Left and right in Britain
Looking at this video on the “refugee” crisis in Europe, I see that some aspects of the left/right divide don’t seem so very different there as compared to the US. There’s a cast of very familiar characters, even though they have British rather than American accents (and in one case, Scots). The last lady who speaks in this clip is my very favorite, a real classic:
(If you take a look at the YouTube commentary—which I’m not necessarily recommending—it’s loaded with anti-Semitic references.)
The most talkative liberal on the panel in the clip is Simon Schama. His articulate antagonist, Rod Liddle, writes about the exchange here. A quote:
What I realised after that edition of Question Time is that the facts, the practicalities, the realities of the situation, do not matter one jot. There is a small minority of British opinion ”” the polls suggest that the overwhelming majority of the population…do not wish to see more migrants entering the country ”” which is absolutely impervious to the facts which show that letting more people in the country will make things worse both for them and for us. And clearly anyone who doesn’t agree is unaware that the migrants are ”˜human beings’ and is thus a borderline psychopath…And yet ask them for a course of action and none is forthcoming.
But it is the imperviousness to reason that is most striking ”” and which convinces me that in some strange way they are articulating this ectoplasmic rubbish (we must ”˜do more’!) in order to make themselves feel better, without any thought of the consequences for either the migrants or our country.
Read the whole thing.
[NOTE: By the way, although I wasn’t familiar with Liddle before writing this post, and although I characterized his point of view as expressed in this post as representing that of the right, I’m well aware that he’s not really of the right. He’s a more complex figure politically, somewhat akin to the late Christopher Hitchens. That is, he’s an iconoclast who likes to be non-PC. Liddle is very much to the right on immigration—the subject matter here—but his politics are all over the place. For example, in the recent British election he voted Labor. But as he describes his reasons, they are extremely idiosyncratic, to say the least. He’s a bit like Orwell in that regard, upset by issues of class and supporting Labor for that reason. Liddle was also a Socialist in his youth, so he’s somewhat of a changer.]
The last lady who speaks in this clip is my very favorite, a real classic
I love that lady. I could listen to liberal women reasoning out loud all day and not tire of it. But no woman had ever said something so funny, ever. I want more of her. I’ll pay a subscription fee.
” in order to make themselves feel better,”. While I’ve been a conservative since the 60’s, it was just the sub-title of one of Neo’s favorite books, “Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis of Social Policy” which gave me a new way to look at the left. And once I started to look, I saw it everywhere. Congrats Ron Liddle, you’re able to see it too.
I know that those folks with (self proclaimed) really big hearts believe that some Utopian borderless world is possible; that we can all COEXIST to quote a bumper sticker.
Would it were so. In the real world different cultures develop different mores and values, sometimes radically different; in which case borders are very useful buffers.
I am amazed at the Europeans. Do they really not understand that they are undermining centuries of cultural development? Does their culture mean so little? Do they not understand that the birth rate disparity alone will be a ticking demographic time bomb? Does it not occur to them that refugees leaving a failed society enmasse are bringing the seeds of the failure with them?
Spurious rambling I know. The little people bear the brunt, and do comprehend; but, until they get the attention of the ruling elites their concerns are trivial. Looks as though they are making themselves heard now; and hopefully not too late.
I wish we would learn from their mistakes. Not possible with this administration–unless of course, we shake off our complacency and lethargy out in the hinterlands.
Morning paper reports that 54% of households in Los Angeles do not speak English at home. Out here in Riverside County it could be even higher.
Schama’s argument “We must do more,” is very much what the self-appointed elites were saying in Camp of the Saints (pdf version at the link).
The political insanities afflicting the Western democracies must be causally linked.
Merkel sounds like Obama in setting up absurd either-or choices.
This will not end well.
Millions are fixing to die. By national suicides or by Muslim invaders, by ballot or by gun.
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/11/03/merkel-warns-balkans-war-europe-builds-border-fences/
Visions of the anointed, no?
Except that left and right has no meaning in the US and UK political systems unless you already assume its a communist state, and which kind of communism you want..
ie. its a comunist dalectic in which most of the political spectrum is cut off
ie. they are only allowing a conversation of which kind of communism, as if they have already won, and the idiot people accept it, and find they have no language for freedom
so tell me… now that you accept words that have no meaning as having meaning in this system, what is freedom in this scale? is it left, centrist, or on the right?
Bzzzzzt!!!
none of the above…
this is the power of letting the opposition define the language that you use, and blindly accept it cause everyone is using it…
are you a Lovestoneites? do you know what they are? do you realize that the political elite look at people who dont understand the words they use and think “morons, how can they rule themselves”?
“The Lovestoneites,” was one of two primary opposition organizations which split away from the Communist Party USA in the late 1920s and early 1930s, paralleling factional differences within the Soviet leadership. A so-called Left Opposition centered around James Cannon, Max Shachtman and others, supported Leon Trotsky and were expelled in 1928 to form the Communist League of America. Soon thereafter, another cleavage emerged, this time between the supporters of Nikolai Bukharin and Joseph Stalin. When Bukharin was purged from the Soviet leadership, his supporters in various countries, known as the Right Opposition, were also expelled or left the various national parties. In the United States this tendency was led by Jay Lovestone, former General Secretary of the Communist Party.
[edited for length by n-n]
Having not seen this at the time I wrote, I guess I was kicking at the puling emotionalism of liberal males in the wrong thread.
“it is the imperviousness to reason that is most striking” Rod Little
All ‘isms’ on the left, to one degree or another, reject critical aspects of the outer reality within which we exist. It is quite literally a form of insanity.
Facts, reason and logic are seen as “inconvenient truths” and the more pertinent the factual contradiction to the ‘ism’, the greater the degree of denial and rejection.
Better the world should burn than dogma be abandoned. Their entire sense of self-worth being dependent upon their loyalty to the dogma(s) that act as a substitute for religious faith.
if meaning is contextual, then how can you understand what is going on without the contexts and such around the meanings? the made up bs is not the real meanings… its the sign that you (to the leaders) are too stupid, incurious, lazy and all that to be left to your own lives… even when you are up against being enslaved, your not willing to study the game, the meanings, the contexts and so on.
so you cant call them out on anything other than whining about what you dont like… and making up stuff to fill in the gaps, so that there are no uncomfortable gaps…
but without the context, its gibberish…
you dont know its gibberish, but that dont matter
does it?
the leadership doesnt care you dont know!!!
the leadership wants you to focus on the wrong things!!
the leadership will win this as confused people who have no idea of what is going on other than they are losing, can mount no cogent defense or opposition to anything.
your the inside joke to the leadership!
your the child in which you dont get the terms the adults are using!
maybe once you grow up, you might be allowd to learn the joke and the terms.. but thats the context to which and why the leadership wont listen to you… you cant even mount a salient contextually correct sentence in their language, let alone make a cogent argument against what they are doing..
the point is operational, not opinion
if you dont know the language of mechanics, your going to have a impossible time reading a manual and fixing your car… what is a piston? what is a cam shaft? what is a linkage?
[edited for length by n-n]
Shama to assuage his pieties wants to destroy YOUR neihgborhood.
It’s happened before with his crowd.
“If you take a look at the YouTube commentary–which I’m not necessarily recommending–it’s loaded with anti-Semitic references.”
You are right. There is a great deal of “Jew-Hatred” there.
If anyone – and we have discussed this before – really knew who a Jew was, then we might be able to comment intelligently.
My theory is that certain secular persons are basically using their ancestors’ religion as a shield and pretext in order to push a particular secular agenda that melds with their emotional needs, and while doing so, to poke sticks at the crackpated, tattooed, lunatic Nazi right.
One reads anthem-like agenda statements like this one (made up since I cannot find it at the moment): The role of we Jews in society is an importantly subversive one; to demand attention for the marginalized and increase the circles of empathy and interdependency.
It represents a kind of masochistic invitation to abuse that only a sexually sublimating pervert Catholic could match.
Or Robert Fisk.
I think I repeat myself, but just recently I was off commenting on a philosophy blog when I encountered what turned out to be a young, proudly hard-left Canadian, law student, in Scotland.
He came in swinging and ready to rumble, apparently
A number of people tried to reason with him.
They tried to talk logic. He informed us of his feelings. Tried to reason. He cited the many who felt as he did. Tried to talk philosophy. He stated it was of no real interest to anyone but old white men; other perhaps than himself, as he condescended to visit the blog and give it a hearing. Did he mention his feelings of empathy?
Unfortunately, he was also quite indignant to find that his condescension toward the old white men so busy chopping logic was not appreciated, and he as a result felt unwelcome. But, you know, piss on you all anyway.
Later, about comment 700 or so, (he only left maybe 250 or something himself) he came back and left a final wry admission that he realized that he had been in fact, “over his head”.
Now, imagine you met him on the street instead.
Oops,
I said the subject of my comment had left a left a final wry admission that he realized that he had been in ‘over his head’ .
In fact he said,
Sorry …
Artfldgr:
You keep assuming things that are untrue.
For example, here you are assuming that because I wrote “I see that some aspects of the left/right divide don’t seem so very different there as compared to the US.” that I somehow think left and right are very similar there in general to what they are here.
That does not follow. Note the qualified language I’ve used: SOME aspects don’t SEEM so VERY different.” That implies that many aspects are in fact very different—something I’ve referred to time and again in this blog when referring to politics in Britain and in Europe.
I would imagine other people know this, too.
If you skip the automatic condescension, more people would probably pay attention to the actual information you’re imparting.
Co existing with Democrats is intolerable to a free pop. Co existing with their evil allies, even more so.
Wish some of these ’emotional’ people would understand that these ‘refugees’ do not want to be French, British, German, etc. They want to be Syrians, Iraqis, etc. who get to live a life in a western country and take advantage of what is offered without guilt.
Without assimilation, these Europeans countries and their culture is about to disappear.
When you take in this many people from one area of the world, there is no way to assimilate so many. Instead, they change YOUR country to be what THEY want.
I am glad Americans get to see what is going on in Europe for the next year before the election. I think it will be a good warning to everyone what could happen here if we let in immigrants full throttle with no restrictions.
Self-congratulation and virtue signaling is no basis for a system of government. Executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
I have two salient questions for the self-righteous ‘bleeding heart’ crowd. 1) How many of these so called refugees are you willing to take into your homes and into your neighborhoods? 2) If you are not willing to make a personal sacrifice and accept one or more of these ‘refugees’ into your home, will you please shut up while the grown ups decide how to deal with this crisis?
3.13 I just come from a different class to you, that’s all.”
Note how Liddle shortens the ‘a’ in class.
There is an awkward silence, then someone laughs and the audience goes “ooooh”, and Schama knows he’s beaten. The un-sayable has been said. This is not so much about “virtue-signalling” as social superiority signalling. Perhaps it’s the same in your country.
The BBC has admitted that the audiences for these programmes are biased – it is too expensive to make them neutral. Liddle is a leftist mugged by reality!
George Pal Says:
November 3rd, 2015 at 3:26 pm
The last lady who speaks in this clip is my very favorite, a real classic
I love that lady. I could listen to liberal women reasoning out loud all day and not tire of it. But no woman had ever said something so funny, ever. I want more of her. I’ll pay a subscription fee.
Whattabout dis one:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lJZsVbCu4Hk
That appears to be true enough.
Too much choice going on here ….
Basically, if you watch the entire video, he seems to have come to the conclusion that progressive programs have in general been co-opted by those for whom they were not necessarily intended originally.
Perhaps in the way that some might argue that social movements which originally seemed to assume that they would result in black male heads of households getting a fair shake in the opportunity pool, *seem*, and I say “seem”, to have benefited white females and immigrants more.
In this then, he seems to represent old left labor, rather than social justice agenda leftism. Old line “Marxism” versus “cultural Marxism” you might almost, say by way of analogy.
Riddle’s comments about being focused on outcomes, not the emotions, was spot on. This should be used often with the Left.
All of the responses to Riddle were…either emotional, or virtual signaling; nothing about *outcomes*. Can’t figure out if this really doesn’t occur to them or they’re engaging in magical thinking, that their tolerance/support of immigrants will result in them being spared as a reward.
* * *
There are some in Europe who are starting to fight back. For example, look at this huge banner unfurled at a soccer match in Poland:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/pr587mr
Other forms (violent) of pushback are happening, too: http://preview.tinyurl.com/q4emak9
Geoffrey Britain Says:
November 3rd, 2015 at 4:39 pm
“it is the imperviousness to reason that is most striking” Rod Little
All ‘isms’ on the left, to one degree or another, reject critical aspects of the outer reality within which we exist. It is quite literally a form of insanity.
&&&&
GB
They entirely fit the True Believer as defined by Eric Hoffer.
To a Tee.
&&&
Apparently their existence is to avoid themselves — and their own time, their own culture.
Anything but “Now.”
Pingback:social anxiety test
The enemies are within, not merely without. Those who only wish to fight foreigners, will be betrayed by the ones behind them. Who will they blame then?