Do you want to discuss boring politics? (12 Viewers)
- Thread starter mrtrench
- Start date
fernandopartridge
Well-Known Member
Not putting an X in the box on the ballot paper doesn't necessarily mean one doesn't attend a polling station or post a ballot, does it?
I think your romanticism for the extent to which voting affects change is nice but surely must collide with reality at some point. It has been completely exploited.
JAM See
Well-Known Member
Yawn.
"Look at me, I'm a cool nihilist"
Boring, and negative.
Moan moan moan.
Ian1779
Well-Known Member
So you’re gonna put a tick in the box next to Starmer’s approved candidates? Seeing as he’s abandoned the guise of a broad church unless you are a right wing xenophobe.
fernandopartridge
Well-Known Member
Cool, I'll go and vote for one of the candidates now you've convinced me
skybluetony176
Well-Known Member
My faith in the elderly has been restored
SIR ERNIE
Well-Known Member
fernandopartridge
Well-Known Member
In a speech today he's on about the small boats and conflating them with the 100k asylum backlog. Rattling on about hotel accommodation.
JAM See
Well-Known Member
I hope I'm that politically involved in my dotage.
Unlike some on here who can't even be bothered to exercise their franchise, because voting is bad apparently.
D
Deleted member 162
Guest
Do you believe the politicians elected, are the ones that are actually in power?
JAM See
Well-Known Member
Yes I do.
From Churchill, through Atlee, Wilson, Heath, Thatcher, Blair and the awful last 14 years, the elected governments, for better or worse are the people setting the agenda.
You may not agree with the decisions they make, but they are ultimately responsible for the success or failure of the policies they implemented.
To believe otherwise is proper tinfoil hat territory.
D
Deleted member 162
Guest
So firstly on power, you don't find companies with GDPs larger than most countries directly investing in, on one side mainstream political campaigns and lobbying, and the other side funding political activist groups weird? This doesn't raise any eyebrows to you? Every major Western leader across five eyes coming out with the slogan "build back better" during covid didn't look suspicious to you? The political parties in this world can't get complete alignment on party level matters yet every major party comes out completely aligned and spouting the same slogan, and that is just normal?
Back to one of the earlier points, the 2019 general election had a 67.3% turnout. Things have only got exponentially worse since then across the board in all democracies under all varieties of usual right/left parties. Do you not think the better approach would be to understand why people may be becoming jaded, rather than brow beating them about their justified observations the leadership in all forms is nose diving our civilization? I am expecting even less this time around personally.
Lastly, just a personal observation, what I don't understand from older heads like you, is you have more than likely lived through the winter of discontent, which was labour, we saw labours reaction to the 2008 crash and the wars in the middle east. We've seen the conservatives make a whole host of catastrophic decisions flanking these periods of power, and we've seen the lib dems do meekly, very little. You have witnessed with your own eyes how "changing the team" doesn't actually course correct anything. You've seen leader after leader promise and lie and promise and lie, and yet you still wave your little flag and viscerally attack anyone who looks sideways at this whole mess, when you should have learned more lessons than anyone else. It strikes as nothing more than tribalism, ironically the same as supporting a football team.
I'm not here to lecture or convince you of anything. I was just curious of your perspective. Thank you for your reply.
Ian1779
Well-Known Member
I’m quite certain he’d continue with the Rwanda policy but simply argue he could be either more efficient or effective implementing it.
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
I hear as soon as he gets into number 10 he’s going to remove his mask to reveal mecha thatcher.
clint van damme
Well-Known Member
skybluetony176
Well-Known Member
Depends what you mean by in power. Are they the ones that have the power to change laws and implement policy then yes. The real question is who’s driving the agenda and shaping the narrative. We know Truss’ budget that crashed the economy for instance was the idea of several Tufton St think tanks but most notably the IEA. Truss was cheerleaded into power by a right wing press to implement a Tufton St budget that heavily favoured an elite minority, no doubt who fund “think” tanks like the IEA. The biggest problem in politics is that there’s too many useful idiots easily convinced by secretively funded think tanks and cheerleaded by a right wing press into positions of power and responsibility.
The electorate (myself included) has been asleep at the wheel for too long. I think that tide is turning and society is starting to do things like not have enough of experts. Time will tell.
duffer
Well-Known Member
And politely, I disagree.
It's not for the state to demand my participation in an election.
My choosing not to vote, should I choose that path, hurts no one. Why should anyone be compelled to vote by law?
duffer
Well-Known Member
Oh of course they didn’t, none of these protests ever do, and they’re pretty effective at getting publicity. I just think if you’re not strong enough to actually break the protective glass, just do the tomato soup thing again!
Grendel
Well-Known Member
It isn’t coming and why should it? I am not voting and I see that as a statement, there is not a No Suitable Candidate so why should I go and spoil my ballot paper - or, as I have done before - vote for the most stupid non entity I can find on there.
I have no interest - there is no Conservative Party anymore - Labour are a zombie government in waiting and anyone voting for Ed Davy needs sectioning
D
Deleted member 162
Guest
"We must protect democracy via authoritarianism!" Interesting perspective
Grendel
Well-Known Member
I suppose the only amusing bit about Labour recruiting far right MPs is its upset the political version of @covcity4life
amp.theguardian.com
Natalie Elphicke is a hard-right Tory. Her defection sums up Labour’s contempt for progressive voters | Labour | The Guardian
It was hailed as a triumph: it is anything but. It reveals a party that’s lost its moral compass
JAM See
Well-Known Member
"We must protect the children via taxation and the welfare state"
What's your point? No laws are the best laws?
We, the proletariat, are being excisied, and you in the name of freedom are participating in the great robbery.
Don't vote, feel superior.
Yes, compulsory voting is the right thing.
Crack on with your soundbites whilst the world goes to shit around you.
duffer
Well-Known Member
Whether it was fought for or not is irrelevant.
Again, what business do you or anyone else have to *demand* that everyone votes?
It's sufficient that we have the right to vote, that's what was fought for, not the compulsion to do so.
We have lots of other rights that were hard won too.
Take the right to protest peacefully, for example. That was hard fought too, and is more genuinely at risk perhaps.
What if I demanded your attendance on a bi-annual basis at a protest march of your choosing as a mark of respect to those who fought for it?
Or gay marriage. That right took literally centuries to come into place. Are you obliged to do that too, out of respect for the thousands of gay men and women who were persecuted over the years?
It's a fallacy that your right to vote is in any way diminished by another's choice not to do so. Or that not voting is an act of disrespect.
What you're proposing is authoritarianism; the state's unnecessary intervention in the freedom of action of an individual to act according to his own choice, when that choice obviously in no way harms himself or others.
Luckily, I see no evidence that compulsory voting is coming - has anything been proposed by any UK political party that backs your assertion in this regard?
I'm afraid you're making the mistake that deep down everyone believes what you believe. Sorry, but you're wrong.
Grendel
Well-Known Member
Very few countries outside South America take this view so I do not really see why its inevitable
worldpopulationreview.com
Countries with Mandatory Voting 2024
clint van damme
Well-Known Member
Just listening to the rest is politics, Campbell in favour of compulsory voting and assisted dying, haha!
You want to end it all, crack on its your life mate, but you will put a fucking cross in a box on your way out! What a c**t.
You want to end it all, crack on its your life mate, but you will put a fucking cross in a box on your way out! What a c**t.
fernandopartridge
Well-Known Member
Ian1779
Well-Known Member
fernandopartridge
Well-Known Member
Guess you've seen that mental interview where somebody puts it to him what a c**t she is and he just blurts "I'm delighted to welcome her to the Labour party"
Sky_Blue_Dreamer
Well-Known Member
Seems odd for him to be welcoming Elphicke into the party with open arms when Abbott is still suspended from it