is wrong.
Quasi-ineffective, anyone?
People here massively overestimate Macron's influence outside of France (and Britain it seems). Hardly anyone in Germany has even heard of Macron's "quasi-ineffective" remarks.
No, they heard the remarks of that German newspaper from which Macron's remarks were based.
Yes, and the German newspaper report was based on a misinterpretation of AZ's sloppy trial results.
Even in English-speaking countries, where his remarks seem to have been given endless publicity (going by how often they are repeated here), how many people were persuaded not to take AZ by Macron's remarks? In the UK maybe less than were encouraged to take it to annoy the French.
A dangerous misinterpretation, given the documented effects on confidence in the vaccine.
And really, there were loads of reports of people turning down AZ. To claim otherwise is absurd.
Because of Macron?
Can you explain how Oxford partnering in a full commercial value deal with Merck would have been better than partnering with AZ who agreed to an at cost provision?
On Astra Zeneca it the decision to give the Oxford vaccine to a company with little experience in vaccines may well come to be seen as one of the worst mistakes of the pandemic, from a global point of view. AIUI it AZ weren't their first choice, and they were unfortunately pressured into giving it to AZ by the British government.
That is a factor (although the U.K. has other pharma companies) although trying to say that this was a bigger factor than European leaders such as Macron and Merkel trashing the vaccine in public plus the US authorities’ actions is wrong.
Quasi-ineffective, anyone?
People here massively overestimate Macron's influence outside of France (and Britain it seems). Hardly anyone in Germany has even heard of Macron's "quasi-ineffective" remarks.
No, they heard the remarks of that German newspaper from which Macron's remarks were based.
Yes, and the German newspaper report was based on a misinterpretation of AZ's sloppy trial results.
Even in English-speaking countries, where his remarks seem to have been given endless publicity (going by how often they are repeated here), how many people were persuaded not to take AZ by Macron's remarks? In the UK maybe less than were encouraged to take it to annoy the French.
A dangerous misinterpretation, given the documented effects on confidence in the vaccine.
And really, there were loads of reports of people turning down AZ. To claim otherwise is absurd.
Interesting that he has such links to a high profile person in Serbia. I wonder how that came about.
I was slightly angry when they decided to let Novax in; now I'm finding it all very amusing. From supporters trying to make out he is more persecuted than Christ, to the rather odd array of people who have come out to bat (racket?) for him, it has all gone rather odd.
showing your inner superiority again , a bit patronising .He will have his supporters and detractors over this and most would not welcome you calling them odd
If he gets this one wrong though, his career is probably in effect over. He will struggle to get visas for Aus and AIUI the US as well. He'll be restricted to Europe.
well fine , I quite admire his principle and honour to himself (even to the point of him damaging his sport prospects). He will win less and Australia will have a diminished championship. To some people honour to themselves and their beliefs are indeed more important that their day to day life and career and that is quite moving
Hmmmm.
Surely taking a principled stand would have been boycotting the tournament from the start, rather than trying to get in under an exemption that has been misapplied?
why - his principle is not to dictate policy to other countries or to not play at majors it is to not get vaccinated.
Interesting that he has such links to a high profile person in Serbia. I wonder how that came about.
I was slightly angry when they decided to let Novax in; now I'm finding it all very amusing. From supporters trying to make out he is more persecuted than Christ, to the rather odd array of people who have come out to bat (racket?) for him, it has all gone rather odd.
showing your inner superiority again , a bit patronising .He will have his supporters and detractors over this and most would not welcome you calling them odd
If he gets this one wrong though, his career is probably in effect over. He will struggle to get visas for Aus and AIUI the US as well. He'll be restricted to Europe.
well fine , I quite admire his principle and honour to himself (even to the point of him damaging his sport prospects). He will win less and Australia will have a diminished championship. To some people honour to themselves and their beliefs are indeed more important that their day to day life and career and that is quite moving
Hmmmm.
Surely taking a principled stand would have been boycotting the tournament from the start, rather than trying to get in under an exemption that has been misapplied?
why - his principle is not to dictate policy to other countries or to not play at majors it is to not get vaccinated.
On Astra Zeneca it the decision to give the Oxford vaccine to a company with little experience in vaccines may well come to be seen as one of the worst mistakes of the pandemic, from a global point of view. AIUI it AZ weren't their first choice, and they were unfortunately pressured into giving it to AZ by the British government.
That is a factor (although the U.K. has other pharma companies) although trying to say that this was a bigger factor than European leaders such as Macron and Merkel trashing the vaccine in public plus the US authorities’ actions is wrong.
Quasi-ineffective, anyone?
People here massively overestimate Macron's influence outside of France (and Britain it seems). Hardly anyone in Germany has even heard of Macron's "quasi-ineffective" remarks.
No, they heard the remarks of that German newspaper from which Macron's remarks were based.
Yes, and the German newspaper report was based on a misinterpretation of AZ's sloppy trial results.
Even in English-speaking countries, where his remarks seem to have been given endless publicity (going by how often they are repeated here), how many people were persuaded not to take AZ by Macron's remarks? In the UK maybe less than were encouraged to take it to annoy the French.
A dangerous misinterpretation, given the documented effects on confidence in the vaccine.
And really, there were loads of reports of people turning down AZ. To claim otherwise is absurd.
Because of Macron?
Can you explain how Oxford partnering in a full commercial value deal with Merck would have been better than partnering with AZ who agreed to an at cost provision?
No, but are you sure they were actually the only 2 options?
Interesting that he has such links to a high profile person in Serbia. I wonder how that came about.
I was slightly angry when they decided to let Novax in; now I'm finding it all very amusing. From supporters trying to make out he is more persecuted than Christ, to the rather odd array of people who have come out to bat (racket?) for him, it has all gone rather odd.
showing your inner superiority again , a bit patronising .He will have his supporters and detractors over this and most would not welcome you calling them odd
If he gets this one wrong though, his career is probably in effect over. He will struggle to get visas for Aus and AIUI the US as well. He'll be restricted to Europe.
well fine , I quite admire his principle and honour to himself (even to the point of him damaging his sport prospects). He will win less and Australia will have a diminished championship. To some people honour to themselves and their beliefs are indeed more important that their day to day life and career and that is quite moving
Do admire people who believe the earth is flat? Or that the moon landings are fake? Admiring someone who has different political views (with exceptions at the extremes) is fine and dandy, but admiring someone's principles that are essentially stupid makes you as stupid as them.
Interesting that he has such links to a high profile person in Serbia. I wonder how that came about.
I was slightly angry when they decided to let Novax in; now I'm finding it all very amusing. From supporters trying to make out he is more persecuted than Christ, to the rather odd array of people who have come out to bat (racket?) for him, it has all gone rather odd.
showing your inner superiority again , a bit patronising .He will have his supporters and detractors over this and most would not welcome you calling them odd
I will happily call any supporters of the RT favourite and admirer of Putin Nigel Farage not just odd but fucking weird and I couldn't give a shit whether they would welcome it or not. Farage supporters/anti vaxxers - seriously fucking odd.
yeah well the comment wasn't aimed at you and you are less smug in general that who is was aimed at but all i can say is I dont agree with you at all
On Astra Zeneca it the decision to give the Oxford vaccine to a company with little experience in vaccines may well come to be seen as one of the worst mistakes of the pandemic, from a global point of view. AIUI it AZ weren't their first choice, and they were unfortunately pressured into giving it to AZ by the British government.
That is a factor (although the U.K. has other pharma companies) although trying to say that this was a bigger factor than European leaders such as Macron and Merkel trashing the vaccine in public plus the US authorities’ actions is wrong.
Quasi-ineffective, anyone?
People here massively overestimate Macron's influence outside of France (and Britain it seems). Hardly anyone in Germany has even heard of Macron's "quasi-ineffective" remarks.
No, they heard the remarks of that German newspaper from which Macron's remarks were based.
Yes, and the German newspaper report was based on a misinterpretation of AZ's sloppy trial results.
Even in English-speaking countries, where his remarks seem to have been given endless publicity (going by how often they are repeated here), how many people were persuaded not to take AZ by Macron's remarks? In the UK maybe less than were encouraged to take it to annoy the French.
A dangerous misinterpretation, given the documented effects on confidence in the vaccine.
And really, there were loads of reports of people turning down AZ. To claim otherwise is absurd.
Because of Macron?
Can you explain how Oxford partnering in a full commercial value deal with Merck would have been better than partnering with AZ who agreed to an at cost provision?
No, but are you sure they were actually the only 2 options?
That's what was on the table. The government tried to partner them with GSK but they were already locked in with Sanofi. The other major pharma companies already had in house candidates or were partnered up (see Pfizer and Biontech).
Interesting that he has such links to a high profile person in Serbia. I wonder how that came about.
I was slightly angry when they decided to let Novax in; now I'm finding it all very amusing. From supporters trying to make out he is more persecuted than Christ, to the rather odd array of people who have come out to bat (racket?) for him, it has all gone rather odd.
showing your inner superiority again , a bit patronising .He will have his supporters and detractors over this and most would not welcome you calling them odd
If he gets this one wrong though, his career is probably in effect over. He will struggle to get visas for Aus and AIUI the US as well. He'll be restricted to Europe.
well fine , I quite admire his principle and honour to himself (even to the point of him damaging his sport prospects). He will win less and Australia will have a diminished championship. To some people honour to themselves and their beliefs are indeed more important that their day to day life and career and that is quite moving
Hmmmm.
Surely taking a principled stand would have been boycotting the tournament from the start, rather than trying to get in under an exemption that has been misapplied?
why - his principle is not to dictate policy to other countries or to not play at majors it is to not get vaccinated.
Interesting that he has such links to a high profile person in Serbia. I wonder how that came about.
I was slightly angry when they decided to let Novax in; now I'm finding it all very amusing. From supporters trying to make out he is more persecuted than Christ, to the rather odd array of people who have come out to bat (racket?) for him, it has all gone rather odd.
It's been a fascinating story all round. It is strange that the right of a sovereign nation to refuse or accept who the heck it likes has proved so emotionally potent amongst some. Even more ironic. Many of them want an "Australian immigration system".
It's very amusing. I don't agree with the Covid theatre but it's their right to choose their own rules, that's the whole point people have campaigned for!
Australia has one of the toughest, if not the toughest, phytosanitary regimes on the border on the planet. As a child when I moved there I had my bag of sweets I was carrying confiscated and binned, because of their strict rules on not bringing food across the border.
If they're that strict against the fear of a child's rogue Smarties then during a pandemic is there any surprise they have gone totally OTT.
I hope they reign in back in before long, but that's their decision to make, not ours.
Prejudice reporting for education. On the face of it, this seems like insanity and madness. Prejudice is a human emotion. Like jealousy, it is not in itself a bad thing. The significance of it is how it affects your actions. Education can only guide you in trying to manage your emotions.
Trying to remove prejudice, like hate or jealousy is trying to re-engineer the human heart. It is a totalitarian project. It is no suprise that this is at the heart of our education system. 12 years of conservative government have done nothing to stop this type of thinking or action, which seems to be supported by our institutions.
I am not trying to make this about politics, but this is why educated people vote for Trump or Zemmour. It is for a human future, however flawed; against the nightmare of extreme progressivism. Perhaps we have had our revolt, with Brexit; and it has simply failed to change anything.
That's interesting, partly because I don't understand it all. I agree that we all have prejudices, which I'd define as having opinions about other groups that we can't justify and rationally we suspect are actually groundless. I vaguely suspect that many people in Papua New Guinea are quite primitive, but I recognise that's because I know nothing about PNG except that they used to have cannibals. But prejudice seems to me an unmitigated bad thing, though I agree that it's not actually harmful unless we guide our actions by them (if I had to influence PNG policy I'd take the trouble to understand the place properly). Similarly, jealousy is surely usually understood to mean an unreasonable suspicion of a partner. If they run off with someone, it's natural to feel aggrieved, but is that jealousy?
But you're onto something about revolts. There was a notable drop in anti-immgration polling after Brexit, which is presumably because people felt something was being done to get it under control (possibly that will have changed lately). Some revolts that don't seem to change much lead to demands for bigger revolts (cf. French and Russian revolutions), but shrugging and giving up is a normal human response too.
On Trump, the proportion of highly-educated people who support him is quite low (don't know about Zemmour), and that perhaps reflects the tendency of higher education to weight rational analysis more highly than emotional instinct (and perhaps prejudice). I feel suspicious of myself when I react emotionally to some political development, and that maybe reflects my academic background - you'd just feel silly if you wrote a PhD thesis governed by your gut feelings.
You are overthinking this. Prejudice is a consequence of the limitations of human knowledge. People who are supposedly extremely intelligent and worldly are as susceptible as anyone to prejudice, because there is only so much you can know, and as humans we are driven primarily by instinct not reason. You can see this all the time with 'experts' on twitter descending in to nonsensical tirades against the outgroup, be this Brexitteers, Trump voters, anti-vaxxers etc. It is also much in evidence on PB; even though some people admirably wrestle with and fight these instincts (I would include you in this group) they always eventually seep out.
I don't know the stats about Trump either, but my understanding was that traditionally a high proportion of Republican voters are college graduates (although this is declining as recent graduates are more likely to vote democrat). Zemmour is an intellectual phenomenon (see the film of his recent trip to London, for instance) and his downfall is likely to be his inability to connect with the unwashed masses. But my broader point was that people like myself could vote for something superficially abhorrent like Trump, because they see it as the less harmful of two forms of madness.
Thanks for the response. I looked up Trump support among voters with 4 years of college just now, and Biden did have a large advantage in that group - 57-42 among white voters (vs 33-65 among white voters without 4 years of college) and 69-30 among Latino college grads vs 55-41 for non-grads.
I wonder if "we must stop X" negative voting has become more common across the West generally in recent years - Trump, Corbyn, and le Pen all generated considerable coalitions of people determined to stop them, and Zemmour seems likely to do the same if he does reach the second round.
It's pretty unhealthy for democracy if we mostly choose the lesser evil, but that perhaps reflects the fact that problems are especially difficult nowadays (globalisation is a significant driver, as people elect one country's leaders, who then find themselves unable to change the landscape much), as well as the way that the media have found that highlighting a controversial person is a good way to sell papers and get viewers. So people like Trump get disproportionate airtime because they're interestingly awful, while someone like Starmer who merely exudes competence without saying anything very striking struggles to get a hearing at all.
Two things: in the examples of voting against the "greater of two evils" you give, they all had more than one bite at the cherry. That weakens the evidence for the effect you're looking for, that people are voting negatively. I think.
Secondly, the "lesser of two evils" is less a failure of our democracies and more a failure of the way we talk about politicians. This is related to your point about interesting idiots (Trump) hogging airtime but separate: we are stuck in a rut of being focused on the worst aspects of politicians. For example, I can list a lot of flaws that I think disqualify Boris Johnson from ever being in contention for my votes, but is he evil? No. When you stop and think about it we have several parties who are made of good people doing honest work to the best of their abilities. I can see myself at some point in the future voting for Conservative, Labour, SNP, Lib Dem, Green, and possibly several others. But I feel often like I'm in the weirdo minority in that respect. Why is everyone else so tribal? It isn't, I assure you, because any of these parties are objectively evil. The ugliness is in the eye of the beholder.
- “I can see myself at some point in the future voting for Conservative, Labour, SNP, Lib Dem, Green, and possibly several others.”
That’s exactly the situation I find myself in regarding the Swedish GE in September. I left my old party 3 years ago, and since then just can’t decide who to vote for. Swithering between 4 or 5 parties at the moment. (And I’ll almost certainly be voting differently in the national, regional and local elections, which are all held on the same day.)
If Scotland was a normal country I’d probably be the same there too (my parents and sister have voted for several different parties, with my mum holding the record having supported everyone at some point). But Scotland is not a normal country yet, and until she is I can only vote for independence-supporting candidates/parties.
Do you find it easier to be less partisan about politics in your adopted country? That's what I found when I lived in Forrin Parts. I got to vote in local elections and it was really fun to explore with fresh eyes the opportunities. No preconceptions about the characters involved, too.
I've never lives in forrin parts, but I do remember the experience of reading the newspapers in Canada and thinking - why are you all getting so heated about this? It's pleasant to be able to be above the fray in that way, and makes you realise how daftly tribal your own country's arguments also are.
As a Swede, I sometimes raise my eyebrows at you lot getting so animated about relatively minuscule differences between England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. It’s odd how very few posters around here raise their eyes to peruse Europe, let alone the world.
Global Britain is a hollow slogan because almost nobody in the archipelago thinks globally.
I think there’s some truth in that, Stuart. It’s partly a consequence of having four countries within our state I think. You could say that it’s the narcissism of small differences, but those differences have become greater during covid, at least at times.
Interesting that he has such links to a high profile person in Serbia. I wonder how that came about.
I was slightly angry when they decided to let Novax in; now I'm finding it all very amusing. From supporters trying to make out he is more persecuted than Christ, to the rather odd array of people who have come out to bat (racket?) for him, it has all gone rather odd.
showing your inner superiority again , a bit patronising .He will have his supporters and detractors over this and most would not welcome you calling them odd
If he gets this one wrong though, his career is probably in effect over. He will struggle to get visas for Aus and AIUI the US as well. He'll be restricted to Europe.
well fine , I quite admire his principle and honour to himself (even to the point of him damaging his sport prospects). He will win less and Australia will have a diminished championship. To some people honour to themselves and their beliefs are indeed more important that their day to day life and career and that is quite moving
Do admire people who believe the earth is flat? Or that the moon landings are fake? Admiring someone who has different political views (with exceptions at the extremes) is fine and dandy, but admiring someone's principles that are essentially stupid makes you as stupid as them.
Yes i see you are one of those very judgemental people who I have just talked about liking to put people in virtue categories of goodies and baddies and stupid and right etc. I just cannot understand that mentality at all personally. So you can call me stupid if you like, admiring people when they stick to their principles especially at a cost to them, as i dont care given I dont know you and think you are wrong
Farj on Any Questions sparing time from standing up for Saint Nole suggesting the Colston jury might have been intimidated. Hadn't seen that one in amongst the batshit theorising and general whining up to now.
According to gov.uk a positive covid test in Serbia gets you 14 days of self isolation.
Don't know if that only applies to foreigners.
Does novax count as a foreigner, because he is a legally a resident of Monaco these days, although spends most of his time living in Spain.
As a citizen of Serbia every time he entered Serbian he woild have eithetr had to present proof of vaccination or proof of recovering from infection. Or else he would have had to isolate at home for 10 days.
I not Serbia has currently closed schools to help halt the spread of Covif.
Interesting that he has such links to a high profile person in Serbia. I wonder how that came about.
I was slightly angry when they decided to let Novax in; now I'm finding it all very amusing. From supporters trying to make out he is more persecuted than Christ, to the rather odd array of people who have come out to bat (racket?) for him, it has all gone rather odd.
showing your inner superiority again , a bit patronising .He will have his supporters and detractors over this and most would not welcome you calling them odd
If he gets this one wrong though, his career is probably in effect over. He will struggle to get visas for Aus and AIUI the US as well. He'll be restricted to Europe.
well fine , I quite admire his principle and honour to himself (even to the point of him damaging his sport prospects). He will win less and Australia will have a diminished championship. To some people honour to themselves and their beliefs are indeed more important that their day to day life and career and that is quite moving
Do admire people who believe the earth is flat? Or that the moon landings are fake? Admiring someone who has different political views (with exceptions at the extremes) is fine and dandy, but admiring someone's principles that are essentially stupid makes you as stupid as them.
Yes i see you are one of those very judgemental people who I have just talked about liking to put people in virtue categories of goodies and baddies and stupid and right etc. I just cannot understand that mentality at all personally. So you can call me stupid if you like, admiring people when they stick to their principles especially at a cost to them, as i dont care given I dont know you and think you are wrong
I am normally quite liberally minded and accept that people have the right to be stupid if they wish. When that stupidity is exhibited by people that the more gullible regard as role models I am quite happy to be very judgemental. Djokavic is an idiot. Antivaxxers are idiots. I would like all antivaxxers to have to endure lockdown while the rest of us get back to some sense of normality. Does that make me judgemental? I don't fecking care!
Interesting that he has such links to a high profile person in Serbia. I wonder how that came about.
I was slightly angry when they decided to let Novax in; now I'm finding it all very amusing. From supporters trying to make out he is more persecuted than Christ, to the rather odd array of people who have come out to bat (racket?) for him, it has all gone rather odd.
showing your inner superiority again , a bit patronising .He will have his supporters and detractors over this and most would not welcome you calling them odd
If he gets this one wrong though, his career is probably in effect over. He will struggle to get visas for Aus and AIUI the US as well. He'll be restricted to Europe.
well fine , I quite admire his principle and honour to himself (even to the point of him damaging his sport prospects). He will win less and Australia will have a diminished championship. To some people honour to themselves and their beliefs are indeed more important that their day to day life and career and that is quite moving
Do admire people who believe the earth is flat? Or that the moon landings are fake? Admiring someone who has different political views (with exceptions at the extremes) is fine and dandy, but admiring someone's principles that are essentially stupid makes you as stupid as them.
Yes i see you are one of those very judgemental people who I have just talked about liking to put people in virtue categories of goodies and baddies and stupid and right etc. I just cannot understand that mentality at all personally. So you can call me stupid if you like, admiring people when they stick to their principles especially at a cost to them, as i dont care given I dont know you and think you are wrong
I am normally quite liberally minded and accept that people have the right to be stupid if they wish. When that stupidity is exhibited by people that the more gullible regard as role models I am quite happy to be very judgemental. Djokavic is an idiot. Antivaxxers are idiots. I would like all antivaxxers to have to endure lockdown while the rest of us get back to some sense of normality. Does that make me judgemental? I don't fecking care!
A bit of white privilege being displayed I think Nigel. It’s well documented African Americans have been hesitant on vaccines because of historic abuses.
Interesting that he has such links to a high profile person in Serbia. I wonder how that came about.
I was slightly angry when they decided to let Novax in; now I'm finding it all very amusing. From supporters trying to make out he is more persecuted than Christ, to the rather odd array of people who have come out to bat (racket?) for him, it has all gone rather odd.
It's been a fascinating story all round. It is strange that the right of a sovereign nation to refuse or accept who the heck it likes has proved so emotionally potent amongst some. Even more ironic. Many of them want an "Australian immigration system".
It's very amusing. I don't agree with the Covid theatre but it's their right to choose their own rules, that's the whole point people have campaigned for!
Australia has one of the toughest, if not the toughest, phytosanitary regimes on the border on the planet. As a child when I moved there I had my bag of sweets I was carrying confiscated and binned, because of their strict rules on not bringing food across the border.
If they're that strict against the fear of a child's rogue Smarties then during a pandemic is there any surprise they have gone totally OTT.
I hope they reign in back in before long, but that's their decision to make, not ours.
We were advised by our travel agent to ensure there was no mud on our shoes before approaching Oz border control. Last time I cleaned them thoroughly, in fact.
Interesting that he has such links to a high profile person in Serbia. I wonder how that came about.
I was slightly angry when they decided to let Novax in; now I'm finding it all very amusing. From supporters trying to make out he is more persecuted than Christ, to the rather odd array of people who have come out to bat (racket?) for him, it has all gone rather odd.
showing your inner superiority again , a bit patronising .He will have his supporters and detractors over this and most would not welcome you calling them odd
If he gets this one wrong though, his career is probably in effect over. He will struggle to get visas for Aus and AIUI the US as well. He'll be restricted to Europe.
well fine , I quite admire his principle and honour to himself (even to the point of him damaging his sport prospects). He will win less and Australia will have a diminished championship. To some people honour to themselves and their beliefs are indeed more important that their day to day life and career and that is quite moving
Do admire people who believe the earth is flat? Or that the moon landings are fake? Admiring someone who has different political views (with exceptions at the extremes) is fine and dandy, but admiring someone's principles that are essentially stupid makes you as stupid as them.
Yes i see you are one of those very judgemental people who I have just talked about liking to put people in virtue categories of goodies and baddies and stupid and right etc. I just cannot understand that mentality at all personally. So you can call me stupid if you like, admiring people when they stick to their principles especially at a cost to them, as i dont care given I dont know you and think you are wrong
I am normally quite liberally minded and accept that people have the right to be stupid if they wish. When that stupidity is exhibited by people that the more gullible regard as role models I am quite happy to be very judgemental. Djokavic is an idiot. Antivaxxers are idiots. I would like all antivaxxers to have to endure lockdown while the rest of us get back to some sense of normality. Does that make me judgemental? I don't fecking care!
Are you really arguing that because about 10-15% of people (in the UK) are not vaccinated we are still having to have restrictions etc ? Thats the easy strawman target.The restrictions are there because governments have messed up isolation rules (ie NHS have no staff) and becuase of the need to be seen to be doing something and being able to control a pandemic (which is impossible)
Interesting that he has such links to a high profile person in Serbia. I wonder how that came about.
I was slightly angry when they decided to let Novax in; now I'm finding it all very amusing. From supporters trying to make out he is more persecuted than Christ, to the rather odd array of people who have come out to bat (racket?) for him, it has all gone rather odd.
It's been a fascinating story all round. It is strange that the right of a sovereign nation to refuse or accept who the heck it likes has proved so emotionally potent amongst some. Even more ironic. Many of them want an "Australian immigration system".
It's very amusing. I don't agree with the Covid theatre but it's their right to choose their own rules, that's the whole point people have campaigned for!
Australia has one of the toughest, if not the toughest, phytosanitary regimes on the border on the planet. As a child when I moved there I had my bag of sweets I was carrying confiscated and binned, because of their strict rules on not bringing food across the border.
If they're that strict against the fear of a child's rogue Smarties then during a pandemic is there any surprise they have gone totally OTT.
I hope they reign in back in before long, but that's their decision to make, not ours.
We were advised by our travel agent to ensure there was no mud on our shoes before approaching Oz border control. Last time I cleaned them thoroughly, in fact.
I get advised that daily by my wife when approaching the house
Prejudice reporting for education. On the face of it, this seems like insanity and madness. Prejudice is a human emotion. Like jealousy, it is not in itself a bad thing. The significance of it is how it affects your actions. Education can only guide you in trying to manage your emotions.
Trying to remove prejudice, like hate or jealousy is trying to re-engineer the human heart. It is a totalitarian project. It is no suprise that this is at the heart of our education system. 12 years of conservative government have done nothing to stop this type of thinking or action, which seems to be supported by our institutions.
I am not trying to make this about politics, but this is why educated people vote for Trump or Zemmour. It is for a human future, however flawed; against the nightmare of extreme progressivism. Perhaps we have had our revolt, with Brexit; and it has simply failed to change anything.
That's interesting, partly because I don't understand it all. I agree that we all have prejudices, which I'd define as having opinions about other groups that we can't justify and rationally we suspect are actually groundless. I vaguely suspect that many people in Papua New Guinea are quite primitive, but I recognise that's because I know nothing about PNG except that they used to have cannibals. But prejudice seems to me an unmitigated bad thing, though I agree that it's not actually harmful unless we guide our actions by them (if I had to influence PNG policy I'd take the trouble to understand the place properly). Similarly, jealousy is surely usually understood to mean an unreasonable suspicion of a partner. If they run off with someone, it's natural to feel aggrieved, but is that jealousy?
But you're onto something about revolts. There was a notable drop in anti-immgration polling after Brexit, which is presumably because people felt something was being done to get it under control (possibly that will have changed lately). Some revolts that don't seem to change much lead to demands for bigger revolts (cf. French and Russian revolutions), but shrugging and giving up is a normal human response too.
On Trump, the proportion of highly-educated people who support him is quite low (don't know about Zemmour), and that perhaps reflects the tendency of higher education to weight rational analysis more highly than emotional instinct (and perhaps prejudice). I feel suspicious of myself when I react emotionally to some political development, and that maybe reflects my academic background - you'd just feel silly if you wrote a PhD thesis governed by your gut feelings.
You are overthinking this. Prejudice is a consequence of the limitations of human knowledge. People who are supposedly extremely intelligent and worldly are as susceptible as anyone to prejudice, because there is only so much you can know, and as humans we are driven primarily by instinct not reason. You can see this all the time with 'experts' on twitter descending in to nonsensical tirades against the outgroup, be this Brexitteers, Trump voters, anti-vaxxers etc. It is also much in evidence on PB; even though some people admirably wrestle with and fight these instincts (I would include you in this group) they always eventually seep out.
I don't know the stats about Trump either, but my understanding was that traditionally a high proportion of Republican voters are college graduates (although this is declining as recent graduates are more likely to vote democrat). Zemmour is an intellectual phenomenon (see the film of his recent trip to London, for instance) and his downfall is likely to be his inability to connect with the unwashed masses. But my broader point was that people like myself could vote for something superficially abhorrent like Trump, because they see it as the less harmful of two forms of madness.
Thanks for the response. I looked up Trump support among voters with 4 years of college just now, and Biden did have a large advantage in that group - 57-42 among white voters (vs 33-65 among white voters without 4 years of college) and 69-30 among Latino college grads vs 55-41 for non-grads.
I wonder if "we must stop X" negative voting has become more common across the West generally in recent years - Trump, Corbyn, and le Pen all generated considerable coalitions of people determined to stop them, and Zemmour seems likely to do the same if he does reach the second round.
It's pretty unhealthy for democracy if we mostly choose the lesser evil, but that perhaps reflects the fact that problems are especially difficult nowadays (globalisation is a significant driver, as people elect one country's leaders, who then find themselves unable to change the landscape much), as well as the way that the media have found that highlighting a controversial person is a good way to sell papers and get viewers. So people like Trump get disproportionate airtime because they're interestingly awful, while someone like Starmer who merely exudes competence without saying anything very striking struggles to get a hearing at all.
Two things: in the examples of voting against the "greater of two evils" you give, they all had more than one bite at the cherry. That weakens the evidence for the effect you're looking for, that people are voting negatively. I think.
Secondly, the "lesser of two evils" is less a failure of our democracies and more a failure of the way we talk about politicians. This is related to your point about interesting idiots (Trump) hogging airtime but separate: we are stuck in a rut of being focused on the worst aspects of politicians. For example, I can list a lot of flaws that I think disqualify Boris Johnson from ever being in contention for my votes, but is he evil? No. When you stop and think about it we have several parties who are made of good people doing honest work to the best of their abilities. I can see myself at some point in the future voting for Conservative, Labour, SNP, Lib Dem, Green, and possibly several others. But I feel often like I'm in the weirdo minority in that respect. Why is everyone else so tribal? It isn't, I assure you, because any of these parties are objectively evil. The ugliness is in the eye of the beholder.
- “I can see myself at some point in the future voting for Conservative, Labour, SNP, Lib Dem, Green, and possibly several others.”
That’s exactly the situation I find myself in regarding the Swedish GE in September. I left my old party 3 years ago, and since then just can’t decide who to vote for. Swithering between 4 or 5 parties at the moment. (And I’ll almost certainly be voting differently in the national, regional and local elections, which are all held on the same day.)
If Scotland was a normal country I’d probably be the same there too (my parents and sister have voted for several different parties, with my mum holding the record having supported everyone at some point). But Scotland is not a normal country yet, and until she is I can only vote for independence-supporting candidates/parties.
Do you find it easier to be less partisan about politics in your adopted country? That's what I found when I lived in Forrin Parts. I got to vote in local elections and it was really fun to explore with fresh eyes the opportunities. No preconceptions about the characters involved, too.
I've never lives in forrin parts, but I do remember the experience of reading the newspapers in Canada and thinking - why are you all getting so heated about this? It's pleasant to be able to be above the fray in that way, and makes you realise how daftly tribal your own country's arguments also are.
As a Swede, I sometimes raise my eyebrows at you lot getting so animated about relatively minuscule differences between England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. It’s odd how very few posters around here raise their eyes to peruse Europe, let alone the world.
Global Britain is a hollow slogan because almost nobody in the archipelago thinks globally.
I think there’s some truth in that, Stuart. It’s partly a consequence of having four countries within our state I think. You could say that it’s the narcissism of small differences, but those differences have become greater during covid, at least at times.
I’d also agree with Stuart’s comments but he also does his fair share of trying to promote those differences.
Interesting that he has such links to a high profile person in Serbia. I wonder how that came about.
I was slightly angry when they decided to let Novax in; now I'm finding it all very amusing. From supporters trying to make out he is more persecuted than Christ, to the rather odd array of people who have come out to bat (racket?) for him, it has all gone rather odd.
showing your inner superiority again , a bit patronising .He will have his supporters and detractors over this and most would not welcome you calling them odd
If he gets this one wrong though, his career is probably in effect over. He will struggle to get visas for Aus and AIUI the US as well. He'll be restricted to Europe.
well fine , I quite admire his principle and honour to himself (even to the point of him damaging his sport prospects). He will win less and Australia will have a diminished championship. To some people honour to themselves and their beliefs are indeed more important that their day to day life and career and that is quite moving
Hmmmm.
Surely taking a principled stand would have been boycotting the tournament from the start, rather than trying to get in under an exemption that has been misapplied?
why - his principle is not to dictate policy to other countries or to not play at majors it is to not get vaccinated.
The latter comes with the former.
If he had said, 'I refuse on principle to get vaccinated, and therefore I refuse to travel to any country that forces unvaccinated people to quarantine,' I would still have thought him a fool but at least that is a principled stand and I could respect it.
Not being vaccinated and still trying to get in under a medical exemption that he does not appear to be eligible for is simple cakeism. And it makes him look an idiot.
Moreover, that requirement to quarantine will last twelve months. A visa ban will last for three years.
Interesting that he has such links to a high profile person in Serbia. I wonder how that came about.
I was slightly angry when they decided to let Novax in; now I'm finding it all very amusing. From supporters trying to make out he is more persecuted than Christ, to the rather odd array of people who have come out to bat (racket?) for him, it has all gone rather odd.
showing your inner superiority again , a bit patronising .He will have his supporters and detractors over this and most would not welcome you calling them odd
If he gets this one wrong though, his career is probably in effect over. He will struggle to get visas for Aus and AIUI the US as well. He'll be restricted to Europe.
well fine , I quite admire his principle and honour to himself (even to the point of him damaging his sport prospects). He will win less and Australia will have a diminished championship. To some people honour to themselves and their beliefs are indeed more important that their day to day life and career and that is quite moving
Do admire people who believe the earth is flat? Or that the moon landings are fake? Admiring someone who has different political views (with exceptions at the extremes) is fine and dandy, but admiring someone's principles that are essentially stupid makes you as stupid as them.
Yes i see you are one of those very judgemental people who I have just talked about liking to put people in virtue categories of goodies and baddies and stupid and right etc. I just cannot understand that mentality at all personally. So you can call me stupid if you like, admiring people when they stick to their principles especially at a cost to them, as i dont care given I dont know you and think you are wrong
I am normally quite liberally minded and accept that people have the right to be stupid if they wish. When that stupidity is exhibited by people that the more gullible regard as role models I am quite happy to be very judgemental. Djokavic is an idiot. Antivaxxers are idiots. I would like all antivaxxers to have to endure lockdown while the rest of us get back to some sense of normality. Does that make me judgemental? I don't fecking care!
Are you really arguing that because about 10-15% of people (in the UK) are not vaccinated we are still having to have restrictions etc ? Thats the easy strawman target.The restrictions are there because governments have messed up isolation rules (ie NHS have no staff) and becuase of the need to be seen to be doing something and being able to control a pandemic (which is impossible)
Nope, minimum restrictions for the vaccinated, ideally none, maximum restrictions for the unvaccinated unless they have a genuine medical exception until the pandemic is well and truly over. All you need to do is get a jab ffs! No-one is asking you to risk life and limb in service of your country like previous generations have had to endure. A little needle that is all!
Interesting that he has such links to a high profile person in Serbia. I wonder how that came about.
I was slightly angry when they decided to let Novax in; now I'm finding it all very amusing. From supporters trying to make out he is more persecuted than Christ, to the rather odd array of people who have come out to bat (racket?) for him, it has all gone rather odd.
showing your inner superiority again , a bit patronising .He will have his supporters and detractors over this and most would not welcome you calling them odd
If he gets this one wrong though, his career is probably in effect over. He will struggle to get visas for Aus and AIUI the US as well. He'll be restricted to Europe.
well fine , I quite admire his principle and honour to himself (even to the point of him damaging his sport prospects). He will win less and Australia will have a diminished championship. To some people honour to themselves and their beliefs are indeed more important that their day to day life and career and that is quite moving
Do admire people who believe the earth is flat? Or that the moon landings are fake? Admiring someone who has different political views (with exceptions at the extremes) is fine and dandy, but admiring someone's principles that are essentially stupid makes you as stupid as them.
Yes i see you are one of those very judgemental people who I have just talked about liking to put people in virtue categories of goodies and baddies and stupid and right etc. I just cannot understand that mentality at all personally. So you can call me stupid if you like, admiring people when they stick to their principles especially at a cost to them, as i dont care given I dont know you and think you are wrong
I am normally quite liberally minded and accept that people have the right to be stupid if they wish. When that stupidity is exhibited by people that the more gullible regard as role models I am quite happy to be very judgemental. Djokavic is an idiot. Antivaxxers are idiots. I would like all antivaxxers to have to endure lockdown while the rest of us get back to some sense of normality. Does that make me judgemental? I don't fecking care!
A bit of white privilege being displayed I think Nigel. It’s well documented African Americans have been hesitant on vaccines because of historic abuses.
I think you are showing your own pathetic prejudice by assuming I am white!
Actually, I tried to avoid this in my longer post but I do think Trump is properly evil. It doesn't suit my argument to say it, but there we are. I wouldn't use that word for very many people. I'm struggling to think of other living politicians that it applies to. Possible Duterte, but I don't know enough about the Philippines to be sure about that. Obviously I'm excluding undemocratic countries here. Evil rises easier when the consent of the people is not a determinant.
I disagree.
I don't consider Trump to be "evil" - an appalling individual in many respects but his worldview is that of the American Nationalist. There's a hint of Lindbergh ("America First") and also of Nixon (only Nixon could go to China, only Trump could go to North Korea).
He represented a reversal of decades of "global" presidents going back to FDR. From FDR to Obama, all Presidents were global leaders whose primary purpose was the furthering of American values (call them "Western" if you want) and confronting the other non-American ideologies whether Communism or Islamic fundamentalism or Juche or whatever.
Trump saw (rightly you can argue) America had taken on this burden and was carrying a whole lot of other countries (the one thing Trump did get right was shaming European countries on defence spending and their contribution to NATO). Oddly enough, he chose the financial argument in terms of influence just as Thatcher did in the early 80s within the EEC,.
The other side of this was whether the approach of successive Presidents had been in any way effective either in promoting American (and by definition western) security or whether America was just pouring money down a big hole with little to show. Trump took a very different approach - he reached out personally to Putin, Xi, Kim Jong-Un and others offering the hand of economic friendship in exchange for a toning down of the confrontational rhetoric.
Voters like politicians who put their country first - it's obvious but it's worth saying. There aren't many votes in overt internationalism. Trump's failure was, I would argue, he didn't have a single tangible success to show for four years of this direction. You can argue some of what he was trying to do would take decades to come to fruition but in truth, and perhaps he was frustrated by the establishment in the State Department and elsewhere, he achieved almost nothing.
It isn't Trump's prioritisation of America that leads me to put him in the "evil" category. You'd catch far too many people in the net doing that. It's the fact that he's a user, a bigot, a selfish, self-aggrandising fool who breaks little people on the wheel of his narcissism, a corrupt, democracy-threatening arsehole, a self-pitying, whining crybaby, a fat lump of flesh with a cruel streak as wide as the Hudson and a penchant for petty revenge. He has nothing good in his soul.
“Let he who is without sin…”
...cast the first stone. I've thrown no stones, I've used words.
Or are you implying that I'm somehow just as bad? You're probably wrong, but happily I've never stood for election and have no intention of doing so. I know that every time I go to cast a ballot there are multiple people on the ticket who are better than me. I do not think Trump is better than me, though. So even if I am AS BAD as Trump, I'm better by virtue of recognising my own unsuitability for public office.
TBH, I don’t really care. My concern is whether someone governs well, and well means a wide spectrum of affairs. Labelling people as “evil” should be reserved for those who are truly evil such as Hitler and Stalin. Otherwise it becomes cheap.
I mean, if you'd read the whole lead up to that you'd see that I have said as much. I do not throw the word about liberally. It's sort of interesting that some people want to cancel the word "evil" as if humans these days are incapable of being evil any more. That can't be true. We haven't evolved past that.
It’s a matter of opinion. I don’t see Trump as evil - he’s got mainly bad qualities but he doesn’t cross that line. Not do I see Biden as evil, even though he waved off Afghans falling to their deaths from planes “yes but that was 5 days ago.” People do distasteful things but it’s not evil.
Biden continued Trump's plan - probably the wrong thing to do. Trump tried to overturn a free and fair election - as shown by the recounts and court cases. That's a coup attempt in the world's most important democracy where 5 people died. If that's not evil would you perhaps describe it as 'naughty'?
Interesting that he has such links to a high profile person in Serbia. I wonder how that came about.
I was slightly angry when they decided to let Novax in; now I'm finding it all very amusing. From supporters trying to make out he is more persecuted than Christ, to the rather odd array of people who have come out to bat (racket?) for him, it has all gone rather odd.
showing your inner superiority again , a bit patronising .He will have his supporters and detractors over this and most would not welcome you calling them odd
If he gets this one wrong though, his career is probably in effect over. He will struggle to get visas for Aus and AIUI the US as well. He'll be restricted to Europe.
well fine , I quite admire his principle and honour to himself (even to the point of him damaging his sport prospects). He will win less and Australia will have a diminished championship. To some people honour to themselves and their beliefs are indeed more important that their day to day life and career and that is quite moving
Hmmmm.
Surely taking a principled stand would have been boycotting the tournament from the start, rather than trying to get in under an exemption that has been misapplied?
why - his principle is not to dictate policy to other countries or to not play at majors it is to not get vaccinated.
The latter comes with the former.
If he had said, 'I refuse on principle to get vaccinated, and therefore I refuse to travel to any country that forces unvaccinated people to quarantine,' I would still have thought him a fool but at least that is a principled stand and I could respect it.
Not being vaccinated and still trying to get in under a medical exemption that he does not appear to be eligible for is simple cakeism. And it makes him look an idiot.
Moreover, that requirement to quarantine will last twelve months. A visa ban will last for three years.
According to the Oz lawyer on the radio the other day the three year ban can be easily overridden if it's deemed beneficial to Australia. If they've relaxed vax visa requirements next year they'll definitely let him in.
I'd make Rayner favourite right now (but not a huge fave). She is there, she shows talent, she has confidence, she is different
Are you advocating a selection policy based solely on identity?
lol, Yeah
After this succession of inept posh or posh-ish Tories, Cameron, May, Boris, absolutely why not a working class girl from Brum? She's got a sense of humour, she has a bit of sass. She needs to learn some debating skills, judging by PMQs; she is too genial, she needs to employ ruthlessness, but in desperation I might vote for her, if it came to it
She’s from very obviously from Greater Manchester, not Birmingham!
Yes, I apologised earlier
But that said, who cares. Birmingham, Glasgow, Sunderland, Swindon, Plymouth, they're all up north and they're all toilets, whence it is frankly amazing people emerge vaguely literate
Hold on. Weren't your formative years spent in that Northern shithole known to map makers as rural Herefordshire?
I'm pretty sure you were drinking a toast to a return to your roots in the Marches just before xmas.
The trouble is, once you move to London, you go native. Anything north of Epping Forest or west of Heathrow is THE NORTH. Portsmouth is also THE NORTH, it being clearly south of Richmond Park.
You're no Londoner.
London extends northwards to furthest reaches of Hampstead Heath, but does not include Hampstead Garden Suburb or Golders Green.
It's bounded in the South by the Thames, except for a small cut out for the Oval.
In the West, the boundary runs close to the Thames, and very definitely ends at Kew.
To the East, one leaves London somewhere between Aldgate East and Whitchapel tubes.
Only South London is proper London. The stuff north of the river is just for tourists and poshos.
Nah… London was founded on the North bank… Southwark just where they used to go to do the stuff they couldn’t or wouldn’t do in town
True, but the soul of London has migrated south over time. If you want proper London you have to look south of the river these days.
You forget I grew up in the swamp between the City and Westminster and now have my private office in Northbank…
South London is what it is: a vibrant overspill of Kent. Fun to go to for a visit from time to time, but never the beating heart of London itself
South London used to be Surrey. South East London used to be Kent. The old boundary is approximately the Southwark/Lewisham border.
And West London used to be Middlesex, North London Herts etc.
The old Surrey/Kent border goes through my local park, Hilly Fields.
There's an old county marker at the top of Telegraph Hill, too. Somewhat to my disappointment we are on the Surrey side of it.
A few points that would back up the conclusion to this thread. Firstly, Burnham has lost two leadership elections already - one where he was a frontrunner. The other where he failed to make an impact despite obvious flaws in the three leading candidates. Proof he's not great at the mechanics of these contests if nothing else. Secondly, in the absence of an utterly outstanding male candidate, one shouldn't underestimate the pull of wanting Labour to have its first woman leader. More than 51% of the PLP are now women, and while it's the membership that decides and one doesn't want to be patronising by saying will vote because of their sex - i will surely inform who some influential MPs decide to support if they think it's much of a muchness. E.g. If Nandy vaguely impresses too over the next few years he loses his USP of being a Labour politician who 'gets' the north (silly as that notion is) and she would break Labour's duck on that front. Lastly, a lot of Burnham's appeal is that he does a totally different job to Starmer but I don't think there are many of the 'controversial' (among some Lab members) things Starmer has done that he'd do differently. He would have had to suspend and ostracise Corbyn because although his supporters won't admit it, his behaviour has stained Labour and would continue to if a leader drew a line. He'd have almost certainly talked up patriotism etc as local pride has been a key plank of his running in Manchester. He's not hugely liberal on crime in the way some Labour activists are in the same way as Starmer isn't, and is a pragmatist on public services. If Starmer fails, it's not overly clear why members would think selecting another chap from the middle of the party would be a good idea rather than a rethink either way. Even if he was an electorally successful northern mayor. In a leadership election he would be asked about these things and inevitably would annoy some of those who like him now because he's quite good at having arguments with a Tory government.
I pretty much agree, but would like to introduce you to the concept of paragraphs...
Prejudice reporting for education. On the face of it, this seems like insanity and madness. Prejudice is a human emotion. Like jealousy, it is not in itself a bad thing. The significance of it is how it affects your actions. Education can only guide you in trying to manage your emotions.
Trying to remove prejudice, like hate or jealousy is trying to re-engineer the human heart. It is a totalitarian project. It is no suprise that this is at the heart of our education system. 12 years of conservative government have done nothing to stop this type of thinking or action, which seems to be supported by our institutions.
I am not trying to make this about politics, but this is why educated people vote for Trump or Zemmour. It is for a human future, however flawed; against the nightmare of extreme progressivism. Perhaps we have had our revolt, with Brexit; and it has simply failed to change anything.
What is this nonsense you're talking about? Are you not aware of the daily re-engineering of the "human heart" that happens in all aspects of society? The fact that it's rare to see people rutting in the street, and staving one another's heads in with blunt objects, is testament to this fact. We do countless things that go against our natural urges. When the sun went down before 4.30, you're still expected to work not just go to sleep then and there. If someone drives recklessly and endangers me, I don't chase them down and choke them with a tyre iron even though I really want to. I don't go into the village store and just take what I want from the shelves and flatten the little old woman who works there just because I can. We plan, control, manage, monitor, and restrict our basest instincts all day, every day.
That's what civilisation is.
Now that's to say nothing of this specific organisation, which I haven't really looked into and frankly I don't really care about right now. It's just that the form of your argument is so wildly strange that I can't even begin to understand why you use it. Stopping bad behaviour is normal, even if we disagree on what bad behaviour consists in.
This is typical of what may be described as the "postliberal radical progressive" mindset. There is literally no limit to what the state should try and do in the quest to make society better. An expansion from regulating action, to behaviour, right through to thought is entirely natural and inevitable.
To reply to your substantive point, it is clear to me that there is a big difference between preventing theft and violent death, and eradicating 'prejudice'. But not to you and many others. You are winning. But in the end, that is just the way things are. And that is why people like me do disgusting, prejudiced, evil things like voting for Donald Trump.
Interesting that he has such links to a high profile person in Serbia. I wonder how that came about.
I was slightly angry when they decided to let Novax in; now I'm finding it all very amusing. From supporters trying to make out he is more persecuted than Christ, to the rather odd array of people who have come out to bat (racket?) for him, it has all gone rather odd.
showing your inner superiority again , a bit patronising .He will have his supporters and detractors over this and most would not welcome you calling them odd
If he gets this one wrong though, his career is probably in effect over. He will struggle to get visas for Aus and AIUI the US as well. He'll be restricted to Europe.
well fine , I quite admire his principle and honour to himself (even to the point of him damaging his sport prospects). He will win less and Australia will have a diminished championship. To some people honour to themselves and their beliefs are indeed more important that their day to day life and career and that is quite moving
Hmmmm.
Surely taking a principled stand would have been boycotting the tournament from the start, rather than trying to get in under an exemption that has been misapplied?
why - his principle is not to dictate policy to other countries or to not play at majors it is to not get vaccinated.
Why would any sane person refuse the vaccine?
It is the right to make bad decisions. I see people most weeks that make decisions that I think foolish and risky, but that is an essential freedom.
Interesting that he has such links to a high profile person in Serbia. I wonder how that came about.
I was slightly angry when they decided to let Novax in; now I'm finding it all very amusing. From supporters trying to make out he is more persecuted than Christ, to the rather odd array of people who have come out to bat (racket?) for him, it has all gone rather odd.
showing your inner superiority again , a bit patronising .He will have his supporters and detractors over this and most would not welcome you calling them odd
If he gets this one wrong though, his career is probably in effect over. He will struggle to get visas for Aus and AIUI the US as well. He'll be restricted to Europe.
well fine , I quite admire his principle and honour to himself (even to the point of him damaging his sport prospects). He will win less and Australia will have a diminished championship. To some people honour to themselves and their beliefs are indeed more important that their day to day life and career and that is quite moving
Hmmmm.
Surely taking a principled stand would have been boycotting the tournament from the start, rather than trying to get in under an exemption that has been misapplied?
why - his principle is not to dictate policy to other countries or to not play at majors it is to not get vaccinated.
Why would any sane person refuse the vaccine?
It is the right to make bad decisions. I see people most weeks that make decisions that I think foolish and risky, but that is an essential freedom.
No it's not, otherwise you'd have a right to go as fast as you want on a road.
Actually, I tried to avoid this in my longer post but I do think Trump is properly evil. It doesn't suit my argument to say it, but there we are. I wouldn't use that word for very many people. I'm struggling to think of other living politicians that it applies to. Possible Duterte, but I don't know enough about the Philippines to be sure about that. Obviously I'm excluding undemocratic countries here. Evil rises easier when the consent of the people is not a determinant.
I disagree.
I don't consider Trump to be "evil" - an appalling individual in many respects but his worldview is that of the American Nationalist. There's a hint of Lindbergh ("America First") and also of Nixon (only Nixon could go to China, only Trump could go to North Korea).
He represented a reversal of decades of "global" presidents going back to FDR. From FDR to Obama, all Presidents were global leaders whose primary purpose was the furthering of American values (call them "Western" if you want) and confronting the other non-American ideologies whether Communism or Islamic fundamentalism or Juche or whatever.
Trump saw (rightly you can argue) America had taken on this burden and was carrying a whole lot of other countries (the one thing Trump did get right was shaming European countries on defence spending and their contribution to NATO). Oddly enough, he chose the financial argument in terms of influence just as Thatcher did in the early 80s within the EEC,.
The other side of this was whether the approach of successive Presidents had been in any way effective either in promoting American (and by definition western) security or whether America was just pouring money down a big hole with little to show. Trump took a very different approach - he reached out personally to Putin, Xi, Kim Jong-Un and others offering the hand of economic friendship in exchange for a toning down of the confrontational rhetoric.
Voters like politicians who put their country first - it's obvious but it's worth saying. There aren't many votes in overt internationalism. Trump's failure was, I would argue, he didn't have a single tangible success to show for four years of this direction. You can argue some of what he was trying to do would take decades to come to fruition but in truth, and perhaps he was frustrated by the establishment in the State Department and elsewhere, he achieved almost nothing.
It isn't Trump's prioritisation of America that leads me to put him in the "evil" category. You'd catch far too many people in the net doing that. It's the fact that he's a user, a bigot, a selfish, self-aggrandising fool who breaks little people on the wheel of his narcissism, a corrupt, democracy-threatening arsehole, a self-pitying, whining crybaby, a fat lump of flesh with a cruel streak as wide as the Hudson and a penchant for petty revenge. He has nothing good in his soul.
“Let he who is without sin…”
...cast the first stone. I've thrown no stones, I've used words.
Or are you implying that I'm somehow just as bad? You're probably wrong, but happily I've never stood for election and have no intention of doing so. I know that every time I go to cast a ballot there are multiple people on the ticket who are better than me. I do not think Trump is better than me, though. So even if I am AS BAD as Trump, I'm better by virtue of recognising my own unsuitability for public office.
TBH, I don’t really care. My concern is whether someone governs well, and well means a wide spectrum of affairs. Labelling people as “evil” should be reserved for those who are truly evil such as Hitler and Stalin. Otherwise it becomes cheap.
I mean, if you'd read the whole lead up to that you'd see that I have said as much. I do not throw the word about liberally. It's sort of interesting that some people want to cancel the word "evil" as if humans these days are incapable of being evil any more. That can't be true. We haven't evolved past that.
It’s a matter of opinion. I don’t see Trump as evil - he’s got mainly bad qualities but he doesn’t cross that line. Not do I see Biden as evil, even though he waved off Afghans falling to their deaths from planes “yes but that was 5 days ago.” People do distasteful things but it’s not evil.
Biden continued Trump's plan - probably the wrong thing to do. Trump tried to overturn a free and fair election - as shown by the recounts and court cases. That's a coup attempt in the world's most important democracy where 5 people died. If that's not evil would you perhaps describe it as 'naughty'?
The Red Mist around Trump is descending again.
My comment on Biden and Afghanistan was around his waving away of people dying in an horrific way as a minor detail. It was the behaviour one might expect of a sociopath. The wider Afghan policy is a separate issue
Re the election, I’m sure there’s an element here you’d love me to describe as a Jan 6 loving Trumpist. But, as the records on here state, I condemned both his attempts on Jan 6th and in the states, and was the first on here to flag his tactics.
FWIW though, I don’t think Jan 6th was an insurrection and neither does the FBI. No one has been charged with insurrection and treason. Trump was stupid, irresponsible and dangerously reckless but, if it was a planned coup, it was the worst one ever.
You raise an interesting point though. No losing Democratic Presidential candidate since 1988 has said they lost fair and square. Gore, Kerry, Clinton all said they were cheated. gore went to the SC, Clinton was caught on camera in 2019 for saying she was cheated out of the election. On the latter, what responsibility does she bear for contributing to the poison in the US? Or is it ok because she’s a Democrat and tried to undermine Trump by claiming he was a Russian plant as opposed to a riotous assembly?
Prejudice reporting for education. On the face of it, this seems like insanity and madness. Prejudice is a human emotion. Like jealousy, it is not in itself a bad thing. The significance of it is how it affects your actions. Education can only guide you in trying to manage your emotions.
Trying to remove prejudice, like hate or jealousy is trying to re-engineer the human heart. It is a totalitarian project. It is no suprise that this is at the heart of our education system. 12 years of conservative government have done nothing to stop this type of thinking or action, which seems to be supported by our institutions.
I am not trying to make this about politics, but this is why educated people vote for Trump or Zemmour. It is for a human future, however flawed; against the nightmare of extreme progressivism. Perhaps we have had our revolt, with Brexit; and it has simply failed to change anything.
That's interesting, partly because I don't understand it all. I agree that we all have prejudices, which I'd define as having opinions about other groups that we can't justify and rationally we suspect are actually groundless. I vaguely suspect that many people in Papua New Guinea are quite primitive, but I recognise that's because I know nothing about PNG except that they used to have cannibals. But prejudice seems to me an unmitigated bad thing, though I agree that it's not actually harmful unless we guide our actions by them (if I had to influence PNG policy I'd take the trouble to understand the place properly). Similarly, jealousy is surely usually understood to mean an unreasonable suspicion of a partner. If they run off with someone, it's natural to feel aggrieved, but is that jealousy?
But you're onto something about revolts. There was a notable drop in anti-immgration polling after Brexit, which is presumably because people felt something was being done to get it under control (possibly that will have changed lately). Some revolts that don't seem to change much lead to demands for bigger revolts (cf. French and Russian revolutions), but shrugging and giving up is a normal human response too.
On Trump, the proportion of highly-educated people who support him is quite low (don't know about Zemmour), and that perhaps reflects the tendency of higher education to weight rational analysis more highly than emotional instinct (and perhaps prejudice). I feel suspicious of myself when I react emotionally to some political development, and that maybe reflects my academic background - you'd just feel silly if you wrote a PhD thesis governed by your gut feelings.
You are overthinking this. Prejudice is a consequence of the limitations of human knowledge. People who are supposedly extremely intelligent and worldly are as susceptible as anyone to prejudice, because there is only so much you can know, and as humans we are driven primarily by instinct not reason. You can see this all the time with 'experts' on twitter descending in to nonsensical tirades against the outgroup, be this Brexitteers, Trump voters, anti-vaxxers etc. It is also much in evidence on PB; even though some people admirably wrestle with and fight these instincts (I would include you in this group) they always eventually seep out.
I don't know the stats about Trump either, but my understanding was that traditionally a high proportion of Republican voters are college graduates (although this is declining as recent graduates are more likely to vote democrat). Zemmour is an intellectual phenomenon (see the film of his recent trip to London, for instance) and his downfall is likely to be his inability to connect with the unwashed masses. But my broader point was that people like myself could vote for something superficially abhorrent like Trump, because they see it as the less harmful of two forms of madness.
Thanks for the response. I looked up Trump support among voters with 4 years of college just now, and Biden did have a large advantage in that group - 57-42 among white voters (vs 33-65 among white voters without 4 years of college) and 69-30 among Latino college grads vs 55-41 for non-grads.
I wonder if "we must stop X" negative voting has become more common across the West generally in recent years - Trump, Corbyn, and le Pen all generated considerable coalitions of people determined to stop them, and Zemmour seems likely to do the same if he does reach the second round.
It's pretty unhealthy for democracy if we mostly choose the lesser evil, but that perhaps reflects the fact that problems are especially difficult nowadays (globalisation is a significant driver, as people elect one country's leaders, who then find themselves unable to change the landscape much), as well as the way that the media have found that highlighting a controversial person is a good way to sell papers and get viewers. So people like Trump get disproportionate airtime because they're interestingly awful, while someone like Starmer who merely exudes competence without saying anything very striking struggles to get a hearing at all.
Two things: in the examples of voting against the "greater of two evils" you give, they all had more than one bite at the cherry. That weakens the evidence for the effect you're looking for, that people are voting negatively. I think.
Secondly, the "lesser of two evils" is less a failure of our democracies and more a failure of the way we talk about politicians. This is related to your point about interesting idiots (Trump) hogging airtime but separate: we are stuck in a rut of being focused on the worst aspects of politicians. For example, I can list a lot of flaws that I think disqualify Boris Johnson from ever being in contention for my votes, but is he evil? No. When you stop and think about it we have several parties who are made of good people doing honest work to the best of their abilities. I can see myself at some point in the future voting for Conservative, Labour, SNP, Lib Dem, Green, and possibly several others. But I feel often like I'm in the weirdo minority in that respect. Why is everyone else so tribal? It isn't, I assure you, because any of these parties are objectively evil. The ugliness is in the eye of the beholder.
Evil is thankfully in short supply in mainstream politics here but I'd flirt with that descriptor for some of what's going on with the Trump MAGA movement in the US.
As for being "tribal" I vote only one way (Labour or at a push tactically to beat a Con) but I'd reject the label because it implies unthinkingness and I do think about why I'm Labour. It's because they are our party of the Left and my politics is Left. Why am I on the Left? Because of just one thing - that by my reading of the world the single biggest determinant (by miles) of a person's material life outcome is the pure dumb luck (from their perspective) of their birth circumstances. Where they are born and to whom. I actually don't know why this bugs me so much but it does and always has.
Therefore for me one the highest priorities of government should be to do things which significantly reduce that link. Not eradicate it - impossible outside of a dystopia - but significantly reduce it. You have to really act against the grain in order to do this because so many powerful forces push the other way. So it's very difficult. Far easier to pay lip service to "fairer society" and carry on doing not the slightest thing to make serious progress towards it.
The political Right haven't the remotest interest in this. The big tell that they aren't is they don't even engage with it. Note how when the dreaded word 'equality' crops up what they do like Pavlov's dog is roll out the trite faux-profundity of "I believe in equality of opportunity not of outcome" (as if this is a natural juxta and the 2 things can be intellectually separated) possibly followed by some reference to "grammar schools". So that closes off the Right for me. They don't care about what I care about the most.
To avoid being tribal you need to ask yourself at each election which party is best suited to achieving your desired goals. From the above it sounds like you assume it is automatically Labour, in which case the tribal label is correct.
Also, you were saying last night that you're guided by what the politicians you most respect tell you. Such that if the politicians you most respect started advocating positions which wouldn't actually bring about the outcome you desire, you'd probably still vote for them, assuming they must be right. Of course, I didn't really believe you about that last night. But I'd say that's quite a tribal approach - albeit less tribal than 'the other lot are all evil'.
Ah no, what I was saying then was in general not so much about politics or parties as such. My point was (is) there are many many things I don't have the time to get to the bottom of and form a robust independent view on. Egs did Covid leak from a lab? Will such & such a trade deal make us richer? Is there life on Mars? It really is a long list. Much easier, in fact, although I won't, to list the things I *have* got nailed down. So, for these many many things that aren't one of my Hot Topics I fall back (if I wish to engage at all) on a mixture of intuition plus my assessment of the relative merits of those who *are* claiming to have sussed it out. And I think everyone does this - it's just a matter of to what extent they do and to what extent they admit it.
It's a private company pitching its "services" to local councils. So far it has found one sucker client, Cambridgeshire council.
Yes but echoes here of Black Lives Matter, Stonewall, and Stop Funding Hate: everyone rolls their eyes and shrugs it off as a harmless eccentricity, and then it quickly becomes the mainstream.
Fighting for gay rights was harmless eccentricity? Well it's a view.
Interesting that he has such links to a high profile person in Serbia. I wonder how that came about.
I was slightly angry when they decided to let Novax in; now I'm finding it all very amusing. From supporters trying to make out he is more persecuted than Christ, to the rather odd array of people who have come out to bat (racket?) for him, it has all gone rather odd.
showing your inner superiority again , a bit patronising .He will have his supporters and detractors over this and most would not welcome you calling them odd
If he gets this one wrong though, his career is probably in effect over. He will struggle to get visas for Aus and AIUI the US as well. He'll be restricted to Europe.
well fine , I quite admire his principle and honour to himself (even to the point of him damaging his sport prospects). He will win less and Australia will have a diminished championship. To some people honour to themselves and their beliefs are indeed more important that their day to day life and career and that is quite moving
Hmmmm.
Surely taking a principled stand would have been boycotting the tournament from the start, rather than trying to get in under an exemption that has been misapplied?
why - his principle is not to dictate policy to other countries or to not play at majors it is to not get vaccinated.
Why would any sane person refuse the vaccine?
It is the right to make bad decisions. I see people most weeks that make decisions that I think foolish and risky, but that is an essential freedom.
And the government has long used the tax system to gently encourage people to make better decisions. A tax on the unvaccinated has merit in the context of tobacco, alcohol and sugar taxes, though as the unvaccinated population gains increasing amounts of immunity from repeated infection, that merit declines with time.
Fairly sure I would have been against a tax on people who didn't have the annual flu vaccination before this Corona pandemic. Provided there's no prospect of any sort of compulsory Corona counter measures next winter, then I think the window of opportunity where a tax on being unvaccinated had much utility is closing. Issues like increasing the number of training spaces for doctors and nurses and now much more important than specific Covid details.
Prejudice reporting for education. On the face of it, this seems like insanity and madness. Prejudice is a human emotion. Like jealousy, it is not in itself a bad thing. The significance of it is how it affects your actions. Education can only guide you in trying to manage your emotions.
Trying to remove prejudice, like hate or jealousy is trying to re-engineer the human heart. It is a totalitarian project. It is no suprise that this is at the heart of our education system. 12 years of conservative government have done nothing to stop this type of thinking or action, which seems to be supported by our institutions.
I am not trying to make this about politics, but this is why educated people vote for Trump or Zemmour. It is for a human future, however flawed; against the nightmare of extreme progressivism. Perhaps we have had our revolt, with Brexit; and it has simply failed to change anything.
That's interesting, partly because I don't understand it all. I agree that we all have prejudices, which I'd define as having opinions about other groups that we can't justify and rationally we suspect are actually groundless. I vaguely suspect that many people in Papua New Guinea are quite primitive, but I recognise that's because I know nothing about PNG except that they used to have cannibals. But prejudice seems to me an unmitigated bad thing, though I agree that it's not actually harmful unless we guide our actions by them (if I had to influence PNG policy I'd take the trouble to understand the place properly). Similarly, jealousy is surely usually understood to mean an unreasonable suspicion of a partner. If they run off with someone, it's natural to feel aggrieved, but is that jealousy?
But you're onto something about revolts. There was a notable drop in anti-immgration polling after Brexit, which is presumably because people felt something was being done to get it under control (possibly that will have changed lately). Some revolts that don't seem to change much lead to demands for bigger revolts (cf. French and Russian revolutions), but shrugging and giving up is a normal human response too.
On Trump, the proportion of highly-educated people who support him is quite low (don't know about Zemmour), and that perhaps reflects the tendency of higher education to weight rational analysis more highly than emotional instinct (and perhaps prejudice). I feel suspicious of myself when I react emotionally to some political development, and that maybe reflects my academic background - you'd just feel silly if you wrote a PhD thesis governed by your gut feelings.
You are overthinking this. Prejudice is a consequence of the limitations of human knowledge. People who are supposedly extremely intelligent and worldly are as susceptible as anyone to prejudice, because there is only so much you can know, and as humans we are driven primarily by instinct not reason. You can see this all the time with 'experts' on twitter descending in to nonsensical tirades against the outgroup, be this Brexitteers, Trump voters, anti-vaxxers etc. It is also much in evidence on PB; even though some people admirably wrestle with and fight these instincts (I would include you in this group) they always eventually seep out.
I don't know the stats about Trump either, but my understanding was that traditionally a high proportion of Republican voters are college graduates (although this is declining as recent graduates are more likely to vote democrat). Zemmour is an intellectual phenomenon (see the film of his recent trip to London, for instance) and his downfall is likely to be his inability to connect with the unwashed masses. But my broader point was that people like myself could vote for something superficially abhorrent like Trump, because they see it as the less harmful of two forms of madness.
Thanks for the response. I looked up Trump support among voters with 4 years of college just now, and Biden did have a large advantage in that group - 57-42 among white voters (vs 33-65 among white voters without 4 years of college) and 69-30 among Latino college grads vs 55-41 for non-grads.
I wonder if "we must stop X" negative voting has become more common across the West generally in recent years - Trump, Corbyn, and le Pen all generated considerable coalitions of people determined to stop them, and Zemmour seems likely to do the same if he does reach the second round.
It's pretty unhealthy for democracy if we mostly choose the lesser evil, but that perhaps reflects the fact that problems are especially difficult nowadays (globalisation is a significant driver, as people elect one country's leaders, who then find themselves unable to change the landscape much), as well as the way that the media have found that highlighting a controversial person is a good way to sell papers and get viewers. So people like Trump get disproportionate airtime because they're interestingly awful, while someone like Starmer who merely exudes competence without saying anything very striking struggles to get a hearing at all.
Two things: in the examples of voting against the "greater of two evils" you give, they all had more than one bite at the cherry. That weakens the evidence for the effect you're looking for, that people are voting negatively. I think.
Secondly, the "lesser of two evils" is less a failure of our democracies and more a failure of the way we talk about politicians. This is related to your point about interesting idiots (Trump) hogging airtime but separate: we are stuck in a rut of being focused on the worst aspects of politicians. For example, I can list a lot of flaws that I think disqualify Boris Johnson from ever being in contention for my votes, but is he evil? No. When you stop and think about it we have several parties who are made of good people doing honest work to the best of their abilities. I can see myself at some point in the future voting for Conservative, Labour, SNP, Lib Dem, Green, and possibly several others. But I feel often like I'm in the weirdo minority in that respect. Why is everyone else so tribal? It isn't, I assure you, because any of these parties are objectively evil. The ugliness is in the eye of the beholder.
Evil is thankfully in short supply in mainstream politics here but I'd flirt with that descriptor for some of what's going on with the Trump MAGA movement in the US.
As for being "tribal" I vote only one way (Labour or at a push tactically to beat a Con) but I'd reject the label because it implies unthinkingness and I do think about why I'm Labour. It's because they are our party of the Left and my politics is Left. Why am I on the Left? Because of just one thing - that by my reading of the world the single biggest determinant (by miles) of a person's material life outcome is the pure dumb luck (from their perspective) of their birth circumstances. Where they are born and to whom. I actually don't know why this bugs me so much but it does and always has.
Therefore for me one the highest priorities of government should be to do things which significantly reduce that link. Not eradicate it - impossible outside of a dystopia - but significantly reduce it. You have to really act against the grain in order to do this because so many powerful forces push the other way. So it's very difficult. Far easier to pay lip service to "fairer society" and carry on doing not the slightest thing to make serious progress towards it.
The political Right haven't the remotest interest in this. The big tell that they aren't is they don't even engage with it. Note how when the dreaded word 'equality' crops up what they do like Pavlov's dog is roll out the trite faux-profundity of "I believe in equality of opportunity not of outcome" (as if this is a natural juxta and the 2 things can be intellectually separated) possibly followed by some reference to "grammar schools". So that closes off the Right for me. They don't care about what I care about the most.
Equality of opportunity absolutely can be intellectually separated from equality of outcome.
If your issue is that you object to outcomes being determined by birth circumstances then that is saying there isn't equality of opportunity.
If we have true equality of opportunity then birth circumstances would cease to be relevant even if outcomes aren't the same.
That is a profound difference. I have specific examples of things I believe need reforming to further equality of opportunity.
That you are airily dismissing the importance of equality of opportunity is not furthering your objective of separating birth circumstances from results. That is not a weakness of the right.
They can be separated only by bypassing the intellect - as demonstrated here.
Interesting that he has such links to a high profile person in Serbia. I wonder how that came about.
I was slightly angry when they decided to let Novax in; now I'm finding it all very amusing. From supporters trying to make out he is more persecuted than Christ, to the rather odd array of people who have come out to bat (racket?) for him, it has all gone rather odd.
showing your inner superiority again , a bit patronising .He will have his supporters and detractors over this and most would not welcome you calling them odd
If he gets this one wrong though, his career is probably in effect over. He will struggle to get visas for Aus and AIUI the US as well. He'll be restricted to Europe.
well fine , I quite admire his principle and honour to himself (even to the point of him damaging his sport prospects). He will win less and Australia will have a diminished championship. To some people honour to themselves and their beliefs are indeed more important that their day to day life and career and that is quite moving
Hmmmm.
Surely taking a principled stand would have been boycotting the tournament from the start, rather than trying to get in under an exemption that has been misapplied?
why - his principle is not to dictate policy to other countries or to not play at majors it is to not get vaccinated.
Why would any sane person refuse the vaccine?
It is the right to make bad decisions. I see people most weeks that make decisions that I think foolish and risky, but that is an essential freedom.
No it's not, otherwise you'd have a right to go as fast as you want on a road.
When you go as fast as you want on a road you increase the risk for other road users, as well as yourself.
When you refuse to be vaccinated you mainly increase the risk to yourself. Any increase in risk to others, particularly those who are vaccinated, is mostly indirect, in the case that there are enough unvaccinated people that it places a burden on the health service.
In this sense choosing not to be vaccinated is very similar to choosing to smoke tobacco. This mostly has an effect on your own health, rather than that of others (particularly now that smoking in pubs, etc, is banned), and only has an indirect effect on others, through the extra demand that your risk of lung cancer, and other health problems, places onto the health service.
That's why I'd judge that it would be appropriate to deal with refusal to be vaccinated in a similar way to tobacco consumption - with a tax - rather than in a similar way to dangerous driving - with the criminal law.
Actually, I tried to avoid this in my longer post but I do think Trump is properly evil. It doesn't suit my argument to say it, but there we are. I wouldn't use that word for very many people. I'm struggling to think of other living politicians that it applies to. Possible Duterte, but I don't know enough about the Philippines to be sure about that. Obviously I'm excluding undemocratic countries here. Evil rises easier when the consent of the people is not a determinant.
I disagree.
I don't consider Trump to be "evil" - an appalling individual in many respects but his worldview is that of the American Nationalist. There's a hint of Lindbergh ("America First") and also of Nixon (only Nixon could go to China, only Trump could go to North Korea).
He represented a reversal of decades of "global" presidents going back to FDR. From FDR to Obama, all Presidents were global leaders whose primary purpose was the furthering of American values (call them "Western" if you want) and confronting the other non-American ideologies whether Communism or Islamic fundamentalism or Juche or whatever.
Trump saw (rightly you can argue) America had taken on this burden and was carrying a whole lot of other countries (the one thing Trump did get right was shaming European countries on defence spending and their contribution to NATO). Oddly enough, he chose the financial argument in terms of influence just as Thatcher did in the early 80s within the EEC,.
The other side of this was whether the approach of successive Presidents had been in any way effective either in promoting American (and by definition western) security or whether America was just pouring money down a big hole with little to show. Trump took a very different approach - he reached out personally to Putin, Xi, Kim Jong-Un and others offering the hand of economic friendship in exchange for a toning down of the confrontational rhetoric.
Voters like politicians who put their country first - it's obvious but it's worth saying. There aren't many votes in overt internationalism. Trump's failure was, I would argue, he didn't have a single tangible success to show for four years of this direction. You can argue some of what he was trying to do would take decades to come to fruition but in truth, and perhaps he was frustrated by the establishment in the State Department and elsewhere, he achieved almost nothing.
Trying way too hard to find some shoe on the shit.
On Astra Zeneca it the decision to give the Oxford vaccine to a company with little experience in vaccines may well come to be seen as one of the worst mistakes of the pandemic, from a global point of view. AIUI it AZ weren't their first choice, and they were unfortunately pressured into giving it to AZ by the British government.
Not quite. The UK government insisted it was manufactured in the UK but beyond that didn’t have a view. Merck was unwilling to commit to that.
Western Australia is one of the few places in the world where intercountry restrictions can make a difference. Perth is further from Melbourne than Moscow is from London.
Not one losing Democratic candidate has instigated a coup since 1988 (possibly even before then, haven't checked)
They had a good go in 1861, and it caused a fair amount of trouble. In fairness, Breckinridge was not directly involved and did swear in the new Veep, although he later became Confederate Secretary of War.
It's a private company pitching its "services" to local councils. So far it has found one sucker client, Cambridgeshire council.
Yes but echoes here of Black Lives Matter, Stonewall, and Stop Funding Hate: everyone rolls their eyes and shrugs it off as a harmless eccentricity, and then it quickly becomes the mainstream.
Fighting for gay rights was harmless eccentricity? Well it's a view.
Look into the LGB Alliance.
Look into the gay teenagers who become homeless due to their parents bigotry.
Actually, I tried to avoid this in my longer post but I do think Trump is properly evil. It doesn't suit my argument to say it, but there we are. I wouldn't use that word for very many people. I'm struggling to think of other living politicians that it applies to. Possible Duterte, but I don't know enough about the Philippines to be sure about that. Obviously I'm excluding undemocratic countries here. Evil rises easier when the consent of the people is not a determinant.
I disagree.
I don't consider Trump to be "evil" - an appalling individual in many respects but his worldview is that of the American Nationalist. There's a hint of Lindbergh ("America First") and also of Nixon (only Nixon could go to China, only Trump could go to North Korea).
He represented a reversal of decades of "global" presidents going back to FDR. From FDR to Obama, all Presidents were global leaders whose primary purpose was the furthering of American values (call them "Western" if you want) and confronting the other non-American ideologies whether Communism or Islamic fundamentalism or Juche or whatever.
Trump saw (rightly you can argue) America had taken on this burden and was carrying a whole lot of other countries (the one thing Trump did get right was shaming European countries on defence spending and their contribution to NATO). Oddly enough, he chose the financial argument in terms of influence just as Thatcher did in the early 80s within the EEC,.
The other side of this was whether the approach of successive Presidents had been in any way effective either in promoting American (and by definition western) security or whether America was just pouring money down a big hole with little to show. Trump took a very different approach - he reached out personally to Putin, Xi, Kim Jong-Un and others offering the hand of economic friendship in exchange for a toning down of the confrontational rhetoric.
Voters like politicians who put their country first - it's obvious but it's worth saying. There aren't many votes in overt internationalism. Trump's failure was, I would argue, he didn't have a single tangible success to show for four years of this direction. You can argue some of what he was trying to do would take decades to come to fruition but in truth, and perhaps he was frustrated by the establishment in the State Department and elsewhere, he achieved almost nothing.
It isn't Trump's prioritisation of America that leads me to put him in the "evil" category. You'd catch far too many people in the net doing that. It's the fact that he's a user, a bigot, a selfish, self-aggrandising fool who breaks little people on the wheel of his narcissism, a corrupt, democracy-threatening arsehole, a self-pitying, whining crybaby, a fat lump of flesh with a cruel streak as wide as the Hudson and a penchant for petty revenge. He has nothing good in his soul.
“Let he who is without sin…”
...cast the first stone. I've thrown no stones, I've used words.
Or are you implying that I'm somehow just as bad? You're probably wrong, but happily I've never stood for election and have no intention of doing so. I know that every time I go to cast a ballot there are multiple people on the ticket who are better than me. I do not think Trump is better than me, though. So even if I am AS BAD as Trump, I'm better by virtue of recognising my own unsuitability for public office.
TBH, I don’t really care. My concern is whether someone governs well, and well means a wide spectrum of affairs. Labelling people as “evil” should be reserved for those who are truly evil such as Hitler and Stalin. Otherwise it becomes cheap.
I mean, if you'd read the whole lead up to that you'd see that I have said as much. I do not throw the word about liberally. It's sort of interesting that some people want to cancel the word "evil" as if humans these days are incapable of being evil any more. That can't be true. We haven't evolved past that.
It’s a matter of opinion. I don’t see Trump as evil - he’s got mainly bad qualities but he doesn’t cross that line. Not do I see Biden as evil, even though he waved off Afghans falling to their deaths from planes “yes but that was 5 days ago.” People do distasteful things but it’s not evil.
Biden continued Trump's plan - probably the wrong thing to do. Trump tried to overturn a free and fair election - as shown by the recounts and court cases. That's a coup attempt in the world's most important democracy where 5 people died. If that's not evil would you perhaps describe it as 'naughty'?
The Red Mist around Trump is descending again.
My comment on Biden and Afghanistan was around his waving away of people dying in an horrific way as a minor detail. It was the behaviour one might expect of a sociopath. The wider Afghan policy is a separate issue
Re the election, I’m sure there’s an element here you’d love me to describe as a Jan 6 loving Trumpist. But, as the records on here state, I condemned both his attempts on Jan 6th and in the states, and was the first on here to flag his tactics.
FWIW though, I don’t think Jan 6th was an insurrection and neither does the FBI. No one has been charged with insurrection and treason. Trump was stupid, irresponsible and dangerously reckless but, if it was a planned coup, it was the worst one ever.
You raise an interesting point though. No losing Democratic Presidential candidate since 1988 has said they lost fair and square. Gore, Kerry, Clinton all said they were cheated. gore went to the SC, Clinton was caught on camera in 2019 for saying she was cheated out of the election. On the latter, what responsibility does she bear for contributing to the poison in the US? Or is it ok because she’s a Democrat and tried to undermine Trump by claiming he was a Russian plant as opposed to a riotous assembly?
Taking a knife edge result to the SCOTUS or carping that although Hillary won the popular vote she did not become POTUS is one thing. Inciting an armed mob to storm the Capitol Building to overturn a conclusive result, an adventure which took the lives of five American Citizens, is somewhat different.
Five fatalities is going to be a drop in the ocean next time Trump seizes power.
Actually, I tried to avoid this in my longer post but I do think Trump is properly evil. It doesn't suit my argument to say it, but there we are. I wouldn't use that word for very many people. I'm struggling to think of other living politicians that it applies to. Possible Duterte, but I don't know enough about the Philippines to be sure about that. Obviously I'm excluding undemocratic countries here. Evil rises easier when the consent of the people is not a determinant.
I disagree.
I don't consider Trump to be "evil" - an appalling individual in many respects but his worldview is that of the American Nationalist. There's a hint of Lindbergh ("America First") and also of Nixon (only Nixon could go to China, only Trump could go to North Korea).
He represented a reversal of decades of "global" presidents going back to FDR. From FDR to Obama, all Presidents were global leaders whose primary purpose was the furthering of American values (call them "Western" if you want) and confronting the other non-American ideologies whether Communism or Islamic fundamentalism or Juche or whatever.
Trump saw (rightly you can argue) America had taken on this burden and was carrying a whole lot of other countries (the one thing Trump did get right was shaming European countries on defence spending and their contribution to NATO). Oddly enough, he chose the financial argument in terms of influence just as Thatcher did in the early 80s within the EEC,.
The other side of this was whether the approach of successive Presidents had been in any way effective either in promoting American (and by definition western) security or whether America was just pouring money down a big hole with little to show. Trump took a very different approach - he reached out personally to Putin, Xi, Kim Jong-Un and others offering the hand of economic friendship in exchange for a toning down of the confrontational rhetoric.
Voters like politicians who put their country first - it's obvious but it's worth saying. There aren't many votes in overt internationalism. Trump's failure was, I would argue, he didn't have a single tangible success to show for four years of this direction. You can argue some of what he was trying to do would take decades to come to fruition but in truth, and perhaps he was frustrated by the establishment in the State Department and elsewhere, he achieved almost nothing.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. When Trump’s name is mentioned, the Red Mist appears for many. But he is essentially an America First President. Where I would disagree is that his policy was a failure because there were no tangible results - I actually think it was the lack of international crises (certainly when it came to Russia, North Korea and China) that shows its success. Interestingly, with Russia, they invaded the Crimea when BO was President, did nothing for four years and are now rattling again when Biden is President. Unless you believe the horse shit that Trump was a Russian spy, there is a logical explanation for that.
However, if we are going to talk about evil / amoral Presidents, the most egregious example certainly post WW2 from a personal actions point of view was JFK - almost certainly a rapist, leveraged off Mafia connections in the 1960 election, treated women generally like shit including Jackie Kennedy etc. Have I missed anything?
You can say those things without fear of libel. There are allegations of all of the above applying to another recent (and living) ex-president. Those allegations are pretty robust, and there are many more allegations besides. If Kennedy was guilty of a mere subset of President X's crimes, that logically makes President X worse, no matter how bad Kennedy was.
It’s been well documented about Kennedy and several of his victims have stated it publicly. And that is without getting into the Marilyn Monroe stuff.
As far as I know, Trumpy wasn’t accused of raping his staff in the WH abut you tell me. Yes, accused of sex crimes by others for sure - as indeed has Joe Biden (but funnily enough, these were ignored…)
What makes you think he was referring to Trump?
Trump is creepy as hell but (unlike you) I've never heard he's been accused of actual sexual assault. There is another President I cannot say that of.
Was the “grab their pussy” comment referring to a real event or just deeply unpleasant “boasting”? If the former then obviously actual assault
Actually, I tried to avoid this in my longer post but I do think Trump is properly evil. It doesn't suit my argument to say it, but there we are. I wouldn't use that word for very many people. I'm struggling to think of other living politicians that it applies to. Possible Duterte, but I don't know enough about the Philippines to be sure about that. Obviously I'm excluding undemocratic countries here. Evil rises easier when the consent of the people is not a determinant.
I disagree.
I don't consider Trump to be "evil" - an appalling individual in many respects but his worldview is that of the American Nationalist. There's a hint of Lindbergh ("America First") and also of Nixon (only Nixon could go to China, only Trump could go to North Korea).
He represented a reversal of decades of "global" presidents going back to FDR. From FDR to Obama, all Presidents were global leaders whose primary purpose was the furthering of American values (call them "Western" if you want) and confronting the other non-American ideologies whether Communism or Islamic fundamentalism or Juche or whatever.
Trump saw (rightly you can argue) America had taken on this burden and was carrying a whole lot of other countries (the one thing Trump did get right was shaming European countries on defence spending and their contribution to NATO). Oddly enough, he chose the financial argument in terms of influence just as Thatcher did in the early 80s within the EEC,.
The other side of this was whether the approach of successive Presidents had been in any way effective either in promoting American (and by definition western) security or whether America was just pouring money down a big hole with little to show. Trump took a very different approach - he reached out personally to Putin, Xi, Kim Jong-Un and others offering the hand of economic friendship in exchange for a toning down of the confrontational rhetoric.
Voters like politicians who put their country first - it's obvious but it's worth saying. There aren't many votes in overt internationalism. Trump's failure was, I would argue, he didn't have a single tangible success to show for four years of this direction. You can argue some of what he was trying to do would take decades to come to fruition but in truth, and perhaps he was frustrated by the establishment in the State Department and elsewhere, he achieved almost nothing.
It isn't Trump's prioritisation of America that leads me to put him in the "evil" category. You'd catch far too many people in the net doing that. It's the fact that he's a user, a bigot, a selfish, self-aggrandising fool who breaks little people on the wheel of his narcissism, a corrupt, democracy-threatening arsehole, a self-pitying, whining crybaby, a fat lump of flesh with a cruel streak as wide as the Hudson and a penchant for petty revenge. He has nothing good in his soul.
“Let he who is without sin…”
...cast the first stone. I've thrown no stones, I've used words.
Or are you implying that I'm somehow just as bad? You're probably wrong, but happily I've never stood for election and have no intention of doing so. I know that every time I go to cast a ballot there are multiple people on the ticket who are better than me. I do not think Trump is better than me, though. So even if I am AS BAD as Trump, I'm better by virtue of recognising my own unsuitability for public office.
TBH, I don’t really care. My concern is whether someone governs well, and well means a wide spectrum of affairs. Labelling people as “evil” should be reserved for those who are truly evil such as Hitler and Stalin. Otherwise it becomes cheap.
I mean, if you'd read the whole lead up to that you'd see that I have said as much. I do not throw the word about liberally. It's sort of interesting that some people want to cancel the word "evil" as if humans these days are incapable of being evil any more. That can't be true. We haven't evolved past that.
It’s a matter of opinion. I don’t see Trump as evil - he’s got mainly bad qualities but he doesn’t cross that line. Not do I see Biden as evil, even though he waved off Afghans falling to their deaths from planes “yes but that was 5 days ago.” People do distasteful things but it’s not evil.
Biden continued Trump's plan - probably the wrong thing to do. Trump tried to overturn a free and fair election - as shown by the recounts and court cases. That's a coup attempt in the world's most important democracy where 5 people died. If that's not evil would you perhaps describe it as 'naughty'?
The Red Mist around Trump is descending again.
My comment on Biden and Afghanistan was around his waving away of people dying in an horrific way as a minor detail. It was the behaviour one might expect of a sociopath. The wider Afghan policy is a separate issue
Re the election, I’m sure there’s an element here you’d love me to describe as a Jan 6 loving Trumpist. But, as the records on here state, I condemned both his attempts on Jan 6th and in the states, and was the first on here to flag his tactics.
FWIW though, I don’t think Jan 6th was an insurrection and neither does the FBI. No one has been charged with insurrection and treason. Trump was stupid, irresponsible and dangerously reckless but, if it was a planned coup, it was the worst one ever.
You raise an interesting point though. No losing Democratic Presidential candidate since 1988 has said they lost fair and square. Gore, Kerry, Clinton all said they were cheated. gore went to the SC, Clinton was caught on camera in 2019 for saying she was cheated out of the election. On the latter, what responsibility does she bear for contributing to the poison in the US? Or is it ok because she’s a Democrat and tried to undermine Trump by claiming he was a Russian plant as opposed to a riotous assembly?
Taking a knife edge result to the SCOTUS or carping that although Hillary won the popular vote she did not become POTUS is one thing. Inciting an armed mob to storm the Capitol Building to overturn a conclusive result, an adventure which took the lives of five American Citizens, is somewhat different.
Five fatalities is going to be a drop in the ocean next time Trump seizes power.
Again, the Red Mist descends.
Hilary Clinton, and the claims that Trump was a Russian plant poisoned the electoral well in the US to the point we now have many Democrats saying that the Republicans can never legitimately win an election and any win will be proof of cheating.
However, if you truly do want to see the lengths one candidate went to fix the election, you should be paying far more attention to the Dunham Special Counsel investigation into Russiagate. It is increasingly becoming clear that the 2016 HRC deliberately used sources they need to be false to obtain the FISA warrants to spy on the opposing campaign. The evidence is all out there in the criminal charges that are being brought.
On Astra Zeneca it the decision to give the Oxford vaccine to a company with little experience in vaccines may well come to be seen as one of the worst mistakes of the pandemic, from a global point of view. AIUI it AZ weren't their first choice, and they were unfortunately pressured into giving it to AZ by the British government.
Not quite. The UK government insisted it was manufactured in the UK but beyond that didn’t have a view. Merck was unwilling to commit to that.
Yes, there was a legitimate fear that Trump would block exports at the last minute and screw everyone over. I don't think anyone can begrudge the UK government taking out an insurance policy against that either.
I'm pretty sure that the German government made blocking investments in Biontech and Curevac to prevent a US takeover and IP transfer for the very same reason.
Actually, I tried to avoid this in my longer post but I do think Trump is properly evil. It doesn't suit my argument to say it, but there we are. I wouldn't use that word for very many people. I'm struggling to think of other living politicians that it applies to. Possible Duterte, but I don't know enough about the Philippines to be sure about that. Obviously I'm excluding undemocratic countries here. Evil rises easier when the consent of the people is not a determinant.
I disagree.
I don't consider Trump to be "evil" - an appalling individual in many respects but his worldview is that of the American Nationalist. There's a hint of Lindbergh ("America First") and also of Nixon (only Nixon could go to China, only Trump could go to North Korea).
He represented a reversal of decades of "global" presidents going back to FDR. From FDR to Obama, all Presidents were global leaders whose primary purpose was the furthering of American values (call them "Western" if you want) and confronting the other non-American ideologies whether Communism or Islamic fundamentalism or Juche or whatever.
Trump saw (rightly you can argue) America had taken on this burden and was carrying a whole lot of other countries (the one thing Trump did get right was shaming European countries on defence spending and their contribution to NATO). Oddly enough, he chose the financial argument in terms of influence just as Thatcher did in the early 80s within the EEC,.
The other side of this was whether the approach of successive Presidents had been in any way effective either in promoting American (and by definition western) security or whether America was just pouring money down a big hole with little to show. Trump took a very different approach - he reached out personally to Putin, Xi, Kim Jong-Un and others offering the hand of economic friendship in exchange for a toning down of the confrontational rhetoric.
Voters like politicians who put their country first - it's obvious but it's worth saying. There aren't many votes in overt internationalism. Trump's failure was, I would argue, he didn't have a single tangible success to show for four years of this direction. You can argue some of what he was trying to do would take decades to come to fruition but in truth, and perhaps he was frustrated by the establishment in the State Department and elsewhere, he achieved almost nothing.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. When Trump’s name is mentioned, the Red Mist appears for many. But he is essentially an America First President. Where I would disagree is that his policy was a failure because there were no tangible results - I actually think it was the lack of international crises (certainly when it came to Russia, North Korea and China) that shows its success. Interestingly, with Russia, they invaded the Crimea when BO was President, did nothing for four years and are now rattling again when Biden is President. Unless you believe the horse shit that Trump was a Russian spy, there is a logical explanation for that.
However, if we are going to talk about evil / amoral Presidents, the most egregious example certainly post WW2 from a personal actions point of view was JFK - almost certainly a rapist, leveraged off Mafia connections in the 1960 election, treated women generally like shit including Jackie Kennedy etc. Have I missed anything?
America First was an antisemitic movement whose leader Lindbergh was, at best, an appeaser of the Nazis. So an interesting parallel to draw.
Western Australia is one of the few places in the world where intercountry restrictions can make a difference. Perth is further from Melbourne than Moscow is from London.
But for how long? Eventually they have to reopen the internal and external borders in Australia. Zero COVID doesn't work when the rest of the world isn't on board.
Not one losing Democratic candidate has instigated a coup since 1988 (possibly even before then, haven't checked)
They had a good go in 1861, and it caused a fair amount of trouble. In fairness, Breckinridge was not directly involved and did swear in the new Veep, although he later became Confederate Secretary of War.
That incarnation of the Democratic Party bears no real relation at all to the current one.
Actually, I tried to avoid this in my longer post but I do think Trump is properly evil. It doesn't suit my argument to say it, but there we are. I wouldn't use that word for very many people. I'm struggling to think of other living politicians that it applies to. Possible Duterte, but I don't know enough about the Philippines to be sure about that. Obviously I'm excluding undemocratic countries here. Evil rises easier when the consent of the people is not a determinant.
I disagree.
I don't consider Trump to be "evil" - an appalling individual in many respects but his worldview is that of the American Nationalist. There's a hint of Lindbergh ("America First") and also of Nixon (only Nixon could go to China, only Trump could go to North Korea).
He represented a reversal of decades of "global" presidents going back to FDR. From FDR to Obama, all Presidents were global leaders whose primary purpose was the furthering of American values (call them "Western" if you want) and confronting the other non-American ideologies whether Communism or Islamic fundamentalism or Juche or whatever.
Trump saw (rightly you can argue) America had taken on this burden and was carrying a whole lot of other countries (the one thing Trump did get right was shaming European countries on defence spending and their contribution to NATO). Oddly enough, he chose the financial argument in terms of influence just as Thatcher did in the early 80s within the EEC,.
The other side of this was whether the approach of successive Presidents had been in any way effective either in promoting American (and by definition western) security or whether America was just pouring money down a big hole with little to show. Trump took a very different approach - he reached out personally to Putin, Xi, Kim Jong-Un and others offering the hand of economic friendship in exchange for a toning down of the confrontational rhetoric.
Voters like politicians who put their country first - it's obvious but it's worth saying. There aren't many votes in overt internationalism. Trump's failure was, I would argue, he didn't have a single tangible success to show for four years of this direction. You can argue some of what he was trying to do would take decades to come to fruition but in truth, and perhaps he was frustrated by the establishment in the State Department and elsewhere, he achieved almost nothing.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. When Trump’s name is mentioned, the Red Mist appears for many. But he is essentially an America First President. Where I would disagree is that his policy was a failure because there were no tangible results - I actually think it was the lack of international crises (certainly when it came to Russia, North Korea and China) that shows its success. Interestingly, with Russia, they invaded the Crimea when BO was President, did nothing for four years and are now rattling again when Biden is President. Unless you believe the horse shit that Trump was a Russian spy, there is a logical explanation for that.
However, if we are going to talk about evil / amoral Presidents, the most egregious example certainly post WW2 from a personal actions point of view was JFK - almost certainly a rapist, leveraged off Mafia connections in the 1960 election, treated women generally like shit including Jackie Kennedy etc. Have I missed anything?
You can say those things without fear of libel. There are allegations of all of the above applying to another recent (and living) ex-president. Those allegations are pretty robust, and there are many more allegations besides. If Kennedy was guilty of a mere subset of President X's crimes, that logically makes President X worse, no matter how bad Kennedy was.
It’s been well documented about Kennedy and several of his victims have stated it publicly. And that is without getting into the Marilyn Monroe stuff.
As far as I know, Trumpy wasn’t accused of raping his staff in the WH abut you tell me. Yes, accused of sex crimes by others for sure - as indeed has Joe Biden (but funnily enough, these were ignored…)
What makes you think he was referring to Trump?
Trump is creepy as hell but (unlike you) I've never heard he's been accused of actual sexual assault. There is another President I cannot say that of.
Hmm?
Google "dropped case" and "13". See where that takes you.
Actually, I tried to avoid this in my longer post but I do think Trump is properly evil. It doesn't suit my argument to say it, but there we are. I wouldn't use that word for very many people. I'm struggling to think of other living politicians that it applies to. Possible Duterte, but I don't know enough about the Philippines to be sure about that. Obviously I'm excluding undemocratic countries here. Evil rises easier when the consent of the people is not a determinant.
I disagree.
I don't consider Trump to be "evil" - an appalling individual in many respects but his worldview is that of the American Nationalist. There's a hint of Lindbergh ("America First") and also of Nixon (only Nixon could go to China, only Trump could go to North Korea).
He represented a reversal of decades of "global" presidents going back to FDR. From FDR to Obama, all Presidents were global leaders whose primary purpose was the furthering of American values (call them "Western" if you want) and confronting the other non-American ideologies whether Communism or Islamic fundamentalism or Juche or whatever.
Trump saw (rightly you can argue) America had taken on this burden and was carrying a whole lot of other countries (the one thing Trump did get right was shaming European countries on defence spending and their contribution to NATO). Oddly enough, he chose the financial argument in terms of influence just as Thatcher did in the early 80s within the EEC,.
The other side of this was whether the approach of successive Presidents had been in any way effective either in promoting American (and by definition western) security or whether America was just pouring money down a big hole with little to show. Trump took a very different approach - he reached out personally to Putin, Xi, Kim Jong-Un and others offering the hand of economic friendship in exchange for a toning down of the confrontational rhetoric.
Voters like politicians who put their country first - it's obvious but it's worth saying. There aren't many votes in overt internationalism. Trump's failure was, I would argue, he didn't have a single tangible success to show for four years of this direction. You can argue some of what he was trying to do would take decades to come to fruition but in truth, and perhaps he was frustrated by the establishment in the State Department and elsewhere, he achieved almost nothing.
It isn't Trump's prioritisation of America that leads me to put him in the "evil" category. You'd catch far too many people in the net doing that. It's the fact that he's a user, a bigot, a selfish, self-aggrandising fool who breaks little people on the wheel of his narcissism, a corrupt, democracy-threatening arsehole, a self-pitying, whining crybaby, a fat lump of flesh with a cruel streak as wide as the Hudson and a penchant for petty revenge. He has nothing good in his soul.
“Let he who is without sin…”
...cast the first stone. I've thrown no stones, I've used words.
Or are you implying that I'm somehow just as bad? You're probably wrong, but happily I've never stood for election and have no intention of doing so. I know that every time I go to cast a ballot there are multiple people on the ticket who are better than me. I do not think Trump is better than me, though. So even if I am AS BAD as Trump, I'm better by virtue of recognising my own unsuitability for public office.
TBH, I don’t really care. My concern is whether someone governs well, and well means a wide spectrum of affairs. Labelling people as “evil” should be reserved for those who are truly evil such as Hitler and Stalin. Otherwise it becomes cheap.
I mean, if you'd read the whole lead up to that you'd see that I have said as much. I do not throw the word about liberally. It's sort of interesting that some people want to cancel the word "evil" as if humans these days are incapable of being evil any more. That can't be true. We haven't evolved past that.
It’s a matter of opinion. I don’t see Trump as evil - he’s got mainly bad qualities but he doesn’t cross that line. Not do I see Biden as evil, even though he waved off Afghans falling to their deaths from planes “yes but that was 5 days ago.” People do distasteful things but it’s not evil.
Biden continued Trump's plan - probably the wrong thing to do. Trump tried to overturn a free and fair election - as shown by the recounts and court cases. That's a coup attempt in the world's most important democracy where 5 people died. If that's not evil would you perhaps describe it as 'naughty'?
The Red Mist around Trump is descending again.
My comment on Biden and Afghanistan was around his waving away of people dying in an horrific way as a minor detail. It was the behaviour one might expect of a sociopath. The wider Afghan policy is a separate issue
Re the election, I’m sure there’s an element here you’d love me to describe as a Jan 6 loving Trumpist. But, as the records on here state, I condemned both his attempts on Jan 6th and in the states, and was the first on here to flag his tactics.
FWIW though, I don’t think Jan 6th was an insurrection and neither does the FBI. No one has been charged with insurrection and treason. Trump was stupid, irresponsible and dangerously reckless but, if it was a planned coup, it was the worst one ever.
You raise an interesting point though. No losing Democratic Presidential candidate since 1988 has said they lost fair and square. Gore, Kerry, Clinton all said they were cheated. gore went to the SC, Clinton was caught on camera in 2019 for saying she was cheated out of the election. On the latter, what responsibility does she bear for contributing to the poison in the US? Or is it ok because she’s a Democrat and tried to undermine Trump by claiming he was a Russian plant as opposed to a riotous assembly?
Falsely proclaiming a 'stolen election' having for months rolled the pitch for making exactly that bogus claim, the point blank refusal to concede or do a transition, the vexatious legal moves & procedural chicanery, the pressurizing & intimidation of key officials, all culminating with the deliberately whipped-up Jan 6th attack on the Capitol, this sequence of events without a shadow of a doubt was a concerted attempt to retain power regardless of how the American people voted.
Not one losing Democratic candidate has instigated a coup since 1988 (possibly even before then, haven't checked)
Depends on your definition of coup.
Chris Mullins “A Very British Coup” didn’t have tanks on the street or mass riots. But it did have Harry Perkins kicked out by behind the scenes means. Don’t think anyone would disagree with his use of the word ‘Coup’ in the title.
HRC, and her friends, went round telling everyone Trump only got in because of Russian interference, that he was a Russian olant etc etc and sought to completely delegitimise his Presidency. CNN, the New York Times etc etc every single day pummelled in the same message. No allegation, no matter how obviously stupid or false it looked when you stepped back and considered the evidence for 5 seconds, was overlooked nor not used as further “proof”.
Actually, I tried to avoid this in my longer post but I do think Trump is properly evil. It doesn't suit my argument to say it, but there we are. I wouldn't use that word for very many people. I'm struggling to think of other living politicians that it applies to. Possible Duterte, but I don't know enough about the Philippines to be sure about that. Obviously I'm excluding undemocratic countries here. Evil rises easier when the consent of the people is not a determinant.
I disagree.
I don't consider Trump to be "evil" - an appalling individual in many respects but his worldview is that of the American Nationalist. There's a hint of Lindbergh ("America First") and also of Nixon (only Nixon could go to China, only Trump could go to North Korea).
He represented a reversal of decades of "global" presidents going back to FDR. From FDR to Obama, all Presidents were global leaders whose primary purpose was the furthering of American values (call them "Western" if you want) and confronting the other non-American ideologies whether Communism or Islamic fundamentalism or Juche or whatever.
Trump saw (rightly you can argue) America had taken on this burden and was carrying a whole lot of other countries (the one thing Trump did get right was shaming European countries on defence spending and their contribution to NATO). Oddly enough, he chose the financial argument in terms of influence just as Thatcher did in the early 80s within the EEC,.
The other side of this was whether the approach of successive Presidents had been in any way effective either in promoting American (and by definition western) security or whether America was just pouring money down a big hole with little to show. Trump took a very different approach - he reached out personally to Putin, Xi, Kim Jong-Un and others offering the hand of economic friendship in exchange for a toning down of the confrontational rhetoric.
Voters like politicians who put their country first - it's obvious but it's worth saying. There aren't many votes in overt internationalism. Trump's failure was, I would argue, he didn't have a single tangible success to show for four years of this direction. You can argue some of what he was trying to do would take decades to come to fruition but in truth, and perhaps he was frustrated by the establishment in the State Department and elsewhere, he achieved almost nothing.
It isn't Trump's prioritisation of America that leads me to put him in the "evil" category. You'd catch far too many people in the net doing that. It's the fact that he's a user, a bigot, a selfish, self-aggrandising fool who breaks little people on the wheel of his narcissism, a corrupt, democracy-threatening arsehole, a self-pitying, whining crybaby, a fat lump of flesh with a cruel streak as wide as the Hudson and a penchant for petty revenge. He has nothing good in his soul.
“Let he who is without sin…”
...cast the first stone. I've thrown no stones, I've used words.
Or are you implying that I'm somehow just as bad? You're probably wrong, but happily I've never stood for election and have no intention of doing so. I know that every time I go to cast a ballot there are multiple people on the ticket who are better than me. I do not think Trump is better than me, though. So even if I am AS BAD as Trump, I'm better by virtue of recognising my own unsuitability for public office.
TBH, I don’t really care. My concern is whether someone governs well, and well means a wide spectrum of affairs. Labelling people as “evil” should be reserved for those who are truly evil such as Hitler and Stalin. Otherwise it becomes cheap.
I mean, if you'd read the whole lead up to that you'd see that I have said as much. I do not throw the word about liberally. It's sort of interesting that some people want to cancel the word "evil" as if humans these days are incapable of being evil any more. That can't be true. We haven't evolved past that.
It’s a matter of opinion. I don’t see Trump as evil - he’s got mainly bad qualities but he doesn’t cross that line. Not do I see Biden as evil, even though he waved off Afghans falling to their deaths from planes “yes but that was 5 days ago.” People do distasteful things but it’s not evil.
Biden continued Trump's plan - probably the wrong thing to do. Trump tried to overturn a free and fair election - as shown by the recounts and court cases. That's a coup attempt in the world's most important democracy where 5 people died. If that's not evil would you perhaps describe it as 'naughty'?
The Red Mist around Trump is descending again.
My comment on Biden and Afghanistan was around his waving away of people dying in an horrific way as a minor detail. It was the behaviour one might expect of a sociopath. The wider Afghan policy is a separate issue
Re the election, I’m sure there’s an element here you’d love me to describe as a Jan 6 loving Trumpist. But, as the records on here state, I condemned both his attempts on Jan 6th and in the states, and was the first on here to flag his tactics.
FWIW though, I don’t think Jan 6th was an insurrection and neither does the FBI. No one has been charged with insurrection and treason. Trump was stupid, irresponsible and dangerously reckless but, if it was a planned coup, it was the worst one ever.
You raise an interesting point though. No losing Democratic Presidential candidate since 1988 has said they lost fair and square. Gore, Kerry, Clinton all said they were cheated. gore went to the SC, Clinton was caught on camera in 2019 for saying she was cheated out of the election. On the latter, what responsibility does she bear for contributing to the poison in the US? Or is it ok because she’s a Democrat and tried to undermine Trump by claiming he was a Russian plant as opposed to a riotous assembly?
Falsely proclaiming a 'stolen election' having for months rolled the pitch for making exactly that bogus claim, the point blank refusal to concede or do a transition, the vexatious legal moves & procedural chicanery, the pressurizing & intimidation of key officials, all culminating with the deliberately whipped-up Jan 6th attack on the Capitol, this without a shadow of a doubt was a concerted attempt to retain power regardless of how the American people voted.
Actually, I tried to avoid this in my longer post but I do think Trump is properly evil. It doesn't suit my argument to say it, but there we are. I wouldn't use that word for very many people. I'm struggling to think of other living politicians that it applies to. Possible Duterte, but I don't know enough about the Philippines to be sure about that. Obviously I'm excluding undemocratic countries here. Evil rises easier when the consent of the people is not a determinant.
I disagree.
I don't consider Trump to be "evil" - an appalling individual in many respects but his worldview is that of the American Nationalist. There's a hint of Lindbergh ("America First") and also of Nixon (only Nixon could go to China, only Trump could go to North Korea).
He represented a reversal of decades of "global" presidents going back to FDR. From FDR to Obama, all Presidents were global leaders whose primary purpose was the furthering of American values (call them "Western" if you want) and confronting the other non-American ideologies whether Communism or Islamic fundamentalism or Juche or whatever.
Trump saw (rightly you can argue) America had taken on this burden and was carrying a whole lot of other countries (the one thing Trump did get right was shaming European countries on defence spending and their contribution to NATO). Oddly enough, he chose the financial argument in terms of influence just as Thatcher did in the early 80s within the EEC,.
The other side of this was whether the approach of successive Presidents had been in any way effective either in promoting American (and by definition western) security or whether America was just pouring money down a big hole with little to show. Trump took a very different approach - he reached out personally to Putin, Xi, Kim Jong-Un and others offering the hand of economic friendship in exchange for a toning down of the confrontational rhetoric.
Voters like politicians who put their country first - it's obvious but it's worth saying. There aren't many votes in overt internationalism. Trump's failure was, I would argue, he didn't have a single tangible success to show for four years of this direction. You can argue some of what he was trying to do would take decades to come to fruition but in truth, and perhaps he was frustrated by the establishment in the State Department and elsewhere, he achieved almost nothing.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. When Trump’s name is mentioned, the Red Mist appears for many. But he is essentially an America First President. Where I would disagree is that his policy was a failure because there were no tangible results - I actually think it was the lack of international crises (certainly when it came to Russia, North Korea and China) that shows its success. Interestingly, with Russia, they invaded the Crimea when BO was President, did nothing for four years and are now rattling again when Biden is President. Unless you believe the horse shit that Trump was a Russian spy, there is a logical explanation for that.
However, if we are going to talk about evil / amoral Presidents, the most egregious example certainly post WW2 from a personal actions point of view was JFK - almost certainly a rapist, leveraged off Mafia connections in the 1960 election, treated women generally like shit including Jackie Kennedy etc. Have I missed anything?
America First was an antisemitic movement whose leader Lindbergh was, at best, an appeaser of the Nazis. So an interesting parallel to draw.
What’s interesting is that you immediately jumped to a comparison with an anti-Semitic organisation for a President whose son-in-law is Jewish.
On Astra Zeneca it the decision to give the Oxford vaccine to a company with little experience in vaccines may well come to be seen as one of the worst mistakes of the pandemic, from a global point of view. AIUI it AZ weren't their first choice, and they were unfortunately pressured into giving it to AZ by the British government.
Not quite. The UK government insisted it was manufactured in the UK but beyond that didn’t have a view. Merck was unwilling to commit to that.
Yes, there was a legitimate fear that Trump would block exports at the last minute and screw everyone over. I don't think anyone can begrudge the UK government taking out an insurance policy against that either.
I'm pretty sure that the German government made blocking investments in Biontech and Curevac to prevent a US takeover and IP transfer for the very same reason.
Not one losing Democratic candidate has instigated a coup since 1988 (possibly even before then, haven't checked)
They had a good go in 1861, and it caused a fair amount of trouble. In fairness, Breckinridge was not directly involved and did swear in the new Veep, although he later became Confederate Secretary of War.
That incarnation of the Democratic Party bears no real relation at all to the current one.
Can I take a wild swing at which current party it does bear some relation?
On Astra Zeneca it the decision to give the Oxford vaccine to a company with little experience in vaccines may well come to be seen as one of the worst mistakes of the pandemic, from a global point of view. AIUI it AZ weren't their first choice, and they were unfortunately pressured into giving it to AZ by the British government.
That is a factor (although the U.K. has other pharma companies) although trying to say that this was a bigger factor than European leaders such as Macron and Merkel trashing the vaccine in public plus the US authorities’ actions is wrong.
Quasi-ineffective, anyone?
People here massively overestimate Macron's influence outside of France (and Britain it seems). Hardly anyone in Germany has even heard of Macron's "quasi-ineffective" remarks.
No, they heard the remarks of that German newspaper from which Macron's remarks were based.
Yes, and the German newspaper report was based on a misinterpretation of AZ's sloppy trial results.
Even in English-speaking countries, where his remarks seem to have been given endless publicity (going by how often they are repeated here), how many people were persuaded not to take AZ by Macron's remarks? In the UK maybe less than were encouraged to take it to annoy the French.
A dangerous misinterpretation, given the documented effects on confidence in the vaccine.
And really, there were loads of reports of people turning down AZ. To claim otherwise is absurd.
Because of Macron?
Can you explain how Oxford partnering in a full commercial value deal with Merck would have been better than partnering with AZ who agreed to an at cost provision?
No, but are you sure they were actually the only 2 options?
That's what was on the table. The government tried to partner them with GSK but they were already locked in with Sanofi. The other major pharma companies already had in house candidates or were partnered up (see Pfizer and Biontech).
Yes, it's perhaps regrettable that GSK didn't take it up given their long experience in vaccine development, but I think it's wrong to criticise either the government or AZN on this.
In the end they did a damn good job despite a few problems along the way - which are far from unusual in novel vaccine development.
Actually, I tried to avoid this in my longer post but I do think Trump is properly evil. It doesn't suit my argument to say it, but there we are. I wouldn't use that word for very many people. I'm struggling to think of other living politicians that it applies to. Possible Duterte, but I don't know enough about the Philippines to be sure about that. Obviously I'm excluding undemocratic countries here. Evil rises easier when the consent of the people is not a determinant.
I disagree.
I don't consider Trump to be "evil" - an appalling individual in many respects but his worldview is that of the American Nationalist. There's a hint of Lindbergh ("America First") and also of Nixon (only Nixon could go to China, only Trump could go to North Korea).
He represented a reversal of decades of "global" presidents going back to FDR. From FDR to Obama, all Presidents were global leaders whose primary purpose was the furthering of American values (call them "Western" if you want) and confronting the other non-American ideologies whether Communism or Islamic fundamentalism or Juche or whatever.
Trump saw (rightly you can argue) America had taken on this burden and was carrying a whole lot of other countries (the one thing Trump did get right was shaming European countries on defence spending and their contribution to NATO). Oddly enough, he chose the financial argument in terms of influence just as Thatcher did in the early 80s within the EEC,.
The other side of this was whether the approach of successive Presidents had been in any way effective either in promoting American (and by definition western) security or whether America was just pouring money down a big hole with little to show. Trump took a very different approach - he reached out personally to Putin, Xi, Kim Jong-Un and others offering the hand of economic friendship in exchange for a toning down of the confrontational rhetoric.
Voters like politicians who put their country first - it's obvious but it's worth saying. There aren't many votes in overt internationalism. Trump's failure was, I would argue, he didn't have a single tangible success to show for four years of this direction. You can argue some of what he was trying to do would take decades to come to fruition but in truth, and perhaps he was frustrated by the establishment in the State Department and elsewhere, he achieved almost nothing.
It isn't Trump's prioritisation of America that leads me to put him in the "evil" category. You'd catch far too many people in the net doing that. It's the fact that he's a user, a bigot, a selfish, self-aggrandising fool who breaks little people on the wheel of his narcissism, a corrupt, democracy-threatening arsehole, a self-pitying, whining crybaby, a fat lump of flesh with a cruel streak as wide as the Hudson and a penchant for petty revenge. He has nothing good in his soul.
“Let he who is without sin…”
...cast the first stone. I've thrown no stones, I've used words.
Or are you implying that I'm somehow just as bad? You're probably wrong, but happily I've never stood for election and have no intention of doing so. I know that every time I go to cast a ballot there are multiple people on the ticket who are better than me. I do not think Trump is better than me, though. So even if I am AS BAD as Trump, I'm better by virtue of recognising my own unsuitability for public office.
TBH, I don’t really care. My concern is whether someone governs well, and well means a wide spectrum of affairs. Labelling people as “evil” should be reserved for those who are truly evil such as Hitler and Stalin. Otherwise it becomes cheap.
I mean, if you'd read the whole lead up to that you'd see that I have said as much. I do not throw the word about liberally. It's sort of interesting that some people want to cancel the word "evil" as if humans these days are incapable of being evil any more. That can't be true. We haven't evolved past that.
It’s a matter of opinion. I don’t see Trump as evil - he’s got mainly bad qualities but he doesn’t cross that line. Not do I see Biden as evil, even though he waved off Afghans falling to their deaths from planes “yes but that was 5 days ago.” People do distasteful things but it’s not evil.
Biden continued Trump's plan - probably the wrong thing to do. Trump tried to overturn a free and fair election - as shown by the recounts and court cases. That's a coup attempt in the world's most important democracy where 5 people died. If that's not evil would you perhaps describe it as 'naughty'?
The Red Mist around Trump is descending again.
My comment on Biden and Afghanistan was around his waving away of people dying in an horrific way as a minor detail. It was the behaviour one might expect of a sociopath. The wider Afghan policy is a separate issue
Re the election, I’m sure there’s an element here you’d love me to describe as a Jan 6 loving Trumpist. But, as the records on here state, I condemned both his attempts on Jan 6th and in the states, and was the first on here to flag his tactics.
FWIW though, I don’t think Jan 6th was an insurrection and neither does the FBI. No one has been charged with insurrection and treason. Trump was stupid, irresponsible and dangerously reckless but, if it was a planned coup, it was the worst one ever.
You raise an interesting point though. No losing Democratic Presidential candidate since 1988 has said they lost fair and square. Gore, Kerry, Clinton all said they were cheated. gore went to the SC, Clinton was caught on camera in 2019 for saying she was cheated out of the election. On the latter, what responsibility does she bear for contributing to the poison in the US? Or is it ok because she’s a Democrat and tried to undermine Trump by claiming he was a Russian plant as opposed to a riotous assembly?
Taking a knife edge result to the SCOTUS or carping that although Hillary won the popular vote she did not become POTUS is one thing. Inciting an armed mob to storm the Capitol Building to overturn a conclusive result, an adventure which took the lives of five American Citizens, is somewhat different.
Five fatalities is going to be a drop in the ocean next time Trump seizes power.
It's the false equivalence that galls me. The fact that Al Gore took the legal process to its conclusion and then stopped when it ran out of road is one thing. You can argue that he should have stopped earlier or that he was within his rights. But here: I accept the finality of the outcome, which will be ratified next Monday in the Electoral College. And tonight, for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession.
Trump did not say anything even remotely close to that. Instead, he had a mob fatally attack Congress in a bid to stop the process. These are opposites, not equivalents. Mr.Ed likes to claim that he condemns Trump for his January 6th actions, but minimises and normalises them by pretending that very different behaviour is similar enough that it deserves to be raised as an coda to any condemnation of Trump. These are wildly different events in the most categorical and definitive sense. To believe you have been wronged and to say so is a million miles away from trying to stop via a mob your victorious opponent from taking power. How does this even need to be pointed out?
You can do better than that Farooq.
What’s actually galling is those who are so vehemently banging on about Trump - and, God, whose actions I again condemn on Jan 6th and before - turning a complete blind eye to how his opponents delegitimised his Presidency.
I’m applying a single standard - all coups are wrong. You are applying a double standard - a coup is wrong only if my opponent does it.
And, as I have pointed out above, coups come in different forms. HRC’s attempts to delegitimise Trump post-2016 was a planned coup, just executed in nice Upper East Side apartments and through the dissemination of a message rather than tanks on the streets .
On Astra Zeneca it the decision to give the Oxford vaccine to a company with little experience in vaccines may well come to be seen as one of the worst mistakes of the pandemic, from a global point of view. AIUI it AZ weren't their first choice, and they were unfortunately pressured into giving it to AZ by the British government.
That is a factor (although the U.K. has other pharma companies) although trying to say that this was a bigger factor than European leaders such as Macron and Merkel trashing the vaccine in public plus the US authorities’ actions is wrong.
Quasi-ineffective, anyone?
People here massively overestimate Macron's influence outside of France (and Britain it seems). Hardly anyone in Germany has even heard of Macron's "quasi-ineffective" remarks.
No, they heard the remarks of that German newspaper from which Macron's remarks were based.
Yes, and the German newspaper report was based on a misinterpretation of AZ's sloppy trial results.
Even in English-speaking countries, where his remarks seem to have been given endless publicity (going by how often they are repeated here), how many people were persuaded not to take AZ by Macron's remarks? In the UK maybe less than were encouraged to take it to annoy the French.
A dangerous misinterpretation, given the documented effects on confidence in the vaccine.
And really, there were loads of reports of people turning down AZ. To claim otherwise is absurd.
Because of Macron?
Can you explain how Oxford partnering in a full commercial value deal with Merck would have been better than partnering with AZ who agreed to an at cost provision?
No, but are you sure they were actually the only 2 options?
That's what was on the table. The government tried to partner them with GSK but they were already locked in with Sanofi. The other major pharma companies already had in house candidates or were partnered up (see Pfizer and Biontech).
Yes, it's perhaps regrettable that GSK didn't take it up given their long experience in vaccine development, but I think it's wrong to criticise either the government or AZN on this.
In the end they did a damn good job despite a few problems along the way - which are far from unusual in novel vaccine development.
Agreed. However, one poster has claimed the whole issue with AZ was the fault of the U.K. Government and that is what has kicked off the debate.
Actually, I tried to avoid this in my longer post but I do think Trump is properly evil. It doesn't suit my argument to say it, but there we are. I wouldn't use that word for very many people. I'm struggling to think of other living politicians that it applies to. Possible Duterte, but I don't know enough about the Philippines to be sure about that. Obviously I'm excluding undemocratic countries here. Evil rises easier when the consent of the people is not a determinant.
I disagree.
I don't consider Trump to be "evil" - an appalling individual in many respects but his worldview is that of the American Nationalist. There's a hint of Lindbergh ("America First") and also of Nixon (only Nixon could go to China, only Trump could go to North Korea).
He represented a reversal of decades of "global" presidents going back to FDR. From FDR to Obama, all Presidents were global leaders whose primary purpose was the furthering of American values (call them "Western" if you want) and confronting the other non-American ideologies whether Communism or Islamic fundamentalism or Juche or whatever.
Trump saw (rightly you can argue) America had taken on this burden and was carrying a whole lot of other countries (the one thing Trump did get right was shaming European countries on defence spending and their contribution to NATO). Oddly enough, he chose the financial argument in terms of influence just as Thatcher did in the early 80s within the EEC,.
The other side of this was whether the approach of successive Presidents had been in any way effective either in promoting American (and by definition western) security or whether America was just pouring money down a big hole with little to show. Trump took a very different approach - he reached out personally to Putin, Xi, Kim Jong-Un and others offering the hand of economic friendship in exchange for a toning down of the confrontational rhetoric.
Voters like politicians who put their country first - it's obvious but it's worth saying. There aren't many votes in overt internationalism. Trump's failure was, I would argue, he didn't have a single tangible success to show for four years of this direction. You can argue some of what he was trying to do would take decades to come to fruition but in truth, and perhaps he was frustrated by the establishment in the State Department and elsewhere, he achieved almost nothing.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. When Trump’s name is mentioned, the Red Mist appears for many. But he is essentially an America First President. Where I would disagree is that his policy was a failure because there were no tangible results - I actually think it was the lack of international crises (certainly when it came to Russia, North Korea and China) that shows its success. Interestingly, with Russia, they invaded the Crimea when BO was President, did nothing for four years and are now rattling again when Biden is President. Unless you believe the horse shit that Trump was a Russian spy, there is a logical explanation for that.
However, if we are going to talk about evil / amoral Presidents, the most egregious example certainly post WW2 from a personal actions point of view was JFK - almost certainly a rapist, leveraged off Mafia connections in the 1960 election, treated women generally like shit including Jackie Kennedy etc. Have I missed anything?
America First was an antisemitic movement whose leader Lindbergh was, at best, an appeaser of the Nazis. So an interesting parallel to draw.
What’s interesting is that you immediately jumped to a comparison with an anti-Semitic organisation for a President whose son-in-law is Jewish.
The comparison had been drawn already in the post you approvingly replied to. That is literally what America First was.
Actually, I tried to avoid this in my longer post but I do think Trump is properly evil. It doesn't suit my argument to say it, but there we are. I wouldn't use that word for very many people. I'm struggling to think of other living politicians that it applies to. Possible Duterte, but I don't know enough about the Philippines to be sure about that. Obviously I'm excluding undemocratic countries here. Evil rises easier when the consent of the people is not a determinant.
I disagree.
I don't consider Trump to be "evil" - an appalling individual in many respects but his worldview is that of the American Nationalist. There's a hint of Lindbergh ("America First") and also of Nixon (only Nixon could go to China, only Trump could go to North Korea).
He represented a reversal of decades of "global" presidents going back to FDR. From FDR to Obama, all Presidents were global leaders whose primary purpose was the furthering of American values (call them "Western" if you want) and confronting the other non-American ideologies whether Communism or Islamic fundamentalism or Juche or whatever.
Trump saw (rightly you can argue) America had taken on this burden and was carrying a whole lot of other countries (the one thing Trump did get right was shaming European countries on defence spending and their contribution to NATO). Oddly enough, he chose the financial argument in terms of influence just as Thatcher did in the early 80s within the EEC,.
The other side of this was whether the approach of successive Presidents had been in any way effective either in promoting American (and by definition western) security or whether America was just pouring money down a big hole with little to show. Trump took a very different approach - he reached out personally to Putin, Xi, Kim Jong-Un and others offering the hand of economic friendship in exchange for a toning down of the confrontational rhetoric.
Voters like politicians who put their country first - it's obvious but it's worth saying. There aren't many votes in overt internationalism. Trump's failure was, I would argue, he didn't have a single tangible success to show for four years of this direction. You can argue some of what he was trying to do would take decades to come to fruition but in truth, and perhaps he was frustrated by the establishment in the State Department and elsewhere, he achieved almost nothing.
It isn't Trump's prioritisation of America that leads me to put him in the "evil" category. You'd catch far too many people in the net doing that. It's the fact that he's a user, a bigot, a selfish, self-aggrandising fool who breaks little people on the wheel of his narcissism, a corrupt, democracy-threatening arsehole, a self-pitying, whining crybaby, a fat lump of flesh with a cruel streak as wide as the Hudson and a penchant for petty revenge. He has nothing good in his soul.
“Let he who is without sin…”
...cast the first stone. I've thrown no stones, I've used words.
Or are you implying that I'm somehow just as bad? You're probably wrong, but happily I've never stood for election and have no intention of doing so. I know that every time I go to cast a ballot there are multiple people on the ticket who are better than me. I do not think Trump is better than me, though. So even if I am AS BAD as Trump, I'm better by virtue of recognising my own unsuitability for public office.
TBH, I don’t really care. My concern is whether someone governs well, and well means a wide spectrum of affairs. Labelling people as “evil” should be reserved for those who are truly evil such as Hitler and Stalin. Otherwise it becomes cheap.
I mean, if you'd read the whole lead up to that you'd see that I have said as much. I do not throw the word about liberally. It's sort of interesting that some people want to cancel the word "evil" as if humans these days are incapable of being evil any more. That can't be true. We haven't evolved past that.
It’s a matter of opinion. I don’t see Trump as evil - he’s got mainly bad qualities but he doesn’t cross that line. Not do I see Biden as evil, even though he waved off Afghans falling to their deaths from planes “yes but that was 5 days ago.” People do distasteful things but it’s not evil.
Biden continued Trump's plan - probably the wrong thing to do. Trump tried to overturn a free and fair election - as shown by the recounts and court cases. That's a coup attempt in the world's most important democracy where 5 people died. If that's not evil would you perhaps describe it as 'naughty'?
The Red Mist around Trump is descending again.
My comment on Biden and Afghanistan was around his waving away of people dying in an horrific way as a minor detail. It was the behaviour one might expect of a sociopath. The wider Afghan policy is a separate issue
Re the election, I’m sure there’s an element here you’d love me to describe as a Jan 6 loving Trumpist. But, as the records on here state, I condemned both his attempts on Jan 6th and in the states, and was the first on here to flag his tactics.
FWIW though, I don’t think Jan 6th was an insurrection and neither does the FBI. No one has been charged with insurrection and treason. Trump was stupid, irresponsible and dangerously reckless but, if it was a planned coup, it was the worst one ever.
You raise an interesting point though. No losing Democratic Presidential candidate since 1988 has said they lost fair and square. Gore, Kerry, Clinton all said they were cheated. gore went to the SC, Clinton was caught on camera in 2019 for saying she was cheated out of the election. On the latter, what responsibility does she bear for contributing to the poison in the US? Or is it ok because she’s a Democrat and tried to undermine Trump by claiming he was a Russian plant as opposed to a riotous assembly?
Taking a knife edge result to the SCOTUS or carping that although Hillary won the popular vote she did not become POTUS is one thing. Inciting an armed mob to storm the Capitol Building to overturn a conclusive result, an adventure which took the lives of five American Citizens, is somewhat different.
Five fatalities is going to be a drop in the ocean next time Trump seizes power.
It's the false equivalence that galls me. The fact that Al Gore took the legal process to its conclusion and then stopped when it ran out of road is one thing. You can argue that he should have stopped earlier or that he was within his rights. But here: I accept the finality of the outcome, which will be ratified next Monday in the Electoral College. And tonight, for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession.
Trump did not say anything even remotely close to that. Instead, he had a mob fatally attack Congress in a bid to stop the process. These are opposites, not equivalents. Mr.Ed likes to claim that he condemns Trump for his January 6th actions, but minimises and normalises them by pretending that very different behaviour is similar enough that it deserves to be raised as an coda to any condemnation of Trump. These are wildly different events in the most categorical and definitive sense. To believe you have been wronged and to say so is a million miles away from trying to stop via a mob your victorious opponent from taking power. How does this even need to be pointed out?
You can do better than that Farooq.
What’s actually galling is those who are so vehemently banging on about Trump - and, God, whose actions I again condemn on Jan 6th and before - turning a complete blind eye to how his opponents delegitimised his Presidency.
I’m applying a single standard - all coups are wrong. You are applying a double standard - a coup is wrong only if my opponent does it.
And, as I have pointed out above, coups come in different forms. HRC’s attempts to delegitimise Trump post-2016 was a planned coup, just executed in nice Upper East Side apartments and through the dissemination of a message rather than tanks on the streets .
Not one losing Democratic candidate has instigated a coup since 1988 (possibly even before then, haven't checked)
They had a good go in 1861, and it caused a fair amount of trouble. In fairness, Breckinridge was not directly involved and did swear in the new Veep, although he later became Confederate Secretary of War.
That incarnation of the Democratic Party bears no real relation at all to the current one.
Don't tell them that, it annoys them. They're obsessed with proving the Dems are the world's oldest political party and if you point out the current incarnation actually came from the Douglas faction that split at the 1860 convention they get very hot and bothered.
Actually, I tried to avoid this in my longer post but I do think Trump is properly evil. It doesn't suit my argument to say it, but there we are. I wouldn't use that word for very many people. I'm struggling to think of other living politicians that it applies to. Possible Duterte, but I don't know enough about the Philippines to be sure about that. Obviously I'm excluding undemocratic countries here. Evil rises easier when the consent of the people is not a determinant.
I disagree.
I don't consider Trump to be "evil" - an appalling individual in many respects but his worldview is that of the American Nationalist. There's a hint of Lindbergh ("America First") and also of Nixon (only Nixon could go to China, only Trump could go to North Korea).
He represented a reversal of decades of "global" presidents going back to FDR. From FDR to Obama, all Presidents were global leaders whose primary purpose was the furthering of American values (call them "Western" if you want) and confronting the other non-American ideologies whether Communism or Islamic fundamentalism or Juche or whatever.
Trump saw (rightly you can argue) America had taken on this burden and was carrying a whole lot of other countries (the one thing Trump did get right was shaming European countries on defence spending and their contribution to NATO). Oddly enough, he chose the financial argument in terms of influence just as Thatcher did in the early 80s within the EEC,.
The other side of this was whether the approach of successive Presidents had been in any way effective either in promoting American (and by definition western) security or whether America was just pouring money down a big hole with little to show. Trump took a very different approach - he reached out personally to Putin, Xi, Kim Jong-Un and others offering the hand of economic friendship in exchange for a toning down of the confrontational rhetoric.
Voters like politicians who put their country first - it's obvious but it's worth saying. There aren't many votes in overt internationalism. Trump's failure was, I would argue, he didn't have a single tangible success to show for four years of this direction. You can argue some of what he was trying to do would take decades to come to fruition but in truth, and perhaps he was frustrated by the establishment in the State Department and elsewhere, he achieved almost nothing.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. When Trump’s name is mentioned, the Red Mist appears for many. But he is essentially an America First President. Where I would disagree is that his policy was a failure because there were no tangible results - I actually think it was the lack of international crises (certainly when it came to Russia, North Korea and China) that shows its success. Interestingly, with Russia, they invaded the Crimea when BO was President, did nothing for four years and are now rattling again when Biden is President. Unless you believe the horse shit that Trump was a Russian spy, there is a logical explanation for that.
However, if we are going to talk about evil / amoral Presidents, the most egregious example certainly post WW2 from a personal actions point of view was JFK - almost certainly a rapist, leveraged off Mafia connections in the 1960 election, treated women generally like shit including Jackie Kennedy etc. Have I missed anything?
America First was an antisemitic movement whose leader Lindbergh was, at best, an appeaser of the Nazis. So an interesting parallel to draw.
What’s interesting is that you immediately jumped to a comparison with an anti-Semitic organisation for a President whose son-in-law is Jewish.
"But he is essentially an America First President." Your words.
If you didn't know the provenance of "America First", that's your problem, not Nigelb's for pointing them out.
You mean Stodge’s? Probably because I misread his reference to America First. I was agreeing with his point that Trump is an American Nationalist.
Actually, I tried to avoid this in my longer post but I do think Trump is properly evil. It doesn't suit my argument to say it, but there we are. I wouldn't use that word for very many people. I'm struggling to think of other living politicians that it applies to. Possible Duterte, but I don't know enough about the Philippines to be sure about that. Obviously I'm excluding undemocratic countries here. Evil rises easier when the consent of the people is not a determinant.
I disagree.
I don't consider Trump to be "evil" - an appalling individual in many respects but his worldview is that of the American Nationalist. There's a hint of Lindbergh ("America First") and also of Nixon (only Nixon could go to China, only Trump could go to North Korea).
He represented a reversal of decades of "global" presidents going back to FDR. From FDR to Obama, all Presidents were global leaders whose primary purpose was the furthering of American values (call them "Western" if you want) and confronting the other non-American ideologies whether Communism or Islamic fundamentalism or Juche or whatever.
Trump saw (rightly you can argue) America had taken on this burden and was carrying a whole lot of other countries (the one thing Trump did get right was shaming European countries on defence spending and their contribution to NATO). Oddly enough, he chose the financial argument in terms of influence just as Thatcher did in the early 80s within the EEC,.
The other side of this was whether the approach of successive Presidents had been in any way effective either in promoting American (and by definition western) security or whether America was just pouring money down a big hole with little to show. Trump took a very different approach - he reached out personally to Putin, Xi, Kim Jong-Un and others offering the hand of economic friendship in exchange for a toning down of the confrontational rhetoric.
Voters like politicians who put their country first - it's obvious but it's worth saying. There aren't many votes in overt internationalism. Trump's failure was, I would argue, he didn't have a single tangible success to show for four years of this direction. You can argue some of what he was trying to do would take decades to come to fruition but in truth, and perhaps he was frustrated by the establishment in the State Department and elsewhere, he achieved almost nothing.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. When Trump’s name is mentioned, the Red Mist appears for many. But he is essentially an America First President. Where I would disagree is that his policy was a failure because there were no tangible results - I actually think it was the lack of international crises (certainly when it came to Russia, North Korea and China) that shows its success. Interestingly, with Russia, they invaded the Crimea when BO was President, did nothing for four years and are now rattling again when Biden is President. Unless you believe the horse shit that Trump was a Russian spy, there is a logical explanation for that.
However, if we are going to talk about evil / amoral Presidents, the most egregious example certainly post WW2 from a personal actions point of view was JFK - almost certainly a rapist, leveraged off Mafia connections in the 1960 election, treated women generally like shit including Jackie Kennedy etc. Have I missed anything?
America First was an antisemitic movement whose leader Lindbergh was, at best, an appeaser of the Nazis. So an interesting parallel to draw.
What’s interesting is that you immediately jumped to a comparison with an anti-Semitic organisation for a President whose son-in-law is Jewish.
By coincidence, or not, so is his daughter. Ivanka converted.
Actually, I tried to avoid this in my longer post but I do think Trump is properly evil. It doesn't suit my argument to say it, but there we are. I wouldn't use that word for very many people. I'm struggling to think of other living politicians that it applies to. Possible Duterte, but I don't know enough about the Philippines to be sure about that. Obviously I'm excluding undemocratic countries here. Evil rises easier when the consent of the people is not a determinant.
I disagree.
I don't consider Trump to be "evil" - an appalling individual in many respects but his worldview is that of the American Nationalist. There's a hint of Lindbergh ("America First") and also of Nixon (only Nixon could go to China, only Trump could go to North Korea).
He represented a reversal of decades of "global" presidents going back to FDR. From FDR to Obama, all Presidents were global leaders whose primary purpose was the furthering of American values (call them "Western" if you want) and confronting the other non-American ideologies whether Communism or Islamic fundamentalism or Juche or whatever.
Trump saw (rightly you can argue) America had taken on this burden and was carrying a whole lot of other countries (the one thing Trump did get right was shaming European countries on defence spending and their contribution to NATO). Oddly enough, he chose the financial argument in terms of influence just as Thatcher did in the early 80s within the EEC,.
The other side of this was whether the approach of successive Presidents had been in any way effective either in promoting American (and by definition western) security or whether America was just pouring money down a big hole with little to show. Trump took a very different approach - he reached out personally to Putin, Xi, Kim Jong-Un and others offering the hand of economic friendship in exchange for a toning down of the confrontational rhetoric.
Voters like politicians who put their country first - it's obvious but it's worth saying. There aren't many votes in overt internationalism. Trump's failure was, I would argue, he didn't have a single tangible success to show for four years of this direction. You can argue some of what he was trying to do would take decades to come to fruition but in truth, and perhaps he was frustrated by the establishment in the State Department and elsewhere, he achieved almost nothing.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. When Trump’s name is mentioned, the Red Mist appears for many. But he is essentially an America First President. Where I would disagree is that his policy was a failure because there were no tangible results - I actually think it was the lack of international crises (certainly when it came to Russia, North Korea and China) that shows its success. Interestingly, with Russia, they invaded the Crimea when BO was President, did nothing for four years and are now rattling again when Biden is President. Unless you believe the horse shit that Trump was a Russian spy, there is a logical explanation for that.
However, if we are going to talk about evil / amoral Presidents, the most egregious example certainly post WW2 from a personal actions point of view was JFK - almost certainly a rapist, leveraged off Mafia connections in the 1960 election, treated women generally like shit including Jackie Kennedy etc. Have I missed anything?
America First was an antisemitic movement whose leader Lindbergh was, at best, an appeaser of the Nazis. So an interesting parallel to draw.
What’s interesting is that you immediately jumped to a comparison with an anti-Semitic organisation for a President whose son-in-law is Jewish.
"But he is essentially an America First President." Your words.
If you didn't know the provenance of "America First", that's your problem, not Nigelb's for pointing them out.
See point to Nigel - I misread Stodge’s comment. I was agreeing with him that Trump is an American Nationalist.
On Astra Zeneca it the decision to give the Oxford vaccine to a company with little experience in vaccines may well come to be seen as one of the worst mistakes of the pandemic, from a global point of view. AIUI it AZ weren't their first choice, and they were unfortunately pressured into giving it to AZ by the British government.
That is a factor (although the U.K. has other pharma companies) although trying to say that this was a bigger factor than European leaders such as Macron and Merkel trashing the vaccine in public plus the US authorities’ actions is wrong.
Quasi-ineffective, anyone?
People here massively overestimate Macron's influence outside of France (and Britain it seems). Hardly anyone in Germany has even heard of Macron's "quasi-ineffective" remarks.
No, they heard the remarks of that German newspaper from which Macron's remarks were based.
Yes, and the German newspaper report was based on a misinterpretation of AZ's sloppy trial results.
Even in English-speaking countries, where his remarks seem to have been given endless publicity (going by how often they are repeated here), how many people were persuaded not to take AZ by Macron's remarks? In the UK maybe less than were encouraged to take it to annoy the French.
A dangerous misinterpretation, given the documented effects on confidence in the vaccine.
And really, there were loads of reports of people turning down AZ. To claim otherwise is absurd.
Because of Macron?
Can you explain how Oxford partnering in a full commercial value deal with Merck would have been better than partnering with AZ who agreed to an at cost provision?
No, but are you sure they were actually the only 2 options?
That's what was on the table. The government tried to partner them with GSK but they were already locked in with Sanofi. The other major pharma companies already had in house candidates or were partnered up (see Pfizer and Biontech).
Yes, it's perhaps regrettable that GSK didn't take it up given their long experience in vaccine development, but I think it's wrong to criticise either the government or AZN on this.
In the end they did a damn good job despite a few problems along the way - which are far from unusual in novel vaccine development.
I'd go farther: they did an absolutely fantastic job. We were looking at scores of vaccines in late 2020, and most of those failed in various ways. Not only did Oxford and Astra Zeneca produce a cheap, effective and easy to distribute vaccine, they did it quickly and allowed the world to produce it.
Without them, we'd be in a much, much worse place.
Actually, I tried to avoid this in my longer post but I do think Trump is properly evil. It doesn't suit my argument to say it, but there we are. I wouldn't use that word for very many people. I'm struggling to think of other living politicians that it applies to. Possible Duterte, but I don't know enough about the Philippines to be sure about that. Obviously I'm excluding undemocratic countries here. Evil rises easier when the consent of the people is not a determinant.
I disagree.
I don't consider Trump to be "evil" - an appalling individual in many respects but his worldview is that of the American Nationalist. There's a hint of Lindbergh ("America First") and also of Nixon (only Nixon could go to China, only Trump could go to North Korea).
He represented a reversal of decades of "global" presidents going back to FDR. From FDR to Obama, all Presidents were global leaders whose primary purpose was the furthering of American values (call them "Western" if you want) and confronting the other non-American ideologies whether Communism or Islamic fundamentalism or Juche or whatever.
Trump saw (rightly you can argue) America had taken on this burden and was carrying a whole lot of other countries (the one thing Trump did get right was shaming European countries on defence spending and their contribution to NATO). Oddly enough, he chose the financial argument in terms of influence just as Thatcher did in the early 80s within the EEC,.
The other side of this was whether the approach of successive Presidents had been in any way effective either in promoting American (and by definition western) security or whether America was just pouring money down a big hole with little to show. Trump took a very different approach - he reached out personally to Putin, Xi, Kim Jong-Un and others offering the hand of economic friendship in exchange for a toning down of the confrontational rhetoric.
Voters like politicians who put their country first - it's obvious but it's worth saying. There aren't many votes in overt internationalism. Trump's failure was, I would argue, he didn't have a single tangible success to show for four years of this direction. You can argue some of what he was trying to do would take decades to come to fruition but in truth, and perhaps he was frustrated by the establishment in the State Department and elsewhere, he achieved almost nothing.
It isn't Trump's prioritisation of America that leads me to put him in the "evil" category. You'd catch far too many people in the net doing that. It's the fact that he's a user, a bigot, a selfish, self-aggrandising fool who breaks little people on the wheel of his narcissism, a corrupt, democracy-threatening arsehole, a self-pitying, whining crybaby, a fat lump of flesh with a cruel streak as wide as the Hudson and a penchant for petty revenge. He has nothing good in his soul.
“Let he who is without sin…”
...cast the first stone. I've thrown no stones, I've used words.
Or are you implying that I'm somehow just as bad? You're probably wrong, but happily I've never stood for election and have no intention of doing so. I know that every time I go to cast a ballot there are multiple people on the ticket who are better than me. I do not think Trump is better than me, though. So even if I am AS BAD as Trump, I'm better by virtue of recognising my own unsuitability for public office.
TBH, I don’t really care. My concern is whether someone governs well, and well means a wide spectrum of affairs. Labelling people as “evil” should be reserved for those who are truly evil such as Hitler and Stalin. Otherwise it becomes cheap.
I mean, if you'd read the whole lead up to that you'd see that I have said as much. I do not throw the word about liberally. It's sort of interesting that some people want to cancel the word "evil" as if humans these days are incapable of being evil any more. That can't be true. We haven't evolved past that.
It’s a matter of opinion. I don’t see Trump as evil - he’s got mainly bad qualities but he doesn’t cross that line. Not do I see Biden as evil, even though he waved off Afghans falling to their deaths from planes “yes but that was 5 days ago.” People do distasteful things but it’s not evil.
Biden continued Trump's plan - probably the wrong thing to do. Trump tried to overturn a free and fair election - as shown by the recounts and court cases. That's a coup attempt in the world's most important democracy where 5 people died. If that's not evil would you perhaps describe it as 'naughty'?
The Red Mist around Trump is descending again.
My comment on Biden and Afghanistan was around his waving away of people dying in an horrific way as a minor detail. It was the behaviour one might expect of a sociopath. The wider Afghan policy is a separate issue
Re the election, I’m sure there’s an element here you’d love me to describe as a Jan 6 loving Trumpist. But, as the records on here state, I condemned both his attempts on Jan 6th and in the states, and was the first on here to flag his tactics.
FWIW though, I don’t think Jan 6th was an insurrection and neither does the FBI. No one has been charged with insurrection and treason. Trump was stupid, irresponsible and dangerously reckless but, if it was a planned coup, it was the worst one ever.
You raise an interesting point though. No losing Democratic Presidential candidate since 1988 has said they lost fair and square. Gore, Kerry, Clinton all said they were cheated. gore went to the SC, Clinton was caught on camera in 2019 for saying she was cheated out of the election. On the latter, what responsibility does she bear for contributing to the poison in the US? Or is it ok because she’s a Democrat and tried to undermine Trump by claiming he was a Russian plant as opposed to a riotous assembly?
Taking a knife edge result to the SCOTUS or carping that although Hillary won the popular vote she did not become POTUS is one thing. Inciting an armed mob to storm the Capitol Building to overturn a conclusive result, an adventure which took the lives of five American Citizens, is somewhat different.
Five fatalities is going to be a drop in the ocean next time Trump seizes power.
It's the false equivalence that galls me. The fact that Al Gore took the legal process to its conclusion and then stopped when it ran out of road is one thing. You can argue that he should have stopped earlier or that he was within his rights. But here: I accept the finality of the outcome, which will be ratified next Monday in the Electoral College. And tonight, for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession.
Trump did not say anything even remotely close to that. Instead, he had a mob fatally attack Congress in a bid to stop the process. These are opposites, not equivalents. Mr.Ed likes to claim that he condemns Trump for his January 6th actions, but minimises and normalises them by pretending that very different behaviour is similar enough that it deserves to be raised as an coda to any condemnation of Trump. These are wildly different events in the most categorical and definitive sense. To believe you have been wronged and to say so is a million miles away from trying to stop via a mob your victorious opponent from taking power. How does this even need to be pointed out?
You can do better than that Farooq.
What’s actually galling is those who are so vehemently banging on about Trump - and, God, whose actions I again condemn on Jan 6th and before - turning a complete blind eye to how his opponents delegitimised his Presidency.
I’m applying a single standard - all coups are wrong. You are applying a double standard - a coup is wrong only if my opponent does it.
And, as I have pointed out above, coups come in different forms. HRC’s attempts to delegitimise Trump post-2016 was a planned coup, just executed in nice Upper East Side apartments and through the dissemination of a message rather than tanks on the streets .
You condemn the actions of God? Brave.
Comma before and after God, not just after, so obviously the vocative.
Just listened to the 4 hour podcast “the coming storm” by Gabriel Gatehouse (R4, World Service, BBC Sounds)
Not a lot new to those of us who haven’t been living under a rock for the last six years, but worth a listen anyway, imo.
A few points;
Lots of dead ends and interviews which go nowhere. Cf Ambrose Evans Pritchard.
To Gabriels credit, he does take seriously the rape allegation against Bill Clinton. It’s quite possibly true, and the media/political establishment did hush it up for political expediency.
Also, his conclusion, while not really backed up by the evidence in the rest of the podcast, is quite powerful; perhaps Qanon shouldn’t be taken literally. It’s best understood as a metaphor. A figurative tale through which to understand the massive socioeconomic shifts that are going on in America (and, well, everywhere).
On Astra Zeneca it the decision to give the Oxford vaccine to a company with little experience in vaccines may well come to be seen as one of the worst mistakes of the pandemic, from a global point of view. AIUI it AZ weren't their first choice, and they were unfortunately pressured into giving it to AZ by the British government.
That is a factor (although the U.K. has other pharma companies) although trying to say that this was a bigger factor than European leaders such as Macron and Merkel trashing the vaccine in public plus the US authorities’ actions is wrong.
Quasi-ineffective, anyone?
People here massively overestimate Macron's influence outside of France (and Britain it seems). Hardly anyone in Germany has even heard of Macron's "quasi-ineffective" remarks.
No, they heard the remarks of that German newspaper from which Macron's remarks were based.
Yes, and the German newspaper report was based on a misinterpretation of AZ's sloppy trial results.
Even in English-speaking countries, where his remarks seem to have been given endless publicity (going by how often they are repeated here), how many people were persuaded not to take AZ by Macron's remarks? In the UK maybe less than were encouraged to take it to annoy the French.
A dangerous misinterpretation, given the documented effects on confidence in the vaccine.
And really, there were loads of reports of people turning down AZ. To claim otherwise is absurd.
Because of Macron?
Can you explain how Oxford partnering in a full commercial value deal with Merck would have been better than partnering with AZ who agreed to an at cost provision?
No, but are you sure they were actually the only 2 options?
That's what was on the table. The government tried to partner them with GSK but they were already locked in with Sanofi. The other major pharma companies already had in house candidates or were partnered up (see Pfizer and Biontech).
Yes, it's perhaps regrettable that GSK didn't take it up given their long experience in vaccine development, but I think it's wrong to criticise either the government or AZN on this.
In the end they did a damn good job despite a few problems along the way - which are far from unusual in novel vaccine development.
I'd go farther: they did an absolutely fantastic job. We were looking at scores of vaccines in late 2020, and most of those failed in various ways. Not only did Oxford and Astra Zeneca produce a cheap, effective and easy to distribute vaccine, they did it quickly and allowed the world to produce it.
Without them, we'd be in a much, much worse place.
Yes, if there is a “greatest mistake of the pandemic” it’s that the OX-AZ vaccine was so widely traduced and for reasons that were inherently selfish and / or bigoted on the part of the parties involved. Macron, for one, really is a c*nt.
Actually, I tried to avoid this in my longer post but I do think Trump is properly evil. It doesn't suit my argument to say it, but there we are. I wouldn't use that word for very many people. I'm struggling to think of other living politicians that it applies to. Possible Duterte, but I don't know enough about the Philippines to be sure about that. Obviously I'm excluding undemocratic countries here. Evil rises easier when the consent of the people is not a determinant.
I disagree.
I don't consider Trump to be "evil" - an appalling individual in many respects but his worldview is that of the American Nationalist. There's a hint of Lindbergh ("America First") and also of Nixon (only Nixon could go to China, only Trump could go to North Korea).
He represented a reversal of decades of "global" presidents going back to FDR. From FDR to Obama, all Presidents were global leaders whose primary purpose was the furthering of American values (call them "Western" if you want) and confronting the other non-American ideologies whether Communism or Islamic fundamentalism or Juche or whatever.
Trump saw (rightly you can argue) America had taken on this burden and was carrying a whole lot of other countries (the one thing Trump did get right was shaming European countries on defence spending and their contribution to NATO). Oddly enough, he chose the financial argument in terms of influence just as Thatcher did in the early 80s within the EEC,.
The other side of this was whether the approach of successive Presidents had been in any way effective either in promoting American (and by definition western) security or whether America was just pouring money down a big hole with little to show. Trump took a very different approach - he reached out personally to Putin, Xi, Kim Jong-Un and others offering the hand of economic friendship in exchange for a toning down of the confrontational rhetoric.
Voters like politicians who put their country first - it's obvious but it's worth saying. There aren't many votes in overt internationalism. Trump's failure was, I would argue, he didn't have a single tangible success to show for four years of this direction. You can argue some of what he was trying to do would take decades to come to fruition but in truth, and perhaps he was frustrated by the establishment in the State Department and elsewhere, he achieved almost nothing.
It isn't Trump's prioritisation of America that leads me to put him in the "evil" category. You'd catch far too many people in the net doing that. It's the fact that he's a user, a bigot, a selfish, self-aggrandising fool who breaks little people on the wheel of his narcissism, a corrupt, democracy-threatening arsehole, a self-pitying, whining crybaby, a fat lump of flesh with a cruel streak as wide as the Hudson and a penchant for petty revenge. He has nothing good in his soul.
“Let he who is without sin…”
...cast the first stone. I've thrown no stones, I've used words.
Or are you implying that I'm somehow just as bad? You're probably wrong, but happily I've never stood for election and have no intention of doing so. I know that every time I go to cast a ballot there are multiple people on the ticket who are better than me. I do not think Trump is better than me, though. So even if I am AS BAD as Trump, I'm better by virtue of recognising my own unsuitability for public office.
TBH, I don’t really care. My concern is whether someone governs well, and well means a wide spectrum of affairs. Labelling people as “evil” should be reserved for those who are truly evil such as Hitler and Stalin. Otherwise it becomes cheap.
I mean, if you'd read the whole lead up to that you'd see that I have said as much. I do not throw the word about liberally. It's sort of interesting that some people want to cancel the word "evil" as if humans these days are incapable of being evil any more. That can't be true. We haven't evolved past that.
It’s a matter of opinion. I don’t see Trump as evil - he’s got mainly bad qualities but he doesn’t cross that line. Not do I see Biden as evil, even though he waved off Afghans falling to their deaths from planes “yes but that was 5 days ago.” People do distasteful things but it’s not evil.
Biden continued Trump's plan - probably the wrong thing to do. Trump tried to overturn a free and fair election - as shown by the recounts and court cases. That's a coup attempt in the world's most important democracy where 5 people died. If that's not evil would you perhaps describe it as 'naughty'?
The Red Mist around Trump is descending again.
My comment on Biden and Afghanistan was around his waving away of people dying in an horrific way as a minor detail. It was the behaviour one might expect of a sociopath. The wider Afghan policy is a separate issue
Re the election, I’m sure there’s an element here you’d love me to describe as a Jan 6 loving Trumpist. But, as the records on here state, I condemned both his attempts on Jan 6th and in the states, and was the first on here to flag his tactics.
FWIW though, I don’t think Jan 6th was an insurrection and neither does the FBI. No one has been charged with insurrection and treason. Trump was stupid, irresponsible and dangerously reckless but, if it was a planned coup, it was the worst one ever.
You raise an interesting point though. No losing Democratic Presidential candidate since 1988 has said they lost fair and square. Gore, Kerry, Clinton all said they were cheated. gore went to the SC, Clinton was caught on camera in 2019 for saying she was cheated out of the election. On the latter, what responsibility does she bear for contributing to the poison in the US? Or is it ok because she’s a Democrat and tried to undermine Trump by claiming he was a Russian plant as opposed to a riotous assembly?
Taking a knife edge result to the SCOTUS or carping that although Hillary won the popular vote she did not become POTUS is one thing. Inciting an armed mob to storm the Capitol Building to overturn a conclusive result, an adventure which took the lives of five American Citizens, is somewhat different.
Five fatalities is going to be a drop in the ocean next time Trump seizes power.
Again, the Red Mist descends.
Hilary Clinton, and the claims that Trump was a Russian plant poisoned the electoral well in the US to the point we now have many Democrats saying that the Republicans can never legitimately win an election and any win will be proof of cheating.
However, if you truly do want to see the lengths one candidate went to fix the election, you should be paying far more attention to the Dunham Special Counsel investigation into Russiagate. It is increasingly becoming clear that the 2016 HRC deliberately used sources they need to be false to obtain the FISA warrants to spy on the opposing campaign. The evidence is all out there in the criminal charges that are being brought.
If one were to ignore absolutely every other allegation against Trump, the 6th January 2021 is slam-dunk sedition.
Actually, I tried to avoid this in my longer post but I do think Trump is properly evil. It doesn't suit my argument to say it, but there we are. I wouldn't use that word for very many people. I'm struggling to think of other living politicians that it applies to. Possible Duterte, but I don't know enough about the Philippines to be sure about that. Obviously I'm excluding undemocratic countries here. Evil rises easier when the consent of the people is not a determinant.
I disagree.
I don't consider Trump to be "evil" - an appalling individual in many respects but his worldview is that of the American Nationalist. There's a hint of Lindbergh ("America First") and also of Nixon (only Nixon could go to China, only Trump could go to North Korea).
He represented a reversal of decades of "global" presidents going back to FDR. From FDR to Obama, all Presidents were global leaders whose primary purpose was the furthering of American values (call them "Western" if you want) and confronting the other non-American ideologies whether Communism or Islamic fundamentalism or Juche or whatever.
Trump saw (rightly you can argue) America had taken on this burden and was carrying a whole lot of other countries (the one thing Trump did get right was shaming European countries on defence spending and their contribution to NATO). Oddly enough, he chose the financial argument in terms of influence just as Thatcher did in the early 80s within the EEC,.
The other side of this was whether the approach of successive Presidents had been in any way effective either in promoting American (and by definition western) security or whether America was just pouring money down a big hole with little to show. Trump took a very different approach - he reached out personally to Putin, Xi, Kim Jong-Un and others offering the hand of economic friendship in exchange for a toning down of the confrontational rhetoric.
Voters like politicians who put their country first - it's obvious but it's worth saying. There aren't many votes in overt internationalism. Trump's failure was, I would argue, he didn't have a single tangible success to show for four years of this direction. You can argue some of what he was trying to do would take decades to come to fruition but in truth, and perhaps he was frustrated by the establishment in the State Department and elsewhere, he achieved almost nothing.
It isn't Trump's prioritisation of America that leads me to put him in the "evil" category. You'd catch far too many people in the net doing that. It's the fact that he's a user, a bigot, a selfish, self-aggrandising fool who breaks little people on the wheel of his narcissism, a corrupt, democracy-threatening arsehole, a self-pitying, whining crybaby, a fat lump of flesh with a cruel streak as wide as the Hudson and a penchant for petty revenge. He has nothing good in his soul.
“Let he who is without sin…”
...cast the first stone. I've thrown no stones, I've used words.
Or are you implying that I'm somehow just as bad? You're probably wrong, but happily I've never stood for election and have no intention of doing so. I know that every time I go to cast a ballot there are multiple people on the ticket who are better than me. I do not think Trump is better than me, though. So even if I am AS BAD as Trump, I'm better by virtue of recognising my own unsuitability for public office.
TBH, I don’t really care. My concern is whether someone governs well, and well means a wide spectrum of affairs. Labelling people as “evil” should be reserved for those who are truly evil such as Hitler and Stalin. Otherwise it becomes cheap.
I mean, if you'd read the whole lead up to that you'd see that I have said as much. I do not throw the word about liberally. It's sort of interesting that some people want to cancel the word "evil" as if humans these days are incapable of being evil any more. That can't be true. We haven't evolved past that.
It’s a matter of opinion. I don’t see Trump as evil - he’s got mainly bad qualities but he doesn’t cross that line. Not do I see Biden as evil, even though he waved off Afghans falling to their deaths from planes “yes but that was 5 days ago.” People do distasteful things but it’s not evil.
Biden continued Trump's plan - probably the wrong thing to do. Trump tried to overturn a free and fair election - as shown by the recounts and court cases. That's a coup attempt in the world's most important democracy where 5 people died. If that's not evil would you perhaps describe it as 'naughty'?
The Red Mist around Trump is descending again.
My comment on Biden and Afghanistan was around his waving away of people dying in an horrific way as a minor detail. It was the behaviour one might expect of a sociopath. The wider Afghan policy is a separate issue
Re the election, I’m sure there’s an element here you’d love me to describe as a Jan 6 loving Trumpist. But, as the records on here state, I condemned both his attempts on Jan 6th and in the states, and was the first on here to flag his tactics.
FWIW though, I don’t think Jan 6th was an insurrection and neither does the FBI. No one has been charged with insurrection and treason. Trump was stupid, irresponsible and dangerously reckless but, if it was a planned coup, it was the worst one ever.
You raise an interesting point though. No losing Democratic Presidential candidate since 1988 has said they lost fair and square. Gore, Kerry, Clinton all said they were cheated. gore went to the SC, Clinton was caught on camera in 2019 for saying she was cheated out of the election. On the latter, what responsibility does she bear for contributing to the poison in the US? Or is it ok because she’s a Democrat and tried to undermine Trump by claiming he was a Russian plant as opposed to a riotous assembly?
Taking a knife edge result to the SCOTUS or carping that although Hillary won the popular vote she did not become POTUS is one thing. Inciting an armed mob to storm the Capitol Building to overturn a conclusive result, an adventure which took the lives of five American Citizens, is somewhat different.
Five fatalities is going to be a drop in the ocean next time Trump seizes power.
It's the false equivalence that galls me. The fact that Al Gore took the legal process to its conclusion and then stopped when it ran out of road is one thing. You can argue that he should have stopped earlier or that he was within his rights. But here: I accept the finality of the outcome, which will be ratified next Monday in the Electoral College. And tonight, for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession.
Trump did not say anything even remotely close to that. Instead, he had a mob fatally attack Congress in a bid to stop the process. These are opposites, not equivalents. Mr.Ed likes to claim that he condemns Trump for his January 6th actions, but minimises and normalises them by pretending that very different behaviour is similar enough that it deserves to be raised as an coda to any condemnation of Trump. These are wildly different events in the most categorical and definitive sense. To believe you have been wronged and to say so is a million miles away from trying to stop via a mob your victorious opponent from taking power. How does this even need to be pointed out?
Yep, false equivalence is a common form of truth denial and it's rife with MAGA people.
“Our country has been under siege for a long time, far longer than this four-year period. You’re the real people. You’re the people that built this nation. And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
Trump on Jan 6th.
There are equivalents but they aren't the ones they ever advance.
Mr. Walker, perhaps it was also pleased by Clinton's description of half the electorate as a basket of deplorables as well.
Probably. Hilary Clinton was a terrible candidate, totally atrocious. The Democrats were asking to be trounced.
(Having said that, the deplorables comment itself was pretty innocuous; it got inflated out of all proportion because it talked to the larger truth of Hilary’s complete disconnect with heartland USA).
Actually, I tried to avoid this in my longer post but I do think Trump is properly evil. It doesn't suit my argument to say it, but there we are. I wouldn't use that word for very many people. I'm struggling to think of other living politicians that it applies to. Possible Duterte, but I don't know enough about the Philippines to be sure about that. Obviously I'm excluding undemocratic countries here. Evil rises easier when the consent of the people is not a determinant.
I disagree.
I don't consider Trump to be "evil" - an appalling individual in many respects but his worldview is that of the American Nationalist. There's a hint of Lindbergh ("America First") and also of Nixon (only Nixon could go to China, only Trump could go to North Korea).
He represented a reversal of decades of "global" presidents going back to FDR. From FDR to Obama, all Presidents were global leaders whose primary purpose was the furthering of American values (call them "Western" if you want) and confronting the other non-American ideologies whether Communism or Islamic fundamentalism or Juche or whatever.
Trump saw (rightly you can argue) America had taken on this burden and was carrying a whole lot of other countries (the one thing Trump did get right was shaming European countries on defence spending and their contribution to NATO). Oddly enough, he chose the financial argument in terms of influence just as Thatcher did in the early 80s within the EEC,.
The other side of this was whether the approach of successive Presidents had been in any way effective either in promoting American (and by definition western) security or whether America was just pouring money down a big hole with little to show. Trump took a very different approach - he reached out personally to Putin, Xi, Kim Jong-Un and others offering the hand of economic friendship in exchange for a toning down of the confrontational rhetoric.
Voters like politicians who put their country first - it's obvious but it's worth saying. There aren't many votes in overt internationalism. Trump's failure was, I would argue, he didn't have a single tangible success to show for four years of this direction. You can argue some of what he was trying to do would take decades to come to fruition but in truth, and perhaps he was frustrated by the establishment in the State Department and elsewhere, he achieved almost nothing.
It isn't Trump's prioritisation of America that leads me to put him in the "evil" category. You'd catch far too many people in the net doing that. It's the fact that he's a user, a bigot, a selfish, self-aggrandising fool who breaks little people on the wheel of his narcissism, a corrupt, democracy-threatening arsehole, a self-pitying, whining crybaby, a fat lump of flesh with a cruel streak as wide as the Hudson and a penchant for petty revenge. He has nothing good in his soul.
“Let he who is without sin…”
...cast the first stone. I've thrown no stones, I've used words.
Or are you implying that I'm somehow just as bad? You're probably wrong, but happily I've never stood for election and have no intention of doing so. I know that every time I go to cast a ballot there are multiple people on the ticket who are better than me. I do not think Trump is better than me, though. So even if I am AS BAD as Trump, I'm better by virtue of recognising my own unsuitability for public office.
TBH, I don’t really care. My concern is whether someone governs well, and well means a wide spectrum of affairs. Labelling people as “evil” should be reserved for those who are truly evil such as Hitler and Stalin. Otherwise it becomes cheap.
I mean, if you'd read the whole lead up to that you'd see that I have said as much. I do not throw the word about liberally. It's sort of interesting that some people want to cancel the word "evil" as if humans these days are incapable of being evil any more. That can't be true. We haven't evolved past that.
It’s a matter of opinion. I don’t see Trump as evil - he’s got mainly bad qualities but he doesn’t cross that line. Not do I see Biden as evil, even though he waved off Afghans falling to their deaths from planes “yes but that was 5 days ago.” People do distasteful things but it’s not evil.
Biden continued Trump's plan - probably the wrong thing to do. Trump tried to overturn a free and fair election - as shown by the recounts and court cases. That's a coup attempt in the world's most important democracy where 5 people died. If that's not evil would you perhaps describe it as 'naughty'?
The Red Mist around Trump is descending again.
My comment on Biden and Afghanistan was around his waving away of people dying in an horrific way as a minor detail. It was the behaviour one might expect of a sociopath. The wider Afghan policy is a separate issue
Re the election, I’m sure there’s an element here you’d love me to describe as a Jan 6 loving Trumpist. But, as the records on here state, I condemned both his attempts on Jan 6th and in the states, and was the first on here to flag his tactics.
FWIW though, I don’t think Jan 6th was an insurrection and neither does the FBI. No one has been charged with insurrection and treason. Trump was stupid, irresponsible and dangerously reckless but, if it was a planned coup, it was the worst one ever.
You raise an interesting point though. No losing Democratic Presidential candidate since 1988 has said they lost fair and square. Gore, Kerry, Clinton all said they were cheated. gore went to the SC, Clinton was caught on camera in 2019 for saying she was cheated out of the election. On the latter, what responsibility does she bear for contributing to the poison in the US? Or is it ok because she’s a Democrat and tried to undermine Trump by claiming he was a Russian plant as opposed to a riotous assembly?
"if it was a planned coup, it was the worst one ever" It didn't succeed because one man, Mike Pence, refused to do Trump's bidding. He wanted to and consulted Dan Quayle (of all people) and was told he didn;t have any option but to do his ceremonial duty. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIGik9MJzcs
Comments
Surely taking a principled stand would have been boycotting the tournament from the start, rather than trying to get in under an exemption that has been misapplied?
Riding it out till vaccinated and a mild variant.
Don't know if that only applies to foreigners.
Australia has one of the toughest, if not the toughest, phytosanitary regimes on the border on the planet. As a child when I moved there I had my bag of sweets I was carrying confiscated and binned, because of their strict rules on not bringing food across the border.
If they're that strict against the fear of a child's rogue Smarties then during a pandemic is there any surprise they have gone totally OTT.
I hope they reign in back in before long, but that's their decision to make, not ours.
I not Serbia has currently closed schools to help halt the spread of Covif.
Shows the damage heavy ground does to selections?
If he had said, 'I refuse on principle to get vaccinated, and therefore I refuse to travel to any country that forces unvaccinated people to quarantine,' I would still have thought him a fool but at least that is a principled stand and I could respect it.
Not being vaccinated and still trying to get in under a medical exemption that he does not appear to be eligible for is simple cakeism. And it makes him look an idiot.
Moreover, that requirement to quarantine will last twelve months. A visa ban will last for three years.
Anyway, my long shot to take on ‘the pond’
Trump tried to overturn a free and fair election - as shown by the recounts and court cases. That's a coup attempt in the world's most important democracy where 5 people died.
If that's not evil would you perhaps describe it as 'naughty'?
To reply to your substantive point, it is clear to me that there is a big difference between preventing theft and violent death, and eradicating 'prejudice'. But not to you and many others. You are winning. But in the end, that is just the way things are. And that is why people like me do disgusting, prejudiced, evil things like voting for Donald Trump.
My comment on Biden and Afghanistan was around his waving away of people dying in an horrific way as a minor detail. It was the behaviour one might expect of a sociopath. The wider Afghan policy is a separate issue
Re the election, I’m sure there’s an element here you’d love me to describe as a Jan 6 loving Trumpist. But, as the records on here state, I condemned both his attempts on Jan 6th and in the states, and was the first on here to flag his tactics.
FWIW though, I don’t think Jan 6th was an insurrection and neither does the FBI. No one has been charged with insurrection and treason. Trump was stupid, irresponsible and dangerously reckless but, if it was a planned coup, it was the worst one ever.
You raise an interesting point though. No losing Democratic Presidential candidate since 1988 has said they lost fair and square. Gore, Kerry, Clinton all said they were cheated. gore went to the SC, Clinton was caught on camera in 2019 for saying she was cheated out of the election. On the latter, what responsibility does she bear for contributing to the poison in the US? Or is it ok because she’s a Democrat and tried to undermine Trump by claiming he was a Russian plant as opposed to a riotous assembly?
Fairly sure I would have been against a tax on people who didn't have the annual flu vaccination before this Corona pandemic. Provided there's no prospect of any sort of compulsory Corona counter measures next winter, then I think the window of opportunity where a tax on being unvaccinated had much utility is closing. Issues like increasing the number of training spaces for doctors and nurses and now much more important than specific Covid details.
Over the last 10 days its been growing fast in Australia, not quite doubling every 2 days, but not that fare off ether.
How High will it go? I don't know.
When you refuse to be vaccinated you mainly increase the risk to yourself. Any increase in risk to others, particularly those who are vaccinated, is mostly indirect, in the case that there are enough unvaccinated people that it places a burden on the health service.
In this sense choosing not to be vaccinated is very similar to choosing to smoke tobacco. This mostly has an effect on your own health, rather than that of others (particularly now that smoking in pubs, etc, is banned), and only has an indirect effect on others, through the extra demand that your risk of lung cancer, and other health problems, places onto the health service.
That's why I'd judge that it would be appropriate to deal with refusal to be vaccinated in a similar way to tobacco consumption - with a tax - rather than in a similar way to dangerous driving - with the criminal law.
Five fatalities is going to be a drop in the ocean next time Trump seizes power.
Hilary Clinton, and the claims that Trump was a Russian plant poisoned the electoral well in the US to the point we now have many Democrats saying that the Republicans can never legitimately win an election and any win will be proof of cheating.
However, if you truly do want to see the lengths one candidate went to fix the election, you should be paying far more attention to the Dunham Special Counsel investigation into Russiagate. It is increasingly becoming clear that the 2016 HRC deliberately used sources they need to be false to obtain the FISA warrants to spy on the opposing campaign. The evidence is all out there in the criminal charges that are being brought.
I'm pretty sure that the German government made blocking investments in Biontech and Curevac to prevent a US takeover and IP transfer for the very same reason.
So an interesting parallel to draw.
Google "dropped case" and "13". See where that takes you.
Chris Mullins “A Very British Coup” didn’t have tanks on the street or mass riots. But it did have Harry Perkins kicked out by behind the scenes means. Don’t think anyone would disagree with his use of the word ‘Coup’ in the title.
HRC, and her friends, went round telling everyone Trump only got in because of Russian interference, that he was a Russian olant etc etc and sought to completely delegitimise his Presidency. CNN, the New York Times etc etc every single day pummelled in the same message. No allegation, no matter how obviously stupid or false it looked when you stepped back and considered the evidence for 5 seconds, was overlooked nor not used as further “proof”.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/backfire_5.jpg?w=1024
In the end they did a damn good job despite a few problems along the way - which are far from unusual in novel vaccine development.
What’s actually galling is those who are so vehemently banging on about Trump - and, God, whose actions I again condemn on Jan 6th and before - turning a complete blind eye to how his opponents delegitimised his Presidency.
I’m applying a single standard - all coups are wrong. You are applying a double standard - a coup is wrong only if my opponent does it.
And, as I have pointed out above, coups come in different forms. HRC’s attempts to delegitimise Trump post-2016 was a planned coup, just executed in nice Upper East Side apartments and through the dissemination of a message rather than tanks on the streets .
That is literally what America First was.
Without them, we'd be in a much, much worse place.
It’s not a stretch to believe it was funding Trump either directly or indirectly.
Not a lot new to those of us who haven’t been living under a rock for the last six years, but worth a listen anyway, imo.
A few points;
Lots of dead ends and interviews which go nowhere. Cf Ambrose Evans Pritchard.
To Gabriels credit, he does take seriously the rape allegation against Bill Clinton. It’s quite possibly true, and the media/political establishment did hush it up for political expediency.
Also, his conclusion, while not really backed up by the evidence in the rest of the podcast, is quite powerful; perhaps Qanon shouldn’t be taken literally. It’s best understood as a metaphor. A figurative tale through which to understand the massive socioeconomic shifts that are going on in America (and, well, everywhere).
Interesting listen. 7/10
“Our country has been under siege for a long time, far longer than this four-year period. You’re the real people. You’re the people that built this nation. And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
Trump on Jan 6th.
There are equivalents but they aren't the ones they ever advance.
Hilary Clinton was a terrible candidate, totally atrocious. The Democrats were asking to be trounced.
(Having said that, the deplorables comment itself was pretty innocuous; it got inflated out of all proportion because it talked to the larger truth of Hilary’s complete disconnect with heartland USA).
It didn't succeed because one man, Mike Pence, refused to do Trump's bidding. He wanted to and consulted Dan Quayle (of all people) and was told he didn;t have any option but to do his ceremonial duty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIGik9MJzcs