171–180 of 227 posts
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I think you need to look at "Churches of the past" a little harder. Churches had their time and while we haven't managed to get rid of them yet, we are a lot better of with a separation between them and the state.
What about outside the US, where there is no seperation of Church and State?
In my opinion this is the inevitable political crisis that unrestrained neoliberalism has lead us to. [ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/31/witnes... ] I'd say this is the end of the ideology but I'm too much of a realist and I expect the powers that be to now double down on it and then try and profit from it all going up in flames. (But please don't assume I am some kind of socialist/anti-capitalis…
What you're doing here though, is classical left-ism: taking an innocuous statement and claiming it's terribly offensive in order to distract from his/her point.
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"Vote against their own interests" is one of those terms that I can't stand hearing, because it assumes whoever says it knows what's best for everyone else.
OK, maybe they know better and that's a fair point. Except that the reason they voted was wrapped into propaganda level of lies and misrepresentations. The campaign on both side was so thin on facts and so big on lies that neither side really knew what they voted for. Historically, the people that are in power now are the same guys with the same ideas and the same interests than the one that have been screwing them i…
You argue that voters were misled and made a huge mistake because they didn't know what they were voting for, due to lies and misinformation, and thus voted against their own interests (not "technically" but in spirit). This is a summary of your argument.
But the article cites polls showing that Leave voters were far more skeptical of politicians and far less likely to believe them than Remain voters: 81% distrust for Leave vs 67% for Remain.
So given that you say both campaigns lied a lot, that would imply that Leave voters were less misled by propaganda and MORE likely to know what it was they were doing. Yet that does not appear to be the conclusion you have reached. Why not?
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"Vote against their own interests" is one of those terms that I can't stand hearing, because it assumes whoever says it knows what's best for everyone else.
But look at eg Cornwall, who voted to leave and then realised it would mean losing a bunch of EU funding. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-cornwa... https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/26/cornwall-fea...
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Your rant isn't off-topic: Oftentimes the distrust for govt is reworded by socialist persons as "Remove those highly paid CEOs". But sometimes the distrust isn't against corporates. I the English case, a good part of the distrust is that elites are bringing foreigners that compete with the masses without a public debate on immigration quantity. Meanwhile liberals censor the debate by tagging those who speak up as fas…
One of the points made recently was that it's not necessarily possible to prevent "foreigners taking your job" in a globalised world. Prevent immigration? The industry goes overseas anyway. Prevent imports? Doesn't result in locally-made artisan iPhones. You can see that in e.g. Brazil where there's a high import tax on electronics. It doesn't result in import substitution but just handicaps people trying to build bu…
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> But in the UK (see: brexit) and in the USA (see: Trump) > there definitely is a populist shift in progress. In Germany too, at least partially: The right-wing and very new "AfD", a relative newcomer, now has almost 1/10th of the votes (depending when you take the poll, results fluctuate).
In Sweden as well. It seems nationalism is on the rise pretty much everywhere, just as it was a hundred yrs ago which lead to WWI (and later WWII).
Empire building is not the same thing as "nationalism" by any stretch.
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> Islam Muslims killing people because it is Haram to draw cartoon pictures of their imaginary sky god. Muslims sexually harassing woman in Cologne on New Years. Muslims "call to prayer" blaring over load speakers in non-Islamic countries but in their own Muslim created "suburbs". Muslims wanting public swimming pools gender-segregated. If the only way to break the ebb of this tide is through conservative/right-leani…
Aren't all those things already illegal? It is really hard to find people on either side of the political spectrum that wouldn't agree that those things should remain illegal and be enforced. So most people don't have a problem with that, but they do have a problem with labeling an entire culture, race, or religion is immortal/illegal. That's literally the definition of racism and we should be better than that. Yet i…
If you're talking to your friends, and none of you are directly involved in political office, then I don't think you're getting the opinion from the people who matter. I would beware apologists, though.
I think it is the throughput or volume of importing that is most foolish about this effort, not even the intention. In Canada, there exists at least one public school that has to educate 19-22 year old Syrians who don't speak a lick of English in the midst of 15-16 year olds: same classes, same resources. It turns out that these uneducated adults are giving the administration a tough time and I fear for the sexual safety of those children.
If with 'around the world' they intend to mean 'The USA and the UK' then I'm all in agreement. But the rest of the world is not that much different from 12 months ago. The article sugggests strongly that these other countries had a completely different view of their governments in the recent past but I see very little evidence of that. But in the UK (see: brexit) and in the USA (see: Trump) there definitely is a popu…
with some luck they will cause some real political reform in those two countries. Currently it looks like the most likely outcome is an independent Scotland trying to remain in the EU (with a vaguely social-democrat politics) and a chaotic / far-right England. Northern Ireland is waiting to see what will happen; the peace process there was dependent on the EU and there are some possible disastrous outcomes that nobod…
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Like there was plenty of "political innovation", especially in Europe, after the Great Depression in the 1930s? I'd argue that didn't work out too well. Hopefully this time its different.
You can hope, but does Trump and brexit look different? And if so, does it look better?
Brexit was a decision about a policy, Trump is a decision about a man. The key personalities of Brexit are now all gone. What remains is the policy.