UK Politics: Spaffed up the wall while chuntering from a sedentary position

[Ser Hedge]

26 minutes ago, mormont said:

But can a first or second generation immigrant be racist against other immigrants? As I've already pointed out, that does happen, yes. 

If we could focus on just this aspect more closely - first or second generation immigrants, or even an older naturalized citizen expressing a bias against recent immigrants, say calling them "fresh off the boat" - assuming not just a bit of banter - is definitely prejudice and some kind of "-ism", but racism? Not sure, but let's not split hairs, in spirit (for want of a better word) it's similar enough.

But if they want to just have a debate about immigration, in the absence of other evidence of bias, surely should not immediately suspected of being racists?

No, I didn't mean Javid and Patel specifically, but anecdotally reported British Asian Leave voters. Of course, some of that could be far sighted in the sense they worked that you eventually will be replacing EU immigration with commonwealth immigration and so benefits their communities, but would technically be racist (against native Europeans from the EU).

[mormont]

4 minutes ago, Ser Hedge said:

If we could focus on just this aspect more closely - first or second generation immigrants, or even an older naturalized citizen expressing a bias against recent immigrants, say calling them "fresh off the boat" - assuming not just a bit of banter - is definitely prejudice and some kind of "-ism", but racism? Not sure, but let's not split hairs, in spirit (for want of a better word) it's similar enough.

But if they want to just have a debate about immigration, in the absence of other evidence of bias, surely should not immediately suspected of being racists?

No, I didn't mean Javid and Patel specifically, but anecdotally reported British Asian Leave voters. Of course, some of that could be far sighted in the sense they worked that you eventually will be replacing EU immigration with commonwealth immigration and so benefits their communities, but would technically be racist (against native Europeans from the EU).

I'm sorry, but it seems like you just want to move this on to this specific area you've marked out, as if it were remotely possible in the current political climate to 'just have a debate about immigration' devoid of the context of racism. That feels to me intellectually dishonest. We need to acknowledge that in the present climate, people who say they want to 'just have a debate about immigration' are very likely to be about to say something racist. The entire debate has been hijacked by racists and it's not a productive approach to attempt to ignore that for the sake of argument. 

I'm all in favour of having an open debate, but debates have rules. Rule number one here has to be: let's not pretend racism doesn't exist. Your hypothetical anti-immigrant recent immigrant, whatever the source of their views, is going to have their opinion triumphantly seized upon by racists the moment they open their mouth. It would be naive to pretend otherwise. 

[Heartofice]

3 minutes ago, mormont said:

I'm sorry, but it seems like you just want to move this on to this specific area you've marked out, as if it were remotely possible in the current political climate to 'just have a debate about immigration' devoid of the context of racism. That feels to me intellectually dishonest. We need to acknowledge that in the present climate, people who say they want to 'just have a debate about immigration' are very likely to be about to say something racist. The entire debate has been hijacked by racists and it's not a productive approach to attempt to ignore that for the sake of argument. 

I'm all in favour of having an open debate, but debates have rules. Rule number one here has to be: let's not pretend racism doesn't exist. Your hypothetical anti-immigrant recent immigrant, whatever the source of their views, is going to have their opinion triumphantly seized upon by racists the moment they open their mouth. It would be naive to pretend otherwise. 

How would you suggest the discussion on immigration goes then? 

If as you seem to suggest, that anyone claiming they want to have an open debate on immigration is in fact, a couple of sentences away from saying something racist, then how can there possibly be debate?

How is it possible to suggest greater controls on immigration without being accused of racism? I'm genuinely interested in your opinon, because from everything you say, it appears that because racist people don't like immigration, anybody who wants immigration controls must therefore be racist. 

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

7 hours ago, Ser Hedge said:

Is he way more racist than every other conservative politician in Europe? Now, this is basically, where I think he is not as bad as his stupid columns and you are not meant to take it too seriously. They were brain dead things to write, but focusing on them clouds the bigger picture. He's got a way more diverse team around him than anyone before - both senior cabinet appointments and advisers like Munira Mirza. Obviously they share the ideology of his faction of the party, otherwise they wouldn't be there. i.e. don't expect a liberal or socialist ethnic minority in the conservative party! But the far larger numbers of people with non-traditional background matters. It's more than critical mass now and there has been a wider attempt to reach out to the South Asian community, who are socially conservative, over the recent past - but done very clumsily and some of it looking like it's focused on splitting it along Hindu-Muslim lines, as we saw in Zac's election attempt (I'm sure it wasn't Zac's idea) and this recent attempt by some BJP idiots to send WhatsApp messages around.

I am trying to keep my response brief, as in I caught a cold and thus suffering from a headache.

As for the bigger point you presumably tried to make. Yes, I think conservatism, natiolism and xenophobia are intrinsically linked. With the CDU there are were a lot of really disgusting people in it in the 1990s, 2000s, a lot of them have buggered off to the AfD by now. As for mainstream conservative parties on the continent - I assume you don't include openly racist parties like the AfD in that category. There I must say, I think right now Johnson would be pretty much to the right of them, and his musings are more in line with the AfD than the CDU. I mean their parliamentary co-leader Alice Weidel (it would feel amiss if I didn't a least mention her being part of the LGBTQ community) gave a pretty infamous and disgusting speech. In which he rambled on about headscarf girls and financially supported knife men, when she was refering to refugees. Which is probably the closest thing to Johnson's letterboxes, there is. I mean those very silly images he used in his writings, have to originate from somewhere, the obvious answer being, yeah, from the bigotted brain from a posh racist man. And FWIW afaik there's also a small Jews in the AfD group, or used to be as in, I have no idea if that one still exists, or if they dissolved at some point. Which goes back to what I said earlier, just being a member of a minority doesn't mean you cannot be racist. Which brings us back to Petty Partel and Sajid. Both Partel and Sajid have used coded language at the very least in order to appeal to certain voter groups. Do they (you can include Jonson in that mix if you want to) truely believe it? Maybe, maybe not. But does it really matter, whether they say those thigns out of conviction or for effect? No, not really. And with Johnson, the smart money is on convcition anyway.

[mormont]

[mod] Let's not get personal, please. Thank you. [/mod]

 

 

[Varysblackfyre321]

12 hours ago, Ser Hedge said:

Well it's better than not having them and we're talking about serious posts here - Home, Chancellor, Chief Secretary of the Treasury, the advisor in charge of the manifesto, chairman of the party.  Not one Nikki Haley and one Ben Carson. Labour's current shadow cabinet is diverse too, but until very recently it was terrible all around in both parties. 

 And Regan appointed the first black national security adviser, and nominated a Hispanic man to head the department of education.  Giving minorities jobs-and even jobs with power does not mean a person is not a racist.  Hell at the very least it certainly triumph over multiple blatantly racist and xenophobic rhetoric over the course of years. 

12 hours ago, Ser Hedge said:

Tories you will very likely replace immigration from the EU with immigration from the commonwealth and the demand for NHS and care professionals is going to lead to higher immigration of non-whites. So irrespective of the motivations of the dumbnuts who voted for it, and of course the deterioration in public dialogue, I don't see Brexit having a racist outcome in terms of non-white immigration numbers.

In the immediate term. I imagine the Brexit party and it’s supporters will then turn to limit immigration from all these weird Brown countries severely. I mean Britain  will be hurt a lot by Brexit. A Someone has to be blamed for it and who better than all these culturally different/racially immigrants that came in.  Regardless of the economic costs to the nation 

10 hours ago, Ser Hedge said:

But if they want to just have a debate about immigration, in the absence of other evidence of bias, surely should not immediately suspected of being racists?

If their only points are to bring up some vague notions about them being different and are unable to articulate what exact and for that matter significant differences they are wary of I would suspect xenophobia. If they're only real grievance is that these different people would exist in society, then I would suspect xenophobia. If they're really only  concerned about certain racial groups immigrating over I’d probably say racist. I would suspect this even if the person’s skin tone is white as snow, or darker than me. 

[The Anti-Targ]

11 hours ago, Ser Hedge said:

I'm happy to debate on specific points as I have been doing.

Just out of curiosity, if a naturalized citizen, or first or second generation immigrant opposed unrestricted immigration, or suggests there needs to be a discussion about it, would they be racists/blood traitors or something?

 

Why would anyone be opposed to something that doesn't happen and is not being proposed by anyone, at least not anyone likely to get within cooee of #10? That's a completely disingenous position to be taking. Is it possible for people of a particular ethnicity to be prejudiced towards other people of their own ethnicity? I think you only need to look at the perpetuation of the class  / caste systems in various societies, including (white) British society to an extent, to be able to answer that question. It can't really be called racism, since racisim is really the belief that a race as a whole is inferior to another race. But the underlying prejudice is the same. And I don't think it's even a question that needs to be asked as to whether one minority group can be racist towards another.

In my opinion being straight up anti-immigration is a xenophobic position rooted in one or more forms of prejudice including, but not limited to, racism. One concession I would make is that liberalisation of immigration can be motivated by right-wing corporate capitalists as a way to maintain a downward pressure on wages. But in that case people should be fighting the implementation of capitalist economic theories that seek to increasingly concentrate wealth to the few, and not trying to demonise immigrants.

[Heartofice]

Most polls suggest almost nobody takes a completely anti immigration position, so again thats another disingenuous position to be taking.

Really when people are discussing immigration they are talking about the level of immigration, more or less. But where the conversation gets sticky is that anyone arguing for 'less immigration' can easily be thrown in with the racists and have their position ignored.. I mean what possible good reason can there be to limit immigration except for racist motivations right?

And then the opposite position becomes incredibly polarised.  Once you start associating any opposition to immigration with racism then the only logical position at that point is to say that the only good position to take is to have no limits on immigration. So while you might suggest that nobody is proposing limitless immigration, in a sort of way they are. 

Of course people can tie themselves in knots now over this. As above the only moral view anyone can have when it comes to immigration controls is that we might need to limit them because it might hurt the lowest paid workers, or even better still, a more moral position to take is that you're doing it to prevent low cost workers being abused and taken advantage of from abroad. But really that position is pretty precarious because you are agreeing with the racists and it won't be long before you are lumped in with them.

[Which Tyler]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Most polls suggest almost nobody takes a completely anti immigration position, so again thats another disingenuous position to be taking.

Really when people are discussing immigration they are talking about the level of immigration, more or less.

Absolutely fair; there's barely anyone at either end of the spectrum

But where the conversation gets sticky is that anyone arguing for 'less immigration' can easily be thrown in with the racists and have their position ignored.. I mean what possible good reason can there be to limit immigration except for racist motivations right?

To be fair, it's up to the anti-immigration side of the argument to put those reasons into words.

4 years since the discussion was started; and we're still waiting.

And then the opposite position becomes incredibly polarised.  Once you start associating any opposition to immigration with racism then the only logical position at that point is to say that the only

good position to take is to have no limits on immigration. So while you might suggest that nobody is proposing limitless immigration, in a sort of way they are.

And ten we descend into farse

[Free Northman Reborn]

Fiji is the perfect demonstration of the ultimate outcome of long term immigration. I don’t see how any reasonable person can argue that the end result of decades of immigration into Fiji was not detrimental to the political power of indigenous Fijians.

[Heartofice]

39 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

To be fair, it's up to the anti-immigration side of the argument to put those reasons into words.

4 years since the discussion was started; and we're still waiting.

Notice you said 'anti immigration', when we both agreed pretty much nobody is anti immigration. Do you see where this is a breakdown in communication when you confuse those two positions?

To be fair, the immigration discussion has been happening over the last few years, and is being addressed, and consequently peoples concerns over uncontrolled immigration have dropped. 

The effort to see no dividing line between wanting to have the ability to control immigration and outright racism , means that the steam has to be let out somewhere from the system, and it's one of the reasons you end up with Brexit. 

 

[Blue Roses]

Well we now know where Drogon went. He flew to faux medieval world, settled down and had a baby dragon called Edgar who he pimped out to John Lewis for some fast bucks.

 

GRRM: I hold you fully responsible for cute baby dragons this Christmas. 

[Spockydog]

"It's not a Two Ronnies sketch. You can't answer the question before last."

The worst political interview since Ben Swain went on Newsnight.

This clown is going to get eviscerated in whichever debate he has the balls to actually turn up to.

 

[BigFatCoward]

Is this real? Is it not an impressionist taking the piss. 

[Spockydog]

4 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Is this real? Is it not an impressionist taking the piss. 

It's about two years old, but most definitely real. The interviewer is Eddie Mair. Bozo was Foreign Secretary at the time.

[Rippounet]

1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Fiji The United States is the perfect demonstration of the ultimate outcome of long term immigration. I don’t see how any reasonable person can argue that the end result of decades centuries of immigration into Fiji North America was not detrimental to the political power of indigenous Fijians Americans.

Just couldn't help myself.

[Tywin Manderly]

3 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Just couldn't help myself.

That crossed my mind as well. 

[Heartofice]

37 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

"It's not a Two Ronnies sketch. You can't answer the question before last."

The worst political interview since Ben Swain went on Newsnight.

This clown is going to get eviscerated in whichever debate he has the balls to actually turn up to.

 

Hardly a find. It’s a well known quantity that Boris doesn’t bother preparing for interviews and speeches and tends to just turn up and bluster his way through them 

6 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Just couldn't help myself.

those Indiginous Americans did so well out of immigration didn’t they. Good point.

[Spockydog]

20 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Hardly a find. It’s a well known quantity that Boris doesn’t bother preparing for interviews and speeches and tends to just turn up and bluster his way through them 

It's one thing reading about his laziness and incompetence in the press, quite another witnessing it in the flesh.

The debates, if he actually turns up, will be hilarious. But not the type of HIGNFY hilarity his handlers were hoping for when they decided that this was the idiot who would lead their Charge of the Lunatics.

 

[Heartofice]

4 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

It's one thing reading about his laziness and incompetence in the press, quite another witnessing it in the flesh.

The debates, if he actually turns up, will be hilarious. But not the type of HIGNFY hilarity his handlers were hoping for when they decided that this was the idiot who would lead their Charge of the Lunatics.

 

He was dreadful in most of the debates for Tory leader as well, and if you watch any of his speeches they are often rambling nonsense with humour thrown in to cover his gaps.

The big But here is that it doesn’t seem to matter. He still won Tory leadership and has been very popular since he’s been in power.

Its been known he’s like this for many years. People who like him don’t mind this stuff and people who hate him are incensed by it. So while you might rage at that video, it doesn’t change anything.