UK EU Referendum Thoughts

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Woebot

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i expect i'm going to be told in a thousand ways (and with recourse to very scholarly articles and perhaps, if i'm lucky, some virtue signalling thrown in) why my opinions are wrong. but let's hear it anyway...

i'm discussing the uk here.

in my stupidity i dislike politics. politics seems like smoke and mirrors - the ideological arguments that crafty people make to secure themselves 5-year jobs. once in power by and large political parties are steered by civic bureaucracy.

the whole argument here about neoliberalism - that the blair government was a re-run of thatcherism. really what that's about is that there is common-sense, centrist way to run government which strives to do the best by the whole population. so: if we (corbyn) push taxes too high - whether we like it or not - it is a disincentive for global corporations to settle here. [on the other hand] so: if we (cameron) crush the working and middle classes too much we get civil unrest and a miserable toxic society with people sleeping on the streets.

government (as distinct from politics) is like james lovelock's swimming pool - gaian in short. it's about balance. anyone who thinks that the "ruling classes" form an "establishment" is nothing more than a paranoid fantasist. i say this to fools like owen wossisface with some insight into who these people are. the likes of cameron and osbourne are not evil people - they are sincerely trying to do the best they can. just as the blair labour government was trying to do its best.

that's not to say that i would want the people who fight to preserve what they see as greater priorities stopping to do that. let them fight as viciously and valiantly as they may. if cameron and osbourne wake up with a cold sweat in the middle of the night worrying about a nurse in hull - then that's fine by me.

however the bottom line for me is that is that i don't have a particular attachment to politicians per se. like yes minister isn't it? pretty quickly they become dead limbs. and although i have an anxiety about unelected officials running the country, and there is an argument that politicians can hold bureaucrats to account, but i'm not sure if i really give a shit.

to that end, and NOW LOOKING FROM OUTER SPACE AT OUR TINY BLUE DOT i'm not sure if i don't think that the EU isn't actually a great thing? especially as it has seemed to have been a pretty centrist and egalitarian organisation thus far. surely the capitalist forces of globalism have much more to gain with a hundred squabbling nation states? divide and conquer isn't it? they are much less accountable in that circumstance.

in fact not only are global corporations at risk from the EU - so also is that perennial vested interest - the uk political establishment. you could pursue the logic that the people who should be most anxious about losing sovereignty to europe are the british politicians who will all eventually lose their jobs to it. actually i'm surprised, well not that surprised as i think he's basically a sensible person, that cameron is in favour in staying in the eu. it's like voting for your own obsolescence, and anyone prepared to do that needs to be taken seriously.

and frankly fuck all this petty nationalism. i will be voting to stay in the EU. what about you?
 

luka

Well-known member
. I don't give a shit about politics either. Is that virtue signalling? Droid will give you a kicking. Wonder if anyone else will take the bait.
 

luka

Well-known member
the whole argument here about neoliberalism - that the blair government was a re-run of thatcherism. really what that's about is that there is common-sense, centrist way to run government which strives to do the best by the whole population.

That's fairly contentious obviously lol!
 

Woebot

Well-known member
. I don't give a shit about politics either. Is that virtue signalling? Droid will give you a kicking. Wonder if anyone else will take the bait.

no that's not virtue signalling. generally you specialise in "lack of virtue" signalling.

i am interested to hear what everyone thinks. not especially excited in being told how ignorant, selfish and foolish i am.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
'contentious' is a nice euphemism for it.

"the likes of cameron and osbourne are not evil people - they are sincerely trying to do the best they can. just as the blair labour government was trying to do its best."

No, they're not evil/immoral, they're amoral in large areas of policy. Or maybe not even amoral - they simply subscribe to a moral code where human suffering can be tolerated if profits are to be made, and where some people's lives are worth less than others. So yeah, they're trying to do their best, if 'best' relates only to one's own moral code, however psychopathic. A little bit frightening though, isn't it?

As to politicians - I don't care about them much either. I used to work with 'political journalists', who were way more concerned with whether individual politicians were 'suitable' for their positions than discussing annoying things like actual policy. Separate 'the political' from 'politics', surely? So, agreed on the EU. Maybe.
 
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luka

Well-known member
'contentious' is a nice euphemism for it.

well its trolling but im hardly going to scold anybody for that. he means owen jones who wrote the book called the estabishment sufi
 

luka

Well-known member
yeah i feel we're better off in than out. i dont see the EU as running counter to business interests though. in fact i dont think business interests would ever allow us to exit the EU regardless of what Vimothy calls 'the people' might want
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
well its trolling but im hardly going to scold anybody for that. he means owen jones who wrote the book called the estabishment sufi

i did presume it was trolling,but always best to take things on face value and then see. lots of people would agree with it, after all

@sufi, that James Meek article was great, creating new terminology to name the sleight of hand we all know is being repeatedly used - the 'conceptual rich' etc. Very simple, but very useful. I'd also recommend the book 'Private Island' to anyone, like me, who was hazy on exactly how UK privatisation of public goods and utilities got pushed through, and how counter its results were to the way it was initially sold (by Thatcher), as a mechanism that would produce a 'nation of private shareholders'.
 
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Woebot

Well-known member
No, they're not evil/immoral, they're amoral in large areas of policy. Or maybe not even amoral - they simply subscribe to a moral code where human suffering can be tolerated if profits are to be made, and where some people's lives are worth less than others. So yeah, they're trying to do their best, if 'best' relates only to one's own moral code, however psychopathic. A little bit frightening though, isn't it?.

nicely put certainly
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
sure - but what is trolling then, if not some sort of deception/exaggeration of an opinion that you don't hold, in order to bait other people?
 

luka

Well-known member
partly about the forum you choose to share those exxagerated opinions in id suggest

wrt the establishment i think you can hold 1 of 2 positions
1. there is an establishment
2. men that attend eton and/or oxbridge are a natural elite and therefore naturally rise to the top in our perfect meritocracy.
 
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