[Politics] UK Suspends Parliament

Batou667

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Agema said:
It's a numbers game. Spout hate, most people just get wound up... but you'll inspire some to violence, and a few to extreme violence.

Yes, that's why the latter is illegal. That doesn't mean the former (as above) is risk-free.
Sure, but I think we should be concerned with speech and other incitements that are likely to inspire violence, not any and all expressions that are merely impassioned, competitive or combative on a surface level. Millions of people play Mortal Kombat without being inspired to murder. Conversely, Mark Chapman attributed his murder of John Lennon to reading a piece of mainstream fiction. We can't let ourselves be limited by, much less held accountable for, the mere possibility of a troubled individual becoming triggered by an out of context piece of language.

Agema said:
People can if they want incite anger, hate and thus ultimately violence, but they should take responsibility for it. They can excuse and defend other people inciting anger, hate and violence, and they can take responsibility for that as well. So do you want a country where everyone is screaming at each other and full of hate, and moving towards division and violence? Yes or no?

If yes, just be honest with yourself and others about it. If no, be more respectful and encourage others to be, too.
Of course I would prefer order, moderation and mutual respect. But you can't demand your opponents soften themselves if it's just to make it easier to sink your teeth into them. And I'm sure I'm biased, but the way public discourse devolved immediately before and in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum, seems to me to be a race to the bottom initiated by Leftist elements of Remain. Recall the rhetoric put out by that side: 52% of the voting public glibly dismissed as bigoted xenophobic Little Englander scum, not one but two bands at Glastonbury using their platform to encourage the murder of Tories[footnote]Which was immediately condemned by the Jo Cox Foundation, in fairness[/footnote], the normalisation of throwing milkshakes or worse over politicians you disagree with, and the bizarre and worrying trend for Progressives to claim that both free speech and democracy itself can be temporarily dispensed with to secure the "correct" political outcome. But BoJo calls MPs looking to derail the Brexit process "traitors" and that's a step too far? That's rich.

Agema said:
In the context that the West's largest religion (by a long way) also has a text containing such commandments and its own rich history of mass slaughter, indeed they might not be that bothered.
That one's easy to address: Christianity is by and large a reformed religion, Islam isn't. Everyone from the Pope downwards acknowledges the figurative nature of Biblical language and the requirement to square personal faith with the secular law of the land. Islamic theology and Shariah law do the opposite in stressing the origins of the Koran as the literal, original and unaltered word of God and the enduring nature of its obligations of its adherents. Compare the frequency of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism in the West, versus Christian fundamentalist terrorism anywhere in the world.
 

Agema

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Batou667 said:
Millions of people play Mortal Kombat without being inspired to murder.
Mortal Kombat is a game in a fantasy world. It's not a real life person with influence and supporters claiming that half of the real life people in the real life country are traitors betraying their country.

Of course I would prefer order, moderation and mutual respect.
Except where it's the guy you support whipping up enough people to keep himself elected, I think the trajectory of your argument is going.

And I'm sure I'm biased, but the way public discourse devolved immediately before and in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum,
I think the likes of Farage were plumbing the depths and getting 10-15% of the vote long before that. I certainly don't think that progressives are more at fault for the decay of polite debate as things got more heated, such as via the above. For instance, I can't think of a progressive newspaper read by millions of people doing anything like calling judges interpreting the law "enemies of the people". Seriously: go take a look back at the front pages of the Sun, Mail, Express and even the Telegraph over the last 2-3 years, and compare to the Mirror, Independent and Guardian.

That one's easy to address: Christianity is by and large a reformed religion, Islam isn't. Everyone from the Pope downwards acknowledges the figurative nature of Biblical language...
I might point out that large tracts of the USA and to a lesser extent Europe are Biblical literalists, a minority of whom even claim the Pope isn't a Christian, although it's not of highest relevance.

Christianity is not a "reformed" religion, except in the sense it tends to be most practiced in countries which are relatively rich, stable and developed, so adherents have emphasised the parts that most suit such socities. By contrast, Islam is practiced in parts of the world which are poorer, less stable and less developed, and so have different inclinations about what they want to select from theirs.

Compare the frequency of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism in the West, versus Christian fundamentalist terrorism anywhere in the world.
I would be very careful about that claim. Christian terrorism is not so rare as you think - it just goes on in places which our media don't care about enough to generally cover.
 
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The problem is that Brexit does not divide into party lines, it smashes through them.

Labour and Tory ahve been trying to hold their parties together, please both their leave and remain voters as well as both their leave and remain MPs. Populists and the MSM have made it difficult for any comprimises to be reached for fear of becoming a traitor.

All the while all other issues fall by the wayside. No matter howyou voted, Brexit is dividing the countries people, destroying our politics and leaving our reputation in shambles
 

Satinavian

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Agema said:
I might point out that large tracts of the USA and to a lesser extent Europe are Biblical literalists, a minority of whom even claim the Pope isn't a Christian, although it's not of highest relevance.
One might consider that the USA ended up that way because Europe had a habit of getting rid of religious troublemakers not fitting in long before those were muslims.
 

PsychedelicDiamond

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Batou667 said:
Well, I think context matters a lot. It's one thing for a person to use "fire and brimstone" rhetoric in expounding a personally held political opinion. It's quite another thing to make a direct, explicit call to violence - and it amazes me that the self same people who are first to clutch for their pearls when they see or hear "alt-right dog whistles" are evidently so unbothered by the fact that the West's fastest growing religion is centered on a text, believed to be the literal word of God, that is full of commandments to kill nonbelievers. But we're going off topic...
That's because there aren't any islamic fundamentalist parties in our parliaments. there aren't any fundamentalist islamists taking power in western countries. There aren't any fundamentalist islamic groups running websites to keep track of teachers at schools who don't promote their values. You know who does that? The radical nationalist right. Most people in America or Europe will never run into radical islamists. None of these will ever have any significant political influence here. I can promise you that. Compared to the Nationalist Right it's simply not an existential threat.
 

Satinavian

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PsychedelicDiamond said:
That's because there aren't any islamic fundamentalist parties in our parliaments. there aren't any fundamentalist islamists taking power in western countries. There aren't any fundamentalist islamic groups running websites to keep track of teachers at schools who don't promote their values. You know who does that? The radical nationalist right. Most people in America or Europe will never run into radical islamists. None of these will ever have any significant political influence here. I can promise you that. Compared to the Nationalist Right it's simply not an existential threat.
Ditib does actually a lot of that. They are not exactly terrorists, but using Islam to influence elections is kinda their thing. As well as keeping track of teachers and other public figures with unwelcome ideas and harassing them. They also moved against mosques with the "wrong way of teaching" a couple of times. And all of that in the middle of Europe. Sure, they are not terrorists, but they do fit "fundamentalist" quite well. They also have had so many hate speech controversities that it is hard to portray them as harmless even without the foreign government links and the widespread antidemocratic practices.

Sure, they don't run in elections here. But they do tell the believers coming to the mosques which parties they should and should not vote for, mainly based on which European politition said what about Erdogan. And they are extremely interested in how Turks living in Europe vote in Turkish elections.

They are not more of a threat than the Nationalistic Right, but the only reason is that there are less influencial, not that they are nicer in any way.
 

Batou667

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PsychedelicDiamond said:
That's because there aren't any islamic fundamentalist parties in our parliaments. there aren't any fundamentalist islamists taking power in western countries. There aren't any fundamentalist islamic groups running websites to keep track of teachers at schools who don't promote their values. You know who does that? The radical nationalist right. Most people in America or Europe will never run into radical islamists. None of these will ever have any significant political influence here. I can promise you that. Compared to the Nationalist Right it's simply not an existential threat.
Perhaps we're measuring the situation by different metrics. I welcome a diversity of recognised, regulated, political discourse. I think the democratic process should in theory allow any party to come to power. I don't much care which focus groups are angrily compiling lists of things they disagree with, provided that's as far as it goes. I *do* care about people being blown up, run over, stabbed, or otherwise killed in the street; and as somebody who lives in a city that has had four major, successful Islamist terrorist attacks occur in the last fifteen years I'll reserve the right to decide for myself what constitutes an existential threat, thanks.
 

Terminal Blue

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Batou667 said:
That one's easy to address: Christianity is by and large a reformed religion, Islam isn't.
I realise this is a terminological error and that you probably meant to secular, but eh..

The reformation was an apocalyptically violent time in which the whole of Europe was torn apart by religious wars and pogroms which killed a significant proportion of the population of many European states (particularly the German states). It was a time of unprecedented fanaticism. It created biblical literalism as we understand it now. The entire ideology of the reformation was an attack on what was then the law of the land.

Secularism is not a feature of Christianity, it is a reaction against Christianity. Christianity has never been inherently or implicitly secular and has never become so.

Batou667 said:
Everyone from the Pope downwards acknowledges the figurative nature of Biblical language and the requirement to square personal faith with the secular law of the land. Islamic theology and Shariah law do the opposite in stressing the origins of the Koran as the literal, original and unaltered word of God and the enduring nature of its obligations of its adherents.
The pope is the leader of the catholic church, and one of the official doctrines of the catholic church is the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy, that the Bible is without error in its teachings. Catholic doctrine still holds that the Bible is the literal word of God as received through divine inspiration. The difference between Catholic inerrancy and the fundamentalism more typically found in evangelical Protestantism is that Catholics believe that the meaning of Biblical statements is not necessarily literal, even though they cannot be factually wrong.

Until very recently, the concept of Koranic literalism has been quite alien to Islam. Traditionally (and unsurprisingly to anyone familiar with history) Islam is more like Judaism in its approach to religious texts than any Christian denomination. Like Muslims and the Koran, Jews also believe the Torah to be the literal word of God. Like Muslims, Jews also have religious law derived from the teachings in the Torah. However, like Muslims Jews view the interpretation of the Torah as a task requiring philosophical and theological expertise, since the meaning of the Torah may be unclear and may indeed be unknowable to human beings. While Muslims do believe that the Koran is the word of God, orthodox Muslims also believe that only God knows the ultimate meaning of the Koran, which is why the Koran requires interpretation.

Koranic literalism, where it exists, is purely a feature of those "reformed" Islamic traditions influenced by Protestant Christianity, it just happens to be important in the present day because it's most visible example has been the rise of political Islamist movements. Remember what I said about the reformation not necessarily being a good thing..

Batou667 said:
Compare the frequency of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism in the West, versus Christian fundamentalist terrorism anywhere in the world.
Have you considered that this may have something to do with the existence of major conflict sites in Muslim majority countries in which Western countries have intervened, and thus the emergence of large scale paramilitary forces dedicated to fighting asymmetrical warfare against what they see as both domestic and overseas enemies? Do you think it might have something to do with the emergence of organised recruitment programs designed to covertly radicalise people into terrorist action?

Remember, the definition of terrorism usually specifically excludes acts of violence by isolated individuals. To be a terrorist, a person must be in contact with some form of non-state political organisation.
 

Seanchaidh

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Batou667 said:
Compare the frequency of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism in the West, versus Christian fundamentalist terrorism anywhere in the world.
How on earth did you come to the conclusion that this is an apples to apples comparison? It's like saying there's something different and violent about Judaism because of the Warsaw Uprising.
 

Agema

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AND SO...

The Conservatives put forward their new plan for Brexit to the EU. Unfortunately, like the last 2.5 years, this mostly seems to be a plan negotiated to secure a deal between the bickering Conservative factions rather than a deal between the EU and UK.

The EU has politely tabled it for discussion on Monday to show willing, although various EU bigwigs have not been particularly discreet about saying it's a pile of shit that will go nowhere at all.
 

warmachine

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Baffle2 said:
Anyone else just lost the will to live?
It is impossible to tune out of Brexit. It's like stopping to watch the clown in the same room who keeps on swinging his knife around.
 

Thaluikhain

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warmachine said:
It is impossible to tune out of Brexit. It's like stopping to watch the clown in the same room who keeps on swinging his knife around.
Wonder if that might be deliberate. If they No-Dealed crashed out disastered a few years back, there'd be outrage, if they keep blathering on for a few years and then kicking the UK to pieces, most people might be too tired and disenheartened to set things on fire.
 

Agema

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Thaluikhain said:
If they No-Dealed crashed out disastered a few years back, there'd be outrage, if they keep blathering on for a few years and then kicking the UK to pieces, most people might be too tired and disenheartened to set things on fire.
I think we're at the point where the issue now is who wins the next election, Corbyn or Johnson. The government's current gyrations, pronouncements and constant lies seems to me to be about 90% play-acting to curry domestic favour.

Johnson can fail to deliver Brexit in 2-3 weeks, he just needs to blame it on everyone else successfully enough that he picks up enough Leave voters to secure a majority. However, I have no idea what the Tories plan to do after that even if they do win. Perhaps they just hope to the rule the roost long enough to create the UK of their supporting international hedge fund managers' dreams, and then they can collapse and let Labour pick up the pieces in 2025 or so.

Johnson's plan, incidentally, looks likely to (short-medium term at least) deliver an even heavier hit to the UK economy and EU-UK trade than May's did. Say hello to your chlorinated chicken, Britons!
 

Hades

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Baffle2 said:
Anyone else just lost the will to live?
Queen Elizabeth perhaps? She needs to meet Johnson on a regular basis now and was already publicly humiliated by her actions.
 

Baffle

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Agema said:
I have no idea what the Tories plan to do after that even if they do win.
I heard that fox hunting remains unpopular with the public so the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport are going to bring back crucifixion for people who earn less that 10K pa.
 

Baffle

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Hades said:
Queen Elizabeth perhaps? She needs to meet Johnson on a regular basis now and was already publicly humiliated by her actions.
I imagine she's just glad we're not talking about Prince Andrew.
 

Agema

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Baffle2 said:
I heard that fox hunting remains unpopular with the public so the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport are going to bring back crucifixion for people who earn less that 10K pa.
Their bizarre fascination with fox hunting astounds me. It should be dead and buried as the absurd obsolescence it is. It only survived that long because it was cruelty to animals as practiced by toffs where all the plebs' equivalent pastimes got shut down decades ago. What on earth possessed May to try to resurrect it?
 

Baffle

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Agema said:
Their bizarre fascination with fox hunting astounds me. It should be dead and buried as the absurd obsolescence it is. It only survived that long because it was cruelty to animals as practiced by toffs where all the plebs' equivalent pastimes got shut down decades ago. What on earth possessed May to try to resurrect it?
She's just very bad at the Trump/Johnson tactic of doing something stupid to distract from something bad she's doing. Hey Theresa! We've got two eyes.