General / Off-Topic The General Politics Thread aka "I didn't Vote For You"

[TheAntitheist Crusader]

I voted SNP - back in the 2014 Indyref I voted to leave the UK (I'll explain why below) and to remain in the EU as Scotland is a part of the UK that benefits from immigration from the EU itself.

As for why I'm wanting an independent Scotland? I believe that Scotland would be best served by a government specifically dedicated to Scotland's needs & requirements - and if they're not up to task, be able to be removed by the Scottish population. Sadly with Westminster Scotland seldom has much effect on politics across the UK as a whole - with a mere 59 out of 650 seats in the UK parliament we can only affect the government when England can't decide who they want running things. There's also the fact that Scotland has been often used as a testing ground for many unpopular policies that Westminster has wanted to "test out" without affecting their core votes - such as the Poll Tax & storing nuclear submarines a few miles from the largest city in Scotland. (Back during the Indyref process I believe a few places were checked out south of the border for Trident and it was deemed that having nuclear submarines in close proximity to people south of the border was an "unacceptable risk" - if that's the case, why's it an acceptable risk to have them right down the road from Scotland's largest city - and on the busiest shipping lane in Scotland)

While the 2014 Indyref was a result in favour of remaining in the UK (it was a close result - a mere 6% swing would've put things the other way - far from being as "decisive" as the unionists believe) there is still a strong desire for independence in Scotland - and Holyrood has already put in an official Section 30 request for another Independence Referendum which - so far - hasn't been responded to by Westminster. Theresa May's "Now is not the time" speech was 2 weeks before Holyrood voted on the Section 30 request.

I should probably add here that while I do support independence, I'm definitely not an SNP member and never intend to be a member of any political party. I would rather vote based on my personal beliefs, rather than what a bit of paper tells me to.

That's fair enough, i'm a Unionist from Wales myself but if Scotland eventually want's to leave no one should stand in their way.
I have one question, why do you find Trident an issue ? Having a nuclear sub base near you is no different, allthough probably much safer environmentaly speaking than having a nuclear power plant next to your city.

 

[Flimley]

How can we have a General Politics thread. When we haven't even had a Sergeant Politics thread yet..... o7

Flimley

 

[Javert]

And that's already an overreaction. ^^
You don't "protect" children by trying to keep them away from "dangerous thoughts" at all cost (eh, I'm born in communist eastern europe with a school system that still had corporal punishment).
UK is just pretty weak at self-reflection.
That "English Defense League" is the same cheesehead hooligans that trashed the inner city of Newcastle and made it a "no-go-zone" in the late 90ies. That's not the embodyment of british anything nor is it a "political movement". It's a bunch of no-good cheeseheads with sucky lives.

And yea.. that here:
http://i2.birminghammail.co.uk/incoming/article12869745.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/EDL-Birmingham-march.jpg

I'm not sure it's an overreaction - we would need more details, but the point may be how old the child is (doesn't mention that) and whether they are being brainwashed by their parents into extreme beliefs. It may have been what the child said when questioned by the teacher about this that prompted them to report it, rather than the mere fact of watching this video.

 

[TheAntitheist Crusader]

How can we have a General Politics thread. When we haven't even had a Sergeant Politics thread yet..... o7

Flimley

Damn, in my house and amongst friends i'm known as the guy with this sort of humour lol. I should have thought of it.

 

[gunbladelad]

I have one question, why do you find Trident an issue ? Having a nuclear sub base near you is no different, allthough probably much safer environmentaly speaking than having a nuclear power plant next to your city.

It's more an ethical issue - nuclear weapons are designed purely for use against civilian populations - non-combatatants - essentially it's genocide of the worst kind. With the worldwide political climate being what it is, the main threats are from climate change and terrorism. You can't nuke terrorists or use them to stop climate change, rendering them meaningless in the modern society. As a nuclear deterrent they're massively expensive. It would take a lunatic to fire them first because of the major loss of innocent lives involved, and firing them second means that the deterrent policy has failed - which again, means they're essentially useless.

Think of the billions that we've pumped into nuclear weapons - something that will only ever sit and rot - and imagine if we instead fed that money into essential services. Emergency services, the health service, road maintenance, employment investments, etc. The money would be far better used there.

To be honest, I'm against nuclear power stations too - there's a history of them being unsafe, with nuclear incidents being recorded every single year and the waste they produce is unsafe for thousands of years. Scotland has (or at least had until the Westminster Government cut renewables funding) a world class renewables research industry. Even now we often get all of our power requirements from renewables such as hydro-electric and wind. However, Westminster cut the funding in favour of giving the Chinese money to build nuclear power stations here instead.

 

[Javert]

It's more an ethical issue - nuclear weapons are designed purely for use against civilian populations - non-combatatants - essentially it's genocide of the worst kind. With the worldwide political climate being what it is, the main threats are from climate change and terrorism. You can't nuke terrorists or use them to stop climate change, rendering them meaningless in the modern society. As a nuclear deterrent they're massively expensive. It would take a lunatic to fire them first because of the major loss of innocent lives involved, and firing them second means that the deterrent policy has failed - which again, means they're essentially useless.

Think of the billions that we've pumped into nuclear weapons - something that will only ever sit and rot - and imagine if we instead fed that money into essential services. Emergency services, the health service, road maintenance, employment investments, etc. The money would be far better used there.

Yes, but there is an argument that nuclear weapons are in the end just like many other newly invented weapons - if your enemies have them, you need to have them in order to ensure that nobody can use them. The difference is that even more so with nuclear weapons, no sane person would want to deploy them as it could be very likely to lead to the end of the human race. Setting off modern nuclear weapons near Glasgow would not just impact on Scotland - it would also contaminate the whole country with radiation - my perspective is that once someone drops nuclear weapons anywhere on my country, at that point it doesn't much matter where the submarines were based.

 

[Boomer Kay]

I'm not sure it's an overreaction - we would need more details, but the point may be how old the child is (doesn't mention that) and whether they are being brainwashed by their parents into extreme beliefs. It may have been what the child said when questioned by the teacher about this that prompted them to report it, rather than the mere fact of watching this video.

15 according to the BBC article (which seems to be the only one mentioning the kid watched UKIP and EDL videos - a fact certainly ommited in the "right leaning press").

And I'm not overly familiar with british teachers in general, but german ones (my sister, brother in law and best friend being teachers as well some of the friends of my parents, all of the friends of my sis n inlaw etc.) grow up in a terrible "intellectual firmly centre-right" bubble. (we call them the "Jack Wolfskin" germans ... an outsider's view: https://mydeutschlandblog.wordpress.com/2014/07/21/germans-prepared-for-anything-anytime/ ).
They cannot properly deal with provocation outside of their very centrist and very intellectual point of view. I did have a conversation with my daughters teacher and turns out - not only did he never smoke weed for fear of getting addicted, he didn't even drink his entire life - dude's about my age or older. And then he's confronted with a "rough" school and a lot of "problem kids" and he's in panic mode. If a teenager can shock you as an adult by smoking weed, binge drinking, wearing revealing clothes or watching right-wing propaganda, you've lost the "authority war" (which is not the same nowadays as the 'good old' ones of caning your pupils fingers for transgressions ^^ ).

 

[TheAntitheist Crusader]

It's more an ethical issue - nuclear weapons are designed purely for use against civilian populations - non-combatatants - essentially it's genocide of the worst kind. With the worldwide political climate being what it is, the main threats are from climate change and terrorism. You can't nuke terrorists or use them to stop climate change, rendering them meaningless in the modern society. As a nuclear deterrent they're massively expensive. It would take a lunatic to fire them first because of the major loss of innocent lives involved, and firing them second means that the deterrent policy has failed - which again, means they're essentially useless.

Think of the billions that we've pumped into nuclear weapons - something that will only ever sit and rot - and imagine if we instead fed that money into essential services. Emergency services, the health service, road maintenance, employment investments, etc. The money would be far better used there.

To be honest, I'm against nuclear power stations too - there's a history of them being unsafe, with nuclear incidents being recorded every single year and the waste they produce is unsafe for thousands of years. Scotland has (or at least had until the Westminster Government cut renewables funding) a world class renewables research industry. Even now we often get all of our power requirements from renewables such as hydro-electric and wind. However, Westminster cut the funding in favour of giving the Chinese money to build nuclear power stations here instead.

All understood, and just to be clear, allthough i support Trident as a detterent, i agree that it need never be used. (allthough i think they are used very well 24/7 just by being there).

 

[TheAntitheist Crusader]

15 according to the BBC article (which seems to be the only one mentioning the kid watched UKIP and EDL videos - a fact certainly ommited in the "right leaning press").

And I'm not overly familiar with british teachers in general, but german ones (my sister, brother in law and best friend being teachers as well some of the friends of my parents, all of the friends of my sis n inlaw etc.) grow up in a terrible "intellectual firmly centre-right" bubble. (we call them the "Jack Wolfskin" germans ... an outsider's view: https://mydeutschlandblog.wordpress.com/2014/07/21/germans-prepared-for-anything-anytime/ ).
They cannot properly deal with provocation outside of their very centrist and very intellectual point of view. I did have a conversation with my daughters teacher and turns out - not only did he never smoke weed for fear of getting addicted, he didn't even drink his entire life - dude's about my age or older. And then he's confronted with a "rough" school and a lot of "problem kids" and he's in panic mode. If a teenager can shock you as an adult by smoking weed, binge drinking, wearing revealing clothes or watching right-wing propaganda, you've lost the "authority war" (which is not the same nowadays as the 'good old' ones of caning your pupils fingers for transgressions ^^ ).

When i said the EDL viewer student being reported was right, i do agree that i may have over reacted in my haste to comment, but i still think it justifies a talking to, even with the parents if need be.