The Political Thread

[Hawkmumbler]

Digging deep their Tordels, as Huckleberry Finn sailed right over my head. Looking it up online I can see why, a product of its time to say the least!

[The Legendary Shark]

"If the democratically elected will of the people expressly mandated the end of the NHS, then I would accept that my choices would be: put up with it, or emigrate..."
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How many of "the people" need to be in favour of abolishing the NHS against your will for you to accept it? If the current "government" had been elected with that mandate, would the numbers (of voters, non-voters, etc.) as they stood at the last election stack up to a majority decision by the people to mandate the dismantling of the NHS?
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Nevertheless, to dismantle the NHS would be an initiation of force - forcing people to do without potentially life-saving treatment. You and I do not have the right to do that to others and so neither does the "government."
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The one person has no right to initiate force against the 999,999 people and the 999,999 people have no right to initiate force against the one person, so election results don't matter. Nobody can be elected to do an unlawful thing. Unfortunately, votes are seen as just that - permission slips to act beyond the normal limits of law.
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You must see it that way, otherwise why would you bother to vote? You must believe that if a person gets enough votes, they automatically assume rights and responsibilities superior to yours - the right to demand money (taxation and licensing) and issue threats (legislation) and the right to interfere with society however they see fit.
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All these superhuman rights you grant them through your vote - even though these rights are not yours to grant (how do you give someone else something you haven't got?) nor theirs to claim. Then you moan, not because of their actions, but because they told lies. Your vote, in somehow magically transferring mythical rights from you to your preferred candidate, gave them permission to lie.
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I agree with you about the media and apologise for my "glass tit" remark. I have a deep mistrust of television, especially the news channels, and tend to demonise it. I apologise if this came across as an attack on you. I have no idea about any minister's co-authorship of any book or what stance was taken in the book. I'm happy to assume you've done your homework on this and that the minister in question favours the Dark Side.
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"All I can do, as a participant in the democratic process, is try to change people's minds. I can only try to do that one person at a time, but if enough of us try to do that then maybe, just maybe, we can create some resistance to the fiction on this issue peddled by the government and distributed by much of the media."
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I couldn't have put that better myself, except that I'd have used the word "social" instead of "democratic" and put quotation marks around the word "government." Apart from that, and on a general level (i.e., not just on the level of the NHS situation but as a general principle) I agree with every word.
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"So, no, I am engaged with world as it is and
once again you resort to accusations of sheep-
like subservience and submission at anyone
who doesn't share your worldview."
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The "world as it is" does not include the super-powers you believe your vote confers upon ordinary people. You believe in these super powers, I do not. Which one of us is right about how the world is, if either, doesn't really matter.
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I don't think you're a sheep - I always hated that description, it's so demeaning and dismissive - nor would I say you are particularly subservient. The fire you show is not an ovine or obsequious attribute and I genuinely admire it, even though I don't always agree with what you say.
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I do think that you are distracted by the puppet show, however, and this is not meant as an insult. We've all been distracted by it since the day we were born.
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In the end, though, I believe you and I want the same thing - a society that works. We might not yet agree on the shape that working society might take but I think we both know it has one, if we could but see it.

[Jim_Campbell]

Nevertheless, to dismantle the NHS would be an initiation of force - forcing people to do without potentially life-saving treatment. You and I do not have the right to do that to others and so neither does the "government."

The fundamental problem with your argument is that you point to the NHS and are unable or unwilling to recognise that such a thing is the creation of the system you reject. If the democratic state has no right, under any circumstances, to dismantle the NHS, neither did it have the authority to call it into being.

Jim

[The Legendary Shark]

That's absolutely correct, Jim.
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To deny the advances made possible in the name of "government" would be ludicrous. It's also ludicrous to say these advances happened because of government. It's also ludicrous to say these things can only be maintained through "government."
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Take the NHS as an example. Healthcare has existed for millions of years in one form or another - even horses know which weeds to eat if they're feeling poorly. Herbalists, doctors, medical philosophers, nurses and pharmacists existed long before governments did.
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But pre-NHS medical care in this country was disjointed and uneven and so it made sense to organise everything to better serve society. So people in Parliament did this, they drew the existing infrastructure together and stole money off the population to fund it. So yes, MPs did, in the name of "government," have a hand in the creation of the NHS but that's all.
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Your last point is an intriguing one. You are correct to point out that the "government" didn't have the right to construct the NHS in the first place, and this is true because it involved forcing thousands of people to run their facilities in a certain new way.
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That aside, the NHS was built and did come into being. Whatever its origin, the NHS now belongs to society. I suppose it can be looked upon as a gift from our ancestors. If my grandfather gave a gift to your grandfather, I have no right to claim that gift back from you.
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Similarly, even though "governments" of the past might have played an organisational role in many beneficial services, that in no way gives them the right to take those services, those gifts, or even part of them, back.
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Moving forward, we have to decide what to take with us into the future and what to leave behind. There's no point throwing the baby out with the bathwater so we need to figure out how to take the organisational role played by "government" with us and leave the coercive elements behind.

[Dandontdare]

John McDonnell is a fucking moron. I know the point he was trying to make (about "comrade" George flogging off UK's assets to the Chinese) but such a ham fisted stunt has backfired spectacularly - nobody will remember the context, they'll just think that the Shadow Chancellor's a communist who quotes from Mao. Almost as boneheaded as Liam Byrne's "there's no money left" joke.

serously, Labour MPs shoyuld be banned from attempting comedy as they just hand ammunition to the tories and their tame press vultures.

[Old Tankie]

Yep!

[Professor Bear]

I'll just point out that Iain Duncan Smith justified forcing disabled and poor people into unpaid labor by quoting the phrase he read on the gates of Auschwitz and the press has never so much as mentioned it, but otherwise I completely agree: if John McDonnell had never quoted Mao, the press would have gone easy on him and Labour and they wouldn't be mocking or criticising him for anything whatsoever.

Funny thing, the Little Red Book, though: officially declared an anachronism by the Chinese government decades ago, it's still held in affectionate esteem by a huge proportion of the Chinese population, and criticism of it or Mao (the current Chinese head of state is affectionately referred to as "Mao Jinping" in some media) is actually a criminal offense in mainland China.
And McDonnell just maneuvered Osborne and his media chums into lambasting it and Mao all over the press while the Tories are negotiating multi-billion pound trade deals with the Chinese government.

[Modern Panther]

The one person has no right to initiate force against the 999,999 people and the 999,999 people have no right to initiate force against the one person

any person at all has the right to initiate preventative force against said paedophile

Two and a half hours between direct contradictions.  A new record.  If I'm allowed to imprison paedophiles in my basement, can I fine shoplifters?

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

Oh look, a political discuss....nope.

Nope.

Shark's hijacked it again. Not so much flogging a dead horse as smearing a Tesco lasagne over everything.

[Modern Panther]

oh, we'll get back on track...

Labour's main problem appears to be a complete lack of presentation skill.  Strangely, the Labour party has a multitude of people who excel in the field, since self promotion has been the party's primary function since the mid 90s.  Either those in charge are deliberately ignoring those in the know (ironic, given the Mao quote used), or the marketing people are feeding the leadership duff information.

The author Alan Bissett said a few years ago that the Labour party would happily destroy Scotland so it could reign over the ruins.  Plenty of senior party figures appear to be applying the same reasoning the organisation itself.

[Hawkmumbler]

How does one hijack one's own thread? And to diacuss the matter at hand, at that, if in a somewhat....roundabout manner.

I might not agree with everything (if anything) Sharky puts forth but i'm sure glad to have SOME kind of alternative view on things.

[The Legendary Shark]

The one person has no right to initiate force against the 999,999 people and the 999,999 people have no right to initiate force against the one person

any person at all has the right to initiate preventative force against said paedophile

Two and a half hours between direct contradictions.  A new record.  If I'm allowed to imprison paedophiles in my basement, can I fine shoplifters?

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Not hot on detail, are you? In this case, the detail you conveniently ignore in order to invent an argument which to criticise, is the difference between the initiation of force and the initiation of defensive force. Still, if you can't argue the point presented I guess it makes sense to invent your own.
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Not content with one spurious argument, you then invent the right to imprison people in your own property and compare that with fining shoplifters for some incomprehensible reason. Then you imply that this must be my view, once again framing your own false argument and presenting it as my own.
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I don't mind defending my views but I'm not going to defend views you have invented for me.

[Professor Bear]

Labour's main problem appears to be a complete lack of presentation skill.

I would argue that the complete dissolution of even the remotest pretense of impartiality in the media during the GE has simply carried over into the business-as-usual period between elections.  As a result, it doesn't matter what Labour do, they're going to get it in the neck anyway.  I would usually trot out amusing hyperbole at this point to illustrate my point and say something like "he could dress in a thousand pound suit and sing God Save The Queen and the press would still crucify Corbyn" except we actually live in a world where this is what actually happens.

[IndigoPrime]

They could unite. They could spend the next four years fighting against everything the Tories stand for, as people finally en masse realise what this government is doing. They could then enter the next election with a reasonable fighting chance of at least being able to form a minority government, or a majority with the support of the SNP. Instead, we're more likely to hit 2020 with Labour having either ousted Corbyn and shed most of its new members, or infighting making the party look like a terrible bet. And then we get Osborne as Prime Minister, which is so horrible it doesn't even bear thinking about.

[Professor Bear]

The Blairite wing will never let the party unite while lefties are at the helm.  All the recent polling and surveys have shown their influence and popularity with the membership and voters has been drastically overestimated, so a leftie win at the next GE would mean the end of the Blairites as a power within Labour.  They're far more interested in sowing discord and burning the party down, then claiming that the disunity is because of the lefties.  Kind of like farting loudly and then turning to the only other person in the room with you and saying "EURGH DID YOU JUST FART?"