Sometimes, you wish people would just say what they mean rather than beating around the bush:
In his published comments earlier in the day, Popovich said of the president: “He’s not just divisive. He’s a destroyer. To be in his presence makes you die. He will eat you alive for his own purposes. I’m appalled that we have a leader who can’t say ‘black lives matter.’
“That’s why he hides in the White House basement. He is a coward. He creates a situation and runs away like a grade-schooler. Actually, I think it’s best to ignore him. There is nothing he can do to make this better because of who he is: a deranged idiot.”
Source: Washington Post
You go to the Whitehouse basement because the security team tasked with keeping you safe take you there. Trump derangement undermines the actual issues.
Nixon went and spoke to the protestors.
Honestly the number of commentators going misty eyed about the statesmen of the past the Kennedys and what they would have done, sob.....What a joke.
This kind of activity has happened under a number of presidents, at many times in post war American history.
I suspect the US economy's nosedive may be a big factor here, especially given black employment was at a record high before corona hit. Higher than under the Kennedys, Carter, Clinton or Obama, or any of the other saviours of the black person being cited by middle class white people right now.
These are factors you will not read about in the mainstream media, however.
Coronavirus infections in hospitals and care homes are spilling into the community and sustaining the outbreak to the point that cases will remain steady until September, a leading scientist has warned.
----
Under further questioning about the outbreak, Ferguson described how scientists realised in early March that the UK had been much more heavily infected than anticipated, and that this was one of the reasons the country now has if not the largest, then one of the largest, epidemics in Europe.
Can we not just bung every care home worker in the land 5 grand tax free to live on site for the next 2 months, would get the "R" down massively and pay for itself I think.
As I said a couple of weeks ago, Coronavirus should be separated, in the NHS, and in care, from the mainstream health service. Own hospitals (if possible) certainly own wings if not. Own recuperation homes. I agree with your point about staff living in too if that is possible.
The benefits would be: -Equipment, environment, and care could be tailored specifically to cv-19 treatement -No cross-infection of other patients -Less staff sickness as staffed by immune staff, or staff taking regular cv tests -Best practise in cv-19 treatment protocols more easily shared, mortality rates decrease, shorter time between diagnosis and cure -NHS can get back to work
Drawbacks: -Costs a bit more. Drop in the ocean with everything else that's happening.
It would also have the political benefit of getting the Government back on track and taking positive action.
It would also result in 40 (plus a lot more) hospitals being opened or re-opened.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
And yet many of us on here condemned it at the time and since. As did many others outside in the wider Brexit movement. The real problem is that people like you are dishonest lying fuckwits who will stoop to any means to attack Brexit and those who supported it. As far as you are concerned the only acceptable reaction from Brexiteers would be to disown the whole thing. I have sympathy for almost all former Remainers for having failed to achieve their aims of preventing Brexit. I know from experience how hard it is when you don't win. But for people like you who have always resorted to smears and lies and continue to do so even though the argument is done and dusted I have no sympathy at all. I hope it hurts.
What a shame you have gone back to being an angry twat again when I was previously beginning to like you. I don't want to "prevent Brexit", I think people like you need to own it, but then again people like you often don't own the things that affect others. A lot of the people who voted for it won't get its ill effects. It was, and is, an idiots charter. Pointless and stupid. We will, no doubt rejoin one day, with full fat, and I will laugh and laugh, just like I am laughing at the idiots who thought Boris Johnson would make a good Prime Minister.
A full paragraph still failing to admit your comments were completely wrong and dishonest. Well done. Nice to see you are consistent in your delusions.
IndyRef2 is going to be fun if media starts actually fact-checking the BritNat guff.
It would be nice to think we could have an actual debate between those Scots with an understandable wish to be independent and those Scots who wish to be in the Union; and that the rest of the U.K. would stay out of it.
But while the decision is only between those two groups (and those who dont care) the rest of the UK is a legitimately interested party, affected by the outcome, with many for and many against, and how the rest of the UK might react to plans of an indy Scotland or plans for a continuing Union might be of some relevance to those actually making the decision in Scotland, particularly those on the fence.
I don't think it can be as simple as non Scots staying out of it. Which is not to say that the wishes of Scots should not predominate.
I think our only contribution should be to be clear on what we would do/not do in response. But the basic line should be that we’d do what we could to make it as painless and easy as possible. Of course if the Scots really wanted independence I think the quickest way is to support a vote on it in ONLY the rest of the U.K....
One of the complications is that whether you're consisted a Scot for the purpose of the referendum is a matter of timing.
Perhaps you've recently moved away for a job - no longer able to vote in the referendum and vice versa. There are so many people who wouldn't be able to vote, but would be directly affected by the outcome, that it makes the case for Britain remaining one country.
Absolute and utter bollox of the highest order. If the majority in Scotland want it then under any rule of law ( dictatorship maybe excluded) then they are entitled to vote , become independent etc. Just because some English want to retain us as a colony it does not make the case for Britain to stay as a union, Britain is not ONE country. How fe***ng dumb can people on here be.
You are not a colony you dipshit. Scotland has been massively overrepresented in both the modern British state and the British Empire. Scotland is just as much part of Britain as England is. Your colony crap is just chippy nonsense and definitely is "absolute and utter bollox of the highest order". You clearly do not know the history of the country that you claim your own. Typical Little Scotlander, so like your nationalistic small minded Little Englander cousins.
Indeed, if Scotland was truly a colony we would have done what Madrid has done, banned any indyref in 2014 and also scrapped Holyrood and imposed direct rule from Westminster and not even allowed Scottish MPs in the Commons
You are forgetting - taking control of Police Scotland, arresting officers for obeying orders from Holyrood. And arresting most of the SNP leadership and putting them in prison on treason charges.
That is exactly what the Spanish government did to Catalan nationalist leaders yes and what Beijing is starting to do to Hong Kong pro independence leaders with its new anti separatism law
I hope you are not claiming we should regard Spain and China as positive examples to follow.
If we wanted to make Scotland a colony that is what we would do, we are not so Scotland is not a colony.
Scots voted to stay in the UK freely and fairly in 2014
You spout the most idiotic nonsense on Scotland
For goodness sake show some respect or go and join Trump in the US
You do realise the Tory manifesto on which the 2019 general election was won ruled out indyref2 for a generation?
You voted for that as much as I did
That is not the point, the point is your lack of respect towards the Scots shows an intolerance that is just crass
And Indy 2 will happen this parliament if the SNP win Holyrood 21.
And I do not expect them to win Independence especially since covid 19
First, no indyref2 will not happen this parliament regardless of what happens next year, the Tories won on a manifesto commitment to no indyref2.
Second, if we go to WTO terms Brexit there is clearly a chance Scots vote for independence so any vote must wait until after the next general election and it is settled whether we are still on WTO terms Brexit with Boris or back in the single market with Starmer
You cannot get beyond spouting the same repetitive rubbish post after post
For someone who spends their spare time getting overwhelmed with excitement over replays of previous general elections, and comment on here as moments happen as if in real time, I would suggest you need to get out more
And 7 days is a week in politics.
Mind you when Indy 2 happens towards the end of next year you will reverse ferret like mad
It won't, the majority of Tory MPs in the Commons will block it
You are not very good at politics are you
Clearly you are not are you.
There will be no indyref2 unless Starmer becomes PM, the Tories will block it
Let us just say we disagree
However, please start treating the Scots with respect.
Insult them, you insult half my family including my wife
Don't be silly, he has not insulted "the Scots". He has not even insulted the SNP, which I could not blame him if he did. Your last sentence sounds a little Pythonesque!
Talking of Scotland as a colony is just about as insulting as it gets
Well Malc was the one that did that. There's a lot of self-loathing tied up with Nationalism - of all kinds, not just Scottish.
How would you say the self loathing of the British nationalists expresses itself?
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
They are fantasy considerations.
Free trade and greater democratic connection are fantasies? Hmm. That is, if I might say, a brave position to take.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
They are fantasy considerations.
It is your right to believe that is the case, and mine to believe otherwise. Is that the definition of a racist now - someone who believes something you don't?
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
They are fantasy considerations.
Free trade and greater democratic connection are fantasies? Hmm. That is, if I might say, a brave position to take.
That we were under the yoke of an oppressive EU.
But Richard we have had these discussions many times in the past. All I will say is that it is entirely likely that the current Cons administration had its eye so firmly on Brexit and the belief that for a multi-generational settlement they couldn't delay our actual exit by a month or three while they dealt with an actual crisis that they have presided over perhaps the worst death toll from Coronavirus in Europe and perhaps beyond.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
Its all they have left. When they have lost the main argument and cannot reconcile themselves with that fact they have no other recourse but to claim it was because of the pure evil nature of their opponents. That way they keep the false veneer of a moral victory as a comfort blanket to hide behind.
He didn't say that. I also didn't say ALL Brexit voters were racist, but nothing I have seen since the referendum or before it disabuses me of the belief that the word MOST is highly applicable. If you are not a racist you will no doubt convince yourself that voting with a campaign that was racist justifies the rather weak arguments put forward above. Keep taking the tablets Richard, I am sure you will go back to being calm, articulate and reasonable some day soon.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
Its all they have left. When they have lost the main argument and cannot reconcile themselves with that fact they have no other recourse but to claim it was because of the pure evil nature of their opponents. That way they keep the false veneer of a moral victory as a comfort blanket to hide behind.
I don't need a comfort blanket. You see the argument has never been lost as the arguments on the part of the Brexiters have never been deomonstrated or proven. The UK hasn't been made "freer" because it wasn't not free and it hasn't became more prosperous in fact it is fair to argue it will become less.
Turning to the the patronising and arrogant take on the UK's position in Europe and the world by leave supporters: alternatively, "Only we understand freedom because of WWII", "Free trade is an Anglo-Saxon thing", or "Stop the immigrants", "Stop the EU repainting the Cross of St George", remain false arguments.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Oh I see, its because of the Nazis and the Communists that the Europeans don't get it? They're all living in a fantasy world of enslavement to the EU and eventually the UK will lead them all to freedom again, like a WW2 redux?
You forgot the fascists. Spain was a fascist dictatorship until 1975. I have no idea if we are going to 'lead them to freedom' - I admit that many Brexit-supporters do want the EU to fail and break up, but I am not one of them. I hope for continental Europe to be as stable and prosperous as it can possibly be, apart from anything else, as a market for British goods and services.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
Its all they have left. When they have lost the main argument and cannot reconcile themselves with that fact they have no other recourse but to claim it was because of the pure evil nature of their opponents. That way they keep the false veneer of a moral victory as a comfort blanket to hide behind.
He didn't say that. I also didn't say ALL Brexit voters were racist, but nothing I have seen since the referendum or before it disabuses me of the belief that the word MOST is highly applicable. If you are not a racist you will no doubt convince yourself that voting with a campaign that was racist justifies the rather weak arguments put forward above. Keep taking the tablets Richard, I am sure you will go back to being calm, articulate and reasonable some day soon.
Whereas you will continue to be a dishonest lying turd no matter what you do. It is ingrained into your nature.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
They are fantasy considerations.
It is your right to believe that is the case, and mine to believe otherwise. Is that the definition of a racist now - someone who believes something you don't?
It is arguably racist to hitch yourself to a movement which was avowedly anti-foreigner in a desire to see some fantasy benefits from leaving a club we decided to join and then decided to leave. This latter, of course, giving the obvious lie to any charge that we were not sovereign.
Just watching the elaborate voting system by our MPs, I have never seen a more awkward, uncoordinated group of individuals. My school pupils were better behaved...
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
They are fantasy considerations.
It is your right to believe that is the case, and mine to believe otherwise. Is that the definition of a racist now - someone who believes something you don't?
It is arguably racist to hitch yourself to a movement which was avowedly anti-foreigner in a desire to see some fantasy benefits from leaving a club we decided to join and then decided to leave. This latter, of course, giving the obvious lie to any charge that we were not sovereign.
LOL. Ye stretch and twist so much as to render your words, and the term racist, meaningless. Just admit it, good people can disagree.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
They are fantasy considerations.
It is your right to believe that is the case, and mine to believe otherwise. Is that the definition of a racist now - someone who believes something you don't?
It is arguably racist to hitch yourself to a movement which was avowedly anti-foreigner in a desire to see some fantasy benefits from leaving a club we decided to join and then decided to leave. This latter, of course, giving the obvious lie to any charge that we were not sovereign.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
You are betraying small minded ignorance in refusing to understand those who think differently to you. Your attempt to parody others and mock their arguments fails abysmally when they aren't the arguments used.
I don't think for one second that the Spaniards or anyone else have some form of "False Consciousness" and never have used such a pathetic, preposterous argument. So use all the straw men that you want.
The Spanish can feel like they want to be part of a European state and if they do, good for them. Their choice and I respect free choice and democracy. What's good for us, is not necessarily good for them.
Nor are we exceptional in England [or Britain or the United Kingdom] and if you think we are then you are again betraying your own ignorance of the outside world.
In the past I have specifically compared how I view the UK in Europe as we are like Canada relative to the USA, or Japan relative to China.
I have family in Alberta, they feel like they are Albertans and Canadians, but they do not feel like they are Americans. They feel no regrets about not being part of the USA . . . and Alberta is probably the most American province of all of Canada. I doubt you'll find many Canadians anywhere bemoaninig their absence from being part of the United States of America - is that some Canadian "exceptionalism" in your eyes? Are the States of America under some form of "False Consciousness" if they want to be in the USA but neighbouring provinces of Canada do not?
Or can different states be different? Get your head out of your arse and stop pontificating for others, because its not big and its not clever.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
Its all they have left. When they have lost the main argument and cannot reconcile themselves with that fact they have no other recourse but to claim it was because of the pure evil nature of their opponents. That way they keep the false veneer of a moral victory as a comfort blanket to hide behind.
I don't need a comfort blanket. You see the argument has never been lost as the arguments on the part of the Brexiters have never been deomonstrated or proven. The UK hasn't been made "freer" because it wasn't not free and it hasn't became more prosperous in fact it is fair to argue it will become less.
Turning to the the patronising and arrogant take on the UK's position in Europe and the world by leave supporters: alternatively, "Only we understand freedom because of WWII", "Free trade is an Anglo-Saxon thing", or "Stop the immigrants", "Stop the EU repainting the Cross of St George", remain false arguments.
They're either sides of the same wrong coin.
Hats off for avoiding "two cheeks of the same arse".
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Oh I see, its because of the Nazis and the Communists that the Europeans don't get it? They're all living in a fantasy world of enslavement to the EU and eventually the UK will lead them all to freedom again, like a WW2 redux?
You forgot the fascists. Spain was a fascist dictatorship until 1975. I have no idea if we are going to 'lead them to freedom' - I admit that many Brexit-supporters do want the EU to fail and break up, but I am not one of them. I hope for continental Europe to be as stable and prosperous as it can possibly be, apart from anything else, as a market for British goods and services.
If there is going to be an EU for the forseeable future then the UK must have a relationship with it.
Until recently that relationship has been deep and influential. The UK is moving to one which is between non-existent and shallow and utterly peripheral. What is better for British business in its largest single market: UK which can influence EU policy to its advantage or one where the UK is a rule taker?
Because remember the path the UK is treading now - WTO terms and no access to the Single Market, actually requires a structural shift in who the UK exports too and who it imports from. Is that better for British business? To rely on trade blocs it has no influence over and adjudicated by a comppletely un-democratic body the WTO?
There is no isolationist approach that the UK will be able to navigate it will have to pick a bloc, either one it is close to and can influence or one it is distant from and cannot. Either way the UK ends this journey as a rule taker which in my view makes it less free.
Coronavirus infections in hospitals and care homes are spilling into the community and sustaining the outbreak to the point that cases will remain steady until September, a leading scientist has warned.
----
Under further questioning about the outbreak, Ferguson described how scientists realised in early March that the UK had been much more heavily infected than anticipated, and that this was one of the reasons the country now has if not the largest, then one of the largest, epidemics in Europe.
Can we not just bung every care home worker in the land 5 grand tax free to live on site for the next 2 months, would get the "R" down massively and pay for itself I think.
As I said a couple of weeks ago, Coronavirus should be separated, in the NHS, and in care, from the mainstream health service. Own hospitals (if possible) certainly own wings if not. Own recuperation homes. I agree with your point about staff living in too if that is possible.
The benefits would be: -Equipment, environment, and care could be tailored specifically to cv-19 treatement -No cross-infection of other patients -Less staff sickness as staffed by immune staff, or staff taking regular cv tests -Best practise in cv-19 treatment protocols more easily shared, mortality rates decrease, shorter time between diagnosis and cure -NHS can get back to work
Drawbacks: -Costs a bit more. Drop in the ocean with everything else that's happening.
It would also have the political benefit of getting the Government back on track and taking positive action.
This is the plan - hospitals to be divided into a Covid and non-Covid facility.
Much money about to be spent in a mad rush doing it.
How would you say the self loathing of the British nationalists expresses itself?
Whenever we apportion blame to 'the other' for our perceived problems, we're practising self-loathing, because deep down we're protecting ourselves from the view that it is really all our fault because we're not good enough.
Most people don’t pass it on at all, but every so often, one person will happen to give it to dozens or hundreds. And that means that the behaviour of the disease can look very different, as the LSHTM epidemiological modeller Adam Kucharski explains in this Twitter thread. It could be that the disease lies apparently quiescent for a long period, as most people fail to pass it on, and then when we think we’ve got it under control it explodes up again.
(Equally, it may be that the superspreader events are largely prevented by the sort of lockdown measures that remain in place, says Javid — things like keeping bars, sporting events and churches closed.)
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
They are fantasy considerations.
It is your right to believe that is the case, and mine to believe otherwise. Is that the definition of a racist now - someone who believes something you don't?
It is arguably racist to hitch yourself to a movement which was avowedly anti-foreigner in a desire to see some fantasy benefits from leaving a club we decided to join and then decided to leave. This latter, of course, giving the obvious lie to any charge that we were not sovereign.
LOL. Ye stretch and twist so much as to render your words, and the term racist, meaningless. Just admit it, good people can disagree.
I will put you down as a high-falutin' Brexiter. One who bemoans daily that we couldn't lower VAT on home energy, and bewails the whole idea of Droite de Suite.
For many, many Brexiters, however, it was about foreigners. The main figurehead of your effort, Big Nige, illustrated this perfectly when he stood in front of his poster. All FAMs of dusky appearance. Not a Polish Plumber or Portugese nurse amongst them. That was racist.
Nigel was arguably the biggest influence of the whole leave campaign.
Absolutely true, not every Brexiter was a racist, but I would bet that every racist was a Brexiter.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Oh I see, its because of the Nazis and the Communists that the Europeans don't get it? They're all living in a fantasy world of enslavement to the EU and eventually the UK will lead them all to freedom again, like a WW2 redux?
You forgot the fascists. Spain was a fascist dictatorship until 1975. I have no idea if we are going to 'lead them to freedom' - I admit that many Brexit-supporters do want the EU to fail and break up, but I am not one of them. I hope for continental Europe to be as stable and prosperous as it can possibly be, apart from anything else, as a market for British goods and services.
If there is going to be an EU for the forseeable future then the UK must have a relationship with it.
Until recently that relationship has been deep and influential. The UK is moving to one which is between non-existent and shallow and utterly peripheral. What is better for British business in its largest single market: UK which can influence EU policy to its advantage or one where the UK is a rule taker?
Because remember the path the UK is treading now - WTO terms and no access to the Single Market, actually requires a structural shift in who the UK exports too and who it imports from. Is that better for British business? To rely on trade blocs it has no influence over and adjudicated by a comppletely un-democratic body the WTO?
There is no isolationist approach that the UK will be able to navigate it will have to pick a bloc, either one it is close to and can influence or one it is distant from and cannot. Either way the UK ends this journey as a rule taker which in my view makes it less free.
The best relationship is one in which the UK can make its own rules and UK exporters can observe EU rules and make products that meet their rules and then export those products to them. As countries across the entire globe successfully do.
There is no requirement to "pick a bloc" nor to take rules. Exporters can produce goods that meet other nations rules without them being domestic rules. GB rules can be different domestically while producers manufacture EU products for export.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
They are fantasy considerations.
It is your right to believe that is the case, and mine to believe otherwise. Is that the definition of a racist now - someone who believes something you don't?
It is arguably racist to hitch yourself to a movement which was avowedly anti-foreigner in a desire to see some fantasy benefits from leaving a club we decided to join and then decided to leave. This latter, of course, giving the obvious lie to any charge that we were not sovereign.
Sounds like you are reaching a bit there.
We've been round these houses. It all gets a bit boring stating the bleedin' obvious in a new and fresh way sometimes.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
They are fantasy considerations.
It is your right to believe that is the case, and mine to believe otherwise. Is that the definition of a racist now - someone who believes something you don't?
It is arguably racist to hitch yourself to a movement which was avowedly anti-foreigner in a desire to see some fantasy benefits from leaving a club we decided to join and then decided to leave. This latter, of course, giving the obvious lie to any charge that we were not sovereign.
LOL. Ye stretch and twist so much as to render your words, and the term racist, meaningless. Just admit it, good people can disagree.
I will put you down as a high-falutin' Brexiter. One who bemoans daily that we couldn't lower VAT on home energy, and bewails the whole idea of Droite de Suite.
For many, many Brexiters, however, it was about foreigners. The main figurehead of your effort, Big Nige, illustrated this perfectly when he stood in front of his poster. All FAMs of dusky appearance. Not a Polish Plumber or Portugese nurse amongst them. That was racist.
Nigel was arguably the biggest influence of the whole leave campaign.
Absolutely true, not every Brexiter was a racist, but I would bet that every racist was a Brexiter.
Nige had nothing to do with any effort I supported. Nige is a racist bigot and I can't stand him.
Johnson was the main figurehead of Vote Leave and I like him.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Oh I see, its because of the Nazis and the Communists that the Europeans don't get it? They're all living in a fantasy world of enslavement to the EU and eventually the UK will lead them all to freedom again, like a WW2 redux?
You forgot the fascists. Spain was a fascist dictatorship until 1975. I have no idea if we are going to 'lead them to freedom' - I admit that many Brexit-supporters do want the EU to fail and break up, but I am not one of them. I hope for continental Europe to be as stable and prosperous as it can possibly be, apart from anything else, as a market for British goods and services.
If there is going to be an EU for the forseeable future then the UK must have a relationship with it.
Until recently that relationship has been deep and influential. The UK is moving to one which is between non-existent and shallow and utterly peripheral. What is better for British business in its largest single market: UK which can influence EU policy to its advantage or one where the UK is a rule taker?
Because remember the path the UK is treading now - WTO terms and no access to the Single Market, actually requires a structural shift in who the UK exports too and who it imports from. Is that better for British business? To rely on trade blocs it has no influence over and adjudicated by a comppletely un-democratic body the WTO?
There is no isolationist approach that the UK will be able to navigate it will have to pick a bloc, either one it is close to and can influence or one it is distant from and cannot. Either way the UK ends this journey as a rule taker which in my view makes it less free.
The best relationship is one in which the UK can make its own rules and UK exporters can observe EU rules and make products that meet their rules and then export those products to them. As countries across the entire globe successfully do.
There is no requirement to "pick a bloc" nor to take rules. Exporters can produce goods that meet other nations rules without them being domestic rules. GB rules can be different domestically while producers manufacture EU products for export.
In the middle of a trade war between at least 2 of the world's 3 large trading blocks I'm not sure picking a side is unavoidable.
I'm honestly not sure how America goes back to normal from here.
If there was someone other than president dickbag in charge there would be plenty of ways to get this settled but there just seems to be no way out other than letting the riots burn out over the next couple of weeks and hoping some other racist cop doesn't step up and gun down an innocent black person.
Can anyone imagine what America is going to look like after another 4 years of Trump?
This is the first time I think Trump is losing the election. Loads of moderate voters who don't agree with the riots do agree with the protests. They can see the murder of a tax payer by a racist copper is just wrong and by not recognising that the president is throwing their votes away.
He needs to find a way to address the protesters and their real issues. Engage with them and put forwards reforms and harsh sentencing for officers who kill unarmed suspects or who's actions result in the death of suspects who are already subdued. In this instance the officer just needed to cuff the suspect, book him and then he'd be out in a few hours. Ideally th police would have enough training not to even bother this person and there would be sanctions for police who do the above.
Sadly I believe it could still go either way. I am actually quite nervous about what Trump will actually do between now and November, particularly if he remains behind in the polls and has nothing to lose.
It’s perfectly possible Trump still wins.
How the Democrats campaign will be crucial to that, as he is a daemon created as a reaction to their own overreaction.
Nobody is to blame for Trump other Trump. If Americans are stupid enough to re-elect him they deserve everything that's coming to them.
I've been to New York loads on business in the last ten years and its just New York. I went twice a year under Obama, and then under Trump. Very little difference.
Maybe a bit busier, noisier and more affluent under Trump. But essentially the same.
People's hatred of Trump clouds their judgement I think. The constitution, the courts, the judiciary and Congress constrain the president. As they are meant to.
all this talk about dictatorship is the most outrageous rubbish going. It really is the stuff of thirteen year olds. Grow up.
Who was talking about dictatorship? I certainly wasn't.
My judgement of Trump is not clouded by hatred for him it is a perfectly clear judgement based on everything he has done and said over the last 4 years. He's a moron and he proves that point on an almost daily basis. Please, go ahead and support him by all means
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
They are fantasy considerations.
It is your right to believe that is the case, and mine to believe otherwise. Is that the definition of a racist now - someone who believes something you don't?
It is arguably racist to hitch yourself to a movement which was avowedly anti-foreigner in a desire to see some fantasy benefits from leaving a club we decided to join and then decided to leave. This latter, of course, giving the obvious lie to any charge that we were not sovereign.
LOL. Ye stretch and twist so much as to render your words, and the term racist, meaningless. Just admit it, good people can disagree.
I will put you down as a high-falutin' Brexiter. One who bemoans daily that we couldn't lower VAT on home energy, and bewails the whole idea of Droite de Suite.
For many, many Brexiters, however, it was about foreigners. The main figurehead of your effort, Big Nige, illustrated this perfectly when he stood in front of his poster. All FAMs of dusky appearance. Not a Polish Plumber or Portugese nurse amongst them. That was racist.
Nigel was arguably the biggest influence of the whole leave campaign.
Absolutely true, not every Brexiter was a racist, but I would bet that every racist was a Brexiter.
And there is a large part of this issue - because I disagree with you on one issue, you suddenly make the presumption that you can characterize everything I believe in. Hint, you can't.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Oh I see, its because of the Nazis and the Communists that the Europeans don't get it? They're all living in a fantasy world of enslavement to the EU and eventually the UK will lead them all to freedom again, like a WW2 redux?
You forgot the fascists. Spain was a fascist dictatorship until 1975. I have no idea if we are going to 'lead them to freedom' - I admit that many Brexit-supporters do want the EU to fail and break up, but I am not one of them. I hope for continental Europe to be as stable and prosperous as it can possibly be, apart from anything else, as a market for British goods and services.
If there is going to be an EU for the forseeable future then the UK must have a relationship with it.
Until recently that relationship has been deep and influential. The UK is moving to one which is between non-existent and shallow and utterly peripheral. What is better for British business in its largest single market: UK which can influence EU policy to its advantage or one where the UK is a rule taker?
Because remember the path the UK is treading now - WTO terms and no access to the Single Market, actually requires a structural shift in who the UK exports too and who it imports from. Is that better for British business? To rely on trade blocs it has no influence over and adjudicated by a comppletely un-democratic body the WTO?
There is no isolationist approach that the UK will be able to navigate it will have to pick a bloc, either one it is close to and can influence or one it is distant from and cannot. Either way the UK ends this journey as a rule taker which in my view makes it less free.
The best relationship is one in which the UK can make its own rules and UK exporters can observe EU rules and make products that meet their rules and then export those products to them. As countries across the entire globe successfully do.
There is no requirement to "pick a bloc" nor to take rules. Exporters can produce goods that meet other nations rules without them being domestic rules. GB rules can be different domestically while producers manufacture EU products for export.
In the middle of a trade war between at least 2 of the world's 3 large trading blocks I'm not sure picking a side is unavoidable.
Switzerland managed it for centuries.
In the middle of a trade war between blocs being outside of them might be the best place to be.
How would you say the self loathing of the British nationalists expresses itself?
Whenever we apportion blame to 'the other' for our perceived problems, we're practising self-loathing, because deep down we're protecting ourselves from the view that it is really all our fault because we're not good enough.
Would you say that there was an element of that in Brexit?
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
They are fantasy considerations.
It is your right to believe that is the case, and mine to believe otherwise. Is that the definition of a racist now - someone who believes something you don't?
It is arguably racist to hitch yourself to a movement which was avowedly anti-foreigner in a desire to see some fantasy benefits from leaving a club we decided to join and then decided to leave. This latter, of course, giving the obvious lie to any charge that we were not sovereign.
So any organisation that wishes to become omnipotent, simply has to align itself with the value of being 'non racist'. Then it can never be opposed without those who oppose it being automatically racist, and therefore wrong type of person. And if someone wishes to be a right thinking person, they must always support it.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
They are fantasy considerations.
It is your right to believe that is the case, and mine to believe otherwise. Is that the definition of a racist now - someone who believes something you don't?
It is arguably racist to hitch yourself to a movement which was avowedly anti-foreigner in a desire to see some fantasy benefits from leaving a club we decided to join and then decided to leave. This latter, of course, giving the obvious lie to any charge that we were not sovereign.
LOL. Ye stretch and twist so much as to render your words, and the term racist, meaningless. Just admit it, good people can disagree.
I will put you down as a high-falutin' Brexiter. One who bemoans daily that we couldn't lower VAT on home energy, and bewails the whole idea of Droite de Suite.
For many, many Brexiters, however, it was about foreigners. The main figurehead of your effort, Big Nige, illustrated this perfectly when he stood in front of his poster. All FAMs of dusky appearance. Not a Polish Plumber or Portugese nurse amongst them. That was racist.
Nigel was arguably the biggest influence of the whole leave campaign.
Absolutely true, not every Brexiter was a racist, but I would bet that every racist was a Brexiter.
Nige had nothing to do with any effort I supported. Nige is a racist bigot and I can't stand him.
Johnson was the main figurehead of Vote Leave and I like him.
Your choice was fool or knave and you chose fool. Fair enough.
But like it or not, Nige was a huge motivating influence which brought about Brexit and many racists fell in behind him. That was the group you associated yourself with.
As they say about watching trash TV, there is no button to press to show you're watching it ironically. You just show up in the viewing figures like everyone else and they then commission the second series.
Most people don’t pass it on at all, but every so often, one person will happen to give it to dozens or hundreds. And that means that the behaviour of the disease can look very different, as the LSHTM epidemiological modeller Adam Kucharski explains in this Twitter thread. It could be that the disease lies apparently quiescent for a long period, as most people fail to pass it on, and then when we think we’ve got it under control it explodes up again.
(Equally, it may be that the superspreader events are largely prevented by the sort of lockdown measures that remain in place, says Javid — things like keeping bars, sporting events and churches closed.)
Sometimes, you wish people would just say what they mean rather than beating around the bush:
In his published comments earlier in the day, Popovich said of the president: “He’s not just divisive. He’s a destroyer. To be in his presence makes you die. He will eat you alive for his own purposes. I’m appalled that we have a leader who can’t say ‘black lives matter.’
“That’s why he hides in the White House basement. He is a coward. He creates a situation and runs away like a grade-schooler. Actually, I think it’s best to ignore him. There is nothing he can do to make this better because of who he is: a deranged idiot.”
Source: Washington Post
You go to the Whitehouse basement because the security team tasked with keeping you safe take you there. Trump derangement undermines the actual issues.
Nixon went and spoke to the protestors.
Honestly the number of commentators going misty eyed about the statesmen of the past the Kennedys and what they would have done, sob.....What a joke.
This kind of activity has happened under a number of presidents, at many times in post war American history.
I suspect the US economy's nosedive may be a big factor here, especially given black employment was at a record high before corona hit. Higher than under the Kennedys, Carter, Clinton or Obama, or any of the other saviours of the black person being cited by middle class white people right now.
These are factors you will not read about in the mainstream media, however.
Ah yes, the main stream media famously hiding basic economic data from the masses.
How would you say the self loathing of the British nationalists expresses itself?
Whenever we apportion blame to 'the other' for our perceived problems, we're practising self-loathing, because deep down we're protecting ourselves from the view that it is really all our fault because we're not good enough.
Would you say that there was an element of that in Brexit?
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
They are fantasy considerations.
It is your right to believe that is the case, and mine to believe otherwise. Is that the definition of a racist now - someone who believes something you don't?
It is arguably racist to hitch yourself to a movement which was avowedly anti-foreigner in a desire to see some fantasy benefits from leaving a club we decided to join and then decided to leave. This latter, of course, giving the obvious lie to any charge that we were not sovereign.
LOL. Ye stretch and twist so much as to render your words, and the term racist, meaningless. Just admit it, good people can disagree.
I will put you down as a high-falutin' Brexiter. One who bemoans daily that we couldn't lower VAT on home energy, and bewails the whole idea of Droite de Suite.
For many, many Brexiters, however, it was about foreigners. The main figurehead of your effort, Big Nige, illustrated this perfectly when he stood in front of his poster. All FAMs of dusky appearance. Not a Polish Plumber or Portugese nurse amongst them. That was racist.
Nigel was arguably the biggest influence of the whole leave campaign.
Absolutely true, not every Brexiter was a racist, but I would bet that every racist was a Brexiter.
Nige had nothing to do with any effort I supported. Nige is a racist bigot and I can't stand him.
Johnson was the main figurehead of Vote Leave and I like him.
Your choice was fool or knave and you chose fool. Fair enough.
But like it or not, Nige was a huge motivating influence which brought about Brexit and many racists fell in behind him. That was the group you associated yourself with.
As they say about watching trash TV, there is no button to press to show you're watching it ironically. You just show up in the viewing figures like everyone else and they then commission the second series.
What percentage of the UK do you consider to be racists voting or racist reasons? 80%? 60%? 52%?
I'm honestly not sure how America goes back to normal from here.
If there was someone other than president dickbag in charge there would be plenty of ways to get this settled but there just seems to be no way out other than letting the riots burn out over the next couple of weeks and hoping some other racist cop doesn't step up and gun down an innocent black person.
Can anyone imagine what America is going to look like after another 4 years of Trump?
This is the first time I think Trump is losing the election. Loads of moderate voters who don't agree with the riots do agree with the protests. They can see the murder of a tax payer by a racist copper is just wrong and by not recognising that the president is throwing their votes away.
He needs to find a way to address the protesters and their real issues. Engage with them and put forwards reforms and harsh sentencing for officers who kill unarmed suspects or who's actions result in the death of suspects who are already subdued. In this instance the officer just needed to cuff the suspect, book him and then he'd be out in a few hours. Ideally th police would have enough training not to even bother this person and there would be sanctions for police who do the above.
Sadly I believe it could still go either way. I am actually quite nervous about what Trump will actually do between now and November, particularly if he remains behind in the polls and has nothing to lose.
It’s perfectly possible Trump still wins.
How the Democrats campaign will be crucial to that, as he is a daemon created as a reaction to their own overreaction.
Nobody is to blame for Trump other than the moron himself. If Americans are stupid enough to re-elect him they deserve everything that's coming to them.
The problem is that "what's coming to them" varies depending upon who "them" is, not how they vote.
For many white racists who don't care about the deaths of blacks and yearn for the days of Jim Crow laws, stoking up racial tensions and seeing more black men murdered is something they can live with.
True, I was being slightly facetious. As a nation though they are not going to get much sympathy if they reelect him given what we have witnessed over the past 4 years.
I'm honestly not sure how America goes back to normal from here.
If there was someone other than president dickbag in charge there would be plenty of ways to get this settled but there just seems to be no way out other than letting the riots burn out over the next couple of weeks and hoping some other racist cop doesn't step up and gun down an innocent black person.
Can anyone imagine what America is going to look like after another 4 years of Trump?
This is the first time I think Trump is losing the election. Loads of moderate voters who don't agree with the riots do agree with the protests. They can see the murder of a tax payer by a racist copper is just wrong and by not recognising that the president is throwing their votes away.
He needs to find a way to address the protesters and their real issues. Engage with them and put forwards reforms and harsh sentencing for officers who kill unarmed suspects or who's actions result in the death of suspects who are already subdued. In this instance the officer just needed to cuff the suspect, book him and then he'd be out in a few hours. Ideally th police would have enough training not to even bother this person and there would be sanctions for police who do the above.
Sadly I believe it could still go either way. I am actually quite nervous about what Trump will actually do between now and November, particularly if he remains behind in the polls and has nothing to lose.
It’s perfectly possible Trump still wins.
How the Democrats campaign will be crucial to that, as he is a daemon created as a reaction to their own overreaction.
Nobody is to blame for Trump other Trump. If Americans are stupid enough to re-elect him they deserve everything that's coming to them.
I've been to New York loads on business in the last ten years and its just New York. I went twice a year under Obama, and then under Trump. Very little difference.
Maybe a bit busier, noisier and more affluent under Trump. But essentially the same.
People's hatred of Trump clouds their judgement I think. The constitution, the courts, the judiciary and Congress constrain the president. As they are meant to.
all this talk about dictatorship is the most outrageous rubbish going. It really is the stuff of thirteen year olds. Grow up.
Who was talking about dictatorship? I certainly wasn't.
My judgement of Trump is not clouded by hatred for him it is a perfectly clear judgement based on everything he has done and said over the last 4 years. He's a moron and he proves that point on an almost daily basis. Please, go ahead and support him by all means
I neither support nor hate Donald Trump, my point is simply that he's far more like every other president out there than most think.
He's methods are very unorthodox, true, but if you look in real terms at laws passed and decisions made, its pretty much par for the course.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
They are fantasy considerations.
It is your right to believe that is the case, and mine to believe otherwise. Is that the definition of a racist now - someone who believes something you don't?
It is arguably racist to hitch yourself to a movement which was avowedly anti-foreigner in a desire to see some fantasy benefits from leaving a club we decided to join and then decided to leave. This latter, of course, giving the obvious lie to any charge that we were not sovereign.
So any organisation that wishes to become omnipotent, simply has to align itself with the value of being 'non racist'. Then it can never be opposed without those who oppose it being automatically racist, and therefore wrong type of person. And if someone wishes to be a right thinking person, they must always support it.
Indeed, this logic leads to enabling the most vile in our society to be omnipotent. In order to get society to do their bidding, they simply have to support the things they don't want to happen. Motherhood is bad as soon as Trump supports it.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Oh I see, its because of the Nazis and the Communists that the Europeans don't get it? They're all living in a fantasy world of enslavement to the EU and eventually the UK will lead them all to freedom again, like a WW2 redux?
You forgot the fascists. Spain was a fascist dictatorship until 1975. I have no idea if we are going to 'lead them to freedom' - I admit that many Brexit-supporters do want the EU to fail and break up, but I am not one of them. I hope for continental Europe to be as stable and prosperous as it can possibly be, apart from anything else, as a market for British goods and services.
If there is going to be an EU for the forseeable future then the UK must have a relationship with it.
Until recently that relationship has been deep and influential. The UK is moving to one which is between non-existent and shallow and utterly peripheral. What is better for British business in its largest single market: UK which can influence EU policy to its advantage or one where the UK is a rule taker?
Because remember the path the UK is treading now - WTO terms and no access to the Single Market, actually requires a structural shift in who the UK exports too and who it imports from. Is that better for British business? To rely on trade blocs it has no influence over and adjudicated by a comppletely un-democratic body the WTO?
There is no isolationist approach that the UK will be able to navigate it will have to pick a bloc, either one it is close to and can influence or one it is distant from and cannot. Either way the UK ends this journey as a rule taker which in my view makes it less free.
The best relationship is one in which the UK can make its own rules and UK exporters can observe EU rules and make products that meet their rules and then export those products to them. As countries across the entire globe successfully do.
There is no requirement to "pick a bloc" nor to take rules. Exporters can produce goods that meet other nations rules without them being domestic rules. GB rules can be different domestically while producers manufacture EU products for export.
In the middle of a trade war between at least 2 of the world's 3 large trading blocks I'm not sure picking a side is unavoidable.
Switzerland managed it for centuries.
In the middle of a trade war between blocs being outside of them might be the best place to be.
Is Switzerland the model for "Global Britain"? No straw-men here you bought it up first
IndyRef2 is going to be fun if media starts actually fact-checking the BritNat guff.
It would be nice to think we could have an actual debate between those Scots with an understandable wish to be independent and those Scots who wish to be in the Union; and that the rest of the U.K. would stay out of it.
But while the decision is only between those two groups (and those who dont care) the rest of the UK is a legitimately interested party, affected by the outcome, with many for and many against, and how the rest of the UK might react to plans of an indy Scotland or plans for a continuing Union might be of some relevance to those actually making the decision in Scotland, particularly those on the fence.
I don't think it can be as simple as non Scots staying out of it. Which is not to say that the wishes of Scots should not predominate.
I think our only contribution should be to be clear on what we would do/not do in response. But the basic line should be that we’d do what we could to make it as painless and easy as possible. Of course if the Scots really wanted independence I think the quickest way is to support a vote on it in ONLY the rest of the U.K....
One of the complications is that whether you're consisted a Scot for the purpose of the referendum is a matter of timing.
Perhaps you've recently moved away for a job - no longer able to vote in the referendum and vice versa. There are so many people who wouldn't be able to vote, but would be directly affected by the outcome, that it makes the case for Britain remaining one country.
Absolute and utter bollox of the highest order. If the majority in Scotland want it then under any rule of law ( dictatorship maybe excluded) then they are entitled to vote , become independent etc. Just because some English want to retain us as a colony it does not make the case for Britain to stay as a union, Britain is not ONE country. How fe***ng dumb can people on here be.
You are not a colony you dipshit. Scotland has been massively overrepresented in both the modern British state and the British Empire. Scotland is just as much part of Britain as England is. Your colony crap is just chippy nonsense and definitely is "absolute and utter bollox of the highest order". You clearly do not know the history of the country that you claim your own. Typical Little Scotlander, so like your nationalistic small minded Little Englander cousins.
Indeed, if Scotland was truly a colony we would have done what Madrid has done, banned any indyref in 2014 and also scrapped Holyrood and imposed direct rule from Westminster and not even allowed Scottish MPs in the Commons
You are forgetting - taking control of Police Scotland, arresting officers for obeying orders from Holyrood. And arresting most of the SNP leadership and putting them in prison on treason charges.
That is exactly what the Spanish government did to Catalan nationalist leaders yes and what Beijing is starting to do to Hong Kong pro independence leaders with its new anti separatism law
I hope you are not claiming we should regard Spain and China as positive examples to follow.
If we wanted to make Scotland a colony that is what we would do, we are not so Scotland is not a colony.
Scots voted to stay in the UK freely and fairly in 2014
You spout the most idiotic nonsense on Scotland
For goodness sake show some respect or go and join Trump in the US
You do realise the Tory manifesto on which the 2019 general election was won ruled out indyref2 for a generation?
You voted for that as much as I did
That is not the point, the point is your lack of respect towards the Scots shows an intolerance that is just crass
And Indy 2 will happen this parliament if the SNP win Holyrood 21.
And I do not expect them to win Independence especially since covid 19
First, no indyref2 will not happen this parliament regardless of what happens next year, the Tories won on a manifesto commitment to no indyref2.
Second, if we go to WTO terms Brexit there is clearly a chance Scots vote for independence so any vote must wait until after the next general election and it is settled whether we are still on WTO terms Brexit with Boris or back in the single market with Starmer
You cannot get beyond spouting the same repetitive rubbish post after post
For someone who spends their spare time getting overwhelmed with excitement over replays of previous general elections, and comment on here as moments happen as if in real time, I would suggest you need to get out more
And 7 days is a week in politics.
Mind you when Indy 2 happens towards the end of next year you will reverse ferret like mad
I doubt Indy 2 will happen next year.
My guess if there will be an Indy 2 then it will be 2022.
If the SNP win a clear mandate to hold Indy 2 then there will need to be time to negotiate the parameters of it, then time for the debate etc to be held. 2022 is far enough after the Holyrood elections for it to happen, far enough after Brexit transition ends for Scots to make an educated choice, far enough after COVID to not risk a new spike, and early enough before the next UK General Election for it to not interfere.
Scottish Gov’t can decide parameters and procedures as they see fit under the Referendums (Scotland) Act 2020, given Royal Assent on 29 Jan 2020.
And Westminster can overrule them. That act was just posturing when it comes to constitutional matters.
I’m off for some exercise. Later.
No, that would be a matter for the courts to decide, not Westminster.
Coronavirus infections in hospitals and care homes are spilling into the community and sustaining the outbreak to the point that cases will remain steady until September, a leading scientist has warned.
----
Under further questioning about the outbreak, Ferguson described how scientists realised in early March that the UK had been much more heavily infected than anticipated, and that this was one of the reasons the country now has if not the largest, then one of the largest, epidemics in Europe.
Can we not just bung every care home worker in the land 5 grand tax free to live on site for the next 2 months, would get the "R" down massively and pay for itself I think.
As I said a couple of weeks ago, Coronavirus should be separated, in the NHS, and in care, from the mainstream health service. Own hospitals (if possible) certainly own wings if not. Own recuperation homes. I agree with your point about staff living in too if that is possible.
The benefits would be: -Equipment, environment, and care could be tailored specifically to cv-19 treatement -No cross-infection of other patients -Less staff sickness as staffed by immune staff, or staff taking regular cv tests -Best practise in cv-19 treatment protocols more easily shared, mortality rates decrease, shorter time between diagnosis and cure -NHS can get back to work
Drawbacks: -Costs a bit more. Drop in the ocean with everything else that's happening.
It would also have the political benefit of getting the Government back on track and taking positive action.
This is the plan - hospitals to be divided into a Covid and non-Covid facility.
Much money about to be spent in a mad rush doing it.
Good.
I hope a lot of hospitals get re-opened. There is a (relatively) recently shut nursing home, and a recently shut small hospital in my parents town. Good candidates.
I'm honestly not sure how America goes back to normal from here.
If there was someone other than president dickbag in charge there would be plenty of ways to get this settled but there just seems to be no way out other than letting the riots burn out over the next couple of weeks and hoping some other racist cop doesn't step up and gun down an innocent black person.
Can anyone imagine what America is going to look like after another 4 years of Trump?
This is the first time I think Trump is losing the election. Loads of moderate voters who don't agree with the riots do agree with the protests. They can see the murder of a tax payer by a racist copper is just wrong and by not recognising that the president is throwing their votes away.
He needs to find a way to address the protesters and their real issues. Engage with them and put forwards reforms and harsh sentencing for officers who kill unarmed suspects or who's actions result in the death of suspects who are already subdued. In this instance the officer just needed to cuff the suspect, book him and then he'd be out in a few hours. Ideally th police would have enough training not to even bother this person and there would be sanctions for police who do the above.
Sadly I believe it could still go either way. I am actually quite nervous about what Trump will actually do between now and November, particularly if he remains behind in the polls and has nothing to lose.
It’s perfectly possible Trump still wins.
How the Democrats campaign will be crucial to that, as he is a daemon created as a reaction to their own overreaction.
Nobody is to blame for Trump other Trump. If Americans are stupid enough to re-elect him they deserve everything that's coming to them.
I've been to New York loads on business in the last ten years and its just New York. I went twice a year under Obama, and then under Trump. Very little difference.
Maybe a bit busier, noisier and more affluent under Trump. But essentially the same.
People's hatred of Trump clouds their judgement I think. The constitution, the courts, the judiciary and Congress constrain the president. As they are meant to.
all this talk about dictatorship is the most outrageous rubbish going. It really is the stuff of thirteen year olds. Grow up.
Who was talking about dictatorship? I certainly wasn't.
My judgement of Trump is not clouded by hatred for him it is a perfectly clear judgement based on everything he has done and said over the last 4 years. He's a moron and he proves that point on an almost daily basis. Please, go ahead and support him by all means
I neither support nor hate Donald Trump, my point is simply that he's far more like every other president out there than most think.
He's methods are very unorthodox, true, but if you look in real terms at laws passed and decisions made, its pretty much par for the course.
I do hate Donald Trump and the only historical President I would compare him to is Andrew Jackson - but without the big block of cheese.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Oh I see, its because of the Nazis and the Communists that the Europeans don't get it? They're all living in a fantasy world of enslavement to the EU and eventually the UK will lead them all to freedom again, like a WW2 redux?
You forgot the fascists. Spain was a fascist dictatorship until 1975. I have no idea if we are going to 'lead them to freedom' - I admit that many Brexit-supporters do want the EU to fail and break up, but I am not one of them. I hope for continental Europe to be as stable and prosperous as it can possibly be, apart from anything else, as a market for British goods and services.
If there is going to be an EU for the forseeable future then the UK must have a relationship with it.
Until recently that relationship has been deep and influential. The UK is moving to one which is between non-existent and shallow and utterly peripheral. What is better for British business in its largest single market: UK which can influence EU policy to its advantage or one where the UK is a rule taker?
Because remember the path the UK is treading now - WTO terms and no access to the Single Market, actually requires a structural shift in who the UK exports too and who it imports from. Is that better for British business? To rely on trade blocs it has no influence over and adjudicated by a comppletely un-democratic body the WTO?
There is no isolationist approach that the UK will be able to navigate it will have to pick a bloc, either one it is close to and can influence or one it is distant from and cannot. Either way the UK ends this journey as a rule taker which in my view makes it less free.
The best relationship is one in which the UK can make its own rules and UK exporters can observe EU rules and make products that meet their rules and then export those products to them. As countries across the entire globe successfully do.
There is no requirement to "pick a bloc" nor to take rules. Exporters can produce goods that meet other nations rules without them being domestic rules. GB rules can be different domestically while producers manufacture EU products for export.
In the middle of a trade war between at least 2 of the world's 3 large trading blocks I'm not sure picking a side is unavoidable.
Switzerland managed it for centuries.
In the middle of a trade war between blocs being outside of them might be the best place to be.
Is Switzerland the model for "Global Britain"? No straw-men here you bought it up first
Its a model, sure, why not?
No nation is a perfect analogy as almost every nation is unique and exceptional to one extent or another.
As I said earlier my preferred nation to compare us with is Canada, but I've also in the past used Japan, Australia and Switzerland.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Oh I see, its because of the Nazis and the Communists that the Europeans don't get it? They're all living in a fantasy world of enslavement to the EU and eventually the UK will lead them all to freedom again, like a WW2 redux?
You forgot the fascists. Spain was a fascist dictatorship until 1975. I have no idea if we are going to 'lead them to freedom' - I admit that many Brexit-supporters do want the EU to fail and break up, but I am not one of them. I hope for continental Europe to be as stable and prosperous as it can possibly be, apart from anything else, as a market for British goods and services.
If there is going to be an EU for the forseeable future then the UK must have a relationship with it.
Until recently that relationship has been deep and influential. The UK is moving to one which is between non-existent and shallow and utterly peripheral. What is better for British business in its largest single market: UK which can influence EU policy to its advantage or one where the UK is a rule taker?
Because remember the path the UK is treading now - WTO terms and no access to the Single Market, actually requires a structural shift in who the UK exports too and who it imports from. Is that better for British business? To rely on trade blocs it has no influence over and adjudicated by a comppletely un-democratic body the WTO?
There is no isolationist approach that the UK will be able to navigate it will have to pick a bloc, either one it is close to and can influence or one it is distant from and cannot. Either way the UK ends this journey as a rule taker which in my view makes it less free.
The best relationship is one in which the UK can make its own rules and UK exporters can observe EU rules and make products that meet their rules and then export those products to them. As countries across the entire globe successfully do.
There is no requirement to "pick a bloc" nor to take rules. Exporters can produce goods that meet other nations rules without them being domestic rules. GB rules can be different domestically while producers manufacture EU products for export.
In the middle of a trade war between at least 2 of the world's 3 large trading blocks I'm not sure picking a side is unavoidable.
Switzerland managed it for centuries.
In the middle of a trade war between blocs being outside of them might be the best place to be.
Is Switzerland the model for "Global Britain"? No straw-men here you bought it up first
Is the Swiss model scalable though? It works because every crook on the planet stores their ill gotten gains there. It's in everyone's interest to not rock the boat there. But does that work for the fifth largest economy?
I'm honestly not sure how America goes back to normal from here.
If there was someone other than president dickbag in charge there would be plenty of ways to get this settled but there just seems to be no way out other than letting the riots burn out over the next couple of weeks and hoping some other racist cop doesn't step up and gun down an innocent black person.
Can anyone imagine what America is going to look like after another 4 years of Trump?
This is the first time I think Trump is losing the election. Loads of moderate voters who don't agree with the riots do agree with the protests. They can see the murder of a tax payer by a racist copper is just wrong and by not recognising that the president is throwing their votes away.
He needs to find a way to address the protesters and their real issues. Engage with them and put forwards reforms and harsh sentencing for officers who kill unarmed suspects or who's actions result in the death of suspects who are already subdued. In this instance the officer just needed to cuff the suspect, book him and then he'd be out in a few hours. Ideally th police would have enough training not to even bother this person and there would be sanctions for police who do the above.
Sadly I believe it could still go either way. I am actually quite nervous about what Trump will actually do between now and November, particularly if he remains behind in the polls and has nothing to lose.
It’s perfectly possible Trump still wins.
How the Democrats campaign will be crucial to that, as he is a daemon created as a reaction to their own overreaction.
Nobody is to blame for Trump other Trump. If Americans are stupid enough to re-elect him they deserve everything that's coming to them.
I've been to New York loads on business in the last ten years and its just New York. I went twice a year under Obama, and then under Trump. Very little difference.
Maybe a bit busier, noisier and more affluent under Trump. But essentially the same.
People's hatred of Trump clouds their judgement I think. The constitution, the courts, the judiciary and Congress constrain the president. As they are meant to.
all this talk about dictatorship is the most outrageous rubbish going. It really is the stuff of thirteen year olds. Grow up.
Who was talking about dictatorship? I certainly wasn't.
My judgement of Trump is not clouded by hatred for him it is a perfectly clear judgement based on everything he has done and said over the last 4 years. He's a moron and he proves that point on an almost daily basis. Please, go ahead and support him by all means
I neither support nor hate Donald Trump, my point is simply that he's far more like every other president out there than most think.
He's methods are very unorthodox, true, but if you look in real terms at laws passed and decisions made, its pretty much par for the course.
No he really isn't. He's totally demeaned the office of the President.
Sometimes, you wish people would just say what they mean rather than beating around the bush:
In his published comments earlier in the day, Popovich said of the president: “He’s not just divisive. He’s a destroyer. To be in his presence makes you die. He will eat you alive for his own purposes. I’m appalled that we have a leader who can’t say ‘black lives matter.’
“That’s why he hides in the White House basement. He is a coward. He creates a situation and runs away like a grade-schooler. Actually, I think it’s best to ignore him. There is nothing he can do to make this better because of who he is: a deranged idiot.”
Source: Washington Post
You go to the Whitehouse basement because the security team tasked with keeping you safe take you there. Trump derangement undermines the actual issues.
Nixon went and spoke to the protestors.
Honestly the number of commentators going misty eyed about the statesmen of the past the Kennedys and what they would have done, sob.....What a joke.
This kind of activity has happened under a number of presidents, at many times in post war American history.
I suspect the US economy's nosedive may be a big factor here, especially given black employment was at a record high before corona hit. Higher than under the Kennedys, Carter, Clinton or Obama, or any of the other saviours of the black person being cited by middle class white people right now.
These are factors you will not read about in the mainstream media, however.
Ah yes, the main stream media famously hiding basic economic data from the masses.
To be fair, the chances of the media understanding the basic economic data well enough to publish it it pretty low. That’s why I can’t believe they would be hiding it, or at least not deliberatly.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Oh I see, its because of the Nazis and the Communists that the Europeans don't get it? They're all living in a fantasy world of enslavement to the EU and eventually the UK will lead them all to freedom again, like a WW2 redux?
You forgot the fascists. Spain was a fascist dictatorship until 1975. I have no idea if we are going to 'lead them to freedom' - I admit that many Brexit-supporters do want the EU to fail and break up, but I am not one of them. I hope for continental Europe to be as stable and prosperous as it can possibly be, apart from anything else, as a market for British goods and services.
If there is going to be an EU for the forseeable future then the UK must have a relationship with it.
Until recently that relationship has been deep and influential. The UK is moving to one which is between non-existent and shallow and utterly peripheral. What is better for British business in its largest single market: UK which can influence EU policy to its advantage or one where the UK is a rule taker?
Because remember the path the UK is treading now - WTO terms and no access to the Single Market, actually requires a structural shift in who the UK exports too and who it imports from. Is that better for British business? To rely on trade blocs it has no influence over and adjudicated by a comppletely un-democratic body the WTO?
There is no isolationist approach that the UK will be able to navigate it will have to pick a bloc, either one it is close to and can influence or one it is distant from and cannot. Either way the UK ends this journey as a rule taker which in my view makes it less free.
The best relationship is one in which the UK can make its own rules and UK exporters can observe EU rules and make products that meet their rules and then export those products to them. As countries across the entire globe successfully do.
There is no requirement to "pick a bloc" nor to take rules. Exporters can produce goods that meet other nations rules without them being domestic rules. GB rules can be different domestically while producers manufacture EU products for export.
In the middle of a trade war between at least 2 of the world's 3 large trading blocks I'm not sure picking a side is unavoidable.
Switzerland managed it for centuries.
In the middle of a trade war between blocs being outside of them might be the best place to be.
Is Switzerland the model for "Global Britain"? No straw-men here you bought it up first
Is the Swiss model scalable though? It works because every crook on the planet stores their ill gotten gains there. It's in everyone's interest to not rock the boat there. But does that work for the fifth largest economy?
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
They are fantasy considerations.
It is your right to believe that is the case, and mine to believe otherwise. Is that the definition of a racist now - someone who believes something you don't?
It is arguably racist to hitch yourself to a movement which was avowedly anti-foreigner in a desire to see some fantasy benefits from leaving a club we decided to join and then decided to leave. This latter, of course, giving the obvious lie to any charge that we were not sovereign.
LOL. Ye stretch and twist so much as to render your words, and the term racist, meaningless. Just admit it, good people can disagree.
I will put you down as a high-falutin' Brexiter. One who bemoans daily that we couldn't lower VAT on home energy, and bewails the whole idea of Droite de Suite.
For many, many Brexiters, however, it was about foreigners. The main figurehead of your effort, Big Nige, illustrated this perfectly when he stood in front of his poster. All FAMs of dusky appearance. Not a Polish Plumber or Portugese nurse amongst them. That was racist.
Nigel was arguably the biggest influence of the whole leave campaign.
Absolutely true, not every Brexiter was a racist, but I would bet that every racist was a Brexiter.
Nige had nothing to do with any effort I supported. Nige is a racist bigot and I can't stand him.
Johnson was the main figurehead of Vote Leave and I like him.
Your choice was fool or knave and you chose fool. Fair enough.
But like it or not, Nige was a huge motivating influence which brought about Brexit and many racists fell in behind him. That was the group you associated yourself with.
As they say about watching trash TV, there is no button to press to show you're watching it ironically. You just show up in the viewing figures like everyone else and they then commission the second series.
What percentage of the UK do you consider to be racists voting or racist reasons? 80%? 60%? 52%?
I'd say maybe 4-5%.
As we agreed last time the central premise of Brexit was, when all was said and done, reducing the number of foreigners coming here.
Oh but we needed to reclaim sovereignty and we didn't like unelected officials ruling over us. But again, we have demonstrated that the UK (to quote David Davis) was always sovereign and what better way to prove that we could leave at any time than to leave at any time. Which we did. Had we not been sovereign surely we wouldn't have been able to do so. Did you want 100% sovereignty? Then that's no trade deals for you. For sure it is a position but I can't believe you, as an economist, think it a sensible one. Every trading relationship involves compromise on "sovereignty".
So that leaves what? The foreigners. It is the nasty little not so secret that, rightly, Brexiters are embarrassed about and hence give two barrels to anyone that points out this simple, transparently obvious truth.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
They are fantasy considerations.
It is your right to believe that is the case, and mine to believe otherwise. Is that the definition of a racist now - someone who believes something you don't?
It is arguably racist to hitch yourself to a movement which was avowedly anti-foreigner in a desire to see some fantasy benefits from leaving a club we decided to join and then decided to leave. This latter, of course, giving the obvious lie to any charge that we were not sovereign.
LOL. Ye stretch and twist so much as to render your words, and the term racist, meaningless. Just admit it, good people can disagree.
I will put you down as a high-falutin' Brexiter. One who bemoans daily that we couldn't lower VAT on home energy, and bewails the whole idea of Droite de Suite.
For many, many Brexiters, however, it was about foreigners. The main figurehead of your effort, Big Nige, illustrated this perfectly when he stood in front of his poster. All FAMs of dusky appearance. Not a Polish Plumber or Portugese nurse amongst them. That was racist.
Nigel was arguably the biggest influence of the whole leave campaign.
Absolutely true, not every Brexiter was a racist, but I would bet that every racist was a Brexiter.
Nige had nothing to do with any effort I supported. Nige is a racist bigot and I can't stand him.
Johnson was the main figurehead of Vote Leave and I like him.
The point surely is that it doesn't matter who the figurehead is? The figurehead for Brexit could have been a naked Alex Salmond; it still wouldn't have made me think twice about voting for something that I had decided was the right thing to do. You look at the facts, and you decide the best course of action. Everything else is just silly window-dressing.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
They are fantasy considerations.
It is your right to believe that is the case, and mine to believe otherwise. Is that the definition of a racist now - someone who believes something you don't?
It is arguably racist to hitch yourself to a movement which was avowedly anti-foreigner in a desire to see some fantasy benefits from leaving a club we decided to join and then decided to leave. This latter, of course, giving the obvious lie to any charge that we were not sovereign.
So any organisation that wishes to become omnipotent, simply has to align itself with the value of being 'non racist'. Then it can never be opposed without those who oppose it being automatically racist, and therefore wrong type of person. And if someone wishes to be a right thinking person, they must always support it.
Indeed, this logic leads to enabling the most vile in our society to be omnipotent. In order to get society to do their bidding, they simply have to support the things they don't want to happen. Motherhood is bad as soon as Trump supports it.
It's the stuff of intellectual giants.
As I said, the central premise of Brexit was about foreigners. You are making a false equivalence. If I wanted to make shopping at Tescos illegal and positioned myself as a non-racist party agitating for that it would make no sense.
It's very different when the central plank of your argument revolves around foreigners and your desire to have fewer of them around.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
They are fantasy considerations.
It is your right to believe that is the case, and mine to believe otherwise. Is that the definition of a racist now - someone who believes something you don't?
It is arguably racist to hitch yourself to a movement which was avowedly anti-foreigner in a desire to see some fantasy benefits from leaving a club we decided to join and then decided to leave. This latter, of course, giving the obvious lie to any charge that we were not sovereign.
LOL. Ye stretch and twist so much as to render your words, and the term racist, meaningless. Just admit it, good people can disagree.
I will put you down as a high-falutin' Brexiter. One who bemoans daily that we couldn't lower VAT on home energy, and bewails the whole idea of Droite de Suite.
For many, many Brexiters, however, it was about foreigners. The main figurehead of your effort, Big Nige, illustrated this perfectly when he stood in front of his poster. All FAMs of dusky appearance. Not a Polish Plumber or Portugese nurse amongst them. That was racist.
Nigel was arguably the biggest influence of the whole leave campaign.
Absolutely true, not every Brexiter was a racist, but I would bet that every racist was a Brexiter.
Nige had nothing to do with any effort I supported. Nige is a racist bigot and I can't stand him.
Johnson was the main figurehead of Vote Leave and I like him.
The point surely is that it doesn't matter who the figurehead is? The figurehead for Brexit could have been a naked Alex Salmond; it still wouldn't have made me think twice about voting for something that I had decided was the right thing to do. You look at the facts, and you decide the best course of action. Everything else is just silly window-dressing.
Who can forget the night George Galloway lost the referendum for Leave?
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
They are fantasy considerations.
It is your right to believe that is the case, and mine to believe otherwise. Is that the definition of a racist now - someone who believes something you don't?
It is arguably racist to hitch yourself to a movement which was avowedly anti-foreigner in a desire to see some fantasy benefits from leaving a club we decided to join and then decided to leave. This latter, of course, giving the obvious lie to any charge that we were not sovereign.
So any organisation that wishes to become omnipotent, simply has to align itself with the value of being 'non racist'. Then it can never be opposed without those who oppose it being automatically racist, and therefore wrong type of person. And if someone wishes to be a right thinking person, they must always support it.
Indeed, this logic leads to enabling the most vile in our society to be omnipotent. In order to get society to do their bidding, they simply have to support the things they don't want to happen. Motherhood is bad as soon as Trump supports it.
It's the stuff of intellectual giants.
It leads to stuff like the ANC being in power forever. Leave voters were essentially like the populace of South Africa deciding to turn around vote for the white guys (though I do believe they are lead by a black guy now). Beyond the pale.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
They are fantasy considerations.
It is your right to believe that is the case, and mine to believe otherwise. Is that the definition of a racist now - someone who believes something you don't?
It is arguably racist to hitch yourself to a movement which was avowedly anti-foreigner in a desire to see some fantasy benefits from leaving a club we decided to join and then decided to leave. This latter, of course, giving the obvious lie to any charge that we were not sovereign.
LOL. Ye stretch and twist so much as to render your words, and the term racist, meaningless. Just admit it, good people can disagree.
I will put you down as a high-falutin' Brexiter. One who bemoans daily that we couldn't lower VAT on home energy, and bewails the whole idea of Droite de Suite.
For many, many Brexiters, however, it was about foreigners. The main figurehead of your effort, Big Nige, illustrated this perfectly when he stood in front of his poster. All FAMs of dusky appearance. Not a Polish Plumber or Portugese nurse amongst them. That was racist.
Nigel was arguably the biggest influence of the whole leave campaign.
Absolutely true, not every Brexiter was a racist, but I would bet that every racist was a Brexiter.
Nige had nothing to do with any effort I supported. Nige is a racist bigot and I can't stand him.
Johnson was the main figurehead of Vote Leave and I like him.
The point surely is that it doesn't matter who the figurehead is? The figurehead for Brexit could have been a naked Alex Salmond; it still wouldn't have made me think twice about voting for something that I had decided was the right thing to do. You look at the facts, and you decide the best course of action. Everything else is just silly window-dressing.
It's an interesting view. Shall we go Godwin at this point?
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
They are fantasy considerations.
It is your right to believe that is the case, and mine to believe otherwise. Is that the definition of a racist now - someone who believes something you don't?
It is arguably racist to hitch yourself to a movement which was avowedly anti-foreigner in a desire to see some fantasy benefits from leaving a club we decided to join and then decided to leave. This latter, of course, giving the obvious lie to any charge that we were not sovereign.
LOL. Ye stretch and twist so much as to render your words, and the term racist, meaningless. Just admit it, good people can disagree.
I will put you down as a high-falutin' Brexiter. One who bemoans daily that we couldn't lower VAT on home energy, and bewails the whole idea of Droite de Suite.
For many, many Brexiters, however, it was about foreigners. The main figurehead of your effort, Big Nige, illustrated this perfectly when he stood in front of his poster. All FAMs of dusky appearance. Not a Polish Plumber or Portugese nurse amongst them. That was racist.
Nigel was arguably the biggest influence of the whole leave campaign.
Absolutely true, not every Brexiter was a racist, but I would bet that every racist was a Brexiter.
Nige had nothing to do with any effort I supported. Nige is a racist bigot and I can't stand him.
Johnson was the main figurehead of Vote Leave and I like him.
Your choice was fool or knave and you chose fool. Fair enough.
But like it or not, Nige was a huge motivating influence which brought about Brexit and many racists fell in behind him. That was the group you associated yourself with.
As they say about watching trash TV, there is no button to press to show you're watching it ironically. You just show up in the viewing figures like everyone else and they then commission the second series.
What percentage of the UK do you consider to be racists voting or racist reasons? 80%? 60%? 52%?
I'd say maybe 4-5%.
As we agreed last time the central premise of Brexit was, when all was said and done, reducing the number of foreigners coming here.
Oh but we needed to reclaim sovereignty and we didn't like unelected officials ruling over us. But again, we have demonstrated that the UK (to quote David Davis) was always sovereign and what better way to prove that we could leave at any time was to leave at any time. Which we did. Had we not been sovereign surely we wouldn't have been able to do so. Did you want 100% sovereignty? Then that's no trade deals for you. For sure it is a position but I can't believe you, as an economist, think it a sensible one. Every trading relationship involves compromise on "sovereignty".
So that leaves what? The foreigners. It is the nasty little not so secret that, rightly, Brexiters are embarrassed about and hence give two barrels to anyone that points out this simple, transparently obvious truth.
The referendum was held under David Cameron's government. Reducing migration was David Cameron's government stated policy. Such a stated policy that Cameron had attached numbers to it, something the Leave campaign hadn't.
So that many of those who voted for Leave wanted to reduce migration is neither here nor there, it was already government policy. Was everyone who voted for David Cameron's government in 2010 and 2015 racist in your eyes?
I want to exercise sovereignty not just notionally hold it. Holding sovereignty notionally but not being able to exercise it unless you leave is like telling someone in a controlling marriage who doesn't get to decide how they can live their lives that they were "always" able to leave their partner, so they were always had control, so they don't need to leave their partner. That's circular logic and it fails.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
They are fantasy considerations.
It is your right to believe that is the case, and mine to believe otherwise. Is that the definition of a racist now - someone who believes something you don't?
It is arguably racist to hitch yourself to a movement which was avowedly anti-foreigner in a desire to see some fantasy benefits from leaving a club we decided to join and then decided to leave. This latter, of course, giving the obvious lie to any charge that we were not sovereign.
Sounds like you are reaching a bit there.
We've been round these houses. It all gets a bit boring stating the bleedin' obvious in a new and fresh way sometimes.
It does.
Your "trash TV second series" was a moderately decent effort though.
I'm honestly not sure how America goes back to normal from here.
If there was someone other than president dickbag in charge there would be plenty of ways to get this settled but there just seems to be no way out other than letting the riots burn out over the next couple of weeks and hoping some other racist cop doesn't step up and gun down an innocent black person.
Can anyone imagine what America is going to look like after another 4 years of Trump?
This is the first time I think Trump is losing the election. Loads of moderate voters who don't agree with the riots do agree with the protests. They can see the murder of a tax payer by a racist copper is just wrong and by not recognising that the president is throwing their votes away.
He needs to find a way to address the protesters and their real issues. Engage with them and put forwards reforms and harsh sentencing for officers who kill unarmed suspects or who's actions result in the death of suspects who are already subdued. In this instance the officer just needed to cuff the suspect, book him and then he'd be out in a few hours. Ideally th police would have enough training not to even bother this person and there would be sanctions for police who do the above.
Sadly I believe it could still go either way. I am actually quite nervous about what Trump will actually do between now and November, particularly if he remains behind in the polls and has nothing to lose.
It’s perfectly possible Trump still wins.
How the Democrats campaign will be crucial to that, as he is a daemon created as a reaction to their own overreaction.
Nobody is to blame for Trump other Trump. If Americans are stupid enough to re-elect him they deserve everything that's coming to them.
I've been to New York loads on business in the last ten years and its just New York. I went twice a year under Obama, and then under Trump. Very little difference.
Maybe a bit busier, noisier and more affluent under Trump. But essentially the same.
People's hatred of Trump clouds their judgement I think. The constitution, the courts, the judiciary and Congress constrain the president. As they are meant to.
all this talk about dictatorship is the most outrageous rubbish going. It really is the stuff of thirteen year olds. Grow up.
Who was talking about dictatorship? I certainly wasn't.
My judgement of Trump is not clouded by hatred for him it is a perfectly clear judgement based on everything he has done and said over the last 4 years. He's a moron and he proves that point on an almost daily basis. Please, go ahead and support him by all means
I neither support nor hate Donald Trump, my point is simply that he's far more like every other president out there than most think.
He's methods are very unorthodox, true, but if you look in real terms at laws passed and decisions made, its pretty much par for the course.
No he really isn't. He's totally demeaned the office of the President.
Did he invade Iraq? attempt regime change in Cuba? Iran contra? Vietnam?
Blimey if he'd done any of that you'd run out of nappies.
I'm honestly not sure how America goes back to normal from here.
If there was someone other than president dickbag in charge there would be plenty of ways to get this settled but there just seems to be no way out other than letting the riots burn out over the next couple of weeks and hoping some other racist cop doesn't step up and gun down an innocent black person.
Can anyone imagine what America is going to look like after another 4 years of Trump?
This is the first time I think Trump is losing the election. Loads of moderate voters who don't agree with the riots do agree with the protests. They can see the murder of a tax payer by a racist copper is just wrong and by not recognising that the president is throwing their votes away.
He needs to find a way to address the protesters and their real issues. Engage with them and put forwards reforms and harsh sentencing for officers who kill unarmed suspects or who's actions result in the death of suspects who are already subdued. In this instance the officer just needed to cuff the suspect, book him and then he'd be out in a few hours. Ideally th police would have enough training not to even bother this person and there would be sanctions for police who do the above.
Sadly I believe it could still go either way. I am actually quite nervous about what Trump will actually do between now and November, particularly if he remains behind in the polls and has nothing to lose.
It’s perfectly possible Trump still wins.
How the Democrats campaign will be crucial to that, as he is a daemon created as a reaction to their own overreaction.
Nobody is to blame for Trump other Trump. If Americans are stupid enough to re-elect him they deserve everything that's coming to them.
I've been to New York loads on business in the last ten years and its just New York. I went twice a year under Obama, and then under Trump. Very little difference.
Maybe a bit busier, noisier and more affluent under Trump. But essentially the same.
People's hatred of Trump clouds their judgement I think. The constitution, the courts, the judiciary and Congress constrain the president. As they are meant to.
all this talk about dictatorship is the most outrageous rubbish going. It really is the stuff of thirteen year olds. Grow up.
Who was talking about dictatorship? I certainly wasn't.
My judgement of Trump is not clouded by hatred for him it is a perfectly clear judgement based on everything he has done and said over the last 4 years. He's a moron and he proves that point on an almost daily basis. Please, go ahead and support him by all means
I neither support nor hate Donald Trump, my point is simply that he's far more like every other president out there than most think.
He's methods are very unorthodox, true, but if you look in real terms at laws passed and decisions made, its pretty much par for the course.
No he really isn't like other presidents. He has demeaned the office beyond recognition.
The thing is from the tone of your commentI I think you actually do support Trump but I don't blame you for not admitting it, few have the guts to come out and say it these days. Even Farage seems to have gone a bit quiet on the subject.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
They are fantasy considerations.
It is your right to believe that is the case, and mine to believe otherwise. Is that the definition of a racist now - someone who believes something you don't?
It is arguably racist to hitch yourself to a movement which was avowedly anti-foreigner in a desire to see some fantasy benefits from leaving a club we decided to join and then decided to leave. This latter, of course, giving the obvious lie to any charge that we were not sovereign.
LOL. Ye stretch and twist so much as to render your words, and the term racist, meaningless. Just admit it, good people can disagree.
I will put you down as a high-falutin' Brexiter. One who bemoans daily that we couldn't lower VAT on home energy, and bewails the whole idea of Droite de Suite.
For many, many Brexiters, however, it was about foreigners. The main figurehead of your effort, Big Nige, illustrated this perfectly when he stood in front of his poster. All FAMs of dusky appearance. Not a Polish Plumber or Portugese nurse amongst them. That was racist.
Nigel was arguably the biggest influence of the whole leave campaign.
Absolutely true, not every Brexiter was a racist, but I would bet that every racist was a Brexiter.
Nige had nothing to do with any effort I supported. Nige is a racist bigot and I can't stand him.
Johnson was the main figurehead of Vote Leave and I like him.
Your choice was fool or knave and you chose fool. Fair enough.
But like it or not, Nige was a huge motivating influence which brought about Brexit and many racists fell in behind him. That was the group you associated yourself with.
As they say about watching trash TV, there is no button to press to show you're watching it ironically. You just show up in the viewing figures like everyone else and they then commission the second series.
What percentage of the UK do you consider to be racists voting or racist reasons? 80%? 60%? 52%?
I'd say maybe 4-5%.
As we agreed last time the central premise of Brexit was, when all was said and done, reducing the number of foreigners coming here.
Oh but we needed to reclaim sovereignty and we didn't like unelected officials ruling over us. But again, we have demonstrated that the UK (to quote David Davis) was always sovereign and what better way to prove that we could leave at any time was to leave at any time. Which we did. Had we not been sovereign surely we wouldn't have been able to do so. Did you want 100% sovereignty? Then that's no trade deals for you. For sure it is a position but I can't believe you, as an economist, think it a sensible one. Every trading relationship involves compromise on "sovereignty".
So that leaves what? The foreigners. It is the nasty little not so secret that, rightly, Brexiters are embarrassed about and hence give two barrels to anyone that points out this simple, transparently obvious truth.
The referendum was held under David Cameron's government. Reducing migration was David Cameron's government stated policy. Such a stated policy that Cameron had attached numbers to it, something the Leave campaign hadn't.
So that many of those who voted for Leave wanted to reduce migration is neither here nor there, it was already government policy. Was everyone who voted for David Cameron's government in 2010 and 2015 racist in your eyes?
I want to exercise sovereignty not just notionally hold it. Holding sovereignty notionally but not being able to exercise it unless you leave is like telling someone in a controlling marriage who doesn't get to decide how they can live their lives that they were "always" able to leave their partner, so they were always had control, so they don't need to leave their partner. That's circular logic and it fails.
I think that's a critical difference. I never felt like an abused spouse. I felt empowered and that the UK was striding proudly amongst the EU and the world, with our status of each enhanced as a result.
I never felt that we were cowering under a table, not able to assert our will because of the beastly EU.
As for the government policy yes I agree that was to reduce the number of foreigners. But it's as though Nige et al took that and then built the whole Brexit edifice around it, making it not one of many policies, but the central premise of their campaign.
I'm honestly not sure how America goes back to normal from here.
If there was someone other than president dickbag in charge there would be plenty of ways to get this settled but there just seems to be no way out other than letting the riots burn out over the next couple of weeks and hoping some other racist cop doesn't step up and gun down an innocent black person.
Can anyone imagine what America is going to look like after another 4 years of Trump?
This is the first time I think Trump is losing the election. Loads of moderate voters who don't agree with the riots do agree with the protests. They can see the murder of a tax payer by a racist copper is just wrong and by not recognising that the president is throwing their votes away.
He needs to find a way to address the protesters and their real issues. Engage with them and put forwards reforms and harsh sentencing for officers who kill unarmed suspects or who's actions result in the death of suspects who are already subdued. In this instance the officer just needed to cuff the suspect, book him and then he'd be out in a few hours. Ideally th police would have enough training not to even bother this person and there would be sanctions for police who do the above.
Sadly I believe it could still go either way. I am actually quite nervous about what Trump will actually do between now and November, particularly if he remains behind in the polls and has nothing to lose.
It’s perfectly possible Trump still wins.
How the Democrats campaign will be crucial to that, as he is a daemon created as a reaction to their own overreaction.
Nobody is to blame for Trump other Trump. If Americans are stupid enough to re-elect him they deserve everything that's coming to them.
I've been to New York loads on business in the last ten years and its just New York. I went twice a year under Obama, and then under Trump. Very little difference.
Maybe a bit busier, noisier and more affluent under Trump. But essentially the same.
People's hatred of Trump clouds their judgement I think. The constitution, the courts, the judiciary and Congress constrain the president. As they are meant to.
all this talk about dictatorship is the most outrageous rubbish going. It really is the stuff of thirteen year olds. Grow up.
Who was talking about dictatorship? I certainly wasn't.
My judgement of Trump is not clouded by hatred for him it is a perfectly clear judgement based on everything he has done and said over the last 4 years. He's a moron and he proves that point on an almost daily basis. Please, go ahead and support him by all means
I neither support nor hate Donald Trump, my point is simply that he's far more like every other president out there than most think.
He's methods are very unorthodox, true, but if you look in real terms at laws passed and decisions made, its pretty much par for the course.
I disagree, for three reasons.
Firstly, there is the erosion of the American political system and the extension of Presidential power. Presidents get to issue Executive Orders. But historically the limits of those orders have been pretty narrow: things over which the Executive has power, as bounded by the constitution and by the laws enacted by Congress.
President Trump, as in the case of the repeal of Section 230, has essentially rode roughshod over this. He is repealing part of an Act of Congress by Presidential decree. His lawyers will have told him this is unconstitutional, and will inevitably end up being overthrown by the Supreme Court.
But that's OK. Because until the case gets there in 2021 or 2020, he's effectively changed the law. This is incredibly pernicious. It makes the votes for Congressmen and Senators even more worthless than now.
Secondly, there is his disregard for truth. Many politicians disassemble and - from time-to-time - lie. There are exceptions, honourable people like Mrs Thatcher for example (or - for that matter - Jim Callaghan).
But by and large, Politicians will say whatever they think they can get away with without directly lying. Look at Clinton. He lied over Monica Lewinski. But he went to extraordinary lengths to avoid direct lying. Indeed, his "I did not have sexual relations with that women" line was after his lawyer sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee outlining what sexual relations was and was not. Lying? Effectively, sure. But at the same time, he did not have complete disregard for the truth.
President Trump is not like that. From his ridiculous boasting about how doctors are amazed by how much he understands, to his birtherism, he cares not one jot for the truth. He says what will minimise the trouble he is in right now.
Thirdly, there is his behaviour. The President of the United States is President of the whole United States. He is not President of who voted for him.
And he needs to accept that with that comes scrutiny. And yes, a lot of that scrutiny will come from the Left wing press.
But Obama and his Press Secretary accepted questions from Fox News. They did not accuse Fox News of treason when Fox news ran commentators who spread the birther story.
In all these ways, President Trump has made the US, in little ways, a little worse.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
They are fantasy considerations.
It is your right to believe that is the case, and mine to believe otherwise. Is that the definition of a racist now - someone who believes something you don't?
It is arguably racist to hitch yourself to a movement which was avowedly anti-foreigner in a desire to see some fantasy benefits from leaving a club we decided to join and then decided to leave. This latter, of course, giving the obvious lie to any charge that we were not sovereign.
Sounds like you are reaching a bit there.
We've been round these houses. It all gets a bit boring stating the bleedin' obvious in a new and fresh way sometimes.
It does.
Your "trash TV second series" was a moderately decent effort though.
I'm honestly not sure how America goes back to normal from here.
If there was someone other than president dickbag in charge there would be plenty of ways to get this settled but there just seems to be no way out other than letting the riots burn out over the next couple of weeks and hoping some other racist cop doesn't step up and gun down an innocent black person.
Can anyone imagine what America is going to look like after another 4 years of Trump?
This is the first time I think Trump is losing the election. Loads of moderate voters who don't agree with the riots do agree with the protests. They can see the murder of a tax payer by a racist copper is just wrong and by not recognising that the president is throwing their votes away.
He needs to find a way to address the protesters and their real issues. Engage with them and put forwards reforms and harsh sentencing for officers who kill unarmed suspects or who's actions result in the death of suspects who are already subdued. In this instance the officer just needed to cuff the suspect, book him and then he'd be out in a few hours. Ideally th police would have enough training not to even bother this person and there would be sanctions for police who do the above.
Sadly I believe it could still go either way. I am actually quite nervous about what Trump will actually do between now and November, particularly if he remains behind in the polls and has nothing to lose.
It’s perfectly possible Trump still wins.
How the Democrats campaign will be crucial to that, as he is a daemon created as a reaction to their own overreaction.
Nobody is to blame for Trump other Trump. If Americans are stupid enough to re-elect him they deserve everything that's coming to them.
I've been to New York loads on business in the last ten years and its just New York. I went twice a year under Obama, and then under Trump. Very little difference.
Maybe a bit busier, noisier and more affluent under Trump. But essentially the same.
People's hatred of Trump clouds their judgement I think. The constitution, the courts, the judiciary and Congress constrain the president. As they are meant to.
all this talk about dictatorship is the most outrageous rubbish going. It really is the stuff of thirteen year olds. Grow up.
Who was talking about dictatorship? I certainly wasn't.
My judgement of Trump is not clouded by hatred for him it is a perfectly clear judgement based on everything he has done and said over the last 4 years. He's a moron and he proves that point on an almost daily basis. Please, go ahead and support him by all means
I neither support nor hate Donald Trump, my point is simply that he's far more like every other president out there than most think.
He's methods are very unorthodox, true, but if you look in real terms at laws passed and decisions made, its pretty much par for the course.
No he really isn't like other presidents. He has demeaned the office beyond recognition.
The thing is from the tone of your commentI I think you actually do support Trump but I don't blame you for not admitting it, few have the guts to come out and say it these days. Even Farage seems to have gone a bit quiet on the subject.
No I really don;t support Trump that much because I don;t really agree with his economic policy. Far too much debt. And he's far more ambivalent about some rather nasty regimes than I care for.
My American hero was Reagan. Together with the blessed Saint Margaret (PBUH), he destroyed Warsaw Pact communism.
I wonder if can you nail down a single thing Trump has actually done in terms of laws passed, decisions made, that you really hate, because lets face it you're not really interested in reality.
What annoys you is his tone, which is far less respectful to the likes of you than you would wish.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
They are fantasy considerations.
It is your right to believe that is the case, and mine to believe otherwise. Is that the definition of a racist now - someone who believes something you don't?
It is arguably racist to hitch yourself to a movement which was avowedly anti-foreigner in a desire to see some fantasy benefits from leaving a club we decided to join and then decided to leave. This latter, of course, giving the obvious lie to any charge that we were not sovereign.
LOL. Ye stretch and twist so much as to render your words, and the term racist, meaningless. Just admit it, good people can disagree.
I will put you down as a high-falutin' Brexiter. One who bemoans daily that we couldn't lower VAT on home energy, and bewails the whole idea of Droite de Suite.
For many, many Brexiters, however, it was about foreigners. The main figurehead of your effort, Big Nige, illustrated this perfectly when he stood in front of his poster. All FAMs of dusky appearance. Not a Polish Plumber or Portugese nurse amongst them. That was racist.
Nigel was arguably the biggest influence of the whole leave campaign.
Absolutely true, not every Brexiter was a racist, but I would bet that every racist was a Brexiter.
Nige had nothing to do with any effort I supported. Nige is a racist bigot and I can't stand him.
Johnson was the main figurehead of Vote Leave and I like him.
The point surely is that it doesn't matter who the figurehead is? The figurehead for Brexit could have been a naked Alex Salmond; it still wouldn't have made me think twice about voting for something that I had decided was the right thing to do. You look at the facts, and you decide the best course of action. Everything else is just silly window-dressing.
It's an interesting view. Shall we go Godwin at this point?
It's not an interesting view, it's the only view. We don't need to imagine Hitler's side on the Brexit debate - he was after all actively attempting to unite Europe (and indeed Britain within it) for much of his career. However, since you ask, if someone as morally bankrupt as Hitler, for whatever motivations he had, supported Brexit, it wouldn't have made me vote to Remain. Any more than it would stop anyone (or many people) being vegetarian, buying a Mercedes, or having a side parting.
Remain in my sincerely held, long held, and extensively researched opinion, was the wrong choice. So it would be wrong to be bounced into that wrong choice by unsavoury people, for whatever reason, supporting the right choice. Or indeed by beautiful, wonderful, saintly, clever people supporting the wrong choice.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
They are fantasy considerations.
It is your right to believe that is the case, and mine to believe otherwise. Is that the definition of a racist now - someone who believes something you don't?
It is arguably racist to hitch yourself to a movement which was avowedly anti-foreigner in a desire to see some fantasy benefits from leaving a club we decided to join and then decided to leave. This latter, of course, giving the obvious lie to any charge that we were not sovereign.
LOL. Ye stretch and twist so much as to render your words, and the term racist, meaningless. Just admit it, good people can disagree.
I will put you down as a high-falutin' Brexiter. One who bemoans daily that we couldn't lower VAT on home energy, and bewails the whole idea of Droite de Suite.
For many, many Brexiters, however, it was about foreigners. The main figurehead of your effort, Big Nige, illustrated this perfectly when he stood in front of his poster. All FAMs of dusky appearance. Not a Polish Plumber or Portugese nurse amongst them. That was racist.
Nigel was arguably the biggest influence of the whole leave campaign.
Absolutely true, not every Brexiter was a racist, but I would bet that every racist was a Brexiter.
Nige had nothing to do with any effort I supported. Nige is a racist bigot and I can't stand him.
Johnson was the main figurehead of Vote Leave and I like him.
The point surely is that it doesn't matter who the figurehead is? The figurehead for Brexit could have been a naked Alex Salmond; it still wouldn't have made me think twice about voting for something that I had decided was the right thing to do. You look at the facts, and you decide the best course of action. Everything else is just silly window-dressing.
It's an interesting view. Shall we go Godwin at this point?
It's not an interesting view, it's the only view. We don't need to imagine Hitler's side on the Brexit debate - he was after all actively attempting to unite Europe (and indeed Britain within it) for much of his career. However, since you ask, if someone as morally bankrupt as Hitler, for whatever motivations he had, supported Brexit, it wouldn't have made me vote to Remain. Any more than it would stop anyone (or many people) being vegetarian, buying a Mercedes, or having a side parting.
Remain in my sincerely held, long held, and extensively researched opinion, was the wrong choice. So it would be wrong to be bounced into that wrong choice by unsavoury people, for whatever reason, supporting the right choice. Or indeed by beautiful, wonderful, saintly, clever people supporting the wrong choice.
Well as you kindly went there...so nothing to question his moral, intellectual code then? An awful person who had a moment of clarity about something you happen to agree with. Isn't it much more likely that such a person would be just about wrong in anything they believe, especially something of import?
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Oh I see, its because of the Nazis and the Communists that the Europeans don't get it? They're all living in a fantasy world of enslavement to the EU and eventually the UK will lead them all to freedom again, like a WW2 redux?
You forgot the fascists. Spain was a fascist dictatorship until 1975. I have no idea if we are going to 'lead them to freedom' - I admit that many Brexit-supporters do want the EU to fail and break up, but I am not one of them. I hope for continental Europe to be as stable and prosperous as it can possibly be, apart from anything else, as a market for British goods and services.
If there is going to be an EU for the forseeable future then the UK must have a relationship with it.
Until recently that relationship has been deep and influential. The UK is moving to one which is between non-existent and shallow and utterly peripheral. What is better for British business in its largest single market: UK which can influence EU policy to its advantage or one where the UK is a rule taker?
Because remember the path the UK is treading now - WTO terms and no access to the Single Market, actually requires a structural shift in who the UK exports too and who it imports from. Is that better for British business? To rely on trade blocs it has no influence over and adjudicated by a comppletely un-democratic body the WTO?
There is no isolationist approach that the UK will be able to navigate it will have to pick a bloc, either one it is close to and can influence or one it is distant from and cannot. Either way the UK ends this journey as a rule taker which in my view makes it less free.
The best relationship is one in which the UK can make its own rules and UK exporters can observe EU rules and make products that meet their rules and then export those products to them. As countries across the entire globe successfully do.
There is no requirement to "pick a bloc" nor to take rules. Exporters can produce goods that meet other nations rules without them being domestic rules. GB rules can be different domestically while producers manufacture EU products for export.
In the middle of a trade war between at least 2 of the world's 3 large trading blocks I'm not sure picking a side is unavoidable.
Switzerland managed it for centuries.
In the middle of a trade war between blocs being outside of them might be the best place to be.
Is Switzerland the model for "Global Britain"? No straw-men here you bought it up first
Is the Swiss model scalable though? It works because every crook on the planet stores their ill gotten gains there. It's in everyone's interest to not rock the boat there. But does that work for the fifth largest economy?
Have you ever been to London?
Although of course, on a Swiss Model, funelling more money into London and driving the asset bubble there would be a long way away from what a lot of Brexit voters asked for or thought they were getting.
As you say, there is no one model that can fit the country other than it's own. My view is that the UK's "model" has developed and grown over the last 1,000 years of history and that the changes it makes must be gradual and organic. They must also be informed by the history of the country, recent and ancient. Its historic and continuing presence as a European nation is an overiding consideration for the future too.
What is happening now comes from a promise to some to plunge back into the past while somehow also creating an entirely new economic model from scratch to appeal to people such as yourself. It seems very likely that neither side will be satisfed and this because of the Janus-like nature of the arguments made at the time.
That is my take on the "all things to all men" approach of the Leave campagin(s), winning a vote is one thing, delivering on it is quite another and that is why the debate goes on and should, promising everything and delivering nothing is something which cannot be allowed to go by without note.
Biden and some of the left want the 230 protection removed as well - they see it as protecting Twitter et al from the consequences of their publishing material.
The traditional media see removing the protection as levelling the playing field.
Ironically, because DT has trodden on the issue with his fat feet, everyone else has gone quiet on this.
Yes. It might be a good move but the fact that Trump is considering it purely because he himself is in a spat with Twitter rather undermines its appeal.
Well that's utterly stupid isn't it? If something is a positive development, who cares if it happens for negative reasons? It's probably the way things happen more often than not.
This is true as a general rule. But we're talking Trump here. If he is pro something that is in and of itself a strong piece of evidence in the debit column. Not to say it can't be outweighed by the credit side but it's off to a bad start and has some catching up to do.
I often hear this argument on PB. 'How can you be on the side of Farage/Orange marchers/people who put St George flags on their houses/people who put awful posters up about immigrants?'. When the issue in question is a binary choice, I am always puzzled by this. How can anyone be so morally unconvinced of a conclusion that they have come to that they would reverse this view because it picked up a fellow traveller who they found less than savoury?
I think it is because if those people also believe in one side of that binary choice then it is an indication for caution and question. Therefore when someone like Farage uses hate filled messages against immigrants to try to persuade people to vote Brexit, and the other advocates of Brexit do not clearly and unequivocally condemn it, it is an indicator that many people on that side secretly, if not overtly approve of the message. Therefore it is my opinion that most (tho not all) people who voted Brexit are racist to some degree or other. The real reason to vote for it is the dislike of most things foreign.
Spot on, it can be concealed or even dignified by terms like "Free trade" or "Sovereignty" but in reality you'd only vote for it if you dislike and disrespect foreigners and want to demonstrate that fact to them. I thought that was all implicit in the vote to be honest.
What I find very funny are posters like Philip Thompson who engage in the most incredible intellectual contortions about liberty and self-determination etc. but never stop to think what all the other members of the EU think, do Spaniards feel less Spanish as a result of EU membership? Do Poles worry about their personal liberty in the face of the EU (rather than their own government)?
Even those kind of thoroughly intelletual arguments - props to him for attempting to inject some reason into a debate that is basically about the view from the cave by the way - are still couched in an English exceptionalism frame of mind. As if only the British could be concerned about Sovereignty and Free Trade and all the other European countries are suffering a curious form of False Consciousness. Truly amazing.
A point well made. I have always thought, having spent quite a bit of time in France, that it would be amusing to see the reaction of a group of Frenchmen being told by a Brexit supporter that he was "not patriotic" because he is in favour of the EU!
No it isn't. It's the same patronising EU-twaddle dished out to the public for decades. 'Nothing to see here dear - you can still have your maypole dancing and warm beer and feel British dontcha know. Don't worry, we won't ban cups of tea!'.
There were profound constitutional and democratic issues with our membership of the EU. These were not imagined - they were written down in laws ffs. If other countries don't feel the same, that's fine, we're not responsible for those countries. As for 'English' exceptionalism, various other parts of Europe have been content to live under a wide variety of less than democratic systems within living memory - that isn't imagined either. So it hardly seems like a vicious calumny to suggest that 'sovereignty and free trade' do not rate quite as highly on the priority list of some citizens on the continent as they do here. God forbid we might actually have the right idea about something.
Exactly, anotherextory is essentially saying anyone who argues free trade, economic and policy flexibility, subsidiarity, or greater democratic connection is, in fact, simply hiding behind grand words to cover up their racism, and in fact that no-one could honestly have come to a pro-Brexit decision based solely on those legitimate considerations.
They are fantasy considerations.
It is your right to believe that is the case, and mine to believe otherwise. Is that the definition of a racist now - someone who believes something you don't?
It is arguably racist to hitch yourself to a movement which was avowedly anti-foreigner in a desire to see some fantasy benefits from leaving a club we decided to join and then decided to leave. This latter, of course, giving the obvious lie to any charge that we were not sovereign.
So any organisation that wishes to become omnipotent, simply has to align itself with the value of being 'non racist'. Then it can never be opposed without those who oppose it being automatically racist, and therefore wrong type of person. And if someone wishes to be a right thinking person, they must always support it.
Indeed, this logic leads to enabling the most vile in our society to be omnipotent. In order to get society to do their bidding, they simply have to support the things they don't want to happen. Motherhood is bad as soon as Trump supports it.
It's the stuff of intellectual giants.
As I said, the central premise of Brexit was about foreigners. You are making a false equivalence. If I wanted to make shopping at Tescos illegal and positioned myself as a non-racist party agitating for that it would make no sense.
It's very different when the central plank of your argument revolves around foreigners and your desire to have fewer of them around.
The central plank of my argument never revolved around foreigners or the desire to have fewer of them around.
Comments
This kind of activity has happened under a number of presidents, at many times in post war American history.
I suspect the US economy's nosedive may be a big factor here, especially given black employment was at a record high before corona hit. Higher than under the Kennedys, Carter, Clinton or Obama, or any of the other saviours of the black person being cited by middle class white people right now.
These are factors you will not read about in the mainstream media, however.
But Richard we have had these discussions many times in the past. All I will say is that it is entirely likely that the current Cons administration had its eye so firmly on Brexit and the belief that for a multi-generational settlement they couldn't delay our actual exit by a month or three while they dealt with an actual crisis that they have presided over perhaps the worst death toll from Coronavirus in Europe and perhaps beyond.
Turning to the the patronising and arrogant take on the UK's position in Europe and the world by leave supporters: alternatively, "Only we understand freedom because of WWII", "Free trade is an Anglo-Saxon thing", or "Stop the immigrants", "Stop the EU repainting the Cross of St George", remain false arguments.
They're either sides of the same wrong coin.
https://twitter.com/markgr101/status/1267829821100273667?s=20
I don't think for one second that the Spaniards or anyone else have some form of "False Consciousness" and never have used such a pathetic, preposterous argument. So use all the straw men that you want.
The Spanish can feel like they want to be part of a European state and if they do, good for them. Their choice and I respect free choice and democracy. What's good for us, is not necessarily good for them.
Nor are we exceptional in England [or Britain or the United Kingdom] and if you think we are then you are again betraying your own ignorance of the outside world.
In the past I have specifically compared how I view the UK in Europe as we are like Canada relative to the USA, or Japan relative to China.
I have family in Alberta, they feel like they are Albertans and Canadians, but they do not feel like they are Americans. They feel no regrets about not being part of the USA . . . and Alberta is probably the most American province of all of Canada. I doubt you'll find many Canadians anywhere bemoaninig their absence from being part of the United States of America - is that some Canadian "exceptionalism" in your eyes? Are the States of America under some form of "False Consciousness" if they want to be in the USA but neighbouring provinces of Canada do not?
Or can different states be different? Get your head out of your arse and stop pontificating for others, because its not big and its not clever.
I hope Nigel has told the Swiss, Norwegians and Icelanders. Oh and the other 90% of planet earth's population.
Until recently that relationship has been deep and influential. The UK is moving to one which is between non-existent and shallow and utterly peripheral. What is better for British business in its largest single market: UK which can influence EU policy to its advantage or one where the UK is a rule taker?
Because remember the path the UK is treading now - WTO terms and no access to the Single Market, actually requires a structural shift in who the UK exports too and who it imports from. Is that better for British business? To rely on trade blocs it has no influence over and adjudicated by a comppletely un-democratic body the WTO?
There is no isolationist approach that the UK will be able to navigate it will have to pick a bloc, either one it is close to and can influence or one it is distant from and cannot. Either way the UK ends this journey as a rule taker which in my view makes it less free.
Or that Germany is a major exporter nation?
Much money about to be spent in a mad rush doing it.
Most people don’t pass it on at all, but every so often, one person will happen to give it to dozens or hundreds. And that means that the behaviour of the disease can look very different, as the LSHTM epidemiological modeller Adam Kucharski explains in this Twitter thread. It could be that the disease lies apparently quiescent for a long period, as most people fail to pass it on, and then when we think we’ve got it under control it explodes up again.
(Equally, it may be that the superspreader events are largely prevented by the sort of lockdown measures that remain in place, says Javid — things like keeping bars, sporting events and churches closed.)
https://unherd.com/2020/06/should-we-expect-a-covid-second-wave/
This would tie in with some evidence of it being about in Europe at the end of 2019, but not taking off until March.
For many, many Brexiters, however, it was about foreigners. The main figurehead of your effort, Big Nige, illustrated this perfectly when he stood in front of his poster. All FAMs of dusky appearance. Not a Polish Plumber or Portugese nurse amongst them. That was racist.
Nigel was arguably the biggest influence of the whole leave campaign.
Absolutely true, not every Brexiter was a racist, but I would bet that every racist was a Brexiter.
There is no requirement to "pick a bloc" nor to take rules. Exporters can produce goods that meet other nations rules without them being domestic rules. GB rules can be different domestically while producers manufacture EU products for export.
Johnson was the main figurehead of Vote Leave and I like him.
My judgement of Trump is not clouded by hatred for him it is a perfectly clear judgement based on everything he has done and said over the last 4 years. He's a moron and he proves that point on an almost daily basis. Please, go ahead and support him by all means
In the middle of a trade war between blocs being outside of them might be the best place to be.
But like it or not, Nige was a huge motivating influence which brought about Brexit and many racists fell in behind him. That was the group you associated yourself with.
As they say about watching trash TV, there is no button to press to show you're watching it ironically. You just show up in the viewing figures like everyone else and they then commission the second series.
I think the one certainty, is that it's not going away any time soon.
I'd say maybe 4-5%.
True, I was being slightly facetious. As a nation though they are not going to get much sympathy if they reelect him given what we have witnessed over the past 4 years.
He's methods are very unorthodox, true, but if you look in real terms at laws passed and decisions made, its pretty much par for the course.
It's the stuff of intellectual giants.
I hope a lot of hospitals get re-opened. There is a (relatively) recently shut nursing home, and a recently shut small hospital in my parents town. Good candidates.
No nation is a perfect analogy as almost every nation is unique and exceptional to one extent or another.
As I said earlier my preferred nation to compare us with is Canada, but I've also in the past used Japan, Australia and Switzerland.
But does that work for the fifth largest economy?
Oh but we needed to reclaim sovereignty and we didn't like unelected officials ruling over us. But again, we have demonstrated that the UK (to quote David Davis) was always sovereign and what better way to prove that we could leave at any time than to leave at any time. Which we did. Had we not been sovereign surely we wouldn't have been able to do so. Did you want 100% sovereignty? Then that's no trade deals for you. For sure it is a position but I can't believe you, as an economist, think it a sensible one. Every trading relationship involves compromise on "sovereignty".
So that leaves what? The foreigners. It is the nasty little not so secret that, rightly, Brexiters are embarrassed about and hence give two barrels to anyone that points out this simple, transparently obvious truth.
It's very different when the central plank of your argument revolves around foreigners and your desire to have fewer of them around.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-negotiations-mass-walk-outs-as-george-galloway-speaks-at-anti-eu-grassroots-out-rally-a6885541.html
So that many of those who voted for Leave wanted to reduce migration is neither here nor there, it was already government policy. Was everyone who voted for David Cameron's government in 2010 and 2015 racist in your eyes?
I want to exercise sovereignty not just notionally hold it. Holding sovereignty notionally but not being able to exercise it unless you leave is like telling someone in a controlling marriage who doesn't get to decide how they can live their lives that they were "always" able to leave their partner, so they were always had control, so they don't need to leave their partner. That's circular logic and it fails.
Your "trash TV second series" was a moderately decent effort though.
Blimey if he'd done any of that you'd run out of nappies.
The thing is from the tone of your commentI I think you actually do support Trump but I don't blame you for not admitting it, few have the guts to come out and say it these days. Even Farage seems to have gone a bit quiet on the subject.
It leads inexorably to a government determined to immiserate its people and alienate itself from all of its natural allies abroad.
I never felt that we were cowering under a table, not able to assert our will because of the beastly EU.
As for the government policy yes I agree that was to reduce the number of foreigners. But it's as though Nige et al took that and then built the whole Brexit edifice around it, making it not one of many policies, but the central premise of their campaign.
Firstly, there is the erosion of the American political system and the extension of Presidential power. Presidents get to issue Executive Orders. But historically the limits of those orders have been pretty narrow: things over which the Executive has power, as bounded by the constitution and by the laws enacted by Congress.
President Trump, as in the case of the repeal of Section 230, has essentially rode roughshod over this. He is repealing part of an Act of Congress by Presidential decree. His lawyers will have told him this is unconstitutional, and will inevitably end up being overthrown by the Supreme Court.
But that's OK. Because until the case gets there in 2021 or 2020, he's effectively changed the law. This is incredibly pernicious. It makes the votes for Congressmen and Senators even more worthless than now.
Secondly, there is his disregard for truth. Many politicians disassemble and - from time-to-time - lie. There are exceptions, honourable people like Mrs Thatcher for example (or - for that matter - Jim Callaghan).
But by and large, Politicians will say whatever they think they can get away with without directly lying. Look at Clinton. He lied over Monica Lewinski. But he went to extraordinary lengths to avoid direct lying. Indeed, his "I did not have sexual relations with that women" line was after his lawyer sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee outlining what sexual relations was and was not. Lying? Effectively, sure. But at the same time, he did not have complete disregard for the truth.
President Trump is not like that. From his ridiculous boasting about how doctors are amazed by how much he understands, to his birtherism, he cares not one jot for the truth. He says what will minimise the trouble he is in right now.
Thirdly, there is his behaviour. The President of the United States is President of the whole United States. He is not President of who voted for him.
And he needs to accept that with that comes scrutiny. And yes, a lot of that scrutiny will come from the Left wing press.
But Obama and his Press Secretary accepted questions from Fox News. They did not accuse Fox News of treason when Fox news ran commentators who spread the birther story.
In all these ways, President Trump has made the US, in little ways, a little worse.
My American hero was Reagan. Together with the blessed Saint Margaret (PBUH), he destroyed Warsaw Pact communism.
I wonder if can you nail down a single thing Trump has actually done in terms of laws passed, decisions made, that you really hate, because lets face it you're not really interested in reality.
What annoys you is his tone, which is far less respectful to the likes of you than you would wish.
Remain in my sincerely held, long held, and extensively researched opinion, was the wrong choice. So it would be wrong to be bounced into that wrong choice by unsavoury people, for whatever reason, supporting the right choice. Or indeed by beautiful, wonderful, saintly, clever people supporting the wrong choice.
I mean he was a vegetarian, for god's sake.
As you say, there is no one model that can fit the country other than it's own. My view is that the UK's "model" has developed and grown over the last 1,000 years of history and that the changes it makes must be gradual and organic. They must also be informed by the history of the country, recent and ancient. Its historic and continuing presence as a European nation is an overiding consideration for the future too.
What is happening now comes from a promise to some to plunge back into the past while somehow also creating an entirely new economic model from scratch to appeal to people such as yourself. It seems very likely that neither side will be satisfed and this because of the Janus-like nature of the arguments made at the time.
That is my take on the "all things to all men" approach of the Leave campagin(s), winning a vote is one thing, delivering on it is quite another and that is why the debate goes on and should, promising everything and delivering nothing is something which cannot be allowed to go by without note.
PB is back to bickering about Brexit.