At first it seemed like quite funny the way far right polemic was being dropped iinto this discussion board, and far lefties rised to the bait and replied.
Now I am starting to think that this is being done on purpose.
I have started to notice that my local paper letters page seems to be full of letters from the same people. I think that the far right are using sites like this to start arguments, andget their hate messages out into the open.
Anybody any ideas about how to deal with this without looking like you are stooping to their low level?
Perhaps it is because the 'far right' as you call it has no political voice today. Its only 'representative' is the rather overboard to,put it mildly,BNP. Why is it that anything the left or New Labour has to say is lovely, but anything the right has to say is a 'low level' message of 'hate'?
Michael- They have a tenacious confidence in their own wisdom and like to share it with all and sundry. I think the best way to deal with them is to engage in a discussion, don't resort to personal abuse of the "Nazi Scum" variety and keep to the facts. Look at Mr L.Anderson-Porter who suggests that "anything the left or New Labour has to say is lovely" - really? I pretty much doubt that any body who might be considered of the "left" has much regard for "New Labour"? Who regards "New Labour" as lovely? There is often a lack of reality in the points raised by those on the right.
I've entered into debates with BNP types and ultra-Zionists and more often than not they eventually lose the plot, become abusive accuse you of being an Islamic Fundamentalist or wishing to kill every Jewish man, woman and child between the Jordan and the Med. In a recent debtate with a Zionist he re-edited all his past messages for some reason so that things I had pulled him up on dissapear, how stupid does that make him look?
So debate them, they are actually human beings after all, and if your commitment to freedom of speech, etc is more than rhetorical it's practically an obligation.
S Wood, i think that is rather the oversimplification, someone must like Labour, otherwise how are they in power? Maybe all the right wing conspiracy nuts are right!!!! It just puzzles me how people have lost the plot regarding nationalism. Its ok to be proud to be anything (black, gay, islamic, african.....) but its not ok to be proud of what people all are, British? Its ok for foreign despots to throw out all the British because they 'stole' predominantly unused land, but its not ok to be worried by tens of thousands of indolent, non-productive asylum seekers draining all our financial reserves? Its ok (and dare i say it 'cool') to oppose female circumcision in Somalia or Nigeria, but its not ok to stand up for the cultural histories and beliefs of our own when they do not correspond to the 'needs' of immigrants? All we can manage is the teeth grindingly embarrassing 'cool britannia', a blatant slur on one of our most famous ballads; thats endorsed by our government, but its illegal to make light of anyone elses history? Does that not seem a ridiculous state of affairs?
I think you exagerate. . . People at the time of the past few elections haven't been exactly spoiled for choice, its seems to me a case of well the economy is still growing, ok the Iraq thing was a bit shady and a bit shabby, look at the other choice (who was it again? Ian Duncan Smith, William Hauge, Michael Howard?) - well heck lets vote New Labour. Abstention was pretty high as well. Probably about 25% at most of the eligible voters cast their vote for New Labour.
I've never noticed a shortage of justified or unjustified pride in this country, if it was illegal the Daily Mail editorial staff and owners would be in jail (nice thought?).
To suggest that its asylum seekers that are draining all our financial reserves is an exageration of considerable proportions. Might it not be something to do with the credit crunch (that hangover from a run away extension of credit) and its accompanying falling tax revenues and the increase in means tested benefits, or the money throwing away in foreign interventions to sort out the mess that previous foreign interventions caused?, or the lack of public spirit in our wealthy who support a whole tax avoidance industry? Or the lack of any industrial policy of any sort? The private sector leeching on government through public-private partnerships? And any other number of other issues.
Presumably your referring to Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabee who is running that country into the ground and playing for legitimacy by dispossessing Whites who have took all the best land decades ago. There is more than a little popular support for those whites in the British press and in Government. In my own opinion, there should have been a land reform at independence in an orderly and rational manner, and Mugabee would not have been able to use the issue to gain legitimacy for a regime that appears more bankrupt that most.
S Wood, do you find it inherantly sad that the rabid ramblings of the gutter press are the only signs of patriotism or pride? In some ways that is worse than none at all.
(apologies for deletion, wrong button on edit rather than self censorship lol!)
Yes. Personally I take pride in a number of things about my country - that either myself, and my friends or family or anyone in the land, can get a degree of help from the state in the event of being unemployed, or in ill health (medically and financial support), or that our State looks after the elderly in a manner that is an improvement than previous decades (especially if your not in residential care). I take pride that I pay my tax - for without paying tax there would be none of these things and I've known a few people over the years who come from countries where their is no tax system as such and I often invite people who whinge about tax (while using the Health service, free education for their kids, nursery education, child benefit, etc) to go and live there. I don't think we live in utopia - or anything like it, and I feel things are hardly going to get better in the future, but these are some of things I can take a little pride in about my country.
Having read some of the stuff posted in other discussion boards on Amazon - I have come to the conclusion that the far right seems to attract some very odd people, with some very odd ideas. Maybe its becuse of their innate oddness that they spend so much time writing letters to newspapers and discussion boards. (No disrespect meant to anybody who reads this and thinks I am describing them).
Because normal people are too busy doing normal things and appreciating that the world is a bit more complex than a far right or far left ideology can comprehend. Who wants to spend all their time endlessly explaining the flaws in the logic to people who are essentially not very bright?
The only problem with you argument is that most immigrants are not indolent or non-productive. Actually this is the very opposite of the truth. Firstly the majority of claimants are white and British - as the majority of people in Britain are white and British - as are the majority of people in hidden unemployment that is "working" in the public sector. Secondly, the majority of economic growth in the UK is down to four factors - Financial services, asset bubble in housing, massive deficit spending on the public sector and cheap imported labour. Strip out the Eastern Europeans and Chinese and the UK would show strongly below trend growth. So next time you see an immigrant, shake his/her hand for putting off the day of reckoning where you are going to have to pay sharply more tax to pay the bloated, sclerotic public sector.
As a matter of curiosity, exactly what cultural beliefs do you feel don't correspond with the "needs" of immigrants?
I totally agree with D of A's comments regarding immigration which I find a bit of a novelty (agreeing with him not immigration). Though having worked in the public sector for a period I can assure you - at least in the department I was in (Department of Work and Pensions) you DID work, which is more than can be said for the contracted out services/computer systems that the private sector provided so I'm a little sceptical about labelling public sector workers as hidden unemployment.
Sure, the Public sector has problems - one of them is the Private Finance Iniative which appears to be a system whereby the Private sector gets a guaranteed rake off on public spending with very little in the way of risk. I cant speak for every government department but there also appeared to be a disturbing element of cronyism where the centre manager had at least 5 relatives working there (plus her husband - and I never did find out how they managed it - was manager for the private contracted out building maintenance/cleaning?), all her kids were in junior management positions and only one of them was competent (including the centre manager). Procedures, processes, etc were being changed every week and a crude target system was creating more problems than it solved and morale rock bottom, even the personnel department had been farmed out to some "business partner" - this for a centre with nearly 600 employees?
Mr Whalley, if all you can do is hurl abuse at somebody with whom you disagree, do you really think you are going to convince anybody that you're right? This is a discussion forum - the key word here being 'discussion'.
Yes, of course: discuss and argue and don't assume that a label, such as 'far right' or any other, automatically implies incorrect or unappealing to a majority. To do otherwise is complacent and arrogant in the extreme.
Good old S Wood, where would be without his wisdom and moderation? yes debate us "Far Right" morons, because those with any sense and intelligence are naturally of the Left...oh dear, such patronising arrogance on a silly little discussion board. So if you are proud to pay tax, then presumably you are very, very proud of those who earn much mroe than you and thus pay much more tax? After all, the top ten per cent of earners pay fifty per cent of income tax, so it they who fund the things you proud of, not you.
Not sure why anyone who is for values like hard work;respect for your elders;committment to stable family relationships;a sense of responsibility and personal accountability;equality of treatment;law and order;not getting something for nothing etc are immediately labelled as "far right" ?Perhaps it shows just how far left the measuring ruler has shifted if these are considered "far right". Everything is not "relative",there is an inherent sense of right and wrong that we are born with,as are all animals.Having values is not "far right".Those venal polticians who covered up their own failures as regulators by trying to point at bankers bonuses,have been hoisted on their own petards when the revelations came out about their expenses;subsidies;tax breaks;bonuses;pensions;employment of family members etc.And as for the revelations that the bureaucrats at the MOD are paying themselves hundreds of millions of pounds of bonuses while our troops are lacking basic equipment and dying as a result,I guess I am "far right" to think this is not ok,and that the politicians who have allowed this to happen should be fired,as should the bureaucrats concerned.We have the bravest men in Britain coming back in body-bags while these jobsworths pay themselves extra for denying our soldiers essentials.If this is the result of a Labour/lefty Govt for the last 12 years then it's time for a fundamental re-assessment of our values as Brits.
Funny Avidreader dont remember calling the "Far Right" morons, but since you mention it. . . . but barring that one is extremely grateful that you have condescended to join me on this "silly little discussion board".
Contray to what you say it is the lower rate of tax payers who make up the majority of the income tax payments and given that National Insurance is only payble on earnings that are roughly at the level of the lower tax band the difference between the upper and lower tax band is pretty minimal (somewhere in the region of 6 to 8% though I dont have the figures at hand). Not to mention the disparity in a number of other taxes - such as council tax where it bears little relation to earnings where the wealthy do very nice thank you.
Some of the higher earners, especially those who earn obscenely high amounts, do they really earn it? What does the top man at the Post Office do to earn his 3million quid a year? Or a bunch of gamblers in the City - what do they do to earn their whopping bonuses, what do they produce of any use to society at large? So not particularly proud of our high earners, they appear a selfish lot and have been under taxed for far to long and even the 50% tax band (which I dont believe they have started paying yet and which they have whinged a good deal about) is too low.
S Wood, it is always a sign of a jealous person to complain that the 'high earners' don't pay enough. It is also amazing how they are always those above the whingers own income level that 'get away with paying nothing'. What a surprise that no one with a job ever says 'why not raise all the tax brackets by 5%', only ever those better off than themselves. No matter how insipid, greedy of worthless you consider a banker who makes a million on bonuses, just remember he also spends all that disposable income, mainly in his own country. At least all that money stays in circulation, and doesn't just dissappear into the vacuum of taxation. God forbid he might be rich enough to employ a couple of staff like a chauffeur, a gardner and a couple of house staff. Those people would be better off unemployed so why not just tax him at 99% and then pay them dole money instead! God forgive him for employing people to keep his horses for him, lets get them on the dole too! There is a reason why countries with low taxation levels contain lots of wealthy people, for example Switzerland, its because people are left with money to spend...... thus giving other people, and the manufacturing industry, jobs and income. What makes a lot more sense is using a small tax take wisely. Stop paying indolent slobs to sit on their backsides, stop paying for cosmetic surgery on the NHS and other lunacies. Why not for example provide hostels and soup kitchens for people who have been unemployed for more that 2 years. Why should people who have shown they don't want to work 'earn' £20,000 a year for popping out more mouths for the tax payer to feed? As for the NHS reduce it to emergeny room/triage procedures only and let people pay for the rest. Its called survival of the fittest after all.
Is it always a sign of "jealousy" for a person "to complain that the 'high earners' don't pay enough [tax]"? Im beginning to suspect you might be one yourself, especially with those quotations marks around high earners which seems to suggest that you may not think their earnings are high. And as for whinging, I never heard so much of it after the tax rate rise was announced - one higher taxer complaining that he had been unable to afford a foreign holiday for his family and another threatening to go to Jordan of all places (or maybe he meant the recently single soft porn model?). And these are people who are earning in excess of 150,000 pounds a year. Way over ten times what a good many people earn.
Do bankers spend all their disposable income, or do you mean what is left after they have invested a big chunk of it. If your interested in people spending disposable income, and all their income, go and speak to the unemployed or low paid. They certainly wont be buying foreign luxury items, or going on expensive foreign holidays - oh, I forgot those poor dears on 150,000 pounds plus per annum cant afford foreign holidays - I take that back.
As for the hired help, well if he was taxed higher and couldn't afford them and had to - god forbid - drive his own car, prune his own roses and wash up his dirty dishes - the people he employed needn't go unemployed. Presumably the money wouldn't vanish in too thin air, it will either be spent as taxes creating public sector employment, or be used to reduce taxes - those who benefit (hopefully the lower paid) would spend the money creating demand of which would be met by - guess what - employing people. Even if the money was used for transfer payments, ie. given to people through child benefit increases, disability benefit increases or even given out to the homeless in brown envelopes the money would still create demand which would require employment of people. I suspect that a dam sight more of it would be spent in that manner than would if it was left in the hands of the perversely wealthy.
Switzerland is a ludicrous example, which is not an example for anything except of the benefits that can accrue to a small country which latches onto the global economy rather in the manner of a parastite. Secretive Swiss banking rules and a personalised tax rate for the perversely wealthy tax exiles are what allow the Swiss their high standard of living - this cannot be extended on a European basis - not every country can be a tax haven. Swiss manufacturing benefits most from protection not from a low tax regime, if it didnt have a degree protection then far eastern manufactures would pour into their country as happens in our own when their is a reduction in tax rates or a rise in income.
I'm not sure who you mean by "indolent slobs"? The unemployed, sick, elderly people, MP's, chairmans of the board? Is cosmetic surgery on the NHS whats taken the "Great" out of Britain, a novel idea but I dont think it's the case. Hostels and soup kitchens for the long term unemployed, a miserable idea - your presumably a fan of the old Work Houses and the good old Poor Law. Again this would effect a relatively small number of people, would be brutaly humiliating for them and would probably cost nearly as much as it would save and make little difference to Public Finances. Reducing the NHS to a casualty department, well that would save a few bucks and a hellish amount of people on low or no pay from pensioners to children could potentially have their lives brutally curtailed or their future health ruined by having to live under that regime.
Whats called "survival of the fittest"? - sounds familiar, a few murderous individuals in history have parrotted that line, or a variation of it. It might be a motto for you but for many it is a sign of barbarism.
I've no idea why so many extremist postings appear here, but I'd like to make a comment on this 'far right' issue. Its something the media and politicians have tagged, erroneously, so that the general public now believe that fascism is the far right of politics.
Its not. The axis left and right is in fact not the degree to which liberalism or authoritarianism a person opines, but the degree of economics a person believes in. The 'far left' is correctly identified as communism or extreme solicalism, but what exactly is that, and what does make someone a communist or extreme socialist. To my mind its the belief that wealth and so forth is shared out amongst the general populace, for 'society'. This is what, after all, socialism was named after.
The opposite of this is extreme capitalism, the making of and keeping of wealth for one own's benefit. We live in a capitalist society, both Tory and Labour parties espouse capitalist doctrines, and therefore are by association right-wing parties. The BNP is an extremist party given to racist and fascist views, but this does not put them to the far right, as erroneously labeled by the media. Surprisingly their economic intentions put them slightly to the left of centre. Would you call Mugabe or Stalin far right politicians? No, they are or were (in Stalin's case) left wingers but authoritarian ones.
The old liberalist left-right thinking comes from the French legislative assembly of 1793 and is so out of date it has no place in today's economic and liberalist axes.
So to be accurate its not right to refer the BNP as 'far right' as they are certainly not capitalist. Fascist yes. Racist yes. Far right, no. After all, the Nazi party in Germany was the National SOCIALIST German WORKERS party. They, too, were more of a Central party than left or right. Both of Britiain's big two parties of 2009 stand far to the right of both the BNP and the Nazi party. How does that sit with everyone? Do you believe that this is why politicians are all too ready to brand the fascists 'far right'?
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