U.K Politics: Revenge of the Truss.

[Which Tyler]

13 minutes ago, Pebble thats Stubby said:

I have not found reactions to be so problematic.  I mean you have to go back and look for them.  I don't get notified when someone reacts to my post.  and If I get a confused or laughing reaction from a blocked person, I just assume my point was well made.  Engauging with that person is exhausting, futile and not worth my time.

I just like the scroll wheel; and try (not always successfully) to stick to the 3-post rule these days.
Make my point
Clarify if necessary
Expand if necessary

Then walk away.
If a discussion is still going on after this many pages; and the same opinions are being expressed, immune to fact or nuance; then it's not an honest, good faith discussion. There's "I'm genuinely not sure what your point is", there's "agree to disagree", there's "not worth my time", and there's "bad faith discussion" - all of which should be able to be dealt with in 3 posts.

That's just my compromise as I hate the ignore feature, but I appreciate it's existence.

[Fragile Bird]

Sweet geez, it’s 2023 and someone asks if being assaulted by a bottle, a club, a knife or even a hand is a sexual assault equivalent to the old charge of rape?

[BigFatCoward]

1 hour ago, Week said:

Is it the mean-spirited rhetoric of anti-transgender reactionaries that need to bring the conversation to particulars of the definition of rape, demonization of transwomen as potentially dangerous or dishonest, or blithely repeating incorrect information or the response by @karaddin, @Raja, and others to engage and educate with patience and grace?

This is how the right will make this the next brexit. By people like you using stupid language. You sound like a fresher getting their teeth into their first social issue. 

One side is evil, your side is full of 'patience and grace' (fwiw I agree on those 2 posters, I'm making a more general point). 

Not everyone that thinks 'maybe don't put trans rapists in women's prison and maybe don't let trans athletes compete against women' is a monster (I've used these examples as these are the 2 that the RW press seem to be using right now).

Many are, but there are fucking good arguments on both sides of those questions, and shutting people down for expressing them is falling hook line and sinker for Murdoch and the Daily Mail playbook. The left is marching off a cliff like a bunch of lemmings over this issue. 

We don't win the war by fighting on the enemies territory. 

[Raja]

There's wall to wall transphobic coverage in the UK, in all the papers, including the guardian. No one is being shut down.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

It’s funny how many people literally cannot stand it when someone challenges their view point. 

But you're challenging them with nonsensical bullshit. What they can't stand is your ignorance and frankly lack of humanity when discussing the subject at hand, one I should point out that requires a good bit of emotional intelligence to tackle. You've got a long ways to go in that department buddy. 

[Ran]

Getting a lot of reports from all sides on this thread. If the UK threads can't be kept civil, we don't actually need to have them, folks.

Ignore is as easy to use as hovering over a users name in a thread and clicking the big Ignore button.

No more personal attacks, accusations of trolling, naming that you've put someone on ignore, etc.

[karaddin]

4 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

We don't win the war by fighting on the enemies territory. 

The entire fucking world is their territory though, and the media in the UK is decidedly on their side. Not every member of a minority, or their supporters, can manage the model minority act (nor want to, it is offensive to need to play good dog just to get rights) so a media that's going to elevate the actions of anyone that acts incendiary and doesn't report any instances of people engaging in good faith is going to be indistinguishable from the extreme view of the conversation many seem to have.

Turning around and then blaming us for being attacked is also falling hook, line and sinker for that play book. That's what I mean by it's all their terrain.

I'd also prefer to ignore HoI's posts on this issue (by which I mean simply not respond to them) - I don't hold the slightest hope of changing his mind, but if that shit gets left unchallenged by anyone then a genuinely ignorant reader having just started to lurk in the thread gets the impression that it's correct and uncontroversial just because it's unopposed. This is also falling for a different part of the play book, but so is ignoring it. So I waste my time, energy and good cheer wallowing in this shit hoping to make some small difference in the one corner of the world I can be bothered fighting for instead of giving up and hiding.

[Varysblackfyre321]

 

7 hours ago, karaddin said:

When I say rape I'm referring to all sexual assaults, not just piv penetration. 

Yeah there’s no reason one could use to differentiate the categorization  that wouldn’t really incredibly sexist and evil.

 

[DaveSumm]

I know a lot people don’t want to see this discussion continue, but maybe we could have a separate thread from UK Politics (“is the UK particularly transphobic or does JKR and the press just give that impression?” Or something?) as it takes up more than half of most threads recently. I actually think the last few pages, if you forget the topic, read like a fair number of other discussions here, attempting to address each others points and such. I respect @karaddin for playing a big part in keeping it that way. So I think we’re capable of not turning such a thread into a complete car crash, for what it’s worth.

[karaddin]

I'd rather just not have that conversation tbh lol. I think anything fruitful has been said by now.

Let's just talk about how the SNP has (probably, I'm being pessimistic here) decided to join Labour and the Tories in having disappointing leadership or something like that. 

I could even link that into Aussie politics, it's been decades since we had an actual leader - by which I mean someone that takes a stand and argues to change the mind of the public rather than cynically chasing what they think the public already wants - and it certainly doesn't feel like there's been much of that in the UK either.

I think Jezza aspired to it, but clearly had a number of other issues and aspirations are not the same as actually doing. Cameron clearly didn't think the public actually needed to be led and his failure to do so will be shaping UK politics for a long time. I think my impression is that Blair possibly did make a reasonable attempt on some issues though? But possibly also that he's ultimately to blame for the current state of affairs in terms of the political culture. I actually know jack shit about Brown though, other than that he followed Blair and was not particularly inspiring.

[Varysblackfyre321]

12 hours ago, Heartofice said:

No. 
There are zero cis women in UK prisons convicted of rape because in UK law women cannot commit the act of rape.

There are zero cis men in Saudi Arabia legally guilty of raping their spouse.

Do you think it’s morally justified to call men who’d force their wives to have sex rapists even if they do it in Saudi Arabia?

 

12 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Now I really do wish you would stop this bafflingly stupid argument

Do you think there’s ever been a cis woman whose in the U.K whose committed rape?

I’m not asking about legality but morality.

If you think the concept of a cis woman raping anyone is ridiculous can you give a reason that’s not deeply sexist and has horrifying prescriptions. Like I hope you wouldn’t just point to the inability to impregnate someone.

[The Anti-Targ]

9 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

And matching sentences mean nothing, robbery and murder have the same maximum sentence, they are not equivalent. 

That's a bit disingenuous. Non-consenually forcing a broom handle into someone's vagina and forcing your penis into someone's vagina are different forms of sexual assault, but they probably feel pretty similarly violating to the victim. Getting stabbed to death and having the family silver nicked don't feel similar at all.

[BigFatCoward]

2 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

That's a bit disingenuous. Non-consenually forcing a broom handle into someone's vagina and forcing your penis into someone's vagina are different forms of sexual assault, but they probably feel pretty similarly violating to the victim. Getting stabbed to death and having the family silver nicked don't feel similar at all.

I didn't argue that rape and sex by penetration were different. I was arguing that using sentencing guidelines as a measure of how serious an offence is is flawed.  

 

[Varysblackfyre321]

19 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

I was arguing that using sentencing guidelines as a measure of how serious an offence is is flawed.  

 

That’s a fair point and I assumed this is what you meant. You generally act in good faith even when we disagree.

[Varysblackfyre321]

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/feb/19/record-number-of-uk-households-depending-on-food-banks
 

This is why tories do culture war.

[dog-days]

Boris Johnson, in league with the crazies in the ERG, has been criticising Sunak's plan to cooperate with the EU on reworking the agreement on Northern Ireland. As opportunistic and unscrupulous as ever. (Boris, I mean. Sunak is actually being sane, and predictably a swathe of his own party hate that.)

I'm not sure what Sunak's plan actually is. As far as I know, NI is still stuck in that both of the below aren't possible given Brexit:

1. No land border with the Republic 

2. No Irish Sea border with Britain

[BigFatCoward]

21 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/feb/19/record-number-of-uk-households-depending-on-food-banks
 

This is why tories do culture war.

And this is why all that matters is winning the next election and not allowing the tories to move the battleground. It is literally life and death.

Even if you think the labour party is as bad as the tories on trans issues, they will be so much better on pretty much everything else.

How could they do worse, even the watered down Starmer version - which I still think will be more left wing in application of policies than when in opposition and don't have to do anything other than let the tories self destruct and stand back and watch.  

[mormont]

8 hours ago, karaddin said:

I'd rather just not have that conversation tbh lol. I think anything fruitful has been said by now.

Let's just talk about how the SNP has (probably, I'm being pessimistic here) decided to join Labour and the Tories in having disappointing leadership or something like that. 

Of the two declared contenders, I'm not a huge fan of Humza Yousaf. He comes over as very much a career politician, and lacks the genuine connection and communication with voters Sturgeon had. But the other is Ash Regan, who resigned from the government over the gender self-ID bill. She's calling for everyone who's resigned from the party in the last year (mostly over the same issue) to be allowed to vote in the leadership election. Whatever you think of the bill, that's a wild and desperate notion that the party will never entertain, indicating that even she thinks she isn't going to win on the rules as they stand.

8 hours ago, karaddin said:

I think Jezza aspired to it, but clearly had a number of other issues and aspirations are not the same as actually doing.

Corbyn was the sort of MP Labour needs on the backbenches and should never have in government, and a lot of that was that he just fundamentally doesn't have or understand leadership skills. Starmer is a bit better in that department but my goodness, he's running as far to the right as he can on every issue in sight. That's another form of misunderstanding leadership: he's following the voters, or where he perceives them to be, instead of trying to inspire them.

1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

And this is why all that matters is winning the next election and not allowing the tories to move the battleground. It is literally life and death.

So is the trans issue. Trans kids in this country are dying because of the toxic atmosphere. And, as I've indicated before, the demonising tactics used against trans folks are very similar to those used against the poor. The arguments for why we can't simplify and increase benefits are in the same vein as those for why we can't simplify gender recognition.

The fights here aren't separate, unfortunately. It's all one battleground.

I agree Starmer will be better than the Tories, and I agree he must be backed for that reason. But the country needs much deeper and more radical change.

[Varysblackfyre321]

32 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Even if you think the labour party is as bad as the tories on trans issues, they will be so much better on pretty much everything else.

See I understand the rationale—go with the lesser of two evil to accomplish the most good.

Seems practical, morally necessary even a lot of times.

I would rather have a Mitt Romney in control of the presidency than a Ron Desantis because I feel the rather would be at least worse on keeping the US a liberal democracy. 

I would rather Ukraine be a flawed fledgling western leaning democracy, than apart of an autocracy. So much so I think it was good Corbyn didn’t get the PM the last general election though that conclusion comes from hindsight.

I am wary of framing being bad on trans issues as an isolated issue. A lot of the arguments against them if accepted as moral and sound have pretty horrendous implications for a number of other issues and groups.

Off hand I remember Matt Walsh when on Joe Rogan made a comparison to acceptance of the logic to call trans women being the same used to justify recognizing gay marriage is marriage.

saying Sex is real works as well in arguing why two men can’t get married or adopt children for why Women shouldn’t be a significant part in the workforce or be allowed into certain venues or professions historically dominated by men. 
 

Think long-term societal change not merely victory on the very next election cycle for a particular party. 

46 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

How could they do worse, even the watered down Starmer version - which I still think will be more left wing in application of policies than when in opposition

 

From what I see Starmer hasn’t been to the left on the average Tory on most significant issues though and has even been on the right on a few. Even when I’d argue  he doesn’t have to. 

I’d still find it morally revolting if he’d go along with the tories culture war against trans people but I can see why someone can reasonably do the calculus that tolerating it unfortunately  is necessary.
By go along with I mean actively, explicitly support things like removing the amount of countries whose GRCs the U.K recognizes as worthy to fast track people.

I’d ideally comprise with him allowing Labor to have in text progressive policy that they that mps don’t talk about much about —much like how republicans in the US don’t talk about banning gay marriage when it’s on their policy platforms.

But I digress.
Occasionally Starmer will say something good that he won’t have the ability to accomplish—ex. abolish the House of Lords. But that’s even worse meaningless virtue signal as the tories saying they’ll ban conversion therapy for trans people. The hope that intraparty forces once in power will once in power force Starmer better than the tories to me doesn’t seem justified. I'm honestly under the opinion they'll only do the right thing if they’re forced to coalition with the lib dems or greens.

Can you point to a policy or at least rhetoric on a particular topic being pushed right now by the labor under Starmer that’s significantly better than the tories?

[Maltaran]

9 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

 

Can you point to a policy or at least rhetoric on a particular topic being pushed right now by the labor under Starmer that’s significantly better than the tories?

Windfall tax on energy companies