Reform UK - A symptom of all that is wrong?
Discussion
smn159 said:
Timothy Bucktu said:
You can literally say the same for Leftists though. And nobody is more drawn to authoritarianism than Lefty types. They were by far the most compliant during the lockdown/Covid era...they loved being told what to do and showing their support by any means!
Right wing authoritarianism is well documented. While left wing authoritarianism undoubtably exists (although there is debate on this in social psychology circles), it is much rarer.Your point is therefore what you'd like to be true rather than what is supported by the evidence.
Hard to believe on a Reform thread I know, but there you go
Timothy Bucktu said:
Baroque attacks said:
Timothy Bucktu said:
You can literally say the same for Leftists though. And nobody is more drawn to authoritarianism than Lefty types. They were by far the most compliant during the lockdown/Covid era...they loved being told what to do and showing their support by any means!
Just sounds like a grrr Covid grumble of little relevance.Pan Pan Pan said:
smn159 said:
Timothy Bucktu said:
You can literally say the same for Leftists though. And nobody is more drawn to authoritarianism than Lefty types. They were by far the most compliant during the lockdown/Covid era...they loved being told what to do and showing their support by any means!
Right wing authoritarianism is well documented. While left wing authoritarianism undoubtably exists (although there is debate on this in social psychology circles), it is much rarer.Your point is therefore what you'd like to be true rather than what is supported by the evidence.
Hard to believe on a Reform thread I know, but there you go
Then again I suspect you dont know whats going on in any country on this planet.
Fun fact: Whilst far left governments typically end up authoritarian, they usually start with good intentions. Far right governments start out authoritarian often with the idea of using violence to enforce political ideologies baked into the foundation of the politics (A.K.A Direct Action).
Communism in theory sounds a lot nicer than communism in practice... Facism in theory sounds almost as bad as fascism in practice.
Killboy said:
What are some examples of far left countries?
Cuba, North Korea. Former Soviet Union. China and Vietnam depending on your definition but I'll grant they are a grey area. Socialist when it suits.
It's the former Soviet Union that I think of as an example. If you read Marx it sounds like a good thing, you can even continue that argument with the likes of Lenin and Trotsky, but you inevitably end up with a Stalin in charge.
Not every left leaning govt is far left the same as not every right leaning govt is far right. The problem with authoritarianism is not if you're left or right, but how far you go.
captain_cynic said:
Killboy said:
What are some examples of far left countries?
Cuba, North Korea. Former Soviet Union. China and Vietnam depending on your definition but I'll grant they are a grey area. Socialist when it suits.
It's the former Soviet Union that I think of as an example. If you read Marx it sounds like a good thing, you can even continue that argument with the likes of Lenin and Trotsky, but you inevitably end up with a Stalin in charge.
Not every left leaning govt is far left the same as not every right leaning govt is far right. The problem with authoritarianism is not if you're left or right, but how far you go.
CraigyMc said:
Hrm. How would you categorise Singapore in this?
Leans to the right.The govt of Singapore owns a significant portion of top Singaporean businesses via Tamesek holdings. Competiorn has been limited by the Singaporean govt in the past. This is more akin to Crony Capitalism than Socialism.
Wouldn't call them moderate, but not extreme either. They've definitely become more moderate over the years though, they hardly ever came anyone any more..
Personally I'm not against sovereign wealth funds where governments can own shares in private industry and get dividends and other profits from it.
President Merkin said:
Twice in one day now we've had the same argument trotted out - that Reform is a consequence of the Tories not Torying enough. The idea that Conservatism isn't Conservative enough for proponents of this argument is both ludicrous & soley in the eyes of the beholders. The past eght years or so have seen a Conservative government divest itself of practically all moderate voices, legislate repeatedly to suppress public protest, shut down the entire democratic process in pursuit of a single policy goal, threaten time & again to break international convention & depart from pan European human rights safeguards & gerrymander via statute.
The idea that the Conservatives aren't doing the bidding of the right is risible, it's the clarion call of the fruitloop & both an excellent illustration of both how the hard right can never be appeased & why Reform, UKIP, whatever guise the same old schtick presents itself as with which ever fast talking chancer's name over the door is always never more than the 10% end of public life, because they're the ones at the extreme but they can never see it.
....But those 10% believe that they have "common sense", the will of (some of the noisy) people and simple answers to difficult questions.The idea that the Conservatives aren't doing the bidding of the right is risible, it's the clarion call of the fruitloop & both an excellent illustration of both how the hard right can never be appeased & why Reform, UKIP, whatever guise the same old schtick presents itself as with which ever fast talking chancer's name over the door is always never more than the 10% end of public life, because they're the ones at the extreme but they can never see it.
captain_cynic said:
CraigyMc said:
Hrm. How would you categorise Singapore in this?
Leans to the right.The govt of Singapore owns a significant portion of top Singaporean businesses via Tamesek holdings. Competiorn has been limited by the Singaporean govt in the past. This is more akin to Crony Capitalism than Socialism.
Wouldn't call them moderate, but not extreme either. They've definitely become more moderate over the years though, they hardly ever came anyone any more..
Personally I'm not against sovereign wealth funds where governments can own shares in private industry and get dividends and other profits from it.
captain_cynic said:
CraigyMc said:
Hrm. How would you categorise Singapore in this?
Leans to the right.The govt of Singapore owns a significant portion of top Singaporean businesses via Tamesek holdings. Competiorn has been limited by the Singaporean govt in the past. This is more akin to Crony Capitalism than Socialism.
Wouldn't call them moderate, but not extreme either. They've definitely become more moderate over the years though, they hardly ever came anyone any more..
Personally I'm not against sovereign wealth funds where governments can own shares in private industry and get dividends and other profits from it.
I asked specifically about this state since it is both quite-left and quite-right but on different topics, and sort of breaks the model for what left and right are taken to mean by most people.
It is a sort of benevolent/positive version of what some of the soviet vassal states turned into, it's successful but still there is govt intervention/meddling where needed and its citizens are in general doing great. Certainly much better than historically.
I like reading about this sort of thing since it provides background for where reform would like the UK to be in future, it's often mentioned that there's a sort of Singapore on Thames direction for the UK in future. All I've seen of reform so far is ideologically driven policies that don't work in practise.
captain_cynic said:
Pan Pan Pan said:
smn159 said:
Timothy Bucktu said:
You can literally say the same for Leftists though. And nobody is more drawn to authoritarianism than Lefty types. They were by far the most compliant during the lockdown/Covid era...they loved being told what to do and showing their support by any means!
Right wing authoritarianism is well documented. While left wing authoritarianism undoubtably exists (although there is debate on this in social psychology circles), it is much rarer.Your point is therefore what you'd like to be true rather than what is supported by the evidence.
Hard to believe on a Reform thread I know, but there you go
Then again I suspect you dont know whats going on in any country on this planet.
Fun fact: Whilst far left governments typically end up authoritarian, they usually start with good intentions. Far right governments start out authoritarian often with the idea of using violence to enforce political ideologies baked into the foundation of the politics (A.K.A Direct Action).
Communism in theory sounds a lot nicer than communism in practice... Facism in theory sounds almost as bad as fascism in practice.
From your comments I know that you don't have a clue, about what is going on.
Pan Pan Pan said:
captain_cynic said:
Pan Pan Pan said:
smn159 said:
Timothy Bucktu said:
You can literally say the same for Leftists though. And nobody is more drawn to authoritarianism than Lefty types. They were by far the most compliant during the lockdown/Covid era...they loved being told what to do and showing their support by any means!
Right wing authoritarianism is well documented. While left wing authoritarianism undoubtably exists (although there is debate on this in social psychology circles), it is much rarer.Your point is therefore what you'd like to be true rather than what is supported by the evidence.
Hard to believe on a Reform thread I know, but there you go
Then again I suspect you dont know whats going on in any country on this planet.
Fun fact: Whilst far left governments typically end up authoritarian, they usually start with good intentions. Far right governments start out authoritarian often with the idea of using violence to enforce political ideologies baked into the foundation of the politics (A.K.A Direct Action).
Communism in theory sounds a lot nicer than communism in practice... Facism in theory sounds almost as bad as fascism in practice.
From your comments I know that you don't have a clue, about what is going on.
At the same time, even the "right" in the USA has a far more "left-wing" approach to various issues of state ownership, state subsidy and so on than even the mainstream "left" in the UK.In any case, evidence increasingly points to "left" and "right" being used merely as political cover, in an attempt to convince the populace of a certain dogmatic direction. There's certainly little evidence one is more or less authoritarian than the other. The "right" might say "we're taking away your civil liberties in order to protect your freedom" and the "left" might say "we're taking away your civil liberties in order to protect society" but the effect is just the same.
Even the issues upon which people seem to think there's agreement are nothing of the sort. For a long time, for instance, the left were committed to withdrawing from the EEC/EC/EU, whereas the right took us in and were broadly in favour of remaining. The right has presided over far more immigration than the left. And so on.
Instead we need to look carefully at the motivations behind policies and ideologies, and their overall effect, rather than getting bogged-down in the sort of left-right argument whose primary beneficiaries are those politicians who'd like to avoid scrutiny for their actual performance and behaviour.
Killboy said:
I've been doing a bit of googling on China and Russia, they don't seem to be very lefty? Am I missing something?
That depends entirely on what you mean about being lefty. The funny thing is, that both the left, and right, are just the two cheeks of the very same a*se. it is just that some either cannot, or perhaps more accurately don't want to see that.
Running low on cash seemingly. It's the Grauniad, so a bit of a hit piece by inclination but the numbers are real enough.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/...
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/...
President Merkin said:
Running low on cash seemingly. It's the Grauniad, so a bit of a hit piece by inclination but the numbers are real enough.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/...
£1.4m https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/...
. Tice clearly has a screw loose somewhere
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