Subject: Re: Common ground.
Author:
Posted on: 2009-08-03 23:10:00 UTC
I think that on the internet, we expect most people to be well-informed, relatively young, and open-minded. Instead, you continue to find sites like Free Republic and Stormfront. It can be appalling to think that these kinds of people even have access to the internet, let alone are able to publicly declare such ideals as white supremacy (shudder) and homegrown terrorism (UGGGHHH).
I spent some time with family not too long ago, and I have to say, the encounter made me a tad depressed. These relatives watch Fox News almost exclusively and bitch about "Obama this, Obama that" for stupid shit that frankly makes no sense. They didn't used to be like this, as far as I can recollect; they didn't used to watch Fox News 24/7. They used to be relatively normal people.
Let me add that I am an independent all the way and voted Obama; the man is not the Messiah and is far from perfect, but I believe he is the best person for the job.
I don't mean to start a flame war, but perhaps others could share stories with political nutjobs of all flavors.
This place actually dot dot dots the F word? Since when?
Honestly, I think we're supposed to stay away from heavy swears anyway. Occasionally they're not a problem, but dropping the F-bomb in a public forum frequented by kids (at least, it was. or could be) is probably not a good idea in any case.
Glod, you make me thankful I don't live in your country.
That said, we had elections here recently. More important than most; these were elections for the European Parliament, and the interesting thing with the European Parliament is, unlike the national government, they've actually heard of proportional representation. This makes me smile, and I had high hopes.
Unfortunately, I ended up having the same argument with my housemate that I've had every year since he hit eighteen in 2004. I'll spare you the detailed ramble about why a European Parliament, if done properly, is an immensely excellent thing, and skip to the bit where my housemate didn't bother to vote because, once again, he assumed there was no point.
This was coupled with me discussing these elections with various people around the same time, and discovering one of our PPC members was going for voting UKIP, and one was going for the BNP.
You expect this from your family, I think. They're your blood, and you love them, no matter what, even when they hold some bloody weird views, and they will hold some bloody weird views. What I wasn't expecting was to have PPCers espousing the same views as the BNP. I passed on the arguing about it, because I'm old enough to be jaded, but it was worrying in the extreme nonetheless.
I said that the BNP had good ideas but were taking them to extremes. Hitler had good ideas, but I'm not going to vote for him because he's a racist nutjob. Also, dead.
... or was I the UKIP guy and someone else was BNP? UKIP has problems too, but as with the BNP, I believe that they'd help a bit. Of course, next election, I'll be prepared with broadband of my own and can do more research on everyone.
Also, "I'll spare you the detailed ramble about why a European Parliament, if done properly, is an immensely excellent thing". The problem is highlighted.
Actually, I was intending not to name names. Easier that way.
How exactly a bunch of racist nutters would help a bit I'm not sure. My scepticism is based in large part on the fact that the party seems determined to lay every problem the country has at the feet of non-white citizens, and assumes forced repatriation will sort everything out and bring back to glorious days of Empire. I'd rather have a government that's slightly more grounded in reality.
Crap. Now I remember what I forgot to do. I was intending to quote Mass Effect. They have a BNP-like party called Terra Firma which is very pro-human. Even the xenophobe in your party is pissed with them for being racist, saying that (I believe, hence why I wanted to check), while there aims are good, they should do something, anything to weed out the extremists in the party. If the BNP did that, then they'd be fine, as would UKIP, Labour, Conservatives, Lib Dem etc etc etc etc. It's not ideas that are at fault (... most of the time), it's the people that carry them out. Communism is pratically the perfect system. Humans, on the other hand, screwed it up enormously. Dictatorship is pratically the perfect system. Humans, on the other hand, screwed it up enormously. Democracy is pratically the perfect system. Humans, on the other hand, screwed it up enormously. I've come to the not-so-thrilling conclusion that humans suck.
I lurk in SomethingAwful's Laissez-Faire forums; I believe I heard some pretty scary stories about the BNP, if memory serves.
I wanted to slap my ex-boyfriend so hard when I asked if he planned on voting for the next election and he said "I don't think I'll vote." What a shithead.
not because I wasn:t elegable, but because I wasn:t in the country.
I am not a fan of the American system, where the draw out the length of the voting period to practically over a year (waiste money much?). But Canada called an election and finished it all withing three weeks. Yes WEEKS. I didn:t even hear about the election until one week to it. There was absolutly no time for me to register and get a ballot in time for the dead line.
I was just glad that the out come was contrary to the PMs hopes. He saw it as a seat grabbing exersise, but in the end he lost a bunch. Then again, if he waited out the term maybe we would have gotten a different PM because enough people are sick of him now.
Just my two cents.
L
Three weeks? Now that is impressive.
Mind you, ours don't tend to be loitering for very long between being called and actually occurring. This may be because the government has this little habit of waiting until public opinion is in their favour and then calling an election for as soon as humanly possible, lest things swing the other way in the interim.
There are legitimate reasons to not vote, honestly. Like, for example, disagreeing with 1) the process of voting, in general, how it's handled, 2) all of the candidates, in every single possible way (except the basics, like "murder is bad"), 3) the government, in almost every tangible way.
I won't vote in the next election. Or I'll do the blank ballot thing. This government sucks, all governments suck, I am an anarchist, and I think it's ridiculous that this country/government/society puts so much pressure on everyone to "VOTE! VOTE! YOU ARE UNDESERVING OF THIS COUNTRY IF YOU DON'T VOTE" especially since there's so much misinformation and stupidity thrown around pre-elections, and most people are incredibly misinformed, and the whole thing is just UGH.
Yeah; this guy, however, was a rich white kid who had everything he could ever want and didn't vote not because he had anything against the system, or had issues with government--he just didn't care. As long as he had his video games, and porn, and crappy restaurant food, he cared about nothing else. It's one thing to care and not vote--it's entirely different to be an apathetic bumhole with tunnel vision and stunted social growth. It was like 1984...
Anyways, I vote because there is always someone I want in office. I'm okay with the voting system. Also, I always remind myself that, less than a hundred years ago, women couldn't vote. I better damn well get my ass to the local polls to honor the women who fought for suffrage (as a feminist, this is important to me.)
My scariest with the BNP was I thought we were safe. I thought we'd had a few nutters around who really hadn't put the slightest moment's thought in. And then, a couple of weeks later, when who'd voted for whom was all academic, it turned out my constituency was the only one in Europe who'd voted out some vaguely liberal type and voted in the ...ing BNP.
It seemed scary but in in an academic way.
And then I had more than one conversation with PPCers who'd actually voted for those ...s. I had conversations with people I'd thought were reasonable human beings, but it turned out they'd deliberately voted for that. You have trouble with your family, because they vote like that. I have trouble with this entire damned Board, because before you know it, people you thought were vaguely reasonable, and might have ideas that didn't quite jive with yours but nothing major, suddenly, when it finally counts, they're votting for the ...ing BNP. You expect your family to vote against you. They're still your family.
I thought here we'd maybe have some common ground.
No.
...ing BN ...ing P.
Of the two here I talked to, one was appalled when I pointed out what their policies mean, but it was too late, the vote had been cast. The other, my objections didn't mean shite. That person still thought the best vote was for the ...ing BNP.
Arguments with family over politics would be preferable. My family won't change their views based on what I say, but I know they'll listen. And it's academic anyway; we've all, without ever being coerced to it, ended up voting Lib Dem.
I find it a ...load scarier that here, where we're meant to be a sort of meeting of minds, and we're all meant to have common ground... even here, I find supporters of the ...ing BNP. And not just supporters, but people who'll argue any line, fight any fight, and still vote for the ...ing BNP.
On behalf of Yorkshire, Europe, I'm sorry.
Coming in late, but I just read a bit about the BNP and... My brain, it hurts. I'm not white or from Britain, but I still don't see how discrimination can possibly help anything. Therefore, I am heavily on the side of "they're racist nutters".
I feel I should restate that I didn't actually vote BNP.
Although this is why we have secret ballots.
but then again, I don't see the point in a lot of things. After all, the phrase "If voting could change things, it would be illegal" exists for a reason.
And that would be because you live somewhere reasonably safe, where the worst that can happen to you personally based on your vote is having arguments about it. Some places, some times, you or your family could be ostracised, you could lose your job, be attacked or even killed simply based on how you voted. If you know that's the case it takes a lot of guts to vote how you want to rather than voting for the party that won't get your kneecaps smashed. In the interests of not intimidating voters, we therefore have secret ballots.
And if not, go buy a knife.
Yeah, we are pretty much safe in that regard, but the safety is maintained by the secret ballot. We don't have much politically based violence, because we've no way of distinguishing between Us and Them and so working out who to attack.
Example: say you vote for the BNP. And then say you're applying for a job, and the bloke interviewing you is a hardcore Green Party member. If he can look you up afterwards and find out where your political allegiances lie, he's likely to find spurious reasons not to give you the job.
...if you're in the military, emergency services, clergy or medical professions then you're not allowed to be a member of the BNP. Remember the fuss a while back about the BNP membership list being leaked and people potentially losing their jobs because of it?
you can pwn him in court.
... what does the Green Party do anyway?
They're the happy-clappy organic vegetarian Gaia types, generally.
We do have a common ground in our loathing of bad writing. Beyond that, you can't really expect anything.
I remember feeling the same way during the second Bush election--we had members on both sides of that one. It was weird to me, I admit, but I try not to let different political views bother me unless people are generally being asshats about it. Heck, one of my good friends in real life is a right-wing conservative Catholic who wants to be a lawyer. Fortunately, he also has a sense of humor. We used to have very interesting conversations in the cafeteria. *g*
I regretfully confess my ignorance of the European Parliament issues, but that's all outside of what we're about here. Just remember: everyone is entitled to their own wrong opinion.
~Neshomeh
I think that on the internet, we expect most people to be well-informed, relatively young, and open-minded. Instead, you continue to find sites like Free Republic and Stormfront. It can be appalling to think that these kinds of people even have access to the internet, let alone are able to publicly declare such ideals as white supremacy (shudder) and homegrown terrorism (UGGGHHH).
Aye, I know, it just came as a shock. Mind you, politics has a tendency to do that. If it helps explain my vehemence, the BNP are basically neo-Nazis - in other words, not a party I'm terribly happy about the existence of.
I confess I'm no expert on the European Parliament myself. But so far as I understand it, a parliament is a Good Thing, because it means we've elected representatives hashing things out, rather than committees and whatever agencies (forgive my lack of technical terminology) that aren't accountable to The People. They also, as mentioned, go for proportional representation, which is also a Good Thing, but does mean we get some characters with ... interesting views up there.
It's scary to find out your friends suddenly turn out to hold views that turn your stomach.
The thing I found scariest about the EP elections, though, was that a lot of the people who wanted to be elected into EP didn't even know how they can influence policy in EP and for which policy influences they need to be in the national parliament (these "politicians" wanted to vote no on things in EP which the EP doesn't even vote on, and for which a no in the national parliament actually carries weight).
I'm sure every countries has sent its share of idiots to EP. I'm starting to think the EP is a modern form of bannishment.
is glade I am not an United Statesian. Although, being Canadian, we feal all the bad that comes from American Policies. But our own government isn:t any better...
The beter question is: Is there ANY difference between the two parties anymore?
The election system needs a compleat overhaul (as in, throw it out and institue a compleat new theory with the party system and electoral set up). Canada needs that too. There is just too much stupid going around. Isn:t this the way that many large empires disolved (ex. Roman Empire)?
But that is my to 2cent (which is currently about 1.8cents US).
Leto
...Just be glad they didn't teach the babies to say "Obama es un comunista". Although at least my family isn't psycho right-wing, so I take what I can get.
Back during campaignin' time, my mom was helping out at a Boy Scout camp. She was sitting down to eat with the other staff, and they were all going on about how great Sarah Palin is, and how perfect she is for the job, and how McCain did a great thing when he chose her as his running mate.
Consider now that they were referring to a woman who has made disconcertingly stupid comments, who answers questions without really answering them (granted, many politicians do this, but her way of doing it is more distinct them most), who is COMPLETELY inexperienced, and who, to top it all off, is very proud of the fact that she shoots moose from helicopters for fun.
My mother, who was a supporter of Obama, reacted thus:
"Wait, you're saying you want four more years of stupid? You like what Bush has been doing for the past eight years, and you want four more years of it? Really?"
That shut them ALL up.
I always viewed her as the female equivalent of Bush. She was a big reason why I didn't vote McCain--I was tempted until she entered the arena. Just because she's white and female like myself doesn't give her my vote.
Hellz yeah!